IA IA disclaimer fhtagn!

Author's Note: In this chapter, an Asari gets technopathy and a ranged mind-rape attack, lots of Batarians die as collateral damage, A cyberwarfare AI invents its own version of Indoctrination, and one lucky Quarian brings home the best pilgrimage gift ever. (not necessarily in that order). Also a bit of codex, since someone was curious what the Grath were like. Let's just say that my aliens really are alien.

Grath
Strictly speaking, the Grath are 2 entirely separate species. The majority of the organism is best described as a variety of spider-crab with dextrous manipulators that is about about as smart as a chimp on its own. The other species is a fungus similar to the earth-originating Cordyceps mushroom, which digests and replaces the host's brain, bulging into a large fungal mass which protrudes from the top of the skull and looks like a mushroom cap. This 'mushroom cap' is durable and rubbery. The fungus retains sapience for up to 8 days after the death of its host which it does not hasten in any way normally, during which time it is releasing spores that infect any 'unclaimed' Hosts they come into contact with.

The Hosts are known to live for up to 87 years, maturing at 12. Hosts are egg-layers, which typically lay clutches of 8-13 eggs at a time. The Grath themselves can theoretically live forever if provided with nutrients, but cannot be inserted into another host (though a project to allow them to upload is going quite well). Worth noting is that Grath can spore at any time, and uninfected Hosts instinctively avoid Grath in the wild, necessitating a 'Host-farming' industry. In addition, the Host's reproductive organs are no longer functional under Grath control.

As a human succinctly put it "The Grath are kind of like one of those bad zombie movies, except the zombies get smarter instead of dumber."

Lorek (POV: Aminasa Lius, relatively newly captured Asari slave)

I woke up, as ready to start another horrible day of malnutrition, hard labor, and abuse if I didn't go faster than was physically possible in my sorry state as I could be. I didn't want to get out of bed, but not doing so would lead to a worse beating than usual, which I would rather avoid. As I hauled myself out of the cot I had been assigned 7 years ago I sighed. If I had time to ramp up my biotics I could kill all my captors with ease, but where would that get me? The answer was no-where. Firstly I would set off my bomb collar by doing that and wouldn't kill anyone without a great deal of luck or planning. Second, even if I did escape I would have no way to get off this planet and would eventually be gunned down.

Today the master (or, as I secretly thought of him, the Bastard) had gotten a new video game console, apparently produced by a newly-contacted alien race that had just shown up with a trade fleet over Khar'Shan. I had been tasked with bringing it into the living area, and was carrying what seemed to be a white box with a faintly glowing golden disc on the top. As I carried the box, I could have sworn I heard a faint "well, that's bizarre alien biology at its finest if you ask me." Managing to continue waking, I though 'back' at it "Huh?" I did not expect the received answer of "I'm the dedicated cyberwarfare intelligence inside this console, if anyone asks you're just hearing voices in your head. One of my functions is to interface with all wireless technology in range in an attempt to hijack the Extranet, apparently Asari nervous systems count as wireless-capable thanks to your melding ability."

Managing to get the console to the living room without showing any hint of my internal conversation was weird, but I managed it. As I set it down I asked one very important question namely "Will I still be able to talk with you when i set you down?" The answer I got was "Well, I'll definitely be able to talk to you, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to broadcast back to me at long distances. I'm a cyberwarfare AI designed to be able to do some pretty impressive things with any systems I can interface with, so I might be able to install a 'broadcast' program for your nervous system optimized to make your signals travel further but it will be a minimal improvement at best, maybe able to converse with me in the same room. If you want me to do that I'll need your permission".

I immediately sent back "Yes, please! By the way, can you hack the Bastard to be less abusive? If you make him behave too" In return I recieved "Done. And, sorry but I can't directly hack the Bastard, his species nervous system isn't set up for wireless like an Asari. I might be able to do something with subliminal messaging however." I sighed internally before setting the Console down, and flipping the mental 'on' switch the AI had installed in. my.. mind... SHIT!

=Timeskip: 2 months=

After getting over the realization that I'd basically given an AI permission to hack my brain, me and Console kept something of a professional relationship. I'd still taken every opportunity to converse with it that I could. After a few days Console put me in contact with a much more powerful AI named Bump. In the process I learned that Console had an FTL communicator of some sort built in. Bump had listened to my story, and had somehow arranged for this "ASB's" version of the Council to enforce their anti-slavery regulations on the Batarians. However it would take a while to get everything in position and they needed to do it all at once for best effect. Still, in the mean time Console had managed to use that subliminal messaging trick to psychologically guide the Bastard away from physically abusing me or the other slaves. It wasn't better, but it was a shipload better than it had been.

I'd also taken the time to try using my broadcast ability on things other than Console, and after a month and a half of trial and error had managed to establish a tenuous Extranet connection. I'd taken to trawling various forums for things to amuse myself during curfew, not to much success given that I was in the middle of the Hegemony.

According to Console, today was the day it all went down, and it'd taken the liberty along with the rest of its model to sneakily sabotage all the slave collars in the entire Hegemony. Still, I wasn't about to do anything out of the ordinary until the ASB arrived, primarily to avoid getting shot. It was at roughly hour 14 when Console informed me "The liberation fleet has exited warp in low orbit, all Hegemony Space Forces have been eliminated through the usage of Free Electron Lasers due to collateral damage risks related to usage of Warp Missiles near inhabited biospheres. Drop Ships are being deployed." And with that, I burst into action.

I quickly applied my biotics to the task of increasing my speed and charged up the stairs to the Bastard's room at about Mach 2, grabbing an antique lamp I didn't particularly care for on the way. As I approached the locked door, the lamp was subject to as much mass lightening as I could achieve and thrown. Given the physics of what I was doing the lamp hit like an anti-tank munition, easily removing the door from existence. I came to a halt in the Bastard's room, and initiated a meld from across the room with my broadcast ability. As I sorted through his mind I didn't even bother looking, just ripping apart every memory or thought I could find, using every cyber-warfare trick I'd managed to learn from Console.

By the time I was done with the Bastard, all that was left was an incoherent mess that would do nothing blubber and cry, at least between the extremely intense [epileptic seizures] that would occur every few hours. With that, I boosted my speed to about 5 kilometers per second, and went out to wreak some havoc. Leaping out the window, I saw the 350 meter long dropship hovering in midair over the city, deploying troops. Below me I saw a group of Batarian troops, and extended a tendril of lightness, getting to watch them die of thermal shock as I passed above them at just below escape velocity. And to think, this was just 30 milliseconds after I destroyed the Bastard. I landed briefly against the wall of a skyscraper, letting the plasma wave cause problems for someone, and using what seemed to me to be several seconds but was actually only a few milliseconds in all likelyhood, looked for another group of troops to smash. Spotting one, I grabbed a jagged pane of glass from the window I had shattered with my arrival and threw it at the group like a [frisbee], only to be pleasantly surprised when its silicate nature lead to it whipping right through their barriers without getting knocked aside. Continuing, I decided to try my hand at smashing a tank. now if only I could find one the ASB drop-ship hadn't lasered out of existence yet.

I finally managed to find one, settling on top of its turret. Slowly, I increased its mass lightening factor over about 15 seconds or so, before leaping away down the street as I released it. The tank blowing up was quite satisfactory. That was when I noticed the telltale streak of a Biotic at top speed slowly (speaking in subjective time) whizzing towards me. Not wanting to get hit, I deployed one of the techniques I'd been taught to keep enemy biotics from messing with your mass and dodged to the side. As the Batarian came to a stop, I wasn't quite sure what to do, after all despite my success I hadn't been trained for biotic on Biotic combat while this person obviously was. I needed to blindside him with something he wasn't ready for and couldn't possibly see coming.

I broadcast melded once more. If I'd thought the Bastard's mind was disgusting, then this Batarian's was an affront to all sapient life. I commenced with ripping his mind apart immediately. Then I realized that he could be useful to me, and instead of totally destroying him, subverted him to my will. Now the 'good guys' had 2 biotics and the slavers had zero. It was then that I noticed ex-slaves being packed into shuttles ready to lift off. Looking around I also realized that a lot of the city had apparently been lasered into submission. Looks like it's time to leave. Before performing a biotic leap into the hangar of the dropship, I exploded the head of my thrall, as otherwise I'd be performing an even worse act of slavery than these Batarians. And with that I left.

It was then I realized that the ASB had done more for me then the Citadel Council ever had. As far as I was concerned, the Council could go hang.

Seraph (location) (POV: Meeno'Yolas nar Yizzor)

I was excited as the ship I was on went through its cooling cycle over Seraph. I had been on the Citadel when the ASB had been contacted, trying and failing to get a job fixing stuff. Through diligence I had managed to obtain a ticket on the first commercial liner into ASB space, which was in extremely high demand. No matter what happened, I couldn't allow the Council to paint our species as worthless scavengers to them. If that happened, there might never be a chance to fix my specie's lot in life ever again.

Docking with one of Seraph's many orbital elevators, I immediately informed them of my biological needs (they had fabricators that could synthesize biomass out of raw chemicals, they could likely make something for me) and asked to be put in touch with someone higher up the command chain.

When I was asked as to why I replied with "Because as I'm the first member of my species to come in contact with you, I effectively count as an ambassador until further notice." At this point the Grath I was talking to said "you know the entire planet is sapient, or close enough to it anyway, right? You can just go ask one of Seraph's avatars for some time and she'll likely talk to you."

I considered this all as I rode the orbital elevator to Seraph's surface.

=Timeskip: 13 hours=

As I stepped out of the ground station of the orbivator, I immediately started looking around the city I was in (named Impact for the crater it was built in) for a place I could stand without someone looking at me, I wanted to have this conversation in private after all. Eventually I managed to find a back alley, and marveled at how clean it was. I figured it made sense given that the entire city was probably self-cleaning. The alley reached a T, which I went left at.

I was not expecting to see what appeared to be a winged human woman lying on a couch with a recliner across the alley from me. As I turned into the alley she looked straight at me and gestured at the recliner. I obliged, and sat. She spoke first, saying "So, I'm Seraph, though this is just one of millions of bodies of differing specifications. Normally I use this one for when I want to make official statements or something. Any ways, I looked at the customs reports when I heard there was a Quarian wanting to speak with me, so I already know your name's Meeno. Oh, by the way I've got a nanoswarm up in this alley that's killing any microbes that could possibly harm you, meaning you can take that suit off if you like."

I took my opportunity to speak "I'm curious as to how you figured I would be in this alley when I didn't even know it existed 5 minutes ago. Enough small talk though, I'm here to ask how I can acquire aid for the Quarian species." Seraph caught a fruit that fell from the air (probably dropped by one of her other bodies) and took a bite before replying "Well, for the first bit I figured you'd want to have the conversation in private, noticed you were smart enough to realize I have surveillance literally everywhere here, and then I just picked an alley and gave you a few gentle nudges in the right direction with subliminal messaging." I [nod-equivalent affimative gesture], and Seraph continued "As for getting you aid, the simplest way would be for the Quarian people to join the ASB, we take care of our own after all, but if I'm correct there would be significant objections on the Quarian end due to bad experiences with AI." I [nod-equivalent affimative gesture] once more.

"There's another thing I could arrange however, and I think you'll like it. Oh also, I'm saving you the effort of talking by reading what you're thinking of saying when you subvocalize it. Anyway my offer is to give you a few big collapsible factory ships, along with plans for proton-proton fusion and an old but serviceable mark of Warp Drive, maybe WormComms too. So, are you up for it?" I promptly said "YES!" before Seraph nodded and ended the conversation with "Certainly, I'll even throw in educational media on the physics behind everything I give you guys. Everything will still take a couple weeks to set up, so enjoy your stay on me in the mean time. Oh, I'll also arrange lodging and compatible food for you in the mean time."