Shit... if a supernova can explode in a person's head, then I know what it feels like after that. The eyes are covered with white, the body practically does not obey. It was numb so much, as if I had been lying motionless for several days, so that my body responded to every new movement with a wave of pain.

"It's for the best"

The only thought that flashed through my mind in the first seconds of waking up, because if there is pain, then I am alive, and this is already good news. Now I will get up from the cold floor, nurses will dance around, the head doctor will swear dryly, my mother will cry when she finds out that everything is relatively okay with me. I was thinking about this when I barely got off the floor and habitually sat down at my desk.

So... stop. stop. What the hell is a desktop?! I've just been hit by a car! I should be a corpse, a cripple, lying in a cast, yes, maybe a comatose person who suddenly woke up, but not in any way…

I feel myself feverishly. Fractures, and no injuries were found, but I was not happy. With the good news, the bad news follows — this body does not belong to me. And if it does, then it's one hell of a thing not mine.

Urgently find a mirror. I have to find the damn mirror right away. A spoon. Glass. Any surface that will provide me with at least some kind of reflection. Having set my goal, I jumped up abruptly, began to frantically search for the object of the search with my eyes and ... knocked down some purple ficus with a poorly obeying hand. The latter made me stop. I was standing over the fragments of a small pot, and the thought flashed through my head: "I knew I should have put it on the top shelf." I couldn't have had that thought. I couldn't have known. And before I could break my head over this question, a terrible migraine began to break it for me, which will become a faithful companion for a long time.

After standing over the fragments for some time, finding a hundred or two questions and no answers, I began to study the room in which I woke up in more detail. A large room without windows. The situation looks like the office of some military chief. A massive T-shaped steel table, on which, in addition to a futuristic computer, there were several empty bottles of vodka, a brand unknown to me, and a simple snack. A large leather armchair, in the armrests of which some remote controls were mounted. Behind him was a wall on which hung some letters, certificates, which the splitting head forbade even trying to read. Finally, a mirror mounted in the wall was also discovered.

He came up with his eyes closed. I gathered my courage. Breath. Exhale…

"What are you waiting for?"

Which should have been proved. A young man, about thirty years old (maybe a little younger), was looking at me from the mirror. An aristocratic face without any defects, except for a pale green color.

"Yeah..." was all that flashed through my head as my gaze wandered from the reflection to the vodka bottles.

Medium-length blonde hair. My forehead is broken and the floor of my face is covered with a crust of dried blood, but it seems to me that this is not the only reason why my head hurts so much. Height is above average, but not below one meter eighty. Athletically tailored. He was clearly dressed in a military uniform, steel-gray in color, something like a uniform from the movie "Starship Troopers". His tunic was unbuttoned, and there was a simple black T-shirt underneath. The jacket soon became the object of my close attention. On the left breast there is a name patch: "A.V. Romanov". On the right side — "MSF RE" (military space forces of the Russian Empire) , on the shoulder straps — three gold, twenty-millimeter stars forming a triangle. It's not so bad ... a colonel or a captain of the first rank, apparently the son of a very big shot, such titles are not distributed to anyone at that age ... and not just anyone has to keep a stamp.

Staggering and holding his head, he returned back. More precisely, in a chair. I checked the corner of the table... so it is, the same crust of caked blood. Leaning back, I tried to gather my brains into a pile, but imperceptibly fell into a saving sleep.

The second awakening in a new body and, obviously, a new world, occurred, according to my feelings, seven hours after the first. This time, it was not overshadowed by a severe headache, instead came a "quiet" migraine, and weakness. But, according to tradition, there were two times fewer questions on the one hand and ten times more on the other. The memories of the owner of my new body flooded me with a merciless stream of information and migraines. It will take me a long time to comprehend such an array of knowledge... unless my head gives up and explodes.

Whether it will explode or not is still an open question. But one thing can be said already now, I have become a newfangled element in modern literature, namely, a isekai ... apparently, a isekai in the future. It's 2179, and I'm not on Earth. Actually, not even on the planet. I'm flying on a spaceship to the planet Tsargrad, the name is something else. From the realization of this, I immediately felt even worse, although I really hoped that there was nowhere else. It came to an understanding of the completeness of all that grandiose ass that I was lucky enough to "get into". This is not how I imagined the afterlife. And to fit into this new world is not an easy mission. But on the other hand... to die at the age of twenty-five because of a stupid "scolopendra" who crosses the road without paying any attention to the world around her is also not comme il faut. Over the next few hours, as well as half a bottle of vodka, which in the future clearly did not forget how to make, I stubbornly convinced myself of this. I have been given another chance, an opportunity to live a new, interesting life. Who knows, maybe it will even be possible to go down in history here, and not just teach it? It was just a pity for my parents ... an interesting experience (I won't wish it on anyone) — at the same time saying to myself "Nothing... they are strong — they will cope" and raising a glass for their repose.

While I was sorting myself out, I pulled the chair up to the table, cleaned it of bottles, and turned on the computer. When the piece of iron demanded a password, a combination of numbers instantly popped up in my head. Thirty-six digits. The most important dates in the history of Russia... not only I, apparently, knew them as "our Father" (by heart). Although... some dates were clearly beyond my knowledge.

A lot of reports authored by the "recipient", scientific and fiction literature, apparently, liked to read at his leisure. All materials are scattered in catalogs, very convenient. Hmm, the former owner, like me, is a big fan of history, I can't find another explanation for a large number of scientific and historical articles.

A notebook and pencil were found in the drawer. It's time to dirty the paper and systematize the information. From general to particular. Gradually. Despite migraines. After digging into the computer and in my memory now, I realized that I was not just in the future, but, so to speak, in a parallel reality. In this reality, one event did not happen that happened in the history I know — the shooting of the royal family in 1918 in Yekaterinburg. In this universe, Nicholas II, on the eve of the February revolution, ordered the family to be taken to Denmark, which was successfully done, and Nicholas himself remained in Russia, where he was shot. Then the story went the following way, about the royal family, which first moved to London, and then together with supporters of monarchism led by General Belyaev to Paraguay. Cossacks, officers and other subjects loyal to the tsar and their families soon followed them... everyone who was able to escape.

The rest of the surviving Romanovs and the escaped aristocracy with other liberal cadres remained in France and shared power over the empire that no longer existed, because Nicholas abdicated the throne, for himself and for his son, which untied the hands of other political forces. Although even after that, the royal family was not left alone, because they had a huge financial capital in their hands, created by Alexander II and scattered around the world. At the same time, he was securely hidden and protected from anyone who would not be a member of the royal family. That's probably why the tsarina and her children took advantage of Belyaev's offer and fled to Paraguay, away from relatives and both British and American intelligence services. In Paraguay, and even surrounded by fragments of the tsarist army, they were safe, and the Paraguayan authorities were only happy about the appearance of new rich citizens in their country. But the main thing is that at least somewhere in the world we managed to preserve that spark of piety and unwavering devotion to our distant Homeland and the Tsar.

Then the story developed along a well-trodden path, the Soviets defeated the Whites and created the USSR, Stalin, industrialization, collectivization, the Great Patriotic War, it is noteworthy, but the royal family actively helped the Soviets financially and as volunteers in repelling the Fascist-German invasion. At the same time, Alexey Nikolaevich, who grew up, turned out to be an extremely capable financier and manager, which allowed him to use his inheritance to the maximum, and the war that broke out increased the royal capital several times, thanks to participation in military orders. In response to the help, the Soviets refused to further persecute the royal family and handed over the remains of Nicholas II. The war ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops in the forty-fifth year, the rest of the history of the USSR is not much different from the "original". In 1991, the USSR is falling apart and the "fun" begins. But while the newly-minted oligarchs and the former party elite, as well as various gangs that had joined, were dividing power and property in the torn country, the grandson of Nicholas II and, accordingly, the son of Alexei Nikolaevich, Yuri Alekseevich carefully but decisively began to take power in the country into his own hands. He participated in privatization through third parties, helped Russian soldiers and officers in Chechnya with everything they needed, "bought" corrupt generals, admirals and governors, recruited supporters among the political and military elite who did not agree with the plundering of the country. He was engaged in charity work and support for socially vulnerable segments of the population, which, at that time, was the absolute majority of Russian citizens. In 1998, after the default, the country exploded completely. That period of history was given the name "Oligarchic War", in which Yuri began to crush the oligarchs, destroying them in all possible ways (the physical elimination of particularly treacherous elements remained the dominant method). The trophies in this war were fabulous money and all the property of those who sought to profit from the grief of the whole country. Finally, in 2000, through a referendum, where ninety percent of the population voted for the restoration of the monarchy, a new era began in the history of Russia - the Era of the Second Empire.

The newly minted Tsar Yuri I undertook to fulfill his duties with great zeal and rigidity. A new constitution was adopted, which consolidated the dualistic monarchy, civil ministers were appointed by parliament (the Imperial Senate), after the approval of the emperor, and the security forces personally by the emperor. The Chancellor, appointed by Parliament and approved by the Emperor, became the head of the government. The parliament has remained bicameral, the lower house is the State Duma, whose deputies are elected through direct elections, and they also form a civil government. The Upper Chamber is the State Council, one third of the deputies of the upper chamber are appointed by the emperor, the second third were occupied by representatives of the provinces, the last third of the seats were occupied by representatives of the largest trade unions, non—profit and commercial organizations. The number of deputies in the State Council was not limited in any way and was constantly changing, from election to election.

In the new constitution, the population was given the right to an armed uprising against the regional authorities, and if this really were to happen, the proceedings would be held in the Imperial Court under the personal chairmanship of the emperor. The empire began to be divided into governorships, those into provinces, they, in turn, into volosts, and volosts into counties. The heads of counties began to be elected for one year by the elders of villages and villages, the mayors of the cities of the county. Those, in turn, were also elected for one year by the local population through direct elections. One person could not hold the post of headman, mayor or head of the county, more than three times, in any order, in his entire life. The heads of the counties already chose the head of the parish, relying on the opinion of the residents of their county, where mini-elections of the township chiefs were held. Volost chiefs, according to the same algorithm, chose the governor. The governor and the head of the parish worked under the same conditions as the county chiefs, such a system guaranteed a change of power in the region and its constant development. If crime has made its way to power, then people at home, in a safe, have legal firearms that they have the right to use. There is also a governor-general who oversees all this madhouse, he is appointed by the emperor and reports to him.

Thus, a power pyramid was created: maximum decentralization on the ground and absolute unity of supreme power in the hands of the emperor, despite the existence of parliament.

The outside world did not like the new Russia, but the terrorist attacks in New York followed, a new war in the Persian Gulf and everyone forgot about Russia for a while. They remembered about it only in 2008, when, after an unsuccessful attack by the Georgian army on South Ossetia, a coup took place in Georgia and pro-Russian forces came to power. All these eight years, Russia has been selling abroad everything it could sell: timber, oil, gas, and other mineral raw materials. With the money earned and the "trophies" of the Oligarchic War, old factories were restored and new factories were built, education, science, medicine were funded, a demographic program was launched, and time showed its success, the army and navy were restored. The economy was also gradually changing, from a raw material economy it turned into a high-tech one. The financial system was also reformed, but not everyone noticed this reform. Yuri I, using his own and state funds, created many banks and financial associations registered with third parties, as a rule, neither the general directors nor the managers knew who their main sponsor and founder was. Thus, the emperor, and then his descendants, controlled the financial system of the country and any financial flows, and if any major entrepreneur starts to get into politics and lobby for his own selfish goals, he is quickly blocked by "oxygen". Plus, control over finances allowed the authorities to subsidize the economy with cheap loans.

By 2020, the Russian economy was the third in the world after the United States and China. Russia invested a lot of money in space technology and achieved success, it, however, led to a new space race, since 2025 expeditions to Mars have become regular, and by 2035 Russians have flown around the entire solar system. Of course, do not mean that they have become special here, a little late, but Americans and Europeans, the Chinese, also began to regularly rummage through the system, but the Russians were the first here. The study of the Solar System was helped by a big breakthrough in the nuclear field, where a new type of reactor was created, which worked on spent nuclear fuel (in other words, on nuclear waste) of traditional nuclear power plant reactors, while the efficiency of this reactor was extremely high. And if we take into account how many nuclear power plants, nuclear submarines, and burial grounds with nuclear waste by that time, the cost of such fuel was low, and the Americans and everyone else invested in the extraction of helium-3 on the Moon and experimental thermonuclear reactors. At the same time, the Russian reactor is completely safe and does not harm the environment or, in the case of a spacecraft, the health of the crew.

(By the way, such technologies are already being developed in Russia, who is interested in the project called "BREST-300").

Russian scientists also did not ignore thermonuclear energy, but put it on the back burner.

It was this technology that allowed the Russians not to bother about the energy consumption of their ships and space stations. The first settlements on the Moon were built by Americans in 2031, Russians and Americans landed on Mars almost simultaneously in 2043, after a while Chinese, European, and Indian colonists appeared on Mars. Active mining has begun on the moons of Jupiter, Pluto and Mars.

Simultaneously with the active exploration of space, the political situation on Earth was deteriorating. After the emergence of a new generation of missile defense, which negated any use of ICBMs, nuclear weapons ceased to be a deterrent. In 2045, the Third World War began, which ended only in 2052. The world war in the sense that wars began all over the world, both civil and interstate, clearly defined warring military-political blocs did not exist. The war began with the Chinese attack on Taiwan, and the United States and its allies rushed to defend them, this became the trigger. At the same time, India's wars against Pakistan, Iran, and China began. The Persian monarchies and Turkey took advantage of the moment to attack Iran, but the Shiites rebelled in Saudi Arabia, and the Kurds in Turkey, and the war with Iran turned into a civil war. A new migration crisis was born in Europe, and migrants, young Arabs and Africans, began to organize armed riots and mass attacks on people, this led to the power of nationalists, and they staged a massacre in response, a real war within the EU began. Russia, meanwhile, has annexed Belarus, Southeastern Ukraine from Odessa to Donetsk (Crimea was annexed back in 2014), Transnistria, Northern Kazakhstan, and Southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan have become satellites and a profitable source of cheap raw materials and a market for their goods, and a place of cheap labor, and not everywhere this accession was bloodless. Russian Russians wanted to get the Russian East, and the Russian tsar wanted to create buffer states in Manchuria and western China, which would have fenced off Russia from China, but both armies were trampling at the border, not daring to cross it. The Chinese did not have enough resources on three fronts, and the Russians had conflicts all along their borders, and there was not enough political will to get involved in the war.

Meanwhile, the EU has turned into a collective Reich, migrant uprisings have been crushed extremely brutally, and domestic policy has changed dramatically. Non-Europeans were deported everywhere, special services dealt with the dissatisfied. The new EU reforms turned Europe into a powerful confederation with a strong army and a tough internal policy, which was supported by the majority of Europeans who were tired of lawlessness and anarchy. Then followed a successful European intervention to ensure security, stability and the assertion of human rights and freedoms in the Maghreb countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt — all of them fell under the onslaught of the now truly united old Europe, and then quickly turned into raw material colonies and the main consumers of European goods. Well, the place of expulsion of a weighty proportion of non-Europeans.

The UK left the EU in 2016, and by the beginning of the Third World War was in a severe crisis. Britain found its salvation in neocolonialism, with the support of the United States, the British landed in South Africa and Nigeria and occupied these countries, gradually began to subjugate other African states and gradually regaining control over their dominions Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In Africa, they faced serious opposition, but the British, in a well-known manner, pitted the recent allies, and finished off the victorious, but weakened country. Great Britain gained control over South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique. Somewhere there was an English garrison, and somewhere there was a pro-English government. The actions of the Limes led to uncontrollable consequences — huge flows of refugees, provoked by the invasion of the British, overwhelmed neighboring African countries, and now there is no way to get to Europe, the Berber tribes were well paid and armed by Europeans, and the black continent was mired in dozens of local wars. In fact, the territories not controlled by the Limes turned into chaos field almost all states were destroyed by terrorists, jihadists, extremists, local tribes and people simply brutalized by hunger and wars. And then the British came to these empty lands and "saved" everyone, finished off the survivors with their troops, mercenaries and local collaborators. The population of Africa has decreased by almost forty percent, and in some regions by ninety percent. And the former dominions have gone under the full control of the English crown.

The United States, having stabilized the situation in the South China Sea, turned attention to its neighbors on the continent, and using the African experience of the British, subjugated the entire continent, with the exception of Canada and European possessions.

In September 2052, the war ended, all its participants, on all fronts, were exhausted. On September 23, world peace talks were held in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, which consolidated military achievements. Russia has taken control, directly or indirectly, of all post-Soviet republics (except the Baltic States, western and central Ukraine, and Azerbaijan). North Africa was assigned to the EU, the rest of the African continent was assigned to the UK, and the entire American continent was assigned to the USA. India annexed Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, a piece of Afghanistan and Iran, simultaneously expelling or killing all Muslims according to its new national ideology "Hindu Rashtra" — India for Hindus (followers of Hinduism), however, this laid a time bomb in the Indian state. China annexed Taiwan, the Philippines, the island of Kalimantan, helped the DPRK "liberate" South Korea, and achieved recognition of Tibet as Chinese territory. Many states disappeared, the world's population decreased by thirty percent, mostly Africans, South Americans, Asians and Arabs died, which sowed the seeds of revanchism and dissatisfaction with the results of the war in China and India.

But a new war was prevented from breaking out by the new discovery of American-European archaeologists on Mars in 2067. Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of aliens, where there were samples of various equipment and technologies, as well as extensive databases, and large reserves of unknown raw materials. Deciphering the language and technology research lasted a year and a half. Humanity has learned that it is not the only civilization in the galaxy.

As it turned out later, this civilization called itself the Protheans (I've already seen it somewhere). On the basis of decoded databases and studied xenos technologies, humanity has gained access to the technology of "mass effect fields", allowing to reduce or increase the mass many times. Needless to say, these discoveries made an unprecedented sensation on Earth. Of course, the Americans and Europeans had to share technology with the evil Russians, Chinese and others, the West was not ready to fight then.

Human science has made a huge leap forward, space has become more accessible to humanity. And the fields of the mass effect began to be used everywhere, no car, spaceship or weapon could work without them, since the Proteans left large reserves of the zero element for people, which would last for seventy years. Human states, at the negotiating table, divided these reserves among themselves. The Americans got the most, the Chinese a little less, and the Russians took the honorable third place, well, the crumbs were distributed to the rest, but already in 2084 humanity mastered the extraction of element zero.

Another very important result of decoding the Protean databases was the discovery by the Russian-American expedition in 2069 of the Charon repeater, which all this time "pretended" to be a satellite of Pluto. This repeater is a huge superluminal catapult, "launching" a spacecraft at high speed into deep space. Three months later, the repeater was activated, and humanity made its first trip to another star system. Charon brought people to the Arcturus system, located 36 light-years from Earth, and other repeaters were discovered there, which allowed us to conclude that there is an extensive network of repeaters that simplifies travel through the galaxy, and also, somewhere there are those who built it all.

Human expansion into space was not long in coming. For the next sixty years, humanity is actively "spreading" across neighboring sectors and systems. This process was systemic in nature — a research ship finds a suitable planet, a state colonizes this world and creates the necessary infrastructure there, and only then sends the research vessel further. This makes it possible to ensure the most effective security and development of new colonies. Also, all the space powers began to actively build a military fleet, under the pretext of protecting humanity from aggressive "outsiders", although all sane people understood that this was only part of the truth. The navy has become a tool to deter competitors.

By the year 2120, the ecumene of humanity covered seventy inhabited systems, and about a hundred worlds with so-called "industrial settlements", any cobblestone with at least some resources was of interest to corporations, which in turn built a settlement there for thirty to forty thousand people. The leading states in the field of colonization were India, China and the USA, these countries had many citizens, a lot of citizens. These three countries controlled almost seventy percent of the human territories.

By the end of the year 2120, a serious social and economic crisis broke out on many Indian planets (Indian elites never bothered with the problems of the lower castes). At the same time, there was a collision with the Chinese in one system without planets suitable for colonization, but with enormous reserves of minerals. In order to distract their citizens from internal problems, the Indians escalated with the Chinese by sending their fleet to this unnamed system. The Chinese responded similarly, while starting mobilization. There is still no information about what exactly happened in that system, but both flotillas attacked each other and the Sino-Indian war began. Not wanting a sharp strengthening of China, after all, the Indian fleet left much to be desired, the United States and Great Britain entered into an alliance with India and entered the war on its side. Only the tiny DPRK took the side of China, controlling a small planet given to them by the Chinese on the border of unknown space. Russia, the EU, as well as small sovereign states remained neutral and made capital by trading with both sides. This was the first space war of this scale, before that human fleets "fought" only with pirates, and therefore the conflict dragged on for sixteen years, where the war itself lasted three years, and everything else was a post-war "peace". The situation became similar to the situation of the belligerents in the First World War on the Western Front, neither side could take the strategic initiative, and the war became protracted, a war of attrition.

India, burdened by internal conflicts and crises, could not withstand such a load, and separatist sentiments began to grow in the colonies, which led to armed uprisings. India began to crumble rapidly, the armed forces began to get out of control of the government, and military leaders began to declare themselves princes and rulers of the planets under their control, or simply became pirates. The Indian government controlled only seven systems... out of thirty. It was quite predictable that the Americans and the British quickly agreed on the partition of India with the Chinese, creating a temporary coalition, involving other small countries and the EU. Russia decided not to take part in this dubious case, and it turned out to be right. After the introduction of "peacekeeping" forces, the local population, fragments of the Indian Armed Forces and MSF gave a fierce rebuff to the invaders. The coalition got into "Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia" together and for a long time.

Only by 2136, the coalition managed to cope with the last pockets of resistance, losing tens of millions of soldiers, hundreds of ships and convoys, killing hundreds of millions of civilians in Indian colonies, spending trillions of monetary units. In return, they received planets that are ready to revolt at any moment, with a destroyed economy and social sphere, thousands of bred pirates, and, as a final chord, riots in their territories of the discontented population, which flared up even more after the suppression. India has turned from the largest country into one of the smallest. Russia, on the other hand, earned trillions on military orders and invested it all in its economy and in the foundation of new colonies. A vivid example of how Russia should behave during a global massacre.

It was only by 2157 that humanity coped with huge losses after, as it was later called, the Indian crisis. Humanity once again decided to increase its territory, the Chinese expedition headed to the repeater near their Shanxi colony in order to activate it.

While the colonization fleets of different countries were arriving in Shanxi and waiting for information from the researchers, during the activation of the repeater, the research ships were attacked by unknown people. While they were trying to figure out the situation in Shanxi, an unknown fleet entered the system, it outnumbered the military space grouping of people, starting from dreadnoughts (people had one old Chinese dreadnought "Shanghai" in orbit) and ending with cruisers and frigates, the ratio of forces was three to one. The enemy acted swiftly, but other things struck people, unknown people also used Mass Effect technologies. At a time when the human admirals were trying to cover the retreat of the ships with the colonists, a brutal felling ensued. The concentrated fire of three enemy dreadnoughts destroyed the Shanghai fairly quickly, and the enemy cruising groups dissected the fleet of people into three groups and methodically destroyed them. Unknown people took control of the planet's orbit and began landing. Then for the first time people saw unknown aggressors, bird-like upright humanoids, whose bodies are covered with external bone growths, forming a kind of armor. On earth, the enemy was not so terrible, the Chinese managed to take several "languages", from them people learned the self—name of these birds - Turians. The Chinese colonial troops successfully restrained the enemy, only the dominance of the enemy in the sky did not give them the opportunity to launch a counteroffensive.

While the Turians were trying to open the Chinese defenses on the planet, humanity was pulling its naval fleets to the area. The prospect of war with another race forced the earthlings to forget, for a while, of course, mutual claims. Two weeks after the beginning of the conflict, a combined fleet of people entered the Shanxi system. Massive American aircraft carriers, European and British dreadnoughts, a huge number of Chinese cruisers (two plywood panels and a bow on the side), Russian heavy missile cruisers that are not inferior in size to dreadnoughts (Russians were able, are able and will be able to make high-class missiles for any occasion in life), in whose hulls hundreds of missiles of various classes. The numerical superiority was already on the side of the Earthlings. A missile salvo from sixteen Russian cruisers made huge holes in the Turians' battle formation, at the same moment Chinese cruisers and American small aircraft (small aircraft: fighters, bombers, attack aircraft) poured into these holes, disrupting the enemy's formation. Then there was a banal beating, the enemy first retreated from the planet, and then completely left the system, losing two-thirds of their ships.

Humanity did not celebrate the victory for long, the fleet was preparing to strike back, but they were outstripped ... by diplomats. A lone small ship entered the system, and began transmitting an unknown signal on all frequencies, the American cruiser Roger Young was sent to meet him, as it was possible to establish a connection, history is silent, apparently the Turians also had prisoners.

Then people met Azari for the first time. Sexy dolphins, I'll tell you. I can imagine how the American astronauts felt on board the cruiser. A same-sex race, where all representatives look like human women, but instead of hair combs, and skin color varies from purple to blue. They then enlightened that in the galaxy, in addition to humans, there are a dozen, only known, races united by a common economy and a supranational superstructure, which everyone calls the Citadel Council. The Citadel is a colossal space station built by an extinct race of Proteans. The Azari were the first to find this station, and then all races began to catch up to them. Turians were also part of this association, and occupied one of the three seats on the Citadel Council, along with Asari and Salarians (a race of short—lived lizard-like humanoids, where every third scientist, and the other two are agents of local intelligence). As it turned out later, people accidentally entered the territory of the Citadel and tried to activate a sleeping repeater, which is a crime according to local laws, but the Turians apparently have bone growths not only outside the body, but inside, in particular in the brain. They not only destroyed unknown ships without trying to make contact, but decided to visit a neighboring planet from where violators could arrive and impose justice there, in turn, violating a lot of internal Citadel laws concerning "First Contact" with a new race. The diplomatic negotiations lasted about a month, and the result was: an exchange of prisoners, financial reparations from the Turians (frankly small), humanity becomes an associate member of the Citadel, and people were given the right to open their embassy on the Citadel.

Here was the catch, people were given the right to open an embassy, but only one. People have found a way out of this impasse. An international organization was created, similar to the UN and the League of Nations, it was called the "Earth Alliance" or simply the Alliance. The Alliance was assigned several functions: maintaining diplomatic relations with the Citadel, economic integration, etc. The armed forces of the Alliance were also created for peacekeeping missions, suppression of piracy and patrolling of transport routes, each state "chipped in" ships and units, transferring them under the control of the Secretary General of the Alliance, elected by the Supreme Council of the Alliance, whose members were the leaders of the strongest human states (Russia, USA, China, UK, EU). Other countries did not have much influence, although they also participated in the discussions and formed an advisory body — the Alliance Assembly, where the big five also participated.


Note: I am not the author of this story, it is . This is a translation