A/N: First contact with an overwhelmingly strong alien race, an omnipresent controlling AI, an incredibly small population with low fertility rates—this is what humanity has to deal with. Has humanity advanced enough to meet with the turians? Or are they held up on a crutch by their protective guardian?


September 16th 2092 - 12:12 pm - London, Earth

Jane had a new schedule: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday for school, Tuesday and Friday for helping Aunt Danielle. Since today was Tuesday, the 10-year-old Jane Shepard was trying her best to be a good helper.

"Jane, could you go grab Admiral Hackett for me?" asked Anderson, sitting in her office chair, "We've found something promising on Mars with one of Mother's drones."

"Yes, I'll be right back!" Jane said, trying to sound adult as she fast-walked out of the room. Heading down the hallway toward Hackett's office was common for her. To Anderson, it felt more personal than having Mother call him in, or a quick ping to his watch.

Before she could get to his office, Hackett's door flung open as he ran towards the main communications room. Confused, Jane followed. A commotion of fleet personnel was growing around a large hologram projector near the center of the gallery.

Jane pushed her way towards the front so she could see what was going on, just as Mother's hologram appeared.

"My children, we've made a new discovery!" The solar system appeared beside her, miniaturized but not to scale. Focusing on Pluto, Mother zoomed in to Charon. "This moon, Charon, has split open, revealing an alien structure inside."

Just as Mother said, the image reproduced the event for everyone to see. Several watchers gasped at the sight of the object left behind. It was totally unexpected, like nothing they'd seen before, not even similar to what they'd found in Antarctica.

"Mother, what is it made out of?" asked Hackett.

"I'm not exactly sure, without a direct scan I can only guess the exact materials…" she paused for a second, receiving some new information, "…actually, the one thing I can detect is massive amounts of Element Zero."

"Is it dangerous?"

"No, it's too far away to substantially affect us. The real problem is why and how it activated." Mother's hologram paced around as she talked.

Suddenly, her hologram froze. There was a long moment of silence with absolutely no movement, until Jack Harper came crashing in to the room.

"Mother! We've got some sort of spacecraft heading towards Earth!" he yelled.

"Yes, I know." Mother looked up at him, no emotion on her face. Everyone else in the room was silent, not sure how to respond. Anderson, who had managed to squeeze in behind Jane, put a hand on the child's shoulder.

"First contact protocols! It is probable we may be meeting them soon." she said, with great authority, "Mother, do you have any data on our visitors?"

"No Danielle, their systems are too different from what I'm used to, but they are incredibly similar to the Prothean ruins. Jack, have you found anything in that room that kept destroying my drones?" There was an entire wing of the alien facility that wouldn't allow any sort of AI or drones inside. The Protheans must have had an innate distrust of intelligent machines, and Mother worried any alien visitors would feel the same.

"Actually, yes. We finally were able to get some sort of basic interface running, my team at the pole are forwarding the data now." Jack tapped his watch to check their progress, "If the visitor's technology is at all similar to the Prothean designs, we might be able to collect vital intelligence."

"Good. I'll test your theory as soon as they are close enough to our comm-buoys." Mother's image began to fade, "Everyone, I can't take the lead on first contact. These visitors may not be comfortable with an AI being involved. I'll be here to support you, but Humanity will be the face of Earth."

The room stood in agreement. Soon, it began to empty as the first contact protocols were enacted for the first time. Jane kept close to Anderson, not wanting to lose her. There were too many unfamiliar faces in the room and a lot was going on.

"Fleet Admiral Anderson, can I speak with you?" Harper was waiting by her office door.

"Yes, I was going to ask for you anyways. What can you tell me about the latest Prothean finds, how does this relate to our visitors?" Anderson spoke as she entered her office. Harper waited for Jane to enter before following.

"The Protheans used basic old-gen AI that we're calling Virtual Intelligence, or VI. We found one running on their mainframe in the facility." Anderson nodded as he continued, "The VI was hesitant to speak to us due to Mother's attempts at breaching the mainframe, but we managed to coax some amazing details out of it with our basic understanding of their language."

Harper tapped his watch to project an image of the galaxy. He tapped it again to bring focus to a number of points scattered throughout it.

"I assume these are points of interest?" Anderson questioned.

"Yes, at each of these systems there is at least one Mass Relay. The same device we have just discovered when our visitors broke it free from Charon."

"What are they, exactly?"

"Some sort of galactic train-station. They use Element Zero to alter the mass of nearby spacecraft, and then sling them along, faster than light, to a different one."

"This is game changing!"

Harper's watch pinged him with a message, he took a second to read it, "Mother agrees."

Jane sat there absorbing their conversation. She wondered what these aliens would look like, or how they'd talk. It'd be nice to make friends with them, but she worried about the alternative. She'd been told that aliens might not have someone like Mother to keep people from fighting.

"Do we have any spacecraft ready to meet them with?" asked Harper.

"All of our spacecraft currently are just drones. Like Mother said, we have to be the ones to meet them, not her."

"Damn. She's everywhere here on Earth! Mother, when do you estimate they'll be close enough to see us?"

"Within 10 minutes." Mother spoke through his watch.

"We'll need to clear a place without you present, somewhere devoid of most advanced technology." put forward Anderson.

"I've done so already; old Rome should do the trick. I had stationed a minimal number of drones there that could easily be evacuated should this moment arrive."

"Thank you Mother. Now we need to figure out how to establish contact." Harper sat down in a chair, tapping at his phone.


September 16th 2092 - 12:43 pm - Hierarchy Exploratory Frigate, The Verrikan

General Desolas was chatting with his XO as The Verrikan approached the primitive civilization's homeworld. A few satellites were in orbit over the planet, and a small recon mission was under way on a few other planetary rocks in the system, but otherwise their race hadn't expanded much outside of their world.

"What should we do, sir?" his XO asked.

"They've managed to make it to space, so I suppose we should make ourselves known. Dust off the first contact protocols, let's see what we can learn from this planet."

As his XO walked off to rally the troops, Desolas resumed his thoughts from before they arrived at the previous relay. Why not send an Admiral? A General is more suited for waging war, not making peace. Did the Hierarchy know something that they weren't telling him?

His thoughts were interrupted as his communications officer stood up from their chair.

"General, we're being hailed!"

"Can we understand them? What sort of language are they speaking?" Desolas thought he heard something familiar, "Let me hear it." He made his way to the officer's terminal.

His XO, joining him, listened curiously to the unidentifiable jargon—but Desolas, he knew exactly what he was listening to.

"That's… Prothean." he said, slowly. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked in his direction.

It was no secret that General Desolas was involved in a number of operations to nab Prothean artifacts, and that he had been in contact with several of them. The nightmares he suffered afterwards lasted months, but years ago he thought he had finally gotten past them.

But now, it was like he was living them all over again. He almost took a step back, but he was too proud to let anything mess with his composure. His crew was watching him now, he had to live up to their image of a decorated General.

"This changes things. I can see why the Hierarchy sent me for this mission. The Primarch must have had knowledge of Prothean interest in this system, and I'm familiar with their technology." Desolas looked to his XO, "Go grab the salarian, we'll be needing him."

After a respectful salute, his XO briskly made their way to the research lab, where the salarian was kept. Why didn't command tell us about this? they thought, as the doctor came in to view.

"Doctor Mordin Solus, we have some information you may find interesting."


September 16th 2092 – 1:01 pm - Brussels, Earth

Sitting impatiently, Senator Anita Goyle was waiting for Director of Research Jack Harper to check back in. Parliament was holding an emergency joint-session regarding the impending visitation from aliens in orbit. Harper, along with Mother, had designed a welcome message based off of the primitive AI they found at the Prothean base. The entire chamber was silent as they awaited a response.

"I hope Harper knows what he's doing, I have a feeling he's manipulating Mother to get something he wants." whispered Representative Donnel Udina, a colleague from her political party.

"I have no doubt he will try, but Mother won't be manipulated so easily." she returned.

"I wouldn't be so sure, he's one of the only people with access to information Mother is unable to get herself."

"You're right about that, Hackett told me that Harper only feeds her small details at a time."

Udina raised one brow, "Hackett usually is incredibly tight lipped, what else has told you?"

"Anderson and Harper have been spending a lot of time together—in private." Goyle chuckled, "Hackett is very protective of Anderson, I'm not sure he approves."

"Is Mother encouraging it, or is this their own decision?"

"You know as well as I do that Mother keeps that information confidential, we'd have to ask them ourselves."

Udina scoffed at her comments. Before he could respond, Harper's hologram appeared at a podium near the center of the room.

"Senators, Representatives, I have an update." boomed his voice, "We just received a response from the visitors." He tapped his watch, on the large display behind him a waveform of an audio recording was visible.

"I would play the message for you, but nobody would understand it, so I'm going to skip forward to our rough translation." Tapping his watch again, the screen displayed a sentence written in broken English.

Prepare landing area. Transmit coordinates. Follow orders. Avoid conflict.

Quiet whispers filled the room as lawmakers deliberated the implications.

"Follow orders? Avoid conflict? Do they intend to conquer us?" spoke the Senator from Hong Kong.

"Mother's report did say their spacecraft had weapons," replied Harper, "but that could be standard practice for any spacecraft. We're very ignorant to the current state of the galaxy."

"You told us earlier that the Protheans had an incredible distrust of AI, what if the visitors view Mother the same way?" spoke another voice.

"Mother had planned for that scenario and prepared a location in Old Rome where she can remain undetected." he replied.

Goyle stood up, "I petition the floor for a resolution to provide authority to Space Fleet in coordinating first contact."

"I second that petition." shouted Udina.

The President of Humanity stood to take Harper's place at the podium. Speaking formally, she began the proceedings for a vote. Less than a minute later, the results were in: It was unanimous, first contact was Space Fleet's responsibility now.

"I'll continue to send in reports as the situation develops. Harper out." His hologram dissolved as the volume in the room increased.


September 16th 2092 – 1:26 pm - London, Earth

Everyone's mood was surprisingly calm as Jane walked her way over to Admiral Hackett. His commanding presence stood tall as he watched over his hard working subordinates. Seeing her approach, he knelt down to be at her eye level.

"Cadet Shepard, do you have a message for me?"

"Yes, Admiral. Parliament said it's okay to continue." she said, slightly nervous.

"Mother, have you removed all drones from Old Rome?" he asked, standing up again. Her hologram emerged from the ceiling.

"Yes, everything is ready." she looked Hackett directly in the eyes, "Be absolutely sure nobody mentions me, I'll introduce myself when they're ready to understand."

Hackett nodded before turning around to see his least favorite colleague pass through the door. Harper jogged directly next to Mother's hologram, at the center of attention, taking a breath before addressing the room.

"Alright everyone, since we don't speak the same language, and they obviously only have a basic understanding of Prothean, we should assume they aren't Protheans themselves." While looking around to make sure everyone was listening, he continued, "Things could go south very fast if we misunderstand each other, so we'll need to tread carefully. Mother and I have been working on a simple fix to this problem."

After tapping his watch, a simple translation program was shared with everyone in the room, including Jane. Looking down at her special arm-band, gifted to her from Anderson, she saw the new feature being downloaded.

"Please keep in mind that this tech is still in its early stages, and it shouldn't be shared with anyone outside of Space Fleet." He looked down at Jane, and winked, "This new update also contains crude support for Prothean data-sharing protocols. If the visitors base their technology off of Prothean designs, we may be able to share files with them."

"That goes both ways," interrupted Hackett, "do we have a way to keep them from hacking our systems?"

"I'm glad you asked. Without Mother involved, we really don't have much in the way of cyber defenses. The first contact delegation will have to disable all networking abilities outside of local transfers." Harper frowned, he knew this wasn't ideal. They were asking people to venture to the middle of nowhere without backup, networking, or Mother.

"Children, I have complete faith in your ability to handle this situation. It pains me that I cannot be involved, but this is the only option." spoke Mother, her hologram looked worried. After regaining her composure, she smiled, "I'll be watching this along with all of you, do not be afraid. If anything were to go wrong, I'll know what to do."

After finishing her sentence, Mother's hologram faded away. Anderson had joined the welcoming party, so the buck fell on him to manage coordinate the meeting itself. Hackett was now the highest ranking official on base.

"Jane, ask Anderson if they're ready for the visitors." he spoke softly to the cadet, this was a high stress environment for a 10-year-old to be in.

"Alright Admiral, I'll be right back." she turned around and walked to a private corner, away from the noise, and tapped her arm-band to call Anderson.


September 16th 2092 – 2:16 pm - Hierarchy Exploratory Frigate, The Verrikan

"Sir, we're receiving coordinates now."

"Good. Get everyone ready, we'll be on the ground in 5." Desolas made way to the Hanger. He waited while the ground team took their seats in the shuttle, and after a few seconds he took his own.

"General Desolas! Honor to finally meet you."

Looking up, Desolas noticed the salarian sitting across from him.

"Ah, Doctor, I'm glad we have someone of your expertise here with us." he said, feigning respect. Salarians were always annoying.

"Not just me. You have Prothean experience, twice as knowledgeable about artifacts."

"That may be so, but we aren't dealing with artifacts today." The shuttle took off, heading down towards Earth, "This new species—they speak Prothean, but they barely made it in to space."

"Yes, very interesting. Suggests great obstacle to overcome. Perhaps knowledge of Protheans caused fear of galaxy?"

"That, or they just recently found some artifacts." They were jostled as the shuttle touched the ground.

"Hmmm. Yes. Time to find out." Solus hopped out of the door before Desolas, eager to witness first contact.


September 16th 2092 – 2:29 pm – St. Peter's Square, Old Rome, Earth
POV: Fleet Admiral Danielle Anderson

Mother's plans always work out; she won't be wrong about this one. Anderson thought to herself, watching the alien shuttle carry the visitors to her location.

"Is networking disabled, at the hardware level?" she asked her assistant.

"Yes Fleet Admiral, they won't be able to hack into Mother's systems. We're isolated here." That last comment almost made her shiver.

"It appears they're here, let's keep our distance until we get a clear look at them."

Anderson watched several aliens as they were walking in her direction. Most of them looked like metal-plated bird people, but one of them resembled the "Greys" she used to read about as a kid, but with two horns. Their group stopped moving once they were within speaking distance.

A short silence was followed by the Grey saying something to one of the birds. Said bird then took a few steps forward. Anderson, trying to be as non-threatening as possible, took a few steps forward as well.

The visitor's leader, as she assumed they were, began to speak, slowly, in Prothean.

"Greetings. I am General Desolas Arterius." It took a second for the translation to make it through to the humans.

"Nice to meet you, I am Fleet Admiral Danielle Anderson."

The alien, Desolas, looked unsure. It was obvious he couldn't understand what she was trying to say.

"I have translation software." Thinking for a second, she decided to make it simpler, "I can give you our language."

Desolas seemed to understand this, he held out his arm and a device appeared, similar to a watch. Anderson pressed a button on her own watch, activating the Prothean file sharing protocols to send the English-Prothean translation index.

The alien made an unintelligible noise before waiving behind to the Grey, who was soon standing next to him. They began a small conversation as the Grey also activated his arm-device.

First contact was going slow, but that was good. Slow and steady was their strategy from the beginning, and they would do everything possible to make a good impression. One of Anderson's aides tapped her shoulder to alert her their watches were being hacked.

"You are—humans?" Desolas surprised them by speaking in English, but Anderson assumed it was just an advanced translation program.

"Yes, we are humans, collectively known as Humanity." she replied, smiling. Her grin appeared to fascinate the Grey.

"Your data is very useful, but a few words are still missing." his translated voice was monotone, making him feel even more alien than before.

"We don't have a complete understanding of the Prothean language yet. I hope we can still understand each other, regardless." she responded.

"That is my wish as well. Your species looks to be in the early days of space travel."

"We have plans to colonize other planets in our system." She didn't want to share the details of Mother's drones hiding on Mars and on several different moons. The alien seemed to accept her answer.

"My species is called turian." he pointed at himself, "He is a salarian." and then towards the Grey.

"Are you the only two species?" she asked.

"No, there are others, such as the Asari and Quarians." This was good, the turian, General Desolas, was willing to share information.

"Well, General Desolas, there is much we would like to learn from you and your species. How can we further facilitate a formal relationship?"

Desolas tapped a few things on his arm-device, before speaking again, "I can send a message back home, but in this system it will take some time for them to respond."

Another smile spread across Anderson's face. Mother would be pleased; things were going so well.


September 16th 2092 – 2:45 pm – St. Peter's Square, Old Rome, Earth
POV: Doctor Mordin Solus and General Desolas Arterius

This human, Danielle Anderson, looked incredibly similar to an Asari, especially in how she smiled. He assumed Anderson was female, compared to a few humans behind her who he guessed were male.

Mordin finished a message to his superiors at STG, but without comm-buoys nearby it would take several hours before they could read it. He had attempted a hack into the human's omnitools, but it appeared that they had disabled all network functionality. The turian team in orbit would find a way in to their communications eventually, and he could steal the data from them.

"It will take a while for the message to reach home, my crew and I will return to our ship for the time being. I look forward to seeing you again in the future." said Desolas, as professionally as he could muster.

"Thank you General, until we meet again." Anderson took a few steps forward and extended an open hand.

Unsure what this meant, the General decided it must be some sort of ritual for goodbyes, or for cementing promises. He strode forward to mirror her, ready to clasp her hand.

As their hands grew closer, Desolas hesitated, he felt something familiar. Brushing the feeling aside he forced himself to continue. After physical contact, Desolas and Anderson stood still—he would not let go of her hand. He was frozen, a petrified look of terror on his face. Trembling, he fell backwards to the ground, taking Anderson with him.

All he could see were horrible images of flesh and circuitry melting together, screams of the dead returning to life, entire worlds burning. It was a warning; he had seen it before! It was unbearable, but Desolas was stuck in a loop, unable to stop the playback of the nightmare in his mind.

Almost immediately Mordin recognized the symptoms of PTSD. Something the human had done triggered this response in Desolas. Rushing forward, he tried to reassure the General.

"General Desolas, humans meant you no harm!" Bringing a turian back from a panic attack wasn't something he was prepared for today, especially not with Desolas.

"The machines—the heartless machines! Trillions dead! Tearing, gnawing, pain!" Desolas was obviously unstable, Mordin needed to get him out of here as soon as he could, before they did something they couldn't take back.

"General, no machines here. Look around, everything is fine." It must be the Geth, what else would he have seen in his years of service? But trillions dead? Gnawing? He had never heard of Geth related to such things. Desolas had stopped trembling, but Mordin wasn't convinced this was over yet.

"These monsters! What do they know?!" Desolas stood up, motioning towards the humans, "The last time I saw that vision was inside of a Prothean beacon!" The other turians immediatly raised their weapons towards the stumbling Anderson, who looked incredibly surprised and confused by Desolas's reaction.

"What's wrong? What beacon?" she pleaded, noticing the weapons, "I didn't mean you any harm!"

"Capture this primitive, bring her with us!" Desolas stormed back towards the shuttle as his team surrounded the frightened humans.

"Do not touch the humans!" Mordin shouted, before whispering softly to Anderson, "Keep quiet, will try to help." Something had happened when Desolas came in physical contact with Anderson, and he wasn't sure if it could happen to the others. Keeping a safe distance, he trailed her to the shuttle where Desolas was waiting.

"You'll explain all of this to the Council." Desolas spoke angrily at Anderson as he kicked her through the door.


A/N: We're just getting started! I hope everyone enjoys this cliffhanger.

If you haven't noticed by now, I'm throwing the age of certain characters, (as well as where they fit in the timeline) out the window. Protheans focusing on Humanity means they focused less on the Asari, which means anything is subject to change.

As always, feedback is welcome!