Shanxi system, September 2066
The bridge of the Guangzhou was bustling with activity, the cruiser selected to lead the small task force ordered to activate the dormant gateway on Shanxi system. A frontier system on the very edge of chinese territory, Shanxi grew considerably on the past year as Beijing authorities set it as a springboard to expansion into the galaxy at large.
All was well with the mission, and Captain Zhao was content to just observe his crew diligently following his orders. The gateway was activated some days ago, and the science team was busy commanding the drones tasked with the first phase of explorations. Apart from the occasional large piece of ice breaking from the massive dormant structure once it activated, the small flotilla of military and scientific vessels had encountered no surprises on their missions.
Which made Zhao think about his use there, certainly the mighty cruiser at his command could be better used patrolling for criminals on the less civilized fringes of chinese space, or even guarding their borders against american or europeans incursions.
Still, Beijing was known for its healthy dose of paranoia when it came to activating the gateways, the backbone of intergalactic infrastructure found, not made, by humans some 5 years before. No one really knew much about them; only whatever pieces of information could be scoured from the ruins of an ancient civilization found on Mars.
And that, Zhao reasoned, was why everyone, not only Beijing, but also Washington and Brussels, Moscow and Delhi, acted with such caution when dealing with unexplored gateways. If the race that supposedly made them vanished from the galaxy, what kind of forces lay waiting for humanity on the dark of space?
He pushed these questions to the back of his mind. Certainly, less cryptic explanations could be found, for all he knew those "Protheans" killed themselves out in an epic civil war, heavens knew humanity was most likely to do the same given some time. His biggest problem would be if the americans or the euros had found the other system the gateway connected to first. The diplomatic fallout would be considerable.
Tau System, Approaching Realy 314, September 2066
Tretimus Hilatis was a bored turian. Fleet command decided to send him and his ships to patrol a system on the dead end of the Traverse. Proximity to Council space meant that the chances of a hot encounter with pirates or smugglers was very low. Flying idly for weeks at time would not help his rise through the Hierarchy.
Still, he kept his forces on alert, half wishing his precaution would materialize a pirate vessel or two for him to shoot down. His frigates floated gracefully by his cruiser, and the idle chat between the bridge officers swallowed the hum of the engines.
The spirits answered his prayers for action when his navigator called him. "Captain", the girl said, "unknown contacts spotted 40-thousand-kilometer starboard, it appears they came from the Relay"
He scratched his mandibles, that relay was dormant, and no one on their right mind would activate a dormant relay right on the Council's doorsteps.
"Check your sensors Specialist, you said the boogies are exiting a dormant relay?"
"Not dormant sir, the relay is pretty much activated"
"Spirits", Hilatis thought, activating a relay was a serious offense, so he was indeed going to see some action today, but at the same time it would take a very special kind of insane, or desperate, people to do so right next to Council territory. Recovering from his thoughts, he turned and called the communications officer. "Lieutenant Kandros, open fleet wide channels, tell all ships to power up weapons and prepare for boarding actions"
As his vessels approached their targets, he lit up the holo display in front of him to take a better look at his foes. Five dots appeared next to the now functioning relay, each barely bigger than a shuttle.
"Hail those ships, tell them to power down their engines and prepare to be boarded by Council forces". Standard procedure, nice and clean, arrest the culprits and let C-Sec and the bureaucrats do the hard work of find out their motives or where the hell that relay went.
Just after the message was sent, a distressed looking ensign called him. "Sir, the vessels do not match to any known design from our databases".
Hilatis frowned, the mission was getting weirder by the second. "Did our targets answered our hails?" He finally said.
The answer was "no". Weirder still, anyone caught so red-handed would immediately answer their hails, or try to bug out, and the shuttles were still there.
"Prepare our secondary batteries, shoot and disable their engines, try not to destroy them completely". No reason to theorize what the hell was going on, he thought, better just do his job.
Captain Zhao had just returned from the mess, a steaming cup of tea in hand, he threw himself on his chair and opened his datapad, planning on reading some reports to pass his time. His plans were immediately thrown in disarray when his communications officer called him
"Captain! Incoming message from the science team, they lost contact with all their drones on the other side of the relay"
A spike of fear shot through his spine, his earlier thoughts of who, or what, wiped out the Protheans coming back to mind. But he had a job to do. "Try to establish contact with the drones, if not, tell the scientist that we will move to investigate"
So he went back to his tea, fear buried through concrete actions. There were simpler explanations after all.
"Shit" was the first thing his gunnery officer said. "I'm sorry sir, I could not known our contacts did not have shields, or armor, or anything to protect them really"
Hilatis sighed, what was supposed to be a couple of warning shoot became a molten pile of debris, as his guns tore through the unprotected ships with ease, the small crafts blowing up one after the other.
"No one knew lieutenant", Hilatis said, "Scan the debris field, get all information you can about those ships, I will need them to write my report, but keep your weapons hot, we don't know if those ships have friends on the other side"
As he got up from his chair to check with his bridge officers, the relay sprung to life, the massive rings spinning faster and faster, until several more vessels were spitted out by a mass-free corridor
THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT IS AUTHORIZE FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Prime Minister Casteaux
As per your orders, my agency has compiled a short report on the capabilities and size of the Chinese People's Navy. As you may very well know, Beijing is aggressively expanding their territories far beyond Shanxi and has started a naval build-up to match their new territorial ambitions. We estimate that their space-faring capabilities are as follow:
7 Deng Xiaoping class Ballistic Battlecruisers (approx. 800m in length)
36 Yangtze class Cruisers (approx. 600m in length)
87 or more Hubei class Destroyers (approx. 340m in length)
Several corvettes and smaller sized ships used in policing action and patrolling space around Chinese territories
Chinese space doctrines are the logical conclusion of their naval development while rising to power in the early 21st century: their ships were designed with the American super carrier in mind, then and now. As such, the Chinese tactician prefers the use of stand-off distance ordnance, such as cruise missiles, torpedoes, and artillery. Their Ballistic Battlecruisers can carry up to 600 vertical launched Y-51 anti-ship cruise missiles with a variety of warheads: fusion, shaped, high explosion etc., each with a different enemy system in mind when dealing damage. Most importantly, it appears that the new generation of Chinese heavy cruise missiles and torpedoes have limited FTL capabilities: after launch, they perform random, if brief, jumps, to confuse the enemy defenses and close the distance between ships much faster. Their heavy ships also contain several mass accelerators cannons broadside, but these are small and for ship self-defense: we estimate that each cannon is less than 50 meters in length (the main gun on one of our own Conqueror class battleships, for example, spouts an impressive 1km in length)
Chinese's cruisers also possess anti-ship missile capabilities, with some 96 VLS cells, but their main armament is a mass accelerator cannon mounted spinally. Said ships operate as "long range" artillery for fleet actions. Support fighters are mostly carried by their cruisers, each having a squadron of 12-15 planes, although all ships can deploy and maintain several transport shuttles. It also possesses a decent complement of anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses, mostly auto cannons and point defense missiles.
Destroyers are tasked with creating an anti-aircraft shield around the main ships. To the end, they are equipped with a multitude of anti-air missiles for all ranges and are crawling with AA guns as close-in systems. A single destroyer has more than 20 such system, comprising of twin eight-barreled 20mm cannons and short-range missiles. Since it's conventional for the Chinese to carry their missiles in vertical launch system, their destroyers also carry a small amount of anti-ship cruise missiles.
Tactically, the Chinese prefer to deploy destroyer squadrons (4 to 6 ships) led by a single cruiser and keep their big boats far from the everyday actions of the Navy. It's this task force our sailors are bound to find patrolling Chinese space or trying to incur into ours.
You may contact me, or the Bureau of Naval Intelligence, if you wish more in-depth information.
Cordially,
Vice Admiral Pedro Baltazar, Bureau of Naval Intelligence
Hamburg, Germany, European Federation, July 2066
A/N: So, there it begins! The first contact war! I will keep posting some lore dumps here and there but always as something "in-universe", like a report some spook made for a politician. As for the story, my idea is to make "The Guns of August" but for Mass Effect: decisions made in the heat of the moment that snowballed into something unstoppable, but that could be prevented should calmer heads had prevailed. You can see here, for example, the Turian commander ignoring the fact the shuttles didn't look like anything Council and still shooting them, and the Chinese jumping relay only to end up with a bunch of triggers happy turians with their guns pointed at them.
Edit: some spelling mistakes