Man, this fic was an experience!

It's really apparent that the author poured a lot of love in the tech specs/details, in the battle choreography and in the overall war tactics empolyed in the narrative, it must have taken quite a bit of research! It was very fun getting into the head of someone used to thinking like that and I feel like reading this made me more aware of a lot of factors in War that I wasn't even aware of

I will admit, though, that to properly enjoy this fic I had to alienate myself from humanity's POV and assume a more detached, anthopologic mindset because the narrative seems to implicitly support some nasty stuff baked into X-COM worldbuilding

I don't really blame the author for that because I don't THINK it was their intent to portay the narrative as quite that sympathetic to a fascist way of thinking, but by looking at a lot of comments supporting humanity's behavior, criticizing readers who became uncomfortable with that or downright clamoring for even MORE extreme actions, I can see that this fic related to some dangerous crowds and that a lot of readers engajed uncritically with the character's way of thinking and got themselves into the same hype that in-story drove humanity to become a horrifying mirror of itself

Overall though, the fic itself was a very enjoyable read that made quite an impression on me, I'm glad to have read it and to have had the chance to see a very different POV from most ME works I have read. Thank you for your hard work!

Re. your notes on the Quarians and their attitudes to their newfound circumstances...

...the thought occurs that the Quarians might actually prefer conscription over their old tradition of pilgrimage. First, because of the 'safety in numbers' aspect to conscription - instead of just groups of half a dozen or fewer Quarian youths making their way in the galaxy as best they can, they will be part of battalion- or brigade-sized forces [or bigger] of fellow conscripts. Second, because those conscripts will enjoy far better logistical support, i.e. they will actually have some, whereas they had no logistical support whatsoever during Pilgrimage. Third, it is entirely possible that conscripted Quarian youths will end up suffering far fewer fatalities during their military service than would have been the case during Pilgrimage.

On a related note, Humanity / XCOM have promised to at least attempt to find gene treatments to fix the Quarians' immune system deficiencies. Simply trying to do this is far more than the Citadel ever bothered to do for the Quarians. If Humanity succeed in this endeavour, then they will have almost certainly earned the Quarians' eternal and sincere gratitude and unswerving loyalty.

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"It is not a lack of love but a lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages."

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.

Is that the quote you had in mind? ;) *hugs*

Had a good time listening to this one (Preferred the space over ground but still good), only to see the reviews swarmed with naysayers and haters. It's worse than listening to WH40k haters because unlike WH which unilaterally gives the middle finger to those who can't stand the themes (This is no hope or good in the galaxy), this story has to balance the Golden Space age dream of ME (In comparison to most sci-fi this is accurate) to the clearly and unrepentant fascist xcom humanity. Why do I say unrepentant? Because “It is an undeniable, and may I say fundamental quality of man, that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable.” ― Dr. Leonard Church. Just as that one comment said this humanity has been battered, bruised, bloodied and driven near insanity so many times since the initial invasion of 2015, that it is a fucking miracle it ONLY matches 10 out of 14 checkmarks regarding fascism. Humanity in WH40k is completely unrepentant in its thinking and until recently so has this humanity, is it any wonder that the armistice is only mentioned as a strategic option and not a personal one. To all those with that negatively review this just remember that it is still unknown if real life humanity will flourish or flounder when faced with an alien race, and I recommend researching the Dark Forest Theory. ( wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis). To the author good job wish for more.

In his 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism", Umberto Eco (who grew up in Italy under Mussolini) describes some of the main properties of a fascist society, a society does not need all of them to have a facist regime. Out of 14 topics, the society described in this fic has been Shown (emphasis on Shown) to display and enforce 10 of them that I could count.

Bone chilling stuff.

Some of the other comments described Humanity's behavior as idiotic and I agree wholeheartedly, but I think people are missing the point that fascist ideology can scarcely be described as anything other than: "So Dumb that it's Evil and so Evil that it's Dumb" when put in practice.

I can almost see what the author was going for here: an dark version of humanity that pursues the evil option out of instinct. It's one of the few war fics that makes the Turians into the heroes. The Turians tapping into that super tech advancement that seems endemic to the XCOM universe was also nice.

But DAMN, it is hard reading this story, Humanity is so evil it's crazy, the Ethereals, who I suppose are meant to be a greater scope villain have basically no presence, and the rest of the Council basically keels over. It would be fine better if the author had the new tech come from the Salarians, have the Asari do commando raids, actually give the Batarians an appearance beyond a vague "they are supporting." Make it feel like the galactic war it so clearly wants to be.

Also, all the reviews unironically clamoring for genocide make me sick.

Saren’s ‘playing dead’ should not have protected him from the time honored tradition of ‘double tapping’. Which I don’t think that XCOM would’ve forgotten with all the warfare they’ve been through

Good, suffer not the xenos to live.

I fully understand the motivation from the human side to make the shot, but I can't bear to read a war by misunderstanding - I already read the forever war and that wrecked me enough.

On one hand this story has one of, if not, the best written scenes depicting space and futuristic ground warfare that I have ever read in my life while also avoiding the annoying put fall of depicting the council as a bunch of incompetent buffoons who wish to force all other races in the galaxy into a position of subservience to them. On the other hand however is that this is just a HFY story about a fascist and xenophobic humanity that I began to hate and hope would loose so that they would be taken down a massive peg or two. If it was done on purpose however, I would have no deal breaking complaints for the story.

you have a talent for writhing space battles

I hope you will continue this one. Apart from a few HP/ME X-overs this is one of my top 3 other X-overs, the other two being ME/Cthulhu and ME/Prototype xD

Btw, it wasn't nukes they used, you said yourself it was antimatter

Gotta say I love the Fukyu name lol

Playing dead works if it's a low tech war... High tech includes infrared capacity in helmet visors. XD

"We have i coming transmission. Fire, destroy them." Human commander SLIGHTLY trigger happy? Lol. Even trying to excuse it as having only faced hostile aliens in the past doesn't work, since they never tried to communicate...