You may notice that this, in fact, really isn't the fourth chapter of the story. I assure you that I woefully regret this, but there has been a very good reason for it.
I am currently in the middle of development of said chapter, already having gone through several fully-written iterations that have been thrown into the damning abyss of file deletion. I was not satisfied with what I did, and so I am stepping back to take another look at what I want for A Leader to All as a project.
As I am sure I mentioned in the introductory Author's Note of the first chapter, I have great ambitions for this story. These ambitions include major changes to the technology, characters, cultures and plotlines of Mass Effect, which naturally comes with a wide range of problems that have to be solved through the development of original content. As I sort of jumped feet-first into this without substantially planning far beyond the first three chapters, this development is happening now- particularly in the realm of original characters, of which there are many. So many, in fact, that if you took all of the visual Cerberus crew members of the Normandy SR-2 and tripled them, you would have about the amount of characters that I intend on introducing in one form or another throughout the course of the story. Additionally, the fact that most of them are coming around in the next chapter or two makes things even more complicated.
Naturally, due to the complexity brought by all of the things that I am doing with the project, the fourth chapter has taken me some time to get going properly. Take this alongside the hectic school schedule and heavy workload I am currently experiencing, and you have a recipe for long production times. Once I get out of this sort of growing-pains phase that the story is in, though, hopefully things will clear up.
Another interesting matter is that A Leader to All will be reaching 1,000 views within due time. It currently sits at 744, and I would think that the releasing of this update as a "chapter" will bring it closer to the four-figure mark or even surpass it depending on the circumstances. Whenever the 1,000-view mark is achieve, I hope to be able to celebrate it with my followers in some manner- although, to be honest, my ideas are limited. Perhaps I could give a sneak peek at the next chapter or some material therein, or I can share via DropBox or such a developmental document or two that others may find interesting (e.g. a very special gift that the Commander shall receive in the near future, and all of its features). Perhaps I could do a Q&A of some sort, or there could be a poll deciding on a certain plot point. Perhaps there could be a mixture of many different ideas.
Regardless, I am looking forward to the 1,000-view milestone and hope that all those reading this will forgive me for postponing the fourth chapter. I promise that it will be worth the wait when it finally comes around.
