RP:Beyond Veil's Azure

§ Beyond Veil's Azure § A COLLABORATIVE CREATIVE ROLEPLAY INTEGRATING COMMUNITY AND CREATIVE STORYTELLING    The roleplay is being finalized. Please feel free to join! Everyone is allowed to join! Sign below, read the background, and make characters! Contact RelentlessRecusant  if there's any questions.



IN EVERY WAR, THERE ARE MULTIPLE STRATEGIES. Attack and siege. Defense and retreat. Final stands and glorious battles. These have all been tried before. By the UNSC and the Covenant, by the Forerunners and Flood before them. War has never been waged any other way, until now.

It starts, a rogue scarlet spark pulsating in the midnight dark. It swells, engorging with blood and strength, drawing together her countless, vast armies. She is a depthless infinity, a boundless expanse, and existence in herself, alpha and omega held in her hands. Velvet darkness descends, slaying the graceful dawn, suffocating the stars.

This is a story of an ending of an age. How darkness overthrows two hundred millennia of humanity, turns back the clock. This is the end. The twilight of the UNSC. It starts now. THE YEAR IS 2594 — four decades after the end of the Human-Covenant War. The War was long ago. We healed from those scars. Human ambition has leaped across the stars, and we have spread thousands of colonies across the stars, scattering our seed around the galaxy. We are a wildfire, and with every year comes another breakthrough. Medical science has saved countless lives from disease. Governmental power has been returned to the civilian population from the military dictatorship. The rich grow richer, but supercorporations make the necessities of life available even to the poor. We all prosper.

WE BEAT SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES. We are the friends and economic partners of the Covenant. We are safe. Our heroes, the soldiers of the War, now rest with their grandchildren at home. We are at peace.

THE ENEMY BIDES HER TIME. With every victory, we lose. With every breakthrough, she breaks through us. She sabotages our society, falling us to our knees. She has waited in the dark of dusk too long. NIGHT FALLS ON HUMANITY. THE END IS NOW,

BEYOND THE VEIL'S AZURE.

Introduction
"Beyond Veil's Azure" is a tentative collaborative roleplay written by RelentlessRecusant and possibly co-written in collaboration with other administrators. More information to follow. :) Specific information is not available at the time, but interested participants may for the interim contact me at my talk page or my email address (relentlessrecusant@gmail.com). It may be likely that Dragonclaws and / or Rotaretilbo (both administrators of Halo Fan Fiction Wikia) will have moderator positions.

Plotline Background
BEYOND VEIL'S AZURE is the second epoch of the Halo continuity. The Human-Covenant War and the Halo installations, our feuds with the Covenant; all this and more has been forgotten. It is peace within the veil.

This is the next generation of Halo. We star new characters, new heroes, a new epic.

The UNSC Defense Force is now truly a defense force, a territorial force that patrols our colonies. Long forgotten are the titanic weapons and gargantuan vehicles of the War. We forget that we once spilled our blood to ensure that humanity's tender flame was kindled. Our diminished, withered armies and navies do not care for warfare; we have not fought a single battle for nearly forty years. We keep our homes safe from terrorists, from rebels, from pirates. Our special forces are no longer the SPARTANs, those titans that fought the Covenant and shed their blood on our soil. We now have the Myrmidons, the second generation of SPARTANs; highly capable child soldiers with advanced augmentations and training that specifically perform counterterrorism actions. We do not wage war anymore with any armies.

We ask you to fill the rosters of our new humanity. Characters are specifically requested to be UNSC special warfare operators, either in the UNSC Army Ranger Corps, in UNSC Force Reconnaissance, in the UNSC Navy Naval Special Warfare, or in the Office of Naval Intelligence's elite Myrmidon next-generation SPARTAN company. We are highly interested in skilled writers and roleplayers that will make very unique characters, and we are definitely amenable to accepting highly unique and interesting civilian characters or those from other branches of service.

As nighttime draws its cloak across us, there will be warfare, of shed blood, of dying worlds, dying stars. This will be an action-oriented roleplay (RP), featuring both detailed counterterrorism and atrocious large-scale battles. The UNSC special forces fulfill a unique role in the UNSC Defense Force that gives them maximum capability to be involved.

Please speak to RelentlessRecusant about your characters; he offers an opportunity to collaborate with authors that have especially unique characters, and is highly willing to collaborate to form FOTM-grade articles that may be competitively nominated in the future for the Fanon of the Month. This is intended to be a talented and creative project, and we all look forward to the possibilities.

Playable Factions
This is a list of special forces factions that we encourage roleplayers to create characters in and to actively participate in the main plotline, which revolves around the operators of Task Force 51 in their counterinsurgency operations and their unconventional actions to follow... We are highly interested, however, in extremely unique characters and welcome characters that are not limited to these SF units, especially civilians.


 * UNSC Ranger Corps (UNSC Army)
 * The Rangers are the principal reaction force of the UNSC Special Operations Command. At the battalion level, they are an integrated, flexible joint strike force integrating forces across the operational continuum; combining elite light infantry, mechanized forces, aviation assets, indirect fires, and support elements into a singular high-mobility task force that is prepared to reflexively react to hostile conditions in the battlespace. Ranger forces actively support the UNSCSOCOM mission and Ranger infantrymen support operators of Task Force 51.


 * UNSC Naval Special Warfare (UNSC Navy)
 * UNSC Naval Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR) is a tier-one UNSC Special Operations Command division, and is primarily an elite military counterterrorism and counterinsurgency force. While the actions of the Human-Covenant War have forced NAVSPECWAR to perform more mainstream roles in the expansion of the strategic options of UNSC theater commanders, where NAVSPECWAR participated in special reconnaissance and strategic strikes, with the advent of the War's end, NAVSPECWAR has returned to its more traditional counterterrorism and counterinsurgency roles, and NAVSPECWAR Six operators are a core force of Task Force 51.


 * UNSC Marine Force Reconnaissance (UNSC Marine Corps)
 * UNSC Marine Force Reconnaissance (FORCE RECON) is a conventional special operations force (SOF) of the UNSC Special Operations Command, and during the Human-Covenant War, participated in special operations across the battlespace spectrum, performing deep reconnaissance to expand the intelligence assets of the theater commander and providing direct action to surgically obstruct the operations of the hostile contingent and limit the tactical options of the enemy commander. FORCE RECON operators field counterinsurgency roles in Task Force 51.


 * UNSC Special Warfare Group SPARTAN (UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence)
 * III Detachment ("SPARTAN-IIIs")
 * The SPARTAN-IIIs of UNSC Special Warfare Group SPARTAN, Detachment III are a company-level asset in Task Force 51. They are highly experienced shock troops with counterinsurgency experience, and are the mentors of the younger Myrmidons.


 * IV Detachment ("Myrmidons")
 * The Myrmidons of UNSC Special Warfare Group SPARTAN, Detachment IV are a company-level asset in Task Force 51. Myrmidon special warfare operators are principal operators on all counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations performed by TF51, and are characterized by their expeditious speed and surgical efficiency, and Myrmidon operations are high-risk direct action missions that exactingly neutralize an enemy's strategic options, disabling rather than destructive, leaving the enemy commander vulnerable to conventional UNSC infantry forces.

Friendly UNSC Forces

 * Task Force 51 (TF51): UNSC joint strike force that integrates elite operational detachments from every uniformed service in UNSCSOCOM and strategic intelligence from the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence to surgically cauterize increasing concentrations of destructive insurgent activity in the UNSC Outer Rim (the "Borderlands"). Task Force 51 responsibilities principally include counterinsurgency and counterproliferation (CP) of weapons of mass destruction, but also include counterterrorism (CT), psychological operations (PSYOPS), foreign internal defense (FID) and unconventional warfare (UW) to raise indigenous forces against rebellion, and civil-military operations (CMO) to align indigenous forces to the UNSC cause and to obstruct rebel or terrorist recruiting.
 * Kawika Son: Decorated former NAVSPECWAR Six operator that participated in notable combat actions, such as the Battle of Cambridge, the Battle of the Ark, and the hunt for the Forerunner Dreadnaught. Currently holds rank of Vice Admiral (VADM, O-9) with the UNSC Navy / UNSC Special Operations Command, and serves as the senior director of the Myrmidon Program. Because of the major deployment of Myrmidon squadrons to TF51, he also serves as the commander of Task Force 51, and Admiral Son has been principally responsible for TF51 and the majority of UNSC counterinsurgency operations in the Outer Rim.
 * UNSC Counterforce Task Force (CTF): UNSC Navy / UNSC Medical Corps noncombatant task force attached to UNSCSOCOM responsible for the consequence management of the deployment of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), such as thermonuclear capabilities or chem-biol capabilities, or else weapons of mass effect (WME), such as high-yield explosives or the usage of orbital weapons. CTF specialists are often attached to Task Force 51 counterproliferation (CP) operations, where they are expected to suppress, neutralize, and defuse active WMDs and also counterterrorism (CT) operations involving the threat of WMD or WME deployment.
 * UNSC Beyond Veil's Azure: UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence / UNSC Navy stealth frigate currently on reconnaissance-in-force deployment in the Sagittarius Arm, tens of thousands of light-years towards the Galactic Core, far away from the UNSC Outer Rim and Task Force 51's counterinsurgency operations.
 * Kimberly Ivy Blackburn: Former special warfare operator of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, Section Three, and the integral force of PATRIOT / FORECAST. Now forty years old, ten years ago, a highly controvertible arrangement between SPARTAN-091, and Beah Schore, the UNSC Defense Council has resulted in her voluntary retirement from UNSC Special Operations Command. Nepotistic connections with Schore have granted her a position at Harvard University, Department of Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology and Harvard Stem Cell Institute at Cambridge, Massachusetts in Sherman-Fairchild Biochemistry, where she is a Whitney Hayes postdoctoral fellow. She was the paradigm behind the Myrmidon initiative, and was the first demonstration that a human embryo can be manipulated through a chemical biology platform of small-molecule chemical probes, and that combinatorial teratogenesis and postnatal manipulation favorably promotes militarily-useful biological traits. She was an experimental platform for the experimental in utero usage of SCARLET, a Flood mimetic comprised of small-molecule compounds that in vitro is a mutagen and teratogen that promotes the extremely rare expression of quasi-Flood characteristics in cultured cell lines in tissue culture. Recently, the dissection of the molecular mechanisms behind Flood physiology has led to significant advances in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence is interested in the harnessing of particular Flood characteristics, such as augmented cellular regeneration through non-focal telomeric activity, and also modified myocyte physiology, which have been of investigation in the Myrmidon Program. She is a noncombatant on Earth without combat capability.
 * UNSC Special Operations Aviation Reconnaissance (SOAR): UNSC Army special aviator unit, operating fixed-wing and rotary aviation assets in support of UNSC special operations forces. SOAR is a support force of Task Force 51, and has logistical and deployment responsibilities in support of UNSC special forces.

Principal Plotlines

 * "Task Force 51" (Midgard): UNSC special forces counter an onslaught of highly intensive terrorist and rebel activities on Midgard, a planet in the Outer Rim. Substantial deaths of UNSC civilians and guerrilla attrition of UNSC soldiers stationed on the planet have led to the popular labeling of Midgard as the "new Iraq" or the "new Charybdis IX", and the inability of UNSC forces to put an end to the killings has led to the frustration of many in the UNSC civilian populace and the UNSC military. Task Force 51, led by VADM Kawika Son, is now the main player in UNSC counterinsurgency operations on Midgard. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed after thousands of small rebel and terrorist activities; guerilla attacks, hostage events, bombings. However, a rare few suspect that this is only the beginning of something far larger. It is inevitable that actions on Midgard will climax as the civilian and military casualties mount. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on Midgard. ( Principal plotline )
 * "A Troubled Home Front": Isolated curious happenstances have coincidentally conflicted with rebel and terrorist activity in the Outer Rim. In 2590, Madeline Son, the daughter of UNSC special forces commanders Kawika Son and Chandler Danial and a UNSC Naval Special Warfare specialist, went missing on a deep reconnaissance in the Cygnus Arm of the galaxy aboard the UNSC Beckon Dusk Forth during reconnaissance of NGC 2359. Intensive search-and-rescue (SAR) and hostage search operations for months have yielded no trace of Madeline nor the Beckon Dusk Forth, and ceremonies for Madeline were held at the Asphodel Meadows Naval Special Warfare Center. Ever since, both Admiral Son and Master Chief Danial have been socially withdrawn and disturbed by the loss of their daughter thousands of light-years from Earth. Furthermore, recently, colleagues of Kim Blackburn have noted obsessive behavior, and beyond the public's eye, there is potential corporate intrigue emerging at the highest levels of Jennings & Rall and Acumen Science Laboratories, two eminent UNSC corporations...
 * "Deep Reconnaissance": In 2554, the UNSC Beneath Shoreless Waves, a guided missile frigate (FFG) of the UNSC Navy, found a Forerunner construct on Carinae-312 in the NGC 3576 nebula, towards the Galactic Core, which led to the brief but bloody Memory Conflict, almost collapsing the UNSC in a matter of days. However, the discovery of more Forerunner installations beyond the Halos has excited many UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence officers, and a select number of UNSC warships, such as the UNSC Beyond Veil's Azure, have been dispatched on deep reconnaissance missions thousands of light-years away in the Sagittarius or Cygnus Arms of the Milky Way Galaxy under Operation: PURPLE WILLOW. A small Myrmidon team is aboard the UNSC Beyond Veil's Azure, and the Beyond Veil's Azure and its UNSC special forces team are set to reconnoiter the Henize 3-1357 nebula in the ongoing search for Forerunner installations.

Roleplay Locations
''More to come soon. In order to keep the RP principally focused, the beginning of the RP, which features Task Force 51's actions, center on Midgard. Shortly afterwards the RP will become much more freeform and will occur on multiple locations, as per the desire of the roleplayers.''


 * Midgard (11 Draconis System): Please see the actual page for more information. Principal location for the beginning of the roleplay, and host to Task Force 51's counterinsurgency operations.
 * Henize 3-1357: Planetary nebula, the reconnaissance target of the UNSC Beyond Veil's Azure under deep reconnaissance campaign Operation: PURPLE WILLOW, eight thousand-light years from Earth towards the Galactic Core and Sagittarius A*, in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.
 * Cambridge, Earth (Sol System): Home to Harvard University, and home to Kimberly Ivy Blackburn. (non-playable)
 * NGC 2359: Emission nebula, the reconnaissance target of the UNSC Beckon Dusk Forth under deep reconnaissance campaign Operation: PURPLE WILLOW, fifteen thousand-light years from Earth towards the edge of the galaxy, the Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. The UNSC Beckon Dusk Forth and Madeline Son went missing-in-action (MIA) during deep reconnaissance of NGC 2359 in 2590, and two years of intensive UNSC Navy search and rescue (SAR) operations have failed to find any of the UNSC personnel. (non-playable)

Roleplay Characters
Please post characters here :) We encourage users to make characters that are Rangers, NAVSPECWAR, FORCE RECON, SPARTAN, or Myrmidon forces. We are, however, highly interested in extremely unique characters, either in the military or in civilian life. For the beginning of BVA, the plotline will center on Task Force 51 on Midgard. Afterwards, the RP will take a sharp change for the worse (if all goes as planned =P), and conventional UNSC forces, such as naval and infantry forces, will be extensively featured in a very freeform roleplay. =]

Sgt.johnson's characters

 * Tyrone Jackson (ODSTs/NAVSPECWARSIX)
 * Nathaniel White (Rangers)
 * Jack Richards (Ouroboros Contractor)
 * Kyle Davidson (President of HRV Armament Company)
 * Unnamed Office of Naval Intelligence Officer (UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence)

RelentlessRecusant's characters

 * SPARTAN-MYR005 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51): Commander of UNSC Special Warfare Group SPARTAN IV Detachment, valedictorian of the Myrmidon graduating company of 2588. Captain of the UNSC Navy (O-6).
 * SPARTAN-MYR064 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51): Leading Petty Officer of Myrmidon Delta Squadron. Clinical schizophrenic with non-integrative frequent audiovisual hallucinations, presumably because of un-directed in utero Flood teratogenesis that has imparted favorable physical attributions. Currently under high-dosage psycholeptic antipsychotics, antidepressants, and anticonvulsants (mood stabilizers) for treatment of neuropsychological treatments, although physically exceptional and well-qualified in covert and direct warfighting. Chief Petty Officer of the UNSC Navy (E-7).
 * Kawika Son (UNSC Special Operations Command): Commander, Task Force 51 and Commander, Myrmidon Program, strategic commander of Midgard Campaign. Vice Admiral of the UNSC Navy (O-9).

Non-interactable


 * Kimberly Ivy Blackburn (Harvard University, Department of Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology): Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow in the Schore Laboratory, research interests include phenotypic effects of ectopically-expressed Flood-mimicking transcription factors and successive exogenous transdifferentiation / reprogramming processes. Master Chief Petty Officer (Ret.) of the UNSC Navy (E-9).
 * Madeline Son (UNSC Naval Special Warfare Group Six): Partial mission history of NGC 2359 deep reconnaissance (DR) campaign of Operation: PURPLE WILLOW in 2590, including the personnel of the UNSC Beckon Dusk Forth and various operators of NAVSPECWAR Six. Lieutenant, Jr. Grade of the UNSC Navy (O-2).

*ODST Joshie's Chatacters:

 * Sean McCallan (NAVSPECWAR Six)
 * SPARTAN-G024 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)
 * SPARTAN-G094 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)
 * SPARTAN-G173 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)

Delta Team Curt's characters

 * Colonel Curtis Freeman - UNSC Marine Force Reconnaissance. A veteran special forces operator, Freeman has become a seasonded officer within FORCE RECON.
 * Staff Sergeant Cosette Freeman - UNSC Marine Force Reconnaissance. Daughter of Curtis Freeman and Lilya Moskvina. She is a trained NAVSPECWAR operative, but has chosen to serve within FORCE RECON for counterterroism operations on Midgar.
 * Vice Admiral Valerie Rogue - UNSC Aegis Fate. Vice Admiral that has participated in numerous counterterroism operations over the years including JAVELIN, RHINE, HEARTBREAK, and AVENGER.
 * Admiral Alexander Bodet - UNSC Normandy. Aging Admiral of the Human-Covenant War, his ship was found five years ago with 27 crew members in cryostasis after having been lost in late 2551 on the edge of UNSC space. In the changing face of war, he struggles to fit into the modern navy and has to live with the fact he has outlived everyone he has ever known.
 * Tara Delano - Davenport Electronics Director of Internal Computer Infrastructure. A former special forces operator of the UNSC, Delano settled down following her retirement and used her skills in computer technologies to secure a job working with Jennings & Rall as a computer technician for internal computer systems, eventually rising to lead the entire department.
 * Calvin Marks - Ravenwood Solutions Contractor. Former Ranger, Marks joined Ravenwood three years ago to support his family on Atlas, during several contracts he has gone above and beyond to safeguard his fellow contractors and make sure the job is done safely.
 * James Carter - Jennings & Rall Director of Shipping and Logistics (J&R Administrative Division). Director of Logistics for J&R, Carter has always been keen when it came to organization, his gift has landed him in a spot running the entire section of J&R in cuarge of supplying the companies vast number of locations.
 * Various Jennings & Rall employees

Actene's Characters
* See Halo: Beckon Forth Sunrise, a short story written by RelentlessRecusant and approved by Actene, that provides a partial introduction for Actene's charas into BVA :)
 * SPARTAN-G294 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)
 * SPARTAN-G006 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)
 * Agent 2994 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)
 * Artemis 2995 (SPECWAR SPARTAN / Task Force 51)

Interested Participants
Sign below :) Feel free to speak to me about this and find out details before you think it through. Everyone is allowed to join :)


 * 1) RelentlessRecusant
 * 2) Sgt.johnson
 * 3) Actene
 * 4) FightWithHonor
 * 5) ODST Joshie
 * 6) Kebath 'Holoree
 * 7) SPARTAN-118
 * 8) H3
 * 9) Jawsredfield
 * 10) ONI recon 111
 * 11) Subtank/Ascension

Acknowledgments
RelentlessRecusant gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Lieutenant D.W. of the Singapore Army, Singapore Armed Forces, for assistance with the military aspects of Beyond Veil's Azure, and acknowledges various members of Harvard Stem Cell Institute, UMDNJ-RWJ University Hospital, and UMDNJ-RWJ Medical School for mentorship and ethical and technical thoughts regarding the augmentation protocols for Kimberly Ivy Blackburn and the Myrmidons.