The Battle of Veratix Station
was an epic adventure thread that took place near the end of the reaper war in Cerberus Daily News’ canon. It involved dozens of players and in game was the largest battle ever portrayed on CDN. It also concluded the arc of conflict between CDN members and Cerberus, represented by the character Thanatos.
During the Reaper War, a lot of Cerberus Daily News members found themselves at odds with Thanatos, an overly dramatic but still ruthlessly efficient Cerberus Operative. The main clashes were:
- The Fall of Titan’s headquarter during the Citadel Coup, followed by
- The Capture of the Defiant as they made their way out.
- The Fall of Omega, and the slaughter that came with it.
- The Cerberus invasion of Veratix Station
Unfortunately for Cerberus, pirate leader Velor “VolClan” Vedevix had bugs put on the ship before it was taken, and Cerberus didn’t find all of them. Vedevix then took the initiative of inviting representatives from very varied organizations, ranging from the Alliance military to Cerberus defectors and mercenaries to attempt to take back both the flagship, and Vedevix Station where Cerberus took it.
Realizing that Cerberus can’t be left in charge of the crucially strategic former Titan space station (especially after they vastly improved it), and that taking back the Defiant would be a enormous moral boost for C-Space, all participants agree to launch an all out assault on the Cerberus fortress. Despite some petty squabbling between the members, they decide to go through with Vedevix’s plan: First a payload of bombs is sent on the other side of the relay to clear it, then some nuclear devices are detonated there to jam the station’s sensors, allowing the Eighth Alliance Fleet to come through first. Using their temporary LADAR invisibility, they acquire firing solutions that the rest of the fleet will use.
Unfortunately the first volley of explosives failed to clear some mobile bombs hidden in debris around the relay, which strike at the Alliance ships, causing the first casualties. Cerberus ships then come to wreck havoc on the Eighth. The rest of the allied fleet, under Titan’s command, jumps following it and engage Cerberus. AEGIS tries to push through Cerberus forces to board the station, but heavy fire on the Judgement flagship almost take them out of the fight.
The battle rages until, while attempting to withdraw, the Eighth Fleet's flagship carrier the SSV Benjamin Davis becomes exposed. Cerberus uses this opportunity to cripple its shields. A warp bomb is launched, threatening to destroy the carrier and the thousands of Alliance personnel aboard (including the majority of the Alliance's Marines) but is stopped by the sacrifice of the quarian CDN member Migrant_From_Migrants.
A lot of Cerberus ships break off after that, realizing the battle lost. Some ships give pursuit, others decide to focus on the station itself. Thanks to Remember The Blitz’s men using Cerberus’ own technology against them, the station’s first line of defences is disabled, and AEGIS manages to enter, later joined by the other factions.
While allied forces carve a bloody trail in the station, facing fanatical Cerberus Troops and vicious traps, Vedevix and Hierarchy forces finally launch into action: using enormous speed to multiply the impact of their weapons and an incredibly synchronized strike between the attacking ships, they manage to eradicate in six seconds the entire wolf pack around the Black Ship, the Cerberus flagship. Also roughly the amount of time needed for Veratix to broadcast to all Cerberus members an open invitation to please him orally.
After a bloody battle, Titan manages to disable the Defiant, as the Black Ship fires with its massive cannons at the already battered Judgement, AEGIS’ flagship, disabling it. Its crew, in return, decided to go down in style, and ram it in the Black Ship, disabling Cerberus’ flagship in return, which gets finally destroyed by allied ships soon after.
In the station, Thanatos, realizing that space superiority is gone, announces that something called the Delta Protocol is now in place. Dawn, an AEGIS engineer, manages to locate him in the station’s heart.
Allied forces continue to advance, despite meeting a new deadly threat: Cerberus phantoms. As if that wasn’t bad enough, what Delta Protocol is about becomes clear soon enough: propulsing Veratix station into the closest planet, so that if Cerberus don’t get to keep it, nobody can. The Cerberus soldiers’ new orders are to prevent their foes from escaping and kill as much as they could. The abrupt change of gravity makes it easy for them since allied forces are completely taken by surprise.
Despite terrible losses however, the allies managed to resume their mission with two objectives: Take out Thanatos and take control of the engines to save the station. They manage to make it to the heart of the station to find a gruesome pile of human bodies, discarded when they didn’t survive the indoctrination process. Inside they find the engine core, heavily modified with reaper technology, Thanatos greets them with his last surviving men, and a host of indoctrinees. After informing the allies that any shot in the drive core would compromise it, he launches his forces against them.
During the fight he kills some AEGIS troops, mortally wounds Elise and Kage, and starts a duel with Gorik. The fight is intense and vicious, and ends with both combatants mortally wounded: Gorik is impaled on his foe’s electric sword, Thanatos himself is crushed. When another mercenary finishes him off, an automatic system announces that the drive core is set to explode in ten minutes. A stray shot then manages to cause the eezo core to leak, causing safety protocols to kick in and allow Dairo to “safely” dispose of it.
As allied forces mop up the remaining opposition, some of them secure a shuttle for evacuation.
The story ends with the surviving heroes tending to the wounded and trying to right the station’s descent or at least buy themselves enough time to evacuate. The station’s fate itself is left uncertain...
The Battle Of Veratix Station contains examples of:
- Body Horror: The description of the modifications of the Cerberus team leaders are galling.
- Despair Event Horizon: Cerberus reaches it when Vedevix wipes out their wolfpack and assures space superiority for allied forces. Cue plan Delta.
- Determinator: Every allied forces, but AEGIS takes it to high level. They kept spearheading the allied offensive despite being relatively few in number and Thanatos threw at them. And they’re the ones who took him down in the end.
- Didn't Think This Through: Elise manages to sneak cloaked behind Thanatos, but uncloaked before stabbing him for maximum dramatic effect. He slits her throat and mocks her for it.
- Duel Boss: Gorik and Thanatos. Enforced by Thanatos who one-shot one of his men who set up a turret to shoot at Gorik.
- Enemy Mine: Cerberus managed to inspire the Eighth Systems Alliance Fleet, Eclipse, the Blood Pack, Hierarchy representatives, Vedevix’s pirate outfit, AEGIS, Sandman’s Titan forces, Remember The Blitz’s Cerberus defectors and other independent outfits to join forces against them.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Thanatos would like people, either allies or enemies, to call him Commander Hunter. It won’t happen in either case.
- Flat "What": Icha’s (and probably a lot of people’s) reaction after Vedevix’s six second strike.
- Gravity Screw: The first consequence of plan Delta, loss of gravity. The Cerberus troops get advanced warning and specialized gear and use the resulting confusion with deadly efficiency.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Migrant_From_Migrants saved the SSV Benjamin Davis, the Alliance's flagship, and the thousands of Alliance personnel aboard it at the cost of his own life by redirecting a warp bomb on his corvette (after the rest of the crew had evacuated).
- Hero Killer: Subverted. Thanatos deserves points for effort, but Gorik, Elise and Kage (narrowly) survive their wounds.
- Last Words: From Migrant:"You bosh'tets better not waste what I'm doing here. And tell Davril he was a great dad."
- Load-Bearing Boss: The drive core was rigged to self destruct after the death of the last surviving Cerberus officer, in this case, of course, Thanatos.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: A lot of characters’ first reaction when meeting Cerberus phantoms. They soon notice however that their biotic mastery and supernatural agility make the swords relevant, and that they are also packing palm-guns.
- Oh, Crap!: AEGIS knew that some sort of surprise would be waiting for them after they boarded the station, but the sight of five hulking warmechs advancing on them still managed to elicit this reaction.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: At first it seemed the alliance may very well fail before the first shot was fired, but the overpowering urge to destroy Cerberus, and the appeal of taking control of the station, keep them going.
- Villain Ball: Thanatos could have blown up the station and all the assailants with it as soon as he knew it was lost. Instead he decided he wanted a big showdown.
- War Is Hell: This is not Mass Effect 3 multiplayer: the casualties are enormous, a lot of good people die through no fault of their own, and Cerberus’ cruelty is well shown.
