Eden

by Vhetin1138

The first part of my novelization of the Mass Effect series. A young military commander is assigned to his new post aboard a prototype ship. But when the colony of Eden Prime comes under attack, the commander will uncover a secret for which the galaxy is woefully unprepared... DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

2. Prologue

In fits and starts, mankind began a cautious expansion into the stars. In 2069, we established our first permanent settlement on the moon. By 2103, Mars became open to colonization. Within forty years, a massive space station was constructed beyond the orbit of Pluto. Over the span of a hundred short years, the Sol system was under our complete control.

Then, in 2148, researchers on Mars discovered the ruins of an ancient city. Not human ruins, but the remnants of a civilization vastly superior – and far more ancient – than ours. A race to uncover the secrets of these ruins began with ferocious determination. Mankind discovered that the ruins were the legacy of an ancient space faring culture: the Protheans. Within a year, scientists had decoded coordinates to a mysterious device the Protheans supposedly used for interstellar transportation. Following the coordinates, we discovered our first mass relay.

The relay was unlike anything mankind had seen before: a tremendous machine that, when activated, was capable of bending time and space to its will. The device, as far as human scientists could tell, could somehow manipulate the laws of physics, change the mass of any physical object, and allow near-instantaneous travel across the galaxy.

This theory was proved correct when mankind made a new discovery: that we were not alone in the universe. When mankind began to search for other relays to activate, a human fleet encountered a group of unknown spacecraft traveling through the relay. These new spacecraft engaged the humans, attacking with a brutality that left only one ship in the fleet intact. The aliens continued to the colonized world of Shanxi, capturing the planet and holding its colonists hostage. Only a desperate counteroffensive from the humans liberated the planet from the alien invaders.

Mankind prepared for a full-scale invasion, but soon came in contact with other races of extraterrestrial forces. The attacking aliens withdrew while the other races apologized for the conflict, welcoming mankind into a much larger galactic community.

Almost overnight, mankind's influence expanded across the universe. We came into contact with the beautiful asari, the most advanced culture in the galaxy and the leaders of galactic government, the curious and contemplative salarians, the galaxy's foremost scientists, and the stoic and aggressive turians that had first attacked mankind.

Man found an uneasy place in the new galactic community, finding peace with the other races. We were given an embassy on the massive Citadel space station, the center of galactic power. Given representation, power to expand and colonize beyond our own system, and freedom to trade and form alliances with other races, mankind reaped tremendous benefit from this new world.

But the peace is not meant to last. It is the height of arrogance to believe that all the galaxy has been explored, to believe that there are no more secrets left to uncover. And the mysterious Protheans, whose enigmatic technology jump-started our extrasolar explorations, may yet lead us to much darker discoveries...