.[LE]. Xaero 'Fulsamee

Honor Guards
Elite Honor Guard is a Covenant Sangheili (Elite) rank. Coming from highly honored backgrounds, these Elites are picked at birth to be the personal bodyguards of the Prophet Hierarchs. Or for going far beyond the duty of what any one would expect from them, an Elite can be promoted to this rank.

Rank

They wear red helmets and under-armor with large semi-circular orange 'plates' sticking into the air. These 'plates' also have yellow and red alternating patterns, bordered by black. This yellow/red alternating pattern is also seen on the thrones of High Prophets. It is unknown if they are the highest rank or in another rank class entirely, but some things support that they are equal in rank with the Ultra Elite. For the first: Both ranks can become Honor Guard Ultras, and for the second: An Honor Guard is less active than a Zealot, making many people to believe that they're one step lower than Zealots, and that's equal with Ultra Elites. This is speculation, but it is believable.
It seems that wherever a High Prophet is present, the Honor Guard are also. There could be as many as 300 Honor Guard Elites for each Prophet, as the Step of Silence seems designed to hold 300 Honor Guard but only one Prophet. They are commanded by the more skilled Honor Guard Ultras.

Combat

Up until the changing of the guard, seen before the level Sacred Icon in Halo 2, these Elites were the personal bodyguards of the Prophet Hierarchs. They were replaced when the Brutes took over, just before the Civil War of the Covenant. Honor Guard Elites' armor could take as much damage as that of an Elite Major. They fought usually with Energy Swords and occasionally have Plasma Rifles, double Plasma Rifles and Carbines. They also wield the ceremonial Honor Guard Pike that match their armor (only in cutscenes). More wiry and agile than the Brute honor guards, their speed and quick reflexes with the Energy Sword paired with their skill with double Plasma Rifles rapid fire made them formidable foes. The Elite Honor Guards are only seen in cutscenes and the levels Delta Halo, Regret, and Gravemind as enemies. It seems that once the Covenant Civil War began Guards took back their armor as some Elite Honor Guards can be seen fighting Brutes in the level Gravemind.
Since the Flood have taken over High Charity, it is currently unknown if any Honor Guard lives anymore. It may be possible that some guarding Regret on Installation 05 have survived, though the bulk were probably destroyed when Truth ordered Regret's temple destroyed.

Honor Guard Ultra

Honor Guard Ultra is a Covenant Sangheili (Elite) rank. This rank commands the 'lower' Honor Guard Elites of the High Prophets. It is equal to the rank of Honor Guard Captain of the Brute Honor Guard, and to the Zealot in the standard Elite military. These Elites, though never seen in actual battle, are believed to have the same sheilds as an Ultra Elite, with maybe slightly stronger sheilding than an Ultra Elite.
They are likely more skilled than their subordinates, with years of experience in the Covenant Honor Guard, which is particularly impressive considering the prodigious combat abilities of any in the Honor Guard.

Appearance

These Honor Guard Elites sport the same ornamented armor as the rest of the Honor Guard, with the exception that the under armour they wear is white instead of crimson. This color is consistent with the Ultra Elites of the regular Covenant army, hence their title.

Combat

Honor Guard Ultras have never been directly seen in combat. Many players believe that one appears at the end of the level Gravemind but this Elite is actually the glitch known as the "Honor Guard Councillor" (see below).
Two Honor Guard Ultras are seen in the cinematic of Sacred Icon (Level) when they, along with regular Honor Guard Elites, are stripped of their position, giving it up for the new Honor Guard Brutes and their Honor Guard Captains.
In addition, three Honor Guard Ultras are seen killed fighting the Brutes around the middle of the level Gravemind (Level). They wear Honor Guard armor but without helmets, as they no longer held that position when they were killed.
It is theorised that Honor Guard Ultras are more likely to withstand the Brute onslaught than regular Honor Guards, due to their superior shielding and combat experience.
As recently found out the "Honor Guard Councilor" glitch, found at the end of the level Gravemind (Level),can sometimes have the body of the Ultra and the ornate armor pieces of an Honor Guard, including the helmet. This fortunately creates the perfect in-game image of the Honor Guard Ultra. However, it is not truly representative of an Honor Guard Ultra, given that it is actually a Zealot in terms of statistics.

Honor Guard Councilor

"Honor Guard Councilor" is a fan-derived term describing a certain Elite seen in the level Gravemind. It appears to wear the armor of an Honor Guard Ultra with the helmet of either a Councilor or an Ultra Elite. The Elite's appearance can be attributed to a glitch in the game's programming due to a programmer typing in a incorrect coding.

Appearance

It appears at the end of the level Gravemind, at the fore of the bridge between the Mausoleum of the Arbiter and the Far Tower. The Honor Guard Councilor is flanked by two SpecOps Elites wielding Plasma Rifles or Carbines, but is armed with an Energy Sword himself.
This only occurs after the Master Chief has killed the Ultra Elites, Hunters, and Brutes fighting in the Mausoleum and moved to intercept the High Prophet of Truth.

Combat

The Honor Guard Councilor is extraordinarily powerful, and requires at least two Fuel Rod Cannon direct hits to kill or multiple Energy Sword slashes to down. It was programmed to have the power and skills of a Zealot, and it does. It always wields an Energy Sword.

Explanation

The Honor Guard Councilor only appears by mistake in Halo 2, its appearance was never intentional. The armor the Elite wears is the result of a bug in the programming of the game.
Every character was programmed into Halo 2 with variations to increase the realistic feel of the game. These variations would be randomly placed in each level, each time it was played. These variations determined that the Elites would act and sound differently, instead of saying the same things, as they did on Halo: Combat Evolved.
In particular, there are two voice sets for regular Elites. They are "_dog" (Meaning "dogmatic") and "_scl" (Meaning "scully"). _dog Elites have the voice clips of Norm Woodel, while _scl Elites have the voice clips of David Scully. The "Object Properties" tag takes care of what variations of things have; it assigns armor, voices, faces, default health, and such. So in most maps, the elites have 2 copies of one rank, one assigned to each voice. For instance, in the level Great Journey, when you exit your Spectre/Wraith there is an Elite saying either;
"The Arbiter? I thought he was dead. Hold your fire! The Hunters have come to our aid, Arbiter. They will stand by our side." In a calm and steady voice, or;
"The Arbiter? I thought he was dead. Hold your fire! The Hunters have come to our aid, Arbiter. They will fight by our side." In a fast and energetic voice. Therefore, in the case of The Great Journey for example these are all the elite variations:
[ x ]Minor_dog
[ x ]Minor_scl
[ x ]Major_dog
[ x ]Major_scl
[ x ]Stealth_dog
[ x ]Stealth_scl
[ x ]Stealth_Major_dog
[ x ]Stealth_Major_scl
[ x ]Ultra_dog
[ x ]Ultra_scl
[ x ]Etc. etc.
However, both sets of variations are not always used. For example, in Metropolis, the voices of all the Grunts are the same because the designers did not put the Brian Posehn Grunt variation in the Metropolis Map file, so that all the Grunts only have the voice clips of Joseph Staten variant. They chose only to use one of the two available variations in the game.
Another variation. On most levels, all the programmer has to do is program the Game to produce one Minor Elite for instance, and the game itself will randomly chose between the Minor_dog and Minor_scl variations, unless otherwise specified. But, only one set of variations exists on the Gravemind map file. Gravemind is another level like this. It was programmed so that only the _scl type of Elites were in the file. Therefore, every time the programmers wanted an Elite to appear, they would have to add the _scl suffix.
Unfortunately, the programmers accidentally programmed the game to spawn a "zealot_dog" Elite to appear at this point on the level. They had intended for the Elite to be a Zealot, but attached the wrong variation suffix to it. Since this variation was not in the level, the Game can not find it.
This results in the glitch players see: The Game knows to spawn an Elite with the power and weapons of a Zealot, but it does not know what the armor is supposed to look like. Since white is the default armor color, the game automatically chooses it. Since it does not know what helmet to give the Elite, it randomly choses between the Councilor helmet, the Honor Guard helmet, and the Ultra Elite helmet.
Finally, since the game does not understand the Elite appearance, it automatically enables the "honor guard" armor for some reason. This armor is a feature available on all Elites but is supposed to be disabled on those that are not supposed to wear Honor Guard armor. The game may even spawn the Elite with the wrong face, Half-Jaw's.
Name: Xaero 'Fulsamee
Rank: Honor Guard Major/Battalion Commander
Specialty: Demolitions, Vehicles
Natural Abilities: Agility, Stealth
Special Abilities: Stronger energy shielding, dual-wielding energy swords
Preferred weapons: Covenant Carbine, Energy Sword
Station: High Charity
I am Fulsamee.
I grew up in a harsh environment, on a harsh planet. It was the kind of surrounding where every man is for himself. We had to fight for our survival and food was scarce. Sometimes if the situation permits, we would even have to kill. There I learned new combat techniques where I was able to engage an enemy without having to fight at all; just merely evade. Unforgiving as the environment was, we still had some family: friends. I met Sesa ‘Refumee [what was now], the Heretic Leader. He was however, soft. That was his only weakness. He couldn't bring himself to fight, but his soft heartedness would bring his demise.
We both grew up together, watching each other's backs and pulled through until our planet went to war with a neighboring planet. The two races clashed and we both managed to survive, barely. It was that one faithful day, we were able to escape our pathetic excuse of a life. It was that day, we decided to join the Covenant and fight for good. Until then, we trained and trained and trained. We made our own kind of armor until the Covenant would give us our own when we enlisted. There was when I learned how to wield two energy blades. I would soon become famous throughout the Covenant for that.
My recruitment to the Covenant army was the Covenant's first raid on Cairo Station. I was only a rookie, blue armor. Of course, rookie's are fooled by the size of weapons, and I was one of those rookie's; I chose the energy sword. I underestimated it's power however, and I was able to rack up many numbers of kills. Because of my sudden great skill with the weapon, we were able to occupy most of the complex. The skill with the weapon came to me naturally, I suppose.
The Prophets quickly recognized my skill with the Energy Sword and hurried my through training. I was an Elite Major in a matter of time. The Prophets put me in the rank of (what you humans would call it) captain. I positioned a fourth of the troops during the attack on Metropolis and managed to dispose of even more humans. But the humans were able to reclaim Metropolis.
On the deployment back to our base, I heard whispers of another kind of covenant: Heretics. I ignored the seemingly false rumors.
When I returned, I was greeted at the gates to the Prophet chamber by my old friend, Sesa ‘Refumee. He told me of the Prophet's betrayal and what they could do when they aqcuire the Index. I did not believe him and could not believe that a loyal Sangheili warrior like him would be talking so treacherously. He asked me to join him and I declined his offer. It seemed that he happened to be the Heretic Leader, and that he was already able to persuade most of the elites to turn to heresy with him. I felt betrayed and tried my hardest to turn my back on him. I continued towards the Prophet chamber.
The Prophets put me through more intense training. The Prophets kept me back from missions to further my training. They sent me on special solo missions to test what I have learned through training from time to time. During my training, I was also strengthened in the areas of demolition and vehicles. My first vehicle test-run (call it a license if you will) was when I had to deploy the Arbiter and Half-Jaw's troops; that was my first time meeting the two respected warriors. I was uninformed of this mission and decided to ask. Before I could, a Sangheili approached me and told me to set a course for the Heretic's base of operations. I felt deeply troubled. I guess this mission was to wipe out the Heretic Leader (Sesa ‘Refumee) and his base. Good luck dear friend. When the Heretic Leader was defeated, I was already a Spec Ops Elite.
After a series of training, the Porphets decided to test my combat abilities by putting me in battles where the situation seemed hopeless for the Covenant. I barely survived each mission, but I managed to get more kills. The Prophets smiled in approval. They talked to me privately about my future rank, and they were considering to put me in the rank of Counselor. I was most pleased.
When the so-called "Master Chief" made his way through the Gondola's and to the Prophet chamber, The Prophets immediately stationed me at the chamber and promoted me to Honor Guard. I guess the human was feared after all. The human attacked with a battalion of enemy soldiers and managed to kill the Prophet of Regret. We tried our best to defend but failed miserably. I feared for what would come next.
The Sangheili Honor Guards were frowned upon for the death of The Prophet and gave our ranks to the Brutes. I was demoted to Golden Armor.
Rumors were spread throughout the compund; The Prophet's activating of Halo was going to destroy us all. Our slaying of the Heretics was thought to ourselves as an accidental sin. It seemed that the Prophets betrayed the Covenant. I didn't know who to trust any longer, but I stayed with the counselors' desicions. We planned a rebellion and headed off to High Charity in search of the Index, the very key to the destruction of all life. When we set foot there, we discovered a choatic battle. The Flood somehow spread to High Charity. I was unscarred of that fact. The Prophets would get what they deserved. We fought through the compound but lost many of our warriors. Some of our Grunts and Elites got seperated from our group. There was no way to get them back; we moved onward.
It seemed that we weren't the only ones who have seen the worst of the flood. The Brutes and the humans were also searching for the index. We avoided the Brutes and used the three-way battle to our advantage and let them handle the flood.
When The Great Journey began, I heard of The Arbiter's plans to destroy the monstrous Brute Tartarous. So, I and a [seemingly] infinite army of Sangheili came to aid him. We held off the Brutes and attacked Tartarous viciously. He was practically invincible, but with the aid of the human known as "Johnson", we were able to attack through his shields. When it was all over, a number of my comrades were dead, but the threat was eliminated. The alliance between the Covenant and the Humans began, and the battle raged on.
I regained my rightful rank as Honor Guard once more.
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Convertion to heresy. Forever one.