Chapter 1
xoxoxoxo
The damaged Prothean destroyer limped forward. The last battle had crippled it and now they were soon going to crash. There were many things worse than that though.
Their civilization had mostly ended hundreds of years earlier when the Reapers had exploded out of the Citadel and immediately laid waste to their capitol and all of the leaders.
From there they simply had to jump from system to system and kill every thing. It was a rather ingenious plan. Let the races of the galaxy develop along the lines of predetermined technology and when it was time the Reapers would face known and expected resistance.
The Protheans had managed to hold out far longer than any previous species ever had, but it was not enough. The crew knew that, it was the very reason they came here after all.
The planet below them was rich with life, and potential. There were others of course, but this planet had something most others did not.
A total lack of element zero.
Without that critical substance any developments on this planet would be slow and costly. The reapers would most likely ignore the planet and it's inhabitants.
That was the critical point. If they ignored the planet then they might be able to provide a fast start and a warning about the Citadel itself.
Running into a Reaper group had not been in their plans. Neither was the damages to the ships engines. They were damaged beyond FTL capability and so they had to resort to the slow approach.
Decent and landing had never been considered until they entered the atmosphere. They were dead in the water, so to say, and simply prepared for a crash landing.
The island they hit was a part of a greater set of islands. Though they had prepared for the crash most of the crew still died on landing. The ship buried itself mostly under a land slide.
Several years later a Reaper Destroyer passed by, doing a sweep, but not finding the buried ship just left the uninteresting planet alone.
For the next several months the survivors buried their dead and prepared the ship and all of it's technology for a long hibernation. The species inhabiting this planet still had a long way ahead of them before they could reach for the stars.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is let go. Mona was just as likely to hold on to the old as anyone else. Right now that had to do with plunderers. Several villages along the coast had recently been raided and they all feared the worst.
One day a fisher lost at sea during a storm returned speaking of several islands far out into the sea. He spoke of lush green fields and hills leading up to a great mountain.
The village elders sent word to the other villages and the decision was made, they would abandon their homes at the end of winter and begin their new life once spring arrived.
They settled on the largest island and named their new home Atlantis. Life was easy here on the island. The ground, once an old volcano, was very fertile and their crops grew plentiful and healthy.
The villages, now safe on their island home, spread far and wide. Settlements sprung up along the coast and soon most of the edges of the island was inhabited.
Mona was truly happy that she left. This island was like a paradise. One day, high in the mountains, she got caught in a sudden rainstorm and sought shelter in the nearest cave.
The moment she stepped inside she knew that something was wrong.
First it was too cold.
Second the walls were smooth.
Third, there was clearly some sort of door in the wall.
Looking around she saw some pictures along the edge depicting a human touching a flat square with their hand and the door opening.
She found the flat thing and brushed it clean from dust before placing her had flat against it. Alight shimmered across the surface making her take several steps back.
Then the door opened and she stepped inside.
Corridors led in two directions, one was bright with some unseen light, the other was dark.
With the storm outside and the exciting mystery inside she made up her mind and entered fully.
A hundred years later the eroded volcano collapsed, dragging the entire island down with it. Though there were no survivors of Atlantis, their legacy would live on.
Treasure hunters and explorers would fine comb the ocean floor looking for proof. It took until 2018 for anyone to find conclusive proof of an advanced civilization when an ancient settlement was excavated.
The bones had been burned. That in itself wasn't so special, the melted rock underneath was.
Archaeologists excavated hundreds of square meters and forensic experts from the police were called to the scene to perform an investigation. The purpose was to get some understanding of what had happened long ago.
Molten streaks crisscrossed the stone. Mostly straight lines. It was their conclusion that several individuals had stood in the center and used an unknown weapon to kill the victims.
Further studies of the bones and the stone revealed that the weapon had to have been either plasma or some form of particle weapon.
It was a shock to the world at large as it confirmed an advanced civilization somewhere on Earth roughly 4000 BC.
August 2018. Korlaz, a Greek scientific exploration ship preformed a deep sonar scan of a mostly empty stretch of ocean floor.
They found two things. Building ruins deep under ground and a very significant metal object nearly four hundred meters long.
Humanity had rediscovered Atlantis.
The next twenty years was used to complete the largest underwater excavation ever as the object was unearthed from its watery grave. It was confirmed to be a spaceship of some kind, confirming theories about Atlantis having been visited by aliens.
It would take another ten years before humanity managed to move the gargantuan ship onto the shore so that they could study it better.
Like Mona had long before, a human again placed their hand on the flat panel, opening Pandora's box.
Instead of releasing all the evils of the world, humanity found the future.
A/N
This story has nothing to do with any of my other stories!
For this story I put a crashed Prothean ship on Earth instead of on Mars. There are no Mars Archives in this story as there is no need for one. All useful data on the reapers is inside the computers of the ship.
The Prothean ship is from the later part of the war and thus is equipped with particle weaponry instead of the earlier mass accelerators.
Humanity is not stronger than the other species, they are in fact a lot closer to canon strength. This means that only the Turians have a larger military, the rest would get trampled by the humans. This includes the terminus systems who aren't nearly as well equipped as they presents themselves. It's just a show to avoid being forced into obeying the citadel council.
Most technology I will ascribe to humanity in this story is relevant technology we already have today or in early development. At least I will try to do so.