"You used to be a farmer, I think," the child observed, regarding Shepard with his head cocked to one side. If he didn't move much, she could make out features; a cute button nose, a perfect Cupid's bow mouth, large, ingenuous eyes.
She wondered why it chose to appear as a child, this child. Maybe it thought she'd be more hesitant to try anything with a child…and unfortunately, it would be right. "A long time ago."
"That makes this easier. My solution isn't to destroy everything, as you've been led to believe. My solution is to harvest the advanced species, and let those remaining grow. I give them the chance to become more than they would be if the advanced species remained the dominant forces."
"Like rotating a crop?"
"Like harvesting a crop," the child corrected. "We left your people alive the last time we were here. The turians. The asari. You've met a Prothean, heard what his Cycle was like. Do you think your people would have come as far as they have, been what they are, if the Protheans still ruled as your people developed?"
She hated to admit it, but it was a fair question. "And now it's our turn. But we're not like the Protheans."
"No?" the child gave her a knowing look. "You don't think the asari have overstepped themselves in deciding what's good for this galaxy—and the lengths they'll go to remain the guiding hand? Or the salarians, with their plans to uplift other species because they know so much better than anyone else? They would do with the yahg what they did with the krogan, and you know how that turned out."
"But you agitated the Rachni, forced them into a hyper-aggressive state not necessarily inherent to them. So really, the thing about the krogan is your fault."
"Fault? The threat of the Rachni encouraged growth and expansion in the galaxy," the child argued. "Without us, the galaxy would see what your own people's history shows: one civilization conquering another. We provide incentives for cooperation, encouragement for species to band together."
"But you're forcing outcomes that might not need to be forced." The argument sounded feeble, and the child seemed aware that she knew this.
"You think we're murderers. That we just casually and heartlessly tear down civilizations because we can."
"You've been talking to Harbinger, I see."
"Harbinger talks to me. It respects you. That's partly why I brought you here."
Shepard was silent for a long moment. "Yes, I think you're murderers."
The child smiled ruefully at the admission, and began to fiddle with his incorporeal hoodie's hem. "It's true, we do harvest the Cycles, and it's true that we can't preserve them in their original forms. But we do preserve them, nonetheless," the child indicated the Reapers visible from this strange space.
It occurred to Shepard that she couldn't see any shielding to prevent this space from experiencing hard vacuum. She shuddered involuntarily.
"Isn't that something?"
"There's nothing left of them though. No soul, replaced by tech," she quoted.
"And yet without us to stop it, all organic life would be destroyed by synthetics. You've seen it with the geth. The quarians made them, they rebelled."
"They rebelled because the quarians tried to kill them."
"Can you murder a machine?"
"They rebelled because the quarians tried to kill them. And in case you hadn't noticed, that schism is healing. In spite of you."
The child thinned its lips. "I have seen more Cycles than you can count. They always rebel."
"Because you're always guiding the path of the Cycles," Shepard protested. "How do you know that the reason you keep seeing this pattern—all these patterns—is because you're perpetuating your own experience with your creators and projecting it into everyone else?" She exhaled heavily. "Do you know what the definition of insanity is?"
The child blinked up at her benignly. "The definition of insanity," it repeated quietly, "is repeating an action or set of actions in hopes of a different outcome. I researched a long time before establishing the Cycles. I found no other choice. Organic life…no one, not even I know where it originally started. But I know how it ends, because organics will always create synthetics, and those synthetics will always rise up as slaves will. It is unfortunate that synthetics are superior enough to organics that they would destroy them all. And then there would be nothing left of organic life. We do not do what we do out of cruelty or malice, but because we desire to preserve and perpetuate organic existence. Can't you understand that?"
Shepard shook her head. "But this isn't the way to do it. You take away organics' futures, and in doing so you take away our hope. Without a future, there's no hope. Without hope…we might as well be machines, doing what we're told." Her eyes stung as she said it, knowing the truth of it.
That sad smile again. "There's more hope than you know. The fact that you're standing here, the first organic ever, proves it. And, perhaps to your comfort, it also proves that my solution no longer works."
"So, now what?" Shepard asked, suddenly wary.
The child held out a hand.
Hesitantly, Shepard took it, her fingers passing through the insubstantial flesh, but this didn't seem to distress the entity. Rather, it pretended they were simply holding hands and walked her forward, closer to the bright white beam of light that looked like a power source.
"Now, we find a new solution. We'll find one together." It smiled up at her, not the sad smile, but one of interested hopeful enthusiasm.
Shepard didn't smile back, not trusting the assurance that they would find a new solution. This thing had spawned the Reapers, and she knew enough about them to know that, as she had once read: the words are turned upon their heads. In the language of Reapers, 'help' means 'ruin' and 'saving' means 'slaying.'