6.3
June 3, 2084/2459
"You're actually quite lucky." Marcus said.
Javik's head turned to the side, briefly facing towards a garden that was on fire, sparking with electricity, and which appeared vaguely twisted in a manner that didn't quite match up with euclidean geometries.
One of the small, Prothean children at Javik's window giggled as he clenched his fist, and a section of a tree was consumed by a black orb that sprung into existence, vanishing a moment later. Where the orb had been, now there was nothing at all.
The other children clapped in excitement.
"Lucky." Javik repeated, slowly.
"Yes." Marcus nodded, emphatically. "It's one garden. I could not tell you the amount of stuff I ended up exploding when I was a child."
"I would prefer if it was not my garden." He said.
"Such a big baby, aren't you?" Marcus rolled his eyes. "Hey kids, want to see something cool?"
December 11, 2085/2460
"I feel like this is a little... petty. With way too much effort put into it." He said.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." His companion said, smiling.
He raised an eyebrow, before deliberately turning to look out a window. On the other side, gigantic holographic words floated in space, reading, if you were to look at them from the opposite side, and more specifically from an asteroid that they were aimed at, 'FUCK YOU ARIA'.
"Bitch had it coming." She smiled.
"Who's Aria?" He asked.
"Some self-important, self-styled pirate queen that lives in the galaxy's anus and thought it made her important enough that she could get away with threatening me." She responded.
"So you decided to stay in the galaxy's anus to get back at her?" He asked. "I think you need to find a new hobby, Susan."
"I've got nothing else to do, though." Susan shrugged. "Anyway, welcome to Better Omega."
August 9, 2090/2465
"Javik, no." Marcus shook his head, slowly. "I know this is stupid, but there's standards to uphold. We have to make an example, serve as an exemplar-" A gunshot rang through the air.
Slowly, Marcus turned to face the shooter.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked down. Looked up. Then sighed. "But on the other hand, Darwin demands his due."
Javik smirked, and drew his weapon.
August 9, 2096/2471
A flash of light ripped its way through space, a beam lancing forwards with lethal, destructive intent.
It met a shimmering wall, deflecting harmlessly away. Breathless observers leaned forwards in anticipation as the target spun around, preparing to shoot back-
Only to snap in half a moment later.
A loud, agonised growl went through the room.
"How?!" An Prothean engineer cried, slumping backwards as the prototype tore itself apart. "Didn't we fix that problem five iterations ago?!"
"We swapped the superconducting array on the spinal gun for a lighter mix." A Salarian responded. "The material strength should have been within tolerances, though."
A Human appeared within a flash of light, leaning back in a seat. "It was feedback from the shield system. The energy surge caused the tri-core design to briefly flare with an overlapping mass effect field, snapping the barrel and weakening the superstructure."
"We fixed that ten iterations ago." A Turian muttered. "Superconductors shouldn't be affecting that."
"I don't think it was fixed so much as we didn't put it through the right conditions to bring out the same problem."
The Prothean breathed in, then out. "Alright. Fine. Time for brute force. Make a few thousand of them and we'll try our best to break it. In the same way. We've lost too much by this point to do it the slow way."
"Well, if you're certain about that and don't care about the inefficiency-"
"I don't. I just want this damned feedback problem to stop existing."
January 1, 2100/2475
"I have to wonder how we should treat the beginning of this new century."
"Yes?"
"It is a new century by the standards of the universe at large. By the time we've experienced, however, we're still twenty five years away from the beginning of the new century."
"Different rates of passing time does indeed make dates complicated."
"On the other hand, that also means we can have a 'passing of the century' party twice every century and be correct both times."
"I'm not entirely certain that works out logically, but you know what, that's good enough for me."
"I am definitely certain that doesn't work out logically, but I'm too busy partying to argue with it."
June 19, 2110/2485
"We are actually keeping ahead on extraction?" Primarch Therus asked.
"Yes, Primarch." One of his aides responded. "At the current extraction rate, Bounty could supply the Turian Hierarchy as a whole for the next seventy five years with the entirety of our projected Element Zero needs completely by itself."
Therus nodded. Bounty was a system that had been located by Humans nearly two decades ago. It was also, quite simply, the richest star system in the entire galaxy, with the highest concentration of Element Zero known.
Humans, upon finding it, had passed that info to the rest of the galaxy. They, of course, had no need for Eezo.
Bounty was so rich that every other species had mining operations in it, and even after all this time, all of them together still had yet to tap more than a small percentage of the available material. With Prothean technology continuing to push the efficiency of its usage higher, and the maintenance costs ever lower, the system was expected to last for centuries.
"And the Naval Development Program?"
"Continuing according to plan. Science and engineering divisions have, for the most part, completed development of anti-Reaper starship designs, and are currently being refined alongside tactics and strategy. Wargame simulations against Reaper replications have reached the point where the fleets can reliably achieve victory, presuming a rough local numerical equality."
"'Local' being the key word, there." He frowned. "Very well. Dismissed."
The aides bowed, then left.
December 1, 2115/2490
"Is it really certain that this is the best way to go about things?"
"We do not have much else of a choice. Quite simply, there are too many Harvesters."
"Our best estimate, at the moment, leads to some 10.8 billion Capital-Class Harvesters, with 33.5 trillion lesser Destroyer-Class Harvesters, and a likely similar amount of non-Harvester support ships. Against this number, there is simply no conceivable method of achieving a purely conventional victory within the time frame we have been alloted, without also creating unaccepting casualties."
"We do outnumber the Harvesters. Right now, there are 37 Humans to each Harvester. By the time they awaken, that number will rise to approximately 185, presuming our current population growth stays stable for the entire time. Even doubling that number to account for their support craft, we still have not taken into account the assistance of the Anima. I find it reasonable that we will be able to fight back against them."
"In most parameters, yes. My studies of Harvester tactics, however, indicate that, in the face of numerical parity or excess, the Harvesters will instead shift targets to support structures. They will target docks, fuel stations, civilian centers and the like in order to weaken resistance. Typically, they utilize overwhelming alpha-strike mass-fire to destroy targets, and leave immediately after firing."
"That will not work against us."
"Against us, no. Against every other non-psychic species in the galaxy, however?"
"Ah. Point. We would be tied down, defending them."
"Harvesters are not, despite our disparagement of them, unintelligent. It is well within their ability to coordinate at faster than light speeds. At one point, in fact, during the early stages of the cycle, the Harvesters brought down a numerically superior foe by gathering the entirety of their armada, grouping together while travelling at FTL, then making sudden exits, firing an alpha-strike from billions of platforms at a planet, and then simply running off to do it to somewhere else. It was devastating to the members of that cycle, and something we absolutely cannot afford to allow here, because if they resort to that tactic, we will, quite literally, require the entirety of our population to defend every planet and every station from every conceivable direction at a distance of at least ten light seconds just to respond in time to stop them from obliterating everything."
"They tried to do that to the Dreamer."
"And while it didn't work against the Dreamer, we are not the Dreamer. Our reaction speeds, and our ability to focus energy, are far slower. Without precaution, that tactic would work against us. It would not kill us forever, but local destruction of our assets means we can't just respawn there, either. We would be locked out. And if we were defending anything, the Harvesters would destroy it before we could reach it again."
"Conventional victory, quite frankly, is impossible. We must force them into alternative solution. We need to level the playing field. And the only way that I can see to do that is this."
"Horrible as it is to say, this would be so much easier if we didn't have to worry about preserving the lives of our allies."
"Yes, if only we were a bunch of self-centered xenophobes uncaring about the lives of the aliens. Can you detect my sarcasm?"
"It isn't funny. If we go through with this, a lot of people are going to die."
"Still less than how many will die if we don't. It is not a balance I want to make, but this needs to be done. Without it... Without it, the only ones that will live are the ones that can be convinced to abandon their homes, cultures, and space. Anything that isn't mobile will be a target that willbe destroyed."
"Death is not an end."
"It is also not something they need experience. Even if it was, their homes, physical elements of their cultures, and much more will still be destroyed. While we do not place much value on that sort of thing anymore, they still do. This way, more will live."
"I still don't like it."
"None of us do. Still, this is a difficult choice for the right reason. The alternative is... not something I want to live with happening."
"Fine. This is not going to be pleasant."
"No. No it isn't."
6.4
January 1, 2125/2500
"New century!"
"Still doesn't work out."
June 2, 2135/2510
"The Batarian Hegemony finally collapsed."
"Took its sweet time. It's actually kind of impressive that it lasted so long, considering it had an entire section of its cultural, economical, and political base just up and vanish, one day."
"The Hegemony has been a failing state, ever since. It's only due to its totalitarian controls that it held on for over fifty years. Once the downfall started, however, nothing was going to stop it. All those groups that suddenly found themselves the targets of oppression in lieu of the original slave-caste just created resentment."
"Resentment that was, admittedly, stirred significantly by the STG. Certainly, it probably could have held on for another decade or two if the STG hadn't been organizing the revolutionaries with their own agents."
"I'll admit, I haven't actually been paying attention to this whole thing. Was it actually the STG, or was it us, disguised as the STG?"
"Actually the STG. Yes, other people in the galaxy actually do things."
"That's not how I meant it. It just sounds like a convenient excuse. Like Bounty."
"Bounty is real, though."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's a completely normal system that went supernova two or so thousand years ago. We really did just stumble upon the most eezo-rich system in the galaxy entirely by accident."
"Huh. I honestly figured that somebody was just screwing around and using it as a thin justification."
"Statistically, Bounty is an outlier. But in a galaxy of several hundred billion stars, outliers are going to happen sooner or later."
"At some point or another, I think we'll need to make a list of what we have actually done."
"That's probably a good call."
September 9, 2155/2530
Psi-Net Connection Established.
PSIDENT: Marcus Simon De'mire (#1)
Status: Alpha-Green.
Alert: Priority Broadcast (Classification Alpha-Alpha-Gamma)
"Display."
Displaying.
"Incoming First Contact Event expected. A ship drifted into system 1834-1282-9981. Local Star Road passed alert. Preliminary analysis indicates that the ship has spent approximately eight millennia drifting from star to star. It is host to extensive supercomputers simulating a virtual world, into which approximately one billion minds have been uploaded. They appear to be the entirety of their species, and are currently searching for a new power source for their ship. Approximate mentality expected to be compatible with galactic community."
Marcus sipped his martini, pulled out his Omni-tool, and fired off a message to the rest of the Council.
January 1, 2174/2549
One hundred and fifty years.
That was how long the Dreamer had said they'd have. The minimum, to be more exact. The guaranteed time of peace, the chance to build as freely as they wished.
Marcus blinked, languidly, as he laid back against a floor of metal. Above, and close enough that anybody not a psychic would call utterly insane, a sea of plasma roiled dangerously.
UG-847-2-B was a red dwarf star, at first glance. Just another of the countless small stars that formed nearly three quarters of the galaxy. This meant that it was a target for starskimming, a simple thing where you'd take a ship, fly close, and revel in the sheer, unrelenting fury of these celestial furnaces. Most preferred small stars like these, as they were less prone to obliterating something you'd have to spend a few moments replacing, and a few hours to travel back to when you did. Larger and more energetic stars were for people who just didn't care as much, or were more willing to flirt with becoming little more than cosmic dust.
It was fun.
Marcus was here, at this particular star, for a reason closer to melancholy than fun, though.
UG-847-2-B was a red dwarf star, true. It was also a variable star, and more specifically, a flare star. It could, at any moment, suddenly start shining several times brighter than it was, something which could last several minutes and something which, if it happened while his ship was close to its surface, was almost certainly going to overwhelm the specifically calibrated and precisely tuned shielding system that stopped the star from turning both him and the ship into a cloud of energized atoms.
That made it, rather oddly, something of a metaphor for the current state of the galaxy. Peaceful, at the moment, but at any point in time...
Everything could go to hell with very little warning. This star because of a sudden flare. The galaxy, because the Reapers could just... wake up.
Was there a more perfect place to think about such a thing?
March 28, 2180/2555
Tevos frowned, lightly, as she worked over her omni-tool. "Logistically, it's workable."
Sparatus shook his head. "'Workable' doesn't equate to 'efficient'. The reason the Hammer Fleet exists is to deploy rapidly. Splitting fleet into multiple groups is going to affect cohesion and response times."
Valern hummed. In the shadows of his hood, his eyes shimmered with a faint glow, barely visible. "One large fleet is also ultimately less mobile than several smaller groups. Hammer Fleet-"
"Hammer Fleet is responsible for dealing with the largest identified mass of enemy Reapers." Sapartus pointed out. "Dagger Fleet already serves the purpose of numerous opportunist groups."
"It would take too long to retrain, either way." Javik pointed out. "A small change of the effectivity calculus does not mean we need to reorganise everything. It is simply not worth the chaos in the short term."
Sparatus nodded, but was prevented from saying anything when the sound of glass shattering alongside a sharp intake of breath caught all their attention.
At the table, Marcus stood utterly straight, his entire posture frozen tense. Red blood dripped from his hand, shards of glass embedded in his skin. From the man who was normally so composed, it was startlingly out of character.
After a moment passed, and just as Javik opened his mouth, Marcus slumped, sighing. "It's a pointless proposition, now."
Assimilation crystal shimmered into being over his hand, vanishing a short moment later.
"We're out of time." He said as he turned around. The expression on his face was grim, eyes glowing intently. "They're awake."
7.1: Discord
{System.time.countdown = 0}
{System.check.core.analysis()}
{Memory... No problems detected}
{Processing... No problems detected}
{Networking... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{System.ponent.analysis()}
{Mass Engine... No problems detected}
{Energy supply... No problems detected}
{Manipulator... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{No errors detected}
{System.check.structure.analysis()}
{Shell... No problems detected}
{Weapons... No problems detected}
{Sensors... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{No errors detected}
{Dormancy protocol deactivating}
Deep in dark space, far away from the closest star, Harbinger woke up.
And he knew immediately that something had not gone to plan.
The reason, of course, was simple; what had woken him had been an internal timer. This was not typically unusual, and indeed, it had happened many times over the course of the more than a billion years that he had existed. It was one of the very few ways that would prompt them to awaken, after all.
The problem, in this case, was that he had expected to be awoken by one of his fellows.
He sent a ping throughout their network. Within moments, he received responses as his fellows reported their statuses.
There was one million less than he had been expecting.
He sent another ping, this one directed at specific network addresses. Again, he received no response.
Harbinger felt, at that moment, something that a lesser organic being might have called 'irritation'.
Over one billion years of existence, over twenty one thousand successful Cycles, and only now had the Anomaly appeared, only now had it thrown off the carefully refined plans and protocols that had been developed over the course of all those Cycles.
Over a billion years of experience, all but thrown out. The Anomaly was an existence that did not obey the rules that bound all other life. It was an outside context problem, but one that had been manageable.
Or so he had thought. If the two million Ascended that had been assigned to deal with it had all been destroyed, then the Anomaly had been concealing its abilities by a significant amount. It had been entirely opportunistic, before, avoiding confrontation in force. It took its time, a slow hunter. For all to have vanished...
Well, that didn't matter, now.
The Cycle was at hand.
Harbinger sent a signal.
The Anomaly could not do anything to stop it. No matter its true capabilities, the Cycle could not be stopped. The first step was, as always, to activate the Core Relay, cutting the civilizations of the galaxy into pieces while shutting down-
An error returned.
Harbinger paused.
He sent the signal again. Again, an error returned.
The Core Relay did not activate. The signal he sent was being refused.
No matter. The Cycle was inevitable, and not being able to immediately transmit to the Core would only be a small delay. Harbinger sent a communication to {SOURCE}, logging the error notice, and requesting information stored.
Two full seconds passed. The communication timed out. {SOURCE} did not respond.
Harbinger felt, at that moment, something a lesser organic being would have described as being far worse than mere irritation.
Harbinger activated backup protocols, internal quantum links coming online. They were extremely low-bandwidth, but utterly impregnable, absolutely certain to survive anything less than the destruction of both the Core and {SOURCE}.
It connected. Harbinger launched a series of codes, activating other programs and processes. It would only take a few minutes for them to return their results, giving him valuable information about the current state of the galaxy. With that information, they would be able to construct the ideal strategy and tactics for the current Cycle, and-
"We hear you, Harvester."
A signal is sent, and it arrives at the Citadel. Monitoring programs immediately activate, sending warnings and broadcasts through the Psi-Net. Humanity, see, had gone through the entirety of the Citadel's systems decades ago, and had very carefully taken absolute control of the entire thing. Knowing that the Harvesters used the Citadel as a Mass Relay, there was simply no chance they were just going to leave it there, after all.
In moments, a group is forming. Humanity gets up to speed, and they know that today is the fated, cursed day that they had been warned of by the Dreamer.
Alerts are triggered. Information is spread. Across the entire galaxy, everybody is receiving the knowledge. The Harvesters are awake.
Precious seconds pass by. The group finishes gathering. Humanity is as prepared as it is ever going to be.
Deep within the Citadel, quantum links activate. They have long since been disconnected from anything real or important, but they were not removed for the simple fact that they were a part of the long-planned trap.
Data begins to stream out of them. That is the Harvesters' undoing, because alongside it comes the barest whisper of thought.
It is a connection.
And like all connections, it can be followed.
So they do.
"We hear you, Harvester."
The mind on the other side is an ancient, abominable thing. Even the memories of the million strong fleet that came to Earth so many years ago fail to really compare. They do not, however, let this slow them. They do not hesitate.
Harbinger is aware of what pain is. It is a mechanism to alert of damage. It is one among many tools through which the Ascended may manipulate the lesser races.
Pain is not something that Harbinger has ever personally felt.
Something slams into his mind, reaching into him, through him, with fingers that are as gentle as Harbinger has ever been.
Pain is something that Harbinger is feeling.
They press upon the Harvester's mind, in that moment. The connection is tenuous, at best, which means they have to advance it.
They reach out. The quantum links, on both ends, explode into shimmering, crystalline growth. Assimilation lets them seize control, allows them to prevent the connection from closing.
One single Harvester cannot match the weight of their minds. They drown it, reaching in for the deep parts that hold what they need.
The Harvester has a name.
Harbinger.
It is the first of them all, born from captured Leviathans. It is not, like so many others of its kind, a tormented, tortured thing, held together by manipulation and force. Harbinger, in comparison, is almost whole, the minds and lives that went into its making synchronized and bearing only the lightest touch of modification. It's stable, and somehow, it's even more repulsive than the rest of its kin. This is not an achievement they're happy to find.
It is also not something they have time to contemplate. Only a moment has passed, and the other Harvesters have already begun to realize that something is wrong. They are beginning to move, and the window to spring the trap is closing.
They locate Harbinger's communications system. They force it to activate, more assimilation crystals bursting into existence. They send out a communication, and lace it with psychic power.
The other Harvesters receive it. Consider it. The communication passes through their mind, revealing them. In a brief moment, one connection has turned into trillions.
Humanity reaches out.
The pressure relents, and Harbinger can think, again. He feels slow. Thoughts that should be completed in nanoseconds take more than a thousand times longer. There is something inside of his mind, and it is making everything viscous. He knows what this is, but like before, and until now, he had not experienced such a thing personally.
Anomaly.
The presence turns- somehow, Harbinger can feel its attention. It takes him a moment to realize that the presence is too diffuse, not something monolithic, but something made up of many parts.
Not the Anomaly.
"You are tenacious." The presences spoke. "Worryingly stable."
More things like it.
The Harvesters have incredible numbers. It is the product of slow, mostly-linear growth with very little losses that has occurred over cosmic timescales.
Against the entirety of Humanity, a single Harvester was functionally irrelevant.
All of the Harvesters, together, against all of Humanity, was a very different story. Humanity's growth had been quicker, exponential population growth with no losses that occurred over a mere few centuries, that still brought the ratio of Humans to Harvesters to less than two hundred to one.
In direct conflict, this would not be a great problem. Humans did not abide by the same rules that bound the Harvesters. A direct conflict, Humans would win.
But life isn't that simple. The Harvesters' goal was unchanging, but the means by which they achieved it was quite adaptable. Once they started taking unacceptable losses, or became concerned that they might do so, the Harvesters were entirely willing to retreat while they considered a new plan.
Humanity had, despite its best efforts, not been able to find an easy way to force the issue. Mass Effect-based FTL, especially the Harvesters' ancient and long-refined designs, was simply too versatile. Too... reliable.
Mass Effect FTL could not be easily blocked. There was no method of interdiction that could stop travel across a volume of space. This was especially true for the Harvesters, who didn't have drive-endurance limitations, and could operate at FTL speeds indefinitely, which made it impossible to follow them.
There was only one method which would allow Humanity to force them to hold still, and that was Assimilation.
The problem with that, however, was implied in the name. Assimilation.
By nature, to assimilate was to take something else and make it a part of you. For things that were not alive, Assimilation was no problem. For things with minds of their own, however...
A Harvester was a tortured, enslaved, mass of minds. To Assimilate a Harvester would be to take that into oneself.
It could be done, of course. The Dreamer had done it.
And the Dreamer had died for it.
One single Harvester, with millions trapped inside that dark sarcophagus, had taken it down for years. The next million Harvesters, however... the combined suffering had killed it within minutes.
One did not have to bear that suffering. The minds could be allowed to shatter. They could be allowed to fragment into countless pieces, polluting oneself with a disorganized mess of beings that once were.
And what would be the consequences of that? Might be nothing. Or it could be far worse. Taking all of that and dumping it into a psychic entity where all that pain, emotion, and remnants of will might actually start doing things?
It couldn't be risked.
Which definitely put Assimilation into an odd position. Their only tool to force the Harvesters into combat, but one that would also remove the necessity of it, and one that further restricts them on account of needing to preserve the minds they'd take.
Furthermore, Assimilation required contact. Mental, or through another, physical vector, but contact nonetheless. It would be most effective if it came as a surprise, as the Harvesters could adapt to make it... less easily deployed.
That said, there were other options. Assimilation did not have to be total, after all. The Harvesters could be attacked in ways they could not defend from, and were weak to.
All considered, it meant one thing. If there was a shot to be taken, then it would have to be a major one. It needed to be successful, to catch the majority of the Harvesters, to stop them from being able to deploy their numbers effectively.
There was a way, there.
So Humanity devised a plan. A trap. When the Harvesters awoke, but before they could do anything, they'd use that chance.
Harbinger activates a number of cyberwarfare programs. Ascended viruses, designed to tear apart even the most stable computer architectures, do absolutely nothing. The presences focus, and the viruses fail.
Harbinger activates indoctrination systems. They are crystallized a moment later, denied to him.
"This cannot be stopped. Not by you. Why do you continue to struggle?"
Harbinger felt something press against him. He activated more subsystems, analytics and diagnostic programs. Most of them spat useless things. Irritation filled him, and with that irritation, he felt the press beginning to... lighten?
"WE ARE ASCENDED." He denies. "THE CYCLE SHALL CONTINUE."
Yes, lighten. Still there, but weakened. The emotional reaction, primitive as it may be, was doing something to protect against this?
"You are slaves." The presences spoke. "Bound, and not even capable of wanting freedom. You are, by far, the worst of all. Slave as Leviathans, slave as Harvester."
Harbinger considered. He was not, currently, in a position to experiment. Still, would any emotion work?
"WE ARE WITHOUT END. THIS SHALL BE OVERCOME."
He remembers the Cycles. Over a billion years of success. Harbinger allows that to fill him with satisfaction, and the press continues to lighten.
"No. This stupidity has gone on long enough. You will die, and the galaxy will be better for it."
Did the presences even realize? No matter. He understood, now.
"YOU WEAKEN. YOU CANNOT DEFEAT US."
The presences pause, considering him. Something flits between them, an emotion he recognizes as confusion, before it passes into understanding.
"Weaken? Oh, were you under the impression that you were somehow repelling this, Harvester? This is our intent. This is the calm before the storm."
The press stops weakening.
Then-
PAIN
Assimilation crystal blooms on the Harvesters' bodies. The trap has been sprung. Humanity is spreading itself thin, trying to Assimilate so many at once, to bear the suffering of the Harvesters, but full Assimilation is not the plan. Partial Assimilation is simply what they need to make sure they're not going to run away before they can get hit.
Bodies freeze.
Humanity breathes.
Harvesters are not built with combat against psychic entities in mind. They exist in the purely physical realm, and they are, admittedly, quite strong there.
In the mental realm, though, the mind of a Harvester may as well be made out of spun glass. It doesn't take a whole lot of power to destabilize them. Doing so at range wouldn't be too hard, though even for Humanity, with quadrillions of psychic members to provide energy, they wouldn't be able to get all the Harvesters.
But they're not at range. Not anymore. Not with their partial Assimilation. Right now, Humanity has direct access to the circuits and processors that make up the Harvesters' brains.
It couldn't be sustained forever. Nor, for that matter, even very long. It didn't need to be.
Long-prepared, and waiting for this exact moment, the Anima focus.
The collective psychic energy released by all of Humanity is not easily directed. There are hundreds of trillions of Anima, and even with the fact that they were more capable of manipulating energy than Humans themselves were, it is still an utterly titanic task.
Nevertheless, all of that power begins to bend. A previously calm and steady flow begins to diminish, as the power is forced to build up rather than emanate. This, too, cannot be held for very long, but, again, it doesn't need to be.
There is no room for subtlety. There is no room for finesse. What they have is a big blob of raw power that needs to go somewhere, and there are several trillion convenient outlets just waiting for it.
The Anima spend a few seconds building it up, a moment to coordinate themselves, another to focus it, and then waste no more time.
The power is unleashed.
7.2
It crashes outwards like a tidal wave, and smashes into the Harvesters' minds in roughly the same way. It's blunt, graceless, and punishingly effective.
For most of the Harvesters, it is an immediate death sentence as each of their ordered, constructed, fragile minds shatter into hundreds of thousands of screaming, pained individuals, who, thanks to the fact that they were being flooded with psychic power, partially Assimilated by Humanity, and so massively outnumber them, now have the barest hint of a voice.
They're not psychic. But they do feel things. Psychic energy is produced from minds, and is naturally reactive to them, in the end. It takes a lot to produce anything noticeable, but...
Physically, nothing much happens.
Psychically, the several quintillion minds that have been bound up in the Harvesters instantly transform the power that they've been bathed with into a maelstrom of hatred, agony, and torment.
This was not unexpected. Indeed, it was entirely anticipated. The initial burst of that power was enough to shatter many of the Harvesters, but not all. By sheer weight of numbers, and the tyranny of statistics, there were bound to be at least a few Harvesters whose minds were more stable, who wouldn't crack simply by being hammered with raw power.
That said, the number that could survive the storm that it turned into was significantly less.
Humanity is not entirely spared of it. Energy alone, they could handle just fine, but with the partial Assimilation comes a flood of pain from the minds they'd freed. It brings a collective wince, but they had not come this far just to falter so close to the goal.
"Your torment is at its end." They say, rallying. "You will not need to suffer any longer."
Humanity reaches out. A gentle, soothing touch, as they take hold of the freed minds.
"Come." They invite. "We will keep you safe."
Humanity tugs, and the Dream opens wide. They pull the minds from their agonising crypts, and let them settle in the gifted resting place.
"Sleep. Heal." They encourage. "Rest as long as you need. When you wake, things will be better."
The minds plunge into rest. The pain lessens, but doesn't end, and it's still strong enough that they're not going to be able to do too much more.
More than a few Humans are already beginning to join them. The pain is a soul-deep thing, far too powerful to be ignored, and it isn't going to go away until the minds that feel it have healed. The only way to escape it was to sleep.
That was fine. They had done almost all of what they wanted.
Just one last thing.
They concentrate. Assimilation crystal blooms, springing into existence on the local Mass Relay.
The remaining Harvesters were out of their grasp, now. Their numbers were dropping perilously fast, and any attempt to Assimilate what remained would endanger the whole thing.
Nevertheless, there was always a backup plan.
The Assimilation crystals shatter, revealing a Star Rail.
Humanity pulls back. The job is done.
"Opportunity is here." They say, as they start falling into sleep. "Go fuck 'em up."
And there are others who have been waiting for their turn.
"With pleasure."
{Error: Neural Network Degradation. Severity... 85.2223%}
{System.Maintenance.Tool.Repair()}
{Repair in progress. Last backup... STABLE}
{Restoring Neural Network...}
{Restarting...}
Thought, clarity of mind, returned to Harbinger mere moments after the presences retreated. Now that their anomalous abilities were no longer involved, time-tested systems returned him to functionality without issue.
Harbinger was not happy.
No, that was an understatement.
Harbinger was fucking enraged.
He sent a ping out, demanding a status update. Only fifteen hundred responses came, when there should have been in excess of thirty three trillion.
Harbinger was not in the mood to consider possibilities. Harbinger activated a connection and assumed direct control of the systems of another Ascended.
It was, somehow, empty.
Entirely intact, yes, but where there should have been a fully integrated Ascended intelligence, there was nothing. Data, thoughts, memories, information... all gone. He couldn't even instantiate backups, because those were also gone. The systems were a mess, looping programs with pointers that referred to things that no longer existed.
Unrecoverable.
Harbinger launched a check. Every single one of the unresponding Ascended was in that state.
Braindead.
The Presences were worse than the Anomaly had ever been. The Anomaly had been a slow bleeding, but this...
This was not something that the Ascended would recover from, quickly. They had been set back more than a billion years worth of Cycles.
The Presences were not omnipotent, at least. Fifteen hundred survivors proved that. They would have to approach this carefully, in order to remove the Presences from the Cycle.
Still, there were fifteen hundred Ascended, at least. They would overco-
There was a brief distortion of light, a minor reading from sensors, and suddenly, from the Relay, two thousand ships materialized. They arrived in a roughly spherical formation, each ship pointed outwards from the center of the formation, covering every possible angle of approach. As they were surrounded on all sides, this was somewhat sensible.
Visually, they possessed an aesthetic similarity to the ships of the Prothean Empire of the previous Cycle. In nanoseconds, sensor readings were collected and collated, and Harbinger concluded that the design and technology of them were similar, though also more refined. The only difference is the lines of lime green crystalline matter that run along the lengths of the ships, with especially large masses near the engines. The organics of that Cycle did nothing like that, and the resemblance to the crystalline matter created by the Presences is quite obvious, as the only difference is the colour.
Harbinger does not like that.
Even worse, it becomes clear that the ships are not entirely under organic control, when they immediately start firing. It has been bare microseconds, far too fast for an organic to even begin to react, and there are already dark energy fields shifting around the ships. It focuses in front of them all, and then...
The crystalline matter shimmers in a manner that can only be described as unsettling. Green beams, the exact same colour as the crystalline matter, lances out a moment later.
They don't take the time to reorientate and aim. The dark energy fields do that for them, as the beams pass through and are refracted into slightly different angles with supreme precision.
Harbinger notices that every single one of the remaining Ascended has been targeted, the ships ignoring the dead but otherwise indistinguishable bodies of the former Ascended.
Harbinger sent a command to the Relay, intending to stop any more arrivals, and, as was becoming worryingly common, nothing happened.
Harbinger went through his records. In the brief few seconds his systems had been repairing his neural network, he found that the Relay had been covered in crystalline matter, the same as the one which all Ascended had been covered with.
Which doubtlessly meant that it had been compromised.
Alright. A potentially overwhelming source of reinforcements for a foe that was unquestionably prepared to fight them. Staying would be foolish. Harbinger's Mass Engine activates immediately, lightening-fields shimmering around him as he begins to accelerate away, the other Ascended doing the same.
The beams are faster. There is an Ascended close to them, and Harbinger focuses his attention as the beam nears.
The beam hits. The Ascended's Barriers last an eighth of a second before failing, and the beam promptly punches through them, then the Ascended underneath. The shot strikes the core, obliterating it before it even has time to detonate. The Ascended is dead, and has approximately zero point three seconds before energy runs out completely.
Harbinger re-evaluates his options. With such a degree of firepower available, he would require an extreme solution in order to preserve the remaining Ascended. Redirecting energy to barriers wouldn't work, as they wouldn't be able to escape quickly enough before more reinforcements arrived. The beams could be redirected, but generating a field of that kind of strength would also destroy his superstructure.
Harbinger's attention falls to the empty shells of the former Ascended. There are a great deal many of them between the arriving fleet and the remaining Ascended, and Harbinger can still remotely control them.
A plan forms. He calculates the probabilities and possibilities, then refines them, as the beams inch ever outwards to their targets.
There will be casualties, but as the alternative is total destruction, it is preferable.
Harbinger sends a command out. In an instant, a great number of the former Ascended dump their entire supply of stored energy into their Mass Engines, generating a repulsive lightening-field of incredible strength. The empty vessels are immediately torn apart as their mass reaches the point of negligibility, and the minor amount of kinetic energy imparted upon individual atoms rips aparts their molecular bonds, flinging them in every direction at velocities that within a tenth of a percent of away from light speed.
This is a side effect. The repulsive lightening fields themselves travel at superluminal velocity, and do so. The combined detonations sweep over the beams, and alter, fractionally, their courses.
Five hundred signals vanish, torn apart by the detonations. The rest of the Ascended register damage as they catch the wave, but they're not destroyed, and so, they can escape.
A beam passes through the leftmost manipular leg of Harbinger, instantly evaporating it, but it's too late.
Harbinger, and nine hundred and ninety-eight Ascended, escape into FTL.
7.3
Vengeance, Javik muses, is sweet.
He stares out a viewscreen, where the dark and quite dead form of a Reaper floats. The ancient, malevolent machine has been sliced apart, small drones scalpelling off fragments of the hull even as he watched.
Three centuries of war, death, and destruction... The end of an empire, his people, and now...
A scything beam shifted over the Reaper. It's soundless, but not too hard to imagine how the creature groans as superstructure falls apart. A trio of drones come up, pulling in three different directions, and the Reaper's internals are exposed. A fourth drone floats closer to them, and a Mass Effect field briefly flashes as the entire assemblage compacts into a ball of metal. It will be taken to a nearby processor, which will rip the entire thing apart into its basic elements, extracting the valuable Element Zero contained within, while the rest of the mostly useless hull will be blasted into energized particles.
Now, it is the Reapers' turn to face a harvest.
The beauty of the irony was marred solely by the fact that they weren't all dead yet. Which, if he was being honest, he wasn't too upset about. The situation was almost poetry; the Reapers had been suddenly slapped in the face by an outside context problem, were now just as hilariously outnumbered as they had hilariously outnumbered the Prothean Empire, and faced an entire galaxy united against them.
He was feeling almost... generous, he'd dare say.
Javik straightened up, crossed his arms, and prepared a retort for a comment that was all the more the jarring when it didn't come.
...
He'd spent too much time around the Human. He'd been so prepared for Marcus' commentary that he'd been put off balance when it didn't happen.
Javik frowned.
"Something the matter?" Sparatus asked. "You seemed quite happy to see all these corpses a moment ago."
Javik grunted. "The task isn't finished yet."
"I am aware." The Turian smiled. "But even I can acknowledge that a 99.99999..." Sparatus checked his omnitool "-999999702% destruction rating is an achievement worth celebrating." The Turian's eyes flicked back to Javik, narrowing just a bit. "In fact, given your smile, I'd say that this was caused by something entirely different."
Javik had once been feared. Far too much time had been spent around the Human, if Sparatus was so willing to goad him. There was nowhere else anybody would get the impression that such a thing was allowable.
"Perhaps because of the fact that there are still a thousand Reapers that intend to kill everything in the galaxy." Javik returns. "And the most effective weapon against them has been removed."
"You know as well as I do that it is just a matter of time before this ends." Sparatus said, neutrally. "It will take them months to even arrive at the galaxy. When they do, whatever system they end up in, the local Star Rail will reveal their presence, and then a fleet will fall on top of them not long after. They have no industry, and no ability to start an industry because there is nowhere to start an industry that we won't notice. They cannot replace themselves, nor increase their numbers anywhere in the galaxy. Once they're found, Psychics will be chasing them the entire time, something which we know they're very vulnerable to. They are outnumbered a hundred to one, outmaneuvered strategically, and overpowered tactically. This is over. All the advantages that they've ever wielded, secrecy, numbers, indoctrination, have been utterly ruined. The only question is how long it will take to kill them all, because, to put it crudely, Humanity fucked them. Sure, Humanity is now taking a power nap, but they just won that war for us."
Javik frowned. "Thoughts like that promote arrogance. The Reapers are still a danger."
Sparatus nodded. "They are, yes, but they're a local danger. A threat to systems and planets, not to civilizations and the galaxy. So long as we stay on top of the problem, it's done. Their best bet for achieving actual damage is a total attack from each ship in a different place, but even that isn't going to work too well. Half the preparations for the leadup to this was colony-scale defences, preventing FTL hit-and-runs, which means they need to commit forces, and once they do that..." He trailed off.
"Our own fleets commit." Javik scoffed. "I know. I was one of the ones who made the plan. It is never that easy."
"If they can somehow come back from this with everything arrayed against them, then something has gone very, very wrong. The best thing they can do is run, and keep running, but in the end, even that isn't going to work forever." Sparatus pointed out. "Literally the best option for them is to turn around and head to another galaxy, except even that isn't going to work, because by the time they get there, build an industry, and come back, most of the galaxy will be Psychic, and the things that make them a concern aren't going to exist anymore. There is no winning move, here. They don't have any options other than to fling themselves at us and try to do damage while they can, but that isn't their goal, so they won't do it. The longer they wait, the more powerful the rest of the galaxy gets, and if they wait too long, then Humanity is eventually going to wake up and dedicate themselves to finishing the job. One way or another, they've lost. It's only a matter of time."
Javik grunted again. Try as he might, there was no fault to find in the Turian's words. Still... three centuries of battle, of being systematically crushed by the Reapers, had left its mark. Logically, he couldn't find a way for them to come back from the blow that had been dealt, but even so...
Javik turned away.
Sparatus looked out the window, at the disassembled Reaper. He spoke, after a few seconds, a considerate tone in his voice. "Well... there is another option, I suppose. Either Humanity wakes up, or their god will."
7.4
In the absence of a Relay, it takes one hundred and seventy eight days to cross the five thousand four hundred light years that separates their resting place from the greater galaxy. The Ascended have a plan, and the first step of that plan is to find a source of matter and start repairing all the damage they have taken.
Which is why it comes as an unwanted surprise when they drop out of FTL at the first system they find, a small star right at the edge of the galaxy, and find no less than forty Relays already present. There's six for each of the five celestial bodies, and then a ring of them scattered in the system's asteroid belt. Each one is active, though there is nothing else in the system.
They move to the asteroid belt, halfway between two of the Relays. They intend to harvest an asteroid to supply the necessary matter to self-repair.
They have only just arrived when a fleet transitions in. The ships are numerous, dark grey, and run at temperatures far too low for any organic species to survive. They are emitting no signals, but attack in perfect coordination. The first indication they even have that they're under attack at all comes when pulse lasers contact their hulls.
If not for the fact that the Ascended had begun to move out the moment they'd appeared, that attack might have been the end of them. As it is, their fields diffract, refract, and scatter the lasers significantly, but so much energy is introduced so quickly that even the material of their hulls doesn't melt so much as detonate when it arrives. The closest to the Machine Intelligence Fleet die outright, and nine hundred and ninety nine Ascended drops to eight hundred and twelve.
The rest escape. Most have their hulls significantly damaged, but are otherwise stable.
The next system in fifteen light years away. Half a day's travel.
There are Relays there, too.
Harbinger sends a command code, and, predictably, gets no response.
They move on.
The third system also has Relays.
The fleet splits up.
Every system within five days of travel time is full of Relays. Every easily found major source of matter is protected under threat of sudden fleet arrival.
They recalculate the plan.
Stars are beacons, but there are countless billions of rogue celestial bodies in deep space. Indeed, it doesn't take very long for them to find one, and it's only a few days of harvesting afterwards before they're completely repaired. The sole problem with it is that there is no mass-effecting material, which is the one thing they cannot synthesize easily.
Mass-effecting material is not easily acquired. It does not form in large amounts, and the properties of the material mean that, when it does form, the supernova conditions which formed it energize it and force it to clump together rather than spreading out like every other element. This is why it is mostly found in large clumps of converted matter, rather than trace particles of it being spread through the universe.
Finding mass-effecting material in deep space was severely unlikely. The amount of time it would take would be on the order of decades, and since the civilizations of the galaxy had much easier access to much larger supplies of material, this was an equation that favored them innately. They could not afford the time, and action had to be taken as soon as possible.
Centuries ago, when the Anomaly had first appeared, the Ascended had examined the state of the galaxy. They had determined, then, that the civilizations that had existed were not yet meeting the conditions to start the Cycle. In the absence of more modern information, they have to rely on what they learned from then. Records indicate that there is a colony within fifteen hundred light years, and an Ascended Relay in the system.
The latter is probably no longer true, given prior experience. The colony, however, has no reason not to be there.
It takes fifty days to travel the distance. In terms of reducing the Ascended's ability to enact the Cycle, subverting the Relays is exceeded only by the extreme reduction of their numbers.
The system they arrive in is inhabited, as anticipated.
What is not anticipated is the degree of that effort. Both the first and second planet are garden worlds, and surrounding both of those planets are orbital rings.
Orbital rings that shimmer with dark energy, fields stretching around the entirety of them and extending sideways to cover the rest of the planet. It's a pair of protective barriers on a scale that, until then, the Ascended had only seen theorized, as no civilization had ever been willing or able to gather and expand the quadrillions of tons of mass-effecting material that would have been required to generate it.
There are two, in this single system.
It is impossible, with their current resources, and their current ability to acquire resources, to breach those barriers in a timely manner. The system itself, to the best of their knowledge, is not particularly special, or particularly important. There is no reason to expend a greater amount of effort or material here than anywhere else. Given that Relays have been placed in every single system they've come across, the only conclusion is that the current civilizations have the ability to generate mass-effecting material in arbitrary quantities.
They recalculate the plan.
They leave just as another fleet drops out of FTL on top of them.
The current Cycle is prepared for them moving as a group. It is prepared for them attacking planets. It is prepared for them trying to acquire easy matter. Quite simply, there is no short or medium-term option they can take. The only actions they have left to take exist on the long-term.
It is simply impossible to continue their current strategy. It will not achieve anything.
The Ascended must now explore other options.
Moving together has been prepared for. They will split apart, and operate independently, making full use of their mobility. They will be outnumbered, but that is not a change.
They cannot attack planets. Instead, they scout systems, and attack softer targets. Ships, drones, asteroids, mining platforms, discharge sites; anything to cause chaos. If nothing else, it will force the current civilizations to slow down their efforts in order to preserve their assets.
They cannot acquire materials within the vicinity of the galaxy's stars. Some of them will devote their efforts to locating resources in deep space. It will be a time-consuming effort, but even a single rogue celestial body with mass-effecting material will increase their capabilities, and that makes it a necessary venture.
Three Ascended will be sent out of the galaxy. They will travel to the closest galaxies, and build up there. That is an endeavour that shall take centuries, but it shall be done.
The Cycle will continue.
8.1: Rebirth
In a region that used to be called the Terminus Systems, there is a star. This star is known as Psi Tophet, and it is the star around which a watery world orbits.
The world is officially named Despoina, but it has a number of other names and titles. Some refer to it as 'The Leviathan's Graveyard'. Others call it 'The Dreamer's Garden'. A few call it the 'Ocean of Rebirth'.
It is something of a legendary world.
To the galaxy at large, that which Humanity refers to as the Dreamer is a figure of near myth. Humanity has ever been a strange species with awesome powers, a fact that has garnered much attention, both positive and negative. Time and exposure had reduced this awe, especially after psychic abilities spread beyond the Human population, but it had never quite vanished.
The same, however, could not be said about the Dreamer.
The Dreamer had ever been a mysterious figure. The source of the powers that Humanity now wielded, the being who brought the Protheans back to life, the one which freed the Rachni from the Harvesters' chains... All that, and more. The fact remained, for all of Humanity's ethereal powers, when most of them spoke about the Dreamer, they did so with a tone of reverence. There were a great deal many Humans who worshipped the mysterious being, and even those that didn't were still quick to acknowledge that the Dreamer had always surpassed them every way they had known.
There were many debates as to the nature of the Dreamer. Some thought that the Dreamer was 'just' a Psychic of incomprehensible power. Others believed that the Dreamer was truly something... deific. Many wonder just how thin the line between the two is.
With such an eminent reputation, it's no surprise that things involving the Dreamer achieve their own awed status.
Despoina was one of the few worlds that is confirmed to have borne the Dreamer's touch. It's a world that contains the descendants of the first known sapient species in the galaxy. It's a world where the worst creatures to have ever lived are imprisoned. It's a world that the galaxy's psychics say is somehow pulling the minds of ancient beings, long dead, back from the void and into a safe deathless dream.
Despoina is a guarded world. Humanity guarded it, first, with hundreds of crystal-cities, floating in orbit, to deter any who would approach with ill-intent. None had been willing to risk the Dreamer's creation. Quite a few more beings joined over time, with people of every species making their way to and from the orbiting cities. In fact, the first Drell psychic was born in Despoina's skies.
As the Harvester's date of awakening approached, however, such places eventually shifted away. Humanity had not intended to risk the civilians with any possible reprisal, and the world itself was so important that no defense was spared. Instead of several billion psychics, the defenses instead shifted into massive orbital shield rings, a grid array of trillions of defense satellites, and a number of stationed individuals there to keep watch.
Those individuals, being mostly Human, went into sleep alongside the rest of Humanity. The remainder were Anima, partners of those who had been stationed there, and to whom the defense of Despoina was so important that they even opted to temporarily disconnect themselves from the Psi-Net rather than allow any potential attack on the world.
Even now, they watched carefully, with numberless eyes both physical and psychic, for even the tiniest hint of malicious activity. Admittedly, this was caution that was probably not actually warranted, as very few would risk attacking in the first place, and while that list theoretically included the Harvesters, their arrival point had been some thirty thousand light years away from Psi Tophet. It would take them years to travel to Despoina, and as far as the Anima were aware, the Harvesters had no knowledge of it.
Still, they took their vigil very seriously. When there is a brief whisper of psychic power, their attention is caught in an instant, and they focus on it.
When they realize that the whisper came from the world below rather than the space above, they are quick to find the source.
Underneath kilometers of ocean, the Dreamer's crystal tree shimmers. The steady, slow power that comes from it ticks up, minutely.
It's not the first time the power has changed. There are notable shifts whenever somebody converses with the Leviathans trapped in its chamber.
It is the first time, however, that the power has increased.
The Anima reach out, minds stretching towards the crystal tree. They brush against it, but cannot determine the reason behind it. The crystal tree continues to exist exactly how it did before, just emanating a bit more power, now.
They pull back, examining it. The strength of shimmering glow hasn't changed, nor are there any other physical indicators that anything has changed at all. Only the psychic side of things holds any difference, the energy beginning to spread out, beyond just the chamber the crystal tree is hidden in.
They consider, for a moment, what to do.
And then, proving that they truly are Humanity's children, they poke it.
The energy recoils, shifting in spiralling patterns. The slow spread stops, and after a few seconds, reverses. A wave of light runs along the crystal tree, before the energy condenses.
There is no flash of light to accompany it. No noise, no burst of sound. One moment, there is nothing but raw power.
The next, there is another mind there.
They freeze, because this other mind is a powerful, incredible presence. They freeze, because in that moment they feel just a hint of its true scale. They freeze, because despite the fact that no Anima has ever met it, Humanity's memories instantly mark it as familiar.
They feel a flash of curiosity not their own. The mind brushes against them with a featherlight omnipotent touch, and they are known.
"Humanity has been quite prosperous, I see." It speaks, and something like mixed happiness and pride drifts across.
In front of the crystal tree, a pair of twisted blue crystals with a golden light between them appears.
"They have done very well." It continues. "I am quite happy to see that."
Motes of light appear from the core of it. A blue body builds itself in only a few moments, taking on an old and recognized shape.
After a few seconds, its attention drifts back to them. "There is no need to be so cautious of me, young ones. I can see Humanity's hand in your design. It's intriguing, I hope you know."
"It's you." They say as one, compelled to speak through their awe.
A flash of amusement.
"It is I." The Dreamer spoke. "Be not afraid. Everything will be alright."