The Rebuild Era

==A galaxy of chaos==
The Human-Covenant war, the first all-out interstellar war fought by the UNSC against the Covenant, officially ends on march 3, 2553
For all the races involved, directly or indirectly, the war has changed radically their existance, and upset the balance of powers, creating new rising empires and decreeing the fall of old ones. In this age of chaos, where skirmishes spreads trogh the known sectors of the galaxy, where the religious faith is lost, economical, military and travelling dipendence from a united economy is no more useful, leading the races once united by the fallen Covenant into civil war, economical depression, military weakness and lack of a meaning of their existance.
The UNSC is one of the more promising powers in this age, because despite their technology is inferior, their colonies are divided and the insurrectionist have returned stronger than ever, their ships are a product of their researches only or of reverse-engineering, unlike the ex-Covenant races, that are unable to replicate on their own the forerunner-copied technology of their ships. Exception for The San Shyuum, that have a huge knowledge of forerunner technology,but their race risks exinction due to sangheili forces tryng to have vengeance any time possible and their extremely low population, so they have bigger problems than military superiority.
By the way, no race in this era will earn a significant advantage on the others, pricipally due to the necessity of all to recover from the war.
==The UNSC rebuilding & "reconnect project"==
The UNSC has lost the majority of their military outposts, the large part of the fleet along with the earth's home fleet and the whole army is neraly destroyed. Tens of billion of civilians, along with millions of UNSC personnel are dead, and a total of 76 human colonized worlds are totally destroyed, not to count the partially glassed ones.
Luckily, not all the colonies had been found e/or destroyed by the Covenant. A few colonies never had a direct contact with the alien forces, and some of them survived their attacks, probably due to the Covenant major interests on regroping their forces to attack Earth.
Retaking economical contacts with these colonies is of main importance for the UNSC, and the human race, to survive. In fact the home fleet protecting Earth is destroyed, the population is reduced to barely 200 milions of people having no more a house, a job, a family and without the resorces to allow their survival.
Starting like a simple need of food and water, the search for survived colonies or destroyed ones with something still useful soon beomes an immense operation with the onjective of bring back the colonies under UNSC and earth control; to recreate a fair government accepted for all the UNSC controlled worlds; building a strong economy; rebulding cities with military, medical and social facilities like schools, universities, hospitals, security headquarters to mantain public order; incorporating all colonies space and land forces into the UNSC army, refit old ships and re-arm troops with the lates armaments and defenses; recycle space debris and ship wrecks along with remains of destroyed colonies and make advantage of covenant technologies with reverse engineering crippled covenant ships; assemble a powerful fleet to defend all UNSC territories against both the ex-covenant races or the covenant loyalist remnants and start a campaign against the insurrectionists, if a reconciliation is not possible.
This operation is now known as the "Reconnect project".
==The Sangheili military weakness and the search for a meaning of their faith==
The betrayal of the prophets left the sangheili race without a reason to live. For generation they have dedicated their entire life to the great journey, and now that they found out the lies of the prophets they have lost their reason to live. This desperate search for a guidance, for a new meaning of their faith and of their lives makes them the race more determined to fight the remnants of the loyalists and Jiralhane factions (Sangheili-Jiralhanae War) along with Kig-Yar pirates(Kig-Yar piracy Campaign) and anyone that stands between hem and their goal. This, howewer, won't last forever: the Sangheili can't replace their ships, just because they haven't all the knowledge needed to replicate that techology without help from the San'Shyuum, that have come into hiding. This problem is the same for all the other races, all at risk of loosing their actual technology.
Anyway the Sangheili may receive help by a long fought enemy later become a precious ally in the civil war: The Human race.
Despite the Sangheili fell superior to them, and for valid reasons, they have a profound respect for the UNSC. They saw their courage fighting against incredible odds, and they have to admit that their techolgy can be deadly if understimated. In addition, their ability to replace their forces and their incredible connection with the forerunners is important, maybe enough for the Sangheili to risk giving their rechnology to study, hoping to restore their military power and to be able to replace their destroyed ships.
==Jiralhanae on civil war: Doisac devastated==
The death of the prophet of truth didn't stop the conflict between the Jiralhane and the Sangheili, to be known as the Sangheili-Jiralhane War.
In fact, the remaining San'Shyuum, in order to survive after the Great Schism have taken advantage of the hate between Sangheili and Jiralhanae to retake an army in order to reatke power. Despite the initial success of the Jiralhanae forces, as soon as the Sangheili starts killing the San'Shyuum, forcing them to hide, The Jiralhanae lose cohesion and the course of the war changes: they started a large scale civil war, and eventually only wo factions remains: one still loyal to the prophets, the other one with ideas of Indipendecy and of power.
While the Sangheili are assembling a fleet to give the final blow, the Jiralhanae factions virtually destroys themselves at Doisac, along with a large part of their planet.
After this events the Jiralhanae won't pose a treath anymore to anyone, and for a long time.
==The Kig-Yar piracy==
Initially the fall of the covenant brought chaos over the Kig-Yar race, but soon they realized that to stay united was the only way to survive.
Like many other ex-Covenant races, they had no economy, few ships to defend themselves with, but a significant advantage: many of the Kig-Yar pirates operated out of the covenant influence, and that gave them the possibility to understand that technology, and recreate it, even if less effective. More than that, the Kig-Yar had alway been slightly indipendent and they had spaceships and weapons technologies before being incorporated into the Covenant.
The new Kig-Yar state decided that piracy was their best option, becoming a serious problem for the still resurgent economical trade routes.
Initially boarding isolated ships, then attacking bigger convoys, boarding ships and plundering colonies they soon create a dangerous empire, created many ouposts in critical regoins, controlling the market and imposing whatever price they wanted.
Their fleet was now impressive, and the only race able to conter them, the Sangheili, was still at war with the Jiralhanae.
But after the battle of Doisac, the Kig-Yar absolute dominance started to fall.
In fact, as soon as the Sangheili ended dealing with the jiralhanae, they concentrated on the Kig-Yar.
Initially the Kig-Yar were defeated by the coalition of Sanghei, Unggoy and Lekgolo, otaining land and space superiority. Howewer, hit and run tactics of the Kig-Yar made impossible for the coalition to win the war, and after three years the Kig-Yar were still a powerful force.
In the end a precious ally gave the coalition the chance of defeating the Kig-Yar empire: the UNSC. Their experience fighting against the insurrectionists and their inferior but effective technology allowed the Coalition to hit hard the Kig-Yar fleet and conquer many of their outposts. forcing them to reduce their ambitions.
Even after that, The Kig-Yar mantained an important role for the creation of a stable commercial route for all the ex-Covenant races.