Chapter 33. Fermi Paradox
Summer of 2144 CE, Thessia, Library of the T'Lav University
As the last other occupant decided to leave the room, the librarian threw her a rather annoyed look when she looked at her for a short moment. She understood the action, the woman wanted to go home and her presence was keeping her from doing so. While the librarian could've asked a student to leave, she herself hadn't been a student of this university for nearly twenty years. Much to the frustration of the other asari, Doctor Liara T'Soni held a teaching position and as such was allowed to remain inside the library as long as she deemed necessary to use its resources for preparing her next lecture.
Scrolling through the terminal in hopes of finding what she was looking for, she was well aware that the librarian would be far more than just annoyed should she find out that Liara wasn't actually preparing anything for her class. Instead of collecting study material, the young asari was using her spare time and the university's access to even the newest research papers to expand on her own theory in regards to the protheans, the precursor race that had vanished roughly fifty thousand years ago, leaving behind the mass relay network and the Citadel for the current inhabitants of the galaxy.
Her obsession with the enigmatic people had manifested itself after the first time her now mostly estranged mother had read her an excerpt from a history book in a desperate attempt to get her to sleep, a choice that had set of a spiral of events starting from digging through her mother's garden in hopes of finding an undiscovered prothean artifact, devouring countless of books and articles on the topic and finally let to her studying archeology and alien cultures in this very university, becoming one of the youngest asari to ever graduate from T'Lav University when her doctorate thesis had sparked controversy among the school's leadership.
A controversy that had left an impact on her career. For all her certified knowledge, most of her peers rarely took her serious not only because of her young age, she was barely an adult by the standards of her people, but also because of the 'ridiculous and unprovable' theory that she had 'made up' because she' hadn't been capable of producing an actual thesis to graduate with'. But no matter how much they despised her, how ridiculous they found her thesis, they couldn't argue with the quality of her work. While asari of her age had nothing better to do than look for the next thrill, the next party, or in a few cases, the next mercenary job, living each day as if it could be their last, not paying any mind to actually contributing something to society just yet, she poured every fiber of her being into her more useful passion, finding answers to the unsolved riddles of the past.
She couldn't quite explain why she was as captivated by the protheans as she was. Maybe her research was her simply taking her curiosity to its extreme, maybe a part of her arrogantly believed that only she was capable of finding these answers or maybe Liara simply preferred a dusty dig site or a silent library to the social pressure of being Benezia T'Soni's child. If growing up as the daughter of a powerful matriarch and the current asari councilor, whom her people still considered a temporary replacement after well over a decade of service, had taught her anything, it was that for all the effort the galactic community, especially the asari, put into appearing harmonic, peaceful and united, the galaxy was a far uglier place than most people were comfortable with admitting.
If she was honest with herself, it was probably a combination of all of these factors.
She was torn from her idle thoughts when her eyes informed her brain that the paper she was looking for was now available on the screen. Everyone kept telling her that her pursuit of challenging the accepted course of galactic history was pointless but she had never been good at listening. Looking at the text on the screen, a paper recently published by an elcor scientist, she read through what most would consider a boring collection of raw data with a sense of excitement. If the elcor was right, which they usually were, it would support her 'unprovable' theory even further. Over the course of several years the professor and head of Dekuuna's most prestigious school had brought together the location, condition and size of every known prothean site in the galaxy, hard, factual numbers now confirming what many already suspected. The Attican Traverse, the region which was settled by a sizeable number of both human and independent colonies and acted as a buffer between the Terminus Systems and the rest of Council Space, was home to an unproportionately high number of prothean artifacts. This reinforced the idea that the protheans, in spite of the Citadel's location, had either originated on a world within the Traverse or at least settled it far more densely than the rest of the galaxy for an as of yet undiscovered reason.
But these numbers alone weren't what supported her theory of the protheans' disappearance being the result of another, violent party. No, it was the second factor that the elcor had considered which she could expand on. Prothean artifacts were among the most important discoveries one could make, their importance going as far as the entire galaxy, even the Batarian Hegemony, agreeing that any and all discoveries even suspected to be of prothean origin had to be reported and shared with the rest of the galaxy. While major sites like the megapolis of Feros were only discovered every few centuries, minor artifacts or ruins were actually rather common, especially in the Attican Traverse. However for all their frequency, most if not all pieces of prothean technology were damaged beyond repair. The last working piece of prothean technology that had been 'discovered' in the last century had been the research base within the Sol System, continuing one of the patterns she had pointed out in her thesis, the pattern of working prothean artifacts being centered around the home systems of the currently known space faring races and the frequency of damaged artifacts increasing the closer one got to the center of the Traverse. Looking at the elcor's paper, she found that part of her thesis confirmed. The condition of prothean artifacts grew worse the closer one got to the Attican Traverse, the only exception to this rule being the functional site in the Sol System.
She could use this.
As she had pointed out by looking at the examples of working prothean technology, most importantly the mass relays, the Citadel and the various installations presumably used to observe their ancestors, everything the protheans had built further away from the Attican Traverse seemed to be nearly unaffected by the fifty thousand years that had passed between their disappearance and the re-emergence of space faring civilizations. Yet for some reason, everything they had built inside the Traverse, with the exception of the mass relays, was in terrible condition. While scavengers and corporations had done a lot of unforgivable damage to several sites, they couldn't possibly have done this much and as the other examples proved, age shouldn't have ravaged the artifacts like this either.
Someone else had done that and now she was one step closer to learning who. With these numbers backing up her theory, she might be able to find out who. Downloading the rest of the document for later, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm almost done Miss La-" she began until realising that whoever was touching her couldn't possibly be the librarian. While some unfortunate asari may lose two of their fingers during their lives, none of them had skin this hard.
"Doctor T'Soni?" a white-plated turian with damage to both one of his fringes and left mandible asked as he looked down on her, his light blue eyes matching her own.
"Yes," she replied as she realised that the turian was a very high ranking officer. For all the distance between them, a sense of worry washed over her as her mind began telling her that something had happened to her mother. Why else would a general show up on Thessia?
"I'm General Desolas Arterius and we need to talk about something," he gave his reply, only encouraging her brain to keep going.
"What happend?" she asked, a part of her already envisioning the news of a dreadnought crashing into the Presidium Tower and killing her mother or an assassination attempt leaving her severely injured.
"I read your doctorate thesis," the turian admitted and just like that her mind went from worried to surprised.
Very surprised.
"Excuse me?" she asked cautiously after the surprise had worn off.
"Your doctorate thesis. Revealing the hidden truth behind the disappearance of prothean society," the turian elaborated as he looked at the ceiling in an attempt to recall the title of her work correctly. "I found it to reveal a rather unique perspective on the fall of the protheans."
"You read it?" the surprise in her voice was evident. Hardly any scientist outside of her academic discipline even knew about her work and the ones that did usually dismissed her for going against accepted facts of history yet this turian, who didn't look like he had spent a single day of his life inside a university, hadn't just heard of it or read it, he had traveled to Thessia to meet her. That was beyond strange.
"Yes," he nodded.
"And you came to Thessia just to tell me that?" she asked, trying her best not to sound rude. Truthfully it was refreshing to hear someone other than renowned conspiracy theorists congratulate her on her work. But even in face of this change, she knew that there was more to this encounter than his opinion of her thesis. A turian soldier, a general nonetheless, didn't travel all the way to Thessia just to tell her how much he liked her work. There was more to this. Maybe he was a secret conspiracy theorist?
"After reading it, my associates and I both agreed that your unique perspective on the subject could be very useful for us. We've been looking for someone able to see things the way you can."
"Your associates?" she picked the most important detail out of the reply.
"I'm afraid I can't specify. At least not here," the general replied as he threw a look towards the now curious librarian. A turian in an asari university as prestigious as this one was already a rare sight in itself but the golden general markings on a uniform made it a once in a lifetime event. "The only thing I can tell you right now is that if you come with me, you may find answers to some of the uncomfortable questions you raised with your thesis. While you won't be able to share your findings, something tells me that proving others wrong is not as important to you as learning the truth."
"You'd be right to assume that," Liara answered as she decided to listen to her gut. She grabbed her belongings from the desk and got up form the chair she had been occupying for the last few hours. "Shall we?" she asked, giving the turian his reply.
"Yes, right this way, please," the turian waved with his hand after a moment of surprise. He had probably expected that she'd require more convincing to follow a complete stranger into the unknown and usually he would've been right but the prospect of finding answers had gotten the better of her. However as they left the library, Liara soon began to wonder if she had been too impulsive with her decision. A turian general going out of his way to track her down was certainly the first step to a big opportunity but it could also be the first step on a very dangerous path. Should she have asked more questions? Was she getting herself into something she didn't want to be a part of? Thoughts like these crossed her mind as she found herself leaving the university campus. It was far too late for these questions now, wasn't it? Before her self-doubts grew even louder, a voice sounding suspiciously like her mother shut them down and told her that it was in fact never too late for questions.
"You mentioned your associates before," she spoke up after several moments of self-convincing. "Can you tell me who they are now?"
"You'll meet them in due time," the turian offered no actual reply, only increasing her need to know the answer. "Until then I'm afraid you'll have to be patient."
"Why do you think my perspective could help you?" the young asari went on as they passed under the glow of a street light, its bluish glow leaving a barely visible filter on her skin.
"Doctor T'Soni," the general came to a sudden halt in the center of the mostly empty campus, his white-palted face far more affected by the street light than her own. "What if I told you that everything we believed to be a certainty may very well be based on a faulty assumption? What if things we grew up learning as facts were wrong because we weren't told an important piece of the story? What if I said that all of us have spent our lives living a lie, never bothering to look beyond our version of the truth? What would you do then?"
She paused for a moment, trying to unriddle the hidden meaning behind the general's reply. In a few sentences he had triggered her natural inclination to find answers to seemingly impossible questions and once she realised that, Liara understood what reply Desolas Arterius was hoping for.
"I'd start looking for the truth," she finally admitted as a pair of icy blue eyes looked at her in anticipation.
"There's your answer," the general reasoned as his voice took on a certain edge, the slightest trace of something that could be fear revealing itself to her ears. "I'm not going to lie to you, Doctor T'Soni. You won't like what I'm about to show you, it's terrifying and I'd understand if you were to say that you can't handle it. I won't look down on you should you change your mind right now, no one would. But if I show you this," the turian went on as the whining of a shuttle became audible in the distance, "you'll be part of something far greater than any of us. Something that may change the fate some people believe to be inevitable for the galaxy."
She considered his words for a few passing moments. Her mother, when they had still talked more than once a year, had once told her that there was nothing she couldn't change if she set her mind on it, no matter how impossible it seemed. Back then it had sounded like the motherly advice one gave a teenager in emotional turmoil but now those words came back to her. Liara didn't know what the general was talking about but something about his behaviour made her certain that he was not only sincere in his worry but genuinely scared of whatever he was talking about. Any normal person would take a very big step away from something capable of leaving this kind of impact on a man like him but Liara had never been quite normal and she had always challenged what others believed to be certain. She knew what she had to do. As the shuttle came down next ot them, the answer already lay on her tongue and when the howling of its engines quieted down, she gave her reply to the turian next to her.
"Let's find the truth, General Arterius."
Two Hours Earlier, Citadel, Chambers of the Citadel Council
"Honored councilors," the batarian began as all eyes in the chamber came down on him, his yellow garments making it all the easier for him to stand out to the naked eye of the common observer and more importantly to the cameras. "I stand before you today because after nearly a year of attempted dialogue, the HSA still remains incapable of seeing this issue from our perspective. They refuse to compromise, they refuse to listen and they refuse to work towards a solution. As other means of negotiating seem to have failed, Chairman Kar'Amon requests this council to offer its assistance in enabling our proposed solution to the issue."
"And what would that solution be, Ambassador?" the asari councilor asked in return, an almost sympathetic smile appearing on the batarian's face, only his needle-like teeth ruining the non-threatening gesture.
"The Batarian Hegemony asks the Citadel Council to declare the Skyllian Verge an area of batarian interest," the ambassador explained. "We ask you to restrict colonialisation rights of the region to batarians as a means to stop the aggressive human expansion that is causing this conflict. My people have lived in the Verge for centuries, we hold a bigger claim to it than the humans and now we want our claim to be officially recognized."
"Even if we restricted the HSA from settling the Verge, the friction between your people would still be there, Ambassador," he, known to the public as Councilor Valern, offered as he tried to sound as diplomatic as possible. It not exactly an easy task to do so, considering that he had spent several years of his life training to be the option politicians took when diplomacy had failed but Cozek had prepared him more than adequately. "Several dozen human colonies are located in the Skyllian Verge, some of them either just as big or even bigger than the batarian settlements. They have been settling the Skyllian Verge for nearly as long as the Batarian Hegemony. Why is their claim smaller than yours?"
"Honored councilors, the Batarian Hegemony has been an associate of the Citadel Council for over two thousand years. Our people answered the call to arms against the rachni and the krogan. We've been a loyal all-"
Seeing an angry turian was rather unique in the fact that their society expected them to be in control of themselves even if they heard something they didn't like. As such turian anger wasn't furious shouting or the display of raw emotion, it was far more calculated than that. As a calm, collected, flanging voice began to talk, the batarian began to realise that. Real turian anger was a factual display of why the other party was in the wrong and why it made the turian angry. High ranking members of the Hierarchy were able to deliver this anger with such an authority that even seasoned politicians like the batarian ambassador lost their grip on the situation for a few moments.
"No," Sparatus, the successor of Councilor Ioventus, declared, interrupting Jath'Amon with a strict, clear but calm tone. "The Batarian Hegemony has been a great many things, ambassador, but a loyal ally? Never. You've invaded sovereign worlds, enslaved countless of people, skirmished with Citadel forces and ignored several of the most important laws that this Council enacted. Why should we help you after everything you've done? Why should we not side with those that actually respect the laws of our societies?"
At first the batarian lacked a formal reply but Valern could already see where this meeting would go when the body language of the four-eyed ambassador shifted. For a few moments, he considered intervening but upon realising that an outburst like this had only been a question of time, he decided against it. There was no point in delaying it.
"Because they're upstarts," the batarian growled. "Primitves laying claim to rightfully batarian soil, taking land others could use far more effective than them. The Skyllian Verge belongs to the Batarian Hegemony and if you can't see this, you're far more blind than I suspected. It would seem you've moved past using mere laws to discriminate against my people."
It was a well known complaint. Even if they ignored the law itself, the Batarian Hegemony had voiced its dislike for the ban of slavery in all forms in all of Council space time and again, arguing that the caste system on which their slavery was based on was an integral part of their culture and that the law therefor inherently discriminated against the batarian people as a whole. Of course no incarnation of the Citadel Council had ever even considered acknowledging that complaint and only the reluctance of the asari and salarians to go to war with yet another space faring race, their experience of the devastation following the Krogan Rebellions and the Rachni War leaving them with a species-wide trauma, had prevented the Turian Hierarchy from actively putting an end to the practice.
But besides being well known, it was also the worst possible thing Jath'Amon could've said.
"I've seen how the Batarian Hegemony uses its land, ambassador," the hint of disdain in Sparatus' voice was a product of his military career. Valern had taken care to study the lives of his colleagues and even if Sparatus had 'only' served as the commander of an engineer detachment before shifting into politics, the turian had lived through a rather jarring encounter with batarian slavery, being part of a crackdown operation on a large slaver base shortly before the end of his career, "and I fail to see why the Citadel Council should grant anything to you besides the immediate removal of your associate status and a small prison cell."
The echo of his reply climbed through the ranks of the chamber above them as the observers remained silent, waiting for the batarian's reply. Jath'Amon had miscalculated but being an influential politician the Hegemony, his pride got the better of him again. Instead of backing down, Valern saw the ambassador grow angry. It was the expected reaction. If one lived as a family member Kar'Amon, he wasn't used to backing down and he was most definitely not used to being shot down like this.
"The Batarian Hegemony demands that the Council declares the Skyllian Verge an area of batarian interest," he very nearly roared.
"And what if we don't?" a flanging voice offered back, noticably more collected. Sparatus knew that his colleagues shared his view on this matter and he let it show. "For all your boasting, it seems that the Hegemony is not able to live up to the reputation it so desperately wants."
"If you refuse to restrict the Skyllian Verge for anyone but batarian colonists, the Hegemony will close its embassy on the Citadel."
This caught Valern by surprise. He had expected shouting but he hadn't expected this. In all of galactic history, no one had ever threatened to revoke their associate status with the Citadel Council. It would make them pariahs like the quarians or the krogan, outcasts of the galactic community and, most importantly for the batarians, a rather attractive target for the turian navy. The only thing that had kept the Citadel from putting the hammer down on the practices within batarian space, besides the memories and stories of the previous galactic wars, had been the fact that neither the Asari Republics nor the Salarian Union had been all to eager to have an associate be forcefully subjected to their laws, forcing them to step in line by having the Hierarchy hold them at gunpoint. But that fact would disappear once the batarians closed their embassy, moving them one step closer to having a turian armada pour through the Harsa Relay. He had to know that. It was his job to know that.
"Ambassador, you do realise the implications of such an action, correct?" Benezia spoke up, most likely in an attempt to quiet down the rumoring that had erupted above them. "Cutting yourself off from the Council can't possibly be what you want."
"The chairman has made his will clear. If the Verge is not recognized as rightfully batarian, the Council will suffer the consequences."
Valern knew that there would be consequences to suffer but not even the batarians could be arrogant enough to believe that the Council would be the one to face them. He knew that the already big sense of self superiority present within the Hegemony had grown even larger when the batarians had taken the place of the Quarian Conclave as the most powerful associate of the Citadel Council after the Geth War had forced the quarians out of the Citadel and off their homeworld but even then they had to realise that the Hegemony couldn't come out on top off all of this.
"Ambassador, please," Benezia began again. "There has to be another solution," she reasoned as the batarian tilted his head to the right, signaling that he considered himself superior to one of the most powerful asari matriarchs who not only held far more political say than him but could very well kill him with the flick of her wrist should she feel the desire to do so. Valern had been rather surprised when his research had revealed Benezia T'Soni to be a powerful biotic, even by her people's standards. Usually asari who possessed her abilities sooner or later ended up in the highest echelons of asari military leadership and not in politics. But as his small scouring of T'Soni family history had confirmed, asari who held the name T'Soni were anything but usual. "You have to realise the severity of this threat."
"If this council won't support the batarian people in their hour of need, ignoring the sacrifices we've made for this galaxy, the chairman sees no other solution than to cut ties with the Citadel and its associates, separating us from the need to tolerate the encroaching human colonies."
The salarian suspected, or rather hoped, that this was an empty threat. His predecessor had been very clear about how dangerous he believed the Harbinger to be. The last thing they needed was the batarian navy throwing itself into the maws of the human fleets, weakening the strongest non-council member right before a far bigger threat closed in on the galaxy. But a hope alone wasn't enough. Cozek had gone out of his way to keep the peace and fix the damage the former Councilor Tevos and the late Councilor Vaelan had caused. He didn't plan on allowing all that progress to fade away thanks to the Hegemony's arrogance. While he couldn't stop them from making their threat come true if they actually meant it, he could make sure that they understood the consequences of military action.
"If you revoke your associate status to the Citadel Council and take military against the HSA, nothing will stop them from requesting salarian," he made sure to take a short moment to look at Sparatus to reinforce his next statement before folding his arms,"or turian military assistance." The two shared a nod before turning towards the asari in between them.
"The same can be said about the Asari Republics," Benezia added with a firm voice. "Or any other associate. The Citadel Council will defend all of its associates from foreign aggression, even if the aggressor is a former member of the galactic community. We will not enforce your restriction but we will allow the Hegemony to reconsider its last request."
"We refuse to accept this," the batarian snarled to everyone's surprise, a wave of shocked gasps and silent whispers following his outburst. Either his pride had once more gotten the better of him or the chairman had simply lost its mind and ordered him to take this approach. "My people have been held back for long enough by this ungrateful council and we will longer tolerate its anti-batarian agenda. In the name of Chairman Kar'Amon and the Batarian Hegemony, I demand the immediate termination of our associate status."
Without even waiting for a reply, the batarian tilted his head to the right for a final time and turned on his heel, his heavy footsteps echoing through the chambers and each thud further solidifying the weight of what had just occurred. While the quarians and krogan had seen their associate status terminated following their mistakes, never had a species voluntarily abandoned its membership. None had dared to cast themselves out of the community and even the humans, after initial reluctance, had come to appreciate the cooperation between the races. But the more Valern thought about, the more he realised that this moment had only been a question of time. In the past the batarians had only ever interacted with the Citadel Council when it had suited them, preferring the company of the Terminus Systems over that that of their fellow associates. Their society had always been inherently xenophobic and their economy almost entirely self-reliant.
This outcome had arguably been only a question of time.
As his omni-tool buzzed, he halfway expected it to be a Dalatrass, demanding a report of why the ambassador of one of the bigger, and more importantly military capable, associates had just stormed out of the chambers of the Citadel Council and let a small groan escape from his mouth. His current assignment had only solidified why the military of the Salarian Union didn't hold them in high regard and why the Inner Cabinet needed to keep STG in line. Most Dalatrasses were far too entitled for their own good. He opened the message and when he read its content, the frustration disappeared.
At least Arterius had won a small victory for their cause.
18. December 2402 AD, Aephus, Turian Naval Rally Point
Tao had known that General Arterius had been looking for allies in rather weird places but when he had learned that the turian had brought an asari archeologist into their little fellowship, he had been a little skeptical. That skepticism had vanished when he had seen the first glimpses of her work, soon using his free time to catch up on her thesis in order to prepare what he had assumed would be a timely meeting. But as the universe one more felt the need to prove him wrong, the doctor had insisted on reviewing all the evidence they had gathered over the years again on her own and only after several months of basically living in either her room or a library, she had informed the general that she was prepared to present her conclusion, in turn causing him to call a meeting of the most important members of their group. This call had been what had led to the general himself, Tao Rei, Jack Harper and the holograms of Councilor Valern, Saren Arterius and another STG agent closely working with the salarian now occupying a dimmed briefing room in a turian military base.
"That's everyone, Doctor T'Soni. Please begin when you're ready," the turian general informed her as a projector turned on in the center of the room and the asari cleared her throat just as Harper sat down next to Tao. To her credit, her past experience as a teacher actually gave her an unusual confidence in spite of just who she was addressing. It was evident that she was used to giving lectures. The doctor walked to the blue globe that illuminated the room and leaned on the desk projecting it, small freckles appearing on her face as the light engulfed her. She lingered for a few moments until she was certain that everyone was was focusing on her before beginning.
"When I first started looking through the evidence, the recordings and of course the reports of the sites your teams explored, I believed their assessment to be incomplete. Something seemed wrong, out of place. Something was missing, I was convinced that they had overlooked something critical," the asari argued. "Prothean civilzation spanned the galaxy. They constructed the mass relay network, discovered the mass effect, uplifted countless of lesser developed races into their society and forged the Citadel as the heart of their civilization, its size remaining as a testament of their technological mastery to this day," the doctor waved her hand towards the projector as a map of the Milky Way appeared, countless of red dots being highlighted in it as she pushed herself of the desk, walking around the blue projection. "The remains of their existence are everywhere and they undeniably explored a far larger portion of our galaxy than us, the sheer number of still dormant or unexplored mass relays suggesting that they may very well have inhabited countless of regions completely unknown to us."
Tao Rei looked at the map, noting the unusual concentration of red near the Fringe Worlds. He knew that the HSA had stumbled upon dozens if not hundreds of alien ruins before encountering the Citadel Council, every destroyed outpost or lost satellite lowering their hopes of ever finding another space faring civilization. He also knew that most of the artifacts they had found had left the sealed vaults they had been stored in once the bigger picture of prothean society had been revealed to humanity's leaders back in early years of human-council history. In an attempt to increase the Council's opinion of them, they had shared these artifacts only to find just about everything that hadn't been recovered on Mars to be broken. It had been a rather hard blow to the ego of their scientific community to learn that human understanding of prothean technology hadn't even been good enough to tell which pieces had been working by pure chance and which had actually remained intact after their discovery. But as he tried to count the dots, he realised just how much they had missed and how common prothean sites seemed to be in the Attican Traverse. Just how hadn't they noticed all of this?
"And because of the sheer size of their territory and their dominance of the galaxy, I found it strange that not even the most basic means of documentation we recovered made any mention of a Harbinger or the race that had created the artifacts or the Leviathan of Dis. A race that would've been able to fill the role of the unknown aggressor I proposed in my thesis couldn't possibly have gone unmentioned." He found himself agreeing with that conclusion. "So, after my initial review I was disappointed. It didn't make sense and truthfully, I believed the fault to be with either your theory or your teams. While somebody had obviously created all the things you found, I doubted that it had been the race I've been looking for during the last decade. But during my final review I noticed something, a small detail I had previously dismissed as the product of turian meticulousness caught my attention when I realised that I had seen it before," he felt the tension in the room climb as a chart he could make almost no sense of replaced the map in the center of the room.
"This is a soil sample taken from scorch marks created by an unknown form of explosive on Tunae-Prime," she said as she looked at Saren Arterius who rubbed his chest at the mention of the name before the very same chart appeared next to it. "And this is a dust sample I took of a piece of prothean mining technology in the Attican Traverse roughly seven years ago. Both contain unusually large traces of iron, tungsten and most importantly uranium. Back then I believed it to be the residue of the prothean mining operation and at first I thought it was a coincidence but then I realised that uranium does not naturally occur anywhere on Tunae-Prime," another wave of her hand brought up another chart and another planet. "And neither does it naturally occure on this world," a second wave, "or on this one," a third one, "or on this one," a fourth, larger wave followed by the sound of the doctor clapping her hands together echoed through the room, "or on any of these worlds," a galaxy map with dozens of dots that had previously marked prothean ruins appeared once more. "All samples taken near the ruins located on these planets contained the same iron, tungsten and uranium traces TNI recovered after the operation in the Hades Gamma Cluster. After a lot of research, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of turned in favours, I learned that traces of exactly these three elements had also been found on the surface of just about every damaged major prothean structure within the Attican Traverse. Mining bases, listening posts, pyramids, the base of the city towers of Feros, all of them had at least a fine layer of dust consisting of exactly these three elements in almost the same concentration on them."
The asari looked through the room for a moment as she realised that she hadn't been breathing correctly, her explanation leaving no time for a break. As the silence grew, she decided to voice what Tao and probably everyone in the room already had on their mind. Leave it to the turians to take samples from everything, even some damn scorch marks. Liara T'Soni waved her omni-tool for a final time and the projector shut off, the lights on the ceiling turning on after a few moments of darkness. She visibly took another breath before going in for her conclusion.
"In short, the same kind of explosives that were used to clear trees on Tunae-Prime were used against the protheans fifty thousand years ago," the asari finished. "Whoever this Harbinger is, he not only fought the protheans, he wiped them out, removed the traces of their conflict and destroyed every record of himself and his people in the process."
"But like me in basic training, he forgot to dust off the edges," the turian general mused as the asari nodded her agreement. "Thank you, Doctor T'Soni. You have no idea how much you helped us by doing this. I'll arrange for your return to Thessia at once."
"I want to keep helping, General Arterius," the asari replied as six pairs of eyes, three physically present and three holographic, widened a bit in surprise. "A few months ago you asked me to find the truth and right now I barely scratched the surface. We still don't know what destroyed the Leviathan, we still don't know why the conflict began,and we still don't know why the Harbinger went to such a length to cover it up. There's so much more I can do."
Desolas Arterius threw quick look towards the assembled people in the room and five nods later, the turian general offered his hand to the asari scientist.
"Welcome aboard, Doctor T'Soni."
8. August 2403 AD, Terra Nova, Grissom Academy
He knew that Tela would be more than just irritated should she learn that he had arrived on Terra Nova without her knowledge but even with her raised security clearance as a staff member of the facility, he couldn't tell her his whereabouts, not during a mission. He simply hoped that he'd be able to informed the headmaster of his arrival in the academy without bumping into her. Once that step had been accomplished, he'd ask the commander for directions before going on his merry way to possibly change someone's life the way his own had been changed shortly before a 'small but disturbingly organized insurgency' had begun in the Fringe some twenty seven years ago. Back then he had been seventeen and if people would've asked just about anyone about his future perspectives, they wouldn't have given them a very optimistic answer and knowing himself, he either would've died in the meat grinder that had been the Siege of Horizon or ended up on the wrong track for what he would've believed to be the right reasons back then.
All that had changed in a single day, a day he'd now relive from the other side.
Walking towards the administrative wing of the academy, the students paid no mind to the HSAIS operative amongst them as they themselves poured towards their dorms. The red dagger emblem on his uniform had been removed for this rather public operation so as far as anyone looking at him was concerned, he was just a regular intelligence officer, not exactly an uncommon sight on the academy's campus these days. With the Ascension Project well on its way to replace BAaT, Grissom's student pool would soon be expanded beyond biotic students and as such several military and intelligence officials were working day and night to prepare the academy for the new highest tiers of HSA leadership had decided to integrate promising non-biotic cadets into the curriculum of the school, figuring that early contact between the future elite of the armed forces and the biotics they'd sooner or later come into contact with in the field would go a long way to familiarize the two groups with each other and benefit their ability to work towards a common goal.
He opened the glass door of the bluish office building and stepped into the entry area, the sigil of the school along a rather large portrait of Jon Grissom and the flag of the Human Systems Alliance proudly hanging on the wall opposite to him, a golden inscription written below them but a desperately needed translation of it remaining absent. He spoke most of the still common human languages but due to a lack of practical use, the one the HSA seemed to favour for its sigils and wall inscriptions wasn't among them.
'Non sibi, sed aliis.'
"It means 'not for ourselves, but for others'," a voice explained from his left as the person it belonged to realised that the blonde man wasn't really sure what he was looking at. The specialist turned on his head and found none other than the woman he had been looking for standing in one of the now opened doorways. "I take it you aren't fluent in latin?"
"It's a dead language anyway," he argued as he turned towards the woman of arabic descent. "But it did save me the few steps to your office, Commander Rahal."
"If you don't mind, I'd still prefer if we'd move this talk into it," the woman countered as she stepped to the side, revealing her workplace to the specialist in the process. After a final glance towards the inscription, he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Even if he seriously doubted anyone would eavesdrop on them, what he had to say was still important enough for him not to take the chance. The dark haired woman walked around her desk and set down in it, mountains of paperwork and documents, a computer terminal, several commendations and two picture frames occupying the tabletop between them. He'd probably go mad after a single day of working a desk job like this but luckily he wasn't here to take her position.
"To business then?" she asked as a brown folder slid towards him through the narrow gap between the paper mountains, two letters, a service number and the facility's sigil printed on its front.
The HSAIS dedicated an entire bureau to the headhunting of people it deemed to be a good addition to its ranks, recruiting nearly fifty percent of its personal by scouring over the service records of the military, other governmental institutions or schools and picking out potential candidates like decorated veterans, renowned geniuses or protégés. Out of those fifty percent, every seventh candidate eventually found his or her way into the Bureau for Field Work, one of the smaller but certainly the most dangerous department of the intelligence service. Numbering at roughly the same strength of the Naval Special Operations Command, some people rightfully considered them to be a force to be reckoned with, the additional training they received only honing already learned skills to their full potential. Yet out of the nearly twelve thousand field agents that made up their ranks, only three hundred and four were part of the last, smallest and most secretive department of the bureau, Section 13.
"To business," he nodded as he grabbed the folder of the cadet under the suspicious eye of the commander. He knew from personal experience that at least some of Section 13's specialists had been recruited straight out of school, being run through a twelve month special training course before taking part in the screening process but if her look was anything to go by, the commander lacked that knowledge. In her eyes he was considering to put one of her students into the most dangerous training course the HSAIS had to offer without giving him even a moment of preparation. If he would've been allowed to, he would've liked to remove that notion from her head but he wasn't here to do that either.
Out of all the field agents of HSAIS only a handful received the green light to take part in Section 13's screening process. However, in spite of what most people would except, the vast majority of those that had managed to pass the initial screening process in the last seventy years had successfully completed their training, only injury related discharges and the rare training fatalities reducing the numbers of each training class. But it hadn't always been like that. In the past the dropout rate among those trainees that had passed the screening process had been staggering. Injuries, fatalities and mentally broken agents had been a sad but regular occurrence and out of a class of ten already highly qualified individuals only one or two had seen the course through. When the attrition of the training had gotten so bad that Section 13 had gone without new specialists to replace its losses through field action or retirements for years at a time, the HSAIS had decided to take action.
"I've got to ask," the commander spoke. "Why him?"
"He fits the pattern, Ma'am."
"And what exactly is that pattern?"
To combat the incredibly high washout rate and the strain it put on Section 13, a subdivision of the Bureau for Talent Acquisition had been tasked with creating a new screening process, adding an additional first layer to the already present requirements. Out of the thousands of agents who scoured through the records of the HSA, a selected few had been given access to the strictly classified files of Section 13, getting tasked with creating a template based on a study of the lives, personality traits, service records and thought processes observed among the active specialists during that time. He didn't really know what exactly it was that they had deemed important but he knew that it had evidently paid off. While the number of people meeting the screening standards had gone down, attrition during training had become less common. Unlike before washouts and training casualties had become incredibly rare and even though replenishing the losses of conflicts such as the Fringe Wars had taken a long time, the section was no longer just one war shy of extinction.
"Even if I knew what it is that we're looking for, I couldn't tell you," he shrugged apologetic as he opened the folder to reveal a rather inconspicuous face to his eyes. The cadet, like most humans, had a darker hair colour than Redford himself and as expected, his haircut was in line with the regulations placed on male service personal, Grissom Academy still being a military school. The only feature that really stood out to him after the first glance were the hazel eyes looking back at him, the flash of the camera that had taken the picture still reflected in the cadet's pupils. But eyes were hardly something you noticed in a crowd. Should he take Redford's offer, he'd have a much easier time blending in than the specialist himself. He passed the picture and began to read the information below it, realising that the presumed teenager was in fact no longer that, having turned a legal adult a few weeks ago, making him slightly older than Redford had been when a much younger Jon Grissom had approached him on Arcadia with an offer he'd soon extend to this 'Daniel Morneau'.
"I just don't understand why you're not considering one of the graduates," Commander Rahal asked as Redford skimmed over the more personal details of the student's life. For now his life on Earth wasn't that important. "Cadet Morneau is neither an exceptionally strong biotic nor among the better academics that visited this academy. Grissom has produced far more talented cadets."
"We're not interested in him because he's a biotic. It's just a nice coincidence that he happens to be one," Redford countered as he kept reading through the folder, now having reached the interesting part, the school's record of the cadet. While he lacked powerful biotic abilities and fantastic grades, Morneau seemed to excel at most physical activities, especially if competition was put into the mix. Turning the page, Redford found exactly one entry under the subject of 'important notes'.
A few months ago one of his combat instructors had recommended Morneau for a fast track into the army's special operations program after observing him during several lengthy combat drills, deeming his non-biotic abilities more than enough of a reason to do so. But another instructor had quickly shut down that particular suggestion, arguing that not only were the limited fast-track spots being reserved for more academically and biotically inclined cadets but also pointing out past experiences with biotics in ASOC formations had shown that their talents rarely came to use due to the nature of the unit's operations. A small notification next to the name of the later instructor suggested that the two staff members had gotten into a 'heated discussion' over whether or not Morneau should be recommended for the 'normal' way towards ASOC following his graduation next year or simply be sent into one of the marine formations created for biotics, his combat instructor arguing that his non-biotic talents were more useful than his biotic ones but the other, after getting the support of a very familiar biotic instructor, reasoning that human biotics were far too rare to let one slip into a unit that would have less of a use for his abilities than the assault formations actively using biotics during all of their missions who he claimed to be understaffed. He wasn't exactly wrong, if you spent most of your service creeping up on people with optical camo, you could hardly set off biotic fireworks at every corner and the few reports he had heard of these biotic assault formations suggested that they always needed more people.
"So how does this work?" the commander asked. It was a justified question. It wasn't exactly a regular occurrence that one of her students met the screening pattern of Section 13.
"You tell me where I can find him, I go and talk to him and if he accepts my offer, he'll be out here by the end of the week," the commander gave him a rather confused look. "Rapid transfer order," he elaborated.
"I see. Has anyone ever not accepted?" the woman asked. "We might be a military school but personally? I wouldn't want your job. No offense." The specialist could understand where she was coming from, he wouldn't want her job either. But there was more to her question than she let on, it wasn't just a casual statement. While most high ranking officers did well not to show it, just about anyone that ever met a Section 13 agent for the first time was weary of them. Sure, anyone with an inclination to pragmatism recognized how incredibly useful the specialists were but anyone with even a shard of morality in them also recognized the area of grey they thrived in, an area ASOC or N7 operatives only ever brushed up against. He could see why the commander wouldn't want any of her students to go there.
"A lot of the regular HSAIS candidates turn down the offer to join," Redford admitted as he closed the brown folder. "But I've only heard of a few cases of Section 13 candidates turning down a chance like this." For a few moments, the woman remained silent as she looked at the folder in the specialist's hands. A flick of her wrist caused the orange glow of an omni-tool to manifest itself in the room and soon enough Redford received the familiar vibration of a new message.
"You should be able to find Cadet Morneau with this. Every student of our academy is issued with an omni-tool and in case we have to locate them during an emergency, we can use this program to access their positioning system."
"Thank you, Ma'am," he replied as a map appeared from his wrist once he got up. "You'll hear from me."
"I expect to."
The specialist walked towards the door, a quick look back to the commander telling him that he was supposed to close it, and began to follow the path his omni-tool was creating, the realisation that Morneau seemed to be going in a rapid, circular pattern around the campus suggesting that the cadet was either training or that Talent Acquisition's screening had deemed a crazy person a good fit for Section 13. Neither was much of a stretch depending on who you asked. As far as most other races were concerned, every human was slightly unhinged, at least that's what most non-humans he had met had told him. Pushing open the door to the now mostly empty campus, only a few groups of students still lingering in the dusk of Terra Nova's evening, he took exactly three steps before already checking the map again. Better safe than sorry.
If he wasn't mistaking, he'd be able to intercept the dot if he simply kept walking forward fast enough for their paths to cross the next time Morneau lapped the campus. A quick look into the direction he had to go in confirmed that a small dirt path was adjacent to a large area of lawn, the green grass coated in a layer of orange as the sun began to set behind the distant skyline of one of Terra Nova's cities. Spotting a bench at the edge of the greenish-orange lawn, he began to move towards it, counting on the cadet not to stop before he reached Redford's spot. After a short walk the specialist reached his desired resting place and sat down on the white piece of outdoor furniture, leaning back before lifting his hand once more.
Soon enough the dot should be here.
Deciding that he'd recognize Morneau once he got closer, the specialist lowered his omni-tool and let the hologram disappear, instead opting to enjoy the peace and quiet that currently lay on the campus as long as it lasted. Most students probably had other things to do with their time than add more physical training to their schedule but a look to his right confirmed that at least some of them still felt the need to use their evenings for more than just homework or sleep although he was quite sure that this particular group, heavy backpacks on their shoulders, would rather be sleeping right about now. As they passed him with pained expressions on their faces, he almost felt guilty about sitting down while they were presumably training for an upcoming exercise.
Almost.
Chuckling ever so slightly at their misery as the last one passed by, he heard a single set of footsteps grow louder as the chorus of the group that passed him grew more quiet. Turning his head back into the direction Morneau should be coming from, he found his plan to be a success. Jogging past the group a much more refreshed face offered a smile to at least one of the students before waving them good bye, turning his head into the way they were going for a few moments before returning his attention back to his own path.
Only to almost crash into Redford.
A last moment spin to the left allowed the cadet to narrowly avoid colliding with him and in spite of how unexpected the motion had been, Morneau caught his balance as quickly as he had lost it, coming to a quick stop when both of his feet touched the ground, the white soles of his shoes now coated in a layer of brownish dirt.
"And that's why we watch the road and not the girls, Cadet," the specialist chuckled after he had gotten up from the bench and placed himself in his path to engineer a reason for him to stop the younger man.
"Sorry about that, Sir," the cadet replied before attempting to start his jog again. He couldn't let that happen. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a folded piece of black cloth just as the younger man turned his back towards him and got a feeling for its weight.
"Think fast, Cadet," he called as he quickly tossed the roll towards Morneau, his body turning around almost instantly and his hands shooting out to snatch the object out of the air before it hit the ground to his left. He looked at the black roll in his hand and back to him. "Well, open it," the specialist instructed with a smile. As he started to remove the thin thread holding together the cloth, Redford walked over towards him. "Daniel Morneau, isn't it?"
"Yes, Sir," the cadet noted as the thread came loose and he unfolded the roll, revealing it to be a patch with a red dagger stitched in its center.
"Do you know what this is, Morneau?" the specialist asked as he stuffed his hands into his pockets while the cadet turned towards him, looking back at him with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. He nodded exactly once and Redford pulled another piece of paper from his pocket, this time unfolding it himself before handing it to the cadet.
"A rapid transfer order to HSAIS," he replied after reading the piece of paper. "Why give this to me?"
"Walk with me," the specialist instructed as he nodded into the direction the cadet had been going, the black shoes of his dress uniform hitting the dirt path and growing dustier with every step he took. "Twenty seven years ago I asked the same question to the guy this academy is named after," he recalled as the sun began to vanish behind the horizon, countless of lights turning on in the buildings in the distance. "He told me that the way he saw it someone like me wouldn't make it past thirty either way and since he knew that I didn't have any other plans, I could at least be useful until then," a dark chuckle escaped Redford's mouth as he realised the irony in having outlived Grissom. "Then he handed me a transfer order like this one and said that the only thing I had to do in order to make a difference was say 'yes'."
The look of the cadet next to him made it clear that he needed to elaborate a bit more.
"I didn't exactly have a bright future ahead of me, made all the wrong kinds of friends and a lot of bad decisions," he explained. "Best case scenario would've been to become a grunt in the marines, worst case scenario probably would've been ending up dead or in jail. Besides those extremes I didn't really have a lot of other options." The two kept walking as a pair of students passed by them on the way to their dorm, the visible half of Terra Nova's moon slowly climbing into the dark orange sky. "So without thinking much or long about it, I said yes. Grabbed his pen and signed the order without hesitation. Only when I put the thing back down did I realised that I didn't really know what Section 13 actually was. Never seen Grissom laugh like that ever again, he almost fell of his bloody chair. He asked me if I wanted to reconsider and began explaining just what it was that he did but when he was done, my answer hadn't changed."
"So if I sign this right now there's a chance you'll burst out in laughter and trip in the process?" the cadet asked as Redford turned to him with a smirk.
"Very tempting, I know," the specialist admitted. "I guess now its my turn to give you that lecture and like Grissom, I won't sugarcoat it, its a hard job. You'll go undercover which means you'll go days, weeks or months without actually ever being able to be yourself and you'll have a lot of tough missions. You'll conduct reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration," the paused for a moment before fulfilling his promise, "assassinations and wet work. All that horrible stuff that's just barely still in the grey area of your moral compass. If you say yes, you'll be expected to do all of these things without a moment of hesitation. Trust me, that takes a lot out of you, especially sleep."
"I can see why it would do that," Morneau nodded as the two came to a halt before Redford turned towards the younger cadet. When he didn't say anything else after the part of his lecture that was supposed to find out if he would decline was finished, the specialist decided to move along.
"But as long as you remember why you're doing this, as long as you make sure you're that on the right side of things when it all comes down to it," Redford began.
"It's worth it,"the cadet muttered as the wind caused the leaves of the tree above them to rattle.
"Yes," the specialist nodded as he reached for the third and final item he had stored in his pockets. "Do you know what this engraving means?" he asked as he handed him his HSAIS badge, the stylized metal emblem depicting a burning torch having lost most of its shine over the years.
"Ego sum custos," Morneau read the words before rotating the badge in his hand a few times as he thought about it for a few seconds. "I am the guardian."
"Technically that's correct," Redford argued as the cadet handed the badge back to him. "But we prefer 'I am the vigil' or 'I am the watcher', fits better with the HSA's coat of arms, you know?" He tossed the old metal badge into the air several times before storing it into his pocket once more. "The way I see it," he began the final of his small, mostly improvised speech. "You've got a lot of options ahead of you. Graduating Grissom Academy? That opens a lot of doors. Army, marines, N7, they're all looking for biotics. Your future is a lot brighter than mine was and the military always need good people. A student of this academy can go a long way in the ranks of an officer," he finished as both the darkness and the silence grew between them. "So it's up for you to decide who you want to be," he finished. Looking at the piece of black cloth in his hand, the cadet began to fold it back together. For a brief moment Redford thought that he'd actually decline the offer but as he realised that the cadet stuffed the patch into his own pocket to free up a hand, their eyes met. There it was, that familiar fire burning right behind their hazel surface. He pulled out a pen and handed it to Morneau.
"I'll be the watcher."
Codex: Prothean civilization
Credited for the creation of the mass relay network, the Citadel and countless other feats of impressive engineering, surprisingly little else is known the protheans besides the fact that they possessed an unrivaled understanding of the mass effect. Neither their appearance, the vast majority of their history, their culture nor their actual system of government are known to the galaxy, an almost complete lack of records making it incredibly difficult to do as much as speculate on any of these factors.
What is known about the protheans is that their society spanned the known galaxy from at least 68.000 BC, the earliest a prothean artifact has been dated on the human world of Fehl Prime, until 48.000 BC, the estimated time of the disappearance of the last protheans from the galaxy. During these twenty thousand years of prothean civilization, every currently known space faring race was observed by them for an unknown time period, the ruins of research stations believed to have been benevolent in nature by most being found in every home system before serving as a kickstart for the technological development of every race in the known galaxy.
Furthermore it is assumed that the protheans originally hailed from a world in the Attican Traverse, the number and complexity of the prothean ruins increasing exponentially the closer one gets to the region. It should be noted that several renowned scientists have pointed out that the condition of prothean structures seems to worsen in the same pattern for an as of yet unknown reason.
When talking about the protheans, one cannot ignore the fact that as of this day it is still unknown why they vanished. Some believe that they migrated from the galaxy due to a series of an unknown reasons or decisions, while others assume that they simply fell victim to a plague or that the low levels of radioactivity emitted from most of their technology may unknowingly to them have attacked their genetic makeup, slowly turning them sterile over the course of hundreds of generations. Additionally a few fringe scientist also consider it a possibility that the protheans may have found a way to 'ascend' to an unknown plain of existence, Other groups reason that an unknown aggressor exterminated their civilization in a lengthy war or that the protheans, for reasons logical to them, decided to simply exterminate themselves, committing a species-wide suicide either through a lack of births or other, more direct means.
A/N: So, chapter 33.
Late because well, let's just say a distrubing large amount of people I know were born in early august and yeah... I don't think I have to say more. Can hardly write on this when I'm not home :D
To the chapter then.
I finally got around to introducing Liara, who has been teased before to be included later down the line. So yeah. For all you blue-folk-liking people... here she is. Now I don't know how reasonable the way it seems that she came to the conclusion she came to BUT for me I found it to be kind of the best way to do this. Of course the reapers would wipe away the obvious traces but dust? They're far too cocky to think about the dust their weapons leave behind. Also I remembered that a lot of scientific discoveries were not intended, hence why I made her discover it the way she did. I hope it doesn't seem as deus ex machina as I was worried it would (funfact most of the time spent on this chapter was spent trying to figure out HOW Liara confirms her theory)
Moving on. Politics. I love politics...not. With Cozek gone (rip my lizardy friend) I figured the POV of these council scenes should switch to his successor. Seemed only fitting, mostly because of the things he knows and because he isn't an actual politican. I found his to be the most interesting perspective. Cozek seemed to be popular enough, maybe Valern will be different. I also took care not to make Sparatus the rage monster every other fanfic seems to make him. The guys a councilor guys, ffs. Give him some credit, alright?
Now moving on the the lionshare of the chapter. A deeper look into Section 13 and the introduction of (who paid attention to a single sentence... drumroll please...) my version of the Earth background. As I've said before, I'll adapt every background Shepard can have in Semper Vigilo because Torfan, Akuze and Elysium all happened, no matter if you picked them. Each one will have its associated background attached to it and all of these characters, the Renegade, Paragon and now the Paragade will be more than one-offs. Since the Mindoir/Renegade background and Demon of Torfan are going to Tore Haugen, the ASOC guy from chapter 31, and the Spacer/Paragon and Elysium background are going to Emily Shepard, I think it's obvious which role Daniel Morneau will fill. (i swear to god if keep I misspelling that fucking name all the time I'll hate myself for picking a french name)
What that says about Akuze remains to be seen, at least for you. I'll just say that much for now, Mindoir was already different in how the character it belongs to was involved but Akuze? Akuze will be...
Nope, no more spoilers for you
Yes I'm actually going to leave that like this. Cliffhanger in the A/N. That's a new level of meta.
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See you around next time.
