Prologue
"How does he do it?" For the fifth time today, The Illusive Man has pondered this.
He watched as reports on the condition of Eden Prime flooded in, finding himself pondering how he was getting any reports at all. Not only did this mean that his source was still alive, but the colony itself had to still be intact. Those damn geth were the last thing The Illusive Man expected to have attacked, well anything really. The real question here was not who was still alive, but more of who was keeping the others alive. He knew those farmers couldn't last a second in a real firefight, let alone in a fight with synthetics.
One of the dossiers in his hands recovered from Alliance archives revolving around the Eden Prime incident stood out the most, an interesting subject to say the least. He had survived the raid on Mindoir when he was young, unsurprisingly enough he joined the Alliance after this to strike back at those that had taken all he knew away from him. Mindoir was a nightmare for all of humanity, quite surprising that he did not end up dead or enslaved.
Of course this was an assumption, maybe he signed up for the cash? Who knows? There is another standout achievement in this dossier, seems he was the one who survived one of the Project Undermine test sites. Never did like thresher maws. The Illusive Man thought to himself as he read the after action report on that particular project. They're brutally efficient at what they do though. Fifty dead, and that was only counting the Alliance unit.
'Now it appears that the Survivor of Akuze is also the hero of Eden Prime' he mused. Humanity is working its way up the ranks, and this man, this Shepard, was leading the charge. 'He'd be a damn good asset to Cerberus.' The Illusive Man put away the dossiers and pulled up a holo regarding a new project that was in the works, Project Unity.
The concept was simple, put together a mixed racial crew and see how much more efficiently they can work together compared with a standard human crew. In all honesty, the given chance of results showing up with a pay-off were slim, at least we don't have too invest an excessive amount of credits into this.
A soft beep emitted from his private terminal, knowing that all information sent directly to him was important, or it damned well better be. He opened the message.
The Illusive Man's eyebrows shot up, "Spectre? Really?" The report received from one of the Unity cell members for candidates that Commander Shepard had just been accepted into the elite of the council.
"This complicates things." The Illusive Man announced to himself. Project Unity can't reroute Shepard through Alliance channels to pick up the the test subjects. He doesn't have answer to anyone anymore now. Alright, we'll just have to use some alternatives.
The Illusive Man contacted the project lead, one doctor Jerry Lysander. A tall but thin man who had a nasally accent. "You understand that our best candidate is now out of the picture Dr. Lysander? We can't expect to get this project off the ground without someone capable of getting the job done."
Lysander, who responded through a comm channel, possibly too busy to show his face on holo, sounded almost pleased that Shepard had been taken out of the selection list.
"We don't need Shepard, he carried too much publicity, too much weight on his shoulders also. Shepard is a ticking time bomb judging by his psych reports. We need someone who can command confidence and can hold their own."
"There in lies the problem Lysander, there is no other like him, he was the only marine to survive Akuze, we're not likely to find another like him. That which brands him near unfit for duty also makes him an incredible person."
"It is in quantity sir, that you are wrong" Lysander's voice seemed confident in spite of his very replaceable position. "I noticed a trend in the psychological profiles involving thresher maw attacks, those poor sods that make it out alive are as stoic as a wall. Walls we can use."
The Illusive Man gave thought to this suggestion. "You are suggesting we deliberately attack colonies in hopes of getting another man like Shepard? Do you even realize the amount of lives thrown away, all the-"
"Of course I do!" Lysander cut in, prepared to counteract this speech. "The lives of a few colonists would be meager to the amount saved by such a man."
"The chances of this happening again are mathematically near impossible, Shepard was one of a kind, and the Alliance might start investigating these thresher attacks more closely if they keep occurring on the fringes of space. How did you even know of Project Undermine?"
"Cerberus needs to safeguard its secrets from itself more closely, once your in, you gain access to more information than I thought was necessary. A rat could easily catch wind of other projects whist infiltrating one, we could loose everything if you don't start securing data more closely."
The Illusive Man was now agitated, he didn't appreciate the Doctor nosing around in his information sector, hell Lysander isn't even tech savvy, better start locking down systems for upgrades.
"Security aside, suppose I go along with this plan of yours." The Illusive man continued, "We can't go around planting thresher maws on every fringe colony in the Terminus systems. We can't risk being linked to Akuze, last thing we need is Shepard coming after us himself."
"We need only do this once, after this, I can assure you we will have all the variables needed to ensure we get another Shepard."
Only once? Too good to be true, its bad enough i'm was about to agree to another massacre.
"Listening."
"Akuze was small, and it produced one man with a great fortitude. What if we did the same thing to a city?"
"Your mad, a city? The loss of life would be too large, too many for the sake of one man."
"Hear me out, we would only have to run it once, the chances of survival are marginally better than a rural colony, and the planetary militia will deal with the thresher maws before casualties are significant. I have not even mentioned the best part. We may end up with more than one person."
Silence filled both ends of the comm. Lysander's strained voice began to give The Illusive Man a headache. He took a swig of the shot he held in his left hand since the start of the conversation.
"I'm listening"
"Good." Lysander had let out a breath he did not realize he was holding. "I have a selection of planets that make for a good ground zero, I believe it is up to you to decide, who am I to judge who lives or dies?"
'Figures Lysander didn't have it in him to chose who dies.The Illusive Man takes yet another swig of his beverage. Every person has moral bounds and I still have yet to meet mine.' thought The Illusive Man as he received the list, it was not long, but at a glance, he already knew which of these planets would suffer another seemingly random thresher maw attack.
A/N: God I have been working on this concept in my head forever, my first Fan fiction, so please don't stab me repeatedly as I work out the kinks. Constructive criticism appreciated, and grammatical errors will be terminated with extreme prejudice if found. Reviews are greatly appreciated, and ideas will be taken into consideration. Most story influences will be secondary, and this may be the only direct involvement you will see by any of the game.
I don't own Mass Effect, nor the disclosed characters that populate the game.