Disclaimer: I'm borrowing from lots of things I don't own and I'm not earning any money from this. If you recognise it as yours, it is, unless you're claiming the whole thing, in which case bite me.

Now go read.

"Understandably we didn't believe their stories as to the skill of their robots or soldiers. They weren't willing to show off their ships and we knew that though they were better we had reason to believe we had much greater numbers, so they'd fall to our numbers eventually… So, after a several months of talks, we'd get to see X-Com operatives take to the field in a variety of situations..."

Lord Manswell, why the Remnant still exists.

Lord Jason Manswell, Arcturus station training grounds, personal quarters.

"Agreed on assassination operation loading. Defenders are one commissar Morris Johnson and 20 naval marines, full combat regalia. Assassin is X-Com knight exemplar Kane Rios, stealth mission regalia, and one CNDR combat robot, piloted by AI Golden Dagger, Assault Regalia. Target is sir Donovan, Aspirant of Cerberus, civilian regalia. Terrain has been generated and defenders have set up. Assassins, begin insertion."

The Sigh finished it's triad and a number of doors opened around the chamber. I was mildly amused to see the CNDR float into the area despite a simulated gravity of 1.1 G, however the faint glow of biotics showed how it was possible.

"Perhaps they will be as mobile as tanks… Has Rios entered the… Doors are closed, it seems that their stealth gear is very good indeed."

The simulated terrain was that of a large warehouse converted into a military bunker, walls and crates cordoned off areas and the defenders had access to a large amount of cameras, and there was a large amount of sensitive equipment lying around.

Naturally, with the CNDR being highly visible, it took perhaps 30 seconds before it was located, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was the plan. Within 15 seconds, it had begun taking plasma fire from the marines, and begun showing off it's incredible grace…

The damn thing was effectively in 0G and had jump jets. While humanoid in shape it's limbs had a far larger range of motion, and it's reflexes were ridiculous. The plating was starting to melt though, and it's firing was ineffective thus far…

Unless it was deliberately missing?

Finally 12 of the Marine contingent had entered it's line of sight and begun firing from it's position dancing among the available cover, and then it stopped dancing.

The robot stood stock still and began firing for effect, with a re-fire rate and aiming speed much higher than that of the Marines. Within 1.5 seconds, the marines had adjusted to it standing still, and 5 were 'dead'.

1 second later, it had 'killed' three more, taken one direct hit to it's plating, and erected a barrier between it and the oncoming plasma so as to prevent it's continued melting.

In another .5 seconds, they marines had lost another 2 men, and realised they were down to two.

They were 'dead' before they could truly begin panicking. In return, the mech's unarmed arm was now slag, and some of the plating glowed with the heat.

"He should order me to play with them more often, it's surprisingly effective. Oh, and once again, I'd like to remind everyone that lasers do trump plasma in these conditions, you might as well use handguns with frangible rounds for how effective you're fighting." Golden called out, taunting the remaining marines before he began forcing his way through barricades, ignoring the idea of there being a trap as he bashed his way through walls.

The marines began panicking at this point, even knowing that the CNDR was heading straight for a plasma mine, which he did indeed set off and destroyed his combat frame.

By this point, Golden had served his purpose, the man watching the cameras was rather distracted and afraid, the marines were scared, and the commissar was busy dealing with the marines… With the distration, despite all his enhanced senses, he didn't notice the X-Com sergeant [Or Knight Exemplar, as the Remnant somehow managed to finagle out of them] until after he had made his shot, causing the Sigh to declare the death of Aspirant Donovan with a holographic torso explosion… The resulting confusion gave the sergeant time to escape.

I sighed as I watched the replay. It was rather similar to the others. And then I got the alert that the Tank Ambush vs CARVR patrol video had been finalised and brought it up… It had it's own commentary.

"Having been walking for two days, the ambush was finally sprung. Having been buried, coated in stealth paste, the battle tank fired with the advantage of complete surprise."

The video showed a cannon going off, and then a symbol appeared in the top right corner of the display, signifying it was showing time at a slowed rate, as if being able to see the shell wasn't obvious enough.

"In after action review, in order to prevent claims of cheating somehow, X-Com revealed that the CARVR pattern combat robots have their own hyper wave scanners, which was how it was able to detect the flight of the missile. As you can see, the targeted CARVR immediately begins turning and reducing it's mass, then the shell hits."

There was a loud crunch, and I could see a large section of the mech's torso and it's left arm being ripped off.

"What you can't see is the CARVR performing another mass manipulation so that the shell would turn the CARVR slow enough to aim and fire it's weapon. It also turns up the laser's power above recommended maximum, which burns out it's laser after it's burst."

I watched the CARVR spin, it's brethren also spinning much slower, the timer displayed 1.12 seconds… And then the camera zoomed in on the tanks main gun.

"As you can see, the laser managed to wreck the tanks cannon, fortunately the laser didn't reflect in a manner that could damage the next shot as it rose into place, though the laser had already passed by then. The tank's VI prevented the tank from firing the next shot, due to a calculated 98% the tank would explode catastrophically."

The camera panned back to the CARVRs.

"At this point, the tank's shell has detonated, destroying the targeted CARVR completely and severely damaging it's companions. However, of the three, one could still fire it's weapon, and sets it to fire a wide sustained burst at the tank, while the other begins directing psionics towards the tank. While outward damage is minimal, internally the crew is massacred. It had been decided not to use dummy crew or weapons, this resulted in the deaths of Serviceman Willis by brain hemmorage, and the deaths of servicemen Horris and Warfield due to the dehydration and later cooking of their lungs, as the air inside the tank rose to rapidly. Being unable to ascertain at the time, the CARVR firing it's laser repeated it's bursts before it could be told to stop by the tanks VI. This caused the cooking off of it's chemical munitions, resulting in bodily mutilation of the tanks dead crew members."

I leaned back in my chair…

My father would have the mother of all migraines, even if someone didn't leak this, sometime within the next 5 minutes.

-XXXX-

Threat Assessment: X-Com Remnant

Summary: Extremely Low

Were we to go to war, based on predicted ship numbers, our fleets would be heavily depleted before winning out, and with only one way into Alliance territory, X-Com Remnant forces are considered to be a non-threat given reaction time improvements and current fleet positioning.

However, in any ground based war it is considered likely that battles could only be won with orbital/long range artillery bombardment and heavy collateral, or near 80% casualty rates when outnumbering 10-1 in favourable conditions. Should a naval boarding action be undertaken against us, venting of atmosphere, self-destruction, and increase of gravity to levels that would kill crew are the only methods believed to be workable.

And then there's also the poor morale that would likely infect most units knowing they are going up against special-forces and humans, even given the widespread presence of robots and aesthetic-augments among their forces. It should be noted that our special forces are inferior to their soldiers, however are more numerous per-capita.

However, despite the heavy casualties they could inflict on an assault, particularly if they deploy nano-weaponry [See attached file: Renebus-Ethereal Miasma], threat level is considered low due to current negotiations having already decided that Remnant and Alliance forces will not cross or seek to gain entry into each other's territory except should war occur with an outside force, with negotiations under way to determine how each group can assist each other without asking for permission.

It is to be noted that no technological exchange will be occurring; however research is under way to try and copy some of their advancements.

-XXXX-

Pre-recorded presidential address, 81 PPF

"My fellows. There has been a great deal of speculation as to the Elcine-Shanxi relay, we have not told you much, and many of you have suspected a cover up of something tragic instead of a potential Ethereal sighting. Today I come to tell you the truth."

There was a slight pause, the source unknown given it was a verbal only memory over the psi-net.

"7 months ago, a hostile 1st contact was confirmed by one Ubunda Melone, in the following hours, it was determined that this was caused by a miss-understanding, and we had in fact met our long lost brothers. The people of Earth have survived. But, before you celebrate, there's some things you should know."

What was likely a dramatic pause followed.

"The people of Earth, are now a vastly different people…. Due to the events following the second contact war, they have adopted a culture that one would normally consider inimical to ours, however we are a much smaller people, and I would not wish to command anyone to fight their brother, no matter how far removed…"

News Broadcast, Aliance Spokesperson Simone Biankovich

"My fellow sapiens. I'm sure many of you have heard rumours of visitors to Acturus, and military build-up over Shanxi, tonight I'm here to address the truth of such rumours."

The speaker took a quick drink.

"On March 31, we believed we had encountered the Etherals again, over Shanxi. Immediately we began rallying forces to prevent any attack, but in truth, we had found our brothers, those who left us in the years after the second contact war, those who thought it best to start anew somewhere that wasn't Earth."

There's a pause, almost as if the speaker doesn't believe that she hasn't been interrupted by questions.

"Our brethren lie beyond the Shanxi secondary relay and through the Ecine system. Though initially troubled, we quickly established communications. However, they are a vastly different people, they don't remember the horrors of the Unification War, and have instead struggled with hostile environments. At present, we are currently in negotiations, however due to their small numbers they've requested that they not receive visitors just yet… However, since we know that the boundary is that much more secure, we're stepping up our colonisation efforts on Shanxi, that way if they ever need a hand, we can be there for them…"

-XXXX-

"Relay 314 inactive. No signs of ships in system."

"Ok, another nice quiet patrol then…"

-XXXX-

Codex: Knights of Humanity

As the Alliance contains lords and ladies, it comes as no surprise that it has knights. Set up by Victor Manswell, knights make up an elite but generally irregular fighting force, with the exception of Cerberus.

When Manswell set up the knighthood system, as part of separating X-Com from the common soldier he made it so that the requirements for becoming an X-Com operative would include knighthood, the chapter is funded by the government instead of lords however, but is kept to scale. Later, when X-Com renamed itself due to having seen use against humans, it chose the name Cerberus, in the words of Rejinaldo 'For we are the loyal hound of humanity, protecting it from hell.'.

When the Alliance met the Remnant forces, during negotiations the Remnant used the wording of Manswell to cause all X-Com operatives to be seen as knights in Alliance space and receiving all the privileges as such, however they'd be their own chapter, and be maintained by the Remnant government.

One may note that while groups of knights are still called chapters, and some words with religious overtones are used in reference to knights, there are no religion based chapters…

-XXXX-

2128 AD, Relay 314. ASV Memoria

A nice quiet day, a nice big primary relay to open, a new bach of planets to find… Everything was looking good for Commander Daveed, as he thought of his house and wife and anything else to stave off the boredom that overcame him… Cerberus vessels were run to well to be entertaining.

"Sir! The secondary relay is spooling up! Unknowns approaching."

And then his head snapped towards the sensor operator, and life became potentially entertaining as he thought:

'We won't be able to hide in time.'

"Keep turning on the relay, message the other scouts to rabbit, we're not going to be able to shut this one down and it'll be a faster exit if needed. Pre-"

"Into the unknown sir?"

"Shit. Ok, start drifting from the Relay and start cool running, it might gain us some distance. Drop drones broadcasting for first contact but don't activate them yet."

"Sir! They're already here!"

I gulped. There was normally a minute 30 spin up on relays for inbound contacts, not a 10 second spin.

-XXXX-

"All vessels call-"

"Sir! Unidentified vessels are drifting from relay 314 and are not broadcasting an IFF."

There went the idea of a nice, quiet patrol of the system.

"Run them through the databanks. Probably some pirates realized they were being stupid as we were showing up. I want firing solutions."

Seconds ticked by.

"Sir, no matches."

"Eezo signatures?"

"Yes."

"Hmmm. Target the larger ones engines if you can, destroy the rest. They obviously knew what they were doing."

The bridge was quiet as trajectories were calculated and the first rounds fired. The floor took a slight hum as the spinal gun fired. The enemy ships activated and started leaving… Lasers shot out from the ships, striking the rounds and turning them into a molten cloud which would bounce of their barriers harmlessly.

"Strange. Their defence lasers have unusual range. You normally can't pluck rounds out… Ah, that's a solid hit, it seems they've crappy barriers, it went down in one."

I tapped my talons as I watched my console; the vessels were running as fast as they could, which was far too slowly, and all their weapons seemed to be used for defence… I ballooned the image on one of the ships.

"They seem to have their spinal cannons concealed. Unusual." The thought occurred to me that they may actually be newcomers, but by this point it looked like if they were, they'd quickly become a client race, and the hierarchy would likely get some improved VI's and lasers.

"Sir, escorts are destroyed, the remaining ship is down to drift."

"Prepare boarders, I want to know exactly what th-" My console flashed white for a moment before returning to normal, the remaining ship had exploded, as had the remaining vessels.

"That's frustrating. Ready salvage crews… This will make for a nice report, I was looking forward to the boredom."

-XXXX-

"Our engines are disabled… Well, it looks like the universe is as unfriendly as always. Shall we stand to repel boar-"

I felt the overwhelming no through the Gollop assisted mind-link before I even heard it.

"Activate self destructs now. Sorry captain, we can't risk it…"

"Acknowledged… Sorry for missing the third contact war."

I ended the Gollop link, my mind alongside the crew in stunned silence.

"It's been a pleasure to serve with you. Engineering, activate the self-destruct sequence, code A90Z-First one in may be the first one out…"

"Aye sir. Short setting…"

A moment of silence later, Daveed got to find out if there actually was an afterlife.

I squee a little inside whenever I see someone can be bothered to review or decides they like this enough to follow.

Anyhow, sorry for the smaller chapter, but it keeps things apace. Some of you wanted to see the Remnant go to war against the Alliance...

Yea, they could, but they both recognise it as something incredibly stupid, and so will instead simply go on really disliking each other and signing mutual defence pacts in case there's an alien attack...

Oh wait, this is a ME cross over, of course there's an alien attack... And yes, I've gone with the Turians. In my personal view, Batarians aren't that stupid, Quarians aren't that desperate, and Turians are definitely in the area according to cannon, so it makes sense for that contact to happen over others... But I'm sure many of you will love my first contact war descriptions, even if they'll be short and glossy since I don't plan on this story being the one that covers that in heavy detail [if I end up doing so.]