Wow, these are … really bad.

Think of some more! I might write one of these up for the sheer angst as a side story on “What If?”

Mr.Green wrote:

1) Speculation: Damage to Earth

How bad is it? You explained it was fallout and all that stuff. But in terms of damage, how bad?

I know, you said arcology are used to house people. But we had stories, of people outside living there.

Bad.

Roughly 35% of the land is completely uninhabitable. Earth went through two major nuclear exchanges and the environment suffered badly as a result.

Outside the arcologies, aside from transit corridors, the land has gone back to seed for the most part. The cost of cleaning it up is titanic and takes years, mostly involving actually scraping the top level of dirt down to bedrock or substrate stone, dumping it in the antarctic, and using chemically cracked and enriched ‘nudirt’ to replace it.

Radioactivy is still being flung around by the powerful armada storms, which are akin to hurricanes that simply do not stop (like the Great Red Spot, except mobile). A lot of heavy pollutants got into the water and air when things got blown up too.

Is it survivable? Sure … but it is not healthy. Imagine it to be somewhat akin to Fallout, in terms of structural damage (Fallout 1/2, not the Bethseda ones). THe fragments of humanity that refuse to bow to the Systems Alliance and scratch out an existence in the wasteland are pretty much going to die out in another generation or two due to genetic damage…there may be some surviving populations past that point but they won’t be human anymore.

Mutant animals fare a bit better, if only because they’re the survivors — most ‘normal’ animals died out, except those preserved on the Zion station. (Manswell thought this shit out good and basically setup his own gene bank for most foodstuff animals and plants. Almost all farming is done in purpose built arcologies or in orbital stations around Earth.)

Mr.Green wrote:

2) Speculation: Earth’ environment and Nobles

If Earth is so busted up, why are the nobles still wasting money trying to rebuild it. Wouldn’t it be more use, in expanding the arcologies?

Because the cost of moving nine billion people off world would cost even MORE. The damage is pretty severe, but they’ve determined that if they keep working at removing radiation, pollutants, and the like, that the Earth will eventually heal itself.

The second reason is defensability. Unlike canon SA, which had no real reason to be paranoid, the Premiseverse version of Sol is fortified like nothing else in the galaxy except maybe the Hanar homeworld. The asteroid belt is a littered with defensive stations and mass cannons, and Earth is protected by sixteen space stations armed to the teeth.

The only way to Earth is to get past Arcturus, the only way to get past Arcturus is through Nova Terra. Those systems are almost as heavily defended as Sol is.

Finally, the fact remains that as long as most of humanity is in Sol it’s under the direct thumb of the High Lords. A humanity widely diffused is one that could conceivably rebel successfully.

Mr.Green wrote:

3) Speculation: Manswell’ Endgame

What is the Manswell endgame to everything. Assuming, both their plans come to fruition. And neither the Reapers nor Council nor Shepard cometh to smash the party. What will it be?

That’s spoiling everything, dude.

Mr.Green wrote:

4) Speculation: Humans screwed by ME3?

In Canon, we saw how the Reapers steamrolled, a ‘mostly’ lawful humanity. How big will the steamroll be in Premise-ME3?

Canon humanity was weak as hell. The Premiseverse SA would conquer canon SA in about six fucking weeks. Nor is the SA in denial about what is coming, just how long it will take to get here.

The High Lords have been covertly building up massive armies of mind slotted penal legionaries, building new defenses, and making the arcologies even more resistant. the Alliance High Command’s new Sixth Fleet was mostly built using what they could learn from the attack of Nazara and have mag-shields, honeycombing armor segments, and much stronger engine systems based on Reaper tech.

Even for the Reapers Sol is going to be a bitch to take down, which is actually a plot point.

Mr.Green wrote:

5) Speculation: Alien infiltration

Why haven’t the Nobles reacted? Or updated the Commissar’ brain-jar to include countering alien spies, tech or money, affecting Earth.

Namely the biotic cults, investing into Earth tech-gangs. Or having hackers mess around their infosphere.

Trellani has stated in the Cerberus Files – those in charge aren’t stupid. But are they actually doing something, to counter the alien hostility inflicted upon Earth?

Because it serves their purposes to allow it flourish, something people like Minsta can’t (or won’t) see.

Ultimately, the majority of the Lords of the Second and Third Rank are what they are supposed to be — rich, selfless, dedicated to protecting humanity and preventing dictators from rising to power. I’d say ninety-five percent of them would be aghast at the plans for NOVENSILES.

The HIGH Lords, on the other hand, are the same evil assholes who ran the Earth into the ground and then had th audacity to blame democracy for it. And to them alien infiltration of the rank and file is meaningless.

Aliens have zero penetration of the nobility, and any revolt attempt would be crushed — every aspect of the SA, from arcology defence design to even how food get shipped, was designed to prevent the High Lords from losing control. That they don’t bother GOVERNING and MAKING LAWS has convinced people they don’t do anything, but ultimately any big choices get made by them.

The money and tech flowing into Earth is only a problem from the aspect of building up a native economy. Since the plan with NOVENSILES ultimately implies that the High Lords plan to set out on a war of conquest at some point, they really don’t care about the short term — and even better, use such things to find out more about the aliens.

Suicide by Tetrimus is a fairly apt description. Even in the farked-up state they are in they could at least make him work a bit for it (certainly more than they did the first time they fought)…

But even if they were both in good health, sane and rested they don’t have what it takes. Unlike Shepard, who is basically a techno-monster, or Garrus, who is rocking upgraded mil-spec weapons and armor technology, they’re basically just more of the same that they were.

They have a lot more experience, more toys, and their biotics are sharper and stronger, but they don’t have any thing nasty except for Liara’s decent but not great warp sword ability.

Aethyta is also not 100%, as she’s old, hasn’t had a chance to practice or fight in over two years, and has a cybernetic link in her spine which she’s not used to yet. Then again, her skills are high enough that she is always a threat — she was the only one to wound Tetrimus in the first fight, and he hasn’t forgotten that.

So … yeah … Dies Irae.

Someone on the DLP forums made a comment about how the Collectors would take to being interfered with and I may have sort of possibly offered up an entire world to Khorne.

I’ve decided on the song for the Illum Angstrofuck of Doom:

Himura wrote:

6) Human currency

We know that Credit is the official e-currency of Citadel Space but does it extend to encompass the entirety of human economy and has it replaced Dollar, Euro, Pound Stirling on Earth?

The galactic credit is based on the HE3 exchanges and several other critical elements. A snippet in TCF: Systems Alliance goes into more detail:

More disturbing is the larger issue – with no central bank and no fixed exchange rates (since the dollar index is based on highly volatile pricing for eezo and HE3), the SA’s foreign markets and exchange rates are held hostage to the galactic economy and the strength of the Citadel Credit. To put it plainly, investors in the SA can manipulate lags in price differentials between the SA index and the short-term rate of inflation in the Citadel Credit to make artificial price spreads. Since the SA can’t set interest rates and the noble house banks rarely cooperate in any coherent manner, regional differences literally allow asari investors to pick and choose where to invest for the best result.

Himura wrote:

7) Salarian insurrection against the SIX

What are the chances of a salarian civil war erupting before the arrival of the Reapers in the galaxy?

“Civil War” would be too strong a term. There would be a quiet series of assassinations designed as natural deaths, some economic internal sabotage, and then puppet heads of the SIX would be put into place and the STG would be calling the actual shots.

The average salarian wouldn’t even know the difference. The chances of it…unknown right now. If it did happen it would be after the SIX demonstrated incompetence in some manner.

Himura wrote:

8) President Windsor making a come back like a boss

How defanged is this guy really? I know his daughter has a cortex bomb but he never struck me as someone who would leave debts unpaid and scores unsettled.

*whistles innocently*

Himura wrote:

9) Does the SA posses the Office of Naval Intelligence or does the SAIS cover all their bases?

Humans loves their Secretive agencies, does the SA have more in their cap than just the SAIS and Black outfits like Cerberus and later Hades? Or is everything rolled up into SAIS?

Both the Marines and Naval Forces have external-facing intelligence agencies, but these are very tightly focused and defer to the AIS in almost everything.

Remember, the military was carefully designed by Maxwell Manswell to not be a threat to the High Lords, and they retain control over the AIS for the most part. Having focused technical agents working on figuring out salarian software is fine, but having independent agencies capable of poking about is not.

Himura wrote:

10) Does the SA posses something like that or its equivalent to use on the surface of Earth or their colonies without risking fallout contamination or dust in the atmo after a kinetic bombardment?

Not really. Earth’s biosphere is so damaged (by global warming, radioactive fallout, heat pollution, chemical pollution and the like) that such action would be counterproductive. With the colonies, it’s pretty much seen as overkill.

They do have M/AM mines, and the Commissariat even has lower yield versions designed for chastisment, but these are almost never used. The Commissariat’s thinking is that such weapons are simply too impersonal to generate true terror. They prefer purges to be up close, personal, and involving fire and screaming.

The High Lords are not concerned one way or another about such things, and you can bet your bottom dollar every single arcology has such mines planted near the arcology’s reactor district. In the event of a catostrophic revolt or some such they could blow these and claim it was a ‘tragic reactor failure’ event.

Given that Tazzik was on Omega during the escape of Shepard, it should be fairly obvious that they took out a false body double.

The point of having it stroll around in the open was to make sure the reactor detonation that took out the Reclaimed Sisterhood had solved the problem. The fact that the copy was killed indicated it was not solved, which is why Tetrimus is headed there now since he is completely out of patience.

I expect a lot of screaming curses and people re-reading certain sections of OSABC and TWCD as well as Fear Unrelenting when I get to the end of my third ME book, lolz.

Now what’s really going to cook your noddle is just what the Inusannon wanted with a big bunch of geth.

Hint. Hint.