Is 'Ontom

Is 'Ontom (Oracle Code: S2-T2357) was a during the Human-Covenant War who defected after the .
== History ==
=== Early life ===
Is 'Ontom was born in the state of into a politically unimportant branch family of the ruling Ontom keep. As is tradition on Sanghelios, 'Ontom was raised by a maternal uncle, but unlike most Sangheili younglings, his uncle was a doctor rather than a warrior, and as a result he had an unusual appreciation for the non-martial aspects of Sangheili life. Nevertheless, when 'Ontom came of age, he enlisted into the Covenant military for his compulsory service like the rest of his peers, mostly out of following the expectations of society rather than any personal desire to seek honor and valor.
=== Covenant Service ===
Unlike most Sangheili who came of age during the , 'Ontom was, to a certain extent, fascinated by humanity - although he would initially claim it was fascination borne out of either disgust or a desire to defeat humanity. This interest, however, coupled with his lack of aptitude for direct frontline combat, would eventually inspire him to join the division, and would primarily come to take on intelligence-gathering missions for the Covenant, with the eventual goal of finding . He was largely successful at gathering information; however, thanks to the success of the , he was never able to find Earth's location, although he was able to recover data related to weaponry and firebase construction that would prove useful to the Covenant at large. However, thanks to a lack of comprehension of human languages, 'Ontom never truly understood the value - or lack thereof - of the data he recovered.
=== Luminary Encounter ===
In mid-2551, 'Ontom was tasked with a "seek and destroy" mission: pieces of a destroyed had crashed on a remote, uninhabited moon, and it came to the attention of one of 'Ontom's superiors that its had survived. Believing that humanity could somehow use it to acquire Forerunner technology and improve their chances in combat, 'Ontom's superior directed him to destroy the Luminary located within the wreckage. The mission went off largely without complications; however, right before 'Ontom destroyed the Luminary, he noticed that it had detected three Forerunner artifacts slowly approaching him. After destroying it, he encountered three opportunistic human scavengers in a similar location to where the Luminary had detected the artifacts. Though he was able to quickly kill them and keep his presence unknown, the strange nature of this encounter weighed on his mind more than he thought it would.
=== Defense of Concord ===
Eventually, 'Ontom was tasked to the units attacking in late 2551; given the in recovering an important Luminary during an attack on a human world, it was deemed prudent to expand data retrieval missions during ground engagements. However, Concord was not a success for the Covenant; 'Ontom returned from a data retrieval mission to find that his camp had been overrun and wiped out (by , as it happened). Seeing no other way out of his situation alive, 'Ontom made a decision to surrender to humanity. Reasoning that a nearby UNSC outpost was an important communications station based on the number of entering and leaving, 'Ontom figured it would be an ideal place to surrender to, and as such surrendered to a - one commanded by Lieutenant Commander Travis Dzousa. Fortunately for 'Ontom, Dzousa accepted his surrender; unbeknownst to the Sangheili, this was on the grounds that if 'Ontom were to seriously attack the outpost, his skeleton crew would be powerless to stop him.
=== Surrender to the UNSC ===
After his surrender, 'Ontom was taken aboard the UNSC Telluride and brought to an ONI facility, where his knowledge of Covenant society, the technology within his , and above all, his willingness to cooperate with ONI, proved useful to humanity's understanding of the Covenant; however, 'Ontom himself would not leave the remote ONI facility where he was being kept until after the war ended, and very few people outside of the facility knew he even existed.
== Personality and Traits ==
Much of 'Ontom's early life was defined by an innate - and remarkably pacifistic, for a Sangheili - curiosity about the universe around him. Strangely enough, working with ONI seems to have awakened more traditional Sangheili traits within 'Ontom; while more cynical people would say that it was an innate reaction to being away from other Sangheili, 'Ontom himself theorizes that the root cause is having made friends among ONI and developing a desire to protect them.
== Equipment ==
After the war, 'Ontom had his infiltration harness returned to him - it had been confiscated by for reverse-engineering during the war - and had it retrofitted with the improved shield generator from a . During his time with ONI during the final year of the war, he usually wore a shawl made using a UNSC-issue tarp. His go-to weaponry during postwar missions usually consists of a and a (he claims UNSC smart-link sights give him motion sickness).