Cooldude: Oh, that's good to know. Thanks for the info

A quick recap as to what has happened during Prologue so far:

- slavers hit Shanxi and get rekted in return

- humanity backs out of becoming a Council Associate race, leading to tensions with the Council

- they then help the quarians and make first contact with the Geth, establishing relations with both, go help the krogan, while the Council uplifts the raloi, with plans to gradually do the same to the yahg

- Alliance and Kaiserreich forces begin jointly assisting the volus and elcor in defending against slaver attacks

- a lawsuit makes the relations between humanity and the Geth official, Rakhana is discovered and evacuated, leading to a fallout between the hanar and drell

- the Treaty of Rannoch is signed, formally ending the Morning War, thus setting the political stage for part 2 of Prologue...yep, it's not over yet. Prologue's only halfway through

Minor note: google 'Die Neue These FPA battleship', paint them gray with colored stripes (and a lot of wear and tear), and add some spikes to the back section for visuals of krogan ships btw

also some pre-dreadnought style casemates, as well

The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 07/05/5725 0817HRS Galactic Standard Time

Citadel Tower, Councillors' Offices

Tevos watched the holovid intently as the PFS Legate left the docks for it's shakedown cruise, followed by the dreadnoughts Litrinox and Equinox, alongside several second-generation heavy and light cruisers, 1,000m and 1,600m long, respectively, as the reporter droned on and on about how the Legate-class carriers that the Hierarchy had just brought to the stars would be amongst the first true carriers to be launched by any Citadel race, and how it's complement of 800 fighters and/or dropships, plus twice as many attack drones, would be able to give it a striking power equivalent to the fleet carriers of the humans, supplementing the current fleet of stop-gap carriers that had been converted from older hulls to carry a vast amount of fighters and drones, a type of carrier that would be considered by the humans to be an 'escort carrier'.

The past eight years had been rocked back and forth like a boat in the waves, subject to the mercy of the hurricane that had buffeted it, and had only now did things show signs of calming down. That the humans getting the quarians, krogan, drell, and Geth together to form what they called the 'Estuary Pact', a bloc directly opposing the Citadel, was the least of it; but at least, countermeasures had been come up with, implemented, and seen results. There was quite literally nothing that could be done with the superiority in technology that the humans enjoyed at the start save perhaps start developing newer and better tech to counter them, and that was exactly what the Council was doing. Of course, the humans were already starting to build up their forces and try to maintain their qualitative edge at any cost, resulting in an arms race, but the Council had more resources to dedicate to the task, and the humans had been building up at a much slower pace than that of the Citadel. Either way...

She turned her gaze to the datapad, where it was showing her the latest estimates, and the Council was gaining ground. Slowly but surely, they were catching up. It was still not enough, but they would get there. It was only a matter of time.

"We are ready to begin our next phase of plans against the humans," Valern said, checking his onmitool and reading something off it. "STG has completed the preparations."

Tevos nodded. "What have you come up with?"

"We set them up for conflict with the batarians," Valern said. "STG has provided us with the locations of a major slaver cluster region near the human-batarian-Terminus border, known as the Theshaca system cluster, which we will provide the humans the coordinates for."

"And what will the humans do with it?" Oraka asked.

"The humans are very strict on slavery, and they have a strong anti-slavery stance. The Council has a similar one, but is unable to enforce it, especially on the Terminus. We can stage an attack on a human target, like, say, paying a mercenary group to attack a human starliner, while masking the orders as coming from the Shadow Broker or the batarians. The humans will blame the batarians and go after them."

Oraka gave a slight nod, and the Councilors remained silent as they watched the holovid of the new carriers being loaded up with shuttles and fighters.

"...the Hierarchy is really stepping up the game," Tevos murmured.

"They have no choice. They have been outpaced by the humans. The humans' technology is far in advance of their own. If they are to compete, then the Hierarchy needs to develop and manufacture these new ships and weapons."

"Do you think they'll be able to catch up?"

"No," Oraka replied bluntly. "But, then again, we don't need to catch up, only keep pace. Eventually, the humans will reach the technological limitations of mass-effect technology and their own technology, and when that happens, they'll fall behind us. And by then, it'll be too late for them to catch up. Their empire will have fallen, and they will have lost. The Citadel will remain the dominant galactic superpower."

"That's a good plan. The humans will be kept occupied, and their resources diverted, while the rest of us build up. When the time is right, we will be able to defeat them."

"But how can you be so sure?" Tevos asked. "I mean, the humans have a lot of resources to draw on, and a lot of worlds, too. There are over a thousand of them in both of their governments."

"The humans have a lot of resource, yes," Oraka admitted. "But they also have a lot of enemies, too. The Terminus factions, whatever 'Abyssals' that they're planning to face in a future encounter, and the batarians. With their attention divided, we will be able to overwhelm them before they can respond effectively. The humans' resources are finite, even with a thousand worlds, and they are limited. They are not unlimited. Eventually, even they will run out. The sooner the better. This is what we will be going after, and this is why we will eventually win."

Tevos gave a slight nod. "Very well. So, we're basically going to set up the humans for conflict with the batarians, right?"

"Correct," Valern agreed. "The Hegemony is conveniently ideologically an enemy of the humans, and their military power is significant, enough to even hold their own with the humans in some cases, especially with the newer technology that they're developing. With a bit of encouragement, the two sides can be pushed towards war."

"It won't be easy, however. The humans are not stupid. We will need to be careful to hide our tracks."

"Agreed. This operation is going to require the utmost caution and care."

"So, it is decided, then," Tevos said. "We will set the humans up for conflict with the batarians."

"Yes," Oraka replied.

"Very well, then. Let us proceed."

"The plans have already been drafted up. STG is ready to begin."

"Excellent. Send word to them."

Valern gave a nod. "Consider it done."

Vienna, Austria, Earth, March 1st 2265 1718HRS Coordinated Universal Time

Parliament building, Cabinet room

"Can't think it's eight years since then, huh..." Yoshida Ayumi said as she placed her hands behind her head, leaning back in her seat.

Prime Minister Aoki Miyuki glanced at her Minister of Foreign Affairs. "After the change in administrations, you haven't changed your seat? Last time, you were Foreign Affairs under Prime Minister Schröder, and now Yurie is Deputy, and yet you haven't moved."

Ayumi shrugged. "Eh, I kinda like this seat, and besides, moving would be a lot of hassle. You know me."

"Well, it's nice to have a familiar face around. I don't think I could bear working with someone new."

"I know, right?" Ayumi grinned.

"By the way, how are things coming along with the current state of galactic affairs?"

"Nothing, it has chilled a lot in the years since First Contact and when we formed the Estuary Pact in July 2258. It's '65 by this point, we're stable, right now. Although the Citadel isn't liking our new bloc."

"Well, they can't do much. As long as we stay on the defensive and don't try anything too stupid, we'll be fine. They don't have the resources to start another war, even if they want to."

"True. I guess we can afford to be a little more lax, then."

"Right. And speaking of foreign affairs, I hear that the batarians are going to start attacking more human settlements."

"Ships," Karl Lütjens, now Minister of Defense, corrected. "Reports of non-military vessels getting raided and waylaid spiked really in the past year, especially when our border in the Transverse hit that of the batarians. We've so far been able to keep our countrymen from being sold off to random dealers and merchants via dreadnought runs after the enemy convoys, but we need to be able to strike at the heart of their operations if we're to deal a meaningful blow. They're getting bolder and bolder."

"So, the rumors are true, then?"

"Yes. We don't know the exact location of their main slaving hubs, but we know it's somewhere in the Terminus, and Yang's Nerd Brigade is trying to locate it. However, the batarians have been very cautious in this matter and are very careful to ensure that their movements are hidden from prying eyes, so we've not been able to track them."

"Well, we can't just let them continue with this. I mean, sure, we can defend our own, but we can't let the batarians keep on attacking unarmed merchants."

"Well, unless you can figure out a way to do that, we're screwed."

"I think I might have an idea," Ayumi spoke up.

"And what might that be?"

"There is a certain system that the batarians are known to be very active in, the Theshaca system cluster. According to an 8Chan forum post made by a user who claims to be a spatial warfare enthusiast, a major slaver operation is likely to be based there, judging by presumed FTL vectors when they enter and exit FTL transit. We can't do anything because the place is in the Terminus, but..."

"But the batarians don't control the Terminus. They're just one of the powers that have a foothold there," Lütjens concluded. "We raid the place, that's correct?"

"Yep, that pretty much sums that up in a nutshell. We show up, and let 'em know that we're not happy to see them raiding our shit, and return home with all the poor saps held captive down there aboard our liners for the trip home."

"...you think that'll be a good idea?" Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett mused as he stroked his beard. "The batarians have close ties with the slaver in that cluster, and even outright buy their slaves from the dealers in the cluster outright. If we nail them to the wall right now and there, chances are they'd be bound to be provoked. And they've got the Terminus factions backing them up."

"So?" Lütjens asked. "Let them come. We're more than a match for them."

"Maybe," the head of the Alliance Intelligence Arm spoke up. "Fuckers have Collector tech on their ships, remember. And they're the fleets of the First Contact War no longer, each and every of their ships is a direct match for any one of ours in a straight one-to-one fight, and they rival us in terms of raw military strength. Sure, we can go play poke-poke at them, but that'd just give them more of an excuse to hit us, and we'd just end up with a bigger war on our hands."

"They don't have the same industry as we do, either, Yang," Yurie answered. "The situation right now should be roughly equivalent to Imperial Japan and America squaring off in the 1930s. The former had a large veteran armed force, one that couldn't be defeated quickly nor easily, but the latter had a vast industry that could crank out ships faster than they could find and train crews to pilot them. See how that turns out."

"Fair point."

Ayumi shrugged. "Tensions between us and the batarians are really starting to flare up lately by this point, especially with us assisting in peacekeeping duties in place of the volus and elcor, although the ratios are dropping as they're starting to build themselves up to spec, permitting us to free our military for more important tasks. Anyways, the point remains the same: they're not happy about us patrolling the stars and stopping their slave-raiding convoys, and tensions are going up."

"So, you're saying that things are starting to degenerate into a Russia v. West, and that if we're not careful, the batarians might actually declare war?"

"Not just them. The Terminus is a big place, and a lot of things can happen. The Terminus isn't going to take kindly to our presence there. And the Citadel, they don't like us, and the relationship between both sides right now is close to the Soviet and American blocs in the Cold War. Should we and the batarians come to blows, we'd most likely see the Council playing it proxy war, sending equipment and support discreetly or publicly to them. That wouldn't end well."

Yang shrugged. "ONI's Nerd Brigade has yet to come up with a positive lead yet, but I have a hunch that may take us far: that 8Chan post might've been made by someone whose name is in the Citadel's payroll, or at least, one of their allies."

"If you ask me, the whole thing seems suspicious," Yurie stated. "First, the humans, and the Alliance in particular, starts getting raided more and more often, then suddenly, a user who claims to be a space warfare enthusiast shows up and makes a post regarding the locations of the batarian slaver bases. Something about this smells like a set-up."

"I don't know, the whole thing could've just been a coincidence," Aoki said. "I mean, maybe that 8Chan user was just a person who likes ships and the stars. After all, not everything has to have a sinister or malicious motive. I mean, I watch anime. A lot."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see."

"Anyways, let's get back on topic," Lütjens said.

"Ah, yes," Yang agreed. "You were talking about a raid, right?"

"Yes. A strike against the slavers."

"Well, the place is in the Terminus, which pretty much permits us free reign. I'll send a few prowler detachments to the region to see what do we have there before making any further plans; the cluster isn't well-mapped and quite newly developed, and since it's the Terminus, the rule of 'no relay activations' doesn't apply. My money is on the bases being based on uncharted worlds and systems, which is going to be kinda...tough to find, to say the least. Maybe having some prowlers tail a pirate raider, or maybe..."

"We can't let the pirates go," Ayumi protested. "I mean..."

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. However, I do have an idea..."

A hull 1,900 meters long, a distinct shape unique to human cruisers, in effect a scaled-up version of a Fuji-class heavy cruiser with the sloped-wedge engine block and two protrusions sticking out of a large centrally armored hull housing her main battery her most striking features, giving her the appearance of a flying tank turret, the 'barrel' being the central hull, and the 'housing' the engine block. The stripes of the 7th Fleet were painted across her sides alongside an Alliance logo and a British flag right next to it, illuminated by a set of lights for the whole galaxy to see, and underneath a second strip of lights, the letters 'SSV EVEREST'. That, and having six engines instead of four, as well as being longer by two hundred meters, was the only real difference between her and the likes of the average Alliance heavy cruiser.

...except protection and armament, of course. A pair of 305cm MACs with fast autoloaders for rapid-fire made up her main battery, and her broadsides bristled in Rapier missile pods and 40cm Bofors autocoil turrets, affording her a dangerous edge to wield in broadsides. Along the dorsal and ventral sides a few dozen VLS tubes housed the Stoski cruise missiles that would deliver her nuclear arsenal, and on turreted launchers that permitted 360-degree coverage, 533cm torpedo launchers were installed in four-silo emplacements, a nice and nasty surprise for frigates trying to complete their torpedo runs. Enoshima Type 43 50mm point-defense guns gave her an impressive ability to block a Macross Missile Massacre in conjunction with her aforementioned Bofors autocannons (whatever that survived the defensive Rapier fire anyways), and her EW suite wasn't something to laugh at, either.

Protection wasn't stinted upon, either. It was less compared to battleships, but much more, compared to the likes of a heavy cruiser. 250cm of SmartSteel plating, all around, laid out in a honeycomb internal layout similar to the likes of a cruiser, with extra 200cm plates over the central hull and engines to shield them from weapons fire. Recessed into the dorsal side was an octagonal superstructure identical to one that would be found on a historic Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, with an extra array of communications equipment and a tripod mast directly behind it. Less armored and armed than a battleship, but much bigger and more heavily armed and armored than a heavy cruiser, dreadnoughts like her were meant to be the snipers of a fleet, going solo to engage enemy capital ships at will, using their superior speed and maneuverability, often on par with that of frigates, engaging in hit-and-run attacks from advantageous positions and ambushcades before pulling back and away.

That made them also perfect for the commerce raiding role, leading fleets on wild goose chases trying to catch them while they casually selected and obliterated supply convoys at will, using their superior armor and firepower to pick apart what little resistance the escorts could possibly bring up to the table and their speed and maneuverability to evade interception by larger vessels capable of taking her in a direct engagement, tying up massive amounts of resources as the enemy tried to either hunt them down or cover all of their bases, stretching themselves thinly in the process...

That speed advantage, mused Ensign Steven T. Hackett, Junior, to himself, also made them perfect for the role of hunting down other commerce raiders.

Everest was cruising along quite smoothly at 35 slipknots within the interdimensional slipstream, her extensive sensor suite scanning the stars outside to track a certain slaver convoy that was on it's way home after hitting a volus colony. Said convoy was speeding away at their own FTL velocity, headed home to their base, while the dreadnought shadowed them from behind like a hunter trailing after it's prey, undetected simply by hiding in the space between universes, a realm of infinite dimensions and possibilities. The slavers would be dropping out of FTL soon to do their routine drive core static discharges, and when they did, the dreadnought would jump back into realspace and pounce.

That would happen very soon.

"Captain on the bridge!" someone called.

"At ease," Captain Hui Man-keung replied as he took his seat, and glanced at the tactical screen. "Anything new?"

"Nothing," Lieutenant Commander Liang Peng-feng, the ship's tactical officer, reported. "Sensors are picking up no traces of a possible enemy ambush or other contacts. So far, it's just the one convoy. We're alone."

"Right," Hui nodded, glancing at the icons marking the convoy on the display. Normally, a far more complete display and set of tactical instruments would be in the CIC, or the CDC, for fleet coordination duties...but the bridge did nonetheless offer a view of the stars, and the Captain wanted the crew to not forget the majesty of space and what the ship they were currently on was designed to do. "Time until the convoy pops out for their core discharge?"

"About four minutes, Captain," the telemetry officer replied over the ship's intercom from his console in the CIC, embedded in the dead center of the main, thickly, and densely armored hull. "They should be dropping out any moment now."

"How do you think will they react when they see us? Their convoy has a handful of cruisers at the biggest, hardly frigates by our standards, and another handful of frigates, which are basically glorified patrol boats, and we have a dreadnought capable of rivalling the asari flagship in size and outrun, outturn, and outfly a frigate. I'm willing to bet that they're gonna wet their pants and try to flee."

"If they have enough time. You can't really flee a dreadnought," Hackett remarked. "This thing can outrun a frigate, outgun a cruiser, and outfly anything short of another dreadnought, unless that other ship is paired with a bigass load of extra supplies on a freighter towed behind. There is a reason why dreadnoughts are classified as dreadnoughts, and that reason isn't just because of the name."

"Bringing a dreadnought to fight a slaver convoy is like taking a tank to a gunfight. But hey, these things can win races at NASCAR, so it's worth it. They may not look it, but dreadnoughts are a jack of all trades, master of none, and that's how they can keep the upper hand against most of the other ships in the galaxy, especially considering the fact that the Citadel races have no equivalent to our ship class."

"Well, they'll definitely piss themselves once they see us. I'll give you that."

"Well, remember that old adage: Dreadnoughts dread nothing at all~"

"Except submarines. Or carriers. Or bigger dreadnoughts. Or in this case, battleships. But the slavers don't have those."

"Yep, woe be upon the poor saps manning this convoy..."

"Billions of asari scream as they are the hottest species in the galaxy no longer," Fubuki read the headline out loud.

"I'm not screaming," Liara deadpanned, a cup of tea in her hand.

"Yeah, I figured," Fubuki nodded along. "Still. Whoever made that headline is an absolute legend, it's a perfect example of a 'meme', which happens to be a staple of human culture probably dating back to the earliest days of human civilization. So accurate."

"You humans are certainly savage. How did your species ever get civilized if that's what you're capable of thinking up?"

"Don't know. Maybe the Great Filter did not pass. Or maybe we passed it so long ago, we've forgotten all about it. Who knows?"

Liara shook her head and sighed, setting her cup down on a nearby coffee table. "Imagine the guts you'd need to actually invite the Geth onto your borders, and then the brains to somehow get others to join in despite their historic bias against the Geth in general. Other races'd flip out at the mere thought, but you guys? You even managed to broker a peacedeal between the Geth and the quarians. You're insane."

"Well, insanity is the only way to survive and prosper in the galaxy. You're either crazy, or dead."

"Considering how you fought off two Abyssal invasions, the latter of which made the Krogan Rebellions seem like a joke in comparison, while recovering from internal conflicts to boot, I think...yeah."

"We call it Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome, the three rules to survive in a harsh environment. Rule number one is improvise, as the unexpected will happen and you'll have to figure out how to respond and adapt. Rule number two is to adapt, and you will have to adjust yourself to the changing conditions. Rule number three is to overcome, and you will have to push yourself beyond your limits."

"The first rule is something that most races would not expect, especially the Asari Republics. Most species would go and seek out diplomatic channels, or maybe use their military strength. That's how the Asari Republics handle things, after all. You humans? You go and do your own thing, and no matter how weird it is, it just...works."

"It's not that complicated. I mean, it's basic stuff, really."

"Yes, but still. To be able to pull off that sort of thing...it's...just amazing. I wish us asari were like that."

"Well, you asari would if Tevos Callis and her Council of Matriarchs weren't as stuffy as they were now. But at least they're trying to get their shit in order after we showed up."

"And that's good enough for me. At least they're trying. I guess that's what matters."

"Yeah, they're trying."

"Anyways, back to lame human jokes..."

Szurdok, Estuary, April 20th 2265, 0819HRS Coordinated Universal Time

Geostationary orbit, Erőd-class orbital defense platform Szurdok Station (5th Battery)

Eight years was all it took for the Citadel to react and adapt to humanity and their OP technology, thought Commodore Araki Yoshino to himself, as he watched the traffic fly around and about in the space around Estuary, the hub between the two human and Citadel blocs for travel, transport, and commerce.

Sure, the Citadel didn't have a fleet as large as that of the humans, but they had their own ways and means of getting shit done, and the humans had their own problems to deal with. And in eight years, they had been busy, too.

The Erőd-class, a 2,500m long, 600m wide, and 1,400m tall monstrosity that resembled a giant KitKat bar made out of metal with a ring-shaped octagonal structure around close to the 'base' of the bar, had been commissioned into service by the end of 2260, a full year before the official formation of the Estuary Pact, and was the largest defensive weapons system deployed by the Alliance in the form of orbital defense stations. It's primary armament was a pair of 305cm MACs housed in the 'bar' section of the platform, and while the guns didn't have the firepower of large battleships like the much larger Sentinel-class platforms located nearby, the guns certainly were deadly, making up for having only half the firepower of a 360cm gun by virtue of having, conveniently, twice the rate of fire.

The secondary armament of the Erőd was an impressive array of Rapier point-defense missile pods and Stoski cruise missiles mounted along the length of the 'bar', in addition to several dozen VLS missile tubes containing anti-ship missiles and a smattering of torpedoes. 40cm Bofors autocannons and 50mm Enoshima Type 43 CIWS (read: OP as hell gatling autocannons) were spread around the ring section of the platform, supplemented by a network of sensors, radar, and a state-of-the-art EW suite to help the station identify, track, and target threats. The platform had a limited hangar capacity to house a large amount of Argus drones for projecting a decent combat air patrol on it's own, permitting groundside air assets to be deployed instead to strike at enemy ships far away, and for any carrier air wing available (if any) to concentrate on gutting the enemy, not splitting between taking out hostiles and defending the platforms.

Protection was also quite decent: a dense layer of armoring covering the entire ship, multiple layers of 330cm and 305cm plates layered in several levels similar to the historic 'all or nothing' armor scheme, with extra 200cm plates suspended over more critical parts of the ship. That, and a dense layer of shielding that could adapt to enemy fire, permitted such an ODP a ludicrous rating for damage absorption. The Erőd was not a platform that was designed to obliterate any enemy ship in a straight up gunfight, but it was meant to be a shipkiller, and a damn good one.

And that, he thought, was what counted.

"So, we're just going to sit here, and watch the traffic?" his second-in-command, Captain Hideo Hayato, asked him.

"Well, it is my shift," Yoshino shrugged. "Besides, you know the rules. The human ones, anyways. We're not supposed to interfere with Citadel-bound traffic, unless it is deemed necessary to do so."

"I'm not arguing with you there," Hayato answered. "Just wondering what's going on."

"Well, I've heard rumors of a potential Terminus raid. They're starting to get a bit daring now."

"I hope those are just rumors, and not true."

"Same here. But the galaxy's a dangerous place, and we don't know what could happen. If something does happen, then that's what we're here for."

"And I hope that we don't have to use it."

"Me, too."

Yoshino and Hayato both leaned back in their seats. "So, what are the rumors of the latest episode of Star Blazers?"

"Well, according to 8Chan, they're apparently going to make an adaptation of the third season, and that..."

Yoshino sighed. "A lot has happened in the past eight years. I'm not sure what's next."

"Well, we had formed our own bloc and let the galaxy split itself into a spaceborne Cold War. The Citadel is now trying to catch up to our tech and industrial base. And there's still the whole Abyssal issue..."

"Oh, come on, let's not talk about that! It's going to ruin the mood!"

"I know. But still."

"Whatever."

"And there's the batarian situation. That's a potential source of conflict, too."

"They've been raiding us. That's true, and it's not a rumor."

"I mean the Citadel side of things."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"That could get messy. Especially if they start playing proxy war, like you said."

"Maybe. That won't be pretty."

"Yeah."

"So, what's your opinion on the Citadel races? Anybody that you think is cute?"

"Well, the asari, obviously."

"No shit, Sherlock. They're blue hot chicks, who wouldn't like them? What I want to know is: have you seen any that caught your eye, and that you would like to bang?"

"Nooooone. Who the fuck wants to bang up a hairless blue babe when his own neighborhood is already crawling in better alternatives? Seriously, you need to get some standards."

"I guess."

"So, what do you think?"

"About what?"

"About the whole Citadel-Human relations thing."

"What is there to think? We're not going to war with each other anytime soon, unless one of us does something really stupid. That's the good news. The bad news is that the batarians are starting to light fires under the bucket of tensions and warm them up, and they have the Citadel backing them. I mean, the Council's not doing anything outright, but we can tell."

"I'm not going to lie, it's getting kind of hot in the kitchen. The only question is: when is it going to boil over?"

"Who knows? Only time can tell."

"Well, then let's wait and see."

"Yep. Let's."

"I'm starting to get a few hunches related to these political issues," Ayumi said as she let her hand through the twin-tails that she had done up her hairstyle in, her other hand holding a smartphone.

"Well, spit them out. What do you have in mind?" Aoki inquired.

"I think the batarians are behind this. And the Council, too, but not directly. The Council wouldn't risk their reputations by getting directly involved, so the batarians are doing it for them."

"Why, though?" Lütjens asked. "It makes sense, but what do they gain out of this?"

"For the Council, they get a nice extra proxy front to give us headaches, apart from the raloi, who are playing wild card as far as I know. The batarians hate us, understandably enough, that whole 'slavery is an inherent part of our society and culture' thingy that we have been whacking them so hard for. And besides, we have an edge on them, and they want it. Our tech and industry is the biggest, and they want to catch up to us. If they can get the Council and the Terminus to cooperate in their plans, and by proxy, the Shadow Broker and his agents, then they might just be able to pull this off."

"Fair point. And that's exactly why I've had Yang's Nerd Brigade combing through the entire extranet for clues regarding this. They've yet to come up with a solid lead, but I've a hunch that it's a matter of time before we find a thread that will unravel the entire tapestry."

"That, and the fact that the Terminus isn't happy with us, either."

"That's understandable, we're cutting in on their slice of the galactic pie."

"Still. They've got the Citadel backing them, and the batarians, too. We're in a state of every-rising tensions by this point. Things are stable, for now, but it's like a ticking time-bomb...the only question is, how long can it hold, and when will the fuse be lit?"

"No idea. But we all know that it's going to be nasty."

"Very. And we can't afford a war. Not now. We've only just barely begun to recover from the Abyssal Wars. A big galactic conflict is the last thing we need right now."

"Agreed."

"Well, we can't swerve out of the way if the bull that's coming to meet us head-on is wide enough to completely fill the street. Sometimes, there's literally no other way. Break out the armor-plates, floor the gas, and get into gear, prepping ourselves for the whole seven miles, because that's what we're going to have to do."

"We can only hope."

"Hope is all we've got, at this point."

"Yeah."

"Hey, did you guys hear about the latest episode of..."

"No."

"Yes."

"Okay, then."

"Back to business, ladies. This is important."

"You're not going to let go, are you?"

"No."

"Alright, then."

"So, what did Yang's Nerd Brigade find?"

Yang Wen-li watched as the conversation unfolded around him before finally butting in. "Nothing. Whoever doing it covered his tracks extremely well, it seems. STG's improved a lot since First Contact, I'm not surprised. The question is: how did they pull it off?"

"They have the Council backing them, the batarians, and probably the Shadow Broker and his agents. You tell me, Yang."

"Okay, okay, I get it. I'll get back to work. I mean, I have a whole squad of analysts and computer scientists working for me. I'll find something."

"Good. That's the Yang I know."

"Alright, alright, let's get back to work."

"Yeah. We've got a lot to do."

"Right."

"Let's do this."

"You're on."

PFS Equinox maneuvered into position alongside the krogan dreadnought TFS Urdnot, both ships two thousand meters long but clashing visibly in overall appearance, with the utilitarian, avian lines of the turian ship contrasting with the blocky lines of it's krogan counterpart, the latter's engines arranged just behind the bow in a large block in front of the stern-section containing the secondary armaments, installed in casemates, giving the ship the appearance of a huge, blocky axe given engines underneath the axe-head-like bow. The rest of the ship's weapons were contained within a central block running the length of the ship, protected by an armored hull that tapered forward and back at the ends.

The peace between the CDEM forces in krogan space and the krogan themselves re-establishing their interstellar civilization once more had gone a long way into restoring relations between the two. Sure, tensions were still present, but they had lowered a great deal. As it was, the two fleets, comprising of a dreadnought and a cruiser, were cruising alongside each other in a patrol run, and their captains were speaking to each other via a secure, encrypted channel.

"You've certainly come a long way since your species first encountered the rest of us," Captain Potvius Garidus observed. "From being the savages of the galaxy to becoming a force that is no longer a laughingstock."

"You have the humans to thank," Warlord Vakarian Urdnot replied. "Our race was at death's doorstep before they showed up, and then we realized how far we'd fallen. And now, we are working to catch up."

"And I hope that the rest of the galaxy will see that we are no longer a threat. The Krogan Rebellions may have ended centuries ago, but their legacy lingers still."

"Yes. They do."

"But, that's the future. The past is the past. I'm just glad that we can work together for a common cause."

"I can say the same. And I'm also glad that you're not afraid of my people."

"Of course. My crew respects your race, and they're glad that the krogan are no longer the savages they once were. Say what the propaganda may, the truth is that the krogan are no longer what they once were. It is a pleasure to work with you, Warlord."

"I can say the same, Captain. I can say the same."

The two ships kept on their way.

The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 07/07/5725 0219HRS Galactic Standard Time

Thessia-class superdreadnought ARH Maiden of Thessia

A huge, four-and-a-half by five kilometer plus-symbol in space, or a literal womb with four spokes sticking out of it of a similar size, was the best way to describe the new flagship of the Citadel Fleet that was once before fulfilled by the Destiny Ascension, with some human memeists labelling it a 'space hair dryer with three extra handles'. Either way, the ship was the largest vessel ever constructed, rivalling the Alliance's Yamato-class battleships in sheer size, 5,000m tall and 4,500m wide. Only the superdreadnought the turians were building would be larger, at 5,500m long from bow to stern, but out of the eight ships that made up the class, two had been fitting out, another two pending launch, and the rest, still under construction.

Maiden of Thessia took the asari's spatial warfare doctrine to the extremes: jump in, blow up as many enemies as possible, and then jump out, before discharging both drive cores and repeating the process again. The ship was essentially a giant cross of guns with four spokes housing 2,000m, 350cm mass accelerators on the top, bottom, and sides, each equivalent to an Alliance 2nd-rate battleship in firepower but offsetting it with an overwhelming rate of fire, permitting the ship to amass a firepower equivalent to the Yamato-class and her eight 610cm cannons, four guns to a spoke. A smattering of torpedoes and other ordnance, combined with the ship's extensive EW suite, permitted her to engage a much wider range of threats that would be potentially able to evade the tracking of her main batteries, and her armor and shields, while thinner and weaker than the likes of the New Palaven-class superdreadnoughts that were fitting out, were nonetheless a formidable obstacle to overcome.

Matriarch Lidanya M'Liotari was the commanding officer of the ship, watching intently as the Citadel loomed ever-closer, the familiar form of the Destiny Ascension floating near the station, a pair of Litrinox-class dreadnoughts in a similar formation nearby. The ship's massive engines fired, and the ship began to slow down, to a stop.

"Stopped," an asari lieutenant reported from her post. "Citadel is dead ahead, two-one-seven kilometers. We are at a full-stop, Matriarch."

"Very well. Send the standard request to the Citadel fleet, and the usual codes," Lidanya commanded. "Make sure you include the authorization code that the Council provided us. Make sure to do it."

"Aye, Matriarch," the asari responded. "The codes are being sent."

"Good."

Lidanya turned and left the bridge, heading for the elevator. She had to attend to a meeting that was taking place at the Citadel.

"Captain, the Council requests my presence at a meeting," Lidanya said. "I'm taking the shuttle over. Take care of the ship until I get back."

"Understood, Matriarch," the ship's CO replied. "I'll keep an eye on the ship. Good luck."

"Good. You too."

Lidanya headed out, making her way to the shuttlebay. She had a meeting to attend.

Codex entry — Starships — Next-generation starships

Following the introduction of humanity to the galactic community, it became an open secret that virtually everything that was the galactic state-of-the-art at the time was woefully outclassed by anything of equivalent classification that the humans had in their arsenal. Frigates were reduced to orbital guard cutters, unable to do anything in a straight-up fleet battle, cruisers became frigates, but much slower and thus much more useless, while the once-mighty dreadnoughts became mere cruisers, or even worse, destroyers. The Destiny Ascension, the largest dreadnought in existence at the time, came only to the size of a 2nd-rate battleship by human standards, and even then, it was outgunned, woefully, in fact, in any direct confrontation. The simple inferiority of galactic spatial, weapons, armor, and protective technology at the time would be sure to ensure that.

It was obvious as to what the Citadel began shortly afterwards, and to a lesser extent, the batarians and the Terminus factions: the race to catch up with humanity and their technological edge. To achieve that, they had to make some drastic changes to their designs, and those changes had to be drastic.

The most obvious issue to overcome was size: the current mass-effect drives of the day lost efficiency the bigger they became and would cap out at ~1km in length, thus setting the unofficial upper limit for ship size, but humanity had consistently built well past that limit, with the ~1km limit being a rather average size, if not small, for their cruisers. To get around this, a completely new drive core design was developed from the ground up, using a radically different approach from the existing designs, permitting larger mass effect drives without suffering a massive loss in power output, and allowing ships to scale to truly enormous sizes.

A full, comprehensive list of technologies developed in response to human-era tech and designs would include, but not be limited to, as follows:

ODSY (lOng range Distributed Static pYnch): A specialized FTL drive system that can be either built into newer drive core designs, or outright retrofitted onto older designs, if needed be, with relative ease.

Traditional FTL drives generate a static buildup; even human FTL systems are no exception; how a race tackles the problem, however, depends on their approach to it. The turians installed 'static discharger rods' on the 'wingtips' of their ships to allow static buildup to bleed off into space as the ship moves along, hence the wings on their ships. Salarian ships have recycler static capacitor banks that absorb the static buildup when their ship disengages from FTL, but cannot be used in flight, as the static buildup can actually outright fry the banks if they are activated when the ship is in FTL. Quarian ships have a specialist 'pulse-discharger' that discharges the static buildup in one, brutal, powerful pulse into anything that they are discharging into, providing for speedy discharges before resuming flight, but does offer risks to any population planetside, if any. Human ships discharge their static buildups into the portals their drives generate, causing the distinct tendrils that their portals seem to have as they exit FTL, extra charge is also bled off via discharger rods, similarly to turian ships, or in the layer of ice that breaks off their hulls shortly after exit.

The ODSY system is in effect a combination of turian and salarian FTL discharge systems, relying on specialized capacitor banks that funnel the static into a chamber filled with helium-3 gas, with the sheer amount of static electricity causing the gas to rapidly heat up into a plasma, with temperatures averaging in the millions of degrees, Celsius. The plasma is then fed through a magnetohydrodynamic generator via mass-effect fields to convert it into power, running the FTL drive, which in turn generates a static buildup, creating a feedback loop. A certain percentage of the static buildup, as per the rules of conversation of energy, is not able to be reclaimed, remaining on the ship where it continues to build up, but nowhere near the rate of a traditional FTL drive, and is certainly something that a few discharger rods can easily take care of.

MSDC (Multi-turn Spiral Drive Core): The drive cores utilized prior to the Relay 314 Incident relied on a spherical containment system similar to a fusion reactor, resulting in a spherical mass-effect field that proved reliable and cost-effective, but increasingly inefficient when powering a ship of any size larger than a kilometer, and horribly inefficient at any size two kilometers and beyond. As a result, few ships remain in existence at the time larger than a kilometer, and the largest dreadnought in the galaxy at the time, the Destiny Ascension, two.

The solution to this was the MSDC system, which in effect drew inspiration from the human TV series Star Trek, as well as an ancient drive core system that dated back to the earliest days of mass-effect travel, ironically enough. Visually, it was similar to a spring, or a spiral; by splitting and pulling out an archaic ring-drive to make a spring, one could, provided the resources and skills needed to do so, add as many 'turns' to the construct as he so wished, and the resulting mass-effect field would grow proportionally. Theoretically, an infinite number of turns could be added, but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the mass-effect fields.

The fields generated are oblong, as opposed to spherical, greatly increasing efficiency as well, when constructing ships that are not spherical or cubic in shape, something that proved extremely convenient for shipbuilders designing the ships that follow the 'standard' pattern of long hulls with spinal cannons, like turian ships, as opposed to the 'starfish' design of asari ships. It is also vastly easier to construct larger ships with this drive core setup—one would only need to add more 'turns' to the drive core to create a mass-effect field of the desired size and shape to power a larger ship, permitting sizes historically impractical to achieve via conventional means, such as the New Palaven-class superdreadnoughts, which entered service in 2267CE (5727GSC), at 5,500m long from bow to stern.

Batarian ships utilize the same concept for their ships, but with rings of crystallized eezo arranged in a line, as opposed to the multi-turn design on Citadel ships. Such a design is presumably reverse-engineered from Collector equipment.

CKAT (Cyclonic Kinetic Adaptive barrier Technology): Normal kinetic barriers work to create a wall between the ship and incoming weapons fire, using static mass-effect fields that repel enemy kinetic weapons, but offer decreased performance to directed-energy weapons due to heat-bleedthrough, are less effective against shield-piercing ammunition in general, are incapable of adapting to enemy fire, and offer almost no resistance to mass-less energy attacks, such as guardian lasers, X-ray lasers, or infared-burst plasma detonations. Contrary to popular belief, static kinetic barriers do offer protection against directed-energy weapons, but their performance against such attacks are limited, especially against plasma-based weaponry, with the heat from such a weapon capable of outright bypassing shields to scorch the armor underneath. Against particle-beam attacks, it can stop the brunt of the attack, but significant ionizing radiation can still damage the armor underneath, as well as penetrate deep into the ship, incapacitating crew.

Human shields work by projecting a one-dimensional quantumized Klein bottle around their ships, redirecting any attack around to be siphoned into a dimensional fold that can either run more critical systems or assist in blocking the energy of the attack, and the shield's harmonics can be adjusted to match that of the incoming fire, mitigating it to a certain extent; doing this in real-time would permit adaptive protection against any form of attack.

CKAT works off a similar method, but using a different approach: to create dozens of oscillating mass-effect fields instead of one static field, spinning rapidly around random axes, with layers of plasma contained in the fields to diffuse incoming laser-based attacks that might bypass traditional kinetic barrier systems. Rather than absorb incoming fire, CKAT works to 'slap' aside incoming weapons fire, creating a 'bounce-off' effect, oftentimes similar to how a shot may ricochet off a human shield system and carry on, but this time, on a different trajectory than before. The nature of the system means that a shot can bypass the barriers, in theory, but in actual practice, this is virtually impossible—getting a hit past it is the equivalent of trying to shoot at a target inside a spinning ball.

ERKAT (Explosive Reactive Kinetic Adaptive barrier Technology): The batarian response to human technological superiority was to go in the complete and utterly opposite direction of the Citadel Council. Rather than reverse-engineer Prothean technology and develop off their own technological base with human tech as an inspiration, the Hegemony, with their ties to pirate factions in the Terminus, turned to reverse-engineering Collector technology in their attempts to close the gap between they and the humans; ultimately, their efforts proved successful enough for them to pose a severe threat, even outright as a peer opponent, to humanity by 2270.

ERKAT is derived from Collector shielding technology, relying on spinning mass-effect fields and plasma sandwiched in between several layers of static fields, creating a densely layered system that is extremely difficult to go through. Attacks that penetrate the outer layer will open a 'hole' in the shield that allows the spinning fields inside to 'erupt' and violently 'punch' the attack outside or aside, depending on the angle of impact, with extra plasma inside being vented outside for added effect. If the attack has mass in nature, the resulting plasma-ified matter is then captured by the barriers and kept between the layers for future use, if it is mass-less (i.e. lasers), the beams are diffused by the plasma held between the barriers, ceasing to become effective. Similarly to the likes of CKAT or human shielding, they can adjust the harmonics of the 'ERA eruptions' to match that of incoming fire, thus adapting to enemy fire.

Nanolaminate hull armoring: Human SmartSteel plating proved vastly superior to any other material in existence, itself being a compound of titanium, traditional steel, traces of navitasium, and self-regenerating nanomaterial, creating an armor material that can directly regenerate against damage, permitting far more effective damage control against minor breaches than traditional armoring, sealing them off almost instantaneously. It can also help to keep larger hull breaches under control much more easily and quickly, with many damage control teams actually carting blocks of the material to areas in need of emergency repairs, where the material can self-shape itself to the breaches and seal them off.

Nanolaminate armoring is precisely exactly what to the Citadel races what SmartSteel was to humans: a self-regenerating alloy. The alloy used in the armoring is a combination of ceramic and chrome-vanadium steel compacted with self-healing nanites via mass-effect fields, creating a dense, regenerating material, not unlike SmartSteel, that is capable of repairing itself when damaged. While not self-repairing to the extent of SmartSteel, nanolaminate plating is still a highly resilient material, and offers a decent improvement over traditional armor. It also provides better protection against energy weapons and EM-based weaponry, including the likes of directed-energy weapons.

Nanolaminate was first synthesized by batarians during their attempts at reverse-engineering Collector technology, and intercepted transmissions by STG, alongside research and insight into Prothean databanks, permitted the Citadel to develop their own versions of the material. However, while the batarian variant is made up of a mix of locally synthesized Collector material and carbon-steel, the Citadel variant is based off a totally different recipe, with specially compacted carbon-ceramic-chrome-vanadium steel composites laced with element zero and self-regenerating nanites.

Thanix: A specialist energy beam weapon capable of immense power and destruction at close-to-medium ranges, extremely devastating against armor, but proved less so against shielding. Thanix was developed primarily by turian engineers with limited salarian assistance, development of which was based off older, scrapped concepts for 'excavation beams' that involved superheating the material and then sucking the resulting lava up and into a holding container.

Thanix uses a superheated 'magnetohydrodynamic' liquid alloy of iron, uranium, and tungsten, held and shaped into a specially sharpened 'lance' by mass-effect fields, before being aimed at targets by mass-effect fields and fired, accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light, compressed to the point where it becomes a solid, as opposed to liquid. The resulting impacts can prove devastating against armor; smashing cleanly through hull, decks, plating and causing extremely brutal damage within the internal confines of any ship unlucky enough to be on the receiving end. It's effectiveness, however, as similarly to many other energy weapons, less compared to projectile armaments when dealing with shields, but are devastating nonetheless, if employed properly. Common practice would be to employ shield-piercing ammunition with the mass accelerators before switching to the Thanix guns at medium ranges after the shields were downed, to maximize their effectiveness.

Thanix cannons use the coils of a mass accelerator to both shape and fire their beams, as such, they are installed co-axially with the main guns in most typical shipboard installations, the main gun switching between firing modes depending on the target and range, similarly to human MACs and their energy projectors, which share the same barrel to conserve space and simplify production.

A guided-beam version of the weapon, the Thanix torpedo, is equipped on many ships of cruiser size and above as a supplement to the broadside mass accelerators, similarly to human plasma torpedoes, they are extremely devastating at close to medium range and are a brutal weapon to pack in broadside confrontations, however, torpedo bolts tend to travel much slower than beams, enabling for opponents at longer ranges to dodge them.

PBAC (Particle bEAm Cannon): Batarian equivalents to Thanix rely instead on Collector beam cannons as opposed to Thanix systems being developed from Prothean weaponry; they rely on compressed beams of high-energy protons accelerated similarly to near-lightspeed to deal devastating amount of damage against armor. Similar to the Thanix cannon, however, their effectiveness against shields are greatly reduced, although they remain potent weapons regardless.

PBAC fire impacting against armor brings about two forms of damage, as opposed to one for energy projectors or Thanix (thermal for energy projectors, with Thanix delivering brutal internal concussive damage), kinetic, similar to Thanix, and ionizing, as the beam annihilates armoring material at the subatomic level. The kinetic damage is dealt from the sheer impact force of the protons, and the ionizing damage is caused by the protons crashing into atoms and causing them to split, shattering atomic bonds and causing nuclear fission to go off at the point of impact, neutrons sent flying from the impacts only adding further to the chaos. High-energy radiation is emitted as a result, causing damage to sensitive electronics, incapacitating crew, and, in the case of the kinetic component, can cause severe internal damage, starting fires, destroying bulkheads, and filling the air with radiological waste, hampering damage control teams as they attempt to keep the disastrous damage from such an impact under control.

ITPD (Ion TorPeDo): The batarian equivalent to plasma torpedoes is not a guided version of their bigger beam weapons, but a totally different design relying on ionized-plasma bolts meant to cause double radiation and thermal damage to armor, both boiling through armor plating and irradiating it, similar to the way in which an X-ray laser can kill in the same manner, if not a bit weaker. They are fired from specialist double-rail launchers (humans sometimes dub them Wave-Motion Tuning Forks) mounted on the hull broadsides, similar to torpedo launchers, and are generally deployed in broadsides.

While not as powerful as their Thanix equivalents, they do their job extremely well at close-to-medium ranges and are a brutal weapon to have in broadside confrontations, similar to human plasma torpedoes. Like all beam weapons, and directed-energy weapons in general, they suffer from reduced effectiveness against shielding.

SAP (Shield-and-Armor-Piercing): Effectively, they are Chinese knockoffs of typical human ammunition. Err, Citadel. Or batarian.

The basics of a SAP round involves a shield-piercing ballistic cap and an internal explosive filler that detonates into a shaped-charge, creating a 'sharp' jet of super-hot plasma. The point is fairly simple and straightforwards: the ballistic cap penetrates the shielding, the internal explosive charge detonates, and the resulting plasma jets boils it's merry way through armor, hull, and decks, or in the case of smaller-scale applications, anything underneath the shielding. The resultant superheated gas will often cause extensive damage inside the affected compartment.

As extensive diagrams and explanations on human SAP ammunition can be found on the human Codex-equivalent, Wikipedia, this entry will only cover Citadel developments regarding this specialist ammunition.

The most common application for SAP ammunition is shipborne, where it is used often as the few opening volleys against hostiles before switching to Thanix or proton beams for close range combat: the galactic-standard SAP round has a self-sharpening nanolaminate penetrator cap and an internal detonation filler of element zero, which upon detonation releases a cone of mass-effect fields skewering this way and that in a fashion no different from a typical torpedo, mass-effect fields that generate tidal forces powerful enough to rip a ship apart.

MCTPD (MiCroTorPeDo): Humans have a fond love of mass-launching gigantic volleys of torpedoes, or 'missiles', as they call them, in any engagement, such attacks are often dubbed 'Macross Missile Massacres' by many. Rapier missile salvoes had completely overwhelmed guardian defenses during the Relay 314 Incident, and while a typical ship of the era can launch a dozen or so torpedoes in a single salvo, human ships are littered with vast arrays of pod-launchers dedicated soley for the job as opposed to launch tubes, firing small missiles that are quite weak, but make up for it in raw speed and numbers. The average turian cruiser of the period can launch eight torpedoes in a single volley. Human frigates can launch up to a thousand.

Microtorpedoes are effectively developed to solve that issue; smaller, scaled-down versions of much bigger torpedoes with less emphasis on payload and more on speed, meant to overwhelm enemy point-defenses and 'screen' for much larger munitions to follow, or simply be their own payload. They are also useful for engaging enemy fighters or bombers.

Like the much larger versions they are derived from, microtorpedoes are typically fired from pod-launchers or specialized torpedo tubes, and come in many variants. Some are simply much smaller and faster versions of their larger equivalents, while others focus more on payloads, launched in massive numbers at close-quarters for a devastating alpha blow on an undefended target. Some others have jamming warheads to prevent effective counter-missile fire, others still have submunitions that break apart and create dense 'flakfields' that can cover wide areas in skewering mass-effect fields that fighters have to go through, and there are many, many more.

MIRA (MultI Role integrated combAt): Such a technology has been in existence for millenia up to the Relay 314 Incident, but the network has seen extensive revamping, revision, and upgrades since the appearance of the humans and their AEGIS (Advanced Electronic Guidance, Integrated battle-networked System).

The most obvious changes observed were upgrades to the GUARDIAN point-defense laser networks, which have since been upgraded massively. In further addition to newer and better lasers with longer ranges and better cooling to sustain firing in combat, they have now been supplemented with additional rapid-fire mass accelerator 'autocannons' that could fire at up to 2,000rpm for a sustained burst at a target, firing specialist ammunition that, upon detonation, creates a dense cloud of skewering mass-effect fields that can shred apart any missile, torpedo, or small craft that can pose a threat to a ship. In further addition, microtorpedo launcher racks have been added, often lining the broadsides of ships, fired in ripple-volleys to target a wide range of targets, such as enemy small craft or munitions at close to medium ranges, or saturate a hostile's point-defense grid at standoff ranges to permit larger torpedoes to have a higher chance of hitting their target.

Electronic warfare has also seen a significant revamping and overhaul compared to before. Networked VIs have been made present on all ships, closely working in conjunction with each other, processing vast amounts of data at paces far faster than conventionally possible and permitting ships extremely good situational awareness, having reaction times and OODA envelopes comparable to even human or Geth ships, with their own AI-linked AEGIS. While offensive cyberwarfare capabilities remain limited compared to the likes of human or Geth ships, defensive cyberwarfare capabilities has become extremely cutting-edge in comparison, adapting to intrusions in real-time to defend the computer systems of Citadel warships against hacking attacks from even AI-equipped hostiles.

Jamming has also seen massive upgrades. Omnidirectional jammers remain largely the same, but they are also supplemented by additional 'beam jammers', in effect, large 'searchlights' that illuminate enemy forces in large concentrations of blinding radiation across multiple spectrums and frequencies, jamming communications and sensors, forcing enemies to resort to optical sights to sight and engage. 'Chaff' dispensers, launchers holding pods laden in element zero, can be launched in combat at the discretion of the commander, creating interference patterns on sensors that blot out fleets and render them incomprehensible blobs as opposed to individual ships.

Commanders may utilize them to mask their maneuvers from the enemy, launched at strategic locations by forward units to 'screen' the main battleline like a smokescreen, permitting them to strike from advantageous positions and catching the enemy by surprise. Light frigate and fighter formations may deploy them at close range to prevent effective return fire from shredding them while their launch their deadly torpedoes at close range, and ships in general can deploy them as last-resort countermeasures against persistent missiles attacking in swarms—decoying them away at the last second, allowing them to survive and fight another day.

Beam jammers are also in use on batarian and human warships.

Micro-FTL drives: Human carrier doctrine is effectively asari fleet doctrine, but with carrier-launched strikecraft.

The new element zero systems and newer miniaturization technologies made it possible to equip fighters with FTL drives, in effect making massed fighter attacks viable once again. Historically, fighter attacks would often prove suicidal, shipborne guardian lasers would maul any fighter formation well before they could hit home, reducing them at best to scouting and harassment duties, launched often against the vanguards of fleets, rather than the core.

They function vastly differently from how shipborne FTL drives work, however. Normal shipborne drives work by reducing the mass of a ship to a value significantly below zero, allowing for even the slightest of engine power settings to push the ship along at extreme velocities. This, however, suffers from problems twofold: static buildup, which can be a major problem in older ships, especially before the advent of the ODSY drive systems (which are too large and unwieldy to install in fighters), and from core cooldown; an FTL drive must be left to de-charge for a considerable amount of time before it can commence a jump again. Micro-FTL drives, however, work by 'jumping'—in effect, they encase the fighter in a mass-free 'corridor' in a fashion no different from that of a Mass Relay, except that the tunnel is not maintained between relays, but rather, one that is generated as the craft moves along, 'laying one's own road' as he moves along, to put it in a nutshell. Despite this, however, they are unsuited for any craft larger than two hundred meters, and must be 'spooled' up before jumping, and have limited ranges compared to ODSY systems found on much larger vessels.

Fighters typically 'double-spool' their drives to allow them to execute two jumps in rapid succession, one made forwards, a second in reverse, for one run towards a target, and a second directly away. Using precise jump coordinates relayed over from the carriers, fighter attacks now consist of swift strikes, jumping into within point-blank range of enemy ships and blinding them with jammers and chaff-drops, before releasing their payloads and jumping back again to rearm before enemy AA fire or the local CAP shoots them down—whoever manages to get at them first.

Optics: Er...

The nature of space battles in the modern era, namely, jammers, meant that it would be virtually impossible to properly acquire a firing solution by traditional means—fleets are now mere blobs on sensor screens, not even their own signature can be picked up. To get around this, the use of targeting optics have become a vital part of shipborne warfare, in effect a miniature version of the Kholas array. Using mass-effect fields to create a 'corridor' of sorts and then aiming a targeting optic through it as a telescope, such a system permits real-time monitoring of vast distances, even at ranges within hundreds to thousands of light years.

Humans have been utilizing such a technology for decades by the time of their introduction on the galactic stage, the Citadel races began to experiment with such technologies shortly afterwards, with the first models entering service within the span of three. While primitive, they do work, and can permit a fleet to fire a massive salvo from vast distances, despite heavy jamming, and still reliably hit a target.