I figure that barriers will stop the plasma but not the thermal energy transmitted through radiation which would be around 600 megawatts per square meter of the emitter at 10 thousand Kelvin which would flash boil about 250 liters of water per second. energy emitted temperature (in Kelvin)4 if you feel like changing the effectiveness of the plasma weapons. an Interesting idea would be to have the UNSC railguns shoot fissile material inside a ferric shell such that the compression wave from impact cause a nuclear detonation to balance out the multi kiloton yield of mass effect ship to ship railguns.

Good thing they didn't stumble onto Balaho 10 or 20 years ealier

Please update soon

Heh Want fight neo covenant... Well too bad for batarian

This story is unusual because First Contact occurs with non-human species. I like it. I liked the sangheili aggressiveness too.

Nice story. Well depicted so far, much better detail and thought than most other first contact crossovers featuring Batarians.

"Everytime I see "For the Hegemony" I just feel like I'm in god damn 40k" - well, the Hegemony is totalitarian, strictly hierarchical, has a mandatory state religion and much of its professional military are diehard fanatics brought up on propaganda. Batarian state ideology is also openly racist, stating that Batarians are superior to all aliens ("aliens" from the Batarian's perspective, thus including humans). Consequently they believe that it is their destiny to rule the stars as the dominant power.
Tl, dr.: You could describe the Hegemony as a toned down version of the Imperium of Man, which has all of the above traits turned up to eleven, because it's 40k after all.

Your depiction of the barriers is actually quite accurate. Contrary to those who claim plasma is pure energy, it is a state of matter. Mass and momentum is rather low per shot, but in the ME universe the plasma's electric charge drains barriers (Geth weapons have that property), making it effective against them (not breaking them instantly though). A plasma pistol shot taking down barriers by a third or so seems in line with what we see from Geth weaponry in the ME games (they do less damage to barriers per shot but also deliver less plasma). Since most of the heat of a plasma shot is transferred through direct contact (air is a very bad heat conductor), both barriers and energy shields make a good defense against that.
The different tactical abilities of the Sangheili and Baterian fleets are also quite well researched.
Another plus: Yes, a stationary gun on a planet has a limited firing arc and limited range against moving targets that can evade. So a single gun leaves avenues of approach for landing craft. You did well with that.

About armor on spaceships in ME: they use two or three layers of spaced armor to defend against high velocity kinetic impacts. Look up "whipple shield" for the real life reference. The codex specifially states that on cruisers without a dedicated fighter hangar fighters are stored in the space between the inner an outer hull, so there is definitely more than a few centimeters. Most UNSC ships do not have several meters of Titanium A but still substantial armor. Afaik there are no hard numbers on armor thickness on Covenant ship, but their nanolaminate stuff is supposed to be superior to Titanium A.

Everytime I see "For the Hegemony" I just feel like I'm in god damn 40k

Not sure what you mean with kinetic barriers. We know that even a tiny Covenant 300m cruiser has shields that can stop a 60kiloton MAC. We also know that no ME ship below Dreadnought weight can survive a single 38 kiloton strike from a mass accelerator. However there's a big difference since a MAC shoots a 600 ton super titanium round that usually penetrates at 30km/s instead of exploding into plasma. Whereas ME ships fire a 20 kilogram projectile at up to 4000km/s. Much less able to penetrate instead of deflect or explode due to the lower momentum.

That said, Corvettes have horrible shields from what we know, and ME ships fire a shit every 2 seconds, the only thing you missed out was that the Sangheli didn't use their lasers against the enemy ships. We know Covenant ships can survive the thermal from nukes if shields are up. ME ships are much worse against energy weapons.

Oops, accidentally hit enter on last review. I meant to say that I'm sure a single plasma torpedo could go through even a Baterian dreadnaught as in Mass Effect people don't mount anything more than couple centimeters of armor on their ships. It's due to the fact that heavy armor adds too much mass and makes maneuverability impossible and eezo prices exuberant. The armor they do have is only heat resistant panels made to resist the low powered anti fighter lasers that all ships mount. Essentially, they have no protection against high mass slugs like the UNSC uses or high energy plasma like the Covenant forces use. Let me remind you that most UNSC frigates mount meters of Titanium A battleplate, an extremely thick and durable armor. A single plasma torpedo can burn through that easily, as we see in the Halo novels, so by extension it can burn through centimeters of low-power laser resistant material.
I like your writing overall, I just think some of your technology choices are inaccurate. I await more as always.

A lot of people love to get scientific with it, but you don't need to. In the Mass Effect codex, it states outright that energy weapons like plasma cannons (or torpedoes) are unaffected by barriers and they do not activate for them. It states that things like the Geth's "plasma weapons" aren't really plasma, and that they're simply plasma coated rounds, so they still have well over enough mass to activate the barriers. There's no point in worrying over the theoretical non-physics of a made up type of shielding when the codex for the game flat out says kinetic barriers don't work against energy weapons. All that said, it's your story so you can go with whatever you want. I believe that you've at least tried to properly scale the Covenant weaponry against the Bacteria's. However, I'm quite sure a single plasma torpedo could go through even a dreadnought once its shields

its nice to see a first contact where there is actual tactics, a lot of stories lean too hard on the technological differences completely obliterating one side with both sides doing the equivalent of running headfirst into each other.

Great story so far!
Do the Elite ships have any energy projectors on them? I was curious about that. Thanks.

To be honest I like your story so far and will wait for several chapter more to see if it still worth reading. As for the leveling of the field, that good and the shield problem is probably accurated as I myself dont know the minute details either. Don't harshly downgrade the Elite's ships since the heat from their guns can cook the Mass Effect ship even with the ablative plating since it only a few inches instead of the meters of plating the Halo verse employ. Increasing the Batarian numbers could make the loss more valid since the UNSC during the War usually had to fight a 8-1 odd with equal class ship and even worse odd with greater class. But these are only suggestion just dont mention hard number and you are fine.

wow