Greetings people, it is I your benevolent ruler with another story. This story is based on StarSerpent's 'Invicta: Second Front', I wanted to do a Halo – Mass Effect story for a while now and had an idea rocking in my head for a while until I read 'Invita' and it was brutally crushed, bare in mind that this is done with his blessing.

Bare in mind this story will use 'Invicta' as a base but will have my own changes, along with my own tweaks to both universes.

Finally, this first chapter IS a timeline of events and for that I apologise for those that will be put off because of this, but I will post an actual chapter in a couple of hours after this one so don't get mad at me. Please?

2490 AD

-May 18th- The colonisation of Vesta in the trinary system of Breaslay, marks the 800th within Earth-Controlled space.

-August 7th - The Human population officially reaches 67 Billion.*

2494 AD

-August 27th- With almost 1000 colonies spread across known space, funding is funnelled away from the CAA (Colonial Administration Authority) and towards the growing UNSC, the current CMA (Colonial Military Authority) proving to be too inefficient and corrupt to properly defend human worlds from the rising Insurrection, since the Far Isle Crisis in 2492 AD.

2492 AD

-January 12th- A full unit of Project: ORION super soldiers are deployed during Operation: CHARLEMAGNE. This marked the only time a group of 'SPARTANs' was deployed in the whole project.

2506 AD

-Febuary 14th- Despite the fears of a full blown civil war between the Inner and Outer colonies due to the Insurrection, Project: ORION is quietly deactivated due to time and money constraints even as the UNSC are given more funding and freedom to deal with the uprisings.

2511 AD

-March 7th- John-117 is born on Eridanus II.

2517 AD

-April 25th- ONIcaptures 75 children from various colonies to restart Project: ORION under the codename GEN II. Led by Dr Catherine Halsey, this day marked the first in the SPARTANs legendary tale.

2525 AD

-February 3rd- Kig-Yar (Jackals) vessel Minor Transgression discovers a human ship that dropped out of slipspace due to issues with its drive, the ship along with another are raided by the Kig-Yar.

-Febuary 11th- The colony world of Harvest becomes the first official confrontation with the Covenant. It ends with Harvest glassed and the beginning of the 'Human-Covenant War' or more commonly referred to as the 'Great War'.

2526 AD

-March 7th- Circinius IV is glassed.

2528 AD

-September 6th- Madrigal is glassed.

2531 AD

-February 1st- Harvest is reclaimed under the leadership of the now Admiral Cole.

-February 6th- Arcadia is attacked though it remains in UNSC hands despite tragic losses. The UNSC Spirit of Fire goes missing while tailing a Covenant destroyer. It is presumed lost with all hands.

-December 27th- The first group of Spartan-IIIs, known as Alpha Company, were sent to Onyx to be trained at Camp Currahee. They were led by Kurt-051 a SPARTAN-II operating under the pseudonym 'Ambrose.' Of the 497 candidates who were conscripted, only 300 became SPARTANs.

2535 AD

-August 30th- In the hopes of slowing the Covenant tide across Human space, the 'Cole Protocol' is established to safe guard any information falling into Covenant hands, critically the location of Sol and subsequently Earth.

-November 16th- The UNSC barely prevents a famine across Human worlds through strict rationing as they try and build up 2 more food-basket worlds Camelot and New Oslo to replace the decimated Harvest.

[Hope?]

2541 AD

-October 27th- A mining town on Mars in proximity to the infamous Promethei Planum, an area known for its magnetic disturbances, discovers a massive subterranean instillation near the Deseado Crater after a fatal mining accident with some of their machinery.

The entire Sol system is thrown into lockdown and the UNSC on high alert when the ruins are determined to be most definitely alien in nature, and ancient. Xenophobic and militaristic leanings increase as a result when the news is 'accidently' leaked a few days later.

-December 3rd- After a month of dedicated, round the clock, work of multiple xeno-biologists and AI's, the structure is named the 'Prothean archives' after its builders, and the strange element found to be creating the disturbances is called 'Element Zero' or Eezo. Work continues to decode the archives and reverse engineer the 3 ships found within the structure.

2542 AD

-February 14th- After more months of intensive research, (with several explosive results) UNSC scientists create a working ME-based FTL drive that, once tested aboard a Charon-class Light Frigate, works in real space. Theorists ponder how this was used to travel between stars due to its low speed of 12 LY per day. While certainly faster than the UNSC's 2.625 LY/D (3 LY/D for faster ships), ships using the ME drives have to stop to release built up heat after 2 days drastically increasing travel time. It is thus disregarded as a replacement for the Shaw-Fujikawa drive currently used aboard Human ships, military and domestic alike, and effort is therefore aimed at combining the two into a feasible hybrid.

-February 27th- 'Kinetic barriers' systems are first created and tested for use on both soldiers and ships. Although far from effective against Covenant plasma weaponry, it's heralded as groundbreaking in the progress towards closing the gap technologically between Humans and the Covenant, specifically the energy shields.

2543 AD

-January 14th- Research fuelled by desperation as Human lives are lost in the billions due to the Covenant advance, finally yield results in the first hybrid between Human and the newer Mass Effect technology. The 'Eezo-Slipspace-Drive_3' or just 'ESD_3' is manufactured and tested aboard the same ship the pure ME drive was tested on. The results broke even the highest expectations.

The new drive can travel at 650 LY/D for even the slowest of ships with increase of up to 200 LY/D for the faster ships, depending on class. While still short of Covenant standards, that drastically improves travel time between systems therefore increasing the chances that a besieged colony can receive reinforcements. However like the ME drives it is still limited by its heat build up, although at 5 days rather than 2, due to the already high thermal radiation and energy the Shaw-Fujikawa drive needed to compensate for. A small tech company, 'Black Matter Inc', volunteers to take up the project of increasing that time or eliminating it entirely.

-April 1st- Nicknamed the 'April Fool's Offensive', the immensely upgraded Battlegroup: INDIA (Comprised of 162 Ships) underneath Admiral Cole initiates OPERATION: TURNING POINT. The first action is to relive the besieged colony world of Axium, a world commonly known to be extremely rich in Tungsten, one of the main ores used in the construction of MAC ammo.

The battle is a crushing victory, with the Covenant leader completely unprepared for a reinforcement fleet to jump in. All 13 of the Covenant vessels are destroyed in the short battle with only 4 UNSC vessels taken out in comparison. The Kinetic barriers prove their worth in the battle as the increased distance between the barriers and the armour plating of the ships meant that heat had a greater distance to dissipate, this afforded more vessels valuable time to retreat from the line of fire. Morale across Human worlds increases as a result, most notably the Navy.

-April 13th- With the first action of OPERATION: TURNING POINT complete, the next move was to lure a larger Covenant fleet into a trap. The plan was almost called off when the ploy worked almost too well as a fleet numbering over 300 vessels of various sizes entered the system. Cole, confident of their chances however, sprung the trap throwing Battlegroups: Charlie and Theta (Comprised of just 117 and 127 vessel respectively) at the Covenant fleet catching them in a pincer.

The battle was costly, with Battlegroup: Charlie almost entirely wiped out as the Covenant fleet tried to force a breach and both India and Theta losing over a third of their own vessels, but was a decisive victory for the Humans with 357 Covenant vessels destroyed and 2 captured (A corvette and a cruiser), albeit heavily damaged, due to the work of ODST and SPARTAN teams working in tandem. Surprisingly without much complaint from either branch of the military.

[Resurgence]

2544 AD

-March 1st- On a routine patrol mission on the edge of the Sol system picked up anomalies coming from Pluto's moon Charon. After a few days of investigation UNSC scientists accidently triggered it revealing a Mass Relay of the secondary variant. HIGHCOM is once again thrown into panic, as they realized that the Covenant had a back door into the Sol system if they were aware of the relays.

When a Paris-Class frigate, UNSC Maui, travels through the relay it reaches the Arcturus System in the blink of an eye. Thankfully in the 'opposite' direction that ONI had speculated the Covenant Empire dwelled and their advancing fleets.

Many wonder why they hadn't discovered the Mass relay before since they'd been space fairing for close to 500 years. Theorists put forwards the idea that because they hadn't known Eezo existed before they couldn't have detected the unique readings of the relay. It was after all an accident they discovered the archives at all.

A flotilla of 15 ships is swiftly formed to begin mapping out the space on the other side of the relay, thousands of light years away from the increasingly gruelling war.

-March 7th- The Covenant Corvette (CDF-Class Corvette as they found out in their databases), becomes the main focus of the UNSC scientists as they race to reverse engineer the technology aboard, most importantly the anti-torpedo 'counter guiding signals' that the Covenant employ to avoid attacking their own ships. Attention is also diverted towards the energy shields aboard every Covenant vessel, although little headway is made in this area due to the condition the two ships were in when captured.

-April 15th- The reverse engineering of the 3 Prothean ships found in the archives bears fruits as they gain a better understanding of 'Kinetic Barriers', the scientists believe that they may be able to apply the theory behind the barriers to the Covenant energy shields.

-April 29th- More of the space behind the relays is explored revealing more planets and resource rich systems, Element Zero is more common in these parts to the relief of the UNSC who struggled to find many deposits currently in or near Human controlled space.

-August 7th- With their newfound popularity due to the evening odds, the UNSC abolished the civilian UEG government permanently. Free of the civilian protest, the usage of mass nuclear weapons, torture of prisoners, mass executions and the classified research into the NOVA project gets underway with less than a bat of an eye from all branches of the military.

-October 31st- Although reluctant to admit, the UNSC Navy and Army simply isn't large enough to cover all the ground needed to sufficiently protect all the Outer Colonies. Eager to keep the growing popularity for a military led government, HIGHCOM begins Operation: HAVEN, Operation: CLOACK AND DAGGER and finally Operation: CASTRUM. The first is the four year long task of relocating all of the population and industry of the outer colonies into the new Haven sector beyond the relays in the hopes of saving them and keeping the industrial might of the Outer Colonies fairly intact so that it would keep providing the UNSC war machine without any danger of being found.

The second would work in tandem with the first. Headed by Admiral Cole, he and 4 others will distract the encroaching Covie forces and led them into traps where they have an overwhelming advantage, asteroid fields laced with nuclear mines, dummy planets and everything that goes with it enlightens the species of the Covenant of Human guerrilla warfare who have only gotten more ruthless as the war progressed.

The third and final operation is a plan to strengthen up the colony worlds that will border the Covenant Empire once the Outer Colonies are fully evacuated with defenses. Each planet, totaling at 17, is to have a grid of at least 20 ODP's along with fighter stations and an accompanying fleet of 150 warships. 5 more plants at even enough intervals behind the line, Paris IV – New Rome – Trappist Prime – Meridian – Eos, are designated to be turned into fortress worlds beaten only by Reach and Earth herself. Each planet is to have a grid of 75 ODP's and fighter stations, a fleet of 250 ships and the infrastructure to support a QRF (Quick Response Fleet) so that they may quickly get to any system under siege and reinforce it.

-November 2nd- The Colonia Defense Act is put in place with orders that each colony must maintain, arm and train a militia to aid UNSC forces in the event of a Covenant attack, mandatory conscription is also put in place for all Men and Women between the ages 25 and 60 barring special conditions*. You can either serve in the CDM (Colonial Defense Militia) for a period of 7 years, Army for 5 years or Navy & Marines of 4 years. For those that cannot fight they are sent to the LogiCom (Logistics Command, originally only for the navy under NavLogCom but has since been expanded for the whole of the military), those who would do well to serve in other places like the UNSC Research Department, Department of Health, or even ONI, are exempt from the years of service and instead create contracts with the intended destination.

2545 AD

-January 1st- On the morning of the New Year HIGHCOM brought back a family incentive from the colonisation boom back in the late 2300's. The Child Bill encourages each family to have multiple children to keep up the population that's already severely depleted, of course they can't just force children onto people so the bill came with many concessions. For example financial support for each child they have, and if both parents serve in the military, one parent is always on leave while the other is not, and even in some cases allows both parents present as the same time.

This of course almost collapsed the Logistics Command as they tried to organise this but the effort was worth it after they got a hang of the new system.

-Jaruary 28th- The manic pace of research set by UNSC scientists finally pays off with the creation of the 'Mk.1 Plasma Torpedo Counter Targeting System', PTCTS Mk.1, or just TCS Mk.1. It would 'detect' the torpedo's and create a type of virus that would surround the ship for roughly 20 seconds, this bubble would blind the torpedo's or even cause them to prematurely explode away from the ship. Granted it didn't always work with a fail rate of 43% but for the first iteration it greatly increased a ship's survival chances. It was also discovered to work sometimes against energy projectors setting scientists amok as they tried to recreate it.

-May 5th- Kinetic barrier systems finally finish installing aboard 90% of UNSC warships, a full year before the expected date. Along with the TCS, this gives the UNSC Navy a fighting chance in a straight ship to ship battle, whereas before a 5-1 ratio is needed only a 3-1 is safely required. This greatly lifts the burden on the industry currently pumping out ships as fast as the materials arrive.

-May 7th- Study begins on energy projectors, the only weapon that completely bypasses the barriers, and pulse lasers taken from the Covenant CRS-Class cruiser

-June 18th- Covenant forces attack Actium and Draco III, although the attack on Draco III is repelled by a QRF under Vice Admiral Reaves along with the 7th Fleet under Vice Admiral Stanforth.

Despite the QRF headed to Actium arriving it is forced to retreat after grievous losses including its leader Rear Admiral Hall, and the arrival of the 5th Fleet led by Admiral Drescher only manages to scare of the remnants of a fleet that had already glassed the planet.

-August 1st- As a placeholder for a new government, the High Admiralty is formed as a Military Junta with High Admiral Hood at its head. Despite its name, ground based personnel are also included on the committee including a liaison from both the R&D Department and ONI. In lieu of the senatorial government, the DPA (Department of Planetary Affairs) is formed to take care governing each of the colonies in Human space, they also possess a liaison on the committee to keep any protestors quiet.

-September 6th- Terra Nova, is settled in the Asgard system beyond the relays, the first of many, as such it will serve as the capital of the Haven Sector, and will become a backup capital world in the worst case scenario of both Earth and Reach falling.

While this is happening, plans are drawn up for a 32Km station to be built in the Arcturus system to serve as a base for the UNSC in the area. A bonus of this is the fact that through the relays, Earth is only a single jump away allowing for quick reinforcements in the eventuality that the Human homeworld ever be attacked.

-November 17th- After the settling of Terra Nova, the UNSC begins another massive construction project, or rather 3. Called the Daedalus Project, the end goal is to create three orbital ship yards in a ring surrounding the major fortress worlds of Earth, Reach and Terra Nova.

The end goal is to have the ship yards possessing the capability to churn out hundreds, possibly thousands of ships a week.

2546 AD

-April 27th- Many researchers predict a breakthrough in shield technology.

-June 13th- As more and more Covenant attacks are repelled, and the efforts towards building up the Inner Colony defences progresses, ONI prowlers are sent into the void to scout for Covenant worlds.

-June 17th- Vice Admiral Whitecomb and his science team complete the prototype for the NOVA bomb.

-November 28th- Sargasso is attacked by the Covenant and the small fleet of ships guarding it is destroyed. The planet is saved by a reinforcing 6th Fleet, but the planet's population of 51 million is reduced to measly 2 million.

-December 5th- Another, larger, fleet of Covenant ships attack New Llanelli, destroying the defending fleet like at Sargasso however this time the response comes quicker and the Covenant ground forces barely set up a FOB before they are kicked out the system.

-December 26th- Ruthersberg and Sansar are glassed with no survivors.

-December 30th- Paradise Falls is also attacked while in the midst of Operation: HAVEN, a good portion of the population makes it away while the fleet in orbit buys them time. However near 20 million are still killed, and the defensive fleet is wiped to the vessel.

2547 AD

-January 1st- After reviewing combat footage from Sargasso and Paradise Falls they noticed one of the main reasons the Covenant won was through sheer force of numbers rather than technologically as it was before, where Human experience, training and sheer stubbornness won the day.

A small group of scientists take up the project to make a working combat droid, capable of deploying alongside infantry to supplement their numbers.

-April 9th- ONI prowlers sent in search of Covenant worlds return bearing results. Several worlds in the fringes of Covenant space are colonies of the various species that make up the Covenant as well as frontline supply bases.

Without even a second thought, the orders come through and NOVA's are dropped on nearly a dozen colonies worlds. Over 4 Billion Covenant causalities are noted and recorded, fed back to Human space where a blood thirsty Humanity cheer and party as the Covenant get a taste of their own medicine.

-July 16th- More worlds are settled in the Haven sector bringing up the total to 7. Another 7 more are planned to bring the number up to 14, all of which should comfortably hold the numbers of the Outer Colonies with space for them to grow and house their revitalized industry. Already resources are being funnelled back through the relays and to the war.

-October 19th- The attack on the Covenant worlds seems to have made them falter in their advance and for a few months nothing happens other than a few probing attacks. This gives the UNSC time to complete the first stages of Operation: CASTRUM. The 17 frontline plants have their ODP grids completely built and the last of the ships to serve as their defence flotillas are arriving and being assigned accordingly. Work however is still needed on the 5 back-up fortress worlds.

-December 23th- The efforts into the CRS-Class Cruiser pays off as the Covenant Repulsor Engines are reverse engineered. Along with the revelation come their inertial dampeners and further insight to their reactors. The latter allowed further improvements to their own.

The new engines while not ground breaking allows Human ships a greater level of speed and therefore evasion and is thus declared a success.

-December 28th- Calls by the Sangheili to head to total war footing is dismissed by the High Prophets of Truth, Mercy and Regret who all fear more power will fall in the hands of the Elites if they were to do so. However to keep the peace they increase their production lines and authorise a few fleets to be taken out of mothball.

2548 AD

-January 4th- The entire R&D department, no, the entire UNSC celebrates as the first pure energy shield is installed and tested aboard 5 decommissioned UNSC frigates.

The shields although weak compared to Covenant standards, are surprisingly tougher than expected. When tested they stood up to two full frigate sized barrages of Archer missiles and a single SHIVA-Class Nuke when detonated a significant distance away. They didn't however stand up to a direct hit from the same class of nuke and only barely fell short of deflecting a frigate class MAC round. Not that they were expecting such it is still ground breaking and finally things are looking up for the war.

Now the UNSC's task is to outfit the entire Navy with the new 'Series 1 – Plasma Deflector Shields' while the R&D resumes work to both improve them and to try and minimise them on a small scale for infantry and vehicle purposes.

Both logistics and resources are stretched as ships are pulled off the line and refitted with the shields and new engines. Production of newer ships is delayed as the production now includes the newer components.

-January 5th- With the main target of UNSC R&D now accomplished it can now turn to the armour that surrounds Covenant ships, hoping to replicate it for their own shipboard hulls and SPARTAN power armours. Progress is slow unfortunately, and they are quietly told to focus on improving and minimising the energy shields, but work is to continue nonetheless.

-May 13th- With a lull still present in Covenant attacks, more ships are sent to Covenant space again and nearly a dozen colonies are nuked and NOVA'ed from orbit. This attack alone raises the Covenant death count by 3 Billion, the total is 9 Billion deaths for the Covenant only 2 Billion lower than the Human 11 Billion.

-May 15th- Two days after the attack on the Covenant worlds, 5 Human ones come under attack. There are no survivors.

-August 7th- Medigel is created by the makers of Biofoam. The two in tandem reduce deaths from battlefield wounds by almost 80%, and allows a speedy recovery from soldiers looking to return to the fight quickly.

-October 6th- The final planets in the Haven sector are completely settled bringing the total to 14. There are no further plans for expansion as the planets are already sufficient enough for the colonists to live comfortably, the industry has started to reach peak efficiency and soon the UNSC will be bolstered by its might.

Arcturus station is 24% complete.

The baseline skeleton structure of the Daedalus shipyards is halfway complete.

-December 9th- The UNSC are caught on the back foot when a Covenant armada numbering over 500 vessels pierces the frontline at Skopje and New Lancaster, completely laying waste to the ODP grid and defence flotillas, a dozen ships stay behind to combat the UNSC presence stubbornly holding out on Skopje while the rest continues on to Paris IV, whose own ODP grid and fleet had yet to be completed numbering only 47 and 179 respectively. Although putting up a fight both are destroyed and the planet is besieged like at Skopje. The armada splits like before and continues onto more inner colonies.

No less than 7 Inner colonies are attacked before 3rd and 7th fleets managed to halt their advance with great losses.

[An even fight]

2549 AD

-January 17th- Co-ordinated from Earth, the largest counter attack in Human history to date began. Multiple QRF fleets under various Admirals relieved the colonies being sieged by smaller splinter fleets. Here many unknown Admirals on the lower spectrum made a name for themselves, such as Rear Admiral Hackett who led his 17th QRF against multiple Covenant flotillas after the 9th and 21st QRF's failed their objectives.

Admiral Cole led the 4th, 5th, and 8th fleets against the biggest fleet still present over Paris IV and relieved it, only half the 1.1 Billion population was saved however.

From there Cole led the 4th and 5th, the weakest of the 3 after the liberation of Paris IV, and retook Skopje, which to the surprise of Cole still held out. Although Colonel Miers was KIA when orbital bombardment collapsed the bunker he and his command staff were in, a Major Williams took command of the garrison and led a desperate guerrilla war against Covenant ground forces. When Cole arrived to relieve them barley 1000 were still relatively standing to protect 9 Million civilians out of the near 50 that the Skopje garrison contained, and none were without wounds. For their valour each received the Medal of Honour and the Purple Heart and Major Williams was promoted to Colonel.

Admiral Drescher led the 8th Fleet in the recapturing of New Lancaster. It was unfortunately a lost cause as the planet's garrison had long since fallen and the planet was in the process of being glassed. Less than 4000 civilians were rescued out of 42 Million.

These battles also served to properly field tested the 'S1 – PDS', which although exceeded expectations against their own weapons only survived 2 plasma torpedoes or 3/4 depending on the size of ship. Energy projectors still proved the death of many a ship as the shields proved all but useless against them, and the pulse lasers could also punch through after sustained fire.

-February 1st- At the monthly meeting of the High Admiralty, a former senator of the UEG called John Doe hijacked the live feed to the rest of Human space when they were reporting the past months actions.

John Doe attempted to revitalize the Human spirit for democracy but only succeeded in gaining a few followers for he chose the exact moment that UNSC HIGHCOM was reporting the valiant actions of Hackett and Williams on the reclamation of the Inner Colonies a month prior.

He was captured later that day and was tried and summarily executed for treason and sedition later that month.

-March 11th- New techniques using Element Zero in the industry allows them to construct ships faster due to the use of the Mass Effect fields in moving materials and even entire ship sections. This and the recent influx of ships from the Haven sector boosts the UNSC's depleting Navy, especially after the past few months of hard skirmishing and battles. Each ship upgraded with the recent developments in ship to ship warfare curtsey of the UNSC R&D.

-March 14th- UNSC R&D create a prototype shield that should be capable of covering and protecting entire cities from orbital bombardment. The current issues lie with its weakness and power consumption.

-March 23rd - The final Outer Colonies are evacuated to either under populated Inner Colonies or the Haven Sector. Now with less ground to cover the UNSC can focus on holding the now named 'Stalingrad Line' as more and more Covenant scouts skirmish with patrol groups every week.

The ODP grids and defence flotillas of the 5 stronghold planets are competed by sacrificing those of the more secure Inner Colony worlds like Earth and Reach, whose grids are already being replenished thanks to the streamlined production.

-May 10th- Humanities version of the plasma torpedo is devised. Rather than using advanced magnetic technology to contain the plasma and guide it, they use the same Mass Effect fields used in FTL travel. Obviously rather than disappearing into FTL they accelerate to higher speeds therefore yielding higher payloads, their downside is a slower fire rate at only 3 per minute and can only be used on Cruiser tonnage and above, needing its own ME core to power without compromising the backup Kinetic Barriers. This meant that current Destroyer and Frigate classes would be unable to use the torpedoes effectively without comprising their defences. Something that the UNSC refused to do.

As a compromise the Archer II-Plasma Cluster Missile (PCM) was devised. The missiles would be fired like normal from aboard a Destroyer or Frigate but as they neared a target the missile would detonate a secondary charge and 5 small plasma torpedoes would be fired from the housing instead and impact the enemy ship. They worked similarly to the torpedoes, a small plasma charge encased in a ME field which was created from a smaller generator further back in the body. This however meant that the cluster effect had a limited time to act before the charge ran out and dissipated harmlessly meaning that if the missile missed there was no chance to re-target like with the original Archer.

-May 20th- While looking into improving the plasma torpedo, R&D accidently created the plasma beam. The original thought was to transport the torpedo along a 'flight path' of a projected ME field, but rather than guiding a single mass of plasma to the target it elongated it into a single beam. After further testing the beam could be sustained for certain amounts of time and deal varying amounts of damage depending on the power output, it could either be used as a surgical strike to take out key targets or even the use of orbital bombardment, although the latter obviously is only on paper at the moment. Also unfortunately the plasma beam has the same power issue that the torpedo has faced so Destroyers and Frigates must remain content with their MAC as their main offensive weapon.

-June 7th- With numbers being replenished at a reasonable rate, and technology advancing as well, HIGHCOM decided it was high time to start investing in new ship classes.

Thus began Project: PHOENIX.

Each ship class is designed with the newer technology and built with the thought of continuous upgrades in mind unlike the current generation, which would hopefully decreases the costs of doing so in the future.

The first to be designed, or rather revisited, was a new capital ship, one to replace both the old and venerable Halcyon and the newer more powerful Marathon. Originally designed as a light cruiser with speed and mobility in mind, as at the time of its original conception shield technology was still in the early stages, after however the need for a tank in space was ideal, one that could go toe to toe with the most common of Covenant capital ships and come out the superior.

The Gladiator-Class Battlecruiser was just under 1.9Km long. Armed with the current Point Defence Guns as the supplementary ship to ship cannons, the main armament was 2 standard Cruiser strength MAC's at the prow. Also with the newer weapon technology it also boasted 2 dedicated plasma beam emplacement's, or plasma lances as they were formally named, at a specific point on the top and bottom of the ship giving them free lines of fire all around the ship. In addition it had 8 plasma torpedo pods and an extra 175 Archer-II PCM's and 25 Howler pods for support. A downside was that due to the size two ME cores were needed to power the Element Zero systems on board, one for the weapons and shields and one for the ESD_9, the newest rendition of the hybrid drive that had a longer jump timer of 7 days. The cost of this made the UNSC thankful that they hadn't completely abandoned their own technology in favour of Eezo as building any ship over 1Km would have not only crippled their economy but the war as well, a point they thankfully spotted in the early days after the archives were discovered.

The Gladiator-Class would serve as the mainline capital ship for the UNSC Navy as the last remaining Halcyon's and Marathons were retired or relegated to colony defence, and in some cases scrapped for materials, earning its stripes as one of the most decorated and finest ships in Human space.

-July 2nd- The Longbow-Class Frigate enters service. Designed as a long range support ship it has a MAC cannon usually reserved for those on cruisers and a secondary armament of 50 Archer II-PCM's and even 2 Plasma torpedo pods. As it's designed for long range combat, a sniper if you will, at close range it practically useless as power had to be diverted away from the shields and PDG's to power the PT's and MAC. While not always useful while attacking, the Longbow saw most of its action as a colony defence ship.

-September 26th- Despite their best efforts, R&D are yet unable to replicate the Covenant Nanolaminate Armour. However the research into it serves to further their knowledge of their own armour and Titanium A3 is devised, a mixture 20% stronger than A2 plating and a healthy margin more resistant to heat. It is however time consuming to create so only cruisers and above will utilize it. Destroyers and Frigates will use a cheaper A3b, which although weaker should still be more resistant to heat.

-October 11th - An even weaker version is created to be used for infantry purposes. Infantry Battle Plating is a dummy mix of A3 and A3b, although it comes nowhere near to the armour for starships it is a significant grade up from the current protection, the militaries grunts all breathe a sigh of relief when the news is released.

2550 AD

-February 16th- After a few months the Infantry Combat Suit (ICS) is designed, a suit of armour that works similarly to the SPARTAN's MJOLNIR armour. The armour is made to boost the users speed and strength, and a new Head's Up Display (HUD) with an improved Visual Intelligence Display (VID). The suit also contains a small shield generator, that while only lasts a few shots, for a infantry fighting force that's already experts at fighting from cover, the those precious shots would save a lot of lives.

A stronger, more expensive suit is also designed for Special Forces like ODST and Army Rangers. However due to the large amount of troops in the UNSC military only the Marines and Special Forces would be fully equipped by the end of the year, the Army is too numerous to equip on a short amount of time.

-April 29th - Attempts have been made at augmenting the current MAC's with Eezo have thus far proven difficult. While it is theoretically possible, the lightest ammunition is 600 tons on the frigates and using Eezo to fire that simply isn't cost effective. There was a proposition to reduce the weight of the shell to make it cheaper but that would mean changing out all current MAC's and switching over entire production lines that would become redundant. A small industrial company, Shepard Defence Systems, takes up the project.

-May 17th- The High Prophets, beginning to realise how much of a threat the Humans may pose if they allowed the stalemate to continue, start a large ship building project and authorize a more mothballed fleets to come into service.

Under the pretence of relieving the increase burden of command on the Sangheili, the prophets start to delegate some duties to the Jiralhanae (Brutes) to minimise the growing power of the Sangheili.

-August 28th- Two destroyers, Aegis-Class and Lancer-Class, become stuck in blueprints as they were meant to make use of the new MAC stuck in development and so are stuck in limbo for the time being.

-October 19th- R&D reverse engineer the Covenant Pulse Lasers, alone they would do little damage so much so that at the moment they are considered useless in ship to ship combat even when grouped in batteries. For the time being they are relegated to simple fighter defence while scientists try and improve the strength of the lasers.

As a side note, some scientists are wondering if this could be applied on a smaller level for vehicles and infantry.

2551 AD

-March 28th- As skirmishes rage across both Human and Covenant fringe worlds, the UNSC is in the best position since the war started 26 years ago. The war forward looks bloody but bright when ONI prowlers discover more Covenant fringe planets, forward outposts and Bahalo, the Unggoy (Grunts) Homeworld.

-April 4th- For the past week a fierce debate raged in the High Admiralty on what to do with the knowledge of a Covenant homeworld. Some like the Navy Admirals debated for simply attacking and NOVAing the planet from orbit. Others like the Army Generals want to capture the planet or at least kidnap enough Unggoy to breed them as cannon fodder for their own military.

-July 9th- ONI hackers manage to decode part of the Covenant slipspace exit protocols. Again nothing like their Covenant ones, the new system limits drift upon exiting slipspace allowing UNSC vessels to enter a system in formation rather than random points, though some vessels will still require reposition it is minimised to a few minutes rather than 10-20 beforehand.

-September 30th- While UNSC Naval doctrine focuses mainly on 'Grand Battle Plan' and strength of numbers to win engagements with the Covenant in space; the need for more heavy hitters is evident as their enemy begins to field larger warships more commonly. The reasons currently unknown to UNSC HIGHCOM.

Although designed and used before the war the Punic, Valiant and Epoch classes were already Covenant killers in their own right before the modern upgrades. With the advancing tech, this has only increased and with a static line rather than a fighting retreat, the UNSC can afford to field more of these types of ships.

With the new/old ships coming into service another modern design comes into the field. The UNSC Resolute-Class Battleship was a large undertaking because of its 3.8Km length, overtaking the previous holder of the longest military vessel the Punic which was 3.2Km.

The Resolute was a fleet of its own with 3 MACs as its primary armament, with 10 new Mini MAC or 'Onagers', that would usually only be seen on stations or as base defence for important ground instillations as its secondary choice. 5 Plasma Lance emplacements, 14 Plasma Torpedo banks, 150 Archer II missiles pods, 50 Howler Missile pods and 30 Pulse Laser Batteries (A battery is a group of six).

The vessel was also a tank in a league of its own. The shielding was above and beyond anything the UNSC had fielded before. It was able to tank an entire energy projector to the face and relatively shrug it off, albeit with heavily depleted shields. Underneath that were Kinetic barriers that needed two whole ME cores on their own to run, making the total 3 for the whole ship, and if both of those layers of defence were breached than it used the infamous honeycomb super structure of the Halcyon to simply absorb shots that would have split a normal vessel from end to end. However it was not only extremely slow but had limited space for strike craft, only able to field 2 wings of Longswords and a group of Pelicans, the use of fighters being shifted exclusively to carriers now.

Due to the cost of the ship being more than an entire QRF of frigates, not many could be built in a short amount of time. Two served as the flagships of both the Earth and Reach defence fleets. Another would become Fleet Admiral Cole's personal flagship.

-October 9th- A new breed of warship is ridiculously small considering the current state of the war.

At 343m the Riptide-Class corvette was too small to even have a MAC cannon of significant strength mounted on the prow. To replace the current Gladius-Class the ease manufacture and cheapness of the vessel means that it can be built quickly and in large quantities. Specialised dockyards allow for a dozen to be built simultaneously. These swarms of corvettes are specifically made for the defence of colonies in mind and allows for more frigates and destroyers to be moved to frontline combat.

-October 14th- A leak from inside ONI displays just how corrupt the organisation has become. It revealed that during the battle for New Lancaster, an ONI prowler was present in the system to evacuate Misriah Armoury employees, including the company's heir. The report implicates Admiral Parangosky as the authority behind the operation and the High Admiralty have no choice but to arrest the leader of ONI and shut down the department until a full investigation into its operations is completed.

Unfortunately when the operation to arrest Parangosky goes ahead, the former Admiral and a significant chunk of her command staff were missing, with no leads on their whereabouts.

SDS, a previously minor company when compared to the likes of Misriah Armoury, bought a significant portion of the company's assets as they are forced to shut down in the wake of the scandal. The move almost bankrupts the family run business but the extra power was worth it in the long run.

-December 9th- Shepard Defence Systems, prototypes a MAC that utilizes Eezo in its firing mechanism. The original idea was to lower the size the slug and replace some to solenoids in the MAC with ME fields to lower the mass. However this proved expensive, and would require an entire refit of their Navy.

The final prototype was essentially the same but a different method. The magnetic solenoids now also contained a small ME generator, so when a round was fired it also lowered the mass of the shell, in addition the rail that the shell travelled along also was projecting a ME field across its length. This allowed even a frigate class MAC to shoot a 600-ton slug at 0.96% the speed of light (2878Km/s), a mechanism that fires 95 times faster than before and just below 3 quarters slower than a SMAC ODP.

The trouble with the new system was that it required more energy to power and tended to overheat more often. To compensate for this, the capacitors that the MAC's currently used to charge the magnets and absorb the heat are tweaked to be rapidly switched out after each shot rather than waiting for them to charge, rather than being changed out after the current one burns out. This allows a standard MAC to fire every 4-5 seconds rather than every 15. The tactical advantage of the now quick fire MAC is enough to make Navy Admirals salivate, as the new range of the MAC is over 10 times its original distance.

SDS is now trying to make the system compatible with SMAC ODP's which already fire 4% the speed of light without aid from Eezo, tests thus far have proven to be a problem as the system literally shoots itself to pieces.

2552 AD

-January 1st- With a lull in the fighting the High Admiralty finally commit to creating a new government. The original purpose of the Military Junta was for it to lead in the war and then reform the UEG after the war. However, several people disagreed saying that Humanity needed a point to rally to. Not a leadership that would serve its purpose and then disappear.

The Human Directorate of Earth is basically the High Admiralty on a more official and grander scale. High Admiral Hood was officially instated as the leader, during and hopefully after the war to represent Humanity on the galactic stage. The Admiralty became the security council with more representatives being introduced and with it more people got a say in the running's of the new HDE.

-April 29th- The Great War 'evens out' as the UNSC begins probing attacks against Covenant frontier colonies. While these attacks have no purpose other than to test Covenant defences it shows the turning tides of the war.

Although the Human causality count says otherwise.

-August 1st- Operation: BLACK EYE is a-go. On the turn of the month the 'First Strike Armada' consisting of over 500 vessels, (4th, 5th, 7th, 10th, 14th, 21st Fleets as well as various QRFs) is split into four sections. The first three, consisting of only 100 vessels each, dummy attack three large Covenant colonies to draw away Covenant patrols.

After the battles are in full swing, the largest section jumps into the system containing the Unggoy homeworld and sweep aside the defending fleet and defences with relative ease. When the system was cleared, 50 Phoenix refit vessels jumped into the system laden with Army and Marine troopers. The idea of the operation was to force a beach head and capture as many grunts as they could pack back onto the ships to breed for their own uses. Mainly as cannon fodder.

It wasn't to be however. Only a few hours after landfall, little progress had been made due to unexpected resistance from the Grunts who used their numbers to great effect. Things got even worse when a Covenant fleet jumped into the system, despite this being a minor homeworld in the grand scheme of things, it was a homeworld none the less and the fleet numbered easily over 400 vessels.

The fleet, even with the upgrades, didn't stand a chance at beating the fleet and quickly bugged out the system, but not before dropping a NOVA on the Unggoy homeworld, destroying what was left of the already devastated planet. Barely 3000 grunts were captured and despite early successes Operation: BLACK EYE is declared a failure.

-December 7th- With the failure of Operation: BLACK EYE, the grunts currently in their possession are too few to serve their main purpose as it would take years to build up their numbers to the standard they need even with their high breeding rate. Years they may not have.

So UNSC scientists used their captives for another purpose. Test subjects. The Security Council determined that if they couldn't use the Unggoy as cannon fodder than they couldn't allow the Covenant access to them either, their sheer numbers are and would continue to overwhelm their positions. So in secret they developed a virus that would gradually reduce the number of offspring of the grunts during breeding to only a few surviving young per clutch.

The virus after testing is completed is tweaked to have an incubation period of a few months and the Unggoy in captivity are knocked unconscious and have their memory wiped of their imprisonment. A few former ONI prowlers are commandeered and transport the Unggoy to multiple large colonies in secret.

2553 AD

-January 5th- Another new year bring new changes to the UNSC fleet. The Aegis and Lancer-Class Destroyers officially enter service with the new MAC finally being designed and manufactured. The Aegis-Class is 885m in length and armed primarily with laser batteries as an anti-fighter ship to replace the Stalwart-Class Frigate as the main escort vessel, the Lancer-Class and 759m is one that works best in groups. Its powerful cruiser weight MAC allows groups of 3-5 to take on the larger vessels and still come out on top.

-January 30th- The first instance of Infantry Battle Droid (IBD) being used in combat is marked with mild success. The droid on their own are practically useless, however much like the grunts are better in large numbers. Armed with standard issue rifles, heat resistant plating and simple kinetic barriers, they're fairly cheap and quick to make. Their programming is basic to allow them to be manufactured in large numbers, so a team of specialists or a Dumb AI controls them from a bunker behind the frontlines.

Human casualties noticeably drop.

-February 3rd- After the demonstration of the IBD, several colonies build factories primarily to build the droid.

-May 7th- After the full investigation into the actions of ONI the division is disbanded and replaced by Human Military Intelligence & Special Operations Command. (HMISOC or referred to as just HMI). It's divided into separate branches, Section 1: Military Intelligence, Section 2: Internal Affairs, Section 3: Special Projects, Section 4: Special Operations. The new intelligence division is headed by Jack Harper and operates directly under High Admiral Hood to avoid any other 'ONI' incidents.

-July 23rd- SDS unveils the Mark I Stryker Plasma Naval Cannon to replace the still kinetic Spitfire Navel Cannons that the Navy had been using even in the face of upgrading weaponry. The Stryker worked in a similar fashion to the Plasma torpedoes, they encased a mass of plasma in an ME field and shot it towards the enemy, however unlike the torpedoes they only fired in a straight line and were slower moving. There were two versions of the Stryker, the Heavy and the Light. The Light is fires faster but weaker bolts of plasma and therefore consumes less energy to fire, thus it is primarily mounted on Frigates and Destroyers. The Heavy is 'heavier' and fires slower but stronger bolts and is therefore mounted on Cruisers and up, generally with Light Stryker's as supplement.

After their introduction, it hails the end for kinetic warfare in space other than the MAC.

-October 15th- Plans are drawn up for a SPARTAN-IV program as the last III's enter service, this time however the HDE is considering taking adult volunteers.

-November 19th- A development off the Stryker is the Hoplite Defence Platform. The weakness on just using the SMAC OPD's is the fact that against boarding parties and fighter craft it's practically defenceless. So to solve that they created another ODP, that's basically a Stryker on a platform with 5 pulse lasers arranged around it. (Imagine a 5 pointed star with the Stryker in the middle) The end goal is to have enough that each SMAC ODP will be able to have a support of 3-5 HDP's.

2554 AD

-February 27th- The Eion-Class Light Carrier enters service along with two new breeds of fighter craft and one technically. The first is a new multirole Fighter, the F-41 Broadsword is rated for both atmosphere and space and becomes the UNSC's mainstay fighter in place of the now dated Longsword. The second is the Interceptor I-17 Katana, which serves primarily as an interceptor in space but can serve as a bomber for anti-ship missions. Both fighters are single man and have a smaller profile than the former Longsword allowing the carriers to the carry more into battle.

The technicality is the Sabre project, which has been in use for nearly a decade now but only as a prototype craft. Despite this the fighters have raised an impressive kill count as a planetary defence craft and officially entered service with the other fighters.

The Eion-Class is only 683m long and serves as a support for mainly patrols due to its weak armament and defences with a light MAC, 4 Pulse laser batteries and 7 Stryker L-PNC's. The shields are also weak and it bares only 2 metres of armour. Its fighter complement however is its strength with 20 Katana Interceptors and 5 Broadsword Fighters for planetary support, mainly when its assists in planetary invasions with the Orion-Class Assault carrier, not that there are many of either.

-April 17th- A prowler tracks a retreating Covenant skirmishing fleet back to a Covenant world that appears to be some sort of supply hub. A big one, with a population of 3 Billion, it's the largest non-home Covenant world the UNSC has found and it's defended like one.

The prowler at first was simply going to drop a NOVA and be done with it however the Smart AI aboard, Evangeline, hacked into the Covenant battle-net and found out that at the time a Covenant Prophet was visiting the world. Although they couldn't specify whether it was one of the High Prophets or simply part of the council, the chance to nab someone in the highest echelons of the Covenant Hierarchy couldn't be passed up.

-April 20th- The UNSC tentatively launches Operation: SLEIGHT OF HAND, the problem with the operation is that the target planet is no significant distance behind the frontline of Covenant controlled space, and since there is a Prophet on the planet it is significantly well guarded.

The operation called for a fleet of 400 vessels to create a beachhead for marines and ODST to distract the planet's garrison. While many lives were lost, in both space and on the ground, the distraction allowed a task force of 150 SPARTAN III's and 25 II's to perform a smash and grab of the Prophet.

Although the target proved to be only a minor Prophet, the SPARTAN taskforce manages to acquire data from Covenant computers in the heart of their base, completely unprepared for the attack they hadn't thought of purging their data banks.

The battle also was the first where the IBD are used in a large scale engagement. They were deployed at the end of the battle and allowed Human forces to retreat in an orderly fashion and without any further risk to servicemen's lives.

-April 21st- SLEIGHT OF HAND is declared a crushing success, the minor Prophet of Belligerence, was a gold mine of information after 'questioning' and reveals a lot of the inner workings of the Covenant, for example their worship of the Forerunners and the High Prophets giving more power to the Brutes.

The most groundbreaking find in the data banks is the discovery of High Charity, a massive 348Km space station that serves at the capital for the Covenant.

-July 25th - The capture of a member of the High Council, no matter how minor, shakes the Covenant to the core. More fleets are pulled out of mothball however rather than the Sangheili, the Jiralhanae are given command of the fleets instead due to the Elites inability to properly protect Belligerence.

-September 7th- Kig-Yar raiding fleets become a common occurrence in the recesses of Covenant space as there are fewer fleets patrolling friendly worlds while their attention is away from the home ground and towards the UNSC frontline. Fleets that were previously meant for pressing Human worlds are turned around to deal with the marked increase in piracy. The stalemate continues.

2555 AD

-February 8th- The use of Unggoy in battles has noticeable decreased and UNSC positions aren't being overwhelmed as often. HIGHCOM can only believe this is the work of their virus.

-May 21st- The Illustrious-Class Frigate enters service. It is made to replace the Paris, Charon and Stalwarts as the backbone of the fleets.

At 627m it remains the smallest mainline vessel in the navy but that doesn't mean it's defenceless. With its larger twin boom and improvements in energy production it allows the frigate to sport dual light MACs instead of one as on previous frigate classes. Secondary armament consists of 5 batteries of Pulse lasers, 20 Stryker L-PNC's and 5 Stryker H-PNC's. And with 75 Archer II pods and 15 Howler pods making up tertiary weapons, the Illustrious can certainly fight evenly with smaller Covenant vessels and support larger classes for bigger targets.

-August 14th- The HMI, now stabilized under Director Jack Harper, sends legions of Prowlers into Covenant space with the intent to map out the entirety of their empire. Ship building centres, industrial and commercial hubs, species' homeworlds are all priority targets.

-November 17th- The first incident of biotic power is displayed on Manassas, Reach. After investigation, HMI Section 3 determines that the cause of the anomaly is due to Eezo exposure in the womb.

-November 20th- Director Harper instructs Section 3 to look into artificially creating biotics in humans; the end goal is to have at least a section of SPARTAN IV's to wield the ability.

-December 21st- Covenant probing attacks pick up in frequency; they curiously display inferior tactics to those normally deployed and upon inspection it's shown that the fleets are dominated by Brutes with little to no Elites present.

2556 AD

-March 7th- The Helix-Class Cruiser takes to the field as the last vessel class part of Operation: PHOENIX.

The Helix is fairly strange when compared to other UNSC classes in its tonnage. Despite being 1.6Km its MAC is a light one usually used aboard Frigates because it's main purpose in the Navy is that of a missile cruiser. Its main method of offence was the 12 Plasma torpedo pods, 200 Archer II, and 50 Howler pods. In addition it carried 15 SHIVA Nuclear warheads and 7 HAVOK's. Due to its larger missile armament its defence had to be slightly downgraded and it has weaker shields and armour than usual and thus tends to stick to the back of a fleet with the carriers.

-March 28th- With the completion of Operation: PHOENIX, a large ship building project is set in motion to decrease the ratio between capital ships and smaller ships, carriers in particular are set to see a large increase in numbers.

-April 19th- R&D finally put back together the advanced sensors the Covenant use, the trouble being that on both vessels captured the sensors were damaged beyond belief and engineers since have been working to put the system back to together from other wreaks caused in skirmishes.

The upgrades made to their own sensors now mean that the Navy can now make relatively accurate jumps. Not to the scale of the Covenant mind you but enough that destroyer wolfpacks are much more of a threat to Covenant capital ships since in system jumps are now within the capabilities of Human ships.

-July 12th- Section 3 determines that biotics can indeed be artificially created in the body. The current theoretical method however is fraught with problems and the implant has high chance of failure with little reward.

As a consequence of the setback the SPARTAN IV program is also delayed.

-November 23rd- The population boom begins to become a problem larger than the HDE once thought. Although casualties are high, the current Human population isn't insignificant by any amount and in less than a decade things are certainly going to get more crowded to the point of a problem. So another network of relays are opened up and two more colony worlds are settled in the Haven sector, Shanxi and Elysium.

There are also plans are also put in motion to resettle some of the outer most worlds in the former Outer Colonies to bridge the gap of territory between the Haven Sector and the Inner Colonies. It is still under consideration.

2557 AD

-January 14th- A decommissioned Paris-Class Frigate comes across strange ship drifting in orbit of a gas giant while probing for Eezo deposits. It's fairly small, just over 200m in length and traces of Element Zero can be found in its hull. Upon closer inspection the ship is organic in nature, with a chitin type structure and armour that's marred with holes and scorch marks.

The captain, against the better judgment of his XO, sends a boarding party aboard the vessel to scout it out, there they discover the remains of a peculiar insect-like race with bodies of varying sizes. After continuous searching of the ship the party eventually discover a clutch of eggs in cryogenic stasis, only one of which gives off life signs when scanned, it is coincidently the largest. About the size of a torso.

Also against the better judgment of the XO, the egg is brought aboard and the ship is towed back to UNSC space.

-January 15th- The Frigate arrives back in Human space and the HIGHCOM now has to decide what to do with both the ship and the egg, both of which are determined to be at least a couple thousand years old. The obvious decision with the ship was to study it and screen anything they could that could be of use.

The egg was more difficult. Having their first engagement with alien species turn into a genocidal war against their very existence, they were obviously wary of the egg's contents. So for now they returned the egg to cryo, their own this time, and decided to hatch it at a later date if they decide to do so.

-March 29th- The research into the organic ship yields results. The chitinous armour on the ship although not stronger overall than their own A3 or A3b but it is more structurally sound. Alone chitin is actually rather weak, brittle and easy to melt. However its strength lies in its ability to conform with other segments of chitin armour, like scale armour or the segmented armour the Romans used. When segments interlock it's able to spread the damage along the segment and mitigate most of the impact or heat, although this isn't enough to become superior to A3 or even A3b is a middle ground between them and A2 previously used.

After experimenting a bit they managed to combine the two into a stronger compound, unsurprisingly named A4, together the two seem to be a possible rival to Covenant Nanolaminate armour given more research. Basically the end result is just A3 mixed with chitin. The chitin works in tandem with the A3 to provide armour that can disperse heat easier and can take one hell of a beating, able to take almost double the punishment before buckling. A bonus is the fact that chitin is easy to manufacture thanks to modern techniques and the A4 is only slightly more expensive to create.

-April 16th- A further development is the CIS 1-Undersuit. After further research, when chitin is heated at a specific temperature it's malleable enough to be weaved into fibres not unlike the carbon fibre used in the past. Like with the starship armour, it's weaker than the IBP mixture used for the power armours, so R&D decided to create an undersuit that infantry men and women can wear as a last line of defence under their armour and shields as its light enough that wearing it underneath everything doesn't make that large a difference in weight.

As of yet there is no further inquiries into hatching the egg.

-September 5th- HMI finally manages to access the insectoid consoles. The trouble was they were using AI's to try and access the systems, but the systems themselves don't interact like Human or even Covenant computers, this is because they are organic like the rest of the ship and function more like a brain than a computer. It's rather peculiar as the 'brain', rather than showing on a screen, inputs information directly to the brain through sound waves.

With this revelation they learn the race is called the Rachni and the war with these 'Citadel Races' they lost thousands of years ago. With access to the network, scientists believe they can have a feasible method of communicating with the Rachni within a year if they decided to hatch it. Still however no decision has been made.

There revelation of there being another alien government present in the galaxy is kept quiet for the time being, and HMI is told to keep their eyes and ears open for any whisper but to not go looking. They do not need a two front war.

-December 14th- Although Humanity seems content with the stalemate along the 'Stalingrad Line' the Covenant beg to differ. At 15:38 on the 24th of December 2557 AD the Covenant launched an offensive spanning the entire 17 world line, although reports vary, the total Covenant armada number nearly 6000 vessels.

-December 17rd- As of 21:19 only 4 of the 17 planets still hold out and the 5 fortress worlds are under siege while Covenant raiding fleets pour into the Inner Colonies without restraint.

-December 30th- Despite reinforcements arriving, New Rome, Eos and Paris IV fall, with the Paris System falling in its entirety at 08:52. Meridian and Trappist Prime continue to hold out with more reinforcements arriving from both sides as conflict rages in system and terrestrial.

QRF's and Battlegroups race around the Inner Colonies attempting to stem the tide of seemingly never ending fleets of the Covenant, tying up anything from being to relieve the besieged fortress worlds in strength. So the UNSC has to endure sending ships and soldiers to the colonies to prevent an even bigger gap forming while they try to avert a total military collapse.

[Downfall?]

2558 AD

-Present time-

Current strength of Navy – 6300 Combat Vessels / 1200 are permanently stationed in the Haven Sector

Current casualties – 19,763,000,000

Arcturus Station – 79% Complete

Earth Daedalus– 8% Complete

Reach Daedalus– 7% Complete

Terra Nova Daedalus– 5% Complete

Current Leader – High Admiral Terrance Hood

Admiral of Admirals – Fleet Admiral Preston Cole

Director of HMI – Lt. Jack Harper

Head of R&D – Dr. Catherine Halsey

(End)

I've always thought the fact that in 500 years our population is only 36 Billion was peculiar when in less than a century we've rises from 1 to nearly 8 Billion. And considering we're expecting to be at 10 Billion by around 2050, I expect by 2500 families would have 'got it on' more often due to the increase in space from the colonisation efforts and families to have around 3-5 kids on the norm.

Also I've set the Human life span to about 200 as 100 years ago we only lived to about 40. 500 years into the future I'm hoping it's a little longer when medical technology has advanced, so being 100 is technically 'middle aged'.

In any case I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thought that it was an accurate divergence to cannon and if you have any suggestion by all means put them in a review or PM me.

-Red