I don't own either Mass Effect or AvP
!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-
Palaven, Capital City
The office was sparse, functional, lacking in ostentation and yet, the person who worked here was, according to many, the single most powerful individual in the galaxy. He himself had once thought so. It had taken him decades to reach it, to achieve this position from which he knew he would be able to use his abilities to the greatest effect, the position that would help him serve his people, and the galaxy as a whole. And yet, the first time the galaxy had presented him with a challenge he had failed. In fact, he had failed twice. The first time because he had acted instinctively rather than from careful consideration, the second time because he had trusted the wrong individual to help him recover from the first mistake. Others had been forced to step in and fix the problem he had helped create. According to some, allowing that to happen had been his third mistake. But, whether or not that was true, it had shown him the limitations of his power. He was not going to forget that lesson.
"And there have been no further messages since then?"
The advisor who was still standing near the desk shook his head. "No, Primarch."
Primarch Fedorian stood up and walked over to the window.
"General Corinthus is no fool; nor is he a hot-head. That's why he was entrusted with this mission. He will not initiate hostilities. For the moment we will assume that the humans are equally sensible and will keep their distance. So, if neither side has started shooting since he sent his report and the situation remains unchanged, what can we do?"
"Primarch, General Corinthus' fleet is too exposed. It may be unlikely that the humans want war, but it is possible. And if they do, they will certainly move toward Relay 288 and cut him off."
The Primarch nodded. "I agree. To be honest, I'd prefer for him to fall back to Relay 288 now and take up a position there. But we cannot do that. Not with tensions running this high. If we're seen to retreat, that could trigger panic here at home. It might also encourage the humans to do something foolish."
"So we reinforce Corinthus?"
"No. He's correct in his assessment. If we send enough reinforcements to be effective, it will constitute a massive escalation. The last thing we want is to push the humans into a corner. And sending less than that would be a futile gesture." He turned back and took another look at the star map that was hovering in the air over his desk. It showed the position of the Hierarchy's fleets as they were spread out throughout Citadel Space. An impressive sight, certainly, but right now it appeared to mock him. All that power at the tips of my talons and yet, what does it actually mean? What can I actually achieve with it?
"I may not be able to give Corinthus the force he needs to fight the humans, not without escalating the situation, but I can make sure that he does not get cut off from Citadel Space. Send a message to Aephus fleet district and tell them to prepare as many ships as possible for immediate deployment. The same to Degeris. I want a minimum of five dreadnoughts and a carrier. We'll position them at Relay 288. That's far enough from the human colonies to not to be an immediate threat, but it will ensure Corinthus has an escape rout and it'll show the humans they cannot hope to enter Citadel Space without a major battle. And if it actually comes to a shooting war, we can combine them with Corinthus' force. Now, who will command? We need someone who thinks before he acts and who doesn't have personal issues with humans."
"General Victus is available. And he has the required seniority."
"Victus? Not the most popular choice I suspect, especially after Torfan."
"No, Primarch, but he may be what we need here. He understands that it's sometimes better not to act. And he doesn't let his pride get in the way of his duty. During the Torfan raid, he made the right decision, even though he must have realized how much criticism he'd draw."
"True. Very well. Contact Victus, tell him to meet up with his new command as soon as possible. His operational instructions will be ready for him when he arrives."
"Yes, Primarch. Will there be anything else?"
"No," Fedorian sat down. "Not right now. We're doing what we can to keep our people safe. The next move is up to the Council. Corinthus sent an identical report to the Citadel, so they know what's happening and I expect to hear from Councillor Sparatus at any moment. Speaking of the Citadel, tell me Vakarian, have you heard from your son recently? I understand that he is on some sort of assignment."
"He is, sir. He only informed me that he would be out of contact until further notice."
"I see. Any hint as to the nature of this assignment."
"No, sir, but-"
"But?"
"Sir, Garrus received this assignment at almost the exact moment that the situation on the Citadel got out of hand. The one involving the Butcher of Torfan. I cannot help but suspect there is a connection."
"Ah, yes, the one that ended with a rather spectacular shouting match, right in the middle of the audience hall and the, eh, 'Butcher' being thrown off the Citadel. Well, I guess we'll find out in due time. Please keep me informed of any new developments."
-0-0-0-
USM Normandy
"Vakarian, ready for our next deployment?"
The turian looked up from the sniper rifle he was in the process of reassembling.
"I'm always ready, Shepard. Though, I have to ask, what exactly do you expect to find there? I heard about the claims of 'robot attacks', but what would Saren want in that place?"
"Other than the prothean stuff that everybody seems to want," Shepard shrugged. "I have no idea. Then again, I'm still not entirely sure what he wanted on Eden Prime either. Did he want the beacon and just used the attack as a way to get it, or did he simply want to hit a major human colony and decided to take advantage of the fact that we found the beacon to do some looting? I suspect the first. If all he wanted was to kill a lot of humans, there are better ways. Honestly, if I were in his position, I'd have deployed the xenomorphs on a planet owned by a Council species and then blamed it on the humans. After all, we're the only species that had met them before and the Council knew that. All he needed to do was find a planet that gets visited by human traders, plant some evidence and he'd have a beautiful diplomatic incident that he could use to his advantage to force a confrontation, perhaps even a war. After all, he's a Spectre. He could do the investigation himself and have the evidence say whatever he wanted. Then again, maybe Eden Prime is the foundation for that. Make sure everybody associates the xenomorphs with a human planet, and then stage an incident in Council space.
And it might still work. Remember that when we had our little show with the Council, they suggested that the xenomorphs came out of a lab on Eden Prime. Yes, they were playing a part, but Saren doesn't know that or so we think. I'm actually rather worried about that. If he acts on his perception of the Council's attitude, he may end up turning public opinion against us and then it may not matter what the Council knows. So, no, I haven't got a clue what Saren wants anywhere, including Feros. Assuming, of course, that it's Saren who wants anything and not just the geth. There is no guarantee that every geth action is dictated by Saren."
"And so the headache continues," Garrus said. "But you're right. We don't know nearly enough about their goals. Saren, Benezia, or the geth."
"Or the xenomorphs."
Garrus looked at her strangely. "The xenomorphs? I thought they were like animals."
"That has never been fully established. I got quite a datadump along with our new equipment. Unfortunately, it was mostly speculation with very little in the way of hard facts. One thing is appallingly clear and that is how little we know about them. We don't even know what senses they use. No eyes, no ears, no nose, and yet, they observe the world around them. We don't know how they communicate, but they're clearly capable of cooperation, considering the hives they build. As for their intelligence, the individual drones don't seem to be all that smart, but then again, perhaps they don't need to be. There is considerable speculation that their actions are directed, at least to some extent, by the queen. And how smart she is? No way to tell. It's not as though you can sit down and have a conversation with these things. So, no, I wouldn't ignore the possibility that they may have their own agenda. And that would almost certainly involve either killing Saren or using him as an incubator, no matter what he may think. Cold comfort for us, though. Xenomorphs acting on their own are at least as big a problem as xenomorphs acting as Saren's shocktroops."
"A cheerful thought." Garrus snapped the last part in position and the sniper rifle folded into a compact block. "Well, whatever comes, we'll just have to deal with it. And it certainly makes for a more interesting job than chasing criminals around the Citadel."
"Ah, yes." I've been meaning to ask. "How did you end up in that job? No offence, but frankly, you seem more at ease shooting than doing typical policework. If we'd met under different circumstances, I would have figured you for an army sniper."
Garrus made a gesture the translation implant didn't recognize. "Family tradition, mostly. My father was a C-Sec officer for most of his career. Following him seemed the logical choice."
"He's retired now?"
"A few years ago. Though, from what I hear, he's back in government service on Palaven. That's not uncommon. When senior officials assemble a staff, they often call people out of retirement. The voice of experience, somewhat like the asari and their matriarchs, I suppose."
"Well, assuming we survive, you'll have an interesting story to tell him."
Garrus laughed, turian style. "He would not approve, Shepard. Certainly not of me running around the galaxy with Spectre status. And I don't think he would approve of my associating with you, either."
"He doesn't like humans? Did he fight in the war?"
"No, he was already a police officer at that time. Besides, this may come as a surprise, Shepard, but most veterans of the war don't hold a grudge. It's the ones that didn't get to fight that have a problem with humans. No, it has nothing to do with your species. It's just that my father believes things should be done according to regulations, or not at all. He'd see you as out of control, a vigilante, and he cannot stand that. Still, in this case, I think he would at least approve of the purpose of our mission. Spectres, especially those like Saren who go around doing whatever they want..., their very existence are an affront to his principles."
"He does have a point," Shepard said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm the last person to advocate blind obedience to the regulations, but there has to be some sort of oversight, some accountability." She snorted. "As we humans say: 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'"
Garrus cocked his head. "That did not go through the translation."
"Oh, right. It's an old language, no longer in use. Only historians learn it these days, in order to read old manuscripts. But some phrases linger in popular use. This one means as much as 'Who will guard the guards?' With Sectres, the answer seems to be 'nobody'." There is no internal affairs department, no oversight. Like we're seeing now. Saren must have been planning this for years, perhaps even decades. And nobody knew because nobody keeps an eye on Spectre activity."
She thought for a moment. "Well, that's not entirely true, I suppose. I'm sure the Salarian STG does keep an eye on them, and other intelligence organisations as well, but not in the sense that they exercise any control over the Spectres."
"That is true," Garrus said. "But then again, the whole point of the Spectre concept is that they can operate independently. If they were tied down with regulations, they'd become just another C-Sec."
"Just another C-Sec?"Shepard's eyebrows rose. "Strange words for a C-Sec detective."
"Don't get me wrong, Shepard. C-Sec does good work. And yes, there have to be some rules. But these days, it's more bureaucracy than police force and we spend more time filling out forms about what we do than actually doing anything. And it acts as a restraint on everything we do. Every time an officer wants to do something, the first question is 'what do the regulations say about this'. If the regs say it's wrong then he cannot do it. And if the regs don't actually cover it, then everyone freezes in place, unable to decide what to do. Usually, they end up writing another regulation; but in the meantime, nothing gets done."
"Glad to see some things are universal," Shepard said. "Bureaucracies are always like that. As long as you obey the rules, you cannot be held accountable. So, everybody trips over themselves to make sure they obey every rule and regulation they can find."
"Exactly! There was this one case," The turian's eyes seemed to lose focus as he remembered. "We were on the trail of some illegal organ transplants. But we couldn't figure out how it was done. We'd covered the docks, so they couldn't be smuggling in the organs from outside. So, it had to be either a major bioengineering lab, which would be tough to hide, or someone was killing people and chopping them up for spare parts. Except, we didn't have that many missing persons, and no murder victims with missing organs either. We were running around in circles. Then one day we got a break. We recovered a turian liver, ran a DNA test and what do you know, the turian it belonged to was still very much alive."
"I take it that is not normally possible," Shepard asked. "I mean, with humans, you can effectively take the liver from a living person, cut it in half and transplant one part into another person. The donor lives."
"We wish. No, that won't work for us. Besides, this was a complete liver. So, we looked into the donor and found that he used to work for a Salarian geneticist, a Dr Saleon."
"Interesting coincidence."
"Yes, that's what we thought. But when we raided his lab, we couldn't find anything. No turian livers, no salarian hearts, not even a single krogan testicle."
"A-, wait, what?"
"Krogan testicles. Of course, you wouldn't know. Some krogan think that they can cure the genophage through a testicle transplant. It's nonsense, but they're desperate. The going rate is ten thousand credits for each testicle. That's forty thousand for a complete set." Garrus shook his head. "It's like a license to print money."
"Four- No, wait, I don't need to know. You were saying, the lab was a bust."
"Well, not quite. We interrogated his staff, and he had a lot of them, far more than you'd expect for a lab that size. And suddenly we got a break, one of them starts to bleed. And when the medics went to work on him, surprise, surprise!"
"What?"
"Well, let's just say he had fresh incisions all over his body. Surgical work."
"Wait," Shepard looked at him. "Are you saying-"
"Yes. He was growing the organs inside his own staff. He'd hired them off the streets, poor people who'd do anything for money. But here's the thing, the procedure was far from perfect and if an organ didn't grow properly, he'd just leave it in place. Those people were a mess. Like those human toys, they're selling on the Citadel now. Jigsaw puzzles, I think they're called. Except these ones had too many pieces."
"Well, at least you solved the case."
"Solved it, yes. But..." Garrus fell silent. "Saleon was insane, but he wasn't stupid. He knew the game was up. By the time we caught up with him he'd boarded a ship and was making a run for it. I gave orders to shot the ship down, but I was overruled. He'd taken a number of his test subjects hostage. I figured we'd shoot to disable the ship. If it worked, great; if the ship blew up, well, at least Saleon would no longer be around to cut people open."
"And the hostages?"
"Shepard, those hostages were dead anyway. If Saleon got away with them, they'd die sooner or later. Their only chance was if we took the ship intact."
"But your superiors didn't listen."
"No. The risk was too high, they said. Regulations forbid the use of heavy firepower in a hostage situation. So, he got away. Nobody has ever seen any of the hostages again."
"Of course not. But the regulations were obeyed. And in a bureaucracy that's all that matters. And Saleon? Did you ever find out what happened to him?"
Garrus' mandibles flared. "I did. He fled into the terminus, ended up on Omega and set up shop again. The thing is, those krogan testicle transplants I told you about? Turns out some krogan warlord wanted the procedure. When it didn't work, he wasn't very pleased. And on Omega, nobody gives a varren's ass about hostages. From what I heard by the time they were done, there wasn't enough left of Saleon's own organs to do even a single transplant."
"Well, I guess he got what was coming. So, it worked out in the end."
"That part, yes. But what about the others, Shepard? The ones he killed after he left the Citadel. Most of then may have been scum from Omega, but that doesn't make it right. We could have stopped him and instead we let him continue. I suppose that's part of the reason why I agreed to go along with this mission. I couldn't take down Saleon in time. But perhaps we can deal with Saren without being strangled by the rules."
Shepard laughed without much humour. "Perhaps, but don't get your hopes up too much, Vakarian. Trust me the USM has quite a few regulations of its own."
"They don't seem to have weighed you down too much, though."
"True. I guess I had the advantage that when I had to make similar choices, there wasn't anybody around to enforce the rules. Though perhaps you should keep in mind what the consequences were. Someone like me, I'm a weapon. Just like that rifle of yours. The bigshots aim me at a target, then they pull the trigger and people die. The thing is, sometimes there is nobody around to do the aiming and unlike a rifle, I can kill on my own, without anyone else pulling the trigger. And that can get very ugly. And even when I'm properly aimed, there are usually other people that end up getting caught in the crossfire.
Shepard shrugged. "So, now they've aimed me at Saren and Benezia and when the time comes, I'll kill them, and if there is collateral damage, well, that will be just too bad. But at the same time, the people that become collateral damage probably wouldn't agree with that attitude.
Ah, well, that's enough philosophy for one day. For what it's worth, I agree with you, Vakarian. Sometimes you have to be ruthless and get the job done, no matter the cost. Just make sure to remember who pays the price for your decisions. You owe them that, even if you end up making those decisions anyway. In the end, that may be the only thing that separates us from the likes of Saren." She turned to walk away. "Now, let's make sure all the gear is operational. I've got a feeling we'll need it when we reach Feros."
-0-0-0-
The Presidum, the Citadel
There should have been three Councillors in the room, but Valern had disappeared for most of the day, his communications blocked, with no more explanation than that he had a series of important calls to make that had to be absolutely secure. So, there were only two to discuss the latest news.
"Twenty-five years," Sparatus said. "Twenty-five years they gave us. And we studied their fleet, built carriers of our own to protect our dreadnoughts and deny them a long-range battle. And we congratulated ourselves because we thought we'd solved the problem. No matter how many carriers they concentrated in a system, the treaty of Farixen guaranteed that we could put in more dreadnoughts; and in the end, they'd be unable to stop us from closing with whatever it was that they were protecting. And even if they started building dreadnoughts we'd have too much of a headstart for them to overcome."
"And now?"
"And now? Now we can toss that entire strategic concept into the nearest recycler. It doesn't really matter how many of these ships they have right now. Probably not more than three or four, but that's enough to influence the balance of power. And they can keep building them, not at the same pace as we build our dreadnoughts but then again they don't really need to." He looked up. "Do you understand what this means, Tevos? Do you truly understand?"
Tevos sighed. "I understand it's a serious military problem Sparatus, but still-"
"Clearly you don't. Tevos, they just turned the Treaty of Farixen into a suicide pact. It was based on the assumption that everybody's dreadnoughts would be approximately the same size. They didn't specify an upper limit for dreadnoughts. For one thing, nobody wanted to outlaw the Destiny Ascension or create a special category for it. More importantly, nobody saw the need. Practical considerations took care of that aspect. Until now.
Corinthus estimates that each of these ships is the equivalent of at least three of our dreadnoughts. Let's assume that he's right. That means that my people's guaranteed five-to-three numerical advantage just became meaningless. If they build even half as many as they are allowed, they'll have near-parity with the Hierarchy. If they build the maximum number, they'll have parity with the Hierarchy and the Asari Republics combined. Add to that the fact that we've not caught up with them yet in numbers of carriers because of all the problems in the design and development, not to mention the cost, and we're in deep trouble.
And what can we do against it? Diplomatically, there is nothing. We cannot even protest. There is nothing about these ships that violates the treaty. We can try to outbuild them, yes; create so many dreadnoughts that they cannot keep up so that we can overwhelm them with numbers. But the effort would destroy all of us economically. Besides, that kind of arms race is exactly what the treaty was supposed to prevent. What's the alternative? Build bigger dreadnoughts? Can the Asari Republics afford to put more Destiny Ascensions into space?"
"Maybe." Tevos shook her head. "Maybe one or two. But it would cripple us for decades, just to build them, let alone keeping them on active duty."
"So, that's a no. Besides, one or two is not going to be enough. Then what? We don't even have a working prototype of a tachyon shunt drive, in fact, we barely even have a theoretical model. We never bothered because it seemed as obsolete as a steam engine. Maybe the salarians have something in a laboratory somewhere. I don't know, but I'll make sure to ask Valern. But even if they do, how long will it take to create a production model, let alone the kind of hybrid drive the humans seem to have put together? Five years, ten, twenty?
We could leave it out, build ships with reduced eezo-cores that are completely restricted to the Relays; but that would mean that we'd be stuck with dreadnoughts that are inherently inferior to the human ships. And by building them, we'd automatically give the humans permission to build more ships unless we start scrapping our existing dreadnoughts. Not to mention that our shipyards don't have building slips that size because we never built anything that big, so we'd have to make that investment as well, and we'd have to start the design from scratch because we've never even considered building any kind of ship anywhere near this size."
"But does it matter that much? Yes, these ships are massive, and I'm sure they will be extremely dangerous in a direct fight. But how useful are they really? Outside the relay network, they're going to be hopelessly slow."
"Slow yes, but they'll still get to their destination. More importantly, being restricted to the relay network is not as big a handicap as you may think. In a sense, all ships are restricted to it, because on any significant journey they have to pass through the relays. Corinthus' analysis is correct. These are mobile fortresses, designed specifically to take advantage of the nature of the relay network. Effectively, the humans have sacrificed tactical flexibility to gain a strategic advantage. I'm still waiting on an analysis by the department of strategic planning but the simple fact that the humans thought that it was worthwhile tells us that it probably is.
The defensive advantages are obvious. Everybody knows that the relays make for natural defensive choke points, but in practice, it's not so simple because you need a sizeable fleet to hold that point and nobody wants to tie up so much of their mobile forces in static defence. The offensive counter was always to find a region with multiple valuable targets. That way, the attacking fleet can choose which one to attack, forcing the defenders to guess which point they need to concentrate their forces on. And nobody has enough of a numerical advantage that they can afford to keep sufficient defensive forces around all their strategically important locations; the treaty of Farixen guaranteed that.
The human ships change that. A single ship like that can effectively hold a relay or a planet against anything short of a fleet, so they don't need to tie down large numbers of ships in defensive positions. That's a huge advantage, especially for them because there is only one relay connection that leads to their core-systems. That's the Shanxi Relay and now they've blocked it. So their main population centres and industrial base are safe. In one stroke they've solved most of their strategic problems. If we go to war right now, they can concentrate the forces they have in place and drive Corinthus out of the demilitarized zone without leaving themselves open to a counter-attack. He'll have no choice but to run for Relay 288 and hope they don't manage to cut him off.
But that's just the defensive position. Offensively, they make the situation even more complicated. Citadel Space effectively consists of a network of relay connections, with each relay surrounded by a relatively small volume of explored star systems. If the humans manage to get these ships into our space, and they can if they move from the Skyllian Verge, they can completely dictate the course of the war. The moment they put one of these ships on a relay, it will isolate all the nearby star systems. We'll have absolutely no choice but to attack that ship. Again, with normal ships, you need an entire fleet to accomplish that. They can do it with just one ship. So they can keep that one ship at the relay, then send a carrier group to clear out the local star systems, move on to the next relay and repeat the process. And concentrating our forces to engage them will also force us to leave more systems undefended, which gives them more targets."
"So, what's the solution?"
Sparatus sat down.
"There is no solution. No matter what we do, even if we're willing to put this much strain on our own economies, it will take decades before we can re-establish the correct balance of power and initially things will be getting worse, not better. From a purely military point of view, the best option would be to attack at once, with the full strength of our combined navies, before they can build any more of these ships. We take the Citadel Defense Fleet including the Destiny Ascension, as well as the available ships at Aephus and Degeris, join up with Corinthus' fleet, and attack Shanxi. Between this new ship and the rest of their local defensive forces, they'll hurt us, but we will win. That gives us Shanxi but more importantly, it seals half the human fleet inside their own space."
"So we repeat Desolas Arterius' plan on a larger scale? Don't you remember how that ended?"
"All too well. The difference is, we would be fighting to win the war, not just to force the humans to negotiate like Desolas tried to do. So we wouldn't need to surrender the initiative. While blocking the humans at Shanxi, we bring up the rest of our forces in a two-pronged attack on the Skyllian Verge. The first thrust would be aimed at Relay 314, which means we have to deal with the ship there. Again, we'd get hurt, but we can win. The second part of that attack would come through the Traverse. Between those two attacking forces, the human fleet in the Verge will eventually be trapped and destroyed because we can force them to give battle by attacking their support bases. Once that is done, we combine our fleets and push through the Shanxi relay with half our forces going to their headquarters at Arcturus and the other half using the relay's second connection to move into the humans' mining and industrial centres. That was always the strategic plan.
Once we are inside their space, things change. The Sol system has no relay, nor do any of their older colonies, so there these new ships become useless because they cannot relocate quickly enough. Mind you, the humans may have accepted the cost to build one to protect their homeworld, even though it would be stuck there for most practical purposes."
"And what would the humans be doing in the meantime?"
"The humans? Other than bleeding us every step of the way, they will also slip part of their Verge-fleet around our forces, through the Terminus, and then into Citadel Space. Not to invade but as a raiding party. That would tie down large portions of our fleet in order to defend our homeworlds. And they can afford to do it because ultimately they don't care about the Skyllian Verge. If necessary, they'd sacrifice every colony they have there just to keep us occupied while they hit us. They will also try to bypass our forces at Relay 314 in order to cut off our supply chain, so we'd have to maintain a presence there as well. Whether we can do all that but still keep up the momentum of our attacks is currently unknown. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have said yes. It would have been costly, and the war might have left us severely weakened, but we had the numbers to do it. Now, I just don't know. And of course, half the Terminus warlords will be sending raiding parties into our space while we're fighting the humans and there is no telling what the batarians will do. And we'd almost certainly have to withdraw from the Krogan DMZ, for lack of available ships, so we'd have that headache as well.
It doesn't matter anyway. We both know that it's not going to happen. The risks of the war escalating to the point where we destroy each other are just too great. The Hierarchy might risk that if we were convinced it had to be done but we both know your Republics will refuse and don't even get me started on the salarians. We'll not go to war, Tevos. Not unless either the humans attack us or all other options are exhausted. The first won't happen. They're not that stupid. They know that time is on their side. And by the time everybody gives up on negotiations they'll be too strong. They'll have built up their fleet to the point where mutual destruction is no longer a risk, it will be guaranteed."
"Well, that's it then," Tevos said. "If we cannot outbuild them to reestablish the status-quo; and we cannot fight a war to eliminate the threat -and I agree with you, that's just not going to happen- then there is only one thing left."
"You mean..."
"Yes. I'll talk to Valern but I already know he'll agree." She looked at the turian. "Sparatus, I know how you feel about this. I'm not happy about it myself, but it is the safest alternative. We've always known there was a way out of our problems. We just weren't willing to pay the price. Now things have changed."
"And you think the humans will agree?"
"I think so, yes, if they are approached correctly. Udina would certainly be open to it. He's ambitious and this would be the defining moment of his career. As for humanity in general, there would be problems, of course, but not as many as you'd think. It's been twenty-five years since the Relay 314 incident, and from everything I've seen, they tend to have short memories. Wars of the past are just that, the past. Other things have happened to occupy them, the colonization of the Verge, the pirate and slaver raids, the new technology they've gained. Meanwhile, they've also become more accustomed to us. Trade has helped a lot in that regard."
"And you don't think this whole Eden Prime situation will change that?"
Tevos smiled a little. "It might, but then again it might also help. They've been reminded that the universe is a dangerous place. And when you're in a dangerous place, it's good to have friends."
"And what about the others, the Elcor, the Hanar, the-"
"The Volus? Yes, that will be a much bigger problem. But it was always going to happen, Sparatus. Things could not go on forever as they are now and, in a way, we helped speed things up. As long as our power was more show than substance, the associated species were willing to accept their position. But that has changed. And now, the more power and prestige we gain, the more we will be pressured to change things."
Sparatus' mandibles clicked audibly. "I suppose you're right. I just wish..." He made a gesture that was difficult to interpret, even for someone who had dealt with turians for centuries. "I just wish it had not happened in my lifetime."
"Yes, well, when you're an asari, you can pretty much count on things happening 'within your lifetime'." Suddenly, she started to laugh. "And to think- Remember, twenty-five years ago, how hard Benezia argued that we had to bring the humans into the Citadel at all costs, make them an associate species? She was willing to risk everything, including a new war, to make that happen."
"And perhaps we should have listened to her," Sparatus said sourly. "Because at that time, the war would actually have been winnable."
"Perhaps, but we didn't know that. And after the defeat they dealt Arterius, that was not a risk anyone wanted to take. Nor do I think it would have been worth the loss of life on both sides, something that we can still prevent. But don't you see the irony? Twenty-five years ago, Benezia was willing to risk war to add the humans to the Citadel. Guess what? Now she's done it. Long after she herself gave up on a diplomatic solution, it's actually going to happen. She's risked war and what do we do?"
"We try to add the humans to the Citadel. Yes, I see the humour of it. I also think that this is not quite what she had in mind."
"Agreed, but I've studied her teachings quite a bit the past few weeks. I think, I honestly think, that she might have been open to the idea. She discussed the possibility of expanding the Council on numerous occasions and she didn't dismiss the idea out of hand. Such a shame. If only she had been willing to wait, to let history take its course. We probably would have come to this point eventually. Perhaps even in her lifetime."
"And now it will cost her her life."
"Almost certainly, yes." Tevos sighed. "We were never close friends, but I respected her. Or, at least I did before the treaty negotiations. Even afterwards, I could admire her motives, unrealistic though they were. And now I've sent a human after her with blank authorization to kill her, like a guided missile. And if Shepard succeeds, I will have to look her in the eye and thank her for her service. Tell me again, Sparatus, why did any of us ever take this job?"
The turian looked at her. "Because somebody has to do it. Better us than lot of other people we both could name. At least we're both aware of the cost of our decisions."
!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-
A/N A bit of redemption for Fedorian, who screwed up rather badly in Someone had blundered. I'd like to think that someone who rises to the top of a meritocracy is capable of learning from his own mistakes.
Sparatus is still raining on Tevos's parade, but he is not wrong. Besides, I find it funny to make him sound reasonable and, canonically, Tevos does not seem to have any military training. Udina of all people just casually tossed her aside before she could use her biotics, not something you'd expect if she'd ever been a commando.
I killed off Saleon off-screen. Like I've said before, I'm ignoring most of the sidequests because they just don't fit. Military officers don't go off on private missions whenever the mood takes them. Still, the story does show an insight into Garrus' character and motivations.
