Shepherd of Humanity

by Empirialtank

The Age of Strife has ended and the lost colonies of man reach for the stars once more, most ignorant of their history or each other's existence. In one corner of the Galaxy mankind meets the peaceful Citadel Council and joins a galactic community. In another the Master of Mankind has lost his sons to the warp. One of those sons has been found in Alliance space. On Elysium. preME1

3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Spectre's on the Move

Nihlus Kyrik, a Turian spectre, wondered to himself, not for the first time, if the elevators in the Citadel were intentionally designed to slow down for people who were almost late. The timing of a person's arrival was a powerful diplomatic tool. To arrive too early suggested subservience, too late suggested insult. For most the target was to arrive just slightly late, to assert independence without a full insult. If a Councillor slowed down the elevator just slightly and they could put those meeting with them on the back foot by forcing them to imply an insult they had never meant to. It was a viable strategy, Nihlus thought, but he also had found the elevators just as slow when he had come early to a meeting, so maybe they were just poorly designed.

Truth be told, Nihlus just wanted to be angry with something other than the Councillor he was coming to meet. He had been oh so close to linking several major drug smuggling rings, operating out of the traverse into Salarian space, to high level players in the Eclipse mercenary gang. Just another day or two and could've ambushed one of the largest drug transfers he had ever heard off, and caught the accountant who could blow the whole case a mile wide. But Sparatus had called him personally and ordered him back to the Citadel as fast as conceivably possible. So now a full year of his work was in the hands of an Asari Justicar who was just as likely to kill everyone without interrogating them and consider her work done.

'Don't let it eat at you.' Nihlus thought to himself as he stared at the little elevator icon that supposedly revealed how far up the building had come. 'There is one good thing about the galaxy's real scum. You always get another shot at them.'

Finally the elevator reached its destination, and Nihlus exited it. The Councillor's secretary smiled at Nihlus and sent him right into the meeting. Nihlus passed by the heavy doors that closed behind him, and was pleased to see his fellow Spectre Saren Arterius present. It's always nice to see an old friend again after all, but Nihlus wondered just what would possess the Council to bring the both of them to bear at once?

"Nihlus, welcome." Sparatus started nodding towards a seat across from his desk, next to one Saren already occupied. "Thank you for coming so promptly. I know you were on the verge of something major, but the Council needs you both for more important matters."

"Of course Councilor." Nihlus said graciously, stamping down on his own frustrations. "Good to see you again Saren."

"It's alway good to know you're working with someone competent." Saren responded with a nod, his sub vocals were a bit sarcastic, but not enough to be rude, just this side of self deprecating really.

"I won't waste your time gentlemen." Sparatus continued, sub vocals flat and business like. "I trust you both have been following the situation on Elysium?"

Both Spectres nodded. Vorcha miners toiling on airless asteroids ten days away from the nearest mass relay were following the situation on Elysium. It seemed that the news media and rumor mills had nothing to talk about except the tragedy there, and speculating on just how many worlds the humans were prepared to burn to the ground in vengeance.

"One of the the pirate ships that involved in the attack," Sparatus explained, "Left the world carrying a potentially dangerous rogue element, that the Citadel needs dealt with as quickly as possible."

"This is Case White," Sparatus said forwarding a file from his omnitool to the two Spectre's. "It contains several plans for how the Batarian Hegemony might be destabilized through several slave uprisings on key planets, leading to social upheaval and possibly full revolution. These plans were designed by the STG with input from several Hierarchy military theorists. We have good reason to believe that this uncontained radical might attempt to implement Case White, particularly operation Inoculation."

"How could this radical have gotten their hands on such sensitive data?" Nihlus asked. "The details of these plans should be carefully guarded correct?"

"We couldn't be dealing with a rogue spectre or something?" Saren asked in disbelief at the idea.

"Not one of ours." Sparatus assured them, "Nor are they strictly working from this play book. But they are likely attempting something along similar lines. The Council needs you two to head to the pirate world of Torfan. The pirate moon is most likely destination for the radical in question. If allowed to act freely, the radical might not only initiate a slave uprising amongst the humans taken from Elysium but might also be able to forge an alliance, or at least a working relationship with the pirates operating out of the moon. If they are successful, they could use the pirates and smugglers of the Verge to insert destabilizing elements into Batarian space."

"The Council is afraid that this rogue element," Nihlus probed, his own sub vocals conveying his doubt. "Might lead a slave uprising that leaves them on positive terms with the pirates trying to get rich off the sale of the very same slaves? And then will get those very same pirates to turn on the Hegemony? Despite the fact that Batarian pirates are some of the biggest racial supremacists in the galaxy?"

"It's not completely unthinkable." Saren interjected, though he also sounded doubtful, or at least unwilling to fully support the idea. "For all their pride, these pirates usually raid Batarian colonies as often as they hit human worlds. Or at least they did, before the Hegemony started paying them attack the System Alliance. Wouldn't be easy though. Just who is the rogue element?"

"John Shepherd." Sparatus said, and handed them a paper dossier. A physical stack of papers, files, photographs and even some handwritten documents. Not an electronic file transferred through interceptable radio waves from omnitool to omnitool, like the Citadel's plans to bring down one of its own member states just were. Not a datapad disconnected from a network that might be easily transferred to an omnitool or other such computer. A stack of very real papers, that are completely and totally unhackable, easily destroyed and could only be lost by being physically stolen. Nihlus had never seen something like this in his entire life. He had heard of such things. Secrets so important that they were trusted to specific people, not systems or security procedures, but never in his life had he ever expected to see such a thing.

Nihlus and Saren just stared at the innocent stack of papers for what felt like minutes on end. Finally, and all so hesitantly, Saren reached for the dossier and opened it. Nihlus leaned over to the side, to read the document alongside Saren. At first he didn't believe what he was reading. And evidently neither could Saren.

"The humans have made a giant?!" Saren decried, his voice furious, his sub vocals in disbelief.

"Seems that way." Nihlus commented, "And a damn good one too by this data. These reaction times alone would make for a monstrously capable soldier."

"In the interest of all fairness." Sparatus commented, his voice still perfectly neutral and controlled, "There is no evidence that the Alliance itself is behind his creation. They were just the ones who found him."

"Yes," Saren mocked his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Which is just what they said for everyone of those genetic abominations they picked up under Valern's nose. Everyone of which ended up in a military research station. But this has got to be too far Councillor. This isn't just optimising combinations, or flipping a few genetic switches. This is a complete and radical reconstruction of the human body. This has to break just about every law the Citadel has on genetics."

"My feelings on the subject as well." Sparatus said, the slightest tinge of frustration creeping under his voice. "Yet that very complexity of the alterations gives the Alliance its best defence. Their military is simply not capable of making something of this scale. Not without centuries of research leading up to it."

"But if the Alliance didn't make him," Nihlus interjected deeply puzzled, "Then who did?"

"No one knows. Valern's investigation was inconclusive and ran out of leads." Sparatus dismissed. Nihlus might have imagined it, but for just second it seemed like Saren and the Councillor exchanged a look with each other. Nihlus glanced from one to the other, but didn't press the subject.

"At the very least," Saren continued changing the subject. "This monster might just be able to intimidate the pirates into cooperation. So what exactly is our mission? Find Shepherd and put a few holes in his guts?"

"Don't take the giant lightly Saren." Sparatus chided, "If this was a kill mission we would be sending another dozen Spectres to back you two up."

Saren was physically taken back. Nihlus felt his eyes widen at the statement, while he made the sub vocal equivalent of a long, drawn out, low whistle. Sparatus locked eyes with both of them to drive the point home.

"And while genetic tampering is outlawed for good reason, as you of all people should know Saren." Sparatus continued, eliciting a down cast look from the older Spectre that left Nihlus slightly confused, "There is no reason to feildstrip a rifle in the trench muck. Shepherd is here now, and if the Alliance can figure out how to artificially mimic a tenth of what his body does naturally they will single handedly double the life span of every race in the galaxy. And I don't think I need to tell either of you just how valuable a fifty year old Salarian scientist would be."

"No at this point," Sparatus said standing up from his chair and taking a place by the window looking out over Pressidium and the Citadel at large. "Shepherd is an asset to the scientific community, so if at all possible the Council wants him to still be alive at the end of this. That is the unanimous opinion of the Council."

"It is also unanimous opinion of the Council." Sparatus stressed to the two Spectres, "That the Hegemony can not be allowed to fall under the Alliance's influence. Your mission is as follows: Make your way to Torfan as quickly as possible. Identify Shepherd. If he's not there, he probably hijacked one of the pirate ships, find out what happened to him and apprise us of the situation. If he's there, make contact with him and do everything you can to keep him under some kind of control."

"A joint Hierarchy and System Alliance fleet is being prepared to rescue the human slaves from Torfan." Sparatus said with a hand wave, opening a holographic star map detailing planned fleet movements that would bring some sixty ships together in Verge three relay jumps removed from Torfan. "It will take another six to eight days to assemble the fleet and strike. Keep Shepherd on Torfan until those ships arrive. They should bring individuals from the Alliance capable of curtailing the giant and bringing him to heel. Convince him to wait if you can, help him sabotage the pirates to keep the slaves from being moved from Torfan if you must. Even help him seize the moon itself with the captured civilians if you absolutely have to."

"BUT," Sparatus ordered turning back to the two Spectres. "Do not under any circumstances allow Shepherd to secure the assistance of any of the pirate captains. Do everything you have too to sabotage those dealings. Get those ships off of Torfan, or just destroy them outright. Do whatever it takes to make sure Shepherd uprising ends on Torfan and can't spread into Batarian space proper. Understood?"

Nihlus nodded. Saren had turned back to studying Shepherd's dossier. He seemed to be concentrating on something, and it didn't seem to be the page he was staring at. The wheels were turning in that mind, Nihlus knew. No doubt considering some way to try and take the giant down if it came to it.

"If everything goes wrong," Sparatus resumed as he took his seat once more, "Or if Shepherd never shows on Torfan, you will need to use the Case White plans to predict his movements and shore up weaknesses in the Hegemony."

"Do we really need to?" Saren asked as he looked up from the papers before him.

"Do you still doubt the threat this giant might pose?" Sparatus retorted, voice laiden the sub harmonic implication that Saren was making a fool of himself.

"No I mean," Saren explained, "Why not use the monster? If our goal is to keep the Hegemony out of human hands that can be accomplished without actually protecting their standing government."

"Saren," Nihlus interrupted, his voice conveying the danger of this line of thought, "Are you proposing we destabilize a Citadel member state that has technically done nothing wrong?"

"The Hegemony has illegally practiced slavery for centuries under the Council's nose." Saren dismissed, "They hide behind claim of protecting their own culture, but if change comes from with in who can blame the Citadel for welcoming a new more progressive regime? Like you said Councillor, sometimes we have to use the weapons we have at hand. Why not just use Shepherd to destabilize the Hegemony, then blame the Alliance for making this monster and unleashing him on their enemies. We take Shepherd into protective custody and use his existence as a political hammer to destroy any influence over the reformed Hegemony the Alliance has gained. Knock the whole bunker out with one grenade, as the old saying goes."

Nihlus held silent after his first objection. Personally he saw no real reason to spare the Hegemony the storm it had been building for itself for centuries. It would be tricky though. They would need to walk alongside Shepherd through the whole process. The revolutionaries needed to know they were just as deep in debt to the Council as they were to the Alliance, and at the same time, they couldn't leave behind any real evidence of Council involvement while collecting, or just planting, the evidence needed to discredit the Alliance over Shepherd's actions. A risky move to be sure.

"No," Sparatus said at last with a shake of his head. "The risk of human ascendancy is too great to be worth the purely moral gain of destroying one backward practice in a galaxy full of them. Not to mention, the chance of Shepherd himself slipping out of our grip at the end and continuing his mad plans from the shadow."

Saren nodded accepting the Councillor's decision. Nihlus wasn't too sure though. Perhaps it was stress of being called here to soon. Or perhaps he was just slightly incensed at the Councillor and Saren seeming to speak around him at times. Nihlus himself wasn't too sure of the exact reason, nonetheless he pressed the issue.

"So that's it then?" He questioned, his voice edging just shy of insubordination, "The Council is just going to turn its back on a chance to finally reform the Hegemony? It's just going to kick this problem down the road for another generation to deal with while people continue to suffer? And for what? Out of fear of humanity?"

"What brought this on Nihlus?" Saren asked in stunned disbelief, while Sparatus held silent. "You've never spoken out against the Hegemony so vehemently before."

"My apologies," Nihlus gave in, while trying to rein himself back in. "It's not the Hegemony its humanity. I've never understood why so many in high command seem to have it out for the young species. None of the rank and file I've ever served with had the same issue. It can't be simple wounded pride over the Relay 314 Incident like everyone else seems to assume. There is no shame in being take surprised by new enemy tactics, and if the fighting had dragged on the Hierarchy would've adapted and triumphed in the end. What real reason does the Citadel Council of all things have to deal with mankind like an enemy that needs to be curbed?"

The silence held in the room for a few seconds, before it was broken by Sparatus's laughter of all things. The older man smiled and shook his head, while Saren leaned back in his chair as if relaxing. Nihlus felt some embarrassment creeping into him at this, like he had felt back in the military academy when he had missed something the rest of the class found so obvious.

"Tell me Nihlus," Sparatus at last answered him, "Did you have any siblings growing up?"

"One," Nihlus confirmed surprised and suspicious at the change in topic. "An older brother, serving in the government's works projects."

"I see," Sparates nodded sagely to himself. "And how old were when your parents started treating you two differently?"

"What do you mean?" Said Nihlus slightly insulted at the implications.

"How old were you," Sparatus pressed, "When you were first punished for something that your parents let your brother get away with? Or when did you first realize that your brother's punishments weren't as bad as yours? That your parents expected better grades in school from you, then a they did from him? When did you first realize you two weren't being treated fairly?"

"Was it before or after," Saren chimed in, "You realized you were smarter and stronger than your brother was?"

"Well," Nihlus tried to explain, his head turned away from the two other men as they repeated a number of thought he had had himself when growing up. "Father always was a strict disciplinarian, and my brother was just very good a clearing out of sight in the nick of time."

"No he wasn't," Sparatus said with some authority despite having never known any of Nihlus's family. "Your parents knew how to properly raise their kids, so they pushed the two of you as far as you could go to make sure you both could be the best you could be. You could go further than your brother could, so you were pressed harder. That's how it is, how it has to be."

"No two men are born the same." Saren added, "Some are smarter, stronger, faster, more inciteful, or more deceitful than others. For society to grow the best men must be pushed as hard as they can, and be pushed into the sectors of society where they can do the most good. And the more talented a man is, the more damage he can do if his own moral code breaks, so the harder that code must be hammered into his head."

"The same basic truth applies to the different races of the galaxy." Sparatus further explained. "No matter how brilliant a volus banking clan might be, they can't match up to the centuries of trading experience an Asari Matriarch can amass. No matter how clever and deceptive the Drell assassins might push themselves to be, the lightning fast minds of the Salarians will always be one step ahead of them."

"And if any of the other races," Saren took over, "Except maybe the Krogan, were to gain the same numbers, industrial power, fleet size, and martial tradition that we Turians have, it wouldn't change the fact that we are faster, stronger and harder to kill than any of them. We would still dominate them in any battle."

"Thus it is necessary," Sparatus concluded, "For the three Council races to take the lead in galactic politics, to maximise the growth and progress of the galaxy as a whole."

"Are you implying Councillor," Nihlus sumized, "That humanity is being set up for leadership in the Citadel, and that's why the Council holds them to a higher standard than the rest of the galaxy?"

"No," Saren said with a shake of his head, "Humanity will inevitably become leaders in Citadel space. The Council is trying to make sure they won't drive the galaxy to ruin when they take it."

"But why?" Nihlus inquired, "Humanity isn't anything special, they aren't very strong, inciteful or long lived."

"Numbers." Saren stated simply.

"What?"

"You see," Sparatus explained, "In 2630 Galactic Standard the Volus purchased the colonial rights to a number of systems suspected to contain garden worlds but which were far enough away from the nearest Mass Relay that they weren't highly valued. The Volus thought they could make a profit off the worlds by just focusing on exploiting their mineral wealth and minimizing transportation costs. But they then found that some twenty five of the worlds they had bought were inhabited by local sentient species. The Volus followed Citadel regulation, documented information about the local races and submitted their locations and details to the Council and we refunded them the rights they had purchased."

"Turns out though," Saren continued, "The Volus had unknowingly found the impossible. Each of those worlds were inhabited by the same species, despite their technology varying from pre-agrarian to post-nuclear. And despite the fact that none of them had any access to mass effect technology or any other system of interplanetary flight."

"Impossible," Nihlus denied.

"So everyone assumed at first," Sparatus commented, "But an STG team acting under Spectre supervision collected gene samples from all of them and confirmed it. All of those worlds are inhabited by humans."

"But-" Nihlus studered unable to process this.

"It wasn't until after the Relay 314 Incident had concluded peacefully," Sparatus continued overriding Nihlus. "And we were given access to human DNA samples, that we realized the Alliance was made up of the same leading theory is that humans were used by some other species as slave labor, spread across the galaxy and then abandoned when their masters died off. Those world may have existed in isolation from each other since the protheans collapsed. Each world rebuilding itself as best it could, until the Alliance figured out mass effect and took to the stars once more."

"Across the Galaxy?" Nihlus exclaimed catching up with what Sparatus was saying.

"Two of the worlds are separated by more fifty thousand light years." Saren explained, "One is more than sixty thousand light years away from earth itself. Assuming humans even come from earth in the first place. Several old creation myths amongst the Alliance claim that humans descended to the earth from outer space you know. Perhaps humanity's ancestors remembered where they came from and their descendents thought they were speaking of some race of gods rather than their old alien overlords."

"Does the Alliance know?" Nihlus finally came to obvious question.

"Of course not." Saren denied.

"But these are their worlds," Nihlus exclaimed, "Their people left in isolation for spirits knows how long."

"Correct." Sparatus agreed, "And when the Council judges that the Alliance can handle these worlds, their existence will be made known to them. Until then this information will remain classified and not distributed outside of the Spectre corps and the top brass of the Hierarchy."

"Handle them? Why wouldn't the humans be able to handle another few dozen worlds?"

"Ten of those worlds have populations comparable to earth itself." Saren stated, "Even the Hierarchy would have trouble just having another hundred billion people dropped in their laps to deal with. And then there's Varg Star 3, as the Volus named it. A planet estimated to have a population of thirty to thirty six billion humans."

"What?" Nihlus said jaw dropping at the sheer impossibility of it. The number of planets with more than five billion people living on them could be counted with a Hannar's tentacles. Rakhana had no more than eleven billion Drell on it when their ecology collapsed and the species were nearly completely wiped out. Khar'shan, the Batarian home world was said to have a population of fifteen billion and held the title of most populated planet in the galaxy. But those numbers were severely doubted by almost every non-Batarian analyst, who instead estimated the world at a little over ten. For over thirty billion people to live on world was nothing short of insane.

"No one has any idea how they are still alive down there either." Saren continued nodding at Nihlus's confusion. "Nothing lives on that planet except humans. The pollution and fog is so thick the Volus thought the had found the galaxies smallest gas giant at first. But the people survive, endlessly toiling away in a million factories that light up day and night pouring acid smoke into the air of what should be a long dead planet."

"And that is what makes mankind potentially dangerous." Sparatus declared, "When that world gains access to the mass relays, it will become the center of the galactic economy overnight. No amount of Volus banking or Asari experience can match the shear industrial power such a population center gives to humanity. To say nothing of the endless ranks of soldiers and weapons humans will be able to throw at any problem they face. And there is no telling how many more long lost human worlds there are out there waiting to be found."

"I understand." Nihlus admitted, "That kind of power has to be used only for the galaxies benefit. If humanity gained access to all that and they weren't already dedicated to the good of all Citadel races…. The consequences could be truly dire."

"Exactly." Sparatus said the smile of a successful teacher. "And if we can't trust humanity to even manage all of their own worlds, then we surely can't trust them to manage the Batarians as well. Even worse, we can't let the thought get into humanity's head that they can just bring down a whole civilization just because it doesn't act the way they want it to."

"Know this above all else Spectres," Sparatus concluded, eyes like steel driving into the pair's very soul the important of his words. "This mission is not about the Hegemony, or the Alliance, or even about Shepherd himself. This mission is to uphold the central tenants that this Citadel was founded upon. We Turians are the military arm of an organization that its very core, is dedicated to the idea that military force is never the right solution to the galaxy's woes. The Hegemony will be reformed one day. But it will be reformed peacefully, through discussions and rational dealings between civilized people. And if the Alliance isn't interested in being rational and civilized in this regard, then we will deal with them like irrational children they want to be. You will ensure that at every turn, this mad plan of Shepherd's runs into a wall of failure. You will not allow them to just brute force their way through this problem."

"Sir!" Both Spectres shouted as they stood and saluted. Nihlus's and Saren's concerns were satisfied, their minds were made up, and their spirits were united in this grand purpose. In the end, Nihlus knew, this meant he was now going off to defend the practice of slavery from those who had every right to demand justice and vengeance for the humiliation and pain they had suffered. But that did not matter. Spectre's were not tools of blind justice. They were tools that advanced the good of the Citadel, and through it, the good of the galaxy as a whole. This would not be his proudest mission, and he made peace with that, as he prepared to do what had to be done.

Later, as he boarded a lightly armored scout craft to make for Torfan with all speed, a thought crossed Nihlus's mind. If Shepherd was a work of genetic manipulation to advanced for the Alliance to have created, and yet surely could only have been created by mankind. Did that imply, that somewhere out there, amongst the lost worlds of humanity, in the vast abyss of space too far removed from the relays for the Citadel to ever reach, there was a branch of humanity more advanced than the System Alliance?

This thought shook Nihlus for a moment. But there was much for him to do and even more to prepare for on the journey to Torfan. So he buried the thought and returned to his work. He would later regret that.

AN: Well that was a lot of dialogue. Three way conversations are annoying to write. If just two people are talking you can easily fall into a back and forth kind of rhythm and not have to go 'Jain said' 'Jack said' or some variation of that every single damn line of dialogue. But no I had to have Saren there as well making quips and interjections all the time and confusing things.

Tried to make some Alien Idioms for the Turians to use, hope they were clear in the story's context, rifle in the muck think: don't look a gift horse in the mouth, whole bunker with one grenade, think two birds one stone kind of thing. Let me know what you all think, and about the whole sub-vocals to add context to their speech, is it more immersive to make the alien culture seem more real, or just needlessly confusing.

Sparatus calling Saren to account over genetic tempering is a reference to the Mass Effect Evolution comic where Saren had to kill his brother to stop him from activating some reaper tech on the Turian home world shortly after the first contact war. Its a good comic you all should read it.

The council first discovered other lost colonies of mankind about five years after first contact was attempted with the Yagh that ended with the Citadel team being massacred and eaten. So its understandable that they hesitant to send a welcoming party to these worlds for some time. Then the Alliance showed up and now those worlds are wrapped up in intergalactic politics.

Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed.