Genesis
Just another routine mission. Why do they always say that before a mission? Of course it's routine… You haven't done anything yet. It's everything that happens along the way, the choices you make, the paths you choose. That turns the routine into anything but. Of course that's how it started. A routine mission, answering a distress call. And look where that got me.
We were testing out the Normandy, Captain Anderson's new ship, when the distress call came in. An Alliance patrol on Eden Prime had been attacked. They'd see something they couldn't explain. And whatever it was… It was massive. I hit the ground running with my Lieutenant, Kaidan Alenko. A good kid. Loyal. By the book, with a talent for biotics. We came across the lone survivor of the patrol, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. A soldier to the core. Tough. Disciplined. Ready to take on whatever came her way. Ashley joined up with us and us to the spot where she lost her squad. That's when we saw it… The ship. Like nothing I'd ever seen. It was massive! Scorching the colony and everything around it as it blasted away.
We followed the path of destruction to an artifact, a beacon left by a long dead race called the Protheans. The colony had dug it up and whoever attacked them had tried to take it. Lieutenant Alenko made the mistake of getting to close. It hit him with some type of energy. I grabbed him and threw him out of the way. And that's when it hit me… Hard. Every muscle in my body went rigid… I couldn't move. Could barely breath. Everything went black… And then I saw something. A vision. Dream. A nightmare. It was disturbing.
By the time I woke up, we were halfway to the Citadel on our way to meet the Council. I was expected to explain what I'd seen. Anderson came along. So did Udina, our political representative on the Citadel. With those two heavyweights, it seemed reasonable we could persuade the Council that the ship we had seen was a potential threat. As was the individual behind the attack. The main suspect for the Eden Prime massacre was a turian Spectre named Saren. He'd been seen by one of the survivors from the colony on Eden Prime, and there was some evidence to suggest that the ship was connected to Saren. But even Udina's pointed accusations weren't enough to convince the council. They just couldn't believe one of their chosen Spectres could be guilty of something like that. They needed proof, which meant I needed proof.
Fortunately, I wasn't alone in my search. Garrus, another turian, wanted to help. A top agent for Citadel Security; despite orders from his superiors that he shouldn't get involved, he told me he was suspicious of Saren and he had some useful leads. More importantly, he was willing to share them. That lead me to Wrex. The biggest, nastiest looking krogen bounty hunter I'd ever seen. He turned out to be more than just a brute. It was his intel that led us to a fugitive with incriminating evidence on Saren. The fugitive turned out to an energetic little quarian named Tali. A tech expert with a knack for hacking, she procured some information on Saren. Evidence that proved Saren was dirty.
Tali's evidence proved that Saren was responsible for the massacre of Eden Prime, and that the immense war-ship we'd spotted was in fact Saren's flagship. But it went much further. Saren was trying to find a way to bring back a race of sentient machines from dark space. Machine's allegedly responsible for cleansing the galaxy of all organic life. These "Reapers" were to blame for wiping out all life fifty-thousand years ago… Including the Protheans. Then disappearing back through the Mass Relays to dark space, leaving no trace that they'd ever been. That explained why Saren was after the beacon and it made some sense out of my visions. But not much else.
We couldn't convince the council that the Reapers were a threat, but they agreed Saren had to be stopped. They stripped him of his Spectre status and gave me the honor of becoming the first human Spectre. My first task, bring down Saren. Anderson decided to stay behind, giving up his ship, the Normandy. He told me I would need it more then he would. He also pointed me in a direction. Liara. A Prothean expert, adept in biotics and maybe most importantly, daughter of Benezia, Saren's top lieutenant. And like most Asari, as beautiful as she was intelligent and born with a unique ability to meld with other species. Liara was able to help me decipher some of the vision the beacon had given me. Nothing concrete, but it gave me some clues. And a new… appreciation for the Asari. Her technique for accessing my vision was unexpected, but not at all unpleasant.
Kaidan was a little concerned about the connection I shared with Liara. As Commander, I knew either relationship had the potential to interfere with the mission… I told Kaidan I wasn't interested in Liara. I had my eyes on someone else, but we agreed we wouldn't let it get in the way of the mission, finding Saren. Thanks to Liara's help, we had our next lead; Benezia. Saren had taken her to Noveria where he'd enslaved the queen of a dangerous race of insect-like creatures, the Rachni. He ordered Benezia to use the same technique Liara had used on me to extract information from the Rachni queen. The queens drones where everywhere and they were not happy. We had to fight through hundreds of them to get to Benezia. By the time we arrived, Saren was gone… with the information.
I tried to reason with Benezia, but Saren had indoctrinated her. He had somehow acquired the ability to control peoples actions and wills. Benezia wouldn't surrender, and Liara was forced to watch her own mother die in her arms. And I was left with an angry, dangerous Rachni queen to deal with. She claimed her drones would do no harm if I released her, but the Rachni had terrorized the galaxy before. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't doom an entire race for past sins, and the queen was true to her word. She left and took her army of drones with her.
We later learned the facility on Noveria was Cerberus. With most of its scientific crew dead, we decided to plant a bomb at the base of the building. And that's when we met Jinx. An expert with a sniper rifle and infiltration. She was also Kaidans half sister, that I didn't even know he had. But I can understand why he kept his sister a secret. Jinx is a former CAT6 operative, a mercenary group formed by Cerberus. As much as I distrust Cerberus, I trust Kaidan when he told me it was him that talked her into becoming a part of CAT6. The two had been in contact for years, and Jinx was feeding the Alliance intel on Cerberus. She goes against everything Cerberus stands for, and that made her a great asset. Wrex started calling her Butcher when she told us about Torfen, and she struck up quite a friendship with the alien crew members, especially Garrus and Tali.
With Saren's top lieutenant dead, he was quickly running out of time and places to hide. I tracked him down at his base on Virmire, but we soon learned it was more than a base of operations. It was a breeding ground. Saren was breeding an army of Krogen. He'd found a cure for the genophage, a disease inflicted on the krogen to prevent them from breeding and taking over the galaxy. But the krogen Saren was breeding were slaves, mindless beasts that obeyed Saren's will. I had to destroy the base and all its research. Wrex disagreed. Violently. Wrex wanted the genophage cure for his people. I tried to convince him to help me destroy it, that these krogen weren't real. But he wouldn't back down. Fortunately Wrex is smarted then he looks. He realized this wasn't they way to help his people and that Saren was the real threat.
When we finally got to the center of the base, I realized just how close Saren was to completing his plan. He was already in communication with the Reapers. Sovereign, Saren's flagship we'd all assumed was just a ship, was a Reaper. It spoke to me, threatened me. I could feel the menace it had for everything, it wanted me dead. It wanted us all dead, and I knew it was capable of doing just that. What I couldn't understand was why Saren would help it. But there was no time to think about it. Sovereign knew where we were. We had to destroy the base and get the hell out. I split my team into two squads, sending Ash with one and Kaidan with the other as a distraction. We had a nuke, and we planned to use it.
Before we could detonate the bomb, Saren showed up. We fought. I stalled him to make time for my team, and in talking to him, I realized the truth, It wasn't Saren who was indoctrinating everyone. It was Sovereign, the Reaper and Saren was in deeper than all of them. He tried to convince me he was still in control. Said he found a way to reduce the Reaper influence, but he was kidding himself… or believing the lies Sovereign was telling him. Before I could convince him to stop, he ran, leaving me just seconds to extract my squad mates. I tried, but I wasn't fast enough. I could only save one of them… Ash was a good friend and a great soldier, but I had to choose. I couldn't lose the Alenko's, if I lost Kaidan I would have lost Jinx too. So I chose Kaidan.
That was the last time Saren would slip away from me. I knew then, the next time we met, one of us would die. With my team mostly intact, we chased Saren and his army to Ilos; a long forgotten planet that had once belonged to the Protheans. As we prepared for what we knew would be a desperate fight, I spoke to my crew. We were just one ship against Saren's growing army. I assured them all that despite the odds, we would defeat him. But Kaidan saw through my words. He knew I was hurting after Ash's death. He could sense my doubts. We both knew this mission could be our last. Until that moment we'd put our feelings aside for the sake of the mission. But why wait? We gave in to each other, and it was perfect… while it lasted.
We arrived on Ilos close behind Saren. Once on the planet, we discovered a Prothean databank that helped me put the final pieces of my vision together. The Reapers had come here fifty-thousand years ago, and every fifty-thousand years before that. Each time, purging the galaxy of life. The Protheans had fought and died like every species before them. But a few survived long enough to leave a parting gift. The Protheans had discovered that the Citadel was the key to controlling the Mass Relays. By sabotaging the Citadel, they found a way to close the relays to dark space, slowing the Reapers return giving us the time we needed to find a solution to stop the Reapers once and for all. Saren knew this. He was leading the army to take control of the Citadel and reestablish the relays to dark space, bringing the waiting Reapers here to destroy us all. We followed him to the Citadel, it was attacked and heavily damaged. He had caught the Council fleets by surprise, and they were only now regrouping. And with Sovereign as his flagship, there was little hope the fleets could counterattack with enough strength to take back the Citadel. But Saren was done running, and I was done chasing him.
As the Alliance and Council fleets battled Saren's army outside the Citadel, I cornered the turian bastard in the Citadel Tower and confronted him. He died believing the Reapers would save him. As I fought to regain control of the Citadel, the Council's flagship, the Destiny Ascension, fell under attack. Despite Saren's death, Sovereign and Saren's army continued to fight. The Council was aboard the Destiny Ascension, and they were requesting assistance. But I knew in order to help them, I would have to put our human Alliance fleet in jeopardy. The Council had to be saved. They represented the hearts and minds of the galactic community. Without them, the fleets would be in disarray. Even with the Citadel back in my control, Saren defeated, and the Normandy leading the combined galactic fleet, the battle against Sovereign, a single Reaper, was relentless. It took the combined fleets of humanity and the other races, but in the end, Sovereign fell. But the costs, were immense.
While humanity's efforts in the war earned us our first seat on the Council, it was a hollow victory. The Reapers were still out there. I knew the fight was far from over, but as the one who'd led the fight against Saren, I was given new responsibilities. The choice of humanity's first councilor was left to me to decide. On the one hand, Udina, the lifetime politician, Ruthless and ambitious, he would easily navigate the political land mines that would soon be placed before him. The other choice; Captain Anderson, the career soldier. Tough but fair. But a friend and someone I could trust. Both great leaders in their own right. Anderson didn't want the job, which was a sure sign he'd be perfect for it. No ambition to get in the way.
The war was over. The threat had passed. In time, the Council would rebuild itself. The Citadel could be repaired. Even the pain of lost friends would fade. But none of that mattered if the Reapers were still out there, and if they were all as powerful as Sovereign, we had to find a way to stop them. I had to find a way. I gathered my crew and took my ship in search for answers. Officially, the Council would only say I was assigned cleanup duty, routing out any remnants of Saren's army. But the Geth and Saren were just the beginning. The Reapers had other plans. Just another routine mission.