A Just Measure (One Piece x Mass Effect)

[Aquario1313]

Mercenaries, slavers, and pirates poured out from the confederacy's periphery into Council space. They saw races and states without haki and devil fruit. They saw states without weapons and shielding technology. They saw … fresh meat.

And thus began the Third Space Age of Piracy.

The races of the Citadel Council would have another name for this era: the Rampage.

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Such a great name. I can totally see the batarians just being absolutely ravaged by the pirates and human slavers. Same goes for the Quarians. Like a school of plankton just waiting for a whale to pass by and devour them.
Amazing chapter keep it up!

 

[KaiKolo]

Looks like the Batarians, Aria, and Terminus warlords are going to face some fierce competition. It's fun that the Rules Based Galactic Order got upended after encountering a species that's very decentralized.

I'd imagine that Council feels justified in their paranoia after the Rampage. It probably would be even worse if criminals in Citadel Space can contract human shipyards for entire fleets to rival government forces.

 

[readsalot]

And thus began the Third Space Age of Piracy.

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Hell yeah, time for a new Pirate King to arise hahaha

 

[Athain]

Now I'm imagining One Piece pirates waging war against Batarians and Terminus System for daring to bersmich their good name. ;p

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I say this on behalf of everyone who is a part of the fandom: Fuck the Batarians.

 

[Saethyr]

"... are any of the humans we captured have either of this haki or devil fruit?" Sparatus asked.

"No," she shook her head. "Most of them are civilians, and the soldiers we captured are all regular sailors."

"Then we must gain access to this haki and devil fruit. Make that a condition for peace."

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Ah, Sparatus... "We poked a technologically superrior polity and they kicked our asses? Let's extort them for peace!"

 

[udkudk]

The Blue Planet Confederacy tittered on the brink of splintering in all but name. The federal government could barely do anything, and it was only in cases of emergencies like this first contact debacle that they came crawling for help.

Her mentor, the president, wanted to use this incident to raise the legal authorities of the federal government, but to do that, she needed to ensure that the result of this war didn't hurt the confederacy… too much. To do that, she needed to engineer a situation where the core world alliances looked at the situation and saw a need for a stronger federal government.

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This plan sounds very familiar.

Jokes aside, as long as the Centralisation effort doesn't go too far, it's a viable tactic.

"Goodness, no. We are a different race, for sure, but humans and dwarves can interbreed and produce viable children."

The Asari ambassador stared at her.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"All races you have seen here on Shanxi," Anita clarified. "And many others that you have not are all part of humanity, and we have been like this for thousands of years even before we left our homeworld."

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What she and the rest of Citadel Council had thought was a collection of races - and thus the "confederacy" in their name - had been, in fact, many subspecies of one species.

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Interesting. They classify Species based on different conditions.

One Piece really makes Modern Species classification quite difficult, so they're eventually gonna argue a lot about it.

 

[some one]

. It probably would be even worse if criminals in Citadel Space can contract human shipyards for entire fleets to rival government forces.

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It will be worse then because will certainly be able to do exactly that once relations and lines of communications between the Terrminus underworld and pirate economy get established

 

[alecute]

You know what I'm almost feel bad about the Batarians now. Their going to feel what they inflicted to other species. Does a celestial dragon like organization still exist in the confederation? if it does then God help the Batarians they will need it.

 

[NAArog]

Haha, it would be great to see some first POV reactions from biopunk space realism species to the shenannigans of space opera One Piece races. The dissonance would be great.

 

[Sliverhero]

You know what be interesting but sad Brook might still be alive. He is still playing as the greatest musician the soul king but all his love ones are dead

 

[Doc Sithicus]

The only things they gave up to the federal government was

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The rest of the sentence is missing here.

 

[Vagabond]

The rest of the sentence is missing here.

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Thank you. Fixed it.

 

[Vadelent]

Then we must gain access to this haki and devil fruit. Make that a condition for peace."

"And if they don't accept, councilor?" she asked.

"We'll cross that relay when we get there."

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{Blinks} They might be able to get haki. If they want the Devil Fruit they'll literally have to kill people for them because, as far as I'm aware, each and every single one is unique. Sure, when the person who ate one dies it respawns on the closet fruit bearing thing that is similar but they're also the distilled dreams of humanity. Good fucking luck trying to get them to just hand any over.

 

[Mastigos2]

{Blinks} They might be able to get haki. If they want the Devil Fruit they'll literally have to kill people for them because, as far as I'm aware, each and every single one is unique. Sure, when the person who ate one dies it respawns on the closet fruit bearing thing that is similar but they're also the distilled dreams of humanity. Good fucking luck trying to get them to just hand any over.

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Other way around I think: you can MOVE a Devil Fruit. You can steal it and just ... take it back to c-space. And it will respawn there until it is brought back.

Haki on the other hand is innate. You have to wake it up, but the potential for it is present in humanity. If the law of large numbers hasn't led to the Citadel races learning Haki just from someone accidentally awakening it, then they simply aren't capable of it. They don't have the potential to awaken it, otherwise they'd already have done so

 

[Vadelent]

Other way around I think: you can MOVE a Devil Fruit. You can steal it and just ... take it back to c-space. And it will respawn there until it is brought back.

Haki on the other hand is innate. You have to wake it up, but the potential for it is present in humanity. If the law of large numbers hasn't led to the Citadel races learning Haki just from someone accidentally awakening it, then they simply aren't capable of it. They don't have the potential to awaken it, otherwise they'd already have done so

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I meant more along the lines of what they'd willingly trade. Among humanity at least, people can learn Haki. People can be taught. Anyone can eat a fruit but there's only so many and each is unique. Between what they are, how they're acquired, reacquired, and how relatively limited they are (even though I have no doubt that the amount has expanded significantly in the intervening years) they are special. A unique and scarce resource that they have sole claim over. Just giving that to someone when you could teach them something equivalent just seems like a nonstarter to me.

 

[Mastigos2]

Anyone can eat a fruit but there's only so many and each is unique

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There's only so many natural fruit. SMILE was invented long ago by this point

 

[Vagabond]

Commissioned by Mace Shepherd

A Just Measure
Chapter 4

-VB-

Councilor Tevos
Citadel
AR 2111.12.04

Humans were a problem.

As she looked over the forms and reports from the border worlds near the Blue Planet Confederacy, Tevos realized that the Confederacy was going to be a headache for a long, long time.

It took her a little under a week to realize the true scale of the problem that the Blue Planet Confederacy and "humanity" would soon present against the stability of the Citadel Council.

The most obvious of these were the pirates being sighted across the "antispinward" borders around Relay 314.

Yes, pirates.

Because while the Confederacy did mention that they did have a significant pirate infestation in their "periphery," she didn't realize just how bad it was for them that, within a week of Relay 314 opening, pirates were actively bypassing the Mass Relay to jump directly into Citadel space.

Within a week!

At the same time, this presented a wonderful opportunity. Those pirates possessed technologies that the Citadel Council members and associate races did not possess. Taking those pirates out, salvaging their ships, and reverse engineering the technologies aboard those ships would provide an ample opportunity to catch up to the Confederacy on a number of technological fields. In fact, she would privately call this a blessing in disguise. Never publicly, of course, not when citizens of the Citadel Council were being attacked, enslaved, and tortured by those pirates.

The pirates, though, worried her.

It was clear from the reports that the pirates possessed a number of individuals that could poorly mimic the effects caught on camera what some of the human individuals were capable of on Shanxi.

Of course, they would need to be captured and their secrets extracted for the good of the Asari Republics.

But how?

The very fact that those individuals were powerful was already something that put them above Asari Commandos. She'd seen the types of damages the "haki' users could cause. And those that were "devil fruit" users?

The only city on the Asari colony of A'Reum was now gone. Destroyed by a "ping pong" man, as ridiculous as that sounded.

An Asari city was gone and dead just a week after the Relay 314 Incident.

The speed of the Confederacy's FTL came as a shock to her and her peers.

But because of how the treaty was worded and signed, the Citadel Council could not ask, tell, or demand the Confederacy to deal with its own problems. Because part of the peace treaty included borders being closed off to each other's militaries. At the same time, they didn't limit civilian travel; those seeking to legally travel over the border would need get travel e'lasa*.

While most of the pirates had bases outside of the Confederacy, the Citadel's navies couldn't get there because the only way for their ships to reach those Confederacy peripheries required passage through Relay 314, which was within the Confederacy's borders - and thus their warships could not reach the pirates due to the lack of military access. And while the pirates and their Confederacy alternate FTL could cross a hundred lightyears in over a couple of days, the Citadel warships could not; the fastest Asari frigates, the smallest interstellar warship, could travel one lightyear in one day and ten lightyears before they needed to cooldown lest the ship's reactor core cooks the crew alive.

While the Citadel Council still held iron grip over systems where there were Mass Relays and those immediately close to one, the same could not be said about any other systems. Human pirates were rampaging through those systems and there was nothing the Council could do about it.

Worse, the Human Confederacy didn't want to do anything about it nor did they want to do anything about it because they were too busy getting their own house into order.

---

Councilor Sparatus

Humans were a problem.

The biggest issue as he saw it was their entire society's lack of centralization. Even the least unified of the Citadel and associate council races, the Salarians, maintained a central government that could dictate their own affairs.

The humans did not possess this. This confederacy was incapable of doing anything significant. Hell, it could barely hold itself together! Worse, the humans actively admired chaotic and harmful ventures like piracy, privateering, and frontiersmanship. They were unorganized, unconsolidated, undisciplined, and weak.

And the only reason they were able to succeed was because of their "greats:" individuals who had significant personal power or prowess. Reading into their history made that very clear, and reading about them also made a number of other things clear as well.

Humans, as he discovered, were an "average" race. They did not particularly excel at anything. They were physically weaker than the Turians, shorter lived than the Asari and Krogans, dumber and slower than the Salarians, smaller than Elcor, lazier than a Volus, and greedier than the goddamn Terminus pirates.

No, the danger of humans came from "individual effort" that took advantage of their innate … talent.

Because "haki" was bullshit. There was no other way to say it. Haki was bullshit.

What the fuck do you mean a human can just train to be able to punch out an entire spaceship?!

Sparatus stopped his rumination and took a deep breath in before continuing to type out his report for the Hierarchy.

'It is unknown whether or not haki is specific to their race,' he typed out. 'It is my recommendation that we gain access to their media on any of their less regulated worlds to devise a method to see if Turians can also learn haki.'

Even as he wrote this out, Sparatus knew that it wasn't likely to happen. If this haki was possible for Turians, then they would have had someone appear in their long past or present to do even half of what human haki users were able to.

No, he wanted the Hierarchy to focus on something else instead: the devil fruits. Unlike hakis which looked to be innate to humans, devil fruits were something that bestowed very specific supernatural powers that aligned with the devoured fruit. This meant that the fruits performed some kind of genetic work upon the consumer's body. It meant that there was a possibility that the devil fruits could be used by Turians.

The question was how many bodies it take to make it work for them.

… Of course, haki and devil fruits were not the only problems he had to contend with.

Namely, the pirates.

Humans adored their pirates.

It was a sickening thing for him and Turians that there was a race out there that actively endorsed their pirates. It wasn't directly or even indirectly, but the fact that piracy had become an industry stated a lot about the humans.

Again, this was where their undisciplined, uncultured, weak, greedy, and vainglorious nature revealed itself in full.

Which also meant that humans would do the same once they were inside Citadel space.

Which meant he needed to keep them out of Citadel space as much as possible.

It meant that his job - and that of the Turian Hierarchy's job - was simple: restrict immigration, reject settlements, kick out any illegal immigrants, and make sure to kill any human pirates found lest they become one of their pirate warlords.

Everything outside of that, he could leave to his coworkers.

---

Councilor Jur Huokka

Humans were a problem, but not in the way that his coworkers thought they were.

Yes, they were problematic because of haki, devil fruit, and pirates, but Tevos and Sparatus were ignoring something much more fundamental about human society.

Their technology.

The most problematic of their technology was their non-Element Zero faster-than-light engines. It meant that humans were not bound by the Mass Relay network like the rest of the races were, and they already showed what that looked like; the Citadel security forces and the Turian Hierarchy would not effectively fight off the initial wave of human pirates.

And he fully expected this to be the initial wave.

What few advice the council managed to get from the confederacy about the pirates was that the confederacy classified the pirates into six tiers.

The lowest tier, the Minnow, was what anyone would expect from low-end pirates: barely equipped, flying half-functioning ships, and absolute scums of society.

The second lowest tier, the Salmon, was a tier above. They were better fit, better equipped, and could be mistaken for commerce ships. Disguising as commerce ships was, actually, half of their tactics.

These two tiers also excluded any pirate crews that did not have a haki or devil fruit user.

The tiers above them didn't exclude them but there was no guarantee.

The third tier was where untrained but powerful individuals began to appear. The "Barracuda" pirates were those very well organized and had a member or led by someone with a devil fruit, haki, or any other significant combat enhancements like high end cybernetics.

The fourth tier, Shark, was reserved specifically for pirate crews that could take on planetary militia and come out victorious at least fifty percent of the time and also including more than one combat enhanced individuals in their retinue.

The penultimate tier, Orca, were more or less warlords without a permanent base of operations. Their leaders were often trained haki users or experienced devil fruit possessors, and could - and often did - burn entire cities on their lonesome. The mere rumor that an Orca was nearby was enough to drive up prices and fear.

And then there was the final tier, the Whale. Whales were warlords, full stop. They ruled over at least one planet with an industrialized population, and could match most forces sent to curb the pirates. More often than not, their leaders were in the top one thousand haki users and devil fruit possessors. Mountains crumbled under their fists. Fleets vanished.

But these tiers also represented a predictable pattern for the average member of the tier. Whales were slow. Cumbersome. They didn't leave their territory because they were basically kings of bandit kingdoms.

However, the Minnows, Salmons, and Barracudas easily wove in and out of borders and regions. And almost all of the pirates that had begun to raid Citadel worlds were Minnows and Salmons… with one exception.

Tekletec the Magnetic. Possessor of the Magnet-Magnet Fruit, he could generate magnetic fields capable of pulling down spaceships from orbit. A fast growing threat among the pirates, the fact that he had come into Citadel space meant that there were bigger threats soon to follow… because he was technically on the run from bigger pirates, and they wouldn't appreciate their prey getting away from them. If they happened to find new worlds to raid at the same time, then they would enjoy it.

Which meant that there would be bigger pirate fleets entering Citadel space with technologies that the Citadel races would be hard pressed to counter.

'Recommendation: capture all pirate ships to capture technology. Reverse-engineer what we can, STAT,' he typed out and sent it to the Dalatrasses.

-VB-

Buffalo Stalin
New Jorul, BPC
AR 2111.12.02

Buffalo ran his fingers down his moustache. It was a little dry today, which meant that his moustache was in perfect condition instead of being wet from melting snow.

But being dry left him feeling a little thirsty. What should he drink? He already had three hundred gallons of Jorul Milk. Should he drink something a bit stronger to drown out the sound of the yapping commissars? Ah, but his doctor did tell him to pull back on his consumption of alcohol.

"... it is clear that we must prepare ourselves. Our close proximity to Shanxi means that the federal government will use this as a chance to poke into our domestic policies, comrades," Commissar of the Right Rusef ground out from Buffalo's right.

"Too true," Commissar of the Left Koyanna crooned. "Those pigs are incapable of keeping their hands to themselves, isn't that right, general secretary?"

"... It is true that the federal government does pry into our business," he said slowly and smoothly. Almost quietly. But that was simply how he spoke. He was powerful and so he did not need to make threats with his voice. "However, I am far more interested in what we could do to reach out to these … 'Citadel' races. From what I have read about the publicly available codices, it is clear that they do not know anything about the Glorious Revolution."

The other giants in the room agreed with rumbles.

"Sugar," he intoned and the tiny mink "servants" pushed the sugar bowl across the table from the other end of the table, which was a measly one hundred meters across. He watched them push the bowl across the table with their trembling, weak limbs.

Minks, like all other races, were pathetic. And like the minks, he expected all of these "Citadel" races to be pathetic as well. More pathetic, actually, since no haki users were found among the "Turian" army.

When one of the minks tripped and fell, he snorted and reached out.

And flicked his finger at the mink like he would with one of the "giant" flies, blasting the mink out of existence into pink mist.

Others in the room laughed.

Buffalo snorted before he leaned back into his seat.

"Then let us start making preparations. I believe the first thing we need to do is understand what our new neighbors are like so that we can devise our strategy from there. Should we send in direct subordinates or should we cajole the capitalist journalists? They are oh so receptive to our advances."

The members of the board chuckled derisively.

-VB-

President Strawberry Nixon
Parliament, Arcturus Station
AR 2111.12.06

The First Contact War had come to an end.

And it was her administration - with the help of the Confederacy Army - that brought it to a close.

Despite her involvement in making that peace happen, she was not getting what she wanted despite the success of her action leading to peace.

And here in the vast and cavernous gray, green, and white parliament chamber on Arcturus Station, she was being criticized for trying to do what was best for the confederacy.

"President Nixon, you are suggesting policies that will achieve little in the face of the crisis that you solved without those policies!" Representative Shujan refuted. He was from the Refuge Republics, a constellation of star systems containing thirteen worlds that represented a total of one percent of the entire GDP of the Blue Planet Confederacy. "Even though the policies and institutions of the confederacy have proven to be successful against a previously unknown threat - so much so that the damage was limited to a single world and not even a single continent on that world - and showed that the founding principles - of each world's independence - of the confederacy rings true, you ask of this body to ratify policies that seeks to overthrow that very success?"

"It is necessary for the future safety of the confederacy," she replied evenly with narrowed eyes. "As we have learned, our new neighbors may be smaller but their reach is greater. Worse, their greater implementation of Element Zero allows them to overcome their technological deficiencies on the battlefield. I am not asking for all of the worlds to give up their independence, only that haki users and devil fruit users are given priority when it comes recruitment into the confederacy's military."

"You mean individuals who are strategic assets of each world?" Representative Rurin, a merfolk, asked as she stood up. he was from the world of Dadandadan, a rimward border world that faced off against the pirate infested Rimworlds Region. "This policy you pushed forward does not give exceptions or limitations on how many strategic individuals the federal government could recruit from each world! You could strip any world of all haki users and be completely legal! Even if you had the best of intentions, what about your successors? What about their successors? There is no guarantee that the current political status quo remains. We may have a demagogue who may want to turn the confederacy into their personal fiefdom, and they would be completely within their legal right as the president of the confederacy to leave a world defenseless! And anyone who knows anything about devil fruit users and haki users that nothing short of an overwhelming mundane military might is needed to take either of them out!"

"While I am loath to do so," Lord Garen of the Serene Noble Republica de Crucidenia, a coreworld member of the confederacy a mere ten lightyears from the Blue Planet, stood up. The human noble looked around before his eyes settled on her. "I must agree with Representative Rurin. This policy, even if it came from a place of good intention, is wildly ill written. In its current form, I would not vote in line with it, even though we are of the same political party."

"Here here!" someone said loudly and it was repeated around the parliament chamber.

Nixon gritted her teeth. The idiot. Instead of staying quiet, he stood up and criticized her when he wasn't getting anything out of this. Instead of helping her, he stood up with his own enemies. Was he after the presidency after her term was up? That had to be it.

Unlike the old days when the president of the confederacy was voted on by electoral representatives (not the legislative representatives), politicians had to appeal to the wider confederacy. This put some limitations on how wide someone could reach, even with helpers, but ever since the Reform of 1808, legislative representatives now voted for the president.

Which meant that a politician's popularity and backroom deal status in the parliament chamber itself directly impacted their chance of becoming the president.

She would know. She made a lot of deals, most of which she carried out. Most. Because her deal with her own party member, Lord Garen, fell through last year when he voted against the party, and she in return had to put a hold on one of the minor industrial subsidies that his planet benefited from, but it wasn't like it was only his planet that benefited from it! This felt like a retaliation for that.

And when she met his eyes…

Oh yeah, this was retaliation for that.

Sniveling, backstabbing son of a bitch.

"Then will you explain to your people when our defenses breach?" she almost snapped out at the idiots in front of her.

"We take care of our own defenses!" someone shouted, and the prideful fools all exclaimed along with that. "You'll just make it worse with this bill! In fact, at least a quarter of the pirates are gone now! We can do more with what we have but your bill will take what we already have! You speak one thing but your bill says something else!"

"It will not! All it would be doing is deputizing them and inducting them into the confederacy army and navy's ranks!"

"And that also gives you the right to take them away because they will fall under your authority!"

As she looked around, she realized that it wasn't going to pass, and more than half of the legislators who she had gotten deals out of her and slowly shaking their heads.

Not this one. We'll offer our support later. Or change this.

She gritted her teeth.

"Fine! What amendments to this bill would you accept?" she demanded.

And she was forced to watch as the legislators butchered the bill in front of her. Some of them even tried to add amendments that had nothing to do with the bill like increased regulation of the meat market. As the author of the bill, she retained the right to strike down amendments before the voting, and struck all of those irrelevant amendments.

By the end of the day, the bill had more holes than before, black marks crossed out entire paragraphs, and changed so very little that she debated whether or not she should even allow the bill to pass, because she could get it to pass but that would use up all of the political power she amassed for this bill specifically.

In the end, she tabled the bill, pushing it further back so that another bill can be looked at first.

---

Anita Goyle

"You look tired, teacher."

The president grumbled as she floated across the room and poured herself a cup of coffee. Even though the day should be ending for her soon, she was picking up a cup of coffee instead of choosing to turn in for the (artificial) night.

"I am tired," Strawberry grunted out after taking a seat behind her favorite desk.

This room was not her teacher's official office of the presidency but a more private one deeper inside the station.

It was one of the few places that either she or her teacher could get some privacy.

Strawberry let out a long stuttering sigh.

"Damn it," she muttered before taking a ship of her coffee. "All of that work. All of that preparation. Ruined."

"... Because I was too successful."

"No," her teacher snapped. "If anything, I overestimated the aliens. After starting the border skirmish themselves, they backed off fully just because they met a single diplomat? This wasn't your fault. These 'Citadel' races are either far too cowardly or too diplomatic for my plans to have worked through them. And worse, because the pirates know that the Citadels are weak, for now, so they are rushing into Citadel space, giving our worlds the pretext they need to reject the reforms!" Then she collapsed after that brief rant. "Worse, the pirates are going to give away our tech while we get nothing for it in return. And greedy corporations will do the same for a payday to satisfy their shareholders."

Anita nodded.

She understood. How could she not? This was the kind of social, business, and political changes that high society expected their heirs and politicians to understand. And to prevent them. But then again, who could prevent a First Contact scenario and all of the changes that the scenario brought about?

But the point here was that the balance of power within the confederacy now had external agents, factions, and nations to balance itself against (pirates didn't count), and with none of the reforms Nixon prepared going through, the confederacy was sure to lose a lot of cards in short order.

Nixon sat there, thinking about the situation at hand.

"Which means… I need to use the advantages that we do have so that they don't lose their value completely," she grunted. She then turned to Anita.

And Anita felt a shiver run up her spine.

Why did it feel like…?

No.

"Anita."

"Teacher, please don't send me away again."

"I must. I don't trust anyone else."

Anita closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. She opened them while releasing her breath.

"What are you asking of me?"

"Because of confederacy's member worlds, corporations, and pirates, we are going to lose our technological edge to the Citadel races. So we need to use them as quickly as possible to achieve even a modicum of results. Technological exchanges, trade agreements, and more. We have to get on top of the situation before those agreements become not worthless but definitely worth less."

She sighed. "So I have to travel across the stars again… to talk to more politicians."

"Girl, you signed up for this."

"Teacher, you said it was either this or a career in the military."

"And after learning about everything, has your answer changed?"

"... No." She really did enjoy the wining and dining, verbal needling and probing, policy sparring and investigating, and the very occasional blackmailing and violence.

"Well, then. Time to pack your bags, no?" she asked with a dark titter. "I'm sure you will also like meeting your new Asari friend, no?"

"Teacher, we were simply acquaintances," Anita sighed.

"Well, when are you going to get married?"

"Teacher, I don't like this conversation topic."

"But I've been rooting for you and that good boy before you dumped him! Do you know just how much I had betting on your marriage?!"

"... You bet on me?"

Her teacher made a strategic retreat after that.

Anita snorted but did leave the office to pack her bags as her teacher had bade her.

The old adage was true.

The reward for good work was more work.

-VB-

General Charles Williams
Shanxi
AR 2112.01.06

Even after the invasion, the colony of Shanxi didn't officially join the confederacy as a member state.

Most people would think that after facing such a horrific event as a First Contact War, the planet would find it in their best interest to join the confederacy. Doing this would allow the confederacy to claim the entire Shanxi system and properly fortify it.

Unfortunately for the confederacy, Shanxi didn't.

In fact, Shanxi chose to be a dick about it.

In their eyes, Shanxi's colonists saw that the aliens of the Citadel Council were … weak. Not worth defending against in earnest, in depth, or improve existing defenses of. After all, didn't they repel the invaders without a single city suffering significant casualties?

Of course, people were dumb. They forgot that the planet had been defended by the confederacy army more than the local militia. In fact, the local militia, outside of a few individuals who chose to join the active defense, didn't even see combat!

But, no, that didn't matter.

Because people were dumb.

All they saw was that "they" repelled the invaders, so they felt justified in not needing the defensive umbrella of the confederacy.

Instead, they set up a freeport.

Yup.

They set up a freeport.

Right at the border of the Blue Planet Confederacy and the Citadel Council.

And what orders did Charles get from his higher ups and the parliament?

Leave it be.

The general had a very good idea as to why that was the case.

One, the colony of Shanxi didn't kick the confederacy army out. Two, technically, the land that the confederacy army stationed their troops on was confederacy land, not the colony's. Three, the confederacy might need a freeport at the border where they had troops nearby. Four, the existence of a freeport might help move contraband goods from the Citadel space to the confederacy. Five, the existence of a freeport offered the confederacy's black ops a reliable plausible deniability.

There were probably more reasons but the gist of the situation was that a freeport Shanxi was a useful tool for the wider confederacy.

But as a soldier?

Charles did not like it.

In fact, the idea that the place he defended becoming a freeport irked him something fierce. Instead of being thankful, they chose to become a haven for pirates and unscrupulous mercenaries…? The kinds of people that plagued the rest of the confederacy…?!

'I should have failed the defense,' was the thought that occasionally blurred across the front of his mind. Oh, his career would have come to an end once someone else repelled the invasion easily, but the fact was that at the very least that would have seen Shanxi not become a literal pirate haven.

In fact, there was already a pirate crew loitering about in the local space port.

And he couldn't hunt them down unless either the colony asked for help in subduing them or they stepped out of the neutral zone of the space port.

"I want to take them down as well, major," he gritted his teeth. "But the moment we do that is the moment we get a court martial order dropped on our heads."

"But sir!" the major, an earnest and good human, urged. "Just letting them roam around like this -!"

"Don't think that I don't feel anything about the situation," Charles replied. He took a deep breath in and let it out. The human major buckled at the gust a mere forceful breath caused. "I want to bring them in. I want to go in there and beat the shit out of them all, Shanxi-in and pirates alike! Utterly ungrateful sons of bitches…! They don't even realize that the only reason that the pirates are being polite is because we have our guns pointed at them!"

When a planet declared freeport, it meant that any ship that was in orbit of the planet was also considered neutral. They would have to break orbit and leave the planet to be considered fair game. But the orbit was low enough for most pirate ships to enter FTL.

Which meant that smugglers and pirates alike could come and go from the planet without any issue.

And he hated that.

But he was a man of the law, even if he was not a law enforcement officer. He was a soldier, and his job was to uphold the law in both spirit and letter.

He would not be the one to break it.

But pirates were pirates. They would eventually go out of control and commit some heinous deeds. And even if the colony was not a member of the confederacy, it was still beholden to international laws.

If they or the pirates broke any of those laws, then he would enter that space port with the wrathful smile worthy of Joy Boy.

But for now…

For now.

He would stay his and his soldiers' hands. But stayed hands did not mean idle hands.

No.

Drills would be had.

Ammunition would be stocked.

Devil fruit techniques would be refined.

Haki would be honed.

And when that inevitable stumble came…

When it came….

Yes.

He would be there.

He would make sure of it.

-VB-

A/N: lasa: Asari version of charta visa, or visa.