I really want to get to the mass effect part of this now, and stop using this weird almost codex story type...
Inside her luxurious office that had been remade from Ryan's old one in Hephaestus (Even though she had plans for a better and more secure one) Eleanor was going over paperwork. Even though she knew she had to delegate a lot of things to other people she knew she still had to do her part if she wanted to keep her position of power.
She had made it so that each city had a mayor who governed that individual city, and a governor who would govern a region and order around the mayors in that region. A mayor was democratically voted into office from a city's population, but governors of a particular region are chosen by the Imperial council. The council is in charge of recruiting governors, keeping an eye on political situations, doing many of the government things that weren't important enough for Eleanor's attention but important enough that governors couldn't handle it, and advising Eleanor on matters of state. Each member of the council was handpicked by Eleanor herself, all members having proven themselves to her and gained her trust.
Eleanor herself did the job of mayor and governor of Rapture itself, so she knew she at would always directly control the real powerhouse. Which is why she couldn't delegate the annoyance of her paperwork to someone else.
She also oversaw personally some branches of government like R&D, the military, and she was the one to make laws and update them.
After signing off on a few requests for state funded construction, Eleanor was interrupted by a buzz on the intercom. Pressing the button, Eleanor spoke.
"Yes Eli? You know I don't like to be interrupted on paperwork day." Scratching her head, she glanced at the still very intimidating pile of paperwork.
"Sorry my Lady, but there is an urgent call from General Orville, he says it is very important." Sighing, Eleanor pushed away the pile with a bit of guilty relief.
"Transfer the call then." Her personal phone then let out a beep and she picked it up, leaning back in her chair.
"What is it then?" A cough sounded and the general, a skilled man she had chosen for his tactical skill and loyalty, responded.
"Your Majesty, a Report from the southern expedition has come in, they say that their scouts have spotted what looks to be border patrols with soldiers in uniform. Though they say the uniforms seem strange and similar to roman armor, it still worried them enough that they wanted confirmation before making contact." Eleanor leaned forward, biting her lip as she thought.
"Tell them to continue observation until they can confirm it is not just a strangely behaving tribe, then to go in with the level three contact package. If they are anything like the Romans, we'll need to be careful. While I do not doubt our superiority, that is a fair bit away from shore and reinforcements would be troublesome to send." The general gave an affirmative and, after gaining permission, cut the link. Eleanor reclined back in her chair, then nervously glanced back at the foreboding pile.
"I've lost my momentum, yes, my momentum. Perfectly reasonable reason to take a break." Getting up, Eleanor tried to go towards the door but it swung open, revealing her secretary glaring at her, a somehow responsible glint shining from her glasses.
Dejectedly going back to her desk, Eleanor grabbed a paper requesting permission for a new fish ranch plot close to Rapture...
Being Empress sucks sometimes.
"Form up people! We need to appear strong, if we start an incident it could be weeks before reinforcements arrive!" The Expedition's scouts saluted and organized themselves into a parade formation.
Everyone had their weapons at the ready, yet lowered. they approached slowly towards the newest patrol of soldiers. The sergeant leading the group was wearing the most recent addition to rapture armor, the T-41b power armor. It had a dark grey finish and of course looked brand new, with a single yellow gear painted on the chest plate with an intricate R in te center to symbolize it was Rapturian armor (First symbol I could come up with...)
Sergeant Daniels gave a wave towards the patrol which managed to spot him and his squad. In an almost knee-jerk reaction the patrol raised their various weapons towards Daniels' squad. The soldiers immediately responded but did not fire. The patrol moved closer and the man who looked to be in charge started barking out demands in strangely rough sounding English, with a weird accent.
"What are you doing on the Legion's borders? Answer now or be destroyed!" Daniels removed his helmet to show his face, in his power armor he towered over the patrol's leader but he didn't flinch.
"We are an expedition sent by the Rapturian Empire, after a few days worth of observation of various patrol groups it has been decided by my general that you are not simple tribals but a nation, based on the wide nature of your patrols and common uniforms. I and my squad have been assigned to make contact with you and hopefully have peace and if possible, trade of resources." The patrol leader seemed shocked, but walked over to a quiet man in the back of the patrol group and started a quiet whispered conversation in a familiar yet alien language. Eventually the quiet man nodded and brought out a short-wave radio, after a few words and nods the man, much less imposing than the others around him yet he gave of a more dangerous aura, approached.
"Caesar has been notified of your... greetings, and he grants you permission to be led to our closest city, our capitol flagstaff." The Sergeant narrowed his eyes and nodded.
"I will have to let the general know, but yes, we will follow you" Daniels placed his helmet back on and used the integrated long-range radio to give the General an update, using various "Comm relays" they had set up along the way to reach all the way back to Rapture.
After having led the scouting party few miles the Legion soldiers showed the true contents of Caesar's orders as the scouts were led right to an ambush and were killed to the last man. Caesar had decided to abandon the idea of occupying the Mohave after his devastating second defeat at Hoover dam and the nuclear damage to many of his major supply lines, and now was pulling many of his legion soldiers back to Flagstaff. At the notification of one of his patrol along the eastern borders meeting an expedition from a new nation, even though he did not know anything about them than that they must have ties to the brotherhood of steel, he decided to immediately make war so his legion could survive.
A common enemy perceived to be weak is a welcome sight for a nation of pillagers.
After the scouts had not come back the main expedition force, having perceived that their hourly reports were not coming in and decided that the legion had killed them, immediately start a retreat back to the closest Empire settlement. Which unfortunately is just a small water and supply depot. Reinforcements are sent for at the sighting of bands of legion troops far in the distance and, now watered and fed, the expedition makes haste back into deeper Empire territory.
Reports of the suspected attack and bands of legion troops gets all the way up to Eleanor, and as she only ever needed the slightest excuse to grab territory, the empress immediately declares war on the Legion and sends a powerful force of army reinforcements to the retreating expedition... including a large big sister team of six for maximum damage.
"I don't want to be killed by a bunch of savages private, kill them!" Lead scientist Eric was annoying the entire military unit as he attempted to order around the troops.
Private Larson noticed a legionary throwing a grenade so he tackled the scientist, his job was on the line.
"Get down!" He screamed in pain as the searing heat and shrapnel shredded the back of his combat armor, scaring his back and boiling away his skin.
Quickly grabbing a dose of Med-x and a few stimpaks and throwing them at the astonished scientist, he then spun around and fired his laser rifle at the approaching legionaries.
"Eric! Apply those to my back, before I drop dead, hurry!" Scrambling over himself Eric carefully inserted the med-x first to the exposed and boiled flesh, then inserted the stimpaks to the worst areas. Flesh started squirming as it healed itself, almost enough to be called regeneration, Rapturian stimpaks were the best!
Making sure not to expose his back to the enemy again, Larson gritted his teeth as he shook off the rest of the pain, and then threw his only plasma grenade, having "found" it early on in the expedition.
The explosion of superheated plasma killed at least four legionaries, who then spread themselves apart to stop more chances of that happening again, not even flinching.
"Damnit! They keep coming!" The current military leader ordered a full retreat and they loaded the rest of the scientists onto the fusion trucks, driving away at full speed while the soldiers started running away towards the ruins of a small town, hoping to use the large amounts of rubble for cover and to bunker down until reinforcements arrive.
"I knew we should have had some of those vehicles brought back here, reinforcements could have been sent much earlier" Eleanor looked to another report.
"Hm, At this rate the first ones there should be the Big Sisters, then the Synths and Mister Gutsys. with the normal units far behind. They should be able to handle it though, enough to bunker down and repel those legion troops anyway, then start advancing when the normal troops catch up." Eleanor tilted her head, then smirked as she wrote a quick note to her secretary. She undressed from her uniform (Based upon the old soviet general's uniform, but pitch black with art deco style gold trimming) and started pulling on her armor. She stretched, then made her way through Rapture and into the Ulysses.
The Empress is coming to the front line.
one day later
"The big sisters are here!" Larson perked up, suddenly he clasped his ears as the signature screeching wrent it's way through the air, and six blurs passed by him towards the legionaries in cover, the legion soldiers had managed to make the retreating soldiers be backed into a police station, and Larson didn't doubt they were probably getting ready to use explosives on the building.
The sisters immediately began covering themselves in lightning, making themselves even more deadly as the first one stabbed a soldier, electricity going through her body and the blades through the soldier's body and into the ground, frying him. Scenes like this opened up the battle and Larson rallied the soldiers around him to start the counter attack.
Dozens of legion soldiers died by laser, electrocution, fire, and blades that battle, completely surprised by the ability to fling fire and lightning, even ice. The power to do that like it was easy was the specialty of the big sisters. Legionnaires could handle competent soldiers, but they couldn't handle the power of big sisters. The religion of the roman pantheon that all legion soldiers and slaves followed made them think of the big sisters like demigods as their forces were wiped out.
After the defeat of the legion border guards who had been sent after the expedition. The remains of the security escort and the reinforcements gathered together. More and more soldiers gathered and eventually even the empress arrived.
"Come on soldiers, you know I can't let you have all the fun! So, let's advance on this legion and show them why they shouldn't fuck with my people, because that means they've fucked with me, so lets go and devastate those skirt wearing assholes!" The men cheered at Eleanor's short speech. Most of them knew she wasn't exactly a speech person, but soldiers don't need fancy speeches. Eleanor herself led the newly formed invasion force. The supply line back to the east coast having been set up on their way.
The legion will pay.
codex
2281- the Empire declares war on the legion, Empress Eleanor leads the troops into Legion territory-
-the first major battle against a legion force commences, Empire loses many troops because of superior legion tactics-
-the legion makes a surprise attack on the Empire forward operations base from the north, empire moral drops as numbers rise for dead and wounded-
-The Empire Strikes Back, with a new strategy of attacking and fortifying the various small slave villages that the legion uses to funnel food and resources into flagstaff. This tactic is used for most of the war with much fewer losses than before-
-The absorbed villages slowly start to change their loyalties as they realize the Empire is strong enough to protect them without the legions slavery-
-Caesar, growing desperate, orders a massive assault force to march deep into Imperial territory, this force is harassed heavily, slowly being eradicated until when they finally make it to the capital wasteland, the force scatters as they feel they are too far away from the legion's wrath to be punished for deserting-
2282-Various mayors start to notice a rise of the legion's religion throughout the captured territories and their troops. Many troops can be heard praying to Ares and Athena (using the Greek version of the names to symbolize a change from legion to empire) before battle-
-The Empire starts recruiting former slaves from the captured territories into the army, and the Greek pantheon religion spread throughout the army like wildfire-
-Legion forces retreat into the massively fortified city of flagstaff. Empire forces jump on the chance to siege the city and stop any form of trade with the city, blocking outlying villages from troops and ammo and the city itself from food and resources-
-The final assault on Flagstaff begins, utilizing the less fortified sewers to force their way into the city. the Empire uses it's small amount of artillery to bombard the city while teams of power armored troops infiltrate the city itself-
-The great wall of Vegas project is begun, a massive circular concrete wall is planned to surround the city of New Vegas, with the lucky 38 in the center-
-The New Vegas Police Department is formed in the former NCR embassy. They are armed with compliance regulators that have been tweaked to have both a stun and lethal function, cattle prods, and they wear simple vault security uniforms without the helmets-
-Caesar is killed personally by Eleanor herself after having personally destroyed his small army of bodyguards. The city of Flagstaff is in flames but the empire has finally defeated the Legion-
-Legion farms are brought back online to feed the conquered former nation. The army deals with the last remaining loyal legion enclaves while Flagstaff is marked as a major city.
The southern expedition is reformed but without any scientists, transport trucks will be used to haul technology to flagstaff to be researched-
-The expedition requests radiation suits so to continue through a barrier of radiation blocking them from their travels-
Sorry for the wait, writing is getting harder it seems...
Sorry of you guys feel a lack of quality, I didn't want this update to be as late as the last one, so I just decided one day to churn out as much as I can and this is what came of it. For some reason it is hard for me to think of a way to start a war on the fly, I'm nice like that...
Now the only thing left of the Legion is its religion, and even then people have switched to the Greek version. If your curious the current major religions on earth, that I will tell you of, are the Greek Pantheon(Minor Religion, popular with soldiers), Islam (Major religion), Mormonism (Major cult), and Atheism(Even though that isn't a religion, but that is the status of most of Rapture's population.) There is a couple more but that would spoil a big surprise I have for you.
And there is a small smattering of random religions inside Rapture, those geniuses came from all corners of the globe remember?