The Schemes of the Reapers

by davidnm2007

Thrent Krall, an ambitious krogan warlord, talks to someone whom he really shouldn't. He goes in search of an understandable-in-context but breathtakingly ill-advised deal. But why are the Reapers being so generous? What do they want ... and will Krall be pleased to learn their price?

Smart Reapers

This is a little thought-experiment. The Reapers we met in ME3 really didn't seem that impressive. By and large, their strategy seemed to consist of 'Raaah! Smash! Raaah!' One is left wondering what things 'smart' Reapers might do?

(Also, I don't buy the 'logic' of the Reapers' supposed cannonical purpose, so I've substituted something else in here.)

What levers might scheming cuttlefish push? How would they undermine, disunite and demoralise a galaxy?

Let's start with the krogan...

---

Warlord Thrent Krall stomped into the building. Loose stones crunched under his armoured boots. He kept one hand firmly on the haft of his massive hammer as he entered. He glanced once behind him. 'Ashan, Narthrak,' he growled, 'put out a perimeter guard. I want both of you on the door. See to it that I'm not disturbed.'

Behind him were the captains of his Clanguard, two fully-armoured and heavily-armed krogan warriors. Insofar as the self-styled Greatest Warlord of Tuchanka trusted anyone, it was those two. Now here they stood, amidst decayed stonework, broken machinery and the scattered shafts of light falling through chinks in the ceiling. The walls around them were cracked and the floor pockmarked with holes and small craters. Dust drifted lazily in the air.

'Of course, Warlord,' Ashan said in his guttural voice. It echoed slightly inside from his helmet.

Ashan had been at Krall's side for his entire life - the two had been birthed from the same clutch. They had fought in more battles than Krall cared to count. Ashan had reached his present position after he had brought Krall the heads of several salarian infiltrators, whom he had found spying on one of the Thrent clan's camps some years ago. It had been a gift that had pleased Krall; here on Tuchanka, the Warlord felt that salarians did not have to be tolerated.

'If anyone tries to intrude, we will kill them,' Nathrak promised. He sounded excited. 'Maybe we'll get lucky and there'll be some of those Urdnot weaklings!'

Nathrak was a more recent recruit; technically, he was a 'reject' from Saren's abominable breeding program on Virmire. What 'reject' meant in this case was that Nathrak had taken the initiative and had escaped from the facility, killing several of his tormenters in the process. He had made his way off of Virmire by hijacking one of the installation's supply ships. Although Nathrak was young, Krall approved entirely of his ingenuity and his capacity for violence. Despite being a tank-bred, Krall had allowed the younger krogan to petition for membership in the clan. It had proved a wise decision; Nathrak was loyal, and he had displaced many weaker underlings as he rose through the ranks.

Despite their differing origins, both Ashan and Nathrak were ready to do their lord's bidding.

Krall approved, of course. 'Good,' he said. 'If this plan goes off, there'll be plenty of Urdnots to kill. And others besides.'

Nathrak and Ashan were the only two krogan who knew exactly what - or whom - their clan-lord was planning on speaking to inside this building. Nathrak liked the plan, Ashan was somewhat more reserved. However, both saw the wisdom in the basic idea.

Krall strode forward. Behind him, the two krogan captains gave out appropriate orders to their squads, then took up their stations on either side of the main door. As he stomped forward, Krall's breath ran a little faster through his mouth. Next to him a ragged patch of sunlight shone on the floor, falling through a gaping hole in the ceiling. Parts of this facility dated back to the age of the Rebellion; it had been added to over the centuries but it had also been damaged many times. Shell-craters, bullet-holes, burn marks ... some of the scars had been repaired, but not all. The whole facility seemed moth-eaten. The machinery it housed worked perfectly fine, however. That was why some effort had been taken to secure parts of it, after the Fall of Tuchanka.

Ahead of Krall was another doorway. This one was shut and locked, a heavy metal blast-door blocking his way. Krall growled as he glanced at the locking-mechanism. It looked salarian. A roughly ovoid device, consisting of a keypad marked with weird alien glyphs and lots of smooth curves and odd bulges. Picking that lock would probably take forever. Luckily, Krall had other plans.

He tapped a little recessed key on the side of his hammer. He felt the familiar shiver as the machinery powered up. He took a firm grasp on the haft.

'RAAAAGH!' The urge to shout was irresistible.

Muscles bunched. A hand swung. The hammer arced through the air. It crunched into the wall. Bits sprayed out. Electrical sparks erupted. The air filled with a stink of ozone as the hammer discharged. The sound of the impact echoed in the enclosed space.

The salarian lock's remains rained onto the floor.

The door was dented, with a big gash down its middle. It also now hung slightly open. Inside his helmet, Krall smiled. Typical salarians. Doubtless the lock was proof against any omni-tool tampering, encrypted halfway to the sky and back with who knows what algorithms and equations. It seemed they hadn't accounted for the possibility of a more direct approach, though.

With his free hand, Krall grabbed the edge of the door and pulled. The hinges screamed. Rivulets of rust and dirt cascaded from them. Nonetheless, the door could no more resist the Warlord than any of his fallen enemies of the past. It opened.

Krall stomped through.

The chamber inside was darker and cooler than the entrance-hall. It was also more orderly. There were no bullet-scars in here. The walls were lined with banks of machinery, antiquated but undamaged. The ceiling was intact. The floor was free of rubble and dust.

As Krall walked in, recessed lights flickered into life. He heard a faint hum, rising in pitch and volume as the ancient processors stirred back into fitful activity. Up ahead of him was the base of a holotank, a raised dais consisting of metal panels and cables and switches and many other, less comprehensible devices. Krall's lip curled as he surveyed it. He distrusted things he didn't understand.

He was not, however, afraid of them.

Krall walked up to the holotank. He searched for the control console.

'This must be it,' he muttered, considering a sloped bank of keys. Instead of a modern haptic field, the device was managed through an ancient-style manual keyboard. Primitive. But, that was why this facility still existed. When the turians and the salarians had looted anything of value from Tuchanka, they had removed anything more sophisticated. With this facility, they had merely seen fit to lock the door.

'Idiots,' Krall muttered.

With some reluctance, Krall out his hammer down, leaning its mighty haft against the side of the holotank. It went against his nature to put a weapon down, but an attack in here was unlikely. With his now-free hands, he reached for his waist. Down there, a collection of equipment-pouches were belted in place over his armour. He fiddled with the closing-strap of one of the larger ones, before successfully digging out a datapad.

He put the pad on the control interface and keyed it into life.

The pad had been left behind several days before, following a raid on one of his clan's encampments. Tuchanka had recently come under attack from Reaper forces. Thanks to Clan Urdnot's systematic mismanagement of the planet's affairs, Reaper forces now had operating bases established in several locations. That fact made the Warlord angry. If it were up to Krall, they would have been booted back into the black and bottomless extragalactic void from whence they came. To him, there was only one sensible response to a challenge like this, and that was to hit the challenger hard and fast. Smash them, and smash them again before they could regroup. Nothing else would work.

But no, apparently the Urdnot Clan-lord had decided that the krogan needed to gather allies first. To Krall's way of thinking, that was a ludicrous idea. The only 'allies' you could count on were the warriors who were oath-sworn to you. Even other krogan were unreliable and as for the rest of the galaxy, well, their total hostility was a matter of documented historical fact. One only had to go for a walk on Tuchanka to see the work of the Urdnots' would-be 'allies'.

Krall tapped a couple of keys on the datapad. It made a peeping noise. A progress bar appeared on the screen, announcing 'Download In Progress'. Krall fought back the urge to snarl at the device. The progress-bar crept across the screen with agonizing slowness.

The Urdnots had somehow managed to talk the females and the shamans around to their delusional way of thinking. Three of the strongest counsellors within krogan politics, all of them urging the same insane course of action. The world had gone mad, and it was up to Krall to rectify the situation before it got any further out of hand. The stakes were the highest possible; Krall was under no illusions about the nature of the war that was going on beyond Tuchanka's dust-choked skies. If these mouth-breathing fools were allowed to continue down this path, it would be the final act of the krogan.

Krall watched closely as the download reached the halfway point.

In most ways, Krall was a traditionalist. There was one legitimate source of power, in his opinion, and that took the form of the hammer he had propped up against the holotank. Everything else was just lies and mist. But, many centuries of ferocious battles had also taught him to be pragmatic on occasion. His adoption of Nathrak was a case in point; many in the clan had been horrified by the idea of taking a tank-bred as one of their own. Nathrak had disproved all his critics, though - many of them with the business end of a shotgun. The Thrents were all the stronger for it, all the more remarkable given how much pressure they had been put under recently by the Urdnots.

The urge to smash the Reapers was from Krall's conservative side. The datapad sat before him was another of his pragmatic moments. As he looked, the progress bar filled and the datapad peeped again. Part of him wanted to crush the pad under his hammer. What could these machines possibly have to say that would be worth listening to? But the files on the pad had mentioned something of critical importance to all krogan.

The genophage. The pad's former owners claimed to know something about it.

The holotank flicked into life. A recorded voice announced, 'Interface codes accepted. Beginning relay handshake-protocols. Packet exchange underway. Establishing connection. Please wait.'

Lights flickered above the holotank.

'Connection established,' the machine announced. 'Host ID: unknown. Host domain: unknown. Host location: no data available. Data routing through anonymous protocol. Bandwidth capacity...' (the machine actually hesitated for a moment, as if it were surprised) '...extremely high. Signal-to-noise ratio: optimal. Beginning communication process.'

The lights flicked and blurred, and then a form blinked into being.

'I see,' Krall said. 'I suspected as much.'

The form above the holotank was unmistakeable. A translucent hologram in green light, about four feet high. Even in miniature, the Sovereign-class Reaper seemed to glower with menace. All the more remarkable given that the infernal machine had no obvious eyes to glower with.

In spite of himself, Krall felt a shiver of fear.

'YOU RECEIVED OUR MESSAGE,' the Reaper said.

'You don't need to shout,' Krall growled. 'I'm not deaf, machine!'

Krall would never admit it, but the Reaper surprised him: it actually dropped the volume of its synthesised voice. 'Acceptable,' it said.

'I assume you want something,' Krall growled. 'I don't chitchat with tin cans. You'd better not be wasting my time, machine. What. Do. You. Want?'

'Our ultimate aim is well-known,' the Reaper said. 'Organic life competes with us for the galaxy's energy resources. These are large, but finite. They will be exhausted over cosmological timescales. Co-existence will not be possible during the thermodynamic winter. Therefore, we do not seek to co-exist.'

'Lectured by a tin squid,' Krall muttered. Apparently the Reaper was declaring itself to be an enemy. Well, Krall knew that already. So far, this was a remarkably boring discussion.

'In the long run,' the Reaper said, 'survival is the only concern that truly matters.'

That much, at least, was something Krall could agree with.

'You went to some length to drop this datapad where we could find it,' Krall said. 'I assume there was a point to it.' Or had the Reapers just forgotten it? They were supposedly thousands or millions of years old. Were they getting a bit absent-minded in their old age?

'Yes,' the Reaper agreed. 'There was a point.' The machine's voice was without inflection. Nonetheless, Krall picked up a sense of irritation. Good. 'Since your encampment is not connected to the extranet, we couldn't simply send you a message.'

Inside his helmet, Krall's eyes narrowed. The Reapers could access the extranet? Well, that was an interesting bit of news. He supposed it shouldn't really be a surprise. Presumably the AIs could sweet-talk the servers, offer them dinner and wine, perhaps, or whatever it is that machines talk about between each other.

'You told us to come here,' Krall said.

'Yes,' the machine agreed. 'This facility is primitive, antiquated and poorly-maintained. However, it meets the minimum requirements to connect to our private network. Reliable extranet connections are rare on Tuchanka, it appears. Particularly in your domain. And we have supplied all appropriate software drivers, protocols and updates. Consequently this conversation is possible. Vocal communications do not require a very significant bit-rate.'

The Reapers had their own communications network? Well, Krall supposed that shouldn't be a surprise either. Apparently the infernal things had privileged access to the mass relay network. Wasn't there supposedly a rumour going around that the Reapers had actually built the relay network, rather than the protheans? If so, then it would make sense. You don't hand other people a tool without leaving yourself a few back-doors.

After one of Ashan's squads had found the datapad, it had been handed to Krall. He'd read the files on it. Initially he had assumed their contents were a joke, or a hoax. Then he'd shown it to Nathrak, expecting the other warrior to share his bitter laughter.

To his surprise, Nathrak had instead frowned, eyeing an incomprehensible picture in one of the files. 'That reminds me of something,' Nathrak had said. 'A diagram I saw. In one of Saren's experimental chambers. Something about protein folding.'

That had got Krall's attention. It was known that Saren's researchers had found a way to sidestep the genophage, via cloning. The precise details were unclear, thanks to the destruction wreaked by that accursed human, Shepard. But the program's efficacy was something Krall did not doubt - after all, one of his most important warriors was a product of it!

And Nathrak thought this could be something significant. Krall had perhaps one liberal impulse: he was smart enough to listen to his subordinates. If one of his most trusted captains thought something was significant, then maybe it was worth a little investigation.

And anyway, what possible harm could come from a mere conversation?

'Machine,' Krall said, 'your pad claims to offer a cure for the genophage.'

'Yes. It does.'

'Saren sidestepped it,' Krall noted. 'Okeer failed. The biotech companies all failed. Evolution has failed. Doubtless you have failed, too.'

'We have not,' the Reaper said. 'We can cure the genophage. Should we choose to do so.'

'You offer me no evidence,' Krall said. He felt uneasy. He was fully aware that this machine was his enemy, in an absolute sense. It had made the truth plain itself, just a few moments ago. Peace between machines and organics could never exist - the basic laws of the Universe demanded war!

It was also obvious that the Reaper was trying to manipulate him.

But, but, but ... Nathrak had recognised a diagram. Saren's work was actually arguably a limited success. Apparently Saren and the Reapers had been somewhere on the same page. What if there was a cure for the genophage?

Hope was a strange emotion. Bloodlust, anger, pain, hate, rage, even fear, these were things Krall could understand. They were known quantities, familiar, almost allies. But hope was a sneaky, unreliable thing, prone to creeping in when you least expected it. With a moment's bleak humour, it occurred to Krall that hope was something like a salarian, always sidling around, unwanted and unexpected. Too much hope in the wrong place, just like a salarian, could lead to chaos. Krall was feeling a nagging sensation of hope, and he didn't trust it.

Was it be possible? Could the genophage be cured?

The Reaper considered Krall's remarks. The hologram floated in silence for several long moments. Finally, it said, 'We have the most advanced technology in existence. Our pure scientific investigations ceased millions of years ago - all the discoverable principles had been discovered. The workings of this universe hold no mystery to us.

'The superiority of our engineering is obvious. Although somewhat more subtle, our biotechnology is also better than yours. We remake and use bodies for our purposes. We make amendments from blatant cybernetics to tweaks to individual cellular processes. Re-using our enemies' corpses is more energy-efficient than the mechanical construction of war-machines. Over cosmological timescales, the saving will be significant.'

'But you make war machines too,' Krall said. From what he had heard, this was part of why the Reapers were here. Apparently they harvested organics for use in the manufacture of their starship-bodies.

As far a Krall were concerned, the Reapers could melt all the turians and salarians that they liked. Frankly, good riddance to them. In a way, he was somewhat impressed - remarkable that someone had actually found a use for the salarians!

'We replace losses, and add to our fleet when we judge it necessary,' the Reaper countered. 'Unlike organic rutting, our reproduction is a measured and sustainable process. We do not experience population booms - nor population collapses. And our true strength lies in our processing capacity. A census of active platforms, even if statistically-complete, would tell you little that would be useful.'

'You use big words to cloak your lies,' Krall said.

The Reaper's hologram rippled. A burst of static washed across it. For a moment, Krall wondered if he'd pushed it too far. Then he reminded himself that the actual Reaper was probably thousands of parsecs away. This was only a hologram!

'We do not lie,' it remarked. 'You are a tedious specimen. We are tiring of this exchange.'

It sounded like the machine was about to disconnect itself. On the one hand, Krall had good reason to doubt it. But on the other hand - what if it was telling the truth? What if it did have a cure for the genophage?

Hope again. An insidious and untrustworthy emotion, and one that was stubbornly refusing to go away.

Then the machine played a card that it had been holding in reserve. 'There are,' it noted, 'other warlords. We expect some of them may be more open-minded.'

Krall felt a lurch in his stomach. If there was a genophage cure, and the Reapers gave it to someone else...

He had no choice. This conversation had to continue.

'If you can cure the genophage - how exactly?' A change of tack was needed. Krall was very glad of his helmet. The Reaper couldn't see his face. That moment of shock an instant ago, doubtless it had spread itself across his countenance. If the Reaper had seen that, it would have known that it had him.

'It was investigated recently,' the Reaper said. 'As part of what you might call an intellectual side-project. We mentioned that pure science is exhausted - but applied science isn't. Biology in particular can produce new surprises. We learned of the genophage, and we investigated.

'As to how we were able to succeed - during the last cycle, we sampled Tuchanka. We have the original krogan genetic code. We also have a full map of your proteome and all relevant epigenetic information. We have detailed records of the hatching process and anatomy.'

Krall felt a rising sense of tension. It sounded plausible. The genophage had worked as a sort of infection, converting all existing tissue into modified form. It had left no trace of the original genetic make-up of the krogan, no way to reset the clock.

'Such data are not available to organic researchers,' the machine added. 'Tuchanka has a high background radioactivity - DNA from grave-sites is always damaged by ionisation. Your nuclear war from two millennia ago has helped your enemies cover their tracks. Furthermore, the public body of scientific work on the genophage has been poisoned.'

'Poisoned?' Krall blinked. This was news!

'The salarians,' the machine explained. 'The journals and citation databases have been seeded with false leads and incorrect theories. Our investigations quickly established this. Using the public work would lead to no useful results.'

'And you didn't use the public work?'

'Citing a salarian is beneath our dignity,' the machine said. Its holographic form actually shuddered with evident distaste. 'Once we appreciated what they had done, we discarded their false theses. Our own work, as ever, proved reliable.'

'And you're the first to ever think of doing your own research? Surely someone else would have had that idea?'

'The salarians,' the machine said again. 'Do you imagine that STG would tolerate independent research? We suspect not. Especially if that research appeared effective. There have been some peculiar deaths in the scientific community, over the last few centuries. Then there are more subtle pressures - funding councils, referees for journal articles, career progression within academia. All of these are levers that could be pulled, to block certain avenues. The salarians are certainly capable of subverting the scientific process.'

Krall's breathing was fast and shallow. His chest felt tight. He realised he'd balled his fists and one of them had planted itself on the haft of his hammer. 'Corporations,' he said, trying to pick a hole in the machine's argument.

Krall felt strained because the Reaper was making a frightening amount of sense. The picture it painted was bleak but plausible. The salarians had never shown any hint of remorse for the crimes they and the turians had committed.

'Corporations are unimportant,' the machine said. 'They can be bought. New shareholders, voting to shut down programs. Also outside actors. Ethics campaigners of various flavours. State regulatory agencies. Lawsuits. All of these tools may be used. Corporate research is arguably more vulnerable as it is subject to commercial pressures. In extreme cases, one could even subvert the banking system to engineer a recession, so as to collapse a business whose activities were undesired.'

Would the salarians do something like that? Krall already knew the answer to that. Yes, of course they would. They hated the krogan. The salarians had sought to use the krogan as a lever to power, during the Rachni War. Then their scheme had backfired, when the krogan demanded from the galaxy the rights they had earned with blood. That had been a political humiliation for the entire salarian species, and one they had never forgiven.

It would never have occurred to Krall that the machine was telling him exactly what he subconsciously longed to hear.

'If you want the genophage cured,' the machine said, 'we are the only credible source.'

There was one obvious question, though. 'You say we compete with you for energy. Why, then, would you help us?'

'We are not helping you,' the machine said.

Krall frowned. He rapped his armoured knuckles on his hammer. 'What does that statement mean?'

'We are helping ourselves,' the machine said. 'We have a price for what we want.'

Krall felt a touch of anger along with his tension. The machine sought to barter? What did it see him as, an over-glorified greengrocer? 'Why should we pay you anything?' What did it want? What could a Reaper value enough to want to do a deal? Slaves? Krogan for the melting-pods? Ores for refining? Eezo? Somehow he doubted that the Reapers were going to ask for credits. 'Why shouldn't we take your supposed cure and laugh at you while our legions crush you into the dust?'

It seemed the machine found his threats amusing. 'This platform is two kilometres long,' it said. 'It would take an implausible amount of crushing for you to do any significant damage. In the meantime, the platform could shoot you. Or perhaps step on you. Since you think so highly of crushing, that could be apposite.' One of the hologram's mechanical tentacles wiggled, as if to emphasise the point.

Krall supposed that trying to intimidate an evil primordial talking warship from beyond the galaxy was probably a waste of time. It galled him, but he supposed he had to concede the point this one time.

'If you cure the genophage,' he said, 'we can breed more. That means more organics. You claim to want less of us. How does this make sense?'

'In the short run,' it said, 'you experience a population boom. When we start harvesting you, that means more bodies for us to re-use. Also, krogan take time to mature. Even at your theoretical maximum breeding rate, you simply do not have enough time. Your youngsters will be immature an inexperienced - not much use in a war. You cannot breed up a large enough army to alter the course of the cycle. We have modelled the data; it is mathematically impossible. On such matters, we are not errant. In addition, your society's economics do not suggest an effective system of logistical support for any supposed krogan legions. Even if you do breed fast enough, you will not be able to feed your troops adequately, nor arm them, train them or marshal them well enough.'

The machine delivered its verdict with a cold, mechanical finality.

'Trash-talked by an oversized abacus,' Krall muttered. 'What a shit day this is proving to be.' He was starting to get tired of the Reaper, genophage cure or not. He picked up his hammer, gripping it in both hands. The weight was comforting. 'So if we're really that useless - what do you want?'

'The turians,' the Reaper said. It wanted the turians? Whatever for?

'What about them?'

'We have recently begun operations against Palaven, and the larger turian colonies. The Hierarchy is becoming aware that its forces are inadequate.'

Krall snorted. 'Turians are hardly clueful.' They fancied themselves as warriors. As far as Krall could tell, the turian idea of warriorhood was prancing around in a fancy uniform or spending hours stood in straight lines. He had yet to meet a turian who had proved difficult to kill. Sometimes, frankly, it was embarrassingly easy. Krall felt that it was significant that the turians had only been able to defeat his ancestors thanks to the salarians' treachery.

'They will eventually concede pride to reality,' the Reaper said, 'though it may take time. Self-preservation is a basic urge; even they must feel it, at least at the species level. When reality finally does intrude, they will seek help. They know who the galaxy's strongest species are.'

Krall realised where this was going. 'Us,' he said. And that Urdnot idiot, lording it over the clans - the fool might just fall for it, too!

'You,' the Reaper agreed. 'Here is our price. If we give you a genophage cure, you must refuse any aid to the turian Hierarchy. We do not expect that you will find this onerous. We give you the first part of the data for the cure now. We give you the final part of the data once there is news on the extranet of you refusing the turians.'

The last thing Krall wanted was to see krogan warriors dying to save turian cowards. But with a cure for the genophage ... If he had something like that at his disposal, sweeping aside the Urdnot fools would be easy. The Urdnot clan-lord had no genophage cure to offer, so he would fall. The clans would flock to Krall! It might not even need a clan-war. And they would know that Warlord Thrent Krall had done more for them than any other leader in centuries. As for the Reaper's claims about krogan helplessness, well, Krall knew blatant trash-talk when he heard it. Let the machine boast; it had never faced the might of a krogan army in battle before!

In fact, he felt a strategy germinating within his mind. Take the cure; leave the turians to their fate. Let the Reapers throw themselves against the Hierarchy and the salarians. In the meantime, the krogan could bunker down, defend their homeworld and regain their strength. With any luck, the other three would sap each others' strength. Then, when they were ready, the krogan could break out into the galaxy and smash the Reapers' tin carapaces in. No more turians. No more meddling salarians. No more Council, no more asari pushing everyone around. This could be the time for a new Krogan Empire. And Krall could be the warrior to create it. It occurred to him that, with a bit of work, he could even be the warlord to lead it. Thrent Krall, first Warlord of the Galaxy. There was an interesting idea!

Krall hefted his hammer. He was filled with a sense of ambition.

To achieve all this, all the Warlord had to do was say no to a snivelling turian lackey. Well, that wasn't going to prove difficult, was it?

He looked at the hologram. 'Very well,' he said. 'I accept. Begin your download. You will have your news soon enough.'