Perchance to Dream (Halo/Mass Effect)

[Night_stalker]

There were 3 Marines there, IIRC, counting Prazza.

 

[Night_stalker]

Might be the SR-2's prototype, or even a 2nd one, incase the first one failed or something.

 

[Cyclone]

I will neither confirm nor deny any significance of the number 117 in this story. I will, however, deny I said anything previously about the significance of the number 117 in this story. That was speculation from namar13766.

I will also add that the discrepancy of information between what EDI says at the end of ME2 and what is seen in ME3 raises a question. That question is, what makes anyone think EDI would actually have access to a centralized archive of all of Cerberus's resources? For that matter, what makes anyone think an underground terrorist organization with highly-placed support like Cerberus would even have such a centralized archive of their resources anywhere outside TIM's head?

And again, can someone get me a full head count on the quarians at Freedom's Progress? I know there were more than two plus Prazza and Tali. Probably best time to get a head count would be right after beating the YMIR and counting the bodies and as well as the injured quarians in the prefab where Tali's holed up at that point, I think. Also, what power set do you figure a Quarian Soldier would have?

 

[Cyclone]

tali, the five we see killed when the heavy mech first shows, the three injured ones tali is working on after you blow up the mech, all I counted on screen

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Thanks.

Does this include you saying everything about Cortana Is a Lie is itself a Lie? (Just Kidding)

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What do you think?

Cannot be true as the Pillar of Autumn Never existed, ergo she cannot have been the AI for it.
And pretending to be an AI for a warship does not prove the capability to actually manage a Warship.

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While it is true that the Pillar only existed in the simulation, it's a lie that the Chief believes, one which therefore Cortana would need to be able to back up. Besides, she's built on the same architecture as EDI, hence why EDI was concerned about being replaced.

I have vague thoughts about a daring mission to the Cerberus HQ, with the Chief leading the charge for rather personal reasons.

BTW, based on the multiplayer classes, thinking the Quarian Soldier would have Adrenaline Rush, either Overload or Sabotage (leaning toward Sabotage), Frag Grenade, Quarian Defender, and Fitness. Thoughts?

 

[Cyclone]

Hmm. How about Carnage, Sabotage, Frag Grenade, Quarian Defender, and Fitness?

Mainly, I'm trying to figure out some general ideas for Prazza's capabilities (he's seen wielding an Avenger, so he's obviously some form of Soldier). As a tabletop gamer at heart, I've found it often helps to put stats on things, even without specific numbers.

 

[Cyclone]

So if everything is a Lie (and God Damn I love that expression), what are Chief's abilities? Does he have all the capabilities of an "actual" SPARTAN II or has Cerberus just given him Mass-Effect style upgrades? Because if it's the latter, I think Chief would notice pretty quickly.

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If you look at all the cybernetic upgrades Shepard can get throughout ME2, honestly, some them are pretty darn similar to what the SPARTAN-IIs got.

Carbide Ceramic Ossification: Heavy Bone Weave
Muscular Enhancement Injections: Heavy Muscle Weave
Catalytic Thyroid Implant: Equivalent could have been induced while he was under.
Occipital Capillary Reversal: Yeah, I'm not even sure what this is, honestly, but enhanced sight could be accomplished with cybernetic replacement.
Superconducting Fibrification of Neural Dendrites: Grants Spartan Time, which is mimicked by Adrenaline Rush.

As for the MJOLNIR, it's basically a hideously expensive, custom-built suit that has a number of ME1-style upgrades built in, like Energized Plating X and Medical Exoskeleton X.

 

[redrangerpower]

Oh. Oh my.

A chimp with some sort of automatic poo flinging device will lose less shit than the Chief will when he figures/finds out about all this.

While the whole "no galactic war, lol April fools" situation does have a decent silver lining on paper (the whole nobody really died thing as already mentioned) John still experienced that whole war. To him, every last scrap of it was absolutely real. Every burned world that he couldn't save, every other Spartan (the closest things he had to family) that he lost, every firefight, every medal. Everything that gave his life meaning for the past four decades of his perception, is rendered utterly moot by this, and I can see the result happening in two stages.

First: A truly biblical Heroic Blue Screen of Death

Second: A roaring rampage of revenge that even Kratos would balk at.

And if John-117 really is "I can't believe it's not Commander Shepard", that's only going to make this worse. Not only would his experiences have all been a crock, but he himself will be no different than the presumably dozens of other clones that Cerberus tried working with.

Everything said, I'm liking the story so far and will be watcing to see where everything goes.

 

[Night_stalker]

Assuming he does.

Therein lies the issue, very few people, NOT including Shepard or EDI actually know about Chief, much less about his VR past, so they can't use that ATM.

Not to mention, TIM, contrary to what the Fandom thinks, ISN'T a moron, and as such, probably has planned for Chief possibly discovering the truth.

 

[Cyclone]

"Tell me, Chief, is this objectively any worse than the SPARTAN Program itself? You were created to be our sword and shield against an adversary that outclasses humanity more than the Covenant or Flood outclassed the UNSC. You would not exist without Cerberus. Did we try to brainwash you into being loyal to us? No. Humanity was, is, and shall always be Cerberus's priority. What is yours?"

 

[Night_stalker]

Exactly my point.

 

[CuriousStranger]

See, people are going on about the Chief finding out and his reactions and stuff, but I'm more curious about his crewmates and teams.

Kelly probably knows Chief's real status and how she has to tread a fine line... but what about others such as, I don't know, an ingenious Salarian professor?

Mordin, in other stories, always had the benefit of seeing ships made entirely different than spec, lacking eezo cores, etc... here. He doesn't. He's not going to buy that story of the Chief being lost from another dimension. Not without any substantive proof. As soon as Cortana opens her mouth to explain the situation, he'll just nod and point out how Cortana's microstutter at certain phrases and general reaction to certain conversational stimuli immediately betrays her origins from this universe due to shared similarities he's seen from AI the STG have worked with.

As soon as he gets a medical history or see his augmentations he'll mention something like no matter how hard Cerberus tried to hide the origins of certain augs, how medtech developers in this day and age are egotistic enough to put their mark down to molecular levels and left a signature all over the nerves.

 

[CuriousStranger]

With the Collectors being the confirmed antagonists at the colony of Freedom's Progress, Mordin became absolutely essential to the story as he was the only one capable of creating a way to neutralize the seeker swarms. If Chief is the one using the Dossiers from TIM, he'll nab Mordin. I suppose it isn't impossible that Cerberus could try to substitute Mordin with a team of top scientists or something though.

 

[Cyclone]

The augmentation is so much beyond Adrenaline Rush because, it's essentially a passive upgrade that's on all the time. Adrenaline Rush would improve it as much as it would improve a normal human it's not a replacement for it.

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That's what it should do, yes. But that's not what I have observed it do, having both played the games and read the novels, except in the very specific case of allowing them to use MJOLNIR safely. What it's observed to do in the games is nothing, nada, zip, as the Chief and Noble Six have exactly the same reaction times as the unaugmented ODST Rookie. What it's observed to do in the novels is grant Spartan Time... which coincidentally is characterized by a time dilation effect identical to what Adrenaline Rush grants.

 

[Jace911]

Cyclone.

This is probably the most impressive thing i have read from you yet.
Love the twist on the cliche Master Chief and Shepard story, but this is just...well, much better.

Looking forward to seeing how everything pans out between Shepard, the Chief and even Cortana.

 

[The Bushranger]

I find this intriguing and I wish to see more.

I wonder why everyone automatically assumes that the Chief will find out the lie eventually (plot power aside)

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Well, there would be no plot without it really, as mentioned before.

Seriously, Cerberus could go from trying to cure the common cold to creating zombies... their MAD SCIENCE knows no bounds! Seriously, every time you hear of a Cerberus scientific project... odds are it went HORRIBLY WRONG. Hell, even the mostly successful ones went wrong. Like how Shepard told them to go screw themselves and stole the Normandy II.

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[Cyclone]

Cyclone.

This is probably the most impressive thing i have read from you yet.
Love the twist on the cliche Master Chief and Shepard story, but this is just...well, much better.

Looking forward to seeing how everything pans out between Shepard, the Chief and even Cortana.

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Thanks. At this point, those three are the key characters, but this 'fic, I think, will allow quite a few minor characters to come to the fore. Kal'Reegar for squadmate, anyone?

Sorry, I just can't get into this story. The whole "everything that chief went through is just a simulation" Just sorta kills the story for me. I don't care how realistic the simulation was. It still didn't happen there for (for me anyway) this isn't the chief.
My brain just can't make the connection.. funny considering we're talking about a fanfic...

It's like a Matrix SG-1 fic I tried to read waaaaaaaaaay back when. The Matrix was real and everything that SG-1 went through wasn't and I just couldn't continue reading it.

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Fair enough. If you can't stand the core concept of the story, I understand. No big deal. There are plenty of 'fics I won't read for similar reasons.

Too bad Raneko. Hopefully you'll be able to come back to the story at some point with fresh eyes.

Cyclone, I got similar comments to this with the first few parts of Blood and Fire - don't let this put you off.

Everyone - yes the Chief's life was a simulation. A simulation controlled by Cerberus, who would have managed his perceptions to ensure that 'switching' to ME tech didn't raise questions. It's hardly a problem, yet alone the insurmountable wall some of you are making it out to be.

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Thanks for the encouragement, Tavi.

Since the Chief and Shepard re likely going to meet on Freedom's Progress, what are the chances that Shepard could convince the Chief to separate from Cerberus? Given that this Shepard must be very persuasive since he was able to convince Saren to kill himself

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Not saying he didn't, but where did I mention Shepard persuaded Saren to kill himself? And even if Shepard did do that, that was only after a whole game's worth of hunting him down, getting in his head, and after already failing once to convince him on Virmire.

I find this intriguing and I wish to see more.


Well, there would be no plot without it really, as mentioned before.

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Thanks, and yes, the time will come, and no, that comic never gets old.

... This is starting to get a little scary. Let's hope nobody on the writing staff reads this, or we are not going to like Halo 5 at all.

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Honestly, that odd quirk was one of the things that inspired this story concept. Well, that, and trying to figure out how to crossover Halo and Mass Effect without the headache of firepower calcs.

 

[Cyclone]

Interesting. The only thing I wonder is how TIM or Cerberus will convince Master Chief of being able to repair his armor down the line.

Given to Master Chief it is of a completely different tech base, even if it really isn't.

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"We had to make a few substitutions."

You didn't mention it, I just assumed that since your Shepard is mostly paragon, he went that route in ME1.

I just mentioned this since I thought it would be hilarious if both Shepard and the Chief gave Cerberus the finger.

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Way, wayyy too early for that.

BTW, maybe it's just me, but the Chief seems like a very poor Shepard substitute. Does anyone seriously see the Chief bothering with the loyalty missions of ME2? Or negotiating alliances like in ME3? Hence why I think he's pretty Renegade, minus the douche bag parts (not to mention the distrust of non-humans he would naturally have). Then again, Shepard's an officer, while the Chief is an NCO. Different mindset there.

 

[sum sine regno]

Not to mention that Master Chief is a rank given to him only for show, the sagnificance of his rank is meaningless to the Chief from what I've observed, he does use it as a front name though. Indeed, Chief wouldn't bother with loyalty missions and would just get his crew to suck it up and soldier on. Same thing goes for the nagotiations.

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I'd think he'd help Miranda and her sister maybe, Jack maybe, and Jacob perhaps, because they all have real problems that he can relate to. Mordin as well maybe, because MC could sympathize with a man who wants to redeem his failings/sins.

 

[CuriousStranger]

There's no reason for the Chief not to do loyalty missions though. I mean, while Shepard hung around after Horizon, you know what he was doing? Nothing. Until Cerberus contacted him about the Derelict Reaper and the Collector Ship dead in space, the only thing he could do was fly around grabbing resources and helping out his crewmates. ME 2 was one long waiting game. If the Chief and his crew have time on their hands while waiting for new missions, I don't see why Chief would object that much.

 

[sum sine regno]

There's no reason for the Chief not to do loyalty missions though. I mean, while Shepard hung around after Horizon, you know what he was doing? Nothing. Until Cerberus contacted him about the Derelict Reaper and the Collector Ship dead in space, the only thing he could do was fly around grabbing resources and helping out his crewmates. ME 2 was one long waiting game. If the Chief and his crew have time on their hands while waiting for new missions, I don't see why Chief would object that much.

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I was thinking about all those people he failed to save, Jenkins, Jackson, Miranda (Keyes) Captain Keyes, Foehammer...

Is it just me or does Miranda having a passing resemblance with Miranda?

 

[Cyclone]

It's not so much that the Chief would object to the loyalty missions as the fact that the Chief is quite unsociable around non-Spartans. Sure, with the mission awaiting intel, he wouldn't object, but who would be willing to bring up their personal issues to him? Even Shepard had to actively inquire what was up with several of them to even find out that there's a mission to be done. Do you really see the Chief doing that? I don't.

 

[sum sine regno]

It's not so much that the Chief would object to the loyalty missions as the fact that the Chief is quite unsociable around non-Spartans. Sure, with the mission awaiting intel, he wouldn't object, but who would be willing to bring up their personal issues to him? Even Shepard had to actively inquire what was up with several of them to even find out that there's a mission to be done. Do you really see the Chief doing that? I don't.

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Kelly could probably give him some "prompting"

 

[The Bushranger]

I think you're right with the whole Officer NCO thing. Officers come up with the grand plans. NCOs take their cues from officers and focus on thoe small picture.

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The traditional comment here is that the NCOs do the actual work while keeping the officers busy so that they never do anything, because an Officer Who Is Doing Something is a Charlie Foxtrot in progress.

 

[Night_stalker]

Consider first off, Cerberus ISN'T a terrorist organization, I imagine TIM will point out that he's more of a Human STG than anything else. Far looser ethics and more resources yes, but still, a Human STG equivalent.

Considering the leading body of power out there has exterminated one race, condemned another to a slow death, and is more than willing to toss put anyone who doesn't follow their rules, sometimes you need all the edges you can get.

 

[CuriousStranger]

Consider first off, Cerberus ISN'T a terrorist organization, I imagine TIM will point out that he's more of a Human STG than anything else. Far looser ethics and more resources yes, but still, a Human STG equivalent.

Considering the leading body of power out there has exterminated one race, condemned another to a slow death, and is more than willing to toss put anyone who doesn't follow their rules, sometimes you need all the edges you can get.

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Are you fucking serious? The games call them terrorists. Yes, the USED to run black ops for the Alliance until they got kicked out. Remember Kahoku telling you all this?