Alrighty chaps, this is just a short story idea I've had expressed in the form of the first chapter, I'll let you read it before I explain a few extra's not covered,

601 years Post-reaper war.

An Asari Matron in her late 500's raised a hand above her head only to then cover her eyes with her elbow, the light in the room while bright is nothing extreme yet for the Asari who has just this very moment awaken from hyper-sleep it is somewhat painful. "Commander Lysia?" A robotic voice asks, the voice immediately being identifiable as Geth from its synthetic undertones.

"Listening." The commander replied with a groggy voice as she continued to shield her eyes.

The Asari could hear the Geth unit approach her because of the whine its limb's servos make as it moves. "As requested prior to departure this unit has prepared a morning stimulant.' With the Geth unit almost on top of her a smell of coffee fills the air, it is something the Asari started to drink when she lived in a Human-Asari colony during her early years, and it has stuck with her ever since.

With her eyes somewhat adapted to the light Lysia removes her elbow from her eyes and sits up on in her bio-pod to accept the drink, and while it is not a great brew to write home about by any means, it is more than drinkable. With a few gulps of the precious liquid in her system to chase away hypersleep blues, Lysia gets down to business. "Is everything going as expected?"

"Negative, sensors indicate a destructive cloud of dark energy is abundant in this galaxy, delaying our arrival by 3 months, 27 days and 13 hours, the cloud will also have proven problematic for numerous arcs."

"Are the council aware?" Asked Lysia, hoping the Geth units onboard her ship will have already informed the council.

"Affirmative. Mission parameters have not changed."

Lysia's mission parameters are rather simple; she is to only keep an eye on the Andromeda initiative and make sure things go 'smoothly' between them and any native species of Andromeda. Hopping down from her bio-bed that she has slept the last 50 years in Lysia approaches a large glass window that overlooks a the andromeda galaxy. "So this is Andromeda huh?" She asks no one in particular before speaking up, "Essence, how are you and my shipmates doing?" Essence is the ships AI, and it controls everything, from life support to weapons, it is based heavily on EDI, which proved itself invaluable on the Normandy SR-2 during the Reaper's invasion.

A blue orb forms in the corner of the window Lysia is looking out of, and a feminine voice replies to her, "I am well Spectre, thank you for asking, as for my biological crew vitals are green across the board."

"Wake them up then, and have senior staff meet me in the captains mess at 1435."

1435

Lysia looks among her most senior crew; there are two humans, an Asari doctor, two Krogan, one Bethd whose species joined the galactic community shortly after the Reaper war, and a single Geth unit that represents all Geth onboard the ship. After a few nod's in greetings to the few who made eye contact with her Lysia tapped the captain's table they are gathered around twice with her knuckles and then spoke up.

"Good afternoon, I trust you are all feeling well rested after our fifty-year voyage?" There are a few nods of the head but no comments made. "Excellent, then I can finally tell you our purpose in this galaxy, Essence, display slide one." Essence did as asked and a picture of a massive citadel like station appeared in holographic form in the middle of the table. "This is the Nexus; it is a joint species station that deployed from our galaxy almost bang on 600 years ago, along with five Arks, each carrying 20'000 in cryo-stasis. Our mission is to descry their progress in this galaxy and ensure that peaceful relations are established with any native's. Should peace be established, and our species well represented then we will be returning home before you know it, but if there are hostilities, we will ensure there is a peaceful outcome by any means.

Now I want to make it clear that this is their show, they are the ones who are to live here and by rights, it should be they who lead their expedition, but we must consider the fact they have come with technology which will allow others to return to our home. If these others are hostile, then we ensure they do not ascertain this technology.

So, in short, our mission is primarily that of surveillance, with minimal interaction, Any questions?"

"Yeah," A human with a thick ginger beard spoke up after a moment, "How exactly do we hide a ship the size of Manhattan and with an energy output ten times that of a mass relay?"

"The expedition we are observing left shortly before the great war, to them some of our technology can only be described as magic. Keeping our ship hidden will not be an issue." After the great war, the Reapers were reverse engineered to find all their secrets, and their memory banks raided, and to say the memory banks housed interesting technology and information would be the greatest understatement of the century.

So what you think of the mission? Sounds simple but obviously, things are going to get complex. Timing is set just after ME:A takes place, and the lead character is an Ardat-Yakshi just for the fun of it. (Imagine executions from a Spectre by mind sex? Ha, 'Lysia could view it as a humane execution due to the 'pleasure')

A few other idea's I've had,

The MW galaxy will obviously have changed, as already asserted a new species (Bethd) has been added, but I was thinking more along the idea of relations between species. An idea I like is how Humans and Asari have essentially become one people due to the extensive damage to their worlds during the reaper war forcing them to work together and establish new worlds till they are virtually one people with one collective government. The turians would be in on this but their biology means they can't get as close as humans/asari as they can't eat the same things (e.g making a new colony is harder as they need Dextro-Amino Acids) and their society is made out to be a militaristic one. Krogans under Wrex (Yeah that old dog is still kicking) are a major player now, and while rowdy they are not too problematic.

Another thing I would like to see, Lysia point out all the STUPID ideas of ME:A such as *Tiny spoiler* Sending the arcs to a new galaxy with no weapons/defences when there have been countless instances in the MW of hostile first contact.

At the moment and foreseeable future I have other commitments, so won't be able to develop this story any further, or at least not unless I get a massive amount of requests for it (It would have to be finished by September so it would be short), but if anyone wants to take it and develop it go for it, just make sure to tell me so I can read it!

NAOYU = Name As Of Yet Unknown.