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Taijing Ridge, Shanxi, December 21st 2257 0700HRS Coordinated Universal Time

The transport-erector-launcher-and-radar vehicle loosely resembling a mix between an S-400 TEL vehicle and a Type 13 SAM truck, but with an enlarged cabin and an extra phased-array radar system on top for fire-control and directing purposes, part of the Enoshima Ki-100 mobile-missile system, elevated it's pack of four missile tubes upright as the fire control radar focused on and locked onto the incoming targets, four practice drones flying at orbital speeds within the realm of Shanxi's medium orbital plane. Extra information being relayed from a command-and-control-and-radar vehicle nearby with it's vastly larger air-search radar looking into air and space alike to put anything that moved underneath prying eyes—plus some things that didn't move; even—assisted the targeting in clearing up much of the static from the feeds and ensuring that they actually locked onto their targets instead of double-locking onto a random piece of space debris in space, ensuring a critical, direct hit every single time.

"Command-3, this is Erector-2, we have a good lock on the bogeys. Ready for launch, over."

"Copy, Erector-2. You are batteries free. Good hunting."

"Roger that, Command-3. Beginning launch sequence."

"Command-3, this is Erector-4, we are ready for launch, over."

"Copy, Erector-4. You are batteries free."

Two out of four silo-doors opened to let the 610mm warheads within be launched while a second TELAR vehicle thirteen kilometers away elevated it's own quad-pack launcher to vertical-firing position, and moments later, a second pair of missiles followed as well, rockets burning and shooting themselves out of their respective tubes before their guidance systems calculated a flyable course for them and oriented themselves accordingly. Two pairs of Enoshima E256 "Flying Lance" missiles from each vehicle in succession left behind visible trails of exhaust from their engines as they screamed aheads at hypersonic velocity, shock diamonds from their plasma-hot exhaust similarly to jet-engine afterburners trailing behind them.

"Erector-2, Fox Three; two rounds."

"Erector-4, Fox Three, two shots."

They all found their marks moments later in no part thanks to the ludicrous accelerations their variable-specific-impulse artificial-gravity-plasma-rocket (VASIR) engines granted them, the proximity-fused gravity-pulse warheads on each detonating into a bluish spherical field of gravity waves that shattered and mulched the drones on impact as if they had been hit by a tsunami, leaving scattered debris flung out from the forces of the explosion to mark where they once were. In a field of space colored slightly bluish from the pulses, as well, that is.

"Direct hit, Erector-2, two kills out of two."

"Direct hit, Erector-4, also two kills out of two. Good shootin', boys."

Moments later, a squandron of Würzburg AG Wz.190 fighters, bearing a rather curious resemblance to a Mig-25 Foxbat, zoomed over the battlefield, external hardpoints loaded to the brim with missiles and cluster bombs of all sizes and calibers, alongside an extra pair of drop tanks for extended flight/loiter time. Engines burning a red-purple cone of shock diamonds in their wake, they all zoomed forwards with sonic booms echoing in their wake.

"Tiger Flight, this is Eagle 1. We have visual contact with the ground batteries. All birds are armed and ready."

"Roger, Tiger 1. Commence your attack run."

"Wilco, Eagle 1. All Tigers, weapons hold. I say again, weapons hold."

That was the cue to open fire; all twelve aircraft released their standoff-range munitions against predetermined spots on the ground before splitting up into individual aircraft flying each on their own path to avoid (hypothetical) return fire from hostile anti-aircraft batteries on the ground, all unnecessary as this was a training maneuver and there was no enemy to worry about, but still was conducted nonetheless. Echoing booms began to filter back not so long afterwards as the warheads exploded, a field of red and orange marking their points of impact and the results of the exercise.

"Tiger Flight, this is the Tiger Dot, we have positive explosions on all targets."

"Wilco, Tiger Dot. Commencing our next pass."

"Roger, Tiger 1. All flights, this is the Tiger Dot, prepare your next attacks."

The fighters came in a second time, this time, each individual fighter released their ordnance against a specific target. Cluster-glide bombs, this time around.

"Tiger Flight, this is Eagle 1. Weapons hold, I say again, weapons hold. Get ready to pickle."

"Wilco. Two away. Thirty seconds to impact."

The cluster munitions stored away on the external hardpoints were dropped, and the bombs themselves began their glide-fall towards the surface. The bombers split off into individual flights, flying individual routes, each on their own path, to avoid enemy fire, although, again, this was a hypothetical maneuver.

"Bombs away. Twenty-one seconds to target."

The fighters began their final turn, and the cluster munitions began their descent, all their submunitions spreading out into their pre-calculated patterns.

"Fifteen seconds to target."

The bombs reached terminal velocity, and began their final glide, their glide angles set so that they would impact the ground right on the target.

"Three seconds to target. Two; one. Impact!"

Explosions littered the field as the submunitions found their marks. It was a textbook strike, and the exercise was over.

"All aircraft, this is the Tiger Dot. Good show. Return to base for refuel and rearming. Out."

"Wilco. See you back at base."

Three hours prior to this, in the woods of Shanxi near Taijing, K&W Leopards of the Alliance Ground Corps and Rheinmetall AG Panzer IV main battle tanks of the Kaiserliche Heer maneuvered in concert with each other under the cover of darkness at four in the morning, track pods kicking up the dirt of Shanxi as they drove the tanks they were mounted on at roughly sixty miles an hour, on average. 75mm and 80mm guns, on the Alliance and Kaiserreich sides, respectively, spat out their explosive payloads at withering rates of fire, causing chunks of terrain to go up in geysers dirt, kicked up from the impacts of tank shells going well past escape velocity.

Turrets tracking practice targets with ease regardless of the tanks' movement themselves, their quadruple-track suspensions granting them seamless control abilities across a wide host of terrains, and the neural uplinking that formed humanity's battlenet enabled them some rather uncanny capability in coordinating their combined efforts down to the last second; it was a system that had seen extensive usage during the Second Abyssal War, and now, it was being employed to it's fullest potential. In a staged exercise, that is.

100mm artillery boomed in the distance as Major Lisa Hastings looked onwards through a pair of binoculars, her jet-black hair waving around as she eyed the leading Panzer IV fire it's 80mm gun, kicking a plume of dirt up six or seven kilometers away from where she was to mark where the shell had landed, followed moments later by 75mm fire from a Leopard, the tank turning rapidly to the side as it swept the barrel around like garden hose and let off three shots a second apart from each other, plus sweeping from the coaxial 12.7mm heavy machine gun downrange for good measure. The Panzer IV fired another shot from it's 80mm cannon, the shell hitting a dummy target and tearing it to shreds, followed a moment later by a 75mm round from the Leopard.

"Well, well, well, they're not slacking," she stated as she lowered her binoculars, and the Leopard, in the distance, moved up and fired another salvo, a series of tank rounds landing on the target and destroying it utterly, "that's a clean kill, if I ever saw one."

"That it is," a voice replied from the radio. "Major, how are the Panzers doing?"

"Decently," Hastings replied. At least, from what I can see. Armor is pretty well-coordinated, although it's a little bit wooden. Skill issue, really, we haven't the experience your 501st Division has...yet."

Colonel Prevlov shook his head from the other side off the comm-line. "We've only a week of combat experience at best, and that was blowing up a bunch of alien mercs armed with obsolete and substandard equipment, even by Citadel standards, much less our own. That's still a far cry from the peer-to-near-peer-or-even-outright-superior opponents we train for most of the time these days, like, say, the Abyssals."

"That's still something, nonetheless," Hastings pointed out. "And besides, the Council, our most likely opponent in a future conflict, makes use of rather inferior equipment compared to ours, but they still match us asymmetrically, and may threaten to overtake us in tech level not so far off; plus, they have superior numbers and industry to boot. Eezo, mass-effect, all that seven miles; they're still nonetheless giving us as much of a run for our money as we are giving them fits at the Citadel."

"I suppose..." said Prevlov as he watched an Enoshima Ki-170 self-propelled gun (listed in Alliance manifests as the E256) fire it's 100mm/65 gun and then drove off to scoot before (theoratical) counter-battery fire arrived to take it out of the fight. "It's been two months ever since this whole Shanxi affair unfolded, eh? Time surely does fly by. This particular ridge even saw engagements between the forces of the Blue Suns PMC and scattered elements of the Marine Corps, too. There was even an N7 fireteam deployed here, to my knowledge."

"That there was," said Hastings, looking over the field, "and I can see the remnants of it still. The Marines sure did a number on this place, especially after the PMCs were dealt with, courtesy of the Navy and Marine Corps, no less."

She gestured a hand towards the distant ridgeline where the fighting had taken place. "You can see the scorch marks, shell craters, and wrecked mecha all over the place, and that's just the surface layer of stuff. A few kilometers in and the destruction turns a whole lot worse."

"I can imagine," said Prevlov, "but I won't go digging around too deep into that, no pun intended. Not like we have the time for it, either."

"Yeah, true.," Hastings nodded. "Imagine what those serving within both the Kaiserliche Wehr and the Alliance Self-Defense Arm's ranks had to face when the Abyssals first showed up in 2212. It must've been tough, especially if you were stationed planetside."

"Well, the Abyssals are tough enough, and that's a known fact," Prevlov explained, "but the real problem was the sheer lack of information and resources we had. Our fleets were shattered in the initial surprise attack, and that's not to mention the chaos that followed. No communications, no supplies, no reinforcements, no nothing. Just a handful of survivors on a planet that's being eaten alive by the enemy, and with the knowledge that if you're unlucky enough, or even worse, just plain careless, the enemy will make a meal out of you, too."

"Well, thankfully, those days are behind us," Hastings reassured him. "Our fleets are strong enough to put up a fight, and our defenses are more than capable of repelling any threats that come our way. Not to mention the fact that we have a whole lot more knowledge about the Abyssals than we did back then."

"Indeed," Prevlov agreed. "We're a lot better equipped to deal with the threat than we were twenty-five years ago. We've come a long way since then, and we've got a long way to go. But at least we're making progress."

"Well, we've certainly come a long way," Hastings nodded, watching as the last remaining Panzer IV turned it's turret, 80mm gun firing and smashing the target as it moved, "and we've got a lot further to go. But at least we're moving in the right direction."

"Indeed," Prevlov smiled, "Indeed."

"How's it going, Michi?" Tsuiihō asked as she walked into the laboratory with a steaming-hot cup of tea in her left hand, alongside a data-pad wedged between her body and right arm. "Not too bad, I presume?"

"It's exhausting..." sighed Michi as she let her face drop onto the table, with data-pads, notebooks, and pens scattered all across it's surface, loose sheets of paper littering an entire corner of the place. "Tried to jimmy unbihexium into producing effects that we need, and it didn't work...fuck...how do you make artificial gravity out of ionized crystals and room-temperature superconductors, even? Beats the shit outta me every single time."

"Welp, that's going to suck...here, go take a little break for a sec," Tsuiihō said as she set down the cup against the table, amidst all the clutter that littered it. "Tōka swiped this tea off some random store in Eudirea, and the stuff's supposed to be pretty good. So, yeah, give it a shot. Might help you with your problem."

"Oh, thank the gods," said Michi, grabbing the cup with a swift movement, and taking a sip. "Ooooh, that's good. I needed this."

"Yeah, figured as much," Tsuiihō laughed, taking a seat at her desk. "So, what's the problem?"

"Well, you know how it works, right? Artificial gravity comes from the manipulation of gravitons via some weird quantum physics magic that is accomplished in practice by superconductors and ionized gallite crystals, whatever the hell that process is, and the amount of energy required is directly proportional to the amount of gravitons required for the effect. It's simple math."

"That much I understood," said Tsuiihō, taking a sip of her own tea, "so what's the issue?"

"Well, it's the sheer volume of such a system," said Michi. "The problem is that the artificial gravity systems we use today rely on ionized gallite and room-temperature superconductors in tandem. However, the sheer inefficiency in such a system—sometimes up to half, even—means that any ship flying around with a warp drive we see to-day has up to a quarter of her internal volume dedicated to the warp core alone, and that's not going to be the best of setups, given that the whole ship would need to be designed with the engine in mind. Plus, the fact that the thing can go critical and explode is, well...not the best outcome to have, to say the least."

"And thus the reason why we haven't been able to get a decent FTL system," Tsuiihō realized, "the engines are just too damn big and cumbersome. We need to find a way to make them smaller and more efficient, otherwise we'll never get anywhere."

"Yep, that's the long and short of it," said Michi, "we've tried all sorts of things to make it work, from altering the composition of the gallite crystals to using different superconductors, but nothing seems to be working. I've even tried modifying the equations themselves, but all that did was give me a headache. I don't know what to do anymore."

"Well, you know, we could always try a different approach," said Tsuiihō. "Maybe instead of trying to modify the system itself, we could try looking to other sources for inspiration. You're lodging next door to Tōka's flat, eh? She's got an entire pile of sci-fi stuff littering her bookshelves, you should head over there and try to find yourself a lead or two. Sure, it's fiction, but it's still science fiction nonetheless, and it packages a certain degree of plausibility in it as well. Might as well figure out how to synthesize some doomsday crystal out of a vial of water and a pile of scrap metal."

"Okay...wait a second. Doomsday crystals?"

"From Inferno of Tomorrow. They crafted the doomsday crystals in a lab by growing normal ones while subjecting them to some weird scientific magic field that involved dark matter and energy and then using a particle accelerator to compress the superheated crystals and make them denser, and that somehow made the things capable of destroying the entire galaxy and creating black holes from a single detonation."

Michi suddenly downed the rest of her tea in one go before bolting for the door. "Lab-grown crystals! Why didn't I think of this sooner?"

"Tōka," Michi shouted as she kicked down the door, "can I use your library for a second? I think I just had a breakthrough."

"Go ahead, knock yourself out," Tōka replied. "But be careful, and don't mess anything up."

"Got it!" Michi shouted as she rushed over to the bookshelf. "Where is it, where is it...ah, here we go!"

She grabbed a copy of Inferno of Tomorrow from the shelf and began flipping through the pages. "Lab-grown crystals...lab-grown crystals...aha, here we go! Dark-matter and dark-energy enhanced growth rates for super-dense synthetic crystalline structures, and then further enhancing them by way of particle-accelerator compression...yes, yes, this could work!"

"What could work?" Tōka asked as she stepped in.

"The key to the artificial gravity issue," Michi answered, holding the book up triumphantly, "synthesizing lab-grown crystals to grow to the size and density of a neutron star, and then compressing them within a particle accelerator to make them even denser."

"You're not thinking of..."

"No, no, no, nothing of the sort," said Michi. "All I'm gonna do is try to replicate the crystal structure of these fictional doomsday crystals, and then try to use them to create a new form of artificial gravity. That way, we can bypass the need for massive engines and room-temperature superconductors. Think about it; if we can do that, then we can make ships that are much more efficient and much less likely to blow up in your face. Not only that, but it could have applications for other fields, too. It could be a game changer."

"Alright, you win," Tōka shrugged, "but remember, don't fuck anything up."

"Will do," said Michi, waving her away. "Now go, I need to focus."

"Okay, okay, fine," Tōka chuckled.

"I'm becoming sick of daily Cabinet meetings," mumbled Yoshida as she looked at the files in her hand once more. And for good reason.

"I'm becoming sick of hourly Cabinet meetings," agreed the Prime Minister. "And things at New Berlin are no different, either. Last I heard, Reita's losing her sanity with her Reichskabinett, damn...and I'm pretty sure the Council's having the time of their lives, too. We're as much of a headache to them as they are to us, it seems, it at least eases things a little bit. Serves 'em right."

The Deputy Prime Minister took a sip out of his coffee. "Anyways, we're not here for idle chit-chat, duh...Yoshida, any thoughts on this?"

"The Council uplifting the raloi? It might seem like a dick move if we look things from our perspective," said Yoshida, "But in the short term, it can be a risk worth taking. Remember that our treaty-making spree is giving the Council the headaches already, they exert their dominion by bullying other, weaker nations into their fold, something that worked fine for a while, indeed, before we showed up with the resources, economy, and military to challenge them directly. Sure, if we chilled and did basically nothing, they could've just paced their development and expansion a little faster than normal and be done with it, but are we chilling?"

She took a sip out of her own cup of coffee before carrying on. "Nope. We reached out to the quarians, we reached out to the krogans, we reached out to the Geth, and might've sent an envoy to the batarians had it not been for the very nature of our first contact, and how we clash ideologically, slaves and all other whatnot. So then, damn, what's their best bet for them apart from Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome?"

"They uplift the raloi."

"Precisely. Sure, this move might translate to some serious long-term problems later down the line, but that means jack shit if their short-term problems multiply tenfold. And those aren't problems that can be easily ignored, either. If the Council uplifts the raloi, then they'd be getting a powerful ally, not only in the short term, but in the long term as well. But if they don't, then they run the risk of losing them forever. It's a tough call, but it's one that they have to make. And who knows, maybe this whole thing could be a blessing in disguise. The raloi could end up becoming an ally that could help keep the Council in check."

"That's true," the Prime Minister nodded. "I've been thinking about that myself. This whole thing could actually work out for the better. But it's not going to be easy, and we're going to have to tread carefully. It's a gamble, but it's one that could pay off in the long run."

"The Council does indeed think long-term, to their credit; they're not a gang of drooling idiots," said Yoshida, "They just don't share the experience of being the underdog as we do. I mean, when was the last time they were really, truly challenged by a power? Not counting us, obviously. They have been at the top for a long time, and they've come to take it for granted. And just look at the volus, the elcor, and the hanar, were they giving the Council problems? Nope. Only the batarians come close to that definition, but they're just pissing out inside the tent compared to what we are doing right now. We're doing what we do with the Ethosians because we have experience of being the underdog, and have for quite a while already—they haven't. And plus, we can afford to do this long-term—they can't. They have to act, and they have to act fast."

"And so they're turning to the raloi," the Prime Minister continued. "It's a risky move, but it could pay off. If the raloi end up becoming allies of the Council, then they could help keep us in check. They could balance us, and that would help keep the peace in the galaxy. We're strong enough to challenge the Council, and they're smart enough to realize that. So by adding the raloi to their ranks, they can use them as a counterweight against us. That's their play, at least."

"So...they can't afford to wait a couple decades or centuries to see their plans come to fruit, so they're left with pretty much one option left, and that is to speedrun this whole project," muttered Yang. "Great. What would that mean for us?"

"With the raloi as a proxy, we'd be at a pretty considerable inconvenience within a few decades at best, even with the quarians, krogans, and Geth at our side; but we'll cover the gap eventually. We can pace our development and expansion at a steady pace while the Council scrambles to counter us," Yoshida said. "In the short term, we'll be facing stiff competition from the raloi, who will no doubt receive significant aid from the Council, and that will make things more difficult for us. But in the long term, we'll be able to outpace them, and with the quarians, krogans, and geth on our side, we'll have the upper hand."

"And then they'd have a real fight on their hands," the Prime Minister continued. "And that would not end well for them. The raloi would become an invaluable asset to the Council, and if they ever decided to leave their fold, then it could cause major problems. It's a risk, but it's one that could pay off. But in the short term, we'd have our work cut out for us."

"Well, at least we know what they're up to," the Deputy Prime Minister noted. "So, what are you thinking of, exactly?"

"I'm not going to let the Council's political maneuverings hinder us in any way," said Yoshida, "and if they want to start playing dirty, then we'll give them a taste of their own medicine. It's called 'two playing the same game', to my knowledge. And if they think that they can outmaneuver us, then they've got another thing coming. We've had experience playing this game long before the Council was even a twinkle in someone's eye, and we've learned the hard way. We're not going to be bullied by anyone, and we'll make sure that the Council learns that lesson the hard way."

The Prime Minister rubbed his eyes. "If only we could speedrun Cabinet meetings..."

"From the Tôtsahi facilities," said Aritsa Fühichi, the head researcher at the Atsakiru Research and Development Facilities, her light brown hair flowing down to knee-level waving around slightly as she brushed a hand through it, "This is one of the rarest examples of dark-matter ever found. Most other samples we had contained merely contaminated, trace examples of dark matter for us to study, but after we discovered a high-purity source over at Tôtsahi, we went all over it. We managed to extract half a ton of ore from a cave, somehow, and after refining, it produced six hundred ounces of pure, refined, uncontaminated dark matter. Michi Shimizū, what do you plan on using this for? As in the experiments you plan to do with this?"

"Growing some doomsday crystals inside a lab, essentially," Michi replied. "We basically grow the crystals inside an environment that subjects them to dark matter and exposes them to dark energy as they are formed. It is essentially meant for the crystal structures to become charged with dark-energy nodes inside them and become some sort of sci-fi superpowered energy crystal...or anti-gravity ones. Or doomsday ones, for all we may know."

"So you're trying to synthesize these 'doomsday crystals' that are mentioned in Inferno of Tomorrow, and use them to create a new form of artificial gravity," Aritsa realized. "Damn. You're trying to end civilization as we all know it or something?"

"Yep," said Michi. "But not intentionally, though. At least, not yet."

"Right," Aritsa chuckled. "But seriously, this is one risky shit. If you fuck it up, you might end up destroying the planet."

"Don't worry," said Michi. "I'm taking all the necessary precautions. I've set up a failsafe that will trigger an immediate shutdown of the experiment if anything goes wrong. Plus, we're doing this in a specially designed chamber, so there's no risk of anything leaking out."

"...you still know how risky that can be, right?"

"Yep. It can blow up, it could fizzle out, or it could turn into a magic corruption device capable of making a magical girl out of anything that has a soul, the list goes on, on, and on. But on the off chance that..."

"...that it turns out to be the thing that we've been looking for, somehow, then bam, we've got ourselves some new toys to play around with," Aritsa finished. "Gotcha. Just be careful, alright? We don't need any more catastrophes around here. We've got enough problems as it is."

Michi removed her glasses, wiping them with her coat. "Yep. And I'll make sure that doesn't happen. There's only one way to find out...and we all know it, right?"

"Welp, here goes nothing..." muttered Aritsa, watching Michi put her glasses back on, "and, by the gods, I hope to the fucking heavens you don't destroy the planet or something...because if you do, I'm going to be pissed, and I'm going to haunt you for the rest of your life."

"Well, at least it'll make my epitaph look a lot more interesting," chuckled Michi. "Michi Shimizū, 2112—2112, because I'm an AI with a biomech who just spawned really recently, died crafting a doomsday crystal in a particle accelerator in the Atsakiru Facility, which blew up and destroyed the planet, and now she is going to have to spend the rest of eternity haunted by Aritsa Fühichi. RIP."

"Ah yes, Michi Shimizū. The mad scientist who died crafting a doomsday crystal in a particle accelerator in the Atsakiru Facility, which blew up and destroyed the planet, and now having to contend with spending the rest of eternity haunted by Aritsa Fühichi. We have dismissed that claim!"

The duo broke out laughing at that.

Deputy,

My dudes have done some heavy digging, and she's got some serious stuff for us. So, first things first: The Council's got the raloi uplifting process underway. According to Reita's contacts in the Citadel, the raloi ambassador, a bird-like race, is meeting with the Council to discuss the details of the process, and they seem to be in agreement. The raloi will be officially brought into the fold soon, and once that happens, they'll have a powerful ally in the galaxy. And that's not going to be good for us. Although, of course, it isn't. Fair enough.

And it gets better. You know about the batarians? Well, they're starting to act, well...'sus'. They're planning something big, and they're going to pull the trigger soon. But we're not sure what it is. We've been monitoring their communications and spending, and we've detected several new shipbuilding projects underway, along with a spike in military purchases, and increased funding for their intelligence agencies. Something's going on, and it's not going to be a pleasant sight for us.

I'll need you to be on alert at all times. Shit might hit the fan, and when it does, we'll need to be ready.

—Warlord

OSHA Special Report #1172

Report created by the crew of research vessel RV Novaya Zemlya as a sub-report of [Report #1171], compiled from data gathered by a probe left within the system to monitor local activity.

[Status: Confidental]

[Ethosian weaponry: Small-arms and vehicle-borne]

Ethosian weapons are rather...interesting, to say the least. They're mostly revolving around the same concept of projectile-based weapons the same way as we do, making use of cartridges to hold projectile and propellant together, but that's where the similarities end. Sure, we both use cartridges laden with propellant to shoot things (very) fast, but our weapons rely on a mechanical firing-hammer/striker to set off the propellant. Theirs rely on electro-thermal firing.

The whole system seems rather ingenious, actually. An electro-mechanical system that is reset every time the bolt assembly is sent back to chamber a fresh round, which then sends an electrical impulse into the propellant that effectively short-circuits it to the point where it ignites, sending the projectile down the barrel; the high combustion temperatures of the propellant make it in effect literal plasma (average temperature inside the chamber could reach up to 1,500 degrees centigrade) are then recaptured by a heat sink, which in turn is used to power the electro-thermal system. The bullet weight, cartridge shape, and muzzle velocities (~escape velocity) are roughly equivalent to ours, however, so the whole system is actually pretty effective.

Ammunition is fairly straightforward: Bottlenecked rifle cartridges, and straight-walled pistol cartridges (although exceptions do exist, with plenty of sidearms using bottlenecks and rifles using straight walls). They lack, however, self-sharpening SmartSteel armor-piercing tips on their rounds the same way as our SAPHE rounds do, they just rely on depleted uranium or tungsten instead. Many of their rounds are also fin-stabilized and fired from smoothbore barrels as opposed to rifled barrels, like most of our tank guns, so to speak. They apparently gave up on dealing with barrel wear for rifled guns (we settled on SmartSteel barrels for the job) as they didn't invent nano-regenerating material early enough, hence the smoothbores, they're still highly lethal nonetheless and would be equivalent to many of our own weaponry in terms of performance. Hardlight weapons exist, but they are rare, mostly left to more niche roles due to reliability issues. Plasma weaponry are non-existent, given their tendency to make the user light up on infared sensors as brightly as floodlamps. Not the best situation you'd like to be in, if you ask me.

Vehicular weapons are mostly working the same way, although they seem to rely more on magazines than belts for the job, with some weapons have a dual-open magazine that can have extra rounds fed into it (someone got a mag, a stripper clip, and an ammunition belt and put them all into a blender), with larger guns, such as tank ones, fed via autoloaders instead. Artillery is mostly working on the same lines, with a few notable differences, such as their use of volley fire (like what?). Apparently, such a tactic has several batteries parked at convenient locations alternating their fire to allow rounds to strike the target at steady, sustained, devastating barrages, which is an impressive feat.

Overall, Ethosian weaponry is not all too dissimilar from our own, but does have a few notable differences, as described above.

Shipborne armaments are hardlight-based, interestingly enough. They're not as potent as kinetic weapons of equivalent calibers, but their sheer range and precision makes them deadly. Think phasers in Star Trek, except that they're fired out of barreled turrets like a WW2-style battleship (their ships look almost like U-Boats with extra turrets glued on). Or sometimes, shock cannons in Space Battleship Yamato. Missiles are self-explantory (although they use superconductor magnetic fields for plasma propelling, making them VASMIR, as opposed to VASIR), but they lack torpedoes, due to their lack of info on interdimensional space (and thus interdimensional weapons). However, they'll be making their own, soon.

I'd say it's pretty good stuff, all things considered.

Armor relies on heavily reinforced alloys of vandium steel with unbihexium for extra strength, and layered ablative ceramics, and is quite effective against kinetic rounds and missiles, but less so against energy weapons. They lack SmartSteel, although they do have a decent approximation of it in the form of a nano-regenerating, shock-absorbing foam layer, albeit weaker than the real deal. They're still quite strong nonetheless, their alloys rival ours in terms of raw strength (despite being non-regenerating) and their ablative layers can soak up a fair amount of damage. Shields are hardlight-based due to a lack of artificial gravity, can still adapt nonetheless (by some weird method of sloping and angling), and can soak up a lot of punishment. Their ships can hold their own with ours in a slugging match, understandably enough, but there's room for improvement. They're twenty years behind us at the most, give or take.

Back to the ground. Their tanks don't make use of sloped armor, or at least, by much. They're more similar to the likes of the Tiger I and the Panzer III/IV than our Leopards (even making blatant usage of dual-track systems like tanks of the 21st century and World Wars) in terms of aesthetics, but they do have (hardlight) shields, very strong armor, and extreme precision in targeting. They make up for the lack of sloping armor with much more interior space (and pound for pound, a slab of sloped plate to 100mm effective thickness is ~a 100mm vertical slab, since the angled slab needs to be longer) and side armor equally as thick as the front, allowing them to angle themselves against hostile fire to very devastating potential (think common WW2 Tiger tactics). And oh, their tank guns are on par with ours, too. Good luck shooting out their MBTs with a Leopard.

APCs are non-existent, as they figured those were little more than mobile coffins, IFVs are either wheeled or tracked with some sloping on the front and sides. SPGs are like Elefants (but they don't break down) or Strykers that somehow have a high-angle gun mount (some having retracting arms to stabilize themselves against recoil), MRLS is basically 'fueah whuz S-400 batterie!' and SAMs is just a glorified S-300 system given a Patriot flair and square launch tubes. And don't get me started on the AA guns.

Bofors or Oerlikon on a 6x6 chassis, your choice. Duh

Their portable anti-armor munitions are a pain in the ass, and are very dangerous. Their ATGMs have a small-sized, but very powerful multi-stage shaped-charge warhead that can be fired at ridiculous velocities and accuracy, and are quite effective. Their tanks also package hard-kill APS—hardlight beam-type APS similarly to us and our plasma-beam ones—so that's not going to be a walk in the park. Their artillery can go up to intercontinental distances, same as us, given near-escape-velocity muzzle velocities (not sure if their shells are fin-stabilized or not, though), and with the fin-stabilized ammunition that they use, well...

Their fighters are average, although interesting; hardlight pulse cannons, internal-bay missiles, and a minimized radar cross-section (micro-FTL fighter attacks made stealth fighters moot in this day and age, as they'd be in close enough to be spotted, RCS or no RCS, thus making stealth redundant) are what make up the package. They're fast, agile, and maneuverable, seem to lack wings (you take the Longsword from Halo), instead relying on lifting-body for flight and aerodynamics, and are powered by a nuclear-fusion power plant. Gunships/dropships are pretty 'eh', to say the least; you take a helicopter, make it boxy, throw in some curves, and say goodbye to the rotor assembly. In it's stead, thrusters. Oh, and a hardlight-beam turret and a bunch of missile pods, too.

Overall, not bad. We have the advantage, but they are a pain to deal with, and they will be one hell of a foe in the near future, especially when they get their shit together and start expanding faster and wider.

And that's that, I suppose.

I'll defend my use of vertical armor on Ethosian MBTs for the following reasons:

Space: Sloped armor create a lot of dead space. For a turreted vehicle, that dead space can become extreme. The odd shaped areas under the hull armor can be used for fuel tanks but in the turret it can just become dead space. Sure, humanity gets away with it by stowing fuel up front alongside some compact shield generators, but Ethosian equipment is still too bulky for the same job, which means they need that extra space. It's like why German tanks had flat armor when sloping was a thing in ~1935: Compromising extra effective thickness for more interior space. Space that is very much needed, in fact.

Weight: Also, if the armor is sloped, the plates need to be longer, which adds weight. Sure, 100mm at 45 degrees is 200mm effective, but that plate needs to be twice as long, and thus, requiring twice the material, or equivalent to a 200mm vertical plate, isn't it? The Leopards of the Alliance have 100mm frontal with 60 degrees of sloping, and 80mm on the side + 50mm track pod plating. Hypothetical Ethosian MBTs would be able to get away thus with 250mm front and 150mm side, and have more interior space

...at the cost of extra roof, that is.