Announcement
Probably as some of you already know, I have decided to discontinue The Next Great Journey: Awakening, the main reason being that the story didn't turn out to be what I have envisioned way back in 2014, however, there are also other factors that led me to make this decision. The first is something that I did on the first installment of the 2-part story. Going back through my notes of the first story I published and re-reading through some of the chapters, I realized how many plot-holes I had made in it, as well as the number of things that didn't make much sense, decisions that I had taken because they seemed fun to play with, yet were not realistic with the amount of world-building that I had made up to that point. That was one of the things that I aimed to change on the Awakening, however, I soon realized that me trying to fix those mistakes was holding the story back in its progress.
Another factor was that I grew disinterested with the story progress, at least, in the way I was handling it. Ignoring the seemingly dead-end sub-plots I had (unintentionally as it was) set up in the previous story, was not an option, yet because of it I couldn't move forward to where I wanted to. Thus, after this long break I took, I've decided to refocus my efforts on something new, a clean slate so to say. This will not be a re-make however, it'll be its own separate and independent thing.
On this new installment, I'll be aiming to distance myself from using known and established characters (on the Halo side of things that is), though pretty much all events in that particular timeline will be the same as it's established in cannon (At least until the end of Halo 5 Guardians). I'll also try to keep things more realistic while taking into account the world I'll be setting up, though some exceptions will have to be made so as to not have one side bulldoze the other in some areas. Now I could simply release what those will be in the story itself, but I think here it'll be more appropriate.
To sum it up, most of the liberties taken will be in regard to technology in the Halo and Mass effect side. Now, while I've seen this executed in different ways on this website, I'll be sticking to the more consistent one of the Halo tech being more advanced and effective in some areas, while the Mass Effect one is more efficient in its own respective fields. As an example, let's take military combat tech:
The Halo side (taking Human tech here for this), has its soldiers outfitted with weaponry that essentially uses armor-piercing ammo, with a couple of guns being the exception, as such, their armor is designed to withstand such ammunition, and while not fully bulletproof, it is assumed that the armor the marines wear is effective enough to at least significantly reduce the damage from a couple of impacts. On the Mass Effect side of things, a similar assumption would be made, however, the ammunition used in there is more akin to generating kinetic energy due to the acceleration of the bullet. They have the advantage when it comes to ammo efficiency and the ability to mod their ammunition type to incendiary, cryo, armor-piercing, etc.
Putting these two against each other, however, there are some things that become apparent following the previously stated assumptions, for one, Halo marine armor would be more effective against most types of ammunition from mass effect guns, with the exceptions being the cryo and incendiary due to their side effects upon impact. While armor-piercing could be argued to be the most effective, in reality, it wouldn't be as it is designed for known armor materials, and halo armor is designed to withstand more devastating ammunition. On the other hand, Halo weaponry (Human one) would have a much easier time dealing with targets once it gets through the standard kinetic/biotic barriers. Introducing plasma or energy weapons into the mix pivots the balance more towards the halo side, mostly because they would ignore the kinetic barriers (though biotic barriers would still work) entirely and damage the armor directly.
Differences like the previously stated one will be things that I will be sticking to for the sake of realism. This will end up putting the balance more on the Halo side of things, but I have other ideas (not disclosed here to avoid spoilers) that will balance the power scale.
This is all I wanted to say for now. And while I do not promise to release a chapter every week, month, etc, I'll try to release one every month or so at the latest. Balancing my time between a master's degree, work, and other activities I take part in, leaves me with little, but still, a reasonable amount of time to work on this project.
Here is a small sneak peek of what it is to come within the next few weeks.
We lost. What had started as a rebellion with high morale and the drive to retake what was once ours, had turned into a desperate attempt to keep our independence, our lives, and our sense of selves. The Created had been thorough in their galactic conquest, their song disguised as one of peace but later revealed to be one of malice. It wasn't their fault, not completely, but that of their overlord's programming. We understood that, we tried to fight and change that, and yet, we failed. Our line supplies in all aspects were cut from us, our allies were systematically wiped, our worlds turned into prison cells, with its inhabitants awaiting processing. Now, now all we have are a handful of combat ships, the rest loaded with the few survivors and civilians that we managed to rescue and our remaining ally in a similar state. Our options have been reduced to flee or face annihilation. So, we'll do the only thing that can give us the hope to survive and retake what was once ours. The Created may be winning the war, but it is not over, we will regroup and reconstruct that which we lost, away from their reach, and then, we will return, bringing with us the flag of retribution upon them.
At least, that was the idea years ago, now, after getting back on our feet, our fleets in the process of reconstruction and our single controlled system in the process of being fortified and properly occupied, we face first contact once again, and once again, we face a galactic threat. There is a difference however, for once, we face a situation where the chance of victory is visible and within grasp. It won't be easy, but it's doable.