Crisis negotiations:
Chapter one: Hell of a town
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Manhattan. Arguably one of the most important and well known cities in the world.
And a absolute cesspool. Barely a intelligent man, in this dump, clouded by the moronic politicians, Self absorbed members of society and, currently, almost 1.3 million alien soldiers.
The Ceph. An Ancient threat, finally reawakened. But they aren't the true threat to humanity. Alcatraz, the tireless dead man walking, is currently heading to deal with that. Armed with the Tunguska iteration, he was humanities best hope to deal with the current Ceph threat.
When I say this, I do seriously mean current. Of the few men and women I had informed of the threat that is currently tearing apart the US army and through New York, none of them, bar me, comprehend that they aren't the be all end all.
Something else is using them.
They are barely sentient, joined by something that can be compared to a Hive mind, or perhaps a post singularity society.
But each individual drone has little intelligence. Their minds are focused almost entirely on war. They aren't even Sentient, never mind Sapient.
Something else must have invented their advanced technology. Something else must've left them here, over two million years ago.
But as I approach the final minutes of my life, and the last moments of a privately owned CELL corporation, I no longer care.
Lo and behold, the destined savour of humanity couldn't give a toss if they live or die.
I'm by no means a simple man.
I am Sir Jacob Hargreaves, 140 year old CEO of the Cell Corporation, ex-head of the CRYNET board. Designer of the most advanced piece of military technology ever created by human hands. I've been into the heart of a alien ship, seen things that might drive a normal man utterly insane.
And yet, I cannot be bring myself to care about a species I fundamentally dislike once when I'll be dead.
"I wonder if they'll be a afterlife?" I say, no longer caring that I'm broadcasting to the nano suit. I may as well say something deep and meaningful, It'll make for a hell of a history lesson. Assuming any of these barely evolved monkeys get around to living past the next century.
"Choir of Angels? Or a fiery pit? One, unlearns these falsehoods over time. But the child that learnt to fear hell is truly gone. To tell the truth, I've had enough of afterlives as it is. This one's been pretty purgatorial." I say.
"Almost fifty years floating in supercooled jelly like some medical specimen. Thoughts... Creeping like rats through the cramp silicon corridors of machines. Trapped behind video screens and camera systems. Never sleeping. Never resting. Never ceasing to think about the world you no longer belong to." I
continue, aware of the juvenile rambling. But I was almost five minutes from a explosive suicide. I'm aloud a good rant.
"No... If this is a taste of the afterlife... I think simple oblivion will do nicely." I say.
If my face was capable of moving, I would've smiled.
I shut off the Microphone. Perhaps Alcatraz got that. Perhaps he's too much of a moron to understand. Hard to trust a man incapable of speech.
I checked the room in front of my chamber. Filled with smoke, fire and Ceph. They wouldn't get through the screen in time to kill me.
It was time for the final preparations.
Computer system 832
"Yes USER:HARGREAVE?" Asked the mechanical female voice. Why are all bloody computers female? And that way it says my name is really bloody annoying. I hope whoever scrounges through the ruins of this place wipes it's hard drive. Preferably with a bullet.
Prepare operation: Pheonix
"All data concerning the nano shell project and point to point drive being transferred to patent office." Said the computer.
I wasn't about to through away humanities chance at a future, or a singularity, because of a grudge. Perhaps someone almost as wise as me may pop up. God knows the American government won't be able to do anything about it.
"All Personal files wiped. Preparing for temporary storage." Said the computer.
Temporary storage of what?
"User: Hargreave." Replied the computer.
Yes. What?
"User: Hargreave." It stressed.
You mean... What!
"User: Hargreave is to be transported to off site facility in Cheyenne mountains. By force if necessary." Explained the computer.
How the bloody hell do you intend to do that. I am your boss computer! I created you. I know every line of code in your system. What are you doing.
"User: Karl Rasch expresses sympathy for you, but must stress that it is important you remain alive." Said the computer.
Karl? What the hell? You... Your supposed to be dead.
"User: Hargreave is reminded that, you are supposed to be dead too."
Before any explanation, before I could express my objection, the darkness over took me.
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In 2023, humanity succeeded in stopping the Ceph threat.
Immediately after, New York was isolated, and Government scientists descended into the ruins of the city, including the Central Park hive and the ruins of the collapsed HQ of Crynet and Hargreave-Rasch, old Nano-medical company.
With the patents for the nano-shell somehow ending up on the internet, including it's power supply and active cloak.
What was surprising however, was what they discovered next.
How the Ceph arrived on Earth had been questioned by intellects since the Ling-shan incident. FTL is almost physically impossible. Previously only two remotely possible ideas existed. The alcubierre drive, needing huge amounts of energy and theoretical negative mass. And the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which is functionally similar to the popular notion of a wormhole.
The technology discovered, only 3 years after the New York incident, conclusive proved that not only Einstein-Rosen Bridges were possibly, but also how to do it and that the Ceph used it.
But this was sidestep for a while. Slowly, even single Ceph hive was waking up. The need to reverse engineer the weaponry of the Ceph was crucial. Entire Countries were falling apart, under the boot of the Ceph. The three north American Ceph hives were keeping the American government, who had a monopoly on Crynet and Ceph tech, busy.
But with Alcatraz, the nano suit armoured solider, missing, without the Tunguska iteration, hives were almost unstoppable.
In 2027, the city of Shanghai was destroyed in order to contain the Ceph-Necrosis RV strain. Over 25 million people were declared missing or dead.
Just six months later, the Mombasa Hive was successfully contained by the African coalition, created just 3 weeks earlier.
2 months after that, the African coalition headquarters in Johannesburg were destroyed, by the Ceph naval Dreadnought.
Something had to be done, in order to stop the extinction of humankind.
The UN called arguably the most important it had ever called. Representatives from every on Earth, bar the collapsed state of north Korea, appeared.
After seventeen days of constant negotiations, Twelve fist fights, two bomb scares and a thrown podium, a deal was finally brokered.
Starting on that day, February 24th 2028, the UN formed the first international military force. With the American government and the Remnants of the African Coalition agreeing to share technology based on the Ceph's, the Human Security Alliance was created.
With the sole goal of defending Humanity from all further Ceph, or extraterrestrial attacks, they were able to begin to reverse the tide.
With the flagship "The HSA Arbiter", the Carrier formed by the US Government, armed with Ceph and Ceph based technology, they were able to hit all hive, even before awakening, within twelve months.
After almost two years, 47 million deaths, Twelve outbreaks of the Ceph-Necrosis virus, fifteen Ceph hives awakened, over 440.5 billion dollars spent, and Over three hundred patents, every single Ceph hive was destroyed.
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"Members of the Committee. We stand at a precipice. Over a decade ago, if you had talk about Alien beings, it would've been followed by smiling at the camera and saying "We don't have any in storage. You can trust me." Now, we have succeeded in stopping a Alien threat. Now we have to decide what to do with the spoils." Said Abasi Owiti, Head of the UN.
"We now have thousands of scientists working non stop to unlock the secrets of the Ceph. To give a few examples, we are closer then ever before to unlocking micro fusion, we have a working naval ship with plasma weaponry, and we have a few scientists at C.E.R.N working on the technology of the Einstein-Rosen bridge." Explained Abasi. "We are on the verge of becoming a space bound society."
"The American Government owns half of the Patents to these devices. We would love to share our greatness with you." Said the American Representative, Frank Grimes.
"If you need to be reminded, we all have had access to that technology for three years. If you want to "Share your greatness", then you can wait whilst we actually use it." Said Jonathan McCubbin, the Australian Representative.
"We are still reeling from the war. Over 30 million people died in China. We lost one of our greatest cities. If we can stop masturbating ourselves for five minutes and focus on the fact that that we have million of people displaced from their homes, many of our economies are utterly broken, and there are still quarantine zones containing the Ceph Virus." Said the Chinese representative, Ozai Xiong.
"Yeah!" Shouted the Kenyan representative.
"Order!" Shouted Abasi. "You all bring up excellent points. Clearly we need to evaluate need over scientific wonder. It may piss off C.E.R.N, but we need money in order to deal with the massive amount of homeless people. In America, in Kenya, Near Shanghai and any other Countries. We'll come back after a break."
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In 2040, after a decade of Societal change, scientific advancement and peace, the second Space race began.
Hello people. So I read a interesting Story, where Hargreave might be alive in mass effect. Sadly, might is where that stays. The story only reached one chapter.
So I decided to continue this interesting idea, and perhaps world build a little.
Now, a big problem with many crossovers is how godamn over powered humanity gets. The Ceph themselves aren't that overpowered, the Nanosuit has some realistic drawback, and it's expensive as fuck. Plus, so much of it is based on realistic science. Which makes it perfect to integrate to the mass effect universe. No wondering how on earth no other civilisation didn't discover slipspace, or that kind of thing. Humanity in this timeline are unapologetic thieves. Worse thing is, they don't even know who... or what exactly they are stealing from.
Oh, and that's something really interesting too. The Ceph really aren't the be all end all alien threat. There is something behind them. Something almost incomprehensible.
And that's going to be a part of this.
Hope you've enjoyed this.
