THE COMMANDERS
Admiral Steven Hackett, Commanding Officer, Battlefleet Trafalgar, Alliance Navy
Most prominently remembered for his role in leading the Alliance Navy during the Eden Prime War, the Collector Crisis and the Reaper War, Steven Hackett's place in history is undoubtedly as secure as that of Jane Shepard, David Anderson or Cassandra DeRuyter. His remarkable rise from enlisted crewman to Supreme Admiral is a testament to both his military skill and his political prowess, negotiating combat and public relations challenges with equal coolness of spirit. Much like Field Marshal DeRuyter, Hackett fought every enemy of humanity to have ever presented themselves, from lowly pirates through the batarians, turians, geth, Collectors, Cerberus and the Reapers themselves. His role in maintaining discipline during the confrontations with other Citadel species' in 2184 and 2185 built his reputation among the greater galaxy as a peacemaker and unifier, but in the second half of 2178, it was his audacity in battle that was to form the foundation of all of his later career.
Born in Buenos Aires, in the South American Federation in 2134, Hackett's formative years were dominated by the Cold War, a set of conflicts that raged from 2139 to 2145 provoked by changes in Earth's climate. The war is most remembered by the galaxy at large as a conflict between the European Union and the Pan-Asian Coalition, but the war was no less fierce in the Americas, as the United States and Mexico faced off against SAF and Brazil. Hackett's own father was an enlisted man in the Argentine Army, and fought on the Venezuelan Front against US Titan forces. The war came to a swift and unexpected end once the European Union discovered the mass effect, accidentally stumbling into Prothean ruins during the Martian Offensive of 2144. The Pan-Asian Coalition surrendered on November 11th, and the next day, the EU joined the war on the American-Mexican side. Brazil surrendered on Christmas Eve, and the SAF followed suit on Boxing Day 2145.
Almost twelve years old when the Cold War ended, the impact of the lost war on the young Hackett was great, and reinforced by the death of his mother less than a year later. His father, still serving in the Argentine military, could not look after him and arranged for him to attend the Advanced Training Academy for Juveniles. Hackett excelled in the academy, and enlisted with the newly formed Alliance Navy in 2152, to follow his father's footsteps and help humanity avoid his homeland's great mistakes. Four years later, on the eve of First Contact, Hackett was promoted to bridge lieutenant. He would serve on the SSV Perseus, Admiral Drescher's flagship, during the counterattack at Shanxi.
After First Contact, Hackett rose through the ranks, making Captain by the time of the Alliance's admission to the Citadel as a recognised species, and Group-Captain by the time of the batarian attack on Mindoir. Like many officers of similar rank, He was promoted quickly in the aftermath of that great defeat, as the old guard who had dared to threaten a coup were cleared out. He ascended to the rank of Admiral in 2175, commanding the Fifth Fleet.
The Fifth Fleet participated in the Battle of Elysium under the overall command of Admiral Ches Giap, with Hackett briefly taking command of efforts over the planet during the pursuit of the batarian navy. The blitz campaign immediately afterwards pushed the Hegemony all the way back to the Kite's Nest itself, and the next two years saw Hackett and the Fifth Fleet stationed along the front against possible counterattacks, with only occasional action as required in the Yuki Cluster. Hackett found this state of affairs deeply unsatisfactory, and politely requested every month for his fleet to be allowed to join the Second Fleet in its 'March Around the Core' with DeRuyter's Army forces. These requests were repeatedly denied out of fear of weakening the line, but they were noted by the Consuls and the Chief of Staff for the Navy.
Hackett was selected to lead the fleets to bypass the Kite's Nest defences via Tower Bridge, his thirst for action and his quiet-yet-determined demeanour winning him much political support. He was placed in overall command of Battlefleet Trafalgar, consisting of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth fleets, as well as the entire Deterrence Fleet. He immediately requested changes in the ship rosters for the battle, to account for the role that Battlefleet Trafalgar was expected to play. These changes would play a crucial part in the victory to come, and the human conception of naval warfare as understood by Hackett was to be entirely vindicated in the course of the action.
Admiral Petra Hunt, Commanding Officer, Battlefleet Tsushima, Alliance Navy
Covered in glory as a result of Anhur and the 'March Around the Core', Petra Hunt was the ideal candidate to lead the fleets that were supposed to provide the killing blow to the Hegemony's vaunted Verge Wall. With Field Marshal DeRuyter, he had utterly crushed those forces in the Traverse and the Terminus that had aligned themselves with the Hegemony. His reputation was sterling, and his relationship with the Army excellent. It was expected that the bulk of the glory for the coming battle would go to him, assuming success was to be the outcome of the offensive. Hunt knew that this was his chance to write his name on the tablet of history, and seal the batarians forever in a tomb of defeat.
However, it was not to be. The battle would be won, but the final objective would not be achieved. Khar'shan would remain untouched during the battle, it would not be opened up for assault by the vengeful Alliance legions. Hunt would still play a significant role in destroying the batarians' ability to fight in space, but the intervention of other forces meant that his part as the follow-through to Hackett's surprise attack would not come to pass.
Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Belmont, US Delta Force, First Legion, Alliance Army
The only major Army figure of any significance in the battle to come, Alexander Belmont is widely considered to have preserved the honour of that part of the services. That the invasion of Khar'shan itself did not happen in the aftermath of the great naval victory was extremely galling to the Army's High Command.
Belmont was born in 2140, in Presque Isle, Maine, in the United States. He had ordinary parents of French-colonial origins, two younger siblings, all of whom were bilingual in both English and French. His father was a drone technician for the US Geographical Survey, and his mother was a teacher. Too young to remember the Cold War, he grew up in a new era of peace between the nations of Earth, as human effort was put into exploration and colonisation of new worlds, courtesy of the new technologies discovered on Mars. The glaciers that had devastated his homeworld's northern hemisphere stopped a mere two hundred yards from his front porch, and a wall of ice looming near his house was one of his earliest memories. He had an ordinary but graced civilian life, playing American football and getting better-than-decent grades in school.
He was in high school when the First Contact War broke out, and everything changed. On Shanxi, the Battle of Xi'an Valley hit everyone in Presque Isle, Maine hard. Six enlisted personnel from the town in the United States Colonial Marine Expeditionary Force died in their final stand against a determined turian attack. They were not much older than Belmont himself at the time, and for years afterwards, Mainers held a deep grudge against turians for the loss.
This was the trigger for Belmont's enlistment in the US military in 2158, although he was to join the Army rather than the Marines on the insistence of his mother. His physicality and intelligence saw him recruited into Delta Force in 2161 at the rank of corporal. His leadership was considered and analytical, but he inspired great loyalty in his troops through care for their well-being. A tall man with bright blue eyes and brown-blonde hair, he looked the part of a leader as well.
By 2165, when Earth's national military units were amalgamated into the Alliance Army Legion System, he was a first lieutenant with significant combat experience in special operations against batarian and Terminus mercenaries, both within and beyond Citadel space. In the same year, he was put forward as a candidate for the Citadel's Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, but was passed over in favour of David Anderson due to age and the Council's preference for a candidate with naval as well as ground combat experience. The failure of Anderson on Sidon and the delaying of humanity's first Spectre appointment by nearly twenty years was something Belmont always believed he could have avoided.
Delta Force saw no action in the First Verge War, their first mission against Khar'lilitam cancelled as Citadel forces intervened to stop the conflict. Belmont would have to wait until the Second Verge War. During the course of the conflict, he rose to lieutenant-colonel, fighting primarily with Troop Command Columbia in the Yuki Cluster. He commanded the unit sent to investigate the aftermath of humanity's first encounter with thresher maws on Akuze in 2177, finding evidence of false signals.
When it became apparent that the completion of Tower Bridge would require the storming of the outermost batarian outpost, a station located on a harsh iceworld in a star system on the very edge of the Kite's Nest, Belmont was considered first for the job. The raw aggression of the likes of a Shepard was not what was required, and Belmont was considered the coolest special forces operator of sufficient rank to carry out the task. As it turned out, his role was to be even more vital than even the most pessimistic planners had envisaged, as the batarians had made significant changes to the outpost in the years since the beginning of the war. Once again, humanity's best would clash with the batarians' own.
Admiral Dhark Ar'dra, Supreme Commander, Batarian Hegemonic Combined Forces
Shielded from blame for the defeat at Elysium largely due to Elanos Haliat's prominent role in planning and commanding that attack, Dhark Ar'dra was placed in military command of all regular batarian forces in 2177. He inherited no shortage of problems. While the colonial militias and the special forces remained under their own commanders, the Admiral was made responsible for the regular army and all naval assets. Both of the latter had been seriously degraded during the Alliance counterblitz. The Batarian First Fleet had seen huge losses at the hands of the humans, and the fall of the Batarian Army's main staging point on Dar'lokhan meant that most of the experienced soldiers of the Hegemony were already dead or captured. Both formations needed reconstruction badly, but the resources available were largely insufficient. Both Arch-Hegemon Ar'dra and Admiral Ar'dra knew that to try and rebuild both the Army and the Navy would be pointless.
The Navy was given priority, and Dhark Ar'dra oversaw the new works personally. Contrary to popular opinion, he was not blind to new naval developments, despite the class of ships he prioritised in construction. To replace the dreadnoughts and cruisers lost at Elysium, the Admiral ordered the newest and most powerful designs built at the drydocks over Khar'shan itself. The Fang of Khar'shan-class dreadnought saw a six ship production run, with the notable exception of greater broadside firepower to deal with the frigates that had destroyed the namesake ship. The Hensa-class Heavy cruisers lost were replaced, and all such ships upgraded to better suit what the batarians thought the new naval paradigm had become. Turret-mounted torpedo launchers and yet more fighter-carrying capability were added to many regular cruisers, as the anticipation of a massed fleet action shaped all considerations.
The Admiral's outlook was inherently offensive, and he drilled all three of his fleets for assaults on the Alliance and relay containment operations. He did not conceive of any scenario whereby the humans would be free to range at will throughout the home cluster of his own species. Tower Bridge was not the only means such a situation could have been achieved by the Alliance, however unlikely it might have been that the Verge Wall could have been breached, and the Hegemony would pay very dearly for the oversight.