Through A Temple
is a Mass Effect and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Crossover fic written by Desert Chocolate (Who also wrote Hunters of Death, Adorable Murderbeasts, and Saiyan in Brockton).
After the events of the Citadel DLC, Commander Mikeal Shepard decides to take his friends on one last joy ride through space. All his crewmates, former and current, agree. While doing this, they get a distress call, and end up rescuing a ship full of N7 "Multipliers" and their allies (i.e.: Multiplayer Characters,) only to be sent through a wormhole by a Reaper attempting to send Shepard somewhere he won't be able to do harm.
At the same time, in another universe, the Defiant is flying away from the planet Gaia after the Children of Time event, only to see a strange ship appear from a red wormhole to be attacked by Dominion soldiers. One round of violence later, the Prophets present a plan: Sisko will still defend Bajor, while Shepard deals with threats a little more proactively. In return, they will send the Normandy and its warriors home no later than they left.
The story is primarily about the Normandy Crew and Deep Space Nine crew getting used to each other, and gearing up for the fight against the Dominion. Both groups have things to learn from the other, and both are given their time to shine.
Posted on Fanfiction as well!
This fanfic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Ascended Fanboy: The engineers of the Federation are awestruck when the legendary Montgomery Scott himself comes to help with the Normandy's refit.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: Eddington's battle against the Jem'Hadar is accompanied by "Fortunate Son," courtesy of Sisko's Omnitool.
- Badass Crew: The Normandy Crew, DS9 Crew, and the Multipliers (The nickname for the Multiplayer Characters) are all some of the most badass people of both universes, and only more so when they work together.
- Badass Boast: Grunt is good at these. At one point he deliberately invokes What Could Possibly Go Wrong?.Grunt: What could possibly go wrong?
Turian Soldier: Why…would you tempt fate like that?
Grunt: To make it my bitch. - Bar Brawl: Jack plus alcohol plus Klingons equals property damage, Odo's holding cells being full, and the singing of Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around And Fell In Love".
- Later on, the Klingons start insulting the Krogan in Quark's. This ends exactly as well as you'd expect.
- The Big Guy: Several of the Multipliers and Normandy crew act as this, given their physical size, but notable examples include any Krogan, Vega, and Metatron (a Geth Prime).
- Continuity Nod: Some of the Multipliers are Ascended Extra characters from the Mass Effect games, such as Niftu Cal (the drug-addled "Biotic God" from the second game), and Bray (Aria's Batarian assistant).
- Cool Ship: The Defiant is this, as always, while the Normandy is undergoing retrofits to be even more awesome.
- Foreshadowing: One of the Prophets who talks to Sisko and Shepard at the start of the story is an unfamiliar woman of African descent who seems "More Solid." While it's not outright stated, this is most likely the Prophet who gave birth to Sisko.
- From Bad to Worse: One of the goals of the story is to make it so that even with all the advantages of Mass Effect armor and weapons, the Federation will still not have an easy time of the Dominion War. One example of this is how it handled the episode "Empok Nor," where Garak goes crazy and starts attacking people. Here, not only is he doing the stuff he did in canon, he's doing it in a suit of Power Armor with a cloaking device built in.
- Joke and Receive: Eddington sarcastically apologizes that the Maquis' secret base doesn't live up to Shepard's standards, only for Shepard and Zaeed (who have seen many underground secret bases and the Collector Base, a hollowed-out hive and construction yard for eldritch machine gods), to say that no, compared to that, it's not that impressive.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The genetic modifications of the Mass Effect characters are, at their baseline, standard issue things that aren't thought about much (leaving out severely gene-modded and/or enhanced beings like Jack, Shepard, and Miranda). In the Federation, which fears genetic engineering, they're downright terrifying.
- It's stated that the reason why there isn't as much weapon variety in the Federation as there is in the Mass Effect universe is because phasers are so powerful, they don't really need other types of guns. Which means reintroducing the various vicious weapons the Normandy Crew can create, combined with the power of Star Trek technology, makes for some crazy weapons.
- Not So Above It All: The Prophets, when they start talking, use one of their standard "White Void of Ominousness" settings for the conversation... until Shepard comments that the Leviathans had a much better background setup. The Prophets replicate it immediately and keep changing the backgrounds for the rest of the encounter.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Quark actually turns away customers, specifically, some of the Multipliers, because Shepard wouldn't answer his phone, or his e-mail, and he didn't know how else to get his attention.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Shepard, Sisko, and their crew managed to save the Maquis survivors, and even saved Eddington from his canon death! Except there's a problem- they saved a few dozen people, but now the Dominion knows about the Mass Effect aliens, abilities, armor, and tech, and are starting to upgun.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Shepard manages to (briefly) shut Eddington up by telling him that he once blew up an entire star system to prevent a Reaper invasion, neatly undercutting Eddington's speech about how terrible Sisko is for poisoning a Maquis colony.
- True Companions: The Normandy Crew and the Multipliers don't even hesitate when Shepard asks them to join him in trying to save the Alpha Quadrant.
- The author has stated that this is why Jacob isn't part of the team that goes through the Wormhole- he left the Crew when they needed all hands on deck, what with the Reaper Invasion.
