The Covenant were first introduced in the 2001 video game "" as enemies of the playable character, a human SPARTAN-II super-soldier known as the Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, usually, although in Halo: Reach the player takes the role of Noble six, before the master chief story. The game takes place late in the war, and not realizing that the Halos were actually weapons designed by the Forerunners for galaxy-scale destruction against the virulent parasitic Flood, the Covenant attempt to activate the rings on two occasions throughout the series, inadvertently and catastrophically releasing the Flood in the process.