##Authors notes##

Hi, this is my first FanFic and I hope you have a good read. This is the introduction chapter that shows the conjoined Dead Space and Mass Effect timeline. I hope you can leave a review with constructive criticism. I would always like to learn from my mistakes! Take into account that English is not my first language and I have checked the grammar and spelling to the best of my abilities.

And yes I know that it takes place later in the future, but the reapers have not yet invaded the galaxy yet and Saren, Shepard and others live in the 26th century now instead of the 22 century

A different path

65 million years B.C.: An enormous asteroid crashes in what's now called Mexico, creating the Chicxulub crater and wiping out the dinosaurs.

2050 A.D.: An energy crisis and an exploding population growth destabilize the world and some countries are on the edge of war. The major superpowers continue to fund research into different energy sources.

2069: A conjoined prestige space project between the US and the European Federation is a success. The projects goal was to establish a permanent human settlement on the Moon. Its build in the Shackleton Crater and named the Armstrong Outpost. It's formally opened on July 20th, marking the 100th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

2071: The terms 'Luna' and 'Sol' become popular for unknown reasons. Luna refers to the Moon and Sol to the Solar system.

2076: The last drops of oil reach the European Federation and the OPEC declares that they can no longer suffice in the energy needs of the world. On January 21 the world's population reaches another 'milestone': 9 billion humans are walking or crawling the face of the earth.

2089: The desperate search for oil goes on and other countries suspect the superpowers of holding back oil or information about new oilfields. Alliances are formed and the world is on the brink of war. The European Federation finishes their first nuclear fusion reactor that uses Helium-3 fuel which is delved form the surface of the Moon. The UN is disbanded as it is deemed incapable in doing its main job successfully: keeping the peace in the world.

2093: Even though the European Federation, the US and their new ally the Russian Federation remain military capable due to their fusion reactors and hydrogen fuel, conflicts between the superpowers and third and second world countries are legion.

2103: The European Space Agency's Lowell City in Eos Chasma becomes the first permanent human settlement on Mars.

2112: Scientist predict a mineral crisis within two hundred years if the extreme population growth and expenses by the superpowers are not dealt with. Just like global warming in the 21 century, this prediction is not taken seriously at first.

2115: The European Space Agency is forced to strip and abandon Lowell City, because companies show no interest in the red planet. Only a small research station remains.

2116: Experiments to extract Helium-3 fuel from Saturn's atmosphere begin. Two months later, the experiments are declared a success. Energy and fuel companies rush to the ringed gas giant.

2147: Major wars are fought in Africa, South East Asia, South America and the Middle East. The superpowers don't interfere and become more isolated. Millions die. An unknown element is also found on Mars. Scientist call it Element Unknown. Their ingenuity with names is called indisputable by the public.

2148: An old data cache is discovered on Mars. It contains the drawings of space ships done by children and the cache appears to be launched in 2070 as a time capsule. A scientist describes the situation as: 'One small step for art, but a giant leap for my boring lab wall.'

2177: The US, Canada, Australia, the European Federation and the Russian Federation try to restart the UN concept. China is invited, but refuses to participate.

2179: The UN is reopened and three months later the United Spacefaring Guild (USG) is founded. All space agencies, even the Chinese one, operate under this name and all companies that own spaceships need to register their ships and have to put USG in front of the name of the ship.

2186: Construction of Gagarin Station (Jump Zero) begins beyond the orbit of Pluto under the supervision of newly formed USG. China becomes part of the UN again.

2187: A video of a little girl standing in the bombed out ruins of her own home and holding the lifeless body of her mother in a residence area in Johannesburg becomes viral on the Internet. People all around the world demonstrate and demand that the UN does something about the constant wars in the poorer regions of the planet. The Human Defence Initiative (HDI) is founded under the supervision of the UN to protect humans against the brutality of war.

2192: Unique minerals become more and more scarce. The UN are prepared to invest in companies that want to mine the asteroid belt, but no company show interest in the offer because it's not profitable enough.

2193: More and more power is given to the UN. The superpowers of Earth sign the Terra Firma charter, establishing a representative political body of all countries on earth and is responsible for administrating the territories that officially fall under its control. The UN is dubbed a rather controversial name: The Earth Government, usually named EarthGov by the people.

2196: The HDI is formed into a military force that enforces the Earth Government's orders and is responsible for protecting Earth and her space colonies. The military force is named the Earth Defence Force (EDF).

2213: A large unique mineral deposit is found underwater in Chicxulub crater. An underwater expedition is launched by EarthGov under the lead of Micheal Altman.

2214: The Black Marker is found and the communication with the expedition is lost. Altman returns and is the only survivor. He tells the world about the Black Marker. He says that it's too dangerous and that it drives man to madness. Later, however, he claims that it is the salvation for humanity, brings the dead back to life and is the trigger for the Convergence event that will unite humanity and make it whole so it will finally know peace.

Two weeks later EarthGov seizes the Black Marker and they discover that it's an alien artefact which was in the asteroid that crashed into earth more than 65 million years ago. Surprisingly, the marker is completely intact.

2215: Michael Altman dies mysteriously. Riots break out in reaction to Altman's death; the government is unable to successfully quell the rioters. A sweeping social movement based on Altman's teachings brings about the emergence of the Church of Unitology. Unitology becomes a global religion and then an interstellar religion as its membership spreads off-world.

2256: A rudimentary form of faster-than-light travel is discovered. It still takes relatively long to reach a destination.

2314: Unique minerals are extremely scarce and discoveries of new mineral deposits become less frequent. Earth Government researchers successfully reverse-engineer the Black Marker; the result is a near-perfect replica, eventually dubbed The Red Marker. The Red Marker and a research team are covertly transported to Aegis 7; a deep space planet.

2315: The Red Marker is activated for the first time. Researchers create the first recombinant microbial life form from DNA instructions on the Red Marker and the dormancy-inducing influence of the Red Marker is discovered. Six months later the first Aegis 7 Incident happens. The colony shares the same fate of the Altman expedition. The Red Marker Pedestal is created and fired by the EDF Dreadnought USM Victory as a defensive measure against the effect of the Red Marker. The research team is destroyed, but the mutated organisms are forced into dormancy. All materials related to Aegis 7 and the Red Marker disappear and the file is highly classified. The entire Aegis Cluster is restricted. The first Earth Defence Force agent is secretly assigned to an observational position within the church of Unitology.

2367: A small space mining company called the Concordance Extraction Company (CEC) is founded and begins to 'crack open' asteroids in the asteroid belt in the search of unique minerals like gold.

2400: All earth resources are ravaged, consumed and exhausted. A lot of conflicts take place and the EDF interferes, but only makes things worse.

2440: Years of war have made humanity desperate and the situation on Earth is hopeless. Nuclear war becomes a realistic threat. However, most space stations and colonies are relatively safe havens as the EDF suppresses every act of war in space. But then two discoveries done by Hideki Ishimura change everything; the invention of the ShockPoint drive and the gravity tethers. The ShockPoint drive uses the power of anti-matter to create a so-called warp bubble that allows a ship to travel between stars in a matter of hours and the gravity tethers allow to drag enormous objects. The CEC, which has become a billion dollar company, proposes to EarthGov to build a ship with this technology to use it for a new mining technique called 'planet cracking'. Planet cracking is, quite literally, the dismantling of planets and moons on a macro-scale. Entire worlds are fractured to reveal the rich seams of valuable minerals contained inside. Despite environmentalist concerns, the operation is perfectly safe (except if the gravity tethers fail) and is the only way to extract the necessary resources on the large scale required to supply Earth and the colonies. The green light is given and CEC begins the construction of the USG Ishimura and starts scanning planets and moons within the Solar System (or Sol if you please) for rich mineral deposits.

2446: Even though the threat of nuclear war is averted and the fact that the first Planet Cracker-class vessel; the USG Ishimura is launched, countries declare war again. The Resource Wars begin. The USG Ishimura leaves for its first planet crack which ironically takes place on a moon of Saturn; Titan.

2447 – 2496: The CEC builds more planet cracking vessels, like the USG Perseus, which is even bigger than the Ishimura. The Resource Wars also subdue, due to planet cracking activities.

2499: Wanat Disaster: three supply ships, one planet-cracker, and a CEC colony are lost due to gravity tether failure. EarthGov warns CEC that their ranks maybe infiltrated by Unitology extremists.

2503: The colony of Shanxi is founded and is the first planet humanity discovers that is able to sustain organic live. A nearby planet is cracked and a strong EDF presences is formed to protect the booming colony of Shanxi and because it's on the border of Humanities territories

2504: A data cache is found on mars again. It doesn't contain drawings this time, but ancient technology. After the data is translated and analysed, scientists disregard most of the technology as unnecessary as the ShockPoint drive is far more efficient and doesn't require the so-called Mass Relay. However, scientists get more insight in Element Unknown, its characteristics and applications. Multiple companies and EarthGov begin research programs regarding the Element.

2505: As an experiment of CEC, the Charon Relay near Pluto is activated and tested. However, the experiment ends horribly as the first ship to use the relay explodes. Scientist conclude that the ShockPoint drive and the relay make a dangerous combination. Relays become off-limits and EDF patrols make sure nobody comes close. Relays remain an interesting research subject for astrophysicists.

2508: The Resource Wars officially end.

2507: The USG Ishimura arrives at the Shanxi spaceport in preparation of its illegal planet crack of Aegis 7.

##Codex Update##

Planet Crackers or Planet Cracker-class vessels: These enormous ships are essential to a planet cracking operation. Usually more than one mile or kilometre long, these ships have enough space to store all the minerals coming from the gigantic pieces of planet they pull up with their gravity tethers. The crew is around a thousand men strong and usually consists out of colonists, miners and sustaining personnel such as doctors and engineers.

These ships have almost no defence capabilities. They only posses an ADS cannons (Asteroid Defence System). They have a small security team, but these are not military trained. However, the hull and Gravity Shield are very strong and thus the ship can take several hits from a dreadnought before taking any serious damage.

Gravity Shields: The Gravity Shield can be compared to a kinetic barrier any non-human ship has. However, Gravity Shields are ten times stronger than a kinetic barrier. The ShockPoint drive or, when the ship is a planet cracker, the gravity tethers generate the artificial gravity within a ship. The ShockPoint drive or gravity tethers form a strong gravity field around a ship. It's almost impossible for ships with ShockPoint drives to collide, just as it's almost impossible to let two north poles of a magnet touch. If an object is fired from another ship it creates an own gravity field and collides with the Gravity Shield of the ship that uses a ShockPoint drive, it will perish under the force of its own speed and gravity. The bigger the object that is fired or is on colliding course with the Shield, the higher the changes are that it's going to penetrate the Shield as its gravity field could be greater than the Gravity Shield on the location of impact.

RIG: Resource Integration Gear, or RIG for short, is an integrated health management and strength augmentation system that assist users in previously impossible and dangerous environments. All RIGs share several basic functions. A spine-mounted display serves to indicate the user's general state of health as a glowing bar. When the user dies, it emits a 'flat-line' sound which others nearby can hear. Holographic projectors mounted on the wrists can create a two-dimensional display in front of the user, to display whatever they might need to see. The size of the display can vary depending upon the data it is accessing. It can also project a coloured line to guide the user to a destination, be it a location or a service like a store or workbench. It is capable of two-way audio and visual communication. RIG users can be individually tracked if need-be, even if dead. For more dangerous work, RIGs are installed in full-body suits. These suits, in addition to the RIG's basic functions, have features such as an internal oxygen supply for work in a vacuum, gravity boots, and thrusters for zero-gravity movement, and armour to protect against damage from various sources. Finally, RIGs can be used as a form of biometric lock, only allowing specific RIG users access to designated areas, though such scanners fail to take into account whether the user is living or dead.

RIGs vary greatly depending on the user's occupation and status. A civilian RIG is very different from an EDF Marine RIG or an engineer's RIG.

EDF Marine Corp: The EDF MC is the backbone of the EDF military force. Before 2400 EDFs basic forces consisted out of light infantry, however this was later changed due to the failed intervention attempt in the beginning of the 25th century. General Augustus Wolfgang stated that EDF couldn't do its job properly because they were simply too weak and demanded that EarthGov raised the bar. The light infantry was first replaced by the Ranger Division and later by the Marine Corp.

A standard Marines outfit consists out of the Advanced Soldier RIG; a military-grade RIG with build-in Stasis and Kinesis modules. The Advanced Soldier RIG is a fatigue and body armour assembly designed for combat use, and is standard issue protective wear for EDF Marines and Sailors. The assembly is composed primarily of dark grey, vacuum-rated fatigues bearing a number of utility pockets, and white body armour plates, including armoured boots, a cuirass, cuisses, spaulders, rerebraces, vambraces, and a head-enclosing combat helmet.

Standard weaponry of an EDF Marine is the SWS Motorized Pulse Rifle; a triple-barrelled assault rifle with a rapid rate of fire and large magazine ammunition capacity. The Pulse Rifle fires ultra low calibre rounds at hypersonic speeds, each carrying tremendous amounts of kinetic energy: these rounds are designed to squash on impact, transferring their energy to the target and causing immense localised trauma. This effect is immediate and pronounced in unarmoured targets, with impacts liquefying soft tissues and fracturing bones; in the event that targets are not directly killed by fire, they will be rendered incapacitated by grievous wounds and pronounced hydrostatic shock. As well, such low calibre rounds render the Pulse Rifle an ideal weapon for shipboard combat, as they lack the penetrative power necessary to rupture ship hulls.

More on EDF marine: wiki/Advanced_Soldier_RIG