"Two weeks ago, this Body was informed by channels that were still open with the Terran Federation of the attack on their colony of Eden Prime. This was…shocking, to say the least, as none within our ranks would dare do so, not after the lessons of the Titan War, or the two decades long peace that had followed it. It has been far too profitable for all sides to want to stir up trouble," began the salarian Councilor.
"However, the data was irrefutable. That one of our agents, a SPECTRE, chosen by this Council specifically for his skills and loyalty, was involved," continued Tevos, as she pressed something on her omnitool, bringing up an image of Saren that left Nihilus, if you knew him well, grim faced, his mandibles just barely kept together as he stared at the image of the traitor, a man he would have trusted…well not with his life, but at least to watch his back in a fire fire.
"The moment this was clear, we began to investigate him. First going through his mission records, both the on and off the books versions, then through his travel, and finally, his financials," the asari pushed a few more buttons, and brought those files up to float in the air beside the image.
"We…we were not shocked per say, by what we saw. Nothing was truly out of the ordinary for one of his rank. Investments, various companies, both legitimate and shell, and the many properties he owned. No, the shock was the extent of them, as his own resources, had he even tried to invest a hundredth as much, would have been strained to the limit," she said. Not to say SPECTREs weren't well paid, of course. They were, in fact, more compensated than even the Councilors themselves. But this was far beyond that.
"While some of his financial resources could be explained as either investments paying off, or, to put it bluntly, bribes from certain individuals, their scale and sheer diversity says they were coming from an unknown source instead," said the salarian, as he adjusted the record to bring up three entries in particular. One on Feros, one on Novaria, and one on an uninhabited planet called Virmire.
"The first, Feros, is part of a colonization project on a former prothean world, covered in the ruins of a massive city," he began, and Javik, Exalted Javik, coughed, and pointed as the image of the cityscape appeared, his eyes unfocusing for a moment, which, if you knew him, showed that he was accessing information in his brain he hadn't consciously known until this moment in time.
"In point of fact, that was not one of ours, but a ruin WE discovered as well, attributing its existence to our own predecessors. Now, well I can only guess it's some kind of puzzle box the Reapers left in the galaxy. A riddle with no solution, to confuse and keep the locals guessing as to what transpired to those who came before. A clever ruse," said the prothean, and the Council took that in, before nodding, and bringing up an image of some kind of bulb like plant, looking rather plain…until they put a standard wanzer beside it for scale, showing it was larger than it might first appear.
"The puzzle was a lure. The trap was this creature. It called itself a 'Thorian' and the best guess our biological teams can make is that it was a designed lifeform, one that 'stored' the thought processes and mental archetypes of species," said the turian Councilor, as he took the fore, bringing up images of his people, with flashing bits in their heads, showing something lodged in their brains.
"The colonists, being turian as it was an initiative funded by my people, and, as we know now, Saren, were infected by a kind of 'thorn' that burrowed into their brains, and caused pain when the disobeyed the will of the Thorian creature that planted them there," he explained, zooming in to show the 'thorns' and how small roots grew from them, into the brains around them, activating neurons seemingly at random at first, but then finding pain and pleasure centers.
"This ability, to infest the mind like that, of a completely alien species to its world, is what led to the first hypothesis that it was artificial. However, far more is that it can 'map' the thought processes it has stored onto the thorns, which can then be recreated via mass effect fields, and 'implanted' into brains that would not normally have them," as he spoke, x-rays showed this happening.
"Similar to the Indoctrination process that Javik spoke of," opined Jon as he looked at it, watching it alter the brain that was being shown.
"Ah, so that's where that was from. We had guessed, but confirmation is nice. Regardless, it was knowledge that the Reapers were capable of something similar that led us to the conclusion that the Thorian was some kind of construct made by the Reapers, a kind…back-up of the brain patterns of species. Why is still a matter of speculation, but why Saren wanted it is not," responded the turian Councilor, who then brought up a bit of mission log.
"The colonists, who suffered minimal casualties, and only one fatality, during the SPECTREs' mission, revealed that Saren had come and spoke with the Thorian at length, eventually retrieving an implant that mimicked a Prothean thought process. We believe this was to allow him to translate the information retrieved from the Prothean Beacon that Nihlus' report said he interacted with on Eden Prime," he added, and Javik nodded.
"That our enemy is aware of the final words of my people and we are not is but one more crime perpetrated on their memory by the Reapers. Sadly, it means little, as I cannot even guess at what he might have wanted from that," said Javik, which seemed to disappoint the Council, which had obviously hoped that he would have some information in regards to that. Still, they moved on, shifted to Novaria next.
"The thought process was one of two items of information he retrieved. A second SPECTRE team, made up of some of our best agents, went to the private sector world of Novaria. The planet, used primarily for biological labs and tests that would be a danger to a living world, but less so to a planet where oxygen often freezes, is technically outside the purview of this body or its governments, but given none of the corporations present wish to earn our ire, our agents were able to gain free rein of the facilities," said the salarian, bringing up the reports.
"After dealing with a member of the local administration who was on Saren's payroll and attempted to murder our agents, as well as some Geth left behind as a trap, they were able to make their way to Peak 15, Saren's personal facility, and discovered something most disturbing," as he spoke, the salarian moved the reports away, and projected in the air a three dimensional image of a species that got a gasp from Nihlus and Garrus, but caused the other three to look confused, as it was some kind of insectoid lifeform they didn't recognize right away, though after going into his 'searching' state, Javik nodded.
"A rachni," he identified, and that got the appropriate reaction from both Jon and Tali.
"That…that's impossible," said Garrus, and the salarian nodded.
"It is. Saren's report claims he 'found' an egg of a lost queen on some asteroid base that had been undiscovered since the Rachni Wars. This body, looking through all the records, can only surmise that the Reaper he serves was able to find it via some unknown sensor suite. Otherwise, finding it would have been…well, the sort of luck that is throwing two pins a lightyear and expecting them to hit," he said, as he brought up the rest of the report.
"The rachni, a queen according to her biology, claims to have been a survivor, hidden when 'the sickly yellow note' corrupted her people's hive intelligence, driving them mad and causing the war. We…have no idea if she's telling the truth, obviously, and her own spawn have proven just as hostile as ever," he began, showing a few videos of the SPECTREs fighting off some rachni, recognizable as the same species, though obviously not the same design. Warriors or workers, depending on the appendages probably.
"The team was able to fight their way to her, after talking down the lab's personnel, and evacuating them all, the rachni queen included, before using a pulse to kill the remaining 'insane' children. Since, we have kept the queen at a top secret facility, and interrogated her extensively, given she is the last living example of her species," as he spoke, videos of said interrogations played silently. All in all, the queen looked…well probably happy, given she was being held in what amounted to an enclosed park, and spoken to via an intercom system she had to interact with to say anything.
"While much of what she has said would not be of interest to anyone beyond an academic, she has informed us that Saren wanted a piece of information stored in her genetic memory. The location of a relay designated as the Mu Relay," and the videos shifted to a galactic map, eventually zooming into a part of the galaxy that was just inside the Attican Traverse, technically neutral space, claimed by neither the Federation, Council, or the Terminus systems.
"The Mu Relay is…pointless as far as we've been able to determine. It's not an omnidirectional relay, merely point to point, but even if he were to reactivate it, it would lead to a single set of systems. Unless that is where the Reapers are hiding, there seems little in the way of reason to focus on it, save perhaps something from the Beacon's data," she said, and then began to zoom into the Relay closer, showing that, despite the territory not being theirs, the Council had deployed several ships around the relay in question. That there were also some Federation ships, and even Aria T'loak's Fleet mixed in said they'd shared the info freely.
"We, of course, sent a picket force to the relay the moment we knew it was a target, and have since contacted the Terran Federation to inform them to send what forces they could. Even the Terminus Systems have sent a small group to assist. We have also forbidden anyone from reactivating the relay, despite its destination perhaps answering some questions. Should the Reaper make an appearance, the forces we'd deployed will, at best, slow it down, thus our curiosity must give way to adding to that delay," said the salarian, as he gave the floor to the Asari Councilor.
"The final facility we located was smaller than the rest, established by Saren himself using connections that are…hidden in ways we had not expected. Mostly contacts within the Terminus Systems, thus outside our own channels. Luckily, given their limited nature, the facility itself required only a single STG team to take it, and they found, at best, a dozen agents Saren had placed there," she said, bringing up the system and then zooming into the planet, Virmire.
"Subjects captured here were surprisingly cooperative with the STG team, pointing out that the facility had originally been meant to house an unknown project, or so they'd been told. As it turned out, that was a smoke screen that Saren himself likely dreamed up to cover his tracks to his master, as the facility that WAS built was done so to study the effects of Indoctrination," she said, bringing up several reports, mostly from a head researcher named Rana Thanoptis.
"Over the course of the last few years, this isolated group, which includes two previously thought dead neurologists, have been studying Indoctrination in its most potent form. Direct exposure to a Reaper," she began, displaying in three dimensional views brain scans of a turian, asari, krogan, and most surprisingly, a Terran.
"Apparently, the Reaper themself is not the source of it, or rather, they, and certain pieces of their technology act as 'repeaters' of something that is contained within certain element zero samples," continued the asari, sounding just as dire as that news deserved. The prothean in the group barely reacted, having known this information, but the others in the group began to look around, obviously wondering if the eezo tech in this very room was a source.
"Fortunately, we've been going over as much as we can of our own technology base using SPECTREs and other trusted agents. Ones who have agreed to certain…medical tests we deemed necessary once this became known," she continued, not bothering to name who those agents were, and figuring the nature of the tests would be obvious.
"Luckily, the effect seems to be isolated to only very specific pieces of Element Zero based technology, ones that, as we are now aware of, we are doing our best to isolate and remove from general circulation. The STG has promised that they will have a device in a few weeks that can detect, and perhaps even counter the effect," said the salarian Councilor, just a hint of pride in his people's contributions to this thing.
"That would be…most advantageous if it is true. My own people were never able to even isolate which pieces of technology make the signal beyond the Reapers themselves. To know that, and to be able to keep it from causing further damage will greatly increase this Cycle's ability to counter the machines," added Javik, causing Tevos to nod, before banishing the holograms that had been assisting them.
"There is a question within that last statement, Exalted Javik, that I find myself curious about. If I might be so bold, might I inquire as to why you refer to this time as a 'Cycle' that implies a recurrence of events," she said, and Javik nodded at her words.
"That…is a tale in and of itself, but given I wish you to know the sheer scale of what we are to battle, it is best to tell it now. I will beg your indulgence, this will not be a short one," he informed them, bowing his head slightly, before taking a deep breath, preparing himself to speak on the sheer enormity of what they were up against.