The Gamechangers

by Goodpie2

ABANDONED BECAUSE TERRIBLE. The Turians are old hands at warfare- they know the rules of the game, and are the best players in the galaxy. But what happens when they run into a species that not only plays a completely different game, but breaks the rules to that one, too? M for violence and swearing.

2. First Contact

It's time for a tiny confession on my part. I haven't actually played the Mass Effect Games. I played a good portion of ME1, but never got around to finishing it (it's on my to do list, just like Dishonored, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Splintercell: Blacklist, and a few other games). My knowledge of the ME universe comes entirely from the dozens of Alternate First Contact fics I've read. I don't usually read them once they start the games, because I've read all that before, and it just gets so repetitive. The First Contact War is different every time. Sometimes humanity has allies, sometimes we don't, sometimes we're already a galactic force, other times we're just getting off of our little rock. It always varies, but the one constant is that we don't take shit from anybody. That's something that, in my opinion, the games got horribly wrong. The Systems Alliance was a bunch of complete pussies. Humanity would never take the kind of shit the SA put up with. Especially not the Skyllian Blitz or Batarian slavers. "Oh no! The Batarians keep enslaving our citizens, but the Citadel says we can't do anything! Oh well!" Fuck that. We'd go to war with the Batarians until they were fucking extinct.

Sorry about that. In truth, the fact that the SA is such a bunch of pussies is a large part of why I quit playing the game, though.

Anyway. On with the story.

Oh yeah- the Codex is actually going to be in the story, so that you don't have to scroll to the bottom and find your spot again when you want to understand something. I hate having to do that.

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"Sir! The Tuning Station is activating!" called the Lieutenant James Kawalski, the sensors officer onboard the INS Fearless.

"Call the research team back. I don't want anybody near that thing until we've figured out what it is," ordered Captain (senior grade) James Flint.

The communications officer nodded and began to relay the order. As the research vessel, the IS Observant, was moving away from the Tuning Station, an arc of electricity reached out to the ship and grabbed it, then pulled it towards the artifact. A few seconds later, there was a blue flash, and the research vessel vanished.

"What the hell just happened?" Flint asked.

"According to the readings, the Observant was just accelerated beyond the speed of light. There's no telling where she is now."

"Wait!" called the communications officer. "I'm getting a message from the Observant. They're next to another Tuning Station in another solar system. They're reporting a garden world in the system. And... there are alien ships in the system."

Shit, Flint thought. "Order them to try and come back here immediately. We don't know if these aliens are hostile or not. And set up a live feed from the Observant's sensors. I want to know what's going on over there." He paused, then, "All hands to battle stations! This is NOT a drill! Repeat, this is NOT a drill!"

Flint grabbed his helmet from its stand and buckled his battle harness, then turned to Holoboard C, where the Observant's sensors data was being projected.

(Codex Updated- Skinsuits- With the creation of the Imperial Navy, decorative uniforms were replaced with functional ones-skinsuits (though dress uniforms are still used on formal occasions). Skinsuits are made of a latex-like material, and enable the survivors of a hull breach to survive in the vacuum of space for a limited period of time. They are equipped with breathing and cleaning charms, an emergency beacon, and propulsion systems so that the survivors can last for up to 36 hours in space and can attract or reach allied ships/shuttles.

Codex Updated- Battle Harnesses- A battle harness is essentially a flexisteel seatbelt designed to keep naval personnel at their battlestations during combat. It's not that complicated.)

The holoboard showed the Observant a short distance from the Tuning Station, with alien ships, the largest of which was about the size of a small battlecruiser, closing in. Before the Observant could reach the Tuning station, parts of the alien ships flared blue, showing an energy surge. An instant later, the Observant began to display the red glow of battle damage.

"Kawalski, what the hell just happened?" Flint demanded.

The sensors officer looked at the data provided by the Observant, then shook his head.

"The projectiles the enemy ship fired were too fast for the Observant's levitation shield to deflect them away, sir. They're travelling at about a .2 C. The ones from the battlecruiser analogue traveled even faster, especially the ones fired by what looks to be a spinal mounted cannon. Also, the projectiles are tiny. I don't know how effective our point defense systems would be against them, simply because they'll be too damned hard to hit."

Flint frowned beside his helmet while looking at the holoboard. The Observant still had a ways to go, and the alien ships were closing in fast. There were two battlecruiser analogues, sixteen small heavy cruiser analogues, and thirty-two frigate analogues- if he were to go to the Observant's aid, he would be heavily outnumbered. But his mission was clear- protect the research vessel at all costs. As he watched, the alien ships flared blue again, and the Observant's icon indicated even more damage.

"Well, it looks like we're going to find out. Helm, take us to the Tuning Station. Let's see if we can get it to do to us what it did to the Observant. If it works, the task force is to follow us to the other side."

The bridge crew waited tensely as the ship accelerated towards the Tuning Station. On the main holoboard, a blue light flashed from the artifact and reached out to grab the Fearless, then everything went blue.

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"Another alien ship's entered the system, captain. A dreadnought this time."

Captain Scipio Tulus of the HNV (Hierarchy Naval Vessel) Indestructible didn't even blink at the news. He'd had no doubt that this upstart race would try to fight the Patrol Fleet over this, but he had expected more than a single dreadnought. Especially since the poor barbarians didn't even have basic Mass Effect technology- the alien vessel's lack of kinetic barriers and slow acceleration made that painfully obvious.

Just as he finished this train of thought, though, the Relay flashed again.

"Sir! More alien ships are coming through! Counting, hang on, another dreadnought, two cruisers, ten smaller cruisers, and sixteen frigates."

Now that was closer to what Tulus had expected. "Fire a war..."

"Power surge det..." before the sensors officer could finish his warning, two beams of red light lashed out from some of the alien ships on the vidscreen and tore through his fleet. Alarms started blaring, and damage reports began pouring in from all over the ship and fleet alike.

"Engineering reports we've lost Engine 2! We're down to half power!"

"The Fade is reporting critical damage!"

"The Stormspike has been destroyed!"

What the hell? These primitives have energy weapons? Tulus thought to himself as the damage reports continued.

"Prepare for impact!"

Tulus tore from his thoughts to look at the vidscreen, where several colored balls of light were moving towards his fleet.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Tulus ordered, holding onto his chair as the dreadnought accelerated sharply. Throughout the fleet, ships tried to maneuver out of the way of the incoming projectiles. Many succeeded, but many others failed. He watched in horror as the orbs passed straight through the kinetic barriers and impacted his ships, the GARDIAN lasers not even recognizing them as a threat.

A new round of damage reports began.

"The Thylacine's shield emitter is down! It's lost its kinetic barrier!"

"The Zenith's FTL drive has been destroyed!"

"The Executioner is reporting critical damage!"

"The Voyager and the Slayer have been destroyed!"

When the damage was totaled, three cruisers had been destroyed, with a cruiser and a frigate suffering critical damage, and one frigate's kinetic barrier was down. All in the first salvo.

"Have the Executioner withdraw from combat. Order the Thylacine to move to the back of the fleet, and have the Brotherhood lock point defense systems with them. The frigates and CruRon (Cruiser Squadron) One and Two are to focus fire on the first dreadnought, designated Bogey One. CruRon Four is to take out the cruiser analogues, and CruRon Three is to take out the enemy frigate screen. The Brotherhood is to fire on the second dreadnought, designated Bogey Two."

The Tactical Officer punched in Scipio's commands and sent them to the fleet, and the Turians opened fire.

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"The AMACs and missile launchers are ready to go, sir." It had taken a little while to coordinate, but the next round was going to be a hell of an attack. Sixty-nine AI golemns, with the rest of the AMAC rounds being explosive in nature. Ten percent of the missiles were madness rounds. On untrained civilians, madness rounds could cause complete (albeit temporary) insanity and lack of coherent thought. Since these were likely to be at least moderately disciplined soldiers, though, the best the humans could really hope for was severe drunkenness. The remaining missiles were standard, unenchanted rounds.

"Good. Fire a round of HRs (Heavy Rounds) first, to take out any shields they have, and shoot half of the GPs (Golemn Pods) at Bogey Two, with the other half to be spread between Bogeys Five and Nineteen." Dozens of massive projectiles, designed to destroy the energy shields used by the Fortigal and Triating, were fired from the AMACs. On the holoboard, the undamaged enemy battlecruiser-analogue, a cruiser, and a frigate were given an icon of a smiley face. "Order the AIs to take the ships and to try and take the command and engineering crews prisoner. The ERs (Explosive Rounds) from the Nemisis and its accompanying ships are to aim at Bogey One." The damaged enemy battlecruiser analogue was highlighted in red. "CruRon One and DS One and Two are to fire on the remaining cruiser analogues. Everybody else can pick their targets at will, so long as they refrain from firing on Bogeys Two, Five, and Nineteen. "

"Oh," Flint grinned evilly. "After everything hits, order the Nemesis to start using its N-cannon. The Medusas are to use terror tactics on any ship hit with the N-cannon."

The tac officer grinned back to Flint. "Orders transmitted, sir. And if I may say, I look forward to seeing the N-cannon in action."

"So do I, Commander," Flint responded, just before the call of "Enemy ships firing! Initiate evasive maneuvers!" came from the sensors officer, and the ship accelerated sharply to starboard.

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"Confirmed kill, sir," called the sensors officer on the Indestructible. "We destroyed one of the small cruisers and two of the frigates, and another small cruiser and a normal one seem to be suffering critical damage. We've done moderate damage on... dammit! They're firing again! These aren't energy weapons, though. It looks like a combination of a primitive magnetic accelerator rounds and missiles."

Spirits, Tulus thought. How many different weapons do these primitives have? Tulus watched as a wave of massive projectiles and other, smaller missiles left the enemy ships, followed shortly by another, smaller wave of even larger projectiles, then a much larger wave of smaller ones.

Evasive maneuvers began and the GARDIAN systems activated, then everybody on the bridge froze as roughly a fifth of the missiles onscreen abruptly vanished. Suddenly, explosions erupted throughout the patrol fleets ships. From the inside of the ships.

"What the hell just happened, lieutenant? Tulus demanded of his sensors officer. "I'm not sure, sir. Apparently, the aliens have a way of teleporting their missiles directly onto the ships."

"Don't be ridiculous," Tulus demanded.

"I'm serious, sir. The missiles vanished, and an instant later, there were explosions onboard the ships. It's the only... IMPACT!"

In the chaos of the apparently teleported missiles, the two Turians had completely forgotten about the rest of the weapons headed in their direction. They watched the screen as the first wave struck the kinetic barriers while the second wave also disappeared.

"Sir! Shields are down to twelve percent!" reported the tactical officer.

"I'm getting reports of boarders on the lower levels of the Brotherhood. The Malta and the Shade are also reporting boarders. According to the Brotherhood, the boarders are some kind of AI. We're facing synthetics here, sir."

AIs. The enemy was using AIs. It was common knowledge that it was impossible for AIs and organics to coexist peacefully. Therefore, if AIs were present among the enemy, then they must be facing a race of synthetics. It was common sense.

Blood drained from Tulus's face at the realization that they were facing another enemy like the Geth- merciless, emotionless, completely unwilling to retreat or withdraw from action, and totally bent on annihilating all organic life. Spirits forbid that the two races of Synthetics ever meet each other

Then the next wave hit. The GARDIAN systems activated, shooting down MAC rounds left and right, but they just kept coming. With the kinetic barriers weakened by that first barrage, most of the alien rounds went straight through them to hit the Turian ships before exploding.

"Have the crews of all ships prepare to repel boarders. Make sure they know to use Disruptor Rounds, too."

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Cortana, named after the AI from Halo 37 (some joker in the 22nd century had decided to name AIs after sci-fi characters, and the tradition had stuck), grinned as she sliced another alien in half with her razor sharp right claw. Well, she would have grinned if she'd had a recognizable mouth. But she didn't- for this encounter, she'd decided to go with her favorite, custom-made combat golemn. Six feet tall and ten feet long, shaped roughly like a scorpion, she'd put in hundreds of hours fine-tuning her combat style. Her tail stabbed forward and pierced the skull of another, while the blunted left claw tried to grab one of the survivors to use as a club. Unfortunately, the electric rounds used by the enemy were interfering with the control signal transmitted from the Nemesis, so her golemn's movements were jittery and laggy, moving erratically or slightly behind the commands she transmitted to it. Because of this, the claw missed its target and punched one of the small, goblin-like golemns that were swarming over the enemy, crushing its tiny form to a barely maneuverable mess.

{Do you mind?} asked Raynor, the AI controlling the goblin swarm. {I'm already gonna have to get two of these remade entirely, thanks to that damn grenade. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to get a set of swarm golemns made?}

(Codex Updated- Golemns- Made by combining the talents of animators and enchanters, golemns are the bodies utilized by AIs to exist in the physical world. AIs are able to access any unoccupied golemn by logging in through the AWN (Arcaneotech Wireless Network) and controlling it remotely. The ability to control golemns remotely has the advantage that even if the golemn is destroyed, the AI controlling it is not. However, if the AWN signal is interfered with, the golemn is harder to control, or even rendered useless.

Custom Made Golemns- Many AIs, rather than use the publicly available standardized golemns, commission custom made golemns to suit their purposes. Custom made golemns are often password locked so that only trusted parties may access them.

Swarm Golemns- Unlike standard golemns, swarm golemns, usually found in groups of three to ten, are smaller and simpler to use, are enchanted with a very low level of intelligence, and share an internal network. The intelligence enchantment and internal network decrease the already high difficulty and complexity of controlling several golemns at once. Unfortunately, if more golemns are in a swarm, it is extremely difficult to put much intelligence into them, and therefore larger swarms are difficult to control. Having a high level of control over a swarm larger than seven golemns is considered indication of a great deal of skill on the part of the AI involved.)

{Sorry,} Cortana replied. {It's these damn electric rounds they're using. They keep screwing with my aim.}

{Well then move away from your allies, idiot. That way if you miss, you won't mind whatever you did hit,} Raynor snarked back irritably.

{I WAS away from allies! How do you think I got my leg blasted off? There wasn't anybody to take out the bastard with the grenade! Don't blame me because you got your goblins within my reach!}

While the two AIs continued their argument, a deep, black glow began to cover the bodies of the fallen alien soldiers.

{Fuck yeah!} exclaimed Paksennarion over the network. {They finally shot off the Necro-cannon! Reinforcements galore!}

All around the battlefield, aliens stopped fighting and stared as the corpses of fallen allies began to stand up and turn around. Their dead, emotionless eyes fell onto the remaining aliens, and the moving corpses surged forward with an eerie silence. At about the same time the undead aliens began to reach their erstwhile allies, a red wave washed over the ship. Mandibles flared and eyes widened as the aliens were struck with a sourceless terror. The combination of the AI golemns, the undead, and the fear spell was too much, and caused more than one of the enemy to collapse into a whimpering heap, and many others to turn and run for their lives. Those that remained took aim with shaking hands and resumed the battle, only to be torn apart by fallen friends and faceless metal monsters.

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The battle was not going well for the Turians. The enemy was still outnumbered, but their quick firing rate and the Turians' inability to effectively block enemy fire was taking its toll. The Shade had reported that the boarders were at the bridge, and had gone silent a few minutes later. The Malta's boarders were close to the bridge as well- Tulus estimated that the ship would be taken within five minutes. Another three cruisers and five frigates had been taken out of the battle, with only two enemy cruisers and two frigates being eliminated in return.

To make matters worse, the synthetics seemed to be using biological warfare. Some captains were giving irrational or incomprehensible orders.

"What the fuck is going on, Tulus?" came the voice of the Brotherhood's captain, Mantis Agasis.

"Calm yourself, Agasis. You're a Turian captain, and you will act like one, do you understand?" Scipio answered sharply. This was not the time for hardened Turians to be acting like frightened children.

"You're one to talk, Tulus! You don't have dead crewmembers attacking your people, and entire squadrons breaking before they even reach combat!"

Tulus looked up in disbelief. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me, captain. Every single one of my men that's died so far just got up and started tearing my crew apart. We even had one of the bastards on the bridge! Ensign Numoculus was killed when the computer he was working on had a power surge and exploded. About a minute ago, he got up and ripped his partner to shreds with his bare hands, and he wouldn't stop moving till we blew him and half the bridge to bits with a grenade! And the parts that are left are still fucking moving! Then I got a report that two full squadrons broke ranks and ran, before they'd even come in sight of the enemy. The ones that were already in combat are even worse. I've got battle hardened Turians running from their own Spirits-damned shadows!"

Tulus looked at his vidscreen, where the state of the battle was displayed. Another Turian cruiser and several frigates had fallen, some of them due to the biological weapons that were infecting their crews.

"Shit! The AIs have reached the bridge!" yelled Agasis. "They're in..."

"Damn," muttered Tulus as the Brotherhood went silent. With the fall of the Brotherhood, he was now down to a single dreadnought, six cruisers, and twenty-two frigates, while the enemy had two dreadnoughts, seven cruisers, and twelve frigates. It was possible that they could defeat the synthetics, but Tulus doubted it, and he wasn't willing to risk the lives of his men on such a low chance. Furthermore, somebody had to get back to the Citadel and report this new threat.

"All ships are to withdraw from combat and attempt to leave the system," he ordered. "Upon reaching allied territory, all ships are to initiate quarantine procedures until the biological threat is neutralized."

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"The aliens are withdrawing, sir. They look to be going for the Tuning Station on the other side of the system."

"Have the AIs taken over the enemy ships yet?" Flint asked.

"They've taken Bogeys Two and Nineteen, but Bogey Five has put up heavier resistance than expected. The AIs estimate that they'll be in control of the ship within four minutes; that should be time to take it over before the enemy reaches the Tuning Station."

"The Nemesis is requesting permission to pursue the enemy ships, sir," reported the comm officer.

"Permission denied. Let's get boarding crews onto the captured enemy ships and see what we can learn. Send any critically damaged ships back to Shanxi, and ask for reinforcements from HighCom."