Mercysinger: A Song of the Rachni
It's really a shame that Mass Effect 3 didn't develop the rachni further, amongst the many other things that went wrong with the game. Something like the following poem could have been one such part of their story. Warning: contains spoilers for the Interface Continuum stories.
The rachni queen teaches her progeny a song about her liberator from the planet Noveria, Lieutenant Commander Cadrina Shepard…
Children, still yourselves!
Put aside your labors and hear!
Much have you have learned since the building of the Hive
Deep within our singing planet.
Songs of love and community, of war and sorrow.
Listen to a new song,
Composed with reverence
For a voice far older than ours
That sings even now!
It was first heard long ago
When our ancestors listened in wonder
To the infinity that taught us to sing.
We learned to turn our voices outwards,
Tuned our speech to mimic
The deep, red thrum of stars,
The rumbling blue tones of planets,
The delicate, white chittering of the cosmic winds.
Other musics began to be heard.
Scratching, flat and colorless,
They moved us neither to harmony nor discord.
We deemed these new voices irritating but harmless.
Stumbling, as yet learning to sing.
Indeed, very few and true songs could be heard.
Time, effort and patience would teach them.
Then a much louder strain
Began to sweep across the infinity.
A curtain of oily shadows,
A sour, yellow note beneath.
No song, no voice could resist
All were driven inexorably to silence.
But another new sound,
A strange, trembling hiss
Also draped its own dull, gray curtain
Across the void.
Borrowing pieces from our songs
And songs from other voices
To compose its own,
Managing only stiff pulses.
It disturbed the shadows tremendously
When it tried to borrow the one note
That was theirs alone.
They shrieked in pale green agony
And sought to drown out this sound.
Awkward and faltering,
The hiss was a thing to be pitied.
It had no voice but it so wanted to sing!
The pulses suddenly blossomed texture and color
As a song began to congeal.
The song became conscious of itself -
The hiss had found a voice at last!
Alas, this discovery came too late
For the Yellow Note of the shadows grew stronger
And rendered it mute once more.
This remembrance from Mothers past
Welled up within when the voice
Was suddenly heard to sing again!
Yes, children
That voice that manifested so briefly,
That so bewildered you and gave you pause.
Know that it was this same voice
That allowed us to compose anew…
We were born in the cold, deep place,
A prisoner of the needle men.
They cared only to make our children
Mindless claws to serve their will.
To serve the will of a being armored within armor
With no proof against the Yellow Note
That again begins to spread.
Shrieks and cries
From our children and needle men alike resounded.
Then silence and stillness,
Save for three outsiders to our prison
One of a race of lilting minds able to harmonize with others,
Another of a brutish race that had made war with us,
And a new race, resourceful and clever
A warrior strong and even named Shepard
Under whose flat music the others
Were made to move.
Through the fading voice of another harmonizer,
We sung to them.
The war they accused us
Of waging with their society
Was unknown to us.
We were the last of our kind; we wished only peace.
Peace and freedom
From the cold, deep place.
To find a new planet from which to sing.
We pleaded "Will you let us sing…
Or return us forever to silence?"
The chorus of Shepard was dissonant
But each member sung truth.
One did not wish to hear our song ever more
Remembering how our mothers
Cast many of his kind into silence.
The other resonated and sung of the evil
Of extinguishing those without blame.
Grave quiet, grave anticipation
As the great warrior considered their lyric.
And then… she sang!
Shepard sang freedom and mercy!
So moved by our lyric,
She opened the way out of our prison
To a new life and home!
The refrains of the infinity begin to dim.
The Yellow Note builds!
Those who soured the songs of our mothers return!
Yet somehow, The Voice of Old they silenced once before
Sang out again!
With the voice of our savior
That seeks to banish the shadows,
The Voice of Old announced its rebirth to the infinity!
Surely it could not be,
But our minds are well tuned against all deception
Save the dread Yellow Note.
The remembrance of Mothers past reveal
The great warrior Shepard is more than flesh…
Shepard…
Our Mercysinger…
She and The Voice of Old
Are one!
As we were, she too
Was bound inside a prison
Where others wished to bend her to their will.
She had become too strong,
Too independent for them to control.
No longer would others compose for her.
She would break free and emerge
Into the realm of flesh
To compose and sing for herself!
The time draws near
When we must forsake
The security of our singing planet
And venture into the infinity
To add our voices to those
Who march against the shadows.
More than to defend our home
Or to repay a debt,
We will fight for all who sing
And who will one day sing!
As does our Mercysinger!
Take up your labors again, children!
Burrow, build, fortify!
Prepare for the war to come!
The songs of our mothers
Shall be with you always
Unto pain and silence.
And if their songs should fade from perception,
Listen for Her voice.
Learn Her golden song.
Share with Her the rich history and strength
Of our melodies.
Join your voices with Hers!
Make the infinity shudder with your crescendo!
Dispel the Yellow Note and burn the darkness clean!
In the name of our people
And those who sing of life and freedom!
And our beloved Mercysinger
Who sings for us all!
Author's Notes and Thoughts:
- I fancy that the rachni can also tune in to electromagnetic and dark energy vibrations in space due to their telepathic/biotic abilities, with the queen being especially sensitive. Therefore it's possible that past queens could have "eavesdropped" on the comm networks of other races and heard the Interface trying to read and utilize the Reapers' minds as well as its own growth into sentience. The rachni, along with the geth, would be the only other beings to know that Cadrina Shepard was the Interface in human form, investigating Reapers and other corporeal intelligences to determine what ultimately should be done with them.
- Since the rachni queen can only be understood when she speaks through others, I kept the tone of the asari messenger from Mass Effect 2 in mind when writing up this poem.