"A veteran's tale"

[KAreil]

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I won't bore you with a lot of history that you should know anyway but a bit of it might be handy to understand what followed.
In 2148 human exploration and even colonization of the Sol system was well under way when prospectors discovered alien ruins on Mars. Among these ruins a mostly defective data cache was found and analyzed by scientists from all over the world. The bit of data that could be extracted and translated put human technology forward by at least 200 years and led to the discovery of a Mass Relay at Charon. Mass Relays like that are pieces of ancient technology, probably the same as the ruins on Mars - named Prothean by scientists. This ancient technology lead to the discovery of element zero is the basis of most advanced technology today. This is what allows interstellar travel between systems and is the basis of any extra solar exchange. Most galactic civilizations call this the Mass Effect.

In light of these huge discoveries and potential encounters with living alien races the human governments got their shit together and formed the Systems Alliance which is responsible for the governance and defense of all extra-solar colonies and stations. Still, the alliance was often disregarded by those on Earth but that changed quickly in 2157 when the First Contact War with the turians broke out. While the national governments dithered and bickered over who should lead the effort to liberate the enemy occupied colony of Shanxi, the Alliance fleet struck decisively. Post-War public approval gave the Alliance the credibility to establish its own Parliament and become the galactic face of humanity.

A year later in 2158 recognized telekinetic abilities developed by some humans. Children of people exposed to element zero dust during a shipping accident in Singapore developed this so-called biotic ability and humanity quickly learned to control and exploit them.

In the aftermath of the First Contact War the Human Systems Alliance got recognized by the Council who basically control galactic relations. Made up by the Turians, Asari and Salarians who represent the bulk of military strength in the Milky Way they set the rules to whom most other species bow. Each council species has general characteristics associated with the various aspects of governing the galaxy. The asari are typically seen as diplomats and mediators. The salarians gather intelligence and information. The turians provide the bulk of military and peacekeeping forces. No single Council race is strong enough to defy the other two, and all have a vested interest in compromise and cooperation.

The council resides on a huge ancient deep space station called the Citadel located in the Serpent Nebula which makes reaching it via open space near impossible, the only safe approach is through the various Mass Relays that orbit it.
Any species granted an embassy on the Citadel is considered an associate member, bound by the accords of the Citadel Conventions. Associate members may bring issues to the attention of the Council, though they have no input on the decision itself. The Human Systems Alliance became an associate member of the Citadel in 2165.

Coming to my person I was born in 2154 on the small colony of Mindoir on the fringes of the Attican Traverse. When I was sixteen standard years old the colony got raided by batarian slavers where the entire settlement I lived in was razed, all my friends and family were slaughtered. The only thing that rescued me was that I was far out on a hunting trip and only came back when the raid was over. All I could do was bury the corpses left behind and wait for the Alliance to finally react to the emergency signals sent.
The Alliance patrol sent to investigate picked me up and I insisted on enlisting with the Alliance military. In the following years I was part of the long and bloody campaign to rid the Skyllian Verge of Batarian slavers and other criminal elements. In 2176 the enemy even attacked Elysium, the human capital in the Skyllian Verge causing big destruction and the loss of countless civilian lives.

By 2178 I was commander of an elite assault bataillon, "Shepard's Scorpions" and we had the enemy besieged on Torfan, an old mining moon colony. The enemy base was built miles below the surface and fortified into a formidable fortress. I personally lead my bataillon down the maze of tunnels into the heart of the enemy. It was brutal close-quarter fighting and I lost many of my men to push through enemy lines. At one point we got pinned down by heavy enemy fire across a stretch of open ground and my troops were too fatigued to push through this hail of fire. In a desperate attempt to overcome this I dropped a hand grenade directly behind us and led the charge against the enemy. With a resounding "Hurrah!" we charged through the enemy fire and broke into their lines, routing them.
I lost my right eyesight during the vicious melee on Torfan, a Batarian bayonet slashed my face and left me half blind but still combat effective.
In the end the casualties of my bataillon were near 75% but we fulfilled our mission, not a single slaver made it out of Torfan alive.
After the battle I got a new biologically engineered eyeball, another consequence of the technology advance through the Protean artifacts, which works as good as my natural one. The big scar running top to bottom through the right side of my face, I kept - a constant reminder to be ever more vigilant.

And then in 2183 the real mess started for me...
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[Sappho]

Ihr seid unermüdlich!

Wir müssen unsere AARs auch mal fortführen ...

[Bigfish]

Prächtig - 2022 ist wirklich ein exzellenter AAR Jahrgang!

[KAreil]

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I was commander of the ground troops assigned to the SSV Normandy, System Alliance Space Vehicle Stealth Reconnaissance 1 to be precise. It was a prototype frigate featuring brand new stealth technology which was in development. Officially we were on a shakedown run but I never believed that, nor did others in the crew. Besides being fully crewed and stockpiled the other strange thing was the Turian aboard the ship. The Turians are the peacekeepers of the Council and come from an autocratic society that values discipline and honor. There still is a lingering animosity between Turians and Humans over the First Contact War of 2157 that the Council forced to an end. Since then we are officially allies within Council space and enjoy civil, if cool, diplomatic relations.

Nihlus, the turian, was a Spectre who are the agents from the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance and they answer only to the Citadel Council. They are elite military operatives, granted the authority to deal with threats to peace and stability in whatever way they deem necessary. Needless to say that he made the crew uneasy. The few discussions I had with him had the same effect, not a friendly person and I was deeply suspicious of his motives.
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As we were nearing the human colony of Eden Prime I got called into a meeting with Captain Anderson and Nihlus. They finally told me that the shakedown run story was a ruse and that we had quite an important mission ahead of us. A research time unearthed some kind of Prothean beacon during an excavation and this beacon had huge potential to jump ahead our technological level again. It had been decided to bring in the Citadel Council on this because only they had the resources and facilities to study that kind of technology.

The other reason for Nihlus' presence was I. Humanity was pushing the Council for some time now to get more influence and part of this was to get a Human into the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. My military history made me the perfect candidate for a Spectre and Nihlus would evaluate my performance on this mission.
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An emergency transmission from Eden Prime suddenly interrupted our meeting. Our troops in the colony reported unknown enemies attacking them with overwhelming force, the transmission ended shortly afterwards and we only got static. Our priority was still the Prothean beacon and I quickly assembled my team, the biotical gifted Sentinel Kaidan Alenko and the rather green Corporal Richard Jenkins. Nihlus would go on his own but meet us at the excavation site.

We dropped down into a LZ near the dig site and advanced swiftly towards it. Turning a corner Corporal Jenkins was ambushed by flying gun drones that mowed him down. We could shoot them down quickly but it was too late for Jenkins. Kaidan didn't really have the stomach for that back then, it was his first real combat mission but I managed to straighten him out and we continued our advance.
More enemy drones showed up and also their masters, humanoid machines I only knew from history books - the Geth.
They are a humanoid race of networked AIs created by quarians 300 years ago as tools of labor and war. When they showed signs of self-evolution the quarians attempted to exterminate them but the Geth fought back and even won the war. This example has led to legal and systematic repression of (abominable) artificial intelligences in galactic society. The Geth had retreated into the trailing end of the Perseus Arm, beyond the lawless Terminus Systems. The Perseus Veil, an obscuring dark nebula lies between their space and the Terminus System and they hadn't shown themselves for many years.
We shot down many of the Geth soldiers and found even more dead civilians. The worst was what they did to our dead, they put the corpses on tall spikes which makes a really gruesome sight.

As we battled our way forward we found an ally. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams a survivor of the 212. stationed here on Eden Prime was pinned down by the Geth but we outflanked and eliminated them. She joined my squad and we continued our way to the excavation site.
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[Sappho]

Oh .... könnte auch ein Bericht aus Rumänien zu mittelalterlichen Zeiten sein . Vlad Dracul läßt grüßen ... .

[KAreil]

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Unfortunately the excavation site was empty except the gruesome leftovers of the civilians. Williams informed me of a nearby research camp, the most likely place where the Prothean beacon could have been brought by the excavation team and I decided to head there next.
Nihlus called in via radio, he was at a small spaceport nearby and we were to meet there once we got the beacon.

Then the Geth surprised us badly. The poor Human wretches impaled on their spikes suddenly twitched and the spikes moved down to release them. But our people were changed, more machine than anything these husks stumbled towards us to attack. We managed to take them all out before they could do damage but a nasty shock remained in the squad.
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We fought our way through more Geth soldiers to the research camp but there was no trace of the beacon. We could free 2 scientists though and one of them introduced herself as Dr. Warren who was in charge of this excavation. It became clear that the Geth attack was for the beacon and I learned that it was moved to the spaceport Nihlus mentioned this morning. Dr. Warren had found out that the beacon seemed to be some type of data module from a galaxy-wide communications network and quite well-preserved for its age.
Unfortunately her colleague Dr. Manuel was not that useful, the man gibbered around about "Agents of the destroyers. Bringers of darkness. Heralds of our extinction" and it was clear that he was out of his mind. I have seen plenty of cases where civilians freaked out when seeing actual combat but never like this, even back then I was sure there was some other reason behind this.

We continued towards the spaceport and as we came near it we saw a huge strange ship taking off from there. We had never seen anything like it and the size and design of it made it clear that this was the source and transport of the enemy. The strangest thing of all was the sound it made...not engines or thrusters or anything like it but a sound you felt in your head and which made everyone instinctively uneasy.
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Near the spaceport we encountered another survivor, some smuggler who readily relinquished his wares. I let the petty criminal live and we finally reached the spaceport where we found Nihlus shot dead at the platform. Luckily we found another survivor, some dock hand hiding behind crates. He actually saw what happened to Nihlus and it was a real surprise. There was another Turian at the spaceport, seemingly a friend of Nihlus who he called Saren. Nihlus did let his guard down and Saren shot him right in the back.
Afterwards he jumped on the cargo train to the other platform where the Prothean beacon had been brought.
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With no time to waste we fought our way through more Geth towards the cargo train and arrived at the other platform on it. We found the Geth were preparing to blow up the whole colony with big demolition charges and managed just in time to disarm them all.
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Saren had disappeared but we found the Prothean beacon. As we came near it it somehow reacted to our presence and Williams who was the nearest of us got somehow engulfed in a strange glow and started to lift up from the ground. I reacted instinctively and shoved her away from the beacon but it then locked onto me. I got lifted up from the ground and saw...to be honest I don't know what I saw back then...but suddenly the beacon exploded in a greenish flash and I was knocked out cold.
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[KAreil]

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The next thing I remember is Dr. Chakwas ship's doctor of the Normandy fuzzing around me. She told me that I was out more than 15 hours after the beacon knocked me out. The Prothean relic was destroyed by that and now utterly useless for us which meant a big failure for my mission. Luckily the explosion of the beacon didn't hurt me, the doctor confirmed that I was physically fine but she found some unusual brain activity, abnormal beta waves. That coincidences with the strange kind of vision I had right before the explosion, I couldn't remember much but I saw synthentics, Geth maybe slaughtering people, butchering them. Death and Destruction.

I went back to the business ahead and had a talk with Captain Anderson from the Normandy. He at least had some good news, he had requisitioned Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams for my squad and after her performance on Eden Prime I already valued her combat prowess.
But the captain had bad news too, the other Turian Saren was a Spectre, one of the best according to his knowledge. If he was working with the Geth it meant he had gone rogue and posed a huge danger to Council space in general and Humanity in particular, he really hated humans. Our plan was to go to the Citadel ASAP and inform the council about our findings.

On route to the Citadel I had a long talk with Chief Williams, I always try to get to know my troops as best as possible. She was a bit shaken being the sole survivor of her old detachment but she was holding up. A true soldier to the heart she swore to take revenge for them and deeply appreciated the chance to join my squad.

Standing behind Joker, the Normandy's pilot, we jumped through the Mass Relay nearest Eden Prime and arrived at the Citadel a split second later. The huge Citadel space station was as impressive as ever, presumably constructed by the Protheans long ago it was the political, cultural and financial capital of the galactic community and seat of the council. To represent their interests, most species maintained embassies on the Presidium, the Citadel's inner ring. The Citadel Tower, in the center of the Presidium held the Citadel Council chambers which had far-reaching effects on the rest of the galactic community. Five arms, known as the wards, extend from the Presidium and their inner surfaces have been built into cities, populated by millions of inhabitants from across the galaxy.
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While approaching our landing zone we even caught a glimpse of the Ascension, the mighty flagship of the Citadel fleet. Its huge main gun could annihilate virtually anything with a single shot.
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Ambassador Udina had managed to get an holographic audience at the Council but it went quite badly. The Council concluded that it was foolish of the Human Systems Alliance to colonize Eden Prime which is at the borders of the lawless Terminus Systems and rejected the idea of a military response to the Geth attack. On the matter of Saren they at least had Council-Security or C-Sec investigate the issue but we knew they didn't believe our story. Damn those politicians...

The C-Sec hearing about Saren was scheduled for later that day so we had a few hours of idle time on our hands which I spent with Chief Willams and Lieutenant Kaidan in the Presidium. While waiting for them to get ready I had a look around Udina's office and read an interesting alliance patrol report, some unusual energy readings in the Hydra system.
We took a wrong turn when leaving the office and stumbled into a meeting between two Elcor and a Volus aliens.
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The small Volus are a member species of the Citadel but they are also a client race of the Turians. Centuries ago, they were voluntarily absorbed into the Turian Hierarchy, effectively trading their mercantile prowess for Turian military protection. The Volus have to wear pressure suits and breathers at all times because the conventional nitrogen/oxygen air and low pressure atmospheres tolerable to most species would instantly kill them. Volus culture is tribal, bartering lands and even people to gain status and this culture of exchange inclines them to economic pursuits. It was the Volus who authored the Unified Banking Act, and they continue to monitor and balance the Citadel economy.
Din Korlack introduced himself and complained about them not having a seat in the Council but otherwise provided little news to me.

The massive Elcor on the other side knew something interesting although I only chanced to overhear their discussion. Prying the Elcor for more information was quite tedious as Elcor speech is ponderous and monotone. Among themselves, scent, slight movements, and subvocalized infrasound convey shades of meaning that make a human smile seem as subtle as a fireworks display. Since their subtlety can lead to misunderstanding with other species, the elcor often go out of their way to clarify when they are being sarcastic, amused or angry - for a Human this quite prolongs a short talk.
It took some time but I found out that the Elcor called Xeltan had visited an Asari consort named Sha'ira who it seems has broken his confidence by forwarding some secrets to others who now blackmail Xeltan. I did not get more details but could imagine the matter quite delicate...

With not much else to do I decided to investigate the matter of Xeltan and we went straight to this consort's establishment. At first it looked like I wouldn't even get near Sha'ira as the front desk lady blocked all my attempts to get to her or at least some more detailed information. I was ready to leave when the consort suddenly called us into her office.
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Sha'ira had the typical blue look of the Asari who actually were the first species to discover the Citadel. Together with the Asari they established the Citadel Council to maintain peace throughout the galaxy and since then have served as the mediators and centrists of the Council. The Asari are an all-female race who can attune their nervous system to that of another individual of any gender, and of any species, to reproduce. They can live for over a thousand standard years, passing through three stages of life. In the Maiden stage, they wander restlessly, seeking new knowledge and experience. When the Matron stage begins they 'meld' with interesting partners to produce their offspring. This ends when they reach the Matriarch stage, where they assume the roles of leaders and councilors.

I confronted Sha'ira with the claim from Xeltan that she had sold his secrets but she vehemently renounced this. She could tell me though the source of this false accusation, another client of hers, the Turian general Septimus had broken with her and now tried to tarnish her reputation. Again I did not learn details, only that she couldn't be what the general thought he needed. In the end I agreed to find the general in the lower wards and talk some sense into him.

Coming out of the consorts establishment I came across one of the Keepers. I knew little about them but a nearby Virtual Intelligence called Avina gave me some explanations. The Keepers were found together with the Citadel and are a docile multi-limbed insect race that seemingly exists only to maintain and repair the great space station. Early attempts to communicate with or study the Keepers were failures, and it is now illegal to interfere with or impede Keeper activity. Because they are completely non-threatening, Keepers have become virtually invisible to everyone else living in the Citadel. Similarly, they seem indifferent to other species, except for their tendency to help new arrivals integrate themselves into the Citadel.
No matter how many keepers die due to old age, violence, or accident, they maintain a constant number. No one has discovered the source of new Keepers, but some hypothesize they are genetic constructs: biological androids created somewhere deep in the inaccessible core of the Citadel itself.
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Before going into the lower wards though I got buzzed that the C-Sec hearing was due now and so we made our way to the Citadel tower.

[KAreil]

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Ambassador Udina brought us with him into the Council chambers where the Council had already convened, the bastard Saren was present as a holographic presentation.
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The C-Sec hearing was a disaster for us, the Council didn't believe us at all and cleared Saren of all charges, he kept his status as Spectre which made him practically untouchable. One of the reasons for the Council's decision might have been that Captain Anderson was present too, he had a bad history with Saren and that might have influenced them.The only way to get Saren was to get him thrown out of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance forces and for that we needed hard evidence. We had 2 possible leads, a Volus named Barla Von who worked in the financial district but was rumored to also be an agent for the Shadow Broker - a renowned peddler of secrets. The other one was Garrus, a Turian that led the C-Sec investigations against Saren but was cut short by the council. The location of Garrus was unknown but a recently fired C-Sec employee named Harkin was supposed to know it. This Harkin was supposedly drinking in a bar in the lower wards.

Near the exit of the Citadel tower Williams pointed out a strange scene to me, a Salarian fuzzing around a dormant Keeper. This was technically illegal but quite interesting too, so I approached the guy. He introduced himself as Chorban, a Salarian scientist quite interested in the Keepers. Salarians were the second species to join the Citadel and are warm-blooded amphibians with a hyperactive metabolism. The Salarians were responsible for advancing the development of the primitive krogan species to use as soldiers during the Rachni Wars. They were also behind the creation of the genophage bioweapon the Turians used to quell the Krogan Rebellions several centuries later. Salarians are known for their observational capability and non-linear thinking, this manifests as an aptitude for research and espionage. They are constantly experimenting, inventing and researching which explained Chorban's interest in the mysterious Keepers.
I was never very comfortable around the Keepers myself so I agreed to help him a bit in his research, he gave me small scanner and from then on I scanned each and every Keeper I encountered while in the Citadel.

On my way to the lower ward I came across another interesting scene. A C-Sec officer was arguing about a preaching permit with a purple Hanar alien. I didn't have time to involve myself too much there but had real troubles not rolling my eyes about such stupidity.
We made it to the lower ward and continued to Chora's Den, the bar where this Harkin and also General Septimus were to be found, but at the promenade outside it we were ambushed. Several alien assassins started shooting at us but we quickly turned the battle. Unfortunately we couldn't take any alive but it was clear that they were some hired assassins, probably the bastard Saren had sent them after me.
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We entered the bar and soon I could identify the Turian general drinking alone at a table, he was wallowing in self-pity like an old maiden crone. I approached him directly from soldier to soldier and after some discussion I could convince him to get a grip on himself and start acting the rank he had. General Septimus agreed to stop slandering Sha'ira and he asked me a favor. The general didn't know that I already knew that part of the story but he wanted me to give Xeltan a datapad containing proof that the consort hadn't shared his secrets.

Harkin was sitting a few tables away and I quickly found out he was a crook, good riddance for C-Sec. He willingly told me that Garrus was quite frustrated with the aborted investigation about Saren and could be found in the med clinic of Dr.Michel on the other side of the wards.

Coming out of the Chora's Den a stranger suddenly approached me. He introduced himself as Conrad Verner and called himself one of my biggest fans, a thing I couldn't believe at all. He even asked for an autograph which I gave him after some thought.

On my way to the med clinic yet another stranger approached me, this time a pretty journalist named Emily Wong. She was after any breaking news my investigation would uncover and asked me to share it with her. Generally I approve of free press so I agreed non-committal and moved on.

Entering the med clinic we came into a hostage situation. An armed human held a doctor hostage and from my vantage point I could see a Turian, Garrus as I later learned, hiding behind a pillar to the side. Talking with the hostage taker, faking negotiations I gave Garrus an opening so he could attack and eliminate the threat.
The rescued Dr. Chloe Michel could identify the attacker, a thug working for a known criminal called Fist who had worked for the Shadow Broker but was now hired by Saren.
A few days ago a Quarian came to Dr. Michel's office, she had been shot but wouldn't tell her who did it. The Quarian was on the run and wanted to exchange some high value information about the Geth for a safe place to hide and in good faith the doctor had sent the Quarian to Fist who operated out of Chora's Den. Garrus wanted to join us now hunting down fist and the Quarian for her information - I agreed as he wasn't as bad as the other Turians I've met before.
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On the run we started to Fist's bar but had to stop because of an incident with C-Sec and a Krogan. Garrus told me that his name was Wrex and that he was also after Fist. Knowing that an additional ally could come in useful, I intervened for him and sent the C-Sec away.
The Krogan evolved in a hostile and vicious environment and they were a brutal, primitive species struggling to survive a self-inflicted nuclear winter when the Salarians discovered them long ago. The Salarians culturally uplifted them, teaching them to use and build modern technology so they could serve as soldiers in the Rachni Wars. Liberated from the harsh conditions of their homeworld, the quick-breeding Krogan experienced an unprecedented population explosion. They began to colonize nearby worlds, even though these were already inhabited. The Krogan Rebellions lasted nearly a century, only ending when the Turians unleashed the genophage, a Salarian-developed bioweapon that crushed all Krogan resistance. This genophage makes only one in a thousand Krogan pregnancies viable, and today the Krogan are a slowly dying breed. Understandably, the Krogan harbor a grudge against all other species, especially the Turians.
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As we entered Chora's Den we were fired on immediately and saw quite some combat until we had taken out the enemy guards. In the back rooms we encountered some armed warehouse workers but they ran for their lives when I gave them the chance.
Finally we found this Fist and after a brief but intense battle he lay wounded before me, ready to answer my questions.
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I found out that he didn't even really know the Shadow Broker but that he had pretended to set up a meeting between him and the Quarian. They were supposed to meet right then in the back alley by the markets and Saren's men would be waiting for her. Fist's actions had caused too much pain and death and I made sure he didn't get to walk away from it.

[KAreil]

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With all haste we ran to the back alley the late Fist told us and arrived there at exactly the right moment. We saw a Quarian woman ambushed by some Turians but she fought well and with our help the attackers were soon dispatched. I explained to her that I was a friend, that we needed her and that we would protect her. She introduced herself as Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and agreed to come with us to ambassador Udina.
The Quarians who originally created the Geth were driven from their home system nearly three centuries ago and now most of them live aboard the Migrant Fleet, a flotilla of fifty thousand vessels ranging in size from passenger shuttles to mobile space stations. Each quarian must go on a rite of passage known as the Pilgrimage when they come of age. They leave the fleet and only return once they have found something of value they can bring back to their people. Many other species tend to look down on the quarians for creating the Geth and for the negative impact their fleet has when it enters a system. This has led to many myths and rumors about the Quarians, including that underneath their clothes and breathing masks, they are actually cybernetic creatures: a combination of organic and synthetic parts.
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Ambassador Udina was a typical politician, whining about the firefight we had in the Wards and so on. He finally shut up as I explained to him that the Quarian could help us with our Saren problem. Tali told us that she heard reports of the Geth while being on her Pilgrimage and she decided to follow a Geth patrol to an uncharted world. She ambushed a lone Geth, managed to disable it and removed its memory core. Of course most of the core was wiped clean by some protection measure but as the Quarians had originally created the Geth Tali could salvage something from its audio banks. We could clearly hear Sarens voice: "Eden Prime was a major victory! The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."
An unknown female voice replied to that with: "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

We finally had proof of Sarens treachery. But a lot of unknowns too - who was the female voice?
What is this Conduit, as it is connected to the Beacon it is for sure some kind of Prothean technology but what kind...
What are these Reapers they are trying to return?

Here Tali could already provide some hints. According to the Geth memory core, the Reapers were a hyper-advanced machine race that existed 50.000 years ago. They hunted the Protheans to total extinction, and then they vanished. Now this strange vision I got from the Prothean beacon suddenly made more sense, I understood that I saw the Protheans being wiped out by the Reapers. Tali knew from the memory core that the Geth revered the Reapers as gods, the pinnacle of non-organic life and that Saren as their prophet knows how to bring them back.
The Quarian had proven her usefulness so I accepted her into my squad when she requested it.

While ambassador Udina requested an emergency audience at the Citadel Council we visited the Elcor embassy next door. I gave Xeltan the datapad from general Septimus and he was very grateful about this and glad that it was not the Consort who had betrayed him. Then we went to Sha'ira herself and told her that we had solved her problems. She offered a gift of words:
"I see sadness behind your eyes. It tells a story that makes me want to weep. Pain and loss. But it drives you, makes you strong. You never hide your strength, either. It serves you well. Terrifies your foes. Few will dare to stand against you. This may be who you are, but it is not who you will become. It only forms the basis for your future greatness."
Nice, philosophical words but I felt awkward when hearing them. I thanked her and she gave me a small artifact as a parting gift, she said it is a small mystery and that she never had learned its use or purpose.

Back on the promenade of the Presidium a stranger approached me and introduced himself as Samesh Bhatia, he wanted my help to get the body of his late wife released from the military. She was a marine of the 212 and Chief Williams knew her personally. He explained to me that he requested her body to be returned for cremation but was refused without any reason and now he wanted my help. I agreed and he sent me to the diplomatic corps nearby where the clerk Bosker was responsible for this. Thanks to my reputation I quickly found out why the body was held back, her wounds were inconsistent with any type of weapon damage encountered so far and the military was conducting tests to improve against this.
I thought this a very good reason and shared this information with the grieving Samesh. At first he didn't want to understand and started complaining but after I made it absolutely clear that we were in a state of war he finally backed down and understood.
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I got messaged that the Council audience would soon start but on my way I could earn myself a few more credits. In Fist's office I found a data disk containing evidence of his crimes and the journalist Emily Wong did pay good money for it.

In the audience chamber the Council finally believed our evidence. Tha Asari representative Tevos even recognized the other voice, an Asari Matriarch called Benezia. She was a powerful biotic and had many followers, making her a formidable ally for Saren. Unfortunately the Council didn't believe in the threat of the mystical Reapers, they only agreed that Saren had gone rogue and that he was searching for this Conduit, nobody knew more about. We knew that Saren had fled somewhere into the Traverse but the Council did refuse to send its fleet in pursuit, it didn't want to risk a war with the neighboring Terminus Systems.
When I told them I would track him down alone if necessary they hesitated at first but finally came to the conclusion that the best way to hunt down a rogue Spectre was another Spectre. In a small ceremony they made me the first Human Spectre and sent me out to bring Saren to justice.
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Now all I needed was a good ship and I was lucky that Captain Anderson volunteered to step down so I could take command of the Normandy. Its well trained crew and especially the experimental stealth technology were a huge boon for my mission. Anderson even told me what grudge against Saren had him take this decision, many years ago he was supposed to become a Spectre himself. There was an evaluation mission like mine with Saren looking over his shoulder. It was a true mess with many civilian casualties caused by Saren, in the end Anderson got all the blame and no Humans were allowed as Spectres until me. We said farewell but I had to make it clear to ambassador Udina that he had his duties too in this mission.
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We had 3 clues back then, reports of Geth sightings in the Feros and Noveria systems and Dr. Liara T'Soni, daughter of Matriarch Benezia and scientist investigating Prothean ruins in the Artemis Tau cluster. With no time to lose we boarded the Normandy and after a short inspirational speech to my crew and allies we left the Citadel.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/826879041100316672/1046020148517150780/ME_000026.jpg

[Mortimer]

Out of curiosity: Why not in German :???:

[KAreil]

Out of curiosity: Why not in German :???:


1) Weil wir in solch Story-lastigen Spielen die originale Sprache in Text und Ton meist bevorzugen, wir hatten einige schlechte Erfahrungen mit schlecht übersetzten Texten oder unpassenden Synchronstimmen. Das stört für uns dann zu sehr die Immersion.

2) Ein ständiges Übersetzen für den AAR ist dann lästig, vor allem weil wir dann oft gar nicht die "passenden" deutschen Begriffe kennen.

3) Als Übung für uns um unser geschriebenes Englisch aufzupolieren. ;)

[KAreil]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/826879041100316672/1040514107318747136/ME_000001.jpg





From the Citadel mass relay the nearest clue was Noveria in the Pax cluster of the Horse Head Nebula and we jumped there as fast as possible. Noveria was a small, frozen terrestrial world, barely habitable by conventional definitions. It was privately chartered by the Noveria Development Corporation, who lease out labs to perform research too dangerous or controversial to be performed elsewhere. Given Noveria's unique situation, it was the source of many wild conspiracy theories. Personally I was deeply suspicious of such corporate owned basically lawless enterprises.
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Noveria approach control was far from friendly but they couldn't deny a Spectre. I went off board with Willams and Kaidan but was stopped at the entrance to the main facilities by Noverian security guards under Captain Maeko Matsuo and her second-in-command Kaira Stirling. They even tried to take our weapons off us and the situation got really hairy. Finally they got informed by their management that we in fact did have the right to bear arms in their facilities.
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After entering the Noveria facilities we got welcomed by Gianna Parasini, assistant to Administrator Anoleis. She offered their assistance but made it clear that the planet was beyond jurisdiction of the Citadel and that actually the law here was what the Executive Board said. A typical corporate statement that really made me question why the System Alliance actually allowed this place to exist. She also told me that Matriarch Benezia passed through here a few days ago but left to the isolated research complex Peak 15. To get there I had to talk with the Administrator first.

Trying to find Anoleis we ended up in the hotel bar where an Asari woman approached me. She really had the nerve to try to involve me into some potential copyright conflict between here Aramali City Council and the corporate Binary Helix. I did not and do not meddle in such petty corporate stuff and left quickly.
Talking with a Turian named Lorik Qui'in at the bar I found out that the Matriarch had a bodyguard of Asari commandos with her, they were elite light troops with strong biotic powers.
From Lilihierax, another Turian near the garage, I learned that Peak 15 was actually operated by Binary Helix. Some conflict with Administrator Anoleis had him shut down their corporate office here, no entrance for anybody. He also told me that there seemed to be a problem at Peak 15, all access was shut down and even satellite comms were down.

Finally I located the Administrators office and told him that I need access to Peak 15 to get to the Matriarch. He didn't quite dare to refuse me directly but it was clear that the pretense of a blizzard making it impossible to reach was a ruse. Regardless of what I said he didn't budge so I left his office pretty frustrated.
However, Anoleis' assistant gave me a hint as I passed her leaving the office, talking to Lorik Qui'in could help me. We doubled back to the hotel bar where we found him and explained to him that we really needed to go to Peak 15. Lorik claimed that Anoleis was withholding money from his company and that he had evidence for that in his office at Synthetic Insights but the Administrator had closed it off to everyone. For this evidence he would provide me with his garage pass which would allow me to drive to the remote research complex.

With Loriks elevator access we reached the Synthetic Insights office and were stopped by some security guards. I tried to reason with them but they didn't see the error of their ways. They were paid under the table which made them mercenaries and mercenaries are not protected by any law or moral in my book. So we took them out and found Lorik's desk where we could download the evidence against the Administrator. We tried to leave without further bloodshed but Kaira Stirling, second-in-command of the local security force, had arrived with further guards. Again I tried to reason with them but again to no avail and we had to fight our way through them.

I met Gianna Parasini at the hotel bar and she disclosed her true profession to me, Noveria Internal Affairs. She was after Anoleis as they knew of his corruption and the evidence from Lorik could prove this. Additionally she wanted Lorik to testify against the Administrator and asked me for help convincing him. I hate crooks like Anoleis so I agreed and with a bit of pressure I could convince Lorik to do so. Finally I did get the garage pass from Gianna and could watch the arrest of Anoleis with a big smile on my face - that really made my day.
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As we entered the garage I noticed that my combat sensors were suddenly jammed and suddenly the Geth attacked. They had ambushed us there but we could defeat them in heavy combat.
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Captain Matsuo with some of her, probably not corrupt, guards arrived after the battle and we concluded that Matriarch Benezia must have smuggled in the Geth in her cargo containers. These were thoroughly scanned by the security details but checked out fine, the Geth must have been in a really deep hibernation state. While the Captain took care of securing the corporate facilities we searched the garage for our mount.
The Normandy's M35 'Mako" infantry fighting vehicle had been transferred to the garage when we landed and now we boarded it to reach Peak 15 across the harsh frozen world outside. With its turreted 155mm mass accelerator and coaxially-mounted machine gun, the Mako can provide a fire team with weapon support as well as protected mobility. Since Alliance troops may be required to fight on any world, the Mako is environmentally-sealed and equipped with microthrusters for use on low-gravity planetoids. It is powered by a sealed hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell, and includes a small element zero core. While not large enough to nullify the vehicle's mass, the core can reduce it enough to be safely air-dropped. When used in conjunction with thrusters, it also allows the Mako to extricate itself from difficult terrain.
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Through a blizzard over treacherous mountain paths we crossed the Aleutsk valley from the main Noveria facilities to the Peak 15 research complex. Several times we got attacked by Geth troops and they even had some heavy turrets emplaced to stop our advance. All to no avail, we reached Peak 15 and destroyed the Geth entrenched in the access area. Some of them were of Crogan descend, it seems the Geth can convert them to more than just dumb husks as they put up quite a battle.
The VirtualIntelligence operating Peak 15 was nicknamed 'Mira' and reported severe damage to most facilities but the doors to them could be opened. We found several automatic gun turrets pointing into the facility, it seemed that they didn't just want to keep us out but also to keep someone in.

Soon enough we found out who they wanted to keep in. Out of nowhere big insects started attacking us and we had quite some trouble until we could adjust tactics to eliminate them. At closer inspection I recognized these insects from history classes at Alliance Military Academy. They were Rachni, a species of spacefaring insects guided by a hive-mind intelligence that was supposed to be extinct for more than 2000 years. Back then some explorers had foolishly opened a Mass Relay to a previously-unknown system and there they encountered the Rachni. Unfortunately they were not peaceful and the galaxy was plunged into a series of conflicts known as the Rachni Wars. Attempts to negotiate or even communicate were futile, it was impossible to make contact with the hive queens that guided the race from beneath the surface of their toxic homeworld. The emergence of the Krogan ended the Rachni Wars. Bred to survive the harshest environments, the Krogan were able to strike at the queens in their lairs and reclaim conquered Council worlds. But when Krogan fleets pressed them back to their homeworld the Rachni refused to surrender and the Krogan eradicated them from the galaxy. Or at least that's what the galaxy believed.
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We fought our way through these Rachni insects and reached one of the backup power stations of the VI 'Mira". It reported a critical startup failure but I could fix this with a manual reboot at its core. With access to the VI we found out that the hot labs of Peak 15 were quarantined because some contaminants had escaped their test chambers. The VI didn't give me any more information about these contaminants but I was rather sure she meant the Rachni. The passenger transport trams connecting my position to the hot lab entrance were also shut down and we had to fix this to get to the Matriarch who was supposed to be there. First we took the elevator to the roof of the building to fix the landline router located there, several Rachni tried to stop us but by then we knew how to dispose of them. With communications re-established we took the elevator down to the main reactor where several Geth ambushed us. After eliminating them we fixed the main fuel lines and finally had access to the passenger trams. In the decontamination chamber directly before the tram system the Rachni were trapped and we could neutralize them with the plasma jet sterilization system the VI offered to us.
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With the tram system we arrived at Rift Station, the main research complex of Binary Helix. Heavily armed corporate security under Captain Ventralis welcomed us for our help against the Rachni but didn't tell me much more. He did tell me though that the Executive Board had sent Matriarch Benezia to solve the containment breach of the hot labs but they didn't have any news from her. We had to get our bearings before heading down there so we had some talks with the other survivors at the Station. We met an Asari molecular genetics scientist called Allestia Iallis, some Humans, Turians and an Elcor trader called Petozi. They didn't have much useful information but then we met a Volus called Han Olar who was the only surviving scientist of the hot labs. He told us that the source of the Rachni invasion was a very old egg they found and hatched and then let get out of control. He also told me of a way to actually get into the quarantined hot labs, a maintenance access from the outside but for this I would need to get out of the station first. Dr. Zev Cohen the head of the medical department would have access to that but when I talked with him he first wanted me to help with his patients. They had a deadly disease and the cure they were working on was nearly finished but Captain Ventralis had forbidden them to enter their quarantine labs. While I absolutely understood the Captain my mission had priority and I convinced him to let me into that lab. There it didn't take us long to locate the notes about the cure and we even managed to create a sample of it for the doctor. Just as we were leaving, the Asari scientist Allestia Iallis ambushed us with some Geth soldiers. She was too sure of herself and even told us that the Matriarch had given her the orders to kill me, well she wasn't good enough and they paid for it.

With Dr. Cohen's access card to the maintenance hatch we got outside the station and after a brief walk through the icy environment of Noveria and some more fights against Rachni we finally entered the hot labs of Peak 15. There we found Matriarch Benezia in front of a containment chamber with a real monster in it - a huge Rachni was contained there and Benezia was studying it intently. Of course the powerful biotic noticed us and she even disclosed their plan for it to us, this was a Rachni queen and her offspring should have been Saren's army. I offered her a chance to surrender but she declined and attacked together with waves of Geth and her Asari commandos. They fought bravely but were no match for my squad and in the end the Matriarch was defeated but still standing.
In that defeated state her behaviour suddenly changed, no longer the arrogant and evil bitch but suddenly open and intent on helping us. She explained that she was heavily indoctrinated by Saren and couldn't really be against his wishes, she also told us that the huge strange spaceship we've seen on Eden Prime was instrumental for this indoctrination. The Sovereign, Saren's flagship, was a huge dreadnought of unknown origin but it was clear that it was very very powerful.
Benezias mission here on Noveria was to find the location of the Mu Mass Relay, its position was lost thousands of years ago. Two thousand years ago the Rachni had inhabited that region of space and they had discovered it. The Rachni can share memories across generations, queens inherit the knowledge of their mothers. The Matriarch had taken the location of the Mu Relay from the mind of this queen and sent it to Saren, and now she also gave that information to me.
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After that Matriarch Benezia finally died of her wounds.
While I was watching the Rachni queen in the containment chamber I suddenly heard a sound behind me. One of the badly wounded Asari commandos was floating in the air and talking again, but it became clear immediately that it was not the Asari that was talking. Somehow the Rachni queen could control the nearly dead Asari and communicate through her - so we were the first in known history to actually be able to communicate with the Rachni. What it wanted was a bit hard to grasp at first, but we understood that the Rachni attacking us were cut off from the queen and not under control. The same was true for all the remaining Rachni in the hot labs, they had to be eliminated. The fate of the queen was a much more difficult decision, it was clear that this wasn't the mindless killing machine history told us about but this was also the first time anybody had a chance to actually talk with them. The queen wanted to just hide far away and raise her future children in peace, with the goal to teach them harmony and perhaps one day come back as friends. Weighing the options I finally released her, I wouldn't just wipe out a whole race - especially as they could prove powerful allies for Humanity in the future. And in the worst case we could always get the Salarians to cure the Krogan genophage and let them wipe the Rachni out a second time.
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With the queen gone there was still the problem with all the other Rachni running wild in the hot labs. As we got there we met the operations director Dr. Yaroslev Tartakovsky, sitting in a chair wounded and despairing. He spilled it all out to us, Binary Helix found a derelict ship that was drifting through space thousands of years. On board they found frozen Rachni eggs and they hatched one for experiments. To their surprise it wasn't a normal Rachni but a queen and she started laying eggs fast. They seperated the babies from her mother thinking that without her they could raise them to be obedient, to use them as personal army. A big mistake as it turned out, the isolated Rachni went crazy and broke out of their containment and were everywhere in Peak 15 then. The only way to really get rid of them was the neutron purge function built into the research station, it creates a burst of neutron radiation that could kill everything within the station. The scientist gave me the key and code to initiate the purge but he got killed by suddenly attacking Rachni. We neutralized them and soon found the VI access for the purge where we started the countdown. Fighting our way through ever more Rachni we reached the passenger trams just in time and were well under way when the research station exploded in neutron radiation behind us.

[KAreil]

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We left through the Noveria main facilities and brought the Normandy into orbit to assess the situation. I held a big meeting, not just with Kaidan and Willams, but also Wrex, Garrus and Tali. I knew it was quite a risk to take the aliens into such confidence but all of them had sworn their allegiance to me and our mission to hunt down Saren. We had the position of the Mu Mass Relay but it could link into dozens of star systems and without knowing where exactly Saren wanted to go, it made no sense to head straight for it.
We had two more leads, Matriarch Benezias daughter Liara and the Geth sightings at Feros. Tali was heavily in favor of going after Liara first but I made it clear that I was in charge and would decide our course of action later.

My mission report was sent to the Citadel Council and we had a quick holographic meeting to discuss our findings. They were quite surprised about letting the Rachni queen go but they had to accept my decision. The Council in general had confidence in me but it got clear that the Turian representative Sparatus wasn't happy with me - tough luck for him.

After the meeting I had to take care of my crew. Most of them, including my trusted Navigator Pressly and Chief Williams, were deeply suspicious of having the aliens on board and that I gave them much freedom to move aboard the ship. I made it clear that while some may think that taking help is a sign of weakness, it is just a sign of being stupid and stubborn. No matter how strong Humanity is, allies can make us stronger.

Systems Alliance fleet command sent a bunch of additional orders for us. While we were hunting for Saren we should survey the star systems we got through, ever growing Humanity had an ever growing hunger for resources. So we spent quite some time surveying deposits of valuable materials and gases.

Our next stop was the Hydra system in the Argos Rho cluster. While scanning the planets there we picked up a distress call from a Sacred Angel medical transport that had crash landed on the inhospitable and dangerous planet Metgos. With Chief Willams and Lieutenant Kaidan I made planetfall with the Mako and besides a large Thorium deposit we also found an old alien artifact with a Turian corpse. On this corpse we found insignia of the Turian Gothis colony which I later learned was one of thirteen ancient Turian colonies. Garrus later told me their history, at about the time the Salarians and Asare were forming the Council, the Turians were embroiled in a bitter civil war. The Unification War, as it was later named, began with hostilities between the colonies furthest from the Turian homeworld, Palaven. These colonies were run by local chieftains, many of whom had distanced themselves from the ruling Hierarchy. The colonies became increasingly isolated and xenophobic, colonists began wearing emblems or facial markings to differentiate themselves from members of other colonies and open hostilities became common. When war finally broke out, the Hierarchy maintained strict diplomacy and refused to get involved. After several years of fighting, less than a dozen factions remained and the Hierarchy finally intervened. By that time, the chieftains were too weak to resist. They were forced to put an end to fighting and renew their allegiance to the Hierarchy. Though peace was restored, it took several decades for animosity between colonists to fade completely. To this day, most Turians still wear the facial markings of their home colonies - I always wondered about the meaning of the different markings of the Turians I had met. The Turian insignia found was of one of the original colonies and of quite some interest to Garrus. I promised to keep my eyes open for other colony insignia.
We finally reached the source of the distress signal but it was all a ruse, the Geth had laid a trap and we drove right into it. Luckily we could fight our way through them and got picked up by the Normandy.
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Staying in the Argos Rho cluster we next jumped to the Phoenix system where we landed on Tuntau. We found a large deposit of mercury but also an old Asari capsule near some ancient alien ruins. In the capsule we discovered writings from Matriarch Dilinaga, a famous Asari writer. Writings of her were culturally very important for the Asari and I kept my eyes open for more of them.
During further recon on the planet we were suddenly shot at by pirates who had made their lair here. After fighting through them and killing their boss, a Turian named Tonn Actus we had this planet pacified. In the belongings of the pirate boss we also found an ancient Krogan battle armor. Rusted and dented from countless battles it seemed worthless but on board the Normandy Wrex showed quite some interest.
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We continued to the Horse Head Nebula and into the Strenuus system. Scanning the Yunthori we uncovered an ancient deep space probe slowly orbiting the planet. Tali brought it on board, dismantled it, and found a Salarian League of One medallion hidden in its payload. Before they joined the Citadel Council, the Salarians most potent military tool was a small reconnaissance team known as this League of One. Their primary training was in espionage and assasination, never more than a dozen strong, the team was adept at infiltrating the tightest defenses and eliminating all necessary obstacles. Only a few top members of government and military were privy to the League's identities. League members wore no distinguishing garments, and held no particular rank. The only evidence of their participation in the League was a small medallion presented to each member upon induction. This secrecy was maintained until the formation of the Council. In an effort to dispel rumors and appease their new Asari partners, the Salarian Union released all classified documents pertaining to the League. The League of One was suddenly exposed and in danger of being hunted by enemies of the Salarians. Before any harm could be done, the team mysteriously disappeared. Most assumed this was a convenient lie to help hide their identities, but a few months later, the inner cabinet was murdered. Though there was no incriminating evidence, it was clear who was responsible. Realizing the threat posed by this rogue outfit, the Special Tasks Group of the Citadel Council dispatched a team of hunters. When they didn't return, the STG dispatched ten of its brightest operators with broad discretionary powers. Only two returned and they reported no evidence of the League. No further incidents were reported and it was assumed the League was wiped out. Some recently declassified documents, however, have suggested there may have been a thirteenth member who eluded all hunters.

Our next stop was the Utopia system in the Exodus cluster. In it was the planet Terra Nova, the second human extrasolar colony and the first beyond the Charon Mass Relay. It had the highest population of any Alliance colony and one of the most important colonies but it was in grave danger. In the system there was X57, a metallic asteroid originally located at the trailing Lagrange point of the gas giant Borr. It had been decided to "mine out" X57, using the recovered resources to finish out the interior for habitation. The asteroid was decelerated from Borr's orbit using three fusion torches, allowing it to fall into a stable orbit around Terra Nova. Now communications with the engineering team on X57 had been lost and the fusion torches reignited, accelerating the asteroid towards the planet.
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The Normandy dropped us in the Mako and we drove towards the nearest active fusion torch. We could hear a distress call broadcasted from somewhere on the planet, some woman was desperately looking for help, for someone to stop the fusion torches before the asteroid crashes into Terra Nova. As we came near the first fusion torch we got fired upon by heavy turret emplacements, somebody really wanted to stop us. The Mako destroyed them in short order and we dismounted to enter the fusion torch control center where we disturbed several Batarian troopers and their warbeasts.
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It was quite some time since I fought them but muscle memory served me right and we dropped them in short succession. We found the torch controls and quickly shut it down. This didn't go unnoticed as the woman from the distress call broadcasted again to contact us. She introduced herself as Kate Bowman, an engineer who went into hiding when the Batarian terrorists attacked the day before. I ordered her to stay put until we had the situation under control.
On our way out of the building we rounded a corner and I nearly got shot, a frightened engineer confused us with the enemy. Luckily the civilian was a bad shot and we held our fire to first check him out. Turned out he was Simon Atwell, the chief engineer of X57. He warned us that the next fusion torch was ringed by remote detonation charges that would be set off if we came too near to them. Simon made it clear that the fusion torches must be switched off ASAP to prevent a catastrophe for Terra Nova and the millions of people living there. The chief engineer also told me that the was missing some of his guys who were out on perimeter checks when the Batarians hit. I promised that I would look for them and could find them in the end but all of them dead.

With breakneck speed we drove the Mako to the next fusion torch and could see the detonation charges just in time. Dismounted and very carefully we fought our way through Batarian troopers to reach the remote control of the charges and deactivate them. We continued into the torch control station and took it with elan against heavy resistance. As we switched off the torch, we got another transmission from Kate Bowman. She told me that the Batarian leader was really pissed off by our actions and that he was setting charges everywhere at the main station on the asteroid. At the moment she was discovered and we were witness via the com system as the Batarians shot one of her colleagues and took her prisoner. We could also hear that the bastard sent one of his lieutenants to hunt us down before we could shut down the last fusion torch.

As fast as we could we raced to the last torch and stormed into it, the Batarians in there were overrun and eliminated before they understood the situation. We turned off the last fusion torch and from the instruments it got clear that the asteroid was again in stable orbit around Nova Terra. While leaving the torch control center we got ambushed by the Batarian officer sent after us, with several troopers and warbeasts they thought they had the upper hand against us three. That stupid bastard even tried to negoiate with me, he reasoned that he didn't want to hijack X57 in the first place...he signed on just for a quick slave grab...
That's where he definitely crossed the red line and we attacked.

After the brief firefight we found an access key to the main station on the officers body and started there immediately. Entering the spacious main room of the station we encountered the Batarian leader and his bodyguards. The arrogant bastard tried to play the innocent victim forced to such actions...that the Humans were at fault...that we invaded their space and forced them into exile. No, I didn't let that psychological trick work on any of us, it is clear that Humanity only settled uninhabited worlds in the border regions. Just because the Batarians thought that their sphere of influence shows how arrogant they are, the Council was right to support the Systems Alliance back then. I gave him one last chance to surrender and answer for his crimes before the Citadel Council but of course he refused. He even wanted us to let him go, otherwise he would blow up the hostages he took. We do not negoiate with terrorists and he really blew his chance for redemption by triggering the explosives. In the ensuing firefight we prevailed and even in his last moments the bastard tried to shift the blame for the dead hostages to me, he dared to asked who the real terrorist was. Of course he was, but he died then and there.
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[KAreil]

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On route to our next destination I had talks with my crew and allies on board, it always pays to know your troops. I learned much about the Quarian way of life from Tali and quite some of Garrus' history with C-Sec but most of all I learned about Chief Williams. I considered her my best soldier and planned to make her my second-in-command and for that I had to get to know her more personally. She confided in me willingly and so I learned that she came from a family with a long history in the Alliance military and that they all were tough and sharp. It turned out that she was the religious type which wasn't that usual at the time but I absolutely understood her, in the trenches there are no atheists - everybody needs something bigger to believe in. What I learned confirmed my knowledge of her good character and that she, like me, liked classical literature like Ulyssis was an additional boon.

Alliance command had informed us about a problem on Luna, moon of Humanity's cradle, an important military research and training center was located there. Experiments with advanced VirtualIntelligence systems had gone wrong and it looked like the VI of the facilities had gone rogue killing the scientists. We got orders to investigate and disable the VI, so we jumped into the Local Cluster and approached the Moon. With the Mako we were dropped and advanced towards the research center without incident.
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The research center had 3 separate facilities and we had to check each of them. Entering the first one we immediately got attacked by some new kind of assault drone with heavy firepower. We shot it down and continued to the conduits the VI required for control. After we destroyed all of them within the facility the VI no longer had control there but as a last measure it started to vent toxic gases into the facilities but we could counter that by putting on our combat helmets.
In the next facility it was very similar, just with more hostile combat drones. When we destroyed all the conduits there the VI tried to stop us with additional kinetic barriers throughout the complex but they could be overloaded by concentrated firepower.
With only a few more conduits remaining the VI sent ever more combat drones against us but against our superior assault tactics they stood no chance and after destroying the conduits the rogue VI was finally gone.
A very positive side effect of this heavy combat was that my assault training was really refreshed, not since my time with the elite shock troopers of "Shepard's Scorpions" I felt that strong.
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Next we jumped through 2 Mass Relays to the Hades Gamma cluster and into the Antaeus system, we had heard a report that a survey team of ExoGeni was missing there. We scanned all the planets in the system and found an ExoGeni signal on the planet Trebin. Recon with the Mako led us to a transmission tower which sent tightbeam signals into geosynchronous orbit. This must have disrupted the survey team's GPS satellites and caused them to crash nearby. Nearby the transmission tower we got ambushed by a huge Trasher Maw, which are subterranean carnivores that spend their entire lives eating or searching for something to eat. Treshers reproduce via spores that can lie dormant for millenia, yet are robust enough to survive prolonged periods in deep space and atmospheric re-entry. As a result, tresher spores appear on many worlds, spread by previous generations of space travelers. The body of a tresher never entirely leaves the ground, only the head and tentacles erupt from the earth to attack. In addition to physical attacks, treshers have the ability to project toxic chemicals and emit bursts of infrasound as a shockwave weapon. The Alliance first encountered treshers on the colony of Akuze in 2177. After contact was lost with the pioneer team, marine units were deployed to investigate. The shore parties were set upon by hungry treshers and nearly the entire assault force was annihilated.
The monster surprised us badly and the Mako took quite some damage which Kaidan had to repair on the fly, but in the end we shot it to pieces.
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In a mineshaft at one of the excavation sites of the survey team we finally learned their fate. They had discovered some alien artifact connected to the Geth, this artifact somehow forced at least some of them to spike themselves to turn them into Geth Husks. They in turn transformed the rest of the survey team and all we could do was free them from this terrible form of life.

Next stop was in the nearby Farinata system for more surveying but Alliance command contacted us there with an important emergency. A group of fanatical biotics had kidnapped the chairman of the Parliament Subcommittee on Transhuman Studies. Their freighter had sustained damage and was dead in space in this system, my orders were to quickly resolve the situation and free the politician. Priority was to stop the biotics, who all had L2 implants which were prone to major side effects and whom the kidnapped chairman had recently denied any reparations for the implants.
We boarded the freighter Ontario and quickly got into a fight with the biotics and their combat drones. I was sure they would try to kill the chairman once they discovered that they couldn't stop us so we only had a few minutes to overwhelm them. In a forceful assault action we overcame their defense and finally I stood before the Biotic leader and his hostage. I didn't want to shed any more unnecessary blood and made it absolutely clear that his only chance was to give up now and there. To my own surprise he saw reason and backed down.
Alliance security took over then but as a final act I also made sure that the chairman understood that he had to review the situation of the L2 biotics, they were poor wretches after all.
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[KAreil]

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Our next Mass Relay jump led us into the Artemis Tau cluster where Dr. Liara T'Soni, daughter of Matriarch Benezia, was doing archaeological investigations. After surveying the Athens system without incident we continued into the Knossos system where we landed on the planet Therum. Therum is a distant but richt industrial world claimed by the Human Systems Alliance and its plentiful heavy metal had fueled the recent manufacturing boom on Earth. Core samples rich with the fossils of simple silicon-based organisms indicate Therum was more habitable in the past, this perhaps explained the many Prothean ruins dotting the surface. The Normandy picked up strange readings, far off the charts, coming from an underground complex a few clicks away from our drop zone and we started there with the Mako. We were driving along the lava lakes of Therum as a Geth spaceship suddenly appeared and dropped troops in front of us. Against Geth Armatures, heavy turrets and several roadblocks manned by their troopers we fought our way to the underground complex.
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As we finally entered the huge underground complex it became clear that this was the dig site of Dr. T'Soni as it was pretty much one big Prothean ruin. We fought more of the Geth there and then came across an Asari trapped inside some forcefield bubble. We could talk to her and she was in fact Dr. Liara T'Soni who had activated the ancient Prothean defense system when the Geth attacked but had somehow trapped herself. We had to find a way past the barriers and reach the controls behind her.
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Battling through ever more Geth we found a big mining laser that we used to drill a new tunnel to get behind the energy barriers. We reached the control console and freed the scientist from the forcefield bubble. I couldn't really interrogate her then because the whole place was rumbling and seemed to cave in, the mining laser must have triggered a seismic event. We raced through the Prothean ruins to get out but near the exit we were halted by the enemy. More Geth under the command of some Krogan Battlemaster blocked our way out. The Krogan offered to let us live if he would get Dr. T'Soni but of course this was out of the question. We had to fight our way through him and his guards and managed to get out of the ruins just in time.

Back in the Normandy I held a debriefing and we learned of Dr. T'Soni's expertise, the Prothean extinction. Asked about the Conduit she could only tell us that it was somehow connected to this extinction but she had other news as well. She found out about some kind of cycle, the Protheans were not the first galactic civilization to mysteriously vanish. Her research indicated that the galaxy is built on a cycle of extinction, each time a great civilization rises up, it is suddenly and violently cast down, only ruins survive. The Protheans for example rose up from a single world until their empire spanned the entire galaxy, yet even they climbed to the top on the remains of those who came before. Their greatest achievements, the Mass Relays and the Citadel, are based on technology of those who came before then. And then, like all the other forgotten civilizations throughout galactic history, the Protheans suddenly disappeared.

Now the vision I got from the Prothean beacon made more sense, I knew who wiped them out - the Reapers.
Dr. T'Soni knew that the beacons were designed to transmit information directly into the mind of the user and finding one that still worked was extremely rare. The beacons were only programmed to interact with Prothean physiology, whatever information I received must have been confused and unclear. The imaginery would become clearer with time but the actual meaning could stay elusive. What could help me understand the vision was a 'cipher' in form of the cultural knowledge of a Prothean: the archetypes, biological instincts and common experiences universal to the race. Just how to get such a 'cipher' was the big question...
Unfortunately Dr. T'Soni didn't have any more information that could have helped us find the Conduit or Saren but I decided to keep her on board.

I ended the debriefing and sent a report to the Citadel Council.

[KAreil]

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Afterwards I toured the ship talking to crew and troops, I always cared a lot about them.
Chief Williams even invited me to a small drink and I learned that in her family they always celebrated that special day, it was Armistice Day, the day the First Contact War ended. I felt flattered to be included into their little family tradition but found it a bit odd nevertheless. I learned that this little tradition went back to her grandfather, the infamous General Willams, commander of the Shanxi garrison and "Only human ever to surrender to an alien race".
Of course I knew of this legacy from her files but didn't tell and let her explain this personal piece of galactic history. It seemed that both her and her fathers military careers were severely hamstrung by the connection to their grandfather and Ashley Williams held a deep grudge against this unofficial policy. While I couldn't approve of the decision to surrender the colony back in the war I would never hold such a thing against the descendants. I made it clear to her that I valued her highly for her own sake and that she should never worry about that distant past.

Back in the comms center I got a top priority clearance transmission from the Citadel Council. A Special Task Group operating in the Traverse had sent an urgent message but it was little more than static, a sure sign of trouble if they didn't have the time to set up proper interstellar communications. What made the message so special was that it was sent on a channel reserved for mission-critical communications and their mission was to find Saren. The signal originated from the planet Virmire and I planned one of the next stops there.

But first we had to finish our survey of the Artemis Tau cluster and jumped into the Sparta system. From the planet Edolus we received a signal that looked like an automated distress beacon and I gave orders to drop us in the Mako to investigate. We quickly found the distress beacon that sent the signal but we were not the first, a ground vehicle similar to the Mako and several dead Alliance marines were strewn around it. We identified them as Captain Milon's squad from Admiral Kahoku and it was clear that they were lured there into a trap. That moment we also discovered what had killed them as the ground started to tremble and a huge Tresher Maw attacked us. We reached the Mako just in time and with its superior mobility and firepower we managed to slay the beast.
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Our next stop was the Macedon System where we discovered a pirate base on the planet Sharjila. We quickly eliminated them and their base of operations where we found some interesting documents. The Asari leading these pirates and slavers was the sister of Nassana Dantius, an important ambassador on the Citadel.

With Artemis Tau surveyed the nearest jump was into the Voyager Cluster where we stopped in the Amazon system. Fifth fleet HQ on the Citadel contacted me upon our arrival as they had an important mission for us there. In the First Contact War the Alliance had fired a lot of espionage probes into Turian space and HQ had just received a "mission complete" burst from one in the Amazon system. This in itself was strange enough as the system is far from Turian space. The problem with this espionage probe was that the Alliance had no idea who they were fighting back then and they didn't want to risk aliens examining our technology. So they equipped each probe with a 20-kiloton tactical fusion warhead to prevent anybody from tampering with it. If this nuke went off now it would have serious consequences for the Alliance in the Council and we were to find and disarm the bomb.
We located the probe signal on the small terrestrial world of Agebinium and dropped with the Mako where we followed it to an old mine shaft. It was clear that the probe hadn't crashed on the planet, somebody had moved it there and this smelled a lot like a trap. We found the espionage probe at the bottom of one of the mineshafts and as we approached it there was a sudden cave-in behind us, blocking our way back. A hidden holographic projector came to life and we were face to face with some Turian who introduced himself as Elanos Haliat. He gloated that he was the one responsible for the Skyllian Blitz, the leader of the slaver pirates taking so many human lives. The quick retaliation of the System Alliance forces had cost him his position as leader and now he tried to regain it by killing me, by killing the first Human Spectre.
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I promised him that I'd get him but first I had to disarm the nuke that had started its countdown. Williams, Kaidan and I worked frantically and with just five seconds left on the clock we had it disarmed and started to breathe again. We managed to open the doors to a sidearm of the mine shaft and came back to the surface above the shaft where we went down. From this vantage point we could see the pirate leader and his gang trying to get into the Mako to loot it. In a surprise attack we overwhelmed their perimeter defense and got to the Mako and with that additional firepower the bastards stood no chance.

We returned to the Normandy and jumped into the Attican Beta cluster where we got an urgent message from Alliance command. A surveillance drone in the Hercules system that was gathering intel on Geth activities in the region was spotted and shot down. We got orders to recover the data module of the drone before the Geth could find it. It had crashed on planet Eletania and we dropped with the Mako ASAP. While searching for the drone we came across an ancient Prothean ruin, some kind of platform with a mysterious globe in its center.
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Examining the strange globe I discovered a small irregular slot on the underside. The shape was oddly familiar and it took me a few minutes of thinking until I made the connection. I remembered the strange trinket I got from the Asari Consort on the Citadel and I placed it into the slot. The Prothean globe exploded in a brilliant flash of white light, momentarily blinding and disorienting me. When my senses returned I felt the life and experiences of a Cro-Magnon hunter on prehistoric earth. Later it became clear that it was only me who had seen this vision or recording, Kaidan and Williams just saw the white flash and me toppling over. It was clear that the Protheans had monitored Humanity in their infancy back then but as to why we would never learn.

We continued our search for the crashed surveillance drone and finally found it in a small crater. Unfortunately the data module was missing, but it didn't look like the Geth had taken it. There were primitive monkey-like lifeforms on the planet and their curious behaviour might have led them to take the module. We located and searched their settlements but didn't find it so we continued down a mineshaft, abandoned by the Alliance. The monkey lifeforms were there too and we finally found the data module.
On our way back we got ambushed by the Geth who had arrived by now but we could fight our way through them back to the Normandy.
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With this alliance mission accomplished we traveled into the Theseus system where our target, the planet Feros was located.

[KAreil]

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Feros is habitable but two-thirds of the surface is covered with the ruins of a crumbling Prothean megatropolis. In the millenia since the Prothean extinction, the ruins had been picked over by looters many times. Feros was considered a poor prospect for colonization, as little open ground remains for agriculture. The only sizable fresh water sources are the poles, which are tapped by the decaying Prothean aqueduct systems. The dead cities, whilc in good condition considering their antiquity, are of uncertain stability. Ground level is congested by a dozen meters of fallen debris, and the air is fouled by dust. In 2178, the human ExoGeni Corporation founded the permanent colony Zhu's Hope on Feros to thoroughly explore the ruins. The pioneer settlement was placed on the upper levels of several intact Prothean skyscrapers, using the surviving Prothean aqueducts and rooftop hydroponic gardens to support the population.
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We landed with the Normandy near Zhu's Hope and had to find our way through Geth troops to even get there. From Fai Dan, the leader of the colony I learned that the Geth attacked for days, they could barely hold the perimeter and had lost contact with the ExoGeni research station a few clicks away. While we were talking the Geth attacked again and we had to bolster the colony perimeter to keep it from getting overrun.
Once we defeated their attacks I immediately started a counter attack with Willams and Kaidan, this was surprising the Geth and we fought our way into the Prothean buildings below the colony. While fighting our way deeper into the enemy lines we found a Human water valve built into the ancient Prothean aqueduct system. It must have been part of the colony's water sources but was closed by the Geth. We opened it and later on found two more of these valves which allowed us to re-establish a stable water supply for Zhu's Hope.
Rounding a corner we were suddenly confronted by a pack of big varren who are dangerous omnivores with a preference for living prey. Originally native to the Krogan homeworld of Tuchanka, they are like most life from Tuchanka, savage, clannish and consummate survivors. They are pack hunters when vulnerable prey is readily available and become scavengers when outnumbered or outclassed. Their supreme adaptability, vicious demeanor and rapid breeding cycle have made them ubiquitous and dangerous pests on many worlds. Virtually everywhere the Krogan have been, varren infestations have followed, wreaking havoc with the native ecology.
The Krogan have had a love-hate relationship with the varren for millenia, alternately fighting them for territory and embracing them as treasured companions, to this day, Krogan raise them as beasts of war. The varren pack that attacked us on Feros was led by an extraordinarily large Alpha beast but with our superior firepower we could neutralize it. Later on we learned that the colony hunted the varren for their flesh but this got impossible with the deadly Alpha beast so the settlers were quite happy about us killing it.
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While striking deeper and deeper into the Geth staging area we came across a burnt out Alliance vehicle with a still functioning power cell. I had noticed in the colony that they seemed to have power supply problems so we took the cell with us and gifted it to the grateful settlers.

Finally we came upon the local Geth HQ and fought through their guard troops. To my surprise they were led by a Krogan warrior who was surprisingly hard to kill, but in the end he was dead. We found a Geth transmitter that was used as a locator beacon for their reinforcements. With the destruction of the transmitter the colony gained some breathing room to consolidate.

Further down in the buildings we met an obviously crazy colonist. He warned us from going any deeper but suddenly refused to tell us why, he was talking about his master's whip and other nonsense. We were nearly out of supplies and offered to take him with us back to Zhu's Hope but he declined.

Back in the colony we restocked supplies and gave the settlers an update of what we found and did below. They were grateful but told us that the main Geth base was at the ExoGeni HQ a few clicks away. It was located in a tall Prothean tower and connected to Zhu's Hope via an ancient skyway. Through an elevator we reached the skyway and Joker had already brought the Mako there. With the vehicle we navigated the ancient skyway that was littered with debris and Geth patrols. On the radio we picked up some chatter, obviously not from Zhus's Hope but probably from the ExoGeni people.
About halfway between the colony and the Prothean tower housing the ExoGeni HQ we found the source of the radio chatter, a group of ExoGeni survivors were holed up in one of the buildings, the group was lead by Juliana Baynham and Ethon Jeong. While Baynham was friendly and helpful Jeong turned out to be the perfect corporate a..hole. Another corporate guy wanted me to retrieve some data from the HQ computers...what did they think, that I'm their servant?!
From Baynham I knew that the Geth focused their attention on the HQ building and we could see their ship latched into the ancient Prothean tower. She also asked me to look for her daughter who was working as a scientist when the Geth attacked.

We mounted up again and battled our way through more Geth along the skyway until we reached the entrance to the ExoGeni HQ on Feros. Entering the building on foot we encountered a strong energy barrier isolating parts of the HQ, they came from the Geth ship and we did not have the firepower to breach them. While searching a way around the barriers we encountered the lost Lizbeth Baynham and I told her that I had to find out what the Geth were actually doing on Feros. Then she told me about the Thorian, an ancient indigenous life-form, ExoGeni was studying. She gave me her ID-card to get past the ExoGeni security doors and we continued into the building.
Shortly afterwards we surprised an enemy Krogan trying to access classified ExoGeni files without authorization, the fighting was short and I asked the VI what the late Krogan had been looking for. With the ID-card of Elizabeth Baynham I had sufficient authorization and I learned that ExoGeni had been studying Subject Species 37, the Thorian, for some time. The VI told me that the Thorian was located within the substructure of the Zhu's Hope colony and that it was a simple plant life-form that exhibited a sentient behaviour uncommon with other flora. Through dispersion and the eventual inhalation of spores, it could infect and control other organisms, including humans. The settlers of Zhu's Hope were test subjects of ExoGeni in this regard, the last report before their sensors went offline indicated that 85% of them were already infected.

Finally the VI explained that the Geth ship was blocking all communication to the Normandy and upholding the barriers and we had to find a way to get rid of it. We bypassed the barriers and advanced deeper into the building where we found the huge mechanical claws the Geth ship used to latch onto the Prothean tower. We didn't have the kind of firepower to destroy them and we continued our search for a way to remove them. While searching the building I found several disturbing pieces of communication, some Biotic community in the Hawking Eta cluster, Geth invasion plans in the Armstrong Nebula and that some Thorian samples were secretly delivered to the Matano system on behalf of a Cerberus group. All pretty disturbing but first we had to get rid of that ship.
A repair ticket on a shutter door console was our solution in the end. From it I learned that some malfunction could lead to much too strong pressure being used by the door when closing and after playing around a bit I got it right. The shutter door crashed down and severed one of the huge claws of the Geth ship. This was enough to de-stabilize its grip on the tower and with a terrible screeching the ship fell away and tumbled down.
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With the Geth ship removed the forcefield barriers in the building were gone and finally we could contact the Normandy again. Joker had bad news for us, they were in lockdown as the colonists were freaking out. They were banging on the hull, trying to claw their way inside the ship. As always the mission had priority and this meant protecting the ship at all costs, I gave Joker permission to shoot the colonists if necessary but hoped that some warning shots would prove sufficient. We had to get to the ship ASAP but first picked up Lizbeth Baynham who admitted that she knew about the Thorian experiments with the colonists. She wanted to stop them and when the Geth attacked she stayed behind to send a message about it to Colonial Affairs. She confirmed that the Thorian was in the tunnels below Zhu's Hope and told me that the colonists had hidden the entrance with a freighter to protect it from the Geth and us. Probably the Geth and Saren were after this unique mind control capabilities.
We took Lizbeth with us in the Mako and fought our way back to the ExoGeni holdout. There were ever more Geth fighting us on the Prothean skyway but we sliced through them.

We barged into the middle of an argument between Juliana Baynham und Ethan Jeong. The corporate loyal Jeong hat re-established communications with ExoGeni and they wanted to purge the whole colony to hide their experiments. He and his men were bullying the other scientists into submission but I simply threatened to kill him if he didn't stop. At first he hesitatet but not for long, he knew he had no chance against me. The plan was for us to kill the Thorian to free the colonists from its control and Jeong would convince ExoGeni that the Geth had killed it. But first I had to get there and all the crazed colonists were between us. I wanted to avoid killing them if possible and Juliana Baynham gave me an option, they could synthesize a special nerve agent incapitating the infected colonists without killing them and I loaded my grenades with it.
After fighting through more Geth on the skyway Willams, Kaidan and I reached Zhu's Hope and got attacked immediately by some kind of humanoid monster created by the Thorian. We dubbed them Thorian Creepers and we killed them in droves. I gave orders to only shoot these Creepers but use the nerve gas on the colonists, I always try to minimize Human casualties. This worked quite well and we could advance to the freighter that blocked the access to the Thorian. Fai Dan, the colony leader, confronted us and the Thorian was forcing him to stop us. Before we could use the gas on him but also before Fai Dan lost control he actually shot himself, quite brave for a civilian.

We moved the freighter and went down into the Tunnels where we encountered the really huge Thorian. As we tried to figure out how exactly we should handle it, it suddenly disgorged an Asari in front of us. To be precise it was an Asari Clone created by the Thorian and used to communicate with us.
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We learned that the Thorian made a deal with Saren who sought some knowledge but the thing didn't give us any details. With negotiation options exhausted we had not choice but to attack the Thorian, but this turned out to be quite a fight. The Asari clone and droves of Thorian Creepers attacked us and everytime we killed them the Thorian created them anew. We fought our way through twisting tunnels and destroyed its neural nodes wherever we found them and finally the Thorian succumbed and died.
To our surprise something moved in the remains of the Thorian and the original Asari who was cloned over and over crawled out of it alive. She introduced herself as Shiala, a follower of Matriarch Benezia. According to her Benezia initially joined Saren to guide him down a gentler path but underestimated his influence and she lost her way. Saren's ship Sovereign gave him the power to indoctrinate people and control them. Shiala was a willing slave when Saren brought her to Feros, he needed her biotics to communicate with the Thorian and learn its secrets. She was given over to the Thorian as sacrifice in exchange for the Prothean Cipher. Saren had the same problems as I did understanding the vision from the beacon and he knew that he needed to understand their culture, history and very existence. The Thorian was on Feros long before the Protheans built their city. It watched and studied them, when they died, it consumed them and they became part of it. Through this the Thorian gained a unique understanding of the Protheans, a viewpoint spanning thousands of generations. All this in an endemic ancestral memory and through Shiala Saren got this Cipher that would help him understand the visions. Naturally Saren sent his Geth allies after the Thorian once he had this knowledge, he wanted to make sure that I couldn't get the Cipher. With the same technique as Liara, Shiala then transferred the Cipher into my mind too. It was quite overwhelming and at first it didn't help my understanding much but it was clear that it would take some time.

After some thought I decided to let Shiala live, even though she had been an ally of Saren. She promised to stay on Feros and help the colonists who were recovering from Thorian control. With the knowledge that Zhu's Hope was saved we then left for the Normandy and returned to space.
Onboard I held another general meeting and Liara did another mind-meld with me to better understand the Prothean vision. With her expertise and the Cipher we could confirm what we suspected so far but it got clear that the beacon on Eden Prime must have been badly damaged. Large parts of the vision were missing, the vision transferred into my mind was incomplete. Saren must have had the missing information, maybe he had found another beacon. We knew we had to find Saren fast.

[KAreil]

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Our only remaining lead to Saren was the garbled communication from the STG on Virmire but that was quite a distance away and we had a lot of stops and minor assignments until we could get there. While travelling I made another tour on the ship to get to know my troops better. I learned a lot about Tali and her Pilgrimage and also that Garrus came from a long family tradition in C-Sec. But Kaidan and Willams really grew on me, the more I learned about them the more I personally liked them. It was then that I noticed that there might be even more than frienship between me and Ashley Williams, we didn't have time to delve into this at the time but we both noticed a deep bond between us that might lead to more.

Next stop was the Matano system in the Maroon Sea. Besides routine surveying operations we landed on the planet Chasca where a colony of the secretive Cerberus Group had established a colony. We tried to contact the colonists but didn't get any response. We found out later why...they had all been transformed into Geth Husks and all we could do for them was to end their misery.

In the nearby Vostok system we picked up an active distress beacon from planet Nodacrux and landed with the Mako. To our immense surprise we encountered several Thorian Creepers there but we could eliminate them without problems. The distress beacon was located in ExoGeni research base and ther we found a few surviving scientists and their guards. Dr. Ross introduced herself as research leader and thanked us for freeing them after days of being under attack of the Thorian Creepers. I made it clear that I already knew about the Thorian on Feros and that I had destroyed it for Humanitys sake. Dr. Ross admitted that the Creepers here were created using altered samples from the specifmens on Feros and that they had discovered a way to turn them into docile, obedient servants. That worked fine until a few days ago, probably when the Thorian on Feros was destroyed, when the Creepers suddenly went berzerk and killed nearly everybody on the planet. She then tried to convince me to not report this to the authorities, she even tried to bribe me. I made it clear that this was not an option, they would pay for their crimes.
They decided to attack us then but stood little chance against us.
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We continued into the Caspian system where we encountered a drifting Human transport ship that didn't broadcast any distriss signal. The ship was identified as Cornucopia, a Kowloon class modular conveyor ship and we docked the Normandy to investigate. The ship was full of Geth Husks and we found no surviving crew. The ships logs showed that it was exploring near the Perseus Veil and that they had found some kind of alien artifact. The crew had brought it aboard and then all of a sudden plotted a course straight into the Perseus Veil, the entries didn't make much sense after that. It was like the captains mind was falling apart but it was clear that the Geth found them in the Veil and transformed them into Husks.

The next jump towards Virmire brought us into the Newton system in the Kepler Verge. There a message from Alliance Command reached us, apparently there was a serious of murders on former Alliance scientist. There had been four deaths in the past month and they were all linked to a classified project on planet Akuze. There was a brutal massacra there years agao, an entire unit was killed by Tresher Maws. And while there was no official link to this classified project, the project dates coincidence with the attacks. There was one other scientist on the project, a Dr. Wayne and he was supposed to be in the Newton system now. My orders were to find and protect him until other Alliance troops could arrive.
Dr.Wayne was supposed to work in a small research facility on planet Ontarom but we arrived there nearly too late. As we came near the facility we got heavy fire from some mercenary guards but the Mako could take them out quickly. Storming the building we fought through more of the mercenaries and finally found the doctor being held hostage. They guy pointing a gun at Dr. Wayne introduced himself as former Corporal Toombs, the only surviving soldier on Akuze. He claimed that Dr.Wayne and the other scientists wer working for the Cerberus Group and that the Tresher Maw attack was part of their experiments. Toombs had survived the attack but was badly wounded and had Tresher Maw acid in his veins. The scientists kept him for more experiments but at some point he could escape and took revenge.
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While I could absolutely understand Toombs, I could not let him murder Dr.Wayne in front of my eyes. I tried to reason with him, promised him that we could bring the scientist to justice but the would not listen. In the end I had to shoot Toombs to stop him, quite a hard call on a my conscience. Afterwards I grabbed Dr.Wayne and threw him personally into the Normandy's brig, Alliance Command had promised me a full investigation of the classified project.

Before making the jump to Virmire we had to go to the Armstrong Nebula. Fleet Command had confirmed the intel we found on Feros about the increased Geth activity their being a prelude to invasion. Surveillance drones had identified Geth outposts in four different systems in the Armstrong Cluster we were ordered to take them out. Against heavy resistance we destroyed the the enemy positions on Rayini in the Gagarin system, Antibaar in the Tereshkova system, Casbin in the Hong system and Maji in the Vamshi system.
To our surprise none of these outposts was the main base of operations in the Armstrong Nebula but our sensors picked up some of their transmissions and we could pinpoint it on the moon Solcrum in the Grimson system. There we found their main base and annihilated it.
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Searching the base afterwards I found a number of encrypted Geth data files which could reveal much about the evoluation of the Geth since the banishment of the Quarians. Back on the Normandy I allowed Tali to copy the files for her Pilgrimage. She was deeply grateful and promised to stay on board until our mission was fulfilled.
Finally we were ready for the jump to Virmire.

[KAreil]

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We jumped into the Senty Omega cluster and Hoc system where the lush frontier world Virmire was located. It would have been ideal for colonization but the political instability of the nearby Terminus Systems and the resulting high risk of raids by pirates and slavers had put a stop to this. As we reached the planet, we picked up a signal from the Salarian infiltration team but couldn't get near them as enemy anti aircraft guns were alerted to our presence. Joker dropped us with the Mako a few clicks away and kept his distance to keep the Normandy safe. We advanced on the STG signal through beach canyons and encountered strong Geth positions along the way. We fought our way through them and disabled one of their huge AA guns.
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We reached the Salarian camp got briefed by Captain Kirrahe of the Third Infiltration Regiment STG. They had losses exceeding fifty percent and expected strong reinforcements from the Council. Because of the garbled transmission none were coming, they had only sent us to investigate. The infiltration team could confirm that Saren was here on Virmire and that this was his base of operations. He had set up a research facility and it was crawling with Geth and very well fortified. Saren used the facility to breed an army of Krogan, apparently he had discovered a cure for the genophage. Captain Kirrahe and I agreed that this facility and its secrets must be destroyed. Naturally Wrex disagreed about that point and I had to talk with him about it in private. I made it clear that this wasn't up to debate and that he had to follow orders or go to hell. I explained to him that Saren didn't care about his people and that he was the enemy that had to be stopped at any cost.
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A bit to my own surprise Wrex agreed in the end and fell back in line.
I went back to Captain Kirrahe an we discussed his plan of attack, they had converted their ship's drive system into a twenty-kiloton ordnance and wanted to destroy Saren's facilities with it. Unfortunately dropping it from orbit wouldn't work, the facility was too well-fortified for that. It had to be detonated in a certain area at the far side of the facility and while the Normandy could deliver it there, we first had to infiltrate the base, disable the other AA guns and pacify any ground forces. Captain Kirrahe and his men planned to hit the front of the facility head-on to get the enemies attention while we should infiltrate the base from the back. The Salarians needed a liaison officer to help coordinate our efforts and I trusted only Kaidan or Willams with that. Both of them volunteered and after some thought I gave them Kaidan.

I decided to go into mission with my usual 3-person-team and took Garrus with me as replacement for Kaidan. With him and Williams we sneaked through some side canals into the rear of the enemy base. With Captain Kirrahe's team starting their diversion we infiltrated the enemy positions and were soon in heavy combat ourselves. The Geth put up strong resistance but we advanced steadily through their defensive lines. First we broke into one of their communication towers and disrupted their communications, then we destroyed the satellite control uplinks they used to attack the Salarians. The nearer we came to the enemies main facility the more Krogan warriors joined the defence, they were tough enemies but we brought them down nevertheless.
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Meanwhile the front assault got under heavy attack by Geth aircraft. As they returned to their refueling station we took the chance to take them out there, one less problem for Kaidan and his team. We arrived at the main research facility and got access into the base security system, Williams hacked into it was able to cut the alarms. It would have been possible to even trigger some alarms at the other side of the base but I didn't want this as the other team was already under enough enemy pressure. Against strong Geth resistance we fought our way through the building and reached the prison block where several Salarians attacked us. They must have been under the influence of Saren and his ship, and all we could do was put them down. In the cells of the prison we encountered several captured STG commandos but most of them seemed already under Saren's influence. Just one of them seemed normal and I released him to create another diversion for our attack, a bit of a risk I know but one I was willing to take.
An elevator took us further down into the facility and we found Geth experiments there. Some of the captured Salarians had been transformed into Geth Husks who immediately attacked us. We eliminated them and the scientists working on them until we encountered the main research leader, a Krogan doctor Droyas. Of course he didn't want us to destroy his work and we had to kill him too.

Deeper in the facility we surprised an Asari scientist preparing to leave in a haste. She introduced herself as Rana Thanoptis and convinced us that she worked for Saren against her will. She was a neurospecialist and could give us valuable insights into how Saren controlled his minions. His ship, the Sovereign emits some kind of energy field that indoctrinates everybody exposed to it. It is subtle at first and by the time the effects become noticeable, it is usually too late. Direct exposure even turns you into a mindless slave, like the Salarians we encountered. Indirect exposure just weakens your will, you become easier to manipulate and control, a degenerative condition. There is a balance between control and usefulness, the less freedom a subject maintains, the less capable it becomes. After some thought I actually let her go, she had provided valuable information and if she could get out of the blast zone she should live.

Rana gave us access to Saren's private lab and there we found another Prothean beacon. It wasn't damaged like the one on Eden Prime and as I came near it, it gave me another, much more complete vision. At the time my mind couldn't process the vision and we didn't have the time anyway so we continued our search of the lab. There was some kind of platform in the center of the lab and as we approached it the room suddenly got dark and a big red image of Saren's ship appeared. It started to talk to us and we learned that this was not a simple VI interface for the ship but it was the ship itself talking to us. It wasn't even a ship, the huge thing was an actual reaper.
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The thing made it clear to us that they considered organic life as nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident that must exterminated. It confirmed what we already knew about the cycle, the Protheans were not the first civilization annihilated by the Reapers. The Protheans didn't even forge the Mass Relays or the Citadel, they merely found them, a legacy of the Reapers. They left their technology for others to find and by using it their society is developing along the paths desired by the Reapers. They were intent on destroying all organic life now and they were coming, huge numbers of them were coming. I promised the thing that I would stop them but it just ended the conversation.

That moment I got an urgent message from Joker who was monitoring Sovereign from the Normandy. Apparently it had just pulled a turn that would have sheared any human ship in half and was on it's way to us fast. We were running out of time and had to set the nuke at the Krogan breeding facility. We fought out way through more Geth and Krogan troops to deactivate the local AA gun tower. The Normandy came by and we placed the nuke at the center of the facility where Williams started to arm it.
This took her several minutes and in the meantime Kaidan had got under heavy pressure from the Geth so I took Garrus and Wrex to provide some support to him and the Salarians. After fighting our way through more of the enemy, we saw a Geth troop ship approaching the nuke site. It was bringing heavy reinforcements to stop us arming the bomb and I had to take a decision. It was one of the hardest decision in my life but the mission, nuking the research facility had priority. We ran back to Williams first, but planned to get to Kaidan later.

We defeated the Geth assaulting Willams and the nuke but then Saren himself showed up. He flew in on some kind of hover platform and tried to convince me of his good intentions. He wanted to proof to the Reapers that he was useful to them, he said that submission was preferable to extinction. Obviously he was crazy or himself already indoctrinated by Sovereign. Humanity would rather die on its feet than live on its knees.
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It was a hard fight and I nearly had Saren defeated, but then the coward used an opening to escape with his hover platform. We finished arming the nuke and got picked up by the Normandy. Then we picked up the other team but Kaidan and many others hadn't made it, they had been overrun by the enemy. With all possible speed Joker fled the atmosphere and we got out of the blast radius just in time.
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[KAreil]

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Leaving the system in the Normandy I did a small speech for Kaidan Alenko, he was a good soldier and we would make sure his sacrifice was not in vain.
Afterwards I gathered the rest of the team for a debriefing on the mission, Liara had an idea, she thought the Prothean beacon might have filled in the gaps in my vision. She did another mind meld with me and could explain the meaning of the vision. It was a warning message to all Protheans about the Reapers, unfortunately it came too late for them. The Conduit was something they built against the Reapers but there were no details. The one big thing Liara could tell me was the location of the Conduit, the origin of the Prothean warning - it was a planet called Ilios. That explained why Saren needed to find the Mu Relay, it was the only way to get to Ilios. The problem was that the Mu Relays was inside the Terminus Systems neither Alliance ships nor Spectres were welcome there. It was likely that Saren had a strong Geth fleet in orbit of Ilios and without the council fleet we could not expect to fight through them.

After the meeting I had a talk with the Citadel Council. While they agreed with my decision to nuke the Krogan breeding facility on Virmire they simply did not believe what I told them about Sovereign. They claimed that Saren was just playing me, using my earlier reports to build up a fake threat of the Reapers. The ignorant politicans just didn't want to face the truth!

Later I toured the ship again and spent some time with Chief Williams. Ashley took the death of Kaidan really to heart, she thought it was all her fault. I could console her and convinced her otherwise, I promised that we would make Saren, the Geth and even the Reapers pay.

Back in the command center we got a message from the Citadel, the Council was finally acting against Saren. Ambassador Udina recalled us back to the Citadel to join the big joint-species fleet that was assembling there. We set course at once!
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Back at the Citadel we went to the Council right away and got surprised badly. They were content to only station patrols at every Mass Relays linking Citadel space to the Terminus Systems, they would not attack Ilios. They deemed it too dangerous, that it could provoke ware between the Council races and the Terminus Systems. They still did not believe me about the Conduit and the Reapers.
With Udina on their side they put me and the Normandy on lockdown, the ignorant bastards grounded us on the Citadel.
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That nearly broke me, we still had a chance to stop the Reapers and stupid politics stopped us cold. I was really depressed back then, but then Ashley Williams picked up the shards to put me back to together. She was the one positive constant I had left and together we would find a way out of this.
Joker interrupted us with a message from Captain Anderson, we were to meet him that club in the Wards, the Flux. There I learned that I had another true friend in him, he wanted to break into ambassador Udina's office and override his lockdown order. We would have just a few minutes before this would be noticed but that could be sufficient for us to get away. Anderson and I had to prepare first so we agreed to start the operation a few hours later.

Coming out of the club I was stopped by a media reporter, Khalisah Al-Jilani from Westerlund News. She wanted an interview with me but I told here to get away, I had no time for such nonsense. She took that personally and used the few words I spoke to her against me, the media just didn't like me.

Walking through the Citadel I overheard a Volus named Jahleed talking with a C-Sec officer about Chorban, the guy who wanted me to scan the Keepers for him. I talked with Jahleed afterwards and he told me that Chorban was following and threatening him. I promised him to investigate, then tracked down Chorban and confronted him. He admitted following Jahleed but only because the Volus had stolen the data gathered from the Keeper scans. We backtracked to Jahleed and cleared up the whole thing, I would continue to scan the Keepers and they would stop fighting and work together analysing the data.

Later I got stopped by a Charles Saracino from the Terra Firma Party. I've had heard of this party...they proposed a strict Humanity-Only-policy which is simply stupid. As a Human soldier, Humanity must come first, so far I could agree with them but we need allies. And to get good allies we must be these good allies ourselfs, in this universe Humanity cannot stand alone. So I just ignored the guy and moved on.

Walking the presidium I got hailed by an old acquaintance, Conrad Verner a self-proclaimed fan. I gave him an autograph at an earlier visit to the Citadel and now he wanted a picture with me, I was flattered and let him take one.

Later on I got into a discussion with an Alliance negoiator in the middle of hard talks with the Salarians. He was using a legal but restricted mental stimpack drug and was already running out. He wanted to me to get him another shot but not with me, I am strictly against such drugs outside of emergencies. The guy showed all signs of an addict and I told him as much. I convinced him to get help for himself and to my own surprise he actually accepted that.

Then I paid a visit to the Asari diplomat Nassana and confronted her with what I found out about her sister, the slaver. She actually already new that, she told me that she had even considered hiring an assassin to get rid of her. The cold hearted bitch even transferred some credits to me for taking care of her.

That day I got involved in far too many things not my business, but when I could help I did. Overhearing a discussion about a newborn baby with a potential heart condition I had to convince the mother to allow the treatment. I still cannot imagine how people can ignore all the progress we made in science and risk lifes that way.

Just a little bit later I came accross the Hanar preacher and the C-Sec guard, I've met them and their unresolved conflict on my last visit. By then I was pretty fed up and I ended it once and for all, the Hanar agreed to buy a preaching permit and the issue was resolved.

Next I located Rear Admiral Kahoku from the Alliance Navy. I had to inform him of the fate of his recon team in the Artemis Tau cluster. I told him the full truth, that somebody had been using an alliance beacon to lure the troops on the planet and let them be ambushed by a Tresher Maw. He promised that he would try to find out who was behind all this and to keep me updated about it.

After all this, I really needed a drink but at the bar we went I got involved again. A woman named Rita asked me to help her with her sister Jenna, who worked as informant for C-Sec in Chora's Den. Rita wanted me to talk her out of it as it was far too dangerous. I agreed and tried to talk some sense into Jenna but to no avail.
Outside Chora's Den a Turian stopped me and told me to meet him in his C-Sec office, it was Jenna's contact there. His name was Chellick and Garrus knew him from his time at C-Sec. He agreed to get Jenna out of harms way if I helped him track down an illegal arms producer. It was a Kroban named Jax and I was supposed to meet him posing as a buyer to get some evidence against him.
The meeting didn't go as planned, the arrogant Kroban was just too much for me and I decided to arrest him right then and there. Jax didn't agree to that so we had to fight and kill him. Chellick wasn't pleased but held up his side of the bargain and removed Jenna from Chora's Den.
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Then we were ready, I gave Captain Anderson the signal and we got ready on the Normandy. Anderson stormed into ambassador Udinas office, knocked him out cold and used the computer to override the lockdown order for our ship. We took the chance and Joker took us out of the system as fast as possible.
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[KAreil]

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We took the Normandy into the Erebus system in the Styx Eta cluster. There the galactic news caught up with us, while the Council kept quiet about me and the Normandy, Khalisah Al-Jilani from Westerlund News did not. After I turned down the inverview with her she had started a smear campaign against me and Alliance PR had to do their utmost to limit the damage.

Then we picked up a distress call from Lieutenant Marie Durand, 3-14 Infantry, Alliance 10th Frontier Division. They operated a listening post on planet Nepmos were attacked by unidentified alien lifeforms. We went there ASAP and dropped with the Mako to recon the planet. To my shock we found Rachni there. They were breaking out of the ground, probably stirred up by operations of the Tenkarra Mining Consortium. We located the listening post where Lieutenant Durand had set up a last stand defence with her few remaining troops. Their seismic sensors were picking up many more Rachni coming up to attack us. The listening post even had automated gun turrets but no power for them, so hooked up the Mako with them to power them. The Rachni attacked in several huge waves but we managed to defeat them all in heavy fighting.
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After that defensive action the ground-scan UAVs found the source of the Rachni attacks, a big hollow space about 500 metres under the surface. One of the Tenkarra mining tunnels went down there and while Lieutenant Durand continued to defend the listening post we headed there with the Mako. We dismounted and fought our way through many more Rachni until we encountered the Rachni Brood Warrior, a male gendered Rachni. In a heavy fight we killed it and could be sure this was the last of the Rachni on the planet, records of the Rachni Wars showed that the Brood Warriors would only fight when no more other Rachni were available.

We continued into the Archeron system where another Alliance listening post had gone silent a few days ago. There we found the base on planet Altahe overrun by some more Rachni, they had not gone underground yet and we could kill them all. The logs of the base showed that the source of the Rachni was probably a supply run from Depot Sigma-23.
This depot was located in the Gorgon system in the Argus Rho system and we jumped there as soon as we were ready. It was hard to find space facility without IDs or anything, easy to overlook if not actively searched for.
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The facility was overrun by Rachni but we battled our way through them to the main science log, the logs of a Cerberus Group Major Elena Flores was quite illuminating. They got a Rachni field test package from Noveria and were experimenting with it on the station. Of course they broke out of containment and took over the facility, the intelligent beasts were even boarding the supply shuttles and going off to random locations - that's how they infested the listening posts. To put a definite end to this thread we blew up the whole facility and retreated to the Normandy.

I got a call from Kahoku then, he had investigated the fate of his recon team in the Artemis Tau cluster and had found out who had set the trap for them, again this Cerberus Group. He could only find out that this group was an Alliance black ops organization, top secret, highest-level security clearance. They had vanished a few months ago, dropped right of the grid and nobody knew where they went or what they were up to. They had gone rogue and the clues the admiral had found pointed to illegal genetic experiments. While he had no hard evidence he could give me the coordinates of one of their research worlds. I would have to go there as the admiral had to go undercover, Cerberus was already hunting him.
So we jumped into the Yangtze system in the Voyager cluster where we found several research bases on planet Binthu. With Lieutenant Williams and Garrus we attacked the 3 facilities and had to fight quite elite Cerberus commando soldiers. They were experimenting with Tresher Maw genomes, Rachni and Thorian Creepers there and we burned it all to the ground. We also found Admiral Kahoku in one of the facilities. He was dead, Cerberus must have tracked him down in the short time since I took his call.
In the research station systems we found evidence that the main Cerberus base was on Nepheron in the nearby Columbia system and Joker brought us there as fast as possible. We stormed their facility against heavy resistance of ever more Cerberus commandos, they were good but not good enough.
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Trying to access their database we set off an alarm and the system started to delete itself. As fast as possible we copied as much data as possible before it was too late. Of course the files would be encrypted but in time we would manage to crack them. We activated the self destruct sequence of the Cerberus facility and got back onto the Normandy.
I wasn't on board for more than a few minutes when I got a call from some unknown origin. He claimed to be an agent for the Shadow Broker and wanted the data I had uploaded from the Cerberus base. I made it clear that my loyality was with the Alliance and I would not cooperate with them, regardless of what that meant for me.
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I had one more stop to go before we could head to Ilos, the supposed location of the Prothean Conduit. Admiral Hackett from Alliance Command had informed me about my former commanding officer Major Kyle and the problems he had caused. Apparently he had set up a base in the Hawking Eta cluster and has gathered many biotic followers around him, I already read something about that in ExoGeni HQ systems. Alliance believed that the Major was mentally unstable and 2 people sent there had already disappeared, probably murdered. It seemed the Major had set up a personal cult with himself titled as "Father Kyle". I promised to have a look into it and we found the compound on Presrop.
The base we found was populated by Biotic cultists, they were devouts of their "Father Kyle". At first they tried to stop me but when it got through who I was and that Kyle knew me, they let us pass. When I finally met the former Major Kyle it was clear to me that he really wasn't himself anymore, some mental problem must have caused a breakdown. I managed to convince him to surrender himself to save his "children" and he peacefully came with me to the Alliance authorities.
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[KAreil]

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With all lose ends tied up we were ready for our strike at Ilos. The planet lies in a remote area of the lawless Terminus Systems and is only accessible by the legendary Mu Relay. For thousand years ago, the Mu Relay was knocked out of position by a supernova and lost. Only the information from the Rachni Queen gave us the new location of the Relay and gave us, but also Saren a way to reach Ilos. Like the ancient Human city of Troy, Ilos was a world known only through second-hand sources. References to Ilos had been found at several other Prothean ruins, though direct study of the world was impossible. From the available sources we knew that in the golden age of the Protheans, Ilos was a verdant world, dotted with the spires and arches of magnificent cities. It was clear that this all must have fallen to ruins since the end of the Protheans.

During the lang travel to the Mu Relay, Gunnery Chief Williams visited me while working in my quarters. By then I had called her Ashley and I was Shep to her. Somehow it had gotten more than a professional relationship and as far as I can tell I really loved her. This feeling was mutual and we used the time we had as best as we could.
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Through the Mu Relay we jumped into the Pangaea Expanse and arrived near Ilos. The planet was besieged by Geth ships but they couldn't detect us with our stealth systems engaged. We picked up strange readings from the planet's surface and I wanted to make planetfall right there. The problem was that the nearest landing zone was two klicks away, far too far away for us. Saren was already searching for the Conduit and we had no time to lose, so I made Joker drop us with the Mako directly on his position.
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Joker really did it and we badly surprised Saren. Unfortunately he recovered quickly and closed ancient and huge Prothean gates behind him to block our way. We had nothing to force them, so we had a look around the Prothean ruins to find another way in or something to open them. The place was swarming with Geth troops and we had to fight our way through them.
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We found a command bunker with even more Geth, from here they had closed the gates. After defeating them we found the controls to open the gates again and were just leaving when some kind of hologram appeared. It was badly damaged and neither Ashley nor Garrus could recognize the language, but I could. The Prothean Cipher allowed me to recognize it as a Prothean warning against the Reaper invasion. The damage to the hologram was too great to really understand the message but I could pick up some words like Citadel and Conduit - we were definitely on the right track. Back at the now opened gates we mounted up and followed Saren in the Mako. We raced through ancient Prothean tunnels with strange containers everywhere, they looked like stasis pods. The Protheans probably had tried to keep themselves alive through cryogenic freezing. Geth troops tried to stop our pursuit but they had no chance against the Mako's firepower. We were just getting hopes that we could catch Saren when a big forcefield suddenly appeared in front of us and stopped us cold. Another forcefield appeared behind us and we were trapped. Fearing this was an ambush we got ready for combat but there was nothing.

Surveying the place we were trapped, I noticed a side tunnel so we dismounted and followed it. At the end of the tunnel there was some kind of Prothean console and as we approached it activated and displayed a hologram again. This one wasn't that damaged and it introduced itself as Vigil, a kind of advanced Prothean VI. It quickly learned our language, analyzed us and found us free from Reaper indoctrination. Vigil explained that only we could break the Reaper cycle that had continued for millions of years and that we had to learn the fate of the Protheans to avoid their grim fate. The VI explained that the Citadel was back then like now the heart of advanced civilization and the Mass Relays the lifelines of everything. The Protheans had learned that the Citadel was a trap, the station is actually an enormous mass relay linking into dark space, the empty void beyond the galaxy's horizon. When it is activated the Reapers will pour through it and being the hub of all the Mass Relay it gives them infinite operational possibilities. To keep this secret the Reapers had created the Keepers, the seemingly benign organic caretakers of the station. They enable any species discovering the Citadel to use it without fully understanding the technology. This reliance on the Keepers ensures no other species will ever discover the Citadel's true nature, not until the Relay is activated and the Reapers invade. This sudden and heavy first strike pretty much decapitated the Protheans, their leaders were dead before anybody even realized there was an attack. The Reapers seized control of the Citadel and through it, the Mass Relays. Communication and transportation across the Prothean empire were suddenly crippled and each star system isolated, cut off from the others. Easy prey for the Reapers who spent the next decades to systematically obliterate the Protheans. World by world, system by system the Reapers methodically wiped them out. Their fleets advanced across every settled region of the galaxy. Some worlds were utterly destroyed, others conquered and their population enslaved. These were indoctrinated and became sleeper agents under Reaper control. Taken in as refugees by other Protheans, they betrayed them to the machines. Within a few centuries, the Reapers had killed or enslaved every Prothean in the galaxy, they were relentless, brutal and absolutely thorough. The Protheans never found out the motives or goals of the Reapers but in the end it does not matter. The Prothean worlds were stripped bare, harvested by the indoctrinated slaves. Everything of value, all resources, all technology, was taken. Once certain that all advanced organic life had been extinguished, the Reapers retreated back through the Citadel Mass Relay into dark space, sealing it behind them. All evidence of the Reaper invasion had been wiped away, only their indoctrinated slaves were left behind, abandoned and no longer capable of independet thought. They soon starved or died from exposure and so the genocide of the Protheans was complete.
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Then Vigil explained why he had brought us to him, what we should do to stop the Reapers. When the Protheans got wiped out, they were on the cusp of unlocking the mysteries behind the Mass Relay technology. Ilos was their top secret research facility and they worked on creating a small-scale version of a Mass Relay. One that linked directly to the Citadel, the hub of the whole Relay network. So this Conduit wasn't a weapon but a back door onto the Citadel. When the Reapers came for the Prothean the facility severed all communication with the outside to keep it hidden. Ther personnel retreated underground into these archives and to conserve resources, everyone was put into cryogenic statis. Vigil was programmed to monitor the facility and wake the staff when the danger had passed. But the genocide of an entire species is a long, slow process. Years, decades, centuries passed but the Reapers persisted. With the energy reserves dwindling Vigil began disabling life support of non-essential personnel. First support staff, then security. One by one, their pods were shut down to conserve energy. Eventually, only the stasis pods of the top scientists remained active. Even these were in danger of failing when the Reapers finally retreated back through the Citadel Relay. When the researchers woke, they realized the Prothean species was doomed. There were only a dozen individuals left, far too few to sustain a viable population. They vowed to find some way to stop the Reapers from returning, a way to break the cycle forever, and they knew the Keepers were the key. The Keepers are controlled by the Citadel itself and before each invasion, a signal is sent through the station compelling them to activate the Citadel Relay. After decades of feverish study, the scientists discovered a way to alter this signal. Using the Conduit, they gained access to the heart of the Citadel and made these critical modifications. So this time, when Sovereign had sent the signal to the Citadel, the Keepers ignored it. This had saved our civilization for the moment and the Reapers were still trapped in dark space. But now Saren wanted to use the Conduit to bypass all the Citadel's external defenses and once inside he could transfer control of the station to Sovereign. This would allow him to override the Citadel's systems and manually open the Relay to the dark space, the cycle of extinction would begin again. We had to stop this and Vigil could give us the means to it. We got a data file that when uploaded into the Citadel's master control unit would give us temporary control of the station, giving us a chance against Sovereign.

Before going we had to learn as much as possible about our enemy and Vigil explained that while most Reapers return to dark space at the end of each cycle, they leave one of their kind behind. A sentinel to pave the way for their inevitable return. It too would probably spent most of the last 50000 years in a state of hibernation, perodically waking the analyze the situation. Keeping its existence hidden, it would evaluate the state of galactic civilization. And, when the time was right, it would signal the Citadel and usher in the next Reaper invasion. But that time the signal failed because of the Prothean alterations, the Keepers did not respond. This forced Sovereign to try and discover what had gone wrong. Even such a mighty Reaper is not invincible, if it had revealed its true nature it would have united the forces of every organic species against it. Even a Reaper couldn't survive such odds. But the Reapers are patient, they will not rush into the unknown. Sovereign probably had planned this for centuries, moving deliberately, gathering allies. Saren might have been his most visible pawn, but we were sure there were more. The Prothen beacons had brought Saren and me too onto the trail to the Conduit and Vigil explained these beacons spanned the breadth of their empire. They were their galaxy-wide network to transmit data and communications rapidly from world to world. Once the Reapers were gone, the surviving scientiests here on Ilos decided to risk sending out a message. If anybody had survived they wanted them to know about Ilos, wanted to give them hope. The message was coded so only organic beings could interpret it and even then you needed a Prothean Cipher to comprehend it. They didn't really understand the power of Reaper indoctrination back then, they never realized it could lead an agent of the machines, like Saren to this world.

We ran back to the Mako and raced after Saren toward the Conduit, we had to stop him. Ever more Geth troops tried to stop us and we lost valuable time fighting our way through them. In the end we came too late, Saren was already through Conduit and with the final energy reserves of the station failing it was closing fast. With no time to spare we jumped into the Conduit fullspeed and were gone from Ilos.
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[KAreil]

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The Conduit worked and we crashed onto the Citadel completely trashing the Mako. The whole station was a mess as Sovereign and a huge Geth fleet were attacking it already. The Council fleet in orbit was badly surprised but recovered and put up a valiant defense, lead by the Asari flagship Destiny Ascension. To protect the Citadel itself the five arms around the Presidium were supposed to close, this could protect it against even the most heavy firepower, but it didn't work. Saren had control over the station and the Council ordered evacuation of the Citadel.
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Once out of the Mako we had to find Saren. Luckily the VI of the Citadel could pinpoint him in the Council Chamber in the Presidium tower, that's were the master control unit was. Meanwhile Sovereign had fought his way through the Council fleet and was heading directly for the Presidium tower where latched on top of it. Saren then closed the arms of the Citadel which now protected the Reaper from the battle outside.
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Saren had deactivated all elevators leaving us only one way to the Council Chamber. Through a hatch we got outside of the tower and suited up we used our mag boots to walk up there. Saren threw everything he had against us, Geth, Krogans and more but we pushed on and on.
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Through another hatch we entered the Council Chamber and confronted Saren at the master control unit. He was so sure of himself, we had only a few minutes left before Citadel control would be with Sovereign, spelling doom for everybody. Saren had been modified, improved as he called it, by Sovereign after I had defeated him on Virmire and this really showed. It was a hard and brutal fight against the bastard and waves of his Geth allies, but finally I got him and he fell from his stupid hoverboard through the glass platform of the chamber. A huge glass shard was buried in his chest but I had no time to properly check on him.
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I rushed to the master control unit and download the data file from Vigil, it worked perfectly and I had full control over the Citadel. I opened the arms of the Citadel, exposing Sovereign and allowing the ships to attack the Reaper directly. By now the Systems Alliance fleet was in the fight too and with the arms opened I could re-establish communications to them. Then the Destiny Ascension contacted me, their systems were failing, the Council was onboard and they needed help ASAP. It was my decision and as always the mission had priority, I gave orders that the System Alliance fleet should concentrate on Sovereign. I was dooming the Destiny Ascension and the Council but if we couldn't stop the Reaper it wouldn't matter at all.
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While our fleet made its attack run on Sovereign we checked on Saren, Ashley put a bullet into his head to make sure the bastard was dead. To our shock Saren started moving again, filled with a strange red light he came back to his feet. At least something vaguely resembling him. It was Sovereign taking direct control over the remnants of Saren's body. This new form of him was lightening quick and quite deadly. We struggled at first but in a long and hard fight we eventually managed to kill it for good.
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Meanwhile the Alliance fleet had broken through the Geth warships and attacked Sovereign head on with all they had got. This immense concentration of firepower finally got through and killed the Reaper. The huge explosion severely damaged the Presidium tower and pieces of it crashed right into the Council chamber.
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I don't remember what exactly happened then. Some time later I heard Captain Andersons voice, he was in the wrecked Council chamber with a rescuing party. They found Ashley and Garrus easily but I was buried under quite some debris. They started to give up hope for me when I could finally force my way out and join them with a smile - we had done it! We had saved the galaxy from the Reapers!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1132302721542783047/1136973298660540446/ME_000090.jpg






It was then that I got my moniker, they call me the "Unkillable soldier" since that day.








https://youtu.be/b4vj_WB5w_k