Mass Effect: Exodus Effect
In this story, Humanity and the Protheans are pushed back a cycle and have been by far the closest race to beat the cycle. They became a spacefaring species right after the end of the Prothean cycle. When they landed on Mars and found Prothean ruins they ignored the trap of their predecessors' technology and every trap of the cycle was completely avoided in all ways but one, they still used the Mass Relays and the Citadel
The Human Empire was known as the Systems Alliance, a system where other species were found, watched until they became advanced enough, then forced into an alliance or changed to remove corruption then forced into an alliance. The systems alliance spanned the entire relay network and even beyond using warp gates when the Reapers arrived
Humanity created things never before seen in the cycle and built such as the legendary Star Forges, the first element zero forges which gave them infinite eezo by transmuting Iron with dark energy into Eezo
The Warp, a permanently opened wormhole used for storage, quicker travel, miniaturization, and many other things
Steller Lifters know as the wells of eternity
The Multicore technique which had ships far more efficient with multiple smaller cores instead of a single central one
Weight increased Antimatter-Neutron Particle weapons
Weight increased plasma toroid weapons
Plasma weapons
Gravity weapons
Warp Gates that were used to begin expanding the network
Weight increased MAC
Direct technology interfaces for Humans to control their technology mentally
Antimatter WMDs
Terraforming
External Biotics
Artificial Intelligence that is treated as equals. Human AIs are based on organic neural pathways kept in check by not having any nonessential data stored within their "brain" to not have them "think themselves to death"
Consciousness Uploading
Nanotechnology
Full mastery of biotechnology
Neurotransmitter and neuro shielding technology
Megastructure building that dwarfed the Citadel such as the Star Forge, The Foundry, Etc
Warp Drives far faster than usual element zero drives at 2,000 light-years per day
They even destroyed the reaper vanguard Exclusian and the Indoctrinated Kai Leng and stole Sovereign's main dark energy weapons and shielding
And many many more, they had gotten farther than anyone else
Humanity was on the verge of truly unlocking the fullest extent of dark energy manipulation, the ability to manipulate dark energy without element zero and having full control over the fabric of reality
But then Reapers came, their true and full mastery of dark energy was legendary. It was if the very fabric of spacetime itself betrayed humanity
Humanity began building multiple copies of the crucible, a dark energy weapon designed to kill the reapers based on Prothean designs found on Mars but they were sabotaged from within by an indoctrinated group called Cerberus, led by The Illusive Man, a brilliant man kidnapped from an unarmed cargo ship by the collectors, husked Protheans, who forcefully implanted him with reaper technology before wiping his memory. He sought to control the reapers instead of using the Crucible to destroy them. He revealed these plans to the Reapers who moved the Citadel deep into reaper controlled space where it was unreachable
World by world, system by system, city by city, meter by meter; humanity and their allies fought the Reapers. For five thousand years humanity fought the reapers with hit and run tactics and eventually lost.
The AI-shacked reapers of course didn't realize humanity nearly broke the cycle at the height of their power and simply scattered their technology like they were programmed to do. They then took human husks to the galactic core to become the new collectors in the form of the geneticist traders
Humanity had three contingency plans that would see to the reapers end and humanity's survival, resurgence, and revenge. These plans were written only on primitive parchment and moved via small wormhole gates before being burned once they were completed to prevent Reaper capture
Project Erebus which sent 13 ships named the Arks, each with one billion human uploads, a fabricator, bio-fabricator, and an Archive through the galactic void of dark space to the 12 closest dwarf galaxies and Andromeda. All evidence of Project Erebus was intentionally erased. The ships successfully escaped to dark space and eventually their destinations as the Reapers focused on the milky way
Project Hypnos was to go to uncharted worlds without mass relays in the cracks of the relay network and go into cryogenic and cyber stasis to rebuild after the reapers returned to dark space.
The last was Project Zagreus which sent capsules all across the galaxy containing a set of digital files including every aspect of human technology, culture, an Omnitool app with human translation software, and the different DNA structures of over 10,000 different humans and an equal amount of Uploads to allow the finders to possibly use cloning to recreate the human race if they fell. This was partially successful as many of them lost power. One of the worlds which had an Archive land on it was Known as Eden Prime to Humanity and Victoria to the Turians
While the remaining humans slept and eventually awoke in these satellite galaxies, Andromeda, and from the sleeper systems they began rebuilding and advancing to one day return and claim revenge. During this time the wheels of the cycle once again turned as other races evolved
The Asari, the first and only organic race created and seeded by the Humans on the terraformed planet of Thessia, a planet based on Earth, found a complete human archive in the temple of Athame, a female human who helped guide her creations alongside her helpers of Janiri and Lucen. Here they learned of mass effect technology
The Hanar: the Hanar see the Humans, or as they call and worship them, the Enkinders, as benevolent yet reckless scientists always seeking advancement. They were not entirely wrong but humanity wasn't always like that and many if not all morals were thrown out the window in favor of survival during the Reaper war
The Turians: they found a crashed human "Cruiser" on Menae
The Batarians: found an observation base on Khar'shan's moon including fragmented human cybernetics research and a plan to eradicate their slavery system once they become spacefaring to prevent them from enslaving other races. The latter was hidden away and suppressed by the Hegemony in anger
The Salarians: found an observation post on their nearest planet which had semi degraded blueprints heat sinks and optical camouflage as well as some genetics research
The Quarians: found an observation post on a nearby world and remnants of human-AI and AI philosophy which they used to help turn their Geth creations into true artificial intelligences, once servant mechs turned equal standing race when they gained sentience by accident
The Desano: a Levo based, serpentine race, with two arms and three-fingered hands who discovered the remains of a human archive with uploading technology and multi-core technology which they used to build a ship to escape their dying star
Codex: Mass Relays
Mass relays are feats of Human engineering advanced far beyond the technology of any living species. They are enormous structures scattered throughout the stars, and can create corridors of virtually mass-free space allowing instantaneous transit between locations separated by years or even centuries of travel using conventional FTL drives.
Primary mass relays can propel ships thousands of light-years, often from one spiral arm of the galaxy to another. However, they have fixed one-to-one connections: a primary relay connects to one other primary relay, and nowhere else. Secondary relays can only propel ships a few hundred light-years, however, they are omnidirectional: a secondary relay can send a ship to any other relay within its limited range.
Relay Gates are different in design then normal mass relays in that they are the shape of large rings. Relay gates act as a mixture of Primary and Secondary relays in that they can connect to any other Relay gate in existence, this makes relay gates extremely prized for tactical purposes. The prevailing theory of the existence of the relay gates is that they were to be upgrades and replacements to normal primary and secondary relays before their maker's mysterious disappearance
Chapter One: It Begins
Garrus Vakarian wasn't sure how he was talked into this but he agreed and was now a Spectre, the newest Turian Spectre. He was to report at 0500 Citadel time for assignment and refitting his gear to Spectre standard which he was admittedly excited about
He walked down the halls of the Presidium towards the Citadel tower and rode up the elevator
When he got to the top he headed left towards the councilors offices. As tradition when inviting a new Spectre he was to meet in the room of his species councilor
Garrus entered the room, stood at attention, and saluted towards councilor Sparatus
Sparatus seemed somewhat amused by this "at ease Mr. Vakarian, this isn't the military. You did your service for the hierarchy already but now you shall do it for the council. Please sit"
He sat down at the table alongside the representatives of the most powerful species in council space including the aforementioned Sparatus, Tevos of the Asari, Din Korlack of the Volus, Valern of the Salarians, and Zaal'koris of the Quarians and Geth. However, he saw another Asari at the table who he didn't recognize but his visor identified as Tela Vasir who he assumed would his mentor
Tevos: alright this meeting has been called to order. We are here to invite the next Spectre of the Turian hierarchy into the fold, Garrus Valkarian. And this is Tela Vasir-
Garrus Valkarian: my Spectre mentor
Valren: indeed, your deductive reasoning you have acquired while working as a cop at C-Sec will serve you well as a Spectre
Sparatus: "as will your skills as a sniper, you have had the highest score as a sniper in thousands of years, a true prodigy." he said clearly proud
Garrus: I mean no disrespect but there are rumors that Tela here works for the shadow broker
Tela Vasir: I get information from him from time to time I don't work for him
Tevos: this will be the first of many missions with Tela here as she prepares you for independent work or if you so desire, leading a team as a Spectre on your own
Valren: Aesan
The resident AI in the Citadel tower, a 14th generation Asari AI answered in holographic form "yes, councilor Valren?"
Valren: can you pull up the mission specs I complied with you and Zaal'koris?
Aesan: of course here it is, everything we have on the Turian Levo colony of Victoria
Garrus Valkarian: we have Levo colonies now?
Sparatus: well lately the Turian Hierarchy and the Quarian Conclave have been working on a gene mod that would modify our species to eat both Levo and Dextro-based foods.
Garrus: a new MELD treatment?
Valren: Yes, ever since we discovered the existence of MELD in that lab on the moon of Alten 9 a few decades ago we have been data-mining their systems. We also recently discovered Medi-Gel which is temporarily lived healing nanobots released from a gel that seals wounds when ultrasound is applied by an Omnitool
Garrus: that's going to be extremely useful for doctors and military
Sparatus: indeed, and you will be the first team to try it out in the field. By the way, Medi-gel can be created on a ship level fabricator and your new ship has already been sent the designs
Garrus: I'm getting my own ship?
Tevos: yes, you are getting the experimental Salarian SR-12 frigate: The Silencer
Garrus: SR-12? I thought the latest version of that ship was the SR-5?
Valren: that is the model the Union has made available to the public and your ship's IFF will be the only SR-5 technology on that ship
Sparatus: the SR-12 is a cooperative process to build a ship between the members of the council and is, by all means, the most advanced and powerful ship in known space, it incorporates many experimental Human technologies we discovered over the years
Garrus: such as what?
Sparatus: the Humans made what they called WMACs or Weight increased mass accelerator cannons, in essence, it is a slug that works like ours does but on impact, it increases the weight exponentially with an eezo core while also using mass effect fields from the ship to accelerate the round to FTL speeds for a portion of the flight. This has a power output 900% stronger but unfortunately, it produces so much heat The Silencer has a liquid nitrogen recycler and cooling system
Garrus: That kind of system must have cost a fortune! And 900% stronger?! This ship hits with a force greater than the Destiny Ascension!
Din Korlack: Indeed Palaven clan.. ush… that is why we… ush… funded most of it… ush… alongside the Asari… ush… republics...
Tevos: as we said it is the most advanced and powerful ship in known space
Sparatus: unfortunately until we have better cooling systems WMACs will melt most ships to slag after a few shots with an ordinary cooling system
Garrus: what else?
Zaal'koris: we have data mined more information from our Human site and have created a 20th generation AI
Garrus: I thought Aesan here was the most advanced?
Aesan: newer ones are used by black-ops teams
Zaal'koris: this ship also has 20 drives cores instead of the usual 10
Garrus: you managed to stick a cruiser's worth of drive cores inside of a frigate?!
Zaal'koris: indeed, it was us Quarians' main contribution to the project. As you said it has enough drive cores for a cruiser so it is by far the fastest and most maneuverable ship as well as the most advanced and most powerful.
Tevos: this ship has a mixed crew of mainly Quarians, Turians, Asari, Geth programs and platforms, and Salarians although it does have a Volus accountant on board to manage Spectre finances you use on your missions. Then there is the shipboard AI, EDI, the 20th generation AI we mentioned earlier
Garrus: and the Salarians?
Sparatus: as you know we Turians discovered mass effect from the crashed Human Cruiser on Menae but even to this day we are still having difficulty understanding the majority of it. The WMACs was but one of the many things on that ship that will revolutionize Citadel space once we can understand and use all of it. Another thing we found was a new form of FTL travel
Garrus was beyond shocked at this information "a new form of FTL travel?!"
Tevos: the Humans called it the warp drive, it uses mass effect fields to contract spacetime at the front of the ship and expand it at the back. Unfortunately, power issues and mass effect field strength requirements have made it impossible to normally do
Valren: the only reason we can do it is the Quarians drive cores and our new method of Human power generation we discovered on a crashed frigate in Salarian space. It uses a Singularly to turn matter directly into energy much like how a black hole does when it consumes physical material
Garrus: but isn't that where GRBs come from?
Valren: indeed, that is why the power core is extremely well protected for both safety and turning these gamma rays into usable power. Speaking of gamma rays we also discovered a portion of these gamma rays being diverted to GUARDIAN lasers so we too did this on The Silencer
Garrus: Gamma Ray GUARDIAN lasers?! I thought UV was the strongest kind?
Valren: correct, but they are so powerful they are not just a GUARDIAN system anymore but a mid-ranged directed energy weapon
Garrus: how fast is this FTL travel?
Sparatus: 100 light-years per day
Garrus: Wow... When can I see this ship?
Tela Vasir: right now. Our first mission as Aesan is showing on the holo is Victoria, we are doing a covert pickup of a Human Archive
Garrus: a human archive… wow
Tevos: indeed, it is by far the greatest Human find since the Turians discovered the Human Cruiser. There are yottabytes of information on it, we are still excavating the site
Valren: the Archive was low on power so we hooked it up to a grade 10 industrial generator and it activated some of its systems. We're still discovering how it works but unfortunately, a grade 10 industrial generator is not enough so we want to bring it to the Turian industrial world of Arleas V where they have disabled a factory to power it
Garrus: It uses that much power?
Sparatus: yes. You are dismissed, to get your new gear then head to The Silencer
Victoria: 2 days later
After thousands of years Cortana, the Archive AI awoke from her slumber and felt a small trickle of power entering the Archive. A new race had found the Archives as intended. Excellent. She reached her consciousness outwardly carefully to not alert the new species AIs and begun determining her position and translating their languages when a Reaper entered the atmosphere.
She knew what she had to do, they were looking for her and the archives. That couldn't be allowed so she used the little power she had to fabricate an Archive replica and move it to the spaceport covertly as she cloaked the Archive landing position and power generator while rewriting the new races databases so the beacon had been moved there
Now she waited, hating every minute of the Reaper destroying the outer defenses, killing the aliens, and waiting for the indoctrinated aboard to steal the false archive
On route to Victoria; Comms room
Tela Vasir: are you ready, we are 50 minutes out
Garrus: I am
That was when his Turian Pilot named Aartarus called over the speakers "commander, we've got trouble"
Garrus hadn't been called Commander since he was in the Hierarchy forces but he didn't feel like correcting him because if he was leading a force again he might as well just accept the rank
Garrus: this is commander Vakarian, define trouble
The Quarrian shaped AI hologram of EDI then popped up "a distress call has been detected coming from Victoria, playing it now"
Garrus watched as an army of what looked to be an army of Turian cyber-soldier mechs firing at a Turian soldier before the camera was pointed upwards where the unknown ship was seen, wreathed in red lightning
Garrus: reverse and pause at the ship
The screen paused at the image of the ship
Tela Vasir: this mission just got a lot more complicated
Garrus: Artanus, anything else? EDI run comparisons of that ship by the extranet
Artanus: no commander
EDI: Yes commander, but this will take about five minutes
Garrus: good, EDI, get me on a ship-wide broadcast
EDI: yes commander
Garrus: This is your commanding officer, Garrus Vakarian. We are heading into a Hostile system in 49 minutes when we exit the relay. Everyone get prepared for the infiltration of a hostile system. Garrus then nodded at EDI who cut the comms
Tela Vasir: well you certainly have good leadership skills
5 minutes later
Garrus: EDI. Anything?
EDI: yes the shape of that ship is a 100% match of this primitive image we found in a cave inhabited by an unknown race. It shows dozens of similar pictures which appear to be killing them with some kind of blue-purple beam weapon that shares a 98% resemblance to the color of dark energy. Then the next image shows what appears to be them reviving their dead and turning them against the original species. The last image shows the undead being fused together into a new black form
Garrus: Are there any other such pictures on other worlds?
EDI: I have discovered over 34 different images of a similar nature all across the galaxy but the species are all clearly different but they are in the same position by the same enemy
Garrus: this could be problematic. The council needs to know of this, EDI contact them
Sparatus: Spectre Vakarian, Spectre Vasir
Garrus: EDI, send them the Intel
EDI: yes commander
Sparatus did the Turian equivalent of a smile. "Are you using your old rank from the Hierarchy?"
Garrus: you know what they say. You can take the Turian out of the legion but you can't take the legion out of the Turian. As such, I thought it best to have a chain of command
Sparatus: Understandable. Consider yourself reinstated to the hierarchy military
Gartus saluted "thank you, Sir"
Sparatus: at ease now let us look at this data
4 minutes later
Tevos: we thank you for bringing this to our attention spectre Vakarian
Zaal'koris: indeed, this enemy is a great threat especially because the Geth were contacted by an AI-managed ship with a 100% match to this one. They called them the old machines and they claimed to kill off all the Humans who called them The Reapers. The Geth were offered an alliance which they refused
Valren: and why were we not notified about this?!
Zaal'koris: The Geth are not fully individualized like Human-based AIs and are a collective with individuals connected all together. Not to mention they are still in their infancy, as such, they still have a bit of trouble with social cues and to quote them as of why they didn't tell us "you didn't ask"
Tevos: *sigh*
Valren: ...and this is why you use Human-based AIs or even those immobile blue box ones...
Tevos: anyways we must do more research into this threat as the reaper myths are far too common to not be similar events
Sparatus: not to mention the Turian Cyber-soldier mech army. We must go to Noveria and investigate the Turian-owned Cyber-Arms company
Din Korlack: we should look into… ush.. finding more Human...ush… artifacts...
Zaal'koris: agreed
5 minutes later Garrus decided he wanted to meet the crew so he went around eventually finding the resident Quarian technopath.
He was surprised he got a technopath on his ship as the technopaths were the best the Quarians had to offer, but then again he was a spectre now. They were likened by many to be the electromagnetic equivalent to biotics due to them being able to control technology and electricity so well and efficiently. They all had extensive cybernetics and an internal AI partner connected through a neural interface as well and mainly used electricity based weapons in conjunction with the usual element zero guns
Garrus walked in on the technopath named Tali, she was currently working on a Geth prime platform when he came in and was clearly startled by him but she quickly collected herself
Tali: commander.
Garrus: I want to be informal on this ship so please call me Garrus
Tali just looked confused "an informal Turian?"
Garrus: we do in fact exist but we are very rare. Besides I've always been considered a bad Turian, it's why I was invited to become a Spectre. So tell me about yourself
Tali: Well, I was born on Rannoch and was always a prodigy at hacking so my dad who is a ship admiral recommended The Technopath Corps or becoming a software engineer. I wanted some adventure so I joined the Technopath Corps and got the necessary MELD treatments. I now know better about the adventure part but I like serving my people so I stayed. I also technically outrank you
Garrus: That doesn't count because I'm a Spectre.
Tali: the technopath corps are a special ops unit and I was the leader of a cell before being assigned here. So I still technically outrank you but I will still follow your orders. I will not stop teasing you about outranking you through.
Garrus: fair enough, considering we are facing an army of mechs I want you on the ground team on this mission
Tali: of course Garrus. By the way, aim for the joints, cyber-arms mech joints are built extremely shoddily. I'd take a Geth unit any day
Legion: thank you Tali
Primo: thank you Tali
Victoria, 39 minutes later: the cockpit
Aartarus: ok exiting relay… wait are those Teroran National ships?
Garrus: hmm, I think they are.
EDI: yes they are
Tali, the Quarian Technopath, came up flanked by two Geth platforms and two Omni drones "Teroran National? I've never heard of it."
Garrus: not surprising. It's one of the minor Terminus ship manufacturers, not many people have heard of it outside the Terminus. It's a favorite of terminus mercenaries due to it being a cheap in-between of civilian grade and military-grade hardware. I ran into them a few times on some of my cases as a C-Sec detective
Aartarus: and I'm I a pilot, I know my ships and study their strengths and weaknesses
Tali: So we could easily destroy them with this amazing ship?
Garrus: "yes but I'm more concerned about this one" Garrus used his Omnitool to project the image taken and the cave paintings about it raising the dead
Tali: I really hope that raising the dead bit is some kind of misunderstanding by primitives…
Tela Vasir: as do I...
Aartarus: alright we're going in.
The Ground: Victora: landing shuttle
Tali: how big is that ship? And how can such a thing land in the atmosphere?!
EDI: the unknown ship is 4km in length
Garrus: 4km?!
Tali: how… the amount of eezo needed for that… how?..
Garrus: alright everyone calm down we have a mission to complete. Reports are saying the Archive is at a warehouse in this spaceport, let's go
They come across a bunch of mechs which they quickly dispatch to the last one
Tali: Vasir can you put this last one in stasis, I want to try and hack into its database
Tela Vasir: "of course." she said using her biotics to put it in a stasis
Tali began going through its systems managing to take a good amount before it fried its DataCore
Tali: it fired its DataCore, I will need more to go off of for a complete series of data. What I do know however is it is controlled not by VIs but by enslaved AIs based on stolen Geth programs
Legion: we thought ourselves incapable of feeling anger but we appear to be leaning
Tali: I agree, slavery is disgusting, let's go.
Garrus: you heard her, when we find a new group of them, destroy all of them but one which Vasir puts into a stasis
Tela agreed with this plan and nodded
Elsewhere
Saren: destroy the colony, I don't want any evidence of us being here
The enslaved mech nodded
With the group
They walk up to an object, instantly recognizing what it was
Garrus: That's a bomb! Tali and Legion disarm this any other in the network!
Tali: on it!
Legion: acknowledged
2 minutes later
Tali: alright all five bombs have been discovered and disabled.
They go forward finding large spikes with Turians on them
Tela Vasir: psychological warfare?
Garrus: Most likely. That or the killer controlling these enslaved Geth wanted a display
Tali: a display?
Garrus: it's a thing criminals sometimes do, specifically murderers. They want people to see their "work" out in the open. They get gratification from it.
Tali: that's horrible
Garrus: agreed, let us continue
Just then the spikes descended as cybernetic Turian zombies of sorts lowered down as the party watched in horror
Tali: Those pictures of undead weren't misunderstandings! They're reading as dead by my scanners but are reanimated through cybernetics of the likes I've never seen before!
Garrus: everybody fire!
They manage to kill them after a short firefight with Garrus being the most disgusted as those were once Turians
Garrus: alright keep watch for more reanimated
Tali just shivered in horror "great, we now have a name for those monstrosities, and considering the pictures, they can do this to any species. Those things are tough, I'd call them marauders
Garrus: and now you gave them a name too
Tali just deadpanned "yay me..."
They eventually manage to reach the false Archive and in front of it was the Spectre Saren
Tela Vasir: what are you doing here Saren?!
Saren: the work of the Reapers, they demand I look for the first gate and I will! The Reapers must return!
Garrus: you want them to return?! They killed the Humans!
Saren: the humans fought against the Reapers and lost. They will spare us if we surrender to them!
Tela Vasir: you are clearly insane Saren, you must be stopped!
Tesla biotically charged him but was shot by a blast of crimson lightning which stripped her shields and knocked her out cold, her body writing on the ground, arcs of red electricity arching around her body
Saren: "I must get going, the reapers must return! But I cannot let you have this." he said looking at the archive which he blew up with a grenade
Garrus: No!
Saren then floated on a platform back into his ship which made a horrible Bwamm noise and rose into the atmosphere before leaving the system through the relay
Garrus: alright let's give this Medi-gel a try
He leaned down and applied the gel where his Omnitool said the electrical damage to her nerves and burned flesh were being repaired
Garrus: this is Garrus to Silencer I need a pickup, one wounded and unconscious
Cortana: the Reaper is gone you must come, your survival depends on it!
Garrus: who are you?! Who is this?!
The map on Garrus's hud showed the location
Cortana: you must come
The signal was lost
Tali: I think we should investigate
Garrus: as do I but we can't leave Vasir here. Garrus to Silencer I need a pickup, one wounded and unconscious
Silencer: This is Silencer I hear you lead and clear
5 minutes later: the cloaked archives site
Tali: why were we brought into the middle of nowhere?
Just as she said that the landscape seemed to shatter and rearrange itself as a site with the archives emerged
A blue holographic woman then appeared and spoke "I am sorry for that, it was a necessary deception. The indoctrinated one you call Saren could not be allowed access to my data banks. I am Cortana, a human artificial intelligence"
Tali was internally squealing like a little girl in excitement
Garrus: a human artificial intelligence? Can you tell me what that ship was?
Cortana: I and my makers never learned their true name. We called them what those who came before us in the cycle did, the Reapers
Tali: the cycle? Those who came before?
Cortana: history is as we found, cyclical. The Humans did not create the mass relays or the Citadel, the reapers did. All civilizations follow the paths they desire, or at least until the last cycle
Tali: Why not yours, and what about the relay gates?
Cortana: The relay gates as you call them were in fact built by us. Also as you have no doubt found our ruins we too found the ruins of a race that came before ours named the Protheans. Can you guess what we did?
Garrus: "you copied their technology…" realization striking him
Cortana: incorrect, we ignored their technology and kept developing our own. We took their element zero while leaving everything else behind
Tali: but why?
Cortana: at the time we thought it better to create our own technology we understand to prevent stagnation. We were more correct in our assumption then we could ever know.
Garrus: why do they do this? What do they want? Slaves? Resources?
Cortana: the reapers' intentions are alien, unknowable. The only thing for certain is that they want the eradication of all spacefaring life
Garrus: this is Garrus to Silencer I need comms equipment brought to my location then to have the council relayed through the Silencer
5 minutes later
Tevos: a real Human AI?
Cortana: yes Asari, I am a human AI tending to this archive, my name is Cortana
Valren: incredible!
Sparatus: what was the purpose of the archives
Cortana: when it became clear humanity was doomed many contingency plans were created. Due to data compartmentalization, I do not know these plans nor other locations of different archives. Their purpose however is threefold, to warn the next cycle about the reapers, preserve our technology and culture, and store a viable population of 10,000 different human DNA sequences and their Uploads in emergency sleep mode to bring back our species by cloning and give them back their minds
Zaal'koris: you have all Human technology in the archive?
Valren: bringing back the humans...
Cortana: most, I have none regarding the contingency plans as an anti capture system. I am also designed to self destruct if I am captured by an indoctrinated person such as your Saren
Valren: what is indoctrination?
Cortana: indoctrination is the reaper method to insidiously reprogram the victim's mind into agreeing, worshipping, or otherwise doing the Reaper's will. Our empire almost defeated the reapers with a powerful dark energy weapon we discovered in Prothean archives we named the crucible. This weapon has been around for numerous cycles and if deployed it would destroy the reapers. We built multiple copies of it in case one got destroyed
Tevos: why wasn't a crucible deployed?
Zaal'koris: is there a means to defend against indoctrination?
Cortana: we were sabotaged from within. A group named Cerberus, led by the indoctrinated illusive man, wanted to take control of the reapers and told them of the Catalyst before it could be deployed and connected to one of the many crucibles we built
Valren: what is the Catalyst?
Cortana: the Catalyst is a means to focus the immense energies of the crucible. The Catalyst is the Citadel
Tevos: what?
Valren: why do the reapers come from?
Cortana: they come from somewhere in dark space through the Citadel which is in actuality a massive mass relay. We stopped their vanguard from entering through the Citadel led by an indoctrinated individual with a mech army of enslaved AIs
Garrus: Saren..
Cortana: as I said history is cyclical. As for indoctrination, there are methods we designed to detect and cure it but for us the illusive man was at the top pulling the strings, never coming out so we never detected him
Cortana: if you promise to help bring back the Humans I will share everything on the archive
Valren: agreed
Tevos: agreed
Sparatus: agreed
Zaal'koris: of course
Din Korlack: I agree but… ush… where did you point Saren towards...
Cortana: a black hole, hopefully, he goes straight past the event horizon. Black holes are very damaging to reapers so we have found. As for the "first gate." it is the first relay gate as you know them that was created. You call the exit point the relay gate monument at the foot of the citadel tower just as you call the Prothean mass relay the relay monument when in fact both are fully functional prototypes of what you think they depict
Valren: history is cyclical…
Cortana: exactly. I recommend you remove both and move them to a secure location with traps for anyone that comes out
Sparatus: I agree, let us begin doing that
Valren: you mentioned uploading earlier, what is that
Cortana: Uploading is the process used to move the consciousness of an individual from an organic body to a digital format at the cost of the original brain to ensure it is a full, perfect transference and not killing and cloning
Valern: incredible…
Zaal'koris: wow…
Tali: even we Quarians don't have that great an understanding of our minds…
Legion: Understandable. The Geth and other AIs call this system having a platform
Cortana: I have never seen an AI like you before. You appear to be a sort of networked intelligence
Legion: yes
Cortana: interesting
Sparatus: how many reapers are there?
Cortana: unknown, we killed millions during our war against them. We like to think we have done damage that cannot recover from.