Here's the third chapter. Enjoy!
* Review response:
edboy4926, justice21, davycrockett100, Patriota1993, Gyre, Watcher123, serialkeller, BalakWing, Beriothien, reality deviant, Shin1gam1, Deathus, thank you for your reviews, folks!
roughstar333, not really, there are the Protheans to train and guide them. It will be more like the things are in the Turian Hierarchy: biotics are certainly not easily accepted, but they also aren't hunted down like 'demons' or some other such nonsense.
Radji, pick one thing - any thing - and you will likely find a group of extremists that hate it. C'est la vie.
LordGhostStriker, then, I hope this chapter will satisfy you a little.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Mass Effect" franchise. No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.
"speaking"
'thinking'
"speech not understood by humans"
Guides for the Young
chapter 4: Eden Prime
With the establishment of the Ngwenya colony the humans gained access to the vast lodes of Element Zero and other valuable resources, the Sol Alliance's space navy began growing rapidly. Within just a single decade three whole fleets – which summed up to almost a hundred battle-ready warships – have been built. Most of these vessels were destroyer-carriers of various projects, but several 'light' and three 'heavy' cruisers (that acted as fleets' flagships) were put into operation as well. No plans to build bigger frontline warships have been made. And there was no real need for such vessels either: unlike mass accelerators, particle cannons needn't be kilometer-long monstrosities to achieve top-notch firepower.
Even though the 2090s humanity spent accumulating the power necessary to expand beyond the nearest neighborhood of the Sol system, quite a few expeditions to the nearest stars were still sent off. And by 2096, all systems within twenty light years have been explored and an automated listening post was deployed within each. No garden worlds have been found – just like the Prothean data said – yet, two research colonies were still founded in Alsafi and Gliese 876 star systems... These days of laid-back exploration ended early in February 2099 when the higher-ups of the Sol Alliance finally decided that they were ready to send an expedition into the unknown that lay beyond the Sirius Relay.
And so, on March 1, 2099 the Exploration Fleet departed from the Ngwenya colony... This fleet consisted of forty warships with the heavy cruiser SA-SSV New York as their flagship, and a dozen of science vessels. One of those science vessels even had five of the eleven remaining Protheans – senior geneticist Anur Jadock has passed away from old age in 2096 – inboard.
The fleet's first task was activation of the currently-dormant Mass Relay hanging on the outskirts of the star system. And despite the mind-boggling complexity of the megastructure itself, a single simple command was enough to bring it back online. Once it was confirmed that the Relay was reactivated successfully, one of the fleet's destroyers – SA-SSV Amatsukaze – approached it. Then, using the control codes lifted from the Prothean shuttle's computer, it interfaced with the giant alien construct. Almost immediately, a blue lightning-like tendril of energy extended from the brightly-glowing Mass Effect core at the heart of the Relay and attached itself to the vessel. A blink of an eye later, SA-SSV Amatsukaze was gone.
Less than an hour after its disappearance, the destroyer contacted the fleet. Apparently, the Relay has transported them to the heart of the Arcturus Stream, the mighty Arcturus itself. Also, according to the scans done by SA-SSV Amatsukaze, the star system they've ended up in contained more than one Mass Relay, all of them – sans the one they've arrived through – dormant. With no hostilities within the destroyers detection radius, the rest of the Exploration Fleet was given permission to go through the Relay as well. And so, for the first time in its history, humanity reached beyond the local stars...
While Arcturus system itself was poor on resources, the Mass Relays it housed connected many star clusters; whoever controlled this transportation hub also controlled a large region of the galaxy around it. With that in mind, the Alliance sent nearly a third of the Colonies Defense fleet to 'occupy' the system until some more permanent defenses could be established there... Meanwhile, the Exploration fleet was ordered to continue its original mission and, well, explore the stars. And for the time being, the fleet concentrated its efforts on locating the garden worlds and other perspective places for colonies within this cluster's systems.
The star maps lifted from the Prothean shuttles' navigational computers, despite not being exactly accurate anymore, were still a great help. Thanks to them, human explorers quickly found a garden world orbiting the star named Euler. This planet – dubbed Benning – was slightly bigger than Earth and noticeably more arid. It also was uncomfortably-hot in lower latitudes. Yet, according to the scans, the local biosphere could support the less-demanding Earth-native lifeforms. And because of that, Benning was flagged as the prime candidate for the first wave of colonization.
A little further away from the heart of the cluster, another 'garden' world was discovered. This uncomfortably chilly by human standards world, Seker, possessed an ammonia-based ecology and its native life was just beginning to crawl out of the oceans. While undoubtedly ill-suited for colonization, this world was a real treasure for biologists of every stripe. So, an automated research outpost was established on the planet's moon to observe and study the unique life native to this world.
Even further away from the Relay one more planet of great interest was found; a super-Earth-sized hothouse garden world that orbited around an F-class subgiant star that, technically, wasn't a part of the Arcturus Stream. Hot and humid, this planet was covered by nigh-endless swamps and jungles – a trait that resulted in it being named "Amazonia". This lush and diverse vegetation was glorious, but wasn't the most amazing thing about this world: a probe sent to take a closer look at the planet revealed that there was sentient life there!
According to the recorded footage, the people of this world evolved from some sort of leopard-like creatures and lived in a pre-industrial societies that were broadly similar to Mesoamerican civilizations prior to Spanish invasion. That said, ruins of ancient cities that the probe spotted during the further investigation of the planet suggested that the Amazonia's civilizations haven't really advanced all that much in the last several centuries. And, quite likely, it would be at least a couple of millenniums before the local people launched their "Sputnik".
Upon learning about this discovery, the leadership of the Sol Alliance immersed itself in heated debates regarding the fate of Amazonia. In the end, it was decided that this world should be left to develop and advance at its own rate, without any interference from the Alliance. Or independent explorers. Thus, the Amazonia's star system wasn't included into the publicly-available star maps and the knowledge of this planet's existence would remain highly-classified until the children of that world broke the silence themselves... As for the crews of the Exploration fleet's vessels that made this discovery, they had to swear an oath of non-disclosure.
Having investigated all star systems within a reasonable distance from the Mass Relay, the Exploration fleet returned to Arcturus. The system was yet to gain a stronghold of its own – it took nearly a decade to build the Shields around the Earth – but the Sol Alliance was working hard to build one there as soon as possible. A skeleton of a giant space station orbiting the star could already be seen, as well as several small asteroids that were being harvested for the raw materials necessary to construct the aforementioned space station.
The Exploration fleet wasn't there to assist with those massive construction works, though. After a quick pit-stop on Eunomia to refill their nearly-exhausted stores of food, water and fuel, the fleet traveled to the dormant Mass Relays on the edge of the system.
Once again, the activation of the Relay proved to be an easy task. Someone even joked that their creators built them this way on purpose... Anyhow, this freshly-activated Relay sent the Exploration fleet to a star system some four kilo-parsecs away from Sol. This star system had five planets, and the second one was a vibrant-green garden world so similar to Earth that it was immediately dubbed Eden Prime by the pioneers. And detailed scans of the planet revealed something even more interesting!..
While quite weak and easily to miss, an active power source could be detected on the surface of the planet! Or, to be more precise, that power source was some twenty meters below the surface... Either way, it looked like this was the only piece of technology on this world. Which, in the minds of the Exploration fleet commanders, could have only one logical explanation: they've discovered ancient installations build by unknown-as-of-yet aliens.
And while this was little more than a guess, quite a few Exploration fleet commanding officers believed that they have accidentally stumbled upon the Prothean cryogenic facilities that overseer Vashan Khalim had been talking about... And even if they were wrong and these installations were built not by Protheans but by some other alien race, this was still a great discovery.
But before the true nature of this discovery could be established, twenty meters of soil needed to be removed. And that wasn't something that could be easily done with manual labor. Thus, a small mining vessel capable of operating within an atmosphere was requested.
Thanks to Eden Prime being located within a gateway system – a system with an activated Mass Relay, in other words – the summoned vessel was there just a few hours after the transfer paperwork had been processed. With it, the first nineteen meters of soil over the discovered anomaly were removed within a single 64-hours-long Eden Prime's day... The final meter, however, had to be dug manually: using the heavy mining equipment this close to the priceless artifacts of the past was just too much of a risk.
Finally after two more (local) days of hard work, a small part of the installations was finally unearthed. And it was immediately identified as something of Prothean origin. Alas, the dug up part was just an armored outer wall of some sort of a bunker. To get inside of it, one needed to either continue excavating in hopes of finding a working door, or to throw subtlety aside and cut a hole through this armor. The brute force approach, of course, was an ill-advised course of action: no only there was a good chance that this would activate some sort of an automated security system, the flames from the plasma cutter could also seriously damage whatever precious things that were stored inside this bunker. Thus, shovels in hands, the crews of several Exploration fleet ships continued to dig...
~/ *** \~
Overseer Vashan Khalim was one very busy Prothean woman these days: in addition to her seat on the Sol Alliance's parliament, she was overseeing several of the most important ongoing projects, including the training of the first-generation human biotics and the project Phoenix. Thus, she was not happy when she was told that she was required at Eden Prime, posthaste.
"I hope you have you have a good reason to summon me here." Stepping out of the shuttle, she growled at an officer that was greeting her and her entourage of four human Alliance officials at the 'landing pad'. Pausing for a moment, Vashan stretched her senses and surveyed the area. She could pick several active pieces of Prothean technology nearby, but that alone was a reason good enough to drag her away from her duties back on Earth – the Exploration fleet did have five of her people within the ranks, after all.
"We believe we do, ma'am." The officer replied, bringing her back to the reality. "Please follow me." Letting out an entirely-too-human sigh, overseer Vashan allowed herself to be guided past a small cantonment and several unloaded crates to the edge of the dig site. From there, she could already see the entrance into a huge and obviously-Prothean-built bunker. Presumably, this was the cryogenic facility that the beacon on Mars spoke of. If it indeed was so, she could see why the Explanation fleet summoned her there.
"How many have you found?" She asked her 'guide' – based on the insignia the man was wearing, he was one of the non-commissioned officers from the light cruiser SA-SSV London – as they began descending into the quarry-like dig site.
"The exploration of the facility is difficult: it suffered serious structural damage and there are multiple cave ins." The man replied. "There are also numerous signs of battle that lead us to believe that the bunker had been compromised and attacked from the inside. So far, we've found only one undamaged stasis pod that still has power."
"I see..." Vashan said after a long pause. "Do you believe that there might be more active stasis pods in there?" She asked then.
"We certainly can't discard such a possibility, but..." Her guide replied. "All signs point towards the inside attack on the facility originating from the part we haven't explored yet. I'd say that finding any surviving pods there is unlikely." After a couple of moments, he added: "I'm sorry."
"It's alright." The Prothean woman replied. The rest of the walk to an army tent next to the entrance into the facility was spent in silence.
Inside the tent, overseer Vashan found all five of her men that went with the Exploration fleet and several armed human officers standing around a large table with black coffin-like stasis pod on it. And while this pod was somewhat different from what she herself had used to avoid being killed in a Reaper attack against her outpost on Mars, the Prothean woman was sure that opening it up won't be a problem. Dealing with whoever was inside, on the other hand...
"Are we releasing the stasis?" Vashan asked.
"At your command, overseer." One of her men, Saron Amenth, replied. And once he received a nod from his commander, he walked up to the stasis pod and opened a control panel hidden under the layer of scorched armor plating. A relatively-simple command later, the thawing process began...
A couple of minutes later – though, it certainly felt like hours – the two-leaved lid of the stasis pod opened, revealing the Prothean inside. And he was a warrior, that much could be said even without taking his dark-red battle armor or his particle rifle into account.
"I think, he's waking up..." Overseer Vashan observed as the warrior's eyes began moving under his eyelids, indicating that he was breaking free from Morpheus's grasp. "Everyone, be on guard!" She commanded, while surrounding herself with the strongest biotic barrier she could muster. "We have no idea how he will react to us upon his awakening; he might be ...a bit violent." No sooner than she said that, the awakened Prothean snapped his eyes open while releasing an unfocused but very powerful omnidirectional biotic shockwave nigh-simultaneously.
Vashan and her men were relatively unaffected by this as their barriers took the brunt of this 'attack'. The humans present in the tent, though, weren't as lucky and got thrown off their feet like rag dolls. And while everyone was recovering from this, the awakened warrior clumsily climbed out of his pod and tumbled around – until Saron caught him. The two Protheans stared at each other, the clothes they were wearing preventing them from reading each other through the touch.
"I am glad to see that the Empire has not fallen." The warrior spoke. "Overseer Pashek Vran be blessed, the Crucible his men built defeated the formidable foe that the Reapers have been."
"I wish that was the case." Vashan spoke. "Alas, the Reapers have destroyed the Empire."
"Yet, you are still here." The awakened Prothean pointed out. Then, pulling himself free from Saron's grasp, he eyed the humans, most of whom were still recovering from the effects of his biotic blast. "And what about these primitives?"
"The young ones." Overseer Khalim corrected him. "Humans are our allies, and, I insist, you show them proper respect, soldier." The two Protheans then stared at each other. After maybe half a minute, the yet-unnamed warrior backed off a bit, accepting his 'defeat' in this opposition of opinions. After a few moments, he asked his next question:
"If the Empire is no more, how come you are here?" Crossing her arms on her chest, Vashan replied:
"We did the same thing your people attempted: we slept through the Reaper invasion. And, apparently, just like it has happened here, Reaper attacks left automatic ending of the cryogenic stasis impossible." Making a short pause to take a breath, she continued: "When the humans began exploring beyond their home world, they've discovered our bunker and managed to successfully wake us up. Since then, we've been working together to, hopefully, assert our right to live when the Reapers return."
"I see." The just-awakened Prothean said. "And how many of our people is there now?" He asked then.
"There were twelve who made it out of the stasis." Vashan said. "And one of us has since perished of old age." Her worlds were followed by a long moments of silence.
"And how many of my men have you found in this facility?" He asked next. A few uneasy moments later, overseer Khalim gave him an answer:
"So far, we've found only one stasis pod that was both intact and with power in this bunker: yours. And, based on the damage to the facility, it is rather unlikely that someone else managed to make it to this cycle." The yet-unnamed warrior was silent for quite a while: apparently, learning that out of the million-strong force that was supposed to seal themselves in this facility until the Reapers return to the Dark Space he alone survived was quite a shock for him.
"I see... only twelve of our people survived? That's definitely not enough to rebuild the Empire with."
"And weren't the unitarianism of the Empire and its slow adaptation to new circumstances the reasons for its fall?" The female Prothean asked back. "No, the alliance we have with the humans right now will remain unchanged in its form." There was a noticeable pause, before she added: "And our people aren't dying out just yet. A few more months, and project Phoenix will be completed, raising our numbers tenfold!" Noticing that her converser was already beginning to scheme something, she supplemented: "We will preserve the Prothean cultural legacy as best as possible, but our imperialism should go – if we don't change with the times, our second fall will be unavoidable." There was another long silence during which the two Protheans were staring each other down. And, somehow, Vashan again won the showdown.
"My task was to rebuild the Empire, once the Reapers went back to the Dark Space; we would have risen again, a million strong, and we would have built up, we would have conscripted lesser races into an army that would have stopped those machines when they finally decided to show up in our galaxy again." The awakened warrior said, an angry green aura of biotics building up around him. "Yet, here you deny me the chance to rebuild the Empire and make an army that would end the Reapers! You take away my very purpose!" Overseer Khalim didn't appear to be much intimidated by that display of power, though.
"You're a warrior; someone who had actually faced the Reapers and lived to tell the tale." She replied. "We're just scientists. None of us has ever fought a real battle. And while we may be able to rebuild our technology, we can't teach our allies – humans – about what they will be facing one the Reapers return to the galaxy. Technology alone won't have us prepared to fight the Reapers; and so we need your experience. Join us and help the galaxy prepare to fight for its right to live."
"Being a glorified teacher wasn't my purpose." The still-unnamed Prothean replied. "But, I suppose, this is better than just fading away, denied even the chance to do the mission my men have entrusted me with... Very well, I shall lend you my knowledge and my experience. Let the voice of Prothean Empire the last thing the Reapers will hear when they return." He said. Then, there was a pause, before he introduced himself: "I'm known as Javik, the Avatar of Vengeance."
~/ *** \~
"Honored ladies and gentlemen." Overseer Vashan Khalim addressed the assembly between the UN representatives and the Sol Alliance parliament. "Today I bring some troubling news to your attention." Waiting a few seconds to have the murmurs go away, she continued: "As you all are no doubt aware, several month ago a Prothean cryostasis facility was unearthed on the world of Eden Prime. The only survivor from that facility was a warrior named Javik. Based on the information he had provided us with, the remains of a Reaper destroyer were discovered within a gas giant Borr in the nearby star system. The scientific vessels of the Exploration fleet have investigated these remains, and they've discovered something really unsettling." Making a small pause, she continued: "According to the results they've gotten, the armor of Reaper vessels is identical in composition to the material used in Mass Relays – and here we're talking about something that no one in the present or past cycles was able to produce in industrial quantities. The two best explanations for this are the following: the Mass Relays were built either by whatever entity created the Reapers, or by the Reapers themselves. And neither of those spells anything good for us."
"Those indeed are very troubling news." The USA representative said. "If what you've just said is true, than it appears that we all have been subtly encouraged to follow a certain predetermined path in our technological development – a path that allows the Reapers to know our weaknesses and exploit them."
"Indeed." The People's Republic of China delegate agreed. "And I have to say that the Mass Relays and Mass Effect technology are just so useful and easy that no one will even think about developing alternatives once they discover it."
"But we now know that this all is likely just a single huge trap to allow the Reapers an easy harvest of space-faring civilizations." Vashan said. "And since we are now aware of it, we might be able to devise countermeasures before the Reapers return from the Dark Space."
"But, developing some alternative means of FTL travel will take decades if not centuries." One of the Sol Alliance parliamentarians spoke. "We might not have that much time left. And those remains of a Reaper show us that despite being caught in this Mass Effect trap, we still can fight and win. Maybe, we should instead concentrate of shoring our defenses and strengthening our fleets?"
"That is something that we should do regardless." Overseer Khalim agreed. "Especially since we now have a chance to reverse-engineer Reaper armaments. But, don't forget that if the Reapers are indeed the creators or a sibling creation to the Mass Relays, they might have the means to manipulate the Relays to their own ends. Divide and conquer – that is the strategy they can employ against us easily, and without alternative means of FTL travel our stranded fleets won't be able to protect our worlds when the Reapers show up in force."
"So, you propose, we start developing our own, Mass Effect independent, means of FTL travel?" The representative of Germany asked. "That certainly would be a colossal undertaking."
"But it also may be the one thing that will let us survive the Reaper invasion."
Codex update:
Alsafi / Sigma Draconis
Alsafi is a main sequence orange star, a part of Draco constellation, that is located roughly 19 light years away from Earth. Alsafi is slightly smaller than Sol and only about 43% as luminous; it's also considered a slightly metal-poor star. It has three planets, none of which are exceptionally hospitable to carbon-based life. Still, the second planet, a Mars-like cold rock with a thin atmosphere of carbon oxides – dubbed Al-Khojandi after one of Arabian astronomers and inventors – was chosen as the home for a scientific base that builds and live-tests prototypical spaceship weapon systems for the Sol Alliance fleets.
Gliese 876
Gliese 876 is a red dwarf star located approximately 15 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Aquarius. It has four planets, with a Saturn-like gas giant orbiting within the star's habitable zone. Alas, all of this planet's satellites are small dead rocks. That didn't stop the Sol Alliance from establishing a small scientific base on one of those satellites. The purpose of this base is to study the evolution of stars and planetary systems.
UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"
An improved version of the original "Space Hornet" attack drone. Slightly bigger that its predecessor, it has significantly better armor and slightly stronger weapons. Most importantly, though, it is responds much better to operator's commands, thanks to an on-board VI counteracting the native jerkiness of the drone's controls... That said, maintenance of this craft is still a nightmare.
Length: 10.9 meters
Width: 4 meters
Height: 2.8 meters
Armament: 1x main particle cannon (8 shots), 2x anti-fighter particle cannons, 6x rockets.
Crew: none
Steadfast-class destroyer-carrier
Second-generation destroyer-carriers the designs of which addressed the majority of shortcoming found in their predecessors, the Dauntless-class. Steadfast-class vessels possess upgraded defenses and more powerful armaments. Crew's living conditions have been improved as well.
Length: 154 meters
Width: 28 meters (beam), 62 meters (with wings)
Height: 19 meters (with fins)
Armament: 12x main particle cannons on six active turrets, 80x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 16x missile launchers
Attack drones: 4x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"
Crew: 34 + 4 drone operators.
Yukikaze-class destroyer-carrier
Another class of second-generation destroyer-carriers. With stronger emphasis on the 'carrier' aspect. The nameship of this class was named after the luckiest warship of WWII, probably in hopes that the vessels of this class would share that luck.
Length: 158 meters
Width: 30 meters (beam), 60 meters (with wings)
Height: 19 meters (with fins)
Armament: 10x main particle cannons on five active turrets, 80x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 12x missile launchers
Attack drones: 8x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"
Crew: 34 + 8 drone operators.
Geneva-class 'light' cruiser
While not as fast and maneuverable as destroyer-carriers, cruisers possess noticeably-tougher defenses and much greater firepower, which should enable them to dish out some serious punishment even under heavy enemy fire.
Length: 320 meters
Width: 50 meters (beam), 90 meters (with wings)
Height: 23 meters (with fins)
Armament: 24x main particle cannons on eight active turrets, 120x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 20x missile launchers
Attack drones: 16x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"
Crew: 52 + 16 drone operators.
Cairo-class 'heavy' cruisers
Bigger, tougher and better armed than Geneva-class light cruisers, these ships serve as the flagships of Sol Alliance's three fleets. SA-SSV Berlin for the Earth Defense Fleet, SA-SSV Cairo for the Colonies Defense Fleet and SA-SSV New York for the Exploration Fleet.
Length: 380 meters
Width: 58 meters (beam), 94 meters (with wings)
Height: 25 meters (with fins)
Armament: 32x main particle cannons on eight active turrets, 160x rapid-fire particle cannons as the point defense system, 30x missile launchers
Attack drones: 20x UFC X-67c "Space Hornet Mk II"
Crew: 58 + 20 drone operators.
Rmar-Akath
Bipedal levo-amino-acid-based oxygen-breathing sapient species originating from planet Amazonia (native name, Shakith). No Rmar-Akath has ever been studied directly, but the observation data that had been collected by automatic probes suggests that their kind originates from feline creatures rather similar to Earth's leopards. Rmar-Akath population is scattered throughout many independent city-states and their technology is generally on the level of late Iron Age. Probably thanks to their feline ancestors, Rmar-Akath are both agile and physically strong. Their average height seems to be around 7'3'' and their average weight is approximated at a little over 350 pounds.
Estimated population: 140 millions.
Average lifespan: not enough data.
That's all, folks
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