I'm a Computer Science student with a unnatural obsession with military history and all things Rome.

I'm also extremely prone to loosing interest/lacking motivation to continuing stories that I've started. Sorry.

Somewhat ironically, however, I'm currently pondering several more stories:

Half Life

Aurora

A story centering around the fate of the Borealis, focusing on a Russian Spetsnaz team that's sent to investigate the Borealis when she runs adrift in the waters of Eastern Siberia.

Two Man War

A rebirth of my story focusing on Corporal Adrain Shepard, instead dropping him in during EP2 and starting from there. I feel that I've simply given myself too much to do by dropping him in during HL2, it's a very long game. I would also like to continue my view of what the Resistance should have been (Led by ex-military of different nations and using a variety of old world weapons, equipment and vehicles)

nBSG

Iter Domus - The Journey Home

This one would take place in either during the present day or near future on Earth, instead taking place around 10,000 years after the end of the show rather than 150,000 years. A team from the US Army Corps of Engineers conducting an expansion to Fort Bragg find strange artifacts buried in the soil. Not long after experts are called in by the military, a sealed 'vault' constructed with extremely strong armour plating is found at the dig site. The sealed entrance to the vault is marked with a symbol that looks like a stylized bird. When the age of the installation is confirmed, the news explodes across the planet and the world's media flocks to Bragg to chronicle the discovery. When the vault is opened, they find a cargo area containing four aircraft, two Viper Mk. VIIs and two Raptors along with a massive store of Tylium, limited amount of weapons and ammo and the Colonial Memorial Wall. Along with the military equipment, the survey team discovers a cache of strangely shaped optical discs. The world-wide effort to unlock the secrets encrypted on the discs along with the operation and reverse engineering of the craft discovered in the Vault propels human technology forward by decades and completely rewrites history as humanity knew it. Fundamentally, they discovered that they were descendants of native Earth humans, polytheist humans of extra-terrestrial origin who were survivors of a monumental genocide at the hands of their own AI creations, and evolved members of that race, the Cylons. However, the greatest discoveries was buried deep within the documents and video files, the schematics of a massive space-based war ship known to their ancestors as a Battlestar. Not only did the discs provide detailed schematics, details behind the science of FTL travel, artificial gravity and other scientific wonders; the woman on the camera revealed that she had left her ship in Venus orbit, the ship was known to them as the Pegasus

The setting of this story is inspired in part by the Battlestar Prometheus series, as later 'episodes' jumped forward 150,000 years for a short period as a bonus, chronicling the discovery of a Colonial cache left by the Battlestar Eternal to help defend the colonists on Earth in case of attack. Lee Adama narrated their story which was stored on an optical disk. I may not do anything with this story until I've dealt with my ME/BSG crossover.

It would definitely cover the jump of our technology and the drastic impact it would have on our society. We would be building our own Battlestars after about 20 years or so. While they would operate similar to their Colonial brethren, it would certainly be more closer to a modern Nimitiz-class aircraft carrier than it does on the show. I'm debating whether I should write in a new Colonial civilization that rose from the ashes on the Twelve Colonies with a new Cylon threat or just use space magic and transport an Earth fleet back 10,000 years, sometime before the Fall, so that they could finally break the cycle (God's plan and all that crap).

A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones

Alea Incanta Est

Inspired in part by the premise of Harry Turtledove's Videssos Cycle series, it follows the adventures of the Roman Legions under Gaius Julius Caesar who are mysteriously transported from Gaul in 52BC, just before the Battle of Alesia, to Essos (maybe the Disputed Lands, haven't figured that out yet). The story would, at first, cover Caesar and his commander's efforts to calm the 10 legions or so that he had at Alesia (all together about 50-60,000 heavy infantry, 30,000 auxila (mostly Gallic mercenary Calvary and missile troops) and untold numbers of civilian camp followers), their reaction to outside threats from the Free Cities, who obviously wouldn't be welcoming to an extremely large military force who suddenly appeared in disputed territory and, once they realize that there is no "Rome" anymore, Caesar's efforts to build a new Roman state, which will be an attempt at improving the short comings of the crumbling Republic of before and will involve territorial conquest of several Free Cities and the surrounding territory in Essos.

At the same time, it would follow the exploits of legate Publius Licinius Crassus and his two Legions who act as a reserve and observe the Gallic relief force that laid siege to Caesar's Legions, who were laying siege to Alesia (this led to the construction of the famous double fortification walls, a prime example of Roman military engineering genius.) While I am a history buff, I am taking a few liberties here. Firstly, at this point in history, Publius was dead, he died in Parthia with his father and his Legions the year before Alesia. In this story, he stayed with Caesar in Gaul and his brother Marcus took his place. Historically speaking, Marcus [the Younger] was assigned to Caesar around the time Marcus and Publius went East. Here, the roles switch. Publius was highly respected as a commander and held the favour of Caesar himself, hey may not have advanced high enough to command two Legions by 52BC, but that doesn't really matter in the run of things, it was certainly possible. Secondly, there was no Roman relief force, Caesar was completely boxed in at Alesia. His victory there was one of his greatest achievements as a general, I think.

Anyway, Crassus and his Legions are whisked away like Caesar. However, they end up somewhere in Westeros (where exactly, I haven't figured out yet). Once they figure out that they are not in Gaul anymore, and there is no Rome, his legions become almost mutinous. Crassus, however, makes contact with the locals and eventually finds out that Caesar is across the Narrow Sea, building a new Rome. By this point, Westeros is in the middle of the War of Five Kings, and the arrival of Crassus' legions introduces a new angle to the conflict. Most of the factions flock to Crassus' camp and attempt to win his support. First and foremost, Crassus wants to be reunited with his countrymen, and uses this to motivate his troops to fight in the war for whichever side wins him over. However, once Caesar hears of Crassus and his predicament , it drags the new Roman state into the War of the Five Kings.

The idea for this story came about thanks to my obsession with the history of the Roman Republic and a recent binge on ASOIAF. At the same time, one of my favourite historical military vs scenarios is a post-Marian Roman Legion vs a Medieval army. I firmly believe that the Romans would wipe the floor with the Westerosi though, their discipline and tactics are second to none. As for Essos, Caesar would probably carve out a chunk of the continent without breaking a sweat. My understanding of warfare in the Free Cities is that it's fought almost completely by mercenaries, most of which would break against a Roman shield wall. The only merc company that could seriously challenge the Roman Legions is the Golden Company.

Alea Incanta Est may be sort of a crossover between the Marius' Mules series of novels and ASOIAF, in that I may use several characters from the books as part of the Roman command structure (Fronto, etc). It definitely not a fully fledged crossover though, I'm not finished reading the series for one thing, and I know that it hasn't rached Alesia yet in the plot. There maybe some elements from the Rome HBO series too, Marc Antony for one thing, and I hope to have Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo as characters somewhere. I haven't decided if I will give them their real life positions (the characters were based off two centurions from Legio XI mentioned in Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (which I am currently reading, it's a good read, it's too bad I never got a Latin education)), or stick to the bro-mance from the show between the centurion and the legionary from Legio XIII

One problem that I foresee is that I will be concentrating on the Romans almost exclusively, and anything from the Westerosi POV will involve the Romans. This means that some characters could get cut entirely.