Mass Effect Story Ideas: The Unlucky Thirteenth

and on that day the reapers knew fear....

Really must remember to actually continue that...

The closest I can find is this, and it's a crack fic more focused on Hackett managing the Crucible team rather than the engineers themselves.

I wonder what will happen if a Argonian wizard from Skyrim will react in Omega.

That would freak me the hell out!

Man, imagine that in Shepards dreams.....*shudders*

Actually, is there any GOOD ME Horror fics out there?

I've been thinking about an inversion of HFY, specifically playing with the idea of humans as Pacifists. Essentially after some terrible war, Humanity largely disarms with the exception of a small peacekeeping force. Desolas is still a dick as per OTL, but his invasion of Shanxi is largely unopposed, and after stumbling onto data regarding the location of Earth decides what the hell, he might as well go all the way. He blows through the small peacekeeping force and forces Earth to surrender, though he doesn't actually have enough troops to occupy the planet.

The problem for the Turians is that the council isn't really happy with this. Turians fired the first shot at a largely pacifistic society and than press on to conquer it's homeworld. Even some Turians find the whole thing distasteful, especially since more than a few reporters are making sure everyone knows all the sordid details. The Asari actually like what they see- they like the idea of a largely peaceful diplomatic race and to make matters worst, a Resistance movement has already sprung up.

The problem for the humans is that the ME galaxy is a rather unpleasant place-slavers, pirates, PMCs and pretty much the entirety of the Batarian Hegemony. Now that everyone else knows they're there they have to be able to police their own borders and they don't have the forces to do so, and the fact that they're being occupied makes it difficult to build them. While most of humanity wants the Turians gone, no one wants to exchange a Turian overlord for a Batarian one.

Thoughts on where it might go from there?

Almost inevitably to humans voluntarily becoming a Turian client state/protectorate like the Volus.

What is there to make a story?

Could always have them fight back? But that might derail the story somewhat...maybe, from the point you are trying to make.

Would like to see them as a client race, and maybe rebel within time,

Besides all the cultural issues with any first contact? The Humans diplomatic efforts to regain their independence, the actions of the Resistance movement, Shepard growing up in an occupied Systems Alliance, the actions of human sympathizers?

To be honest the idea occurred to me when I was reading all the giant mecha stories in the Airlock is ajar thread. Since Shepard was in Wing Zero, I started wondering how difficult it would be to justify a Shepard who was a Heero expy. It actually isn't too difficult- assuming the peace after the end of Wing and Endless Waltz sticks and humanity remains demilitarized, even as it expands through the Mass Relay there would be a good chance that the Turians would roll them as Wing doesn't have Minovsky particles. Assuming that the Illusive Man ends up running the resistance or at least a good sized chunk of it, he's going to look back at history, recover as many MS plans as he can and start building them. He's also going to look back into history and note that many of most highly successful Gundam pilots are horribly traumatized child soldiers and run with that. Shepard is 3 during the FCW, so it would work out.

Tech wise would need a way to allow a MS to close the not insignificant range gap; a small scale FTL jump to bring a suit into beam range would work, though their are suppose to be safeties to prevent that. A giant biotic amp built into a MS to allow the entire MS to perform a biotic charge might work since charge regularly goes through solid objects and appears to lack the safeties of an FTL drive, but that might be stretching it.

The more I thought about it though, the more I thought that exploring the culture shock of a largely pacifistic humanity adjusting to how violent the ME galaxy is would be worthy of a story in and of itself. For a more generic case, the best case for the humans may actually be a phased withdraw with the Turians helping the humans rebuild a working SDF. You can draw parallels to post war reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, or if the Turians maintain a more permanent presence in Human space, Japan and Germany. I'm not sure if the Turians would agree to anything like that, even with the Asari leaning on them though- while it does allow them to save some face, they would probably prefer to keep humans as a client race.

I get the feeling any "pacifist humanity" story that follows the path of re-armament rather than seeking a diplomatic solution will end up going the Man-Kzin Wars route.

"Humanity had given up war, because they were very, very good at it."

You know alternate humanity is always proposed but how come we never see alternate asari or alternate turians (besides mirror verse) that would be interesting to see.

A Krogan Empire that didn't rebel? Instead focusing on conquering the Terminus than Council space?

Batarian Hegemony that isn't a police state?

Asari Republics that had access to the cypher after finding the Citadel?

Turian Hierarchy that remains divided after a failed Unification War?

That would be interesting. People always talk about having a fragmented humanity, but a fragmented Hierarchy would be more interesting. The problem is I'm not sure if there's a way to maintain that as a status quo for the centuries needed to reach ME1- the Turians are pretty militant. You can of course set it a few hundred years prior to the games, but that requires a cast made almost entirely of OCs.

Actually aren't the Unification Wars suppose to be a Firefly reference? Because a Turian Mal Reynolds would be awesome.

well there were a few asari empire snippets floating around

A divided Hierarchy would be interesting to see, I must admit...

The Krogan find earth and humans instead? Imagine that one.

First contact just got nasty.

Yep. Then Krogan warriors start running up against Human soldiers.

Soldiers hold the line by nuclear firepower, heavy artillery and combined arms tactics, and superior ship handling against the hordes of Krogan. Where the Turians fought a war of attrition, Humans won by strategy and tactics against Krogan brute methods.

Eventually, the Krogan come to respect Humans as a worthy opponent as the war dies down and the Salarians threaten sterility on them (not executing it because Turians arn't uplifted yet). Shepard is a N7 with a honorary place in Clan Urdnot.

Also, mass Krogan immigration to Australia.

I think that'd be interesting to see, if only for the reactions of the Salarians and Asari when the Genophage is threatened...

Thats odd. Why weren't the Turians uplifted? Okay. I mean I get there was a rush job to fight the Krogan in the original universe. But why aren't they a member of Citadel space in this timeline? I mean they might not be the main military but it seems odd for them to just not be there.

The Turians weren't so much uplifted as recruited. They had their unification war at least 200 years before the Rachni Wars even started according to the wiki. The unification war was between multiple colonies and the Hierarchy, so they were waging war in space when Rome was around.

Riiiight. The humans held the line against the Krogan, the Krogan who have nearly limitless numbers to call upon (pre-Genophage) and actually nearly destroyed the Turians before said genophage. Calling bullshit on this.

New thread people