Chapter 3: Overarching Plans for the Galaxy (Part 1: The Past and Would-Have-Beens)

On the Shadow Broker's ship. The next day.

I'd woken up refreshed once again. The wounds healed very well and I was happy that I hadn't developed any kind of mental trauma. After getting ready, I went to meet the rest of the team, who were all busy doing their own things, probably. Liara seemed to be even more serious than when we were fighting yesterday. It might've been due to all the knowledge she now had.

"Hey, good day to you guys.", I announced my presence to them.

"Good day, Shadow Broker.", said Glyph. I smiled and waved to the little guy. It looked like they hadn't reprogrammed the drone yet.

"Hello. We've been expecting you for some time now.", greeted Liara.

"Yes. Liara talked with us about your… memories.", interjected Mordin. "Especially about personal futures. Undid work. Cured genophage. Considered big picture. But big picture made up of smaller pictures. Not really sure how to feel about death.".

"Don't sweat it Mordin. You're too smart to get worked up about it.", I tried to console him, making a promise in a very low voice. "Besides, I'm not letting you end up having to sacrifice yourself. Not this time around.".

"Good day to you too.", Thane also decided to join us. "Like the Professor has said, we know about our futures. I was becoming… arrogant. Know that I owe you an immense debt for saving my siha, my wife, Irikah, from the deep.". He then offered me the same deep, respectful bow he did to EDI during his first visit to the Normandy SR-2.

"Such was my promise to you, wasn't it?", I asked, to which he gave a small nod.

[Recommended Music: Mass Effect - Vigil Theme (1 Hour) / watch?v=Q4P-AOiGNb4]

There were some chairs close to where we were, so we all sat down close to each other.

"While you were resting, we looked into some of the things you've said to the Professor and showed to Liara.", Thane continued, switching topics. "Unfortunately, it all fits. You even know things that the former Shadow Broker himself didn't know.".

"We need to think about how to proceed from now on.", suggested Liara. "I think it would be most productive to talk about your memories first. About what you saw through those… games.". The other two showed agreement to the idea.

"Alright then! Before anything, let me do a quick recap of events to come, to put things in perspective.". I stopped for a while, gathering my thoughts, and began: "In the year 2183 of the human calendar, a mission to retrieve a recently discovered Prothean Beacon on the colony world of Eden Prime goes awry when the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius, with his army of geth, attacks the place for the information in the artifact. Commander Shepard, who receives the Prothean warnings of the Reaper threat from the Beacon before it explodes, proves Saren's guilt to the Council and becomes the first human Spectre. With his new team, humans Ashley Williams and Kaiden Alenko, both marines of the Alliance, turian Garrus Vakarian, ex-C-Sec officer, krogan Urdnot Wrex, mercenary, and quarian Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, tech/geth expert, they chase down Saren. On Therum, they rescue the asari Liara T'Soni, who is a Prothean expert that introduces to them the theory of the 'cycle of extinction' of civilizations, which is linked by Shepard to the Beacon warnings.".

Liara reacted a little at the mention of her name, but made no comment.

"On Feros, Shepard kills the Thorian, a giant plant life-form that has lived through the cycles, obtaining the 'Cipher', the essence of being a Prothean, which helps make sense of the Beacon. On Noveria, Shepard fights and kills Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, Saren's second in command, who then reveals the reality of indoctrination and gives information on the Mu Relay, which leads to Illos, where the Conduit is. This information was forcefully taken from the genetic memory of a Rachni Queen whose egg was found by Binary Helix and hidden on the icy planet.".

Now, Liara showed clear signs of discomfort and sadness at the mention of her mother's death.

"Shepard must then decide the fate of the Rachni Queen after learning that Rachni Wars were probably orchestrated by using indoctrination. The team then goes to Virmire, to put an end to a krogan cloning facility of Saren and grab the message of another Prothean Beacon. It is there that Sovereign, Saren's flagship, reveals that he himself IS a Reaper and the reality of the whole Mass Relays trap. Upon returning to the Citadel, the Council, which had offered almost zero help until now, criticized any and all decisions made by the Commander and vehemently denied the existence of the Reapers, or their threat, lockdown the SSV Normandy, which didn't last long. After rushing to Ilos, Shepard learns that the Citadel is one massive Mass Relay, linking to Dark Space, where the Reaper armada is waiting, and goes through the Conduit, a mini-Mass Relay built by the Protheans that leads to the Relay Monument on the Presidium. He/she fights through hordes of enemies that have taken over the Citadel and, later, the Reaper controlled Saren, while Sovereign and his geth are demolishing the Council Fleet in space. Sovereign is killed after the Alliance arrives on the scene to save the day, which grants them a Council Seat. Shepard affirms that Sovereign was just the vanguard and that there is still a Reaper armada out there, so they need to prepare. This is the general plot of Mass Effect 1. Questions?".

"Only Liara is present during those events?", Thane inquired. "What about us?".

"Pretty much, yeah.", I confirmed. "There's nothing much about you two until the next part. I guess Mordin was working on his clinic, back on Omega, breaking the number one rule of the place, and you were off somewhere, doing freelance assassin work.".

"Does the Council really just ignore the Reaper threat?", asked Liara in an exasperated tone. "How can they be so… irresponsible!?".

"Yup! It's not much that their position is one of lack of evidence, but that all evidence presented to them is dismissed out of hand.", I pretty much spat those words, organizing a summary of their utter failure. "Not to mention that Shepard, as a hero and one of their own operatives, should be good enough proof by himself. And it's quite ironic that they ignored Shepard's word AND of his entire crew considering that they just ate up whatever bullshit Saren fed them during the Eden Prime sham trial. They never even bothered to set up a proper investigation about the threat, always demanding some irrefutable, all powerful 'proof' from Shepard, as if the safety of the entire galactic community, which they claim to uphold, is not THEIR duty, but of one person alone. They don't even try. But they believe him/her about the Rachni coming back, no questions asked, interestingly enough.".

There was silence. Deafening silence. They could tell I didn't hold a high opinion of that executive committee. However, they also neither could nor wished to defend it.

"Then we get to Mass Effect 2: Electric Boogaloo (of the overarching plot).", I decided to continue, starting off with a little quip. "The wise and all-knowing Citadel Council, and even the Systems Alliance, probably due to their new shiny Council Seat, send Shepard to mop up the remnants of the Geth, all in order for their 'hero' to fade out of the minds of people. The attack on the Citadel is blamed entirely on the Geth and Sovereign is claimed to be a Geth Dreadnought. Ha, even the reference about 'Reapers' is removed from Avina. During a scout mission close to the planet Alchera, the SSV Normandy is attacked by a Collector Cruiser, getting destroyed. Shepard goes to save Joker, the pilot, but ends up dying in space and falling to the planet after doing so. How he/she survives the impact with the planet is anyone's guess. The surviving crew goes their separate ways. Liara retrieves Shepard's body, which was sought by the Shadow Broker, who was working for/with the Collectors, and gives it to Cerberus, a human supremacist terrorist paramilitary organization, due to their promise of reviving the hero.".

Mordin and Thane took a good look at Liara, who fidgeted a little.

"Two years after the incident, Shepard is brought back to life (one of the rare cases of the terrorist organization's success, since the subject was out the door before turing on them and killing all of their dudes), except now improved with many synthetic parts, possibly of Reaper tech origin.", I continued, only pausing to sip some water. "The Illusive Man, Cerberus leader and henceforth referred to as TIM, spent billions of credits in order to accomplish that so that – allegedly – the Collectors, who had been abducting entire human colonies in the Terminus Systems, could be stopped. Also, 'cause Shepard is supposed to be 'A hero, a bloody icon' despite the fact no one in high places seems to be willing to listen and/or follow him/her.".

"How did… TIM even know he would need to bring Shepard back from the dead for the mission?", Liara asked with a very confused expression. "Or that was even possible to begin with?".

"I guess TIM had been reading the script even back then.", I answered with a joke. "He does that quite a lot, actually. That's why he knew releasing 'carefully disguised rumors', whatever that means, about a fact that was common knowledge would bend the forces of the Universe itself such that the Collectors would pick on it, find out that the Alliance had sent Kaiden/Ashley to some colony because of it, go there to abduct them, which would incite Shepard into going after them (even though he/she was already doing that…?), all either to confirm something he already knew, that the Collectors had a personal interest in Shepard, or to incite the bugman towards a particular colony (where Kaiden/Ashley would be stationed), which would probably lead to a critical mission failure, because Shepard only survived Horizon due to the GARDIAN lasers installed by the Alliance, who had been doing nothing, except when they did, for some reason. Or when he sends Shepard to the 'disabled' ship to get more intel when he already knew they needed an IFF, 'cause he had already sent his scientists to die on the Derelict Reaper, and that it'd be super easy, barely an inconvenience for his 4 billion credits investment to survive the trap.".

By this point, they were probably catching on to the fact that I really didn't like the writer's pet known as Cerberus and their very own avatar, TIM.

"Shepard then starts building a team to hit the Collectors in their home-base, beyond the Omega-4 Relay, whilst investigating and fighting that race. I'm not going over each mission because they are kinda dumb. Like… Why didn't Shepard have the Normandy shoot some GARDIAN lasers or a powered-down Thanix cannon to make sure that the Collector ship was really disabled or why didn't the Collectors just fly away with Shepard when he/she had boarded their Cruiser?", I carried on with the summary, but couldn't resist mocking its nonsensical plot. "I don't need to say much about how both the Council and the Systems Alliance offer pretty much no help, forcing a railroad with Cerberus. All that was missing was TIM saying something like: 'No, I'm not enslaving you, Shepard. You're going to do everything I say of your own free will. Because I say so!'. Still, now comes the actual good part. Shepard's team consists of the returning Garrus and Tali, Cerberus agents Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor, salarian scientist Mordin Solus, drell assassin Thane Krios, Justicar Samara, human top-biotic Jack, human mercenary Zaeed Massani, human thief Kasumi Goto, tank-bred krogan Grunt, 'Artificial Intelligence' named 'Enhanced Defense Intelligence' (or EDI) and, most interestingly, Geth Infiltration Unit named 'Legion'. Shepard has a Geth join his crew.".

"Ah, AI on our side… That's helpful.", Thane interjected, showing his open mindedness, just like during his first meeting with EDI. "And I've heard this 'Legion' is quite friendly too. I'm looking forward to an exchange of philosophical ideas and sniper skills.".

"Unprecedented. Excited about prospects.", Mordin added excitedly. "Common perception of AI as dangerous. However, examples found by Commander Shepard appear not to be so. Lot of potential.".

"I wonder if we could try to do the same.", Liara suddenly suggested. "Having the Geth as allies would be immensely helpful.".

"Unfortunately, we probably can't, since Nazara and its followers are monitoring them at this time, maybe even personally. Anyway, that's when Shepard learns that those geth we fought before were a splinter group of the Geth Consensus, called heretics, and less than 5% of all Geth.", I returned to the narration. "After doing a lot of 'loyalty' missions and stuff, Shepard grabs the Reaper IFF from the Derelict Reaper from Mnemosyne, which allows the SR-2 Normandy to safely go through the Omega-4 Relay. In the collector base, they learn that a human Reaper is being created by 'liquefying' the abducted colonists, a monstrosity which is destroyed by the team. Shepard can choose to keep the base or destroy it. After that, Admiral Hackett of the Alliance has Shepard go investigate reports of an imminent Reaper invasion in Batarian space. The mission goes south, because all of the contacts are indoctrinated, and the Alpha Relay ends up destroyed, along with 300.000 batarians in the Bahak System, but the Reapers can't invade for the time being.".

Damn, my breath was almost not keeping up with these "short" summaries. And that's with me skipping a lot of details. It didn't matter all that much, since Liara would be able to see everything with melding anyway.

"Do we survive the ordeal?", Thane asked.

"If Shepard prepared enough before the assault on the Collectors, then yes.", I assured them. "It's called a 'suicide mission', with a kickass soundtrack to acompany it, but you can do it in the game without anyone dying, funnily enough.".

"Small relief, at least.", Mordin commented.

Really, the only way it could ever considered a "suicide mission" was from the point of view that no ship had managed to pass through the Omega-4 Relay, because the alternative is thinking that the mission Was suicidal because we'd be going after the "Collector homeworld", as Shepard had been pitching during Mass Effect 2. Can you imagine what would've been if there was a planet of Collectors? Like, literally a planet full of the buggers, with orbital defenses and probably a defensive fleet to boot! What would Shepard have done? Try to conquer it on foot with a 3-person squad? Or just shrug and apologize to the team, maybe sending them home?

"Finally, we get to Mass Effect 3. Keep in mind that things can change a little depending on the choices made.", I paused a little and cleared my throat. "Because of the Alpha Relay incident, Shepard is put on house arrest for six months back on Earth. It's not long before the Reapers arrive. After easily neutralizing the Batarians, because they are isolated and all defenses were sabotaged by those indoctrinated by the Leviathan of Dis, they blitz through the defenses of the Systems Alliance, hitting Earth en masse. Shepard escapes on the SR-2 Normandy, in order to unite the galaxy and retake Earth, stopping on Mars to rescue Liara, who had found plans for an allegedly Prothean superweapon when she was attacked by Cerberus. The Illusive Man has gone full 'dark side', shoving Reaper Tech™ directly on his forces all the while rationalizing that they should try to Control the Reapers. Meeting the Council, to the surprise of no one, results in absolutely nothing once again, since everyone is only looking out for themselves, and our hero accepts a mission to retrieve the turian Primarch from Palaven, which is also under heavy Reaper attack. After retrieving Primarch Adrien Victus from Manae, he offers turian assistance only if Shepard manages to convince the krogan to help save Palaven. While all of this is going on, the Alliance is building the mentioned superweapon, called the Crucible, which is supposed to be the work of all prior civilizations to end the Reapers. The krogan demand a cure for the genophage in return for the aid, which makes Shepard go to Sur'Kesh, to get back some kidnapped krogan females who are immune to the bioweapon. The salarians… don't really want anything, luckly. Oh, we end up fighting more Cerberus along the way, because TIM had been reading the script, and reuning with Mordin. Some Dalatrass called Linron, who is the leader of the Salarian Union, offers Shepard some fleets if the cure is sabotaged. On Tuchanka, the Normandy team works to: 1) disarm a doomsday bomb left by the Turian Hierarchy (which Cerberus was trying to activate); 2) send the Mother of All Threaser Maws on a Reaper; and 3) disperse the cure using the Shroud. The STG had sabotaged the tower, which is falling apart, meaning Mordin needs to go personality to fix the issue, sacrificing himself in order to see it through. With the cure dispersed, the krogan go help the Turians, pushing back the Reapers.".

"Still not easy to picture. New genophage correct at time. Focused on big picture.", Mordin commented. "But understand decision. Big picture changed. My project. My work. My cure. My Responsibility.". He inhaled slowly and, with a smile, said: "Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.".

"Back on the Citadel, Shepard goes to investigate something the Salarian Councilor found about Udina. Kai Leng, a Cerberus assassin, tries to kill the guy, but Thane intervenes, saving the Councilor, but gets fatally wounded in the process.". Thane raised one of his 'eyebrows', but made no comment. "This is followed by a chase against the assassin and a struggle to stop a Cerberus-led coup by 'Councilor' Udina, who gets killed, ensuring the coup does not come to pass. Afterwards, the Commander goes to meet the quarians, who have started a war with the Geth a few days before the Reaper crisis and are getting their asses kicked, since they forced the Geth to side with the Reapers in order to survive. That happens even if Legion visited the Migrant Fleet and told them, to their faces, that the Geth were open to the 'cessation of hostilities with Creators'. A few missions later, which allows Shepard to see that the Geth did not shoot first in the 'Morning War', what they call the conflict with their creators, and that the quarians were killing even their own people that tried to protect the Geth's right to exist, the Reaper controlling them is destroyed and it's possible to put an end to the Quarian-Geth war for good, but only if the quarians stand down. In that case, the Geth invite their creators to return to Rannoch, which they have been preserving in the hopes of the quarians coming back in peace.".

"This is one of the most difficult things to accept. It was the quarians who caused their own downfall. All this time, most people thought it was the Geth who 'rebelled' against their creators.", Liara muttered sadly. "And the quarians could have returned to their homeworld any time they wanted. So much suffering, all for nothing.".

"The Crucible Project hits a dead end. They need to find something called the 'Catalyst', but have no idea what it is. So, in another return to the Citadel, Shepard meets the Asari Councilor. The asari, who had stayed out of the fight while everyone else suffered, finally reached out for the Commander because Thessia was under attack. It's then that we learn they were keeping a Prothean Beacon, accompanied by its own VI, hidden in the Temple of Athame. The asari were engineered by the Protheans to lead this cycle against the Reapers, a task they failed to fulfill successfully. Before they can get information about the Catalyst, Kai Leng shows up, beats them up and takes the VI from them by abusing the power of plot armor. Thessia falls not long after.". Liara closed her eyes for a bit. "With the mission to get the VI back, and probably pissed off for the fact they are fighting Cerberus more than the Reapers themselves, Shepard & Co. go after the bastards, which leads them to Horizon, a fake 'Sanctuary' where refugees are being turned into husks to 'study' indoctrination to Control the Reapers – as if, just because you managed to find a way to grab a puppy's leash, it'd somehow also allow you to take control of its owner with it. After dealing with that place, they find and go after the Cerberus Headquarters, where Kai Leng is finally killed and the VI informs them that the Citadel is the Catalyst, but that it'd been moved to Earth by the Reapers, who were informed of the Crucible plans by TIM and took over the station by being off-screen. It's all downhill from here…".

I stopped a little to let all of that sink in.

"An armada of the remaining Alliance, turian, asari and quarian/geth fleets, depending on the choices made, is assembled to take the fight to Earth. The salarians offer basically no help there, staying out of the fight until this point. They only send the First Fleet if the cure was sabotaged and the Third Fleet only if the Salarian Councilor was saved both in ME1 and during the attempted coup. That's all. Moving on, the fleets hold the Reaper's attention in space while Shepard goes to Earth. There is a Conduit there, for some reason, that leads to the closed-off Citadel. After some fighting, they make a mad dash to the portal, which is reached only by Captain Anderson, miraculously, and a very injured Commander. The two of them deal with a highly indoctrinated TIM, Anderson dies and the Citadel opens up, with the Crucible being connected, but not doing anything. That's when the gut punch comes in. You see, the Catalyst isn't really the Citadel, but an AI that lives there and that created the Reapers. It talks about how its creators made it to solve the 'inevitable conflict of synthetics and organics', claiming that organics always create synthetics which, in turn, 'rebel' against them and wipe them out. So it came up with a brilliant solution: just kill all organic civilizations before they advance enough to create synthetics (if there is no problem maker, then there will be no problem to solve!), starting the 'cycles' with its own creators, the Leviathans, a race which regard itself as the galaxy's first and only apex race, thinking of other races as mere tools meant to serve! It then claims that Shepard is the only person to ever reach that far and that its solution is not applicable anymore, so it 'offers' three possibilities: Destroy all synthetics and a lot of technology; Control the Reapers, by having Shepard 'upload' and assume the place of the Catalyst; or Synthesis, by turning Shepard's 'essence' into a mold for all life on the galaxy, turning everyone into a mix between organic and synthetic, with a new 'DNA', whatever that means. In all endings, the Relays are destroyed, but the Reapers supposedly quickly rebuild them in the Control and Synthesis endings.".

"I can't help but think this is all very stupid.", Thane offered his opinion.

"And disappointing. Biggest threat to galaxy result of poor programming.", mocked Mordin.

"Back then, they probably didn't have enough movies with the 'A.I. Is a Crapshoot' trope, I guess…", I quipped too.

"Still, are we building the Crucible to deal with the Reapers?", asked Liara.

That gave me pause and made all three of them look at me in the eyes.

"We should never have to rely on hands-me-down 'superweapons'. And that is exactly what the Crucible is.", I answered without hesitation. "In my view, its purpose is itself a trap of sorts, a conclusion on terms set by the guilty. We can, and should, do better than this. This isn't a real solution, merely a change of the terms of occupation. The sword hanging over our heads is not gone. The Reapers are still around in two of the scenarios, with the Control Ending just having the 'proverbial sword' exchange hands. And, in the only scenario where they are supposedly destroyed, the cost paid is too high.".

"But if it can put an end to the Reapers, it would be best to use the superweapon to save countless innocents, I think.", Liara claimed somewhat unsure.

"Unfortunately, not so simple.", Mordin added. "Huge unknown. Many variables to account for. Supposedly accumulated work of many prior civilizations. Unconfirmed result of use. Can't rely on a gamble. Still have time to come up with better ways.".

"You know, I've always felt that the only way to deal with the Reapers was with a Deus Ex Machina. That's what has been hammered into our heads by Mass Effect 3. Since then, I've had 10 years to think about this… And you know what? I've changed my mind. For one, there are many problems with the superweapon.", I confidently said to them. "Here's a major a priori problem: the Information Projection of the events into a game occurs because of the Crucible's activation, only backtracking from that moment to possible pasts of Shepard, which means we have 'trustworthy information' only up to that point. Plus, Mass Effect 3 ends abruptly after the Red-Green-Blue blast. It was only due to fan backlash that the 'Extended Cut' downloadable content that expanded on the endings was released. There is a very real possibility that the claims about what happens in the end were purely thought out in my Universe, not representing the real consequences of the Crucible's activation at all.".

Not only does the Extended Cut DLC retcon a lot of the stuff fans pointed out back then (like the Mass Relays blowing up, yet not going supernova as shown in The Arrival), but it actively contradicts already established facts. Let's take a look at the fixing of the Relays in the Destroy Ending for example. It makes it look like the structures were fixed quite easily by a galaxy that, until that point, didn't even know a thing about them. Even if we take a monumental leap and agree, for the sake of argument, that the coalition stuck on the Sol System suddenly knows how to build Mass Relays or, at the very least, has the ability to fix the damage done to them, there's one remaining issue: it takes two to tango, baby. They need two Relays linked together and operational to create the "corridor". So, without the Arcturus one also fixed, the Charon Relay is worthless.

Oh, but people from the other side will probably fix theirs too, you might headcanon an excuse. However, from all we know, the Arcturus System only has the debris of stations to keep it company and it'd be impossible to even reach the place by Relay because, guess what, the other Relays leading to Arcturus are broken too! Still, it's only 36 LY away from Sol, so you could argue that they took a journey of about 3 days (normal FTL) to get there and fix the Mass Relay. But what about the ones hundreds, if not thousands, of light years away? Or in other Galactic Arm Spurs? Consider that, at 14 LY/day speed and completely ignoring the discharge limitation, it'd still take 20 years to cross the whole galaxy in a straight line, from one end to the other. I'm not saying that it's impossible for them to be fixed in the Destroy Ending, just that it'd be very unlikely – and certainly not something that they managed to do just because. It's the writer's job to explain it, not the fans to create fanfiction to do it for them!

"Even so, that's a big maybe.", Liara tried to counter argue. "We can't really make our decisions with that as a premise.".

"That's true.", I concurred with her. "However, even if we don't consider any of that, there's no guarantee that the three color endings will deliver peace in the future, that the crisis is truly over and not just temporarily stopped. Let's look at the 'options' one by one…".

Thus, I began formulating my analysis of each of the RGB "choices" and explaining it, one by one, to them, which took a few minutes, at least.

In the case of the Destroy Ending, besides comitting genocide against all synthethics, even those that fought by our side, like the geth and EDI, we end up wreaking a lot of tech, the Mass Relays are all destroyed and will probably stay that way because no one really knows that to build those damn things. The Protheans studied them for thousands of years and only managed to build a small one (Conduit). Thus, the galaxy is all segregated, which will lead to a lot of deaths due to lack of amenities, like food (the existance of "farming" colonies proves they messed up somewhere in self-sufficiency), and probably future conflicts caused by all the new factions formed (a warring states period). Plus, we have zero assurance that we got all of the Reapers in the Crucible blast. It's very possible that some escaped or that there were a few "Trump" card reserves waiting in Dark Space. What would we do in that case? The galactic community is in shambles, so it can't deal even with a few more Reapers showing up.

They all had thoughtful expressions on their faces.

Now, the Synthesis Ending… We're "magically" merging organics and synthetics in some kind of "New DNA", changing the entire galaxy forcefully, in violation of every being's right to consent. It is body horror at its best. The choice to reach something like this on our own terms is just taken away forever. And there is a very real possibility that what it actually does is just turn everyone into some kind of high-functioning Husk under Reaper control, but just with enough sentience to trick an observer on a surface level. The Catalyst claims that the Crucible is just a power source, so you are mostly using the Reaper's technology (Citadel and Mass Relays) during Synthesis. Plus, even if it doesn't turn people into husks, there's no guarantee that, in the future, the Reapers won't just decide that it's not a good enough solution, going back to their genocidal ways. After all, there's nothing stopping these new weird "cyborgs" from creating pure organic/synthetic life again.

They all had pale faces (a bit) at the thought of becoming some kind of husk, yet believing everything was "fine".

And, finally, the Control Ending, TIMMY boy's dream… Shepard is "uploaded" somehow, taking over the place of the AI in controlling the Reaper armada and ending the conflict. We have no assurance that "Catalyst Shepard" was "uploaded" successfully, that something wasn't planned to go wrong during the process or that something wouldn't go wrong in the future, like he/she turning into a dictator or just insane. Just like the Synthesis Ending, the Reapers still live and are a "hanging sword". It's always a possibility that they would turn against us again in the future, especially if we start building forces back up. The lack of guarantee here also comes from the simple fact that the Catalyst could be lying: Shepard might have been "uploaded" purely as a ".txt file", so it could understand what went wrong this Cycle and work to prevent it in the next one. Besides, the Protheans tried to build the Crucible in the past cycle, but, before they could finish it, infighting broke out between those who wanted to use it to Destroy the Reapers and a separatist faction that, just like Cerberus in our cycle, believed they could use it to Control them. The separatists were later discovered to be indoctrinated.

"I see. There are many unknowns with the Crucible.", Liara admitted.

"All of it does not mean, however, that we'll abandon it.", I then switched things a bit in my conclusion, offering them an alternative to just using/not using. "Oh no, not at all. We will get the schematics of the device much sooner than we were supposed to in 'canon', study it extensively, understand it as much as possible, but never trust it blindly. That's one of the pitfalls that all civilizations so far have fallen into. All the tech we glance from it will only be considered as new frames of reference. And, if it is just another Reaper trap, we can still analyze it to understand them more.".

"Need to know Reaper numbers, strengths and weaknesses.", affirmed Mordin. "Make up for lack of military power with tactics, ingenuity. Still have time.".

"And we have the advantage of foreknowledge.", mentioned Thane.

"But how would we fight in a 'conventional' fight against them?", Liara asked an important question, one over which we'd need a lot of planning over the years.

"In order to consider conventional warfare, we need to talk about our enemies first.", I had yet another whole lot of things to bring up about this topic, so I began by talking about the general information on the enemy…

The Reapers were vulnerable when hibernating, but stayed in Dark Space between cycles for that reason. They were predominantly divided into four varieties of ships: Capital-class, Destroyer-Class, Troop transports and (Mobile) Processors. The Capital-class were those at around two kilometers in size, like the one in Mnemosyne. They can one shot a turian Cruiser and maybe a modern Dreadnought too. That's because their main weapon was a spinal mounted 'magnetohydrodynamic' cannon with a yield of 132 to 450 kilotons of TNT. Capital Ships were also armed with multiple cannons in their 'tendrils', capable of shearing through most opposing vessels in a single hit and had something like the GARDIAN systems. They made use of fighters, drones called Oculus, that were armed with particle beam weapons. However, their shields were their biggest asset, letting them take on a lot of punishment easily, although concentrated fire of four turian Dreadnoughts could take out one of them (not specified if it was whilst using the reverse engineered Thanix cannons). They were not all equal. Harbinger, the first one, was stronger than all the others. I suspect Nazara, Sovereign, was a special one too, since it could take quite a lot of firepower in the Battle of the Citadel and was left as the Vanguard.

Mordin had his "thinking" mode on (head down and hands in the chin) during this whole explanation. Liara and Thane, however, were looking at me dead seriously.

Destroyer-Class Reapers were around 160 meters in size, with equally formidable ability for destruction as the Capital Ships, although much smaller due their size. They were the backbone of the Reaper armada, serving as escorts to the Capital Ships, and could easily take down a Cruiser. On the other hand, Cruisers could also take down Destroyers fairly quickly, so that was a good trade-off. They could function as Heavy Walkers in ground combat and were almost immune to modern ground vehicle fire, so that was something we needed to look into. Processors were mobile centers for mass DNA harvesting. Troop transports varied in length between 200 meters and one kilometer, and were used to transport husks to unconquered worlds and bring victims to Reaper processing centers. Both of those lacked sentience, being remotely controlled by the Reapers.

Besides those, they were very keen on using the forces of the indoctrinated – or of tricked fools – to do their dirty work. The Heretic Geth were an example of the latter and the Collectors, all that was left of the Prothean Empire in the form of husks, were the former, a force they left in the galaxy as their agents. The Protheans spent a good portion of their war fighting against their own people. In our cycle, Cerberus would take on that role, if we did nothing about it.

"Capital and Destroyer class Reapers are made from the 'harvest' of millions, if not billions, of sapients. Moreover, they've been doing it for approximately a billion years, according to the estimated age of the 'Leviathan of Dis'.", I finished my general explanation. It was here that I decided to deliver the gut punch. "So, if we consider that each 'harvest' happens every 50.000 years, we'd be looking at something like 20.000 cycles and should be expecting millions, or maybe even billions, of Reaper Ships, right?".

They all had a somewhat defeated look, probably thinking that our only real chance was by using the MacGuffin. As for why the "Dis" Reaper was such a good reference to calculate the starting point of the bastards, it's because it was taken out by a Leviathan, so it was back when they were still around somewhat publicly and, therefore, not much time later after the "First Betrayal", relatively speaking.

"Just look at you! We haven't even met those giant space cuttlefish and you are already having doubts?", I exclaimed with a smiling expression and a puffed chest. "Let me guess: the biggest military in the galactic community, the turians, only has 37 dreadnoughts, so there is absolutely no chance of facing the Reapers in a conventional war, right? Let me shed some light on why that's not the case!".

After saying that, I stopped a little in order to formulate my points in the most succinct way possible for me to do: "Let's start with the 'Catalyst', also known as 'The Intelligence'. It was created by the Leviathans, enormous aquatic beings that enslaved most of the galaxy, in order to solve a problem they were having: some of their thralls created synthetics only to end up wiped out by them. The dumb mistake was giving the AI just two absolute directives: preserve all life in the galaxy and find a solution to the conflict between organics and synthetics. What could possibly go wrong with vague commands like that, right? So, it came with the stupidest 'solution' that something badly programmed and purely logic-base could come up with, the 'Cycles': just kill all organics before they could create synthetics (leaving an opportunity for new organics to grow), starting with its creators. That's why the Reapers have the shape they have. The core is like the species harvested, but the outer shell looks like a Leviathan.".

"And were these 'Leviathans' wiped out or did some of them survive?", Thane also asked something pertinent.

"Oh, some survived.", I revealed. "Shepard can meet them by going to a planet that will be named '2181 Despoina' and recruit their help by basically bringing the Reapers on their doorstep, so they had no choice but to fight.".

"Maybe we should pay them a visit…", Liara suggested, in a rare showing of her possible future self. "The turian kind.".

"Well, I honestly don't know what to do with them yet. We can't trust them, but neither can we let them enthrall people. Maybe we'll need to find a middle ground there.", I confessed, leaving the problem for future-me to solve. "But, continuing on… The Intelligence created the 'Cycles' as a solution to its purpose, coming up with the Citadel and the Mass Relay Network as a means to perfect it. By creating them, the civilizations that rise up develop much faster than normal, but only along the paths it desires, having no technological advantage to call upon against the Old Ones. After all, they are the ones who decide what scraps are left behind for the next cycle. When the harvest starts, the 'galactic government' is taken down instantly, the Relay Network is shut down and all data about the galactic community is in the Reaper's tendrils, so, if they wish, they can take one isolated system at a time. And here's the important point we should note: the goal of the cycles is not 'reproduction', but the prevention of the destruction of all life in the galaxy and of conflicts between organic and synthetic life-forms. The Reapers are just tools the AI created to help achieve its 'solution'. In my opinion, it probably 'ascends' and 'preserves' the 'essence' of organics so that it does not have to accept the fact that it led to the outcome it's supposed to prevent. In some kind of twisted logic, the Catalyst probably thinks it didn't really wipe out those civilizations because they were 'ascended'. It's pure self-denial.".

"But wouldn't sending the Reapers to do its dirty work go against that purpose, since they can be lost?", questioned Thane.

"Who knows? It's not like reason and good programming are traits of that 'AI'.", I mocked a bit. "Maybe it just doesn't care because the Reaper was destroyed by another's hand, so it was not it that caused the end of that particular 'ascended'. Or, and what I think is more likely, the Catalyst doesn't mind because, as a sort of Gestalt, it 'embodies the collective consciousness and memories of the Reapers', so it doesn't lose a civilization's data if one of them is destroyed.".

"Alright. But what does it all tell us, exactly?", inquired Liara.

"It tells us something very important: the number of Reapers can only be as many as the number of civilizations actually harvested. If there were only 12.000 civilizations since the beginning of the cycles, then there could only be that number of Reapers. 'Nazara' is the hint. It's the name of a murdered species. There's no 'Nazara, the First One', 'Nazara1' or even 'Nazara 2.0'. It's just one name, for one entire species, in only one Reaper. To 'preserve' the species/civilization, the Catalyst only needs one Reaper.", I explained it to them and my thought process to reach that conclusion (something we have to do because Bioware was simply too lazy/scared to actually give us hard numbers). The Mass Effect wiki claims that, during each cycle, a single race is harvested to produce Reaper Capital Ships, while other space-faring races are used to produce Destroyer-class Reapers. The correct interpretation, in my view, should be that capital ships are made from a single race, not that a single species produces multiple capital ships. There's a big difference. "Therefore, even in the worst of the worst cases, considering the estimated number of cycles, we are looking at 20.000 Capital-class Reapers and, multiplying it by an estimated 10-15 of 'lesser' species, 200.000 to 300.000 Destroyer-class Reapers. It's not millions or billions of them that we have to deal with.".

"Still too many.", commented Thane. "That's bigger than any navy in the galaxy and many of those vessels are stronger than the Destiny Ascension.".

"And we only have 21 Dreadnoughts.", Liara quickly pointed out. "Well, the turians have 37 and the salarians 16, but that still means 'only' 74. Never thought I'd ever say that word when talking about Dreadnoughts…".

"Must have plans to deal with this.", Mordin said, reminding them of something. "Would not have suggested 'conventional' warfare otherwise.".

"Oh, you have no idea, Mordin.", I said with an almost savage grin. There was absolutely nothing conventional about the way I would deal with the Reapers. That word was used only in the sense that we wouldn't be using some MacGuffin that was powered by a Deus Ex Machina to really win. "First, those numbers were just a probable worst case scenario. One blindside in most people's thinking is that, because the Reapers create more of themselves by harvesting millions of organics and the galaxy is filled with trillions of lives to harvest, each cycle would allow them to create thousands more Reapers. Evidently, that's not the case! More so when considering that they exist merely to 'preserve' a civilization. And it's not just out of genetic material and memories that one of them is made, but also lots and lots of eezo, right Mordin?".

"Correct. Size way beyond economic viability.", he confirmed to us. "Eezo core simply too massive. Could field many warships for just one Reaper.".

"What's more, when their stupid cycles began, there was no Mass Relay Network and no Citadel. For a good chunk of those one billion years, it was a struggle to complete one cycle, not only because they had to look all over the galaxy for advanced civilizations, but because those civilizations themselves developed much slower without Mass Relays. The harvest was, let's say, 'inefficient'.", I brought up yet another fact people never seem to remember when calculating the number of Reapers. "Besides, even while covering planets that are most likely to give birth to sapient life, the Mass Relays only reach a small part of the entire galaxy, as can be seen from the fact that we've explored less than 1% of it. And it's still an ongoing project of theirs. They are still building new Relays, a fact Dr. Kenson inadvertently discovered when trying to date the megastructures, since a few of the things were just as old as the Protheans. It also ties in with our previous point: they either build more of themselves or save eezo for new Relays.".

They nodded. It made sense. There's an entire treaty one can write on how inconsistently scarce Element Zero was in the Mass Effect Universe. It's something that's simultaneously so abundant that it's used in toothbrushes and, yet, so rare that only the wealthy and star nations can afford to build a small number of ships with it. However, regardless of how rare it was, the Reapers still needed to mine the thing, like common peasants, otherwise they'd just seed the entire galaxy with Mass Relays in a million years by chanting Unlimited Eezo Works or "something" and call it a day. I'll get back to this "something" idea later, but I can give a hint right now: synthesizing.

"Another simple fact is that not all cycles had advanced space-faring civilizations popping up. Or, rather, there's no universal law stipulating that new civilizations must, necessarily, show up, evolve and become interstellar exactly every 50.000 years.", I stated the obvious, which wasn't always considered so by people who headcanon that the Reapers numbered in the millions or even more. "If we are lucky, there could've been a few periods of a million years without any advanced sapient species showing up at all, so no more Reapers during those times.".

This made the trio stop to think that, yes, life wasn't some kind of cosmic event that works off of a global cooldown, but more like something that required an unlikely combination of astrophysical/geological events and circumstances, over an insanely long period of time (billions of years). In fact, this was one of the solutions of the Fermi Paradox and was referred to by it as the Rare Earth hypothesis.

"And, to finish it all off, there is something you are all ignoring: they can die.", I proclaimed this with a smile that wasn't quite a smile. More like a desire to put their alleged eternity to the test. "Just think of the 'Leviathan of Dis' and the Derelict Reaper on Mnemosyne, who'll henceforth be referred to as… Steve. Those two can't be the only ones destroyed during the cycles. They must be the only ones that were missed when 'cleaning up' the galaxy after harvests. The Protheans themselves must have taken down quite a lot of Reapers, considering it took centuries for them to be finally dealt with.".

That got their hopes up and the joke about Steve got me some amused looks.

"So, taking all of that into consideration, I estimate we'll be dealing with, at most, 10.000 Capital-class Ships and, keeping in mind that they are both the most numerous and the easiest to take down, around 150.000-200.000 Destroyer-class Reapers.", I offered them a very rough estimate, taking into consideration all those circumstances, before ending by calling attention to an important fact. "Those are ships that, for all their technological prowess, are stagnant, their methods of war tried and true, yet lacking flexibility or diversity. And we know they are coming, while they don't even know we exist!".

Many fans latched onto Sovereign's claim that "Our numbers will darken the sky of every world", citing that this Cthulhu-esque being had no reason to lie to Shepard back then, as if there wasn't some tactical advantage to be gained by affecting the morale of his current main enemy/annoyance, even if it meant having to bullshit him/her. Or as if Sovereign was not retroactively made into a big liar when the "Catalyst" introduced itself, proving that the Reapers had a beginning, their own maker described their purpose for existing, which was not that hard to comprehend (surprise!), and the Crucible can easily give them an end, proving that the squid weren't so eternal after all. Clearly, the Reapers' claim of being infinite and legion was sketchy.

"And just having more and stronger ships doesn't mean much when you use them like an utter moron, which they have never failed to act as.", I couldn't resist bringing this up to the discussion, since it didn't make much sense. "With every 'tactic' of theirs, the Reapers end up setting themselves up for failure. I mean, just ask our dear archeologist how the Reaper War began…". With that, Mordin and Thane immediately turned to her.

"They quickly overwhelmed the batarians and, shortly after, the Alliance, using the Relays and attacking many worlds simultaneously…", Liara started explaining to them, suddenly pausing as realization hit her, and continued "... they spread themselves thin, instead of concentrating their forces and going after the biggest pockets of resistance. Only in the last battle did they somewhat amass themselves in only one Star System.".

"Not wise. Even better move would be taking over Citadel. Finish Sovereign's plan now with much stronger forces.", Mordin suggested. "Wipe out central government. Control and shut down Mass Relay Network. Isolate enemies. Much more efficient. How I would have done it.". Thane shared the feeling by signaling a nod.

"But it doesn't end there! Oh, no. It's like not coming through the Citadel this time around completely messed up their logic.", I tried to find some justification for this. "The Reapers sent easily picked off groups to many Star Systems. Heck, they sent just a single Reaper each to deal with the Geth and the krogan. Those weren't even Capital ships, but merely Destroyers. Rather than just bombard from orbit, they land on planets, having to reroute a lot of power from their shields to reduce mass, supposedly to 'harvest' the populations, but then just start shooting their pew-pew weapons at civilians. Despite having indoctrination, they barely used it to gather intel or for sabotage, having to rely on TIM's ability to read the script to learn about the Crucible. Also, they could've just taken down a planet's power grid and waited in orbit for the resistance to crumble on its own. Basically, the Reapers project much less effective military power than they could. This is one of the reasons we can beat them. Another one is how much we are going to tip the scales in our favor by, this time around, actually preparing for the war!".

Mordin had a small smile hanging in the corner of his mouth, Liara was much more relaxed now and Thane was, well, back to being his stoic, mysterious assassin self.

"I see. Don't leave us in suspense." said Thane. "How are we going to prepare?".


Author's Note: ...and we're off to the next two chapters that'll completely break off from expectations (hopefully in a good way). As a heads up, this is part 1 of 3. All of those used to be just one chapter, one of the first I wrote in fact. It was just when I'd decided to make this fanfic. After scouring this site for Mass Effect fics to plug the hole that was the ME3 ending, yet finding few to satisfy my personal needs (or just works with potential that were never finished), I simply went "Fine, I'll do it myself.".

Thus, this chapter was born as a way for me to summarize what I would be dealing with (the basic story and the Reapers). After doing most of the First Act and coming back during the rework, I chose to keep it and expand upon it. Why? For one, because it makes sense in-story, since Liara didn't have time to pass everything to Mordin and Thane. For another, because something I've found was that many people just... don't understand how the MEverse works at a fundamental level.

[Small Rant]

If you don't believe me, just look for those "discussions" of [X fandom vs ME fandom] or [Y Starships vs ME Reapers], in which statements like "The Reapers' weapons operate on the high-end of the kiloton level and their shields probably follow this closely too, so this Universe's starship, which does megaton level attacks at minimum, would probably win" receives replies such as "Actually, the Reapers are, like, billions of ships, so they win by numbers alone, and they have indoctrination, so that megaton starship is now the Reapers... I win!". No, just no. I've actually read stuff like that, by people who seem to think the Reapers have AoE Magic Spells to mind control people, even in space, or something. In my view, this stems from the visual impact of Sovereign during the Citadel Attack and a lack of Codex reading. Subconsciously, they trick themselves into thinking the squid are invincible when, in truth, they're one of Sci-Fi's weakest antagonists.

So, I've taken upon myself to ground the "rules" of the MEverse, even if only to have a coherent story, where the reader actually understands why things are, or aren't, a certain way. This means having to write segments (sometimes big ones) of explanations, case in point the next two chapters, which will cover things such as what eezo does, how it's used and how it can be used better. But, don't worry; going forward, I'll try to space those between chapters and parts of them, not letting them interrupt the flow of the story, hopefully.

[/Small Rant]

As for the SI, I've decided to change the placeholder last name to "Skywalker", because it's a suggestion that I both like and actually fits with what this character will be doing in the future (bringing hope). Besides, everyone seem to be one these days... However, I'm still open for other names and might change it again (as I just did), since this is still mostly a work in progress until we reach the ME1 period.