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.
My thanks to HTM for sorting through my spelling and grammar.
The Faroe Islands - Earth
2113.06.21
Christine 'Chris' Swinson reflected that if this were a move, given the disaster she had escaped, her transport would currently be buffeted by terrible winds and lashing rain while heading towards a wall of spray as huge waves crashed onto slick black rocks.
Instead the sun was shining brightly, glistening off the azure sea as her transport made the final approach to the airstrip of the Faroe Islands, the beautiful grey and green archipelago thrusting out of the North Atlantic.
The cliff sides were blackened by the water, and the bright green grass swayed gently in the wind. The surprisingly calm sea gently beat the mountainous countryside, as a statue of a horse on its hind legs made out of wires welcomed the country's visitors.
Chris noticed none of this as her armoured land rover disappeared into the side of the mountain and the emergency command base it hid. Built by the Kingdom of Denmark in case of nuclear war, the Alliance had appropriated and updated it. The gamble was that any invading enemies would go for major Alliance cities and populations centers, thus ignoring such a strategically important base.
Chris left the guards outside the meeting room and shut the doors. Only then did she allow a shuddering breath to escape her. She grabbed a mug from the stash and knocked the whole lot over with a resounding crash as her hands shook so badly.
The door opened and the Chancellor of the Treasury, Jusaf Bakrie, rushed in. "Are you alright?"
"IF 'TWASN'T FOR IRISSA I WIADE TAKN A SGIAN DUBHS TO MA HEART! DO YA THINK I'M FUCKING ALRIGHT YA DAFT CUNT!?"
Jusaf wordlessly took the mug from Christine's shanking hands, not understanding half of the Scot's words that the normally composed Foreign Secretary had used, and made tea as she gathered herself.
He handed it to her. "Thank Allah for the emergency protocols at least. It was very nearly a full decapitation strike."
"And we thought that Rajendra was being too paranoid when he designed them," Chris deadpanned, her hands steadying as she was fortified with tea.
"What was it he said? 'A nation lives or dies by its emergency protocols. If the situation is serious enough to enact them, then it will be to chaotic, with too many powerbrokers missing, for anything made up on the fly to work.'" Jusaf shook his head in horror. "Well he was right about that."
All of the Cabinet had smiled and indulged Rajendra Tharoor as he designed the protocols, decreeing that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister should be together as little as possible, and that the four great secretaries of state, Prime, Chancellor, Foreign and Home, should never, under any circumstances, all be together in one place.
When he had added that the Governor General must not, under any circumstances be in the same solar system as more than one of the great secretaries, and then only if the remainder were all in three different systems – his 'triple lock' – several of the Cabinet had outright laughed. Only behind his back of course.
Jusaf and Christine were willing to bet that they were not laughing now.
"How did it come to this?" Jusaf wondered aloud. "How did we end up with the three of you standing in the open when Anita had just been assassinated?"
"We were arrogant," Chris muttered darkly. "Anita was taken out with poison, on foreign territory, in the outer reaches of the Alliance. Yes, we were in the open. But we were on Earth, in our capital city, with every vantage point secured by the Swiss Guard. Rajendra thought that made us invulnerable."
She stammered for a moment. "I thought that made us invulnerable too."
"Everyone did, Chris," Jusaf patted her shoulder reassuringly. "The others will be here via hologram soon. Shall we address the War Cabinet first, Prime Minister? There seems little point given how a third of it is dead, we might as well go straight to addressing the full Cabinet."
Christine Swinson stood stunned for a moment as that sunk in, but the emergency protocols were clear.
If a situation was serious enough to call for their activation, then it was too serious to engage in the orgy of bloodletting that was a political party's leadership contest, however shortened and informal it was made, before a response could be mounted.
There were many different leadership styles, but none of them reacted well to having the leader removed without warning.
Rajendra had led the conservatives by promoting Jusaf Bakrie and Jack Harper above all of the others. It allowed him to divide and rule the party as their supporters focused on manoeuvring their chosen candidate into position before plotting against him. All he had to do was ensure that Jusaf and Jack remained relatively evenly matched and he had free reign.
Now he was gone, and the conservatives were split into two evenly matched factions. Asking them to pick one of them as a new leader in a matter of hours wasn't going to work.
Oesman Odang had led the socialists by ensuring all the leadership positions were filled with his loyalists, keeping anyone with leadership ambitions of their own well away from power, even if their ideas were regularly co-opted into party policy. With him gone, there was no clear successor to the leadership of the socialists, and it would likely take days, maybe weeks, for those that had the skill to emerge from the political wilderness they had been banished to and build enough support.
Christine did at least concede in her head that her liberals were no better. Her control over them was tenuous as she had appointed the most skilled and knowledgeable people to her top team, no matter what. Of course, that meant that her leadership team all had leadership ambitions, had personalities that clashed badly with each other, and all had their own ideas about what direction the party should go in.
Chris used her charm and personal relationships with them to both ride the tiger she had created and to keep it pointed in a vaguely useful direction. If she had been killed as well, the leaders of the liberals would all have been pulling in different directions before her body had hit the floor. And it would take even longer than the other two parties for a leader that could get them all pulling in the same direction again to emerge.
She shuddered as she realised that the emergency protocols would then have selected Asa Lovin as the new Prime Minister. Following through the line of the coalition government's component party leaders was good for the first three, but the greens were so far behind the others. Would the Grand Assembly have accepted her when her party wasn't even strong enough to take one of the big four posts in the government? Thankfully the emergency protocols foresaw that and gave other options, but all of them were… drastic.
The incoming communications alert chimed from the head of the table. The seat usually occupied by Rajendra Tharoor.
Jusaf Bakrie nodded significantly to it before moving around to his customary position, the first seat on the right hand side.
Chris took a steadying breath before answering the call, allowing the remaining Cabinet members to appear in their customary seats via hologram.
"An interesting choice of seat, Christine," Jack Harper commented as he took a drag on his cigarette.
"The emergency protocols are clear. In the event of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister both being unable to discharge their duties, leadership of the Systems Alliance descends through the other party leaders of the Coalition Government, before passing through the leadership of the Opposition parties until someone is capable of discharging said duties."
There was no doubt our hesitation in Chris Swinson's voice, despite what she was feeling.
"Capable of discharging said duties and can command the confidence of the Grand Assembly. Can you do that, Ms. Swinson?"
The seat at the opposite end of the table was usually empty. Given the circumstances, today it was filled by Laura Brannigan, the Governor General, in their role as constitutional referee.
"I have the support of the liberals of course, and the confirmed support of half of the conservatives," Chris shot a confirmatory look at Jusaf before turning to her green counterpart. "Asa?"
"You have the support of the greens," the elegant Minister of Defence replied calmly.
"Andrew?" The Minister of Health, Andrew Crawley was the highest-ranking socialist minister left in the Cabinet, as such he was virtually assured to be the socialists's caretaker leader while they elected a new permanent one.
"You have the support of the socialists."
All eyes in the cabinet turned to Jack Harper, whose confident façade didn't waver for a moment. "I was merely pointing out the presumption, of course you have the full support of the conservatives."
The faces of several of the Cabinet showed outright disbelief, but Governor General Brannigan cut across them. "Very well. Christine Swinson, as the constitution empowers me to do, I hereby appoint you Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance. Hold and win a confidence vote in the Grand Assembly within 48 hours, or I will remove you and following the emergency protocols, install someone who can."
Prime Minister Swinson nodded as the Governor General's hologram winked out, their job done.
"Defence," Chris spoke with utter confidence as she turned towards Asa Lovin. "Order all fleets to sail out and head towards their mustering areas immediately."
"Isn't that an overreaction? These blows have been immense, but they have all been assassinations. There has been no sign of an invasion force," Sapient Rights spoke up challengingly.
"Maybe not," Christine answered, iron in her tone. "But I will not take the chance. If this attack had succeeded it would have been a near total decapitation strike, the perfect accompaniment to an invasion. I will not have our fleet's capital ships caught at anchor just because I was worried about appearing paranoid, here will be no Pearl Harbour on my watch."
Lovin nodded. "I will order all fleets to sail out immediately."
Her hologram winked out as the rest of the Cabinet adjusted to their new leadership.
"So," Transport spoke up hesitantly. "Are we any closer to understanding how Ambassador Goyle was killed? Are these attacks connected?"
Asa Lovin answered as her hologram reappeared. "Naval intelligence tracked down the source. Someone compromised a maintenance tech on Anita's cruiser. They installed what they thought was a recording device on her armour to give one of our shipbuilding companies the edge in supplying the quarian's needs. In reality, as well as a recording device, it also contained a microdrill to breach the suit it was attached to, and introduced a poison designed to cause a brain aneurysm in humans."
"So it was the Citadel," Industry spoke up in disgust.
"That's a bit of a leap," Sentient Rights shot back.
Industry snorted at their naivete. "A maintenance tech wouldn't confuse a human made device housing a microdrill for a simple recorder, it would be too large. This had to be a Citadel device disguised to look like a human one, unless the maintenance tech was fully aware that they were involved in an assassination rather than industrial espionage."
Asa replied with certainty. "No, they have been very co-operative since they found out what they were actually involved in. They even gave up their handler, who was dead by the time we got to them."
"Of course," Jusaf Bakire commented wearily. "So, we know that those who assassinated Anita had access to Citadel technology, but that's it. We have no idea who it was."
"I think we know exactly who it was. Fucking Tevos Calis," Environment spat.
"Not necessarily," Prime Minister Swinson interjected for the first time. "It might also have been Corinthus Oraka. The turians want this quarian alliance to fail out of pure spite for the outcome of the war, just as much as Tevos wants it to out of pure spite for outmanoeuvring her and getting her censured."
"Interesting trick, you move your mouth and Irissa's voice comes out," Jack Harper spoke with a lack of respect that lowered the temperature of the room by several degrees.
"The source of the suggestion is irrelevant, what matters is if it stands up under rigorous analysis. And it does," Chris spoke back calmly, using facts against Culture's innuendo and taking detailed mental notes of the other cabinet ministers's reactions.
"Of course, my apologies. But I take it this will mean we are not taking retaliatory assassinations?"
"Not until we know which of them was responsible. We cannot afford to target the wrong one, or both, and unify our enemies more than they already are," Christine confirmed.
She noted the eye flick between Industry and Culture. It seemed Jack Harper had his first recruit to what was undoubtedly going to be a play for the Prime Minister's office.
"Do we think the attack at Vancouver is linked? Was Anita assassinated to get Rajendra, Oesman and Christine into the right place?" Andrew Crawley tentatively asked.
"Unlikely," Sentient Rights dismissed the question. "The assassins wouldn't have expected their ploy to fail. The only reason we uncovered the Citadel plot is because we have a body to examine. If we were embroiled in a shooting war with the quarians we would never have known of their involvement and all of us would be under wartime security protocols. No, the chances of the two being linked are far too remote."
Sentient Rights paused for a moment to adequately express her contempt for Culture. "This was the result of Culture's toxic propaganda campaign against the alien races to justify the increased taxes required to fund our military reforms. I warned Rajendra this would happen. And now it has."
Jack simply smiled at the contempt being sent his way. "The campaign was necessary, and we all agreed to it, so let's not start pointing fingers now."
A stony silence settled over the cabinet room until Defence returned. "What are we going to do about Wachtmeister Mader?" she asked calmly.
"Normally the Home Secretary would oversee their interrogation but…" Asa didn't complete the sentence. There was no need.
"I've run several companies's internal security departments," Jack spoke up calmly. "Until the Prime Minister can find a new home secretary, I'm the best choice to oversee the interrogation."
"I'm sure," Sentient Rights deadpanned.
"It's also a matter of efficiency, if we are to get ahead of this and avoid mass panic…"
Several ministers snorted.
"…any more mass panic, and the total short-term meltdown of the economy, our media response needs to be efficient and accurate," Industry spoke up in support of Culture.
"Jack holds the media brief. He has the contacts with the networks to get them all singing from the hymn sheet we want them to. Let's not play politics," Environment added their voice in support as well, causing Asa to look very hard at her fellow green party minister.
Chris Swinson pursed her lips in disgust. Industry made excellent points, there really was no reason not to give Jack Harper the responsibility, unless it was how deeply she distrusted and hated him. But she wasn't Rajendra, she didn't have the support to throw him out of the cabinet right now, and so her only option was to keep him focused on other issues and not on taking her job.
And to hope that if she gave him enough rope, he would hang himself.
"I expect results, Culture." The clear, confident tones carried over Sentient Rights's protests. "If not, I would suggest you consider your position."
Jack Harper simply smiled, calmly. "I would never fail to protect humanity from anyone who would threaten it. I'll get the information we need."
His hologram winked out, followed by the rest of the Cabinet.
Prime Minister Swinson was left sitting with her Chancellor, with the nagging feeling that she had made a terrible mistake.
The Citadel – The Serpent Nebula
2113.06.21
Councillor Tolan waited in his secure communications chamber for the comms to connect. The STG constantly monitored it and kept it clean of any Citadel intelligence network, there were benefits to being the Citadel's spymasters after all.
Dalatrass Solus, Tsarina of the Salarian Union, shimmered into view as the comms finally matched encryption routines.
"Apologies, Dalatrass. Used best asset available in Vasir, but operation still only resulted in partial success."
"Majority success Tolan," Dalatrass Solus replied. "Save false modesty for inner cabinet. Prefer you provide accurate analysis."
The male salarian breathed deeply before replying. "STG disruption of human-quarian alliance total failure. Admiral Gazu failed to act as personality profile indicated. Mitigated by fact humans are looking in wrong direction. Majority of humans blaming asari, asari have convinced minority to blame turians. Union remains above suspicion."
"As we should," Dalatrass Solus replied decisively, a hint of a smile on her lips. "Lack of assets in human and quarian society may be hampering efforts. But all inner cabinet should resign in disgrace if cannot deflect blame from failed operations."
Tolan grinned as well. Deflecting blame onto your enemies was something salarians learned when they were still wet from the egg.
"Use of Vasir to eliminate human leaders only partially successful. Primary civil war objective failed, but secondary objective of increased suspicion towards turians and asari succeeded. Will draw closer to us as result, as secondary objective intended. Will also hamper investigation into failed Goyle operation."
"Christine Swinson's survival, problematic. Weaker than Tharoor, but still competent. Human government paralysed externally, stopping any future projects until STG can find and counter them, but internal authority maintained. No chaos to drive quarians away. No civil war factions to co-opt and support."
"Contingency plan in motion to address quarian matter," the salarian Tsarina replied. "Continue to work to support humans against turians and asari. Must draw them as close as possible to us. Humans must not consider anyone other than Union for assistance when quarian issue dealt with. Must also find way to neutralise Alliance emergency protocols if plan to make them volus-like client state to succeed, current ones have proved too capable of preventing civil war."
Councillor Tolan nodded. "Will do so. Long time since race so accomplished in shadow arts has had strength to challenge us. Enjoying game immensely."
"Agreed, has been to long since Union seriously had to try, good work out for STG. Setbacks humans have inflicted have gone long way to addressing increasing institutional arrogance, will make victory even sweeter."
Dalatrass Solus wavered out of existence as Councillor Tolan left and sealed the sanctuary, returning to the bustle of the Citadel.
Unknown Location – Earth
2113.06.22
Jack Harper wasn't angry. He had passed that point some time ago. He had passed furious and apocalyptic too and was currently battling the urge to strangle a certain member of the Swiss Guard with his bare hands.
Not one iota of this appeared on his face.
As soon as the assassin had been reported as a Cerberus operative, Jack had been tearing apart his organisation trying to find where the orders had come from and who thought it was a good idea to protest alien interference in human affairs by assassinating human leaders, rather than the damn alien leaders that had been at the same bloody funeral!
As he stared across the interrogation table at Alois Mader, the bitterness of his agents of human protection being misused so badly filled his mouth.
Mader had been the weak link. He had been too vocal, too obvious, his cell had already had to petition for substantial Cerberus resources to be committed to keeping him in the Swiss Guard because of it. It seemed someone else had noticed too.
They had also noticed his carelessness.
Jack reflected that if only there were some way to control all of his agents and assets directly, everything would be so much simpler for him. As it was, the cell structure of Cerberus prevented his direct oversight, and human incompetence always found a way to assert itself.
Mader had given away the identity of his cell leader due to his laziness with his comms encryption protocols, and from there it had been laughably easy for the Citadel agent.
Jack was in no doubt that it was a Citadel agent, unlike the rest of the Cabinet. Of course, he couldn't exactly tell the Cabinet that as they would ask how he was so certain, and the answer 'well I am the leader of the human centric terrorist organisation and it wasn't me', while amusing, wasn't going to solve the problem.
Jack didn't know how it was done, and quite frankly, he didn't care. Whether it was blackmail, using Citadel tech to infect the cell leader's computer with incriminating sex crimes, financial crimes, evidence linking to a murder, whether it had been bribery, or whether it had just been good old-fashioned torture, the result had been the same.
The Citadel agent had got Mader's cell leader to give the order to eliminate the rooftop patrol he was assigned to, and await the arrival of the asset, the arrival of them. Then they had eliminated her.
Jack kept all of these thoughts behind a mask of indifference before leaning forward.
"Vengeance, butter, igneous, pencil, seawater," the leader of Cerberus rattled off the codewords for Mader's cell and took vicious pleasure from watching the blood drain from the former Swiss Guard's face.
"Sir! I didn't realise-"
"Shut up." Jack's voice was light and unconcerned, the opposite to how he was feeling. He could explain everything to the pathetic specimen of humanity before him, but quite frankly he couldn't be bothered. He would tell Mader what he needed to hear to get the information he needed. Jack wasn't willing to spend any more energy than necessary on this walking fuckup, even if telling him exactly how he had done more damage to Cerberus than any Alliance or national intelligence agency since its founding would have given him a lot of pleasure.
"You have no idea the amount of resources I have had to expend to get you put into a containment area where my agents can delete recordings and keep this conversation private. All because you were taken alive."
Mader gulped.
"I was supposed to remain behind and take the blame, sir."
"Yes, to draw the response teams to you, allowing the asset to escape. But you were not to be taken alive."
The anger finally leaked through into Jack's voice, causing the former guardsmen to cower.
"Sir, I-"
"Silence. You will tell my interrogators everything about the asset. Every single detail you remember. Then they will ensure you suffer an accident, as you were so thoughtless to have been captured. Everyone talks eventually and I won't have you spilling Cerberus secrets to interrogators I don't control."
"I thought… the asset?" Mader's voice quivered with confusion.
Jack decided to let Mader know at least a little of the consequences of his actions.
"This operation was planned by your cell leader, on my orders of course, but Sarah handled everything herself, including recruitment. Your laziness with your comms encryption ensured Alliance intelligence got to her before I could warn her. She went down fighting, like a true defender of humanity."
From the look of crushing defeat on his face Jack surmised Mader had had a crush on his cell leader, at least there was an explanation for why he was contacting her so much.
"The asset is very useful, but you're the only one who has seen her now. Give me the information so Sarah's best recruitment work isn't lost, then try and die with a tenth of the dignity she did."
Jack walked out, confident that he would soon have the information he needed, and the leak would be plugged.
Swinson would no doubt scream bloody murder at the death of the perpetrator in custody, bloody liberal that she was, but Jack was prepared to sacrifice enough of Cerberus's lower level cells to placate the rest of the Cabinet.
Chris could scream all she wanted, but he would appear successful enough that she wouldn't be able to remove him. And one day, he would have enough power to remove her instead.
The Faroe Islands – Earth
2113.06.26
Christine Swinson, Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance, groaned as the emergency comms tone tore her out of sleep. After 4 days of firefighting, winning a confidence vote in the Grand Assembly, and finally having her first walkabout since the attack in Vancouver 5 days previously, she had been forced to rest by the surgeon general.
"What is it?" she growled out, effortlessly implying that it had better be good.
"The junior home office minister is outside Prime Minister."
"Outside the Bunker?"
"Outside your bedroom."
Chris pulled on a dressing gown before opening her bedroom door and motioning the junior minister inside. Circumstances might have forced her to allow Jack Harper to oversee the investigation into the Vancouver attack, but she was dammed if she was going to let him get his grubby little hands on the federal police and federal courts.
As such she'd given the job of home secretary temporarily to the most senior of the 3 junior home office ministers while she searched for the cabinet minister level replacement.
"This had better be very good, Marta."
The Polish minister stood her ground despite Chris's harsh tone.
"The human-quarian Alliance is about to implode."
Silence filled the bedroom for several heartbeats.
"Explain. Now," Prime Minister Swinson barked out.
"The declaration of principles states that the Systems Alliance will not engage in diplomacy with any government actively engaged in a campaign of genocide," the temporary home secretary stated calmly.
"I'm well aware, I helped write them. Get to the point."
"Are the geth alive?" the question stopped Christine in her tracks. She could already see where this line of questioning was going.
"Jesus Christ, tell me someone isn't-"
"A lawsuit will be filed in Vancouver tomorrow stating that the geth meet the threshold that the test criteria and laws governing our AI research require for sapience. As such they are alive. Given that, and the fact that the Migrant Fleet is openly stating that their end goal is not just to take back their homeworld, but also to carry out the Quarian Federation's command that started this whole shit show off – namely to permanently deactivate all geth – the migrant fleet is engaged in a campaign of genocide."
"As such it is the duty of the government to annul all treaties with the Migrant Fleet and expel any vessel registered with them from Alliance space. Fuck." Chris followed the lawsuit to its intended outcome. The declaration of principles for the Alliance's foreign policy was short to avoid exactly this sort of problem. But it seems that the universe wasn't feeling co-operative.
"Kill it," the Prime Minister stated as she headed to the bathroom to get dressed and do damage control with the Migrant Fleet.
"How? It's a legal challenge and the hearing date is set-"
"I don't care!" The exhaustion of the last few days finally overcame Chris's control.
"Check who's bringing the suit and bribe them! Blackmail them! Intimidate them! Stack the court with anti-AI judges, stack it with pro-quarian judges, stack it with people we have dirt on, just KILL the damn thing!"
"That's not the fair and equal access to justice we are supposed to be upholding!" Marta called out as Chris shut the door.
It was promptly wrenched open again. "No, it isn't. It's international diplomacy. We only have two allies in this god forsaken galaxy, the quarians and the salarians, and I won't see that list of two cut in half when it's the only thing keeping batarian dreadnoughts from darkening our skies! It's illegal, it's against the declaration of principles, against the belief in equal access to justice, and it's certainly morally wrong. But it's what needs to happen for our survival. So, make it happen."
"So, what was the point of the declaration of principles? Or pretending we believe in equality?" Marta muttered, disillusioned.
Chris took pity on her for a moment. "Because although it's necessary, it should never be legal. If it were, it would mean that we had given up on equality and on our principles entirely, and governments would be far too quick to use it to solve every problem, rather than reserving it for only problems that threaten our survival as a free species. We have to try and make reality match our principles, our hopes, every day. But sometimes, leaders need to put aside their principles and hopes and do distasteful things to ensure the survival of the human race. It's illegal because that should never be an easy decision to make, and because if it comes to light once the crisis has passed, our children should know that they should condemn us for it, even if it is the only reason they are alive. Otherwise society will never improve."
The junior home office minister nodded. Clearly still disillusioned but placated as well.
"I'll work on stacking the court instead of going after the organisers. That way at least everyone will still have faith that they can actually bring lawsuits against the government that we don't like."
Chris cracked a rueful smile. "Given the number of lawsuits with mine and the cabinet's names on file this week, I don't think anyone is in danger of losing faith in that."
Codex Entry: The Government of the Systems Alliance – The Supreme Court
(Citadel Codex, First Human SPECTRE Collector's Edition, 2183)
The Supreme Court of the Systems Alliance consists of 15 judges, however only 9 of them will sit in judgement at any one time. The judging panel is randomly selected from the 15 minus any judges that have recused themselves because of conflicts of interest.
This was implemented to try and ensure that a single death or resignation could not change the political leaning of the Supreme Court overnight.
The members of the Supreme Court are drawn from all levels of the judiciary.
3 are magistrates, 3 are district court judges, 3 are county court judges, 3 are planetary court judges, and 3 are cluster court judges.
They are appointed in the same way as the Gyaan Sabah, though in the case of the citizens assembly stage all members must be members of the judiciary.
Codex Entry: The Government of the Systems Alliance – The Emergency Protocols
(Citadel Codex, First Human SPECTRE Collector's Edition, 2183)
The Emergency Protocols dictate who governs the Systems Alliance in the even that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are dead or incapable of fulfilling their duties.
The triple lock system is designed to ensure that at least one level one member should survive any decapitation attack, making the more extreme elements of the emergency protocols redundant.
It dictates that the Prime and Deputy Prime Ministers should be together as little as possible and that the 4 great secretaries of state (Prime, Chancellor, Foreign and Home), should never, under ANY circumstances, all be together in one place. In addition, the Governor General must not, under ANY circumstances be in the same solar system as more than one of the great secretaries, and then only if the other three are all in three different systems.
The Constitutional Order of Successon is as follows.
1.) The Prime Minister
2.) The Deputy Prime Minister
A successful confidence vote in the Grand Assembly must be held within 48 hours of any of the following ascending to the position of Prime Minister, provided that more than 60% of the Grand Assembly survived the attack and is present for the voting. If this criteria cannot be met due to more than 40% of the Grand Assembly being killed, then the permission of the Governor General replaces the confidence vote.
3.) The other party leaders of the coalition government, descending in size order
4.) Any surviving great secretary of state not covered by entry 3
5.) The leaders of the opposition parties, descending in size order
6.) Any surviving minister of the war cabinet
7.) Any surviving cabinet minister
8.) Any surviving minister of the shadow war cabinet
9.) Any surviving shadow cabinet minister
If none of these candidates survived or could win a confidence vote, then provided more than 60% of the Grand Assembly survived the attack and is present for the voting, any sitting MP can attempt to win a confidence vote within 96 hours of the attack. The Governor General will exercise executive power while this voting takes place.
Should the Grand Assembly still be unable to select a new Prime Minister, it is deemed to have failed in its duty to the Systems Alliance and is disbanded.
10.) Any Sitting MP that can win a confidence vote of the General Assembly.
If none of those listed in stages 1-9 survived and more than 40% of the Grand Assembly was killed in the attack, or stage 10 has failed and the Grand Assembly has been dissolved, then the Governor General will rule the Systems Alliance as both head of government and as head of state, with the assembled cluster government First Ministers acting as a council to replace parliament and prevent dictatorial rule. This situation may not exceed 2 years. Regardless of the situation, a full General Election MUST be held before the expiration of that time to ensure a return to democratic rule.
11.) The Governor General
If the Governor General has also been killed, then the cluster government First Ministers will elect one of their number to the position of Governor General and they will rule as if they had been appointed normally, subject to the maximum 2 year emergency rule period.
12.) Any surviving cluster government First Minister.
It is the statement of the Systems Alliance constitution; that if all of the people listed in these 12 stages are dead or unable to command the confidence of the surviving representatives, then the Systems Alliance has effectively ceased to exist. The order 'every man for himself' is given. May God help us all.
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
First Contact War: 45 years earlier than canon
Founding of the Systems Alliance (parliamentary super state version): 44 years earlier than canon
Citadel Ascension Process: 52 years longer than canon (humans become an Associate Race 7 years later than canon)