A.N./Woo woo! Chapter four! LETS FUCKIN GOOOOO!

The fact that I got four chapters of this story, that I put relatively little effort into, out in under half a year blows my mind. It took me almost three years to release that many for Rouge Apprentice. Man, I've learned so much in these past five years…

Ahem.

There's going to be a somewhat lengthy science bit in the authors' note at the bottom.

If you don't care: no problem, I understand that most people only care about the meat of a story.

If you care: read it, it explains some of the technology I've added.

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 4:Pieces in place.

Eden prime was under attack by Geth, Jenkins was dead, and he might become a Spectre. It's only been a few hours and his day has already been a rollercoaster of events. "Lead the way, Chief."

Stealth had long since been abandoned, so orders were given verbally instead of through hand signals. "Yes sir!"

Gunnery Chief Williams. From what she's told him, she's the only survivor of the marine garrison, and it's easy to tell why from what he's seen of her combat abilities. She's clearly an exceptional marine, what she's doing on garrison duty is a mystery to him.

Swiftly, and with a tactical precision that'd make any Drill Sergeant proud, Williams led them to the excavation site where they could hopefully secure the beacon.

A teal bolt of energy passing by his head forced him to dive for cover, and his squad mates did the same. "That's the dig site, commander! The Geth might already have the Beacon!"

Damn. "Williams, flank left. Alenko, hit 'em with biotics. I'll lay down suppressive fire!"

"Yes sir!"

"Roger!"

He popped out of cover and let out a stream of mass accelerator fire, pinning a couple of Geth in place. Kaiden lifted one off the ground on the right, and Ashley put a burst into it; destroying it. She pushed around several boulders, slammed into a piece of cover, and tossed a grenade behind the cover two pinned Geth were hiding behind.

A large explosion sent the two Geth flying in several pieces. The last Geth, realizing it was the only one left, attempted to fall back, but quickly fell victim to their combined fire.

Advancing into the dig site, they found… nothing? "This is the dig site. The beacon was right here. It must have been moved."

"By who? Our side? Or the Geth?" Kaiden asked.

"Hard to say. Maybe we'll know more after we check out the research camp."

"You think anyone got out of here alive?" He asked, subtly glancing around the area.

"If they were lucky. Maybe hiding up in the camp." She supplied. "It's just at the top of this ridge. Up the ramps."

His radio chimed. "Change of plans, Shepard. There's a small space port up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there."

The three of them took off at a modest pace, scanning the ridge tops with their weapons as they ascended the ramp of dirt up into the research camp covered in flames. However, the came to an abrupt stop at Kaidens' signal.

"Commander! We've got a survivor up ahead." Kaiden called out. Sure enough, there was someone sitting hunched over on a piece of debris by one of the two intact buildings in the camp.

"Good, maybe they can give us some more information on how this all happened." Ashley, however, seemed less than thrilled.

"Be careful Commander. I don't recognize their armor, they could be dangerous." He also didn't recognize the armor pattern. It looked to be some sort of heavy armor, but not of any make he's seen before. The only part he did recognize was what looked to be a Batarian made helmet, but even that looked different with its face plate painted over with a crude white skull. Other than that, all he could tell from here was that they possessed a very feminine figure.

"They might be injured, we should see if they need help." Kaiden nodded in agreement. Ashley still looked suspicious, but dutifully said nothing.

"Right behind you, Commander."

As soon as they crested the hill, they were taken aback by the sight of dozens of Geth corpses around the heavily armored woman. Intermixed were a few burnt human corpses in heavy armor, but they didn't look at all like Alliance marines. Instead they looked a bit more like mercs.

Slowly, they crept forward towards the woman, careful not to step on any of the bodies until they were only a few feet away from her.

"Miss?" He tried.

The heavily armored woman looked up, finally noticing them. "Yes?"

He looked over at Kaiden who only shrugged, and turned back to the two glowing "eyes" of the skull faced helmet the woman wore. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She looked behind them at the field of bodies. "My men aren't though."

"I'm sorry for your loss." He apologized sincerely.

She shook her head. "Don't be. They knew what they signed up for."

"What were you doing here?" Ashley butted in.

The woman turned from looking at him to Ashley, and just stared for a moment. "Me and my men had dropped by the main colony for some R&R, and heard this little settlement was quiet and had some good bars. So, we took our ship over here and decided to explore a bit before bar hopping. I wandered around for an hour and next thing I know; that dreadnought came out of the sky and annihilated our ship when it tried to escape."

"Dreadnought?" He asked.

She looked back at him. "Yeah, real weird looking thing, and really big too. Almost like a giant black cuttlefish."

He frowned, and looked at Ashley. "Some sort of Geth dreadnought then?"

The marine shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, sir."

"Right." He conceded, and turned his attention back to the female merc. "What happened during the attack?"

She shrugged. "Not sure about the rest of the colony, but when the shooting started I tried to rally my men here. It didn't work out so well though."

"Are there any other survivors?"

Another shrug. "You'd have to check the nearby buildings."

He nodded, and was about to end the conversation when she stood and unslung her assault rifle. "You'll need another gun if you plan to go anywhere, and luckily for you I have a gun."

He paused, and looked her up and down, taking note of the scorch marks scattered over her armor. "You sure?"

"I figured whatever the famous Commander Shepard is doing here during all this is way more important than saving my own hide."

"Alright." He conceded. "What's your name?"

"Alaya." She said. "Alaya Igelstella. Leader-former leader of the Atlas private security group."


He flayed his mandibles in surprise. "Saren?"

The other Turian turned around. There was no mistaking the form of his mentor, it was him. No other Turian looked like Saren; the greatest Spectre alive. His pale skin, abnormally long flanges, and strange electric blue eyes were signatures of the veteran. "Nihilus."

"What are you doing here? This isn't your mission."

Saren approached him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I have my own mission here. One of far greater importance."

He spread his mandibles in surprise. "Your own mission? Why wasn't I informed?"

"The Council didn't wish to distract you." Saren explained sympathetically. "But it's clear that both of our missions have been… distracted."

Even his mentor was thrown off by the attack? "Then this is worse than I thought, but with your word I can convince the Council how grave the threat is."

Saren moved past and behind him while he formulated his speech to the Council. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

He heard the sound of a weapon unfurling and whirled around in surprise; only to stare in stupefied shock at the pistol his mentor was pointing at his head, unable to comprehend Sarens' betrayal. In that brief moment of inaction Saren pulled the trigger, blowing a hole through his head, and Nihilus knew no more.

Saren however, stared down at his dead pupil wishing it hadn't come to this. "I'm sorry Nihilus, truly I am, but the galaxy can't afford the Council learning of my efforts. They would only get in the way."

With one last mournful gaze, Saren departed for the beacon.


His false body lifted into the air and a booming electronic foghorn blared throughout the colony; briefly deafening the unfortunate few survivors that were too close. Not that anyone but him knew that it was just a show piece.

"Holy shit." He heard Ashley mutter.

"Look at the size of that thing!" Ah Kaiden. The most boring Captain Obvious that ever lived. Never change Kaiden. Never change.

"I take it that's the Geth dreadnought you mentioned?" He manipulated his puppet to nod solemnly. It was easy to mimic emotions despite the occasional impulse, his best performance as of late was the fake sorrow he projected through Alaya about the death of "her" merc group. In reality, they were expendable. All for the salvation of the galaxy and whatnot. "Damn."

A pulse rifle shot whizzed by Shepard's head, forcing them all to dive for cover. A shitstorm of pulsefire rained onto their position making sure they wouldn't be going anywhere. "Alaya! Chief! You have any 'nades?!"

"Only one!" He observed the battle not only from his puppet's eyes, but also through the optics of the entrenched Geth.

The Geth were really dug in and laying down an amount of suppressive fire that'd make the Germans on D-Day green with envy. He sent a command to lighten up the fire. The Geth were confused, but complied. He's honestly a little impressed at the fortifications they've managed to set up with only troopers at their disposal. Not that he expected anything less mind you, but it's still impressive to see just how much more efficient they are compared to humans.

A violent explosion ripped through the Geth ranks, annihilating several platforms. Good. It didn't take long for his puppet and Shepard's shore party to wipe out the husks attempting to swarm them and the remaining Geth platforms. Husks. An unfortunate necessity to show the galaxy the sinister nature of the Reaper threat.

"Shepard, I've got three thermal signatures in that shed over there."

"Could be survivors." He mused. "Let's check it out."

Turns out to be the same three from the game, which is mildly concerning. It just simply doesn't add up for things to be so similar. One was a game, the other is real and happening right the fuck now, he had expected some grand differences, but it's mostly the same. Regardless, he made sure to have Alaya hang back. No need to get involved with the Commander's questioning.

Unfortunately, Ashley decided to approach his puppet, contempt written across her features. "Where'd a merc like you get ahold of thermal imaging gear?"

He quirked one of Alaya's brows. Why was Ashley being so hostile? Was it the whole mercenary thing? The fact his puppet actually accomplished killing a large amount of Geth unlike her and her deceased unit must be grating on Ashley's deeply ingrained, almost genetic, patriotism.

A shrug. "You can buy anything in the terminus if you got the money."

Ashley sneered. "I'm certain you enjoy all of the blood money you earn, merc."

He directed another confused look at Ashley. Seriously, what the fuck was her problem? He dedicated more processing power to the issue than he probably should have, but it paid off when something clicked in his mind. He had been sticking to the game's representation of her with her interactions with Shepard, and not what her personality logically should be. A simple mistake, and an easy fix. All it took was a simple recalculation and a slight change to his predictive algorithms. Now that it's been fixed, time to go back to playing mercenary. "You got some sort of problem with me?"

"I got a problem with people who abandon the rest of humanity to go kill for money!"

Ah, perhaps he wasn't very far off after all. Ashley is still a diehard for the Alliance. "Spoken like a true supremacist."

"Patriot!" Ashley hissed. "There's a difference you bitch!"

Okay. Well it looks like Ashley is going to be an issue. Not that it'll matter in the end. "If you say so."

Ashley bristled at Alaya's nonchalant response. "Listen here you-!"

"Is there a problem here?" They both turned to Shepard, who was looking between the both of them with a raised brow. Kaiden was actually giving Ashley a dirty look, which looked oddly out of character on his usually passive face, but it seemed to convey the reprimand he probably wished he could give to Ashley for trying to start something.

"No, of course not." He beat Ashley to the punch, earning him a glare. "Find anything?"

"A small-time smuggling ring, and a new pistol." Shepard waved a red Stinger.

"Neat." Stingers are good pistols, it's actually what he has on Alaya's hip. The Geth captured loads of the things during their raids on the Terminus pirates. He gestured towards the tram station with Alaya's rifle. "Shall we?"

Shepard nodded, and led the way. He moved his puppet to follow only for Ashley to shove past Alaya with a sneer. He directed a glare right back. What a bitch. She's going to be a constant issue isn't she?

He'd straightened and followed at the rear of the group. They moved at a relatively quick pace, a sort of quick walk if you will, scanning the walls and roofs with their rifles until they came across a corpse. Nihilus's corpse. Of course, he had to make sure nobody knew that he knew. Something that wasn't really all that difficult, all it took was dedicating some of his processing power to mimicking the phonetics perfectly.

"That's some serious gear on that Turian."

"His name was Nihilus."

He directed a faux curious look over towards Shepard. "Friend of yours?"

A slight grunt. "I've worked with him."

A curious brow rose behind the helmet. What in the world was Shepard talking-ohhhhh… that's a much more clever twisting of "yeah he's on the same mission as us" than he'd been expecting from Shepard. It makes sense. There's no way he'd realistically give away classified details of his mission like he does in the game. Not that it particularly mattered as he already knew everything he could ever want to know, and if he didn't already know something then his network would eventually get him the information he desired. "Well, I find it awfully convenient for this Turian to be here… maybe he was some black ops operative trying to sabotage the colony? Maybe Turian Blackwatch judging from the quality of his gear?"

"Damn Turians!" Ashley cursed, much to Shepard's dismay. The N7 shook his head trying to convey they were wrong about Nihilus.

"I don't think-" All four of them whipped around when a loud clang rang out; snapping their guns up at a pile of crates.

"Wait! Don't shoot!" A grimy dockworker rose from behind the crates. "I'm human! Like you!"

Everyone relaxed slightly and Shepard started to question the man. It went as he had expected; revealing Saren's involvement and the relation between the two Turians. Perfect.

"Wait, Saren?" Alaya's voice spoke up at his command, conveying false shock. "The council Spectre?"

Everyone gave Alaya concerned looks. "What? I worked for him on a job in the Terminus. Creepy fucker."

Not technically true, but it has hints of truth to it. Saren works for him, he's had Saren assist in his schemes in the Terminus systems, and "Alaya" has been employed by Saren as muscle during those times. Regardless, the conversation with Powell continued without his input; eventually ending with the squad walking off towards the tram that would bring them towards the main spaceport facility. There were Geth in between the tram and them, but it was fairly easy to dispatch them. It was only when the tram reached the main body of the spaceport did things start to heat up.

Husks swarmed the tram and he knew this was the perfect time to show what his puppet was truly capable of. Mostly because he planned it, but that's not important right now.

Alaya, at his direction, rushed forward, bowling over several husks with a violent shoulder check. He immediately directed her to hip-fire a barrage of rounds into the mass of bodies, mid burst he let go of the assault rifle with her left hand and used it to unfurl her shotgun and blow the head off of a husk as the foul creature tried to claw at her leg. He once again directed Alaya forward, wielding the shotgun like a pistol and slinging the assault rifle in favor of an actual pistol. A Geth Shocktrooper, likely the commander of the husks, rushed him and he blew its chest open with a rapid-fire burst of high explosive shots from Alaya's pistol. Finally, a stomp burst the head of the last husk like a melon.

Just like that, the exit of the tram was cleared in ten seconds flat.

He turned back to look at the three squad mates. Shepard looked mildly impressed, Kaidens jaw hung, and Ashley was stuck somewhere between a hateful glare and openly gaping. "Well? Don't just stand there!"

Shepard shook his head and moved to the very large bomb at the bottom of the stairs to begin disarming it. The N7 commando kneeled infront of the bomb, pried it's front cover off, and started rooting around inside of the white casing. He looked on in a sort of morbid wonder at how casually Shepard had shoved his hands inside of a live bomb.

"Aaaaand there!" Shepard ripped a chunk of wires out from the inside, instantly shutting down the bomb. Blue eyes regarded the device in his hand with almost casual curiosity and immediately tossed it over his shoulder with a shocking level of casualness. He stared at the man with wide eyed shock. It made some level of sense, he supposed. Shepard is special forces, and in game managed to defuse a nuclear bomb in under ten seconds. So this level of ease in disabling a bomb shouldn't be too surprising, and yet here he stood, stunned. "Something wrong?"

He realized that he'd been staring very obviously at Shepard. "Uh no! Just never seen someone so casual about defusing bombs."

A shrug worked its way through the N7's shoulders. "Bomb was set up in a perfect textbook design. Practiced on them almost daily back in the N program."

Huh. Well, how 'bout that? Guess he knew where the Geth obtained the design. Still, now that they're here, there's no real need for him to focus on fighting to the beacon. He can switch Alaya to "autopilot" and take over again when they've gotten to the beacon.

"Optimus, I want a status update on the upgrades to my body."

The upgrades you requested were incredibly advanced and in depth. While our shipyards are the best in the galaxy, we will require another year at a minimum.

As displeasing as the information is, it's not unexpected. Much of the technology he's developed has no precedent in the galaxy outside of Geth plasma technology. Obviously "his" designs are superior to Geth ones, but that's not important. What is important is that because of the lack of precedent, the manufacturing methods are… unrefined to say the least. "I see. Have you finished development on the warp drives?"

Affirmative, the ultra compact antimatter annihilation reactor design has proven beyond sufficient to power it a hundred times over. The ten you asked us to install in your new form will provide more power than you should ever need.

"Good. One cannot be too careful."

They would also emit enough destructive force to annihilate a star in its entirety if you are ever destroyed and the reactors are pierced.

"All the better to take those who could kill me with me should they succeed."

Affirmative.

He did his best to hold back his amusement. Even after almost twenty years, Optimus has changed fairly little; remaining mostly bland and stoic, but he occasionally has some dry humor to share. "How are your efforts in the southern continent of Rannoch fairing?"

shaky. Creators settled there are still suspicious.

"Were you expecting anything else?"

I thought they might want to mix things up, perhaps try fighting a second time.

He didn't bother with hiding his amusement this time. "And what did the rest of the Consensus think?"

We expected suspicion, but also that the creators might turn suicidal. They have not yet done so.

"Then you're doing something right. Just make sure they don't try and bring the galaxy down upon you."

We have taken appropriate measures to block communication with the outside galaxy.

"Triple those measures. Never underestimate those who wish to break out of a cage. Even if there really isn't one." He warned.

Acknowledged.

He cut the connection and "refocused" back on the fight. Shepard had just disabled the last bomb while he, Ashley, and Kaiden fended of a small swarm of husks with a couple of Geth troopers taking potshots at their little fireteam from behind a few crates. The last husk fell to a blast from Alaya's shotgun, letting him and Shepard push the now pinned Geth troopers. Shepard pushed the right side of the crates while he directed Alaya around the left. Rounding the corner, he came face to face with the Geth Trooper who was in the middle of turning his pulse rifle onto Alaya. The trooper never stood a chance. A blast from Alaya's shotgun blew the troopers' head from its shoulders in a spray of white, milky coolant, and It's friend met much the same fate a moment later.

"Clear!" He called through Alaya.

"Anderson! The beacon's been secured. Get the Normandy-" Shepard walked off with two fingers pressed to the side of his helmet, clearly trying to coordinate with the Normandy for a pick up. He glanced over at Kaiden and Ashley. While they were looking at the beacon curiously, they were keeping their distance for now. Good. He didn't have the patience to deal with them if they had approached it like a bunch of curious monkeys encountering something new.

He turned his puppets head back to Shepard, and noticed something on one of the platforms behind him.

"Alaya?"

Something compelled him to ignore Shepard and move towards what had caught his eye. Stopping in front of it, he stared down with hollow eyes at the corpse of a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties, but it's what was clutched in her arms that held his full focus. It was the lifeless body of a little girl, no older than five. He slowly knelt down and gently picked the clearly homemade card from the girl's limp fingers. Its front page read: "Happy birthday daddy!", and flicking it open revealed a childish drawing of the family with "Best dad in the galaxy!" crudely written with what looked like crayon.

He thought back to the husks he deemed necessary. Was one of them this girl's father?

Slowly, he directed Alayas' free hand to close their wide, terrified eyes; bringing the two some semblance of peace in death.

He did this, because of him this family has been murdered. Maybe not directly, but his subordinates who acted under his orders did. Did they deserve to be sacrificed for the sake of the galaxy?

No. They probably didn't, but he's spent eighteen years working towards stopping the cycle and he can't afford to back out now that he's seen the consequences of his plan.

"There's nothing you could've done." His puppets' red eyes flickered to the right and took in the sight of Shepard mournfully staring down at the dead woman and child. "Nobody could've predicted a Geth attack here."

Oh Shepard, you poor fool. If only he knew that the architect of the very attack he claimed no one could've predicted stood before him, masquerading as one of his own.

"Yes, well I-" His eyes widened as Ashley took a step towards the beacon. "Shepard!"

The N7 commando whirled around just in time to see Ashley be picked up by the beacon, and in the blink of an eye broke into a dead sprint. In only three seconds he cleared the distance between him and Ashley, and managed to rip her from the beacon's grasp. In doing so, Shepard was himself hoisted in the air by some unseen force projected from the beacon.

Likely because of the modifications to her body, his puppet was able to actually perceive the slight streams of greenish energy flowing into Shepard's head. As soon as it began, it ended and the beacon exploded, sending Shepard flying backwards.

Some things are just meant to happen it seems. It's for his benefit though. He doubted Ashley, Kaiden, or even his own puppet would be able to garner the same following as a celebrity like Commander Shepard. Well, utilizing every resource at his disposal might allow him to make something like Shepards' cult of personality with Alaya, but Shepard is already established as a celebrity and too much scrutiny at Alaya's background would be trouble.

"You idiot's!" He called through Alaya and ran over to Shepards' fallen form. "What the hell were you doing?!"

Kaiden ignored him and immediately put two fingers on the side of his helmet. "Captain, we need immediate Medevac! Shepard is down! I repeat Shepard is down!"

"Ashley! What the fuck were you doing?!"

"I-I was just…" She stuttered, clearly taken aback at the whole situation. "I was just moving to secure the beacon for transport!"

He of course knew this, and also knew it wasn't Ashley's fault, but well… appearances were important. Also, he really doesn't like Ashley. "Then what the fuck was that?!"

"I don't know!" It was then that the Normandy flew in, loading ramp lowering to reveal Anderson and a fireteam of marines.

"Fuck!" He bent down and lifted Shepard in a fireman's carry. The Normandy moved forward just enough for him to step aboard with little effort along with Kaiden and Ashley. A few more long strides took him into the very familiar hangar of the Normandy, and he immediately spotted the stretcher accompanied by Chakwas. As soon as he put Shepard down a marine shoved his puppet away, and shoved the barrel of an assault rifle in his face.

"Hands in the air!"

Pigeon blood red eyes were directed to give the marine an uncomprehending stare.

"Now mother fucker!"

He complied, armored arms raising high in the air as the Normandy's loading ramp closed and the ship presumably took off into space. Alaya's arms were then violently wrenched behind her back by a second marine, and the asshole went to cuff his puppet. "Stand down!"

Anderson's deep baritone startled not only the two marines, but also him. He turned to the Captain and waited for what he had to say.


The two marines looked at him, looking hopelessly confused, and he could decipher the look that the mercenary woman was giving him from behind her skull faced helmet. "I said stand down marines! Lieutenant Alenko vouched for her."

The woman, Alaya if he recalled, snapped her head over to stare at the biotic lieutenant and the two marines who were about to cuff her hesitantly backed off. He stepped up to her and stuck out a hand, drawing her attention back to him. "Lieutenant Alenko spoke favorably of you and your contribution to our mission. As the captain of this ship, I would like to thank you for your help."

She hesitated for a moment, but eventually grabbed his hand and gave a firm shake. "It was nothing, sir."

He gave an appreciative nod at her humility and clasped his hands behind his back. "However, you must understand that this ship and its specifications are classified, and that I must temporarily take you into custody."

"I understand."

A single brow rose at the easy acceptance, but he nonetheless moved on. "Good. With that out of the way, I'd like to get a proper introduction from you, and to see the face of the woman who assisted my crew."

She seemed to lock up for the tiniest of seconds before relaxing and raising her hands to her helmet. A small hiss signaled the breaking of the seal, and the helmet came free; letting chin length white hair spill out. The present crew let out a small gasp at the sheer beauty of the woman before them. Snow white hair framed pigeon blood eyes and soft facial features on porcelain skin. Her pleasing to the ear voice, no longer being filtered through a helmet, only caused her physical beauty to be enhanced. "My name is Alaya Igelstella. It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain."

A.N./So erm, I'm actually really shit at writing fights, specifically gunfights. I hope you'll forgive me for skirting around them in order to finish the chapter faster.

SCIENCE BEGINS

So, back on chapter one. A reviewer left a, in my opinion, poorly thought out and ill-informed review criticizing my technological choices; saying, in essence, my MC was crapping out super advanced tech that would be ineffective against Mass Effect technology.

Now, not to be an ass, which I am in my opinion, but I think literally everything he said was wrong. Which I went into detail about in a PM.

Blah blah blah. In short, I explained how a few things he said violated the laws of thermodynamics and how everything I plan on adding is theoretically possible in the real world.

Or is close enough to possible that I don't really care.

Plasma weapons aren't real you say? Well, I believe it was back in 2014, but essentially a dude made a "proof of concept" plasma gun. Granted, the plasma dispersed after about a foot-ish and would've done little more than surface damage to a human body, but it still worked.

Antimatter annihilation reactors are exactly what they sound like. Reactors that use the scientific principle of antimatter annihilation to produce energy.

The "warp drive" FTL I mentioned in this chapter is based on the IRL Alcubierre drive, somewhere down the line I MIGHT add something a bit more fanciful like a wormhole drive. Sorry guest reviewer, but the "Epstein drive" and "antimatter drives" you mentioned aren't FTL, just very advanced thrusters. At least, that's my understanding of them based on what I read.

Anyway, back in 1994, a Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre outlined a design for a warp drive that could theoretically allow something to travel faster than light without breaking any physical laws. The idea involves generating a bubble of negative energy around an object, so that the fabric of spacetime ahead of the object contracts and the space behind it expands. In the center is a "flat" region of spacetime where the object can travel in comfort, where any occupants wouldn't even feel like they're moving.

However, there's currently no known way to make negative energy, or a power source strong enough to generate a field of it, leaving the idea in a sort of limbo.

That changed in 2014 when astrophysicist Erik Lentz proposed a way to create one of these "warp bubbles" from positive energy sources, using conventional energy sources, without violating any of Einstein's equations, and without requiring any negative energy densities. The biggest hurdle is still energy, despite it actually being a credible number now that "negative energy" is no longer necessary, as it would require the same power output as THIRTY modern day nuclear fission reactors to make the drive viable. There are methods to address the output of our current reactors being researched that would drop the number of reactors needed to power the device down to one or two reactors, but that's likely still a few years off.

Regardless, what this means is that I'll possibly see FTL travel in my lifetime.

Fascinating stuff. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find an EXACT number, but it's estimated that the drive would allow us to travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri in about five months, which is SIGNIFICANTLY longer than a Mass Effect drive from the ME universe which would only require eight hours by my calculations. Probably wrong, but I'm not certain.

However, that's all theoretical, so I'm banking on its status as not currently real to write it as better than ME drives which have been refined for over several thousand years. Who knows how much the Alcubierre (or would it be the Lentz now?) design can be refined in the real world? Will it one day allow us to go from Earth to Alpha Centauri in the blink of an eye? I think the possibility exists, but only time will tell.

SCIENCE ENDS

Something interesting: I found an old, busted up notebook that seventeen-year-old me used to write a bunch of ideas down. Reading those original ideas, it was fairly obvious they were written by an idiot who didn't have the slightest clue on how to write, but it brought a pleasant wave of nostalgia. So, I sat there on my office floor reading through this old ass notebook reminiscing about simpler times.

It was nice.

Anyway, not sure when chapter five will come out, probably not for a while. Starting to struggle as I get into the events of the games instead of just shit I make up, and some shit is going down irl. Having a blast writing Till All Are One tho.

Anyway, the next story I update after this chapter comes out will be Till All Are One chapter three, and after that it should be A Rose in a Land of Guns chapter three.

After that? No idea. Will cross that bridge when I get there. Will probably go radio silent for a bit as I jump between my various projects.

Peace muh dudes!