Mass Effect: Human Effect: Shadows Broken
Deep in the depths of the Martian server cities lies the Tartarus data cloud, the home of human intelligence operations and the head of Cerberus known as Jack Harper who was smoking the digital equivalent of a cigarette while drinking the digital equivalent of whiskey to the background of the construction of the sol shell
Jack Harper: "Operative Lawson, I have a new assignment for you." he said contacting her while tapping his digital cigarette over the digital ashtray
Miranda Lawson, one of the top human intelligence agents came into the simdeck in her virtual white and black enhancement suit
Miranda: What is my mission?
Jack Harper: our sensors have picked up an anomaly on the tidally locked world of hagalaz. We had our Machina and Uploaded agents look into it and we discovered it is the base of the shadow broker
Miranda: Is he a threat to us?
Jack Harper: we don't even know if they are a man but I suspect they are either an Asari, a dynasty of Salarians, or simply a collective group.
Miranda: And what of their threat?
Jack Harper: Nobody minus our Prothean allies currently has the capacity to pose even a minor threat to our cybersecurity but we suspect the Quarrians and the Geth will catch up quickly. However, the broker's organization presents a unique opportunity for humanity. The shadow broker has information on all council races and our non Prothean allies and an extensive network of agents throughout citadel space
Miranda: And my mission?
Jack Harper: Your job is to become the new shadow broker and gain access to his network for humanity. I have created a special Asari download body with an Asari mannerism software program using element zero to give you access to element zero based Kinetics or as they call it, biotics. Why they call it biotics I will never understand, biotics are cybernetic enhancements but I suppose it is just a difference in culture.
Miranda: understood, how long term is this assignment?
Jack Harper: for the next hundred years, after that, you may either request reassignment or continue if you so wish
Miranda: I understand
Elsewhere in the Martian physical cities and server cities alike, project ascension continued utilizing uploading, AI, fabrication, nanite, and countless other technologies to create the perfect synthesis of man and machine, not the use of cybernetics and genetic mods but the creation of single biomechanical species through the fusion of all three human subspecies that would come to be known as post-humanity.
Hagalaz
A swirling rip in spacetime opens up allowing the 600 meter Cerberus stealth corvette to exit near the shadow broker's ship among the storming green clouds
Miranda looked to her data hud about the ship's readouts and knew exactly what to do, she fired a phase pod into the heart of the ship and went through it
When Miranda exited the swirling vortex of spacetime she was met with a most unexpected sight, a Yagh, a species that was supposed to be quarantined on their homeworld for slaughtering the council's first contact teams. The higher-ups were currently debating whether to contact them and conquer them as their culture sees coexistence as offensive. These higher-ups do however see it as ironic the citadel cites their aggression and obsession with control as traits making them unsuitable for being brought into the galactic community
Shadow Broker: ah so you have arrived Human, I have been expecting you after your intrusions into my network. Your advanced technology will cement my place as the shadow broker for eternity-
Miranda: stop with the cheesy villain monologue Yagh. She said drawing and firing her white particle pistol quicker than the speed of thought, its continuous blue stream of neutrons tearing straight through his chest leaving a gaping, steaming, molten hole of flesh, armor, and boiling blood causing the Yagh to fall down dead instantly
Miranda then burnt the rest of the body with a small fabricated incendiary grenade which exploded leaving nothing but black burn marks on the steel floor. Miranda then began to unload her equipment from her ship getting situated as the new shadow broker
Quarrian Conclave
Zaal'Koris: so are you going to teach us quantum gravity?
President Anderson: I suppose you have earned that right so I am transmitting a basic working theory so you may use it. We have also created a species-wide treatment for your immune system if you are willingto use it
The theory transmitted through the highly encrypted Geth servers where the Quarians and Geth began analyzing it
Zaal'Koris: we thank you for your generosity
Envoy: thank you
Zaal'Koris: honestly after being betrayed by the council a part of me thought you would not actually do anything for us, let alone giving us a species-wide treatment and the secrets to your technology's basics
President Anderson: we're not like the council we see the potential in the Quarians but we don't wish to give you absolutely everything we have as that would create stagnation, conflict, and a reliance on as as the Asari once had with the other races. Instead, we are giving you the ground you can start building on in a literal and figurative sense
Zaal'Koris: we understand and appreciate that. We Quarians value hard work
President Anderson: my I speak candidly?
Zaal'Koris: of course friend
President Anderson: your people were once for a lack of a better term, lazy bosh'tets for creating the Geth as mechanized slaves to do literally everything
Zaal'koris just sighed. You're not wrong, our people see that now
President Anderson: we will come to aid your scientists with your treatment at an agreeable date.
The Citadel; Volus/Elcor Embassy
Din Korlack: ushh hello human I suppose you want to talk business ushhh
Ambassador Goyal: just one second. She said scanning and disabling every single hidden bug in the room
Ambassador Goyal: Now we may begin. Yes I want to sell you massive amounts of eezo and other materials and help you succeed from the status of client state to the hierarchy into our ally in the Coalition
Din Korlack: ushh you wish to help us while undermining ushh the Turian hierarchy, I have ushh no issues with this and ushh let us begin
Calyn: Questioning. What about us Human?
Ambassador Goyal: We will ally with you as well
Calyn: Considering. Alright, will discuss it. Explanatory. We have always disagreed with the Citadel. Hopeful. Perhaps you can make a better deal for us
Quarrian/Geth Space
Tali'Zorah loved Rannoch as much as the next Quarrian and even lived in the beachside house her father promised her, but she honestly just felt more at home on a starship so after a while she took a part-time job on one
Legion: alert, an unknown ship has entered our space, it has no life signs but has a resemblance to human-creator uploads
Tali'Zorah: a resemblance?
Legion: neural signatures resemble human-creator uploads with a deviation of 37.2% in structure
Tali'Zorah: I think this is a first contact situation with a new species with uploading technology, legion can you contact them?
Legion: affirmative, contact achieved, translation matrix activated… translation achieved
Daranni Leader: We are the Daranni, I am the chosen leader of our people Ghoh'n, if we may ask can you offer us assistance?
Tali'Zorah: why have you uploaded yourselves onto that ship? Are you some kind of colony ship for a species where going into space is impractical?
Ghoh'n: Your people know of uploading technology?
Tali'Zorah: not especially, we call them virtual ancestors but our research is not that far along. Our allies of the Human UEG however are quite adept in its usage
Ghoh'n: we would like to meet these Humans if it would not be too much trouble, they might be able to help us regain our flesh
Tali'Zorah: why did you upload your people anyways?
Ghoh'n: Our people were once a species of floating cephalopods who evolved on the moisture-rich world of Delas Nine, a moon of Arnas, a gas giant. Our world was warmed by Arnas's great tidal forces which warmed its ice to create an atmosphere of water vapor, oxygen, hydrogen, and eventually life. Just as we achieved spaceflight our star entered the final stages of its life. Our people worked tirelessly eventually finding element zero on the moon of Esii, from here we knew our people were doomed and we didn't have the resources to evacuate everyone. To solve this we created the process of uploading and were able to take our entire population with us alongside all our digital records and digitized versions of our physical records. We then left our home moon behind to die aboard our vessel. Then we began our search for a new homeworld aboard our servership for the last eight thousand years but unfortunately due to our hastiness we didn't create a way for our servership to collect energy and we are getting low on power
Tali'Zorah: e-eight thousand years?!
Ghoh'n: indeed
Tali'Zorah: Wow that's a long time. So you escaped your star going supernova? Of course, we'll help you. Legion, get us close and connect our ship's reactor to theirs. Well charge them up a bit then have a Dreadnought come pick them up in their cargo hold
Legion: affirmative
Ghoh'n: We thank you and your Human allies and...whatever your race and that of the AIs present are called.
Tali'Zorah: Quarrian and Geth. Also, we are happy to help you
Later that day, The Citadel
Turian Reporter: I'm reporting for Citadel news network and I have a shocking new development. in a shocking and unprecedented turn of events the Elcor, the Volus, The Hanar, Drell, and the new Asari government, the True Asari Republic, have left the Citadel council for the Coalition here's what the representative of the new Asari republic has to say
Ashyn'a: the Asari have always believed in cooperation between multiple species to form a galactic community. My predecessors believed this to be a system to better the Asari and only the Asari. I have studied human history and have found a direct comparison, the old Asari republics were a people's republic. This may at first sound like a good thing but it is anything but. The old Asari Republics was a police state controlled by the Alamarii high council which owned everything directly or indirectly, it was a fascist state as the humans once dealt with. No, we believe in peace and cooperation not domination under a silk-covered sword. We will join the Coalition with the Elcor and Volus to the new galactic community
The Citadel is the past, The Coalition is the future
Turian Reporter: and there you have it and here is the leader of the Hanar illuminated primacy
Illuminated through rebirth: this one's face name is illuminated through rebirth and this one has been illuminated through the rebirth of the Enkinders from the hands of the unholy Reaper-Demons who have defiled, twisted, and impersonated the holy word of the Enkindlers. This one-
The Council Chambers
Sparatus fired his pistol at the holoprojector making it fissile out before ultimately turning off
Sparatus: HOW DARE THEY?! HOW DARE THEY?!
Valren: this is problematic, we alone, we are the only ones left of the council. I recommend we join the Coalition.
Sparatus: EXCUSE ME?!
Valren: support for such an action is becoming increasingly popular throughout the Union but the Delathrasses want to stay, a civil war possible.
Sparatus: WHAT?! WHY?!
Valren: many are believing what the Asari do. The Citadel is the past, the Coalition is the future.
Sparatus: UGHHH!!
Valren quietly snuck out of the room as Sparatus started shooting things in anger
Meanwhile: Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
The Catalyst ordained everything be used and so it would be. Countless worlds in the dwarf galaxy were stripped of all organic material and left as barren rocks to harvest its biomass to build new reapers. These would create the super ascended who were each 25km long, had directed plasma weapons, magnetohydrodynamic secondaries, ground troops using magnetohydrodynamic infantry weapons, and The Dragon Virus was recreated to turn the infected into a cult that would weaken the planet's defenses with sabotage and infiltration and send a beacon directly to the reapers about the status of the planet
The Reapers were well prepared to handle any cyclic race but now they had a prepared galaxy united against them and two races that could easily defeat them at their standard cyclic strength
The Reapers were mobilizing to full strength equal to the first cycle against their Leviathan creators. And the Catalyst swore the galaxy would fall before his might
..
Yes I'm turning the Reapers into biomechanical Tyranids because I honestly think it is a good natural progression and I can't believe the Reapers didn't have stronger weapons they used in the first cycle and the following cycles before they built the citadel and the mass relays to make it easier for themselves