Note: Welcome back to the land of the Mass Effect! This is the last chapter (7/7) that focuses on the effects of Humanity on the Batarian Hegemony. We finally see the effect of Humanity's creative destruction on the stagnancy of the Citadel species!
I want to address some much comments from much earlier in the story. Civilization does not change for no reason~ It is only in moments of enormous stress that we see a people change. The weight for each civilization is of course different. But change will never be because of a single lost battle, or fleet, that only makes the people dig in harder. Instead with the Salarians, we saw a great betrayal of trust, and with the Turians it was the unfair peace treaty more than a lost battle. These two species are much short-lived compared to the third of the triumvirate, but with the Asari, too, we will see an interesting time of self reflection. (It is already planned intricately, please look forward to Book 3, hahah.)
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Total War II
In the weeks and months that followed, a new power rose within Citadel space. With the majority of active military operations effectively on hold, especially given the continued absence of any "Human" invasion, all the previous effort of the Turian Hierarchy spent were diverted into a new front: Diplomacy. Compared to the hesitant, timid Turian efforts at the Great Game before the ceasefire, a more determined Hierarchy poured almost endless resources into the withered branch of Government.
For the first time in recorded history, Turian culture took a tentative step away from viewing the military as the sole respectable career. Encouraged by the humiliation of having their enemies for generations simply be brought into the Galactic government without consultation, Turian society as a whole was starting to look at other methods of "fighting". Encouraged in part by elder statesmen and war heroes like Councillor Arterius, the idea of fighting a war of words and public interest spread quickly outwards from Palaven, reaching even the outermost colonies within a few standard weeks. By then, many of the brightest Turian minds had already started requesting transfers out of the Military and into the Diplomatic Corps.
Perhaps more importantly, for the first time, the Hierarchy truly focused on its own client races. All states under the Hierarchy received renewed attention from the revitalized Diplomatic Corps, with the Volus in particular being treated as first-among-equals. Even though the subject of independence was never discussed, the newfound respect, and proposed cultural syncretism was the first major step towards working through almost a millennium of Turian dominance, and the eventual full assimilation into the Hierarchy. Initial response from the client states were encouraging, especially as the balance of power was finally shifting from a dominating military overlord centred on Palaven to a hard-bargaining, but consensus seeking federation.
Of particular note was the reconfiguration of the war economy that had been running in the Hierarchy since joining the Citadel Council. With the abrupt end of much of the fighting, it became clear just how many pirate crews were actually used as a front for the Batarian Hegemony as suddenly, skirmishes across the Attican Traverse dropped almost ninety percent. This was certainly good news for the front-line troops and the colonies in the Traverse, but it had the unfortunate downstream effect of completely throwing off Turian logistics planning and industrial allocation. A week into the ceasefire, ammunition dumps and field-maintenance units were already bursting with replacement and excess ordnance.
Under the careful collaboration between the Turians and the Volus, a military-industrial complex geared towards persistent, low-intensity power projection was quickly re-configured to serve the domestic market. Massive stimulus cheques unlocked by Volus-backed assets were sent throughout Hierarchy space, flooding the citizenry with extra cash just as the first wave of reconfigured industry started creating domestic goods to feed the ravenous appetite of the newly demobilized forces. Out of this, a virtuous cycle rose, as the demobilized soldiers found work in the new factories, design houses, and the myriad specialty shops that a multi-species Diplomatic Corps required.
With the home front more peaceful than any other time in its history. The Hierarchy threw itself into the task of rejuvenating Diplomatic Missions across all of Citadel space with the same vigour and meritocratic structure as the military. Almost overnight, front-line positions within the Diplomatic Corps were considered almost as prestigious a duty as those in the Fleets. And soon, all Citadel-associated states, and many of the wild organizations in Terminus space, even Omega, received requests by the Hierarchy to establish new Embassies.
During this great Diplomatic expansion one of the earliest internal discussions was the future relationship with the Salarian Union. While the Salarians had always maintained cordial relationship with the Hierarchy, it was always in the transparent attempt to hide behind the much bigger Fleets fielded by the Turians. Even before the Asari diplomatic suicide, the Hierarchy was constantly fending of efforts by the Union to deliberately drive a wedge between them.
In the end, the Council of Primarchs, still collectively the head of the state, military and government, decided to adopt a policy of tactical flexibility towards the other two council species. Over the past thousand years, generations of Primarchs expected the Asari to handle the diplomatic finesse and the Salarians to do the undercover work. This freed up the Hierarchy to focus on the military, keeping themselves in their comfortable all-citizens-serve model.
But this was no longer possible. In the new multi-polar world, where the word of the Citadel was constantly undermined by infighting, and the unknown "Human" threat still a mere shadow, the Hierarchy could no longer afford to depend on others. Thus the Salarian advances for further integration were rejected, as the Hierarchy realigned itself with its own client species, and focused on developing its own diplomatic muscle.
Alongside this development Blackwatch itself was reorganized. Because it was no longer diplomatically feasible to depend on STG reports, the special operations unit was expanded into a full intelligence organization. The remit of Blackwatch was expanded to include clandestine reconnaissance, and the freedom to "Defend Forward". The latter meant that, for the first time in Turian history, intelligence could be acted upon without involving the standard military chain of command, dramatically increasing the ability to respond to foreign, and internal, threats.
The build-up of the Hierarchy Diplomatic Corps had another far-reaching effect. With the official Citadel-backed ceasefire in place, most smaller states were starting to become more concerned, many having received elaborately veiled threats from the newly empowered Batarian ambassador. In particular, even as the Hierarchy demobilized, pirate activity against associated species colonies outside of Citadel Space started to increase.
Unfortunately, this was completely overlooked by the Citadel Council because the end of fleet-level engagements wrecked havoc on the aggregate monetary loss statistics used to determine levels of conflict in frontier space. Because military equipment was much more expensive, the rising cost of piracy was completely masked by the plummeting cost of direct military engagements. This was especially ruinous for those colonies just outside of outer Council space, leaving many small, or early settlements in ruins as decentralized Pirate crews, no more than a few ships each, operated with impunity.
Many associated species within the Citadel space itself, recognizing the improvements of the client states within the Hierarchy, were beginning to look towards the Turians for further protection. Between their war for words and the transparently obvious way Salarians and Asari were attempting to use the smaller states in their own cold war, the stoicism and unwavering message of the Turians Diplomatic Corps was a breath of fresh air. Not only was it refreshing to see one-third of the triumvirate still dedicated towards galactic peace, the presence of Turian fleets, now more evenly disperse around Citadel space, also brought more even policing.
While nobody would offer their own independence, the revitalized Hierarchy Diplomatic Corps also did not ask for it. Instead, the Turians leverage their advantage in natural resources and manufacturing, supported by their Volus-backed economic power to create the framework of an economic union. Publicly the "Free Economic Union" was designed as a free-trade area for the Turian Hierarchy and its own associated species, but was seen internally as a method by which economic growth would be used to bind the client states together. Unwittingly in this case, the Hierarchy had stumbled upon the same fundamental method employed by the SRC to maintain its own hold on Humanity.
Five years after the great pivot by the Hierarchy, and with the elusive Human threat still not making itself known, Citadel space had settled into three distinct, decentralized power though everyone still paid lip-service to the "Citadel Council" its power had been eroded steadily as the major species turned away. The final mark was the renunciation by the three Citadel Species of the Spectre program. For obvious reasons the unrestricted access to each other's worlds had become a diplomatic nightmare, and so as the big three pulled out of the treaties governing Spectre, they also stopped all funding from it.
Following the disbanding of the Spectre program, the Citadel fleets were also quietly broken up. While all species were mandated to contribute to collective defence, the big three rammed through treaty changes that allowed fleets to be stationed within each state's own borders. This, together with the development of Palaven, Sur'kesh, and Thessia as local centers of power, left the Citadel in a position of obsolescence. Even though all states, including new developments in the Attican Traverse and Terminus systems, had permanent embassies on the great structure, in effect the Citadel itself had become a secondary power locus, now functioning in a more limited role as a forum for second-tier diplomats.
Out of the three powerblocks, The Turian Hierarchy had changed the most dramatically. Between heavy industrialization, rapidly expanded diplomatic corps, and the Free Economic Union the Hierarchy had created a sort of "Non-aligned" movement. This was a block of states that attempted to remain above the cold war between the Asari and Salarians, which itself had signs of heat along their shared borders.
In contrast the Asari were diplomatically most isolated, but still economically most powerful. Between the Asari themselves, and their new Batarian association, the two races maintained much commercial power with interests all over Citadel space, in the Traverse, and beyond.
Finally, the Salarian Union had embarked on an ambitious expansion program. Out of all associate species, the one that responded most positively to Union diplomacy were the Hanar Illuminated Primacy, and their Drell clients. The reasoning of the Hanar remained private; publicly, the various Hanar ambassadors also did not throw their full backing to the Union, instead choosing to remain neutral. This seemed to be enough for the Union. Salarian population explosion and reach within Citadel space was powered by a sustained campaign of breeding, and in turned spurred an industrialization effort that had all the hallmarks of automated Hanar technology, but evolved to a massive new level.
Even though the new multi-polar world was not as safe for the big three as the old Citadel organization, it was also much less inward-looking. Societies across the Galaxy pulled themselves out of stagnancy to meet the new challenges created by their new perceived opponents. Even far from the front lines, many planets that were forgotten backwaters had become beacons of investment as the powerblocks raced to expand their unofficial zones of control, fostering dramatic expansion in trade networks and economic freedom.
That was when rumours started of organized Krogan policing action against the Batarians in the Attican Traverse.