Disclaimer: I don't own Crysis or Mass Effect.
A/N: Thanks as always to DN7 who Beta's NE.
Upon boarding the Normandy, I soon found myself sitting down in the briefing room with Shepard standing to my left while Kaidan sat down on my right with Ashley to his right. Garrus sat opposite me with Tali and Liara sitting beside him and Wrex took the last seat next to Liara for himself. When everyone was seated, or in Shepard's case standing, Joker's voice came over the PA. "Too close, Commander. Ten more seconds and we would've been swimming in molten sulfur. The Normandy isn't equipped to land in exploding volcanoes. They tend to fry our sensors and melt our hull. Just for future reference." Joker finished causing me to smirk beneath my mask.
"We almost died out there and your pilot is making jokes?" Liara asked disbelieving.
"That's Joker for you." Shepard said still smiling, "It eases the tension."
"Not to mention absolutely true." I said "The Normandy isn't equipped to land in anything above a Class II Heat Hazard."
"I see. It must be a human thing. I don't have a lot of experience with your species, Commander." Liara responded. "But I am grateful to you. You saved my life back there. And not just from the volcano. Those geth would have killed me. Or dragged me off to Saren."
"What did Saren want with you? Do you know something about the Conduit?" Kaidan asked.
"Only that it was somehow connected to the Prothean extinction. That in my real area of expertise. I have spent the past 50 years trying to figure out what happened to them." She responded.
"Did your research turn up anything interesting?" Shepard asked.
"What is interesting is what I didn't turn up. There is remarkably little archeological evidence of the Protheans. And even less that might explain why they disappeared." Liara said.
"So someone came along and wiped the galaxy of clues. Especially that of their disappearance." I mused.
"Indeed. But here is the incredible part. According to my findings, the Protheans were not the first galactic civilization to mysteriously vanish. This cycle began long before them." Liara continued.
"What cycle? What are you talking about?" Shepard asked.
"The galaxy is built on a cycle of extinction. Every time a great civilization rises up, it is suddenly and violently cast down. Only ruins survive." Liara responded.
"So the Protheans created their massive empires by climbing on top of the ones who came before?" I asked.
"Yes. Their greatest achievements- the Mass Relays and the Citadel- are based on the technology of those who came before them. And then, like all other races, they vanished. I have dedicated my life to finding out why." Liara said.
"They were wiped out by a race of sentient machines. The Reapers." Shepard cut in.
"The- The Reapers? But I have never heard of- How do you know this? What evidence do you have?" Liara demanded.
"There was a damaged Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. It burned a vision into my brain. I'm still trying to sort out what it all means." Shepard responded.
"Visions? Yes that makes sense. The beacons were designed to transmit imformation directly into the mind. Finding one that works is extremely rare. No wonder the geth attacked Eden Prime. The chance to acquire a working beacon, even a badly damaged one, is worth almost any risk." Liara said.
"Yet while the beacons transmit information directly into the brain, the beacon was designed to work with a Prothean mind, which would be the cause for it being unclear." I informed Liara.
"I am amazed you were able to make sense of it at all. A lesser mind would have been utterly destroyed by the process. You must be remarkably strong willed Commander." Liara said admiringly.
"This isn't helping us find Saren. Or the Conduit." Kaidan cut in abruptly.
"Find them? No. But think about the possibilities the beacons technology represent." I stated matter of factly.
"Thinking of turning me into a science project Wraith?" Shepard quipped before moving on. "As it is, I don't know why Saren wanted you out of the picture. But I think we'll be a lot better off if we bring you along."
"Thank you Commander. Saren might come after me again, and I believe that I will be safest here on your ship. And my knowledge might become useful later on." Liara said gratefully getting up.
"And her biotics will come in handy when the fighting starts." Wrex commented from his seat.
"Indeed. They might even be useful in figuring out how my suit interacts with biotics." I commented.
Shepard smiled, "Good to have you on the team Liara."
"Thank you, Commander I am very grateful- oh" Liara broke of swaying slightly. "I am afraid I am feeling a bit light headed."
"When was the last time you ate? Or slept? Dr. Chakwas should take a look at you." Kaidan said concerned.
"It is probably just some exhaustion and shock of discovering the Prothean true fate. I need some time to process all of this. Still it would not hurt to be looked over by a medical professional. Are we finished here Commander?" Liara asked.
"Go see the doctor. The rest of you... Dismissed!" Shepard ordered.
"Mission reports are filed Commander." Joker called in as every one stood up. "You want me to patch you through to the Council?"
"Patch 'em through Joker" Shepard answered as I left. I headed down the stairs before walking towards my office. Entering the office I looked around before sitting down at my computer. "SECOND... Lock and secure the room. If it's Shepard, tell me." I said.
"Room secured."
With the bug scrambler active I opened a secure channel to Derek, the head of CryTech.
"Martin! What can I do for you?" He asked cheerily.
"Two things, Derek. Firstly, I wanted to ask what happened to the beacon on Eden Prime? Was it recovered?"
"Yes. We are working with the Alliance and the Council to study it and unlock anything else we can from it. The overload was a near perfect self destruct. CRYSTAL is working on recovering the data while the rest of the science team is working to figure out how the damn thing actually works." Derek answered.
"Good. You're ahead of me there because I have reason to believe it may be the key to true brain-machine interfacing technology." I said relieved.
"Yup. We're getting all kinds of data from it. What's the second thing?"
"Well there was this incident on Therum. . ." I explained exactly what happened when I was hit with Shepard's warp and the suit's reaction.
"What? I. . . That's. . . You've got to get that data over here ASAP!" Derek uttered. "That is amazing. It was only theoretical but now the possibilities..."
"I know. I'm going to try and convince Shepard to make a little detour to the Prism, since I also need to get my suit repaired. Which reminds me, we're also going to need to outfit the squad with GHOST armor. It will prevent incidents like that from happening and will give them a greater edge against our enemies." I said.
"Right. Outfit the squad. So you will be needing what? Two female and one male human sets, one male turian, one female quarian, one male krogan and one asari right?" He asked, looking past me, presumably at a screen on his end. At my nod he continued "Alright I can get their specs and have them be ready for pickup probably by the time you get here. Anything else? Or can I get the armors ready?"
"Nothing more on my end. Hopefully I'll see you soon. Duncan, out." I finished closing the comm channel. I started mentally going over the mission and not even a minute later, Shepard walked through the door into my office. "Hey Shepard," I greeted. "Take a seat." I gestured toward the chair in front of my desk.
I waited until she took her seat before continuing. "So, Liara T'soni. She seems pretty trustworthy, Although I do find it strange that the geth were trying to kill her. I would have thought that Benezia would have tried to have her captured instead of killed."
Shepard snorted. "Hah. The Council said something similar, although they weren't sure if we could trust her."
"Yes, well if you are wearing a suit that can tell a white lie as clearly as night and day you tend to be able to quickly know if you can trust someone or not." I said.
"Speaking of your nanosuit. Do we have to make a stop somewhere? Because it looks like you're suit is missing something." She said, gesturing at my chest where the Coltan-Titanium was missing.
"Yeah. I have to get the Coltan-Titanium replaced. Which brings me to another thing, think we could make a detour? I put in an order for some GHOST armor for the squad to give us a bigger advantage and hopefully prevent something like this-" I nodded down at my chest "-from happening again."
"GHOST armor? Hold on. Doesn't that cost a fortune?" Shepard asked, her face scrunched up quizzically.
"Normally yes, it would cost a fortune. But these are on the house so to speak. Free of charge. After all, CryNet is committed to the safety of the galaxy and Saren is a threat to the galaxy after all."
"Sure. We don't have any more leads on Saren at the moment and I was going to do some smaller missions I picked up-"
"Hold on Shepard. Remember what I told you? Send those missions to me. Let CryNet take care of them, it will let us concentrate on Saren and this detour would definitely help against Saren." I interrupted her.
"CryNet doesn't have to do all my work you know." Shepard said slightly irritated.
"CryNet won't be doing all your work Shepard. But you know as much as I do that we have to be at the top of our game in order to effectively fight Saren." I explained.
"Doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't like others doing my work." Shepard grumbled before sighing "Alright. So where is this detour going to take us?"
I smirked. "To the Prism. Home to CryNet headquarters and the CryNet Training and Proving Grounds."
Twelve hours later
After multiple relay jumps and a lengthy period flying at FTL the Normandy finally arrived at the Prism. I was standing behind Joker in the cockpit with the rest of the ground team standing near the windows, all interested in seeing the Prism for the first time. Joker began counting down until we would drop out of FTL "Decelerating in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..."
"Welcome, to the Prism." I stated gesturing towards the space station infront of the Normandy. The Prism , shaped like a large spinning top, is a massive station by most standards being four kilometers wide at its middle and five kilometers from end to end.
The entire squad exited the Normandy with me and as we did we were confronted by a group of four Inquisitors and five Phantoms. The four inquisitors were lined up on our left while four of the five Phantoms were on our right. The fifth phantom was standing directly in front of us, arms clasped behind his back.
"Wraith! Its good to see you." The Phantom standing directly in front of us spoke up, his heavy bass of a voice clearly distinguishing his identity.
"Prophet! How's it going?" I asked, walking forward and shaking Prophet's hand.
"Pretty good. Been spending time in Valhalla teaching those recruits how to fight like a Raptor." Prophet told me.
"Fighting like a Raptor eh? So no subtlety at all." I grinned. "Anyway, I should introduce everyone. So, I'm sure you guys recognize Commander Shepard, first human Spectre yadda yadda yadda. Then Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, both Alliance marines. Garrus Vakarian, ex C-Sec officer, bounty hunter Urdnot Wrex, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya our resident quarian and Liara T'Soni, our Prothean expert."
"So you abandoned you team for a Spectre eh Wraith?" Prophet asked me.
"Hell yes. Bigger explosions, Nova would love it." I chuckled. "Let me introduce you guys before Shepard here decides to drill a hole through the back of my head due to lack of courtesy." I looked back to see her reaction, which mainly consisted of her rolling her eyes followed by a stern glare.
"Normandy team, these gentlemen are Phantom team Raptor and Inquisitor team 545. Raptor team is one of the oldest Phantom teams and is the best at assaulting armored positions. Little known fact is that the original idea for the Inquisitors GHOST armor was inspired from seeing Raptor team in action."
"We only do the mission to the best of our abilities sir." One of the Raptors, Nomad, said.
"And you fulfill that duty well Nomad. Nomad is Raptor teams second in command while Prophet here is its CO. Then there's Psycho, assault specialist, Jester, Raptor's demolitionist, and Aztec its sniper." I said introducing all the Phantoms.
"As for 545 here, they are some of the few Inquisitors who aren't delegated to local enforcement all of the time, instead they act in a similar fashion to the Phantoms, minus the subtlety, something that Raptor team actually lacks." I glanced over at the Phantoms in question.
"What?" Psycho asked throwing his arms out, his heavy British accent audible even through the nanosuit's voice modulator. "If you want subtlety send in Serpent. Those girls will destroy an entire base without the guards even knowing that they're dead."
"That is true. Now then, for 545 there's Stratosphere there, he's the human with the red highlights." I said nodding over to to Stratosphere.
"Then Beserker is the one next to him with the orange highlights. If you've heard of the old Norse beserkers, you'll know what he's capable of." I said nodding at him.
"A beserker? I haven't read much of human history and can't say I've heard of them before." Liara spoke up.
"Beserkers were old Norse warriors that are said to have fought in an uncontrollable, trance like rage, very similar to a krogan in a bloodrage." Shepard explained.
"And you had humans like that?" Garrus asked with a mix of shock and intrigue.
"Centuries ago, yes. It was way back before humans had developed gun powder for projectile weaponry." Shepard allowed.
"I imagine it would have been fun to fight one of them." Wrex said.
"You may have your chance with Beserker here." I told him.
"Bring it on!" Beserker thumped his chest.
"Heh. Anyway, the turian with the blue highlights is Praetor, pretty proficient with a sniper rifle and a biotic."
"I'll definitely be rooting for you Beserker, show that krogan who's boss." Praetor crossed his arms sizing up Wrex.
"Now now, no need to be fighting just yet people. I haven't introduced Surgeon yet." I admonished before continuing. "Surgeon is the drell with the green highlights. Surgeon is also a fairly good-."
"Very good sniper." Surgeon interrupted me.
"-You still can't beat me on a bad day Surgeon." I smirked "So until you do that you will stay a good sniper."
"One of these days Wraith." Surgeon retorted.
"Well, it's nice to meet all of you." Shepard finally broke in, bringing us to the reason why we were here. "But can we get on with this? I want to be able to go at any time."
"Right, if you will follow me, I'll take you to the armory." I said making my way out of the docking bay where the Normandy was docked towards the Armory. Shepard fell in on my right side while Prophet, Psycho and Nomad fell in on my left side. The rest of the squad mingled with the 545th and the rest of Raptor where they exchanged good natured banter.
"So Wraith, I noticed that your suit was damaged. Getting old eh?" Psycho asked me.
I laughed. "Nah. Just a little misunderstanding that ended up with me getting hit by one hell of a warp. By the way," I turned towards Shepard, "Did I ever say that your warp packs one hell of a punch?"
"No. I think you had other things on you're mind at the time." She said wryly.
"So a little misunderstanding led to you getting hit by Shepard's warp?" Prophet asked.
"So you cloaked and Shepard didn't know you were there resulting in friendly fire." Nomad deduced.
"Pretty much. So now I have to get the Coltan-Titanium replaced along with figure out what the suit is doing."
"The suit is doing what?" Psycho asked.
"Yeah, it appears to be trying to find a defense against biotics." I told him.
"Let me get this straight... You got hit by a warp, which caused some hefty damage to the suit and now its trying to figure out how to defend against it." Psycho said slowly. "Why didn't we try warping the suit before?"
"Good question." I muttered, glancing back at where Wrex was chuckling at something someone said. "Honestly the main reason is that we knew that biotics could be extremely damaging to the suit. So we have the simulator recreate the effect without it actually doing damage."
"Well, you certainly seem to have quite the setup here if you are able to replicate biotic attacks." Shepard said impressed.
"It is the most advanced training facility in the galaxy as of now." I stated.
"Oh? And how does it work?"
"It uses a combination of kinetic barriers, holographics, and precise mass effect field manipulation to create an environment and if necessary, hostiles to fight. But in order to correctly gauge various environmental effects on our weapons, as well as make it a safe environment in order to train with other people, we use specialized weapons that fire lasers. These lasers are caught by receptors in order to see where they hit. Then the-" I hesitated looking back at Tali before continuing in a low voice "The AI in charge of the training, CABAL, calculates the effects of gravity, air resistance, wind etc. along with the locations of the people in the simulator to accurately tell what you hit. The weapons are designed in such a way so that they behave exactly like the real weapon would.
Various abilities are recreated by the simulator to have accurate effects on targets without actually being the real abilities. Using biotics for example, the special amp that the wearer uses in the simulator only sends a signal to CABAL, informing it that the user wants to use a specific attack based on a library of various muscle mnemonics. CABAL will then create a holographic representation of the biotic and if it hits the target will have a similar effect as a real biotic attack would. The exception to this would be in the case of a warp or other biotic attack that deals actual damage to the target. Here CABAL will still create the holographic representation of the attack, yet when it hits the target it will not do anything except show that the target was hit by it. This will simulate an injury that will have to be addressed. Injuries simulated by CABAL will cause movement inhibitions. For instance if you get shot in the leg you won't be able to properly use that leg." I finished my lengthy explanation only to have Shepard ask another question.
"What about hand-to-hand combat? You seem to like hand-to-hand so you must have a way of sparring without hurting each other."
"We do indeed. Knives, daggers and other melee weapons are recreated in holographic and kinetic form giving us a representation of the weapon. The simulation will reduce the power behind each attack so that we can't actually harm each other, however we will still feel the impact to some degree. The same goes for fists and hands, the power behind them will be reduced, yet if for instance a hit would cause the target to go flying, the simulation will cause the target to go flying through the use of Mass Effect field manipulation."
Shepard looked impressed at the end of my explanation "Well, I can see why you say it's the most advanced training facility in the galaxy. It must be like being out in the field when you're in there."
"That it is. The Phantoms and Inquisitors spend as much of their time in Valhalla as they can." Prophet told her.
"Valhalla?" Shepard asked.
"Yeah, it's a nickname. The facilities full name is CryNet Training And Proving grounds, CNTAP for short, but the average person doesn't want to call it CNTAP. As such, most of us just call it Valhalla." Psycho explained.
"Very interesting. I'd love to see it in action sometime." Shepard said.
"Which you will. After you get suited up you are going in the simulator. You have to get used to the armor first as it is very different than any other armor you've worn before." I told her, slowing to a stop outside of the armory where the GHOST armor was waiting. "You should get suited up. The techs will be helping you with it. I need to get my suit repaired. I'll join up with you later." After shaking Prophet's hand one more time I left to go to the Nanosuit lab. A short tram ride later, I had reached the labs where I was greeted by various scientists and technicians all ready for me. As I didn't need to be in the suit for the repairs I began to take it off. It took a good half hour before the suit was fully removed. As is normal when taking off the suit it felt like I was coming off of a massive sugar rush. When that feeling had passed I handed the suit to the techs and put on my 'director's' suit.
My director's suit was black with a red CryNet symbol stamped on the right side of my chest. Stepping on a tram, I headed back to CNTAP to observe the simulations going on there as well as wait for Shepard to arrive. I arrived at the observation room for the area where Shepard would be training. Here I was confronted with multiple screens showing me the state of the simulation going on at the moment.
"Ah, greetings Director." A voice spoke up accompanied by the hologram of a blue human face.
"CABAL." I greeted the AI.
"I am most surprised to be seeing you here right now. I thought that you were. . . not available."
"If you mean Wraith working with Shepard you are correct. But she and the rest of the squad require better armor."
"Oh how wonderful. I've heard much about the famous Commander Shepard. She might be better than some of this lot." CABAL nodded back towards one of the screens.
"Oh? Who's training?" I asked.
"Bah, if you can call it training. The graduating Phantom Class are doing an assault mission. Look at them. Pathetic. Untrained monkeys could do better." CABAL scoffed as I shifted my view to the screens where a large krogan and a human were going at it with no holds barred.
"No one can measure up to your standards, CABAL." I told him.
"Then they will have to try harder."
I chuckled slightly. "It looks like they are doing fairly well at the moment."
CABAL smirked. "I'll have to do something about that now won't I?"
"What are you doing CABAL?"
"Oh nothing much. Just altering the variables slightly."
Raising an eyebrow, I turned my attention to the various monitors where the recruits were securing a pirate ship, having assaulted it. I listened to the radio chatter from the recruits.
"Predator, this is Mammoth. Area is secure. Moving on with Devastator."
"Copy that Mammoth, Venom and I will meet you near the reactor. Scorpion, what's you're current situation?"
"I've successfully infiltrated the reactor room. Multiple hostiles."
"Copy that Scorpion, received the tac-map. Hold position, stay covert."
"Affirmative. I'll be- ugh!" Scorpion's transmission was interrupted by a grunt of pain. Glancing over at the monitors that showed Scorpion's view and status I saw that he had been knocked out by a blow to the head from a krogan wearing GHOST armor. Raising an eyebrow in sunrise I noticed that another monitor had sprung to life showing this krogan.
"Scorpion report! What is your status? Scorpion! Do you read?" Predator shouted over the comm.
"His suit shows that he's unconscious!" Venom said.
"Damnit! Everyone get over there now! We have a man down! Move!"
As the trainees rushed to the reactor I turned towards CABAL "So by slightly altering the variables you sent in Destroyer?"
"Of course. It should prove to be very interesting." He said smugly.
"That's one way of putting it." I muttered turning my attention back to the monitors.
"Alright guys. Form up and breach on my mark." Predator was ordering and the Phantoms all got into position.
Glancing over at Destroyer's screen I saw that he was waiting on a catwalk right above the door that the Phantoms would be breaching through.
Suddenly the door blew open as the Phantoms had planted a breaching charge in the meantime. Destroyer didn't even seem to twitch as the explosion echoed around the chamber. Even before the sound from the explosion died out the Phantoms flooded into the room to find Scorpion being held captive by four soldiers wearing medium armor. The soldiers however were still reeling from the explosion and as such made easy targets for the nanosuit wearing Phantoms.
Predator, Mammoth and Devastator did a quick sweep of the room as Venom went to check in on the unconscious Scorpion. Never once did the Phantoms look up. It was then that Destroyer sprang into action. Grabbing a frag grenade from his armor, he primed it and threw it in the midst of the Phantoms.
"GRENADE!" One of the Phantoms shouted as they all scattered. Venom was caught in the explosion as he tried to pull Scorpion out of the blast radius. Even as the grenade detonated, Destroyer jumped down from the catwalk drawing his Graal spike thrower in the process. Aiming it he fired at Venom who had been thrown off his feet by the grenade. The heavy spikes, designed to pierce the heavy plating of a thresher maw's hide, tore straight through Venom's suit, killing him.
With a roar of rage, Mammoth charged Destroyer, only to be smacked aside. Landing heavily on the ground, another round from Destroyer's spike thrower finished him off. Now two on one, Destroyer turned to where the remaining two Phantoms had been standing only to find them gone, having cloaked while he dealt with Mammoth. Glaring around he began to shout "Come out you cowards! Show yourselves!"
"As you wish." Predator answered materializing infront of Destroyer and knocking his Spike thrower out of his hands. Even as the shotgun was still flying Predator threw himself into a backward roll bringing his Marshall shotgun to bear he opened fire, on the hulking krogan.
Destroyer roared in rage as he pulled out his CTA-40 Mod 0 medium machine gun and opened fire on Predator. Diving to the side, Predator rolled behind a support column, giving him protection from the angry onslaught of fire. Unknown to Destroyer who was bent on killing Predator, Devastator had uncloaked behind him with two AECs and threw them at the krogan's back. Rolling backward he detonated the charges, the resulting explosion engulfed Destroyer.
"Mission complete. Three casualties. Pathetic." CABAL announced as the simulation ended, the holograms fading away and allowing the downed Phantoms and Inquisitor to stand up.
Glancing at a pedestal on the right side of the room I asked "CARLA, whats the ETA on Shepard's arrival?"
A blue holographic woman appeared on the pedestal "Five minutes sir."
"Thank you CARLA." I hesitated. "Don't reveal yourselves to the squad please guys. I'm worried about Tali. As a quarian she probably wouldn't be all that thrilled to know that she is on a station filled with AI's and is going to be trained by one."
"A quarian? Pathetic." CABAL sneered.
I sighed, "I know you don't like quarians CABAL, but don't take it out on her."
"Fine." CABAL said shortly, his face vanishing from his monitor.
I turned to look at CARLA who was smirking at me. "Don't worry about us sir. I'll let the others know not to reveal themselves."
"Thank you CARLA." I sighed as I walked over to the windows overlooking one of the simulation rooms and clasped my hands behind my back as I waited for the Shepard to arrive. As I waited, I pondered the performance of the Phantom recruits in the simulation. They performed rather well, up to the reactor room where they made the critical error of not checking the catwalks near the top of the room, followed by Mammoth getting himself killed by rushing Destroyer after loosing Venom. My mind drifted to what their team name would be as they would be graduating at the end of the year.
Phantom training lasted for two years, the first of which they only trained against simulated enemies under the control of CABAL. Only in the second year would they start going up against real Inquisitors and Phantoms. Only at their graduation would they get to learn their team name. Up until then they were called by their recruit group, or class, number.
I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of multiple pairs of heavy footsteps entering the room. Once they settled down I turned to face the newcomers. "Ah, Commander Shepard. It is nice to finally meet you in person. Operative Wraith has told me many good things about you." I said stepping forward to shake Shepard's hand.
Shepard, along with the rest of the squad were now fully armored in top of the line GHOST armor, only their heads visible as they were all carrying their helmets.
"Likewise Director." She answered taking my hand.
"I trust you are satisfied with your new armor?" I asked looking over the squad. Shepard's armor was black, with red highlights and lights along with the N7 logo over her right breast. Kaidan and Ashley's armor were both Alliance blue, Kaidan's highlights being yellow while Ashley's being white. Liara's armor was white and sky blue. Garrus was wearing his navy blue turian GHOST armor. The turian GHOST armor was quite different from the human and asari GHOST armor, in that it included heavier Coltan-Titanium armoring than the human versions, which needed the extra mobility. Wrex's dark red and black armor almost completely encased the hulking krogan in Coltan-Titanium, giving off a true impression of a walking tank. Finally Tali's purple and black armor, retained some of the form of the standard quarian suits, only with more armored plating and nanoweave covering the exposed parts.
"Well, we have to test them out before we can say whether they are any good." Shepard responded.
I nodded once. "Indeed. And that is why you are here Commander. May I present to you, the CryNet Training And Proving grounds." I turned waving my hands at the various monitors that sprung to life showing off the simulations going on right now, along with the one empty room that Shepard and the squad would be training in.
A/N: Alright, first time to the Prism, and we see the first few submitted Inquisitors.
Inquisitor team 545 was submitted by Strat545 and Destroyer was submitted by TheUltraGrand, so thanks to both of them for their submissions. The rest of you who submitted, don't worry. You're characters will be making their appearance.
We also meet Raptor team! Just for reference, the top three Phantom teams are Raven, Raptor and Serpent. As you may have realized from the conversation with Raptor, Raptor is a heavy hitting team, less focused on the stealth aspect of the Nanosuit while Serpent (Who we haven't met yet but I have something big planned for them) are the stealthy ones.
Then we meet two of the AI's and another one gets referenced.
CABAL (Crynet Advanced Battlefield Assessment Logarithm). CABAL is the one who controls the Simulator. He's able to accurately represent hostiles to such accuracy so much that he can accurately add in organic factors when controlling holographic organics. Alternately when controlling synthetics like the geth then he can accurately portray their intelligence loss as more geth die. And CABAL does not like the quarians as you may have guessed due to them trying to wipe out the geth just because they gained sentience. Points to those of you who can guess who CABAL is based off of. (Hint same name and both are AI's).
CARLA (Crynet Analysis Reallocation and Logistics Advisor). Carla is CryOps logistics AI. She's the one who handles the day to day business within CryOps that Duncan (Wraith) cant or doesn't want to handle. While she can't order Inquisitors and Phantoms around without approval from a CryNet Director (most of the time Duncan) she is vital to the continued operation of CryOps.
CRYSTAL (Crynet Rapidly Yielding Special Technology Advisor for Labs). CRYSTAL is CryTechs research AI. She's the one who will run simulations and help doing research for CryTech. Without her CryTech research would be pretty slow.
There are two more AI's that have yet to be mentioned, CEDA and CRISTINE.
CEDA (Crynet Engineering and Development Advisor). CEDA is CryTech's logistics AI.
CRISTINE (Crynet Intelligence and Source Tracking INterfacE). CRISTINE is CryTell's AI. She handles all the information that flows through CryTell and alerts the necessary personnel (like CryTell Director Axel Petersen) to important information.
Finally, I've meant to do this a while ago. I've uploaded a bunch of screenshots and pictures of some of the more important characters for NE on Photobucket. They are under various subalbums so make sure to look for those. I have Wraith, Shepard, the CryNet Board, raven Team and CABAL there. You can find them here (remove the spaces): s1321. Beta. Photobucket DOT com user/LEGION001/library/Nano%20Effect
Then you can find me on twitter if you want updates on NE stuff. I'm LEGION001. Twitter DOT com /LEGION001
And I think that that's it. If you have any questions don't hesitate to Review or PM me. Reviews giving constructive feedback are appreciated.
See you in two weeks on the 2nd!
~LEGION