The Shadow of Old Transgressions (Homeworld/Mass Effect Crossover Quest)

Codex: Propulsion Methods

The fusion drive is one of the most widespread and commonly used technologies in the galaxy. Races can use different materials to build their hulls, mount different weapons, and have wildly varying ideas on what makes a good starship, but every vessel needs a means of moving around and fusion drives are just about perfect for that purpose.

A fusion drive vents the plasma from a fusion reactor in order to provide the acceleration ships need to maneuver. The main factor here is simply the size of the reactor compared to the mass of the ship. The greater a proportion of the ship that can be devoted to the reactor the faster it can go. This leads to an interesting trade off the races of the galaxy have explored in great length, but a general standard is about twenty percent of a ship's mass devoted to propulsion.

There is one additional factor at play as well. Fusion drives that are too small cannot maintain a self-sustaining fusion torch. Thus, strike fighters and corvettes generally have limited endurance before they have to return to their carriers in order to refuel. On the other hand, the low mass of said fighters makes it easy to provide a large enough fusion drive to engage in all sorts of radical maneuvers.

Of course, there are other options. Most of these are worse, but there is one that is better; the inertialess drive. Used by the more advanced races in the galaxy intertialess drives not only have far higher acceleration ratios than fusion drives, but as the name implies, they have no inertia and thus can be used to pull rather extreme maneuvers even when in use by larger ships.

The most widespread usage of the inertialess drives is by the Bentusi who use them in everything. The Keepers also make extensive use of them. The Kadesh have inertialess drives, but also use fusion drives in some of their small craft due to resource constraints.

Occasional examples can be found in the ships of other races as the Bentusi are not above trading the technology for the right price. They do however black box the schematics and make no effort to explain how it works. Thus, generally their trade partners are only able to design one or two ship classes with the advanced drives.

Valerius Addendum: The Kushan also have inertialess drives now. I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me.

Wild Space

System 8793

These megaliths are extremely large. Definitely the largest structure you've ever seen. So there's no realistic way you're actually going to be able to clear the entire structure. You can't even really access it since most of it is still buried. For all you know the rest of it isn't even infected with the biomass, though you doubt you would be that lucky. Still you can at least clear the chambers that have been opened already.

While you muse on the issue Aurora and Iuno have drifted closer to the megalith and opened their hangar bays. A swarm of resource drones issue forth from both of them and stream down into the depths of the megalith. There are hundreds of them. Your projections call for over a thousand eventually. Such huge numbers of drones wouldn't be feasible in other situations, but as it is they don't need to perform anything overly complex. The drones only need to stay in formation and scour the megalith interior with their PDAs.

As such all five of the Bentusi present are maintaining huge swarms of drones. More are being routed through the shepherd destroyers, and even your allies are controlling their own share. The Kushan and Irune are only able to monitor a few dozen each, but the Kadesh are surprisingly adept at the task. You suppose it might be something to do with how they maintain their swarmer tactics. Unsurprisingly the Keepers are actually doing the best out of everyone. They've spread instances through the drones and are actively monitoring nearly two hundred of them.

It's actually gotten Laverna a bit worked up. She's used to being the best at drone operations and it's roused her competitive streak. She's started putting more drones into her control swarm than is really feasible. You're actually a bit worried she might be pushing herself too hard and are monitoring her feed on the fleet network to make sure she doesn't allocate too many of her subminds to the task. She has to maintain herself as well after all.

Regardless of who's in charge of them though all the drones are performing the same function. They spiral down into the boreholes past dozens of kilometers or rocky debris before entering the blue metal doors of the Megaliths hangars. You hadn't realized that was what they were at first because of the profusion of crimson tumors, but as the plasma arrays burned away meters of pulsing biomass you had uncovered what were clearly docks, repair equipment, and even some small ships.

That had been a start actually. Seeing what appeared to be a tiny void wraith appear out of a sea of crimson. But on investigation it proved to be completely dead. Its control systems decayed away by both the passage of time and the intrusion of the crimson biomass. Since then you'd found a dozen more like it. None bigger than a frigate. Which answered one question you'd had. The Void Wraith carriers had always had a massive discrepancy in design between them and the much inferior Turanic raiders they employed as their escorts. You had wondered why they didn't have frigates that actually used their technology.

Now you have your answer. None of their escorts survived whatever process had entombed them in the megaliths for so long. The wraiths must have been using their subversion technology to convert Turanic pirate bases in order to bolster their fleets as a substitute. For now you've assigned a few acolytes to watch each of the frigates just in case they weren't as dead as they appeared, but you're too busy with the purge to investigate them more closely.

Instead the fleet continues cleaning the chambers. Even as more drones fly in those with full tanks swarm out to deposit their loads in orbit. Even as thoroughly vaporized as the biomass is, you don't want to take the risk of any of it managing to survive and get into your resource tanks. It's not just paranoia either. Several of your resource drones actually did get infected. Fortunately they were easily destroyed by the acolytes you had inside the megalith, but it did slow the process down as everyone decided to be a bit more thorough.

It takes a good bit of time but finally you've cleared all the chambers you can reach. Two hangars, one that looks like a storage bay, and three more you haven't been able to identify yet. Disturbingly they've actually started to power on. Lines of blue light trace across the chamber surfaces as power flows through the megalith and long dormant systems come online. You've taken the preemptive step of moving the frigates outside just in case the megalith tries to repair them.

But you've also managed to interface with the megalith and it appears that it's currently struggling to bring its system online and combat the infection in the rest of the structure. As you thought there are numerous other chambers, and according to what you can get out of your makeshift interface they've all been infected with the crimson mass. You knew you weren't lucky enough for any other outcome.

Unfortunately you don't have time to figure out a way to deal with them. Instead your fleet is scrambling for an emergency deployment. Because Iuno has just related some alarming news.

"The Grand Conclave!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Grand Conclave, that's where the wraiths that were at this megalith are headed. I was checking through the message logs and apparently they got some kind of signal that woke them up and gave them a target."

The five of you take a moment to confirm the logs that Iuno found.

"Oh, that's not good. The hangar manifest said they had a flagship, a dozen missile cruisers, and nearly thirty carriers. It looks like not all of the frigates died so they have a bunch of those too."

"Would that be enough to attack the Conclave though. It's got the heaviest defenses in the galaxy. Even Irune's defenses held them off for a while."

"My simulations say no. The Conclave could defend itself against this fleet, but if the megalith here got a signal then so could others. How many megaliths are there?"

"Dozens, I'm still correlating the information here with the codex from the other megalith, but there are at least that many recorded as still being intact. Most of them are still dormant I think, but if just three or four of them woke up and sent fleets like this, then the Conclave wouldn't have a chance."

"If the Conclave is destroyed that would shatter the Council. The flicker races would be scattered."

"Or worse. If they subvert the council instead they could probably get information on the secrets of most of the galaxy. Wether they want to take it over or just crack everyone's defense it would be a disaster."

A ping gets the attention of your group, and Oracle enters the channel. "Bentusi we have been reviewing the logs as well, and believe you will want to leave soon. However we have found that the Megalith has regained enough power to be potentially useful."

"Yes, it looks like the hangars are online. We could feed it our drone schematics and replenish the fleet. And there's something else. Some kind of catapult. Some kind of realspace FTL engine. It looks like it's designed for fleet transport."

"The megalith doesn't have much power though. It still needs that to clear the rest of the infection out."

"Do we even want that though. It seems the crimson mass can't do much on its own. And it's at least keeping the megalith dormant. We don't know what would happen if it came fully online."

The others keep discussing the situation as you withdraw a little to make your own simulations. You're going to want to go to the aid of the Grand Conclave. There's no question of that. But between the Conclave's defenses and the distance the Wraith fleets would have to travel you at least have a little time.

[ ] Go Directly to the Grand Conclave
There's no time to waste. You don't actually know where the wraiths are right now, but you have to assume they'll start their attack shortly. If the Grand Conclave falls the galaxy will lose what little unity it has. It will be every nation for itself. Even worse than the night of a thousand knives. You can't let that happen.

[ ] Get Some Reinforcements
The Wraiths have some of their original frigates, but not enough to form a full escort complement. There's a good chance they'll try to subvert some raiders first to fill their ranks. Not to mention needing to rendezvous their fleets. It's not a huge delay, but it might be enough. You could travel to one of your allies and call up some reinforcements. The question is where.

-[ ] The Bentusi
If you could just bring a full sentinel fleet you'd be able to destroy the wraiths with certainty. The problem is it would violate long standing Bentusi practices. Not only did the flicker races reject the Bentusi's protection, but the last time the Bentusi intervened it ended up going terribly wrong.

So at best you might be able to convince a few individual Bentusi to come to the aid of the Conclave. Which certainly isn't nothing. A few Exchanges or even some Sentinels would make a big difference. The problem is that while you are a wise member of an elder race to the people of the galaxy to the rest of your own kind you're not much more than a child.

The irony would be that if you are successful enough at conveying the threat your elders would likely command you to stay behind while they dealt with the threat. And you aren't sure how you feel about that. You certainly have more practical experience fighting the wraiths, but how much is that actually worth compared to the combat experience of multiple elders. Is your pride worth not doing your best to get as many reinforcements as possible?

Of course your own people aren't your only option.

-[ ] The Kadeshi
You know where the Kadesh are, and they have plenty of ships available. But convincing them to actually leave their Garden would be difficult. You would have to hope that Praetor Yommu has seen enough of the Wraith's threat to help.

-[ ] The Kushan
You've been following the galactic news enough that you are fairly sure you could track down Warlord Trosk and his fleet. They're on a military footing already, and are probably in the right general vicinity. But they also seem to be at war with the Taiidan. And the Republic supplies most of the defense forces of the Conclave. Bringing the Kushan to help in the defense of the Conclave could be problematic from both sides.

-[ ] The Irune
Your best allies are the Irune. You're their hero and they'll help you in any way they can. The problem is that won't actually be that much. You can't expect them to lend their fleet when the Wraiths might come back for them instead. So at best they might be able to replenish your drone numbers with their shipyards.

-[ ] The Keepers
You really aren't sure what the Keepers could offer. You don't have a good central location for them. And they didn't seem as concerned about the Wraiths given their apparent conflict with the T-Mat. Still Oracle 13 might be able to gather some support.

-[ ] The Rachni Queen
By this point the Queen has probably built her hive ship. It would be a formidable asset, and the queen is pretty set against the Wraith. She probably hasn't been able to convert her collection of Turanic raiders into a true Rachni armada yet though. So you are unsure how much use they would be against the Wraiths.

There is also another option. Oracle-13 and Aurora have been bringing the Megalith's systems back online, and there are a few that could be potentially.

[ ] Activate the Hangar Systems
You could build more drones, or even upgrade the ships in your fleet here. The Megalith's technology is very advanced. At least on par with your own, and maybe even more so. After examining the dead frigates you have the suspicion that the crimson infection is hampering the true capabilities of their ships. In addition the Megalith has ample supplies of the exotic matter you found previously. This could be very useful.

[ ] Activate the Fleet Catapult.
You aren't entirely sure what this would do. Well that is somewhat untrue. You can read the Megalith's systems and you can see that it would open a corridor of altered space to allow your fleet to advance at extreme FTL speeds. It's just you aren't sure how reliable your Megalith interface actually is. You've never done this before, and so you can't be sure of what the exact effects would be. If it works though you'd make it to whatever destination you choose extremely quickly.

[ ] Leave the Megalith to its Cleaning Protocols
This is the downside of course. The Megalith is still limited in its power supply. Whether you activated the hangar or the catapult you would almost guarantee that it would once again be overrun by the crimson infection.

---

[ ] Work on the Fleet
-[ ] Pick a Research Project.
-[ ] Pick a Character to work on the project.
-Current Options: Ulysses, Laverna, Aurora, Iuno

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