Author's Note: Alrighty than. Little over half way through another arc. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 5: Meeting Between Worlds Part 2
Two tables had been brought out, on one side three people and on the other ten, between them seated to the side was one man in a suit the body guard's stood further behind their respective charges pinned along the walls. A clear discrepancy had formed already.
"Salarian, Turian and Asari." Senator Udina was the first to make his opinion known. "I understand the Batarian's being absent from this meeting, given their actions and behaviour, but I was given the impression the number of races in the 'Citadel' were... more?"
"'More?'" Councillor Tevos seemed to lack context for the question.
"He means to ask aren't there more races in the Citadel than just the three of you?" The Lich asked clarifying the matter for the Asari.
"Yes. But you look at the Citadel Council, the races who have contributed the most to the Galaxy at large." Councillor Valern stated with pride.
A chortle of laughter echoed out from the Union's table.
"Oh that's a good joke." Aculeatus wiped a single tear from its eye.
This one was one of the most bizarre of the Stellar union races, a large stone organism like the other two standing next to it, it's lower body had four legs like certain cattle species but it's upper body was humanoid shaped, and had a mane of crystal spikes coming up it's back ending at a single horn.
"We've read through your data-base, your 'galaxy' doesn't cover a tenth of known space." High Lord Xidre explained in simple and uncertain terms, or so he thought.
"Yes, new sectors are always being discovered every couple of years through long range telemetry..." Councillor Tevos explained but was interrupted.
"I understand the Lich hasn't properly explained himself." Cherrel stated after losing his patience.
"This is something of a flaw when it comes to his lot you'll have to forgive him. The amount of space that we, collectively, cover is estimated to be nine times the size of you and your evidently 'underachieving' races combined." The room paused in silence for a few moments. "Now, can we please move this conversation along?"
"Shall I begin then?" General Sparatus asked as he stood up and fixed his suit. "Firstly the Batarian's have clearly offended you. They've offended many. For this I offer my sincere apologies, we have been attempting to reel them in for centuries but..."
"Do or do not." A harsh voice echoed out from the lizard man dressed as a monk. "There is no try."
Sparatus closed his eyes, bit back his remark, and swallowed his pride.
"Yes I understand." The General nodded to the others. "I come from a meritocracy. When people do good for us then we reward them, even if they are not from my government." One of the Turian soldiers stepped forward and presented a box which was then opened revealing a jump drive-esque device. "In lieu of a worthless medal from a people who have not earned your respect, This is the latest edition of the Codex, containing language ciphers for all of the languages known to the council. The Batarian's and their isolationism should mean that theirs were several generations out of date." The monk stood up, walked around the table to the Turian soldier, took the jump drive and bowed with respect.
"The Stellar Union accepts this gift in the spirit it was given." And thus the Draconian walked back to his seat and the meeting resumed.
"Now that that has been settled. We were told that you studied our treaties, is this correct?"
"We have." High Lord Xidre replied and shrugged his shoulders. "We won't be signing those. Every single race already violates your mandate on the number and size of ships that they are allowed to build. Your blatantly racist law against Synthetics flat out bans one of our most valuable members. Together with your severe lack of governing skills tells us that you are currently, hilariously unqualified as allies, let alone joining your... quaint, little, council." The councillors weren't accustomed to being talked down to, but you don't get onto the council by letting your emotions leak out to the surrounding area.
"On the subject of technology, we would like to discuss trade of different technologies if it's all the same with you." Valern stated as he made his opinion known. "For instance we noticed that your ships do not give off a particular energy field that-"
"'When a electrical current passes through Element Zero it produces what's known as a 'biotic field' which alters the gravity and mass of the objects around it. When the Current is positive the object becomes heavier, and when negative it becomes lighter. As a direct result of this phenomena the Mass Effect based technology is the most versatile technology in the known universe and affects our entire daily lives.'" High Lord Xidre quoted looking at the group of councillors with a heir of disdain about him.
"A quote from the Codex? I recall the exact phrases to be different though-"
"That is a quote from the days where your kind licked their own eye balls to moisturise them and the Goddess Athame still had four eyes." High Lord Xidre stated prompting the Councillors to look at him like he was insane. "Do I have your attention now? Good. My ancestors were known as the Zroni, they lived among other races, the Arthenn, Baol, Densorin, Irassian, Oravores, Prothean, Zeioph, Zha'til and others." That promptly made the council shut up, paying vivid attention to what they were hearing. "We followed a basic path of exploring the Galaxy that had been laid out for us, discovering the Mass Relays, being led to the Citadel, reverse engineering the technology both gleamed from the Mass Relays and from archaeological sites of previous civilisations that had gone extinct when we were still young."
"All of our archaeological findings tells us that the Protheans were the ones who built the Mass Relays!" Tevos snapped, this being the point that she wasn't backing down. And why wouldn't she? The Protheans had achieved near mythical status in their society-no, it could be said that for these people the Protheans were like unto gods.
"Of course you'd think that, we thought the same about the Insunannon, and when you are dust and your civilisations destroyed and some other primitive race is picking through the broken, burned out husks of your cities and ships they will think the same of you, you naive and stupid creature." Xidre was experiencing a rare emotion for his kind, anger. It wasn't that the process used to create his kind stripped them of emotion but rather they kept it suppressed less their abilities run wild and they hurt themselves or others. And yet here looking at these three, looking at the same mistakes that his people had made being made all over again, he was filled with a deep and all consuming feeling of self loathing, and so opted to tell them exactly what he wished he could tell his ancestors. "You have managed to recreate almost every aspect of the Protheans you worship technology haven't you? Except of course for the Mass Relays. Despite your best attempts to the contrary they have resisted all of your attempts to take them apart and find out how they work, or for that matter even damage them. Or does your foolishness go so deep that you haven't even bothered to try yet?"
Valern raised his hand and put it on Tevos's shoulder to make her sit back down.
"I presume you mean to imply that some other race than the Protheans, or even this 'Insunannon' that you mentioned before built the Relays?" Valern asked his scientific interest peaked, after all long before he was a politician he was a scientist.
Xidre calmed himself down, the necrotic energies that had began to swirl around his body lowered.
"The Most commonly known name for them are the Reapers, for they are farmers and you are their crop, and they are still very much alive I can assure you."
"Then where are they?" Sparatus asked suspicious. "Outside of known space. I do not know for what reasons they haven't come back yet." Xidre stated bluntly.
"You build your civilisations on the blocks of those that came before you crippling yourselves with the same weaknesses over and over again. Then as your technology begins to peak the Reapers come once more, and suddenly all of your weaknesses become vividly, laughably apparent. Your precious Relays stop responding to you, and since you haven't developed another means of travelling between sectors yet this will cripple your ability to respond to their attacks. They will take your least defended worlds first, the colonies, the prisons, or simply whatever world they can take with the least amount of effort. You will be experimented on, your bodies warped beyond recognition as they determine which of your races are best suited to fulfilling what rolls in their dark designs they require of you. If you are 'Lucky' they will deem you worthy of being ascended as one of their own, your minds preserved in a hell that makes the one we crawled out of seem like a paradise, if not, your bodies will be warped & broken, your minds shattered beyond recognition and sent to murder your own people, reduced to little more than savage creatures that make what we unleashed on the Batarian's look like cute little pets. Then they will begin to exert effort into your eminent demise. They will appear in the skies above your cities in the thousands, your meagre 'Javelins' and 'Mass Drivers' will be stripped of their power by superior biotic barriers, they will punch through your pitiful shields and armour as if you were using wet paper to protect yourselves. Even if you manage to bunch together hundreds of your ships against a single Reaper and manage to narrowly break it's spine over the knee of your constant fire power, one thousand will take it's place. That is what your precious 'Mass Relays' are. And it's why none are left beyond this sector!" Based on the looks on their faces the Councillor's had a vastly increased number of questions to ask the scary skeleton man but he abruptly stood up and adjusted the formal clothing he was wearing over his suit. "It seems that I've vented more than I thought I had. I shall be returning to the ship for the evening."
The rest of the senators waved their associate off and he left back the way he came, escorted by the lion people one of whom draped a cloak over his body.
"Look it's simple." Udina spoke now, trying to pick up from wherever it was they had left off when Xidre had started his little tangent. "It's not a matter of lacking interest in Mass Effect based technology. We are only interested in the technology that's on the same level as the Reapers." Sparatus seemed the least rattled of the three Councillors, tapping his finger as if he was impatiently waiting for something. Credit where do, the soldier probably faced down worst than the random ramblings of a half a century old corpse.
"I do not know if we have this. If you are using Batarian ships as the bench mark of council ships then you should know they on average lose out three to one." Sparatus explained as he looked at the others unblinking.
"According to the Lich's the Batarian's would lose out 100 to one against the Reapers." Udina stated folding his hands together and leaning forward.
"Would you like to see how?" Sparatus closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Without prompt or warning the Turian stood up, grabbed Valern by his collar and proceeded to drag him off.
"Hey! What are you doing! HEY!" The two had returned to the Destiny ascendant after that.
Both sides ran out of things to talk about after that and so they went off to conduct their own business, in private. The three Lithoid's were found by one of the Short and round aliens, a Volus or so they were known, to discuss merchantile laws and cost translation, how many of X Council Credits are worth how many of X Union credits.
The Quarian Admiralty Board eventually made their way over to one of the ships belonging to the Chozo Marauders at the latter's invitation. The Chozo cut an intimidating figure, even one of Cherrel's advanced age. Black feather's had a grey tint, large wings were sticking out of the back and if the the thick muscles connecting them to the rest of the body were any indication they were in all likelihood fully functional. Four eyes carefully observed the admiralty, though they had not run into the Batarian problem of not knowing which ones to look at or not, the long beaked face had the eyes lined up with bright orange markings to accompany the bright orange eyes, one pair looked forward and the other to the sides. One of the Great Kahn's concubines were at his side feeding him grapes while he watched the admirals make themselves comfortable on the throw rugs of his ship.
"One of the Skeleton's tell me that we have a lot in common." Cherrel Kahn stated looking at the Admiral's in the same way he would look at prey.
"Almost three hundred years ago my people were exiled from our home world." Admiral Zorrah stated bluntly. "We created a type of VI servant drone we called Geth. We attempted to bypass the Council's ban on artificial intelligence by linking together VI programs in order to improve performance." A pause, as if the Admiral was nervous. "We had underestimated the Geth and their ability to adapt severely." Admiral Xen however was less nervous and so ripped the proverbial bandage off as it were. "The Geth started to ask questions such as 'does this unit have a soul?' and the like. Small minded as they were the Council attempted to shut down our project."
"Why didn't you?" Cherrel asked growing suspicious.
"The Geth and their adaptations had gone too far." Admiral Korris replied bluntly. "They didn't take kindly to our attempts to shut them down and so rebelled. Millions of Quarian's were killed in the ensuing crossfire and we only barely managed to escape in our ships. The Council promptly revoked our embassy in order to punish us for releasing an AI menace into the galaxy."
"You haven't colonised a new world yet?" Cherrel asked suspiciously and got a scoff from Admiral Gerrel by way of response.
"The Council won't let us." The Bitter Quarian replied bluntly.
"I was under the impression you are no longer part of the Citadel or it's Council?" Cherrel replied suspiciously.
"Dextro Amino world's are rare." Admiral Gerrel replied bluntly.
"Every new one found is immediately given to the Turian's to fuel their expansionist policies. After all the more the Council Space grows the more they need their favourite attack dogs. Thanks to the Treaty of Farixen the Quarian's out number any Citadel race in terms of sheer numbers, but not the Council combined." Admiral Gerrel looked down, dejected. "Our ships are all we have left we can't risk losing them."
The Bird's four eyes blinked at the admirals unmoving, the pile of fruit next to him going ignored.
"I can sympathise." Cherrel Kahn stated in no uncertain terms.
"Do you?" The Admiral's tone lightened, hopeful even.
"Among my people we celebrate making new friends with a toast of alcohol." The Kahn sat up and pulled over a water skin.
"Given what I've been told about your biology, this will have to do." A wooden cup was filled with the liquid, and a straw was added keeping in mind the Quarian's and their need for their suits. Admiral Gerrel took the straw into his mouth and he began to drink. "The Skeleton's are right about one thing. Our people's history are similar: we lost our home-world too, but while you may reclaim yours one day, our's blew up." The Admiral choked on his drink.
"...my apologies for your loss."
"Oh don't be. The Uranium core made it a radioactive pile of Dwamak, our race was crippled for years by the constant radiation exposure causing all kinds of genetic mutations in our bodies, a lost of immunity to disease and sterility. Our first ships off world didn't even contain people, or at least not many, just several thousand fertilised embryo's with the least liked mutations eliminated from our genome and whatever viable womb's we managed to scrape together." The Admiral's blinked stupidly for a couple of minutes. "Can't say that I feel the lost, our preferences as a rule lean towards the use of habitats anyway."
"...habitats?" Admiral Xen asked tilting her head in confusion.
"Bio-dome Space Stations, predominantly used for living in, we trade for food with our allies the Tebrid and the Mero." Which naturally led to the next subject. "That's another part where our history differs. You're people were driven to the brink of extinction by Synthetics while ours were saved from it by them." There was a catch. Of course there was a catch. "Luckily for you all I no more believe that a 'Geth' and a custodian are the same than I do believe that I am the same as you or your council."
"What does that mean?" Admiral Raan asked having not expected the statement. "It means that I'll talk to the Tebrid's and they'll probably send a delegation of their Custodians to your home world. My fellow Union members have gotten on our cases before about not using diplomacy with people we don't like and skip directly to taking what we need from them."
The Quarian's befriended a Hooligan, and he's the leader of an entire race.
"Non Mass Effect based weaponry?" Valern asked looking at his fellow councillor suspiciously.
"They have raised a fair point." Sparatus stated looking at the window which spanned over the former Batarian space and current Citadel/Union neutral zone. "The various races that we have known about have reached the peak of Mass Effect based technology, comparable to what we usually find in the most advance of the ruins of ancient races. And for what? We make shields and they make guns that can penetrate them, so make better shields and make better guns. I admit I grow bored of the latest innovation pushing each other a mere millimetre forward, only to then be surpassed by another millimetre."
"This is the way it's always been." Valern wasn't following the discussion. "Are you saying you are bored with the status quo?"
"No, I am saying that the status quo is now gone." Sparatus stated as he vividly recalled the details they picked out after picking through the Batarian's ships. "Answer a question for me: if it were you how would you deal with the Batarian's ships?"
Valern blinked a couple of times as if Sparatus had just asked a stupid question.
"Several ways. Activate trogan's to seize control of the ship, reprogram navigation computers to make the ships crash into each other, sabotage weapons systems to make the ships self destruct, fill life support systems with neurotoxin. How would you have dealt with the Batarian ships?" Valern returned the question to the source, hoping to see the same thing that his counterpart saw.
"Overwhelm them with superior fire power, numbers and discipline of course." Ah yes, the old Turian standby, what was he thinking hoping to get a moment of enlightenment out of this brute. "But that is not what happened is it? No damage to the ships, no blood spatters from the crew or any of their corpses, nothing to indicate anything happened at all. It's as if the aliens just walked aboard the Batarian's ships and made them leave with them of their own accord." Valern paused, the ships were completely intact, the usual Salarian sabotage had remained dormant on each of them, given what he knows about Batarian quality all the ships had been left behind in the same shoddy state as when they left their docks having suffered no additional damage from fighting the enemy ships with the exception of a drained energy core.
"Unknown." Valern felt the corners of his lips rising up despite his best efforts to the contrary. Unknown, what a wonderful word that was for Salarians. An invitation to study and challenge something new, the thrill and prestige of being the first one to figure out what this new unknown thing was that everyone was talking about. "I understand what you mean now."
Sparatus nodded his head.
"Avina." The holographic Asari can be found throughout the entirety of the citadel and on most citadel ships, from time to time the VI program may act as a personal assistant to high ranking Citadel officials such as the Councillors. "How many non-Mass Effect based technological research requests are currently awaiting approval." The VI took only a few moments to reply. "297."
"We'll have to begin sorting through them one by one." As Sparatus was saying that he saw Valern working on his omni-tool.
"Massive supply of Non MS based technology is already at our Finger tips. Need only to have a look at it to begin unravelling its secrets." Valern stated as he prepared to form a STG task force.
"If you can access it without provoking the aliens." Sparatus reminded in no uncertain terms.
"Leave that matter to me." Valern replied as he waved his hand away. "Done. Now to pick apart filed patents for usefulness."
Like that, two cornered rattlesnakes prepared to go on the offensive.
The results of the Volus and Lithoid negotiations thus far went as follows. The Citadel Credit used Eezo in order to back its value, this was quite reasonable, as the root of Mass Effect based technology Eezo is used in everything from transportation to weapons to personal computers known as Omni-tools. However this wasn't the case for the Union. Union credits were back by Energy, which was pivotal to every aspect of Union life including food, medicine, weapons, transportation, housing and other important tid-bits of technology, the difference being that it was also a important part of Citadel life too, so while Citadel Credit had next to no value among the Union the Union credit has value to spare for the council. With that out of the way.
"Union law forbids trade of technology with non-union members." Tevos had joined the Volus and the Lithoid's meeting as they attempted to figure out something positive from this disaster of a meeting. "Trade of raw materials on the other hand. That is another story."
Some kind of ore was on the table in a bowl. The Volus ambassador picked it up and examined it as if it were some kind of strange and mysterious material.
"And what kind of raw material is this?" Din Korlak was the Volus ambassador to the Citadel, he knew the trade of being a merchant quite well, and was eager to prove himself and Volus kind in general, making him useful for situations such as this. If, and that was a big if, he managed to get something useful for them it might even nab his people a seat on the council.
"Minerals, a catch-all term for rare metals, minerals and other materials that we mine in Union territory." Senator Onyx explained as he picked up one of the stones in question before tossing it into the air and crunching it inside of an opening in his body which was presumably a mouth. "Also, it's what consists of us Lithoid's diet." Well they were already talking to what they had been given to understand were sapient talking rocks that weren't Synth's, it only made sense that they ate rocks too. "These can be refined from Minerals through special processes patented by us Lithoid's." The Crystal Hive Lithoid made a snapping sound with his universal translator and the Golema carried three items inside and placed it on the table. "These items are corner stones in Union technology."
Din had understood what the totally-not-a-synth was talking about with full clarity. 'I can't sell you our or our allies technology. I can however sell you the things they need to build it.' Truthfully given the option Din would do the same thing. Science was a process, 90% of the process was consistent if not constant failure, with each failure shaving off precious resources. So while not knowing how to build the Union's technologies lowers the value of the raw materials to do so the amount of rare resources that they can sell to the Citadel Council instead proceeds to go up and up. The first of the three items placed on the table was what looked like a decorative purple crystal, it's base shaved so that it could stand up straight.
"A Rare Crystal pivotal in the creation of laser devices and most electronics." As if emphasising his point, Senator Onyx shined a light on the rare crystal, and after a few moments a beam was fired out and hit a nearby wall leaving a smoldering hole behind. "The second item." This time a clear canister of gas was placed on the table. "Exotic Gasses. An important component of plasma weapons, energy shields, medicine and I'm told a potent recreational drug." A gas was more difficult to work with than a crystal, they didn't know how to keep it for starters, outside of this little canister, and while Din was confident the crystal could be recycled from failure to failure the gas was another story entirely. "The third item." Carefully, a faintly glowing rock, like coal taken from the embers, was carefully placed on a table and the Golema backed away as if it was some kind of hazardous substance. "Finally the Volatile Mot. Do not touch it. This stone is highly explosive, under the correct circumstances though it can be harvested for energy." So not only was this one hard if not impossible to reuse but it was also dangerous, lovely.
"The amount of items the Citadel has to trade with the Union is fewer, but no less valuable." Din's suit made a sound of escaping air as he spoke, presumably him breathing in. "In terms of raw resources the first is something that you should already be aware of." Tevos placed a blue brick on the table, a slab of refined Eezo. "Your suited corpse said that you aren't interested in our Mass Effect technology, but that they are also quite familiar with the technology, I don't presume you use it for everything as we do but I do think that you use it." There were a great many things that could be done without Eezo, but some that could not, Din wasn't aware of technology for artificial gravity which doesn't use Mass Effect induced gravity to anchor a person or thing down with artificial gravity. "Aside from that, this is omni-gel." The second item was a canister full of orange liquid. "It is a combination of ceramics, reusable plastic, light alloys and is typically kept in a molten semi-liquid form." Din attached a small device to the canister and held it up and over the table as if pouring it out. "Using a Biotic field..." A bluish purple glow was released as the orange liquid was sprayed out and started to be shaped into a device which then produced a holographic AAA logo in council letters. "We split these materials by weight and shape them into a variety of different pieces of technology. Conversely." The device was melted down and reabsorbed into the canister. "Old and unwanted items can be melted down and recycled into something new."
The two sides nodded, shook appendages and walked away the Lithoid's laughing to themselves having scammed yet another race. Oh sure the materials did everything they described, but it always got a laugh out of them how much people are willing to pay for their hair, farts and dung.
Review Section:
Gianfranco Cembran: Not that I'm looking for permission but I appreciate the spirit in which the comment was made.
RonaldM40196867: True. It would depend on the alien, my perhaps needlessly paranoid mind immediately thinks of the worst case scenario's for them to visit our world. Fix the endings of Mass Effect 3, instead of one of three fixed endings make it so that the game itself chooses the ending for you based on how you built the crucible throughout the game.
Guest: Thank you for saying so.