Maybe on full auto with a good ten seconds or so to spray, but one really strong round isn't hitting four lungs at the same time unless it's explosive.

 

Which do exist, and would likely be rapidly mass produced one their effectiveness was determined. But I think you're underestimating the effectiveness of gunpowder weaponry in general. I don't think HE rounds would be necessary to take down a krogan. As I said before, as soon as the krogan developed the most primitive gundpowder weapons, they were slaughtering each other with them, which shows that you don't need super-advanced ordinance, or even particularly high-velocity rounds to kill them.

.50 cal hollowpoints are advanced, high-velocity rounds, and do absolutely massive tissue damage to even the hardiest of creatures on Earth. .50 cal armor-piercing rounds are used to bust heavy duty steel engine blocks IRL (hell, even the smaller .308 AP is capable of this). API (armor piercing incendiary) rounds are even more devastating, and are relatively common.

Look, my intention is not to debate the likelyhood of humanity winning. I think we can all agree that the odds are against it, but I think it is possible, and from a story-telling standpoint, overcoming near-impossible odds is a compelling staple of most of the fiction out there.

To put it into HP terms, Harry defeating Voldemort is incredibly unlikely, but he does it anyway.

 

Stop thinking about them like they're a conventional army. They're a plague. The very best case scenario would still involve Krogan infesting all the forests, jungles, swamps, and uninhabited regions of the world, as well as holding sway over everywhere that's not first world enough to be able to boot them out, and they'd need constant purges just to keep the population down.

And that's only if you manage to wipe out every single individual Krogan that has knowledge of the greater universe, which is ridiculous.

And you're completely discounting the advantages of armed, spaceworthy vessels. Go around shooting satellites and the world goes blind. Blast enemy positions from orbit. Shoot the White House, shoot the Pentagon, shoot the Kremlin. Go nuts!

 

I'm not saying that gunpowder weapons aren't devastating. What I'm saying is that it probably wouldn't matter.

A ridiculously powerful bullet, no matter how powerful, is still only going to hit something that holds the same value - at that point in time - as an appendix. You'd have to shoot at least three lungs for it to actually matter. Your bullet can rip straight through a heart, turning it into a pink gooey mass, but you'll have to hit the other one for it to matter. These are redundant organs.

 

Canon seems to imply that frigates aren't very effective for orbital bombardment. There's a reason that every reference to orbital bombardment in ME canon refers to dreadnoughts doing the bombarding, and these krogan have no dreadnoughts, nor the infrastructure to build them. Yes, the few frigates they have in this scenario could be used to devastating effect, but I said they were [/i]old[/i], even by Krogan Rebellions standards. They can be downed by the technology available to humans. This is not an invasion fleet, it's a Battlestar-esque group of refugees with minimal military capability.

I disagree. Look up how hollowpoint, hydrashock, or shredder rounds work: they expand and fragment, tearing flesh apart. A center-mass hit could concievable take out both hearts, or do enough damage to all four lungs to kill them,.

 

That implies that both hearts/lungs would be located close together. That would make their entire existence fairly retarded.

And that center mass is pretty fucking big. Most of the time grunt looks about twice as wide as Shepard.

But, this is all assuming a totally unarmored army of Krogan. Shielding? I'm willing to accept that they might not have had it, but a modern bulletproof vest would go a long way, considering the impact would probably be negligible to the Krogan.

Fuck, just the kind of metal armor that most enemies in mass effect have would make them very difficult to kill. Watch. No shield, as you would have seen it materialize for the headshots, but he takes 5 rounds (two in the head) from a 22nd century pistol. It doesn't do much more than irritate him a little.

There's also one thing that no one's considered so far: Biotics, Krogans have them. More than that, they can fucking make them. They stopped doing it because of the genophage, but on a ship that's been flying a thousand years? For every person who dies during the process, a new one could be born. By the time they reached Earth, it'd be a ship of 10,000 biotic Krogan.

 

And I disagree with you.

Anything that 1977 earth can throw against the Krogan should be useless...
Nuclear weapons? I tought the citadel speecies where far beyond that when they found the Krogans...

A small "fleet" of ME spaceships or even a single cruiser should be enough to devestate Earth in 1977. What do we have? some nuclear missiles? which I highly doubt a ME spaceship isn't armored or shielded against.

The only reason the krogans would have to actually land on the planet before destroying everything is to give us a fair chance to fight. (just because they would probably want a real fight after a long flight)

And even if you say a couple of thousand in the start; after a while on the ship their population would grow, right?

edit: don't drink and write. ( >: )

 

I just remembered a Mass Effect plotbunny that I came up with a while ago, though it'll probably be significantly worse than Othalan's.

The Council waits a little longer before intervening and the Turian Fleet goes through the Arcturus equivalent of the Charon Relay. Turians land on terran soil...and The Stars Are Right.

Massive tsunamis occur on both sides of the pacific as an island rises out of the ocean floor. Deathless Chinamen walk down from the mountains and raze Tibet. Somewhere near Damascus a prophet rises out of the sands.

The same type of shit is going on Galaxy wide as Old Gods wake up. Suddenly the situation changes drastically.

That's the plot of the prologue, simplified enormously. The story would take place during Mass Effect.

I have a few other things plotted out, but I felt like posting it.

Now DLP can rip it apart.

 

We already have Old Gods (or close enough) in ME.

Though I would like to see Sovereign and Cthulhu fight, actually...

 

Not really. The frigates that the Krogans are using are not Council standard, even a thousand years ago. Remember that these guys are not engineers. Krogans have a lower level of technology than the rest of the Council. Can you really see these frigates maintaining up to date shielding over hundreds of years? Even then, these ships are pretty fragile in the first place.

And while on the ship, there wouldn't be the possible space to expand the population. The original idea called for a charismatic Battlemaster to put as many Krogan as he could find in a fleet. The numbers would have to remain fairly stable simply because there is no room for another ten thousand. The excess population would probably be killed off in dominance fights and things like that. A good way to keep Krogans strong, and in manageable numbers.

As has been mentioned, the Krogan are basically a plague. Given a fertile planet like Earth, all they need is time, and they will win. Fullstop. Someone did the numbers earlier, and even for more conservative estimates, the Krogans just breed too fucking quickly. So, the challenge for the Humans is to react fast enough and brutally enough to stop the birth rate from being effective. I see nuclear strikes against female targets, killing child Krogan et. al. The humans will have about a decade to shut down the invasion. If they don't absolutely punish the Krogan, they will lose. They can do it, but it would be damn hard.

The more this plot bunny is discussed, the more awesome it seems to get.

 

The best part about this is that unless the blast itself kills the female target, it isn't going to do much. The Krogan had turned Tuchanka into a nuclear wasteland long before the Salarians arrived.

For some reason I'm imagining a District Nine-esque situation after the humans win (The author obviously thinks they will win.) with all Krogan births being very closely monitored with all but extremely few being killed.

Then fast forward a century or so (Possibly shortened by the new technology) when a humanity that has met and subjugated the Krogan meets the Turians.

This would never happen based on aforementioned curbstomp, but it would still be pretty epic. Something that I could see written on spacebattles, but not quite good enough for DLP.

EDIT:

I had factored the reapers into this actually. I'd explain it, but it'd be a fairly massive spoiler in the event that I actually decided to write this.

 

ME/Cthulu crossover? Yes please. The whole grand space opera colliding with unspeakable horror just works.

It would be totally awesome if the Reapers were some sort of anti-Old Gods force designed to harvest corrupted races in an effort to prevent the spread of Old Gods throughout the galaxy. Giant Reaper fleet versus an army of space Cthulus?

Or perhaps they are merely another of Nyarlhotep's twisted experiments, a sort of shock trooper against other Old Gods? The Reapers are on such a scale you'd expect them to be intimately involved in the Cthulu mythos somehow.

But, who would be the main character? Lovecraft always had some naive sod getting destroyed by revelations, but this seems to be on a much bigger scale. Eh, still, the idea rocks.

 

Actually, they may not be engineered to defend against nukes. Kinetic barriers are made to stop fast-moving solid matter. Sovereign's guns, the Collector's ship-to-ship weapons, and the Thanix cannons basically fire concentrated streams of liquid metal, and they cut clean through the barriers of the ME ships they strike. So, it stands to reason that the plasma (and shockwave, if detonated in atmo) from a nuclear or thermonuclear detonation would devastate their ships with equal impunity, so long as ground zero is relatively close by.

As for them being too far beyond the technology, they're not. Nuclear weapons are one of the types of WMDs that are heavily restricted by the Citadel Conventions. That implies that they are still a serious threat, even if they have been superseded by the more efficient, if less devastating, main cannons of a dreadnought, or the more powerful antimatter bomb.

Or they would have to land to avoid outright civil war. The Krogan are many things, but, as a whole, patient is not one of them. After years of running (something that goes against the grain of Krogan culture, causing no small amount of agitation as it is), they come to a habitable world. Is it all that likely that they would concede to the idea of sitting back for a few more years while the few light warships they have whittle down the Earth's defenses from a safe distance?

I think it's a hell of a lot more likely that the warlord leading them would have no choice but to make landfall as soon as possible. If he didn't, his own people would turn on him and do it anyway.

EDIT: Revision: One ship, a re-purposed Krogan scout with longer jump endurance pushes farther ahead of the rest of the fleet, reaching Earth in '77, but an argument over mating rights for the single female on board erupts into a full mutiny. During the chaos, the ship de-orbits and crash-lands in the wilderness of northern Canada. When a joint Canadian and American recovery team sent to the wreck is slaughtered, the military is sent in. Overwhelming the ship's small crew at massive cost, what's left of the ship and the corpses of its crew are taken back to several top secret research facilities in the U.S. for study.

Eventually, Soviet spies manage to steal some of the research data and material, and the Cold War arms race accellerates. By the time the main fleet arrives (say, in 1997), the First and Second worlds have some basic interplanetary capability and small scale element zero mining operations in the asteroid belt. Mass accellerator weapons are being phased into general service by both sides, though they're still relatively rare.

With computer and weapons tech significantly closer to parity with the krogan fleet, and a better understanding of the enemy they face, humanity stands a much better chance of survival.

 

Who would be the main character? Why, Commander John Shepard, human 'biotic' (if they can be called such), second class, accompanied by his crew:

Lt. Kaiden Alenko [sanity risk] 'biotic' first class.

Chief Ashley Williams, only survivor of Eden Prime and last descendant of General Williams of Shanxi.

Officer Garrus Vakarian, sniper and one of less than a thousand survivors of a Shan infestation in the Lower Wards of the Citadel.

Battlemaster Urdnot Wrex, the only member of the crew exactly as sane now as he was before the stars were right.

Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya, proud member of a race that could finally take off their suits and live...if all resistance was crushed on Earth.

and Dr. Liara T'soni, biotic first class, and (somewhat)harmlessly insane prophet.

EDIT:

If something massive dropped out of the sky in NORAD territority during the Cold War, nukes would be launched.

They once came close to nuking Russia because they detected the moon.

So when the Krogan fleet landed, they'd have found an earth that looked like Tuchanka.

 

*throws hands up*

Fine, fuck it. I'm sick of arguing this shit. Forget I even brought up the idea.

 

Otholan: No don't give up! It's a damn awesome idea, and would make an awesome story. Sometimes, to set the scene you need to use a little authors licence. They don't nuke anything in the sky. You have your plot. Anyway.

Thats a pretty good revision. It provides a pretty elegant introduction to the concept in the scout prologue (I assume thats how it would play out) while also solving the some of the balance issues. Your points about the Krogan fleet and strategy make a lot of sense, they would definitely have to land, and their ships would be vulnerable.

Fiat: Wow, nice re-imagining of the entire crew of the Normandy as being potentially psychotic or insane. And Wrex, who's already psychotic and insane. They really do have a lot of issues, don't they? But, wasn't this set sometime before ME1 in the Human-Turian War? Small point, but still.

 

That was meant to be the plot of the prologue. I thought I mentioned that...

By the time of the actual story, Earth would be virtually uninhabitable, though there'd still be a war effort going on, even if less than an eighth of the force trying to reclaim it were of any recognizable species. Palaven would have been destroyed in a manner similar to Shaggai, Thessia would be totally unaffected except for a brief burst in seismic activity followed by what later data revealed to be a 5 megaton atomic blast under it's crust. No Asari casualties resulted from this.

@Othalan: We're just nitpicking. Yes, it's extraordinarily unlikely, (And I really dislike your second scenario) but you should still write it, if just to prove us wrong. I'd definitely read it.

 

I don't mind the "here's why this won't work." What gets to me is the general lack of "Here's how you can make it work." The "constructive" to the criticisms I'm getting, if you will.

I don't really like the revision I threw in there either. It was a half-assed patch intended to encourage the aforementioned "constructive", rather than an idea I placed any real stock in.

So now you guys have the general idea I'm going for here, except the end result I'm looking for. Obviously I want humanity to win the war, and it should be one hell of a meat grinder, taking decades to end and leaving massive cultural trauma. The result is a more "hardcore" humanity, I guess you could say, that enters the galactic stage earlier than in canon.

I'm rather torn between this AU's version of the System's Alliance being a Starship Troopers-esque militant democracy, or a Star Wars-esque monarchist empire (Emperor Shepard, anyone?) complete with violently xenophobic tendencies (at least toward Krogan).

If done properly, the Imperial path could be interesting, but I've seen one or two fics out there that tried this concept and failed hard, falling into the trap of jingoistic humanocentrism. I want things to be more balanced than that, leaving humanity in a stronger position than they were in during the games, but still at a disadvantage to the Citadel races. After all, one of the things I liked best about the ME storyline was the stunningly rare idea that the human race might not be top dog in the galaxy; that there might be older, smarter, and stronger civilizations out there ready to slap down overambitious young races like ours.

The militant democracy option could be good also, but it looks like it would be way too easy to turn it into a borderline clone of the Turian Heirarchy, which would be a little boring, if you asked me.

Anyway, now you know Points A and B. I just need a little help figuring out how to get from one to the other in a realistic fashion.

 

Okay *rubs hands*

Well, if you want the humans to win they are going to have to be pounded like a three buck fifty whore. Heres a bit of a scenario that could work. Krogans arrive, shoot down satellites that get in their way to avoid detection. The Krogans land before anyone can react and they choose an area they can expand in the easiest - Africa. They can easily survive in desert environments, so they have a ton of space.

Humanity doesn't know what to do with these obviously alien ships. They send out radio messages, whatever they can to make contact. Krogans retaliate (cause they cool like that) with a massive strike that all but wipes out humans in Asia Minor and Africa. Humanity forms a coalition to combat this threat. A huge ground force goes in from Asia and Europe, but is heavily outmatched against the armoured Krogan, take heavy casualties, and retreat. The Krogans also buckle down, as they need to replenish their losses.

A WW1 style standoff occurs where humans don't want to sacrifice the army, and Krogans don't want to leave their females unguarded. However, about 8 years into the conflict, massive amounts of Krogan reinforcements are brought to the front lines - the children are grown up. Humans collectively say "Oh shit" and step up their game, putting everything into a desperate attack.

While doing this, they are scavenging mass driver technology and around the 10 year mark they discover how to utilize Element Zero. Mass driver weapons are brought in on a provisional basis. The war gets more and more vicious, as while the Krogans are being held back by the new technology, Earth's population is taking a heavy hit. Finally, in a radical move the Earth defense forces spend half of their remaining nukes in an attempt to eliminate the breeding centers that hold up the Krogan side. Africa is totally irradiated and the Mediterranean is now a dead sea, but the Krogans can no longer hold up their numbers and are eventually finished off, 25 years after they arrive.

The remaining population of earth is very low (2 billion) and the military of all the countries are still centralized after the war. Martial Law is imposed in order to reorganize and invigorate Earth. A police state is instituted around the planet, and using prototype starships that use Element Zero in construction, the begin to spread out in their system, discovering the Mars Prothean base many years early. Using the research left behind there, humans update their own technology to a higher, but still sub-council level.

Possible sequels might feature:
The Turian war happening early, when humanity is a vicious bastard to all aliens.
A heavily militarize humanity attempting to threaten or attack the full council.
The hilariously racist human race entering a huge universe where they are just another violent gang.
etc.

Whoa, I kinda got into that.

 

Interesting idea. I like it. But for a timeframe for the war (or series of wars), I was thinking of something more in the realm of 60-80 years, with fronts on multiple continents. As I envisioned it, a hell of a lot more than Africa and the Mediterranean are rendered uninhabitable. Think "neutron bomb dropped on Paris", or "Los Angeles as a glass crater" or "Moscow in ruins", and you're closer to the level of desperation and devastation I'm imagining. After all, it would quite a bit of pressure to unite the world under one police state, be it monarchy or democracy.