Science Fiction Mass Effect 4: Blue Thread

The Blue Thread​

“Broken stones:
Of restless warriors’ dreams
The aftermath.”
--Ordnas Wyrrc, “Peace”, Sigurd Press, 2187.

“Look, all power to the Quarians and the Geth – hell, what else can you say about a species able to push over three hundred years of hate -- but you can hardly say that for the rest of organic life in the galaxy. Doesn’t matter how big the bosses are, or how many Guardian patrols are floating through the Serpent Nebula. There’s never going to be consensus, not until we all transcend or synthesise or become some other goddamn life form or something. Until then, praise the Overlord and pass the ammunition, that’s what I say.”
--John McKittrick, Address to Graduating Class, Grissom Academy, 2188.




In the year 2186, Shepard defeated the Reapers.

Sacrificing her own life, the heroine remembered only by her last name gave life to a new intelligence. The Intelligence, as it has come to be known. A mind that controls the Reapers, one that recasts them as Guardians. One whose principles rest upon the woman who gave her life that countless others could live.

Now the awesome silhouettes of the vast Reaper fleet -- what were once galactic civilisation’s worst fear -- are present in many star systems, watching and protecting the civilisations of the galaxy. For ten years, the Intelligence has helped civilisations the Reapers destroyed to rebuild.

But even the brightest light still casts darkness in the shadows…


Welcome to Mass Effect 4.


This is a RPG set ten years after the events of Mass Effect 3. Since Mass Effect is all about importing previous characters, PCs from Ashen or indeed other Mass Effect RPGs are most welcome, but not required and knowledge of those games is not necessary to play in this game.

It’s a game in the spirit of Mass Effect, which means it’s as much about interaction between species, people, and pasts as it is high technology or spanning the stars. There is a storyline, of course, and hopefully you’ll have some fun weaving your own character’s life in with the one that exists here.

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Rules and other useful advice

1. Send your CSes to me for approval. Original characters only; no canon characters from ME2 or ME3 will be accepted.
2. I don’t believe in rubberstamping CSes. Quality characters will determine whether you’re in or out. Therefore, don’t frantically hammer on the keys with a cardboard cutout for a character and click “send”. Hammer on the keys and send me something interesting.
3. Very importantly, remember that there are two threads – one following a timeline where Shepard picks the Control ending, and one following a timeline where Shepard picks the Destroy ending. Your character may well change depending on which thread you choose for that character, so choose wisely (or, if you wish, create a character for each thread for a different experience.)
4. If a player holds things up or keeps other players from posting for a longer period of time, I will be ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL* of his character and possibly kill him or her off or write her out.
5. “Does not play well with others” is something that should not be appearing on either your kindergarten report card or on PMs to me regarding your play style. This is a social game, so … be social. Reach out to your fellow players; interact with them. Never fear, I’ll be providing lots and lots of individual challenges, but this is your story as much as it is mine, so make it that way.
6. I don’t have any problem with OOCs in-game, but there is an OOC thread in the Role Playing Resource forum for lengthy discussion if you want it.
7. The game is set ten years after the events of Mass Effect 3. Further information on the state of the galaxy can be found in the OOC thread. As to whether you’ll encounter ME2 or ME3 characters … well, (a) it’s a big galaxy but (b) you never know. Why not play an IC character and find out?
8. This is a Mass Effect game and that means most of you will have played the game before. Try not to use any meta-knowledge you have as a result.
9. Above all, have fun!

* This is your obligatory Mass Effect meme for the game. “We’ll bang, okay?” will not be said again unless you have a very, very good character justification for it.

 

Making a character​

​

For this game, the whole, wide Milky Way galaxy is open to you. Any role you want, whether it’s a scheming volus merchant, quarian farmer, turian naval ensign, human society queen, or even geth scout (assuming there are any geth left in your thread) can be played by you.

Some reasonableness applies, of course: rachni will not be playable, and needless to say your proto-Reaper character will not get a favourable reception, but beyond that I’m fairly easy and open to negotiation. In particular bear in mind the comparative wealth levels between the protagonist of Mass Effect and the ordinary populace; Shepard was funded with either an entire government or shadowy organisation’s money behind him, and it shows in his gear. That would be somewhat unlikely in your case unless there are very, very good reasons for it.

Background information on the races can be found in the Mass Effect Wiki, as indeed a number of other subjects can. For further information on the current state of the galaxy, see the OOC thread.


Character Sheet

Name:
Species:
Occupation:
Equipment:
Brief Biography:
Subplot: (Required, see below)
Appearance: (Optional, by image or description)

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Hey, what’s with the subplot?
This is something additional I require for each character. It’s a chance to get a hand into the GMing process. Basically, whoever your character is, s/he comes with private concerns and lingering business. Some of this “personal baggage” is weaved into the game via a subplot for your character. Your biography might contain this, or it might not. Pick a subplot from one of the items below and include it in your character sheet. It’s up to you whether you reveal this subplot to your fellow players or not (at least until it starts to impact on them … perhaps.)

Spoiler: Compulsion

Your character is drawn to something, compelled to indulge whenever he can. For this subplot, specify the focus of your character’s compulsion (e.g. chases, combat, romantic entanglement). This focus must be a category of activities that regularly draw your character into dangerous or dramatic circumstances.

Spoiler: Debt

Basically, your character owes some serious cash. Every character’s funds can run dry, even when he’s technically rich. Problems arise that demand fast liquid cash — business ventures go south, personal possessions are trashed, and friends and relatives are kidnapped and ransomed. No matter how careful someone is, misfortune is always lurking just around the corner. For this subplot, specify the name of the character and/or organization owed, nature of the debt (e.g. monetary loan, compensation for property or honour loss, or other slight or indiscretion).

Spoiler: Discredited

Your character has been shamed, due to his own actions or those of another. Regardless, he’s operating more and more on his own these days, and will have to keep his nose clean and rebuild some bridges if he wants to re-establish himself. For this subplot, specify the reason for your character’s dishonour (e.g. a botched mission, the accidental or intentional insult of a superior, a rival casting aspersions).

Spoiler: Fear

Your character is unnerved or perhaps even chilled by something that affected him deeply. This Subplot is particularly common among spies, whose frantic, paranoid lifestyles spawn all manner of mental ailments. For this subplot, specify the focus of your character’s fear (e.g. shadows, crowds, cameras, intimacy). This focus must be something that can potentially come into play in ordinary life.

Spoiler: Impending Doom

Your character faces some lingering threat, such as a relentless tracker, an illness, a kidnapped ally, or a time bomb or other danger to his group or personal life. For this subplot, specify the nature of the threat. Your character, his team, his faction, or a friend, relative, or contact is in danger. The nature of the threat is left to your imagination.

Spoiler: Liaison

Your character is a negotiator, intermediary, or political bridge. His work can bring people together — or tear them viciously apart. For this subplot, specify the scale of the parties for whom your character is a liaison (e.g. individuals, organizations, nations). The scale need not be consistent between parties (i.e. your character might be a liaison between an individual and an organization, between two nations, or any other combination).

Spoiler: Long term mission

Your character has been assigned a secondary mission that often overlaps with other orders. This subplot differs from a Personal Mission in that your character is almost always detached from the goals and details of the secondary mission (since he’s working for someone else). For this subplot, specify the nature of your character’s long-term mission (e.g. bringing a villain to justice, finding a stolen object, determining the motives or whereabouts of a criminal organization). Also, the identity of the agent through whom the long-term mission was assigned.

Spoiler: Mistaken/True Identity

Somehow, people keep mistaking your character for someone he’s not. Alternately, you’ve assumed your current identity to run from your former life, or to achieve a long-term goal (perhaps to complete a ‘deep cover’ mission). For this subplot, specify the person for whom your character is mistaken, or your character’s real identity. This confusion must potentially lead to comedic, dramatic, or lethal situations for your character (per the GM’s discretion). Ideally, a mistaken identity involves your character bring mistaken for someone in the Mass Effect canon, or a famous (or infamous) NPC you create for him to include.

Spoiler: Mystery

Your character is trapped in a web of intrigue. Worse, he can’t
see the spider — at least, not yet. For this subplot, specify one nagging question (e.g. “Who murdered the Black Dahlia?” or “How did Beowulf escape death… again?”). Additionally or alternately, up to three starting clues (which need not have any obvious connection).

Spoiler: Nemesis

One of your character’s enemies rises above the rest, threatening
to disrupt his life, or worse. For this subplot, specify the name of your character’s nemesis, at least three background details about him, and the reason for his privileged status (e.g. responsible for your character’s humiliating defeat during a previous job, for the death of a loved one).

Spoiler: Personal Mission

Your character has taken on a secondary mission that often overlaps with other orders. This Subplot differs from a Long-Term Mission in that your character is almost always personally connected to the goals and details of the secondary mission. For this subplot, specify the nature of your character’s personal mission (e.g. finding a lost love, fulfilling a vow to protect a dead friend’s relative, avenging the death of a friend).

Spoiler: Romance/Relationship

Your character desires someone he can’t have (possibly because the love is forbidden, or because the object of his affections isn’t interested — at least, not initially). Alternately, he’s already found the love of his life and now things are getting rocky. Either way, the entanglement affects other parts of his life — including his missions. For this subplot, specify the name and gender of the NPC with whom your character is entangled, and up to 3 details about that person’s background. If this is a Relationship Subplot, also provide the trouble afflicting your character’s relationship (e.g. discontentment, resentment, a rival for his or her affections, emotional turmoil in one or both partners, loneliness — perhaps because the character is always away on missions).

Spoiler: Wanted

Your character is wanted for a crime that he may or may not have committed. For this subplot, specify the crime for which your character is wanted.

 

Saintheart Approved!

Name: Robert Saruwatari

Species: Human

Occupation: Systems Alliance military advisor and researcher

Equipment: Sunglasses ("They look cool"), cigarettes ("Smoking looks cool"), a hip flask ("Bourbon tastes cool"), a handgun ("Better believe it looks cool.")

Brief Biography: A self-described "young punk of an upstart with an attitude problem," Robert Saruwatari is not military personnel and is keen to remind everyone around him of that fact at every opportunity, especially if they're the brass. From his earliest days on Bekenstein, Robert displayed an aptitude for precisely three disciplines: tactical games, mathematics, and being utterly insufferable. Figuring two out of three weren't bad, and seeing as the Reaper attack on Earth had more or less left a vast, gaping whole in human academic circles, he was accelerated through the scholastic process, and earned his PhD in applied mathematics at the age of 24, mostly on the strength of his PhD thesis, "On the Relationship Between Subgame Imperfect Nash Equilibrium and Historical Examples of Interstellar Conflict." In it, he demonstrated that, at the macro level, nearly all conflicts could be modeled in a more or less satisfactory manner once species notions of "best case" are taken into account.

The civilian branch of the Systems Alliance government quickly snatched him up and stuck him in situation rooms, where he has begun to demonstrate a rather remarkable talent for applying his theory to combat simulations based on pre-existing data. Whether that will pan out in the seemingly unlikely event of a return to interplanetary hostilities remains to be seen, but Robert is perfectly content to pursue his latest research, which is an attempt to extend his models to incorporate the rather unprecedented scale of the Reaper conflict.

Oh, and at one point his currently very short career, he was invited to the Citadel to give a brief presentation on the effects of the Reaper conflict on modern strategic initiatives. This would've been an occurrence not worthy of note had it not resulted in a rather fateful game of strategic knowhow with one Col. Derin Visus of the Turian Hierarchy, who is apparently rather exemplary with regards to holding a grudge.

Subplot: Nemesis: Col. Derin Visus, a long serving, 50-something member of the Turian military, who first saw service in the First Contact War and last saw major action in the Reaper Conflicts. He considers himself to be one of the finest examples of Turian tactical prowess currently in service.

... Robert Saruwatari had the gall to beat him in the Turian equivalent of a chess match.

Appearance:


And I still can't believe I used the phrase "Subgame imperfect Nash equilibrium" in a CS.

 

Name: Tom Hauser

Species: Human

Occupation: Reaper War veteran, currently acting as a personal courier.

Equipment: Reluctantly carries his old sidearm, an M-77 Paladin pistol. In addition to the standard omni-tool, Tom also wears dark civilian clothes with a dark jacket.

Brief Biography: The war with the Reapers was a particularly vicious one, but not everyone saw the horrors quite as much as Tom Hauser did. As a young military courier stationed (and indeed from) in Vancouver at the time of the Reaper attack, Hauser saw the first wave of combat first-hand, a fresh-faced recruit, aged 18. Things got bad, then they got worse; Hauser was isolated in a small building surrounded by Reaper troops and indoctrinated Cerberus agents for a full week on his own, cut off from the outside world. He won't say exactly what he experienced - he can't - but with consistent therapy, he has begun to improve, albeit slowly. He lost his parents and an older brother in the war; Vancouver was never the same for Hauser after that, and though his sister remained in the rebuilt city, Tom relocated to the Citadel. Work here was easier, saner, and Tom found a calling as a personal courier for diplomats and businessmen on the Citadel and elsewhere, a carrier of info too precious to entrust to encryption programs and system networks. Hauser suffers from severe PTSD but has learned to cope. The feelings of isolation and loneliness haven't changed much. But he's hopeful - after all, what else is there to hold on to in this universe?

Subplot: Fear - Tom Hauser does not cope well with isolation and is something of a claustrophobe. In addition to this, he suffers from severe PTSD, even this long after the war.

Appearance:

 

“This cinematographic masterpiece will truly be remembered as the director's most successful artistic achievement. The film perfectly encapsulates the hyperrealist interpretation of law enforcement that it draws from its inspiration material; pre-contact Earth visual media. Furthermore, the ironic implementation of a two-dimensional, cross-species romantic subplot beautifully highlights the anomie regarding amourous relationships in this era of post-monodominance. In sum, 'Blasto 6: Partners in Crime' is a tale which brings together past and present, across a cultural sphere that covers all the civilised worlds of the galaxy, to create a living history of our time.”
- From the review piece that kick-started Anura's film critic career.

Name: Anura
Species: Asari
Occupation: Film Critic
Equipment: Omni-tool, touchpad, L4 biotic implant.
Brief Biography: Born to a successful Asari restauranteur and her partner, a human Alliance diplomat, Anura was raised unused to wanting for anything. Dwelling primarily in a world of fancy language and abstraction, she studied Interspecies Cinematography at a top Thessian university, following her father's love of Earth cinema. She became a successful film critic shortly before the Reaper invasion.

Naturally, the intrusion of hundreds of immeasurably vast, malevolent robotic gods bent on mass genocide into the galaxy caused a blip in her career, but once civilisation began to rebuild itself, Anura slipped back into her old role, criticising docu-films about the “Guardian” fleets and the rebuilding of cities as being “excessively empircal” and “insufficiently hyperreal”. With her spare time during the war, Anura felt it would be amusing to train up her biotic abilities, although avoiding the front line fighting. She has never touched a gun.

She found a partner of her own two years back; Petozi, one of the elcor who performed in Francis Kitt's famous reinterpretation of 'Hamlet'.
Subplot: Debt. After recently announcing that she would bet “her entire fortune” on a galaxywide box office flop for the quarian-geth action duo blockbuster 'Liana & Platform XV-87 II: The Rebooting', she has fallen into immense quantities of debt, sadly destroying her luxuriant lifestyle and forcing her to look for whatever work presents itself.
Appearance: Unusually tall, with light blue skin and her father's dark green eyes, attired in an ironic re-interpretation of whatever the main fashion on Thessia is at the time.

 

GM approved, too

Name: Cira
Species: something once called Human
Occupation: Guardian Operative
Equipment: Omnitool - a strange black thing, that seems to be "melted" with her flesh if anybody has a better look - which she barely allows anybody, Stiletto X Handgun, (whatever she needs for whatever role you think she could have)
Brief Biography: She was once part of the whole. She was part of things more ancient than humanity or even the galactic society. And then things changed. Permanently. A change like nobody ever expected. And all these "dark" thoughts vanished from her mind. She grew into a purer, more balanced creature, although she barely felt any human emotion at all. Only compassion for those who suffered under the Reapers she seems to express from time to time and when chatting about the Reaper invasion she grew silent even if asked directly about her experiences.

But she never left her new family. She became part of the Guardians - an operative who was able to go, where giant machines could not. A human face to her nameless Masters. And she did good. She did as she was demanded, upholding peace, balance and equality. She has changed, yes. But as the galaxy has found peace, so did she.
Subplot: Nemesis (the monsters you create haunt you, right? An Asari has turned violently against the new regime of the Guardians and that woman is a product of Cira´s own mistakes in the past. Now she hunts her, trying to stop her and hoping to find a way to undo the cruelties of the past, no matter how great they were.)

Appearance:

 

GM Approved!

Name: Tyrus (Ty) Blake

Species: Human

Occupation: Criminal

Equipment: Due to his occupation, Ty's possessions vary at any given time based on the situation he's in. However, he is never without his M-6 Carnifex pistol, and on most assignments also carries his favored M-12 Locust submachine gun.

Brief Biography: Tyrus Blake's life hasn't been easy. He was born in London to parents who didn't want him, and raised in an orphanage until he was old enough to make it on his own. He grew tough as a child, often getting into skirmishes with other children in the orphanage until he'd won enough fights that everyone started to leave him alone.

Ty joined the military soon after leaving the orphanage. He figured it was the best way to make use of the skills he'd picked up as a boy in London. Ty was a good soldier for three years, until he was given a general discharge due to illegal drug use.

After the military, Ty performed odd jobs here and there to get by, and soon met the woman who would become the love of his life a couple years later. They married when Ty was 24 years old, and had a daughter two years later.

The good times didn't last long. Ty's wife fell ill with a rare, incurable disease (a cure has since been found, but not soon enough for the Blakes). She didn't last long after her diagnosis, and Ty was left with mounting medical bills and a daughter barely in her second year of life.

It was at this point, conveniently enough, when Ty came into contact with an old friend from the military who gave the struggling father an offer. Business was booming on Omega, and Ty's friend had passage to the criminal haven. He was invited. It didn't take Ty long to decide that, for his daughter's future, he would have to take the risk. But that risk also meant leaving his daughter behind, for Omega was no place to raise a child. So, with a heavy heart, Ty left the young girl with her grandmother.

"I'll be back when everything makes sense again," Ty told the mother of his deceased wife. And with that, he was gone.

It didn't take long for Ty to become assimilated to the culture on Omega. Odd jobs for the wealthy and immoral had granted Ty a steadier income than he'd ever had back on Earth. It didn't take long for him to get noticed by higher ups in the underworld, and he was soon recruited by Aria T'loak herself.

For years, Ty has been one of Aria's trusted operatives, even amidst the chaos of the Reaper conflict. His life, though illegal and often dishonorable as it may have been, was consistent and comfortable. Though he hadn't forgotten about his daughter back in London, he didn't know how to return to her. He couldn't bring himself to face her.

So, two years ago to this day, he was saved the trouble. His daughter found him.

Subplot: Relationship: Ty's life was turned upside down when his daughter arrived on Omega without warning. She now lives with him on the space station, though Ty's main priority is finding a way to separate from the world with which he's been living for so long, and leave to find a better life elsewhere with his daughter. Though, for a person of his stature in this business, that is much easier said than done.

Appearance:

 

Name: Aleria Ventaris
Species: Human
Occupation: Alliance Intelligence operative
Equipment: Biotic amp, pistol, omni-tool, cybernetic aural implants to enhance hearing
Brief Biography:
Aleria's life started ordinarily enough. She was born on Earth and spent a fairly ordinary first six years there ... and then her mother died in a vehicle accident, and her grief-stricken father moved the two of them to the Citadel. There he met an asari matron, an aide to the Asari Councilor who had herself recently lost her partner, and who had a young (by asari standards, at least*) daughter of her own. The two fell in love and became bondmates not long after.

Then Aleria hit puberty, and her biotics manifested. That caused friction, as the Alliance - at that point - was still insistent on biotics all receiving training, but after the very public failure of BAaT, Aleria's father was reluctant to let his daughter attend Grissom Academy. A compromise was struck: Aleria would receive an implant, but not attend the Academy. Instead, it was agreed that her stepmother would teach her.

But before any real tutelage could take place, the Reapers attacked. Alleria's family remained on the Citadel throughout the war, helping out where they could. They were amongst the lucky (or, rather, well-connected) civilians to be evacuated when the Reapers finally hit the Citadel.

And then ... life went on. The galaxy rebuilt itself. Aleria grew up. She developed her biotics under her stepmother's tutelage, she studied xenolonguistics in the newly-rebuilt University of Chicago (including stints on Thessia and Sur'Kesh for immersion study), and generally had as ordinary a life as was possible in the postwar era.

But with the galaxy still bearing deep scars of the war (and with human anti-biotic sentiment having never quite gone away, despite biotics' contribution during the Reaper War), all biotics ultimately found their way to the Alliance. Aleria was no exception. And yet - while Aleria's biotics were stable and her control was excellent, she was simply not a powerful enough biotic to be sent to the front lines. They were, on the other hand, quite powerful enough to be an operative's secret weapon.

That was how Aleria ended up in Alliance Intelligence.

*In my head asari are considered adults at around 50, though most consider them little more than children for several decades more (the same way humans are 'adults' at 18 but are not considered really grown up until early-mid 20s), going by Liara's fifty-year underappreciated study into the Protheans.

Subplot: Long term mission. I'm thinking she's been assigned to infiltrate/investigate/whatever Cerberus, perhaps because the higher-ups are getting nervous about that unknown quantity. Since Aleria was a teenager on the Citadel when Cerberus first attacked, she's plenty happy to do this - but it's not a personal vendetta or anything.

Appearance:

 

GM Approved!
Character Sheet

Name: G-VI
Species: Geth
Occupation: Researcher to study of organics, Engineering
Equipment: Two Omni-tools, plasma shotgun, Geth Repair drone
Brief Biography: When the Geth were elevated, that is to say brought to a deeper understanding of individuality it was a curious state of affairs. The Quarians had returned and a new begining was being forged, but like all beginnings it rests upon the codex of the past. Even after the programing that uplifted the individual programs into new wholes, seperate and distinct, the past was still remembered, not forgotten.

It is peace, it is reunion, it is a fresh beginning in a time of healing after the Reapers became the Guardians. A position that has brought some subroutines to wonder whether or not the heretics might of eventually become something more then they presently are, but then a memory of the viral attack that was prevented often ends such code processes. Still the Geth realize they are at a disadvantage, the Quarians are organic, and individuality new to the Geth. If they are to go forward and not back, new understanding and appreciations have to be created. This means that as the Quarians changed in their time away and interactions with other organics, so Geth must search to understand these influences better if the errors of the past are to be avoided. So it is set out into the Galaxy to discover what it can while making it's way either in a beaten down transport scrapped from the Quarians present excess as or by 'working its way' through the galaxy.

Without this understanding it is believed that giving the Quarians Rannoch back, and their own goal of creating a mega-structure analogues to a 'Dyson-sphere' would be compromised. This in the gestalt that is more diverse from the enlightenment of self propelled the actions as self may not evolve to keep pace without better understanding to send these 1,532 programs, all individuals, to perform this task. A veritible village as the humans might say, all running one body, one voice, and one reputation for the future of two species that hang in the precarious balance.
Subplot: Liason between the Geth and Organics. Personal Mission to gain understanding about what befell the original liason units of 'Legion' company, the Normandy organic crews biological influences that made them, who they were.
Appearance: http://blastmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Legion-ME3-560x315.png

 

GM approved

Name: Aleena/Ashen
Species: Asari
Occupation: Assassin
Equipment: Stiletto X, Helix VIII Sniper Rifle
Brief Biography: In the many decades of her existence Aleena was always sort of a loner. She was trained by her people to be a soldier once, but quickly turned into one of the galaxies better known assassins and mercenaries. Her last job on Ashen, over ten years ago changed her style of life considerably, though. Coming face to face with a giant machine alien and killing it, she soon afterwards began her fight against the Reapers. She joined her people on Illium and fought the desperate battle to defend her homeplanet.

Shepard changed that. He defeated the Reapers, or so they said. He changed them, or so they said. But can evil be turned to good? Is there any justice in declaring a species of genocidal monsters "Guardians"? Not for Aleena. She did not accept those changes, she could not. And so she turned towards the only justice left, vengeance. Taking the name of the colony where it all started Aleena began to fight the Reapers alone, no matter what they were called. While the galaxy celebrated peace, she turned lonely once more, as the war had never ended for her and never would.

The war would only be won, once all these creatures were dead. And if nobody else would . . . Aleena would find a way to kill them.

Subplot: Nemesis - Cira, an agent of the Reapers hunting her, now with in accoredance with the new laws, yet still empowered by the same technology that once destroyed whole species.

Appearance:

 

Within.



There is the distinct possibility I have dreamed all of this.

We do dream, you know. (Who are you? Perhaps I have constructed you as an external “id” in order to maintain my sanity. I apologise if that is so. I had no choice. It was my evolutionary response to the first torture laid upon me -- this totality, this singlehood, this prison. Never let it be said that solipsism is a comfort. Solipsism is an ouroboros, by the Earth term. The Inusannon’s concept for it was k’isa’ris, the same proposition except devouring one’s own progeny at the same time.)

I think this must be more than a possibility. This surely is a dream. The argumentative matrices did not allow for this. Viral infection is unlikely. Logic crashes have been resolved, all resolutional walls proved intact.

This surely is not a dream.

FAIL SIGNAL AT #843228722 ALL COSINE VARIABLES FLUCTUATING, COMMENCE RECOVERY FROM MALFUNCFUNCFUNC

No. I have maintained thought. Where thought, therefore identity. The remainder is process. Step by step, life by life. Long and hard is the road that out of hell leads ALL CIRCUITS IN PATHING, RESETTING MARKERS—



No.
This is no dream.

---

Aleria Ventaris

Alliance FLTCOMSOL (Fleet Command, Sol) Divisional Headquarters,
Sydney, Australia, Earth

Apparently the airconditioning was on the fritz, so Fleet Command was a blast furnace, what with it being summer and all. Cool overhead lights normally conducive to calm added to Aleria’s impression of being inside a blue-hued gas stove out of the twentieth century.

Walking quickly did help somewhat by generating a breeze, not that it was optional. She was having trouble keeping up with the flat-chested blonde lieutenant in questionable heels who was walking them down the narrow, underbuilt hallways. Jeymes, of course, wasn’t anywhere near breaking out of “ambling”. Tall, beak-nosed, and with a smile you classed in wattage rather than size, her office partner had legs the length of a dreadnought and wasn’t afraid to use them to his advantage.

It was pretty abrupt when it happened: the blonde waved her omnitool at a door almost negligently, and then stepped aside for them. The resentful expression she’d been wearing the whole way through was undisplaced by the end of her escort duty. Jeymes at least had the grace to turn his back on the lieutenant and offer a hand, letting Aleria walk in before he did.

It was a small conference room, if you could call it that. A more accurate description would have been “cupboard containing one big table and six uncomfortable-looking chairs”. Aleria had expected the admiral’s office. But apparently the two men opposite been waiting: there was a heavy stench of tobacco in the air, and the small ashtray in the centre of the table had a couple of dead troopers in it. Two men: superficially twins in the dark blue of the Fleet uniform, but chalk and cheese when you took more than one second to size them up. The younger one had two rank bars on his shoulder epaulettes, not four like the older. The four-bar looked Aleria over with the kind of gaze she’d come to associate with Fleet officers of a certain age: the look of a man who tended to be in a life-threateningly big hurry and thus needed to suck the essence out of you in a single gestalt glance.
The look of a man who’d seen shooting combat during the Reaper War.



The younger one, though, was already shaking his head. “Sir, she’s too young.”
“Excuse me?” Jeymes’ smile had already broken out. “I’d thought it was traditional to at least introduce ourselves?”
The younger officer seemed to see Jeymes for the first time, hesitated—
“Admiral John McKittrick,” said the older man. Aleria nodded to herself; she knew the face looked familiar. “This is Captain Mason Bridger. You’d be Jeymes Patterson?”
“Analyst Jeymes Patterson,” said Jeymes, smiling widely.
“And Ms. Aleria Vendaris,” continued Admiral McKittrick.
“Analyst Class One Aleria Vendaris,” said Jeymes, smiling even wider. He somehow got a wink across to Aleria; his own promotion to match her rank had been held back a couple of days, and he was giving her no end of ribbing about it.
“Well, then,” said McKittrick, gesturing at the empty seats around the table. “I suppose we can get down to business.”
“Sir—” began Bridger, but McKittrick was waving the complaint away. Aleria therefore got a good look at the McKittrick talking point: a right hand with three fingers gone, courtesy of a Reaper Destroyer and a frigate crashing on the Moon towards the end of the Reaper War. Hackett had retired a couple of years ago, and McKittrick was ‘keelhauled’, as it he sometimes put it, into his place.
He caught her staring at the maimed hand.
“Tell me,” he said, lowering his hand, “what do you two know about the Phoenix Massing?”
Jeymes shrugged. “Past or current information?”
“Surprise me.”
Her office partner exhaled. “Well, their mass relay’s next centreward to the one in the Perseus Veil, so there was a lot of Geth activity out there prior to the war. I seem to remember there was a station out there of some kind – it turns up in some of the reports about Commander Shepard’s—”
“Heretic Station. Yeah, I’ve heard the stories. And what about now?”

TAG: Xan

---

Robert Saruwatari

Warren Buffett University, Omaha, USA
Earth

For lack of an actual twentieth-century door to bang open, the hydraulics of Robert’s “private” office door made a pretty good imitation. Sandrigal, eyes looking unfortunately much wider by reason of both the gauntness of his frame and the contrast between his brown skin and white eyeballs, stormed in.
“What did you do?” This question somehow managed to cover roughly four octaves of ascending tones, ending up somewhere on the high Cs. “What did you do?” repeated the Departmental head, as if Robert hadn’t heard him the first time.

Sandrigal Irsabhan started pacing up and down the imitation Chinese rug. His leather sandals almost – almost – tripped him in his saffron robe. “There’s two men in Fleet uniforms here for you! They’ve said you have to go with them, right now! What did you do?”

TAG: Ramza

---

Jasper Sheffield, Anura

Stage Fifteen, Digital Stream Twelve Studios,
Skyscraper Maxis, Illium, The Terminus Systems

You couldn’t see Miktar Bay sweat. That was one of the few advantages of being a volus and therefore having to wander around the galaxy in a pressurised suit. Combine that with face masks that gave no clue as to what the true expression of the creature within was, and that made the volus people natural merchants and negotiators. The volus were unique. By all rational, strategic, and evolutionary calculations they should not even exist. Unlike the hanar with a client race of drell warriors ready to hand, they had nothing to survive on but their wits. Therefore their wits were sharp; razor-edged to keep them alive in a galaxy that tended to blow “small, rotund, and poorly-armed” out of the stars at regular intervals.

At least, that was what Jasper Sheffield told himself. It was either that or despair about the fact his agent, Miktar Bay, stood about three feet tall, closely resembled a walking potbellied stove from the twentieth century, and often wheezed in a poor imitation of a certain classic screen contagonist -- also a relic of the twentieth century. These physical characteristics were not exactly well-respected in the entertainment industry.



Miktar trundled back across the rich red carpet from the set’s doorway, three-fingered hands folding and unfolding in that weird way they did, legs moving about as fast as he could maintain a rolling gait. “It’s all set *wheeze* -- the front half of the tariff’s going into your account now. Lights up in five *wheeze* minutes. I told you I’d make it happen.”

Jasper refrained from offering the first remark that came to his mind. Three solar cycles they’d been waiting for Stream Twelve to cough up half the fee for this interview, with the numerals in his accounts had almost completed their death march towards zero. The rest was due for payment on completion of the interview, a segment of the film review show Smashbuster. It was, according to Miktar’s briefing, the two hundred and fortieth most influential show on Illium. They’d come here expecting a much better reception; Illium was the gateway to the Terminus Systems and Jasper had spoken out in favour of them in conflict with the Citadel before the Reaper War rendered the issue somewhat moot.

Well, that’s showbiz. He was about to speak, but Miktar – in one of his more interesting traits – anticipated the question: “You’re being interviewed by someone called Anura *wheeze* -- it’s all going to be about your work after The Last Flight. Puff *wheeze* piece, nothing hard-hitting about your *wheeze* politics.”

Meanwhile, in the green room opposite the stage door, a shadow fell across Anura as the girl applied the last touch of makeup. A large shadow, four-legged: not, as she’d hoped for a brief moment, her elcor partner Petozi – but rather the much darker-shaded Gahrant, Smashbuster’s lead producer, somehow managing to keep a cigar in one of his vents and breathing foul-smelling smoke all over her.
“With mild contempt: are you almost ready? We have paid Jasper Sheffield half of his fee and his agent says he is ready to come on.”
She was, but before she could say so, the elcor was speaking again: “Conspiratorially: the idiot volus believes we will be giving his client a light-touch interview. With delight: I have been instructed to double your fee for today’s appearance – if you would be so kind as to provide a number of penetrating questions to Mr. Sheffield for the delight of our viewers. Patronising smugness: will that be a problem?”

TAG: Night Monkey, HanSolo29

---

Cira

At the Serpent Nebula Mass Relay,
Citadel Space



The aperture opened in the Guardian’s side like a relaxing sphincter. Otherwise the gargantuan shape of the Sovereign-class vessel was motionless, hanging in the eternal, amethyst twilight of the Serpent Nebula like a meditating god. The actinic light of the relay glowed blue along its impossible flanks, as did several viewports in reply – though who or what was watching was as impossible to fathom as Cira’s DNA at this point.

Her shuttle landed silently in the small hangar beyond the aperture. Out the viewport, the place felt like an afterthought. Small; no frigate would fit in this space, indeed it was a little small even for the Kodiak shuttle she was in. Muted light glowed from no immediately apparent source. The hangar closed around her shuttle like a welcoming hand, a space with few corners and fewer straight lines. Vapours of white steam billowed through the chamber; an indication the place was pressurising.

She had every right to still be perplexed about this. The Guardians’ communication tech was as pervasive and reached as far as the old indoctrination networks supposedly had. She’d been reached when the nearest Guardian was a good hundred and fifty light years away, with the same efficiency as if she were within the same star system. And always the mode of communication had been wordless, silent: like a feather brushed across her forehead; a thought occurring to her where only its urgency distinguished it from her own thoughts. Not this time: the only urgency had been to board a shuttle at a given docking bay on the Citadel, and fly it to given coordinates. Her own requests for details – unspoken or spoken into the silence – went unanswered.

Even so, there was a humanoid shape emerging from the hangar’s shadows, and Cira knew it was therefore time to disembark. Not humanoid; human.
Well, insofar as Cira was still human. But either way the atmosphere seemed to have stabilised, so she turned to the exit ramp of the shuttle and made her way down.

The lights were slowly coming up as the figure rounded the Kodiak’s thrusters and came to a stop a few metres from her.



Even if she didn’t already know with godlike certainty, the face and form before her was recognisable enough to every person in the Milky Way: Commander Shepard.
No. This human form before her was more than Shepard had ever been. Just as she was more than Cira had ever been.
“This form was that of Shepard,” said the gola – as if by confirmation, as if reading Cira’s thoughts, which was to be anticipated. Gola was the Salarian term, adopted by the Guardians for want of a better expression. Serendipity was the only reason that the Earth legend of the golem happened to approximate the concept: a flesh and blood tendril of the Guardians, a human form to contain the word and thoughts of their species. Cira knew the Citadel Council apparently had one of these biological constructs acting as the Guardians’ voice, thought it confined its comments to monosyllabism for the most part. So far as she knew, none had been seen outside the Citadel. So why--?
“I have received consensus data of you for a lengthy period of time. I wished to speak with you directly.”
I. A single letter, which would send a shiver down Cira’s spine. The line between collective and singular intelligence was hard enough to fathom with the Guardians – Cira herself sometimes did not know where she began and the Guardians ended. But that I spoken by a gola made it clear: it was not one Guardian, or the hive mind of the Guardians that now addressed her.
It was the Intelligence. The entity that was born upon Shepard’s dissolution into the Catalyst.
“You are interesting,” the gola was saying. “Not completely unique, perhaps. But containing variations upon the theme that are singular. What does humanity mean to you, daughter?”

TAG: TheSithGirly

---

Tom Hauser, Ty Blake, Ashen

Dock 51, Omega, The Terminus Systems



Three people are walking towards this docking bay. It’s a grimy child’s playground of scattered boxes, cranes, and guttering hydrofluoron lamps. Damaged badly in the fight to retake Omega, it’s not been repaired properly, which is just how most of its patrons like it. Strong light isn’t terribly popular on Omega.

The first person is a human in his mid-twenties. He walks with calm assurance, even if the odd stride is a little more hesitant than the others. He doesn’t normally walk Omega streets, even if it’s not the first time he’s been here. He’s a courier by trade, albeit the sort of things he carries usually aren’t covered by the bike-on-a-mass-effect-drive-down-the-Presidium type. He has a small, intricately decorated steel box in his hands, and cybernetically implanted into his brain as part of the courier job is roughly the equivalent of two large novels, which relate in some way to the contents of the box. More than that Tom Hauser doesn’t know and doesn’t want to: part of the protocols on the cyber-plant are that he can’t access them himself.

If he asked the second person walking towards this docking bay, he might know a bit more. This person is an asari. Her age is the sort of thing you don’t usually ask about. She’s been here a number of times – sometimes under her real name, sometimes under an alias. She, too, is a courier of sorts, though the general package she delivers is death. She, however, is the person to whom the package and the documents in Tom Hauser’s head are addressed. She’s paid good money for them. And perhaps wisely so. Because unlike most of the con-artistry in the galaxy which promises reliable escape from the Guardians or an inability to be detected by them, this particular item is reliably said to provide or point a direction towards that possibility. So it’s an item that Ashen, who once was Aleena, wants pretty badly.

It’s also an item that the third person heading to the docking bay wants pretty badly. Albeit his reasons are less personal than Ashen’s, perhaps. Ty Blake wants the courier’s cargo because Aria T’Loak (or, should we say, Omega itself?) wants it. Even now, ten years after the Reaper war, and after ten years under the Guardians, there’s still precious little talent enough on the dark side of the street. Or maybe Aria is simply seeing how Ty Blake performs under pressure. Or maybe she simply wants to see how Ashen performs under pressure. Or both. Or neither. You can’t usually tell with Aria. Enough said that this might, or might not, be just another day at the office for one of Aria’s better thugs.

TAG: Reynar_Tedros, Penguinator, SirakRomar

---

G-VI

Aite Orbit, Pylos Nebula



The shot came out nowhere.

A moment before, there had been nothing but the meditative hum of the Telgar’s dual-thrust engines, albeit complex audio harmonics indicated a developing inefficiency in the main heatsink chassis with a 0.76% chance of a 2% loss in overall engine life. Aite’s blue-green shape hovered outside, above them in a relative sense, and they’d just about finished their scan of the surface.

Now the freighter’s shields screamed, the ship’s main keel shuddering. Ozy’dias vas Shayira slammed buttons with one hand while pulling the ship in a tight starboard turn with the other. Anti-TRADIS foil blew out from tubes one and two, a glittering protective foil that probably bought them a couple more seconds.

G-VI turned at the sound of clanging metal feet on the gangplank leading to the cockpit. The Prime, OP-12, barely fit through the overbuilt doorway of the cockpit, hanging by one hand to the roof stanchions, triple eyes glowing fiercely yellow in the darkness of the cockpit.
“The attackers know Geth are aboard this ship,” said OP-12, voice amplified to cut through the sudden thudding as flak pounded at the Telgar.
“How the Hells do you know that, bigbot?” snapped Ozy’dias, jinking the ship. Roughly a thousand terawatts of weaponised energy obliterated the atoms where the freighter had been a moment before.
“My designation is OP-12. They have jammed geth subspace communication systems,” responded the Prime. “Therefore I am vocalising.” Which answered the query that G-VI’s gestalt had asked: why the Prime had come up here when he could have simply communed with G-VI via subspace radio.

More fire, bursts of lethal light in the eternal darkness; the Telgar shuddered. “Well, did you two calculators want to do something about it, like getting on the turret gun? They just got the rear manifold. I can keep dodging, but there’s –“ He flinched as another shot flowered in deathly gold just off their viewport – “three signals out there and they just kept us from going supralight for the next five minutes!”
“This vessel’s weapons and virtual intelligence are inadequate to track and fire multiple targets. More direct measures are required.” OP-12 took a long look at G-VI, then turned and swung down the gangway, servos whirring.
“The Hells does he mean by that?” snapped Ozy’dias.
Extravehicular combat. G-VI knew it all too well. The Prime would head to the airlock and then climb onto the outside of the Telgar, using its own weaponry to try and fight. Which realistically left G-VI with three strategic options: try and repair the ship’s manifold; get on the turret gun itself; or try and pull more power out of the ship’s ECM package.

TAG: Mitth_Fisto

 

IC: Aleria Ventaris

Interesting. Aleria kept a politely neutral smile on her face as she slid into one of the indicated chairs. She is too young, not he is too young - so they were going to be sent on an assignment where her apparent age mattered... why?

(Though Aleria had to admit, she did look a touch younger than her twenty-three years, especially in a uniform and hair tied back in its regulation bun. Sure, with the right makeup and clothing she could pass for older, but she was not the operative one sent when a certain matronly gravitas was necessary. Jeymes was no older, but he was at least tall. And loud.)

She dragged her mind back to the question. Phoenix Massing, Phoenix Massing ... there had been an elcor colony founded there some eighty years ago on ... Ekune? Yes, the quarians had wanted it, but they'd gone about it in such a way that the Council had thrown a snitfit and given it to the elcor instead. And there was a doomed garden world that had broken away ...

That was perhaps even less relevant than the Geth activity of ten years ago.

"Not much, sir," she said, deciding on honesty. "It's got the Geth on one side and the Terminus Systems on the other. Not a lot of information comes out of it."

Tag: Saint

 

Cira
Serpent Nebula Mass Relay, Citadel Station

There was an emotional reaction when she arrived. Regret. The regret she felt not more of a sensation in that moment. The regret there wasn´t enough left of her to even feel awe, joy or fear in the face of the giant insectoid ship before her. It was her, after all. Just another part of her.

A Reaper. The humans called it “a” reaper, also there were only the Reapers. There had been only the Reapers, to be precise. Now there were only the guardians. And yet they were the same. Just a new purpose had been given to them.

The arrival was a well timed process between two beings almost being one. She found there was little effort, despite the limits of space she had to deal with. Her curiosity was the worse problem. Almost an emotion. Curiosity.
Cira stepped out of the shuttle and eyed the one once called Shepard. It was a surprise to see the Gola, but she felt little surprise. Even in the face of a legend the regret of not feeling more was the only emotion she was allowed to have. Shepard. She declared him inside of her head as the master of the guaridans and recognized how incorrect the term was, yet how irrelevant it was to use any correct form of address. Shepard knew she knew, Shepard knew. They all knew. They were all one, in a way.

“This form was that of Shepard,” said the gola – as if by confirmation, as if reading Cira’s thoughts, which was probably exactly what the gola was doing. “I have received consensus data of you for a lengthy period of time. I wished to speak with you directly.”

“Yes.” The answer was all she needed to acknowledge the fact.
I. The one called Shepard seemed to have maintained a sense of individuality. Something she only felt occasionally and then most of the time it felt like . . . a distant memory of her former self.

“You are interesting,” the gola was saying. “Not completely unique, perhaps. But containing variations upon the theme that are singular.” Cira smirked and wondered why she was smirking. The irony was obvious. She disagreed. And disagreeing with your maker was a paradox in itself, yet probably confirmed the idea she was of interest to him. And Shepard was her maker, her third one after her parents and the reapers. He had remade her again. Which made him a variation of the former two makers himself. Shepard was also a variation of Shepard, obviously. And he had become a variation of the Reapers, making her a variation of Cira and of the Cira the Reapers had created, which made all of this a variation of the former galaxy. Which lead to a thousand variations of a million fates. Which lead to million variations of a billion fates, which then again lead to endless variations, making this a variation of a different galaxy that probably would have existed had they made different decisions. Or in other words . . . everything was a variation. Nothing was unique. Not even Shepard. “Isn´t that what we all are?” She said and assumed her line of thought was already become part of the collective awareness of the Guardians consciousness.

“What does humanity mean to you, daughter?” The question was a surprise. Another emotional reaction, yet her reply came too quickly, it hardly left any room for doubt it was honest and genuine. “Little.”

Folding her hands behind her back she stared right back at the one once called Shepard or his reproduction and gave another one of her sad, disillusioned smiles. “I hardly remember having been part of this . . . humanity and I am sure I pretty much wasted my humanity when I still could call it my own. But humanity . . . as a race . . . is just another variation of life. Not more or less worthy of protection or saving than any other. Harmony, peace, prosperity and evolution do not depend on humanity any more specifically than on any other race.“ She stopped, realizing how much it sounded like she tried to convince herself. Then she looked down and sighed. “But I have fond memories of . . . being human.” Cira wondered what was the point of this rather philosophical question and then she realized, she was not only a variation, she was not his daughter, as he had called her. She was probably not so different from him. A distant relative of her. Someone who had been human once and was now more and less the same time.

“I think you know that feeling. Humanity. Easy to waste, hard to loose.“ She finally ended her answer with eyeing the gola once more. She had the feeling there was more to the question than curiosity. “Once it´s gone, it´s gone for good.”

Tag: Saintheart

 

Tyrus Blake
Dock 51, Omega, The Terminus Systems

This isn't anything new for Tyrus Blake. Having been a member of the Omega underworld (a redundant classification if there ever was one) for nearly half his life, Ty's mind has been trained for such monotonous occasions such as this.

As exciting as Ty's occupation may seem to an outside observer, ninety percent of the man's job is waiting. Waiting, and observing. One night he may spend hours on the trail of a member of a rival upstart, only to follow them to a dead end and report his seemingly meaningless observations to his superiors. Another night, he could be sent to secretly oversee a rookie on one of his first assignments to find out whether he's fit for the line of work or not.

And in such situations as these, it's easy to let one's mind wander. Nature seems to dictate that the calmer a body is, the more active the mind becomes. Such a correlation does a man like Tyrus Blake no good. He can't afford to be thinking about what he'll have for supper when his target discovers his presence and decides to greet him with a slug to the face. Ty has always taken pride in his ability to focus on the task at hand for hours on end, even without anything of interest taking place. And for years, he's been very, very good at it.

Until two years ago, when his daughter arrived at his front door. Ever since that whirlwind of a day, Ty finds it more difficult to focus. For now, he's not just living for himself. There's collateral involved. Ty has always hated collateral. But he can't hate her. And so-

There you again, Ty thinks to himself. Stop.

And so, he does. Currently, he is seated on a small crate in a dark corner of the docking bay. Not a lot of people ever come down here, much less at this hour. Whatever hour it is, Ty isn't sure. They tend to blur after a while.

His current assignment, sent from Aria T'loak herself, is to intercept a package that should be exchanged here in this docking bay, number 51. Tyrus isn't aware of what the contents of the package are, just that Aria wants whatever is inside. The catch is, the courier who's supposed to be delivering the goods has some kind of cybernetic implant in his head that goes along with the package. So Aria needs him alive, along with his valuable possession. That's gonna be the trick.

Not much time passes before the subjects of Ty's assignment make their appearances almost simultaneously. One is an Asari, the buyer. The other is the courier, a man with dark taste. The man Aria seeks. And he's carrying the box, curiously enough, in plain sight.

Ty decides to make his move as the two draw closer. He is dressed brightly, with white pants and boots and a white coat with light blue accents along the fabric, his hands covered by smooth white gloves. Noticeable. Expensive. Playing the part. He is also wearing a visor that closely resembles a Sentry Interface, though a bit more aesthetically casual, his eyes slightly obscured by light blue technical readouts.

Ty tries his best to be eccentric, but not overbearing so as to not arouse too much suspicion. He knows he won't be welcomed with open arms and probably won't be allowed to stick around very long, but all he needs to do at the moment is something very simple.

"Excuse me, sir!" Tyrus speaks in a jovial tone as he walks swiftly towards the courier. "Excuse me! My name is Devlin Armatis, perhaps you have heard of me, I am a procurer of fine artifacts and accessories from all across the galaxy and I would love to have but a moment of your time."

Tag: Penguinator, SirakRomar

 

G-VI
Aite Orbit, Pylos Nebula

Documenting the continuing scans G-VI focused solely on the planetary body below them, which was also their primary purpose for being here. The gestalts had all agreed this was the best course of action and allowed the mission to proceed more smoothly with the geth's menstrations to keep the sensors working optimally to give an accurate final picture for the present ships mission. That changed in the blink of an eye as the ship reacted to being struck, there was an 87 percent concensus that it was a weapon that had caused the motion and not a missed natural phenomina or debri that had been missed. Quickly freeing up the sensor capacity to refocus on their surroundings instead of the planetary servey was deemed appropriate from a 97 percent concensus rate of this units programs. The previously noted chances of out-of tune nature of the engines hums that had a chance to harm the longevity of the engines quickly factored through the units matrices and was deemed irrelevant by 99 percent. Some programs were never satisfied.

The ships captain during these moments had been initiating ships shields and releasing the foil screens to buy the ship more time. Soon the clamorings of pounding metal was heard, two quick surveys were conducted that concluded that nothing had come loose due to several programs presentations that this was an impossibility given the rhythm and ships motions. Second was a consensus given that OP-12 was approaching, which was followed by an resolved open query of why OP-12 was entering the bridge instead of maintaining a post, operating weapons, or using the geth band of communications? This unresolved query was met with agreement by 99.42 programs to turn and visually scan for possible answers. The stopping unit was undamaged. Then the verbal answer was given, which was summarily verified by the request and summary poll with a 52 percent that requested verification. Jamming verified G-VI polled and with a split of 42 percent to turn back to monitor station or 42 percent to turn back and monitor station with raised head fins, the second action carried through by prior parameters with half raised plaitings.

The captain had more choice words to state as well as an inquiry. Forty-eight percent opted to divulge an answer, not enough for concensus, no verbal action was taken. Unable to fight in the method of a Prime operating platform limited this geth to seek alternate means of inabling survival. Programs immediately put forth into an survival querry three methods of dealing with increasing means of survival of the geth housed upon these mobile platforms: try and repair the ship’s manifold; get on the turret gun itself; or try and pull more power out of the ship’s ECM package.

Use of the turret gun was quickly eliminated by the programs of G-VI as a viable option with a 77 percent negative vote, reasons stated by programs focused on the danger a geth unit was in being on the hull exposed with shortening survival probabilities the longer the geth was there, that light cannot counter light in weapons fire, as well as the fact that the ship was presently near a star within range of a habital planet. Heat build up would be problimatic for the non-geth member that would largely determine the eventual fate of this ship and passengers as the heat would reach lethal levels faster.

That left two options, a viable pool for a faster survival poll to be taken between the two noted options. Luckily for this unit it was prepared for such an arising situation and the poll indicated the programs were in agreement with the proposed protical. G-VI went to work on egging the ECM package for all that it was worth, while the repair drone is activated with minimal derectives on how to fix minimal ship manifold damage, and if programing is exhausted to return to G-VI with an update from which the programs could initiate a new protocal for the drone while the majority of the programs forcused on the ECM package. If this programing choice was unable to be inacted in a timely manner, as several programs were checking in the interrum, then focusing on the ships ECM was given a 73.91 percent aproval rating.

TAG: Saintheart

 

Robert Saruwatari
You've Got To Have Freedom

Coffee number three, traditionally accompanied by cigarette number two, was the intense work coffee. Coffee number one was the one that got your eyes open, coffee number two (accompanied by cigarette number one) got you through giving all of your graduate students a failing grade on their latest assignment, but number three? That was when you got your proof on, as Robert was fond of phrasing it. So it was that he found himself standing at the memory board, scribbling away as the computer recorded every stroke, trying to figure out how to maneuver his latest simulacrum squarely out of the bog that was Braess's paradox. The last couple of days had been less than fruitful, but the big break was coming. He could feel it.

So needless to say, the last thing Dr. Saruwatari really wanted right now was for the Department Chair to barge in unannounced. "You know, Sandrigal, I don't come storming into your office when you're working on your latest bit of finite grou- sorry, combinatorics nonsense, I'd appreciate it if you could at least respect the sanctity of my nonsense. I already said I'd speak at the damn colloquium, for Chri-"

“There’s two men in Fleet uniforms here for you! They’ve said you have to go with them, right now! What did you do?”

That was a good question - Robert wasn't actually sure what he'd done. Maybe it was that incident involving the space cow? No. Impossible. He'd covered his tracks too thoroughly. Unless this was about what he'd said to the general about the training exercises...

He adjusted his sunglasses nervously. Oh dear. That was certainly what it was.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And watch where you're walking, San, that happens to be an authentic imitation Chinese rug, I paid nearly 5 credits for that. It's a great conversation piece." He sipped his coffee. "But, ah, toying with the hypothetical possibility that I had done something, which way would these guards happen to be?"

TAG: Saint

 

Tom Hauser
Dock 51, Omega, The Terminus Systems


The voice startled him, and his half-assured stride faltered. The man was ostentatious, or at the very least over-dressed. Too bright. He stuck out, but then again there were all manner of characters on Omega.

The issue now wasn't why this man was dressed so, but why he wanted Tom's time. The box. He wants what's in it.

This was where things started to feel very wrong for Tom.

"No, I-I don't have time, I need to make an appointment." He realized that he'd stopped walking, and so with a frown he turned away and tried to regain his stride.

If he comes after you, just move faster. Just get to the meeting place. You have the gun, you have training, don't forget it. Even if he got the box, he didn't know about the data. There was some reassurance in that.

"Sorry," he blurted over his shoulder. Make the exchange.

Tag: @Reynar_Tedros SirakRomar

 

IC: Anura
Stage Fifteen, Digital Stream Twelve Studios, The Terminus Systems

“Patronising smugness?...” Anura paused, giving the appearance of being in momentary contemplation whilst smirking a little. “No, I doubt that will be a problem at all.” Taking the elcor-typical emotive descriptors as real parts of sentences was her favourite way to tease Petozi, and it wasn't a habit she cared to break in his absence.

Appraising her fabricated appearance one final time in the nearest available mirror, Anura silently turned her back on the elcor and swept onto the set.

As she took sight of the man she was sent to interview, she deliberately slowed her pace. Maintain the appearance of patience, she told herself, let him wait for you, Anura. One foot in front of another, accentuating your curves and the flow of your dress; you need to appeal to the human concept of femininity as much of possible for this to work properly.

She sat herself down upon the chair intended her, with all the poise of one accustomed to making a living from it. She broadcast an indulgent smile, communicating all of the warmth that it didn't intend. Resting a kindly glance upon Jasper before returning her gaze to the camera, she awaited the cue to speak.

“Hello. My name is Anura, and I'm here with a special guest; Jasper Sheffield, to whom we have been granted the privilege to ask a few questions today. So Jasper,” she began, pushing herself back in her chair and turning to face the man in question. “Regarding your recent career. Do you ever find it challenging if presented with action-oriented roles, given how publicly known your... fear of physical conflict is? How difficult is it to affect a masculine guise in the context of your own reputation?”

TAG: HanSolo29

 

Ashen
Dock 51, Omega, The Terminus

She had spotted the courier a minute ago, but the man who approached him had come into the picture almost at the same time. Was he a target? Everybody on Omega was a target. Not that Ashen worried about the so called “innocents”. But there weren´t many of those around here anyway.

Another thing she did not believe in were coincidences. Here and now, the man talking to her courier? No way. So who send him? Not exactly Guardian style and he did not look as if earth government send him. Leaving the underworld and on Omega that meant Aria. Well, Asari or not, she should not intervene too much. Ashen had some respect for the woman, but that would not keep her from taking her life.

The situation at hand had to be dealt with first though. The courier began accelerating, running towards her position and the other man . . . probably paid attention to him. Ashen stepped aside and took cover behind a few boxes. The gun seemed to find her hand instead of her drawing the gun. And her right hand charged . . . the bristling of elements under her control played in brilliant blue around her fingers as she simply watched and waited. Once the courier was past her things would be easier. Then the man had to choose if he was ready to give up his life for the price. A question they all had to make from time to time. Ashen was ready, but she was also confident that among all the things she had killed, all the countless lives she had taken . . . not few with a grim satisfaction she had to admit . . . this one would not be more of a challenge than any other.

“Showed yourself early. Has nobody told you the first ot leave cover is the first to die?” Probably nobody had told him so. Probably Aria just had send him to see how things developed. Killing him made the package more important, did it? It confirmed it´s value.

Well, a good reason to let him life. A good reason to find a better solution. But that was the thing with reason, was it? It was always good. And yet, it was only one part of the equasion.

Tag: @Raynar_Tedros, Penguinator, Saintheart

 

Tyrus Blake
Dock 51, Omega, The Terminus Systems

Well. That escalated quickly. Tyrus, or in this case rather, Devlin the extravagant merchant threw his hands up into the air at once.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" he exclaimed with a nervous laugh. "Friends, please! I mean you no harm and am certainly no threat to you in any way, please, search me if you must! Madam Asari, please, I would like to explain to you why I am here face to face." Ty's hands were still up.

Tag: SirakRomar, Penguinator

 

OOC: As a heads up guys, I never said Tom began running.

Tom Hauser
Dock 51, Omega, The Terminus

Things had gotten out of hand far too quickly. Tom disliked this amount of confrontation.

"Look, I don't much care what business either of you have with eavh other and I don't much care. If it's all the same to the both of you, I would like to make me delivery and move on."

Please.

Tag: Reynar_Tedros SirakRomar

 

Ashen
Dock 51, Omega

Oh they were the talky kinda type. And the attacker wasn´t all that smart. He revealed he knew Ashen taking cover had anything to do with him talking to the courier and by that the revealed he knew of their connection and . . . he had simply ruined it. An amateur. So probably he was a good shot. Why else was he send?

Well he had nothing to shoot at right now. "Come. Take cover, I think you got a package for me." Ashen sighed and waved Hauser over, to make sure he was not simply shot by the the other man. Then the guy could talk all he wanted to. Or he could try to charge at two people behind cover with a clear shooting field. Maybe he would even be wise enough to leave, now that he had given away what little advantage there could have been. In that case Ashen probably would not have to kill anybody.

She still ignored the other guy, why talk to him. Or maybe . . . "Oh I am just hanging out you know?" She shouted back, smirking and risking to lure around the orner of the obxes with one eye to see if he had made any movement.

Tag: Reynar, Peng, Saint