Post some Mass Effect fanfic here!

The issue is that the Council have shown they aren't above outright ignoring petitions or vindictive attitudes - their Archives show they outright executed peaceful A.I.s that existed BEFORE the ban on AI research; they have shown their refusal to be lenient on the Quarians and outright deny them chances to resettle ANYWHERE.

The Asari have a hidden cache of Prothean data, despite laws saying that stuff needs to be shared; the Salarian are know to interfere and kidnap lesser races (SEE: The yahg in their facility in ME 3); the Turians aren't above strong arming or outright inflexibility. Remember, the Salarians pushed the genophage but the Turians deployed it... even though they actually wanted to outright wipe out the Krogan at one point.

If they had humanity over a barrel I think the Council wouldn't treat humans with the caution they do in the trilogy - the reason they capitulate a lot in the series isn't that humans could steamroll everyone (They really couldn't) but that the humans are disruptive and unconventional. Yes, the Asari stepped in after the Relay incident to prevent escalation - as it'd probably mean humans still LOST but that the bloodshed for both sides would've been insane.

And I think the Turians would've client race'd humans - they are pragmatic - they're martial, humans are martial to a point - more soldiers is never a bad thing.

Might have found my new favorite fic.

Someone on Spacebattles just started writing a crossover with Homeworld. Turian/Somtaaw first contact so far:

• Somtaaw frigates pop out of a dormant relay right in front of turian patrol fleet.
• Turian commander is a gung-ho prick, freaks out that they're about to have a second rachni war and opens fire. Somtaaw return fire with plasma cannons that partially go through the turians' kinetic barriers.
• Turian shots initially bounce off Somtaaw armor, but the turians quickly figure out that repeated dead-on shots at the same spot still work. Somtaaw lose one ship and retreat. Turians back off to send word home.
• Fedorian and Sparatus go "what the fuck was that guy thinking?!", assemble a fleet and send them through the relay.
• The two fleets size up each other but do not fire. Instead, they both transmit first contact packages but mutually fail to receive the other's until it suddenly occurs to the turian commander that "hold on, we're using Prothean protocols and encoding, but those guys might not have it", so he asks the oldest ship in his fleet to laser-comm at the Somtaaw in binary.
• The Bentusi translation algorithm the Somtaaw are using starts working and replies, both sides relax that they may be able to avoid bloodshed... then a Taiidani fleet drops in unannounced due to the manipulations of the Taiidani equivalent of the Illusive Man.
• Turians get startled by their sensors getting disrupted by the Taiidani ships' hyperspace exit, a turian gunner opens fire at a Somtaaw ship without orders, Somtaaw ship returns fire before the Somtaaw commander can order weapons hold. Full shootout ensues.
• Turian commander figures out that momentarily overclocking their barriers stops most of the plasma and overclocking the hull heatsinks negates the worst of the damage. Taiidani ion cannons fail to penetrate kinetic barriers, turians destroy a Taiidani destroyer by blasting its ion cannon to cause secondary explosions.

And then everyone's favorite traders drop in. "We are the Bentusi. This battle is OVER."

I was like "FUCK. YES. This is how you pull off a fucking First Contact War!"

edited 8th Feb '18 4:43:02 PM by amitakartok

LIIIIIINK! (Please?)

Sooo.... Are the Reapers in this yet? Are the Beast?

And how does the Council exist pan galactic and NOT know about the Bentusi?! In the HW verse the Council in that are the Betusi pretty much... plus some others (We see them arrive at the end of HW 1... ) or is it one of those things that the Bentusi / HW verse council races have just occupied certain star systems, whilst the relay connected systems have mostly been missed? We know in ME verse most of the galaxy is actually unexplored, just the major connected systems.

It's not the same galaxy.

Namely, they discovered that the Eye of Aaran contains intergalactic gates as well, not just intragalactic ones. The intergalactic gates were locked down by orders of the Council after Karan reminded them of the Naggarok's fate (it's mentioned that minor Beast infections still occur from time to time when shipyards skimp out on vaccination measures to save money) until the intragalactic ones were fully charted first to make sure their rear is secure. Even the Bentusi don't quite know how these intergalactic gates work, claiming that they're uncooperative to being studied. The Somtaaw are spearheading an exploratory mission through the first intergalactic gate to be activated, which led them to a system with a Charon-like iced up relay. When the relay reactivated, it lead to a system somewhere in the vicinity of volus space, which is why the turians freaked out so badly at a completely unknown race practically backdooring right into their territory (even without knowing that Republican Taiidani are now setting up a battlestation around the intergalactic hyperspace gate's Milky Way end to establish a beachhead).

That said, the Somtaaw almost immediately started suspecting the existence of the Reapers when they noticed the conspicuous lack of drifting wreckage and signs of previous civilizations compared to their home galaxy.

Also, the Homeworld races are fully aware of what eezo is and how it works because it exists in their own galaxy as well, but they consider it nothing more than a scientific curiosity because eezo core size increases exponentially with ship size and they think that a frigate requiring an eezo core as large as itself is simply not worth it, especially with much more efficient gravity well generators being a thing and especially since eezo is much rarer back home.

edited 9th Feb '18 8:04:50 AM by amitakartok

Interesting. I love both the universes so this sounds great. In the setting, have the humans turned up? Considering that the Hiigarans / Kiith are human analogues (As are the Taiidan I believe) it'd be interesting to see how it pans out.

Also, as the Kiith are not bound by eezo dependency AND have hyperspace, they'd be able to outmanoeuvre the Reapers; plus their weaponry could be more effective... except by the sounds of it Ion cannons aren't that effective.

Humans aren't mentioned.

Mass relays are explicitly stated to be far faster than hyperdrives and even hyperspace gates, but with a caveat. If your hyperdrive malfunctions, the safeties drop you back into realspace. If a hyperspace gate malfunctions, your hyperdrive pulls you out. But if you're using a mass relay and the receiving relay doesn't slow you down on arrival, you are fucked regardless of what you're using for FTL because a hyperdrive can't cancel out negative mass (since it doesn't operate via mass manipulation) and an eezo core can't decelerate you fast enough to keep you from getting catapulted out of the galaxy beyond the eezo core's maximum FTL range without a static discharge.

What I meant with ion cannons being ineffective is that the beam itself fails to penetrate the barrier, but the impact still zaps the ship with heat and a low-level EMP the turians believe wasn't intended because it's obvious that the shot was not meant to be a Non-Lethal K.O..

Oh, and what I said above with the "frigates need eezo-cores the size of a frigate" thing? The two sides are not using the same weight classifications: the Somtaaw classify turian frigates as corvettes, while the turian commander tentatively classifies Somtaaw frigates as destroyers and an Archangel-class dreadnought as a super-dreadnought.

Update: newest chapter has just been posted. The Bentusi EMP'd both fleets to make them stop fighting (with the Somtaaw admiral inwardly remarking that they probably stole the tech from the Somtaaw in true Homeworld fashion) and summarily chewed out everyone for starting a shootout because "The species of the Whirlpool Galaxy have had full indexes of each language for untold millenia. Automated translation programs that have functioned flawlessly for equally as long. Conflict stemming from mere communications failure is UNACCEPTABLE." and gave an extra dose of fuck-off to the Taiidani for having fallen for the Imperials' manipulation.

So then the turian admiral used the Bentusi-provided translation matrix to call out to the Somtaaw admiral to talk this out, the Somtaaw admiral replied that he'd better have a damn good reason for attacking them, to which Septimus offered reparations instead, indicating that the turians are voluntarily taking the blame for this.

edited 9th Feb '18 11:03:00 AM by amitakartok

I like the line!

Definitely giving this a read... and I like the classifications - looking at HW models, corvettes are HUGE (when you look at cockpit size and the concept art drawings of personnel next to the ships)

Thanks for the recommendation. Now I want to see what happens if you hit a Reaper with an infection beam.

Or maybe I don't.

Likely nothing. Beast nanites require organic matter to interface with the machinery, so unless the Reaper has husks onboard, the infection beam won't do a thing.

From ME 3 isn't the whole substructure of a Reaper Orange Organic Goop? Biomechanical or something?

Plus how would Reaper indoc work on the Beast?!

Important questions... will see how this one develops. I'm also tracking the ME / XCOM crossover by Cap'n Cryssalid on Spacebattles (HE's slowly uploading all the chapters and Omakes onto FF.net but it isn't a priority) - some good development there, but they've gotten a bit sidetracked by the cutsey side stories and world building, rather than main plot.

...and that's the beginning of the end: the Beast just found out about the Milky Way Galaxy and want their FTL.

Which gives me a scary mental image: biotic Beast ships.

Urgh. It'd be like the gravity field frigates but WEAPONISED... and with range.

The Beast does body horror so well, it'd fit right in...

Double post as now I too am following. There's about 3 ME / HW fics on there. And one IS TERRIBLE. The guy uses the same words. Good descriptions but the dialogue is awful.

This one is great though - so far. Though the mention of Earth in the side piece sets a confusion up in terms of timeline / Reaper involvement.

So I'm following a few excellent Mass Effect stories on Space Battles:

XCOM crossover - Psi Effect by Cap'n Cryssalid (Already mentioned in the Fan Fic Recs I believe): https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/psi-effect-me-xcom-thread-2-rise-of-the-party-boat.307972/

A great Eclipse Phase / ME crossover, which leans on the darker side. A few canon things around it and the Humans are ridic overpowered but do come across as even MORE alien. https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-subtler-war-mass-effect-eclipse-phase.548723/

And a frankly batshit insane Alpha Centauri and Mass Effect crossover where although everyone is a bit kooky they are RIDICULOUSLY competent and no one is really grabbing the Idiot Ball: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/mass-effect-sid-meiers-alpha-centauri.221597/