IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!
Author's Note: Sorry for just re-hashing the canon first contact, I promise it won't be a stomp. Oh, some Codex first. Please be aware that these Codex entries are from the somewhat biased perspective of the Council. This also reminds me that I'll be doing first person perspectives of various characters for the duration of the story.
Warp Drive
The warp drive is an eezoless FTL drive produced by the ASB, it is heavily blackboxed and they won't share how it works. Compared to eezo FTL, it is slow and needs an utterly disproportionate amount of energy to activate. Its only saving grace, really, is that it can practically move far larger craft than eezo FTL. (unbiased: they missed that while it takes eezo FTL a while to get up to speed, a Warp Drive gets to top speed pretty much instantly after activation.) Worth noting is that warp travel also lacks the 'biochemical time dilation' that means those travelling between systems via eezo FTL need to go into stasis.
Warp Missiles
These nasty weapoms are effectively a small warp drive bolted to just enough fuel to get going a few times. They move at multiple thousands of c, and with the ABS habit of dumping FTL communicator equipped probes all over the combat zone have an effective range in the double-digit light minutes, or longer in ABS controlled systems. Kinetic Barriers are completely ineffective. On impact the front of its warp field starts by compressing the victim into its event horizon. However the more matter gets caught in the front of the Warp Field the less stable the whole thing gets until eventually the whole thing 'pops' when that happens all the matter caught in the Warp Field is released as energy. In general a warp field can collect mass equivalent to speed in c times frontal area kilograms (unaltered), meaning that a current-gen light warp missile will have a yield of roughly 4.3 teratons. (unbiased: they actually hit the nail right on the head here, except for the bit about using warp missiles to intercept incoming superluminal ordnance)
Free Electron Lasers
Given the lack of mass accelerators, and the fact that warp missiles are expensive, it makes sense that the ABS would have some other weapons system at their disposal. For this purpose, they have lasers. Free Electron Lasers work by producing a relativistic electron beam in a particle accelerator before being sent through an Undulator, which is a magnetic device commonly mistaken for a gun barrel. Ground-bound versions operate in the visual or infrared spectrum and have an output in the single-digit kilowatts. Spacecraft versions operate in the X-ray band and have an output measured in the double-digit terawatts to triple digit petawatts. Like all energy weapons the beam diffuses with distance. (unbiased: Yes, it diffuses with distance, that doesn't mean it does so particularly quickly.) Worth noting is that scaling a FEL below rifle size is hard enough to be impractical, and the standard ASB sidearm is therefore a maser pistol.
Nanocarbide Composite Armor
This highly durable armor composite is favored by the ASB. Interestingly it seems that part of the reason they like energy weapons so much is that this stuff handles kinetic impacts a lot better than it handles highly focused heat. That is primarily due to the insane tensile strength of graphene, especially after being mixed with a couple other exotic carbon allotropes and some Titanium. In general it takes multiple megatons of kinetic energy to penetrate a single meter of the stuff, with things getting exponentially more difficult to penetrate the deeper it is, but it only takes about 1 second of exposure with a 100 terawatt laser to evaporate a cubic meter of armor. Bearing in mind that ASB ships tend to have armor several hundred meters deep... (unbiased: the reason its so hard for kinetics to penetrate is that as it goes deeper it's trying to yank the armor to the side of the actual impact point towards itself, which means that it's also trying to go through the rest of the armor on that general part of the hull. Energy weapons don't have as much of a problem with this, but its still there due to graphene's insane thermal conductivity. Interestingly, this means the ship's armor is also its heat sinks and radiators.)
Terraformers
Technically a class 2 WMD except with the opposite function, Terraformers are the primary reason the ABS is as big as it is. These self-replicating machines are designed to convert even the most inhospitable of locales into Garden Worlds in under 50 years. To this end they are equipped with devices to alter atmospheric temperature, thickness, and composition, detoxify ground, and clone flora and fauna. The bit that really got the Council's attention was the reveal that each planet's Terraformers form a networked intelligence, resulting in each terraformed world having a unique personality. However, Teraformers uniformly are more mentally healthy when the world they spent so much time working on is inhabited by organics, to the degree of usually making some if left uninhabited for long enough. Notably, Terraformers are responsible for developing the ASB's warp drive, among other things.
When asked, most Terraformers view themselves as seperate from, but symbiotic with the rest of the ABS.
Plasma Guns
Making these powerful yet impractical weapons is a semi-common hobby in the ASB. They operate by causing a tiny fusion reaction, then using the energy to eject the superheated fuel pellets at several hundred Km/s. These weapons, though packing firepower equal to multiple tons of chemical explosives into a single blast, don't have enough range to be worthwhile. The reason in atmosphere is that the shot is, though fast, small and lacking enough momentum to go more than a couple dozen meters before drag brings the blast to a screeching halt. In space they lack range due to the insane temperatures of the shot making it basically explode before it goes a thousand kilometers. In addition, plasma is virtually useless against any target with kinetic barriers. The reason for that is twofold. First, the speed limit is guaranteed to slow the shot's velocity to only a fraction of what it should be, as the plasma has no way to compensate for it and is (despite popular belief) primarily a kinetic weapon. Second, the plasma wouldn't have anywhere near enough momentum to avoid being slapped to the side by the magnetic field component of the shield.
The ASB
The ASB is a power independent of the Citadel Council. Unlike the Council, all member species are allowed to participate, though currently this only includes the Humans, Grath, and the various synthetics they've created. Also unlike the council they send 1 representative per star system, rather than 1 per species. Representative terms are currently set at 5 Earth years, with a maximum of 3 terms with possibility of premature eviction from office. Currently, the ASB's capital is situated at Tau Ceti.
Worth noting is that the ASB has almost the exact opposite stance on AI and genetic engineering of the Council. This has led to them being considered a 'rogue state' to some, though the ASB has sufficient firepower to make everyone leave them alone. Despite this the ASB is trying to establish good relations with the majority of the Galaxy. They currently are on semi-good terms with most of the minor races (Geth included), with 2 exceptions, namely the Batarians and Quarians. The ASB absolutely hates the Batarian government for their practice of slavery, with the feeling being mostly mutual. The Quarians on the other hand are viewed as rather nice people who got shafted hard by the people on top. This, combined with the nature of ASB refugee laws resulted in the Quarians receiving a few industrial ships, along with the plans for the Mk. 6 warp drive. The Quarians for their part are thrilled at having the capability to not only produce custom-made spare parts, but design and build entire ships for the first time in centuries.
Relations between the ASB and the 'Big 3' differ by species.
The Asari are suffering from a suddenly deflated ego, as their idea that all other races needed to follow the same path to traverse the stars was recently shattered. In addition, there was the fact that as soon as the ASB had access to the Citadel they dredged up literally every bit of evidence for incompetence and corruption in the Council, then smeared it all over the airwaves across Citadel Space by leveraging their cyberwarfare advantage. The Asari government was hit worst, as the ASB managed to find out about the Prothean Beacon they had. This led to the Asari public becoming extremely disillusioned with their government, almost triggering a civil war.
The Turians are going into a paranoid crash program to counter the ASB's military. The reason is that at first contact the ASB was almost perfectly tailored to utterly demolish Turian forces.
The Salarians don't exactly like the ASB, but they appreciate that the presence of such a society has shaken them out of their rut. As a result of First Contact, the Salarian Union has made more paradaigm-shifting innovations in the last 30 years than in the previous 1500. This has resulted in the reputation of the Salarians shifting away from "spies" to "mad scientists".
First Contact (POV: Hostius Canion, Captain of the HWS [C#35624])
As my ship dropped out of FTL at the edge of the (make $hit up in a great hurry #1) system and I awoke from long-distance transit stasis, I noted nothing out of the ordinary at first. The system was currently abandoned as far as I could tell. I was disillusioned of that notion within minutes as I noted a previously inactive relay (Relay 314 to be precise) was active. We were still on cool-down from FTL so I ordered my cruiser group to intercept, and we made a small in-system FTL hop. A subjective day but objective 5 minutes later, we were at the Relay.
Hanging in the void near it was a craft 100 meters in length, at the time I thought it a primitive, especially as no element zero could be detected in its design. Not being quite sure how to act, I turned to my second in command, Detis. I asked him what to do, first expounding on our situation "They are in violation of Citadel Law by opening an uncharted Relay, but they can't possibly know of this rule due to this being their first contact with said Citadel Council. I am unsure of what to do."
Detis' answer of "Obviously we shoot the primitives for disobeying Citadel Law, then go pacify their homeworld."
I hated his answer immediately, so I decided to contradict him with "You are a stuck up idiot if you think shooting at people we know almost nothing about the relative strength and technology base of is a good idea. I shall instead be following proper procedure for a peaceful first contact." The package was fairly simple, starting with prime numbers. I won't go into details, but we were about halfway through the long process of sending our language over when a massive spacecraft half as long as the Citadel just... appeared. I was about to order for an immediate escape at FTL, when the large craft sent a radio transmission in passable Turian. The message read a simple "We regret to inform you that you just spent several hours talking to a navigation drone we sent to figure out the destination. As a consolation we have been listening, and are willing to speak with you. We are the Heavy Exploration Vessel Longshot 2, from the Alliance of Sapient Beings. Cultural background broadcast will begin shortly."
The broadcast began roughly as expected with them having an industrial revolution about 480 years ago, followed by multiple wars. Then they expanded off their planet, which is where my expectations started to break down. After getting into space they had 2 SEPERATE wars before developing FTL, and managed to make a hell world in their inner system into a Garden World in under 50 years. In addition, said immense feat of Terraforming was performed by an exponentially expanding, self-improving AI gestalt. And then when said AI turned out to be friendly, these people made more of them. And then there was the fact that they had missed eezo entirely, and had created a means of FTL regardless with the help of the aforementioned AI gestalts. After that was the war with the Grath, which instead of ending with genocide or one of the parties being reduced to a nuisance for the other, ended with both species as partners who even stopped referring to the others as aliens after the first 30 years.
All in all, I came to the conclusion that this 'Alliance of Sapient Beings' broke just about every rule the Council made for the safety of organic life, but managed to come out stronger for it. Before my subordinates could open fire i stopped them, saying "I know that these people break all the rules, but they haven't shot at us yet and I have no intent of giving them any reason to do so."
With that tension resolved, I returned the favor of sending the cultural heritage broadcast to the Longshot 2, but you already know the details of that particular package. Before we could depart to inform you of this turn of events, we received a reply from the Longshot 2, namely "Ow... you really didn't get lucky for neighbors or creations did you?" Before my crew could do anything rash I ordered for us to set a course to the Citadel via the fastest route, and started walking towards the stasis deck. On the way there, I took Detis aside and said to him "And THAT is why you don't shoot first when confronted with unknown vessels. If we had followed through with your [small rodent-like creature]-brained plan, we would have all been vaporized with multiple petawatts worth of X-ray laser, possibly when we destroyed that navigation probe, possibly when we went to Seraph's system and started threatening her safety, or maybe when the Longshot 2 arrived and jumped to conclusions."
Detis decided to voice his opinion once more, stating with a somber look "I knew it was a bad idea when I said it, but I brought it up to at least get you thinking about what could happen if you went ahead with enforcing Citadel Law against unknowns. That said, that was the most thoughtful about possible consequences that I've ever seen you. Why was that?"
I replied, cracking a smile in the process "Simple, my drill instructor made it quite clear to me in training that charging into a situation without intelligence is either suicide, death by stupid, an ambush by the enemy, or some mix of the three. And I have no great desire to have 'death by stupidity' carved into my memorial stone." And with that final remark the stasis tube closed around me, before unconsciousness filled the subjective years I would spend in transit to the Citadel.