Do not own Mass Effect. Did not write Mass Effect. Did write these short chapters deliberately short, to whet your appetite and keep you wanting more. Every complaint begging for longer posts with longer intervals only validates the approach.
Warning: this narrative will make you Rage. If you succumb to elaborate revenge fantasies, genocidal proclamations, or lose vision in a blood red haze of pure blood lust, this story may not be good for you.
Renegade Reinterpretations
AC 41-76: Ivory Towers
To the wider galaxy, the Batarian Reconciliation continues to the appreciation of all. As long as the Batarian focus on 'internal development' continues, Citadel space breaths a sigh of relief for species both minor and major. The Batarian economic boon serves as a rising tide for all economies, and especially with the Asari city states. To the galaxy as a whole, the Batarians seem increasingly more civilized, and speculation on cultural reform is rampant as social scholars look at every hint to support their confirmation bias.
Lacking any evidence or signs of any particular military by the Hegemony, the Council was glad enough not to stir up any other problems with a power now most notable for not being a problem child. In so much as the addition of a new slave population was identified by its effects on the Batarian economy, to the wider galaxy it was only discernible as a minor, unknown race, already conquered by the Hegemony and as noticeable as any of the Turian Heirarchy's many vassal races. Only the Shadow Broker knew otherwise, and and the Broker network benefited greatly from blackmailing the Hegemony in exchange for keeping the secret.
In 67 AC, however, the Human group 'Cerberus' made covert contact with Asari representatives from Illium, and the Council itself received its first glimpse of the Batarian deceit. But the reports the Council received described Cerberus as a slave-escapee ring seeking to manufacture a liberation intervention, not representatives of a space-faring species still fighting for its independence. The Council sent word through the Illium representatives that the Council would not intervene under such circumstances: galactic stability and Council interests placed good ties, economic trade, and political stability with the Batarians as more important than the liberation of an already conquered slave race. The Cerberus ambassadors were dismissed without military aid, but given a token of moral support: a collection of publicly available codecies on galactic society and educational textbooks on basic galactic sciences (college text books, in effect), a sum total of information valued at 1500 Citadel credits. The coinciding disappearance of a few dozen 'indentured servant' children on Illium rapidly eclipsed the departure of Cerberus, however, as the Council turned its attention towards the scandal of the failure of Illium legal protections and other, greater, galactic concerns.
No connection between the the disappearances and Cerberus, however, would be made for another half century, and proof only found decades after that due to Commander Shepard's discovery of the last of the first non-Batarian Cerberus alien infiltraitors.
A/N:
Let the conspiracy mongering commence! Who or what was responsible for the mixed messages: a faulty Human translator? Illium economic interests distorting the truth for financial gain? The Shadow Broker seeking to preserve a profit?
And since I really should give credit where credit is due, the inspiration/core of the Cerberus alien infiltraitors was from...
ht tp social . bioware . com / 691555/ blog/ 22536/
As for a brief nod to various reviewers over the last few chapters... those who are aggravated by Humanity's overall lack of ability to fight back on even terms don't seem to recognize the difference in capabilities between Humanity and the Batarians at this time, as well as the circumstances. To confuse impotency with incompetence is a mistake: it's one thing to try and drop an asteroid, and it's another to succeed when 'Human space dominance' is an oxymoron. Everyone involved knows that the only reason the Batarians don't make a concentrated effort to annihilate the Alliance is because Humans aren't seen as too troublesome... and anything that would make them come to that conclusion before Humanity could win the actual war that would follow would be a Bad Idea. The Alliance can smuggle nukes into various places. It even did, in the beginning. The responses were overwhelming, even by the standards of the war.
The Alliance and Humanity has been slapped around for nearly three quarters of a century by the greater galaxy's equivalent of Somali pirates, not because they were incompetent but because they were that weak in terms of technology. The Hegemony isn't Somali pirates: the Hegemony is a true galactic power, and if it were spurred to crush the Alliance before the Alliance could meet it, then the Alliance would be crushed.
This is a Very Important Point that bears repeating. Thousands of years of technological growth, even the glacially slow growth, is not matched in ten, thirty, or even fifty years.
