Fanfic / Starships Don't Go Indoors!

Starships Don't Go Indoors! by Myuu is a Fusion Fic between R-Type and Mass Effect.

After centuries of warfare, humans have finally defeated the Bydo Empire once and for all. But as they finally begin to heal, they receive a message from their one remaining automated exploration fleet from before the Bydo Wars. Is Humanity ready to go out into the Galaxy again? Are they ready to face aliens once more, even those who claim to NOT want them dead?

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Starships Don't Go Indoors! contains examples of:

• Absolute Xenophobe:
  • The boondoggle outright despise the idea that other life has moral value, and the Bydo Empire literally saw other life as spare parts for their vendetta against humanity.
  • Subverted with humanity - they're understandably paranoid and initially convinced that all alien life is fundamentally hostile to each in some way, due to the kikai and boondoggle, but even during the war they were willing to accept sapient bydogen lifeforms not under the control of the Empire as allies, and discovering the geth are willing to negotiate even a temporary truce in good faith nearly causes the entire species to break down in relief.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: After activating the Prothean Beacon, Arrowhead contacts and awakens Javik.
• Alternate History: The presence of the R-Type aliens have had major effects on the Citadel races.
  • The Krogan are the race third to join the Council, as the Krogan Rebellions were replaced by the Krogan schism thanks to the existence of the boondoggle. As a result, the Turians' position on the Council is nowhere near as strong.
  • The elcor have been slaughtered by the boondoggle. By the present time, they are extinct.
  • Thanks to the Krogan Councilor, the Quarians are never expelled from Citadel Space and their relations with the rest of the races are much more cordial.
  • It's implied that it was Bydo, not Geth, who destroyed the Quarians on Rannoch. Of course, nobody aside from Geth knows this.
  • The Batarian Hegemony’s continued slave raids are not tolerated leading them to be declared Persona Non Grata on both the Citadel and Omega.
  • The Citadel races have learned how to build secondary mass relays. Though it is a very expensive feat to construct.
  • Urdnot Wrex, due to having a species that appreciates his more long-term thought and relatively cautious style, was made the acting Overlord of the Krogan Empire, though not with enough of a majority to have the full powers of his office.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played With. On one hand, humans had several conflicts with AIs. On the other, humans could always find logic in why said conflicts happened, while the three alien species they encountered all started a war for reasons that are utterly alien and make no sense for humans.
  • The geth are largely the same as in canon, as the Morning War was mostly a case of quarians panicking, attacking the geth as a result of that panic and the geth fighting back in self-defense. Notably, many quarians who left the geth alone were allowed to remain on Rannoch (although it ultimately lead to them dying at the hands of the Bydo instead).
  • And then completely averted with Faust - a pre-Bydo War autonomous exploration fleet, whose AI is both loyal and happy to come back to humans, and is also welcomed back with open arms. Faust has since then became one of humanity's strongest allies.
• Alternate Self: In a way, the R-9Leo model is this to R-9A, as it would have taken R-9A's place as the core human fighter, but the timeline where it was developed was attacked by the Bydo, and everything in it was Ret-Gone.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Curiously, not bydogen lifeforms (though neither the true bydo nor humanity regard benign examples as actually bydo), but the boondoggle, who literally only communicate with other species to express their contempt for all other life and taunt them. The simple existence of the boondoggle has forced the Citadel into a permanent war stance, as they will destructively invade whenever they feel like it.
• Back from the Brink: By the time the Bydo War ended, humans were pushed back all the way to Earth, and even Earth was partially bombed out. It will take them decades, if not centuries, to return to how they were pre-war.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Arrowhead, Wrex and Garrus all arrive just in time to save Tali from batarians trying to silence her.
  • Javik introduces himself by taking control of the part of the bydo Black Bug Room born from his memories and, after giving a pep talk to help her out of her Heroic BSoD, forcefully separates it and Arrowhead's portion, allowing her and everyone else to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to the nightmare bydo.
• Black Bug Room: Exposure to the unintentional Mind Rape of the Prothean Beacon on Eden Prime causes enough of a Heroic BSoD in Arrowhead that part of her phobias become living bydo and draw her and everyone nearby into a Mental World that is a nightmare version of Eden Prime made from her and Javik's worst memories in an attempt to Mind Rape her into a bydo.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The kikai are a Proud Warrior Race who regularly invade planets...and if they surrender peacefully hold a parade and let them go on their way. They hope to be resisted in order to test themselves and improve - but they don't actually tell the planets they're threatening that it's all a sport to them and they are willing to negotiate to less destructive conflicts, which Earth did not know during first contact, leading the kikai nearly destroying humanity by accident.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Oburzn, the krogan Councilor, is as much of a Proud Warrior Race Guy and a smartass as the rest of his species, but he finds himself the Only Sane Man to the other three a lot, much to his amusement.
• Canon Character All Along: On the Eden Prime mission, it becomes clear that some members of Arrowhead's squadron are indeed Human characters from Mass Effect. Notably Leo, Sunday Strike, and Charon are Kaidan, Ashley, and Jenkins respectively.
• Civil War: Several examples. All of them show that it's a bad idea to have a civil war when there's a third side that is hostile to both:
  • The one between EAAF and Granzella Revolutionary Army, further complicated when Solar Liberation League split off from GRZA. Ultimately ended in the victory of SLL when combined EAAF / GRZA fleet got bydofied upon destruction of Amber Pupil, although their victory ended up being short-lived as the bydofied fleet returned, kicked the tar out of SLL, before committing Heroic Suicide by flying into the Sun.
  • The Krogan Schism, between more moderate krogans, and rebels who wanted to conquer everything. Ultimately as both sides were exhausted fighting, the boondoggle arrived and put an end to the war by destroying the rebels utterly.
• The Corruption: Downplayed and partly subverted with bydogen, the pseudo-matter the bydo are composed of. Exposure to the stuff gradually converts both other lifeforms and machines into bydogen-based life. It does not turn them into bydo by themselves, simply makes them far more vulnerable to Mind Rape that converts said lifeforms into bydo mindsets, but it's possible to resist that, and by themselves, bydogen lifeforms are just possibly-sapient animals. In fact, bydogen probably singlehandedly saved Earth's biosphere, as the feral lifeforms it created, like the Meltcrafts, replaced a bunch of ecological niches the Bydo Empire's invasion destroyed.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The kikai versus the humans - the humans at the time have barely ventured into space, while the kikai were a Proud Warrior Race with significantly better technology. Had it not been for Arrowhead travelling back in time, humanity would have been wiped out right then and there.
  • The earliest encounters with the boondoggle usually resulted in this for the other side. Elcor and Krogans are the most notable examples.
  • The Bydo Homecoming - the Misfit Fleet versus the full might of EAAF, including squadrons of R-99 Last Dancer. And the Misfit Fleet tore through them as if they were tissue paper.
  • Blue Light squadron versus the boondoggle fleet. Despite having less than ten fighters around, humans shred the boondoggle without breaking a sweat. Slightly downplayed as Concertmaster notes that the Boondoggle could have torn them apart in a Zerg Rush had they not taken the fight seriously from the start.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Giga Wave Cannon, or as it mostly known among masses, Final Wave Cannon. The most destructive Wave Cannon ever created by humanity, it is powerful enough to tear time itself apart. It is for this reason that the Wave Cannon's use was never authorized (that, and because in simulations, firing it nearly always resulted death of the ship's pilot). In fact, there was a grand total of one time it was fired in the real world (where Arrowhead fired it in the Bad Future killing herself in the process), where it oneshotted the Solar Pupil and several of his temporal clones.
• Elective Monarchy: The Krogan Empire selects its Overlords this way - the Clans each have a single vote as to which of their leaders will become the ultimate one in charge; a simple majority elects a candidate, but if no candidate receives a true majority, they become the "acting Overlord", who is far more legally constrained. Wrex is the current acting Overlord.
• Establishing Character Moment: Chapter "Engage" provides one for humanity when viewed by Citadel races - humans tried the peaceful approach with Blue Suns fleet (despite said fleet mistaking them for batarians), but when faced with boondoggle fleet, they drop that in favor of delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle with only half-a-dozen fighters. And then they return to being peaceful (and even a bit silly).
• Evil Overlord: Defied. The Overlord is the ruler of the Krogan Empire, but the position is an Elective Monarchy that gives an incredible amount of independence to the Clans, and it was made at least partly to avoid falling into the rampant pre-Schism expansionism. Wrex himself makes it even more averted, as he spends most of his time reining in his psychotic brother and dope-headbutting krogan who haven't gotten the memo about how short-term militarism is bad.
• Forever War: The Citadel races and their affiliates have been in a state war against the genocidal boondoggle for centuries.
• Great Offscreen War: Played With. By the time the Citadel races made contact with humanity, the war against the Bydo Empire had already ended, with the success of Operation Last Dance. Due to the Timey-Wimey Ball nature of the conflict, however, echoes of it still reverberate in the present.
• Gunship Rescue: Well, Arrowhead is not really a gunship, but her rescue of Tali fits.
• Henpecked Husband: The only thing Wrex truly fears is his wife.
  Wrex: My wife will be delighted by the tales of our adventures!... after I get out of hospital after she shot me for getting into so much trouble. Damn it.
• Horrifying the Horror: In chapter "---DATA EXPUNGED---", this is a Reaper's reaction to the Bydo.
  Reaper: ABOMINATION.
• Join or Die: The Bydo attempted to forcibly conscript the Geth into their war against the Humans. The Geth resisted violently for nearly the entire length of the war.
• Lifesaving Misfortune: The Morning War (that's one big misfortune) ends up as one for the quarians, as shortly after the quarians fled Rannoch, the planet was attacked by the Bydo and any quarians that stayed were slaughtered. So, while quarians no longer have a home, they are still alive since there's no chance they would be able to beat back Bydo.
• Madness Mantra:
  • Quoth the Arrowhead from the timeline where Solar Pupil successfully converted all of Sol, and possibly the galaxy, into bydogen life loyal to him, and he partly bydofied her mindset: "The Bydo are a man-made nightmare. And I cannot wake up. None of us can." The sentence was repeated in her voice recorder for three hours.
  • Another one in the Bydo Codex entry (which, curiously, predated Council learning anything about the Bydo): This is just a nightmare. I'm going to wake up at any moment. Please. I want to wake up.
• Monster Organ Trafficking: Among the feral bydo are flocks/squadrons of "wild" Meltcraft (Liquid metal mooks in the shape of the R-9A). The Space Force actually farms these for materials and to turn into "Metallic Dawn" fighters.
• The Mothership: Quarian "Scaffold" - an absolutely massive mobile space station/shipyard. While not yet finished enough to build new live ships (or dreadnoughts), it is finished enough to move through mass relays, service existing ships and build anything smaller than dreadnoughts. If finished, it would truly become a new home for quarians.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The bydo-corrupted Prothean Beacon draws Javik's sleeping mind into it, but he regains lucidity and splices off the portions of the Mental World born from him into his own private hell. When the humans unbury him, he turns out to be fine, implying he was able to destroy the living bydo incarnation of the worst day of his life without much difficulty or even bydogen corruption.
• Omnicidal Maniac:
  • The boondoggle put even the Reapers to shame in this department. It's been shown that they destroy everything that is not boondoggle, even if it is non-sentient.
  • Solar Pupil and the Bydo Empire were even worse - they wanted to torture everything to death first.
• Paradox Person: The R-9Leo model is this as a whole, as until recently nobody could tell where the plans for it came from (as there was no development data). It's ultimately revealed that the plans for it came from an alternate timeline (specifically one where R-Type Leo takes place), where an AI uprising lead to the R-9Leo being developed, which lead to an early development of Cyber Connector technology, Bits and Force Devices. The timeline was ultimately rendered Ret-Gone by the bydo, specifically to prevent the technology from being developed before the Bydo attacked in full. The plans for R-9Leo somehow stayed intact, but any information on the ship's development vanished - it's not until EAAF started researching wrecks of Arrhowhead's alternate selves that the ship's history was revealed.
• People Puppets: Boondoggle infest the bodies of the dead as ground troops, along with robots.
• Place Beyond Time: The Trans-Dimensional Fighter Graveyard - a massive Derelict Graveyard of R-Type fighters that appeared in place of Bydo Abyss after it was Ret-Gone. Many of the wrecks within the graveyard are actually Alternate Selves of Arrowhead, researching which allowed EAAF to finally start piecing together the timeline of the Bydo War.
• Predators Are Mean: Inverted. It's theorized that the boondoggle are such Absolute Xenophobes is because they are Plant Aliens, and thus instinctively see all other life as higher on the food chain than them (and for good measure, other plants as competing for territory). The other species known to be low on the food chain are the krogan, and realizing how despicable boondoggle are caused a majority of the race to have a Jerkass Realization about their behavior post Rachni War and agree to a treaty with the Citadel to enforce social measures to control their reproduction. (The krogan who didn't agree went to war with the loyalists, but were wiped out by the boondoggle after the loyalists destroyed their space fleet).
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Due to the existence of the boondoggle and their genocidal conflict with other races, the Citadel races believed that the protheans were driven to extinction in a war against the boondoggle.
• Running Gag: Arrowhead hates being called or described as fat. Neither does she like being use as transport.
• Shout-Out: The boondoggle are one to Image Fight, another Irem shmup series that has coincidentally been retconned as part of the same continuity as R-Type. It's unclear, however, if they are another offshoot of the bydo, or the alien race the bydo were originally engineered to fight in the first place.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Stayer and Sweet Luna, who manage to be all over each other even in their fighters.
• Time Master: Humans, bydo, kikai, and boondoggle all use temporal manipulation to achieve FTL...and a bunch of other stuff. See Timey-Wimey Ball.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Thanks to both Bydo and humans liberal application of Time Travel during the war, the timeline of the war is best described as a pretzel. It got so bad that the humans can't even tell whether the war lasted 20 or 200 years - observing from outside Geth space, it lasted about 300 years to the Citadel races. Arrowhead herself notes that she's been cloned temporally hundreds of times, and what finally stopped Solar Pupil from replacing himself with temporal clones of his own was her finally killing the proto-bydo in their original future...which destroyed only him and forces under his direct command, as a large minority of the Bydo Empire were inside Dimension 26, where time does not exist, and had enough warning to adapt to the paradox wave. And everyone remembers previous iterations of the timeline.
• Title Drop: After Arrowhead made her and humanity's impression to the Citadel Council, Valern exasperatedly conclude them to be a "highly illogical species. Starships don't go indoors!"
• Tricked Out Time: Generally how time travel works in this universe; the paradox wave created by altering past events is something everyone is aware of, so a lot of the time, creating anything close to a Stable Time Loop needs a lot of effort and even more luck. Arrowhead saving humanity from its disastrous first contact with the kikai is an example, and Operation Last Dance was effectively using one to destroy the proto-bydo, since that was the only way to truly kill Solar Pupil. As it turns out, Javik actually knows Arrowhead from a future time loop, which she quickly guesses.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Even while herds of Bydo roamed the Solar System, it only took a few moments of relative peace for ideological friction and civil disorder to absolutely shatter human civilization for a while.
• Worthy Opponent: The Kikai Machine Empire Super Civilization highly regard Arrowhead to be a worthy opponent and are all too happy to fight her.

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