A/N: Once again the volus are brought to you, with even more headpat terrorism, by the hand of Jacob. This one is 99.5% him, I made a few tiny edits to Rasa.
Still working on next chapter of TWCD.
The Cerberus Files : Secondary Races
Volus Military
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Sir,
And so, it is time for us to discuss the Blood-Profit Clan, otherwise known as the Volus Defence Force.
Unlike most standing Citadel race militaries, volus eschew much of what we humans would consider conventional tactics and strategy. They do not field vast corps of infantry, only make use of armoured vehicles in an auxiliary or deep-strike role, and do not ever try and conquer territory in the conventional sense.
Volus prefer not to (directly) involve personal violence when dealing with other volus for a variety of historical, cultural, and religious reasons, but this same courtesy does not extend to most aliens. It's true that few volus join the VDF, even less enjoy killing, and that the species as a whole has nothing but contempt for those they consider brutish and uncivilised. Yet it is equally true that volus value their survival very much indeed, and they will fight with a surprising degree of tenacity if they see no other option.
You should know that the Turian Hierarchy still provides a great deal of diplomatic cover for their volus allies. On paper, of course, the Vol Protectorate is no longer a client state and must officially abide by all standard regulations and tariffs present in Turian Space, but the two species are still very close. One cannot negate thousands of years of shared history. The VDF and turian navy still train and operate together, and volus are still the most influential players in what passes for the turian economy. After all, it's not like a handful of clumsy tariffs and sir-yes-sir Hierarchy regs present much of a barrier for even the most naïve volus merchant.
The Primarch had to be seen to punish the Vol Protectorate in order to save face at a time where many cluster Primarchs and Autarchs question his political resolve, but Fedorian is surprisingly canny and understands that the turians are far better off with a firm ally on the Citadel and an economic partner capable of fending off asari and salarian predations. The Unbroken Circle genuinely views even the most vile VDF programs as a positive sign that Irune is willing to take its defence seriously and adapt a more 'realistic, sharp-taloned' turian interpretation of what exactly constitutes a valid combatant. Due to their evolutionary nature and cultural development, turians consider literally everyone to be a combatant and do not even acknowledge any separation between military and civilian personnel; they'd very much like their volus allies to adopt the same philosophy. (Addendum: And that is why the birds best serve humanity as targets. Remember Shanxi. -Tiffany)
Rasa has decided (somewhat unilaterally but logically) that she'll handle most of the military assessment itself – tactics, equipment, and force evaluation – while I'll deal with the somewhat more cerebral aspects. Understanding the volus military is not as simple as counting guns or summarizing their combat moves, as to the volus – like everything else they undertake – even violence must be profitable to be pursued.
Cerberus Thought of the Day: Vulnerability begins when you treat a threat as mere possibility.
Volus Combat Psychology
Never forget that the wobblies think that business is war and war is a business.
I touched upon this subject during my investigation into the Unseen Cloud, and so this is an excellent point to remind readers that volus do not view or approach conflict in the same manner that humans do. Just as salarians view 'warfare' as the 'kinetic phase of the intelligence cycle,' volus see 'warfare' as 'a bloodied cascade of transactions' whose beginning, middle, and end are context-dependent and constantly shifting.
Much like asari, volus take a far more expansive view of conflict than humans, and include all manner of socioeconomic, cultural, cognitive/infomemetic, religious, and physical assault vectors in their operational planning. They see no practical difference between offensive and defensive operations, preferring to execute both simultaneously and with as much common resource use as possible, and (like salarians) consider a formal declaration of war or the concept of a conflict having a neat beginning, middle, and end to be clinically insane.
You do not make a courtesy call to a competitor, informing them of your latest product developments and plans to take over their market. No, you must move before they have a chance to realise your true intentions. You must know the client better than the client knows himself. To compete is an imperative, and to make a profit is divine.
This is the volus way of business, and it shapes the volus way of war.
Volus perspectives on the utility of violence have been heavily influenced by their biology and evolutionary development. Irune is a remarkably dangerous place – only mutant vorcha and heavily augmented krogan survivalists have any real chance of making it in the wilderness – and volus, being prey animals, instinctively understand that the universe is a dangerous place and that the unknown can kill you just as easily as the familiar. The pragmatic risk analysis of volus trade culture only reinforces this, and even the Book of Plenix says that "for war is a bloody market and death the final transaction, so pay heed to the bargaining around you and know truly when your gamble is reckless, lest the Depths take you and your bounty remains forever unclaimed."
As a result, volus military planners take pre and post-conflict strategy far more seriously than humans do. They will examine the obvious geopolitical motives that precipitate most wars, of course, but they will also carefully study the cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors that instigate conflict, in the same way that a human scientist might examine an evolutionary record to study an ecosystem in the present day. Volus will also study the post-conflict aftermath and recovery phase with equal rigor.
Petrovsky makes an excellent point that we can't afford to dismiss volus tactics and strategy simply because their military is unconventional and small, or because they seem physically and psychologically unsuited for warfare. (Addendum: There's always some mouth-breathing berk who thinks that a prey animal can't be a threat because it's a prey animal. You know what else are prey animals? Yahg, krogan, and – according to Rasa – thresher maws. While I'd rather not think just what in fuck would prey on a forty-meter long death worm, the point remains that some prey animals survive because they are dangerous. -Tiffany)
The reason that this report structure is so unconventional is because the volus military itself is unconventional; it includes resources, organisations, and operational plans that most Citadel species don't consider to be defence related at all, whilst volus tend to view their conventional assets as merely a part of their combat doctrine.
The VDF is very much aware that they don't stand a chance at squaring off with a Citadel fleet in a line of battle, at least on the Citadel's terms – they will never match Palaven for sheer numbers and assault capacity, or the avant garde technology of Sur'Kesh, or Thessia's optronics, Silaris plating, and superior eezo cores. VDF High Command unanimously argued that whilst a small core fleet is a prudent investment (mostly for joint deployments with the Citadel and general deterrence), it would be a pointless endeavour to match the Citadel ship for ship, and that unconventional and asymmetric assets are more likely to offer greater returns and ultimately achieve their desired security outcomes. The condescending sneers of the Council races merely reinforce this worldview, and most volus find the militarism of most aliens extremely frustrating.
Keep these notes in mind whilst we examine some of the doctrine and concepts that make the VDF so unique and so dangerous to those unprepared for them.
Competitive Advantages : Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
VDF High Command has invested very heavily over the years in certain unconventional military applications designed to achieve an overwhelming competitive advantage in the battlespace.
There are two Citadel-sanctioned AI constructs operating in Volus Space. Both of these are based on Irune. Both were carefully crafted over several decades from destructive redbox neural readings of the greatest leaders the VDF and Vol High Court ever produced, using quarian technical assistance paid for with generous donations of pure eezo and hydroponic lifeships and steadily developed by a crack team of the finest programmers and AI specialists in the known galaxy, lured to Irune with every conceivable vice and virtue. One of these AIs manages the fundamental economic constructs and transactions of the entire Vol Protectorate. It is a marvel of sapient econometrics and adaptive economics, and is quite possibly responsible for the remarkable stability of the Citadel credit.
The other is in the service of the VDF, and it manages that organisation's infamous drone swarms and autonomous army. It also acts as a middle-management layer between the VDF and their Vorcha Auxiliary Corps. It has never, not once, displayed any signs of malice or rampancy, and has passed every Citadel ethics test and logic quandary it has been subjected to in the last forty-five years.
We wouldn't have even known that this thing existed if it wasn't for Vigil. He contacted it a few months ago – he won't say how he contacted it, nor will he confess as to just what exactly he was doing in orbit around Irune in the first place – but he did offer some useful insight into the AI in question. Vigil said that it was fully sapient and self-actualised, and that it displayed definite volus personality traits and speech patterns that were evident even in binary communication. (Addendum: In their first communication, the wobbly AI asked Vigil "what bounty do you seek from the endless fields of life, Ilos-clan?" Of course, the stupid bastard responded with trolling and told them he sought porn. -Tiffany)
Vigil found this somewhat weird, almost off-puttingly so, but clearly stated that the construct's capabilities should not be underestimated. The volus AI is certainly capable of coordinating several hundred thousand basic drones and/or mechs in an advanced, multi-planetary strategic scenario, and that it is likely augmenting the cybersphere defences of Irune and all critical off-world volus holdings. The overall goals and design of the construct are fairly comparable to the SA's EDI initiative or our own EVA – that is to say, it is designed to act as a force multiplier and asset to the Vol Protectorate. It is nowhere near as advanced and unaccountable as Vigil, nor is it akin to those rampant League of Zero monstrosities. As far as we can tell, these volus AIs genuinely consider themselves to be members of the Vol-clan and the servants and guardians of all volus.
Volus drones and mechs lack the exotic weapon systems and sheer eezo efficiency of the asari models, and they certainly don't have the cutting-edge adaptive combat programming that the STG is pursuing, but the volus can field a dozen units for the same cost as one of those ultra-high-end models and they can be repaired in the field more quickly and using less resources. You'd think that humanity would recognise the advantage that superior economic capacity and societal organisation can provide, given that it's been so critical in so many wars in so much of human history – the expansion and collapse of the Mongol Hordes, the Second World War, the Days of Iron – but no, we don't really learn, do we?
Regardless, most volus drone and mech designs focus on precision firepower and secondary disruption capabilities. For example, a typical support unit will mount a plasma dart cannon, used for antipersonnel purposes, and a secondary ECM suite used to disrupt infowar attacks and enemy squad communications. The objective is always to bolster volus killing capacity, to degrade aggregate enemy capabilities, and to prevent the enemy from closing range and out-manoeuvring the volus.
Competitive Advantages : Volus Organised Crime
'Volus gangsters.' Go say those words to, well, pretty much anyone and they'll laugh in your face and ask if you know any other good jokes. It's a cheap punchline or a stock character on Westerlund sitcoms (which I still fucking hate, by the way), like 'elcor ballerinas' and 'batarian babysitters.' I hate to play the buzzkill cynic and the sober voice of reason, but yes, volus organised crime is very much a real thing, they're remarkably sophisticated and far-reaching and around eighty-five per cent of them answer to the Vol Protectorate. Volus OC are officially classified as strategic assets by the VDF war planning and intelligence committee and form an important part of volus grand strategy, so obviously, this is an issue that affects humanity and one which we should pay attention to.
Most volus criminal organisations are actually quasi-legitimate and often have entire branches that are run legally – some even have offices on the Citadel and tax-paying employees with their affiliations openly displayed on their business holos! This is partly due to the pervasive nature of commerce, legalism, and secrecy in much of volus trade culture, but also partly due to the fact that the vol courts define criminality principally as 'that which harms all vol life and their capacity to seek the bounty thereof.' So long as all parties demonstrate sound mental capacity, informed consent, and mutual agreement (subject to claw-backs, disclaimers, escape clauses, et cetera) then, technically speaking, the act or agreement in question isn't even considered a crime.
There are exceptions, of course, but much like Ilium, there is very little in Vol Space that is actually illegal in its entirety. Slavery, for instance, is illegal not on the grounds of anyone having a right to liberty, but because enslaving a volus inhibits his/her capacity to extract profit from the universe, and that is something almost all volus find morally disgusting. Incidentally, that slavery prohibition applies only to volus and prevents a volus from directly owning slaves – trading someone else's slaves is permissible, as is benefiting from the slavery of aliens, for they are brutish and un-volus. Likewise, debt bondage and serfdom are acceptable punishments for certain grave financial offenses. Not every volus shares this perspective, and some argue that the bounty exception should apply to all life, but they are a minority.
Where were we? Ah yes, volus organised crime. As you can imagine, the legal flexibility and protections afforded to them by the Vol Courts means that volus criminal organisations enjoy a remarkable degree of operational freedom within the galaxy at large, and they're uniquely placed to offer their services to various alien individuals and organisations. Discretion is assured and profits even more so. Their fees are higher, true, but once you factor in the legal protection and vastly reduced laundering costs, it's still a bargain for most players – especially those who are already forced to the fringes of civilised society as is.
Volus criminal organisations typically act as consiglieres and operational backers for the rougher and less sophisticated players out there, like most Terminus warlords, the Blood Pack, assorted Facinus separatists and turian outcasts, and a handful of influential human mafias. For more sophisticated players, like Aria, the Shifter, and pretty much everyone on Noveria, the volus tend to act as brokerage and professional services firms, offering advanced legal and financial services as well as brokering deals and making connections. The volus also offer these same services to certain VIPs and dignitaries on the Citadel – it's never someone too high up, they prefer to seduce those in the middle and cultivate relationships that pay dividends in the long-term.
What this means is that the Vol Protectorate can call upon the services of a frightening array of criminal elements and proxies. Some owe favours to the volus, some are happy to take any job for the right money, and some simply see it as good business to have Irune in their corner. Each of these groups has connections and assets of their own, and in the case of the Blue Suns, Eclipse, or the NDC they're essentially private militaries. Note that these groups are spread across the galaxy and are often heavily integrated into their host societies, providing the volus with further leverage.
This may not compare to the firepower of a fleet, but volus organised crime assets offer a degree of secrecy, flexibility, and deniability that a clunky military just can't compete with. Want to carry out an assassination of a troublesome public figure? Place a bounty on him and plant false evidence of wire fraud and money laundering to make the hit look like it was justified. Need a distraction before a military strike? A little piracy, some corruption in the officer ranks, and an arcology riot or two will do nicely. Want to get the schematics for that new alien prototype? Plenty of tech gangs that'll take the job for a friend like you. Concerned your ambassador doesn't have enough leverage? Honeytrap one of your rival's staff and let the pillow talk and blackmail flow. You see how these things work.
They work like we do, quietly building our influence in the shadows and waiting for the perfect time to strike.
Competitive Advantages : Biotechnology
Given the true nature of volus biology… this section really isn't surprising.
The Biodevelopment Department of the Research Division of the VDF is responsible for all volus genetic research, xenological research (including alien biology, psychology, and sociology), and all biowarfare development programs. There are several core programs within the department that are of special interest to Cerberus and to humanity. The VDF maintains an extensive retroviral engineering program, which is divided into offensive and defensive sub-projects.
The defensive projects are centred on the gradual enhancement and development of the volus genome, whilst the offensive projects are mostly designed to exploit or attack alien genetics. Regardless of purpose, volus gene-mod work is highly advanced and essentially amoral in execution; ideally, volus executives prefer to acquire data or research subjects through legitimate and consensual methods – such as by acquiring a promising start-up or by paying for medical test volunteers –but if it is necessary to use less savoury tactics then they will not hesitate to do so. They quite often have to employ a combination of the two.
Honestly, given what most alien races get up to – and humanity for that matter – it warms the heart to see anyone's black operations giving some thought to the ethical consequences. That said, the fact that a bunch of alien megacorp executives are holding the moral high ground here is a damning indictment of the state of the galaxy.
For example, volus 'entertainment' companies on Noveria act as fronts to acquire willing human test subjects, who are paid in the form of free recreational substances and experiences on the condition that they are subject to full medical monitoring before, during, and after the experiment. They have no shortage of subjects; very few humans turn down free drugs and sex, or the opportunity to act out their every fantasy within the dreamscape of a lotus eater machine. This data is then forwarded to the manufacturing conglomerates on Irune and used to further enhance the product experience and profitability before being funnelled back into Human Space via volus-backed crime syndicates, shipping companies, and financial institutions. Volus scientists then study human neuroscience and our genome in order to tweak and improve their product.
This is why volus drug products have far higher addiction rates and purity levels whilst at the same time resulting in fewer debilitating side-effects and with a much lower mortality rate. Bonus: they're also cheaper and more readily available than the competition. The entire operational chain, from research to production to distribution to consumption, is carried out with the utmost precision and efficiency, with all long-term costs and negative externalities borne by a desperately willing subject (humanity, in this case).
Moving on. The salarians are, of course, famous for their scientific endeavours and it comes as no surprise that they directed such talents towards warfare, with the ultimate culmination of this effort being the development and deployment of the Genophage. What few observers suspect – much less know for certain – is that the Vol Protectorate takes such developments extremely seriously and studies them with a refreshing degree of scholarly rigorousness. As a result, Irune possesses the finest biowarfare research labs aside from the Reach Research Compound on Sur'Kesh, and the crafty little volus have been quietly testing their products against bandits in the Terminus (who are guilty of raiding volus merchant ships), batarians (who are guilty of being batarian), and Facinus separatists and Hierarchy dissidents (who are exterminated with glee by a Hierarchy delighted to see their volus allies contributing to the turian cause). We've received unconfirmed reports that the VDF and Unseen Cloud have been trying to acquire viable smallpox and Collapse Plague samples for the last couple of decades, though as far as we know they have not had any success.
Despite violating many of the same sapient rights agreements as NOVENSILES, the Vol Protectorate's biodevelopment work has never been subject to Citadel investigation, let alone sanction or punishment. There are multiple reasons for this. First, the Vol Protectorate holds a sword of Damocles over the entire galactic economy and could easily send the known galaxy spiralling into a decades-long depression if they opted for a 'scorched-earth' strategy. Second, the Vol Court of Corporations, which officially sanctions and sponsors most individual research components, is careful to ensure that each individual activity within a project is either legal in the jurisdiction in which it is officially conducted, or is otherwise executed with a plausible degree of deniability for all involved. Third, the program is officially carried out by the VDF, and so the volus ambassador can claim fair use for research purposes under the collective security accords for most of the public aspects of the program. Likewise, given what the security forces and research agencies of every other species get up to, the volus can (and have) pointed out, rather acerbically, that any condemnation is laughable and the height of hypocrisy.
Competitive Advantages : the Volus-Vorcha Combine
The single largest and most resource-intensive program within the VDF is the vorcha breeding and mutation initiative. The volus oversee a vast network of breeding pits clustered around a VDF-owned moon in the 'First Sphere' (the term for the first grouping of planets and systems colonised by the volus), and within these pits, vorcha are specially bred and trained for a huge range of purposes. The highest breeding priority is fighter pilots and heavy combat specialists, but security forces, spaceborne repair workers, and hazmat handlers are also in high demand. This may sound like the volus are running some kind of sick and exploitative alien slave empire, but (and this pains me to admit) this simply isn't the case.
Whilst the volus understand the importance of instilling discipline and loyalty in their vorcha charges, and demand both operational efficiency and clear results, they are otherwise fair and considerate to the vorcha in their employ. Said vorcha receive a basic education and access to medical care. They are provided with comfortable nesting materials as well as quality food and water. They have ample opportunity to bond and socialise with their brood-mates, have access to competitive fighting arenas and recreational substances when off-duty, and are well rewarded for exceptional performance.
Indeed, volus executives and corporations openly brag about their vorcha subjects in their advertisements on the Citadel, claiming that the vorcha who are 'employed' by the Vol Protectorate enjoy a quality of life unmatched by any other vorcha. (That's actually true, by the way.) No vorcha have rebelled or turned against their masters since the program started, and a Blood Pack raiding party who tried to 'liberate' a Vol-clan vorcha compound were rebuffed, overwhelmed, and eaten alive for such an insult.
Given the bizarre and highly adaptable biologies of both vorcha and volus, it is unsurprising that the VDF's bioenhancement programs targeting the vorcha are frighteningly advanced. The most obvious improvements are to their strength, reflexes, regenerative capabilities, and overall size. The more subtle enhancements, and the ones that I would argue represent more of a long-term threat as far as Cerberus personnel are concerned, are those targeting intelligence, memory, reasoning, leadership, and social skills. A volus-bred vorcha that can rip a man in half or bite off his head is an obvious danger; one that can effectively lead an entire brood of its kin, whether in battle or as members of galactic society, is far more dangerous.
The VDF tends to test these vorcha in the Terminus Systems against various pirates, warlords, and mercenaries, and I've attached several armour-cam videos to this report. Note how the attacking force is almost blasé and arrogant upon encountering vorcha, led by a wobbly. Note how the VDF's Vorcha Liaison Commander immediately takes advantage of this by feigning a retreat, drawing the mercenaries directly into his reserve of cloaked vorcha, surrounding them before engaging in CQB and… well, you see how that footage ended.
The sad truth is that the Vol Protectorate is the only entity in the galaxy that treats vorcha with anything approaching kindness or respect. Is it really such a surprise that these Vol-clan vorcha are so fiercely loyal to their volus masters?
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The tale so far has been more interesting than expected. Going over the volus culture and government has opened my eyes to the fact that they are surprisingly… competent at employing how others underestimate and dismiss them. Many aliens have misconceptions of other aliens, and for individuals to take advantage of this is nothing new. What is different is that the volus incorporate such into advertising, foreign relations, and even their military designs.
As with most people who take in the bland surface projections of events, it is hardly shocking that the volus would take advantage of alien stupidity, and as to why they took it so far… one only needs to glance at their model. The turian devotion to the unyielding pursuit of honor, blood-soaked revenge killings, melodramatic speeches and wild sex has led them to ignore anything not as, shall we say, hot-blooded as their own people.
I'm sure you are amused at the idea of me suggesting any of the above is somehow bad given what I do with my free time, Mr. Harper. The difference between my eccentricities and that of the turians is that I don't see myself as normal, nor do I allow my own issues to color my perception of reality. The turians do, and the volus first learned how to deal with aliens thusly. It is fortunate that the volus were not discovered by the salarians.
I range far from the point: volus adapt and conform not to fit in, but to find advantage.
The ramifications of this in light of how the volus see both war and violence should raise a moment of concern, as volus see conflict management as simply an extension of asset management. After all, violence is a commodity that drives weapons sales, trade deals, lucrative arms contracts, and much more to fit into their more familiar grasp of profits, duty to the clannu and security.
I decided to take up this inspection myself for a couple of reasons. Tiffany is not equipped with the experience or skills to grasp the intricacies of the volus naval assets. I am somewhat more familiar with such, but given his own experiences with the turian fleet, I decided to employ Pel to assist with this section. Pel himself expressed an interest in such a thing, albeit in a somewhat offhand manner.
And thus, my reasons. One, I cannot imagine any two people more unlikely to function well together as Theodore Pellham and Minsta's daughter. Tiffany, while certainly more capable of holding her tongue now than when we met, is still a creature of wealth, culture, and arrogance. Despite knowing full well that most of Pel's crudity is a cover act, she doesn't grasp why he maintains it, and thus – unable to see between the lines of the story – dismisses his experiences as merely bad luck or self-pity. The result would be a lack of resonant feedback between the two, which might result in lack of important details.
The second and more personal reason I am pursuing at least some of the military aspects myself is that Pel is not subtle. Volus culture does not react well to perceived threat and I'm afraid that Theo is nothing but perceived threat. And Pel does not react well to concepts that incorporate what he dismissively calls 'nerd shit' into its paradigm for functionality, which is something of a volus specialty.
As to the volus military itself… I remain bifurcated in my opinion. Their military has expanded and metamorphosed a great deal over the past ten years, from a small number of crude missile boats flinging surplus turian munitions to a modern fleet. While small, this fleet boasts some of the most advanced sensors, bleeding-edge military missile tech, and downright nasty omni-drone deployment capacity in the galaxy – and that isn't counting the addition of vorcha fighter pilots and shock troopers.
Despite this, and the obvious amounts of both money and skill thrown at the issue, I don't see a coherent driving need for this sort of expansion. That should worry you, Mr. Harper. Volus may not always be predictable, but they never spend money without a return.
VDF Structure and Volus Ground Tactics
Volus 'ground tactics' is a somewhat misleading indicator of what should be called 'lines of thinking.' The volus do not see military tactics as distinct from economic or logistical strategies, and indeed, most of their military acts are driven by the latter. They tend to focus only on small strike unit tactics, clan deployment and logistics operations, and naval force projection.
The reason for this is simple: the volus don't follow the expected outlines of the story when it comes to fighting. For most species, tactics is maneuver, the use of weapons, the ability to corral or dictate the fighting terrain to the enemy, and so on. Volus are not so limited. They will embrace heavy losses (at least among their vorcha) and dead end fighting to a degree to confuse and mislead enemies, who are then taken unawares by economic sabotage, riots, and other second-party weakening strikes. When enemies attempt to pursue or lock down military gains, then they are faced with swarms of augmented vorcha, endless serried ranks of robotic soldiers, and enough missile platforms to (literally) blot out the sun as they launch.
More often than not, military attacks on the volus only result in savage losses and volus traders buying up the mercenary companies or pirate groups who attacked them. This is often paired with economic attacks on the underpinnings of warmaking capacity – futures indexes on bulk industrial goods and eezo are driven through the roof, embargos and delayed shipments of required optronics and medical supplies, even denial of DRM annexes for making certain weapons, armor, or electronics products.
These are all the weapons of the volus.
The VDF has a curiously flat chain of command, one where 'rank' is of more importance than connections and only one's ability at performance matters, not one's business acumen, political standings, or the like. The VDF is savagely egalitarian and driven solely by efficiency – there are no armchair generals or REMFs to be found in their command structure, and their officers tend to fight from the front. (Clearly, turian influence.)
The VDF has stock purchase plans, options for bonuses due to combat ability and a number of other jarring components one would usually see in a corporate boardroom, but these only drive VDF members to pursue success.
The VDF senior command trained alongside turians, and as a result, are somewhat more aggressive and impulsive than most volus – going so far as to be willing (and very able) of dismantling multiple turians in hand-to-hand combat and engage in the axe-tossing contests turian males love so much. While no volus can engage in the sort of excessive drinking and sexual escapades turians engage in regularly, they can and will participate in other turian amusements, and much of this has seeped into the regular VDF (and the vorcha recruits as well, who are more respectful after being flung about by their volus instructors as if they were mere children).
General Volus Tactical Considerations – Ground
Volus are surprisingly nasty on the offensive if you are fool enough to let them play their games, and so long as they keep you at range they're actually masters at terrain control and defensive work. There is a tendency for volus to use mines, traps, and small groups of vorcha assault troops to pin units in place and then smash them with missile barrages, but they also have pop-up one-time missile launchers, auto-deploying razorwire barricades, and the occasional heavy weapons squad dug in behind omni-fields on a high terrain point to shatter flanks and leave openings for the heavier units.
The logical counter to such tactics – either artillery or getting in close and ruining their formations – is something the volus are not only expecting but counting on. Closing range will result in unending storms of flechette and X-ray laser blasts, mixed with scattered sprays of omni-mines from the engineers. More often than not, reaching the volus lines only lets cloaked vorcha melee specialists go to work – and even if that's not the case, most aliens will not do well in melee against a VDF soldier.
We have both telemetry and autopsy data on a pair of combatants, a VDF soldier and a turian merc. The merc hit the volus three times with a warcannon and ruptured his armored suit, which ultimately killed him – but not before the volus had closed to melee. The turian died of internal bleeding as two sections of plating had been smashed through the ribcage and the bony plate in front of the main heart and then into it. One arm had been torn out, and the right mandible ripped off.
You can imagine what kind of fun a lightly armored human Marine would have with a being that can deadlift most of said Marine's platoon. Melee is severely contraindicated.
Artillery strikes result in back-and-forth between your weapons and volus missile barrages, which only get heavier over time. The best response would be the use of constant movement, sniping officers, heavy use of EMP bursts, and biotic assault – if they think an engagement will cost more than it's worth, they will fall back (in good order). Be aware they'll try to hit back again at some point to deter pursuit.
Volus clan tactics mostly rely on a loose network of independent clan assets backing either their own forces – mostly VDF – or working through third-party assets, and it is all designed to confuse and erase any real distinctions between battlespaces – the ultimate goal is to make sure the enemy is constantly under all kinds of assault from all angles at all times.
Remember, different volus clans tend to specialize in their own peculiarities, and as such, each one has its own special role to play in a fight. While clan membership might seem a peculiar divide in a military force, it makes sense from the volus point of view. The VDF is literally considered its own clan. Other clans are attached to a mission to provide support – economic sabotage, logistics management, political cover, intel distraction, hiring external conflict support, and so forth. Each aspect of the fields that determine a successful conflict resolution are handled either by the VDF for the violent parts or the rest of the clans (and the Unseen Cloud) for the non-violent ones.
As such, only fools look for a 'frontline' to any fight with the wobblies. The VDF executive-generals see all of this as the ultimate form of deterrence. Their view is that a foe that is stymied, harassed, economically compromised, and politically divided will find a more vulnerable target or fall to internal dissent long before they could be a threat to Irune itself.
As an aside, this is why the volus are typically seen as more palatable than turians or salarians by humans. The volus want security, peace, trade, and prosperity. After the Days of Iron, a well-to-do peace is very appealing to the poor and powerless masses than endless war and poverty.
Volus Ground Troops
The VDF prides itself on two things: personal equipment quality and defensive preparations. Even the greenest VDF recruit from a no-name clannu is equipped to the same quality and depth as the elder scions of the highest clans. However, there are strengths and weaknesses to the VDF forces. They do not use snipers, at all, and their use of biotics is limited by the few numbers they have.
VDF troops therefore fall into five broad brackets.
The most basic would be the VDF Line Trooper. Typically the youngest VDF clan members, they are fitted with lightly-armored combat suits and light support weapons. These volus man the various mobile and missile defense trucks, omni-field generators, and other non-frontline jobs until they acquire both battlefield experience and the nerve to work under heavy fire. Only armed with flechette pistols and submachine guns, but they do have armor well above that of most human elites. Often given auxiliary functions, the light armaments are often augmented – most will have access to a missile drone or two, as well as mines, micro-missile launchers, and offensive and defensive omni-tool functions, to say nothing of the tricks built into their war-suits.
Once a volus has served four years as a line trooper, they can choose between the VDF Assault Corps or the Engineering Corps.
VDF Assault Troopers are the most heavily armored volus, with suits that have multiple shell skins and auto-stasis routines in case of suit breaches. Their armor will make heavy use of advanced composites, honeycombed layers of self-sealing omni-gel, and a surface layer customized to the current operating environment. Heavily armed and well-trained, the VDF assault troops carry the big guns and provide anchor points for the vorcha troops, as well as typically acting in a non-commissioned officer capacity.
The infamous Vorcha Liaison Commanders and their Vorcha Boss Lieutenants are a subtype of the assault trooper template. The liaison commanders appear to make use of some… fairly extreme bioenhancements, above and beyond what most VDF volus endure, and are supposedly far more aggressive and violent than the rest of the VDF. Their war-suits are not only suited for melee and close quarters combat, but actively designed for it. The vorcha bosses under their command are bred and groomed for leadership and appear to receive bioenhancements targeting their cognitive and social skills.
VDF Engineers are in charge of all the omni-tech, infowar, and other field fortification and combat equipment, as well as the drone swarms and all of those innovations. Medium armor is used because they also utilize mass effect-controlled jetpacks to zoom around combat zones, laying mines, turrets, and other methods of defense. Engineers also oversee the line troopers and act as non-commissioned officers.
Senior engineers with combat experience are promoted to the VDF Armor Corps, where they serve as VDF Servitors. These engineer-warriors drive the heavy war-suits the volus use to wield heavy weapons such as the Cloudrend. The war-suits themselves are somewhat bulky and slow, so the engineer has a host of defensive technology installed on the suit to turn it into several forms – missile bombardment platform, sensor nest, scanning tower, omni-shield deployment system, omni-drone launcher – and maximize the utility of his skills.
VDF Executors are the officer corps, drawn entirely from volus who have proven success track records. There are three ranks of such – executor-adeptus, executor-general, and executor-marshal. The ranks are usually shortened to the single word (such as 'adeptus') and roughly correspond to something like lieutenant, captain, and general. Executors wear heavy combat armor with built-in weapon systems and can be tapped to command naval forces or ground units.
The vorcha troopers are officially named Vorcha Shock Troopers, and each one is an interesting specimen. Rather than bother with hard to maintain battle armor, the vorcha soldiers are given subdermal armor implants over their major organs, slim-line armor plates implanted directly over arms and legs, and have an armored mask and life-support system integrated into their bodies. This makes them immune to most gas and airborne poisons, eezo fouling, and allows them to deploy into vacuum, deep space, or in environmentally compromised locations. The vorcha have two pieces of equipment – a riot/combat shield with deployable omni-spikes that is rated to stop heavy weapons fire, and the Havanka Riot Multiweapon. The armor implants are generally made from laser steel – an affordable and effective option.
Some vorcha are heavily biomodified and augmented with cybernetics, but they are still considered shock troopers. Most of these heavy vorcha lead the assault on enemy positions, but a small number are issued stealth fields and remain in hiding, only attacking if the volus assault falters and the executors order fallback positions. The cloaked vorcha are specially trained for such tactics, and demonstrate impressive noise and comms discipline for such creatures.
You can imagine how badly most attacking forces deal with such ambushes, given that their first warning is likely to be half their platoon getting decapitated, incinerated, shotgunned, or otherwise eaten. Such tactics are very effective in urban areas and space stations, given that the messy, distracting environments offer perfect camouflage for the vorcha broods.
Pel is more suited to naval discussion, thus I will let him talk a bit more about Volus naval tactics later on. Instead, let's start with their handheld weapons and suit modifications.
Volus Handheld and Suit Weapons
Nishavatar Flechette Pistol: Apparently named for some fashion of acid storm on Irune, the 'Nish,' as it is usually called, is an odd sort of pistol. It is not particularly useful at longer-ranges given the nature of flechettes, and it is, of course, wholly inadequate if one needs heavy armor penetration.
That being said, it can host over thirty ammo modifications (inferno, acid, electroshock, adhesive discharge, and radiochemical are just a few) and against unarmored or lightly armored foes the trauma it inflicts is terrifying. The flechettes are tumbled upon launch and each one will slice right through flesh to leave disgusting wound channels.
While it has an adjustable bore, most operators will keep it in the superheavy range. It fires either single shots or a cluster of nano-machined flechettes in a fairly tight conical pattern. Perfect to stop enemies from closing range or to perform harassing fire, it can also serve as a mine-clearance device if properly adjusted.
Bordu-Rol SMG: I adore submachine guns and machine pistols. Flexible enough to allow me to move rapidly, not so light as to be unable to pierce armor, and with enough power to tear down shielded enemies. While I know some operators, such as Pel, sneer at SMGs, they are my weapon of choice. To find that one of the best on the market is a volus device is not a shock.
The Bordu-Rol is an unusual weapon built in the usual way. It has the almost ubiquitous ultralight composites, a match grade floating barrel, and a comprehensive modding system.
However, it stands out from most other SMGs in several ways: it boasts a lethally huge seven-millimeter bore. It can toggle between two oversized, hot-swappable phasic ammo blocks that can be fired in swapped sequences. It can be fitted with weapons links to cybernetic arms and eyes, connected to a simple drone to act as a snapshot turret, and, in a pinch, can be modified with a slower rate of fire and an extensible stock to act as a poor man's marksman rifle. Given the enormous bore, ammo consumption is much higher than most SMGs, though most operators see this as a perfectly acceptable trade given its otherwise remarkable qualities.
The Bordu-Rol is carried by almost all volus, although more and more are being sold outside the volus territories as the weapon gains influence and supporters.
Havanka Multiweapon: This was originally a weapon used by Remembrance, that the volus obtained copies of (and eventually, the copyright and DMR ownership). The weapon is a combination shotgun, omni-axe, and laser designator. The shotgun is an autofire variant that hurls fragmenting fleks – good at piercing light armor and damaging air lines, not good against superheavy armor, and utterly devastating against flesh. For melee combat the barrel also mounts a long omni-axe blade, and the sight of the weapon can be used to laser-tag missile barrage targets. Given it is to be used by vorcha, it is simple to use, clean, and take apart – and very sturdy, as it is constructed mostly out of laser steel. Its affordability is merely a bonus, and volus do so love bonuses.
Nessum Laser Shotgun: Named after a particularly voracious and dangerous flying cloud creature on Irune that all volus seem to be fearful of, the Nessum is an excellent example of volus ingenuity and craftsmanship.
The Nessum is an X-ray laser shotgun that is connected to the nuclear batteries in a volus suit, or you can get the regular market version that comes with a built-in eezo generator. The Nessum comes with several variable yield features and is, despite the laser optics, surprisingly light and sturdy thanks to heavy use of ultralight composite materials.
It is not a cheap weapon to own or repair, and even getting the license for one is well over one hundred thousand credits. Then again, the beams are invisible, the weapon makes no noise whatsoever, and the X-ray bursts will carve right through most armor types to inflict savage third to fourth-degree burns on anything it hits. However, since it works via certain principles of heat and burning, it is less effective against mechs – though excellent at destroying their sensors and other delicate components.
Cloudrend Penetrator Cannon: In any other military this would be classified as a superheavy battle-suit weapon, but the volus mount them on heavy mechs and VDF war-suits. It is a very simple device – in essence, an eezo-powered mass accelerator cannon that launches ten-millimeter sabots at a very low fraction of C.
There are a few different kinds of sabots, but the usual one is made from laser steel and coated in some kind of disruptive powder that wrecks shields and causes erratic (and usually lethally explosive) feedback spikes on eezo cores. The other sabots in a standard load out are high-explosive gels in a fragmenting case for antipersonnel work and a gravity-forged depleted uranium version for anti-vehicle work. Given the sheer velocity of these sabots, there is no need for guided rounds. (This also lowers the per use cost of each round. Volus logistics are admirably efficient.)
Whilst the kinetic energy of such a weapon is certainly not as great as that of, say, asari or salarian railguns, keep in mind that the Cloudrend is more mobile, fires far more rapidly, costs ninety-four percent less to operate and maintain, and will utterly destroy anything less than superheavy cyborgs and light tanks.
Jalla Assassination Device: This device is rather strange, basically a hypodermic pressurized injection rifle that delivers a rapidly biodegradable canister into the target. Normally, the volus who use it connect it with a slender tube to their suits – and then proceed to load it up with the atmosphere of their pressure suits, which is clever since there's effectively a much larger ammo supply (given the compressed atmo tanks each volus has). Given that they breathe a particularly toxic blend of ammonia and other substances best left inside explosives, almost any contact with non-volus living things results in said thing no longer living.
If you are curious, the possible results could include explosive decompression, blood poisoning, necrosis, severe nervous system damage, third-degree plus acid burns, and general shock, leading to death, and of course, the lovely chance of toxic shock syndrome.
For reasons I could not determine, this is named after a volus pastry that is traditionally offered to strangers when they are first invited into a house. I am unsure if this is some kind of volus humor or a sign that VDF weapons designers are just as unhinged as their turian counterparts.
Note that this is obviously not a battlefield weapon. It is for civilian use, as we would see it, but it is effectively undetectable – there is literally no difference between the murderous version and the one designed to deliver emergency first aid or medical payloads.
Sunset Grove PDW: Volus refer to all suit-incorporated modifications as PDWs, seeing them as a totally different market category to regular, hand-held weapons – apparently it allows them to get around Citadel taxes and restrictions on transporting and selling weaponized augmentations.
Aside from this being a delightfully clever dodge and use of the Citadel's own idiot laws against them, the weapon itself is not that dangerous at first glance. But said first glance would be deliberately misleading – like many volus aspects, the Sunset Grove PDWs are a series of suit-deployed hard-kill measures designed to 'disincentivize' anyone that is a threat to the owner.
More importantly, due to said Citadel regulations regarding open carry, they're all incorporated into the suit design in such a way as to be almost invisible to the casual observer. Pyro-corrosive sprays, lasers, razorwire launchers, and electroplasma emitters are the standard options, and are hardly the limit – at least one Clan Leader/CEO has active black nano deployment systems on his PDW. One very clever wobbly merchant on Tuchanka has his fitted with a subharmonic thumper designed to attract thresher maws – whilst he was ultimately kidnapped and killed by the Blood Pact, this was not before the entire Blood Pack compound, and everyone in it, was eaten by a dozen threshers.
I am beginning to enjoy this story a little more.
Named after the last resting place on the westbound caravan trail leading to the uranium flats and oxygen deserts on Irune, it carries connotations of melancholic beauty and regretful risk-taking when other options have been exhausted.
Shattered Skies Micro-Missile Package: Details on the specifics of this system were difficult to obtain – Tiffany had to bribe multiple people to even locate the correct person to bribe for the actual information. Given the power of this system, such precautions are not surprising.
The SSMMP is a collection of active and passive sensors (particle emitters/receivers, lasers, RADAR, sonar, ultra-high-def cameras, directional microphones) that is meshed with a hardened VI microcomputer, either in a graybox or in your omni-tool. The VI in turn controls the micro-missile launchers.
The intriguing aspect of this is that the package can be as subtle or as obvious as you like – the customer can have the whole system integrated into their suit or armor, so that anyone who doesn't know what they're looking for won't think there's anything going on. Or it can be mounted in bodyguard mechs, a war-suit, or even a lift chair platform.
The basic missiles are flash-fabbed plastics and a chemical booster with a high-explosive gel warhead, guided actively by laser or passively to the target's last known location (calculated by the VI). Advanced models have their own active seeker heads, a tiny eezo-boosted engine (only a few molecules worth of eezo), and an omni-shell construction. The warhead on those can be whatever you want it to be if you've got the cash: hi-ex, white phosphorus, acid sprays, bioweapons, black nano, compressed radioactive materials. (Rumors persist of anti-grain antimatter warheads, but no current technology could generate strong enough magnetic containment to fit into such a small package.)
These missiles are only the size of a couple of fingers, so an average system can be fitted with over twenty such devices, and a large cyborg (Tazzik, for instance, who was equipped with this system) could carry several dozen missiles.
Heavenly Gaze of Irune Shield Package: developed by the VDF in conjunction with the turians (and a volus poet who clearly has surrendered to turian melodrama), this shield package is extremely useful and flexible. It's made up of a bunch of omni-field projectors that are studded all over the volus's suit, hooked up to a small eezo power pack for surge capacity, along with a double-overlap kinetic barrier setup.
All of this is controlled by the onboard VI, which (similar to the SSMMP) decides how and when to boost the omni-shielding based on incoming fire and the tactical situation, defaulting to the kinetic barriers. Unlike regular tech armor, it isn't at full power all the time, but as a result, it uses far less power and is cheaper than implanting normal tech armor into a suit. The surge capacity means that full power mode is far greater than market standard, whilst the volus suit batteries ensure any tech shielding also lasts far longer.
BEGIN HELNET ENCRYPTION STRING
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CREATING HANDSHAKE…ACKNOWLEDGEMENT HANDSHAKE ACCEPTED,
MESSAGING SERVICE ACTIVE
From: HERA-ONE-SEVEN-FOUR
To: MARS-ZERO-FIVE-EIGHT
Subject: Volus Files
Good morning Theodore,
You requested (despite your needlessly crude aspersions on my skill) for me to notify you if we were going to draw up a military summary for the volus. However, per the Illusive Man's instructions, Rasa will be handling at least part of this project.
Any insights you might have after review of this would be useful, seeing as you might enjoy it given how much the volus military has changed since your time with the Hierarchy. As well, you have been granted permission to work up the naval aspects, as Rasa feels us looking into that directly might be… dangerous.
Regards,
-Dr. Tiffany Minsta (Head Finance Analyst, Research Corps; Assistant Psycho-historical Analyst, Research Corps)
From: MARS-ZERO-FIVE-EIGHT
To: HERA-ONE-SEVEN-FOUR
Subject: RE: Volus Files
Dog Princess, Head Finance Analyst, and whatever the hell else you calling yourself now.
Congratulations on popping your human supremacist cherry and getting your Dog tags.
Naval stuff? You can shoot the shit over anytime, but as for a response, it'll happen when it happens. I mean, this can't be fucking exactly urgent, seeing as the wobblies don't plan on invading us anytime soon.
-Pel (Head Badass, Broforce Assault and Nametaking Corps)
From: HERA-ONE-SEVEN-FOUR
To: MARS-ZERO-FIVE-EIGHT
Subject: RE: RE: Volus Files
Pel,
It's always so refreshing how dedicated you are to the real things in life. I'm sure you're busy schedule of whoring, drinking, and being abused by your boyfriend Kai takes up all your time, but a review is actually important. Unlike one of your kids, you can't just ignore the orders of our 'bossman.'
Then again, I suppose asking you to focus on anything aside from a female turian is stretching expectations, no?
It wasn't a request. Get it done. Arrivederci and send your work to myself and Mr. Harper when done.
-Dr. Tiffany Minsta
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MARS-ZERO-FIVE-EIGHT :: PELLHAM-058
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BEGIN TRANSMISSION: PEL
Bossman, can I just say I hate that bitch?
Whatever. At least I don't have to go on about turian dicks this time. I looked at the shit above, seems legit enough as it goes. Still don't buy the whole 'wobblies are really dangerous' thing, but I did some digging for the ships and came up with some interesting results.
Volus Tactics and Design
Volus naval design has come a long way from the old days when they just used to buy a secondhand turian hull and fit it with secondhand turian weapons, then call it a day so they could all go eat and gamble.
The VDF has been forced to take war more seriously in the last couple of centuries for the same reason that the spikes had to learn to pay some attention to business: reality intervened and that cruel bitch didn't give them a choice. You learn or you die, and so the VDF has spent billions developing a whole new family of ships, from patrol boats to dreadnoughts, and all the fittings. Most of the core tech is shit they've developed themselves, like the missile and torpedo systems, ECM/ECCM (since they don't trust the grays with it, rightfully so), and all their command and control systems.
Basic shit like standard sensor suites, hull and core design licenses, and GARDIAN arrays are things they're willing to buy, co-develop, or steal.
Your standard wobbly hull is built from a carbon fiber nano-lattice, infused with diamond dust and with a dual hull sandwiching a honeycombed floating layer of omni-gel. They've layered cyclonic barrier kinetic shields on top on that.
What it means is that you get a very light hull with limited regenerative repair capabilities and good resistance to lasers and particle weapons. Now, the hull itself can't handle any real heavy kinetic impacts – as in multiple direct hits from a battlecruiser or dreadnought – but the cyclonic barriers make up for that and the weight loss means that they have pretty good speed and eezo consumption. Once you're in full production it's actually cheaper than a regular hull design. The wobblies have also learned from human and salarian shipwrights and don't buy in to the big gun fetish that the Hierarchy has – volus ships tend to have a good balance of damage control, ECM/ECCM, and medical and science facilities, though they aren't outstanding at any of this.
Tactics? They don't really have a taste for knife fighting, and will avoid boarding actions (and being boarded) whenever they can, but that's slowly changing with all those vorcha monsters they're breeding up. If they're part of a mixed-species battle group then they'll focus on maneuver warfare, aiming to disrupt enemy formations and then shatter them with missile barrages, and also act as escorts for friendly capital ships if they've got the numbers.
If they're operating solo, then expect them to form a tight core around the dreadnoughts, spearheaded by the vorcha assault units, whilst their drone fighters and missile saturation craft get wild and force the survivors to close with the volus heavies. No matter who they're working with, expect some truly evil torpedo and missile attacks, massed drone swarms and fighter packs, and very heavy use of technologies designed to disrupt enemy command and control in the battlespace.
ECM/ECCM, hacking, ion cannons designed to wreck sensors, dirty eezo warheads designed to wreck ship cores, that kind of thing.
They ain't wedded to this doctrine, though, so every now and then you'll get a VDF captain who is way more aggressive with his assault cruisers, or even adopts some human or salarian tactics. My take is that the VDF is still experimenting with what works best with their current equipment and force posture, so they're open to trying new things and seeing what works and what doesn't. More importantly, they're willing to really study why something works or fails, and they have the political will and the resources to commit to making themselves do better.
Now, on to the ship classes.
Volus Warship Classes
Patrol Boat: Everywhere you go in the galaxy you'll find a patrol boat and they all do the same damn job. Show the flag in whatever systems you control. Monitor local conditions and space shit like solar flares and asteroids. Do IFF and customs. Bit of basic policing and anti-pirate ops. The volus patrol boat is bigger than most and is well-made, cheap, with great fuel consumption, modular, and very popular with people looking for something that does all those jobs well.
That's why it's been the best-selling and most profitable vessel in its class for the last four hundred years.
It comes in both civilian and military models off-the-shelf and can be fitted with either a couple of small mass accelerator guns or a couple of APP guns, two four-pack missile mounts, and a small GARDIAN array. The modular bay can be fitted with an extra couple of missile packs, an ion cannon setup, a demining package, media and comms gear, medical equipment, or just extra cargo space.
That's it. The patrol boat is great at what it does but sweet Lord above it is fuckin' boring to talk about. It's like a wizard turned Ezno into a ship.
Cloudrider Corvette: Now this right here is where the volus navy gets interesting. About four years ago, some clever VDF officers decided to throw together a little project from all the naval weapon designs they could buy, lease, or just outright steal. The VDF license-built an enlarged version of the classic salarian corvette hull, fitted it out with a gigantic eezo core they co-developed with the Armali Council, then covered it with stealth improvements 'borrowed' from us, and stuffed it with every missile tech the VDF has every developed, along with a fifteen-millimeter APP gun, a couple of ion cannons in swivel mounts on each wing, and a strip of GARDIAN arrays. The result? A frigate-sized vessel that cruises at Mk 70, has the sensor footprint of a patrol boat, and is armed with ninety missiles that it ripple-fires all at once. Oh, and they're the latest quick-reload packs too, so the pain will not end. It won't be over till the volus captain says it's over and asks if you can make him breakfast in the morning.
Another point for the Cloudrider is that the missile payloads can be customized – since it's a universal launcher design – so it could be anything from ultra-high-explosive to antimatter to degenerate matter to black nano. Rumor has it that the wobblies are testing a neutron warhead designed to irradiate the target hull and cripple the crew with a burst of hard rads.
Pretty damn smart if you ask me, since the wobblies' whack-ass biology means they can handle radiation damage better than anything but vorcha, so once your whole crew is dying from a face full of cancer they can just waddle on board and take over all your shit.
This all comes at a cost, of course. A Cloudrider can take a few direct hits from a real frigate, maybe a couple from a destroyer or light-cruiser, but if you can somehow pin the slippery bastard down, then any real warship will blow it apart once you crack those barriers.
First Claw Destroyer: The volus aren't too happy with their current destroyer model. It's currently in its fifth revision, but that's getting almost thirty-five years old now and they're about six months away from deploying the sixth version. The current model is based off an older hull design and weapons loadout they bought from the spikes, and whilst they've improved it and tweaked it for VDF fleet tactics over the centuries it's still not a great fit for where they want to go with their navy. The new revision is basically an entirely new vessel, but they have to keep the same class name or they'll forever besmirch the honor of the spike Admiral who gifted it to them or some shit. Old version is basically a previous gen turian destroyer with half the guns removed to make way for a few dozen missile launchers. Boring, doesn't bring much to the volus fleet.
New version uses the same carbon nanotube/cyclonic barrier combo as the rest of the latest VDF vessels and opts for a duo of midsize APP main guns, four ion cannons on swivel mounts, a dozen GARDIAN arrays, and one hundred and twenty universal missile/torpedo launchers. Naturally, these are the latest rapid-reload models. Now, it's pretty big for a destroyer – only the turian one is larger – but the wobblies don't go for too many cruisers, so that makes sense. You'll notice that it's real well-suited for capital ship escort duty and also flexible enough to lead assaults on enemy fleets when deployed as a wolfpack (with those nasty missile corvettes), which is exactly what the volus plan on using 'em for once they come online. Eventually these will form the core of the volus fleet, along with the missile corvettes and vorcha assault cruisers.
Inosnu Heavy-Cruiser: The wobblies tend to just borrow refitted escort cruisers from the turians for light-cruiser duty, but they do have a handful of heavier cruiser variants that are just nasty as all hell. The main design is actually a turian/volus design, with the standard turian wing-sweep design meshed with wobbly roundness fixation.
Despite looking a little stupid, this bad boy can drop hurt like nothing else. It's using the stock CN/CB defense system, a twenty-five-millimeter main APP gun, and a pair of twenty-millimeter turrets in armor blisters on top and bottom. That's some heavy firepower right there, but the kicker is the missile load on this crazy thing: six rotary rapid-fire missile pods that each have four-shot launch tubes, four centerline M/AM torpedo launchers paired with dedicated ECCM decoy launchers, and two aft rapid-firing missile launchers – just in case someone sneaks up on you from behind, I guess?
As if this wasn't enough, there's a giant, fuck-all, fifteen-shot, rapid-reload, suppressive rocket array on each wing, which is hurling out eighty-centimeter-wide disruptor missiles mixed with X-ray bursters.
The Inosnu can also launch a pair of FTL burst torps – these launch at FTL speeds and then blow up in a burst of hard rads, X-rays, and other nasty shit. You eat one of these point-blank and even a dreadnought is going to be a hurting unit.
The Inosnu is pretty slow in a fight despite oversized engines, and it doesn't have in-depth armor bands deeper inside the ship – if it takes too many hits, the missile storage bays could blow up. Even so, that would take a lot of pounding – and the whole time this crazy fucker is throwing more missiles at you than a dreadnought could. Fuck outta here, fighting these ships is crazy.
Seeker of the Depths: This one doesn't translate well at all, but it's basically a modified destroyer-class vessel that's had most of the really heavy hardware taken out and replaced with every nasty, sleight of hand trick the wobblies could come up with.
It's a stealth ship, a sabotage vessel, a recon platform, a cyberwarfare platform, and also an economic warfare platform (I know that sounds like straight up bullshit, but I'll explain in a bit). My Hierarchy sources aren't entirely sure how many of these things the volus have – some say it's several dozen, others an even hundred, maybe more. The higher figure is possible, given that this isn't a normal warship.
The Seeker is unarmed. No guns. No missiles. What it does have is a full-spectrum emission dampening and signature reduction kit, which Petrovsky says was partially stolen from us and partially bought from the spikes, a photonic cloaking aperture, and a couple of dozen bolt-on kits to disguise it as pretty much any kind of civilian vessel. All that power that would have been wasted on weapons is instead poured straight into the communications, cyberwarfare, ECM/ECCM gear, parallel VI processing arrays, and a payload of FTL comms drones. It carries a load of full-size commercial-grade FTL comm-buoys, plus a shitload more piggyback drones and microsatellites.
The longer a Seeker – or worse, a group of Seekers – are left on-station and undiscovered, the worse the consequences will be. They'll infiltrate your news networks and social media feeds, use 'em to spread panic, fake news, and misinformation. They'll delete patient data in hospitals or place ransomware on critical databases. They'll hack voting records and voting machines. They'll spook insurance and futures markets, go long or short on whole industries and let their buddies back on Irune clean up. They'll plant fake criminal records, alter evidence, or just release existing classified information and sit back and watch the chaos. Payroll, transaction processing, and logistics systems are usually a priority target, but sometimes they'll just launch regular-ass hacking attacks, or stay on-station real quiet-like and just collect intel. I shouldn't have to point out the fuckin' obvious – you do NOT want these guys hanging around Arcturus Station, Vancouver, or any kind of environment with sensitive financial, military, or intel traffic.
Keep in mind, bossman, that most of this is gonna happen to you before the fight begins – they'll send a wolfpack of these fuckers into your dockyards or in orbit around your planet waaaaaay before you've formed a line of battle or even declared war. (And remember that, like the grays, volus think that officially declaring war on TV is grounds for psychiatric commitment. You don't give a stuffy speech to someone when you're about to wreck their shit. You just wreck it and then laugh.) Obviously, they can't fight back much when you've found them, but no navy in the galaxy has the ships and the men to monitor the amount of civilian traffic present in their major systems, and until you catch one of these fuckers in the act, then technically they haven't committed a crime and are under the full protection of Citadel law, which is straight up bullshit if you ask me.
Swarm Interdictor: The SA Admiralty nicknames these 'basestars.' The Swarm-class is damn near the size of a dreadnought, but is still classed a superheavy-cruiser since it doesn't have as much (or any, really) direct hitting power. The design is pretty clever, and no one's really come up with anything similar. I guess our carriers are the closest you can get, but it ain't the same. They've got one of these in service and three more being built.
For a start, it doesn't carry any real guns or missile systems and the design is fairly open, almost like a tuning fork. Here's the best part: the Swarm Interdictoracts as a control center and carrier for an autonomous drone fleet. This fleet is linked by hardened ISC/TTL links to the mothership, which is in turn linked by a dedicated TTL swarm to that VDF AI on Irune, and it's bolstered by a parallel VI processing array on the mothership itself. The crew on this thing is tiny – two hundred volus at max capacity – so there's no need for any huge stores of food, water (or liquid ammonia, I guess), living quarters, ship-wide life-support, and all the shit you'd normally expect on a capital ship of this size. All that space goes over to the drone fleet.
It can carry a thousand drones, bossman. Five hundred on each 'arm' of the tuning fork, which is apparently the most efficient shape for launching and recovering drones? Your typical combat model has a couple heavy APP cannons, four universal launchers (so that's four heavy torpedoes or sixteen standard missiles), and a nasty little ECM/laser dazzler/ion cannon suite to fuck with enemy sensors and defend against close-in threats. There's a heavy assault version that drops one of the APP cannons in exchange for a couple more universal launchers. There's a mine-laying version that can lay dormant for six months, a suicide version that carries a kilogram of antimatter, and also a disaster relief and recovery version for looking good on TV.
Apart from that, the Swarm Interdictor itself carries four ion cannons of its own and a shitload of GARDIAN arrays, but those are all designed to keep enemies at bay so the drone fleet can take them apart. Rumor has it this ship has some pretty scary cyberwarfare capabilities, but we don't know for sure at this point.
You know what? I'm skeptical about its lack of weapons and tiny crew too. That drone count does NOT include any security mechs that the wobblies would have on board – or crawling all over the damn hull for that matter – and it ain't like it's hard to store those aboard. I would. Throw in a couple nests of hibernating vorcha and you're good to go.
Kwunu-class Dreadnought: Everyone, and I mean everyone, has heard of these things. There's one currently in service, two more being outfitted and commissioned, and two more being built. Along with the Swarm Interdictor, these are gonna form the giant middle fingers of the volus fleet. The Kwunu-class is named after the first volus ambassador to the Turian Hierarchy, who's apparently seen as some kind of hero and shit for negotiating their status as a client-state.
Personally, I don't see how striking a deal to be the middle management caste for the birds – in exchange for them not beating the shit out of you – is some work of genius, but that's just me. Then again, we chose pride and resistance and were on the verge of going extinct till we had our asses saved by a bunch of blue skanks, so what the fuck do we know?
So, the Kwunu. Same carbon fiber nano-lattice and ludicrous cyclonic shielding as the Swarm-class, but that's where the similarities end. Triple thirty-centimeter rapid-fire main guns, not a typo. Four heavy ion cannons on fluid swivel mounts for three hundred sixty-degree coverage, and four heavy antiparticle packet guns on a similar setup. Thirty-two X-ray band GARDIAN array clusters studded across the hull in a grid pattern. Finally – and I shit you not – three-fucking-hundred rapid-reload universal launchers capable of firing missiles, torpedoes, or pretty much anything else.
The worst part is that your standard anti-fighter/light anti-ship missiles are small enough to be quad-packed within those launchers, meaning that they can carry all the heavy fleet-wrecking shit you can imagine and STILL have room left over for all the point-defense systems they'll ever need. Keep in mind that a 'light' standard missile will destroy a fighter, almost certainly destroy most patrol boats and pinnaces, and hurt frigates and destroyers. It's basically the naval warfare equivalent of being shot with a pistol – sure, one shot you can shrug off, but take three to the face and it's over. These can also be used to intercept our torpedoes and missiles, so keep that in mind.
Typical loadout is four hundred standard missiles (quad-packed into one hundred launchers), one hundred heavy matter/antimatter missiles, fifty heavy torpedoes (normally armed with degenerate matter warheads, those things will break the spine of a battlecruiser if they get a good hit), twenty-five heavy disruption torpedoes (ECM and ECCM across the whole electromagnetic spectrum, and they're normally fitted with an eezo-powered particle emitter designed to burn out enemy ship sensors), and twenty-five anti-core torpedoes (huge-ass pulse disruptors with contaminated eezo warheads designed to get in close and freak the correction feedback on a ship's eezo core, leading to runaway core collapse and detonation).
This thing carries a metric shitload of refills, depending on the missile configuration, and it has a minifactory on board that can make a few dozen missiles and torpedoes a day with enough raw materials, so don't think you're safe once it's blown its load. These ships have more fucking missiles than a goddamned space station.
Goddamn volus.
Vorcha Firecaster: Eventually, the wobblies figured out that there are some problems that don't call for a missile barrage that blots out the sun. The Firecaster-class is the latest series of volus ships to come online, and it's designed for nothin' but dirty, nasty, close-quarters battle. It's about the size of a turian battlecruiser, and comes with a trio of main mass accelerator guns, stacks of GARDIAN arrays, and a decent ECM suite, but most importantly, a midsection that's thiccer than Aish Ashland and stuffed full of hundreds of modular drop-shot combat pods.
Each one of those pods is a screeching nest of specially bred and mutated vorcha trained to take on certain tasks, mostly boarding and counter-boarding, but also space repairs and ground assault. Those pods are pretty tough and are designed to be difficult to pick up on most sensors, plus the wobblies will fill the battlespace with electronic noise, missiles, decoys, and general bullshittery before they deploy 'em.
I don't care how much of a bad motherfucker you think you are, once you've got dozens of three-meter-tall, two hundred-kilo mutant vorcha crawling through your hull, all howling and shit, eating your buddies and flamethrower-ing everyone else, you're not gonna be keeping your cool. These ships tend to be commanded by the most balls-out killers the VDF have, bunch of liaison commander vets running on a slurry of aggression enhancers, combat drugs, and testosterone analogue, and their vorcha lieutenants are normally bosses in their own right.
Goes without sayin' that these could just as easily be used for assaulting space stations.
Also goes without sayin' that boarding one of these is batshit insane and about as survivable as doing backstroke on Parnack or flipping the bird at the Batarian Emperor.
Vorcha Fighter: Like every good fighter in the galaxy, this was a joint initiative with the Systems Alliance, who licensed the basic design to the wobblies. They then improved it and modified it for vorcha pilots. No idea what we got out of it, though I heard it was in exchange for some hefty discounts on the Matrix-series of M/AM missiles. Anyway, this is a solid fighter, pretty good for space superiority work, excellent at capital ship escort duty, and it doubles as a decent fighter-bomber if need be. Armament is dual mass accelerator cannons, a sixteen pack of dual-use anti-fighter/anti-ship missiles (or eight heavy anti-ship torpedoes), two GARDIAN lasers and a basic automated ECM suite.
Speed is surprisingly good, since the designers opted for a much lighter honeycomb armor/heavy shielding combo, and the custom-bred vorcha pilot can survive for up to twelve hours in vacuum. Vulnerable to area-of-effect ion weapons though, and it sure as hell won't hold up to any kind of exotic or heavy particle weapon fire. The vorcha pilots (and the fighters themselves) aren't quite as good as our flyboys, but keep in mind that the wobbly fighters cost forty percent less and they can breed a dozen vorcha pilots for the cost of training one of our boys.
Conclusion
That's about all I've got to say on the wobbly navy, bossman. You've got my TTL if you need me. In the meantime, I'm gonna go grab a drink, have a nap, and pray for Minsta's soul, the poor bastard. His daughter is a fucking pile of work and you probably sent her off with Rasa to get turned into a foot rug or whatever the hell Rasa does when she breaks her toys.
One day I'm gonna meet a well-adjusted lady in the Dog, but it is not this day.
Rasa examined the reports on the padd carefully, before glancing up at the leader of the Lost Boys. "You are sure of this, One?"
The heavily muscled man in front of her nodded silently, and she pursed her lips, blood-red hair shifting slightly as she set the padd on the elegant naggi-wood desk. The accommodations on Vol Prime were always outstanding, easily the match of the best Cerberus had to offer.
She made a gesture with her hand, and the three Lost Boys left her to her thoughts. After a long moment she tapped her omni-tool. "Seven. Head back to our ship, fire up the QEC and communicate to the principle that I suspect the initiator of events against the client is the hosts themselves. We've ID'd a curious financial transaction in the nightly take from Vigil, review file CE-3949-TMMVP. Wait for a codename response and contact me when complete."
Clicking off, she rose, checking her outfit once more. Minsta's daughter was mingling with the elite of the station tonight – volus CEOs, salarian investors, turian autarchs – and she was posing mostly as the head of a security detail for her.
She exited the room to the side of the main convention hall, glancing around before identifying Six standing next to Tiffany, immaculate in a black neo-double-breasted silk suit with slim-line armor plates underneath. The girl was wearing blood-red and black and engaged in a lively conversation with a pair of volus in equally expensive looking slicksuits and a human male she thought was a high-ranking VP in Dynacore.
She waited until that broke up before walking over to Tiffany's side. "Plan on moving out late tonight, after midnight. I'll have my men move your luggage before that point. How attached are you to that racing pinnace?"
Tiffany blinked. "…Might I ask why?"
Rasa's lips quirked. "Not here. But we may need to use it as a distraction. The situation is more serious than I thought – the earlier attempts were not mistakes, but probes to see what forces we had available." She grimaced, lowering her voice. "The Troll Ball picked up a six-level buffered financial transaction to the accounts of the Azure Lily. He says she'll be on-station in a day. I'm good, but no one has ever survived fighting her."
She found herself trying not to smile at using the ridiculous codename they'd come up with to refer to Vigil, as apropos as it was.
Tiffany gave her a look. "Didn't you beat Tyriun no Kage?"
Rasa gave into her amusement and smiled. "I beat him because he didn't take me seriously and I used the terrain. If he'd had another five minutes I'd have been yet another corpse. No matter. Continue mingling and gathering data for your important people file, then retire around 2100. Assume our regular comms are compromised and expect delays and trouble. I'll talk more once you get to the room."
She slipped to the left and vanished into the crowd, and Tiffany merely huffed in exasperation.