Alcubierre
Chapter 11: To be exalted
The meeting room was... Well, pretty alien all things considered. Strange blue holographic feeds rapidly writing out strange untranslated alien scripts. Images of distant worlds and some strange metal tube, a circle with five almost foxglove like petals coming off it. There were several Asari and Salarian assistants standing and trying to fade into the background of the room. The table the eight of them were sat around was a giant slab of obsidian. It had been polished and sanded to a perfect slab, but feeling the edges Shepard could tell it was still sharp volcanic glass.
Built into it were small electronic doodads that Shepard didn't really understand what they did. In the centre was a holographic display of what Shepard assumed was a map of the galaxy. Unlike the rest of the Skyscraper and indeed the planet, the room felt a comfortable gravity, 1.12Gs by her implants working.
Then there were those actually sat at the table. Admiral Lossarion at the head of their end of the table, his back straight, one of his elbows resting on the table, another by his left side. To his right was the strange MI6 agent Parker, who's deeply glowing gold eyes and barely visible bioelectrics running under his skin spoke volumes about the amount of augmentations he was carrying.
On Lossarion's left was Admiral DuFran, both his hands placed in his lap, desperately struggling not to fidget with them.
I leant back into the chair slightly before placing both elbows on the table and arcing my fingers in front of my face.
The Asari at the head of the table opposite us had a similar pose to DuFran, but with obviously a lot less less nerves playing on her features.
The Turian had simply crossed both of it's hands in front of him on the table. It's face was utterly unreadable to her.
The Salarian seemed miles away, using some strange holographic display thing on it's left forearm. The orange glow contrasting against the blue of the lights.
The Salarian looked to one of the the Salarian assistants, who simply nodded slightly in response, which it soon returned.
"Well. Welcome Humans." Said the Asari.
The mechanical whirr behind her voice suggested some auto-translation hijinks going on.
"Thank you for meeting us." Said Lossarion simply and clearly, with barely any inflection in his voice.
"Indeed. It has been a quite a few years since our last first contact with a sapient species. And even longer since we've meet one so advanced." Said the Turian. A male voice seemed to be coming through, though who knows if that had actually meant anything.
"I wish we could say the same." Mumbled DuFran, which got a rather piercing glare from both Lossarion and Parker.
"Við munum nefna að á seinna degi þú fífl hálfviti." Growled Lossarion, before smiling back at the Councilors.
Still, obivously reading the hostility to his comment, the Councilors ignored that for now. It made sense. As honestly quite innocent in the Keplerian war as humanity was, the end results might give the impression that humanity were genocidal madmen obssesed with vengeance. Somethign you didn't usually want the people with a massive fuckoff 2km dreadnought to think.
"Apologies. Yes. I'm sure, since you have seen our relative power that we can come to a mutually acceptable colonisation agreement." Said Lossarion. He already knew what Humanity wanted, which was the entire Orion arm. From what they had gotten from the Elcor crew Orion itself wasn't very colonised.
"Before that Admiral, we do have a few questions." Said the Asari.
"Indeed. Firstly, according to Carlyn your species can live for... An indeterminate amount of time?" Asked the Turian, his cheek plates twitching as he spoke through it's sharp teeth. "Could you explain."
"Right. Unmodified our species lives for roughly 130 Sol years."
The Salarian began to open his Omni-tool and run off a few calculations concerning orbital cycles before turning to the Asari.
"144 Thessia years." It said.
The Asari nodded.
"And... Modified?" She asked cautiously.
"About 40 years ago we discovered the means to slow down human ageing to one tenth of our average. Most everyone has these nanites and no one has yet to have lived an entire lifetime with these nanites. A few of those already approaching death have died of age related illnesses, but that's it." Said Lossarion.
The Salarian seemed to focusing far more on the humans now whilst the Asari had a brief nervous glance around the room.
"So..."
"Well, remove the first twenty years, and a human on average, assuming our medical tech never improves, will live for about 1120 years." Said Lossarion.
"And... How many human beings are there right now?" Asked the Turian.
"By last census, which usually misses out small independent colonies or stuff like the borderless fleet, we're looking at roughly 163 billion human beings in the Orion arm." Said Lossarion.
"I see..." The Asari said.
"It says here that you are part of the military arm of the... Sol Protectorate and the Alliance of Free Stars. Why the two governments?" Asked the Salarian.
"Well, we didn't want to crowd this room with the Cult of Kek, New Canaan State, Southern expanse Confedency, Borderless fleet, Sans Frontieres, Keplerian representative, Yellowstone reinvigoration project, People's republic of the free and democratic state of New North Korea, Rubicon, Man's Grasp, Oort asc..."
"I'm sorry. Just how many governments do Humans have?" Asked the Turian.
"Not including individual nation states planet and station side? About 60 or so solar governments." Said Lossarion.
"Well. That could've gone worse." Said Shepard when they were back in the shuttle, heading beyond Dekunna's atmosphere and back towards Gabriel.
"How on Earth could any species have a one species government? It's insane. I mean, they are separated by literal billions of kilometres." Said Lossarion.
"I guess early and easy access to FTL communications helped?" Asked DuFran.
"Even back during the early Sol days there was no doubt that Mars would rule Mars, Luna would rule Luna and the Main belt was going to be a political mess. Hell, that's still the case, just under the umbrella of the Sol Protectorate." Said Lossarion.
"We didn't make much progress though..." Said Shepard.
Lossarion smiled weakly.
"We never were. We need to go to the Citadel and play our part in the diplomatic games. Make the right appearances. Wide eyed looks of wonder and falling before ourselves to be a part of their council." Said Lossarion.
"And really?" Asked Shepard.
Instead, Lossarion turned to agent Parker.
"Grafa undan þeim. Gerðu bandalög í skugganum. Og fáðu okkur Orion." The agent said simply.
"Makes sense." Said Shepard dimly.
She hated this. The fear and paranoia. It was... all so pointless. She looked out the window as the escaped the atmosphere of Delkunna. As they left and entered the field of stars towards the metal gargantuan monolith of the "EENS Gabriel.".
And even now, it was still dwarfed by that dying structure at Cygnius. It was nothing compared to a Reaper. Nothing could truly compare. Oh sure, humanity had built massive structures like most Negative Mass collidors or stations like Kruger. But they didn't echo in her mind, didn't devour the light around them, didn't scream and project like that dying Reaper.
She blocked such thoughts from her mind. A crashed ship could no more die then a building could. And that "Reaper" was dead. Hargreave had been driven mad by the humming inside his head and nothing more. He died because of his undiagnosed schizophrenia and nothing more. If anyone was going to have mental problems it was going to be the guy that simultaneously furiously denied and regrettably accepted that he was the cause of over ten million deaths. And who knows how many more in his part in the Keplerian war. It was enough to drive anyone mad really. Shepard did not have such doubts and guilts playing upon her mind.
She saw the Reaper for what it was. A ship. A broken one.
Once back aboard the Gabriel, it was another short shuttle ride across to her own ship. She sat in the Captain's chair, the crew essentially on auto-pilot ready to jump and align with the Mass relay. The entire course to this mystical "Citadel" had already been plotted in, so it was just watch the screens and wait. Seeing as the fleet now numbered 40 human ships and 45 Alien ones including five Capital ships between them Shepard really doubted they'd see any action.
But still she was nervous.
It took only two days of relay travel until the fleets aligned at the final Mass Relay. Shepard was ready for some Kruger esque station, some small centrifugal station or a group of them.
When she exited into the Viper system she was not prepared.
It... It was enormous. Maybe 40km or so long. The wild mass of ships ranging from shuttles to another dreadnought sized.
Five long arms off on circular main body. The outside of the structure was oddly similar to... too something she didn't want to think about. But the insides had thousands of points off lights, some moving, others stationary. It looked as if it houses millions.
She stared at the screen. Did the Asari build this things? Or the Turians and Salarians? This was a feat of engineering so advanced she could barely put her head around it.
No. She could guess who built it. The same thing that the Keplerians worshipped as gods.
She was pulled away from the vid screen my a message notification. She accepted.
"All right. All diplomats and Captains, in shuttles, follow the shuttle designated "Kestral", that's gonna take us to the Citadel tower. Maintain non aggressive patrol routing, stay out of the way of civilian traffic and from this point on follow all directions give by Citadel traffic control. Any Capital class ships are to stay at least 60km from the station, anything else follow what CTC tell you. Lossarion out."
Shepard walked out the Captain's chair as her XO stepped in behind her. She walked past guard and soldier towards the rear of the ship, towards the Shuttles. The "Paint it Black" could carry roughly seven shuttles, but they would only be launching one, carrying herself, one diplomat and a veritable army of make up artists and hangers on to make sure they looked their best and said the correct things to say. Which in all likelihood was naught at all.
As she climbed into the the shuttle, already hovering off the floor on it's bottom EM Drive pad, she ran a hand through her short red hair.
She sat down last in the shuttle, closing the door behind her. She barely felt the movement and inertia as the shuttle reversed out of her ship. Just as she was beginning to relax a young feminine looking man immediately crouched in front of her and began to grip her face, moving her face side to side before reaching into his pocket and drawing a make up kit.
It's this kind of shit I joined the Navy to escape from
Shepard rolled her eyes but allowed him to continue.
She looked out a slit of a window and watched the nebula outside.
Why would you not build this in orbit of a garden world or something? Somewhere you could grow food? Somewhere to have an ever larger population?
Why is this here?
It was going to be a while until they docked, and so, Shepard daydreamed.
She dreamt she was standing in a stone city, sitting atop a outcrop, above a sheer cliff above a massive lake as still as steel. The streets were bathed in a sickly yellow natural light, like sunlight in autumn or winter. The buildings were too large for her to see above them, to see the sun. The dark shadows seemed impossibly long, and flecks of darker points hide inside them.
She looked up. Somehow the sunset sky too was spotted with points of shadow and black, that seemed to eat the light around them. From what little she could see past the tower ancient stone they was as numerous as stars in a night's sky.
Was that what they were? Dark Stars?
She climbed a stone tower, each hand hold followed the previous, climbing impossibly fast. At long last she was atop a stone keep, and looked towards the sun.
It was utterly black, surrounded by a halo of deep crimson. It swirled, interspersed with dark crimson and light eating black. The sky darkened, but still those terrible dark stars stood out against the night.
She stared and stared into that dark, watching slowly as black turned to crimson.
The sun grew brighter. More and more focused. Until a great beam of crimson light tore apart the lake before her and headed towards her.
She shook herself awake.
She... Was in the docks of the Citadel? Already off the shuttle, watching as the diplomats waved to the alien crowds.
She shook her head.
She looked around. Turians, Asari, Elcor and Salarians. Strange four eyed humanoids, freaky massive floating jellyfish, short fat things in strange suits and one or two large muscular turtle like bipeds. She waved to the crowd, but her facial expression didn't truly change from her blank mask.
How have I lost fifteen minutes of time to a single daydream?
Shepard was one of two hundred humans that were selected as the official delegation. The crowd cheered, seemingly glad it was a peaceful first contact, or that there was another species they could exploit.
Eventually, they reached a pavilion in a large courtyard, several elevators around it. The entire room was smooth white metal, with blue lights shining. Here it seemed only Turians, Asari and Salarians had gathered. A show of power, and just who was boss if Shepard had to guess.
Shepard fell in with the rest of the Captains and lesser Diplomats as Admiral Lossarion and the Chief Diplomat, one "Stephen Dillane", a hard, unyielding man known for his blunt manner. His great tall stature and greying thinning hair marked him as someone born before the 2090's, and he had about three decades of experience. Annoyingly he worked for the Sol Protectorate, but if the Kruger Assembly trusted him to work for mutual human interest for now then Shepard didn't mind.
He walked in front of a stand and began to speak, though Shepard could not see a microphone his voice boomed throughout the massive courtyard.
"I speak as the temporary representative of the Human race. We are glad to have been so warmly welcomed by the Citadel Council and to be received in such on the Citadel. Humanity has only be space faring for the last century, but in that time we have always looked towards the stars with both hope and trepidation. Our Trepidation has been confirmed once, twice. But now, at last, our hope has been answered again and again. Turian, Asari, Salarian. Krogan and Batarian, Elcor and Volus. Hanar and Quarian." Said Dillane. "Though we will be cautious, we are glad to have a positive answer to one of our oldest questions. Are we alone?"
Shepard was confused. So far they had been almost ultra cautious in not mentioning the Reapers or Keplerian war. And now Dillane was flagrently mentioning their botched and ruinous first first contact?
Something had changed.
"Humanity has a long way to go, but we will be eager to make long lasting friendships with you all." Said Dillane, though his severe voice did not spare much warmth. "Thank you."
There was much applause from both the alien crowd and us humans behind Dillane. After a few moments we began to split apart and head for one extremely large elevator, heading for what was called the Citadel Tower, and the council chambers within.
Until Admiral Lossarion placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Not you Shepard. You, me and Agent Parker have a meeting with someone else. We need your... Particular military history. We've got a meeting with the Citadel fleet commander." Said Lossarion. "It's about... The Reapers."
Shepard gulped.
"We received your report." Said A turian, sitting down at the table whilst reading something on his strange orange holo-wrist. He was about 7ft, his face tattoo in blue and yellow. His name was apparently Tytos Nyvosa.
Lossarion nodded, leafing through several paper reports in english.
"And I yours." Said Lossarion.
"So... Your kind have found no evidence of the Protheans?" Asked Tytos.
"Not one scrap. Bar the mass relays we've have found nothing that would support your claim of a precouser race existing fifty thousand years ago." Said Lossarion.
"And your kind insists that these so called "Reapers" more than likely built the mass relays?" Asked Tytos.
"Our scientist took small samples of a inactive Mass relay we discovered. Whilst not identical the building material and composition was highly similar to the remaining pieces of Reaper we have left." Said Agent Parker.
"We have tonnes of evidence of Protheans. Even ignoring the Mass Relays we have the Citadel. The ruins of Feros. Beacons across hundreds of planets. Ruins of ancient cities and military bases." Said Tytos.
"We aren't denying that these Protheans may have once existed, but that we know what caused them to disappear." Said Lossarion.
"Ah yes. And what proof is there for the Reapers? A mad civilisation that worshipped some building your kind just so happened to glass and some small fragments of that same place?" Said Tytos.
"It was no building." Shepard butted in. "It had a massive element zero core, it fired upon and nearly destroyed an entire fleet!"
Lossarion placed his hand on the table, working his holopalm with the other.
"And, there is testimony from some... Indoctrinated." Said Lossarion.
He held his left palm up in front of him and a 3d image was projected.
A single man, who Shepard recognised as EEIS agent Harper, was inside what looked like a cell with a man bound to a chair. Whilst Harper was calm and looked composed, the man in the chair had looked like bits of his face had been torn off. He had a mad glint in his eye and seemed to be starring down into nothing.
Harper began to speak.
"Agent Harper. EEIS. The date is the October 8th 2131 standard sol calender, the time is 27:38 local time. With me is implanted Ensign Carlos Jones. Implanted one month before Operation return to sender."
Harper turned to the man bound in the chair and crouched down to look at him.
"Ensign?" Asked Harper.
"We see Dark stars born anew again and again."
"Subject is severely mentally impaired. He was found aboard the TCNS frigate "Sympathy for a devil (II)." Said Harper. "Subject was one of the last few alive onboard, having partaken in cannibalism in order to stay alive for the last month. Scars are from tearing at his own face, perhaps to remove the implant." Said Harper in that strange, oddly calm voice.
"It will eat the stars, and consume us. We will become machine. We will become god." Said Carlos.
"What is Azmorethran?" Asked Harper.
"Azmorethran? A inhabitant... no... the inhabitant of Carcosa. It is the harvester of all light. It will reap what it sows." Said Carlos.
"Subject is suffering from visual and auditory hallucinations, speaking of seeing "Shadows" and seems to be sharing memories of the other implanted." Said Harper.
"I owe her a drink on Tau. I do I do. She will drink and be made anew." Said Carlos. He finally looks up and turns to Harper. "I saw his soul at the edge of his eyes. He who survives will become the Yellow king."
"Similar rants and portents have been said by all surviving implantees." Said Harper. "What is a reaper?"
"A Reaper? One of many." Said Carlos. "They will harvest all life that dares to dream."
"How many?" Asked Harper.
"As many stars in the sky. Oh they are built from the graves of our dead, again and again. Time is a flat circle." Said Carlos.
Carlos turns to the camera.
"It will harvest all. It is the dark stars. I dream of Carcosa. Dream with me."
"Typically once a subject speaks of dreaming of Carcosa they are unable to respond to any further questioning. We will try again in an hour." Said Harper.
The vid shut off.
Shepard tried to relax. She heard that the implanted were insane, but even Hargreave hadn't been that... Lost.
Tytos twitched his mandibles for a few seconds, before speaking.
"Strange as that was, all that shows me is your species is just as prone to mental illness as the rest of us."
"Before being... Implanted with Reaper tech said subject had a clean bill of both physical and mental health. Even after he died, we performed an autopsy and found no obvious signs of brain damage. No scarring. Whatever broke him was beyond our medical technology to detect." Said Lossarion.
"All right. Lets move on from this so called "Indoctrination.". Your reports says you believe that there are potentially thousands or millions of these "Reapers.". 2Km tall dreadnoughts with weapons, shields and soldiers far in advance of ours." Said Tytos.
"Yes. We fought Thralls on Kepler's defeat and Santiago. And a heavily damaged grounded reaper was powerful enough to tear apart an entire fleet."
"How did you destroy it?"
Lossarion and Parker turned to Shepard.
"We planted several nuclear devices inside of it. Even that didn't destroy it entirely. It took almost two hours of orbital bombardment to stop the thing from firing, which utterly glassed the surrounding area." Said Shepard bluntly.
"I see." Said Tytos, his mandibles flicking. "What is currently the plan for humans to fight them should the Reapers arrive within the next century?"
"Delay." Said Lossarion simply.
"Delay?" Asked Tytos.
"As it stands, even with what tech we believe we can trade with the Citadel, what we can develop in 100 years and estimated human population size there is still almost no chance for us to defeat the Reapers. Our current plan is simply to prepare several back up solutions to restart humanity after our extinction. Plans which most are not privy to in order for them to remain a secret from both us and the Reapers." said Lossarion.
"You've... Given up?" asked Tytos.
"Yes." said Lossarion.
Shepard sighed.
"Surely you can fight? You've destroyed one Reaper..." Said Tytos.
"We glassed a continent which happened to have a almost dead Reaper on it at the expense of a fleet. We lost several billions of human lives fighting against a species less advanced then yours coordinated by said Reaper. We aren't going to win." Said Lossarion.
Tytos once again stayed silent for a few seconds.
"We aren't expecting you to respond immediately. We'll make our formal report to the citadel council itself later. But for now, we hope this explains some of our actions in the coming months." Said Lossarion.
Tytos simply nodded, starring into space.
Lossarion reopened his holo-palm.
He quickly read it.
"All right. We have our orders." Said Lossarion. He switched to Icelandic.
"Shepard, þú ert að taka "mála það svart" og fara til Khar'shan. Þú verður að semja við Batarians."
Shepard thought about her orders for a few seconds. Great. She had no idea what a batarian was.
Oh well. They can't be that bad.
Alcubierre: Neo-Tokyo
Chapter 2: To be nothing
Shepard's book signing was actually rather quiet. Only about 100 hundred people lining up. Hargreave had easily paid for his copy and was actually leafing through it whilst waiting in line. He actually thought it was nice that somehow physical book stores had survived the 21st and most of the 22nd century.
It was... Well, a bunch of outright lies. He was 100% sure what she wrote about the Keplerian war was complete horse shit and pretty sure the first contact of the citadel was no different, he just had less proof for that.
Still, it was pretty entertaining drivel. It turned their pretty anticlimactic journey to Yellowstone into a desperate hunt for survival amidst the ruins of man's hubris. It turned the capture of the Keplerian frigate into a desperate battle and out right cut out the shit about me and some of the crew being implanted voluntarily or not. Or that the Aliens had just given us the ship.
And well, it sort of exaggerated both of their kill counts during the battle of Sol. And ignored the really fucking shady shit they did between Santiago and Sol.
But that was just Hargreave's brief glance through.
He looked in front of him. There were only a dozen or so people left before he would meet with her.
Would she immediately recognise him? Would she have no idea? Hargreave had no idea which was worse for him.
Well, if Shepard recognised him it'd probably end up with the two of them "Committing suicide" with six bullets to the back of the head CIA style. He was officially a pretty big state secret after all.
She was looming ever closer, and fear and doubt continued to plague him.
Until finally, he was all that remained.
"Name?" She asked as Hargreave took in every detail.
She, unlike him, still looked at worse early to mid thirties, her red hair still short as it had been fifty years ago. She was wearing only a smidgen of make-up, not wanting to hide her freckles. She wore a peach jacket and dark dress which looked rather professional. Her deep green eyes finally looking up from her table towards him.
She seemed to, for a moment, concentrate on his face. Searching it for something he wasn't sure she would be able to find in him. But not looking into his cerulean eyes, the one part of his face that was definitely Hargreave.
Hargreave sighed quietly. He wasn't strong enough.
"Hargreave." He wished to say. But instead
"Jonathan Prestoria" Fell from his lips.
"Want any particular messages?" She asked.
He realised. He could make her say anything. Make her say he was strong enough to be Hargreave. Forgive him for dying. Say that what they had done in the war had been the greater good. Forgive him for Cittagaze.
"I fought with Hargreave." He said instead.
Her eyes widened.
"Wait..."
"Not aboard the Midnight city. But in Santiago. On the ground." Jonathan said, remembering those days of resistance. "He... He mentioned you once. Said that he wished you were there with him, helping him fight them off again."
"Truly?" She said. Still she did not look into his eyes.
"I... I know how he died. Truly." Said Jon. And that was at least somewhat true. One day Hargreave would know how he would die. No doubt he might know and plan it long before it happened.
"He..."
He what? He would've joined you in drinking in Tau Ceti. Would've settled down with you and...
Hargreave was barren. As sterile as the hospital room he had been in for the last fifty years. He had no past, no future. Nothing to pass on, nothing to carry.
"He remembered you." Said Hargreave.
He walked away. Tears began to well in his eyes, but he left the book and the woman behind. His past was behind him. He couldn't do anything to change that. He could not return there. Too much time had passed. And whilst he had desperately wanted otherwise, the world had moved on. Hargreave had died that day, aboard the Midnight City.
He barely heard her call out his name, before she simply tried to return to the queue.
Staring at the turned off vid screen, Hargreave absent mindedly twirled his gun around his finger. It wasn't his custom m1911, which was probably in a locker in EEIS HQ or sold or something, nor his Genuine Single Army action left in dropbox Hargreave could no longer access, but one of these cheap new fangled Element Zero pistols.
This one, it turn out, had a pretty interesting defect. Slap and smack it in the correct place a few times and it would typically fire only one in four times you pull the trigger.
Time to test that.
Hargreave placed the barrel into his mouth, well aware of the proper technique for instant suicide, and pull the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Taking the gun out of his mouth, he stared off into space.
75% chance was still pretty good. Perhaps tomorrow.
Closure. That was what Shepard was supposed to bring him. But rather...
He saw her eyes. Dead eyes. He knew. She knew.
He stared into space, as images flashed past his mind.
When he was walking back home, he saw a man on the street, preaching in a raised voice.
"They await in the shadows, and with them comes the night."
"They are the Rebirth, the reason we live and the reason we fly"
"Shadows lengthen, waters rise."
"He lives as we die."
"In Carcosa."
He saw a lake as still as steel.
And a modern city built into a crater, the water held off by great walls of black.
"Songs only the understanding sing."
"We pray to the broken king."
"And await for the Galaxy's heart."
"And change us all at last."
"In Lost Carcosa."
He saw a knife of black organic metal.
Plunge into his heart
"Soon the heart beats."
"We watch for the light from dark stars."
"And as we listen for whispered thoughts."
"As they take what we dared thought was ours."
"In Dim Carcosa."
He saw a misshapen thing, rejected by a heart.
"Azmorethran. Azmorethran. We wait for the touched one. The last one."
"And soon with lies."
"The heart will bring."
"Not a man... but the Yellow King."
"To Lost Carcosa."
He saw... a reaper.
Hargreave scratched at his temple. A soft whisper repeated the mad rant.
And we must...
Hargreave threw the gun away and walked around his apartment.
Why did he stay here and do nothing. Why?
He grabbed his emergency travel bag, his credit chit, ID and stormed out of the building, not even bothering to lock the door.
There was nothing for him here. He could not stay in Epsilon Eridani. Where he would go he didn't know, but anywhere was better then staying here, waiting for death.
He walked out, out the Arcology and out through the crowded streets of Freedom's Reach towards the spaceport.
Somewhere... He would go somewhere.
Codex:
Relgion in the late 22nd century-2170
Whilst Earth based Mainstream religions continue to stay strong, especially in Sol itself, certain religions with particular holy sites of pilgrimage (See Islam, Hindu, Judaism) have not seen massive adoption in Extrasolar colonies.
Cults like KEK and Scientology are surprisingly popular in independent or smaller colonies, though KEK's own "Tongue in teeth" nature mostly only attracts Hipsters or people just using it to shitpost.
Mormonism continues to grow in the Later Day empire of the stars, the five star empire.
So called "Reaper cults" are popular on Kepler's defeat, Cygnius and Carcosa. There has been no connection between the mental degradation effects concerning certain Keplerian implants and the origins of these cults so far, and few are successors to the state religion of the Keplerian Empire.
Human religions to not have large alien followings, which can be attributed to human's isolationist policies.
YVWH level classification-Human preparedness for known extragalactic threat known as "REAPERS"
Combined Human naval and armed forces have a 0.9% chance of survival against believed Reaper threat.
Combined Human and Citadel naval armed forces have a 2.1% chance of survival against believed Reaper threat.
All sapient species in the galaxy, including Yahg, terminus, possible Rachni holdouts, Krogan, Geth and quarian naval and armed forces have a 3.5% chance of survival of believed Reaper threat.
Chance of continued stability of galactic society is 0.2% chance no matter which scenario.
Chance of human extinction post reaper war is 93.4%
Official EXALT policy- PROJECT DARK STARS
Authors notes: I always think most of these HFY fics seriously underplay the Reapers. And they either are piss easy compared to oh so special humans or it takes some reallllll stretching to actually make them a threat. So, I'm playing more on the psychological indoctrination angle. We know already Hargreave was/may still be indoctrinated, who knows how many humans are?
Especially since, as this chapter proves, Humanity has essentially given up in the face of this enemy.
BTW: Shepard and her Adventures in dealing with the Batarian Hegemony or Hargreave and his roadtrip through human space?
Choose which one first, I don't mind.
Expect Carcosa to be some real shit for Hargreave.
Lost Carcosa
Dim Carcosa
Lost Carcosa