Mass Effect: Children of the Moons.
Chapter One: Apex.
Sol System, Mars, 2148 AD
The three explorers of the Systems Alliance could only stare in awe as the ancient door opened, revealing the entrance to what could only be an alien structure.
Sharing wary and grim glances, the three raised their Beretta ARX100 Assault Rifles and moved into the structure, each methodically keeping watch for the slightest possibility of hostile intervention.
After a few minutes of combing the structure, the three finally approached what seemed to have been an alien command center, most of the consoles inactive with the exception of a large central obelisk.
"Alp-a -ne, r-sp-nd."
The explorers could only attempt to respond as both their low-light and thermal imaging began to fill with static.
"This is Alpha One, Command, you're breaking up, thermals and low-light imaging seem to be encountering interference."
Lieutenant Prescott Bayman ordered his fellow explorers back to the entrance of the room.
As the signal and imaging cleared, the three repeated their report, "Command, thermals, comms, and low-light seem to be encountering interference as we get closer to the alien artifact."
"Copy that, Alpha One, hold position until additional reinforcements and a science team are able to reach-"
All three members of Alpha One raised their weapons as they heard what seemed to be every door in the alien compound shut in unison.
"Sir, the artifact, it seems to be glowing."
Bayman tilted his head to the point at which he could stare at his fellow Marine while still keeping one eye down the sight of his weapon, only to see that both the red and green glows in the visor lenses that signified thermal and low-light imaging had shut off, the Marine staring at the artifact without the use of his alternate vision modes.
Disabling his own alternate vision modes, he could easily see that the Marine was correct, the artifact itself seemed seemed to be bathing the room in a pale green glow.
Meanwhile, Private Tiana Bernard could only stare at the artifact in contemplation with her weapon now holstered, "Sir... I think the artifact is trying to make contact."
Bayman continued to hold his weapon at the ready, only now the barrel was pointing at the artifact itself, "What do you mean, Private?"
Bernard began to explain her theory, "Sir, as soon as Command told a science team to move in, both our comms and the doors shut off, including the one leading out of this room, which would stand to reason that the artifact wanted us."
Bayman glanced at her, gripping his weapon tighter, "Why would an ancient artifact want anything? Why would it want three armed Marines in the same room as it? Wouldn't it make more sense for it to want everyone around it to be unarmed?"
The Private could only shrug and continue to stare at the artifact, "I don't know, sir, it might be because we were the first things it encountered, after all, who knows how long it's been here."
"Plus, there may also be the fact that it wanted to make contact with as few people as possible, keep the sample size low, that sorta thing?"
Corporal Hudson let out a grim laugh, "Tiana, has anyone ever told you that you have some creepy ass theories? You make it sound like the artifact is gonna try and eat us or some shit."
Bernard gave him a smirk in return, though neither of her squad-mates could have seen it behind the full-cover helmets each of them wore, "Oh, go fuck yourself, Rolland."
"Eyes in front, Marines, the artifact is doing... something."
Within moments, each of them had their ARX100s in hand, keeping the alien device in their sights as the pale green glow began to intensify.
Of course, nothing could have prepared them as Bernard was suddenly lifted off the floor and pulled toward the artifact.
Her fellow Marines could only holster their weapons and seize an arm each, holding on with all of their strength as the artifact exerted an unseen force upon their bodies in an attempt to draw them closer to it.
The three continued to try and fight off the unseen force, only to have Hudson and Bayman's feet pulled from the floor in the same fashion as Bernard's.
As all three members of Alpha One continued to try and escape the pull of the artifact, they suddenly ceased their combined struggle as they were drawn into range of the Beacon...
The Protheans... they were the ones who had controlled this observation outpost so long ago... They had watched over humanity as they grew, until it was time for them to leave...
No, they had fled... Fled from those they called Reapers... The Others, the Moons, had given them a choice when they first encountered the Destroyers... Preservation or Destruction... The Protheans, they had refused, and so the Others left, retreating to their hidden systems and waiting for the next cycle...
The Destroyers, the Reapers... They had swept across the Prothean Empire with ease, ripping apart fleet after fleet as the Protheans did all they could to hold them back...
Yet, all of it was for naught, as the Destroyers had only taken years to Harvest the Protheans, leaving the Citadel and Relays for the species of the next Cycle to stumble upon...
The three members of Alpha One fell to the floor, their last sensations before unconsciousness claimed them being the shouts of their fellow soldiers and the Beacon deactivating itself, both of it's final purposes fulfilled.
As the three unconscious Marines were carried out of the Prothean Observation Outpost, none of them could have known the second purpose of the Beacon, for, unknown to all on the surface, the moon known to Humanity as Ganymede awoke...
Sol System, Orbit of Earth, 2148 AD, SSV Stalingrad.
Captain Gage Hackett could only stare in shock and horror as one of Jupiter's moons began moving of it's own accord, unfurling what seemed to be tentacles from it's surface and propelling itself toward Earth itself.
As the crew watched, the moon known as Ganymede stopped just far enough so that what little gravity it possessed would not pull the Cruiser toward it's surface, and then... it spoke through their communication systems, seeming to have almost zero issues connecting to their ship.
"We are the Brethren Moons, the Protheans once knew you as Humanity... are we correct in our assumption?"
Gage Hackett could only give an incoherent stutter as his communications officer responded in his Captain's stead, "Y-you would be correct, yes, w-we are known as humans."
"To whom do we speak, human?"
The Captain gathered himself, directing the comms officer to patch him into the connection, "You are now speaking to Captain Gage Hackett of the Human Systems Alliance, may I ask who you are?"
"We are the Brethren Moons."
Gage Hackett blinked, and wondered how dense this thing could be, "Okay, so that's your species name, but who are you?"
"We are the Brethren Moons."
Before the Captain could voice his annoyance with the moon-sized entity, his communications officer cleared his throat and patched back into the connection, "Captain, it could be that the entity is some sort of hivemind, it might not have another name for itself."
Then, the full implications of what the entity called itself hit the communications officer at full force, "C-Captain... what did the entity call itself again?"
Gage Hackett considered that question for a second, "It called itself the Brethren Moons..." The man realized exactly what his communications officer was getting at, and he verbalized his thoughts with two words as he stared at Ganymede in sudden horror, "Oh... fuck."
However, the First Lieutenant could feel his heart sinking, even if he did not know exactly what conclusion they had come to, "Captain, what is it, what's wrong?"
Captain Gage Hackett could only utter a single sentence as he continued to stare at the entity with his features still covered in horrified realization, "Lieutenant, that- that entity, I don't think it's the only one, I have reason to believe that we just made First Contact with an entire species of moon-sized entities with unknown capabilities..."
The bridge crew of the SSV Stalingrad could only stare at their commanding officer in horror as he finished speaking, "God help us... if these things are hostile, then it would be the end of us all..."
"We are not hostile to humanity, and we only offer you one thing."
The Captain could only gather himself enough to ask one question, "Wha-what is it?"
"Preservation, Preservation from the coming storm, we are not all that waits in the darkness, the Destroyers will come, as they have before, they will begin the Harvest of this cycle, and there will be nothing capable of stopping them, many have tried...
"All have failed...
"We offer you shelter from them, become one with us, and we will retreat as one, as we have time and time again."
Earth, United Nations Parliament Main Chamber, 2148.
To say that the situation in the main chamber of the United Nations was complicated would be a vast understatement.
The American and Russian Presidents were conversing quietly, each pondering how they would respond to the offer given by the alien entity currently in orbit of their only world.
The Chinese President brought up the idea of nuking the entity, however, this idea was immediately shot down due to the entity's relatively close proximity to the planet and their own ships, ships that they would desperately need if the entity proved to be hostile.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom brought up the idea of accepting its offer, which each of the people in the room considered before recognizing that they would need more information on what its 'Preservation' entailed and how it would do so.
With that in mind, they decided to open communications with the entity, the American President getting straight to the point, "We have considered your offer, and we would like to know what it entails for us."
"You would become part of us, your entire species would be brought into us, you would become a Brethren Moon, as many species have done before you."
"This would serve to deprive the Destroyers of your biomatter, allowing us to continue gathering numbers while lowering the possible numbers of the Destroyers in order to eventually strike back and destroy the Illogical Machines."
The Russian President could see that this answer startled and terrified many of the other members of the United Nations, and he decided to ask another question, "How would we, ahem... how would we become a Brethren Moon, if we accepted?"
"We will show you."
The gathered members of the United Nations barely had enough time to cry out in shock as they each crumpled to the floor, visions of the exact process of the Brethren Moon's Preservation flashing through their minds.
Of course, had they been able to process anything except the visions, they would have heard the sounds of their world stop as every human being on the planet cried out in pain as one, their minds filled with visions of the Brethren Moon's Preservation and exactly what it entailed.
For those few seconds, humanity as a whole knew all the Brethren Moons had done across each and every Cycle and beyond, from the perspective of the Moons themselves to the many species' that had chosen to accept their offer, for those few seconds, all of humanity knew and understood each other in a way they could never describe.
With those memories, humanity also knew of the Destroyers, the Leviathans, and all the Moons themselves knew of the species that the Reapers had Harvested, from the Inusannon, the Protheans, even the Moon's observation of the conflict known as the Metacon War.
With the knowledge of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of cycles, humanity knew exactly how unprepared they were, and knew that they needed the assistance of the Brethren Moons themselves in order to stop the Destroyers once and for all.
Linked by the power of the Black Markers embedded in the Moon formerly known as Ganymede, humanity itself pushed everything they had upon the Moons, not to overcome or control them, no, for such a thing would have been outright suicide, potentially causing the Moons themselves to retract their offer and leave humanity to their fate.
Instead, in those seconds, humanity, as a single entity, pleaded with the Moons, baring their hopes, their dreams, their hatred, and their fear, all for the Brethren Moons to experience as they processed the sudden desperation of an entire species pleading with them, appealing to the memories of all of the species that made up the colossal entities as their entire species cried out in desperate fear and terror, pleading for anything the Moons could do to help, anything they could do to assist in not just hiding from the coming storm, but fighting it, standing against the Destroyers together in order to finally stop the cycles once and for all.
Within those few seconds, humanity as a whole asked the Moons a series of questions, questions that told them all they needed to know of this species and proving their resolve and desperation to not just survive, but live.
"What stops us from fighting them? What stops us from taking the fight to the Reapers themselves? What stops us from destroying the Destroyers themselves once and for all?"
"Many have tried, all have failed."
"They died divided, when humans want to do something, we let nothing stand in our way, and we will not let the failures of others dictate whether we succeed or fail."
"We must fight together, or die divided."
"The races of this cycle will not see it this way, they will fear you."
"They would be right to fear us, you know exactly who and what we are, you have seen the hearts and souls of us all."
"We have."
"Then you know that we will never let the Reapers crush us under their mechanical feet, that we will always resist them, right down to the last of our kind, as long as a single human lives, we will never forget the atrocities the Destroyers have committed, we will never forgive them for what they have done, we will fight, even if we die in the process."
"We know that, humanity."
"Then why not work together, show the Reapers exactly what they are messing with, show them that we will never back down."
"... Are you sure you wish to take this path, humanity? There will be no going back..."
"So be it, then, we've never been good at caring for our own safety."
"You would sacrifice yourselves for races that you have never met before?"
"YES, we would."
"Why would you do so?"
"They do not deserve to die without a chance to truly live, if we die protecting them, then so be it."
"We... see."
"So, Preservers? Feel like killing some giant space cuttlefish?"
The Brethren Moons took a second to process the absurdity of that statement, then they sent a burst of vindictive pleasure through the link, each of the species within the collective consciousnesses of the ancient entities crying out in agreement with humanity, all of them desiring the destruction of the ones known as the Reapers...
"Yes, humanity, we do."
With that final statement, the Brethren Moons cut the mental link between themselves and humanity, as they arrived in Sol, hundreds of them, each of the moon and planet-sized entities fully prepared for war, not against humanity, but against the Reapers themselves.
In the span of ten seconds, humanity had now made an alliance with entities as old as the Reapers themselves, each one an entire species, all of them ready to finally fight back against the Destroyers themselves.
As they watched the Moons arrive, arraying themselves to defend the home of humanity to the last, every human looked to one another, all of them united in their understanding of each other and their purpose, they may die, they may fall one day, but they would fight until their end, knowing that the Reapers would only stop until their own eventual destruction.
With that, the shipyards of humanity began the construction of new ships, all based off of the highly advanced technology possessed by the species that now made up the Brethren Moons themselves.
The speed at which these ships were created startled the many species' making up the Brethren Moons, the entire species now united in two goals as they put all they had into the construction of naval ships of the many human classifications, and even some that were not human, from human Corvettes to Tau Volanti Frigates to Battleships and even Super-Heavy-Dreadnoughts, all based off of the human's newfound understating of the technology they now possessed from the species that had accepted the offer of Preservation before them.
Within seconds, humanity had gained access to technology they had only thought of as science-fiction at best, and an even larger amount of technology that they had never even thought had the potential to exist, and as the Moons watched, humanity as a whole prepared for war with the bringers of the Harvest, a war they would fight until their extinction if necessary, all to end the cycle of galactic genocide that had been occurring for millions upon millions of years before they had even achieved sentience.
United in their purpose, humanity prepared for war with the Reapers themselves...
A/N: Holy fuck, this took so long to write, mainly because I had a hard time motivating myself, but by the Multiverse was it fucking worth it, welcome, everyone, to Mass Effect: Children of the Moons, and, rest assured, this wild ride will not stop until the Reapers get their cuttlefish teeth kicked in.