Mass Effect: United Species Aliance

by Delfim the Black kitsune

So... blew up the reapers, and the galaxy is at peace... nah, not really. The council withdrew their support to take care of their own, Earth was in shambles there seemed to be no hope. Until another species made contact. Today, The United Species Alliance stands strong against the cold Galaxy. Self-insert/HAREM. Based on events from the main Mass effect games.

1. Chapter 1

Delfim: Hey how's it going bros? Delfim the Black Kitsune here. And this is an idea that has been haunting me. Sorry, no funny intros, I just want to get this off my chest.

MASS EFFECT FIC!

Okay, Post Reaper War with the destroy option selected with a twist. Shepard survives and this is many years after the war.

OCs! Male HumanxFemale Quarianxfemaleturianxasari here, you have been warned.

Contains autistic character, lots of talks, may have a lemon at one point and maybe a new species. I am thinking of this as I write.

Council are pricks! Specially Salarians and most Asari. You have been warned.

Also this starts with Shepard but really the main character is not him, nor any of his crew members. You have been warned.

Here we go:

Chapter 1 Prologue.

Admiral John Shepard, War Hero, Savior of the Citadel, Destroyer of Collectors and Reaper's Bane sighed as he rubbed his temples. The darkness that came from outside was indicative that it was well pass the time to be awake, yet he was, remembering all that had happened in these many years.

He remembered the Crucible. That thing haunted his memories like mad. Being given three choices, and none sit well with him. Destroy all synthetic life? What of the Geth? What of EDI? He looked away as he was presented with the chance to control all Reapers. And then what? What if he wasn't powerful enough to keep them under control? What then? He couldn't risk it.

And then the final option. Synthesis. It seemed so alluring, the final evolution of life. Everyone sharing the same DNA, everyone together, no more war. Edi would live with Joker, the Geth would survive the war. Everyone would come out happy. All he had to do was throw himself to the beam and die.

It seemed like the best choice, but as he walked to it, Shepard frowned. Join organic with Synthetic? Isn't that what the Reapers were doing? When Saren had said similar words, he told him to fuck off, so why was he accepting this now as a solution? And even if he gave those giant machines emotions, would they really stop fighting? Or perhaps get angry and attack even more? He remembered as cold realization hit him like cold water: he was being misled, perhaps even indoctrinated.

The Reapers wanted to accelerate the process! If he went forward with this, than life would have no point. No one died, so no life was created. No evolution, only stagnation. And stagnation led to death, it was inevitable. The death of all life. NO! Dead Reapers is the way, just like Anderson had told him.

So without another thought, he started shooting. As the Crucible exploded, he smiled sadly. EDI, the Geth, they would be lost. All for ending the war. But there was no other choice. The threat had to end. The manipulations had to stop.

The Reapers had to die!

He was found in the debris, barely alive, missing and arm and crippled, with more scars than a Krogan Battlemaster, but it was worth it. The reapers were dead. And besides, a good amount of medi-gel, some therapy and a good amount of clone tissue did wonders.

Surprisingly, he learned, the catalyst was misleading him more than he thought. The Mass Relays exploded, yes. The reapers died, yes. But nothing else. No other VI or AI died. Even those with Reaper tech suffered only a bit.

The Geths survived because while they had reaper upgrades, no hardware was reaper tech and only half of their software was reaper enhanced. In other words, they lost a lot of processing power, but they survived.

Even EDI did, though her body was completely lost, since it was mostly reaper tech. After the Normandy was repaired, thanks in no small part to the very capable group of engineers, and they had returned to Earth, EDI was given a new body, to the great satisfaction of one Flight Lieutenant. This time he really baked a cake!

You may ask what happened after that. Earth was a stumble, laying in ruins and smoldering ash. The council backed away licking their own injuries, refusing to help stating they had their own problems to deal with. The Krogans, were left with no contact and no way of their world due to not possessing any ship or resources to build one. It seemed like no one would or could help this time. But there was one race that didn't back down. That even with the Mass Relays gone and the ability to reach places impaired, refused to give up.

The Quarians.

The little suit devils had their homeworld, the Geth, resources and their brilliance, but they soon realized that with no knowledge of how to farm the land, how to create medical supplies and without anyone to trade, they would not survive. Spurred by a very eager Admiral Tali'Zorrah, from almost nothing they build Space ships to contact the other species. In addition, the first they contacted, were the humans.

Once contact was established, things started to look up. Humans had enough knowledge of all the things the Quarian needed to help out, and with the Quarians help, they too slowly got back on their feet. Plus the geth made reconstruction way easier. It wasn't official, but these three species had forged an alliance from need, one stronger than any could have anticipated.

Which only became stronger when Shepard tried to contact Tsuchanka, only to find it… thriving. The Krogans were survivors, and even when they were left stranded on their own planet, they still thrived. Cities were built, and even vegetation was growing. However, they missed Space, so when Wrex heard about what the humans and Quarians were doing, he jumped right in. 4 different species working together: Humans, Quarians, Geth and Krogan.

You thought that was it, no, for Shepard doesn't do things half way. A very old and grateful ally contacted him: The Rachni Queen. It was difficult, but everyone soon saw the benefits of having these bugs on their side when they showed enormous capability to adapt and learn, and their ingenuity regarding weapons of mass destruction. Really they had the most whicked minds on that aspect.

So they came together, bonding and thriving because of the union. But what name could they use. Ironically, they called themselves the United Species Alliance, USA! Let's just say that some of the humans still laugh at how fitting the name was.

The USA was run similar to the council, with a representative of each race. This representative, however, was a voted figure and had to have certain qualifications, like having served an amount of years in the military, or having enough work on diplomacy and such, or at times both. Shepard ended being selected as the Human representative, due to having had the most contact with other species. Tali was her people's representative, Wrex let nobody but himself represent them, Geth Primarch was selected for harboring over 3000 Geth programs in his platform and always keeping in touch with many more of them at any given moment and the Rachni Queen trained a specific child to represent them, who took the name of Kusah.

And just like the council, while they had the representatives, each planet, colony and station had their own democratically assigned leader. Still all of them answered to the Admiralty Board, as they were called… to Tali's amusement.

However, unlike the Council, they did not have anything similar to the Specters, as no one was above the law. The closest to it where the new N7, whose training not only had the 4 organic species covered now, but was much tougher due to Shepard sharing some secret training regimens he got from the Specters. He wasn't one of them anymore, no need to keep secrets.

Of course not all was well and good. The salarians, who largely kept themselves outside of the war, came out as the strongest Council Race due to losing very little men. This wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for two things: one, they hated the krogans. Two, they hated the humans. They wouldn't let go of the fact that the Krogans should receive the genophage again, as they feared the overgrown of population and, what they considered inevitable, reenact of the Krogan Rebellions. It took decades, but once the new genophage, one that they thought no one would ever cure, was ready, they advanced to Tsuchanka, hoping to get there before the Krogans could even build a spaceship. By then, the Krogans didn't stand alone anymore.

It was a devastating disaster for the Salarians as Human, Quarian and Geth ships fired upon them before they could reach Tsuchanka, not only foiling their plans, but also sending a message to the Galaxy that they would not be trifled with.

The salarians pleaded to the Council, who saw the threat of this alliance, to wage war. However, they were stopped by the lack of support: the Turians declared they would not enter in confrontations with this army after what happened both in the contact war and in the Reaper war. With that, both Elchor and Volus declared that they too wouldn't enter the war.

The Hanar, in their unique polite way, declared that they did not have enough assassin-trained drells to even scratch the opposing force, thus neither Hanar nor drell supported them.

The Asari, seeing that no one else was going to assist, withdrawn their support as well. While they resented humanity for Cerberus' part in the war, they had lost too much to be able to help.

Therefore, the war ended before it started. Or did it? With use of subterfuge, underhanded tactics and a few illegal methods, they striped humanity of its place in the council, revoked Shepard's Specter privileges and made it almost impossible for humans to live comfortably on the slowly rebuilding Citadel.

Now the Universe was divided in three great parts: Council Space, and USA space, and whatever didn't belong to the two, with places like Omega coming to mind.

Shepard sighed. He still wondered how things had turned up like this. When he united the species to fight the Reapers, he thought that after the war the universe would know peace. Now, the entire Galaxy seemed to break apart even more.

However, he realized that there was nothing that he could do now, and wouldn't have changed anything. Let the salarians be pissed, the krogan are far more trustworthy allies than those lab nerds. And if the quarians were able to look past their bloodied history, then why can't the salarians?

Suddenly a pair of slender pale arms wrapped around him. He smirked as he looked back to his lover. Tali'Zorrah smiled at him as her body molded to his back. Their entire apartment was built specifically so that Tali could walk around without having to be in her suit, something both enjoyed. Out there, she was the great Admiral Tali'Zorrah pas Rannoch. Here, she was his.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" asked Tali, concerned.

"Nothing, just checking our newest toy." Said Shepard with a grin, knowing this would rile her up.

"A toy?" asked Tali as if he was stupid. "A toy that puts the old Normandy to shame? I would love to see what you consider a real ship." She then looked at the data pad on his hand. In it where blueprints for a ship, the newest and most advanced one of the USA. After seeing the results from the Original Normandy, the most brilliant minds of the 5 races came together to come up with a ship that could both represent them and be as successful if not more than the legend from which it was inspired.

The slim white cockpit was in the middle of the ship, and ended in a curved tip, its windows allowing for 270º angle of vision. At each side came a white arm with blue lines each delimited by black lines. These extended beyond the cockpit, with several highlights were the weapons were held, like the new SHREDDER turrets, with six in each arm, three above and three bellow, and in the middle of the two arms, just below the line of sight of the cockpit, two cannons pointing to one another. Bellow the cockpit, a Thanix canyon made its appearance, something Shepard had asked for, knowing how useful they were against the Collector ship. After the cockpit, the ship developed into a pair of wings that pointed back. Of blue color with black tips, each wing has two thrusters, one mid wing and one close to the tip. In between the two wings was what looked like four thrusters put together in a square form. Below them was a single door that led to the hangar.

Overall, the ship looked like a well-armed frigate, except that everything was cutting edge technology: the Shredder turrets were made by the Geth and had 3 cannons each, two smaller used for rapid anti-missile and anti-frigate while the third bigger one to fire a short but powerful blast that would make even a cruiser think twice. If that didn't work… remember those cannons in the middle of the arms? These were for the prototype "Final Flash", an idea from the Rachni. One single and deadly blast laser that could tear a Dreadnaught to pieces, this thing is the ultimate weapon of this ship. Of course the weapon itself was only capable of firing one shot per time before becoming too hot and needing maintenance, thus it can only be used in emergencies.

If that wasn't enough, Krogan actually developed something: They call it the Bronk Armor, in memory of Talorg Bronk, the lucky krogan who came up with it. It was a unique combination of different metals, minerals from different planets and plastic components. Somehow it created a strong and durable hull that would be hard to breach. If the Normandy rammed into this ship, its Silarious armor would be filled with scratches, and the Bronk armor wouldn't even bulge. In the engines, a duo Tantalus drive core. Smaller, retrofitted for less emitting, keeping the stealth mode that was part of Normandy's charm. This, coupled with having two cores instead of one, without counting the smaller ones that were around the ship, allowed for an improved and easier to maintain Multicore shield based of the good old Cyclonic Barrier Technology, something that Tali had come up with when they were fighting the collectors.

The face of all the others engineers was priceless as not only they were seeing something thought impossible, but Tali also mocked them about that being her 'Brilliant idea'. She actually danced worse than he did while mocking them.

Couple that with the fusion plant, extended fuel cells and Antiproton Thrusters with both aft and forward exhausts, and you already have one hell of a ship. But humans didn't just help put this all together. Their contribution might seem subtle to most, but it was there. First they helped the Geth to create a system that could run the entire ship and would allow them to easily integrate the system in any part of the ship. Then they also improved the sensory equipment, designed the ship and… yes, they also made it possible to put the rest together… and got together the biggest amount of resources for the project.

Shepard smiled. The USSV (United Systems Space Vehicle) Nautilus, a reborn of an old human legend now made fierce in the galaxy. He missed the old Normandy, and felt bad that he could not go on this one, but was hoping to see what this one would be known for.

"Tell me you don't wish to be there."

"Keelah, John. Do you have to ask?"

John chuckled. "I guess not." He sighed. "Is this how Hackett felt when he saw me with the Normandy? Was this how Anderson felt? Damn I wish I could punch the lucky bastard that got this ship."

"And who is this lucky bastard?" asked Tali. "I know which quarians were picked for the project, but in the end who got the ship?"

The people selected for the ship were a skeletal crew at best, but still the best. Having members of all the races, yet still making a balance and effective crew. Plus a good portion of them were members of the N7 program from each race.

"That is the tough part." Said Shepard. "He was selected because of his clean record and impressive skills, take a look." He gave her a data pad. "He has one of the new biotic implants, and has shown an incredible amount of control over his biotics. Plus he is a tech prodigy with excellent skills in hacking, decrypting, engineering and electronics. Also he learned to wield all the weapons in the locker by the end of the 2nd month and has an unpredictable mind in terms of strategy, going from bold and frontal to discreet and tactical and never using the same strategy twice. He always changes it, even if a tiny bit. Completed the N7 course recently and all his teacher had to say was, and I quote, 'he is not human.'"

"Sounds too good to be truth." Said Tali frowning. "He has something on his medical chart, but I don't think I… wait didn't Archer…"

"Yes." Said Shepard, interrupting her. "He did. I see you are starting to see the problem. The kid is good, I met him. Reliable, follows the rules as they are, but he does have a few… behaviors and… well he… remember Liara when we first meet her?"

He could see Tali rolling her eyes. "Don't remind me, she didn't get a hint!"

"Well this guy makes her seem like a social butterfly." She turned to him incredulous. "I kid you not. So I called the team selected for this ship to give them a speech about their new commanding officer."

"I guess that is for the best… you are confident on his skills, right?"

John smiled. He remembered meeting the young man.

*****Flashback******

John was readying through reports at his desk. A few Salarian ships were seen near the borders, and that was no good. Those little creeps were up to something. He sighed to himself. When had he begun to think like that? Did his time with Mordin meant nothing? No, he had fond memories of the scientist, and Kirrahe. However, he had to admit that outside of that, his impression of Salarians wasn't the best.

"Admiral, it has passed exactly 5 minutes since the time you have scheduled our appointment."

Shepard looked up to see a young man in front of him. He had short dirty blond military hair, green eyes that seemed to look everywhere but at him, and a pale complexion. His body showed the results of training, wide shoulder blade, muscled arms and legs which were held against his chest as he sat in the chair in front of him. His stance, however, reflected nothing. No emotion even as he looked at everywhere but him, playing with his fingers.

Still, and while he was right about the time, something bothered him. "You must be Commander Delfim Traynor, right?"

"Sir yes sir." His voice was soft, barely a whisper, but still audible. Not the kind of answer Shepard was used to.

"Any relation with Samantha Traynor?" asked Shepard.

"… she is my mother."

"Oh?" asked a surprised commander. "Well I thought she was… well I… didn't she…like woman?"

Delfim turned his head to the side. "She is married to Selina Benning."

"So you were adopted by them?" asked Shepard, curious to what little old Samantha was up to.

"…I was born through artificial methods, but I am the biological son of Samantha Traynor and Selina Benning."*

"Ah!" Shepard now understood. Then he frowned. "How did you get in? I locked the door and my VI is maintaining the system."

"I entered the system and made it open the door." Answered the man in front of him.

Shepard frowned. "You mean you hacked it."

"Hacking would require that I brought down your firewalls and defense mechanisms. I access the system and changed the settings. Your system shall return to normal in 5 minutes."

Shepard sighed. "Well, you are here because we now know where to assign you." Delfim made no notion that he had heard. "You will be testing our newest ship, the…"

"USSV Nautilus, class frigate, fast travel, recon, stealth and space fight. Joint project of the 5 races and incorporates technology from each of them."

Shepard smiled. "I see you are well informed."

"I studied the schematics of the Nautilus." Said Delfim.

Shepard frowned again. "How did you access those?"

Delfim stayed quiet, head bowed. Shepard waited but when no answer came, he sighed. "Well, that is about it, you will fly with a skeletal crew, not a full contingency, and you have one task. Fly it to the Colony Horizon, investigate the system and return. That will be all, Commander."

Delfim rose from his chair quietly and turned away without a word. As he did, the door opened on its own and he left. Minutes later, Shepard heard his VI saying "Sir, somehow someone was able to shut down my control of the systems temporarily and took control of them."

"It's alright, I handled it."

"Very well sir."

*******Flashback end******

"That was it." Said Shepard. "That was my meeting with the new commander of the Nautilus."

"Do you think it could be a problem?" asked Tali.

"Maybe." Shepard sighed. "His teachers think he is ready, and it's not like he lacks qualifications, it's just that I don't know if the team can handle him. That is why I will be meeting them all."

"Sounds like a good idea." Said Tali. "But now is not the time to think about it. Come to bed before we both get a cold."

Shepard smirked. "Now that is something we don't want."

*****Next day******

Shepard looked at the team before him as he prepared to speak with them. He had read the files of all of them and knew they that he couldn't have asked for a better team, with some people of notice:

Amongst the humans, without counting the still missing Commander, was Richard Goldeneye. Richard was a short asian man with long dark hair and brown eyes filled with mischief. Dressed in blue casual clothes with the N7 symbol on the front of his left chest pocket. He was going to be the pilot of the Nautilus, someone that even Joker would approve. Capable and devilish on the controls of a ship, he was also selected for his experience with working with the commander before this assignment.

Among the Krogan, Garzog Rokhai was yellow skinned with a grey head plate, wearing a platinum looking armor with red lights and the N7 symbol on it. His grey eyes scanned around as he nursed his shotgun on his hands. The krogan was a weapon and armor specialist, so he would be in charge of the weapons and armor aboard the ship and Procurement. The Second member was Taren Bora, who wore her own brown armor, only with the helmet on. A female krogan who surprised everyone when she came out as a medical expert from the academy. She still was an N7 operative, which lead to the birth of the famous line 'If she isn't healing you, she is killing you.'

The Geth had gone with diversity as well: the first was a red Geth Prime by the name of Isaac. Isaac had 700 programs running on his platform, and all were created for battle. Not only that but he is a mobile communication beacon, being connected to whichever ship he is and thus he also managed communications. Next to him, a small Geth watched everyone with a critical eye. He had black painted armor and… was that a white skull painted on its side? And why was the plate around his eyes painted purple? Was he… a Gothic Geth? The answer is yes. His name is Machina, or so he called himself, and he would be connected completely to the ship, becoming the ship's AI.

The quarians had also two interesting members there: The first was a male dressed in a brown enviro-suit and a visor that was covered by a metallic plate and only allowed a small line in between as glass. His name was Torin'Paul pas Rannoch, Shuttle pilot, Navigation Expert and Vehicle maintenance. His eyes were focused on the other Quarian who was showing him something on the Omni-tool. The other was a female Quarian who wore a dark blue enviro-suit with a light blue visor. Her eyes darted between the Omni-tool and the other Quarian, talking excitingly. She was Tali's protégé, Rea'Koor pas Rannoch, and would be in charge of engineering and electronics aboard the ship.

Finally, the two Rachni looked exactly alike. Their names were Arak and Kara, and they would be in charge of maintaining the ship's weapons at peak condition. They had a red carapace, two tentacles sprouting from their back and their eyes were completely black.

Shepard smiled at them. This wasn't the complete crew, but they were the most important ones, elites within their own people, and even with their diminutive numbers he was sure they would be able to operate the ship. But first, they needed to know what they were working with.

"Everyone, thank you for coming on such short notice." Started Shepard. "I am here to fill you in on your new assignment. You are to be part of testing our newest prototype. You were all selected for your skills and attributes, and this will be just another test to both you and the ship, as you will be representing your own species." He let himself pause there and looked at them all, seeing how nervous they were. "I present to you… the USSV Nautilus."

The image of the ship appeared in their front, making the crew look at it in awe. "I have forwarded you the schematics of the ship to your Omni-tools so you can see it clearly: cutting edge technology and with you on board, a more than capable crew." Everybody looked at the schematics excited.

"The ship is divided into 5 floors: the first floor has the cockpit, CIC and communication hub. Second floor will be crew quarters, each adapted to the necessities of the crew with sterile rooms, and rooms with the right size to accommodate krogan and Rachni." The crew seemed to brighten at that. "There is also the CO office, the med-bay, and two corridors that lead to the first line of weaponry. This does not include the Thanix canyons nor the Tower of Light, which are held on floor 4. There will be a secondary elevator on each of the arms that take you to that floor."

The Rachni seemed glad that their work place was so close to their quarters as their tentacles wriggled. Shepard watched them for a few seconds, to him, Rachni were really weird, but he had to admit that it was kind of fun to see them excited.

"Floor 3 is Engine. It's were you will find the Tantalus dual core and the systems pertaining to the shields, there is also a few rooms for storage here and a few prisoner cells. Don't worry, there are also a bonkers here for either the engineers or the guards, though we urge you to use these only when needed. This is especially for the Quarian crew, these bonkers are not exactly in a sterilized room."

The Quarians barely heard him as she analyzed every part of that floor. Shepard shook his head at that.

"Floor 4 has the Thanix canyons, Tower of Light, a workout station here…" he pointed to the part at the front. "And a shooting range here" he then pointed to the part in the back.

"Floor 5 will be the Cargo and Vehicle Bay. We will provide with one Shuttle, the new Stark 98 and one Mako, the Blazer 12. The bay will also have two fighters, the Karamont-319. The armory will also be here, even if there are several weapon lockers across the ship in case of emergency. However, it is in the armory that the locker for the Heavy Weapons is going to be and only people with clearance can open it."

They seem to nod at this. Heavy Weapons mean dangerous weapons not fit in the hands of untrained personal. There had been enough incidents were the wrong person pulls the wrong trigger of the very wrong weapon.

"I have also forwarded you the chain of command on the ship so everyone knows their own job. Any questions?"

They seemed to go through the data silently. Suddenly, Rea put her hand up.

"Yes?"

"What about our CO?"

Shepard sighed. "Your CO is a special case and will require from you a bit of patience and consideration. His name is Commander Delfim Traynor."

Richard smiled at the name. Shepard felt a bit more relieved at that. If he was smiling then things might go better than he first assumed.

"Why is he a special case?" asked Rokhai.

"… Comander Delfim is an outstanding individual. Tech Specialist, Biotic Savant and Weapon Expert, he is the current most qualified N7 operative. He has a clean record, and commendations, which got him stationed at the Nautilus. But the reason why he is a special case is that he was diagnosed as having Autism Syndrome."

Everyone was quiet, most looking at him confused.

"So… he is sick?" asked Rokhai tentatively.

"No you dumbass Krogan, he ain't sick!" said Richard, annoyed. "Autism Syndrome ain't a disease, it's something he was born with."

"Well said." Commented Shepard. "Our specialists still don't know what makes a person autist, as the only diagnosis is through the observation of behavior. Basically, autists are people whose head works differently than ours, often seeing things in a way we don't, and behaving in ways not natural. I think Flight Lieutenant Richard can tell you more about your commander…"

"Yes sir." Said Richard as he stand up. "The commander is very quiet yet strict. He is not one to talk, preferring to only do so when he needs to. He knows a lot, really sometimes he sprouts something out of the blue and you can only look at him like 'wha?' However, don't let him deceive you, in battle he is ruthless and his plans always works, or at least so far they did.

"Thank you Lieutenant. The reason he is not here was so I could aboard this issue with you before your assignment. Anyone has a problem with your CO?"

Rea brought her hand up. When Shepard nodded, she asked "Well, I was wondering just what kind of knowledge our commander has since, by your words Flight Lieutenant, he knows a lot."

Richard shrugged. "Anything and everything, really. Once we were going on a recon mission to this toxic world and he suddenly sprouts that we should change the weapons to low power and to not let our weapons overheat because I don't know what component in the air was highly inflammable. A few minutes later, 3 of our own were burned alive because they ignored him. I just know that when he tells you something, it's because it is important."

There was something on the quarian's eyes told Richard that she was even more curious about her commanding officer, but shrugged at it. Nobody else spoke up.

"Very well. Report to the ship tomorrow GTM 8:00 on Docking Bay D45."

"YES SIR!"

He watched them all go, probably to pack, hoping to all that was holly that things would work out.

Knowing his luck, Delfim would give him just as much trouble as he gave Hacket…

Author Notes:

Delfim: Hey everyone, first chapter what do you guys think?

Also since I am alone here I will use this place for rants. Things that just cross my head and you may find interesting. Here goes the first one:

Why pokemon instead of digimon? What makes one more popular than the other?

Pokemon and Digimon are both huge names when we talk about children animes. We watched them when we were kids, and I bet that you could still grab a few episodes, sit back and enjoy them. But I was a bit saddened when I asked a few friends if they remembered digimon and they said "Nah, never really watched it." Or "What? No I don't." Or even. "Is that a spinoff of Pokemon?"

That one actually stung a bit.

Why? Why is pokemon so much more appreciated than digimon? I will analyze both franchises, compare them and give you my conclusions starting now.

Pokemon

Stands for Pocket Monster.

Pokemon was huge from the first moment it arrived. Before pokemon, most games were action/platform games with controls so tough to get used to that you would probably rage quit before completing the first area.

Pokemon Red and Green, the Japanese version at least, was the first thing that involved pokemon that was ever created and hit the gamers like a bomb with simple controls, an open wide exploration world, over 150 playable characters with completely customizable moves, the sprites weren't that bad considering the time and the game was fun! It gave you the idea you were evolving, becoming stronger as your party became mightier.

There are not a lot of games that can match the quality of Pokemon games for all this factors, and the games just keep evolving. By season three, you could have double battles and participate in contests, battle tents with different rules, and even the battle frontier. By the fifth generation, we can assume that anything is possible.

Plus the characters are awesome. Simple beginning designs that appeal to us, and grow more complex as the pokemon evolves makes the idea that you are growing within the game all that more realistic.

Then the fact that a lot of the game involved trading and fighting with your friends. I don't know about you guys, but I still remember me going to school, and when recess hit we would all get together with a few cables and start trading, fighting each other and what not. It was fun, and it was something never before done with games. It brought you and your friends together, while allowing you to grow even more.

A thing that attracted a lot of admiration were the legendary pokemon. Those that you would stay awake at night, throwing Ultra ball after Ultra ball until you capture it. Pokemon like Mewtwo, Rayquaza and Arceus just to name a few made the game even more addicting. You would spend a huge amount of time, trying to find this pokemon, some even creating rumors and myths about them, just so that you could then breathe in relief and say 'Fuck yah! I caught it!'. And yes, when I talked about creating myths, I was talking about the Mew behind the truck one.

Now there is over 650 pokemon, more than 5 generations of games, dozens of episodes in the anime, movies, cards, posters, dolls, pillows, music CDs, porn if you can believe it and a franchise that just won't die.

But I have focused enough on the games, let's focus on the anime and movies.

This is where some points have to be removed. First Ash Ketchum… hugh. I get it, in the beginning it was fun to have a main character who… had no fucking clue of what he was doing. But for CRYING OUT LOUD! How many leagues has he faced already? Many! How many has he won? NONE! How many times has he repeated the same fucking mistakes? WAY TOO MANY! How many legendaries has he found? Nearly all if not all. How many he befriended? Again, almost all if not all. How many has he captures? NOT A SINGLE ONE!

This only gets worse considering that his pokemon just don't evolve. Come on, guys. If you were a trainer running for the League would you take a freaking Bulbusuar with you? No you would take the OP Venasaur and whoop those assholes. Not Ash. In fact, he is the reason there are so many fans of Pikachu, but no fans of Raichu. Bitch please, Raichu is so much better…

And is it me, or does he never age, has no father, all the nurses are Joys and all the police officers are Jennies? Why is Brock always following him, yet the female character that is with him just keep changing, especially by someone always younger than the one before? And why is Jessy and James still after him? I can get it for a few episodes, but now it's just plain ridiculous. This led to the theory that Ash is actually dreaming and not living any of those adventures, but that is an idea for another time.

So yeah, this loses a lot of points on my book.

Enough about Pokemon let's jump tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…

Digimon

Stands for Digital Monster

Now where do I begin with you… Perhaps at the idea.

Okay, so this time we are dealing with virtual life gaining sentience, body and being able to interact with us. My first contact with digimon was when I was a little kid, I had just watched pokemon and there was this little announcement on the TV "Next: Digimon 3" and I was like "Is that something related to pokemon?" So I sat back and watched.

Boy was I pleasantly surprised. I mean we had creatures that looked nothing like pokemon, but the connection to the real world, as opposed to the imaginary world that pokemon live on, made it… sort of more realistic. An idea far more easy to relate to.

Digimon shares some similarities with pokemon. In both, there is a connection between the human and the creature. In both, it involves a lot of fighting, one to prove you are the best, the other mostly for survival or to defend the others, reasons far better in my opinion. Finally, both creatures design starts simple and evolves as the creature evolves.

However, here is where the differences play in. First, digimons talk, giving one a deeper connection with his partner. Second, in most series you can only have one partner. Some would say that is bad, since in pokemon you can catch as many as you see, but this promotes the idea that you can just catch and throw away when not needed. Digimon goes deeper, that partner is yours and no one else's.

Digimon also beats in diversity. Every season not only does the concept change, but the digimon world does too. Instead of going for just new creatures, but everything changes. First season, one path digivolution. Second season, armor digivolution and DNA digivolution. Third season, tamer have a new role by using cards to augment their digimons then fusing with them to make them reach the ultimate level. Fourth season doesn't even have digimon partners, just kids evolving to digimon forms. Fifth season proves that digivolution is not linear when an Agumon evolved into GeoGreymon and not Greymon and so on.

This is strangely consistent, however, when we realize that the digital world is a world of data and data is in constant change and constantly being manipulated. So a world made of such must change, even its core rules have to.

One thing going for it is the 4 evolution stages representing 4 stages of life: Rookie = Child, excitable but sometimes insecure; Champion = Teenager, impetuous, brave and sometimes out of control; Ultimate = Adult, where his attitude either mellowed out with experience, or got worse but either way it shows more experience than the previous one; finally, Mega = Elder, where the wisdom one gained up until them makes the individual more wise and respected, after all Jijimon is in this class for some reason right?

Another thing is the evolutionary options. As it was explained before, one Agumon can evolve to Greymon or GeoGreymon. This happens with all digimons with some having up to 6 or 10 possible paths to choose from. This also makes digimon far more realistic, as it is like humans: when you are a kid, you don't know what you will turn up. You can become a cop, a fireman, a writer, a teacher, a politician. Anything and everything. This makes digimon more close to humans than pokemon, who goes for the animal cuteness thing.

Finally, while pokemon goes all about friendship, digimon goes for that, but also character development. In the pokemon series, Ash will always be dumb, Brock will always go after woman, and the female companion will always be either a yelling banshee or a meek girl, and the only one to change are the pokemon. In digimon, the trainers grow. The best example is Digimon tamers, where Takato started out as a meek scared little twat, Henry was a peace loving nerd and Rika was an antisocial bitch. By the end of the season, Takato was the fearless leader of the group, Henry still loved peace but understood that you can't always back down and fought just as hard as the others and Rika actually became sociable… well, more sociable than she was. There was a sense of growing up, time does have an effect on things, especially the human characters.

I could say a lot more about both but it is time for…

Comparing!

I will compare them for what they are best known for: Games and Anime, as very little people have read the mangas related to both franchises… actually I haven't read either, there are so many!

Pokemon wins in the game department: while digimon have a more branched out type of games, Pokemon always have that winning formula of 3 starters, 8 gyms, one entire region to explore and a battle style unmatched. Digimon doesn't have that because even within the same series of games the style changes. Like Digimon World 3, which is very similar to pokemon by the way, and Digimon World 4, a platform game of all things.

Digimon wins in the anime department: Pokemon is a child oriented anime, we get that, but the repeating gags and no character development leads to even kids looking at it and say "F*** this I'm out!" Digimon not only changes the characters, rules and style in each season, in the same season the characters change, slowly but surely becoming characters we grow fond of.

Conclusion/Theory

My first theory was that Pokemon came first and established itself as a dominating branch before digimon. This was proven false since Digimon first made an entrance in 1994 and Pokemon only in 1996.

So my theory is that it is a combination of two factors:

First of all, both franchises started off with both manga and games. Now I won't focus on the manga cause frantically we would be here all year! So instead the games. As I stated previously, Pokemon has a golden line in the form of a never changing basic structure that just works decades after it was first created. Digimon doesn't have that, or didn't have it in time.

Second, publicity. Remember when TV would scream at you about pokemon stuff? Yes you do, everybody does. A new Pokemon game, a new set of pokeon cards. Hell, they made a shit storm out of a Pikachu doll… motherfuckingpieceof…

My problem with Pikachu aside, Digimon hardly get any promotion. I knew about new games when I saw them at the game store.

The TV was always airing Pokemon episodes, whichever season. I even saw some of the old first gem videos going on TV just yesterday as my mother was flipping channels. Digimons rarely gets aired outside Japan anymore. You would have to go to the internet to watch the episodes.

So I believed those two factors make Pokemon more popular.

Curiosity

Both Pokemon and Digimon show proof of the Darwinian theory of Evolution, in different ways.

Pokemon does it with each new region. Let's focus on the flying pokemon here. In Kanto, a place that has lots of brow dirt roads, there is Pidgey, the brow bird, perfectly adapted to the environment. In the third season, we have Tailow, with its big wings that allow it to cross the big bodies of water in this region easier. And Pidof exists on a region filled with industrial and highly developed cities, so it appeals to people with a more cute nature in order to get some pity scraps.

Digimon does it with only one example on anime and plenty in games: Agumon in the first series evolved into Greymon, but by the fifth season it could evolve into Geogreymon, showing that a new path in evolution had formed. Not only that, but each digimon having more than one route of evolution suggests that, when without a partner, they would go with the one that would help them survive easier.

This was My rambling for this chapter. Next chapter we will analyze the Mass Effect series and why is so many people pissed at the ending.

Peace Out.