Disclaimer: I do not own either or both Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Mass Effect. They are owned by Yoshiki Tanaka and Bioware respectively.
The Lion Unleashed
Prologue
On June 28th New Imperial Calendar 16 the New Galactic Empire made first contact with an alien civilization. However first contact was not peaceful, with the forces of the Turian Hierarchy invading the Imperial frontier colony of Shanxi. The frontier garrison led a heroic defence, holding out for a month before being overrun. However as defeat seemed certain, Fleet Admiral Fritz Josef Bittenfeld arrived in time with an overwhelming force of sixty thousand ships, and forced the Turian General Desolas Arterius to surrender to the Imperial Fleet.
Shortly afterwards, the galactic body known as the Citadel Council entered into peace talks with the empire, arbitrating on behalf of their member state the Turian Hierarchy. On September 27th New Imperial Calendar 16, the Shanxi Peace Accords were signed, ending the First Contact War.
At the same time, the empire taking advantage of fears and confidence born of first contact and victory respectively began making steps to further knit Humanity together under its rule. This would take the form of the First National Assembly, convening on February 07th New Imperial Calendar 17. Presided over by Imperial Regent and Dowager Empress Hildegard von Lohengramm, the National Assembly aimed to draft the Imperial Charter to graft democracy and autocracy together.
On August 02nd New Imperial Calendar 18, the Imperial Charter was ratified, transforming the empire into a constitutional monarchy. Despite extremists among autocratic and democratic supporters opposing the new regime, the first Galactic Parliament since the days of the now-defunct Galactic Federation was elected on November 11th New Imperial Calendar 18.
On May 14th New Imperial Calendar 23, Emperor Alexander Siegfried von Lohengramm reached his majority, and was invested with Imperial authority. On April 16th New Imperial Calendar 24, the Empire-Hegemony War began in the aftermath of the Raid on Torfan, and the expulsion of the Batarian Hegemony from the Citadel Council. It ended on March 19th New Imperial Calendar 30, with the signing of the Treaty of Kar'shan. Earlier that year on January 15th, Baroness Galatea von Westfalen became the Imperial consort, to be known henceforth as the Empress Galatea von Lohengramm.
With the end of the Empire-Hegemony War, Imperial fleets and armies begin to be withdrawn, though a significant number remain as a peacekeeping force alongside newly-arriving Council contingents. Although open warfare is now a thing of the past, guerrilla warfare is an endemic problem in the former hegemony, as is supporting the population. Furthermore, contention is rising between the empire and the Council, with the empire backing the reformer nobles of the former hegemony in dividing Batarian space into a series of new, sovereign states united into a loose confederacy, while the Council seeks the abolition of the nobility and the creation of a united, democratic republic in Batarian space.
Set against this backdrop of tension was the birth of Crown Prince Leopold von Lohengramm on November 09th, New Imperial Calendar 30. This ensured the continuation of the direct Lohengramm line, the crown prince replacing Grand Duchess Annerose the Countess Grunewald as the heir to the Imperial throne.
It is now April 01st New Imperial Calendar 31, and the pages of history continue to turn.
"Join the fleet they said…" Spaceman First Class Maja Schiff remarked sourly. "…see the galaxy they said. They never said anything about mucking about in the wilderness day after day."
"It could be worse." Spaceman First Class Joan Kearny replied cheerfully. "Would you want to be in the BPF?"
Maja grumbled incoherently but subsided. "Yeah that's what I thought." Joan said.
The two women were on patrol along the forested hills surrounding the Shadowblade facility on Eden Prime. Eden Prime was one of Humanity's oldest worlds, located just one starzone away from the Sol Starzone. During the Earth-Sirius War, Eden Prime had stayed loyal to the United Earth Government, among the few colonies that did not throw its support behind the Sirius Revolutionary Congress.
At the time, Eden Prime was a heavily-industrialized world, providing manufactures to keep Earth's Space Force operational. However following the disastrous Battle of Vega, the Space Force was forced into a fighting retreat back to the Solar System, and when Eden Prime was abandoned, initiated a scorched earth strategy to keep its industry out of Sirian hands.
That would take the form of nuclear bombardment, leaving the planet's cities in ruins and its population broken and at the mercy of the Black Flag Fleet. To its credit, despite Eden Prime's support for Earth, given the situation the BFF provided assistance to the survivors as opposed to conducting reprisal operations for their past allegiance.
Eden Prime slowly recovered from the devastation of the war, though it never regained its past level of development. Most of the survivors left in the aftermath of the war, and never returned (or had the chance to) during the chaos in the aftermath of the Sirius Empire's collapse. Those that were left returned to the soil, and while Eden Prime still had (and has) a few cities, these cities are small even by frontier standards, primarily clustered around communication and transportation hubs and the spaceport.
Even with the rise of the Galactic Federation and later on the empire Eden Prime remained an agricultural world, and that did not change even with the fall of the Goldenbaum Dynasty and the rise of the Lohengramms.
That is, until first contact was made, and Emperor Alexander Siegfried after his investiture enacted Project Shadowblade, aimed at recovering and studying Prothean technology for Imperial purposes. Though most forms of Prothean technology (or their derivatives) were inferior to their Imperial counterparts, some were not. The alloys that made up the mass relays and the Citadel was one example. And while Imperial mega-engineering could surpass its Prothean counterpart on an individual level – Iserlohn Fortress for one was bigger and had greater volume than the Citadel – the scale of the Mass Relay Network was greater than what the empire was capable of…for now.
As such the Emperor reasoned that if the Protheans had anything useful to offer the empire, the empire should find and take it.
And on another note, the empire also wanted to know what had taken down a civilization that could build such a thing as the Mass Relay Network. If it was internal, that would be a lesson for the empire's future. If it was external, then was it still out there?
And of course, finding something the Citadel – who implicitly claimed to be the Protheans' successors – had not would only be a great contribution to the empire's image.
Such was Project Shadowblade.
Not that it was known to the two patrolling women, or even the residents of Eden Prime. All they knew was that the military had a research facility in the area, and while the planetary council had expressed concerns about what was being researched, the Ministry of War had assured the Ministry of the Interior (and by extension the Eden Prime Planetary Council) that they had everything covered.
As for what the residents and most of the garrison were unaware of was being studied inside the facility?
It was a Prothean computer core of some sort, discovered in New Imperial Calendar 23. The core had been relocated to a specially-built bunker under a nearby mountain range for study. Access to the facility was located several kilometres from the mountain's base, through five fortified outposts located in the foothills and connected to the bunker by a fortified tunnel network.
The garrison was divided into two, one to defend the outposts and the other the facility itself. They had a unified command structure, but the former were not allowed into the deeper portions of the facility, for security purposes of course.
"What the hell is that?" Maja asked.
"It…it looks like a…" Joan began to reply. However her words were cut off as the giant, squid-like vessel wreathed with static and superheated air from re-entry blared out a terrifyingly-loud noise. The loudness was bad enough but the note…
…it was…it was indescribable save for the fact that it sent any who could hear reeling helplessly in terror. Later analysis would discover that the vibration values of the alien warship's sonic weapon triggered an instinctive fear factor within the Human mind. It was a primal response, something dating back to long before the first Humans wandered the primeval plains of prehistoric Earth.
The squid-like thing hovered over the hills, 'eyes' flashing as its 'tentacles' unwound, and with the thunderous sound of displaced air silver streams flashed from its tentacles to rip the ground open. Missiles screamed upwards from the Imperial outposts, only to be swatted aside by the warship's point-defence weapons.
Again and again the ship's weapons fired, excavating the tunnel network even as landing craft soared for the outposts. Missiles and particle cannons fired, shooting down several of the craft but again the alien warship opened fire with its point-defence lasers, switching to optical targeting to get past the Imperial jammers. Defence systems melted under the onslaught, Imperial soldiers rushing to defensive positions as the alien landers deployed.
The first out were hulking shapes encased in heavy armour and wielding oversized guns: Krogan. They charged forward in a spearhead formation, their heavy armour and thick hides tanking the neutron beams Imperial guns were raining down on them. Machine guns could help, but the Krogan had the numbers to absorb losses until they reached the Imperial lines.
The result was mayhem. The Imperial lines broke under the onslaught, the Krogan engaging in brutal close-quarters combat where they had complete superiority over their Imperial enemies. Behind them came the Geth, the mechanical soldiers moving with silent, ruthless efficiency to exploit the breakthrough.
As the Krogan and the Geth invested the outposts, the alien warship finally managed to fully-excavate the tunnel network. Folding its tentacles into a different configuration, it landed with surprising gentleness before disembarking additional soldiers: Geth, Krogan, and at their head, a cyborg Turian.
"Advance…!" Saren Arterius ordered. "Open a path to the beacon! Kill everything in the way, but the beacon takes priority!"
Captain Richard Miles glared at the tactical display. The tunnel network was completely compromised, cutting off the bunker from the forward outposts and preventing transport and communications. The last report from the outposts indicated their outer levels overrun by the Geth and the Krogan, and that the field commanders would try and bleed the enemy to the death in tunnel fighting inside the outposts.
That was all well and good, but it seemed that the enemy main force was headed for the bunker. Not that that was surprising: if they knew enough of the facility to attack it, then it would be natural that their objective be the Prothean computer core being studied inside.
"Any word yet?" he asked.
"Commodore Strauss reports his forces as being out of position, given multiple relay activations within the surrounding starzones." The communications officer reported. "He's gathering the closest ships he has, but he's still hours away even at maximum speed."
"Tricky bastards…!" the captain snarled. The empire strictly regulated the opening and use of mass relays in its territory, preferring to use warp – which was superior compared to Element Zero FTL – for internal travel. Not that it was too different from what other species did: mass relays linked colonization clusters across the galaxy, but within those clusters regular FTL was the primary means of interstellar travel.
By activating multiple relays in the region, the patrol fleet assigned to the area was drawn away from the enemy's primary objective: Eden Prime.
"Enemy forces advancing into the tunnel network." An operator reported. "Automated defences responding, but they are pushing through with the Krogan leading."
"That's fine." The captain said. "Thin out the lizards' ranks, they're the biggest threat to our regular infantry."
"Yes sir."
"Lieutenant-commander Mittermeier…" the captain said, and a screen flashed on the tactical display. The other officer immediately saluted, halfway through putting on his armour. "…the enemy is coming. Our auto-defences are slowing them down, but they won't be able to stop them. The enemy is probably aiming for the Prothean computer core, so we'll use that as bait to draw them in. And when we do, I want you and your Steel Wolves to rip their throats out."
"I understand sir…" Lieutenant-commander Felix Mittermeier replied. "…however what of that alien warship?"
"We'll leave that to Commodore Strauss when he gets here." The captain replied. "Most likely the enemy will cut and run once our fleet arrives. Either they surrender against the fleet's guns, or they'll be blown to bits. And then we'll have some measure of justice for the surviving attackers."
They're machines and berserkers…most if not all will go down fighting.
"I understand sir." Felix said with another salute. "The 51st Panzergrenadier Battalion acknowledges its orders!"
A/N
And here we go!
The empire's already replaced their electron rifles with neutron ones, technology marching on as it does. Felix and his Steel Wolves…now he won't be a Commander Shepard-equivalent, but considering the nickname of his battalion (and the fact that a twenty-nine-year old is a lieutenant-commander) some of you can guess which of the three career backgrounds he has: war hero, sole survivor, ruthless.
Yes, there was a war between the empire and the hegemony. I'll write about that eventually, but for now it's in the background. I'll give more information as the story continues.