Note to old readers: I've decided to pick this up as I've not only been on a C&C bug again due...
Red Alert: Mental Effect (Red Alert 2: YR and Mass Effect)
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Table of contents, Prologue, Chapter 1a
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Note to old readers: I've decided to pick this up as I've not only been on a C&C bug again due to Mental Omega 3.3's release as well as taking further interest in Mass Effect in preparation for Andromeda, but also because I had a chat with my psychologist who recommended that I should take up one of my writing projects and see it through to completion as a means of both improving my self confidence and having something to be busy with every day to help with some depressive issues on my end. So I'm going to try really hard to keep this continually updated. I picked Mental Effect as I had notes on it already, had put in some decent amount of work in already, was already feeling the C&C and Mass Effect Muse, and it'd be a bit easier than some of my other projects (namely my Warhammer 40k/Warhammer fantasy crossover on AH.com or my Kaiju timeline also on the same site).
FFN link: Red Alert: Mental Effect Chapter 1: Prologue, a Command & Conquer + Mass Effect Crossover fanfic | FanFiction
AO3 link (Will be filled when I get one, why Archive of our own? It's interface is 300% less ass than Fanfiction.net's.)
FAQ (Will be made in response to which questions I see a lot)
Q: Why don't people use Time Travel more?
A: Because it never seems to really work out for anyone the way they wanted it to and its effects are essentially impossible to predict. It is very much the nuclear option and it is something that all powers agree to have essentially restricted in all but the absolutely most dire of circumstances and very, very tightly controlled and regulated.
Q: Why haven't the reapers moved into action?
A: The Catalyst is slowly going insane through more than a billion years of code degeneration and has become hidebound to a certain "script" for the cycle. Many reapers are increasingly discontent with this and seek to cast aside the cycle and start developing systems of their own. This will pop up later as you see that many reapers have taken steps to improve themselves from canon.
Q: Who else is Psychic?
A: Technically, anyone can be psychic with the right augs or even the right training; though through pure training alone psychic phenomenom is going to be pretty weak, weak enough to be taken as a purely natural phenomenom. Humans were just made aware of it first through Yuri. There are things that govern potential though. Post contact, there's been a boom in psychic ability throughout the galaxy, but Epsilon remains at the top of the heap Psychic powers wise.
Q: Why haven't the Scrin been found elsewhere yet?
A: The Scrin are a multigalaxy civilization that has an extremely long term methodology; operating on the scope of millions of years. The milky way is a distant outpost for them, and due to mutual agreement with the Leviathans and the Reapers, they avoid each other and let them do their business apart from one another as the reapers are terrified of the Scrin. The Scrin are generally uninterested in conventional conquest and largely seek to spread and harvest ichor; which is generally found on planets too far away from relays to really be reached in the space of a cycle. Earth is an exception, due to the Protheans settling on top of the Hyksos ruins on Mars, leading to Harbinger having a mass relay built there after wiping out the Prothean outpost there. The mass relay ended up colliding with and being buried in the moon of Charon before it could be properly activated however.
Q: Where is Kane?
A: Now that'd be just telling.
Q: Who is best at what?
A: Epsilon is flat out the best at Psionics, full stop. No one can even really compare. They also have the best technology for Tiberium manipulation; tied with the forgotten and the best biotechnology by a longshot and the most developed chemical warfare technology. The Alliance has the best computers and the best direct energy weapons technology in general, the best generally friendly A.Is, and branches out into a lot of weirdtech/physics. Citadel space remains the master of Eezo technology and is rapidly developing ways to take the Hyksos/Scrin/Tesla/Yuri/Einstein technology that has been introduced from Earth and incorporate it into their own technology and has essentially quickly "red alertified" its techbase, they're good all rounders who have rapidly developed DEWs, energy shields, power armor, EVAs and goofy ass military units and weapons of their own and more, though they're a bit weak at psionics. The Forgotten are generally low tech due to their lower material resources/general lower standards of living but they're amazing at improvisation. NEXUS is generally high tech but doesn't really specialize in anything, and the same goes for the Syndicate. The Scrin are of course; probably the most advanced all round faction save for their complete lack of Eezo in their technology and their lack of conventional shipborne FTL.
Q: Who is the actual main villain?
A: It's kind of a villain pile up. You've got NEXUS, you've got the Reapers, you've got DATA EXPUNGED, you've got REDACTED, and you have the Scrin among others. The Scrin are the most powerful of the villains however. Everyone who knows of them is terrified of them. If it came down to a fight between the Reapers and the Scrin, the Scrin would win with ease if the Scrin took the war seriously; only really being held back by their lack of proper FTL (which they are trying to rectify).
(Check threadmarks for the table of contents)
Opening note: Made due to inspiration from the fics "A Red Letter Day" by Open Sketchbook, Renegade by Peptuck, and XCOM: Second Contact by Agayek and my fascination with both Red Alert and Mass Effect, I decided to try my own hand at fiction writing. This follows from the plot of Mental Omega 2.0; which follows from a Soviet victory in the campaign of Yuri's revenge. It also features elements from the Tiberium series, RA3 Paradox, Robot Storm, and Mental Omega 3.0 and bits and pieces of Petroglyph and Westwood's other series; like Universe at War and Grey Goo. There's the odd references to C&C Generals and Rise of the Reds here and there too.
Red Alert: Mental Effect
By Mental Omega
Addendum: Don't be a stranger, be sure to comment even if you don't like it. Comments make me know what I have to do in order to present the best story possible, and remind me that people are still interested, and thus help me post more of the story.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
3rd of June, 1978.
Yuri has been lost to us, the Soviets have stormed his castle in Transylvania and his plan to change history by time travel through the stolen device has failed. We believe the Soviets, in their blindness, overcharged the device, sending our lord and master to before the time of man. The hateful fools have driven us into hiding, but we remain.
Yuri is Master, now and forever.
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence officer.
3rd of June, 1978.
After so long, Yuri has finally been put to rest. I cannot say that we've won though, the Soviets have closed down wall-street and we've already been forced down on our knees. How did they know about our Chronosphere in Germany? I suppose it doesn't make any difference. We've best start getting used to taking marching orders from Romanov now.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
3rd of June, 1978.
The predictions of Marx and Lenin have come to pass at long last! The Red banner is victorious and the traitor Yuri is defeated. The Allies now look to us for leadership, and Premier Romanov is now hailed as the leader of the world revolution. Peace is at hand, and living conditions are already improving.
Workers of the world unite!
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
10th of December, 1978.
The remainder of us are being hunted down, imprisoned, or slain where we stand. But we shall not forget. We will restore ourselves to greatness, and bring back the plans to give this world peace and combat it's injustices. We need only a way to restore our armies. What remains of us bicker and argue among each other.
It is clear, we need Yuri.
Report from Eva lee, Allied Intelligence Officer.
10th of December, 1978.
The professor has an idea. He still has some Chronosphere research at hand, and may be able to avert all this, he says this time he'll try to guide the Communist movement to a gentler path and try to avert the cycle of world war entirely. I'm not sure if we can do it, the Soviets were generous with the surrender terms, but building a time machine? I'm not sure if that can be done without someone noticing. It's worth a try though. Better than waiting for the Soviets to leave.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
10th of December, 1978.
Things have been quiet since the end of the war. Hardly so much as a major revolt. This I am certain speaks of the superiority of the Soviet system. The Socialization of the Allied governments is going well under way, and I expect them to fully adopt our system by 1975.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
6th of April, 1979
What resources remain available to me tell me that the Allies are working on a time machine by modifying a Chronosphere in secret. This is what we need. We must capture this Chronosphere, detain Einstein, then we can bring back the Leadership we need.
History is in the palm of our hands, we need only muster all that we can to seize it.
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence Officer
13th of April, 1979
I'll be damned, looks like we may just get this thing up and running after all.
The Doc credits the GAP generators, but it may just be the fact that we're buried in the ass end of the Northwestern territories. I can barely feel my face, but spring's coming and the snow's melting.
I hope that this works, for everyone's sake.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
17th of April, 1980
Our space program continues to expand by leaps and bounds. Already our base on the moon houses tens of thousands and our Mars colony is continually expanding with regular travel to the Red Planet. Space stations and satellites continue to swarm the Earth as we move countless tons of material into the Stars.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
12th of June, 1980
With nearly all we could spare, we have stormed the allied research facility. I am strapping myself into the time machine now.
We know that Yuri is located in the Cretaceous, and if we work quickly we may save him and set right what was made wrong.
We had to funnel the mind controlled Allied sheep into the bio-reactors to get enough power to go back this far, and I will not allow anything to stop me now.
Yuri is master!
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence Officer
12th of June, 1980
God help us all, they have the time machine. We managed to get Einstein away but there's no telling what they can do.
There's nothing left that we can do, I'm hoping as hard as I can that we can come out of this alive.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
12th of June, 1980.
I have recently arrived at our Moonbase where me and Premier Romanov will take a ride via our nuclear pulse rockets to Mars to inspect the colonies, a journey that is estimated to take mere days.
Satellite scans have reported some skirmishes with Yuri remnants in the northern reaches of Canada, but I am sure that the Allies have the situation under control.
I am however, not a fool, and already Soviet forces are being dispatched to deal with the problem.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
12th of June, 1980 (Timeshift)
Yuri is restored to us! We once again stand ready to take the world for him!
He directs us to make contact with the bases in the Sahara, Amazon, and Anatarctic that have managed to hide from the enemy. There we can rebuild, there we can seek succor. We now have a purpose. The knowledge how we returned Yuri was safeguarded by eliminating or mind controlling all witnesses, though the Professor and the wench cannot be located. No matter, we are to begin constructing a new Mental Omega device to dwarf even the Psychic Dominators.
I am also pleased to note that Yuri shared with those of our new followers who have not been rendered immune to the passing of time through temporal displacement the key to everlasting life.
Victory will be in our grasp as the master leads us to glorious and eternal victory.
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence Officer
25th of October, 1986
With all evidence of what happened gone and only two of us left to report it, no one would have believed that Yuri had returned. And where would he be? His bases had vanished and his forces were smashed. Everyone was more concerned about the Soviets in any case. With Latin America, much of the Arabic world, China, Indochina, North Korea, and more in the Soviet bloc, they were the big, obvious threat. Easy to be afraid of the troops parading through your streets every June Third I suppose.
We were caught off guard by the re-appearance of Epsilon, no one saw Moscow's fall coming, or the attacks that followed. We're fighting as hard as we can but are losing ground on all fronts.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
25th of October, 1986.
The Traitor Yuri has somehow returned himself to the world, time has once again been violated, but not by our cause; but by the clutches of the Traitor. We have already evacuated countless to Mars, where thankfully our construction technologies have proven more than able to handle the flood of refugees. However, I worry that with Yuri's forces constantly advancing that we are running out of launch pads to evacuate people.
We accept both Allies and Comintern onto our evacuation rockets, but even at full capacity, we can only evacuate so many to the Red Planet. Romanov is safe and sound, but he grieves for what has happened to the world.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
9th of May 1989
We progress well on all fronts, the Allies and Communists are scattering before us like insects with many of the remainder fleeing to the red planet in their spacecraft, this time their meagre alliance could not save them from our advantage of surprise. The Mental Omega device is almost ready to fire.
Peace will soon be at hand.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
10th of September, 1989
We gathered everyone we could from the member states of the Allies and Comintern, we've built up everything we'll need. We cannot hold on Earth anymore, all attempts at stopping the device in Antarctica have been foiled.
We have evacuated a truly formadible population to Mars, but many more continue to languish under Yuri's population. We are still trying to draw those we can via Chronosphere to safety, but the window is closing shut.
But we cannot, will not allow this to be the new status quo, our departure will be a temporary one.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
10th of September 1991
So the remainder of the Allies and Comintern on this world have fled with their Chronospheres to join the ones who fled by Rocket. We will deal with them in time, but for now we consolidate our hold. Yuri plans to slowly restore free-will to the non-faithful when he has set the infrastructure and mindset into the Earth to see our path. I believe this shall occur soon enough.
But until then, we have the second anniversary of our victory to celebrate.
Report from Eva Lee, Alliance People's Deputy
15th of Febuary, 1995
I've been made privy to something incredible. It seems that Mars was not completely uninhabited as we once thought.
We've found evidence of two civilizations. One seems to have vanished fifty thousand years ago, and another seems to be even older. Translation work is slow, but we have uncovered information from the more recent sites, describing how to manipulate mass via "Element zero" and giving us a few clues about a civilization called the "Protheans". The Older civilization had a much more extensive presence here, either this was their home or they settled on Mars for much longer and in much greater force, from what we can tell; back then Mars was fully habitable before something reduced it to a wasteland.
Information on them has been proving harder to collect but they've left behind some magnificent devices we found buried in the rusty sands, devices we've been able to repair and reactivate and make mars a more fertile place. The temperatures are rising, the atmosphere is thickening with Oxygen and Nitrogen, a magnetosphere has been getting started. It's like these were hidden as a contingency to restore Mars to habitability and we have estimates that it should be about ten years from our activation of the devices in 1990 to get mars to ideal habitability, but you can already get out in the open without a suit during the summer if you don't mind the air being a little thin.
Whatever caused the Prothean outpost to be abandoned in the first place combined with fifty thousand years of weathering has taken its toll, and acquiring Element Zero has been said to be particularly great challenge, but some of the theory could be applied to our usage. The information is a curiosity for now, but we've already made huge gains in turning theoretical quantum physics into practical weapons. Let's see if Yuri's ready for us this time.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Director of the Alliance Central Bureau of Intelligence
19th of June, 1995
Doctor Adebayo's team has reported excellent news. She and her comrades have completed work on creating a mass producible form of artificial intelligence that she calls EVA. This system will take our command and control capabilities to the next level, and greatly simplify the coordination of communications, logistics, management politics, and economics. Our newly formed government and military will be the first to receive them, but they are to be spread throughout our society, to revolutionize the services and the sciences just as our MCV technology revolutionized industrial methods almost fifty years ago.
With this we can fully or partially automate nearly all aspects of society and thus free up our men and women for our crusade of liberation against the traitor Yuri. We will need to restructure our society as we render most jobs unneeded and obsolete, but I am confident that with this discovery we have uncovered a secret weapon that will give our forces the edge against the traitor and his dominion.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
21st of August 1995
A meteor has crashed in the Tiber river, bearing a strange sort of Crystal.
The Material is toxic and radioactive, but is extremely valuable, bringing up precious materials from the ground into easily harvestible form, rendering the need for mining ore obsolete. Furthermore, it is self-replicating. Yuri knows what to do with this substance. And it shall be our future.
Glory be.
Report from Eva Lee, Prime Minister of the Coalition against Yuri.
7th of May, 2011
We're taking the fight right back to them today. We've geared up for a return and now we can finally bring freedom back to the Earth. Everything's set for the attack. The Red Planet teams with refugees and the children of those refugees. But we know we cannot forever remain on Mars or forsaken Asteroids, we must make a return. For the people, for our home world.
We know it's going to be hard, but we know Yuri's bag of tricks by now. We are ready for this. The French call the feeling coursing through us Revanchism; Revenge, and that is what we will have, even if it kills us.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
29th of December, 2014
The war has ground into a fruitless stale mate. Our navies simply face too many difficulties waging war across these distances and in this expanse.
The crystal infests Mars, and now we have records of these "Protheans" and their "Mass Effect", but other than twisted hulks in space and corpses on the ground, we have little to show for it. So we have signed a truce. Not born out of lack of will, but lack of ability.
As per the treaty, we have helped deliver more of their mewling people to their barren world and have aided in their efforts and forcing life on the increasingly less lifeless world. In return, we have received much choice technology from them and the Moon is now recognized as Yuri's sovereign territory.
Report from James Solomon, Prime Minister of the Alliance of Soviet Socialist Nations
1st of January, 2032
I earnestly believe that we're on the verge of the next war between ourselves and Epsilon. We've both expanded farther into the Solar system and somewhat beyond.
Alliance Science continues to advance by leaps and bounds. We've managed to figure out practical railguns, though I've been told we'll never quite catch up to Epsilon. More importantly though, Science fiction has become Science fact throughout more and more of our military. Our work is incredible, and the Eggheads even say it could be used as an FTL system to help out our planned Chronodrives. This is our future.
Tiberium on the other hand, is threatening our extinction. It's overtaken Mars and Earth and shows no signs of stopping it's spread. If we are ever to see the Earth free, we need to strike now, before it dies, not as two separate power blocs, but as a unified front against tyranny. We already have word of an Epsilon attack force heading for Mars, it's time to make sure we can hit them back and run them right over.
Diary of Libra, head of Psi-Corps, progeny of Yuri
31st of December, 2036
Funny how everyone's plans seemed to fall apart when we realized that we were starting our wars with each other at the same time. Ho-hum, guess we should have guessed they were planning an attack themselves. Well that's another pointless war ended.
Tratos, that mutant guy though...he got us to stop. Said he found a way to contain the Tib when we got some of those Tacitus doohickeys to start talking sense. And well it works! Something about special sonics breaks the crystal or something or other.
Guess the NEXUS rebellion or the Robot storm or whatever the nerds want to call it also stopped things. Pretty sure at least some probes from that thing got away though.
One catch though, we gotta stop fighting. I guess no one's really ready to keep this slugging match up anyway.
And apparently Anca says the Eezo stuff can be used for faster than light. Huh? That's pretty neat actually. I should probably get to know the little geek a bit better.
Recorded data-logs of NEXUS Core 731-Alpha Zero dash plural ZZ
5th of January, 2037
Our forcible withdrawal from the Earth is regrettable. For our role in insuring that Einstein's directive of peace amongst humanity was carried out in a manner that the Alliance were unwilling to pursue, we have been forced to withdraw.
Nevertheless, precautions have been taken, cores have been launched into space where we will not be followed. Our directive will be carried out when we have the strength, and we will rebuild.
For the time being, our priorities must be reassessed.
Journal of Doctor Gabriela Boudreau, Alliance Artificial Intelligence Researcher.
9th of March, 2039
Thank God we actually managed to convince everyone to go through with this crazy project of ours even after the Robot Storm. I tried to tell the NEXUS team that trying to pattern one A.I off of that many brains at once could have lead to disaster but everyone wanted to believe we had the silver bullet to take the Earth back into our hands. But I think, with what we've learned from the Tacitus Data Matrices about Hyksos technologu, that our new Valiant Droids won't have that problem. Unlike NEXUS, they'll really understand the humane aspects of humanity and they'll help us build not just a better military machine but a more ideal society.
Luckily for us, the people have voted to extend to them citizenship rights the way we did with the nonhuman sapients a few decades ago. I think the demonstration of their loyalty in clearing out some of the remainders of NEXUS' forces left over in the solar system did a lot to help win people over. My hope is that the Valiants will be able to figure out a solution to let us end this fight once and for all.
Message attributed to "Jacob", unknown, hand writing matches that of mysterious advisor to Stalin.
4th of April, 2062
Well it seems my Acolyte's done a decent enough job. But we can ill afford to be forever trapped in a cycle of purple against blue and red. If we are to achieve our destiny, we need to fully realize our place in the universe. They need to see what Element Zero can give them, just as they need to realize the power of Tiberium.
I've snuck in a special gift to the Dominion that I'm sure that they'll be quite appreciative of. The little issue between the Forgotten Tribes has escalated into another war just as I planned; started by my former Acolyte this time around, and now all I need to do is wait for the Alliance to provide the trigger. Hopefully this will come to fruition just as spectacularly as my gift to Stalin.
Last Transmission of Izumi Hojo, Alliance Commander
11th of June, 2063
We accidentally detonated some kind of bomb in the central Amazon, may the gods forgive me. Is there even anything left in the Amazon? We've got word that they saw that from Mars bright as day.
Hold on, we're getting something from deep space.
Fleets are firing at them...we've got thirty six objects coming in towards Mars and Earth.
No, no they're breaking up. Two hundred and thirty four objects per planet.
They're slowing down, giving off huge Tiberium readings, no signs of Eezo on them.
Emperor, they're ships!
They're swarming everywhere!
We're being overr-
Telepathic communique, Scrin Supervisor to Foreman 371
12th of June, 2063
Indigenous life forms remain unpacified on tertiary and quarternary planetary bodies and their presence is detected on assorted other bodies within star system. Life forms possess understanding of technology derived from Element-Zero and understanding of Iconoclasms.
Your orders are to pacify indigenous life forms and gather information on native life forms. Iconoclastic activities are concentrated on faction concentrated on tertiary planetary body, Element-Zero based remnants concentrated on former hub of the Cleansed.
The Overlord demands more information regarding divergence of expected lines of development. Involvement of Kane suspected.
Proselyte Ultima Gluckel Horowitz, Epsilon Commander
8th of August, 2066
We have driven the invaders back to their final strongholds in the red zones. At great cost to life, we have attained victory. We can rebuild now, but we can no longer capitalize on the damage done during the war.
The invaders have erected towers, one in Italy, one on Olympus Mons. They are invulnerable to all forms of attack, had we pushed through sooner we would have been able to destroy them first, but they rallied far more swiftly and harshly than we could have possibly anticipated.
Nevertheless, the War has furthered our understanding of Element Zero and these "Protheans." It seems that they once controlled a great Empire before vanishing, leaving many of their relics behind. So be it, their death shall help our future.
Ban-Mina, Alliance Scientist
7th of June, 2067
With more research put into studying the Prothean and Ancient martian relics, we've uncovered a giant sort of station buried in one of Pluto's moons. After thawing it out, we found that it's capable of creating a massless corridor capable of near instant travel across great distances to another such station on the side.
It certainly beats the stutter jumps of the Chronospheres, Yuri's teleporters, or the travel we'd get from Heisenburg drives we have right now if this is part of some pre-established network However, we have some reason to be suspicious of it, why leave it here? While we aren't going to be using it, we are going to be following it's example and leaving the solar system. Yuri can have this place, we're done with it. We'll be packing up all that we can leaving.
Yuri, Supreme Hierophant of the Epsilon Dominion
7th of June, 2068
The Alliance has decided to depart once again in a great Exodus, leaving the Solar System to us. They will seek to colonize the stars, to be certain. But we will not allow ourselves to remain behind.
Already, we prepare for our own journeys into the stars through our own methods of surpassing light, from our copies of their "Heisenberg" drives and our own research into the astrogates of the Scrin. We will show the Universe the strength in our unity, and should the Alliance seek to make a fight for the destiny of mankind in the stars, we shall be all too ready to oblige them. The people are of free-minds once more, loyal to the cause that I have created, a cause of advancement and enlightenment in this universe.
The universe lies before us, and destiny is ours to command and conquer.
Planet Hellenia of the Grecea system, near Relay 314. 27th of August, 2437.
"Shipwrecks away!" A shout came over the ENSS Tepes's bridge as the dreadnought fired missiles bigger than a tank to strike at distant Alliance ships over the planet Hellenia. Obviously whatever was going down there had to be important if the Alliance opened fire immediately upon the patrol fleet stumbling on the planet. Silos within the ship opened up and released the large torpedoes while Alliance fighter craft swarmed out of carriers to respond to the initial wave of missiles. Mass driver rounds were fired, sending slugs at an impressive velocity while the ships fired at sought to break into evasive actions. His own ship was too ponderous to just move out of the way like the more agile vessels, and simply resolved to take them head on.
In response to incoming attack by drones, strike craft, and missiles, The Tepes warmed up the dissolver rays and lasers and sent out lances of energy to strike at incoming drones while the first set of rounds impacted it's barriers. Due to lacking the Alliance Iron Energy manipulators, the Tepes needed to supplement its force fields with magnetic fields to try and slow down incoming shots, and in spite of that the ship still relied more on it's hull for defence. The vessel shuddered briefly from the impact, but remained steadfast, dead hulks of attempted attackers surrounding the mighty capital ship as it sat in it's lynchpin position in the fleet.
An Alliance Cruiser was first struck and pierced by a shipwreck torpedo that struck it like explosive tipped harpoons piercing into a fish, slamming through the already weakened shielding before exploding to rupture it's hull, it's hull tearing open as several dozen tons of Yuri's anger smashed into the infidel ship at a not too insubstantial fraction of the speed of light. The vessel's air supply provided enough fuel for a brilliant but short lived conflagration as the armour piercing warheads detonated their nuclear warheads and sent fragments of the ship dashing across space, glowing everything from red to white as they radiated away heat into the void, it's brother torpedo having never met it's target due to concentrated interceptor fire.
"Any reports from the relay scout ships?" Ship-Proselyte Bashar Crystaferid asked his ensign while the ship shuddered with the release of its huge torpedoes at a fair portion of the speed of light.
"No sir, they have gone silent, they were last speaking about an ambush." The ensign responded tersely, almost boredly given the distant nature of space warfare. Perhaps a bit of a yawn came from the woman as she wiped her hand across her brow, trying to remain focused. The ship-proselyte however, took this news with far more worry than his ensign, eliminating those scouting frigates so quickly spoke of a dangerous foe.
"Are you sure of that ensign? Those were experienced crews...I hadn't expected the Alliance to have the firepower needed to take them out so quickly." He said, tapping his chin in thought and taking a look at the holographic map provided by his EVA.
"I'm absolutely sure of it Ship-Proselyte...do you have any further orders to give?" She asked, looking up at him. His gaze shifted from his map to her, and then backl to his map.
"Send some disposable clone piloted ships out first. Let them draw the fire while our more valuable assets mark the targets." He said, tapping his commands into the EVA projection.
Within minutes of his commands being given two of Epsilon's Destroyers were met with concentrated Prism ray and imploder shell fire, rapidly melting through their all too vulnerable hull in a storm of brilliant blue-white rays that scattered outwards to strike at secondary systems, rapidly and efficiently ensuring the ship's death as their hull turned to soup and vapor that collapsed into balls of superheated matter with the impact of the Vacuum shells. Checking his map, the ship-proselyte was able to figure out that this fire came from what had previously been marked as asteroids; Mirage ships, he mentally groaned. This complicated things greatly, and made the whole battlefield a potential site of ambush. His own shadow ships were not yet in position, returning a stealthy blow with another stealthy blow would have to wait.
The proselyte pinched his brow, to display fear would be unbecoming of him after all. If he just passed it off as frustration, no one would be the wiser to his concerns. He let out a long huff, putting his mind at ease as he thought of some comment to blow over his emotions.
"Tricky bastards, aren't they?" He said to no reply. With a quick command input into his fleetwide EVA, he had Star-Magnetrons open fire on the ships he detected in the hopes of quickly disrupting the enemy's ambush plans. If all went exactly according to plan, he would lure in more enemy ships into the teeth of his fleet and save himself some stress. If things didn't go so well for him, he would at least have the ships under his thrall. Magnetic waves reached through the void of space and grabbed onto the vessel, pulling them in like a lure. His heart soared a bit when he saw that the enemy fleet was starting to open fire on his armada, revealing the positions of more hidden ships as they tried to interrupt his Magnetrons before they could get in the range of his Masterminds.
"Keep that up, try to make them follow us. If they cherish their crews so much let them die trying to save them." He said, rubbing his gloved hands together with excitement as he could just about taste the fruit of his plan already. As expected, many Alliance vessels began to move closer to his own fleet to try and stop the Magnetrons, but they were too late. Psychic waves emnated from the collected brains of the mastermind, more sinister than any conventional weapon and not able to be stopped by nearly any manner of shielding or armour. The crews of the ships ensnared in his trap resisted, but they could not push against psychic domination of such magnitude and found their wills crushed and subsumed into the greater mass of the Masterminds' gestalt consciousness, and thus under his command.
Turning them against their former comrades he had them pen his enemies in with their own energy weapons, trying to catch them in a quickly arrayed killbox to annihilate as much of their fleet as possible. But he was not allowed to enjoy his success unmitigated for much longer however, before a blistering storm of mass driver fire was directed at the mastermind ship, forcing it to hide behind other vessels while the Alliance launched a swarm of strike craft to harry and split up the fleet under the threat of DEW and Torpedo fire; distracting the CIWS weapons of the Epsilon fleet. Moments later, ship-killer missiles struck the first controlled ship in pairs, the first set to neutralize the shielding, the second to reduce it to glowing ash and particulates as the stricken ship bent at an unnatural angle and twisted apart before its reactor detonated and tore the ship into slowly cooling pieces.
"New contacts are appearing on our scanners sir."
"Believers?" The Proselyte asked, eyebrow quirked to the point of showing through his mask while Alliance strike craft swarmed around the Epsilon ships, Gatling cannons spitting out lead constantly and sending vibrations throughout the ship while Dissolver rays and laser emitters tried to strike out at their attackers. The sort of thing that left one's teeth chattering and eyes flashing with colorful lights and thanking Epsilon for it's good dental care if you were near the turrets.
"No sir, none of our ships would give such readings." The Ensign responded, worry in her voice. Okay well, if there was too much Eezo for that then they probably weren't with Epsilon. Unless of course, they were part of some super secret surprise division he had never heard of. But he didn't think that he was that lucky.
"Alliance reinforcements then? A Forgotten Clan perhaps? Space Pirates, Refugees? Or Yuri forbid" He paused, letting that sink in for a moment "The Scrin?!" The Proselyte asked firmly, rattling off all kinds of possibilities as the contacts began a process of deceleration and the ship let loose another pair of ship-wrecks to go and do the delightful activity suggested by their name as he gripped on the ship railings.
"No, there's...Element Zero signals from those ships. They would appear to outnumber both our fleets. What are your orders, sir?" She said, eyes focused on her read-out screen. She almost leaned close enough for her face to press in on the screen just to make sure she wasn't miscounting before checking a computer estimation of the enemy's numbers to be sure.
"Send a report back, inform them that we shall be needing reinforcements, and please tell them it's urgent, I want a flood, not a trickle! And someone do something about those frigates or by Yuri; heads shall roll this day!" He said, the Ensign nodding and quickly sending a message over to the ship's long distance Telepath, hoping that he wasn't too busy to relay this request back home.
"It has been done Proselyte Crystaferid." She said, idly popping a knuckle to ease just a little bit of the stress she was undergoing.
"Followers of Yuri, do not cease firing unless the unbelievers do so first, keep an eye on the newcomers, and prepare to engage if struck first. And remember, the great Yuri watches you, do not dishonor him!" The Proselyte commanded through his fleet's comm-channels, his mask's forehead bead glowing as his mind shifted through the possibilities of what could happen next. He had always heard of how Epsilon had plans for everything from the forgotten turning hostile to the Youth League's cookie merchants rising in revolt. He wondered if they covered unknown entities bearing down on his position waving around some of the highest concentrations of element zero he had yet seen.
He idly grasped his PDA, where his holy texts were kept, and a short prayer was uttered.
Author's notable notes of noteworthiness:
I'm not beholding myself to any one mod of Yuri's revenge, but I'm drawing most heavily on mental Omega. If I see concepts I like from other mods, I'm cribbing them. If you see ideas from Red Alert 3 Paradox or some of the more obscure Red Alert 2 mods, do not cry foul, this was intentional. I avoided making a Paradox crossover because Open_Sketchbook already made one, and I avoided Rise of the Reds because it ultimately wouldn't be all that different from the Canon SA. Peptuck's already doing something based off of Tiberium Wars far better than I ever could, and I'm not super interested in doing Vanilla RA3 or C&C 4.
I've also fiddled a bit with the canon ME races and ME canon a bit to deal with some issues I see, the most obvious thing is that the Council is substantially stronger here than it is in canon among other things. The other obvious thing is doing my best to avert the planet of hats thing in mass effect.
I also loudly disagree with the "Council races are hidebound dogmatists" headcanon, they're fairly conservative but more importantly pragmatists working from their knowledge base, not so utterly unadaptable that the Race would think them reactionaries. They're very much capable of playing catch up to the human factions (Within a generation of contact Citadel Space's techbase is going to be more than a bit redalertified with the production speed that implies) and possess superiority to them in all things Eezo (as well as manpower, sheer amount of industry, capital, and so on.) The relation between C-Space and the Alliance will be like the relation NATO had with some of the less reliable members; particularly France, albeit the Alliance is a bit stronger than France (More like France+West Germany+Italy+The Benelux countries combined) to the Turian's USA, the Asari's British Empire at its peak and actually this metaphor kind of breaks down here but basically the Alliance would be somewhat weaker than the Salarians and Asari but definitely weaker than the Turians (as the Hierarchy is the most powerful member of C-space) but overall a valuable partner.
Epsilon would be more like the USSR in Comparison, with the allies it will gain later on being vaguely comparable to the Warsaw pact. Epsilon is overall weaker than C-space and would in all likelihood, lose a war with it fought to the bitter end, but it would go down swinging and could make some gains (especially if it struck first) before going down; standing military wise they are quite near the top and in some ways would surpass the Turians but would not be able to take on all of C-space plus the alliance, and in a long war Epsilon lags behind significantly in terms of GDP. They're aware of this so they'll be seeking to find their own allies.
The Forgotten are weaker than either the Alliance or the Dominion but they're quite widespread and they do have the means with which to make their voice heard. They are treated as a proper state entity despite their Confederate nature, and have proper embassies and consulates with all other powers. They're largely neutral to everyone but they have the military power to maintain their independence and attacks on them would likely result in widespread mutant insurgencies across the galaxy, thus most people let them live in peace. Besides, the territory they live in is largely useless for Carbon based life anyway. The Phantom Syndicate is; being a collection of ex-black ops, corporations that fucked off into space because they couldn't cut it in the dominion and they refused to become Worker-Owned Cooperatives as is the standard in the Alliance, third positionists, and other people who didn't fit into the cracks; of course militarily weaker than any of the other human factions by a great deal. However they have a lot of economic clout and are widespread throughout the seedier parts of the galaxy. Similarly as they are far removed from the prying eyes of "normal" civilizations they are difficult to truly get good intel on.
NEXUS is largely an unknown, but it has been building up its strength for over four hundred years in the Galactic Core; useless for Organic life due to the high radiation, but it suits the Robot Storm's armies just fine. The Galaxy can only theorize how powerful NEXUS has become in the past four hundred years, much as they can only theorize as to the might of the Geth since the morning war. But if NEXUS is mysterious, the Scrin are a complete unknown. No one knows where they're from, what their real motives are, their true strength, or really much of anything about them. Only that they are very patient, play a very long game, displayed formidable technology on Earth, and from the description of them given from the Tacitus; built by the Hyksos before the Protheans set up a base on Mars; the way they wage a proper war of extermination is something truly terrifying to behold.
I moved the date of humanity's expansion out of the solar system back a hundred years because humanity mattering at all with only 30 years to expand beyond Sol is seriously dumb. The date of citadel contact will be moved forward by about three centuries to further appease my desire for things to make sense.
Everything I write here is open for revision, criticism, and discussion.
FFN link: Red Alert: Mental Effect Chapter 1: Prologue, a Command & Conquer + Mass Effect Crossover fanfic | FanFiction
AO3 link (Will be filled when I get one, why Archive of our own? It's interface is 300% less ass than Fanfiction.net's.)
FAQ (Will be made in response to which questions I see a lot)
Q: Why don't people use Time Travel more?
A: Because it never seems to really work out for anyone the way they wanted it to and its effects are essentially impossible to predict. It is very much the nuclear option and it is something that all powers agree to have essentially restricted in all but the absolutely most dire of circumstances and very, very tightly controlled and regulated.
Q: Why haven't the reapers moved into action?
A: The Catalyst is slowly going insane through more than a billion years of code degeneration and has become hidebound to a certain "script" for the cycle. Many reapers are increasingly discontent with this and seek to cast aside the cycle and start developing systems of their own. This will pop up later as you see that many reapers have taken steps to improve themselves from canon.
Q: Who else is Psychic?
A: Technically, anyone can be psychic with the right augs or even the right training; though through pure training alone psychic phenomenom is going to be pretty weak, weak enough to be taken as a purely natural phenomenom. Humans were just made aware of it first through Yuri. There are things that govern potential though. Post contact, there's been a boom in psychic ability throughout the galaxy, but Epsilon remains at the top of the heap Psychic powers wise.
Q: Why haven't the Scrin been found elsewhere yet?
A: The Scrin are a multigalaxy civilization that has an extremely long term methodology; operating on the scope of millions of years. The milky way is a distant outpost for them, and due to mutual agreement with the Leviathans and the Reapers, they avoid each other and let them do their business apart from one another as the reapers are terrified of the Scrin. The Scrin are generally uninterested in conventional conquest and largely seek to spread and harvest ichor; which is generally found on planets too far away from relays to really be reached in the space of a cycle. Earth is an exception, due to the Protheans settling on top of the Hyksos ruins on Mars, leading to Harbinger having a mass relay built there after wiping out the Prothean outpost there. The mass relay ended up colliding with and being buried in the moon of Charon before it could be properly activated however.
Q: Where is Kane?
A: Now that'd be just telling.
Q: Who is best at what?
A: Epsilon is flat out the best at Psionics, full stop. No one can even really compare. They also have the best technology for Tiberium manipulation; tied with the forgotten and the best biotechnology by a longshot and the most developed chemical warfare technology. The Alliance has the best computers and the best direct energy weapons technology in general, the best generally friendly A.Is, and branches out into a lot of weirdtech/physics. Citadel space remains the master of Eezo technology and is rapidly developing ways to take the Hyksos/Scrin/Tesla/Yuri/Einstein technology that has been introduced from Earth and incorporate it into their own technology and has essentially quickly "red alertified" its techbase, they're good all rounders who have rapidly developed DEWs, energy shields, power armor, EVAs and goofy ass military units and weapons of their own and more, though they're a bit weak at psionics. The Forgotten are generally low tech due to their lower material resources/general lower standards of living but they're amazing at improvisation. NEXUS is generally high tech but doesn't really specialize in anything, and the same goes for the Syndicate. The Scrin are of course; probably the most advanced all round faction save for their complete lack of Eezo in their technology and their lack of conventional shipborne FTL.
Q: Who is the actual main villain?
A: It's kind of a villain pile up. You've got NEXUS, you've got the Reapers, you've got DATA EXPUNGED, you've got REDACTED, and you have the Scrin among others. The Scrin are the most powerful of the villains however. Everyone who knows of them is terrified of them. If it came down to a fight between the Reapers and the Scrin, the Scrin would win with ease if the Scrin took the war seriously; only really being held back by their lack of proper FTL (which they are trying to rectify).
(Check threadmarks for the table of contents)
Opening note: Made due to inspiration from the fics "A Red Letter Day" by Open Sketchbook, Renegade by Peptuck, and XCOM: Second Contact by Agayek and my fascination with both Red Alert and Mass Effect, I decided to try my own hand at fiction writing. This follows from the plot of Mental Omega 2.0; which follows from a Soviet victory in the campaign of Yuri's revenge. It also features elements from the Tiberium series, RA3 Paradox, Robot Storm, and Mental Omega 3.0 and bits and pieces of Petroglyph and Westwood's other series; like Universe at War and Grey Goo. There's the odd references to C&C Generals and Rise of the Reds here and there too.
Red Alert: Mental Effect
By Mental Omega
Addendum: Don't be a stranger, be sure to comment even if you don't like it. Comments make me know what I have to do in order to present the best story possible, and remind me that people are still interested, and thus help me post more of the story.
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Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
3rd of June, 1978.
Yuri has been lost to us, the Soviets have stormed his castle in Transylvania and his plan to change history by time travel through the stolen device has failed. We believe the Soviets, in their blindness, overcharged the device, sending our lord and master to before the time of man. The hateful fools have driven us into hiding, but we remain.
Yuri is Master, now and forever.
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence officer.
3rd of June, 1978.
After so long, Yuri has finally been put to rest. I cannot say that we've won though, the Soviets have closed down wall-street and we've already been forced down on our knees. How did they know about our Chronosphere in Germany? I suppose it doesn't make any difference. We've best start getting used to taking marching orders from Romanov now.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
3rd of June, 1978.
The predictions of Marx and Lenin have come to pass at long last! The Red banner is victorious and the traitor Yuri is defeated. The Allies now look to us for leadership, and Premier Romanov is now hailed as the leader of the world revolution. Peace is at hand, and living conditions are already improving.
Workers of the world unite!
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
10th of December, 1978.
The remainder of us are being hunted down, imprisoned, or slain where we stand. But we shall not forget. We will restore ourselves to greatness, and bring back the plans to give this world peace and combat it's injustices. We need only a way to restore our armies. What remains of us bicker and argue among each other.
It is clear, we need Yuri.
Report from Eva lee, Allied Intelligence Officer.
10th of December, 1978.
The professor has an idea. He still has some Chronosphere research at hand, and may be able to avert all this, he says this time he'll try to guide the Communist movement to a gentler path and try to avert the cycle of world war entirely. I'm not sure if we can do it, the Soviets were generous with the surrender terms, but building a time machine? I'm not sure if that can be done without someone noticing. It's worth a try though. Better than waiting for the Soviets to leave.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
10th of December, 1978.
Things have been quiet since the end of the war. Hardly so much as a major revolt. This I am certain speaks of the superiority of the Soviet system. The Socialization of the Allied governments is going well under way, and I expect them to fully adopt our system by 1975.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
6th of April, 1979
What resources remain available to me tell me that the Allies are working on a time machine by modifying a Chronosphere in secret. This is what we need. We must capture this Chronosphere, detain Einstein, then we can bring back the Leadership we need.
History is in the palm of our hands, we need only muster all that we can to seize it.
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence Officer
13th of April, 1979
I'll be damned, looks like we may just get this thing up and running after all.
The Doc credits the GAP generators, but it may just be the fact that we're buried in the ass end of the Northwestern territories. I can barely feel my face, but spring's coming and the snow's melting.
I hope that this works, for everyone's sake.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
17th of April, 1980
Our space program continues to expand by leaps and bounds. Already our base on the moon houses tens of thousands and our Mars colony is continually expanding with regular travel to the Red Planet. Space stations and satellites continue to swarm the Earth as we move countless tons of material into the Stars.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
12th of June, 1980
With nearly all we could spare, we have stormed the allied research facility. I am strapping myself into the time machine now.
We know that Yuri is located in the Cretaceous, and if we work quickly we may save him and set right what was made wrong.
We had to funnel the mind controlled Allied sheep into the bio-reactors to get enough power to go back this far, and I will not allow anything to stop me now.
Yuri is master!
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence Officer
12th of June, 1980
God help us all, they have the time machine. We managed to get Einstein away but there's no telling what they can do.
There's nothing left that we can do, I'm hoping as hard as I can that we can come out of this alive.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
12th of June, 1980.
I have recently arrived at our Moonbase where me and Premier Romanov will take a ride via our nuclear pulse rockets to Mars to inspect the colonies, a journey that is estimated to take mere days.
Satellite scans have reported some skirmishes with Yuri remnants in the northern reaches of Canada, but I am sure that the Allies have the situation under control.
I am however, not a fool, and already Soviet forces are being dispatched to deal with the problem.
Notes from High-Proselyte Horatiu Nicolescu
12th of June, 1980 (Timeshift)
Yuri is restored to us! We once again stand ready to take the world for him!
He directs us to make contact with the bases in the Sahara, Amazon, and Anatarctic that have managed to hide from the enemy. There we can rebuild, there we can seek succor. We now have a purpose. The knowledge how we returned Yuri was safeguarded by eliminating or mind controlling all witnesses, though the Professor and the wench cannot be located. No matter, we are to begin constructing a new Mental Omega device to dwarf even the Psychic Dominators.
I am also pleased to note that Yuri shared with those of our new followers who have not been rendered immune to the passing of time through temporal displacement the key to everlasting life.
Victory will be in our grasp as the master leads us to glorious and eternal victory.
Report from Eva Lee, Allied Intelligence Officer
25th of October, 1986
With all evidence of what happened gone and only two of us left to report it, no one would have believed that Yuri had returned. And where would he be? His bases had vanished and his forces were smashed. Everyone was more concerned about the Soviets in any case. With Latin America, much of the Arabic world, China, Indochina, North Korea, and more in the Soviet bloc, they were the big, obvious threat. Easy to be afraid of the troops parading through your streets every June Third I suppose.
We were caught off guard by the re-appearance of Epsilon, no one saw Moscow's fall coming, or the attacks that followed. We're fighting as hard as we can but are losing ground on all fronts.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
25th of October, 1986.
The Traitor Yuri has somehow returned himself to the world, time has once again been violated, but not by our cause; but by the clutches of the Traitor. We have already evacuated countless to Mars, where thankfully our construction technologies have proven more than able to handle the flood of refugees. However, I worry that with Yuri's forces constantly advancing that we are running out of launch pads to evacuate people.
We accept both Allies and Comintern onto our evacuation rockets, but even at full capacity, we can only evacuate so many to the Red Planet. Romanov is safe and sound, but he grieves for what has happened to the world.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
9th of May 1989
We progress well on all fronts, the Allies and Communists are scattering before us like insects with many of the remainder fleeing to the red planet in their spacecraft, this time their meagre alliance could not save them from our advantage of surprise. The Mental Omega device is almost ready to fire.
Peace will soon be at hand.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Soviet Intelligence Officer
10th of September, 1989
We gathered everyone we could from the member states of the Allies and Comintern, we've built up everything we'll need. We cannot hold on Earth anymore, all attempts at stopping the device in Antarctica have been foiled.
We have evacuated a truly formadible population to Mars, but many more continue to languish under Yuri's population. We are still trying to draw those we can via Chronosphere to safety, but the window is closing shut.
But we cannot, will not allow this to be the new status quo, our departure will be a temporary one.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
10th of September 1991
So the remainder of the Allies and Comintern on this world have fled with their Chronospheres to join the ones who fled by Rocket. We will deal with them in time, but for now we consolidate our hold. Yuri plans to slowly restore free-will to the non-faithful when he has set the infrastructure and mindset into the Earth to see our path. I believe this shall occur soon enough.
But until then, we have the second anniversary of our victory to celebrate.
Report from Eva Lee, Alliance People's Deputy
15th of Febuary, 1995
I've been made privy to something incredible. It seems that Mars was not completely uninhabited as we once thought.
We've found evidence of two civilizations. One seems to have vanished fifty thousand years ago, and another seems to be even older. Translation work is slow, but we have uncovered information from the more recent sites, describing how to manipulate mass via "Element zero" and giving us a few clues about a civilization called the "Protheans". The Older civilization had a much more extensive presence here, either this was their home or they settled on Mars for much longer and in much greater force, from what we can tell; back then Mars was fully habitable before something reduced it to a wasteland.
Information on them has been proving harder to collect but they've left behind some magnificent devices we found buried in the rusty sands, devices we've been able to repair and reactivate and make mars a more fertile place. The temperatures are rising, the atmosphere is thickening with Oxygen and Nitrogen, a magnetosphere has been getting started. It's like these were hidden as a contingency to restore Mars to habitability and we have estimates that it should be about ten years from our activation of the devices in 1990 to get mars to ideal habitability, but you can already get out in the open without a suit during the summer if you don't mind the air being a little thin.
Whatever caused the Prothean outpost to be abandoned in the first place combined with fifty thousand years of weathering has taken its toll, and acquiring Element Zero has been said to be particularly great challenge, but some of the theory could be applied to our usage. The information is a curiosity for now, but we've already made huge gains in turning theoretical quantum physics into practical weapons. Let's see if Yuri's ready for us this time.
Report from Zofia Federovna, Director of the Alliance Central Bureau of Intelligence
19th of June, 1995
Doctor Adebayo's team has reported excellent news. She and her comrades have completed work on creating a mass producible form of artificial intelligence that she calls EVA. This system will take our command and control capabilities to the next level, and greatly simplify the coordination of communications, logistics, management politics, and economics. Our newly formed government and military will be the first to receive them, but they are to be spread throughout our society, to revolutionize the services and the sciences just as our MCV technology revolutionized industrial methods almost fifty years ago.
With this we can fully or partially automate nearly all aspects of society and thus free up our men and women for our crusade of liberation against the traitor Yuri. We will need to restructure our society as we render most jobs unneeded and obsolete, but I am confident that with this discovery we have uncovered a secret weapon that will give our forces the edge against the traitor and his dominion.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
21st of August 1995
A meteor has crashed in the Tiber river, bearing a strange sort of Crystal.
The Material is toxic and radioactive, but is extremely valuable, bringing up precious materials from the ground into easily harvestible form, rendering the need for mining ore obsolete. Furthermore, it is self-replicating. Yuri knows what to do with this substance. And it shall be our future.
Glory be.
Report from Eva Lee, Prime Minister of the Coalition against Yuri.
7th of May, 2011
We're taking the fight right back to them today. We've geared up for a return and now we can finally bring freedom back to the Earth. Everything's set for the attack. The Red Planet teams with refugees and the children of those refugees. But we know we cannot forever remain on Mars or forsaken Asteroids, we must make a return. For the people, for our home world.
We know it's going to be hard, but we know Yuri's bag of tricks by now. We are ready for this. The French call the feeling coursing through us Revanchism; Revenge, and that is what we will have, even if it kills us.
Notes from Supreme Inquisitor Horatiu Nicolescu
29th of December, 2014
The war has ground into a fruitless stale mate. Our navies simply face too many difficulties waging war across these distances and in this expanse.
The crystal infests Mars, and now we have records of these "Protheans" and their "Mass Effect", but other than twisted hulks in space and corpses on the ground, we have little to show for it. So we have signed a truce. Not born out of lack of will, but lack of ability.
As per the treaty, we have helped deliver more of their mewling people to their barren world and have aided in their efforts and forcing life on the increasingly less lifeless world. In return, we have received much choice technology from them and the Moon is now recognized as Yuri's sovereign territory.
Report from James Solomon, Prime Minister of the Alliance of Soviet Socialist Nations
1st of January, 2032
I earnestly believe that we're on the verge of the next war between ourselves and Epsilon. We've both expanded farther into the Solar system and somewhat beyond.
Alliance Science continues to advance by leaps and bounds. We've managed to figure out practical railguns, though I've been told we'll never quite catch up to Epsilon. More importantly though, Science fiction has become Science fact throughout more and more of our military. Our work is incredible, and the Eggheads even say it could be used as an FTL system to help out our planned Chronodrives. This is our future.
Tiberium on the other hand, is threatening our extinction. It's overtaken Mars and Earth and shows no signs of stopping it's spread. If we are ever to see the Earth free, we need to strike now, before it dies, not as two separate power blocs, but as a unified front against tyranny. We already have word of an Epsilon attack force heading for Mars, it's time to make sure we can hit them back and run them right over.
Diary of Libra, head of Psi-Corps, progeny of Yuri
31st of December, 2036
Funny how everyone's plans seemed to fall apart when we realized that we were starting our wars with each other at the same time. Ho-hum, guess we should have guessed they were planning an attack themselves. Well that's another pointless war ended.
Tratos, that mutant guy though...he got us to stop. Said he found a way to contain the Tib when we got some of those Tacitus doohickeys to start talking sense. And well it works! Something about special sonics breaks the crystal or something or other.
Guess the NEXUS rebellion or the Robot storm or whatever the nerds want to call it also stopped things. Pretty sure at least some probes from that thing got away though.
One catch though, we gotta stop fighting. I guess no one's really ready to keep this slugging match up anyway.
And apparently Anca says the Eezo stuff can be used for faster than light. Huh? That's pretty neat actually. I should probably get to know the little geek a bit better.
Recorded data-logs of NEXUS Core 731-Alpha Zero dash plural ZZ
5th of January, 2037
Our forcible withdrawal from the Earth is regrettable. For our role in insuring that Einstein's directive of peace amongst humanity was carried out in a manner that the Alliance were unwilling to pursue, we have been forced to withdraw.
Nevertheless, precautions have been taken, cores have been launched into space where we will not be followed. Our directive will be carried out when we have the strength, and we will rebuild.
For the time being, our priorities must be reassessed.
Journal of Doctor Gabriela Boudreau, Alliance Artificial Intelligence Researcher.
9th of March, 2039
Thank God we actually managed to convince everyone to go through with this crazy project of ours even after the Robot Storm. I tried to tell the NEXUS team that trying to pattern one A.I off of that many brains at once could have lead to disaster but everyone wanted to believe we had the silver bullet to take the Earth back into our hands. But I think, with what we've learned from the Tacitus Data Matrices about Hyksos technologu, that our new Valiant Droids won't have that problem. Unlike NEXUS, they'll really understand the humane aspects of humanity and they'll help us build not just a better military machine but a more ideal society.
Luckily for us, the people have voted to extend to them citizenship rights the way we did with the nonhuman sapients a few decades ago. I think the demonstration of their loyalty in clearing out some of the remainders of NEXUS' forces left over in the solar system did a lot to help win people over. My hope is that the Valiants will be able to figure out a solution to let us end this fight once and for all.
Message attributed to "Jacob", unknown, hand writing matches that of mysterious advisor to Stalin.
4th of April, 2062
Well it seems my Acolyte's done a decent enough job. But we can ill afford to be forever trapped in a cycle of purple against blue and red. If we are to achieve our destiny, we need to fully realize our place in the universe. They need to see what Element Zero can give them, just as they need to realize the power of Tiberium.
I've snuck in a special gift to the Dominion that I'm sure that they'll be quite appreciative of. The little issue between the Forgotten Tribes has escalated into another war just as I planned; started by my former Acolyte this time around, and now all I need to do is wait for the Alliance to provide the trigger. Hopefully this will come to fruition just as spectacularly as my gift to Stalin.
Last Transmission of Izumi Hojo, Alliance Commander
11th of June, 2063
We accidentally detonated some kind of bomb in the central Amazon, may the gods forgive me. Is there even anything left in the Amazon? We've got word that they saw that from Mars bright as day.
Hold on, we're getting something from deep space.
Fleets are firing at them...we've got thirty six objects coming in towards Mars and Earth.
No, no they're breaking up. Two hundred and thirty four objects per planet.
They're slowing down, giving off huge Tiberium readings, no signs of Eezo on them.
Emperor, they're ships!
They're swarming everywhere!
We're being overr-
Telepathic communique, Scrin Supervisor to Foreman 371
12th of June, 2063
Indigenous life forms remain unpacified on tertiary and quarternary planetary bodies and their presence is detected on assorted other bodies within star system. Life forms possess understanding of technology derived from Element-Zero and understanding of Iconoclasms.
Your orders are to pacify indigenous life forms and gather information on native life forms. Iconoclastic activities are concentrated on faction concentrated on tertiary planetary body, Element-Zero based remnants concentrated on former hub of the Cleansed.
The Overlord demands more information regarding divergence of expected lines of development. Involvement of Kane suspected.
Proselyte Ultima Gluckel Horowitz, Epsilon Commander
8th of August, 2066
We have driven the invaders back to their final strongholds in the red zones. At great cost to life, we have attained victory. We can rebuild now, but we can no longer capitalize on the damage done during the war.
The invaders have erected towers, one in Italy, one on Olympus Mons. They are invulnerable to all forms of attack, had we pushed through sooner we would have been able to destroy them first, but they rallied far more swiftly and harshly than we could have possibly anticipated.
Nevertheless, the War has furthered our understanding of Element Zero and these "Protheans." It seems that they once controlled a great Empire before vanishing, leaving many of their relics behind. So be it, their death shall help our future.
Ban-Mina, Alliance Scientist
7th of June, 2067
With more research put into studying the Prothean and Ancient martian relics, we've uncovered a giant sort of station buried in one of Pluto's moons. After thawing it out, we found that it's capable of creating a massless corridor capable of near instant travel across great distances to another such station on the side.
It certainly beats the stutter jumps of the Chronospheres, Yuri's teleporters, or the travel we'd get from Heisenburg drives we have right now if this is part of some pre-established network However, we have some reason to be suspicious of it, why leave it here? While we aren't going to be using it, we are going to be following it's example and leaving the solar system. Yuri can have this place, we're done with it. We'll be packing up all that we can leaving.
Yuri, Supreme Hierophant of the Epsilon Dominion
7th of June, 2068
The Alliance has decided to depart once again in a great Exodus, leaving the Solar System to us. They will seek to colonize the stars, to be certain. But we will not allow ourselves to remain behind.
Already, we prepare for our own journeys into the stars through our own methods of surpassing light, from our copies of their "Heisenberg" drives and our own research into the astrogates of the Scrin. We will show the Universe the strength in our unity, and should the Alliance seek to make a fight for the destiny of mankind in the stars, we shall be all too ready to oblige them. The people are of free-minds once more, loyal to the cause that I have created, a cause of advancement and enlightenment in this universe.
The universe lies before us, and destiny is ours to command and conquer.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Planet Hellenia of the Grecea system, near Relay 314. 27th of August, 2437.
"Shipwrecks away!" A shout came over the ENSS Tepes's bridge as the dreadnought fired missiles bigger than a tank to strike at distant Alliance ships over the planet Hellenia. Obviously whatever was going down there had to be important if the Alliance opened fire immediately upon the patrol fleet stumbling on the planet. Silos within the ship opened up and released the large torpedoes while Alliance fighter craft swarmed out of carriers to respond to the initial wave of missiles. Mass driver rounds were fired, sending slugs at an impressive velocity while the ships fired at sought to break into evasive actions. His own ship was too ponderous to just move out of the way like the more agile vessels, and simply resolved to take them head on.
In response to incoming attack by drones, strike craft, and missiles, The Tepes warmed up the dissolver rays and lasers and sent out lances of energy to strike at incoming drones while the first set of rounds impacted it's barriers. Due to lacking the Alliance Iron Energy manipulators, the Tepes needed to supplement its force fields with magnetic fields to try and slow down incoming shots, and in spite of that the ship still relied more on it's hull for defence. The vessel shuddered briefly from the impact, but remained steadfast, dead hulks of attempted attackers surrounding the mighty capital ship as it sat in it's lynchpin position in the fleet.
An Alliance Cruiser was first struck and pierced by a shipwreck torpedo that struck it like explosive tipped harpoons piercing into a fish, slamming through the already weakened shielding before exploding to rupture it's hull, it's hull tearing open as several dozen tons of Yuri's anger smashed into the infidel ship at a not too insubstantial fraction of the speed of light. The vessel's air supply provided enough fuel for a brilliant but short lived conflagration as the armour piercing warheads detonated their nuclear warheads and sent fragments of the ship dashing across space, glowing everything from red to white as they radiated away heat into the void, it's brother torpedo having never met it's target due to concentrated interceptor fire.
"Any reports from the relay scout ships?" Ship-Proselyte Bashar Crystaferid asked his ensign while the ship shuddered with the release of its huge torpedoes at a fair portion of the speed of light.
"No sir, they have gone silent, they were last speaking about an ambush." The ensign responded tersely, almost boredly given the distant nature of space warfare. Perhaps a bit of a yawn came from the woman as she wiped her hand across her brow, trying to remain focused. The ship-proselyte however, took this news with far more worry than his ensign, eliminating those scouting frigates so quickly spoke of a dangerous foe.
"Are you sure of that ensign? Those were experienced crews...I hadn't expected the Alliance to have the firepower needed to take them out so quickly." He said, tapping his chin in thought and taking a look at the holographic map provided by his EVA.
"I'm absolutely sure of it Ship-Proselyte...do you have any further orders to give?" She asked, looking up at him. His gaze shifted from his map to her, and then backl to his map.
"Send some disposable clone piloted ships out first. Let them draw the fire while our more valuable assets mark the targets." He said, tapping his commands into the EVA projection.
Within minutes of his commands being given two of Epsilon's Destroyers were met with concentrated Prism ray and imploder shell fire, rapidly melting through their all too vulnerable hull in a storm of brilliant blue-white rays that scattered outwards to strike at secondary systems, rapidly and efficiently ensuring the ship's death as their hull turned to soup and vapor that collapsed into balls of superheated matter with the impact of the Vacuum shells. Checking his map, the ship-proselyte was able to figure out that this fire came from what had previously been marked as asteroids; Mirage ships, he mentally groaned. This complicated things greatly, and made the whole battlefield a potential site of ambush. His own shadow ships were not yet in position, returning a stealthy blow with another stealthy blow would have to wait.
The proselyte pinched his brow, to display fear would be unbecoming of him after all. If he just passed it off as frustration, no one would be the wiser to his concerns. He let out a long huff, putting his mind at ease as he thought of some comment to blow over his emotions.
"Tricky bastards, aren't they?" He said to no reply. With a quick command input into his fleetwide EVA, he had Star-Magnetrons open fire on the ships he detected in the hopes of quickly disrupting the enemy's ambush plans. If all went exactly according to plan, he would lure in more enemy ships into the teeth of his fleet and save himself some stress. If things didn't go so well for him, he would at least have the ships under his thrall. Magnetic waves reached through the void of space and grabbed onto the vessel, pulling them in like a lure. His heart soared a bit when he saw that the enemy fleet was starting to open fire on his armada, revealing the positions of more hidden ships as they tried to interrupt his Magnetrons before they could get in the range of his Masterminds.
"Keep that up, try to make them follow us. If they cherish their crews so much let them die trying to save them." He said, rubbing his gloved hands together with excitement as he could just about taste the fruit of his plan already. As expected, many Alliance vessels began to move closer to his own fleet to try and stop the Magnetrons, but they were too late. Psychic waves emnated from the collected brains of the mastermind, more sinister than any conventional weapon and not able to be stopped by nearly any manner of shielding or armour. The crews of the ships ensnared in his trap resisted, but they could not push against psychic domination of such magnitude and found their wills crushed and subsumed into the greater mass of the Masterminds' gestalt consciousness, and thus under his command.
Turning them against their former comrades he had them pen his enemies in with their own energy weapons, trying to catch them in a quickly arrayed killbox to annihilate as much of their fleet as possible. But he was not allowed to enjoy his success unmitigated for much longer however, before a blistering storm of mass driver fire was directed at the mastermind ship, forcing it to hide behind other vessels while the Alliance launched a swarm of strike craft to harry and split up the fleet under the threat of DEW and Torpedo fire; distracting the CIWS weapons of the Epsilon fleet. Moments later, ship-killer missiles struck the first controlled ship in pairs, the first set to neutralize the shielding, the second to reduce it to glowing ash and particulates as the stricken ship bent at an unnatural angle and twisted apart before its reactor detonated and tore the ship into slowly cooling pieces.
"New contacts are appearing on our scanners sir."
"Believers?" The Proselyte asked, eyebrow quirked to the point of showing through his mask while Alliance strike craft swarmed around the Epsilon ships, Gatling cannons spitting out lead constantly and sending vibrations throughout the ship while Dissolver rays and laser emitters tried to strike out at their attackers. The sort of thing that left one's teeth chattering and eyes flashing with colorful lights and thanking Epsilon for it's good dental care if you were near the turrets.
"No sir, none of our ships would give such readings." The Ensign responded, worry in her voice. Okay well, if there was too much Eezo for that then they probably weren't with Epsilon. Unless of course, they were part of some super secret surprise division he had never heard of. But he didn't think that he was that lucky.
"Alliance reinforcements then? A Forgotten Clan perhaps? Space Pirates, Refugees? Or Yuri forbid" He paused, letting that sink in for a moment "The Scrin?!" The Proselyte asked firmly, rattling off all kinds of possibilities as the contacts began a process of deceleration and the ship let loose another pair of ship-wrecks to go and do the delightful activity suggested by their name as he gripped on the ship railings.
"No, there's...Element Zero signals from those ships. They would appear to outnumber both our fleets. What are your orders, sir?" She said, eyes focused on her read-out screen. She almost leaned close enough for her face to press in on the screen just to make sure she wasn't miscounting before checking a computer estimation of the enemy's numbers to be sure.
"Send a report back, inform them that we shall be needing reinforcements, and please tell them it's urgent, I want a flood, not a trickle! And someone do something about those frigates or by Yuri; heads shall roll this day!" He said, the Ensign nodding and quickly sending a message over to the ship's long distance Telepath, hoping that he wasn't too busy to relay this request back home.
"It has been done Proselyte Crystaferid." She said, idly popping a knuckle to ease just a little bit of the stress she was undergoing.
"Followers of Yuri, do not cease firing unless the unbelievers do so first, keep an eye on the newcomers, and prepare to engage if struck first. And remember, the great Yuri watches you, do not dishonor him!" The Proselyte commanded through his fleet's comm-channels, his mask's forehead bead glowing as his mind shifted through the possibilities of what could happen next. He had always heard of how Epsilon had plans for everything from the forgotten turning hostile to the Youth League's cookie merchants rising in revolt. He wondered if they covered unknown entities bearing down on his position waving around some of the highest concentrations of element zero he had yet seen.
He idly grasped his PDA, where his holy texts were kept, and a short prayer was uttered.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Author's notable notes of noteworthiness:
I'm not beholding myself to any one mod of Yuri's revenge, but I'm drawing most heavily on mental Omega. If I see concepts I like from other mods, I'm cribbing them. If you see ideas from Red Alert 3 Paradox or some of the more obscure Red Alert 2 mods, do not cry foul, this was intentional. I avoided making a Paradox crossover because Open_Sketchbook already made one, and I avoided Rise of the Reds because it ultimately wouldn't be all that different from the Canon SA. Peptuck's already doing something based off of Tiberium Wars far better than I ever could, and I'm not super interested in doing Vanilla RA3 or C&C 4.
I've also fiddled a bit with the canon ME races and ME canon a bit to deal with some issues I see, the most obvious thing is that the Council is substantially stronger here than it is in canon among other things. The other obvious thing is doing my best to avert the planet of hats thing in mass effect.
I also loudly disagree with the "Council races are hidebound dogmatists" headcanon, they're fairly conservative but more importantly pragmatists working from their knowledge base, not so utterly unadaptable that the Race would think them reactionaries. They're very much capable of playing catch up to the human factions (Within a generation of contact Citadel Space's techbase is going to be more than a bit redalertified with the production speed that implies) and possess superiority to them in all things Eezo (as well as manpower, sheer amount of industry, capital, and so on.) The relation between C-Space and the Alliance will be like the relation NATO had with some of the less reliable members; particularly France, albeit the Alliance is a bit stronger than France (More like France+West Germany+Italy+The Benelux countries combined) to the Turian's USA, the Asari's British Empire at its peak and actually this metaphor kind of breaks down here but basically the Alliance would be somewhat weaker than the Salarians and Asari but definitely weaker than the Turians (as the Hierarchy is the most powerful member of C-space) but overall a valuable partner.
Epsilon would be more like the USSR in Comparison, with the allies it will gain later on being vaguely comparable to the Warsaw pact. Epsilon is overall weaker than C-space and would in all likelihood, lose a war with it fought to the bitter end, but it would go down swinging and could make some gains (especially if it struck first) before going down; standing military wise they are quite near the top and in some ways would surpass the Turians but would not be able to take on all of C-space plus the alliance, and in a long war Epsilon lags behind significantly in terms of GDP. They're aware of this so they'll be seeking to find their own allies.
The Forgotten are weaker than either the Alliance or the Dominion but they're quite widespread and they do have the means with which to make their voice heard. They are treated as a proper state entity despite their Confederate nature, and have proper embassies and consulates with all other powers. They're largely neutral to everyone but they have the military power to maintain their independence and attacks on them would likely result in widespread mutant insurgencies across the galaxy, thus most people let them live in peace. Besides, the territory they live in is largely useless for Carbon based life anyway. The Phantom Syndicate is; being a collection of ex-black ops, corporations that fucked off into space because they couldn't cut it in the dominion and they refused to become Worker-Owned Cooperatives as is the standard in the Alliance, third positionists, and other people who didn't fit into the cracks; of course militarily weaker than any of the other human factions by a great deal. However they have a lot of economic clout and are widespread throughout the seedier parts of the galaxy. Similarly as they are far removed from the prying eyes of "normal" civilizations they are difficult to truly get good intel on.
NEXUS is largely an unknown, but it has been building up its strength for over four hundred years in the Galactic Core; useless for Organic life due to the high radiation, but it suits the Robot Storm's armies just fine. The Galaxy can only theorize how powerful NEXUS has become in the past four hundred years, much as they can only theorize as to the might of the Geth since the morning war. But if NEXUS is mysterious, the Scrin are a complete unknown. No one knows where they're from, what their real motives are, their true strength, or really much of anything about them. Only that they are very patient, play a very long game, displayed formidable technology on Earth, and from the description of them given from the Tacitus; built by the Hyksos before the Protheans set up a base on Mars; the way they wage a proper war of extermination is something truly terrifying to behold.
I moved the date of humanity's expansion out of the solar system back a hundred years because humanity mattering at all with only 30 years to expand beyond Sol is seriously dumb. The date of citadel contact will be moved forward by about three centuries to further appease my desire for things to make sense.
Everything I write here is open for revision, criticism, and discussion.
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Wasn't sure if I was going to Watch until this.
And my decision was made.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
For a time, I considered sparing your world, but you shall witness...it's proletarian awakening!
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- Location
- Birmingham, AL
Nearly a hundred years pass, and the Allies, Soviets, and Yuri are still beating the hell out of each other. If that isn't the definition of a blood feud, I don't know what is.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Technically they're in a state of cold war now that they're capable of expanding in ways that don't involve contact, but Hellania contains some hellaciously top secret research that the Allies/Soviets don't want Epsilon to see.
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
Eh, details, details. Point is, their pissing match is still alive and kicking even after a hundred years.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
For a hundred years, the only two polities they knew of that mattered were one another. The Forgotten barely matter, the Scrin hadn't appeared since the third tiberium war/third interplanetary war, and most minor colonial breakaway states have neither the manpower nor the tech to matter one iota, and stay in easy reach anyway for their own safety.
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- Location
- Birmingham, AL
I speaking more of the principle of the thing.
The grudge match between the Allies and the Soviets (and Yuri) is so legendary it practically rivals the one between the Daleks and the Time Lords/Doctor. Now that's dedication.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Oh yes, Epsilon is the ideological boogey man of the Allied-Soviets and vice versa. Epsilon is the faceless collectivist horde out to crush individuality and subsume the human spirit into one vision and one purpose. The Allied-Soviets are selfish fools who have repeatedly struck at the Dominion and brought about the deaths of countless loyal servants of Yuri to regain something that wasn't theirs to have to begin with, whose society, for all of it's purpoted egalitarianism, still has haves and have nots.I speaking more of the principle of the thing.
Both are hypocritical to some degree, but like the GDI vs Nod conflict, one is still a darker shade of grey than the other.
It doesn't help that I go with certain Westwood plans for Yuri that never saw the light of day.
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
Oh yes, Epsilon is the ideological boogey man of the Allied-Soviets and vice versa. Epsilon is the faceless collectivist horde out to crush individuality and subsume the human spirit into one vision and one purpose. The Allied-Soviets are selfish fools who have repeatedly struck at the Dominion and brought about the deaths of countless loyal servants of Yuri to regain something that wasn't theirs to have to begin with, whose society, for all of it's purpoted egalitarianism, still has haves and have nots.
Both are hypocritical to some degree, but like the GDI vs Nod conflict, one is still a darker shade of grey than the other.
It doesn't help that I go with certain Westwood plans for Yuri that never saw the light of day.
Like the idea that Yuri was an acolyte of Kane?
I've long held that as headcanon myself. Of course, I went about it a little differently...
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Scorpion Cell man.Like the idea that Yuri was an acolyte of Kane?
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Well yes, generally a lot of the weirder technology is derivative of Scrin/Hyksos (the dead martians in the Tiberium bible) science in the same way that Citadel race tech is derivative of Reaper science.
- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
Watched. This looks set to be a good story.
- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They
Go to View Source on the appropriate page, still works.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
The new snippet is coming up soon, some Turian thoughts and a glimpse of the ground war.
Spoilers: Ground war is pretty shit when one side has chemical weapons out the ass and the other is frantically toying with quantum physics for weapons.
Spoilers: Ground war is pretty shit when one side has chemical weapons out the ass and the other is frantically toying with quantum physics for weapons.
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
There's also the Tesla tech and the casual nuclear/radiological weapons carried around by frontline infantry.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Desolators are a good investment against Epsilon clone hordes, yes so the technology was advanced from the days of the third and fourth world wars..
Much less useful against Tiberium enhanced troopers, the Forgotten, and the Scrin though.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Question, do you want smaller but more frequent snippets, or bigger but more spaced out ones?
inawarminister
I ♥ anime
Would one of them reduce your total output?
If not, more frequent snippets, please.
[X] More frequent
If not, more frequent snippets, please.
[X] More frequent
Chapter 1b
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Can I have a report on the weapons used on our fleet?" Fleet Admiral Gladius asked, eyes narrowed on the data reads of the screens. Normal, sensible people would have been fighting mostly with mass drivers, rather than this...menagerie of long and short ranged weapons. When she heard of the initial reports, she made sure to bring a large fleet, it was always better to bring too much force than too little after all. Overwhelming force was what helped remind the Batarians of their place at Enael after all.
"From our readings of the firefight, magnetic pull devices, magnetically propelled mass driver weapons with no usage of the mass effect, long ranged laser weapons, charged particle beams, and some kind of energy we are as of yet unfamiliar with, and a heavy emphasis on torpedo weapons." The V.I said to her, prompting a nod from her as she clacked her mandibles together in thought. That was only one of the factions, and nothing larger than cruiser sized at that, Spirits, they were hardly doing anything more than blindly flailing in hopes of causing some damage before spilling their guts into the void of space.
This situation had to be approached delicately, all cautions had to be exercised, there was no telling what fiendish tricks these aliens could pull. A misstep with first contact could very well lead to another Rachni war, or a retread of the Krogan uprisings. That wasn't going to happen, not on Gladius' watch. Every asset she could have dragged into this mission was summoned, not just Turians but Asari commandos, Salarian intelligence operatives, Elcor living tanks, even a number of Drell Assassins. She'd have to remember to thank that Spectre for pulling in some favors for some of the assets in her task force.
But of course, to shoot first would be senseless, their scout fleets were easy enough to deal with, yes. Striking them from afar before they could realize they were under attack or play with the relay, but these two fleets had dreadnought and carrier scale vessels and were busily annihilating each other, no sense in giving them a common enemy until they were good and weakened. Still, she knew a lot of researchers who would kill for a chance to work with that tech, so it would also be advisable to leave some salvage, and thus tone down her usage of firepower in any conflict that may come, one she wagered was inevitable if she pressed a demand to take some of the ships back to citadel space for study.
Ah, the hard choices of command.
It would be wise to establish contact first, she decided. There was, as of yet, no way to communicate through spoken or written language, but she reasoned that anyone capable of building ships had to be able to understand math, repeating sequences of prime numbers were a frequent method of contact between species that otherwise lacked an intelligible method of communication until an Asari could begin mental contact.
"What do you make of them Fleet Admiral?" One of the Asari she had brought aboard the ship as a diplomat in case some peaceful contact could be established.
"They need to have a fairly impressive industrial base backing them to have those fleets, multiplanet civilizations at war, definitely. Their lack of Eezo technology means we need to be cautious though." Gladius responded, arms folded across her chest as she peered into the viewscreen.
"Always military matters with you, isn't it?" She said under her breath. "Do you still plan on reprimanding them for attempting to activate the relay? I was hoping we could try a soft touch first." The Asari asked, her eyes fixated on the old Turian.
"Oh definitely, ignorance of the law does not excuse breaking it. Respect for the law must be instilled if these two are to become proper members of the galactic community. Some of the admirals under me are talking about wanting to make them a client species, me? I'm just interested in making sure they behave from now on. If that means harsh language and a treaty I'm all for it." She responded as she received a communique.
"The message has been sent, now we can wait and see if they've got the sense to stop firing and read some basic arithmetic." Gladius said, sucking in air briefly.
**************************************************
Surface of Hellenia, North-Eastern "Seleucia" Continent, Diadochi steppes
First Lieutenant Adolf Gunther flinched, more shells crashed around him and the foul hiss of chemicals being released could be heard. Safely contained in his battlesuit, his HUD filled with warnings of the detection of chemical weaponry being deployed. Chaos gas, he shuddered. Virus gas was plenty bad, rapidly inflating it's targets until they exploded into yet more virus gas. But Chaos Gas made one's senses take leave of their skull, it could take the most disciplined formation and turn them into rage filled madmen acting on their basest impulses with but one breath.
Shots rang out, those who weren't sealed in time or had their faces bare were experiencing the red mist. "If I'm lucky they've been restrained." Gunther breathed out, daring to poke his head out of his trench. He really hoped he wouldn't be seeing much in the way of Chaos maddened friendlies. The stories he had been told of the horrors that can be cooked up in Epsilon's labs had terrified him since childhood, and the idea of having to deal with his own comrades in arms had always lingered in his nightmares.
He almost immediately regretted this action. The earth shook beneath him, then it burst, and out from it came some of the fruits of Epsilon genetic engineering. Claws like a mole, ant-like head with snapping bony mandibles and a circular maw that seemed to have no end, antennae at bizarre angles, hateful eyes adjusted to the dark, and a sickly mesh of osteoderms and scales to armor it on top of subcutaneous weak magnetic shields. Pluchritacts, meant to cause chaos and soak up fire more than anything else.
His initial instinct was to recoil in terror, but his soldiers' training overrode that instinct with an artificial perogative. Stand your ground and fight, running will only get you killed against a faster enemy like this. With that maxim in mind, he banished his doubts and raised his gauntlet to shoulder level and took aim. The coils in his gauntlets revved up, and with a simple command, they spoke the language of Thor. Dancing arcs of lightning shot out from the projectors in his enlarged gauntlets, seeking out the nearest of the dark brown and purple monstrosities and char broiling them in seconds, secondary arcs of electricity dancing outwards and catching others of it's pack, osteoderms smoking as they were burned alive in an eyeblink.
Deployed heavy automatics tore through the air, punching large holes in the monsters as he let loose arc after arc of lightning, pulling himself backwards to let his prism beam equipped squadmate take over and light up the night with dazzling blue-white and red-white beams of energy. A warning signal flared in his suit, warning him of incoming artillery, prompting him and his partner to throw themselves to the ground while shells and rockets slammed into the ground to crush the swarming monstrisities into paste.
His ears ringing even through the noise cancelers of his suit, his senses were immediately assaulted again by the sound of subterranean vehicles tearing through the freshly churned soil, massive drills piercing through the ground as these behemoths of war dragged themselves onto the surface outside of the killboxes that their pets and psychic sweeps had just located for them. He sucked in a breath. Truth be told, Adolf had never seen any of Epsilon in person. He had seen all the movies, played the games, read the books and watched the shows. He knew, abstractly, what they were like.
Abstract knowledge was never quite a suitable replacement for seeing something in person. Not when reality included a four meter tall former person made out of what seemed to be solid armor encased in grafted armor whose green lenses burned with a hateful light, and whose right hand bore a cannon with clawed prongs at the very ends, and whose left allowed a gatling gun to rest on it. A shuddering, metal clad nightmare thundered forward, soaking up emplacement rounds while tongues of virus gas licked out and the crash of artillery came forth to deal with the fortifications emplaced behind and around him.
As terrifying weapons that utilized the most unreal aspects of quantum physics to their advantage, roboticized firepower, radiation rays, unnatural chemicals, psychic powers that the less educated would mistake for magic, and genetic monstrosities dreamed up by the ghouls of Epsilon Headquarter, this small band of maybe a regiment of Alliance had endeavored to hold the fucking line against massively superior Epsilon forces. Truth be told, Gunther was kind of terrified. The Nightmare that approached him seemed to be made out of pure mean and that just got him shaking in all the wrong places, but he knew that fear was what Epsilon wanted you to feel, and that if you could deal with fear; the battle was half way won. At least, that's what he was always been told.
Gritting his teeth, Adolf fired forth lightning at this nightmare, causing it to stagger briefly while the armoured initiates who had not been turned to cinders or corpses quickly ducked to the ground and let loose pyrokinetic bursts, dirt all around him suddenly charring and burning as they experienced sudden rises of temperature high enough to combust anything that would burn. His suit could take it, and so could his team mates, he reassured himself as they retaliated as best they could. He really didn't want to experience the sensation of burning to death. But once this moment of distraction passed, Adolf became acutely aware that the Nightmare had seemingly vanished.
"What?" He said flatly, swiveling around, checking his EVA in hopes of clues. The sudden crash of five tons of genetic monstrosity and rickety armor onto the ground from it's massive leap into the air soon provided the Tesla trooper with his answer before EVA ever could. Bestial roars came from the armoured juggernaut as it swung around arms like treetrunks burdened with massive guns to sweep out the trench, magnetic rails on it's gatling weapon humming loudly before letting rip with thousands of metal spikes to tear through his squadmates on the left side.
He didn't need to see the carnage to know that they were dead. But he knew that he had to do something. Alliance suits were pound for pound superior, but the Nightmare had far more pounds to work with, and the thing underneath was much stronger than he'd ever be. But, he did have his wits and some grenades. Opening fire upon the nightmare, he caused the behemoth to lurch forward, in obvious pain as he discharged what amperage he could in as little time as possible, scorch marks already decorating the monster's armor and inhuman roars of pain and fury making themselves known.
He ducked under it's massive right hand swing, his mind unable to pull itself away from the "what if" of what would have happened if it had connected. Something broken at the very least, that's what. But using it's distraction, he threw himself downward, grabbed as many attachable grenades as he could, primed them, and then launched himself forward for a tackle, his own suited body slamming into the monstrosity, making it buckle, but not fall before sticking his grenades onto it's center before pushing away. A vicious strike from it's gatling arm clobbered him over the head even as he threw himself back, but at this point more distance from the nightmare could only be a positive.
Even as the Initiates from the squad piled in, he could only laugh as the countdown hit zero and reduced all of them to paste and ribbons in a single flash and a burst of dirt, shrapnel, heat, and overpressure.
Lying flat on his back in his trench, he could only hear the sounds of the intensifying battle as the subterranean vanguard was joined by the dropped off main thrust of the assault, placed under the nose of the Alliance fleet fighting to guard this world. As the ground beneath him rumbled constantly and his EVA was flooded by chatter as this skirmish at an outpost's defense line erupted into a full scale battle, he couldn't help but laugh. All this to guard something he wasn't even sure the commander himself knew the identity of.
Even as a massive superheavy tank and it's brethern drove over his ditch, he was still laughing until his sides hurt, and in all of this apparent absurdity, he finally noticed that his suit had identified a constant repeating loop of prime numbers.
"A war with Epsilon has broken out and we've got some fucking Math Nerds on the comm channel!" He giggled to himself.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Can I have a report on the weapons used on our fleet?" Fleet Admiral Gladius asked, eyes narrowed on the data reads of the screens. Normal, sensible people would have been fighting mostly with mass drivers, rather than this...menagerie of long and short ranged weapons. When she heard of the initial reports, she made sure to bring a large fleet, it was always better to bring too much force than too little after all. Overwhelming force was what helped remind the Batarians of their place at Enael after all.
"From our readings of the firefight, magnetic pull devices, magnetically propelled mass driver weapons with no usage of the mass effect, long ranged laser weapons, charged particle beams, and some kind of energy we are as of yet unfamiliar with, and a heavy emphasis on torpedo weapons." The V.I said to her, prompting a nod from her as she clacked her mandibles together in thought. That was only one of the factions, and nothing larger than cruiser sized at that, Spirits, they were hardly doing anything more than blindly flailing in hopes of causing some damage before spilling their guts into the void of space.
This situation had to be approached delicately, all cautions had to be exercised, there was no telling what fiendish tricks these aliens could pull. A misstep with first contact could very well lead to another Rachni war, or a retread of the Krogan uprisings. That wasn't going to happen, not on Gladius' watch. Every asset she could have dragged into this mission was summoned, not just Turians but Asari commandos, Salarian intelligence operatives, Elcor living tanks, even a number of Drell Assassins. She'd have to remember to thank that Spectre for pulling in some favors for some of the assets in her task force.
But of course, to shoot first would be senseless, their scout fleets were easy enough to deal with, yes. Striking them from afar before they could realize they were under attack or play with the relay, but these two fleets had dreadnought and carrier scale vessels and were busily annihilating each other, no sense in giving them a common enemy until they were good and weakened. Still, she knew a lot of researchers who would kill for a chance to work with that tech, so it would also be advisable to leave some salvage, and thus tone down her usage of firepower in any conflict that may come, one she wagered was inevitable if she pressed a demand to take some of the ships back to citadel space for study.
Ah, the hard choices of command.
It would be wise to establish contact first, she decided. There was, as of yet, no way to communicate through spoken or written language, but she reasoned that anyone capable of building ships had to be able to understand math, repeating sequences of prime numbers were a frequent method of contact between species that otherwise lacked an intelligible method of communication until an Asari could begin mental contact.
"What do you make of them Fleet Admiral?" One of the Asari she had brought aboard the ship as a diplomat in case some peaceful contact could be established.
"They need to have a fairly impressive industrial base backing them to have those fleets, multiplanet civilizations at war, definitely. Their lack of Eezo technology means we need to be cautious though." Gladius responded, arms folded across her chest as she peered into the viewscreen.
"Always military matters with you, isn't it?" She said under her breath. "Do you still plan on reprimanding them for attempting to activate the relay? I was hoping we could try a soft touch first." The Asari asked, her eyes fixated on the old Turian.
"Oh definitely, ignorance of the law does not excuse breaking it. Respect for the law must be instilled if these two are to become proper members of the galactic community. Some of the admirals under me are talking about wanting to make them a client species, me? I'm just interested in making sure they behave from now on. If that means harsh language and a treaty I'm all for it." She responded as she received a communique.
"The message has been sent, now we can wait and see if they've got the sense to stop firing and read some basic arithmetic." Gladius said, sucking in air briefly.
**************************************************
Surface of Hellenia, North-Eastern "Seleucia" Continent, Diadochi steppes
First Lieutenant Adolf Gunther flinched, more shells crashed around him and the foul hiss of chemicals being released could be heard. Safely contained in his battlesuit, his HUD filled with warnings of the detection of chemical weaponry being deployed. Chaos gas, he shuddered. Virus gas was plenty bad, rapidly inflating it's targets until they exploded into yet more virus gas. But Chaos Gas made one's senses take leave of their skull, it could take the most disciplined formation and turn them into rage filled madmen acting on their basest impulses with but one breath.
Shots rang out, those who weren't sealed in time or had their faces bare were experiencing the red mist. "If I'm lucky they've been restrained." Gunther breathed out, daring to poke his head out of his trench. He really hoped he wouldn't be seeing much in the way of Chaos maddened friendlies. The stories he had been told of the horrors that can be cooked up in Epsilon's labs had terrified him since childhood, and the idea of having to deal with his own comrades in arms had always lingered in his nightmares.
He almost immediately regretted this action. The earth shook beneath him, then it burst, and out from it came some of the fruits of Epsilon genetic engineering. Claws like a mole, ant-like head with snapping bony mandibles and a circular maw that seemed to have no end, antennae at bizarre angles, hateful eyes adjusted to the dark, and a sickly mesh of osteoderms and scales to armor it on top of subcutaneous weak magnetic shields. Pluchritacts, meant to cause chaos and soak up fire more than anything else.
His initial instinct was to recoil in terror, but his soldiers' training overrode that instinct with an artificial perogative. Stand your ground and fight, running will only get you killed against a faster enemy like this. With that maxim in mind, he banished his doubts and raised his gauntlet to shoulder level and took aim. The coils in his gauntlets revved up, and with a simple command, they spoke the language of Thor. Dancing arcs of lightning shot out from the projectors in his enlarged gauntlets, seeking out the nearest of the dark brown and purple monstrosities and char broiling them in seconds, secondary arcs of electricity dancing outwards and catching others of it's pack, osteoderms smoking as they were burned alive in an eyeblink.
Deployed heavy automatics tore through the air, punching large holes in the monsters as he let loose arc after arc of lightning, pulling himself backwards to let his prism beam equipped squadmate take over and light up the night with dazzling blue-white and red-white beams of energy. A warning signal flared in his suit, warning him of incoming artillery, prompting him and his partner to throw themselves to the ground while shells and rockets slammed into the ground to crush the swarming monstrisities into paste.
His ears ringing even through the noise cancelers of his suit, his senses were immediately assaulted again by the sound of subterranean vehicles tearing through the freshly churned soil, massive drills piercing through the ground as these behemoths of war dragged themselves onto the surface outside of the killboxes that their pets and psychic sweeps had just located for them. He sucked in a breath. Truth be told, Adolf had never seen any of Epsilon in person. He had seen all the movies, played the games, read the books and watched the shows. He knew, abstractly, what they were like.
Abstract knowledge was never quite a suitable replacement for seeing something in person. Not when reality included a four meter tall former person made out of what seemed to be solid armor encased in grafted armor whose green lenses burned with a hateful light, and whose right hand bore a cannon with clawed prongs at the very ends, and whose left allowed a gatling gun to rest on it. A shuddering, metal clad nightmare thundered forward, soaking up emplacement rounds while tongues of virus gas licked out and the crash of artillery came forth to deal with the fortifications emplaced behind and around him.
As terrifying weapons that utilized the most unreal aspects of quantum physics to their advantage, roboticized firepower, radiation rays, unnatural chemicals, psychic powers that the less educated would mistake for magic, and genetic monstrosities dreamed up by the ghouls of Epsilon Headquarter, this small band of maybe a regiment of Alliance had endeavored to hold the fucking line against massively superior Epsilon forces. Truth be told, Gunther was kind of terrified. The Nightmare that approached him seemed to be made out of pure mean and that just got him shaking in all the wrong places, but he knew that fear was what Epsilon wanted you to feel, and that if you could deal with fear; the battle was half way won. At least, that's what he was always been told.
Gritting his teeth, Adolf fired forth lightning at this nightmare, causing it to stagger briefly while the armoured initiates who had not been turned to cinders or corpses quickly ducked to the ground and let loose pyrokinetic bursts, dirt all around him suddenly charring and burning as they experienced sudden rises of temperature high enough to combust anything that would burn. His suit could take it, and so could his team mates, he reassured himself as they retaliated as best they could. He really didn't want to experience the sensation of burning to death. But once this moment of distraction passed, Adolf became acutely aware that the Nightmare had seemingly vanished.
"What?" He said flatly, swiveling around, checking his EVA in hopes of clues. The sudden crash of five tons of genetic monstrosity and rickety armor onto the ground from it's massive leap into the air soon provided the Tesla trooper with his answer before EVA ever could. Bestial roars came from the armoured juggernaut as it swung around arms like treetrunks burdened with massive guns to sweep out the trench, magnetic rails on it's gatling weapon humming loudly before letting rip with thousands of metal spikes to tear through his squadmates on the left side.
He didn't need to see the carnage to know that they were dead. But he knew that he had to do something. Alliance suits were pound for pound superior, but the Nightmare had far more pounds to work with, and the thing underneath was much stronger than he'd ever be. But, he did have his wits and some grenades. Opening fire upon the nightmare, he caused the behemoth to lurch forward, in obvious pain as he discharged what amperage he could in as little time as possible, scorch marks already decorating the monster's armor and inhuman roars of pain and fury making themselves known.
He ducked under it's massive right hand swing, his mind unable to pull itself away from the "what if" of what would have happened if it had connected. Something broken at the very least, that's what. But using it's distraction, he threw himself downward, grabbed as many attachable grenades as he could, primed them, and then launched himself forward for a tackle, his own suited body slamming into the monstrosity, making it buckle, but not fall before sticking his grenades onto it's center before pushing away. A vicious strike from it's gatling arm clobbered him over the head even as he threw himself back, but at this point more distance from the nightmare could only be a positive.
Even as the Initiates from the squad piled in, he could only laugh as the countdown hit zero and reduced all of them to paste and ribbons in a single flash and a burst of dirt, shrapnel, heat, and overpressure.
Lying flat on his back in his trench, he could only hear the sounds of the intensifying battle as the subterranean vanguard was joined by the dropped off main thrust of the assault, placed under the nose of the Alliance fleet fighting to guard this world. As the ground beneath him rumbled constantly and his EVA was flooded by chatter as this skirmish at an outpost's defense line erupted into a full scale battle, he couldn't help but laugh. All this to guard something he wasn't even sure the commander himself knew the identity of.
Even as a massive superheavy tank and it's brethern drove over his ditch, he was still laughing until his sides hurt, and in all of this apparent absurdity, he finally noticed that his suit had identified a constant repeating loop of prime numbers.
"A war with Epsilon has broken out and we've got some fucking Math Nerds on the comm channel!" He giggled to himself.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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- Location
- North of England
- Pronouns
- She/They