Disclaimer: I do not own the Halo franchise or the Mass Effect Franchise. All non-original characters belong to their respective publishers. Any original characters are mine; please ask for permission to use them. Any similarities between characters in this story (including names) and people in real life are purely coincidental unless specified otherwise.
This is going to be my first time writing fanfiction. This "chapter" is just some information and background about the story. Feel free to skip it.
Inspiration:
I have read a lot of Mass Effect and Halo crossover fanfiction, both with each other and with other franchises. I have played all of the Halo games, read a few of the Halo books, and have recently started playing the legendary edition for Mass Effect. I will be relying on the wikis for most of the information used in this story. This story is directly inspired by "The Fighting Spirit" by smart grid, but with Master Chief and Cortana in place of Jorge (observant readers will note this foreword has the exact same format as "The Fighting Spirit"). Most crossovers involving Chief tend to put him in during ME2, so I want to do something with him being there at the start of the trilogy.
General Facts:
A lot of people tend to make the Halo universe seem like a Mary Sue compared to the Mass Effect universe. I want to try to avoid that, and please let me know if it seems like I'm making Chief and Cortana out that way. While Master Chief is superior to a good portion of the ME universe when it comes to combat, reflexes, armor, and tactical skills, he knows next to nothing about how to function in general society or interact meaningfully with non-Spartan military personnel. Cortana will do her best to help him, but it will take time for him to adjust.
Master Chief isn't going to be the SPECTRE. He's not going to be leading the team. That responsibility is still going to rest with Shepard. He's a companion, and while the story wouldn't be the same without him, he's not the one driving it forward, nor will he be fixing everyone's problems. He also won't be going on every mission, but Shepard will be bringing more than 2 companions on missions.
I'm going to try to characterize the cast as close to the games as possible, but I've never done any of this before. If I get something wrong, please let me know.
Romance:
Not a chance. Too many ME x Halo crossovers feel the need to have Chief fall in love with Shepard. He won't be falling for her or anyone else for that matter. Although there is the whole "suppressed sex drive" thing for Spartans (which is contested at best), there just won't be any romantic feelings from him towards anyone else. Some characters may exhibit feelings towards him, but they will not be returned. I'm probably going to do Shep x Liara, but as Chief/Cortana are the main characters, I won't be going too in depth with it.
Technology:
Obviously, Chief has his Mjolnir Mark VI (H3 style, no nanomachines). Comparing shield strength from ME to Halo is contentious at best, so I'm saying that Chief has mid-tier shields. Better than the low-level stuff from the beginning of the game, but not quite up to end-game shields. However, Mjolnir shields recharge faster than kinetic barriers, and block energy weapons, so Chief has that going for him.
Without shields, Mjolnir is made out of starship-grade titanium (and other metals). This means that even without shields, not much is going to hurt Chief unless it's energy weapons or dedicated anti-vehicle weapons.
Speaking of weapons, the Systems Alliance will be recovering the Dawn with a mostly full complement of UNSC weapons and some Covenant ones (Johnson brought them aboard during Halo 3). The UNSC weapons will be considered antiquated by the Systems Alliance, but will be noted as being unusually powerful for weapons using chemical propellant (about mid-tier ME weapons). However, the Spartan Laser will be considered revolutionary, and once the SA figures out how to recharge it Chief will be bringing one aboard the Normandy. The Covenant weapons will be a lot harder to figure out, and the SA likely won't be able to do anything with them until ME3.
As for Cortana, she is likely superior to any VI and will make electronic warfare easy. At the same time, she won't just be able to instantly do anything. Once Chief has an omni-tool, then Cortana can go crazy within limits. Chief won't be an engineer or sentinel, so Cortana will be limited to radio traffic and computer systems.
If anyone feels I'm writing either ME tech or Halo tech wrong please let me know.
Update Schedule:
I'm currently a college student trying to maintain grades, as well as earn a scholarship for ROTC. Additionally, I'm going to be working a job this winter break and again over summer. Updates will be infrequent, mostly relating to how busy my schedule is.