Dawn of the Third Age

Timeline

Circa 100 000 BCE: The Forerunners, along with the other First Ones, including the Vorlons and the Shadows, manage to wipe out the Flood with the Forerunner built Halo array. After the reseeding of the galaxy the two First Ones decided to destroy the Forerunners, but were thwarted by the rest and Lorien, the First One. The other races believed that what was best for the younger races was for them to rise and fall on their own and not be influenced by a more advanced race, but the Vorlons and Shadows wanted to show each other and the rest that their way was the right way, Order versus Chaos.

The Shadows unleashed a nanotech plague upon the Forerunners, which slowly killed them with various strains of pathogens, testing to see what would be the most efficient way to kill their hosts, which they did at the end of the five years. The only Forerunners to survive were the ones that stayed on the Ark and they remained there, protected by Lorien. Their final gift to the universe was to bolster humanity's resistance to genetic tampering, rendering any genetic manipulation by either the Shadows or Vorlons useless, and discarded by the human body as waste material.

Humans would never see the Vorlons as angelic beings instead they would see them in their true form. That of an aquatic squid-like alien that was semi-biological and plasma based.

2163: Beginning of the Interplanetary Wars and the eventual unifying of the Earth nations militaries into one cohesive force. The United Nations Space Command is formed to control the United Nations new Navy, Army, Marine Corp and Air Force.

2170: End of the Interplanetary Wars.

2291: The Shaw-Fujikawa Slipspace drive is invented, opening up the local star clusters to humanity.

2293: UNSC begins to send out Slipspace probes to the local star clusters, exploring numerous stars in close proximity to Earth. Several dozen star systems are explored and marked as possible sites for colonization.

2299: UNSC sends out the first wave of ships to several star systems to terraform the planets found there, creating the first 30 colonies of what would later be called the Inner Colonies.

2310: The Unified Earth Government begins a massive colonization effort. Colonists are screened before they leave the Sol system, the UNSC made sure that the best and brightest go to these colonies.

2315: During a survey mission of the Alpha Centauri system a structure of unknown origin is discovered. Subsequent investigations show that the alien artefact acts as a doorway to another dimension, but not Slipspace.

2320: After five years of intensive research and reverse engineering UNSC scientist manage to activate it, but only for a minute due to the depletion of a specific mineral, which the UNSC had been studying for some time.

2325: The UNSC manages to replicate the 'gate' technology and starts constructing its own series of gates between the colonies, improving travel, for the time being Hyperspace is faster, though the main drawback is that all systems with more than one star that doesn't have a beacon is almost impossible to get to due to the Hyperspace currents and storms, that's why explorer and UNSC ships still have and use Slipspace drives.

2360: Colonization of the first 210 colonies is well under way and the over population of the Sol system is alleviated. Tachyon communications technology is perfected and real time communication between star systems is now realized, tachyon based sensor arrays also make their debut.

2390: Colonization of the Outer Colonies begins.

2460: Tensions mount in the Outer Colonies as some want to break away from the UEG and UNSC, the beginning of the Insurrectionist movement.

2491: The situation in the Outer Colonies grows dire; the Office of Naval Intelligence begins the Orion Project, the soldiers it produced, later known as the Spartan Is, is somewhat of a success; however the soldiers that underwent the procedures develop severe mental problems. ONI shelves the project in 2506.

2517: ONI begins the Spartan II program, under the leadership of Doctor Catherine Halsey as conditions in the Outer Colonies take a turn for the worse, and several colonies threaten to break away. 300 subjects are found, but because of funding only 75 are put through the rigors of the Spartan II Program. When they go through their augmentations only 33 managed to go through the process without side effects, and were stronger, faster and smarter than a regular UNSC soldier, but the rest end up either hideously disfigured or die.

2525: All contact with the Outer Colony world Harvest, an agricultural world which feeds a large number of the Outer Colonies, is lost and a scout ship is sent to investigate. The scout ship finds Harvest turned into a wasteland due to an alien attack, a single vessel in orbit which quickly spots them and sends only one clear message in English before they leave via a Slipspace rupture. "Your destruction is the will of the gods and we are their instrument."

The Human-Covenant War had begun.

2531: Most of the early fighting was contained to the system where Harvest was located, continuously changing hands between the Covenant and the UNSC. The Covenant found several of the Outer Colonies due to the Tachyon beacon network, so the UNSC shut it down, relegating them to rely on Slipspace more than ever. The events of Halo Wars occur. The Covenant begins a full-fledged invasion of the human Outer Colonies. Admiral Cole issues the infamous Cole-Protocol, to keep the locations of UNSC planets safe.

September 2531: A daring raid, carried out by a mixed team of Spartan II and ODST Commandos, results in the capture of a Covenant destroyer which provided insight into much of Covenant technology, particularly weapons and artificial gravity systems.

Seeing that the Covenant was even more advanced and numerous than themselves, the UNSC began the Nova and Starfury projects to create a new generation of warships and space superiority fighters that would have the potential to take on the Covenant on even terms. First practical directed energy weapons are developed thanks to the study of the captured Covenant destroyer. Spartan III project is begun.

2532: The Starfury project quickly bore its first fruits in the form of the Tiger Starfury, a space only fighter it quickly dominated the fighter arena, taking the place of the Longsword as the main fighter interceptor of the UNSC, and since it was smaller than the Longsword more could be carried. The Longsword is relegated to the Heavy Strike Bomber role.

2535: The Nova class Dreadnought makes its first appearance, its heavy armour and plasma weapons make for an extremely powerful warship. Interceptor energy projectors and E-web defence systems are deployed for the first time and older ships like the Marathon class cruisers, Halcyon class cruisers, UNSC Destroyers and Frigates all receive this refit. The Halcyon class cruisers were refitted and put back into service as the need for more combat capable craft becomes apparent.

2536: The Nova class replaces the Marathon class cruisers in the main yards and soon becomes the main combat unit of the UNSC. The Sabre class Frigate, a companion class to the Nova Dreadnought, makes its debut, though production is slow since many of the technologies incorporated in them are state of the art. UNSC Destroyers and Frigates are still mass produced due to their ease of construction.

2536-2550: The Human-Covenant War continuously grew more and more fierce, and the UNSC continued to lose planets. 60 of the Outer colonies were glassed, another 450 occupied, and UNSC victories were few and far between, though they were able to inflict heavy damage to the Covenant fleets in the process, wearing down their numbers as much as possible, though at a heavy cost.

Of the few wins in the 2540's for the UNSC, one of the most significant and strategically advantageous was the Battle of Psi Serpentis in 2543. This battle became colloquially known as Admiral Cole's last stand due to the presumed death of Admiral Preston J. Cole. In addition to the alleged death of Cole, over 300 Covenant vessels, two fleets worth, were completely vaporized when UNSC nuclear missiles detonated inside the atmosphere of Viperidae, a super massive gas giant. This detonation spurred spontaneous fusion at the core of Viperidae, temporarily turning the super gas giant into a brown dwarf star. Cole's achievements in this battle alone were only rivalled by the destruction of the Unyielding Hierophant and the actions of Spartan-117 throughout the course of the war. A painting depicting the battle, titled "Admiral Cole's Last Stand" was created and by 2552, it hung on the wall of the HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, Earth.

2546: The leading Covenant warrior caste, the Sangheili (Elites), began to question the Prophets' reason for ordering the destruction of a race that had proven itself worthy of being accepted as part of the Warrior cast along-side them, having held the Covenant off with inferior, yet still useful, (as several high ranking Elites noted) technology as well as coming up with new warships that now rival their own. The younger Shangheilli warriors and workers especially begin to admire the human's tenacity and honour, calling on the hierarchy to allow the Humans, to become part of the Covenant. The first signs of a fissure between the Elites and the Prophets began to appear among the Covenant.

2552: The Battle of Sigma Octanus takes place, ultimately being a UNSC victory and causing the Covenant to learn of the location of Reach through the use of a probe attached to a piece of wreckage that was ultimately attached to a damage UNSC destroyer, the Iroquois, under the command of Captain Jacob Keyes. Debut of the new and improved Aurora Starfury.

This led to one of the biggest fleet battles in the war to date, and the first time an Inner Colony world had been threatened. Engineers from the Reach shipyards discovered the probe just after the Iroquois arrived at Reach, giving the UNSC time to bring in every available ship they could spare from the front, which surprisingly before that day had been unusually quiet.

The Covenant fleet that attacked Reach was over three hundred ships strong; however they were met by three of the seven still fully operational main fleets of the UNSC, each one numbering around a hundred and fifty ships, plus the regular Reach Defence Fleet and Defence Grid of twenty five ODPs and the newly developed GOD satellite grid, the first true heavy particle beam weapon, roughly based on Covenant technology, and packing hundreds of missiles, both nuclear and conventional. The battle ends in a bloody stalemate, and the UNSC evacuates Reach's civilian population then begins to withdraw back to Earth by alternate routes. Reach is then partially glassed by the remaining Covenant fleet.

September 2552: The events of Halo: Combat Evolved occurs.

The Chief escapes the Halo array in a Longsword bomber and watches as a Covenant fleet arrives. Cortana scanned the debris for survivors and found numerous cryo pods floating in space, one of which contained Linda-058, and a Pelican dropship full of survivors, including Master Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson. With their help the Master Chief was able to board and hijack the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice then returned.

Late September 2552: Operation First Strike commences, resulting in an entire Covenant armada being destroyed and the invasion of Earth and the Inner Colonies is thwarted.

November 2552: The events of Halo 2 transpire, leading to the Great Schism and the Sangheili secede from the Covenant, joining forces with the humans. The invasion of Earth had begun, led by the Prophet of Truth in the Dreadnought, an ancient Forerunner Keyship, which blasted its way past Earth's defenses and dug something up in the middle of the African desert.

A Flood infected Covenant ship crash lands on Earth, leading the Covenant Separatists to glass the entire infected region. The Prophet of Truth escapes from Earth using the newly uncovered Forerunner portal in the African desert.

The events of Installation 00 occur.

The Master Chief is able to activate Installation 04b and escape into the portal along with Cortana, the Arbiter and Commander Miranda Keyes, onboard the frigate Forward unto Dawn just before the portal collapsed.

2553: A formal peace agreement is signed between the UNSC and the Covenant Separatist, made up of the Sangheili, the Unggoy, the Mgalekgolo, and most of the Engineers. With the help of the Covenant Separatists humanity reclaims its lost colonies and with Forerunner knowledge they terraform those planets that had been glassed, Reach being the first to be completely repaired due to only being partially glassed.

2555: A new civilian government is formed to take over from the UNSC, since as a military organization their role is to defend humanity from against all foes, both foreign and domestic, not govern. Using the same form of governance as the UEG, but with most of the corruption thoroughly stamped out, the Unified Terran Government was formed, consisting of a council with one representative from each system or self-sufficient colony world, systems rich in resources, but only has domed colonies are represented as a whole.

2560: After a few years of rebuilding the UNSC began to renew interest in space exploration, mainly due to the recent baby boom that began after the war.

2572: Twenty years after the Human-Covenant War ended humanity had once again claimed over 800 worlds and humanity is well on the way to recovery. It is also a time of great prosperity for the Sangheili, which they, as a culture, have not experienced in a thousand years. The two races decide to build a colony together where both species can communicate and coordinate their expansion, and hopefully make it a meeting place for new space faring civilizations. This planet was named Babylon.

In a different Spiral arms two races watched these events unfold, the Vorlons and the race known as the Shadows. They both see the potential the Human race has and they begin to scheme. Unbeknownst to them another race also stirs and sees humanity as children finally coming out of childhood and into their teens.

AN: I hope that this small rewrite finds my readers well, I am trying to improve the quality of the earlier chapters and there are going to be some fairly big changes to the story, inspired by The Dilgar War by Lightning Count as well as Spacecowboy2013s Sins of a Colonial Empire.