I personally don't mind the romance stuff much as it's something I tend to not pay a whole lot of attention to in the majority of stories, but I will say that in no ME fanfic I've ever read, has a romance story ever actually improved or added anything of note to the story. In fact, it does tend to drag out many scenes and negatively alter the pace of a story. Maybe it's done better here. Don't know. I'll continue to read and I'll find out then I guess.

But considering the entire point of me reading this is due to my wanting to see the interactions between the ME characters/species and the Halo characters/species, I don't see how romance will improve this aspect in any way. But like I said, it won't deter me from continuing with the story.

Niko when he reads his fake dating account fot that mission for Bruce

I agree if a fleet even just has surprise they would most likly win and sangheili ships are mean motherfuckers if a small sangheili fleet could destroy a human fleet with little effort a small fleet of thirty would not last a minute

I wonder if only heretics joined or all of the geth.

It's unlikely they'd advance much.
The Asari and others had been around for thousands of years and were more or less stuck at the same technology the entire time.

Taylor and Tali, too damn adorable.

Literally my only problem is the way you worded the 'UPDATE' part of the Author's Note makes it sound like the UNSC refuses to use more advanced technology despite all the tech they got from the Forerunners. It's been half a century since the Human-Covenant War and the discover of Humans being the Reclaimers, yet you make it sound like nothing outside of armor and gene therapy has advanced despite having free reign of Forerunner tech and AI.
I don't see anything wrong with buffing up Council tech, but a number of their more groundbreaking advancements come from finding and reverse engineering Prothean tech the hard way while Forerunner's (Which, when comparing tech, are already far more advanced than Protheans) are literally giving their advancements to Humanity, all they need to do is find the data banks and incorporate the technology into their current tech.

I'm mostly okay with the upgrades to the Citadel forces, except two problems. One, the very principle of ME tech is that any ship over 1 kilometer is unsustainable. Thus dreadnought max size, and why Reapers are scarey as shit. Two, any ship that can kill a post-war UNSC cruiser in a few shots isnot going to need any help with Reapers. Kind of constricts your plotline, unless you want to say that the doomsday machines that haven't upgraded in millinia made an exception for the current cycle.

what about master chief, is he dead or is he in cryo sleep. Also where are the other spartans

I just started to read this story minutes ago and now I can't stop reading it also I always wanted to say this
GO UNSC! Lol but you gotta love the RSN

Nice story says so far. Though I'm a but skeptical of how far Thebes's Council races would have advances technologically over 500 years. In canon, the Council races has been in space for thousands of years and didn't really have much to show for it. Real technological development (as opposed to the assumed scavenging that they used to do) only seemed to happen during times of war (thermal clips from Geth, Thanix canons from Sovereign, and basically all new tech from ME3).

One of the major complaints I hear about Mass Effect technology is how underutilized and stagnant it is. So I can't see much technological advancement happening in 500 years without a significantly amount of war.

It's been half a millennia since canon ME times, so maybe Aria has died of old age or finally been assassinated, resulting in turmoil in the Terminus and maybe even sparking a wad between the Terminus and the Council. As long as there's a reason behind the Council's technological advancement beyond advancement for the sake of advancement, I'm happy.

In both mass effect crossovers, you've killed the Shadow Broker. It's quite sad, his character has so much potential, but ah well.
Magnificently written, will be reading the rest avidly

But they were only engaged by three unsc ships how were they outnumbered

Tron Legacy sucked!

Hey, Dog here, this, is one of the better stories I've read, seriously, great job. I'm excited to see what you have in store for us, next.

Best wishes!

- Dog