watch?v=CNOzVkvRU1w

12 PROTHEANS: A MASS EFFECT STORY

Based upon the films La Jetee by Chris Marker and 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam

-12p-

1 - Awake to Emptiness

Author's Note: Section title is taken from The Years of Rice and Salt.

-12p-

The dream lasts perhaps a minute at the most.

The soldier is drowning, falling deeper into the bottomless abyss. Then all of a sudden he is in the desert, on his knees, as another Prothean prepares to execute him.

-12p-

Javik woke.

He was expecting an army to greet him. For the legions of his brethren who had been preserved to immediately brief him on preparing for the next Cycle.

Instead he looked up to see a cage had been built around his pod, one just large enough to allow him freedom of movement. He panicked, until he saw a dozen Protheans on a viewing screen.

That was a good sign.

Or so he thought!

-12p-

PROTHEAN SCIENTIST #1: Good. You're awake.

PROTHEAN SCIENTIST #9: We have much work to do, Javik.

JAVIK: What is happening? Where are the others?

PROTHEAN SCIENTIST #3: There are no others. We are all that is left.

[shock.]

[horror.]

JAVIK: How is this possible?! There are thousands of pods here!

PROTHEAN SCIENTIST #3: We were asleep for over 400 years. The VI deemed ourselves and you the only ones worthy of preservation.

[pause.]

Javik. I see. And why have you not initiated a sensory transfer with me? Why am I in this cage?

PROTHEAN SCIENTIST #12: We have an assignment for you, Javik. A dangerous one, not involving the Reapers but the Past itself.

Javik: Explain.

PROTHEAN SCIENTIST #5: Certainly.

2 - 20,000 P.E. Is The Past Too

The Prothean Empire at its height was an indescribable wonder.

Even Javik, despite his strong military discipline, found it hard not to be in awe of the Prothean Empire at the very apex of its power. The lesser races were servile, and the wealth of thousands of worlds flowed back to the golden jewel of all the Empire: the Prothean homeworld of Pahtariak.

It was so wonderful. Unfortunately, he had more important things to do than gawk at the accomplishments of his species.

-12p-

In the scientist-ran iteration he did the following:

JAVIK: You mean it's not 20,000 P.E.?

MILITARY ADVISOR: No, Javik. It is 15,042 P.E. 20,000 P.E. is the future.

JAVIK: No. 20,000 P.E. is the past, too.

MILITARY ADVISOR: Yes, the biological transfer indicated as such. So what is your purpose here, warrior from the future?

JAVIK: To warn of the Reapers.

MILITARY ADVISOR: The what?

JAVIK: This will take some time to explain. I recommend cancelling any obligations for the remainder of the day.

MILITARY ADVISOR: Very well.

-12p-

The scientist-ran iteration wasn't unsuccessful, per se. Indeed, it accomplished what it set out to: the Protheans began examining the Relays more closely, and learned that the Inusannon did not create them after all.

But as they had later learned via careful and exhaustive analysis, that iteration was a time loop that was always meant to happen: the causal equivalent of a self-fulfilling prophecy. For some reason Javik could simply not be more than vaguely instructive or he would have created a paradox.

So they kept that one, but decided to give Javik permission to attempt his own solutions.

It took him a few tries to get it right.

3 - Doing It Wrong

45,000 P.E. (Two centuries before Reaper arrival)

In the first iteration he did the following:

JAVIK: We must prepare! The Reapers are coming, and they will destroy us all!

MILITARY ADVISOR: The evidence you have presented is irrefutable. The Empire will begin work immediately on new ships while maintaining strict secrecy on the true reason we are doing so.

Result:

The Reapers were defeated, but at the cost of 98% of all living Protheans and over 99% of the subject species. Society degraded into a primitive, pre-spaceflight form. When First Contact was made with the next Cycle of aliens, the latter subjugated the Protheans as slaves.

Eventually, the Protheans broke the chains, but by then they were too culturally conditioned to servitude to ever build an empire. They become equals in a classless society that emphasized planet-based localism.

This was unacceptable, so the timeline was closed off and the process restarted.

4 - Warning Everyone

In the second iteration he did the following:

He put himself back in hibernation at a different location for the following Cycle, and left himself for the primitives of the Cycle.

Result:

An abomination known as "Synthesis". On much Javik and the scientists argued, but they were in unanimous agreement that they would, under no circumstances, allow the Protheans to become half machine. Such a thing could NEVER be permitted.

So the timeline was closed off and the process restarted.

Meanwhile…

HARBINGER: Nazara.

NAZARA: Harbinger.

HARBINGER: Travel feels unusual.

NAZARA: I sense it as well, first one. It is as if…as if time is hurt. I do not know why that sentence occurred to me, that seems the most appropriate way to acknowledge it in my mind.

HARBINGER: I agree.

NAZARA: You do?

HARBINGER: This…time anomaly…it appears to be a rift in the fabric of space and time itself. It could undo the Cycles before they ever began.

[horror.]

NAZARA: We must fix it at once!

HARBINGER: We do not know how to track what caused it, and we never will.

NAZARA: …oh.

HARBINGER: Indeed.

5 - The Reapers Arrive

In the third iteration he did the following:

Succeeded for the quarians, but not for the Protheans.

A glitch had occurred in the time travel mechanism and he had been transported to a reality where the quarians had conquered the entire galaxy with the aid of some sort of supernatural book that allowed them to kill anyone they wished. His stasis pod (he found himself awakening in a bunker on what the new inhabitants called Eden Prime, for a reason he could not explain) was activated long after the Quarian Era had begun.

Result:

Quarian eternity. Not a Prothean eternity, and therefore unacceptable.

So the timeline was closed off and the process restarted.

6 - The Reapers Arrive Again

In the fourth iteration he did the following:

Succeeded for the Salarians, but not for the Protheans.

Again that infernal "Death Note" (as he now knew it was called) had been used to conquer the galaxy in the name of the Salarian Empire. The Reapers had been defeated startlingly quickly, to the point of making him feel slightly insecure. The Salarians respected him, but clearly thought of themselves as being above Protheans. And truthfully that arrogance was likely warranted…

Result:

Salarian eternity. More productive than a quarian eternity, as the vision of the Empire was based on science rather than Vengeance. But as with the previous loop, Salarian dominance was not what the scientists were looking for.

So the timeline was closed off and the process restarted.

7 - The Reapers…You Get The Idea

In the fifth iteration he did the following:

SCREAMED IN FRUSTRATION!

Another timeline had appeared, one where slavers had conquered the galaxy and defeated the Reapers by writing their names down! How did Reapers even have names?!

Javik was not a sensitive person, but the Eternal Batarian Empire unnerved him still. Slavery perpetuated not for might or conquest, but purely for hedonism. It was more disgusting than horrifying, if he was being honest.

Result:

Obviously undesirable, even with Empire defeat. So the timeline was closed off and the process restarted for what would turn out to be the last time.

8 - The Correct Loop

In the final iteration he did the following:

Found himself drowning in an ocean. The dream fulfilled itself in what turned out to be the waters of Kahje - he recognized hanar surrounding him and rescuing him from drowning.

For days he basked in the adulation of the hanar, relishing the ridiculous worship of his people that they practiced. On the end of the fifth night, he was taken to his final destination.

In his last moments, he selfishly reflected that he would have been happier living out his days in Kahje.

Epilogue: The Dying Dream

[SCENE: Desert.]

PROTHEAN RESEARCHER #6: Do you know where you are?

JAVIK: The desert where I must die to fulfill the causal loop, and ensure our peoples' victory over the Reapers.

[pause.]

JAVIK: It still does not make since to me.

PROTHEAN RESEARCHER #7 [loads gun]: It is time travel, it does not have to make sense to be true. I am glad you are accepting of your fate. Know that the name Javik will be remembered for all eternity.

[execution.]

[salvation.]

-12p-

And so Javik died a hero to his people. And when he arrived in the Multiuniversal Afterlife shortly thereafter, he was immediately acclaimed as one of the greatest Protheans to have ever existed across all the multiverse, including those who had built the Empire. For he had defeated the Reapers by manipulating time itself, and given the Protheans of his reality an eternity to rule.

All in all, he could've done worse.