It has been five long years since the Abyssals appeared, and the war is far from over. Even with the spirits of past ships summoned to help, humanity faces a long and hard fight to rid their oceans of the Abyssal threat. But one mysterious girl might help turn the tide. Just, what on earth does "UNSC" mean?
For Earth and Her Colonies is a KanColle / Halo crossover fanfic written by Nicholas on the Sufficient Velocity and Spacebattles forums. It was later crossposted by the author under the name "History Anonymous" to Fanfiction.net. It was completed with one Epilogue chapter in April of 2016.
In the year 2025, the Stalwart-class light frigate UNSC Harvest suddenly appears lying on an ocean with a strangely human body, and after an encounter with some local Abyssals puts out a call for help. That call is answered by shipgirls operating out of Japan, who bring the new shipgirl back with them. This new shipgirl, however, will change the direction of the war, and of humanity as a whole, overnight.
The story can be found on Fanfiction.net here
, with its discussion threads on Spacebattles here, and on Sufficient Velocity here.
For Earth and Her Colonies provides examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: The writing occasionally focuses on the actions of other characters, such as Albacore, Warspite, the ODST fairies, whatever leads the Abyssals, and the Covenant Shipmaster.
- A flashback at the beginning of Chapter 10 is from the perspective of Admiral Margaret Parangosky, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
- Anger Born of Worry: There are some hints that Enterprise's legendary wrath may be out of a desire to never lose her sisters again.
- Armor Is Useless: Discussed. It's thoroughly averted against the Abyssals, and in fact Harvest's armor plate actually makes her the tankiest shipgirl in existence. However, Harvest refuses to trust her armor the first time she fights Abyssals, because her experience against the Covenant has taught her this trope is all too true.
- Ascended Extra: The ODST fairies steal every scene they're in. The chapter where Harvest drops them on Midway Island to cause havoc is the most reviewed on Fanfiction.net, generally involving readers laughing over the chaos they caused.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The central controllers of the Abyssals are seen on a couple of occasions, and are described as absolutely massive and taking a ton of ordinance to put down. Three of them appear simultaneously during the final battle at the Mariana Islands, and are obliterated by the newly appearing CCS-class battlecruiser.
- Big Eater: One of the first indications to Nagato that there’s more to their new shipgirl than she seems: a meal that should have restocked her to full instead only resupplies a single Archer missile.
- Blown Across the Room: Harvest's Magnetic Accelerator Cannon obliterates the tail of a Re-class battleship the first time it is used, much to the shock of everyone involved. Harvest also uses to blast the Spec Ops Elite about to kill Nagato, and space the battleship out of the CCS before the Shiva goes off.
- Boom, Headshot!: An ODST fairy attempts to inflict this on the repair ship Akashi with a Spartan laser, after the kanmusu unknowingly tries to drill into Harvest’s reactor and pries open her hanger doors. Akashi jerks her head back just in time, and thankfully Harvest herself arrives a moment later to order them to stand down.
- After landing on a Wo-class carrier's head and briefly knocking it out with its drop pod during the Battle of Midway, another (or possibly the same) ODST fairy finishes off the Wo with a SPNKR rocket to the face.
- Brutal Honesty: Repensum does not hold back on Earth’s chances against the Covenant cruiser, much to Nagato’s consternation.
- Chekhov's Gag: After accidentally destroying her workshop, Harvest makes it up to Shimakaze by taking her on an orbit around the Earth, saying that the destroyer was fine once she deployed her rigging. This fact is noted by Nagato as she is preparing to ride the rocket with Harvest to attack the Covenant warship.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Destroyer Division Six, Inazuma especially, seems to have shades of this. It does get them to go to Harvest's rescue, however, so it certainly paid off there.
- Continuity Nod: Several on both sides of the crossover:
- On the Kantai Collection side, Nagato references the Kantai Collection Anime in terms of the attack on Midway Island (here justified as a diversion for the Americans to retake the Hawaiian Islands) and the sinking of Kisaragi. She also notes that those series of offensives have left Japan’s shipgirls exhausted and in need of rest, which is one of the reasons why she is initially suspicious of Harvest’s arrival.
- On the Halo side, Halo Wars is referenced frequently, including the history of Harvest’s captain (evacuated off of Arcadia, the fourth mission of that game’s campaign), and that the father of Harvest’s executive officer was a crew member aboard the Spirit of Fire.
- UNSC Harvest was constructed above Reach, using parts (and an apt nameplate) sourced from the Azod Ship-Breaking Yards, where the final mission of Halo: Reach will take place. These parts are how Repensum's ship spirit became tied to Harvest's hull.
- UNSC Repensum Est Canicula collected “recruits” for both the Spartan II and III programs. When her crew objects to collecting orphans saved from doomed planets for the latter program, Admiral Parangosky summons ONI Section Zero to liquidate them.
- Cute Bruiser: UNSC Harvest, the actual vessel, is over twice as long as an Iowa-class battleship with an overall armor belt thicker than the face of Yamato’s turrets. UNSC Harvest, the shipgirl, is about the size of a destroyer.
This is because Harvest considers herself a frigate. - Dark and Troubled Past: Every shipgirl has their own personal demons that they’re in various stages of working through. Story-relevant examples include:
- The Japanese generally being on the wrong side of World War Two both morally and in outcome, and for Nagato specifically, nuclear weaponry due to her trauma from the Bikini Atoll tests.
- USS Enterprise for the deaths of her sister ships and other friends in the beginning of World War Two.
- UNSC Harvest for the horrible reality of fighting a losing war against the Covenant, and of being forced to leave refugees behind when their planet is being glassed.
- UNSC Repensum Est Canicula for the betrayal and murder of her crew by the Office of Naval Intelligence.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Harvest finds humanity being split into several separate nation-states quaint at best, and on more than one occasion has expressed her lack of interest in politics.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Abyssals wind up becoming this when the Covenant arrive.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: A frigate from the year 2547 winds up a shipgirl in the year 2025.
- Foreshadowing: Plenty.
- As noted in Historical In-Joke below, Harvest’s hull number give a hint to her final battle as a UNSC frigate.
- Akashi’s inventory of Harvest’s weaponry for Nagato and Enterprise includes the Shiva nuclear weapon.
- Early in Chapter 4 Harvest seems to have some strange memories that neither she nor any of her crew should have. They’re the first hint that the former ONI prowler whose parts helped construct her also came along.
- Harvest’s nightmare in Chapter 3 includes the UNSC admiral broadcasting his authorization code for Shiva tactical nukes over the general net when it's clear the Covenant intend to glass the planet. This exact code is what Harvest remembers to activate her Shiva aboard the Covenant cruiser.
- Bits and pieces of the last battle of UNSC Harvest are scattered through a number of chapters before a report at the beginning of Chapter 20 plays out the entire engagement.
- Godzilla Threshold: The CCS-class battlecruiser hovering above the Earth serves as this for Nagato to agree to a mission to deliver a nuclear warhead.
- Hammerspace: Shipgirls seem to be able to store things in their “hull” and bring them out when needed. This is used in-story to sneak the Shiva nuke onto the Covenant ship.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: In Chapter 1 Harvest’s MAC obliterates an Abyssal Re-class battleship. It does it again to a Spec Ops Elite during the attack on the Covenant ship.
- Heroic BSoD: During the attack on the final Abyssal stronghold in the Marianas, Harvest suddenly panics and flees when she detects the Covenant CCS-class approaching.
- Historical In-Joke: A few for those who know their World War II history. One example being when Lexington reports they are going after the enemy by sending the same message Halsey sent before chasing off after Ozawa’s force at The Battle of Leyte Gulf. Judging by how sheepish Lexington became afterwards, Saratoga was not amused.
- One that doubles as foreshadowing is Harvest’s hull number FFG-413, for anyone who makes the connection to USS Samuel B. Roberts, DE-413, and her actions in the Battle Off Samar. A combat report of the Harvest’s last action makes this connection even clearer as all the hull numbers for the UNSC ships correspond to an American ship at the Battle Off Samar.
- Just to make the "Harvest/Samuel B. Roberts" connection even clearer, Harvest's dumb AI, Copeland, is named for Sammy Bee's captain.
- Humble Pie: Harvest’s disastrous first attempts to fly ground her for her first battle as a shipgirl. She later tries to get away without flying until the Abyssals force her to realize she’s not invincible.
- 100% Heroism Rating: After ending the Abyssal War and destroying the Covenant warship the shipgirls of humanity are pretty much this. The shipgirls use this fact to cushion the blow of them all defecting to the United Nations.
- Idiot Ball: After her stunning first combat as a shipgirl, Harvest quickly develops an invincibility complex and brushes off Enterprise’s advice that she treat the Abyssals seriously. The Abyssals themselves make their case soon enough. Thankfully, Harvest gets better after that.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Harvest via energy sword by the Spec Ops Elite on the Covenant ship.
- Impeded Communication: For a while in the early chapters the shipgirls with their World War Two-era technology have trouble communicating with Harvest in orbit above them. Harvest can power a message down to them, but it’s a one-way street. It becomes a bit of an issue when Richelieu almost leads a force of shipgirls into an active orbital strike.
- Lampshade Hanging: USS Yorktown calls out the Japanese space program just happening to have a rocket ready to go. Nagato Hand Waves it away by saying that the rocket's scheduled launch was cancelled by the first Abyssal attacks, and it was simply de-fueled and put away instead.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: By the standards of Halo, a light frigate like Harvest is the Reddest of Redshirts, only able to go against equivalent Covenant vessels through sheer weight of numbers. By the World War Two-era standards of KanColle, Harvest is bar none the strongest shipgirl in existence, able to destroy even the most powerful Abyssals with ease via her MAC or her Archer missiles or even just running them over.
- No-Sell: During Harvest's first battle a Battleship Water Oni emerges right in front of Harvest and blasts her at point-blank range. Not only does Harvest completely shrug off the attack, but the Oni emerged so close that neither can move out of the way and Harvest runs the Oni over. Unfortunately, this impressive showing leads to Harvest becoming overconfident instead. (See Idiot Ball above.)
- Properly Paranoid: Having been in the position of a technical/numerical disadvantage herself, Enterprise knew the Abyssals would do their best to find a way to counter Harvest rather than just allowing her to steamroll them. She was right.
- Shout-Out: Per the Author’s Note in Chapter 6, Enterprise being selected as the representative for ONI is one to The Greatest Generation.
- Naka calls Harvest’s early efforts at re-learning how to fly with a human body “Kanmusu Space Program”. The reference is repeated as the name of the chapter where Harvest and Nagato ride a rocket to attack the Covenant warship.
- USS Langley’s design and personality as an Old West Settler is one to ''Pacific''.
- One of the Sanghelli grumbles that “humans are bullshit”, one of the Running Gag quotes from Neuroi Quest.
- In the report of Harvest's last battle, UNSC frigates number 339 and 341 are respectively named "Walker" and "Ranger". If number 340 is named "Texas", then the three names in order would be "Walker, Texas Ranger".
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Pretty comfortably on the side of "idealism". Although everyone has their own traumas and problems, they still do their best to work together against a common threat, and even after those threats are defeated, still do what they can to make a the world a better place. The Epilogue chapter really shows how much humanity is growing, and that the lessons learned are still being used even after the immediate need has passed.
- Walking Spoiler: Pretty much anything involving UNSC Repensum Est Canicula or the Covenant.
- Wham Line: 'How go the repairs, brothers?' 'We have ensured we will not break apart, at least. From there we proceed to other systems.' 'Very well. Proceed apace, and we may yet regain our lost honor.'
