Uninspired
Mass Effect, Inspired Inventor
08
I felt as we dropped out of another mass relay transit. Cracking my eyes open, I instructed the wall screen to turn on and got a look at the stars outside. The view was breathtaking, with what looked like red gas in the distance. It was just one of many sights that had amazed me since starting my journey on the Lone Wolf.
"Go back to sleep. It's still night," Alpha yawned, burying her face in my back and rubbing it back and forth.
Yeah, that was a thing.
Alpha had apparently decided that it was unhealthy for me to sleep alone. As she has said, "Humans are social creatures, master. You need companionship. You also have other needs that you aren't getting met—emotional and physical. We are here to fulfill all of your needs."
After that, she had joined me in my bed almost every night. And if it wasn't Alpha, it was Delta. The wolfish shipgirl had listened to all of Alpha's explanation, and then immediately acted on it.
Neither of the AIs actually needed to sleep. I didn't need to sleep much, but I enjoyed a good, long eight hour rest every now and then. And because my brain was still largely human and biological, I always felt nice and refreshed after. But because I did need to sleep at some point, they wanted to try it, and so had begun emulating me. Alpha was a very clingy and peaceful sleeper, preferring to latch on and go still aside from breathing and occasionally adjusting in response to me—making herself as comfortable for me to lie beside, or on, as possible and essentially being a very warm, soft, and cuddly full body pillow. Delta was a very active and messy sleeper, and I'd regularly find her sprawled out on top of me at an awkward angle, or half buried in her tail.
It was cute, and I really did enjoy the company, so I wasn't going to complain. Really, if Alpha kept it up, one day very soon I was going to push her down and take her up on her standing offer to use her body to slake my base lusts. Delta, I'd probably just roll onto her front, pull her hips up where I wanted them, and mount her like the wolf she acted like. I was pretty sure that's what she wanted, given just how often she presented her ass to me just like that.
I shut off the view screen and closed my eyes, only to be woken up by the door slamming open.
The sliding, automatic door.
Yeah, Delta was the ship, so when she wanted to make an entrance or an exit, she'd slam her doors.
Cracking my eye open again, I eyed the black haired girl. "Master! Come see!"
"You can show me here," I rolled my eyes, before cracking a yawn.
A moment later, my Focus produced a view put together from the ship's sensors as Delta leapt up onto the bed and crouched. My (mechanical) heart leapt into my throat and I sat up, my eyes going wide as I studied them. "Ships!!!"
"I can see that," I nodded, as behind me, Alpha sat up and pressed herself into my back. I tried not to get distracted by the large, soft mounds of flesh that were her bare breasts pressing into my back, or the little hard, hot nubs in the middle of each. It was a struggle, though. I was only human, and having beautiful women around me constantly was reminding me of some uncomfortable truths—namely, I hadn't had sex with a woman in this world yet.
"What are they doing, though?" Delta asked, as we all studied the very large collection of ships circling a green planet—over fifty thousand ships, according to the Lone Wolf's sensors.
Looking at the scans, and the way they seemed to be radiating electromagnetic energy into the atmosphere, it only took a few seconds to realize what they were doing. "Oh, they're discharging."
"Huh?" Delta looked confused, tilting her head as her ears flicked.
"Travel using the mass effect drive builds up an electrostatic charge."
The black haired girl nodded. "Right, right. You just absorb that back into your capacitors and use it for other stuff. Free energy!"
Chuckling, I shook my head. "Their ships can't do that. They haven't figured it out yet. So they have to either go down to the planet and touch ground to ground out, or for the ships that are too big, they have to sit in atmosphere to do it. Sometimes for days. With all of their sensors, weapons, shields, and everything else retracted. They're completely vulnerable like that. That's why these," I highlighted smaller ships in a higher orbit above the larger ships, "are running escort duty. They're small, so they discharged faster than the big ones."
"What do you want to do? That's a very large fleet. Should we just go back into the relay and move on?" Alpha asked, her breath surprisingly hot against my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. Delta's eyes snapped down and I felt Alpha move forward, looking over my body, to the tent I was abruptly pitching under the sheets. "Or we could go back to bed and ignore it for a while…"
"Nah," I shook my head, and Delta immediately perked up, her body tensing as her tail stilled and her ears faced straight forward, her purple eyes staring straight at me. Waiting. "Delta." She tensed just a bit more. "Turn the cloak off. Take us in. Slow," I stressed. "No faster than 2C, I don't want to spook them. Drop us two light seconds out and wait a minute. After that, start transmitting. Say, Moonlight Sonata, first movement. All channels."
The wolf girl's eyes went wide as her lips pulled into a fanged grin. "This is gonna be so cool~! Mysterious alien ship drops out of FTL and starts playing that. Haha! On it!"
The gynoid pushed off the bed, flipping backwards and landing on all fours as she scrambled out of the bedroom. I sighed, shaking my head as I stood, to a noise of displeasure from Alpha. Clothes wrapped around my body and I turned and offered her a hand up. "Come on. You know you're interested."
"It could've waited," the elf pouted, before her usual body suit spread across her body and she accepted the hand up. "Very well. Let's go greet them."
We arrived on the bridge and sat down just in time for the music to start. Delta was silently registering multiple target locks on her screens as the ships reacted. Now that we were closer and could see them properly with the cameras, I grinned. They were a bit bulbous in the front, with long trailing aft sections. The biggest ones were spinning spheres, circled by a ring along the equator, trailing a protrusion to the rear. The rest all seemed to be hollow rings with the same aft protrusion. I recognized the distinctive design—had recognized it on the image generated by the scanners in fact, but seeing it up close and personal in the visible spectrum was a different matter.
The Quarian Migrant Fleet. Just who I was hoping to find out here.
It had taken a bit over a month given just how much exploring I had done. I wasn't just taking a quick scan of a system every time I dropped out of a mass relay's transit. I'd had Delta get in close and scan every system before rabbiting again, sending the data back to my seed ships for systems to put a space gate in for resources, marking those few habitable worlds ready for immediate colonization and alerting Earth, Eden Prime, and Terra Nova so everyone knew that there were worlds out here just waiting for them to get here. The world the Quarians were orbiting was one such world that Delta had picked up on long range sensors as we were mapping out the relay network.
Speaking of that, I checked the readings coming back from the scanners and frowned. Someone had fucked around with introducing genetically engineered crops as an invasive species and found out, when many of those plants mutated to be poisonous, toxic, or carnivorous. I sighed mentally and marked it for one of my seed ships to visit. I'd drop a drone, have it construct some modified Faro machines out of the Horizon tree first to strip the extant, mutated ecosystem, then drop some terraforming tech in behind it to fix the planet and plant stock from Earth. The Faro machines would self-destruct when they were finished, but by that time the new growth and Earth wildlife should be right behind it, leaving behind a pristine world ready for settling.
The music ended and I waited. There was some comms activity between the ships. A few moments later, one of the larger patrolling ships approached a full light second closer and began to transmit the same way we had. I recognized percussion and what might have been wind, along with strings, but the rest was alien and new. Interesting and pretty, though.
"What's it mean?" Alpha asked as we sat and waited.
"It means they're probably friendly. Pirates or a genuine threat would have already attacked. Most warrior races would have begun barking orders. Music indicates a certain level of both intelligence and creativity outside of the ability to simply build technology." Or, at least, that was the prevailing theory at one point.
Eventually, the music stopped. Shortly after that, Delta perked up. "Master, they're sending a signal. Looks like a comms request for audio and video. Want me to connect?"
"Go ahead," I nodded. Delta perched on the arm of the chair while I felt Alpha lean in closer on my side. The holographic screen in front of me added a new window, showing the inside of a ship. Several figures wearing full body suits with lightly glowing masks for their helmets studied us as we studied them.
"Greetings. I'm captain Leon Reynolds of the Lone Wolf, and it's my pleasure to make first contact on behalf of the human race."
The aliens on the other side of the screen exchanged looks, their body language looking, at least to my eyes, confused. That is, if they were human. They began speaking amongst one another in a language I couldn't understand.
That's the thing, though. The Reapers intentionally cause life to develop along certain lines. That's why so many races here look alike. Bipedal, one head, see in the visible spectrum, hear in a certain audio range, communicate mostly using sound via vocal cords. There are exceptions, but they're the exception not the norm. So, if it looks confused, it's probably confused.
"Alpha?" I asked.
"It's going to take a while to build up a language database to translate," the blonde elf shook her head.
There seemed to be some form of agreement on the other end as one of them, a female maybe from the curves beneath the suit, nodded and hurried off screen. And that's another thing. Humans, Asari, and maybe Quarians look very similar. I seem to recall there was a lot of speculation, and porn, of what Quarians might have looked like under the suit. I'm going to find out.
Delta shifted, her tail swishing and her head cocking to one side. "Master, they're trying to set up a network. They aren't being pushy about it, but their computer's sending requests."
I snorted quietly. My computers weren't running anything like the tech these guys were, considering it was most likely based heavily off of Prothean tech, just like everything else in the galaxy, which itself was based on the work of older races and was all things the Reapers were aware of and expected. It was like trying to connect to a machine running Linux from a computer running Windows—back in the early days, before they really got OS compatibility down. You could do it if you had the right software set up to allow for it, but it wasn't something enabled by default. You had to put some effort into making it work.
"Delta, spin up a VM using the Prothean ship computer architecture. Let it connect to whatever they're trying to do and let's see what's going on."
"Got it," she nodded. A moment later, a new window popped up on the holo display. "They're connected. Looks like they're sending a huge file. Uhh," she looked towards Alpha, who rolled her eyes.
"It's a language database. I'm copying it and sending it back to Avalon. Give me a few moments."
The blonde elf closed her eyes and I turned back to the screen and smiled at the Quarians watching intently on the other side, holding out my hands in a 'what can you do' gesture. After a few minutes, Alpha opened her eyes and looked to Delta. "Here, send this."
"Sure," the wolf girl nodded.
Alpha sent a file straight to my android brain and I unpacked and installed it, finding that it was a language pack that included far more than just the Quarian language. There were named sections for every race the Quarians knew of—many of which I recognized. Asari, Turian, Salarian, and more.
On the screen, the Quarians brought up their arms and omni-tools flashed to life as they apparently updated their own systems. One of them asked, "Did that work?"
"I think so," another nodded.
The one in the center turned back to us and asked, "Can you understand us?"
I couldn't help it. "Nope. Not a word," I answered with a completely straight face. I let that hang just long enough for them to emote confusion, before I laughed. "Just a joke. You're coming in loud and clear. Looks like that language pack worked. So, let's try that again." I repeated my introduction.
The male in the center nodded. "I am Admiral Haal'Raan vas Tonbay, of the Quarian patrol fleet. It is my honor to greet you on behalf of the Quarian people."
"Yes, yes," a female beside him waved her hand dismissively, "formalities out of the way. We've never seen a 'human' before! You look very similar to the Asari, but with hair, and pink instead of blue! But between the three of you, I observe three distinct morphologies. Are you all the same race, or something else?"
I chuckled as the obvious scientist of the group drew annoyed noises from her companions. "Something like that."
"We're—" Delta began, but a signal from Alpha cut her off. It was so fast that I wasn't even sure the Quarians noticed the minute hesitation. Hell, I wasn't sure I would have noticed it if my brain wasn't part computer. "—human too."
"Genetic engineering, cloning, and consciousness transfer technology have allowed humans to escape some of the limits of our biology. We can engineer designer bodies with the traits we want and step into them as easily as one might a new set of clothes. Master Leon, while he has had some enhancement, is generally what a baseline human male looks like naturally. Aside from my ears, I am what a baseline human female looks like. Delta," she gestured to the wolf girl, "is an example of someone with modifications to give them traits from an animal on our planet. In her case, a wolf, which is a species predatory canine that we eventually domesticated into dogs."
"I'm not domesticated," Delta grumbled.
"It shows," Alpha sniped with a smile, earning a glare.
What she had said both was and wasn't a lie, but it was absolutely a load of bullshit. I had the technology to do all of that, and in fact now that Alpha said it, I made a note to look into spreading the technology to do exactly that.
If we're offering new, designer bodies to people, our pool of colonists just expanded greatly. Amputees, people who were paralyzed, and people with degenerative diseases could all be given new bodies without those problems—fit and healthy, ready to go to a new world. But why stop there? There's a very large population of elderly. Most of them are still in their right minds. I'm sure many of them will jump at the chance to switch to a new, young, fit body—even if a condition for getting it was settling a new world, learning a new trade or skill and being useful, and finding someone to have children with. Every one of those bodies could come with many of the modifications mine has—biotics and some cybernetics at least. Yeah, doing that ASAP.
Of course, the lie was to hide their nature as AI. I hadn't given any standing orders on it, but I suspected that Alpha was being cautious.
"This is actually our first contact with another race. I was kind of expecting tentacles and radial biology or something, not bipeds," I gestured at them. "And certainly not a race that looks so similar to our own. It seems like we've got a lot to talk about. Tell you what. I've got an archive of Earth culture on the Lone Wolf. How about I send you over some stuff to look at? Music, literature, video. I've got an entire image repository of pictures of our home planet, peoples, and their cultures. If you've got something similar, I'd love to see it. I know you've probably got to go report back to someone about us, and your big ships down there look like they have a few days to go before they're fully discharged. I'd like to continue this discussion later. Maybe move on to talks of other things, once we know each other a bit better. It's a big, wide galaxy and we haven't been out in it for long. You've got yourselves a very large fleet here and look like you know what you're doing. Perhaps we can sit down, talk, and find ways we can help each other out."
Admiral Haal'Raan nodded. "Yes, we'd appreciate that. Thank you for understanding. I'll have my people send some things over. Shall we reconvene in one standard day?"
I raised an eyebrow at that. "How do you measure time?"
The man paused, before chuckling. "Of course. That's not in the language pack. We'll have our computers do some measurements and we can work out an appropriate conversion between your system and ours."
"Sounds good, admiral. I'll see you then."
We disconnected and, a few moments later, we had our conversion. A countdown timer started for 27:45:00. "It's not precise. It's actually a minute and a few seconds off, but I wanted to give you a little time to prepare," Alpha explained.
"Thanks, Alpha."
"Ah! They sent stuff!" Delta announced. "I've already sent our stuff. Praise me too!"
Laughing, I reached out and petted her head. "Thanks, Delta. Good girl."
"Mm!" she nodded, bumping her head under my hand.
"I've begun translating the things the Quarians sent," Alpha put in, and I heard a hopeful note in her voice. Rolling my eyes, I reached out and pulled her up onto the arm of my chair, giving her a squeeze.
"Good girl, Alpha."
"[sub]Ee!/sub]"
Ignoring the happy squeak from the elf, I brought up some of the materials in my Focus, starting with history texts. I wanted to see just how edited what they had given us was, based on what I remembered of the series. If they mentioned the Geth, I would be surprised.
Right, first though, let me just get started on streamlining the process for making a new body and transferring into it, so other people can start doing it. Cosmetic mods, too. Can't forget that.
"I'll go make you breakfast and let you know when it's ready," Alpha said, sliding off the chair.
"Thanks, Alpha."
Over the course of the next eight days, we spent nearly every day in talks with the Quarians. They had so many questions and wanted to talk about so many different topics, that we had to split the load between myself and Alpha. Delta… Delta was a good girl, but she was very task oriented, and talking bored her. I could see she was already getting bored, antsy, and ready to get moving.
On the eighth day, ships started coming up from the surface and docking, returning their crew. We were invited to a video call with the people in charge of the Migrant Fleet, the Conclave—though the only ones really asking questions were the Admiralty Board, who had obviously been prepared with a list of questions beforehand.
We spent hours answering various questions and, as it went on, I noticed a distinct theme. Finally, I decided to just get to the heart of the matter.
"Look, admirals," I cut in before they could ask another question. "I get it. You're playing politics for your entire race, so you're taking the safe route here. But as happy as I am to answer whatever questions you want to ask in a back and forth discussion, not an interrogation, I'm not a politician, a diplomat, or a military man. So, let's stop beating around the bush and get to the point. I can guess at the actual questions you want to ask. So let's start there."
I gestured and a question wrote itself beneath me on the video I was sending to them. "Are humans a threat to quarians? That's the big one, isn't it?"
The admiralty board looked at each other, before the woman on the end spoke up. "I'm sure you can see why we would be concerned. We made a mistake, and because of that, we've lost our home world and have only these ships left. We are looked down upon by the Council races and anyone who wishes to do business with them, or eventually join the council. We've become wary of outsiders."
Yeah, they had actually been upfront about the Geth and their removal from the Citadel right from the start. I had been pretty surprised, but that boded well for future negotiations. On the other hand, the more jaded and cynical part of me wondered what they were hiding, if not the Geth.
"Yes, I do understand. I could ask you the same. Are the quarians a threat to humanity? And I imagine the answer is probably the same on both sides: only if you make yourself a threat to us. Again, you're the first alien species we've had contact with. We're out here looking to expand our territory and, now that we know there's other intelligent life out in the galaxy, we're much more interested in making friends than enemies.
"I'm sure that back on Earth, there are plenty of people who are going to hate the idea of sharing the galaxy with anyone. They're probably going to hate you and every other race out there. There may be those that hate you not because of your race, but because of what you did with the Geth. Our popular culture has speculated on exactly this sort of scenario before, and there's been no consensus on how AI should be handled, or even whether it should be employed. Likewise, I'm sure there are people among your number who hate the idea of every other species, or who will hate humans—either because we're alien to you, or because of the things we've done in our own past. They're welcome to. You're free to have your opinions, so long as you're not shooting at us. Just so long as you show us the same respect."
Leaning forward in my chair, I swept my eyes over the gathered admirals, meeting their eyes through their helmets. "But for as many humans as there are that will hate you, for as many of you that there are that will hate us, there are more on both sides that will welcome the other with open arms. We've dreamed of contact with a friendly race since we first realized the possibility that we might not be alone. From the first man to set foot on our moon, to here and now, there are those of us who have longed to meet those people from beyond the stars. We don't want to be your enemy. You don't want to be ours. You said it yourself—you don't have many friends left. We don't have any friends out here at all. So, let's remedy that."
I gestured again and another question appeared. "Are humans armed? Yes. We don't have as many ships as you yet, but what we lack in numbers we make up for in firepower. However, refer back to the first question. It doesn't matter how many ships we have or how powerful they are, if we aren't planning to use them against you. We are absolutely using them to protect our borders and planets, but our allies have nothing to worry about from them."
Another question appeared on screen. "Are humans willing to ally with the quarians? I can't speak for Earth, but I can speak for Eden Prime, Terra Nova, and every other planet I directly control. I can guess however, and the answer is probably yes for Earth, and definitely yes for my people."
A final question appeared on screen. "Are humans willing to allow quarians a home and travel within their systems? Which is the one you've been working up to. Do we have a spare habitable world we're willing to give you? The answer is yes. The longer answer is how many do you need?"
There were gasps and a sudden uproar of sound from the Conclave, while the Admiralty tried to restore order. Eventually, they got it close enough, and one of the admirals asked, "How can you guarantee that? How can you just casually offer us a planet? Not just any planet, but as you're implying, a garden world. Surely your space is not so rich in garden worlds that you can just offer them up."
I grinned. Beside me, Alpha giggled. "Well, that's the thing. I haven't been… entirely honest with you. I'm not some kind of leader among my people, but I am the human with the most advanced technology among our people. I have terraforming technology that I've been deploying. I started with a moon and two of the worlds in our home system. In less than three years, they've gone from barren rocks," I sent an image to the feed of Luna, Mars, and Mercury as they were before, "to the crown jewels of humanity."
I had expected it to take upwards of fifty years, but geometric progression is geometric. The moon, Mars, and Mercury were all stable and habitable—though Mercury was off limits to anyone but myself.
I sent them the images of those three celestial bodies as they were today—lush and verdant, covered in green, blue, and white of plants, ocean, and clouds. "I've been seeding terraforming technology to every uninhabited planet I've passed. I have an automated network of drones spreading out across our territory and doing the same with every world capable of sustaining life, if all it lacks is an atmosphere, water, and time. At last count, I have dozens that will be ready for colonization within the next two years, and even more every year after that, as my drones spread. Right now, there are multiple worlds I'd be willing to share with the quarians—including Terra Nova and Eden Prime. And if you're worried about resources, don't be—I have drones that mine asteroids and planets that wouldn't sustain life, to supply all the resources we'll ever need. If you're concerned about element zero in particular, I have technology that can create it from other matter."
There was another explosion of sound from the quarian side of the call and I sat back and waited with a smile. Delta let out a bored huff and slid off the arm of the chair, moved around in front of me, and dropped her head in my lap. Reaching down, I petted the frustrated girl as she closed her eyes, her tail wagging back and forth as she enjoyed the attention.
"So, how have things been?"
Victor eyed me skeptically. "Progressing well. Cut the bullshit, Leon. Why have you blocked off the equatorial region and several areas towards the poles of Terra Nova? I know it's a desert, but the colonists are on my ass about it. And I see you're putting in priority build orders for Eden Prime. What the hell's going on?"
"Can't get anything past you, can I?" I chuckled, earning an annoyed look. "You want the good news first, or the good news?"
Blinking, he asked, "The good news?"
"Good news! We're not alone in the universe!" I grinned.
"Oh my god—"
"Also good news: I made first contact with an alien race!"
The man wobbled where he stood, before moving over and dropping into a seat on his couch. "You, you made first contact? With a sentient alien race? A peaceful sentient alien race?"
"Are you getting old? Clean your ears out. Or transfer to a new body. I'm sure you saw that pop in the build order, too," I prodded and he sent me an incredulous look. "Yes. A peaceful, sentient alien race. I'm bringing them to Terra Nova. I'm going to let them settle there, as long as they don't mind bumping elbows with humans."
"Oh my god, we have to tell everyone—"
"Yeah, you get on that. I'll send you the recordings. In the meantime, get your ass in gear and park the First Out over Terra Nova. Put her in orbit stable relative to the mass relay, so she's the first thing anyone coming from that direction will see. I'm not worried that they're going to attack us, but I do want to send a message."
Frowning, Victor looked up into the feed, his eyes meeting mine. "'A message?' What message could our colony ship possibly send?"
"Mm. Well, you see, they've got over fifty thousand ships." His mouth dropped open at that. "However, the largest of them is about a mile and three quarters, give or take." With a thought, I sent over a scan of a quarian liveship, complete with tonnage estimate and observed energy output. "Those big ones aren't armed, but just because they aren't now doesn't mean they can't be. 'Colony ship' she may be, she's not unarmed. The First Out is a mile of things they haven't ever seen before, covered in more weapons than any five ships in their fleet combined. When it comes to nations, an ally respects you more when they can see what you've got available."
Sitting back in his couch, he asked, "Why not send the Avalon?"
"I want them to respect us, not shit their suits in fear and run away. Anyway, figured I'd let you know. We'll be there in a few days."
"What?! Wait, no—!"
I laughed and hung up.