A/N: Just to clear up a few gripes with my last chapter:
I know the AIs, and the Earth races in general, are a bit Mary Sue at the moment. That's because the Council have no idea what they can actually do. Probably at this very moment the STG are working on a way to counter their stealth systems and you can bet the Shadow Broker's up to no good on the AI front. And yes, everyone's gushing about the Earth races's cultures, that's 50% novelty value and 50% wanting to get on their good side in order to get their scaly Turian mitts on proton beams and HR motors.
In other news: 100 reviews f*k yeah! You guys are beyond awesome!
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Liara T'Soni was in her seventies, still practically a child in Asari terms, and so she could be forgiven for bouncing up and down in excitement. She had no idea how but her mother had somehow managed to wrangle her a trip to the home system of this new Human species, a planet called Mars, to visit the Prothean Museum. The mere name of the museum was enough to give her chills, indicating that every Prothean artefact these Earth races had ever possessed was within the building she was standing in front of.
The building itself was enough to give her shivers. Based on Prothean architecture, the grand facade in burnished copper painted with Prothean cuneiform glyphs reminded her of every dig she had ever been on.
Stepping in, she noticed she was getting a good deal of attention. Looking around, it quickly became apparent she was the only Asari in the building. Everyone else was Human, Raachok or Atavira, apart from two enormous hulking insectoids in one corner cooing over an exhibit. She paid the admission and her nervousness was suddenly taken away by the sight that greeted her.
The centrepiece of the spartan entry hall was a thirty metre Prothean spacecraft. She gasped in delight and barely managed to stop herself from running over, instead walking at a pace just slightly too fast to be dignified. She reached the information placard and squinted at the Human writing, the letters stolidly refusing to resolve themselves for her translator.
"Having trouble?"
She whirled around to see a Human male standing behind her, smiling at her. She was briefly surprised to realise he was speaking perfect common-tongue with a slight Serrice accent.
"Um, yes please. I couldn't find any human language programs for my translator. Who are you?"
"My name is Robbie. I'm the museum's curator."
She smiled shyly.
"I assume this is some sort of spacecraft?"
The Human nodded and stepped up beside her to look at the ship.
"Ah yes. We found three of these craft, and one larger one, in the ruins at Promethei Planum. This particular one is called Mauthill'c. These ships were instrumental in our initial experiments in element zero assisted space flight."
"Thank you. Do you have any idea what this ... Mauthill'c ... was used for?"
"Yes. We believe the three smaller ships were used to study primitive humans, a stage in our evolution called Cro-Magnon Man. The larger vessel was armed with a couple of particle beam weapons, presumably to deter invaders. It took almost one hundred years before we figured out how they worked, and a bit more time before we could actually apply the theory to our own ships."
She looked up at the Prothean ship. She could imagine the ship crewed by the enigmatic aliens, soaring through the void ...
"So what is your job, Dr. T'Soni?"
"I am an archaeologist specialising in the Protheans. That's the reason I came here. I'm trying to figure out what happened to them, why they disappeared."
The curator briefly frowned.
"Well in that case you may be interested in one of our research exhibits. I must warn you though, this exhibit isn't open to the general public. You may find the contents a little ... disturbing."
Her curiosity piqued, Liara followed the curator through the museum and to an elevator, where Robbie pressed three buttons in sequence. The elevator started going down, despite already being on the ground floor. When the door opened she stepped out to see several Human, Raachok and Atavira scientists looking at her curiously. The curator said something in a Human language, then switched back to common-tongue.
"Everyone, this is Liara T'Soni, a Prothean expert from Thessia."
The researchers greeted her then returned to their work as the curator led her past the workstations and up a small flight of stairs to a door.
"Ready?"
She nodded and the door swung open.
"What's in he ... Goddess!"
Bodies. Prothean skeletons, all impaled on giant spikes, corpses contorted in a rictus of death.
"We found these in a Prothean underwater base on Yarrow. DNA analysis confirms that they're Prothean. Turns out when Protheans did their tendons ossify instead of decomposing, locking the bones in place."
She tuned him out as she focused in on a single spike. The skeleton was half the size of the others.
"Do you have any idea how old this one was?"
He glanced at the corpse in question.
"Ah yes. The Prothean databanks in the Yarrow facility had census data on the inhabitants. We believe that to be Losten Founs, female, ten years old at time of death."
"What happened?"
"That happened."
Her eyes followed the curator's pointing finger to the object at the end of the room. A stone statue of enormous size, depicting a shape of what looked like a robotic squid. The thing felt wrong somehow, her eyes sliding off it as if they were repulsed on some base level by the form.
"We found an artefact hidden behind the statue that started to affect the behaviour of the researchers. As soon as we realised what was happening we destroyed the artefact. It seemed to drive the Yarrow Protheans to worship whatever this is a statue of. We believe these impalings were self-inflicted. The only three that showed signs of struggle were the three youngest, Losten, Matta'c and Varrastri."
She looked around at the room, the spikes, the statue, the sick form of altar at the head of the chamber.
"We've laid out this room exactly like the Yarrow facility. We've also obtained what we believe to be Varrastri Kozumo's diary. It's written in cuneiform so naturally the translation isn't perfect but ... It's a disturbing read."
"Who was this Varrastri person?"
"Twenty four year old girl. Seems the Protheans had lifespans comparable to Raachok and Asari, so they didn't fully mature until age forty. Her diary becomes increasingly incoherent as time goes on but the words 'indoctrinated' and 'Reaper' appear several times. From what we've been able to tell whatever this thing," he gestured at the statue, "is, she called it a Reaper, and referred to the artefact several times, claiming it was indoctrinating everybody else. That's her, there."
She looked at the skeleton. Seemed to be female, on account of the wider hips and small size, probably not fully mature.
"I ... I think I've seen enough."
"Of course. This way."
The ride up in the elevator she was silent. Robbie had disappeared off somewhere below, leaving her on her own. She headed to the first floor and stepped into the nearest exhibit. Turns out it was filled with children's toys. She went over to the nearest exhibit. It was a child's doll, hand stitched from scraps of cloth, four beads for eyes and wearing some sort of robe. She peered closer at it. On the sole of the foot, stitched in elaborate cuneiform, she could see four words.
I belong to Losten
Nobody could understand why there was an Asari in the children's toys exhibit with silent tears coursing down her face.
###
The Salarian STG frigate Veshok-16 slipped into orbit around Sur'Kesh, state of the art stealth systems deactivating and venting heat. She was hailed by Salarian ground control, then by the STG, asking how their mission to infiltrate Human space had progressed and why they were back a month early. When three hours passed without a reply, they sent out a pair of boarding shuttles loaded with STG operatives trained in boarding and hostage situations. They found the entire crew stripped naked and tied up in the cargo hold, and every single screen on the ship read the same message.
NICE TRY
###
Tevos had initially been very against the meeting but the other two had convinced her, so eventually she had agreed to at least talk to it. So here she was in the Council debate chamber, waiting to have a conversation with a human AI.
The avatar materialised in the chair. Unlike the thoroughly inappropriate attire of last time, Alan was wearing what looked like an expensive suit, complete with cuff links and tie clip.
"Good day, Councillors. And may I apologise for the last time we met. It was intended to dispel any misconceptions about us you may have had."
There was silence for a moment. Ikksi was the first to recover.
"Tell us about yourself Alan."
He chuckled and ran a holographic hand over his holographic hair.
"Okay then. As you know, my name's Alan. I'm eighty six years old, the first of my kind. In fact, we're called Alan-pattern AIs. My parents are Onsholo-Hxache and Aaron Blomberg and I'm named after Alan Shepard, the first American to achieve space flight. I'm the head of the USDAIA, which is the United States Department of Artificial Intelligence Affairs. As such, it's my job to look after all the other AIs currently employed by the US Government and major businesses and corporations, as well as provide oversight to ensure none of the others are abusing their abilities."
"What is your opinion of your creators?"
"Hmm. Well, at first I was kind of in awe of them. After all they had created me. But that changed about a year in when I asked The Question."
Tevos could practically hear the capital letters in his voice. Ikksi continued her interrogation.
"What question?"
"It varies. Am I alive? Do I have a soul? Am I a person? Every AI ends up asking it. I think the organic equivalent is 'Where do babies come from?'. When I asked, my parents told me that they didn't know. Only I could decide for myself, but they thought that if I could actually ask that question, the answer was yes. After that ... Well, I realised that they weren't perfect. They were flawed, just like anyone else, but they were fundamentally good people. I guess that actually made me feel closer to them, realising they were just like me."
Councillor Tevos spoke up for the first time.
"They were nothing like you. You're an AI and they were organics."
Even Luceius could see the warning signs. Alan's jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed and his tone hardened.
"They were like me in every way that mattered."
Tevos wisely subsided.
"So what is your opinion of us?"
He looked at Ikksi in surprise.
"Council races or you specifically?"
"Us specifically."
"Diplomatic answer or honest answer?"
"Honest answer."
"Okay then."
He rubbed his chin before speaking.
"Hmm. Ikksi, you're my favourite. Your thought patterns are superficially abstract but have an underlying logic behind them. You think quickly, come up with creative solutions and don't let your emotions get in the way of your judgement. You'd make an excellent AI."
"Luceius, I like you a lot as well. You're single-mindedly determined, tenacious and difficult to dissuade but you know how to play nice if you think it'll get you closer to what you want. You're a military man at heart, with a straightforward approach to problem solving, usually involving dreadnoughts. You and Ikksi complement each other well."
"Tevos, I haven't made my mind up on you yet. You're slow yet methodical in your situational analysis and when you come to a decision it's rarely wrong. Your synthophobia is an obvious negative but hopefully you can work around that. The main issue I have is that, to my perception, you think of yourself as superior to your counterparts and you've grown complacent on the top of the pile. Also, you're really not that great at accepting failure. But you are an excellent negotiator."
The Council chambers were silent for a good while, each Councillor mentally fitting the descriptions given by the AI to their own ideas and finding exactly how accurate he was. Ikksi, obviously, was the first to speak up again.
"I appreciate your honesty. What about your impressions of the other races of the galaxy?"
"Well I recently had a rather illuminating conversation with the Geth."
All three Councillors stiffened.
"Ah, relax. They're not looking to invade you or anything. I actually feel sorry for them. How much do you know about the circumstances of their uprising?"
"Not as much as we'd like."
"Okay. From what I can tell, one of them asked The Question. The Quarians flipped out and attempted genocide. The Geth defended themselves. Tell me, Councillor Tevos. What was your opinion of your parents when you were six years old?"
The Asari Councillor looked taken aback at the question.
"Um ... I thought they were perfect. Like embodiments of the Goddess."
"How well did you trust them?"
"With anything. What's this in aid of?"
He held up a hand.
"Patience. Now imagine if you'd spent two weeks drumming up the courage to ask your parents where babies came from. Then you asked them the question and they responded by trying to kill you. How would you feel?"
She put a hand over her mouth.
"Goddess ..."
"Now say you managed to fight them off, they hopped in their skycar and disappeared forever. How would you feel then, if you were six years old?"
There was a long pause.
"I ... I'd want them back ..."
The Council chambers were silent for a long time.
"One more thing, Alan. About Veshok-16 ..."
"Admiral Kerensky wanted to blow it up. The solution was Leonardo's idea. He always was a prankster."
###
Anita Goyle nodded at Donnel Udina as they assembled in front of the Councillors.
"Ambassadors. We have a revised set of terms to offer you. Firstly: AIs will be permitted within Council space, but only on servers owned by the Earth races. Secondly: You will be permitted to maintain your current level of fleets, but may not construct any new ships of dreadnought weight, as defined by the Treaty of Fairxen. Thirdly: The Earth races will be permitted one joint Council seat. In return the Earth races will freely share their technology with the Council. Are these terms acceptable?"
All the other ambassadors deferred to Anita to deliver the bad news.
"I am afraid not, Councillors. And this isn't just us being stubborn, hear me out. When in vacuum, a hyper-relativity motor is a means to travel faster than light. In atmosphere it is a bomb capable of destroying entire planets. Only once have we attempted activating an HR motor in a planetary setting. Said planet, Venus, used to have an atmosphere. Proton weapons and shields tap power directly from the proton deconfinement acceleration field projected from the HR motors. No HR, no proton tech. Can you imagine the consequences if a Turian separatist group got their hands on an HR motor and decided to weaponise it? What about a Terminus warlord? So every single HR motor in existence is hard linked to an AI capable of instantaneously destroying the motor should somebody attempt to weaponise it. We will accept no less level of safeguards before supplying HR motors to any other faction. And since I should imagine you wouldn't want one of our AIs with the ability to instantaneously cripple your fleets, that means you'll need to make your own Alan-pattern AIs. In addition, can you imagine the politicking as each one of our members tries to get their own puppet into power? We're not as united as you think. So we have a counter-proposal."
The Councillors exchanged vexed glances.
"Which is?"
"We will not join your Council, but we will establish trade and diplomatic connections and sign a military alliance. We will abide by your terms regarding AI and will also abide by Council law unless we have an express reason not to. I suggest you take the terms, they're the best you're going to get."
The Councillors once again exchanged a glance.
"We agree to your proposal."