50In the name of Earth and Balaho, till the bitter end!
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: Titan, Location: New Balaho Shipyards, Date: 2-3-2151, 12.28 local time, POV: 3rd person
While half of the shipyard is still under construction, one dock was fully finished several weeks before, with a single ship now being built inside of it. According to the original designers only a frigate, by the Systems Alliance regular classification a high end light cruiser, but because of the sheer power of its weapons and the thickness of its armour, it was considered part of the newly designated re-emerging ship classification: a battlecruiser. It was nearing completion and would soon be the first of its kind flying the SA colours, a sign of hope and strength for the people that were now expecting war with a group of alien governments, or something far worse than that, to happen very soon. One of the unfinished docks however is far larger than all the others, being at roughly five times the size of the dozen or so other unfinished docks.
Beyond the shipyard a city can be seen, with portions of it still under construction but most of the work already having been done. A very large building near the centre of the city was encompassed by a large pressurization shield is full of activity, with humans in navy and army uniforms of both the SA itself and its various member states walking into and out of said building while chatting with each-other or eating lunches before a bell rings, causing them to pack up and head back inside. Once inside we follow a group of navy officers into a classroom to see Cortana standing in front of a holographic board on the wall, waving at the students to start sitting down.
''Welcome back class, now as this is my last class with this group and I have taught you everything I could about actual large scale space-bound naval battles already that can actually be shown anywhere else than during a battle or at the very least on a space-ship itself, you are now all allowed to ask me subject related questions. Does anyone have some?'' Immediately nearly all hands in the room shoot up, causing the teacher to chuckle. ''Hmm lets see, Lieutenant Zimmerman, what is your question?'' While saying this she points to a large Caucasian man in the first row with relatively pale skin.
''Admiral, while you have given us numerous explanations about our potential enemies, the strength of your enemies in your home dimension and the strengths of our current ships in addition to tactical and strategic options that could be used during space-bound naval warfare. However, you have told us relatively little of how your upgraded Marathon class 'Heavy Cruiser' design, which to us will be a heavy dreadnought and a full on super-dreadnought to the council, outside of the fact that the ships the idea was taken from would, if given the upgrades intended, be able to fight an entire SA fleet on its own with a decent chance of winning, and two or three citadel fleets with a certainty of winning the battle. How may of these ships are intended to be produced and exactly what will its capabilities weapon and armour wise be?''
The admiral seemed to think on this for a moment, before answering. ''An excellent question. The Marathon class will be the flagships of our new battlecruiser and other heavy duty fast response fleets, with its ability to travel 100 lightyears a day due to its state of the art slipspace drive, while having a MAC gun as its main armament that can deal up to 950 kilotons of damage per hit. On top of this it has 60 of the newest Onager MAC's which each will deal 10 kilotons of damage per hit, thus serving as excellent broadside weapons against council forces during any operation and on top of this all it will have 50 torpedo and missile pods, filled with a mix of the new archer missiles and the older Firefly torpedo, while also having three WMD torpedo pods with a total of twenty-four WMD torpedo's, to be used only against reaper class or more dangerous hostiles, such as the possibility of something similar to the Flood existing here.
Additionally due to its ability to enlarge the entering portal of its slipspace drive, it will be able to speed up the travel capabilities of smaller ships with lesser slipspace drives, though it is not advised to use ships that do not have slipspace drives at all in combination with it as those wouldn't be able to create their own emergency exits. The total production for the decade of these ships is expected to be three or four, depending on how large the total costs of building one will be precisely with the additions and upgrades to the ship and how the economy grows in that same period of time.'' She looked around the classroom, seeing the students look at her with great interest about the following answers. ''Now as for the armour of the ship it will be 2 meters thick on most of the ship, however in more critical sections it will be three meters thick…'' And so the Systems Alliance prepared for the wars to come.
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: ?, Location: ?, Date: ? local time, POV: 3rd person
Streaks of blue light can be seen lighting the sky while the shells can be heard and felt impacting the ground, as the already damaged buildings of a once thriving city pan into view with some of them being caught in the explosions of kinetic force caused by the direct hits of the shells, while others crumble from the shocks caused by the impact. High in the sky, some distance away from the city are the ones responsible for these shells, three Turian frigates hovering in a V-shape formation, with a squadron of fighters flying near the bow of the frontmost ship. Only for streaks of light, lasers, energy, plasma and blue kinetic light similar to the shots from the ships to fire back at them from the city down below in retaliation, destroying all of the fighters simultaneously while the frontmost frigate experiences a rippling of explosions all over its hull, staying in the air for a moment longer before it starts crashing down to the ground, the once threatening show of Hierarchy power now little more than a 150 meter long burning wreck.
The two remaining frigates are quickly retreating, dodging a number of the less co-ordinated shots that are now seemingly firing at will at them, while retaliating with shots of their own, causing some more buildings to be destroyed but having little visible effect on the amount of incoming fire. The leftmost one of the survivors takes a direct hit to something critical, most likely its reactor, causing a large explosion to occur midships and breaking it in two before both pieces start falling down to the ground in a fate similar to that of its colleague. The third manages to get out of range of the ground-based fire, but is heavily damage and shall not be in fighting condition for some time.
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: ?, Location: Temporary Divisional Headquarters of the 5th combined SA division, Date: ?, POV: 3rd person
A green armoured giant can be seen walking into the room, causing the officers present to turn towards him and giving a near simultaneous salute, while getting one in return from the giant. ''So'' The spartan super soldier begins ''How much of our anti-air and anti-armour equipment is still combat effective after that last Turian airborne assault?''
A man wearing the insignia of a captain is the first to reply ''Ten anti-air and eight anti-tank pieces total have been destroyed by hostile fire, another fifteen of the first and ten of the latter are temporarily disabled due to a combination of previous damage and firing while damaged without repairs, on top of which four of each have been all but melted from over from overheating. We also suffered 30 crewmembers killed 30 infantrymen heavily injured, the latter from second battalion. This leaves us with some 35 anti-tank and 25 anti-air pieces left currently combat effective, though for some without full crewmembers to man them to full efficiency. In addition we still have 15 pieces of light field artillery left, though instead of its usual crews they are manned mostly by walking wounded from other units under direction of a single artillery officer and three artillery regulars.''
The giant nods at this. ''While not as good as hoped, it is still a better exchange than feared. Two frigates and one fighter squadron destroyed with a third frigate temporarily disabled in exchange for our losses.'' The other officers nod at this, before giving a thankful glance towards the captain that had devised the plan to lure the frigates in to take them out while they could still turn their full attention to them, instead of having to face a ground assault with frigate and fighter support. He turns towards the comms officer who had been in contact with theatre headquarters for a while. ''Any potential re-enforcements incoming for us?''
''Yes sir, however they at least half an hour or so to arrive here, let alone on the frontline itself. It will be a single full leg infantry division, though sadly enough they will be relatively new recruits and have little in heavy equipment outside of some motorized anti-tank guns as most of that got sent to the front on the other side of the planet, the enemy has a far larger armoured presence there it seems. Any motorized or armour support that might have been sent here now cannot be missed in other regions, the Council has begun a near planet-wide offensive against our forces.'' The master Chief nods to the man before he puts a holo-projector down on the table and activating it, showing a map of the local area, before he opens a menu and types in the relevant changes to their combat strength.
''As far as our AI can decode from intercepted Turian transmissions, there will be a three-pronged assault on our defensive line, with the total number of hostiles being at some 4400 Turian infantry regulars, 200 Volus auxiliary troops most of which will be logistic and medical support personnel and 50 light tanks in addition to their 150 crew members. The Volus troops will have little direct combat training, to a level slightly below or equal to most militia troops, however we are less lucky in that sense with the Turian units. Each prong of the initial assault will contain some 1200 infantrymen, with 400 infantry and their tanks remaining as reserves to be used if one of the three is close to achieving a breakthrough while the remaining 400 and the Volus troops will form a fallback line to retreat to in case their assault goes wrong in the extreme at some point.''
He let that sink in for a second before continuing ''Our own lines are now stretched thin, dangerously so on our left flank where only 150 men of second ODST battalion remain combat capable, with a dangerously high number of them being the battalion support staff now serving on the front lines. I will head out with my personal platoon to join them in their defence, as both the second and third battalion still have more than 300 men left each in combat effective states. If communications fall silent or my unit is destroyed in battle, command of the division shifts over to captain Moreau, however unless one of the flanks breaks, we need to hold no matter the cost. Is that understood?'' All the other officers in the room nodded.
As he saluted them again, getting one in reply from the others in the room, the Master Chief left the room before joining his men and sending a platoon wide com message to the power armoured troops. ''We're moving out to support the 2nd ODST battalion on the easternmost position of our line. Allied units will total around 190, ourselves included. The hostiles we will face will number at some 1400 Turians with possible tank support of 150 lights. Battle will commence at most 10 minutes after we arrive at the defensive lines, so we have no time to waste.''
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: ?, Location: 2nd battalion of the 1st ODST Division's defensive position, Date: ?, POV: 3rd person
As the Master Chief arrived at the centre of the left flanks trench-lines a young man walked up to him before giving him a sloppy salute. No offense was taken or given with this since the right arm the salute was attempted with was visibly heavily burned, with the armour that was supposed to be on it seemingly having both melted off and into portions of the flesh of the arm, surrounded in numerous places by bandages. ''Lieutenant Anderson reporting for duty colonel.'' Upon receiving a replying salute from the colonel he brought his arm down before sighing in relief as he looked over the power armoured re-enforcements. ''You and your soldiers are a sight for sore eyes colonel, with our current number any determined offensive by the opponent would have succeeded, with you and your men here we at least stand a chance.''
The aforementioned colonel looked around for a moment at the defensive line, seeing that a large number of the men were wounded, which had been mentioned in the messages sent to high command, what had not been mentioned however was just how bad a shape some of the walking/fighting wounded were. ''My men and I will be spread out evenly across the line, while we wait with firing at the enemy until they have some troops over the hill to ensure maximum casualties among the enemy, this is unless one portion of it is far worse of than the remainder of it and we would be better suited in specific locations?''
''The left flank of our line is worst off, they were the ones to take near direct hits from the earlier frigate bombardment among this battalion. I would send a larger number over myself, but most of my men that can move will be needed at the other locations in case of a hostile close quarters assault, while I also cannot afford to man them any lighter than they already are to be honest as that would leave gaps nearly too large to close in the line the moment even a single still fully mobile soldier is lost, in addition to the fact that a large portion of the heavier equipment such as machine guns was also lost on the leftmost portion of the line.''
The Master Chief nodded at this before replying ''I will personally head to the leftmost portion with 24 of my men, the remaining 16 will be evenly distributed among the centre and right flank of the line.'' The lieutenant nodded and saluted, after which the Master Chief repeated his orders to his men through the comms. Upon arrival, after assessing the situation, machine guns were set up, holes in the trench walls were patched up with omni-gel or, where none was available, with furniture and debris from the ruined buildings which themselves are turned into improvised bunkers and other strongpoints in the defensive line.
Soon Turian boots could be heard in the distance forcing the defenders to stop strengthening the line and man it instead. The moment the first Turian troops climbed over the slope in the distance all weapons were aimed at them, though said targets didn't know it as they started their advance seemingly unopposed. The colonel in command of the advance quickly got on the radio with his underofficers ''Advance as quickly as possible, before human re-enforcements arrive to actually man these defences!'' was the order repeated throughout the advancing Turian force, the officer hoping to finally have found a weak point in the human defences. Moments later he contacted the rear-guard ''Send over as many tanks as possible, we might have found our breakthrough!''
As his troops were now moving through the crater filled field, taking not a moment to take cover with he himself among them, the colonel would never get to realize just how costly of a mistake he had made as on the other side of the battle-field the master chief gave the order ''Open fire.'' With all defenders opening simultaneously the moment the order was given, the first ranks of Turian soldiers were completely decimated within seconds, their shields shredded through as if they weren't there in the first place, said colonel among them, with dozens more dying each second, with several precious seconds lost before it was realized just what was happening after the commanding officer was suddenly no longer alive.
Then the Turians started taking cover inside the artillery craters and firing back at the human soldiers, and while the return fire was far less effective than the human volley had been, it didn't need to be as unlike the Turians, the humans did not have the men to replace any losses taken, also forcing the humans to take cover far more in return. Visually it seemed as if streaks of blue fire met streaks of red, yellow and blue fire in addition to waves of lead, with the shell-craters starting to turn blue from their fallen inhabitants while the trenches became once more drenched in the red blood of its defenders.
As we zoom out from the battlefield, we can see similar battles happening all over the planet, hundreds of humans facing off against forces usually at least double their number in each collision, waves of lead and energy exchanging with torrential rains of Eezo powered metal grains, while far above a battle rages in space between thousands of ships from both sides, all fighting for the fate of what was once called the red planet, but is now known by another name: The Floating Fortress of Mankind. Victory or loss, for better or worse, the battle for it is that which will determine the war. Hundreds of millions on both sides had already died for it, with billions more being wounded, with those soldiers oft still fighting on in spite of said wounds.
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: near Mars, Location: Bridge of the frigate SSV Seawolf, Date: ?, POV: 1st person, Donnel Udina.
I feel a wave of force pick me up and slam me against the wall, most likely an explosion. With artificial gravity temporarily disabled by the impact before it starts up again, throwing me to the ground and making me see black. As I start coming to moments later, I shake my head trying to stand up ''Aaarggghhh!'' I fall back down, enhancing the pain even more. Looking down I see that my left foot is completely mangled with the armoured boot around it all but disintegrated, I am losing far too much blood, I need to cauterize the wound or I'll die in minutes, no other choice. I pull my plasma dagger out of its sheath, take hold of my leg at the joint connecting it to my foot and slash down, screaming out in pain once more while the stump is cauterized, before looking around in a haze of pain.
''Commander-'' I start but then I see Natalie's corpse pinned to the wall by a large piece of hull armour. Damnit not another one! I've lost far too many already this damn week! Looking around the bridge in desperation for any sign of life among my other comrades I see not a single one… only heaps of blood and body parts. I'm the only one left… ''Engineering to bridge, engineering to bridge!''
I hear a voice coming from the commanders station, which is somehow still partially intact. Gathering my strength I push myself off the wall, flying forward a bit as my leg once more acts up badly upon hitting the ground while my back feels as if it is broken before I start crawling towards it, the few meter journey taking an agonizingly long before I reach the station and with my remaining strength pull myself up on it to answer ''Second Lieutenant Udina reporting from Bridge, I am the only survivor among bridge crew, repeat all other bridge personnel are dead.''
''Ensign Vettel here at engineering, myself and ensign Molotov are the only remaining crew members alive as well, damnit.'' The raw hurt can be felt coming from the voice even through the indirect connection. ''You are the only officer left on the ship lieutenant, though we can hardly call it that anymore. The only things still working are a third of the engines, the Slipspace drive, emergency power generator and backup artificial gravity generators plus emergency life support.'' Looking over the commanders viewscreen I notice even more bad news.
''And on top of that all our damn weapons cannot be fired anymore from the bridge, are secondary controls there working for them?'' The silence I get in reply interrupted only by silent cursing for the next half a minute is more than enough of an answer. ''Then we have only one option left. We arm the Slipspace drive while I set the ship on a ramming course to the dreadnought that's getting closer. It seems to not have noticed we're not dead yet, let us notify them of it.'' I get grim but determined affirmatives, all three of us know we will die soon but we will make them pay dearly for it.
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: near Mars, Location: bridge of the dreadnought THSF Palaven's Fury, Date: ?, POV: 3rd person
Despite the battle going on around them, the turian bridge crew was working with near robotic efficiency, no emotion shown nor any physical indications that any except the admiral themselves were even feeling it. ''The SNV Surkesh's Viper was just destroyed, no survivors. That leaves us and the Destiny Ascension as the only remaining dreadnoughts left admiral.'' Is noted by the ships comms officer.
''Damnit, I'll have to reroute two of our cruisers to that flank, the Salarians won't be able to hold for long without more support.'' The comms officer turns back to his screen once the admiral finishes talking, while the admiral types in the commands on her pad to shift the remaining two cruiser reserves over to the right flank of the line, instead of their current position defending the dreadnought against fighter and small vessel assaults.
Before the admiral is a large battlefield map, with thousands of dots, all representing ships, a very large wave of mostly small blue dots slowly forcing away a far smaller fleet of on average a lot larger red dots. The officer can be heard muttering to himself ''As long as we keep up this momentum we should be victorious, we are pushing them. However our exchange rate of casualties is not a good thing, especially not in the heavier ship department.'' As always, the bridge crew does not react to the admirals mutterings.
''Admiral, there is movement in sector three, last enemy vessel was taken out ten minutes ago by a shot punching through their bridge. How do we proceed?'' The admiral takes a look before replying ''It's probably some fighters or shuttles from one of the ships that they managed to get to work, use the GARDIAN and broadside weapons to fight them, keep the main gun firing on the enemy heavy cruiser trying to perform a counter-attack.''
Moments later the admiral is proven wrong ''Admiral enemy is frigate and closing in. No weapons fire detected.'' The admiral looks confused for a moment before realization dawns and he stands up and shouts ''Turn the ship, aim the main gun! They're'' he never gets to finish the sentence as the ship is engulfed in a nuclear explosion, forever silencing the Palaven's Fury. As both of the remains of both of the now dead ships drift away from the leftover power of the explosion, we can see the giant fleet-battle still raging on behind them, with thousands of ships still fighting, but far more dead hulks and scattered chunks of debris floating around, now little more than a silent reminder of the will to fight till the bitter end of both sides of the conflict.
Going towards the battle we can now see a number Slipspace portals opening on the right flank of the battle, with a giant ship storming out of one of them supported by a dozen far smaller, but still cruiser sized, ships as the main gun of the leading ship opens fire, blasting through a number of small ships before destroying a cruiser, with the previously advancing council ships now being the ones on the defensive and forced back while losing more and more ships to the surprise attack, with the dreadnought that lead most of these ships also being gone throwing away almost all chances of an organized counter to this new attack force.
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: Mars, Location: 2nd battalion of the 1st ODST Division's defensive position, Date: ?, POV: 3rd person
We can see lieutenant Anderson firing a pistol at the enemy with his left hand while yelling into his comms. ''We need fire support on grid 17-10, 500 meters from our position as quickly as possible, enemy seems to be, no correction: enemy is bringing in armoured support! Our only still surviving drone has managed to slip behind the enemy lines and is showing their entire remaining tank company approaching for another attack, if we wish to survive for long I will need some form of artillery or anti-tank support pront-!'' Just as he finished saying this a burst of projectiles burst through the sandbags in front of him before they breakhis shields with a shot going it through his already badly wounded right shoulder, while another cut open the lower end of his ear, also breaking the jury-rigged com device that could potentially work around hostile jamming.
The damage forced him to drop his gun and let out a heavily pained grunt, causing a nearby soldier to look over before yelling ''Medic! The lieutenant is down!'' Before continuing putting fire downrange from his machine gun, while a medic comes crawling up before he closes the wound on the arm with some medi-gel before slightly smearing a bit more of it over his earlobe. Moments later he is back up again cursing at the misfortune before picking up his pistol, standing up and once more aiming it at the enemy lines, firing it all the while
Opposing the left flank of the defensive line, two tanks charged over the slope and entered the battlefield only for one of them to almost instantaneously be blown to dozens of pieces with a laser destroying the containment of its mass effect core, the explosion itself and the shrapnel injuring numerous nearby Turians. The second tank turns towards the point the laser came from and fires back with its main gun letting loose a stream of Talon sized Eezo powered chunks of metal, destroying one of the few pieces of hard cover left on the battlefield, only for a dozen different blasts of plasma and energy to slam into it within seconds, tearing off large portions of the hull while also killing the driver, sending it crashing down into the ground on top of its former comrade in arms, forcing the remaining crew and surviving nearby troops to get away quickly making easy targets for the defenders.
This caused a temporary boost to human morale until the what remains of the entire tank company charges up over the hill towards the human troops over a field filled with the husks of half of their comrades, creating the reverse effect. Down to only overclocked energy rifles of fallen soldiers and what few of the battalion's machine guns and light mortars remained to fight them, all hope seems lost and the men prepare for death in a stand of defiance against a superior enemy, giant bolts of plasma, metal and energy begin raining down upon the enemy, followed by large cannisters falling in the Turian lines behind the hill, erupting into a yellow fog.
Human fire and morale both pick up again, while SPAT guns race around the corner and start firing upon the surviving hostile tanks while into positions of cover behind what few remaining strongpoints there are in the defensive lines, with the shapes of SA aircraft, frigates and cruisers appearing on the far horizon.
The Master Chief's comm crackles to life ''Finally we were able to break through interference. The battle in orbit has been won, re-enforcements are heading ground-side in shuttles with air support on its way, while the advanced units of the fiftieth Chinese infantry division have already arrived at your position, the remainder is just around the corner. They need the enemies attention to be fully away from them to ensure they can get through the open area behind your lines.''
Cheers went up through the human lines at the sights in front of and behind them before the order ''Prepare to charge!'' was given and repeated by what few officers remained down the lines, with troops quickly attaching bayonets to their rifles or grabbing swords and combat knives while checking if their armours were sealed and if not, don their gas masks, while those too wounded too charge take over those positions at mortar and machine guns not already taken by walking wounded, the lieutenant dropping his nearly empty pistol in exchange for his service sword.
Moments later the order came ''In name of mankind, charge!'' as they climbed out of the trenched and roaring the battlecries ''For Mars!'' and ''Victory to the alliance!'' all charged towards the enemy, at motley mix of power armour and regular orbital drop infantry, less than a hundred in total, towards an enemy that was still reeling from losing most of their tanks and officers from the sudden bombardment, chemical attacks and hostile AT units, but still had numerous times more soldiers in the field with the Chinese forces appearing from behind them also charging forward to join the fray.
While some of the remaining Turians opened fire upon the humans, it was sporadic, uncoordinated and inaccurate due near all being affected by the gas, causing only a handful of casualties while letting the humans keep their momentum, which cost them badly only short moments after.
As the first of the men, an energy sword wielding green giant, crashed into the disorganized Turian lines while slicing their way forward nearly as a scythe through a wheat-field, several times more Turians die in the first moments than that there are troops of the second battalion left alive on the field, shattering what little coordination there was left amongst the Turians, causing it to turn into from small groups to single soldiers fighting back individually which then got swept away in less than a few minutes as the human re-enforcements reached them turning the once proud Turian fighting regiment into a routing mob with what few were left trying to fight back getting oft literally trampled by either human troops or their own allies.
This continues into and through the fallback line where the worst of the gas and bombardments hit in addition to continued follow up bombardments by newly available air support turning it into a completely chaotic nearly unmanned defensive line, with only a handful of troops still able to resist at all. Similar scenes are occurring all over the planet, with total victory being announced as what high ranking officers that remain amongst the council forces start announcing surrender on open radio communications. Moments later though, the troops are extremely confused for a moment as green ''Mission accomplished'' signs appear in front of them, before they start realizing what just happened, cursing all the while.
Dimension: Mass Effect, Solar system: SOL, Planet: Titan, Location: Office of the commander of VR training facility Alpha, Date: , POV: 3rd person
The master chief stands in front of general Sigmund von Neumann, the overall commanding officer of the new training program, and the one that ended up having to take overall command midway through the battle in the simulated campaign for Mars that they had just fought. With them was the commanding officer of china's second army, general Xi Yat-Sen, who had commanded the 'Turian' portion of the council ground forces on top of being their overall commander, plus admirals Cortana and Dresher, who had commanded the Council and Alliance fleets respectively.
''So'' Sigmund began. ''While this simulation has shown us much good about our armies and navies, especially due to the fact that most of our troops didn't know it was a simulation until they were either taken down or the campaign itself ended, thank you for the suggestion by the way colonel that made this all possible, especially the addition of civilians testing out the same new simulation technology on Mars and making it feel far more realistic.'' The master chief gave an almost imperceptible nod at this, though it was far easier to notice than usual due to him wearing his dress uniform instead of his armour.
''However'' the general continued ''it also showed three major issues: A. large numbers of our troops are in dire need of more close quarters combat training, as we saw in the battles that due to shielding and Citadel numerical superiority, our troops where often forced into either initiating such fighting or sometimes in the case of when against Elcor breakthrough units, Turian regulars or Asari commando's defend against it. It has shown that while in 1 on 1 fights our troops will almost never lose to any enemy the council can field due to both being equipped far more effectively for such fighting and also being trained more in it, units usually meant to be heavy weapons crews or tank crewmen oft only even got close to those results due to the better close quarters gear, where especially they but also large numbers of other units, especially those belonging to the Systems Alliance directly, started suffering direly when faced in such scenario's outnumbered by the enemy, which is a large problem when the entire point of such fighting from us is oft to overcome opposing numerical superiority. Any suggestions?''
''Sir, the ODST and power armour divisions, as well as those troops from the French, German and Russian militaries in general performed extremely well in those situations. I suggest doing more shared training exercises between them and the other armies to teach our and their soldiers in this field, with regular full on battles in simulations to test at least to an extent the average capabilities of the common soldier on how to use it in life or death combat against actual opponents.''
The general could be seen thinking this over for a moment, before nodding his consent. ''I'll draw up a more detailed proposal and send it to high command before seeing if any of those governments might be interested in it. We need the ODST and power armour units too much to train the extreme influx of recent additional divisions in those sectors to actually send much if any of them over to train entire armies of hundreds of millions in close quarters combat. Thank you again colonel. Now'' his tone turned more towards the two A.I. in the room specifically. ''this brings us to number two, which I only saw from the other side of the battlefield and only from the groundside of that but even I could see there was something utterly horribly wrong with your V.I. troops and, if to a lesser extent, their A.I. leadership, especially among the field officers. Just what was going on with that?''
Cortana and Yat-Sen looked at each-other before they shared a nod and Sen began ''The main problem for the A.I themselves on the ground were to be honest at least partially reliant on the fact that we might not have fully thought through just what would happen in the field. For example, usually when going into a strategic or tactical match, it's a single Human or A.I. officer leading a number of V.I. troops against another human or A.I. officer, or a few against a few, with all knowing it was just a simulation, no matter what the number of V.I. troops used was. Here an army of billions of V.I. lead by less than a hundred million A.I. was fighting an army of close to a billion human soldiers. Meaning that with our own troops, the moment an officer died and they were the only ones in the area, their platoon would be unable to actually think and would either stay in place and defend themselves or literally keep on following their last order without any chance of changing the plan the moment something went wrong.
On top of this is the fact that unlike their human enemies, our A.I. soldiers saw this is as a training exercise instead of an actual war, meaning that they were completely and utterly unprepared for the ferocity and tenacity of human troops.'' She shakes her head at the thought just thinking of how harshly the humans had fought. ''Single squads holding last stands against entire divisions of hostiles, soldiers fighting on despite losing limbs, heavily damaged ships suicide bombing while ramming by overcharging their FTL drives, single soldiers playing dead after their ammunition was spent only to ambush entire platoons while only have a bayonetted rifle, knife or sword on them left, or even civilians that had been gotten into the program for the realism actually taking up arms alongside the soldiers and fighting desperately to try to take us out, no matter the cost. Because as far as they knew, the moment Mars was lost, a large number of our civilians, including their friends and families in numerous occasions, would be killed by the council troops just for existing as something they did not appreciate being alive.''
Cortana picked up there ''Another problem which turned up in the first one already is a pretty simple thing: our combat V.I's are horrible. They are good, even nearly perfect at controlling any kind of bodies they could possibly need to use themselves, however their mental and tactical capabilities are so bad they are almost non-existent. A temporary stopgap would be to have our V.I's start recognising nearby organic officers as their superior officers the moment their own officers are unable to keep on fighting for one reason or another, however even with that it won't be a full solution.''
Okay by the time I write this on 16th of March 2020 after having it lying around completely finished for months, however I had gotten myself a beta-reader, but for some reason he hasn't reacted since februari 2020. Because of this I've just decided to turn what was originally meant to be a single 15k words chapter into two chapters, one 6500 words of actual content, the other roughly 8500 words. One of the reasons why I am so uncertain about these chapters to wait with them so long is relatively simple, a lot of the 'words' I have written down about my stories is literally written down in paper note-books. This means that portions of them are potentially not very compatible with other portions of the story, as can probably be seen in this chapter where most time that I even spent writing on it was gluing a dozen different small stories together. I hope it is a somewhat interesting story, as always please do review on what you find less good or better about it, I try to apply advice wherever possible.