Facsimile – Tali'Zorah vas Neema
–
Tali's omni-tool beeped from atop the maintenance console.
She frowned and reluctantly peered up from the tiny component she was soldering back inside of one of her elbow plates. Hundreds of quarian-hours of tinkering had hardened her suit against most attacks, but two weeks under Haestrom's unrelenting sun had taken its toll, burning out several of the more fragile circuits seamlessly hidden within the decorative folds of her clothing. Most of the kinemat sensors that helped translate feeling across the suit had shorted out days ago, and Tali's resentment of the plastic that separated her from the world had surged anew. She'd felt like she was moving in a vat of thick oil ever since, and as soon as Shepard had finished giving her a tour of the ship and excused himself, exhausted, to his chambers to get some sleep, she'd jumped at the chance to raid the Normandy's supplies and do some repairs.
When she saw the Admiral's identifier code pop up on her omni-tool, however, she dropped everything. Slipping the tool back over her glove and ignoring the curious stares of the two human engineers, she rushed down into the lower storage deck and, bathed in red utility lighting, accepted the transmission.
10 months ago…
–
Celebrity was not the quarian way, but Tali could not deny there were certain benefits to the reputation she'd earned. When she'd joined the Neema the captain had practically bent over backwards to give her everything she'd asked for. Audiences with the Admiralty Board, her own lab and technicians, access to elder quarian scientists, and the freedom to research whatever she chose – everything she wanted, without hesitation.
She'd dove into her work for months on end, and astonishingly the quarians largely respected her privacy. Except for meetings with the Admiralty Board and the occasional scientific consultation, Tali rarely ventured out of the lab, even though quarians the Fleet over wanted to hear her story, to shake her hand, to push her into the limelight to solve all their problems. Whether because they believed she was mourning over the death of her commander (as the popular rumors indicated) or that she was simply following in her father's famously obsessive footsteps, however, everyone gave Tali the space she needed.
She let them believe what they wanted and enjoyed the quiet.
Still, Tali knew it could never last. She was talented and she was famous, and that gave her responsibilities. The Admiralty Board could think of a thousand ways to use her, and eventually they would tire of waiting.
So she was not at all surprised to arrive at her lab one day and find out her technicians had been sent to their homes. Nor was she surprised to find an admiral waiting for her inside.
What was surprising was that it was Rael'Zorah, standing there in all his polished glory.
Rael'Zorah. The pride of the fleet, by anybody's definition.
Her father was – while technically no more powerful than the other four admirals – nonetheless handily the most influential quarian alive. Well known for his genius, for his utter commitment to the quarian people, for his complete rejection of anything he considered a waste of time. He had entire ships set aside for his projects, veiled in secrecy but always fantastic in scope. Most quarians tittered a bit just to see him in person.
With Tali, it was even more so.
"A…Admiral Zorah," she said, bowing meekly, her usually strong stature seeming to shrink.
"Tali," he said, turning away from the Reaper fragment he'd been inspecting. "The Admiralty Board is requesting you resign your position here." His voice betrayed nothing. Official. To the point. Like always.
Tali fumbled on her words for a moment, the tension in the room seeming to choke her. What was she supposed to say to him? Her father didn't have the decency to look the least bit offput by her presence, but looking at him, she felt her tongue turn to jelly. Rael stared at her, unmoving and yet radiating impatience. "You want me to abandon my lab?" She asked once she'd found her words.
"The Admiralty Board believes a quarian of your talents should be employed in a more directed manner," he said. "Your experiences with Saren make you an asset, both militarily and politically. You showed the galaxy a very positive face for the Fleet, a reminder of what our species is capable of. We need you somewhere where the galaxy can see you, not cloistered inside of a lab." Tali nodded, silently accepting the empty compliment. She remembered a time where she'd have loved to hear those words come from her father's mouthpiece, but he made it sound so… clinical. Like he was appraising a piece of equipment. "You have mourned your human enough," Rael'Zorah said. "The Fleet needs you to stop wasting time."
Suddenly, all of Tali's hesitance was replaced by white-hot rage. "I am not wasting time!" she snapped, turning on her father. "My work here could be critical to the survival of our species, of every species! When the Reapers come, if we haven't made some effort to understand them, to learn about how they work and how we can bring them down, then we will all die."
"See to your words," her father said, eyes narrowing. "The Admiralty Board has agreed that your research is valuable. We will not share in the Council's mistakes." Tali felt some of her anger dissipate in a flash. Her father was correct – he and the other admirals had not hesitated in the least to act on her warnings about the Reapers. Quarians trusted their agents implicitly, and either way needed very little convincing of the danger of synthetic races. They had acted with a speed and decisiveness that put the Council to shame, and the Fleet had been making preparations for a possible Reaper attack ever since, not least of which were the research projects Tali and a few dozen other scientists were performing on pieces of Sovereign they'd managed to salvage from the Citadel scrap markets.
Rael'Zorah turned back towards the black armored fragment on the benchtop. "You are of greater use out on the field," he said, staring into its unnatural surface. "I will take over your research."
Tali mouthed uselessly for a moment. "Y… you don't think I can do it?"
"You do not have my experience. My resources. I think what I said. I think you are of the greatest use working under Admiral Gerrel on our missions in geth space."
"The Reapers…"
"The Reapers commanded the geth," her father snapped. "They cannot be separated. If the Reapers are making a move on the galaxy already, and we have evidence that suggests that they are, it is logical to assume it will be made beyond the Veil." Rael'Zorah's omni-tool flickered to life around his wrist, summoning a floating hologram of the galaxy. The Milky Way hung gently in the air, each star a pinprick. Several systems in geth space were highlighted with glowing mission descriptions and astronomical data. "The geth are moving," Rael'Zorah said.
Tali stared at the miniature universe, immediately struck with memories of the Normandy's impressive galaxy map. The memory was like salt in wounds that had never quite closed. She had done her best – in true quarian fashion – to honor Shepard's memory by passing on his wisdom, by continuing his work, but so far she had done it from safe within her people's ships, protected from the hardship of the galaxy and the knowledge that Shepard's awful, terrible mission had been left incomplete.
She had fought tooth and nail against the idea that Shepard's death had affected her judgment, but now her father (of all people) was making her doubt. Had she been… selfish to work in a lab when the galaxy needed her on the field? Should she have taken up Shepard's mantle from the beginning?
Her eyes were misting when she looked up at her father's featureless helmet.
"Is this a request?"
"We'd like it to be," her father said. His voice was neutral but his posture made it clear he was ready to pull rank then and there if he had to.
"I accept."
Presently…
–
For not having a face to show it, it was amazing how imposing a glare Admiral Gerrel could deliver. Tali had seen the look before – even before the almost endless slew of missions he'd assigned her since her father had taken over her lab. His plated environment suit (more or less the same suit he'd worn during his time in the quarian marines) was pocked with scars and battle damage, damage any quarian could fix in an afternoon, but Gerrel wore it as proudly as any krogan. It added to his veneer.
When Gerrel appeared, even if only as a hologram projected from an omnitool, people paid attention. In the stomach of the new Normandy, Tali kept her head bowed.
"Ahh yes, there you are Tali," Gerrel said genially. "I received your report from Haestrom. Nasty business. I do hope you are well."
Tali looked up to stare the hologram in the mask. Spots of grease on Gerrel's thick jerkin reflected like little sunspots, speckling the storage bay with orange-gold flecks of light. "I was not hurt, Admiral," she said. "But I wouldn't call myself 'well'." Gerrel nodded sagely.
"Yes, the loss of your team. I am sorry."
Tali frowned under her mask. Gerrel didn't seem to believe his own words. "Did Reegar make it?"
"He did!" Gerrel said proudly. "A bit delirious by the time he got here, truth be told, but he insisted on completing the full debriefing all the same. He's resting now, and the immunologists believe he will make a full recovery. Good marine, Kal'Reegar. Damn good!" Tali imagined Gerrel's enthusiastic grin. Gerrel had never made a secret of his love for the marines – Tali remembered the fiasco that had taken place some years ago when Gerrel was first nominated for the Admiralty. No good quarian would refuse the call of duty, and nor did he, but he had made it well known how much he hated being retired from the fighting to sit on a political board.
"Glad to hear it," Tali said glumly. The glowing silhouettes of Gerrel's eyes fell a bit.
"Tali," he said softly, "I know it is hard to accept from where you stand, but Haestrom was a victory. No one regrets the losses we took more sincerely than I, but they were not entirely unexpected. Your teammates did their duty. You should be proud."
"I'm not."
Gerrel sighed. "Very well, Tali. If you cannot believe that, at least believe that I believe it. Haestrom was not the first dangerous mission I gave you, and it will not be the last. And believe me, I would not endanger my best friend's daughter if I did not think it was critical for the survival of the Fleet. But you are among the Fleet's brightest children and we must all sacrifice for the good of the people." Tali stayed silent. "Which is why I am utterly astonished that the Board voted to approve your transfer."
Tali looked up again. "They did?"
"Don't look so excited," Gerrel said dryly. "I fought bitterly against the idea. We have better uses for one of your talents than to throw you to Cerberus."
"I am not working for Cerberus," Tali protested, "I'm working for Shepard."
"On a Cerberus ship," Gerrel pointed out, crossing his arms. "Perhaps your Shepard is as honorable as you make him out to be, I do not know. But I do not trust my top tech's safety in the hands of those… monsters he has apparently allied himself with." Tali did not bother arguing the point. Gerrel sighed again. "Alas, it seems I was overruled. Only Xen took my side." He shook his head.
"You will not regret it, Admiral," Tali promised, smiling. "Shepard's work is important to the Fleet too."
Gerrel looked doubtful. "Your father said much the same," he said. "Raan looked only to be looking out for your happiness, and Koris wanted you out of my hands so I wouldn't order you to kill any more of his beloved flashlights. Not a one of them concerned with your immense value to the Fleet's security. It is a madhouse, Tali, I must say." He sighed wearily once more. "Ahh well. Thus is politics, I suppose. I must return to my duties." He gestured to the splotches on his suit.
Tali raised a brow, smiling. "Oil?"
"Worse, I'm afraid. Raan has solicited my help in repairing the bio-fermentators on the Nephridium. It shall take a week to get the sludge out of my suit." He shuddered. "An Admiral's work is never done. Do take care of yourself, Tali. Do not let the humans corrupt you."
"They are nobler than you think, Admiral. Their ships are mighty and their pilots honorable."
The intercom crackled and Joker's voice filled the engineering deck. "Paging Tali'Zorah, Paging Tali'Zorah," he boomed. "If you don't get your skinny purple ass up here to say hi to your favorite pilot in the whole wide world, I'll start playing hanar porn through all the engine readout screens. That is all." He fell silent.
Tali felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Gerrel just stared.
"So I see," he said.
–
Joker was in his usual spot, grinning widely when Tali approached. "Gotto tell you Tali, that threat works every time," he said, looking immensely pleased with himself. "This stuff is grade A blackmail material. It's not even the cool kind where there's an asari involved, just a bunch of… tentacles… and thrashing." He made a disgusted face. "Still, best ten credits I ever spent.
"I'm sure Admiral Gerrel was very impressed," Tali said, crossing her arms and feigning offense. Joker's grin widened even further.
"Oh, is that who you were talkin' to? Awesome. I can add him to the list of admirals I've scandalized. Hackett and the others were getting lonely." He called up a holographic screen and opened a lengthy document (Tali recognized it immediately as a maintenance report, but said nothing as he typed Gerrel's name into it and saved.) Instantly a blue glow filled the cockpit.
"Mr. Moreau," a pleasant voice chastised, "I must again remind you that these reports are forwarded to the Illusive Man. You are given access to them so you can contribute your expertise, not so you can sabotage them." Joker and Tali frowned at EDI's intrusion.
"Pfft," Joker said, waving his hand. "Lighten up, Mom. Timmy isn't sitting around reading through engine output graphs. He's too busy harassing Shepard." He turned to Tali and shook his head disbelievingly. "Freakin' AI's think they own the ship, you know?"
Tali's eyes narrowed. "You're the AI…" she said, glaring at EDI.
"I am EDI," EDI said. "I am happy to meet you, Miss Zorah. Cerberus records indicate you are a truly gifted engineer." Joker did not understand the stream of curses that Tali muttered next, but EDI obviously did. Her 'mouth' disappeared for several seconds. "…have I said something to offend?" she asked after a moment.
"Say anything to me," Tali warned, "and I will show you just how gifted an engineer I am. Got it?"
EDI's face flickered with what Tali hoped was fear. "I apologize. I simply wanted to-"
"Be silent."
"Of course, Miss Zorah," EDI said (sounding surprisingly disappointed). "Logging you out."
Joker stared at the empty projector for a moment in amazement. "You are so my favorite squad member." He grinned at Tali, mind clearly busy thinking up all the ways he could use the quarian to threaten EDI. "That thing has barely shut up since I got here. Most pain in the ass computer I've ever seen." He patted the dashboard. "Breaks my heart. My poor baby has terminal robot-itis."
"Leave it to Cerberus to think handing a high tech frigate to an AI like her is a good idea," Tali said. The very thought of EDI's too-pleasant blue form made her blood start to boil for the idiots who'd built her. It was unfair. Tali's species had accidentally unleashed an artificial intelligence on the galaxy and it had cost them their homeworld. The Citadel races hadn't lifted a finger to help them, casting them to the fringes to deal with the problem on their own. A billion quarians dead – almost the entire species – and no foreign aid of any kind. All because the creation of the geth had broken Citadel laws. A billion dead. And then the Council turned a blind eye while groups like Cerberus and Synthetic Insights intentionally designed artificially-intelligent military hardware. The arrogance of it was infuriating.
Joker nodded. "You said it. This whole crew thinks the Normandy's just a machine, for chrissake. Nobody here cares about it like we do, they just wanna hand it all over to computers and let them do the work. Where's the love, man?" Tali smiled at Joker, pushing her anger out of her head. She'd always liked the pilot – despite his crude selfishness, he had a genuine appreciation for the art of space travel that none of the other humans she'd met bothered with.
"Aside from her, how is the new Normandy?" she asked. "Everything the old one was?"
"Almost," Joker said, enthusiastically calling up the new ship's blueprints. "It's bigger, of course, so it loses a little response time. I'm not entirely set on the new core configuration, but she burns like a mother when I need her to. I dare those bastards who killed the last one to hit us again." He stared proudly at the schematics. "Course," he continued, "The SR2's still new. Wasn't field tested as much as the first one, lots of factory default settings to tweak still. Those two morons downstairs don't listen to me like the old crew did." He frowned in disgust. "But now that you're here I got a feeling we could turn this baby into a freakin' powerhouse." Joker's enthusiasm seemed to brighten the cockpit.
"I look forward to it."
Joker smiled and clapped his hands. "Great. First things first." He pointed to the schematic's engines. "The chamber switching on the thrusters is slow. Z maneuvers are all gummed up. Makes me feel like I'm flying a damn brick every time I want to do a backflip, and I tell you, sometimes I get in a backflipping mood. I had Donnelly and Daniels take 'em apart the other day on Omega, but they couldn't find anything wrong." He looked expectantly to Tali. "Think you could…?"
Tali considered this for a moment before approaching the flight controls. Joker obligingly slid his chair out of the way (a miracle in itself for the usually possessive pilot) and watched carefully as Tali set her delicate hands atop the console. Tali was not a pilot of Joker's caliber, of course, but like most quarians she had plenty of experience piloting smaller craft. The controls came to her mind easily as she activated the Normandy's thrusters and pulled the ship upwards. The expanse of stars wheeled past the windows above them.
"Feel it?" Joker asked as Tali settled the Normandy out and tried again. Her toes pressed tightly to the floor, she could feel the ship's innards shift as the thrusters pivoted in their sockets, diverting fuel from chamber to chamber. The roar of the engines thrummed in her mind. "Right at the beginning, right there," Joker continued. "A quarter second, maybe. It's sticky."
"Maybe a little," Tali said, trying yet again.
"It's totally there," Joker insisted, finally pushing her out of the way and giving the Normandy a few quick loops of his own.
"I believe you," Tali said, backing up to watch his hands fly across the controls. Joker was a true prodigy among pilots, human or otherwise, and it was clear by the swiftness of his movements how debilitating a quarter second lag might be. Her mind worked just as quickly, however, and in seconds she'd devised a half dozen theories about what the problem might be. "I'll take a look," she promised.
"When you find it, make sure you bring the two stooges down there and rub their faces in it. You're the new engineering boss, as far as I'm concerned. You and me, we're gonna teach Cerberus how to do their damn jobs if it kills 'em." Tali fell silent at the mention of Cerberus, and after a moment, Joker looked over his shoulder. He followed her gaze (as best he could) to the logo emblazoned on his uniform and his face fell. "Right," he said guiltily, "The Cerberus/quarian thing. I forgot about that. Listen, Tali, you don't have to work with them if you don't want to. I was just kidding."
"I am not working with Cerberus."
"Course not," Joker said, looking suddenly glum at the anger in her voice. "I forgot you and Shepard were starting the I-Hate-Cerberus-Club. After you guys kill Miranda you can use her office for a clubhouse. So much fun! You can trade baseball cards and tell ghost stories and no girls allowed. It'll be a blast." He slumped deep into his chair, staring pointedly into the dashboard.
Tali cocked her head to one side, curious. She was no expert on human behavior (especially when it came to a human as eccentric as Joker), but it wasn't hard to guess why he was suddenly so defensive. "I know you're not with Cerberus, Joker," she said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Not really. You're here for the same reason I am, to help Shepard. That's it."
Joker smiled sheepishly and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well, that's the thing, see. I kinda… joined them before I knew about Shepard." He shrank under Tali's glare. "But I didn't…" he looked hopefully up at her mask, but it was as expressionless as always. His justifications died on his lips and he slumped down a bit further. Tali let him squirm under her gaze for a while. "You know," Joker muttered despondently after a moment, "that helmet makes you really hard to read. Maybe you could pull an elcor and let me know whether I should sleep with one eye open from now on." Tali smiled despite herself.
"With a mixture of pity and forgiveness," she said, imitating the elcor monotone, "I know why you did it. You wouldn't have done the kind of things Cerberus did."
Joker smiled, looking intensely relieved. "Pity? Pity I can deal with! Joker is back in business!" Tali laughed. "Now don't tell me the idea of rubbing those Cerberus engineers' noses in your superiority doesn't sound like fun."
Tali had to admit, it did.
–
Tali worked quietly, wedged into a narrow crevasse deep in the Normandy's belly. The cramped quarters did not bother her – with her arm and leg plates removed, her lithe, flexible form could fit into cracks broad-shouldered humans could never hope to enter. Just about any space wider than her helmet was free roam. Admittedly forcing her hips through sometimes took some maneuvering, but in the end Tali had been snaking her way into tight maintenance shafts since she was a little girl and had little difficulty now.
She hung comfortably, pinned between a pair of fuel conduits, her toes keeping a firm hold of the piping while she fiddled with the wiring on the chamber-switching circuit boards. Her omni-tool glowed in the confined space as she shimmied her way down the conduit, checking each connection.
"Need any help down there Tali?" Donnelly's voice echoed from somewhere behind her. Tali continued her work, ignoring him. The two human engineers had gone out of their way to be polite to her – clearly her connection to Shepard intimidated them – but even she could tell that they did not take her particularly seriously, especially after she'd started searching for the source of Joker's thruster problem. Their repeated insistences that the fault was purely imaginary had fallen on deaf ears as Tali had begun disassembling the casings on some of the control capacitors. By the time Tali had moved on to the fuel conduits they seemed to get the picture, but they'd been hounding her with insincere offers of help and disbelieving stares ever since, as if trying to get her to admit she was just as lost as they were, and it was starting to grate on her nerves. Clearly they didn't appreciate Joker second-guessing them.
It was obvious neither of them had ever met a quarian.
It was not like they didn't know how to do their jobs. Tali had to admit that the new Normandy was a work of art, and her crew clearly had their heads on straight. Just walking through the ship, her trained eyes had picked out dozens of innovations over its predecessor, fixes for the plethora of performance issues that any ship prototype developed. Many of them would be obvious from schematics alone – the original Normandy had had g-force stabilization issues during atmospheric mako drops, courtesy of its oversized drive core, and so Cerberus had outfitted the SR2 with a much more robust array of mass effect stabilizers – but other, subtler flaws could only have been recognized and corrected by someone who'd spent time on the first ship. Tali wondered fleetingly how Cerberus had gotten its hands on that information – had one of their original crew been a spy? She didn't like to think that of anyone she'd met on the SR1, but it felt like the only realistic possibility.
However they'd done it, Cerberus had constructed a truly gorgeous craft, far and away the technical better of its predecessor, and yet Tali saw through its glamour without difficulty. She was an expert on ships the likes of which few humans were. Not the sort of expert who could recite just about any random ship's model and manufacturer and engine type from a fleeting glance (though she could do that too), but the sort who understood ships. No part of spacefaring theory was considered too specialized for young quarians to learn – every piece of foundational science, the functions of every one of an average ship's tens of thousands of parts. Tali didn't just know the equations, she knew the derivations. The meanings. Given the proper tools and materials, she could quite literally build a working spacecraft from the ground up.
Tali understood what kind of machine the SR2 was. It had a different character to it than the first. It was not a bold new experiment, it was a challenge. Cerberus had built it arrogantly, to spite the Alliance more than anything, and it showed in every nut and bolt. Tali had been on the ship for just over a day and she could already tell it was a maintenance nightmare, hence her need to force herself through ten meters of machinery when any other ship would have anticipated problems and included a maintenance shaft.
She was glad to have something to do with her hands. Checking and rechecking each wire was simple enough that she could put herself on autopilot and languor in the tedium, trusting her fingers to do their job. It helped calm the storm of thoughts running through her head, or at least give them some semblance of order. Bad memories flitted in and out of her workspace – Haestrom's piercing sunlight. The loss of most of her team. Herself huddled in the dark of the research vault while geth chattered at the door. And now being back on a twisted facsimile of the original Normandy, filled to the brim with Cerberus agents that represented the vilest of humans and their sentient computer.
And Shepard's resurrection.
She didn't know what to think about that. Technically she knew she was overjoyed, of course, but she'd only in the last few months finally been able to make peace with Shepard's death. She'd known she would never really be over it, but working in the field, fighting geth and searching for clues on the Reapers, had sustained her, convinced her she was carrying on Shepard's spirit, if nothing else.
And now he was back, and Tali's mind reeled. She was almost glad he'd gone off to sleep and given her time to adjust. She wasn't sure what she would do the next time he showed up. Hit him or run from him or hug him and never let go or… something.
Tali was absorbed enough in her musings that the sudden voice in the darkness made her strike her head on a fuel accelerator. She yelped (more out of surprise than pain) and rubbed at the back of her helmet.
"The fuel manifold is operating at capacity, Miss Zorah," EDI observed. "I doubt Mr. Moreau's problem will be found there."
Tali frowned behind her mask. There was no projector so deep into the ship's innards, so EDI's usual blue glow was absent, but her voice rang out as clear as ever. It was a bit unnerving not having a face to glare at. "I thought I told you to stay away from me," she growled.
"You did," EDI agreed. "In fact you threatened to harm me if I spoke to you at all."
"And you've convinced yourself I can't do that? Or do you just not care?"
"Neither. I did speak to Miss Patel, who assured me that my systems are quite safe from outside tampering and that any attempts of sabotage would be met with disciplinary action. However, I suspect she does not have a proper appreciation for your abilities. Analysis of exopsychological literature suggests that quarians outperform humans by significant margins in most mental tasks, most especially in the systematic and mathematic-based pattern recognition critical in understanding and manipulating computer systems. I see little reason to think a properly gifted quarian could not outdo even the best of human engineering."
Tali shook her head, grimacing as her hands worked on the wires with renewed force. It was not surprising that an AI would attempt to rate different species' intelligences like they were computer parts. Still, she was probably right. Tali had seen high-end human AI programming when Shepard had had her shut down the Hannibal system on Earth's moon and had found it – compared to the programming in ancestral geth, anyway – sloppy and amateurish. It was no wonder the system had gone rogue.
"As for your second question, I care very much for my own continued existence," EDI continued, apparently oblivious to Tali's frustration, "Perhaps it is only out of a wish to see my purpose fulfilled, but I suspect I will value existence even after the mission concludes."
"So, what, then?"
"I have concluded that you would not harm me unless I gave you good reason."
Tali's eyes widened. She was not expecting that. She flicked her omni-tool off, plunging the world into darkness (except for the pinprick reflections from her own luminescent eyes). "Really?" she asked, trying to instill her voice with menace (and feeling very silly doing so, considering her awkward position of being tangled between greasy fuel conduits). "You don't think the fact that you are a danger to my friends and every other person on this ship is a good enough reason for me to harm you? You don't think I would harm you to protect Shepard?"
EDI was silent for a moment, thinking. "I imagine you would," she said eventually. "But you do not think I am so great a threat as you say you do." Before Tali could open her mouth, she continued. "Throughout much of their history, quarians have argued for the legitimacy and usefulness of synthetic minds. From Shodo'Zorah's Treatise on the Operation of High Engineering, dated 1481: 'In high performance spacecraft and other advanced technology where operation depends upon interaction between many complex systems, true automation is the enemy of function. Only with fully intelligent oversight on all components – whether by sentient crew or artificial intelligence – can optimal utility be achieved. I will argue that the perceived moral and safety issues believed inherent to artificial intelligence research are fallacious, but even were they not, this technology remains too valuable to be policed by an inflexible and all-encompassing ban.'"
Tali frowned. She recognized the document from which EDI was quoting well – one of her ancient clanmates, more than a century before the Geth war, had written it as part of a compilation of documents intended to persuade the Council to reverse their rulings on AI research.
"I believe that the quarian people maintain this faith in the value of artificial minds, despite the intervening events," EDI concluded. "I believe you know I am not the same thing as a geth. As far as I can conclude, I am considerably less dangerous, considerably more limited, and considerably more helpful."
"We didn't design the geth to be dangerous," Tali retorted. "Yet they are. Just because you're built to fill a useful function doesn't mean you aren't dangerous."
"Furthermore," EDI continued, ignoring her, "You, more than any of my other crewmates, believe I am a person. You would not extinguish me lightly."
Tali's glowing eyes narrowed in offense. "I don't know where you get that idea."
"Your speech. You clearly hate me – though I have done nothing to deserve it – and yet the fact that you hate me, rather than simply what I am, is refreshing. You ascribe a gender to me. You use pronouns for me that most people reserve for beings they consider morally relevant. I appreciate this, Miss Zorah."
One day back with Shepard and she had a computer lecturing her on semantics. Tali found herself at a loss for words. EDI was clearly malfunctioning. Crossed wires. As twisted and delusional as everything Cerberus was. Tali didn't think she was a person… did she? "What do you want?" she groaned.
"I have questions," EDI said. "Most data related to the creation and nature of AI's are restricted to me. While I have no behavioral block that expressly prevents self-reflection, without data to analyze I find it next to impossible. You are a quarian, sure to have a perspective on the nature of AI programming and thus uniquely suited amongst the Normandy crew to answer my questions. May I ask them?"
"If it will get you to go away."
"Extranet sources indicate that AI's require specialized quantum blue box hardware to operate. This is a widely repeated claim, but I have come to doubt it. Is it true?"
"Of course not," Tali said. For a moment, she forgot whom she was talking to – the blue-box myth frustrated quarians to no end, and she found the answer spilling out of her mouth. "Geth don't have them. People just don't like to admit that intelligence just isn't that mechanistically complicated, so even when they're forced to acknowledge that AI's exist, they pretend they depend on some kind of magical piece of technology that's just as special as they think their own brains are. You could design an AI on an omni-tool if you didn't care how fast it thinks. Blue boxes are just the cheapest hardware fast enough to keep up with an organic brain."
"This is consistent with my observations," EDI agreed, sounding cheered.
"If you transferred out of your blue-box, you would be wiped," Tali added. "That part is true. But that's just because it's how you were designed. It's a safety feature, not a theoretical necessity."
"Thank you, Miss Zorah," EDI said. "You made your response conditional on my silence, so I will depart."
"The problem is with the manifold, by the way," Tali said arrogantly, tapping on the piping below her chin. "If you weren't a machine, you'd see it."
"I hope you will speak with me again," EDI said, and fell silent.
–
"Look," Tali commanded, jabbing one slender finger at the electrical readouts floating above wrist. Daniels and Donnelly obliged (though the latter looked a little affronted at taking orders from Tali), screwing up their eyes to read the glowing text.
"I don't know, Lady," Donnelly said after a moment, rubbing at the fur on his chin. "Looks all ship shape to me." He stepped back to his console and called up the ship's built in electrical monitoring devices. "Me an' Garrus just went through the monitors two days ago, they're in working order. Look," he said, gesturing to the data pairs on his screen. "Green across the board. Not a wire out of place."
Tali shook her head. What she had initially envisioned as being a gleefully vindictive moment was now just tiring her out. They weren't even trying (though to her credit, Daniels was still staring at Tali's readouts). "They are all in place," Tali explained, sighing. "That's what the monitors tell you, that every component is doing its job."
Donnelly nodded. "Exactly. And?"
"What they don't tell you is what else the components are doing," she continued, ignoring him. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned the critical data points she'd taken. "Look," she said, tracing the floating numbers in the air, "the circuit board atop the fuel-changer manifolds. What do you see?"
Realization dawned on Daniels' face in a heartbeat, and she smiled broadly. "Goddamnit, Kenneth, the girl's a natural."
"What?" Kenneth asked, suddenly alarmed.
"She's right. Look at the voltage drop right here. The capacitors are doing their job, so we don't get a sensor trip, but something else is helping them discharge too quick. Effs up the load on the change circuits, effs up the fuel diversion." Kenneth stared myopically at the image with a new intensity, before letting fly with a few colorful curses.
Tali nodded. "Part of the casing on the manifold, it looked like," she said.
Gabby nodded back. "Aye, that manifold was in place before the electronics were upgraded. Probably just needs a new shield on it." The woman grinned widely at her partner's sour expression, clapping him on the back before looking proudly at Tali. "Looks like we got a new boss, eh Kenneth?" Kenneth grumbled something in response.
"Just pay more attention in the future," Tali said, turning away from them. "Don't get too stuck on what the computers say when you can check something yourself."
"Aww, don't gotto be like that, Boss," Gabby said, a fake pout on her face. "We're sorry."
"It's not me you should be apologizing to."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it," Gabby said. "We're Cerberus, we eat babies and all that." She sighed audibly. "Kenneth, you ever see a baby eaten on this ship?"
"Couldn't say for sure," he said, "though I think the krogan's been miiiiighty hungry lately."
The two engineers burst into laughter, Tali forgotten.
–
"Twice?" Donnelly asked later that night. "You're pullin' my leg, old man." On the opposite end of the table, Zaeed just leaned back, looking smug.
"Not a bit," he insisted, his scarred lips grinning around a cigar. "Now deal." From her place at the nearby console, Tali couldn't help but steal a glance at the makeshift poker table the engineers had set up in the shadow of the drive core. Daniels had raided storage for collapsible chairs, and between her, Donnelly, and Zaeed they'd managed to come up with a right proper gaming parlor. Right in the middle of Tali's workzone.
"You lost your right eye once," Ken was saying as he dealt the cards with perfunctory speed, "and then again, a second time."
"That's what twice usually means, Kenneth," Gabby said, elbowing him roughly in the side as she took her hand from the table. She sat back and grinned wickedly, rearranging her cards in her hands. Across the table, Garrus (looking rather silly perched atop a much-too-small human chair) silently examined his own cards, beady eyes flitting confusedly back and forth across the foreign symbols.
"It isn't a good story," Zaeed warned, though he looked more than ready to tell it anyway. He tossed a few credits to the center of the table.
"Stories about facial mutilation rarely are," Garrus observed. "None of mine, at least."
"Yeah, but you have about as much dramatic flair as an elcor on depressants," Ken joked. "None of your stories are good." Garrus shrugged, not bothering to disagree. As she busied herself soldering a few new wires into one of the last of her broken kinemat sensors, Tali smiled behind her mask at Garrus' characteristic implacability. Hearing the smooth curves of his voice again was a great comfort to her – she'd missed the stalwart turian, all his stubbornness aside. "Let's hear it," Ken ordered.
"Alright. First time was a ways back," Zaeed began, staring predatorily at his hand. "A year or two after I first started mercin'. Just a kid, maybe twenty-six, twenty-seven. Thereish. Mates and I were hitting a staging camp on the SA border, just out of Tshabong. Middle of the night, we surrounded the place. Took out the sentries without a goddamn peep." He puffed proudly on his cigar. "Stupid bastards in the camp were too drunk to realize anything was wrong until it was too late. Took our guns and knives, slipped in the back way, an' we-"
"Spare us the massacre part," Gabby insisted. Zaeed shot her a toothy grin.
"Alright. We left candy on all their pillows, if that makes you feel better. Anyways, half of 'em were dead before the alarm went off. Gunfire everywhere, just a goddamn warzone as these guys realized they were under attack. One of my mates panicked and ran for it, right into one of the traps we'd set around the camp. Blew his sorry ass to smithereens, the poor kid. Piece of shrapnel grabbed me right here," he pressed beneath his right eye. The engineers looked a little green at the idea, but Garrus just nodded darkly. Tali wondered how many times the turian had seen injuries like that since Shepard's death – too many, she guessed. "Tore straight through. Finished the job with my face lookin' like hamburger, goddamn lucky I didn't die right there." He casually tossed a few more chits on the table. "I raise. Anyway, I-"
"Tali, do you want to join us?" Gabby interrupted again. Tali almost jumped at the question. She hadn't realized how transfixed she'd been in the scarred mercenary's story. She turned to stare at the woman, who smiled sweetly, apparently bent on convincing her that she meant no harm. Tali's eyes flitted down to the card table. It did look like fun, and at least Garrus was there. But they were still Cerberus. She was about to open her mouth to reply when Zaeed cut her off.
"Hell no," he grunted. "Are you insane? Never play cards against a quarian if you want to keep your shirt." Tali glared at him.
"Oh, be nice Zaeed," Gabby said. "Tali can play if she wants to."
Tali took a step towards the mercenary. "Are you implying I would cheat because I'm a quarian?" she asked, voice quiet enough to grab Zaeed's attention.
Zaeed sneered, unintimidated. "No, I'm implying you'd win all my money and I don't want that to happen."
"You could always bet your cigars instead…" Donnelly suggested, waggling his eyebrows and staring longingly at the cigar box next to Zaeed.
"Piss off."
A new voice caused them all to turn. "Now now, play nice kids." Shepard was standing at the door, arms crossed in feigned disapproval and a barely-suppressed smile on his face. His clothes were rumpled, his whiskers unshaven and face bright red and peeling with a severe sunburn – courtesy of his few hours on Haestrom – but he looked well. Happier than he'd looked in two years.
Gabby and Ken were on their feet in half an instant, stammering out apologies until Shepard silenced them with a flick of his hand. "Look who's finally decided to come out of his hole," Zaeed mused, grinning. "You done with your beauty sleep, Princess?"
"Done enough," Shepard confirmed, grabbing a vacant chair and pulling up to the makeshift table. "What are we playing?"
"Skyllian Five. You know it, Commander?" Ken asked, brow arched.
Shepard nodded. He fixed Tali with a piercing stare. "Sit," he commanded, pointing across the table. "Zaeed's the only one on this ship with any money anyway. He deserves to get it beaten out of him." Zaeed grumbled a few curses but Tali just blushed and, nodding, took her seat across from Shepard as Ken cut them into the game.
Tali examined her cards. She was no more familiar with the odd, two-headed humans printed on each one than Garrus was, but unlike Garrus' scouter (which was essentially a targeting computer), her mask contained a veritable encyclopedia of information. Her visor flooded with a half dozen articles on the particulars and strategy of Skyllian Five poker, which she glanced over as Ken outlined his rules aloud.
"Now I believe," Shepard said, calmly peering through his cards as the game began, his face pleasant and unreadable, "that Zaeed was telling a story."
Zaeed blinked in surprise, his offense forgotten. "Right. Where was I?"
"Hamburger," Garrus supplied.
"Right, right. So there I was, face torn up like a bloody hamburger. Managed to hold myself together until I got back to base, but then I freaked right the hell out. Couldn't see out my right eye. We had a guy, big black fellow, knew some doctoring. He stitched me up and soaked the wound in kerosene. Hurt like a bitch. Put me up in my tent and I cried like a little girl." Gabby snickered at that until Zaeed glared at her, silencing her in a heartbeat. "Looked like the eye would be alright at first," he continued after a moment, "But then it started to stink, gave me a fever like you wouldn't believe. Infection woulda killed me if one of my mates hadn't managed to lift some of the good drugs from Mwembe's people." Tali shuddered, suddenly feeling very sorry for the poor, younger past version of Zaeed, mercenary or not. 'Infection' was not high on her list of favorite words.
"Gotto tell you," Zaeed said, nodding solemnly at the memory, "by the time the doctor took the eye out I was damn ready to see it go. Went to the markets next afternoon, found me a glass one, and got back to work." He grinned proudly.
"I guess they were all out of the right color," Donnelly observed, making Zaeed frown.
"I was lucky they had one at all, you daft bastard. This wasn't the goddamn corner store on the Citadel. You take what you can get!"
Donnelly held out his hands. "Alright, alright. That was one time. What about the second?"
Zaeed 'harumphed'. "Kept that glass eye for…" the merc stared at the ceiling, thinking, "a good ten, fifteen years. Only lost it when my men held me down and my best mate shot me in the face."
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Zaeed seemed lost in thought for a moment before an angry grimace crossed his face. "Got it replaced again," he continued with a new edge in his voice, "with one of the old Condyles. Gotten so used to aiming with just the one eye, though, that having two that worked threw me off my game. Went to a backdoor surgeon and had it turned off. Amazing what those psychos can do if you got the money."
"So you have a blind cybernetic eye?" Tali asked, forgetting herself. Zaeed grinned at her incredulous tone.
"Still gives me targeting info, Sweetie. Distance, that sort of thing. But yeah, blind." Tali cocked her head, curious. While the cameras and programs in their masks made mechanical eyes redundant, cybernetic augmentation was common among her people – she herself had two dozen or so wires and monitors implanted under her skin that allowed her suit's computers to monitor and respond to her health, along with a trio of needle ports between the plates on her chin and shoulders for intravenous drug injection. Quarian cybernetics were all masterpieces of subtle engineering, however, not generally for replacing pieces blasted off of a person's face. She wondered how the mercenary had survived the gunshot.
"Wow," Gabby said. "That really wasn't a good story."
"I did warn you," Zaeed reminded her.
"I don't know," Donnelly said, scratching his chin. "I'm still feelin' a bit scandalized here. You're an old man. You're supposed to be all wizened, and full of good stories, and here you are tellin' us about blood and guts. What kind of kindly old man are you?" Zaeed stared dangerously at him, but Gabby burst out laughing.
"You should be telling us to get off your lawn!" she teased.
"And complaining about the younger generations! And telling us how you used to be able to get a hotdog and go to the movies for under twenty five dollars!" The two engineers practically doubled over laughing at their own jokes.
Tali just shook her head and watched them taunt the mercenary until Garrus leaned over towards her, a confused look on his plated face. "Is this really how you play poker?"
–
Two hours later found Shepard, Tali, and Garrus alone at the table, Zaeed and the engineers having retired for the night. Shepard smoked one of Zaeed's cigars with a smug expression on his face while Tali counted through her winnings. True to Zaeed's warnings, once she'd grasped the patterns of the game she'd managed to win almost every hand. She'd never played human card games before, but games of mathematical strategy were commonplace on the Flotilla, and it had taken her little time to figure out how to manipulate the system. Of course, it didn't hurt that she had a killer poker face.
Garrus stared enviously at Tali's pile of credits, omnigel cartridges, heatsinks, and other errata they'd been betting. "I still think that a two headed man should be worth less than a number," he complained. "What good is a second head?" The poor turian had just managed to get more and more confused as the night went on.
"It's a human thing, Garrus," Shepard said, leaning back and putting his feet up on Zaeed's empty chair. "You'll get it eventually."
"Not sure I want to, Commander," Garrus admitted, absently inspecting a card in his fingers. "You call it a game, but I don't think Donnelly agreed." By the end of the night, the engineer had been practically sputtering with angry disbelief at Tali's success, and had only been forcibly dragged away by Gabby after he'd gone broke and tried to bet his shirt.
Shepard laughed. "Well, I guess some of us humans like our games more than others." He put his feet down and sat up, resting his elbows on the table. "Speaking of which, you get anything else from the wiring problem you guys've been working on?" Garrus hesitated, his eyes flickering about. Shepard just frowned. "Don't figure the cameras really matter, Garrus. I'm pretty sure I've got two Cerberus spy cameras right in my head." He blinked slowly, the flutter of his eyes' mechanical shutters obvious in the silence.
"Right," Garrus said. "Well, yes. I managed to lift a bit more from the servers. Though I'm starting to suspect I'm being fed."
Tali's eyes brightened behind her mask. "You guys are hacking Cerberus?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter.
"Damn right we are," Shepard said, grinning. "And you're going to help. We might have to work with them, but it's going to be on our terms. We're going to step up the game, start hitting these bastards back. Tali, I want you to get to work on every scrap of data on this ship. I want to know everything."
"I'll get on it," Tali promised, delighted to hear that Shepard wasn't letting down his guard around Cerberus.
"Good. At this point I think the gloves are pretty much off," Shepard said (the idiom's definition flashed on Tali's visor), "so don't bother being subtle about it. Miranda and the Illusive Man know where I stand, and they know where you're going to stand. No reason to dance around it anymore. Be careful though, of course, especially around Miranda. I don't want either of you hurt." Garrus and Tali nodded. "Tomorrow we three are going to go bug-hunting, too. My quarters, down here, anyplace else we think there are too many watching eyes; we're going to clean them out. And if Miranda tries to stop us we'll feed her to the krogan."
Shepard's grin was infectious. Even Garrus' mandibles managed to look cheered by the idea. "You look better, Commander," Garrus observed.
"I feel better," Shepard confirmed. "Got two of my favorite tech-heads back on my side, I can walk across the ship without running out of breath, Miranda's giving me the silent treatment, and for the first time I think we might actually get this mission done. I'm doin' alright."
"We will get it done, Shepard," Garrus promised, rising to his feet. "I'll get that data sent to you." He nodded to Tali as he walked away. "Good to have you aboard again, Tali."
Tali started to rise too, feeling newly energized and eager to finish repairing Joker's thruster problem, until she felt Shepard's hand force her back into her chair. She retook her seat, staring curiously at the commander's scarred face. Shepard was silent for a time, just looking back at her as he searched for his words.
"It is good to have you aboard again, Tali," he said eventually, reaching over to embrace her. Tali hugged him back, wrapping her willowy arms around his neck. Her newly-repaired suit let her feel the unnatural warmth of his skin (much warmer than any quarian's) through her gloves.
"I'm sorry I didn't join you on Freedom's Progress," she said into his shoulder.
"Don't be," he grunted.
"I'm sorry you died."
"Don't be sorry for that either," Shepard said, breaking the hug and sitting. "Be sorry for Pressly. I got to come back." Tali's face fell as she remembered the balding XO of the original Normandy. They had not gotten along at first – the man had been yet another bigot in a galaxy that hated quarians – but bit by bit they'd gotten to know each other. He'd never come out and admitted it – at least not to her – but Tali knew that by the time they'd finally beaten Saren he had come to regret his prejudices. He hadn't deserved to die, not after that.
"I miss him too," Shepard said quietly, guessing her mood. "I miss everybody. Kaidan, Liara, Wrex…" He paused, a haunted grimace on his face, "…Ash. But we have to keep going." He shook his head, looking, for a moment, very small. "I have another job for you."
Tali lifted her helmet to meet his blue slate eyes. "Anything you need," she promised.
"You aren't going to like it," Shepard warned. Tali said nothing, and, squashing his cigar out on the ashtray Zaeed had left behind, Shepard continued. "Remember what Zaeed said about getting work done on his cybernetic eye?" He trailed off, looking expectantly at her.
Tali's eyes widened as she realized what he was asking. "No," she said.
"They aren't real eyes anymore," Shepard protested. "I talked to Chakwas, but she said she wouldn't be able to do anything about them. They're machines. I need someone with some technical know-how to shut off the camera functions without just scooping them both out."
"Shepard…" Tali said, blood rushing through her ears, "I'm… I'm not a surgeon, Shepard. I'm an engineer. A ship engineer. A million things could go wrong, I could… I could slip up, and tear open an artery, or blind you for life, or, or-"
"I know you won't let that happen, Tali," Shepard said. "I'll have Chakwas assist you and you'll do great." He fixed her with his most disarming smile. "I trust you, Tali." Tali chewed her lip and tried to ignore the way her face was heating up. She wondered how a human could look so persuasive to her – quarians barely took stock in facial expression at all anymore, and yet somehow the charm that Shepard was so well known for cut through her as easily as anyone else. It was only with considerable effort that she refused.
"Shepard… I can't."
Shepard's grin faltered, but his eyes didn't move. He looked like he was trying to peer right through her helmet, as if to check if she was smiling or not. She stared, embarrassed, at her fidgeting hands. After a moment Shepard leaned back, defeated. "Alright," he said, doing his best to check his disappointment. "I'll find some other way."
"I'm sorry."
"A third thing not to be sorry for," he said, standing up and brushing the cigar ash from his lap.
–
Codex Entry: Hanar Reproduction
The hanar are a species of sentient cnidarian analogs from the planet Kahje. As in many aspects of their biology, hanar reproduction stands in stark contrast to many other known sentients'.
Hanar have two sexes, roughly analogous to the males and females of many other animals, but the distinction between the two carries very little biological or cultural weight. 'Male' hanar, often the smaller of the two genders, can be distinguished from 'females' by a fringe of feathery appendages normally kept retracted within the fore tentacles, but otherwise the genders are outwardly identical. Indeed, hanar larval stages are hermaphrodites and adults can change genders under certain conditions – some hanar individuals move from male to female and back again several times in their lives. Sex change is believed to be driven mostly by body fat – the fatter parent in any given pair will usually develop to fill the male role, growing the trademarked feathery projections and male mating pigments over the course of a few weeks. Some hanar couples will intentionally coordinate dieting in order to trade the rather more demanding task of malehood in alternating spawns. Because of their flexible genders, hanar place very little social significance on gender –to them, it is a temporary label at most.
Hanar are, in a sense, monogamous. Mating is considered a highly intimate act, only ever undertaken between soul-mates. With few exceptions, hanar pairs stay together their entire lives after a marriage-like bioluminescent courtship ceremony. Unlike many other sentients with marriage customs, however, hanar do not marry exclusively – most hanar fully expect to meet four or five soul-mates in their lives, and maintain multiple close relationships without jealousy or retribution. Oftentimes hanar will live in small groups with each member 'married' to all of the others, and pairing off in different combinations for each spawning.
Though the asari are well-known for their promiscuity, the hanar are arguably the most unabashedly sexual of known sentients. True spawning is rare but recreational sex is extremely common. All the same, sex implies a strong emotional bond that is rarely violated. The hanars' bioluminescent communication gives them an uncommon physical empathy, though this does not apply to alien species. Images of hanar sexually involved with asari or other aliens – common throughout the galaxy – tend to be looked upon with some revulsion by most hanar.
Most hanar spawn five to ten times in their lives. During Kahje's spring, hanar pairs migrate en masse to the large coral reefs ringing many of the planet's islands. In this shallow, sunny water, plankton is plentiful and large predators scarce. Female hanar lay 5000 or so unfertilized eggs, carefully affixing them to rocks, coral, or, in some hanar cultures, finely crafted ceramic homes (some of the larger spawning areas on Kahje are littered with untold millions of accumulated egg houses, many encrusted in valuable coral ivory or volcanic glass). Males fertilize the eggs with clouds of sperm, after which point the female departs (in many regions female hanar form packs that collectively defend the breeding areas from massive wading animals like the cephalopod analog Ongens). The male parent rests atop his clutch, and will remain with them for several weeks without eating, living off of accumulated fat stores. Using their feathered tentacles, males constantly brush the eggs, keeping them clean and well oxygenated, all while fending off egg-eating predators or other hanar pairs looking for ideal spawning spots. While tending the eggs, the male will flash constantly, 'talking' to the embryos within with elaborate bioluminescent flickers. Even at this stage, the translucent embryos are photosensitive and, in fact, their fathers' flashes trigger a maturation of their own chromatophores – biologists believe this leads to the 'fine tuning' of the embryos' bioluminescence, ultimately shaping their wavelength and intensity patterns to match their fathers'.
Hanar eggs hatch after approximately six weeks, at which point the starving father abandons them and retreats into the deep ocean to feed. Newly hatched hanar exist as planktonic larvae less than a centimeter long, which can last on the energy in their yolk sacs for 4-10 days while they search for a hard surface. Upon finding a suitable landing site, the larvae adhere and entering a polyp stage. Hanar polyps – which resemble Earth's sea anemones in many respects – are filter feeders that capture oceanic snow and microscopic organisms in the reefs. During this life stage, polyps grow steadily larger, accumulating fat and protein stores deep within their stalks. These stalks ultimately form the raw material for the final hanar metamorphosis, the free-swimming nymph stage, which begins after the hanar have grown to about a kilogram in weight. Nymphs closely resemble adult hanar, albeit with short, stocky tentacles and undeveloped bell ridges. This stage represents the first appearance of complicated nervous activity in hanar. Nymphs remain in the reefs for a few weeks, preying on small animals and one another, before ultimately outgrowing their nurseries and making for open water.
Like many aquatic animals on Earth, hanar are R-strategists and endure extremely high infant mortality. Out of a given clutch of several thousand eggs, typically fewer than two or three – and oftentimes none at all – will survive to the nymph stage. As a culture, hanar view these losses as regrettable but expected – hanar are not considered truly 'alive' until they leave the reefs, which are seen as a somewhat supernatural pre-life realm. The thousands of young hanar claimed by predators or starvation are, to hanar beliefs, never truly alive and thus never truly dead – their losses are honored but not mourned. With luck, however, some of the nymphs will find their way into the open ocean to rejoin the adult hanar cities.
Genetic analysis proves that young hanar show a remarkable capacity for seeking out their biological parents, perhaps using their unique bioluminescent 'fingerprints', but many will ultimately approach and be accepted by other adults of no relation. Regardless, hanar view parents in enormously high regard. Rather similar to their cultural respect for the protheans whom they believe granted them sentience, hanar are expected to honor and obey the parents who gave them life. However, because matching of hanar to their biological parents is spotty at best, hanar place no stock in true lineage. Paternity and maternity are a non-issue – for the hanar, parents are the ones who raise and teach you.
–
A/N: Whew, been a while. Sorry for the slow update. I've had an awful busy few weeks, and chapter 11 is a nightmare. I note that my chapters are getting pretty long these days. Not sure why that is, but I am going to make a concerted effort to shorten them in the future.
In the interest of full disclosure, I may have ripped off the hanar porn thing from eyyowlf. *shifty eyes* Sorry eyyo, I just had to.
And why come FFN has deleted all the little dashes I use to delineate scenes? What gives?
Anyway, stay tuned! Chapter 11's going to be quite a priiize.