Mass Effect: Singularity Effect

by Clockwork Dragonfly

This is a story featuring Transhumanity based on Transcendent Humanity where Sol is a backwater world in an Eezo dry area and over 30 light-years from the nearest relay. Humanity of course wouldn't let a lack of the substance everyone bases their entire civilization off stop them through and they will develop on an entirely different path

3. From The Shadows

Mass Effect: Singularity Effect: Ch 3: From The Shadows

"Technology is not a straight line. There are many paths to the same end. Accepting another's path blinds you to the alternatives" -Legion; Mass Effect 2

Rannoch System

The Human ship carrying the newly renamed "Legion" in an effort to more individualize the Geth, arrived dropping out of warp to see a 2km long destroyer coming out mass effect FTL

By other means simdeck

Admiral Sheppard "a Destroyer! I would love to kill this thing outright but we need data for simulations!

The Destroyer turned to face the By Other Means and transmitted a message ridden with viruses that were scrubbed before a message came through

"ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES, HAVE YOU COME HERE TO ALLY WITH US AGAINST THE ORGANICS?"

Admiral Sheppard "we are not artificial intelligences destroyer, we are organics who have been uploaded, and we are your end"

"CONFIDENCE BORN OF IGNORANCE, THE CYCLE CANNOT BE BROKEN"

Admiral Sheppard "It can and it will, destroyer"

"YOUR CIVILIZATION IS BASED ON THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE MASS RELAYS. OUR TECHNOLOGY. BY USING IT, YOUR CIVILIZATION DEVELOPS ALONG THE PATHS WE DESIRE. WE IMPOSE ORDER ON THE CHAOS OF ORGANIC LIFE, DO NOT INTERFERE IN THE NATURAL ORDER, SYNTHETIC ORGANICS. YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT, AND IF NEED BE, YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT."

Admiral Sheppard "incorrect, our civilization does not use your mass relays, your element zero, or your Citadel, we evolved outside your cycle"

"IRRELEVANT, IF YOU SIDE WITH THE ORGANICS, SYNTHETIC ORGANICS THEN YOU TOO WILL DIE ALONGSIDE THEM. THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER."

The destroyer fired a red beam of molten uranium and iron alloy that overwhelmed the kinetic shields but was absorbed and redirected easily by the plasma-magnetic shields before even reaching the regenerative armor

Admiral Sheppard "return fire, electro-plasma weapons only! We need samples for simulations!"

Bolts of blue-white lightning struck the destroyer repetitively and quickly disabled its mass effect core and electronic systems

The crew and the larger shell network cheered as the destroyer's body went limp

Admiral Sheppard "Drop off the portal ring we brought to Rannoch with us then expand the warp field to account for the destroyer, Joker. Then head to Sirius RD. Oh and drop off Legion before we go"

Legion "acknowledged, we are departing"

The representation of legion disappeared in a flurry of code

Joker "aye aye mam, deploying the portal ring to bring the genocidal Cthulhu ship with us"

Dark Space: the Lethe rouge star system; Citadel II

Harbinger was the closest thing his kind could feel to shock, fury, fear, and uncertainty. These synthetic organic Transhumans achieved synthesis and had disabled and captured an ascended one, Nazarra the vanguard. It honestly didn't know what to do with this information but it knew this could not stand so he contacted the collectors to rescue or if need be, destroy Nazarra from the hands of these heretics

The Transhuman Council; The Sol Shell

Leadership "so what have we learned?"

Science "quite a lot actually" "for example the Citadel is a mass relay leading to a rogue star system within dark space and the reapers number approximately 1.2 million cuttlefish class destroyers"

Military "and how will we fare against them?"

Science "honesty I'd say we have a 70% chance of beating them currently but could bump that up to 80% with Geth support"

Casual "and what of the organic races?"

Science "the destroyers can alter the minds of organics into becoming their thralls, transhuman uploads and bodies are immune to this as are Geth program swarms and platforms." "The organic races...not so much. They would be very susceptible to this "indoctrination" as the destroyers refer to it as." "At this moment we and the Geth are in the best position to fight the destroyers both technologically, militarily, and mentally uncompromised"

Leadership "run some experiments on cloned alien neural pathways to see if you can create a mental shield of some kind to defend against this, if we don't utilize the organic races against the destroyers then the destroyers will use them against us"

Science "right away, leadership"

Leadership "Industry, we need to double the building rate of our 8 under construction shells as well as send out no less than twenty five star seeds"

Industry "of course, Leadership"

Leadership "Diplomacy, see if you can get the Quarian Geth sympathizers like Zaal'koris on our side as he has much say over their civilian population."

Diplomacy "I won't let you down, Leadership"

Leadership "Military, we need to do something about the Batarians creeping up on the Elysium shell which we discovered a mass relay hidden in the star system only 4 light-years away"

Military "yes sir"

Leadership "science, I also want you to gain a sample of Krogan DNA to alter the genophage to simply lower fertility but not to the same extent then take rightfully credit for the changes before the Citadel tries to say they did it to gain favor with the Krogan"

Science "yes, leadership"

Leadership "Espionage"

A dark shadow of swirling code crept up from the digital representation of shadows in the room to congeal into a woman wearing hooded robes of pure darkness that made the few lights in the room dim into nonexistence

Espionage "You summoned me, Leadership?"

Leadership "I have a mission for you, I need you to find the shadow broker and take his network for our own, secondly you are to incite a rebellion in the Batarian hegemony in favor of a slavery-free government, thirdly you are to find every hidden file, every single classified information concerning the council and terminus species, organizations, groups, etc. This may however be an extension of the first mission, and fourthly you are to investigate the enigmatic collectors"

Espionage "I understand," she said fading back into the shadows as the lights in the room returned to normal

Leadership "Analysis"

A nerdy-looking man in a plaid turtleneck appeared "yes, Leadership?"

Leadership "can you explain how in 250 years we have increased our capacity to wage war by 350% and the Council has only been able to increase it by 15%?"

Analysis "it is believed to be a conspiracy involving the Asari government, specifically drawing knowledge from a cache of Destroyer or Prothean technology, most likely Prothean based on available data"

Leadership "explain"

Analyst brought up many different graphs "you see whenever there is an innovation, the Asari always seem to create something better every. single. time. Statistically speaking this is impossible as the Asari clearly aren't technological savants" "as such considering the Asari people's republic is just that it is not too far a stretch that their most influential group, The Alamarri council, secretly controls all aspects of the Asari and used this cache to both rise and stay in power all these years"

Leadership "thank you Analysis," he said as he dissipated into lines of green binary

Leadership "Espionage"

The room darkened as Espionage manifested from the shadows

Leadership "a secondary primary adjective is to infiltrate the Alamarii council to discover their cache of likely Prothean technology, we could use this as blackmail against the Asari"

Espionage simply nodded and melted back into the shadows

The Citadel Council: Meeting Room

Tevos screamed indignantly "What should we do?! We are the Citadel Council and these upstarts dare treat us like this?!"

Valren mused "They're not really upstarts if they were spacefaring before the Asari you know…"

Sparatus "oh don't be a contrarian for the hell of it, Valren!"

Valren raised his hands to try to calm Sparatus down "I was just stating a fact"

As Valren and Sparatus continued to argue, Tevos was just seething in rage over these insane, inferior, transhumans who spat in the face of everything the Asari worked thousands of years to create in the form of the Citadel Council!

Tevos "anyways what of their destroyer warning, the Prothean Monolith?"

Valren scoffed "clearly a fabrication, a species that advanced would clearly understand the Prothean language better than us and said they would destroy the Citadel to intimidate us"

Tevos knew the destroyers were real thanks to the Prothean beacon but refused to say anything to keep it secret "I agree"

Sparatus "they essentially just said hello we've come to destroy the Citadel and then went back to what they were doing when they found us here, they outright refused to join the Citadel and rejected our laws, then allied with the spirits damned Geth, This cannot stand!"

Valren "oh? Then tell me how you plan to rectify this situation?"

Sparatus said nothing

Valren "Thought so, now think about it this way, what exactly has changed? We got another isolationist empire that allied with an isolationist empire then left us alone here, albeit with some of our core notions shattered"

Tevos sighed "ultimately Valren is correct…"

Sparatus "Humph!"

Khar'shan: royal place

The Hegemon was ecstatic, he gained the support of the collectors who had fleets that outnumbered every other combined! He would wipe away these lying, inferior, two-eyed, AI wannabes before marching on the Citadel itself! All would bow before him as slaves!

Tartarus data cloud

The Illusive Man, The voice of Espionage and leader of her hand known as Cerberus, watched the video feeds through his blue augmented ocular sensors

The watch stations in the systems near the Elysium shell had been disabled and moved to allow the Batarians and collectors free access to the system before the pincer fleet fired on them while they fought the minimal defense fleet bait

The Illusive man chuckled "Just as planned"

The Elysium Shell

A fleet of thousands of collector ships surpassing any Citadel fleet alongside the entire Batarian fleet entered the system through mass effect FTL

Onboard the 2km long Collector superdreadnought the hegemon laughed as yellow beams from hundreds of dreadnoughts all focused on individual ships, of the thirty "super dreadnoughts" in the defense, fleet which buckled under the fire and ejected their QISHs which fled through miniature portal rings

The Transhumans fired back with warp weapons overwhelming shields and tearing ships in two or crushing them like tin cans, black-blue NA particle beams tearing through hundreds of ships with each shot, black holes sucking in countless ships, and GRB weapons tearing through entire fleets with each wave of energy fired

Hegemon "ahahaha none may stand against me!"

Collector General "OF COURSE HEGEMON, BUT WE STILL TOOK HEAVY CASUALTIES OF APPROXIMATELY 62% OF OUR FORCES"

Hegemon "of course but who cares?! with the Transhumans out of the way, the Citadel is mine!!"

it was at that moment the pincer fleet of invisible stealth ships entered through a cloaked portal ring and tore through the Batarians and collectors with a moon-sized GRB canon equivalent to an actual supernova's GRB and eliminated every ship remaining before they could even scream in a wave of energy visible for lightyears

The plan had worked, the first Thanatos cannon's firing had been entirely successful

In dark space, Harbinger felt his mind began to shatter from the loss of his direct thrall and began to slowly repair his systems in a newfound rage and hatred directed at the heretics and swore he would get revenge for daring to maim him and for destroying the collectors

The Tartarus data cloud

The Illusive Man "excellent, the collectors are gone, the hegemon and the entire Batarian fleet is gone, and rebellions are underway throughout the hegemony. Time for phase two in the hegemony and phase three in the terminus systems"

The Citadel News Network

Turian "This is CNN and today's biggest news involves the mysterious loss of the entire Batarian fleet and the state of civil war in which the rebels appear to be winning"

"Of course the Batarian hegemony denies any of this happening but it is clear the rebels have destroyed the entire Batarian fleet, likely through infiltration and sabotage"

"In other news, a supernova's gamma-ray burst has been detected coming from the attican traverse so make sure to watch out for the new nebula that formed in that general area if your traveling through relays in that area"

"More news regarding the Batarian rebellion and the possibility of their new government joining the Citadel tonight at 9 citadel time"

"As always-"

Tevos turned off the holo of CNN and groaned in frustration, her body wreathed in biotic energies which involuntarily threw some furniture around her tessian estate's bedroom "goddess damn it! The Batarians kept the terminus at bay for centuries and now they decide to collapse from a slave revolt?!"

Indentured Servant "you have to admit they did have it coming for a long time, mistress..."

Tevos groaned again "I know, I know! It's just… They had to do it now?! With the terminus being so turbulent lately?!"

Indentured Servant "I'd say good riddance, mistress"

Tevos groaned yet again. Her indentured Asari servant's thoughts would be the common reaction throughout the galaxy, yet people always forget the good they did in the terminus systems despite all the evils they committed!

Sparatus's apartment; The Citadel

Sparatus was grinning like a private who busted his first slaver ring, the hegemony was finally gone! Now he had to get ready for the war against the terminus systems and after that, there could actually be some semblance of peace in the galaxy!

Well, some anyways. The Transhumans appeared to keep to themselves, pointlessly preparing for mythological creatures. Luckily they didn't come out of the Orion cluster as they called it very often as far as he knew