Battle of Diomedes Idea

Okay so for those that do not know yet, I basically made a side story in the HRP titled "Battle of Diomedes." At the moment, I'm centering all my efforts on the story of Helix Squad, a group of ODST's who have orders to enact the Cole protocol.

However, since the battle is meant to be much bigger and more spread out rather than centered around the one squad and their area, I figured why not open it up and let other people into the story? However, I decided that if I did do this, I'd make two separate stories: One centered around Helix, which is probably going to just be me posting in it, and a second, centered around the rest of the battle on the colony itself and told from the perspective of other UNSC personnel.

The only restrictions would be that you play as groundside soldiers, so Marines or ODST's, however no playing as a Spartan. And this is also grounded in the lore of Halo itself, so while I hate to sound like the bossy, controlling Game Master, this means any equipment, weapons, or enemies you face must be strictly canonical. Not following that guideline won't result in a boot, just a request for an edit. Failure to follow the request though, will.

As to how this would work out, players would probably be organized into squads or placed in groups on the ground given special orders. (depending on what they choose, Marine or ODST)

Right now I'm still working on some of the details such as what people would be doing, but I'd like to make one thing clear: This is not a new RP, or at least it won't be going for as long as say the original HRP. It will simply go on for a) as long as people keep posting in it, or b) until the end of the battle itself.

And finally, just so it is said, I would be the GM of this story.

It would be nice to actually finish a story. So yeah, I'd be up for it.

Okay so question: the big Covenant Spires seen in Reach, the ones that create those giant electromagnetic cloaking barriers, is it possible that a bunch of them can be centered in one location, creating a dome larger than any one of them could manage on their own? It's currently something I was thinking of for say one of the objectives and I'd like to know what I can or can't do.

I think this could be cool. Wont vote till we know more about it (time period, available ranks/species/etc., vehicles, yadda yadda).

As for the dome, it could be possible to use perhaps a ships shields. Think of a Lich or something, a small ship, but with shields. If that shield was engineered to work on land, you'd have a large immobile shield with which to protect your base.
Just an idea.

Hmm, maybe. But this whole thing is set in the year 2543, same date as the side story I already started, so I'm not sure if Liches were around at that time.

As for ranks.....sorry, I'm not exactly an expert on military ranks so I have no idea what would fit for a character in this story. Most I have is that your character would be limited to being either a Marine or an ODST.

Species involved are Elies, Grunts, Jackals, Drones, and maybe Skirmishers and Brutes. Weapons and vehicles would be something of a mix between Halo Reach and Halo 2 (Halo 2 mainly involving Phantoms, Shadows, Spectres, and Scarab [iffy on the last one, please advise])

Also, for the big giant dome created by the spires idea.....does that seem a bit much for a simple ground base defense, or should I say that they're excavating some form of Forerunner ruins buried deep below? I know that involving Forerunner stuff tends to be a bit of an insta kill for an RP (Haven probably being the case in point) but I really can't think of any other reason they'd need something that can defend the base and hide their activities while doing it.

Well let's think of the top priorities to the Covenant:

Forerunners, defending Prophets, establishing bases.

Pick whichever you want.

Well if there is a Prophet involved, I wouldn't have them on the ground until the entire planet was secured, and I guess even then it would only be secured if there were Forerunner ruins. In my opinion, a prophet would be on the biggest, most powerful warship in the fleet over the planet.

With Forerunner ruins, that would make the most sense for establishing such powerful defensive measures, but I remember how in Halo Wars Regret ordered the Arbiter of that time to destroy the Forerunner ruins on Harvest. So......do I disregard that bit of info, or say that the Covenant forces are led by a more zealous group of Elites? There are groups like that in Sangheili culture.

Code:

This can be modified, not official nor is it part of the plot. Just an idea.

// Open File

;CaptainJeromeDavis;
/Password/
*************
//Confirmed//
Welcome, Captain Davis

Operation Forest-Fire

Objective; kill the VIP, Highly decorated Elite General.
Secondary Objectives; Kill General's infantry commanding officers

WARNING:
The General is going to be heavily guarded, and the outpost will have look out posts about 200 miles from Covenant AO. Careful of snipers, mines, and traps.

ODST groups will be dropped off about 30 miles from estimated look out perimeter, at approximately 2100.

Captain, you will be picking two ODST squads for this mission. I don't have to tell you twice how important this mission is for the UNSC in this sector. I want it to be clean, and discrete. If all goes well, we may have the upper hand in this war, and I might buy you a drink. Good luck Captain, and choose quickly, we don't have another window of opportunity like this for a long, long time.

Not bad. Didn't have to look so....official, but hey it works I guess.

Question though: how would the general have been identified?

Interception of communications (Can happen btw). So you could put, some communications from the Covenant were interfered from some UNSC communication specialists or something to that extent.

Maybe. Tough ill have to check the wiki to see if there's precedent for where ONI prowlers or intelligence groups have managed to intercept covenant broadcasts and decipher what they actually mean.

I remember reading something about the first contact, probably in the First Contact book. But anyhow, if it wasn't ever deciphered then I am pretty sure we could think of something.

I don't think there's any documented stuff or stuff we have access too that really shows fully deciphered Covenant broadcasts. Remember, the Covenant communications were only barley being cracked once Earth was invaded.

As for the shield, I suppose we could all make a bit of a stretch for you and let you use that shield without much reasoning. Wouldn't be the first thing like that in a Halo RP.

"To facilitate easier communications between member species, translation software is used on Covenant ships to decipher words."

I can still read up on this but, I do believe someone could have taken a Elite or Grunt body, taken their translation software and took it to ONI, and maybe some magic happened and they experimented and found a way to translate the languages to English... I don't know, just an idea, and I will be researching more on the subject.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/TSV-442_translation_software

Don't know when this takes place but here is a Translation Software that the UNSC had in 2530. So there's that. Limited but still resourceful.

The story takes place in 2543 so this may be helpful. Which is sorta surprising given that Reach happened much later and in the game you still had no idea what the hell any of them were saying.

Still, there's the matter of figuring out who the general is. Most ONI could probably get is something very.....mystical, in terms of speech. I mean where the words and terms are prettied up using their religion, like "Our glorious *insert fancy word here* has been deployed on the surface." And if I had to deploy someone of that level of importance anywhere, it would be in that shield base. It may not have to be the one giant dome made from several spires (especially given how large a dome just one of them could already make)

True, so I mean this is your's I give you all rights to my idea. I just want some credit for it haha

Well, that's still one idea. And given how many people we have on the site, and how many of them so far seem interested.....I can maybe see a maximum of two, maybe three objectives for three separate groups?

Because right now we have an assassination. It could also be mixed with the assault on the same base (though the EM field created by the shield would render the armored assault impossible. Maybe mix it with one or two squads sent in to disable the dome and allow the bulk of the ground forces (tanks and oner heavy vehicles) to move in.

As for a second objective, it would probably be similar to something like the Exodus level for Reach, where you have to aid civilians in their evacuations. Or New Alexandria, where you have to disable Covenant jamming stations to help ground forces more effectively coordinate an attack/defense.

Okay so, can I just get a head count or something of everyone that is interested in this? That way I can get an idea of whether or not I shold continue work on things like story, objectives, things like that.

I would join it.

So would I, actually. but I bet you already knew that

So, should have done this sooner but, here are the links to the two Google Docs concerning the idea.

First one is just the Doc giving an overview of Diomedes, the colony this all takes place on: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C12E-BqkYrGeN84X4A_J6f1IHjrhOzvqkZtISg7Fg9U/edit

Second one is for the actual battle, so stuff like objectives, missions, things like that. I've been trying to think of something beyond the usual "Siege the base, shooty shooty blam blam" but so far I've got very little. So if anyone would like, feel free to add to the second Doc below the first paragraph, preferably anything that can work as an actual objective for the story.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OOcAU_qbBu3BcuRCDQBTPRU2zzIO5Y1IpfpHZ7DTTGg/edit

Also, please tell me if you have problems viewing any of the links, and editing them. Odds are you'll have more problems with the latter so I'll need to add your email or gmail account to the list of editors.