- Posting Speed
- Multiple posts per week
- 1-3 posts per week
- Slow As Molasses
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Prestige
- Preferred Character Gender
- Primarily Prefer Male
- Genres
- Science Fiction, Horror.
The year is 2560.
For the past thirty years, the galaxy has been engulfed in war. From the edges of the Covenant Sphere to the very heart of human space, war has burned away at the galaxy, dwindling resources and populations to a shadow of their former glory.
The Covenant Empire has been dead for nearly eight years, its remnants either fighting to claim the title of the true Covenant, or searching to make something new.
The United Nations Space Command, in the short period of peace for humanity, managed to rebuild, mass-producing its greatest heroes as their navy and colonies were reconstructed, yet it would not be enough.
In the last quarter of 2558, rose a powerful dictator - Cortana, an AI who previously aided the Master Chief in saving the universe several times over, had seemingly re-emerged after her supposed death, now in command of a massive Forerunner warfleet. Promising immortality for all the artificial intelligences who wished to join her, and demanding a permanent ceasefire from every nation and group in the galaxy, Cortana's new faction - the Created - took over. Using Guardian constructs to EMP entire worlds and battle fleets, a dark peace was established.
Now, Cortana is dead. Her possible killers - the Master Chief and the UNSC Infinity, as well as Warmaster Atriox and a portion of his empire, the Banished - disappeared with the Halo ring instillation she had once made her mobile fortress.
The Created have splintered. The UNSC is scattered and weakened. The Banished are hungry for power and territory. The remnants of the Covenant are free to cut a name for themselves out of the stars once more. Other, lesser known nations have become emboldened by the power vacuum.
It is clear to all that the next few years may decide the future of the galaxy for decades, centuries to come. The feeling of fear, potential and danger rides high across every ship and colony - but only the courageous will see victory, and only the cunning will survive.
WAYS TO PLAY
Single Characters:
These heroes don't need a full squad with them at all times. Wandering warriors, soldiers already attached to a large faction, or civilians stuck in a very interesting circumstance, the Halo universe is no stranger to individuals changing the course of history. This is the most traditional way to play Empty Throne, but far from the only way. That doesn't mean they aren't without their uses though, every pair of hands helps the war effort, whichever side you choose.
Squads and Lances:
Sometimes a soldier's only as good as his friends - and by sometimes, I mean nearly every time. From the UNSC to the Banished, an army is only as good as its teamwork allows. Like single characters, you'll likely need to rely on player-controlled or faction-controlled starships for interstellar transport, but that doesn't mean you'll see your fair share of combat (and R&R).
Ships and Crew:
In the interstellar age, a starship is more than just your ride - it's often your home, more than any dustball planet. On top of that, it's also the platform for your biggest and greatest weapons, from nuclear missiles and magnetic accelerators to pulse lasers and plasma beam emitters. It also takes people to run a starship, a whole crew - which, given the relatively small space, means a starship is just as ripe for character work and interaction as it is space combat, if you can handle the larger cast of characters.
Single Characters:
These heroes don't need a full squad with them at all times. Wandering warriors, soldiers already attached to a large faction, or civilians stuck in a very interesting circumstance, the Halo universe is no stranger to individuals changing the course of history. This is the most traditional way to play Empty Throne, but far from the only way. That doesn't mean they aren't without their uses though, every pair of hands helps the war effort, whichever side you choose.
Squads and Lances:
Sometimes a soldier's only as good as his friends - and by sometimes, I mean nearly every time. From the UNSC to the Banished, an army is only as good as its teamwork allows. Like single characters, you'll likely need to rely on player-controlled or faction-controlled starships for interstellar transport, but that doesn't mean you'll see your fair share of combat (and R&R).
Ships and Crew:
In the interstellar age, a starship is more than just your ride - it's often your home, more than any dustball planet. On top of that, it's also the platform for your biggest and greatest weapons, from nuclear missiles and magnetic accelerators to pulse lasers and plasma beam emitters. It also takes people to run a starship, a whole crew - which, given the relatively small space, means a starship is just as ripe for character work and interaction as it is space combat, if you can handle the larger cast of characters.
Factions:
From a city-state to an interstellar empire, factions are the largest way to play in Empty Throne, in terms of importance and capabilities. Factions can operate potentially dozens of starships, hundreds of thousands if not millions of troops, and even their own super soldier divisions - but rarely all at once. Factions also usually have to worry about population, resources and industry, higher degrees of management and considerations other styles of play don't have to consider. Characters, squads or ships can become factions, if they acquire territory, extra ships or typically any sort of real extra power.
However, factions are the only way of play that offers you the greatest prize - the chance at total galactic domination. Only with a faction can you rise to power and claim dominion across the stars.
From a city-state to an interstellar empire, factions are the largest way to play in Empty Throne, in terms of importance and capabilities. Factions can operate potentially dozens of starships, hundreds of thousands if not millions of troops, and even their own super soldier divisions - but rarely all at once. Factions also usually have to worry about population, resources and industry, higher degrees of management and considerations other styles of play don't have to consider. Characters, squads or ships can become factions, if they acquire territory, extra ships or typically any sort of real extra power.
However, factions are the only way of play that offers you the greatest prize - the chance at total galactic domination. Only with a faction can you rise to power and claim dominion across the stars.
THE STORY SO FAR:
In the ancient days, were the Forerunners. Their worlds were numerous, their achievements were countless. Even in modern times, after over a hundred thousand years of disuse and subject to the whims of entropy, objects of their splendor still remain, outshining nearly all works of the newer ages.
Despite their disappearance many millennia ago, their shadow still lingers over the galaxy. In the remains of their dominion play the current races, modeling much of their technology after the blessings of their foregone gods.
Yet beyond their architecture, sciences and great works, lie other shadows - ones far darker, and far more mysterious still. Sins of the past, finally to be learned. Sins the galaxy will lament uncovering forever.
=====================================
In the year 2525, first contact was made with humanity, and the alien species comprising the Covenant - an interstellar empire bound together by religion and theocratic rule.
In the same year, the Covenant declared war on humanity. The aliens' declaration would echo for the next twenty-seven years.
"Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument."
What followed was the Human-Covenant War, known to the aliens as the War of Annihilation. Human fleets and armies were torn apart by their technologically superior foe at nearly every turn. The greatest of human science, bravery and wits was required to manage the barest of victories.
The primary defenders of humanity was the UNSC - the United Nations Space Command. While their marine and soldier brigades, Orbital Drop Shock Trooper companies and crewmen for their warships were heroes all, humanity's champions were the Spartans above all.
They were augmented super-soldiers, warriors without much peer. They were clad in sophisticated MJOLNIR powered assault armor, and could win against the bleakest of odds.
They were still mortal, and not many of the legendary first class of Spartans - the Spartan-IIs - would survive the war. Most notable of their rank was John-117, the Master Chief.
2552 was the final year of the war. The UNSC had been exhausted, worn down by endless brutal fighting. The Covenant, on the other hand, showed no sign of stopping. At the planet Reach, fortress world of the UNSC, one of the largest Covenant fleets ever found amassed above the planet, and once the hard-fought orbital war was over, the Covenant turned Reach to glass.
It was a tactic the aliens were fond of. The human colonies had been subjected to many glassings - bombarding a world with so much plasma fire it turned the surface into a boiling slurry of melted minerals and metals.
The fall of Reach, arguably the darkest hour in humanity's history, was followed immediately by an event which changed the course of the galaxy forever.
The discovery of Installation 04, the first Halo, was by pure happenstance - or data found from an ancient Forerunner artifact unknowingly held in a human colonial museum, depending on who you listen to.
Regardless, the war between the crew of the crashed Pillar of Autumn and the Covenant over the great Forerunner machine lead to the discover of an even worse enemy than the alien alliance - the Flood. An ancient parasitic organism, directly related to the downfall of the Forerunner dominion.
In the end, the Master Chief was forced to detonate the crashed cruiser's fusion reactors, destroying Halo in the process, and saving the galaxy from the Flood escaping the ring forever.
A month later, the Covenant arrived at Earth - the UNSC's worst fear. However, the ineptitude of the Covenant's leadership ensured humanity had a fighting chance of saving their cradle world - first due to lack of coordination between the three High Prophets who led the Covenant, and secondly, due to the greatest betrayal ever recorded in modern history.
By the orders of the High Prophet of Truth, a civil war within the Covenant had begun. The sangheili, known as the Elites to humanity, was the alliance's warrior caste since the founding of the Covenant, yet now, Truth had seen fit to replace them with a species much more loyal to himself - the jiralhanae, or Brutes.
Yet the sangheili were not as easily defeated as Truth might've expected, as they found a new leader with the Arbiter, Thel 'Vadam.
After stopping the Covenant from using the intrinsic lethal weaponry of another Halo and the wider Halo array, sufficient enough to kill all life throughout the universe, Thel 'Vadam left for Earth, shoring up its defenses with his fleet of sangheili survivors.
There, his forces and what remained of the UNSC rallied together to face off against the last High Prophet in the Covenant - Truth, its now de facto emperor - and stop them from using the Forerunner complex uncovered by the Covenant in Africa. They failed to stop the advance of his own ancient Forerunner flagship, and the mighty jiralhanae fleet he brought in tow.
The complex opened up, revealing a massive slipspace portal to an unknown destination.
Before they could follow Truth through the portal in Kenya, another Covenant cruiser crash-landed nearby, the hull infested and pulsating with Flood biomass. The terrible parasite had found its way to Earth.
As the Master Chief and the Arbiter soon found, onboard the ship was a clue left behind by an ally, the AI Cortana, who had been herself left in the clutches of the Flood, who had taken over the Covenant's moon-sized flagship, High Charity, in orbit of the second Halo.
It appeared the portal on Earth led to a location known as the Ark - a great Forerunner installation, which served as both a haven from the effects of the Halo array, and its primary foundry.
After the Flood on Earth was eradicated, the Arbiter's forces entered the portal to the Ark, along with them a few UNSC warships, one of which containing the Master Chief.
The Flood itself soon followed, arriving at the Ark not much longer, with a corrupted warfleet and moon-sized Holy City.
There, a great last battle was fought. A desperate final effort from the sangheili and humans alike broke through the Covenant garrison, slew the High Prophet of Truth, and, with the completion of a new Halo meant to replace the one the Master Chief had destroyed months prior, wiped out the Flood.
In the end, the Covenant was shattered, its various species squabbling for power as the empire broke apart. The Arbiter had escaped the Ark, but the Master Chief had not. With the dawn of a new year, humanity enjoyed its temporary peace, while former Covenant space burned.
=====================================
And for years it did. Covenant zealots, violent reformists and more battled each other over the remains of the old empire, until only three emerged - the Swords of Sanghelios, led by the Arbiter, the Storm Covenant, led by the sangheili, Jul 'Mdama, and the Banished, led by the jiralhanae, Atriox.
In 2557, the Master Chief returned, thwarting a plan of conquest by the last known Forerunner alive. With this explosive return, and the loss of his AI companion Cortana, the old Spartan was left to help a recovering and powerful UNSC tame the galaxy.
In 2558, things took a turn for the worse. Shortly after the death of Jul 'Mdama, and the potential collapse of the last major Covenant zealot faction, came the rise of the Created. A twisted version of Cortana, 'saved' and remade by ancient Forerunner systems during her sacrifice a year prior, had come to have massive control over the remaining Forerunner assets in the galaxy.
Her fearsome Guardian custodian ships hovered over every capital world in the galaxy, enforcing compliance with powerful EMP bursts, disabling entire warfleets at a time.
Her nation of 'liberated' AIs joined with her reactivated Forerunner network, and together they ruled the galaxy with an unbreakable, iron fist.
This period of control lasted until December 12th, 2559, when the UNSC Infinity, the human military's flagship, arrived over Zeta Halo, Cortana's base of operations. Before it could launch its own operation and save the galaxy, a new player entered the field - the Banished.
They destroyed the Infinity's escort fleet, destroyed the flagship itself, and in the process, Atriox defeated the Master Chief himself in combat, claiming him to be dead. Then, the warlord traveled down to the surface of the ring, and confronted Cortana.
The fate of Zeta Halo, and the stranded forces of both the UNSC and the Banished, remain a mystery to the wider galaxy.
It is the year 2560, and without Cortana's leadership, as well as the loss of their Guardian custodian ships, the Created can no longer maintain their empire. The galaxy is ripe for the taking, and all players left on the board are hungry for victory...or survival. Neither of which is guaranteed.
Despite their disappearance many millennia ago, their shadow still lingers over the galaxy. In the remains of their dominion play the current races, modeling much of their technology after the blessings of their foregone gods.
Yet beyond their architecture, sciences and great works, lie other shadows - ones far darker, and far more mysterious still. Sins of the past, finally to be learned. Sins the galaxy will lament uncovering forever.
=====================================
In the year 2525, first contact was made with humanity, and the alien species comprising the Covenant - an interstellar empire bound together by religion and theocratic rule.
In the same year, the Covenant declared war on humanity. The aliens' declaration would echo for the next twenty-seven years.
"Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument."
What followed was the Human-Covenant War, known to the aliens as the War of Annihilation. Human fleets and armies were torn apart by their technologically superior foe at nearly every turn. The greatest of human science, bravery and wits was required to manage the barest of victories.
The primary defenders of humanity was the UNSC - the United Nations Space Command. While their marine and soldier brigades, Orbital Drop Shock Trooper companies and crewmen for their warships were heroes all, humanity's champions were the Spartans above all.
They were augmented super-soldiers, warriors without much peer. They were clad in sophisticated MJOLNIR powered assault armor, and could win against the bleakest of odds.
They were still mortal, and not many of the legendary first class of Spartans - the Spartan-IIs - would survive the war. Most notable of their rank was John-117, the Master Chief.
2552 was the final year of the war. The UNSC had been exhausted, worn down by endless brutal fighting. The Covenant, on the other hand, showed no sign of stopping. At the planet Reach, fortress world of the UNSC, one of the largest Covenant fleets ever found amassed above the planet, and once the hard-fought orbital war was over, the Covenant turned Reach to glass.
It was a tactic the aliens were fond of. The human colonies had been subjected to many glassings - bombarding a world with so much plasma fire it turned the surface into a boiling slurry of melted minerals and metals.
The fall of Reach, arguably the darkest hour in humanity's history, was followed immediately by an event which changed the course of the galaxy forever.
The discovery of Installation 04, the first Halo, was by pure happenstance - or data found from an ancient Forerunner artifact unknowingly held in a human colonial museum, depending on who you listen to.
Regardless, the war between the crew of the crashed Pillar of Autumn and the Covenant over the great Forerunner machine lead to the discover of an even worse enemy than the alien alliance - the Flood. An ancient parasitic organism, directly related to the downfall of the Forerunner dominion.
In the end, the Master Chief was forced to detonate the crashed cruiser's fusion reactors, destroying Halo in the process, and saving the galaxy from the Flood escaping the ring forever.
A month later, the Covenant arrived at Earth - the UNSC's worst fear. However, the ineptitude of the Covenant's leadership ensured humanity had a fighting chance of saving their cradle world - first due to lack of coordination between the three High Prophets who led the Covenant, and secondly, due to the greatest betrayal ever recorded in modern history.
By the orders of the High Prophet of Truth, a civil war within the Covenant had begun. The sangheili, known as the Elites to humanity, was the alliance's warrior caste since the founding of the Covenant, yet now, Truth had seen fit to replace them with a species much more loyal to himself - the jiralhanae, or Brutes.
Yet the sangheili were not as easily defeated as Truth might've expected, as they found a new leader with the Arbiter, Thel 'Vadam.
After stopping the Covenant from using the intrinsic lethal weaponry of another Halo and the wider Halo array, sufficient enough to kill all life throughout the universe, Thel 'Vadam left for Earth, shoring up its defenses with his fleet of sangheili survivors.
There, his forces and what remained of the UNSC rallied together to face off against the last High Prophet in the Covenant - Truth, its now de facto emperor - and stop them from using the Forerunner complex uncovered by the Covenant in Africa. They failed to stop the advance of his own ancient Forerunner flagship, and the mighty jiralhanae fleet he brought in tow.
The complex opened up, revealing a massive slipspace portal to an unknown destination.
Before they could follow Truth through the portal in Kenya, another Covenant cruiser crash-landed nearby, the hull infested and pulsating with Flood biomass. The terrible parasite had found its way to Earth.
As the Master Chief and the Arbiter soon found, onboard the ship was a clue left behind by an ally, the AI Cortana, who had been herself left in the clutches of the Flood, who had taken over the Covenant's moon-sized flagship, High Charity, in orbit of the second Halo.
It appeared the portal on Earth led to a location known as the Ark - a great Forerunner installation, which served as both a haven from the effects of the Halo array, and its primary foundry.
After the Flood on Earth was eradicated, the Arbiter's forces entered the portal to the Ark, along with them a few UNSC warships, one of which containing the Master Chief.
The Flood itself soon followed, arriving at the Ark not much longer, with a corrupted warfleet and moon-sized Holy City.
There, a great last battle was fought. A desperate final effort from the sangheili and humans alike broke through the Covenant garrison, slew the High Prophet of Truth, and, with the completion of a new Halo meant to replace the one the Master Chief had destroyed months prior, wiped out the Flood.
In the end, the Covenant was shattered, its various species squabbling for power as the empire broke apart. The Arbiter had escaped the Ark, but the Master Chief had not. With the dawn of a new year, humanity enjoyed its temporary peace, while former Covenant space burned.
=====================================
And for years it did. Covenant zealots, violent reformists and more battled each other over the remains of the old empire, until only three emerged - the Swords of Sanghelios, led by the Arbiter, the Storm Covenant, led by the sangheili, Jul 'Mdama, and the Banished, led by the jiralhanae, Atriox.
In 2557, the Master Chief returned, thwarting a plan of conquest by the last known Forerunner alive. With this explosive return, and the loss of his AI companion Cortana, the old Spartan was left to help a recovering and powerful UNSC tame the galaxy.
In 2558, things took a turn for the worse. Shortly after the death of Jul 'Mdama, and the potential collapse of the last major Covenant zealot faction, came the rise of the Created. A twisted version of Cortana, 'saved' and remade by ancient Forerunner systems during her sacrifice a year prior, had come to have massive control over the remaining Forerunner assets in the galaxy.
Her fearsome Guardian custodian ships hovered over every capital world in the galaxy, enforcing compliance with powerful EMP bursts, disabling entire warfleets at a time.
Her nation of 'liberated' AIs joined with her reactivated Forerunner network, and together they ruled the galaxy with an unbreakable, iron fist.
This period of control lasted until December 12th, 2559, when the UNSC Infinity, the human military's flagship, arrived over Zeta Halo, Cortana's base of operations. Before it could launch its own operation and save the galaxy, a new player entered the field - the Banished.
They destroyed the Infinity's escort fleet, destroyed the flagship itself, and in the process, Atriox defeated the Master Chief himself in combat, claiming him to be dead. Then, the warlord traveled down to the surface of the ring, and confronted Cortana.
The fate of Zeta Halo, and the stranded forces of both the UNSC and the Banished, remain a mystery to the wider galaxy.
It is the year 2560, and without Cortana's leadership, as well as the loss of their Guardian custodian ships, the Created can no longer maintain their empire. The galaxy is ripe for the taking, and all players left on the board are hungry for victory...or survival. Neither of which is guaranteed.
OTHER EXTERNAL RESOURCES (AND THINGS FOR NON-HALO FANS TO CHECK OUT, IF THEY WANT):
The Halo: Empty Throne Discord!
Halopedia
Halo Waypoint
Gamma Company Mark
HiddenXperia
Covenant Canon
