—pov: SSV Normandy SR1—
"Presley, where are we now?" asked Captain Anderson.
The Normandy SR1 had just been launched on her maiden voyage after picking up the turian Spectre named Nihlus. The ship was heading towards the Mass Relay when they picked up a spacetime anomaly a couple of light-minutes past Pluto and went to investigate.
"We're almost at the location of the anomaly. It seems to have stopped." Said Navigator Presley.
"Sir? Scanners are picking up three objects in the vicinity. One small , round object and two… humanoids?" Said Joker, the ship's pilot.
"Bring them aboard" commanded Anderson.
"Sir, I don't know if that's a good idea…" said Presley. "What if it's hostile?"
"We will follow First Contact protocol."
Some of the crew put on spacewalk suits and retrieved them. When they reached the airlock, they could see the figures clearly. One appeared to be a large human boy with green hair and a giant stab wound that pierced through his torso. The other was assumed to be a set of armor or mech of some kind, but it looked like some kind of magician. The last thing they found was obviously a drone mech of some sort.
Dr. Chakwaz approached the boy and examined him. "God, he's still alive! A wound that big and being stranded in space would have killed any human. Take him to medbay! I'll see if I can save him."
"But what about-" said Presley
"I'm a doctor god damnit! I can't just ignore someone whose life I could save! Now get him to medbay so I can try to save him" Chakwaz shouted
The rest of the crew looked at Anderson, who nodded. They then carefully brought the boy and his things to the medbay. Dr. Chakwaz applied medi-gel to the boy's wound and was about to start up the machine that would assist her in performing surgery when she noticed that the boy's wounds started healing at a visible pace. While Medi-gel did speed up natural healing, its effects were nothing close to what she saw happening with the boy. She decided to take some samples for analysis.
Just then, the drone seemed to activate. It flew in between the boy and the Doctor.
"Ordis will not let any harm come to the Operator!" Said Ordis.
Dr Chakwaz raised her hand in surrender and backed up. "I have no intention of harming the boy. I'm a doctor, and I was trying to heal and revive him. I was going to get a blood sample to check for any other problems."
"The Operator has a -OVERPOWERED- unique physique even among his peers that helps him survive. As his doctor, you are allowed to take samples in order to ensure his health. Still, I would like to observe and analyze whatever you plan on doing and for all samples to be incinerated to prevent them from being exploited."
"I am willing to I'm afraid I have to ask… are you an AI?"
"Certainly not! Although it is an easily made mistake. I am a cephalon, a human mind uploaded into a digital form to either preserve a scholar's mind for eternity or as a punishment for traitors. I was a historian and archivist who got drafted into a war that I was completely unprepared for. I was -BLOWN UP- heavily injured in battle and developed another personality -ME- because of the trauma. In order to preserve my mind, the Orokin glassed me, and I became a cephalon."
"Orokin? Who or what's an 'Orokin'?"
"A group of genetically immortal humans, originally called the Illuminati, who took over Earth in 2080 CE by bombing every major political center, and ruled over the Origin System with a golden fist -IS THAT A PUN?!- for 1000 years, only to be -EXTERMINATED- wiped out by the Tenno due to century old machinations of one of their own leaders 1000 years ago. This should be a standard history event, how haven't you heard of them?"
"First of all, the year is 2183 CE and there have been no bombings since the creation of the Human Systems Alliance that united the nations of Earth. There has been no talks about biologically immortal humans since genetically modifying humans has become taboo. Also, what is a Tenno?"
"The Tenno are a group of children who, due to an 'accident' during the launch of the Zariman 10-0 colony ship, were exposed to the Void. The children were the only survivors. Later, they were forced to become soldiers piloting Warframes to fight an enemy literally of the Orokin's own making. Joey, my Operator, is Unique even among the Tenno. If that did not happen here, we have different histories. Do you have some kind of record I can access to see what happened?"
" I'm assuming that," said Dr. Chakwaz, pointing at the Limbo Prime slumped on the wall, "is a warframe, but that is not my area of expertise so I'm not going to go into it. I'm afraid I can't give you access to that without permission from the captain. Is it okay if I call them over?"
"That is fine. Pre-Orokin military was known for -BEING HARDASSES- its strict policy about its chain of command, so it was expected. I have decided you are trustworthy, so if you need more information, I would be happy to give you limited access to my archives. "
"I'm not going to disagree with you so… " Chakwaz turned to her desk and pressed a button on her communicator. "Captain, one of our new passengers woke up. It's the drone. It is requesting access to historical human records in exchange for access to its historical archives."
"Roger. I am on my way over now. Shepard and Nihlus are coming with me." said the voice of Anderson through the communicator.
"Okay. Ordis, is it? Another thing about our history: we found the technology of an extinct alien race called the Protheans and gained access to the rest of the galaxy, where we found out that we're not alone. Nihlus, one of the people coming, is a turian, one of the dominant species in the galaxy. He is also a Spectre, a sort of special operative working for the Council, the main governing body of the galaxy. They are also very suspicious of synthetics, the collective term for sapient machines, as the general belief is that they would always betray organics."
"So your humans succeeded where ours gave up, and found the galaxy already colonized."
Just then, Anderson walked in with a turian and a red-haired woman.
(AN: Shepard looks like Black Widow from the first Avengers movie. She was my first celebrity crush and Scarlett would be an amazing female Shepard, so sue me. Her background is Colonist Sole Survivor, and her class is a mix of Infiltrator and Adept)
"What's this I hear about the drone reactivating?" asked Anderson.
"Hello, I am Ship Cephalin Ordis, former human historian, archivist, and soldier for the Orokin Empire, charged with taking care of my Tenno Operator, Joey."
"Apparently a cephalon is a human mind uploaded to a synthetic body to preserve it." Said Dr. Chakwaz. "Also, they apparently come from a version of Earth that was taken over by genetically modified humans in 2080."
"Hello, Ordis. I am David Anderson, the turian beside me is Spectre Nihlus Kryik, and she is Lieutenant Commander Scarlett Shepard."
"As a historian, I would be glad to provide access to records from 2016 CE to 3180, and from 4200 to 4207. Any records from before 2016 were destroyed by one of the Orokin so he would be known as the best president and I was in stasis mode for 1000 years waiting for my Operator to wake up from cryosleep. 4207 was when we went through the portal." Said Ordis
"Why was he in cryosleep? Asked Nihlus
"He and all the other Tenno were put into cryosleep to wait out the fight caused by the power vacuum they caused by destroying the Orokin. It just got worse, and they were brought out of it in 4200 to combat the two major factions to allow the regular humans a chance to live in peace."
"I think we still have more questions, but it seems your Operator is waking up so they can wait until later." said Shepard
"Urghh… where am I?" said Joey, clutching his head
"Operator, you're awake! As for where we are, to quote the Wizard of Oz, 'I've a feeling we aren't in Kansas anymore.'" said Ordis
"Don't be silly, Ordis. Kansas was nuked in the Great Meme Purge of 2169 after the destruction of the Internet after the Seven got angry that they didn't understand why people kept saying 'Nice' on April 20th and June 9th. All children born on those days were also executed." said Joey
(For those not using the mm/dd/yyyy date format, that would be 4/20/69 and 6/9/69)
"Holy shit. That is one dystopian future." muttered Anderson, Shepard nodding in agreement.
"I don't want to alarm you, but you were found in space past Pluto with Ordis and this… body and with a sizable hole in your torso where your heart and lungs should be."
Joey looked down at his wound, which had shrunk down from looking like he got stabbed by a heavy blade (which he did) to looking like he was stabbed by a regular sized sword, which was still bad, but it was healing fast. "Thanks, I didn't notice." He said sarcastically. Then he looked at Anderson hopefully. "Did you happen to find another humanoid, with a black body and a human face?"
"I'm afraid not." said Anderson
"Void fucking dammit!" Joey angrily slammed a void-enhanced fist into the metal cot he was on, making a large dent "Everything I worked for, everything I've done, and it still wasn't enough to save her! Fuck!"
"What is he talking about?" Dr. Chakwaz
"Our last mission involved rescuing a HVT (High Value Target) who the enemy was manipulating into controlling the enemy forces. When we got there, the enemy general opened some kind of portal and it sucked the HVT into it. The Operator tried to collapse it while trying to pull her back, but apparently changed its destination instead. The general then cut off her hand and stabbed the Operator in the back with his own sword. Then we wound up here." said Ordis. "The HVT was the Operator's biological mother who was abducted a few months prior."
"Thanks for reminding me of my failure, Ordis." Joey said sarcastically
"Why would they go after your Operator's mother?" Nihlus asked Ordis.
"My name is Joey by the way, and they went after her because she was the queen of the Sentients, a race of sapient hyper adaptive bioengineered terraformers with weapons who were sent to the nearest system. Their Orokin who made them, Ballas, designed them to adapt to literally everything except Void energy, which sterilized them during their journey. They returned to the Origin System after discovering this and realizing that the Orokin they were serving would destroy the planets they worked on the same way the Orokin turned most of Earth into a wasteland. My mother changed into a human form to search for a way to cure the sterility and had me, a half Orokin half Sentient with the features of a human, but was unable to figure out what happened and how she had a child. A few months ago, Ballas returned and kidnapped her, using what I assume was a mental back door allowing him to control her." Joey explained. "Anyway, where are we?"
"We seem to be in a different universe, one where the Orokin never existed and humans obtained interstellar travel based off of ancient alien technology, and found out they were not alone in the universe." said Ordis
(AN: I know it seems repetitive, but this is how I imagine 2 groups from different universes interacting with each other if one woke up in the middle of the conversation. )
"Wait. No Orokin? So that means… no Grineer? No Corpus? No Infestation? No Sentients? Does this mean I might finally get a break from fighting?" Joey asked hopefully.
"Just how long have you been a soldier?" asked Anderson
"We weren't soldiers, really. It was more of a 'do what your masters tell you or die' deal with the Orokin. During the 7 years under their command, we lost 80% of the Tenno. Then after waking up, there were another 7 years of making sure the Corpus and the Grineer didn't succeed in destroying each other while systematically crippling them both. So 14 years of constant fighting on the official records."
"What did you do during this time?"
"Void, what didn't I do? There was spying and infiltration, hacking, asset and personnel recovery, sabotage, data recovery, extermination, assassination, excavation, point defense, evacuation, railjack pilot, gunner, artillerist, and archwing fighter, capture and defense of ships and military installations among other things. I also modified weapons and ships on my off time. I was part of a group of 100 trying to protect a civilian population numbering about 2 million from two factions numbering in the tens of millions. The only thing I refused to do is play politician, as that was my mother's job. I can lead a squad just fine and give decent enough rain speeches, but bureaucracy makes me want to blow up a building."
"When you say extermination, you mean…"
"Forceful removal or destruction of all enemies in a location. When your enemies consist of clones led by a genocidal queen, different clones and robots led by a conglomerate of super corporations with no morals, and a nanovirus hivemind that corrupts biologicals and synthetics alike into mindless zombies trying to assimilate everything, extermination feels like the best word for it."
"Your world has a zombie nanovirus that affects synthetics and biologicals?!" said Anderson in horror.
"We call it the Infestation. Ballas' attempt to make stronger and more controllable warframes, but it was communicable and got out of control. Transformed the entirety of Deimos."
"Wait were warframes…"
"Humans? Yes. Or Orokin that got in Ballas' way. The original nanovirus turned them into lol I-synthetics with little to no consciousness, which could be replicated via blueprint after they turned. The original Limbo Prime, the warframe you found me with, was my father. My mother and I were forced to watch as Ballas turned him and my aunts into warframes."
"This boy has a lot of trauma to unpack." Dr Chakwaz muttered to herself.
"Speaking of warframes, did yours always look like that?" asked Shepard.
"What do you mean… huh. That's new." Joey said, noticing that his warframe gained a layer of armor that seemed to phase in and out of existence, along with visible void energy emissions.
"Sorry to interrupt your conversation, Captain, but we are nearing Eden Prime and picked up a disturbing transmission." said Joker over the intercom.
"Put it up in the comm room. We're on our way there." said Anderson
"Sounds like you've got trouble. Do you want my help?" asked Joey
"We'll see. You're technically considered a foreign wounded civilian and the paperwork would be a pain in the ass. What happened to resting, anyway?" said Anderson
"When using a warframe normally, a Tenno can pilot it while safely in a sort of meditative state thousands of kilometers away from the battle or even in a different dimension. I myself can fully merge with the frame, allowing for more precise control and power. I am also able to do the same with most soulless synthetics about my size to about 5m tall as long as I can come in contact with them. Plus, I'm already fully healed." Joey said, gesturing at his uninjured torso.
"I'm still going to have Dr. Chakwaz check you over. And against my better judgment, I will authorize you and Ordis to access the history of this galaxy in exchange for knowledge of yours. Is that okay with you?" said Anderson
"Thank you sir! I will provide access to our world's data as well, sans anything considered confidential to normal Tenno." said Ordis as Anderson, Shepard, and Nihlus left the medbay.
(AN: much smaller chapter and mostly dialogue, but was having a bit of trouble thinking of how to fit Joey and more specifically, Ordis on the Normandy where everyone is afraid of AIs)