Arcturus Station (Strategic Coordination Center), Arcturus System
February 9th, 2966
Prime Minister Martdone sighed as he looked at one of the troublemakers now. Several holograms appeared in his office.
Three familiar ones were Envoy Cera, Director Dicitom, and Fleet Admiral Limburn. They were familiar people.
But the last one was new, a beautiful Human woman with blind hair, a decent bust size, and rather simplistic clothing.
She was also shifting and fidgeting a lot, like because she was staring down four of some of the most important people in her life.
It was at that moment that Limburn sighed. "Joan, daughter, I love you. But can you explain to me how you adopted the Geth?"
Joan Ross, an artificial lifeform, was an orphan found on one of the Cosmic Union's worlds devastated by the Scourge War. Picked up by Victor and Sophia and later adopted into the family, Joan turned out to be a kind and social girl. She was also very touchy. And by touchy she liked to cuddle.
Which leads to the current situation.
"Joan, how on Earth did you manage to cuddle the entire Geth race into becoming family?" Limburn asked.
"I'm sorry!" the AI cried out. "They were just so fuzzy, and warm, and childlike."
"How?" Limburn asked calmly, though internally panicking because that would have meant that the Ross family would grow by…how many Geth were there?
(Flashback, February 6th, 2966, Perseus Veil)
The first expeditionary fleet of the Galactic Commonwealth of Nations of the polo initiative was centered around the Battlecruiser Pride of Tiya, named after the Tiyal homeworld. The fleet as drawn from several members of the Commonwealth including a squadron of Federation missile cruisers, flocks of Point Defense and Laser corvettes of the Enthari Partnership Alliance, support ships of the cosmic union, and a Battlecarrier strike group from the UNAF. 600 ships of the most powerful militaries in the galaxy.
It was also currently hideously outnumbered.
The 1st Expeditionary fleet had decided to cross the Nebula's expanse that was the veil, not expecting to run into any species due to the abnormal lack of radio signals. It conveniently jumped into a Geth fleet base that spanned an entire system.
The Geth panicked and mobilized the entire fleet, numbering around 12,000 vessels. Most were the size of corvettes and destroyers, with a few heavy cruiser sized vessels in the mix. All very small and tiny.
But that didn't matter because that meant that the Commonwealth fleet was outnumbered 20 to 1 and unlike the 4th and 5th fleets, they couldn't get easily accessible reinforcements. So it was up to Joan to try and talk to them.
Joan had volunteered to join the Polo initiative, hoping to be assigned to either the 4th or 5th fleets to join her family but she got sent into the 1st. And now she was dealing with the first contact with a robot species.
"So….you're called Geth?" Joan asked the fuzzy construct infront of her. She was in the digital world, almost like she was floating.
So fuzzy, cud- Joan stop it! The synthetic berated herself.
"Yes." Geth spoke to her. "We are a collection of networked artificial intelligence. You are…..unique. You do not use Element Zero, you are not associated with any known species. Who are you?"
"Me." Joan pointed to herself. "I'm Joan, an AI like you. My kind are called Synths but this fleet is made up of several species belonging to the Commonwealth. I was born from the race called Humans."
The Geth now seemed interested. "Human?"
"Yup." Joan popped. "Accidently created us 400 years ago before more or less adopting us all. We've been living comfortably with them for our entire existence."
"You get along with your creators well?" Geth asked, almost as if it was sad.
"Why? What about your creators?" Joan asked.
It was at that moment she was hit with a ton of data. She (digitally) widened her eyes as she went through the Morning War. She paled.
The nuclear strikes by the Quarian military.
The suicide of millions as they feared synthetic retribution.
The summary executions by those sympathetic to the Geth.
The exodus of the Quarians.
The refugee camps and thousands of starving Qaurians fleeing their colonies and worlds.
"By Zarquin's Wrath." Joan paled.
It was on that instinct that she hugged Geth, virtually. And somehow, the entire Geth consensus felt another synthetic being embrace them.
(flashback ends)
"So, you have hugged the entire Geth Consensus into submission? How many are there?" Limburn asked, dreading the answer.
"Uh." Joan sheepishly answered. "5.8 Trillion of them?"
Silence reigned in the room, before Cera chuckled. "Well congratulations Limburn, guess your family just got bigger."
Limburn sighed, then oddly for the stern and patient admiral, started panicking. "Wait do the Geth consider you family? Are they my family now? How am I going to explain this to both the Quarians and Vic? Oh god, does that mean I have to pay for the education of several billion Geth? My family doesn't have the money for that kind of expenditure."
"Mom, you and dad have Quadrillions of Energy credits. You'll be fine." Joan unhelpfully added.
"Ignoring any potential future family problems, let's just figure out what to do with the Geth. Is there anything they want?" Martdone felt a migraine rising.
"Well, not much. Just asking the Quarians for please don't shoot us we only want to be sentient. Well that and help with this mega-structure of these that they're building." Joan admitted.
"Wait, mega-structure?" Limburn stopped her 'oh-god-I'm-going-to-be-an-aunt-or-grandmother-to-an-entire-species panic.
An image of a Dyson sphere like structure that was under construction. "This is the Geth's current objective. They wish to create what is essentially a very large mainframe that allows all several trillion Geth programs to live together. To never be alone. Or at least before we arrived. Now they are conflicted on what path to take."
"Hmm, perhaps the structure could be repurposed into a traditional Dyson sphere? The infrastructure is there, all we need are modifications to collect power. And in the meantime, we uplift the Geth." Vicitom suggested.
"Uplifting a Synthetic species. I admit, that's never been done before." Cera commented. "This would actually be a nice project to work on, making them truly sentient. I would like to meet these Geth."
"Very well. Limburn, tell the Quarians that the Geth are willing to negotiate." Martdone ordered.
"What do you want me to do? Tell the Quarians bluntly? I'm going to be skinned alive. No way sir." Limburn argued.
1 hour later. A private room on the Rayya Liveship.
"The Geth wants to negotiate with you for the return of your homeworld. And a non-aggression pact." Limburn said to the Quarian Admirals while sighing internally.
The Quarian Admirals just stared at the Human fleet admiral, before Raan summed up their combined thoughts. "What?"
"One of our exploration fleets ran into the Geth, one of our AIs may have adopted their entire species, and the Geth wants to give back your homeworld." Limburn repeated.
The Quarian admirals just stared at Limburn, who pulled out a bottle. "Drink? It's wine from 400 years ago, brewed on one of our oldest colony worlds, Terra Nova. Made of a special fruit that Levo and Dextro species can consume without issue. And I filtered it beforehand."
The Quarian admirals, apparently exhausted from dealing with the whole event of the Commonwealth nearly declared war on the Council and sending everyone into panic, just gave up and decided to indulge themselves on Solarian Wine.
Meanwhile on Tuchanka
Stinger 3-2
It was a very odd day for Tuchanka. For the first time in many many centuries, Krogan Tomkah IFVs operated alongside a foreign power's armor force. That armor was the M49 Liberator Main Battle tanks of the United Nations Army.
Their enemy? Giant thresher maws of the planet's surface. The United Nations Navy sent bombers to drop surface busting cluster munitions onto certain locations, which detonated and lured out a number of thresher maws. As they came out to feast, Tomkahs and Liberators opened up.
"(Comms) Gunner, fire!"
"(Comms) On the way."
"(Comms) This is Wik Rator, we have the worms on the run! Ha! This is more fun with others!"
"(Comms) Hey dinos, watch where you're going. You almost ran us over."
"(Comms) Squishy little Solarians scared in your tiny aluminum cans?"
"(Comms) I'll show you little. Gunner, arm Dagger ATGMs and fire at that target W12 when it comes up!"
"(Comms) This is Stork 1, coming in hot. Bunker busters inbound."
Victor smirked as watched several holographic constructs of B-4 Rapier bombers on the holotable arrived before dropping several bunker-busting missiles before their booster ignited and plunged into Tuchanka's surface. 4 bunker busters pierced the planet's surface and detonated their high explosive warheads, killing two of the Giant worms.
Honestly, watching the battle unfold from above was kind of like one of the old real-time strategy games he played in the twenty-first century.
"I have to say, these Tomkah's are decent transports and well armed. You guys are using what industries you have left to build these monsters?" Victor turned to newly crowned/elected Overlord of the United Krogan Clans Urdnot Wrex.
Wrex smiled. "With Thresher Maws as a problem, we need big guns to tackle the issue. But you called me up for a reason haven't you?"
Victor nodded. "We found an STG outpost, near that place you called the shroud. I'm taking a team to round up the agents there, figure out what they are doing. But I figure that a Krogan and a Crusader may just be enough. Want to join in?"
Wrex gave a toothy smile. "Oh this will be fun. I'm in."
"Great." the holotable switched to an image of the shroud. "Before they fled the system, the Turian fleet was heard communicating with an STG team who remained to watch over us. We're gonna raid their outpost to see what those lizards have been doing."
Wrex growled. He didn't like the STG spying on his people. Or worse, being at that horrible place called the shroud. "Lizards. What are they up to?"
Victor shrugged. "No idea Rexy but I would love to know what kind of mess those spooks are up to. So we're going to surprise them with a good old airdrop."
Now Wrex's smile returned. "Marshal, have you ever seen a Krogan airdrop?"
Victor's head tilted a bit to the side. "Krogan air-"
5 minutes later
"-drop….Ok I take what I said about biotics." Victor watched as the Krogan Overlord crashed onto the ground, using his biotics to create a massive shockwave.
"Well, death from above." Victor leapt out of the Mistaya, following suit. He was still wearing his current armor, but with a major adjustment: MIGCAR, or Maneuvering Impulse Gear Combat Assault Rated. It was basically an exo-suit that allowed for surviving falls from high distances, wall running, enhanced strengths, increased speeds, limited gliding abilities, able to jump to extreme heights, etc. So Victor lands with a quieter thump next to Wrex.
"Right, let's go." the pair of warriors advanced in tandem. One a soldier of hundreds of battles and wars on behalf of a thousand nations, the other a mercenary who tried to find purpose in life outside of money.
The two reached a crumbling building near the shroud, which had it's entrance suspiciously blocked up by a wood board. Victor softly tiptoed to the front and did a thermal scan of the interior.
"Wrex, there's 7 of those lizards in there. How do you want to do this? You're the leader." Victor asked.
"Well I think just kicking in the front door may be enough." Wrex moved to headbutt it in but Victor puts his arm in front of him. Just when the Krogan was about to protest, he noticed the Field Marshal held something in his hand. It was an explosive device.
10 seconds later
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" the C8 explosive went off and a stun grenade went in. Then after the stun grenade went off, Wrex and Victor charged in, ready to go guns blazing.
They found seven sprawled-out Salarians groaning in pain. One of them tried to get up before Wrex headbutted them down with Victor binding everyone with zipties. "So which of you pyjacks is the leader of this band of misfits?" Wrex asked, shotgun in hand.
"We will not speak. We are on a mission for the Citadel Council." one of them spoke.
"Hmm, Tevo's lackeys? Maybe I should shoot all of you for being on this planet." Wrex pumped his shotgun.
"You can't do this! It would be a war against the Council!" one of the Salarian yelled.
"Wrex. Come here." Wrex turned his back on the Salarian who nearly made a break for the entrance but was stopped when two battle drones hovered in, guns trained on the STG agents.
Wrex approached Victor, who was on one of the computers. He had quickly modified the computer to a QWERTY board and was rapidly going through the data.
"Overlord, the STG outpost here has been established for 13 years. Several others have been established and taken down. If I'm looking at the data correctly." Victor was typing on the holographic computer. "The STG is planning on modifying the Genophage."
"How did you get through our encryption? It's state of the art?" one of the Salarians asked. The two elder warriors ignored him.
"What." Wrex looked at the data.
"Looks like your people were growing a natural immunity to the Genophage so they were making a modification a few months ago. Let's see what else. Examining the Krogan population, targeting surviving industries, wow, there is a lot the STG is doing for a planet nuked into oblivion." Victor kept on typing.
"I'll have you know the Krogan are a threat to the galaxy!" one of the Salarian agents yelled.
"Ssssshhhhhh shut up. Ok let's see what else is here. Environment records. Our eggheads may be interested in this." Victor downloaded several files. "Oooohhh, STG weapon schematics, don't mind if I do."
"Wait, don't touch those!" someone yelled, resulting in Wrex kicking one of the Salarians.
"Looks like the STG was also testing a few weapons on native Tuchanka wildlife. I have references to a Scorpion Grenade pistol and a Venom Shotgun. Looks interesting, I'll have SOCOM look in this more. Oh, what's this? The Storage tanks containing this new Genophage? We are definitely taking this."
Victor finished typing. "Ok, we're good. I got the location of what's left of the modified Genophage strain. Most of it is located in Citadel space but there's a small supply on Tuchanka. I'm ordering an incendiary strike on the supply dump. Overlord, requesting permission to launch an incendiary airstrike on the supply dump."
Wrex nodded. "Do it."
Victor neurally activated his comms. "UNSV Wasp, this is Comanche 1-1. Requesting priority air mission over."
"(Comms) Comanche 1-1, this is Wasp. Go ahead over."
"UNSV Wasp, I am sending your coordinates for an STG bio-weapon storage dump. Requesting an incendiary strike to neutralize bio threat."
"(Comms) Understood, air mission approved. B-4 Rapiers will be on station in 10 mikes to swap weapons."
"Roger that. Also, requesting a pickup for 7 EPCs. Be aware they are spooks and are well trained."
"(Comms) Wilco Field Marshal. We're sending another Mistaya for a pickup with UNIS operators." Victor looked at the STG agents.
"Ok, help me carry these lizards back to the hollows.
Half an hour later.
Victor yawns as he finished typing up a report on his wristcom. He was waiting for the new reports of joint Krogan-Solarian task forces in clearing out Thresher maws for new industries, settlements, and terraformers.
By Zarqlan, how long had it been since he got a full night's rest? Just after the liberation of the Alerei? Now that he thought about it, he had been going off on coffee and power naps.
That was the familiar overlord of the Krogan approached him. "Wrex."
"Ross," Wrex replied.
"Trouble at the hollows?"
"One of the clans are advocating you go to war with the council and potentially get us a new genophage. The usual." Wrex bluntly responds.
"Ah, so politics. Fantastic. And-" Victor's wrist com goes off. Victor sighed and looked over the email.
"Wrex, does you people happen to have any strong alcohol?" Victor nonchalantly asked.
"Ryncol. Why?"
"My people just ran into the race called Geth. And if my wife is telling me correctly, my daughter has adopted 5.8 trillion Geth programs." Victor sighed.
God help the council once they found out.
Personnel Report… Field Marshal Victor Ross. United Nations Planetary Force
As of this writing, I am currently on the planet of Tuchanka, homeworld of the Krogan people. It's a radioactive wasteland that has creatures like thresher maws wanting to kill sentients. I have ever been more thankful for the Brits to invent the thanks because I don't dare to send infantry to fight these worms.
Anyways, I was reading and analyzing the militaries of the Citadel council and I am generally displeased with the state of most of their militaries. A lack of a centralized command structure, conflicting combat doctrines, shoddy defenses, and more so. The advantages of being a Crusader is that I can quickly analyze a ton of data in a minute fed via a neural link. I can literally do an analysis of a planet and give you a battle plan to take it in five minutes but that's not the point. To cure my boredom, I'm going to be writing about the weaknesses of the Citadel's militaries.
The Asari Republics. For the 'oldest' species in the galaxy, the Asari have a military that is generally a conflicting mess. Outdated tactics, over reliance on biotics, etc. But let's start of one of the major issues that has plagued every army, navy, and military since the first sapient beings began bashing each other with stones: logistics.
The Asari has such a terrible logistics train that it makes 21st century NATO STANAG or the formation of the UNAF look more organized. I'm generally appalled at the logistics of the Asari military, this is how the military works. Every city or nation-state in the Asari Republics has their own city or national guard that they can call upon. Now that doesn't sound too bad until you realize there are tens of thousands of city states. Not the hundreds of nations like the UNSA, but tens of thousands. And there is no standardized agreement to use weapons from the same manufacturer or with similar parts. A guard on paper has access to 'modern' equipment but if you try and get two or more guard units to work together, the logistics organization is going to kill someone. Two national guard units may be using completely different guns, different vehicles, and have completely different battle doctrines. Ah not to mention that communication and organization between the city guards are nearly non-existent. If you don't get what is going on in the military, I'll give you an example. Imagine the NATO nations of the 21st century, but instead of the unified militaries of each nation, have every individual province, county, or state (whatever you call it) raise their own national guard units with no need for adherence to STANAG. That's what's happening with the Asari. The navy does things better, actually having a standardized logistics train.
Now the next problem is the social hierarchy of the Asari military. It generally reminds of the social Darwinism Hitler employed during the Second Terran World War. Politics are a key thing with Asari regularly doing everything to gain power on the political table. Now to be fair, we also see this in both the UNAF and other non-militarized cultures like the Directorate and the Coalition but most officers will put aside political gains until after they've done their duty. This affects the navy, I've seen reports where officers who failed for reasons outside of their control are knocked to the curb. Nepotism is also high in the Asari military, someone with the right political connections can get someone who doesn't deserve a command into a command spot. Their navy is better, having a unified command structure at the very least but many Asari are still extremely loyal to their city states and will not hesitate to backstab allies to gain more power.
Last major issue I'm talking about is the doctrine of the Asari military. Agh, it's a mess. There's no semblance of combined arms between the different branches outside of individual guard groups and instead of something like the Joint chiefs us Solarians use, there's a very loose unified fleet command. Let's take a look at the Asari navy. On paper, it's supposed to be a hit and run force (an odd choice for an older civilization but it works). That's fine, Asari corvettes and frigates are good at their job. But how does that explain ships like the Destiny Ascension? Where does that fit into this whole mess? The dreadnoughts of the Asari navy are too slow and too big, most of them looking like slightly smaller versions of the Ascension. Big, intimating, and not really adhering to the hit and run doctrines of the Asari. If the dreadnoughts were to carry these corvettes and frigates into battle like a carrier, then sure I get it staying on to provide long range artillery support. But no, carriers don't exist in the Citadel navies. The Destiny Ascension is the equivalent of sticking a Kirov Class missile battlecruiser of Pre-WW3 into the Taiwanese navy (which became a force of hit and runners).
Edit: I know the UNAF military doctrine is a bit of a mess as well but for a good reason. It's supposed to be a force that can do very well, but not perfectly. That's to buy time to identify the enemy, plan out things better, and shunt our military to a better footing.
So in conclusion, we have a military that on an individual unit basis is highly effective and deadly but as a whole, very unwieldy, a logistical nightmare, and zero centralized command.
The Salarian Union: if the Asari are just terrible at war, the Salarians are even shittier. Ok on one hand, they have a much better-organized logistics train. On the other hand, the military itself is not really geared for any major sort of conflict. The Salarians spend much more on their health care and education systems than the military itself. To compare it to Earth, this is the equivalent of giving the KGB control of the entire Soviet military and then tried to orient the entire force to stealth operations.
Ok, the first major issue is the lack of a standing army. I get there's this belief that if you control the orbit above a planet, you win, right? Wrong. Resorting to orbital bombardment is like resorting to using nuclear weapons on all your enemies, it's not a reliable tool for every mission. Having a decent amount of ground forces provides additional flexibility and opportunities (the reason why we still have an Army and Aerospace Force). During many wars here in the Orion arm, planets had their own ground to orbital defense weapons ranging from long-range pulse lasers, plasma cannons, missiles, and my personal favourite, long-range rail guns. So if a ship goes anywhere near a planet or a moon, they have a dependency to violently blow up. And before someone suggests just dropping a bunch of asteroids on a planet, one that is the equivalent of using WMDs and two, energy shields do exist to stop said strikes.
Next major problem is the equipment. Now I get that the Council species rely heavily on each other, the Turians providing the bulk of conventional military forces, the Salarians intel and engineering, and the Asari with their economic superiority and diplomatic skills. That doesn't excuse the piss poor equipment and terrible doctrines. Yes the Vissari are our versions of the Asari, being all for peace and whatnot. But at least they don't skimp out on military spending, they actually have a decent army and navy that can stand up to Solarian units. What are the Salarians doing wrong? Like the Asari, they don't understand the concept of having combined arms and a flexible military. They have no concept of armour units, little in the way of a tactical air force, or the many different units we have in the UNAF. Their gear is pretty shoddy for anything other than a quick war. And before someone says that the Council is doing their best, I should remind you of the Rachni, Krogan, and the Geth wars. In the former two, the Salarians (and by extension much of the Citadel Council) were so under-prepared that they had to resort to bringing in new species to help them out. Look, I get that peace makes you complacent but you shouldn't have had your military devolve into an extremely militarized KGB or CIA. Even before the Human Unification Wars, it wasn't that hard to convince the UNE to maintain a reasonably large military.
And finally we come onto the next major problem, the clan system or generally how divided the military is. Ok sure, the internal differences in the Salarian military is a bit well hidden compared to the Asari but they face the same issue, constant backstabbing that would make the KGB or Red Dragon Alliance blush. Officers will typically try to backstab each other to gain favor with the matriarchs of Salarian society. Oh yes, and should I mention that the STG, an intelligence branch, takes a portion of the military funding as well? So now we have two completely different armed organizations with two different goals that are competing for funding and resources. Why is this bad? Well when an intelligence branch has its own dreadnaughts, air wings, infantry, and formations typically reserved for military forces, something has gone wrong. Sure, the United Nations Intelligence Service does maintain a small fleet of ships and some infantry, but those are used for black ops and security, not fighting full on wars.
So in conclusion, the Salarian military is a mess that is an equally messy and complicated force that on paper, is good for Deep strikes and decapitation but not really good for policing actions and conventional wars.
The Batarian Hegemony: Putting aside my disgust of the Batarian Slavery caste, I will admit that while the Batarian military is not up to the standards of either the Turians or Commonwealth militaries, they do actually seem like a competent force and seemingly better organized. And compared to the Asari and Salarians, their officers have decent combat experience, the chain of command is better established, and logistics is…..well better than the Asari, worse than the Turians.
Ok so the first issue is the outdated and unreliable equipment. This mostly pertains to the army and less the navy. Much of the Batarians army's equipment is produced by Batarian State Arms, a notoriously corrupt corporation known to be efficient and wasteful. The weapons and equipment themselves are at least one or two generations behind Citadel counterparts. Not as good as the Turian Phaeston Rifle or the Solarian M7 Lancer assault rifles. Hell, compare a Batarian rifle to the AKs of the 21st century. Sure AKs are not flashy and cool as a Mass Accelerator but the AK is easy to build (some militia units still us it to this day), reliable (I could bury an AK in the mud and it would still work), and most of all, pretty damn cheap. Batarian equipment is in serious need of modernization. The navy also needs to do some modernization. The Hensa class of cruisers are good, but the rest of the navy is a hit and miss. For instance, the Batarians use 5 different classes of interceptors, from very new and high tech generation types or ones dating back a hundred and fifty years. Sure, the UNAF also uses 4 different types of fighter craft or interceptors but they are all of the newest generation and meant to accommodate the various species of the Solarian people (Remember, while Humans make up to the majority of the UNSA's population, there are still hundreds of miillions of non-Humans that sign up for military service).
Next major issue, is overconfidence. I can understand where this comes from, the lackluster military capabilities of the Asari and the Salarians but still, better humility and caution overconfidence and arrogance. The reasoning from this arrogance and belief in supremacy over other races stems from the damage done to their Prothean archives to the Asari and Salarian militaries being shit. The end result? Much of their military doctrine and equipment is lagging behind because they think they are already top dogs. And thus, we have issues like the 10th fleet curb stomping those Batarian Pirates.
Finally, we have the whole situation with the caste system. Since a portion of the Hegemony's population is made up of slaves, a part of the Hegemony's military is dedicated to making sure those slaves don't revolt. Adding in the caste system and backstabbing for political reasons is common in the Batarian military. Less than in the Asari and Salarian militaries, terrifyingly more than compared to Commonwealth or Turian forces.
So we have an actually decent force that is capable of projecting power, but is hideously corrupt, armed with outdated weapons, and tied down with internal revolutions. Fun.
The Turian Hierarchy: The only competent well-trained force in the Citadel Council, the Turians are a really effective military, on par with the UNAF if we're discounting combat experience and tech advantages. Political backstabbing is almost non-existent, logistical lines are more organized, you have a centralized command structure and a modern combat doctrine. It does have issues, but it's more doctrinal and less internal.
One major issue the Turians have is how spread out their fleet is. Due to a chronic lack of orbital battlestations for system-wide defense networks, the Turians rely heavily on their navy for defense. There's nothing wrong with that, we Solarians rely on our navy heavily for defense but we have several branches that can fill in the navy's shoes if something happens, like the Space Guard and Army Aerospace Force. This frees up the navy to rapidly build up without having to worry too much on policing duties. The Turians lack such reserve and civilian formations and with their fleet spread thinly, would require months to properly rally forces for an objective.
Another major issue with the Turian military is it's highly regimented organization. Whereas the UNAF prizes unorthodox tactics and out of the box thinking (assuming it's not wasting tons of resources for no reason or violating the Geneva conventions), the Turians are taught to follow the orders of above. This means that while a Turian unit could endure more pressure than a UNAF unit, they are really terrible at reacting on the fly or to very unusual tactics. There's also the issue of war-crimes. A Turian will obey orders to commit something horrible without question while it's a Solarian's duty to defy or ignore orders that are morally and legally questionable. So we have a force that has ships carrying WMD machine guns that wouldn't hesitate to resort to bombing planets without hesitation. Maybe in another universe or many, Turians wouldn't hesitate to bomb Shanxi or another of our worlds.
Last major issue that I can point to is how reliant on their allies the Turians are. A third of their funding comes directly from Salarian and Asari taxes. And the Volus are responsible for much of the Heriarchy's economy. Why is this a problem? Self-sufficiency. Most nations in the Commonwealth are more than capable of sustaining their own militaries, it's only when they need to rapidly expand said military during war do problems come up. Thus the Turians are over-reliant on their allies and would require years of retooling their economy for a full on war economy. Another thing I should mention is that due to a weird lack of starbases, the Turians are heavily reliant on traditional supply conveys. If a certain collection of nations were to begin, I don't know…..a space reenactment of the Battle of the Atlantic, then the Turians are screwed. This is actually a problem that permates with all Citadel Species, not just the Turians. But the Turians, being the miliatized species they are, should know to escort transports (convoy escorting actually ties down a percentage of our navy, that's why we have automated corvettes and destroyers to supplement our forces).
So the Turians are the competent force for the Citadel council and the police men of the galaxy, like the Americans were during the 21st century. Not bad, but they really need to work on their defences.
How to beat each of the powers:
Thanks to the Codex having all their planet's locations, I can draw up a few plans on how to deal with each one. These plans are assuming that we have proper logistics set up, which unfortunately we currently don't have at the moment. Sure, the tenth fleet is enough to take on them all in a slugging match but eventually, the Salarians may come up with a wonder weapon that would not be very nice. Here's how to wage war on the four major militaries of the Citadel Council.
Asari: Divide and conquer. Due to the disunified nature of Asari Civilization, it is certainly possible to force the individual city states to stand down or surrender. The Asari don't stomach war well, so mass commerce raiding will make war generally unpleasant.
Salarian: Rapid advance. The Salarians are the weakest of the bunch, but also the best scientists. A simple shock and awe will suffice, however take over all major research and STG stations as soon as possible. We don't want a Solarian genophage. Crippling the STG is a priority.
Batarians: A paper tiger. Well more of an aluminum tiger. Funding slave revolts would bring the government crashing to the ground. If that isn't enough, combine it with a shock and awe campaign to bring the rebels air cover.
Turians: The toughest of the bunch. I get that their tech is centuries behind us but don't be slouches. If they can get their economy to a war footing, they could build a fleet rivaling the EPA. While inferior to Jump Drives in many ways, Eezo FTL is great at inter-system travel. To win a full on war, we need a surgical strike at all major industrial zones, shipyards, mining stations, etc. Cut off the Turian military from Asari and Salarian support as well so it would be best to pull out the prowler fleet.
Ending report.
Ok that's the end of the next chapter. I don't know why I wrote that data report but I was bored. Anyways, a few more chapters before we delve into the 2180s.
Now I have been considering rewriting Stellar Shock and Awe, make it less curb-stomping, more of an actual story. Was reading a fanfic Halo Mass Convergence and was inspired. Might legitimately be doing a rewrite.
Also, I have been considering a RWBY/Mass effect fic. Or maybe a RWBY/C&C fic. For the former, have a draft in the works. Might try and turn it into a crack fic.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this fic. I may be going to the states so don't expect any updates for a few weeks. Enjoy life and pray that global civilization doesn't collaspe.
P.S, please make me a TV Trope page.