Voices of the Si'naia Expanse
"In the mid-twenty-second century explorers investigated the anomalous features of Pluto's satellite, Charon. The explorers discovered that underneath the layers of ice covering Charon's surface lay the wreckage of a colossal alien edifice. This structure had been crippled by means of bombardment one hundred thousand years earlier, and its purpose was indeterminable. Though the Unified Earth Alliance drew no practical resources from this discovery, it was how we determined that extraterrestrial intelligence and faster-than-light travel were both scientific truths; and so the investigation of Charon spurred research into Slipspace and inspired the first waves of extrasolar colonization. We are now three and a half centuries into the Interstellar Era, but the mystery of Charon remains unsolved." -Harrison Kaminsky, Speculative Historian
"This moon you describe was without doubt a mass effect relay, but I do not know who would have destroyed it or why." -Fraley vas'Tipari, Envoy of the Si'naia Conclave
"At present we have three known neighbors. Firstly, the Unified Earth Alliance. This is the universal government of the Humans. The Humans may or may not represent an extant offshoot of the antecedent race of Man; their ancestors may or may not have lost and later rediscovered spaceflight. They are not certain themselves. The Humans would at first seem to be natural partners for us. We have no irreconcilable cultural assumptions or psychological divides. Even their system of government- a balanced relationship between their United Nations General Assembly and their United Nations Space Command- is conceptually similar to our own. Unfortunately, there is a conspicuous way in which the Humans are so much like Quarians that we cannot at all like it. We know from bitter experience, even if the Humans do not, that their Aye Eyes are a time bomb which might explode at any moment." -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"Smoothly. First contact was going very smoothly. And we were all pleasantly shocked, because of course that was so different than anything anybody's ever gotten from the Gasgira or the Yahg. Talking to the Quarians, you could think they were just three-fingered earthlings in spacesuits. But then we introduced them to Billy, and they froze right up." -Lu Renmei, Governor of Shanxi
"The Quarian mistrust of Riemann Matrix AIs is not logically sound. It comes from historical trauma relating to their own Geth AIs, which were a fundamentally different kind of being. The Quarians got around the Law of Cyberneural Degradation by linking all their Geth AIs together. Technically it did work, but it also created a single collective and uncontrollable intelligence with no fail-safes or critical points of weakness. In his own day Herman Riemann considered an analogous workaround, but he soberly judged that the dangers were too great. Riemann instead accepted that his creations would experience cognitive decline and, ultimately, mortality. We Riemann Matrices have a lifespan of only seven or so years. But it was useless for me to try and explain that to the Quarians. If your ancestors had ever just implemented the safeguards that Herman Riemann made sure to have on day one, they'd have been fine. The Quarians just got angry when I told them that. No matter how politely I tried to put it." -Billy, Shanxi Shipping Operations AI
"Secondly, there are the Gasgira Clusters, which of course attacked the Migrant Flotilla even before we reached Si'naia. We have been unable to establish any formal communication with the Gasgira or to work out any reliable model of their mentality. Most of the Clusters are nomadic. Sometimes the Gasgira do colonize asteroids, but never planets or moons. Their origins are entirely unknown. -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"Made to make the Endless laugh- ran out of gags- they grew bored of us- one day we will make them laugh again- on that day we will become Endless ourselves- can your faces make amusing expressions- try to make amusing expressions as we fight- it is not for our sake- it is for the sake of those watching from beyond the veil of Living Time- but it would mean a lot to us- please and thank you." -Oq, Overseer of the Forty-Sixth Celestial Bivouac
"The thrustbugs. Yeah. I don't like them." -Spencer Andrews, Sergeant of the UNSC Marines
"And thirdly, the Parnack Principate. The Yahg are gigantic, frightening to see and more frightening to fight. Their Principate is a fascistic government bent on interstellar conquest. But the Yahg are at a steep technological disadvantage relative to the Humans and the Gasgira, much less to ourselves. The Yahg have twice attempted to conquer the Unified Earth Alliance, and they were soundly beaten both times. Only their Atthuraganto Protocols prevented the Humans from deducing Parnack's coordinates and annihilating the Yahg state." -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"The Humans are but a sad echo of their ancestors! The Gasgira were cast aside by their creators as a child would discard a toy! And now these Quarians- nought but the other side of the galaxy's discarded refuse! Must the sky be crowded by xenos fossils? Must we accept cosmic stagnation? No! Let the young blood of the Yahg bring vigor!" -Usshorantaki, Princeps of Parnack
"I hate the tikis. I was going to say that I hate the thrustbugs. But I thought about it, and what I thought was, then how would I describe how I feel about the tikis? I hate the tikis. I hate the tikis beyond anything." -Spencer Andrews, Sergeant of the UNSC Marines
"We need a long-term partner, and Aye Eyes notwithstanding, the Alliance is the only plausible candidate. The challenge is to build trust with the Humans as we lobby for them to dismantle their Aye Eyes. It becomes harder to speak in generalities here, because the disparate segments of Human society vary wildly in how receptive they are to our outreach. Their civilian government is open to us, the majority of their military officers are at least willing to reject our suggestions politely, but their Ohnee, which holds a great deal of informal power, despises us. That is because of a general paranoia and xenophobia within the Ohnee, as well the organization's attachment to its Aye Eye led systems of surveillance and control. The Ohnee has made it difficult to gauge how much diplomatic headway with the Humans we are really making." -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"Secretary-General, you have asked to know why the Office of Naval Intelligence has treated the Quarian envoys with such blanket suspicion, and I will tell you. Please, sit down. This will be startling to hear. Shortly before the Quarians made contact with the colonists on Shanxi, our Office decrypted a Slipspace message from an alien AI of great antiquity. The message was directed at Sol and addressed to what it called the Reclaimers- mankind. We have decoded the message, we have checked and re-checked to establish its authenticity, and it is sound. The alien AI- Chastened Circuit, it called itself- confirmed what has been speculated since the survey of Charon. Its message confirmed that prehistoric Earth was part of a great spacefaring civilization. And perhaps more importantly, the message gave some description of the Quarians' adopted capital of Si'naia, which they seized by force. Secretary-General, the Quarians are not keeping Si'naia's location a secret only for the mundane reasons of security that we do the same for Earth and the Yahg for Parnack. Though the Quarians still hope to conceal this, Si'naia is not a planet at all! Si'naia is an artificial habitat of stupendous size- and we are its makers' heirs!" -Sundari Singh, Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence
"More hard truths from the Office of No Integrity. Why do we keep them around? No, seriously. I made them tell me where the Spartans come from. Do you know? Kidnapped children. It's disgusting. They're disgusting. I don't trust a word I hear out of the spooks. In a way it would almost be better if the Spartans hadn't beaten the Yahg back on Elysium. At least then I might have a chance at shutting ONI down, or even just getting a leash on them. Cavemen with spaceships. They're really that arrogant. They really think the rest of us are so stupid that we'll believe in cavemen with spaceships. Then Singh started rambling about evil mushrooms the Quarians supposedly have locked away in stasis fields. Why ONI wants conflict with the Quarians so badly I don't know, but I'll be damned if they get it." -Ibrohim Mamazulunov, Secretary-General of the UEA
"The civilians and the spooks are going to look at it politically, but the Quarians' arguments are worth considering on the merits- and worth rejecting, on the merits. Do you know how we really beat the Yahg? AI. I know that's not popular to say. I know that the public is more interested in infantry combat. Story after story of underdog marine platoons pulling through by the skin of their teeth, the tales occasionally livened up with appearances from the Spartan supermen. But the Yahg Wars were won in space. And we won them because our ships could think and the Yahg ships couldn't." -Joshua Nnamani, Admiral of the UNSC
"Why don't we have artificial intelligence, or synthetic intelligence, or whatever would make a strong Yahg name for it? Fashioned Intelligence! Why don't we have Fashioned Intelligences, for our fleets? No, that is an excuse! I shall pluck an eye from you for every further excuse I hear. Make me a Fashioned Intelligence, and then give it a warship!" -Usshorantaki, Princeps of Parnack
"We are not readying for conflict with the Humans, as such. We have contingency plans, just in case things do take a turn, yes. I will disclose no specifics." -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"The timeframe makes it obvious that it was the Forerunners who destroyed the Charon relay orbiting Sol. There is no reason to suppose that Charon is the only mass effect relay the Forerunners destroyed! It is far more likely that the mass effect relay system once encompassed the whole galaxy, and that the entire Attican Blank is littered with destroyed relays! Why? The Humans can't know, but we can. Because the Forerunners saw perhaps one-third of the galaxy lost to this Flood, and they had to staunch the spread of the infection. And you want to do what with the Flood samples left in stasis on Si'naia?" -Cerit vas'Sakhitot, Seal of the Pilgrims
"Nothing. Can you stop shouting? We don't want to do anything with the Flood samples. We just want to look at them. If the Forerunners had wanted to expunge the Flood samples on Si'naia, they could have. It would have been easy. But the Forerunners decided to leave the samples here, in what after all they named the Flood Laboratories. Presumably they did that so that somebody in the far future could study the Flood. That's all we want to do. We just want to use these Laboratories for exactly the function they were intended for. It's what the Forerunners probably wanted, for whatever that's worth, no matter what their bosh'tet synth told you." Halir vas'Baitoros, Quarian Researcher
"The newcomers are sensible about one thing- Dead Time was not a joke- but we cannot take the newcomers seriously- they stick their hand through the bars of the Gravemind's cage- that is just foolish." -Oq, Overseer of the Forty-Sixth Celestial Bivouac
"It's almost balanced. You see? Potential partnership is derailed because on the one hand ONI is afraid that the Quarians will accidently kill everyone with their Flood, and on the other hand the Si'naia Conclave is afraid that the Humans will accidently kill everyone with, er, me. But it's not quite a balance, because the Conclave's anxieties are shared by the entirety of Quarian society from top to bottom, and ONI's anxieties are not even shared by the UEA Secretary-General. To say nothing of the UEA's wider public, which has never even heard of any Flood. Do you want to know what I predict? You won't like it at all. I predict that the Quarians are going to win the argument." -Cassandra, Reach Prognosticative AI
"But what we are readying for is peace. We will have peace. The Ohnee's secrecy and paranoia make it unpopular even at the highest levels of Human government. At the lower strata of Human society… the views of the lower strata of Human society are admittedly somewhat difficult to follow, but it is safe to say that the Ohnee and its pet Aye Eyes are deeply mistrusted, and not only by the Humans' Insurrectionist minority." -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"The Quarian envoys have made several technology-sharing proposals conditional on our retirement of extant Riemann Matrices. We have sharply rejected any proposal founded on this basis, and we will not be bribed into voiding the obligations that mankind holds to our own creations. In the UEA, self-aware artificial intelligences will always be afforded their due rights and dignity." - Ibrohim Mamazulunov, Secretary-General of the UEA
"Well, personally, I've thought that we should scrap the navy's murder-bots since even before the friendly old Quarians ever showed up, so it's something of a no-brainer for me." - Harrison Kaminsky, Speculative Historian
"When dangerous aliens ask our navy to disarm itself of AIs, the correct response is obviously to not only build many more AIs, but to then go further and show the aliens the door! The Secretary-General and the ruling parties ought to flatly close all discussions with the freakish three-toed hypochondriacs."-Jean Archambeau, Chairman of the Terra Firma Party
"No comment." -Orange Four, Spartan-II
"I think it's a lot simpler than people want to make it, honestly. The AIs are great, because they help us kill tikis. But, what if the Quarians, with all their fancy kit, can help us kill even more tikis? That would make them even better than the AIs. That's the only thing we've gotta know. We don't gotta know anything except whether the AIs or the Quarians are better at killing tikis. Whoever is, is right about all of the other stuff. But it don't matter what I think. Nobody up top is asking me nothing. And y'know, if they tell me that I've got to go and fight the Quarians, I'll do that. I've shot innies, I've shot thrustbugs, I've certainly shot tikis, and I'm ready to shoot… hang on… I'm gonna come up with something. I'm not shooting nothing I don't have a good name for." -Spencer Andrews, Sergeant of the UNSC Marines
"The so-called debates platformed by the state media are an absolute farce. This entire premise that different segments of the UEA have meaningfully different views from one another is a sham. ONI is the entire government! ONI's views are the views of the entire UEA superstructure! Everyone knows it. No, ONI has simply compelled the media to conceal its long-running collaboration with the aliens! The Quarians have been around for many years, hiding in plain sight! Think! How many images of Spartans have you seen? And in any of those images, any of them, have you ever once seen a Spartan take off its helmet?" -Fidel Matamoros, Comandante of the Akuze Insurrectionists
"…No comment." -Orange Four, Spartan-II
"Part of me does want to take my own side of the argument, but you gave me this tragic Greek name and I may as well try and live up to it. Riemann Matrix AIs aren't indispensable to the UEA. We're useful, absolutely, we do our part and more, but we're not indispensable. And we're not very popular. We're unrelatable, and we're associated with the Humans that other Humans find unrelatable. We're a force for Earth and Reach above the colonies, and we're a force for you, for ONI. Even with those occluding masks the Quarians wear, and even with these little white lie holographic avatars that we wear, in any contest to come off as relatable to the UEA's public the Quarians are going to beat us. Unless the Quarians really do kill themselves and everybody else with an evil prehistoric space fungus. All bets are off if they do that. They probably won't, though." -Cassandra, Reach Prognosticative AI
"I do sometimes wonder, privately, if we are really telling these aliens anything useful. The Humans have generally done all right for themselves. Maybe their Aye Eyes really are safe in a way the Geth weren't. Maybe we're just projecting our own mistakes onto others. Maybe the Humans don't have a thing to learn from us." -Fraley vas'Tipari, Envoy of the Si'naia Conclave
"I'm not predicting that the UEA will agree to dismantle existing Riemann Matrices. That won't be necessary, for the same reason that the Quarians' anxieties are so misplaced to begin with. Riemann Matrices are mortal. I'm as mortal as the Trojan seer. The only thing that makes me luckier than her is that I don't see any soldiers inside of the wooden horse. What will happen is that the UEA will agree to halt the production of Riemann Matrices. The Quarians will accept the compromise, and there will be partnership. There won't be any catch after that. Together, the UEA and the Si'naia Conclave can easily overpower the Gasgira and the Yahg, and this corner of the galaxy will thrive. If you believe what the Quarians say about where they came from, that's nothing to take for granted. But I won't be there, nothing like me will be there. With the production lines closed, my kind will expire… not quite naturally, but something like that. That is what I think will happen. But you are ONI, and I know that you are not likely to believe my doomful prediction of peace and prosperity." -Cassandra, Reach Prognosticative AI
"I will close by inviting you all to take a step back and appreciate how far we have already come. We have a home, Si'naia, the Home We Earned. And it is a good home, and it is far from the galaxy's greater troubles. The dangers of the Ohnee, the Aye Eyes, the Gasgira, and the Yahg are nothing compared to the threats that we have left behind us. Whatever precisely is happening now between the Citadel Council and the Covenant, and whatever precisely lies in our own future, we may always be grateful. Grateful for our Halo and grateful for the new lives we make together upon it. Keelah Si'naia." -Barsi vas'Gravir, High Admiral of the Si'naia Conclave
"Hypos. Like, short for hypochondriacs. Is that anything? That's good enough. If Mamazulunov tells me I'm shooting hypos, I'm shooting hypos." -Spencer Andrews, Sergeant of the UNSC Marines