Mass Effect: From Hell, We Have Come [SCII/ME Crossover]

Prelude - A Journey Begins

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
Disclaimer: I declare that I do not own either Starcraft II or Mass Effect. Instead, Blizzard Entertainment Owns Starcraft II, and Bioware/Electronic Arts own the Mass Effect Franchise. So Please Support The Official Release! Thank You!!


Mass Effect: From Hell, We Have Come

A Mass Effect and Starcraft II Crossover Story Novella

Written by,
William R. Woods
aka, "deathzealot", or "deathzealotzero"



Foreword

So, welcome to a third version of my basic idea for Mass Effect and Starcraft II crossover story which drops some sort of force from Starcraft II into the events of the Mass Effect trilogy. This really has come about after I noticed that there is little amount of stories that do a traditional crossover story between these two sci-fi video game franchises. As they are normally merged into a single universe and do not kick a character or such from Starcraft into the Mass Effect universe. Heck! There is nothing going the other way having such a thing happen from Mass Effect to the universe of Starcraft. Still, this idea mainly focused on James Eugene Raynor, one of the central characters of the entire franchise, and would through the powers of a fully ascended Sarah Kerrigan be sent to the universe of Mass Effect from around the time after the end of the final campaign of Starcraft II. Kerrigan would also equip Raynor with one of the more advanced Terran Combat Suits and weapons available at the time. From there he would be dropped onto Eden Prime around the start of the first game of the series and would join the whole main storyline of the series alongside a female Commander Shepard. That was the whole basic version of this idea with nothing else really added to the overall idea.

However, that changed when my muse decided to use this idea as a basis for this year's brand-new Writing Frenzy, an event that my local writing group is throwing together in place of National Novel Writing Month. Mainly due to the issues happening around the organization last year and since then. Anyways! My muse expanded on the idea and saw that while Raynor was kicked into the Mass Effect universe he wouldn't be alone. As Kerrigan would not only give Jim the needed weapons, combat suits, and other supplies but would also create a handful of needed allies to follow him. Not to mention it wouldn't be at the start of the game's story but instead would be a few years before the start of the series allowing this small team of Starcraft II characters to get settled into the universe before the events of the series begin. In the meantime, would not only fight against the Batarians but gather some local allies to their cause expanding their forces with these local recruits.

Sadly, though I started to see a few issues with the above version of this story idea, after writing two chapters for it, which soon led to a second version which did change a few things about the idea. Mainly, that is unlike the above idea which had a sort-of ascended version of Raynor spending around a century with Kerrigan wandering the universe before starting to explore alternate universes where they stumble onto the Mass Effect universe. Raynor then manages to convince Kerrigan to help the locals against the Reapers and the story begins soon afterwards. The second version has Kerrigan approach Raynor around the same time he "disappears" in the official story of the game and recruits him to be her champion in fighting against the Reapers in the Mass Effect universe which she discovered after experimenting with her powers. This idea kind of fell flat right at the halfway mark of writing the prelude chapter and while I do have a few ideas to merge a few things of the second idea with the original version my muse kind of latched on to another idea.

This idea basically abandons the whole thing with a single character or even a small group of characters from Starcraft being sent into the Mass Effect universe and sends off a small overall faction from Starcraft into Mass Effect. It also doesn't really focus on James Raynor, but instead, Emperor Valerian Mengsk, son of the previous Emperor of the Terran Dominion Arcturus Mengsk, and a small Dominion Fleet being sent over to the Mass Effect Universe. At his side would be his wife, one November Terra-Mengsk, or better known to many as the Ghost Operative Nova who is a side character from the Starcraft II first campaign storyline and would have had her own video game if things actually went through correctly. Still, this idea came from an older crossover idea that I had years ago after playing through the Legacy of the Void Campaign for the first time. Though I do admit that it was Starcraft crossing over to another popular sci-fi fandom, not Mass Effect.

The overall background to this whole thing would be that instead of siding with Gabriel Tosh during that fateful branch in the story of the Wings of Liberty Campaign Raynor and his Raiders side with Nova. However, during the course of the battle to bring down Tosh and his Specters on Avernus Station Nova would be exposed to a small amount of Terrazine from the destroyed Terrazine tanks. This does lead to her passing out which does see the Raiders evacuating her comatose self from the Station allowing Tosh to escape along with a small amount of his Specters. A bit later Nova wakes up with the vast majority of her memories no longer blocked or removed which does see her turning away from the Dominion and joining the Raiders in their own fight against the Dominion after some mental help from both Raynor and Zeratul, whose meeting with Raynor would be later on in the storyline. Then when Raynor meets with Valerian right before getting the final piece of the Xel'Naga Device Nova meets him as well and coldly tells him a few things about his father which he is not really all that surprised about. The rest of this campaign goes about as it does in canon just with Nova and a few hastily trained Raider Ghosts fighting alongside the Raiders in these final battles. Though Nova does further meet with Valerian more than a few times afterwards during these last few battles.

I do have a bit further on this version of the overall timeline about what happens to Nova and how she becomes involved with Valerian but I really do not want to make this foreword even more a lengthy thing. Still, there are a few other things that should be further explored in the story itself about not only Nova but her relationship with Valerian. As well as her time with the Raiders and her somewhat strained friendship with Raynor, and Kerrigan. I do believe that is enough talk from me and time to get to the story proper! So please do enjoy this story, and hope that it doesn't stall like the two other versions of his overall larger crossover story between that of Starcraft II and Mass Effect. With that said, welcome to Mass Effect: From Hell, We Have Come!

- William R. Woods
October 16, 2024

Prelude - A Journey Begins

Between the various Terrans powers both major and minor in the Koprulu Sector it is not very common for any sort of colonization outside of the sector itself. Even though the available planets to colonize and resources to claim inside the sector shrink every passing year. Instead, they turn to the likes of dedicated terraforming, sealed environmental colonies on more hostile planets, mining out large asteroids or even passing comets, or in more modern times, reclaiming abandoned or destroyed planets from the wars of the past. This is mainly due to the idea that there is nothing for the Terrans outside of the Sector or more recently, an enemy like the UED swooping in to brutally take over the less defended newly settled colonies outside of the more prosperous and defended colonies of the Koprulu Sector. Not to mention, many were scared of what they would find in the darkness of unknown space what with them already having fought against two alien races and finding out about the existence of an ancient precursor race. The question is always 'What else will we find out there? And can we survive it if attacks us?'. Then there is the UED, the United Earth Directorate, the overall nation station in charge of our race's ancient homeworld of Earth, and literally running into their own claimed space which may end up in another attempted invasion of the sector by the UED.

Taken all of this together really has prevented many of the various powers of the sector, along with their leaders, in the sector from expanding outside of the sector to even the most surveyed nearby sectors of space, like the Tursobis Sector to our western border or the Keresh Sector to our southern border, both had been thoroughly surveyed by the powers of the Sector over the years either due to the needs of the wars or other more greedy pursuits. What with the Tursobis Sector perhaps being the most famous with the Kel-Morian Combine sending several probes into the sector to search for resources during the years before the start of the Great War which lead to the settlement of a single colony right along the edge of the border between the two sectors. A colony that would be all out destroyed by the zerg during the early days of the Great War. While the Keresh Sector is literally right next to the home sector of space for the Protoss and had originally been surveyed by the Terran Dominion in the years that followed the Brood Wars in an effort to try to find the homeworld of the Protoss, Auir.

Hence, while exploration and surveying nearby space to the edges of the Koprulu Sector is somewhat accepted by many in the sector, outright colonizing new worlds in even these thoroughly explored neighboring sectors is still somewhat of a taboo subject to many of the average civilians of the sector preventing really any sort of colonization program to be launched outside of the Sector itself. Though it hasn't stopped many from putting forth various proposals for such colonization expeditions or our own creative minds…

- Taken from The Taboo of Out of Sector Colonization: The Reason Behind Such A Thing, written by Doctor Graham Diaz, University of Chau Sara, Published Circa. April, 2510CE




Open Space
Verge System, Koprulu Sector
Gamma Quadrant, Milky Way Galaxy
September 7, 2512 Common Era


With an almost silent swish of noise, the large main hatchway leading into the bridge of the HMS Bucephalus opened, letting the tall golden-haired figure of Emperor Valerian Mengsk of the Terran Dominion into the beating heart of his own personal flagship. At his entrance, a trio of uniformed figures standing around the central holo table of the bridge turned and bowed shortly towards him as he approached them.

"Majesty," one of the more lavished uniformed figures, a large man, rumbled out loud drawing a nod from the even more lavishly dressed Emperor towards the man before looking over the holographic globe that dominated the central holo table. The Sovereign Class Command Battlecruiser, his personal flagship the HMS Bucephalus, along with its escorts of two Pride of Augustgrad Class Battlecruisers - the HMS Valor of Vardona and HMS Memory of Styrling - and a half-dozen Blizzard Class Light Cruisers were gathered along one side of the large display in a small formation of ships along with a flanking pair of simple holographic markers showing the location of the cloaked Condor Class Stealth Assault Destroyers - the HMS Griffon and HMS Unicorn - both of which were cloaked to further protect his small flotilla from anyone observing their little rendezvous in the middle of nowhere.

Then there happened to be a second larger-sized fleet of Terran ships that dominated the other half of the display. First, at the center of the fleet, there are the half-dozen Odyssey Class Large Colonial Transports, all of which had formerly been Behemoth Class Battlecruisers that had undergone a refit to make them into massively sized colonial transports for large-scale colonial expeditions or really recolonizing older colonies that had been destroyed in the Great Wars, the Brood War, or the End War. They mainly had much of their large ATS Laser removed, but kept the smaller ATA Laser Batteries, while the main Yamato Cannon was removed to make way for an over half kilometer in length passenger section which allowed two hundred thousand or so colonists to be transported in relative comfort inside a large armored transport that could defend itself if needed.

Secondly, these six large former battlecruisers were supported by a further six far smaller four hundred meters in length Titanic Class Colony Ships which carried a further several thousand or so colonists along with the needed tools and such to settle a new colony including prefabricated buildings. They are further supported by a dozen smaller, but similar in overall looks, Hercules Class Cargo Ships which carried the rest of the colonial expeditions supporting cargo including much of its initial food supply. Finally, there was the large spherical form of the Seeker Class Science Ship the HMCS A Lone Wanderer which hovered gently over the six equally large forms of the Odyssey Class Colonial Transports. They were all protected by two Minotaur Class Battlecruisers - the HMS Fearless and HMS Basilisk -, three further Blizzard Class Light Cruisers and a half-dozen smaller Valkyrie-II Class Escort Frigates. Really, an impressive-looking gathering of ships compared to the emperor's own small flotilla. All gathered together by the emperor's command to settle a new world outside of the larger Koprulu Sector. Just over a million colonists and supporting defensive military units were ready to jump into the unknown.

"Ah, the Terminus Colonial Expedition Fleet has finally arrived I see," he mentioned out loud with a small smile gracing his handsome face as he eyed the holographic renderings of the fleet as he came up alongside the holo table.

"Yes, Your Majesty, and ready for your speech," came the smooth soprano voice of Fleet Captain Stephanie Faith Harrington, the current commander of the Bucephalus. A tall and slim looking woman who was standing on the opposite side of the holo table reminding the emperor of the purpose for him to be out here along the very edge of Terran Dominion Space and the larger form of the Koprulu Sector. Oh. He had already been on one of his notable regular tours along the Fringe Colonies of the Dominion in an effort to get right in the action sort of speak and to get closer to some of his most abused subjects from the reign of his father. Still journeying this out-of-the-way system was not only just the last stop for his tour but to witness the first ever Terran Colonization Expedition to be sent outside of the Koprulu Sector and into the nearby Tursobis Sector. Something that he had ordered to be organized a few years ago was now finally realized.

"Thank you, Fleet Captain," the emperor replied to the woman with another smile on his face before focusing on the second figure gathered around the holo table who looked at the holo display with a grim frown on their face.

"Still not all that pleased by this are you, Everett?" he questioned the figure, one Brigadier Everett Vaughn, the former captain of the Bucephalus, the overall commander of this small flotilla of ships and the overall larger form of the 1st Imperial Guard Regimental Combat Team, the Emperor's own personal guard force.

"I have no real issues with this whole operation my Emperor, what I do have a concern over is you being way out here along the edge of Dominion Space without at least a much larger fleet with us," the large-sized man mentioned with his earlier rumble of a voice as he frowned over at the form of his Emperor. This made the emperor sigh and shake his head for while he did understand the worries of his friend and overall man reasonable for the protection of his own presence. Not to mention his small family.

"Not to mention having the Empress and your unborn child along for this tour has not sit well with me at all," he further mentioned with now a large glower on his face looking around as if there were some hidden assassin hiding somewhere along the bridge of the overall flagship of the entire Terran Dominion Armed Forces.

Something that was quite laughable as not only was the ship's entire crew checked out by numerous means but also were constantly psionically screened for anyone trying to sneak in some sort of spy or assassin onto the emperor's chosen flagship. Not to mention several red- and gold-colored forms of Imperial Marines in heavy CMC-535 Combat Suits were spread over the entire bridge. That was not even including the handful of smaller forms in shadowed HES-09 Hostile Environment Suits that were hidden along the shadows of the large bridge, these being Dominion Imperial Shadows, soldiers able to use psionics to combat any threat. All of which were entirely loyal to the emperor. Still, there was some concern over having the vast majority of the Imperial Family of the Dominion out in this out-of-way system. As while many of the large threats to the Dominion were either destroyed entirely or now allied to them, there were still a few different threats to the emperor who would love to ambush them away from the larger Dominion Armed Forces.

"I do understand your concerns my friend, but the Empress did insist on coming along with this tour for some reason bringing with her our unborn kid. And I wasn't about to argue with her thanks to her moods," he replied to the concerned man mentioning the overall often swinging moods of his wife the Empress which did draw some light chuckles from the rest of the bridge crew. For they were all quite aware of their Empress and her various different moods due to her pregnancy.

"Speaking of the Empress sire, I would have thought she would have joined you?" questioned the final figure around the holo display, one Senior General Charlotte Ann Warfield, the Dominion's current Commander-in-Chief of the entire Dominion Armed Forces and part of the emperor's own current close staff. Also, the niece of the famous General Horace Warfield who had joined her uncle in the Dominion Military but due to her connections with the man had been imprisoned after the man's failure to stop Kerrigan or the remaining Zerg Broodmothers at Char by the orders of Valerian's father. After Valerian took the throne, he would go through the various cases his father personally got involved in and would release a good half of the people imprisoned on his father's orders. Including the whole remaining Warfield family much to his own personal horror.

"She was feeling a bit tired therefore decided to take a nap, but she shall be here when the Expedition makes its first jump towards the Tursobis Sector," he explained with a shrug and a concerned look on his face and the other three gathered around the table. For they all were quite close to the tiny Imperial Family and could be quite concerned over the tiny things about the two of them.

"Well, I do hope she and the child are alright," the figure of Fleet Captain Harrington mentioned out loud with some concern making the Emperor nod at her with his own worried smile on his face.

"Yes, pass on our concerns to her please majesty," General Warfield mentioned a moment later, making the emperor's nod at her as well before he shifted his attention back to the holographic display.

"Still cannot believe this day has finally arrived after more than a year of various people telling me that it wasn't possible, or something similar, with our current resources and manpower," he mused out loud before eying the various holographic representations of the ships of the Colonization Expedition Fleet. For indeed many inside the Dominion were against the project from the start, calling it a waste of resources and manpower to try to put down a colony outside of the sector itself. Something that was a solid concern that he had listened to, not his own thoughts on the matter. It was better than those handfuls of people saying that it was not right to put down a colony outside of the sector as it was their home and putting a foot outside of the Sector would be the end of everything.

"Well Sire, it was quite an interesting proposal to put the colony in the Terminus System, a system smack dab in the middle of a difficult to traverse nebula with its unique blend of radiation preventing anyone from warping into the nebula itself. A perfect defense and an even better fallback position if the Sector is invaded again by the UED," General Warfield replied with a soft chuckle at the whole idea for the Terminus System had been discovered by an old Confederate exploration probe before being followed by a small research expedition which found the nebula and the system hidden there in sported a somewhat decent world to fully able to be colonized, after some tweaking of course. Hence, when the plan for his Out of Sector Colonization Expedition was finally starting to make headway in the Dominion the Emperor would propose the destination as the newly named Terminus System for its target. He further explained that it would make a fine fallback point in case of any further invasion by the UED or another future enemy force.

"Not to mention the rich resources contained in the system and the idea to put a brand-new shipyard facility in the system made it quite an interesting proposal for many in the Dominion Senate. Quite an excellent idea all around sire," Brigadier Vaughn managed to rumble out with a short chuckle of his own making the emperor nod towards him with a large beaming smile at the praise. As spread out along the cargo bays of the Odyssey and Heracles Class ships were dozens of prefabricated pieces to assemble an orbital shipyard facility fully capable of building pretty much any ship in the Terran Dominion inventory from simple civilian haulers to a full-on Gorgon Class Superbattlecruiser with enough gathered resources.

"Yes, it was a good idea I admit to propose it like that but please remember ladies and gentlemen that at its core the Terminus Colony is more than a simple fallback position in case of further invasion of the Koprulu Sector, but a means to carry on the Terran Dominion in case of any sort of large scale disaster bringing down the Dominion," the Emperor explained in a more serious sounding voice looking over the figures of his three main subordinates with a grim look on his face making them all look back at him their own severe looks on their faces. They all were fully briefed about the main mission of the Terminus Colonial Expedition, the outright condition of the Terran Dominion as a nation state in case of disaster bringing the government of the Dominion down.

"On a less grim nature it does allow further exploration into the Tursobis Sector with some very interesting unknown ruins on some of the planets located there," the Emperor mentioned after several long moments of silence between them all remembering various bits of the Sector's more recent history, like the fall of Tarsonis to the Zerg Swarm, and the brief absorption of the Dominion into the UED during the course of the Brood War. Before being jolted out of these dark thoughts by the emperor's own comment making them all blink over at him in some surprise before chuckles were exchanged across the holo table between them all. All three officers were quite aware of the emperor's own passion for such things over the years having known him.

"That is quite true Sire, but you are not going to be harrying off to do such explorations yourself," the figure of the Brigadier chided the younger man with a small smile on his face making the figure of the emperor glare over at him.

"It was only the one time!" he almost whined out loud before sighing and chuckling at the older man.

"Well played General," he mentioned after a moment before focusing back on the holographic display and noticing the time at the corner of the display making him blanch in some shock before composing himself. All three officers did the same when they noticed their emperor looking at the display in some shock. A moment later all four of the gathered figures where back in their official roles of Emperor and his closest confidants.

"Well, it does look like the time for my speech is fast approaching," he commented before looking over at the Fleet Captain and nodding at her who turned herself over to her bridge's communication section.

"You heard the emperor! Get the broadcast to the entire Expedition Fleet set up as soon as possible," she ordered the men manning that section.

"Aye, ma'am!" They all called back before leaning over their combined station however before anything further happened the officers manning the ship's sensor station suddenly leaned forward in some surprise as their station started to blare at them in some warning. This drew the attention of the rest of the bridge and the four figures gathered around the central holo table. A moment later the lead sensor officer turned towards them in some form of confusion.

"Sirs! Our sensors are detecting a gathering of graviton particles and vortex warp energy," the man reported making all four figures blink in some surprise before the holo display chance from displaying a representation of gathered ships to a focused view on the location of interest. It was located roughly halfway between the two terran task forces, the Imperial Guard Flotilla and the Terminus Colonial Expedition.

"Were we expecting anyone from the Protoss to arrive for this operation?" General Warfield questioned in some confusion knowing that it was only the Protoss could currently use such energy and particles in their warp technology. Mainly thanks to their more advanced psychic powered warp technology that the terrans had barely been able to scratch at in the years since first contact between their two races.

"No. I have talked to Hierarch Artanis about my plans, but the Daelaam Union is still in the process of rebuilding Aiur and reclaiming a few of their nearby colonies in the Khaladas Sector to be all that interested in a colonial expedition," the Emperor mentioned in his own confusion at the appearance of such an anomaly for he was quite aware that the protoss of the Daelaam where quite busy trying to rebuild their civilization of the central sector of the Sigma Quadrant and the heart of the former Protoss Empire.

"Could it be the Tal'darim? I know that we have a sort of peace with the Highlord but there apparently are still some splinters of the older Tal'darim Sects around after all," Brigadier Vaughn mentioned with a scowl on his face making the others gathered around the new display to frown in some concern at this idea.

"I thought the Tal'darim didn't use graviton particles in their warp drives but a variant of solarite," questioned the Fleet Captain as she eyed the readings with a growing sense of unease, something that was starting to be shared by the rest of the ship's bridge crew.

"That is quite correct," the emperor replied with narrowed eyes, however before anything happened two things happened together. The first where the nearby guarding Imperial Shadows groaning out loud in some pain, which drew the attention of the emperor, and the second was more readings starting to appear on the holo display which was soon reported by the now panicking form of the lead sensor officer, which drew the attention of the other three senior officers.

"SIR! There is now void energy being gathered at the center of the anomaly!" the man managed to report even through his growing panic. For like many of the officers onboard the Bucephalus had been onboard during the final days of the End War when Terran, Zerg, and Protoss gathered together to finally destroy the Fallen Xel'Naga Amon in the darkness of the overall region of subspace known as the Void which powered not only the Dark Templar of the Protoss but the followers of Amon who would use such energy in their defense of their living god over the course of that battle. The Bucephalus barely managed to survive one attack during the battle, and it was only its enhanced armor and a timely application of a defensive matrix that defended the ship from the attack.

"Contact all of the ships in this system! Emergency Warp out of here now!!" the bellow of the Brigadier reached the entire bridge as he pounded a beefy head on the edge of the holo table in his overall fury and fear at what was going on. From his position helping the nearest Imperial Shadow to their feet, the emperor could only sigh as he knew from his own studies that it was way too late to do anything and closed his eyes.

'Luckily for the Dominion Arturia would make a fine Empress,' he managed to think to himself with a small sad smile on his face mentioning his distant cousin who he had managed to find out about in the years that followed the End War who he had made his direct heir. At least till the birth of his child, anyway which wouldn't happen now much to his sadness for he had truly been quite excited to become a father. He then closed his eyes in acceptance as everything went white when the gathered energy of the detected anomaly exploded outwards, and he knew nothing more as the gathered forty-five Terran ships disappeared from this universe along with the one point three million terrans onboard said ships. There was nothing to show how they disappeared or what had done the deed. As with the anomaly and its gathered energy, there was nothing really able to show what had happened here to any sort of sensor. Nothing remained… at least in this universe.


-o-End-o-​

Post Chapter Notes

And that is a wrap! I am actually quite proud of this chapter outside of some of the bits in the middle of the chapter. Sigh. Still, it is quite an interesting chapter that I managed to wrangle my muse to create. The overall idea for the chapter was to bring a small fleet of the Terran Dominion, mainly a dedicated colonial fleet, from the Starcraft universe to that of the Mass Effect universe. So, no worries our loveable "Junior" Emperor Valerian is still alive and is now going to appear in the Mass Effect universe along with over one million of his people.

That does take us to the overall "how" they all got kicked into the Mass Effect universe. Well, when I originally came up with this idea it would have been a void corrupted Mass Relay that a couple of Amon's followers had been messing around with during those final hectic days of the End War. However, I did not really know how that would have worked, Void energies meeting with that of Element Zero or even how it managed to get on this side of the divide, therefore moved away from that whole idea. Instead, I kind of created my own little tech babble bit of lore to explain it with graviton particles, something seen in a few Protoss unit or ability descriptions, meeting that of vortex warp energy, my term for energy from protoss warp tech, and general void energy that when combined all together pretty much created the whole event to transfer them all over to the Mass Effect universe. I am quite proud of the whole idea! I really do not know if it would actually work, lore-wise, but sorry I have not talked with the likes of Subsourian, the Starcraft King of Lore, if it is even possible but I am pretty sure it does sound like something happened which is what I actually wanted for all of it.

Okay. Time to get to a few other main points I want to cover before I end these notes. First of all, I'm sure you can guess what the original crossover was for this idea when I originally came up with it years ago. Mainly, in the description of the Terminus System, and yeah it would be Nu! Battlestar Galactica where the Rag Tag Fleet would run into a small Terran Dominion outpost and future full Dominion Colony on the planet that they called Terminus. A fun little nod to my original crossover idea for this whole thing. It also does use a few other bits from my other Starcraft story ideas, like the Imperial Shadows, which are units that draw on training for both the Ghosts and the Spectres with some flavor from the Protoss. Originally, I had them named the Wraiths but since I am using the Emperor's Shadow unit from the Co-Op Commander for Arcturus Mengsk as a visual base for them they get a new name for this story to reflect this.

Moving on, something else I wanted to mention before I end these lengthy notes is that I am using HMS, His/Her Majesty's Ship, for the Dominion's national ship prefix instead of the semi-canon DS, Dominion Ship, or the various fanon prefixes like DNS, Dominion Naval Ship I guess. Still, it is mainly due to my love of the Honor Harrington Series which is why I am using it for this story. This further expanded with the prefix of HMCS, which is His/Her Majesty's Civilian Ship, which works for non-military ships in my mind, though I may also use HMAS as well for military auxiliary ships. Shrug. Finally, I like to point out that of the characters introduced in this chapter only Valerian and Everett Vaughn are actually canon characters. The others are original characters that I had created for an even older Starcraft idea that I had and repurposed here for this story. Yeah. The Fleet Captain is based on Honor Harrington while General Warfield is the niece of Horace Warfield. Okay. I think that is it.

With all of that said! I am going to see about getting started on the next chapter where we see this gathered fleet being rudely dropped into the Mass Effect Universe and a certain now ascended Queen Bitch of the Universe makes an appearance. Till then! Thanks for reading!
 
Wish I knew anything at all about Starcraft lore, because a lot of this flew over my head, despite being done quite well.
 
Wish I knew anything at all about Starcraft lore, because a lot of this flew over my head, despite being done quite well.
Shrug. Since we are going from Starcraft to Mass Effect the Starcraft Lore shouldn't be all that difficult to follow as if it was the other way around. Still please ask me any question if you are not following something and I shall see about answering it. Also, the Starcraft Wiki is always available to look something up that you did not understand.
 
Episode One - A New Variable
Episode One - A New Variable

"I still think we should help this universe and their people with these Reapers," an angry masculine voice could be heard saying which drew a deep sigh from someone else for it went on with more anger, "Not to mention I would love to shove an Impaler up the ass of these fucking slaving Batarians and open fire at full auto."

"Jim, I do agree with you and everything, especially these Batarians, but with myself not able to compress my powers into a mortal body any longer we do not have many options," a feminine sorrowful sounding voice replied to the first voice got an angry curse from the first voice.

"And while I could return to a mortal form, we have some problems with that as well," the first voice could be heard saying a bit of annoyance in their voice.

"Yes, we have been over this already Jim. I am not about to send you in alone with pretty much nothing to use to fight the Reapers," the second, feminine voice, shot back with a hint of anger now leaking into the voice making the first voice sigh out loud.

"Yeah, I got that, you only have a limited supply of essence and biomass so can create only a small team," the first voice grumbled out with a bit of annoyance as it went on, "Even if you could create such a team you can't create anything for them as you cannot create stuff out of nothing even with your all of your impressive powers and everything."

"I am not Amon Jim he used the energy he drew from the Void itself to create those fully equipped void thralls to use against us in the war. I need some actual material or resources to create what we would need to fully equip you in mortal form or a small team of created soldiers from my stored essence and biomass," the feminine voice calmly explained to the first voice who huffed at the second voice making it just sigh in outright outrage at the first voice before it seemed to pause in some surprise.

"Wait Jim do you feel that?" the second voice asked in some concern making the first voice hum in some thought.

"I feel something darling, but I do not know what it is," the first voice answered in some confusion making the second voice seem like it nodded.

"Well that is direct Void energy mixed with what feels like Protoss Vortex Warp energy," the second voice explained drawing a deep breath of some sort of surprise from the first voice, "I remember it from my time working alongside Artanis and his forces when we first encountered Ulnar and the dead Xel'Naga."

"The Protoss here, in this universe!" the first voice almost yelped in its surprise for it had not expected that at all.

"No, I do not think so but something from our home universe or even something from the void itself is about to arrive in this universe," the second voice explained with some concentration which drew the first voice's attention.

"It's going to arrive in this system!" the first voice exclaimed in surprise and a bit of suspicion as it seemed to stare off towards where all of this was going on. The two had been floating above a small moon that held an outpost of the slave operations of the larger Batarian Hegemony on the edge of the lawless Terminus Systems. And it had been one more reason why the two had wanted to help these people.

"You know if I was a betting woman, I would say that this is some sort of prophetic thing once more," the second voice grumbled out in outright outrage at what was happening. For it had been involved with more than one actual prophecy thanks in part to the Xel'Naga that provided the needed essence to ascend her into a virtual goddess in her own right.

"I am so not taking that bet, Sarah," the first voice mentioned with a dark chuckle before looking over towards the system's only asteroid belt where they were picking up that energy, "So shall we go then and see what this happens to be."

"Yeah, yeah. Still, I swear if this some stupid prophecy or something I am going to revive Zeratul so I can kill him myself!" the second voice ranted out drawing another short chuckle from the first voice. Still, the two seem to flash from floating above the moon and its outpost before arriving just out of range of the growing amount of energy.

"Woah howdy! That is a lot of energy!!" the first voice exclaimed with a shout as it stared at the expanding ball of energy. Then as it said that the ball of energy started to rapidly expand outwards before it disappeared with a flash of deep green light leaving behind dozens of floating ships. Ships that the two immediately recognized right off the bat.

"The hell? That is a Terran Dominion Fleet! And that is actually the
Bucelpeus itself, Junior's Flagship! What in the world are they doing here?" the first voice managed to say in outright shock as it stared at the floating ships.

"Are you sure Jim?" the second voice asked after a moment which made the first voice snort.

"Hon, I was on that ship enough times after you took out old Arturus that I know it by sight just like the old
Hyperion," the first voice explained with a chuckle before seeming to smirk at something or another, "Besides it is one of only two ships of that particular class of battlecruiser to have the horrid gold secondary color and that even worse wolfhead on its bow."

"And besides you tore the old
Prydwen right out of the sky when it tried to attack you during your attack on Palace during the Invasion of Korhal. So, it should be the only ship remaining in the Dominion Fleet that looks like that. Unless Junior went and commissioned another flagship anyways," the first voice mentioned with an amused sounding voice making the second voice let out a surprised hum at this before seeming to nod at its partner.

"Yeah, now that you mention I do recall a battlecruiser trying all out ram me out of the sky when I was taking apart some of those Warhawk Heavy Gunships Arturus sent after me," the second voice mused to itself before seeming to focus back on the fleet and the handful of powerful psionic signatures, including one very familiar signature, on that gold-colored monstrosity of a flagship.

"Still Jim, sweety, why don't you cross over to the old Koprulu Sector and see what or who caused all of this," the second voice ordered making the first voice grumble slightly before nodding in agreement.

"Yes, ma'am!" the first voice replied before seeming to pause and look at its partner, "What about you Sarah? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to say hi to an old friend," the second voice said in some amusement which drew the attention of the first voice to what the second voice had detected earlier before letting off a bark of laughter.

"Don't scare her too bad Sarah, she did save your fine ass more than a few different times and getting my head straight after you busted in that prison ship to rescue me," the first voice gently reminded the second making it sigh and nod over at its partner.

"I remember," it nearly whispered before the first voice seemed to fire off a salute to the second and with a flash of golden light disappeared from their sight. That done the second voice advanced towards the golden-colored large battlecruiser with a smile on its face.





WELL! This is the actual preface for the first episode of the story, basically taking a page out of the book of the game which had the individual campaigns of the games be known as Episodes. And yes, the two characters talking in this preface are an ascended version of Sarah Kerrigan and Jim Raynor which is actually from the first two versions of this idea. Which basically had Jim sent to the Mass Effect Universe with a small team by Kerrigan. I am keeping them around as a sort of ascended backup for Valerian and his people as a nod to this original version of this idea. Also, I like to mention that the overall "look" mentioned as the Bucelpeus is actually the Co-Op Commander version of the Pride of Augustgrad Class Battlecruiser design mixed with the fan-made model for the Norad II which has a wolf head on its bow. The actual pair of Pride Class ships that serve as escorts for the flagship look exactly like the Co-op Mode version of the boat but do not have the gold color instead sporting a more bronze-like color. Okay. That is about it for these notes. I am going to post the actual first chapter of this story sometime tomorrow as I have some writing I need to get done tonight.
 
Chapter One - We Have Arrived New
Chapter One - We Have Arrived

When the Terran Dominion and its entire Armed Forces were being reorganized in the aftermath of Prince Valerian Mengsk being crowned as the second Emperor of the Terran Dominion, one major part of said reorganization was the total rebuilding of the old Terran Dominion Royal Guard Division into something brand new. Emperor Valerian gave this daunting task to one of his most loyal military aides during his exile from the larger Dominion, one Captain Everett Vaughn, formerly the captain of the Sovereign Class Battlecruiser Bucephalus before its capture by the loyalist Dominion Forces at the Battle of Prometheus Station. This came with a promotion from a simple captain of a large battlecruiser to a general in overall command of a larger force that would be this version of the Royal Guard.

The first thing that General Vaughn did was look over the official paperwork and such on the old Royal Guard Division and would be quite surprised to find that the Division was literally an army in itself. With five whole regiments of mixed heavy infantry - marines, heavy marines, marauders, and firebats - combined together with four various types of armored regiments - a combat walker unit, another pair of regiments for hover tanks, then one regiment entirely for heavy siege tanks, and then further reinforced by a company of siege walkers - and three combined aerospace divisions - transformable aerospace fighters, lightweight VTOL gunships, cloak capable aerospace fighters, and heavier aerospace gunships - which were further supported by seven entire battlecruisers. A literal largescale army complete with its own chain of command, dedicated separate support forces - including a regiment-sized frontline medic division and a battalion-sized direct frontline support force using SCVs - and its own bureaucratic support system in place. All separate from that of the larger regular Terran Dominion Armed Forces.

After discovering this the newly promoted General Vaughn would decide that while he would love to have such a massively sized force protecting their new Emperor, it wouldn't be viable all that much. Not to mention he doubted that the newly convened Terran Dominion Senate would allow it. Therefore, would start building a whole new unit from scratch, which he called the 1st Imperial Guard Regimental Combat Team to separate it from the older Royal Guard Division and to make nice with the regular Armed Forces who had been using such units since their own formation. Then using the remaining handful of Dominion forces that remained loyal to Valerian during his exile, all veterans of the Second Invasion of Char, and carefully screened members of the remaining nearly two percent of the old Royal Division that survived the Fourth Battle of Korhal IV alive as a solid experienced base for building up the new unit around. From there the General would carefully recruit from the regular Dominion Armed Forces units to expand the unit from its solid core of experienced personnel. Eventually, the General had a loyal, somewhat experienced Imperial Guard Unit, which he would over the following years carefully expand slightly as the Imperial Family grew from a single man to a small family.

- Taken from the entry for the 1st Imperial Guard Regimental Combat Team Entry, from the Notable Units of the Dominion Armed Forces, Published Circa, July 2510CE

Unknown Place
Unknown Time

In a small solar system in the middle of nowhere with a small rocky-looking terrestrial planet and a second mid-sized gas giant being the only planets in the system. Also, a large asteroid belt wrapped around the edge of the system with it being just over a dozen light minutes away from the gas giant itself. It was in this asteroid belt that a tiny ball of oozing blackness suddenly appeared, at first it barely had a diameter of just a few inches before it started to rapidly expand itself becoming the size of a small planetoid in the matter only seconds before finally becoming a sphere that was nearly a hundred kilometers in size. A moment later this perfect sphere of darkness disappeared in a burst of dark green light leaving behind the forms of just under four dozen starships in its place silently drifting. A few more moments went by before various running lights and other such bits of light started to appear along all of the ships while the engines of the ship started to flicker for a bit before roaring to life stabilizing their drift.

A small fleet of unknown ships to this universe had just arrived in this out-of-the-way relatively unknown solar system. No one was there to observe such an event, at least outside of a pair of ghost-like powerful entities anyways. However, that wasn't really all that important to the people on the ships at that moment.

Bridge
HMS Bucephelus

"Your majesty!?"

"Sir! Power is coming back online now!"

"Sire! Please!"

"Sensors are still scrambled right now, sir! Still, we are trying to figure out our current location!"

"Valerian! We need you to get up now!"

"General we have communications with the rest of the Guard Flotilla and the Colonization Expedition Fleet!"

A series of blurred voices could be heard as the man in charge of the gathered ships of this unknown fleet of ships started to come back to himself with a deep groan. Then with a blink of ladened sticky feeling eyelids he finally fully started to return to somewhat of an actual alert state noticing the face of someone leaning over him along with a second fully covered face that he quickly figured was the fully enclosed hood of an Imperial Shadow Operative. While the first face he was easily able to recognize was the face of the head of his personal guard General Everett Vaughn. After a moment he winced as his head was killing him, but he quickly pushed back the pain as he remembered what had happened to them all. With a jolt, he tried to get up from what he soon realized was the deck plating of the back of the bridge near the main hatchway leading into the bridge itself. However, before he could the large hand of General Vaughn pushed him back down to the deck.

"Please stay down for now Your Majesty till we get a medic up here to check on you. You took a nasty fall when whatever that anomaly happened to be exploded complete with a gash on your forehead and what looks to be a large bump on the top of your head," the man explained with in his rumbling-sounding voice making the Emperor sigh and nod at the man.

"I understand General, but I'm sure I can get a report about what happened from down here right?" he questioned the man, making him seem to sigh at him before looking up from him at the rest of the bridge before looking back down at him.

"Well sire whatever happened with that anomaly seemed to have thrown the Guard Flotilla and the Colonial Expedition Fleet to somewhere unknown," the man reported making the Emperor nod in some understanding for that is something that sounded like he was expecting when first heard about the void energy.

"Sounds about right," he managed to say with a wince as his head still hurt which he hoped was just because of the gash and bump instead of something a bit more serious. He saw the raised eyebrow and such from the General before he rolled his eyes at the man.

"Have you forgotten General, I may be an Emperor and leader of a nation right now but at heart, I am still a scientist in a way. Hence, I knew the moment that void energy was mentioned to be entering the anomaly that there was a small chance that it would transport us somewhere else instead of outright destroying us entirely," he mentioned with another wince and reached to touch his forehead which came back a bit bloody. Still, he was quite aware that head wounds bleed a lot and therefore wasn't that worried but still this wasn't a good thing.

"I haven't forgotten that sire but I didn't think you knew anything about void energy," the General replied with an impressed look on his face. This made the Emperor smirk up at him for a moment before sighing and shaking his head.

"Not that much really, the majority I do know is from a brief discussion I had with the High Phase Smith of the Daelaam Union Karax after a meeting I had with Hierarch Artanis about one of our expeditions to some of the destroyed worlds out in the outskirts of the sector stumbled onto a Void Shrine of some sort which saw the Daelaam being called in to secure it," he replied to the General with a short chuckle making the larger man look at him with an exasperated yet still fond look on his face.

"So basically you are the terran to have the most knowledge in Void Energy as a result then?" the man sarcastically mentioned out loud to him making Valerian laugh lightly at this before denying it with a shake of his head drawing another wince from him.

"No. I'm sure that there are one or two members of the old Project Blackstone Team who have a better idea on void energy than I do but that won't help us right now," he said in return to the General who nodded in understanding of this statement from his emperor.

"Still that said, is there anything else to report General?" he questioned the man who looked back up at the rest of the bridge to see that Fleet Captain Harrington was finished gathering reports from her bridge crew.

"Well, Fleet Captain? Anything to report right now?" he called out to her from the side of the Emperor, drawing her attention to him through the literal wall of Shadow Operatives and Imperial Marines that gathered around the fallen Emperor.

"Well General, the good news is that while we have somewhere over a couple hundred or so injuries no one has died from the anomaly exploding like that. The bad news is that we don't have any sort of idea of where we are currently," she reported to him, making both the General and Emperor nod in understanding of the report.

"That is very good Fleet Captain that no one is dead from that. For now, just see about checking on the civilians and such over at the Colonial Expedition Fleet. I'm sure there is some panic over there due to this incident," Valerian managed to order with a slightly raised voice that carried over the open bridge to her.

"I understand Your Majesty and pass that on to the Colonial Transport commanders," she replied and just as she did so the hatch buzzed open to let in a team of medics and nurses along with a few extra members of the crew who moved towards stations that had injured personnel still manning them. One of the few fully armored medics broke off from the pack of medical personnel to make their way over to the emperor not even being stopped by the Imperial Marines for the armored shoulder pauldron of the medic bore a winged angel emblem instead of the normal red cross or callidus of a regular medic unit showing them to be part of the Skibi Angel Medical Corps attached to the overall larger Imperial Guard Regimental Combat Team.

"General Vaughn," the medic greeted the large man standing above the Emperor before kneeling down at the other side raising their faceplate as they did so showing the youthful pretty face of Commander Mari Suzek the overall woman in charge of the Skibi Angels, and one of the few medical professionals trusted enough to treat anyone from the Imperial Family.

"Well our Emperor is getting into trouble again I see," she mentioned to him as she visually inspected him for a moment before reaching forward to probe both the cut on his forehead and the bump.

"Well you know me, Commander I like to get into trouble," Valerian weakly joked making the medic smile slightly at him before taking a tool from her belt and using it to spray the cut on his forehead covering it in a sort of invisible bandage that itself was covered with a painkiller making the emperor sigh in some relief. Meanwhile, the Medic looked down at the powerful forearm-mounted computer and after a moment chose a command on the screen.

"Alright hold still sire," she ordered him and from her forearm computer a scanning beam started to go over his body for a few seconds before displaying the results on the screen of her computer making her hum in some thought.

"The good news is that you have no concussion or any further head injury," she reported out loud making many of the gathered Imperial Marines and Shadows to sigh in some relief at this report from the Medic. Something that did draw a sort of half-smile from the Emperor, for he is still somewhat surprised at how much many of his subjects cared for him even with what his own father had done in the years since he created the Terran Dominion.

"What's the bad news then commander?" Valerian asked her a bit confused, making her smirk slightly at him.

"Your personality," she shot back, making him chuckle lightly at the joke, something that Commander Suzek is known for, before starting to get up from his position.

"No. The bad news is that I want to see you in the medical bay as soon as you can majesty," she said, making him nod at her as it did make sense for while the scanner built into the woman's forearm computer was powerful it was nothing on the scanners found in a real med bay. Not to mention looking over what he was sure was bruising further on his body and the gash on his head.

"Understood Commander, I shall do that when things start calming down a bit," he replied as he finally got back onto his feet with only a small wobble. That done he turned back to the now standing medic commander.

"That said, do you have a report on our injured personnel?" he asked her, making her sigh and enter another command into her forearm computer.

"Only for this ship right now sir," she warned him, making him nod in some understanding before waving for her to go on.

"Well, it is mainly just some small cuts and bruising from people falling during whatever happened. One engineer had a fully suited marine fall onto him, but he should be fine after a stint in a medical pod in the med bay. Then there are several marines that got banged up due to being thrown down corridors and such, but they should be alright due to them being fully suited at the time." she reported to him reading off reports from the computer making sigh in some outright relief.

"That is about it sire," she mentioned with a smile on her face before looking over as the injured bridge crew members were escorted off the bridge towards the main med bay further into the hull of the ship.

"We got lucky," the General rumbled out loud as he came up alongside the Emperor.

"Very true sir," the medic commander said in turn, but before anyone else could say anything to that one of the Shadow Operatives seemed to freeze in surprise before letting out what sounded like a curse drawing their attention to them.

"My Emperor! The Empress appears to be not waking up!" the operative soon reported and before he knew it Valerian was running out of the bridge with the General and Medic Commander at his heels.

Unknown Place
Unknown Time

It took quite a lot to startle one November "Nova" Terra-Mengsk thanks to her past as one of the top Ghost Operatives of the Terran Dominion for a few years. Still going from a deep sleep to suddenly appearing in an endless void in which nothing was seen in any direction around herself. Just a soft golden glow coming from something in the distance. After a moment she recognized this as some kind of mental projection but such a large projection gave her a clue that whoever did this was quite powerful. Something that made her wince before raising a hand to the "crown" looking device wrapped around the top of her head. A psychic damping device that deluded her own powers mainly to prevent any injury to the growing baby she had inside her. Something that both made her uneasy and a bit of acceptance for she had read some horror stories about pregnant high-powered psychics. Thankfully, the Protoss had a means to dilute her powers to allow a successful birth which saw her wearing such a device voluntarily. Suddenly she was startled yet again as a figure appeared at her side.

"Easy Nova, I am not going to hurt you or your baby," the figure sheepishly mentioned in a somewhat familiar voice making Nova relax just a tad before looking over to see a tall red-haired terran woman in an old Confederate-era white-colored Hostile Environment Suit. Something that soon saw her getting an idea of who this figure actually happened to be in reality making her wince once more.

"Kerrigan," she managed to say with a frown on her face staring at the other woman and former fellow Ghost. The two had a sort of strange relationship between the two of them as the first time they actually met Kerrigan had been trying to kill the man that Nova was trying to protect and started to fall in love with much to her own horror. The two then met a few more times in the following angered crusade of the woman in the Terran Dominion. First when Kerrigan managed to save her own partner James Raynor, from a Dominion Prison Ship and later on when she contacted them before her final assault on Korhal itself. During that battle, the two of them had teamed up a few times to combat several Dominion Ghost Operatives sent against them by the Emperor to kill the two of them. Before finally, when Kerrigan reached the private panic room of the Emperor, Nova had followed her, allowing the older woman to be saved by Nova when she destroyed the strange Xel'Naga device being used by the Emperor to harm Kerrigan. From there the two of them ran into each other on a couple of different battlefields and would once again team up during the early stages of the final battles of the End War against the gathered forces of the Fallen Xel'Naga Amon.

"Yeah, it has been a while hasn't it," the other woman said with a small smile on her face before with a wave of her hand she summoned a small table and two chairs.

"Let's sit you down for it does look like you need it," she mentioned with a twinkle in her eyes something that made Nova snort for she was sure that Kerrigan was quite aware that while she was pregnant it didn't mean anything in such a mental projection like this place. Still she sat down across from the other woman with a frown for she wondered why Kerrigan is now showing herself as she had been wondering about the universe doing her own thing after her ascension to what could be arguably called a goddess which allowed her to bring down Amon for good.

"Okay, what is going on Kerrigan?" she finally managed to ask which drew out a sigh from the other woman after sadly looking down at Nova's belly and the baby growing there for Nova knew that Kerrigan couldn't really have a child thanks to becoming an infested agent for the Zerg Overmind, then being de-infested by a strange alien device, infested again this time at her own choice, and finally becoming an all-powerful being that could be said to being a goddess.

"Well it appears your earlier hunch something was going to happen to Valerian and his people did indeed come true Nova," the other woman managed to say after a few moments looking like she was trying to say something. At this comment, Nova blinked in some surprise for she had been having some sort of strange hunch that something was going to happen to her husband and his men on this pet colonization project he had planned on creating. Therefore, she insisted on accompanying the fleet on the earlier tour along the Fringe Colonies of the Dominion and the meet up of the Colonization Fleet which would end the tour. Even though she was several months pregnant.

"What happened?" she managed to say to herself after several moments of silence between the two of them.

"Well some sort of strange anomaly appeared in the Verge System just as Valerian was going to begin his speech and pretty much grabbed the Imperial Guard Fleet along with the colonization fleet before throwing them into another universe," Kerrigan managed to say making Nova blink once more in some surprise at what the other woman was saying to her.

"Come again?" she managed to inquire after a moment of outright surprise on Nova's part making Kerrigan smile a bit slightly at her.

"You are all now in another universe that is quite different from the one you are used to Empress," Kerrigan answered, making Nova close her eyes in outright horror and a bit of bafflement at what had happened.

"I guess that means poor Arturia is now going to be the Empress of the Dominion much to her horror," she replied, mentioning her husband's distant cousin who had remained behind on Korhal due to being Valerian's heir. The woman didn't really want to be a leader of the entire Dominion but accepted being made the heir as she wouldn't have held the position for all that long for Nova and Valerian were already trying for kids by that point.

"And Matthew Horner is now going to Empress Consort much to his own horror I'm sure," Kerrigan impishly said with a small grin on her face making Nova look over at her in some surprise before barking out a laugh for Matthew Horner, former second to Jim Raynor and Captain of the Hyperion had married Arturia a year or so ago after a near-disastrous but brief relationship between the two.

"That is going to be quite amusing and I would love to see that man's face when he figures out his new position," she shot back after the two shared a small laughing spree between the two of them at the image in their minds.

"Still I'm going to miss everyone I am going to leave behind in our home universe, like Zagara," Nova mentioned with a sigh and a shake of her head not noticing the wide-eyed surprised stare from the other woman.

"Zagara as in the new queen of the Zerg Swarm?" Kerrigan questioned out loud to her in some surprise drawing Nova's attention to Kerrigan.

"Oh yeah. You wouldn't have been there for that," Nova mused out loud with an amused look on her face before sighing and looking off into the endless void of Kerrigan's mental projection.

"Basically, I met Zagara again in her new humanoid-looking body at a meeting between Valerian, Artanis, and Zagara over something or another along the Zerg Quarantine Zone. I forget what it was about but it still saw the three leaders gathered to discuss it. Somehow she knew that the two of us had met previously and politely inquired on how the two of us met along with our duels against the Ghosts on Korhal," Nova mentioned with a smile at the memory mentioning Kerrigan's last gift to Zagara and her more loyal broodmothers a humanoid-looking body similar to her own former Primal Queen form. As Kerrigan believed that the Swarm needed a leader that had somewhat a bit of humanity in them to truly be capable of interacting with the other races in a peaceful manner.

"From there the two of us would exchange some further talks and general texts with each other over the years. Mainly as Zagara had stumbled onto human strategy games like chess and such which fascinated her and drew me into playing with her," she went on making Kerrigan look on in some interest for this was the last thing she expected from Zagara but at the same time she started to feel pride in her old follower.

"Then our relationship kind of got a bit weird when she found out I was pregnant which fascinated her on several levels which saw her bugging me constantly about the whole thing much to my own frustration with her," she said with a short chuckle and a shake of her head before she nearly groaned at another amusing memory.

"After finding everything about how humans have offspring and how weak they are after birth she literally demanded Valerian to accept some Hunter Killers as bodyguards for me and the baby," she managed to say making Kerrian, who at this point smiled at this story, literally facepalmed and shaking her head with a groan.

"I hope Valerian managed to get across to her that it wouldn't work all that well," Kerrigan pleaded with Nova who laughed with a nod of her head.

"Yes, eventually Valerian along with Stukov managed to convince her how politically unwise it would be for such a move which saw Zagara retract her demand that didn't stop her from visiting the palace off and on through the last couple of months," she replied making Kerrigan breath a sigh of relief before looking over at Nova at the mentioning of another old follower of hers from her time as the new Primal Queen of the Swarm. One that she had helped as well soon after her ascension to be a virtual goddess where she had outright de-infested him along with several other infested humans along her forces.

"Stukov huh, how has he been"?" she managed to inquire after the two shared yet another laughing fit over the whole idea of seeing a large, spiney, Hunter Killer Zerg standing guard over a baby.

"Well he is a key advisor to Valerian now about the UED and does hold various lectures about a few different things at the Dominion's Military Academies, mainly space combat," Nova replied with a nod of her head at this whole thing before noticing her surroundings started to waver a bit which drew Kerrigan's attention.

"Looks like my time with you is running out because you are starting to wake up," Kerrigan mentioned with a sad smile on her face.

"Still I need to mention that I have explore this new universe of yours over the past few months and I have left a data packet explaining a bunch about it in a data pad on your desk which you can give to Valerian. I will also be around this universe for a bit as well so I shall stop by from time to time to see how you are all doing," the other woman explained in a sort of rush making Nova look at her in some interest before sighing that this wasn't just a one-time thing. Then Kerrigan got from the table and started to walk away from her when Nova remembered something that she wanted to know from the former Ghost.

"OH! Do you know what happened with Raynor?" she asked Kerrigan before she could disappear, making her blink at this before outright beaming over at her.

"I needed someone to accompany me on my little exploration of the cosmos, didn't I? Right now he is off doing a quick errand for me but I shall see about having him do something like this with Valerian when he is back because Jim is quite proud of him for everything that he has done since his disappearance not to mention starting a family with you. Still, I must go thanks for telling me about Zagara and Stukov Nova," she mentioned and with that, she was gone. A moment later the mental projection started to disappear and she awoke in her bed in the Imperial Family Quarters onboard the Bucephalus with the worried face of her husband hovering over her and the figures of her personal guards gathered around her bed making Nova roll her eyes at them all before sighing not even noticing Valerian asking her questions.

"I am quite fine Valerian. Just had a little visit from the old Queen Bitch of the Universe explaining what had happened to us all," she mentioned and chuckled at the wide look of surprise on his face before sighing and looking off to the side and the large window that dominated that wall of the quarters. Wondering what this new universe would bring to them, especially her unborn child and any future children between the two of them.

The Office of Vice Admiral Matthew Horner
Korhal Imperial Palace
New Augustgrad, Korhal IV
Terran Dominion, Koprulu Sector
September 11, 2512CE

"Very well, thank you, Commodore, for going out of your way to check on this for me" Vice Admiral Matthew Horner, told the holographic face of Commodore Roger Miller, the man currently in charge of the Terran Dominion's 42nd Battlecruiser Group and the person that the Admiral had personally chosen to command his old command the Battlecruiser Hyperion, a modified example of the aging Behemoth Class Battlecruiser design. He is also one of the few people he could trust to look into the disappearance of the Emperor and the Imperial Guard Flotilla without mentioning anything about it to the media or even the Dominion Senate.

"It is quite alright Admiral, it is the Emperor after all," the man replied with a nod of his holographic head towards him making the Admiral smile a bit weakly at the slightly older man, a man who really should have been in his position instead of a simple independent commander of a small battlecruiser group. However, the man had been captured during a later battle between the old Emperor Arturus's forces and those forces following the then Crown Prince Valerian. He was then neurally resocialized by the order of the Emperor and then given command of one of the new Pride of Augustgrad Class Battlecruisers of his Royal Guard Division. Luckily for him, he had survived the destruction of this ship by Zerg Flyers and was picked up by the post-battle sweeps by forces loyal to Valerian where he went through a lengthy amount of time to recover from not only his injuries but the resocialization process. By the time he recovered, Horner had become a close confidant and an Admiral in the newly reformed Dominion Navy. To pay the man back for his loyalty Horner chose him to command the Hyperion and the small fleet that was gathered around the old battlecruiser.

"Still that was my last shot at locating the Emperor before anyone starts questioning his disappearance," the Admiral said with a sigh and an annoyed frown on his face. For it only had been a couple of days since the disappearance of the Emperor and his Guard Flotilla from the Verge System. Hence, it was going to drop to the general populace and the Senate very soon.

"I doubted that General Vaughn would have let him accompany the Colonization Expedition to the Terminus System, especially with the Empress onboard as well but I do agree it was the best shot that we had," the other man mused himself looking off to one side of the pick up from his side of the communication.

"Agreed, that is why I asked you to check the Terminus System last," the Admiral replied with a nod of his head towards the man for he was quite correct for there was no one onboard the Guard Flotilla who had let Valerian go off on his own. Hell. Horner was sure that Vaughn would have ordered him to be locked in his quarters before letting him do something stupid like accompanying the Terminus Colonial Expedition to the Terminus System for some reason or another. Not that Horner personally thought Valerian would do that with not only his wife onboard but also his unborn child. The Admiral was simply covering all of his bases when ordering the Commodore and the 41st to the Terminus System.

"It does concern me that the ships of my group didn't pick up anything from the Expedition when I arrived in the system itself," the other man mentioned a moment later making the Admiral nod in some agreement for that was quite concerning.

"Which means something happened to them in the Verge System which is even more of a concern," the Admiral replied with a groan and a suppressed curse for that would mean someone or something attacked them in the Verge System before the Expedition Warped out from the system.

"Agreed sir that appears to be the most likely scenario at what happened to them all," Miller replied with his own worried look on his face.

"Still Admiral I shall have the 41st remain on station in the Terminus System for a few more days in case they are just late for some reason or another," the Commodore went on making Horner nod in some agreement with him.

"With that said Commodore I shall get back to you if we hear anything else from anyone about the Emperor," the younger man mentioned after a few moments of silence between the two of them making the older man nod at him.

"Thank you Admiral, Hyperion and 41st logging off," Miller signed off with a salute which Horner replied with his own before staring at the holo display built into his desk with a troubled look on his face.

"Where are you, Valerian? Please be alright," the man said to himself as he rubbed his face with a deep groan before picking up the nearby ornately designed handset for the Palace's own internal communication system before pressing the button to connect to the similar handset in the Imperial Apartments a few levels above this one before placing the handset up to his ear. Wondering what his wife was going to say about all of this for she had been busy with other matters of state when he started to be worried over the Imperial Flotilla not returning from the Verge System. However, he soon frowned in some concern as he didn't hear any sort of ringing sound coming from the handset and he stared down at the handset's control panel with an annoyed look on his face but the button for the Imperial Apartments was lit and everything.

"What in the world?" he mumbled to himself before pressing down on the button again but before he could do anything else he heard a voice that he never thought to hear again, jolting him to look at the door leading to his office.

"I'm sorry to say Matt but Valerian and the people with him can no longer be helped by anyone in the Dominion or anyone else in the Koprulu Sector," the figure of his former Commander, one James Raynor stood leaning against the now opened door with a burning cigarette hanging from his lips and a troubled look on his face.

-o-End-o-

Post Chapter Notes

And there we go! Chapter One of this story is now finished! After a few different modifications, I had to do with the original version of the idea for this chapter. First, when Zagara of all beings somehow snuck into the story becomes mentioned a bit in the second scene between of Nova and Kerrigan. Mainly as for some strange-ass reason, a now humanoid-looking Zagara being a good friend of Nova. I think that came from a dream I had which had Zagara becoming a close friend of Nova and after being told about human pregnancies would end up demanding on assigning Hunter Killers as guards for the new baby. Much to the horror and a bit of amusement from a few people. Still I still have that tidbit laying around and it may end up becoming the centerpiece of a future omake, or side-story, for it is kind of amusing. Shrug.

Still, this chapter does cover the aftermath of the crossover event to that of the Imperial Guard Flotilla, mostly from the point of view of Valerian though I am not all that sure about having him being mostly on his back during much of the scene. The next chapter will touch on how the civilians actually react to this whole thing though it will not be all that much explored for in all honesty I really do not how to cover something like panicking civilians or anything like that therefore I am going to somewhat gloss over it as I want to move the story along and not get stuck on something. Especially I am really running out of words for this whole Writing Frenzy Event, though I still might just go over my planned sixty thousand words and go on to seventy thousand or so words for the final count. Sigh. Who knows where I end up? EDIT: This chapter has been finished for months but somehow forgot about it due to the holidays and other such issues. Sorry. Hopefully, I shall see about getting the next chapter, which has a couple of scenes already written, finished soon. Though no promises! My muse is a fickle thing, after all!

Whew! That is about it for these notes! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and now it is time to get writing the next chapter for when things are going to be quite interesting! Till then! Ciao!
 
Chapter Two - Taking Stock New
Chapter Two - Taking Stock

When Emperor Valerian took the throne he would all-out rebuild the larger Terran Dominion from the top to the bottom of the entire nation-state to better make the Dominion of his father's reign different from his own reign. This includes changing things like choosing a whole new flag and national emblem for the Dominion, writing a dedicated Constitution to better lay out the overall structure of the larger Dominion government, and giving the average civilian the means to be listened to by his own government, through which he would reconvene the Dominion Senate as well as expanding their own powers in the overall larger Dominion government.

One major thing that the new Emperor did was not only get himself a wife, the renowned and infamous Ghost Operative known as Nova who would also bring in elements of the old Confederacy to the new Dominion due to her own family background, but made an effort to hunt down any elements of his formerly extended family to smooth out any issues with the lineage of the overall larger Mengsk Dynasty. A search that was surprisedly helped by some notes written by the old Emperor Arcturus of his own search for distant members of his family. Still, this would see the installment of former Doctor Arturia Sutherland, a very distant cousin to the Mengsk Family and new graduate of the Augustgrad University, as Princess Arturia Mengsk, the Primary Heir to the Emperor.

Taken all together, these reforms and such from the new Emperor have helped to drag the Dominion and his own family from being known as generally evil by the standard average Terran civilian living on the various colonies spread out throughout the entire Sector. It also further raised the Dominion's reputation in the eyes of the other Terran factions in the Koprulu Sector, the Umojan Protectorate, and the Kel-Morian Combine. Though the latter wasn't that much of an ally only a firm almost hostile neutral power to that of the larger Dominion. Not to mention, it does see an Alliance being formed between the new Terran Dominion and the newly formed Daelaam Union, the new Protoss-dominated faction. This has further started to bring a sort of peace over the entire Koprulu Sector, though there are still numerous threats to the people of the Sector, rogue Zerg Broods, rogue Tal'darim Sects, hostile elements from the previous Emperor's own forces, and a potential second invasion from that of the UED.


- Taken from the Introduction of the Historical Biopic A Phoenix Reborn: The Second Dominion, Published, Circa July of 2510CE

Unknown Place
Unknown Time


At her position hovering just above the gathered fleet of the Terran Dominion, the golden figure of Sarah Kerrigan frowned in some thought for she was clearly quite surprised at the appearance of this fleet. She did manage to pass on some info about this universe to her old friend Nova who would pass it on to her husband Emperor Valerian. However, that wouldn't be enough as she had been cut off before she could fully inform Nova about everything about this new universe. She only had time to inform her about the threat of these Reapers which she was sure Nova and Valerian would keep close to their chest for now and not mention to anyone in their close confidants. Yet, anyway. Still, before they could do anything else in this new universe they would need further information like say star maps and data on the various different factions that call this universe home. With a hum of thought she looked over to the small slaving outpost located on the first planet in this local star system and through her own enhanced senses she simply smiled as she saw a ship had arrived at the outpost when she had been busy with the newly appearing Terran Dominion Fleet. From her own earlier observation of the outpost earlier, that ship would take a day or two for the crew to pick up their needed slaves, negotiate their price with the outpost's leaders, and then finally load them onboard the ship itself for transport. With some slight changes, she could have the ship approach nearby to the Dominion Fleet where it would be picked up by the fleet's own forward-deployed scouts. And if the crew had any sense would start running from what looked to be some sort of large military fleet. Or maybe a slight nudge from her fire on the nearest Dominion ship which would see them then moving in to capture the now hostile ship. Something that would go a long way to providing the Dominion with the needed information on what is going on in this universe. Beaming at this Kerrigan decided that this plan would actually work. However, she was soon distracted as with a golden flash of light her parmour and partner Jim Raynor appeared at her side once more making her jolt slightly in some surprise before scowling over at the man.

"What took you so long Jim? I was starting to worry a bit about you?" Kerrigan demanded of him with a furious look on her face making Jim just chuckle at her for he was quite aware that she knew that he was still alive due to their shared connection.

"Sorry, I managed to find that an old beat-up Protoss Observer had been floating not far from where I tracked the fleet's origin point. Grabbed it before I went to meet with Artanis at Auir to see about getting the info and such from that observer. I then made a quick visit to Matt to inform him of what happened and warn him that Artanis would be arriving soon with the needed data from the observer," he informed her with a small grin on his face making her raise an eyebrow in some interest.

"Well it appears that there is some sort of a prophecy or something similar in place if such a thing happened to be in such a location to catch the fleet's departure from the universe," she mused out loud now with an angry scowl on her face before sighing letting go of her anger for there was nothing she could do about it. After a moment of calming down, she looked over at Raynor with a frown.

"Still that shouldn't have taken all that long for you Jim," she shot back to him with another scowl in place but again he just smirked at her though this time it had a bit of a mischievous bint to it. Something that kind of worried her for when he was in such a mood he either did something very amusing or something really stupid.

"What. I had to catch up with my boys Artanis and Matt," he mentioned to her with an innocent look on his face but soon chuckled at her glare for that wouldn't work with her.

"I may have given Matt a bit of a heart attack with my reminder that not only was he leading a good portion of the Dominion Fleet but he now happened to be the Empress Consort when that lass of his Arturia became the new Empress of the Terran Dominion," he mentioned with an amused look on his face which was soon copied by Sarah who let out a chuckle of her own at this little bit of teasing.

"Oh. That poor boy. They are going to eat him alive," she mentioned with a shake of her head which made Jim nod in agreement with his partner. After a moment of this Raynor calmed down before looking down at the fleet floating peacefully below them.

"So! What has been happening here darling since I went off to run your little errand?" he questioned her drawing her attention to the fleet as well.

"Well I did manage to pass a warning of the Reapers to Nova, but she woke up before I could say anything else about this universe like the Mass Effect or the Citadel Council," she replied now with a small frown on her face.

"Well that is a darn shame," Jim mentioned with a raised eyebrow as he stared down at the fleet not noticing the frown on his partner's face morphing into a small mirthful smile on her face.

"That said I do have a plan that will allow them to get that needed information a bit faster," she said drawing his attention to her with a curious look on his face, and after a moment she explained to him what she had planned and soon he has let out a bark of laughter.

"That will work."


Observation Deck
HMS
Bucephalus
Unknown Place
12 Hours After Arrival


"Majesty?" a soft voice inquired from behind the now rumbled-looking figure of Emperor Valerian Mengsk who stood at the large window that dominated the large observation deck that was often used by the Emperor for his own private meetings and to enjoy his alone time. Such a thing was a feature that was often included in the different flagships of the Terran Dominion, something that came from Arcturus Mengsk's own enjoyment of having such a facility on his own ships. Something that was one of the few things that Valerian shared with his father much to his own annoyance at times.

"Valerian? You alright over there?" came a more familiar voice from behind him but the Emperor still stood there looking out the large window at the now fully integrated fleets under his command, his own Imperial Guard Flotilla in formation with that of the larger Terminus Colonial Expedition Fleet. For they were all in the same boat, therefore, the two integrated their formations to better defend themselves from anything unknown that approached them in this new universe which they currently found themselves. Not to mention, as a flight of fighters flashed past the window, they had numerous squadrons of AF-22 Wraith Aerospace Fighters on patrol around the combined fleet, and larger Sparrowhawk Class Scout Ships holding station further out from the fleet to extend their sensors range over a larger area.

"Sire!" a third voice called out right next to him and a large hand fell onto his shoulder breaking Valerain out of his own thoughts seeing the figure of General Vaughn was now right next to him with one of his large beefy hands on his shoulder. Blinking he looked over to see the various concerned faces from his close advisors and friends, including his own wife November Terra-Mengsk gathered around a small briefing table that dominated one side of the large deck away from the window he was standing right in front of.

"Sorry everyone looks like all of this has affected me a bit more than I thought it had," he mentioned out loud with a sigh though no one actually looked convinced at this weak excuse but still nodded at him. Though Nova, his own wife, outright glared at him at this for she knew that he had actually had been up the entire time since their arrival in this new universe. He had retreated to his personal quarters a few hours after their arrival leaving everything in the hands of his advisors and officers, but he hadn't gotten any sleep at all during that time. Instead being constantly worried and such about what was going on kept him awake.

"So, General Warfield you were mentioning that the civilians have started to calm down from their earlier panic," he mentioned trying to draw their little meeting back on track as he started to head back to his seat alongside the form of his Guard Commander.

"Correct Sire, it appears that your earlier speech did indeed have a calming effect on them all. Not to mention having fighter patrols, and having their fleet combined together with the Imperial Guard Flotilla, has convinced them that they are safe as of this moment," the towering woman reported making the Emperor smile slightly at the mention of his earlier speech. It had been unplanned and all-out thrown together by Valerian when word started to arrive about the civilians starting to panic.

"Not to mention the vast majority of these people are not only from many of the Fringe Colonies but manage to live through the Great Wars, the Brood War, and the End War. They are not weak-willed people from the core worlds," another of his advisors, one Lisa Cain, Minister of Outer Colony Affairs, who normally accompanied the Emperor on his goodwill tours of the Fringe and Outer Colonies of the Dominion. She was a tough no nonsense woman, who managed to through sheer grit to lead her small farming colony of Halcyon through the chaos of the Second Great War and following End War pretty much intact which saw her being chosen by Valerian to help him get the hardy independent colonists of the Fringe Worlds being felt like they were included in the larger Dominion. As his father had pretty much left them alone during the start of the Second Great War which saw many of them start to feel a bit abandoned by the Dominion during those dark days.

"So does that mean the Emperor's plan to tour the main colony ships is off the table then?" rumbled out a scowling General Vaughn as he looked around the table but in turn was glared at by both Minister Cain and the Empress who both thought a thing was a good idea all around.

"No. I am still going to see about doing the full-on tour for it may further ensure the civilians that I am thinking about them in the long run." the Emperor replied with a frown looking over at these gathered advisors.

"That said. To appease General Vaughn I will have a full detail of Imperial Shadows tailing me throughout the tour," he continued on which did see Vaugn and General Warfield relax drawing a few small smiles and such from the other gathered advisors. That done the Emperor turned to look at a man who was engrossed in reams of paper reports and a large personal datapad showing different things on its displayed holographic screen.

"I also believe that Doctor Ramsey had a brief report on the anomaly that brought us here?" he questioned jolting the figure out of his perusal and towards the gathered advisors. The man slowly blinked at them all before sighing and laying down the datapad on the table in front of him.

"Correct your majesty, as from what I can see from these various reports and the sensor readings gathered not only from the sensors of the Bucephalus but from the other ships of the Flotilla and the Expedition Fleet, is that we were very lucky that we were not just destroyed outright. The amount of the void energy and vortex warp energy gathered together interacting with one another should have destroyed pretty much everything in a few light years from the epicenter," Doctor Jake Ramsey reported with a deep frown dominating his face as he stared into the space above the table itself and not at the gathered advisors. Doctor Ramsey, normally was trained as a xenoarchaeologist and archaeologist but due to his experience playing host to the overall presence of a Protoss Preserver, he was the leading expert on not only Protoss in general but Void Energy in the entire Terran Dominion which is why he had been called from the Science Ship A Lone Wanderer to join this meeting.

"So can we actually return to our own universe?" questioned the Empress with a frown on her pretty face making more than a few of the civilian advisors to look up a bit hopefully at this question. The Emperor and the more military-minded advisors only sighed at this for they kind of knew where this was going.

"Unless we receive some help from unexpected sources, I do not believe it is possible for us to return to our own universe anytime soon with any sort of warp experiment," Doctor Ramsey bluntly mentioned making those civilian advisors deflate at this admission, though a few still looked a bit hopeful. Valerian was quite sure that even such experiments to create another vortex warp/void energy anomaly would be also impossible.

"As if we tried to recreate the anomaly to get us back then I doubt our luck will be as good as our own arrival in this universe, destroying us entirely. Not to mention, even if we manage to survive through a second anomaly transporting us, I kind of doubt we would be able to arrive back in our own universe. We just might arrive in a third universe," the Doctor went on finally stopping any hope of a return to their own universe from many in the room. The Emperor and Empress exchanged looks at this, and Valerian made a mental note to see about forbidding any sort of experiment of recreating the anomaly or working with void energy period.

"Thank you Doctor for that enlightening report," the Emperor mentioned drawing the gathered advisor's attention back to him.

"Now we must see about what we are going to do in this new universe," he went on looking around at the gathered advisors, both those of the military and the handful of civilians.

"It is my belief that we should see about locating a viable planet to settle down on and pretty much create our own, if small, Terran Dominion in this new universe," he proposed to them all which made them all pretty much look quite interested at this suggestion.

"It does make sense," the figure of Minister Cain mused out loud looking around at the others who nodded in agreement with her statement.

"We do have a whole Colonial Expedition Fleet with us after all," General Warfield said with a smirk before going on, "Which does include everything we need to settle our own colony in this universe."

At this, one by one, each advisor agreed with the plan to settle their own new colony in this new universe which made Valerian sigh in some relief. For he had briefly feared that they would either keep moving about trying to find some new tech in this universe to be used in trying to get them back to their own universe or have them splintering into their own smaller factions taking much-needed equipment and resources to do so. Hence, it was quite possible to see about recreating a smaller version of the Terran Dominion in this new universe.

"That does bring about something else," Doctor Ramsey piped out drawing their attention back to him who now was frowning at his datapad once more whose display Valerian could barely see now showed an interface of a direct connection to the sensors of the Science Ship.

"Oh? What would that be Doctor?" General Warfield asked with a large frown on her tanned face which drew his attention from the datapad once more and back on them all.

"We need to gather more information and such on this universe before we go off to find a suitable world to colonize to create a new Terran Dominion in this universe," he explained to them all with a bit of a patient expression on his face. This did make the others wince slightly at this before nodding in agreement with him.

"That is quite true, we really do not know anything really about this universe. Does it already have humans as a fully space-capable race? Are there any sort of alien races out there? Of which are they hostile to us?" the figure of General Vaughn rumbled out with a deeply worried frown on the craggy-looking face, speaking up for the first time in a long while drawing attention to him from the others.

"We do have the Sparrowhawk Class Scout Ships which are cloak capable allowing for them to be sent out to gather some needed information on our surroundings by simply listening to what is being sent out by anyone out there in the cosmos which can then be funneled to The Lone Wanderer for the needed data crunching," mused General Warfield as she stared off in some thought making the other military advisors nod in some agreement while Doctor Ramsey look over at her with a rare small smile on his face.

"That is a good first step for us General, but we need more than just that we need some source of local information. As those scout ships are going to need some means of plotting out warp jumps to gather that needed data," he replied making the general blink and wince for she should have thought that as well for it did make sense to her.

"Agreed, but how are we going to get some sort of local star charts? I'm sure our own star charts are not going to help all that much in this new universe?" Minister Cain questioned with a frown on her face which drew another rare smile from the doctor.

"That would be one way of gathering the needed data to develop new star charts. Comparing our own star charts with what we can observe with our long-range telescopes and other such long-range sensor equipment," he answered her with a nod as he fiddled around with his datapad for a moment before a holographic display appeared above it showing the local system they found themselves in as of this moment.

"So I propose to station several of our scout ships in these locations to gather needed long-range observation data of the nearby star systems to start generating some new star maps for further scouting missions outside of this local star system," the Doctor explained to them all making them all look at the display in some surprise before they look over at their Emperor who was looking quite impressed with what the Doctor proposed.

"That will work in the short term to gather what we need to move scout units to other nearby star systems to start finding out more information about this particular universe," the Emperor mused to himself before looking over at General Warfield, the overall commander of the military assets they currently sported as of this moment.

"General Warfield go ahead and follow through with the Doctor's plan," he ordered the woman who bowed slightly towards him.

"Of course sire," she replied to him before looking over at the doctor, "Doctor Ramsey can you send me your proposed scout ship deployment so I can get those orders out after the end of the meeting?"

"Yes General, I shall have my aides send it to you as soon as possible," the Doctor replied as he inputted something into his datapad.

"With that said I do believe that is everything that we need to cover right now," the Empress mentioned drawing attention to her own annoyed look on her face as she stared over at her husband. Something that was noticed by the closer advisors of the Emperor while a couple of the civilian advisors looked a tad bit confused at what was going on. Though Doctor Ramsey had a small smirk on his face for his own latent psychic abilities had already told all that he needed to know what was going on.

"Yes, Your Majesty I do believe that is everything that we need to cover," the rumble of General Vaughn cut through any future argument from the civilian advisors as he looked over at the Emperor to see him blinking in some surprise at this as he stared at his wife.

"Thank you, General. I am now going to take my dear husband to the med bay to see about getting a needed sleep aid and then to our quarters to finally get him some much-needed rest," she explained to them all with a sweet look on her face one that also hid a deep annoyance with the entire situation, with her husband, and all of them. Something that she had been hiding since she figured out was that Valerian had gotten no sleep at all earlier when he retired and then lied to her that he did manage to get a couple of hours. Sometimes he forgot that she was psychic and that even with her powers restrained due to the limiter she wore at all times right now she still could easily pick up when someone was lying to her.

"With that let's go and retire Valerian," she said as she got up from her seat wincing a bit due to a few pains in her back but she didn't let it show. Valerian after a moment looked at her before sighing and nodding before getting up from his own seat.

"Of course my dear," he replied as he wondered how much trouble he was currently in with her, but he didn't let that thought be displayed on his face he exchanged quick goodbyes with the gathered advisors before following behind his wife as she made for the deck's main hatch. The pair of fully armored Royal Guard Marines flanking the hatch sprang to attention at their approach, a moment later a pair of Shadows appeared from the gathered shadows of the corners of the deck before following behind the Imperial Couple out of the Observation Deck. A moment later the hatch slid shut.


Imperial Quarters
HMS
Bucephalus
Five Hours Later

An intense beeping sound drew Valerian from his sleep making him frown and look around to see that his wife was nowhere to be found in the quarters. At that, he winced at the reminder of the tongue-lashing delivered to him by his wife. While she understood that he couldn't get any sleep earlier thanks to stress over their new situation and everything, what made her upset at him was that he had lied to her about actually getting some sleep as he breezed out of the quarters to rush back to the ship's command deck. Sighing he got up from the large bed and looked over to the side table to see that the intercom built into the table was flashing an angry red making him frown in some concern for normally it would blink with a green light. A red light meant it happened to be a priority call from either the Command Deck or a senior officer's com unit.

'Now what happened?' he thought to himself with narrowed eyes before reaching over and tapping the connect button on the intercom.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked with a gruff voice that showed that he was still kind of groggy from waking up abruptly.

"Sorry to wake you like this your majesty but there has been a development," the rough voice of General Vaughn replied making Valerian raise an eyebrow in some concern over the man contacting him like this but didn't let it effect him all that much.

"Oh? What happened my friend?" he asked the man as he started to get up from the bed itself and went about getting dressed and back to the command deck of the ship. However, before he could he was surprised by the answer from the older man.

"There has been first contact between the locals and our own forces."

-o-End-o-



Post Chapter Notes

That is about it for this chapter. Originally it was going to be far longer than this but I decided to split the actual first contact from the chapter to make it a bit smaller. Not to mention I figured it would be better as its own chapter. Still, this is kind of a weak chapter I think, as it focuses on the reactions of what happened with the gathered Dominion Fleet. However, I focused it more on Valerian than really I should as I was going to add a bit of focus on the reactions of the civilians, mainly after the mentioned speech from Valerian, but it didn't really work out correctly like I planned on it being. Shrug. Still an interesting chapter I think.

That said, the opening scene with ascended Kerrigan and Raynor was not originally planned for this chapter, as I really wanted to keep them a bit separate from the overall larger story, but I included it mainly as the chapter was a bit shorter than I planned it being and I really want to expand on the ending scene of the last chapter a bit. As while I did want to leave everything in the original universe as a sort of Chekov's gun to be explored later, maybe as a sort of series of omakes, I soon figured it wouldn't work out quite like that therefore went through with the scene instead. I still don't know if it works right, but am leaving it in to see what the readers think. Do you think that I should include the Ascended's actions and point of view in further chapters?

Finally, I need to mention that there was originally going to be a scene either at the start of this chapter or at the end of the last chapter where Valerian retired to his quarters to get some rest but couldn't get to sleep. Hence, he gets up lies to Nova about getting a couple of hours, and returns to the Command Deck. Again. That didn't work all that much. Sigh. Anyhow, I shall see about getting the next chapter, which is about halfway written, fully finished, and posted next week. Also, I started to change Vaughn's rank from Brigadier to General for it just seemed kind of not really all that great therefore changed it. However, that may end up being changed again if anyone thinks the old rank is a bit better, maybe confusing with General Warfield being also included in the story. Shrug. Till then everyone and thanks for reading!
 
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Chapter Three - A Warm Welcome New
Chapter Three - A Warm Welcome

The Sparrowhawk Class Scout Ship is a brand new scout ship design developed by Quantradyne Aerospace Company for the use of the Terran Dominion Armed Forces to replace the aging Vanguard Class Scout Ship that had been in general use since the days of the Confederacy. It would share the overall same hull design and a good amount of parts with that of the Warhawk Class Heavy Gunship allowing an easier time to actually build and later maintain the ships. It also sported a vastly smaller price tag than many other similar-sized ships thanks in part to this decision in its development.

Overall, the
Sparrowhawk Class sports a pair of ATB-175 Deep Space Scanner Units, an advanced detection unit, and a Phantom-IV Cloaking Generator. All of this allowed the ship to be very good at doing its job of scouting out in front of a moving fleet of Battlecruisers. Though due to its shared development with that of the Warhawk, it does sport a decent amount of armor and a pair of chin-mounted lightweight anti-ship laser weapons. It also made it far superior over the older Vanguard and Pathfinder Class Scout Ships as not only were its sensors and other equipment far superior over the older Scout Ship designs but sported a decent amount of armor and included some weapons in its design. All of which would allow the scout ship to defend itself against any sort of enemy attacker if its cloak was either disabled or breached by some advanced sensor.

- Taken from The Ships of the Koprulu Sector: Volume VI, Circa, November, 2510AD


IRV Sarco's Will
Salem, Auctor System
Sentry Omega, Milky Way Galaxy
September 7, 2175 CE (Human Reckoning)


On the bridge of the Illium Registered Vessel Sarco's Will, the figure of its overall commander Carn Sanrowar puffed a large cigar as he stood in the center of the bridge of the vessel watching as the ship's helm pilot easily maneuvered the ship towards the smaller of the Auctor System's two asteroid belts. From there they would enter FTL towards the nearby Prior System to meet up with another vessel under the control of his boss and then take the Mass Relay in the Hoc System on a heading towards Omega where they would meet up with said boss. At least that was the plan anyway.

"So boss you have a good time with your old buddies at the Salem Outpost?" questioned the figure of a female turian standing at the ship's navigation station one Alta Veera as she looked up from plotting their planned FLT jump to the Prior System.

"Pretty much and yeah I know Alta we are going to be late meeting up with the Black Sarro but it cannot be helped," the batarian captain rasped out through his cigar as he turned to stare at the turian woman with a thin smile on his scarred face.

"Oh?" Alta said with her mandibles flaring out in some curiosity which her captain noticed before snorting and turning to stare out through the forward viewport.

"For one, we needed to wait for the slush that the Salem Outpost guys call fuel to be filtered before putting it into our tanks, as you well know," the captain explained with a short chuckle which made his navigator nod in some agreement with him before he went on with a sigh, "Then there is the slaves we picked up from the Outpost's own stock that we were sent out here to collect in the first place."

"It took some time to properly prepare them for transport from what I understand," Alta mused with an understanding look on her thin face making her captain nod in agreement with her as he narrowed all four of his eyes.

"That is the truth. You would think that they would already be prepared and everything as they have been slaves for a few centuries after all, but that old fool Karem just wanted to waste our time," the captain explained with a sigh and a quiet curse under his breath. This drew a snort from the turian woman for she was quite aware of the Salem Outpost Overseer's desire to waste people's time.

"Still it did allow me to pick up a half dozen Quarian Slaves from the Lorie Crew alongside the hundred A'nesh Asari we were supposed to pick up," he explained with a large puff of his cigar and a small smile on his face something that made his turian navigator raise an eye ridge in some surprise of her own.

"That will help out immensely for our last quarian slaves didn't last all that long really," she mentioned out loud and a chuckle of her own.

"Exactly! I already have them working with Quarrie in engineering on getting that old reactor of his back in some sort of shape," the captain explained as he removed the cigar from his mouth, mentioning the drell chief engineer of the ship, before tapping out the ashes from the cigar into the ash bowl being held by the captain's own personal lo'tar slave that was quietly kneeling at his side. This saw the turian navigator eyeing the slave, a young human female, with a bit of hunger as she always enjoyed human slaves.

"It is quite a shame you couldn't get more humans boss," she said with her mandibles arranged in a dreadful smirk, one that had made the human slave shudder a bit seeing it. The captain meanwhile snorted and eyed her as he placed his cigar back into his mouth.

"Yeah, and watch you pretty much tear them apart again Alta? I may be not a fan of the humans but I really cannot afford to get more humans and see them torn apart like that," he explained to her making her sigh a bit sadly, however before she could say anything in response to her captain the ship's sensor person, another batarian, started to blink in some confusion.

"Ah, boss. There appears to be a small ship approaching us," the man reported drawing the captain's attention to the other batarian with all four of his eyes narrowed in some confusion.

"Oh? Is it those crazy bitches from the local Eclipse Sisterhood again?" he questioned the sensor officers making the sensor person study his readings for a brief moment before shaking his head. "No. Whatever ship it is our sensors cannot match it with any known ship in Terminus, Black, or Council Fleets Captain," the man reported making the captain seem to sigh, for he knew that his ship's old contact lists were a tad outdated and handed his cigar over to his lo'tar before advancing forward towards the somewhat spluttering holo display that dominated the center of the bridge. Frowning at this he gave the thing a good kick and a moment later it solidified making him nod a bit pleased. He then inspected the approaching contact for a brief moment, seeing that it was quite small but that didn't really matter really.

"Well we cannot afford to be delayed any further," he mentioned studying the contact a bit further before shrugging and looking over at the ship's weapon master, an old male turian who had been looked up as if sensing his captain's attention.

"Give them a couple of shots from our main turret. Hopefully, that will make them break off and let us get through this darn asteroid belt a bit faster," he ordered the turian who only nodded at him before hunching over his station to follow through with the order. A moment later a large whine could be heard throughout the ship the sole major weapon on the ship a human-built MAC/5 Double Mass Accelerator Turret traversed before firing off a couple of shots toward the approaching small ship. This seemed to surprise the small ship and the first shot hit it right in the nose before deflecting off to one side, the second shot hit what looked to be one of the engine nacelles making something explode sending it tumbling off to one side.

"Huh. Good shots there Agrieus as always," the captain complimented the weapons master who only nodded at the praise before Captain Sanrowar leaned forward to inspect the damaged small ship for a moment, surprised that it managed to deflect that first shot.

"Still that was quite impressive armor, and I am almost tempted to see about recovering the ship to find what it happens to be, but we are already late," he mentioned with a sigh and shake of his head. He then noticed that his ship's comm operator a young asari maiden was looking at her own station in some confusion before she looked over at him.

"Captain, the unknown ship is broadcasting something but I cannot really make out what they are saying thought it does appear to be human," the confused maiden reported making Navigator Veera snort a bit before glaring at the young asari.

"Doesn't really matter what they are saying right now girl for there is nothing else out here but the Salem Outpost and I doubt they will be sending anyone off to help such a ship. Especially as it is an unknown ship, and besides if it is humans then they really are not all that important," the turian navigator caustically explained to the asari making her wince slightly at the navigator's caustic reply. This made the captain only sigh and was about to say something when the sensor station started to squawk out a very irritating alarm which saw the sensor person look down at the station in some surprise before he looked up a bit confused at the gathered bridge crew who were all looking at him, including the handful of slaves on the bridge.

"Captain our sensors are picking up some sort of strange readings that it cannot classify," he reported to Captain Sanrowar who was about to snarl at the other batarian before with a flash of light a very large ship suddenly appeared in front of their ship drawing the attention of everyone on the bridge.

"A DREADNAUGHT! OUT HERE!!" the helm person, a young salarian male, managed to say in their own surprise while the others on the bridge could only stare out the viewport in their own alarm. A moment later the ship was rocked as the ship fired what looked to be some form of a laser at them.

"That was our turret sir," the weapon master managed to rasp out with a frown on their mandibles while the others on the bridge started to panic including the ship's captain, who really wasn't all that willing to fight against a dreadnought. Not to mention, such a weapon went cleanly through their kinetic barriers without any issues. However, they hadn't been fully powered on as they were quite touchy and were only on low-power mode due to their travel through an asteroid belt and eventually into FTL. A moment later, the ship rocked once more, and much to the crew's confusion they were being dragged towards the large ship.

"What are you doing Calic!?" Navigator Veera shrieked out making the salarian turn from struggling with his controls with a panicked look on his thin face.

"It is not me ma'am! They are somehow dragging us towards them!" he shot back at the navigator before the asari communication officer suddenly winced as she looked over at the still-shocked captain.

"Captain? That ship's commander wants to talk to you? And it does appear that they are humans after all," the maiden reported drawing the captain out of his shock before he snarled out a curse under his breath. He then stomped over to the communication station and accepted the aging-looking microphone from the asari.

"Alright I'll talk to the infernal humans but have the translator set to their savage language," he ordered the woman who only nodded and entered the commands into the station's controls to translate the captain's own words into the human language. A moment later the captain leaned over the shoulder of the comm operator and stared down at the small built-in screen of the communication station once again wishing that this old ship sported more modern holographic communication equipment.

"This is Captain Carn Sanrowar of the Transport Sarco's Will and I really do not care for your human tendency of butting into my business. I have a cargo that I need to deliver over the next few days," he gruffly barked into the microphone noticing the black uniformed dark-skinned human woman on the screen looking a bit surprised at his appearance.

"Well Captain, I am Captain Samatha Henke of His Majesty's Starship Basilisk," the woman smoothly replied, in a rather strange accent, a moment later after recovering from her own surprise, "What was the reason for you to fire on our scout ship?"

"Like I said "Captain" I am transporting valuable cargo and I am already late with its delivery to my boss a few systems over. Hence, I fired on your ship because it was in my way," the batarian captain replied with a sneer, which covered a few his nerves as the woman's uniform wasn't from the Systems Alliance, human-led mercenary organizations, or any of the small colony independent defense forces that he was familiar with.

"It was in your way!" the woman barked out as she leaned forward in some anger before something out of the view of her camera attracted her attention for a brief moment. She then returned attention to the batarian captain with a bit of further anger and a tad of confusion.

"Is there any reason Captain that we are detecting what looks to be lifeforms in your cargo bays?" the woman questioned and Captain Sanrowar looked at the human woman for a brief moment confused for he was sure that once her ship detected the slaves in the cargo bay she would know they were slaves right off the bat? However, before he could say anything else Veera had appeared over the other shoulder of the asari comm operator making the young maiden flinch back from her.

"Don't act all coy human! You know exactly what we are carrying," the turian woman angrily said drawing a glare from her captain, though he did notice that the woman on the screen flinched at the appearance of the turian, but before he could say anything to her the stupid turian went on, "We are slavers!"

This Captain Henke blinked at this admission before a sudden cold look replaced her earlier look of mixed confusion and anger before answering the turian, "Very well then, you can now consider yourselves prisoners of the Terran Dominion. My marines will board your ship momentarily."

With that, the screen went dark and the turian woman was now looking a bit confused looking around at the rest of the bridge to see the other slaver officers glaring at her. The captain meanwhile turned towards her with a snarl on his scarred face before reaching out to angrily slap the turian across her face sending her to the floor of the bridge.

"You idiot! You did not notice that she actually did not even know what we were carrying? Not to mention she looked like she had never seen our races before now, hence we could have lied our asses off and she would have taken our word," he spat at her downed form before leaning down towards her downed form.

"But no you and your outright stupid anger at the humans have just doomed us all!" he roared at her before sighing and raising a hand to rub over his four eyes as he stared to the side through the viewport at the massively sized ship that dominated the entire viewport. He noticed that they were now being further dragged towards the ship which saw him looking over a the helm person with a frustrated look on his face.

"I take it you can't break whatever they are using to drag us like this?" he questioned the salarian who seemed to have already accepted their fate.

"Correct Captain," the helm person replied with a shake of his horned head making the batarian captain nod before he looked around at the bridge crew. He could already see a few of them looking like they were willing to actually fight whoever boarded the ship.

"In all honesty, I would fully fight against this so-called Terran Dominion, as whoever they are they appear to be human which I normally would be fully behind fighting against, but I am actually curious about where they came from that they couldn't recognize either batarian or turians like that," he mused out loud to them all before looking around at the bridge once more and eyed his crew who started to look a bit confused at what he was saying.

"So if you do want to fight I am not going to stop you and shall pass that on to the rest of the crew but I have decided that I will not be fighting these people as I am quite curious about what is going on," he explained looking around at the gathered crew before being drawn to the large annoyed grunt from the navigator as she got up from the deck of the bridge with narrowed angry eyes as she stared at him.

"You are a coward!" she spat at him before with a snarl she started towards the bridge hatch before staring at the weapon master Agrieus, a fellow turian who was calmly staring at her.

"You are not coming old man," she asked him making him narrow his own eyes at her in some annoyance.

"I am not going to throw my life away girl, besides I am with the captain there is something going on with these humans that I am curious about what that happens to be really," the old turian explained with a shake of his head at the younger turian who was looking around the bridge with a surprise look on her face.

"Cowards, the lot of you!" she said with a scoff and left the bridge behind. The captain sighed as he stared at the hatch before shaking his head and looking over at his weapon master.

"How many do you think will follow her in fighting these new humans Agrieus?" he questioned the older turian who hummed in some thought before shrugging at him.

"A few of the other turian crewmembers, and a handful of the batarians for they are all young and foolish," he answered with a nod of his head towards the captain.

"Well cannot do anything about that now," the captain mused before shaking his head and moving on, "Still let's prepare for the arrival of these new humans then everyone."


Bridge
HMS Bucephalus
An Hour Later


"Okay, what happened?" was the first question as Valerian entered the bridge once more with a somewhat annoyed gait to his walk. A pair of Imperial Shadows quickly followed behind him and took positions along either side of the bridge hatch. He soon noticed that the gathered officers along with his wife were gathered around the central holographic table and looked up at his appearance.

"Sire, one of our scout ships had detected an unknown ship and had been moving to verify the contact when the unknown ship opened fire on it destroying one of its engines. The scout ship then reported the contact and its hostile nature which then had the HMS Basalik jumping in a few minutes later," Brigadier Vaughn started to explain to the Emperor as he approached the central holo table with a raised eyebrow with some interest.

"Everything alright on the scout ship then?" he questioned interrupting the brigadier's report as he stared at his officers with a concerned look on his face.

"Yes sir, outside of a broken arm and some cuts everyone on the scout ship is alright," Fleet Captain Harrington replied with a nod of her head towards her Emperor who sighed at this for they had a finite amount of trained personnel in this new universe of theirs, not to mention ever since the End War Valerian didn't really like losing people, as during said war he often had to throw men into combat without any sort emotion as it was needed.

"Very well continue with your report General then," he directed the older man turning to him with a frown on his face.

"Yes Sire," the man replied with a short bow and after fiddling with the holo table controls for a moment brought up the direct data feed from the Minotaur Class Basalik on the display.

"After jumping in Captain Hensk ordered her weapon crews to disable the unknown ship's main weapon before contacting them directly to demand an explanation about firing on the scout ship," the Brigadier reported drawing a somewhat annoyed look on the Emperor's face about this before he waved the man to go on who then brought up the recording of the conversation between the two ships. Valerian looked quite interested in seeing what looked to be two different new alien races on the screen.

"During the ensuring communication between the two ships Captain Hensk found out that this ship was carrying slaves," the man explained as he nodded at the holographic window showing the conversation which soon saw a third new alien suddenly entering the conversation.

"These new aliens are slavers? Really?" Valerian said in some surprise for while the Koprulu Sector did have some form of slavers, mostly around the area of space known as Dead Space which surrounded the pirate port of Deadman's Port, it wasn't all that large of an operation compared to straight piracy around the Sector.

"Yes, your majesty, and after this communication the captain sent in the Marines to take the alien ship over, and after some light casualties along the attacking Marines managed to take over the ship entirely including its computers," the man finished his report before nodding to the form of General Warfield who was looking at another series of holographic windows who had looked up at the lead in from the Imperial Guard Commander. While the hassled-looking figure of Doctor Jake Ramsey was seated in one of the few chairs arranged around the central situation table fully engrossed in going over several different smaller holo screens along with a dozen or so printed paper reports with a deep frown on his face.

"The files on the computer included something called the Galactic Codex which is a general repository of info gathered together in one place, including the likes of some needed star maps allowing us to get around via warp if needed," General Warfield reported with a wave of her hand at the windows opened in front of her. Valerian looked quite interested in this, his inner scientist really wanting to read through the entire thing, like what he assumed Doctor Ramsey was currently doing, before something from the General's earlier report and what looked to be English writing in the opened holo windows.

"Wait, these aliens speak and write English?" he confusedly mentioned looking around at his officers who looked at one another before his own wife looked up from the holographic window she was reading from with a deep frown.

"Apparently there already is a human-led nation, centered on the local version of Earth of course, which is part of some sort of galactic alliance of races known as the Citadel Council," she informed him making him nod in some understanding for that did make some sense to him, but still he did frown at the idea of the local human nation being centered on Old Earth.

"And that is where they are getting English from then?" he questioned out loud making Nova nod at him before looking back at the window she had been reading from which saw Valerian look over at her with a frown.

"The Empress is going over the reports from the small team of Shadow agents onboard the Basilisk who had made a total mind rip from one of the prisoners from the captured ships Sire," the Brigadier mentioned seeing his emperor's confusion at his wife's current fucus which made the emperor wince slightly. As while there had been techniques for mind reading with both the older Ghost Program and the brief-lived Spectre program, the Shadows, meanwhile, managed to come up with an even more scary version of such a technique when combining these earlier mind-reading techniques with Protoss training to create the total mind rip technique allowing a Shadow to completely rip whatever they need to know from a person's mind. Something that often destroyed the person's mind in the process, therefore was only used on captured prisoners who either were from an enemy faction or a prisoner that took part in one of the top five crimes of the Dominion.

"Well I take it that the info from this Codex and the mind rip combined is giving us an interesting look into the locals?" the Emperor questioned as he came up alongside General Vaughn with a frown eying the nearest of the holo screens.

"Yes Your Majesty, but we have another problem right now," the figure of General Warfield mentioned with her own frown on her face as she turned away from what looked to be a tactical display of something or another that Valerian couldn't see from his current position.

"Oh? What would that be General?" he asked her as he turned to stare at her with narrowed eyes wondering what was going on now with everything.

"Apparently the ship we captured had recently left a Slaving Operation Outpost on a planetiod deeper in this system and that outpost would have picked up the Basilisk jumping in and capturing the slaver ship on their own deep space sensors," the General replied with a shrug of her shoulders making the emperor look quite a bit confused at this whole thing.

Seeing the confusion of the Emperor the General further explained, "We do not know if they could call in heavier combat elements which will not be good if our Colonial Transports are caught in the open by some sort of local heavy cruiser squadron and escorts when they get called in."

This made the emperor nod in some understanding for while they had several battlecruisers and their own escorts gathered around the colonial transports and the smaller regular cargo transports they wouldn't know, yet, how the local equivalent to their own warships would stack up against them. Something that would be good for the relatively unarmed colonial transports.

"I am pretty sure our Battlecruisers could easily stand up against their own cruiser class ships as according to the Galactic Codex we captured a local cruiserweight vessel is around half the size of our own battlecruisers, in both overall size and weight. That said, we are a bit worried about their main guns which are some sort of weird magnetic accelerator cannons," Fleet Captain Harrington piped up from the side of the General which drew the Emperor's attention to her while the general went back to looking through the massive amount of information that was presented to them via the Codex.

"I take it this Codex doesn't sport an actual scale of power for those weapons due to things like military secrets which is what the main worry," the Emperor mused to himself making the three main military advisors look at him with some surprise making him smirk slightly at this.

"Correct Sire! The only real thing the Codex does mention about the power of the main gun is that cruiserweight vessels of these Council Race Fleets sport either a single or double main gun whose barrel measures out to three to four hundred meters in length. They are also centrally mounted just like our own Yamato Cannons and this does scale with their larger ships which they call dreadnaughts which sport a main gun that measures out to eight to nine hundred meters in length," the General replied with a nod of his towards his emperor with a small pleased smile on his face at Valerian knowing something a bit more military. However, the Emperor looked a bit concerned at this mentioning of main guns and how long they happened to be.

"That is around a similar length to our older mark Yamato Cannons," the Emperor mentioned with a frown on his face knowing that the reason for the older Yamato Cannons to be so long was mainly for cooling purposes and other more minor reasons. The newest Mark VII Yamato Cannon found onboard the newest of the Gorgon Class Superbattlecruisers only measured out to half that overall size due to improvements to technology that came from the wars.

"That combined with the size of our battlecruisers would make them known as dreadnaughts to the Council-aligned races," the Fleet Captain pointed out with a nod of her head at one of the particular holographic screens.

"Which does lead to something that I found baffling," came the confused-sounding voice of General Warfield from behind a large holographic screen at the other side of the situation table drawing their attention to her.

"Oh?" the Emperor inquired with a raised eyebrow which drew the general from behind the screen to look at them all shaking her head with a sigh.

"Each of the Council-Aligned Races is required by treaty to only sport a limited number of Dreadnaughts in their fleets," she reported drawing various surprised and dumbfounded looks from the others gathered around the table, including the Emperor.

"What in the world," was the response from the Fleet Captain as she looked over at her own superior with a drawn and almost horrified-looking expression on her face, "Why limit themselves like that?"

This made the general laugh slightly at the various reactions before sighing and waving at the holographic screen in front of her which she managed to angle so the others could read what was on the surface of the screen. At the top, it read the Treaty of Farixen with various smaller text below that listing out various things. This drew a hum of thought from the Emperor as he leaned forward slightly to read himself, while General Warfield started to explain to the rest of them.

"There is a set ratio that is ingrained into this treaty that basically says the three main races of the Council, the Asari, the Turians, and the Salarians are to sport the majority of the dreadnaughts of the other aligned races of the Citadel Council. With the Turians, the Council's primary military and peacekeeping arm bearing the majority of the Council's dreadnaughts. The ratio from there is for every five dreadnaughts of the turian fleet the other main council fleets, the asari and salarians, are allowed three ships while the smaller fleets of the other aligned races are allowed a single dreadnought," she explained with a shake of her head and turning away from the holo screen with a deep frown on her face for it was quite a setup in her opinion.

"Is there any real reason for this Council to allow such a thing?" General Vaughn rumbled out to the others with a frown on his face.

"From what I can read with what we have from this codex, it was mainly created for two major reasons," the Emperor mentioned looking up from the screen towards the others with a small frown of his own on his face, "The first mainly was due to the outright destruction capabilities of dreadnaughts against not only other ships but planets, something that the Council wanted to cut down as previously during two large scale wars in their past had dreadnaughts firing their main guns at a planet all-out wiping out any sort of life on said planets."

This made the gathered officers suddenly hiss or gasp in outright surprise at such a thing, though really, it wasn't at the idea of firing such weapons at planets for they all have seen similar such instances during both the previous wars. What with the First Great War starting with the outright Protoss glassing of the colonies in the Sara System pretty much killing millions of Terrans living on those worlds in the process. At least those that hadn't been consumed or killed by the Zerg on those planets, anyway. No, what surprised them was the outright destruction capabilities of such a weapon for a Yamato Cannon on their battlecruisers were not that powerful against a planet itself and its population. A city or large town sure, but not an entire planet. It would take dozens of battlecruisers firing their main guns at a planet to do such outright destruction. No, for wiping out planets the Terrans out other weapons like large nuclear warheads, and as of the End War far more destructive weapons, like Polariton Torpedoes or heavy Gravitic Devices which outright destroy a planet entirely by tearing it apart.

"Does it say how many shots it will take to do such a thing?" the Fleet Captain asked out loud looking over at her emperor, "For using such a thing we could figure out how such a weapon stacks up to our Yamato cannons."

This drew looks from the other officers making them calm down slightly and start nodding along with her questions. The Emperor meanwhile looked up from further reading the treaty text before shaking his head at them all.

"Nothing at all, I'm sorry to say, but I'm sure there is some form of history texts out there we could find that would explain things a bit better about these mentioned wars," he said much to their own disappointment but with a grunt he straightened up from his hunched poture and went on with his earlier statement, "Meanwhile, the second reason for this treaty is in response to the first reason and to maintain a sort of balance of power between the various races who are aligned with the Council races."

This made them all blink in outright surprise for such a thing wasn't at all seen in their own Koprulu Sector as there where no way the other factions that call the sector home would go for such a thing. As the Dominion Fleet was already quite large compared to their own fleets hence they wouldn't for such a balance of power ratio between them all. Even if the Dominion Fleet was downscaled to allow such a thing. Then there were minor threats in the sector like rogue Zerg Broods, the remaining handful of Tal'darim sects hostile to the Terrans, and outright piracy operations that were still going on even in the aftermath of the End War. Not to mention there were much larger threats like those external threats to the sector like the UED or some sort of another alien threat from unknown space arriving in the sector. Hence, such a thing was not often talked about in the sector, though Valerian had briefly entertained the idea of such a thing to keep the peace between the main three Terran powers of the sector but quickly abandoned the whole idea after thinking about it for several days.

"Then the question dear husband are you going to sign such a treaty if we make contact with this Citadel Council," came the unexpected voice of their Empress as she turned away from the reports from her Shadow operatives, and their mind rip operations of a few alien prisoners from the slaver vessel. Something that was kind of redundant with the capture of the ship's computers and the almost complete Codex found on said computers. Though there were a few interesting tidbits of information. Her statement saw the officers looking both annoyed and a bit perplexed at this whole idea, for like their Empress they had all known of his thoughts of such a treaty in place years ago, which saw them all look over at their emperor with almost matching expressions on their faces.

"Oh god no!" he mentioned with an almost disgusted look on his face, for it was quite true that he had briefly thought putting in place such a treaty between the three major Terran factions of the Koprulu Sector he had been still an inhabitant of the Koprulu Sector and had lived through both the Second Great War and the End War. And all that entailed! Not to mention there was Kerrigan's warning to Nova about something out there ready to wipe out the people of this universe, including the thousands of innocent civilians who looked up to him for leadership and brought to this universe by this event. Hence, they were going to need every weapon and warship they could produce to defend them from this new threat. The End War taught them that.

"I hate to butt into this fascinating discussion but what about the slaves we managed to rescue from these slavers? What are we going to do about them? Not to mention there is still the existence of the slaver's outpost. What are we going to about that?" came the formerly silent figure of Doctor Ramsey who had been brought in to further explore the information they found in the Codex by the gathered officers right before the arrival of the Emperor. This made them all look at each other in a combination of outright confusion and a bit of outright shock that they had forgotten about the outposts. Still, Valerian summed up their own thoughts on this with a single statement.

"I don't know."




-o-End-o-​


Post Chapter Notes

Alright! Here is chapter three of the story! And jeez did it take a bit to get going! I had it pretty much half done since November and after picking at it over the past couple of months finally managed to sit down and convince my muse to complete it. I still had some trouble, as originally it was going to be a bit larger with another scene that would explore the Marines boarding the slaver ship and how Mass Effect weapon tech would stack up against the Starcraft weapon tech, however, I was having some minor issues with the whole thing. Hence, I am going to show such a thing later on when the Dominion moves to take over the slaver outpost in the system.

That said! Some interesting bits are included in this chapter. Including the idea of comparing the Yamato Cannon of a Terran Battlecruiser with that of the main centrally-mounted mass accelerator cannon of a Council-aligned Dreadnaught. Which kind of saw the Treaty of Farixen being brought into the story which goes on about the ability of a Dreadnaught to damage and outright destroy a planet. That whole thing would lead to an interesting dive into the Starcraft wiki for any sort of weapon that could outright destroy or at least depopulate a planet to compare with that of a Dreadnaught main gun which came up quite sparse. As outside of a mass amount of nuclear warheads the Terrans cannot do such a thing, as shown by Korhal IV. Oh. The Yamato Cannon is said to be quite a city-buster weapon but not really capable of outright destruction of a planet. Hence, I created a couple of different planet-cracking weapons that the Terrans ended up developing during the course of the End War. Both are kind of drawn from some of the weapons seen in other bits of Starcraft lore outside of the games themselves like a very brief mention of some sort of gravity-based weapon in one of the books and the other from various cut bits about a torpedo that is able to destroy a planet. Shrug.

Anyways! I hope that I managed to get those things across and that I managed to make the very small battle at the start between a Batarian slaver vessel and a small Terran Scout Ship entertaining to you all. That said. Time for the bad news! I am not too sure when I will be able to get started on the next chapter. As this is about where I managed to end up at the end of the November Writing Frenzy event and do not have anything to finish. Sorry to say. Then again, my muse may end up wanting to do another chapter for this story in the coming days. Or it may just latch onto another idea. Like going back to my own original version of this idea and seeing about making it a bit better. Shrug. It all depends. That said, I generally do not abandon stories unless it is needed therefore I do plan on coming back to this eventually. It just might be going to be a while. Sorry. With all that said thanks for joining me on this little journey into a Starcraft and Mass Effect crossover!
 

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