![]() Author has written 9 stories for Halo. "We're Spartans. What could possibly go wrong?" Buzz Feed Co-authored Project: Minds' Eye with Author: Mr. 125 Significant Updates 7 DEC 2020 29 JUL 2020 11 AUG 2018 31 DEC 2016 18 DEC 2015 Who is EmF? A little about me... I enjoy the HALO universe. It started out as I'm sure it has for many others here: a cool video game. It turned into so much more when I quite by chance stumbled upon the triple box-set of the first HALO novels. Gave them a read and realized not only how awesome the books were, but how much potential in the HALO universe they opened up. It was a true shock to me when I later learned that The Fall of Reach published one month before HALO: Combat Evolved was released for the Xbox! Since I first discovered the vastness of the HALO novels (2005), not much has passed me by since. I am still of the opinion that 343i came out swinging when they produced Halo 4, which to me is the best one yet. Don't hate. What else to say about myself without being a bore to you, the curious onlooker? Not a whole lot. Gaming and writing would be the obvious pastimes as well as gearhead types of hobbies. I enjoy the occasional read here at the site as well as that of certain authors in my favs list. Story Info Collaborative Story Projects... Ten Days in Mombasa Combines five of our stories: Alone See our repertoires for synopses of these tales if you have not already read them. Their timelines and characters all converge inside this unforgettable epic. Stories of my own... Aim High, Dig Deep To think...something more was going on than just the Covenant saga. Something that would seem small in volume compared to the hours of gameplay we'd take part in during the Halo 3 campaign proper, but there was that notion in the back of my mind that, "This tiny, little ARG goes far deeper than the last two games we've played...because the last two games we played didn't even scratch the surface of Forerunners themselves." Again, looking back, IRIS (combined with the terminals in HALO 3) essentially paved the way for the next trilogy! Ultimately, the IRIS mini-campaign was deep. Some would say too deep. In order to decipher everything while on the hunt for some truth, you had to be dedicated to HALO, to say the least. The amount of work you had to put in to be at the very forefront of the discovery of each clue was somewhat monumental. But ultimately, it had to be a community of fans that could hope to unlock the summer of 2007's secrets, not just one or even a handful of fans. Me...I was definitely not at the forefront. I would check into that website everyday after work and wait for the next server to be unlocked, largely unaware of what the super-hardcore people had to go through behind the scenes to get it that way. Really, just to be able to observe everything unfold and view the video transmissions and everything else was very cool. I never thought I could shoehorn IRIS into one of my stories, but here I am doing it. If you're ever perplexed by the technical jargon in this story, any of it can be googled but that'd be for gee-whiz purposes. I strove to make it weave into the plot seamlessly and I swear there's not an overwhelming amount of jargon. But if you do understand most or even all of it, you are in a club of sorts and your story experience will be just that little bit sweeter than others' could be (I believe this because if you truly understand the ramifications of the main character's discoveries then you will have a nice little dot-connecting experience of your own!). In retrospect, I look back on the summer of 2007 and I genuinely miss being able to access that website and poke through those odd Forerunner informational terminals and scour over the wealth of lore and knowledge they stored. It's sort of comparable to ILB (I Luv Bees, the HALO 2 ARG), although I'd say this one has a bit more depth to it and is surely presented to us in a different fashion. Anyways, if you want your mind to be sort of blown (and to receive some very interesting background info), go to these places for brief summaries on what I've been talking about so far: IRIS Youtube Synopsis Synopsis 2 Most Comprehensive Archvie Archive Sound Sample The HALO 3 Terminals A Convenient Bulletin Board for IRIS Mendicant Bias Transmissions And for interest, Believe Alone The back history... Tthis fic started in 2007 in the same way that I'm sure it has for many other writers: out of boredom. It was nothing more than an experiment, and in truth I had only considered it a poetic one-shot at first and nothing more. But I got even more bored. Started to take it further. While the current (truly completed) incarnation is not the first, it is by far the best. I say that because this fic first started in April, 2007 and so I was considerably less experienced in life and a little bit naive. If you could've seen the first version of this fic, you'd make the same judgment. To add, the chapters were short. While perhaps vivid and entertaining with pure plot, I'm certain more depth and life could've been added. But I was an utter amateur back then. Well, fast forward to present day and this is just one of a few stories (some from another author as well!) that has been woven into the biggest (maybe even the biggest ever in all of cyberspace) fanfic project I've ever taken part of or even heard of for that matter. It's late-2020 and Ten Days in Mombasa is only three chapters elapsed but already over 150k words - and plenty more to come. Getting back to the individuality of this fic though, I managed to contemplate enough on it here and there during its nascent years to determine I could make a trilogy out of it, with each contributing tale being maybe three-quarters of a full novel. But see that was a stretch and I wasn't even sure it was guaranteed. I had to force myself to conjure up a worthy plot that could even take it as far as just a sequel. Alas, over the years it sort of floundered before even getting into the second story in the proposed trilogy. But it was for the better. New life was breathed into it during the course of a years-long email thread between myself and Mr. 125 (the other afore-mentioned author) and we toyed with story ideas because we both enjoyed each of our works over the years since 2007. That's where Ten Days in Mombasa started, in an email chain (a pretty massive one, too). So, in short, Alone become Alone 1.5, a story that could've stood complete in its own right but instead had its later chapters re-tooled in order for it to segue into 10DIM. All in all, about 45k words from what would've been plot from a second Alone story was dovetailed it into the first one. I would not have changed the course of history on this one! It all worked out grand! The Call to Arms Underworld Trilogy The Halo Genesis Trilogy Seriously? Believe Starry Night, Fateful Day Haunted HALO Removed Stories (the graveyard) When the Smoke Clears (the ultimate bored fanboy's wetdream story) The Yankee White (just a concept that never took flight, and a goal without a plan is just a wish, right?) Countdown to Doomsday (interesting concept, but the plot was thin as a wafer and so it could never be more than a simple one-shot) |