Chapter 1

Relay

Author's Note: Well were we go, shot number two at this story. You'll probably notice that the timeline is mainly unchanged; well I didn't really have a problem with the timeline so I left it alone, with a few exceptions. All right let's get this show on the road.

March 3, 2553 The Human Covenant war is declared over, and the UNSC begins to rebuild, although the Great Schism rages on.

March 8, 2553 UNSC finish contact with military bases around Earth and the surviving Inner colonies, revealing that the casualties from the war were not as high as once thought, although still staggering. Billions died in the war, but it was confirmed that the majority of the Inner Colonies were not glassed, and many left completely untouched, as apparently they were "skipped" when Covenant found Earth before them. 168 planets are confirmed to have survived the war and Humanity's population stands at 96 billion, where it was once 175 billion before the war.

October 16, 2555 The surviving SPARTAN IIIs are dismissed from their position, although practically all of them rejoin the UNSC afterwards anyway. It is worth noting that due to the instability of the SPARTAN augmentations, SPARTAN IIIs age much more slowly, and thus appear younger than they are. With the current Human life expectancy at 156, it is uncertain how long they will live, although scientists guess that it will exceed 200 easily.

January 17, 2556 Covenant Separatists bring an end to the Great Schism, due to so many Loyalist planets being glassed that they were unable to continue the war. The San 'Shyuum becoming extinct due to the battle of Delta Halo, and the lack of Jiralhanae tactical knowledge contributed to their downfall. A line is drawn between the territories of both Sangheili and Jiralhanae space, either ship crossing into the territory of another will be considered an act of war by both sides. The Jiralhanae, after forming the Jiralhanae Empire, develop a policy of isolationism and cease contact with the rest of the galaxy.

January 28, 2558 The Sangheili, Unggoy, Mgalekgolo, and Huragok unite under the Sangeili's leadership forming the Republic of Sovereign Nations commonly referred to as the RSN. The RSN are technically allied with the UNSC, but due to hatred that was spawned by the war, tensions between them are cold at best, despite the best work of negotiators on both sides, and the RSN contributing resources and new technology towards the UNSC, causing massive technological jumps. Also the Sangheili resume their old roles as technological researchers as well as warriors.

December 12, 2561. The RSN discovers a Forerunner relic, that contained data the disproved the Covenant religion, which was still practiced by the RSN. It would be the first of many discoveries that caused the RSN to slowly drift away from said religion. What followed was Sangheili scholars resurrecting a dead religion from before the time of the Covenant, leading to the RSN worshiping a deity known as Staliu. As a gesture of friendship, the RSN allowed UNSC research teams into the relic site. It is a well know fact that despite tensions, the RSN and the UNSC still run joint research operations. This has resulted in both factions gaining new technologies, for example the UNSC can now develop shields on their soldiers and ships, while the RSN are capable of developing their own Smart A.I.'s.

September 15, 2566. Admiral Hood creates the Hood protocol. The Hood protocol states that if the Flood or a Halo is encountered, they are to be destroyed by any means necessary. Also the UNSC has publicly dismissed the Flood and Halo as mere rumors in an attempt to prevent a panic, although the rumors continue to spread, with many believing them although the details are, thankfully, sketchy.

November 5, 2571. Eden Prime is colonized, bringing the UNSC's total number of colonized planets up to 200. Eden Prime was colonized to provide agricultural support to other colonies, basically a new Harvest.

August 9, 2576. Terraforming of many glassed colonies, which had been going on nonstop since the war's end, begins to show results, scientists hope that in a matter of years they will be habitable again.

January 16, 2588. The terraforming of Harvest is completed, with tests confirming that the soil is just as fertile as before the war. This knowledge causes a population boom on the planet as plantations begin to dot the planet's surface once again.

October, 30 2592. Reach is completely de-glassed and colonization begins on it again. It will be awhile before it becomes the power house that is was before the Human-Covenant war, but the UNSC are simply glad to have it back. It is worth noting that the UNSC has temporarily halted searching for new colonies, stating that the main reason the Outer Colonies fell so quickly was they were underdeveloped and the UNSC fleet was spread too thinly. The UNSC is now focusing on developing its existing colonies. On a side note, a damaged SPARTAN helmet was found near the remains of the Aszod shipyard, although no body was found. The remains of Emile-A239 were found and buried.

March, 9, 2596. Admiral Hood passes away in his sleep. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions attend his funeral. Several Sangheili were reported to have attended.

January, 1 2600. ({CLASSIFIED}) A freak slipspace accident caused a UNSC ship to drop out into a completely uncharted territory. The crew of the ship ({CLASSIFIED)} reported seeing a large metallic object floating in space. Captain ({CLASSIFIED}) remarked "I have never seen anything like it." An expedition fleet will be sent to the coordinates ({CLASSIFIED}) to analyze the object. The common theory is that it is some sort of Forerunner relic.

January, 11 2600. Present day.

"What the Hell is that thing?" Captain John Richards almost chuckled at his question, considering that he had asked himself that question at least a dozen times now. His ship, the destroyer Arizona, had been assigned to guard several research ships that were analyzing a strange artifact in space that had been discovered ten days ago.

His destroyer, along with all other UNSC ships, was much more advanced than the ships of the Human-Covenant War. The MAC guns had more or less remained the same in terms of reloading an recharge rate, but the yield had been increased, and while it still fell short of what Super MACs were capable off, they were still stronger than Human-Covenant war ones. Archer missiles had been upgraded into missiles with a plasma warhead that delivered several times the yield of the original Archer.

The weapons were not the only thing that had been upgraded on UNSC ships. Shields had been installed on UNSC ships that matched the ones the RSN used. Also the Slipspace drives of all UNSC ships had been upgraded with the upgraded model of the RSN, which could traverse an average of a thousand light years per day.

The Arizona and the research ships had been floating in the middle of empty space for a week now, the top Forerunner researchers working around the clock, studying the relic. Despite this, and the use of three Smart A.I.'s, they had made rather limited progress. This had caused many of the researchers to believe that the artifact was not of Forerunner design, but of another alien race.

Richards stood up from his chair on the bridge, which was now located in the center of the ship, and looked at the viewscreen at the front of the ship, which was displaying the alien relic. "Well whoever built it certainly builds big," Richards said, mostly to himself.

He wasn't joking, the relic made a RSN Assault Carrier pale in comparison. Whatever it was, the main section was spherical with a hollow center. It also had two "arms" that extended out to the side.

"Recon-3 to Arizona," a voice said crackled over Richards' COM earpiece.

"Arizona here, what's your status Recon-3?" Richards asked.

"Richards, I think we might have made a breakthrough," Recon-3 said in an excited voice. "The A.I.'s finally made their way into the relic's systems. It looks like the relic's power systems haven't even been activated yet. I recommend that you buckle your seat-belts, we're going to turn it on."

"All right," Richards said "Go for it." Richards glanced around at the bridge crew. "Brace yourself everyone, the research teams is about to power up the..." but Richards was cut off as a small vibration rocked the ship. Turning to face the viewscreen again, Richards saw that the center of the sphere was now glowing with blue energy, as two rings spun around it.

"All right," said Recon-3 "It looks that the energy in the sphere is Dark Energy. Nothing we haven't seen before, but nothing we've ever seen in a usable form. We're going to try to get a closer look." As he spoke, one of the research ships began to move forward, alongside the relic. Without warning, the Dark Energy seemed to extend from the sphere, and wrap itself around the research ship. The research ship was suddenly propelled forward at unrealistic speeds, out of scanner range and sight.

"What the hell just happened!" Richards shouted.

"I don't know sir," Recon-3 replied. In the following ten minutes, Recon-3 ran scans of the relic in an attempt to discover what it had done to the research ship. Just as the ship was about to be declared MIA, it suddenly reappeared next to the relic.

"Recon-2 to Recon-3 and Arizona," an ecstatic voice said over the COM lines. "The relic just propelled us across lightyears across space to an identical relic, it's clearly part of some sort of high speed transportation network."

Richards felt his jaw drop as he heard Recon-3 speak up. "Captain I think we should return to the nearest UNSC planet, command is going to want to hear this."

January, 15, 2600. The Arizona and the research ships return to friendly territory to report the discoveries that were made about the mysterious relic. More scientific expeditions are currently being planned.

Author's Note: Well let's hope that this story works out better. By the way, I will be adding on characters that weren't in the original. Not OCs though (With the exception of a couple I came up with but never got a chance to put in) No, I'll be putting in ME2 characters. I've yet to decide who exactly, but I've already decided on how to bring in, Oh,oh,oh almost gave it away there, sorry wait and find out.