My Halo fixation is back. I haven't played most of the games or read most of the books, but I revived the fanfiction(s) I made when I was 9, retconned some stuff, and I'm going to ramble about them here.
WIP for now, but welcome for the ride.
I have three main angles of it: The Disquisitors, The Alpha Mark Spartans, and a Slice of Life story about Thel's personal life. I'm going to hold off about talking about the third one until I've read the more recent books, since I started all three of them back before 343i was big, so I made these headcanons before Thel's personal life was actually explored in canon.
The Disquisitors:
Following the fall of the Covenant, one renowned Fleetmaster, Hurai 'Mayamee, became disillusioned by the feeling of war. The Covenant had been used for years to blind the Sangheili, he realised, and now that they were free, he wondered what else had been hidden from them.
And so, he gathered a crew of military dropouts and curious adventurers, as well as his own grand nephew and niece, Awrel and Jayli, and set out to explore. The Disquisitors remain a neutral party, simply wandering the cosmos and gathering information, questioning traditions and cultural norms, and working to strengthen all of the known sapient species among the stars.
Reference Sheet: Here
The Alpha Mark Spartans:
Not every human supported the ORION project. One particular investor of the project became paranoid that ONI would end up using the Spartans against humans, to control and take over humanity. He broke away and funded his own mock project: The Alpha Mark Spartans. Trained up as hunters, rather than soldiers, and each designed to max out one specific trait rather than be Jack-of-All like the ONI Spartans, this man designed Spartan-killers.
Several issues occurred during the project. The first, was that their augmentation procedures were incredibly lethal, with a 95% death rate and 4% life with disability rate.
The second was that their training, while intense, was not run by any military personnel. While they are effective hunters and have deadly determination while hunting, they lack the poise and professionalism of a real soldier. Of course, this has its strengths as well, as it's hard to strategize against someone who doesn't appear to have a strategy.
The third, was that his training of them left them unclear on their purpose. While they are excellent at killing "evil Spartans", they failed to understand what he meant by "evil Spartans": He meant all Spartans, but they took it as him meaning specifically Spartans that have gone rogue.
While this was a failure to him, ONI realised the benefit of this: If they ever lost track of a Spartan, there was now a free clean-up crew available to fix the problem for them.
Now, every new Spartan receives a similar warning: "You better listen well, stay in line, and follow orders. Because, if you don't, the Mark A's will get you."
I'm currently replaying the games (almost finished 2), and just ordered every book that features a Sangheili's perspective.
Of note, I also post on Reddit (Makuta_Servaela), BlueSky (TheDragonJade), and FurAffinity (TheDragonJade). Be warned that the FA account includes lewd, including of Halo characters.
