The Project
Chapter 90
The Project
Shining swallowed nervously as he gazed upon his armor. A large part of the right side of his barrel armor had bent outwards or was blown away entirely, giving him a good indication of the damage the heavy pistol had actually managed to do when the third shot hit.
“I take it there’s no time to repair that, is there?” Shining asked Fidelis who was standing on a pillar, observing the captain as he inspected his armor.
“The system didn’t have the resources available to patch it up while you were being worked on. If we were to wait for it to fully repair it now then we’d run out of the time you’ve given me,” she responded, cutting off her hologram to sink back into the pillar. “I had a slot for my module placed right at that strange module connected to your neck, it was the fastest way I could adapt the suit.”
“Right… So how do I get you in there?” Fidelis remained silent and a module popped out of the pillar, glowing bright blue. Shining gently levitated the relatively small module in front of his face, acting as if it were a newborn foal. After finding that it fit perfectly in the slot where his biotic amp was supposed to go, Shining went ahead and put on the suit and powered it back up. His body still ached terribly and the cold was definitely not gone, but this was no time to be worried about that.
Guess it’s good that she at least patched up the undersuit, that would have been awkward if I had to go out into a vacuum.
Shining felt a slightly cold sting in his neck as his armor’s systems booted back up and a shield appeared around him once more. “Wow, it’s really cramped in here. Guess I should have expected that.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that I’m afraid. We’ve got other things to do right now.” Shining picked up the M-76 and checked his ammo, only one and a half clips left. He proceeded to follow the lights that would lead to what was supposed to be an exit. Fidelis had granted him access to all of her base’s doors so getting there was a breeze with her guidance. “Ready to head out, little one?”
“I-I guess?” the AI stuttered, making Shining chuckle.
“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”
“I only do logistics! I know nothing about fighting, which is clearly what you’re going to do!” She exclaimed in distress. “Just… be careful alright? There’s two of us in here now.”
“Wasn’t planning on getting shot again,” Shining told her with a confident smile, bringing his rifle up as he’d reached the final door and opened it. The door hissed as air from the outside came in and equalized the pressure. Familiar, clearly human-designed, scaffolding greeted him as he carefully stepped out of the hallway he’d been standing in. The walkways looked to be abandoned so the captain decided to waste no time in finding a way back into the human base, using elevators and signs to make his way to an entrance. When he did, Shining found another clock hanging above the doorway.
00:01:37:23
“That’s not good, I take it?” Fidelis asked as she projected herself on Shining’s omni-tool’s holographic display.
“No it’s not, but at least we’re not too late,” the captain growled, opening the door into the base proper. No humans had yet appeared, but he was sure that was soon going to change. “We need to get to the project’s control center and get this asteroid on its way.”
Entering the facility Shining rapidly moved through the hallways, moving closer to where the directions on the wall were pointing him. Through the windows outside Shining was able to spot the relay. The asteroid had gotten really close to it in the time he was out. Finally after a good ten minutes of nothing, Shining ran into his first obstacle. As the door in front of him opened, two human guards stood on the other side of it, completely caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the pony in front of them. Shining did not waste any time pointing his rifle and pulling the trigger, dropping the two humans rapidly. “Well, there goes our element of surprise.”
“A-are they dead?” Fidelis’ voice trembled again as Shining snagged up the thermal clips from the human’s belts. “Why?”
“We’re out of time and they’ve been corrupted by the reaper artifact they have standing in the open. It’s regrettable but we’re out of options,” Shining explained, going into a sprint now he still could make some decent ground. It took about two minutes for alarms to start blaring but by this point Shining recognized the hallways where he’d already walked through and knew where the control center was located. “Fidelis, can you lock down the doors of the project room if we get there?”
“I-I can try!” she replied, Shining storming into the control room where a couple of guards were already assembling and waiting to be sent someplace. Shining immediately let his rifle do its job and opened up on the closest guard. His horn also started glowing brightly as he powered up his shield spell. The two parties traded heavy fire but Shining was slowly gaining ground as he had the advantage of not having to pop out of cover to fire his levitating rifle. He could also use his superpowered shield to ensure his safety when things got dicy.
“What’s the status of those doors!” Shining shouted as he got into a firefight with one of the heavily shielded humans.
“They're closed but manual override is still possible!” Fidelis replied, as the human Shining was firing upon lost his shield and was cut down at the same time.
“Good enough, we just have to activate these engines and lock their controls!” Shining shouted over the roar of his rifle which cut out halfway due to a lack of remaining thermal clips. Letting out a loud warcry Shining charged at the last human and activated his omni-blade, slicing through the human’s armor as if it was butter. The captain then turned and sprinted towards the massive control panel that had two countdown timers ominously hanging over it, a window giving a good view of the massive engines that were supposed to drive the asteroid into the relay as a VI in the console greeted him as he approached. “Activate the project!” Shining ordered.
“Warning, the activating the project will result in an estimated three-hundred thousand casualties. Do you wish to continue?”
Shining’s will wavered as his heart sunk at the displayed number…
304942 lives… Celestia, please forgive me...
Mission first, information later~ 
[Paragon] or [Renegade] are colored when available, though normal options might also contribute to one or the other. As for the shippers under us, [Romance] is now also a thing.
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Now edited by gerandakis and lordelliot
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This remind me of a moment where we must choose to allow Mordin sacrifice himself or talked him down. The consequences is a single life lost or the extinction of a race respectively.
So, Shining Armor and Fidelis. Are they the Master Chief and Cortana of the story now? Partnership wise I mean.
I don't envy Shining Armor.
Damn Shining, I didn't think you had in you.
The Reapers DO need to be stopped, a bunch of slaving Batarians make little difference to me in this matter
i was never able to play any of the dlc's but i feel like the reaper artifact /the DLC is doing is almost similar to the beacons in dead space, or maybe thats just how reading the past few chapters makes it feel for me, keep up the great work though Commander AJ.
And once this is over, Fidelis needs to learn how to imitate being a VI. I do not envy the hard drive ache this will cause her.
. “Just… be careful alright? There’s two of us in here now.”
https://youtu.be/Cl6KpD9tK3g
I see what you did there :)
So, Equestria went through a complete destruction of their civilization, breaking them to a point where they didn't really start rebuilding until around a thousand years ago (though it might not be the first rebuilding, it just be this is the one that stuck).
We've also learned a few things throughout the story. Equestria did not use the Mass Relay network, thus hiding them from the Reapers. We also know that both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash have evidence of genetic modification, but Shining Armor doesn't. Those modifications seem to me amping up aggression, and that they were dormant before but being away from Equestria triggered it.
From the games we also know that the reapers like to indoctrinate creatures and send them in as sleeper agents to attack from the inside.
So, crazy theroy time!
During the last cycle, the Reapers were aware of ponies, and felt they were more of a threat then most (possibly because of the magic combined with the tech). They were a high priority target, but not being on the relay network prevented a direct attack. They still managed to indoctrinate a number of ponies, so when they went back they started working to destroy Equestria for within. They did this by creating a virus that would cause genetic mutations in all the other races and pony tribes, causing extreme personality changes, aggression to pegasus just being one of them. They then created creatures like the Wendigos and the Sirens that feed on these new amped up emotions, and create even more of them. This caused a chain reaction that resulted in a Fallout Equestria style war that ended the world, destroying all advanced tech and leaving the survivors attacking each other. It's possible this war is what damaged the sun and moon, requiring them to be manually controlled.
This was effectively the status quo for the next few thousand years, maybe with new single race or tribe civilizations rising up only to collapse as they came against the other races and tribes. It wasn't until Hearth's Warming that things changed, with the creation of the harmony magic suppressing these amped up tendencies in ponies. It still took time, but it allowed them to start to really rebuild, though slowly and carefuly.
Interesting enough, thanks to Twilight and her school, the harmony magic is now starting to spread to the other species, the result of which is that they are becoming less 'planet of hats' type characters with one trait defining the species, and more well rounded over all.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
If you survive.
10128806
Hey, EDI managed just fine in Mass Effect 3... untill Shepard told Samantha Traynor.
10127637
Hence, spoiler blocker.
Why do I get the feeling this will become another Joker-Edi situation but with less awkwardness?
10128700
Yes, but the major difference here is that with Mordin, Shepard knew him, and he was a friend. With those Batarians? Shep only has examples to go off of, but knows nothing of those he is killing specifically.
Also, that moment when Mordin sacrificed himself, I actually did cry a little, though only tears without sound, when he died. Thats what makes me think ME3 was a good game, because the number of games that can make me feel emotions like that is maybe fifteen to twenty five.
10128701
I would hope not, we know how that pair ended up...
When you say thermal clips what exactly Shining Armor is loading into his riffle? Looks like an oversized fusion battery to me.
10132826
the thermal clips look silly but essentially they put heat sinks into the rifle that cool it when shooting. The ammo is shaved off as small pellets from an internal ammo block and fired at really fast speeds which is why you need the heat sink in the first place: that creates a lot of heat. The thing you see ejecting from ME rifles (in 2 and 3) then are also the heat sinks, not bullet casings.
10129053
You missed the part in the last research log chapter where Celestia and Luna revealed to Twilight that they were charged by their parents to maintain "the Array" which they know nothing about it's construction as that knowledge had been lost by the time of their parents. And the fact that they revealed that there actually is no sun or moon or stars because they're encased by the Array. As well as the fact Fluttershy being sent out put a hole in it and RD and Shining Armor being sent out shattered it.
Next, Celestia and Luna both revealed that they knew part of the Array's purpose is to hide their world from the outside. Lastly, for the Reapers to make anything that ended up in Equestria, they'd have to know its location. Since the Reapers were denied the Citadel Relay link to invade they slow boated through dark space outside the galaxy to its closest edge near the Alpha Relay. If they knew where Equestria was being off the immediate network wouldn't stop them from going to purge it. Only being in an unknown place in the galaxy saved Equestria.
That mission bugged me.
Giant frigging plothole that it is.
The mass relay that lead to Ilos was lost because it was blasted out of its position by a supernova, but this one gets a love tap from an ikkle bitty space rock and goes boom on the same scale as a supernova?
Bleeehhh.
HA-HAAA! Halo vibes! Master Chief and Cortana would have approved !
Multikill-kill-kill!
10128700
Not quite that dramatic, than again... That a lot of death...
10128701
O yeah! Halo theme is running on 120%
10128710
Why not? He sure changed a lot of lifes.
His action did effect the ongoing of entire worlds!
He just reached the biggest multikill-kill-kill with the push of a button.
10128749
I probably did it without the Reaper threat
10128793
Marker from Dead Space and Reaper Tech sure have a lot in common...
10128806
Might have to run a few de-bug routines from the stupidity she will witness passivly observing.
10128873
Clever Girl
10129065
Unless you didn't learn a thing
10129538
Fidelis and Edi= Best A I. Friends forever
10129549
More like the good work before EA bullies over 70% of Bioware crew to leave...
10132845
I wonder, are the trash once used up or do they cool down a few minutes/hour later down?
I imagen it like a chemical coolant or something...
10130367
EA fucks everything up they touch... Including rivals that try imitate their money grab tactics...
10797554
Details details... As game producers in EA we don't care for anything, but the money we demand for the trash we throw at you...
10569480
Finding a cold object in space is almost impossible after all as stated in ME1
The only dlc I never buy because it's only cause a worse campaign.