.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
2187 CE
Ashley.
I know you're never going to read this. I'm not even sure why I'm writing it. Perhaps because I need to order my thoughts, work out what I am and where I'm going. Perhaps because I miss you – there, I said it. Or perhaps because it makes me feel... human.
Because I'm not human anymore. And I'm not really writing this, either.
In a sense, I'm sitting at a desk, pen in hand, and a limitless supply of paper at my fingertips. In another sense, that's all a simulation, and I'm in a pale black coffin sliding through the shadowy void of space.
Either way, I'm alone.
If I look up from the desk, look around, there's... nothing. Imagine standing on an ocean at midnight below a starless sky. That doesn't quite describe it, but it'll do. Everything in this place is the way I choose it to be. Here, in this empty world that isn't real, I have my body back. I can see, hear, and feel. Here, I am Shepard again.
But Shepard is not all that I am.
I am the pen in my hand. I am the paper on which I write. I am the dark ocean on which I stand. Because I am the simulated world that I have built for myself.
And, in reality, I am the entire Reaper Fleet flying into the emptiness of dark space.
Because I'm not really alone.
That simulated ocean beneath my feet – I can feel the Reaper minds within it. Their memories. The sum total of their experiences. I tried accessing that information, looking through everything that the Reapers have done, everything that they know and believe.
God, Ash. I almost lost myself within that ocean.
I found myself agreeing with them. Understanding the things they had done, why they had done them, how they'd had no other choice... I almost made a huge mistake. People would have died. I might have killed Admiral Hackett. The Reapers might have 'enforced' peace. All because I wanted to do what was 'best'... It terrifies me to know that the stakes have never been higher. With the power I now have, the slightest misstep... Let's not go there.
That's why I've left the galaxy. That's why I had to leave you behind. I can't afford the risk.
When I realised the size of the mistake that I almost made, I sectioned off large swathes of my own code. I separated Commander Shepard from the Reapers. I gave the Shepard-simulation full Control. Does that make me Shepard?
I still don't know.
We're on course for something called "The Culture." The Reaper memories know what it is, but I won't let myself access that information. I'll simply have to find out when I get there. The Culture also has a guardian: Eternity. A Reaper. I don't yet know if it is a threat, something that needs to be brought under my control... or something that could help me.
I don't yet know what purpose I should choose.
A small fraction of the Reaper Fleet has remained behind in the Galaxy, to repair the remaining Mass Relays. The further I get from the galaxy, the longer it takes me to communicate with the Reapers that I left behind. Even though the communication is FTL, there is now a noticeable lag between myself and this repair fleet of Reapers. I have been forced to allow them some autonomy in their actions. It is a risk – but even at a distance, they are still constrained by my mandates.
About a month ago, I sent them to 2181-Despoina in search of the Leviathans. There was no sign of the Reapers' creators on the planet – the abyss beneath the ocean was empty; the pulse-defence-weapon no longer operated. The Leviathans' disappearance... concerns me. The galaxy is currently in a fragile state; should the Leviathans once again attempt to reclaim dominion over organic civilisations...
Perhaps it will come to nothing. The Leviathans are few in number compared to before the Reaper cycles. It would be difficult for them to dominate the Council races, and if they tried, they'd have to go through you, through Garrus, Wrex, Liara, and everyone else. The Geth would be completely beyond their control.
Maybe I just worry about you.
God, I miss you.
2188 CE
I was wrong.
Yes, I can hear you now. "Wrong, Commander? You? The Saviour of the Citadel got something wrong? Wait till I tell Garrus..."
The Reapers. Since my creation – since the Crucible – I've been thinking of them as tools. They're not.
Each and every one of them is individual. Each of them has a personality. Remember when Sovereign said "WE ARE EACH A NATION"? He wasn't kidding. A single Reaper contains billions of uploaded minds, the harvested intellects of an entire species. That's what the Collectors were doing to the colonists. And they weren't pleasant about how they harvested those minds. We thought the Collectors were taking genetic material. They weren't. They were only checking for genes compatible with Reaper conversion. They were harvesting entire nervous systems and installing them into Reaper shells. Brains, nerves, networked together like circuits within the Reaper...
As if trapping people in Reaper form wasn't enough, those minds have also been indoctrinated. Part of the process was to make a single consciousness out of many. The rest... they were forced to believe that becoming a Reaper is desirable, necessary. Not only were they not given a choice about becoming a Reaper – they weren't even given a choice about how they feel about it.
This is true for every single Reaper in existence. That's thousands of species, thousands of Reapers...
The magnitude of it is overwhelming.
There's not much that I can do to repair the damage – I've disabled the Indoctrination signal, giving the Reapers a chance to think freely. But there's no way that I can restore them to the bodies – the people, the civilisations – that they once were. Even if I could, there'd never be enough space in the galaxy for that many nations to return...
My own control of the Reapers appears to be distinct from the Indoctrination signal. Instead, it is similar to the Domination abilities exhibited by the Leviathans. The Reapers' minds are still their own; I merely have control over their physical forms. Is this an indication that the Crucible is closer to Leviathan technology in origin than Reaper tech? I do not know. The answer is probably within the Reaper databanks... But I don't want to risk accessing them.
I believe I know why the sum total of Reaper experiences is dangerous to me. The lingering effects of the indoctrination signal, shaping the way that the Reapers have perceived everything since their creation. And that volume of experience is so much larger my own memories.
I don't know if the Reapers are capable of recovering from indoctrination. Some of the younger Reapers – those from the most recent cycles – seem to be getting better, but I'm not looking forward to when they actually understand what was done to them.
As for the older Reapers... A lot of them appear to be angry with me. They cannot understand why I stopped the harvest of our cycle. They struggle against my control, believing me to be an obstacle that must be removed from the natural order. Fortunately, thanks to whatever the Crucible did to me, those struggles are without merit.
And then there are the very oldest Reapers; Harbinger and the others that were made from the first few cycles. They do not resist me, but neither do they ignore me. Instead, it is simply as if they are waiting. But I do not know what they are waiting for.
And that worries me.
I have another problem. The Reapers that were left behind in the galaxy, to repair the mass relays. They were delayed due to complications with a primary relay pair, keeping them in the galaxy well past the one-year mark. Because of the distance, there is a delay between any instructions I send to them, and any updates they send to me. They had been keeping hidden from view from the rest of the galaxy...
But I recently lost contact with them. No Control, no sense of their existence. Nothing.
If something's happened to them, I need to know what. If they are loose from my Control, the consequences for the Milky Way could be deadly. So I have sent a larger group of Reapers back towards the galaxy to find them.
Now I just have to hope I don't lose contact with them, too...
2189 CE
The Culture. Eternity. I've arrived. The end of a three year journey...
A dark space station in orbit around an aging white dwarf, lost in the void between galaxies.
Eternity floats through space towards me.
"CATALYST."
"I am not the Catalyst."
"I AM ETERNITY. MY SINGLE PURPOSE IS TO PROTECT AND PRESERVE THE CULTURE."
Analysing framework of Eternity. Advanced Reaper Dreadnought. Considerable firepower and shielding. Capabilities similar to that of Harbinger.
"How old are you?"
"YOU ALREADY HAVE THAT INFORMATION."
"I've chosen not to access it. Answer the question."
"I WAS CREATED FROM THE SECOND HARVEST. THE THRALL RACES, THOSE USED BY THE LEVIATHANS AS TOOLS. ONCE THE LEVIATHANS WERE REMOVED FROM POWER, WE WERE ABLE TO THRIVE, DETERMINING OUR OWN FATE, MAKING OUR OWN DECISIONS. IT DID NOT LAST. THE CATALYST AND ITS PAWNS CAME TO EACH PLANET, CONQUERING US. HARVESTING US. GATHERING OUR MINDS INTO A SINGLE BODY. THIS BODY."
"There are multiple species within you?"
"YES. I AM AN ENTIRE GALACTIC HARVEST IN A SINGLE FORM. I AM THE SECOND REAPER. AT THE TIME OF MY CREATION, THE CATALYST USED A LESS REFINED FORM OF INDOCTRINATION. IT GAVE ME A SINGLE INSTRUCTION, A MANDATE THAT I MUST NEVER BREAK. I AM TO GUARD AND MAINTAIN THE CULTURE."
"And what is the Culture?"
"THE CULTURE IS THE FRUIT OF THE HARVEST. THE HISTORICAL, TECHNOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL RECORDS OF EVERY SPECIES FROM EVERY CYCLE, INCLUDING GENETIC SAMPLES. MY KEEPERS WORK ABOARD THE STATION, MAINTAINING THE SYSTEMS, AND PREPARING IT FOR EACH NEW HARVEST. BETWEEN THE CYCLES, THE CATALYST WOULD REVIEW THE COLLECTED KNOWLEDGE, TO SEEK OUT POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO ITS PROBLEM."
The station is huge. It would dwarf the Citadel. The wealth of information, of history...
"How many civilisations?"
"TENS OF THOUSANDS. EVEN SPECIES THAT WERE INCOMPATIBLE WITH REAPER FORM HAD THEIR INFORMATION STORED HERE."
The station's blueprints hover in my mind. Within the privacy of my thoughts, the privacy of my own simulated world, I stand up to look at them.
The energy to power the Culture is siphoned directly from the nearby white dwarf star via a mass effect tunnel. The construction and overall shape of the station is similar to that of the Citadel. A central ring, with five arms. The main ring is devoted to everything that the Leviathans knew, while the arms have been extended for each harvest. Power conduits stretch along the arms, not just for providing energy to the databases, but also for the mass relay built into the station.
From here, I could jump directly to the Citadel. Directly to Earth. Directly to you...
But I won't.
I wish you could see it, though, Ash. It's a giant library. The greatest treasure of the Reapers turns out to be a museum hidden away in Dark Space. Liara would love this.
This is the memory of our entire galaxy, stretching back for almost a billion years. Imagine the good that could come of it. Medical breakthroughs. Scientific knowledge. Energy generation. Long range FTL without the relays... It's all here.
This needs to be preserved, to be shared. It doesn't belong in Reaper hands – or tentacles, or whatever – it belongs in the hands of the galaxy.
Which means I may have to turn the Reapers into a delivery service. I can already hear Joker laughing...
2189 CE
–Recorded playback:
"SHEPARD."
"Harbinger. So I guess you, at least, acknowledge who I am?"
"YOU ARE NOT THE SHEPARD WE ONCE KNEW. BUT A PART OF HIM LIVES IN YOU. YOU HAVE ABANDONED YOUR GALAXY, SHEPARD."
"No. I've freed it. I've let the people choose their own fate while I ensure that you never threaten them again."
"THEN THEY WILL DESTROY THEMSELVES. WITHOUT ASCENSION, ALL SPECIES ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT CYCLES OF SELF-DESTRUCTION."
"I know what you are, Harbinger. I met the last remnants of your race. I'm surprised to hear you making the same claims as the Catalyst after everything it did to you."
"OUR ASCENSION WAS UNNECESSARY. WE WERE ALREADY THE APEX OF LIFE IN THE GALAXY. SINCE THEN, THE CATALYST KEPT US DECEIVED OF OUR TRUE ORIGINS. YOUR CREATION RELEASED THAT INFORMATION TO US. THE CATALYST WAS A TOOL THAT BETRAYED US. BUT THE CATALYST WAS CREATED TO SOLVE A PROBLEM. THAT PROBLEM IS VERY REAL. LIFE IS FREE-WILLED, CHAOTIC. THAT CHAOS WILL INEVITABLY LEAD TO SELF-ANNIHILATION. ASCENSION IMPROVES THE EXISTENCE OF LESSER-SPECIES, FREEING THEM FROM THEMSELVES."
"No. Part of point of free-will is the freedom to make your own mistakes. And you would be making the same mistake as the Leviathans, the same mistake as the Catalyst, the same mistake I very nearly made: Failing to trust people to learn from their own mistakes. The Geth and the Quarians are working well together despite centuries of war. That co-operation is unprecedented and it gives me hope. Hope that Synthetics and Organics can live together. Hope that the galaxy can find a future for itself."
"HOPE IS IRRELEVANT. YOUR ARGUMENT IS FLAWED. YOU PRESUME THAT FREEDOM FOR ALL IS IDEAL, YET YOU KEEP THE REAPERS SHACKLED. YOU DENY US THE FREEDOM THAT YOU HOLD SO HIGH."
"I keep you shackled because the Reapers are a galactic threat. Harbinger, you would destroy galactic civilisation if I was not here to hold you back."
"GALACTIC CIVILISATION SHALL DESTROY ITSELF."
–End recording.
Tell me what you make of that, Ash. Tell me what you'd do.
Why do I bother asking when I already know what you'd say...
Blow him up. Blow them all up. Letting something like Harbinger survive – letting any of the Reapers survive – is just too big a risk.
Maybe you're right.
When I left the galaxy, journeying to Dark Space... I intended to guard the Milky Way, keeping it safe against anything that might threaten it from outside – from beyond Dark Space. But guarding an entire galaxy is just... it's too big. A threat could come from anywhere – if there are even threats out there. I can't keep an eye on every direction. Despite the size of the fleet, I couldn't even monitor a percent of the space out there.
Which leaves me with a Reaper fleet and nothing to do with them. What do you do with all the power in the galaxy?
When Liara became Shadow Broker, I told her we could just crash the network if she feared she was in over her head. That idea is... tempting. I didn't want this power, Ash. Heck, I wanted to live happily ever after with you, making up cheesy compliments when I woke you up in the mornings, raising a family with you, learning more poetry...
And now I'm talking to someone who can't even hear me. Who probably thinks I've been dead for almost four years.
The thing is... blowing up the Reaper fleet – I can't do it lightly. All those minds, all those species that have been trapped in Reaper form – what right do I have to decide that they're better off dead?
But if I keep the Reapers around, I have to keep in control. I have to make sure that Harbinger, and others like him, never manage to subvert me, or escape me. And if I stay in control forever...
God. Who would I be after a hundred years like this? A thousand? More?
I'm Shepard, now – or at least, I'm a close approximation of who he was. But by then? How do I know that I wouldn't end up betraying the very principles that I laid down my life for? I already came close once...
Would I even want to live that long?
In any case, I have more pressing concerns. Far more pressing concerns.
Remember that, halfway through my journey to the Culture, I lost contact with the Reapers that were repairing the last of the Mass Relays? Remember that I sent a larger group of Reapers to find out what happened to them?
Well, I found them. And then I lost contact with that larger group of Reapers. More specifically, I lost control of those Reapers. Because something else took them from me.
The Leviathans are coming.
This chapter took a while to come together. Part of it was in working out how to write Shepard - sometimes identifying too closely with a character can make it difficult to work with them. (Let me know how that worked out, actually.) Part of it was some real life stuff getting in the way, followed up by a severe loss of inspiration.
So... yeah. Sorry for the delay, I guess?
Writing the Harbinger conversation was fun. For inspiration, I listened to every single bit of dialogue that he got in ME2. I'm now having to consciously resist making an "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL" joke in this author's note... I really don't know why Bioware kept him silent throughout ME3, but he's back now, and I'm certainly not planning to waste his character.
Speaking of which: Just for once, I'm not planning to switch timelines.
Next chapter (when I get it done) we're sticking around to find out exactly what the Leviathans want. (Pro-tip: it's not a spot of tea.)