1400 hours June 2 2185—Front steps of Kima District residence #348—Lower Omega. (Pete, Information Broker)
I'm sorry son, I wish I had news from the shadow broker but he's not saying a word about Shepard.
No, I've kept an ear to the ground and there's nothing intel in regards to Shepard for sale. You look exhausted. Why don't you grab a seat, breathe for a while and I'll tell you about something else?
Yup, have a seat. It's alright sonny I don't bite. Can't chew much with these bad gums.
Here's a story for ya. Do you know how the precinct got its name? No? Well let me tell ya.
See those cables up above? They used to suspend a rail. Yep I kid you not. Back when I was a young colonist still wet behind the ears, my parents brought me to Omega. At the time there was none of this Surface vs Lower Omega crap. Everyone worked on the surface and lived below.
Yeah it was a hard life but one that people were more than happy to live. You see back on Earth, and please forgive me if you came from there and know this already. But back on Earth there was this thing called a monorail. Fast as a whistle! Could get you across the country in half-an-hour and we had a whole system of them back on Earth. Called em' Metros. So you bet your credits when they mined Omega they built a similar type of subway system that funneled workers and equipment to the surface and back.
Why? Well the contractors were greedy people. If we left our stuff up there, you can bet they'd try to ruin it and sell us replacement parts. Everyone working for them knew they would go bust, so the folks were smart enough to only mine the outside for Eezo while developing the city underground. Yeah, maybe they would've gotten more money if they mined Omega for all it's worth. But look around you, son. Look at this city free from major galactic bullshit and tell me they did wrong.
The Cabinet? Pfft. That's nothing compared to the BS Earth alone has to deal with. At least here there is only one governing body and they leave you alone for the most part. Makes elections that much easier. If you could call them elections that is.
Ah yes, so back to my story. Sorry I tend to ramble. Not many visitors here in Kima district. So the colonists built a rail system. When the contractors crumbled like everyone predicted, the citizens continued on, selling eezo independently as a cooperative. It was amazing I tell ya, so many people working together. We felt like the most autonomous colony in the galaxy. Yeah they tried sending us some Alliance big wigs but they were quickly chased out. See they didn't want to piss off us miners because we were their biggest eezo supplier and they couldn't just pick us off because who'd take our place and mine that stuff for em'? Drones will only get you so far and they still have to be operated. So we had the upper hand and it was a winning situation.
Well like all good things our harmony didn't last. As soon as the Alliance introduced mass effect core shielding, they made Surface district habitable. Suddenly our leaders got greedy and started building on the land. Huge properties like you wouldn't believe, magnificent apartment units, tons of contract land up for business head offices. Piece-by-piece they sold our surface to the highest bidders from all over the galaxy. Before we knew it, the most affluent creatures wanted to wash their hands clean of the civil unrest brooding just beneath them. So the Metro that afforded cheap transit between levels was destroyed. Our police force was cut in half. Most of the force went to Surface district and that's how the 2033rd Surface precinct was born. The old precinct here on lower Omega was shut down. That's when the scum of the galaxy came in and had a field day. So while the surface enjoyed an influx of business and security, we had the opposite effect where low-lifes and that queen bitch Aria T'Loak all fought to control what was left of the below.
That's when a small militia rose up.
Yes, we weren't as highly trained as the Talons or the Blue Suns, but we managed to restore enough order to protect the normal citizens. When the first cabinet finally opened their eyes to our situation we were granted seed money to start our own precinct. We named it in honor of the one system that used to unite Omega, the Metro. Yeah we got our wish, now we have one of the toughest police forces in the galaxy. No, there ain't enough of them. There will never be enough. But the cops we have, they do the job right.
Ha! No the cabinet doesn't fund them anymore. Truthfully I'm not sure how those kids get paid these days. All I know is that 2077th Metro Precinct is all we've got and I'm damn glad someone's picking up their tab. Just wish I knew who.