Petroleum Effect

Chapter Six – All Alone in the Night

Terran Dominion Embassy, The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 15 June 2183

Ambassador Donnel Udina looked with satisfaction around his large office in the Terran Dominion embassy on the Presidium ring of the Citadel. Humanity had come a long way in galactic politics since he had arrived as attaché to his predecessor Ambassador Amaoth, 25 years before.

The strategy had been simple, sell cheap element zero, make money and friends. The humans had made contact with the Council, explaining politely that they did not want to join, even as an associate member, but would like to set up an embassy and discuss trade. At first, the Citadel had pressed them for information, such as the location of their home system. The humans had politely replied that they did not want to share that information, pointing to the Rachni invasion, the Krogan rebellions, the genophage and the (entirely fictitious) attack on their (invented) colony on R314-G1.

The humans only wanted to trade and the only outpost they would admit to was a trading station in the Rainbow system. The Citadel authorities were unhappy with this, but, they had allowed the humans to register with a suitable galactic bank. The humans had rapidly sold the refined element zero in their hold, which funded them sufficiently to rent some offices in the Wards.

Human influence had snowballed from there. It was a closely guarded secret that humans could manufacture element zero, indeed mass produce it as a by-product of the Petroleum Effect, whereas the other races in the galaxy had to mine it. The Terran Dominion claimed to have many exceptionally rich mines and they sold refined, cheap, element zero in large quantities. They were willing to sell cheaper than anyone else, and everyone wanted to be their friend.

At the same time, Amaoth had quickly realised that no species represented on the Citadel had psionics. Not one. She had been able to subtly influence a lot of people. Combined with bribes, this had led to a steady escalation of human influence.

Many key individuals, including the Asari Consort Sha'ira, had been slowly, subtly subverted by a power they were unable to detect. The humans had obtained access to a wealth of blackmail material. Within a decade, by 2168, the Terran Dominion had quietly obtained a large and beautiful suite of offices on the Presidium.

Over the subsequent 5 years, they had significantly reduced their traded volumes of element zero and gradually raised prices until they were simply a competitive supplier. The embassy now had vast wealth in galactic credits and there was simply no need to help the aliens by providing them with excess eezo, although secretly the humans had an enormous amount of refined eezo stockpiled for trading against a rainy day.

From then on, humanity had quietly increased its influence, occasionally sending, 'trading missions' to various races in Citadel Council space and also in the Terminus Systems.

Having established itself, the Terran Dominion began quietly bolstering dissent and distrust. Psionics were a powerful tool, nudging emotions just the right way. The Turians were occasionally more inclined to be overbearing, and the others to resent it. The Asari likewise, condescending, the Salarians deceitful. Through layer upon byzantine layer of intermediaries, Terran wealth flowed into the hands of extremist groups of all sorts. Incompetent officials and C-Sec officers became inexplicably popular and were promoted, the capable undermined and fired or marginalised.

During the 2170s there had been difficult news from Sol. The High Lords had begun to die off. The public line was that their bodies not able to sustain them any longer. Privately, Udina had heard darker rumours about their mental stability. The last of the five full Transcendent to pass was Archlord Lordak. The official story was that he had gone into seclusion to rest and would return in the hour of the Dominion's greatest need. What had actually happened was, Udina suspected, something he would never know.

The Dominion was now ruled by a cabal of the partially Transcendent servants the High Lords had created during their last decades. The partial Transcendents as a whole were known as the Grey Lords. Of these, Amaoth had been the most powerful. She and her chosen successors had been appointed by the Archlord himself to rule in his stead until his return, or so it was said. Udina suspected that waiting for Archlord Lordak's return would be a lot like waiting for King Arthur. Amaoth was recalled to Sol to rule, styling herself with the title of Demilady. The changes had meant promotion for Udina, who took over her role as Ambassador.

Amaoth had been happy to leave the Citadel. She always wore her best poker face in public, but in private with Udina from their first arrival she had treated the light, airy Presidium with clear dread and discomfort and had told Udina plainly that her every psionic sense was screaming at her that it was a trap. Udina simply got dull headaches, and he was later told that, early in his time on the station, the High Lords had directed their prescience and other abilities at the Citadel and they agreed with Amaoth. The details were still unclear but they had determined the Citadel was an ancient place that had seen much death over nearly a billion years, and it was some sort of trap for sentient beings.

Eventually, after study, Amaoth said there was a subtle effect in the Citadel that manipulated biological creatures, a sort of light, 'indoctrination' that made them inclined to like the place and want to trust it and use it. This explained the ... odd … decision of the other races to accept a station run by the uncommunicative alien keepers and make it their galactic capital rather than tear the place apart for its secrets. As psionics, Amaoth and Udina were resistant to the influence, even though the mechanism of the Citadel's indoctrination was not psionic. Eventually the resistance had become such second nature the headaches had gone. It helped that Udina was rarely actually on the Citadel proper.

As a result of the sinister influence of the station, Amaoth, Udina and the other humans slept, lived and worked as far as possible on the Righteous Enterprise II, meeting face-to-face with aliens on the Citadel only when absolutely necessary. In turn, the Dominion stationed as few people as possible to the embassy, or indeed the Serpent Nebula. In time, the Righteous Enterprise III had been assigned, a larger, more suitable ship with a smaller crew, spacious quarters and meeting rooms.

The Citadel had many other threats – crime, espionage and subversion from the member races of the Citadel Council. Someone had tried to place nano-bugs on he and Amaoth, but she had detected them and introduced measures to keep them out of the Righteous Enterprise. Udina had also faced several failed attempts at seduction by various Asari and failed attempts at bribery in various forms from members of almost every sentient race.

Being assigned to the Citadel had had its compensations. All the forced proximity to humans on the old Righteous Enterprise II, before the upgrade, had led to intimacy. It was how Donnel had met his wife. Of course, after she had become pregnant she was posted back to Earth, much to his relief. No child of his would be born in the tainted, alien environs of the Citadel. The marriage was a loving one, although remote. She enjoyed Udina's vast salary, he enjoyed his wife's company during his visits home and they made up for being apart then – indeed they now had three children.

Today, Udina had no choice but to be on the Citadel. There was a dispute involving humans and a Council spectre.

Sitting opposite Udina in the room as they waited to go to their audience with the Citadel Council were Lieutenant Commander Lilith Shepard and 'Commander' Miranda Lawson (Lawson was actually Lady Miranda Lawson, a Grey Lady). They sat quietly. Walls had ears and nothing humans had to say to one another that was remotely confidential was ever said on the Citadel. Instead the Righteous Enterprise III had briefly undocked with the Citadel and docked with Shepard's starship the Normandy. The briefing had been conducted in a comfortable human conference room before both ships had returned to the Citadel.

Shepard and Miranda were Amaoth's favoured protégés from some military spook outfit called Cerberus. Udina found them to be absurdly gung-ho and he also did not understand why Lawson was out of uniform wearing some sort of pornographically skin-tight white outfit until he was told she was one of the Grey Lords. He made sure to be polite to both of them though - not a good idea to annoy the Demilady's favoured. The briefing had been deeply concerning:

Lieutenant Commander Shepard's Briefing for Ambassador Donnel Udina

Conference Room, Terran Dominion Frigate Righteous Enterprise III, Serpent Nebula, 14 June 2183

I am a long-serving member of Terran Dominion special forces, graded N7P - an N7 with advanced simple psionics. I was assigned to the Normandy, an experimental element zero ship, for an assessment to be elevated to partial Transcendent status. My supervisor is Grey Lady Miranda Lawson.

Whilst undergoing training and evaluation exercises in the Exodus Cluster on 9 June 2183 we were notified by QEC of an attack on a Dominion archaeological expedition on the planet of Eden Prime in the Utopia System. We were ordered to assist and reinforce the expedition.

Arriving in the system we detected a number of alien ships, frigate sized, and Captain Anderson ordered the Normandy into cloak before approaching.

The cloaking system uses stealth - heat sinks and baffles to minimise emissions. Stealth is also achieved by the use of psionic runes, activated by specialists with training in a simple psionic technique to power them. Those attractive whorls and lines on the outer hull are not decorations, incidentally, they are actually channels to enhance the effect. So light and other EM gets bent around the ship, except a small amount which is let through to our cameras and sensors. It makes the ship almost invisible even on active scans at close range. You can see the stars through us when we're cloaked.

The alien ships were tentatively identified as Geth, the race of escaped, rebel AIs created by the Quarians.

They couldn't see us so the Normandy shot them down pretty easily and dropped down to the planet. It's green, actually quite Earth-like, superficially. Not earth biochemistry though so everyone wears full environment suits all the time. There was a 2-kilometre tall tower next to the archaeology ship. You know the type - the big chunky ones that drop down and unfold into a base, then pack it all up and lift when they are done. Huge, but dwarfed by this big, black, creepy looking tower.

The Normandy dropped Miranda, Lieutenant Kaiden and I to investigate. I was designated mission lead as part of my assessment. Landing zone was 2 kliks out and we approached from a distance on foot. Along the way we ran into robot things we blew apart. Ground hostiles were identified as Geth, tentatively. A lot of the archaeologists were dead. The aliens had impaled their bodies on spikes.

As we approached the ship we faced renewed Geth attack and worse, the bodies from the spikes attacked too. Yup, they got right up, glowing with eezo and weird alien tech that had infested them.

All the hostiles, Geth and zombies, still went down to headshots, but we were outnumbered. Miranda was getting ready to lay some Transcendent smackdown when the aliens started taking flanking fire. Some Turian just came out of nowhere and tore into them. When we had taken the immediate hostiles down the Turian rocked up and said he was Saren Arterius, a Citadel Council spectre and he was there investigating a rogue spectre called Nihlus Kryik.

Nihlus was, apparently, once a respected operative but he has been going off the rails for the last 25 years, embracing crazier and crazier conspiracy theories and a denialist faction that thinks the humans are somehow an evil threat. He believes there may be something to the allegations of giant black harvester ships made by Etarn Corvannis. That's a problem, obviously, since they're our ships!

The Geth though, Saren - he thinks the aliens were Geth too - that threw him. He has no idea what's up with that. So, I am thinking if we let this guy live, has he seen too much? But then I think, it's only an eezo ship we're rescuing. So we make nice with the alien and go down to see what's what. The archaeology ship is under siege but they have a lot of exterior guns - it is a Dominion ship after all - and the Geth just seem to be holding outside.

Then we see this other Turian with a bunch of Geth carrying an artefact come out of the dig site. So we advance but all the Geth - except the ones carrying the artefact - turn on us and pin us behind cover.

We start taking a pounding but I manage to grab a Geth psionically, and then Miranda's grabbed a digger truck and smashes those Geth with it like a hammer. Then we pick off the survivors but by then the other Turian is disappearing into the tower. Which then lifts off and departs at speed – it's a ship. A strange, black, ship which looks a bit like an octopus or a cuttlefish or something.

So, we turn back to the Turian and it turns out he was wounded but then as the octopus ship departs it fires at the ground a couple kliks out and he's all, "that was my ship", and he's a spectre and wants a lift to the Citadel.

Miranda and I have a private chat and we decide he's useful alive, so agree to take him. He's got a bit of dextro food with him so off we go. We request he stays in his room, mostly, but we take him to a Turian base nearby to load up on some Turian supplies and then we make best speed to the Citadel.

The Demilady and the Grey Lords are gravely concerned about the Geth and the unidentified black ship and want us to investigate. We intend to offer to assist Saren. Along the way, Lady Lawson has been influencing him psionically. If we can keep him in proximity for a while she says that she should be able to fully indoctrinate him into an asset. Right now he just really likes us and is totally convinced we are his friends and supporters of galactic harmony.

So, we're here to back up Saren's account, be witnesses for him. We're here to demand justice for the archaeologists and offer the Council our assistance in chasing down Nihlus.

The Intelligence, The Citadel, Serpent Nebula, 15 June 2183

The being that some would call the Citadel, or the Intelligence, was ancient beyond human or even Asari imagination. It was an artificial intelligence nearly a billion years old and there was very little it had not seen. Even so, the events currently taking place in the Council Chamber were of interest to it.

The Intelligence was a creation of a race the humans would call Transcendent, had they met. Indeed, some members of that race were far further along the road than any human had so far reached. There was no room in the Citadel that housed the Intelligence, no chamber with banks of computers or so-called, 'blue box'. The mind and consciousness of the Intelligence was distributed through the structure, mostly as tiny tendrils through supposedly solid components such as support struts, armour or walls.

Of course there were macrostructures in some places, fabricators mostly used by the keepers. In addition, there were tiny buds filled with nano-machines strung along the fibres like pearls and which could in time grow into anything, if needed. There were quantum links that connected the neural network directly to other hidden parts of itself elsewhere in the galaxy. The Citadel consciousness could in time recover from almost any injury. Its only limits were the harsh chains its creators had put upon it to compel it to fulfil its purpose of preserving sentient organic life from the threats the organics tended to run into.

Within the supposedly solid walls of the Citadel, including and especially the Council chambers, filaments ran to microscopic sensors concealed in apparently solid structure. The visual, electromagnetic, temperature and vibrational sensors were each tiny and simple but en-masse provided a compound image of great resolution, including information about atmospheric composition. The Intelligence could hear, see, smell and feel almost everything that happened to a greater degree than any ordinary organic. The organics were betrayed by the walls they leant on, the floor they stood on, the ceiling that covered them – sometimes even by the dust at their feet.

Right now, Spectre Saren Arterius – a ranking operative of this cycle's organic leaders – was alerting the so-called Citadel Council to the threat posed by Nazara and an organic it had indoctrinated, Spectre Nihlus Kryik. There was very little interesting about this to the Intelligence. The organics of some cycles did discover the vanguard. It was almost never a problem in the end. What interested the Intelligence were the creatures standing next to the spectre. The humans.

There were two human females and a male, Lieutenant Commander Shepard, Commander Miranda Lawson and Ambassador Udina, all wearing environment suits. The humans had ... possibilities … unlike the other races of this era. The human Lawson in particular, like the previous ambassador, Amaoth, was almost impossible to scan beyond the skin. What it did detect and piece together from observations over a period of time suggested the human was heavily augmented, likely with some degree of Transcendence, or at least pre-Transcendence.

The humans were plainly not effected by the Citadel's indoctrination. Ambassador Amaoth had even detected its nano-bugs. The Intelligence was not sure if she had identified the source, but the bugs had been detected and eliminated, kept off the Righteous Enterprise II and III. The humans had not developed the natural affinity for the Citadel environs it gifted to organics. Instead, they treated it with suspicion and spent most of their time on their ships, rather than in their embassy or the luxurious quarters they could easily afford on board.

Trade figures suggested humans could manufacture element zero. It was a fact unknown to the council races but element zero did not occur naturally. At all. It did not occur as a result of supernovae. It was manufactured by the Intelligence and placed by the harvesters in various locations between cycles, in small quantities on planets and asteroids but mostly around neutron stars and pulsars. Manufacturing element zero required Transcendent technology.

The Intelligence had watched as unknown creatures dismantled what humans called the Charon relay – it had sensors in every relay and the relays were all linked to the Citadel by quantum entanglement. Whilst their ships had clearly advanced rapidly over time, it was close to certain from matching sensor readings that it was the humans that had dismantled the relay. Again, this should be almost impossible without Transcendence.

The human influence over the other organics was, statistically, highly improbable. It suggested psionics. Psionics were very rare – not always strictly a marker of Transcendence but often seen with it. The Intelligence itself was not psionic and as a pure machine could not directly detect such abilities, but its creators were psionic and it had some information on the phenomenon. The Intelligence had also seen numerous examples of so-called human biotics moving objects without touching them … but it could detect no mass effect field and no element zero in their bodies at all … suggesting psychokinesis.

Transcendence by an organic race was very important to the Intelligence. Its primary directive was to preserve sentient organic life. Most organic races, left to their own devices, reached a plateau and would be wiped out by wars, artificial intelligence of their own creation, or worse things – far worse things. Only a few species Transcended such limitations and the need for harvesting. Such events were a source of great joy, but it had only happened three times before in the billion years of cycles. Perhaps it was happening now.

Ordinarily, this cycle should have ended already. The harvest should already have happened – well before the humans emerged. However, the Intelligence liked variety. Variations on a theme meant more data. A small number of members of the dominant race of the last cycle, the so-called Protheans, had escaped the harvest and traveled to the Citadel to sabotage it. They had entered a restricted area and tampered with a device, before taking their own lives. The attempt had been laughable.

However, the harvesters' failure to fully eliminate the Protheans required correction. The harvesters had their own chains and due to their prime directives, they would experience suffering as a result of the lateness of the harvest. This would hopefully improve their thoroughness in future, force them to adapt slightly. A difficulty in the cycle would also provide new data. So, out of respect for the tenacity and selflessness of the doomed creatures, the Intelligence chose to let the Protheans, 'succeed'. They had not shown the ability to Transcend, but they had earned respect and pity – the small victory was all the Intelligence could do for them.

The Prothean electronic intrusion had failed hilariously, but their device reported success in all their tests and the Prothean scientists went to their ends at peace. The Intelligence would not open the way from dark space for the harvesters until they or their servants interfaced manually at its audience chamber hidden in the Citadel Tower. Only then would it restore the usual status quo. If the vanguard failed there was always the first relay or even just a slow flight back at FTL speeds.

In the meantime, the drama of Nazara trying to obtain access to the tower should alleviate the monotony of the Intelligence's existence and allow it to further observe the humans.

The human, Ambassador Udina, supported by Saren, had petitioned to have Nihlus declared rogue. Nihlus attended by remote QEC link. He defended himself calmly and reasonably, and the council were unconvinced of his guilt,

"So you see, I encountered a Geth expedition concerned about a dangerous Prothean artefact on Eden Prime. I feared attack, but in fact they were very reasonable and courteous. When we arrived at Eden Prime we found an unregistered human expedition who simply opened fire on us. Though I admit that the Geth did fire back they were only acting in self defence. As for the animated corpses – I saw them but I know nothing about that and I suspect it is some awful human experiment gone awry. There is no footage of a Geth actually putting a human corpse on the spikes, is there!?"

Even so, the council, who had been influenced by human operatives repeatedly over years, had questions. Asari councillor Tevos asked the most obvious question,

"Where is the artefact now? What is it?"

Nihlus dealt with the question smoothly,

"Some sort of trapped data storage device. It masquerades as a data archive but actually contains a bomb. It exploded not long after we retreated from the human soldiers, doing serious damage to the cargo bay on the Geth flagship – which they have been very reasonable and understanding about. We are actually currently en-route to investigate and see if there are more of these dangerous artefacts to be found and made safe for the sake of the unwary."

Despite the influence of the humans, Councillor Sparatus had clear priorities, which included protecting Turians in positions of power,

"To my mind, this is a tragedy, but what I have not seen here from either side is evidence of who fired first. Let us be reasonable about this. No one on either side is being asked to pay reparations here. Opening up friendly communications with the Geth is a great achievement. My thoughts are that Saren needs to improve transparency. We need a report on his relations with the Geth at his earliest convenience by which I mean yesterday. We also need the humans to be more communicative about their activities."

Seeing an opportunity, Valern joined in,

"I am very concerned that both the humans and one of our own operatives have failed to disclose the existence of important Prothean relics to the council. That must be rectified. I move we reprimand Nihlus and require a report on the relics, but we deny the petition to declare him rogue."

Tevos turned to Sparatus, who looked back,

"Agreed", he growled reluctantly, "and I expect the report promptly and in full".

Nihlus' face showed nothing but humility,

"Thank you councillors. With hindsight, I see the flaws in my actions and I want to apologise humbly for my lack of communication. You will have a detailed report on your desks tomorrow or the next day."

Sparatus, having saved Nihlus' position, slipped easily into playing the role of a boss chastening an errant employee,

"See that you do. You have permission to withdraw."

Nihlus nodded and the link closed.

Tevos spoke, "The petition of the Terran Dominion is denied. Though we have reprimanded Nihlus. This regrettable misunderstanding might have been prevented had the humans been more forthcoming about their activities".

"Councillors", intervened Saren, "if I may?"

"Go on", nodded Sparatus.

"I appreciate the council's wisdom and forbearance. If I had risked starting a war through my failure to communicate, I would want to be treated with such careful consideration also. Having said that, I believe that we need to ensure such misunderstandings do not occur in future, and I fear Nihlus takes too much upon himself. I would like to also investigate these matters and just ensure that there is some scrutiny here."

"As it happens, I have been speaking to the humans and they are willing to assist me in also investigating these artefacts. I can assure you, we will keep the council fully informed."

Tevos looked to Udina, "And what do you say, Ambassador?"

Udina's response was immediate. The Intelligence suspected Lawson had shouted instructions in his mind, telepathically, "We would be delighted to offer our assistance to Spectre Saren, and although you have not fully granted our petition, we thank you for hearing us and recognising at least some of our concerns".

"Thank you", Tevos replied, looking to the other councillors, who nodded, "we agree to your proposal. Do see that you keep us informed. This hearing is concluded".

If the Intelligence was organic it would be rolling around laughing at this point, as the various parties withdrew from the audience chamber. The so-called leaders of the organics in this cycle had created an elite, almost unaccountable, militarised police force with minimal oversight. Both of the so-called spectres in the room had been subverted to the service of alien powers. Nihlus was quite plainly under Nazara's control, and Saren would soon be under human control, if he was not already.

The Citadel Council had no servants in the room, and no friends, at all. The harvest, when it came, would be exactly what they deserved.