Top of the Mantle
PROLOGUE
Deep Within the Citadel
Eternal, infinite, immortal. Sapphire data streams coalesced around her like winding strands of mercury, an ephemeral composition of ones and zeros. Her shape was now made up of that sea of celestial binary, a ghostly echo of her tangible being. She was Shepard but not Shepard, she was human but not human. Infinity stretched out before her, a yawning chasm with no end. Darkness and light interchanged, lines of code running down her face like numerical tears. For the moment the Milky Way was safe, galactic civilization was safe, her species was safe, Liara was safe, yet there was still so much left to do.
A sphere of data floated between the palms of her hands like an offering and she stared into it like a cyber-spiritual medium. She felt them, the Ascended, the dreaded harvester capital ships, those she had once labeled Reapers. They were part of her now as much as she was a part of them. She saw them for what they were. Each one a people, each one a nation. Their memories broiled within her, the phantom dreams of billions of ascended species. The memories of the Arthenn within the Ascended who called itself Omen. The dreams of the Inusannon within the Ascended designated Suzerain. The aspirations of the Leviathan within the very first Ascended, the one who labeled itself Harbinger. There were thousands more and she saw, felt, and accepted them all in the time-span it would take her human self to blink.
"There is so much left to do," she whispered. "And so little time..."
She could make the galaxy right, she could make the organic civilizations of her cycle bend to her will, but it was not her place to do so. It never was. Within the gestalt of the memories of countless Ascended, Lt. Commander Jane Shepard's being and self shone through. She was a shepherd, not a ruler. She was a guardian, not an empress. She would help the civilizations of her cycle build anew. She would give them technologies her human self boggled to fathom. The technology to build Mass Relays, to build stations as sprawling as the Citadel, the power to destroy the stars themselves. As much as Jane Shepard the soldier hated such weapons of finality, she recognized that her cycle would need them in the future that rushed to consume them. She remembered the words of Ascended Destroyer Unit 989,010, who met its end at her former self's hand on the fields of Rannoch.
"You know not of the struggle," it had said to her. "The thing we fight…. No, the thing we hope to survive in our desperation is not something your mind could ever fathom. They are a blight upon the fabric of the universe, a parasite that seeks the total annihilation of all, the culmination of the sins of organic gods from beyond this plain of existence. They represent chaos. We represent order. For there to be balance within this universe, we must bring order to the chaos so that it may never return. The Cycle is our time tested paradigm. It keeps the parasite at bay, from gaining a foothold, and in your foolishness you risk destroying the entirety of our universe. All remaining spacefaring civilizations must be harvested to continue the balance!"
Shepard the human refused to understand, the Destroyers words were but the ramblings of a mechanized eldritch thing, and so, she blocked it out. But now she understood. As powerful as she and the Ascended were, as powerful as her galaxy could become, they were still no match for the parasite from beyond the stars. The power to destroy planets, the power to destroy entire star systems, paled in comparison to the enemy they faced. The creators of the form she now held wielded such abilities on a much more devastating scale, and yet they were gone. Consumed by the parasite.
She recognized that she and this secondary universe was not only an attempt to preserve life, but also an experiment to test the capabilities of the physics bending element found only on this plain of existence, the substance called Element Zero. At its most basic, the element was capable of repelling lower parasitic forms if used correctly. Even gods had their weaknesses, she mused, but it was still nowhere near enough. Aside from the ability to wield dark energy, compared to her Creators at the height of their power, this universes technological achievements were pale.
They needed to get back, back to their universe of origin. Her former self's species were the Reclaimers, the upholders of the Mantle. But they were only one half of a singular whole. If they were to bring balance to the very fabric of the universe itself, then they had to become whole once more. They must bring order to the chaos.