Those Damn Primitives Chapter 3: The Defense of Shanxi, a mass effect fanfic

So, after a few months of promising myself I'd get around to converting this to an original novel, I finally decided to face the reality of the fact that it ain't gonna happen. Because of this, I decided to revive this story. So here, after much waiting, is chapter two. My apologies to everybody for the wait, but don't get your hopes up for another chapter soon- this fic is the lowest on my priorities list.

Before we begin I'd like to say a few things. Firstly, the codex has been altered to include the Artificial Republic, the AI nation. My original idea just didn't work. Secondly, I'm not sure I was able to properly describe the omicrons. Juveniles look kinda like crabs. When they put down roots, their body grows upward from the center, until they look more like trees. Really small adults still have a discernable crabbish part, and can live in mobile environments (in their most basic form, they're big planters with wheels, though more advanced ones have anti-grav systems). These environments are steered by a tiny juvenile, who is given directions by the adult in the pot. Lastly, when I was looking at the preview of the codex, I noticed that the wierd symbols in the footnote at the bottom had been translated. Where it says "jkeeee," that's supposed to be a bunch of random non-English symbols. The idea is that it can't be translated. I'm leaving that footnote out of respect for my dad, who thought it was hilarious, but I thought an explanation was in order. Thirdly, I have changed the title back to "Those Damn Primitives," even though my dad finds it offensive, because it just doesn't work otherwise.

Also, sorry for taking so frikkin' long to write this.

I would also like to remind you that I don't know shit about the military or tactics, so this will be hideously unrealistic. Deal with it. I'm writing this for the fun of it.

Now for Q&A. I will do this at the beginning of every chapter. I'm going to post the question that was asked as well as answer it, because I hate when authors only post the answer, and then I'm curious about what the question was, and I have to read ten million reviews to find the question.

Cellester asked:

Are you not putting a space between peoples first and last name on purpose? Whats the range of the teleportation gates? Planet to planet? System to system?

1)That was really wierd. My computer did that on its own. I've fixed it. 2) From gate A to any other gate, wherever that might be.

If the Charon relay was destroyed wouldn't the system have been destroyed as well like what happened to the Bahak system in Mass Effect 2? Maybe it was just damaged to the point of being nonfunctional?

I haven't actually played ME2, so I was unaware of the fact that that happened. And I suppose that it was just damaged, since my idea was that it was still in one piece, but nonfunctional.

Bouncyjellies was wondering why I used a kingdom instead of an empire. It's a kingdom because it uses a constitution I made up a while ago in an attempt to come up with an ideal government.

EVERYBODY was wondering about the dolphins. Basically, the dolphins were a joke that got out of hand. They will have very little impact on the story.

For Normal People (ie, those without eidetic memories): The Coalition of Sentient Races is a government comprised of four races- omicrons, a species of sentient plants; thessi, a species of trigendered snake-like people; artificial intelligences; and humans. Yes, the use of semicolons there was grammatically correct. I checked. The turians discovered a Coalition task force messing with a Mass Relay, and, being morons, attacked the task force in question. The surviving turian force located the only inhabitable planet in the system, and since the Coalition ships don't use eezo, figured that this was the "primitives'" home planet. They sent in a pacification fleet, which defeated the Coalition's defense fleet. The turians then set down an occupation force, which was soundly defeated in the omicron forest, causing turian troops to break for the first time in centuries.

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General Desolas stared at the report in front of him. His men had run away from the enemy? Turian soldiers had broken ranks and fled? And it hadn't just been an isolated incident, either. Three entire companies, and nearly a dozen platoons, had broken ranks. The remainder of his forces, while maintaining formation, had still retreated hastily from the forests they had been entering. Clearly, whatever was in these forests was deadly and terrifying. And Desolas was unsure exactly what was in the forests. He had reports of giant crab-like creatures with devastating weapons mounted on their backs, of armored snakes that came out of holes in the ground and wrapped around his soldiers' necks, of creatures that appeared to be half snake, of armored creatures the size of a small varren with vicious claws, and of the pink asari-like creatures that had contacted Admiral Kerussan before the invasion had begun (presumably- they had all been armored, so it was slightly difficult to discern what they looked like, but the body shape was the same). The sheer variety of creatures was astonishing. Judging by the fact that they used weapons, the giant crabs, the half snakes, and the pink asari all seemed to be intelligent, which didn't make sense. It was unheard of for a single planet to develop more than one sentient race, but these creatures didn't have eezo, so they were clearly new to space travel. Weren't they?

At any rate, none of that mattered. What did matter was that the enemy clearly held a major tactical advantage in these forests. He would be a fool to think that sending his men into them a second time would work when it had been so disastrous the first time. Which meant that he would have to clear them out.

Samen sat quietly, waiting for the aliens to attack again. There wasn't much for a tree to do in a fight, but they were important for reconaissance. The trees kept watch on enemy movements and reported them to HQ. So far, there hadn't been much to report since the aliens had retreated. They were just... sitting there. A few minutes ago, however, they'd started moving, not towards the forest, but away from it. From what other omicrons had told it, this was going on all over the world, too. Samen was wondering what they were doing, when it recieved a signal from HQ.

"Attention: The enemy has begun orbital bombardment. CIC judges the projectiles to be aimed towards the omicron forests. All personel located in the forests are to withdraw and seek shelter."

Had Samen been capable of movement, it would have frozen at that announcement. Orbital bombardments? On forests? That could only mean the aliens were using herbicides or chemical agents.

Samen's mind reeled. Surely these aliens werent such monsters as to use herbicides? It had been against Coalition law since the formation of the government. The omicrons themselves hadn't banned the use of herbicides until meeting other races, but that was solely because the idea was completely alien to them. They'd never even thought of the idea. When they'd contacted humans, and learned of the existence of such chemicals, the omicrons had been horrified. In fact, a fair-sized minority had wanted to declare war on the humans. Most of the population had been more moderate, but they had still been horrified by the concept, and had insisted that all herbicides be outlawed if the Omicron Republic was to join an alliance with the humans (and later, the thessi). Many humans and thesi had objected to this, especially farmers, but the movement had eventually been pushed through, and in the two hundred years since then, the idea of herbicides had become generally reviled by all sentients. The use of herbicides was highly illegal, and using it on an intelligent plant like an omicron (which were, in fact, the only known intelligent plant) was considered a crime against sentience (which was similar in concept to a crime against humanity, but since humanity was no longer the only group involved, it needed a new name).

Samen asked its brethren of their opinions. Some scoffed at the idea that any creature would perform such an action. Others were worried that Samen may be right. All were horrified by the possibility.

Unfortunately for the omicrons, the turians hadn't encountered sentient plant life before, and herbicides were merely a convenient way of clearing out vegetation. The Coalition forces did their best to shoot down as many of the pods as possible, but there were simply too many of them. Every now and then a pod would pierce the anti-air defenses, and when they hit the ground, the true horror began. The pods opened up to reveal large machines that began pumping gasses into the nearby air. Any plant that was touched by this gas withered and died. The specialized herbicide not only killed plants, but destroyed them entirely. Small plants died instantly, but omicrons took much longer. A young adult took as little as five minutes, but the ancients and elders could take hours to die, in excruciating pain the entire time. Within a few hours, every major omicron forest on Shanxi was dying.

To make matters worse, as the adult omicrons died, they lost control over the juveniles. There were enough adults in parks to prevent complete disaster, but there weren't enough to control all of them. Most of the time, the juveniles just went catatonic, and simply stood there. Others, especially the older and more intelligent (and therefor larger) ones, went beserk.

One of these omicrons happened to be in Lieutenant Makgureth Oktur's platoon. One moment, things were fine. Her soldiers were sitting in their defensive positions, waiting to be deployed and discussing the aliens' use of herbicide (what kind of monsters were these creatures?). Then, suddenly, she'd heard yelling. She turned around to find that O-7, one of the juveniles in her platoon (omicrons didn't have names until they put down roots and became sentient, at which time they chose a name for themselves. This was an ancient part of omicron culture, and it was considered rude to give a juvenile a name), had picked up a nearby supply vehicle and thrown it against a building.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Karly Warren, the corporal she'd been talking to.

"The omicrons. We must have lost too many adults to mantain control over all of our juveniles." Makgureth responded.

She stared in amazement as it grabbed a soldier in each pincer and began using them as clubs to beat down others. Soldiers opened fire on their comrade-turned-enemy, but conventional bullets didn't even phase the tank-sized monster, and the platoon, as a hit-and-run group, only had a few plasma weapons, and no heavy guns at all. The beast smashed crates of equipment and threw them at groups of men, grabbed soldiers and sliced them in half with its claws, and beat them to death, eerily silent the entire time.

"Shit!" Makgureth exclaimed as O-7 began running in her direction. Suddenly, a pair of grenades rolled underneath the rampaging omicron. All eight of the creature's legs were blown off by the following explosion. It fell to the ground, claws still lashing out, but as long as nobody got near it, it was safe. Sap oozed from the spots where O-7's legs had been blasted off, and it slowly stopped moving its claws. Makgureth knew the threat wasn't gone- as soon as it could reach somebody, it would likely go into a frenzy again- but it was safe enough for now.

Makgureth looked around her at the carnage that was the result of the beserk omicron and scowled. Over a third of her platoon had been killed during the rampage. Fifteen good men, women, and warriors, many of whom she had been friends with. All because these bastard aliens had decided to murder entire forests of omicrons.

General Williams looked at the screen in front of him in despair. Thousands of omicrons had died horribly from the herbicides, including nearly a dozen Elders, the most revered members of omicron society, and hundreds of seedlings. In the beserk attacks by uncontrolled omicrons that had followed, over two hundred personnel had been killed. All because these bastard aliens had decided that they wanted this planet. Williams looked at what remained of the forests, and swore to himself, then and there, that he whatever turian had signed the order to use herbicides, he would be tried for war crimes, and then be executed for them. And no matter what, this day would never, ever be forgotten. The turians would pay for what they had done here today on Shanxi. The Coalition would see the turian worlds burn for this. The people would accept nothing less.

Soon after the gasses started spreading throughout the forests, the turian forces began to mobilize. As soon as the herbicide had cleared, they got in formation and began marching. Lieutenant Korel's platoon fell into formation with the rest of the battallion. He was much less nervous than he had been earlier. With the forests gone, the enemy forces had nowhere to hide, so they couldn't enact the ambushes that had been so devastating before. The turians would be able to get to the cities and begin the attack. And once the occupation forces were in the cities, they would have a much stronger position. City fighting was what turian soldiers were best at. They had trained for it, and their tactics had been honed to perfection over a period of centuries. The aliens wouldn't be able to practice those blasted guerilla techniques that had been so devastating before.

The batallion began marching towards the city, avoiding the single road that led into the city in case of mines or ambush. After about a half an hour of travelling through the devastated forest, the city limits came into sight. Large buildings were on either side of the road, and the road itself had a heavily fortified barricade. Behind the barricade, Korel could see two tanks and several large mecha, as well as a variety of different aliens.

As soon as the barricade came into view, and before the turians could react, there was a high pitched whine, and a beam of red light* erupted from each of the tanks. The lasers sliced through several turians each before the whining died down and the beam disappeared.

"Take cover!" Korel ordered, diving behind the remains of a tree as the mecha opened fire with machine guns and rocket launchers.

These aliens have energy weapons? thought Korel. We were told they were primitive!

The point was driven home when a green glowing ball** hit a soldier who had yet to reach cover. Korel watched in horror as the soldier's chest was incinerated.

"Spirits!" exclaimed a soldier next to Korel. "What the hell was that?"

"I... I don't know," Korel responded, "I've never heard of a weapon like that."

"I thought these bastards were supposed to be a bunch of backwater primitives!" the soldier said. "What are they doing with weapons that can incinerate us?"

Korel didn't respond. He was beginning to get the feeling that General Arterius had been gravely mistaken in his assumption that the aliens were less advanced than the turians were.

Unfortunately, that didn't matter. What did matter was getting past this barricade.

"Have met heavy defenses." Korel said into his omnitool. "Requesting air support at," he read out his coordinates.

"Air support already incoming," responded the coordinator. "ETA ten minutes."

Korel sighed in relief. Somebody higher up must have spotted the barricade before he did and called in the air raid.

Ten minutes later, two gunships soared overhead, cannons firing as they let their missiles go. One of the missiles was shot down, the other three hit their targets. The tanks exploded as the rockets detonated, and several of the mecha were shot down by the gunship's cannons. The surviving mecha focused their fire, successfully bringing down one of the gunships, but their job was done, and the Turians opened fire on the surviving aliens as they surged forward. Mecha fell as the Makos and heavy infantry opened fire, and aliens and snake-people were mowed down by the fire from the light infantry. The aliens returned fire, inflicting heavy casualties. Green balls of light shot from the mecha and from what appeared to be heavy infantry, while bullets too large and too slow to be stopped by a kinetic barrier tore into turian armor. Eventually, though, the aliens were forced into a retreat, and they scampered backwards, some dragging wounded comerades with them, disappearing into the city.

Ten minutes later, the turian battalion was passing through the barricade when the barriers on either side of them exploded. Bits of concrete and steel flew into the turian forces, killing and injuring soldiers. Soldiers yelled as they dove for cover, screamed as their bodies were ripped apart by flying shrapnel, or swore as they saw the attack, depending on how close they had been to the barriers.

For the next hour, the turians moved into the city carefully, but they met few aliens. What they did find were traps. Every corner was barricaded, and the Makos were quickly moved to the front of the formation to shoot down the barricades so that the footsoldiers could walk past their remains in safety. This led to the second problem- scattered across the road, hidden under debris such as newspapers (which apparently these primitives still used), bits of cardboard, or articles of clothing were anti-tank mines. As a precaution, a special force was put in front of the makos to check each and every piece of debris. Not only did this slow the battalion down considerably due to the amount of debris, (apparently the aliens had evacuated the city in something of a panic. Either that, or all of the debris was there for the sole purpose of making it hard to tell where the mines were.) but it was also an extremely deadly job. Much of the debris held, not anti-tank mines, but devices which, when approached, would jump into the air and explode, sending shrapnel flying in all directions at waist-height. These mines were somehow created with virtually no metal or advanced material, making it virtually impossible to detect the damned things. Eventually, it was discovered that by rolling a Mako tire down the street, it would activate any proximaty based mines, thus enabling the soldiers to search for anti-tank mines in the wreckage. Fortunately, the shrapnel from the "hoppers," as the soldiers had taken to calling them, went straight over the tires, so this tactic didn't wear on their repair supplies too heavily.

"Clever bastards," General Williams muttered as he watched the turians advance through the traffic cameras which were at every street corner. The turians were a little under a milexxx past the city limits now, and were moving more quickly now that they'd made it past the minefields. He had hoped it would take them a little longer to figure out a way past them so as to give his men more prep time, but if wishes were fishes, then nobody'd starve, the general thought as he ordered the next wave of resistance against the invaders.

*While humans had successfully developed energy weapons by the mid 21st century, the power requirements meant that they could only be equipped on artillery- they could not be used as standard firearms. Also, until recently, they could not be equipped on naval vessels, as the power requirements for a shipboard energy weapon were truly enormous. It was only within the past decade that it became possible to mount energy weapons on ships, and even then they could only be equipped on dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts. By the time of the Battle of Shanxi, only seven dreadnoughts had energy weapons, as did both of the superdreadnoughts in service.

**Plasma weapons are generally used by heavy infantry and mecha, and are not equipped on naval ships at all due to the difficulty of generating sufficient ammunition.

Wow. This chapter was a bitch to write. I know just enough about tactics to know what they WOULDN'T do, and not enough to know what they WOULD. It made things extremely difficult. On the other hand, it was extremely fun to plan defenses for a city with unlimited resources and manpower (yay teleportation!) and several days to prepare.

Also, go check out the Big Box 'O' Ideas for stories I'd like to see written. And vote on the poll in my profile for The Gamechangers.