24th April, 2157.
"Captain, telemetry from the shuttle cut off. It appears to have been shot down."
Fortix bottled up his building rage, before coming to a decision more logical than the one that first came to mind.
"If those aliens are hostile, we don't have enough firepower to take them on. Helm, jump us back to the Relay."
"Yes sir."
The shock had worn off for Lieutenant Sorus Vakarian after a few minutes of being with these "humans". Sure they looked ridiculously like asari, but most of the sentient species in the known galaxy followed the same two-armed, bipedal form with the main sensory organs as part of a defined head. Thinking about it, they also looked quite a bit like quarians, but with the more defined facial features of asari. But mostly like the asari, but with the head fur that was common to quarians instead of the tentacle-like crests protruding from the back of asari craniums.
It hadn't taken long to determine how they saw him. They were being extremely cautious, and they had taken everything except his armour and omni-tool. Not to mention the armed guards just about everywhere he looked. Aside from his covert recordings, he'd had to use the device to scan the food they'd tried to feed him. Turned out they were levo-amino. Sorus had had to use the omni-tool to project protein strands to explain how their food might kill him. They got the message eventually. Especially after he had put aside his pride and pretended to fall down dead after pointing at the plate. The humans allowed him to eat some of this own rations instead. And they'd let him keep the omni-tool, since they'd realised that they might be able to communicate through it.
As such, the omni-tool was also analysing the words that echoed around him, trying to contextualise the sounds and alien words to put together some kind of translation system. It was very slow progress. Most of the words he'd been able to get had been related to his weapons and armour. They'd been curious about the barriers, but seemed to have given up until they had some way to translate and explain the inner workings.
After a while they'd moved him into a room with troopers Karick and Piran, while they were presumably still observing Doctor Daela. They'd been separated from her since they'd been brought aboard, and she'd still been unconscious from the crash. The resemblance must be really creeping them out, huh. Or maybe it's easier for them to try and speak to someone who looks like them, and can probably eat their food.
So he sat, idly chatting with Karick and Piran about their situation, which wasn't exactly welcoming but wasn't really hostile either. They were also putting together a report of everything they knew, so they had something they could transmit back to the Hierarchy and the Council if they eventually got the chance. Maybe those humans can figure out a translation from all this.
The hatch swung open slowly. And then the human that Vakarian had come to know as Williams walked through the door. Followed by what he assumed was a human female, judging by her obvious similarities to asari and female quarians. It was hard to tell, since they all looked the same in their identical armour plating and the bulky exoskeletons that they wore over them. But the females seemed to have higher pitched voices, so that was a start.
Vakarian stood to greet the humans. Williams nodded his curiously hairless head before speaking, "Sorusvakarian."
Williams gestured to the female, "Shepard." The female waved her hand. Some kind of greeting? Williams sat down, followed by Shepard. Vakarian followed suit.
And then Sorus felt a kind of pressure in the back of his head, like someone was poking around in his mind. Across from him, Shepard had her eyes closed.
Lieutenant Commander Hannah Shepard stilled as she peered into the aliens mind. It was so different to a human mind. Rather than a forest of branching thought, it was more like a neural city. Thoughts, memories, ideas; arranged haphazardly, but with a certain discipline to their organisation. Much different from what the minds of BETA Reactors were described as in reports; those were supposedly like a black hole of mind, completely singular in purpose.
She sifted through the memories, searching for the ones that the turian associated with language. A great many of them were linked to memories of teaching the language to what appeared to be a turian infant. A sound-word-memory appeared in Shepard's mind. Garrus. They're just like us, aren't they? She smiled inside, and added a few memories of her own little girl, Theresa Jade, to the turians memories. There's nothing classified about the family trip to Chiron, is there?
Shepard felt the turian tense up, feeling red and yellow, as if he knew what was happening. Shepard paused, before querying the turians memories for the ones linked to the reaction. It was something to do with that blue human looking alien that was still unconscious in the medical bay. Something to inquire about later.
Shepard finished absorbing the memories and knowledge relating to the turians language, before closing the hatch into his mind. The turians emotions returned to a calm shade of blue. She stood up, saluted the General, and left the compartment, before returning to her cabin to process the information and attempt to get a handle on the turian language. With luck, she would be able to upload some of the data into her neural net so that the fleet AI's could help her build up a translation matrix similar to the ones that had been used by the UN military since the BETA Wars back on Earth.
Sorus felt the weight in his mind relax, and he let out a sigh of relief, which was perforated by the sheer volume of questions that were beginning to overflow out of his brain. How were these humans capable of mind-melding? We didn't detect any Element Zero on their ships, so biotics is out of the question.
He looked questioningly at Williams, whose only response was to stand up, tilt his head and step out of the room. A puzzled Trooper Karick walked up to him.
"Are you alright, sir? And what was that? They just sat there for a minute, and then left. Wasn't much of an interrogation."
"I think that female mind-melded with me."
"How is that possible? Only the asari are known to be capable of mind-melds," exclaimed Piran, joining the conversation.
"It's a big galaxy, Piran."
Karick spoke up. "Sir, do you know what she took? The hooman might have taken information relating to the Hierarchy. Possibly for an invasion!"
"Calm down, Karick!"
"But Sir-"
Vakarian cut her off, "As far as I can tell they're treating us as guests. We haven't been tortured, they have somewhat unsuccessfully tried to feed us their food, and let us not forget that they saved us down on that planet."
"They could have been the ones who shot us down! This could be the Rachni Wars all over again!"
"Karick, if you do not calm down, I will write you up for insubordination when we return to the Indomitable. I understand how you feel trooper, but they did save us nonetheless, and you saw what those things down there did to Vierius and Rakal. I want to go home just as much as you do; I want to see my mate and my son again." The thought of little Garrus triggered something in Sorus' mind.
A cool breeze blows silver and brown hair across her face. Little Terry running ahead, her dark red and silver hair trailing behind her.
"Terry, don't go too far ahead."
"Okay Mama," replies the little girl, clearly not listening.
The breeze picks up, blowing the hat off of her head. She gazes upwards, reaching to grab it. She catches a glimpse of the twin stars staring down from the pale blue sky.
"Sir? Sir, are you okay?" It was Piran.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. You stopped speaking and your eyes went kinda blank. After effect of their version of the mind-meld? I've heard that asari mind-melds leave you a bit stunned afterwards."
"I don't think so. I believe I just saw that human, Shepard's memories. It was of a human child. Probably hers. I think she was trying to communicate that we're alike, but wasn't able to say it because of the language barrier."
"I see, sir."
"Good. Now get some rest Trooper, we're going to have a lot to report when we get back to the Hierarchy."
UNS Athens, CIC.
"General," vocalised Deja, "The Tobruk, Hastings and Paris have returned from Earth. Captain Sterne reports that they are carrying one Professor Anita Goyle. Additionally, further orders have arrived from HIGHCOM via the QEC. They are marked 'For Your Eyes Only.' I will transmit them to you when you are ready."
"Go."
"Yes, sir."
Williams closed his eyes and allowed the data-file to open up in his neural net.
Lieutenant General Frederic Williams, UNMC.
In light of possible first contact –
Williams skimmed through the military-political chaff to find the actual orders.
– the United Nations has appointed Professor Goyle as the civilian representative to the Turians, while you have been selected as the military representative in recognition of your ability to keep a level head during your encounter with the alien ship. –
–once your tech teams have completed their translation program, you are to negotiate with the turians currently in your care, along with the unidentified humanoid alien once it regains consciousness. –
–additional elements from the 3rd and 6th Fleets led by Group-Captain John Shepard will be joining your Expeditionary Fleet within the next two days. –
Good Luck.
Signed, General Jameson T. Kirke, UNMC.
Williams erased the orders from his neural net. "Deja, what is the progress of the translation program?"
"Almost complete, General. It should only be a few more hours to complete the bug-checks. The turian language is remarkable similar in structure to Latin."
"I see. Inform Colonel Telfair that I won't be joining them down at the ground base. I won't have time with all of this."
"Yes, General."
Indomitable, near Relay 314.
Captain Fortix stood on the Indomitable's observation deck watching the assembling fleet. He'd opted to report the incident directly to the Hierarchy command, rather than informing the council. It was his men who had been killed aboard that shuttle, and he was going to personally make sure that the alien bastards who killed them were brought to heel by the might of the Turian Hierarchy.
General Desolas Arterius had quickly mustered a massive force to take on the evidently hostile aliens, with a fleet comprising of six Dreadnoughts, forty Cruisers, and a dozen Frigate squadrons. It was extremely surprising, considering it had only been about a day since they'd escaped 314. Immediately after returning, he'd sent an encrypted message to Palaven High Command. High Command, predicting another Rachni incident, had responded by sending a massive fleet. Once the fleet was fully armed and fuelled, something that was scheduled to be completed within the next few days. Then the fleet would deploy through the relay, which according to the intel that Fortix had brought back, was not guarded. The fleet would then divide into battlegroups and FTL jump to the planet.
And then the bastards would pay.
Codex:
Ships and Vehicles – Military Ship Classification: [Addendum] United Nations Warship Classification.
Larger warships are generally classified in one of six weights:
-FRIGATES are small, fast ships used for scouting and screening larger vessels. Frigates often operate in "wolf-pack" flotillas, but are often used for battlefield reconnaissance. They are also used as a heavy landing craft and recovery vehicle for vehicles that are incapable of making it back into orbit by themselves, thanks to their spacious cargo holds.
-DESTROYERS are a specialised type of heavy frigate for escorting and eliminating capital-class vessels. Typically deployed in support of fighter and interceptor squadrons.
-CRUISERS are middle-weight combatants, faster than battleships, more heavily armed than frigates, and more heavily armoured than destroyers. Cruisers are the standard patrol unit, and often lead frigate flotillas.
-DREADNOUGHTS are kilometre-and-a-half-long capital ships mounting heavy, long-range firepower. They are used as system defence monitors, and are rarely deployed outside their home systems.
-BATTLESHIPS are kilometre long capital warships carrying immense batteries of broadside and bombardment weaponry. They have the heaviest armour of any human built ship, but are used primarily for planetary assault, although they are designed for close range devastation of enemy fleets.
-CARRIERS are vessels even larger than dreadnoughts. They come in two types, the Fleet Carrier and the Assault Carrier. Fleet carriers primarily carry strike fighters and bombers, while Assault Carriers are dedicated planetary assault platforms, capable of carrying Tactical Surface Fighters, strike fighters, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and dropships, in staggering numbers.
Smaller vessels are exclusively used in a support role to the warships during combat:
-STRIKE FIGHTERS are one-man craft used to perform close range attacks on enemy ships, and to screen friendly units from enemy fighters. They are also used as fast-moving air-support during ground operations.
-BOMBERS are two-to-three man craft used to perform close range attacks against enemy capital ships, by firing massive volleys of missiles and railgun fire at enemy ships.
Starships: Frigates [Addendum – United Nations Frigates]
Frigates are light escort and scouting vessels. They often have extensive GARDIAN systems to provide anti-fighter screening for capital ships, and carry a squad of marines for security and groundside duty. Like larger vessels, frigates are able to land on planets, and are preferred for this role due to their smaller size and easier handling compared to the large cruisers and massive battleships or carriers. Frigates also have large cargo holds which allows them to be used as landing craft for ground vehicles, and recovery vehicles for atmospheric craft and TSFs that cannot reach orbit under their own power.
Frigate drive systems allow them to achieve high STL and FTL cruise speeds. They also have proportionally larger thrusters and lighter design mass, allowing them to manoeuvre more handily. In combat, speed and manoeuvrability make a frigate immune to the long-range fire of larger vessels; in the time it takes projectiles to reach them, frigates are no longer where they were predicted to be.
In fleet combat, frigates are organized into "wolf pack" flotillas of four to six. Wolf packs speed through enemy formations, hunting enemy vessels whose kinetic barriers have been taken down by fighter-launched disruptor torpedoes and missiles, and wounding those that aren't, with their spinal particle cannons. The wolf-pack circle-strafes vulnerable targets, using their superior speed and manoeuvrability to evade return fire.
United Nations frigates are named for great battles in human history.
Starships: Destroyers
Destroyers are heavily armed frigate-sized vessels designed to screen capital ships from enemy fighters and frigates. They are armed in a similar manner to bombers, but on the scale of a warship. As such, the scale of their armament is increased comparatively. Destroyers cull enemy fighter squadrons using their massive batteries of short range laser weapons and stream-fire railguns. They are also equipped with missiles, in numbers well beyond overkill for ships of their size.
During combat, destroyers will also be deployed in support of bomber squadrons to assault enemy capital ships. A single destroyer, with its enormous array of missiles, magnetic accelerators and lasers, can gut a cruiser. Unfortunately, to maintain the manoeuvrability that they share with frigates, destroyers eschew heavy armour, making them highly vulnerable to return fire while hunting capital ships.
Destroyers are named after cities on Earth lost to the BETA
Starships: Cruisers [Addendum – United Nations Cruisers]
Cruiser-weight starships are the standard combat unit encountered away from large naval bases, the "poor bloody infantry" of most fleets. Nimble scouting frigates have neither the punch nor the stamina to stand up to serious combat, agile destroyers have the firepower but lack the durability, and the mighty battleships are a strategic resource, carefully kept away from front line naval combat and committed to only the most critical battles.
Cruisers form the core of the fleets defending the colonies, supported by dreadnoughts, and lead flotillas of frigates in small engagements, such as pirate suppression campaigns. In major fleet engagements, cruiser squadrons protect the core of the formation, usually a carrier or battleship, by screening their flanks against enemies attempting to manoeuvre for a main gun "bow shot" from their vulnerable broadsides.
United Nations cruisers are named after the cities of Earth and her colonies.
Starships: Dreadnoughts [Addendum – United Nations Dreadnoughts]
Dreadnoughts are the heavy capital ships of system defence fleets, supported by large numbers of cruisers; the dreadnought is considered the ultimate arbiter of defensive firepower, with millions of tonnes of metal, ceramic and polymer dedicated to projecting firepower capable of destroying any vessel of any size and firepower that intrudes into its home system.
A dreadnoughts power lies in the length of its main gun. Dreadnoughts are typically 1600 metres in length, with the main gun running most of the length. The a 1500 metre mass accelerator is capable of accelerating one 200 kilogram slug to a velocity of 7145km/s every twelve seconds. Each slug has the kinetic energy of 1.22 megatons of TNT, more than thirty two times the energy released by the fission weapon that destroyed Berlin. As such, being anywhere within sight of a dreadnought is equivalent to already being dead. If a dreadnought is used to bombard a planet, there must be something there that needs to be annihilated out of existence.
When used to bombard planets, some of this kinetic energy is lost due to atmospheric re-entry friction. As a rule of thumb, each Earth-atmosphere of air pressure saps approximately 20% of projectiles impact energy. Not that this is any consolation to the inhabitants of said planet.
In addition to their ridiculously powerful main cannon, dreadnoughts also employ broadside mass accelerators of similar power to those of a cruiser, in the event that the massive vessel is too close to the enemy ship to use the spinal gun.
United Nations dreadnoughts are named after mountains on Earth.
Starships: Battleships
To be caught in close range combat with a battleship is to have been written off as dead. The kilometre-long warships are designed precisely for that role, with mass accelerator and particle cannon broadsides capable of gutting a shielded dreadnought. Battleships can also take as much as they can dish out, with armour massing millions of tonnes and metres thick, reinforced with a honey-combed hull superstructure to absorb impacts.
Despite being designed for devastating enemy ships at point blank range, the sheer cost of producing them means they are rarely used in such a role, and are relegated to system defence and orbital bombardment.
When battleships do engage in naval warfare, however, they plow straight into the enemy fleet through gaps in the line made by cruisers, frigates and bombers, before utterly annihilating everything around it. Other tactics include FTL jumping them into close proximity of enemy capital ships, decapitating the enemy fleet in one strike.
In the event that cruiser support is unavailable, battleships are mounted with a pair of cruiser-scale spinal cannons.
Battleships are named after famous last stand battles from pre-BETA Earth.
Starships: Carriers
All races provide their fleets with organic fighter support. Cruisers fit a handful in the space between the interior pressure hulls and exterior armor. Dreadnoughts have a hangar deck within the hull. Humans – who had only "recently graduated" from surface to space combat – were the first to build ships wielding fighters as the main armament.
In fleet combat, carriers stay clear of battle, launching fighters bearing disruptor torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. Fighters are the primary striking power of the ship; if a carrier enters mass accelerator range of the enemy, things have gone very wrong. This is, however, not the worst possible scenario, as carriers still more heavily armed and armoured than cruisers, mounting a 900 metre mass accelerator, along with large numbers of stream-fire railguns and missile batteries. Some tactics even call for the carrier to act as the centre of the main formation in a front line battle.
It is possible to recover and rearm fighters during combat, though most carriers seal the flight deck and try to stay out of the way. To limit the damage that could be done by a well-placed torpedo or missile strike, the launch decks of carriers are sectioned off outriggers of the main hull; that is, they are separated from the hull by armour in volumes equivalent to the exterior of the ship. The launch decks are further protected by massive numbers of defence lasers.
United Nations Fleet carriers are named after the lost ancient cities of Earth, while Assault carriers are named after ones from human mythology.
Starships: Strike Fighters
Strike fighters are single-pilot small craft. Their high-thrust, high efficiency engines and manoeuvring thrusters make them capable of much greater acceleration and sharper manoeuvres than starships. During combat, strike fighters are loaded with anti-fighter micro-missiles, in addition to their stream mass accelerators. Against warships, they are armed with anti-ship missiles, which are sometimes loaded with thermonuclear warheads.
They are also used to screen friendly bombers from enemy fighter craft.
Strike fighters are designed as atmospheric/exo-atmospheric craft, and are capable of launching from the surface of a planet to fight in orbit. However, due to the lengthy amount of time required for them to reach orbit, strike fighters launching from the ground will often launch using modular multi-stage rocket systems.
During operations within a planet's atmosphere, strike fighters will typically carry air-to-ground and air-to-air missiles in place of the more specialised anti-ship and space-anti-fighter missiles.
Each model of fighter is named after a type of faery.
Starships: Bombers
Bombers are long-ranged two-to-three man craft that are somewhat larger than strike fighters. They are used to perform close range attacks against enemy capital ships during space combat, using the enormous numbers of anti-ship missiles carried in their internal bays and on their wing and fuselage hardpoints, along with railgun streams to use when missiles have been expended.
Bombers are much slower and less manoeuvrable than fighters, and have little anti-fighter armament beyond their nose mounted railguns; squadrons of bombers must be escorted by fighters, lest they be picked off by enemy fighters.
Like fighters, bombers are also atmospheric/exo-atmospheric craft, and can engage in planetary combat. During such missions, however, their main armaments are exchanged for smart-freefall bombs and air-to-ground missiles, and the mass of their loads must be reduced to allow them to actually leave the ground.
Each model of bomber is named after a type of ghost or shadow.
Hey guys its been two weeks, sorry I took that long. And sorry that the codex is longer than the chapter...I'm better at writing factional then fictional. Anyway, question time:
-Kaioo: definitely don't want to go that route. Too cliche, too boring.
-angrycritique: Yes I've downplayed the BETA. Its post-Alternative Earth in Mass Effect. And I do have an explanation for why the BETA aren't everywhere, and for why the Citadel hasn't encountered them. And for why they don't adapt they way you might expect. As for the Heavy-laser, they can't hit things directly overhead. According to the wiki (which is taken from the various source books), [heavy-lasers] are effective against targets of up to a mere 500 meters high, and a spectacular range of over 100 kilometers . 26000 kilometres doesn't even make sense, since that distance is longer than the diameter of the Earth, and considering their 500 metre max altitude, you would have to be in a ridiculous and impractically high orbit.
To further differ humanity from the Citadel races, I've given humanity new classes of ships, or change existing ones significantly.
Frigates: imagine the Normandy SR-1, with a longer, slightly wider cargo bay.
Destroyers: Same as a UN Frigate, but with the cargo bay turned into an enormous missile pod. Also picture lots of guns poking out of the hull.
Battleships: Cross an Alliance Dreadnought with a Halcyon-cruiser from Halo. And then tack on hundreds of broadside guns.
Carriers: the colony ships from Muv-Luv Unlimited.
See you guys next time.
EDIT: Thanks Ordo Rolanberry for point out my calculation error.