Captain Aekol Tolan was thankful for the sealed helmet and armor as the desert wind whipped against him, the fine dust whirled across the plains and the heath from the sun shimmered in the distance where mountains loomed.
To anyone around him, Tolan appeared bored as he kicked a small rock with his boot, but years of training and actual combat had fine tuned his situational awareness and he had his eyes constantly searching for threats. He glanced to the upper left of his head-up display across the visor where a small window was receiving real time high resolution thermal footage from a small drone a few thousand meters above him, it's sensors was zoomed in by a UAV operator back aboard the ship in orbit who reported all heat signatures accounted for with no party crashers. With the blink of his eyes he closed the UAV screen.
Tolan's Elanus Risk Control Services M15 Vindicator assault rifle – a weapon favored by mercenaries – dangled across the webbing of ammunition and utility pouches on his armor, it was hooked up to a durable tactical sling underneath the webbing's shoulder straps. His armor did have magnetic strips on the back and hips for weapon carriage, but with the rifle's sling mount on the rear of the weapon's upper receiver he could let it rest across his chest while his hands were free, thus he could quickly reach for the rifle, detach it if need be, and engage a target.
The salarian gazed across the rocky desert, Tuchanka was a very unwelcoming place in the galaxy, and he hated the planet with fervor.
This was not the first time he had been there, the last time was shortly before the Reaper War when he, as a Lieutenant, had been part of Major Kirrahe's team from the Special Tasks Group. They had been on a covert expedition and found several krogan females in dire state after surviving experiments by a former STG colleague of theirs, Maelon Heplorn. The Major had decided to evacuate the females back to Sur'Kesh, despite the protests from Tolan and several other officers who had all called it madness, the krogan females had been cured, and they had to be euthanized so nobody could learn about the genophage cure.
Kirrahe had balked and ignored the complaints, and to Tolan's dismay a few rogue officers supported Kirrahe. Even some officers and chief scientists in the Salarian Strategic Command agreed with Kirrahe, and chief among them had been the traitor Mordin Solus. And so it was decided that the females would be cared for, although over the next several months most of them died.
Too bad the last one didn't die. If she had died then maybe I wouldn't be standing in the desert.
One saving grace was that it would take a long time before the genophage cure would take effect with new generations of newborn, and only those krogan who had been exposed to the cure on Tuchanka would be cured, anybody else would still be affected by the genophage. But there were still two billion threats on Tuchanka, and that number would only increase.
At least Kirrahe had died ten months earlier on Earth in the final hours of the war, helping his precious humans.
Good riddance.
Looking back, Tolan saw the undoing of all the work his people had put into keeping the krogan in check after the Krogan Rebellions. It had almost been the undoing of the Salarian Union as well when the turians and humans were scrambling to face the Reapers with the krogan at their side. A cured krogan would threaten the galaxy's stability, and the Salarian Union needed time to grow strong again to combat the threat.
But there were dissent amongst the krogan clans, and although many clans and most females had joined under Urdnot Wrex, there were clans that were fuming with anger towards Urdnot Wrex. These brutes felt that the humans and turians had stabbed the krogan in the back because the genophage cure was not a instant cure, and many wanted their females back, and some wanted to fight the Citadel Council, and then there were those that felt that Urdnot Wrex was a traitor as he had worked with humans, turians and a salarian to establish himself as the one ruler of Tuchanka.
It was this dissent that Captain Tolan was going to inflame to keep the krogan in check.
It was why he was standing in the desert with his men, dressed and kitted up like mercenaries meeting with a handful of ugly krogan from Clan Jurdon. The temptation to kill the brutes was almost too much to bear for Tolan with his already miserable state.
Twenty meters away the leader, Jurdon Tudrax in his battered and brownish armor with ancient war scribbling etched into it, appeared pretty upset, arms flailing and saliva spitting as he ranted while one of Tolan's men, Sergeant Paks, was negotiating fluently in the brute's guttural and disgusting language. Although with a translator anybody could have talked with the krogan.
Tolan noted that Jurdon Tudrax didn't wear a helmet despite the harsh winds. Durable beasts, and Tolan only saw them viable as expendable shock troops.
Scattered some ways behind Tudrax were a few boxy krogan armored vehicles and armed krogan.
When an over two meter tall and 200 kilo krogan ranted the situation could get out of hand pretty quickly. During any other situation Tolan wouldn't have said no to killing the krogan, but despite his feelings about this he needed this to go smoothly to appease the Salarian Strategic Command – all those traitors of the past had been replaced after the war as the old STRATCOM had been wiped out when the Reapers had assaulted Sur'Kesh.
But Tolan was ready to drop the krogan if need be.
So were his men.
Tolan and the dozen salarian STG operators under his command, and a few asari and batarian mercenaries that were there to make the 'mercenary group' more diverse, communicated by sending messages across their secure communication channel to keep any radio chatter at a minimum. By using his pupils and blinking of eye lids, Tolan could navigate his HUD and integrated omni-tool, and access systems, bring up map overlays and compass and other necessary systems by looking at the desired icons, and he could also quickly compose a message on his HUD and send it across their channel. On a small screen on the HUD the messages appeared.
Everybody was ready to engage if need be.
Tolan placed one arm on the end of the buttstock of his rifle which was chest level and let the arm rest as he glanced over his shoulder to their dropship where a few more asari lingered near the lowered cargo bay door. The dropship was a large and somewhat flat with four main engines mounted in pairs, with two in the rear and one on each side of the airframe which could articulate independently and vector the direction of thrust. Six thrusters were mounted across the belly which allowed it to land and take off vertically.
The asari and the batarians were hired thugs and didn't know that Tolan and his men were from the STG, even the ship they had arrived in was a nondescript and old warship of the likes mercenaries used. Once their mission was done Tolan would have the mercenaries executed to preserve the mission's operational security.
"Paks' is coming back," one STG operator radioed.
Tolan's attention was brought back and he turned to face Pak who crossed the sandy soil back to Tolan.
"He wants a word with you, sir," Paks said over the secure radio as he stopped near Tolan.
Tolan rolled his eyes disgusted behind the darkened visor. Now he had to talk to one of them.
"Any progress?" Tolan inquired.
Pak's said pleased, "Yes, very much. It's just some sort of honor thing to finalize the deal with the one in charge. He's fairly devout to their cause, a fundamentalist and he abides to their old ways of honor and all that. He's very, and I do mean very, slighted by Urdnot Wrex who has brought shame to the krogan people and shall be eviscerated, and etcetera."
"That's why he ranted?"
"Yeah," Paks nodded. "Plus he's hates our kind and it's beneath him to do deals with salarians." Paks shrugged queasy regarding the krogan spit on him, "Thankfully I have a helmet on. Will have to do a full decontamination later."
It's beneath me to even consider talking to a krogan, Tolan mused displeased. Tolan saw the spit on Pak's visor and frowned abhorred.
Tolan let his arm rest by his side now and he inquired, "He does have a translator, yes?"
"He does." Paks urged, "Don't keep him waiting."
"Approaching krogan, be ready, people," Tolan radioed as he approached the krogan and with a blink of his eye he activated his voice module as he steeled himself to not kill the brute.
Salarians were much shorter and smaller than krogan and Jurdon Tudrax hovered over Tolan. Jurdon Tudrax frowned hateful, his black pupils were piercing and the nostrils flared. Tudrax was sniffing, taking in Tolan's scent.
Disgusting beasts, Tolan thought repulsed. He made sure that the olfactory filter was closed. He couldn't stand krogan leathery scent.
Ten months after the war and the mass relay system was barely repaired by so called joint-Council 'Pathfinder teams', which were small flotillas of maintenance ships that traversed the galaxy to repair mass relays, but the focus was first and foremost on primary relays, homeworld relays and larger colony relays, but the Milky Way was slowly connecting again. The main reason for the slow repair was that with no mass relays active, the Pathfinder Teams had to be creative in travel; jumping from nearby system to system or using uncharted pirate routes to uninhabited systems which pirates and mercenaries used to stay of the grid while smuggling and attacking with impunity – if one knew where to find these routes of course. Looking for a specific place in an area of dozens of light years where it could be hundreds of star systems required extensive searching. An unfortunate side effect from the relays propagating the Crucible blast was that massive disturbances had been created in the mass-free pathways between relays, and thus relay travel speed had been lowered by half.
The short but devastating and bloody war had killed tens of billions, and due to shortages of food, healthcare and supplies many more were projected to die. Many people lived in appalling conditions, and many worlds were still isolated with the majority of the mass relay network down. It was in this environment where pirates and mercenaries thrived in a destabilized galaxy. An environment where a thriving black market could get you anything as military resources were scattered, and everyone wanted to get their hands on military technology or even Reaper technology. Now, STRATCOM wasn't going to give Reaper technology to the krogan (although by all accounts Urdnot Wrex and other krogan did have access to Reaper technology after the Battle of Tuchanka, but the salarians didn't want to aid ANY krogan with reverse engineering Reaper technology), but the salarian planners did believe they could give the opposing clans something they sorely lacked.
Tuchanka was a world filled to the brim with small arms, tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, weapons of mass destruction and anything else made for war.
But Tolan wasn't peddling weapons because the krogan didn't need that, but they lacked something most of the galaxy's militaries had.
Warships.
Over a thousand years of being under Citadel Council sanctions and Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission enforcements made acquiring starship-mounted weapons impossible for the krogan on Tuchanka. But with no CDEM presence and the Citadel Council species focusing on rebuilding, and with a destabilized Milky Way, the Aralakh System was freer and thus the insurgent clans could acquire whatever weapons they wanted.
Sure, anybody could program a civilian starship VI to smash into a planet and wreck unimaginable havoc and death, but you would lose a valuable ship and planetary infrastructure. And with a warship armed to the teeth with missiles, torpedoes, orbital kinetic bombardment satellites and mass accelerator cannons, someone could lie in orbit and lay waste to their enemy in precision bombardments.
"Vaerhum Ielon," Tolan introduced himself neutrally.
Tudrax scrutinized the salarian and barked, "My enemy has no honor colluding with the enemy."
Yet here you are, Tolan thought amused to himself.
"Urdnot Wrex has deceived us for his own gain, deceiving us that this concoction may cure the krogan people in the future. Honor demands that Wrex shall die at the battlefield," Tudrax thundered menacingly. A mist of saliva erupted form Tudrax mouth, "The krogan have been thralls in the past to the pitiful Citadel races, and we shall never be thralls again, yet the traitor follows the humans and the turians. Wrex corrupts us and I shall set us free."
A fundamentalist, indeed, Tolan noted gleeful but appeared unfazed, yes, we can do business together.
Tudrax leaned down to Tolan, pressing his face close to the helmed salarian and asked threateningly, "I know my cause. What's your cause, salarian?"
"Reaper tech, we can sell it to interesting parties and make a lot of credits," Tolan simply said without flinching, yet the brute's piercing eyes and menace was unsettling. "How do you want to kill your foe?"
Tudrax snorted, "Wrex has gone into agreement with the turians and humans. A deal for them to make warships."
Behind the visor Tolan grimaced annoyed, this was what the new Dalatrass – Jaëlorn – was concerned about. Dalatrass Jaëlorn had replaced Dalatras Linron who had sadly disappeared during the Reaper siege of Sur'Kesh, and nobody knew the fate of the patriotic Linron, but she had most likely been killed or turned into a husk.
The Alliance and the Hierarchy was getting to comfortable with Urdnot Wrex, they were even pushing for a krogan ambassador, something the asari, but more so the salarians, were not enthusiastic about as it would further legitimize Urdnot Wrex. Fleet Admiral Hackett had even said weeks earlier that a stable Krogan Empire was one of the most important goals for the Alliance and that the krogan insurrectionists were 'enemies of humanity.' At least it would take a year or two before the first ships could be delivered to Urdnot Wrex, and krogans had to be trained in ship operations as well.
"We have no ships, but we have our honor and will bring it into battle," Tudrax ranted with conviction.
Yes, yes, honor will do much against a mass accelerator cannon, Tolan thought dismissively.
"We have ships we're willing to sell," Tolan said. "Scavenged from battlefields."
"Why?" Tudrax asked suspicious.
"We're betting on you as a future market for us, upsetting or even toppling the Krogan Empire will shift the balance for the Alliance, stretching their resources further, a freer market," Tolan replied coolly. "We don't need to be friends, credits are still credits."
Tolan sprinkled the deceit with some truth.
Tudrax made a guttural sound and considered Tolan, "Discretion is necessary, some of my allies will not understand why I'm talking to soft salarians and asari so soon after Wrex's treason."
"Indeed, but this is just credits," Tolan shrugged. "If I believed Urdnot Wrex was flexible I would do business with him, but he wants his ship purchases to be legal."
Tudrax chuckled guttural, "You mercenaries only care about credits."
"You know our line of work," Tolan replied indifferent.
"It's a deal, salarian," Tudrax finally said.
"I'll be in touch very soon," Tolan smiled satisfied behind the visor.
The krogan insurrection would take a new turn.
The bright morning light peered through the half open window blinds covering the massive window which took up almost the entire office's wall. Beyond the thick security window laid the asari homeworld Thessia's capitol, Serrice. Thessia had once been the crown jewel of the Asari Republics – some even said the galaxy, and many asari in power held that belief. The real seat of galactic power had been Serrice for thousands of years, the Citadel had been window dressing as the asari Councilor answered directly to the Circle – the legislature of the Asari Republics.
Now Thessia, and many asari worlds like her, was in ruins after it had been wrecked by the Reapers during the Battle of Thessia – and even friendly fire had hit the city as the massive mass accelerator rounds fired by the Republic's ships had missed its intended targets. One tactic the Reapers relied on during the war was to position themselves so the world being contested about was behind them, thus any ship firing had to take account to the risk of hitting the planet, or maneuver for a better firing position and thus delaying a attack. A MAC-round could deliver an awful amount of devastation.
Matriarch Hypatia sat at her office desk, it was clean and void of unnecessary items sans an exquisite table light, her personal datapad, and her computer with a flat screen displaying a news feed which she gave a cursory glance while gritting her teeth troubled.
Hypatia had a teal complexion, which was a rarity amongst asari, and her face was adorned with a colorful pattern. She wore white and revealing Matriarch robes, as the sexually compelling features of asari proved useful when dealing with the other races – even if the Matriarchs of the Circle rarely did so. But Hypatia, like some asari, took pride and reveled in their sexuality.
She had been a Matriarch with the Circle for 223 years, and at 926 years old she was the oldest serving sister, and the only one that had survived the war as she had been on the Citadel when the Reapers attacked Thessia, and after the attack on the Asari Republics she and her entourage had left for a undisclosed location in asari space from where the Asari High Command supervised their military. Nineteen of her beloved sisters had been killed by the machines, and she still mourned them as she had known them all for centuries. She had since repopulated the Circle with new Matriarchs, loyal to the Asari Republics, and thus the Circle would once again be vigilante and protect asari interests. The fact of the matter was that her race was far superior in every way making carefully laid plans, pushing for diplomacy and cultural superiority over the primitive and warlike ways of turians and humans.
A stroke of fate had ensured her survival when she had been forced to set up a meeting with a human on the Citadel.
And that human had been Staff Commander John Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy. The first human Spectre – and it irked her that more of that troublesome race had been invited to join the Spectres as the war had thinned their ranks considerably. Just like the turians, the humans were a brash, narrow minded, primitive, childlike and warmongering race. Hypatia had no lost love for the humans, and especially no love for Shepard.
The Circle had been forced to reach out to the humans as the war got closer and closer to asari space while human and turian fleets were being hammered. The asari belief that no matter how dark and bloody the galaxy got, the asari people would survive and remain untouchable had slowly been shattered. Merely contributing with money and researchers for the Crucible wasn't going to be enough. For the first time in history, the wisest and most powerful race in the galaxy was utterly outmatched in every possible way; their homeworld had never been threatened before. Their forces were quickly ordered to rally around important asari worlds – leaving their vassals, the elcor, defenseless. It had been a necessary evil to protect the Asari Republics. Despite her best efforts to re-establish diplomatic relations with the elcor it was futile. The vassal race didn't trust the Asari Republics, and the elcor were now seeking shelter amongst the turians who had gladly accepted them into the Hierarchy as vassals. Hypatia was fuming inside.
During the meeting with Shepard, Hypatia had disclosed the existence of the prothean artifact at the Temple of Athame in Serrice, a prothean beacon like the one found on Eden Prime in 2183. Prothean technology had been the source of the asari dominance, and the secrets held in the beacon had helped the allies to finally complete the Crucible, but with the asari secret revealed all remaining goodwill the asari wielded was utterly destroyed after the war.
Hypatia's primary goal had always been to preserve the Asari Republics and their secrets, in doing so peace would be ensured across space, no matter the suffering elsewhere. The other species' survivors didn't see it like that and directed their grief and anger as racial hate towards the asari, there had already been several innocent asari murdered by war survivors.
Petulant children, Hypatia sneered angrily.
No matter, she was a patient asari, she would ensure the asari would rise above the rest once more.
For thousands of years the turians had been a very useful race for the asari to wield – when the military option was needed the Hierarchy had been a good but blunt instrument. She had hoped that she could have used the humans to the same effect, and decades earlier they had proved to potentially be that perfect blunt instrument as they had aggressively – with Council approval (in reality Circle approval) – expanded into regions once belonging to the Attican Traverse, further expanding the reaches of the Citadel Council influence – and thus the Asari Republics.
In retrospect she should have seen the human chaos coming back then.
In a twisted turn of fate the unpredictable and chaotic humans – with Shepard at the helm – destroyed the asari carefully laid plans. When Shepard claimed that one of the Circle's own, Matriarch Benezia, had been swayed by the brutish turian Spectre Saren Arterius, the Circle had believed it was pure ranting and lies by Shepard, there was no way a turian could hold any power of a asari, let alone a Matriarch of the Circle. But sadly that was hubris on their part when all that turned to be true as the Reaper Sovereign attempted to use subterfuge to destroy the civilization over four years earlier. Terror had been averted, but only by the humans actions which had come at a high cost with the then current Council having been sacrificed.
It was apparent to the Circle that the humans had used the Battle of the Citadel for their own gain to acquire incredible political power, all thanks to Shepard who was a glory seeker out to put humanity on top with a seat on the Council. The humans were a self-absorbed race, seeking the quickest way to solve a problem, seeking to dominate through military might. The humans were like children just expecting to be handed everything just because they wanted it. And like any children they wanted unlimited freedom and power to do as they saw fit without caring about the grander consequences.
Shepard soon beca,e a target for the Circle, his powers grew as he had contacts with turians, salarians, krogan and his fellow humans. Something had to be done to undo the damage done by Shepard, because the Circle were out of the loop with him. He was ruining their plans with his rash and incredible actions. And only Benezia's daughter, Liara T'Soni, represented the asari, and she was loyal to the human and could not be used to control Shepard. T'Soni later become an information broker associating with all manners of unsavory people, and years later when she usurped the Shadow Broker network with the help of Shepard it caused panic in the Circle – she was almost as rash and unpredictable as Shepard and they could not trust her.
The Matriarchs had not been willing to let Shepard go on unchecked. All manners of scenarios were discussed on how to deal with Shepard, from actual assassination to character assassination. But as luck would have it they didn't need to do a thing when the original Normandy warship was destroyed one month after the Battle of the Citadel in a Collector attack and Shepard was presumed dead, which was a blessing as the Circle could repair the damage and keep the humans at bay. But two years later Shepard returned having joined the human terrorist group Cerberus! It was evident that the human would do anything to dethrone thousands of years of stability. Eventually Shepard turned himself to the Alliance and gave his reasons for colluding with Cerberus – protecting human settlers and stopping the Reapers' pawns the Collectors. And even the Matriarchs had to confess the new intelligence collected on the Reapers was troublesome, but it did not excuse Shepard's actions. They had hoped the Alliance would strong arm Shepard and incarcerate him, but the man had too many high level contacts with the Alliance so that did not happen.
With the Reaper War raging the humans once again used death and destruction to further their goals. Something the Reapers would use to their advantage when they indoctrinated Cerberus and turned them on the galaxy. The terrorist group would be responsible for some of the worst war crimes in the galactic history, even implicating a human corporation and its owner – Henry Lawson – in his quest for power, as well as the Councilor Udina who had colluded with Cerberus to topple the Council as he lusted for human dominance. What other proof was needed that humans were a danger to the galaxy?
Something that further incensed Hypatia was that the severely damaged Citadel was stuck in Sol System undergoing repairs, and the humans, with turian support, were unwilling to work to bring it back to its rightful place, and she knew that the Alliance and the Hierarchy was only keeping it in Sol as childish retribution – because with Reaper technology at everyone's fingertips it shouldn't prove too difficult to develop technologies to bring it back through the relay network, Hypatia reasoned.
At least the revelation about Cerberus dealings and crimes to the public had struck a blow to the Alliance, which had been scrambling its PR-machine to deflect the damage Cerberus, Henry Lawson and Udina had done. Even with all the racial hatred aimed at the asari, the Alliance was under intense scrutiny as well, the actions of Cerberus and their ilk was one of many things that cemented the fact that humans only sought power for themselves. It made aliens remember the aftermath of the 2183 Battle of the Citadel and the deaths of the then-Council and thousands of asari killed aboard the Destiny Ascension.
And for Shepard things weren't easy either, Hypatia gleefully concluded. When his choice in mate had finally leaked, many voiced their concerns, both within humanity and amongst the other races. Miranda Lawson, the ex-Cerberus operative, was perceived as having used deceit and sexual manipulation to receive amnesty by being with Shepard. She had also managed to land a job within the Alliance, details were scarce regarding her employment but Hypatia was fearful her position was pretty high in the human intelligence aparatus. Miranda Lawson was skilled at manipulation and espionage, and with Shepard having an outsized influence, she had power at her fingertips to cause horrific damage to asari plans. That the human woman was artificially created disgusted Hypatia even more because the asari valued traditions, family and maternal bond highly. Anything created without a natural parent would lead to corruption and ruin according to asari wisdom. Every asari practically worshipped their mother as a strong bond was formed when a mother melded with a newborn in the first minutes after birth, if there was no melding a child would reject everything like nourishment and possibly even oxygen. The bond between mother and daughter was the most intimate bond among asari.
An asari newscaster began talking on Hypatia's screen, it was a report from Earth. Among the rubble in a devastated London, the Reaper War Memorial was opened for the public. To Hypatia it was a big PR stunt from the Alliance, a prestige project that the human Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett – the de facto human leader – wanted finished before the one year anniversary of the end of the Reaper War, and it seemed they had accomplished that with two months to spare.
The Reaper War Memorial was placed at the so called 'ground zero' in London where the battle to reach the London Conduit had been fought. What once had been a battlefield had been completely flattened and dotted with a massive garden area with fountains and water features, and the most spectacular sight was the powerful underground halogen lights which emitted bright lights into the sky, replacing the Reaper element zero core which had powered the Conduit. Paved paths led towards the towering Conduit spires, and the space between the paths and the gardens were stenciled with the names of every warrior who had died during the Battle of Earth or from injuries sustained in the aftermath. Millions of names dotted the surfaces, and even the geth were represented by a single statue of a geth with a plaque reading 'the Geth Consensus' – they had been wiped out as the Crucible blast had targeted all manners of machine intelligences.
In the dull, damp and cloudy London autumn the area looked less spectacular like it would during the summer, but thousands of veterans, politicians and dignitaries had amassed at the Memorial opening from all over the galaxy – it was a precursor to the planned Victory Day celebrations which would occur two months later.
Hypatia clenched her fist and glared at the screen as Hackett held a speech. It was not the current speech which incensed Hypatia, it was the one the day before which the human had held with Primarch Adrien Victus. The Alliance and the Hierarchy had finalized the mutual two-party agreement to come to the other's assistance if required and to ensure stability across the Milky Way. Hackett had called the relationship to the Hierarchy as humanity's most important relationship, something Victus had echoed from the turian perspective – the Hierarchy appeared much more lenient on the humans despite Cerberus' war crimes. The two species would share military intelligence and conduct joint combat operations and peacekeeping missions. Coupled with other statements both men had made in the past that they would never rely on outsiders (in this case the asari and salarians) to dictate policy, protection and stability, Hypatia saw the undoing of the Citadel Council, and thus asari influence, which was quickly becoming ineffective and ceremonial and would only work to see to that Citadel Space didn't collapse. In practice the four Citadel Council races were allies but with cool relationships and divided in two wings; the Alliance-Hierarchy Pact and the asari/salarian Citadel Concord.
Amongst the Citadel client races the elcor, now seemingly usurped by the Hiearchy, and the Volus (having been a turian client race for over a millennia) favored the Pact, and there was seemingly nothing Hypatia could do about that in the foreseeable future.
The hanar still wanted to continue their neutral role they had always had as the race had always been unwilling to deal with other species, but because they had been hit hard financially during the war when trade had quickly dried up, they were hard pressed financially. For Hypatia this could prove to be a way in to take them on as a client race if she so desired, but the hanar didn't have much to offer in terms of political capital and military might, but influence over the other races was always something she desired.
Together, even if severely battered, the Systems Alliance and the Hierarchy wielded powerful military might, and having fought the Reapers from the beginning to the end gave humans and turians certain political capital. The two military leaders had also unveiled plans to jointly construct ten new warships based on Reaper technology, a new class called battleships which would be massive and powerful ships over 5600 meters long. The first two ships – one for the humans and one for the turians – were slated to enter service in 2190. The asari were obviously busy themselves reverse engineering Reaper technology and build military hardware, but the human and turian warmongering was disconcerting to her.
Hackett smiled on the camera, talking about how the galaxy had overcome the Reapers and jointly defeated them, and saluted the heroes that had died in the war, no matter their race. Hypatia's anger with how things were changing so fast took the better of her and her body shimmered in dark energy as she pushed out with her arm and unleashed a unstable ball of dark energy which crackled and sizzled in the air as it struck the large monitor, shredding it in a blue tinted detonation which sent pieces of plastic and liquid crystals flying in every direction. The wrecked flat screen monitor hurled through the air and smashed into a wall.
Hypatia stood up and closed her eyes, reciting a calming meditating mantra attributed to one of Athame's servants, Iremismós, who was the goddess of wisdom, knowledge, reason, intelligent activity, and meditation.
There was a hasty knock on the door which opened and Hypatia's assistance rushed inside after hearing the commotion. The young assistant looked around and stopped near Hypatia.
The assistant asked concerned, "Matriarch, is everything alright?"
Hypatia turned to face her assistant assured with a smile, "Yes, Saleesphia. Can you send for someone to help me clean up this mess and also get me a new monitor?"
Saleesphia saw the destroyed monitor across the room and all the plastic fragments littered about.
"Yes, Matriarch," Saleesphia promptly responded and left the room.
"Thank you," Hypatia offered before Saleesphia left and the door closed. "VI, open the blinds," Hypatia instructed.
The firing of the Crucible had not only severely damaged galactic communication and travel, but also destroyed all artificial and virtual intelligences across the galaxy, but society had to be rebuilt and function. Too many functions and specific systems needed to be operated by programs which could operate faster and multi-task like no organic ever could. There was a massive aversion to artificial intelligences after the war, but virtual intelligences were automated thinking programs that lacked sapience, and programmers had set out pretty quickly after the war to code new VIs. There was too much automation for society not to have VIs.
Hypatia left her expensive desk and walked over to the massive window as the blinds slowly opened and the bright light from the star Parnitha cascaded across Hypatia's lounge like office. A long shadow from her slender body cast behind her and her robe flowed as she graciously walked before stopping at the window, peering out at Serrice, the once beautiful asari capitol, now in ruins. Construction teams were slowly repairing the city and conducting decontamination of radioactive pockets and clearing debris. The workers still found rotten bodies in the rubble.
Hypatia couldn't keep her composure as a ball of heartache filled her with despair and she wept for her race, her people and her homeworld, promising to start rebuilding it to its former glory.
Some, but not all Mass Effect characters will make an appearance in this story, and there will be original characters as well.
This story will contain sexual exploits between consenting adults.
These author's notes will provide a summary to complement the above text on the setting of a post-war galaxy, thus you can decide pretty quickly if you want to continue or not if what I present bothers you.
This is a sequel to my magnum opus Mass Effect 3: Fate of the Galaxy, and will cover a post-war galaxy but will not be nearly as long in length. And I do understand for potential new readers that reading the magnum opus would be a massive undertaking and thus I will strive to write this story in such a way that new readers can join in, but for old readers there will be some overlapping information. For new readers, be ready for some overhaul of the Alliance military such as ranks but also military hardware, plus I do occasionally borrow from other science fiction work, like Halo's UNSC and their military hardware. There are other things in the Mass Effect universe which I have also changed, and not just the military aspects.
Plus this story, and the previous one, may not necessarily be fan service, there will certainly be events covered that does not appeal to people, and some of these events have unfolded in this prologue. Suffice to say it's a grim new galaxy after the war and the Mass Effect species may not all get along anymore due to what transpired during the war, even canon events that BioWare failed to flesh out, particularly the inactions of the asari and salarians, but also how the war crimes by Cerberus may reflect badly on humanity.
A summary of some important events, so spoilers from Fate of the Galaxy:
The Crucible, the Leviathan and Reaper backstories were reworked for my story. The Leviathan ruled the galaxy and had many thralls under their control, these thralls eventually created artificial intelligent life which later rebelled against the thralls. The Leviathan grew tired and waged war against the machines by creating massive battle forms from their image (ships reminiscent in size of Reapers) piloted by a single Leviathan so they could wage war outside their aquatic environment. The wars were relentless and with no end in sight the Leviathan, in their hubris, pressed more battle forms into service by creating self-aware machine intelligences by transferring billions of Leviathan memories and personality impressions into the battle forms, thus creating what would become the Reapers. The first Reaper, Harbinger, rebelled against the Leviathan, and the Reapers hunted their creators to near extinction with some going into hiding.
The surviving Leviathan stayed in the shadows, using the spheres during the cycles to gather information, while the Reapers also monitored new civilizations and Harbinger came to the conclusion that artificial life would always rebel against their creators. Harbinger's solution was to ascend all lesser beings to their level after organics had reached a specific point in the evolutionary process, the Reapers requires the best species to be converted to Reapers as genetic and neurological material would dictate how efficient a new Reaper was, and many subjects would be needed to create new Reapers. Other species deemed inferior were destroyed or turned into Collectors, so there have been many different Collector variants over time.
The Leviathan plotted their revenge slowly so they did not arouse Reaper suspicion and used new thralls to build weapons of mass destruction, the Proto-Crucible, to destroy the Reapers and reclaim their galaxy. Thirty seven million years before the events of Mass Effect the Leviathan had constructed enough weapons to finally destroy the Reapers, the weapons manipulated a star's magnetic field and caused it to emit a solar flare which powered a devastating ray which cleansed a single star system from Reapers. A long and bloody war followed, the siphoning process was slow and the Leviathan forces and the Proto-Crucibles were vulnerable and the Reapers could overwhelm and finally defeat the Leviathan once more, but a few Leviathan survived.
With the Proto-Crucibles destroyed, but not the plans, the Leviathan once more planned to destroy the Reapers and eventually leaked the plans via thralls to the inusannon as they fought the Reapers in their cycle, but the inusannon failed to build the weapon. During next cycle the Leviathan did not intervene out of fear of being discovered, but the protheans found the plans to the Proto-Crucible at a inusannon ruin and they rushed to build the weapon and improve upon it, and instead it used the mass relay network to siphon dark energy to power the weapon to cleanse the galaxy of Reapers in one process, but they to failed to defeat the Reapers. In response to their near imminent defeat the protheans placed beacons across the galaxy loaded with the plans for the Crucible.
This backstory is important because I setup the Crucible in my story with only one design goal by the Leviathan, and that was to destroy the Reapers, and there was no Catalyst entity present. Nothing else, because I was not enthusiastic about Mass Effect 3's ending, and even if the Proto-Crucible would have only targeted Reapers, the protheans with their biases towards artificial life would certainly had made changes to destroy all artificial life. In my fic the Crucible fired and destroyed all the Reapers, with the unintended side effect that all artificial intelligence was destroyed in the process, be it Reaper or otherwise. So no geth, and sadly no EDI. I like EDI, and I personally do not think the geth are so innocent as some fans feel, considering they wiped out almost all quarians; men, women and children. I tried to make a destroy ending where geth and EDI survived, but trying to explain why only the Reapers were destroyed felt like I was hand waving the consequences of the Crucible. Thus I used the destroy ending for my story, plus with temporary destruction and disruption of technology across the galaxy there is a layer of dread for the survivors.