Story name: Ramifications.
Universe: Mass effect with some Mitranic Legends.
Time (approximate): Starts just before the end of ME2.
Relation to main line: AU, maybe a few cameo's from ME1/ME2
Short Summary: On her Pilgrimage, a young Quarian running from slavers enters a blind Mass Relay Jump. Stumbling on a dirty secret hidden by the Council her desperate action has far reaching consequences. In which the Quarians get a cure for their immune systems, the Council is ignored and the Reapers are in for the ass kicking of the century.
Disclaimer: silly me, forgetting to inform everyone that I do not in fact, own the mass effect idea, merchandise or any other things related to it… I do own a copy of both games though. Mitranic Legends, as a universe of my own creation which stories are still being written, I do own that though I have not published story for that yet.
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Unknown System.
1763 ME Human Calendar, 01 AMW ML Calendar.
With a thunderous explosion of light bright enough to make the planet in the background look like a fly to a light bulb a group of ships appeared in a swirling of greenish-blue sub-dimensional particles as they dropped out of their Rift Conduits. Three of the ships were of the larger variety, one standing at an impressive seventeen point three kilometers in length and hosting enough weapons to make it easily identified as a warship. The other two were in their own leagues of size as they topped at two hundred and seventy-three kilometers in length, though these were still visibly armed they were not made to fight a war head on.
Near the large ships were smaller ones of multiple configurations, one was unique and looked like it was patched together as it needed more space for each equipment, four more looked a bit patchwork though having a distinct form the former lacked the same circular quad engine pods held on the patchwork ship were again visible on this one. This group of ships quickly realized they were not were they were supposed to be.
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Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation. (Formerly Unknown System.)
1783 ME Human Calendar, 21 AMW ML Calendar.
Twenty years had passed since the people of Proxima Sector came here in this universe, and they had spread to the local area fast too. Originally their small fleet of haphazard ships had reacted to an emergency beacon of a system close by that had unexpectedly gone into the last stages to become a supernova. They had managed to evacuate the colony there and move them to the ships; the only problem was that their standard Hyperwarp Drives had failed them because of background radiation emitted by the dying star. In their desperation they had turned to the one system only a few ships had been equipped with, an experimental FTL Drive called a Rift Drive, which could expand to bring multiple ships along. Not everything was known about what a Rift Drive did while in transit as they had only developed its first generation of line produced versions of it, in hindsight it was the background radiation unique to that system that changed the effects of the drives. Inter-Dimensional Rift Conduits were not recorded to occur before this.
They had arrived here with approximately sixty million man, woman and children, and now, spread across fourteen new colonies, they had just under triple that number. At first it had been tough, as they had enough food to last everyone about a week, even with rationing. Thankfully the two massive Exodus-class Fleet Support ships were capable of Matter Creation, instead of Matter Manipulation, and could literally make food and raw materials out of pure energy, it was only because of limiters on the systems that it took several days to get them to full efficiency.
After a consensus of the entire military and civilian personnel, they decided that instead of terra-forming a local planet to make it barely habitable due to distance, or lack thereof, to the sun of the system, they would build a planet themselves. With the use of massive time dilation devices and mass amount of automated Constructor drones, they constructed a giant ring in space this ring would hold many weapon batteries and multiple layers of nano-shield emitters to protect the planet as well as large shipyard facilities within its ring and core. It was situated in, what was calculated by the AI's, the ideal spot for warmth and seasonal shifts. After the ring itself was finished with construction they started with a massive hollow space in spherical form, which it was connected to the ring in sixteen locations around the new "world" with massive columns leading into space where the ring was situated. Around locations on the newly added surface of the planet more batteries of ground to orbit weaponry were installed at strategic locations around the planet along with aerial anti-fighter weaponry. It took them, even with time dilation, over six months to build it on the outside of the field, it had taken over one-hundred twenty three years inside the field were the drones had worked.
Now after twenty years they had a report that some kind of space station had been found in a nearby system, it was currently dormant according to readings, but if the scans were conclusive it was some kind of giant slingshot. Of course they had one of their new battle groups augmented with two science vessels stationed near it for two reasons; one was obviously the fact that they were trying to figure out how it worked or better yet, why it was there. Second was that it was an unknown, their long time of war before coming here made them paranoid about unknowns, it typically meant people got killed or otherwise maimed. He had briefly considered sending in an Exodus or the Dragonfire, but thought it better not to, it would make the public overly concerned if that kind of firepower was sent to investigate.
They had researched it for over a year when the thing went from dormant to active, it had caused them to promptly place the battle group that had once guarded the area back to make sure it wasn't some weapon or there was and potentially hostile fleet incoming if it indeed was a ship-sized slingshot. What had come out had shocked both sides, one side because it was some kind of freighter/colony ship combination and for the strange ship coming into the, thought to be, uninhabited star system it was shocked because of the fact that there was at least one three kilometer long ship demanding its identification and its reasons for being there. When it had answered that it was there to colonize the third moon of the fifth planet, which had been claimed by the Turian Hierarchy as a new colony for Citadel Space and had been fully approved by the Council, there were certain complications.
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Zarkha System, Neighboring Ziranthia System
The Captain of the Turian colony ship Marasus was absolutely seething as he all but screamed at the screen were a still calm alien Ship Commander looked on even as his own XO shivered in terror "These systems have been claimed by the Turian Hierarchy and have been flagged by the Citadel Council for colonization. As such I demand that you leave this system immediately." He ground out between gritted teeth, if it had been possible he would have dragged the alien commander trough the screen to make his displeasure known.
Said alien commander had no problems keeping his calm, better yet he had to keep himself from bursting out laughing as the stupidity of this captain and his council. Demanding they leave a system colonized with over twenty million people just because an unknown group of races acknowledges it? These guys were clearly morons of the highest degree. As such he stood to reply, schooling his face in the best impression of their Military Grandmaster's blank Command Stare™ and was inwardly pleased as the Turian, as he called himself, seemed to shrink back a bit. He had no doubt that had it indeed been the Grandmaster using the Command Stare™ the Turian would have either shivered or soiled his pants outright, not even seasoned war veterans from the Millennia Wars could stay composed if he used it. "Be that as it may Captain, the Proxima Federation does not acknowledge the Citadel or its Council as a ruling party nor is it part of Citadel Space. As such any laws passed by this Council or any races affiliated with it, have no hold on any of our citizens, ships and, or colonies. Continuing this course of action, or attempting to force it will be met with lethal force as necessary to protect our system." He calmly and coolly explained as the Turian captain seemed to be even angrier as his mandibles shivered. "Furthermore, you cannot expect a race that has never had contact with said Council to know about any claims set out about this system that has been colonized for over four years now. Therefore I will kindly ask you to turn around and leave through the gateway as you came." He said with the finality of a tombstone falling in place. He promptly had his communications officer cut the channel as he had no plans of arguing for the rights to this system as in this case it was simply first come first serve. He had his communications officer contact Zirantsuna to get an extra battle group here; they would be here within seconds if necessary.
Luckily the Turian captain realized his ship was no match for the larger warships ahead of him, and left while telling them they would regret it. This, of course, prompted the second battle group to arrive and together the two groups made a perimeter around the gateway. The two battle groups consisting of two Battleships, eight Cruisers and two dozen Frigates all together, they all hoped that this was not necessary.
They hoped in vain as the relay activated again and spat out a small fleet of ships consisting of four heavy cruiser sized vessels, twelve frigate sized vessels and thirty corvettes. All of them seemed to be armed with a kind of co-axial coil gun of sorts that were currently being aimed. The reaction to this was quick, efficient and complete as every weapon turret on both battle groups that were currently bared were quickly aimed at the emerged ships and shields flared online within seconds. The weapons fired shortly after being aimed, the Turian or Citadel fleet never got a chance to fire its weapons as all but a few corvettes were wiped out and after the opening salvo made the remaining ships make an uncoordinated run for it. They didn't know yet but they were let go as they jumped to the relay back to their origins, the last corvette was too badly damaged to jump properly and promptly rammed it as it was accelerated, sheering off one of the two arms of the relay and shutting it down. The frigate itself was destroyed on impact.
There had been no communications between both sides, but the Proxima group already knew that this was going to be a fight. Experience had taught them to learn from body language and tone of voice from the Turian captain, they were used to getting what they wanted, and didn't like being basically told to make like a turkey and get stuffed. The show of force was another thing; it was normally used to cow people in submission. This won't work when your largest ships are barely a kilometer in length and your opponent has two that a three times its size.
The relay itself could be repaired later; they had a series of blueprints made by the science vessels deep scanning devices. For now it was best if it was kept closed, the one thing that did change was that about a week after the battle a buoy of some kind went inactive. This was normally known as the Extranet and Comm. Buoys; of course Proxima didn't know this yet and frankly couldn't care less. What they didn't know was that both the Turian Hierarchy and the Citadel Council decided to bury their existence, declaring that particular relay, number 271, off limits even if it would come back online, which it did about ten years after being severely damaged. It would be four hundred years before someone jumped there again.
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Terminus Systems, Secondary Relay 114.
2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.
It had been a good idea at first, go to the Terminus Systems, learn some mercenary style engineering and programming tricks to help out the Flotilla and eventually get a new (secondhand) ship and bring that plus the new tricks back as a gift. That had gone horribly wrong somewhere along the line, while she was learning several programming tricks from a mercenary at Omega some others were hacking into the same system.
It had taken, as usual, about thirty seconds before 'the Quarian' had been accused and people set out to kill her. She had managed to escape the first group, and had fled to her shuttle which had taken a hit from a GAURDIAN Pulse Laser just before hitting the relay and jumping. The shuttle was damaged, severely so, however it was nothing if not sturdy and held together for two more relay jumps even as pirate frigates followed her. Just before the fourth jump she was hit again this time taking out her navigation system several parts of it embedding itself in her side and puncturing her suit. The navigation system had already sent the jump order to the relay, the target relay however had not. The relay, detecting the incoming ship which had sent the activation code, did not receive any notions of which other secondary relay it needed to connect to and as such choose a random one of three, of all relays it choose number 271.
It had been a very scared and violently ill Ran'Sara nar Vertas who felt what remained of her shuttle leave the relay, right into the awaiting arms of several large unknown vessels. Her last thought, before seeing a slightly blue light appearing around her, had been how she would miss her family and friends. After all Quarians with a suit puncture, several crushed or otherwise pierced organs and extreme bacterial infections, did not live beyond ten minutes at most.
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Zarkha System, Neighboring Ziranthia System
2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.
Four hundred years had passed since the day the relay had been activated and the Citadel or Turian fleet had tried to blast them out of the system. They had not expected nor were ready for the heavily damaged shuttle, which was falling apart at the bulkheads, to come trough to almost be thrown out of the relay in a random direction. They had detected one life sign, though a terribly weak one at that and had ordered it directly transported to the medical bay onboard.
Just a few seconds later three more ships were flying out the relay and promptly blew up the small shuttle, it made the Commander of the Manarei glad to have the matter transporter system on his ship. He ordered alpha two combat readiness, which meant shields up and all anti-fighter and lower level pulse cannons online, that proved right as the pirates foolishly attacked the twelve hundred meters long heavy cruiser with some archaic projectile weapons. He promptly told his tactical to remove them from his screens, and he did, two low level pulse cannon blasts were enough, two for each ship. He then contacted the other captains of the cruiser group guarding the relay, telling them he needed to bring and unknown alien being to Zirantsuna's medical labs in order to treat it correctly. They conceded and the Manarei jumped into a short, few second long, Hyperwarp travel to the edge of the military defense ring. It was less than twenty seconds the wounded alien, was beamed to a special medical reception area for the critically wounded and rushed into an ER for emergency treatment.
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Ziranthia System of the Proxima Federation.
Zirantsuna, Medical Recovery rooms; Centralier.
2183 ME Human Calendar, 421 AMW ML Calendar.
The first thing that Ran'Sara nar Vertas noticed when she opened her eyes was a bright sunlight coming in from the windows next to her which was unobstructed by the visor helmets all Quarians wore, the second was her absolutely monstrous headache. It took her a few minutes to gather herself to see where she was; the room she was in was a simply decorated and painted in an off white color that was easy on the eyes. It wasn't overly luxurious or gaudy, but just right. If she had to guess it was some kind of recovery room, she panicked a bit as her sleep addled mind registered she was not wearing an enviro-suit of any kind but calmed a little when it seemed she had been used to the environment enough to not get sick.
After getting up on shaky legs, she walked around the room a bit, at the side of the room hung a hologram in the centre of a blank wall showing a skeletal image of her, or what she thought was her, with several rows of text in an unknown languages next to it. When she touched the hologram it instantly rearranged itself into Quarian, she imagined this race, whoever they were had used her Omni tool and its data to build a medical file and add her people's language too their translation databases. She was just about to start reading the list of now translated text when the door opened.
A young woman, humanoid, stepped in, she had a set of fierce looking red eyes with some undercurrent of gentleness mixed in, and her ears were pointed more backwards and similar to that of a human wolf, if she remembered right. "I am Aurunia, How are you feeling Ran'Sara?" her soft voice, completely different from what her body posture read, asked her.
She thought about it for a second "I am feeling better that I have in a long time, where am I?" she asked.
"You are in Centralier City, in the Medical Recovery wings attached to the Advanced Medical Laboratories and Research Centers. I know it sounds as a strange place to be, but we have never encountered your race, Quarian I believe, before. So we needed to scan you extensively and collaborate with the files in your holographic interface before we could begin your treatment as it was needed. Now would you mind if I scanned you quickly to see if there are any complications with the medications we gave you?" she replied, and began the scans after being given approval. The wolf-like woman smiled, and began explaining what had happened while she was out.
"We found you more dead than alive, inside a shuttle thrown out the relay on a random course. One of the local cruiser patrols that guard the relay had you transported from your shuttle directly to their medical bay; this was what allowed them to put your body in a time-dilation field until you were sent here. Inside this field maybe a second went by, it took us an hour to redesign several of our medicines to work for you bio-chemistry after which we removed the field and managed to quickly mend your wounds, regrown several organs and ribs inside your body. After this we managed to synthesize several bags of blood using a special cloning technique and transfused it into your body."
Ran'Sara was amazed by these people, a small hand held device was swiftly waved over her three times and the information on the holographic screen seemed to update and change a little. That they had not only scanned and evaluated her wounds and then adapted their medicines to fit her race was amazing, but the fact that they had seemingly slowed time and the technologies were this small and effective was wondrous, little did she know that she was in for the biggest shock yet as the young woman across her continued.
"We modified the synthesized the blood with several counteragents to battle the bacterial infections as naturally as possible when we noticed that somehow your immune system was destroyed, we injected you with a special genetic treatment, modified for you of course, that writes a basic immune system into your very DNA via an harmless retrovirus, if not for that you would have had to live your entire life in an environmental suit. It was good we saw it when we did as I cannot even…" the medic trailed off as the young Quarian had found a new companion in the floor, fainted after hearing the casual way she had been told her immune system was now strong enough to live without a suit.
Young Aurunia lifted the Quarian without any problems and laid her back into the bed, she then called out "Kaera? Could you please keep an eye on her and tell me when she wakes again?" she asks the air, just before what seemed to be a middle-aged woman with backwards pointed ears more humanlike appeared from nowhere.
"Of course young Aurunia, it is my appointed duty as medically trained AI to help in all ways I can after all." Kaera responded with a kindly voice and smiled at Aurunia who did the same and left the room. Not knowing the panic that would occur later in the evening.
AN:
For confusion in ship sizes, in the ME universe a frigate is about 100 to 250 meters long. In the Proxima Federation (PF) that is called a corvette and Frigates are anywhere between 300 and 600 meters long.
Cruisers are about 500-600 meters in the ME universe if I remember my codex entries correctly, for PF this is 900-1200 depending on class.
Dreadnaughts in ME are around the 1 km or 1000 meters long if I recall right, battleships (the closest next level class to this one) of the PF are at least 2 km in length the largest standing at 3 km.
I'll say now that while the PF looks to be invincible, their not, they just use a drastically different tech base, seeing they never have had nor have ever needed ME tech, they will face challenges later on though when everyone's favorite ship comes through and talks with them. (not for a few chapters most likely and no they are not the most frequent characters to appear.)
Please let me know what you think of this story via reviews, it's my first foray into ME fandom and I'd like to know your opinions of this first chapter. Any grammar mistakes let me know, and I'll see if I can't change it (English is my second language).
Edit: Thank you Righteous-Sinn, for pointing out the fact that i had overlooked one typo, at one point Ran'Sara seemed to travel back in time over 400 years, this was just before she woke up, i have rectified this so it doesn't confuse anyone again.