The Cerberus Files: Historical Analysis of Citadel and Terminus Space

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DAEDALUS-SEVEN-NINE-TWO

ACKNOWLEDGMENT HANDSHAKE ACCEPTED

To the Three:

Asari physiology is , to put it plainly, ridiculous. There is no goddamned way any reputable scientist can refute the fact that the asari are flat out genetically engineered. It's infuriating, not only because the asari deny it, but because of the fact that humanity has no real way to counter such awesome advances woven into the very genes of the asari.

It makes me wonder if it was actually mere chance that sent eezo-laced asteroids into the seas of Thessia , or if that also was by design?

Cerberus Thought for the Day: To embrace the alien is to reject the human. To coexist is to become perverted. One does not embrace the viper, nor coexist with the plague.

Asari basic physiology:

As mentioned in the historical section, asari are mammalian creatures with many amphibian ancestral traits. It is perhaps easier to define what asari aren't than what they are, but for the purpose of the requested research, such definitions are probably superfluous.

Asari are fully humanoid, with a range of height and builds that is almost uniform. Unlike humans, almost all asari stand between 5'2 and 5'10 in height, and weigh around 130 pounds. No obese asari have ever been observed, nor particularly thin asari. Asari proportions are also alarmingly homogenous , with most asari having strongly defined muscular proportions.

Asari have two eyes connected , as in humans, directly to the brain, although with a far more limited range of eye coloration. They possess no ears, but have tymphanic membranes in roughly the same area, covered by sheathes of thin skin, that at in much the same fashion. The head structure is almost identical to humans – asari have 34 teeth, a muscular tongue, and a larynx – with the exception of the asari crest, cartilaginous 'tentacles' that are actually a covering for heat-venting from the cranium, tied into a subcutaneous network of capillaries. The crest is semi-flexible, and can be bent down and against the skull for hours at time when an asari needs to wear a helmet or other head covering.

The asari bodily structure is also very nearly identical to the human form. They have nearly the exact same jointing as humans (with the caveat that asari joints are built differently and, as noted later on, more flexible) and the same locomotive pace as humans. Asari hands have five fingers, and even fingernails indistinguishable from humans.

Minor differences of course, do exist. The asari are clearly not humans, from their skin tone, but there are minor differences even there. Asari skin coloration ranges from pale blue to dark purple, and is pebbled in nature, retaining a certain level of amphibian background. A series of capillary tubes in the skin leads to internal bladders set in the upper chest that act in a similar fashion to gills. Asari can not fully breathe underwater but can absorb some oxygen while submerged , allowing them to to spend a great deal of time underwater without noticeable fatigue. Asari lungs are strong, with a complicated hexagonal lining structure of air-absorbing hairs that is markedly more efficient than human lungs.

Asari have a single, three chambered heart (much like a terrestrial frog) and two glands that store oxygen for emergencies, enriching the blood when stressed or exhausted. The asari digestive system is almost identical to the human system, complete with stomach, small and large intestines, and rectum. (Again, the similarity is just flat out ridiculous, anyone claiming this is parallel evolution should be stripped of their degree). Asari have two liver-like organs that filter blood , while kidney analogues work on ingested materials. They have a lymphatic system similar to that of humans, although without nodes, and the asari pancreas is also similar to that of humans.

There, most similarities end.

The asari nervous system is staggeringly complex, no less than three different nervous networks, two running under the skin and a third wrapped around the bones, with neural nodes found in the neck, chest, hips, and arms. The asari brain is the size of humans but twice as dense, folded even more compactly and showing signs of clear alterations – there is almost no vestigial brain stem, unlike humans, and most of the mass is pure cerebrum.

Within the brain are structures that are poorly understood, but believed to be related to asari biotic strength. The brain runs hot, which is why the skull is vented , the crests on the head acting as a heat exchanger and allowing the skull to swell slightly as the asari ages. Nerve bundles from the brain split at the base of the neck and run down a split spinal column, heavily armored with bone and muscle, joining at the base of the spine into a secondary nerve cluster that aids in bodily control.

Asari blood is cyanohematic, similar to humans, but does not use iron in binding oxygen, bizarrely instead using bauxite as a binding agent, giving asari blood a deep purple coloration. The blood is fortified with an adapted form of platlet-stemcell hybrid, which reacts to wounds and injuries by forming clots and bruises and then initiating rapid cellular regeneration. While certainly not true regeneration as the krogan do it, it is nearly on par with that of terrestrial starfish. Minor bruises and wounds are healed in hours, and even lost limbs regrow in weeks.

The asari skeletal structure, again, shows clear signs of design, with heavily cushioned double-jointed pivot joints the standard. The asari skeleton is capable of taking severe physics shocks, such as from biotic attack, and the bones, while hollow, are several times stronger than that of a human. Asari musculature is more long-strand than human muscle, with a different pattern to the muscles (asari muscles work in triads rather than opposed pairs.)

Asari sexual organs are limited to a birth canal, several nerve sensitive erogenous zones, and a large organ that seems to serve in a fashion similar to that of a human ovary. The asari uterus is tiny and expands out during pregnancy, and asari muscles in the hips are designed for maximum give during pregnancy. Most importantly, the asari pelvis itself is jointed in the middle, meaning pregnancies rarely cause asari much pain.

Asari senses

Asari have the five basic senses humans do. Asari eyesight is no better or worse than human baseline, nor is their sense of smell. Asari taste is slightly more sensitive, while asari hearing is somewhat worse, as asari do not have the cupping effects of the human ear. Asari are clearly still adapted for underwater activity, as the ear-analogue is sealed behind small muscular shields that open or close depending on moisture.

Asari have three senses humans do not. Like sharks, they can sense electrical currents in water, and can detect them through air at a much lesser range. As a result, it is very difficult to sneak up on asari without being grounded. Asari have an innate ability to sense bio-electrical fields when melded or linked to partners, and can apparently manipulate these during sexual acts to induce pleasure. Asari can also , in some cases, pick up on powerful biotic fields, even at great distances.

Asari biotics

As Thessia is fairly drowning in eezo (about 1 part per million in atmosphere, with concentrations as high as 1 part per 500,000 in the oceans) , the powerful natural biotic abilities of the asari should surprise no one. Unlike humans, which require pre-natal eezo exposure to develop biotics, and which end up coopting both the nervous and lymphatic system, asari are evolved into internalize, distribute, and even store eezo. A series of semi-permeable membranes in the area behind the jaw and in the lower back hold a slurry of protein, glucatonic suspensions, and eezo, circulated throughout the body in a secondary distribution system closely following the main arteries. Circulation is achieved through involuntary muscle contractions , and this eezo system is interlaced directly with both the asari's multitwined nervous system and a portion of the brain that acts much like an electric eels electrogenesis organs. This allows the asari nervous system to carry far higher voltages and charges than any other race, and provides a weak bio-electrical mass field by itself in combination with the body's natural eezo.

As a result, asari are fully capable of using powerful biotic attacks without any form of neural amplifier. Most wear a neural amp, against the skin, not surgical like that of humans, but this is mostly convenience and for focus and discrimination, not raw power.

Asari absorb eezo and are able to sustain electrical charge at varying rates. The Thirty (and their subsidiary descendant clans) have even stronger biotics than the average asari, due to the electrical node organ being larger and the nervous system more intertwined with it.

Nullifying asari biotics is not hard, compared with some other races. Pulse disruptor fields break up their innate bio-electrical field, and phase dissipation devices make it impossible for them to form a real mass effect field. Cerberus has developed a class of injection-action piezoelectric-inhibitor prion chains that can disable biotics permanently in an asari with sufficient concentrations, but is harmless in humans.

Asari reproduction

The asari reproductive cycle is based on the fact that asari are not asexual but mono-gender. In every other species we've encountered, there are two (or three in the case of the hanar) genders, and offspring are produced by the direct combination of two DNA segments , one from the father and one from the mother.

The asari clearly evolved from amphibian egg layers capable of self-fertilization. Somewhere in the evolution of animals on Thessia, either fate or a scientist of dubious sanity decided the process needed a complete derangement.

Asari become fertile when their nervous system is developed enough to handle nervous electrical energy from another being alongside their own. This usually does not happen until around the time most asari become matrons. Pregnancy before that point is very risky to the asari.

When the nervous system is prepared, asari sex is completely non-penetrative, and no actual transfer of DNA strands occurs. Rather than totally unfertilized eggs that are infused with a mate's DNA and hydrolyzed against further intrusion, asari eggs exist in a state of meosistatic incompleteness. The mother provides two complete sets of DNA to the egg, but only one is fully that of the mother, the other is a blank template, bracketed by protein 'frameworks' to prevent illegal or lethal DNA productions.

The cycle is closer to zygotic than gametic – this unfertilized egg is actually ( from the viewpoint of meiosis) 'fertilized' – but until and unless the asari generates certain hormones, no actual cell division occurs.

When engaged with a sexual partner, the asari is stimulated with direct skin contact to a series of folds in the skin in the lower back. These folds, sealed until the asari is aroused, cover sensitive nerve tissues and a direct connection to the secondary asari nervous system, with nerve bundles leading directly from this area (called the midnight) towards the egg organ.

When bonded fully with a partner, the asari draws upon the partner's bio-electrical nervous energy through the folds. The direct linking of these fields is needed to reach an energy state in the nervous system that triggers certain protein restrictors to release, and certain hormones to trigger.

Asari can consciously make certain alterations to the DNA of the blank genetic set in the egg during this process. These alterations fall into three main categories. By focusing pure electrical energy into the egg organ, asari build a higher baseline of DNA instructions from their own current genetic makeup. This means the asari child in question will be more like her mother in terms of physical attributes. Due to the bizarre nature of the process however, some of these alterations appear to also include improvements after the birth of the mother. A slender asari who works out and becomes very muscular tends , at well over 95% of the time, to give birth to strongly muscular children. Asari who become highly educated have asari children that demonstrate nearly photographic memory. It does not cover all aspects – strength, dexterity, raw intellect , biotic strength and memory capacity seem to cover it – but it means that every generation of asari is a bit stronger and faster and smarter than the last generation.

The second category of alteration deals with biotic strength. The asari mother can seemingly (again , 90% tendency, too high to be mere chance) 'channel' some of her own biotic potential into her child. This is done primarily as the child develops in utero, through commingling the eezo-laced protein slurry in their secondary circulation system through the placental membrane, but it certainly appears that the stronger the asari is in biotics, the stronger her child will be in biotic strength as well. A child of two young matrons is no where near the raw potential of a child of two matriarchs, for example. It is worth noting that the Thirty, unlike all other asari, usually wait until they are matriarchs before having children.

Finally, the asari believe (with little actual empirical evidence) that during this process they can make alterations to the child's DNA that brings in the attributes of the 'father' – be that another asari or an alien. We know that the process binds certain traits into the DNA and then randomizes the rest until the DNA strand fits within the protein framework, but we can't find any evidence that alien neural impulses could convey DNA information the way asari nervous impulses could. There seems to be a tendency for some (not all) asari children of alien parents to demonstrate some behavioral tendencies of their sire, but how much of this is due to the influence of the parent on the child's personality as it grows is uncertain.

Once fertilized fully, the development of the child occurs much as in human women. The asari uterus expands during pregnancy – asari do not have egg cycles or menstrual cycles, only building up a uteral lining when actually pregnant. This lining becomes a placental analogue, complete with a umbilical cord, fairly early on.

is hardly different than that for humans, except that asari have a much easier time of actual childbirth than humans do. The asari birth canal is larger than that of a human woman, and the asari pelvis is hinged in the middle with cartilaginous 'spars' linking the two halves. Additionally, during childbirth, certain organs pump out a constant stream of natural painkillers and muscle relaxants, and the entire process is aided by natural biotic effects.

Asari pregnancy runs for 11 months, and childbirth usually takes less than an hour, with little or no pain and no stretching or tearing noted. (As an aside, the Shadow Team's method for testing asari childbirth was brutal even to me – I expected them to steal or procure birth records from asari hospitals, not kidnap a dozen pregnant asari and see how the pregnancies occurred. It works, but it's unpleasant to watch small babies being killed. Please reign your lunatics in).

Asari life cycle

Asari infancy lasts about as long as human infancy does. Given their long, long lifespan, some expected asari to mature more slowly than humans, but they do not in any long term way. An asari child of 8 and a human child of 8 look much the same.

Growth (and maturity) slows at around 16, with the asari only slowly reaching full physical maturity at around 25. The primary difference is that asari at 25 are not adults, or even close to adults. They can best be described as teenagers.

From 25 to roughly 125 years old is the stage at which most asari consider being an 'early maiden'. After 125 years, maidens begin to slow their frenetic activities, and over the next 70 to 100 years hormonal changes begin to alter their bodies again. Most asari enter the matron states near 200 to 250 years of age, and maintain that until they grow much older.

At around 700, asari begin shifting into matriarchs. As indicated elsewhere, the process is not usually successful. Most are called matriarchs once they reach 800, but the vast majority of these die off soon thereafter. The move from matron to matriarch consumes a great deal of biotic energy and erodes the telomerase caps of the DNA of the asari in question, and if they are not thick enough for the body to rebuild, then the asari ages and dies of natural causes.

Asari life span

The oldest known asari , Matriarch Sihana, lived to the age of one thousand six hundred and fifty four. However, most asari that make the translation from matron to matriarch either die soon thereafter from systemic shock, or life to roughly twelve hundred years old.

Lifespan appears to be determined by the transitions from the stages of life. Asari who are forced into matronhood early tend to experience a harder time transitioning to matriarch, but truly, while many asari live long enough to become matriarchs, the abrupt physiological changes are hard to survive for any asari. Natural death (cascading cell necrosis) is caused by the exhaustion of the telomeric caps on DNA strands. This substance (telomerase) is consumed in large amounts during the shift to matriarch, and it's believed that exhaustion of this (which prevents normal cell division) is the primary cause of natural death.

There are other factors – nutrition, mental health, etc – but the sheer weight of numbers of the asari means that many make it through to matriarch status and closer to the end of life. As a result of the regenerative aging process, there is almost no difference between asari who are 200 and 1200, either physically or by mental degeneration such as dementia.

However, as asari age, the nervous system becomes more and more eezo infused and some nerve degenerative disorders can appear very late in life for asari that work heavily in the oceans of Thessia or in other high-eezo environments.

Asari and Modifications

As a rule, asari do not need and try to avoid cybernetic enhancement. Their natural regenerative abilities, while quite slow, make long-term cybernetic enhancement almost impossible without strong anti-rejection drugs and tailored therapy.

Asari also eschew cosmetic augmentations offered through genetic therapy, as they feel this pollutes the purity of the asari race.

Asari have no problems with biological modifications, and since the advent of alien contact, one such modification is pretty much universal, conducted at the birth of a child. One or several cloned strips of nerve-sensitive material is harvested from the azure and the midnight and surgically implanted in the asari birth canal. This allows asari to enjoy penetrative sex more fully – without this alteration, it would be merely faintly erotic. (Some more … adventurous maidens later in life go on to have such material grown and implanted in other areas. Disgusting whore creatures.)

Asari are also fond of biological modifications to enhance physical or biotic strength, such as lacing their bones with metals and implanting field boosters inside the marrow of their bones to increase their mass effect field power.

The wide array of human cosmetic surgical modifications (particularly breast enhancement and plastic surgery combined with nano-repressive 'reprogrammer' bots to make sure such things don't just regenerate away) has fascinated the asari since they discovered humanity.

Asari and disease

Asari have incredibly robust immune systems, with three different T-cell analogues, a natural ability to produce antibodies using protein coat fragments from the slightest infection, and a fever reaction that tends to kill all cells in infected wounds and force regenerate them. This , combined with tailored viral therapies to breed hunter-killer controlled monokyetic cancer analogues in nodes in the body, as well as the advanced state of asari medicine, means asari very rarely get sick.

Asari nasal structures are hooked into the crest's ventilation system, which has a series of passages that are lined with hairs and cleared through ejection through the crest, and asari mucous membranes are tied closely into the immune system, so they are somewhat resistant to airborne pathogens.

Asari are no less vulnerable to a few STD's than humans or turians. Syphilis , in particular, has managed to make a jump from human to asari DNA in less than twenty years. AIDS and other retroviruses are incapable of disabling the asari multi-T-cell structure and are not a threat, and most other opportunistic infections can be fought off.

Asari and bodily disorders

Aside from disease, asari suffer from cancers, although they are rare since the large caps of telomerase at the ends of each cell's DNA strand and the templated 'patch patterns' found in some bodily repair mechanisms can often derail cancers before they can even get established.

The asari heart is markedly inferior to the four-chambered human heart and undergoes a great deal of regeneration through the asari's lifetime. Heart attacks are common both in youth (due to stress and inadequate rest) and old age, although asari have proteins in the blood that prevent most cholesterol and oil plaques from causing arterial blockage.

Asari suffer high blood pressure, liver failure, and a variation of acid-reflux disorders much like humans. Asari skin is resistant to parasitic infections, and both the basal layer of skin cells as well as asari nail beds are hooked directly into gliotic concentrations of the immune system, so skin and nail disorders are rare.

Asari crests can become stiff and less heat-dissipating over time, which can lead to dementia and loss of memory or even death.