A/N: P. is nothing but pure love.

The Editing Gang did not review. Any mistakes are thus, clearly, their fault.

–STG – STG – STG–

STG Report on the turian subject 'XL7-F,' known currently as 'P.'

Prepared by EXECUTIVE AGENT SOLUTHUS and EXECUTIVE AGENT MATHAN

From Soluthus to the STG Master

Your request has been completed, STG Master. Enclosed is the current file on P. with the most recent updates from the cell of Master Agent Vanas.

Be advised we have lost contact with Vanas as of sixty-seven hours ago and the LoZ comm implant for the Null Agent with his team also stopped responding shortly thereafter. Based on previous events, there is a 97.4% chance the cell is functionally destroyed – either dead or captive.

I have linked this file to the sixteen other files we have aggregated on subject XL7-F, dating from two cycles after the end of the First Krogan Rebellions to the disappearance of 'Pata' some ninety-seven years ago. While none of the physical attributes line up, we are certain that these are indeed the same being, due to the following factors:

-The constant use of names that start with the same turian glyph.

-The use of almost identical terror tactics across all incarnations.

-The repeated references to events occurring beyond the natural timespan of a turian life, including details only eyewitnesses would have.

-Sensor readings indicate a constant emission of exotic particle traces.

-Identical reactions from the Turian Hierarchy, driven exclusively by the Palavanus.

It is clear this phenomenon defies logical norms. We are not sure, as of yet, how this could be achieved – nanosequestration, destructive scanning to a quantum redbox, or some other form of artificial intelligence is the most likely choice. This would make P. the turian equivalent of the League of Zero, but the League has been highly ineffective in combating him.

Advisory: The report from Master Agent Vanas was transmitted on burst emergency channels in the clear. As this is only performed under highest duress as part of Protocol Thirty-Six (emergency suicide protocol), there is a very high chance P. knows the contents of the file and may make changes or preventive corrections to any tactical suggestions in the document.

We have inserted our commentary where necessary to augment the report. The report text begins below:

–STG – STG – STG–

STG Report on the being known as P.

Master Agent Vanas to the STG Master

STG Master.

I am transmitting this file, an initial briefing document covering everything we currently know regarding P., without encryption. Our mission here has failed, and we have not been able to determine the depths of exactly what P. knows, or the relation to the Arcann devices he has.

P. remains a mystery, his ability to laugh off death verges on the supernatural. I'm not given to histrionics, but we detonated a fuel-air-eezo explosive on him and he is still alive. My cell has been routed and we are fleeing in several smaller groups to avoid capture.

I do not suspect we shall be successful, so what I have learned thus far must get out. I would apologize for the inconvenience this may cause, but seeing as I'm likely to join Vessi and Danith in the Wheel shortly, I don't really care.

As with all reports, by necessity, this document is not all-inclusive with details, but instead provides high-order information that can be queried in-depth at a later time. Much of this is conjectural. Some is frankly assumption.

P. remains a foe that is not really classifiable by our methods. He cannot be killed. His logic and operations make no sense and yet are almost always successful. He is possibly thousands of years old, or a powerful AI, or something worse. Frankly, the STG is not equipped to counter, fight, or outwit him.

This file is classified Virshan-Orange. This is the nine hundred and fourth Orange Section file since the origination of the first Special Task Order given by Dalatrass Shiron herself, and likely the last file I will submit to the Group. May the salarian people prevail in all turnings of the Wheel.

Caution: Read FIRST:

In most STG files, the data is based on historical accounts, eyewitness accounts, extranet information, and various scans. In this file, sadly, half of what we have is conjectural, rumor-based, and filtered points from a collection of stories, broken rambling of victims, and police reports that describes a being more akin to a demigod than an organic lifeform.

As such, under no circumstances can this file be assumed complete or accurate. P. is a master of misdirection, confusion, and false trails, and to put it bluntly, he's twice as fucking crazy as any Solus. There's no telling how much of what we gathered is complete and utter graa-shit, or how much is accurate but missing details.

Finally, although I will repeat this later… make sure you look up every subfile tagged 'XL7-F.' Most of them are tabbed out as 'Black-Collapse Nine,' and if you read the binder, you'll understand why. The fact that P.'s body is riddled with what appear to be Arcann-era implants explains much of what was once a mystery, but it also raises more questions.

Oh, and one more thing. Per STG standing order 1015-garmir-two, combat with P. is a complete waste of time. Even if you kill him, he simply won't stay dead, and nine times out of ten, he uses said 'deaths' to setup some other game. As such, STG units who can confirm targeting on P. are to implement Protocol Forty-Three (remote-target orbital strike) to obliterate him in a fashion from which he gains nothing.

–STG – STG – STG–

P. , He who is Not

Overview:

Formal Titles: None.

Nicknames: (turian) He who is Not, Palav's Bane, the Night, the Undying One, the Eternal. Other nicknames include: the Laughing One, the Fallen Light, and dozens of appellations all playing with the turian 'P' glyph.

Race: Turian variant. Captured XNA samples show a high (94.3%) correlation to turian DNA, but that is NOT turian. Subject appears to have extremely heavy levels of unknown cybernetic and bionetic augmentation and the blood is toxic to all dextro lifeforms on contact.

Age and sex: Male presentation in the current incarnation. Previous incarnations have varied between male and female. Age is completely unknown.

Wealth: Speculative and uncertain. P. has committed thousands of robberies and heists and probably has hard physical assets in the billions of credits. At the same time, even the most depraved and psychotic Depthwalker volus won't do banking business with him, and most of his liquid assets are in the Terminus.

Psychological Summary: Don't make me laugh. P. doesn't fit anywhere on the STG circle charts. The closest we can get is that he flipflops between the Mocking/Hateful quadrant of destructive personalities and the Cruel/Disdainful aspects of malevolent personalities. Given that this is a hard and complete active/passive and selfish/selfless swap, both PsyP and Ayth agree his insanity makes a clear psychological summary difficult.

It does not help that each incarnation of P. seems to be crazy in different ways. The previous one was more concerned with terror than mockery, and the one before that evinced madness in building doomsday cults. P., at any moment in time, is likely to take the most baffling and random actions in pursuit of goals that make no sense and yet lead to outcomes benefiting him. Attempting to project his likely choices psychologically has never worked.

One cannot predict quantum reactions.

[SOLUTHUS: Additional analysis: P.'s reactions in a psychological matrix match much more closely with the Palavanus than traditional turian norms. P. displays no fear of anything at any time; values melee combat more than other forms of prowess; considers the strong to be useful only as tools and the weak to be beneath his notice. Most tellingly, the Palavanus have been the primary drivers behind hunting and taking down P. over the years. Palavanus are known – widely – for being psychologically incapable of fear. Palavanus demonstrate fear response to P.]

Military Summary: Unknown. P. has displayed in all incarnations top-level melee and martial arts skills, Trials-of-Glory-level physical strength, speed, and agility, and a complete immunity to any form of pain. He has been seen using sniper rifles, large caliber pistols, and the occasional shotgun with skills at least on par, if not exceeding, military elites, and has demonstrated near-Palavanus levels of tactical brilliance in small-scale skirmish and raid settings.

P. does not limit himself to typical military training failures, and tends to disdain direct force in preference of using disposable agents to distract while his elites use stealth, social engineering, bribery, or sex to bypass defenses and achieve the actual goal. This sort of thinking is so out of band of traditional military thought (even among salarians) that I doubt his training was of a formal nature.

Education: Unknown. Past elements have succeeded in achieving over a dozen formal degrees in various incarnations and disguises. P. has demonstrated master-class skills in explosives, stellar navigation, hacking, chemistry (particularly inorganic poisons), explosives, and tracking. He has demonstrated a wide array of other skills, in some cases to advanced levels.

P. (and his various Heralds) typically demonstrate fluency in multiple alien languages and familiarity with almost every culture.

Employment: His own terror network. In theory.

Significant Family: None in previous incarnations. In the current incarnation, P. has been having asari children for more than fifty years. He has also had children with his children, and in some cases, his grandchildren. All his Daughters are his sole sexual partners and he has reacted extremely violently to their deaths.

Analysis of the XNA fragments we obtained from P. shows that he is most closely related to the ancient Davu caste of the turians. This is alarming given the Davu became genetically extinct before the Krogan Rebellions, where P.'s first incarnation ('Pavas') appeared.

[MATHAN: Additional analysis performed. Subject shows even closer match (99.7%) to prehistoric turian ancestor (Xa turalis praeton) which evolved into modern turians over sixty thousand cycles ago. It is very likely that whatever P. is, he is a product of the unknown sapients who are responsible for the likely geoengineering that created Palavan and transplanted clades of life to the planet. This is a considerable source of alarming ramifications, as P.'s ongoing survival may indicate this species is still extant and active to some degree.]

Overall Threat Rating: Black-Collapse Eight. The only reason this is not BC9 is that P. can be destroyed with conventional weapon systems. It just doesn't take.

[MATHAN: Do not concur with BC8. Footage from Burning in Omega (subfile Xv-Cerb-939) indicates that P. was incapacitated by a shot to the hip from Garrus Vakarian. The location of the shot combined with explosive ammo would be an instant kill on any turian, as two primary blood vessels run through the location shot and bleeding would kill them in short order. P. – having just defeated two Black Collapse threats – was only wounded. If that is not BC9 I believe Master Agent Korals needs to do more training.]

[SOLUTHUS: Concur with BC8. Despite anomalous toughness, P. has yet to demonstrate anomalous abilities, like the Batarian Emperor, the Butcher, or Delan. While his inability to die is certainly dangerous, the recovery from such is certainly not instant. Save the BC9 for freaks that laugh at mortar fire.]

Historical Notes:

Coming up with a coherent history of P. is akin to summing up the entirely of salarian culture with the phrase 'sneaky cloacae.' While amusingly and technically correct, it answers nothing and provides a slanted viewpoint of reality.

[SOLUTHUS: Additional analysis: P. has made great efforts to obfuscate and hide his past appearances, going so far as to physically attack digital archives and assassinate historians, especially asari and krogan ones. This attention to such a seemingly harmless set of information implies there is a weakness there. I recommend strongly utilizing a dedicated STG cell for archeoforensic research along these lines.]

Various subfiles in Detail File XL7-F cover the initial appearances and reappearances of P. I will only cover the most recent incarnation. This is for two reasons – for one, each appearance has a different flavor. Sometimes he's bombastic, or cruel, or sneaky. This time he's more murderous than the usual, so comparing previous outings doesn't give a good baseline.

The second reason I'm not covering the past incarnations is that this one is unique – never before has he bothered with a group like his Daughters, or to build up such a large criminal enterprise. Something caused this change and there's just too much information in the past to find any congruent and useful points.

[MATHAN: I begin to question the logical capability of Vanas. If something has changed, exactly how are we to identify it if we don't compare it to previous actions? Then again, this is also probably a determining factor in why he thought going head-on with P. was somehow a good idea.]

P. showed up sixty-two cycles ago, blowing up a group of Palavanus operating a scientific outpost and archeological dig at Hasyon IX. The defensive contingent – two entire lances of the Valluxian Guard in heavy armor, SIX Final Line soldiers, and two regiments of heavy infantry and SKYTALONS from the 5th Honor Battalion – didn't even slow him down. There's video of him tearing through SKYTALON armor plating with his talons alone, and he demonstrated completely unnatural levels of strength and speed. Two dozen asari in heavy black and red armor with his 'P' sigil assisted his attack, mostly with siege biotics, high-explosive attacks, and heavy use of poison gas.

All three Palavanus were murdered in the attack, and it took two Final Line soldiers holding P. down and self-detonating their power cores to kill him. The asari engaged personal cloaks and fled, and no ship or method of arrival was ever found.

The next ten years were a flood of assaults on the races of the Citadel Council, and oddly benevolent acts towards those without a seat. Most of his acts were murderous terrorism, but a few stand out because of our inability to explain how they were accomplished:

He used a full facial replacement disguise, along with implanted bionetic markers and voicebox, to infiltrate the Citadel Tax Office. For over six months he operated as a mid-level auditing clerk, before managing to install a VI daemon that allowed him to skim tax credits from returns on corporate investments. This netted over a billion credits before it was discovered, and in taking out the hack, the daemon not only deleted the tax records of several thousand companies and corrupted ten years of collections data, it overloaded power conduits in the data collection center, killing sixteen analysts and two C-Sec forensic scientists.

He managed to hack the asari investment index VI and direct investment into dummy and shell corporations he owned. He used other agents to run the stocks for these up, pushing more investment, skimming profits, and routing all the cash to the volus to cash as platinum and secured eezo deposits. He then placed huge shorts on the stocks before outing them as fakes, making money off the sell-off and stock price collapse, before pinning the entire mess on several senior matriarchs of Lesser Houses. By the time the evidence showed they were innocent, the matriarchs had already been executed by justicars, and the fallout damaged trust in the banking system of Thessia and the justicars themselves – not to mention costing the Asari Republic six hundred billion credits in financial losses and debts.

He used a five-part inorganic poison to kill a salarian scientist with the RRC who specialized in medical protective systems for our military. The investigation revealed several vulnerabilities in the filtration systems of our fleet and military bases, which the salarian military command had patched. Unfortunately, in doing so, we introduced a lack of scanning for certain organic compounds. P. utilized a multiphase nine-part poison to incapacitate everyone in the 6th Fleet at the test of the Ghonai-class battlecruiser prototype. P.'s forces arrived, murdered the crew of the Ghonai by hacking the fire suppression system, and then stole the ship. To add insult to injury, the poison caused sterilization for some sixty percent of the males in the fleet and caused mental instability in twelve percent.

As time passed, it became apparent that P. was operating on much larger scales than in the past. Each money hack was used to fund further investments, front companies, clueless mercenary forces, and even research labs. We suspect many of the advances in clonelegging came from his research labs – certainly, he was heavily invested in the Umlor and Karkai pirate rings.

The Hierarchy made several extensive attempts to kill P., including hiring (at a cost of nearly a billion credits) the services of no less than thirty justicars, funding sixteen thasvar hunting groups, and dispatching FIVE Spectres to pin him down. This came to a head at the 'Wreckage of Honor,' an ambush attempt at Huros Secunda. P.'s asari Daughters were able to outfight the justicars, who were unable to respond to being harassed by poison gas, omni-mines, clouds of omni-drones, and remotely targeted artillery strikes.

P. himself butchered six justicars before going head-to-head with three Spectres – Jansi T'Koro, Praetor Mithrax Arterius, and Shaana Solus. The film we have is somewhat degraded, but the outline of events was clearly visible – P. was able to completely ignore several direct hits from a Sunfire pistol and was faster than Shaana.

The Solus fell first, gutted with a backhand even as P. was somehow able to use a device to nullify the biotics of Jansi T'Koro. He somehow flung her in the path of several shots from Mithrax, resulting in her being shot thrice with the Sunfire pistol in the head and upper chest, killing her instantly.

Mithrax attempted – key word, 'attempted' – to battle P., but he was outmaneuvered, overpowered, and basically humiliated. P. tore apart his hamstrings, crippled his arm, tore out his eye, then laughingly flung him nearly thirty meters with a single hand to land in a broken heap with multiple plate fractures.

Mithrax engaged him again, but despite his horrific injuries, P. did not kill him. Mithrax related at his hearing of failure that P. had been toying with him and that he was regenerating wounds nearly as fast as a krogan.

The loss of so many powerful figures in a failed law enforcement attempt resulted in the Turian Hierarchy dubbing P. as 'He who is Not' and to basically stop hunting him. The Citadel continued to pursue him, as did many bounty hunters and turian thasavar, until roughly twenty years ago, when, in a single night, over five hundred of them were murdered in their sleep and the rest were marked with a pink ribbon and a warning.

P. has engaged – and most likely murdered – at least one asari war priestess, an elcor Lost, two full-response members of the League of Zero, nine Spectres, sixteen justicars, and a batarian Imperial-caste prince. I should not have to point out that each of these are considered very hard targets and, in most cases, P. was not even seriously harmed in doing so.

After the failure of multiple assaults on his forces, the Citadel has seemingly joined the Hierarchy in giving up on bringing him to justice. This only left a few forces with the reach to attempt to stop him – the STG, the VDF Financial Security Force, and oddly enough, Uressa T'Shora and the Temple of Athame.

We're not exactly sure what is going on between Uressa and P. but they have clashed on multiple occasions – mostly when he has attempted to have her assassinated. (See Uressa STG File – Master Agent Valgra may have more details). What we have gathered is footage of Uressa beating him like a misbehaving newt before incinerating several of his Daughters with warpfire. She proceeded to shatter his jaw, break both of his arms, and fling him from the top of a one hundred and fifty-story starscraper.

Of course, like a swamp raktha, he showed up again less than a week later. But it is a noticeable datapoint – our information on Uressa, from what I know, indicates a mostly weak, gentle, and non-military figure.

[SOLUTHUS: Clearly, we're not missing any intellectual heft with Vanas gone. What part of 'stopped a tidal wave while the Solarch and Lunarch were on their knees gasping in exhaustion' sounds weak to you? Gibbering Lythari have more sense than this fool did.]

[MATHAN: He may have not been cleared for the real file. The Sieltar-Nine file doesn't contain everything the Salarais-White one does. Still… he does raise a good, if incoherent point. We know Uressa is anomalous, but why exactly does P. want her dead so badly? We have evidence from his broadcasts, or that of his irisinster Rolan Quarn, that he holds her in both contempt and poorly hidden fury. She seems to see him as disgusting and worthy of contemptuous laughter. We need more information on the interaction… and perhaps Uressa can provide better insight into P.'s nature.]

P. was not, at the outset of his arrival, antagonistic to the Broker or the Circle of the Fallen. Up until almost thirty years ago, P. was actually a formal member of the Circle of the Fallen and his people worked closely with the Broker. We are not sure what caused them to have a falling out, but P. became antagonistic towards both Six Sins and Kalthoth the Depthwalker at this time, and also reduced his cooperation and exposure to the Broker Network.

It is curious that this seemed to happen just after the humans emerged in the aftermath of the Relay 314 Incident. It is more curious that P. has not ever given even an incoherent explanation of such in one of his gaudy transmissions.

[MATHAN: He may be onto something here. Recommend authorizing a cell to investigate.]

P. committed various acts during the Gravalax Incident, and we are almost certain he provided Zaeed Massani with augmentation that allowed him to combat Preston Kyle on even footing in the form of the black battle-armor Massani was seen wearing in that combat and never after. P. certainly had his hands in the mess of accusations when Circaasi Pharmaworks was investigated by Saren, and we know he supplied Facinus with the weapons to allow them to launch several insurrections and bombings.

Within the past decade, P.'s acts have become more random. More and more of his hacks and infiltration efforts are less for concrete results and instead tuned towards providing grist for his pirate news show, 'The P.'s Truth.' He has already released and hinted at a number of troubling exposures for several races – including ours, such as hints about Counterwatch, the Alteration Framework, the Makana Tho'ian, and our involvement in the turian destabilization and funding of Facinus.

Historical Addenda: There is a secondary element of his history that also needs to be covered, the various odd acts and heists he has committed for no logical purpose. These include:

Stealing several asari worship materials and statues from monasteries devoted to containing ardat populations. This is significant because to reach them he had to bypass extremely tight security systems, justicars, Nightwind, and Temple Guards, then sneak through a series of buildings under complete VI and manned surveillance, and then passed by many more valuable objects – including biotic manuals, giant hordes of eezo, and indexes of Nightwind control codes – to steal what amounts to old musty books about myths and some statues. The Temple was, however, shaken to its core by this event, and Benezia and Trellani (still the Lunarch and Stellarch at the time) were both severely chastised by the Thirty and the Solarch.

A seven-month-long infiltration of the Black Rim colony systems, using his assets to smuggle out several rings of yindo deviants and a cell of Lythari from Remembrance. This is notable because in doing so he was able to somehow subvert the monitoring League of Zero agent and neutralize the nano-sequestration of several League remote units. He was fully capable of destroying the entire financial system of the colony but instead only acted to cover the evacuees' tracks, then, bizarrely, reverse-engineered STG encryption keys and tipped us off to their destination. Two cells of the STG apprehended all the deviants and executed Response Action Seven (field execution after augmented interrogation) – and the Lythari said P.'s payment for helping them was a set of Shego's writings on the mythical 'mind powers' that were clearly excuses for her rise.

Despite having friction with Aria, we are almost certain that no less than six assassination attempts against her (four from the Thirty, one from a rival, and one from an overzealous STG cell) were personally dismantled and destroyed by P. He took severe damage stopping one of the attempts, comprised of an augmented Royal Hunting Party with Paladin battle-suit support – although it should be noted that P. was capable of doing severe damage to even a Paladin with nothing more than his bare hands. Nor does personal interference make any sense, as he clearly has significant spaceship resources, yet he chose to face them alone after dropping from a shuttle and giving up the element of surprise.

Additional investigation into these aspects should be strongly considered, as they may provide some insight into his decision-making and logic process, or at least what he considers valuable.

[SOLUTHUS: Or provide insight into the fact he probably did it on a whim. Deriving 'insight' from a cackling lunatic who once decided whether or not to detonate nuclear devices in a turian hatchery on the results of a coin flip is akin to assigning motives to a river.]

Motivations:

I'm beginning to grasp some of Vessi's frustration with the inflexibility of the layout.

The motivations of P. are beyond the kin of any sane person to know. He is a serial drug abuser to the point even elcor think he goes too far. He molests his own offspring, said offspring's offspring, and then brags about it. He will shoot six hundred people dead and give fifty kilos of eezo to the six hundred and first because he likes the color of their plates, or the tilt of their hat.

P. obviously has motives and driving factors pushing him forward. Divining those is problematic because there is almost never a clear and untangled line between 'cause' and 'response,' much less 'triggering condition' and 'state of mind,' He tends to express that he sees conventional perceptions of life as a joke, one that grows only more warped and hilarious over time.

Wealth does not interest him except as a tool. He sneers at all religions, all ethics, all morals, and laughs hysterically at the concepts of creeds. He evinces none of the traits of any form of turian, delights in random acts of violence and has repeatedly stated his admiration of chaos as a form of order.

We can make generalizations. We can make presuppositions. But in doing so, we are only playing his game. I am convinced P. takes random or inexplicable actions because they are random and inexplicable. There is no deeper connection, no maddened morass of notes pinned to a board to show some asymmetric 'bigger picture.'

The whole point is the lack of a point, and that is the only thing you can depend on: if there are motives or goals he is pursuing, they are randomly intermixed with his other actions and exploits to the point that coherent modeling is not only impossible, but that the random acts he takes are probably designed to specifically throw you off the trail.

[SOLUTHUS: There is a reason and order to all things. One must merely have the correct viewpoint. Assigning enough analytical power to the problem – maybe the Flight-62-J Focus clone project – will eventually provide us with tangential but concurrent direction for his action. By simple elimination of random acts that are never followed up on, one should be able to derive the acts he does follow-up on, and from there, his motive. Vanas is a simpleton.]

[MATHAN: That is much easier proposed than executed, and the ugly fact remains that there isn't a guarantee P. isn't doing the exact reverse, using one-time operations when he goes after his real goals, and the follow-ups are more random noise. Or even mixing up the pattern. The problem with a being who is operating on this level is that everything is a game of seek-thought where you can neither see the opponent's face nor hear their voice, and your only clues are the direction of the conversation itself. I find it arrogant to think that if we can determine a method by which we can suss out his intent, that he cannot find a way to render such useless, given that no one has predicted him or any of his previous incarnations in more than six hundred cycles!]

Organizations and Affiliations:

Several, in theory. While he is no longer a direct member of the Circle of the Fallen, he is invested in several of their various operations, and maintains links to Circle outposts.

He has not worked with the Broker since the events on Omega that resulted in Tetrimus attempting to kill him, but some of his operators have done joint missions with Broker elements – although these are rare.

It is extremely likely that his various Daughters have infiltrated multiple asari corporations, news organizations, e-democracy circles, and huntress groups. It is almost certain that P.'s various agents have elements in every space-faring race.

Tactics:

I'll preface this with a Korals-style warning:

Fighting P. is extremely Collapse-be-damned contraindicated.

You cannot kill him permanently. You certainly cannot capture him, as the one time it was tried, he detonated himself in a matter/antimatter explosion. He can't be stunned or incapacitated, he's done so many drugs the best chems we have might not even get him to giggle, and he can outfight Palavanus in melee combat.

A standard STG Cell going up against this low-sanity loon is going to be turned into Impressiona modern art patterns using salarian viscera instead of haptic dye.

So why include this section? Because P. is known for letting people flee and/or escape if they aren't the target. In order to do this, you have to make yourself a hard enough target that pursuit and ripping your spine out to turn into some kind of… of… jaunty spinal decoration for his belt or something… is not an option he finds attractive.

In fighting P., three aspects are uppermost in your consideration: his speed, his durability, and his range.

Specific Tactical Methods, Ground Combat:

P. has a very powerful set of advantages. He's anomalously strong, blindingly fast, can absorb levels of damage that would off-line some full-conversion cyborgs, and his body is not only augmented but blown on combat drugs that would even scare elcor.

For all of that, however, P. is oddly predictable in combat. He will always follow nearly the exact same pattern – use his Daughters or other forces to corral opponents, engage in rapid acrobatics to close range, and then use his speed and strength to decimate opponents in the order of how well they can fight at long-range.

P. has demonstrated a vulnerability to long-range attack. Unfortunately, this only tends to piss him off, not neutralize him. I've theorized a set of possible attack approaches that could conceivably neutralize him long enough to escape, but keep in mind that most attack patterns will only work against him one time – and if he has enough backup, using this will not be possible.

Long-range:

The key to dealing with P. at long-range is to utilize a combination of saturation fire and snipers. P. is very fast and agile, but heavy caliber rapid-fire from heavy machine guns will slow him and stagger him, setting him up for crippling sniper shots. The snipers should not bother trying to obtain kill-shots – target his joints, particularly hips, knees, and shoulders. This will ultimately slow his mobility and impede his acrobatic evasion.

P. will usually have Daughters equipped with sniper rifles, spotting drones, and missile barrage systems. The same suppressive fire used on P. should sweep their positions as well, and his Daughters are not capable of laughing off heavy Revenant fire the way he is.

Medium-range:

No matter how successful you are at engaging at long-range, he will begin closing range. P. rarely if ever uses weapons, but he has been recorded using thrown explosives many times. As he moves closer, he will employ flashbangs, smoke grenades, haptic drone lures, and other obfuscating tactics, while he moves from cover to cover.

The response should be a grenade barrage – Venom Shotguns will do. Deny him cover and utilize radiological grenade loads, as these seem to interfere with some of his augmentations. The point here is to inflict as much concussive and shrapnel damage as possible, while your long-range assailants should continue to suppress and harass him.

Ideally, you want him both angry and slowed by the time he hits your unit directly.

Short-range:

P. has a tendency to perform a turian-style spring and leap that aims to connect with a clawing backhand. This will – no exceptions – cripple or kill whatever it hits. Instead of mitigating that, take advantage of it.

Every unit expecting to engage P. should request a Flight-19 (augmented toughness) FCA clone agent with a kill-switch activated matter/antimatter mine in the chest cavity. Scatter your assault force in such a way that they won't be taken out by the mine, put the FCA in heavy combat armor with a melee weapon and let P. hit him.

The explosion will either kill P. or wreck him, allowing you to drop counter pursuit mines and move to evacuation. Either way, your best course of action at this point is definitely to break contact using whatever methods you have available.

Is this going to cost you some of your cell? Yes.

Is this going to result in a complete cell wipe if done incorrectly? Yes.

However, this is the only method by which you can guarantee some of your unit survives. And if you have gathered critical intelligence on P., your lives – your cell's lives – are to be given freely, for the Special Task you were entrusted with.

[SOLUTHUS: Well, now we know why the fool lost most of his force.]

[MATHAN: Additional analysis: The combat plan is workable, and probably effective – although, as he notes, it will most likely only work once. It does highlight the weak point of P.'s capabilities, namely his requirement for close-range. This is problematic since P. rarely bothers doing business in wide-open spaces or allows for units to do the set up needed to pull this off… which makes me wonder just how Vanas managed to pull this off.]

[SOLUTHUS: Sacrificial bait most likely. Although follow-up with the survivors of the team should be done once they are finished being retrofitted to ensure we grasp just how this all went down.]

Warning Advisory:

I've read enough STG files to know that most young agents roll their eyes at this section, muttering about old fools too scared to hit the target properly. I won't argue the point, as once you reach a certain rank, the reasons for such choices will be made clear to you.

What I will do is suggest you take these warnings very seriously. P. is not normal.

First, do not ever bother to engage P. without ensuring you recon his forces. P. delights in capturing STG agents and has developed certain electric-discharge devices that will short out and disable Protocol Nineteen ocular flashbang systems. If you find he has large numbers of forces in reserve, then your 'ambush' is actually a trap.

Second, remember your objective is to survive and escape. Killing P. accomplishes absolutely nothing. Killing his Daughters and support forces is much more useful and definitely more permanent, and has the advantage of making him angry and more likely to fall into a trap.

Finally, do not forget that engaging P. – at all – usually gains us nothing and loses us agents. If at all possible, disengage prior to him showing up. If the chance to flee without combat occurs, take it and scatter. You are not the ones who are going to solve this problem, and we don't have a fucking vine that magically produces credits and useful agents, so stop getting yourself killed.

Physical Abilities:

Anomalous in the extreme.

P.'s strength seems to vary, which may be based on drug enhancements but also how much damage he has taken. Peak examples include him overpowering a Final Line suit and pulling the limbs of a krogan off, while his average strength is more reasonable. That being said, most of his damage is from cutting impact power, and all of his moves are designed to use maximum torque and speed to increase said damage.

His speed is uniformly fast, much faster than even augmented cyborgs and matching that of Transcendental specialists. His agility and ability to connect with even wild attacks is also much higher than could be expected of an augmented person. On occasion, he has shown the ability to dodge or evade rocket fire and drone barrages, although hypersonic rounds will always connect.

P. has regenerative abilities that are nothing short of the realm of science fiction, including regenerating most of his skull after being hit with a high-explosive round, regenerating to full health after being flung into a vat of fluoroantimonic acid, and surviving a direct hit from an eezo whip. Presume anything but overwhelming damage will be healed in short order.

Curiously, the more damage he takes, the faster and stronger he seems to get – we have found multiple recordings of him heavily wounded and outnumbered and yet overwhelming his opposition with increasing power and agility. This means the source cannot be something conventional.

P.'s current incarnation stands two point two meters in height with a weight of over four hundred kilograms. This implies he is far denser than even fully converted cybernetic turians, raising another data point.

[SOLUTHUS: Additional analysis: There are several known theoretical devices that absorb and redirect kinetic energy – the Vayaus Framework, the remains of the Griannon rigs found on Xaxi 3 – could P. be utilizing something similar to explain how he gets faster and stronger?]

[MATHAN: Additional analysis: Full-response regenerating from such damage levels implies there is something else pushing said regeneration. Strongly recommend deploying multi-band scanning drones and attempting energy disruption devices when we next are forced into fighting him – if the regeneration could be disabled, perhaps we could capture him. No matter how strong he is, he won't survive or escape being tossed into a star.]

[SOLUTHUS: …You hope.]

Mental and Psychological Notes:

This section almost feels arrogant to write.

I will start with the little we do know. P. has demonstrated considerable intellectual capacity – he is a master-class hacker, shows extensive knowledge of demolitions and chemistry, has highly developed skills in tactical planning, economics, psychological warfare, and probably anatomy. Random dialogue from his shows has quotes from ancient salarian philosophers, cultural memes and ideals that range from the ancient to extremely recent, and a surprisingly good repertoire of various recipes for fish.

None of this gives any kind of insight into what goes on in his mind.

We know that he has used in public the following drugs:

-Variant C and D, standard turian combat drug package

-turian darksand, vakar's blood, and skyreach

-human cocaine and heroin

-asari red sand and dreamdance

-elcor hassith and rithe

-drell dreamweed, memory's bane, and activa

We know that he also uses several tailor-made cocktails of combat enhancers, nerve accelerators, and something that our analysis identified as uncultured basal stem cells mixed with coagulants and antibiotics.

The effect of all these different drugs, particularly rithe and skyreach, should be to kill anything that takes them. P. not only has no ill effects from them, but some (like red sand) should give him minor biotic abilities, but he never uses such.

We know that his self-proclaimed goals are to unpin the 'boring stale sanity' of the entire galaxy and usher in an era of 'shouting and dancing and ignoring the "is" for the "could be." '

Mentally, estimates of his intellectual level range from low to high genius, given that he speaks multiple languages and can master complex systems very quickly.

The delta in the swamp of all of this summation is of very little use. Mentally, P.'s intellect takes a backseat to his emotional and psychological responses. He does not seem to use (or like) logical deduction, and has a noted lack of interest or teams looking into how or why things happen or work. He reacts, he counterattacks, he initiates chaos, but he does not seem to be driving an agenda.

Psychologically, he is a brick wall. Not a single psychological model produced to date has even been close to what his actual actions have been, and most of them are so out of band with his resultant acts that they aren't even wrong, they're just completely invalid. It is akin to trying to measure the temperature of water by comparing it to fish scales.

[SOLUTHUS: I wonder if investigating him so heavily cost Vanas his own mental stability.]

P.'s psychological state seems to swing, as I noted above. In all cases, though, do not confuse focus for mercy. P. has murdered babies, tortured already injured civilians, committed randomized acts of terrorism for the sheer purpose of causing chaos, and has no discernible ethics, morals, or lines he won't cross.

Sometimes he wants to act through proxies, and his state is to embrace needless cruelty and savagery in his followers and their victims – rapes, arson, blowing up medical facilities, burning down hatcheries and nurseries, murdering civilians and creating gory totems – or worse, leaving them clinging to life with boobytraps to kill emergency respondents. In this state, P. usually directs his people from some distance – and encourages them to commit every possible debased and vile act they can.

P. has encouraged, among other sick atrocities :

-The mass rape and murder of turian younglings – less than six cycles old – by his Daughters. Many were physically violated in gruesome fashion, but more were mind-damaged and force-bonded by different Daughters which shattered their minds. Over nine hundred younglings were tortured to death and the remaining four hundred died within a year.

-Detonating food storage for an asari world already undergoing famine and drought due to a systems failure, and then poisoning the food with a very long duration cumulative heavy metal poison that caused eighty percent of the population to develop multiple cancers and blood disorders just when they managed to get their world back together again. He offered a 'cure' to the ailment for a staggeringly high cost and when it was paid, sent a chemical formula that purged the metals from their bodies but also caused extreme emotional distress and tended to drive people using the cure into psychopathic rampages. Total casualties exceeded six million.

-Sent Primarch Fedorian a coat made from the horribly mutilated and still clinging to life form of his youngest nephew. The nephew could not be rehabilitated and was mercy-killed, turian medical officials noted his bones had been soaked and dosed with enough radioactive byproducts that his remains could not be interred in the family vaults.

-Deliberately hacking into food processing stations and generating malformed levo prions in the foodstock for several turian regiments heading to suppress a Facinus uprising. The food killed over sixty thousand turians and sickened many of the survivors for life.

And so on, and so forth, a sick litany of horrifically monstrous crimes that could have no real point other than to demoralize and terrify.

Oddly enough, his other personality set is the opposite – a mocking, hatefully cheerful persona that delights in psychotic practical jokes, obscure memes, and tends to ignore noncombatants and weaker threats to personally attack a given target. P. in this mode always takes a direct hand in the operation, although he will have support from his Daughters and various bodyguards. Most of his activity in this mode is either incomprehensible and harmless, or damaging to one group to benefit another. Examples include:

-Stealing a series of cargo haulers with terraforming equipment from the asari and delivering it to Aria to help her terraform additional living space.

-Rerouting medical supplies from Noveria to Eden Prime in the aftermath of the attack there by Nazara.

-The brutal murder of singer Kana Sil on Palavan and removal of several organs, who were implanted into a terminally ill turian teenager on the outcast colony of Endstop.

-Hacking multiple alien servers to display wrong facts or concepts as part of an 'April Fools' joke, which is some kind of obscure human holiday.

-Flooding the Presidium with six point four million bouncy balls to 'spruce the place up and put smiles on frowns.' Cleanup cost eleven million credits and a large number of injuries from slips and falls.

P. in this mode is usually genial (if terrifying) to civilian bystanders – he has even once blocked a wild attack from a justicar trying to kill him from striking a young volus couple. In general, P. actions tend towards nonlethal activities, although this is certainly not always the case.

Can we derive anything useful from this? Well, not really. We know he's crazy, but we do not know the nature of such a thing – innate, drug-driven, something else? We don't know why he flips from omnicidal murderer to giggling clown trolling the graa-shit out of everyone.

If we could at least determine why he shifts from state to state, we could have a better idea of what kind of teams to deploy to blunt his objectives, not to mention that letting him do what he likes without interference is likely to end badly for all of us someday.

[MATHAN: Combines useless speculation with hilarious understatement of difficulty. Who promoted this miserable jiark to Master Agent?]

[SOLUTHUS: According to Central, the previous STG Master – the one who sold Tazzik and gave data to Thessial.]

[MATHTAN: Well, that lets us further know there's not much reason to do additional search and rescue. This one is probably a foot rug or book cover by now.]

Notable Allies:

Ha.

The only 'allies' that P. actually depends upon are his Daughters – his asari offspring. Each one is fanatically loyal to their father, often offering up their lives to him without hesitation. Each one is also a sexual partner for him, with some kind of disgusting ranking system among them based on how many children each has born for him to be molested further.

He does work with a number of figures, but to consider them allies would be a mistake – I can't think of anyone who would be upset if P. was to suddenly die and never reappear again.

[SOLUTHUS: Additional analysis: P. is the sponsor, owner or power behind over two dozen midsize corporations and has connections throughout the Terminus. While I agree that most people would like to see him gone, the fact remains that several groups – particularly Facinus – not only do regular business with him, but see him as a leadership figure.]

[MATHAN: Additional analysis: The only good the Lythari have done is absolutely refuse to work with this lunatic in any way after the mess in the Black Rim, and have actually sent us several hints or data drops of his operations in the Traverse.]

Political and Social Notes:

Again, this borders on high comedy.

P.'s politics are the pursuit of anarchy, chaos, memetic jokes, terror, suffering, and randomized acts of violence and death to derail, shatter, and eventually destroy organized civilization as a whole. Causes and the like are merely tools in his hands, used to drive wedges, hate, and distrust between vulnerable groups before he swoops in and commits atrocity.

P.'s tendency to kill his own junior operatives is well-known, and stems from the fact that P. is a complete paranoid who holds whatever his real objectives are close to his chest.

There is no real 'social' aspect to P. He only really interacts with a handful of his highest-ranking assistants and the ranks of the Daughters, most of which are obviously brainwashed. While he certainly has had some connections and personal interactions with various parties, every last one of them felt the only reason they were not killed was their use to P. – and in many cases, once that use expired, P. acted to kill them.

–STG – STG – STG–

Warnings:

The following advisories are considered mandatory reading.

Combat with P. should be avoided unless required for mission completion or evacuation.

This shouldn't require explanation or justification. If you honestly think you can beat P. with your fucking Aeogthr pistol, kindly remove your equipment and weapons and throw yourself into the nearest He-3 turbine. Maybe we can get more value out of your corpse as elemental helium than your clearly delusional beliefs.

The use of Citadel outlawed actions – FAE bombs, orbital bombardment, black nano deployment – are not allowed per the SIX and STG command.

If P. stayed dead, we could make a case for this. The humans have a very pithy saying: 'it is easier to request forgiveness than permission.' That being said, blowing him up in such a fashion won't kill him and then we have to explain to the Council why we just did something so utterly stupid.

[SOLUTHUS: Final summary points: I find Vanas to be a curious mix of bombastic, cowardly, unwise and shallow-thinking. It is frankly the kind of moron-mindset I would expect from rookie agents, not a twenty-two-year veteran of the Group.

That being said, some of his points, while eccentric, were certainly on point. His argument that escape and returning with datapoints was more important than fighting an unkillable psycho likely to turn you into a pair of boots is sound, as is his tactical assault setup. What is not excusable is his lack of applications of P. to use for our own benefit.]

[MATHAN: Final summary points: There is a good amount of solid thinking in the tactics and mental sections. The Master Agent did an acceptable job of inferring useful data and tying his history into his actions. Ultimately, however, I agree with SOLUTHUS: the subject is far too unstable to be allowed into messy and delicate situations until we temper such a response.]