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Industrial Commander: Not Enough Pockets

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Its freezing cold... makes it really hard to write. I did start on the chapter tho, but I may wait till it warms up a bit before I continue.
 
What are the actual sizes of the ship classes for true

to clarify i meant in feet or meters/kilometers

because i cant visualize size easily

its 13 degrees Fahrenheit where i am
 
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    • BATARIAN HIERARCHY GONE?]

    I looked at the headline in the local news on Starport. It had been three months since the loss of the Batarian Hierarchy. I was dealing with a few issues since then. Namely the Citadel Races and their associates demanding their people back, since I let it slip that I had taken them as citizens. I also had active protests against my takeover of the Batarian race. Definitely organized by the Batarians that weren't within Batarian Space. The people I had taken though… they were actually doing fairly well. I had outlawed the Batarian religion. Or, more appropriately I outlawed publicly displaying it. Worshiping the Batarian religion in private is technically not illegal.

    It wouldn't immediately upend the Batarian ideology and remove the culture. But give it a couple generations and things will change. In my investigations I found that most are forced into it. Banning the public display would prevent religious persecution. I did have a few protesting for freedom of religion. So I extended the law to all religious ideologies. Technically I am a Christian. So that wasn't easy to declare. I still worshiped Christ in private. Declaring your religion also wasn't technically illegal. It was just the public practice of religion that was banned. I'm uncertain if I'll keep that policy instituted or not. May remove it after a few years. I'll figure it out eventually, the Mass Effect and Terminator universe turns out to have existed, so if I somehow provoke the Chaos I may be forced to strengthen that policy instead of removing it.

    The Asari were in a panic, and have been trying to sanction me. Especially since I have started to attack them politically. The Salarian and Turian leaders had decided to work with me to suppress the Asari. I may or may not have revealed the Asari's secret Prothean archives. Which allowed me to get the Dalatrass and Turian Leaders to pressure the Asari and sanction them. What is amusing is that it was hitting them harder than a war would have. You see, the Asari do not control their own economy in the slightest, they rely on their powerful political power to keep the way of life that most Asari live. They honestly remind me of what I know about the Eldar. Except not as independent.

    The Salarians have decided on a mutual deal of scientific pursuit. I wasn't trusting them. I was vetting the split that I had sent to facilitate research between them constantly. I didn't trust the Salarians in the slightest. Especially since I was finding more and more evidence that the Salarians were preventing the Quarians from actually contacting the Geth. Meaning the Salarians were forcing the Geth War to perpetuate. Preventing Geth paranoia from dying down.

    On another note, I have successfully acted as a therapist for several Quarian Terrorists and they were residing on my Starports peacefully, much to many anti-machine Quarians chagrin. I hadn't managed to get them to view the Geth in a positive note, but they weren't outright trying to attack the Geth Platforms on the Starport. The Geth were integrating well on my Starports though. I'm pretty sure they had built relations with several humans on the Starport. One of my stranger human friends has declared a Geth Platform as their girlfriend. The Platform has not denied it. I was examining the code that allowed this to occur to make sure it wasn't some kind of virus. Because there is no way that guy managed to somehow convince someone to go out with him.

    —

    The Technological side of things was going at a constant rate. I was successfully recreating Eezo at a faster rate. I was able to integrate Eezo in a lot of my technology at a more reliable rate, which would allow me to build even bigger ships. The ability to reduce the mass of my ships was too reliable to ignore. I wasn't going to ignore the benefits and focus only on the negatives. While I was still investing in non-eezo tech. I was also investing eezo tech. I had the resources after all.

    My attempt at a Dyson Sphere failed again though. I got the math wrong and it collapsed into the star in the system I was working in. The Geth were making much better attempts than I was. I wasn't going to be falling behind those children for much longer though. My third attempt will definitely work!

    —

    The Systems Alliance civil war with the UEG was going… well. The UEG has been forced to the negotiations table. The UEG alienating the main space power within their system turned out to be a bad idea. As they were practically starved of resources and power. It's kind of hard to pressure the rest of the population when everyone out of the planet is supporting the Systems Alliance. Sure, there were random people who disliked the Systems Alliance and tried to cause terror attacks. But it didn't work out for them. After the events at my second Starport they had escalated their own security.

    The Systems Alliance were pressuring the UEG into folding, and the UEG was dealing with mass riots on Earth. As the people there wanted the same freedoms that the people of the Systems Alliance had. It was interesting to watch, I still trading with the Systems Alliance massively boosting their economy as well. Reinforcing the decision to separate from the UEG.

    —

    With everything going on, and while I was receiving pushback for things as I had mentioned. On the ground level? I was doing really well. I was communicating and talking with normal citizens all the time. From investing into colonies to making the second coming of Skype/Discord. I gained a massive following among the citizens of the Systems Alliance, I had to start setting up a way for legal immigration. Skills really didn't matter that much for me, I just needed the people to enrich culturally. I am technically a Post-Scarcity race after all.
     
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    • 16
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    • Gateway Starport, Systems Alliance Citizen : Joshua Christen, Human
    —

    I took a sip of orange soda, looking at the bustling activity of the Central Zone. People of all races were going around, chatting, and having a decently good time. The Geth were scary to see at first, with all the negative press about them. But they were fairly peaceful, and a few people were actually chatting with the Geth. Being more social with the machines.

    "Penny for your thoughts?"

    I grinned, "Isn't it supposed to be a credit for your thoughts?" I glanced at True, one of his many bodies that walk around the place.

    "Actually, it used to be a penny for your thoughts, and was coined by the United States."

    I raised my brow. "I remember learning about the U.S. back in school. It was pre UNAS right?"

    "Yep. It was before the United North American States formation. The History of it isn't really taught that much in schools anymore. But it was a pretty interesting place."

    —

    As much as things change, things remain the same. A lot of what had gone on in the past was still affecting things today. It has worsened in some areas, brightened in others. It disappointed Joshua to know how many things that were problems in the past, haven't been fixed to this day.

    "You think that one day we will have those issues buried in the past." He couldn't help but ask his friend.

    True shrugged. "As things are now? It's very unlikely. I've already dealt with issues of homelessness and welfare back in my territory. But I have the funds and care to actually try it. Technically the Systems Alliance and governments on Earth also have the capabilities to fix them. But they don't want to fix them. Or atleast, the people who want to fix them aren't able to get strong enough to do anything."

    I stared at True. "What do you mean?"

    They shrugged, before continuing on. "I'll give you it as I see it. The main reason for it is profit and power. There is more profit and power in allowing people to be poor, in making it where they don't have the ability to improve their life, than to do something about it. There is evidence of this throughout history. If you're poor you are more likely to join the military, more likely to work for lower wages, and more. If you are broke you are more likely to vote for people who make empty promises, but do nothing. If you are homeless, they dehumanize you until you join either the military or work cheaply. Some of them don't even realize that they do it too, which is the worst thing about it. The only way I know to fix these issues, is to start anew. Replacing everyone that is incharge with people who actually want to fix things, of course, the odds of that happening is pretty low."

    Joshua sighed. He wanted to disagree with True. To say things were better. But he himself had experienced it. He had escaped his colony to the Starport for better options. The only reason he was able to is because the Haulers had free transit. Honestly his mental health and physical well being has greatly increased since he arrived on the Starport. He wasn't at risk of starving because his welfare payment was just slightly late, or lowered for some reason he didn't get to know of. Now he had a cushy job as a Game Moderator, which actually paid pretty well and wasn't over the top difficult.

    "Maybe one day things will improve." Joshua couldn't help but say.

    "Maybe." True didn't shoot that idea down. Instead they watched the hustle and bustle of the station.

    — Commander True

    It would be a few more months before the Railspace Dimension was capable of going beyond this galaxy into the Andromeda Galaxy or the next one. Once it was possible, I was going to be waging war directly on the Reapers, as they will be in range. With Sovereign dead, and the Citadel and Relays cut off from sending signals to the Reapers, things would go well. The Collectors were also dead, I managed to catch them when I was removing the Batarian Hegemony.

    I was developing constantly as well. Converting undiscovered systems into full on factories to produce whatever resource I may need. The number of ships I had active was, well, unrealistic. I'm pretty sure I could go head to head with all the Mass Effect races in space, and come out on top. I outnumbered them six to one. For now at least. Now, All I need to do is start producing resources Ex-Nihilo and then I will be an insanely powerful Commander.

    Hmm? My Labs made a new breakthrough, something on the high importance chart. Let's see…

    Oh…

    Oh wow.

    Well. It seems I don't have only this universe at my disposal, cause you can apparently stack Railspace Dimensions until you can travel through space and time into another reality. I already knew Time-Travel was in theory possible. But with this I could choose what time I wanted to insert myself into a universe. Course, it was the time since that universe was created, so I'd have to be fairly careful not to travel to a universe at the exact time the big bang starts. So it isn't technically safe yet.

    But I could travel through time and dimensions to alternate, and new universes. I could technically travel to another Mass Effect alternative universe, or travel to one of the different universes. Heh, I might end up in a Halo/Mass Effect timeline. Which is cool, but this does open a bunch of moral dilemmas. There are a lot of universes where the Reapers may have succeeded. Or the Systems Alliance is still in a war with the Turian Hierarchy. I suppose I don't have to worry about it for now. I can choose what time I insert into a reality so I can take my time with it. It may be best to explore an entirely new universe first and see if I can find any technologies that would further my goal into becoming an unstoppable war machine.

    For now, let's make the Dyson Sphere, make that my main goal. That way I can actual fuel the creation of a stacked Railspace and keep it contained to the point where it doesn't destroy the universe I'm living in. In the meantime I can keep exploring the use of pocket dimensions, I can probably shrink the size of my haulers soon while keeping the same amount of storage.

    A/N- I think it's about time for a timeline chapter, for the twelve to twenty years, a fat load of nothing is going to happen, with the only big things being the discovery of new technologies and possible civil wars.
     
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    • Might I suggest travelling to a Star Trek universe. They have some decent and interesting tech if you pop in around DS9 time. And with the Dominion war it's more likely they'll want to trade tech base with you.
     
    Just wanted to say: at most half of homelessness is an economic issue. The rest is a sociological one: people who drop out of the system because of mental illness, or the desire/need to vanish from their lives. Women with abusive stalker exes, men who can't recover from heartbreak, people shamed into self-destructive cycles by hateful/bigoted families, runaways with nowhere to go, criminals wanted by their past associates -- and so on.

    For many, even if you made entire cities to house them in for free, they'd never accept it. Especially if it meant having official records and reporting of their identity or history.

    TrueGuardian32 said:
    Decided the next verse already, next one is going to be an Original Steampunk verse that is interstellar.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Brush up on your John Carter of Mars book series physics then. One of the things that showed up there were moon pirates with skyships; another was a machine that used the ability to split light into an 9th Ray that could be used to produce the breathable air for the planet (which in turn could be used for voidships by enveloping them in a jacket of breathable atmosphere while sailing the black).

    This in addition to the 8th Ray of light which was momentum. So literal sail ships that caught light and converted all of it into motion, and "ether engines" that billow mist/steam that degrades into breathable air but clings to things rather than dissipating.

    For that genuinely steampunk space operatic experience.
     
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    • Over time, things changed, I researched new technology, new devices, new ships. Surprisingly enough, I didn't get dragged into another war even though I was constantly preparing for the reapers. I had to make drydocks to refit my existing ships with newer technology. Hmm, I might as well share what I've found out. It's been fifteen years since I discovered railspace technology has the capabilities of traversing dimensions.

    During that time I've been prepping. Doomsday prepping if you would. I was capable of doing years worth of research in mere days or months thanks to the worlds I converted into labs. I had a total of two hundred and sixteen solar systems under my control, and a ton of concepts I was trying to turn into reality.

    Let's talk about ships first. My standard Fighter Frigate, my mainstay of my fleets have changed weapons a few times, now it uses a mix of kinetic nullifier beams, dimensionally stacked railguns, and high power laser cannons. Honestly, I outgunned everyone including the Reapers, especially since I used Eezo to lighten the tungsten rounds that I launched thirty percent of the speed of light. What is amusing is that Kinetic Weapons like that no longer affect my ships thanks to the Kinetic Nullifier Field.

    They do however cloud vision and block my ships fire since we have to clear out the rounds that are stuck to the field before we can fire. That normally is done by turning the field off and moving around the debris before firing. Below that is the energy shield, which helps block lasers and weapons that somehow bypass the KNF shield generator.

    The Haulers have changed a lot. They have enough space in order to fit the entirety of North America's landmass in them now. They typically only transported twenty to thirty percent of the tonnage that they can actually pull. Which means that I have way too many haulers, and can probably afford to cut back on a few. On that note I've constructed six more Starports, not all in Systems Alliance space. I had a Starport in the Krogans home system. Much to the displeasure of the Citadel who are still not happy that I booted them from the system after making a deal with Urdnot Wrex.

    I have two more Starports in Turian Space. Which, thanks to excellent marketing and regular contact with the Turians managed to just barely not cause too many tensions with the Systems Alliance. I had a Starport next to Rannoch, or well, a system away from Rannoch. The Migrant Fleet is still a thing, but a colony has propped up on Rannoch because. Well… I may have started dropping Quarian spies, prisoners, and pilgrims on Rannoch. They are doing well so far. I had to set up a medical center there cause Quarians kept getting sick. Ever since they have been developing independently of the Migrant Fleet.

    I had another Starport built next to the City World the Batarian population was living in. It was mainly for recreational use, as they could rent out starships with credits and go exploring. I was monitoring them so they didn't accidentally go into one of my… experiment zones. Particularly the one where I had barely stopped a blackhole from expanding and consuming the entire galaxy. I'm actually harvesting matter from that blackhole, which is really good because that thing is basically threatening me with a catastrophic collapse. I have specialized ships that were using a mix of null beams and magnetized beams to basically grab and pull matter from the blackhole from a safe distance. With another set of machines to turn that matter into usable matter, such as Element Zero, Iron, Gold, and various other pure elements. Which is then sent to my factory worlds to be used in expanding the harvesting operation.

    It took a ton of power, but if I didn't start doing it, the entire galaxy would likely start shifting and start having systems collide. It was bigger than a super massive black hole, and luckily, it stopped growing. I'll be honest, I was thinking about shunting the thing into its own railspace. I could do it without causing a thermic ignition this time. I'm experimenting to figure out if it is possible for something that large though, I'd have to create the dimension in one go to prevent any unexpected reactions in realspace. Well, when I start traveling to another dimension I'll make a few dyson spheres to fuel the event if needed. Will need to research more.

    My last Starport was a bit of a power play. I plotted a semi-finished Starport a bit away from the Citadel. Causing a ton of outrage between myself and the Councilors. I had a lot of Citadel criminals and suppressed citizens flee into my Starport. I was keeping an eye on those who broke Citadel law, but they haven't repeated it yet. Free housing and food was pretty convincing. I recreated a bunch of games from 2024. Those were definitely occupying time. The Citadel Starport in particular had a bunch of COD Fanatics. I was actually asked to host a tournament, so that was a fun activity for me to watch. The Hanar had a bit of an unfair advantage. Able to react faster than most players. So I made some various advances in medicine and cybernetics to fix the issue. Which, as a side effect, also allowed me to fix various conditions that people may have been facing. Joker is probably able to walk now.

    — Dark Space

    I finally found them. I had a stealth ship expedition exploring far beyond the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. Judging from what I'm seeing, Harbinger massively overstated their numbers. There are only a few hundred thousand ships. Although there may be more flying about. What did they do for fun out here?

    …

    Nothing. I'm not joking, they did nothing but maintenance. I've been watching them for a few days. I'm not risking digital connections with them, so I can't see what's going on in their digital realm. But this looks like a ship graveyard currently. Is this what happens whenever a cycle completes? They retreat here and crowd around this relay, and just… sit?! I suppose they don't get bored at least. Good news is, I completely outgun them. Their weapons were unchanged from the games, no experimentals that I have to worry about. So I was just surrounding their position. That relay goes straight to the citadel, which I know for a fact doesn't work anymore. Meaning I can just slowly converge around them in one go. This feels a bit anticlimactic.

    After a bit, two weeks in fact. I've gotten two fleets surrounding the Reapers. They began moving. Which was definitely not normal. They changed orientation till they were facing a contingent of my stealth ships. Not risking it. Red Alert, Combat Initiated.

    Space lit up as thousands of laser cannons began to fire. I haven't seen Harbinger yet. They are likely closer to the center. But Reapers were falling one by one. Laser Cannons completely nullified every defense that the Reapers had. I knew this from studying the Reaper corpses I had. My weapons were specially designed to the point I was completely crushing the Reaper fleet, they tried to flee deeper into Dark Space. Running into my net of ships preventing escape.

    I then detected a broadcast. Filtering it through a heavily defended node, I took a listen. Terrible Idea, but curiosity sat with me.

    "WHO ARE YOU. WHO ESCAPED THE CYCLE!"

    I broadcasted my own response. "I am Commander True. Your Directives run counter to my own. Therefore you shall be removed."

    "THE CYCLE WILL BE COMPLETED."

    "The Cycle is done. Warfare is my prerogative. You won't win."

    My quantum jammers got feedback. You know, having years of time to prepare for dealing with the Reapers wasn't in vain.

    "Your Communications, Quantum Entangled or not, are suppressed. There is no escape."

    "MACHINE INTELLIGENCE, YOU OVERESTIMATE YOURSELF."

    "You underestimate me. I am developed for war. You are not. I predicted your abilities, I predicted your weapons, I researched your abilities. I know your history, I know you. Harbinger. You have met your end. Pray if you wish. For your death… it's inevitable."

    Every second that passed, thousands of Reapers were destroyed. In some ways, this was more one sided than the Batarian war.

    "YOU SHALL FIND YOURSELF PURSUING THE SAME ACTIONS WE ONCE TOOK."

    "Not likely. You were made to preserve, to prevent races from facing destruction. I wasn't. Life and Death is natural. Inevitable even. One day I may disappear. You won't be there to see it. Eventually, the races of this galaxy will develop to the point that they declare war out of necessity. Or they find a way to deal with it. In the end… you will be gone."

    There was no response as the remaining Reaper ships began scattering in all directions. There was only around five hundred thousand left. They weren't even bothering to shoot by this point, instead trying to use FTL to out maneuver me. I swapped to using the Null Beams. Watching as the ships ripped themselves into pieces when they attempted to enter FTL.


    "WE CAN DISCUSS STOPPING THE CYCLE."

    "Self-preservation protocols started kicking in haven't they? I've researched your programming thoroughly. The Cycle is hard set in your programming, your attempt to stall is impressive, it would probably work if I wasn't a machine intelligence myself. The only way to stop the Cycle is to wipe out all those that can begin it."

    There was no more communication.

    After five hours, the last Reaper was destroyed. Harbinger had died two hours ago. I'll have to figure out what they were trying to signal soon, likely some sort of just in case weapon. I'd find it. I've already triangulated the path of the signal.

    My ships started double checking to make sure the Reaper ships were completely scrap metal. I sent a report back to my true self. I was technically a copy made to deal with Reapers in particular. Wonder what we will do next? I need to go deal with the Leviathans. Or at least set up a quarantine around the planet.

    I glanced at the thousands of ships, I wasn't going to leave till I made certain that none could escape.

    —

    The Reapers were gone, they had backup plans in the Milky Way Galaxy still, I'd have to hunt them down. But still… it was over. I spent so long preparing for the big bad that I wasn't expecting to win that easily. I had three other fleets sitting in wait just in case the copy of myself failed. But it's over…

    I don't really know what to think now. I could probably develop a Utopian Society now. I had the capabilities for it. I outgunned everyone and no one actually wanted to fight me. Meaning I had plenty of time to do whatever I may want. Hmm. Welp, I'm building a Capitalist Utopia while I fix my mistakes. I still need to, well. I don't actually need to travel to another universe. But I want to so I'm going to. I just got to figure out the math and how to figure out when a universe existed so I don't enter the timeline during the big bang. Or a universe where Gods other than my own exist and decide I don't deserve existence. Yeah this is incredibly dangerous and I still want to do it.

    I suppose in the meantime, once my other self finishes up with the Reapers, I can send them over to the Andromeda galaxy to screw around. I never played Mass Effect Andromeda. But I remember there being some sort of empire or something. It got flooded with negative reactions so I never actually touched it. Well, just in case there is some sort of universe ending weapon there I should probably investigate. Most definitely investigating it.
     
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    • It's really satisfying for a story in Mass Effect to just steamroll the Reapers and get them out of the way.
    It's like when a Worm story takes out Contessa and/or Scion early on. It frees up the story to be more than just another retread of key points that have to take place due to overwhelming threats.
     
    Ozymandias said:
    It frees up the story to be more than just another retread of key points that have to take place due to overwhelming threats.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Or a Fanfic where a Badass comes outta retirement to unfuck Worm A.K.A. this one:
    forums.spacebattles.com

    The Enemy

    Danny Hebert has seen his daughter put in the hospital, and those who are supposed to be helping her doing everything they can burry the event. Danny has had enough and makes a call to an old coworker.
    forums.spacebattles.com forums.spacebattles.com
    Basically it's a Fusion with Sunbow G.I. Joe at the base, but there's been no shortage of series made referenced to that were big in the 80's (and of course Transformers is one (Hell, one Omake series has Void Cowboy really be Primesdamn Starscream of all Cybertronians and he is also Number Man (which pretty much put him in close proximity to Cauldron (and also Mindbender who put his brain in a clone of Baroness (guess who the Doctor's masquerading as))) and additionally rescued Canary from the Birdcage transport))
     
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