Chapter Text
MASS EFFECT: INVASION ( SOUNDTRACK )
Author's Note: This story will be written in the style of an alternate history textbook, as a callback to my previous time on Alternatehistory.com. I cringe when I think of my behavior there, and I honestly wish I had just stayed a lurker and never joined in the first place. But I'll always be glad I discovered the site, as the textbook writing style is near and dear to my heart.
1 - Eighties
The fragile peace between the Soviet Union and the United States was in serious danger of breaking down in November of 1983. A series of unpleasant incidents between the two rival factions had caused tensions to reach a boiling point.
On 1 Sep 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet military. The incident caused widespread international outrage, made worse by the USSR's refusal to share any information about the flight's black box on national security grounds. In the Politburo, the notion of a NATO invasion became less farfetched.
Tensions become worse the month before the Invasion, when two truck bombs killed numerous American and French peacekeeping soldiers in Lebanon on 23 Oct 1983. While the exact culprit of the bombings remains hotly debated to this day, it nonetheless ratcheted up tensions between the two Cold War power blocs to previously unseen levels. Not just the Politburo but now the White House was being put on high alert.
Fortunately for both parties, a greater threat would soon emerge.
On 1 Nov 1983, the batarian pirate ship Victorious emerged from the previously ice-encased Charon Mass Relay. Upon determining that an undiscovered early spaceflight civilization had been found, they sent a message to the wider Batarian Hegemony leadership - which, despite public protests to the contrary, was always in close contact with its mercenaries and pirates.
Little incentive was needed. On 10 November the entire Hegemony fleet arrived in-system, and the First Contact War began.
…
From the beginning the humans were outmatched, outgunned, and outnumbered. Batarians would later remark that that seemed only to increase their determination.
On 11 November, an emergency communication was made between Moscow and Washington, D.C. via the Moscow-Washington Hotline. The message relayed from Washington was simple:
Unknown alien forces have invaded Earth. The United States proposes a temporary alliance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact to defeat this threat.
The response from Moscow was equally laconic:
The Soviet Union agrees. Death to the aliens.
2 - Rock the Casbah
Both Moscow and Washington were in various states of panic as the Hegemony landed in their countries and the invasion began in earnest. The batarians were smart enough to spend several days combing over information on Earth's internal politics, and they deliberately excluded the Third World from the opening salvo in the hopes that this would keep the other humans neutral while the main superpowers were eradicated. Both the Soviets and the Americans did whatever they could to stop this, but they were constrained by the crippling damage the initial Hegemony strikes did to their infrastructure. Cuba renounces all ties with the USSR one week after the invasion begins, with Israel doing the same for America despite the vocal protests of the American Jewish lobby.
…
Speculation about the possible paths history could have taken had this plan worked is beyond the scope of this book. It is worth noting, however, that public opinion in much of the non-aligned world was strongly against intervention until the events of 21 November.
Historians have reached a consensus that Puret H'gloth was acting outside the authority of the Hegemony when he ordered the orbital bombardments of Jerusalem and Mecca. Even the Hegemony was not so irrationally bloodthirsty as to order the eradication of two of humanity's most important holy cities. It seems that the batarian commander H'gloth was under the impression that eliminating the cities via the most deadly mass effect-based technology available would crush the spirit of the human resistance. Of course, it had the opposite effect.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims across the world reacted with sheer rage and fury at the eradication of their holy cities. Calls to jihad against the infidel aliens were enthusiastically taken up from Albania to Indonesia, the former temporarily relaxing its state atheism in the wake of the invasion. In Israel, decades of animosity between Palestinians and Israelis was temporarily put aside so the defilers of Jerusalem could be punished. Peace would see the return of animosity, but for the moment a fragile truce prevailed.
Any potential thoughts of dividing humanity died with Jerusalem and Mecca. All now realized that the batarians would conquer and enslave the entirety of Earth if given the chance. Humans responded accordingly: while major cities were quickly captured, relentless guerrilla warfare came to define the rest of the Hegemony's invasion. Said guerrilla warfare was made easier by the gradual adoption of mass effect technology by humans, using the ancient "kill the enemy, take their weapon" tactic common amongst most known sapient species.
While the month of December would see fighting temporarily lull in much of the northern hemisphere due to the cold, West Asia (referred to by many humans as the Middle East) and North Africa were exempt from this trend. No longer concerned with fighting one another (at least for the moment), Israelis and Palestinians would make life a living hell for the batarian occupiers who attempted to pacify the Holy Land. The Sahara, a notoriously harsh desert that has often been compared to the former drell homeworld Rakhana, was the site of an intense campaign that rivaled the Second World War's North African front.
Perhaps attempting to make a point, the Hegemony based its administrative headquarters on the Indonesian island of Java; life there became notoriously harsh. But the followers of the Abrahamic religions remained unbowed.
3 - I Ran (So Far Away)
From November 1983 until the Second Contact War's conclusion in April of 1985, guerrilla warfare was the defining feature of the conflict.
The Hegemony quickly conquered the capitals and major cities of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and wasted no time in enslaving large swathes of the population. The brutal implementation of control chips and twelve hour workdays enraged humans across the planet. Suicide bombings against Hegemony soldiers became common, especially in the Middle East. For the moment, however, sheer force kept humans from recapturing their urban centers of population.
So they took to the forests, deserts, and even the oceans. In Russia the tundra of Siberia became a dreaded posting for Hegemony soldiers, who did not know the land nearly as well as the locals. In America the impact of the long tradition of firearm ownership was somewhat blunted by the mass effect shields most Hegemony soldiers wore - but that simply meant resistance soldiers had to get more creative.
Perhaps the most notable resistance movement to pop up in occupied North America was the Wolverines. Originating as a loose confederation of high school students in rural America, the term subsequently became a catch-all for armed resisters against the Hegemony in Canada and America.
…
As all of this was happening, batarians began vanishing from the wider galaxy at an alarming rate. More and more "ambassadors" and "cultural exchange coordinators" (e.g. slavers) found themselves drafted into a war that was taking up far more of the Hegemony's resources than had initially been expected.
Inevitably, this drew the attention of the Salarian Task Group.
4 - Stereo Sanctity
What would become known to history as the Emergency SOS was first heard by an STG scout force on 22 Dec 1984. Wisely, the American Wolverines who had sent the message had spoken in Low Khar'Shanian, the predominant and official language of the Batarian Hegemony. The message was brief and to the point:
"If any other aliens out there can hear this, we are being invaded by the Batarian Hegemony. They are killing us and taking us as slaves. Please help humanity. SOS from the Sol System."
The STG immediately sent the message to the salarian councilor, Dalatrass Dandus, who called an emergency meeting of the Citadel Council.
Both the asari councilor Nelyana and the turian councilor Terntus reacted with disbelief and horror at the news. The situation was not ideal for either of them. The Asari Republics would be enraged that an exciting new area of space to explore was going to be openly hostile towards aliens, and the Turian Hierarchy was inevitably going to be called in to deal with the mess. A brief debate ensued, but ultimately there was only one option.
On 24 Dec 1984, the Batarian Embassy was closed on orders from the Citadel Council, and all Hegemony diplomatic personnel were ordered to leave the Citadel within 48 hours. When pressed for an explanation on this sudden change in policy, the Council demurred, giving only the standard responses about the Hegemony's violations of Citadel conventions on slavery - violations which had been occurring for centuries with little protest. Suspicion was immediately set off across Citadel space.
5 - Turn Around
On 31 Jan 1985, the Third Patrol Fleet of the Turian Hierarchy arrived in the Sol System. Patrol Commander Nartul Mentus approached his task with a sense of trepidation.
As he would recall in his memoir First Contact With Humanity, he was worried about having to destroy much of the Hegemony's firepower. They had become determined to subjugate humanity at seemingly any cost, perhaps simply to prove that they could. But he was surprised at the scale and ferocity of the human resistance. The liberation of Chicago - temporary but lasting long enough to free many slaves - was particularly impressive to him.
The campaign lasted three months. Finally, on 27 Apr 1985, the Hegemony surrendered and Earth was declared liberated. Hierarchy soldiers became beloved heroes, and the bond formed by the First Contact War continues to form the basis of the close human-turian relationship to this day.
While the human race recovered from the shock of contact, war, and liberation in the space of less than three years, the rest of the galaxy reacted to the situation. Some of the most notable reactions came from the Asari Republics and Urdnot Jarrod of Tuchanka.
The Republics were enraged and horrified, and the invasion led the normally diplomatic asari to clamor for retaliation against the Hegemony. Sanctions against the batarians (already crippling) quickly became total embargoes. The rest of the Council races followed suit, the Hegemony straining under the weight of the entire galaxy's hatred; even Omega's Aria T'Loak ordered a ban on trading with them.
Meanwhile, a massive relief effort was organized to aid the liberated humans of Earth. It was in this large influx of asari visitors to Earth that the Human Contact Generation of asari was born. Asari children would grow up on Earth in large numbers and have a profound impact on the culture. Wars and famine became less common as the wisdom of generations of matriarchs was used to bring an end to numerous wars. Although relations were somewhat poisoned by the revelation of Vendetta in 1991, the Republics and the newly-formed Systems Alliance buried the hatchet by agreeing to a comprehensive Prothean artifact sharing program, audited by the Salarian Task Group to ensure compliance.
6 - Don't Stop Believin'
On the desolate planet of Tuchanka, Urdnot Jarrod sensed an opportunity.
The krogan people had been hopelessly despondent for centuries. The genophage was slowly killing them, and there was very little they could do about it. Or rather, there wasn't until humanity was discovered. Several of the more forward-thinking krogan (including Jarrod's son Wrex) had proposed using their scientists to cure the genophage, but it was Urdnot Jarrod who proposed the idea of reviving the Oath of Protection for humanity.
The premise was simple: humanity's scientists could cure the genophage with access to galactic technology. If they did, the krogan would swear loyalty to the humans for all time. Never again would Earth be invaded without protectors to defend it. Understandably, many nations were reluctant to embrace this idea due to the reputation of the krogan. But when both the Soviet Union and the United States began projects to cure the genophage (over the vehement objections of the Council delegation), the terms were set.
On 21 Mar 1989, the genophage was cured by Dr. Andrew Duran of the University of California-Davis; thereafter, the name Andrew became the most common first name for male krogan children. True to his word, Urdnot Jarrod swore the Oath of Protection, and so did the vast majority of the krogan people. The humans would be protected by the krogan for all time.
The batarians would never invade Earth again, though for unrelated reasons.
…
Numerous biographies have been written about the life of Devesh H'rthat, and recounting all of her exploits is not the purpose of this work. For our purposes, we shall focus on her role in planning and executing the Khar'Shan Rebellion.
News of the Hegemony's defeat on Earth had slowly trickled back to Khar'Shan. It was, after all, impossible to lie about the countless batarians (free and slave alike) being sent to their deaths on this primitive world. Even with these distractions, rebellion still seemed an impossibly fanciful notion for many: the batarians had a well-earned reputation for breaking their slaves quickly.
However, the Hegemony ultimately lost much of the power it typically used to enforce its brutal regime. Ship after ship was thrown into the meat grinder that Earth was becoming, and a disturbing number were sabotaged by determined Earth resistance members. Devesh H'rthat saw her opportunity.
On 31 May 1985, soon after the official news of the Hegemony's surrender became known, an insurrection engulfed all of Khar'Shan. Slaves helped each other remove their control chips, and the batarian government lacked the resources to stop them. Over the course of five months, all that the Hegemony had built over centuries of oppression and misery came crashing down at alarming speed.
In 1987, the newly-formed Batarian Republic agreed to pay reparations to Earth for a period of six Earth decades. This, combined with Devesh H'rthat's "Common Oppressors" speech at the United Nations, went a long way toward smoothing over tensions between humans and batarians.
As the humans slowly recovered from their horrific First Contact War, hope and optimism began to fill the oppressed peoples of the galaxy for the first time in a long time.
…
A/N: The Oath of Protection is taken from And The Meek Shall Inherit The Galaxy, though obviously it's a bit different here. Andrew Duran is, of course, fictional ;)
(If you're wondering, different iterations of my characters are born in different centuries and in different realities. They're parallel counterparts to one another)
7 - Sifting
Once the Hegemony surrendered to the Hierarchy, the long process of rebuilding Earth began.
Although the automobile industries attempted to resurrect their pre-war influence, mass transportation would ultimately win the day in the aftermath of the First Contact War. In this context, the popularity of the 1919 novel Free Air by Sinclair Lewis among alien audiences is worth examining.
The novel, written during the heyday of the automobile, depicts it as a liberating force against the aristocratic repression of the trains. Of course, such a notion relied on the trains being exclusive to the rich, which became false towards the end of the 20th century as public transportation was upgraded for all the peoples of Earth. For this reason, aliens who read Free Air are usually highly amused to find the notion of the car as a liberating force - after all, air cars are a burden to maintain and typically reserved for the most rich of sapients.
The reconstruction of Earth would be declared fully completed by 1996. Income inequality would persist, but all would agree that humans had come a long way. Contingent with this development was the effective end of the Cold War. With salarian-assisted planning, the Soviet Union reformed itself into a cooperative-based society with significantly less state oversight. Nations once forcibly aligned to the USA or USSR were allowed to choose between capitalism and cooperatism. Most chose the latter, but enough devotees of capitalism remained for there to be a proper rivalry.
Thus the competition between capitalism and cooperatism became the new "Great Game" on Earth - thankfully, one that was largely peaceful.
8 - She Blinded Me With Science
In the depths of the Terminus Systems, a fierce debate began within the Migrant Fleet.
The Conclave meeting of 12 Jul 1985 would be one of the most eventful in the history of the quarian people. Admiral Daro'Xen had proposed replacing the Hierarchy garrison on Earth once the latter withdrew after its peacekeeping duties were completed in 1988. The merits of such a proposal were hotly debated.
One the one hand: the technological boost the Migrant Fleet could give humanity would be incalculable. Likewise, the resources at humanity's disposal would likely bring a permanent end to the Migrant Fleet's perpetual resource issues.
But there was no way of knowing how the Council would react. While private rumors indicated that the Council was hoping to isolate humanity - using the Mars Archives as a way to keep them in check and control their technological development - such a plan would not work for the notoriously stubborn species. The humans wanted revenge, and their insatiable curiosity meant that would not accept being confined to their home system either.
By a 61%-39% majority vote, the Migrant Fleet approved the Human Intervention on 13 Jul 1985, the debate having lasted well over a day.
Immediately after the Hierarchy withdrew from the Sol system on New Years' Day, 1988, the quarians moved in to establish their presence. While their arrival initially caused a panic among human civilians, cooler heads prevailed and quarian technicians were soon seen throughout the planet. The staggering speed of human technological advances during the late 21st century can largely be explained by quarian interference.
The Council protested, but were worn down by the need to attend to the newly-created Batarian Republic. The Migrant Fleet had promised to stop roaming and stay within the Sol System, and Devesh H'rthat was constantly demanding that the Council meet with her. Ultimately the Citadel Council's attention span was simply too short to address all of these issues at once, and so the quarians were tacitly permitted to help develop humanity as a way to keep them out of everyone else's hair.
9 - Eye of the Tiger
The human cry for revenge could not be silenced forever. The Hegemony had destroyed most of their major cities, caused untold psychological trauma to the enslaved, and still existed despite being driven back from Earth. Governments across the world were unanimous in their cries to take the fight to Khar'Shan.
When the Khar'Shan rebellion broke out in 1985, all parties involved sensed an opportunity. By 1986 the militaries of NATO and the Warsaw Pact were on Khar'Shan, working with the newly-formed Batarian Republic to wipe out the remnants of the government that had caused them so much pain. It was ultimately too much for the Hegemony to take; it crumbled under the rage of all it had oppressed and enslaved.
Once the Batarian Republic's new constitution was formalized in 1987, a peace treaty was signed with the Systems Alliance, which had formed as a unified space organization for humanity in the aftermath of the First Contact War. Reparations would be paid, and the Republic and the Alliance would work together to build a brighter future for their people.
Epilogue: Lapti Nek
In the early 1990s, the so-called "Party Era" of humanity began.
With reconstruction now largely complete and the desire for revenge satiated, humans turned to stress relief. Many had spent several years on edge and constantly worried about the prospect of annihilation. Now that things had settled down, a large influx of human tourists made their way to the Citadel.
Rates of drunkenness and narcotics abuse skyrocketed dramatically once humans began arriving onto the Citadel. The humans did not seem to care: they had won their freedom, and they were going to celebrate it. The few batarians still on the Citadel did their best to give them a wide berth.
Quarians, too, became more commonly seen now that the Sol system was their home. The friendship between the krogan, quarian, and human races would gradually develop into a bond as deep as the Citadel Council - perhaps even deeper.
As the Wards filled up with humans and the galaxy entered a new era, the exiled leaders of the Hegemony fumed over their failures from the safety of the Terminus Systems. For many years they would ponder what could possibly have turned the tide in their favor.
They would not find a satisfactory answer.