ACCESSING…
WELCOME CODE NAME DOCTOR!
TIMELINE
JULY 21st, 2525: A strange artifact is discovered near Harvest in the Epsilon Indi System.
July 31st, 2525: A fleet of over eighty ships arrived right over Harvest. Not able to establish communications. Fleet opens fire on freighter exiting slip space from Madrigal. The Colonial Militia and their few marine advisers evacuate the planet as quickly as possible. Two hundred and sixty thousand colonists are evacuated successfully, thirty thousand are shot out of the sky, and the last ten thousand are held captive in Utgard by the aliens, who are called 'birds.'
August 2nd, 2525: The CMA sends Battlegroup Argo to Harvest after communications were cut. Consisting of two frigates and a destroyer, they are swiftly destroyed, minus the Hercules, which limps back to Reach, telling stories of how they managed to destroy two enemy ships and damage another. The UNSC Security Council raises their alert to DEFCON 2 and all military assets are mobilized. Vice Admiral Cole is brought out of retirement and is selected to lead Battlegroup X-Ray, the largest fleet humanity has ever assembled.
August 10th, 2525: The UNSC Battlegroup X-Ray, consisting of over ninety vessels, exits slip space right over Harvest. They engage the enemy fleet, suffering two-thirds ships lost. Two vessels, barely over a kilometer long each, account for over fifty percent of the UNSC casualties. UNSC naval strategists take note of how these kilometer long warships were able to destroy ships from thousands of kilometers away.
August 13th, 2525: The UNSC launches OPERATION: BITE BACK, when eighty thousand UNSC Marines and Army troops take back Utgard from nearly twenty thousand alien invaders. Casualties are high, and reports are marked by the same stories; space magic from a select few of the enemy and dogged resistance. Over two hundred of the aliens are taken prisoner while the rest are either wounded, retreat into the country, or dead. MAC strikes deal with the stragglers. Four thousand civilians are killed in the fighting.
August 21st, 2525: The UNSC planet of Chi Ceti IV is assaulted by the same aliens. The UNSC Commonwealth delivering Spartan II commandos to the Damascus Research Facility, drives off a destroyer tonnage vessel. The same vessel returns, only to be boarded by the Spartan IIs and the ship is taken with no losses.
August 30th, 2525: After one week of trying to crack the alien language and partial star charts on board the alien vessel, ONI AI Tritus is able to decipher and translate the alien language. Known as the Turian Hierarchy, an authoritative government not unlike the UNSC, is part of a larger alien coalition. They attacked Harvest because the freighter had actually entered from the relay, and not from slipspace, breaking a law the UNSC didn't know of. The UNSC learns of the Citadel Alliance and the Council. The fleet above Harvest and Chi Ceti IV are reinforced with all available ships, while deals are made with the rebels; increased autonomy, but they are still part of the UNSC. Knowing that they aren't going to get a better deal than that, the United Rebel Front and most major separatist groups accept the terms. The Eridanus Rebels, however, refuse.
September 21st, 2525: The UNSC learns the location of a turian planet, known as Taetrus. Knowing that they needed to return to the offensive, the UNSC launches OPERATION UPPERCUT, with Cole's fleet as the vanguard. Taetrus is defended by two hundred ships, along with five of the kilometer long warships that brutalized the UNSC fleet above Harvest. In preparation to this, the UNSC Ghosts of the Past, lays HORNET mines the day before Cole's fleet arrives. When Cole's fleet arrives right over Taetrus, the ships are destroyed by the nuclear mines and two-thirds of the turian fleet is crippled. The UNSC, with their vastly better close combat weapons systems, blasts through the remainder of the fleet and deploys ODSTs and Marines. The turians, for the first time in nearly a thousand years, are faced with an enemy who is able to go toe to toe with them. The liberal use of orbital strikes help break the turian defenses.
September 23rd, 2525: The Battle of Adrian Fields is the first recorded armored encounter between the turians and the humans. Human Grizzlies and Scorpions engage turian Aceroes and Manters. The Grizzlies carry the day routing their lighter opponents; the Scorpions are outgunned and most of them are destroyed. Plans to upgrade the tank include making it lighter, two tracks instead of four, and a lower turret are put into place, along with upgrading their armor.
October 1st, 2525: Taetrus is secured, though turian resistance groups spring up. UNSC scientists start to review their weapons. They learn the origin of the turian technology; element zero. They revitalize old technology such as gauss weaponry. They also start to modify the nuclear reactors of the UNSC ships and start to look in decreasing the size of the round of the MAC gun and increasing the velocity.
October 3rd, 2525: A turian fleet arrives over Taetrus and engages the UNSC. The UNSC suffers heavily but manages to turn back the turians with total annihilation of the turian fleet. For the third time in two months, the turians have been defeated.
October 15th, 2525: Stalemate has occurred. However, the turians, after weeks of searching, manage to locate Earth via a secondary relay that connects to the Arcturus Stream. They activate the relay and the Charon Relay and with nearly four hundred ships, attack Earth. The UNSC Home Fleet, numbering about half of the turian fleet, puts a valiant fight. The thirty-four ODPs orbiting Earth also give their all, destroying a third of the turian fleet. However, turian numbers are soon bolstered by the arrivals of more ships. The turians throw eight hundred ships at Earth. The UNSC recalls all available ships back to Earth, except for the small defense fleets above Taetrus, Harvest, and Chi Ceti IV. However, since the UNSC is only able to travel fifteen light years a day, they are still a week from arriving at Earth.
October 17th, 2525: The turians, with half of their fleet destroyed, manage to break through the ODPs above Africa. Deploying shock troopers and armor, they manage to capture New Mombassa. The remainders of the Home Fleet, eight cruisers, four destroyers, and twenty frigates, retreat to Mercury, hitting supply lines and lone turian ships.
October 21st, 2525: The turians control East Africa and with their entire fleet concentrated right above it, they have total orbital and air turian offensive also spreads to parts of Europe and Asia.
October 22nd, 2525: After days of punishing bombardment, the UNSC Third and Fourth Fleets arrive near Earth, while the UNSC Fifth Fleet under Cole discovers the Arcturus Stream. The UNSC counterattacks brutally and the turians are destroyed. Eighteen thousand turians are taken prisoner while six hundred and five ships are destroyed. The Hierarchy, staking everything they had on this operation, retreats further into their own space. The Council, learning through the STG that the turians have been engaging in war with an unknown alien government, calls for a ceasefire.
October 31st, 2525: A asari diplomatic team aboard a single vessel, the Glorious Revelations, enters the Arcturus Stream. There they find Admiral Cole and one hundred human warships. The asari manage to broker a ceasefire between the Hierarchy and the UNSC.
November 3rd, 2525: A UNSC diplomatic team arrives at the Citadel. The Council is shocked to hear that the UNSC controls three hundred and thirty-two planets, though only a hundred could be called colonies; the rest are mining outposts or fueling stations. This means that they are half the size of the Citadel Alliance itself. Their military might also outmatches the Hierarchy, in sheer numbers. The Council and the UNSC broker a peace treaty between the Hierarchy and the UNSC. The UNSC will return Taetrus and leave turian space, while the turians have to pay war reparations for what they did to Earth and UNSC suffered five hundred and eighty five thousand military dead, with a million wounded. Nine hundred thousand civilians are dead as well. The UNSC lose six hundred and eighty-two ships, representing almost half of their effective military strength. The turians suffered far worse in military terms. Two million are dead while another three million are wounded, most of them turian sailors and marines. The turians suffer about eleven hundred ships destroyed. Civilian casualties are surprising low; only four thousand are dead.
November 4th-6th, 2525: The UNSC and the Council start negotiations over the UNSC's introduction to the galaxy. The Council requests that the UNSC lower their military strength, decommission all vessels over three kilometers in length( giving leeway that there nearly a hundred cruisers that are as big as a dreadnought), and after learning that the UNSC has AIs, disassemble their AIs, in order to join the Citadel Alliance. The UNSC, not seeing any benefit, strike a counteroffer. The UNSC will not join the Citadel Alliance, instead, they would be independent. However, they would decrease the amount of ships on their border with the Turians, allow trade through the relays near Chi Ceti IV and Harvest and abide by the Treaty of Farixen in regards to ships three kilometers and longer. This means that there are only a handful of new Vindicator-class battleships, for they are the most powerful ships in UNSC arsenal. They would also restrict AIs to UNSC space only. The Council, not wanting to risk interstellar war with a race that is stronger than the turians, agree, despite turian protests. Turian emergency shipbuilding is authorized by the Primarch, with half of their effective combat strength eliminated in the war.
2525-2558: The UNSC and the Citadel Alliance expand their trade relations, through the Chi Ceti IV and Harvest relays. The UNSC also learns of biotics. Military technology between the two are not shared. The Spartan II commandos are expanded along with the ODST program. The UNSC also constructs Arcturus Station in the Arcturus Stream, in order provide drydock, command and control, and other naval functions for the First Fleet who is stationed there to look after the relays. The Council starts a quiet military build-up, though it doesn't escape the notice of UNSC prowlers. In response, UNSC HIGHCOM authorized Operation FIRST STRIKE, where Spartan commandos and ODSTs start raids on STG research groups and asari scientific outposts. The UNSC starts research into energy shielding, biotics, and better ground side weapons.
August 30th, 2555: Jonathan Michael Shepard is born to Lieutenant Hannah Shepard and Captain Robert Shepard. The boy was exposed to element zero in the womb when a freighter carrying the material crashed in Vladivostok, Russia, where the two officers were stationed.
2558-2576: The UNSC starts to slightly augment ODSTs. A breakthrough in energy shielding is found, allowing for the UNSC to give widespread energy shielding to their soldiers, while the Spartan IIs and ODSTs get the best. It is unknown how the UNSC did it, though there are rumors of a planet in the middle of UNSC space where no ship is allowed to go. The UNSC also makes breakthroughs in gauss weapons and biotics, allowing for the rare individuals in the UNSC exposed to element zero to be true biotics. The UNSC Ascension Project starts.
2576: The UNSC and the Batarian Hegemony engage in what is known as the Skyllian Blitz. The Skyllian Verge and the Attican Traverse, where most Outer Colonies are located, is the site of the Blitz. Hegemony backed pirates and mercenaries strike New Washington, Elysium, and Akuze, capturing three hundred thousand humans. Sergeant Jonathan Shepard drives back the batarians at Elysium. The ODST is awarded the Legion of Honor and sent to OCS. The UNSC first tries to get the Council to do reign the mercenaries in, but the Council doesn't want to risk a war with the Terminus Systems. Seeing this, the UNSC counterattacks, their energy shielding allowing them to block both kinetic strikes and energy weapons, and attacks Torfan. Half of the humans taken are recovered, though the rest are lost in Terminus.
2577: The diplomatic tensions between the UNSC and the Batarian Hegemony reach a breaking point when the UNSC authorize an assassination in Batarian space on a noted terrorist leader. The assassination goes wrong as the UNSC teams assigned to the operation take down the wrong leader and accidentally detonate a bomb which kills five hundred civilians. Both sides close down their embassies and withdraw their ambassadors. Continued tensions between the two leads to sporadic skirmishes between UNSC Navy squadrons and Batarian dreadnoughts.
2578: Lieutenant John Shepard's new duty post is Reach. The biotic is also one of the first to receive new augmentations. The UNSC also begins construction of a new stealth warship, a corvette that is armed with a EMP cannon, pulse lasers, and a small spinal gun. It also uses the new human technology photo-reactive cells, allowing the ship to remain nearly invisible to the enemy, even if they are looking outside or if the ship is broadcasting the Russian National Anthem.
2580: Shepard leads an ODST platoon on the planet of Sedora after the local government is overthrown by human supremacists. His platoon is cut off and besieged in the now infamous Fort Massacre battle, where he loses most of his men. They are relieved when the UNSC arrives in force and eradicate the remaining supremacists, who flee to a location unknown.
2583: The UNSC prepares to allow a Council Spectre on board the Normandy, and a joint dig for a Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, a new agriculture world located on the fringes of outer human space. This is done due to the UEG administration wanting closer relations and the rumors that the Hegemony is preparing terrorist attacks against their colonies in the Skyllian Verge and the Attican Traverse. The 212th is stationed in Eden Prime for protection of the beacon.
A/N: I will not be discussing arguing technical details with you guys. If you have a suggestion on how I can do it better, please PM, but I will ignore reviews that criticize my use of technology for the Council and humanity. PMs are much better.
Otherwise, please read, review, and follow! Thank you. If you have suggestions on the story or constructive criticism, send them my way.