Shadow of Intent (Halo)

[LordNox122]

Some author's notes before we get underway:

1. This is my first Quest on this forum. I've some experience with questing, but it's from a website some of you may know of, which has... less-than-stellar moderation. (My username on that site is altosanctus284)
2. I am ADHD and easily distracted- even from the things I love, which includes this. Updates, thus, are NOT scheduled. It's a very demoralizing flaw, I know. If you feel like you can't stand the lack of proper schedule, that's fine.
3. As I mentioned in 2, I'm ADHD... and way too full of ideas. You might see more quests crop up, even though this isn't finished. Unless you hear it straight from my lips text box thing, this quest ain't dead.
4. I will never say "no smut" outright, barring ethical/moral concerns (i.e.: that isn't a 700 year old loli, that really is a small child). So, yeah. If one of my quests starts out in the SFW side, that just means no lewds were planned ahead of time.

With all that out of the way, we got some starting polls to fill out.

 

[LordNox122]

Looks like our protag will be a Spartan. Since I can't add more polls it looks like, I'll condense the next few votes down.

Vote 1: Gender.

[ ] Male
[ ] Female

Vote 2: Era

[ ] Discovery of Alpha Halo: Quest will take place from the Pillar of Autumn's crash on Alpha Halo onwards. Protagonist will either replace Master Chief, or alternatively, history will have proceeded differently from the Fall of Reach, and protag will be a survivor of Reach. (basically Combat Evolved in coop mode)
[ ] Fall of Reach: Quest will take place during the Covenant assault on Reach. Protag will either be Noble Six, or one of the numerous other Spartans from Reach. Survival highly unlikely- but possible.
[ ] Battle for Earth: Quest begins in New Mombasa during the Covenant's direct attack on Earth. As with Alpha Halo, the protag will either completely replace Master Chief, or be a Spartan from Reach that went MIA until the events of Halo 2. Actually MIA, not Spartan-MIA.
[ ] Forerunner Resurgance: Quest Begins during the events of Halo 4. Protag can either be a Spartan IV aboard the Infinity, a Reach Survivor, or replace Master Chief.

Vote 3: Protag Options

[ ] Canon Replacement: Character is either Noble Six, or a replacement of Master Chief.
[ ] In Parallel: Character is a "Coop" addition to Noble Team or Master Chief.
[ ] Separate Yet Connected: Character does not replace the canon main character, but also doesn't join them in "Coop." Instead, character follows their own journey through the setting of Halo. (In the case of Delta Halo, they will be separated from Master Chief, and carry out their own ops in other sectors of Delta Halo.)
[ ] Spartan IV: (unique to Forerunner Resurgance) Designates the protag as a Spartan IV from Infinity. Use this as a modifier to one of the other votes in this section, rather than a stand-alone option for this vote.

Vote 4: Protag Core Personality

[ ] Calm and Reserved: Close to Master Chief's personality in the games. The protag isn't humorless or devoid of emotion, but they tend to keep to themselves and focus on the task at hand.
[ ] Jovial and Jocose: Quick with a quip (regardless of taste), the protag is amiable and talkative. They're not always funny, but they do try to bring a certain levity to any situation.
[ ] Sadistic and Dire: To them, any day a covvie isn't bleeding is a day that isn't complete. Vicious at heart, they can be a bit unsettling- but they know where their loyalties lie.
[ ] Professional and Composed: "We do this by the book" is something you might hear often from this protag. They're not inflexible, just organized.
[ ] Write in a suggestion: Give a short summary of a personality style you don't see, but think should be an option.

 

[1986ctcel]

[X] Female
[X] Forerunner Resurgance: Quest Begins during the events of Halo 4. Protag can either be a Spartan IV aboard the Infinity, a Reach Survivor, or replace Master Chief.
[X] Canon Replacement: Character is either Noble Six, or a replacement of Master Chief.
[X] Jovial and Jocose: Quick with a quip (regardless of taste), the protag is amiable and talkative. They're not always funny, but they do try to bring a certain levity to any situation.

 

[OblivionFan007]

[X] Female
[X] Fall of Reach
[X] Noble Six
[X} Deadpan Efficiency: Sworn to defend Earth and all Her colonies, by any means. No act too brutal, no quarter asked or given, the covenant aren't covered by the geneva convention and they do so look good soaked in napalm. They're a little off putting, keeping people at arms reach, but don't let that fool you. Humor dryer than Crassus and sarcasm with more bite than a Brute lurk just under the surface, locked away behind that helmet.

 

[Otokonoko Culture]

Alright, first off, the gender, protag options, and core personality are, in my opinion, secondary to the single most important choice. What era are we in? Halo Reach, Halo:CE, Halo 2, and Halo 4 are our options and would you look at that it's a straight line timeline. Everything after Reach can be reached *eventually* but starting later won't let you go mess with things before. While it's likely that most of the core story of the games will stay the same, it's not about the destination, it's about the grunts we kill along the way.

Assuming we manage to not die during the main invasion and that the game is taken as canon, the Pillar of Autumn is one of the last ships off that rock, leaving a nice straight forward way to bridge the gap to Halo 1. If we *fail* to get on the pillar of autumn, the Master Chief brings the Ascendant Justice back to reach and ends up on the surface, giving a second chance to link up with the main plot prior to halo 2 (and, in fact, this is where I would expect for a Noble 6 insertion to relink with the plot; there's plenty of time and material to play cat and mouse with the covenant before the master chief time travels backward in order to link up with his forerunner artifact). So if we want to skip out on stuff, there's plenty of space to skip out on.

From there, it's all about character design. I prefer to go with the protagonist as Noble Six, who is a sufficiently blank slate that you can write anything in there. Master Chief really isn't a blank slate, and I feel that overwriting him has significant story consequences on the whole; I don't feel that *any* spartan in his shoes would have gotten the job done. Chief isn't just "Spartan 117" he's John. So a conditional vote for Canon Replacement; if we end up with a different era, swap it for a vote for In Parallel.

Of the 4 given personality types, I'm actually disinclined toward J&J (for some reason it brings to mind Tucker). Based on having to contrast with Fireteam Noble for the beginning of the story, I'm going to have to do a write in. If Calm and Reserved is the Chief, Sadistic and Dire is definitely something that brings to mind Emile. Professional and Composed would clash with the presentation of Six as a "Lone Wolf" (which, granted, is all Tell rather than Show characterization) type, and so I'll throw in a write in.

[X] Female
[X] Fall of Reach
[X] Noble Six
[X} Deadpan Efficiency: Sworn to defend Earth and all Her colonies, by any means. No act too brutal, no quarter asked or given, the covenant aren't covered by the geneva convention and they do so look good soaked in napalm. They're a little off putting, keeping people at arms reach, but don't let that fool you. Humor dryer than Crassus and sarcasm with more bite than a Brute lurk just under the surface, locked away behind that helmet.

Now that the vote's out of the way, I have to question how meta we're allowed to vote and about base premise, particularly what you as the quest runner want to see out of this quest.

 

[LordNox122]

Very good points all, Otokonoko. I'll allow some meta voting- but not too far out there. Our protag isn't psychic, after all. But there's nothing to say that the protag can't think "out of the box," so to speak.

But yes, you're very correct in that outright replacing Chief would ramp up the difficulty quite a bit. Six is a less dangerous replacement, because... well, competence is the only trait 100% confirmed about them. Otherwise, they're a blank slate. (Redactions for days) That being said, the... Forerunner trilogy seems... far more "surmountable" for non-Johns than the original Covenant War trilogy/anthology. (Is it still a trilogy if you include the prequel and side-story?) Base premise is somewhat flexible, being a partial retelling, with the chance of throwing some of the events of canon off-center. (Granted, core plot points will still occur. I.E.: Reach will still be an absolute shitshow- it's just that in this hypothetical timeline, a couple more Spartans than just John might have survived it.)

As an aside: I was actually thinking a mix of Buck and Sgt. Johnson for J&J. Though, I will admit, some Tucker crossed my mind.

 

[Otokonoko Culture]

That being said, the... Forerunner trilogy seems... far more "surmountable" for non-Johns than the original Covenant War trilogy/anthology.

Click to shrink...

Personally, just about everything from the kilo-5 trilogy onward has kind of been really lackidasical in quality, writing wise. While it's more managable, I think that you run into the problem of most of what you're adapting just being poorly thought out.

The core 3 Halo games were a two part trilogy; Halo:CE was a stand alone episode that didn't need a prequel and left plots hanging for a sequel but didn't demand one. Halo 2 is also fairly stand alone from Halo:CE, but it straight up didn't have an ending and Halo 3 picks up 10 minutes later, with most of halo 3's story being stuff planned for inclusion in halo 2 until they had to cut it down for scope.

So far, Halo 4 and Halo 5 have had wildly different tones and have not been very cohesive storywise (along with significant retcons to things established in the prior games). I mean, the two different people that Halo 4 set up to be the big bad in the trilogy have both been killed by the mid point of Halo 5. The Didact in a side story comic book before the game and Jul M'damee in a cutscene. While I would not say that getting something fun and cohesive out of the forerunner trilogy is impossible, I think that you kind of have an uphill battle there.

Reach will still be an absolute shitshow- it's just that in this hypothetical timeline, a couple more Spartans than just John might have survived it.

Click to shrink...

It's worth noting that, for all he was hyped up as The Last Spartan, John was demonstratably not the last spartan as early as First Strike, which had Kelly, Linda, and Fred (among a number of others) show up when the chief went back to reach, and current canon even holds that Jun (of noble team) is one of the ranking officers organizing the SPARTAN-IV program.

 

[LordNox122]

It's worth noting that, for all he was hyped up as The Last Spartan, John was demonstratably not the last spartan as early as First Strike, which had Kelly, Linda, and Fred (among a number of others) show up when the chief went back to reach, and current canon even holds that Jun (of noble team) is one of the ranking officers organizing the SPARTAN-IV program.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. I didn't know that Jun canonically survived, but since everyone else got a verifiable (if not on-screen) death but him... I figured, but didn't want to assume.

While I would not say that getting something fun and cohesive out of the forerunner trilogy is impossible, I think that you kind of have an uphill battle there.

Click to shrink...

Yeah no, I absolutely have my work cut out for me there. Needless to say, some of the most extreme canon alterations will probably occur to the Forerunner Trilogy.

 

[Alertpoet91]

[X] Female
[X] Fall of Reach
[X] Noble Six
[X} Deadpan Efficiency: Sworn to defend Earth and all Her colonies, by any means. No act too brutal, no quarter asked or given, the covenant aren't covered by the geneva convention and they do so look good soaked in napalm. They're a little off putting, keeping people at arms reach, but don't let that fool you. Humor dryer than Crassus and sarcasm with more bite than a Brute lurk just under the surface, locked away behind that helmet.

 

[Renko]

Kinda ironic that the whole quest is named after a Covenant ship yet the main MC is going to be a Spartan...

 

[Otokonoko Culture]

Kinda ironic that the whole quest is named after a Covenant ship yet the main MC is going to be a Spartan...

Click to shrink...

And if things go right the shadow of intent might never even appear

 

[Relent26]

[X] Female
[X] Fall of Reach
[X] Noble Six
[X} Deadpan Efficiency: Sworn to defend Earth and all Her colonies, by any means. No act too brutal, no quarter asked or given, the covenant aren't covered by the geneva convention and they do so look good soaked in napalm. They're a little off putting, keeping people at arms reach, but don't let that fool you. Humor dryer than Crassus and sarcasm with more bite than a Brute lurk just under the surface, locked away behind that helmet.

 

[Gigant]

[X] Male
[X] Discovery of Alpha Halo: Quest will take place from the Pillar of Autumn's crash on Alpha Halo onwards. Protagonist will either replace Master Chief, or alternatively, history will have proceeded differently from the Fall of Reach, and protag will be a survivor of Reach. (basically Combat Evolved in coop mode)
[X] In Parallel: Character is a "Coop" addition to Noble Team or Master Chief.
[X] Professional and Composed: "We do this by the book" is something you might hear often from this protag. They're not inflexible, just organized.

 

[Edelweiss]

[X] Female
[X] Fall of Reach
[X] Noble Six
[X} Deadpan Efficiency: Sworn to defend Earth and all Her colonies, by any means. No act too brutal, no quarter asked or given, the covenant aren't covered by the geneva convention and they do so look good soaked in napalm. They're a little off putting, keeping people at arms reach, but don't let that fool you. Humor dryer than Crassus and sarcasm with more bite than a Brute lurk just under the surface, locked away behind that helmet.

 

[wingnix]

[X] Female
[X] Fall of Reach
[X] Noble Six
[X} Deadpan Efficiency: Sworn to defend Earth and all Her colonies, by any means. No act too brutal, no quarter asked or given, the covenant aren't covered by the geneva convention and they do so look good soaked in napalm. They're a little off putting, keeping people at arms reach, but don't let that fool you. Humor dryer than Crassus and sarcasm with more bite than a Brute lurk just under the surface, locked away behind that helmet.

 

[Gigant]

Looks like female six is gonna win

 

[Otokonoko Culture]

The author has attempted to start two other quests, both of which died before reaching 2 pages in length.

They havent posted in this thread since january.

Its dead jim