A/N: This is a weird one. You won't get it at first. Fortunately, there will most likely be another oneshot later to explain what happened.
I'd best explain. I've been writing this series of oneshots for a long time. They're tributes to the music of DarkeSword on OCReMix—I plan to write one story of over a thousand words for each of his pieces. I've done seven—this is the eighth. Also, go and listen to his music—it's all good.
Back to this story. It's based on the ME3 refusal ending. That should be enough to go on. Remember to listen to the song while reading!
DarkeSword's ReMixes Project
Piece Eight: The Father of All
Ch'Talan stared at the mechanical bodies. They were completely inorganic – fully robotic entities. Likely run, in their time by some form of A.I. – but what A.I. was powerful enough in processes to match the capabilities to eat, and digest, and dream, and all the other things that creatures of organic mind could do?
"This will revolutionize the computer sciences," he said, his voice a clicking hiss as it came through his six mandibles. "It proves that computer intelligence is capable of full autonomy of body."
"Not necessarily," said Kra'Thunn, waving his antennae left and right – had they known it, it roughly translated to the human gesture of a shrug. "There's no evidence of any organic-style systems. It might simply be a mobile platform capable of motion – like the humans' land vehicles. Except it would house an extremely powerful A.I. – beyond our ability to make."
"At this time," said Ch'Talan. "We should work to develop something similar. What might it be, do you think?"
"It was stored in this electro-stasis unit," said Kra-Thunn, studying the pod. "The specimen's species is labeled 'geth'. That is what we shall call it until further notice."
"Shall we take it back?"
Kra'Thunn thought for a moment before deciding. "No – we leave it for now. We must delve deeper."
"Such brashness is the way of humans," hissed Ur'Dakth. "Caution would be wiser."
"Who, pray tell, is winning this war?" demanded Kra'Thunn. "Us or them?"
"Them," admitted Ur'Dakth grudgingly.
"Perhaps this is why," said Kra'Thunn. "Mayhap the Nik'Turnn could learn something from them."
Ur'Dakth hissed disgustedly, but didn't argue.
The three Nik'Turnn, led by Kra'Thunn, continued deeper into the ancient compound. They passed more than one 'geth' in the electro-stasis units lining the walls of the cavern. But all were silent. Perhaps, had the Nik'Turnn found the ancient mausoleum sooner by even a few hundred years, there would have been a few units still active. But now all were cold and dead. It had been too long.
Then they came to another species. These were organic, and their features…
"Humans?" Ur'Dakth spluttered. "Blue humans?"
"They are dead, too," observed Ch'Talan, looking at the flatlined vitals displays.
"Then leave them, as well," said Kra'Thunn impatiently. There is something at the end of this cavern, and I would very much like to know what it is. What are they called?"
"Asari," said Ch'Talan, reading the label on the pod. It was very considerate of the Priori, he thought, to label their species thus in the event that others might find this place.
They moved on, leaving a new sequence of the dead behind—the blue human female-like beings all lay calmly entombed In varying degrees of emaciation. Then more species, many more—volus, who were short and wore airtight bodysuits (Methane-breathers like the Arranci? Ch'Talan wondered); elcor, who were massive, powerful things with very alien faces and bodies; batarians, whose four-eyed visage and cruel appearance was intimidating even in death; quarians, who were also possible methane-breathing based on their uniform suits; and many more. But the last two…
Even Kra'Thunn was stunned to a halt when he saw them. "Nik'Turnn," he murmured in amazement.
Ur'Dakth rushed to the first pod. "Dead," he hissed. "Kar'th."
Ch'Talan shook his head at his colleague's profanity. "It would be too much to expect, after so many dead," he said. "And they are not quite Nik'Turnn. Look—no antennae, and two mandibles rather than six. They seem avian in every way that we are insectoid. And the plate reads 'turian'."
"And yet so similar," mused Kra'Thunn. "How?"
"Perhaps they match the bones on Pal'av Enn," suggested Ch'Talan. "They might help link the evolutionary path that led us to Ka'kje."
"Likely," mused Kra'Thunn. "We must leave this to the xenobiologists. Continue."
And then the last species gave them an even greater shock.
"Human?" screeched Ur'Dakth furiously. "Human? The humans are Priori?"
"It appears so," said Ch'Talan in amazement.
The human—a male—lay back in the cryo-pod against the wall. His brow was creased with a frown and the hands that hung down were formed into fists—apparently a mark of aggression or other negative passion among the species.
"But what could force them back so far?" Kra'Thunn wondered. "What could crush their determined species so much that they would lose all of the technology and might of the Priori?"
"The same as what killed all the rest," called a voice from deeper in the cavern. All three Nik'Turrn whirled to face the sound. There was a dim blue light at the end of the tunnel—and yes, it was at last the end—and silhouetted before it was a figure. It was bipedal, which said either Nik'Turrn or human, but the lack of a flanging effect to the words spoken bespoke the latter.
The man, for the voice had been male, turned. "Nik'Turrn expeditionaries, yes?" he asked in a voice that was quiet and yet authoritative, somehow carrying even across the distance that separated them. "Come here. You need to see this."
Ur'Dakth hissed in wrath. "A human! The humans beat us to it!"
"That doesn't matter anymore," grunted the man. "None of it does. Come and see."
They came forward cautiously and saw a holographic projection of one of the asari. It was frozen, as though paused in a recorded message.
"Watch," said the man, tapping a button on the console before the hologram and then stepping back.
And the four heard a message that none save that very human had heard in fifty thousand years.
"If you're hearing this, then there is still hope."
The asari was young, if considered by human standards, but Ch'Talan could see the sorrow—the crushing loss—in her eyes and face. Yet her voice was perfectly calm and businesslike, and her body language showed a war between hard-won discipline and a deep-seated exhaustion.
"Hope that you can avoid the same mistakes we made."
"Is this…" Kra'Thunn murmured, wide eyed.
"Yes," said the man, pausing the recording. "This is the answer to all the mysteries. This is the reason the Priori are gone." And he continued the recording.
"We fought the Reapers, but we failed to stop them."
Reapers? wondered Ch'Talan, but he and, apparently all his crew, were content to allow the Priori woman to continue at her own pace.
"We did everything we could. We built the Crucible, but it didn't work. We fought as a united galaxy, but it wasn't enough."
"They were defeated in war," realized Kra'Thunn, "All by a single force."
The man nodded but said nothing.
"I only hope the information in this capsule is enough to help you before it's too late."
"My name is Dr. Liara T'Soni. Herein lies the recounting of our war with the Reapers."
The woman closed her eyes and was gone. In her place was a holographic interface, displaying a navigable database. There was a moment of silence and stillness in the cavern, and then the man reverentially tapped a few intangible keys in the glowing air.
The woman reappeared. The man quickly paused the recording. "This," he said, "is T'Soni's explanation of what the Reapers are. You need to see it." He set it to continue.
"The reapers," began the asari, "are a race of ancient, sentient starships. They existed long before any of us and have taken to destroying all advanced life every fifty thousand years. Almost no traces remain. That was what happened to the Protheans before us… and now to us. See my entries on the Protheans and on the galactic extinction cycle for more information on these topics.
"No one knows why they do this, except…" she stopped and swallowed hard, reigning in some raw grief. "Except, perhaps, for Shepard. See my entry on him—he needs to be understood.
"But that's not the important thing," she said, her fists clenching. "We lost. We failed—we failed ourselves, we failed the Protheans… and we failed you, our successors."
She took a deep, sighing breath. "We lost and died and unless some of us are still alive in the pods behind you—which I doubt—then we are all of us now completely extinct. But the Reapers are not. We killed hundreds of them, but there were tens of thousands. They're still out there."
She looked around herself, and Ch'Talan, looking at her face, knew instinctively that she would have given anything to see the people she was speaking to, fifty thousand years later—to see them and know that there was still a future. "The Reapers survive." Her voice was deadened by shame and sorrow and grief. "They will come for you, too. Please," she said, closing her eyes and opening them again. "Don't screw it up as we did. Be ready for them. Be ready to fight and fight and die so that somewhere, someone may one day live in a world that will go on forever.
"I would have died for you, if it meant that you could never be destroyed by them. Please, if it's necessary, try to extend the same courtesy to those who follow. If destroying the Reapers kills your generation, then so be it. But do what we could not—I beg you." Her eyes were filled with tears that would never fall, but rather hung suspended as light in the air along with her forever. "Take them with you. But survive, too, if you can." She laughed brokenly. "I suppose the war has made me a bit fatalist."
The recording ended and there was silence again.
"They're still out there," said the man, turning away. "Study this archive. I've recorded all of the data and will bring it to my species. You know what this means." As he walked away, he looked over his shoulder at the three Ch'Talan, who were watching him with eyes as wide as their insectoid forms could manage. "Our war is meaningless," he said flatly. "I don't know how long we have—a century at the most. But there's a real war on the horizon. They stood together, united, and came closer to winning than any other civilization before them."
He looked away from them. "We have to do the same if we're going to stand even a ghost of a chance."
"Who are you?" asked Ch'Talan quietly.
He didn't really expect the human's less sensitive ears to pick up the words, but they did. "Commander John Shepard," he said flatly, not turning to face them. "Which makes me more worried about how close the Reapers are than anything in that archive."
A/N: It's reincarnation, not time travel. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Also, Shepard wasn't renegade—sort of a non-traditional paragon. I'll explain it in a future oneshot. The Kra'Thunn are a species that evolved from an ancestor of the turians which existed in a previous cyle—enclaves were trapped on separate worlds, degenerated, and then regained intelligence after several cycles. The similarities are kind of like those between human and asari, I guess—not totally the same, but definitely eerie.