Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.
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USM Dagger, Shanxi space
USM Dagger was hiding in an asteroid field. Even after several days that joke still managed to amuse some of the crew. The phrase invoked images from old science fiction movies; of a small ship, surrounded by massive rocks that could crush it at any moment. The reality was, of course, quite different. From its current position, not a single asteroid could be seen with the naked eye. In fact, it would have taken a fairly powerful telescope to spot even the nearest asteroids. Still, it was a useful hiding place. Not because the asteroids would actually shield the ship from hostile sensors, but simply because the ship was an object in orbit around the star, in a region of space where such objects were expected. As long as she used neither her drives, nor active sensors, no-one had a reason to be suspicious of her, which in turn meant that it was extremely unlikely that anyone would bother to take a closer look.
It had taken the ship nearly forty-eight hours to sneak back into Shanxi space after fleeing the system ahead of the turian fighters. She had been sitting in orbit since then. Two other frigates were hiding elsewhere in the system, waiting and observing. For those among the crew with an interest in military history it evoked images of submarines, waiting beneath the ocean surface, never knowing for sure whether they had been detected. It was a strange experience, both nerve-racking and mind-numbingly boring at the same time.
Commander Farnsworth was becoming increasingly worried about the crew. Moral had been low ever since the fleet had pulled out of Shanxi, and the knowledge that this had ultimately led to the surrender of the planet had not helped. Now they were forced to remain inactive and tensions were starting to rise, so it was with some trepidation that she noticed her first officer trying to get her attention
"Ma'am, a general broadcast just came through the relay. It carries the correct sender codes for USM headquarters."
"Orders."
"No ma'am. It's.. it's not even encripted. I don't think it's meant for us. Take a look"
Commander Farnsworth studied the file. Then, for what seemed the first time in weeks, she smiled.
"Put it on the ship's net. Make sure everyone gets a good look."
HNV Force of Justice, Shanxi system
Daraya was fidgeting as she waited in the small conference room. Ever since the human surrender she had been working hard, refining the translation software that she and her fellow asari had designed and applying it to the questioning of human prisoners. After nearly a week of interrogations and research she desperately needed for someone in command to take a look at her results. Unfortunately, her inability to identify anyone among the human prisoners either willing, or able, to enter into negotiations regarding a termination of hostilities had not endeared her to either general Arterius, or his staff.
It had been a frustrating experience. The captured soldiers, if they were willing to talk at all, had pointed her to something called 'the General Assembly', a political organization that, according to them, was the only one qualified to decide on matters of war or peace. They had been adamant in their denial of any authority in this matter. Armed with that knowledge she had approached the local civilian leadership. However, they, in turn, had denied any authority to speak on behalf of this General Assembly. Instead, they had informed her that it was the responsibility of the 'United Systems Military' to conduct warfare in defense of the human species and that all requests for either a truce or armistice should be addressed to them, rather than to civilians whose authority was limited to the surface of their planet.
After nearly a week of talking in circles Daraya was still not entirely sure whether the humans were just playing with her, or that perhaps the situation was so convoluted that they themselves were unsure as to who should speak on their behalf. The latter seemed not entirely impossible, considering the fact that, prior to first contact, humans seemed to have considered the existence of other intelligent life to be a largely academic question, and had never bothered to implement any political policy regarding interaction with another species. Pointing this out to general Arterius had been a waste of time, and had merely resulted in him closing the connection. However, in her attempts to figure out the structure of human society and political leadership she had stumbled over some pertinent information. With general Arterius and his staff largely ignoring her, she had looked around for someone, anyone, willing to listen to her. Then she had remembered that general Oraka, the second in command, had a reputation for liking asari, and sent him a message. Fortunately the general had been willing to give her some of his time. Unfortunately, he had no intension of leaving his flagship, so she had no choice but to meet him in orbit, which had led to further delays.
"Matron Daraya, such a pleasure to see you."
Daraya studied Septimus Oraka as he entered the room. She had only met him before on a few occasions and had always found him rather pleasant. However, this time the charm seemed more of a veneer, covering an underlying brittleness.
"General, thank you for agreeing to this meeting on such short notice."
The general made a dismissive gesture.
"To the contrary. I was glad to hear from you. Something has come up and I would like to hear your opinion. But, please, tell me, what is it that you wished to discuss?"
"Well, on general Arterius orders I have been trying to find a way to open negotiations with the human leadership, and-"
"And failed." The general snorted. "Please, don't imagine that I blame you. I know from my own people that you have been most diligent. The humans are simply not in the mood to talk. Hardly surprising."
Daraya nodded. "True. And even when they are willing to speak, there seems little hope for success. However, as part of my task, I have been trying to put together an overview of the human social and political structure. So far I have identified five different organizations that seem to have authority. There are three local governmental organizations, an extra-planetary organization, and a purely military organization. I've tried to work out what they are supposed to be doing, but their relationships seem convoluted in the extreme. In fact, in many cases their areas of authority appear to be overlapping each other. To be honest, I don't understand how they manage to get anything done."
"Perhaps they don't." This time, general Oraka's humour seemed genuine. "Perhaps that is the reason why we've seen no response from humans outside this system, yet."
"Perhaps," Daraya smiled briefly. "but I don't think we can count on it. In any case, it is all in this report." She put a datapad on the table.
"As I was working on their government structure, I had to get a general feeling of the human settlements in space. They purged their official databases, but there was one source of information that remained intact"
"Oh?" The general was leaning forward now, clearly interested.
"Yes, their schools. Once I considered it, it was really quite trivial. Human computer systems rely more on local databases than our own. All I had to do was go to the nearest school, one that provided basic education for very young children, and look up the information I needed. It is not very detailed and certainly contains no military data, but it seems quite reliable. After all, what would be the point of deliberately teaching children false data?"
"And the result?"
"That is why I came to you, general. The result is very surprising."
"Show me."
Daraya activated her omni-tool and projected a starmap over the conference table.
General Oraka was half out of his chair before the map was complete. He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it as he studied the map. Several minutes went by as he looked at it.
"This cannot be right! Nobody colonises like that."
Daraya understood the general's reaction. Space-faring species tended to follow the same pattern. They spread out from one mass-relay to another, colonising whatever nearby planets seemed to hold the most promise, then went on to the next relay. The result was always the same: A large area of space nominally under a species' control, but very thinly colonised as only the most useful planets were inhabited, and the rest were largely ignored.
The map of human-occupied space looked radically different. It was much smaller than that of any other know species. However, within that small region, they were everywhere. The region surrounding the system that Daraya had tentatively identified as containing the human homeworld was littered with colonies. Every planet, no matter how barren or hostile its environment, seemed to contain at least some human settlements. Further away from the center they were spread more thinly, but even there they seemed willing to colonise rocks that no other species would bother with.
"I know, general, it looks unlikely, However, I have a theory that might explain it."
Oraka's mandibles twitched.
"I'd love to hear it. We've studied human physiology. They seem to be a bit more flexible than most species in their ability to deal with varying living conditions, but not THAT much. Spirits, even krogan or vorcha wouldn't settle on that kind of planets."
"True, but if I'm right, they didn't have a choice."
"How so?"
Daraya hesitated. She had tried to explain her theory to one of general Arterius' staff officers only for it to be summarily dismissed.
"General, from what I understood of the initial reports, captain Livestian tried to contact the humans using a prothean data-format, but never received a response. He theorised that the humans might not even be aware of the protheans. If that is true, they would have been forced to figure out space travel on their own, without the sort of jump-start that other species received."
"So?"
"So, I would expect their initial attempts at interstellar travel to have been very primitive, very slow. They might even have started out using sub-light travel. What if they had no practical way of travelling long distances? From what I understand they are not very long-lived. That places an upper limit on the time they could spend travelling. They'd need to make do with whatever planets they found in the surrounding star-systems, rather than being able to pick and chose."
Oraka slowly sat down. His expression, which had so far only shown polite interest, turned grim.
"Did you inform general Arterius of this?"
"I tried, but-"
"But he wouldn't listen, nor any of the officers around him, I would guess." Oraka laughed bitterly. "Nobody wants to hear bad news, matron. And this news, this is very bad."
He looked briefly at her. "You don't quite see it, do you, what this means?"
"Well, I suppose there are more humans than we assumed, but-"
"Not just more humans." Oraka gestured at the map. "From the beginning we assumed that these humans were a young species, just taking their first steps into space. It seemed to make sense. After all, if the humans had been around for a while, surely we would have met them before. But that was based on the assumption that they had developed like us. That they would have spread out quickly along the relay network. Now it seems that they didn't. Spirits know how long it took them to get from the first satellite to their present level of technology. Centuries, most likely. And all the while they were slowly spreading out, colonizing system after system. You don't do that without a massive support infrastructure. Colonies like this need to be built and they need to be maintained. On that kind of planet they'll never be fully self-sufficient. Can you imagine the amount of cargo-space required just to supply all these small colonies, let alone build more of them? Those ships have to be built. What will happen when they apply those manufacturing centres to building weapons, warships? Despite the small size of their region of space, they may well outnumber the Hierarchy in total population and have a relatively larger manufacturing capacity. In the long run wars are decided by resources and industrial capacity, more than by combat prowess, which, by the way, they don't lack. A long-term conflict with them could very well end in disaster."
He seemed to think for a moment. "The main question now is the timescale. Do they have a sufficiently powerful military in place to counter-attack now, or do they have to build it up from scratch? That brings me to the issue I wanted to discuss with you. We've just received a broadcast through the relay."
"What?! Have they-"
The general cut her off with a gesture. "Not a message, really. Certainly not an invitation to open negotiations. In fact, I'm not even sure who it is meant for! Perhaps for us, perhaps for the human population. Or perhaps for their warships. There was at least one frigate lurking around at the time of the surrender. Likely there are more. in any case, it looks somewhat like a news broadcast, the way Citadel News presents information to the public. Here, let me show you."
He activated his omnitool and entered a coded sequence. A new image appeared above the table, next to the star chart.
-o-o-o-
The first thing Dayara noticed was the noise. It was hideous! A terrible wailing sound that seemed to pierce her skull. It took her a moment to relate the noise to the image. It showed a city street, a strange city, but still very recognizable. A column of humans was walking along the street, their steps carefully synchronised. They were dressed in clothes of a type she had not seen before among the humans she had met. They seemed robe-like, though much shorter than asari dresses, stopping about half-way down their legs. the colours were dark, green and blue, highlighted with the occasional red and yellow. On their heads, they carried some sort of massive black headgear. The image was strange enough, but what made it truly bizarre was the object that each person seemed to carry under one arm. It was made up of a cloth sack and multiple pipes and seemed to be the source of the wailing noise.
She looked at the general. "Music?"
He nodded. "Terrible, isn't it? But keep watching."
Behind the first group of humans, a long column appeared. Thankfully not making any kind of music. These were dressed differently, much more like the ones she had met. Their clothes were very much identical and all walked with the same steady rythm. It took Daraya a moment to understand what she was looking at. Asari culture, even among the more militant groups, had never developed the concept of a parade, but she remembered images from Khar'shan, of batarian soldiers...
"Soldiers? A military formation?"
"Oh yes. A classic example of a military parade. We turians used to have those, though the concept is old and rarely seen these days. The batarians are still quite fond of them. Keep looking. This is just the beginning."
The image changed. This time it showed night-time. A building that seemed to consist solely of pillars, bathed in floodlight. A different music played, more subdued, as a column of gray-clad humans, carrying burning torches, marched underneath it.
A white column rising up into the sky, its top glittering in the sunlight. The roads curved around it and so did a formation of blue-clad soldiers, marching to yet another tune.
A large square, surrounded by red-stone buildings topped with curiously shaped and coloured spires, Large, wheeled vehicles rumbled along, inter-spaced with squares of human soldiers, these wearing the same style uniform that she had seen among the prisoners.
A white arc, standing alone in what seemed to be the middle of the road. Yet more soldiers marching underneath it.
Another wide street, stairs leading up to yet another building. This one actually seemed to have multiple roofs stacked on top of each other. On the street, soldiers marched along in perfectly aligned squares.
A white, domed building with rows of pillars stretching out to both sides, curving around a large open space. More humans, these clad in blue and yellow uniforms and carrying what looked like archaic pole-arm weapons, stood in a row in front.
Another image, perhaps the most bizarre of all. For a moment Daraya wondered if she was looking at a completely different species. Then she realised she was actually looking at humans, clad in what seemed like metal plates, their metal helmets covered with a strange, white decorations that reached all the way down their backs, but sitting atop what appeared to be...
"Animal transport?!"
"So it would seem. Not as unlikely as you might think. According to historical records, the krogan used animal transport during the Rachni-War. Still, the uniforms and weapons are clearly outdated. In any case, the rest is basically more of the same, until we get to the end."
He manipulated the controls to fast-forward through the recording. Suddenly the image changed to the interior of a building. It showed a large room, filled with people sitting in a semi-circle. At the focal point of the seating arrangement stood a single human, dressed in what appeared to be a fancier version of the uniforms that she had seen on the prisoners. This time there was no music, only a single voice.
"... that the General Assembly of the United Systems hereby declares that a state of war exists between itself and the political entity that calls itself the Turian Hierarchy. Therefore, we, the General Assembly, have decided to grant to general Thomas Spears, the United Systems Military chief-of-staff, plenipotentiary powers to prosecute this war with all means available."
-o-o-o-
Oraka stopped the recording.
"There is some more talking, but I think you've seen the highlights."
"And this was sent through the relay as a general broadcast?"
"Yes. As I said before, it is unclear who the intended recipient is. I suppose it could be labelled 'to whom it may concern'. My staff has gone over it several times, but we're still debating the meaning. One thing we can agree on, though, is that it is not good news.
Daraya nodded.
"They didn't even consider themselves to be at war. Perhaps that is why there has been no response. They needed to get this formality out of the way before they could bring themselves to act."
"It certainly looks that way. It also answers my previous question. What we saw, were soldiers. Archaically dressed perhaps, but still soldiers, and they seem to have a lot of them. I cannot even begin to fathom why they would send us a message like this, but-"
"But you think they're coming."
"I'm almost certain they are coming. Perhaps not today, or tomorrow, but I suspect they'll come through the mass relay sooner rather than later. And when I combine that with the sort of population and industrial resources your results imply them to have, there is no way we can fight them off. Even if we were at full strength, which we're not. You may not realise it, but we're already facing shortages. Everything, even the most basic materials, has to be brought here. In citadel space, or even in the terminus, there is enough commonality between systems that an invading force can usually make do with local equipment, local resources. Here? Human technology is completely incompatible with our own; so, everything has to be shipped in.
There was an odd sense of hopelessness about the general as he pointed at Daraya's star chart.
"It's like setting up a camp next to a thresher maw! We've taken a considerable force, including several dreadnoughts, far beyond our ability to reinforce, and parked them within striking distance of a powerful enemy. If they come through the relay in force, we'll be unable to keep them away from the planet. And when that happens our soldiers will be trapped. There is simply no way to evacuate them in time, especially under fire. And, if they stay down there, they are dead anyway. Humans have levo-gyral aminoacids. You can eat their food. We cannot. Nor is there any kind of facility that can be converted to produce such food. At least, not in the short term, and not without human assistance, which they are unlikely to give. Tell me, matron, do you have ANY idea, how much 50,000 turians eat, even for a short period of time? They'll either starve to death, or be forced to surrender and hope that the humans are willing to feed them. Not a risk I'd like to take!"
"I see." Daraya thought for a moment. "What do you want from me, general? I can attach my report to this recording, for when you send it to general Arterius, but..."
"... but it won't make any difference. I know. The problem is that the only reasonable solution is to evacuate now and retreat. That is simply not going to happen. Arterius has too much invested in this venture. His pride alone would not allow him to run away now. No, I understand that. For better or worse, we're stuck here. No, what I would like is for you to confront some of the human prisoners with this recording. Try to gauge their reaction, and see if our conclusions are correct."
Again a sense of hopelessness pervaded his words.
"At least I'll be able to see the blow coming, before it hits us."
Temporary POW facility, Shanxi
Velina Sosa watched in silence as the recording played. It was not the first time that the blue-skinned alien had tried to interrogate her. Most of her questions had been fairly harmless, dealing with matters of government and society that anyone could have answered from general knowledge. This time was different. As the final Assembly speech drew to a close she looked up.
"What?"
The alien spoke. Her command of human language, with the help of some sort of translation software, was quite good.
"We... need to understand. Need to know what it means."
Velina hesitated, trying to find the right words. Somehow this moment seemed to call for more than a flat statement. Then it came to her. Her family didn't have a tradition of naval service and, before signing up for the military academy, she had gone to a rather classical school in preparation for an academic career. So far her literary training had never been much use, but perhaps this time...
"It means, that though we seemed dead, we were but asleep. Now we speak and our voice is imperial."
-o-o-o-
Daraya looked at the human, trying to understand her mood. Human faces, so like asari in many ways were quite expressive. This particular one was, in many ways, one of the least threatening individuals she had ever seen, but right now the look in her eyes reminded Daraya uncomfortably of a varren that had been poked with a stick. She waited, hoping to hear more, but the human seemed disinclined to say more.
As Daraya turned away, she heard the human's voice as a soft whisper following her.
"Bid him therefore consider his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne. And tell him, he has betrayed his followers, upon whom condemnation is pronounced!"
Daraya stopped for a moment, then thought better of it. She had to contact Oraka, right away.
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The issue of the invasion force being trapped on the planet was one of my biggest objections to the canon version of the First Contact War. It always seemed strange that the turians never considered this problem. If they lose control of local space, every soldier on the planet is doomed. I figured that at least some of them should realize the danger they're in.
I know Velina's quoting (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 3, Scene 6) is very incomplete and partially incorrect. These are the bits I remembered, about fifteen years after the last time I saw that play. I deliberately didn't look it up, because she would also be quoting something from distant memory.
Before an army of angry scotsmen comes looking for me, I personally like bagpipes. A late relative of mine not only played them, but actually built his own. I simply tried to describe how an alien, with a fundamentally different sound reception system (asari don't have ears), would react to hearing them for the first time. Music is a very curious thing and in order to sound right to us it has to follow certain precepts that don't actually make much sense, but just happen to be that way. It seems unlikely that an alien would have the same taste, so even the mildest forms of human music would probably sound terrible to a non-human. Now imagine a bagpipe...