Establishing connection to intersystem network…
Connection established.
Accessing recent history of human expansion into space…
Timeline:
Late 2030s to 2040s- The upswing in divisive acts that mark the early half of the 21st century experiences a rapid decline with formerly hostile elements suddenly backing down either of their own volition or due to the decisions of former comrades. Sociologists worldwide fail to find a cause.
Early 2050s- As the few remaining brush wars die out humanity is poised to enter a new golden age with significant strides to bring countries once considered either too unprofitable or too volatile up to modern standards in an attempt to, in the words of the president of recently the recently reformed Russian Federation, "Fix the horrendous oversights of our predecessors that has seen one portion of humanity advance significantly and then sneer at those living in less fortunate regions." These circumstances result in a population boom that has world leaders scramble to accelerate plans to colonize the solar system in order to stall overpopulation.
October 4, 2057- On the centennial celebration of the launch of Sputnik 1 Jazmyne Shepard became the first human on Mars though, due to losing her balance and falling, her planned words were not spoken instead the first words from Mars were, "I'm alright. Oh, well I screwed that up. Oh well, here's to you sputnik, we've come a long way in a hundred years, beep beep beep." The crew then proceeded to place the two proposed flags for earth, one featuring the famous earthrise image and the other the International Flag of the Planet Earth, due to the debate over what should represent humanities combined efforts for spaceflight. The team's mission was to collect geological and ice samples from around the southern polar ice cap for analysis to determine a colony location.
April 12, 2061- The first colonists arrive at the Armstrong Lunar Habitat.
2060s- Missions to Mars continue as plans are drawn up to begin terraforming by jump-starting the core. Site of permanent research base decided on.
July 20, 2069- Gagarin Research Station is established on the southern Martian icecap with the goal of performing experiments on Mars, having a ground team capable of overseeing planned terraforming projects, and to begin preparation for a more sizable human population. After some initial sensor anomalies the station reported all green. The station is located in the large impact crater in the northern section of Promethei Planun due to accessibility of ice and predicted ease of access to the surface beneath.
2070s- Armstrong Colony, as the habitat became known, and Gagarin Station experience rapid growth as a surprising number of people emigrate earth, quickly bringing the total populations of the both colonies over a million each. When asked many state that there was too much noise on Earth or they felt that the colonists were lonely. Mars terraforming is on schedule and the core is expected to produce an acceptable magnetic field by 2100.
February 18, 2079- A clerical error results in sensors being shipped to Mars without having the now standard correction for those headed to the red planet. The error is not discovered until they are detected readings as when the colony was founded. An archaeological team is dispatched once they are determined to be emanating from beneath what was believed to be frozen volcanic ash.
July 5, 2080- The signal source is discovered, a buried cache of alien technology. The species is given the name Prothean due to a typo when entering Promethean in the report. The public is undecided on whether the name is a portent of things to come. Research begins into the technology and the materials found. A significant military buildup begins to protect humanity from whatever is found.
July 6, 2080 to October 7, 2081- Using the applications of the discovered material Massa Mutatio, unofficially known as Element Zero, shortened to Eezo, after a joke (a significant number of students used its discovery to attempt to call physics into question and therefor have tests canceled or incorrect questions counted correct. The teachers were not amused and many added a square before helium with the atomic symbol Ez and said that anyone trying to use that excuse would get it's atomic number according to the table.), humanity began mapping out the solar system in detail before culminating in discovering that the archives were accurate and there was a large structure under Charon. The activation codes proved correct, however in the process the moon was obliterated. Meanwhile plans for a defensive space force were drawn up, during the course of this the designs of the ill-fated Orion Orbital Battleship were revealed to have survived.
October 12, 2081- After days of sending probes through and failing to receive a response it is determined that the only way to progress was to send a manned mission. A call for qualified volunteers was issued and many jumped at the call including Jazmyne Shepard and her son Ryan Shepard who records say both practically beat the officials into putting them on the craft. This resulted in the memorable incident of one crew member trying to do a calculation of the ship's mass when the Shepards looked at each other and snorted before activating the experimental Massa Mutatio core to reduce the mass to zero. This resulted in the U.N.S. Enterprise becoming the first manned spacecraft to traverse a mass relay.
2082 to 2102- The following two decades are a golden era of exploration and expansion where the human species colonized multiple planets and the population began to show signs of leveling off. During this time the Connection is discovered and the planetary governments reform under the new Human Collective. However, at no point is any sentient life discovered despite the indication it exists. Meanwhile Mars's core is successfully jump-started and work begins on creating a breathable atmosphere. Some objections were raised to the project, voicing the opinion that it would be easier to find habitable worlds using the relays, but they were silenced once it was pointed out that not only was whatever caused the Protheans to leave possibly still out there, but if the work stopped then all the money and man-hours poured into it would be wasted just before it could show results. It was decided that atmospheric mass could be sourced from Venus.
End timeline.
Is there anything needed for addition Captain Shepard? (y/n)
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Mom fell on the Eezo controls.
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July 16, 2102- First contact occurs
A/N: Ok, first ever legitimate piece of fanfiction... here goes nothing.
the basic idea behind this was given to me by a friend ("How would humanity develop if population is limited to an arbitrary number due to a mental network that reaches capacity after a relatively small point" the number given was twelve billion) in reference to scifi settings. during the discussion the Mass Effect universe was specifically mentioned and I couldn't get the idea to leave me alone so here
this humanity is different, more scientifically focused than in baseline (reasons should be explained later but part of it is paranoia of being wiped out), more unified, somewhat more empathetic (feeling a mental reverberation of pain caused to another human tends to encourage understanding and discourse), but also more vindictive (that mental backlash also causes pain caused to others to equal echo pain caused to self)
not sure where this is going exactly, only thing that's clear is that this humanity tends to practice the carrot and stick philosophy with other species, and the stick tends to be orbital bombardment of varying degrees of devastation from kiloton to extinction event (it's not like they could afford the numbers to colonize or subjugate it so they like scorched earth). I wish to point out, humanity has not signed any of the Citadel's conventions on WMDs and as this humanity is slightly paranoid they are as likely to listen to them as the batarians are to abolish slavery
following chapters will have either adapted codex entries or their human equivalent. Each will be based on their societies information so the codex shouldn't be taken as perfectly accurate on humans and the intersystem network's files (basically their version of the internet, even has the same acronym: internet, and uses something similar to Wikipedia for their codex analogue)
guess that's it for now, hope you enjoyed it and there's more to come
edit: brief correction of spelling errors that slipped by