Author info(skip this if you aren't here because you followed me/my other stories):

I had horribly miscalculated the work I had to put into the last 8 months. I originally planned to continue writing my stories while studying, but that didn't really work out... I know where I want to go with Cycle of Hatred, but the work for my graduation thesis saps all my creativity for the actual fleshing out of the story. I am currently writing on the next chapter, but progress is terribly slow right now with me deleting and rewriting every line at least once which makes my originally slow speed in writing stuff into an agonizing torture.

Hopefully, I will finish my thesis soon which will give me a whole lot more of free time which should enable me to write the next chapter like I want it to be. This story here is mainly an outlet for pent up creativity and insanity, so I don't completely stop writing stuff. It was a lot easier to write than continuing CoH because the parts are largely disjunct, meaning I don't have to wreck my brain about continuity and making sense so much, and I could just write them whenever I found a little bit of time. As an example for how slow writing goes for me right now, the first four chapters of this stories took four months in total...
Another short story I'll put up later on is the product of my Christmas holidays which I didn't want to publish yet because I wanted to finish the new chapter for CoH first... that didn't work that well either...

For those of you here because of my 12 kingdoms fic: It isn't (completely) dead, I have an almost finished chapter lying around, but am not content with it just yet.

AN: general Disclaimer for all chapters: I don't own Mass Effect or Fate/stay night, they are property of their respective owners.

Hello and welcome to my take on a Mass Effect crossover with Fate/stay night.
This is an AU fic where things happen differently than they do in ME canon with the main point being the first contact happening much earlier and in a different way along with what changes for humanity result from this.

Story start:

Prelude

Humanity.

When did humans take the step that separated them from their animal brethren? Was it when the first ape used something as a tool? Intentionally created said tool from scratch to fit his needs?

Was is speech that made the difference? Writing? Clothing? The ability to wield fire?

In the end nobody knows at what point in time mankind broke free of the constraints of mother nature. There is only the irrefutable truth that, yes, there was a fundamental, existential difference between man and beast.

The first to know this truth was none other than mother nature herself, or "Gaia", the consciousness of our planet, how those who came to know of her existence refer to her. From that indefinite but undeniable point in time where the bipedal, hairless apes that would later refer to themselves as humans moved outside the area of her absolute rule, Gaia was aware of would come to pass in the following eons.

The most fitting description for her children was the fire they had bend to their will. Burning brightly, consuming everything around it to fuel its existence without regard, eventually even incinerating itself, leaving nothing behind. Gaia was almost immediately aware that humanity would poison the air, drain the soil, eradicate all other life, and in the end even kill the planet itself to survive and thrive even one moment longer, leaving nothing behind but a bare rock floating through the infinite emptiness of space. But they, as every other being on the surface of the blue planet, were children she had brought forth and even if it was such an abstract thing as the consciousness of a Celestial Body, no being that had the right to be classified as a mother of something would destroy their own offspring, even if it resulted in their own death.

Of course, as a parent, Gaia had to scold individuals that cause too much harm to itself and others, so she formed the Beast of Gaia, Primate Murder as her scalpel to cut out the few malignant ones and return their souls to the Root. A being solely made for killing humans, capable of ending their feeble lives by the thousands, but in the end still no threat to the continued prosperity of the entirety of humanity, nothing but a sophisticated scalpel.

The appearance of ORT proved to Gaia that humanity might one day reach a point where they would kill her and still continue to live on which was something she feared and couldn't allow for with her death every spawn of her would slowly begin to lose that, which enforces their concept of death as long as no new concept was forced onto them. She would do as the appearance of TYPE-Mercury had prophesied and call the other planets for help to grant her children their sleep if she would grow unable to do so.

But as with everything, the path is never set in stone. The infinite infinity of choices spiraling forth from the Root grow and intertwine the fates of all creation.

A part of it, yet often representing conflicting interests, a part of Gaia, Alaya, the shared will of humanity to continue existing, grew with humanities rise and the demise of the great nature spirits known as Gods, signaling the beginning of the Age of Man.

Being a part of Gaia yet separate from it, Alaya used similar methods to remove those who would put humanities prosperity in danger, yet more often than not relied on balancing the odds, empowering and nudging everyday men and women just enough to give them a fair chance at success. This was known as the Counter Force as opposed to the dirtier tool Alaya was forced to use on occasion, the Counter Guardians.

When everything had failed, mankind was in peril, and no mortal had been up to the task, the shared will of humanity would send her own Beasts. Beasts that would remove the threat no matter the cost.

Fortunately, in this facet of the ever changing Kaleidoscope, an nearly infinite amount of infinitesimally small coincidences and subtle encouraging events would lead the world onto a different path than the all-out fight between humanity and the representation of the Celestial Bodies. A path that would nonetheless be filled with hardship for the inhabitants of the blue planet.

The finest minds of their time had put all their knowledge together to catch a glimpse of what the future might bring. Not as one might think, using thaumaturgy to trick the foundations of reality, but rather making the possibly most educated in the history of humanity as a memorial to the beginning of the second millennium.

Their prognosis predicted that if mankind would not drastically change their ways in the next hundred years their planet would be damaged beyond repair. The continued use of fossil fuels would tip the world's delicate balance into a downward spiral that would eventually, after decades and centuries, turn Earth into a lifeless rock.

In many universes not many powerful people would have listened to this "prophecy" for it yielded them no immediate gain and solving the problems would take decades and enormous amounts of money. This would lead to their planet slowly dying and employing the other planet's help in eradicating all life on its surface.

But this is another branch springing forth from the Root.

Here, through the accumulation of small events induced by chance, the Counter Force and whatever other forces there might by, possibilities were realized, leaders and governments changed their minds and philosophies, people pressed for change, for a guaranty that tomorrow will come, and by a myriad of small happenings adding to one another, creating one big shift, the world was set onto a path that deviated from the eventual death of mother nature.

A path that would elevate humanity to the stars. Albeit earlier than they might have dreamed and certainly due to worse circumstances than anyone had wished.