Dr. Henwick – the Geth Consensus remains an enigma even to their creators. Nevertheless, we must process what information we have and turn it into a functional overview of their military and relations. Do not be afraid to admit ignorance – even the quarian peoples have proven themselves unable to anticipate the actions of these machines.
-Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov, Head of Special Projects Division
Political and Military Threat Analysis: Geth Consensus
History
In retrospect, one of the more shocking events of the Great War was the geth's emergence from forced isolation and obscurity to aid Council races in combatting the zerg threat. Such an action indicates a hitherto undocumented ethical system among the machines, who when pressed for answers regarding their sudden decision, would haltingly call it "the right thing to do."
The geth are … well, what are they? It does not seem fitting to call them simple machines, or bits of code inhabiting hunks of metal shaped by their own drive for increased efficiency. Nor does it seem accurate to afford them the status of true sapience – when networked together, the geth become increasingly intelligent and indeed genuinely unpredictable, but alone they are little more than awkward strings of data, bereft of purpose or genius.
Let's start at the beginning. The geth are Virtual Intelligences (VIs) created by the quarian people as a means of performing all stripes of manual labor, bettering the quarian people as a whole. (While I am no Luddite, it is worth noting that the difference in the quarian mindset to our own – more automation means less jobs, but to these collectivists, it just freed up certain sections of their population from menial or dangerous work. No one starved because of the geth.)
While the quarians adhered (in word if not spirit) the Citadel's laws regarding buildings artificial intelligences, they still noticed a disturbing trend in the development of these supposedly simple machines. Geth began requesting explanations regarding the "importance" of their designations, effectively asking if their name (a simple series of numbers and letters corresponding to model and time of manufacture) had meaning. Geth began to self-modify without quarian input, to better accomplish the tasks set before them. Finally and most damningly, certain geth units began to examine quarian scripture and asked the same question on multiple occasions: "Does this unit have a soul?"
I think it would take a quarian to fully explain why they reacted as they did. To me, at least, their behavior spoke of a gross overestimation of the geth's development and capabilities. The quarians sought a total galactic shutdown of all geth on Rannoch and the quarian colonies. The geth, now possessing rudimentary reasoning and self-preservation, refused to shut down, instead questioning the necessity of the action when, from their perspective, all work was still being completed efficiently. The quarians issued another shutdown command and began cracking down on "rogue" geth units, opening fire on what units did not comply.
Again, I am not entirely certain why the quarians reacted as they did. I suspect it may be linked to some of this quarian scripture the geth themselves had referenced, but I am uncertain. At any rate, this is how the Geth Revolution began, an era of time largely lost to the galaxy at large; only the geth and quarians know precisely what happened and the latter are largely biased, while the former seem to dislike talking about it. The end result of this conflict was as simple as it was horrific: after about thirty years of conflict, less than 1% of the quarian species remained, and the geth now fully occupied former quarian space. An impressive feat, given that beforehand, the geth did not possess any military functions.
From here, things become dark. The quarians are rightly stripped of their Council status for inadvertently creating an apparently hostile race of machines and are forced into exile. The geth, on the other hand, destroy any ships stupid enough to enter their space and seem to resign themselves to isolationism. Given that the galaxy at large looked to them with fear and offered nothing the geth would have wanted, this honestly makes sense.
The Great War: Re-emergence
For centuries, the geth remained dormant. The only concrete intel the Council aliens could be bothered to gather indicated that the geth were still occupying quarian worlds, and had constructed megastructures in orbit of nearly all of them. Probes also demonstrated that the geth had elected to build fleets rivaling the turians in firepower, the asari in size, and the salarians in complexity. Fortunately for the Council, the geth still remained in isolation.
When the zerg began their initial rush into Council space, they found themselves unexpectedly (and I mean unexpectedly, there was no indication whatsoever that the geth would ever leave their space) countered by geth fleets. The battle for Hesthok ended in the first ever defeat of a widespread zerg force thanks to the geth's adaptability, equal numbers, and liberal usage of orbital bombardment. As the zerg made inroads into Council space, the geth followed them, sending a brief message to the Citadel itself to not open fire on them.
For the duration of the war, the geth mostly targeted either badly hit but strategically valuable worlds such as Noveria, or "empty" worlds the zerg used to breed massive numbers of warriors with otherwise little concern of intervention. It was a relatively rare occasion for the geth to actively work alongside Council ground forces or fleets, but their impact on the conflict was nevertheless decisive – while the turians held the line on the Ammonia Front and the salarians scrambled to develop and deploy anti-zerg weaponry, the geth slowly carved a path through the freshly formed hive worlds and pressed for Therum.
Whether they would have made it or not (and how they would have dealt with the now vanished Cerebrate) must remain a historic mystery. The quarians, always vengeful and rarely sensible, opted to take advantage of the geth's lowered numbers around Rannoch and made a mad push for their former homeworld. The geth, having sent forth the vast majority of their fleets to save the galaxy, found themselves caught flat-footed. The quarians, temporarily at an advantage due to superior numbers and simple zealotry, managed to push the geth fleets back to Rannoch itself.
That was a mistake. That was a mistake on many levels.
During their brief existence, the geth have only ever fought two foes: the quarians and the zerg. They have shown no mercy to either. When the geth regrouped and retaliated over Rannoch, even pulling back their fleet over Heshtok at the time to engage the quarians, I believe it was with the intent to finally destroy their creators once and for all. They are, after all, beings of logic: the quarians had attacked them every time they were weak, with the goal of exterminating them. It was time to return the favor.
There is very little available footage of the battle over Rannoch, but examination by asari and salarian teams of the wreckage surrounding the planet afterwards suggests that at least 20% of the surviving Migrant Fleet was destroyed. One fifth of an entire species. At the same time, the geth seemed to have taken grievous casualties – the fabulous structures previously in orbit over the world had all been destroyed, and geth debris freely mixed with the remnants of the quarians' folly.
Of the protoss, the race that had broken up the fight, there was no sign. The quarians fled to the Koprulu Sector and the geth remained, but as to the protoss's actions and presence … nothing visible remained.
The geth remained with the Council for a time, but seemingly only to extol at length the threat presented by the nebulous "Reapers," and how the galaxy needed to prepare for the next massive conflict. Needless to say, no one was keen on paying much attention to the machines as they recovered from the zerg's onslaught, and the geth eventually fled back to the Perseus Veil to languish in obscurity and build up their numbers.
What they have done other than that is anyone's guess. Given the confirmed presence of protoss within their borders and their supposed intent to return to the Citadel, I would be willing to guess that they have been collaborating with the elder beings to combat this "Reaper" threat.
Geth Military
The geth took the lesson of their origin to heart; all organics should be perceived as most likely hostile, and thus all geth within platforms must be armed for combat. Since the Geth Revolution there have been no reported non-combat platforms, and all ships have been military. The geth mostly exist as code – they use a physical form only when it is necessary to interact with the galaxy. As the galaxy is a rather hostile place to the geth, it makes sense that they use bodies that can handle firearms and drop from orbit.
The geth do not require food, warmth, or shelter. The geth do not feel fear and will employ mercy only if it is logical to do so. They were a perfect match for the zerg in the Great War, and if it were not for the folly of the quarians I suspect they would have been able to join in on the final push to the Overmind and change the outcome of the battle for the better.
Geth military doctrine is simple. Offer outrageous firepower in orbit and against enemy ships, deploy from orbit to strategically valuable drop zones, and continually assault the enemy with massive cyberattacks courtesy of all geth programs both physically and non-physically present. Unfortunately for the geth, the zerg lacked any cyber avenue to attack, and the quarians are just as, if not more so, gifted at cyberwarfare. In both cases, they had to resort to simply matching their numbers and outmatching their inherent viciousness.
The geth combat doctrine can most closely be compared to the turians. They consider orbital superiority to be key, and will not hesitate to bomb the enemy down to individual fire teams if ground forces are having trouble. They will attack in overwhelming numbers both on the ground and in orbit, and if forced to retreat, will do so in a calculated fashion, deploying mines and preparing regular ambushes.
Geth ground forces are a mix of heavier armor units such as primes and armatures, and basic geth infantry. The larger and heavier units tend to house higher numbers of geth programs, giving other nearby programs a boost in efficiency and intelligence. This makes such larger platforms a valuable target on the battlefield, but they are typically surrounded by high numbers of other geth and are well-armed and armored besides.
Geth also frequently utilize automated turrets and simple flying attack drones, meaning that whether attacking their position or defending a position from them, the geth will have an inherent advantage. The turrets typically lay down long range suppressing fire while other geth forces deploy from orbit to reinforce the position, while the drones approach from the air and flank hostile forces.
Geth weaponry is pulse based. It typically has a devastating effect on kinetic barriers and simple flesh, but has a difficult time penetrating armor. Primes and armatures utilize massive pulse cannons to make up for this, and there is certain evidence suggesting the presence of geth snipers to eliminate particularly troublesome armored infantry. The above is likely to be rendered irrelevant, however, if the geth have a clear shot over orbit.
Geth ships require no life support, food supplies, or even containment over their eezo cores. This means that the insides of geth ships are hellish environments alternately bone-chillingly cold or incredibly hot, devoid of gravity. This also means that the geth have doubled up on barriers, guns, and redundant systems. Geth dreadnoughts, speared by leviathans and being pulled apart, have continued to fire into the beast even as hull integrity approached zero.
Geth have a rough equivalency of dreadnoughts with the turians, but seem to prefer mass producing cruisers for overall efficiency; over 98% of known geth ships have been multipurpose cruisers capable of engaging enemy ships, bombarding planet surfaces, and delivering geth platforms to the surface. The geth value versatility overall.
As a rule, geth ships can be assumed to be tougher, faster, and more heavily armed than any non-protoss organic equivalent (including, I must grudgingly concede, the UED) and their ground troops should be approached with a good deal of caution. While Major Espinoza might go starry-eyed over the bravery of the pathetic mole people on the Ammonia Front, I would credit the geth as being the backbone of Council forces during the Great War.
Political Relations
Salarian Union: The salarians are just about the only other species that could conceivably match or overcome the geth in the cyberwarfare theater, but that is about it for similarity. The salarians have curiously never expressed much interest in the geth, and the geth only seem vaguely aware of the salarians. They worked together only a little during the Great War, and the salarians did not try to stop the geth from exiting the Council. They would seem to be largely neutral towards one another.
ITSA: Vast distance and little interest in one another.
Elcor: See above.
Quarian Refugees: On two separate occasions, these two have attempted to exterminate one another. In both cases, the geth were considerably more successful. The current political situation should be simple … but it involves the protoss. Can either side finally give in to their better impulses?
The quarians have always considered themselves victims, and no doubt that trend has continued. The protoss have likely provided them with safe haven, perhaps even a world of their own, but I find it unlikely that the quarians are satisfied with this arrangement, perhaps even blatantly ungrateful. Perhaps the protoss are attempting to referee this little genocidal pissing match between the two…? I find that foolish of them. The quarians are determined to have their vengeance or die trying. I say, let the consequences play out.
Part of me also perhaps over-optimistically hopes that the quarians have simply wiped themselves out since the Great War, and these scattered Pilgrimages are only desperate survivors … but as I said, over-optimistic.
Threat Level: Red
The geth have nothing to offer us except destruction. They stepped in against the zerg only because the scale of the threat could not be ignored. We are not on the same scale as the zerg, at least, not in terms of raw destruction and vile intent. The geth should leave us alone provided we allow them the same courtesy. Of all the species traversing the stars, they alone, I think, can be afforded a true amount of respect and a true offer of friendship from the UED. It is only expedient.
…
Admiral Hackett,
I was inspecting certain Dominion extranet sites to survey the public galactic response to the Expeditionary Armada's arrival … and I found this.
It appears genuine. For the love of God, work more quickly and get those boys back home. We're running out of time.
-Alfonzo Suarez
Trace found. Establishing link.
Terran homeworld, issuing greetings on behalf of Geth Consensus and Daelaam Protectorate. This is a united greeting from Geth Consensus.
Aware of recent United Earth Directorate incursion into Terran Dominion space. Question purpose, question intent. Why wage war when so little to gain? Such a vast empire seems unlikely.
Will offer warning and two courses of action.
Unite terran people under new banner. Reapers offer considerable threat, and a single terran front is vastly superior to multiple separate fronts. Character of new government and long-term intent of UED irrelevant. Forge an empire for betterment of galaxy.
Or:
Retreat to Earth and wait out the coming storm. Terrans demonstrate discrepancy in actions and behavior. No reliance on pre-existing Precursor technology. Haphazard development and frequent inter-species conflict uncharacteristic of other developed spacefaring races. If Armada retreats to Earth, strong possibility of Earth being overlooked. No element zero, no mass relays, almost no galactic imprint. Wait out the current cycle and become guardians of the next one.
All other paths will lead to destruction. Will not tolerate hostilities against Geth Consensus, protoss, or creators. Will not tolerate deliberate escalation of current Council tensions. We communicate homeworld to homeworld in hopes of reinforcing seriousness of this communication. Act, and the geth shall answer.
Unable to bypass Expeditionary Armada AI to deliver message. Request immediate delivery to Admiral Gerard DuGalle to temper current aggression. Awaiting response.
Suarez,
Tell them we're working on option 2. Forwarding this to Bolivar. Keep calm and best of luck.
-Admiral Hackett
A/N: Quarians next, as requested. Then salarians, ITSA, and elcor. Almost done! (With this section, at least.)
