The basic idea idea is a fusion fic combining Mass Effect with Star Craft. Because of my tendency to procrastinate, a lot of thought has gone into this, and how the two settings could fit together. Right now, I'm looking for feedback on the combined setting, which I've summarized below. The plot I've conceived starts out following Mass Effect, goes off on its own after a little while.
- Setting Changes
— All faster than light travel makes use of Mass Effect technology.
— Because of numerous factors, Earth is located in an eezo-poor region of the galaxy, which is the reason why Brood War era human ships lacked shields; eezo was to scarce to spare for anything but FTL drives. In the eezo rich Korpalu sector, the Terran's poor knowledge of mass effect engineering inhibited the development of energy efficient kinetic barriers.
— Telepathy is power that biotics of certain races (Human, Asari, and Protoss) possess. In Asari and Protoss, all of whom possess biotics, telepathy is natural. In humans, it is the combined result of prenatal exposure to element zero and possessing a modified gene that was all but eliminated in the UPL's purge of Earth. Without cybernetic enhancements, the abilities of human biotics are generally limited to telepathy, with the exception of certain individuals.
— The Xel'naga, the race that created the Protoss and Zerg, are also credited with created the Mass relays, and built the ruins on Mars.
- History Changes
— Xel'naga ruins on Mars containing a large cache of element zero were discovered in 2212 during the midst of the UPL's "purification" of the human race, though the Charon mass relay was not discovered until years later.
— The Korpalu colony program was intended to reach an eezo rich world to start mining more of it, but due to a failure in the VI piloting the colony ships, it ended up turning into a disaster. Nearly all of the UPL's eezo was lost when the ships went off course, which crippled UPL space travel for more than a century.
— The UED was able to reach the Korpalu sector through a Mass Relay rather than advances in FTL travel.
— The UED won the Brood Wars, deposing and executing Emperor Mensk, capturing the eezo rich former Protoss homeworld of Aiur, and nearly eradicating the zerg. Officially the swarm was destroyed on Char, but a fairly large number of zerg, including the zerg queen of blades, were unaccounted for.
— The "First Contact War", which began in 2509 in this mixed verse much like it did in 2153 (52?) in Mass Effect (Turians attack humans opening a relay and follow them home to a colony) was a 12 year long conflict with a total body count of 12 billion, nearly all of which were civilians. This can be broken up into 7 billion casualties from the UED's vitrification of several Turian colonies, 3 billion human deaths inflicted by the UED itself to stop the spread of a Salarian bioweapon much like the genophage, and 2 billion miscellaneous civilian and military deaths.
— The war only ended because of a Protoss offensive against the UED on Aiur. The Protoss successfully destroyed the UED colony on the planet, cutting off the UED's main element zero supply, and making a loss through attrition inevitable if the war was fought to its brutal end. However, the UED still had the military power to avoid an outright surrender.
— The peace treaty signed with Citadel space put a cap on the number of new ships humanity could produce every year, an attempt to prevent the UED from gaining an overwhelming military advantage once they caught up to Citadel Space in Mass Effect technology, something Directorate leaders made clear would happen with the Council's blessings or not. Civil liberties in human space were expanded, though many of them, such as freedom of religion, which had no meaning outside of the fringe of human space, would not significantly impact life for citizens of the UED. As a concession to humanity, the UED was granted an embassy on the Citadel, something the Turians strongly opposed.
— Relations with the other races are almost universally bad for humanity. The turians, who lost more in the war then any other species, barely tolerate the UED. With the exception of diplomats, humans are not allowed on turian worlds under pain of death. Asari relations fare somewhat better, seeing the negotiation of a peace treaty in the wake of the largest galactic conflcit since the Rachni wars as a diplomatic triumph, despite the many accusations from other races of an "appeasement policy." Many human and terran political dissidents were granted asylum on the Citadel, including an aging Jim Raynor.
— The human-batarian conflict that occurred over Attican traverse colonization rights, much like the first contact war, was much bloodier than it was in Mass Effect. After the Blitz and Torfan, the UED launched an all out invasion of Batarian space. After several years of fighting and millions of batarian corpses later, the UED, satisfied that its claims to the traverse would be largely unopposed, and pulled out of batarian space.
This is a signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The basic idea idea is a fusion fic combining Mass Effect with Star Craft. Because of my tendency to procrastinate, a lot of thought has gone into this, and how the two settings could fit together. Right now, I'm looking for feedback on the combined setting, which I've summarized below. The plot I've conceived starts out following Mass Effect, goes off on its own after a little while.
- Setting Changes — All faster than light travel makes use of Mass Effect technology.
— Because of numerous factors, Earth is located in an eezo-poor region of the galaxy, which is the reason why Brood War era human ships lacked shields; eezo was to scarce to spare for anything but FTL drives. In the eezo rich Korpalu sector, the Terran's poor knowledge of mass effect engineering inhibited the development of energy efficient kinetic barriers.
— Telepathy is power that biotics of certain races (Human, Asari, and Protoss) possess. In Asari and Protoss, all of whom possess biotics, telepathy is natural. In humans, it is the combined result of prenatal exposure to element zero and possessing a modified gene that was all but eliminated in the UPL's purge of Earth. Without cybernetic enhancements, the abilities of human biotics are generally limited to telepathy, with the exception of certain individuals. — The Xel'naga, the race that created the Protoss and Zerg, are also credited with created the Mass relays, and built the ruins on Mars.
- History Changes
— Xel'naga ruins on Mars containing a large cache of element zero were discovered in 2212 during the midst of the UPL's "purification" of the human race, though the Charon mass relay was not discovered until years later.
— The Korpalu colony program was intended to reach an eezo rich world to start mining more of it, but due to a failure in the VI piloting the colony ships, it ended up turning into a disaster. Nearly all of the UPL's eezo was lost when the ships went off course, which crippled UPL space travel for more than a century.
— The UED was able to reach the Korpalu sector through a Mass Relay rather than advances in FTL travel.
— The UED won the Brood Wars, deposing and executing Emperor Mensk, capturing the eezo rich former Protoss homeworld of Aiur, and nearly eradicating the zerg. Officially the swarm was destroyed on Char, but a fairly large number of zerg, including the zerg queen of blades, were unaccounted for.
— The "First Contact War", which began in 2509 in this mixed verse much like it did in 2153 (52?) in Mass Effect (Turians attack humans opening a relay and follow them home to a colony) was a 12 year long conflict with a total body count of 12 billion, nearly all of which were civilians. This can be broken up into 7 billion casualties from the UED's vitrification of several Turian colonies, 3 billion human deaths inflicted by the UED itself to stop the spread of a Salarian bioweapon much like the genophage, and 2 billion miscellaneous civilian and military deaths.
— The war only ended because of a Protoss offensive against the UED on Aiur. The Protoss successfully destroyed the UED colony on the planet, cutting off the UED's main element zero supply, and making a loss through attrition inevitable if the war was fought to its brutal end. However, the UED still had the military power to avoid an outright surrender.
— The peace treaty signed with Citadel space put a cap on the number of new ships humanity could produce every year, an attempt to prevent the UED from gaining an overwhelming military advantage once they caught up to Citadel Space in Mass Effect technology, something Directorate leaders made clear would happen with the Council's blessings or not. Civil liberties in human space were expanded, though many of them, such as freedom of religion, which had no meaning outside of the fringe of human space, would not significantly impact life for citizens of the UED. As a concession to humanity, the UED was granted an embassy on the Citadel, something the Turians strongly opposed.
— Relations with the other races are almost universally bad for humanity. The turians, who lost more in the war then any other species, barely tolerate the UED. With the exception of diplomats, humans are not allowed on turian worlds under pain of death. Asari relations fare somewhat better, seeing the negotiation of a peace treaty in the wake of the largest galactic conflcit since the Rachni wars as a diplomatic triumph, despite the many accusations from other races of an "appeasement policy." Many human and terran political dissidents were granted asylum on the Citadel, including an aging Jim Raynor.
— The human-batarian conflict that occurred over Attican traverse colonization rights, much like the first contact war, was much bloodier than it was in Mass Effect. After the Blitz and Torfan, the UED launched an all out invasion of Batarian space. After several years of fighting and millions of batarian corpses later, the UED, satisfied that its claims to the traverse would be largely unopposed, and pulled out of batarian space.
This is a signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.