Unggoy

The ugly little bastard to the left is something most Halo players know as a Grunt, the name the UNSC and Covenant higher-ups gave them. these guys are the Unggoy, as species native to the planet Balaho. since playing Halo 5, I've really been in a Halo mood, and since I love the Halo universe as much as I do, let me share with you some stuff about the Unggoy people. first off, like I said before, they come from the planet Balaho, the fifth planet from it's star, and a planet with a rocky, swampy surface, freezing temperatures, and an atmosphere comprised mainly of Methane. The history of Balaho is a long and messy one, before the firing of the Halo Array, Balaho was suffering a devastating ecological collapse due to over-industrialisation on the part of the Unggoy. Even with the time that has passed since the firing of the Halo Array, Balaho still hasn't fully recovered from the collapse. Before being annexed into the Covenant, Unggoy lived in tribes, typically of a matriarchal power structure, and they were very well adapted for the conditions of their homeworld, their build makes them very good at climbing, useful for the mountainous terrain of Balaho. however they had to endure considerable hardships, the cold was frequently a threat to them, plague was also a big problem for them, as was lack of food and resources during the planet's brutal winters. something else of note about the Unggoy is their exceptional ability to breed, typically hatching from large batches of eggs with short incubation periods and short childhood periods, this allowed them to breed very fast and produce large numbers of Unggoy offspring.

 

it was this ability to produce very large numbers of offspring that the Covenant saw when they annexed the Unggoy and employed them as slave labourers. The Unggoy are the lowest ranking race in the Covenant, and have to deal with terrible mistreatment at the hands of higher ranking species, their political power in the Covenant is almost non-existent, and before the Unggoy Rebelion, were denied several civil rights, during peace time, strict population control was also enforced to prevent over population. The Unggoy also had a nasty rivalry with another low ranking Covenant race; the Kig-Yar, a rivalry that was ignored by the higher ranking races until things got really ugly. the Kig-Yar were being forced from their habitats by the Unggoy population, which killed many of their eggs, as an act of vengeance, the Kig-Yar poisoned a recreational drug supply enjoyed by the Unggoy, which made contaminated males infertile. this issue was not investigated by the high council, and the resulting revolt became known as the Unggoy rebellion. The Unggoy fought viciously, but the rebellion was short lived, when the Prophets instated an Arbiter to end the conflict, and a Covenant fleet began glassing Balaho, which is exactly what it sounds like, the rebels surrendered before the bombardment was completed, but large areas of Balaho were left uninhabitable. After the rebellion, the Unggoy stayed within the ranks of the Covenant, not due to their belief in the faith of the Covenant, but out of fear and a need to survive. The Sangheili found a new respect for the Unggoy after the rebellion, and as a result the Unggoy were introduced as combat infantry and granted additional civil rights. Yet the Unggoy remained loyal to the Covenant, even in the final days of the Human-Covenant war as the Covenant splintered and a civil war raged between the Sangheili and the Jiralhanae. But as the Covenant fell to pieces, the Unggoy remained loyal to their commanders rather than to a religion or council, leaving many to set up shop on Sanghelios as labourers and farmers, while others went on to join Jul 'Mdama in his reformed Covenant. The Unggoy chose remain as servants to higher-up races because of the benefits their life in the Covenant gave them, for example longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality, their servitude to their masters has kept them alive, even with the mistreatment and the near-glassing of their planet.

 

So, there is some interesting stuff about the Unggoy, or grunts from Halo, and this should show you the size of the Halo universe, and why it's so awesome and interesting to me, I hope I didn't bore you.