A Spectre with special authority – this is a real sideshow of unprecedented generosity from all galactic structures under Citadel control. Combined with the threat of the Reaper invasion, which they began broadcasting about over the extranet and mass media just five hours later, we get practically unlimited access to everything. Expensive equipment, materials for upgrading technologies and ships, unlimited power over scientists and inventors – all this is now at our disposal. And all of it practically for free, since the cost was reduced to a minimum, and even that wasn't going through my personal accounts.
However, the problems didn't lessen: Citadel support alone is not enough to build even one Death Star. And we need several – one for each System.
Estimating the resources, I come to the conclusion that we don't really need all the Systems...
Simply put: we won't have time to implement the entire project, even if we mobilize all existing forces and resources. How much time do we have? From one day to several years.
Alright, it's better to act on the principle of minimizing losses and maximizing opportunities. We'll do what we can, and leave the rest to the will of the outcome of the confrontation with the Reapers.
While there is time, I got busy setting up the team within the Citadel, renting a huge skyscraper for us... for free. For the greater good, one can temporarily evict all the owners with the help of C-Sec, right? Martial law – what can you do...
When the command center was ready, I immediately sat down to draft the plan: I wrote down everything I knew about the Death Star. The blueprints and engineering schematics wouldn't write themselves, nor adapt themselves to the technologies of the Milky Way.
We have element zero, which creates mass effect fields. They allow for the increase or decrease of the mass of spacetime when an electric current is applied via dark energy. If a positive voltage is applied, the mass increases; if negative, it decreases.
Element zero opens up new possibilities, allowing us to focus not on the quantity, but on the quality of the final product. Thanks to the relays and the mass effect, we will be able to move quickly around the galaxy and destroy clusters of Reapers. As for single targets, we'll have to fight them the old-fashioned way, but individual units do not pose a threat of total extinction. No matter how durable the Reaper ships are, they can be destroyed.
This means we reduce the number of Death Stars to one, but emphasize the huge object's maneuverability using element zero. Hmm, acceptable.
We must also not forget about designing the superlaser – the Death Star's main weapon. It will require the development of a powerful energy weapon capable of wiping out entire planets. The Council already has some prototypes, but it's necessary to scale them up by hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
Damn, under these conditions, every shot will cost a fortune. Can the costs be reduced? That's a task for the scientists' brainstorming session – let them deal with the optimization.
After five hours of work, I was able to sketch out a concept that the others will have to refine, long and tediously. There was no time for anything else. There's just not enough time for anything.
— Saren, - I addressed the turian, who was looking over my blueprints. — It's desirable to organize large-scale mining of element zero on asteroids and planets as soon as possible. And not just that. To create the station's hull, we'll need titanite and other alloys used in starship construction. And we also can't do without a colossal energy source, but that can be solved with thermonuclear reactors.
— These aren't living resources, but ones lying under our feet, - the turian chuckled. — To implement your idea, we'll need... well, millions of engineers and scientists. And ten times as many laborers.
— I thought about that.
— And what did you conclude?
— We have three votes on the Council, so their races will follow the Citadel's will. The salarians, with their knowledge of genetics and technology, are excellent candidates for developing complex systems. The asari... hmm, their biotic abilities and diplomatic experience will come in handy for coordinating the project. The turians, with their military experience...
— Don't be foolish. My race is famous not only for war, but for preparing for it. No one designs weapons better than our scientists: we'll entrust the offensive and defensive systems to them.
— It's a pity our authority ends there. The volus are offended at the Citadel and are unlikely to agree to invest in the project, although with force and an economic blockade, we can easily persuade them to cooperate. In the end...
— Understood, - he interrupted me. — The volus have a homeworld, and we will threaten it. And what will we threaten the humans with? Human resources are controlled by two factions: the hounds of Cerberus and the fools from the Alliance. They can't even agree amongst themselves.
— Forcing Cerberus to cooperate won't be easy. Just like the quarians – their experience with artificial intelligence and ships is perhaps the most necessary and, at the same time, the most difficult to obtain. The quarians won't just agree to cooperate unless they beg for enough privileges. And they only need one thing – their homeworld, captured by the geth.
— We can't afford to destroy the geth.
— You have warm feelings for them?
— Not at all. Without the geth's computing power, we won't make the deadline, - he shook his head. — Some of the synthetics were reprogrammed by Sovereign. The others, for now, adhere to their original program of non-interference in the galaxy's affairs, and it's them we need to push toward cooperating with us.
— Easier said than done.
— Starkiller, what do you think about the geth? Why did they rebel against their creators? The quarians wanted to destroy them, which means the synthetics fear digital oblivion. And anyone who is afraid is always ready to cooperate.
— Negotiate with Cerberus. Negotiate with the quarian fleet. Negotiate with the geth. Is that all? Or did we forget someone?
— A-haaa, - Saren drew out the word. — We forgot about half of them, and that's just a rough estimate, - he raised his hand and gripped his forehead. — We only have the Citadel Council on our side. Besides them, the Independent Systems have something resembling a government. They've accumulated a lot of resources, but they'll tell us to piss off faster than we can get down to business. Following them are the corporations. Half will, one way or another, listen to the evidence of the Reapers' existence. And the other half will tell us to go to the same place the petty dictators sent us before. However, there's still a chance to negotiate with them verbally. Mercenaries, private armies, smugglers... A pain in the ass. For their services, they'll demand more credits than we've ever dreamed of. And for free... There's only one way to get their support for free.
— Are we thinking the same thing: unite the rabble and negotiate with their new leader?
— A few candidates come to mind, but the simplest is Aria T'Loak. The asari has acquired the largest connections in the galaxy within the underworld. And what distinguishes her from other slum kings is that she has never been opposed to deals with future prospects. Where there's no immediate profit, but there are guarantees that it will at least allow her to breathe tomorrow, and not in a corpse pit.
— Excellent, we have many tasks to solve, and as quickly as possible.
— And unfortunately, that's far from all our difficulties. Skeptics who don't believe in the Reapers will try to arrange sabotage or seize the Death Star for their personal use. Whoever controls the superweapon controls the galaxy.
Saren stopped studying the blueprints and sat down, crossing his arms before continuing:
— We need to rack our brains over defense, location, logistics... And frankly, that amount of personnel for the Death Star frightens me. We will try to protect the lead scientists and the project's upper management in any case, but as for the rest... It won't be easy. However, we have time. By destroying Sovereign and the hostile geth fleet, we'll buy enough time to complete most of the preparations before they arrive. Probably...
— The Citadel is a large Relay, but the Reapers might have a backup plan.
— I have an idea of what that might be, - Saren shook his head. — It's unknown how deep in space they are, but their powerful engines will help them reach us under their own power – I have almost no doubt about that. As soon as their main plan fails, they'll spend energy and resources on a long-distance flight... They'll arrive here weaker, but they'll compensate for all their losses on the spot.
— Still. What if there's another hidden Relay somewhere, and other Reaper agents will try to activate it?
— You humans say one should pray in such cases. But there are no gods. There's only us and our problems. I can only advise expanding the authority of Citadel Security, and directing it to check all corporations that are potentially capable of working with Relays. Not the best countermeasure, but it's what we have.
— It's what we have, - I repeated, settling more comfortably in my chair. — What about preparing our fleet?
— It will take a month to kick all the lazy commanders into gear, and then get them to the Citadel, from where we'll start moving toward the enemy System, which is crawling with geth. During this time, we can distribute the tasks. And yes, anticipating all your hopes, the blueprints and schematics I saw... I'll be blunt – they're complete shit, and need to be redone. So first, assign the squad to their tasks, and then get to the most important thing.
Saving the galaxy behind a pile of waste paper?
But there's no other choice; I'll have to trust my subordinates.
There are plenty of tasks, and it's simply impossible to solve many of them on my own.
***
Having become one of the most influential figures in the galaxy, I simultaneously turned into the busiest worker in human history. There was absolutely no time left for sleep, food, rest, emotional release, or training. Everything went into designing the Death Star, creating a manual for the unique coding language, and "redoing."
The others were luckier.
The Councilors resolved issues with their races and their homeworlds, found those responsible for gathering resources, and selected personnel for the Death Star's construction. They also gave an order according to which all Citadel engineers are suspended from their own developments and assigned to one specific project. The Councilors' duties also included negotiations with other races: volus, batarians, elcor, hanar, drell. But progress on this front is slow and met with mixed success. Playing diplomacy there will take more than one month.
Matriarch Benezia and Samara were sent to Thessia – the trade capital of the galaxy, where representatives of almost all corporations are present. Their task was to pull the greedy bastards to our side by hook or by crook, using the influence of the Citadel, the Justicar Order, and their own authority.
Saren went alone to Omega, to negotiate with Aria, mercenaries, smugglers, and other rabble.
Liara T'Soni volunteered to help me with the blueprints – acting as my assistant.
Tali'Zorah returned to the quarians, but ran into the fact that the admirals are constantly arguing and voting two against two, causing the next meetings to be endlessly postponed. And to speed up the process somehow, I promised to help with the geth.
Shepard headed off to negotiate with the uncontrolled Systems.
Wrex flew off to gather forces on Tuchanka, and that is a bloody and thorny path, for a minimum of several years. Or a little less, if the genophage is cured. We have both krogan cloning technology and Saren's complete research on curing the virus – basically, all the cards for rapidly building an army of supersoldiers. The krogan will be useful to us, but the question remains – what to do with them afterward? In a normal environment, they will need dozens of planets to settle, then hundreds, and it will come to pass that there will be no room left for other races in the entire universe.
And as soon as we help the krogan, the salarians will become our enemies. They'll think we betrayed them and are preparing to serve them up for dinner at the krogan table. Perhaps we should cure the old genophage, but develop a new, more lenient one, to control population growth? Let the krogan reproduce, but like all other races.
Yeah, it's hard to sit on two stools at once. And then there are still the negotiations with Cerberus and establishing a point of contact with the geth. Both missions, as they say, are full of ambiguous and risky moments.
Cerberus deals only with the human race and refuses to even be in the same company as aliens. Xenophobes. And the geth... well, they attack as soon as a bag of meat approaches them.
I decided to begin negotiations after twenty-eight days, when my blueprints were finally approved, and the coding language was deemed accessible for study.
Just in time, a reason popped up: the Illusive Man informed me via the terminal about the completion of the ship's construction, code-named "Starkiller I."
Included with the ship were an artificial intelligence and a spy. I didn't ask for the first, and the second was forced on me. But it's too late to refuse – after all, through the Illusive Man's agent, I can communicate with him to conclude other agreements concerning preparations for the Reaper invasion. And an artificial intelligence from Cerberus looks like an interesting tool for reducing the living personnel on the ship.
But one way or another...
These are going to be some negotiations.
The Illusive Man is one of those people who will insist until the very end on using the Death Star as a method of force to seize the entire galaxy, and then the entire universe.
And after trying for a long time to understand how he thinks, I involuntarily began to consider the idea myself.
Why should I return to my home galaxy, to put it crudely, bare-assed? What's stopping me from conquering the Milky Way first, and then using all the military fleets to attack Darth Sidious's Empire?
— Power over the universe, - I mused, thinking aloud. — It seems I'll have to delve deeper into the study of the Dark Side and see what else it can provide for victory. The more ambitious the goal, the more Force is needed.
I mused, boarding a standard military transport, whose duty it was to deliver me to one of the Cerberus bases. There, "Starkiller I" awaited me – a ship that, I hope, will allow me to wage real star wars against any ill-wishers in space.