User talk:Spartan 501/Archive 3

Oh hey I actually got a message from somebody :D
Since the Priory of Regret is mostly matt's thing, and he's already said it's fine, go right ahead dude. :P I'd love to pair the two together, gentry severely needs something to do. XD I should warn you thogh, August 31st 2551 is when Gentry ends up splitting into two sub-teams. If something happens on/after that you'll have to deal with only one of them for my personal storytelling purposes :/-- Den fryktedehodet  21:10, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

ARES?
Heya, 501. I was curious as to if I could create an S-II Class-III. I already checked with Matt, but was told to check with you as well. Thanks. :D Regards, Skalapp 21:48, September 27, 2010 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks, man! :D Skalapp 19:55, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

GASP
Alright I changed the tags thanks for your help too. Gun.

Thanks
Thanks. from gun

RE: Town stuff
The greatest state, absolutely. Kent being the greatest city is like people thinking Mario Kart is a more realistic racing simulator than Forza Motorsport. :P

Pew-al-lup

My accent is of the Pacific Northwest variety as all of my family, including my parents are from here. Even living in Japan, California, Virginia, etc. didn't give me enough time to form anything different. And boy am I thankful for that. :P


 * Being the great sports city means very little to me. :P

Mutual Inactivity
As you can probably tell from the article, I haven't made much in the way of progress either - I've become bogged down in the notion that I can't continue until I finish my tie-in fanfic VENATOR, and I've got writer's block for that - I've got my characters in some difficult situations, but I can't figure out interesting ways to take it from there. Hopefully, indulging in another part of VOR with different characters and a different history and objective will get me out of this funk!  Specops306   Autocrat     Qur'a 'Morhek   01:39, March 10, 2012 (UTC)

RP DRACO III JOINT SOC
Hello, the Office Of Naval Intelligence has sent you this letter via [TRANS-COM] to inform you that you are invited to the upcoming Naval RP The Battle Of Draco III (Naval RP).

You are invited to write for either UNSC, or Covenant assets. If you would please consider this invitation seriously, and get back to my office in the city of Visamere, Reach, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you --UNSC Office Of Naval Intelligence Captain Foster 17:48, March 15, 2012 (UTC)

VOR
By all means!

specops306@gmail.com

I've got university work, my own fanon stuff, plus a...project coming up very soon, so having someone else get back in the game would be much appreciated!  Specops306   Autocrat     Qur'a 'Morhek   07:29, March 28, 2012 (UTC)

Hey there, friend! I've been gone for a while, haven't I? Well, it's still not totally certain whether I'll be back or not, but I've been hooked enough these last few days to brainstorm ideas for my future plans. It's just a matter of connecting the dots and getting those things done - which of course is the most difficult part ;)

That said, one thing I'm fairly certain on, is that I'm going to reduce the number of spartans I have (I'll most likely not delete any - not those that have their own articles, anyway - but rather transfer them to Baccus; it serves the same purpose and doesn't render other people's articles obsolete), and try to connect them together a bit more, and convincingly so. As part of that, I plan to remove the Black & Covert operations stuff and simply have Laz be recruited by dear ol' DRACULA.

And regarding Laz, there's two things I'd like to run by you to see what you think:
 * 1) Since he's probably going to be DRACULA's lapdog rather than Admiral Rich's, I started thinking about a new codename, but I came up with several choices. So, which of these do you personally prefer? IMPALER (fun fact; the guy traditionally identified as Count Dracula was known as Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Tepes in his local language), TEPES (see last one), DRAGON/DRAKE/HIGH DRAGON/DRAGONLING (both a reference to Dragon Age: Origins and to the fact that "Dracula" means "son of the Dragon"), SPACER (reference to Mass Effect - one of the background choices available for the PC), LAZARUS (sounds similar to his name, a reference to Lazarus from the bible and to Project Lazarus in Mass Effect 2), or NIGHTWING (after the superhero - it sounds cool, but see below for the other reason)
 * 2) When thinking about Laz's background again, I came to two conclusions; one, that I would like Laz to be more of a minority than he currently is (if you don't recall, he's genetically american but raised by hungarian parents), two, that I thought it'd fit better if he did suffer a few visible side effects from the augments (which DRACULA would then cure/fix/counteract, and thus convince Laz to work for him). Both of them made me think of possible alternatives for his appearance out-of-armor, and I got really attached to Kai Leng's character model in ME3 (which, btw, earned him the fan nickname of "Nightwing", because of his eye implants resembling Nightwing's mask). So, essentially, what I want your opinion on is: should I (a) stick to his old appearance (IE this) (b) change it (to this) or (c) not change it, but keep looking for other possibilities? The whole thing's mostly a nitpick, and I'm not planning a major personality change or anything to go along with the appearance plans, so if you're against any changes, I could be easily convinced.

I realize some of these things could affect your articles too in many ways, which is why I'm running it by you. Assuming I continue to stay active, I'll get back to you when I have more concrete plans for my other spartans - especially if they regard Rachel and the other Class IIIs/ARES, to make sure I don't cause you more trouble than necessary - though it would be hilarious to cause you trouble :P

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the immense wall of text. And here's hoping that your input isn't met with failure as I once again fell into the well of inactivity :P

Nice to hear from you. And don't worry about being late with the reply - I've been gone for at least half a year, haven't I? Probably a full year, actually. Though I suppose "better late than never" is still in effect ;) Now now, I don't hate them, I just use the gift of hindsight and realize there are more than a few flaws, then try to correct them. And after talking with Lomi, there's actually only two or three spartans with their own articles I'm getting rid of - none of which affect any of your stuff, I hope. And even the ones I'm getting rid of I'm passing on to Baccus so that they're still around, just not clogging up my category space unnecessarily. Speaking of the Class IIIs, one part of my overhaul of Laz's article includes shifting him from being an affiliate of the covert/black ops groups to working for DRACULA. Unfortunately, that also affects ARES, since at the moment they're tied to covert ops too. This could mean either: (a) we rewrite so that ARES is one of DRACULA's projects instead of Rich's (b) have ARES still be Rich's idea, and Laz just gets assigned to the project with DRACULA's consent (maybe Rich and D could've come up with the project together?), or (c) we cut Laz from the project entirely and use another instructor. Personally I prefer (a) or (b), but as the Class III article was originally yours, you'll have the last word regarding its fate, and if you have a different suggestion, let me hear it. Thanks for the help, friend - I hope you'll be willing to lend more of it when I have more concrete things to ask you about. I'll let you get back to work :)

Hmm, yeah, that sounds good. Good thing we could take care of that so easily. Plus, it gives me a bit of leeway for Rachel, in case I want to change something there as well. Once/if I'm done, I'd gladly be the one to write the necessary changes - saves you the time :)

He probably will, though we (I and Specops) haven't really decided exactly how yet. I'll think on it once I've finished planning the earlier stages of his career.

I do hope to get them running again, but I don't know if I want to do more of them while I'm still unsure of what exactly I'm planning for the future - I'm still weighing my options and considering alternate possibilities for many of my articles, as well as planning new stuff (two elite characters, among other things, if you're curious). Plus, I have to consider what entries I'll have to alter if I make a particular writing choice. I'm hoping we won't have to change much though - Laz could easily be lying to Standoff (poor guy) about the "working for covert ops" details to keep his cover and/or DRACULA's involvement secret (though having to do that would probably tear him up a little inside once getting to know the colonel - which is why I like it >:3). Suggestions?

Indeed, that would be interesting, and my gives my little spartan some additional depth. Besides Laz, which of the ARES members do you figure would want to be there for Standoff when he breathes his last, or attend the funeral. I figure Rachel and Balduin would show, with the former bawling her eyes out for once :P Speaking of spartans, I think I've decided how and what I want to do with all of them. Listening to your and Lomi's opinion that I get rid of my spartans too often, I've decided to keep that to a minimum and instead subtly alter details or keep them largely the same. Laz I'm still considering what changes I will or won't make, but here's what I've come up with:
 * I'm placing my focus and energy (and writing time) in particular on three characters: Laz, Cassandra and Jane. What that means is I intend for those to be my "main" articles, IE the longest ones, and the ones I'll do the most with. This in turn means I'll try and keep them sufficiently different/separate from each other.
 * Laz will most likely be a solo leonidan agent for DRACULA most of his career, but I've also considered having him form a team out of class III survivors like Rachel, Balduin and possibly others as the teams get decimated.
 * Cassandra I'm planning on altering so that she did get crippled in the augments like canon says, but then eventually fixed and made leader of Gauntlet Team (though I need to discuss that part with Lomi).
 * Jane I'm hoping to keep roughly the same - IE as a headhunter - but instead of having her and her partner join Herald Team I'd give them to Winter Team (replacing two of the members that I didn't even plan to write articles for).
 * Rachel, Balduin and Hào will still have their own articles, but probably not as long as the previous three. Therefore it won't hurt if they're connected with each other and/or with the other three in some way.
 * Rachel and Balduin I want to keep roughly the same, though as mentioned above, it's a possibility to have them and one or two other surviving ARES members form a team with (or without) Laz.
 * Hào I intend to keep the same, just his team roster might be different.
 * Bonnie is the only spartan article (except for Mattias-256, which has nothing written on it anyway) that I'm considering to get rid of - and by get rid of, I mean give it to Baccus rather than have it deleted. That way, I get to combat my nagging annoyance with there being only male leonidans and at the same time not waste efforts on an article I'm not that concerned about nowadays. An alternative is that I make her a headhunter instead, have her lose her first partner, and then pair her up with Jane (or, she starts out as a leonidan, then gets assigned to headhunter, then get paired up with Jane).
 * As for the teams (Sienna, Winter, Herald, Yellow and Gauntlet);
 * Sienna's the team I hope to repurpose as the ARES-survivor group - which I need to discuss with Lomi, since he also has some of his characters assigned to it. Alternately, I come up with a different name and give the team to Lomi.
 * Winter, as I said, I'm planning on assigning Jane and her partner (possibly Bonnie, but more likely Nessa like before) to. Hào will remain, but Rachel and Balduin will probably go to that class III team.
 * Herald I'll probably delete: without Jane in it, it doesn't serve any purpose.
 * Yellow is unnecessary if Cassandra's removed - could always be mentioned as being her team during the training phase, but otherwise doesn't serve any purpose.
 * Gauntlet, I'm planning to assign Cassandra to, but otherwise I don't intend to make any changes. I'll have to discuss it with Lomi though.

I don't know if all that made much sense, but I hope you understand it well enough to give feedback. And if you have any counter-suggestions or questions, let me know.

Don't worry about being late - I haven't had too much free-time myself this last week, so I haven't really gotten very far on my reconstruction efforts.

Anyway, thanks for the input - for once you and Lomi had roughly the same opinion (why can't you always have the same opinion when I ask for help? *mumbles angrily*). Still, I think I'm coming close to a decision regarding Laz's appearance (wasn't easy - you want him to keep his old look, Specops thinks I should change it to Kai Leng, and Lomi apparently always considered him looking like Michael Hurst for some reason): as it stands now, I'll probably keep the old look for his adult appearance, use the Hurst pic to represent his older self (luckily Tudyk and Hurst looks reasonably similar to each other, at least to me) and use Kai Leng's likeness for another spartan - Hào probably. What do you think?

Speaking of spartans, I was also thinking about Balduin. When I conceived him, I considered him 'african', which in hindsight is very vague, as there are a lot of african peoples (the western world has really come to use 'Africa' and 'african' for things it shouldn't), so I thought about making him specifically south african - the offspring of a Boer (descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers of South Africa, in case you didn't know) and an ethnic black man/woman (haven't thought about which parent would be which). Do you think that'd work? In addition, I've toyed with the idea of him being totally crippled by the augments and then getting repaired by DRACULA on Laz's insistence, to give him a slightly different reason to join Sienna than Rachel. Thoughts?

Hào's the one from DIVINE SON - the leader of Winter Team. And Steve the Pirate? I thought Alan Tudyk was mostly known for Wash from Firefly/Serenity. Although, I guess you haven't seen either, like me.

And you misunderstand; I'm not making ethnicity a big deal, just introducing some genetic and cultural variety to escape the homogeneous American people & culture we've mostly seen in Halo. As for Class III WIAs, nope, we've not written anything on them as far as I know. Guess Bal could be the first :) Matt-256 10:46, April 20, 2012 (UTC)

M16A8 Image
Hey 501, could I use your M16A8 image in one of my later projects?--B1blancer2 14:22, July 9, 2012 (UTC)

Missed Jokes and such
Hey 501, can I use your M16A8 page for my stories? If so, thanks, if not, I respect your decision.--B1blancer2 (talk) 22:12, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

Hey 501, I know I might come off as a bit arrogant, but would you be willing to help me in my series, Rebel Reprisal, on the UNSC side of things?--B1blancer2 (talk) 18:37, November 10, 2012 (UTC)

VOR - Laz
I like it! I think it absolutely makes sense that ONI would want an "inside man" in the Spartans, and that they would choose one of their own to go through the augmentations - providing an inside presence, intelligence, and access to field areas and material that their own forces can't get to without suspicion being raised. And while haven't actually had an opportunity to play Spartan Ops yet, I have been watching the Youtube cutscenes and while I like the story they're telling, I definitely think these new "Spartans" feel more like bulky Marines; gung-ho, cocky and arrogant, not the professional warfighters that the Master Chief and his own class, and even the S-IIIs, were. And I'm not entirely unconvinced that it isn't deliberate, either on someone's part in-universe, or on 343i's part to make the Chief look greater by comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if it was partially sabotage to discredit the notion of the S-IVs! I also like how you tie Laz into the Spartangate event - it feels natural, organic, and not forced.

I really wish I was more involved here again! I have other projects going on, and classes starting in a couple of weeks, so I don't imagine I will be able to make much of a return in the near future. Hopefully someday, when I have less on my plate, and more time on my hands! User:Morhek 03:02, February 7, 2013 (UTC)

I...LIVE!...barely
Okay, this is really, really late, so first of all, sorry about that. Heck, you're probably no longer active either. But hey, I did some reading up on Dwindling Flame and felt I had to thank Ahalosniper for trying to finish the damn thing, so I might as well leave a message to you too, just in case. Anyway, technical difficulties and conflicting interests aside, I'm alive - just not active on wikia much. Honestly, I kinda lost my enthusiasm a bit when I lost all my word documents with stuff I had written for the big overhaul of my articles and later when my second computer had to be sent in for repairs after just a couple months of use. Even now, I'm not sure if I'm ever going to get active here for real again. However, after playing (and really enjoying, surprisingly enough) Halo 4, I've started getting ideas again, so I'm busy contemplating coming back (again). That said, this time I don't intend to come back until I've finished most, if not all, of my planned writing in word, so that I don't come back, write a few articles, start a story, and then just drop off the radar again without doing anything of note. Plus, this way I hopefully won't bring anyone false hope by showing up, saying I plan to do stuff, and then don't follow through (damn, Dwindling Flame was a fitting title, wasn't it?). TL;DR: I'm considering coming back and doing some writing in word now and again, but I'm not making any promises. For what it's worth, sorry for leaving you hanging, and I hope to hear from you sometime :) Matt-256 (talk) 16:57, June 25, 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, we definitely should :) Good to see you're still kinda around. Matt-256 (talk) 14:34, June 29, 2013 (UTC)

Still not sure if I'm coming back for real, but I did write some Ares Log entries and decided to put them up. All of 'em are Laz's journal entries, mostly his reaction to the augmentations, an explanation for Balduin being cited as being in the field with Orange despite being wounded in the augments, as well as setup and exposition on Laz forming Sienna Team with Rachel, Bal and Lomi's class IIs Silvie and Darcy - one of the plans I had for my previous "comeback" plans, and one of those I didn't feel the need to change. I also made a decision regarding Laz's leonidan status that means we hopefully won't have to change anything on the Class III article - he's still Rich's leonidan, but DRACULA (through the alias MORIARTY) gets to act as his handler, being Rich's second-in-command (and later in charge of the covert ops group after Rich croaks). Hope I didn't make things confusing this way. See ya. Matt-256 (talk) 20:11, July 6, 2013 (UTC)

Thanks :) I do have some ideas for an entry on Standoff's funeral. Don't know whether it should be a regular journal entry or a cam-recording (filmed by an ONI officer tailing Laz for whatever reason), or both. Then there's the matter of when it would take place, where, and what guests (Laz, Bal and Rachel are obvious, and I'm guessing Connor and Roger would pop by if they could, but who else? Do you think Standoff had any extended family or friends left?). Other than that, I could always fill out the journal entries between 2540 and 2548. Wish me luck :) Matt-256 (talk) 07:50, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

Will do :) Speaking of which, I just added a couple journal entries and an audio log about Rachel. It's funny how easy these are to write: I've been having writer's block on my actual articles, but these I manage to churn in just a couple hours. Oh, and I just noticed that the article was voted a Good Article - good job :) Matt-256 (talk) 10:28, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

Oh stop, you're making me blush ;) But yeah, it felt in-character for Laz to suspect they might pull something like that, so I went ahead and did it. And I realized I had to start showcasing Rachel's depths a little, and she doesn't feel like the type to write a journal, so interviews or recorded events are the best way to do that (the fact the audio log comes immediately before her performance report was coincidental, but fortunate :D). Though hopefully I'll end up doing "psyche interviews" for the rest of my Class IIIs (Bal in particular) and not just her. Not to mention more journal entries. Suffice to say, writing these has given me ideas. Who knows - maybe they'll help keep me here in the long-term. Matt-256 (talk) 20:45, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

Go right ahead :) And Standoff killed by Leonid - damn, that's cold :O - and yet I like it >:) I get the feeling Laz would not take this well - especially after so many entries of him actually missing the sociopathic russian to a degree. He might even try to hunt down and punish Leonid somehow, or at least the officer giving the kill order. That's all assuming he finds out of course. I'll let you make that call. Matt-256 (talk) 21:56, July 7, 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for clarifying. And thanks for pointing out Pursuit - I checked it out earlier today and it was a good read :) It sounds like a good plan to me. I'll think further on a potential Laz-Leo confrontation for the future (still not quite sure what Laz would do - it's hard to decide). Speaking of Laz, wrote more journal entries (three for "2540" - before the first ones I wrote under that heading; and 1 for "2543" - a response to Admiral Cole's death and the impact that could have on ARES), and I took the liberty of writing that "advice message" (under the "Transmission 10856" heading). If it doesn't gel with what you had in mind, feel free to change it. Matt-256 (talk) 13:04, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I assume you're referring to VORAUSSICHT (or BLUE NIGHTS - pretty much same thing ;P). I really need to catch up on that a bit. Though all this leonidan talk reminds of one of those grandiose ideas I had back in the day (and to be fair, still toy with from time to time) about a "Leonidan Saga" of novels. Naturally, I wound up never writing anything on it. Thankfully these log series are for the most part good substitutes. Well, it was admittedly mostly to explain why Laz didn't start talking seriously with Standoff until '47, but yeah, it does make for a good contrast. As for Standoff being chosen - when I wrote those entries I chose to assume that he was brought in precisely because he's unremarkable - and therefore wouldn't draw unwanted attention to the project, while still hopefully having the knowledge to pull off his job well enough. Laz didn't make that assumption in those entries because he thought/hoped Rich would care more for getting good results rather than keeping the project secret. Which would indicate Laz didn't truly know Rich at that point - largely because he had mostly been working for MORIARTY/DRACULA up to that point. Of course, that's just a possibility. I'm sure you can come up with a great explanation too :) Looking forward to Standoff's reaction :) Matt-256 (talk) 19:00, July 8, 2013 (UTC)

Nah, we're all lazy xD Yeah, I recall reading about that too - but then again, there were a lot of entries to catch up on ;) And nice work - I felt compelled to write entries for Laz's side: two journal entries ("2557" & "2558") + 1 ("2544" - mostly to expand on Laz's relationship with Ricky and to foreshadowing his fall from grace), as well as 2 transmissions from Laz to Standoff. Hope that works :) Matt-256 (talk) 18:35, July 9, 2013 (UTC)

Nice job with both journals and SUNSHINE - good stuff :) I especially liked how you justified Fireteam Crimson potentially being just one person (now if only someone could justify Halo CE's, Halo 2's, Halo: ODST's, Halo: Reach's and Halo 4's co-op modes). It's not like psyche evaluations are something new - besides, it's only stealing if I'm offended, and I'm really not. Go ahead and steal it some more :) As for a new therapist - how about Omid Bashir (Omid = persian for "hope", Bashir = arabic for "bringer of good news")? Plus, the given name is from one of my all-time favorite games, Telltale's The Walking Dead :) As for Laszlo - this is sort of where the canon and Laz's previous canon, the Necrosverse, intersect and cause complications (after all, Necros hinges on John not being found for over 50 years!). Reminds me of a concept I was toying with for a potential usernamespace article: a "Meta-Mattiverse" where I tried to reconcile and merge together the Bungie/343i canon, the Necros canon, the Labyrinth canon and the Mattiverse canon (suffice to say, it got a bit complicated and devolved into a series of crazy ideas - including the Machina being surviving Forerunners who offered to be genetically degraded by the Librarian like the humans had been and to receive a geas to help humanity claim the mantle, the Didact getting Necros-ified, the Necros being creations of The Sovereigns, the Hydra indirectly being responsible for the Flood by corrupting the "Precursor-powder" and turning it into a new parasite, and so on and so on... - before I abandoned it). Errm, sorry for that enormous segue (or we'll consider it payback for drowning my talk page ;P) - the point is, I'm not quite sure how to proceed with Laz at this point. If you were to twist my arm and make me answer at gunpoint, I'd probably say that he planned to look for John, but wound up getting repeatedly sidetracked doing missions for Covert ops (blackmail by MORIARTY - the new head honcho of Covert ops - may have been involved in those cases) or SPECWARCOM. One thing I am fairly certain on is that he's so far (IE, by 2558) refused to join the Spartan branch (though he has urged Rachel and Bal to do so) for numerous reasons (not feeling comfortable working with the new SPARTAN-IVs, wanting to find John as a soul-searching exercise, and because it might affect his chances of potentially retiring and settling down with Helen). As for what happens when John comes back (did that happen in '57 or '58?), I've got a couple ideas. I considered having him meet and talk with John a little (I thought it'd be funny if he brought Rachel along - and have her start squeeing like a fangirl upon meeting Chief, to Laz's and Bal's amusement - after all, he blew up two halos and the Ark; I imagine Rachel would respect that), perhaps even ask him what he should do with Leonid (without telling Chief what the situation's actually about) - but I'm not sure about either. Or he could change his mind and decide to join Spartan after all, in response to the new threat posed by the Didact (come on - there's no way he's dead!). And then there's the somewhat ambitious idea I've been toying with regarding the results of the potential Laz-Leonid confrontation, which would heavily impact what you're asking about. Going purely by what would make sense for Laz's character to do and the way I've been writing the recent journal entries, I came up with this:
 * 1) Leonid kills Standoff - accidentally or whatever. Laz gets angry at Leonid and starts tracking him down against orders.
 * 2) Laz slowly comes to the conclusion that Ricky's (and Scarlet Team's) death(s) was just as much - if not more so - his fault (because he didn't listen to Dean's warning).
 * 3) Laz fights and subdues Leonid (using a variety of tricks and traps - I'm pretty sure Leo would win in a straight-up fight), and then unveils enough classified information about Leo's activities to force Section 0 to let him go and get arrested by the authorities, while at the same getting himself arrested for desertion & treason. (This way, he punishes Ricky's and Griff's killer without having to kill a teammate and still punish himself for his - indirect - part in Ricky's, Scarlet's and Griff's deaths)
 * 4) Laz and Leo both get put into cryo-prisons, because they might still become valuable assets again sometime in the future.

Mind, this was just what I initially came up with whilst contemplating all this stuff we're doing, so I can't tell yet if it'd be a good idea or not. I guess I'll need your help in determining that (it's good to have a buddy to critique your work, isn't it?). Sorry for the wall of text. I'll get back to working on psyche interviews for the rest of my spartans :) Matt-256 (talk) 21:09, July 10, 2013 (UTC)

Walls of text
Well, regardless of motivation, I think it turned out great. Looking forward to seeing more :) Hmm, I suppose I could try to edit it a little and put it up here (BTW, I forgot to mention I was trying to incorporate the Saulosian Campaign and the events of Dwindling Flame too). If nothing else, the creators of those respective universes (...and you xD) might find it amusing (speaking of - do you know if another poetic spartan and specops are still around?). Though for my actual articles I'm probably going to pick a 'main' verse like you - probably the same as yours, at this rate. I'll probably wind up scrapping the Mattiverse too (though I could perhaps use some ideas from it, such as that Forerunner Crystal subplot that unfortunately never went anywhere in the main canon). Yeah, exactly. In fact, I might do a journal entry sometime were Laz writes about rejecting Palmer's offer to join her detachment or something like that. And you're probably right about John - maybe it's best just to skip such an encounter until further into the Reclaimer Saga. Well, getting put into a cryo prison would leave open the possibility that he could be brought back at some point, so he'd still have a chance of eventually getting a break (Leonid too, for that matter). Then again, maybe I'm just a cruel bastard, but the fact he doesn't get a break is one of the things I like most about the scenario. In my mind, Laz is the kind of character that has made so many mistakes and lost so many people he cares about that he subconsciously won't let himself have a break. Plus, I didn't even mention the bit of dramatic irony I considered putting in after all that - a revelation that Helen's pregnant, something that (a) would tie into his backstory, in that his biological parents didn't get to raise him either (they were rebels - though in my planned update, I intend to reveal they were first ORIONs who then defected to the insurrection), and (b) would provide some contrast - he was there to raise and care for his adopted kids (the Ares recruits) but not his one biological kid. Though now that I think about it, maybe that would just be excessive melodrama. As for the struggle to apprehend Leo, I'm not sure. On the one hand, if we're going with what I proposed (or something like it), it might work better if Laz & Co. stay out of it (his inaction would later eat away at him, obviously) - plus Rachel wouldn't really care about bringing Leo to justice until he killed somebody she thinks doesn't deserve it - like Standoff. On the other hand, if we intend to go with something else, maybe we should have Laz decide to join after all. In that case, it'd be a good place for Bal and Rachel to finally leave Laz's wings and set out on their own. I've gotten rather fond of the idea of Bal retiring from the military completely at some point as humanity is no longer under threat of extinction. As for what Rachel would do, I don't know, though she might be interested in joining Spartan (if nothing else than to prove she can do better than all of them IVs). If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them :) Matt-256 (talk) 18:33, July 11, 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, those were good times. Not to mention RPs actually stood a chance of getting finished (I still remember Halo Wars, First Encounter - though during those two I was an amateur writer who always annoyed everyone; surprising how far you can go with a few years worth of experience - and Well Enough Alone - and of course the one you ran, what was it called again? - fondly). It's just a shame Halo Wars can no longer be reconciled with canon. Actually, I've been planning a story which would be a tribute to that RP in particular, just taking modern canon into account. Whether that will actually go beyond the planning stage is of course microscopic, but hey, I felt like telling somebody ;) Well, I've certainly got plans for more entries - some more during the program's duration, including a reaction to a new AI (I referenced in an early entry the AI would need to be replaced, plus Laz's mistrust of AI's needs to pop up at some point) - and some more post-program, mostly for Sienna operations (perhaps including foreshadowing regarding that Halo Wars-esque story, just in case I actually wind up writing it). On the other hand, I was considering putting them on hold for a few days and focus on the psyche interviews (besides Rachel I feel like my class IIIs haven't gotten any real attention - it's wound up being mostly about Laz). Plus it was my birthday today, and tomorrow I have work and a whole bunch of relatives visiting, so don't be surprised if I take another day or two to update. Nope, never read it. But yeah, it is cruel. Though Roger pulling a prison break sounds all kinds of awesome. In fact, it could work as a way to get Bal to quit the military and join Roger's PMC - just have Bal go to Roger for help and we can take it from there :) I'm afraid I don't recall such talks, but it does sound good (I'll have to go check my talk page archives). Plus it gave me an amusing mental image of Rachel approaching Connor and trying to con (hehe) him into going with her, first through an attempt at an inspirational speech, then intimidation and then finally just some honesty and/or begging. Though a good fireteam consists of 4-5 people, so who would we pair them up with? Some new IVs could work (I have been considering making one or two before...) or some old ODST/Marine characters turned S-IVs - though it's almost a bit cruel putting regular people in the same team as Rachel xD. Or I might have some Gammas lying around that we could use. Possibilities, possibilities... Matt-256 (talk) 23:04, July 11, 2013 (UTC)

KoBH was one of the few old ones I didn't join, though in hindsight I kinda regret that - it looked/sounded fun. And I didn't really do much in WEA either, but I think it was the first time I interacted with Lomi. Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure our cooperation started some time after I joined your RP (checked it, it was called Blood and Ashes). Too bad it wound up dead, but hey, it started our ARES partnership :) Come to think of it, maybe we should adapt it (in broad_strokes where necessary) into an article at some point, with some tweaking, adding and/or removing of details (the heretics possessing 20 supercarriers is a bit much now that we know supercarriers are over 27 kilometers long - on the other hand, the "heretics" could easily be remade into members of the Governors of Contrition, now that we know a group worshipping the flood exists - or hey, we could add some of our spartans to it in some way). Or we could just reference it - or an event like it - somewhere (the Leonidan Logs, perhaps?). Just brainstorming a little. You probably can't remember Halo Wars because it was finished shortly before Halo Fanon was created - it was written on Halopedia before that. I don't know if you were active on Halopedia at that point, but I'm quite sure at least half a year passed from its creation before you joined, probably more. So I can legitimately say that I've been here since the beginning :) Since before Ajax, before Lomi, before you, before Specops, before Tony, before Sona, before...well, you get the picture ;P Hey thanks! Unfortunately I haven't gotten to play Tomb Raider yet, and since I'm staying the summer in my parents' house I haven't used my new toaster either. Mostly I've been playing against Baccus with my new yu-gi-oh structure deck (yeah, laugh all you want, but we do - though maybe you don't know what it is?) and reading "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu (I don't know why, but I stumbled across it in a bookstore one day and decided I just had to have it xD) - in-between my mother's cousins choosing this week to pour in to visit us (I'll be sleeping in a tent in the backyard tonight, that's how packed we're getting in here). Sounds good - I can easily imagine a scenario where Bal goes to great lengths to steal an extra suit of Gen-2 armor, only for Roger to barely thank him, and when Bal naturally gets pissed, Roger could say something like "What, you want a parade?" But maybe I'm misunderstanding Roger's personality. I just found it a little amusing when I thought about this. And if we go with the prison break, I came up with something less depressing for Laz to get up to once he's out - assuming John's return is still kept secret, I could see Laz decide that rather than turn himself in again he could go out to look for John again, this time full-time without breaks. After all, with Griff dead and the Ares kids going their own way, helping his fellow IIs by aiding in the search for John might be the only thing he could convince himself to work towards left. And later finding out John's actually back already and/or humanity coming to blows with the Didact again could give him some further reasons to keep going even after all that's happened. Only question then is if ONI would bother to pursue him as the rogue spartan he appears to be, or if they would let him go so they won't have to deal with him any time soon. Either way, I think the Covert Ops Group under MORIARTY would hunt for him (this hasn't found its way into any articles yet, but in my mind, MORIARTY/DRACULA ordered the assassination of Laz's biological parents after they defected and ensured he was adopted by a UNSC officer and subsequently abducted to be Rich's leonidan - he wouldn't appreciate his ultimate poetic revenge - turning his traitorous comrades' son into his own agent primarily meant to put down rebellions - getting spoiled by Laz seemingly going rogue), which has some potential all on its own. Your thoughts? All of them sound good in their own way. It's a shame fireteams are rarely made up of only three people, because I had some fun with a scenario where Connor and Rachel wind up paired with a rookie IV whose a huge admirer of spartans - only for Rachel to completely piss on him, at least until he actually proves himself to be an unexpectedly good spartan. But your reasoning for pairing them with gold is good too. Though if we really can't decide, we could do all of them at the same time - by setting them up in a squad consisting of 2, 3 or 4 teams. That way, they could be in the same unit as Gold, with another team of Gamma IIIs (yours, perhaps? I might want to do something with mine that's separated from all the Laz/Ares stuff), and a team of Connor, Rachel, and a rookie IV, and potentially (depending on how many are in the other teams) a fourth team of more experienced IVs. Then it could also be more than a leadership struggle between Matthew, Connor and Rachel - involving an S-III team leader and maybe a IV team leader too. On the other hand, that might get too cluttered. Matt-256 (talk) 19:16, July 12, 2013 (UTC)

Well, I seem to recall that your invitation to join BaA got me looking at your stuff, after which (for reasons I don't remember) I created my own S-II Class III article, which you rightly criticized for being unrealistic (it had 1200 recruits - reminds me of that SPARTAN-V5 Program travesty I think I wrote around the same time) and suggest I trim it down or get rid of it, and in return offering me ownership of a team of your Class IIIs. Though it's possible all that happened before I actually joined the RP (I recall it took a while between receiving the invite and joining it). Either way, I accepted, you were delighted, offered to take some pics for me for the teams I wanted, and the rest is history :) But anyway, about the tribute, we'd have to know the name of the planet - and I'm not convinced you ever actually gave the planet a name in the RP itself! Or maybe you did, and I didn't look hard enough. Eh, if worst comes to worst, we could always make up a name on the fly, like "Sagacious Redoubt" or something like that. Well, KoBH sounds all kinds of awesome when you describe it like that. Now I really wish I had been part of it :( Hmm, inserting two IIIs along with the rookie IV seems like a good compromise. We get a fireteam of 5, with two Class IIIs providing psychological issues, two IIIs providing aloof weirdness and a rookie IV (is it ok if I write him? Though if you like, we could co-create him, too) caught in-between while just trying to earn the others' respect, but failing to belong with either. And we could always have an op or two where they're forced to cooperate with Gold Team, and showcase the issues that would inevitably ensue. Of course, there's also the matter of coming up with a name for this team. I imagine Rachel would enjoy something like "Lava", "Magma", "Pyre" or something like that, but she wouldn't be the one to make that call, obviously. Or if we want to be uncreative, we could go with "Fireteam Ares", or "Fireteam Mars" ;) Suggestions? Oh, and I finally finished Bal's psyche interview. Sorry for the delay, but I had to cover for someone at work who got sick on short notice. Matt-256 (talk) 19:50, July 13, 2013 (UTC)

Damn, I was kinda hoping you had forgotten about it - suffice to say, that article (and some of my other Spartan program ideas - I think I had SPARTAN-N and SPARTAN-T programs too at some point) wasn't among the best of my creations. I mean, how did I even get the idea to call it V5!? No matter how you look at it, that label's just ridiculous. Still, I was fond of the pics you took for it and made use of it for my MJOLNIR article, so maybe some good came of it :) Ah, good. Battle of Sagacious Redoubt it is (though we could include "Invasion of FT-239" as an alternative name for the battle)! As for your Roger updates, they sound all kinds of awesome, though last time I checked, that article was already a kilometer long or something - you mean it wasn't done? You're the guy who just keeps on giving, aren't you? xD And Ember sounds great. Let's use it - unless we come up with something better in the coming days. Oh, and I put up two new journal entries (one under "2541", the other under "2545"). Not sure if I like the way they turned out, but as always, you're probably a better judge than me :) Matt-256 (talk) 17:31, July 15, 2013 (UTC)

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the SPARTAN-X Program is still in your category :) But hey, at least that article at first had a sensible name - it was first named SPARTAN-IV, I recall. Though I forget when and why you changed it (was it because of Ajax?). Sorry to hear about your computer troubles - especially since I've suffered the same thing previously. Still, looking forward to journal entries from you :) Also, since I've finally played through Tomb Raider (it was quite fun, though I don't know if I'm going to replay it anytime soon), I put up a long overdue performance report for Balduin (I had intended to do all of Orange Team, but I wound up sidetracked by writing on my Acolytes of Devotion article and taking notes for that Halo Wars-esque story). Matt-256 (talk) 22:48, July 17, 2013 (UTC)

Dear Spartan 501 I would like to help with your current story What if Installation 04. Or atleast co write because I am really intrigued with the story and would like to help

Borrowing What if Installation 04
Dear Spartan 501. First I would like to say I fell in love with the story it is awesome and I was wondering if I could help you finish it or give Watson -B014 (talk) 22:32, July 29, 2013 (UTC) Watson -B014

You asked for it...
Realize you might be busy (or taking a break), since you haven't updated anything in a while (not that I've seen, anyway), but if you have some spare time, I finally put up my Meta-Mattiverse. It took a while (a combination of finding the original notes incomprehensible - forcing me to start from scratch and write it in a different format -, a lot of work in the last few weeks, and mere writer's block). Anyway, you asked for it, and I provided (though perhaps not in the way you expected). Hope to hear from ya soon :) Matt-256 (talk) 21:56, August 22, 2013 (UTC)

It's okay, I haven't been particularly active since my college started either. I hope to add a little to the Meta-Mattiverse page sometime soon-ish though - Lomi suggested I add a timeline (hopefully it won't be as cluttered as when I tried to do one the first time around) and stuff on the Precursors, plus I'd like to add a few Laz Journal entries adapted to that universe (might help explain some more things - plus I see potential fun in covering Laz's time as CO of Albion Company given that we retroactively made him CO of the Class IIIs and the stuff we're planning with him and Leo). This is all assuming I don't end up consumed in the struggle to pass Basic Statistics (who knew taking the Political Sciences program would get you so many courses in economy?), of course :) PS: You should probably do another talk page archive - apparently the Sig templates don't work on it anymore (and right when I finally remembered how to use them again, too!) Matt-256 (talk) 15:57, September 3, 2013 (UTC)