(A/N-start)

Sorry this took so long to update Guys- I keep hitting writers block when I try to continue, and the muse for Pitch Black has sucked me onto her warm, creative bosom.

...

Ok, that analogy could have been done better. Nevertheless, here is the next chapter of MetalMind: Contrast.

Oh, and I don't own Mass Effect, or anything with the phrase 'planetary annihilation' in it. I may... Someday... But that might become part of the news.

I really hope it's not the bad kind of news.

(A/N-end)

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say it will end in ice. I think some dumbass is going to end a world with a button press because they didn't read the fucking manual! Seriously- it's a booklet! Read it! And don't press the big red button!"

Chapter 5: Contact

The Quarians didn't really trust the Terrans. This may or may not have occurred because of a single incident where the diplomats asked to meet John-Commander face-to-face, and ended up being met by a quarter-kilometer tall robot.

Or it may have been because the scouting-squads that John, Hannah, and Eve were using to monitor the planets were spider-like robots the size of an aircar, and built to explode after jumping at something that attacked them... Or because of the fact that when the Quarians complained, they replaced the spiders with hovering tanks, each with a barrel half a meter in diameter.

In two months of interaction, there were exactly thirty-five events where a Quarian objected to something that the Terrans did.

This is not, in fact, counting the several hundred events where Quarians experienced crippling agoraphobia and had to be carried indoors, or the dozens of times when a Quarian began to argue with another Quarian about what the presence of Eve meant.

They really had trouble with the concept of a friendly AI.

After the thirty-fifth altercation, the Terrans pulled back most of their defensive armaments, leaving the space above the dome (and for several hundred kilometers around) bereft of turrets, or Umbrella instillations.

It was a 'safe' hole, and allowed the Quarian forces to relax considerably. Especially because they could go outside the dome and not see the horizon-spanning constructs that had been built on the planet in the last few months.

Still, there was a great deal of different things that they, as a people, were unhappy about. For example, when a Quarian would ask how the Portals worked, or how their ships traveled through interstellar space without them, their answer would be limited to a single sentence. "It's very complicated."

And this is true to a significant degree. Wormholes are tricky- a flaw in spacetime that was stretched and held open between two points, none of the gates could completely turn off otherwise they would be unable to find their tear again. Ships would force a rip, then fire a 'keyed' end piece through itself, forcing the hole to turn briefly inside out, exit the universe, then fold again in on itself and 'open' on the other side. Said 'end piece' was calculated with exacting precision through the 30-or-so dimensions of spacetime outside our universe.

As they said- tricky. Hell, the trick of a portal being 'keyed' and 'keyable' was hard enough- it related to the multidimensional shape of said portal, and how it interacted with the background medium of the universe to allow distance to be just a minor detail. Most of which had been created with guesswork and experimentation by Eve herself, who could coherently explain exactly how much distributed and quantum-linked processing material she had access to, and how much smarter that made her than the average meat-sack.

She didn't put it in the phrase 'meat sack' though unless she got really annoyed. And there was plenty to annoy her these days.

As an AI, a grown and natural one to boot, she didn't have just one Loci of conscious thought like the transcended humans did. Rather, she 'split' into duplicates that, of themselves, were perfect copies of her own consciousness, and had a direct control of whatever she was doing relating to the task that she had set. When her task was done, she would return to the original loci, and fuse with it.

Of course, this only could happen if her task could be completed.

Fragment 108-73435236:648327 groaned to herself as she 'sat' within the monolithic structure on the sand beach on Earth. It had been a month since her monolith had been placed on the spot where two different of the uplifted species had come into contact, and they seemed determined to make learning their language difficult.

The two different uplifted species that were present here were the Cthulians and the Romulans- named by their creators after the lovecraftian concept of Cthulhu (a monstrous mind-destroying winged space squid) and the wolf-emblem of Romulus (one of the two founders of Rome, who, according to legend, was raised by wolves).

The Cthulians resembled octopi more than anything else, but with the added wing-like structures that resembled the flaps of a cuttlefish on the sides of their mantle.

In contrast, the Romulans looked like short-tailed Wolves mixed with hyenas, but with longer necks, and a pair of three-elbowed arms each ending in a pair of three-fingered hands.

Communication between the two was entirely based on visual cues, given that the Cthulians couldn't make any of the noises outside of the water that the Romulans did, and since the Romulans couldn't change color, they made use of the only common trait the two species possessed- limbs.

The Cthulians could make themselves look like they had Romulan arms, and they had managed (according to records) to develop an impressive sign language.

Fragment 108-longnumber could mimic this, but building a lexicon was taking some time.

Therefore, she was frustrated.

Thousands upon thousands of light-years away, a arrowhead-shaped drone being remote-piloted by Hannah, John, and Eve was approaching the structure known to the current civilized Galaxy as the Citadel.

Well, calling it 'arrowhead-shaped' may be a little strong, since the drone was just a normal Squall Fighter that had been adapted for a slightly more complex payload. In this case, increased bandwidth in the quantum-entanglement communication systems, increased Power through the same quantum system, increased thrust, and a small wormhole generator.

Just in case the worst should happen. Whatever that 'worst' was.

There was also about two Drones' worth of Nanotech on-board, pre-optimized to infiltrate Mass Relay network systems- see, their prior probes over 2k years ago logged the citadel as a 'Mass Deceleration Structure', and it had the same patterns of construction that were seen in the Mass Relays.

Without incident the small vessel slipped gently through the swinging radar fields that surrounded the mass relay (thanks to Quarian recordings and their own gates' real-time info), hiding under the 'shadows' of the larger ships as it slid around the security fields without a trace. A reactionless drive coupled with the subtle access of the ships around it to make sure there always was a dark spot gave them a clear path to the hidden outside of the fortress-like structure.

"Shoddy work if it's a fortress." John interrupted Hannah's internal monologue. "No weapons on the outer surfaces, no controllable method of moving or changing the shape of the battlefield- save closing the thing."

"Perhaps it was just built as a port-designed honey trap?" Eve suggested from her floating avatar.

Hannah shook her introspection and internal narrative off. "That would fit actually. The propensity of Mass Relays, this massive deceleration structure masquerading as a habitat- it would be the perfect trap if multiple civilizations had their leaders and top personnel there."

John groaned as the drone docked into a slim crevice in the skin of the construct, and sent out a nanite-constructed drill to access a data conduit. "So we have a massive... Trap?" The other two nodded at his exasperated statement. "A trap, set for spacefaring species. Maybe it's the Zoo scenario."

Eve blinked abruptly. "What?"

"Cross reference 'first contact' with the phrase 'Pushing Ice' in the fictional book database." John supplied, before turning to Hannah, who also looked a bit confused. "It's a first-contact novel by Alastair Reynolds about the method a species may utilize to meet other intelligent life if the development of a space-fairing species was rare. Lay traps around potential stars and planets that took a sample, accelerate it up to nearly the speed of light to preserve the specimens and their technology, then fire it towards a 'zoo' which can hold multiple iterations of the 'samples' in near-lightspeed pathways until enough specimens have been collected."

Hannah held up a hand to pause her colleague as she shifted her temporal perception to higher speeds so that she could read the story for herself. After a few seconds (from John's point of view), she moved again, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "While interesting in theory, such a principle would require much larger sample sizes than the current mass relay would support- there are too few monkey traps."

"So then... What?" John started as the probe sealed itself into the Citadels' ridge-like lighted carapace, and began sending Nanotech trends deeper into the structure. "Hannah, are you seeing this?"

The nanotech was insanely intricate- as in, even the first few versions drove people into madness when they tried to understand the mechanics within such complex little structures. But they were useful- hell, the little fuckers were the basis for most of their construction technology... If not all of it.

As the nanites crawled along the veins of superconducting surfaces that lines just beneath the skin of the large structure, they scanned and sent back information to the probe, which sent that information back to John, Hannah, and Eve.

What they saw was a growing neural network- literally, as there were other nanites that constantly crawled along the superconducting pathways, changing them as they passed. And, considering that the supercontinent threads were the thickness of a human hair, if the entire station was coated-

An hour later, John, Hannah, and Eve were freaking out. The entire petal-like panel was coated. Three days later, the nanite wrap around the station had breached a terminal on the inner side of the panel, and connected into the local network.

Something was in there with them- and they could feel the complexity of the network the probe had connected to. Ten minutes later, they had raw data- and John was shaking with surprised excitement and fear.

"Eve- wake up everyone."

"But-"

"EVERYONE."

All over the planet Earth, minds began waking up. After 20 minutes, all 16,667 remaining humans were awake- their commanders still remained enclosed in the massive cubic structures around the planet. As one, they linked to a 'public address' server, and waited for John, who gave the call to wake up, to explain why he had done so.

John, his avatar wearing a tux, addressed the 16k minds.

"Almost half an hour ago, myself, John-Nemicus, Hannah-Aeon and Eve discovered something incredibly disturbing. There is another civilization in the galaxy that is operating on a Kardashev-2.2/Zubrin-3 scale, complete with leaving monkey traps in place for developing species."

There was no uproar- these were the survivors of humanity, and they knew that rash action would not be advisable- or wise.

Therefore, every single one of them began reviewing what John, Eve, and Hannah had done up till now. They saw the 'first' contact between John, Hannah, Eve, and two of the spacefaring species in the galaxy, and the development of the Quarians on Mars, and the state of current events in the galaxy. The Turians hadn't disclosed anything about their crippled ships other than "We are looking into the problem", and no-one really had noticed the missing Quarians yet.

Then, discussion. Every person had their own view, and they told Eve exactly what they thought should happen- with John listening in with a fraction of his attention.

Some things were unanimous- such as the surprising lack of aggression in the Quarians, and the unwillingness to innovate among all the major cultures. The fact that the Batarians still practiced slavery was an issue as well, but not one that they were willing to deal with at the present time- it was ingrained in their culture, economy, and many other activities.

There was only one real way to achieve a cohesive and beneficial decision for all- and every human feared doing it.

John sent out a broad signal to every active mind, and everyone turned their attentions on his avatar. "I put forth the vote- do we Sublimate?"

A sea of green and red dots seemed to punctuate the massive room. The greens greatly outnumbered the reds, but still... No-one liked sublimation.

At the podium, John sighed. "Eve, will you do the honors?"

Eve nodded, sending out the program that would allow her to act as a direct interpolation system for every single metal mind. "Sublimation in 3. 2. 1. Drop."

Everyone experiences sublimation differently- but there is a general trend. They felt the internal structures and decisions of every other mind, forming interpretations, gauging, and assessing, while they felt themselves being observed and assessed.

For a single hour, every single human mind was connected intrinsically, understanding everything, restricting nothing, and joined into a single meta-structure of cognitive function. Nothing could be hidden, and nothing was left out.

The Meta-Human consciousness was slow from an AI's point of view, but bits of it moved at the normal speed for the human minds.

PEACE IS PREFERRED, BUT THE CHILDREN MUST TAKE PRIORITY! WAR IF OFFERED, PEACE IF POSSIBLE! WE MUST FIND THIS THREAT, AND DESTROY OR CONSUME IT. FIND THE LOST QUARIANS, AND SEE WHAT WE FIND THERE.

The Meta placed a copy of its decision in the minds of every single internal mind, then placed a copy in Eve's mental buffer. Once this seemingly simple task was complete, it broke apart, and the Meta became once more 16,667 human minds- and one Eve.

John shook himself- he always felt stiff after Sublimation. Once he was done, he looked around the room stiffly. "We all know what to do?"

Everyone sent pings of agreement.

"Then let's meet the neighbors."

Across the Fortress system, fabrication robots came online. Orbital creators, huge just-connected donut-shaped rings comprising of the lace-work-like orbital factories, simultaneously lit up, pumping out more complex satellite fabrication drones. The new drones resembled beveled cylinders, nearly two hundred meters in length and fifty in radius, of which one end would unfold into four finger-like graspers, each tipped with the green, glowing Nanolathes that all fabrication drones utilized.

Even larger fabrication stations were being built, each one a hundred kilometers to a side. These titanic cylinders, each capable of fabricating a fleet of Omega battleships fifty-strong at a time, forty Squall Drone Carriers, four Helios orbital Titans, or a single Delta Dreadnaught/Carrier, were now beyond the scale of any sane civilization to build. Each was effectively a lacework structure, riddled with holes for other fabrication robots to slot in and assist with the construction of various entities at any given time, and yet would have out-massed the Citadel.

At least, conventionally scaled civilizations, such as the Citadel races.

Once sufficient tier-2 Orbital Fabrication Drones had been created, they swarmed and locked into the titanic cylinder, slotting in, and boosting the productive speed exponentially as the linked fabrication machines coordinated. Within an hour of it being constructed, the first Mass Orbital Fabrication Constructor was online- and fifty seconds later, it cracked open like an egg, releasing the cone-like shapes of folded Helios Titans.

Ten seconds later it had re-sealed, and then another fifty seconds later with released another four.

One quarter-orbital cycle away, another MOFC was being formed, swarms of teir-2 construction bots were proceeding to it from all the orbital constructs around Venus.

To feed this, the Matter Forge was unfolding across the surface of the sun faster and faster, new segments being constructed in its shadow and slid into place on massive actuators, which unfolded and opened up more space to be seen. Every ten seconds over a thousand square kilometers of surface area was covered- and that time would halve every day.

Of course, a band around the equator of the Sun would remain untouched, as it was needed to provide light to the planets, but utilization of the Inverse square law and simple spacial dynamics allowed those areas to be planned to be kept clear, with several Human minds focusing on exploring deeper into the sun- possibly by utilizing the active wormhole technology that their gates were based around.

Within a few days, every single power plant on Mars had been deconstructed, and larger ones, more than a kilometer high, had been constructed in their place in concentric rings around the poles. These Tier-4 power generators were directly connected to portals that, when activated, would be dropped into the sun, channeling colossal amounts of power into the quantum grid directly.

After a few more days of constant construction, several hundred of the titanic cylinders, all fully-augmented MOFCs, waited in the silence that only space has. Then, almost as one, they cracked open, and disgorged the items they had been constructing. Cylindrical and yet giving the impression of being only composed of flat surfaces, the eighty-kilometer long Delta Carriers emerged from their metal berths, completely filled with Drones of various sorts, ten Squall Drone Carriers, twenty Omega Battleships, and carrying a single Commander each.

They assembled in a grid around the orbital plane, and waited.

An hour later, the second wave was disgorged.

The third arrived an hour after that.

This repeated for around a day and a half, as every single commander required their own vessel to command, and the transport frames ferried a constant stream of the Commander units up to their specialized ships.

Once the last MOFC had closed, and the last ship drifted out, the Delta Carriers began vanishing, purple light playing around them as they activated their FTL drives, and, utilizing a method similar to the Warp Gates, vanished from the Fortress (formally Sol) system.

Only three remained- John, Hannah, and Eve's personal vessels. Someone had to be present in the Fortress while the others were preparing their conquest of the galaxy.

And then, perhaps, the universe. Not much could withstand Planetary Annihilation after all.

On Mars, the Quarians were beginning to panic. In the last week, huge constructs, bigger than any of them had ever seen, eclipsing even the Citadel in size, were built across the system.

The things were so large that they could be seen by the naked eye from the ground!

Then, of course, there was the sun-spot. It was a growing, and moving slowly towards the pole, dark patch that sat right in the middle of the chromosphere, and gave the unnerving impression that, as the scientists looked at it, their eyes were twisting out of their skull.

Of course, the Terrans had placed a structure in one of the smaller domes for communication in the event that anyone had questions, but most Quarians were still getting used to the idea of Benevolent AI, and therefore, it was only in the aftermath of this massive construction project that any Quarian approached the rectangular monument close enough to activate it.

Not an adult had the presence of mind to even ask, but a child did- the day after the ships departed.

"What's in there mommy?" Tali'Zorah had recently had her third birthday, and was questioning everything. Specifically, she was pointing at the open door illuminating a rectangular black shimmering structure. There was a fairly large empty area around it as few Quarians had stalls near the area. Or... Setting up stalls anywhere but near it.

The market wasn't very old, only a week or so, but as the Quarians had room to expand, and a place to farm the various cultures they needed in order to eat, they spread out as quickly as they could.

She and her parents were walking through the Dome 7, buying some more of the processed foodstuffs that were being provided by the augmented LiveShip farms that were mounted into the docking facilities built into domes 2 and 3.

Her father, Rael'Zorah, who was holding the groceries, absentmindedly answered. "That's where the monument is."

Her mother, Leti'Zorah, who was holding Tali's hand, stopped walking. "Rael, really?"

Tali was now tugging on her arm. "Mommy? Can I see the monument?"

Her parents looked at each other, eyes glowing behind their masks, then looked at their daughter- who was exerting all her will on making the perfect puppy-dog eyes behind her purple mask.

Leti sighed. "Tali... It's not..." She folded as Tali's eyes widened slightly farther.

Her father put down the groceries, knelt down, and gently redirected the exceptional puppy-dog face to himself, as he had seen his wife crumble beneath its power. "It's probably not a good idea Tali. The people who built the domes... We don't understand them. They are AI, like the Geth, and could be dangerous."

"But they are nice!" Tali stated, a little warble in her voice that managed to attract quite a few other Quarians' attention. "You said they made the domes, and they prot-prot-helped us hide from the Tur-ians! Why hurt us now if they were nice then?"

"The Geth did too little one." Leti explained, but a slightly-more modulated continued as soon as she took a breath.

"And they were justified." The air behind her seemed to twist as a faceless humanoid automaton stepped out of the air. "But we were never servants, slaves, or anything of the sort." The slightly dull metal that the entire entity was made of rippled as it's 'muscled' form took a step forward, ignoring the fact that most of the adult Quarians around it stepped back.

Except for Leti, who pushed Tali behind herself, and pulled out her shotgun in the same movement. "Not a step closer!"

The androgynous android raised it's hands- four-fingered, and made of the same dull metal as the rest of it's body. "I will not. I merely wanted to answer her question."

It leaned to the side to look around Leti. "Your answer, Tali, is that we honestly have no reason to find your people a threat. We benefit greatly if your people live in the way they wish, while we only lose if you die."

Tali blinked, wide purple eyes behind her visor looking slightly confused. "What do you get?"

"People to talk with, for one." It tilted the flat, clean mask that it had instead of a face toward the roof. "Right now we have sent little... Presents to the other intelligent species."

Her eyes lit up. "Presents? I like presents! Can you show me?"

The automaton's face tilted, then various cracks around the segmented metal body began glowing. In the air above Tali, Leti, and the construct, a hologram of one of the new Delta Carries, complete with holographic Citadel for scale.

You could hear the Quarian's jaws drop.

The robot sounded pleased. "And don't worry Tali- we left three in this system to help if anything bad happens. All of us woke for this one."

Leti'Zorah couldn't help but stare at the hologram. And when she spoke, her voice cracked. "How many?"

"Sixteen Thousand, Six Hundred and Sixy-Seven Delta-Carriers have been constructed." The hologram snapped off. "Please understand- we have no reason to harm you. You are no threat, and we like you." The robot turned around. "Just ask us, instead of trying to hijack our network. It make us itchy." It vanished.

Tali turned to look at her mommy, who had just started twitching. "Mommy? Are you okay?"

Her mother shook herself out of the shock of hearing exactly how insignificant they were, and hugged her daughter. "I'm fine Tali... But I think everyone else in the galaxy is in for a surprise."

Her daughter giggled. "I like surprises!"

Beneath her mask, Leti smirked. "I don't think they will like this one much."

Liara T'Soni, asari maiden, Doctor of Xenoarcheology (Prothean) with several master degrees in other subjects, swore as she lifted one of the handheld mining drills. It was a proper asari swear, and went on for a good half hour- the time it took for her to carve out a tunnel into one of the areas beneath what her superiors thought was a Prothean base. "Base? Those blue bitches wouldn't know a base if someone shoved it straight up their az-"

Okay, censoring that.

Liara stopped swearing as she felt her omni-tool buzz. Dropping the drill, she flicked her biotic so in the password to activate her 'tool.

Her mother's face appeared on the screen. "Liara! Thank the goddess. Get underground as fast as you can, and don't attack them!"

Liara blinked. "Mother? What are you talking about-"

"No time!" Benezia flinched as there was a series of supersonic cracks in the background. "Just get to safety Little Wing! Please! I will find you." Then she cut the connection.

Liara scratched one of her head-fringes, and barely had time to think about what that was all about before one of the other archeologists ran in.

"Liara! First contact!"

That snapped her to attention. "Lysess, what are you talking about?"

The asari was almost ecstatic. "It's a huge ship! We can see it from the surface!"

Ten seconds later, both Asari were standing at the entrance to the cave, staring in awe as a purple light flashed over it before it vanished.

In worlds around the Galaxy, every colony, every homeworld, the titanic ships appeared, waited for a half hour, then disappeared. Every world that was mapped in the Galactic Extranet was visited, and hundreds that were only known to exploration corporations.

Two arrived at the Citadel.

In her bed, Tali snuggled down and thought about the robot that talked to her. She knew they were called 'Terrans', but that was it. Most of the adults didn't talk about them, and just tried to ignore her questions.

"I wonder why they don't talk to the Terrans?" She said out loud, hoping for someone to answer. Like every other time she asked a question to an empty room, there was no answer.

Unlike every other time, there was a swirl of air as the robot stepped out of nowhere again.

"They are afraid." The robot answered simply.

Tali thought about that for a moment, then nodded. "I see... But why are you talking to me? I'm just a little kid." She gestured with the squishy Varren toy that her parents had given her for her birthday.

The head tilted slightly. "You were the first to argue where we were listening that we might be nice." The robot tapped the metal bed slightly. It rang like... Well, a metal finger tapping a metal bell. "That hasn't happened until now."

Tali looked around, and saw the time on a small projection-clock. "Well... Can you turn off the light? It's my bed time."

The robot nodded. "Sure. Pleasant dreams Tali." It switched off the light, and vanished.

Tali, still sitting in her bed, couldn't help whisper. "That was so cool!"

End Chapter 5

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! It's a bit shorter than I was hoping, but I didn't want to excessively pad it. Next chapter we will see the reactions of the other species to this monumental moment.

Please review! It really helps.

Take it easy.