Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic

“The newest reports, Empress.” One of the countless secretaries that had been shuffling in and out of the tactical room said, holding out a datapad for Revan to take.

The Sith accepted it without looking away from the galaxy map before pointing at a highlighted section, letting the secretary rush back out of the room to handle the hundreds of other tasks that needed doing now that time was almost up.

“There, that asteroid belt. A group of pirates are operating out of a hollowed out asteroid. Take Battlegroup Twelve and deliver an ultimatum, they either submit or die.”

“Deploying BG12.” The Geth platform standing nearby confirmed. “Estimated arrival time: 37 hours.”

“Have the other available groups begin sweeps around every known Mass Relay in our territory. Inform me of any unexpected arrivals before taking action, especially the ones here, here, here and here.” She said pointing at several nodes representing the primary method for galactic travel around the ‘west’ region of the map. “Inform the planets nearby that they have been annexed into the Sith Empire due to a galaxy wide threat and they can either comply or be brought into compliance.”

“Revan…is that a good idea?” Admiral Tali’Zorah asked quietly. “Several of those Relays are close to Citadel Space.”

“We need to secure our borders before the Reapers spread too much. I doubt we will be able to completely prevent them from infiltrating via the Relay Network, but we can at least slow them down using the Relays as chokepoints. Besides,” She mused. “It might convince the Asari Republic to spread out their fleet rather than cluster it all up like it has been.”

Tali’Zorah tilted her head in confusion. “Why would the Republic move their fleet? Council space is policed by the Turian navy. Even if they felt threatened by our ships the Council would have them investigate first.”

“Normally yes, but even the Council won’t be able to reassure the Matriarchs immediately after one of their worlds is claimed by the Empire.”

“That would put us at war with all of Council Space! Unless…”

“Unless it was one of the ‘independent colonies’ in the Terminix Systems. And after the precedent set by the Council regarding the human colonies when the Collectors were harvesting them, the Council can posture all they want but cannot actually do anything without showing blatant favoritism for the Asari. So the Republic will have to move to protect their interests. If we’re lucky the Salarians will do the same, but considering the distance I doubt they will.”

Revan felt more than saw Tali’Zorah’s discomfort with the plan, but there wasn’t another choice. They needed the resources on Talrania if they wanted to scale up production of large scale shields.

Rannoch and the handful of reclaimed quarian planets had one but those had been one off productions. But most planets the Empire claimed barely had a Theatre Shield that could cover a city. To truly spread the technology fast enough to make a difference they needed to increase the amount of resources they had available and expand the production facilities to make them. And Revan no longer had the time to politely sit down and negotiate with established governments that would slow everything down to preserve their power base or to drag out every advantage they could from the crisis.

“...this doesn’t feel right. A single Reaper was enough to tear through the human’s Fifth Fleet. If we spread the other fleets out…every engagement will be a massacre.”

Revan nodded stoically. “Yes, but it will buy us time.”

Time they desperately needed.

And every Reaper ship delayed fighting on a Council world was a ship not being sent against her Empire. Giving them time to build more Harrowers, cruisers, destroyers, shields, and even evacuation ships.

Revan sighed and turned her attention to the datapad she was handed. The group she was waiting on was ready to depart in an hour. From there her flagship Invincible and two other Harrowers would depart to Talrania and either convince the locals to quietly integrate into the Empire or round them up for relocation.

“We’re using the rest of the galaxy to slow the Reapers down. It feels wrong…” The young admiral muttered.

“Because it is wrong.” Revan agreed, but she had never shied away from doing the ‘wrong’ thing if it meant protecting the galaxy. “But we don’t have another choice. We tried to warn the galaxy the Reapers were here but as far as I can tell they either ignored the warning or are trying to confirm for themselves. I can either waste the little time we have remaining trying to get politicians to listen or we can prepare.”

“Shepard could have found a way.”

“Perhaps, but until the Systems Alliance lets her out of the hole they stuffed her in she isn’t around to try. So we will work with what we have.”

-o-

Talrania was a beautiful world.

Large oceans covered the majority of the surface while the rest was covered in sweeping flatlands filled with plantlife. The moderate temperature ensured that most species could easily thrive without specialized coverings. And even a basic sensor sweep was enough to tell the planet was minerally rich as well.

All fitting things for a colony planet. Afterall, why pick a desolate dustball when you could choose to settle on a rich garden world?

The Asari certainly hadn’t seen a reason to pass up such a lovely world and had quickly claimed it, creating a colony with a population of over one billion despite being located in the Terminus Systems. And while most planets in the Terminus would live in constant fear of being raided by pirates and other groups looking to take advantage of such a rich planet - Talrania merely had a small PDF and the threat of the Asari Republic behind them keeping them mostly unmolested.

Which meant when three Harrowers and a handful of smaller escorts dropped out of Hyperspace nearly on top of the planet, there was nothing the locals could do beyond signal their complete surrender and provide a location where Revan would address their leaders.

A great many armchair generals across the extranet would no doubt decry them for the immediate surrender when they found out, but Revan often found that most governments would fold when the were under the cannons of several dreadnoughts with only a handful of ships that would barely scratch the shields if they managed to avoid getting blasted out of the sky by a ship ten times its size.

It was just as effective a tactic here as it was in her home galaxy.

Of course just because the locals were compliant in the face of overwhelming military power, they were not happy about it.

Revan could feel the anger and fear of the leaders she was supposed to meet long before she stepped off the shuttle – along with three Force signatures that had a much tighter control of their emotions than average, though they varied in skill.

One in particular was only noticeable because it would calm down only to spike in fear again in a constant cycle.

Hm, Revan would need to keep an eye on those three. If her suspicions were correct…

She pushed those distractions to the back of her mind as she arrived at the meeting room. The local leaders were brought in one at a time, introductions were made. And then once everyone had settled Revan gave them a brief speech about what options they could expect being annexed by the Empire. They could either cooperate, leave, or - should they try anything - be rounded up, imprisoned, and deported to a nearby planet. One considerably less hospitable than Talrania.

After that she allowed her audience a few questions.

One of the Matriarchs was the first to speak up. “What exactly do you expect of us? You can’t possibly expect this aggression to go unanswered. The Republic at least will respond.”

“In general I expect nothing from the people here.” Revan replied. “I have little use for slaves and unwilling servants. As long as your people steer clear of the mining operations we will be conducting they can continue as they have. Of course we will hire on those that want to work to lessen the impact on their livelihood should they wish to.”

There was a surge of indignation and outrage from the gathered crowd.

“Mining operations?!” The Matriarch sputtered. “You threaten our world, risk war with not just the Republic but all of Citadel Space, all because you want to destroy its beauty for the parts that will be useful to you?!”

“Yes.” Revan replied with brutal honesty.

What the Matriarch was trying to do was not something Revan hadn’t encountered before. Point out the actions the Empire had done that would threaten the local’s home and way of life in a way that sounded like outrage rather than defiance and use those emotions to help establish a resistance group later on. Back home in the Skyriver Galaxy, Revan had needed to balance providing enough incentives that the majority of the population was, if not content, at least ambivalent about the Empire’s occupation and threats that if too much of a disturbance was raised the local garrison would crack down on the disruptive elements.

But again, she didn’t have the time or subordinates with the proper training to do so here.

So she went with honesty.

Let them all know exactly how utterly fucked they all were that this was necessary.

She made a gesture towards one of her escorts and waited as the holoprojector showed what used to be a dark green planet, now with massive fires visible from space covering large portions of the surface.

“This is Erszbat, a Batarian colony world that three days ago was attacked by an omnicidal group known as the Reapers. They’ve since spread to most if not all of Batarian space and are in the process of wiping out every living thing on those planets as well. We cannot confirm without revealing the spy ships we have in system, but I can confidently say the Hegemony will be completely destroyed within a few weeks at most.

“Not only that, the Reapers are using infiltrators to spread misinformation to keep the rest of the galaxy from realizing the threat until the rest of their forces are retrieved from Deep Space.”

“You’re saying the Reapers did that? The same one that crazy human that blew up a star system was warning about?”

Revan pushed down the annoyance that despite the vast amount of evidence Shepard had given to the Council, they hadn’t hesitated to brand her a lunatic to the wider galaxy.

“The same. Which is why it is crucial that the materials here can be mined and processed without the forces I leave behind worrying about sabotage from disgruntled locals. We have enough problems on our hands.”

The Asari were slowly coming around but Revan could still feel many doubted she was telling the truth or even that if she was, things couldn’t be that bad. Several of them were no doubt waiting until they could slip away to try and prove the holo Revan showed them was faked, or just declare it fake because they didn’t want it to be true. She would have to ensure more information regarding the situation in Batarian space was uploaded to the local extranet which would help undercut malicious actors trying to spread seeds of rebellion.

Interestingly, Revan could sense the three Force signatures she had noticed earlier beginning to withdraw. The least skilled – and if Revan had to guess either youngest or least trained – broadcasting fear and…betrayal?...before they managed to close their mental shields enough Revan could no longer casually sense them.

It seemed someone was not pleased about something. A change in plans, perhaps? She would need to track them down later if possible.

“If this is true,” The matriarch spoke again, dragging Revan’s attention back to the immediate surroundings. “Then are we to lose our homes, our planet, just to fuel your war machine?”

“No, I have entire mining fleets stripping asteroid belts to fuel my war machine.” Revan replied. “The materials mined here will be crucial to creating a type of planetary shield system that will prevent the Reapers from simply swarming past any orbital defenses and landing directly in a civilian sector.”

“A Kinetic Barrier that covers an entire planet? Preposterous, no one has the technology to create something like that!”

“The Empire does.” Revan said easily. “And while I don’t need to prove it to you, in the name of future cooperation let me show you what Talrania has to gain by working with us.”

The next three hours were spent answering questions and explaining the broad strokes of what would be expected of the new Imperial world but by the end of it the locals seemed pacified for now.