Nazar year 44,990 [27,355 BPC (Before the Prothean Civilisation)] i.e. 97,818 BCE

Galactic civilisation had fallen. The great abominations from dark space came through the relay nexus, closed down the network so the relays would not activate for any but an abomination, from there defeating defending forces in detail before moving on to the next populated world to catch it unawares, and within thirty years the civilisations of the galaxy were gone. No part of the galaxy had contact with the others and were helpless to warn or aid one another. Ninety percent of the population of half a trillion sapients were dead, most of the rest had suffered mental effects from the war, and what little information had been gathered about the abominations filled the survivors with despair.

The abominations could warp minds, leading organic sapients to betray their own homeworlds to them or leaders to surrender their people. They had weapons that could easily destroy the most powerful and advanced warships of the era, and required sustained firepower from multiple dreadnoughts to destroy, after which their wreckage often retained its ability to warp minds and remained extremely dangerous for scientists and engineers to study. They refused to entertain surrender offers or any other form of negotiation, nor did they even seem to believe that they were at war, only a harvest, despite being fired upon by warships and orbital, lunar, and planet based nuclear, particle, and antimatter weapons at every heavily populated planet they approached. It was found, at the cost of many of the last surviving soldiers, that the abominations not only warped minds, but had found a way to preserve minds while destroying the bodies to create more of themselves or turn them into mindless metallic husks. The spacefaring species of the galaxy were doomed to die fighting or become enslaved to an abomination or worse, become an abomination or part of one.

Even more horrifyingly, it was discovered that this was not the first, the tenth, or even the thousandth time this had happened in the galaxy. Evidence from the few destroyed abominations indicated that cycles of destruction had happened at least hundreds of times in the past few tens of millions of years, and most likely for hundreds of millions of years. These abominations had been coming to the galaxy at regular intervals to destroy civilisation and make more of themselves and wait for primitive societies to advance technologically to do the same to the next species to develop civilisation when they returned. The abominations' motives were unknown, but reproduction was the most common one. The discovery that an abomination had been made from their own people indicated that this was the method by which they reproduced, they consequently reproduced at an exceedingly slow rate, and that they were essentially galactic predators whose prey were intelligent species they needed to harvest to create the most powerful abominations for later harvests, but no data on how the abominations came to be or when. Certainly beings as advanced as the abominations' technological superiority indicated them to be would lack any need for slaves, being capable of using machines for manual labour, and would be above such barbarism as destruction for mere enjoyment or wiping out an entire species that was no threat to them without some sort of rational interest. The abominations were clearly intelligent, as far above spacefaring organics as they themselves were above prokaryotic life.

With the fate of the galaxy sealed, the last few remaining soldiers and scientists, lacking the numbers for sustainable defence, let alone major offensives, instead of giving in to despair or the search for a glorious death, chose to seek a way to ensure that when the abominations returned, the species of the galaxy would be prepared for their arrival. They designed a new class of advanced bipedal mechanical bodies intended to be controlled by a brain removed from its body and wired to the mech's computers. The brain would be encased in a quantum-locked container in the most protected part of the mech, which would be filled with nutrient gel surrounding the brain to carry vital substances fed through a tube underneath while active, through which its connections to the mech's computer also ran. This quantum lock was also intended to block the radiation used by the abominations in their mind warping process, which altered organic brains to serve them. A VI, a non-self-aware virtual intelligence capable of mimicking most functions of an artificial intelligence but lacking the true sapience of an AI, running on the mech, monitored brain activity but did not generally interfere unless its monitoring of brain activity indicated that the mind had been warped by an abomination, in which case it would use various means of combating the abominations' influence, including similar active modifications to the limbic system to those employed by the abominations in order to attempt to restore the original mind. Although this last resort often caused more serious brain damage, this was easier to repair with cloned stem cells than the shifted loyalties caused by exposure to abominations or their remains. Despite the enhancements, the brains still needed to sleep, though not as often as an unmodified brain, and could hibernate for extended periods to conserve nutrients or the mechs' energy for the millennia they needed to remain concealed from detection by the abominations, who left behind the abomination made from their species when they returned to whatever part of dark space they had come from after the destruction of the last holdouts for a final sweep and periodic observation of the galaxy.

Freed of such organic concerns as the need for a habitable atmosphere or pressure, as long as the mech's filtration system could extract sufficient oxygen for their brains, or failing that, put them into stasis, the synthetic hybrids of organic brain and mechanical body hid from the abominations, not in stasis pods underground like so many other cycles, nor underwater like the legendary Leviathans, but by fleeing aboard their people's last ships (or anything else still deployable into space near the end of the cycle, such as old missile tubes or replacement communications buoys) at faster than light, or if unavailable, very high sublight where time distortion meant that when they found a safe place to hide the abominations would be at least centuries gone, into parts of the galaxy notoriously hostile to sapient life. Remote planets with dangerous atmospheres or extremes of heat, cold or gravity beyond organic tolerance, as well as barren moons, asteroid fields and nebulae, became their favoured hiding places. There they could hibernate to conserve energy and elude detection by the abominations while waiting for them to leave. They could also harvest plentiful resources, especially metal oxides as they required the metals for repairing their bodies, including their VI chips, and the oxygen atoms could be stripped to provide for their brains.

Thus, dispersed through the galaxy's most hostile regions into groups ranging in size from dozens to thousands, in hives where no intelligence would seek out organic or quasi-organic life, a synthetic army millions strong formed from organic brains and mechanical bodies survived. Most of them hibernated for extended periods, only coming out within a century of when the VI predicted its ability to sustain the brains in suspended animation would be depleted, to harvest resources to recharge before hibernating again. A handful would construct scouting vessels and leave to seek locations for constructing long range space communications arrays and building shipyards, preferably far from their hives where such construction could lead to their detection and destruction by an abomination. Only when enough time had passed for new spacefaring civilisations to arise would looking for contacts be worthwhile.

Nazar year 90,870 [2752 PCE (Prothean Civilisation Era)] (c. 65,000 BCE)

The synthetics awoke from their hibernation in large groups, leaving their hives to the locations their scouts had selected for constructing their long range communications arrays and shipyards. Shipyards tended to be constructed in inhospitable areas similar to the ones their hives were located in to minimise the risk of discovery and destruction, but the long range communications array would have to be built in deep space light years from the nearest star to minimise interference.

Their ships initially were small, lightly armoured cargo freighters and lightly armed stealth frigates that belied their status as the remnant of a powerful ancient spacefaring civilisation with tehs of thousands of years more advanced technology. Cargo freighters were favoured for not only their utility in collecting the resources the synthetics needed to survive and maintain their vessels and infrastructure but their ubiquity in trade. While the synthetics did not need to trade as they had no needs they could not provide for themselves by harvesting local resources, they had done so as organics and found it facilitated the development of peaceful relations. Desiring to proliferate their technology to the newly spacefaring organic races, they typically offered advanced technology in trade for a few examples of the organics' ships, which the synthetics analysed to gauge the organics' current technological level. Other items the synthetics received in trade for their technology included mining equipment, marginally useful as the synthetics could use it to disguise their own mining operations from agents of the abominations or more aggressive organics, and ancient alien artifacts.

Some organics were friendly to synthetics and welcomed their assistance. Those organics who did not pose a threat to the synthetics were typically allowed to determine their own paths, and often traded for technology from the synthetics and received information about the great abominations that had been to the galaxy every few tens of millennia for tens of thousands of millennia. While a few sapients of various species did believe the warnings, mainly traders and a few astute military personnel, organic leaders were difficult to convince to prepare for events centuries ahead let alone hundreds of centuries and typically buried any information in archives where few would look for warnings of galactic peril, if they did not outright classify it secret or worse, destroy it fearing it might give rise to end-times cults welcoming the inevitable end or spark wars or other civil disorders. Those who mistrusted the synthetics would also usually be left alone, the synthetics being reluctant to risk casualties among their limited numbers would be slower to provide warnings and information they considered unlikely to be believed especially if it would be taken as a hostile act. The most dangerous were those who feared and hated synthetics in general and would not believe anything they said, as those impeded efforts to promote peaceful relations.