Once again, a 3-day hiatus in Fan Fiction posting has led to a ridiculously-sized update; 31 stories. (There was one more, valid one… but it was too big, and the database couldn’t handle it. Hopefully, the submitter will resubmit in smaller chunks.)

• Final Fate: Mankind’s Despise, by Jinkaiden-XI
• The Final War: Battle for Installation 02 [4:2], by Awacar
• The Last Battle of Earth prt 2, by Tlaloc
• A Rough Beginning, by Covie Armada
• Up to E3, by Steve
• The Last Forerunner(before part 1): Toward Another Halo, by Sentinel
• Covenant Grunt Morphology, by FOrunnER
• Out of Phase-Chapter 1, by BlackValkyire
• An HBO Christmas, by Jillybean
• The Exchange – Part 1 – Empensa’, by Dispraiser
• The Second Ring (Part 3), by Jason
• Earth’s Destruction Chapter 1: The Invasion, by Sentinel
• ES04 – Eternal Sunder (part 04): The Song of Sunder , by Wado
• Fight for New Tatley (Chapter 5: Arriving, Departing), by CoLd BlooDed
• Never Deny, by CoLd BlooDed
• The Serran part 1, by Tlaloc
• Fight or Flight: Chapter 4, by teemus
• Jonson Chronicles: Chapter 1:Boarding Parties, by Mattt
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 13, by S7N
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 14, by S7N
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 15, by S7N
• The Fallen: Halo 2 Chp 6 Sect 2 Just Passing By, by Hikaru-119
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 16, by S7N
• MSOG: Chapters 3 & 4, by Sprtn117John
• Unarmed, by Steve
• You’d Never Know, by CovieKilla
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 17, by S7N
• Closing with the Enemy Chapter 5 Night Approaches, by monitor101
• The Harvest Campaign Chapter 3, by Fleet Admiral
• Last Battle: In The Line Of Duty, by JOTD Fanfiction Team
• The March of the N00bs – Special Features, by Wado

Try not to miss Jillybean’s HBO Christmas or Wado’s March of the N00bs wrapup. (There’s tons of other worthwhile stuff in here, too, of course…)

It’s been quite a bit of work, and not all of it’s visible… but mnemesis and Finn have overhauled the Halo Story page, with new design tweaks, new organization, and new information. Poke around, see what you can find… there’s some good stuff in there!

Today’s One One Se7en has MC a tad fixated on the review score Edge Magazine gave Halo PC. We know how that can be. (On a more sober note, for all the folks who misinterpreted my One One Se7en note yesterday – the truth is, I LOVE this strip. I wouldn’t complain if Stuntmutt turned in enough for a strip every single day; we’d figure out a new system for posting Guest strips, if that ever happened. Thanks for the offers to host Guest strips, and the threats in support of Stuntmutt… the strip isn’t going anywhere, and I’ll try to be less subtle in my tweakage in the future. Maybe.)

The sad thing about today’s Halo: Resolution is that we’re STILL getting emails like this, more than 2 years after the release of Xbox Halo.

MaverickJ stopped in this afternoon to post the results from the AGP Fall 2003 Halo Championship. HP Darkman was unseated by Walshy of the Psycho Soldiers, with Clockwork and Strange Purple taking 3rd and 4th spots. Forum regular Break Point was there, and wrote up his own take on Day 1 – there’s a version with boatloads of pics, and a version with links to the pics (so you can download them at your leisure, if you’re on a slower connection). Sounds like a pretty interesting experience all around! Update: Lion, a member of Break Point’s team, wrote up a bit (and posted some pics), too.

progamerz stopped by our forum to point out that a new version of HaloSpy has been released; this build adds screenshot viewing capabilities and autojoin and game autolaunch functions. Check it out!

Ross Mills found a Master Chief model for Unreal Tournament 2; you can find download links (and a screenshot of the model) in this thread on the Atari forums. His feet look a little funny… but maybe that’s just the angle.

Not long ago, it became clear that the submissions for One One Se7en were quickly outstripping our chance of hosting them in a reasonable timeframe, and the Archive was born. (Next week’s Archive update already has nearly 30 strips in it.) It took much of the pressure off the Guest queue… but Stuntmutt hasn’t been allowing that queue to shrink; he’s added a Holiday category (Thursday’s Guest strip was postponed for a Thanksgiving strip) and he’s been pretty consistent with the Sunday strips (there’s one today, in fact), bumping the Guest strips patiently waiting for that Sunday slot. Yes, his commentary is right on the money. Yes, he’s more consistent at making you laugh than the guest strips are. Yes, yes, yes, it’s true that many Guest strip creators simply cut and paste from Stuntmutt’s artwork. But what is One One Se7en all about, anyway? Isn’t it about empowering average joes to create a piece of a highly successful comic? Shouldn’t Stuntmutt realize that it’s not about him? Should there be a vote to remove the regular strip altogether, replacing it with Guest strips, to give joe sixpack a fighting chance? Well, while you’re thinking about the answers to these questions, go read today’s Sunday strip. And please, please, PLEASE… don’t try these lines yourselves in a bar.

Wonga. Now that the DVDs are done, Red vs Blue is back at work; filming on season 2 has begun, and they’re shooting for a mid-December release of episode 20. (They’re also hoping to have another Public Service Announcement between now and then.) Thanks to Ross Mills for the heads-up.

18 stories for you since the last Fan Fiction update (36 hours ago):

• The Battle for Phi Delta: Part 1, by witelancer
• 500 Men. 1000 Covenant. 1 Spartan. 1 Building. , by Steve
• Fight or flight: Chapter Three, by teemus
• The Battle for Phi Delta: Part Two, by witelancer
• The Last Forerunner Part 1:The Battle of Halo , by Sentinel
• Warriors of Valour: Part 5: Revenge is sooo sweeet, by Ghost Sniper
• The Plot Thickens…, by D
• Saving Fifth Street, by Ajax
• A Marine Named Peters: Rodriguez’s Gifts, by GLADIATRRR3000
• The Battle for Halo:The Takers, by Sentinel
• The End of the Covenant: Part I, by Tlaloc
• Appocalypse-Sector5, by FF Echo
• Halo 2 Rise of a Hero Chapter 6, by CovieKilla
• The Battle for Phi Delta: Chapter 3, by witelancer
• The Battle for Phi Delta: Chapter 4, by witelancer
• The Pelican Bond, by Mauricio Flores
• The Last Battle of Earth, by Tlaloc
• The Second Ring (Part 2), by Jason

Seems like it’s speeding up, if anything…

Ross Mills has whipped up a short Christmas-themed film for you; only 26 shopping days left! Timing’s nice, though it would have been more impressive had there been no need to manipulate pitch… it’s 1:21 long, and available in both WMP9 and QT formats (4.8 mb each, you choose). Don’t hate him for the suffering he’s caused… think of the artistic value. Update: DOH! I thought this was a remake of ‘Carol of the BOBs‘, an older Marathon-based piece… it wasn’t. It actually USED Carol of the BOBs as the soundtrack. My bad. (Sorry, Jester!)

A couple of members of the Halo Elites wrote to say that their clan website is now online, and they’re looking for new members. Check it out!

In today’s Guest One One Se7en strip, Stumanji looks at possible Covenant counterattacks to the new Mark VI armor and weapons. Ouch!

NINJ4 posted a funny little animated gif earlier today… I can’t say I haven’t wished I’d had one of these… (The image is now local, to keep from crushing his connection.)

Hehe – the Story page boys get a nod from 343GS.com today, with the latest installment of echofournineteen, their ongoing comic. (Check the Downloads section.) Thanks, Madda Cheeb.

progamerz points out that over at halocity.org/forums, there is quite a bit of info about making Halo PC maps and mods. (He also pointed out molkien.halocity.org, a mod site with a pretty cool-looking map in progress called Cliffhanger.) Look around!

This came in a few days ago, too – we’re slipping. Efighter wrote to point out that The Red Army Clan for Halo is currently recruiting. Drop by their forum if you’re interested.

DOH! mrsmiley stepped in and created a Thanksgiving-themed Halo Babies when Gruntsbane had family obligations… we missed it because we took yesterday off. Take a look!

Dang – posted a few days ago, I forgot to get back to it. SanchezTheLlama put out a request on our forum for developers who want to help out in an open source project – a strategy game based on Halo. There’s an out-of-date website up at SourceForge.net, and more information within the linked forum thread (read all the way through).

Thanks to Jamirus99 and Geeoff, who both pointed out that Best Buys across America today will be selling Xbox Halo for $17.99 between 6 am and noon. This after-Thanksgiving sale is the perfect time for those of you in the US to buy that spare copy!