"Weyrloc Clan, Krasten family. 234 males, 135 non-viable females, 16 viable females, 164 adolescents of various ages. Current habitat is semi-sheltered, recently acquired, only lightly fortified."
The sky is an eternal overcast yellow-orange, flickering with airborne dust and eternal cloud formations that only sometimes dared discharge some water on the land below. The great disk of Alarahk hangs in the sky in all its F-class glory, bathing the debris-ridden landscape of dead, dry soil in flickering evening light.
"Acquisition activity in the area is mostly hunter-scavenger by foot. Vehicle activity is minimal; most vehicles are solar-hydrocell convertibles. Overall assessment-"
234. 135. 16. 164. The haptic pen dances in the air, writing out trigraphic layers in automatically assigned colors. Behind them, more fields of the big table fill with calculated numbers.
Mordin Solus looks at them as he opens his mouth: "Next entry."
The holographic video replay on the large window frame stops, a word frozen mid-sentence, then jumps ahead to the next entry: "Weyrloc Clan, Pakaktha family", the record of Idio Vahlent speaks, against a changed but depressingly similar backdrop of Tuchankan landscape. "331 males, 231 non-viable females…"
Mordin mutters to himself as he adds the numbers, already calculating more subsequent numbers: "Age distribution trend +6 for males, +4 for females, overall age distribution slant- Next entry!"
The other hand grips the entire light-woven note-board, and scrolls it up, leaving more spaces for notes. The logs drones on, and the haptic pen writes down glyph after glyph. Mostly numbers, but interjected there are short notes, thought scribbles on virtual post-ups, jutted down with salarian efficiency and speed.
"Come in," Mordin says absentmindedly, neurovocalizing a [Stop playback] command at the cloud of VIs. The voice of Vahlent dies, the video frozen mid-frame, capturing a stir of dirt drifting by in the background. The holograph made it look like a window to another world, everything captured and replayed in perfect depth and high fidelity.
Twirling the pen in one hand before pocketing it, Mordin turns around as another salarian entered the room. He is tall and lanky, even for his species, the head framed by synthetic alterations of directly implanted exocortex implants. Twice the consciousness brainpower, and a heavy-duty mathematical analysis suite in behind. The proper name would be Talim Seyshad, but everyone just calls him Sayrem - like the famous salarian mathematician and physicist, an absolute genius back in the ancient days.
Maybe the name is a bit haughty for someone whose specialty is not theoretical physics, but statistics and pattern matching, but "Sayrem" is good - One of the best people Mordin has ever had the pleasure working with. Absolutely focused and a savant of his field, without too much of an amputated social ability.
Sayrem's eyes take in Mordin's set-up with extreme efficiency, no microsecond wasted on getting the visual snapshot of the locale. Afterwards, the augmented brain crunches it down piece by piece, fits it all together into the massive spider web of data. From below, not-quite split personalities take over, hungrily devouring the raw structure and spitting out refined connections. The web tightens, turns and forms into patterns.
"You see it too."
"Yes. There is a spike in fertility and surviving adolescents." Mordin turns around. "Societal structure has not changed sufficiently. Too much female warfare, too much adolescent targeting. We have a bio-somatic cause here." He takes a quick breath of fresh air to speak: "Foreign or domestic?"
"Natural." Sayrem links into the local mesh, logs in on his partition of the local Cloud Processing Environment, and loads the files. Mordin approves, and his notes are displaced by even more orderly material, the glyphs smooth and correct, and there are a lot of them. Some of them express mathematical operations that would fill a flimsy if written down in full. Sayrem has it all color-marked, to draw out the trends for everyone to see in the ocean of noise. Its 200 years of population development, crunched down into a singular trend - A rising number of stable births.
The interesting part is everything else. How that pattern distributes itself, how it fluctuates, when the Deltas of change grow especially large, and when they fall. Sayrem matched it with other parts - migration patterns, genetic data - and Mordin fits together what he has seen for likely hours, and now confirmed.
"The krogan are adapting."
"Yes. There is a permutation in the A4Df7600-beta Gene, now stable across fourteen generations. The result is a new protein expression. It's unstable, highly dependent on the offspring's bio-compatibility; but I talked with the Biogenetics department already. They've run the sims, on the Big Rig." Their largest quantum simulator, one cubic meter of perfect, quantum-level simulation at accelerated speeds. "We are looking at 100, 200 stable births, out of a clutch of 1000."
"Way too much." Mordin recalls the papers with photographic precision, thousands of them he read through when he joined the division in '17. Krogan population dynamics are still a big research topic, projecting off past and current population models alike, re-iterating on software tools and social dynamics models and assumptions. Everything from one more child to a full, naturalized stock. Then inserted into stellapolitics. The outcome is almost always a war, and this time… the krogan species dies out.
Even with transhumanity as an unknown variable, well… there are contingencies. Even the infamous "Tuchankan Miracle" can't stop a hundred strategic ecokiller devices. And the stellapolitical models agree for the most part, that transhumanity will not commit galactic politiocide over the krogans. Not that they'd really need them anyway. They could just grow something tougher in a lab if they really wanted. So could the Union, for that matter.
But who wants hordes of shambling brutes in an age of transsophont combat cyborgs, and orbital bombardment munitions potentially powerful enough to crack a planetoid apart? The krogan deserve to live as people, not as weapons. But they sure as the Broken Spines don't make it easy on themselves.
Mording breaks his musings. The course of action is clear. "Refocus the department. I am going to call the Master."
Sayrem nods, and leaves without another word. At the same time, Mordin prepares to make a call.
15 minutes later, he leaves for his home. The big meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, 8 AM local time. Proper dress code is expected.
01.1 | Feature Review
29th Saychenten | 2729 A.C.E.
Parventis City / Solas / Sur'Kesh | Salarian Core Space
The Fortress of the High Chamber looks as imposing as ever on approach. When the original building was erected 3500 years ago, its engineers placed it strategically on an island, separated from the land by a surprisingly deep ocean, steep cliff faces for miles on end, and only one access way - a bridge.
Nowadays, aircars can enter the space above the fortress freely, bypassing the terrain obstacles that drove those considerations. Most of them will also be shot down by the air defenses, who have different ideas about these things.
The aircar they are riding inside of is a heavy yet sleek government model, almost a combat skimmer more than a transport with its forward-swept wings designed to augment the maneuverability of the contragravitic flyer. It has the strong kinetic barriers, and a set of self-defense guns. Salarian paranoia at its finest. Always options, always a backup option.
Declaring war is stupid. Giving yourself the time to bring the guns into position is even more stupid. Don't be stupid.
They come in over one of the landing pads, and the aircar sinks to the ground, unfolding its landing gear. Mordin looks out the window, left part of his brain replaying the presentation to come while his right analyses what he actually sees.
There's a perimeter at the edge of the pad, six massive Shieldguard suits in all their white gleaming cybernetic glory flanking a smaller perimeter of the Dalastrean Guard in their own full-body cybernetic bodies, heavy guns in head and helmets impassive and seemingly impenetrable.
"Being greeted by dalatress on pad", Mordin mutters. "Unusual. Interesting choice."
Opposite, Maelon smiles his trademark grim smile. "You made waves, Mordin. Our little operation is now in the spotlight. No pressure." He fingers around on his own suit nervously, trying to externalize and project his own mental state. Mordin looks unfazed, and almost is. In times like these, being calm, collected and logical is better. Personal opinion and emotions are irrelevant. What matters is the end state.
The aircar touches down, and two of the Dalastrassan Guard detach themselves, stepping towards the vehicle. Their co-driver disembarks, and calmly waits next to the vehicle while an invisible handshake verifies their identities. Mordin notes the way the orientations of the bodies change, how guns are lifted just a notch higher. Don't be a threat, or else. Then they drop, and the side door unlocks with a clack, more user feedback than mechanical necessity. "Showtime", Maelon murmurs.
The salarian STG team stands up, and steps out of the aircar, ducking under the wing of the doors. Besides Maelon, Mordin brought Sayrem, Tealon from Socio-Analytics, and Paykren, his top engineering specialist. Major Paltern is external, from the Field Action Group, their military Rep for this meeting.
Five people, speaking for OPERATION: SILENT ENDURANCE - "The Almighty Janitors", they sometimes call themselves jokingly. The scientific spear of the operation to maintain the Genophage, maintain a throttle on the krogan population. To keep a potential bomb under control, to not let the pressure rise ever again.
It's a dispassionate job. You can't get personal. Ever. Not that that is hard. The number of krogan who are friendly to salarians can be counted on one hand. Hate against you makes it easy to return the favor. But that can't be afforded either, Mordin always says when they try to start ethical discussions, or kick one off by accident. Let's look at the numbers. Look at the logic. Emotions, desperation was what created the krogan situation. Bad assessments is what ruined them, desperate strategy that ignored the warning signs. The asari have always criticized us for our lack of the long view. So let's be better. We can be better.
And now they have to decide.
Mordin steps forward, takes the lead of the little group. The bodyguard formation unfolds, admits them into itself, and closes back up, watching outwards and inwards.
The dalatrass smiles, a warm motherly smile backed up by implicit authority. "Welcome, Doctor Solus, Doctor Maelon", she addresses the two of them.
"Dalatrass Kadjen." The entire group bows gracefully before one of The Twelve Great Dalatrasses. "A surprise to meet you out here."
"We have need of talking", she states, arms folded in front of her elaborate dress.
"Understand", Mordin replies.
The first of the guard turn around, and set off towards the broad stairways leading off the landing pad, and down into the interior of the modern complex. The Shieldguards begin to move too, holding the edges of a hexagonal perimeter around the Dalatrass, maintaining a mobile perimeter that will intercept any threat through defensive lasers and barrier field generators.
"How bad is it really?" Dalatrass Kadjen asks.
"Bad. We are talking a 1/5th Clutch viability recovery within a few generations. The effect will snowball. Genetic therapy use is very likely. First small-scale wars, then escalating situation. Genetic data escapes Tuchanka quarantine, begins spreading. Blood Pack becomes active. Ultimate consequence at +20 years", Mordin inhaled sharply, "krogan neutralization in new war."
"Total?"
"Most likely. Runaway threat is too great. Factions within the Union would push for total war. Turians would fall in sooner or later." Another sharp inhale. "'Bad situation' understatement."
He looked at her: "You are thinking about the proper response."
The Dalatrass nodded. "House Linron will push for an… advanced solution. She is new, and the hatred of old wounds burns hard."
Mordin nodded. "Implementation of A4Df7600 Full Geneline Eliminator Strain. Efficient, but… sloppy. Goal questionable."
"Oh, really?" Kadjen asked. "Why is that?"
"GPH-01 and subsequent strains designed as population control weapon. Hostile Uplifting of second kind, ultimately the goal of the design team was part deterrence, part… least-traumatising biogenic fix. Unfortunately, second goal complicated by krogan biogenomics." He inhaled. "GPH-01/45 selected due to highest reliability rate, but also implemented the A4Df7600 Edit. Consequences well known." Seeing her gaze, he raised a hand while inhaling, "The point here being, the Genophage is now primarily for krogan protection. From themselves and the consequences of a numbers resurgence. Likely outcomes well known."
He looked around. "Implementing GPH-241/X would be failure of the entire project and its goals. Unacceptable."
"So what is your proposal?"
"Continue with adjustment. Updated strain deployment, GPH-241, Variant/Iteration 17. We address A4Df7600-beta mutation and introduce Phase 25 of the secondary Adjustment. Artificial evolution schedule will be maintained, clutch viability adjusted to 4.61 out of 1000."
"That is slightly out of schedule."
"Schedule is old, required adjustment anyway. Also, A4Df7600-beta mutation requires viable replacement strain. Gene deletion obviously not working, krogan biology repairs damage anyway. New approach is required." A breath. "Inserting alternate gene, use Genophage to enforce spread. Krogan scientific threshold too low to effectively weaponize update."
"An interesting solution, Doctor Solus."
"But a necessary one, I am afraid," Maelon joins in. "Dalatrass, we have a hundreds of years of trends here. The krogan are resisting. We continue to adjust, and even those adjustment fail. When the Genophage was launched, we predicted updates every century or so. We are now at 240 updated strains, and the rate has been increasing. The krogan are too resilient. We have to escalate the timeline for CONCEPT: RETROVERSION or GPH-X will one day be the only option left. And none of us prefer that."
"I know the arguments, and frankly? I agree. But many others don't. Even RETROVERSION has been under continuous fire."
"And it isn't helping the case!" Maelon bursts out. Mordin signals him to calm down, activates his Neurocomm: [Anger won't help right now.]
His assistant akes a deep breath: "Apologies, Dalatrass Kadjen. But there are no alternatives. None that are preferable."
"You belief in your work", Kadjen simply stated.
"As the Union demands!" Maelon affirms. Every salarian nods at that. Dedication is never a fault, indeed it is a sacred duty to the salarian people.
Ahead, the entryway to the fortress proper looms, and Mordin can already see the entoptic DisplayID tags of other conference participants, including more Dalatrasses, and the ARvatar of a Councillor.
"Showtime" indeed, he thought as they stepped towards the doors.
*** STG ***
A/N: While the latest main story update is brooding through the Beta review, to hopefully launch somewhere in the next two days, I have found lots of free time and the need to write some of those sidestories that have been brooding in my mind for a while.
For the moment, I am posting them in Ascendance, under the sidestory folder, but ultimately I suspect the story will be migrated out to a separate thread.
I hope you like this view at the Salarian Union, the Genophage, and a somewhat different yet the same Mordin... and the vision of a different Tuchanka, to be seen.