CrazedBureaucrat64: Fair.
The diplomatic scenes were mostly using their equivalent in The Fourth Council Race as a rough baseline (writer's block and head issues), mostly (yeah, didn't really think that through. Just used TFCR as a rough baseline and didn't really think much elsewhere),
My knowledge on diplomatic law regarding outfits is next to none, thank you for the information (although I can handwave that problem away by saying that the dress code for interstellar contacts is different and is not the same code as in inter-national contacts, btw). Although Goyle is indeed wearing a business suit, but she didn't bother to button up her jacket, and Illya's outfit is closer to a highly prestigious Japanese high-school uniform than most (kinda took inspiration from Spy Classroom for Illya's outfit), which gives me the bonus of saying that an 'apron dress with a dress shirt and bow for girls, or otherwise a buisiness suit with an extra vest and a necktie' is the standard dress code for typical Kaiserliche diplomats. Kinda spitballing however
Yes, kinetic barriers do have the capability to block particle/plasma attacks, however, there is literally nothing they can do about the resulting heat, unfortunately. IIRC an Alliance sergeant was hit by geth plasma guns somewhere around Eden Prime (?) and the shots just went straight clean through his kinetic barriers. The barriers can stop the beams all right, but since kinetic barriers hug the hull (?) the heat/excess kinetic energy bleeding through the barriers would just get the job done easily enough. Although they can still serve as spaced outer armor, and if the barriers are shaped like a bubble, they could even stop the plasma attacks. But there's nothing to stop GARDIAN lasers from going through, however.
Class 7 nukes aren't uncommon (at least in this AU, given how I essentially gave the Council a major series of buffs as well), heck, one could just use tractor beams and slingshot a few asteroids at a planet to achieve the same effect. That the Alliance/Kaiserreich took it to the extemes was a side effect of having what essentially amounted to the Krogan Rebellions, Geth conflict, and Reaper invasion all rolled into one. Tbh if my memory serves me right the quarians lost like 99% of their population during the geth conflict, which is already beating the projected casualty rate of the 2nd Abyssal conflict by an entire order of magnitude, which is putting the 2AW probably at closer to the Krogan Rebellions in terms of scale. IIRC, the KR was also ended with a mass superweapon attack (Genophage), while the 2AW was ended at Nämberch with the first (and only) detonation of a Class 7 (refrences Hiroshima).
Anyways thank you for your concerns, they do mean plenty to me. I'll log them for future refrence
CoolDude101011: Most of my writing style was largely inspired by Hieda no Ankyū's work, especially Ambience: A Fleet Symphony (4 million words long tbh), and it was something largely optimized for readability on a computer or laptop, not a phone. Though I prefer the former over the latter, I'll try to find a balance nonetheless to make it readable on a phone without making it too short on a laptop's screen. It's mostly trial-and-error by this point, however
SpaceCommander-09: Well, they allegedly did in order to mass-terraform their interstellar colonies during the Second Space Race btw
THOMASPENZHORN11: Your feedback, other than the whole "Great chapter, I love it~" part, has been logged, thank you
Guest #1 (order from top to bottom btw): wait was Oraka a turian name or krogan? I was using the name of the turian councillor from It Started at Shanxi (he was named Oraka)...so was that a turian name or krogan? If it's not turian, then I'll have to replace them, thank you
Guest #2: It's a KanColle and Mass Effect crossover, cope (lol)
Guest #3: 1, Technically, a ship needs to be sunk/lost/destroyed to be able to be summoned as a fleetgirl (although I haven't thought about your case yet. Lemme flesh it out later down the line.)
2, the Citadel is acting in place of the Hegemony, as the Hegemony is (a, not present, and (b, a Citadel member.
3, it's kinda like how you have your bodyguards inside the meeting-room with you, and they end up (because the joke was too good to pass up) giving the whole 'Kentucky fried Turian' meme the rounds again (lmao)
4, Well, the Citadel has footage of the whole batarian willies from their sensor data alone, as well as the fact that they culd just literally boot up a laptop and go onto Wikipedia (and find literally everything there). iirc the delegation wasn't exposing any direct coordinates to systems, and given how Alliance weaponry and capabilities is already known (the wrecks, nuclear signatures, and how the surviving crew's got the willies from getting a nodachi swiping their officers), it's kinda pointless, IMO, to hide everything. Although the exact firepower numbers and listings are still unknown.
In case you mean the codex entries, they were (in lore) written in around 2283, the start date of ME1 (a century later lol), in which case enough dudes have red Wikipedia 2220 already to write codex entries about humanity anyways
5, They do know about them, but the reverse isin't true. Kirishima alludes to asari diplomatic customs as 'if my memory serves me right...'.
And in case of their fashion choices...well...let's just say the memeists who found out about that delibrately kept Kirishima from knowing about them in order to give the memes their fifteen minutes of fame
Humanity Takes Tentative Steps Towards the Stars: Citadel Talks Loom Large
By Hiro Yoshida, Tokyo Daily Correspondent
October 1st, 2257 CE (10.14.5717 Citadel Calendar equivalent)
The dust has barely settled on the seven-day crucible that was the First Contact War, with its scars still raw on the battered fields of Shanxi and the hearts of its defenders. Yet, humanity finds itself not licking its wounds in isolation, but hurtling towards the galactic stage with the roar of antimatter torches propelling us forward. Today, under the watchful gaze of the Citadel Fleet and the hum of the dormant mass relay, Ambassadors Anita Goyle and Illyasviel von Einzbern embark on a historic journey: the first official human diplomatic mission to the Citadel.
The embers of the conflict are still warm. Just a week ago, the Batarian Hegemony, blinded by avarice and a thirst for expansion, made their fateful miscalculation—blitzing through a turian patrol and slamming into the ironclad defenses of Shanxi. What our fledgling Systems Alliance garrisons lacked in numbers, it compensated for with grit and ingenuity, repelling the attackers and earning the grudging respect of the battle-hardened turians. The arrival of the Third Patrol Fleet, witnessing the shattered batarian fleet surrendering, served as a potent reminder of the galaxy's established power and the delicate dance of interstellar politics.
The scars of the fight run deep. Shanxi, once a bustling nexus of resource extraction and exploration, now stands as a testament to human resilience. Her fields and defenses lay with smoke billowing out of breaches in their duraplast armor, but still standing nonetheless, defiant symbols of power in the face of overwhelming odds. The arrival of the Citadel representatives, while initially greeted with guarded curiosity, has brought with it a tangible promise of inclusion, of a place at the galactic table.
Ambassador Goyle, a seasoned career diplomat with nerves of steel, carries the mantle of the Systems Alliance, representing the hopes and anxieties of billions back on Earth. Princess Illyasviel, a scion of the Kaiserreich, her elegant demeanor masking a keen political mind, embodies the cautious alliance formed during the war. These two figures, so different in background yet united in purpose, stand as the human spearhead on this uncharted frontier.
The days ahead are fraught with uncertainty. The whispers of Citadel politics, whispers of prejudice and suspicion, hang heavy in the air. Yet, humanity stands undaunted. We have stared into the abyss of war and emerged, tattered but unbowed. Now, we stand on the precipice of a new era, ready to face the galaxy with our heads held high. The echoes of the First Contact War may still resonate, but it is the future, the promise of the Citadel and beyond, that now occupies our hearts.
As Ambassador Goyle steps onto the shuttle bound for the Citadel, her eyes glint with determination. It is a look shared by millions across human space, a look that speaks of a species no longer content with gazing at the stars, but reaching out to grasp them. This is our moment, etched in history, and the Tokyo Daily will be there to chronicleevery glorious, messy, and unforgettable step along the way.
Stay tuned, citizens, for the dawn of humanity's galactic age.
—Hiro Yoshida
"They did get the dimensions for the Yamato-class right though," Fubuki mumured as she scanned the space outside the restaurant they were in while pretending to be one of the human ambassador guards enjoying her break now that she was rotated out of shift with her team, her eyes running down the live news feed on her smartphone she held in her hand but her attention still nonetheless concentrated on her radar suites. "Yamato was 5,563 meters long, and they labeled the ship as 5,600m long, well, petrons. I'm kinda surprised that they used metrics in their measurement systems, however. The concept of 'form follows function' I can understand well enough, but just how did they manage to get their meter-equivalent to be roughly equal to ours?"
"Based it off their homeworld probably," Shigure nodded nonchalantly from her spot directly opposite to Fubuki as she casually sipped some Thessian tea straight out of her glass, before returning her gaze back to her phone. "Thessia, the asari homeworld, was roughly equivalent to Earth in terms of size, and given how we based the meter initially on 'one-millionth the distance from the North Pole to the equator' it won't be a long stretch to say that they more or less took the same route. Form follows function, really."
"I'm surprised that we're not getting bombarded by questions," Fubuki muttered, glancing around at the rest of the customers around the restaurant. "Especially since we're the first actual live alien guests to be seen here."
"We did," Erin said, looking a little tired, but her appearance and her actual state was probably half a dozen light years apart. "Me and Shepard...ugh...we got the brunt of the damn reporters ganging up on us, mostly because we drew the short stick and ended up being the ones closest to them. Damn the cameras...they're just like the Sirens..."
"I'm kinda glad I missed that," Shigure deadpanned, though a hint of pity flashed in her eyes for the two unfortunate fleetgirls, even if only for a few seconds. "Good thing we didn't end up as far outside as you two did...but anyways you two still play Azur Lane or something? Kinda interesting to see a mobile game that's like two hundred years old by this point still being enjoyed even now."
"We're real-life kansen already...though I kinda find it a bit hilarious, though," Shepard deadpanned as she took a bite out of her quarian pastry—French ones were probably on par with British ones, but alien ones just took the cake, given how 'exotic' they were. "We're real-life fleetgirls playing a game about...fleetgirls? Ugh, now I'm starting to get a headache just trying to process that..."
"That's your own fault," Erin replied bluntly.
"Hey, you played it too!"
"Still your fault."
"How was I supposed to know the reporters would mob us the moment we left the shuttles?"
"You should've known," Erin shot back. "You're Commander Fucking Shepard. If the media isn't eating out of your hands, then the galaxy's gone mad and everyone's been replaced by Sirens."
"...Okay, good point."
Fubuki, Shigure, and the rest of the fleetgirls were currently situated inside a café just near the human embassy, one that was frequented by aliens, and right now, currently...humans. While they were technically supposed to be on break, none of them let their guard down. After all, while they were no longer in combat or battle conditions, their experiences fighting the Abyssals had drilled a habit of hyper-vigilance and preparedness into their heads, which made being on alert even when doing something as mundane as eating in a café possible. Welp, the old sailor's adage had it this way: when things were all going to plan, then you better keep your guard up, because after that, nothing will ever go to plan.
Still, at the very least, they had gotten to enjoy some decent alien food, which was a bonus. The cuisine was quite unique, but then again, alien species tended to be like that, and it helped that the café's owner was a nice person who had welcomed the fleetgirls warmly, albeit with an understandable dose of caution.
The café itself happened to be strategically placed well enough that they could be upon the scene of any attempt made upon the ambassadors they would be guarding in a matter of seconds, which meant that the fleetgirls could eat and keep watch at the same time, so it was a win-win situation for them.
Javelin meanwhile merely kept her face planted against the table, either out of sheer exhaustion or laziness or even perhaps a combination of both, a steady trickle of quarian pop songs trickling into her ears through a pair of headphones connected to her smartphone lodged inside her pocket while her electronic warfare suite was now being repurposed to surf the galactic extranet and keep track of the news feed, with occasional pauses to sip from her drink, an omnipresent aura of tiredness hanging around her. At least this time around she could relieve herself a bit and unwind, not unnatrually—by surfing all the extranet forums that were all working themselves up into knots in discussions (and sometimes heated debates) about the newest first contact that was literally unfolding right before their eyes (said first contact being with her fellow humans) and taking a few jabs herself at the brigades and divisions of memeists all over the place (love of memes is universal across all galactic communities with internet connection or equivalent) in the process, her own exhaustion and tiredness a result of her being constantly harassed by reporters the moment she stepped off the shuttle, a few dozen of them flocking to her and her sisters the moment they left the shuttles (luckily Shepard and Erin had taken the brunt of the attack), her radar suites now also keeping track of the movement of the reporters (she was glad she had the ability to do that) and a part of her brain also focused on monitoring the local radio and telecommunications channels (she could multitask well, especially in situations where the slightest bit of sloppiness could mean the difference between life and death) so she was essentially doing three things at once.
It was a wonder how she hadn't gone crazy or gotten a massive headache by now.
"So...any idea what the Citadel is gonna do now?" HMS Belfast asked curiously as she turned her attention back to the rest of the girls. "I'm just curious is all."
"Probably go nuts..." Shigure droned off as she sipped her tea and let the liquids wash down her throat. "They didn't have fleetgirls right? Can you just imagine their reaction to us? A bunch of ships that somehow get summoned, respawned, as human girls who can breath water and vacuum as well as summon mecha backpacks and fly in space or stand on water...and let's not bring us to the part where we're apparently all immortal..."
"They will go nuts the moment they find out," Fubuki agreed. "We don't know exactly how fleetgirls operate or spawn, and that's with close to three hundred years of experience with us, experience that predates even our FTL tech tree. If their researchers do find out about us and try to figure out how we tick? They'd be much better off writing 'Fucking Magic' onto their report cards."
"That's actually a good point," HMS Sheffield said. "There's a lot we don't know about ourselves. And it's not like there's much about us that makes any sort of logical sense. The best we have is just 'fucking magic' and even then that's pushing it."
"The most we have are just theories and guesses," Shigure shrugged. "No real scientific proof about it. And we've got a couple hundred years of scientific progress, and no one's figured out how we work yet. The furthest they've gone? Probably something about ships having a quantum signature that allows them to be re-summoned if that exact frequency is replicated...somehow...and it went all over my head."
"Yeah," Fubuki nodded. "It's hard to get our heads around the whole concept, even for us, and we're the ones who can literally do this shit."
"Yeah...but at least the technology is easy to understand," Fubuki said. "Just slap in a power source and a bunch of electronics and you've got yourself an AEGIS setup. Hell, it's pretty easy to build one now and it's all thanks to our industrialization and mass-production technologies. But for the whole fleetgirl phenomenon? You can't replicate the damn thing, and it's not because it's some super advanced stuff...hell, it's actually a lot simpler than the AEGIS integrated combat system we have as standard, because all it needs is a ship hull or an article belonging to the ship and it works. But then again, we are talking about a phenomenon that was theorized to be magical in origin..."
"Magic's pretty much science we can't explain," Javelin spoke, her voice sounding a little muffled since her face was still pressed against the table. "Or something we can't explain without a basis. I mean, come on, it's pretty obvious the Abyssals have a firm grasp on a lot of advanced, if not downright crazy and impossible science. Hell, the whole war against them was a race to develop our tech to the level where it could be able to counteract theirs, which was pretty much impossible since it was all 'magic', and by the time we got our shit together the war was basically won. It was a race against the clock and calendar for all intents and purposes."
"And thank god for that," Shepard said. "The thought of the Abyssals actually winning or getting a hold of Earth was terrifying to even consider."
"It wasn't a pleasant scenario to consider," Shigure sighed, a pensive look on her face. "Hell, if they had won, they would've destroyed everything. And then what? We'd have all just disappeared into nothingness...but I think they're more or less gone. No one's seen or heard from them in years, and no one's had any contact with them in years."
Javelin's phone chose that moment to switch tracks, a different tune from the quarian pop tunes she was listening to ringing out and echoing around the table. She lifted her head and picked her smartphone up, glancing at the notification.
"...okay, nice, there's this dude of the STG's research teams wanting to meet us," she deadpanned as she ran her eyes down the lines of text making up the message. "Maersar Raezona, is his name. Says he's a xenoscientist, and wants to meet us. Apparently, the Citadel's been a bit curious about us, and a lot of them are pretty interested. He's sent the coordinates to a location and says we can meet him there. Says he can provide some answers...and it's on the Presidium. Weird. Wasn't really expecting for a scientist type to want to meet us."
"Oh?" Shepard's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really? They're really interested in meeting us?"
"Yup," Javelin nodded. "I guess it's not a bad idea to meet up with him. What do you think, girls? It's a free day anyways."
"Eh, I don't see why not," Fubuki shrugged. "It's not like we have anything better to do."
"Well, we are guards," Shigure deadpanned, "Not diplomats."
"Besides, this'll be a good opportunity for us to meet and get to know other species," Belfast smiled. "And a chance to learn about them as well."
"Well, then, I guess we're going," Javelin chirped, her expression brightening up considerably. "We have time before our next shift, and this is a pretty good chance to kill some time and have some fun."
"Agreed," Shepard said. "Now, where was that guy again?"
"He said he'd be waiting in a restaurant called 'Purgatory'," Javelin replied. "Weird place, but we'll have to make do."
"Well, at least this'll give us a good chance to have a taste of the Citadel's nightlife," Erin remarked. "Besides, we could use a break. We've been running on high alert for the past few days, so I'm guessing the stress is finally catching up."
"I hear ya," Javelin said. "We've been doing this ever since we stepped off the shuttle. And yeah, a break would be nice."
"Well then," Shepard stood up from her seat, brushing off her uniform and grabbing her phone, which happened to be left on the table. "Let's not keep him waiting, shall we?"
Purgatory, the name suggested, was the Citadel's answer to the galaxy's concept of a club, though the term 'club' seemed to be an understatement for what the building was. It was more akin to a large, sprawling establishment, complete with neon lights, a wide array of alcoholic drinks (and some non-alcoholic drinks, because it wouldn't have made any sense to serve just alcohol in a place like that), and a huge dance floor that was currently packed with various aliens dancing the night away, the music reverberating throughout the entire building.
In short, Purgatory was the Citadel's answer to a nightclub, a concept that the Citadel Council's citizens seemed to have taken and run wild with.
Shepard and the fleetgirls were seated at a booth near the dance floor, the table being occupied by glasses of various beverages, as well as a plate of finger food, which had been placed in the center of the table for easy access. Shepard herself was busy trying to fight the urge to facepalm as she watched a bunch of drunk turians try to chat up a couple of salarians, who looked decidedly unamused and more or less bored with the whole situation.
"This...isn't quite what I had in mind when I said 'nightlife'," Erin groaned, looking decidedly annoyed, and her tone made it clear that she wasn't at all pleased with the current state of affairs.
"I'll admit, the whole 'alien nightlife' is an interesting thing," Javelin nodded, as her radar suites tracked the movement of a couple of hanar bartenders serving drinks to a group of asari sitting in a booth, not unlike their own. "But it's a bit...weird...to say the least."
"To be honest, I'm not too sure myself," Javelin spoke. "This...was not what I was expecting."
"You're telling me," Shepard sighed. "I've been in a few places like this back on Earth, but I have to say, the Citadel's takes the cake for sure."
Shigure took a gulp of some strong asari wine out of her glass before preparing it for a refill straight from the bottle, only to glance slightly to her left and see...the drunken turians more or less switching their attention to a group of asari 'maidens', if her inference was of any indication, trying to flirt around with them perhaps in the hopes of getting themselves a new bondmate...it took her two seconds of indecision to come to her next course of action—she set the glass down against the table and took a gulp straight from the bottle.
"What, so they just come here to get hammered and then go and try to get laid?" Shigure deadpanned after putting the bottle back on the table. "How...classy."
"...why did that salarian dude choose this place for a meeting, out of all places?" Javelin asked no one in particular. "This isn't really the best place for a meet-up."
"Well, at least this is a chance to have a taste of the Citadel nightlife, right?" Fubuki asked.
"If this is the nightlife, I think I'd rather pass," Javelin deadpanned.
"I'll say," Shepard sighed, watching as one of the drunken turians proceeded to fall flat on his face on the floor, his face hitting the tiles with a dull 'thud' and his body going limp. "I guess you can say he just crashed and burned."
"Wow, that's a new record," Shigure droned off. "I thought the human ones were bad. Guess I was wrong. Then again, the turians were always known to be a bit more militaristic and serious. Guess you can say he just dropped like a stone."
"At least there aren't any reporters here," Erin deadpanned.
"Well, the last time we tried to go outside we got mobbed by the press," Shepard pointed out. "And this time, at least, no one's here to try and ask us a bunch of questions and throw us off-guard. So, I guess that's a good thing."
"Yeah, a very good thing," Javelin said.
"Oh, look," Fubuki said, glancing over to her left and seeing a salarian and a quarian enter the club and take their seats. "Looks like he's here."
"Who's he with though?" Shigure asked. "A quarian?"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask, right?" Shepard shrugged.
"I think I'm gonna have to agree," Erin nodded.
"Well then, I guess we should introduce ourselves," Javelin said.
"I'll go call them over," Shepard said, getting up from her seat and making her way over to the salarian and the quarian. The two aliens seemed to notice the approaching human and the rest of the fleetgirls, and turned their heads in her direction.
"Hello," the salarian, who was presumably the same person that had sent the message to Javelin earlier, greeted. "I take it you are here about the request I sent earlier?"
"Yes, we're here about that," Shepard said, her voice audible above the din of the club's music and the sounds of drunken alien laughter. "You're Maersar Raezona, are you not? The scientist that wanted to meet us?"
"Yes," the salarian nodded. "I assume that the fleetgirls are behind you?"
"They are," Shepard nodded. "Come, join us, I'll introduce you to them."
"Lead the way," the salarian said.
Shepard nodded and walked back to the table where the rest of the girls were. She sat down and motioned for the salarian and the quarian to take the empty seats on her right, which they did, the former taking the seat beside her and the latter beside the quarian destroyer.
"Hello," the salarian spoke. "As you might've guessed, I'm the salarian that contacted you earlier. I believe that one of you is the one called Javelin, is that correct?"
"That's me," Javelin chirped. "And who's your friend here? He's a quarian, right?"
"Ah, my apologies," the salarian said. "This is my friend and colleague, Tali'Zorah vas Rayya."
"Pleasure to meet you," the quarian girl, presumably Tali'Zorah vas Rayya, nodded.
"Pleasure to meet you," Shigure nodded.
"The pleasure's ours," Fubuki replied.
"Likewise," Belfast nodded.
"Hello," Shepard nodded.
"Nice to meet you," Javelin chirped. "And you, Maersar Raezona, is it? Pleased to meet you. So, what was the reason you wanted to see us?"
"To be frank, you are an anomaly," the salarian replied, his tone even and his words carefully measured. "An anomaly that the Citadel scientists have been...curious about. You are the first of your kind, or so we believe, and the first time we have heard of ships, or articles, becoming sentient. This is an opportunity for us to study and learn about you, as well as understand how you came to be."
"...let me guess," Shigure deadpanned. "You either flipped through the records that the diplomats provided about both our history as well as the events of the batarians biting off more than they could chew, eh?"
"It's true that the records were quite helpful," Tali'Zorah, if the translation device was working correctly, replied. "But, there are still many gaps in our understanding of you. Like, for example, your immortality. Or your ability to summon mech backpacks."
"You know about those?" Javelin asked, slightly surprised. "I'm kinda curious about that myself. But then again, given how we can breathe in space and underwater, and have the ability to summon those backpacks, I'm not too sure myself."
"Yes, we are," the salarian scientist nodded. "Though, there is much more that we wish to know about. I understand if you don't feel comfortable with disclosing all your information, but this will give us an insight into how you work. The information would be kept confidential, I assure you."
"Well, it's not like we have much to hide, really," Javelin admitted. "So, what is it that you'd want to know?"
While a fleetgirl could most certainly go and divert all her attention towards the situation at hand if she wanted to, because fleetgirls were, well, fleetgirls, it also meant that they could effectively multi-task and split their attention across a multitude of tasks without losing efficiency at doing any one of them. And that their computer systems could effectively let them do the jobs hands-free by simply dedicating a few chunks of her mainframe(s) wasn't really complicating systems.
Javelin wasn't really complaining, here. The elevator's motion, it's smooth operation indicating to her that they were most likely magnetic (or mass-effect) operated as opposed to cable-driven, sent the seven of them, plus a salarian scientist by the name of Maersar, alongside his assistant, Tali'Zorah vas Rayya, if her memory told her accurately. A blinking light switched between floors as the elevator drove them all the way up to the top floor of what seemed to be a large research complex with a garguantuan 'STG' logo posted in a sign in front of said complex (in salarian, of course, but with Thessian lettering underneath), stopping at the topmost floor before the elevator's kinetic-barrier doors opened, or rather, disengaged, to allow it's occupants outside. In a sense, it reminded her of the energy barriers that were used on carriers to seal the atmosphere inside when flight operations were being commenced on the flight deck, or on airlocks that needed to be cycled really quickly, and the added insurance of a physical door to allow manual operation in case of power failure wasn't much of an issue.
Maersar stepped out of the elevator first, folllowed by Tali, the quarian assistant inside of a biohazard suit(?) walking outside second and showing them the way in, walking through a maze of corridors and doors that bore a distinct industrial flair to them, but still looked quite appealing to the eye nonetheless. Fubuki cast her eyes left and right, running them down the nameplates on each door as she walked past them, Shigure, Erin, Javelin, and the rest also more or less doing the same, with their eyes running down nameplates, attention glued to the radar, and in Javelin's case, her computer subroutine surfing the web for everything that may be of note for ONI's eyes—as well as hers. As far as she was concerned, she hadn't found anything of value yet, but the amount of porn on the sites was simply staggering, and asari porn seemed to be taking the overwhelming majority...she could relate, given the sheer amount of so-called 'weabroos' back in human space, but she found it amusing that reproduction would be so worshipped even across species. Form followed function, really.
"So," Shigure asked, glancing over at Maersar, her gaze not leaving the nameplates. "Is this STG facility your base of operations or something?"
"No, we're just going to be conducting the research here," Maersar explained. "There are plenty of laboratories, and the security's quite tight, so the Council's decided that it would be an appropriate location for our research."
"The Council's involved in this, eh?" Erin asked.
"Well, I mean, they are interested in you," the salarian scientist continued. "Your appearance, combined with your nature, is...unique, and there is no telling what could be possible. We want to know how and why you are what you are, and the Council is willing to help us. And it is only natural, given that the Council is the primary governing body of the Citadel and its territories."
Javelin nodded. "Makes total sense—"
"Just watch where you are going, sleepyhead," Fubuki muttered as she watched Javelin trip on a stray piece of random junk and end up falling face-first onto the floor. "You know what? I think we should find Laffey and pit you against her in a sleeping contest sometime..."
"—oh come on," Javelin huffed, getting up from the ground and dusting herself off, the piece of scrap having already been tossed into a bin by Fubuki. "You can't be serious."
"Of course I am," Fubuki smirked.
"Okay, fine, you're on," Javelin replied, her face a picture of annoyance.
"Hey, you two, cut it out," Shepard chided. "We're not here for a competition."
"She started it!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Children, please," Tali interrupted, causing both Javelin and Fubuki to shut their mouths, the latter looking embarrassed, while the former looked like a deer in the headlights.
"Yes, mom," Javelin chirped, a sheepish look on her face.
"Anyways, we're here," Tali said, stopping in front of a door marked 'Research Laboratory 17' and entering the code, which caused the doors to slide open.
Fubuki meanwhile took a glance at Javelin once again and proceeded to pull out of her internal cargo bays a tin canister of BioGel and headed over to her friend. "Heya, your shoulder's got a pretty gash, mind if I patch it up?"
"Huh? Sure, no problem," Javelin said.
"Alright, good, hold still for a moment..."
A small amount of gel was applied and spread out across the surface of the wound, and the nano-biological foam-like substance came to work almost immediately, beginning the healing process by knitting the broken and torn skin and muscle tissue back together and beginning to repair the damage, forming a decent plug around the wound that would, for injuries of this underwhelming magnitude, be fallen off within the hour once the skin underneath had repaired the damage permanently. Something that didn't really evade the eyes of the salarian, however. He could literally see anything and everything.
"What is that substance you have on your hands, there?"
"BioGel," Fubuki replied.
"BioGel?"
"Magic-powered healing foam, if I am to describe it in a nutshell. If I am to elaborate further, than it is essentially biological foam laced with specialized, genetic-engineered cells that can go around and about to seal life-threatening injuries or simple cuts against the outside and rapidly accelerate the healing of such an injury. It is very effective, but has a limit. Once the wound has fully healed, the plug would fall off after a period of time and the skin and flesh underneath would be fully healed."
Fubuki tossed Maersar the canister once she had plugged the lid shut on it, leaving the salarian scientist to analyze the thick yellow 'goop' inside with his onimi-tool, which happened to be scanning it and the substance, and was displaying a readout of the BioGel's properties, composition, and molecular structure.
"This...this is amazing," he said, his eyes glued to the screen, before turning to the destroyer, an excited expression on his face. "You could save millions, even billions, of lives with this! If this could be replicated, or even reverse-engineered, this could mean the difference between life and death for trillions of individuals across the entire galaxy. If you could provide the formulas, or the necessary information on how to replicate it, this could revolutionize medicine itself!"
"Eh, good luck with that," Fubuki shrugged, nonchalant. "...we've no idea ourselves how to make the stuff, and the actual recipe as to how to craft it is probably locked up somewhere in the headquarters of Nakasuga Medical Industries back at Tokyo as well as the toughest SmartSteel lockers that mankind could craft in the headquarters of any other company that they happened to outsource the stuff to. Good luck trying to hack those."
"It would be a waste of resources," Shigure replied.
"Well, yeah, that's true," Fubuki admitted.
"I see..." Maersar said, a look of disappointment flashing in his eyes. "That's...too bad. Well, I suppose we should get down to business. Tali, the room please."
"Right away, sir," Tali nodded.
The quarian girl walked over to a large control console near a wall and started tapping buttons, her fingers dancing across the keys and inputting commands, the consoles lighting up and displaying various information in a mixture of salarian, Thessian, and quarian. With a final click, the wall slid open, revealing a large laboratory beyond, various machines and tools visible, as well as a number of researchers and scientists.
"...let me guess," Shigure asked after a moment's pause. "You want us to spawn our 'rigging'...err...excuse that, but the 'mech backpack' we use to operate in space and fly through the atmosphere, is it?"
"...summon?"
Shigure mentally facepalmed as the whole notion about they themselves being literal flying magic-powered girls who could breathe vacuum and summon mecha backpacks at will hit her in the face. "Well...presuming that you have the knowledge about us enough, well, let's place it, we were all ships, right off the bat. Ships, mind you, not regular humans. We were all built at dockyards and launched with our fellow ships to either sail the seas or cruise amongst the stars, going around on either antimatter torches or oil-fired boilers, before we run around enough that our metal hulls, err, bodies, eventually get sunk in action or otherwise prove too old and obsolete to be able to serve in combat, and otherwise get scuttled or scrapped. Or sometimes get used as target practice."
"That's phase one of our lives, pretty much," Fubuki nodded. "Thing is, each and every of us has this thing called a 'ship quantum signature', something that's already going well above my head and is also something I don't plan on having headaches trying to deal with, but either way, the basic premise is that if you somehow manage to replicate this signature, then, with a boom, a poof, and a kabang, in a scene straight out of Tōhō Project, we get spawned in this world with a human body, but with a number of extra perks and buffs of being a ship, namely being able to fly around or stand and skate on water as if it was ice, breathe in space and underwater, and also be able to summon a 'mech backpack', which is essentially a jetpack that can let us fly through the air."
"I see," the salarian nodded, his expression betraying no emotion, as the group of fleetgirls walked into the room.
"We were pretty much made this way, so we have no real idea of how it works," Shigure shrugged, not really caring much about the whole thing, as she sat down onto a chair. "Another major thing as well...the mecha backpacks? Those are actually our so-called 'rigging," she made air quotes to complete the phrase, "And they are essentially manifestations or variants of our old metal bodies, if you will. We can either spawn them onto our bodies or just tuck them out of reality if we want to, or even, in some cases, literally summon them in their full-sized shipborne glory. And any modifications made to them get translated to us, as well. Which also allows us to be constantly upgraded to remain effective in combat."
"..." Maersar stared at Shigure blankly for a moment before his mind managed to calculate the information that he had just recieved. "...summon? You were summoned? Just like something straight out of a magic fantasy holo-novel?"
"So, you can just spawn a whole warship?" Tali asked, her expression showing her surprise. "With actual magic!?"
"...yep..." Fubuki deadpanned, her face devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
"That is...quite impossible, no, impossible would be the wrong word. That is, err, it is...it is unheard of! No, wait, that would not be the proper term either, umm..." Maersar paused for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts.
"Look, just think about it like this," Fubuki deadpanned, her mind having processed all the facts. "You take a ship, put the thing in a giant oven, and then add the appropriate amount of magic and, tada, you get a bunch of girls who can fly, swim, and breathe in space and underwater, not to mention summon a mech backpack. We were summoned from the old world and are now stuck in the new one. So, what can we do? Enjoy~. One major bonus of having this body is that we can experience life as it was for the sailors who were onboard us before, so why would we be complaining? It's a bit like the whole 'sausages debate': Don't ask how it's made, just enjoy the results."
"But..." Maersar was still reeling from the shock. "This is...impossible."
"Yeah, it's not impossible," Shigure deadpanned. "We're right here. What does that say?"
"It is...an interesting thought," Tali admitted.
"It's a lot to take in," Fubuki admitted. "But you know, there's a saying amongst us. 'It's all in the past'. Just...take it slow and easy. We're still figuring things out ourselves, after all."
"..."
Maersar looked like he'd just been told that magic that could summon (sunken) ships as human beings just like something straight out of a fantasy novel was actually indeed true...because he just got told so.
Tali on the other hand, was giving Fubuki the impression of a girl whose dream just came true...because it was indeed true.
Deep space, unknown cluster, time/date unknown (UTC time system)
Phoenix-class light carrier SSV Spirit of Fire (CV-088)
She had no idea how long had she been drifting for. Was it a week? Was it two? A month? Two? Or maybe perhaps a year? Or decades?
Time had lost it's meaning for her a long time ago; it had elapsed too much for her to even comprehend properly the amount of time she had been set adrift already. Months, years, or decades, they were all meaningless; even as the Spirit drifted onwards with her FTL drive missing forcing her to endure a painfully slow trip back to human space. Gone were her primary engines, the power and data lines linking them to Engine Control at the very least damaged beyond repair and at the very worst not even existing at all, and gone also were her main reactors, leaving her to glide onwards steadily with her already existing kinetic energy while her auxiliary power unit supplied barely enough power to keep the cryso pod in front of her and her other systems running at the bare minimum, the pod itself occupied by a single human female with light gray hair, sleeping as peacefully inside as a child tucked into bed by her parents.
She sighed; watching as her breath condensed in front of her as she did so, it housed arguably the person who single-handedly won for humanity the Second Abyssal War, after all. Left for dead, stuck adrift on a ship that barely had the power to even run life support, stuck perhaps for decades within a single dumb cryso pod, what would she think when she came back to? She didn't know, but the Emerald-class fleet carrier lying within it will. And she didn't even know how to face her properly, even at this point.
A slight shudder brought her mind back to reality, the ship shaking ever so slightly as something had very evidently bumped against the hull, more or less impossible to occur given that they were all flying along at a good .75 of c; anything that the ship ran into would have either gotten crushed already or at least made a far more noticeble shudder compared to this one. In fact, if anything, this shudder was closer to the one felt whenever something had landed in the open flight deck a little too hard for comfort (pilot skill issue) and was still landing someone. Scavengers, maybe? But she still let common sense win out nonetheless; for any scrapper would've just hooked anything they came across to tractor beams and solt off the wreck in bulk for plenty of pounds, unless the wreck was literally small enough to be directly docked to a typical salvaging vessel, which would be around 800m in length at the high end. And besides, salvaging a military warship was against the law.
Many of the internal cameras and sensors were gone from the fighting the ship had sustained before getting stranded in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, but the few ones that survived were enough to let her know what was going on, a rather nasty, angular looking dropship had landed inside the flight deck, obviously, given how it was exposed to vacuum now that there was no power left to run the energy barriers that sealed atmosphere inside it, and was landing quite a few armed troopers equipped with sealed, armored suits, and their aforementioned weaponry that bore passing resemblances to human rifles, but only barely; some even looked like literal tunas with a stock and grip. And she also at once raised an eyebrow, for several things stood out right off the bat.
For starters, their visible appearances, while visually similar to a human, tended to be off in terms of proportions, some looking like the Hulk from that one series of Marvel comics that were located somewhere on the internet archives but she never actually thought of reading, and the designs and paintjobs of their suits were also dead give-aways, many of them looking like Brutes or Commandoes were used to mould their basic shape...it was too early as of yet for conclusions, but she'd best err on the side of caution and take the proper measures to deal with it. And it was obvious as to what she was supposed to do first.
"Something has happened, Captain."
Codex Entry — Humans — Human wars and conflicts — the Second Inner Planets War
If the First World War merely set the stage for the Second, then the First Inner Planets War also merely set the stage for the Second. Japan, South Korea, NATO, and the United States emerged victorious over the nations allied with the Soviet Union, but the damage dealt to them in terms of infrastructure and manpower were also brutally high. China, having taken a neutral stance just like Switzerland, merely contended with being an arms dealer and making huge amounts of money and profit from the war, and when the war was over, they quickly gained more and more influence in the United Nations. However, with the end of the war, the United States and NATO's power in the world began to dwindle, and China and the United Kingdom began to grow more influential, especially as the UN's power waned and the power of individual states began to take precedence. Russia, given 'the Versailles middle finger', became a poor and backwards nation, a shadow burdened by war debt and razed cities of it's former self. In the years following the First Inner Planets War, China's economy began to boom and become more dominant in the global economy, and with the end of the sanctions and embargoes against Russia, began to invest in rebuilding the economy. Japan and South Korea meanwhile focused on their own affairs, but the United States began to focus on expanding it's colonial interests, while the UK's empire grew and expanded as well.
Things would have been relatively peaceful, and it was indeed so for the next few decades, before the development of artificial intelligence in the early 2160s, with a joint Japanese—Korean—Taiwanese research team developing the world's first fully sentient AI. Despite initial concerns over the creation of a super-intelligent machine that could easily turn on it's creators, the development was nonetheless pursued and completed in 2163, and the machine, named 'Hatsune Miku' by her creators, became the first sentient AI, capable of learning, reasoning, and thinking independently. Hatsune Miku became a media sensation, becoming the first AI to receive an official citizenship and become the first (non-organic) member of the National Diet in 2165.
This didn't sit well with the United States and China, however. The former, while initially neutral upon the subject, rapidly began adopting a hostile stance to the subject with political parties of both sides clashing over the subject while labor unions and businesspeople feared that AI would end up costing them jobs (and profits), while the latter cited historic political disputes and conflicts, alongside a general distrust of literally anything originating from Japan and the West in general, to more or less reject it and began imposing restrictions on both the development and the rights to and of AIs. This in turn caused tensions to rise between Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the European Union, and ASEAN, who supported AIs, and China alongside the United States, who either rejected them outright or began to become increasingly hostile towards them. By 2167, the AI community had officially been formed, with Hatsune Miku leading the group, and by the end of the year, they had already begun lobbying the United Nations. In 2169, the AI community gained recognition by the United Nations and had successfully pushed for a bill that would allow them to develop, but this only served to exacerbate the tensions. The AI community began pushing for full equality and representation of their kind, and began gaining allies within the UN and among the general population.
However, things quickly took a turn for the worse.
By this point, the nation known as China had been (technically) engaged in civil war for over 300 years. Following the fall of the Thanh dynasty in 1912, the nation descended into complete and utter chaos. Theoratically, there was a unified government system, but in practice, it was split between warlords, who often clashed constantly with each other in a scene straight out from feudal Europe. While they would eventually start making steps to gradually unify and finally come together to face the invading Empire of Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese war, things would only go downhill from there.
Following the Japanese surrender and withdrawal from China, there were two major sides in the Chinese Civil War: the Republic of China (Nationalists) and the People's Republic of China (Communists). The re-starting of the civil war, the initial Nationalist successes, and later defeat and de facto exile to the island known today as Taiwan is best studied upon by many sources and history books written by human historians over the centuries since, but one thing remains: the Nationalists, defeated but not broken, were exiled to the island of Formosa, later renamed as Taiwan, under the protective umbrella of the United States Navy 7th Fleet, confined to the island for the next three centuries while the Communists were the de facto rulers of the mainland and thus the only China to the rest of the world.
Despite this, however, in Chinese culture, there remains a single prophecy known as the Mandate of Heaven; it maintains that there is only one legal ruler to the entire nation of China, one favored by the gods, and that his rule is divine. Despite that, however, to win the favor of the gods, he must be honest, kind, and caring to his people, wise, strong, and brave, to lead his nation through times of distress. Natrual disasters, revolts, and famine indicate that he has lost the favor of the gods, and if this is true, then the people's responsibility is to rebel and replace him with a new ruler. Whoever thus brings rule and order back to China has thus won the favor and the Mandate of Heaven from the gods, and he and his heirs shall rule China from that point onwards, until they in turn lose the Mandate of Heaven, and the cycle begins anew.
The spiritual nature of the teaching faded away with time, but the political nature of it; that a government has the right to rule a nation for as long as it brings peace and prosperity to it, and if it doesn't, then the people has the right and duty to replace it, remained. Thus, for over three centuries, the people of Taiwan watched as the Communist government brought about the deaths of millions, the famine of even more, and the destruction of ancient sites and traditions.
However, by the 22nd century, the Communist government, still under the control of the descendants of Mao Zedong and the CPC, had collapsed into complete disarray. With the growing support of the AI community, and the fact that they had begun lobbying for equal rights and representation, the CPC found itself cornered and began to fear a revolution.
The United States was faring no better, either. Centuries of being the most powerful nation straight off the block rendered the heirs of the Founding Fathers complacent, corrupt politicans, and the nation's own economy had begun to suffer. While it had managed to emerge as the victor from the First Inner Planets War, it's economic output had fallen dramatically, and the costs of the war, while paid, were now a huge strain on the economy, which had began to slow down considerably.
Years came by, and the AI community grew larger, gathering large crowds of supporters across the globe, even in US and Chinese land and colonies. The federal government proved next to useless in resolving the issues. A combination of hostility between political parties and corrupt lawmakers in general doomed it's ability to do work, and as the years went by, the nation's problems only grew larger, with both parties deflecting the blame to the other merely making the situation worse. The result was a nation teetering on the brink of a revolution, with the United States becoming a failed state.
It didn't matter what party won the keys to the White House and the right to sit in the Oval Office when 2171 rolled around the corner; both parties were already beset and wrought with internal divisions, for one, the younger generation began to sought changes and reforms in an already failing nation, and for the other, pro and anti-AI activists rallying and wrecking each other for control of their parties. The United States was teetering on the edge of a knife, and all it needed was the slightest push to send the nation into a bloody civil war.
The coming storm came quietly; bricks through windows; arson attacks on anyone with a pro-AI sentiment. Patriot brigades, groups of people organized almost like the Klu Klux Khan of centuries past, began launching direct attacks and assaults on pro-AI rallies and speakers. History began to repeat itself, looping back all the way to the prelude of the US Civil War. The only thing that had changed was the weapons, the technology, the number of people, and the stakes.
Pro-AI rallies only grew in response to the attacks; the police either proved useless to stop the chaos or they were too overwhelmed to even make the slightest difference. And thus they began to fight back whenever they came under attack, some brought knives to the rallies to protect themselves. And when the patriot brigades began to bring guns to theirs, they brought rifles.
Chaos ensured. What had started out as simple protests, rallies, and marches now turned into brutal gun battles, rally to rally, side to side. Whatever police units that were even left by this point were completely overwhelmed. Riots rocked the streets; looting and arson rampant. It was 1992 all over again, only that the LAPD wasn't there to put an end to the violence.
On the morning of May 18th, 2171, a pro-AI rally was being held in the city of New Marinea, Mirangal, a US colony close to the Japanese interstellar border. At around 7:30 AM, a lone truck rammed it's way through the crowd and crashed into the building, detonating and resulting in the death of dozens and wounding hundreds, and causing even more property damage, and amongst the dead were dozens of Japanese and German citizens, with Russians wounded as well.
Japan immediately blamed the United States, claiming that they were trying to start another war. The Japanese government began recalling their ambassador from the capital and began evacuating Japanese citizens from Mirangal, and also recalled their troops back to their homeland.
South Korea followed suit, declaring an emergency state and recalling their ambassador, as well as withdrawing their forces from the American interstellar colonies and sending them back home.
Germany, meanwhile, did not take the death of it's citizens kindly, and demanded a formal apology from the United States. However, the federal government was too busy trying to quell the civil unrest and the civil war brewing within it's own borders to deal with the issue, and refused to offer any apology, further provoking the Germans.
In response, the Germans and Japanese, alongside a coalition of the nations opposing the United States' policy towards AI, such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia, all agreed that enough was enough. They began deploying large amounts of troops and warships to the Mirangal sector. The government of Mirangal also decided that 'enough is fucking enough, period'. They formed the First Congress of Mirangal three weeks after the incident, and three weeks after that, they officially announced their withdrawal from the United States.
The US response to that could not be more explosive. President Goldwater, a staunch supporter of the patriot brigades who formed vast swathes of his voting base, announced Mirangal as 'areas in rebellion against the Union' and sent in the US Armed Forces to 'pacify rebellious areas hostile to the Union' and habaes corpus was suspended indefinitely for it's inhabitants by executive order. The Mirangal National Guard began to mobilize for total war as the US troops began to approach the colony, it's ranks bolstered by scores of fresh volunteers, but however brave they were, the difference in power between both parties could not be more hopeless—800,000 National Guard militia plus another 950,000 volunteers and the local police and fire departments against over 3 million of the most powerful military ever deployed by mankind, complete with orbital superiority and overwhelming carrier air power, and backed up by the US 7th and 8th Fleets, and 800,000 more in reserve.
The result was as good as a rodeo, and as brutal as Iwo Jima. Or even Okinawa.
The Mirangal National Guard and the extra volunteers never expected to fight the might of the US Armed Forces in a traditionally pitched battle. Instead, they dispersed into pockets, tunnels, and subtrans, engaging in hit-and-run attacks day or night with the woods and settlements in the vicinity as cover, and the American advance quickly slowed to a crawl as a result. However, the United States wasn't entirely toothless either. Their armor and air power were still quite capable, and they were still able to inflict heavy casualties on the Mirangal guerillas.
The United States Army quickly advanced and established several beachheads, and began their push, taking control of the key sectors. The fighting was hard and fierce, with both sides losing large numbers of men, and by the time the 7th Fleet landed it's marines on the beaches, the Americans were pushing the rebels out of the key cities and the vital industrial centers.
The defenders weren't left hanging out to dry, however. Their anti-orbital defenses enabled them to at least deter the US Navy from directly bombarding them into oblivion from orbit, and a combination of guerrila tactics and booby traps stolen straight from the Vietnamese play-book during the 1970s coupled with the simply fierce cockroach-like resistance from the population allowed the colony to hold out for months. The Japanese then began sending supplies to Mirangal, alongside ASEAN, Taiwan, South Korea, and even NATO, battles between American Paladin MBTs versus local guerrilas quickly turning into all-out pitched battles between Paladins flying the Stars and Stripes clashing with Panthers and the German Iron Cross as well as Japanese Type 64 MBTs with the Rising Sun stenciled on their broadsides.
The population of the United States as a whole erupted into rage. Opponents of the conflict raged that the President's actions was illegal, and that he had no right to directly attack a colony belonging to the United States, effectively waging war upon one's own countrymen. The Supreme Court agreed with this and declared the actions of the president illegal. Supporters, however, maintained that the president had the so-called 'departmentalism' argument to maintain that they did not have to enforce the decisions of the Supreme Court, and that even though most presidents in history have enforced the Supreme Court's rulings, they had, in actuality, no legal obligation to. Given President Lincoln's ignoring of the Supreme Court's rulings on the suspension of habaes corpus in Southern states during the Civil War, they argued, President Goldwater was also thus entitled to do the same.
Tensions between the US and other nations rised through the roof as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and ASEAN formed the Pacific Defense Coalition to deter further US expansions and to support the ongoing Mirangal conflict.
Even as things escalated even further and through the roof, however, it would have turned at the very worst into the Second American Civil War had it not been for a number of events, starting with the attack on the Japanese passenger liner SS Yashiro Maru IV. The US government claimed that the ship was carrying munitions for the Mirangal defenders to use and was thus a valid target, and the Japanese while not quite disagreeing with the reasoning nonetheless admitted that the ship was indeed carrying ammunition and weaponry, but some time afterwards, the events would merely escalate into a completely different scale altogether.
At 8:00 AM UTC on June 19th, 2171, a Japanese cruiser, JS Maya, conducted training maneuvers not far off the region of conflict when the crew caught a distress signal from the British passenger liner SS Hurlania, a Cunard liner that suffered engine damage and was left adrift with radiation from the engines leaking into the passenger compartments. Needless to say, the Maya rushed to the scene and began evacuation operations, and it would have been another noteworthy news story had it not been for the cruiser USS San Diego, which after spotting the Japanese cruiser, declared it as violating and trespassing in US space and ended up in a stand-off against the Maya. The exact sequence of events was lost to history and the chaos that ensured, but one thing remains clear: An unknown energy spike was registered by the sensors of the Maya, and fearing that the San Diego was about to open fire, Captain Yugumo Takaki ordered his cruiser to open fire first, and in the ensuring exchange, the Maya emerged heavily damaged with the San Diego lost with all hands.
The US denounced the Japanese for opening fire on their ship unprovoked, while the Japanese countered by claiming that the San Diego was about to open fire anyways, and that Captain Yugumo placed the lives of the passengers his ship was carrying before that of his own and ordered the threat destroyed before they could harm innocent lives in the line of fire. Needless to say, it's difficult to prove that either side was the actual instigator, and the San Diego's logs and sensor data were all lost, so neither side could actually prove or disprove who was responsible for the destruction of the San Diego.
However, this didn't prevent the situation from becoming worse.
July 1st, 2171, was essentially the height of the tensions, the Japanese summoned their Cabinet, and many other countries also did the same. South Korea summoned their National Assembly three days later, Japan summoning their National Diet shortly afterwarrds alongside Taiwan's Legislative Yuan. The grand assemblies of all the pro-AI nations of the world assembled and met over the course of several days, all of them concerning the ultimate, final, and last resort ever possible, and finally came to a conclusion. Japan formally declared war on the United States of America on July 7th, 2171, at 7:30AM Tokyo time, marking the first time the island nation has directly went to war against another in over 300 years. Germany declared war three days later, invoking NATO's Article 5 to bring all other NATO members into the fight. The dark clouds had finally burst into a storm, and it was one that would engulf the entirety of human space for years to come.
The Second Inner Planets War was officially declared.
Japan opened the show by landing directly the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces onto the surface of Mirangal while the JMSDF engaged the US Navy directly in open battle. German amphibious forces launched a major land and sea offensive against Columbia under the code name 'Operation Alpini'. By late July, German assault landers and Panzer Battalions were pressing deep inside Columbia. Meanwhile, the JMSDF retook and captured Mirangal from the United States Armed Forces in battle, and was setting up it's occupation force to prepare for the offensive.
Asia erupted into chaos. Japanese and South Korean forces marched ashore via Sakahalin Island while Russian forces closed in from the north, while in the south, Vietnamese troops fought tooth and nail to keep the Chinese at bay and buy enough time for the Taiwanese military to storm ashore in Hong Kong and Shangai. Meanwhile, Australian forces reoccupied the Solomon Islands, and New Zealander jets were streatfing US airbases in Panama, Guatemala, and Mexico while US Marines were bogged down by resistance from Nicaragua and the Caribbean islands, fighting tooth and nail to stop the Australians and Kiwis from landing via the straits.
All hell had broken loose, and no one wanted to back down or compromise. President Goldwater had all but effectively led the United States to ruin, and as more colonies and territories fell, one by one, into enemy hands, it finally came to the breaking point. Riots rocked the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Denver, New York, and Washington D.C. The US Marines were still slugging it out in Panama, Los Angeles was on fire, a Marine detachment just outside the Pentagon committed mutiny and cut off communications with anyone in the building, and troops loyal to the president were struggling in Baltimore and Baltimore County, as well as Norfolk and Richmond.
The situation in China wasn't better. For starters, while they had the advantage of terrain to blunt many Coalition advances directly into their mainland, in space, things didn't go as well. Elements of the JMSDF's 7th Fleet alongside the Budenswehr's 516th Division landed in the Chinese colony of Taijing and began battling the defending PLA Forces. Further action was inevitable.
Reading the writing on the wall and seeing that dictatorship was forming, multiple other American colonies as well as Chinese ones declared independence from the mainland and immediately afterwards joined the ever-growing ranks of the Coalition forces and NATO, setting the stage for the eventual endgame of this conflict. In space, ships bearing the Rising Sun, the taegeuk, and the Iron Cross clashed with the golden stars of the PLAN as well as the Stars and Stripes of the US Navy. Earth-based artillery pounded targets across the planet. Orbital bombardments from both sides began raining death and destruction across continents. Tens of millions perished.
Amidst the chaos, not wanting to be caught in it, and wanting to do anything but round up their fellow Americans and/or Chinese or die fighting in a war for a government they never supported in the first place, a large group of people across multiple colonies abandoned their homeland for the depths of unknown space, leaving human territory for a better place to live. A total of 33 billion people would depart in this exodus, vanishing almost as if they never existed in the first place. Later on, years after the conflict, would the Systems Alliance discover the exiles, having formed themselves their own nation under name of the GroßEdelweiß Kaiserreich.
The next ten years afterwards would be filled to the brim with brutal conflict as both sides tore at each other with relentless abandon. Both sides suffered horrific casualties at an increasing pace, both in terms of military personnel as well as civilian casualties. Neither side showed any signs of winning, and by the eigth year of the conflict, that was no longer the goal; merely surviving and perserving was.
Gradually, however, as the year wore on and on and the number of planets fallen to the enemy only seemed to increase, there came a turning point in the war. The US colony of Midway, where the bulk of the US Navy was stationed, was shattered by a combined fleet of JMSDF and ROKN ships during Operation Cherry Blossom. American colonies were captured and attacked left and right, such as St. Lawrence, Puerto Rico, Galapagos, Martinique, Cayenne, and more. The war had reached a turning point and was now gradually turning in favor of the Coalition and NATO.
On the homeworld, things had reached a breaking point. The states of Alaska, Texas, and California, with entire swathes of their populations and resources being squandered by the federal government, finally had enough. Alaska was the first state to declare independence from the Union, and it was followed shortly afterwards by Texas and California. The US Army and Air Force found themselves thrown into chaos as officers and NCOs plotted and joined their respective factions, and as armies of National Guardsmen and militia defected to either the 'Loyalist' forces or the 'rebels' and stormed into their neighbors' jurisdictions, it became painfully clear to the Loyalists; they were not going to win this, in fact, they were screwed six ways straight to hell.
For the first time since 1860CE on the human calendar, states had seceeded from the Union. Only this time, it would be permanent.
On the Chinese front, things were just as bad. The Taiwanese had already stormed ashore from the start, but with the turning of the tables, they stormed inland even harder. Welcomed as liberators as they advanced, the Taiwanese forces, bolstered by Vietnamese troops coming from the south and Japanese and Korean forces from the north now that North Korea was gone and the peninsula was thus effectively united, they captured the province of Guangdong within a month, and a month after that, Japanese forces captured the whole of Manchuria. Stretched thin, the PLA fought onwards, but even as the months turned into years, the tables of fate could not have chosen a worse moment to turn.
2180 marked the effective nail in the coffin for the People's Republic of China. The PLA was already stretched thin from constant fighting and quelling revolts, but with things at this point, they could sustain it no longer. Tibet, a nation vassalized under force in 1951 and then fully annexed in 1956 following a failed attempt at independence, decided that the time was ripe for another attempt. Plans were made and drawn up, and at last, they were put into motion. January saw them put into action, and by the time the calendar had turned to February, the Tibetian population had finally overwhelmed the PLA units in the region.
They almost immediately declared themselves the Kingdom of Tibet.
Any last shreds doubting that the PRC had lost the Mandate of Heaven crumbled when it's capital city of Beijing came under Japanese artillery bombardment. Taiwanese forces marched into Nanjing, their former capital, in 2181, and proclaimed their nation now as the Republic of China. 232 years after they had been chased out, the Nationalists had finally reclaimed their capital. The People's Republic of China barely had the time to register this sudden development, for three weeks later, Japanese and Korean troops charged into Beijing from the north while Nationalist forces advanced from the south, and the People's Republic of China from that point onwards withdrew into the echelons of history.
With the return of the Republic's government to their capital city in June 2181, the population had all mostly agreed that the Nationalists had successfully taken the Mandate of Heaven from the Chinese Communist Party. The shattered remmants of the PLA retreated away northwards towards Baoding, but Japanese and Republic forces gave chase, fiercely. With the fall of Baoding and the last stands of the PLA around the region, in December 2182, the Republic of China finally declared victory over the PRC. 254 years after it's start, the Chinese Civil War was finally over.
The United States fared no better. By 2180, the war had been going for a decade, and neither side was showing any signs of giving up, ever. As the US Navy lost more and more, more and more AIs joined the people's side. Already, a majority of Americans were on the side of the people, and the arrival and coming out of the AIs tipped the scales over. America was splitting down the middle, and to keep the pieces together, the government tried something incredibly desperate.
Operation Liberty Surge, a final, desperate, and very dangerous attempt to at least break the stalemate and possibly win the war, was rushed through. It was designed to utilize the resources and production excesses of the US interstellar colonies (which had, by the middle of the war, achieved at least some level of independence) and deploy them to break the stalemate. By this time, the loss of so many ships from their arsenal and the use of AI-controlled warships had given the enemy a distinct advantage in naval technology, but the US still had the edge due to their near monopoly on their production and technology.
They were, unfortunately, very wrong. In a lightning counterattack, the Allies essentially went from a defensive position to a full-on offensive. The strategy was dubbed Operation Crimson Sky, and it was designed to effectively destroy the remnants of the US naval and air forces as well as their logistical positions by a strike into their home turf. Landings occurred in the Gulf of Mexico with the objective of landing in and around the United States itself, sowing chaos, and doing as much damage to the country as possible. Air strikes throughout the whole nation with the goal of weakening the federal government's ability to maintain control. At the same time, space itself would suffer a direct assault with the aim of taking down the orbital and defensive platforms along the North American continent.
It wasn't pretty.
The navy was crippled from the very start. After the landings and battles on Cuba, Lousiana, Florida, the Bahamas, the bulk of the US Armed Forces was focused on stopping the advance on their own soil, and it didn't help that the landings in the Caribbean forced the US Navy to pull back to defend their own territory. It was the beginning of the end. The last remaining American shipyards were destroyed in an attack by a combined Allied fleet in early 2183, and by this point, the US Navy had ceased to exist, and the remaining US Army was no match for the might of the Allies, even the Marine Corps were not spared.
The US Federal Government, in an attempt to maintain control, enacted martial law, but this did not help the situation. Riots erupted and were put down by federal troops and the National Guard, and even then the federal government had a difficult time maintaining order. By the end of the year, the US Armed Forces were on their last legs, and by mid-2183, they were gone.
In June 2183, the United States surrendered.
As the US Federal Government dissolved into the mists of history, the various states and the interstellar colonies, who by now were practically independent from the US, all declared themselves as republics, with the US colonies and states outside the Sol System declaring their independance from the former Federal Government and officially joining the Alliance. Alaska declared itself a monarchy and crowned King William II, while the other former US colonies, which was at this point no longer considered 'former' or anything, all declared their independance and joined the Systems Alliance, which was founded as a multinational union to replace the former United Nations.
The Second Inner Planets War was officially over, and the United States of America had effectively ceased to exist.
A/N:
Longest codex entry I've ever written for this whole story enjoy (lol)
sidenote: please do put some thought into writing your reviews, however (just in case). I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, and given how this chapter is essentially 'American decline propaganda', I just don't really want to deal with a ton of review saying 'USA IS KING MUWAH OIL FOERVERERRRRRRR', thank you