Eternity, Book 0 "Gone with the Sun"
Chapter 9 A rush through the Dark
Williams
At least the bed lamp was going. Ashley had packed away the non-retracting retractable webbing fairly quickly, but a complete lack of responsiveness from any other electrically dependent systems made her swear she'd have words with Shepard about the suitability of his cabin for war operations.
She finally armed herself with a torch and emergency comm, and took a deep breath, then said Shepard's prayer, as it were:
"Please Lord, don't let me, er, stuff up,"
– thought briefly and picked a light toolkit from the armour bench, then began to force open the door… at which point the lights came on ("About time, Adams.") and the door opened with a reproachful ping.
The lift came; she asked for "CIC, please." Nothing happened. Oh, Kay…
A second or two later it was clear the buttons still worked, the lift moving down one floor. "Dammit, this ship needs stairs." Clearly conditions were approaching normality again. Then doors opened and she exited into mayhem. "Liara, where–?"
T'Soni
Pivoting on her heel Liara ran back to the lift, dodging bridge crew heading for the systems chairs which offered crash restraints, dashed inside past Ashley (who was saying something unimportant) and shouted "Crew quarters." Nothing happened. She recalled EDI wasn't around to interpret for the machine, then ("Oh blast") and hammered elevator buttons. If I die in this lift I'll never live it down. It closed just as Allers, Adams and the rest rushed in, and did deliver them in time. Tali ran into the lounge, meeting Garrus, both gesticulating wildly. The engineers and Allers took the lift down again, and Liara retrieved Glyph from the AI shielded locker.
On returning, Chakwas was just exiting crew quarters where off-station crew were tucked in:
"Karin! We're making a guidance-off ballistic flight into atmosphere!"
"I know! Jeff just said! My webbing's still unset!"
"I'll get you in to a med bay restraint, not that it will do much good."
"Jeff can get us down."
"This is a frigate, not an atmosphere craft!"
"Actually Jeff says–"
"Oh, stuff what Jeff says! Sorry."
Thirty seconds later Liara ran back to her own quarters, with Glyph close behind. Please Goddess, let Joker be as good as Karin thinks he is.
Williams
Whatever the emergency was, people were running away from the cockpit. Ashley sprinted towards it – if she ran from danger, that would get everyone killed.
"Holy moly. Joker, where are we?"
"I have co-ordinates, this is the place EDI pointed us at, it has no name yet or she never mentioned one. We just missed getting creamed by one of these damned moons and now we're ballistic in-atmosphere, but eighty klicks up below the turbopause, I'm trying to skip-jump out but there's only thruster power!"
"At least it's green."
"Yeah, a very pretty graveyard. Co-pilot seat, fast, we're at the skip peak and next time I might not be able to skip out!"
"How much have we bled off?"
"About twenty kps, if it wasn't for the Silaris armor we'd be suffering, still at Mach twelve. Two minutes to the mesosphere. We'll be down to about mach eight by then. Until we reach the local stratosphere, it's going to be rough."
Ashley hit the comm pad. This was not normally necessary, but without layer-3 manual procedures were in effect. Fortunately all the crew had drilled for this. "Adams, respond."
"Engineering, aye."
"Can we get voice response back?"
"Negative on that, Number One. Layer-3 is down for the count, or at least until we can track the dead nodes, nearly everything around the ring main that wasn't shielded by the core."
"EDI?"
"No response. We think permanent, but I haven't had time to think about it."
"That's… not good." Ash stole a look at Joker, who wore a set and grim expression but that was normal for a pilot in emergency conditions. "Keep me posted. Core?"
"Charge on capacitors. Five minutes to spin-up."
"Crap. We will be making plasma in… four. Can we handle it?"
Some hesitation at the other end of the ship. "Tell Joker to close up the thruster nacelles and the blinkers, and pitch up. I'll have kinetic barriers on the base by then. Tali's working on the TFR, he won't be completely blind."
"Right then, enable nose LIDAR too when we're subsonic, it's the only way to find true forest floor level through the leaf canopy."
Terrain Radar. It relied on whatever was in their path making a proper electromagnetic pulse return. So okay, probably usable on uninhabited planets without, oh, say, suspension bridges or cables.
"Joker, bring up TFR sim. It sounds like plasma friction scrub nose-up is doable."
"Concur, but I've only got internal gyros if I withdraw the thrusters. Also these things are unstable by design in air, for agility. You need a computer to fly by wire, even if you're me, the only one left is attomechanical which I've flown in sims and that's it."
"Can't you run out the airfoil control surfaces?"
"Not at these speeds! The control surfaces will be unusable as long as they're shadowed by a shock wave. Maybe the air anchor." The air anchor was simply a drogue open-woven from tungsten and carbon fibre composite thread. It wasn't fastened by fixed anchors but attached and oriented by threads of the same material, permitting some limited guidance – when EDI was up. Ashley had never heard of a human pilot doing it.
Aerial whispers were becoming a steady rumble. Joker was bringing the nose up; turbulence beat at the foil leading edges. "Crash webbing."
"Here we go," muttered Ash. "This could be the shortest command post in history. Heigh ho."
Garrus
"H'chmpo k'raacaht gdmp!"
Tali had at first thought Garrus had suffered a stroke. She didn't understand any of that. It took a few seconds before she twigged that all his suit and armor electro-optical gear was burned out, including most importantly the translator, and half a minute of charades before she could get him to a medbay restraint. That made her feel quite foolish. Her own translator was working, although the acoustic dampers which suppressed the original speech were not – so she'd disabled both; but for now she'd have to be his voice to the world.
For some reason it had never occurred to her that Garrus would avoid learning the military dialect of English spoken by Alliance members of crew. Minor races like quarians had to adapt fast in this Galaxy – though not as fast as the asari, for whom a new language seemed as easy as breathing (they forgot fast too, though, except for freaks like Liara – an interesting weakness).
It had taken her weeks to improve upon standard translators, but such effort paid off in business negotiations. Poor Garrus came from an Empire which thought its citizens above such concerns. At least she didn't need to follow Palaven court dialect for this.
She pushed Garrus into a restraint bed clamped to the AI core, and closed it up – after getting in herself. "Just shut up and hold me." Somehow, he understood.
Daniels
The vibration was terrific. "If this was an ascent, I'd say we just passed max Q. Come on, girl."
Adams had noticed his engineers thought of the Normandy as a she even with EDI gone. "There's a while to go yet, Daniels."
"Sir, can't we float the core?" Daniels was referring to applying the minimum charge necessary to negate gravity. The core was spun up now.
"Probably not, Daniels, it would impose unforeseeable stresses just now, wait till Joker's got laminar flow over the wings."
A wild juddering continued, somewhat variably, for nearly ten minutes. Gabriella could feel, with the inertial dampeners off, gravity's arrow pointing at various directions through her. Gradually, the vibration tailed off to a low level.
At this point Joker called. "Guys, we're subsonic now, below ten kilometres, and I'm opening the shutters again, but there's no obvious clearing. I'll need to land near water in what amounts to fairly rugged forested terrain with only limited shelter. Can I get the core up, gradually, please? I want a vertical landing on foliage, let's not get too bent."
"Can we get out of webbing?"
"Do it." That was Williams!
"We got lucky folks, raw sensor data shows breathable air, point eight atmosphere but thirty percent oxygen. All those plants. The rest of you, sit tight, general quarters, except Daniels to the bridge, please. Liara, Samara, you too. Vega, can you and Cortez please see about improvising some sort of clearance once we're down. Sidearms, weapons tight. "
"Okay, Daniels. Donnelly, you heard the captain–"
"Captain?!" Donnelly sounded shocked. "Who put her in charge?"
A fragile silence extended the space of Gabby's held breath, into a barely audible exhalation, Please, please, you silly man, USE that brain for once. Adams said nothing. Looked steadily at Donnelly. Kept saying nothing.
"I mean, she's not the XO…"
"Kenneth!"
Adams finally spoke, slowly:
"Mr Donnelly, I'm sorry, I regret I did not hear that. Could you please repeat what the Lieutenant Commander said? Ms Daniels, would you please make your way to the bridge, as the Number One asked? Mr Donnelly and I will continue his education without you."
Gabby sent Adams a beseeching look as she passed. He winked.
- End (of Eternity) -
Afterword
"Eternity" was a stand-alone tale before it became the first of eight story arcs. It remains arguably the only one which overlaps events in-game. Post-game cutscenes had some influence on the writing of the rest of the works presented here, which explore consequences of "real" physics (except for the existence of speeds faster than light)
The story continues with "Queen's Gambit" by the same author (under s/11382885/1/).
The last Mass Effect came out some time back, following which this 'rationalist' novella appeared, exploring the aftermath of ME3's 'red flash' from the point of view of characters left behind on the Citadel. Further story arcs made it up to a full novel, posted for the canonical year and a day under the title "After Dark" - then deposted. "After Dark" received flattering reviews, but as it happened that title was already in use (by a rather conventional romance-based fanfic).
Eventually, it was borne in on me that the next ME apparently involves an N7 operating in Andromeda.
As it happens, the closing lines of my fanfic had survivors heading for Andromeda. Imagine my shock when the E3 2015 trailer, "Mass Effect: Andromeda" was drawn to my attention, showing an N7 in Andromeda, obviously not Shepard but still. Not only that, but my protagonists' Andromeda-bound asteroid required at least 490 years, consistent with what we know of the timeline in ME: Andromeda. Perhaps more – given that it would be laying conduit-style relays as it went; when finished there would be a chain of ninety relays enabling frigates to pass through in days (and more at waystations in satellite galaxies en route).
Hence this reposting under a new title, "Gone with the Sun" consisting of story arcs as separate books. Differences include the addition of characters and scenes pruned from the original work, and consequently more detail in the romances from "After Dark". Not that the original work had no romance.
Those interested in the Andromeda mention should skip to the last chapter of the last book, "King's Endgame". This first book ("Eternity") recapitulates the fog of war around the Red Flash. The next book, "Queen's Gambit" is, as the name indicates, the real opening move; by and large, it takes up where the game leaves off.
Some consequences of real and in-game science are entertaining. Notably:
Homeworlds become isolated for decades if not centuries - this follows from in-game FTL speeds and real huge distances. The original thrust of the first draft - which became the first of seven story arcs – was to fill in the gaps of the storyline given what is known of game physics and real physics. The developers didn't always communicate well among themselves, but it's clear both forms of FTL in the game (relays and ship drives) were inspired by real-world hypothetical wormholes and eg. the Alcubierre drive. So in particular:
Mass relays have all the characteristics of the idea of 'wormholes' discussed in relativistic physics. See for example the discussion in Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler of how exotic materials can be used to generate such wormholes - but note that initially the wormhole diameter would be about that of a human hair, and to enlarge it would require a lot of exotic matter.
Eezo is 'real'. Bear in mind also that to a physicist "exotic matter" often has 'atomic' number zero, like neutrons or things like pentaquarks (no longer hypothetical, CERN published finding them yesterday). Hydrogen has atomic number one; exotic matter would be atomic number zero. That is why "element zero" is to be found in some versions of the periodic table, symbol "n" for neutrons. A lot of people seem to think "eezo" or "element zero" is an invention of the game developers. It is not; such ideas have been "in the air" of physics for decades.
The mass relays were "severely damaged" to use Hackett's phrase. In fact from the post-game cutscenes it's clear that the damage to the Citadel and relays was quite catastrophic, which means it will take a long time – perhaps an asari lifetime – for repairs.
Furthermore, there is a galaxy-wide comm blackout - except for quantum entanglement communicators (QEC). Since the comm buoys supporting the extranet themselves contained mass relays (see the codex description), they're history.
The distances involved cause other plot issues:
- The islands of civilization (Palaven, Sur'Kesh, Thessia, Earth...) are effectively isolated for decades or centuries to come.
It's twenty-six thousand light years from the Earth to the Galactic Centre, for example. A mass relay would take you there in short order, but ship FTL at fourteen light years per day (proper time) would mean a subjective travel time of nearly five years. Even more time is needed to get from Earth to Thessia (say), given the scale of the galactic map on the Normandy. Ilos to the Widow would be about forty thousand light years, for example – about a nine year journey by space drive FTL.
- Alien leaders left behind might still be able to use QEC to stay in touch with home planets, but actually travelling there is out of the question.
The situation is worst for poor Tali trying to get to Rannoch, or the Salarians with short lives trying to get to Sur'Kesh. (Forget it, folks, life's over before you get there.)
- From the final cutscenes it appears the fleeing component fleets run for home just before all the relays explode.
Asari fleets to Thessia, for example, except for some units like the Destiny Ascension, given to Hackett. Alliance fleets probably fled to the closest relay outside Sol system, Arcturus - the old Parliament and starbase. That's only two days FTL from Sol.
- Reconstruction of the Reaper mass relays is possible but will take centuries.
This follows not simply from the massive distances but from the near-total destruction as shown in the extended cut. Sidestepping the issue, I began by observing that the ME1 relay transit used the Prothean "conduit" which did not operate on the same principle as the Reaper relays (no obvious range limitation, negligible endpoint drift, no permanent glowing core in the gimbal rings, etc.) It would make sense for the Protheans to use their own tech for that; and the devices were on a comparatively small scale, something Hackett's engineers could build. So, a lot of the early discussion is on the implications of gradually extending chains of "conduit" style relays to other galactic centres.
Romance:
A drama really needs romance. A rational/technical tour de force would make a really dry tale. Unfortunately, potential partners often die in-game; few potential partners remain alive. Children are scarcely possible. While this creates interesting dramatic tensions, it also severely restricts romance options. Effective drama requires some possibility of romance, absent unusual talent.
This creates a dilemma; given paramours' background or biochemistry, our absconded hero's posterity is defunct, or close to it – and dammit we're already at the limit of one impossibility (FTL) for hard sci-fi. Alien biochemistry realistically prevents reproduction. In-game human partners are dead after the red flash, infertile, or professional soldiers with contraception (compare the bromides said to have been issued to British servicemen last century). Even the special case of Liara has deniable fertility.
It was quite the problem; using in-game loopholes the odds for children had to improve, in the context of a possible romance. Or two. Or three. On reflection just possibly four, allowing for time slippage; fans point to Ashley/Jack/Kelly/Liara as paramours possibly starting a family. But gameplay and codices cast strong doubt on these:
Liara won't reach the matron stage for another two hundred years (she's a maiden at 109, asari reach the matron stage at around 300) – any children would not be human and would not inherit Shepardian genetics.
Kelly is a curious case. She can't be contacted during the London battle, isn't a known associate, and so forth. She doesn't appear at the party, for example (yet the developers didn't forget her; Joker mentions how he and Kelly knew nothing about Thane at first, except that he could murder them with a ballpoint pen). This is odd, because Kelly does actually grant the paramour achievement in ME3 – not ME2 – and you would expect Shepard to consider inviting his love interest, but Kelly never even makes the list. Clearly, by the endgame the ME3 writers really wanted to kill Ms Chambers off, I'm guessing because Kelly ruined their intention to prevent Shepard progeny. Not all the writers got the message; my Shepard heard the Engineers discussing how Kelly had been shot, but she could in fact still be visited!
Jack was exposed to Element Zero in the womb, and that's leaving out the abuse suffered on Pragia. One wonders what stories a child of Shepard and Jack might engender, though.
Ashley is devoutly religious with a strict moral code; as a professional naval officer on the make she is likely to either be celibate or use contraception. Importantly, a paragon Ash, like Shepard, would be implicitly bound by military convention regarding affairs within the unit.
Improving odds for these or other partners conditions the choices from gameplay – it requires a perfect playthrough or close to it, as measured by war assets. It helps that 'Renegade' is not the usual player morality choice; a paragon Shepard can be regarded as the default. That improves odds for survival of Miranda, say, or Brooks.
Not everyone will agree with my solutions, but such plot devices are at least defensible given constraints imposed by the game. One more thing: I followed certain other science fiction writers in adapting a classical myth. See if you can spot which. Beware the red herrings.
Friday, July 17, 2015