Chain 090: Mass Effect

Chain 090: Mass Effect
Location: Eden Prime
Age: 34
Identity: Drop-In, Human
Drawbacks: [+500] Bounty, Reaper's Eye

[Free]      Class: Engineer
[150/1500]  Not A Stupid Grunt
[550/1500]  Exemplar
[950/1500]  Apostate
[1450/1500] Squadmates
[1500/1500] Medi-Gel Kit

Ah, Eden Prime. A promising place, to be sure. I had considered a series of increasingly ridiculous plans in order to expose the threat that the Reapers pose, but it turns out there's a much easier way to get everyone to believe that they're a very real threat without, say, walking into the Citadel with Demona and I in gargoyle form and claiming to be a lost race from a previous cycle, and dressing my cultists up in armor that would lend the appearance without unmasking them to show that it was an elaborate fraud. Of coure, we obviously still did that, because it's too amusing NOT to do. (Shapeshifting is the best perk.) But since we were on Eden Prime, we dug up Javik first, and brought him along with us when we snuck out.

Javik was suitably unimpressed with the state of the galaxy, of course. A confederation at best, unprepared for what was to come, technologically disappointing, and so on. He waxed poetic at the Council aboard the Citadel, for hours, and it was quite hilarious to watch. As an offering of our goodwill, though, I gave the Council the plans for a Sentry Array - along with shortcuts so that it could be operational in a tenth of the time that it should take, even if the shortcuts would leave holes in its detection. Demona was largely backing up Javik in the 'you mortal races are just terrible' department - it became a contest between them, and it was pretty hilarious - and I expressed to the Council that our race had not used Eezo-based technology at all, we'd made it to the stars without it and then found that it was something of a trap. Of course, if they'd give me some scientists, I'd compare notes and see what we would do as far as making what technologies compatible that I could.

This of course was sufficient to raise everyone's eyebrows, when it came out. Aliens from before the Prothean extinction, in cold sleep that let them survive hundreds of thousands of years? One of whom was a Prothean himself, who survived fifty millennia in storage? Everyone wanted a piece of that, and as the individual that was potentially supplying the Council races with technology, I was the one that they wanted most of all. So it was only natural that every bounty hunter in the galaxy decided they should gun for me. Some for the sake of capture, and some for the sake of eliminating me to avoid disrupting the balance of power (as I was "the last remaining scientist of my kind", or at least that was the story I spun, but technically as a jumper I'm the ONLY one of my kind).

What I didn't expect, however, was for the Collectors to take an interest. Their attempts to get mercenaries to abduct members of the Conspiracy were generally poorly received, and universally unsuccessful - though this did expose them a bit, as they were wearing their LMD guise under the armor, to prevent tipping anyone off. Not that this was something that really helped anyone, considering they were walking around with Destroyer cannons from back in Marvel; none of the attackers survived. (Let's see a kinetic barriers shrug THAT off.) Speaking of which, those weapons were among of the things that was shared with the Citadel races. The knock-off cannons weren't quite as destructive, but were still powerful enough to kill a Krogan - just not an Asgardian. Of course, they didn't see a lot of open use outside of elite groups like Spectres. Falcon exo-packs were offred up too, though they were useless to Krogans due to their sheer mass.

Sadly, work on giving them new FTL tech progressed frustratingly slowly.

Javik and Demona tended to spend most of their time hanging out aboard the Citadel, still maintaining their 'oh, you poor primitive beings' act. While the Conspiracy kept a sizable honor guard there with them, the majority of them were running around with me aboard the old derelict I'd restored as I poked my head into various places in the galaxy. And when John Shepard was named as the first human Spectre, we all just "happened" to be on the Citadel. (Hilariously, I ran into one Tali'Zorah nar Rayya by complete accident. Circumstances weren't as dire for her as they might have been, as a result.) And so, the three of us tagged along with everyone else; after all, I was The Scientist, Javik was The Prothean, and Demona was... well, Demona, so no one could exactly tell us no and expect us to take them seriously.

When we arrived at Eden Prime, though... well. While things were chaotic on landing, I asked Shepard if he wanted me to remain under his command or just fix everything - he seemed a bit stressed, but said he'd much prefer I follow his orders. So... well, his funeral I suppose; we provided fire support as we charged forward. Heavy fire support, thanks to Demona's cannons and Javik's salvaged-and-rebuilt particle rifle, and my throwing around my own particle beams. (A wild Heretic Geth appeared! Crux used Meltdowner! It's super effective!)

Shepard, being a well-meaning idiot, got stuck in the Beacon's field; Javik ended up yanking him out and helping him make sense of it, before he ended up returning to the Citadel along with the artifact to explain everything. Apparently, the damn thing was a communications device all along, but it gave legitimate insights that matched up well with what Shepard could make sense of, on his recovery. ("Miracle the shaved ape didn't scramble his brains," Javik noted; Demona replied, "He'd need brains for that." No one was surprised that Shepard left them at the Citadel after that commentary on his awakening.)

On the plus side, Nihlus happily seconded Shepard's account of many things - after all, I'd gotten there quickly enough to play field medic and patched him up. (I may have slightly resurrected him. "You're damn lucky that mass effect round grazed you just right! With all that blood from the head wound and being knocked out, he must have thought you were dead!") Though he went his own way afterward, having his own methods, his path crossed with our later with a regular frequency. The mentor checking in on his trainee, such as it was.

The plot was pretty much on rails, it felt like, but the Citadel's Sentry Array came online at about the same time that we were hunting down an Asari archaeologist. While it didn't detect anything like the Reapers, according to Demona and Javik - I had hoped that it would but didn't honestly expect it to - what it DID detect was every mass relay in the galaxy, along with an incomplete megastructure around a star in the Perseus Veil.

("They're only adding the equivalent of two of your dreadnoughts daily to that, and with minimal inclusion of element zero, so as long as they don't decide to abandon this project and turn it to military ends you should be fine. How often do Council races build dreadnoughts, again? It has to be a couple per month, right?" asked Javik. Demona just grinned while the Council blanched as one, before offering what I'd given her when they were ready - a packaged set of technologies to revolutionize space-borne shipbuilding, albeit it would need either manpower or several VI to run it.)

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and the fun eventually did. At the battle of the Citadel, the Conspiracy was sent out - a thousand Harrows zipping about proved to be a rather decisive help in the fight. Facing down a Reaper in person wasn't my cup of tea either, but as Shepard got all the good lines, I kept in line.

Just staying with the ship, helping where I could, refusing to let anyone die.

Until the day the Normandy was attacked.

I had been on the bridge, helping out; I'd had an eye for sensor readings, and it gave me something productive to do other than keeping Chakwas company. I gave subtle warning to Joker, which was enough for us to dodge the first volley, and that in itself surely saved lives. When everything inevitably went to hell, I stayed on the bridge with Joker while everyone else fled to other escape pods, but when Shepard arrived and was finally able to talk Joker into leaving, I sprinted ahead to safety in the pod and helped secure Joker. And then Shepard was flung away and launched the pod.

As the ship exploded behind us, I muttered to Joker, "Okay, screw this, masquerade's over." He shot me a puzzled look, but I'd already disappeared into thin air with a pop. Thirty seconds later, I reappeared with a rather louder bang, with a half-dead Shepard under my arm. Joker was stuttering out questions as I secured Shepard and removed his helmet, twitching my hand to produce my wand from its hidden holster, healing his wounds. And then working on Joker's arm, fixing the arm fracture that Shepard had given him. Well, as much as Joker's bones COULD be fixed.

I secured myself across from Joker, twirling my wand between my fingers for a moment before it disappeared into its disillusioned holster again.

>"You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?!"
"I asked Shepard when this all started whether he wanted me to fix everything or follow his orders. The Normany's gone, and therefore I can fix everything."
>"You disappeared- was that some sort of mass effect field that nobody's seen before? What are you doing with the, the..."
"Wand? Oh, I'm not a biotic. No mass effect, no eezo. I'm a wizard, Joker."
>"Is that how you've been keeping everyone alive when they should look like swiss cheese?!"
"Actually, kinda, yeah. Do me a favor and don't tell anybody though, I'm going to have to kick things up a notch."

>"By which you mean..."
"Taking over Cerberus, weeding out systemic indoctrination, slapping them all upside the head until they stop being stupid, and rename them to Not Cerberus. And then building a giant army to fight the Reapers."
>"Can I sign up?"
"You know what? Fuck it, why not. Welcome to Not Cerberus."

Jack Harper did not react well to me quite literally appearing out of nowhere, either. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly care about this, and after a bit of percussive maintenance on his head and purging his indoctrination, he rapidly realized that a lot of what he did was flawed. Not that he was going to completely abandon it, but thoroughly flawed nonetheless.

I pointed out to him that the barbarians were at the gates. By which I meant that the Sentinel Array had at least gotten the Citadel to vastly loosen the restrictions on every species' naval count, even if it was ostensibly for the inevitable overrunning of the galaxy by the Geth; of course this was a polite fiction to stop the public from outright panic, as they weren't completely ignoring the Reapers. Couldn't, really, considering that when a certain reporter mentioned "Reapers" in air quotes, Javik broke her jaw before Demona dragged him away. And as she managed to tick off the only extant Prothean, the Westerlund News was no longer welcome upon the Citadel.

In time, Shepard's path crossed with my own - mostly because I gave the Alliance a rebuilt and heavily upgraded Normandy, on condition that it would be considered on indefinite loan to the only human Spectre. Not Cerberus was given the job of supporting Shepard, which worked out shockingly well now that everyone had their heads on straight.

They even helped carry out the coup that put Liana in place as the new Shadow Broker, and after the dust settled, those who didn't retire found themselves directly in her employ.

Unfortunately, all of this butterflied away EDI's existence.

Speaking of the dust settling: Shepard had something of a suicide mission going on past the Omega 4 relay, or so a little birdie told me, and I ended up back on the crew for this. Which amused me heavily, for several reasons. Among them, a brief exchange on the bridge of the Normandy:

"Hey, Shepard, remember when I asked whether I should fix everything or follow your orders?"
>"Honestly? No. When was this?"
"Eden Prime."
>"Riiight. Well, if what you've been up lately to is any indication, I'm going to say feel free to fix everything."
"Thank you, I will. Joker, all stop, and would someone please hail the warworld to starboard?"
>"The wha- HOLY JESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!"
"Hyperion."

And then Hyperion blew the absolute fuck out of the Reaper base without anyone having to step foot on it.

On a related note: the Reapers stopped holding back and invaded, but the Citadel races were rather well prepared and their naval forces had a tendency to fight them to a draw. The Reapers had weapons that were disturbingly effective, but it turns out that the technology behind Javik's particle weapon could be reverse engineered fairly easily and had been rolled out across the board to the latest ships, so they could hit back nearly as hard. (Not to mention the rolling out of particle weapons to ground forces, as well.)

The difference between bees and hornets, I suppose, but it made a major difference and slowed them down long enough for the Crucible's plans to be found by Liara; when she said how long it would be to make the thing, I replied, "Fuck that noise," and it began to take form in orbit of Hyperion.

Everyone's response was a lot more lackluster than I expected, but I had been pulling things like that out of my hat on the regular, by that point.

In the end, the decision wasn't very hard to make. Shepard, being a well-meaning idiot, led the force that boarded the Crucible when it docked with the Citadel, which had been fully evacuated when the Reapers invaded. He confronted the Catalyst, and he made his choice.

He didn't have the Illusive Man trying to convince him that control was the best option; the indoctrinated madman was much more sane, now, and was planning on retiring to the Florida Keys when the war ended.

He didn't have EDI to consider, because Cerberus had disassembled all of the Reaper tech and purged it.

He didn't have Legion to think about, because the Geth witnessed the organic races' abrupt buildup of naval forces and increased patrols near the Veil, and correctly assumed them to be a vanguard against possible aggression.

He didn't listen to the Crucible's idiotic arguments.

The only option that he considered acceptable was the obvious: the destruction of the Citadel, the Reapers, and the collateral damage of annihilating the Reapers taking out half of the mass relays in the galaxy.

I, Demona, and the Conspiracy were in the Warehouse while this all went down, on the other hand, along with the AI that normally controlled Hyperion. Just in case. And it proved to be a wise precaution; a "dumb" AI that was left in control of Hyperion, rather than FATHER and the Magi, proved to be inexplicably deleted. Along with the Geth - it seemed there would be a half-completed Dyson sphere in the Veil to mark their passing.

Perhaps it was a bit heartless. Like the opportunity to cure the genophage never coming up. But at least this way the galaxy would be free of the Reaper threat without any concerns of the galaxy being overrun when some errant program or warlord decides they want more than anyone else is willing to give them, with the ability to geometrically multiply their population.

And no one went to Andromeda.