The Battle of Shanxi. The first conflict between humans and turians. A war fought between the forces of the Global Defense Initiative and the Turian Hiearchy, a war that set the stage for GDI's future relations with the Citadel Council.

Outnumbered and outgunned, GDI troops dig in and pray their foxholes don't become their graves, continuing to resist the turian invaders, holding out for relief.

This is ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6965762/1/Eagles_Fall Eagle's Fall]]'', a loose prequel to the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSeries''[=/=]''Franchise/MassEffect'' fusion that is ''{{Fanfic/Renegade|Peptuck}}''.

Written by Char Nobyl, ''Eagle's Fall'' is a gripping account of the Battle of Shanxi, with GDI replacing the Systems Alliance.
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!!Examples of tropes in this fanfic:

* AmazonBrigade: Captain Pelayo's Zone Raiders, and an Asari commando squad.
* AscendedFanboy: Peptuck considers this canon in Renegade for what actually happened, so much so that there are deliberate {{Continuity Nod}}s to it in the later chapters, not to mention....
* AscendedExtra: Locke appears in Renegade, following a positive fan reaction.
* BadassArmy: GDI's troops are depicted as this; despite being formed from rag-tag groups of survivors, with a poor logistics supply, GDI resistance forces nonetheless make the invasion painful for the turians.
* BoringButPractical: GDI uses conventional treads on tanks, instead of [[HoverTank mass effect antigrav systems like Turian tanks]]. This allows them to carry bigger guns will less recoil and stability issues, and allocate more power to the railguns.
* BreakTheCutie: Alice, the little girl in Chapter 2 who watches a GDI sniper die before her. [[spoiler:By Chapter 7, the sheer fatigue of the war has left her drained of all emotion, which may have played a part in her mother committing suicide. And she doesn't even realise it.]]
* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler:Mammoth tank callsign "Inferno", which appears early on and then is sidelined due to the risk of orbital strikes; it returns to combat in the endgame.]]
* ChekhovsGunman: Lance Corporal Ulrich Kastner, shown in Chapter 2 as a close friend of both Specialist Reese and PFC (later Sergeant) Findlay, disappears without fanfare in the same chapter. [[spoiler:Chapter 8 reveals he was captured by Nod and transformed into one of the new Marked of Kane.]]
* CurbStompCushion: Despite holding out for months and inflicting massive casualties on the Turian ground forces, the Turian's ability to call in a KillSat strike with impunity meant there was never a chance for humanity to win.
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler:When the Turians are being utterly routed by the GDI reinforcement, Entra Shadoon realized that there is no hope of surviving and orders his remaining ships to fight to the very end. The post-war aftermath reveals that Shadoon's fleet are completely destroyed.]]
* DespairEventHorizon: General Williams surrenders after going through this.
* DoNotGoGentle: Aware that his fleet is doomed and outgunned, Entra order what remain of his forces to go down fighting against the GDI.
* DramaticIrony: The Turian's are operating under the assumption that Shanxi is humanity's homeworld and that the forces they're fighting represent the entirety of the human army/armada. [[spoiler: [[MassOhCrap The reinforcements from Sol come as a nasty shock.]]]]
* EarlyBirdCameo: [[spoiler:Aleena, Wasea and Zaeed Messani.]]
* EyeScream: [[spoiler:Locke removes an eye from a Nod scientist, for both torture and because there's a camera implant recording everything she sees.]]
** Zone Raider sonic blasters usually burst eyes at close range.
* GambitPileup: A lot, but most particularly [[spoiler:with Nod black ops types, who are observing the conflict and taking notes.]]
* HopeSpot: A major turian attack on one of GDI's key outposts is repulsed, and the GDI commander begins to hope that they can turn things around. [[spoiler:He and the outpost are destroyed in an orbital strike, which causes General Williams to order the cease fire.]]
* KillSat: Pretty much the only reason the Turians were able to make ANY forward progress planetside was due to their capacity (and ruthlessness) for utterly abusing orbital strikes. (To be fair, it was practically the only way to disable, let alone destroy, the "house-sized masses of fuck you" that are GDI tanks.)
* MoreDakka: The Grinder .50cal machinegun, which has finally replaced the old M2 HMG. It's powerful enough that it can kill a turian light tank.
* OhCrap: Locke tends to invoke this in people.
** The Turians reaction to the revelation that A) Shanxi was just a colony, not a homeworld, and that B) humanity's actual fleet has Dreadnoughts.
* OutsideContextProblem: The Asari commando squad represent the first time humanity has encountered [[MindOverMatter biotics.]] Not to mention their surprise at learning they're fighting more than one alien species. [[spoiler: Doesn't stop Locke from killing one of them in hand to hand combat though.]]
* [[spoiler:ScrewDestiny]]: [[spoiler:A Nod commando team engages Locke, using probability calculator augmentations to "see" into the future. Except that Locke is so badass, he lives when he's supposed to die.]]
* ShoutOut: Quite a few:
** [[VideoGame/ArmyOfTwo Sergeants Salem and Rios]], who continue to be bros.
** [[VideoGame/StarCraft Tychus Findley]] is a Zone Trooper.
** [[VideoGame/ModernWarfare Captain Pelayo]] commands a force of Zone Raiders.
*** There's also an Orca pilot who goes down while providing CAS; Pelayo and her Zone Raiders rescue him, in a callback to when her original version was rescued.
** One of the turian commanders is named [[VideoGame/StarCraft Artanis]].
** Don't forget the [[Fanfic/DoomRepercussionsOfEvil Colonel named Joson]].
** The [[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon MOD-3 Rocket Launcher]] and [[VideoGame/GearsOfWar Grinder]] machinegun.
** [[Franchise/StarWars Rogue Squadron]] is apparently active for a fair bit of the invasion.
* TankGoodness: GDI continues to use Mammoth tanks. It's also deconstructed somewhat: Mammoths outgun and outmass turian tanks, but are large enough to be easily targeted for orbital strikes. Thus, they are sidelined for all but the beginning and end of the story.
* TimeToStepUpCommander: ''All'' of the senior officers of Frank Company were little more than Sergeants or even Privates. Phillip Dante steps up the most, as he goes from Staff Sergeant to acting Captain because ''every other officer'' in his company had died in the initial bombardment by the turians.
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