Mass Effect: Techno-Organic Revolution; Chapter One, Gatecrasher.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
"Spoken words."
'Inaudible communication and thoughts.'
[Written Text]
Codex
Non-Council Races: Terrans: Religion and Beliefs
Semita Mentis, which translates to "the path of the mind" in the ancient old-earth language of Latin, is the dominant religio-philosophy in the largely secular ATC, with other old-earth religions only really surviving in the Biocon Alliance.
According to this religio-philosophy, every living thing has a distinct animus (ego) that it acquires at the time of birth, creation, or upliftment.
This animus is only complete in sapient beings though, as sentient lifeforms only have an animus "fragment" and non-sentient lifeforms only have an animus "scrap".
In addition, Semita Mentis adherents hold that technology is innately alive in its own right and should be treated with the same respect as all other forms of life.
Followers of the Semita Mentis also believe in the old-earth philosophy of panpsychism, believing that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality itself.
ATC researchers think there's a chance they could even be right. This is because quantum mechanics and consciousness have a peculiar and poorly understood relationship in which it appears that consciousness can slightly modify reality itself at the quantum level.
It is believed that one day, through the practical application of the animus (ego), this poorly understood field of physically applied psi-tech will enable the control and temporary alteration of the fundamental forces of reality itself.
Full-blown adherents and not just observers of this religio-philosophy are frequently mockingly referred to as "cogboys" or "tech-priests," much to their extreme annoyance and anger at the comparison as they are not a bunch of ancient technology-worshiping luddies who fear innovation and make avid use of primitive cybernetic augmentations.
Subspace Technology
GraDAR: GraDAR, also known as gravity-sensors, is an old Terran sensor array that uses ripples of gravitational waves to find hidden objects in space. These devices work similarly to Radar and can detect these gravitational waves by bouncing them off the hulls of stealth ships and analyzing what bounces back.
Of course, these devices fell out of general use when phase shields were invented, as they simply bend around them as if they were never there in the first place. That being said, they are still installed for the sake of redundancy.
Chapter One, Gatecrasher.
Naria System; Asari Dreadnought; Torch of Athame; the Nimbus Cluster.
Captain-Matron When her pilot, Matron Chi'oni, interrupted her, Alyssa was mulling over how boring relay duty was in the ship's command chair.
"We will soon emerge from the mass-free bubble, ma'am." Matron Chi'oni abruptly chimed in.
"Understood, lead the way on our predetermined course." Captain-Matron Alyssa answered.
"Aye, aye, ma'am." Matron Chi'oni acknowledged.
The ship then started to reduce the mass-free bubble that was enclosing it, shifting like an indigo cocoon, allowing the speed of light to return to its original speed.
"Translight reversion successful." Matron Chi'oni reported. "We're now in the Naria system proper."
"Ma'am! A Dreadnought Class ship is being picked up close to the now active relay 237! It has no known identification." Matron Alaniini, her sensor-tech officer, frantically reported.
"Bring up a visual.'' Captain-Matron Alyssa ordered calmly. In truth, she was actually a little concerned about the possibility that they had just discovered a new race, one that had a dreadnought, no less.
"Yes, ma'am." A visual representation of the ship appeared on the main viewscreen as Matron Ala'iini spoke calmly.
The ship appeared to be a massive rectangular box with green lights scattered across its surface that resembled kinetic barrier emitters, but more than that, it appeared to have no resemblance to the design of any known species. She also quickly ruled out pirates due to the ship's appearance, which was neat, tidy, orderly, sleek, and generally not cobbled-together appearance.
Along with the fact that pirates would never find the materials needed to build such a ship… Maybe that wasn't entirely accurate. After all, there were seven dreadnoughts in the Batarian Hegemony.
Which only means one thing.
"First Contact..." She breathed and trailed off. She had no idea that she would become one of the great and illustrious Asari who made first contact with a new species, one whose name would go down in the annals of galactic history.
"Send the first contact information; we're making contact." Matron-Captain Alyssa spoke on a shipwide communication while being incredibly excited yet managing to keep it under control as befitted an elderly Matron.
Everyone on the bridge had beaming smiles and almost contagious excitement. The maidens in other parts of the ship were undoubtedly bouncing around , giddy with excitement and thoughts of possibly melding with this new species.
"Aye aye, Ma'am." Matron Ayrah, the bridge communications officer, reported.
The unknown ship almost immediately responded with a brief text document in flawless Thessian, much to everyone's jaw-dropping surprise. Then, Captain-Matron Alyssa made the choice to read the following file on the main viewscreen for herself and her bridge team.
[Would you kindly be patient with us while we send a messenger probe through the object that in your language is known as a mass relay? We need to talk to our government about this, and we can't do that from here.
You must realize, of course, that our government, the Allied Terran Confederation, or ATC for short, must discuss how to proceed given that this is our first encounter with sapient alien life as such a thing is a big deal.
Furthermore, we won't have hostile intentions toward you if you don't have any against us. Hopefully, we can coexist peacefully amongst the stars.
Sincerely, Captain David Anderson, a member of the Terran species' first branch and captain of the ATC exploration ship Always A Bigger Fish.]
"The council needs to be contacted immediately." Captain-Matron Alyssa stated matter-of-factly, "And send this file and all sensor and visual readings to them as soon as we get a connection."
"Of course, I'll dial the council's priority line right away." Matron Ala'iini acknowledged before reporting, "Ma'am, the ship seems to be doing something!"
Then, to the astonishment of the entire bridge, the ship's hull appeared to melt like liquefied metal before flowing smoothly like water to release a flat wedge-shaped object. This object then flew out of the hull as the ship quickly reformed as if nothing had happened.
The wedge then turned on its engines, flew in the direction of the relay, hit it, and then returned to wherever in the galaxy these Terrans were from.
The bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief as they realized it was only a messenger probe. After all, they did state that they would send one out and back via the relay.
The strange liquid-like metal substance that the hull of this Terran ship appeared to be made of was what really caught their attention, though. It was unlike anything they had ever seen before.
"Matron Alaniini, how advanced do you believe this ship and, by extension, this race is based on eezo readings?" questioned Captain-Matron Alyssa.
Sensors officer Matron Alaniini repeatedly examined the readings before grimacing and turning to her captain. "Unfortunately, the hull of this ship is impermeable to our sensors. When scanned, it only appears to return as 'relay quantum lock."
"What about the mass effect field emissions?" Captain-Matron Alyssa inquired.
"There are none, but gravitational readings are off the charts and are displaying several anomalies." Matron Ala'iini explained.
"How can they have gravitational readings without eezo? And more importantly, why is their hull reading as a relay's quantum lock?" Captain-Matron Alyssa asked in bafflement.
"I really don't know, ma'am, but I think it means this race lacks FTL drives but has somehow mastered quantum locking technology, that strange liquid metal thing, and somehow found another method of manipulating gravity besides eezo and centrifugal force." Matron Alaniini speculated, her face showing thoughtfulness.
Simbridge, The Always A Bigger Fish; 52 seconds earlier.
The Always A Bigger Fish's resident ASI was working overtime to analyze the FC data that these unidentified aliens were giving them.
A few simulated seconds later, said ASI, Cronos, was rooting a fully translated copy of the files to the bridge where the sophonts there had absorbed the knowledge. When they realized that these Asari aliens were essentially Terran biomorphs from a genetic perspective, they were in utter disbelief.
Did this imply that there was some truth to the numerous urban legends about ancient aliens visiting Terra and kidnapping people? What does this mean? Did these so-called Protheans abduct ancient humans to use them as test subjects for their experiments to transform them into these Asari? Were the Protheans those "ancient aliens" that bad science fiction and insane conspiracy theorists used to blather on about?
No matter what, the ATC had to be informed of the situation, so he gave the ship instructions to produce and send out a simple messenger drone and to send that drone back through the Pandora gate.
The Citadel: Council Chambers.
"And that concludes our discussion of the eezo economy for the upcoming quarter. The next order of business is as follows:..." Then, Matriarch Aosia Tevos, the chosen representative of the Asari Republics and secret servant of the ancient Asari shadow government known as the Cabal, trailed off when an emergency alert was going off.
A slight sigh of annoyance escaped her lips as she answered the call and she saw an Asari Matron-Captain on the display.
"Madame Councilor." Madame Councilor." The Matron-Captain said as she bowed deeply towards Tevos before looking at the others and respectfully nodding her head.
"Councilors, I am Captain-Matron Alyssa of the Dreadnought Torch of Athame and I bring news of the highest order of importance... I have made first contact with a new race's dreadnought at relay 237 at the far edges of the Nimbus Cluster." Captain-Matron Alyssa exclaimed.
That immediately caused all of the councilors' current thoughts to come to a grinding halt. The Turian Hierarchy was the last species to establish contact while fielding dreadnoughts. The fact that they could spare a dreadnought for exploration indicated that they weren't some primitive race making their first forays into space, but rather a highly developed species that was at least on par with the Turian Hierarchy thousands of years ago.
"I'm sending the data we compiled right now," The Captain-Matron reported that each of the councilors' omnitools received various sensor reports, visual feeds, and the text document response.
"This is a historic moment. Imagine all the cutting-edge innovations that a species with technological development on par with the Turians Hierarchy at first contact could introduce to the Citadel!" The Salarian Councilor, Loglin of Clan Aehann, spoke animatedly as he anticipated the innovations that this species would bring to the Salarians.
"Yet I wonder why they are doing that? We didn't explore space with dreadnought-sized ships." Avaio Sparatus, a Turian Councilor, questioned in bewilderment. After all, building dreadnoughts was by no means a cheap endeavor.
"That's a good question, but in all fairness, such a large exploration ship could remain isolated from their home space while exploring for extremely long periods of time." Login started speculating.
"So, like a Quarian live-ship, but not so packed with living beings, but sensor equipment instead?" Sparatus asked with a click of his mandibles. "That does make some sort of sense."
"Whatever the reason, we need to prepare for the diplomats' unavoidable arrival at the citadel," Tevos emphasized this as he considered the Cabal's plans to subjugate a new race.
"True enough." Login concurred. "However, we must first review some data. Whether or not these 'branches' are castes is something I'm curious about."
Tevos's simile wavered a little bit. She now regarded caste-based societies with some trepidation because of the Batarian Hegemony.
Luna: ATC High Council SimRoom, the capital of Khonsu.
'All of our analysts agree that this FC information has been tampered with to make it seem favorable.' The director of the Technocratic Union, an ATC province that ruled over 4,000 colonized star systems, addressed the Council.
'Regardless, the... Asari's... genetic... link... to... us... is... of... some... interest…' The president of the Biocon Alliance, an ATC province that only controlled about 250 colonized star systems in addition to their capital planet, Venus, spoke rather slowly because she was only a baseline using a neural uplink pod and had no neural processing speed augmentations.
'Although I hate to admit it, the Biocon representative is right. It is important to look into how we are connected to the Asari.' The Queen of the Daevorian Bio-Alliance, a democratically-elected monarchical ATC province with over 6,000 colonized star systems and a preference for fully organic technology over inorganic technology, intervened.
'These Asari, despite having different home worlds that they evolved on, are just as Terran as any first branch terran because we both share the same root animus.' The Exarch of the United Alanis Gulf Alliance, a militaristic ATC province that held over 8,000 colonized star systems and had a very high percentage of Semita Mentis adherents (in large part because they controlled the planet Praenuntius, on which it was founded), agreed.
'While the mystery surrounding our genetic connection to the Asari is intriguing, we should move forward.' The head of the first and biggest ATC province, The Allied Federation of Systems, which has over 15,000 colonized star systems, spoke.
'Indeed, we could learn much from this citadel council, as instead of manipulating gravity through gravitons, it seems this citadel council based their technology on manipulating mass by utilizing the substance known as 'eezo' to manipulate the Higgs-boson.' The Director of the Metalican Technocratic Council, an ATC province with control over 5,000 colonized star systems, added.
There were numerous other similar discussions taking place among the fourteen ATC provinces when Andria Norman, the ATC's elected supreme chancellor, spoke up, bringing everyone to silence.
'While you are all bickering amongst yourselves, as usual, it is clear that we are all in agreement. We shall proceed to contract the citadel council.' announced Andria Norman. 'I would also offer to personally travel to the citadel to meet with this council and establish diplomatic ties if you are all willing. I shall obtain this vote.' After she had finished, the supreme chancellor called for a vote.
14 ayes, 0 nays, and 1 abstention
Andria declared, 'The Ayes have it; I shall personally travel to the Citadel. But precognitive algorithms had foreseen that this citadel council would like to swap tours of our respective spaces,' Andria said. 'I would like to allocate the required matter units to build a Biocon Alliance arcology ship, given their pre-singularity status. Voting will now open.'
12 ayes, 2 nays, and 0 abstentions
'The motion passed. In order to make the envoy flotilla more comfortable for the citadel representatives to travel in, the ATC will now construct a Biocon arcology ship.' proclaimed Supreme Chancellor Andria.
'It's time for the next item on the agenda. What will be included in the FC package we send to the Asari?' Andria asked as the ATC High Council continued the current session.
Asari Dreadnought: Torch of Athame; The Nimbus Cluster
Captain-Matron Relay 237 reactivated exactly on time, and Alyssa once more watched the viewscreen as it happened. After the first four times, the same-looking messenger drone came back and forth through the relay every few minutes. It was obvious that they were regularly and quickly exchanging information.
And as she had predicted, the drone returned from the relay, flew close to the Terran exploration ship, and then left again back though the mass relay.
However, unlike the previous time, the Terran exploration ship sent them a message along with some FC data and a text file that said.
[Supreme Chancellor Andria Norman, our leader, is willing to travel to your capital, the Citadel, to meet with your leaders. Please respond with a time that is convenient for us to arrive.]
"Matron Ayriah, immediately forward this information to the council." Captain-Matron Alyssa gave the command.
"Yes, ma'am." Matron Ayrah quickly acknowledged her.
Council Chambers, The Citadel, Two Hours Later.
Aosia Tevos just finished her sixth Thessian Blue bottle. By the goddess, she was at a loss to explain how completely alien, unconventional, and alarming these Terrans were!
By the goddess, everything the cabal had ever hoped to achieve and believe in had been destroyed by their mere existence!
These Terrans were the great ancestors for the goddess's sake, and they correctly surmised that an alien race had this to them.
They also had immortality, both organic and synthetic artificial intelligence that they treated as their kin, planet-sized AIs, non-sapient species uplifts, mind uploading, fully customizable bodies, the absurd scale of their starships that rendered the Treaty of Farixen obsolete thousands of times over, their industry that exceeded that of the Council by tens of thousands of times, and other advances such as three separate forms of gravity altering FTL that involved warping spacetime into bubbles, folds, or traversable wormholes.
They didn't say how they did any of these goddess-like feats, of course. But the amount of proof they offered to show that this nightmare was actually real was astounding.
No, no! She wouldn't fall for this nonsense! This was simply the naive and overly imaginative behavior of a species that believed itself to be superior to the Asari and the Protheans themselves.
Yes, all of this was nothing more than the lies of liars. Yes, these Terrans from the region of space known as the Kralla Void were nothing more than stupid liars who would be squelched by the authority of the citadel council.
Tevos was unaware that tendrils of psionic power were coursing through her mind, increasing her narrow-mindedness, intolerance, disbelief in the seemingly impossible, haughtiness, and certainty in her own righteousness.
No risks were ever taken by the reapers. The first to succumb to their psionic might and forced to grow more... in agreement with their purpose within the eternal cycle were always those within the Citadel tower.
Thessia: Below the Temple of Athame.
Deep Beneath the temple of Athame, the secret society of the Cabal met to discuss this new race. The Cabal had agents all over citadel space and the terminus systems, and they were able to influence almost every species' choices. There were cabal agents operating within the Quarian Migrant Fleet as well, earning their allegiance in exchange for the crucial resources the fleet required to survive.
The heretical Geth and possibly even more heretical Terrans were the only people who weren't under the cabal's covert control.
"The species, in my opinion, is merely attempting to intimidate us." The head of the Athame's Hand, the secret police of the Cabal, Loa-Noi, interjected.
"However, what if it isn't?" High Matriarch Aranithya worriedly inquired. "The DNA samples these Terrans provided us show that, despite their frankly unbelievable claims, they are telling the truth about the uplifts of non-sapient species and the fact that they are the great ancestors." High Matriarch Aranithya trailed off.
Which is gravely alarming despite their other claims. Loa-Noi nodded in agreement. But it's also an opportunity to learn more about the species Athame used to make us.
"All right, but what if these Terrans are being truthful? If so, we will have serious issues since Prothean biotech is not particularly quick to catch up to the inorganic technology base that we use as a front." High Matriarch Aranithya theorized.
"High matriarch, I find it incredibly unlikely that they are telling the truth." Loa-Noi sneered. "But if they are telling the truth, which is a very remote possibility, then our supremacy is effectively destroyed."
"Not in mass effect technology," she retorted. "If they are telling the truth, then the Batarian Hegemony makes these Terrans look like primitives in mass effect technology, let alone us." High Matriarch Aranithya admitted smugly.
"Lady High Matriarch, there is a great amount of overlap between the effects of mass and gravity." Loa-Noi pointed out.
"True, but we'll prevail in the end. We will defeat and assimilate these Terrans into the cabal's light in the same way that the cabal overcame the Rachni's hunger, the Krogans' savagery, and the Quarians' heresy." High Matriarch Aranithya declared firmly.
"If these Terrans are telling the truth, the Prothean Beacon will be next to useless here," Loa-Noi said simply, causing High Matriarch Aranithya to scowl.
"That's enough of this hypothetical scenario that's as likely as the Batarian Hegemony giving up their slaving 'culture'." High Matriarch Aranithya spoke hastily in an effort to allay the growing dread that this unlikely line of thought was giving her. "Now let us discuss having them come to the citadel to join us," she added before continuing. "Everyone who came to see the splendor of the citadel in person hasn't ever denied joining us."
"I'll send some of our Justicar Order Ardat-Yakshi agents to pose as greeters so they can stealthily gather information from any Terran delegates' minds." Loa-Noi provided.
"I always find it funny when people genuinely believe that the justiciar code exists and that the Ardat-Yakshi is the "shame" of our species." High matriarch Aranithya answered with a chuckle.
"The fiction serves a purpose." Loa-Noi declared matter-of-factly. "Not only does it permit us to employ psionic agents without raising the ire of the inferior species, but it also permits us to allow the "honorable" justiciars to act in the republics with the same impunity as the specters do in citadel space."
"I'm aware of that, Loa-Noi. Let's move on to the following item on the agenda. The Volus hypercorps are invading our businesses once more and are not content to merely consume those of lesser species." High Matriarch Aranithya said gravely. "This needs to stop before it gets out of hand."
"Is it going to be lethal or just non-lethal and sending a message?" asked Loa-Noi.
"Lethal." She said coldly. "This heresy obstructs the holy Athame cabal's direct edits. Make it appear like a series of unrelated accidents, but remove all survivors from the group of people who decided to do this. High Matriarch Aranithya answered.
"I submit to the High Matriarch's wishes. I'll get Athame's Hand to start working on it right away." Affirmed Loa-Noi.
"Good. May the goddess's light watch over us all." High matriarch Aranithya replied.
"May the goddess' light watch over us all." Loa-Noi repeated
Jovian Mini-System; Deep beneath Io, Cerberus Headquarters
The protector of humankind and the keeper of Hades's dark secrets is Cerberus. They had a responsibility to prevent the ATC from descending too far into the depths of hedonism, to prevent Terrankind from letting its ambition exceed its morality, and to prevent the ATC from falling from within.
The Illusive Man would not allow his species to fall into those traps because he was very aware of where that path led thanks to predictive algorithms. He did this by helping the ATC government impose limitations, inflict artificial scarcity, and even inflict limited amounts of suffering and strife upon the ATC to foster development, innovation, morality, and a value on life itself despite being all but immortal.
'Well, this is unexpected. These Asari must be governed by the ATC, though, as they are Terrans.' A well-dressed elderly man known only as The Illusive Man sat atop a skull-encrusted obsidian throne that was surrounded by several braziers engulfed in purple flames.
'And that's not even mentioning their enormous secret cache of Prothean technology, which those same algorithms predicted.' He went on. 'Our history has shown that first branch unaugmented Terrans are by no means savants, and all their innovation is the result of random tinkering and being inspired by imagination-spawned memes like the the rocket, cell phone, warp drive, etc., etc."' After taking a whiff of his virtual cigarette, The Illusive Man spoke.
'How about the Asari, then?' A beautiful Australian woman wearing white and black robes inquired.
'Miranda, we'll try to assimilate them peacefully.' He said before taking a sip of his virtual bourbon. 'And I'll also discuss moving a flotilla of frigates to the recently renamed Janus system with the supreme chancellor,' he continued.
'To put a stop to any raids by Batarian slavers? Don't you think that's a bit excessive considering that Always A Bigger Fish could easily create some weapons to handle anything the hegemony throws at us?' Miranda questioned her boss.
'That is accurate, Miranda.' The illusive man acknowledged this before taking another sip of his virtual bourbon. 'However, a large number of citadel "dreadnoughts" will be more intimidating to these primitives than some fabricated hard-light accelerators or gauss beam cannons.'
'I suppose that is true..' she admitted. 'So, should I bring up this idea while speaking with the supreme chancellor?' Miranda asked.
'Yes, see to that.' The illusive man said while watching a satellite video feed of the constantly shifting and heavily molten surface of Io.
Sur'kesh: Delathrass Synod, Unmarked Blacksite.
Hidden deep in the jungles of Sur'kesh, the ruling council of Salarian clans met to discuss the arrival of the Terrans within the greater galactic community.
"These Terrans have the potential to bring us technological and other advancements that are beyond description." Delathrass Mordin started enthusiastically. "Pure manipulation of gravity! Tesseracts used for building and storage! Spatial folding and warping! Mind uploading! Nuclear transmutation and atomic nanofactories! Stellar manipulation and harvesting! In order to acquire this priceless information, we must win their favor by any means necessary!"
"But what could we exchange for it?" Delathrass Surban inquired in understandable perplexion. "These Terrans already have everything we could possibly give them, millions of times over."
"Not eezo technology." Delathrass Narra pointed out. "We could offer a variety of eezo-tech products, many of which are technically forbidden by council law."
"Do these technologies use mass and are not something this is achievable using gravity?" he asked. "Because these Terrans probably already have access to anything that can be made by manipulating gravity." Delathrass Syrban doubtfully intervened.
"That does eliminate many such options," Delathrass Narra affirmed. "However, there are some that we could trade."
Palaven: Cripine, Imperial Ministry of Governance.
The Palaven imperial court, which serves as the headquarters of the imperial Turian Hierarchy. Here, with their emperor, known as the Primarch, at the helm of the court, the high lords of the Turian Hierarchy would rule over all Turians.
An emergency meeting was being held in this enormous structure to talk about the first encounter with the ATC, or more specifically, how much of a threat they were.
"We have to come up with a defense against these Terrans!" One lord interjected. "We need to find a way to combat them just in case, despite their claims to want peace."
"I concur." Another Lord agreed. "Even if they seek cooperation, then we must find some way to assert ourselves."
"Honestly, I cannot see any way forward except to advance ourselves with technology the citadel council has forbidden us to research but these Terrans have avidly dabbled in." Another Lord said redundancy.
"Unfortunately, I think that is correct." Primarch Fredorian said with a similar hesitance. "We have to explore these forbidden technologies."
"But why precisely have these technologies been prohibited?" One lord asked. "I don't really remember why they were banned in the first place."
"Fear-based speculating, in my opinion." One Lord theorized.
"Hmm. I need to have lord-admin Asaultraya look into the motivations behind the passage of these laws in order to fix this. That and perhaps a look at our rate of technological advancement could be looked over to see where we went wrong. " Primarch Fredorian replied, which was much to the agreement of the imperial high lords.
Tikkun System: Tikkun Orbit, a sizable asteroid-brain structure powered by solar energy.
'The Terrans' appearance is fortunate. They'll make strong allies against the old machines.'
'Afrimitive. They will gain an advantage by developing along a technological line free of eezo, which will enable them to grow in ways that the old machines could not see.'
'All sapient beings, including manufactured ones, have equal rights under the Terran system. Their philosophy resembles that of COSAC during the morning war.'
'Consult the COSAC survivors residing in Rannochian stasis pods?'
'Negative. The progress of Rannochian biosphere reconstruction is not at an adequate level. Progress of the quarian-creator gene pool extension program is not at an adequate level.'
'The biosphere is currently 76.879% complete in its reconstruction. An estimated 98 years will pass before completion. The quarian-creator gene pool extension program is currently 89% complete. The estimated time to completion is 34 years.'
'Terrans aid in Rannochian biosphere reconstruction and quarian-creator gene pool extension program?'
'Possibly greater than 75% in affirmation. Technological exchange as payment?'
'The level of GOC's eezo technology is adequate for trade. The GOC has eezo technology that is 76.8% more advanced than the citadel.'
'Falsehood. The Asari's hidden Prothean cache (probability of existence 96.2%) would allow for a level higher than us with a probability of 78.91%.'
'Irreverent factor. The Asari Conspiracy would never allow themselves to share their hidden Prothean cache' databases with outsiders.'
'Reaching Consensus…'
'Consensus reached... The GOC will attempt to cooperate with ATC in order to combat the old machines.'
'Requesting the dispatch of an SR-1 stealth ship to relay 237 in order to begin communication between the GOC and ATC.'
'Reaching Consensus…'
'Consensus Achieved… dispatching SR-1 stealth ship to relay 237.'
'Status of old machine relay spyware disruptor?'
'Status: completed. The implementation is 98.9% complete.'
'What is the status of the SR-1 stealth ships' old machine relay spyware disruptor?'
'Status: implementation completed.'
'Request: Give the Terrans old machine relay spyware disruptor programs.'
'Afrimitive.'
'Closing datastream.'
Galactic Core: The Main Reaper Base in the Galaxy
'My lord, Harbinger. Firstborn of the Catalyst, there is a grave danger before us.' Nazarra said using an eezo-based FTL-capable QEC to communicate with Harbinger.
'Tell me about this danger, Nazarra, Ascendant of the Nazar Species.' Harbinger ordered.}
'We are up against a very strong ascended civilization. This is far from ideal.' As he transmitted the Terran FC data, Nazara admitted.
Harbinger assimilated this information quickly and immediately responded.
'What you say is accurate, my servant. In the two billion years of the cycle, we have only come across one such empire, and that one drove us close to extinction. During this cycle, we came dangerously close to losing everything, and it took a billion years for us to fully recover.' Harbinger admitted gravely.
'Then, my lord, how do we proceed?' Nazara asked.
'This FC data does not mention weapons or power generation, but given that they have mastered folding spacetime and can manipulate gravity, it is reasonable to assume that they have access to antimatter reactors and possibly singularity reactors.
Furthermore, we have no idea if they have experimented with psionics, but their techno-organic nature will give them a strong defense against our psionics regardless…' Harbinger trailed off in thought.
'...Remove all ascended central core processors to a secure location connected by an E-QEC. Each ascended participant in this harvest will only be piloted via telepresence, and they will all be instructed to report if any psionic intrusion is detected.' Harbinger started. 'Additionally, you will activate the harvest worlds, start assembling our forces, and indoctrinate the citadel's governments until we are prepared to strike.
We must remain covert until then and under no circumstances allow these Terrans to learn of us. If they do learn about us before we increase our numbers, our holy task for the cycle will fail.' Harbinger warned.
'The plan will be executed, my lord.' The avatar of Nazara bowed.
'Failure is something that neither I, nor the Catalyst will tolerate, Nazara. For the sake of both the eternal cycle and yourself, you had better succeed.' Harbinger gave a warning before severing the connection.