Chapter 3: … There is Only the Harvest
Invalid Calendar Date, ~40,621 B.C.E
Planet Praetorius
"Give in now, it is so much easier than what is to come."
Nazara had spoken those words to a race, recently identified, that had discovered Prothean relics. That in itself was inconsequential; millions of species had progressed through analyzing the ruins of those who came before. Their laziness and inability to progress independently was not the issue at hand. The species in question, named "Luminaire" by the Protheans who studied them, shared their near-unique sensory ability to read information through physical contact. With the shared ability, the Luminaire had easily explored the relics they had found, accessing all the information stored within- including information on the 'Reapers'. Their study had marked them for death.
The Luminaire had been at a complete loss as to what to do; they had full knowledge of what had come before and would again, and even had they fully comprehended it, they could have done nothing about it. Their most advanced weapons had been sticks cobbled together with string, their most potent energy source being burning decomposing animal fat, their fastest means of transportation riding oversized insects. They were utterly helpless - rather, they had been. Nothing of the Prothean harvest could be allowed to survive.
Nazara descended upon their nations and settlements, destroying their simple roads and dirty dwellings, smashing was little infrastructure they had. It burned their farms and their stockades, culled their herds and incinerated those who fled. Enthralled swarms of seekers and husks overran what little was untouched by their master, utterly destroying all those who dared to defy it.
Those who surrendered were harvested, those who resisted died. And they all resisted. A single sweep of its main gun killed millions, and in less than an hour, the few who were left were dying. Nazara moved, city to city, village to village, offering its ultimatum, demanding obedience. When it was inevitably refused, it killed them all. When all that needed to be done, was, fewer than a thousand remained. They could not afford a single community, a single individual surviving, not with what was at stake. It manipulated a local virus until it afforded 100% lethality and affected all life on the planet, and unleashed it upon them. It waited a full month for it to take its course, and finalized its plans.
"Insufficient guarantee of security, recommend further action"
1,789,434,220 for, 210,565,780 against.
It divided the planet into ninety sections running from pole to equator, and finally took up a high orbit to begin sterilization. It covered the surface the planet in a sheet of fire, methodically wiping out everything in the current zone before moving to the next. Praetorius' deepest seas were vaporized; it's twisted, dead husks of jungle were expunged; it's mountains liquefied and filled their valleys. It was only a short time before the whole world had been doused by plasma, the entirety a broiling sphere of melted rock. The now-tainted and charred atmosphere was on fire, burning on its own accord; a rare phenomenon the Sovereign noted and archived. In the days and weeks to come, the enormous solar winds of its F-class parent star would blow the atmosphere of the lifeless planet into space, were the world would finally cool and crystallize into an amorphous shadow of its former self, and its life story would come to a permanent end.
Confident every flicker of life had been extinguished, Nazara aimed at the sites of every known Prothean relic and fired off a round at each, ensuring their destruction and the cessation of the threat. They had almost certainly been vaporized in the initial bombardment, but no precaution was too conservative in this… 'instance'. It readied it's main cannon and took aim at the planet's most vulnerable fault line, and fired off two consecutive maximum-power rounds. The first blew off the planet's crust and upper mantle. The second cleaved off the majority of the hemisphere facing Nazara. It overcharged it's main cannon to a dangerous degree for a third and final judgement, and fired off the round. It directly impacted the planet's core with the force of a colliding planet, inducing limited fusion and causing it to collapse. The planet, in it's final death throes, was rent apart in a spectacular explosion that, for the briefest of moments, eclipsed the star which it orbited.
"Their knees have been bent."
Regardless of the collateral damage, its mission had been a full success, and it returned to its abyssal abode to wait. And watch.
Invalid Calendar Date, ~36,476 B.C.E
The Perseus Veil
Awakening after a four-thousand year period of slumber, the Sovereign had to pour over billions of accumulated reports and alerts;
"Species: 230,075,336 through 230,075,355 are showing progress; 338, 343 and 349 have already developed intercontinental sovereign governments. 336 has invented intensive agriculture whereas 350 has prematurely discovered water desalination. "
The thrall relaying every report from across the galaxy continued;
"Apart from the currently-deceased 230,075,335, no awareness of the 'Reapers' has been detected beyond the vague religious mythos of the Prothean genetic experiments, who now refer to themselves as 'Hanar'"
"Monitor them closely; if anything approaching practical understanding emerges from them, they are to be exterminated and their planet purged. Leave immediately and relay my orders to all forces present."
"At once."
Yet another thrall came before its Sovereign to take its comrade's place in reciting the reports;
"The remainder of the galaxy has been scanned and searched as per orders; twenty sapient species are present, fifteen of which show indications of developing space travel before the coming harvest."
"Twenty?"
"Yes; another race has been discovered past Relay 307 in the receiving system. They have had Prothean intervention in their developmental cycle. It is likely they were subjected to genetic manipulation and augmentation in the hopes that they would become technologically adept in time for the Protheans to employ them as cannon fodder against us. "
"Display statistics."
A flood of information and light washed over the collective minds of the Reaper, bathing them in all the knowledge needed to make an assessment.
Mass Relay Data
Accessed Via Relay: 307 (inactive)
Type: Secondary (938 Light Year Range)
Anchor: Secondary Body; in system deep cold (2nd Dwarf Planet)
Nearest Hub: 36.7 Light Years
Hub Size: Moderate (8 Primaries, 1 Secondary)
Alert: Relay is frozen in water ice and inoperable
Relay Jumps from Citadel: 2
Relevant System Data
Primary Type: Star (Single)
Star Type: Main Sequence; G2V
Star Stability: Immediate; long-term brightening
Star Age (Billion Years): 4.58
System Age (Billion Years): 4.79
Significant Secondary Bodies: 8 Planets, 147 Dwarf Planets
Significant Tertiary Bodies: 21 Ellipsoid Moons, 324 Other
Significant Quadrinary(+) Bodies: 3 Moonlets
Bodies with Life: 10,000 +
Bodies with Multicellular Life: 14
Bodies with Animate Multicellular Life: 4 (3rd, 4th planets; 6th moon of 5th planet, 6th moon of 6th planet)
Bodies with Sapient Life: 1 (3rd planet)
Relevant Planet Data
Orbital Position: 3rd
Satellites: 1
Environment Type: Type 2c Habitable
Dominated By: Brackish ocean, Semi-arid desert, Glacier, Coniferous forest
Alert: Short-term cyclic ice age
"Current developing sapient race is of a bipedal placental mammalian configuration; currently in three distinct subspecies though two shows signs of being subsumed into primary, smallest variety. Preliminary scans show below-average cranial capacity, limited strength, poor sensory organs and inefficient body plan. Unlikely to provide sufficient challenge in upcoming harvest; unlikely to ascend to level of galactic civilization without access to relay."
"Pre-emptive harvest."
830,988,321 for, 1,169,011,679 against.
"We will delay until the time is right"
With billions of reports and thousands of tasks ahead, the Reaper turned its faculties to other, more pressing concerns than a group of inconsequential primates. They would persist. For now.
Invalid Calendar Date, ~7,780 B.C.E
Shrike Abyssal, Heshtok
"Species 354, 351 and 339 have been prematurely eradicated."
"Through what means?"
"Self-imposed nuclear obliteration; all lifeforms on their respective planets have died, and the planets' atmospheres have been desiccated"
"Shameful" thought several million minds.
"Wasteful" thought millions more.
"Irrelevant;" their Sovereign opined.
"All are expendable in the face of the whole. Their losses are insignificant; such basic creatures have no place among us."
Brushing aside the internal bustle, the machine descended upon a tribal village of "Vorcha"; hyper-resilient and adaptable vagrants whose lack of social order and unity had left them in the darkness of ignorance and strife. All of that was meaningless; their massive numbers and extremely malleable genetic code made them excellent foot soldiers and husks. They were useless otherwise. It released billions of seekers and larger Collector units to gather several thousand for processing and repurposing; many new thralls would be needed in the face of the resurgent biological civilizations;
Turian
Carbon/oxygen/water base; arranged with dextro-amino acids which will confound colony planet development. Great strength and resilience, excellent bone density and cranial capacity. Rigid genetic structure and inorganic radiation plating makes poor choice for conversion. Species extremely militant; Suggest massive first strike.
Salarian
Carbon/oxygen/water base; arranged with levo-amino acids. Vast Intelligence and cunning combined with poor physical attributes guarantee passive interaction through indirect action and espionage. High population growth rate guarantees massive harvest, though poor adaptability to foreign conditions renders conversion secondary priority.
Volus
Carbon/ammonia/water-ammonia base; arranged with levo-amino acids. Physically vastly inferior to galactic standard. Above-average intelligence, resource availability/distribution and gregarious disposition ensure mercantile trends and expedient conquest. Homeworld environment extremely rare; small population projected for harvest. Suggest as first target in upcoming conflict to disrupt biological species' economic ability to fight.
The Sovereign continued through the dozen others that mandated attention; Human, Raloi, Asari, Batarian, Yahg, Quarian, Drell, Hanar, Elcor, Krogan and Rachni. They would all inevitably fall, and be incorporated into the fold. Before that, more resting and waiting had be done, to prepare for the coming storm.
November 7th, 500 B.C.E
The Perseus Veil
It was time.
Nazara recalled all its deployed forces from their hidden observation posts and latent scanning positions. All of the primary target species - Asari, Turian, Salarian, Quarian, Volus, Elcor, Hanar and Batarian – had expanded to rule the galaxy and were none the wiser to their impending annihilation. The Human, Raloi, Yahg, Vorcha, Drell and Krogan species languished in dark ages, unable to climb out of their filth to reach an appreciable level. They would be dealt with in time.
The harbinger of the arrival signaled the central control unit of the Citadel relay, and prepared for the initial assault. Their objective would be to kill the relay's inhabitants and annihilate any retreating forces before they could reinforce other positions. Upon that objective's completion, all mass relay travel would be disabled and the archives of all settlements downloaded from the Citadel's memory banks. The resulting slaughter would last no more than a century, and the plot of the Reapers would begin anew. As it had tens of thousands of times before.
Nazara waited. For days. Weeks. Months. Years. Never had its brethren taken such a length of time to invade; they were always prepared. It signaled for the Keepers to physically open the relay, and waited for a period of time... for which their was no reward. Vastly outnumbered, the collective mind of the Reaper unanimously consented to investigate what happened in a covert manner. Stealth options for a 2 kilometre-long dreadnought were understandably meagre, so its search would need to be through intermediaries and agents. It dared not show itself or its two attendant destroyers, so Collectors and the indoctrinated would necessarily be its pawns. The investigation would be slow, and with the galactic self-destruction looming on the horizon, it needed to hurry.
The civilizations of the galaxy sat pompous and arrogant in their false security, blissfully unaware of how close they had come to ascension, oblivious to their impending self-inflicted annihilation. No matter. Looking onward towards the future, the Sovereign calculated the possibilities, and slowly and surely drew its plans against them.