Thanks for all of the reviews. (:3)

Now, here are some answers and notes to your comments and questions.


Guest (Nov 12):
...Titans are 12 km...

Well, I do know that in-game, the in-game ship viewer say all of the titans are 12 km, but so do the ship viewer say about the length of frigates despite the fact that all of the frigates are visibly different in size. So I sniffed around here and there until I found a video: Eve Online - Shipsizevideo. You could find this at youtube, and is the basis for the sizes of ships that I use.

Also, technology advanced for the Ashura League for the past 400 years. It wouldn't make sense for the size of ships -and the designs- to remain same, now would it? Thanks for reviewing though. I should've put that in some kind of manner to let it be known.

Mister Cuddlesworth:
...EVE tech shouldn't be able to take out a stronghold that easily...

I would agree if there hasn't been any advancement in Ashura League since their founding, but they have advanced. I would attribute large part of the victory to shock-and-awe warfare as well as the tactical advantage that OMechs provide.

Please note that they dug constantly for hours on end to get through the fortress.

FranticHamster:
...Need Beta...

Indeed, English is not my first language, and I do feel bad if my grammar, spelling, or any other mistakes do make the reading a bit harder than it needs to be. I also think I made more grammar mistakes in the fist chapter than I did in any other chapters of any other stories.

I still don't understand how I aced the English portion of the ACT.


Author's Note! (MUST READ)

1. Size of Galaxy:
Milky Way is estimated to have 200-400 billion(yes, a very small difference...) stars. In this fiction, the number will stay the same.

2. Position of Factions:
Consider the Citadel Council and those they know to be in "inner" galactic regions, because if you look at the map of the Milky Way and compare to Mass Effect galaxy map, you'll notice that the Norma Arm has its length cut off in half by not having its Outer Arm shown up. Yup, a whole spiral arm of the galaxy missing from the Mass Effect universe. That's where the Ashura League plays around along with the smaller capsuleer alliances.

3. Batarian Culture:
...No one knows this shit. There is no information available aside from the fact that Batarians have slaves as intricate(?) part of their society. So I have to research, improvise, and create some parts of their culture from scratch without just copying off the turians' "spirits" all the time. But I will have some batarians say it because cultural exchanges do give "births" to individuals who use parts of culture that they were not born into. I will have some info at the end regarding quirks and other things about their culture. I did get help from StarSerpen for this, but in the end, I decided the culture needed to be made.

Ugh, I sound so arrogant right there. "A culture needs to be made." What am I, a megalomaniac?

Anyway, I will have the Hegemony be its namesake, a hegemony of Batarian interstellar nations under one iron fist rule. The End.

4. Ship Sizes:
I based it on one of the videos I found since ingame ship viewer is clunky. Look up below on youtube.
Eve Online - Shipsizevideo


5. Technology:
Hmm... This one is more technical. To start off, ME weaponry. We know what their mass accelerator does ... but not each individual weapon's output, so we'll set that aside. Their dreadnought's mass acceelrator does 38 kilotons of TNT worth of KINETIC damage, which is the worst damage type you could apply to EVE shieldings as most shields have very high resistance to it.

Then they have regular weaponry like missiles. I ain't even gonna talk about that. I'm just gonna talk about projectile related.

Now, EVE Online. EVE has four types of "damages" a ship can deal. Kinetic, thermal, explosive, and EMP. The Caldari State, basis of most tech of the Ashura League, focuses on kinetic, but it does not mean they don't have other types. One of the most used ammunition by the capsuleers of EVE Online is antimatter hybrid charges, which translate to kinetic + thermal damage. May as well add in explosion as well for logic's sake; antimatter+matter = explosion.

In current EVE Online timeline, the dreadnoughts -not the titans- carry around and fire 700 tons of TNT every 7 seconds according few of the sources I looked up... What would capital ship-class missiles do then every 10 seconds? Sure, the ME DR's can do much more damage with their spinal mass accelerator, but can they target like EVE ships? ME DR's must align with their target to fire. EVE DR's? Pfft, let the turrets aim on their own and fire. Can the ME DR's turn as fast they need to fire? Probably not as fast as EVE frigates, cruisers, and battleships equipped with afterburners or micro warpdrives can dance around them.

So I did a little calculations. EVE Online's most famous DR (you can dispute this but I'm using this one) Naglfar, a knife-like dreadnought (DR), has total HP of 515,625 points at its most basic level(this calculation COMPLETELY disregards EVE Online's shield, armor, and hull resistance to certain type of damage). A capital ship's full "broadside" of railguns using antimatter XL(most dmging projectile ammunition) deals 2,853 damage at base level without boosts and other shit on the side. If 2.8 k dmg = 700 tons of TNT, a DR, NOT A TITAN, can tank 126 megatons of TNT easily. But that's only worth like ... 4 hits from ME DR's MA hits or three Tsar Bomba?

Another side note: All of the EVE damages are written in BASE LEVEL and BASIC AMMUNITION AND BASIC (if not large) RAILGUNS. Capsuleers training skills improve these damage and they use better railguns, missile launchers and blasters. The resulting damage is much more than 3k and the shield is more than 515k. There are things called Tech II weaponries and ammunitions in EVE Online that does much more damage than their tech I cousins. I'm using TECH I for calc. If I put in a regular capsuleer's damage input, then that 700 tons of TNT easily jumps up to a kilo or two. Add on the damage type of the ammuniton -excluding kinetic- then

So in firepower alone, ME wins with their dreadnoughts. But EVE Online ships (which is BEFORE this story by 400 years and subsequent researches and improvements that happened in said 400 years) can dance around them with their maneuverability and larger arsenal or weapons, and EVE ships also have better tank. To note, the EVE titans and DR's can't move as fast as their smaller cousins can, but they'll take a beating before they go down.

Fyi, EVE factions can easily mass produce stealth bombers just for kicks and campaigns. Mass Effect factions ... can't. Element Zero, the source of all of the mass drives of ME ships, is expensive as fuck. It broke Asari economy to make their Destiny Ascendancy(is that the correct name?). Amarr Empire, one of the empires of EVE Online, which is situated in a galaxy with only 5k stars max compared to Milky Way's 5 billion, has (according to one of the trailer videos) enough dreadnoughts to line-up the walkway for their empress's coronation ceremony ... And the video also shows 32 titans in the background.

And titans cost ... 20 times more to build than dreadnoughts. Ouch. With maybe 500 solar systems, Amarr has 32 titans and more than 500 dreadnoughts. Woooo...

But that's me being unfair to ME. ME's territories are all based around Mass Relays, since they can't make one even after two thousand years (the fk?), but even then it has to be bigger than a thousand stars total, right!? Relay 314 denotes that there are at least 314 relays including said relay, which means at least 314 stars connected to Mass Relay. (Never understood that part of ME universe. 2k years, and they're still at the same place (roughly) as they were with the tech they researched years beforehand? Are all these races except humans dumbfucks? Sure, they had several decades upon decades of war, but still, even after that, they have at least one thousand five hundred years to advance! Or are Salarians really not what they seem to be?)

Regardless, EVE is a better fighter... Now give them 300 years of peace and research and then 100 years of conflict (capsuleer fighting each other or the Devan-Vjuuskar Rebellion) to harden them up.

GG Mass Effect

GG


[Enjoy]


Chapter 1:
Treaty of Rinevatis 422 SY
&
Gold Graveyard War


"You ... downloaded the language into your brain?" Ambassador Recaral nu Quidav of the Batarian Hegemony asked disbelievingly of the human greeter.

The woman smiled. "Perhaps I or someone else will explain the meaning behind them, but for now though, we must be on our way." Slyly avoiding the topic, I see, the ambassador thought. "It would't do for our conversation to be picked up on 'public' grounds, now would we?" she stated with another dazzling smile.

But Qiudav was not a seasoned politician-made-diplomat for nothing. He read the lines underneath the human female's statement: It's time for negotiation, not questioning or learning.

He nodded. "Lead the way."

She turned around, and gestured for the ambassador, her escort, and the ambassador's escorts (four Batarian marine) deeper into the space station. "Oh, and please don't touch anything."


Qiudav knew that he was right about the difference of culture the moment he entered deeper part of the space station. This part was designed as a communal area. There was a large, clear dome above with plenty of greenery alongside the tall buildings that littered the said area. 'And they built all this in less than half a year,' he thought as he walked past a golden spire-like building that contrasted sharply with a blue, ridged structure up ahead. "Your designs are very different," he commented idly as they moved on.

The human greeter looked at him with that ever present smile. "Are the designs different vastly from your home?" she asked.

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I thought your kind have already downloaded information regarding us."

She giggled. Damn, just hearing her laugh made him feel better. "We were only able to take data that were on your ships and few of the colonies we occupied. While there were large quantities of data regarding culture, language, military, and so forth that we were able to extract and decipher, your kind's culture still eludes us. And since design is part of culture, it has eluded us in turn. Most of the colony buildings were of one or two design, probably made as quickly as possible by few in charge of architecture. ... Sorry, I'm rambling off, but to your query, I will have to answer 'yes, we have,' but at the same time, 'not everything.'"

The ambassador stared at the greeter even as they walked, coming ever closer to the blue building in the center of the communal district. "You give away information rather eagerly."

She giggled. "I am contracted to the Ashura League Navy as a pilot and I have very few responsibilities outside of naval battles; everything I told you will have come to your hands sooner or later, and all of what I revealed to you are non-critical information. Had I said something really needed to be in secret, the big guys would have stopped me," she said, gesturing to the

Qiudav looked at her shocked. "You're a pilot?" he asked politely as possible.

The human female nodded. Will that smile ever go away? "I have been a pilot for the last twenty years. It's nothing compared to some of my friends and coworkers have under their belt, but I'm rather proud of it."

"Then I assume you participated in the battle in this very system...?"

She laughed. "No, no," she stopped talking for a second, looking forward. He did so as well, and saw why she stopped. They had arrived.

Up close, the building was grand as other structures the ambassador had the pleasure of seeing before. It was not like the bland skyscrapers found on homeworld nor was it as rough looking as the structures found in colonies. This building was tall, but not overly (being only around 300 meters high). The entrance was lit up like a light show, a easy green lightning that matched the dark blue of the building rather nicely.

"Our representative will meet you inside, but your guards will have to wait out here as will our guards."

Without a spoke command, the human marines all filed away and stood to the right side of the arch-like entrance.

Qiudav turned and nodded to his own marines, who filed slowly to the left side. Then he turned back to the human female.

"Let us enter."


Qiudav stared at the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. There were ridig vein-like lights pulsing throughout the entirety of the corridor he was walking down, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was another one of the human designs or part of something more practical.

They had walked in about two hundred steps with no other deviating corridors when they found themselves outside of the building and unto a small garden. There were plants of all sorts the batarian had never seen before as well as animals that seemed too strange to be true. His wonder, however, cut off when his eyes fell on the person that sat at the center of the garden.

A different race.

He stared at the four eyed alien before him before looking back to the humans. Too much difference. The humans had two eyes and fur on top of their head. The new alien had no fur. In fact, they were more like the other races the ambassador had come to know on the other side of the galaxy. The person was tall, around 1.9 meters, with a crest-like structure on the upper part of his head. The lower part of his head was red like a red star, but slightly darker. He wore a white naval uniform not too unlike the ones that the ambassador saw the Asari wear. He had three fingers, which was gripping a small cup with steaming liquid. The next biggest thing the ambassador saw once he got over the fact that the Ashura League must have more race members like the Citadel Council had was the fact that there was a thick cord rising out of the ground and being connected to a implant at the base of his head.

The man was not facing the two new entree's, however. Instead had his attention focused on something else that neither could see.

"No, I cannot grant such expansion of the business district without expanding the size of the residential district, which is already at its bare minimum capacity... Unfortunately, I have someone I must meet now. Alright, I'll see you later." Once he stopped talking, the cord attached to the implant disconnected by itself and slithered into the ground, hidden by the grass as to where it finally went.

The person stood up, and turned around. "Sorry about that. The conversation went longer than I originally intended. My name is Hudes Oneson. I am Ashura League's diplomat," he said, and spoke in perfect batarian as well. "Please," he said as he gestured to the open seat across from him. "Have a seat. This is where our negotiations will take place."

Qiudav nodded numbly, and he must have looked a bit ridiculous because the human female laughed once more. Diplomat Oneson, however, seemed to be exacerbated by the female's behavior.

"I assume the two of you are familiar with each other...?" he asked hesitantly. It was not a topic suited to negotiation tables, but ... eh, asking doesn't hurt... probably.

Diplomat Oneson looked at the batarian as if the man was a lunatic before he quickly realized that it was a batarian that he had been looking at. "Pardon her ... behavior. She's always like this."

The human female's laughter died down to a giggle. "Well, I brought him here, so I'll be going off!" she said with another smile before leaving through the way she and the ambassador came through.

The two men stared after her until she was gone from their sight. Oneson sighed. "I hate her, so much..."

"You seem to know her ... a lot," Qiudav replied as he walked over to the table, a modern stainless steel table equipped with holographic imaging system (or so it stated on the side of the table), and sat down on the chair offered just as Oneson himself sat down.

"You could consider her to be my ... younger sister. Found her all alone in an alley, starving to death more than forty years ago," Oneson replied. "But let's push that aside for later. While I may be exacerbated by my young sister, the Batarian Hegemony's surrender comes first."

Qiudav nodded. Straight to point, it seemed. "Very well. This is my government's surrender terms," he said as he uploaded the document in his omni-tool to the table by pulling out a cord that Oneson himself had pulled out from the side to show the batarian ambassador. Somehow, the cord's plug was exactly one would use to access omni-tools manually. 'Interesting,' he thought. 'They prepared this much in little to no time.'

Before he could become a man of politics, Ambassador Qiudav had to learn many aspects of politics itself, including culture of other races, supply and demands of politic nature, and history of all of the Council races and then some. Particularly, he had been most interested in history, and as a result, he was familiar with First Contact scenarios. He knew that Asari-Salarian first contact had been wishy-washy at best, as omni-tools and its fast language translation (as there was no need for one) did not exist. Council-Turian First Contact had been tense as -once again language barrier in place-

Oneson used the table's holo projector to pull up the document in front of him. Instead of the orange hue that Qiudav was familiar with, the hologram was blue without a single edge of static. The man read through fourteen page worth of surrender terms in less than a minute, and re-read them.

"Unacceptable," he stated with a frown before looking Qiudav directly in the eyes.

Qiudav raised an eyebrow. "On which part?"

"On multiple. One, Clause 2 states that all of the current slaves will remain in the hands of the Hegemony. This will have to go away, or it'll be continued war; it's freeing the slaves you took that we have started this war," he said. "Let me remind you that we have already freed all of the slaves on the planets we occupy, and have dealt with those who we deem as inhumane 'masters.' Two, Clause 3.2 states that the batarians will compensate in Citadel Council credits. We don't use your council's credits nor are we interested in receiving such a lower valued currency nor their values. Three, Clause 4 is just straight up bullshit. No more war declaration for the next 100 years? Let me make this clear to you, ambassador. If you wrong us in anyway, it'll be war no matter what. Continued hostility will mean subjugation of entire Hegemony til we shatter it."

Qiudav narrowed all four of his eyes. "Is that a threat to destroy our way of life?"

Oneson glared in return. "It's a threat if it hurts us. You can do whatever you want in your territory. Bring it outside and into ours, it'll be guns you'll be seeing next. This also means that if batarian slavers enter our territory, we'll deem you responsible."

Qiudav stood up. "You can't do that! We have no control over ever single one of our citizens!"

Oneson scoffed. "Time for you to get to work then," he said as he flickered on the screen, and scrolled down. Then he closed it, and brought out another document, and sent this one to Qiudav's omni-tool via the same route the Hegemony's surrender terms came. "This is the League's terms for your surrender and peace."

Qiudav quickly opened the newly received document and frowned at the document's shortness. Also, compared to the Hegemony's packed four page surrender terms, this was loosely made with only two pages done. That meant less detail and more loopholes.

He read on, nonetheless.

Ashura League's First and Last Terms for Surrender

He immediately frowned at the title. 'Ancient Stars, please let the Hegemony not be a client state or shattered by the terms.' After a slow, deep breath, he began to read them.

1. Effective immediately after acceptance and signatures of the parties, the Batarian and Hegemony and the Ashura League will have truce. This truce will last for the next decade.

'Good start...'

2. Batarian Hegemony will release all of the slaves captured in the past five standard Ashuran years.

'Not good...'

3. Batarian Hegemony will enforce patrols along Batarian-Ashuran border systems. Any batarian slavers found in Ashura League's territory will be executed unless those in question surrender immediately, in which case, they will be returned to the Hegemony with only the clothes on their body. Any Ashura League illegals found in batarian territory will be treated the same.

4. All forms of technology that belonged to the Ashura League at one point will be returned. If any cache of technology is found in batarian territory afterward, for every seventy pieces of technology found, rounded up, Batarian Hegemony will pay 10% of its income or its equivalent. Should the Hegemony refuse to pay or miss payment by "sent" date, then Ashura League will seize goods for compensation, and these may include territory, ships, goods, materials, and military rights.

5. For the duration of the truce, the Ashura League will be given military access to batarian territory.

6. The mining rights in the list of systems below will be given to the Ashura League.

7. Batarian Hegemony will pay a sum of a billion Interstellar Kredits, or its material equivalent over the next fifty years.

Ambassador Qiudav frowned. "This is-"

"Unacceptable? You make it sound like the Hegemony was the one who won the war," Oneson cut the ambassador off with a snarl. "Please remember how this war came to be, sir. It was not us that attacked you, the Hegemony, but the Hegemony funded pirates that attacked us. We tried to talk with you, but you shot at us when we went to you with the proverbial olive leaves of peace. It was your nation that provoked us, not the other way around. You should be thankful that this is the only thing we're demanding of you.

"In most cases of war, we shatter our enemies so that they can never fight back, and then slowly eat them up. So accept what's in front of you, or leave to continue the war, ambassador. Our League is not a very forgiving type, nor do we believe in second chances when it comes to international matters." There was a pause as the League Ambassador stopped himself before he leaned back into his chair and shrugged. "Yeah, it could have been worse."

'Definitely, but by how much?' Qiudav thought to himself before voicing it out. "What exactly would be worse?"

Oneson stopped chuckling, which was dying down before, before fixing his eyes one for one on the batarian's eyes. He blinked a few times before he brought up a wide keypad, or keyboard(?), from his side of the table, and typed in a few times.

"Even before my race, the Protheans, were saved from extinction and made citizens of the League, the League had been as powerful as we see it today, my dear ambassador. But they weren't without their share of trouble..."


"Even before my race, the Protheans, were saved from extinction and made citizens of the League, the League had been as powerful as we see it today, my dear ambassador. But they weren't without their share of trouble..."

Ambassador Oneson knew that talking about his own nation's weakness in front of another nation's ambassador was stupid. However, there was something to gain from releasing the information that follows it.

With a light "bip," a flat holo-video was projected in the middle of the table.

Title: Rebels Being Executed.

"The League has already had the courtesy to look over some of your nations' and your affiliate, the Citadel Council's history," Oneson began. "And I must say, they were bloody... but not as bloody as our own civil war."

The video played by itself. The first person to appear in it was a broadcaster with model attractive looks and ebony hair. Even Qiudav seemed to acknowledge her beauty. Then the image holding the broadcaster minituarized before numbers began to pop up to the right of the window.

"One billion and seventeen million dead."

Qiudav froze.

"Enough collateral damage to buy a planet and build a metropolis on its most prime estate."

Oneson's face hardened. "The rebel leaders? Burned to death at stake," he hissed, and on que, the image of seven men and women tied to metal posts being burned to death showed up. "Their followers who didn't surrender? Burned to death." Slowly, he leaned forward. "If your nation does not surrender...? The result would have ranged from shattering the Hegemony into hundreds of smaller nations to complete annexation." By the end of the sentence, he was standing up. "Those responsible for deaths of our people and the cause of the war before the war would have been tossed to pits of radiation chambers. At the very worst, we would simply blow up the stars of your worlds, and allow you to drift into the void.

"Do you understand where you stand, dear Ambassador Qiudav?"


Qiudav understood. He understood it very well.

The "negotiations" had gone well from his perspective, as the situation could have been far worse than what the League had demanded of the Hegemony. Indeed, now that he had more time to think, analyze, connect, and contemplate, the Hegemony got off rather easily.

His people, while weak in the overall galactic power, were still strong in their home ground. They had large enough of a navy to match the turians, ever since they left the Citadel Council, and dismissed the Treaty of Farxian from holding their naval power down. Indeed, while technologically inferior compared to the Asari, Salarians, and the Turians, the batarians knew and considered themselves to the 4th technologically superior and in possession of the second largest fleet.

The same fleet had been reduced to scrap metal with a single naval engagement.

They had pricked the proverbial Thresher Maw of the galaxy. Hidden, lying in wait, unknowing of the world outside but not caring until provoked, and the batarians had been the one to provoke the "humans" and the League. Oh, he had intellectually known how strong the League was compared to the Hegemony, but it hadn't truly set in until he went through everything. It was not their ships nor their marines that set the truth in, though. It was the words of a diplomat and a video of burning humans that set it in.

Burned at stake.

A cruel, unusual, and archaic form of punishment outlawed by all, forgotten by most.

The Hegemony, and by extension the rest of the galaxy, will have to tread lightly where the League was concerned... Or not tread at all if the League wanted them all dead.


Year 422

The Batarian Hegemony and the Ashura League signed the Treaty of Rinevatis 422 SY, formally ending the Ashura-Batarian Contact War. The Batarian Hegemony lost several systems to the Ashura League and were responsible for paying heavy war reparations. After the war, the economists of both sides came together to see how the exchange rate would be.

The results:
1 ISK = 10.16 Hegemony Credits
1 ISK = 3.04 Citadel Credits

This made resulted in the Hegemony having to repay the League a grand total of 10.2 billion Hegemony Credits, a sum worth the eight times Hegemony's annual budget.

To make things worse for the Hegemony, many of the Ashura colonies and stations prohibited batarians from stepping foot upon their world/station. The Hegemony protested, but the League rebutted it by stating that it was not in charge of individual world's decisions, as that was the worlds' rights.

Unknown to the Batarians, the League starts to colonize several systems between the Hegemony worlds where the Mass Relays did not exist.


Galaxy: Milky Way, Norma Arm
Region: Inner Norma Arm (Lotus Sanctum)
Cluster: Gold River
System: NAGR-02-04
Sovereignty: Golden Armada

Date: 422.9.24

NAGR-02-04, or Norma Arm-Second Cluster-Fourth Largest Star, or gleefully dubbed by the locals under the rule of the Golden Armada as Capsuleer Trade Hub (or Cap Hub, for short), was system filled with space stations and spaceship traffic. Situated in the Gold River cluster, which was on the inner portion of the Norma Arm, the Capsuleer Trade Hub got its name from much of its trade having to do with capsuleers, the masters of the chaotic and much unexplored regions beyond itself. Protected by treaties with powerful capsuleer alliances as well as the Ashura League, all of whom profited heavily from taxing traffic going into the Trade Hub, the system was where all equipments, civilians, colonials, spaceship, or anything else, went through to get to the Null-Sec Clusters.

The owner of this wealthy system was Golden Armada's Executive-King Parinii Gashiv, great-grandson of one of the Old Powers of the Ashura League.

Parinii Gashiv was a tall man, reaching six feet six inches when he stood up with straightened back. Like any other capsuleers, most of whom died at least once, he had baby white skin, no hair, and absolutely no scarring.

Why?

Because he was inhabiting the body of his clone. Clone whose specific designation was "Trade Hub Alpha."

Like most leaders and influential businessmen and women, Parinii had clones in important systems throughout the "known" clusters and regions. He viewed this specific clone as his second most important clone, as it was responsible for all of the businesses he performed in the very system that netted him 2 trillion ISK per Ashura Prime year (419 days).

Today, he was here on business, though unwilling as he had been. He had been on vacation with his mentor and "grandfather," Normes Gashiv, the first of the line, of the Old Powers, Lord of Planet Kyander, Lord of Planet Vissika, and Lord of Bellar Space Station. A very influential person even among the Old Powers, Parinii had been extremely happy to have some of his grandfather's time during the vacation to just enjoy each others' companies, as have the rest of the family had been.

But no... his goddamn secretary had to inform him that a Priority A customer was waiting for him in Cap Hub.

Reasonably so, he had some irritation flowing in his veins and showing on his strained eyes.

The clone bay opened, and Parinii fell forward. Several footsteps were quickly running up to him even before he began his fall. However, he had been through this many times.

Little after a second after his fall began, his left leg struck out instinctively in a wide arc before it along with the body continued to fall.

And touchdown, his feet and leg supported him from further fall, and his face did not meet the clone bay's metal ground... this time.

He slowly allowed his clone body to get used to moving once more as he crouched down, following the landing of his feet. Then with a huff, he stood back up.

"God damn it, it's fucking cold in here..." he hissed as someone threw a towel over his shoulders. He turned around to see Arialda Shepherd, his secretary.

"I always remind you, sir, that it is better for the clone bay's operation to keep it at this temperature," she remarked without even betting an eyelash to his naked physique. "And you always tell me that you don't have to like what's best for the clone bay."

Parinii scoffed. "Whatever. So why exactly did you call me from my vacation for?"

She tapped on the datapad she held before handing it over to her boss. "It's the information you've asked me for. One regarding the list of human slaves on former Batarian systems."

His demeanor changed quickly and took the datapad from her. He scanned through it for a second or two before letting out a roar of rage and tossing the datapad at the wall to his right. The datapad shattered like the crystal glass it was made out of.

She froze for a bit, shocked by her employer's uncharacteristic rage. "...Is something wrong?"

"They killed my grandchild!" he roared.

She flinched. 'Shit, there's going to be a bloodbath...' she thought as she made a quick prayer for the batarians. The said prayer only became more sympathetic in her mind as Parinii snapped his attention to her.

"Get my ship ready, and alert every goddamn capsuleers in the alliance... We're going to hunt!"


Year 423

The Golden Armada, one of the smaller capsuleer alliances -but also considered one of the most influential thanks to number of military treaties with most, if not all, of the top capsuleer alliances as well as the Ashura League itself- declared war upon all of the remaining Batarian Hegemony.

The Batarian Hegemony, unwilling to take on another one of the capsuleers alone, quickly turned to the Citadel Council for aid, allowing all matters and forms of information to flow through where there had been little to none.

However, they were too slow.


The Golden Armada.

Numbering at 12 titans, 51 dreadnoughts, 6,000 battleships, 40,000 battlecruisers, 104,000 cruisers, and 54,000 frigates, it was a fleet that most middle and lower tier capsuleer alliances would avoid fighting at all cost. Even higher tier capsuleer alliances, like B.O.B. who held more than three hundred titans, were not eager to fight them simply due to the Golden Armada's infamous hit-loot-and-run tactic. They were notorious for dragging out attrition in systems to the point that a loss of 50% of attacking navy was the norm before the Golden Armada's reinforcements and allies arrived.

The fleet known to be the most tenacious and vicious of all capsuleer alliances was in warp. Their entire fleet bound together by the warp bubble generated by the fleet's titans dragged them along the ageless, gapless void.

The ship spearheading them all was a horizontally hammer-like supercarrier christened Calm.

"ETA 5 minutes, sir," Arialda Shepherd reported as she stood by her captain's side with a data pad held in her arms.

"Are all titans ready to engage the cynosural field as soon as we drop warp?"

This time, it was the AI of the ship that answered him. "Yes, sir. All titan pilots are reporting green with the cynosural field generators."

The captain nodded. "Good," he let out a snarl. "This will be a sweet payback...!"


The colony of Rewfes was a seemingly harmless colony.

Because it was harmless colony. While it was one of the more important manufacturing powerhouses within the Batarian Hegemony, Rewfes rarely got visitors, slavers, administrators, or tourists, and as such, they had a reason to not have heavy defenses.

Now, the war with the humans had changed that. Rewfes had been upgraded to multiple levels in standby readiness should war come to them.

But as far as the cloaked recon cruiser's pilot was concerned, this colony was a sitting duck ... in vacuum.

Ping ping ping

He opened up his chat after hearing the alert.

Operation Bloody Nose is a go.

His lips stretched out into a grin.

He decloaked his ship, which obviously alerted the Batarians of his presence if the sudden change in the movements of their meager patrol's heading was anything to take notice of, and activated his ship's cynosural generator.

The Batarian patrol ships were more than 200 clicks away when the entire fleet of the Golden Armada jumped through.

The pilot whistled as he appreciated the golden majesty of the fleet. His awe only increased to heights unknown when he saw the titans charge up their doomsday weapon for the first time in his capsuleer life.

And they fired.

The golden beams of energized death screeched forth like some giant bansheees of old. They missed the patrol ships, which weren't the targets, and flew straight towards the planet. They narrowed as the went further and further down until they impacted.

All beams landed on largest population center on the planet, the city of Rewfes.

The city, which was half a continent wide at 600 kilometers diameter, cratered like sponge.


The capsuleers of the Golden Armada, along with several smaller alliances that the said armada hired, reached their border, and reduced the Batarian colony of Rewfes to ashes with orbital bombardments.

The Councilors and the Hegemony representative met the very next day after the destruction of Rewfes and the declaration of war.


"Diplomat Eru'udis vaKan, it is a pleasure to meet you," Tevos greeted the Batarian as the man nodded back to her.

"As am I, Councilor Tevos."

Sparatus just nodded, which the diplomat eagerly greeted back.

While the pleasantries were being exchanged, Valern, the Salerian Councilor, was analyzing the change in the behavior of the Batarian representative. Eru'udis vaKan was a very strong advocate for Batarian Hegemony's "rights" in any and all forums and legislations he appeared in. In fact, one could go far as to say that the representative was a anti-Council. He voted against the Council in many laws, even when voting yes in some of the Citadel local laws would personally helped him more.

He was rude, rough, inconsiderate jackass with four eyes to keep eyes on all Councilors and his own paper to sprout more nonsense.

But today, he seemed ... subdued. Very humble yet not overly.

Valern was concerned about that. He wanted to know what the diplomat was planning.

"Please, take us seat, sir," Tevos said, taking charge of this meeting. The rest of the councilors took their place behind their designated podiums while the Batarian diplomat stood across from them in the Council's meeting room. "Now, what was the reason behind your desire to meet us?" she asked candidly.

The Batarian diplomat fidgeted. "T-The Hegemony has come under attack from an unknown alien race," he quickly began. "We can't fight them off. We need your help..!"

There was a second after the bomb shell drop by the diplomat as the councilors' minds shut down and rebooted. Less than two seconds later, they were throwing questions at the Batarian while promising to help the Hegemony. After all, the Batarian Hegemony was part of the Citadel Council. It was the duty of the Citadel Council to uphold their treaties.

The Batarian diplomat gave them a twisted version of their encounter with human. How it had been the humans who assaulted their outer colonies and looted the homes of honest -if slaving- Batarians. How the Hegemony had lost so fast that they could not ask for help. Then he went on to talk about how the humans had launched another invasion, and the depleted resources of the Hegemony could not withstand them.

The Councilors took the explanation to their questions with some skepticism but promised to help the Hegemony nonetheless.

This was how the Gold Graveyard War began.