Honestly, for everyone thinking the Salarian's are being bad people or unfair by claiming the Mar's archives, your overreacting. Humanity will likely be allowed full access to it in addition to all the rest of the help they are likely to receive to help their recovery (infrastructure help, some ships for colonization, etc) for actually coming up with a potential solution to the Kaiju problem. Your all forgetting that this is NOT ME HUMANITY. They do not have space infrastructure, they do not have the capability to actually make use of the archives atm, and it will allow the council to gradually introduce them to it and build them up. Its not like the archives are gonna be hidden from Humanity, it just means its going to take them decades, perhaps longer before they can actually make any use of them, which will probably suit everyone just fine.
Outside Context Solution (Mass Effect/Pacific Rim)
- Thread starter MadGreenSon
- Start date
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Shut up and give me the action movie I came to see.
I can worry about feels later. For now, though, BOATSWORDS!
See you do have the right idea. If you read between the lines in Pacific Rim, it's pretty easy to tell that the world is fairly fucked up. Beyond a few places like Hong Kong and wherever the hell the richest and most powerful are hanging out, people do lethally dangerous work for food.
When Raleigh got to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, having a decent meal was a fucking novelty for him.
Earth needs help in a major way and mucking about over who gets to play with fifty thousand year old alien leftovers on Mars ain't the help the people of Earth need.
Also, spoiler alert, the Citadel has learned from experience and any "uplift" of Earth is going to be handled in a balanced manner, spearheaded by the Asari and Turians with financial backing from the Volus.
Salarians have a lot of good qualities to bring to the table but they just aren't long-term thinkers.
Also. The Citadel Council and associates aren't assholes (mostly), they aren't fucking over anybody for the lolz here. They are facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions and if less than 1% of 1% of their annual tax revenue from their galactic-scale polity can make sure that the people who have literally invented Punching Out Cthulhu are happy and on their side, it's more than worth it.
Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
Jaegers aren't the problem I think. They could probably cobble one together fairly quickly given Mass Effect level tech and the PPDC's demonstrated rapid turnaround capabilities and the spare parts they'd have to have on hand. Pilots aren't it either, since there were plenty of other candidates in that room when Mako and Raleigh were 'conversing'. I think the real bottleneck when it comes to piloting a Jaeger are a combination of Drift compatibility and raw talent. A factor that contributed to this was that the Jaeger program was in terminal decline. Their funding had been cut and Pentecost was pulling every shady deal he could to keep the program alive. Training new pilots, while important, was probably amongst the first things to go, since he's only got so many Jaegers to fill.
I figure the defense of Earth won't be a factor once the portal is closed off, and as MadGreenSon has pointed out, hope is humanities gift to the galaxy at large. Scrapping together a Jaeger and doing a drop on a high profile world, like Thessia or Palaven, achieves that magnificently. It shows the galaxy how the Kaiju can be taken to task and gives them the hope they need to knuckle down and get shit done. Humanity needs Jaegers to take down the Kaiju? Done. We need to adapt this Drift technology for other species? All over it. I figure they'd need a year or two to make it 100% compatible between the various species without negative feedback, which is long enough to give humans the chance to shine and short enough for Citadel species to get a piece of the action for themselves while the war is still hot.
There are zero functional Jaegers left at the end of Pacific Rim. They have plenty of parts left though!
Here's a thought I've been playing around with. The neural load from the Drift overwhelms the brain and nervous system if done solo. Does anyone think the super durable redundant nervous system of a Krogan would handle it better than most?
I was also thinking that, once they got used to the idea, Asari would be best at Drifting with relatively unfamiliar pilots due to mind melding being a big part of their culture anyway, being adaptable in that way would probably be a thing for them.
It's possible that Krogan in the Drift might work really really well due to all the redundancy. Then again, it might also work very much against it, since the Drift would have to account for all that added complexity and would need to be flexible enough to switch from one set of neural pathways to another on the fly as the Krogan physiology switches between them. It'll depend on how you want to play things and on how the Krogan will react. On the one hand, the idea of piloting a giant robot to beat the shit out of a giant monster is just so very Krogan. On the other hand, it'll help the Citadel species that neutered them, so the hatred may well overwhelm the love for giant death robots. Oddballs like Wrex and some of the younger Krogan might go for it. Older Krogan and conservatives like Wreav would probably just put their feet up and happily watch the Kaiju traipse all over the Council and not lift a finger.
Hmmm. Perhaps a compromise is in order. It's possible for Krogan to pilot solo, but a two-pilot system is more efficient and capable than a solo pilot ever could be. The Drift is about coming together to beat the shit out of giant monsters, that we are stronger fighting side by side than we are fighting alone. A solo Drift undermines that concept, but can reinforce it if shown to be inferior to a two-pilot Drift. It also gives you the excuse to write Herc Hansen and Urdnot Wrex as Drift partners, and the universe may not be able to withstand the awesome there.
Regarding the Asari, mind melds vs Drifting et al...
I think that the Drift and melding are effectively two sides of the same coin, that they bridge the same gap but from opposing shores. Asari melding struck me as the exchange of thoughts, heritage, and ideas during the linkage of nervous systems. You can choose what to share and what not to, otherwise you'd have come across a situation where someone could be interrogated via embracing eternity and that's more or less rape so let's not go there.
The Drift meanwhile seems rather different. You don't share thoughts, heritage and ideas so much as memories, individual experience and raw feelings. What gets shared and what doesn't is an involuntary process that neither party is fully in control of either, as demonstrated by Rabits. You also can't Drift with just anyone, nor for that matter would you want to. Drifting with someone else is to expose the very core of who you are, to be truly naked before another soul. That demands a level of trust that the meld, as highly as the Asari and Council species might regard it, doesn't seem to require.
I suppose the best way to put what I'm trying to get across is that melds fulfill a biological purpose and tends to take semantic cues in service to that goal. The Drift fulfills a technological purpose and takes emotional cues in service to its goals. Both approaches link body, mind and soul, but do so from different approaches with different connotations. Asari will happily go forth and meld with half the galaxy before growing up, coming home and leading a perfectly fine life. Raleigh could hardly bear to Drift with another human being after his brother was killed. That doesn't mean that there aren't Asari out there who derive deep emotional cues from their partners during the meld, but the Drift really does remove all the barriers and demand absolute trust in a way that the meld doesn't appear to.
I could see Asari Drifting with their meld partners as having a vivid, quasi-religious experience, like they've only been seeing half of their partners until then and now they have the whole picture and love and trust them all the more for it. I also figure that the Drift would offer a safe way for being able to reach out and touch another mind for Ardat Yakshi, with the long-term consequence being that they finally find their niche in Asari society and are well regarded as warrior-poets who are born to go forth and slay monsters.
Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
Stay away from my notes!
Great minds think alike. Bad ones too but these ideas are good so I figure I'm on the right side of wrong here.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
No, they're just being subtly mind fucked by the Intelligence onboard the Citadel...
Now how will you explain to Samara, "Oh, you can't kill your mass-murdering succubus daughter, we need her to fight these Kaiju"?
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Carefully while keeping them in different parts of the Galaxy and as far away from the Relay network as possible?
I was always a bit dubious about this, mostly because it would be wasted effort. The Reapers have shit set up so perfectly that they hardly need to do anything so direct as making the Citadel indoctrinate it's inhabitants.
There would always be the off chance that it could get noticed before the current crop has reached juicy ripeness for the harvest, and then that would be a bunch of effort expended setting things up for nothing. The Reapers are in it for the long haul, and any potential wasting of resources would be silly.
The Citadel is already a near-perfect trap in that it's a perfect lure to set up your galactic government in what amounts to the barrel of a gun. No real need for further shenanigans.
Not a chance in hell. There are plenty of Asari that are AY-positive that do the reasonable thing and remove themselves from temptation in those retreats that pardoning a monster like Morinth is hardly necessary.
Apparently Ardat Yakshi make up about 1% of the Asari population, which would be...eh a shitload taking into account 20+ colonies plus their homeworld plus the fact that Asari seem to pop up everywhere.
Finding non-serial killer Ardat Yaksi shouldn't be too hard.
Codex: Legatus
Here. While I'm working on the next bit, have a Codex Entry! Kind of traditional for Mass Effect fanfics, right?
Plus, there are some previews of future tech porn here, so enjoy!
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CODEX: Turian Legatus-class Tank
Dealing with the Kaiju menace strained the resources of numerous worlds, orbital bombardment was not always practical or desired. The Turian Hierarchy, in response to this developed and began using Legatus tanks.
More of a land battleship than a tank, the Legatus is a forbidding vehicle capable of horrific levels of destruction. Until the advent of Jaegers, it was the foremost non-starship anti-Kaiju weapon
The Mark I tanks, rolled out in 2504 CSD were 20 meters high at the top of their main turret and almost 100 meters long. The Mark I was armed with two massive mass accelerator cannons in the main turret along with two pods of vertically launched radar or laser guided missiles.
The "lower decks" of the Mark I were equipped with a dozen rapid-fire mass accelerator turrets to the port and starboard, supplemented with six smaller-scale GARDIAN laser turrets, all of which were capable of firing in 180 degree arcs.
The Mark II tanks, first deployed in 2519 CSD, were equipped with powerful particle accelerator turrets in place of their GARDIAN turrets and all of their mass accelerators had been built to use "incendiary" ammunition by default. Additionally, the kinetic barriers of the Mark II tanks were strengthened by more than 50% over previous models due to breakthroughs in generator efficiency.
The Mark III tanks were introduced in 2529 CSD and entered wider deployment five years after that. They were a huge leap forward in the design, replacing the secondary rapid-fire mass accelerators with rapid-fire pulse-plasma cannons developed by the Salarian Union and upgrading the missiles used to Disruptor missiles. Additionally the Mark III had reinforced armor and a more powerful eezo core making the Mark III 200% faster, more maneuverable, and more durable than previous versions of the Legatus.
The Mark IV, introduced in 2555 CSD, is still considered the penultimate version of the Legatus. This version replaced the main cannons with Thanix Magento-Hydrodynamic Mass Accelerators, upgraded the armor to Silaris standards and the kinetic barriers to Cyclonic Multicore Kinetic Barriers.
Though the Legatus is, without question, the most powerful land based war machine produced in the history of Citadel Space, it was of limited effectiveness against the Kaiju menace due to the agility and unpredictable nature of the beasts until the introduction of the Jaegers of the PGDC. Supplementing Jaeger forces whenever practical, the Legatus acts as a force multiplier in Kaiju engagements giving tremendous fire support to Jaeger forces and allowing larger and more powerful Kaiju to be engaged with limited numbers of Jaegers.
Plus, there are some previews of future tech porn here, so enjoy!
------------------------------------------------
CODEX: Turian Legatus-class Tank
Dealing with the Kaiju menace strained the resources of numerous worlds, orbital bombardment was not always practical or desired. The Turian Hierarchy, in response to this developed and began using Legatus tanks.
More of a land battleship than a tank, the Legatus is a forbidding vehicle capable of horrific levels of destruction. Until the advent of Jaegers, it was the foremost non-starship anti-Kaiju weapon
The Mark I tanks, rolled out in 2504 CSD were 20 meters high at the top of their main turret and almost 100 meters long. The Mark I was armed with two massive mass accelerator cannons in the main turret along with two pods of vertically launched radar or laser guided missiles.
The "lower decks" of the Mark I were equipped with a dozen rapid-fire mass accelerator turrets to the port and starboard, supplemented with six smaller-scale GARDIAN laser turrets, all of which were capable of firing in 180 degree arcs.
The Mark II tanks, first deployed in 2519 CSD, were equipped with powerful particle accelerator turrets in place of their GARDIAN turrets and all of their mass accelerators had been built to use "incendiary" ammunition by default. Additionally, the kinetic barriers of the Mark II tanks were strengthened by more than 50% over previous models due to breakthroughs in generator efficiency.
The Mark III tanks were introduced in 2529 CSD and entered wider deployment five years after that. They were a huge leap forward in the design, replacing the secondary rapid-fire mass accelerators with rapid-fire pulse-plasma cannons developed by the Salarian Union and upgrading the missiles used to Disruptor missiles. Additionally the Mark III had reinforced armor and a more powerful eezo core making the Mark III 200% faster, more maneuverable, and more durable than previous versions of the Legatus.
The Mark IV, introduced in 2555 CSD, is still considered the penultimate version of the Legatus. This version replaced the main cannons with Thanix Magento-Hydrodynamic Mass Accelerators, upgraded the armor to Silaris standards and the kinetic barriers to Cyclonic Multicore Kinetic Barriers.
Though the Legatus is, without question, the most powerful land based war machine produced in the history of Citadel Space, it was of limited effectiveness against the Kaiju menace due to the agility and unpredictable nature of the beasts until the introduction of the Jaegers of the PGDC. Supplementing Jaeger forces whenever practical, the Legatus acts as a force multiplier in Kaiju engagements giving tremendous fire support to Jaeger forces and allowing larger and more powerful Kaiju to be engaged with limited numbers of Jaegers.
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Huh... I would have thought that was obvious: nimbleness. For being such massive creatures, Kaiju are nimble and quick as fuck. Also, up until the last iteration, the weapons tended to splatter Kaiju Blue around, which nobody likes.
I did actually show these tanks in action in the story. They laid out some hurt and got seriously trashed in the process.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Also I think that it should be a little taller, ten meters tall to a hundred long sounds odd, the M1 Abrams for example is 9.77mts long with a heigh of 2.44mts.
Edit: I agree with Jimmy C, the codex should be as self-contained as possible and adding the cause of its limited success would be useful.
Edit: I agree with Jimmy C, the codex should be as self-contained as possible and adding the cause of its limited success would be useful.
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Ok. I have bowed to peer pressure and made a slight alteration to the Codex entry.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
About the use of the Drift for Citadel species why don't you share the load there as well. Get a Krogan to take the physical stress on his brain while an Asari protects him from the psychological effects. Or instead of Asari, use well trained biotics to support psysically strong soldiers until they are used to the Drift.
Biotics. I have some fun ideas about Asari Jaegers...
Also. I do actually have a team that will include a biotic Krogan Battlemaster and the most badass of Asari Matriarchs for one of the initial new Jaegers.
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Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
Omake Time.
"Matriarch Aethyta!" shouted a furious Matriarch.
"Yeah? Whaddaya want? I'm kind of busy here," said Aethyta, languidly sipping a drink as she looked over countless pads full of paperwork.
Matriarch Larys glared at Aethyta. It was for a reason that the Asari Republics had seen fit to throw her onto the fools errand that was the Asari offering to the fledgling PGDC, and Larys was seeing just why nobody had listened to Aethyta when she'd spouted that madness about building relays and militarising centuries ago.
"We've invested 150 billion credits into this program and we have yet to see a single concrete benefit! Human and Turian Jaegers are killing Kaiju left and right! And what do we have to show for it? A lot of wasted time, effort and money. You were put in charge to get results. Have you delivered anything yet? Or should we reassign you to the azure end of nowhere?" said Larys testily.
Aethyta lowered her paperwork and shot Larys a disdainful look that showed she was neither impressed with her tone nor particularly fearful of being reassigned.
"Honey, let's get a few things straight before your tits start spilling out of that thing you call a dress," said Aethyta, her own voice far more effectively carrying her irritation, "I was sent here to fail because those stuffy uppercrust idiots don't really see the value of contributing to the PGDC like they damn well should. They're all convinced that the humans, the volus and the turians are all gonna wreck their own economies and that if we hang back and only give a token effort, well, that just puts us even more on top than we ever were."
"The nerve-!"
"I don't give a rats ass," said Aethyta, standing up and walking out of her office.
"Don't you walk away from me!" snapped Larys, "Don't you dare walk away from me!"
"Watch me, but try to keep the temper tantrum down, we're running tests in the control room," said Aethyta before stepping onto an elevator.
Larys stormed onto the elevator with Aethyta.
"Don't think that just because you're a century or two away from croaking that you can do as you well please! We all know about your pureblooded daught-ACK!"
Larys gasped in pain as Aethyta held Larys in a very tightly controlled warp field, weak enough not to harm her, strong enough to hurt like hell.
"One, don't you ever threaten my daughter again. Two, don't you ever, threaten my daughter, again, got that?" seethed Aethyta.
A pained nod was Larys only response.
"Good," said Aethyta, releasing the warp field and stepping into the control room, "I'd rather not clean up the mess."
The cowed Larys picked herself up from the floor and joined Aethyta in the control room.
"What's going on here?" she asked meekly.
"Testing out that hundred and fifty billion credits worth of equipment out there," said Aethyta as a vaguely humanoid robot began to glow and pulse with energy, "the biggest stumbling block to building this thing was making a biotic amp big enough to be useful but safe enough so that it wouldn't fry the pilots."
"What." said Larys flatly.
Aethyta grinned a predatory grin.
"Yeah, that thing out there? Probably the biggest biotic amp in existence. Could probably fry an entire city with a well placed warp. We're gonnna have to test the singularity on a pretty shitty planet though. The mathletes figure it'll measurably affect the orbit and rotation of planets. Not by much, but enough that you don't want to be doin' it all the time," she bragged.
"What? I... what? What?" sputtered Larys.
"That's the reaction I was hopin' for. Alright people, the sooner we wrap up this test the sooner Falere and Rila can get their feet wet killing those Kaiju bastards. Let's move!"
"Matriarch Aethyta!" shouted a furious Matriarch.
"Yeah? Whaddaya want? I'm kind of busy here," said Aethyta, languidly sipping a drink as she looked over countless pads full of paperwork.
Matriarch Larys glared at Aethyta. It was for a reason that the Asari Republics had seen fit to throw her onto the fools errand that was the Asari offering to the fledgling PGDC, and Larys was seeing just why nobody had listened to Aethyta when she'd spouted that madness about building relays and militarising centuries ago.
"We've invested 150 billion credits into this program and we have yet to see a single concrete benefit! Human and Turian Jaegers are killing Kaiju left and right! And what do we have to show for it? A lot of wasted time, effort and money. You were put in charge to get results. Have you delivered anything yet? Or should we reassign you to the azure end of nowhere?" said Larys testily.
Aethyta lowered her paperwork and shot Larys a disdainful look that showed she was neither impressed with her tone nor particularly fearful of being reassigned.
"Honey, let's get a few things straight before your tits start spilling out of that thing you call a dress," said Aethyta, her own voice far more effectively carrying her irritation, "I was sent here to fail because those stuffy uppercrust idiots don't really see the value of contributing to the PGDC like they damn well should. They're all convinced that the humans, the volus and the turians are all gonna wreck their own economies and that if we hang back and only give a token effort, well, that just puts us even more on top than we ever were."
"The nerve-!"
"I don't give a rats ass," said Aethyta, standing up and walking out of her office.
"Don't you walk away from me!" snapped Larys, "Don't you dare walk away from me!"
"Watch me, but try to keep the temper tantrum down, we're running tests in the control room," said Aethyta before stepping onto an elevator.
Larys stormed onto the elevator with Aethyta.
"Don't think that just because you're a century or two away from croaking that you can do as you well please! We all know about your pureblooded daught-ACK!"
Larys gasped in pain as Aethyta held Larys in a very tightly controlled warp field, weak enough not to harm her, strong enough to hurt like hell.
"One, don't you ever threaten my daughter again. Two, don't you ever, threaten my daughter, again, got that?" seethed Aethyta.
A pained nod was Larys only response.
"Good," said Aethyta, releasing the warp field and stepping into the control room, "I'd rather not clean up the mess."
The cowed Larys picked herself up from the floor and joined Aethyta in the control room.
"What's going on here?" she asked meekly.
"Testing out that hundred and fifty billion credits worth of equipment out there," said Aethyta as a vaguely humanoid robot began to glow and pulse with energy, "the biggest stumbling block to building this thing was making a biotic amp big enough to be useful but safe enough so that it wouldn't fry the pilots."
"What." said Larys flatly.
Aethyta grinned a predatory grin.
"Yeah, that thing out there? Probably the biggest biotic amp in existence. Could probably fry an entire city with a well placed warp. We're gonnna have to test the singularity on a pretty shitty planet though. The mathletes figure it'll measurably affect the orbit and rotation of planets. Not by much, but enough that you don't want to be doin' it all the time," she bragged.
"What? I... what? What?" sputtered Larys.
"That's the reaction I was hopin' for. Alright people, the sooner we wrap up this test the sooner Falere and Rila can get their feet wet killing those Kaiju bastards. Let's move!"
You do realize that would probably bring ruin to the Asari economy?
The torso sized core in the Normandy was enough to bring economists to cry.
You want an Biotic Jaeger. ( I Wont even mention your talk about how idiotically much energy is in you Orbital crazy talk that would probably take an "Backpack" full of Antimatter for your Sue-Jaeger )
Why not make it out of Platinum while you're at it?
The torso sized core in the Normandy was enough to bring economists to cry.
You want an Biotic Jaeger. ( I Wont even mention your talk about how idiotically much energy is in you Orbital crazy talk that would probably take an "Backpack" full of Antimatter for your Sue-Jaeger )
Why not make it out of Platinum while you're at it?
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It would not surprise me in the least if the Asari had been holding bach tech to make massive biotic amps that could be useful in space combat. However, despite the amusing Omake, that's not quite what I have in mind for mixing biotics and Jaegers.
Razor One
When Science Goes Too Far...
Apparently things cannot be written for amusement in this day and age.
But to address your points.
The torso sized core of the Normandy made the economists of the Alliance cry, a young military power that had only been established for thirty years. The Asari have been spacefaring for 1500 years at least and were the galaxies largest economy. I think their economy can take it.
Biotic Jaeger, because why not? We've already decided that the square cube law does not apply, which already places Jaegers firmly into Rule of Cool territory.
The crazy talk as you mention it is entirely plausible. We measurably alter the rotation and orbital period of the Earth every time we launch a rocket. Yes, there have been environmental case studies of that.
As for making it out of platinum, sure, why not? It's a fun omake, made for fun and amusement, not for realism and to fit into a coherent story.
For something I whipped up inside of ten minutes I think it came together rather well. The main attraction for me writing it was to have Aethyta as a PGDC Marshal.
Wonder when the situation gets desperate enough for the Asari to reveal their prothean beacon.
1) The Omake was funny, don't feel bad about writing it
2) The Asari economy, even in the current galactic recession, could afford to build a starship out of eezo if they wanted to, because they're a 2000+ year old nation of spacefarers and space is full of resources.
If they wanted a platinum Jaeger, platinum is easy to get. We have a fucking asteroid made of platinum as a Near Earth Object, the Asari have, at minimum, 21 solar systems all to themselves full of exploitable resources.
3) If any power in the galaxy could afford massive amounts of eezo for a project, it's the Asari, they actually produce the majority of refined Element Zero in Citadel Space. The Normandy was a big deal for the SA. The Asari Republics could have built it, plated it in platinum, given it gold spinners, leather seats and a goddamn optical cloak to go with it's heat stealth.
Come to think of it, the Normandy would have been an awesome thing for the Asari to have as it would mesh well with their military doctrine of "all special forces biotic ninjas, all the time"....
I've lost my place here, so I'll leave it at that.
2) The Asari economy, even in the current galactic recession, could afford to build a starship out of eezo if they wanted to, because they're a 2000+ year old nation of spacefarers and space is full of resources.
If they wanted a platinum Jaeger, platinum is easy to get. We have a fucking asteroid made of platinum as a Near Earth Object, the Asari have, at minimum, 21 solar systems all to themselves full of exploitable resources.
3) If any power in the galaxy could afford massive amounts of eezo for a project, it's the Asari, they actually produce the majority of refined Element Zero in Citadel Space. The Normandy was a big deal for the SA. The Asari Republics could have built it, plated it in platinum, given it gold spinners, leather seats and a goddamn optical cloak to go with it's heat stealth.
Come to think of it, the Normandy would have been an awesome thing for the Asari to have as it would mesh well with their military doctrine of "all special forces biotic ninjas, all the time"....
I've lost my place here, so I'll leave it at that.