Standard disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, nor any other content that you recognise. Some characters and systems are original creations. I am receiving no money for my work.
Theta System – Centauri Veil
2112.10.08
*Don't forget the tumblr: thefourthcouncilrace dot tumblr dot com if you want more detailed visuals.
Luis Alberta kept a constant watch on the sensors as his Grande Merci class cargo hauler cruised at minimal thrust through the far reaches of the Theta system.
"You know you don't need to be glued to that display so much Luis, we are wayyyy above the plane of the ecliptic. None of the dinobirds are going to be up here." Virginia Condori was the pilot of the Caballo de Batalla, she was also the youngest, the most junior, and most flippant of its three crew.
"When it's your entire life's savings and livelihood we're flying into a system filled with hostile alien forces, then I'll relax." Luis muttered back, his eyes never leaving the sensor display.
"If you're that worried then why'd you take the job Captain?" Ariana Campero, the engineer – and third member of their crew – asked over the comm from her position in the cargo controller station.
"Because I'm a patriot. Just because I'm not a navy brat doesn't mean I'm not willing to do my part for the Alliance."
"That and the fact that Commodore Hansa offered us quadruple our usual fee for this, plus the same again as a bonus if we bring back all three targets." Virginia chipped in helpfully.
"And that yes." Luis groused as Ariana's peels of laughter reverberated around the bridge.
The Grande Merci cargo hauler was an Italian design from the great trading city of Genoa. A mostly flat rectangle with minimal space, they were barely able to support their three crew and had almost no cargo space in their main hull. Where they truly came into their own was as an update of the modern ocean-going container ship.
While freighters had extensive internal cargo bays, the Grande Merci instead had on either side of its rectangular hull, attachment points for four containers with a half hexagon profile, two to each side. When the ship docked these were simply removed and replaced with others, allowing the loading and unloading of the cargo hauler to take minuets instead of the hours it took to unload a freighter.
This had of course left the design with a massive unused space, namely the width of the ship between the containers. But the ship couldn't be made any larger without massively increasing the crew compliment which was counter to the whole point of the design. So, the enterprising Italian company had modified their original container design, sacrificing a little cargo space to allow them to mount 2 tractor beams on the front wall and 2 on the inside facing wall of each container.
This allowed any cargo that didn't mind being exposed to vacuum to be tractored into the space above the ship's hull but between the containers and be held in place in open vacuum throughout the journey. This had doubled the Grande Merci class's cargo hauling capacity for no increase in size or crew compliment and had promptly led to the Grade Merci quickly becoming the standard large cargo ship to sail the shipping lanes of the Alliance.
It was this feature that had led Commodore Hansa to try and employ some of the owners of these vessels present in the Centauri Veil cluster. Without an official declaration of war, she couldn't legally conscript them, so she had done the next best thing. She had offered obscene amounts of money until one of them cracked, and in this case it had been Luis Alberta. Barely breaking even, his dream of being an independent trader in danger, Captain Alberta had decided to gamble by accepting Commodore Hansa's offer and taking SV Caballo de Batalla into enemy occupied territory.
If they survived and completed the Commodore's mission, he would have enough money to fully repair his current ship and even buy another one if he could get a good price. It was either this or quite literally watch his dream fall apart around him, before being driven back groundside when Caballo de Batalla's systems failed for the final time. He had vowed never to be trapped by a planets gravity again and he intended to keep that vow.
SV Caballo de Batalla had dropped out of FTL at the very edge of the system four days ago and proceeded deeper into the Theta system at minimal sublight power since then. Now, they were finally coming up on their first target.
"Anything Captain?" Virginia had become more professional as they reached the designated area.
"Nothing yet, this is going to be tricky. The Commodore's figures were based on the trajectory and speed of the destroyed fighter before the navy retreated. Even if it is as intact as they suspect, it will be cold and difficult to spot against the background radiation." Luis peered intently at the sensor readouts, for the first time actually hoping to find an enemy ship. "I still don't get why they want these fighters anyway, even if they're right and they're only minimally damaged, they're still not going to give us much information. They're just too small, any damage will have covered a large percentage of their systems."
Ariana piped up from below. "They don't want them, what they want are the missiles that they're carrying. We've never been able to miniaturise a mass effect engine enough to fit it into a torpedo that can be carried by a strike craft. But these aliens not only managed that, they went even further, they made these tiny missiles that they fire in huge numbers to saturate a ships GARDIAN arrays rather than actually do any damage." The engineer was practically vibrating from excitement
"We could have just stuck a different warhead on the torpedo, a bomb pumped X ray laser, a nuke, fuck, even an anti-matter warhead. Rather than being wedded to this disruptor warhead nonsense." Luis muttered absently from frustration.
"It wouldn't matter." Virginia jumped in, eager to distract herself from the boredom of sneaking around. "It's not the warhead that's the problem, it's the drive, the speed of the whole dam torpedo. When we're at sublight our mass effect core might not be generating a full FTL bubble anymore, but it is still lowering our mass so that the engines can push us faster in real space than they have any right too given our unaltered power to mass ratio. Without mass effect sublight engines it takes about 1 ½ years to get from Earth to Jupiter, if you want to just do a flyby. If you want to be going slow enough to enter orbit when you get there? Then it takes just over 5 years."
"Five YEARS?" Luis was startled enough to actually stop looking at the sensors for a moment. It was a blessing as when he looked back the small anomaly that had appeared was obvious. "Possible contact, it's either the fighter or a small asteroid. Take us close Virginia – nice and slow – this thing still has its momentum from the battle but nothing else, we have all the time in the world to get it right."
"You've got it skipper."
"Military ships could do the Earth to Jupiter run faster of course, but your still talking years of travel time without mass effect sublight drives." Ariana commented again.
As he was neither a pilot nor an engineer, Luis Alberta had never needed to know more than the basics of how his ship functioned. Certainly not how it compared to obsolete rocket ship technology. His job was to find profitable cargo contracts, it was only now he was appreciating what an advanced ship his darling was, compared to the pre-mass effect cargo ships that that had originally sailed the shipping lanes, keeping the outposts throughout Sol system supplied in those early days.
"Suddenly the weeks it takes us at sublight seems a lot more reasonable, and I promise never to complain about the wear of an in system FTL jump on the engines again." Luis muttered, still in shock.
"I'll hold you to that Captain." Ariana laughed. "But it shows you the problem. It doesn't matter what warhead we put on strike craft torpedoes, even a dreadnought can outrun them easily because we can't make a mass effect engine small enough for them. These guys can, and once we tear their missiles apart and learn how to do it ourselves? Well, the bastards are going to learn what happens when you send dreadnought squadrons against carrier groups. Engaging tractor beam, hold it there Gina."
Virginia grinned as she kept the SV Caballo de Batalla motionless relative to the damaged alien fighter. "Yeh, they are. And we are going to be the ones that made it possible."
There was a deep thunk as the fighter and its precious missiles settled into position against the hull, secured for transport.
"Alien craft secure captain." Ariana's voice was flush with victory.
"Good work, both of you." Luis felt a little tension ease now they had the first fighter aboard. Ideally, they would get the other two candidates as well but at least now they had something, even if the other two possibilities given by Commodore Hansa turned out to be a bust.
"Virginia, take us towards the second search area, slow and steady. Just because we're well off the plane of the ecliptic doesn't mean the enemy won't be watching, let's not push our luck."
Virginia Condori nodded and set to work changing their speed and velocity while using as little engine power as possible. She couldn't hide the ships thermal emissions, but she could make them as small as possible. Making the huge cargo hauler appear to be just another one of the small courier boats or drones that Commodore Hansa had buzzing around the entire outer system, monitoring the enemy forces.
Though no one, or at least no human, had yet come up with a stealth ship that could eliminate its heat emissions entirely, there were many different ways to hide. Slowly SV Caballo de Batalla changed course and crept towards its next target.
Qinghai – Shanxi
2112.10.09
Lieutenant General Jack Williams enjoyed the artificial sunlight as he entered the central cavern of the civilian shelter network.
With only three connections to the military network – all heavily defended – the civilian shelter system was a different beast entirely from its military counterpart. Each archology had an emergency evacuation lift and staircase column at its centre, one that lead to a bunker 2 miles beneath the surface that was capable of housing 125% of the archology's population.
Granted, it wasn't in luxurious conditions. Even the paranoia caused by the Prothean extinction message had its limits and the shelter network was extremely expensive, so it was kept as basic as it possibly could be while still fulfilling its function.
The result was no matter what sort of apartment they'd had in the archology above, here in the shelter people slept 6 to a room, with barely enough space to walk between the two sets of triple bunk beds. The showers and bathrooms were large and communal, the food hall looked like a prison canteen, and the recreation centres were sparse. But the shelter was completely self-contained, like an entombed starship, and it was deep enough to be immune to all bombardment, up to and including the most powerful nuclear and kinetic strikes.
Powered by nuclear fission to allow for years of power generation without massive He3 tanks, the bunkers sole limiting factor was food. With normal rations the food stores of MREs, preserved foods, and its very limited hydroponics bays could support its population for 2 years.
The bunkers beneath each archology each linked to two others, and the central cavern. Carved out of the land underneath the city's central square, the central cavern was a replica of the land above, a holonet across the ceiling projected a normal sunny day, the sun lamps actually providing the light from behind the illusion keeping the edible plants that made up the park alive. Water ran through the parks rivers and lakes as part of the storage system before being recycled.
This central cavern was the most expensive part of the network, but dozens of psychological studies had deemed necessary to allow the sheltering civilians some sense of normality, so that they didn't go insane for however long they had to take shelter from a surface that was under siege, occupation, bombardment or glassing.
"Impressive, isn't it?"
General Williams didn't visually jump, but he must be more tired than he thought if a civilian was able to sneak up on him. "Very, Dr Banks. Thank God for the development of the mining laser, without the huge increase to our excavation speed and the massive cost decrease they provide, all of this would have taken decades instead of years. Of course, it would never have been built in the first place as it would have been insanely expensive to excavate with pre-mass effect methods"
Doctor Louise Banks, the best linguist on Shanxi nodded. "Your military defences wouldn't even be half finished, not that they would have gotten funding either, let alone the civilian network. But you didn't ask to see me here to talk about mining. How can I help you General?"
"The aliens. We need to speak with them."
Dr Banks's forehead creased as she sighed in frustration. "I realise that General, but we can't go any faster than we are already. It takes time, we have to teach them to read and speak our language with no reference to their own apart from what they wish to share with a pencil and paper, as your security officers won't let them near any technology."
"For good reason Dr, but that aside, I need you to work faster, how hard can it be to teach them?"
Dr Banks took a moment to compose herself from the anger that clearly threatened to escape, before taking out a datapad and writing 'What is are your goals here?' on it before showing it to the General. "Seems simple enough right? God only knows the intelligence agents seem to think so."
Bitterness and frustration filled her voice, but General Williams didn't get a chance to respond as the Dr entered a full-on rant now she had a captive audience. "In fact, it's incredibly complex. Relying on dozens of assumptions and rules that we learnt as very young children and have never questioned since, and that's before we even consider the hurdle of them being taught and comprehending the words that make up the question. So, first, we need to make sure that they understand what a question is. The nature of a request for information, along with a response."
General Williams didn't even make an attempt to hide his scepticism.
"They're aliens General, don't make assumptions that anything about them is the same as us until its proven." Dr Banks obviously had no problem calling out anything that she deemed to be a problem, and the worst part was she was right. He resolved to keep that piece of advice foremost in his mind. It was true for more than language.
Dr Banks continued briskly, oblivious to his thoughts. "Then, we need to clarify the difference between a specific "you"...and a collective "you", because we don't want to know why 'Joe Alien' is here, we want to know why they all came here. Purpose requires an understanding of intent, so we need to find out: do they make conscious choices? Or is their motivation so instinctive that they don't understand a "why" question at all. Then most importantly of all, when we have finally overcome all of these challenges, we need to have a big enough vocabulary with them that we actually understand their answer."
The energy drained out of Louise Banks and she just looked exhausted. Jack Williams could understand why, explaining that over and over again to military and intelligence officers who were screaming for results, without listening to the challenges the linguistics team was facing had to be exhausting.
"So, we're talking, weeks minimum for even the most basic questions?" Jack asked, wanting to be as clear as possible.
Dr Banks nodded, seeming relieved. "Maybe the aliens could do more if they had a translation software specifically designed to do this, but we can't make one that even translates our own human languages accurately. The chances of us doing so for something that didn't even originate in a human brain are virtually zero for the foreseeable future, our only option is to do this the old-fashioned way."
"The aliens aren't eating." The Doctor looked up at the Generals blunt statement.
"The prisoners will drink water, but they're refusing all food and they are fading fast. We tried force feeding three of them and they had some form of allergic reaction, thankfully they survived. We don't know what's wrong and we can't find out." General Williams looked imploringly at the linguist, hoping for a solution.
"We will never learn to communicate with them in time if their ability to survive without food is even vaguely similar to humans. I'm sorry General, but we can't provide you with a solution to that. It's just not possible to learn the language that quickly." Louise was genuinely remorseful, but she wouldn't make promises she couldn't keep.
"I suppose letting them starve is out of the question?" General Williams was only half joking.
"I have no idea what's acceptable to them General, but the Geneva Convention covers all Alliance warfare, no matter who your opponent is." The Doctor's voice had hardened
"I know, I know." The exhaustion returned to General William's voice as he turned to return to the military network. Taking one last look at the artificial sun. "Just work as fast as you can Doctor."
Dr Banks returned to work with increased urgency. They needed to be able to speak with the aliens. Soon.
Qinghai Outskirts – Shanxi
2112.10.10
General Sparatus glared at the tactical update from Admiral Arterius. The Admiral had stated, again, that he could not hunt down the small ships obviously entering and exiting FTL at the edge of the system. To do so would be to expose the supply convoys to attack, as it would spread his escorts out too thinly, so she was going to have to suffer the knowledge that the 'engineers', as she had taken to calling them, were getting full updates on the position and number of turian ships, and probably updates from their ground forces as well.
'Engineers'. Such a simple term, but it hid the reality of her opponents. At every stage they had used construction and engineering to enhance their abilities, cover their weaknesses, and to counter everything she had done. With their creations the engineers had done what the galaxy considered impossible for all but the Krogan, they had fought a turian Leigon to a standstill in a fair fight. When it had orbital supremacy to boot.
The General sighed, grateful that there were at least no major problems in space. The engineer's station colonies were still docile, under threat of having their life support destroyed for a second and final time, and the supply convoys were unmolested due to the heavy escort allowed by having nearly 500 turian warships in a single system.
Supplies.
The General stared hard at the numbers on her reports, willing them to change, but they did not. There were massive stockpiles for her legion in Third Patrol Fleet's depots, but they would only cover her needs for approximately 4 weeks of combat operations. They were supposed to provide a cushion as new supplies would normally be dispatched from the closest logistics nexus once Palaven Command was informed her Legion was conducting combat operations, but she hadn't called for any. As such the logistics bunkers were emptying fast, and once they were dry in 4 weeks' time? Her troops wouldn't have the ability to move at all, let alone go into combat. And the closest new supplies would be weeks away.
The curses of the technicians working on half melted vehicles and the screams of the injured from the medical tents came through the door as one of the communications officers entered and saluted.
"Yes Lieutenant?" General Sparatus tried to focus on the officer in front of her, not the raging orange inferno in her memory. The screams of her troops as they burned alive and the smell of cooking flesh as they were driven back from the engineer's wall of death were things she didn't think she would ever be able to forget.
"There's activity from the wall General." The young officer stammered nervously as the General practically flew across the room towards him, fear and rage in equal measure on her face.
"What activity?"
"The engineers have sent out three vehicles, they are all flying prominent white flags and making no effort to hide. They're being led at a walking place by an engineer who is holding a tree branch in front of them, their direction of travel is directly towards us."
General Sparatus got herself back under control as she considered the situation. "Ready my command APC, the duty rapid response force, and my sub generals. I'm going to go and see what surprises the engineers are setting up for us now."
Hackenburg Sector – Shanxi
2112.10.10
Brigadier General Kai Jodl felt like an absolute fool walking away from Qinghai's maginot line with three APCs following him in first gear. The feeling was not helped by the olive branch he was holding while he walked in the direction of the enemy camp.
"We're nearly outside friendly artillery range General, not much further to go." The driver of the lead APC kept him updated, the white flag fluttering from the improvised pole on its roof.
"Good, lets hope they see something unusual in this little group even if they don't know the meaning of olive branches and flags of truce." General Jodl replied continuing his walk.
"I think anyone would find us following a person on foot at this pace directly towards them at least a little strange sir, even without all of the added extras." The Private driving the second APC put in his two pence worth to alleviate some of the tension.
"Well, I lost in drawing lots with Generals Albricci and Xiao, how did you pull this duty soldiers?" Kai asked on their team's private channel, looking to pass the time as he walked.
"We're all single and not only children sir." The reply was blunt and to the point. "Major Petrovsky wanted to limit the damage to morale if this all goes tits up, which he thinks it will."
"Great." Kai muttered to himself, finally stopping as his datapad pinged. Letting him know he had reached the identified location, 200m beyond the maximum range of friendly artillery. "Alright Private, get the pavilion set up and then have your APCs pull back 100 meters as stated in the briefing."
General Jodl stared in the direction of the dinobirds base as the drivers and gunners from the APCs set up a flat topped, circular, canvas pavilion. After dumping a wide table and two chairs in the centre of it they retreated to their APCs and reversed 100m from him, as agreed.
Kai gratefully took the chair closest to Qinghai and waited. He knew that both he and the APCs were completely exposed to the dinobirds out here, what he didn't know is what the dinobirds would do now.
Codex Entry: Humans – Alliance Colonial Guard Garrisons
(Citadel Codex, First Human SPECTRE Collector's Edition, 2183)
The Alliance policy is that the defences of each dome must be completed before colonists are allowed to move in, similarly when colonising a garden world, a city will form the nexus for each region of the planet colonised. Its defences must be completed before it is allowed to exceed 1 million inhabitants. The Alliance assigns garrisons to a world based on its class and its population size.
After the First Contact War (Relay 314 Incident) These garrisons are made up of colonial guard soldiers rather than army soldiers.
Station Colony 20,000: The garrison force for these colonies are Platoons (256 soldiers). A Lieutenant is the CO
Station Colony 20,000-100,000: The garrison force for these colonies are Companies (1,024 soldiers). A Captain is the CO
Station Colony 100,000-200,000: The garrison force for these colonies are Cohorts (3,072 soldiers). A Major is the CO
Station Colony 200,000: The garrison force for these colonies are Battalions (6,144 soldiers). A Lieutenant Colonel is the CO
Arcturus Station: Arcturus is garrisoned by a Regiment (18,432 soldiers). A Colonel is the CO
Dome Colony 1 Million: The garrison force for these colonies are Brigades (55,296 soldiers). A Brigadier General is the CO
Dome Colony 1-4+ Million: The garrison force for these colonies are Divisions (165,888 soldiers). A Lieutenant General is the CO. Each additional domed city gets a brigade garrison until it passes the 1 million mark, where its garrison is upgrade to a division.
Shirt Sleeve Colony 4 Million: The garrison force for these colonies are Divisions (165,888 soldiers). A Lieutenant General is the CO
Shirt Sleeve Colony 4 Million – 80 Million: The garrison force for these colonies are Corps (497,664 soldiers). A Captain General is the CO
Shirt Sleeve Colony 80 Million: The garrison force for these colonies are 1 Corps for each city of 40 million in habitants. They are attached to an army, which will have as many corps as is required to garrison a system properly. A General is the CO
Cluster: All of the garrisons present in a cluster are ultimately assigned to an army group which has as many component armies and detached corps as is required to garrison the cluster properly. A Field Marshal is the CO
Codex Entry: Humans – Systems Alliance Colonial Guard Order of Battle
(Citadel Codex, First Human SPECTRE Collector's Edition, 2183)
Post-First Contact War (Relay 314 Incident) this order of battle is used solely by the former Alliance Army, now known as the Alliance Colonial Guard. For the post-reform Alliance Army, which was created from scratch due to the lessons of the FCW proving the colonial guard was completely unsuited to offensive operations, please see chapter 23 codex entry.
The colonial guard uses a quad increase (to cohort level and then a tri increase after that) between unit levels to organise its soldiers. The colonial guard is also structured so that approximately 1/3rd (Post FCW 2/3rds) is made up of reserve troops that are only activated and called to duty in wartime. It does this by making a battalion the exception to the rule.
Pre FCW in peacetime a battalion was made up of only 2 cohorts, not 3. The third cohort was made up of reserve troops and only reported for duty in wartime. Post FCW the cohort reserve system ratios were reversed, keeping only 1 cohort active and having 2 made up of reserve soldiers who only report for duty in wartime.
Fireteam: The smallest unit of the colonial guard consisting of 4 soldiers.
Squad: Consisting of 4 fireteams, these units contain 16 soldiers.
Section: Consisting of 4 squads, these units contain 64 combat soldiers.
Platoon: Consisting of 4 sections, these units contain 256 combat soldiers.
Company: Consisting of 4 platoons, these units contain 1,024 combat soldiers.
Cohort: This is the unit level where the unit level increase drops from quad (x4) to tri (x3). Consisting of 3 companies, these units contain 3,072 combat soldiers.
Battalion: This is the unit level where the colonial guard incorporate their reserve forces. Consisting of 1 cohort in peacetime, these units have 2 additional cohorts assigned on paper from the reserves, when they are called up in wartime and fighting at full strength these units contain 9,216 combat soldiers.
Before the FCW this system was reversed, having 2 cohorts on active duty and only 1 in reserve.
Regiment: Consisting of 3 battalions, these units contain 9,216 combat soldiers in peacetime and 27,648 in wartime. (Pre FCW figures 18,432 peacetime)
Brigade: Consisting of 3 regiments, these units contain 27,648 combat soldiers in peacetime and 82,944 in wartime. (Pre FCW figures 55,296 peacetime)
Division: Consisting of 3 brigades, these units contain 82,944 combat soldiers in peacetime and 248,832 in wartime. Divisions consist of x2 infantry brigades and x1 armoured brigade. (Pre FCW figures 165,888 peacetime)
Corps: Consisting of 3 divisions, these units contain 248,842 combat soldiers in peacetime and 746,496 in wartime. (Pre FCW figures 497,644 peacetime)
Army: A colonial guard army does not have a fixed number of corps. Rather it has removed the upper corps limit and attached the number of formations that a system's population requires to garrison it properly.
In the First Contact War, an army consisted of 3 – 5 corps. 3 was the standard except the command army for an army group, which contained 5 corps as standard. With a standard 3 corps makeup these units contained 1,492,992 combat soldiers in peacetime and 2,239,488 in wartime.
Army Group: A colonial guard army group does not have a fixed number of armies. Rather it has removed the upper corps limit and attached the number of armies that a clusters' population requires to garrison it properly.
In the First Contact war, army groups were intended to form the Alliance's offensive ground power across entire fronts during wartime. Consisting of a minimum of a 5 corps command army and a 3 corps standard army, these units contained as a minimum 3,981,312 combat soldiers in peacetime and 5,971,968 in wartime.
Author's Note
The explanation of how/why to teach an alien race to speak your language is from the film Arrival, as is the character. It was such an amazing explanation I just had to use it.
Timeline Changes So Far
First colony on mars: 27 years earlier than canon
Discovery of Prothean ruins: 64 years earlier than canon
Founding of the Systems Alliance (council of nations version): 63 years earlier than canon
The First Contact War: 45 years earlier than canon