Dis Lexics vault of Secrets
Ideas, plot bunnys that won't let go, possible future stories. feel free to pick up the stories if you like them.
And we're back with a Mass Effect, alternate humanity idea. The story actually branches off as early as the first Moon landing and will follow a completely different route. Also, there is no Eezo in Sol, the Protheans cleaned out Mars before they left and destroyed the Relay after they did in an attempt to protect Humanity. Enjoy!
Orion Arm Empire
1969. This year marked a great step forward for Mankind for it was the year that we first set foot on the soil of another celestial body. The entire world was on the edge of their seats as the landing craft touched down on the surface of the moon and the astronauts took their first steps on lunar soil. The mission got of to a good start, with the astronauts collecting samples and photographs which were beamed back to Earth and it seemed that everything would go according to plan. That is until one of the Astronauts stumbled upon something that would change the world forever.
It was as he was collecting another sample of Moonstone that it happened. The surface beneath his feet suddenly collapsed, sending him tumbling down into a rocky incline and into a cave beneath the moon's surface. Fortunately, the man was uninjured and quickly found his feet. What he saw when he did made him gape and get on the radio to his boss.
What the man found was a massive ruin of unknown origin. When the team examined the ruin, they discovered that it was a massive ship, nearly 2km in length and constructed from unknown alloys.
This discovery sent shockwaves around the world as it was indisputable proof that we were not alone in the Galaxy. Some attempted to dismiss it as a hoax, but the voices were uncertain and quickly faded. World leaders met and debates on how the technology should be used and shared raged for months and tensions increased, especially between America and Russia, leading to the latter declaring war on America with the launching of nuclear weapons at the American mainland.
The resulting war nearly tore the planet apart as the America and its allies retaliated with their own strikes, sparking WW3. Not a single country is spared from the nuclear flames, even those who attempted to remain neutral in the conflict. Countless lives are lost in the hellfire unleashed by the deadly bombs. The war rages on for the next 5 years before the Western Alliance, consisting of North America and Europe unveil their latest war machines, the Armored Tactical Units, or ATUs. They were huge mechas that wouldn't look out of place in an Anime, developed from similar units found on the wreck that had been dubbed, the Ark. Just one of these ATUs had enough power to destroy entire platoons of tanks and their ability to fly in space made it nearly impossible to predict where they would strike. Russia's allies quickly surrendered in the face of the overwhelming assaults made by the ATUs, leaving the country at the mercy of the WA. They surrender within a year. These ATUs would later become the backbone of Humanitys military in various forms, backed up by ships.
With the end of the war, the world began to focus on rebuilding, a tough job considering the fact that a large portion of the planet had been rendered uninhabitable by nuclear fallout. Fortunately, the technology from the Ark included devices designed for terraforming, including the neutralization of radiation. Within 5 years, most of the uninhabitable areas had been fixed, although the world still bore scars of the war.
With that over, study of the Ark began in earnest, resulting in a technological renaissance as the finest minds in the world went to work on the Ship. One of the first things discovered and implemented was the Terraforming technology, allowing humanity to turn the Moon into a habitable space, although it was mostly inhabited by scientists and engineers working on the Ark.
Following this, study of the ship explodes now the scientists can access it without spacesuits, leading to the development of hundreds of new technologies based on the Arks, leading to the colonization of Mars. Following this, Humanity began to focus their study on FTL, using the damaged engines of the Ark as a base. Early models of a Warp Drive were developed, good for short range jumps, which allowed Humanity to quickly traverse the solar system, allowing for easy travel and colonization of most of the planets.
The next few years saw humanity expanding out and terraforming Mars and Venus. During the terraforming of Mars, the workers in charge found ruins beneath the south pole of Mars which were quickly opened and the contents studied. The ruins were found to be from a different race to the Ark and were completely empty, much to the disappointment of the scientists who opened them.
These empty ruins were quickly forgotten though as humanity began to expand out of the Solar System, colonizing and terraforming as they went. Before long, Humanitys new empire expanded for nearly 100 light years in every direction. During this time, Humanity began to evolve, developing psychic powers. At first they were quite rear and minor, but before long children were being born with immensely powerful abilities. At first these people were ostracized, but as time went on the abilities became commonplace and they became an everyday part of life.
All was not peaceful within Humanity however as the outermost colonies began to become restless, wanting their independence from Earth. Unfortunately, as with any government, Humanitys Government had become content with their power and corruption was rampant. As such, the demands of independence were refused and the army deployed to crush any resistance. This sparked the first galactic wide conflict Humanity had ever fought as the Empire of Humanity tore itself apart with civil war. Eventually, two major powers emerged, the Empire, with Earth at its head, and the Republic, who made their home on the planet of Solarus, one of the older and more entrenched colonies The war raged on for ten years before an uneasy peace agreement was formed between the Empire and the Republic. By this time, Humanitys territory was split roughly in half, with a few independent worlds who belonged to neither, and both halves held a simmering resentment for the other. Decades past with this uneasy peace before the status quo was broken.
Over the centuries, the Empire had become cruel and tyrannical, enslaving their populations and forcing the lower classes to work in deplorable conditions. This lead to resentment and it eventually boiled over and lead to a huge revolt of slaves, aided by the lower classes and even parts of the Empires own military. The Republic also offered some aid by providing weapons, money and training, in secret of cause. The Empire was quickly overthrown and replaced by the Peoples Free Government. The Republic and the PFG quickly established diplomatic relations and achieved piece. Following this, it was decided that, although the Republic, PFG and the Independent Worlds all wished to remain there own state, some form of overarching government was needed. So the Senate was formed. It was comprised of representatives from the Republic, PFG and each one of the smaller states that existed and made their home on a massive, artificial planet built in the centre of Humanitys space. With this, Humanity decided as a whole to reset their calendar to look forwards to the future. So, the date was set to 1 After Senate, 6'000 years after the discovery of the Ark on Luna.
In addition to the new ruling body, the Alliance was formed to act as an independent military force to help police Humanitys territory and to ensure that the minor conflicts that occasionally popped up didn't overflow into the rest of Humans space.
The years that followed were relatively peaceful and productive for Humanity, although there was very little in the way of exploring going on. Humanity was happy with the size of their territory and, although there was some colonization going on, it was mostly on terraformed rocks that had been skipped over during the expansion and then ignored due to unstable relations and later war. Thats not to say that there was no exploration though and it was on one such exploration that Humanity found something new.
It resembled a massive tuning fork with huge, spinning rings that glowed with a dull, blue light. After some study, the eggheads concluded that it acted as a gate of sorts. This discovery sparked something that hadn't been seen in a very long time. The possibility of there being other intelligent life out there. after over 6000 years of space exploration, the only life Humanity had found was some Fauna and Flora, with nary a sign of animals more intelligent than the average parrot. As a result, it was concluded that whoever developed the Ark that had helped Humanity find its place among the stars, they were either extinct or a very long way away. However, the discovery of this gate suggested that there may infact be sentient life closer than they thought.
In response to this, the Alliance and Senate formed a new independent force to act as a guard from alien life, just in case. They were dubbed, Cerberus after the Guard Dog of the Underworld from ancient mythology. Its first leaders, husband and wife Eva and Jack Harper, were chosen due to their impressive service record and skills. Both were talented ATU pilots, considered to be among the best by their peers. Harpers was named Phantom and possessed incredibly powerful stealthing technology, holographic clones and a deadly Plasma sword that could cut through shields and metal with ease. With his cloak and clones active, he was impossible to find, earning him the monica, Illusive Man.
Eva on the other hand was a skilled sniper and her ATU possessed a massive plasma sniper that could blow a cruiser in half from the other side of the system, as well as independently guided drones that could rain cripperling plasma fire down on foes as Eva picked them off with her rifle.
The two heads of Cerberus were quick to recruit the best of the alliance into the organization, including the Telekinetic, Henry Lawson who used an ATUs that could be used to amplify his already formidable talent and crush ships, in addition to a set of Laser submachine guns, Richard Williams, whose ATU carried a variable armour of weapons, as was tradition for his family who had been ATU pilots for generations and Hannah Shepard, a skilled and talented soldier who used a tech based ATU to cripple her foes weapons, increase the efficiency of her allies, in addition to an extremely deadly set of las-cannons and rocket launchers.
This elite force was mostly made up of ATU users, simply because, even after centuries of ship development, the versatile mechs were still the most efficient weapon in Humanitys arsenal. They were usually too small quick to be hit by ship fire and the armour and shields of said ships usually crumpled pretty quickly to their weapons. The pilots were immensely skilled and each one designed their own ATU upon graduating from training, meaning that it was truly impossible to predict what a new ATU could do. Infact, the only real weakness of the Mechs was the fact it wasn't possible to mount a Warp Engine on them, making them reliant on ships for intersystem travel
This new force was quickly deployed to the Shanxi system where the strange Gate had been discovered and set up a base on one of the nearby platanoides, alongside several research vessels who swiftly went to work analyzing the structure. Before they could though, the Gate activated and a strange ship appeared.
And I'm going to end it there, I hope you liked the idea. A few points before I sign off:
First, the ATUs. Think your standard Anime mechas. Each one is unique in appearance and armaments, so its impossible to properly counter them without foreknowledge. As a result, they have become the main backbone of Humanitys forces. However, thats just against their own ships. The Citadel ships have more agility than Humanitys, which are mostly designed to provide covering fire for the Mechas.
Humanitys time in Space. I'm pushing back their timeline, so they've actually been in space for longer than the Asari, but due to the fact they never used Eezo, they aren't really limited by the Relays. They basically spread out and colonized an area without any Relays until they found the one at Shanxi.
I haven't a clue where anything is in relation to each other in the ME universe and I don't really care either. This is a work of fiction and I can move planets around if I like!
Cerberus. In this universe, Cerberus is basically the ones in charge of First Contact and keeping out hostiles. They have the best and brightest Pilots in there forces, including the Williams and the Shepherds.
Now, as always, feel free to adopt this if you want, but I reserve the right to do my own version. Please leave a review on the way out!