Citadel Fleet: the Council's defence force and what one battle cost it

The Citadel Fleet was the main space defence force of the Citadel, a mixed formation of turian, salarian and asari warships with the asari dreadnought Destiny Ascension at its head. Turian hulls made up the bulk of it, which followed from the turian role as the Council's peacekeepers. Its reputation did not survive the Battle of the Citadel intact, and neither did much of the fleet.

What was the Citadel Fleet in Mass Effect?#

The Citadel Fleet was the Council's standing defence force, a combined asari, salarian and turian formation whose job was to hold the Citadel and patrol the approaches to Council space.

Nobody published its order of battle. What is known is what it could do at once: patrol every mass relay connecting Citadel space to the Terminus Systems and still leave a garrison force at the station itself. Ambassador Udina went further and claimed the fleet was big enough to secure the whole Attican Traverse if the Council ever chose to.

The Destiny Ascension gave it a hard edge as well as a symbolic one. It was the most powerful warship any of the Council races had built, and the asari kept it at the centre of the fleet.

The trap at the relays#

After the fighting on Virmire, the Council made its reading of Saren Arterius and deployed accordingly. Saren, it decided, would never be reckless enough to attack the Citadel directly, so the fleet went out to cover every relay in Council space instead.

Sovereign came anyway, with a geth fleet behind it. The Destiny Ascension ordered Citadel control to close the Wards, which should have sealed the station into a fortress. Saren had already got inside through the Conduit, and he shut down both the Citadel and the relay network from within. That left the garrison portion of the fleet, badly outnumbered, facing the whole geth attack with no route open for the rest of its own ships to come home. Sovereign forced its way through and the Ward arms closed behind it.

The choice#

The Council was evacuated onto the Destiny Ascension, which then could not cut its way clear of the geth escorts around Sovereign. Commander Shepard reactivates the relays, and the Alliance Navy and the Normandy arrive to reinforce what is left of the Citadel Fleet.

The last call belongs to the player. Shepard decides whether the incoming ships push through to save the Destiny Ascension and the Council aboard it, or hold back and let the Ascension die while they wait for the Ward arms to reopen. Neither option is free.

Both aftermaths#

Save the Council and the Destiny Ascension survives. How much of the rest of the fleet came through is not recorded, though the turians are known to have lost twenty cruisers with three hundred crew apiece. The Alliance paid eight cruisers and 2,400 personnel for the rescue. By 2185 the Galactic News was reporting the Ascension on a twenty-colony victory cruise.

Let the Council die and the implication is that most of the fleet defending the station went with them. Khalisah al-Jilani put the death toll at ten thousand, a figure that may or may not be inflated. In 2185 the news carried plans for an Allied Citadel Defense Unit to take the destroyed fleet's place, with the Systems Alliance supplying most of the ships and the Asari Republics handing responsibility for defence to the Turian Hierarchy. The turians also announced that they would no longer hold dreadnought production to its previous limits, citing the need for more security.

The 24th Fighter Group#

One unit came out of the battle decorated. In 2185 the 24th Fighter Group of the Citadel Fleet received the Galactic Unit Citation, the highest honour a military formation can be given, for its part in the Battle of the Citadel. It had been the first unit to engage Sovereign.