Aethris IX, 09/05/3145 FD

It had been a normal day, or so it had seemed, aboard the Gaia Cracking Industries capital size Vikaes-class GCI Yggdrasil which was preparing for a standard jump to another system. The captain of the vessel sighing as she gazed upon herself in the mirror. Eyes idly working their way over her own body after a shower. She had served her duty to the military a while ago, but the scars she still bore from anti-piracy and the Great War? They remained. Regardless she moved to get dressed after briefly giving herself a once over. Donning her admiral attire, even if she was a glorified Captain. Rankings were rankings within the company afterall and she had worked hard to earn her ship and spot. Especially for such a fine capital size vessel.

With the ship having had just refueled at a nearby gas giant after having made a grand haul from selling its recent mining load. GCI didn't quite take to the usual methods of mining like other companies in the sector did. Instead utilizing several capital size ships with mining drone swarms, or several smaller command ships it could deploy to control said drone swarms. It also contained onboard manufacturing and shipbuilding facilities for ships several sizes below its own. Being a proud length of almost 6km and a width of 4km. With an average mass ranging around 80,000,000 to 97,000,000 metric tons depending on the mass of materials gathered. Granted, it wasn't the most impressive of ships its size. Being a retrofitted carrier for mining operations. Though it still contained some military capabilities for self defense, it wasn't the most impressive for a warship. Nonetheless the captain at the bridge stood ready. Looking to the main pilot of the grand ship. "All things are in order it seems Xiao. The Yggdrasil is ready for transit. Jump Drive ready? All heavy gravity fields cleared?" spoke the captain to the individual in charge of getting the ship from point A to point B in one piece. "Of course ma'am. Drives are hot and primed. Fold will commence on your pull of the trigger, Admiral Rike Hellmann," spoke the pilot, Xiao.

Rike was thankful for many things, and one of them was what was looking like another easy jump. "All hands, Fold in five. Four. Three. Two. One. Jumping," spoke the captain. Pressing the button on her console that engaged the drive. A brief hum emanated powerfully through the ship, as a standard prelude to the off-putting yet natural folding of space. Getting them practically instantaneously from point A to B. However, due to an unforeseen gravity well forming as a result of the nature of the chaotic universe, it wouldn't be Astren IV that greeted them in their viewport. Rather... instead... there was a brief flash of warning klaxons from the jump being done deep in a gravity well, but all too late. The captain being unable to shout a command for a shutdown as white, and then black, filled their existence. The Yggdrasil simply ceasing to exist in mere fractions of a moment. The gravity well formed, vanishing with them. Today would not be a day filled with mining and planet cracking.

Shanxi, 05/26/2157 CE

Shanxi was under heavy scrutiny. The Turians having had defeated the human occupants of the small colony. A small occupational fleet remaining for the moment as the rest of the main forces had retreated to restock, and plan for a further push into human space. The colony below ruined and used as a prison for the unfortunate souls who had been unlucky enough to survive the initial bombardments and invasion. Now subject to cruelty as prisoners of war. To the Turians, they simply had been performing a simple policing action on unlucky primitives who could have started another Rachni war. As it was, they were wholly unprepared when a ship far beyond dreadnought class suddenly... existed. Beside the moon of Shanxi, appeared a large mass rivalling several dreadnoughts combined whilst being in the shape of a ship. Although there was no energy signatures, the simple sudden appearance drove the occupiers into a frenzy of panic. No shots were fired, but all ships were gaining targeting solutions as weapons went hot. And the RDML in charge? Novus was as calm as any good Turian could be in the situation.

Novus was attempting to get his superior, an Arterius last he recalled, on the line. To inform the main fleet planning an invasion about what was going on whilst the odd ship orbiting the moon simply hung there. Dead, and lifeless, although sensors were beginning to pick up faint energy signals. Although they struggled to penetrate the thick armor it seemed to have. At the very least, the ship didn't seem to have any major primary weapons running along its spine. Putting a few of the Captains at ease. At the very least, Novus could thank the spirits that they weren't being immediately engaged by the strange and alien yet fairly blocky ship. His communications officer attempting to hail it, although he didn't expect much of a reply from a seemingly dead ship. He also sent a message to the general on the ground overlooking the captured colonists held prisoner. An Aemitana Eudomus last he checked. Her record at least came off as a competent one. He hoped she'd take necessary precautions to protect Turian lives, should the orbital supremacy somehow be lost. A gargantuan ship may have appeared, but it was just one ship. "Spirits preserve us if that thing's... hoo-mun, or whatever those monkeys call themselves..." Novus muttered under his breath as he gained a moment to simply... take in the situation at hand. It was going to be a long day it seemed. Especially once he got around to organizing exploration teams to check out the ship, if it didn't jump to life and attack them at least. He wasn't stupid or zealous enough to just immediately attack the monstrous thing, so he was thankful for that. Proud he may be, but he was no fool.

Author's Note Segment:

A small segment for me to converse with people who decide to leave a comment or review. A discord may go up at some point. For the first question received by THOMASPENZHORN11. The reason the relative tonnage is low on initial write is because from my knowledge of Space Engineers. Heavy Armor is 3,300 kg and Light armor is 500 kg. This is for large grid builds. Although I'm going with the ship being an unconventional mix of Small and Large grid so as to avoid scaling issues. Remember, capital size SE ships are 24,000 blocks. Large grid blocks are 2.5m cubed and small grid is 0.5 so the size is being fudged a bit. The Yggdrasil is a ship ranging around 25,000 blocks worth of build. I went with an average block mass of 1500 multiplied by 25,000. This gives me a consistent way to scale ship masses in SE so as to not simply be throwing random numbers out if I can avoid it. Though on further review I'll likely be upping the masses by quite a bit. Considering the scale and armor of these ships. For Large grid ships I'll increase mass by roughly 1,000x for numbers. Since it would be more fitting for a capital class mining carrier to have a high mass ratio as well as the capability to transport a good chunk of its own mass relatively as extra. With that answered, this story will be AU with a maybe on the reapers showing up. Since a proper SE military ship will likely handle such an invasion due to sheer armor and mass simply outclassing anything ME has for the most part, on top of advanced technology. Instead this will be a mining company whose only ship in the ME universe is a glorified mining carrier with manufacturing and light shipbuilding capabilities.

An additional revision. I've decided to raise the mass on SE ships by quite a bit more than what the calculations I did originally may say. I'm doing this due to SE simply utilizing heavy armor in comparison to ME's thin armor + shields. On top of the fact that SE ships can get fairly large. The crew numbers may also seem off, but SE ships also don't require that much crew in comparison.