HBO Fan Fiction

hboff · Site Admin Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 4352

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The Priestess and the Warrior - Serendipity
Posted by Jillybean (jillybean@bungie.org)
20 June 2008, 12:55 pm

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=Jillybean0620081255531.html

kr1 · Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:08 pm Post subject:

Another good entry. As always, I'm enjoying the Elite perspective. I liked seeing a bit of background on the Human-Sangheili alliance, and I especially liked the SpecOps Elites using human weapons as a sign of their alliance. I love the idea of the Arbiter starting a thinktank to defeat the Spartans, too. Looking forward to the next part. Very Happy

(ENS) Rabid_Gallagher · Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:32 pm Post subject:

Beautifully written, Jilly! Another great one under your belt!
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Marty · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 12 Location: Albany, NY

Really good story. You seem to be really good at getting into the heads of these Elites and making their thoughts operate in sync with their culture. What I like about it especially is that different ones seem (just like regular people I guess) to have completely different mindsets based on their life experiences. The former priestess seems to know about as much about what's going on as I'd expect a Vestal or Oracle or whatever to know about what was going on during the Roman civil wars. The Elite she talks to later, though, makes a sort of wink and nod, though, saying that some Elites foresaw the schism and took measures for how to deal with it. Cool stuff.

You could run into some problems regarding this kind of thing with the Arbiter, though, and I'm curious to see how you handle him. Just how much about politics/culture/current events, yada yada does a former supreme commander know, after all? From the games atleast, he doesn't seem to have a God complex that general-types usually have, he seemed genuinely pious in Halo 2, and A whole world of emotions (working with former enemies, etc.) are raking through his head when he is of one of the most you-need-to-be-stoic-to-survive professions there is in the universe. So far, I honestly think you've handled the world inside the Elites' heads better than any of the Halo novels I've read (I haven't read the Joe Staten one yet), nonetheless.

I think an interesting resource for you might be any kind of book/memoir or just even the wikipedia page for the Berlin Airlift. Perfect example for two arch enemies suddenly forced to cooperate and work together. German guys who were flying Luftwaffe raids against the allies just 4 years earlier were working desperately everyday with American and British pilots and crews to save their city, very powerful stuff... might have some inspiration?

Thanks for the good read.

Jillybean · Darth Diva Joined: 17 Dec 2004 Posts: 299

There is, sadly, a good few chapters of backstory which shows that Saia is extremely instrumental in the schism, but it's all background and underground work (being in the public eye, with children and a mate she can't go about proclaiming herself a heretic).

Orna's gone through a lot and at the moment thinks Saia's dead, so his actions are more in keeping with his days of drinking after his daughter was killed.

(This series? She is a long'un)

Marty · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 12 Location: Albany, NY

kr1 · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:06 am Post subject:

Jilly posted an exhaustive summary in one of her submissions a few weeks back. I haven't gotten to read all of her previous work, but it caught me up to speed more than adequately.
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Azrael · Member Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Posts: 504 Location: Boston

You must have been one of the most excited Halo fans to find out the other two co-op players were Elites, eh Jilly?

Another well-done installment, though not your absolute best. I've been following this series since the beginning, and I felt like this one, while it matched the scope of the beginning of Crow's Nest, felt pretty constrained. It felt like a setup chapter, and I really wanted something MORE.

That said, I felt that your interactions between the Elites and Marines were great, and the casual reader who hasn't read all of PATW gets the idea that there's a much deeper backstory than just a level of Halo 3. I was thrilled to see a couple updates back that you were continuing the series. Indeed, the saga of Orna and Saia is far from over. Excited to see where you go from here.
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