Notes

This is what I used to write the story, and is probably why it's so disjointed.

CH2:

-project VELOCITY/the X302 mystery

-bring Cerberus in- meet Miranda perhaps?

-stargate is the conduit

CERBERUS BATTLESHIP TRIA?

Chapter Two: Investigation

-note stargate

-meet Garrus and Wrex and of course TALI (squee!)

-reveal Saren, but that doesn't mean shit

Chapter Three: Illium

-Illium: find Liara

-CAR CHASE SCENE

-criminals

-Noveria and Feros are pointless, since the Geth are merely pawns

-unfortunately, Liara doesn't know much

Chapter Four: Home Ground

-find proof of SGC existence

-still can't convince council

Chapter Five: The Chase

-Feros and/or Noveria and/or Virmire

-haven't figured this one out yet

-leads into Chapter Six

-Virmire+Maelon?

Chapter Six: Virmire Part Two

Chapter Seven: The Enemy of My Enemy

-Tali nanites?

-grounded at Normandy

-find delta site bunker somehow

-borrow hyperspace capable vessel from Cerberus

-only way to get there in time

Chapter 8/9: Apocalypse Now

-get to Citadel control chair

-override dialing and dial Pegasus

-destroy Reaper with drones *from Tria*

-go and put a few rounds in Saren

Chapter 10: A New Era

-congratulations, you are now part of the Council

-wormhole still open, maybe there are some guys on the other side?

-whole galaxy of possibility!

Long Term Plan

I actually wrote these on a physical piece of paper and have roughly transcribed them for your benefit. And yes, this was intended to be a long series that I would never finish.

Timeline

RME (ME1+history lesson) "Cataclysm"

TC The Collection (collectors=Wraith though I later went back on this) "Collection/CL"

MW Machine War (a desperate war so ME3 basically) "Corruption/CR"

EX Exodus (go to Pegasus recycled from Halogate Pegasus) "Commutation/CM" why I picked this codename I don't know

RM Remnants (resistance, humans call colony "Kobol") "Catalyst/CT" irony much, this was written LONG before ME3 was released

? (variant of Breakpoint) (several thousand years later, on the run) nBSG xover "Colony/CN"

Tech Chart

SG

+comm tech
+mass effect
+combat armor (presumably personal IE body armor)
-hyperdrive
-reactionsomething (perhaps reactionless drive?)
-energy weapons
-true shields

ME

+jump drive
-mass effect
-fake shields
-armor (again, body armor not ship or tank armor)
-good weapons (hand weapons?)

BSG

Deleted Scene

Usually I save more cut content, but this is all I could dig up for Reboot Mass Effect. Sorry. Ashley's line at the beginning basically sums up my feelings about this passage.

"It's like a damn group therapy session," Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams muttered under her breath as she passed Shepard on the way into the briefing room. Unlike soldiers of generations past, she was thin and trim, not heavily muscular, a product of various enhancements. Nevertheless, her hair was pulled back in a tight regulation bun. She had changed out of her pink and white armor in favour of an Alliance duty uniform.

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was next. He wore a similar uniform, hair cut clean and slicked back. He was friendly and looked the part, but could be dangerous when provoked. Shepard knew that he once killed one of his instructors, by accident of course. "Commander."

Garrus Vakarian looked much like Nihlus or any other Turian to the untrained eye. Among Turians, he was considered tough-looking and handsome. He still wore his blue C-Sec issue armor, which was not uncommon among Turians.

Shepard could have sworn the deck shook when Wrex entered. The big Krogan was also still wearing his armour, but unlike Garrus still carried a shotgun. She would have to talk to him about carrying guns around on the Normandy. "Shepard," he acknowledged as he passed.

They waited impatiently for Tali to arrive. The aliens shifted uncomfortably in the human-designed seats. Alenko buried his head in his arms. Williams tapped her foot constantly. Shepard checked her watch several times.

"Chief Williams," she said after five minutes had passed. "Go down to engineering and try to find Tali."

"Yes, ma'am," Williams said dutifully, leaving the room.

Williams and Tali arrived about a minute later. "Sorry about that, Commander," Tali apologized. "I was helping Engineer Adams replace a power conduit."

"Mind telling us why we're here, Commander?" Garrus asked.

"I'd like to get to know my team, I'd like my team to get to know me, and I'd like my team to get to know each other," Shepard explained. "Unity is key. I can't have any mistrust in my team."

"Fair enough," Garrus replied.

"I don't like it, but I get what you're saying," Wrex said.

"I'm willing to share," Tali said cheerfully. The humans stayed quiet.

"All right," Shepard said after a pause. "Tali, since you were late, you get to go first. Tell us a little about yourself and your people."

"I am Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

It was actually based off the original SGC dialling program, and required the IA-256 processor in her omni-tool to run in Virtual i386 Mode to work properly.

"It's true, most of us will probably not make it out alive," the salarian agreed. "And that makes what I'm going to ask even more difficult. I need one of your men to accompany me. To help coordinate the teams."

Though she made the decision quickly, Commander Shepard didn't make it lightly. "Chief Williams, you'll accompany the Captain. No heroics, understood. Be careful out there."

"Aye, aye, Commander.""As a matter of fact, yes. The Normandy carries several missile packs. I think they can be modified to hit ground targets. They won't be able to destroy the main bunker, but we spotted some communications arrays and drone facilities on our way down. Destroying them should make both our jobs easier."

"As you all probably know by now, we're two hours out from Virmire," Commander Shepard began as Tali hurried into the briefing room, muttering something about the drive core. "There's a Salarian STG team down there, and they've stumbled onto something big."

"What is it?" Wrex asked.

"That's what we're going to find out. The STG team couldn't get out the whole transmission- but we know that there's something on that planet linked to Saren, maybe Saren himself."

Garrus leaned back, trying to get comfortable in the human chair. "So, what's the plan?"

"We'll go in stealthed and try to make contact with the STG team. Hopefully they'll be able to give us an idea of what's going on. After that, I guess we'll have to improvise. We find a stronghold, we destroy it. We find Saren, we take him down. We find some Prothean or Ancient technology, we take it."

"I hate to rain on your parade, Commander," Ashley interrupted. "But what if the STG team's dead?"

Shepard shrugged. "Same plan, but without the extra help. I know this won't be easy, but they don't know we're here. That ought to be worth something."

"That's not a plan," Wrex objected. "But still, I like it."

"Well, the thing is, we simply do not have any information past 'something big is happening'. Once we get closer, we might be able to get a couple of scans, but we're basically going on nothing. You may like it, Wrex, I don't, but there's nothing more we can do."

It was their fault, she didn't mention. Well, sort of. Apparently the device had given her a guilt complex, too. It was once theirs, then the Reapers got it and reverse-engineered it. The Ark of Truth, retrieved from the heart of the Ori home galaxy and used against them to turn their followers away from Origin. The jury was still out on whether it was the right thing to do or not, but if they hadn't done it, they would have swept through the galaxy. Just like the Reapers.