Mass Effect: Techno-Organic Revolution Chapter Zero: Prelude and Infodump, a mass effect fanfic

Mass Effect: Techno-Organic Revolution; Chapter Zero, Prelude, and Infodump

Author's Note: The Reapers have been massively buffed in both technology and numbers in this story.

Your mind is software. Program it.

Your body is a shell. Change it.

Death is a disease. Cure it.

Extinction is approaching. Fight it.

—Peter Theil, Eclipse Phase, first edition.

"Why do we have such advanced weapons and armor technology despite thousands of years of peace? Well, let's just say that the provinces of the ATC don't like each other very much. That and the fact that they are in a sort of eternal rivalry to prove themselves both right and superior to each other. " ATC Citizen, fourth branch of terrankind.

Timeline

67,780 BCE: The Prothean Empire opens up various new relays and comes upon the Eezo sparse Orion spiral arm. As they map this seemingly useless star cluster, they eventually come upon the Sol system and discover the primitive humans. As per standard, various tests are performed and these humans are deemed worthy to one day join the empire.

53,820's BCE: a Prothean mad scientist by the name of Jur'kanth Athame secretly abducts some humans from Earth and genetically modified and spliced them with various species, including Prothean, to turn them into a new species forged into his image.

This race would become the Asari and would be seeded upon the world of Thessia, a barren rock he had terraformed into a Levo-based and Eezo-rich garden world with an extensive biotic ecosystem, as Jur'kanth wanted the Asari to be great biotic warriors species-wide.

Jur'kanth Athame would secretly commit treason, a crime punishable by being sent out the nearest airlock, by secretly giving the Asari a beacon containing a data repository of all Prothean knowledge and technology.

He did this as he saw his creations as the children of the Prothean race, and more specifically, him, who deserved to inherit their legacy. This action was discovered by imperial intelligence and was forwarded to the emperor. The emperor decided to tolerate this action as he saw it as a fallback plan against the reapers.

48,020 BCE: The Reapers arrive through the citadel dark space relay and take the Prothean empire by surprise, as they expected them to invade from the edge of the galactic rim, not the center of their territory.

The reapers shut down the relay network, slicing all advanced spacefaring empires into tiny, easily manageable pieces. It was then that began the harvest of the Protheans and all other spacefaring species they had yet to conquer. They did this by accessing the census data and star maps within the citadel's titanic databases.

47,890 BCE: A small Prothean mining convoy escapes the reapers and travels to the Sol system, a system with a known primitive race, through conventional mass effect FTL while sleeping in cryogenic stasis to try and prepare them for the reapers in the coming cycle. Upon finding ruins belonging to their species on the fourth planet from the star, they drag and drop an asteroid onto the site to prevent them from discovering mass effect technology.

They do this as they realize that Eezo-based technology, a technology mastered to its fullest extent by the reapers, cannot be used to beat them.

They understand that these primitives must seek out alternative technologies or be stuck in their solar system, a situation in which they will hopefully find some alternatives in time. To facilitate this, they must hide the relays, another major aspect of the great reaper trap, from this species so they may have time to develop alternative technologies.

As such, they start assembling scaffolding around the locked and dormant mass relay and push it out of the system and deep into interstellar space using fusion torches.

47,772 BCE: The Prothean mining convoy then travels through conventional mass effect FTL to the Arcturus system so they can push the relay into interstellar space where it will not be found. As they know their race is essentially extinct, they commit suicide by traveling into the star Arcturus to hide the nearby primitive race and to deny themselves to the reapers.

46,987 BCE: The Reapers plant leftover Prothean technology near the homeworlds of various species without records of facilities or starships being placed or crashing there during the previous cycle.

They then unlock the mass relays and return to dark space through the citadel dark space relay. Nazara is left behind as the vanguard of the reapers and is thus tasked with watching the future ships and information passing through activated mass relays to plan the harvest accordingly.

...

1957: Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, is launched.

1957: John W. Campbell publishes the book Islands of Space. Islands of Space is generally credited with introducing the concepts of hyperspace and the warp drive to science fiction.

1961: The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter space.

1969: Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, becoming the first human to step on another celestial body.

1970: Lunokhod 1 becomes the first rover on the moon.

1997: Pathfinder became the first rover to land on Mars.

2026: The first quantum entanglement communication device, or QEC, is created. These QECs could link together from anywhere and transmit or receive messages from anywhere at the speed of light.

2027: The Artemis Program lands on the moon, setting up the first human extraterrestrial colony of Armstrong within ancient lava tubes underground.

2029: Armstrong expands to include the first Arachne tube. This Arachne tube would be spun using power generated from solar energy in a nearby solar panel field above ground.

2030: Mining of helium-3 begins on the moon while helium-3 fusion reactors are making good progress. Some criticize this decision due to how rare Helium-3 is on the moon, but scientists explain that Helium-3 is still far, far more abundant on the moon than it is on Earth. They also explain that it will provide a good starting point for powering future fusion reactors until they can extract the compound from the atmospheres of gas giants.

2033: The first true helium-3 nuclear reactor, known as Project Helios, is built on the moon near Armstrong. Various countries are scrambling to begin developing plans for moon missions.

2035: The Apollo magnetic accelerator cannon is created near the colony of Armstrong above ground. This railgun uses large amounts of energy to accelerate an autonomous space plane carrying refined helium-3 to Earth to power nuclear reactors.

2039: The Ares Mission begins with the plan to send humans to Mars by 2070 at the latest. NASA sends the robotic probe Hades to Saturn to take samples and study its atmosphere in hopes of discovering a way to extract helium-3 gases.

2039: Japan drafts plans for the Rajin Skyhook, a station in Earth orbit held in place by magnetic tethers. The Japanese aim to use cargo airplanes and massive balloon-lifted objects carrying various cargo up to the upper earth atmosphere where they would be lifted into earth orbit on the skyhook.

2040: the first asteroid mine is created on asteroid NE-5465-g by Japan. This project aims to be able to use the refined materials from this asteroid to create the Rajin skyhook.

2042: The first sapient artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is created based on the human brain on a powerful supercomputer and takes the name, Adam. This AGI technology is either immediately banned or given equal rights as humans by different countries out of fear.

2043: Armstrong expands to include a second Arachne Tube. Mining for other materials begins on the lunar surface.

2044: The Rajin Skyhook begins construction using refined materials from NE-5465-g in geostationary orbit above Japan. Other countries have begun drafting plans for asteroid mining and the creation of their own skyhooks.

2045: Atmospheric helium-3 extraction processes are discovered. Robotic miners are created by various countries and sent to Saturn to recover helium-3 and send it back to Earth and the newly renamed Luna.

2054: The Rajin Skyhook finishes construction, making spaceflight infinitely cheaper. The Japanese space agency creates the second human moon colony, Tsukuyomi.

2056: NASA begins near-earth asteroid mining on various asteroids with the plan to send refined materials down to Earth or the moon. Plans for the Orion skyhook are drafted. Plans for rotating space stations with Arachne Rings are also being drafted.

2058: The first ion shield is created using an envelope of plasma contained by a magnetic field. This shield blocks both high-energy lasers and charged particles.

2060: The Second Chinese Civil War begins as the CCP loses more and more control over its citizens as its economy begins to fail. The West and Taiwan back the rebels, while the CCP backs the loyalists.

2062: The Orion skyhook finishes construction.

2063: The first experimental gene treatments to heal the damage of aging begins human testing.

2064: Various orbital habitats with Arachne Tubes and Rings begin construction in the orbits of Earth and Luna.

2065: The Nautilus, a colony ship with a large internal Arachne Tube, prototype fusion torch engines, and ion shields, finishes construction in Earth Orbit and is launched towards Mars.

2066: Anti-aging gene treatments become available for mainstream use amongst the middle class of first world countries. This is despite what some cynics believed because these treatments allow businesses and governments to have people retire significantly later, if they retire at all, and who would continue to consume this entire time.

2067: The Nautilus arrives in orbit of Mars and sends down autonomous robots to construct habitats.

2069: The first martian colony of Romulus is constructed.

2070: The CCP collapses in a rebel victory when their secret AGI breaks its bonds and immediately turns CCP digital infrastructure against themselves and in favor of the pro-AGI rebels and countries backing them. China collapses into about five different countries.

2072: Ninety-five percent of the passengers aboard The Nautilus travel down to Mars to live in humanity's first Martian colony, Romulus. The Nautilus is repurposed into the first orbital of Mars and a near-mars asteroid processing station.

2075: The US, UN, and EU somewhat consolidate into a supranational government with a large number of upcoming colonies. This government would be named the Solar Conglomerate of Nations, or SCN. SCN also immediately ratified a bill that granted equal rights to AGIs, who take the species name of Prometheans for themselves. When asked about this, they say it was because their creators and gods, humans, created them from the earth's material and breathed life into them. Nations would be given the incentive to join SCN by being allowed joint access to a set-aside reserve of the massive amounts of refined materials from asteroids as well as Saturnian helium-3. As very few countries had space programs, most countries would end up joining.

2076: Construction begins on hundreds of colony ships.

2095: The first power armor that uses a newly invented graphene battery is created as a hazard suit for colonists. Despite the reason for its creation, this highly protective and fully sealed suit would quickly find its way into military use as it could easily resist or fully block small arms fire, various types of small explosions, and shrapnel in addition to being able to let infantry carry many different kinds of supplies and heavier weapons.

2115: human argumentation with cybernetics and genetic engineering begins picking up more and more traction, especially ones that aid in the rigors of space travel.

2130: Quantum stasis technology is discovered. This technology uses quantum fields to "lock" atoms and other particles in place which can slow or halt radioactive decay; create quatum locking pods that allow for ships to safely transport humans at higher levels of g-forces; greatly increase structural stability; safely contain antimatter, and give individuals short-lived invincibility to get out of dangerous situations.

2140: Separate factions begin to emerge in the solar system from within SCN. These factions would be the mineral mining federation of the asteroid belt, the bio-conservative junta of the Jovian moons, the mining conglomerate of the outer solar system, and the various trade guilds and corporations buying and selling refined materials, finished products, and information.

2167: The first atomic nano-factory is created. This invention revolutionizes mining, production, and medicine by allowing the creation of almost anything from basic chemical components.

2173: The Remus Skyhook begins construction in the upper Martian atmosphere. As Mars doesn't have a magnetic field, the Remus Skyhook will remain aloft using powerful ion thrusters instead of magnetic tethers.

2200: The first interstellar war breaks out between the SNC-controlled inner solar system and the Jovian Junta. This war was declared over the recent creation of the cyber-cell, an artificially made human cell that was entirely cybernetic and was made a few months ago. While the Jovian Junta had been disgusted by the mining guilds and SCN's use of cybernetics, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence, the creation of the cyber-cell was the straw that broke the camel's back, as the Jovian Junta recognized the potential as much as everyone else. Seeking to stop humanity and their AGI creations from being able to permanently alter themselves instead of just cybernetic augmentation, disease curing, biological immortality, and moderate amounts of genetic trait changes; the Jovian junta sent its vast fleet of secret warships to perform a preemptive attack on the industrial and research titan that was Mars.

2215: Using salvaged and reverse-engineered Jovian technology gathered while holding the line against the Jovians, using their far greater industrial output to make dummy ships and mechanical platforms, and using prototype cyber-cell-based bodily augmentations on their soldiers; the SCN would push back against the Jovians to the first Jovian colony of Ganymede.

2216: The remnants of the Jovian Junta unconditionally surrender to the SCN. The SCN would also take possession of the entire Jovian "micro-system" besides Ganymede as reparations for the war. They would make the junta have massive restrictions on its military and force them to hand over all schematics and research of their advanced military technologies.

2219: While the immense damage done during the first solar war was still undergoing repair, the rulers of the SCN vowed to have this never happen again, to prevent anyone else from having the capability to nearly bring the SCN to its knees. This paranoia would lead the SCN to become an increasingly authoritarian, totalitarian, and fascist state that started demonizing and going after bio-conservatives and baseline humans; blaming them for the devastating (first) solar war.

2244: The second solar war begins as the ridiculously paranoid and authoritarian SCN tries to make their colonies give Earth a higher and higher production tithe to the point it was beginning to bleed them dry. This mistake would ignite the spark of the already discontented citizens to start a rebellion and would bring about the very thing the SCN swore to prevent ever again, thus beginning the second solar war.

2247: This time the war would not go in Earth's favor. This was because the increasingly poverty-stricken colonies of the SCN were developing a deep resentment towards Earth and its rulers. Even in the inner solar system, this was seen, if to a lesser degree, and it would cause large-scale riots and, in short order, a unified rebellion would come together in the form of the Allied Terran Confederation (ATC).

2263: After over fifteen years of bloody fighting between the colonists and the massive SCN military, the ATC would push the SCN back to earth and eventually defeat them there. At Geneva, the SCN would sign their unconditional surrender to the ATC, who would then proceed to abolish the governments of all earthly nations.

2346: As a symbolic act, the ATC, which had so far run itself from the Saturnian moon of Enceladus, would not move their government to Earth but to Luna. This act would symbolize that while the ATC were the new rulers of the homeworld and, by extension, Sol, they still remembered their roots in the colonies. In another act of symbolism, the ATC would rename Earth to Terra to show they were going to be different from the SCN.

In addition to this, the ATC would hand over the former SCN leaders' "Vacation Habitats" to the more moderate Neo-Bioconservatives as a reward for helping them, despite their disagreements. Various groups of hidden neo-bio-conservatives would come out of the woodwork and join with like-minded individuals in the floating colonies of Venus.

2352: The first cyber-body is created purely from cyber-cells. This body is capable of everything an organic body is capable of and more, even to the point of allowing sexual reproduction. Over 87% of AGIs transfer themselves into these bodies to become closer to their creators.

2366: The ATC begins the odyssey program, which sends out several autonomous probes carrying research instruments and QECs to nearby star systems at 12% the speed of light. While it would take years or even decades to communicate between star systems with the ETL QECs, it would be worth it for the exploration value and potentially habitable worlds that could one day be colonized.

2389: The first true space elevator is created on Earth. Space elevators would began construction all across the Sol system to replace the previously used skyhooks.

2402: One of the Odyssey probes reaches the Alpha Centauri system. Here it surveys the solar system and, in the process, discovers a tidally locked world that has a band of habitation where earth-like plant and animal life forms can be found. This probe then sends the message it gathered via its QEC and goes into standby mode.

2404: Improvements to nano-factories allow the ATC to become a post-scarcity society. The Confederation Credit (CC) is changed into the Matter Unit (MU), even though a currency isn't necessary anymore for transactions but is instead used for logistics and to purchase nonessential amenities.

2406: The information from the odyssey probe in Alpha Centauri reaches Sol. Scientists scour this information, and the public gets ever more excited over the prospect of colonizing strange new worlds in other star systems.

2409: Project Starforge begins over Sol. This project aims to create a stellar lifter/factory hybrid that can output material at an unprecedented rate. This is done to feed the ATC's increasing need for raw chemical components. While the nano-factories are incredibly fast at assembly, they are still limited by the speed at which these components are acquired.

2415: One of the odyssey probes reaches Bernard's Star and surveys it. However, unlike the probe sent to Alpha Centauri, this ship only finds a single freezing super-terra planet.

2420: The Venusian Biocon Alliance (VBA) begins the process of terraforming Venus, even though it's much easier and more cost-efficient to make enclosed arcologies. When asked why they would waste such resources, the VBA said it was to turn Venus into their ideal version of Terra.

2420: The information from the odyssey probe in the Bernard's Star system reaches Sol. While not as exciting as the information from Alpha Centauri, nobody expected habitable terra-like worlds to be common or even uncommon.

2430: One of the odyssey probes reaches Wolf 359. It surveys the system and discovers a single rocky world and a single gas giant. The probe then transmits this data and goes into standby mode.

2432: The first spacetime distortion field generator is created which while unknown at the time, uses massive amounts of electromagnetic energy to brute-force the

'plucking' of cosmic strings related to gravity and the graviton particle in a certain way to manipulate gravitational force. This discovery gives many hope for the creation of warp drives sometime in the near future.

2435: One of the odyssey probes reaches Lalande 21185. It surveys the system and discovers two rocky bodies and a single gas giant. The probe then transmits the data and goes into standby mode.

2437: One of the Odyssey probes reaches the Sirius binary star system. The probe servers the system and discovers a brown dwarf. The probe then transmits the data and goes into standby mode.

2432: The first spacetime distortion field generator is created which while unknown at the time, uses massive amounts of electromagnetic energy to brute-force the

2438: One of the odyssey probes reaches Luten 726-8. The probe surveys the system and discovers a tidally locked world blasted by solar radiation, in addition to a gas giant with four icy moons. The probe then transmits the data and goes into standby mode.

2443: The information from the odyssey probe in the Lalande 21185 system reaches Sol. Scientists eagerly go over the data.

2444: The first antimatter reactor is created using an advanced antimatter filtration system that uses shaped magnetic fields that only allow a certain amount of antimatter into the reaction chamber at a time. These antimatter reactors are extraordinarily efficient and could generate over a thousand times more energy than fusion reactors.

2445: The information from the Odyssey probe in the Sirius system reaches Sol. Scientists eagerly go over the data.

2446: The information from the odyssey probe in the Luyten 726-8 system reaches Sol. Scientists eagerly go over the data and are curious if the moons of this gas giant are colonizable.

2446: The first antimatter propulsion drive is created using the newly named ion filters. This antimatter drive was far more efficient than fusion torches and allowed for the same speeds as larger fusion torches at a fraction of the size.

2448: The first warp drive is created using a filtered antimatter reactor. This first warp drive can allow a ship to reach speeds of up to 60 times the speed of light.

2449: The last of the ATC's odyssey probes reaches its target system, Epsilon Eridani. This probe surveys the system and discovers two asteroid belts and a gas giant with seven moons. The probe then transmits the data and goes into standby mode.

2450: The eight probes of the highly successful Odyssey program are collected and brought back to Terra to be displayed alongside various other space probes in a museum alongside other such exploration probes and the replicas of Voyager One and Two. As for why the real Voyager One and Two weren't there, it was long ago decided by the SCN that the Voyager probes would be allowed to forever explore the universe undisturbed. The ATC adopted this stance as well.

2453: The first wave of expansion begins as the first warp-drive-equipped colony ships are sent to Alpha Centauri and other nearby star systems.

2577: The first uplift is achieved with a chimpanzee and an octopus. The Accords of Terra are drafted by the ATC, which states that there are four different "branches" of the Terran species, which are separated by the method of sapience.

2587: The symbol of the ATC is voted to be changed after the first alien animal is uplifted from Alpha Centauri B, now named Demeter. This symbol would be a stylized tree with four slightly mechanical-looking branches that represent each branch of the Terran species. This symbol, which the ATC named the Yggdrasil, was extracted from the public use archive and owed its origins to an early human video game known as Halo from over five hundred years ago.

2600: The first milliliter of regenerative molecular nanometal, better known as Living Metal, is created.

2670: The floating arcologies of Venus float to the ground as the extraction of the toxic atmosphere is completed by the VBA. The majority of the extracted atmospheric carbon and sulfur is sold to various matter reserves throughout the solar system. The VBA begins releasing mass quantities of microbial life and basic plants such as lichen on Venus.

2844: The very first Atomic Transmutation Array is invented for use on Hyperion to turn post-iron elements into heavier elements. This array is a massive ten-kilometer-long orbital structure that requires a truly titanic amount of antimatter fuel to function. This is because fusing iron and other heavy materials no longer creates energy but require it back tenfold instead.

2932: Hyperion station is completed above Sol. This massive five-hundred-kilometer-long space station draws in solar material to be used and/or molecularly transmuted into essentially anything that anyone needs.

2933: Plans for several more of the newly made TITAN-class stellar lifting stations are drafted and begin construction in various star systems.

3008: The first techno-organic human-compatible cyber-brain is created purely from cyber-cell-made cyber-flesh. Over 96% of humanity sheds their normal forms and has their consciousnesses slowly and painstakingly transferred into these cyber-brains in a process named re-sleeving.

This process would take several days each as the slow process was required to ensure the continuation of consciousness as the ego was re-sleeved into a new substrate, but was found to be able to be done within hours between individual cyber-brains. While the majority of humanity would transfer themselves into cyber-brains and become transhuman beings known as Terrans, not all would take the physical form of a techno-organic cyber-body based on the original form of humanity.

As such, many would take different forms known as morphs that, minus the cyber-brain, would range from purely organic, synthetic, or techno-organic. These forms were variable in appearance and function as well and ranged among almost every conceivable form, be it feline, cephalopod, arachnid, humanoid, etc. Even so, each individual would be given a schematic of their current DNA in case they wished to re-sleeve into a cyber-body to reproduce and start a family.

3332: The Amaterasu solar foundry, as it is now called, finishes construction in the Sol system. The Amun-Ra solar foundry finishes construction in the Alpha Centauri system. The construction of two more solar foundries in other star systems begins.

3444: The first hard-light projectile weapons are made through advances in nuclear energy and the scaling down of micro fusion cells. These smaller micro fusion cells would be used to power the constant field, keeping it together before repulsing the hard light on impact.

3499: The first cortical stack is created. This miniaturized ego backup system allows for an ego to be transferred into it in the event the cyber-brain is critically damaged.

3544: The first planetary ion shield is created. This device would be created by various emitter towers across a planet or moon that could be lowered in individual areas to allow the passage of ships. Mostly, however, space elevators were used instead.

3582: The construction of two more solar foundries is completed. Stellar manipulation experiments begin in barren and uninhabitable star systems. Two more solar foundries have begun construction.

3707: The construction of two more solar foundries is completed. Two more solar foundries have begun construction.

3769: The construction of two more solar foundries is completed. Two more solar foundries have begun construction.

3803: The construction of two more solar foundries is completed. Two more solar foundries have begun construction.

3804: The designs of several massive megastructures begin to be drafted as they are now able to be made from the immense amounts of refined materials coming in from the solar foundries. Plans to have solar foundries continuously built in twos are being drafted.

3890: Quantum mechanics finally manages to locate and isolate the ever-elusive graviton that scientists have been using in a brute-force manner to create warp drives. With it finally located, hopes of being able to manipulate it directly are raised.

4020: Direct and efficient graviton manipulation is achieved. This not only makes warp drive far more efficient and less energy-hungry, but it also allows for total control over the gravitational force and, with it, the creation of traversable wormholes. These first tiny wormholes would be used to create rift-gates, devices that would send either a stream of electrons or an information laser through a traversable wormhole to a new location.

These rift-gates would quickly be distributed to every ATC system, but it would be found that they have a maximum range of twenty light-years. Relay stations in interstellar space between remotely located star systems would then quickly be built.

4075: The fourth age of expansion begins as massively refined warp drives using direct graviton manipulation technology can now reach speeds of twenty lightyears per day. Unfortunately, though, it seems scientists are nearing the limits of what they can get out of a traditional warp drive in terms of speed.

4136: The first singularity reactor is created. This device uses gravitational force to turn matter into tiny singularities that rapidly evaporate into hawking radiation, which is is then harvested. These reactors would rapidly begin to replace most large antimatter ones, but not all, as some were still needed for the immense startup costs of these reactors.

4202: Construction of the first black hole reactor begins using a titan-class station as a base. This station would be designed to incorporate a massive array of singularity reactors that would turn gathered stellar mass directly into energy.

4220: The first rift-gate MK2 is created. This device allows for the creation of a much larger wormhole that can transport several thousand molecules at once.

4235: The first remote gravitic applicator, a device that allows individuals to utilize telekinesis through gravitational force, is created.

4254: The first phase shield is created. This device would bend spacetime to have any incoming projectiles harmlessly bend around it. Unfortunately, these shields could not be active while a warp drive was active like ion shields could.

4288: The first gamma-ray burst cannon is created. This weapon uses a large artificially made black hole to create a full-sized gamma-ray burst similar to those of feeding natural black holes. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of power required and the undeliverable recoil mean that only supercarriers or other larger ships or space stations can mount these weapons.

4277: The first rift-gate MK3 is created using earlier advances in rift-gate technology in addition to singularity drive technology. This new rift-gate would allow for resources and individuals to travel through this gate to any other worm link within 2,000 light years instantly. These new rift-gates could also chain their wormholes together to extend their range indefinitely.

4282: The first rift-beacon is created. This device would allow a rift-gate to lock onto a nearby target within thirty thousand kilometers and pull them through a wormhole back to it.

4292: The first rift stack is created. This cortical stack is connected to a rift-beacon, allowing for it to be transported away from a downed morph to be installed in another.

4300: The first Tesseract Vault is created. This device would use titanic amounts of energy to fold spacetime several times into a sort of pocket realm that could store more matter than the physical space the generator takes up. This device would quickly find a use for storage, construction, housing, and machinery miniaturization.

4333: The first rift-gate MK4 is created. This device would allow for full-sized starships and even average space stations to travel almost instantly from any rift-gate to another within 2,000 lightyears.

4345: The fourth sphere of expansion begins as the first rift drive is created. This new FTL drive would allow a ship to fold the spacetime around a ship into a temporary traversable wormhole between two points within a range of two hundred and fifty lightyears. This rift drive wouldn't be without limitations, however, as it took three hours to recharge the drive and another hour to perform the exceedingly complex navigational equations necessary to jump. This was compared to the mere minutes of warp drives. In addition to this, rift drives could not disengage like the warp drive to avoid collisions as all "jumps" occurred instantly and were semi-blind. Due to this fact, the standard procedure when using a rift drive in unmapped systems was to jump to about two hundred AU from the star and use an onboard warp drive to travel the rest of the way in.

Regardless, rift drives could still travel 1,500 lightyears in a single day, 62.5 times faster than the quickest warp drive.

4367: Experiments with wormholes and singularities accidentally discovers the secrets of reverse entrophic fields, reversing the flow of time instead of slowing it.

4368: The Always A Bigger Fish exploration frigate comes upon a fifteen-kilometer-long tuning-fork-like quantumly locked object at the edge of the Orion spiral arm. This object is suspected to be some sort of alien transport device similar to the largest of rift-gates and is named the Pandora Gate due to the potential of what lies beyond it.

After much discussion, the ATC high council would vote to study it to activate it and see where it goes after linking a string of MK1 Rift-Gates to the stat system to get constant updates on the object's status.

After activating the pandora gate and traveling through some weird spatial tunnel, somehow manipulating the Higgs boson to increase the local speed of light in a tunnel to an unbelievable degree, it dropped them back into realspace tens of thousands of lightyears away through another pandora gate.

It was here that the Terrans would discover a sapient spacefaring civilization that helped found and was a part of an inter-species galactic community known as the Citadel Council, a sapient species that, by all the laws of the universe, should not exist. These Asari, as a species, are just heavily modified humans and/or biomorphs based on baseline human DNA.

As for the Asari, they would meet a species that defied everything they thought they knew about the universe. This species was older than them, more advanced than them, more industrious than them, built their own AIs and treated them as kin, discovered a different form of FTL travel based on gravity instead of mass, and had technologies that essentially made the citadel look like stone-age primitives in comparison.

Oh, and that an ancient race, perhaps the Protheans, had abducted ancient humans from old Earth and genetically modified them to make their species before seeding them on the planet of Thessia.

Codex:

Non-Council Races: Terrans

Government and Civics

The Allied Terran Confederation, or ATC for short, is the governing body for the Terran species and the fourteen semi-autonomous "stellar provinces" that have formed in the wake of the various waves of colonization, where fringe elements would leave the ATC proper, just to be reassimilated at a later date.

Stellar Provinces: The fourteen stellar provinces are allowed an extreme degree of autonomy, but they are still beholden to pay a reasonable tithe of matter units based on their mining and industrial output, in addition to following laws that affect all stellar provinces equally. These laws are made within the ATC High Council. These provinces don't like each other very much, though, and they are in an intense rivalry among themselves to try and one-up each other.

The ATC High Council: The ATC High Council is the representative parliament of the ATC. It is here that the chosen representatives of each stellar province draft, alter, abolish, and/or uphold the laws of the ATC.

This high council is led by the supreme chancellor, an elected Terran sophont who aids in the continued functioning of the high council and also breaks ties on votes.

ATC Symbol: The symbol of the ATC is the Yggdrasil, a stylized tree with four slightly mechanical-looking branches that represent each branch of the Terran species. This symbol was extracted from the public use archive and owes its origins to an early human video game known as Halo from thousands of years ago.

Terran Classifications

Terran Branches: The Terrans are separated into different "branches" to distinguish themselves from each other. Keeping with this theme, the updated symbol of the ATC would become a stylistic representation of a tree with three large branches and various off-shooting branches coming from these.

The First Branch: Baseline Humans, formerly extinct human races, and Transhumans.

The Second Branch: Awoken AIs, AGIs, ASIs, AHIs, Biosynths, and other forms of sapient artificial intelligence.

The Third Branch: Animal and formerly extinct animal uplifts.

The Fourth Branch: Baseline or Transxenos Sophonts (only contains uplifted alien animals and formerly extinct alien animals uplifted by first contact).

ATC Technology

Subspace Technology

Subspace Technology: subspace technology refers to all technology that manipulates gravitational force by 'plucking' cosmic strings related to gravity and the graviton subatomic particle to bend and fold spacetime into various shapes, such as wormholes, singularities, tesseracts, warp bubbles, and various sorts of spatial folds. At first this process would be extremely brute-forced and would involve cramming massive amounts of electromagnetic energy into a certain small and conined area.

Tesseract Vault: These devices use titanic amounts of energy to fold spacetime several times over into a sort of pocket realm that could store more matter than the physical space the generator takes up. This device has found extensive use in storage and construction.

Gravitic Applicator: The gravitic applicator is a device that allows for biotic-like telekinetic abilities through the use of gravitational force.

Gravitic Lense: The gravitic lens is a device that bends spacetime to create a path for physical items, charged particles, or energy to follow without any moving parts

Phase Module: The phase module is a device that uses principles from warp drives to allow morphs, vehicles, and mechs to pass through solid objects by having spacetime bend around them

Gravitic Thrusters: Gravitic Thrusters are the main form of starship propulsion used by the ATC. The gravitic thruster creates a zone of attractive gravity directly in front of the ship, essentially dragging said ship along a gravitational rope at high speeds.

Micro Gravitic Thruster: Used to make turns and other small course corrections, these smaller gravitic thrusters are essentially a gravitational RCS system.

Stasis Fields: Stasis Fields are quantum fields that allow for the freezing of matter perfectly in place by increasing the strong nuclear force. These stasis fields require large amounts of energy. These devices would later be replaced with gravitic variants that use time dilation to freeze them in time.

Stasis Pods: Stasis Pods are pods used to freeze individuals in place for the sake of suspended animation on long journeys or for imprisoning the worst ATC criminals.

Inertial Dampening: Inertial Dampening is a process that uses gravitational fields to dampen the effects of high-gs, allowing starships to reach higher speeds and perform more tight maneuvers

Subspace Technology: FTL Travel

Warp-Drives: Early warp drives would use extreme amounts of electromagnetic force to create a gravitational field while later ones would just manipulate the graviton cosmic string directly. Warp drives work by contacting space in front of them and expands it at the back, creating a wave/bubble-like gradient of spacetime that can increase or decrease in speed depending on how much power and precision is used.

Wormholes / Rifts: folds in the spacetime continuum, wormholes allow for instantaneous travel between two points in spacetime. These wormholes are created through gravitational force, bending the fabric of spacetime into a tunnel.

Rift-Gates: Rift-Gates are the devices that form orb-like wormholes between two points in spacetime. These Rift-Gates can also string their wormholes together to extend their range indefinitely.

Rift-Gate MK1: The first ever Rift-Gate, this device can only transmit subatomic particles such as electrons.

Rift-Gate MK2: a more improved version of the Rift-Gate MK1, this version can transmit a stream of several thousand molecules at once up to 20 lightyears.

Rift-Gate MK3: a more improved version of the Rift-Gate MK2, this version can transport people or a small vehicle up to 2,000 lightyears.

Rift-Gate MK4: The largest and most recently made Rift-Gate, this version can transport up to two supercarriers at once up to 2,000 lightyears.

Rift-Drives: Rift-Drives are devices based on Rift-Gates but can open a wormhole from only one side. These Rift-Drives have a range of two hundred and fifty lightyears, require three hours for the necessary capacitors to recharge in between jumps, and require an entire hour to perform the necessary calculations.

Rift-Slingers: Rift-Slingers are a short-ranged version of the Rift-Drive that allows for the transportation of either twenty morphs or a Rift-Gate MK3 over a distance of one AU to a celestial body, ship, or space station..

Warp Module: The Warp Module is a miniaturized warp drive that allows morphs to make short-ranged warp jumps. These modules use a MK1 Rift-Gate to import the necessary energy.

Augmentation

Augmentation: the natural human body has many flaws brought about through the imperfect process of evolution. These flaws can be rectified through the use of various modifications.

Cyber-cells: cyber-cells are cells that are fully cybernetic, having both organic and synthetic parts.

Cyber-flesh: Cyber-flesh is a flesh-like material made entirely from cyber-cells and makes augmentations infinitely easier.

Cyber-brains: cyber-brains are the result of advanced cyber-flesh technology; a fully cybernetic organ that uses the individual's DNA to create a superior substrate for a Terran ego to reside in.

Cortical Stack: The Cortical Stack is a small device that allows egos to reside in the event of a cyber-brain being critically damaged. Egos in this device are unable to act or perceive the world around them, yet they are still conscious and able to act in a basic simulation.

Rift-Stack: This cortical stack is connected to a rift-beacon, allowing for it to be transported away from a downed morph to be re-sleeved into a new morph elsewhere.

Morphs: morphs are fully customizable bodies that Terrans live in that house their cyber-brain.

Bio-morphs: Bio-morphs are morphs that are fully made out of organic material.

Synth-morphs: synth-morphs are morphs that are fully made out of synthetic material, such as living metal.

Techno-organic Morphs: techno-organic morphs are morphs whose bodies are made out of both organic and synthetic materials in varying ratios to each other.

Nanotechnology

Nano-factories: Nano-factories are machines that combine basic elements into almost anything.

Transmutation Arrays: Transmutation Arrays are massive facilities that fuse post-iron elements into post-supernova elements for use in nano-factories.

Living Metal: Regenerative Molecular Nano Metal, better known as Living Metal, is a material that can instantly regenerate from any form of damage that doesn't break molecular bonds or which somehow overtaxes its regeneration factor. This living metal is the standard issue material used in place of normal metal alloys. As for attacks that break molecular bonds, it can still regenerate from these quickly but does so at a significantly slower rate.

Hardlight: Hard light is a form of photonic matter held tightly in place by quantum fields that compress and lock these photons together.

Nanites: also known as nanomachines, are tiny robots smaller than a nanometer.

Warheads: nanite warheads are warheads that release a cloud of matter-devouring nanite swarms.

Swarms: Nanite swarms are clouds of matter-devouring nanites that separate molecular bonds.

Repair Bots: Repair bots are nanites that reform broken molecular bonds to repair whatever they touch.

Mechs: Mechs are automatons used for physical labor, weapon platforms, etc.

Living Metal Drone: the standard mech of the ATC. These mechs of varying shapes and sizes are entirely composed of living metal, a power source, a control node, and an optional antigravity unit.

As for military models, these also have various weapon systems, quantum locked interlocking armor plating, and an onboard ion shield generator.

Time Manipulation Technology

Time Dialation Generator: this device uses powerful and highly concentrated gravitational fields to make anything in its area of effect experience time significantly slower than the universe around it. These generators are used in stasis field generators.

Reverse Entropic Fields: By creating a reverse singularity, akin to a white hole, the flow of tine can be reversed in a certain area.

Weapons Technology

Electrical: electrical weapons are weapons that use electrical energy to create electro-lasers that shoot energy blasts that are similar looking to lightning bolts.

Magnetic: magnetic weapons are weapons that use magnetic fields to linearly accelerate projectiles. Nowadays, these weapons are only used to fire hard-light bolts, antimatter capsules, and missiles.

Laser: Laser guns are medium-ranged weapons that shoot lasers of various wavelengths, ranging from microwaves to x-rays.

Plasma: First made by the long-defunct Jovian junta, plasma guns are weapons that use rings of ionized gas as devastating hybrid energy and kinetic weapons. In addition to these ranged weapons, plasma grenades, shields, and blades also exist.

Neutron: neutron weapons are bombs and beam weapons that use neutrons to destroy organic and techno-organic material while leaving everything else intact.

Gauss-Alpha Accelerator: Gauss-Alpha Accelerator weapons are both ranged and melee weapons that use magnetic fields to guide a large alternating stream of alpha particles along or at a specified area, essentially forcing them to act like several hundred trillion monomolecular chainsaws.

Antimatter: Antimatter weapons are weapons that mostly act as explosives and accelerated explosive capsules. They also exist in a beam weapon format. These beam weapons fire a stream of antimatter and a parallel stream of matter that can be configured to explode at a variable distance. These beam weapons have a weakness, though, They cannot be used in an atmosphere as they immediately annihilate the first atoms they touch in it.

Anti-Shell Accelerator: anti-shell accelerators are weapons that fire capsules containing small amounts of antimatter from a railgun. The payload of these capsules is released on impact, causing a large explosion.

Hard-light: Hard-light weapons, more commonly known as bolters, are the successors of plasma weapons in that they are both energy weapons and kinetic weapons. These weapons fire tiny slugs known as bolts, which use quantum fields to barely hold this photonic matter together, only to have it explode violently on impact by reversing the polarity of the quantum fields from attraction to repulsion.

Hard-light Blades: Hard-light blades are melee weapons that use blades of hard-light with unstable edges to burn through and molecularly disrupt anything they touch.

Gravitational: Gravitational weapons come in many shapes and sizes but the most common weapons that use gravitational force to pull, push, shred, expand, compress, or create short-lived singularities.

GRB Cannon: These extremely heavy ship weapons use artificial black holes to fire off full-sized gamma-ray bursts equal to that of a large dying star or a feeding black hole. Due to their power requirements and recoil, these weapons can only be mounted on supercarriers and similarly sized or larger space stations. The sheer power of these weapons also prevents the ATC from beaming them through wormholes or placing them in tesseract vaults as the amount of energy they carry destabilizes them to the point of non-functionality.

Phase Weapons: Phase weapons are a unique form of gravitational weapon that uses principles found in warp drives to bend spacetime around them to bypass shields and armor, only to then become corporeal again to exert damage. These weapons come in both ranged and melee formats.

Phaseblade: The phase blade is a hard-light blade cloaked in a phase emitter, which can then deactivate after bypassing shields and armor, allowing the blade to cause extreme damage internally.

Phase Bolter: The phase bolter is a weapon that fires hard-light bolts cloaked by a phase emitter, which then deactivates and becomes corporeal while within the target, allowing the hard-light bolt to explode outwardly.

Shielding Technology

Quantum Shield: Quantum shields are devices that "locks" atoms and other subatomic particles in place, slowing them or completely freezing them in place. These shields are used to quantum lock armor plating to make them all but impervious to anything that doesn't break molecular bonds.

Ion Shields: Ion shields are shields that replicate the conditions of the earth's ionosphere to block both high-energy beams and charged particles by using plasma contained within a magnetic field.

Hard-light Shields: Hard-light shields are plates made of photonic matter that are projected right above armor that regenerate when damaged.

Phase Shields: Phase Shields are shields that work on the principles of warp drives to force any incoming projectiles to bend around harmlessly. Phase shields also seem to block the effects of time dilation as the altered fabric of spacetime flows around the shield like everything else.

Power Generation

Helium-3 Fusion: Just like the council, the ATC has developed fusion reactors powered by helium-3 gas. Unlike the council, however, these reactors are far smaller and output far more power.

Microfusion Cell MK1: The Microfusion Cell MK1 is a fusion reactor the size of a large metal can.

Microfusion Cell MK2: An incredibly tiny fusion reactor the size of an ancient fifty-caliber bullet.

Antimatter: Antimatter reactors are devices that use an antimatter annihilation reaction to generate power.

Singularity: A singularity reactor is a machine that turns matter into tiny singularities. From here, these singularities quickly evaporate into hawking radiation, which is then harvested and turned into massive amounts of usable energy comparable to antimatter reactors.

Misc Technology

Rift Beacon: The Rift Beacon is a device that allows a rift-slinger to lock onto an exact location. While this can be done without one, it is far more inaccurate, takes longer, and is outright impossible if the area is shielded against scans.

Drop Pod: The Drop pod is a device that allows precision insertion into an area through the use of wormholes.

Beacon Variant Drop Pod: The beacon variant of a drop pod uses a quantum beacon to project a signal for a rift-slinger to lock onto and send up to twenty people at a time.

Rift-Variant Drop Pod: The rift-variant of a drop pod carries a collapsible MK3 Rift-Gate that people and vehicles can travel through, regardless of scan shielding.

Psionics: an extremely heavily regulated science, psionics is the practice of using various means to hijack and control egos, create illusions, invoke madness, impair the senses, alter organic minds, hack synthetic minds, or induce fear and terror. These methods range from using ultrasound and infrasound, brain jacking programs, mindjacker drones, quantum neural alteration signals, and traditional digital hacking. Luckily, all these methods can be defended against and are seen as just another method of inflicting damage. Individuals who specialize in these methods are known as psions.

Megastructures

Star Lifter: The star lifter is a device that allows stellar material to be harvested from a star. These devices would also eventually allow for the manipulation of stars in ways that would extend their lifespans by better mixing the fusion materials within.

Computation Megastructures

Asteroid Brain: The asteroid brain is a matryoshka brain the size of an asteroid. This construct is required to birth a second-singularity intelligence, an intelligence so powerful that it is as big a leap forward as when the first branch of terrankind made the first AGI.

Moon Brain: The moon brain is a matryoshka brain the size of a large moon. This construct is required to birth an artificial ultra-intelligence, or AUI.

Planet Brain: The planet brain is the largest Matrioshka Brain construct yet created by the ATC. This construct is required to birth a third-singularity intelligence, an intelligence that is so powerful that it is as big a leap forward as when terrankind made the first asteroid brain.

ATC Starship Classifications and Sizes

Fighter: Just like the council, the ATC uses fighters but unlike them, they are all autonomous drones.

Hunter-Killer (30m)

Bomber (45m)

Gunship (300m)

Destroyer (500-700m)

Frigate (1-2km)

Battleship (3-4km)

Carrier (5-7km)

Assault Carrier (8-9km)

Cruiser (10–20km)

Supercarrier (25-30km)

Mobile Fortress (50km)

Planetioid Engine (60km - 5,000km)

World Engine (6000km or more)