August 2, 1934: Paul von Hindenburg, president of the Weimar Republic, dies of lung cancer at the age 86. In his place, Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialists Party, uses the president's death to take control of the Republic and turns it into a dictatorship.
December 19, 1934: Through a scheduling mishap, Hitler ends up personally present at the A2 rocket test launch. Designed by Wernher von Braun the rocket design was being sponsored by the German Army. He ends up impressed by the device and mentions that the Wehrmacht should increase the project's funding.
February 10th, 1935: Development of the A3 rocket begins. Initial draft versions made the device quite similar to a scaled up A2. Early in the design process Wernher changes the design to include more significant tail fins.
September 17th, 1935: Due to increased funding and manpower, the first A3 test launch date was moved up dramatically. The design experiences issues with its internal guidance system, but achieves stable flight during the second test that day, before landing close to its target area.
November 5th, 1935: Development of the A4 rocket begins, designed to be a full scale rocket that could carry a significant payload for use in potential future conflicts. It is essentially a scaled up A3 design.
June 7th, 1936: The first test firing of the A4 rocket commences. Hitler is once again present at the launch. The design experiences a technical failure and does not properly turn into a parabolic arc. Instead the rocket continues upwards until its engine burns out. The unguided missile reaches almost 196 kilometers into the air before the engine burns out. The device did not have enough speed to escape earth's orbit, and falls back to earth in the China Sea sometime later. Hitler and some of the Wehrmacht staff present are impressed by the rocket's achievable height. Hitler is so intrigued with the idea that he begins diverting funding from other projects to von Braun's team.
July 11th, 1936: Plans are drawn up for a manned A4 rocket that could achieve controlled sub-orbital flight. Modifications are rapidly made by von Braun's team.
January 26th, 1937: Female Aviator Hanna Reitsch, the selected test pilot the project, takes off for the first sub orbital flight attempt. The flight is successful, and lands in the Indian Ocean where the recently completed German Destroyer Leberecht Maass picks up the pilot and rocket.
February 1st, 1937: Despite the best attempts my the German military to suppress the information. News quickly breaks out about the first human space flight. Images of the A4 rocket, taken by the crew of a British tanker that had been passing Leberecht Maass around the Cape of Good Hope circulate. The exact design of the A4 remains a secret at this point.
February 3rd, 1937: One of the scientists that was part of Von Braun's team takes copies of the crewed A4's blueprints and flees to Poland with his family. He quickly began selling his information to nearly any government that wanted it. Germany attempts to have the scientist extradited but Poland refuses. War seems like it might be on the horizon, but a Polish-Czechoslovakian alliance causes Germany to back down.
June 22nd, 1937: The United Kingdom launches its first manned mission into space using a copy of the A4 rocket. The launch takes the pilot from the British Isles all the way to British Egypt.
June 29th, 1937: The Soviet Union launches its first manned mission to space. The launch is unsuccessful and the missile explodes in midair due to a fuel leak.
July 4th, 1937: France launches its first manned mission to space. The launch is successful and the pilot is retrieved off the coast of west africa.
July 7th, 1937: The Marco Polo Bridge Incident occurs when Japanese units cross into Chinese territory around Beijing.
July 9th, 1937: What would later become known as the Second Sino-Japanese war begins.
August 10th, 1937: First successful Soviet Union launch to space.
August 27th, 1937: USA launches its first successful mission into space.
October 16th, 1937: Using a rocket that was described as 'More fuel and engines then common sense' and 'One stray spark from demolishing the testing center.' Italy manages its first successful launch into space, and the first orbital flight. It is also the first rocket that is not a derivative of the A4 to be launched.
December 1937: A Contemporary historian begins to say 'The Space Race' is in full swing. The moniker ends up sticking, and nations still suffering from the Great Depression began to sluggishly pull themselves out of it through government contracts to Aerospace which trickles into the rest of the economy.
August 1938: The Great Depression officially comes to an end, as the slowest recovering nations of France and the United States finally achieve economic levels that approach their pre-crash levels. Fueling the improvement is continued and rapid growth of the Aerospace industry.
November 24th, 1938: The first successful test of an economically viable jet plane occurs in Germany. This is quickly followed by similar designs from competing nations.
September 1st, 1939: A joint Italo-German program results in the first long period orbiter. With a vessel designed for a two man crew to stay in orbit for thirty days.
September 7th, 1939: Polish-Czech joint venture launches its first full orbit spacecraft.
September 8th, 1939: Polish-Czech Spacecraft collides with Italo-German orbiter. Tensions climb, but are diffused by Mussolini who fears that a war between the four states would bring in France, the United Kingdom and Russia. Believing his own state was not ready to deal with these foes. The loss of the Orbiter is covered up and tensions over the Danzig corridor are used as a cover. Nations begin to co-operate to some extent on the location of their spacecraft to avoid similar incidents.
November 1st, 1939: A second Italo-German orbiter is launched. It completes its mission and returns to earth thirty days later.
November 13th, 1939: The Soviet Union first militarizes space. Launching an unmanned, radio controlled, orbiter armed with a 20mm aircraft cannon. Radio control unfortunately is lost two months into its operation but other states react in kind for a period.
November 17th, 1939: The Royal Navy manages to secure the British Rocketry Program under its purview. Stating that they had the most knowledge building and fighting with 'ships.' As well as providing a number of potential designs for future spacecraft. Other states soon follow suit and pass control of their space programs to their navies.
July 21st, 1941: The first unmanned moon launch is achieved by the United Kingdom. It beats a United States launch by three days, and a German launch by a week.
December 5th, 1941: Admiral Yamamoto manages to talk Japanese High Command out of launching an assault on Pearl Harbour and British, French and Dutch East Asia which was planned shortly thereafter. Japan remains at war with China but without the oil embargo it is not as pressing to expand.
August 1st, 1943: Second Sino-Japanese war comes to an end. Japan is unable to successfully annex the Chinese, but secures much of the Chinese coast under a puppet state. Japan quickly goes about trying to play catch-up in the space race.
August 2nd 1943: The Chinese Civil War renews between Communist and Nationalist forces. The Soviet Union does not send aid to the Communists as its budget is focused toward the space race, and neither side receives support from the Japanese.
June 7th, 1944: Nationalist China emerges as the victor in the Civil War.
February 1946: The Italian Aerospace program breaks into a separate entity from the German program once again.
September 10th, 1951: The first manned mission to the moon is achieved by the Italians. One rocketeer is lost due to a suit depressurization while on the moon. Shortly after every other state with a major space program reaches the moon.
October 27th, 1958: First moonbase established by the German Reich. Soon followed by other states as the moon quickly becomes a treasure trove of resources like iron and aluminum. This spurs on countries to expand their space program even further in the search for the 'Infinite resources of the stars'
July 2nd, 1963: First manned Mars landing occurs by Soviet rocketeers. The Soviets beat out other states by skipping sending unmanned missions to the planet.
March 29th, 1972: Martian colonization begins by a joint French-Polish-Czech venture, quickly followed by the Germans and Soviets. Terraforming and colonization of the red planet begin in earnest a few months later as poor, but skilled labour are given the opportunity by the major powers to be the first colonists to the new planet.
August 16th, 1974: Ruins are found upon Mars. These ruins predate human history, and contain large caches of an element that would later be called 'Element Zero.' Also found are instructions related to its use. Unfortunately before these ruins could be properly explored, a minor war broke out between the French and United Kingdom on one side, and the Germans and Italians on the either. This war is limited to Mars but causes intense devastation to the local area. During the fighting something hits a storage tank of this 'Element Zero' inside the ruins, and the resulting explosion leaves a significant crater while scattering the element across the planet. The war ends inconclusively, with minor amounts of territory changing into German and Italian hands.
October 1980: Colonization of Venus begins. Element Zero is found on Venus as well, but no ruins are located. The first biotic children begin displaying their talents on Mars. These abilities are quickly linked to Element Zero exposure. Through extensive testing by the Germans and Japanese proves that this exposure only affects humans born after the ruins explosion. Attempts to create botics in adult humans resulted in the death of the subject.
December 1986: The first Element Zero engine is produced by the United Kingdom following years of development. This engine is able to propel ships at much faster speeds than previous solid rocket engines were capable of. The engine is also capable of producing artificial gravity for a vessel and allows designs that are not based off a central rocket engine. Other nations finish their own EZ engines soon after.
February 1989: The first 'Space Shipyard' is completed by the Royal Navy. This massive orbital complex allows the production of larger, mass effect using, vessels without having to worry about getting them into space. Other nations quickly follow suit, and the first 'Warspaceship' the HMSS Endeavor (later HMS Endeavor) is put into service. The Endeavor, and almost all human vessels maintain an appearance much like their water based cousins, with multiple cannon turrets that would allow it to annihilate any armed satellite. While most states keep the 'Spaceship' title for a number of years following, soon wet water ships are phased out of most service and the title of 'Ship' is transferred to space going vessels.
September 1st, 1999: The first Element Zero Fast As Light Engine is developed by the United States. While EZ engines had been getting faster and faster for years, the EZFAL engine is a massive jump in technology, based off what information could be recovered from the ruins of the martian ruin. Despite this, the engine is still not truly fast enough to travel to other star systems, but makes travel within the solar system as easy as heading down the street.
February 5th, 2000: The EZFAL engine is spread by a Brazilian spy to the other countries.
March 11th, 2003: Exploration and surveying of Pluto reveals that it's orbiting body of Charon is not actually an ice moon. Further surveying accidentally activates an artifact that was similar in design to the martian ruins, and launches the French Exploration vessel out of the solar system where it lands in what would later be called New Provence. The system contains a habitable garden world, and is quickly claimed by the French. Negotiations over the device itself result in the artifact being considered 'public' and it soon turns out that it is able to launch ships to multiple star systems nearby. Some of these new star systems have more of the artifacts, and a colonization race begins to claim as much of the new territory as they could.
December 21st, 2031: Tensions begin to rise between France and Germany over the colonial system of Madesca. Both states explorers were in the system at approximately the same time, and both lay claim to it. Rising tensions begin to boil over into colonial skirmishing.
June 7th, 2032: France and Germany officially go to war, due to the increased militarization of space over earth, along with exhaustion of resources, the Earth is now much more symbolic than it is important. Most world governments have moved their capitals, military installations, populations and governing bodies to their primary colonial systems. This proves to be a smart move. Moments after a massive energy spike was detected, only two hours after the official declaration of war, the sun goes supernova. Earth and the solar system are promptly wiped out with no survivors. In the confusion the war is ended only five hours after it started. The only surviving structure in the system is the Charon Relay.
September 22nd, 2044: The Japanese puppet state of the Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere, discover the system of Shanxi, and quickly colonize it. The system contains a larger mass relay then most, comparable to the Charon Relay, and the relay has multiple places it can travel to.
February 17th, 2065: An exploratory vessel enters the Shanxi relay to one of the uncharted destinations the relay could reach to.
March 7th, 2065: Contact lost with the exploratory vessel.
March 9th, 2065: Present day.
Shanxi
The planet of Shanxi was, while not a unique find, quite a good one nonetheless. Green fields spread across its surface and on the dark side of the planet the lights of the several million colonists that lived there could be seen. In orbit floated a medium small space station. The space center's geosynchronous orbit placing it over the only real significant city on the planet. Alongside the station was dozens of small glowing lights, the engines of the Shanxi defense fleet that defended the world.
Normally the fleet would comprise of only a half dozen CCPSS corvettes and two Imperial Japanese destroyers. Just enough to beat off any pirates. Following the destruction of the exploration vessel Zhang He the defense fleet had swelled to include fourteen destroyers, three light cruisers, two heavy cruisers, and the battleship IJN Dewa.
It was on the bridge of the Dewa that Vice Admiral Tsuyoshi stood. The man observing the world spinning along even as around him his bridge crew worked to keep tabs on the rest of the fleet. Tsuyoshi was quite a young admiral compared to his peers. Bright red hair and a lanky youthful appearance that made him appear even younger than his 32 years.
He always was thrown off looking down upon worlds. Millions of people lived on the surface of Shanxi. Both Japanese and others. With a single command he could just as easily exterminate all of the ones below as save them from whatever horrors space had for them. Truly being an admiral came with frightful power. Which was why he was thankful that his fellow commanders were much like himself and carried themselves with the honour demanded of them by their position in the state.
Now if only Tsuyoshi could figure out what had destroyed the Zhang He, then he could rest easily instead of tapping his foot against the floor in mild annoyance. The Emperor had forbade him from sending more ships through the relay. Now he was forced to wait for whatever was there to come to him. The situation was incredibly vexing, but he would do his duty and garrison the planet. Fate was playing things fast though as it would seem he didn't have to wait to terribly much longer.
"Admiral! We are detecting signatures coming back through the relay." His scanners officer reported. The man glued to his console as multiple shapes began to appear as the Virtual Intelligence began to clarify the scanner resolution. "Half a dozen vessels, the largest of which seems to be a small heavy cruiser."
'Hmm, interesting. This should not be too much of a challenge.' Tsuyoshi thought to himself. "Send orders to the fleet to fall into the battle line and activate the EZFALs. We'll meet them as they drop out at the relay."
He moved to his seat as he felt the titanic engines at the back of the Dewa roar to full power. The vessel turned slowly until it's bow was pointed toward the relay and the other ships fell in around the nearly kilometer long battleship. Then the ship groaned as the EZFALs activated and launched them to the outer edge of the system where the relay floated in free space. The transition taking no more than two minutes, but the sensor officer declared, "Incoming signatures will be exiting the relay in thirty seconds."
"Battle line, I want the Azuma and Iwaki to our fore and the Kuzuryu's to our aft. They and the destroyers can let us absorb the enemy's shells. Prepare yourselves everyone, we have no idea what they will hit us with." Tsuyoshi ordered calmly, observing the map of the battlespace that was appearing before his command chair. Just as the sensor officer's VI had predicted the enemy contacts appeared the moment he counted to thirty.
The vessels were odd, to say the least. Near flat arrowhead like designs that were blocky and utilitarian. The strangest part was they lacked any visible turrets, and he had to guess the multiple parts that a rapid scan showed sticking out from the front were the ships only armament. Who used only spinal armaments? The difficulty keeping such weapons on target had relegated them to more or less support weapons, or for major fleet engagements. Still he wasn't going to complain, whatever country was attempting these new designs was going to have to face the reality of superior Japanese engineering. The alternative was that they were aliens, and what were the odds of that? "All guns fire at will."
A deep whirring filled the ship as the six great turrets that carried the Dewa's primary armament of 16" guns tracted toward the largest vessel and unleashed their broadside. The shells fired at incredible speeds thanks to the mass effect enhanced rails along the barrels. Joining them was fire from the Dewa's significant secondary battery. While VI's could help accurately target enemy vessels, the multi-layered shield systems of most modern warships, along with the tendency for maneuvering to cause multiple misses had resulted in most modern vessels going for 'quantity' as much as they could.
With the better part of thirty meters of height, seven hundred and ninety-two meters in length, and seventy two meters in width to work with, the Dewa had quite a significant amount of 'quantity.' Dozens of 6" and 5" guns added their weight to the primary battery, and the other vessel abreast of the Dewa vaporized under fire before they could bring their spinal weapons to bear. The Azuma and Iwaki heavy cruisers fared much the same, their opposites tumbling into space as drifting hulks after the initial barrage.
The Kuzuryus and the destroyers had a more difficult time of it though. The enemy evidently hadn't been expecting to meet resistance at the relay itself, and had dropped in with their shields down. The unknown vessels that had been facing off against the lighter IJN forces had time to activate their barriers before they could suffer the same fate. The smaller caliber weapons flashing against the shields in a rippling wave even as missed shells exploded around the enemy vessels. Even as more fire poured into them the enemy ships turned to bring their forward cannons on target, and Tsuyoshi frowned as he watched the incoming shells reach his fleet. Rapid maneuvering managed to avoid a few of the rounds, but he watched as one of the spinal weapons hit a destroyer. The shell ripped through its shield like it was barely there before coring the small vessel.
Still, the enemy was down to three vessels, including their light cruiser in the initial blow, and he had only lost a single destroyer. More than acceptable loses. Two more of the enemy ships and one more of his destroyers fell in short order as the barrage wore down their shields and the last blinked away as the relay fired it back where it had come. Almost certainly to inform its masters of the results of this battle.
"Order retrieval teams to search for any survivors from the destroyers, and send the marines to scour the enemy wreckage. Maybe a few of them are still alive for interrogation." Tsuyoshi declared, and turned on his heels. "I must report this to the admiralty, inform me if any other signatures come our way."
-WoE-
"It is highly unlikely this is the entirety of the enemy's invasion force." Tsuyoshi said to the collected images of the other admirals in the IJN. Dozens of admirals commanding everything from the Yamato Defense Fleet to border rear-admirals that had only a few vessels under their command.
"Indeed." Grand Admiral Yamamoto said with a nod. "Seventh fleet, I want you to begin transitioning to Shanxi. They seem reliant on the relay network, so if we can stop them there then we'll be able to protect the rest of the Empire. Tsuyoshi, pull your ships back to the spaceport if you have not already. The enemy will unlikely be caught the same way twice."
Tsuyoshi nodded, not mentioning that he already had. It would just be pointless grandstanding. He looked over to the image of Admiral Makoto of the Seventh Fleet, normally stationed over the hub world of New Seoul. She was one of the few female admirals in the fleet, or female anything in the IJN, having managed to claw her way there through an effort that put most anyone else in the fleet to shame.
Tsuyoshi couldn't help but grin, if he was going to get anyone to help him, he certainly couldn't complain about getting Makoto. Not just because the admiral was good at what she did, but because she also had a fleet that had quite a fair bit more firepower than his own.
"We'll be there in a few hours. Hold the line till then Tsuyoshi." Makoto said before she cut her feed, and a few moments later the other admirals projections winked out.
Stepping back into the bridge Tsuyoshi watched as the destroyers made their way back from the wreckage around the relay. Without even needing to ask for a report, one of his staff officers said with an oddly shaky voice. "We've retrieved 22% of the destroyers crews alive sir, but you need to see this."
Tsuyoshi frowned, his staff officers had seen battle before, admittedly against pirates, but still. What was it that could have the man spooked. Nodding to the officer to put it on the projector in front of him, he'd blink.
'This can't be right.' He thought to himself, moving his hands up to rub his eyes and make sure he hadn't suddenly gone incredibly near sighted. Unfortunately, it seemed like he hadn't suddenly suffered an immense amount of ocular trauma. Instead he found himself staring at the corpse of damned alien on his monitor!
Fate played its other hand for the day right then. Before he could question just what in the world they could figure out about it, or anything really, his comm officer reported something that made his blood freeze.
"Sir, we have almost sixty sensor contacts coming through the relay!"
Codex Entry: Comparison of Naval Forces over Shanxi/Capital Ship Specifications
Name: IJN Dewa
Class: Harima-Class Battleship
Length: 792 meters
Width: 72 meters
Height: 30 meters
Armaments: 12 16" Guns in 6 double barreled turrets (Approximate Impact Per Shell: 19 Kilotons)
32 6" Guns in single casemates running the length of the ship (Approximate Impact Per Shell: 1 Kiloton)
32 5" Guns in single turrets (Approximate Impact Per Shell: 0.44 Kilotons)
66 30mm Anti-Fighter/Point Defense Batteries
Armour (In relative Equivalent to Citadel Armour): Broadside: 22" Titanium Alloy Armour
Turret Face: 26" Titanium Alloy
Upper-Lower Face: 12" Titanium Alloy
Shields: Four Type 7 Shield Layers (Approximate Total Shield Strength 66 Kilotons)
The Harima class was the second largest of the IJN's battleships at the time of the First Contact War. Designed as their primary front line battleship, the vessel is heavily armed and armoured. Equal in general to counterparts from its competitor nations. The Harima's weakness compared to many of its competitors was it's weak shields, only using four shield layers instead of the usual for the time five of six. This saved space for extra secondary battery weapons and shells for the primary battery, this allowed for the Harima class vessels to do significant damage to Turian vessels once the latter were stripped of their shields, as they were able to cause damage over multiple sectors of a ship with a single volley.
Name: TSF Unbreakable
Class: Holdfast-Class Dreadnought
Length : 922 meters
Weidth: 90 meters
Height: 30 meters
Armaments: 6 5" Spinal Cannons (Approximate Impact Per Shell: 38 Kilotons)
12 3" Broadside Cannons (Approximate Impact per shell: 3.3 Kilotons)
4 AIGIS Anti-Missile Hard Points
Armour: 6" Ablative Plate
Shields: Holdfast Class Kinetic Barrier (Approximate Total Shield Strength 144 Kilotons)
The Holdfast Dreadnought was designed in 2041, the Holdfast is a mildly aging dreadnought. It was still a fearsome vessel. The Holdfast was not a match for newer Turian dreadnoughts at the time, and some other council races. In comparison to human vessels at the time of the First Contact War it was up with the strongest vessels of the human empires. While it's 'broadside' of 6 spinal cannons was not the strongest volley by tonnage compared to human vessels like the Yamato and the H-258, the shields it carried were stronger then the next two competitors put together.
A/N: Well, I know a bunch of people that follow me are like "What in the world is this, and why aren't you writing for In Spite of a Nail or Spokes of Life." Well the answer is that I hit a bit of a writers block again. The next chapter of ISoaN is about 5000 words written and I got to the point where I was like 'I need to write something that is a bit more serious.' This idea's been kicking around in my head for a while, and came back to the fore after reading some ME/Halo crossovers. To the ME community that's finding this story and have no idea who I am. I would like you to know this was written in a bubble so to speak. I don't really read the ME community outside of some Shep/Tali and Garrus stuff so if this already was written somewhere then I'm sorry for that.
Other then that, I hope you enjoy this regardless. I wrote this story out of a bit of an attempt to make ME's humanity more interesting. I found the in game humanity started interesting enough in ME1, though it was strange that all the nations seemed to have put down all sort of internal conflict and teamed up without an outside factor to make the systems alliance before running into other aliens. Meanwhile, ME2 and ME3 just kinda turned humanity into something of a mary sue on a national level. (Though ME3 did try to beat it back down a bit but IMO failed badly.) For example, the First Contact War, the Turians apparently were a bunch of buffoons that couldn't defeat a drastically technologically inferior (or should have been) power on a single planet, and didn't think to do any form of recon to discover if there was other human planets. At least from how I interpreted the codex entries on it. My hope is to make things a bit more serious then ME's general space opera feel, but still keep the idea of being, well, a sci-fi 'show.' As well as as I said, make humanity (and hopefully everyone) more interesting on a national level as well as an individual one.
Also this is not going to be about the First Contact War only, it's going to expand into the normal ME timeline. I'm not quite sure if 'Shepard' as he existed in the game will be here, but there will definitely be a Normandy, and all the other characters from the game will be showing up then. As always for my stories, love it, hate it, see something you wanted to point out or think I got wrong? Leave a review! I feed on reviews, they motivate me to write faster :P
Also also, future chapters will have more words and less timeline bit to them. This one is mostly an introduction and backstory chapter.
Edit 4/2/2018: Minor cleanup of the chapter.