Industrial Commander

10

— Commander True

Turns out, it's a lot easier to track down the Batarians than I thought it would be. Element Zero FTL was traceable. How? Dark Matter Displacement. It left trails of Dark Matter behind whenever it was used. This meant that I could track them down. Not to mention one more important matter, I was faster than they were. They had split up after some time from the station. It wouldn't work of course. I had a decent hunter fleet, and my railguns were capable of destroying a ship with one shot a piece.

So that is what I did, I tracked down each ship, and demanded their surrender, or their death. If I had my Null Cannons installed on these ships it would be much easier to capture them, unfortunately kinetic dampener weapons were only developed and tested within the last month. So while I was able to install Null Fields on the suits for my Security teams, I wasn't able to do the same with my current fleets. The War Fleet would have them though.

Regardless, there was only one ship left, the one who was in charge had evaded my chase a bit by constantly changing directions with their FTL. They were definitely trying to get to a relay. Sixteen of the other ships had chosen death, with the rest surrendering. Some had slaves on board. Made me feel a bit guilty about destroying the other ships, as there could have been more people enslaved there. But I couldn't let the Batarians go. So I'd just have to repress that guilt.

— Citadel Council Chambers

"You can't just declare war on the Batarians!" The Asari Councilor was talking directly to the Systems Alliance diplomat.

Ambassador Oliver Step just smiled in response. "There was a Batarian raid within Systems Alliance territory, this is a declaration of war, we are just returning the favor."

The Turian Councilor said nothing, however secretly he gave the Human Diplomat a thumbs up.

The Asari Councilor kept arguing with the Ambassador. Who neatly side-stepped their arguments. The Salarian and Turian Councilor just listened. Not interfering in the argument.

Then the Ambassador dropped the bomb. "Also, the A.I. you refused to acknowledge has declared war on the Batarians as well."

The Salarian and Turian Councillor were fully focused again. The Turian Councillor spoke up. "We've heard of this A.I. race, why haven't we been introduced to them."
The Systems Alliance Ambassador raised one of their eyebrows, "You all obviously knew of Commander True, so why haven't you tried to initiate contact yourself?"

The Asari Councilor replied nearly instantly, "Diplomatic contact with the A.I. has already been arranged, the Ambassadors haven't been chosen yet."

The talk deviated, as they continued arguing. Regardless, the Human Diplomat was doing their job, keep the Citadel busy while the Systems Alliance prepared for war.

— Narrative

Media outlets were having a heyday with recent events. Many were trying to push a narrative that Commander True was trying to eradicate an entire race for a small slight. Others were praising the Commanders call to action. Each going at each other's throats. Amul Shastri was trying their hardest to win back the polls that had been sliding into Harold Hutchins hands, as such they were pushing an A.I. bad narrative. It is unknown if this would work yet, Amul Shastri had been sighted talking to a Specter a week earlier before they had committed to this route. Many suspect Citadel foul play.

Seventy percent of Social Media was on Commander True's side, however the vocal minority were protesting like mad. Commander True was often deporting protestors off the Starports. Many praise this move, especially after the attempted riot at Gateway Starport. While others condemn it.

Citadel Media however was condemning the attack, with none opposing their narrative. Those who tried to oppose the narrative suddenly changed their tune within a few hours. The Batarian Hegemony has started preparing for war, while sending negotiators to attempt to stop the A.I. from attacking them.

— The Shadow Broker
To say the Shadow Broker was pissed was an understatement. He had lost a useful agent for nothing. Not to mention the Asari Matriarch that had paid the bounty had disappeared. The Agent had detonated their own ship after they discovered that one of the A.I. ships had discovered them. Luckily, that would prevent the A.I. from tracking down the Shadow Broker.

If he found that Asari Matriarch, he would kill her and eat her for their deception. They wouldn't have initiated the hit on that Systems Alliance station if they knew it was a cooperative project with an alien A.I. He was a Yahg, he knew Apex Predators, and according to his knowledge, A.I. were massive Apex Predators. So he needed to cut off all links from that Batarian raiding party to himself. When he got the news that the A.I. had declared war on the Batarians? He knew his plan to throw off the A.I.'s trace had worked.

— Commander True

The Shadow Broker would have to be dealt with. I had managed to save the data off of the Asari corpses Multi-Tool. Evidence there leads me to believe that this wasn't organized by the Batarians, no. The Asari had planted the bomb on the Starport, and after planting it they fled while contacting an unknown entity. Unfortunately for them, I was very good at tracking, and I had traced the to another Agent, who had another connection to another Agent. It took a lot of hunting up the web, but I was eventually able to trace the connection to Hagalaz. A Salarian Garden Planet. I would have to deal with that soon. That was as far as my connection would show me. But I was able to find out the Shadow Broker was hired by an Asari Matriarch to attack the station.

I can't tell if the Yahg is just suicidal for attacking one of my Starports, or if he didn't realize that I was one of the people behind the Starports construction. Regardless this smelled like a conspiracy. I wonder if the Citadel is responsible? No, the Citadel has a lot of credits, but they wouldn't be able to do something like this without facing a lot of red tape. No this had to be one of the Big Three's Governments, or an independent Agent of one of the races with an absurd amount of credits. Which limits the possibilities to only one race. An Asari Government official had just ordered an attack on one of my Starports, and they had backing from the Asari Government. Or else they would not have been able to afford that contract.

It was at that point my Extranet diving was noticed by a group of Extranet Security agents. So I cut off the connection. This was very productive in more ways than one, for one I now had an accurate territory map to use, meaning I wouldn't be hunting Batarian planets down blindly. I was also able to take a look at the developing landscape of the rest of the galaxy, and boy. They were making me out to be Hitler when you looked at these headlines. Worse threat than the Geth? Well, yeah. But I hadn't declared war on them.
Nothing I can do about it but be ready if something happens, actually wait. Can't I just drag my name out of the mud? Huh, I can do that can't I. They can't silence me, if I place a few stealthy Extranet buoys down they won't even be able to stop my propaganda campaign. Yeah, that is the plan.

— Still Commander True, Different Thought Process

I can't go to war with the Batarians without an actual plan. They knew I'd be attacking them soon. If they didn't initiate a raid first that is. The plan... is actually fairly complicated. I was starting with holding their Mass Relays hostage. Thanks to my delve into the Extranet I was able to get a fairly up to date starmap. Their territory was within my FTL's range now. Three months ago it wasn't, as the dimension hadn't expanded that far out yet. Now it is possible.

Anyways, First is to hold the relays. Cutting off the Batarians ability to reinforce the planets I was going to assault. After that I was bringing down the heat into major Batarian planets. I would attack Torfan, but I'd be stepping right into a war with the Citadel if I were to do so, because it was within Citadel space. So I'd just starve it out. The Batarians on Torfan were only able to buy from Traders that came from Batarian space, as the Citadel had made prices on supply sky high per the moment as a way to pressure the Systems Alliance. Thus I had to make do for now, those Batarian groups wouldn't last long regardless, the Turians aren't likely to ignore them anymore if they start raiding en masse.

I was planning on besieging two planets at a time. My Carriers would be sending tons of Dox and Hunter Drones down to the planet. As well as medical drones and Null Dox, for capturing and healing slaves and... slavers. I wasn't really interested in completely wiping out the Batarians, the culture of the Batarians was going to get completely wiped though. Damn, that draws so many comparisons to Hitler in my mind. But still, it had to be done. I couldn't tolerate a slaving government so close to my friends. I was already going to outlive them, I wasn't going to let their lives end early just because someone had decided that they wanted human slaves. The First War Fleet will be done in only two more hours. The Defensive fleet will be done in three. After that, the campaign will begin.

— Systems Alliance, Prime Minister Harold Hutchins

Harold took a deep breath, kneading his forehead. The U.N. had initiated a meeting with him asking why he had declared war on another alien super power. They demanded that apologies be made and the war stopped. However, Harold couldn't do that. He made it quite obvious that those demands wouldn't be met. Once that happened the U.N. decided that they would disavow the Systems Alliance. This was made public within hours, and the backlash... wasn't there. The only backlash against the Systems Alliance were people on Earth. Everywhere else? They refused to drop the sovereignty of the Systems Alliance. Harold's poll numbers had soared after this event. He was pretty much guaranteed to be the Prime Minister again in the next election.

He had to ask his advisors how he had actually managed to supplement the U.N.'s control over the colonies beyond Earth. The answer? The economic deal that was struck with Commander True. Commander True was an A.I., and was able to communicate and form relations with everyday citizens. This led to support for Commander True growing and growing, and Commander True going to war because thousands of human lives were lost? Especially after the recordings were shown? Support for the Systems Alliance had skyrocketed to the point where U.N. had less goodwill and power than the Systems Alliance. However Howard was now terrified he would get assassinated by the U.N. Thus, he commissioned the Guardian Security, Commander True's security company. Seeing those Power Armor Bodyguards made Harold feel a lot safer.