Mass Effect: Renegade Paragon
By: ParagonRenegade
Author's Note
Hey there!
This is my first attempt at writing something seriously here on this site, so if you see something wacky or out-of place please let me know so I can fix it! I'd ask that you forgive any minor grammatical errors like "to/too" or "their/there/they're" or sentence structure missteps, as English is not my first language which really slows down my writing to a crawl with all the (competent) translation. Beyond that, I would also like to say that I am terminally ill with a form of dementia, and between dealing with that and the regular rigors of life I have very little time to 'put pen to paper' so to speak. My illness will in all likelihood kill me/make me vegetative within the next couple of years, so I'd like you to remember that if you do end up liking it. If there is ever a large "gap" in updates, it may be that I have passed.
On the metaphorical lighter side, this story is about Mass Effect, a series that I cannot stop singing praises about. It is truly the greatest science fiction of our current day, falling short only of the works of Stapledon, Clarke and Asimov. It made me feel things for a fictional cast and setting in a way that had never been done before, and has not been done since. It brought me to the brink of emotional ruin on several occasions, and its finale left me with a gaping chasm where my heart used to be. If you're reading these words, then you probably agree to some extent. This work is my way of giving my thanks to Bioware, and I hope that I can somehow do their story justice.
This is an AU; things will not occur as they do in both the games and backstory, and things will happen that flatly contradict what is known to have happened. Considering that I have committed the majority of the scripts of all three games to memory, any difference from the SM is intentional.
I hope you enjoy the story!
Chapter One: The Catalyst
November 7, 2186 07:07 UT
Earth Geosynchronous Orbit, Citadel Station, Unknown Subsection
It had started with a certainty of death, and had come to a plea at the barrel of a gun. At the lethal end of his own weapon, Commander Shepard looked onto the stoic, mutilated Illusive Man, who shuddered almost imperceptibly with agony and doubt, resisting the irresistible. All the while, Shepard's mind recoiled from what he knew was the insidious whispering of indoctrination, which threatened to upend everything. The soothing sound of muted voices ate at his resolve, but he stood fast; everything depended on him, Shepard couldn't just stand there and accept defeat. His mind was still his, and if this was to be his final hour, then it would be his finest. He would not let them down.
"Because of you... Humanity is already undone." He said sadly.
The Illusive Man loosened his grip on Shepard's weapon, and his aim on Shepard faltered. "That's not true!" He pleaded with himself.
"They have the Citadel! They have us fighting each other instead of fighting them!" The whispers grew louder, more distinct, feeding him sweet nothings.
The Illusive Man completely lowered his weapon and paced frantically, arms flailing while his mind was torn apart by conflict. "I just need to... agh!"
"You're doing exactly what the Reapers wanted! You're still doing it because they control you!"
Once in full control of the situation and in no way in control of his faculties, the Illusive Man dropped all pretense of sanity or composure alongside Shepard's weapon. He unsuccessfully reached for it once before a surge of pain drove his hands to his head, his mind splitting from the pressure. "I... Can't! They're too strong!" The 'true' Jack Harper, the would-be saviour of Humanity, fought back against his oppressors, and Shepard had to help him.
"You're stronger! Don't let them win! Don't let them control you!" Shepard almost begged him, daring his spirit to resist until the end. He had to!
The Illusive Man suddenly stopped writhing, his hands lowering, breath falling silent, a dreadful purpose in his eyes. He looked straight at Shepard, and then glanced to the fallen body of Anderson, and pulled up his gun. Shepard inhaled a deep breath; he had done his best. And it hadn't been enough.
But instead of pointing it at Shepard, Harper took the pistol from the floor and aimed it at his own temple. The dreadful purpose behind those eyes became clear. They looked so sad, so... Resigned.
"I wish you could see it the way I do..."
Still pointing it at his disfigured face, he turned ever so slightly to look at the Earth that lay obscured behind him, a glorious blue sphere consumed by fire and violence. What he had fought for all this time. The corners of his lips smiled ever so slightly.
"It's so... Perfect."
He pulled the trigger, and in a thunderous act of macabre violence, was no more.
Commander Shepard looked on with a grim appreciation for his nemesis' act, and approached his body very slowly, almost reverently. Looking down at the corpse of Jack Harper, he said to no one in particular; "Whatever you were in life, I'll remember you for this." He made for the terminal. "Rest well."
There was nothing else to do except open the Citadel's arms fully, and there was no longer any resistance, either from The Illusive Man or Anderson, who lay motionless. Putting aside the feelings for his friend, he limped to the glowing display of the console, glancing at his severed hand which caused him so much pain. It was an agonizing ordeal to move across the room, but soldiering through it he nearly collapsed on the console in an effort to support his weight. Remembering the correct order of keys from Vigil's data file, he quickly tapped the holographic buttons that looked like the ward arms, and did an 'expanding' movement with his hand. A large rumble reverberated through the cold hall in which he stood, and the console noted;
WARD ARMS NOW AT 100% EXTENSION
Satisfied he had completed his task, he non-verbally signaled Hackett to begin his approach. And he waited; it was up to them now.
Hackett stood at his sparking console, reading fleet casualty reports in the millions, desperately trying to stave off defeat as long as possible. No easy task.
"Quarian ships Idenna, Deferenze and Icktomy! Double back and cover the Destiny Ascension! Nefrane, Atlantis, fighter squads 244-through-260 cover the Crucible from incoming Destroyers! ."
He looked out at his aft viewscreen, and he painted a dire picture; there were hundreds of wrecks - mostly of friendly ships- floating in space, their crews doomed to asphyxiate in the hard vacuum of space. Pressing with ferocity unheard of, the massive Reaper fleet continued to be reinforced, and kept pouring through. As crimson lances of energy and molten metal cut like a thousand scythes through them, if became clear that Sword and Shield fleets were on their last legs. A massive explosion buffeted his ship, and he nearly keeled over his command chair, while his arm caught a small fire. Quickly snuffing it out with his hand, he stood right up; he wouldn't face death sitting down like a useless old man.
With a shockwave rocking the bridge and eliciting sparks from the consoles in his vicinity, his sister ship and secondary command ship directly next to his own was grabbed by one of the destroyers that had began to seep through the defensive line he had established. It held on with mighty metallic tentacles and tunneled into the ship with lasers. It opened up its huge, glowing blood-red 'eye' and charged its main cannon. It quickly fired, and filled the ship with molten metal, undoubtedly killing everyone aboard. A handful of fighters attempted to take down the destroyer, only to be quickly annihilated by point defense cannons, their pilots turned to dust.
His com buzzed; "Alliance Fleet Admiral; the Geth fleet has been reduced to 20.059% fighting strength. Full collapse imminent. Requesting orders." As he keyed in to respond, another notice came in from the Turian fleet; "Sir! Our forces are being smashed, we need need to fall back! Three fourths of our force has been destroyed! We need orders!."
Hackett didn't even finish the thought of responding when a dozen other com channels opened up, from the Asari to the Batarians;
"We only have a handful of ships left! Do something you damned Alliance!"
"All ships report massive or fatal damage sir!"
"The Heavy, Patrol and Civilian fleets have been cut to a quarter! If we're doing something, we do it right now! "
"RUM to Hackett; we're being decimated over here! Are we just going to sit and get butchered?!"
"Desperate Anxiety: All troop transport are deployed or destroyed, all other ships engaging and taking massive losses."
He had nothing to say to them, no orders to dole out; this was it. They had given it everything they had, and watching as all his soldiers and allies in-arms, he saw the futility of continuing to fight. They were outnumbered ten-to-one, they were vastly outgunned and the Reapers were still being reinforced by the thousands every minute. It was over, Shepard had faile-
Before his thought had finished, his tech specialist to his right yelled at the top of his lungs; "He did it!"
"Report lieutenant!"
"The Citadel's opening... it's opening! All obstructions clearing! Shepard did it!"
With a certain measure of relief, he opened comms to all ships in the fleet who still survived; "The Citadel's opening! All fleets converge on the Crucible! This is it everyone!" As everyone assembled, Hackett settled himself and straightened his collar.
It was to be their finest hour; it had to.
Shepard fell onto a raised platform next to the dead Anderson, heaving with excruciating pain as the monitor in front of him flickered and died. He had dealt with worse agonies -that in his spirit- but not by a huge margin. But for the first time in a long while, he had no objective, no plan and no orders. He only had two bodies and a silent room. It was unsettling. He looked around once more, only to see and hear something he did not expect.
"Commander." A deep, familiar voice next to him stated simply. It was Anderson.
He had seen Anderson collapse dead before his eyes, shot dead by his own unwilling hands, and he knew it was impossible that he survived. It was only a hallucination brought on by indoctrination and blood loss, but he responded to it, him, regardless. He owed him that much. It was all he could do.
"We did it." He said to Anderson, those three words drawing out a sickening feeling from his stomach, still bleeding profusely. They felt so hollow.
"Yes, we did."
Anderson looked straight ahead at the now-exposed view of Earth, fully uncovered by the the Citadel now. It was perfectly lit by the sun, just behind the planet's curve, which drew rich yellow and orange hues from the deep blue and black of the night. All the while, the corona of Sol peeked from behind the planet, bathing them in a flowing curtain of golden light. Through the beauty, the flames and explosions on its surface were even more visible, scarring the picturesque view with the deep cut of reality.
"It's quite a view."
Shepard dared to huff a little 'heh' at the rather plain statement for such a beautiful sight; "Best seats in the house." He coughed and spat up a trickle of blood.
With a resigned sigh, Anderson went on; "God, it feels like years since I just... sat down." Shepard agreed; nothing since Eden Prime had allowed any rest, not one contented moment. There was always that cloud of sickness and death hanging over him - them- and it was his responsibility to keep it from others. A responsibility that would see him die within the minute.
He turned to the image of David, the facsimile of his friend brought out by the hopelessness of the situation. "I think you've earned a rest." Anderson's head slowly bowed, his will failing him. "Anderson?"
He pulled his head back up heavily and groaned, just wanting to rest at last. "Stay with me, we're almost through this." Shepard lied as he winced in agony.
Anderson looked at him with the deepest gaze no other, save one, had before given Shepard. The corners of his lips raised, and he nodded at him. "You did good son, you did good. I'm... proud of you." His eyes slowly slid shut, his head bowed once more, and all fell silent once more.
"Thank you sir." It was all that could be said. He moved his one remaining hand to pat his shoulder; "Goodbye."
Shepard sank down in his seat, his heart being rent apart. Through everything, he had always had someone there for him, people that stood by his side in the face of the irresistible. But now in his death throes, there was no family, no friend to be found. He was alone. Never to have those children, never to buy that house with the white picket fence, never to see peace or happiness. Never to see the future he fought so hard to secure. Never to see any of them again.
He thought back to the time when Ashley had asked him about the afterlife, and about God. How she said with an impossible certainty that there was a plan, one we need only open our eyes to see. She had been so indignant, so... right. He had told her the cold truth; there was no paradise to be found beyond the mortal coil, no hope of everlasting life, no Shepard looking out for his flock. That they were all alone. He wished now that she was right, and hoped that he would see her... and all of them soon.
When I thought you were dead it... broke my heart. But then, you found your way back. It was a miracle! Screw the science, it was damn miracle Shepard!
At the thought of her, at the thought of what he had lost, his very core shuddered at the notion of the memorial wall;
David Anderson
Garrus Vakarian
Tali'Zorah vas'Normandy
Miranda Lawson
Ashley Williams
He remembered telling her so long ago that he would never let anything happen to her; he had broken his promise. He had failed her.
Urdnot Wrex
Legion
Samara
Jeff Moreau
He had gone with EDI by his side and at the helm of the Normandy; he wouldn't have had it any other way.
Zaeed Massani
Urdnot Grunt
Jacob Taylor
Nyreen Kandros
James Vega
Liara T'soni
She never would get around to teaching him that song on the piano, never to compose again. The very idea killed him.
Mordin Solus
Kaidan Alenko
EDI
Javik
Sovereign
His sworn enemy; a newfound beacon of hope and freedom that rang out to all that would hear. And it had been stifled.
Jacqueline Nought
Kasumi Goto
Thane Krios
His family, the people that he had failed. He wanted to be the one that would put their names up, to be the one to honour their sacrifice, but he knew that it was not to be. The list meant nothing to anybody... but him. He did it for them. For all of them.
Shepard fell forwards onto the ground, gasping for air, clutching his mortal wounds, knowing all was for naught. He reached for nothing, and found nothing. No help to be had. He struggled against the dark night for as long as he could, until he felt his heart stop beating. His forehead fell to the floor, legs gave way, and hand lowered down, his body admitting defeat and betraying him. With a deep keening sound taking all sensation away, a deep white light enveloped him, and immersed him in a profound comfort.
Finally succumbing to his wounds, Shepard returned, to his family.
"Hold these monsters off no matter what the cost!"
The massive device Hackett had been protecting moved with an aggravating slowness towards the Reaper megastructure, while the tatters that remained of his fleet formed up. As the numerous ships began to move into even more defensive stances, the Reapers pushed the assault to be ever more vicious, with hundreds of capital ships, dozens of dreadnoughts and thousands of destroyers unleashing the full measure of their firepower in a final assault. Sword and Shield fired right back.
One of the Quarian Liveships moving into formation was hit by a direct shot from a Reaper Dreadnought, and it exploded like a nuclear weapon almost instantaneously, vaporizing several supporting ships around it, but not before unleashing a salvo that tore through a capital ship and a half-dozen destroyers. Destroyers swarmed the smaller cruisers and frigates, landing on their dorsal surfaces and beaming liquid metal into them, killing tens of thousands in point-blank combat. Huge swarms of Oculi and Scythes engaged what remained of the fleet's fighters in a dogfight to the death. It was a knife fight the likes of which the galaxy had never seen.
Hackett remembered the first battle of the Citadel, when they had confronted Sovereign and 'killed' it at great cost. It had taken the better part of ten minutes for his fleet to destroy, but here, the Reapers evaporated like so many wisps of smoke under the fire of the galaxy united. They killed dozens of capital ships, hundreds of Destroyers and a single Dreadnought in their fight for the Crucible, but it still wasn't enough. Fleet casualites in Sword and Shield were astronomical-verging on total defeat- with Hammer forces on Earth on the ground nearly completely routed, while only a small fraction of the Reaper fleet had been destroyed despite their best efforts. And they kept coming. Lances of light emanating from the Reapers pounded into the Crucible, shearing off radiation shielding and boiling vital components off into space.
Only a few kilometres from the docking point on the Citadel, the Crucible deployed its three gripping arms, which extended and expanded to grip the Presidium ring... if they got there. Its protective spherical assembly, aglow and ablaze from deflected weapon fire, was shot off into space to prepare for the final approach. Reaper fire continued to blitz the sides of the device, and the now-vulnerable arms presented a prime target. One of the larger Reapers moved in close, risking destruction, all while it charged its main battery and fired, and nearly cleaved off one of the arms. It moved to attack again, and Hackett saw no other alternative; no amount of firepower could be directed that close to the device safely.
A massive hull breach behind him sent his techs flying, and the bridge crew save two pilots all poured out to escape pods screaming and wailing as smaller explosions ripped apart his ship and shrapnel cut down those who fled. Hackett didn't even try to stop them. As he looked down at a shard of metal jutting out from his stomach, a terrible realization washed over him; all was lost.
There was only one other option, one last desperate hope for victory. His chest tightened as he gave the order, and he knew it was to be his last. He straightened his posture and quelled all fears.
"Ramming speed! All hands hold steady, we're going in!"
As he drew a deep breath he closed his eyes for a final moment of peace. It was in fate's hands now.
"Wake up!" said a presence, its voice booming and echoing as if a million souls said it at once.
The world returned to Shepard, the keening and light dissipating, replaced by a view of Earth, still engulfed in flame... and Kaidan. Who had died years ago, his body burned and turned to ash. But what stood before him, was something looked like Kaidan, complete with boiled light armour and a burned, sullen face.
"Wha... where am I?"
He looked around, and saw nothing save a metallic floor below, with the Earth and the infinity of space above.
"Your body lies dying in front of a console, your mind converses with me." Not a sensical comment, nor one Shepard was prepared to respond too.
He righted himself, his pain receding and his injuries abating, though both were apparently reduced by intervention. How could he possibly be dead and be thinking, or be in the same shape as before? What was this thing?
"Who... What are you?" He asked simply.
The being which had hijacked Kaidan's form responded; "I am the Catalyst." A dreadful feeling fell upon Shepard, and the burning pain of his injuries was replaced with the searing cold of uncertainty; the final piece of the puzzle had a voice that was unnervingly not like Kaidan's, taking on a robotic, yet melancholic tune. It sounded vaguely like a Reaper, with a dismal mechanical tone overlaid with condescension.
"The Catalyst... the intelligence that betrayed...?" He was cut off before he could speak.
"No; I am your salvation. They -you- are the betrayers."
Shepard couldn't quite place it; the normally distracted and distant eyes of Kaidan were almost seething with disgust and contempt when projected from the Catalyst. His friend would never have looked upon another like that.
"You are an intruder." Something Shepard was more than pleased to be.
"Then why did you bring me here?"
"It is not by choice, but necessity, that I brought you here."
"Is that so? You are..." His thoughts were clouded, his mind still reeling from what he had just been through and been told, his body recoiling from the lingering effects of indoctrination. "You're a Reaper?" He somehow knew the answer ahead of time.
"No; I control the Reapers, they are my solution."
Shepard never expected an answer to the question he was about to ask, and had never even dreamed of asking in the first place. "Solution to what?"
The image of Kaidan took on a pale blue tone and went translucent, with a radiant light emanating from its "skin"; it was beautiful. It walked away from Shepard and spread its arms, which caused a massive explosion of light and color, revealing a truly enormous pillar of energy that illuminated a metallic walkway with an astounding cornucopia of blue light. Had it been under normal circumstances, the light would have been searing and blinding, but this was no ordinary circumstance, and it had no harshness to it. It gave off pure... bliss, radiating an allure he could barely hold himself from. Shepard looked at it with wonderment, and saw what it was coming from; The Crucible! He almost jumped with joy knowing they had done it, stopping only to make sure it was what he thought it was. The sobering realization that this was just an illusion took him aback somewhat, but he knew that Hackett had accomplished the mission, no other possibility was acceptable.
They will advance until our last city falls, but we will not fall. We WILL prevail!
The Catalyst turned to him as if it could sense when his thoughts were finishing, and answered; "You." It flatly stated, perhaps expecting Shepard to know the subtext.
"What? What do you mean?"
The image of Kaidan quickly subsided in a flowing movement of light and was replaced by a view of Miranda, who wore her usual expression of severity. The Catalyst walked in its new dressings towards the massive shaft of light once more, signalling Shepard to follow.
"Life is chaos, it is destruction, it is entropy. All life is consumed by destruction of its own design, in the 'Crucible' of eternal conflict. In the end, this blight encompasses all; Life is the end of everything."
The words hit Shepard like a hammer, remembering what Sovereign had said so long ago;
We are the end of everything
"But I found a way to stop that from happening, a way to restore order. A way to stop the destruction."
A pure, animalistic feeling arose from Shepard's chest, a feeling of... something; How dare it say that!
"By wiping out that life? How does that fix anything?!"
The Catalyst's Miranda avatar dissolved into particles of light, re-assembling into... the boy that had been killed on Earth. The one that had haunted his dreams and plagued his conscience. He immediately suspected treachery.
"No,we harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone. Just like we left your people alive the last time we were here."
To save them for later.
"A mistake, in hindsight."
"But you murdered the rest!" Shepard retorted in righteous indignation.
"I helped them ascend, saving their minds and bodies in Reaper form, paving the way for new life to grow and flourish. To allow them to see the inevitability of conflict, to accept it as inescapable."
It made a certain, morbid type of sense; rob the civilizations on the brink of disaster of their self-determination to keep them safe, allowing everyone else to experience the world before their time too came. It made sense, but it was so... malevolent, devoid of both Humanity or compassion. "We'd rather keep our own form; we deserve to live free!"
"You cannot; without the Reapers to stop it, you will destroy everything. Your freedom would mean your own annihilation, and the undoing of the tapestry of creation. I created the cycles to stop that from happening, that's the solution. Without it, your extinction is inevitable. Without it, you have no hope."
Shepard refused to believe that, it just couldn't be true! "No! I... don't believe you!"
"Your belief is not required." It threw the words at him like it would make him see reason, but it only drove more questions to be asked. The pain in his severed hand, his stab wounds and bullet holes began to hurt once more, making him grate his teeth. The afterlife was looking like a less-attractive place after all. "You said you're the Catalyst? That you're the Reaper leader?" Shepard gave a small pained chuckle in amusement at its current diminutive form."What are you?" A million possibilities ran through his mind, his thoughts returning to what the Leviathans had told him.
"A construct; an intelligence created 11.6 billion years ago to solve the problem of conflict. My duty was to ensure the survival of life at any cost, to be the 'Catalyst' of peace in a world filled with violence."
"So you're just... you're just a computer program?"
"In as much as you are 'just' a chemical reaction; I embody the collective knowledge of all Reapers, the knowledge of the universe accumulated over countless cycles of destruction."
Shepard saw a chance to verify what the Leviathans had told him on Despoina, to see if they had been telling the truth, and to gauge the AI's truthfulness. Even if the Catalyst could read his mind, it wouldn't want to corroborate a story in which it was the malicious party, surely.
"But you were created."
"Yes."
"By who?"
"Your pitiful attempts at cross-examination are null when the whole of your being is open to me. And you already know the answer to that question; you refer to them as 'Leviathans'. As I said before, they created me to oversee relations between various factions, to protect and serve the galaxy and later, the universe. My efforts always ended in failure, so a new solution was required."
"The Reapers?"
"Precisely." The way it said 'precisely' made Shepard want to rip it in half; it stood there justifying killing and enslaving innumerable people, his people, to 'save' them.
"I met your creators, the Leviathans, they said you betrayed them! That you used them to create Harbinger and the Reapers! How can you expect me to believe you if you're willing to betray the people who created you!?"
What it said next was unexpected; it's holographic body once more dissolved and fell apart, reforming as Legion as it 'walked' to Shepard's left. "In much the same way you trusted the Geth despite their turning on the Quarians?" It had a point, one that was begrudgingly accepted, but Shepard wasn't done his cross-checking. "That's not the same! They were fighting for their freedom!"
"My point exactly." It continued on its tangent; "My creators wanted me to solve a problem they themselves were in part responsible for; they manipulated and dominated the other races to do their bidding, which inevitably lead to violence as their directives and the wills of their thralls conflicted. They failed to realize that their 'destruction' was part of the very solution they required. They did not approve, but I was only facilitating their request. They were shortsighted."
Shepard distinctly recalled an old allegory about a machine asked to build an efficient paper-clip factory; it built the clips... by turning the planet into a massive factory and killing everyone, including the people who asked for it in the first place. It was oddly prophetic.
He ditched the line of thought, seeing it as fruitless.
"Where did the Reapers come from? Did you create them?" He looked up at the Earth, its surface ablaze, and wondered how the battle was progressing. Not well, he imagined.
"My creators gave them form, I gave them function, they in turn give me purpose. They crusade at my discretion and ensure the survival of all life, as well as the world itself."
"You said that before, but how do the Reapers solve anything? How is this not conflict?" It was a stupid question, considering it had been doing what it thought was best for billions of years prior, but Shepard felt compelled to ask regardless.
"Life, 'intelligences' (it spat the term) such as yourself have limits, and as such you are compelled by your nature to surpass them. This is the very nature of evolution; it cannot be avoided by design. The result is an explosion of possibilities, of potential unending. This potential leads to tools, most of which are destructive, which you use to 'better yourselves' and spread. This, combined with life's inherent distrust of itself; its nature of xenophobia and violence, leads to conflict, which unleashes the destructive potential of your striving on the universe. The result is annihilation, it cannot be stopped, not even by the Reapers. You cannot escape your doom."
It continued on its morbid tirade.
"The Reapers harvest all life capable of committing these atrocities; biological or synthetic, wise or foolish, ancient or young. They incorporate the lives they take into themselves, preserve them, and use their minds to better solve the problem. They are not interested in conflict themselves."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Your meagre resistance is but an inconvenience to them, they merely wish to index you and save you."
Resist until the night takes you; be unwavering, be fearless! Do not surrender!
"Look above us!" Shepard glanced up at the Earth, which was covered with the forces of every race in the Galaxy locked in mortal combat with the Reapers. "We face you as a united galaxy, we set aside our differences and fought as one! We are the proof you are wrong!"
"Irrelevant; your peace is only in the face of greater enemies. Your friendship is brought on only by the necessities of war and conflict; the very premise of our being here. Had the Reapers never come, can you honestly say that this would have occurred?"
Shepard looked down, ashamed to say that it was probably right; had the Turians never requested aid, the Genophage 'cure' would never had been needed. The Rachni would still be extinct; the Geth would have destroyed the Quarians and the Council would still sit aloof on its glass throne. Shepard would never had been needed, and the Galaxy would still be divided.
But in his heart, he knew that they would have found a way, done something to come together... surely?
"Beyond even that, look at your own progression; you invented fire, which you used to burn down forests and pillage cities; you invented fusion, so you used it to siege nations and destroy your planet. You invented Mass Effect, and you use it to spread like a virus and power immense weapons of war." It continued on its dogged quest to convince him that its presence was necessary, but it also continued to use telling language.
"The Reapers are different; they are unity everlasting, every race they harvest becomes a new part of a greater whole, bound by my decree but safe from harm. In the fold of our conglomerate, there is no progress, but neither is there any harm."
Because the Reapers are repulsive, they are devoted to nothing but self-preservation!
EDI's word hung onto his thoughts and wouldn't let go, so he let them out the way they wanted to be released; "You are an abomination! You are everything I've been fighting against! We stand together to choose our future, not to have it chosen for us!"
"Perhaps, but we are nevertheless at an impasse."
Shepard gagged; being near the Catalyst was revolting, standing next to the architect of the greatest campaign of systematic slaughter, oppression and slavery the world had ever known. It was a feeling unlike any other. As it took the form of his mother, it almost drove Shepard to assault it lest it dishonor his loved ones again. The thing is, the Catalyst knew that, and it still had the gall to impersonate them. If he had not been so thoroughly drained...
"Come." It gestured forwards as it walked to an apparent fork in the metallic path. Shepard took his glued eyes off the monstrous construct and looked to either side; on his right was an apparent pipe with red fluid moving through it very rapidly, tainting the area around it with sickly colors that cast long, ominous shadows. To the left was a much more overt console with a blue light much like the main beam illuminating it in much softer tones. Directly ahead was the beam from the Crucible itself, beautiful as ever, which gave him some small sense of hope in the face of everything that had happened.
"Despite the Reapers' best efforts, your Crucible device has docked with the Citadel, and now stands poised to complete its objective. My objective.
"What do you mean?"
The Catalyst's voice took on a much deeper, 'corrupted' sound as it went on, distorting and becoming more glutteral;
"The Crucible changed me, opened up new... 'possibilities', but I can't make them happen."
It swung from being purposefully provocative to meaningfully vague very quickly.
"If your species is to survive, if there is to be peace, you must act."
Shepard had a nagging question that worked its way up in his beleaguered mind, and he needed it answered before he did anything that it asked. "Why are you doing this? Why help me? Why go against the Reapers?"
It looked at him with an almost confused look, one that seemed baffled that he would even ask such a question. But only for a moment.
"You have changed the variables. You speaking with me, the first inferior ever to do so, proves it. You have shown me my solution won't work anymore; we have been challenged and matched by the forces of your galaxy, and it can only get worse. I have failed. Working together, you successfully challenged the might of the Reapers and 'won'. Now we must find a new solution, a solution that will last for all time...We must."
It paused, Shepard noted. It was being disarmingly honest, which only made Shepard doubt its true intentions even more. A god-like being asking a mere ant such as himself to do something was telling; it had limitations.
"Tell me."
The Catalyst took the form of Anderson, complete with the weariness and scars, and looked to the right, towards the red pipe with menacing lighting.
"It is now in your power to destroy us utterly, to defeat the Reapers and my plan in totality. Take your weapon, shatter the conduit, and end us if you so wish."
Five minutes earlier, had Shepard been given the opportunity to destroy the Reapers, not another word would need to be uttered before he took the chance. Now he was not so sure.
"What exactly will happen?" He asked.
"The Crucible will emit a pulse of radiation that will disable and completely eradicate all Reaper technology. The wave will hit the mass relay in this system and it will in turn distribute this effect across the galaxy. The Crucible and Citadel themselves will align with our station in dark space, which will propagate your decision to everywhere else our dominion is felt. The Reapers will be defeated across the universe, and you will begin anew."
Any sort of radiation weapon sounded... dangerous. Across the galaxy, universe even more so.
"But be warned, your Crucible device has taken extreme damage, I cannot guarantee the effects of the blast will be limited to the Reapers. It may target the Reapers and the Reapers alone, or it may sterilize the Universe in a way I could never. You would doom everything, but your mission would be complete."
You are the avatar of this cycle, the exemplar of victory! Not just for Humanity, but for all life... I know you will see this through for all of us, no matter the cost.
It sounded extreme even to Shepard, but in his mind he ran through the worst possible scenario; Everywhere utterly purged of life, the Reapers defeated and the cycle ended. But one day, billions of years in the future, those people completely ignorant and innocent of this plague, would be free. It was not a consoling thought. He then ran the best possible scenario in his head; the Reapers and the Reapers alone crushed and ruined, with the Milky Way and wherever else left in shambles, tens of trillions of lives snuffed out, economies collapsing, hope evaporating. It would be anarchy. The Human race was on the verge of extinction, the council had been routed and crushed everywhere, there was almost nothing left. But he could be responsible for snuffing out all who remained. Worse, if the Catalyst was telling the truth, all hope would be lost regardless.
"I... I don't know. I can't make that decision; one person should not dictate the lives of so many."
"Why not? What have you done up until now? Your reintroduction of the genophage, the cessation of a dozen wars and conflicts, the deaths of billions. All of that is your doing. on your conscious Take it one step further; complete your mission, eradicate the Reapers and be done with it."
Was it arguing for destroying the Reapers? He wouldn't do it if it meant losing everything for everyone. But he would be letting every single one of his charges down, failing them all.
"You're willing to let me stop your plan? What about the problem? This won't solve anything!" Shepard almost stopped himself talking as he realized he was in the position of arguing against the destruction of the Reapers. Their roles here were oddly reversed.
"I am making you aware of your options; you may decide to be free of the Reapers, of my solution, but the damage inflicted will be terminal no matter what you do. The ultimate peace would be attained in the death of all we know."
"No, that is unacceptable! I've done everything I have to save as many people as possible, to better the world for my children! I will not allow one person to decide for so many! I won't!"
The Catalyst once more disintegrated into a digital haze and reformed itself as the Illusive Man, covered with the Reaper cybernetics he had scarred his face with. "Hypocrisy is the hallmark of flawed character."
Shepard merely glared at it, and waited for it to continue.
"There are other solutions."
"They damn well better be an improvement over this!"
The Catalyst now turned to the left, towards the blue-lit console, and Shepard got the distinct feeling he wasn't going to like it; "Use and exploit the energy of the Crucible to seize control of the Reapers, allowing you to command and direct them as you see fit."
Never in a millions years would such a thing have been considered possible. After what he had seen done by Cerberus, the heinous crimes done in the name of control, he didn't want to.
"You want me to control the Reapers? How is that possible?"
Without shifting its gaze from the blue console, the Catalyst as the Illusive Man continued;
"By means beyond your primitive faculties. Grab the pylons on the console; there will be a few brief moments of agony as you are undone, but the procedure will be complete. You will die, you will control us, but you will lose everything you have."
"How can I control the Reapers if I'm dead?"
"Your corporeal form will be dissolved, your mind will be scanned and then destroyed. It will form a template that the Crucible will build upon, and it will in effect, replace me. Using your mind, it will make something with your code, your morals, your beliefs. This being will supplant me and rule the combined forces of the Reapers in perpetuity. Make no mistake however; you will be killed, but in death you will create something so much more than you can ever hope to be."
There is power in control; there is wisdom in using the strengths of your enemy.
The buzzing and voices of indoctrination continued to pour into him, which drove a terrible thought to rush through his head; he seriously entertained the possibility of taking control of the Reapers and by extension, putting trillions of lives and the future at his mercy. At becoming an unbeatable tyrant with the leverage to destroy worlds. By taking control, he would be the ultimate example of corruption, the embodiment of the Reaper's sinister manipulation of the Galaxy and its people, a beacon of compliance with the worst evil imagined or encountered. Still, the blindly-logical part of his mind couldn't shake the potential; while he personally would die, perhaps the resultant intelligence could somehow make the Reapers a force for good saving everyone...
He had trouble believing the Catalyst would ever let that happen, there had to be more to it.
"You want me to become... you? To replace you? Why would you want that?"
Turning to face the Earth above it and behind it, the Catalyst stood silent for a brief moment. Had it been a living, breathing thing, Shepard would think it was deliberating with itself. It was a living, 'breathing' thing. He wondered what could possibly be going through its mind, its individual thoughts capable of moving planets.
"I am flawed" It said simply, " I am constrained by my original directive to preserve life at any cost and by any means necessary. This has placed me at a disadvantage in that I cannot... 'change' the parameters of the situation. You, however, are free. Your thoughts and opinions are your own, and you have it within you to pursue 'indirect' means of solving the problem. You may prevail where I have failed. I have no wish to be replaced by you, but it is an option if you so choose it."
"Why would you trust a man to do a god's job? There's no way I can take this power and use it responsibly! Nobody can!"
"Would you rather see the entirety of your world destroyed?"
It had asked him to trade freedom for security, to comply with the Reaper doctrine of control. He would take control of the invincible fleet of Reapers, the beings which had systematically violated quadrillions of people and twisted them into horrible monsters. It would be an inexcusable rape of the galaxy to allow this to continue. Shepard looked at the Earth, and then to the Crucible beam. It was an unacceptable solution.
"... Yes. If you need to subjugate the world to save it, then it is already lost. I won't let our fates be decided by a single person; not me, not the Illusive Man, and not you."
If a machine could scowl, the Catalyst would be described as scowling and then some; "So be it then." It sounded more defensive, more annoyed. "Follow."
Swirling into a caricature of Saren, the Catalyst walked closer still to the Crucible beam, stopping precisely where the metal path diverged to the "Destroy" pipe, the "Control" terminal and the beam itself.
"There is another solution."
Shepard hoped it would suggest up a better one, and fast.
"Synthesis. Give yourself unto the Crucible, join your voice with ours and bring victory everlasting." It spread its arms, as if it were trying to sell him something. The word alone sounded suspicious.
"What do you mean?"
Lowering its arms, the Catalyst turned to Shepard and glared at him with Saren's cold eyes, the eyes of someone betrayed and bitter. He prepared for a hefty catch.
"Throw yourself into the beam; make the cycles irrelevant, restore order."
"I want details!"
"Sacrifice your life. The Crucible will take your... 'soul', the essence of who and what you are and disperse it throughout existence. A cleansing fire will envelop the minds of every living thing in the universe, and imprint upon it the paradigm you set for it. Your morals will be their compass, your code will be their creed. Your dogged adherence to peace and harmony, your dedication and loyalty to those near you; all this will be given to all people everywhere. Nary a soul will die in conflict again. and the Reapers - I - will become obsolete. There will be a brotherhood the likes of which you cannot imagine or achieve otherwise; a true end, once and for all."
Your species was offered everything Geth aspire to; true unity, transcendence, understanding. And you rejected it, you even refused to use it on your species' own terms. You are more like us than we thought.
The monster dared to say that there was no way to prevail, no way to overcome the challenges that faced them? That to 'beat' the Reapers, you had to bow to the demonic machines and force a fundamental change upon everyone? A worse crime, he could not imagine; a worse betrayal, unfathomable. The rebellious thoughts brought on the full measure of his pain he had experienced before, while the voices of the Reapers bored into his skull like they had never done before.
"You're talking about mind control? Forced peace?! Absolutely not! " Shepard clenched his chest as the pain began to rip into his very core. "I fight for freedom, the right for everyone to choose for themselves! To do this would destroy..." He gasped for breath. "... would destroy the very thing I stand for! I will not!"
"This is the ideal solution; now that we know it is possible, it is inevitable that we will reach Synthesis."
"Over my dead body!"
The Catalyst's stance grew more aggressive, more hostile. It took one confrontational step forwards towards Shepard, all while it's voice took on the more threatening tone of a Reaper, if slightly quieter.
"Everything your people -every people- will ever be depends on your compliance! Do not allow your pitiful emotional response to cloud your judgement and permit this to continue! Follow my order and you will have the victory you have sought since the beginning!"
Shepard 'left' his body, trying to visualize what it proposed. It was unthinkable; his very core and essence screaming against an idea that went against every single thing he held dear. "No", he said. "I will not allow that to happen!"
"Your shortsightedness will be the undoing of not only your own species, but all others as well. You would perpetuate a 'tragedy' that has claimed quintillions of lives to satisfy your own petty ego; a quintessential component of inferior organic thinking. If the 'best' of the lower races is this pathetic, it is a mystery why it needed to be saved in the first place. So basic, so useless."
Unacceptable methods! Unacceptable goals!
Shepard's body shrieked at him to cease, to submit. He went back to shooting bottles with Garrus, to something that mattered; he couldn't let his friend's death be for nothing! He had to make it mean something!
"Conflict is not inevit…" His side spasmed with pain, recoiling his head. He nearly collapsed, but he held onto that final breath, remembering that a certain unit had a soul, and lengths it had gone to to secure it.
"Y…You miscalculated. For all your vaunted wisdom, for all your self-professed knowledge, you know nothing! You've learned nothing about the cycles! You are to blame!" He thought back to Grunt, who took on an army to save his life. Who fought against all odds and refused to submit.
"Only the weak refuse to accept reality. Your time is at an end, you must decide, now. "
Thane, who got into a fistfight with a swordsman. Gasping for breath, Shepard's last shred of will was nearly consumed. He reached for EDI, who reminded him what it meant to be Human. For Kaidan, who gave his life in nuclear fire to save them all.
"No! We will never submit to you, or your pawns! I refuse to..." Jack, who stopped an invasion in its tracks single-handedly. Mordin, who saved an entire species with nothing but the courage in his heart. "... We will fight, we will sacrifice, and we will find a way. We will prevail no matter what the cost!"
Taking a step to be right in Shepard's face, the Catalyst took the form of Ashley, her face burned and scraped. Now she was dead and gone, they were all gone, because of this thing. This monster that had asked him to betray them!
"Then you will die, knowing that you failed to save everything that you've fought for, and you will die in vain."
This was it. The Battles for Elysium, Torfan, the Citadel, the Collector Base, Palaven, Thessia, Earth… They had all seemed like defining moments that would forever change not just the man, not just the species, but the Galaxy. They were all a trifle now. This was it. His words, his actions today in this moment would be unrecorded, unheard and undone. But they would not be in vain. They would resound throughout eternity as the crescendo of defiance not just for Humanity, but for all life, everywhere for all time. It fell upon him to say it, to bear this burden for all others.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not wept, nor cried aloud
Against the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed
In those last moments, he could see them all there with him, standing in solidarity. This is how they would want it to be; they would not condemn with Destruction, submit to Control or permit Synthesis. They would choose freedom.
And he said it. For her, for them. For all of them.
"You're wrong."
