Chapter 1

Although her face was blank, Amanda Briggs couldn't help but stare at these new aliens as doubt ran through her mind. The ones across from her, the ugly bird looking ones, were known because it was them that the Systems Alliance has been fighting for the past almost three months now. They attacked us, we attacked them back with more ships, they attacked us back with even more ships and conquered a colony, and then we attacked back with even more more ships and took back the colony.

After booting the birds from Shanxi and chasing the remains of their fleet from the system, they had anticipated them coming back with another fleet or two. Instead, what had entered the system had been a single, alien looking ship. Well the birds were alien too, so the better words to use was a ship of unknown design. It had looked nothing like the bird ships they had seen, the frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and what they had originally thought was a really heavy cruiser but was apparently called a dreadnought.

This new ship had sent a system wide message to the human fleet, asking in broken English for talks of peace, and with a request to bring multiple terabytes of data on a human language, any human language. Rear Admiral Drescher thought it a trap and wanted to blast this new ship into pieces. Admiral Grissom, less prone to blasting things, and realizing there was a chance to end the fighting before it escalated from the tit-for-tat back and forth it had been so far, and into a real galaxy spanning war, decided to take them up on the offer.

So those on board the ship had passed around a data module and, deciding upon English, had uploaded every tv show, movie, and video clip they could that had people speaking English. Some had recorded themselves reciting poems, reading excerpts from their favorite books, or even just cursing out the bird aliens that had started this war against them.

Amanda had been invited along as the Systems Alliance's liaison on Shanxi, making her the highest ranking, non-military member of the Systems Alliance in the system. Fresh from alien occupation, she had been grabbed by a pair of marines, escorted to a shuttle and brought up to the flagship of the 2nd Fleet, the SSV Surat. After a quick debriefing of the situation, she had been put back on a shuttle, this time with Admiral Grissom and General Borakis, the officer in charge of the 2nd Fleet's marine attachment.

The three of them, along with their five marine escort, had all been shocked to discover that along with the birds were two completely new alien races, one that look similar enough to reptiles back on Earth that she thought at any moment one of them was going to lick its own eye, and the other who had an eerie resemblance to human females, except for the blue skin and weird tentacle looking things instead of hair.

In the conference room they were led to sat four birds and one each of the newer aliens. Six bird guards stood at attention against the far wall. The blue lady indicated for the humans to take a seat, opposite the birds that sat at the table. To the right of the humans and the left of the birds, sat the blue lady and her lizard friend.

The data module, filled with English, had been handed over and it had been connected to some orange colored holographic-like computer that sat in the middle of the table. That was five minutes ago, and now they all just sat there waiting for something to happen.

"Is anyone going to say something?" General Borakis asked, eyebrows furrowed. "Or did we just come here to stare awkwardly at each other?"

"Maybe they're telepathic and it's not working on us?" Admiral Grissom muttered.

Then the holographic-like computer changed from orange to green. That seemed to be what the aliens were waiting for. The blue lady began to talk, and none of the humans could understand a word she was saying. That was not what they were expecting. Until a female-like robotic voice began to speak.

"My name is Matriarch Falere, and I am one of the Asari."

Amanda's eyebrows went up in surprise. That explains their want of the English speaking data.

The Prime Minister reviewed the information laid out on his desk in front of him. A temporary ceasefire with the bird-like aliens who had attacked them had been declared as they worked out a permanent end to hostilities. Given things had been heading toward an escalation between their two species, an escalation he wasn't sure humanity could win, the fact that it seemed to be drawing to a close so quickly was a relief. In front of him were the first terms that had been offered, copies of which had been given to him, every member of parliament, and the governments of every major nation on Earth.

They were pretty standard stuff, and admitted that the birds, who were apparently called turians, were the ones who had started the conflict due to the enforcement of some intergalactic law that humans had no idea existed. That kind of shoot first, ask questions later way of doing things was something the Systems Alliance tried to steer their officers away from.

What troubled the Prime Minister in all this wasn't the negotiations themselves but the fact that there were more races out there than just the birds. If the information provided to him had been correct, there were about a dozen or so others out there, most of them part of something called a Citadel, whatever the hell that was. That was beyond concerning.

"Alexander, what can you tell me about these new alien races?"

Appearing above his desk was the eight inch holographic image of a man with a straight nose, a slightly protruding jaw, and eyes deep set beneath a strongly pronounced forehead. He wore ancient armor, and carried a spear in his hand. His feet were an inch over the desk, never actually "stepping" on the dark wood.

"I have reviewed the videos from the peace talks. Would you like me to tell you what I have gathered?" Alexander, named after, and taking his appearance after, Alexander the Great, asked.

"Yes."

"Please keep in mind that some of this is only estimates on my part due to our limited exposure to these races."

"Of course," the Prime Minister acknowledged. "Please proceed."

Alexander waved his spear in the air and images of blue human looking females appeared in the air. Most of them wore a type of armor similar to what they've seen the bird ones wear on the battlefield. One of them wore what resembled a conservative type of dress.

"This race calls themselves the asari. We are unable to determine if the ones seen by our diplomats are male or female, though they appear feminine to us. Asari resemble humans in terms of basic skeletal structure with five digits on their hands. Their skin appears relatively smooth in some areas, like the face and the palm of the hands, but have light scales in other areas. They are also blue skinned, at least the ones we have come across so far. They do not have hair like we do. In the place of head hair, asari possess semi-flexible, cartilage-based scalp-crests. That plus the scale-like skin leads me to hypothesize they evolved from some type of reptillan or amphibian-like creature. As a species they appear to be long lived, potentially reaching a thousand years old."

The Prime Minister whistled at that. Imagine living a thousand years? What would you even do with all that time?

Alexander dismissed the images of the asari and pulled up images of the other new race. This one was definitely more "alien" looking than the previous one, each of them having large black eyes and two fleshy horns protruding from the top of its head.

"These call themselves the salarians. They're heads are long and thin, and have a pair of horns protruding from the top of their skulls. They have digitigrade legs, and their hands only have three fingers including a thumb. Salarian eyes are large and oval and have thin membranes in place of eyelids. My best guess is they also evolved from some reptilian or amphibian-like creature, though obviously a completely different one than the asari. They were noted to speak at a much quicker pace than the others, and indications are they have a much shorter life span than we do. Recordings picked up both masculine and feminine sounding voices, at least as humans understand them, but there is no discernable physical difference between those who sounded masculine and those who sounded feminine. It could be the pitch at which they speak is not related to their gender and is just a normal genetic variance, or they could perhaps be an androgynous species."

It was a lot of information to take in. When the birds had first attacked their exploratory fleet, all hopes of peaceful first contact with an alien species had gone out the window. What would have happened if it had been one of these other species who had stumbled upon them first? Would these asari or salarians be so quick to shoot first, shoot second, and then maybe ask questions?

"How is it that they were able to get the birds, these turians, to talk peace?"

Alexander waved his sword and the image changed to showing a single salarian, asari, and the bird like aliens - a turian.

"In the intergalactic community these species are a part of, these three are the dominant species. They are called the council races, and it appears that an appointed representative from each makes up a council that leads the rest of the galaxy. While all of them have their own militaries, the turians appear to be the largest, and main military force. Their culture appears to be militaristic and honor based."

The Prime Minister stared at the image for a moment in deep thought before shaking his head. This was a lot to take in.

"I assume you read their terms?"

"Yes. The terms of peace seem very reasonable. However, their offer to join this galactic alliance of theirs, and the terms that go with it, does leave me … worried."

A moment of hesitation from an AI, even if it had only been a fraction of a second, was a rare thing indeed.

"And by that I take you to mean their demand we destroy all of our artificial intelligences, and sign treaties swearing to never create another one again?"

"Yes," Alexander said. The ancient Macedonian leader looked at the Prime Minister. "Are the members going to ratify the terms?"

The Prime Minister smiled. "Not as they are. This is only the opening of talks. We will make amendments to what they offered, send them back to them, and see what they have to say."

"And the fate of AIs?"

"Off the table."

Dr. Catherine Halsey, one of the most brilliant minds in human existence, stared at the information her AI had gathered about these new aliens. And by gathered, she meant stole from classified Systems Alliance data banks. The information about there being more aliens than just these so called turians had yet to go public. All that had gone public was that a temporary ceasefire had been called, and that the Systems Alliance was negotiating an end to the conflict.

Peace was good, based on the information she had gone over of the turians and their military, she had calculated an 85.6% chance of the Systems Alliance losing the war within a year, but the fact that there was an entire galactic community out there made up of multiple alien species was concerning. Some of these species appeared to have been traveling the stars and colonizing worlds for thousands of years. Compared to them, human civilization in general was just a baby, and their space faring years were nothing more than the start of humanity's terrible twos phase.

Catherine knew, even if no one in the Systems Alliance would ever publicly say it out loud, that they didn't have the resources, the technology, or the numbers to go head to head with any of these three species calling themselves "the council races." And she wouldn't be surprised if the same could be said for a number of these other alien species out there. They had already been attacked by one species for breaking intergalactic laws no one had informed them about, who was to say another species wouldn't come along and start a war for some reason or another? If humanity wanted to have any chance of surviving, and not being bullied by these other species because they were the new kids on the block, then they needed to level the playing field.

What she had in mind would have been impossible ten years ago. It likely would have taken hundreds of years for science and medicine to get to the point where it could accomplish all that she wanted it to, but the discovery of the Prothean ruins on Mars had changed things. It had accelerated human advancement a hundred fold, opening them up to possibilities that had been nothing but wistful fantasies for even the most brilliant of minds; minds like her own.

"Déjà, do you have the lists of candidates?" Catherine asked.

The holographic image of a Greek goddess wrapped in a toga appeared in front of her.

"Yes Dr. Halsey, I have forwarded them to your personal server."

"Thank you Déjà. Has there been any updates on the peace talks?"

"None that I'm aware of, doctor."

"Continue monitoring for new information on the peace talks, and let me know if anything changes."

"Of course, doctor."

Déjà vanished from sight, leaving Catherine to go over the candidates files. They weren't what she asked for, but they were what she had been given. She had specific genetic requirements she had told Section 3 of the Systems Alliance Intelligence Services that the candidates needed to match, but they hadn't cast the net wide enough. She had told them they needed to test every child on every planet and outpost between the ages of six and eight but Section 3 had balked at that. Apparently that was too much, even for them. Instead, they had looked at only the orphans between those ages. Catherine was unsure what difference it made if the child had parents or not, but there appeared to be some type of red line to SAIS. The only thing Catherine could assume was that an orphan was less likely to be missed.

Inside the inner council chamber Tevos, the asari councilor, looked over the final terms of agreement with the humans. The terms weren't official, not yet. The governments for both sides needed to ratify them. She knew that the Turian Hierarchy would approve of them, even if there was a small but significant sized faction who wanted to continue the war. She imagined the humans would ratify them as well, given how amicable they appeared to be during the negotiation period, though she imagined that was more of them realizing how hopeless it would be for them if things continued to escalate.

Marock, the salarian councilor, sat across from her. He had already read through the terms and was waiting for her to finish. Their turian counterpart, Sparatus, was meeting with the Turian Primarch, as well as other prominent members of the hierarchy.

"They refused to join the Citadel?" Tevos said, pulling the datapad away from her face in shock.

None of the races they had come in contact with and offered the chance to become a member of their multi-species coalition had turned them down. Yes some of the races were no longer citadel races, the krogan had been expelled after their rebellions, and the same had happened with the quarians after their disastrous war with the geth, but that had come later. And there were races, like the vorcha, who hadn't been offered the chance at all for one reason or another. But to actually turn it down?

"They are fond of artificial intelligence. Don't want to give it up. They won't heed our warnings of doom. Also," Marock took a deep breath, "untrusting of turians."

The refusal to join the Citadel and all the benefits that came with it likely complicated the negotiations some. The trade and defense treaties, both of which the primitive humans sorely needed, were the biggest boon the Council had to offer. Though they didn't have to bend to the will of these newcomers, they still wanted to come to terms agreeable to both sides to prevent the conflict from continuing.

Despite not joining the Citadel, the humans would still be allowed to open an embassy on the Citadel, and in return the Council would be allowed to open an embassy on the human home world of Earth. The humans would join the standard galactic currency, the credit, and allow it to be a recognized form of currency in their economy. They were to be given basic technology like the language and translation programs the Citadel races had, so communication would never again be an issue. They would also ratify several of the existing treaties, like the Citadel Convention; though they refused to sign the Treaty of Farixen and the ones pertaining to artificial intelligence. The turians would pay reparations to the humans, totalling close to one-point-three billion credits. More than originally discussed, but the total had to be increased once it became clear joining the intergalactic community wasn't something the humans wanted to do. The Council would help with some of the funding, not that the humans needed to know that.

The humans agreed, since they weren't joining the Citadel, to withdraw from recognized council space. Their holdings in council space at the time of conflict had been limited; a few lucrative mining outposts which would be taken over by the turians and was one of the reasons the reparations were so high, a military relay station that would likely be destroyed upon abandonment, and the start settlement on a new world they were looking to colonize. They further agreed to not make any attempts to establish any presence in council space, whether it be commercial, residential, or military in nature, and would keep their expansion efforts to the Skyllian Verge, the Terminus Systems, and other such areas in their unexplored section of the galaxy. The action of activating any inactive mass relays humans came across would also be stopped.

They would also allow a salarian patrol fleet to patrol the space around the Theta Mass Relay, known to the humans as the Shanxi Mass Relay. The Theta Relay was closest to council space, so it was in the interest of the Council to make sure it was guarded. The original idea was to have a Turian fleet be the ones to patrol it, since it was closest to their territory, but that idea was quickly tossed out since there would likely be lingering animosity between the two species that could spark another conflict.

There would be trade, but it would be limited in nature. The turians didn't want to trade things like advanced technologies and military weapons to the humans, and the salarians were in agreement because the last thing they needed was a well armed military in their backyard that had the potential of becoming hostile. So trade between humans and the citadel races would be limited to things like food, luxury items, and medical supplies.

Then of course there were the standard things such as turning over prisoners of war, allowing the other to collect their dead, etc.

"If we let them expand into the Skyllian Verge, that will likely draw them into conflict with the batarians," Tevos pointed out.

Marock gave the salarian equivalent of a shrug. "The Hegemony has issued no official claim on Skyllian Verge. Therefore, it is not official council space."

That was true. The batarians didn't like the Council or any of the other races of the Citadel knowing what they were up to. They did things in secret, and the Council only found out about events months, sometimes years, after they had already occurred. Spectres and STG teams could only gather so much information for them out of Hegemony controlled space. While intel suggested the batarians had been sending probes and survey teams into the Skyllian Verge, with reports coming in they had already loaded up the first colony ships to start the colonization process, not a word had been said by the batarian ambassador, or the Hegemony itself.

"Well at least we've diverted a galactic war"

"For now."