(A/N- start)
Hey everyone! Thanks for the reviews and messages. A single concept became fairly commonplace: 'if the first-contact scenario is between the Quarians and humanity, it is going to be tense.'
This is true, but then again, I am violating cannon six ways from Sunday, so... Everything is slightly different.
The word 'tense' is going to be significant understatement though.
I don't own it.
Enjoy!
"It is not power that makes one dangerous- only intent. To see what a person would do with more power, look and see what they do with the power they already have."
Chapter 2: Shepherding Ships
Migrant Fleet Vessel: Belari, about 280 klicks from Relay 314.
"Just one planet!" Muttered Captain Rael'Zorah vas Belari. "Is it too much for them to let us have one planet?" The turains had chased the, from a planet they had begun to settle on- a planet that was, as he had personally checked, been labeled as 'uninhabitable'.
The turains had chased them off anyway, citing 'mining rights violations'.
His XO, Han'Gerral vas Belari, looked up from his command console. "Apparently, captain. Turian vessels are holding at 50 kilometers off the edge of the fleet-"
"Captain!" One of the communication officers, Turi'Enarh, shouted from her console. "We can't get a relay destination lock, and are getting odd error messages from the relay!"
'Odd' was not a word that quarians usually used. As a species for whole their survival was entirely dependent on their ability to accurately diagnose technical problems on their starship, the use of the word 'odd' indicated something out of the range of their current range of understanding. So when a quarian used the term 'odd', the captain became worried.
And the fact that they could not get a relay lock had never happened before. That was just... Odd. The captain got even more worried.
"Check with the fleet." Instructed the captain. "See if it just us, or if the rest of the fleet is receiving the same message."
"I already did, commander." Turi exclaimed. "We are all getting the same error message- and it doesn't make any sense."
"You put it through the translator?"
"Several of us have- and that's the thing. It translates, but..." She shifted uneasily. "It's... Odd."
Rael sighed. "Let me see it."
The message was very simple, but really didn't make any sense.
Standby for Incoming.
"Sir..." A gunnery officer slowly rose from his seat. "The relay is changing shape.
And it was! A nondescript segment on the lower-half of the relay began moving, realigning and shifting until there was a ring, bigger than the mass relay, just sitting there like some soft of parasite. Now that it was visibly distinct from the main segment of the relay, the structure stood out- a grotesque formation of fairly blocky structures, but with two main rings rotating, one within the other.
Then the center flared with violet light.
Rael contacted the other fleet captains, and began pulling up defensive formations that would be able to act as a distraction for the Live Fleet to escape, if only for a little while.
A small structure, the size of a frigate, came out of the violet light first, a more-or-less spherical head with several trailing wings/antennae, and several blinking blue lights on the extremities, gently flew past the fleet, and positioned itself between the Migrant fleet and the Turain forces... Then just sat there.
"Is this a first-contact scenario?" Muttered Enarh.
After a few minutes, the Turians, who were beginning to become a bit unnerved, took a shot at the alien vessel with one of their dreadnaught's main cannons.
It didn't move, and the shot shattered the small vessel.
Then more ships began to pour out of the ring.
On Earth, in a Conjoined Virtual Environment.
John and Hannah both grinned as the small fleet passed into the portal- then became very, very busy.
"The largest group don't seem to be reacting well to our Hermes." Noted John. He really didn't expect it to work, but they had to try anyway.
Hannah sighed, and pulled her vessels away from John's larger assembly, sending them below the orbital plane to keep them out of the firing line. "Eve?"
The AI's glowing avatar appeared. "Yes, Aeson-Hannah?"
"You said they can understand relay inter-communication?" Hannah was painfully aware of the seconds ticking away, even though they were running at a clock speed of 40-to-1 in the simulation.
"Yes Hannah. They utilize the relays for long-range FTL, from. What I am able to gather from the Relay Logs, the core-resonating language between relay and ship is usually enough to communicate very basic things, such as intended target relay. Otherwise, the relays would have a 1 to 1 ratio for connections, instead of the multi-directional web that is present in the galaxy. It is sufficient for simple conversations and words, but not much else."
"I'll keep them alive, and begin herding them towards the portal." John stated. "Keep trying to talk with them Hannah." John kept his Artemis vessels guarding the portal, while he sent the Ares and Omega units to surround the largest group of ships. Once that was done, he activated the Tempest carriers, sending out a few squadrons of Squalls.
Migrant Fleet Vessel: Belari, about 240 klicks from Relay 314.
As the alien vessels poured out of the violet doorway(?), Rael ordered his fleet to fire on the Turians, taking advantage of the fact that council species' ships had reoriented to face the advancing alien vessels- only to be surprised when the shots detonated half-way to their targets, intercepted by... What?
Commanding a telescope on the Belari's ventral spur, Rael looked at the rapidly-approaching vessels. The onboard VI's began measuring the incoming object. And dozens of smaller vessels, what at first glance looked like bits of dust on the lenses, resolved into millions of aircar-sized vessels.
Then the scale of the approaching vessels reached his brain- none of the large ships were under 2 kilometers long. The smallest entities were nearly ten meters long, and looked like insects compared to the titanic behemoth that carried them.
"Energy surge on the alien vessels!" Shouted one of the sensor-watchers. "Brace for-"
Rael watched as, in half a second, the vessels flared some odd, space-twisting drive, vanished, and appeared, in perfect synchronization, around the Quarian fleet.
Then the drones exploded from their carriers.
"I'm a leaf on the wind!" Laughed John, as he controlled every single drone individually.
Eve turned to Hannah. "Is that a reference to a movie?"
Hannah sighed. "Yes. Yes it is."
"It's not as fun if you guys don't get it..." Muttered John.
Thousands upon thousands of the small vessels, each no bigger than an aircar, swarmed around the Quarian vessels, obscuring everything. The space was so thick with drones that the Belari's pilot had to rely on their secondary sensors to keep from crashing into any of the other vessels in their formation.
Suddenly, they could see the rest of the fleet, and the portal... But nothing else.
Well, that was not technically true, but the swirling maelstrom of drones surrounded the entire fleet, but not passing between any ships-
Then the wall of drones farthest from the portal began to get visibly closer, firing small sparks of light that dissipates before they hit other drones, but Rael was not willing to test their shields against unknown energy weapons.
"Captain, if we don't move, those drones will shred us!" Shouted one of the pilots.
Rael nodded, then activated the full-fleet emergency transmissions.
A voice was heard immediately, shouting a warning- someone had beaten him to it!
"Alert! All vessels, head towards the purple gateway! Do not make any offensive moves! Utilize only STL propulsion methods- we do not know if we can withstand any assault! Upon exit, protect the Liveship at all costs!"
The Quarian fleet slowly turned, disappearing into the portal one by one, all 580 vessels fitting through the portal with room to spare.
Turian Patrol Forces: Unstoppable Pursuit (Dreadnaught)
Admiral Veractus was not having a very good day.
Oh, it had started out well enough- the Migrant Fleet (those dirty suit rats) had been kicked out of system where they had been setting down roots. The entire fleet, mind you- and a good 1/3rd of the Turian flotilla had been sent to hasten the 'extraction'.
Of course, when the Turian forces had shown up, the Quarians had broken off into small (relatively) forces of a few patrol vessels (ones that could actually fight), a decently-sized cluster of the cruiser-sized vessels that made up the bulk of the Migrant Fleet's ships, and one, maybe two Dreadnaught-sized LiveShips- the big spherical ones.
Admiral Veractus had taken his personal vessel, this Dreadnaught, and it's support craft- a handful of cruisers and frigates- to push this segment of the fleet farther away from the others.
The Quarians would need all their LiveShips, and the time they spent slowly moving the ponderous behemoths through the relays to a rendezvous point would keep them from preying on the holdings of another species for some time- especially since this was close to the Skyllian Verge, and there was significant Batarian activity a relay jump or two away.
The Admiral planned to have his forces only pursuit the Quarians for another relay jump or so before returning to Palaven and the rest of the fleet- and had already cleared it with Palaven Command!
Then the circle of purple light opened beneath the relay, the alien vessels had appeared, and now... Admiral Veractus looked out the window, and saw, grasping onto the window with four insect-like limbs, a white-glowing light watching him.
The drone- it was obvious they were drones, due to the fact they pulled high-g turns that could pulp an Elcor ace-pilot- were fairly blocky in appearance. No engine-exhaust was visible from the drones in-flight, but when it was seen up close, the angular wings on it's back half appeared to randomly twitch, as though it was eager to fly again.
More odd than that, was just the fact that it was a curious mixture of rectangular and circular- it had a main 'body', which was a uniform black, but the front segment was almost just circular, except for the small protrusions on the front where the graspers that several drones were using to hold onto his ship had unfolded from.
All in all, it managed to, somehow, look mass-produced.
"Why aren't we firing guardian lasers!" Roared Veractus. "I wanted to see falling bodies ten minutes ago!"
"Sir!" Gunnery Chief Adrien Victus stood at attention. "The drones are too thick for individual vessel targeting, and we are taking some shots sir. However, they are moving faster than out VI can distinguish any target, and they fly through the beams faster than we expect they head up. At the rate we are firing, we will begin to overheat the Guardians in a few minutes."
The drone outside reoriented slightly, to look at the Gunnery Cheif, then returned focus on the Admiral.
"Hey Hannah! Check this out!" John pulled Hannah's avatar over to a compiled series of feeds from several drones. "We've got a commanding officer on this ship."
Hannah smiled. "Perfect. Get the nanites onboard and let's see if we can talk with them."
Eve appeared. "Would you like a First Contact package?"
"Yes please Eve."
Veractus dismissed the Gunnery Cheif, and punched up the comm link to the engineering deck. "Engineering! Why aren't we moving?"
The captain, Desolas Arterius stepped up to the command console. "Sir, we can't. Basic spectrographics on the probes that have flown through our lasers indicates that they are Quartz-coated... Possibly for superior heat dispersal. In any event, I will not force my ship to fly through a grinder of soulless machines just to scare some suit-rats." He paused for a moment, then said, almost absently. "Admiral, why would two drones be taking a third apart?"
"What?" Veractus turned, and saw two drones brace themselves on one of the wing-segments of the Dreadnought, and, using two of their limbs, begin to pull open a third, shimmering tendrils of material snaking into the cracked chassis while the third hung on.
After a few seconds of spirits-knows-what happening inside the drone, the two released the third, who promptly crawled over to an airlock, and-
"Hull breach warning, Airlock 7! Hull breach warning, Airlock 7!... Pressure normalizing. Exterior airlock door not responding. Interior airlock door not responding. Repelling teams to Airlock 7!"
"And I'm in!" John cheered. Then he sobered. "Setting swarm-logic protocols. Sorry about this Hannah, but I've got to go diving. You're going to have to be the face for this one- until I can re-coalesce."
Hannah nodded. They didn't understand the physical layout of the vessel, and they needed to watch the programming of the ship as it happened. To do that, John would have to go straight to the data... Well, she set her segment of the virtual environment to project what he was doing in real-time. It was easier than codifying the process in simple terms.
John's avatar froze for a second, and shattered into snowflakes, all pretenses of humanity stripped away for a second, as he coalesced into a series of six rapidly-orbiting spheres (visual representations of his conscious matrix), with every sphere having a dozen or so shield-like layers around it that whirled and spun, tiny forks of lightning crawling through the layers as every mental core thought about different things. And there- she could see the interconnections between the fluxuating core-like kernels that made up what 'he' was sparking and reacting to each other, eventually fusing and then fragmenting, like crystal, into distinct shards. The shards kept fragmenting, simplifying and codifying the complex interactions into a form that would be usable on other networks, before slipping away through the very small link between the probe and it's nanite hive.
Hannah grimaced, and shivered slightly. Not everyone could take direct control of a nanite swarm for any period of time and get anything significant done- the swarms were too different compared to what most people like to directly control- no, had liked, Hannah reminded herself. Most of humanity was still asleep.
Still, she would not like to be in John's shoes. Oh look- the Quarians are beginning to approach the portal!
Nanites were one of the projects Eve had a significant hand in developing on the early strains. The current version, V1836.62, was to the original V1.0 nanite what a a Nanofabrication bot is to a woodchuck.
As such, the almost-liquid nanites spread through the ship, carving through the hull material in hair-thin strands, burrowing directly towards electromagnetic fluctuations, and wrapping gently around computer components, feeling how the individual components interacted, and coating most of the vessel's computing and operational systems in the semi-liquid nanites.
John's consciousness flitted through the interlinked system of nanoprocessors that the swarm used, buoyed on the waves of the legion that was almost-thought of the nanites. Thinking took a backseat to reaction, and interdiscussion became commonplace as the concept of the self deformed in the shifting nature of the substrate sustaining him.
MotionExperienceStimuliEffectTargetQuestionPullIndicateScanDeviseReformReadCollateDetermineQuestionTargetStimuliIndiccateDeviseReadReadReadDetermineQuestionRelayRelayRoom?ProcessingPossibleReform?
we are done here
They found what they were looking for, and, as one, JohnSwarm returned, pulling the nanites back into the airlock for resubmation and retrieval.
John reformed, going from a swirl of crystal fragments to a mostly-present human in the sim. A few tiny patches were missing, but the fractal nature of diving protected his mind from catastrophic effects. In less than a second, the remaining fragments had returned, flitted back into place and healing the 'scratches' that the simulation projected onto his avatar.
Then he took a deep breath, and had to stop from thinking in Turian. Diving was difficult at the best of times, and that system had been on lockdown. Still, he had been able to grab a lot. A bit more than he had expected...
Hannah backed up as John bent over and vomited into a bucket that had materialized just for this purpose. "Anything good?"
John reached out, and pulled a water bottle from nowhere, rinsing out his mouth. "Yup! Language translations for multiple dialects, a 'universal translator', a codex, multiple forms of coding languages, some new laws of physics that correlate to element zero behavior, military intelligence reports, and dozens of military vessel schematics." He gargled some water. "And yes, they are different than the fleet they were attacking. They are 'Turians', and the larger flotilla are 'Quarians'. "
"Well..." Groused Hannah. "At least we know the names of these aliens."
"What's worse," John took a deep drink. "I don't think the Turians will like our first-contact package. Their codex entry does not suggest any form of apathy for others on a cultural scale without significant conflict first."
Eve reached into the bucket, and began separating the various data into cohesive chunks. "All of this is very interesting! Especially the math of how their FTL drives are supposed to work, although the cultural development does not make much sense..." Eve stopped moving, and flickered. "Oh dear."
Both humans paused, and stared at Eve's avatar.
"What's wrong?" Hannah cradled Eve's avatar, as it began to shake, the tiny figure within apparently distressed.
"I don't know..." Eve began darting around the place. "There are indicators that the cultures have changed- even over the short time this codex has been recorded, the cultures have been... Defanged. Altered. It doesn't follow any form of logical progression."
Hannah and John looked at each other, then at the vibrating avatar.
"Well then." Hannah planted her hands on her hips. "Let's see if we can clear up a few things." She grabbed the data packet that referenced Turian biology, and swept a hand over her avatar, forming it into a perfect duplicate of a 'gorgeous' (to Turians) female Turian.
John chuckled and grabbed Eve's avatar, cuddling the glowing sphere for a moment, almost laughing as she blushes. "I believe you Eve. Send me your evaluation and I will look over it. Right now, though, we need to establish a decent first contact with the Turians."
Eve wriggled out of his grip, still flaring red. She was still adapting to human meanings and gestures, even after several centuries of interaction with them. "Done. And I have a Turian suit for you to use!"
John's look of surprise was only barely seen as his avatar rippled, and formed into a carbon-copy of a Turian from one of the several copies of /Fornax/ he had pulled from several cabal members.
In short, a pornstar.
Hannah collapsed laughing as he flicked a hand, and was clothed once more.
"This is going to go either well, or horribly." He muttered.
Eve left the two bickering avatars to go sort the data John had extracted.
The Boarding-Repelling teams clustered around the airlock, rifles at the ready. Even if this was a first contact, no self-respecting Turian would allow themselves to be seen as weak.
And, as the barricades slid out from their concealed locations on the floor, every Turian there prepared their various weapons- shotguns, rifles, one person even managed to pull out a defoliator, in case their boarders were like Rachni.
Strike-Leader Numas Vakarian readied his modified rifle (calibrated by his son- kid had a Knack for calibrations), and was ready to pull the trigger as soon as he saw something, anything, that would pose a threat to his team.
The door opened, and they saw a silver wall, just behind the door.
When it didn't attack, Vakarian motioned for one of the techs to scan it. The tech activated his omnitool, and passed it close to the surface of the material- which rippled as if he had touched it.
"Sir! It absorbs almost everything, reflecting only heat and a somewhat blurred reflection. I have no idea what it is made of." The tech pulled out his shotgun, and froze.
On the silver surface, there was now a reflection of his hand, and omnitool, just sitting there as if frozen in time. After a few seconds, it sank into the grey fog, and the image of two Turians appeared- one male, one female.
"Vakarian to bridge." The Strike-Leader spoke quietly into his microphone. "I think we may have a first contact scenario here. There are no boarders-"
"I wouldn't say that." The woman-image interjected- in flawless Turian. "We technically have boarded your vessel, just not done anything else."
"Now, we would like to talk with your leader." The male smoothly continued. "We would say 'take us to your leader', but from what we have seen with the Turians, this would not make you more comfortable."
"Who are you!" Vakarian demanded.
"We are the swarm." Intoned the images in concert. "We are the remnants of an ancient people, and the first of few. The patient watchers, and the oncoming tide. We mean no harm... For now."
"And we are also the ones controlling the drones around your vessels." Smirked the male image.
The female image smiled a wide Turian grin. "So be a good soldier and get your superior officer. I believe his name is General Veractus? Get him." When no one moved, she sighed. "Right. Plan B?"
"Kill all of them?" Asked the male image.
"No, that's plan W. For Corpses." The woman giggled. (Note- they are speaking Turian, so the alphabet is different, as is the spelling.)
"Ah. Then it's the kill some of them plan!" The male laughed, and looked very eager. "I like this plan, and am excited to be a part of it!"
"I wish." The female rolled her eyes. "Plan B is hijack their communication systems."
"Right. Right." The male snapped his fingers, and several spikes shot out of the silver, twisting into odd shapes before freezing. "Admiral Veractus? This is a friendly warning." His voice echoed through the comm channels on every band. "Humanity lives nearby, and we don't like it when people get into firefights on our doorstep." He grinned, teeth somehow multiplying in the beak-like mouth. "We will be seeing your Citadel relatively soon. Thank you, and have a nice day."
"Enjoy this free trip to Palaven." The female stopped smiling. "And you might want to move quickly." Both images faded, and the silver mass began to recede.
Soldiers hurried back as the airlock door slammed shut, and Vakarian heard a thumping noise as the atmosphere within evacuated into the depths of space.
On the bridge, Veractus heard the message loud and clear. And despite his instinct to attack these beings, he knew they were outclassed. Even if the weapons on these drones were lasers a fraction of the power of a Guardian defense cannon, the drone swarm would be able to clip their wings, and then easily dissect their ship with negligible effort.
"Sir!" A communications officer shouted. "Contact has been re-established with the other vessels!"
Veractus looked out the window, seeing that the drones had pulled away from their ships, and activated his omnitool, contacting the captains.
"Men, prepare for full-burn to Palaven via relay 314-" suddenly his omnitool interrupted him.
"Sorry Admiral, but you won't be taking the relays." This sounded like the female voice.
"Nope. Fly into the purple portal- the relay will not work while the portal is active." There was the male voice.
"If you are able to hack my omnitool-" Veractus began, then stopped talking and went pale. "By the Spirits! Lock down all computers! Pull all hard-lines! Isolate all systems! I don't want this AI to get into our ships!"
The female voice was only able to say "We are not-" before Veractus smashed his own omnitool.
"Shut it down!" He roared.
Every Turian vessel went dark for a few minutes as they attempted to rid their vessels of AI-vulnerable systems, and exterior access.
John watched as the nanites that connected the various systems within the Turian vessel broadcast every move. "... Not bad, really. They are isolating the various computer systems, wiping them, restoring from a backup, and disabling internal WIFI."
"WIFI?" Asked Hannah. "How do you know it's WIFI?"
"In a way, it doesn't really matter." Laughed John. "But it was the nearest equivalent I could imagine. They certainly don't use quantum entanglement for their communications- see the background rad level drop?"
"True." Muttered Hannah. "And that reaction to the perception of AI was interesting... Are they at war with an AI?"
"I hope not!" Eve popped into existence between them. "I don't want to be ignored again! Don't let them come near us, ok?"
"Earth will be sacrosanct." Stated John with finality. "Anyone who approaches will be obliterated, so don't worry Eve. You won't be abandoned."
They both hugged the sphere, and let it go. /"Don't worry Eve."/ They said in concert. /"We will stay with you until we cannot stand any more."/
"Yay!" The little sphere bobbed and spun for a moment, before stopping and becoming businesslike again. "Are you going to let them go? The Turians, I mean."
"No." John smiled, but had too many teeth in it. "They are being thrown out."
Strike-Leader Vakarian was wishing he had not been near a window when the lights had gone out. And he was wishing even more that the drones would stop looking at him.
Once power had gone out, dozens of drones had latched onto their ship- and from the slight spin that the drones had imparted, they were landing on the other ships as well. Now they were like corska flies, gripping onto every available surface, glowing white eye just watching.
Then, at some unseen signal, they began to push the ship. Vakarian felt the slow pull of an acceleration gradient, and saw they they were being pushed down a tunnel towards a spinning ring, surrounding a violet portal.
This post sucked. It sucked a lot.
Vakarian was proud to say he did not scream as the portal rushed at them, but he did take note of the three he heard behind him.
In a flash of violet discontinuity, the strike-leader blinked, and then pulled off this helmet to rub his eyes. "Is that... Palaven?"
The massive swarm of vessels that always surrounded their Mass Relay was unmistakable.
His second-in-command nodded, apparently dumbstruck.
As the Palaven fleet swarmed in to their seemingly dead vessels, the ring, which was exactly the same color as the relay, shut down and folded back up.
John, Hannah, and Eve considered the Quarians while their fairly-large fleet formed a defensive position around the Relay- which, with a temporarily turned-off portal, appeared to be the only way out of their system without burning for Proxima Centuri- and they would have no idea what is there.
Nothing. Nothing was there. Proxima Centuri's planets had been obliterated during the skirmishing of the Relay War. There was literally only a massive accretion disk of gas and dust from the fighting that had happened there.
But that didn't concern them.
What concerned the three minds, was how the Quarians would react to their presence. The Turians admit in their own codex that they were militaristic, and very eager to fight. Not as much as the Krogan, but more than adept in the universal language of violence. Therefore, Turian behavior can be more easily predicted than not.
Quarians though... They were not what any of the three expected. The Geth were known in the codex- and their listed interactions with the Quarians indicated a form of cognitive disconnect in function (AI being forced to do something they don't want to do and designed NOT to do), or a hidden history.
I.e., the Geth Rebellion did not fit understandable logic patterns devised from known data of the Geth behavior or swarm logic.
Still, the recorded behavior of Quarians showed a meek, almost downtrodden species of gifted engineers and roboticists- the opposite of what John, Hannah, or Eve expected.
All three agreed that, if during the Geth Rebellion, only the military support forces- the engineers mostly- survived the main confrontation, then the culture should have become heavily-militarized (which happened), and, when the Council banned them from having a planet to live on, heavily xenophobic- xenophobic to the point of leaving known space altogether in search of a place they could build up as a temporary base. The nomadic lifestyle of the living Quarians were not consistent with their documented historical behavior.
John pulled over a pop-up notification: the Gate above Mars was complete. He smiled- the Anchor and Umbrella setups were in place around the domes, and guarding his massive power and refinery station there were several Zeus-class Titans (in standby mode), on top of the orbital and general defenses.
"Mars is ready for the Quarians." He passed over the defensive structure maps, and then general data for how much ambient energy and material was being produced.
"... Why so many guns?" Hannah made a few modifications to the maps. "If we provide them the potential to defend themselves, and the illusion of having control of this side of the planet, they may be willing to negotiate and talk easier."
"I disagree." John pulled up the codex entry, and some other scraps from the data slurry he had retrieved from the Turian vessel. "They have a pathological hatred of AI's, which-" he held up a hand to stifle his colleague's protests. "-we technically are, and we do not have time to manufacture a few organic bodies to inhabit."
"How about a terminator?" Asked Hannah.
"What?" John looked completely poleaxed. "From the movie? Do we even have Arnold Schwarzenegger's body anywhere?"
"His DNA was collected and is stored under 'Austrian Samples'." Supplied Eve helpfully.
"I meant one of the later terminators- a TX model." Hannah pulled up the film clip, and all three beings watched.
"So exactly what we did with the Turians, but in 3-dimensions, and keeping the fact that we are synthetic a secret." John deadpanned. "That's not going to work out well."
"How so?" Asked Hannah. "It makes more sense then waiting for real, organic bodies."
"Because the Turians think we are AI." John pulled up the picture of the Turian vessels, as they were being pushed by the drones through the portal. "And once word gets out, they are going to try to find us. If the Quarians learn that the beings that intercepted their fleet and the Turian fleet were AI that lied about being AI, then any trust we had gained would be immediately lost, and any future statement of intent would be scrutinized and looked at in the worst possible light."
Hannah reluctantly agreed. "Better to bite the bullet now, and show our good intentions by showing that these defenses that protect them are capable of doing so."
"Still..." John flicked the screen that showed the T-1000 model of Terminator with a finger, and a blueprint appeared over his hand. "We need to add a quantum core, and a Nanofabricator to keep the mass at peak performance, but it should be doable."
Hannah plucked the blueprint, and nodded. "Looks good. But why would we build these?"
"Do you really think the Quarians would appreciate having a twenty-story-tall robot attempt to engage in diplomatic relations? Even a Dox is bigger than most Turian tanks." John dryly explained. "Having a form on their scale should make them a little more comfortable."
"... I am not sure you are correct." Eve bobbed around the tiny figure. "But I want one of these."
"I'll put in three orders." John flicked the various interfaces. "So... We are going to offer the Quarians living space on Mars?"
"No reason not to at this point." Hannah explained. "It will allow us to predict how the rest of the galaxy will see us. Besides..." She grinned. "The uplift experiments are doing well. Alien contact would allow us to stress them."
On the planet Mars, several Colonel-class fabrication units began to construct a small, intricate structure- a fabrication studio specifically to construct bodies for the three minds.
It would take a while, but then they began to build a human-sized portal- as this fabricator was deep within the economic base.
Hundreds of miles away, several aerial fabricators began to deplete their nanofabricators, building a human-sized portal and a nanite monolith beside it.
Both of these would also take a while. Good thing it would probably take a while before the Quarains could arrive.
Thing was, a 'while' is not a very well defined unit of time.
The Quarian fleet was gently shepherded by the drone fleet into Mars orbit, where every gun in dozens of Anchor defense stations aimed at the alien vessels and dozens of Umbrella anti-orbital laser buildings aimed at them.
A message was broadcast from the monolith on the surface, in repeating waves, on the established (by citadel and non-citadel species as a standard) bandwidths, in flawless Quarian, to the ships above.
"We would like to speak with you, Quarians. Come down, and as long as you do not fire upon any of our structures, you will not be harmed."
The drones began spiraling around the fleet, and the cloud spiraled down into the atmosphere, creating a storm of drones, where only the eye would permit safe passage.
"It's not like we have much of a choice." Muttered Captain Rael'Zorah. "Still, I don't know how to refuse, or if we can." He cleared his throat, and looked at his communications officer. "Contact the other captains. Conference in ten minutes, route to my quarters. We need to establish how this will play out."
The communications officer nodded, and began to send messages to the other vessels. Hopefully, he thought, none of this would be seen as aggressive by whoever drives those drones.
Codex entry: The Oncoming Tide
404 Error- File Not Found.
Logon: *******
Password: ***********
(Access granted. STG protocol Silent Worker activated.)
As of 2300 local time, a Palaven Suppression fleet under the command of General Veractus encountered an alien fleet while engaged in enforcement action against Migrant Fleet vessels. Said vessels and Turian fleet were swarmed by countless drones, and it was here that said Turian vessels lost contact with the Quarian fleet and each other.
It was at this point, that several of our recording devices became damaged.
At 2318, a previously-Unknown structure on the Palaven relay unfolded, forming a circle with multiple levels of spinning rings within, whereby upon the rings reaching a maximum rotation of (uncertain), a purple-blue distortion of light was seen. After a few seconds, the Turian fleet as mentioned above drifted out, apparently without power or any form of motive force.
The vessels were intact and unharmed- with the exception of the Dreadnaught Unstoppable Pursuit, which had a visibly damaged and eroded (eaten?) dorsal-port airlock.
More information will be collected once the general has been found and crews debriefed.
End Chapter 2
Omake: The Walkers
Mars, Prothean archives. (Prior to the Relay Wa)
/Subject: the sentient ape-like species from Sol3.
Recording: Hunter Conversation Log
"The mammoth got away!"- Hunter 1
"Fuck that!"- Hunter 2
"But it's really far away!"- Hunter 1
"I want mammoth, I'm getting mammoth. We are going to follow it, and kill it."- Hunter 2
"But-" - Hunter 1
"WE ARE GOING TO FOLLOW IT AND KILL IT!"- Hunter 2
Note: due to the actions of humans like this, we have determined that they classify as 'Endurance Hunters'. Uplift protocols are unnecessary and may not work due to unique mentality of 'Stubborn it to Death'.
Example:
"Where's that antelope we were tracking? Oh right. It's right there."- Hunter 1
"It's the only thing higher than the grass for a good... Eveywhere."- Hunter 2
*stifled laughter* "It's also bleeding and hardly alive, so yeah, I think that's ours."- Hunter 1
Notation: We lost a patrol fighter due to a lightning strike, and some humans just followed the pilot to death! They don't need us for any thing else./
Eve looked up from the data provided by the archive, over at the investigator- Jack Harper. Or, at least, his projected avatar.
Jack chuckled. "See Eve- even the Protheans knew how impressive we were even as a child species! We should be ruling the Galaxy- in the best interests of humanity!"
Eve read through the surveillance data. "Well, this does explain a few things Jack, but I think they were referring to our behavior set and hunting patterns rather than any inherent 'superiority'. Besides, we don't know what other species are out there- or if the Protheans still are."
Even Jack's avatar smoked. "Eve, are you sure you won't side with us?"
"I'm on both sides!" Exclaimed the AI. "And neither. Besides, this is not something I am interested in disputing." Her avatar vanished from the empty room.
The minds of Cerberus continued to dream, as their Commander vessel drifted aimlessly. They would win- either by outlasting the others, or destroying them. Humanity would be the main, and last, voice in the cosmos.
One way or another.
-End Omake.-
And because I wanted to get this one out of my head, another Omake: The Story of Gilgamesh as told by Eve... Part 1.
So, once upon a time in ancient Mesopotamia, there was a King. His name was Gilgamesh. He was born from a goddess, and badass enough to make it through the trials of kingship for the city-state of Uruk, one of the largest city-states in the delta.
Gilgamesh, being a tyrant King, naturally oppressed the people in his city, but made sure they were safe and worked well. Practical oppression, see?
However, the priesthood under his iron fist decided to marry him off to a nearby city- one, because they thought it would mellow the guy of he didn't have to carry off his conquest on his back every time he got bored, and two, because it would bring their cities together.
Naturally, the only ruler awesome enough to be fit to marry this guy was the Goddess Ishtar, who was ruling a nearby city because why not.
She was his equal, and they were set to be married and have awesome kids.
Unfortunately, the rest of the gods got together and decided they were going to be gigantic assholes, and so built a man who was as strong and fast as Gilgamesh, then set the man, Enkidu upon the city.
Yes- they built a badass go kill Gilgamesh and the city of Uruk.
Gilgamesh, seeing this man rampaging through his city, postpones his own wedding to deal with the threat, and fights the guy in unarmed combat.
Their fight rampages for several days, and destroys many of the cities in Mesopotamia, but eventually, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become bros, and spend an extra day destroying his rival cities and getting drunk.
Rather than go home and finish getting Married, Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide that their fight was so much fun that they make plans to go to the Cedar Mountains and beat the crap out of the storm God because they haven't been having enough sunny days lately.
To this effect, Gilgamesh leaves his fiancé Ishtar in charge of his city, because, let's face it, she was better than him at managing cities.
Ishtar is a bit pissed, but lets him go on his adventure.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the north (yes, just the two of them), find the storm God, and then subsequently beat the crap out of him with their bare hands. Well, Gilgamesh uses his bare hands, and Enkidu uses some axes, but this is not a story about Enkidu.
The fight ranges from the frozen north, to (and through), according to the Qumran Scroll "The Book of Giants" and the original legend, the houses of several Angels and Demons (or gods, depending on the source).
After tearing the gods head off (because how else do you kill a God and make sure they stay dead), and ensuring his people have more awesome weather to work in under his fiancé's sexy grip, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slowly begin to wander back to Uruk, having adventures along the way, and destroying cities when the bars didn't have strong enough alcohol- or if they had enough.
And that's the end of the first half of the legend.
Want the second half?
-End Omake-
Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of MetalMind. Please review if you can- I value your input, and love to hear how people interpret my stories.
It also feeds my muse.
Happy Start of School! I have studying to do now...