Halo

Summary
Halo is a science fiction continuum based around the video game series of the same name and its expanded universe. It focuses on the galaxy-wide conflict between the UNSC, a collection of somewhat loyal colonies centred around Earth, and the Covenant, a theocracy consisting of several species led by the "Prophets". The Covenant discovered the existence of humanity at the planet Harvest after a missionary ship discovered a human freighter. Unfortunately, a power struggle among the Prophets followed by a misunderstanding involving a Grunt priest and a sentient bio-computer resulted in the destruction of said planet and the Prophets declaring war on the UNSC.

The UNSC was outnumbered and outmatched, but they had an advantage. They deployed super soldiers in powered armour, code-named SPARTANS. These were considered to be a match for any Covenant force on the ground. In space, however, the Covenant had the upper hand, and the humans would lose the majority of their colonies over

After a minor victory at the world of Sigma Octanus, the UNSC lost their major military stronghold, the planet of Reach, along with all but 1(or two, or six) of the SPARTANS. This last SPARTAN, the Master Chief John-117, escaped on board the battleship the Pillar of Autumn. The Autumn discovered a mysterious ringworld, the titular Halo of the series, and was forced to crash land on it due to overwhelming odds and bad piloting on the part of Captain "Silly Old Duffer" Keyes.

The crew of the Autumn, along with the Player Character Master Chief, fought the Covenant on the ring. After rescuing idiotic Marines and taking a unguided tour of a Covenant flagship, the Chief found Halo's Control Room. At the same time, Keyes led a group of redshirts Marines into an ominous facility, ignoring the terrified Covenant and bloodstains. Eventually they were attacked and massacred by horrific alien lifeforms called the Flood, which had been imprisoned on the ring by its creators. The Chief tried to rescue Keyes for the second time, found the Flood, and escaped only to be kidnapped by an AI created by the Ring's creators to act as a guardian/custodian called 343 Guilty Spark. This construct led him through an arduous series of deathtraps in a location known in canon as the Library to retrieve Halo's firing switch, the Index. When the Chief, oddly enough, refused to activate the ring upon learning that the ring neutralized the Flood not by destroying it outright but by destroying it's food which is any intelligent life capable of supporting it, which Guilty Spark, mistaking the spartan for one of his masters had assumed the former had already known. Master Chief's refusal prompted Guilty Spark to turn on him.

The Chief then disabled the ring, revisited the Covenant cruiser to retrieve the neural lace from the now-infected Captain Keyes in order to activate the human ship's self destruct. This didn't go well thanks to the efforts of the mad AI Guilty Spark and his robotic Sentinels and the Spartan was forced to improvise which consisted solely off throwing grenades into the ship's reactor and running away when it turned out doing so caused the reactor's integrity to degrade faster than anticipated. The end result was the same however, resulting in the massive installation's destruction. The first game leaves off here though the novel First Strike fills in the gap between it and it's sequel, Halo 2.

The events in the second game consists of one of the Covenant Hierarchs, the High Prophet of Regret, making a reckless push to discover an artifact known as the Ark. This lead him straight to Earth where his forces where massively outnumbered despite the superiority of the Covenant ships. in an effort to reach his goal, he sends out boarding parties to destroy the UNSC's orbital MAC station (giant floating gauss rifles effectively) Eventually he manages to destroy two out of a cluster of three and slips past to his destination of New Mombassa, an African mega-city. Through the efforts of the Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson and his marines, the humans finally push the outnumbered Covenant into a fighting retreat. This leads to the Prophet of Regret initiating an unprecedented surface level slipspace jump (this scifi continuum's version of FTL travel). Not wanting to loose the massive capital ship, the daughter of the late Captain Keyes, Miranda Keyes, gets her frigate In Amber Clad (now with the spartan on board due to his "landing prowess") as close to the 5 kilometer warship as possible and effectively riding the ship's wake into slipspace.

It is here the Halo 3 ODST steps into tell what happens on earth between Halo's 2 and 3, which involves a team of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers braving the perils of the now abandoned city (abandoned by humans at least, the Covenant are crawling all over it). Their mission is to retrieve the cities superintendent AI, which has information on a massive subterranean Forerunner complex which it had detected under the city. The data ends up being retrieved by a Covenant huragok, a sentient biological computer that the Covenant used as engineers. This particular one had betrayed the Covenant and fused with a portion of the AI, complete with the coveted data. The ODSTs retrieve the creature and get out of the city, narrowly avoiding death as the newly arrived Covenant reinforcements used their ships weapons to start burning away the city to reveal the complex. It is about here that halo 3 begins.

While all these were going on, the second half of halo 2 unfolded. As the Regret's assault carrier exits slipspace the humans in tow get a glimpse of another Halo installation. It is here that the Master Chief finally catches up with the Prophet of Regret and killing him. Regret's death makes the Covenant leadership feel uncertain as to their safety with the race known as Elites acting as their guards, commander, basically the leaders of the Covenant military. This leads to the Prophets forcing the Elites to step down and bringing the barbaric Brutes (subtle, no?) to fill their place. This creates great unease in the covenant. A the beginning of the game the Elite in charge of the Fleet at the first Halo is stripped of his rank and branded with a Mark of Shame. The Prophet council wished to have him executed, but the Prophet of Truth decided to make him an Arbiter, a soldier of the Hierarch's who undertook suicidal missions in an effort to win back honor. He amazingly survives his first mission to destroy a bunch of heretical elites and even manages to discover an Oracle on the facility near the original Halo's location. Too many a player's dismay, this Oracle is none other than the mad AI, 343 Guilty Spark, who'd enlighten the heretics to the Halo's true devastating purpose. With the discovery of the new Halo the Arbiter and the Chieftain of all the Brutes, Tartarus are dispatched to retrieve the Halo's index. They are beaten there by the humans. The Arbiter, who had done most of the footwork manages to knock out Sergeant Johnson and his marines. Tartarus personally takes Miranda and the Index and proceeds to betray the Arbiter by knocking him down an exceedingly long shaft. Both he and the Master Chief who'd been knocked into a very deep lake after he'd assassinated the Prophet of Regret, awake to find themselves face to face with the Gravemind, a massive, tentacled creature constructed with the corpse of those infected by the Flood. This monstrosity is a hivemind that directs the lesser Flood and has the rather unnerving ability to call upon the knowledge of all those that the Flood had claimed. It is here the Arbiter is finally taught the Halo's true purpose. After speaking to both of them the creature sends the Master Chief to High Charity and the Arbiter to the halo's control room in an effort to prevent the firing of the Rings. For the Covenant, many believe that the activation of the Halo Rings will allow them to transcend their physical forms and become gods and hope to follow in the Forerunner's, the ancient race who'd created the installations who they revere as gods. The Master Chief attempts to catch up to the last two remaining Hierarchs even going as far as to attempt a very risky boarding of the Prophet of Truth's forerunner dreadnaught which stood in the center of High Charity. He is forced to leave the AI Cortana behind to do so though as a fail safe due the Flood's invasion of the city. The Arbiter makes it to the control room and slays Tartarus while Miranda removes the index, preventing the Installation from firing. And during the Master Chief's and the Arbiter's missions the tension between the Brutes and te Elites escalates to a full-fledged civil war which results in the grand majority of grunts and Hunters as well as all the Elites split from the Covenant. (Some of the Hunters and the grunts still decide to stay wit the Brutes which are the ones seen in Halo 3.)

Halo 3 pics up immediately after the events in Halo ODST. After the retrieve Spartan 117, (MC), who'd decided to dive out of a warship at a range of a least two kilometers from the ground, using a a ripped off door as an impromptu heat shield, the humans base is invaded. After deserting it they make a last attempt at preventing the Covenant from activating what they think is the Ark which is now uncovered. The activation of this would cause the Halo rings to activate. They break past the Loyalists's defenses and launch a full on air assault, throwing wings after wings of their space superiority ships before culminating with an massive volley from three frigate's anti-capital ships MAC guns. All these hit the Forerunner dreadnaught which seems to shrug them off. It activates, not the Ark, but a massive portal to the Ark, which itself is actually outside of the galaxy, out of the range of the Halos. The humans are delayed in following them through due to a Flood-infested ship jumping in. The chief retrieves a message from Cortana after fighting his way through the Flood. The Elites jump in with a couple battlecruisers as well as an Assault carrier. They proceed to helpfully glass half of Africa to eliminate the Flood. Shortly afterwards, a joint group of human and elites hips go through the portal. Once on the Ark they are aided by the mad AI, Guilty SPark who the Elites had brought along. They discover the location of where Prophet of Truth is trying to activate the Halo rings from and launch an assault. during the ensuing battle, Miranda Keyes is gunned down by the Prophet of Truth. In a bizarre moment the Arbiter and the Master CHief find themselves aided by the Flood who safeguard them so they can shutdown the Halo's activation sequence. This leads to the prophet of Truth getting the Arbiter's sword jammed through his back and shortly afterwards, the Gravemind predictably betrays them. They discover a replacement for the original Halo is being made on the Ark and they decide to activate it and then run back through the portal, the Ark being far enough away to prevent the halo from killing anyone besides the Flood. The MC retrieves Cortana from the wrecked remains of the flood infested High Charity which had jumped in during the last battle between the Loyalists and the Elite-Human strike force. From there they had to the incomplete halo to activate it with the Index Cortana had stolen and kept from the original Halo. Turns out, due to the installation being incomplete, the activation of which would destroy it. As it turns out, Guilty Spark does not wish to see his precious ring destroyed again and attacks and fatally wounds Sergeant Johnson. After which the MC finally destroys the mad AI and activates the ring. They barely manage to make it to the frigate, Forward Unto Dawn, which head towards the portal. The Halo's activation damages the Ark enough to cause the portal to collapse, breaking the frigate in half. The first half with the Arbiter gets sent to earth, while the back half with e Master Chief and Cortana gets sent to an unknown location. The MC gets in a cryo-pod to see if he can sleep until rescue can arrive.

Common Sue Traits

 * SPARTANS not mentioned in canon. They may have special abilities, outrank the Master Chief, or have noncanon armour colours (not green, grey or black).


 * Sucked into the game from the real world. They may then become SPARTANS or fight alongside them. Naturally, the canons trust them and don't force them to divulge the future despite plenty of canon evidence that the UNSC leadership is Not Nice and views survival as taking precedence over morality.

OFUH
The Official Fanfiction University of Halo is run by Adrian Fitzegerald and Sona 'Demal, and is being written by Maslab and Xij29y6.