Nihlus, a Turian SpecTRe, stood aboard the deck amid the Pilot's cabin of the SR1 Normandy. A head taller than all but a few humans, he's had little trouble asserting command here among them. A natural deference to stature was a leftover from their evolutionary mechanics. That gave him the leverage he needed, if the authority of being an elite agent of the Galactic Council didn't already. The First Contact War put Turians and humans at odds. Thirty odd years may be a long time for them, but he'd seen their histories. Many still held a grudge. Consciously, he'd been training himself to adopt common human mannerisms and customs. Most were cumbersome, even in their militia. Compared to the streamlined efficiency of the Hierarchy, they might as well all be elcor. Frivolous things could shatter allegiances, while matters of true import were muddled with protocol.
It was little more than an annoyance, but the humans were expanding. Unlike the Krogan, they could be reasoned with. For now. His true purpose here was to bridge that gap for the Council, before humanity unwittingly stumbled into the abyss. The batarians wanted blood. Hell even the volus were pissed. The Council saw an opportunity to chastise the Hegemony for its continued slave trade. So they let the humans push into the Skyllian Verge. It hadn't worked, but with careful prodding, both species could be brought to bear. And so, here he was, striving to understand this new ally in order to assimilate them to the galaxy's needs.
His official business was oversight of the maiden voyage of the Normandy. The space frigate had been designed to meld human and turian starship design. He hadn't been involved with the construction of course. A SpecTRe, whatever talents they possessed, typically acted in a securities fashion, not as an engineer. He relished the thought of utilizing a fleet of turian cruisers with the Normandy's stealth drive capability if it proved effective here. He liked to think he only admired its turian utility, but humans were damned fine craftsmen. Had to be to protect all those squishy bits. They lacked the natural armor plating that covered much of his body. A birthright of the richly irradiated Palaven. In the cascade of lights flickering around the bridge, even his ashen head crest and facial plates would gleam, refracting off their angular features.
The pilot who called himself "Joker" of all things, was lining up the approach to the Mass Relay. Now those were ingenious creations! Supposedly left behind by a long extinct race the asari historians called Protheans. He'd seen a number of their ruins as a SpecTRe, and it nagged at him that the Relays didn't fit the same design aesthetic. They were familiar, but not quite kin. It was like trying to put a blade in the wrong sheathe. But what did he know? Nihlus was just a soldier. Point and shoot were his wheelhouse. Fifty thousand years or more had muddied those waters. The Relays let fleets and traders traverse the galaxy faster than any known method available. They'd never broken, and the alternative could be a decade of travel that spanned minutes with a Relay. His own species had discovered Faster-Than-Light, or FTL, travel centuries ago, but hadn't been able to push past a speed barrier of a few hours difference; a critical battle advantage to be sure, but the Relays changed the game entirely.
Normandy's diagnostic run would lead to Eden Prime, a human colony in the Terminus. It bordered the lawless rim of Council space, where nefarious types wound up eventually to avoid the scrutiny and authority of the Hierarchy. Part of him hoped this budding truce with the humans could help his own people bring order here.
The ship lurched subtly as they exited the mass effect field generated by the mass relay. For most, it would go unnoticed, but to his keen senses, even Joker's smooth reentry felt like an emergency brake. Still, he commended the human on a job well done before heading to the briefing room to await the human captain. Likely the pilot would be beaming from the high praise for days. Nihlus curtly nodded to himself. He'd master this humanity façade by nightfall.