The Early Systems Alliance: Nature of and Why did it have a military?

[Zeverance]

So, I saw this discussion from last year that wondered why the Systems alliance had 200 combat vessels by the time of The Battle of Shanxi. The topic interested me but that thread was dead, so I'm writing this to get my ideas out there and spark a new conversation!

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The Link to the Original Topic
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So let me start by conceding the first point that I'm sure will be made by somebody. No, I don't think 9 years between the founding of the mars archive at the Shanxi war is enough time to build 200 vessels. That is, admittedly, a little bit of space magic. It is just logistically infeasible to design, test and build those vessels in nine years.

That aside, however, I would like to take this opportunity to explain the logic of the Systems Alliance that I have come to.

Preface

So, one misconception I saw in the original topic was that the Early System's Alliance was a one world government. Meaning, people seemed to think that the organization itself acted as a governmental power on all matters human by the time of its inception.

That, however, is not the case. At least not at the early stages.

But before we get into that let me set the stage for you a little bit. You are sitting on your couch one day when the news comes on and announces that alien ruins are found on Mars. The world goes ballistic, so many questions. Aren't we alone in the universe? Where did they go? What were they like? What if they come back? And then, months later, it is revealed that these ruins contain secrets to alien weaponry and the questions take a dark turn.

What were they doing, watching humanity like that? What kind of weapons do they have, are they out there? If we meet them, will the be hostile?

The politicians and nations of Earth are bombarded with public concern ranging from how do we diplomacy with aliens to what if the aliens come back? What if they want to eat our skulls!!!!

The Nature of the System's Alliance

The System's Alliance wasn't truly created to be the unifying voice of humanity, it was created in much the same vein as the United Nations was - to provide a solution to a problem the world was having. In the case of the U.N, the problem was how to deal with war criminals, set firm international rules and garner international cooperation to keep WW3 from happening.

The U.N was basically put in place to keep the powerful nations powerful and killing one another - and we can see how well that works out for us now.

The Systems Alliance is created under this same philosophy. It isn't a world government, it is an organization that can handle the task of coordinating space flight and enforcing international laws in space. It is even stated in the SA lore that it was not taken very seriously by the world powers at first and severely lacked funding.

The mere fact that it had this problem showcases that the rest of the nations weren't holding hands, they were more focused on spending that money on their usual suspects that they were on cooperating for any false peace. This means that the Systems Alliance is ripe with the same politics that plague the world today, the same burning question that nations ask today is what they are asking in Mass Effect pre-First Contact War (FCW).

*How do we keep our nation on top?*

The System's Alliance in its early days was just a theater of political power that nations could fight in - which raises the question of how this was done?

Well, likely in two ways - by funding colony expeditions (I always imagined Shanxi was funded by the Chinese People's Federation) and by donating funds and troops to the United "Peace Keeping Force"

The Politics of the Early System's Alliance Military

The System's Alliance Military, in its early days, was likely comprised of some volunteers and a vast majority of donated forces from the Earth's nations. Why would this be? Why would nations want to donate military forces to this organization that isn't willing to fund more than their own defense?

Simple, he who owns the combined military owns the realm of space. Sure there is a political aspect, but isn't the military also another stick that can be used in politics? If the United North American States donate the most forces and have the most System's Alliance generals/admirals then they effectively have the SA forces in their pocket.

Sure that System's Alliance admiral or general is sworn to defend the SA, but we all know where that general's loyalties will lie in the end.

So now we have a whole new complex layer of story in the ME early universe. The nations of Earth politic around in space by funding colonization efforts (thus growing an unofficial influence) and funding military efforts in space.

But this leaves us with our primary question still, doesn't it? Why does it have 200 ships when it doesn't even know if there are aliens out there?

Systems Alliance Navy

So now to the brass tax. Why in the world would they have 200 combat vessels? Let's go ahead and chalk up the fact that they made those many ships in 9 years to space magic. Maybe the protheans had a star forge hidden on Mars or something.

Lets also just assume that those 200 ships mentioned are actually COMBAT ready vessels and that the support vessels aren't included in that number. These ships, canonically including Dreadnaughts, why are they there? Even with the prior argument taken into account, there is hardly justification for 200 vessels...or is there?

The United Nations Peacekeeping force has 100,000 soldiers just to fail miserably at defending food shipments from Somali Warlords. The United States maintains over 400 Naval Combat vessels to defend its global assets and allies.

Now, I hear you think from across the interwebs, those organizations have real threats to deal with not hypotheticals!

Well, yes, but so does the System's Alliance. The threat that there might be an alien empire out there isn't enough to have 200 ships, no, but that's not the only thing to be worried about. Which brings me to my darker thought on the matter.

The System's Alliance navy was less about defending against aliens than it was about keeping the colonies in line. The United States military actually has actual, working plans for a theoretical alien invasion. These are all theoretical yes, and no military has any real idea about what an alien incursion would be like - but that doesn't mean not to be prepared.

But that theoretical idea isn't WHY the U.S sustains a military - or why it spies on citizens, or why the country maintains the police force. It does this to protect from the very real threat of human activity. Terrorism, war, criminality and the like.

This is the first and primary purpose of a System's Alliance fleet. All these new colonies are expected to uphold whatever laws the Alliance imposes, ship back materials to Earth, etc. They couldn't rely on some sort of local police force to do this, not at this early stage. Perhaps never. The Alliance Marines and their ships are there to maintain order, just as much as they are a powerplay by Earthly nations.

But still, why arm so many ships? Well in the grand scheme of things, 200 vessels is very little - extremely little.

I saw some arguments in the original thread that claimed that 200 vessels was "almost as much as the Turians" and that simply not true, not by the slightest length of the imagination. The Turians navy is divided into 37 fleets, the largest of all the Citadel races, and and the height of the Alliance he only here of a total of eight fleets.

So even assuming that the alliance has 100 vessels a fleet, which isn't true, and the Turians only have 10 a fleet - they still outnumber the original amount of ships the Alliance had. More realistically the Turians have closer to 1,000 vessels by the battle of Shanxi - enough to destroy the Alliance 37 times over.

200 vessels to patrol space, keep order in the colonies AND explore new relays is asking a whole lot from a small number of people. We also have to consider the political games I mentioned before. One country decides it wants to fund a billion dollar project to create a dreadnaught class vessel for destroying incoming asteroids of massive size and do the job of several vessels.

They build it as a space vessel of their nation and donate its service to the Alliance, having it manned by ITS nationals. Next thing you know, another country rides off that successful idea and funds their own ship to give to the Alliance and having it manned by ITS nationals.

Its all one big game to have the biggest stick on the block, preparing for a conflict with one another that would never come. Because giant spiky aliens come first.

Wrap up

So, you see, I think that the reason why the Alliance built these vessels makes sense when you consider what glimpses of politics we get from the expanded lore. Sure, there are still some holes in how those vessels got there so quick or why they had "several" dreadnaughts but all in all it still fits into most the lore.

This was just my thoughts on that discussion, but would love to read what others think!

Thanks for taking the time and if I messed something up horribly or you want to call me a N00b, please do so!

[Xautos]

so you wrote this whole thing up asking a question you answered by yourself. so why is this thread here? if you only want to answer it in a means you only see and taken it up on yourself then there is little to no reason to get involved.

Just one thing you missed from your thoughts on the matter? Religion had as much to do with the Systems Alliance as politics.

[Zeverance]

Originally posted by Xautos:

so you wrote this whole thing up asking a question you answered by yourself. so why is this thread here? if you only want to answer it in a means you only see and taken it up on yourself then there is little to no reason to get involved.

Just one thing you missed from your thoughts on the matter? Religion had as much to do with the Systems Alliance as politics.

It is the proposition of an idea, seeking others to give their input? It is food for thought. To spark a discussion on whether or not the proposed idea is good and whether or not people agree with it or what their ideas are if they don't, etc.

If people don't have a capacity to offer their own critical thoughts on a fun topic because of the questioner offering their own thoughts, then that is a bit sad :p

Now, onto your thoughts! Religion did seem to play a role after all the lore seems to suggest all the religions freaked out and scrambled to insert this new reality into their doctrine. How much do you think religion influenced the Alliance?

[Olanov]

Interesting reading. Used to ponder a lot about these questions, found it very fascinating. Thanks. :)