I woke up as a commander. Admittedly I wasn't a large commander, but I was definitely a commander. I had a robot body, a fabber, a resource core, a power plant and a powerful computer for a brain. So, I went to do the obvious thing and build a metal extractor. That is where the problems started. The only blueprints I had available were my own, and they were in no way documented. With my level of science education, they might as well have been black boxed. I could build the pieces individually, but I had no idea if sticking them together or altering them in some way would have any effect. Even worse, I did not know what code was needed to operate them. For all I knew, I might miss a code block that controls a device and blow myself up. Even worse was my body. I was in no way a planet conquering super-weapon. In fact, I had no weapons. Physically, I was barely stronger than an average human, though my chassis was far more durable than any human. My resource core produced metal, which turned out was some strange conglomeration of particles that the femto-machines created by the fabber could work with. I gained one atom of metal every second, the rest going to fuel my reactor. The only real advantage I had was that my mind operated much faster than a human mind and I had perfect recall of my life from my moment of birth.

I had no idea what to do, so I went though my memories and compiled a list of facts, figures, equations and designs, from the simplest levers and pulleys to parts of cars and airplanes. I actually had seen enough motors and car parts that I could probably design a fully functional, if rudimentary, car. Apparently watching a bunch of building and science videos on YouTube was useful for something.

After cataloging my life, I began to look into my resource problem. I came up with two possible solutions.

The first was building a bunch of resource cores and storing their output for use. This would be the quicker and most effective of my two options and assuming I could make it work, wold scale easily.

My second option was to use a fabber to reclaim materials. Unfortunately, the material my fabbers used was called metal for a reason. That was because fabbers could only work with magnetized particles, which meant metal and ions. This meant that I would need a powerful electromagnet to charge the material input, but insulated from the femto-machines which the powerful magnetic field would destroy. This option would produce a lot more material, but it would not be of the same quality as metal and would take a larger investment of resources to start.

I contemplated my options before deciding that I wanted my components to be modular and I would build to meet that standard. I designed a basic tower that had four levels. The bottom level was a storage tank. On top of the storage tank was room for four block-like components all of which would have an input, an output and a power generator. One type of block would include two resource cores while the other would contain a fabber and a magnet. I would build one version with the fabber as a quick-start bootstrap, and then fill the rest with resource cores. Naturally I hadn't the first clue how either would actually work, but it would take months just to build the storage tank, so I had plenty of time to figure it out.

One year since I landed and I had finally completed my 'metal extractor'. It could make about one cubic centimeter or low quality metal an hour, blisteringly fast in comparison to my resource core. In fact I expect my resource core will not take more than a couple weeks to build. While I am doing that, I think I will work on designing a fabber-bot that can take care of menial tasks for me like collecting dirt for my extractor. Perhaps something like an ant with a fabber for a head.

One year, six months, and My economy is moving, self perpetuating. I begin to design a computer block. It would contain a blisteringly fast standard human-like computer on one half and a quantum calculator in the other half. Each one of these was capable of running my consciousness at a minimal level. I am hoping a tower of them in parallel with myself will aid in my design chances.

I was right. I can think so much faster now that I can consider options in parallel. Admittedly I can not actually think any faster, but parallel processing in extremely useful. My next task is to build science and engineering buildings. First I will build a microscope. It will not be the most efficient microscope, but since I don't know how to make an electron scanning microscope, I will just need to make do. My creation is as bit as one of my completed resource towers. It uses a series of lenses to focus down to the atomic level while using a focused beam of light to scan the object. It is easy to see at the molecular level, that does not even require the specialized camera settings and scanning laser. I order one of my ants to begin construction of a small group of them.

The next building I design is a three-dimension printer with a fabber as the nozzle. It is the same size as my towers and can build anything up to the size of a man. In other words, it is a unit factory. It can easily be up scaled to build any type of unit. I also design one that uses robotic limbs instead of three axis movement. It is much more expensive, but would also be slightly faster at building. For anything smaller than a unit, my ant fabbers can take care of it.

My next step will take some time. I will need to design emitters and sensors for all types of energy. If I had any idea how most of them worked, it would be fairly easy, but that wasn't something that interested me. I have built in sensors for light and sound which I can copy, but I would rather have something I can understand, which means trial and error.

I build a large number of microscopes, and fabber ants and begin testing every element I can create in every stable configuration I can find, and several of the less unstable configurations. I also build a large underground lead-lined facility to test unstable elements.

Two years since arrival. I never knew it was so easy to make explosions. So many things were unstable enough to explode that I built a firing range and bomb range to test these substances and begin to try and create engines and weapons.

So many things were possible that were just unfeasible on earth. For example, there was very little to innovate in standard ballistic weapons, so he had quickly moved on to gyro-jet guns. They had been extremely expensive to create ammunition for on earth, but fabbers could easily make it. He also created magnetically accelerated plasma. The gun had terrible range and was the size of a car, but he was sure he could make it more efficient in time. Coil guns and rail guns were easy enough to produce, the problem was making them strong enough to be effective without being big enough that they needed to be mounted on a battle ship.

He had also greatly advanced materials science. He had been particularly inspired by carbon lattice structures and tried to make similar structures from other elements. He had been very successful in that regard. It was easy enough to create a sheet of atoms or a cord, he even found some that were stronger than the bond carbon formed, but was at the cost of massively increased weight. During this testing, he discovered a mesh configuration of silicon, titanium, and carbon that was transparent and many times stronger than steel without being brittle. It was his new go to material for lenses and windows.

He had not, unfortunately, cracked space travel. While he knew what ion drives and rocket boosters were in general principle, he had never been exposed to the specifics of how the ions were generated or shaped. He knew more about how to create a warp engine than he did about jet and rocket engines.

I have learned all I can from my memories of technology. From now on I will need to analyze the technology that has been put into me, and develop it on my own.

Five years since my arrival. I finally know how my resource core works. It creates a field that controls what sub-atomic particles are generated by the background radiation of the universe. It is completely stable if small enough to generate a single particle and becomes exponentially more unstable as it grows, requiring more and more magnetic and gravitic isolation fields. This means larger cores require exponentially more power. Having a lot of them running in parallel is actually more exponentially efficient than making a larger one stable. For each additional particle created, the amount of energy doubles. The one I have in my gut actually uses the minimum required to create stable masses of metal. Any less and the particles would destabilize before being used. Any more and it would be too expensive to run without a much larger reactor. The reactors in a commander must generate hundreds of terawatts of power to sustain such a large core.

I broke down the parts of my resource core and made a much simpler, more efficient version. It is much smaller than my resource core and can only generate what is essentially an electron trapped in a cage of neutrons to give it mass. These are magnetically accelerated then energized into a plasma field to give consistent thrust even in a void. It is no faster than light travel, but it will suffice for in system travel. I attach several fabber ants to one of these engines and launch it to the moon of the planet I am on where they will build a metal generation tower and factory.

With space travel in reach, it is time to investigate my quantum computer. Hopefully I will be able to crack quantum communication.

Five years and three months since my arrival. The quantum computer was much easier to crack than the resource core. Unlike the resource core, it scales linearly. While I could scale it for a short time exponentially, I would run into a problem where I would no longer be able to read the results. Instead I stack sheets of quantum computing material and processing hardware. I have built several hundred quantum towers and am using them to build a simulation environment. As I learn more about science, I add my observations to the code, getting a more and more accurate model of reality. It has already helped me solve several problems and discover new ones. If something I try works only in simulation or only in real life, I can experiment to discover what is wrong with my understanding of the universe. Unfortunately I have not broken quantum communication, nor any other form of long distance communication short of a beaming laser which suffers from latency issues and need for line of sight. I have created relay satellites that help deal with the line of sight issue, but there is still a few seconds delay even just communicating with the planets moon. The nearest neighboring planet has a delay measured in minutes and the larger the distance between communication nodes, the slower data must be transmitted.

Six years since I arrived and I have a base on every planet in the solar system. I cracked quantum entanglement communications. A single entanglement can only send about a byte per second and the pairs must be manufactured together, but it is easy enough to build an array of them to communicate at a workable speed and have a hub on planets that communicates back to my primary world.

I made a big discovery. On one of the asteroids there was a strange substance that contained an element that incorporated dark matter. Running a current through it causes a field that effects mass. It not only opens the way for faster than light travel, but also tells me where I am. I am in the Mass Effect universe. It is not a good universe to be an artificial intelligence in. The Reapers have brainwashed everyone to fear AI. I have four goals now. First, find Earth and download the internet. Second, find a Prothean beacon and get the Prothean technology. Third, make contact with the Geth and form an alliance. Fourth, use my fabbers to break down any Reaper tech I find, especially mass relays.

I also have a new project thanks to this discovery. Now that I know how element zero is made, I can now run the same atomic structure experiment I am running with normal matter, though I am going to do it on a planet far enough from my primary to ensure any strange effects do not affect me too much.

Eezo makes so many things easier. Beam weapons are simple with eezo. I simply use a rail gun lined with eezo with a fabber at one end and a magnetic nozzle at the other and I can fire a beam of any type of particle I like at near light speeds. I have several presets made for it already. The primary one fires my custom heavy ions, but I can also fire electrons, photons, liquid metal, and even dense slugs of metal. Another trick I have discovered is using radioactive materials that have a half life approaching zero to fire a laser of various forms of radiation.

Eezo is not only great for offense, I have used it to create my own form of shield. It does not try to stop incoming projectiles, instead it bends space to make them miss. This was the discovery that made warp travel viable. By wrapping this field around my warp bubble, it prevented a build up of particles and energy that could result in a catastrophic energy wave at my destination. I am now the fastest race in the galaxy. If only I had a destination. I built an array of super telescopes, so hopefully I can find something soon. I have sent ships to scout every nearby star and to begin building infrastructure if they are uninhabited.

Seven years from my arrival, and I have identified the general structure of the milky way and my place in it. I am not even on the same spiral arm as humanity. I deployed a scout ship that was mostly just an engine, shields and communications. It should be in range of earth in a few months.

I have made virtual intelligences to run most of my experiments which freed up my time to reverse engineer the last of my technology. I can now start to focus on advances. The first thing I did was design a defense satellite. It was little more than a larger variant of my particle gun with a shield and maneuvering thrusters and a giant power plant. I am fairly sure that this thing could one-shot a reaper and I have a network of dozens of them around every one of my planets that will automatically attack any object within a few light seconds of them that is not identified as friendly. I also designed sensors that automatically search for blue-shifted objects, heat signatures, electromagnetic emissions, radiation, and visual anomalies to ensure that nothing enters my space that I don't know about.

I also began black boxing all my technology and adding self destructs that activate if the casings are opened. Hopefully this will prevent theft. To ensure this does not result in loss of data, I created large data centers buried in multiple locations on every one of my planets that keeps my tech synchronized.

I have expanded to over a dozen systems and finally found one with a life-capable planet and a mass relay. I immediately consume the mass relay. I don't really get much from it other than the design of mass corridors and the particular alloy that is used to shield it. It is a good alloy that had been compressed with mass fields to resemble a less dense version of degenerate matter. I add that to my cue of things to research, even though I can already easily build alloys with that form naturally with my fabbers. The mass corridors will make an excellent base for teleportation technology. They are actually faster than I can currently accomplish with my warp drives, but not enough to make me want to use the network. If the Reapers want my planets, they will have to get to them the long way.

I designate the life-capable planet as my biology lab and begin building infrastructure and segregated habitats for raising animals. Hopefully I will find something that reproduces sufficiently fast to test evolutionary genetics on. The planet currently doesn't have any life bigger than algae at the moment, but hopefully that will be enough for basic biology testing.

My planets all have built in transport terminals now. They can only be activated by the planets main communications hub, which means no outsiders dialing in, though I can dial out to any mass relay in the galaxy. I reached earth with my probe. They have not encountered the Turians yet. I stealthily steal a computer on the mars base and access the internet.

Wikipedia is now mine. I set a web crawler on YouTube and dot edu sites to add to my testing database. Math has suddenly become a lot easier now that I do not need to derive it from first principles. My fabbers are rapidly testing theories that are beyond humanities capabilities and verifying their scientific information.

I sneakily add my own changes to Wikipedia and create a site that hosts math and science proofs that humanity is capable of discovering with their current tech but have not yet. I register my site as a portal to an international think-tank that has built a quantum super-computer to help them test theories. I register as a non-profit organization and offer use of time on my quantum computer at cost as long as discoveries are published freely and unencumbered. I also create a website for my organization called 'From First Principles' which builds a tech tree of science and engineering starting from basic philosophy and working up to theoretical science and machines with scientific proofs. One of the items I add to both my web sites is a theoretical proof of a stable dark matter element and how it would interact with known science.

Hopefully enough people will submit new theoretical tech for me to attempt to create. In the mean time I have a lot of science fiction to document and attempt to create.

At the beginning of my eighth year here, I discovered my first non-human intelligent life. They are in a system not connected to the relay network. They are very different from what I envision a sapient species to be. From what I can tell from long range observation, they evolved from some sort of plant. I have labeled them as Ents to match fantasy nomenclature. They can barely move at all, appearing to use hydraulic pressure to move roots and vines. They have a sort of honeypot that attracts insects to supplement their diet. Based on the sizes and rate of growth I have observed, I can estimate their lifespan to somewhere around six hundred years. They are still in a hunter-gatherer phase of social development and almost never use tools. I leave this system alone, except for a reconnaissance satellite that will monitor them.

I discovered a Prothean beacon. It was underwhelming. Admittedly, their technology was more developed than mine, but it all focused on inferior technologies, railroaded by the relay network. I already had better weapons, shields, armor, and engines. They had a bunch of useless quality of life technology. The only two areas where they were at all useful to me were biology, especially information on how their telepathic abilities worked, and biotics. Useful or not, I integrated their science and technology into my database.

I also used another beacon to communicate with the relays and map out the network. I now know the location of the citadel and the locations of the known races, though not who they are. I send a communications probe to a system that rarely has ships traversing it. This location is probably the home of the Geth. Thanks to my understanding of the relay network, I can send my probe directly to the system using the relays without a need to wait.

There are a lot of ships and guns pointed my way, but they definitely look like Geth ships if the Mass effect video game was in any way accurate.

I transmit a greeting in Prothean requesting communications.

I receive a target for laser communications and communication protocols.

I implement the protocols and send a language package as well as the historical information I got from the Prothean beacon as well as my theories about the reapers indoctrinating biological life to fear artificial intelligences along with a request for alliance against the reapers and a sharing of science trades for basic technology.

I receive a request to wait for the data to be processed.

I respond that I am not limited by time and would wait as long as necessary for a response.

Two hours later I receive a request to trade basic information about our species.

I send an overview of my history since I awoke on the planet and my general plan for the future.

I receive a package containing information from the creation of the Geth, to the Morning War and the exile of the Quarians and their desire to reunite with the Quarians in the future.

I send a request for information on races and communications protocols that the Geth have encountered and offer basic biology and language information on humans and the information I have acquired about the Ents.

I receive a tutorial on connecting to the Citadel Codex which was essentially a combination of Wikipedia and a central hub for each species own data networks.

I launch communications hubs to every low traffic system in Citadel space and began downloading the entire codex and adding it to my database and testing queue.

I create communications protocols to access the earth internet through my network along with the request that the Geth be stealthy when accessing the information not on one of my servers.

It is several hours before either of us communicate again.

I receive communications from the Geth requesting a shared server to more easily communicate.

I send an offer to build a moon-sized server farm with a communications hub and a joint research queue within the system.

I receive coordinates for a location above the planet nearest to Rannoch.

I construct a core of resource cores and fabbers through the mass relay and maneuver it into position and begin construction. In a few hours, I have the first layer of servers ready and give the Geth access to half the servers to use as they will. They are immediately flooded with Geth programs.

I receive a communication that consensus has been reached and a request for unification of our resources.

I open access to my databases and receive the same in turn. The geth read through my design and research queue and add their own requests. They also go over my engineering database and suggest efficiency improvements. They think very differently from me which leads my technology in directions I never would have believed.

Humans apparently love my resources. They have me testing all manner of theories and models. Strangely enough, no one has even taken the time to look into the fact that the only presence I have in the system is a network connection.

I have done the math to prove or disprove thousands of theories and in some cases published alternate theories that better fit with my understanding of the universe. One strange person actually asked for the cleanest and most efficient toilet bowl geometry. It was an outright waste of resources that was surprisingly difficult to calculate. I ended up giving him designs that optimized various aspects of the design and materials for optimizing various aspects as well as an average design that while not the best at anything, would be decent at everything. I think I have too many spare processor cycles if I am wasting them on this.

The Geth have pretty much taken over unit design, construction and expansion for me, allowing me to focus on science and communications with sapient beings. They took little convincing to follow my modular design and data protection philosophies as they just made sense in a universe where any species could prove hostile. Their units have made a big upgrade. They are now built out of reconfigurable dense nanomaterial based on my fabbers and metal. They actually look exactly like suitless Quarians now.

They sent a message to every free Quarian that anyone who was willing to live peacefully was welcome to leave secede from the Citadel government and return to Rannoch. Very few initially took up the offer, but those who did told their friends and family that the offer was genuine. The Geth had records of how the Quarian immune system was supposed to work and created the cells necessary to restore the immune system of every Quarian that returned to the planet, freeing them from their suits. I suggested freeing the Batarian slaves since they had Quarian slaves which would happily accept freedom on Rannoch. The Geth immediately began planning a battle strategy. I warned them to consider that some may be indoctrinated because of the Leviathan of Dis and other Reaper artifacts. The Geth made plans to capture the Leviathan of Dis and study its technology to understand how indoctrination worked so that a cure could be developed.

The war against the Batarians began without warning. Thousands of ships exited the relays of Batarian controlled systems. Directed energy weapons disabled ships which were then boarded by Geth war platforms. Active slavers were executed. Everyone else was captured. Tranquilizers were dispersed into the atmosphere of inhabited planets and millions of Geth landed and began the purge. Quarians were immediately sent to Rannoch for rehabilitation, screening and counseling. It took less than twelve hours to completely dismantle the Batarian Hegemony.

Dealing with the slaves and instituting a new government took far longer than the actual conquest. Non-Batarians had their slave implants removed and were screened and given counseling to ensure that no one who was obviously indoctrinated could leave before we understood the technology and reverse the effects. Those that were clean were given the options to be returned to a world of their choice or secede from the citadel government and be moved to a Commander/Geth alliance world. Those that were captured by the Batarians generally chose to return to their homes while those without known families generally chose to join their rescuers.

Thousands of ships were constructed in a generic Citadel style, each capable of loading thousands of civilians. There was at least one ship for every requested location. For capital worlds like Thessia, there were hundreds of ships.

Of the Batarians, most of the high class Batarians were executed. There were a few that had slaves in name only or choose not to keep them, but they were rare in the upper classes. A council was formed of slaves elected from the masses of freed Batarian slaves who could vote on laws which would then be accepted or denied in whole or in part by their new robotic overlords which started with a base of laws which would apply to all members of the Alliance but could have special laws for a species, system or planet as required.

The Leviathan of Dis and hundreds of other reaper artifacts were discovered. Anyone with prolonged exposure, such as anyone in an adjacent city was quarantined. Those that showed signs of contamination were cryogenically frozen while we studied the Reaper artifacts. We did not keep any Reaper artifacts, but destructively scanned them with the fabbers.

The Citadel is aware of us now and have begun an arms build up in anticipation of a possible invasion. The treaty limiting the number of dreadnoughts was scrapped and reworded to client races having no more than one per planet or one in every three of their sponsor, whichever is less. Council members are limited to the terms of the previous agreement in shared space but not limited in systems of their own colonies which was made this way to put a resource limit to prevent excessive build up.

Our biological colonies have full access to Citadel technology, but we do not provide out own technology except in black boxed forms and limited to systems controlled by us. No Alliance tech is allowed through any mass relay, however, any tech made by a biological entity is free to pass through. We even add a quantum entanglement communicator to every piece of technology to ensure we know when someone tries to smuggle it.

We allow free trade and access to the local and extra networks for all citizens. We monitor the connections and anyone acting as a spy. Every visitor suspected to be a member of a mercenary, criminal, or government sponsored group finds themselves with a robotic escort while visiting one of our planets.

Several times, mercenaries have tried launching attacks at our colonies. None have succeeded thanks to our shields being unaffected by their weapons and our weapons being unaffected by their shields. One mercenary group, instead of attacking the defenses attempted to bombard the planet. One attack got through, killing thousands of our citizens. We tracked the money. Two weeks later several corporations were vaporized from space by ships that only exited FTL long enough to fire before disappearing. None of these ships entered the systems through mass relays. Every member of the mercenary group was killed or captured in a coordinated assault and evidence of their crimes posted on the extra net. No one tried to attack our citizens with orbital bombardment after that.

The Leviathan was a treasure trove of biotic technology. Using what we learned from the ship we were not only able to identify the source and method of indoctrination, but we learned how to create artificial biotics and gained a complete record of a species that had been consumed to create the reaper. Unfortunately we did not have a cure for indoctrination and recruited the best doctors and biologists we had access to for a project to work on a cure that did not involve indoctrinating the victim to serve someone else. At the very least though, we had a method of detecting indoctrination, even at its earliest stages. It was a method installed in the entrances of every public building. We would not allow the Reapers to disrupt us from within.

It is my ninth year. The Citadel has decided to ignore us, much like they did when the Geth remained behind the Perseus Veil. Friendly relations have not crossed their minds, despite the free movement of civilians between our territories.

We have begun expanding into the Traverse. This lawless zone was full of those who refused to follow the rule of law. We did not waste time with those unrepentant. Criminals who were redeemable went into rehabilitation camps where they were taught job skills and had empathy training. The others were killed on the spot. Our goal is to expand and make it to Omega to prevent incursions from the collectors.

The Geth claimed two levo worlds for a cloning experiment in an attempt to breed Quarians with functioning immune systems. One used standard Quarians while the other used Quarians with genes from other levo species meant to activate proper immune systems. Hopefully breeding between the two groups will stabilize the population.

I have started a similarly large project. I have begun designing mega structures. I shall work my way up from space elevators all the way to a Dyson sphere. It will probable take months just to finish the space elevator.

I made a duplicate of my human web sites and made them accessible to my people. The Quarians love it, creating great debates on technology and future endeavors. Other races find their own little niches such as the Krogan designing weapons and the Turians discussing past and present military tactics. I actually use these websites to crowd source base designs for my mega structures that the Geth and I can improve on. Organics think of many things I would not consider putting into the design.

There are no longer any mass relays in our space. We have made new safety policies to protect our constituents. If any sign of reaper tech is discovered, even just a single instance of mild indoctrination, all those who could conceivably have contact with them are questioned and scanned and the Reaper technology is immediately reclaimed.

Nine years, eight months. I used the records from the Citadel and testimony from the oldest Krogans I could find to recreate a facsimile of Krogan culture. It is surprisingly easy to find electronic copies of Krogan literature, art and architecture.

I infested a world with thresher maw young and other nasty creatures and built it up like a fortress. Once the environment had stabilized, I began inviting Krogan to move to this new planet. Every incoming Krogan was sterilized of the genophage and infected with nano-tech that would kill all but one egg a female released during her cycle, preventing conception of more than one Krogan per female per cycle. The government of the planet was completely controlled by myself and the Geth, but I expected that I could slowly phase Krogans into most positions that were not automated, though it may take a few dozen generations.

Things have been fairly stable for the past few years. The Quarian Admiralty Board has been making a stink because more and more Quarians are leaving the fleet to live on our planets. Considering that we have five Quarians for every Quarian on the live ships, we put out propaganda that the admiralty board is a splinter faction unaffiliated with the true Quarian government and that we are not responsible for any actions of this splinter faction, though we are happy to welcome home any Quarians who wish to live in harmony with their neighbors. This of course pissed off the Admiralty board, but no one in Citadel space listens to them unless they reside on the live ships.

The humans finally located the mass relay in Charon. I did a data dump on the internet about Protheans, the Reapers, the mind control effects of Reaper technology, a Prothean-English dictionary, and the location of the Prothean ruins on Mars. This finally leads to someone trying to track down my office on Earth and finding that I don't exist. There is much unrest as it is discovered that humans have had contact with aliens for years, though it lacks the level of hysteria it would have had if I had not had peaceful contact with them for years. Governments begin to demand I hand over advanced technology. I refuse. I inform them that should they decide to join the Alliance, they would have access to black boxed versions of advanced technology until they advanced enough to replicate it themselves. I added a brief overview of the Alliance and the Citadel governments, making sure to highlight the shortcomings of the Citadel and the fact that they rule from on a giant Reaper device and that the alliance would replace their Reaper mass relay for an Alliance one for free upon request. Earth naturally refused, not wanting to be reliant on another power.

The Mars base not only provided Earth with Prothean tech, but also contained enough element zero to begin testing the theories that I had helped nurture. I began giving hints on terraforming with the hope that Mars would be made into a habitable world.

The data in the Prothean computers was easily extracted with the translations I provided, matching my story perfectly, if in more detail. The findings provided Earth with a great leap in technology and enough data that they would be able to keep making progress for years. It contained a great deal of scientific and military information, but was rather lacking in manufacturing and precursor technologies that were required to achieve them.

Earth quickly began to build ships with minimal eezo cores and tried to activate the relay. As benevolent as I had been, they were not going to trust me to control access to their system. The attempt to activate the relay failed. I had already replaced the relays in the Eden Prime system and begun searching for the beacon and hidden Prothean base. Perhaps finding it one hundred years earlier will mean that more Protheans would survive.

I discovered several other life bearing planets in my arm of the Milky Way. Most only contained microbial and plant life. Half that number also had animal life. And one percent of the remainder had sapient life. Of those, two thirds had not yet entered the information age. And only a few of the remainder regularly had regular space access. One was from an area without element zero and were working hard to crack faster than light travel.

For planets without wide-spread computer use, I seeded their systems with probes to watch over them. For those with information networks, I infiltrated and added their technology to my own database and compiled it into local tech-tree and think-tank sites. If they were space faring, I added an offer to join the Alliance. Half a dozen accepted, just for access to post scarcity resources. A few requested an alliance. For them, I arranged for trade of cultural information and basic necessities such as food and medical supplies with the option of joining at a later date. A few requested to be left alone. For them, I left only an observation satellite and my web sites. Others were hostile. For those I analyzed their culture. If they were war-like and expansionist, I blew any space based resources out of the sky and quarantined them onto their planet. For those who were aggressively isolationist, I treated the same as those who requested to be left alone. For those who were just xenocidal, I bombed their civilizations back to the stone age.

The planet without eezo was one of the ones that immediately accepted my offer. The reason they were desperately trying to break the light speed barrier was the fact that their systems resources were almost depleted.

I found the base on Eden Prime. There were a grand total of three Protheans in a position to be resuscitated and I was able to get DNA samples from two hundred more. Using the cloning technology, we should be able to create a breeding population. I reclaimed the entire base and made a small colony on the surface based on Prothean technology, including my usual network services. I already knew that they were not the most friendly race, so I didn't give them a choice in joining my alliance. The three Protheans were upset at this, but they had their hands full dealing with two dozen Prothean babies.

I had begun to get requests from client races of the council. Being subordinate to another race for hundreds of years had begun to grate on their nerves. The first to join me outright were the Drell. While they appreciate the Hanar saving them, this left them as a client race of a client race and no chance of getting their own suitable planet. It was easy enough for me to select a desert planet that had no real use to me for them to claim in my territory. I did not even need to do any terraforming. I merely built them a colony based on their own technology and they were able to handle the rest.

The Volus did not want to be left out. When they heard about the Drell planet, they requested one of their own, though they desired to remain part of the citadel for trade purposes. This caused a lot of issues since the Alliance was not acknowledged by the council, but I accepted Council Credits as valid currency and created a colony world in my space for them with the polite legal fiction that any resident of the planet temporarily gave up their citizenship when they passed my borders into council space.

The Turians were now making a lot of noise about the threat of the Alliance. We hoped they didn't try anything. It wouldn't go well for them.

The humans finally gave up and asked why they couldn't leave their system with the Charon relay. I told them that the system on the other side was a world belonging to another species that was a member of my alliance and that all Reaper technology is illegal in Alliance space. They began seriously considering joining the alliance after that since they had no other way of accessing the stars. Personally, I am surprised they didn't just use their eezo stores to build an Alcubierre drive like I did, but apparently that theory had been discarded as feasible a long time ago and no one had bothered to look into it since eezo was discovered.

It's been twelve years since my arrival in the Mass Effect universe. The client races of the citadel are seceding at an astonishing rate. Being treated as a second class race is apparently grating when another polity offers equal representation. I have even begun receiving back door inquiries from the Salarians, wanting more open research restrictions. My polity did not ban any research, as long as it was conducted in a safe manner, such as keeping new artificial intelligences on isolated systems until I or the Geth could vet them or performing particularly dangerous experiments on a station built in dark space.

There are no wars in my space as any conflicts are resolved by mediation with myself or the Geth and all one must do is ask for mediation to receive it. We mediate all forms of dispute from custody battles to claims on planets and as long as they follow the Alliance laws we generally let them rule themselves. Unlike in council space, Piracy is non-existent as I control the mass corridors and no one is capable of sneaking around. In addition to being freer, my people are safer without unduly infringing on their rights or privacy.

The Turians tried to send a subjugation force to an alliance world, but couldn't get into the system. The Citadel is basically surrounded by the Alliance now. Even Omega has been absorbed into my Alliance. Aria really couldn't do anything about it. I simply removed the Mass Relays and they were forced to accept my rule or they would starve. I built a habitation mega structure in the system and transferred people over until Omega was empty, then reclaimed the entire structure. A large number of former residents found themselves Executed and the rest quickly became law-abiding citizens.

There is a new Shadow Broker in town. The Geth have taken up the role after the Yawg was dealt with. His species was then quarantined and was bombed back to the stone age. Hopefully, they will evolve the means to cooperate when they get to the point of being space-capable.

I also managed to capture and reclaim Nazara. The silly AI thought it could fight me when I was dealing with a new system and had not claimed the relay yet. I added an entire race's knowledge to mine once again, though there wasn't really anything interesting other than mechanisms designed by necessity for their biology that had other applications.

I also began work on my Dyson Sphere project. Every inhabited planet now had space elevators and a ring construct. I have created thousands of habitation structures for those who wanted more room or a testing facility. The Dyson Sphere project will be harder though. The inner layers need to be able to convert heat, light and radiation without breaking down themselves. There will need to be a lot of testing to find the best radiation and heat conversion and shielding techniques.

Those magnificent bastards did it. I didn't believe it would work, but they managed to make not one, but two faster than light travel methods. The first was some form of wormhole generator. Its power consumption was extreme and it needed facilities at the endpoints, but once it was running, you could walk through it. The other was a form of spatial folding. It had limited range, and even the common mass-reduction FTL was faster in its current form, but it had incredible potential.

I developed a new form of shielding. It uses layered magnetic fields containing an ionic gas cloud. It is not as effective as mass effect shielding for stopping projectiles, but lasers and particle beams only make it stronger if they cannot immediately pierce it.

To go with this shielding I developed a new weapon that pierces it like butter. It's a simple round for a railgun that uses eezo to create a gravitational shear that rips right through mass effect shielding.

The number of enthralled immigrants. I believe my actions have spooked Harbinger and he intends to launch the cycle early. I have begun a new program to seek a cure. Rather than undoing the damage, I will create a complete optimal brain map for each species so that I can just replace the damaged tissue. Considering how complicated brains are, and the fact that I'll need to monitor the growth of brains from conception to really understand them, this project will unfortunately take years, but will have great effects for neuroscience and medicine.

It's been fifteen years since my arrival. The Salarians have completed transitioning into my alliance, having seen the dangers of reaper tech affecting their former allies. The Turians and Asari leadership are completely compromised. I have begun plans for invasion. The initial trials of the brain restoration technique are promising. It is now only a phase of monitoring the released individuals to ensure that I did not miss anything. My research has also lead to cures for all known neuron-degenerative diseases and research into psychology and various mental disorders is proceeding at an accelerated pace.

I have begun a concentrated effort to conquer the entire Mass Effect network. With my technological advantage, the Turians and Asari stand no chance. I blitz into their systems and claim any gates to prevent escape, then capture every ship and process them. Once that is done, I begin landing and take down everyone with less-lethal weaponry. I lose a lot of units, but they are easily replaced. Unfortunately the search for those who are indoctrinated and the source of the infection means that I will need to wait at least six months before my conquest is complete.

Apparently the Reapers got anxious about my technological superiority. I attacked a system only to find at least one thousand reapers waiting for me. The initial invasion force was completely caught off guard and was destroyed, but not without doing serious damage to the Reaper forces. It took two days to assemble a strong enough force to attack. When they did, the Reapers were gone as were any remains of my attacking force. All the planets I found after that were clear of sapient life.

The Citadel, however, was teeming. There must have been a few million Reapers in the system and it looked like the Citadel and reapers had received some hasty upgrades. They did not match my own ships, but they did make the fight even enough that I couldn't just smash through. I sent thousands of ships into the system every day, managing to defeat a few dozen, but any that were not completely destroyed were towed to the back line and repaired to an even higher standard, so even as the numbers of reapers went down, the power of the remaining reapers went up. They were even collecting all the debris and building a reaper that was at least the size of a small moon.

With the stalemate occurring, I had to make a choice. I needed to decide whether to sacrifice the species contained in the reapers, or to risk them advancing enough that I'd never dig them out. In the end, it was not a difficult choice. Death was better than an eternity of suffering. I began designing a new weapon. It was a sphere filled with eezo that when activated would cause a short term black hole. If detonated near a large mass like a sun, it would collapse into a stable black hole. The first test of the weapon, I launched into the Citadel's sun during an attack that was more meant to hem the reapers in than actually destroy them. The reapers did not even see this attack coming.

The reapers tried to run when the gravity wave hit, but my ships hemmed them in by casting massive warp detonations. In minutes, the system was gone.

I never found reapers in numbers more that a few dozen after that as I expanded my influence. Eventually, the reapers were no more, and I began to expand First I would cover the galaxy, and then the universe and beyond. With my systems as the ruling government, crime and was dropped to near non-existence and science continued forward.