Make it as AU as you like, keeping too much to canon just to please a few readers isn't worth the writer's frustration you will feel by hobbling yourself to every or most game events. Heck, in one of my favorite Worm crossover stories, a major supervillain group is killed mostly offscreen by an ordinary human who sacrifices himself to make sure that they all go with him. So feel free to shock the hell out of us with a well thought-out plot twist.

Nice, from LT to brigadier general in one step. I had always felt that the Williams in the ME prologue had gotten a raw deal from the military.

Nice to see the rookie has special skills to bring to the table, pun intended since he's in a kitchen.

I'm really liking this story, shame it hasn't updated for years.

You made humanity a bunch of pushover why would they even need the citadel when they can literally blitz through them the story doesn't suck but its not just realistic and calling unsc vessels unsv is absolute bullshit you just combined the damned systems alliance more like sissies alliance with a xenophobic humanity that just came out of a war

There are some interesting ideas here and there but I must agree with some of the angry reviews: The subservience the UNSC is showing to the council is illogical and frankly disgusting.
They have just been attacked by a Citadel member that upholded Citadel laws then the human president sheepishly goes to negotiate inside the enemy fortress like a third rate power would (despite having parked a superior fleet around the Citadel). First, despite having invented the Cole protocol, the UNSC sends all of their codex to unknown aliens. Then the president proceeds to accept insane demands from the same aliens that just destroyed one of their colonies, like unilaterally emasculating the UNSC fleet, or accepting "colonisation rights" in territories that the Citadel council doesnt even own, then distribute almost every military secrets in the UNSC without a single compensation.
This is pure human capitulation in spite of military and technological superiority according to you.
Then the Reaper comes and he's about a thousand time (a million?) more powerful than in canon.
You seemed to want to "balance" all the sides to make your story more interesting when in fact this balancing killed your whole story.

Anyway, I want to thank you for taking the time to write a story. I did enjoy some parts of it and would encourage you to write other stories for the bunch of ungrateful jerks that we are.

4 chapters in and you have blended Mass Effect, Halo, and Heinlein's original Starship Troopers together! And blended it very well together! I am looking forward to continuing the rest of this!

Reverse engineered forerunner slip space drives are practically instantaneous. Ps if the relays were faster then the the forerunners would’ve used them instead.

Will we see a Librarian upgraded Master Chief, perhaps with biotic powers?

Wat. The Citadel is in a uroar? A group of "AI" created by a Citadel race just attacked a UNSC planet. This shows that The Citadel Council, cant even police their own space, and let one of their rouge elements attack a foreign power.

This is ridiculous, with the evidence the UNSC has, the fallout.. Ive tried to force myself to continue, but this is just pure shit, absolute, horseshit.

DO NOT READ THIS SHITFIC.

Uhm, UNSC had MACs that hit harder than Sovereign class reapers 70 years prior to the story. They also had shield 40 years before the start of the story, that could tank the MACs of the day.

40 years with access to Forerunner tech. Unless The Johnston is an old ship from the covenant war, or ME ships are from after Reaper invasion, this chapter makes no sense.

Ship mounted MACs are much slower (30000 metres per second) than ME Mass Accelerators (3.89 million metres per second). Super Macs can travel at 12000 kilometres per second, which is 4% light speed. MAC rounds are giant cause they are as slow as a week in jail.

Some people have commented that MACs travel at 45% lightspeed, which is crazy, and I'd like to know what they are smoking?

Another person told me to read your story so after I’m done with her I’m reading yours

Update plz

In all honesty, I don’t think they would have joined the Citadel.

Wow this is awesome! I really hope that you will come back to this story. This has been an amazing read and I just want so much more!