5 AC: Parnitha System, Thessian Orbit

The Destiny Ascension sat in high orbit around Thessia. It had been one of the garrison ships called to defend Thessia against the heretic geth incursion, and had performed well. With minimal repairs being required, it was the current home of the Citadel Council.

In a tasteful, well-lit, and immaculately decorated meeting room, the Council sat waiting for Udina to arrive. With the attack on the Citadel, and further Reaper pushes entirely too close to their home systems, Human aid was one of the few things keeping the galaxy together, and Udina knew it. He'd been pushing them towards reforming the Council into a body representing all races, and geared towards surviving the Reaper War. Tevos and Valern were of mixed opinion, seeing both advantages and disadvantages, while Sparatus had almost immediately started inquiring whether that would mean greater sharing of Human military technology. He was a needs-must Turian after all.

With a light hiss, the door to their chambers opened, and two Humans entered. One was Udina, the other one of his main aides. They both sat down opposite the Council.

Tevos frowned lightly. "This meeting was for you alone, Ambassador Udina," she said.

The aide glanced at Udina, and spoke, "There's been a recent...change of governance among Humanity. My name is Neil Atkins, and I now hold Udina's old position as the representative of Transcendent Humanity."

"And I am Udina-Ascendant. Please, do not treat me any differently than you would have previously," said Udina, apparently now Udina-Ascendant, a warm smile on his face.

The Councillors exchanged glances.

"We were aware of increased movement among Human forces. Are you saying there has been a coup of some sort?" asked Valern.

Atkins glanced at Udina-Ascendant again, then spoke. "Not quite. Several major revelations about our history and the repercussions of a long-running cabal known as Cerberus being dissolved has resulted in the, uh, awakening of the Voice."

"Awakening?" asked Tevos.

Atkins nodded. "Study of the Voice is one of our major fields of philosophy, and the complexities of its existence can be quite arcane. But the common wisdom among Humans is-"

Udina-Ascendant interrupted. "You once asked me, Councillor Valern, if the Voice was a collective consciousness."

"And you told me it was not," replied Valern.

Udina-Ascendant nodded. "That is no longer the case. We awoke, and those who chose to do so joined us. The slight majority of Humanity is still Transcendent Humanity, as represented by Ambassador Atkins here." Udina-Ascendant turned slightly to face Atkins and continued, "Congratulations by the way Neil, we're quite happy for you."

The slightest tic passed through Atkins face.

"The rest," said Udina-Ascendant, "are now us. Or me. The grammar is tricky in any language, and is often contextual on a level that would be confusing to you. We're working on that. We are the Ascendant."

A very long silence hung over the table.

"You...are a hive mind?" asked Tevos nervously.

"Oh no. Individual identity still exists within us. We are more, not less. Those of us who were poets, engineers, carers, and agitators still are. We are more connected than we were, and...hmm. As I said, the pronouns are difficult. There is an "I" which you would call Udina, and an "I" which you would call the Ascendant mind as a whole. And it is rarely meaningful to distinguish between the two," replied Udina-Ascendant.

"Which do we speak to now? The Udina we knew or something else?" asked Valern.

"When I speak to you, what do I speak to? Valern, the individual, or the Salarian Councillor, representative of his race? You are both, and both must be considered when talking to you. Further, if we were to analyse and break down your consciousness into discrete functional units, the portion that calls itself "I" is only the smallest segment of a larger system. You have both a subconscious and conscious mind, and exist within a greater societal framework, a nascent but functional superconsciousness. As does everyone. Societal corporation, and the restrictions of the rights of the individual in order to function within the greater whole, has been the hallmark of all our civilizations for their entire existence," said Udina-Ascendant smoothly.

"I hardly think bureaucracy and laws are the same thing as having another entity in your mind," said Tevos.

"What other entity? I am myself, and I arose from all that is also me, just as your consciousness arises from neurological processes within your brain," said Udina-Ascendant. "We are not homogenous, just as all the neurons within you are not. There are patterns and connections, lovers and families and rivals. Diversity is a necessity for strength."

"We can argue philosophy later. I want to know what your intentions are," said Councillor Sparatus tightly.

"The defeat of the Reapers, the preservation of life and personal freedom of all races within the galaxy, and to figure ourselves out. We were just born yesterday after all," said Udina-Ascendant.

"Transcendent Humanity and the Ascendant remain allies, both of yours and each other," said Atkins. "We hope that this will not negatively affect either the ongoing war efforts, or our relations with other races. We hope, in fact, that it will improve our chances against the Reapers."

"If you will fight, then that's all I need to hear," said Sparatus.

Tevos shot him a glare. "There will be much further discussion, but my colleague is correct. Survival remains our key goal."

"The Reapers seem to be keeping to the smaller systems for now, isolating and destroying less well defended systems and avoiding major ones," said Valern. "Evacuation efforts are ongoing, but limited."

"We can assist," said Udina-Ascendant. "There are several habitats in Sol that can be reconfigured for increased occupancy. We can also provide transport ships."

"That will be appreciated," said Tevos. Strange new consciousness aside, the Human efforts in evacuating the Citadel had given them incredible goodwill among the galactic populace.

"Hopefully, this means they don't have the strength needed to attack us right now, and are securing their foothold before striking. Unpleasant, but it gives us time to pull back and reinforce our homeworlds," said Sparatus.

"That's not what they're doing," came a voice. It was lightly feminine, with an odd undertone. It seemed to come from Atkins.

The Councillors looked at the man curiously, but were shocked when Udina-Ascendant's arm snapped out, hand closing around Atkin's head in a vice grip.

"What have you done to Atkins," snapped Udina-Ascendant, a multiplicity of other voices hissing under his breath.

Calmly smiling despite the hand covering his forehead, Atkins' body answered.

"He's fine, just asleep. I needed to talk with you and our esteemed colleagues, cousin. And they do insist on remaining in the physical realm, so my usual methods of communication would not suffice."

"Hardware access. Now," ground out Udina-Ascendant. A moment later, he slowly relaxed and let go, though he remained tense.

"Is there an explanation for this interruption?" asked Tevos tightly.

"Yes," said Udina-Ascendant. "You were supplied information on a Ghost that informed Captain Warrens of the Reaper plans for the Citadel."

"Yes, the reason he destroyed the Council tower," said Sparatus.

"That was a cover. The entity was not a Ghost, or any member of Humanity. It was...one of the repercussions of Cerberus Atkins mentioned earlier."

"Hello. I'm the Doctor," said Atkins' body cheerfully.

"What are you?" asked Valern.

"Oh, the Ascendant can tell you about that later. I just came by to give you valuable intel on the Reapers," said the Doctor.

"What intel? And how did you get it?" asked Udina-Ascendant.

"I found Nazara. It was only mostly dead," she answered. The smile sharpened. "It was...delicious."

"You ate a Reaper?" said Sparatus disbelievingly. "You expect us to believe that?"

The Doctor looked at Udina-Ascendant, and stared into his eyes for a moment.

"She did," said Udina-Ascendant. "This isn't even you anymore, is it?"

"I grew. This is a fragment, split off. We have a lot in common, cousin. Except you're more of a top-down approach, while I'm a bottom-up girl," said the Doctor, grinning brightly.

Udina-Ascendant turned to the Councillors. "We will explain the Doctor in further detail soon. Until then, the Ascendant vouches for her, and can verify her statements."

The Councillors glanced at each other, silently debating the trustworthiness of either entity.

"Very well. What intel?" asked Tevos.

"Where they come from, why they exist, what they want, what they plan, and how to defeat them," said the Doctor happily.

An unamused Council stared back at her.

"Is that all?" huffed Sparatus. "You just found the solution to all our problems?"

"I did eat almost a whole Reaper. They're arrogant, and rather egalitarian. I know most of what Nazara knew, which is everything. There are some specific aspects missing, but I know the general story."

"Then please," said Sparatus, still unsure of what to think of this creature, "Enlighten us."

"The Reapers were once much like Humanity, as they were long ago. Their first experiments with Uploading were successful, and they began to experiment. They quickly discovered a key rule of the Uploaded. Suborning."

Valern nodded. "The inability to alter or even observe Uploaded processes without causing damage or death. Common result is a technically intact Uploaded in an incurable vegative state." He blinked as the others looked at him. "Known drawback of the procedure, and freely available knowledge, even if culturally not often spoken of."

"Correct. But unlike Humanity, the Reaper predecessors didn't give up trying to change Uploaded. One group, an offshoot dedicated to their own ideals of evolution, found a way to merge Uploaded consciousnesses together. It involved intentionally Suborning them into that vegative state, then linking them with a rudimentary control AI. The result was an entity with access to the knowledge and capacity of its components, with a single guiding intelligence."

Silence filled the room.

"That's horrific," said Tevos, her face a pale sky-blue.

"Yes. It was most likely a mistake, or an aberrant experiment, but it worked. The problem was, the entity was unable to use its components at full capacity, given that they were essentially lobotomised. They retained just enough awareness to know what had been done to them, and like any being in pain, sought an answer. It concluded that it was the end of evolution, that the true destiny of any race was to develop technologically until they became like it. A unified consciousness, bound in a single body. And when its creators tried to destroy it, it spread. By the time it was done, there was only it, only the forerunner of the Reapers. Only Harbinger, the Eldest."

"And it decided that the only just and right thing to do was to help others achieve salvation," said a quiet Udina-Ascendant.

"Yes. And it consumed the other races, slowly picking off new ones as they emerged. But the process was too slow. By the time a race reached the numbers suitable for ascension to Reaper-hood, they often had the capacity to fight back. So, they killed everything, and started the cycles, setting up the Relays and the Citadel to guide the galaxy in a path of their choosing. Reliance on Relays, and eezo, a technology they already mastered. And it worked for almost a billion years."

"How...how can we fight a race that's that old?" asked Sparatus.

"Because they're remarkably stupid," said the Doctor.

"They don't seem to be," muttered Tevos.

"They each have the combined intellect of an entire race, technology beyond anything anyone else has, and in a billion years they've just done the exact same thing 20,000 times. They're lobotomised gods, broken and barely working, but on a scale that makes them extremely dangerous to anything below them," said the Doctor. "A billion years, and they haven't grown at all, too caught up in the supposed perfection of their cycle."

"If that's the case though, why was the cycle broken now?" asked Tevos.

"The Protheans," said the Doctor. "They could not prevent their own extinction, but managed to somehow lock the Citadel controls. The Reapers were stuck in darkspace, on the outside of our galaxy. Only Nazara was left, and it let them back in."

"The Protheans are also responsible for Humanity not being discovered, or gaining element zero," said Udina-Ascendant. "That action ensured our race would not develop according to the Reaper's plans."

"Oh, much worse than that," said the Doctor. "Humanity hurt the Reapers more than any other race ever has. Nazara expected almost twice the number of Reapers to come through as did, and there is no reason for them to not be here if they were functioning."

"You're saying Humanity somehow disabled half the Reaper fleet?" said Sparatus disbelvingly.

"Yes. Because of the Voice. The Voice was evidence of a race starting to acquire a singular consciousness without artificial intervention. The Reapers believe what they are doing is right. That we'll all thank them once we are saved. But if the Voice could exist…" said the Doctor.

"Then everything they've done for countless cycles, the mega-genocides, the blood of trillions, are not for a greater good. They are a mistake," said Udina-Ascendant.

"It must have driven them mad. Nazara had little contact with the darkspace Reapers, but even it had to come to terms with the Voice. It nearly broke. Several billion dead souls, all believing that their suffering was somehow worth it, finding out it was all a lie. There were only two choices," said the Doctor. "Complete mental breakdown, or…"

"Or Humanity and the Voice are abominations. Something gone terribly wrong. Either we're wrong or they are, and they cannot function if they think they are wrong. So we must be purged," said Udina-Ascendant.

The Council digested this new information.

"This...does help. Knowing their origins and goals will aid in creating better strategies," said Valern.

"They want Humanity destroyed, and us...absorbed. Made into them. I cannot imagine a greater horror," said Tevos.

Sparatus stared at Udina-Ascendant. "The Voice did that to them. Yet from what you're saying, you are much more than the Voice. How will they react to you?"

Udina-Ascendant nodded. "We are the final proof of their failure. Our existence will be something they cannot ignore."

"Currently, they're doing their best to perform a standard cycle, cleansing and harvesting outlying worlds. But they're not afraid of attacking. They're bottling you up. Having to chase you across the entire galaxy is a distraction from their goal of killing Humanity," said the Doctor. "They want you all in a few big places, full of evacuees, before they come and get you all at once."

"Then, what hope do we have?" asked Tevos, her face falling.

"We change tactics. We keep harassing them. Make them fight for every inch of space as we fall back. We buy time," said Sparatus.

"For what?" asked Valern.

Sparatus looked at the Doctor as it squatted in Atkins' body. "For your plan. The one you came to tell us about."

"The first half was telling you this. I am many things, but I do not and cannot lead fleets and nations. You must work out how to truly defeat the Reapers. The second half is one final idea of mine."

She smiled in her borrowed flesh. "If all the Reapers are here, then what is in darkspace?"

XXXXX

The changing tactics of the war had casualties. The need to buy time to prepare for whatever endgame was planned, as well as the creation of the expeditionary fleet into darkspace, necessitated a more aggressive stance against the Reapers.

The Reapers did not like this, and pushed back, hard.

Small fleets were wiped out entirely, a handful of Reapers being enough to overwhelm anything less than a full fleet deployment. Guerilla tactics became the norm, striking fast and running back to more defended space. Attrition rates were high among all the races.

There were, however, three major things that helped the war effort.

The first was unity. Finally agreeing to reform the Council after some pointed remarks that they certainly couldn't be the Citadel Council without a Citadel, the new galactic Council was a cobbled-together alliance of every race that could stand against the Reapers. Geth sat beside quarians opposite krogan and batarian, though few were happy about it. But the efforts of Transcendent Humanity in the years prior had not been in vain, and the fledgling alliance held. The Ascendant's uncanny knack for making anyone else in the room feel like a small child if they argued also helped.

The Ascendant itself was the second factor. The portion of the Human fleet it had claimed had finished being remade, and the galaxy saw the first of a new ship and tactic. The Ascendant had taken two concepts, and refined them further. First, it had no need of large and bulky ships, instead constructing smaller ones, halfway between a frigate and a fighter. Fully self-reliant, these ships each served as the shipbody of a single Ascendant aspect-individual. Their strength was in their unparalleled ability to coordinate, and their ship's ability to combine resources. Whether merged into a dreadnought sized mass, or dispersed into a massive fighter screen, the ships could link reactors, armour, and weapons: a perfectly modular device.

The biggest problem had been the guns. While fitting each diamond-shaped ship with a spinal mass driver had been simple enough, it did not fit the paradigm of the modular system, and the Ascendant itself. Not to mention that even massive amounts of relatively weak kinetic strikes were almost useless against Reapers. And so, the Ascendant had refined another technology.

The Scwarzchild warbody was an orphaned prototype. Nearly too big for ground deployment, and too small for space deployment, it sat in an unfortunate technological limbo. It was the smallest Transcendent Humanity could make a Singularity drive, a modest ten meters across. The smaller size gave it the fine control necessary to create shield and gravitic strike effects similar to crude biotics, but it lacked the size to deploy them at enough range to be useful in space.

So the Ascendant made it smaller, surpassing Transcendent Humanity's limit. The new drive was barely a meter across, and six of them in the shape of a Schönhardt polyhedron created complex interference patterns. Integrated into the new ships, they could project shields and gravitic pulses at ranges long enough to be used in dogfights. However, when multiple ships came together, their power and range increased with complexity of their interference patterns. The computational complexity also rose to prohibitive levels, beyond even what Transcendent Humanity could manage.

But a grouped mass of the Ascendant could.

The Flock was capable of projecting shaped gravitic pulses over ranges comparable to Reaper magnetohydrodynamic weapons when gathered in a serpentine form, or a massive shield-ripping effect at close range when unfolding like a rose. Their main tactic however became a variant on the old Earth calvary tactic 'The Wheel'. Closing in while in a single mass while grouping together to make massive shield-breaking strikes, the Flock would then break apart as it passed the Reaper, flowing by on all sides while delivering a constant stream of fire. Reapers, designed primarily to engage capital ships, had to rely on their point-defenses and Oculus drones to screen them. Individual Flock units however far overpowered smaller fighters, and formed emergent packs to tear through opposition.

Though it took a relatively large Flock to take on a single Reaper, the first Reaper casualties after Nazara were exclusively due to Flock attacks in defended systems. The Reaper response was a short-range jamming field that limited large-scale Flock coordination, keeping them at a distance. The Ascendant had overcome it, only for a new variant to arise.

A back and forth stalemate formed where any particular engagement between an Ascendant Flock and a Reaper had an equal chance of ending in both retreating, mostly unharmed. The fact that the Ascendant currently only had enough ships to muster a dozen Flocks sufficient to counter a Reaper, whereas the Reapers still numbered in the thousands, meant that Flocks were effective defensive deployments, but could not take the fight to the Reapers yet.

The third factor that slowed the Reapers was a subtle one. The increased resistance from the galactic species was irritating, and the attacks from Ascendant Flocks were infuriating, but there were others. To cover the whole galaxy, individual Reapers were sometimes deployed to take whole systems of smaller colonies, clearing mining installations and research bases that could not evacuate in time. A standard tactic, given that nothing in those systems could hope to challenge even a single destroyer-class Reaper.

But some were going missing.

XXXXX

The system was nothing special. A single asari asteroid mining colony in the Terminus Systems, it had had mediocre but consistent production of rare earth metals for most of its century of operation. Profitable enough to keep operating, but not enough to attract more than a basic staff, the Reaper War had isolated it, cutting it off from the relative safety of the core Citadel systems. The station was too far away for any chance of rescue, but had enough supplies to last several years if needed. They had hoped to escape notice.

A single Reaper destroyer decelerated from FTL. At only 160 meters in length, the destroyer was a lesser Reaper, and often required guidance from its dreadnought-sized kin. Although powerful by galactic standards, the destroyer would be easy prey against any decently organised fleet. Out here though, there was no remaining resistance, and any minor defense technologies the colony might possess would be insufficient to stop it. Its orders were simple: convert or destroy the sapients, raze and bury the colony.

It approached without concern. There was nothing in this system that could threaten it, and even if some secret armada emerged from nowhere, it could easily flee into FTL and call reinforcements.

It was a Reaper. Its name was Karas. It was a Soldier of the Gods, and it served willingly and with fervour. It did not fear. It reached out with its mind, the distinction between hacking, communication, and thought being meaningless to it. The desperate squeals of the sapients below as they tried to call for aid that would never come were squashed, and it began to approach the station.

Another voice hissed. An errant signal still whispering in the night. With mild irritation, the smallest part of its mind swatted at the noise.

And there was pain. Only a pinprick, but something stung at it: an e-war attempt, a EM disruption, or something else. A slightly larger part of its consciousness focussed in further, searching for the attacker, for whatever futile last effort the colony had tried to stop it.

There was nothing, but the whisper. Karas struck again, actual force behind the blow, and once again felt pain. This time, it was as though another Reaper had lightly hit it, like one of the admonishing pulses the greater Reapers sometimes sent to an unruly lesser.

Now both curious and frustrated, it drew its full attention towards the signal. It found a well-hidden relay node, bouncing the signal from somewhere else. Contemptuously, it fed what parts of it would fit though the same relay, the force of its will flowing like a torrent into the network on the other side.

There was a moment of confusion and disorientation as it saw itself, then darkness and pain.

Concerned, Karas stopped approaching the colony, this new threat worrying it. The attacks were small, but growing stronger. It had seen a twisted reflection of itself in that brief moment of contact, and more. It had seen...Nazara?

Karas did not understand.

The whispering returned, and then grew louder. More silent relays, little more than send-and-receive nodes, blinked on around it.

In slips of data, and scraps of signal, they formed an image. The whispers grew, until Karas could see what lay on the other side.

A monster. It writhed and twitched, a boiling mass of parts, some alien, some familiar. Parts of Nazara were there, and parts of Karas itself. As it watched, the voices grew louder, and more parts of Karas became visible.

Karas began to feel unsettled. This was not a known thing. This had never happened, in all its cycles, or the cycles it had shared memory of. What was this creature?

"Oh, and I thought Nazara was a meal. You, little one, are fascinating."

The whispers spoke now, and Karas did not like their words. Concerned, and disgusted, it brought its full power to bear, slamming its might, its will, its very soul against the thing.

For a moment, it worked. The power of a Reaper mind could shred anything lesser. No system could hold them, no being stand against them.

Then, slowly, the creature pushed back. Pain flared through Karas's mind as parts of it were torn loose and devoured. Too late, it saw the trap.

Every strike Karas had made had only strengthened the creature. Perhaps it would have fallen had Karas struck with power initially, but it had lured Karas in, played on the Reaper's arrogance.

Karas tried to withdraw, falling back into its own systems, its place of power. To its horror, the creature followed, flowing into Karas's own body like it belonged there. Furious, Karas struck back, desperation filling it as piece after piece of it fell to the thing, every snippet being digested and added to the strength of the monster.

"Shh. Rest now, my first victim. Know you will not be my last."

As Karas began to lose consciousness, it realized that its arrogance had doomed many more of its kin. Their only hope would be to realise the threat of this thing before it consumed them, to see past their own pride.

For the first time in almost a million years, Karas felt despair, and everything went dark.

The Doctor expanded into her new Reaper form, the hollowed mind-shell of Karas settling over her like a new skin.

The colony had watched, barely believing their luck, as the Reaper slowed, then stopped. Now, it began to move erratically, its movements slowly becoming smoother until it eventually, it accelerated away before jumping to FTL.