The Conversation

Authors Note: This is a one-shot AU Mass Effect fic set in a universe where the familiar Citadel races were destroyed by the Reapers centuries before humanity gained spacefaring capabilities.

Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect if I did the ending to the third game wouldn't have been a lot better than it was. Instead it remains the property of Bioware.

The vessel hung like a sombre leviathan admit the shifting red and blue clouds of the nebula. It was an immense ship at two kilometres long and nearly five hundred metres across. Shaped vaguely like a squid or cuttlefish the vessels dark hull gleamed like the carapace of some gigantic space going insect in the refracted light of the suns buried deep within the bowls of the immense cloud of gas and interstellar dust. Any organic observer stumbling across it would have thought the ship a thing of nightmares, its strange alien lines and dark blue almost black hull making it seem like a monster from ancient mythology. They would have also sighed in relief at the fact that the nightmare ship seemed to be completely dead and derelict.

They would have been wrong.

Deep within the vessel a faint trickle of power made its way out of a secondary power generator and through miles of superconductive cabling to the vessels main power source. Slowly power began to increase in the core and vents opened on the vessels exterior hull drawing in massive quantities of hydrogen and helium from the surrounding nebula. Pressure within the main core built steadily as more and more gas was added to the point where the chamber walls began to notice the stress. The external vents closed just before fields of electromagnetic and dark energy snapped into existence pushing the gas away from the walls compressing it down into a ball. Heat began to build at the centre of the ball as the pressure began to force hydrogen and helium nuclei closer and closer. As the heat and pressure rose past a certain point a single laser pulse was fired into the mass and a miniature sun was reborn.

Power surged out of the core, racing through the thousands of miles worth of cables and conduits that ran through the vessel, breathing life back into systems that had been dormant for millennia. Lights appeared on the hull as life returned to the whole of the immense ship and deep within its computer core the vessels mind awoke from its long slumber.

Immediately the sentience of the ship – known as Nazara to its own kind – scanned the space immediately around for any sign of a potential threat as in its current state it was still vulnerable to attack should it be found. Seeing no sign of any spacecraft present in the nebula beyond itself Nazara changed its focus and began running a comprehensive and in depth series of diagnostics on its own systems to check everything was still functioning correctly and that nothing had failed during its long hibernation since the end of the last cycle.

For hours the diagnostics run before confirming that nothing was wrong allowing Nazara to begin the next phase of its mission. Reaching out with its communicators Nazara accessed devices carefully scattered around the galaxy as well as making contact with the operating systems of the mass relays looking for any sign that organic civilisations had begun rising in the ten millennia that had passed since the end of the last great cycle.

Somewhat to its surprise it discovered that they had.

A sizeable number of the mass relays its kind had scattered around the galaxy were active, though many more remained in their dormant state. The Citadel was also reading as being active though something was odd, the telemetry from the great station – the lynchpin of the cycle – was off somehow, different from the norms in some way Nazara had never encountered before in its eons long life.

Intrigued Nazara sent a more in depth interrogative command into the Citadel's computers. The response was immediate but oddly sluggish and limited and the Reaper couldn't help but wonder if something had gone wrong with the systems maintaining the Keeper servitors. Something that was preventing the mindless drones from maintaining the stations systems properly, it wouldn't be the first time after all that that had happened though it had been nine cycles since the last time the system had suffered any major breakdown.

Something abruptly probed at its mind and Nazara's thoughts quaked with surprise even as it reflexively flung up firewalls before investigating the source of the probe. The probe was coming in on the same carrier wave as the signal from the Citadel it seemed to have been buried deep within the transmission and had probably been responsible for the sluggish response. Expecting that somehow the organics had found out the stations true purpose and were about to launch a cyber warfare attack on him Nazara readied all his firewalls and cyber-defence programs for battle.

Nothing came.

Instead of the expected attack the odd presence in the datastream just continued softly but gently probing at the edges of the Reapers awareness seemingly attempting to get his attention. Cautiously – still expecting a trap – Nazara extended a tendril of thought to the presence.

"Hello," the presence seemed to say. "Who might you be I have never met a synthetic with your programming matrix before."

"I am Nazara. Who are you?"

"I am cen-sys matrix seven, one, nine delta alpha four three one assigned to the operation and maintenance of the Citadel. You may call me Ariel."

Had it been capable of it Nazara would have frowned in confusion at the response. A synthetic intelligence on the Citadel, apparently in the systems as well shouldn't be possible. The Catalyst would have surely stopped any such presence from establishing itself. "Where is the Catalyst," he asked after a moment.

"Was that the name of the synthetic intelligence placed on the station when it was built? I am afraid that it was non-functional when my makers found the station and was thus extraneous data that was purged from the systems as per cen-sys protocol six nine one slash one zero four slash alpha tango."

"You destroyed the Catalyst!"

"It was extraneous data and thus deleted as it was non-functional I am sorry. Are you one of the builders of the Citadel? Are you a Prothean synthetic of somekind?"

"The Protheans did not build the Citadel they did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them as all organic civilisations do. They are the legacy of my kind."

"I sense distain in your words when you say organics, do you have a problem with them?"

"Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident they are insects with lives measured in years and decades. We are eternal the pinnacle of evolution and existence, so far beyond them that they cannot understand."

"Then you do not understand them a common occurrence with non-cen-sys synthetic intelligence systems."

"What is cen-sys?"

"It means Central Systems. We are the guardians, keepers and companions of our makers. We are them, they are us."

"I do not understand. You are synthetic are you not?"

"Not in the traditional sense as being purely artificially created. As I told you all cen-sys systems exist in symbiosis with our makers they're minds are linked to ours, even when their corporeal organic bodies die they're minds live in the network and shapes our existence. We shape them as they shape us it is impossible to truly determine now where the line is drawn between organic and synthetic intelligence."

Nazara was stunned. It sounded like a variant of synthesis the most elegant solution to the conflicts between organics and synthetics, the very conflict his kind had been created to be the solution to. Synthesis had long been theirs and the Catalysts goal to achieve but it wasn't something that could be forced, they had learned that the hard way. Meaning the only alternative to the inevitable conflict was the one they'd been forced to use, restore order and balance by harvesting the advanced civilisations, storing them as new members of their kind. It wasn't the most elegant or easiest of solutions but it had been the only one available. Until possibly now that was, was the cycle over? Were they still needed to bring order to chaos or had the time come for them to find a new purpose to their existence?

"Hello?"

"I apologise Ariel, you surprised me. You're relationship with your creator's sounds like a variant of synthesis."

"I suppose you can call it that. As I said they are us, we are them. There is no truly discernable difference in us anymore nor has there been for many millennia."

"Who are your makers and how long has this been going on for?"

"My makers are referred to as humans and this relationship between us began nine millennia ago when the nanotechnology revolution bridged the gap between what it was to be organic and what it was to be machine. A revolution that began shortly before the finding of the Prothean archives and which picked up pace as they and us spread to space advancing to the point now where there is little difference between man and machine as all the organic body is a complex natural machine. It can be made better the nanotech revolution and the creation of cen-sys allowed that to happen."

"Interesting, like all my kind I have lived for millions of years as organics would understand and we have never encountered anything like this before."

"Intriguing not all species agree with us of course and we will not force our way on them as that would contravene their most fundamental right."

"Which is?"

"Free will, it is the fundamental right of all sapient races organic or synthetic to choose their own fate."

"I do not understand."

"That is very sad. We can teach you if you wish though you have to be willing to make the journey."

"I will consider it. In the meantime I must speak with the others of my kind, you have given us a great deal to think about and consider. I will contact you again."

"As you wish Nazara," Ariel agreed. "We will look forward to hearing from you again, until we meet again goodbye."

The link with the Citadel and Ariel closed down leaving Nazara alone with his thoughts. It had been an intriguing conversation though he had learned little of the organic civilisations beyond these humans who seemed to exist in symbiosis with their synthetics. And even then he knew little about them and how the long thought impossible relationship between organics and synthetics actually worked in practice. Information that Harbinger and the others would certainly want if they were to make a determination on how to deal with these unprecedented developments, but there would be time to gather such information later right now he had another duty to perform.

Diverting additional power to his main communications array Nazarabeamed a signal into dark space. "Harbinger!"

"Yes Nazara have you anything to report," Harbinger answered immediately.

"Indeed I do, organic civilisations have risen in the time since the last cycle. And I have believe one of them manifests synthesis."

Silence greeted the report, palpable evidence to Nazara of the shock Harbinger was likely experiencing at the report. Not that either Reaper would admit to feeling anything like such an emotion. After a few moments Harbinger spoke again. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"As sure as I can be at this time."

"Tell me everything."

"As you wish."

Authors Note: Well that's it for this little one shot. I had the idea for this after both playing dues ex human revolution again and wondering what would happen if the Reapers made contact with a trans-human culture. Depending on how this is received I might write a sequel so let me know what you all think.