2227-2234: Consequences of Hubris

A.N.

Sorry about the wait. I have discovered the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame, and decided to start up my own army. Word of advice, though; don't start one unless you have at least a spare $1K laying around. This has got to be the most expensive hobby in the world that doesn't include collecting antiques.

Ooh! I just had a wonderful thought! Someone in Warhammer 40000 gets sent to the Paragon verse via Warp shenanigans. There might be a catastrophic explosion just from the two coming into contact with each other.

In the years that had passed since the project to uplift the Vorcha had succeeded, while the Alliance had turned its attention to luring the geth out of their shell and fighting off massive pirate attacks, the newly intelligent Vorcha had been setting up their new society. Since the artificial breeding program had ended, the 5,000 thousand Vorcha began reproducing naturally at an astounding pace; in the seven years since the project had been declared a success, the uplifted Vorcha population had doubled three times. This had the side effect of leaving the vast majority of the population at an extremely young age, although this was mitigated by the rapid maturity rate that came naturally to most short-lived species. In addition, thanks to their increased brain power, these new Vorcha were able to learn much more, and at a faster rate, than ever, and were quickly able to assume useful roles in the new society.

By this time, the uplifted Vorcha had settled on a, at the time, newly discovered garden world that had been declared off limits for colonization explicitly for this purpose; patrols from the Human Alliance and the Asari Republics regularly policed the planet, driving out any squatters they found. By 2229, several Vorcha settlements had been established, and the vast majority of the uplifted strain of the species had emigrated there. Taking cues from human and asari governments that had brought them into being, the Vorcha colonists formed their democratic government, christened The Vorcha Assembly, in 2230, and applied to the Citadel Council for acceptance as an independent colony world. The next year, after considering the proposal, the Council accepted. For the first time in galactic history, the Vorcha, a race considered vermin by virtually everyone who knew of them, were legally acknowledged as sentient species, with all the rights and privileges thereof, and as equals to all other sentient species in Council Space.

This news spread across the galaxy like wildfire. Most expressed utter shock and bewilderment at the fact that the Vorcha could form any sort of government at all, never mind a democratic one, and certainly never believed any government of their species, of any kind, would be recognized and accepted by the Citadel Council. Others were surprised, but did not concern themselves beyond casual curiosity. Some, unfortunately, were blinded by the past views on the species, particularly in the Terminus where feral Vorcha clans seemed to infest every planet and station, though given that section of space's recent actions against the Alliance, most of these complaints were ignored.

The greatest change, however, was also the one most desired by the original scientists on the project to uplift the Vorcha species; Vorcha from other parts of the galaxy, who had been thrown to the wayside and denied employment in all occupations save cannon fodder in krogan mercenary groups, began emigrating to the new colony. At first, they came individually, or in very small groups, but they still came, and in rapidly growing numbers, brought by wondering hope that their lot in life could improve. Within two years, the newly immigrated Vorcha made up half of the colony's population. Unfortunately, because of the immigrants' noticeable lack of longevity, intelligence, and lack of knowledge of democratic societies, it quickly proved difficult to integrated into the new society, and the scientists of the original uplifting project were brought in to attempt to augment the non-uplifted Vorcha as best as they possibly could. It took almost a year, but the scientists were successful in augmenting the immigrant Vorchas' genetic code to increase their longevity and intelligence, though not nearly to the level of the one's they had worked on since birth.

By 2233, the augmentations for the newcomers were finished, and being implemented at a rate that could keep up with the immigration rate. It was at this moment that the first of what would soon be many of large groups of immigrants began to arrive; not a mass of individual people moving to the same destination, but an organized, relatively ordered mass exodus, under a single leader, a Vorcha by the name of Markeer. When they first arrived at the new colony world, named New Heshtok, Markeer met with the Spokesperson for the Assembly, which was broadcasted across the planet and to many nearby colony worlds of other species. This resulted in a massive faux paus, which made clear the massive difference in culture between the uplifted Vorcha, who had been raised in a mixture of human and asari culture, and the unaltered immigrants, who had been raised in the species original culture or in the unforgiving Terminus; when the meeting began, the Spokesperson introduced himself, Markeer introduced himself, and then slashed the Spokesperson across the face with his talon, carving two deep furrows in the Spokesperson's face from the left eye to the right mandible.

To most any other Vorcha, this was a simple part of normal conversation; such blows were part of their communication, as the specie's extremely fast recovery time and ability to adapt their own bodies to different stresses meant that such injuries were minor, and in fact strengthened the vorcha that received them when they healed. To the uplifted Vorcha, who had absorbed a great many of the social cues of the species that had uplifted them, this was an unprovoked assault of a powerful and by now a well liked leader. It took two days for order to fully be restored and talks between the new immigrants, as the uplifted vorcha and the past immigrants both made their displeasure known over the incident.

Soon enough, however, the incident blew over, and Markeer's group integrated into one of the three major settlements on the new colony. This, however, placed greater strain on the colony's infrastructure; such a massive influx of immigrants was beginning to take its toll. As more such groups began to arrive, the system broke down even further. The process for genetic therapy for newly arrived immigrants to the colony, sufficient for the small stream that it had to deal with before, was unable to keep up the sheer numbers now arriving, and many Vorcha found themselves in the rapidly growing slums on the three settlement's outskirts, so much like the ones they had inhabited before they had moved to the supposed paradise they had thought the planet to be. And as the slums grew, law and order began to break down, as the local police units and the Assembly Nation Guard, as the new state's planetary defense force was named, were more and more hard-pressed to keep total anarchy at bay, as many immigrants began to turn back to the way things were when they were in the Terminus; rule by the strongest individual.

Then, things began to spiral completely out of control.

The three settlements that were founded when the uplifted Vorcha first settled the planet that had been set aside for them, while quite far apart, were clustered together where an enormous iridium deposit from an ancient asteroid strike and a wide swath of fertile farmland overlapped. One settlement had more plentiful iridium ores, one had wider expanses of the fertile soil, and the Capital settlement had roughly even distributions of both. It was in the first that the first, however, where the seeds of conflict were planted.

It was in this city and its surrounding territory that Grisk, an unusually well spoken Vorcha with a brown birthmark on his equivalent of a philtrum, came into the limelight. He was a member of the first generation of uplifted Vorcha born naturally, and had grown up seeing his unaltered brethren trying to integrate into their society.

He did not like what he saw.

To him, the massive influx of what he saw as uneducated, unintelligent barbarians was a threat to the new colony's existence. Grisk felt that trying to integrate the Terminus immigrants was a prospect that only promised failure, and the doom of the uplifted Vorcha. Seeing those of his species that had not been altered as he and his fellows had been as less than sapient, he began gathering support from his fellows. Given the condition that the three cities were facing, Grisk had little trouble convincing many uplifted Vorcha, or those born to them, so share his view. By 2230, for the first time since mass immigration had started, the uplifted Vorcha population equaled to the unaltered population of Grisk's hometown, as his followers flocked to his banner.

Meanwhile, at the same time, a similar but opposite situation was occurring in the city that held the majority of the colony's farmland. The unaltered Vorcha may not have been as intelligent as most other species, but they were not so foolish as to not notice what Grisk was doing. Just as his uplifted supporters were entering the iridium rich area, his hated immigrants were leaving to the farmlands of the colony's second major settlement. In addition, just as Grisk was proclaiming that the immigrants were pests that needed to be removed or wiped out, those same immigrants were growing envious and hateful at the colony's founders, who were being increasingly viewed as elitist and apathetic to their plight at best, and Grisk's supporters at worst. Increasingly, they were turning this city into a bastion to push their own agenda to counter Grisk's campaign, but due to their process for selecting a leader, i.e. each Vorcha fighting it out until the strongest was the only survivor who then had to deal with rivals now crawling out of the woodwork, it was virtually impossible for them to organize effectively.

At the same time, many vorcha of both backgrounds were fleeing to the Capital. Of the three settlements, the Capital was by far the most stable and tolerant. There were incidents between uplifted and unuplifted Vorcha, but they were the exception, not the rule. However, with the chaos that was beginning to engulf their sister cities, more and more people began emigrating from the two other cities to Capital. The Assembly eventually had to, for lack of a better term, cut loose the two other settlements and focus their resources on managing the Capital city; they simply did not have the manpower or popular support to hold the entire colony together anymore. In addition, the scientific and diplomatic teams from the other Council governments were of increasingly little help; after the Attican Invasion, relations between the Alliance and the Council members had taken a severe hit, and this rift had extended to the team maintaining relations with the Vorcha Assembly. With this team divided on how to speak to each other, let alone assist the Assembly, and with the Alliance focusing its efforts on military spending to order to protect against and eventually subjugate the Terminus, less and less time and effort was spent on maintaining order on the Vorcha's new home.

So it was that the uplifting of the Vorcha species turned from hope to a prosperous future, to dread as it seemed that nothing but war loomed for these people who had only just now had a chance to ascend beyond their unfortunate upbringing.

A.N. Whelp, that happened. This just goes to show that sometimes what seems like the right thing to do at the time can have horrible, unintended consequences (I'm looking at you, Robb Stark!).

Anyway, after this, I will start going to go through the Paragon Systems Alliance's relations with various governments and factions, the characters of the first game, and then, finally, onto the plot of the first game. As several reviews have said, the original Renegade Reinterpretation's quality dropped off after the author started on the main plot of Mass Effect 1, so here is what I will do; I will continue this fic as it is, in the style of Renegade Reinterpretations, and start up a new fic which will be written as a normal story. As for which path of the new morality fork I will follow…

I don't know. I need to start thinking about the new morality system, actually.