The Effects of Change

by The War Wizard

The Forerunner, a powerful species controlling a vast empire. The Flood, a powerful parasitic race. 2 races that slipped by the Reapers on the last harvest. The Protheans never visited Sol, and the Reapers never built a mass relay there.

2. The TH Skirmish

Chapter 2

2301 SE, 2157 CE

The year following the 'hard contact' with another alien species outside of the Covenant was interesting to say the least. A massive naval build up had begun after the reports were released to the public. Multiple mothball fleets had been pulled back in to service; some had been poorly maintained and would take many months to restore them to active duty. A return to the system containing the mass relay was enacted and a massive amount of scrap from the aliens was recovered along with a large number of computer wreckage. It was hoped they could re-construct the computers, allowing data about their weapons and military might to be recovered.

The systems closest to the mass relay had been re-enforced with multiple battle groups from around the core worlds, where defense was much less of a problem. As the core worlds had fleets, automated weapons platforms and orbital MAC cannons, multiple battle groups wouldn't be missed from several systems. With the colony systems of Shanxi, New Kyoto and New Spain being unified colonies (containing species from all members of the alliance) and being closest to the system containing the mass relay, they were backed by UNSC and Covenant Separatist battle groups. The three UNSC battle groups, 36 UNSC ships, each UNSC battle group having 12 ships (3 battles cruisers (Warlock class with three belly mounted MAC cannons, Babylon 5), 1 fighter carrier (refit Spirit of Fire colony class ship, UNSC) and 8 frigates (In Amber Clad, UNSC)), in each system were patrolling the outer edge of the colony, while the inner colony was patrolled by the two Covenant Separatist battle groups, each consisting of 15 ships (1 super carrier, 3 battle cruisers, 4 cruisers and 7 corvettes).

2301 SE, 2157 CE

July 10th

Battle group 32, nicknamed Earth's Wrath, had been in system for over a month. They'd launched probes in the direction of just about every system that could possibly lead in to Shanxi System. Granted, they were doing the exact same thing all the other battle groups had done before them, they still felt the need to have at least some type of monitoring for the battle group. John Sheridan, captain of the 'Zeus Wrath' and lead battle cruiser of the battle group, looked in to the dark abyss of space. He'd had a funny feeling all day, and had ordered all ships to run at full alert status. He'd climbed the ranks of the UNSC by trusting the feelings of his gut. He knew something big was going to happen this day. "Captain to the bridge," he looked over at the intercom, and knew, this is when it would start.

When Sheridan arrived on bridge, the toga wearing smart A.I. Zeus, representation of the ship, rose from his holo-port and spoke, "Captain, I've detected faint signals that suggest ships in coming." The A.I. was never perturbed by anything, "Zeus, arm all missile batteries, plasma batteries, point defense systems and charge the Mac Cannons for full three round bursts. Zeus, ship-wide comm.," the A.I. nodded, "This is the Captain, prepare for ship to ship combat. Everybody, battle-stations! Alert the rest of the battle group of your discovery." "It shall be done on your word Captain." The message was sent, and all ships had taken a stationary position. The other two battle groups had taken a forward position, the group commanders wanting a piece of the action to come.

With very little warning, ships started jumping in to the system and the UNSC battle groups adopted a pyramid formation and a message demanding the unconditional surrender of the invaders was sent out by the lead ship of battle group 44 named the 'Flood's Fall'. Enemy ships just kept coming and the UNSC battle groups were forced to back off a bit giving more room. Unknown to the defenders, this wasn't a small border skirmish as originally thought by High-Com, this was a Turian Main Battle Fleet, numbering four hundred vessels, and when they believed they had the advantage, eight ships launched a concentrated blast on the 'Flood's Fall', blasting through the shielding and ripping it apart. With that action, the Turian Human war had begun. With the remains of the 'Flood's Fall' listing away from the formation, the pyramid formed defenders unleashed hell upon the invaders. Missiles and plasma torpedoes flew in to the invaders formation. The missiles impacted the barriers of the invading Turian ships, wiping them out, while the plasma torpedoes inflicted massive structural damage. Just before the Turian general could order a scatter, the cruisers unleashed their MAC rounds. 24 600 ton rounds traveling at 30,000 meters a second tore through the weakened barriers of the Turian warships, followed by the ships themselves. Twenty Turian capital ships died in an instant. With forty more utterly crippled.

Both sides opened up at that point. Mass accelerated rounds tore in to the shielding and armor of the UNSC defending craft. With the concentrated fire of multiple turian cruisers, 1 of the UNSC cruisers vanished in a ball of fire. To discourage this tactic, the defenders launched missile groups in to the ships starting to gather. This slowed the enemy, but too many of the enemy had seen the successful tactic. Within an hour, 1 of the fighter carriers disappeared in to the abyss, shortly followed by 3 frigates. Another frigate vanished in following the carrier only minutes after.

Sheridan looked out in to the void, seeing light flashing in both directions, and gave the order for a regroup closer to the colony. Instantly, every ship still capable opened a slip-space rift and fled closer in system. The bridge gave a lurch, as the 'Zeus Wrath' reentered normal space. "Status report!" the order was barked to his tactical officer, who stumbled to form it. "S-sir, ten ships lost with all hands including 3 battle cruisers, 1 carrier and 6 frigates on our side, seventy enemy ships destroyed, fifty more incapacitated, including thirty of the battle cruiser analogs." The entire bridge crew looked at him in shock. "Put me on with all ships," the comm. Officer nodded and several minutes later pointed at the captain. "This is Commander John Sheridan, as of now, I'm taking command of the defense fleet. We've just seen what the enemy is capable of now, we've all lost friends on those ten vessels, and I can say with all honesty that we still face a massive force still against us. What we need to do is just to hold the line against these sons of bitches until the Thirteenth Fleet can get to us. Our boys our coming people, and when they do they'll unleash an unholy fire against these bastards. Now let's go return the bloody nose they just gave us!"

The UNSC ships fought a retreating battle toward Shanxi colony, with the superior range of UNSC MAC cannons and other weapons arrays; they stayed just out of the Turian's effective weapons range. Within three days, the remaining UNSC ships, 2 battle cruisers, 1 carrier and 10 frigates, consisting of the remains of all three battle groups with the 'Zeus Wrath' leading, pulled back till they were inside the range for a C.S. trap to be sprung upon the turians. Once the Turians got closer to Shanxi Colony itself, the Sangheili battle groups came out of hiding behind the moons of Shanxi and began their own plasma bombardments with eight ships unleashing their energy projectors upon the unlucky enemies. The world burning weapons punched through the enemy barriers in less than the blink of an eye. Fifteen ships were burned away before they could get out of the C.S. weapons way. But they still had to contend with over two hundred remaining enemy vessels. Both C.S. super carriers were destroyed with the combined fire of a hundred vessels apiece. With so many of the enemy focusing on the super carriers, thirty enemy vessels vanished under assault by the sixteen cruisers left. Small fighters flew all over the battle field, from the original contact point to the new battle grounds and every place in between. Thousands were dead before the turians even set foot upon the colony. And thousands more would die before either side got reinforced. The A.S. would receive their reinforcements first, with the 7th Fleet, consisting of one hundred and ten vessels (30 Battle cruisers, of mixed hull designs, 50 frigates, and 30 mixed support vessels).

2301 SE, 2157 CE

July 20th

General Williams and Ground Commander San'Lee sat in the command bunker, commanding the Shanxi defense force. The human turned to the Sangheili commander, "Well their drop ships will be in atmosphere tomorrow night. Looks like our flyboys couldn't hold them forever." The sangheili commander nodded, "Yes, and our troops will meet the enemy on the ground. Do we have many seraphs or sabre fighters?" The general nodded, "We have an eight flight for each, with twenty banshee and four longsword bombers. But that's it. We don't have the numbers to hold off the thousand assembled drop-ship and fighters." "Then we shall hold till the last warrior. Have the civilians been evacuated to the shelters?" the human nodded and replied, "Then it has been an honor fighting with you and I hope our children will fight side-by-side in the future." The sangheili nodded in return, and they prepared the defenses of Shanxi.

The first landing party for the Turian suffered much just to put boots on the ground. Landing cost them one fourth of their total strength as the effective allied anti-air kept any turian fighters from the sky. Once landed, the allied rocket and mortar crews kept the ground forces at a standstill. The UNSC Rhinos and Scorpions and the C.S. Wraiths had incredible fire power and armored hides but lacked the speed of the turian hover tanks. All it took was 3 to 1 odds in favor of the turians to destroy the defending tanks, which they had in abundance. Unarmored warfare was in the allied forces favor. Better armor and heavier weapons allowed for the defenders to move in and out of a battle engagement quicker than the enemy. Snipers waged their deadly skills on both sides, grunts fought it out in buildings and on the streets, Longswords and Phantoms dropped bombs on enemy positions, and all around the enemy landing positions, the allied defenders dealt and received death. Before the first week was out, thousands of turians were dead, but so were hundreds of the allied defenders. The defending ground forces, a fixed number of forces at least for a few weeks had to fight smart. The turians could call in reinforcements, which they did. The anti-air was taken out in the first couple of days after initial landing.

The end of the war came about through the use of a stealth prowler sent through the mass relay to the Citadel using captured Turian star maps. While in stealth mode, the prowler the 'Undecided Fate' sent a message for the Council to open negotiations to bring about the end to the Human-Turian war. The council, having never heard of humanity before that day minus the Turian Councilor, was surprised at first. They then demanded an explanation for the seeming over site. Once brought up to speed about the war, they immediately put a cease fire in place to stop the war on the Turian side and opened negotiations. Within days of talking to the Council, the UNSC discovered that the entire war had begun because of overzealous captains trying to make a name for themselves by attacking someone they thought was going to cause a catastrophic error in the relay. They hoped that by destroying those fooling around with a relay would get them out of border duty. When talking to the Council, they discovered the Turian councilor was less bigoted then the captains leading the campaign against the A.S. controlled colony of Shanxi. With this they were able to use his words to help put a true stop to the conflict, rather than the cease fire that existed. When the Salarian councilor made a statement about bringing war ships in to A.S. controlled systems, as they would surely be joining the council, the A.S. representatives made it clear they had no intention of joining the Citadel as their laws clashed a great deal with the laws that existed in A.S. systems. The leader of the Sangheili part of the A.S. council, named Atvar, explained that they were open to the possibility of trade, and gave the council info on serious threats, like the Halo Array, the Flood and the Covenant Loyalists that might attack if they discovered citadel space. They provided the gun cams from deceased marines to ship cams. They provided all the necessary information to prove their claims, minus the Halo arrays. They showed footage of the massive rings, but the council refused to believe that anything could be that powerful.

"Believe what you want councilors, but everything we've told you about is absolutely true. We have no problems keeping warships out of Citadel space, but we would like to open trading with the citadel species to hopefully have decent relations between our two powers. Now please order the Turian Hierarchy to pull their forces out of A.S. space." With those words, the A.S. delegation left the council room heading for docking. The council pulled back the Turian armed forces and put out a notice through the information networks for all warships to stay out of A.S. claimed space.

2307 SE, 2163 CE

In a massively controversial move, the Allied Species inducted a new member to their group, the Quarians. The Quarian people had been without a home since the Geth had forced them off their colonies and home-world, and had been forced to wander the stars for more than three centuries as the council refused to give assistance. The Quarians' Migrant Fleet had accidently stumbled upon a system controlled by the A.S. in their endless quest to provide supplies to the Quarian people. The system, Harvest, was unoccupied, except for a small research station conducting studies and experiments on the effects an evolutionary dead planet could provide. The planet in the life zone still had an abundant of fauna; however the fauna had remained the same for millennia.

Of course the Quarians had heard of the A.S., but the A.S. borders were largely unknown to them. There were many in Citadel Space that believed the Quarians deserved their fate as they had unleashed the Geth on the universe. Even though the Geth hadn't been seen outside of the Perseus Veil in those three centuries, the people of the galaxy still placed a large amount of hatred upon the Quarian people and saw them as nothing more than vagrants or thieves. Within hours of meeting the A.S. Council, the Conclave was mostly sold on the idea of joining with the A.S. it took three months to hash out the details with the Conclave, though most of the Admiralty Board was against the idea. They wanted to go and take their home-world back from the Geth, with Rael'Zorah leading that charge. Ultimately, the Conclave accepted the deal as the planet was perfect for them. With the sun putting out very little radiation, the planet was left in a retarded state. Almost no evolution could take place. Very little bacteria or germs of any sort would prevent the Quarians from getting infections from foreign bacteria.

The move caused a huge debate between the council and the A.S. ambassadors to the Citadel, which now included a quarian among them, justified themselves by saying where the council had forsaken the Quarian people the Allied Species would not. A Quarian was asked to represent the interests of the Quarian people in the A.S. leadership to insure a fair amount of coverage. Rael'Zorah from the Admiralty board was chosen. He left his three year old daughter Tali'Zorah nar Rayya with his wife on the new home-world of Harvest to develop an immune system better than his own. Blood samples were taken by U.N.S.C. scientists to begin decoding the Quarian genome. It was hoped that within a few years at most, the U.N.S.C. scientists would be able to develop a treatment for the Quarians immune systems.

2313 SE, 2169 CE

With the introduction of quarian mechanics, the A.S. Council decided to commission a mutual defense fleet that would house and employ the best and brightest from all five races of the A.S. and present a united face to the rest of the galaxy. It took a lot of convincing along with numerous other concessions, but the Quarians were convinced to accept A.I. on the new defense ships. They were understandably leery about welcoming A.I. onto ships due to the Geth, but they discovered that 'dumb A.I.' were only a tiny bit more sophisticated than a V.I. (virtual intelligence), while 'smart A.I.' were based on the workings of the minds of the species they work for. The thing that convinced them, more than anything, was meeting a Sangheili A.I. who was created from the flash cloned brain of the Arbiter (the rank of Arbiter is now the leader of all Sangheili military forces) Thel'Vadam, named after his most challenging adversary John. Finding out that an A.I. took the name of his friend after his friends supposed death, told them that the A.I. had emotions. The Geth had no such thing, and as such were fundamentally different.

A.N.

Sorry it has taken so long to rewrite this chapter, but life is kinda weird. Anyway, I hope that this chapter is up to standard and everybody enjoy.