Fanfic / Mythos Effect

The age of the Citadel has ended. The time of the Strange Aeons has begun.

Mythos Effect is a Crossover Fanfic between Mass Effect and CthulhuTech.

In the year 2157, more than half of a century since the end of humanity's survival against the Great Old Ones and the Migou in the Aeon War, the New Earth Federation discover a Mass Relay near the colony of Shanxi. This soon led to humanity's first conflict with the Turian Hierarchy and unleashing their arcanotech might, and other unspeakable horrors, upon the galaxy.

SpaceBattles.com discussion thread here.

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Examples of tropes in this fanfic:

• 0% Approval Rating: Councilor Sparatus has quickly become this to not just humanity, but to the majority of Citadel space due to his being more or less responsible for the war lasting as long as it has with his Fantastically Racist Cultural Posturing. Even many turians in the Hierarchy have come to despise Sparatus for condemning their race to a war that has cost them so much. After being captured and taken to a POW camp, Adrien is warned that expressing any support of Sparatus is a really good way to catch a beating. When his idea of having a captured human ship towed to Menae ends up causing the greatest clusterfuck they could face, absolutely no one comes to his defense and Draxon reads him the riot act before ordering his imprisonment.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated:
  • After navigating the utter mess that is arcanotech, human scientists are quite grateful to realize Turian and Element Zero tech is so much easier to understand and apply.
  • Since there has been no trade with humanity, any human product is sold at exorbitant prices. A sleazy Quarian named Nator is quick to try to take advantage of this. At an auction on Illium, a random assortment of ordinary junk (spare uniforms, a survival bag, a knife, etc) sells for so much that the Quarians' cut is two hundred fifty million credits. Later, Nator manages to sell a large amount of human food to a batarian restaurant-franchise owner for two million credits.
• All for Nothing: Adrien's incredibly risky plan of having an entire army cross a two-mile wide river in the dead of the night to reach friendly lines becomes this when not only does the Federation catch them, the general in charge of Digeris surrendered the planet just before the army did the deed.
• All There in the Manual: Almost every chapter has a Codex entry at the end.
• Alternate Universe: In that the Systems Alliance has been replaced with the New Earth Federation, and all the backstory that comes with it. Things just snowball from there.
• An Arm and a Leg: Saren has his arm bitten off during his first deployment.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: None of the bidders at an Illium auction are have a net worth of less than ten billion credits. Some of the Asari bidders are said to be trillionaires. When asked how that's possible, Nator says they're the Asari version of Old Money, meaning their wealth goes back several thousand years.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: The Citadel races having a hard time believing about magic, Old Ones, and Eldritch Abominations. Sparatus outright accuses the humans of making them up in an attempt at intimidation.
• Armchair Military: Discussed. Desolas Arterius mutters that Last Stands always look admirable to those who don't have to carry them out. Assumptions like those locked the Turians in a dangerous position with no way of striking back while steadily losing after a promising start.
• Artistic License – Economics and Artistic License – Law: In-universe. The war is going so utterly awfully for the Turians and they are so disinterested and disconnected from the actual process of generating wealth, plus the Council's decision to cancel all trade with them, they've come with increasingly ridiculous and exploitative forms of taxation. Currently, the last series of amendments imposes new taxes, forces the Turian client states to buy enormous amounts from Turian worlds (with added tax), and cancels all duties on Client products.
• Artistic License – Physics: During the first fight between the New Earth Federation's and the Turian Hierarchy's fleets, the NEF use an antimatter bomb on the Turians, who state they have not detected any radiation spikes. However, when antimatter interacts with matter, the resulting destruction would have created a radiation spike in the gamma spectrum.
• Asshole Victim: Malgus, a Turian soldier and later prisoner of war, is executed for rape and attempted murder. Absolutely no one, including his commanding officers, has any sympathy for him, with most saying it was about time someone put him down.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: What the Turian Hierarchy is getting into with the New Earth Federation.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The Awesome Aussie human Captain that Quentius interrogates to get some information of what might have happened in the abandoned human ship is capable of determining that Quentius is a bigwig just by looking at how he carries himself around, and that the only reason Quentius would bring up monsters and magic is because something really bad has either happened or is about to.
• Batman Gambit: The Federation keeps their Turian POWs in very good camps for Slave to PR reasons and because they know one of the POW will eventually offer to convince the Turians besieged in several places to drop their guns and walk away.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Turian soldiers of both genders tend to be heavily scarred in the war against the New Earth Federation. One lieutenant is noted as looking "like his head was cut into a dozen pieces then put back together by a drunken Vorcha" while his female partner is missing a mandible, leaving the teeth on the right side of her mouth exposed.
• Body Horror: The victims of the Bloodgod Tager wound up twisted in such a manner, such as limbs that curve in the exact opposite direction that they're supposed to bend.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The Volus aren't soldiers or scientists or diplomats like the Turians, Salarians, and Asari respectively, but they did functionally create the galactic economy including the credit. That they didn't receive a council seat for it chafes quite a few of them. Torbel and Tevos are depressingly aware that next time, they simply will not have the political chips to deny them, and in fact it's quite possible they will be given the seat vacated by the Turians.
  • Humans love to use dedicated artillery bombardments, often lasting a couple days. While they rarely cause significant enemy casualties, they keep the enemy from being able to do anything while the humans move their forces into position and help destroy the surroundings to make sure the enemy can't use them to their advantage.
• Breakout Character: Much to the author's surprise, Nator. Readers cite his charm and his "second-hand car seller" attitude as his best points.
• Breather Episode: The war between the Turians and the NEF is occasionally broken up by chapters focusing on the Citadel races, such as the Quarians seeking a trade agreement with the Federation or the Volus planning on how to end their status as a client race to the Turians.
• Car Fu: Julek rams a powerful Nephilim away from Adrien.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Quentius tried to warn the Hierarchy that it is a VERY bad idea to declare war on humanity.
  • The captain of the Turian merchant ship that found the human ship warned the Navy about what was going on and was ignored. This causes them to unwittingly unleash a Mythos horror (something they are very much not prepared to deal with) on Menae, one of Palaven's moons.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The fate of many of the Turian attackers, bent out of shape, Eaten Alive, Mind Raped, and plenty more.
• Colonel Badass: Colonel Tarkin, or as the Turians would call him, Colonel Steel-Hide.
• Combat Pragmatist: Humanity as a whole. The Aeon War kind of turned the concept of overkill into a poor excuse for a joke.
• Comically Small Bribe: Zig-zagged. When the humans receive the first offer of ten billion credits as part of the peace settlement, they think it's a bit on the low end but fairly reasonable. Then they flip to page two; the offered settlement is contingent on the destruction of all arcanotechnology and complete change to Element Zero-based technologies (which amounts to at the very least full decommission of the entire Human military machine, and quite likely a complete implosion of Earth's economy). This quite unsurprisingly insults Nazzadi and Human alike, and Sparatus' Cultural Posturing all but ensures war will explode.
• Cosmic Horror Story: The Turians were expecting Humanity to be primitive savages. They expected wrong.
• Cultural Posturing: How the Turians see themselves, with a dash of the alien equivalent of White Man's Burden. Sparatus, for instance, rebuffs any attempts at invoking authority by referring to any human as "human" instead of using any actual titles.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Shanxi for the Turians. It had to be done extremely carefully, but the end result was still a massacre.
  • In the aftermath of Shanxi, news reports say the Hierarchy is more or less receiving a beating from the Federation. And to their horror, it's still whitewashing; despite not making any significant advances beyond Digeris, the NEF is in a vastly superior position to the Hierarchy (they know exactly where to hit and their independence from Mass Relays makes them impossible to find) and has successfully forced the Turians into a bloody stalemate they can't hold on forever with a failing economy and grievous, mounting losses. The overly standardized and extremely well-known Turian strategies are worse than useless against NEF forces and at best serve only to bleed the Turians faster.
• Deconstruction Fic: The story deconstructs the Turians status as the military might of the galaxy. Every Turian serves in the military, they rigidly adhere to established military doctrine, and they do all the fighting while the asari fund them and the salarians provide intel and scientific innovations. Thousands of years of this set-up has rendered the Turians as a species very violent and warlike. After the attempt from the asari to fix things falls through, the turians prove incapable of negotiating by themselves. The turians also refuse to believe they can lose a war while not understanding how to run a wartime economy, so they look to be heading towards massive losses thanks to losing against the humans and their own economy folding.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • For the Asari a Meld has two purposes; the first is reproduction, and the second is a way to establish trust between two parties by allowing them to truly understand one another. For the New Earth Federation, it's equivalent to Mind Rape. The Asari ambassador is absolutely horrified to learn this both due to the fear her attempt at Melding with an NEF ambassador may have doomed her species to a war they probably can't win, and because her well-intentioned attempt to stop a war using what she believed to be the most effective means available actually resulted in her committing what the NEF considers to be one of the most heinously violating acts imaginable.
  • For the Turians, Just Following Orders is a valid reason for actions they know to be wrong, whereas humans haven't accepted such an excuse for centuries, citing that it's a soldier's duty to disobey illegal/immoral orders. Likewise, humans value outside the box thinking while Turians regard unorthodox tactics as a disgrace, regardless of how successful they are. Chapter 18 establishes that disobeying a direct order is one of the highest offenses in the Turian military and enough to warrant a field execution.
  • A sidestory featuring the Batarians shows how casually they speak of slavery. For them, it really is part of their culture and is talked about as openly as any other economic matter.
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • West. He conducts his autopsy of a Turian with a song in his lips, bouncing ideas on how to worsen the effects of the neurotoxins used against them.
  • Julek, a Turian veteran in the war against the NEF is repeatedly noted to talk like he stopped over at a friend's for a chat, rather than in the middle of a war zone with his forces getting butchered.
• Dramatic Irony: The Volus ambassador manages to meet with Nator to arrange contacting the Federation, as he hopes their support will help in the Volus achieving independence, is leaving happy that he managed to do it... and he promptly gets a call from a Primarch, begging him to get in touch with the Federation so they can help stop the disaster that's going through Menae.
• The Dreaded: Engels for the Turians once the war starts. Veterans who've fought the NEF break down in tears, whimpering, and muttered prayers just from knowing one is nearby.
• Driven to Madness:
  • The Turians think we're insane for fostering mass use of technology proven to induce eventual madness in both the developer and the user.
  • This is also the fate for those Turians who manage to survive encounters with demons or fighting against the many creatures the Federation can deploy against them.
• Driven to Suicide: Admiral Gallus, after his rash actions cause his fleet to be curbstomped.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Councilors Torbel and Tevos take to doing this as the Turians' war with the NEF drags on, negatively affecting the rest of Council space with nothing they can do about it.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: The Volus heavily dislike how the Asari and Salarians completely ignored the great effort they made to build the entire galactic economy, and are furious for how the Turians take them for granted. Worse, the latest amendments to the Client Pacts all but reduces all Turian client states to mere moneymaking machines for the increasingly failing Turian economy and army.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: After building the galactic economy, including creating the standardized "credit" currency, the Volus requested a seat on the Citadel Council. The Asari and Salarians denied them, stating that one must "perform a great service to the Citadel to earn a seat". This is especially noteworthy as the Volus were the third race to reach the Citadel, making the Council relatively recent and meaning it hadn't gained a single new member since its formation. Torbel and Tevos eventually privately admit their banking services more than fill the quota and are likely to ensure they will be made Council members the next time they ask.
• Eaten Alive: The final fate of Desolas Arterius. Several others meet similar fates against the Nephilim and Engels.
• Eldritch Abomination: Heaps, both against humanity and from them. The Salarians are at a loss as to how Engels even exist.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: The NEF forces make a point of treating their prisoners of war well, including healing any injuries they have when they're captured, because they're a Slave to PR and want to maintain a "good guy image" about how they're just defending themselves against Turian aggression. This also includes a massive propaganda campaign, that has been insanely successful partly because the Turians are so hidebound they don't bother to hide the rationale behind their actions, making them incredibly vulnerable to smear campaigns.
• Evil, Inc.: The Chrysalis Corporation, which had been run by Nyarlathotep's avatar.
• Famed In-Story: Colonel Tarkin is considered a legend a couple years into the war, due to being one of the only surviving (and sane) Turians from the start of the conflict.
• The Famine: The Turian garrison defending Coryza takes a major blow when NEF forces succeed in destroying their food supplies, and their quartermaster imposes a rigid rationing to make the remaining food last for a month. However, his idea of "rationing" is more like "reducing meals to the absolute bare minimum to stop anyone from dying". Adrien describes the situation as torture, and already one of the survivors has preferred to kill himself via Suicide by Cop rather than give the NEF the satisfaction of killing him.
• Fatal Flaw: For the Turians, Pride. They can't accept that their initial attack on the New Earth Federation was illegal and immoral, and that they might not be the strongest military around anymore. Case in point, Desolas Arterius is held in contempt for surrendering to the NEF while the latter outnumbered and outgunned his forces along with having complete aerial and orbital superiority, plus being directly told by the sole remaining Navy officer that a refusal to surrender would be tantamount to a declaration of total war.
• The Federation: New Earth Federation.
• Feed It a Bomb: Tarkin attempts it with an Engel trying to eat him. It is successful, if not quite as expected. Even though the Engel itself is effectively unharmed, it is enough to take out the pilot, which means that the creature goes berserk, in this case against allies, causing a lot of damage by the time the commander activates the external overrides.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Adrien Victus got stuck as a lieutenant for over a decade despite an impressive service record due to being "too unorthodox".
• Foreshadowing:
  • General Orinia is the only Turian commander on Digeris who doesn't lambast General Desolas Arterius for surrendering to the NEF on Shanxi. Whereas all the others insist he should have fought to the last man, she admits he did what was best and instead asks for tactical advice. She later surrenders the planet to the NEF after the situation becomes hopeless.
  • After being taken prisoner, Adrien is released remarkably easy with no assurances he'll follow through on his promise to get the rest of the Turians in Carista to surrender. This turns out to be because not only is their only possible escape route being watched as well, but the Turian general in charge of Digeris is already planning on surrendering the entire planet.
• General Failure: Admiral Gallus' reasons for invading Shanxi so that the Turians can gain humanity's non-Element Zero technology, which he deemed as a potential threat to the Citadel. The rest of the Turian Hierarchy soon follow the same rationale along with seeking revenge over their defeat at Shanxi, and horror at arcanotech.
• Gilded Cage: The human's prison camps are remarkably plush. The barracks are clean, comfortable, and well maintained, the food is plentiful, and the guards essentially leave the prisoners to their own devices as long as they aren't causing trouble. The worst complaint Adrien has about the place is that the wake-up call music is annoying.
  Calo: "Everyone thinks the prison camps to be hellholes of mud and rickety shacks where the humans prowl around, using half-starved Turians as target practice when they first arrive. As you can see, none of that's true. No torture chambers, no mass executions, or anything like that."
• Give Me A Gun: Saren, immediately after waking up from the pain of an arm amputation. However, with his wounds, the war's over for him.
• Godzilla Threshold: After something gets loose on Palaven's moon from the NEF ship they captured, Quentius decides they absolutely need the expertise of the NEF. Draxon agrees when he learns of it, outright ordering Quentius to beg, bribe, and promise anything he has to in order to obtain their aid. It gets even worse next chapter, when the Volus ambassador is given official carte blanche by the Palaven Primarch to promise anything the NEF wants, up to and including an unspoken agreement to unconditional surrender.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Quentius meets with Primarch Daxon and shows him videos of what humanity can do in an attempt to convince him that humanity is best left alone. Daxon is instead horrified and approves an addendum to the peace treaty that would force humanity to immediately switch to an eezo-based economy and abandon all arcanotechnology. As a double case, it is revealed later the addendum was intentionally made unacceptable for humanity so that the Turians could conquer them and loot their tech... the rest of the page should give one an idea about how well that part went.
• Government Conspiracy: One forms among the upper echelons of the Volus leadership to find a way to pressure the Turians into granting them independence.
• Groin Attack: During the Tagers' infiltration of the Resolute Spirit, one of the Turians shoots a Tager in the groin. The only reactions are incredulity and then unbridled rage.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Subverted. While a POW, Adrien is shocked to see the gate left wide open during a delivery and no guards nearby. Trying to approach it teaches him there's a ward on the gate to inspire mind numbing terror in any Turian who gets too close to it.
• Had to Be Sharp: Having come off multiple wars with Eldritch Abominations and Starfish Aliens while using technology that can drive them insane, humans became far deadlier than anyone in the Citadel expected.
• Healthcare Motivation: The Volus need Primarch support to break off from the Hierarchy. As of Chapter 24, they got two: one supports them due to his daughter requiring expensive treatments for Corpalis syndrome, and the Volus are footing the bill (the other guy is a more straightforward case of Every Man Has His Price).
• He Who Fights Monsters: Downplayed, as they are still substantially more compassionate and sympathetic than the species who drove them to this, but humanity has become to the Citadel races as the Migou were to them - a Higher-Tech Species with Magitek that seems unstoppable.
• Hidden Depths: According to a canon sidestory, Nator donates roughly ninety percent of his earnings to the Quarian fleet, which is especially notable as, given he takes a percentage from everyone's deals, he earns far more than any other Quarian off their dealings with the NEF.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: The Migou were perfectly capable of wiping out humanity at any time, but refused to do so for years because they wanted to enslave them. Once the war becomes too costly, the Migou decide to simply destroy Earth entirely, only for Hastur's psychic scream to wipe them out.
• Honest John's Dealership: The Quarian Nator is this per Word of God.
• Honesty Is the Best Policy: The Turians avert this. A far-right group presents a proposal to increase the already intolerable levels of pressure on the Turian client states to truly draconian levels; the proposal was tossed into the garbage, but the group immediately launched an Extranet campaign, painting themselves as the only reasonable voice to win the war. The Primarchs covered the whole thing up, but the Turian sent to oversee negotiations with the Volus confesses, hoping to invoke the trope. Instead, the cover-up works as the straw that breaks the camel's back and prompts the Volus ambassador to throw his support to a cabal angling to sever the dependence between Turian and Volus.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Every general but one gave Desolas Arterius grief for surrendering to the humans, calling him a disgrace to his rank even though he had been surrounded, outgunned, outnumbered, and facing an enemy with total aerial and orbital superiority. Desolas's response is that a Last Stand only looks impressive when you're not participating in it.
  • Ferox insists in ignoring Adrien's attempts to come up with a plan to escape the siege the NEF's been forcing their group and insists on taking the fight to the humans, even though Adrien points out that if they did, they'd become artillery fodder and a humiliating footnote at best. Ferox doubles down, fervently invoking their ancestors and how their tactics and protocol are absolute, and Julek has to brutally confront him to make him back down.
  • Quentius hopes to invoke this later on: he hopes to shame the other Primarchs into stopping the reverse-engineering of the abandoned human ship by pointing it would be reckless without proper investigation, while one of his fellow-minded Primarchs proposes to request a ceasefire on the grounds that it would allow the Hierarchy to regroup and recover from the losses.
• Hope Spot: Several.
  • The Asari send a Matriarch to negotiate and hopefully defuse the situation. She manages to FUBAR the mission when she attempts a melding on a race scarred by mind-raping Eldritch Abominations, leaving the Turians with the responsibility of drafting a peace settlement.
  • While it starts off well, acknowledging they jumped the gun and that they have to pay reparations, they get stuck when discussing arcanotech, Engels and energy weapons. Quentius shows a video of the events at Shanxi to the leading Primarch, hoping to convince him Earth is best left in peace. This has the exact opposite effect when the Primarch is so disgusted at arcanotech he presses for treaty clauses involving, in a nutshell, the defanging of Mankind's war machine and joining the Council as an associate race. This insults the humans beyond the point of appeasability and starts the war.
  • The fall of Digeris gave Primarch Quentius the hope that maybe he could finally get through all other Primarchs' thick skulls that the war against the NEF was a mistake, and push for a peace treaty that could actually be accepted. Then Sparatus arrived and revealed that a human ship had been found intact, and that it is being towed to Menae for reverse-engineering, giving the warhawks an edge.
    • Quentius hopes he can convince the Primarchs to stop or delay the attempt at reverse-engineering the ship, while one of his partners suggests a ceasefire deal that could eventually lead to actual peace. The research team enters the ship and unseals the room that contained the creature that murdered the crew, allowing it to prowl Menae.
• Humans Advance Swiftly: Due to the Migou's technology being largely intact after they were slaughtered, in less than two centuries, the New Earth Federation has gone from a planet-bound species to being able to handily beat an alien race that has been fighting for thousands of years.
• Humans Are Warriors: Justified - after nearly a century of conflict against aliens, cults, and cosmic horrors, the Turians really aren't as scary as they think.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: Inverted and discussed. When an Eldritch Society agent scours a Turian soldier's mind, he's a bit surprised to find very familiar drives and emotions.
• Humongous Mecha: The Engels.
• Hypocritical Humour: A female troop commander complains that, when men of different corps meet, all they do is to have "dick-measuring contests". One of the men under her command points out that she was comparing bust sizes with a Nazzadi woman a few weeks ago.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: By the time Chapter 26 starts, Torbel and Tevos start spending more than a little time with glasses in their hands.
• Idiot Ball: Alayah's idea of starting the Citadel-human negotiations with a mind meld instead of just using words only had her accused of Mind Rape and an act of sabotage, and almost brought war between humanity and the Citadel. She justifiably receives a verbal reprimand by Tevos herself.
• In Spite of a Nail: The war against the Turians is still called the First Contact War even though humanity has already fought another alien race (the Migou).
• Interservice Rivalry: While mostly friendly, the ground soldiers and mecha pilots still rag on each other nigh constantly. (i.e. "Like the LZ we cleared of hostiles for you?" "Must have been scary with only your two-story armored mecha to protect you.")
• Irony: Lampshaded by Captain Jorus who notes that, for all their claims of trying to prevent another Rachni War, the Turian Hierarchy is doing a good job of starting one.
• It's All My Fault: After the fall of Digeris, Primarch Daxon assumes most of the blame for the mess that has been the war with the Federation, because he was the one that approved the terms that ensured war would happen, even if he could have offloaded most of that in turn to the warhawks that pressed for those terms to start with.
• Joke and Receive: When Jorus Irion visits Primarch Quentius to warn him about humans, the Primarch jokes that humans also have demons ready to be unleashed on them - and becomes shocked when Jorus confirms that humans have demons under their control.
• Just Following Orders: Essentially the reason Jorus gives for why he helped his superior officer attack Shanxi. The humans present make their disdain for this kind of thinking very clear.
• Klingon Scientists Get No Respect:
  • The Turians are looking down on the Volus, despite them being vital to Hierarchy economy, and deny promotions to any officer who can think for himself instead of blindly following the centuries old military dogmas. Both are coming to bite them hard in the war.
  • In an inversion, the Volus ambassador thinks Volus diplomats get too much respect, being outraged that his people's first dreadnought is being named not after a great leader or the scientist who developed FTL but after the diplomat who secured their status as a client race to the Turians.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: General Orinia, the Turian officer in command of forces on Digeris, ultimately decides to surrender the planet when she finally accepts that fighting the Federation is hopeless.
• Laugh Themselves Sick: Captain Cormac Tyson breaks down laughing, even tearing up, when Quentius asks if the Turians would stand a chance against the sort of beings humanity has been fighting for decades.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Salarian councilor Torbel thought of humanity's history and the Aeon War as something written out of someone's idea for a Sci-Fi roleplaying game.
• Leonine Contract: The Volus ambassador feels this way about his people dealings the Turians. The Volus not only supply the Turians with materials and money, but also basically created their entire economy. What the Volus get in return is being forced to go to war against the NEF alongside the Turians.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Lux, a Turian lieutenant, lost his arm after a building collapsed on him and left him pinned under the rubble. He had to cut his own arm off in order to escape.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Nator's plan to engage in trade with the NEF despite the Citadel's current trade embargo hinges on the fact that the Quarians' expulsion from the Citadel means they're not bound by that. Likewise, they're able to auction off their merchandise at Illium due to it technically not part of the Citadel.
• Luxury Prison Suite: The humans keep Turian prisoners in fairly good conditions, but compared to how the Turians' own camps are faring, the human prisons are magnificent due to the availability of food, entertainment, and more.
• Mad Scientist: Herbert West, as per canon. Except here, he's actually encouraged to do so by the NEF government.
• Magic Versus Science: Humanity didn't fight. They just married both through arcanotech, which might melt your brain when in development, but is far safer when the kinks are worked out. The Turians, meanwhile, think magic and the local abominations are a collective delusion, convincing them we're lunatics with technology that's far too advanced for us.
• Magitek: Arcanotech.
• Memetic Badass: In-Universe it's suggested that the reason Admiral Slade is Older Than He Looks is because time is afraid to age him. Similarly, even the most aloof Tager respects the man.
• Military Maverick: Captain Adrien Victus was passed over for promotion several times (being stuck as lieutenant for over a decade) due to being "effective but unorthodox".
• Mind Rape: What the humans regarded the Asari's mind meld during their almost disastrous negotiations as. And what they did to Severus. The Turians' inexperience with this heavily hinders their effectiveness in battle and morale plummets in ground encounters.
• Mook Horror Show: For the Turians facing against Engels and Tagers.
• Moving The Goal Posts: Councilor Sparatus is noted to be doing so verbatim in regards to the war against the Federation. First, he claims humanity will never launch a serious attack, then that they will never attack a major colony, and most recently that they'll never take said colony (Digeris). Each time, he's been proven wrong.
• Mundanger: While fighting the NEF on Digeris, what ends up killing a good deal of Turians isn't the various horrors the Federation can throw at them, but a lack of supplies resulting in starvation, parasites, and infections.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Alayah is horrified to realize that humanity considers the Asari mind meld the equivalent of rape and fears she doomed the galaxy to war with her impulsive decision.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Sparatus makes air quotes when invoking the memory of the Aeon War.
  • A turian POW is seen reading an issue of Weird Tales, the same magazine where Lovecraft got his start.
• New Meat: Despite being veterans, all Turian soldiers new to the frontlines in the war against the NEF are treated like cadets fresh out of training. Adrien notices the discrepancy in an officers meeting with all the new officers standing at parade rest in fully polished armor and the veterans looking like they woke up in a morgue and just climbed out of their body bags.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Alayah's decision to use a mind meld on the lead Federation diplomat instead of just speaking (or at least explain what the mind meld was before using it) ruins any trust the Federation could have in dealing through them.
  • The Turian research team charged with reverse-engineering the Federation ship they found opens the chamber where the Eldritch Abomination that killed everyone was being contained.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Hastur's psychic scream, made out of spite against humanity for defeating him, wipes out the Migou before they can wipe out humanity.
• Nicknaming the Enemy: The Turians and Humanity call each other the Turkeys/Birdies and the Nefs/Hueys.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Trooper Taeden allowing his men to take a fifteen-minute break to eat some snacks (after days of starvation rations) while on a scouting mission gets all of them killed or captured by the NEF.
• Off the Rails: The heavy beating the Turians are taking from the Federation means the Salarians have had to monitor the Terminus more thoroughly, as small pockets of unrest are forming with the Council's main fighting force virtually tied up. The Volus are also preparing to make their move, knowing the Turian economy is in ruins and that they don't have the capacity (or interest) to put it back on track. Meanwhile, the Quarians are trying to secure a secret trading route with humanity to improve their situation.
• Older Than They Look: Admiral Silas Slade is well into his fifties but noted to not have any wrinkles. A common theory among the military is that time is afraid to age him.
• One Man's Trash Is Another's Treasure: As part of a possible future Human-Quarian trading agreement, the Quarians are given a pile of comparatively worthless human gear, that the Quarians can then sell for an enormous amount. Humanity is fully aware of this and are in fact getting a cut of the profits.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Primarch Quentius, the only Turian Primarch that knew trying to force humanity to stop using arcanotech would only bring trouble.
  • Captain Jorus of The Resolute Spirit tries talking his CO out of attacking the humans, stating that they couldn't possibly have known Citadel Laws and could have been warned instead. Likewise, he's against invading Shanxi, stating it will only make matters worse.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Right after Din, the Volus ambassador, sends out feelers for meeting with the Federation, he's contacted by Palaemon, one of the Turian Primarchs. The turian begs him to get in contact with the Federation, even promising to make an oath that'd functionally make him Din's slave if he does. This makes Din realize his claims that he's dealing with something that could destroy the Hierarchy are Not Hyperbole and Din sprints back towards the Quarian he met in order to bribe him into making the meeting a priority.
  • One Quarian is shocked to see Nator openly crying in despair in a recording as he recounts that he's learned enough about the true nature of reality to know that, as terrifying as they are, the NEF barely register as bacteria to the true powers in the universe. Everyone else is even lower on the food chain. Worse, one of those powers has taken notice of Nator specifically.
• Outside-Context Problem: Humanity serves as one for being the only space-faring race ever encountered by the Citadel to not use Mass Effect technology. That and the Mind Rape and Eldritch Abominations they utilize.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The Batarians basically laugh at the idea of taking slaves from the NEF, stating that not only is it a pipe dream, given that the Federation isn't on the relay network, but that the current war has proven that doing so would be far more trouble than it's worth.
• Prevent the War: Tevos, Torbel and Primarch Quentius make a valiant, if ultimately doomed, effort.
• Psychic Powers: Parapsychics.
• Punch-Clock Villain:
  • Most Turians at the beginning - particularly Captain Jorus, who points out that the initial attack on the humans was unbelievably stupid.
  • From the Turians' perspective, at least those who are captured, the NEF aren't malicious, just people doing their jobs. Adrien notes that the ones processing him at the POW camp sound like "customer service workers who've been on the phone too long to even pretend to give a shit anymore".
• Raging Stiffie: When asked for a Trust Password, Adrien recalls a case when Viggo ate some berries which gave him an erection which required medical assistance.
• Rags to Riches: Downplayed with the Migrant Fleet but their dealings with the NEF have made them so much money that they've managed to start retiring ships for the first time in eighty years and are stated to be in better shape than they have been since they lost their homeworld.
• Rape as Backstory: Sidra. After losing the rest of her unit, she ran into a gang of criminals who were recruited into the army and ran away. One can guess what happened later. Then, one night, they didn't tie her up properly...
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: One of the few things Turians and the Federation agree on is that rapists deserve immediate execution. One particular victim suggests the Federation feed her rapist to their Engels, saying a bullet was too good for him. Lieutenant Sidra makes a point warning her men that if they even consider such a thing, she'll do to them what she had done to her rapist.
• Realpolitik: Upon hearing that the Volus are starting to organize a real effort to declare independence from the Turians, Tevos says that she'd happily accept that and even give them a Council seat if they want one, because she's that desperate to get their financial expertise back into play in order to stabilize and restore Council space's economy as it heads towards recession as a result of the war.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Primarch Quentius is literally the only Turian leader who realizes that trying to force the New Earth Federation to give up arcanotech (effectively gutting their military and technological bases) in favor of Element Zero technology and submitting to the Citadel Council as an associate race will not only cause a war, but that it's a war they can't win.
  • The Council itself, other than Sparatus, likewise realize that going to war with the NEF is a bad idea, and when it breaks out, keep their people out of it, making it clear that it's the Turians' problem, not theirs.
  • The NEF proves willing to continue peace talks even after Alayah's massive faux pas, though with the provision negotiations are done with Turians rather than Asari.
  • Unlike his Honor Before Reason associates, Colonel Tarkin doesn't give a damn about following protocol if it gets the job done. In his introduction to Captain Adrien, he outright tells the soldier that he can print hard copies of them and wipe his ass with them so long as he does his duty.
  • During a scouting mission, Trooper Taedan's group comes across a convenience store filled with dextro-amino snacks. As everyone present has been on "starvation rations" for several days, he allows them a fifteen-minute break to eat. During said break, Taedan admits that under any other circumstances, he'd force them to move on, but they're fatigued from hunger and in desperate need of a morale booster.
  • Primarch Draxon is willing to listen to those who argue against the war with the NEF, but needs actual proof that doing so is a bad idea. When things go truly sideways, he immediately orders a complete cessation of all hostilities and tells Quentius to do whatever it takes to get the NEF's aid against what Sparatus unwittingly unleashed on Palaven's moon.
• Reassigned to Antarctica:
  • The sad fate of the few Turian officers that preferred not to poke the bear that is the NEF.
  • Implied to be the fate of the Asari diplomat whose impulsive use of the Meld made a bad situation worse.
• Revenge Before Reason: For the higher Turian echelons, the war's more about being shown up at Shanxi, foreign technology they refuse to even try to understand, and being actually held back by a bunch of crazy upstarts than any actual interest in humanity.
• Salt the Earth: The Turians subject Shanxi to this. Desolas bitterly wonders what humanity's gonna do in revenge.
• Schmuck Bait: Late in the war, the Turians come across an abandoned Federation war vessel. The more sensible Primarchs note that there has to be something wrong with it, despite all indications otherwise, as no one abandons a perfectly good ship in the middle of nowhere. Quentius later hears from the captain who found the ship and learns that the humans didn't abandon it; they were still onboard and pleading for the Turians to destroy the ship immediately. When the Turian navy arrived and towed it away, it was empty. And now the ship is on Palaven's largest moon being studied.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the Turians end up going to war with the NEF, the Asari and Salarians wash their hands of them and stay out of it. And the Volus are doing their best to get out of their current position.
• Shady Scalper: Due to the war between the NEF and the Turians, along with the efforts of Nator, many Quarians as a whole have taken up this role in regards to NEF goods. They sell everything from board games to spices to artwork at ludicrously inflated prices (Nator's first haul netted him a quarter of a billion credits and the market's only gotten fiercer since) and their methods range from ones on Ilium openly hawking their wares to individuals working at the NEF outreach center on the Citadel who pretend they're stealing from their bosses, thus letting them repeatedly increase their prices to repeat customers, citing "the danger of repeatedly stealing from the NEF."
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A continuing problem for the Turians, as there simply have been no wars that inflict such a level of trauma in their soldiers in their history.
• Shocking Defeat Legacy: The fall of Digeris becomes this to the Hierarchy, because not only it is the loss of a planet that is one jump away from Palaven, but also because the local army surrendered rather than fight to the last man.
• Shout-Out: During Dr. West's autopsy of a Turian, the good doctor is singing 'Whistle While You Work'.
• Silly Reason for War: Revenge Before Reason, for the Salarians, Asari, and Volus. The Turians aren't very popular.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Julek, of the Digeris garrison. He's unbothered by the act of coating himself in a corpse's guts to mask his smell, and brutally confronts Ferox without blinking an eye as they have a knife fight.
• Starfish Aliens: The Migou, large insectoid aliens from outside the galaxy, minus the ones that lived on Pluto.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Captain Jorus suggests they simply warn the humans against activating an inactive Mass Relay instead of blowing up their ships. Unfortunately, his commanding officer disagrees.
• Suicide by Cop: Tarkus, one of the survivors of the assault on Coryza, steadily breaks down after the destruction of their rations. After several days of extremely rationed food, he crashes against another soldier and drops his tiny meal. This proves to be the breaking point, and he charges Tarkin in rage just to go out in his own terms. Unable to do anything else, Tarkin is forced to put him down.
• Superweapon Surprise: The humans pull these several times against the Turians.
• Taking You with Me: When the Aeon War came to an end, Hastur, out of spite, unleashed a tremendous psychic scream that spread across Earth's solar system, causing many people to have seizures while the Migou - whose minds are very sensitive - are instantly wiped out (indirectly stopping them from unleashing their doomsday protocol that could have destroyed Earth).
• Taught by Experience: Quentius has learned enough about the Federation to know that anything that inspires desperate terror in them and makes them plead to be killed immediately is Very Bad News.
• Telepathy: Dream Tagers, such as Snitch.
• Tempting Fate: After a Turian soldier goes hysterical from seeing a demon, one of their officers tells himself that he hopes to never see whatever the soldier saw. The narration promptly lampshades how one should not give fate ideas.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • A lesson humanity learned during the Aeon War, and with good reason - when you are fighting an Eldritch Abomination, the only way to kill it is to use such overwhelming force that you can wipe it out.
  • The Turians quickly learn this applies to any monster the Federation throws at them. If it looks like it's dead, shoot it again anyway. Even that isn't always a guarantee.
• This Is Reality: Adrien thinks more than once that movie Turians would have found a way to win despite their disadvantages, but in reality, they will be cut down in a heartbeat.
• This Means War!: The Turian Hierarchy declaring official war on the New Earth Federation following Gideon's rejection of Councilor Sparatus' terms of what is actually destroying everything that made up the New Earth Federation. The attending Earth delegates all barely restrain themselves from killing Sparatus.
• Those Were Only Their Scouts: While a force of Turians manage to take down twenty Nephilim, they're aware that it was only a scouting force. Immediately afterwards, hundreds, if not thousands, of the beasts swarm their location.
• Threat Backfire: When the humans and Nazzadi collectively spit on Sparatus' terms, he warns that should the Turians win, the humans will instead join the Council as a client race of the Turians. This convinces them refusing is the correct answer.
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Captain Adrien Victus does this to his rival Captain Ferox Kleitos after one insult too many.
• Torture Technician: We'll leave you with the implications of an entity capable of molding flesh and bone with the same ease as putty having this job.
• Trading Bars for Stripes: The beginning of Chapter 25 has a Turian executed for rape and attempted murder at the POW camp. Adrien is told that Digeris attempted to make up for manpower shortage by recruiting criminals. The results were... mixed.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: The entire war could've been averted if Gallus hadn't jumped the gun and ordered his men to open fire on the humans inspecting a dormant mass relay.
• Tranquil Fury: Primarch Draxon, after it's confirmed that some form of Eldritch Abomination is on the ship Sparatus brought to a base on Palaven's moon, questions Sparatus very quietly about whether he had received any warnings. His voice is explicitly compared to a knife sliding across a whetstone until he's Suddenly Shouting over the man's extreme foolishness.
• Transhuman: Via the Rite of Sacred Union by the Eldritch Society, creating the Tagers.
• Translator Microbes: Sorta. Language Recognition Units are small earpieces capable of translating several preprogrammed languages, on the human side. Both parties need one, the translation is both noticeably robotic, and has an odd tinny inflection. It's mentioned the Citadel has better tech in this regard.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Marlus Vicion's "breakthrough" in his research was the moment a Nephilim tried to kill him. Just before it landed the finishing blow, his fear, rage, and prayers managed to Awaken the Spirit in his weapon.
• Trust Password: Viggo demands it when he sees Adrien's back... gets a very embarassing one.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: According to the prologue, while Chrysalis Corporation was destroyed during the Aeon War, the Chairman (Nyarlathotep's avatar) escaped and disappeared.
• Villains Out Shopping: The first glimpse at the Batarian government shows that their meetings and politicians are basically the same as any other government's, minus the fact they have a minister devoted to handling matters pertaining to slavery. Rather than wearing spikes, leather, and eyepatches while cackling about enslaving others, they wear tailored suits and discuss how the economy is going.
• War Is Hell: Especially when fighting the kinds of monstrosities that the Federation can come up with, as the Turians learn to their horror.
• We Have Become Complacent: Discussed about Turian military might. Last time they had a crisis remotely as bad (the Krogan Rebellions) they had the Asari financing them and the Salarians feeding them intel - and even then they were on the ropes until they managed to infect them with the genophage. Now neither race wants anything to do with their thirst for revenge, and even the Volus are deeply offended at the use of their money to finance the war.
• What Were You Thinking?: Primarch Draxon's response to learning that Councilor Sparatus was warned that the NEF ship the turians had discovered was potentially dangerous, only to completely ignore said warning and bring the ship into the heart of the Turian Hierarchy, definitely invokes this trope. Draxon is beyond livid that despite knowing the humans are capable of supernatural feats, Sparatus just completely ignored any evidence that there might be something wrong with the ship and had it brought to Menae.
• We Need a Distraction: As horrifying as Adrien finds a Tager infiltrating his post and slaughtering his platoon, it rapidly becomes worse when he realizes the real objective was to destroy their supply caches. While they're fine on ammunition, their food and medical supplies have been reduced to the point that they might have a month's worth, after rationing what was left.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Earth's president responds with incredulity that a war was nearly started because of "some trigger happy cops".

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