: Why couldn't it be a substantially massive natural satellite within Te's ring
: system? A natural body outside the ring system could be classified as a
: moon, but if a body exists within the planetary ring system then it can
: still be considered a part of the planet perhaps? That leaves the Lekgolo
: on a 4G rocky world but Te proper as a gas giant...

It would always be a moon.

I think it was a mistake to call the gas giant Te because the Beastarium is so specific about Te being a rocky world whose surface was strip mined by the Covenant. Joe didn't name the gas giant so the accounts could have been reconciled by having the rocky moon (or neighbouring planet) be Te and have the Lekgolo get to the rings via their own steam.

The Beastarium says...

The Lekgolo individual is actually a wormlike creature, about 1.4m long. They are typically encountered outside of their homeworld, Te, in purpose-specific assemblages (Mgalekgolo) that increase the intelligence and utility of the whole.

So is Mgalekgolo a general term for any purpose-specific collection of Lekgolo? Would a scarab be a Mgalekgolo?

One strange effect of this assemblage is that the formed creature develops a distinctive personality. A single worm is not terribly (or at least demonstrably) bright, but a complex neural connection is formed in group situations using hormonal and bioelectrical connections. The resulting form is quite intelligent and can be scaled upward to a limited degree for intellectual applications.

To a limited degree: bigger is brighter.

Their physical strength is quite prodigious in individual units, but combined into another form (bipedal for Covenant interactions) they are exponentially more powerful, forming muscle and lever analogs in a cleverly networked fashion.

They assume bipedal forms for interactions with bipeds (we even saw that in Nightfall).

Scarabs show that they aren't limited to that layout.

One of the most successful and culturally enigmatic gestalt intelligences in that arm of the galaxy, Hunters have been catalogued precataclysm, but in completely different ways.

What is the Beastarium saying here? Have they been catalogued using a different mechanism?

Or did they assume different forms precataclysm and so were catalogued differently that they would be now? (If they looked like giant rabbits precataclysm then they would have been catalogued as giant rabbits instead of being catalogued as bipeds).

I really don't know how to read that.

The Beastarium continues...

The term Hunter is completely inappropriate as a description of the species whole. In fact, Hunters are the rarest assemblage of the Lekgolo gestalt; supplied exclusively as part of the Covenant client arrangement, each world in the Covenant must provide fighting troops. Lekgolo manifest those in the Hunter form - and in small numbers. This seems to be accepted by the Covenant body politic as a necessary interaction with its most alien client.

They also provide scarab Mgalekgolo but I suppose that is a newish arrangement.

The Lekgolo philosophical, religious, and political affiliation with the covenant is built solely on its need for viable space travel. Lekgolo society has little need for religion.

How so? Is it just that they are space communists? or does the lifespan of the Mgalekgolo exceed the lifespans of the individual worms? Do they fear death? Do they have a hard time grasping the idea of individual consciousness? Do they understand I? Do they understand my death?

Or are Mgalekgolo generally shorter lived than the worms that make them up? Do individual worms assume and discard consciousness and personality easily? Are they not bothered that consciousness is fleeting?

The High-G world made progress in space technology painfully slow for such an otherwise advanced culture.

If they were radioactive lava monsters then maybe they could use nuclear propulsion spaceships to get off their 4G world.

The arrival of Covenant strip miners on Te to seek its fabulously rich heavy metal deposits was met with a protracted and difficult resistance. Lekgolo physiology gave the species a tremendous fighting advantage on the rocky, oppressive world and eventually terms were met.

We have fighting on rocky world and strip mining for metals by the Covenant.

Difficult communications slowed the process, but a mutually beneficial arrangement now exists. The Covenant utilize local labor, expertise, and resources to mine rare metals and minerals, and Lekgolo have free access to Covenant spaceways.

What do they use that access for? Are they colonizing? Exploring? Tourists?

How long could a planet sustain a nuclear living system? Our photo-driven ecology will last until the sun expands. Can nuclear fission be sustained that long? Is there a pressure to find younger planets? Are Lekgolo that far sighted?

Or do they just want to spread out a bit to avoid species extinction by orbital bombardment of a single world? I mean, the other Covenant species are quite fond of genocide.

Little observable information has ever been available about the inner workings of Lekgolo society. Outside of mating and feeding habits, their interactions are often opaque - and much theory has been applied to their political and intellectual structure.

Somebody knows about their mating habits?