Tell me what you gon' do to me
Confrontation ain't nothin' new to me
You can bring a bullet, bring a sword
Bring a morgue, but you can't bring the truth to me
Fuck you and all your expectations
I don't even want your congratulations
I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises all in your conversation
I hate people that feel entitled
Look at me crazy 'cause I ain't invite you
Oh, you important?
You the moral to the story, you endorsing?
Motherfucker, I don't even like you
Corrupt a man's heart with a gift
That's how you find out who you dealin' with
A small percentage, who I'm building with
I want the credit if I'm losing or I'm winning
On my momma that's the realest shit

Girl, let's talk about love
Is it anything and everything you hoped for?
Or do the feeling haunt you?
I know the feeling haunt you

This maybe the night that my dreams might let me know
All the stars are closer, all the stars are closer, all the stars are closer

Kendrick Lamar, SZA - All The Stars


Hi, my name is Matthew. I read. It's what writers do, and on this site fanfiction is given no boundaries as to what can be put down on paper and displayed to the world. That means crossovers that, in a legal world, wouldn't be allowed to exist are allowed here an ability to see what that combination would yield.

So with that I've read Halo and Mass Effect crossovers since almost as long as I've been on this site and seen how other writers have taken them on. I've seen the Chief wake up a thousand years out of his history into a galaxy that has become Mass Effect's. I've seen a Sangheili Admiral be banished among the stars and find a home among the Council. Salvage ships coming across cryo-preserved members of a human race that did not come from an Earth. The Covenant have sometimes wandered into the wrong galaxy because of some Forerunner or Prothean trickery, or maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've witnessed Jorge, Spartan-052, become right hand man to Commander Shepard and rip Saren's rib cage in two.

There are many variations of this tale: of Halo and Mass Effect coming to affect one another either it be in a single person, or the emergence of a battlecruiser.

Further still I've seen the Mass Effect original fiction, especially ones which puts humanity at an advantage far beyond what is reasonably fair or possible. This is either because of an extra presence at the Archives at Mars, or maybe, the absence of the Archives in general. I've seen stories where Shepard relives her life, a variation of New Game + made into a story, answering that question of "What would you do if I had to do it all over again?".

In the Halo side: A tale where the Chief settles into civilian life in Australia, and tries to make amends with who he is, a story where the Rookie hallucinates the entire operation in Mombassa, and a concept of what happens when Cortana is made flesh and blood.

The fanfiction community is great, and has kept me up many a night reading, and for that I thank you.

After all this time then I had finally decided to throw my own hat in this particular ring.

Among these are great stories, and I am not disparaging them if you readers know what stories I reference, however there are some aspects that I wish they touched upon, and which I will try to do so now.

This most of all being the tendency to crossover the universes, while leaving the mythos of one or the other relegated in their home. Instead characters alone are brought over, and, although not bad if executed right, forget the history and world of which they are forged into and made to be desired in one universe or another.

Halo's lore is great, and it does not deserve to be diluted into one character coming over, and because of that, I have brought several million residents of the Halo universe over: The Covenant itself.

Of these people, one of them is a character many of you might be familiar with if you played Halo 3's campaign in co-op: Usze Taham. The red Elite that you play as if you are not the Chief or the Arbiter. He is the only other canon character I have brought over with the Solace. The Brute Mercaius, Shipmistress Karonee, and the Prophet of Destiny, they are original characters meant to represent the Covenant in this universe. Usze is a character that actually himself stars in a book in the post-Bungie world, however I haven't read too much into it. He is a combination, for my purposes, of Rtas and Thel respectively. The presence of an Elite warrior who would give their lives to the Covenant…

That is without the knowledge of the true purpose of the Sacred Rings.

Just as the Systems Alliance and the Council will be tested, so too will the Covenant, and I wouldn't, down the line, be remised to have an arc concentrated on what happens when the Writ of Union fails.

Noble Six, and The Rookie. I'll play them as canon as I can without totally adhering to their silent archetypes as player characters in immersive first-person videogames. As in, yes, both will talk, but they are operators more familiar with the language of action, not words. JD, as per his interactions in ODST, is inquisitive, logical, and I can't help but be reminded of the fact that Halo 3: ODST is a mystery novel of sorts. He was born as a detective character, so I'll draw upon him not only as a quiet man, a strong man, but also a man that would fit in with Detective Noir: as in the detective themselves.

As for Six? There was only one other Spartan whom is as effective as her: John-117, the Master Chief. She carries an aspect of the Master Chief with her, as much as the Master Chief carries the traits of Noble Six with him. They never met, neither in canon, nor this story, but they were equals. What that means is far more important than I think some people realize. They were each their own soldier, and in a sum, they were both equal, but the method which they got there is what will define Six. She herself would've been capable of bringing Cortana and herself to the Pillar of Autumn, to save the galaxy if she was the same as John-117, however she would do it her own way. Whereas John had luck, she did not. No, far from it. So how does one become a Hyper Lethal Vector without luck then? In a way far bloodier than the Master Chief would've. She is what the Chief would've been, perhaps, without Cortana.

A lot of their interactions and how they fit into Shepard's crew will be inspired by 'A Fighting Spirit' by Smart Grid. Indeed, this story is in due part to that one and what I saw as limitations on their part in writing it.

Some of you may have noticed a certain emotion evoked from Mai and JD's interactions. It, purposefully, screams of intimacy from two broken people.

Would they fall in love?

Well it depends if Mai is capable of knowing what that is truly.

And, in any sense, I will not say it here whether this is my intention with them in that regard. It doesn't matter anyway. They will be written how they will be, without being stuck into a preconceived notion of romance. That intimacy however, will remain. Take that as you will.

In speaking of Shepard, she is, and will be, the main character of the Mass Effect story. That is only right. She is the Hero, the chosen one, and I have given her a new background to accommodate the liberty in fiction that I have created with Mai and JD being there.

Her introduction into the story was purposeful: she is a woman who not only makes choice, but is imbued with the authority to judge why she is making that choice. She is, imperfections and all, a good person, worthy of her name.

She will not be sidelined.

This is my Mass Effect. As in the story of Mass Effect will change. I've thrown my boulder into the stream, and, although the stream will go in the same direction, its flow, its current, will be different. When it gets to where it's going, however long that'll be, it will be different.

And yes: I plan to carry this all the way through to the Reaper War. The good thing about writing for Mass Effect is that we have a start and end point for it as of the moment. The frame is there, and it's my turn to kick tires and light fires.

In this story I will confront you with the question of how truly broken the Spartans were, and, perhaps, what you have to sacrifice to be human. Faith and fear, purpose and war. What would the Covenant be like if they were removed from a Galaxy with no trace of their Gods? What will the Council do when now confronted with nearly a dozen new species with technology that betrayed everything they knew of the Galaxy?

What is the future really to us as humans?

What happens when two people, a man and a woman, who have so much drowned in a war, break through to a time and place that was promised to them by the future? Who will be rescued? Who will be lost?

I am a particular type of writer, because, in the end, this story is a medium for me to pose a question, to talk, with you the reader. Speak to me, speak to my characters, with all that you know of their universes and of your own heart, and they will speak back. My door is always open. They will answer you.

Without further ado:

Thank you for reading All the Stars, thank you for taking the time out of your day to entertain the thought of this story, and thank you for your perseverance.

I hope you learn a little more about both Mass Effect and Halo along the way.

...

Oh yeah, one last thing.

I write long chapters. In fact, even just this intro section is about as long as the typical Young Adult Novel. Sorry in advance.


Disclaimer: The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story.


Summary: In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time.

They called it the greatest discovery in human history.

The civilizations of the galaxy call it... MASS EFFECT.

In another universe: humanity takes a different path. Intelligent alien life eludes humanity for centuries as they colonize the stars beyond the Sol System. Over two hundred years pass of pure human expansionism over the Orion Arm creates a human civilization of nearly a thousand colonies and outposts, unbound by the dimension bending Slipspace drive.

In 2525 humanity makes first contact with an alien alliance known as "The Covenant". With the Covenant viewing humanity as a heretical species to be purged, war begins and quickly becomes a slaughter against the humans.

In the year 2552, humanity is losing.

The Covenant had burned hundreds of worlds, killing billions in their genocidal campaign.

Among those guarding humanity are a group of biologically engineered super soldiers, trained from birth, and made to fight: "Spartans".

In defense of one of humanity's last bastion worlds, a Spartan using a trojan horse to deliver a jury-rigged Slipspace bomb to a Covenant super carrier sacrifices herself to buy humanity more time.

The bomb doesn't kill her or the Covenant however.

Ferrying her and the Covenant across alternate universes, they find themselves in a reality defined by Mass Effect, carrying every desperate measure of a war built on galactic genocide.

What happens now because of them will mean nothing less than All the Stars in the universe.