The Wormhole Chronicles is a series of Fanfiction Crossovers by General Rage. The saga is set just after the main storyline of Mass Effect 2 and its Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, and follows the crew of the Normandy as they investigate the appearance of a mysterious wormhole that has suddenly popped up in deep space. They end up having to fly directly into the wormhole after being attacked by (unknown to them at the time) a Covenant cruiser, and travel through time and space before being dumped into another universe where another humanity is fighting a war of survival.
The Normandy ends up at on the planet Reach just as the Covenant invasion there takes hold, and as they assist in the planet's defense, Commander Shepard soon realizes that dark forces from his home universe have made a presence in this new one. While the Normandy works to uncover the extant of this insertion, the Covenant's presence in the Mass Effect galaxy threatens to ruin the fragile peace that has been established there, and with Shepard gone, his former teammates Liara T'Soni and Urdnot Wrex must safeguard their home in his absence.
Entries in the series so far:
- When There Was a Tomorrow - The first in the series, the plot focuses entirely on Shepard and his crew as they come into the Halo universe and work in aiding in Reach's defense during the events of Halo: Reach.
- Guilty Sparks - Set five weeks after When There Was a Tomorrow, the sequel follows the plot of Halo: Combat Evolved but with the crew of the Normandy as well as hostile envoys from the Mass Effect universe involved. A simultaneous side-story taking place in the Mass Effect universe is also portrayed, centering on Liara and Wrex as they battle a Covenant infiltration in the Terminus Systems.
- Remnants - An immediate sequel to Guilty Sparks, Remnants is a largely original story with a few elements of the novel Halo: First Strike. After fleeing Halo, Shepard and his group of survivors embark on a quest to find a Forerunner artifact of immense power, making enemies with a group of greedy pirates along the way.
- The Adventures of the Lucen: The VykurCorp Conspiracy - A story set parallel to Remnants, The VykurCorp Conspiracy continues Liara's story in the Mass Effect galaxy as she investigates the titular turian megacorporation and its connection to the growing Covenant presence. Tropes relating to that story are found on the Remnants page.
The Wormhole Chronicles provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation: A frequently asked question amongst viewers, is how did a wormhole linking two different universes suddenly pop up in the middle of space? Original consensus is that the Reapers made it appear, but its suggested from dialogue that they are just as clueless to its origins as everyone else. Evidence shows that the Forerunners were aware of the wormhole, but if they made it or were just taking advantage of it is a mystery.
- Audio Adaptation: The series inspired the creation of various in-depth voiceover performances recorded by HellFox83, and comprise different scenes from each of the three main entries. The majority can be found here
, and a few others can be accessed from General Rage's profile page on fanfiction.net. - Big Bad Ensemble: The story has, at the moment, seven different major antagonists:
- First off, there are the Covenant and Reapers, who are willingly united. The Reapers provide the Covenant with their technology (under the guise of being forerunner entities who offer gifts to the Covenant), but in actuality, the Reapers are merely using the Covenant to find a/the Composer and use that to speed up the cycle.
- The Swords of Khar'shan is a Batarian supremacist faction led by Shepard's old nemesis, Balak, dedicated to the extermination of humanity and the eventual supplanting of the Citadel Council by a Batarian government. They are allied with the Covenant to fulfill this purpose, though it is clear that the Covenant sees them as little more than puppets.
- Next is the Cerberus, who are trying to exploit the wormhole that links both universes to advance their own interests and have in fact infiltrated the Halo universe's human polity, using their new influence to manipulate the Human-Covenant war in their favor.
- In the spinoff story Adventures of the Lucen: The Vykurcorp Conspiracy, there's the titular Vykurcorp. While it's in alliance with the Covenant and uses their technology, their own scheme was something Orukuri was planning largely on his own. He wants to create a False Flag Operation that frames humans and various other aliens for a terrorist attack to revive Turian Nationalism and break away from the Citadel Council.
- From that same story, there's also the Singular, a malicious rogue Geth that merged with a Covenant A.I. with its own agenda.
- Remnants introduces the Syndicate, a criminal organization from the Halo universe largely comprised of Kig-Yar that are largely unaffiliated with the Covenant. Throughout the story, they are represented by Snarlbeak, the story's Big Bad.
- Last are the Flood, who just want to eat everyone, and based on their feats from the canon games and the Forerunner Trilogy, are the biggest threat (if not the most active one at the moment).
- Canon Foreigner: The series features a large swath of them including the Inquisitor, Liara's squad (Nel, Vik, Saya, and Kayap), Private Kowalski and his squad, Zek and the crew of the Fallen Serpent, Varvok, the Chronicler (a Precursor), Snarlbeak, Spadivus Orukuri (the CEO of VykurCorp), etc.
- Crossover: Between Mass Effect and Halo.
- For Want Of A Nail: A lot of events have gone very differently from canon in the Halo universe due to the intervention of the Normandy. See the pages for the individual stories for the exact details.
- Morality Kitchen Sink:
- The main heroes of this story - Commander Shepard and his crew and the Spartans and low ranking UNSC forces that accompany them - are firmly on the side of good.
- The UNSC High Command, ONI, and Liara's forces as the Shadow Broker are a bit darker, but still on the side of good, as while they have the best intentions, they're willing to commit morally grey actions to achieve their goals.
- Ackerson and the darker elements of ONI also have sympathetic goals, but they are more willing to cross lines to achieve those goals and aren't really bothered by the lines they cross.
- Citizens living in Omega and the various parts of the Mass Effect universe are mostly in the neutral area, being utterly ignorant of the story's conflict.
- Cerberus and the Illusive Man occupy A Lighter Shade of Black, as his goals, while understandable, are not completely sympathetic and he will gladly commit crimes of varying scale to achieve those goals.
- Both the Covenant and the Swords of Khar'shan are genocidally aggressive toward mankind, but they've also been lied to by their current leaders.
- The Reapers and Flood are totally unsympathetic villains who want to kill/eat everything. Strictly speaking, the Flood are infinitely more evil than everyone else combined.
- Finally, the Forerunner constructs run on Blue-and-Orange Morality - namely, keep the Flood contained at all costs.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Legion claims that how the UNSC operates is similar to the Geth, using SPARTAN soldiers as an example- the II's would be equivalent to heavy platforms like Juggernauts, while the III's would be like smaller but still tough foot soldiers. Both useful, both different types of platforms optimized for different mission requirements.
- Villain Team-Up: In this story, the Covenant, Reapers, and Batarians are willing allies.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Ashley Williams is confirmed in dialogue to have been the squadmate that Shepard saved on Virmire , but three doorstopper-level fanfics into the series, she has not yet made an appearance and has rarely been brought up by any of the characters.
