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Order and Chaos

Organic life had a tendency to make predictions about the end of the world. And now that the end of worlds had seemingly come about, the search for meaning continued.

Shepard didn't consider himself to be superstitious, or particularly spiritual. But even he'd found it a strange quirk of fate that in a field of incinerated sunflowers outside Vancouver, he'd found a toy frigate miraculously intact. Not unlike the one he'd seen the young boy playing with on a Reaper-free Earth, nor unlike the Normandy, still going strong despite everything the galaxy and dark space could throw at it. And having made a successful thrust into the city, cutting down everything from husks to Brutes, he'd finally found time to...well, play with it himself. What else could you do when lying against a Mako?

Hear transmissions from Joker about how pictures had already been uploaded to the extranet. The galaxy could be doomed, but the extranet junkies were still active. Even if it meant using phrases like "OMFG Symbolism!" of such pictures or pasting varren heads to kittens. Because, you know...there weren't enough varren-cat hybrids in the universe.

"Seriously sir? You're still playing with that?"

And another in that Williams seemed willing to exchange words outside "yes sir" or "by the way, you used to be with Cerberus."

"I'm not playing with it," Shepard murmured, still examining the frigate model. "I'm...accessorising."

"I tried that excuse when my sisters discovered my doll collection. Trust me, it doesn't work."

Shepard raised an eyebrow...which in turn led him to raising an eye, then both eye, then briefly meeting Ashley's gaze. He couldn't imagine her with dolls of all things...then again, he couldn't imagine the Commander Shepard Fan Club's forums being flooded with over-analysis of him 'playing' with a model frigate. Maybe the Reapers had the right of it. Maybe organic life was so insane that it deserved to be wiped out.

The commander's gaze returned to the ground. He couldn't think like that. If he wanted to think irrationally, it would be him jumping onto Brutes to stab them with his omni-blade, assault rifles be damned. Not defeatist talk.

Or shipping fics. Bloody Verner...

"Takes you back, doesn't it?" Ashley continued.

"In what way?" Shepard asked, still doodling with the model.

"The Mako sir. Haven't seen you leaning against it since Virmire."

"And you won't that often, lieutenant commander. I'm more of a Hammerhead guy myself."

It was small talk, it was going nowhere, and sooner or later, it would have to end. Not as in, "sorry for four years of broken contact," but more along the lines of planning, planning and more planning. The groundside forces were exhausted, but sooner or later they'd have to get back up and do the same thing.

But that could wait. At least until Javik finished watching the latest crossover issue of Blastro the Spectre and Prothy the Prothean.

"It's funny, isn't it?" Ashley continued, beginning to pace around like a dog of war eager to get back into the fight.

"What is?"

"All the...little things you notice," the soldier continued. "I mean...look at where we are now."

"On Earth?"

"That...and among flowers."

The frigate landed, Shepard looked up and somewhere in the universe, some organic about to make the next big discovery since Fermat's Last Theorem was vaporized. Little things indeed...first dolls, now flowers? He hadn't expected this.

Well, how well do you know her? the little voice in his mind asked that, if it was indoctrination, was at least avoiding the clichéd declarations Reapers were making all through the galaxy. How well do you know anyone?

"Sunflowers..." Ashley continued. "Haven't seen so many since I was training in Brazil...course there were fewer of them around the barracks. And...they were more...yellow."

"Well, the Reapers weren't around then," Shepard murmured. "They weren't poking Fibonacci in the eye."

Now it was Ashley's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"Sunflowers...the Fibonacci Sequence..."

"What?"

Shepard sighed. "Ash, the sequence is-..."

"Sir, I do remember basic maths," the lieutenant commander interrupted. "But what on Earth has this got to do with flowers?"

"Oh, only that sunflowers are said to represent it," Shepard answered. "How the number of petals on a flower is usually one of the numbers in the sequence." He waved a hand across the blackened field. "But how many petals are there now? Hell if I know. Hell if we know anything right now bar scattered pieces of information."

"Maybe..." Ashley shrugged before giving him a tired smile. "But hey, look on the bright side. Even if the Reapers complete this cycle, they're not going to change the laws of mathematics. Someday, on some other world...some brilliant mind will make the same discovery."

Shepard knew that he'd dug this hole himself. He'd made a point of trying to keep himself emotionally detached from many people now, least of all those who seemed to use the word "Cerberus" in any other sentence. But then again, maybe facing the end of galactic civilization changed people. He hadn't heard Ashley talk that much about the traits of races apart from humanity in the conflict, let alone the possibility that they'd actually lose. Some might call it defeatist talk, but in a way, he found it endearing. Kind of an affirmation of what he'd already begun to accept. That while the cycle of extinction was a perverse "natural law," most of the laws of the universe were more impartial. Unalterable, even for the Reapers. They could burn all the flowers they wanted, but in time, more would grow, whether it be on Earth or some other planet. Not even they could change the laws of mathematics.

And turning his attention back to the frigate model...well, maybe some other things were eternal. Maybe there was an organic law...that starships were eternal in their own right. Organic life always rising to challenge the Reapers, however briefly. And maybe, as the Law of Averages predicted, were a complex cycle to repeat itself enough times, something unexpected would happen.

Getting to his feet, ready to get back into the fray, Shepard certainly hoped so.

A/N

Somewhat obviously (hopefully) this was based on the Take Back Earth trailer, specifically IGN's analysis of it in regards to the sunflowers. My original interpretation was that the sunflowers represented organic life as it is to the Reapers-short lives, easily culled, and lives that are brief regardless. The idea the reviewers put forward however was that of the broken/scorched sunflowers representing chaos in the absence of order, that sunflowers are often cited as an example of the Fibonacci sequence being found in nature. Actually jotted down oneshot ideas based on both interpretations, but went with the IGN one when it came down to it.

Update (26/02/12): Corrected spelling error.