Chapter 3: Diplomacy

A/N: Hello people, well I'm writing this to explain some things that I think weren't left clear:

1) Humanity in this story does not use mass-effect technology, even if they found the prothean vault, inside there was nothing of eezo or the engine and the data were heavily corrupted; so they could only get out of the basic data on turians, asari and salarians. Apart from the basics for the kinetic shields.

2) They tried to use the kinetic shields, but the shields did not detect the bullets given their speed, the same thing happened on the ships. So the technology was replaced by a human model. The plasma shields. There have been attempts to use this technology in soldiers, all ending in fatal results.

3) I made the mistake of writing bad the speed of human FTL, to make it simple, the travel time to Arcturus is of 30 minutes.

4) I know, I know if light doesn't pass the clouds of the story a nuclear winter should start… do me a favor, and ignore it. Please.

5) About humanity and seeing in the dark… do me another favor, and ignore it.

6) O'Connor is an inventor, not a captain.

7) Everything on Earth changed to work in darkness.

8) And the Reapers in this story don't exist.

And now passing to another theme: Grammar

This is a common theme in many of the reviews, so now it is my turn to speak.

First of all, English is not my first language, I know what's going to happen, "but English and Spanish have almost the same punctuation rules" ok. But that does not matter if I am 14 years old and haven't even started 1st middle (or ninth grade) so I still have a lot of English to learn. And everything I've posted has already been reviewed by a beta, and yet she has trouble understanding what I write. Without her it would be much worse.

And finally, sorry for the delay, I had a study tour in the southern part of my country (Chile) and I had nothing close to the internet for 5 days, mixed in with a writer's block and festivities, I am so sorry.

Thanks for reading.

RedHood02

"GETH!" One of the Marines shouted, then the rest of the quarian Marines started to raise their rifles.

The pilots immediately understood what was going to happen, so the first one ran to the ambassadors and attached himself to them, after that he jumped to the other side of the Arvus. Meanwhile the second and third ones ran to the quarians, the second pilot arriving first and kicked the weapon out of the Marine's hands; after that, he punched him hard in the gut, knocking him out due to the sudden and violent lack of air. The third pilot did the same with the other Marine.

Afterwards the two pilots reached for their pistols and shot the knees out of other two Marines (given that the pilots don't use mass effect weapons, the shields of the Marines didn't detect the bullets). Then there was the sound of a jetpack and the first pilot appeared over the Arvus. The last Marine shot at the pilot with the jetpack hitting him in the leg, but the pilot's suit reacted immediately, applying medi-gel on the wound and injecting adrenaline in his bloodstream, preventing the pilot from feeling pain. When he was patched up, the pilot fell on top of the quarian, punching him in the "face" and pulverizing his visor, before knocking him out. Then the three pilots pointed at the admiral.

Ik'er saw a hologram appear beside White, he thought that it was a VI, but when he heard simulated emotion in the voice he understood that it was an AI. Panic started to well inside of him until he heard one of his Marines shout. He was going to order them to stand down but the human soldiers were faster than his mouth, and their speed took him by surprise. He blinked… two Marines down… he blinked again… another two… another blink…a shot. The human soldier didn't give any sign of pain, that scared him more… one last blink… there were three guns pointed at him… he closed his eyes and prayed, accepting his fate… then nothing. He opened his eyes to see that the pilots were only pointing at him. He saw White and Xen approaching him.

"What the hell was that?!" White shouted in a very annoyed tone.

"I'm sorry Jason'White, our race has a bad history with AI's," Ik'er turned his head to look at his Marines on the floor. Two had suit punctures and one had the visor of his helmet pulverized, he turned back to them again. "I need to take my Marines to my ship, they need urgent medical attention." He was almost begging, afraid that White would say no. He saw White make a gesture to his soldiers, they answered immediately by lowering their guns, after that they saluted him and remained still.

"Take them," White answered harshly. "Five hours, same place."

After that White and Xen turned and entered their shuttle along with the soldiers. Ik'er sighed, his Marines had made a huge mistake. He heard groans, and then saw two Marines whom had been punched in the gut rising. When they were completely recovered, one spoke up.

"What in the name of keelah are they, sir? I've never seen anyone move so fast." He grabbed his gut in pain.

"I don't know," he sighed. "Help me put the others in the shuttle."

The Marines nodded and began to carry their companions into the shuttle. Ik'er wondered if he had just doomed his race.

One hour later, a meeting of the Admiralty Board was taking place aboard the Rayya; the five admirals were discussing what to do with the saryn-human issue.

"We must to declare war on them!" Zan'Gerrel shouted to the other admirals.

"We can't!" Ik'er shouted back. "You weren't there, you don't know of what their soldiers are capable of!"

"And what, they only have 350 ships, if we attack now, we could destroy their fleet and decimated they morale!" Zan was still shouting.

"For the ancestors' sake, we aren't going to attack, we don't know their real strength, this could easily be a scout fleet!"

"Or the main fleet!" Zan was growing tired of the discussion.

"Enough!" Zin'quel shouted slamming his fist on the table, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "Ik'er, what you can say about them?"

"I do not know what to say," he was shivering a little at remembering the short combat. "I have the records from the Marines' helmets."

Pressing some buttons on his omni-tool, a vid screen appeared in the middle of the table, divided into five sections, each one corresponding to a Marine's helmet footage, the admirals saw the five aliens. Four of them were masked, the rests of the admirals were shocked after seeing that the "soldiers" weren't wearing any type of armor. After the formalities were made they saw a hologram of a human male (they supposed it was a male due to his physical similarities with White). When they heard the simulated emotion in the voice they tensed up, Zan paused the vid.

"AIs," he said calmly. "They have fucking AIs!"

"Shut up, Zan," said Ik'er replaying the vid.

After that they heard a Marine shout, and all of them raised their rifles. The human soldiers immediately reacted, when the admirals saw their speed, strength… and brutality, all were stunned. Three minutes after the vid ended, Admiral Kar'zel spoke up.

"How?… They knocked out five Marines… five of our best Marines, before they could even make a shot," his voice was just above a whisper.

"That speed is… impossible, even the asari commandos aren't that fast."

Every admiral was in their little world, trying to assimilate was they just witnessed.

"See Zan? Even if we destroy their fleet this," he pointed at one of the soldiers, "is going to be waiting for us, and you've seen what three—three of them—did to the best of our Marines."

"You're right," he said as he lowered his head. "I apologize."

"No problem… now, we must solve this," he turned to the rest of the admirals. "Ideas?"

These next four hours would be the longest in living memory.

Ik'er arrived five hours later at the same place on the planet; he had to choose another five Marines, as the ones he had chosen before were still in the sickbay. He saw the Marines, they were all extremely nervous, they knew what had happened to the others and they weren't the top in the fleet.

"We've arrived, sir," the pilot announced, Ik'er stood up to wait for the door to open. When it did, he immediately headed to where White and Xen were waiting.

"You have 2 minutes to explain the behavior of your Marines," White said harshly, his arms crossed.

"We are sorry, it's just that… our people have a bad history with AIs."

"I know, you already said that," White replied.

"How bad?" Xen asked curiously.

"Well… we created VIs of a collective mind called 'geth'; they were used for mundane or risky jobs, the ones no one wanted to do. After a time they started to show signs of conscience, like asking 'Am I alive?' and 'I have a soul?'. This proved that they were becoming sentient beings and that was when we decided to shut them down but they refused, then we passed to more drastic means." Ik'er sighed. "That led to the Morning War."

"What was the result of the war?" White asked, uncrossing his arms.

"We lost our home world," replied Ik'er, and the moment the words left his mouth, despite their controlled tone, White saw his body language display a great deal of shame and sorrow.

"I understand," said White, his tone empathetic. "Let me call High Command, to say that we can proceeded with the First Contact."

"And what's next?" asked Ik'er.

"We need your political heads, to journey to one of our systems and begin peace talks," explained White. "And while we're on the subject, how does your political system work?"

"Well, we have two governments, the Conclave and the Admiralty Board," replied Ik'er cautiously. "The two were created at the start of the flotilla-"

"Flotilla?" Xen cut off.

"When we escaped from our home system, all the remnants of the royal fleet joined and created the Quarian Migrant Fleet," said Ik'er, somewhat proudly. "Today there are a total of fifty thousand ships in the fleet. Anyway the Conclave is the civilian power, congregating in sessions attended by a representative of every ship who has been elected by the people of that ship. The Conclave discusses immediate issues in the fleet. The Admiralty Board is higher than the Conclave and discusses the important, big picture matters that have an impact on the quarian people as a whole. The board consists of five admirals also chosen by the people."

"So you are a democracy," said White.

"Democracy?" Ik'er asked confused.

"Democracy is a political system that defends the sovereignty of the people and the right of the people to choose and control their rulers," replied White.

"Then, yes," said Ik'er. "Anyway, the admiralty board is also the military, they can overturn an order from the Conclave if they think it could endanger the fleet; then they have to leave the post and a new board is chosen."

"Good," said White. "Call the rest of the admirals and tell them to come here, they can bring another five Marines, so we can leave in the Arvus."

"Okay," agreed Ik'er and he lifted up his omni-tool in order to tell to the others the good news.

Ten minutes later they were entering the outer atmosphere of the planet, heading to their rendezvous point with the Dark Sunrise one of the flagships of the Third Fleet. He had spoke a little with the admirals; almost everything had been about why his race used a helmet.

"So how long has your species been FTL capable?" Admiral Aza'har asked the only thing she spoke about was technology. White didn't like her; there was something off about her.

White thought for a moment. "Well, at least a century."

The admirals were now staring at him.

"A century?!" Zin'quel asked in disbelief. "And the Council hasn't found your race yet? Impressive."

"The Council?" White asked. "What is that?"

"The Council is the ruler of the galactic community, consisting of the turians, the salarians, and the asari."

"Wait a second… galactic community? How many races are out there?"

"Well, apart for us… nine."

"Well okay, that's not good," White finally understood what was wrong with her, she didn't take his eyes off his face for a second.

"So… this is what you meant by your eyes. Your race is a nocturnal one."

"Yes," White remembered that he now wasn't wearing his helmet. "And before you ask, when we colonized Mars our eyes tolerated a little more light, but only the people who live on mars, the Earthborn, still need a helmet when he is away from the Earth."

"So the people who born on Mars, can be in this level of light, but the people born of Earth cannot?"

"Exactly."

"We've arrived to the rendezvous point sir, the Dark Sunrise should arrive at any second," the pilot announced.

"But… how? We aren't close to any mass relay," Ik'er wondered aloud.

"Oh, yeah… we aren't a mass effect species," said White and just as he ended that sentence, the massive triangular form of the Dark Sunrise appeared next to the Arvus.

"Keelah," Kar whispered shocked.

"That…that…that thing is real?" Zan asked dumbfounded.

"I told you Zan, what do you think that thing could have done to the Fleet?"

"That thing could have destroyed it."

"Beautiful, eh? The Dark Sunrise one of the flagships from the Third Fleet."

"Yes, it's beautiful, but that thing scares me; the possible damage that thing could do to a Council ship."

"Helmsman, contact the Dark Sunrise and request the vectors to enter the cargo bay."

"Aye, sir."

When they entered, the quarians adjusted they visors so they could see in the darkness of the ship. When their eyes had adjusted completely, they saw mechs between 2.5 and 3 meters playing what they supposed was a sport in the cargo hold with a few humans' soldiers; these were same as the one they had seen before, they heard White chuckle.

"Eh White, what are they?"

"The mechs are called 'titans', and yes they have AI integrated," said White, heading off the question before it was asked. "And the soldiers are called 'pilots', they drive the titans when they aren't in AI mode."

"But… how are the pilots that fast, that doesn't make any sense?"

"Well, the pilots are Special Forces, that's all I can say," said White mysteriously.

They watched White approach the group.

"Hey guys!" White shouted. "Who's winning?"

"Us, sir!" one of the pilots shouted back. "18 to 15 in the second third."

"You're making bets?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Okay, put five hundred bucks in for the pilots!"

"You heard him, Sorensen, five hundred from the ambassador."

"Hey Ambassador, toss me the money," said Sorensen.

White reached for a handful of bills, counted the out and threw the bundle to Sorensen. "Let me know who wins."

"Aye, sir," a pilot shouted, as they continued with the game.

The quarians couldn't believe it an ambassador was gambling.

"Jason'White, is that legal?" asked Kar'zel.

"Yes, it's between friends here, and High Command doesn't mind."

"So… is this 'high command' your government?"

"Well our political system is similar to yours, our principal chamber is in the Arcturus system," explained White as they began walking. "The difference is that every country and colony manage themselves the best way they can; we don't force rules on them, but they can't break the UTC laws, or the president of the country or colony is sentenced to capital punishment."

"Capital punishment?"

"Death penalty."

"Wow, that's harsh."

"Everything we do is to protect the home world."

As they were talking, they had neared the CIC and just as they were about to enter, White's omni-tool went off. He looked down and read the message that had just appeared.

"Well once we enter FTL, it is going to take two hours to arrive to Arcturus, so allow me to show you to your rooms."

"Our rooms?"

"Yes, each one of you is going to have one," said White. "This ship is big enough, and the Marines are going to have access to the crew quarters."

"No, we can't accept that."

"Ok, so what would you accept?"

"One room for the five of us."

"Very well then."

"So, Jason'White how work your ships?" Aza'har asked curiously.

"Well, we use antimatter to make energy," explained White as they walked. "That energy is converted to micro-singularities projectors which create a bubble around the ship, inside the bubble known physics laws doesn't exist, allowing us to travel faster than light. We discovered that the bubble has no size limit; meaning we could make a ship ten kilometers long if we have enough antimatter to make a bubble to cover the ship."

"Impressive, your race seems to be very advanced then."

"We have arrived to your quarters," White opened the door, and the quarians were shocked at seeing the size of the room. The five entered and said their goodbyes to White.

White sighed, this is going to be a long day. He remembered that the Marines were still there.

"Hey guys," he hailed to the pilots, "could you please guide our guests to the crew quarters?"

The pilots saluted. "Aye, sir." they signaled to the Marines. "Over here."

The Marines don't move.

"Hey c'mon, we don't bite" one said friendly, the Marines relaxed just a fraction and followed them.

White chuckled a little as he headed to the CIC, he was about to arrive when he received a message: the pilots lose the game. 'Fuck' he thought.

A/N sorry for any background mistake

Codex

Alpha Protocol: The alpha protocol is one of the three contingency plans made against alien threats. The contingency plans are ordered by possibility of discovery of the home world or PDOHW. This contingency plan is tier 2.

When the protocol is activated, every military force is notified and is on high alert for fast deployment. Every civilian should be ready to evacuate and have helmets in hand (that is only applicable to those in colonies).

Possibility of Discovery of the Home World: This scale was made to categorize the protocols:

Tier 3: Charlie Protocol: Low possibility of discovery.

Tier 2: Alpha Protocol: High possibility of discovery.

Tier 1: Oblivion Protocol: Imminent discovery.

Oblivion Protocol: Oblivion protocol only was activated once at the start of the Human-Turian War given the cost of activation. When the protocol is activated, every fleet (except the statics and patrol, whom are left to protect the colonies) are mobilized to the home system forming the Oblivion Fleet. Every military force on Earth is deployed, creating a state of high alert. The evacuation of every major city is initiated.