Mass Effect : Shepard 's Letters
Chapter Two – King's Gambit.
Silean Nebula, Normandy SR-2
Six days before the Strike against Cerberus
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"What do you mean I can talk to the Geth in person? In a manner of speaking, I guess?"
"Geth are pure mathematical beings, Shepard, their needs about actual hardware are like the pre-requisites of an organic concerning life-supportive environments. They can travel through the comm buoy's frequency bands or probably by QEC indifferently. Even after the Reaper upgrades offered by Legion, any apparatus with enough processing power could lodge some of them. Like your personal terminal maybe."
The Spectre makes a note to himself to remind telling EDI to not to sound too condescending while explaining him something. Not a habit to let grow as she was increasingly showing emotional-like responses…
"I understand that. They can travel at light speed between a platform and other, communicate same way and even fit inside a quarian suit, Tali told me" (Not a chance about that, obviously).
"Those suits need specific upgrades for this "fit" to occur, but it's correct, Shepard. Some of your armor sets could do the same, like the Blood Dragon"
"Well…I will stick with the message idea, EDI…It's interesting info, but have Geth processes installing themselves around here is too close and personal for my tastes right now. But it is good to know it's possible… I wonder…"
"Yes, Shepard?"
"Oh? Nothing, EDI. Just thinking that after years winging missions as disastrous as they come, it would be a good change being able to think some things ahead and see them work."
"It's a good thing for you too, Shepard"
"Meaning?"- He raises a brow.
"That you can in fact learn from experience."
"EDI…let's talk later about something called condescendence…"
Days Later: Battle for Earth
Sol System, Normandy SR-2, at the Bridge:
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"Jeff! There's a QEC communication request from Citadel's external surface. It's Shepard!"
"Patch it through now, EDI!" "NOT IN YOUR LIFE MUTHERFUCKER!"- The pilot cries making the ship cut between the Reaper Dreadnaughts discharges like light on quicksilver.
"PATCH IT TO ALL"- A flanging and pained voice erupts from the comm at med bay.
"GARRUS, LAY DOWN NOW"- Dr Chakwas could frantically be heard in the background.
"PATCH IT, EDI! HE'S THERE ALONE NOW. I SHOULD BE THERE! Any of us should be… Tali is in still in shock! She… We all have to listen, patch it! And to Hackett private link too…"
"Acknowleged"
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At the Citadel surface, facing the Catalyst:
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"YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!"
"YOUR CHILDISH OUTBURSTS ARE MEANINGLESS; OUR REASONS ARE ABOVE YOUR LIMITED UNDERSTANDING…"
Shepard let the thing ramble on. He was shaking, from cold, from too much blood loss, from hate like he never felt before… He barely kept hold on his Carniflex, an old gift from Mordin, as it was trembling against his leg. Allied ships bursting in flames and hurling debris like fireworks against the mass effect shield above him, the looming shadow of Harbinger making little work out from the United Fleet. But, struggling violently just not to pass out, all that Commander Shepard could see was that hideous joke in front of him…
The Creator of the Reapers and of the Harvest Cycles, that damned AI unleashed by the Leviathan race millennia ago, took that specific form to speak to him. The human kid, the one he couldn't save back on Earth and that had haunted his sleep with despair and guilt since then. The thing chose it just as another slap on his face, to show how much and for how long they had messed with his mind already? Maybe to shaken him up even more? To make him slip, fail at the last moment? We'll see it then…
"If just this QEC link Legion installed in the armor is still working"- Shepard prayed to any God for it still be functioning, Garrus's Spirits, Tali's Ancestors, his own childhood beliefs and even Thane's pragmatical Pantheon. He could not be alone now, he couldn't… How to choose over the life of millions, how to suppress a race instead of another? How to choose to kill friends or to impose the Reaper changes on every sentient being in the Galaxy?...
"…Why to bend to this fucker's demands at all?"
"Listen carefully!"-pause and pray."Listen carefully!" "So it's Destroy, Control or Synthesis, and that's it?"
"A CHOICE MUST BE MADE, YOUR ALLIES PERISH IN YOUR HESITATION AND WEAKNESS"
"DON'T SHIT ME WITH THAT YOU ASSHOLE! LISTEN…"
Normandy SR-2, at bridge:
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"What's Shepard doing?"
Jeff "Joker" Moreau was desperate for many reasons. He blurs his fingers over his haptic consoles, fighting against ludicrously superior firepower to keep "HIS" Normandy at all costs. He lost one already, and in his stupidity (he says this still to himself) almost made the Galaxy lose the man who was negotiating a way out of Universal Extinction with a Eldritch-machine at the WRONG side of a giant space station's hull! He could not retreat on his Commander, never! He owed him too much! But Normandy's Thanix Cannons shots weren't hitting true against the Reapers's over strong kinetic shields and it was a matter of time before just one attack from those dreadnoughts went burning through the armor like butter! He couldn't hold this close to the Citadel and to Harbinger any longer!
"And what the fuck was that about ending all Reaper Tech Based Synthetic Life?" That meant EDI…
"EDI!? EDI? What are you doing? I need your help here!" He shouts seeing her controls being released to him.
"Jeff… I'm dedicating all manageable processing power from now on at a Shepard's request. Sorry for making you assume all the work."
"No problems here! Just my super pilot skills up to save the day again..."-He hesitates, turns and see her still facing him. "What did he ask? He is just tongue lashing down Cthulhu down there!"
"Jeff… Lately I realized that I value the time I've operated alongside you more than the continuity of my functionality… I regret not to have stated this to you before now."
"What you're saying? What are you doing?"
"Answer: "Listening Carefully"- And after this, EDI closes her eyes, bows her head and speaks no longer…
Geth Consensus, simultaneously at the ships at Sol System and on several hubs behind the Perseus's Veil:
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The Geth accepts a QEC transmission from the Normandy's consensus.
The lone AI who operates that craft urges for exchange of data. Geth don't experiment surprise or fear but the attention of hundreds of thousands of connected synthetic intelligences along the Galaxy becomes focused on the little data burst EDI-AI shares at light speed, not favoring the inefficient method of coded sound exchange for once this time…
The Geth have no time for a full consensus. More data is urgently necessary. In nanoseconds, the risk to some processes is deemed valid in order to achieve it and they promptly "jump" through the QEC connection. The only species known in this cycle to really be able to teletransporte themselves by quantic means.
As they are translated back to existence, they acknowledge from their new position the sounds Shepard-Commander makes taping rhythmically his side arm at his thigh, and recognize the old Earth's telecommunications code, as stated by EDI-AI.
Morse Code.
"G-E-T-H" "Q-E-C"...Again and again.
Process GBLN36322952 makes a short "Geth sound". The Spectre's change in breathing and pulse indicate acknowledgment. The armor and Shepard-Commander's biological systems are damaged to the point of imminent collapse. Other processes start simulating the failing functions, releasing medi-gel and struggling to reestablish shields. Most of them hack and simultaneously upgrade the omnitool into higher functioning. Senses to the physical plane open as organic eyes would as they manage to scan the environment around and the enemy under their location. The hologram of a human child is of no consequence. The gargantuan machinery they barely had a first impression by their present reduced means was the Geth's real adversary…
What one Geth knows, all Geth know. The Gestalt Composite "Legion" was no more. But its memories and personality's parameters were common to all Geth now. A "role model" for a whole synthetic race. The Geth Consensus, present there and throughout the entire battlefield and beyond the Sol system, acknowledged that human. He could have chosen to end this already; saving his species and many others, at the expense of the Geth…The Geth themselves could accept this as the logical thing to do with less danger for most lives. And the trust between organics and Geth was still a new factor, at least for the slow emotion-biased organic minds. However, Shepard-Commander still opted for giving the Geth a fighting chance against non-existence, again.
The Geth Consensus doesn't acknowledge emotional responses of their own, and however their comprehension of the organic reactions grows steadily, this human still confuses them. As the Geth gathered data and strength at maximum haste, they started considering themselves, at any outcome, however…honored for fighting beside this…friend?