Vai'Gerral awoke with a start, her hand instantly going to her arm, to tap a button on her omnitool and contact the bridge. The engines weren't running. There was silence, a quiet that just didn't happen on a ship. If something wasn't done, they would all be dead, or worse. Her mind worked slowly to wonder why her hand touched nothing but bare skin as she reached for her omnitool, and when she realized she was exposed, her mind worked on that problem too.
Then she began to remember things. The silence was that of a station. She was on Gloval Station, the center of politics for the Federation. She had been here for weeks now, and yet, she still woke like that, a fact that would have made her laugh, had it not been so sad. Her people had been living on those ships for generations, and she herself had left them only once, for less than a month on her pilgrimage. Those instincts, those senses used to hearing the noise of an engine, feeling the subtle vibrations of a deckplate beneath your boots. These were things she had to unlearn here.
Stretching, she rose from her bed, letting the sheet she'd been under slide off onto the floor, before smiling. She felt that cold, slightly stale air, blowing against her skin. That thought at least made her smile. Her bare skin, touching open air. Such things simply weren't possible on the fleet. Though they were all the same people, the germs the quarians carried in their own bodies were prone to causing an allergic reaction in each other, necessitating that they live in those suits of theirs, as there simply wasn't enough space to give everyone their own sealed place to unsuit. No, they lived inside their suits, like a second skin.
It was odd how fast that habit had stripped itself away. How she only found her hand going to the seals and locks on her suit every once in a while, instead of constantly as those first few days had been. Now, alone here in her own little room on Gloval, she was free of that prison, as she now saw it, and with the help of the Terrans, her people might soon find themselves completely free, as the genetic engineering technology was being turned to the purpose of making the quarians immune systems stronger.
That thought brought her back down, as she thought about the Terrans, and then about the attack they had suffered. The fifth in as many weeks, mostly pirates, either from batarians looking for slaves, or from the Terminus, looking for political prisoners. Some were, very obviously funded or at least encouraged by the elements of Council Space, though to date, Vai'Gerral felt confident that they were never agents of the Council themselves, though one might have been a SPECTRE acting on her own initiative.
In all of that, the Terrans had shown themselves to be far more merciful than she knew she would have been. Pirates who attacked a quarian vessel, if they could be caught at all, were spaced. There were no exceptions, no trials, no contacting their families. They were just put into an airlock and blown out into the void, as a message to all who would harm her people. She had, herself, only witnessed two such executions in her day, but had ordered dozens of others and she felt no shame in that.
The Terrans though, they held chain of command in an almost religious context. Probably the Zentraedi blood in them, according to a few she'd talked to. Command staff, or those that ordered shots, were punished, though even then, not always fatally. Those who pulled the triggers, or just followed the orders though? They were spared, and taken to that colony they'd built for them on Ward. There they were allowed to stay, until the Conclave decided to either return them to their people, or just to let them go. So far neither had happened yet, but she was confident that it would sometime soon.
Her thought train finally looped back around to her duty. She was the Quarian Conductor, the title she had taken for her new office. She'd been elected about three months previous, with the next one in five years. The name of her office was chosen by herself, and she had been wearing it proudly as she represented the quarian people on the Conclave, arguing on the behalf of her entire race. Luckily, to date there had only been on major shouting match between herself and her fellows, and that was over some of the geth's constructions in orbit.
Sighing, she grabbed a food bar and ate it quickly, before throwing on the robes of her office, and then walking over to a small platform near the door of her quarters. The platform, a circle of metal, chimed as she walked into it, and then glowed on the top and bottom. A humming sound followed, and she felt like an invisible set of hands was moving over her body, as the device took a scan of her, studying her every curve and nuance before rising gently from the ground, and gliding through the door.
On the other side was a huge chamber, with a ceiling almost ninety feet overhead, and walls as far apart as all the other rooms in her quarters combined. She needed the space though, and waited as the door back to her rooms hissed shut, and then she began to rise upward, the platform projecting a field around her. A mirrored surface set into one wall allowed her to watch the process, as an outline began to form, and soon, the details started to be drawn. In less than a minute, a version of herself, as large as the Terrans, was staring back at her. She took a moment to admire that reflection, the powerful seeming form, before walking over to the door, and opening it.
"Conductor," said the guard outside in greeting. He was armored, and had probably been standing there all night long, making her smile at him, as she bowed her head slightly to acknowledge the greeting.
"Hello, Sergeant," she said, and then began to walk down the hall. The device beneath her, the projector making the image, allowed her to walk on its surface, holding her up and floating with the image, making it seem, for all intents and purposes, that she stood eye to eye with the Terrans. The disk even projected what her larger self's eyes were seeing directly onto the real pair, as the field holding her in place above the disk allowed her to feel the things around her as if they were really her own skin.
About her passed the Terrans, all of them giving her a look of respect. That had felt odd for the first few weeks, even more so than the lack of noise or movement she associated with a ship. Her people, of course, respected her as they would any member of the Admiralty Board, but those faces were covered, so she could never see them looking at her with that slight mixture of awe and reverence that came with seeing the leader of a civilization.
She had also gotten used to the slightly off look of the Terrans as well. Her own people rarely showed themselves to outsiders, with most never removing their suits once the bubbles were gone, but they would have been described as looking like Terrans for the most part. Grey skinned of course, a color she had yet to see on the Terrans, and hair that tended more towards black, but she knew a few who had lighter shades that would have allowed them to blend in quite well.
The most striking difference, however, were the eyes. Terran eyes were limp things, they took in the light, and that was all. That was because, both species that had gone into their makeup were diurnal, operating mostly in the daylight. Her people, with the more subdued light of Tikkun, were more adjusted for night. Her eyes shone slightly, bright white pupils, around silvery irises. Luckily, her eyes functioned as well in bright light as in darker spaces, and so she met each gaze with a smile as she walked towards her goal.
The guards are her destination let her pass without comment. There were, after all, only about half a dozen quarians on the station, and they knew her by sight now, even if the unit below her feet didn't identify her to them. They too bowed their heads in respect as she entered the chamber, and then looked around. The round table in the middle had only three of the seven seats filled, and she took the closest open seat, while looking at her fellow Conclave members.
"Conductor," said Hayes, still representative of the Terran Senate's will on the Council, though according to her, only for about six more years, and that was if she won every election.
"Representative," she responded as she sat down. Beside Hayes, Breetai was going over reports on his omnitool, Vai halfway believing he hadn't noticed her come in, but that subtle eye movement of his told her he was aware, as a soldier was always aware of those around them, but had things that needed his attention more than pleasantries. One seat down from him was another holographic thing, like herself, but one without a biological core inside. This was Amalgam, the Terran AI Collective, who was their will on the Conclave.
She idly wondered where the others were, and began going over a few reports herself in mimic of the others. Most were mundane things. The Flotilla was going to a new system again, still with over one half of her people on board. More moved to Rannoch every month now though, and she smiled at a few images from there, of her son and his wife, pregnant now with her grandchildren. Anscestors, with so many of the normal restrictions on birth lifted, Rannoch was quickly becoming awash with quarian babies, meaning that in twenty years or so, their population would be at least twice what it was now.
Her thoughts of home were brought down as the door to the chamber opened again, and the remaining three members of the Conclave entered. The first to enter was Solo, Hub of the geth. He wasn't the geth her people had made, however. He was one of those who had allowed the Terrans to expand him, gaining a sentience he would not have had without a legion of his brethren inhabiting his body. He walked straight to the seat opposite her own, sitting down next to Amalgam.
The two were quite an interesting sight. Amalgam didn't try for any details in his form. He was, at basics, an outline of a Terran, without the fine details that would normally go into such a thing. His 'skin' was almost black as well, while his face consisted only of a pair of eyes, no mouth, nose, or other extravagances that one might see on the other AIs that had taken to using the projectors to move around in what they called the real space world.
Solo's form was all about the details. He was gold in coloring, not bright and shining, but an understated worth to him. He had a bipedal form as well, with four arms instead of two, however, two smaller ones with eight fingers beneath his larger, three fingered hands. The face itself was much like that of a quarians, down to the eyes, which were gold like the skin, and with dark black pupils instead of her white, like he was trying to be the opposite of her.
Behind him came Grant. The Terran man looked dower, and there was no questions as to why. Gloval Station was awash with rumors, and he'd probably been putting out some rather large fires of late. While they were all at least a bit removed from their own areas of control, either political or social, Grant's area was the station they met on, and that meant everyone with a problem came to him. Some to get their voices heard on this very Conclave.
Finally came Exedore, and he looked the most haggard of them all. While Terrans, and especially Zentraedi like himself, didn't require sleep, it was sometimes useful to take a break every now and then. He looked like he'd spent the last month hopping from one project to another. Come to think of it, he probably had, considering some of the things that she had seen coming out of the Factory of late. Designs and ships she would never have dreamed of, coming from Exedore and teams of researchers.
"Good, it's nice to see all of you here," he said as he finally looked up from his report, and all seven of them sat around the table. As Exedore took his seat, Breetai pressed a button on his omnitool, causing that low hum of a privacy field to expand around them, giving the leaders of the Federation a bit of time away from the judging eyes of others.
"I'm sure many of you wonder why I called this meeting in such a rush," said Exedore as he pressed some buttons on his own omnitool, dimming the lights, and causing a holoprojector in the table to start spinning to life.
"It's over the Armestris colony's recent trouble, correct?" asked Grant. That attack had been ten days ago, but still dominated much of the news in the Federation, and had caused the people here some very busy nights.
"Indeed. Namely, I have finished my analysis of the devices used to carry out the attack," and with that an image began to float in the air above the table. Looking at it, the thing appeared to be some kind of box, with a handle on the bottom and grips, as well as a trigger on one side. As they watched though, the front end of the device folded open, and then out of it launched a single projectile, a harpoon like device with several barbed ends. That came apart even farther to show the insides of it, which was made up of several odd looking circuits.
"The first, is this. It's some form of stun device, though it could easily be used to kill as well. You take aim and fire, much as you would any sort of projectile weapon, though given its size, I doubt normal micronian races would be able to handle this device with more than a single shot inside it," as he spoke the image shifted again, to a display of a micronian who was very obviously a turian, standing at the foot of an armored Terran, and firing the weapon at them, the harpoon burying itself in the armor, penetrating it seemingly easily.
"Oddly, the device is solely magnetic in the nature of its launch mechanism, possibly to avoid interfering with the internal structure of the projectile itself. This does, by its nature, make the projectile quite slow compared to other weapons that is in common use in the galaxy at large. However, thanks to both the shape of the tip, and a sort of vibration applied to the projectile itself, I have yet to find a material it can't bore through," and again, the scene shifted, the projectile flying through several foot wide material barriers, ranging from stone, to several alloys employed in startship construction.
"That is very disturbing. Mounting a weapon like that on a starship would allow them to carve through an opposing fleet like butter," commented Breetai, scratching his chin in thought.
"It would indeed, old friend. Luckily, the weapon requires air pressure to keep from shaking itself apart. As such, it is quite limited in use," and again, the scene with the Terran and the turian played out.
"That is not the most disturbing element though. The most disturbing is that the harpoon is tailor made for Terran physiology. The barbs bury themselves beneath the skin, and small receptors in them then go farther, digging until they touch protoculture, which is then drained, and finally converted into electrical energy," and the scene played out for them, as lines of blue energy flowed from the Terran into the harpoon, which then flashed with lightning, before the Terran fell to the ground smoking.
"A devastating one-two punch. Drain you to make you weak, then hit you with that energy in a different form," commented Grant, a bit of horror seeping into his voice as they stared at the obviously dead body in the display.
"And yet, it is thoroughly impossible," said the Prime Thinker, as the device was displayed again.
"Obviously not. Someone in the Council or Terminus built the device," responded Amalgam, and Exedore shook head.
"It would take half a decade or more of intense study of a Terran to come up with this device. I don't even think I could have built something of this nature in less than a year, and yet Terrans have only been present on the galactic scene for half that time," he said bluntly.
"Are you not being just a bit egotistical? Perhaps someone among the Council races are smarter than you?" asked Solo, and Exedore just stared at him for a few moments, before shaking his head again.
"Were that true, we would not currently have the advantages we do over them. I'm going to be a bit immodest and state for the record that I have been personally responsible for over a dozen innovation in the last two hundred years that have altered how this society functions. Mind, that's not the only impossible device this group had, that makes me believe something else is happening," and with that, the second device appeared on the screen. At first, it appeared to be just a box, a simple container, but then it opened up, and one could see all the various circuits and tubes running along inside it, including the eezo core.
"Now, just so we're on the same page, fold drives work by literally doing that, folding space. The theory behind them is that space, time, and energy, while interacting at all times, are actually three entirely separate forces, and one can be manipulated without affecting the other two," a hologram demonstrating this principle appeared above the device, with a small transport launching, and then seeming to double for a moment, before it reappeared a few feet forward from where it had been.
"Our transmitters work in much the same fashion. By creating a small vacuum inside the antenna, a fold event is created inside that allows for transmissions to pass through easily, much more so than true mass of a ship or the like. This means that we are able to send signals almost constantly if we so choose, and thus are able to secure colonies without having to constantly deploy large fleets to each world we control," this got nods from everyone at the table.
The way the Federation Fleet worked was simple. There were three major staging areas, Earth/Terra, the birthplace of the people who had formed the Federation. Next was Gloval Station which actually served as mostly a storage facility, staging base, and first response to intruders in the Sol System, by being right there at the relay should anyone invade. Finally there were those ships stationed, or just built by, Space Construction Platform Zero Zero One, otherwise known as SCP-001, the Factory.
Beyond that, almost all colonies had a constant presence of the fleet, but it tended to vary by size. After all, most of those serving for those places were either colonials themselves, or had families who had decided to move out there. This tended to mean that the smallest colonies, like Amestris, actually had little in the way of on site defenses, but enough to hold off invaders should they happen, until a larger force could be folded in.
"This new jamming array works by somehow reinforcing the solidity of space. That's the best way I've found to describe it anyhow. For all intents and purposes, folding space around this unit is quite impossible, meaning it not only cuts a colony's communication ability, but also, even should we learn of this, it would prevent us from deploying a force to deal with an invader," that information from the Prime Thinker seemed to ripple through the other six present, as they absorbed what he said.
"What if one were to try and fold regardless of this field?" asked Breetai at last.
"Luckily, that would simply result in a fold refusing to form. It would waste energy, of course, but it would do little more than that, so no one is currently at risk from this, save from those that cause the interference," Exedore said this, and another ripple, this time of relief went through the Conclave. They had thought, for a moment, that this would be a weapon with which to cripple their fleets, and worse, destroy large sections of their population, in a single stroke.
"That's a relief. But how does this show that the Council isn't behind the device?" asked Grant.
"Three reasons. The first, is that the one who provided the device to the batarians is not one of their agents," again, the holo shifted, this time to the image of a turian.
"I've had a few of my contacts going over the records," he began.
"Meaning you had some AIs hack into the Citadel's databanks," clarified Hayes.
"If you wish to be blunt, yes. Regardless of how the information was obtained, I can tell you right now that the one who provided the jamming device and the wielded the weapon against us, was a former SPECTRE," pushing a button on his omnitool, a list of medals, missions, and a dozen other statistics popped up beside the turian, identifying him as one of those sorts of people that the Council loved, their best of the best, who carried out their will throughout the galaxy.
"Doesn't that prove the opposite point, though?" asked Amalgam as he looked over the data.
"Ah, but it is the last entry in their logs for him that make this interesting," and scrolling through those logs, Vai'Gerral saw what he meant. The turian had a long list of accomplishments, some even after being made a SPECTRE which was rare, and done only when the person succeeded beyond even those expectations. The last entry though, was listed as almost five years ago, and it was a damning one. It was a listing of the agents death, while doing some exploring near the edge of the Attican Traverse.
"Hmm, I will admit my ignorance, but how does him being listed as dead affect in any way his viability as a Council agent? Couldn't they have faked the record?" asked Breetai after a moment.
"Vai'Gerral, as the one closest to the Council's policies, I think I should let you explain this," offered Exedore, gesturing to the quarian woman, who found herself taken aback for a moment, before nodding. This wasn't the first time they'd asked her to speak, so she fell right into it.
"The SPECTREs are special forces, of a sort. They are a law unto themselves, able to do things that would normally result in interstellar incidents, if not outright murder. Because of this, a SPECTRE is given certain identifying codes, so that even a less well known agent can act with impunity. These codes are programed into the Hypernet, and allow for things like overriding security, to shutting down a ships engines," the last she had experienced personally, when a SPECTRE had decided to look for a criminal among the Flotilla, and had been able to bring their entire race to a halt for almost a day before being satisfied.
"Because these codes are as powerful as they are, there are many protections on them. The most powerful of which is called a death lock, which, as soon as a SPECTRE is listed as deceased, erases their codes from everything, effectively scrubbing them from the system. It's why a SPECTRE, even a missing one, tends to be listed as active, until such time as their natural lifespan is passed," that information circulated around the room, as those who had never known such things digested it.
"So, why would this agent be listed as dead, if it's so hard to reinstate them?" questioned Grant.
"They found wreckage of the ship he was on, and enough bodies to account for the entire crew. Yet, obviously something is off, if he's still active," said Exedore.
"Alright, that's one reason, a bit flimsy, but it does raise some questions. What is the second reason this device proves it's not of Council make?" asked Hayes, and in answer, Exedore pushed a button on his omintool, bringing the device back up, and this time zooming in on the eezo core. The Conclave watched as numbers and figures appeared beside it, listing the elements that made up the chunk of rock. For a moment, none of them saw what he was getting at, then, slowly, each noticed the number at the top, and just seemed to shut down.
"That...that's impossible," said Solo as he came back to himself.
"Indeed, and yet, it is there," answered Exedore, and all seven of them continued to stare at the element list. Six Percent Iron, Two Percent Gold, Five Percent Silver, and so on, until the top element just seemed to burn itself into their minds. Sixty Four Percent Element Zero.
"Are you certain of this data?" asked Breetai.
"I ran the spectrographic analysis myself a dozen times just to be sure. Each time came within this rating by at least a tenth of a percent," confirmed the Prime Thinker.
"What's the highest purity level we've gotten to?" asked Hayes.
"Utilizing a large quantity of our reserve of eezo, and the three protoculture matrices, I was able to get a sample of thirty five percent, and even then, only a small sample," he said, and then just let that information sink in.
With that purity, the Council would have no restrictions on fleet size. Eezo's power grew, exponentially, the purer it was, but at thirty or so percent, it took far too much to build ships. It had been one of the major things holding back the size of fleets for as long as the Council had existed. With purity levels that high, you would be able to run the entire fleet off less than a thousand as much eezo. At that point the only thing holding back warship production would be population size, something the Terrans were familiar with.
"Could one of the Citadel races have the technology to create a sample like that?" asked Grant, and Vai'Gerral shook her head.
"Not even close to a chance. With that sort of tech, you'd have found an empire ruled by a single race, rather than the union of races as it is now," she said simply.
"And the same holds true for the Terminus. No ruler there would allow the conditions of their existence to continue if they could create a sample of eezo at this purity level," said Solo in agreement with her.
"What about this other person? The Shadow Broker? Perhaps they're connected to this," proposed Breetai.
"I had considered that possibility. Historically, the Shadow Broker has been able to employ even SPECTREs, though the Council also denies those claims. However, should this individual have that sort of power, they would not be thwarted as often as they are. Some of the Shadow Broker's operations fail in ways that the ability to create a sample like this would simply not permit. My final point is the most damning in this case, however," as Exedore spoke, another hologram shifted onto the table, this one of a person.
"This gentleman is a Mr. Church. He's an AI that works under me on the Blue research team. I had assigned them the project of studying the jamming device, while I myself did the same for the harpoon, as, at the time, I believed the weapon to be the more important, before I realized how powerful the jammer was," as he spoke, the image of the man over the device started to waver a bit, like he was behind a huge fire or some other heat source.
"Over the past week, I've had the Blue Team working almost around the clock, with Church himself posting at least twenty-two hour shifts. At some point yesterday, it was brought to my attention by one of his fellows that something was wrong with him," and with that, the image of the man shifted into lines of code, the very stuff of an AI's soul, his logic string. The bits and numbers moved quickly through the air, until finally, it zoomed in on a section of the code that seemed...off somehow.
"Michael was the first to notice. But Church was becoming more distant, less attached to the world. It was like he was growing attached to the device he was studying. This line is what convinced me something was wrong, however," the image was then replaced again, this time with two figures, standing in front of the device.
"So, Church, how are you feeling?" asked the first person, someone in thick protective armor.
"I don't...I'm fine Michael, I'm fine. It's just this thing. It's so beautiful, so perfect. It feels so wrong to be taking it apart the way we're doing," responded the second figure, clearly an AI by the voice, though apparently wearing armor the same as the first.
"Well, that's how science works sometimes. You take something apart, and then see if you can put it back together. I figure the Prime Thinker can always build us one of these later though," responded Michael.
"But it won't be the same...it can't be perfect like this...this is perfect," he said the last with a tone that almost spoke of a supplicant praying to his god.
"It's a machine, Church, and it was used to hurt people. I hear they almost grabbed a kid with this thing and that harpoon gun Exedore himself is studying," retorted the Terran.
"That...that was bad. But would it be so bad to be with the one who made this thing? It's perfect," Church said again, and this time the first figure seemed to be genuinely concerned as he put his arm on the other figure's shoulder.
"Church, I think it's time you took a break. We've got some free time tonight, why don't you, Lavernius, and I go take in a match with the Red Team?" offered the armored figure, only to have the AI push him away.
"No, no I need to be near this thing. I need to...I need others to see its perfection. You can see it, right? Its perfection?" this time the tone shifted as he spoke the final line, and he turned to face Michael.
"It's. A. Machine," said the Terran, and then suddenly Church leapt at him like some kind of wild man, screaming about perfection, until several other figures were tearing him off, before the recording finally ended.
"That log goes back at least five hours in their conversation, which was the point they felt the need to start recording Church specifically. He'd been having episodes around the device. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but he was constantly skipping his free times, and at least once, he was caught trying to upload himself into the device, before he was stopped," Exedore informed them.
"A close examination of Mr. Church's code reveals that was fragmenting, which is curious given his age is only twenty-seven," that information seemed to shock Grant, Hayes, and Amalgam, but Breetai and the two newer Conclave members looked at him questioningly.
"Ah, yes, not everyone here is aware. Fragmentation is what happens to an AI as it ages. It's the late signs that junk code is building up too much in the logic string. Normally, there are many warning signs before it gets to this level, but in Church's case, it seemed to happen quite suddenly, and this is why," a button press, and the code reappeared, zooming right to the section where they had been before, only with some odd code glowing now in a sickly green color.
"This code, isn't part of Church's mind. It's not part of any program he has interacted with, and what's worse, I was able to observe a chemical reaction in Michael and Lavernius's brains that was similar in nature enough to believe that the device itself was somehow responsible for it," the device reappeared.
"Acting on my authority, I quickly isolated it on SCP-261, an automated unit with a cloning pod for food production over Titan," the device moved through the air, appearing inside a small satellite, overlooking the moon.
"Cloning several small neurons, I was able to observe an affect from the device I can only call genetic mind control. It took almost a day of additional testing before I realized what was causing it," the device, one final time, split open, and the eezo core was floating before them once again, this time with small waves of motion coming off it.
"You're saying eezo is somehow responsible for your people's mental instability?" asked Solo, and Exedore shook his head quickly.
"Not all eezo, I did several tests with other samples, and found them to be neutral on the subject, but every test with this sample, or even pieces of this sample, have proven beyond a doubt to me that somehow, this particular piece of eezo affects one's mind state. Possibly that's how the captain of the batarian vessel was convinced to assault one of our worlds," as he spoke, the image vanished, leaving the chamber dark for a moment, before the lights returned to normal.
As the room brightened, the same thoughts went through the heads of everyone in the chamber. The batarians, the turians, and even some asari and salarians, had all tried to smuggle things through their territory, that was why Ward's population was sitting at almost one-hundred-fifty-thousand. 'Pirate' attacks on their colonies were rare though, especially with the stories of the Terran fleet responding in seconds to every aggressive action. It had given them a measure of relative peace, as compared to the rest of 'civilized' space.
To convince a large force of batarians to attack one of their worlds, even on just a slaver raid would have taken some major promises of backing. That was why the Conclave had initially assumed the Council must have had some hand in this game. This report totally destroyed that assumption, however, and told them quite the different story. It showed them that some things were going to have to change in a large way, as well.
"So, there's a new player in the game, someone with a tech base at least at our level, if not higher, who has somehow been able to stay hidden for over fifteen hundred years and counting, and who's technology erodes minds," summed up Grant.
"I believe, in the presence of a command, the subject so effected would be more willing to take command. If apply subtly, it would even lead the subject to retain much of their intelligence, but if you reduce their will enough, it would make anyone into a puppet of the one controlling the technology," added Exedore. Which caused a deafening silence to rule the room for several moments.
"We can't act effectively on this information. There are too many unknowns, too many questions as to what is happening. As that is the case, I propose we do what we can now, and put off other actions until such time as this body has access to farther information," said Hayes finally, and everyone quickly nodded their agreement.
"Good. Then, first, we need to better defend ourselves. It will be an imposition, but we have to start stationing patrols at every colony we control. This includes Rannoch, and the Flotilla would that be acceptable?" she said this directly to both Solo and Vai'Gerral.
"My people would have no objection to it. They would probably welcome the protection on the Flotilla given how many Heavy Fleet ships are understaffed," said Vai, remembering a few discussions she had had with the other Admirals given how much emigration to the homeworld the fleet was experiencing.
"The geth would likewise welcome the change. We have been dismantling many of our defensive platform so the material can be put to better use. The presence of guard ships would allow us to step up the program," added the geth Hub.
"Good, now, we need farther allies, if this does turn into a shooting war with a power we don't know about. What about Project Eden? What's the status of the subjects?" this question was asked to Exedore.
"Currently, Project Eden is nearing as close to completion as it can. The four test subjects' blood is already viable for inoculation, but we have yet to make it airborne," said the Prime Thinker.
"Then that will have to be close enough. Send them out to contact the agent we have been considering, and we'll work on how to disentangle them from the Citadel's laws," everyone in the room nodded at that.
"I think we all need to prepare our people, and our sectors of the Federation for whatever it is might come of this, so unless there is any farther business to discuss, I declare this Conclave closed," Breetai was the one to say this, looking around the table. Everyone again nodded, rising silently as the privacy field fell, and they went to prepare for a war with a power that they knew nothing about, other than it had a power far greater than they themselves did.