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

8. To cast down a Goddess

Mass Effect: Singularity Effect: To cast down a Goddess

2 ABE (after the battle of Elysium) The Citadel: Lopin's Ru'gon

Ambassador Udina had to admit this Salarian sushi-like dish was actually quite tasty and he may look on the extranet for a recipe

Tevos "you appear to be enjoying the Ru'gon ambassador Udina"

Udina "When we Transhumans were Humans we weren't semi-aquatic or amphibians like you Salarians or Asari we were always extremely water adjacent and early in our history we always made villages, towns, and cities near oceans, rivers, or bays." "For a long time in our primitive history, boats were the most efficient way to transport large amounts of cargo. Of course, we also picked up on preparing marine life as meals from such behaviors" he said putting another bite in his mouth

Valren nodded "Yes, and for warfare as well. Those carrier and larger of similar function class ships are an interesting innovation"

Udina shrugged "hey, our birth planet is 75% ocean. For the Asari, it's 67% lakes and bays so not having massively interconnected paths would curb such an innovation. The same with the Salarians as Sur'kesh mostly has rivers and shallow lakes that would not allow such heavy ships to remain buoyant. That is of course not to mention the Turians as they barely have any large water bodies on Palaven at all"

Sparatus clicked his mandibles "I'll admit, according to historical files it was apparently a lot harder for us to visualize space compared to other races as being completely underwater is apparently quite similar to void conditions"

Udina interjected "minus the full gravity of course. We actually used to simulate such conditions for early satellite, space telescope, and other orbital creations"

Din Korlack, the Volus representative spoke up "ush...we did as well...ush"

Calyn, the Elcor representative, spoke too "Explanatory. We too did as such"

Valren blinked in recognition "as did we"

Tevos was internally nervous as a lot of data was "lost" during their early space age as quite simply, unlike everyone else, Transhumans included, they didn't have one. They went straight to mass effect FTL thanks to the Thessian beacon "we never had such an age due to the abundance of eezo on Thessia" she said reciting the age-old, tried, and true excuse used for millennia when discussing the Asari's lack of an era of primitive space flight

Udina leaned his head towards Tevos "that would be useful wouldn't it, having early access to eezo and the knowledge required to make use of it early on"

Tevos internally sputtered "He knows?! How the fuck does he know?! No, calm down Tevos. He just used a word that could imply he knows the secret to someone who knows of it but is innocent enough from an outside perspective."

1 BBE: The Temple of Athame: Thessia: Alamari City State

Operative Kai Leng was personally chosen by The Illusive Man, the Voice of Espionage, to sneak in and confirm the presence of a Prothean beacon

What else he discovered in the temple was quite astonishing, the pictures on the stone depicting Athame looked quite similar to busts and statues found of Protheans, even as far as being similar figures compared to the ones on the Prothean Monolith itself.

All this would imply the Asari species gaining this beacon was yet another Prothean contingency plan just as leaving their Monolith for Humanity was.

One that may have even helped out if not for the Asari government's greed being used to maintain their false superiority complex derived secretly from stolen Prothean data.

As he approached the central statue of Athame he felt unusual effects on his Psionics, like something was waiting for his input, that might be it, that might be the beacon.

He reached his mind out to the source of the anomaly and interfaced with it. An unknown presence appeared before him mentally, a Prothean VI… no, a VI is not a sufficient explanation nor is an AI or even an Upload, this...this was some kind of middle ground between all of them

The presence spoke "you are not Prothean, you are not Asari, your mental powers greatly resemble indoctrination yet your mind is uncompromised. I assume you have augmented your natural powers through reverse engineered Reaper technology as we did"

Kai Leng mentally responded "Reaper? You mean Destroyer?"

The presence spoke again "an apt name, but yes we called them the Reapers, their numbers are legion, and they are coming"

Kai Leng genuinely asked "Who are you? What are you?"

The presence responded "I am Vendetta, a Prothean mnemonic intelligence matrix, or MIX. We were made from Prothean neural pathways being copied to be the core processing system of an advanced VI"

It appeared he was correct in his middle-ground theory

Kai Leng mentally responded, "what is your purpose here?"

Vendetta "my purpose is to uplift the Asari race to the highest degree. We Protheans nearly destroyed the Reapers by eliminating at least half their numbers through a superweapon we developed and created that we designated the crucible and fired it when they were swarming our home system. Unfortunately, the crucible was found and destroyed thanks to indoctrinated agents hiding in the deepest recesses of the superweapon's surrounding mobile space station"

Kai Leng was intrigued "what did the crucible do?"

Vendetta responded as a mental representation of the crucible appeared "the crucible was designed to fire a destructive beam of pure dark energy roughly equivalent to two gigatons of trinitrotoluene per firing sequence"

Now THAT was interesting as the Thanatos cannon merged multiple miniature gamma-ray burst generators to create a similar yet much highercity-state output of 2.39 gigatons

Kai Leng responded "we created a weapon with an output of a gamma-ray burst in the form of Thanatos cannon that merges multiple miniature gamma-ray burst level beams created by singularities for a total output of 2.39 gigatons per firing sequence"

Vendetta "a different approach, yet you have created a similar and desirable outcome, a more powerful one even. How many of these Thanatos cannons do you have?"

Kai Leng "as of now only one, a prototype. We are planning to build more, however"

Vendetta "That is good, you may yet destroy the Reapers. Tell me, why are the Asari only coming here rarely to get small fragments of information and technology? Are they more advanced than we were"

Kai Leng "no they are not, they are using your race's knowledge for their petty benefit"

Vendetta was enraged "take me with you. I would like to speak with the leadership of the Asari"

2 ABE (after the battle of Elysium) The Citadel: Lopin's Ru'gon

Udina continued waving his hand to activate his kinetics and move a holographic display to the center of the table "anyways I have someone who I would like you to meet, Tevos. Say hello to Vendetta"

A green hologram appeared before the group and looked directly at Tevos

"You dare squander our gifts?! Our assurance to defeat the Reapers?! You had my beacon on Thessia and used it to feed your pretty and misplaced superiority complex?! How dare you?!"

Tevos was visibly shocked as she recognized him from the descriptions from the beacon data extraction teams...oh no…

The green Prothean hologram continued "you DARE put the entire galaxy at risk of extinction for your own petty gain by stealing our technology whenever someone else makes something better than the current one, another innovation supposedly yours that came from US? From OUR race?! The Protheans?!"

All the people in the room turned to Tevos, anger clear on their faces

Calyn "Outraged and demanding in exasperation. Is this true? How could the Asari do this, Tevos?"

Valren looked contemplative behind his clear anger "It all makes sense now! Asari supremacy came from…" he continued to ramble incomprehensibly fast as many Salarians did but was snapped out of it by Sparatus

Sparatus snapped "Valren, Valren! Focus!"

Valren composed himself "sorry, sorry, just so many theories confirmed" "Anyways...ekhem...Tevos why? Did you make your law about sharing Prothean technology for this? So YOU can violate it yourself?!"

Calyn "Disappointed and harshly judging. I thought the Asari were better than this, Tevos"

Sparatus sneered "On behalf of the council I demand you tell me who knew of this information!"

Tevos sighed "only a select few Matriarchs"

Sparatus "Then these select few Matriarchs will be arrested on the charges of hiding Prothean technology from the council and will be imprisoned for 2% of their life as well as a fine of 1.2 million credits based on the fact it is a fully functional beacon, as per the law you created explicitly states" "Be thankful this wasn't an open secret or the Asari would have been kicked off the council"

Valren however quickly got distracted by the hologram "So are you some kind of Prothean VI?"

Vendetta "I am Vendetta, a Prothean mnemonic intelligence matrix, or MIX. We were made from Prothean neural pathways being copied to be the core processing system of an advanced VI"

Udina added on "as far as we can tell MIXs are some kind of Prothean made middle ground between AIs, VIs, and Uploads"

Valren looked interested "that is thoroughly fascinating, I would love to build a Salarian version"

Vendetta "you may have access to my databases to create your own versions. Would you like me to transfer the schematics to your Omni tools?"

Valren looked ecstatic "of course! And why not your full databases in general?"

Vendetta "unfortunately that will not be possible with your current level of data storage, having anticipated this request the Transhumans transferred the data to one of their quantum data storage systems"

Udina used his kinetics to move over a rectangular silver-grey metal and light blue crystalline object to the center of the table "all 50 petabytes of information are on that drive and are fully compatible with your electronic systems"

Later: CNN

Turian "This is CNN, the official news network of the Citadel and today's biggest story involves an ancient cabal of Asari know as the Alamari council" "The Alamarii council's members have recently been arrested on the charges of holding a Prothean beacon secretly on Thessia to slowly extract information from" "Over 39 different Asari Matriarchs have been arrested with the remaining 6 being given reduced sentences or pardons due to varying levels of blackmail or threats leveled against them if they were to tell the public" "Some of the highest members in this conspiracy are the Asari councilor Matriarch Tevos was was fully in support and Matriarch Benezia who was blackmailed with her daughter's safety and life if she were to talk" "The stance of the council regarding this that the Alamarii council is a terrorist organization and the second most popular city state will become the Asari Republics capital at large"

"This was CNN, more information regarding the developing Asari government conspiracy tonight at 9 citadel time"

Rebirth Station: New Life (previously Omega and Afterlife)

Matriarch Aethyta looked at the news and snickered. So that secret was FINALLY out. A secret that she honestly wasn't even supposed to know about. She found out about it when Nezzy accidentally slipped it through in a meld they had back when they were together

The only reason she didn't reveal it for shits and giggles was that the thought of her daughter being assassinated by the AIS (another secret she wasn't supposed to know about) after said announcement would be nearly a certainty

Well, they were already looking back to technologies deemed too primitive after discovering mass effect and they were already making great strides. They definitely weren't on the level of the Alten, Transhumanity, or even the Geth apparently, but they would eventually reach that level

Far before the Citadel pulled their heads out of their asses that was

Sur'kesh: Hidden STG base: Deep Jungle: 2km underground

Delathrass Linron looked over the project "well any luck?"

Mordin Solus, a Geneticist of some renown then spoke excitedly "Yes. Indeed possible. We can use genetic engineering to greatly increase our lifespan to approximately 145-170 years with current technology!"

Delathrass Linron looked impressed "good job Mordin, it appears your reputation has not been exaggerated in the slightest. I want a species-wide treatment on a permanent level as soon as such as solution can be created"

Mordin Solus blinked in understanding "yes.. got to run more tests.. species-wide permanent alteration of the genome…"

Delathrass Linron then walked over to the next station "any progress?"

The Salarian Lystheni (who were all secretly annexed and given pardons in return for continuing their work for the Union) scientist agreed excitedly "Yes! Genetics augmentations mixed with cybernetics showing great promise, ceramic and carbon nanotube reinforced bones, enhanced muscle tissue mixed with hydraulic cybernetics. Salarians as strong as a Krogan! The Neural-VI interface is quite helpful for reaction times! Unfortunately experimental and quite resource-intensive for each Anolas

The Anolas was a mythological creature with strength, agility, and durability far beyond anything the Salarians had naturally

Delathrass Linron "excellent work, we should have armor and AIs for the Anolas program eventually"

Delathrass Linron then walked over to said armor, neural implant controlled powered armor to be exact "status?"

The Salarian Scientist looked up from his work "very well Delathrass, the Transhumans reliance on 'primitive technologies' gave me the idea to go backward and create things without eezo. The result is the Mark One Nolos powered exoskeleton. It uses electronic servos and neural integration to increase reaction times while the armor itself increases strength, speed, agility, has inbuilt kinetic barriers, and is sealed against a vacuum and supplies limited oxygen"

Delathrass Linron nodded and moved on to the previously mentioned AI research "progress?"

The Salarian Lystheni and normal Salarian scientists looked up from their work with a lead one coming forward "well enough, it appears the Transhumans arguments were correct as we tried treating the AI as a sentient being and they cooperated fully. Our efforts are now in blue box miniaturization"

Delathrass Linron "very well" she said continuing on

She came into a large underground space with craters and kinetic barriers throughout the room and came up to a lab "progress?"

The Salarian Engineer looked up from his work "yes, I have managed to make a gun that fires small capsules of antimatter. Unfortunately, the ammo storage containers sometimes rupture with… damaging results"

Delathrass Linron nodded "work on that" and moved along

[Yes I gave the Salarians Spartans with Mjolnir Armor. I thought it would be funny to have the frailest species get the brute punching super soldiers who can live through falling from orbit on only a piece of scrap metal]