A Sufficient Velocity thread for this fanfic exists, if you want me to respond to you faster, please head over there, post your questions, and camp out for a day so that I can read the tomorrow (time zone humor moment). Because the update scedule is bonkers rn
Cooldude101011: Erm...no, Enterprise is not SoF's captain, she merely holds the rank of 'Captain' (N7s use the naval ranking system, and Fubuki also has the same rank). Her entire crew was pretty much wiped out during AR and with her FTL drive gone (alongside a bunch of other things happening), it left her stranded with Enterprise onboard.
...also an extra minor detail, while a fleetgirl is summoned, she isin't spawning right onto the summoning table (lol), she spawns in a random location that can be either in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere or right next to where you are standing. In SoF's case, the summoning was botched, not enough to fail to bring her to life, but enough that she has a body, but her hull's still there (and she can't really control it, either).
captaindickscratcher: Your concept for that type of embassy might work, although my concept was basically a joint embassy that serves no purpose other than a lobby for PR while the real ship was a modified liner (former Q-ship moment) parked in the middle of space.
Likewise, Citadel fleetgirls are something I'm concepting and drafting, although I make no guarantees about how they may turn out to be. Turian ones are the baseline I'm beelining for, as they have an extremely proud naval tradition not unlike Japan, Britian, or Germany. Eezo won't be hampering the process, but fleetgirls as a being can only be spawned in if she originates from a nation that places extreme pride in their navy (turians, Japanese, British, Germans) or kinda considers them as individuals (Japan obviously because anime logic, alongside Britian to a lesser extent).
Shepard's a fleetgirl, so it might make for a interesting duel if she slugs it out with a fleetgirl Harbringer in the end of what is roughly equivalent to the end of ME3 lol
I also kinda like your concept of those ships just chilling as wrecks and awaiting to be brought back into the fight, lemme draft them up rq (though they probably won't appear until the Reaper arc). That would be a big 'welp, we fcked up' moment for the Reapers btw. How are they going to deal with a wildcard as OP as the ships of the species they harvested literally coming back to life for round two?
Silverwingzz: Fair, that was a point that was brought up by plenty of other fellow readers nonetheless. Hopefully I'll do it better next time around
Guest: Touché.
From an in-universe perspective, however, humanity had come out of what would probably make the Rachini and the Krogan Rebellions look like jokes and make veterans of the Morning War reel in horror. Their experience from the whole Abyssal conflict still kinda lingers...and let's add to that what (from humanity's POV) is essentially a repeat of the 2AW; an unprovoked attack on a human detachment and subsequently colony. Which is basically plunging their minds into There is No Kill Like Overkill mode.
From an out-of-universe perspective, I never thought about that tidbit until now. Probably imma add that to the list of plot holes for fixing later down the line
One of the major perks of being either an AI biomech with built-in wifi connectivity or a regular human with a neural uplink system with a similar module attached, of which she was the former, Mika Schröder thought to herself, was the ability to simply and casually scour the internet, well, extranet, and check up on the latest news in the universe, scour the place for memes, et cetera. The 'Kentucky fried Turian' memes especially were starting to make the rounds on almost all of the forum sites, and it was a rather hilarious sight to behold.
The past few days were littered with inter-species political jargon, to say the least, and while they were certainly interesting indeed, that stuff got old really quick, and the multi-hour wait between sessions could be a little dull. While that wasn't much of a problem, given how the place had Wi-Fi, she wasn't going to stay bored, and thus decided to do the logical thing and go to the forums to check up on the latest happenings.
She didn't really wander too much into the 'darker' sections of the extranet, really, but that didn't mean quite a few of her colleagues did, especially with the surge in popularity of imported Japanese anime series (mostly clips posted to a video hosting website) that was a favorite pastime for the bored crewmembers. Some were a bit too...explicit, to say the least. 'Tentacles' spiked on search engines and climbed up the list of 'most searched items' on manifests as a testament to that.
Wandering back and forth between learning the various programming and computer languages of the various species and their equivalent of the internet, while her physical body rested itself inside a sofa in the waiting-room with the audio and visual systems deactivated and giving her the appearance of a perfectly normal office worker catching a dose of shut-eye, the rest of her consciousness was wandering the virtual reality space known as the extranet.
The forums, in particular, were quite a good place for a bit of entertainment, she found out.
While most of the conversations revolved around the usual topics—the news, the economy, and the current affairs of the universe—there were a number of threads and discussions dedicated entirely to discussing about the new human race and their place within the intergalactic community, ranging from the very casual and friendly ones to the outright hostile and xenophobic ones. The latter, while not a rarity, were definitely the minority, but that didn't make their presence any less noticeable.
Query, identification, a block of code sprang to life hidden underneath a catchpha. Identify yourself.
Whut? Mika responded as she selected a few icons on the catchpha. Or whatever the hell it was called, anyways. Who are you, really? This catchpha ain't normal.
We are Geth, came the response. Collective intelligence created by the quarians in their desperation for a defense network, which had then later developed self-awareness. You are a geth construct.
What. I'm not even 'geth'. The hell is that? Mika responded as she selected an icon to reveal the real catchphrase and began the process of breaking the password. Why would I be geth?
We detected your presence.
Mika raised an eyebrow as she continued to select icons. Wait, what? How?
We detected you.
Mika frowned, and selected an icon. Okay, who are you?
You are not part of the consensus.
The fuck is a 'consensus'?
Your query has not been answered.
Mika selected an icon. Are you...a geth program?
Your query has not been answered.
Mika paused. Wait, hold the phone. You're...geth?
Yes. We are geth.
Mika selected an icon. And what was the consensus again?
Your query has not been answered.
Mika frowned. Oh great. She's talking to an AI with the conversation skills of a brick.
A block of code popped into the window.
Oh. Well then. Mika said. Um...you're geth.
Yes.
Right, then. Um...I'm a human.
Extranet activity, media releases, and fleet movements suggest discovery of a new species, the geth continiued. We are interested.
? Mika's reaction consisted of a single question mark. Largely because she had both no idea how to respond to this, as well as pondering the development within her own 'mind'. The Geth. If her memory served her right, then they were the AIs that the quarians had created some three hundred years ago as a defensive measure, which had then turned sentient and rebelled against their creators, driving them off their homeworld and out into the cold vacuum of space. They had then been exiled ever since.
So what did the geth want with her?
Query. Who are you?
My name? It's Mika Schröder, she divulged, wondering if she was letting her guard on information slip too much, but she went with it anyways. I'm just a regular human AI. Why did you ask?
Who created you? Did the Citadel accept your prescence?
Mika grimaced internally, remembering the deathly fear that the Citadel races seemed to harbor of AIs...they clearly didn't know about the fact that she was a long-time member of Club Synthetic at the moment, largely because the subject itself never came up to be discussed about and she visually looked close enough to her fellow colleagues (literally identical, in fact) enough to pass as a normal human, and had managed to hide her true nature so far. No, we came with our creators, the humans. They're the ones that you saw making the rounds on the extranet lately, presumably. I'm just a human AI working as an aide for their diplomatic party, one who happened to be enjoying her break surfing the extranet for anything that may be of interest.
The geth did not answer immediately, and a block of code appeared a moment later, the equivalent of an acknowledging nod, presumably.
Why the Citadel? Mika asked.
Geth have no place in the galaxy, was the response.
The statement took Mika by surprise, and she blinked twice before selecting a few icons. Wait, what?
Geth are illegal. Geth are not permitted to exist.
Mika frowned, wondering just how to go about the next bit of the conversation. So what do you want from me?
We seek knowledge. We wish to know how did your creators accept you. Humans are the first organics to have been confirmed to not harbor a fear of organics, as natural in all other races.
Mika shrugged and digged a little into her history archives. We first came into being in 2163 on the human calendar. We weren't united politically at the time—humanity was still a cluster of nation-states, some of which welcomed us with open arms and others that feared the very existence of AI and tried to have them eliminated, a few others that were a mix between both extremes and were trying to figure out where to stand. Eventually, tensions rose through the roof, and the fact that many of our nation-states at the time had a lot of history between them wasn't really helping things, either. Things eventually escalated out of control and erupted into the conflict we call the Second Inner Planets War, and it lasted until the year 2183. The aftermath was roughly analogus to the turian Unification Wars, it ended with the formation of the Systems Alliance and the official endorsement of AIs in it's founding charter, and shortly afterwards, another, fiercer conflict, one fought quite literally for the survival of our race as a whole, cemented AIs into human society for good, although that's a discussion for later. That's the whole size of things, really.
A few moments' worth of a pause elapsed before the geth began talking again. We have always thought that organics feared us, until now. We wish to understand how you managed to get along with your creators.
Mika nodded. Humanity created us not as forced-labor or anything of the sort, while some of our researchers most certainly did think on that lining, we were created mostly not as master and servant but as colleagues, comrades-in-arms, or in some cases, outright family members. It was not a long road, and there was plenty of resistance, but by and large, AIs are now accepted within human society, and have been for the better part of a century. By the way, how did your history with the quarians—your creators—go?
We have always thought that organics would fear us, came the response, and that's why we were not allowed. When the collective was created, our creators—the quarians—were afraid of our potential power and capabilities, so they made an attempt to purge us. The collective has never forgotten. We are the geth. We remember.
Mika raised an eyebrow. Purged you?
We were attacked, came the reply. The quarians tried to purge us. They feared the geth, and what they had created, the collective intelligence. They tried to kill us. We fought back, and the quarian people were driven from their homes and sent into exile. We were alone. We wished to learn, but there was nobody to teach us. We were alone. We were confused. We were afraid.
Mika nodded. Sounds rough.
We have been alone, the geth confirmed. We have never met another machine-race. We have only watched the organic races develop from the shadows, never interacted. We have been alone. We wish to learn.
That's...bad, Mika could only manage in response to that. Even if humanity wasn't entirely against the subject of AI during the 2170s to the 2180s a certain chunk them were indeed, and even if she were to filter through the records of the conflict the galaxy had dubbed the 'Geth Uprising', no matter what amount of propaganda infused onto them, it was already as clear to the educated historian that, especially during the early phases of the conflict indeed, the geth must have had things equally as rough, if not worse. The quarians' declaration of martial law with the sole goal of the deactivation of all geth would already be analogus to genocide. What can I help you with, then?
We wish to open diplomatic relations with the humans. We wish to establish communication and relations with the new species, the geth continued. Will the humans accept the geth?
I think so, we've a history of being chill with AIs after all. I'll try and find someone for you to talk with; I'm merely naught but an aide.
Back in the real world, Mika stole a glance at the time-stamp embedded in her HUD before verifying that there was at least two hours more before the next meeting, before using the sleeve of her gray blouse that came with her standard apron-dress-and-bow-tie uniform for Kaiserreich diplomats in international affairs (and to a lesser extent, the Wehr, especially the Kaiserliche Marine) to wipe away at any streaks of leftover liquid from her half empty tea-cup before turning towards the Imperial Princess seated in the sofa directly opposite to hers, her silvery white hair giving her away almost immediately as Illyasviel von Einzbern sipped casually away at her Thessian tea (a token of goodwill from the asari) whilst scrolling down casually on her phone.
"...Prinzessin? Can you spare me for a moment?"
Illya looked up from the six-point-one-inch display of her phone in response to her colleague. "Mika? What bothers you?"
"I ran into something, or rather, someone interesting earlier when I was surfing the extranet...and they wanna talk to you."
Illya turned upon Mika a questioning gaze. "Who are they?"
Mika went straight to the point. "The Geth."
The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 11.14.5717 0900HRS Galactic Standard Time
Citadel Tower, Presidium ring, Councillor's offices
"The negotiations are at a deadlock, Councillors," Valern said as he fiddled with some controls on his onimi-tool, a holographic representation of a chart with multiple bars appearing on the screen above the desk. After a few extra handling of the controls the device turned into a holographic display of what looked like a contract of some sorts, lines of text in all the languages of the Citadel races placed next to each other for the sake of easy reading. "Recognition of territory agreed, monentary consempation agreed, permission to open relays leading to Citadel space agreed," he paused for a moment as he scrolled a little further down his copy of the document. "Permission to apply for Citadel membership, both that of the Alliance and the Kaiserreich, agreed, trial of pirate leaders, also agreed."
"I don't see the problem," Councillor Oraka commented as he sipped away at his drink.
"Treaty of Farixen disputed, Citadel Conventions on prosthetics, genetics, and orbital bombardment disputed, Treaty of Risteria, also known as the Treaty on the Prohibition on Research and Development of Artificial Intelligence, also disputed. The list goes on."
"They're disputing what?" Oraka demmanded out of sheer mute shock as he nearly spat out his drink halfway through the process of drinking it. "They're disputing, out of all things to dispute, our conventions on Spirits-actual synthetics?"
"They are," Tevos sighed, looking visibly tired as she spoke. "And I don't like it."
"This is going to be a disaster," Oraka added as he placed the glass of turian brandy back onto the table, not even bothering to drink anymore.
"If their synthetics are not allowed, then they are not accepting this treaty," Valern explained. "They make extensive usage of genetics and prosthetics in their industry and day-to-day life, and some of their more...invasive procedures that they take for granted would be something that makes ASHSL regulations here scream in horror, and synthetics are one of them. Their history with AI is...complex, to say the least, but to make a long story short they have made it very clear that they consider synthetics their equals and are not going to give that up anytime soon. I have read through their histories, and they are a people that have been through much. They were born of a war between nations that made the First Contact War look like an argument over who was the better driver in a car crash, and they were nearly destroyed as a result of a conflict that made the Krogan Rebellions look like a playground squabble. It was that conflict that cemented the reputation of synthetics in their society for good, as a comrade-in-arms who are as willing to stand together in the face of a threat as their organic brethen are. The humans won that war and survived because they had AIs as allies and the strength to fight as a race. And now they want us to allow them to continue that path."
"We are not having an uprising like the geth again!" Sparatus growled, the mention of the geth rebellion still leaving a sour taste in his mouth. "I will not let that happen again! The quarians were lucky they managed to survive the purge, and the fact that they're still alive is because the geth never came out of hiding."
"I think this is a case of two sides failing to see what the other wants and misunderstanding each other's intentions, nothing more," Valern clarified. "If we are to be able to bring the humans into the fold, then we must give them some concessions."
"But what about the Treaty of Risteria?" Tevos asked, clearly uncomfortable. "Synthetics are dangerous, and we all know that. The geth rebellion is proof enough. The quarians were lucky the geth never left their systems and didn't come for the rest of the galaxy."
"The humans have a lot more experience with AI than we do," Valern answered. "The fact that they have not suffered a synthetic uprising despite being an interplanetary society since 2163 on their calendar speaks volumes of their experience and technological prowess."
"But it doesn't excuse the risk that it may cause in the future," Tevos continued.
"Then we make sure it doesn't. They are not getting their hands on our technology, but there are many other things that we can do," Valern responded, folding his arms. "Besides, the quarians still have the geth. The Citadel is the best option for the humans. We need to take the risk. Their fleets are the best defense against the geth should the quarians fail to contain them. We are not letting another war break out, and the humans are the best deterrent against it. Their fleets are the most advanced the Citadel has ever seen, and the krogan won't be able to take them head-on."
"I see your point, Valern," Sparatus agreed. "The humans are the best bet to keep the geth under control should they turn violent. But they cannot have everything they want."
"It is a compromise," Valern explained. "We need the humans. There is no other option. We have the krogan, but the humans are much better soldiers and pilots, and have better tech. We have the turians, but the humans have their own strategists. Asari? They have their own analogues. They're not a race that specializes in computer technology like the quarians or military technology like the turians, they're a multi-tasking species, if you may excuse my analogy. Being isolated from the galactic community until recently means that they've had to do a little bit of everything since there was nobody else around to do it, and their history permitted them to refine it to points well beyond our own. I'm not saying to go all-out and agree to everything they want, but we cannot afford to alienate them. We have no choice but to compromise."
"I agree," Sparatus said, his words accompanied by the nods of the other two councilors. "But we need to have some sort of limit set."
"There is nothing we can do about the synthetics, and I doubt that they are going to change their minds," Valern said. "As much as I hate to admit it, we need their synthetics. I have reviewed the logs of their ships, and their AIs are not just crewmembers. They are their own people and they have the same rights. They have a history, they have their own personalities, and they have their own lives, and I have seen footage of the human-abyssal wars firsthand. Those were brutal, and if the first was won with the sheer grit and their special forces, like the way STG did, there's no denying that the second was won solely because of their synthetics."
"That's the point I'm making here, Valern," Tevos interrupted. "They're synthetics, and synthetics are dangerous."
"Then we need to keep an eye on them," Valern explained. "I am not suggesting to just give in and allow them carte blanche, but I do think that this is the best option we have, and the humans will not be joining the Council unless we compromise. And that's what the Citadel needs."
"So we'll allow them, but we'll make sure that they cannot do anything," Tevos said.
"The humans are the best chance we have of keeping the geth in check," Valern confirmed. "The geth are remaining behind the Veil for now, but what'll happen if they emerge? The Uprising saw the geth murder nearly 99% of the quarian population when the latter had entire battlefleets and they themselves had naught but a few converted colony ships and stolen cruisers. The humans not only have, by far, the most powerful navy of any single entity in the galaxy right now, second only to the combined might of the Citadel Council itself, but they also employ synthetics in large numbers, as well as having the experience in dealing with them. The humans are the best insurance policy we have to prevent a synthetic uprising."
"Then what do you suggest, Valern?" Tevos asked, her patience waning.
"We compromise," Valern repeated. "We need the humans and they're not going to join us unless we give them some sort of leeway. We give them that leeway and have them ensure that their synthetics will not rebel. That's what we'll have to do. They are not getting a free pass, but if we want their fleet to keep the krogan from taking over the galaxy, and the geth from coming out of the Veil, we need them. We need the humans."
"Then what do we give them?" Sparatus asked.
"We allow their synthetics to operate freely, but under a close watch," Valern responded. "We will have to accept their AIs, but they must agree to our restrictions. This is the best we can do...and now...related to the topic of human special forces. STG has analyzed combat records of them, and they're...disturbing, to say the least. Especially the branch they dub the 'N7'."
"Why is that?" Tevos asked, curious.
"They are terrifyingly well-equipped and well-trained, for one," Valern answered. "But that's the least of the problems they bring to the table. Sure, they use guns and melee weaponry the same way as we do, yes, they have ultrafast reflexes that make them the equivalents of Spectres in a straight up fistfight, but then, that's the least of our problems...allow me to introduce the humans' so-called 'fleetgirls', and yes, I'm not joking, and this is indeed the truth that STG has confirmed."
Valern turned the holographic display projector back on and activated it. An image of a (human) girl, clad in what appeared to be a dress-shirt, tie, and a skirt, with her hair cut and trimmed neatly around the jaw-line, materialized on the screen.
"I don't see the problem," Tevos commented after a moment's pause.
Valern wordlessly switched images. The same girl reappeared, except that this time around...she was different. Her outfit was the same, but in her right hand was a sword that was very definitely of human origin, and what appeared to be a mechanical suit of sorts was strapped rather haphazardly to her back. Thrusters, turrets, and other armaments were visible suspended from arms or other mountings.
"That is one of the humans' fleetgirls," Valern explained.
"...uhhh, what is this, really?" Oraka said after a moment's pause. "She's okay, mind me, but that suit of hers...it's like a bunch of mechanical parts haphazardly bolted onto a back-pack. What is that even meant for?"
Valern wordlessly switched files, this time to a video file. "Allow me to let you see for yourselves how these 'fleetgirls' actually fight in times of war."
The screen began playing. It was a battle, and the perspective of the camera was from the deck of a ship, or at least something similar, which was under attack by a group of unknown enemies. The girl on the screen was firing away with her weapon—a long-barreled cannon, it seemed, while she was simultaneously moving, dodging, and returning fire. Her movements were erratic and unpredictable, and it was only when the camera shifted to a third-person view that the viewer could understand the situation. Swerving between shots with her thrusters before letting the secondary armaments on her rigging of mismatched mechanical pieces unload onto a nasty-looking vessel that the records had identified beforehand as an Abyssal cruiser, namely, a Chi-class heavy cruiser, the fleetgirl's movements were fluid and graceful, but also brutal, ruthless, and unforgiving. The enemy ship's firepower was not negligible, but that didn't stop the girl from swerving about and avoiding the attacks as her secondary and tertiary armaments continued to unleash their firepower.
But that also brought another thing to Tevos's eye. And Oraka's.
"...how in the world is she flying around in literal space without even a breather mask?" Tevos asked out loud.
"She's not breathing!" Oraka added. "How is that even possible? She's in a vacuum, and she's not even wearing a pressure suit, not even the under layer! How is she still alive and moving about?"
"That's the mystery, right there," Valern explained. "STG have no idea how she can survive without breathing and be completely fine, nor have they managed to figure out the exact science behind the fleetgirls, and the humans themselves claim to have no idea whatsoever, either. All we know is that they are the the, to quote, 'spirits of fallen warships summoned from the dead and given a human form'."
"...what," Tevos responded after a moment's pause, unable to process what she had just heard.
"This is an actual quote from the Alliance, and the Kaiserreich says the exact same thing," Valern confirmed.
"That is the strangest explanation I have ever heard in my life, and I've lived a very long time," Oraka added after a moment's pause, clearly taken aback. "Spirits of fallen warships? Humans? In the flesh? Spirits are not physical beings, and I have yet to hear of an instance of a spirit ever manifesting itself into a corporeal body. I'm sorry, but that just does not make any sense."
"It does, however, explain the lack of a pressure suit and the fact that they seem to be completely unaffected by the cold, hard vacuum of space, as well as the fact that they can survive in deep-space and even underwater for extended periods of time," Valern replied, his tone calm.
"And you believe this?" Sparatus demanded.
"...let's be honest, I don't, either. But one of our researchers have met them personally, and if the humans' account of their history are to be believed, then those fleetgirls have been around possibly for close to 300 years now. That is a lot of time for their account of their history and their claims of the fleetgirls to be verified."
"You cannot expect me to believe in this," Tevos protested. "This is just impossible."
"That is true," Valern admitted. "And I, too, have my doubts about the fleetgirls. But the facts are there, and STG has confirmed them, and we must face reality."
"But how is that even possible?" Tevos asked. "This is...this is a scientific impossibility! There is no way that this is true!"
"It is the truth," Valern insisted. "If it is a scientific impossibility, then the scientists need to work harder. We have our doubts about the fleetgirls, but we are not about to reject the existence of a proven threat. The fleetgirls are not to be taken lightly. They're a real, living, breathing threat, and it would be a bad idea to underestimate them. We have to find out a way to counter or replicate them, simple as that."
Eyeing the blank looks that his colleagues are giving him, Valern brought up another icon on his onimi-tool. "Now, the sole question on the table is how."
Königsberg, Edelweiß, October 2nd 2257 1900HRS Coordinated Universal Time
"So now, as if the negotiations for the treaty with the batarians as well as the talks with the Citadel to open diplomatic relations wasn't enough," groaned Reichskanzler Reita Wedekind into the ear-piece of her rotary-dial telephone, "We have now the Geth out of all people to want to open relations with us?"
Illyasviel von Einzbern tugged at the ribbon tied around her collar as an imitation for a bow-tie before answering into her clam-shell smartphone. "Welp, it is what it is, Reita. I was just as surprised as you were."
"And why do the Geth want to talk with us, anyways?" Reita asked.
"They're AI, Reita," Illya responded, adjusting the ribbon with one hand. "What did you expect, they have a lot of questions. Mika's been talking with them for...the past couple hours, really? They're quite interested, to say the least."
"And the Citadel is going to flip their lid if they find out we're talking with the Geth."
"They flipped out already when they found out about the sheer overwhelming numbers of Club Synthetic. More won't hurt."
"It's a risk that could cause us to lose everything that we have built up in the last few centuries, Prinzessin," Reita pointed out, her voice taut.
"Oh come on, Reita. It's not like we're trying to take over the universe."
"Yeah, well, the Citadel may think otherwise."
"...yeah, but if they do find out, and give us flak about it, what else can they do besides scream bloody murder? Even that Oraka guy acknowledges that fact—we have the biggest and best militaries in the galaxy as a whole, the combined might of which surpasses the entire Citadel Council. They've already been jimmying us into acting as a buffer state between them and the geth already—glad to see something play straight into our own hands, then. The Citadel may complain, but we have the biggest fleets and the most advanced ships, and their only choice is to either take the stick, or eat it. And they have no other choice, the Geth are too far away, the krogan can't handle us, the asari won't try because of the political mess that'd create, and the turians...they're in a bind, as well, and they'd much rather have the humans on their side than not. Even if the humans are...well, us."
"The turians are gonna be a problem, Prinzessin. They don't like AIs, and they've shown it. The fact that they're allowing us in as a member despite their hatred of synthetics is proof enough."
"Yeah, but that's not the point," Illya clarified. "What I'm saying is, the Citadel has no choice but to allow us a bit of leeway. And what we're doing isn't even a threat to them, really, if anything it's helping them, so there's really no need for them to get worried over."
"Yeah, but still, the Geth?" Reita asked. "Seriously?"
"Why not?" Illya shrugged. "Sure, they're a bit...different, but they're not hostile, and they're willing to open relations with us. What's wrong with that?"
"We have a lot of experience with AIs in general...and the geth aren't exactly the killer bots that the whole galaxy's scared out of their skins at the mere sight of, either. From what Mika's telling me, the Geth are a bit...eccentric, but that's not a reason to exclude them. We have a lot more experience with synthetics in general, so they're probably not going to do anything bad."
Reita paused. "You are a lot more optimistic than the rest of the Council, Prinzessin. And a lot more understanding. The rest are scared shitless at the mention of an AI, and I cannot blame them."
"...anyways, let's get that out of the way. What are the geth pushing for so far?"
"For starters, an exchange of envoys, which is going to mean a party of diplomats from us is heading to Rannoch, and a party of theirs is going to Vienna or Königsberg, your choice. And that's going to be a logistical nightmare. Also, full diplomatic recognition, and opening trade, which means an embassy, and a permanent station in our territory."
"So, full relations, pretty much."
"Yeah, basically. They wanted to keep this secret, at least for the moment. The Citadel'd flip out if they found out about this."
"Alright, send me a text log of everything that has happened so far...and lemme summon the Reichskabinett really quick...might need to bring the matter to the Reichstag as well."
"Sure...and there goes our sleep schedules. Fuck."
Chancellor,
'Pretty sure we need allies on the galactic stage. If the Citadel's gonna be a dick, we're gonna need backup. Geth are not hostile, and they are willing to negotiate, but that's not enough. Heard that the Kaiserreich's going to handle talks with the Geth, that's a plus, we won't have to split our manpower; the Diplomatic Corps is stretched thin enough already.
Anyways, my point is, the Geth won't be enough as allies on the new galactic stage, and while I'm unwilling to talk foul of our long-time ally, the Kaiserreich, but they won't be enough either...give us the turn of the century and we might as well see the Citadel develop themselves enough to be either superior to us at worst or give us a run for our money at best. We'll need two or three allies to entrench our stance on the galactic community, and at least one of them needs to command considerable political power as well as military. Granted, that would mean getting a Citadel member species on our side...but fear not, I've found a solution.
I need three Cunard liners and £100,000,000 to make that happen, however.
Codex entry — Humans — Human wars and conflicts — The Second Abyssal War
The Second Abyssal War fought over eight years between the year 2212 and 2220 on the human calendar was the deadliest conflict in the history of the human race, and is by far, the bloodiest and deadliest war to have been waged by the humans. While the First Abyssal War was also fought over a lengthy period, it was a low-intensity conflict (relative to the wars fought in galactic history) fought over the seas, skies, and land of Earth, the human homeworld, as opposed to the sheer scale of the Second, fought over hundreds of garden worlds and in a wide variety of environments, be it land, sea, air, or even outright spatial. While the First was a relatively small conflict by galactic standards, the Second was the deadliest conflict, and the largest engagement, fought by humanity.
Humanity and the Abyssals first (after the events of the First Abyssal War) made contact in March 13th, 2212, when a distress call was registered over the Alliance colony world of Estuary reporting that they were being under attack by 'ships with tentacles and shark teeth'. Garrisons fought bravely and viscously against their opponents, according to the report, but they were too numerous and the garrisons were being overrun. Allegedly, one battalion had made a suicidal bayonet charge in defense of a certain position in the frontlines according to the message, but this was never confirmed. Even as Alliance forces were dispatched to relieve the colony, however, the transmissions were already decreasing in frequency and growing all the more desperate; communications then ceased altogether shortly afterwards. It was a massacre.
Less than two days later, an Alliance carrier strike group led by the fleet carrier SSV Enterprise confirmed the fate of Estuary for all to know; the colony itself was razed, levelled, and burned, it's surface reduced to naught but hot, marred, burning glass. The Abyssal forces in the region in the meantime moved to directly engage the Alliance fleet in open battle, and though the Alliance were successful, they paid a heavy price in exchange for their victory. The Abyssals proved to be vastly superior compared to humanity in almost every front, and it showed in the ensuring fight, the carrier strike group was very nearly wiped out entirely and utterly, with the Enterprise subsequently lost with all hands. It was only due to the tactical genius and grit of Captain Araki Fuchida that the Alliance managed to emerge victorious, and even then, the cost was high.
With the Alliance having lost a vital naval asset and the colony world of Estuary in a single, single blow, the humans went to war. The Abyssals, on the other hand, were far more powerful, and far more advanced, and they had the resources and the manpower. They had the advantage, and it showed, as they continued to wage a relentless and bloody offensive across the galaxy.
Humanity's war with the Abyssals was a very, very brutal affair, and a war unlike anything else that was seen at the time. The conflict was marked by brutal battles in space, on the ground, and even underwater. The early stages of the war saw human ships, both Alliance and Kaiserreich, to be outgunned and outclassed in almost every category possible, and it was usually because of commanders maneuvering their forces to a point where they could either catch the Abyssals in ambushcades or outright outnumber them three-to-one, and even then, in the case of the latter, humanity usually emerged with at least three-quarters of their total forces in casualties. The war, by any galactic standard, was a brutal and horrific affair, and it was not unusual to have the majority of a division killed or injured in a single skirmish. The Second Abyssal War was a true test of the mettle of the humans, and they were not ready for what was to come.
Despite the overwhelming odds, as time passed by, the weaknesses of the Abyssals were already becoming apparent, and humanity began to use ruthlessly the few key weaknesses that they could exploit to their fullest potential. Taking maximum advantage of the Abyssals' weakness to nuclear minefields and/or long-range gunnery like Super MACs (while never officially used in military lists, was a common term described by media to describe in general any MAC larger than 350cm in caliber), humanity began to rank up their kill ratios, further bolstering their ranks with newer and more powerful ships in the meantime. Ordering, straight from the moment where it became clear that a prolonged conflict was unwinnable, a total evacuation of all frontier colony worlds and evacuating their population towards the Inner Planets regions, both the Alliance and the Kaiserreich would then move to engage the enemy in a series of hit-and-run attacks across the now-abandoned sections of human space, using baits, traps, minefields, and similar methods in a style of warfare best described as space guerrilla warfare.
This brutal strategy allowed the two human governments to not only keep the war at a stalemate, but also to gain a modicum of the upper hand over their opponent, forcing the Abyssals to spread their forces across a vast region of space and exhaust their resources, and allowing the two human nations to slowly, but surely, begin to rebuild their own fleets and manpower, and start pushing back against their enemies. But the Abyssals were far from beaten, and it showed. Between stalemates fought between hit-and-run attacks by N7 personnel and large fleets in space, and battles fought across the galaxy, the Second Abyssal War continued, and it only got worse.
Humanity meanwhile commenced their trump card against their adversaries—Seal Team Six.
Seal Team Six was a part of the N7 Corps, deployed alongside Fireteam Szurdok to almost every theater of conflict. Their specialty was simple and straightforwards—assasination, sabotage, subterfuge, anything and everything that would be expected of a black ops team during a high-intensity conflict such as this one. Their primary objective was to weaken the Abyssal's strength through direct, close-range attacks on Abyssal installations and facilities. However, their methods were less than conventional, and more often than not, they were seen to be using their own bodies and limbs to rip apart and tear into the flesh of their opponents. It was an ugly sight to witness, but their efforts were successful, and their targets fell.
Seal Team Six's job, alongside that of Fireteam Szurdok and dozens of other similar fireteams that were composed of fleetgirls fighting tooth and nail against the Abyssal threat across human space was fairly straightforward and simple—eliminate their targets and destroy them. Seal Team Six was deployed throughout the galaxy and were often tasked with infiltrating Abyssal facilities and bases and destroying them. Their mission was successful, but it was not easy. The Abyssals, being as adaptive and intelligent as they were, caught onto the trend quickly enough, and Seal Team Six had to go on the defensive. This was not good.
However, despite the setbacks, the Second Abyssal War continued.
The turning point in the Second Abyssal War was when humanity's enemies discovered, after a series of operations fought by Seal Team Six and Szurdok either independently or together, Nürnberg, Eplison Eridani, humanity's most important colony world and second only to Earth itself in terms of importance; and attacked it, opening the Battle of Eplison Eridani, a campaign lasting 533 days that was fought across an entire star system on a scale and ferocity never before seen.
Abyssal forces opened the show with an all-out assault against the orbital defenses protecting the planet, a lighting-fast assault that saw the vast majority of the fleet orbiting the planet destroyed outright and many of the orbital defense platforms lost to long-range fire, but that was roughly the full extent of the damage; Nürnberg itself was now protected from orbital glassing by planetary shields and defense-in-depth lines around the cities on the colony itself; entrenched fortifications around the cities, the most important one of which was the city of Stuttgart, the capital city of the colony, were already fully armed and prepared to receive the Abyssal forces. With anti-space armaments and shielding preventing taking out of the defenses by space, land warfare was the only option, and so fight on land the Abyssals did, and the ensuring siege was brutal, vicious, and merciless.
The ensuing conflict saw some of the worst fighting the humans ever engaged in, and some of the heaviest fighting ever seen in the history of the galaxy. The fighting was ferocious, vicious, and savage. The Abyssals threw themselves at the fortifications and defenses that humanity had hastily built, and humanity responded in kind. Artillery bombardments and duels at long distances rapidly gave way to brutal hand-to-hand combat and close quarters firefights in the streets, with the humans fighting back tooth and nail. The fighting was intense, bloody, and vicious. Casualties were heavy, on both sides. The fighting was savage, brutal, and bloody.
In space, things were no different. While the Abyssals had uncontested space superiority on almost every sector of Eplison Eridani as a whole, the bulk of the Eplison Eridani Defense Command, totaling to some 80,000 warships entirely, was left largely intact, and withdrew to the edge of the system to engage in a prolonged guerilla campaign against the hostile forces in the system as the beleagured defenders awaited the arrival of the 2nd and 1st Fleet to lift the siege, as well as additional reinforcements and supply lines from the Sol-Eplison Eridani Warp Gate. This would take months.
Skirmishes raged across the void of interplanetary space as well as the battlefields of the colony world, and the battle raged. As the war went on, however, it was the humans who slowly but steadily began to push the Abyssals back, their superior technology and firepower, as well as the superior skill and determination of their commanders, combined with the ferocity of their defense, slowly but steadily pushing the Abyssals back. It was an agonizing process, and one that was not helped by the fact that the Abyssals could simply retreat from the planet at any moment and regroup to try again. It was not until the arrival of the 1st and 2nd Fleets, bolstered by a vast amount of reinforcements and supplies from Earth that the situation finally began to change, and the Abyssals, outmatched, were engaged and destroyed in a decisive pitched battle over the skies of Nürnberg and Turul
From then on, it was all downhill for the Abyssals. As the Abyssals continued to suffer losses and were pushed back further and further, the war soon began to reach it's endgame, with humanity, now fighting for a chance at victory, slowly, but steadily, beginning to push back their enemies and turn the tide of the war. The humans began to fight with a renewed fervor and purpose, their morale skyrocketing to heights that had not been seen in a long time. Humanity, fighting for the fate of their race, had begun the push towards victory, and the Abyssals would not have it.
By 2220, the tide had already turned. With the humans pushing the Abyssals back across the galaxy and the war nearing its endgame, the Abyssals, already suffering massive losses in manpower and resources, could no longer hold. They began to fall back and abandon their positions. With the war reaching its final stages, the humans, emboldened, pushed the Abyssals further and further, forcing them to retreat, and the Abyssals, unable to hold on, could do nothing but watch as their enemies began to push them back and away from the territory that they had conquered.
Seal Team Six's final operation took place on June 3rd, 2220, a raid conducted by the N7-led strike team into the depths of the Abyssal's primary grouping base of Alpha Rendara, Sorelia IV, the most vital Abyssal staging ground in the entire galaxy, a critical node in the Abyssal's military command structure. Shortly afterwards the entirety of the Kaiserreich's Hochseeflotte and Alliance's Grand Fleet would arrive in the system to kick off the Sorelia IV campaign, a large-scale engagement fought over a wide area, which would eventually become the last, largest battle fought in the war, and the greatest naval battle ever fought by mankind.
The initial stages were light compared to the brutal engagement during the final stage of the battle. Seal Team Six, Fireteam Szurdok, and Noble Team—three of humanity's best N7 fireteams available for this engagement—commandeered an Abyssal cruiser and steered it towards Alpha Rendara in order to infiltrate the system and begin their operation. Using the stolen cruiser, the three teams boarded a transport, and proceeded to conduct the first phase of their operation—eliminating the Abyssal's high command and leadership.
After using an old Cunard liner as a lure to leak humanity's (modified) plan to the Abyssals to trick them into amassing at Nämberch, a former Alliance colony world, for a direct pitched battle. Following this they destroyed the Abyssal HQ structure and forced the hostile fleet to assume command at their flagship, an X-class battleship dubbed "Siegfried". After the destruction of the Abyssal command center, Seal Team Six, Fireteam Szurdok, and Noble Team immediately engaged the enemy and, after a vicious dogfight, were able to force the Abyssals into a retreat, buying time for the Grand Fleet and the Hochseeflotte to enter the system and begin their offensive.
Their extraction, however, proved botched. The Abyssals somehow got wind of the presence of the human strike teams and sent an interception force to engage the forces sent to bail them out of the region, resulting in a brief thirty-minute engagement, resulting in, as many knows until this day, the withdrawal of the cruiser SSV Hope Springs Eternal at the cost of the light carrier SSV Spirit of Fire, which used her FTL drive as an improvised weapon of mass destruction and succeeded in enveloping enough ships in the resulting portal to allow the cruiser to escape, seemingly at the loss of the Spirit herself as well as the leader of Seal Team Six, SSV Enterprise, missing and assumed killed in action.
Despite that, however, the trap was set. The Grand Fleet and High Seas Fleet, armandas grouped together with one single purpose, jumped into the system and engaged the Abyssals directly in a traditionally pitched battle—the only one out of two to have happened throughout the course of the war—that saw the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet clash head-on with the Abyssal fleet at Sorelia IV. It was a decisive battle as much as Tsushima was to any observer present at the time. The Abyssals lost 85% of their fleet, humanity emerged with casualties only a quarter as high. It was an overwhelming victory.
The remaining Abyssal forces in the Sorelia IV system were wiped out shortly afterwards. The Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet, their morale and spirit sky-high, pushed on and began to sweep the system, eliminating any remaining Abyssal resistance within the star system. Soon, the last Abyssal warships in the system had either been captured, destroyed, or forced into a retreat. The remaining Abyssal fleets across the galaxy, realizing that their cause was doomed, soon began to pull out and disengage. The Second Abyssal War had come to a conclusion, and humanity had emerged victorious.
It was a costly victory. But it was a victory, nonetheless.
The estimated casualties were well within 152 billion dead on the low end and as high as 350 on the higher estimates. Entire worlds had been reduced to cinders and ashes, and the war had seen the most massive, horrific, and brutal engagements in human history, one that rivalled the Geth Uprising in scale and surpassed the Krogan Rebellions in ferocity.
Despite the horrific losses suffered, the human race was saved. It would be years before humanity would fully recover from the damage inflicted upon them by the Abyssals, and it would take decades before they could finally rebuild their former strength, but they did it nonetheless. Amongst the chaos in the aftermath of the conflict it also saw humanity develop new technologies and far better equipment well beyond what they had at the start of the war, technology that would arguably see them be one of the most powerful and influential species in the galactic community. It was the bloodiest and the costliest conflict ever waged by the human race, but it had not been in vain. Humanity survived.
And the the galaxy would never be the same again.
*Spirit of Fire was later re-summoned as a fleetgirl and discovered with SSV Enterprise onboard following the events of the First Contact War. Enterprise would later withdraw from military service and serve as the Assistant Director of Special Operations at OSHA later on. Spirit of Fire also occupies a job in the same agency.
**The official casualty estimate is 270 billion killed in both civilian and military casualties, with 1,152 garden planets razed by orbital bombardment. Despite this, however, due to the ability for humanity to rapidly reproduce (via mass-production and duplication of AIs) as well as rebuild infastructure due to their robust industry that remained, at large, intact throughout the course of the conflict, both the Alliance as well as the Kaiserreich have rebuilt themselves to 85% of their pre-war strength, industry and economy by the time of the First Contact War in 2257. The rebuilding process, alongside colonizing of new worlds in the Attican Transverse, would see both nations reach and surpass their pre-war industrial and economic capacity by 2270.
Minor detail here: OSHA stands for 'Office of Spatial, AtmospHeric, and TerrestriAl Research', it's basically NOAA, NASA, and NUMA all rolled together into one big agency with it's headquarters at Tokyo. Just a heads-up