Celestial Forge, The Stars Beckon Forth [Mass Effect / Celestial Forge SI]

[TrueGuardian32]

The Starplucker!

This cheap device was made to harvest solar energy at an powerful degree, requiring no power the Starplucker was capable of collecting solar energy within several yards of where it was placed, reducing the light in the area.

The jailbroken version requires genius level knowledge of kinesis drives and energy based thrusters to replicate. This version is capable of pulling massive amounts of energy or mass at a time. However it requires the corresponding amount of energy. That means several of the largest designed fusion reactors worth of energy to pull something like, say. The moon out of orbit into the Earth.

 

[TrueGuardian32]

A/N: Decided to go over all the background stuff that happened that you didn't see. This wasn't really guessed but occurred in the background since update 1. I figured I'd might as well share it

Back when the MC was showing off his talents in the arts he was getting a lot of commissions. These commissions started off innocent enough. However the Proto-Cerberus group that would have been one of the future factions of Cerberus discovered his talents and started to heavily exploit him. Preventing others from getting commissions and basically monopolizing his artistic talent. These art pieces, stories, and songs were exploited by this group to increase their power and influence.

They thought they could contain the MC at that point in time and basically obscure his talent from prying eyes and simply use his capabilities. Thus they started to do subversion tactics. They wanted the MC to be used to being used, so they started to mess with the MC's family. Using subtle techniques to turn a relatively functioning family to one where the parents started to use the MC. Turning love into control. The idea was to gain more control over the MC as they had been using his projects to rapidly gain power over the years since his first art reveal. They had been keeping their distance at this point still, but still manipulating things behind the scenes. However the MC's behavior was off, their psychological attempts instead of turning him more malleable made him more isolated and experimental. They realized it was not working when the MC didn't take full credit during a theater play.

At that point they were content to simply keep taking advantage on the sidelines while keeping his talents hidden from the world. Till he turned 14 and the second genius perk took effect. By this point they had gained a significantly stronger foothold by using what he had done before now. When they realized that he had talents more than just art? They used their military contacts to get him a contract way ahead of schedule. The idea was to isolate the MC even further. It worked. He went to his own facility. However their attempts to force him into a no life contract didn't work much to their frustration.

The MC then starts to work on E-Fuel. Using private military knowledge to design and create a powerful fuel that used less oil than current fuel types. Heavily improving the future of gas production at the time and preserving existing resources. The group takes advantage of his creation to advance further, gaining more power within the government. They release his tech privately, showing themselves off while off putting the MC's concerns telling him he was a classified government asset. The MC is a bit emotionally off by this point and accepts it after some grumbling.

They want the MC more isolated, and more leashed to them than before. They start messing with his family more. Trying to make it where ties break between the family. Their people take credit for the new rocket. Push their influence further. They set up the next President of the U.S., still controlling the MC's art flow they get incredibly effective propaganda while the MC remains none the wiser. They have put it into the MC's head that he wasn't alone. Leading him to reject a perk that would have let him do the work of entire teams solo.

MC's venture into genetic engineering leads the group to gain more power as they do a monopoly venture into his bio-engineered food. At this point different factions within the group all want the MC to do things to their cause. The rest of the world has no clue just how capable the MC was but this group knew exactly what he was capable of pulling off. But he does something that causes a bit of chaos within the group. He starts work on Fusion. Suddenly the MC has eyes on him from outside the group that had been controlling things behind the scenes this entire time.

The MC gets the Wonder perk, which allows him to suddenly start working on his projects by hand. Preventing attempts to hide his progress as he reveals a fully functioning Fusion Reactor. In order to not get blind sided again, they basically ask him what he is working on next and he reveals it would be energy based thrusters.

At this point multiple factions had formed in the initially focused group that was controlling things behind the scenes. They all wanted to MC to work on their stuff. But couldn't risk the other factions taking advantage of them so for the first time the MC was free to work on it without interference. But the MC's side project, the Arrowhead series starts showing insane promise, starting a space race that interferes even more with the group trying to control things from the shadows as suddenly eyes that weren't them were now on the MC.

The President, putting into place the Proto-Cerberus group, makes a move. Trying to use his son to form a connection with the MC and get him hooked on a controlled substance so they could control the MC further. This Factions actions are discovered when the MC complains causing a schism to occur. Cracks in the group's info security form as a whole. An unrelated party that realized what was occurring leaks the MC's existence. The President takes the blame acting as if it was intentional instead of a break in their informational control. Their faction can't afford incompetence as the other factions are eyeing their power.

Then the live stream occurs, this was actually an attempt to calm the storm. They figured they could simply hide the MC after it calms the public eye. Then the MC instead of just doing a casual interview instantly goes off and reveals everything he can do so far, and then reveals both A.I. and the Kinesis Drive technology. Till this point the MC hadn't actually truly shared how much he had progressed into the kinesis drive. This causes chaos as suddenly opsec was pretty mush shot. The group is pretty much in a civil war now.

Asset denial goes into action as what is basically the nazi faction of the group starts pressuring different foreign agencies into acting against the MC, they got the tech they want and want him dead. But the other factions still have use for the MC, and work against them. A separate faction makes a move. This one uses the general they put into place to put the MC in a more protected environment.

Things escalate in a bit of a shadow civil war, then the MC breaks things further. He releases the GuardianLife app that takes advantage of the liquidization of assets that was being done to keep the shadow war going. Breaking the funding behind the group. At this time the Nazi Faction's actions are revealed. They had been trying to push past the other factions and take control of foreign countries, and were making decent progress but the breaking of funds destroyed their opsec even further.

The MC by this point is approaching the end of his contract. Much to the panic of the entire group. But they don't have the power to interfere as much anymore as they had lost a ton of power. The President of this time is replaced as people outside the Proto-Cerberous group take control and the dismantling begins causing the factions to separate into cells and go into hiding. MC at this point is developing medical tech and his progress has started to stall. He was producing things but nothing as ground breaking as Kinetic Drives which had dominated the tech tree.

The MC has no clue just how much trouble the U.S. is in from the actions of the Proto-Cerberus group. He still doesn't even know what happened. President Hoover, who was originally supposed to be president before the manipulation occurred, was basically cleaning everything up. In the original timeline he would have been setting things up for the future formation of the Systems Alliance. In this timeline he was backdrop as he had to fix things the entire time he was president. The President approves a plan to get the MC away from Earth for a multitude of reasons, to decrease the chance of war. To prevent his art from being used to manipulate things further, and to reduce his workload.

Due to how much he had to do. He loses the next electoral race and the new president has a much easier time. The MC is in space at this time and Proto-Cerberus cells are basically in hiding as instead of their original purpose of global domination they are equated with a secret Nazi group.

—
Some side information.

I say Nazis however Nazis as we know them didn't exist in this alt-history timeline. But that word is the closest to what these guys were, as they were the cause of the Great War, which would have been World War 1 in our verse. While World War 2 occurred for wildly different reasons.

The U.S. is isolationistic because unlike in our timeline, they actually honored their promises, and had been ravaged by several wars to the point where they isolated themselves so they wouldn't make any more promises to foreign powers. They had been bit so badly they basically did what Japan did in our universe and made themselves a cultural powerhouse while avoiding the outside world as much as they possibly could.

Great Britain is still a thing here, and is still an incredibly powerful force. They are the actual reason behind the United Nations, as it was formed in opposition to Great Britain's power. I can't really talk about them too much as they are a future plot point. But I can say that the U.S. is the only force that has actually decisively won against them.

Maybe I'll cover the full alt-history one day, it's pretty intense.