I'll quickly frontload the important part of this.
This story, as well as all my other currently published stories under the Pen-Name "ARC N7" are cancelled. Including the ones in German, if by some miracle there are still people from those Days following this story.
Any of my still public stories are free for adoption by anyone. Anyone who wants to take a shot at continuing this one is free to do so. If anyone wants to get information on things relating to my original plans and authorial intent, you can send me a PM. This counts for everyone who wants to continue this, just in case there are multiple people who want to try.

With the recent release of Halo Reach on PC and the potential Rennaissance of Halo Fanfiction, I think I owe it to any aspiring Fanfiction writers to free up this piece of intellectual real-estate to people who aren't as lazy as me.

That's the TL;DR Version of this Author's Note.
However, if anyone is curious about what the hell happened, I'd like to give you the basic story. I'm sorry for being a bit self-indulgent here, it's not my style, but after how long I've been silent I think I owe a proper explaination about what the fuck happened.

Since around the time I started this story, I've had a problem with seizures that severely mess with my ability to concentrate. And as time went on, things went only downhill with that condition. I've had multiple seizures daily and school-stress made it worse. After around the time I've put out the last chapter, it got so bad that there were days where I genuinely struggled to find a moment of mental clarity to write. On the worst days, it felt like the Seizures kept me in a state of permanent drunkness (and not the fun type...) The last chapter I put out was written from a Hospital.

Things have gotten better now. I'm proud that I finished school with what energy I had left. And since I finished, my life has been sort of at a standstill because I can't work, but thanks to the german Social State, I can still live with my disability and I still have hopes at proper integration through the Workshops. Things are generally improving in my life, but the seizures are not going away and not even slowing down.

However, I don't want to excuse myself here either. I have neglected this story out of depression and I did not have the courage to do the right thing by writing this Author's Note sooner. I think my reasoning used to be that it'd be unhealthy for me to give up hope on continuing this, but my memory is not very reliable. Sometimes it felt like writing was just my brain wildly scratching at the Internet to leave a mark before the seizures prevent me from doing anything anymore. At least I've grown out of that phase.

And something I feel kinda guilty about is that I've been working on other creative projects in the meantime, while I left this one to rot.
Now that my head is finally somewhat clear again and my mental health is mostly stable, I anticlimactically realised that I don't feel prepared to actually write this story in the way I originally planned. I just lack the intimate knowledge of the Elder Scrolls setting I'd need for it. This story was born out of a whimsical urge to write out an idea that I would have liked to read myself at that time, but I did not think things through enough to write this with the attention to detail I would demand of myself.

While I'm at it, I might as well elaborate on this. Aside from general writers-block and increasing distance from the story, what killed any chance of me continuing this is the sheer complexity or the Elder Scrolls setting and how it messes with the creative vision I had for the story.
Kat is a scientifically minded character and the driving force behind her actions would be to systematically understand the internal mechanics of the Elder Scrolls Universe to ultimately game them in a way that allows her to return back to Halo and bring along the scientific insights she gained, to help fight against the Covenant. And anyone who ever took a look at the Wiki for the Elder Scrolls Universe might be able to tell that understanding it is rather ambitious, even if you have it all laid out in front of you.
I thought I could handle this, though, as long as I picked my battles carefully in that regard and only brought in actual Science when narratively convenient or when it would be able to make sense of things.
Whenever I tried to write again on this, or at least brainstorm, I did my research and it only made me realise that the setting I had picked for my story-idea was fundamentally incompatible with what I was trying to write. It's futile to consider stuff like Turchin-Cycles, Bioenergetics, Automatisation under Feudalism and other topics related to Economics, Technology and Politics when little of this was considered by Skyrim. I thought it's broad magic-system would give me a broad enough selection to bite into that it would be sufficient to carry the story past the finish-line, but the reality is that attemping to apply a materialist analysis to it would only raise questions about the setting that would be difficult to answer individually. It's possible, but in aggregate it would all eventually pile up to a big mess.

The reality is that The Elder Scrolls and Skyrim are fundamentally not the right setting for the story I had in mind.
However, that doesn't mean that it is fundamentally impossible to make this story work from where I left off. The key is to have Kat engage with Skyrim the way the game itself was meant to be played. Have fun with the characters, enjoy the scenery and focus on the emotional side of things. I would love to read that, but I will not be picking this story up again. Like mentioned above, it is free for adoption.

Now, there is some good news, though. I am not giving up my hobby as a Fanfiction writer. I've been practicing my writing on some unpublished project and one published project that I have written under a different pen-name because I felt guilty about neglecting this story while writing another.

This brings me to a topic I am genuinely struggling with at the moment: Author Identities and Compartmentalisation.
I've gone through some significant personal developments over time and most of it is archived for eternity under the Pen-Name "ARC N7", including a lot of Cringe that I would like to purge from the memory of the Internet. I doubt anyone actually cares, but it's still causing me some anxiety.

I am kinda torn between my desire to have a fresh start on the Internet and feeding my own ego by allowing people to associate my projects with each other through a single author-name.
At the moment, I am keeping up a somewhat sloppy policy of compartmentalisation between my works and I have not yet made an actual decision on what my course will be in the future.
The thing is, there are some compartments I don't actually want associated with the others. But on the other hand, I think having a single pen-name would be more fair to readers who are interested in reading more from me in particular, because it would make my work easier to find.

Sadly I can't end this Author's Note with a dramatic reveal of my decision, I remain indecisive. However, if there is somehow anyone who is actually a fan of my writing, I am extending the option that I'll share links with people who PM me and express interest. Just let us keep a gentlemen's agreement you won't mention this abandoned pen-name over there, Ok?

I am currently working on a Project, though, which I'm confident I'll be able to finish. It is even, to a degree, a conceptual successor to this Fanfiction.
The basic idea is that it is a Crossover between a Fantasy setting I can apply a historical materialist analysis to and a (sort of) science fiction setting I have recently grown to love.
But I don't want to repeat old mistakes, so this time I want to have a proper plan developed for the story in advance and have some Chapters or ideally the whole text prepared when I start to publish it. A Prologue-Teaser is up already, though, to hold my feet to the fire to finish it eventually.

Farewell, everyone! I hate ending this Pen-Name on such a bummer of a mood, but I think it's time.

RIP, ARC N7.
2012-2020