Thank you for all the great reviews I will keep on trying to deliver story you want.
Also I messed up on my humanity's abilities in chapter 1, I went back and changed them just to let you know.
December 15, 2025
Earth
The Pentagon UTA headquarters
The silence that followed Admiral Shepard's report was absolute, everyone was stunned at what they had just heard.
The alien AI known as Sovereign was part of a highly advanced race of machines. Though Sovereign had given the admiral no official designation of his race it supplied the term, reaper, as it's unofficial title.
First contact had gone well enough though Sovereign had kept on calling humanity perfection. When asked about it the AI went into monolog, as Shepard described, about its species goal to bring order to chaos. This goal would continue until they had found perfect unity between organic and machine, humanity was the most perfect blend that they ever found. Now Sovereign said it had to wait 158 years until the cycle ends and the final harvest would began and full synthesis would be achieved in the galaxy.
This brought up a new question, what was the harvest? Sovereign had gone into detail about the cycle of extinction, harvesting advanced civilizations every 50000 years to prevent the chaos from consuming the galaxy. But because humanity had achieved synthesis they would be spared, but the other species of the galaxy would would be harvested and the reapers would join human kind in this "glorious" new age. After that Sovereign promptly went back into stasis after saying that humanity should prepare for its coming future.
The Explorer had immediately returned to earth and the entire UTA board was assembled to discus this new development. Over 150 people sat in the large circular conference room, dressed in an assortment of fashions that befitted their rank except for the military officials in their nanoshells. The room was still silent after listening to the recording of Sovereign describing the cycle of extinction.
Finally, David Anderson, Master General of the forces of earth spoke up. "So this thing believes that we are, technically, the chosen ones?"
Admiral Shepard stood from her seat. "It appears so general," she replied.
"And these reapers," Anderson continued. "Are going to wipe out every single organic species in the galaxy just for automatic coexistence with us? I'm calling bullshit right there."
"Not to mention," Directer Gould of the UTA R&D department spoke up. "Do they even know that this "synthesis" only occurred by accident? If we told them that this only happened because of Ceph technology, would they use it to spread synthesis or would they wipe out everyone anyway?" He sighed, "and personally I wouldn't want to be allied to a race of killing machines."
"The entire human race is a killing machine Gould," Jack Harper of the Cerberus defense program rebuked. "And your personal opinion doesn't matter but these killing machines, as you put it, will help humanity advance more then we can possibly imagine."
"We barley survived the Ceph," shouted general Barnes from his seat in the crowd. "What makes you think that the reapers are any better?"
"We didn't survive the Ceph, we thrived following their attack! and the reapers can once again help humanity to ascend greater heights."
Barnes groaned in frustration, "Does the termination of the entire galaxy justify it!?"
"Why do you defend them, general? What have the other species, if are are any, done for us to deserve our sympathies?"
"What have they done! They haven't attacked us for one thing and there is a chance for peaceful coexistence between us!" Murmurs of agreement filled the room.
"And also," Barnes continued. "This is only one reaper that has been asleep for 50000 years. What if the others no longer follow the same goal? What if Sovereign has gone rampant and is talking gibberish about us being saved? The simplest course of action is to destroy this monster and prevent the cycle from happening!"
"DESTROY IT!" Harper jumped to his feet, "you would destroy humanity's greatest chance for domination!
"Purging the galaxy of all life does not justify this," Barnes hissed.
"Correct me if I'm wrong general. But you purged the Ceph from earth for the sake of humanity."
"I was just the catalyst for..."
"Exactly," Harper interrupted. "You were just the catalyst for the Ceph's destruction and our evolution. But now humanity is the catalyst in events far beyond us, leading us to ether further advancement or destruction. So you suggesting that we destroy our one chance for salvation is madness!" The room went dead silent.
"Madness," Barnes slowly began to reach for his sidearm before Anderson stopped him.
"General! Stand down!" Seething, Barnes dropped heavily into his chair glaring at Harper who just returned it.
"Thank you both of you for your arguments," Anderson then addressed Shepard. "Did you find out anything else admiral?"
"Yes we did Anderson," she walked to the center of the room where a large holotable presided. "Josh, transfer files 214 and 220."
"Transfer complete." The table lit up reveling the image of a reaper construct. Two long forks with two rotating rings in the middle.
"Sovereign called this a mass relay, a device that can provide almost instantaneous travel across the galaxy." This was met with remarks of disbelief and amazement before Anderson silenced them with a raised hand.
"One of these," he gestured to the image, "can take you across the galaxy?"
"Not an individual relay, no. But the reapers made a network of them through out the galaxy, so technically you could go any where." The image disappeared being replaced by a map of the galaxy, with all the relays marked. Though a question nagged at Andersen's mind.
"Why did the reapers build the relays?"
Shepard conversed with Josh silently for a moment before replying. "They made the relays to trap other species in a particular branch of technology. Let them become reliant on a particular substance and they won't be able to develop anything off the branch. Making them easier to destroy when the time comes."
"What exactly do they come to rely on?" Shouted a voice.
"Its called element zero," Shepard replied. The hologram changed again, this time showing atomic information. "it has an atomic number of zero and a rather interesting ability. I won't bore you with exact details, but when an electrical charge is sent through it is able to create a field in which mass is ether raised or lowered depending on the charge."
"And the reaper willing gave you all this information," Anderson asked incredulously.
"Well not all of it," She awkwardly replied, "and there is still more that you haven't seen yet."
"Very well," said Anderson rising from his chair. "But it will have to wait. For now what do we do with Sovereign?" The obvious cries to destroy the thing rang forth along with the shouts to let the reapers come, until Anderson had enough.
"Thank you for your input everyone, but we still have 158 years to decide on that subject. But now anyone with a short term solution please speak up." Arguments broke out trying to decide what to do, until they were all silenced by Gould's suggestion to build a station and to study Sovereign further. This idea was met with no rebuttal.
January 01, 2026: The Explorer leaves earth with orders to blueprint plans for the Genesis station project. On earth a newly designed assault frigate is put under construction.
January 03, 2026: While working on Sovereign workers report of an energy field surrounding the reaper, and all SECOND AIs present report of neurological intrusion. All construction on genesis has been stopped until further investigation.
January 10, 2026: The indoctrination theory is founded, it is unknown if Sovereign controls this or if it's an uncontrolled ability. Genesis station's construction has been moved to an asteroid a short distance away outside of the indoctrination field.
February 02, 2026: Genesis now nearing 25% completion, new firewalls are developed to counter Sovereign's indoctrination. Study on the reaper continues.
May 11, 2026: The assault frigate, UTN Legionary, leaves earth dry dock. It's first mission is to investigate the mass relay reveled to be in the sol system. Genesis station is completed and full fledged study on Sovereign begins.
May 12, 2026
Genesis station
Lab complex
Barnes sighed as he stared out the window at Sovereign, it was mocking him. The great destroyer of hundreds of cycles sat helpless before them and they were doing nothing to stop it! Even though the Ceph had reinforced his hatred of all extraterrestrials he couldn't help but feel guilty. He didn't care about the Ceph, they could burn for all he cared, but what about the other species out there? What were they like, did they have family's like back on earth, were they like humans in that respect? Knowing that there was intelligent life out there made him feel guilty that they were going to let them to die.
"You OK man?" Barnes jumped at Gould's sudden appearance, honestly that man was sneaky as hell even without cloak.
"Yeah, yeah I am." He lied turning to face Gould, the man had really buffed out since 2024. Over top of his nanoshell he wore an old leather satchel, smart idea, nanoshells had no pockets.
"Good," Gould joined him at the window. They stood in silence for a while, staring at the vessel out side the window.
"You don't really like it, do you?" He asked, gesturing at Sovereign.
Barnes glared at him. "I don't like it? That's an understatement. We have a chance to end their cycle for the sake of the galaxy and we're throwing it away!"
"We're not throwing anything away Barnes, and there's still 157 years before the cycle continues." Gould replied pulling a data pad from his satchel and looking over it. "And besides we're only studying it, what harm is there in that?"
"True."
They stood silently for a minute before Gould handed the pad to Barnes. "Take a look at this."
He skimmed down the text, becoming more interested in what he saw. "Your suggesting we make our own mass relays?" He asked hand the pad back.
"Why not? Their better and more efficient then the Harpoon for galactic travel. Not to mention it'll be easy, Sovereign had the plans for them."
"It gave them to you?"
"Nope, we hacked it right from his hard drive." Gould sounded amused from behind his helmet.
"You what!" Barnes panicked. "What if it woke up when you were doing!"
"Calm down man, Sovereign is a heavy sleeper to begin with. Add on almost 300 AIs to keep him offline and he can't hear, see or feel anything."
Barnes lowered his head, embarrassed at his little panic attack. "Is all you want Gould," he asked.
Gould hesitated for a moment before replying, "one more thing."
He reached into his satchel and dug around looking for something. Finding it he withdrew his hand and presented the object to Barnes. It was a Warhammer 40k Ultramarine figurine complete with blue armor and bolter but nothing special.
"You, want to play warhammer?" Barnes asked confused.
Gould's shoulders slumped. "No I don't want to play it, I want to make one! Think about it, we already have the strength. We just make the armor light then cover it with nanoweave and replace the backpack with a power source then, BOOM! You're a walking tank!"
Barnes was surprised, the man was brilliant but a complete geek. Still, why hadn't anyone thought about this earlier, it was brilliant! "OK, but why are you asking me?"
"Because I need authorization from someone high up to make the first prototype, could you?" Gould asked once again holding out the pad.
Sighing he took the pad and gave it his signature. "One prototype and on your own time, got it," he asked giving back the pad. But Gould had already snatched it and was sprinting out of the labs, disappearing in seconds. Leaving Barnes standing and starring at where he had left.
"What a geek."
Genesis Station
Office block
Jack Harper paced in his office overlooking the station, the glass beneath his feet gave him an astounding view of the lab complex below him.
Though it was standard safety in space to have full nanoshell coverage at all times, he fancied wearing an expensive looking suit. It was more liberating then the skintight nanoshell, and anyways he was alone so no one would comment on his style of fashion.
His thoughts turned once again to the matter at hand and he scowled. How could that idiot General Barnes want to destroy this masterpiece, this was humanity's evolution if not salvation. The reapers would come and purge the galaxy of all alien threats leaving it open for humanity to spread.
But a man once said, "this town ain't big enough for the two of us." The reapers themselves would be the biggest concern once they had done their job, they needed a way to control them once the cycle was over. Destroying them would be out of the question, who in their right mind would destroy such marvels of engineering. Fortunately he already had a plan, but first he would need to obtain the one hardest ingredient, reaper program code. It wasn't something that could obtained from the body, he needed to get it directly from the AI itself.
"EDI ready the intrusion."
"Of course sir," came a distinctly feminine voice quite unlike the other SECOND AIs. Not only was Cerberus in the defense league but also in the R&D as well, many advancements and experiments came from them. Like the AI interchangeable settings package, it let you change the voice of it as well as other options about your SECOND. However what he had was entirely different, Cerberus had developed a coding package that would enable a SECOND to develop their own personalities and other perks and become true artificial intelligence. It was both illegal and dangerous. Illegal because of humanity's unjustified fear of AI overlords, and dangerous because of the unknown effects it would have on the body and mind. He was experiencing no problems with EDI except for brief bouts of spontaneous thinking, which were easily fixed. EDI was evolving far beyond his expectations, though she could be removed and destroyed if she started to rebel. She was also locked inside his shell unable to communicate with anything on the outside and spread the code.
"Intrusion ready Mr. Harper." The intrusion was an attempt to attain reaper code through the simplest way available, talking. Though Sovereign might not approve of being woken to find itself being studied, he had a plan for that too. He would communicate with Sovereign through a secure comm channel while 50 Cerberus scientists and AIs on board the reaper would feed its scanners false information. Making it think that it was alone and that the call was coming from earth. So it was a simple matter of keeping it busy while his people downloaded the code directly from its core, and anyway he was curious about one subject that Sovereign had neglected to tell them.
"Begin." He said walking over to his desk in the middle of the room along with his privet terminal.
After a few moments the voice of Sovereign from the screen. "What is the meaning of this? The cycle has not yet come."
"Hello, I am the Illusive Man," he began, just thinking up the name. "I would like to know more about the reapers, if it's alright."
Sovereign took a long time to reply. "What is it you wish to know."
Jack smiled. "I want to know more about your indoctrination ability."
Disclaimer: I don't own Crysis, mass effect or warhammer