Emony
Most of the galaxy knew who she was, and among the ranks of the N7s she'd become a bit of a legend. Not that she'd ever asked for legend status, but the PR after the battle for the Citadel had been extensive. Yet these people did not know who she was? Well, no harm in stating some very publicly known facts "We met back on the Citadel a couple of years ago when I was chasing down Saren." She remembered it clearly - as she was heading to the council chambers to present the evidence from Eden Prime, she'd run into him as he argued with Executor Palin. Kaidan and Ashley had been with her, and were awestruck by the place. The Citadel, back then, was a beautiful, peaceful sight. It was just a few short months later that she'd fought geth on those very stairs with Kaidan and Garrus by her side, as she'd made her way to prevent Saren from executing Sovereign's plan to bring back the Reapers.
She continued "then after the attack on the Citadel, we eventually went our separate ways... " she decided to leave out the part about being dead "... and I ran into him again on Omega a few months ago." As she paused, the other three all said "Archangel". She half chuckled, "we're beginning to sound like a chorus" the man spoke up, "yeah, this is definitely not your average Prothean experience".
Emony looked around at the other three faces, noting that there was little in common between them physically. Three women, one man, but all seem to be connected. N7, Prothean spheres, and they all knew Garrus. And they knew he had gone by the name of Archangel while on Omega. "Okay, what is this? Some Prothean projection of aspects of my personality, somehow projected into this space here with me? Though I wouldn't ever wear a Kestrel torso - they're too uncomfortable around the chest..." she paused and rubbed her neck briefly before continuing, "... or you're all here from some sort of alternative... place. Based on what we know, these spheres normally store information, but a sphere of this size could do stuff with brains that is beyond my knowledge." she held up her hands, "I specialized in biotic combat at ICT, Vanguard division, so I don't have any tech skills to speak of." The man chimed in "I'm a biotic specialist, so nothing here on the tech side." The other two women held up their hands, the one in black spoke first.
Andrea
"I'm a biotic too, but I did tech training at ICT, Sentinel division." Andrea smiled, "but that doesn't make me a Prothean expert. It also seems that my Omni-tool is completely useless here, so beyond what we see here, I'm not much help." The woman in white spoke up, "I have zero biotic ability, I'm an infiltration specialist. My 'tool's dead too, but doing some guess work, I'd say either she's right with the whole brain hallucination stuff or this is some sort of parallel universe, where we're all similar people, similar experiences, but obviously not the same person. Does that make sense?"
Andrea chuckled, "heck a parallel universe would be a blessing right now, reckon there are any that don't have Reapers in them?" 'White had to smile at that thought. "I think we all want one of those... but we don't have a choice. Am I right?" and they all nodded.
A parallel universe - would explain why Garrus had never mentioned knowing other N7s who'd interacted with Prothean devices. In theory, something like this was possible, but to actually bridge realities like this was a complete unknown. From the small amount of galactic science theory she'd studied (and from many drunken nights debating life, the universe and everything while she was at the Alliance Academy) she figured that the parallel universe theory went along the lines that with every choice you make, there would be a fork. Yeah, there were other discussions about chaos and butterflies and stuff, but she'd narrowed it down to forks. Do I have another drink or not? Do I shoot that guy or throw him out the window? Do I put up with the accusations of some dumbass reporter, or do I just punch her? Do I date the cute guy with the dark hair or the pretty asari? Or do neither, damn them, she'd had enough on her plate back then to deal with without romantic competition for her affection on her crew!
Andrea wasn't the sort to date - she'd flirt, oh yes, and she'd string 'em along, but guys would just run out of interesting before anything got anywhere. She'd got sick of attention back in the academy, and after Torfan, most guys had been too intimidated by her to ever try their luck. It was only after years of fighting side-by-side with Garrus that she found herself flirting with him one day and, to her amazement, he'd seemed to enjoy it. After that little revelation, his awkward expressions of affection had caused her a lot of joy, and their mutual trust and admiration had made for a very comfortable and natural deepening to their friendship.
She'd made a decision, then, to bring down her shields and relax a little around him, and for the first time in her life in many years, she was truly happy. She'd bonded with her crew all the more after that experience, finding that there was a genuine affection that had developed between them all, which was insane considering their different backgrounds. And, with hindsight, she'd realized what she had lost from the old SR-1. She'd closed them all out back then, stayed alone, as she always had.
All of the decisions she'd made in her life to this point defined who she was. To see three other people here with some common experiences, but such obvious differences, was fascinating.
Kate
Kate weighed up the options in her mind, her infiltration training took over - the shot was lined up, take the shot: "This seems to be the closest thing to a parallel reality to me, though I'm no scientist..." she started to get a little more buzzed "... I mean, we all have similar backgrounds and all know Garrus. Hey, any of you guys called Shepard?" she asked, but not quite expecting the result, she found her jaw dropped as they all responded "yep". "What, all of you? Ok, we can't possibly have the same first names too - I'm Kate" and she pointed to the man on her left, who responded "Alan". He pointed to 'red on his left, "Emony" and that left 'black to respond with "Andrea".
Different first names - but hey, different genders, hair color, specialist skills, choice in armor... same but different. Mix up the dna of two people and you'll get a wide variety of potential offspring. Male or female was just one possibility, but there was always the chance of recessive genes making an entrance, where two blonde parents could have a red haired child. Subsequent children could have completely different physical traits, going back down the line, so no two could have the same makeup. That meant that these realities must have forked at some point before Shepard was born. And biotic ability tended to arise mostly from Eezo exposure in the womb, so the fact that she had no biotic abilities compared to the others was not a surprise. She wondered what the child of a biotic and a non-biotic would be like - could biotic mutations be passed on? Would they be? Maybe one day she should ask Kaidan... after punching him for Horizon. She shook that thought firmly out of her mind and pulled herself back to the present.
Kate would have loved to have the team here to figure this one out. She'd always leaned on her team for their advice and analysis, so to be without them was disconcerting. While Kate had no trouble forming opinions and taking action quickly, she just preferred to get those opinions in before she took action where possible. Without that feedback, here, she was left with her own instincts. Reload, line up the next shot, take it.
"If this is a meeting of parallel realities, then our existence, differences, and so on, come from forks in the timeline. One change here, one change there, a new fork - a whole universe emerges." Kate paused to consider her history, her most recent potential forks. Reload. "A simple example - I could have chosen not to touch the Prothean sphere. Or, here's another one - I just blew up a Collector base. I could have saved the base for analysis, I had the choice. I had to choose, and I had just moments to make that choice."
Kate had been balanced precariously on the hovering platforms, Kasumi and Miranda by her side, all three had fought through waves of husks and collectors to get this far. And now to be confronted by a human reaper, the three humans faced it squarely, none of them flinching from their task to destroy the creature that had been grown from the processed remains of human colonists. Human DNA, twisted, combined with synthetics, mutated into a grotesque creature that had towered above them. If the Reapers wanted to instil fear into the humans of the galaxy, this was most certainly one way to do it.
So when the Illusive Man had broken through to talk to them on the comm channels, Kate was filled with bile at the thought of keeping such a monstrosity intact. She'd see one of the Horizon colonists "processed" infront of her eyes, the horrified screams of terror as her skin had melted from her face. Processed - Dr Chakwas had used that term - moments later and she would have been melted down too. How dare he even contemplate keeping that thing intact!
Of course, after she'd got back to the Normandy, she'd thought about it some more. He did have a point - damn him, he always did - such a creature would make for fascinating study for sure, but not at this cost. Not this time, not on her watch. She didn't doubt her decision to destroy it, and she would have made that decision again.
Andrea
"Ok that's a fair assessment of the situation - and I get what you mean on the forks... I had that same choice a couple of weeks ago. I decided to keep that ship intact, despite the horrific things that had happened... the Reapers will commit far worse atrocities on this galaxy and we need all the assets we can get to understand what they're capable of. That said, I would rather find a way to get it out of the hands of Cerberus, he may have funded my resurrection, but I do not trust the Illusive Man. I cut him off soon as I got back to the ship, had EDI block all lines of communication." she paused before continuing - still cautious, still not fully trusting the people who appeared in front of her.
Mistrust had been her entire way of life as a kid. Growing up rough on the streets gave her no choice, it was kill or be killed, take what you needed to survive or die. She let her guard down a couple of times as a kid - it hadn't ended well. And while she left that behind her when she found her way into the Alliance, it would never leave her.
"When it comes to the future of galaxy, I can't afford to be picky." She realized she was shouting again - Garrus had tried to encourage her to quell that instinct. Be more stealthy, infiltrate the conversation, don't overload it! Easy enough for him to say, with his ruthless Turian upbringing instilling a lot of control into everything he did. The only time she'd seen him truly lose it was when they went to apprehend Sidonis. You don't want to be on the dark side of Garrus Vakarian. But to Andrea, this made her feel safe. This was a man who would do anything to protect the ones he cared about, and would go to any length to keep them safe. Or avenge them, if things went bad.
She took a deep breath. "So, that's one potential fork, and we both chose opposite paths - did you two save the base?" she looked at Emony and Alan who shared a glance - "No" in unison. There was an awkward pause. "Oh." said Andrea. "So, er... how'd that work out for you then?".