Meditations on Three-Fold War Minds

The was a Covenant project to enhance their soldiery with newly developed Lekgolo colonies and breeds. Through careful management of new and unusual Lekgolo breeds, and advancement of new cybernetic techniques, the Biochirurgeons, Genecrafters, and Mechane-Chirurgeons orders created potent new Lekgolo breeds. Directed by the Ministry of Ecumenism and guided by Sangheili warriors, the results proved to be an abomination in the eyes of the Covenant at large, and were marked for destruction. Regardless, the creations survived, and even began to thrive. 
==History==
===Development===
===Growth===
===Advancement===
===Runaway Project===
===Excommunication===
===Destruction===
===Survival===
==Results==
===Vaanlekgolo===
The Vaanlekgolo is a specialist breed developed as a part of Three-Fold War Mind, and is intended to bridge a group of warriors to the commander. The Vaan is smaller than normal Lekgolo breeds, and better attuned for strength, and also resilient to extensive cybernetic modifications. Their ability to sustain high-levels of cybernetic modifications allows them to carry cybernetic implants to interact with their bonded Syncretiate, and to bond with other elements of the colony. 
The primarily form this takes is the 'Partisan' Colony. The Partisan bonds to a host, called a Syncretiate using a paired cybernetic implant. The gestalt in turn has its own buried cybernetic implant that links each gestalt in the colony, in cells of up to seven. The colony will adopt to the physiological needs of the host, such as forming strengthened legs, prehensile tails, or extra limbs. As they mature, the gestalt grows larger and eventually is able to form a sealed exoskeleton. The Partisan gestalts can be fitted with armour, lifesupport, and sensors that allow a combined control to fight with the augmented strength of a Lekgolo exoskeleton. While no two are the same, they usually feature similar features, along with extra limbs and sensory nodes. 
When cybernetically combined, the Syncretiate and the Partisan share senses, and thoughts, with the Partisan reacting to the movements and actions of the Syncretiate. The Partisans share speed-of-light thought with the other Gestalts through their own Intercession implants. This links back to the larger Intercession network with a Precentor colony. Through a appropriate command-mind, thoughts, commands, battle-plans, and sensory information is shared between linked gestalt-host pairs, allowing for supreme coordination between Hive groups. Between the gestalt and host, both are still individual entities, but usually have a shared identity, sometimes creating a semi-meshed persona that can still exist separately. The process of bonding is laborious, but once done, is not a permanent, and they can disconnect from one another at will. 
===Z'nalekgolo===
The companion to the Vaan breed, the Z'na was crafted by San'Shyuum scientists as a pure war-mind. All other qualities were a second concern in order to improve the breed's intelligence. With enhanced electroneural-communication nodes, improved intelligence, and improved perception, and refined manipulation organs, these large colonies have keen and powerful intellects. 
These colonies take a common form called Precentors and are installed into dropship hulls, and fitted with cybernetics that allows it to transmit its electric-impulse thoughts at speed of light to nearby gestalts and colonies fitted with matching cybernetic implants. This 'Intercession Network' creates a battle net of Lekgolo battle forms and allies, and gives the Precentor an unrestricted flow of information. The sense and vision of the others in the network return to the Precentor, as well as complex electrical signals used by the Lekgolo for communication. In turn, it manages all of its linked minds using multiple parallel thinking structures to deploy complex and simultaneous commands. This creates a close-knit network who seem to act and react in concert. 
The Precentor colony, like its smaller cousins that form Partisan colonies, can interlink with Syncretiate with appropriate implants. This allows them to add additional minds into their colony, each with their own independent will. This expands the Precentor's thinking with new minds, or augments itself with specialists or a pilot. The troop bay within the Precentor's hull also has several tendrils where it can retrieve or carry damaged colonies, repair damage, change equipment, or initiate advance melds for sharing of large volumes of information.
While planned, but never developed, the Kyrio would be the natural evolution of the Precentor, being a larger colony inhabiting a warship hull, and directing multiple Precentors.
===Syncretiate===
The final element to the Three-Fold War Mind were Sangheili warriors themselves. In order to link them into the Intercession Network, they grafted cybernetic implants to them that allowed them to communicate with, and share senses with the partnered Lekgolo colony. This required two surgeries. The first one was an enhanced neural port. Built in previous designs used by pilots, it had been developed to allow unfiltered and clear communication between a Sangheili and a Lekgolo. Many safeties had been bypassed in its design, even by the standard of the notoriously unsafe designs used by the Covenant. The next stage is a spinal implant that allows the colony to directly interface and share nervous systems with the Syncretiate. The end result are two points of connection. The neural port connects them directly to the Intercession Network, allowing them to share senses and communication with any other entity in the network, and the second one was to perform a soft graft of the Partisan's nervous system to their own, allowing the Partisan to reflect and amplify the movements of their host flawlessly. 
These implants raised several major concerns amongst the foremost minds of the Covenant that lead to the attempted destruction of the plan. The first was fears that the colonies could be used to control the Sangheili themselves as puppets or marionettes. This is actually feasibly possible, as there are insufficient safeties to prevent the Lekgolo from exerting control over the host. The main reason this is not done by the Partisan is the dangerous feedback that it produces that is damaging for both host and symbiote. However, if the Host should lose consciousness, wherein there is no longer a valid input, the Partisan can exert control more easily and return them to friendly lines. The second was the connection to the Intercession Network, which gave the Syncretiate a view of the inner workings of a Lekgolo Dominion. Dozens or even hundreds of colonial minds sharing information in neural melds, creating a choir of different voices working towards the same purpose. The sensations of togetherness and family were overwhelming, and many of the inducted warriors were simply unwilling to leave the networks for long periods of time, coming to regard the Partisans as adoptive siblings, and the Precentor as a patriarch or matriarch figure. Such aberrant developments of the accepted social order were seen as a larger threat to the Covenant's hierarchy. 
In the years since the escape and survival, the cybernetic technology has been further refined, and developed to be compatible with most sentient races in the galaxy.