Prologue
Author's note: This is a prologue written to introduce people to who are not familiar with the Mass-Effect universe to our setting. If you familiar with the Mass Effect Universe, this will not be necessary reading and can be skipped entirely.
The year is 2168 and the world as we know it is no more.
For humanity has progressed much beyond the limits it is chained by in our times. In 2148 a team of ambitious archaeologists discover a small cache of very advanced technology hidden deep beneath the blood-red surface of Mars. This turns out to be one of the most important findings in human history; one that would launch human-kind into a new era of plenty and prosperity. Within years, most lethal diseases we know today are completely eradicated and for the first time ever, energy is not at concern for human kind; for the technology we were given lead us to explore and understand the mysterious Element Zero, a mysterious substance of many applications, such as giving certain exposed people super-human telekinetic abilities or serving as a super effective fuel in new element-zero power plants. Human augmentation as well as long distance spacefaring saw their outsets in the years immediately after scientists successfully reverse-engineered the Martian stash.
In 2149, however, man made an even more important discovery. The frozen moon of Pluto, Charon, was never a moon indeed. Rather, it had been a huge dormant mass relay engulfed in a spherical gaol of ice for millennia. This mass relay worked as a slingshot that could launch starships into space at incredible speeds, provided they were equipped with the proper element-zero reactors. Thus began the human colonisation of space. Although the mass relays were one-way at first, humanity soon discovered that other systems had relays too, and that rapid travel from system to system was possible. And so, man did as man always has done when encountering vast amounts of unconquered lands and spread like the plague, building new homes on every new habitable planet they came upon. But as many had foreseen the days of expansion would come to an end.
In 2157 the Turians, reptilian creatures from the planet of Palaven, were encountered for the first time. Startled, the two sides began firing at each other, killing many on both sides. Thus followed the First Contact War, the first intergalactic conflict humans ever were involved with. Even though the technology of the war-faring race of the turian was leagues superior to that of mankind's, the brave soldiers of the Systems Alliance, the united earth government, held out, until the Asari and the Salarians stepped in and worked out a peace-treaty. The turians were not the only other intelligent race in space, and they were not the first to expand beyond their own planets. Appearently two other races, the frog-like Salarian and the hermaphroditic Asari had come before them, and eerily enough, also done so by salvaging ancient technology. These three races, the Turians, the Asari and the Salarians had formed the Intergalactic Council, a giant confederation of these three races', the Elcor's, the Hanaar's and the Volus' governments. The Elcor, the Hanaar and the Volus were only client races, however, and were not allowed any seats in the council. They were, however, given the rights to have diplomats that could represent the interests of each race in the giant space-suspended capital and political main hub of council-space known as 'The Citadel'. Such would also be the fate of humanity, who were now granted the right to have people and diplomatic emissaries live in The Citadel. Humans were quick to discover, however, that things were not that different from home. Speciesism riddled the political environment of council-space and the three council-races were interlocked in a cold-war scenario, where they all strived to be the dominant one, seeking to undermine each other through espionage and political foul-play. Beyond the borders of Council-Space lured the Terminus Systems, a loose confederation of space-faring races, that could easily wipe out Council-Space, were they able to set their petty differences aside, stop in-fighting and unite against them. It could be argued that it had been better if humanity had never discovered this new intergalactic society. For the future was an uncertain one.