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Shepard Quest Mk V, Base of Operations (ME/MCU)

kylina said:
Suddenly got a flash of scene in the future, a few decades or hundreds of years after Revy is dead, there's another war. Because really, there's always gonna be disagreements, and stupid people, and rash people and wars. And they've repurposed the mining tech Revy invented as weapons and literally eat planets when attacking them. Cut to Liara or whatever asari or krogran that knew us personally being like, "you just had to Revy. Not enough that you automated VI-mining, you just had to make it faster, better, more efficient." As they try to get into a ship and escape the planet.

and then they curse the idjits who started the war. again.
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The genetic altering capabilities of just Peak Human should make it easy enough to deactivate aging and give humans life spans similar to the Asari. Hell, given the research that's been coming out the last few years, sci fi humans that age at anything resembling modern rates are something of a plot hole.

That being said, mining tech is like dynamite. Can be used very productively, or can kill shit tons of people. Hopefully our purpose built weapons will be more deadly than our dangerous tools.
 
kylina said:
Uhhh..? I don't get the reference.
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tyaty1 said:
Kool-Aid Man.
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No, not the correct reference.

Brackman is a character from the Supreme Commander series. He is a brain in a jar for over 1000 years and by the end of it he was a bit kooky, though none less brilliant.

He usually starts or ends his sentences with "Oh yes" in a calm and even jovial manner, regardless of the topic on hand, whether it be genocide or the eventual extinction of the human race and etc.

Really disconcerting.
 
Future Lamentations
​
On a far distant world in the year 2451

Liara could only stare at the grey mist, that seemed to draw ever closer, in resignation. There was no hope for escape. The starports were the primary target of the swarm bombs, gone before they even realized the attack had begun.

A few ships here or there had been landed far enough away from the ports as to survive the initial few minutes. Unfortunately they had all disappeared, along with their owners, once word of what had been unleashed spread.

The fine neural control that comes with been an Asari allows Liara to remember when Revy first created her mining nanobots. It was such an ordinary day. The smattering of clouds and slightly warmer then average, although for an Asari like her it still felt cold, temperature were not at all like the strange weather a day with as many horrifying repercussions should have had.

Revy had just finished showing off her nanobots devouring an out dated Legionary when Liara had asked about the dangers. She'd seen several vids about what humans called grey goo while researching them and said as much to Revy.

The girl, and compared to even Liara's not even a hundred years that's what she was, just laughed and commented about how silly those "old vids" were.

The pair had ended up spending the night laughing while watching what Revy had called "B-Movies" on the topic. It wasn't a laughing matter anymore.

Estimates put the death toll at around fifteen million, about 80% of the planet's population, so far.

"I can't believe something you created to help me excavate old ruins ended up such a deadly weapon Revy."

She wasn't really expecting a response.

But got one anyways.

"Wait for it, wait for it, aaand, Yes! Shutdown command accepted! I've done it!"

The redhead shot to her feat and turned to Liara with the same grin she'd had for as long as Liara has known her. It's truly amazing how little her beloved has changed in the two hundred and seventyish years since they first met.



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Ugh. This does not want to flow right. But I figure it's good enough for what is essentially an expansion to kylina's joke.

Also as I mention in the omake; mining nanobots, assuming their programmed correctly, would be pretty good for safely and rapidly excavating ruins without damaging them in the process.
 
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Esbilon said:
Cute, though you've gotten Liara's age wrong, and it's not entirely clear if Revy spontaneously resurrected, or if she was around all the time why she didn't turn them off quicker.

Have +50 reserach points in any case, though :)
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Huh. I always thought she was in her fifties/sixties during ME not 100+...

Fixed.

As for the ending bit, yeah. There was suppose to be a bit afterwards about how Revy created artificial bodies people could upload themselves into and how she'd been working at getting past the modifications to the off switch in the hour since the swarm was unleashed.

It just refused not sound right no matter how I re-wrote it. :mad:

Still I'm glad you, and everyone else who liked it, enjoyed it.:D
 
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AN: Not exactly a frequent writer, and this hasn't been beta'd, but here's an omake about why asteroid mining isn't a big thing, and why Revy would be interesting in mining.
Logistics And A Mentor That Isn't​

Revy spun on her stool a couple times, then reached out a flicked a couple changes into holographic blueprint sitting in front of her. She fidgeted for a bit, staring at the hologram, before saying "Cortana, could you run the simulation on that again, see if the vibration problem will be any better like that?".

The VI replied immediately: "Certainly, Miss Shepard. I should also mention that Mister Stane has an appointment to talk to you in five minutes."

"Hmm, Stane, Stane. Who is Stane again?"

"You placed Mister Stane in charge of preparing to expand to Elysium, Miss Shepard."

"Oh right, the bald guy. His team already finished?"

"He has requested your input on the issue of material procurement for the new facilities."

"Matie... What? Why would he need me for that?"

"I'm sure he will be quite happy to tell you when he gets here."

Revy glanced up at Cortana's speaker for a moment, wondering again why the VI had started acting sassy.

"The simulations have finished, Miss Shepard. The vibration issue appears to have gotten worse."

"What? Show me, main holo."

**********************​

Obadiah huffed and slowed down as he finally reached the CEO's personal lab. While it certainly made a great deal of sense keeping the potentially explosive experiments away from the office workers, making it so that the only elevator on that side of the building was only accessible to said CEO made last minute location changes annoying, to say the least. He glanced at his watch for a moment, caught his breath, then knocked on the lab door exactly when the hour hand ticked over to 3:00.

When Obadiah enters a room, he tries to immediately own the attention of everyone there. It's the first step to being important, after all. Carefully controlling his stride, expression, his entire body language, he entered Shepard's lab in the same way he entered every business meeting. He was offput when he realized the person he was coming to meet hadn't even looked up as he entered, much less greeted him ready to shake hands. For a moment he was even a bit angry, then he remembered that he's dealing with a 17 year old engineer, not a proper businessman.

"Miss Shepard, thanks for taking the time to meet me."

Shepard jumped a bit, then spun to face him with a wild eyed expression. "Who? oh, right. Mister... Stane. Right. Sorry, got a bit carried away. You wanted to talk about supplies for the off planet expansion, right?"

Obadiah carefully controlled his expression - although he had no reason to think she would be intentionally insulting him, his boss really needed to learn more about conducting business.

"Yes. Well, Miss Shepard, - Actually, do you mind if I call you Revy?"

Revy nodded, clearly impatient.

"Revy, it's not supplies, per say, but in securing raw materials for the new factories you want to lay down. While I don't want to question your choice in planets, and in the short term it won't hinder our plans, I wanted to raise this to your attention. The choice of new colonies may save us quite a bit on real estate, but the cost of having raw material shipped to those worlds will offset those costs in less than a year. If we were to use one of the older colonies, or even somewhere in the Sol System, we would be looking at a two to five percent reduction in materials costs."

"Really? Wouldn't there be more raw materials in less used systems?"

"I'm afraid not Revy. Most materials are mined from uninhabited planets and shipped directly to major trading hubs. Most colonies only export a few things in bulk, everything else will need to be imported."

"That.. That seems really inefficient. What about the other planets or asteroids in system? "

"It costs quite a bit to set up large mining facilities, Revy. Generally they are only set up over high concentrations of resources, not over small deposits which are widely available. A few rogue asteroids have been captured and mined, of course, but that gets tapped out extremely quickly.".

"Tapped out? Cortana, pull up maps of some of our projected expansion systems."

Revy beckoned Obadiah closer as the hologram beside flickered from a technical blueprint to several system maps. They barely came up before Revy was highlighting the asteroid belts that all of them have.

"So, how are you telling me that all of these will get used so quickly? There's an entire planet's worth of resources right there!".

"Revy, look. Mining the asteroid belts has been tried. Several times, by several different races. You have to realize, those belts are basically just a continuous avalanche. Every attempt has ended in tragedy, no one is even willing to invest in the new attempts now."

Obadiah watched as the girl straightened up on her stool and completely ignored him for a few minutes, clearly thinking. She even spun around like a little kid.

"So you're telling me none of the asteroid belts are being mined?"

Obadiah simply nodded.

"Huh. Well Mister Stane, thanks for bringing this to my attention. This seems like yet another problem I should solve."

"Thats all well and good Revy, but what do you want to do about the materials cost in the mean time?"

Revy finally turned and actually looked at Obadiah, then dismissed his concerns. "Don't worry about the extra cost for now. Our margins are stupidly high as it is. By the time we have any need to drop our prices, we won't need to worry about shipping costs. Thanks for your time, Mister Stane. I look forward to seeing the completed plans next week?"

Again, Obadiah had to restrain himself from feeling anger, this time over the casual dismissal of an idea that could save them tens of millions over the next two years alone. Typical folly of the youth, ignoring the long term and planning to 'solve it later'. At least Revy Shepard actually had a chance of solving it, he supposed.

"Certainly, Miss Shepard. I'll speak with you next week."

*****************************
Revy watched as the large man strode out of her lab, pondering him for a few minutes. Then she turned back towards her holograms.

"Cortana, send the vibration stuff off to Conrad and see what he makes of it. In the mean time, bring up all the records of asteroid belt mining you can find."


AN: some technical stuff on why I think mass effect would have problems with asteroid fields:
1) Some rocks are huge and slow, some are small and fast, and all combinations. A mass effect field tuned to allow worked through wouldn't prevent rocks from smashing the ship.
2) A lot of asteroids in those fields are probably just loosely held together lumps of rock and ice. Any attempt to break them up would result in a bunch of car sized rocks floating around at varying speeds, many of which would run into the mining ships.
3) chain reaction from the backscatter of thrusters would probably set the entire field into crashing into things.
 
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Looks good! There's just a bit near the middle, Stane asks to call her Revy and then a paragraph later, Revy asks to be called Revy and the sentence after implies that Stane's been calling her Miss Shepard.

Edit: This bit
"Yes. Well, Miss Shepard, - Actually, do you mind if I call you Revy?"

Revy nodded, clearly impatient.

"Revy, it's not supplies, per say, but in securing raw materials for the new factories you want to lay down. While I don't want to question your choice in planets, and in the short term it won't hinder our plans, I wanted to raise this to your attention. The choice of new colonies may save us quite a bit on real estate, but the cost of having raw material shipped to those worlds will offset those costs in less than a year. If we were to use one of the older colonies, or even somewhere in the Sol System, we would be looking at a two to five percent reduction in materials costs."

"Really? Wouldn't there be more raw materials in less used systems? And call my Revy."

"I'm afraid not Mi- Revy.
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Now we have enough bonus points for Improwed Warhead.

It is more efficeint to buy from BP, than using dice, since half of the Oweflow BP is lost.
 
Lagrange said:
For a moment he was even a bit angry, then he remembered that he's dealing with a 17 year old engineer, not a proper businessman.
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Yep. Just remember Stane; you can tell if an engineer is social if their looking at your shoes instead of theirs.


AN: some technical stuff on why I think mass effect would have problems with asteroid fields:
1) Some rocks are huge and slow, some are small and fast, and all combinations. A mass effect field tuned to allow worked through wouldn't prevent rocks from smashing the ship.
2) A lot of asteroids in those fields are probably just loosely held together lumps of rock and ice. Any attempt to break them up would result in a bunch of car sized rocks floating around at varying speeds, many of which would run into the mining ships.
3) chain reaction from the backscatter of thrusters would probably set the entire field into crashing into things.
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Space is big. Like really big. Like really really big.

While it's a very rough estimate this calc puts the average distance between Asteroids at 16x greater then that of the Earth and Moon.

So issues 1 and 3 are unlikely. As someone, I can't remember who, put it; "You can fly through the asteroid belt without even realizing it's there."

To be fair the issue of some asteroids been mostly a clump of loosely held together dust is an issue but we can detect that so only solid asteroids are likely to be targeted.
 
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