The First Contact Curbstomp [Mass Effect - X-com]

[Akuma-sama]

Standing before one of the many viewports which lined the sides of the vessel he’d been aboard for the last two weeks, Admiral Marseus Qynt stared with no little irritation at the image, magnified several thousand times, shown on the holographic display. Oh, he’d seen them before; it was, in fact, impossible at this point that a Turian admiral hadn’t at least seen images of the flat, streamlined silver-hulled craft the enemy used exclusively. Considering he was the admiral of the Second Fleet, which had taken the role of fighting the war after the exhausted seventeenth reactionary force had retreated with their mandibles wide open—after, he’d admitted to himself soon after his initial skirmishes, fighting valiantly against a superior foe—he was in fact more familiar with the enemy ships than anyone else.

For instance, he knew that the security protocols in place for this summit were grossly inadequate. Councilor Octavius might have been a brilliant diplomat, but even he had failed to heed Marseus’ warnings, instead preferring to believe that the Citadel Fleet was sufficiently powerful to fight off the “paltry” fleet the enemy had brought to bear as a show of force and to escort their own representatives. On paper, it seemed like a reasonable assumption to make; the enemy’s warships were horribly out massed, and their energy ratings were ridiculously low even for their size. Reports from wreckage data indicated that their armor was in fact nearly [a quarter of a meter] thinner than would be expected of Turian warships of the same size, and their kinetic shields were as good as inexistent.

However, while each of these facts were true, they were also horribly misleading. He’d fought his fair share of battles with them, enough to realize that whatever they were using for propulsion, it wasn’t Mass Effect fields, which were easily detectable—in FTL, no less—using normal gravitics, and which most ships relied on to accurately find their targets. As a result, their ships were nearly undetectable in battle, even to the most advanced scanners. They were also blindingly agile, with the apparent ability to shift their vector in any direction within a few seconds, and while their top speed couldn’t match those of Turian cruisers and frigates, they’d instead chosen to employ short-distance FTL “hops” to maneuver when needed. And while they had no shields and their armor was as thin as plastic, it was also unbelievably strong for its mass.

As for their weapons, they were by far the worst news which could be had. Beam weapons were, of course, in use by modern fleets as part of the GUARDIAN system, but even the most brilliant Salarian engineers were unable to do anything about the problem of diffraction which plagued the types. The only way to increase effective range was to increase power usage, and past a certain level, mass accelerators became much more energy-efficient. This was why, when he’d heard that the enemy used beam weapons as their main armaments, he’d originally scoffed at their foolishness. Having since seen the horrible damage dealt to Turian hulls by those powerful plasma beams—an ingenious idea, if technologically baffling—he scoffed no longer, and instead greatly respected their destructive power. Kinetic shields stopped mass driver pellets. They did almost nothing against focused beams of plasma. The fact that those same guns could be packed on deceptively tiny hulls made their choice in doctrine, which preferred carriers and swift movement-based action as opposed to the slugging brawls the Turian navy was used to, particularly nasty.

One on one, any ship of the council could defeat them, albeit with some damage. The problem was that they were never alone, and having an equal number of ships turned out to be increasingly in their favor as the numbers grew.

Looking at the thirty, nearly forty silver ships on display on the screen before him, he allowed a disgusted sigh to escape between his mandibles.

“You seem troubled?”

The voice nearly made him jump out of his skeleton, and the jerk of his head toward the speaker was a little faster than he’d desired. Still, it was to be expected; Diplomat Shaia delighted in keeping people off-balance, and while sneaking behind people to surprise them was not something of the stature of an Asari matriarch, it was something he’d come to expect from her.

Once he’d regained control over his heartbeat, he gave the diplomat a sharp nod.

“It this about the security detail? I assure you that once this misunderstanding is cleared, there will be no reason to expect violence from them,” her voice was calm and laced with wisdom as she spoke, yet he got the very distinct impression that she was humoring him. “While your reservations no doubt have merit, it is the belief of the council that they would not dare start anything here and now, not while they are within our weapons range and they outside.”

“With all due respect, Matriarch, you underestimate how quickly they could close the range if they wanted so. The element of surprise would be in their favor almost completely, and I have little doubt that their biggest guns are all currently aimed at the Destiny Ascension. I for one don’t want the citadel fleet to lose our most powerful ship in a surprise attack.”

The Citadel fleet was a show of force. So, of course, their mightiest ship was near the front ranks; a great psychological effect, but a poor tactical decision. On the bright side, it was unlikely the Reveleation of Harmony would be targeted, which meant that at least he would be safe.

It was very, very cold comfort.

“Regardless, it will not come to that,” the matriarch declared. “Unless they are completely unreasonable, they will understand the cause of the war and will seek to end it. It has been ten galactic cycles since your hostilities have started, and not even the Turian would have the resources to continue fighting for so long. They have acknowledged these peace talks, after all.”

“The Krogan would,” Marseus replied, “and they are sneakier than you think.”

Even as the words escaped his mouth, he realized they’d been a mistake. The look the old matriarch gave him only confirmed how paranoid and war-weary he sounded. It couldn’t be helped, though; he’d been fighting those damn upstarts for the last eight cycles. Eight cycles. And they were sneaky; every time he lowered his guard, they struck like wild varrens, and more than one opening he’d seen in their own defenses had turned out to be nothing but a horrible trap. Anyone would be tired at this point, even a Krogan battle master.

For the hundredth time since the announcement, he hoped this summit would go somewhere.
He allowed himself a cough of dry laughter at the thought.

Peace? With Humans?

What a novel concept.

----------------------

They had personal armors made of the stuff.

That was the first thing that crossed Marseus’ mind when the Human envoy and his escorts stepped through the hatch of the decontamination airlock. It was his first time seeing a live Human. He’d seen corpses before, but the reality of space warfare meant that bodies were few and rare, and when present they were rarely intact. The envoy was male, about as tall as he was. His skin was smooth like an Asari, but colored with a brown a little lighter than a Turian’s real skin color. The top of its head had those strange threads of organic matter, though unlike those of the corpse he’d seen before, his were much shorter and arranged in a kind of wave form. They were also as black as space.

Flanking him on both sides, however, were mastodons of silvery plastics, which he easily recognized as being the same material their impossibly tough ships were made of. After crossing the open hatch with their backs bowed, they stood and stood and stood until they dwarfed him by nearly half his height. Their faces were hidden behind their masks, which had been hand-painted with grotesque forms, both in dark blue which seemed eerily like Turian blood. Their head-sized hands carried enormous rifles almost as thick as his leg. With every step they took, the ground gave mighty aftershocks, and yet not one sound came from the machinery within the suits.
He turned his hand to take a glance at Shaia, and was rewarded with the unusual sight of a completely flummoxed Asari Matriarch.

However, if the diplomats were surprised, the support and ceremonial staff hadn’t. A pair of Turian officers, looking ridiculously small compared to their Human homologues, stepped forward with assault rifles in hands, as did a pair of Asari maidens in form-fitting blue robes, each pushing a floating cart. In a synchronized movement, the Turians raised their rifles, cannon pointing at the floor between their feet, and lowered the weapons down on the cart. The pair then pushed the carts toward the Human visitors. A tense silence ran across the room as the two Human soldiers seemed to hesitate, hands clenching around their rifles almost possessively, but then the envoy gave a sharp jab of his head, and the Humans lowered their ridiculously large weapons down on the carts—the mass effect field flashed briefly as they adapted to the new weight.

A protective field appeared over the carts, sealing the weapons within.

“I hope you won’t go far with those, ladies,” the envoy noted. The universal translator had no trouble at all keeping up with his speech, fortunately. “It would be a bad start to this summit.”

The two Asari maidens froze; protocol told them they were to leave the room with the weapons, symbolizing the truce. Yet, foreign customs had to be respected to avoid the possibility of a political faux-pas. They gave a helpless look at their Matriarch, who had by now recovered her composure.

“Then they shall remain in sight, yet under seal. Is that acceptable?” Shaia suggested.

The Human envoy nodded. “That’ll be fine. I am Admiral Andropov, commander of the third expeditionary fleet, SEPF. You have us at the disadvantage that we don’t really have diplomats handy.”

They would send a leader of war to a peace talk? Marseus barely resisted the urge to give a meaningful look at Shaia.

“I am Ambassador Shaia, of the Council. I am Asari. He,” she motioned at Marseus, “is Admiral Marseus, commander of Second Fleet, and he,” she motioned toward Admiral Tyberius, whom Marseus had almost managed to forget in all this, “is Admiral Tyberius, commander of the Citadel Fleet. They are Turian. Welcome aboard the Reveleation of Harmony.”

Andropov—and a strange name that was—nodded in greeting to all three.

----------------------

The Reveleation of Harmony was a famous diplomatic ship. It had been on this ship that first contact between the Turian and the Council had happened, and it was here that the formal agreement to admit them as part of the council had been signed. It measured nearly [two-hundred meters] in length and a little more than a third of that in width, with just above a quarter of its length in height, if one excluded the long fins which were typical of Asari spacecrafts. Much of its underside was gutted, however, to make room for enormous shuttle bays, and most of the front section of the upper levels was dedicated to its diplomatic functions; the bridge was actually visible if one knew where to look, over the domed glass canopy of the conference room.

It made for an amazing sight, though, that conference room. Marseus had seen it before, when he’d stepped aboard. Shaia hadn’t been shy about bringing him here, probably so she could get a rise over his face when he’d first looked out at the stars. He’d been a spacer for most of his life and had spent countless hours staring into the blackness of space, but that had been the first time he’d ever seen so much of it with his naked eye. Compared to that, the rounded, prolate glass table they settled on might as well not have existed. Shaia, Tyberius and himself sat at the far end of the room while the human envoy sat on the opposite end.

His two escorts didn’t sit. Instead, they joined the disarmed Turian guards at the door, much to their displeasure.
The two Asari maidens, still carrying their carts, nervously stood near the walls. Neither looked like they particularly wanted to be there.

“First, before we begin, I would like to say a few words to our Human visitors,” Shaia began. “While having your first contact with an alien race is always something unexpected and mysterious, having this first contact attack you as the intervention force did can only be worse. I assure you that the vast majority of the galaxy is at peace, and that everyone here aboard the Citadel Fleet, no matter their species, would much prefer if the war was to stop.”

“Yeah, well, you shot first,” the human envoy noted with jabbing frankness. “And you’re be wrong about the whole first contact thing. You’re actually our second contact. Kinda. Hold on…” he frowned while the Asari matriarch pretended that his revelation hadn’t just surprised her, then continued, “yeah. It’s actually our sixth contact.”

“Sixth?!” Tyberius exclaimed, voice tinted with disbelief. “There is no one in your area of space except a bunch of primitives barely out of the stone age. No one to make first contacts with—unless—”

“Then we haven’t met them,” Andropov interrupted. “What I’m talking about is an alliance of alien races—well, more like a bunch of slaves to another alien race, that is—which attacked our home planet almost two hundred years ago.”

There was a sharp sound, an intake of breath mixed with a strangled exclamation, and Marseus took a few seconds it had come from himself.

“Two hundred years ago? You’ve been in space that long?” Shaia asked diplomatically, not pressing the point Marseus wanted her to, namely who the hell did it.

“We got into space because of them,” he replied with a shrug. “When they showed up, we barely had the tech we needed to send satellites into space.”

“Preposterous,” Tyberius scoffed. “How could you have survived?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea how,” Marseus noted, eyeing the rifle. “Guts, blood and underhanded tactics.”

Andropov was grinning now, “I can tell you’re the one we’ve been fighting.” Turning to Tyberius, he replied, “it was close, but we did it. They gave us enough time to reverse engineer most of their technology, and it turns out we used it better than they did.” The man’s grin grew grim. “It helped that they were more concerned with harvesting us than conquering or exterminating.”

“Harvesting?” Shaia seemed to have thrown her decorum out the airlock at this point.

“Food, genetic material, live experimentation, vivisections…” Andropov listed nonchalantly, though he was perfectly aware of the effect what he was saying had on the Asari matriarch. “They certainly didn’t kidnap people for parties, anyway.”

“…It sounds a little like the Collectors, but they haven’t been seen outside of the terminus systems,” Marseus noted.

Andropov frowned. “Tall, humanoid, with huge heads and psychic powers?”

“Tall, humanoid, large heads by any standards but we haven’t had enough contact with them to confirm any significant biotic abilities,” Shaia replied. “If they are responsible for the attack on your home planet, however, they could be a problem we haven’t identified.”

“Sir,” one of the human guards spoke in a voice, filtered by its mask, that had a much higher pitch than Andropov, “permission to speak?”

“Hm? If you have something to say,” the envoy gave a nod.

“That description was… somewhat vague. We’re dealing with aliens here, sir.”

Andropov frowned. “…A good point. Let’s exchange notes on our Etherals and your Collectors later,” he told Shaia. “For now, let’s talk about why we shouldn’t kick your asses back to your homeworlds for attacking us.”

“E—Excuse me?” for a woman who liked having her opposition on the back foot, Shaia certainly seemed to be doing a lot of hopping today.

He shrugged. “As far as I see it, that would be the best way to fulfill our mission. The SEPF’s job is right there in the title: Space Exploration and Pacification Force. We explore space, in force, and we pacify it just like we did those Etheral bastards.”

“You speak as if you’re in a position of strength, Human,” Tyberius hissed. “Right now, all of our guns are aimed as you—”

“Admiral, please.” Shaia interrupted immediately. While the older Turian grew quiet, his mandibles and mouth kept moving in anger, and his eyes carried cold fury as he settled back to his seat. The Asari then turned toward Andropov, who was definitely doing nothing to hide the pleased smirk on his face. “While it may not look this way, I assure you that the Council Forces are not something that you need to… pacify. The reason why you were attacked at Relay 314 is due to a misunderstanding; we have a standing policy that unopened mass relays should be left that way.”

“One of our commanders got trigger happy when he noticed what you were doing,” Marseus cut in. It was probably better for their peace efforts if the incident was blamed on Turians instead of the council. He hoped. “He should have tried to talk, but instead he chose to open fire. We would ask him why, but as we all know, your ships blew his to bits.”

“That’s a strange policy,” Andropov noted.

“It may sound strange, but it is sound,” Shaia replied, apparently finding her Asari Matriarch wisdom back. “We of the council once faced a dangerous, mortal enemy called the Rachni, which we’d originally stumbled on by doing exactly what you were doing. In the end, we had to resort to genocide in order to stop the war. In order to avoid further incidents of the type, it was decreed that there should be no further exploration through closed mass relays.”

“Then I’m afraid we’ve got a problem, lady,” Andropov said. “See, our policy is that if you keep a closed door up your ass and don’t check what’s on the other side, something’ll eventually pop out and try a rectal probe. If there’s one thing we learned back when SEPF was still called X-COM, is that it’s better to go and face problems head-on than having them pop in unannounced. I’m afraid we can’t do like you want us to. Rather, we won’t. That would go against the “Space Exploration” part of our name.”

“…is that the stance of your government?” Shaia asked, feelings sinking.

“Once we explain what you want us to do, yes it will be, I can guarantee that,” Andropov replied with finality. Turning to the belligerent Turian admiral, he added, “and we are in a position of strength. You see, we were just about to do a major push when you called us. See those ships over there?” he waved at the window bay, “that’s our vanguard. Or part of it, at least.”

“Ho—How many ships are we—” Marseus held himself at the last second, his blood freezing. It couldn’t be that many, right? It—

“Oh, nothing but a few hundred,” Andropov replied as he stood. “And for the record, if anything happens to me here, there are standing orders to start the attack regardless. And believe me, my subordinates are very, very good. Miss Moreaux, mister Kim, please recover your weaponry. We’re leaving.”

“You’re making a mistake, admiral,” Shaia hissed.

“Am I?” Admiral Andropov asked, while his subordinates recovered the levitating carts—with all four rifles—from the terrified maidens’ hands. “Time will tell I guess.”

----------------------

“So, we meet again!”

Those were the words Admiral Marseus heard Admiral Andropov address him barely a week later in the Citadel Tower, even as he was forced to his knees. His talons were fastened together by some kind of primitive handcuffs made of metal, but even without them he would have been in no condition to fight against the giant marines in power armor anyway; his body was still numb from the electric shocks he’d been assailed with after his flagship had been boarded and captured. The human was sitting, this time in body armor himself—his mask was under his arm, in effect making his head look disproportionately tiny—at the base of the stairs leading to the Petitioner’s Stage.

“You’ll be happy to learn that most of your ships’ crews survived. Mostly because you had the presence of mind not to face five hundred and thirty-seven ships, three-quarters of them carriers, with twelve dreadnaughts, twenty cruisers and a fifty frigates. I applaud your courage in facing that decision, admiral.”

His crew…

He allowed himself a smile. At least he’d managed that much. But the citadel… and the council…

“Your council is also well; we’ve got them aboard a ship with a few of our diplomats so they can… discuss with them properly. I’m sure they can be made to understand reason. Don’t you?”

“H…How…” He tried to ask, but his mandibles shook and his voice wouldn’t come out correctly. Turian blood being based on conductive copper was certainly turning out to be a double-edged sword at the moment.

“How did we get here so fast? How did we bypass the fleet waiting for us in the Exodus Cluster?” At his nod, Andropov explained, “Alright. I’ll explain. You see, when the Sectoids started attacking us way back then, we had gunpowder, bullets, basic rocketry, basic metallurgy—well, basically, we were piss poor. Everything we know, we learned it from reverse-engineering their crap. When we got to Mars and wiped out their forward base, the first thing we did was figure out how they’d gotten there, and that’s how we found the Charon relay. So we did what we always do when we find new technology: the first thing we wondered was, “What does it do”. The second was “How does it work”, and the third was “how do we copy it”.

“And you see, once you get the theory behind it, it’s not all that complicated,” he continued, ignoring as Marseus’ eyes opened in shock. “It’s just… well, I’m no egghead, I’m afraid I can’t explain it that well. Let’s just say the biggest problem was finding where the citadel was, and that was no problem once we’d cracked one of your ships’ databanks.”

“You… built… mass relay…”

“Not exactly. They’re still a bit too complex, but we’re getting there. Really, we re-programmed the Charon Relay to make it warp over here instead. It worked beautifully, as you can see.” He rubbed the back of his head, “getting back is going to be little troublesome, but nothing a surprise two-pronged attack can’t go through. Especially with an arrogant idiot like Tyb…Tybus? I forgot. Doesn’t matter. Commander Sharp himself took command of my fleet, so here I am, sitting at the citadel with nothing better to do than talk to you. Funny how it goes, huh?”

Andropov looked around. “Interesting place you got there. Makes me wonder who built it, and why…”
----------------------

Fear the Reaper? These guys? Not likely.

[DCG]

good stuff. Is this a one shot or are you planing more?

I did enjoy the xcom attitude to space, so refreshing after running into so much stuiped playing masseffect.

You got me wondering how they would get along with the krogan.

[Comartemis]

*Deadpan*

Congratulations, you just turned mankind into a God Mode Sue.

[Sunshine Temple]

[This section really tickled my funny bone.

[[“Two hundred years ago? You’ve been in space that long?” Shaia asked diplomatically, not pressing the point Marseus wanted her to, namely who the hell did it.

“We got into space because of them,” he replied with a shrug. “When they showed up, we barely had the tech we needed to send satellites into space.”

“Preposterous,” Tyberius scoffed. “How could you have survived?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea how,” Marseus noted, eyeing the rifle. “Guts, blood and underhanded tactics.”]]

[For the good news. I'm neither a fan of X-Com nor a fan of Mass Effect, but I did enjoy the combination you got here. It's a very neat idea and it's sort of a more expansionistic Stargate setup on the exploitation and advancement based on stealing stuff from aliens.

[So am interested in more.

[Which leads to the problems I found. This is far too "talky" and too much tell not enough show

[The first scene where the powers of the enemy ships are told is especially egregious.
[At least frame it via a dialog. That way the reader learns about the two people talking and what they think of the situation.

[Just having the narrative tell us how bad the enemy is, feels hollow.

[Also The characters read a bit flat, having only been shown in the two "negotiations".

[The piece needs... more.

[Really the best way to show how overpowered the human ships are is to show them in battle. This would also vary the situations the characters get to be presented in.


[As a concept the piece works well and shows an interesting world, but itself is too brief to really tackle the world you've setup.

[Hope to read more from you.

[Nadrek]

Hah!

While I very much like the premise, and the content suits the title, it's... flat. Without tossing the Reapers in, there's nothing really to hold interest.

But, with the crossover, there's plenty that should be able to hold interest. You touched on the tech differences - flying suits vs. kinetic shields, energy weapons and projectile vs. pure projectile, Psi-Ops and mind control vs. biotics, blaster bombs vs... well... nothing. Historical boarding tactics vs. ship to ship combat.

And, from the Mass Effect standpoint, the Reapers left the Mass Relays and the Citadel deliberately to help guide civilizations along a very specific tech path... one that the X-Com faction _and_ their Etherial, Sectoid, etc. opponents managed to completely avoid, making them very deadly threats to the Reapers, as their technology isn't the same tech the Reapers have been stomping on every 50,000 years for cycles untold.

I'd say a meeting between X-Com and the Council races earlier in X-Com's history, closer to the dark days where entire platoons were sent into battle... and entire squads and platoons were wiped out, or almost wiped out. First through the door, first to die; recon by blood.

There's some really excellent exposition (with spelling and grammatical errors I am willing to forgive in this case, given the unique content) on how X-Com veterans of the early days must have felt in Ar-Kaos's work (fanfiction.net), starting in Dead Man Walking and continuing through the sequels - a Ranma/X-Com crossover.

Relevant quotes that match some game experiences:
"When the first team went in, having managed to shoot down an enemy flyer, they were the best the world had ever made.

It was a massacre. Standard infantry tactics just couldn't cut it. The aliens shot first and better, they were all but immune to even the newest weapons and they ignored personal safety in favour of killing even one of the team. The Skyranger lifted off within five minutes, of the fourteen souls that landed only two survived to base." - that's an absolutely insane casualty rate.

and

"New tactics were made to combat the threat. The problem was that they were 'asset intensive,' requiring agents to do things that held little chance of survival. Interceptor pilots were asked to attack in number, in the hope that one craft would survive long enough to bring the invader down. Rookie agents took part in what became known as "reconnaissance by blood," moving ahead of the fire teams to force the aliens to give away their positions by firing on those same agents. The first rule of ship entry remained 'first in, first down.'"

and

"We are gathered here to commemorate All Hallow's Eve, the night of the dead and the official occupation of this facility. Near this place, not so very long ago, the first free man on Mars took his first steps towards a brighter future. We are gathered to thank those brave souls that made those steps possible, and honor those who paid the final price so the rest of us could live free. True to the tradition of X-Com there will be no more speeches, no somber minutes of silence, no military memorial service. Their absence, their silence is mark enough. Every child born free is a monument to their sacrifice."

Those things will leave a very lasting impression on an organization. Not one that will last 200 years, but if you put it perhaps 40 or 50 years after, then yes, the "Old Men" of X-Com are the remaining survivors of the early years, and will have very strong memories, and have told the next generations the first-hand accounts.

[Screwball]

Ouch, talk about an outside context problem for ME. I would say it seems absurd that humanity could reverse engineer the mass relays so quickly, but then I remembered that this is X-COM humanity. I would honestly have preferred it if this was set in the 'First' Contact War itself, because OCPs are always more the most fun to read about while they're happening, rater than in the aftermath, but given that I've personally discovered just how difficult such a fic is to write (why do the Turians keep fighting when it's plainly the wrong decision- this is a problem that must be solved), I can't blame you.

Also, I'm mad with jealousy that you've gotten more replies than I have, but then that's to be expected when I put mine in the Other C&C ghetto. XD

[Cheb]

Sorry I thought I replied while I forgot to

[Which leads to the problems I found. This is far too "talky" and too much tell not enough show
[Really the best way to show how overpowered the human ships are is to show them in battle. This would also vary the situations the characters get to be presented in.

This is one of the rare cases where I completely disagree with Sunshine.
The storytelling mode you chose is perfect, it says just enough to get the whole picture between the lines. This fic could *not* be more concentrated (I mean the meaning per word ratio).

It may be not perfect but I found it extremely balanced --I just wish I haven't forgotten to say this. Probably forgot to press "submit" and then closed Firefox.

[DCG]

Is this the part where we cheer the writing on for some more?

Some action and reactions durning the first contact war would be awesome. Or heck, reactions after taken the cidital.

[Akuma-sama]

Burn the necro! >:3

I don't actually plan on writing more of this. Between My8HiME, Border of Zero, Beyond the Breach and The Disappearance of Miki Sayaka, I've got waaaay too much writing on my plate already ^^;

[/sneakreveal]

Pale just brought this to my attention, hence the late reply. Carry on, folks.