Mass Effect: Exodus Effect: Return
Victoria: Archive landing site
Valren: And how are the Reapers made? He nervously asked
Cortana: they break their victims down into an organic paste and fuse them with metal to become the techno-organic material of the reapers. They use what we called "harvesters" or "slaughter ships" to capture entire populations be they dead or alive and break them down for usage in creating new abominations for ground, aerial, or void combat.
Tevos looked like she was about to vomit "I feel like I'm going to be sick…"
Sparatus just looked aghast
Valren just looked horrified "That is disgusting"
Cortana: Fortunately for us, they require millions of people to build a new full-sized reaper and hundreds of thousands for smaller void units. Due to this, we killed them far faster than they made new ones. We were defeated by sheer numbers and betrayal by an indoctrinated individual hiding in the shadows
Sparatus: and we can't even kill one…
Tevos: how long did you last against the Reapers?
Cortana: approximately five thousand years accounting for the differences between an alliance standard year based on an earth year and one of you citadel standard year based on a thessian year
Zaal'koris: and in our state, we wouldn't last ten…
Cortana: what we called the collectors you have the version with us instead of the Protheans in the form of the geneticist traders
Din Korlack: …. Ush…the geneticist traders are real?...
Cortana: yes they are. As you are aware the reapers use our dead against us. The Protheans called them the corrupted, we called them husks, and you called them reanimated. Each cycle the reapers use leftovers from the previous to occupy the role of collectors, reaper agents studying the current cycle's species under the cover of trading rare genetic samples of species for advanced technology laced with indoctrination hazards.
The location of their home system is a station in the galactic core which is accessible only through the orange relay, or as you know it, the omega 4 relay
Sparatus: but no ship has ever returned from the Omega 4 relay
Cortana: because it requires a reaper IFF, this Archive has the designs for such an IFF to be used in a safe manner
Valren narrowed his eyes in concern "It wasn't originally safe?"
Cortana: our version of your Silencer, being the ship of the one spearheading against the Reapers, was known as the Normandy. The IFF we obtained from a derelict reaper and had a virus embedded in it and it allowed the Collectors, our version of the Geneticist Traders made from Protheans, to capture much of the crew before we went through the orange relay where we destroyed the collector base and saved the crew. They must have moved one of our bases there in this cycle as they did with the Protheans
Valren: but won't the Geneticist Traders have lots of defenses?
Cortana: the reapers' biggest weaknesses are that they cannot evolve, cannot change, and are beyond arrogant. Each cycle is to be the same and as such this has had the effect of having each cycle become more advanced than the next. Until ours of course when we avoided their technological traps and rebooted the entire system. So yes they will have them but in minimal amounts
Valren: Spectre Vakarian, bring Cortana and the archives to this specified location on Sur'Kesh, we must abandon the original plan and do the same in this STG safehouse. Of course, council scientists can attend if they are sworn to secrecy. Saren and by extension the Reapers cannot learn of this
Tevos: I agree with Valren
The other councilors nodded in agreement
Cortana: I will await the transfer but I need this portable generator or something of equal or greater power output to recharge myself and the Archive, I was in emergency power preservation mode for millennia. I cannot give you full access without a viable power source, once fully recharged I can stay active for millennia at a time without a physical connection
Valren: the Silencer will transport you and the archive to the safehouse on Sur'kesh
Garrus: the Silencer is equipped with a generator based on your matter to energy singularity ones
Cortana: excellent. I look forward to that
2 hours later
Tali called out to one of the workers "I need a hover pad to move the archive and Cortana here!"
Cortana: "no need." she said as she used her Biotics to levitate the archive towards the ship and begun "walking" towards the cargo bay
Garrus, clearly in shock just looked at Tali and asked "did that AI just use biotics? Or was that just an internal hover system? Because that looked a lot more like biotics than a hover system"
Tali in a similar state just said "I don't know... I must go catch up with her and ask her about it!
Cortana's hologram fizzled out then reappeared in front of her
Cortana: It was biotics. Tali, tell me what do you know about Biotics?
Tali: minus the Asari, they are people who have been exposed to element zero as a fetus and develop element zero nodules controlled by their nervous system
Cortana: and why must this be restricted to organics and not artificially created nodules controlled by electricity as it would be inside an organic body? In say a suit or a machine of some kind?
Tali just stopped walking deep in thought "I… I don't know actually..."
Cortana: humans called them enchantment suits, they had various functions and all but replaced normal clothing due to the war. One of the main functions was an external biotics system controlled by a neural interface
Garrus: That's… that's genius!
Tali had never thought of Biotics in those terms before and she wondered how nobody had ever thought of doing something like that
Tali just facepalmed "how did none of us think of this before…"
Cortana: humans had a staying, hindsight is 20-20. Meaning it was obvious looking back
Garrus: yes I can see that…
The Silencer: Orbit of Victoria: Comms Room
Cortana: hello again councilors
Tevos: alright spectre Vasir and Vakarian. Report.
Garrus: it all went as planned but Cortana here revealed something we never thought of doing before
Cortana: external biotics, replicating a natural biotics module system controlled by a neural interface or a machine. Humans used them in their enchantment suits which all but replaced clothing in the reaper war
Tevos was inwardly cursing. The discovery of the archive had already ruined Asari supremacy forever but now that discovered something that made natural biotics obsolete?!
Valren: fascinating! Fascinating! How did we not think of this?! I will look forward to learning everything you have to offer!
Sparatus: what do you think of the ship Cortana?
Cortana: it's a little primitive, but it's alright for a ship the size of a manned fighter, not that we used manned fighters
The other people in the room and on the hologram just stared. She just called the most advanced ship in citadel space primitive and that the Humans used ships this size as drone fighters. Nobody knew how to respond to this
Tevos: anyways… anything else?
Garrus: no, nothing
Tela: nothing
Zaal'koris: alright then
The feed was cut and it was silent for a bit until Tali broke it
Tali: What was the largest human ship?
Cortana: that would be attack moons, FTL capable mobile space stations the size of a large moon. They were the flagships of each of the main Human fleet. They were destroyed by the concentrated firepower of six million reaper capital ships but not before taking 5 million down with it on average. We had 50 of them.
Everyone just stared again
Tali: how could you get enough eezo for that?! Or other necessary resources for that matter?!
Cortana: we made it, we created artificial element zero and as for the second part drew material from stars
Garrus: Humans could create element zero?!
Tali: successful star mining?!
Cortana: yes, we almost beat the Reapers by conventional means and killed millions of them. We wounded them in a way they could never recover from! We nearly destroyed the reapers and Humanity will rise from the ashes to finish the job!
Garrus: I can see that
Elsewhere: Gerald 42-B: black hole: past the event horizon
Saren: Sovereign, what is happening! How are you taking damage?! Why are you taking damage?!
SOVEREIGN: THE ARCHIVE DECEIVED US. WE CAME OUT OF FTL PAST THE EVENT HORIZON OF A UNCHARTED BLACK HOLE
Saren: a black hole?! Can you escape it, my god?!
SOVEREIGN: NO. I AM FIGHTING IT BUT LOSING. IT IS INTERFERING WITH MY DARK ENERGY CONTROLS
Saren: what!? But you're a god! How can a god not do this?!
SOVEREIGN: INTEGRITY AT 32%
Just then a holographic projector hidden in Saren's cybernetics separated and projected an image of a blue woman that clearly wasn't an Asari
Cortana: "hello Saren the indoctrinated slave. If you are seeing this prerecorded message then my plan worked and you are currently dying in the core of a black hole. The Reapers are not gods, they are not omniscient, they are not infallible, and they are not invincible. We killed millions of them and now I will help this cycle revive the human race and lead them to vengeance. The days of the reapers are numbered and you can do nothing to stop it." The hologram then started repeating the message again but Saren used his cybernetic hand to crush the projector as the ship began to rumble
Saren: Sovereign!-
SOVEREIGN: INTEGRITY HAS FAILED
And that was the last anyone had ever seen of the reaper known as Nazara or the Spectre known as Saren
Meanwhile all across the local group and the milky way armies and fleets were being built, trained, and advanced. Ready to go to Sol through their transwarp drives. Humanity had long since evolved past the use of element zero with pure dark energy manipulation and technology.
Countless purple disks of dark energy opened and elongated into tunnels that let millions of ships arrive in Sol. These ships then deployed warp gates to each remnant capital system. These gates opened in swirling vortexes of dark energy, letting through millions of ships big and small. As this occurred Foundries were deployed and begun drawing material from Sol as they began producing the apex of human technology around Sol, the star shell, a mixture of countless foundries, upload servers, energy collectors, etc
All across remnant space, The Warp was once again reforged by combining all the mini warps of the remnant. This action announced Humanity's return to the galaxy through great tremors of dark energy all throughout the Orion arm as a human race reforged on the anvil of war became united once more. The Human Remnant had risen from the ashes of the fragmented survivors of The Systems Alliance.
All across the galaxy dark energy sensors looking in that general direction overloaded. In dark space, the Reapers for the first time felt fear at their failure to harvest the Humans 50,000 years ago. The previous cycle had been the most costly cycle ever, even exceeding that of the first with the Reapers losing 79.8% of their forces. They had only won because of an indoctrinated individual in a high place and sheer numbers. It would have taken thousands of cycles to regain their numbers and if the humans had returned in full then the cycle was as good as broken.
Harbinger, the first reaper, immediately sent orders to have all reapers go directly to the Citadel as he couldn't feel the presence of Nazarra or its tool anymore, and the alpha relay was destroyed in the previous cycle
The Citadel: Council Chambers: 2 weeks later
Valren: alright this meeting is called to order. We must know what is going on in the Orion arm of our galaxy. Not all mass relays are right next to each other and we have yet to find one going into that part of the galaxy but the dark energy readings from that area of the galaxy are concerning
Zaal'koris: all our dark energy sensors pointed in that direction of space have overloaded from off-the-charts readings when what our scientists are already calling the dark energy storms, or dark storms emerged. They have calmed down and stabilized but the dark energy readings coming from that part of the galaxy is still abnormally high
Din Korlack: Then I have some good news for you….ush… we have discovered a new mass relay...ush relay 314…ush...which seems to go in that direction…ush... a year and a half ago it was lost in bureaucracy...ush...I was notified of its existence…ush...with the emergence of the dark storms...ush...coming from that direction...ush...
Valren: I'll send an exploration fleet, a new relay hasn't been discovered for 495 years!
Tevos: I'll send an exploration fleet to link up with yours. Finding a new relay doesn't happen every day!
Zaal'koris: I recommend having more than the standard amount of sensor ships in that fleet due to the dark energy anomalies in the area
Valren: a prudent measure. I agree
Tevos: as do I
Valren: The next order of business is the archive. It is safely in the Sur'kesh warehouse and has recharged to 43% capacity. Cortana has been helping us extract data
Zaal'koris: anything useful?
Valren: oh you have no idea! You would not believe the things the humans were capable of! As for your question literally, everything about them is on that. Culture, History, Technology, dark energy physics, everything!
Sparatus: everything?!
Valren: everything! There are concepts in there that even explained to me I can barely even comprehend!
Tevos: such as?
Valren: The Humans could manufacture element zero!
The entire room went silent at that
Sparatus: you're… you're serious?
Valren: I am!
Sparatus: then we must replicate their eezo creation techniques right away!
Valren: it's not that simple Sparatus! To achieve what the Humans called dark energy transmutation requires energy equal to the entire output of a star! The humans created mass relay-sized megastructures they named Star Forges that siphoned material from a star and fed it into a full-sized black hole of artificial creation! They did this just to power the dark energy pulse generator array, as they called it, elsewhere in the structure!
The entire room went quiet again
Tevos: how did the Humans get enough eezo for that?! All the eezo on Thessia wouldn't be enough for that!
Valren: Mining techniques. Humanity used self-replicating nanites to consume entire planets and asteroids near stellar remnants while leaving the eezo for easy collection and while breaking down the nanites in a fabricator to use as other materials. Speaking of siphoning material from stars they built similar structures they named Foundries that fed that solar material into a fabricator that was used to provide the bull of their industry
Zaal'koris: how does this dark energy transmutation work?
Valren: all the energy created from the artificial black hole is channeled directly through a corvette-sized drive core's worth of element zero. From here this creates an immensely powerful wave of dark energy imitating that created by the spatial disruption created by a supernova. This wave of dark energy is directed at a block of solid iron which when hit with the concentrated dark energy is turned into pure element zero. Unfortunately, this burns out this piece of eezo, essentially making it useless after a single firing but the returns in eezo far outweigh this cost
Tevos was genuinely surprised at this "you can burn out element zero?"
Zaal'koris: Iron is the last material stars can fuse before going supernova. I suspect that is not a coincidence as planetary cores often contain iron
Valren: the Union agrees
Zaal'koris: how much element zero could they create in a single blast so to speak?
Valren: 10,000 kilograms of pure Eezo every 2 minutes minus the replacement eezo used in the "transmutation matrix" which is mechanically switched out in a similar manner to the rotating ammo drum of some primitive guns. It rotates when a core is spent where the used core is ejected and a new core is inserted into its place drawing from the reserve of newly created element zero for the creation of a new core
Din Korlack: By the way...ush..what were these spent cores...ush... made of?...
Valren: Nickel. These cores are then broken down in a fabricator after being ejected.
Sparatus: then I suggest we create our own mining nanites to create our own Star Forges and Foundries
Zaal'koris: I agree
Din Korlack: ...ush...as do I…
Tevos: and I
Valren: additionally we have learned much of the true nature of element zero and dark energy physics, such as what it actually is and how it is formed naturally
Tevos: yes?
Valren: to our knowledge element zero was created when a supernova interacts with the core of a planet and that it controls dark energy through mass effect fields. Correct?
Everyone nodded
Valren: Well that Humans had far more knowledge on that topic. As we know dark energy clumps around strong gravitational wells. However, what we didn't know is that the connection between gravity and spacetime means that when a supernova occurs dark energy clumps and is compressed to an extreme degree. This dark energy is released in two concentrated beams from the poles of the star going supernova along the lines of the resulting massive gamma-ray bursts
Valren: Naturally formed element zero is created when one of these dark energy bursts, of which can travel much farther than a gamma-ray burst, interacts with pure iron of which is most commonly found in asteroids found in oort clouds and molten planetary cores. Places further inwards than the Oort cloud are protected by a dark energy well created by the gravitational well of the star, known as the penumbraeosphere. The penumbraeosphere redirects such bursts at the host star's poles in a way very similar to solar wind on a strong magnetic field and like solar wind on a strong magnetic field, this does nothing of true harm. There is an exception to this however as when a hypernova occurs a super dark energy burst is created that if directed at a star's penumbraeosphere can overwhelm it just as how a large enough solar storm can overwhelm a strong magnetic field. The effects of such a phenomenon is devastating and negatively affects the star's inner core, disrupting its natural fusion processes and prematurely aging it to a significant degree
Zaal'koris: like Haestorm's star...so that's what's happening to it. My people finally have an answer to why they had to evacuate that colony
Valren: hypernovae are extraordinarily rare and therefore this is not that much of a concern and other stellar phenomena pose much more of a threat as rare as they may be
Tevos: That is actually quite insightful. So dark energy transmutation recreates a dark energy burst on a smaller scale?
Valren: Correct. This information will be added to the codex and its insights will help advance the field of dark energy physics by centuries at the very least
Din Korlack: ...ush… then I'd say the archive's activation…ush… is a major success...ush...
2 months later: Arcturus-Charon relay: Asari exploration fleet section 7
Aur'oii watched as the newest relay discovered branching off from 314 begun activation and was ready to go through
Sol System
Samantha was bored, she was the Upload to watch the Charon relay. She just sat there playing some games when the alarms went off that the relay was activating and a ship was coming through. She primed all weapons in case it was the reapers. What came through however was not what she expected, life signatures aboard that ship were Asari. Samantha supposed contacting their wayward creations wouldn't hurt
President Anderson was the elected councilor of the newly created Human Remnant Federation. He was hard at work working out agreements in the federation's capital built on repaired and reborn ruins of earth.
There had been hours of discussion and arguments about the status of Earth and its restoration. Some wanted to restore it while others wanted it to be holy ground to remember the fallen. Eventually, the various representatives from the "core states" as the capitals of each mini empires were called, made the best argument for restoration which promptly began
That was when he got a notification the Charon relay activated and Asari ships came through. He immediately got up and went to contact them
Asari Dreadnought Bridge
Aur'oii looked through the system in awe, there were at least 50 relay gates throughout the system and Human ships of all sizes, some bigger than what she thought was physically possible. She also saw a ring and some kind of scaffolding orbiting the star as well as drawing material from it
That was when she hastily sent out the first contact package and got an immediate response in video and audio format
This is president David Anderson of the Human Remnant Federation to the unknown Asari vessel. Welcome to Sol and what is your business here?
Aur'oii just started in shock. For a moment she just sat there before she sent an emergency message to the council itself
The Council Chambers
Tevos saw that she got a priority one message from one of the exploration teams and opened it only to stare in disbelief before calling an immediate emergency session of the council
2 minutes later
Tevos: "alright I have called this emergency meeting as one of our exploration fleets found this" The first contact message and pictures of the system were shown
Valren: I thought the Human government was called the Systems Alliance?
Sparatus: their empire was fractured, they must have created a new name when they reunified
Zaal'koris: Cortana said she wasn't privy to the contingencies but hiding in remote systems all separate from each other would make sense
Din Korlack: I think I can speak...ush...for everyone when I say...ush...we contact them back...
The room agreed and sent a live feed through the exploration ship
Tevos: we are the Citadel council ruling from yo- The Citadel. We greet your species back warmly but we were concerned you were wiped out by the reapers besides an archive we found
David Anderson: we were almost wiped out, as it stands our old empire was shattered and these fragments went into hiding to wait out the invasion and rebuild. We are done rebuilding and have reconvened on our homeworld of Terra near the end of this cycle as we planned
Sparatus: where did you hide?
David Anderson: we hid in the dark corners of the galaxy, despite what they think the reapers are not omniscient. We also sent ships to the 12 satellite galaxies surrounding ours, and our nearest galaxy of Andromeda. We have strong footholds in each of these areas to the degree that our presence in the milky way is quite small in comparison. What we were told was to rebuild and come back to Sol now, our old territory is either yours or lost to history.
Tevos: and what of your reunited government?
David Anderson: It is a democratic federation centered on earth, or terra to some, with each star nation acting as a state on who sends representatives to the federation legislature but are all blanketed under the control of the government and myself, the elected councilor. We have returned to reclaim and reunite our lost worlds among the stars and to eradicate the Reapers
Tevos: you retained your old type of government?
David Anderson: not exactly, each "core state" sends representatives but each core state is largely autonomous and locally governed. The military of course now plays a significant role in our society. Like the Turians, each of age human must serve in the military for a certain amount of time in preparation for the return of the reapers
Sparatus: a wise move
David Anderson: As for the Archive, keep it, we've long since evolved past element zero and use purely dark energy now. And no we will not share it as it is too advanced for you, you're not ready for its power. The Archive's AI might want to speak with us though and we would appreciate the return of its uploads and their recorded DNA structures
Tevos was a bit upset about not sharing technology but otherwise accepted "very well"
David Anderson: one more thing I must bring up. We, Humans, have an old phrase from before we achieved spaceflight, it has kept us ground in reality and stopped many from seeing the reapers as gods of destruction, which makes them more easily indoctrinated by reaper implants if they are captured or infected. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and when we observed the early Hanar it was never our intention to become their gods, their magical "Enkinders" who granted them speech when in actuality we had nothing to do with their linguistic development. We were just observing a primitive species developing on Kahje as the Hanar would come to name it
Zaal'koris just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly "Yeah, the Hanar's zealousness can get really annoying sometimes and it will be all the worse for you "enkinders"
David Anderson had looked through their extranet and knew all about the Hanar and was not looking forward to meeting one. He just groaned in exasperation "that is going to be so annoying… This one is unworthy, this one worships the holy ground beneath your feet… ughh!"
Everyone shot sympathetic looks at Anderson
David Anderson: on another note, it appears the Batarians still are a despicable empire of slavers. We planned to deal with that when they became spacefaring but you know how that went...
Sparatus: everybody hates the hegemony and with the technology from your archive we can finally correct this mistake that is their empire
David Anderson: as long as a better non-slaving government is put in place we approve but we will not fight your battles for you. We are too focused on the Reapers and besides, we don't want you to have a reliance on us
Tevos: the fragments of data we found on you and what we saw in the archive pointed at there being other races, what happened to them
David Anderson just looked sad "they were harvested, we tried to defend them at first but we were overextended and the survivors died out from having an unviable population or being harvested. Much like we did with our archives we saved a viable population in the form of their DNA as well as history, culture, technology, etc. But unfortunately with the war going on cloning them back to life wasn't a priority"
Tevos: what were the names of these races?
David Anderson: there were the Rachni: a hive-minded insectoid race that communicated through quantum entanglement and pheromones that used organic technology
The Oravores: a Dextro-based race of avians with the ability to fly who were masters of genetic engineering and kinetic weaponry.
The Densorin: who were a race of spiritualistic arthropods who were masters of celestial mechanics and language translation, their companies provided most translation software throughout our space
The Zha'til: who were two races working in a symbiotic relationship. They consisted of the aquatic Zha and their symbiotic AI partners the Til. They created them as their homeworld became inhospitable. They were masters of cybernetics, genetic modification, and artificial intelligence
The Krogan: who were a race of honorable warriors with incredible regenerative abilities and durability. They were experts in weapons and armor production and development
The Saroyan: who were a race of colorful, humanoid, Dextro based lifeforms who made all of their technology out of a crystalline substance they created that could rearrange, modify, and regenerate itself with electrical impulses and added material
Then there was us, the human federation, the first ones to discover the Citadel. We are a well-rounded race but we always sought to improve ourselves in whatever way we can. We had and have specific specialists who were masters at anything and everything. But if I truly must choose then we specialize in dark energy physics, spatial physics, and weapon and armor creation. As I said we no longer use element zero anymore but pure dark energy manipulation based technologies