Spare a thought for Husk Health - Marauder Shields gets all the glory, and he gets shot over and over again in the head
This is a first try for a size comparison of the starships from the Mass Effect Universe.
My colleague Erik Kainquotes at length a comment he received taking issue with the Extended Cut of Mass Effect 3's 'Rejection Ending' - the additional ending provided, at least in theory, to satisfy the demands of players that they be allowed to finish the game without taking any of the three options originally offered:
To a large extentthe sizeare purelyestimates, as there arevirtually noofficial data. I use some of the game models and there ingame model size as well as screenshots from the cinematics to compare the ships. But unfortunately the sizes dont match sometimes even in the games and the cinematics. Ships rendered in 3d Max 10 I use some reference pictures from The Reaper sizes are given in height. Its a better size indication. Mass Effect is (c) by Bioware & EA Update 1: - Changed Leviathan from Reaper size to 450 m height - Added Human Reaper Larva / Core Update 2: - Made Harbinger a little bit bigger - Added Quarian Live Ship - Added Quarian Envoy Ship (Quarian Frigate) - Added Shadow Broker Base Ship - Added Carrier Reaper - Added Processor Reaper/Slaugter ship Processor Reaper and Volus Dreadnought imported by Update 3: - Resize the Destroyer Reaper and the Hades Reaper - Relabel the Reaper names Update 4: (March 17, 2014) - Added the Fuel Station from ME2. We see this ship also as Cruiser in ME1 and the Comics too. - Added the Turian Dreadnought - Added the Turian Frigate - Added the Cerberus Dreadnought from the Omega DLC - Added the Cerberus Frigate - Added the Alamo class Frigate - Added a new background Turian Dreadnought by Cerberus Dreadnought, Cerberus Frigate, Turian Frigate and Alamo class by Lord Set Update 5: (November 28, 2014) - Resize the Destiny Ascension and make her smaller to a more realistic size in relation to the other dreadnoughts. - Make Harbinger 2 km tall as like the other capital Reapers. After month of research, there is no single hint he is taller. Update 6: (August 19, 2015) - Resize the Geth Dreadnought to 1300 m LOOK AT MY GALLERY!! I HAVE MORE MASS EFFECT ARTWORKS!! I have made some more Mass Effect Size Comparison charts: My FINAL work with ALL Mass Effect Ships is here:
There really is no way to do this without spoilers, I'm afraid, so all suspense abandon, ye who enter here..
Also, this is really quite long. If you get to the end, consider telling me in the comments that I am totally wrong a reward.
- to destroy the Reapers, at the cost of all synthetic life in the galaxy; to impose Shepard's will on them at the cost of her own life; or to use some rather handwavy DNA phlogiston to make all life in the galaxy a mix of synthetic and organic, thus ending the Reapers' mission to harvest the most advanced species before organic life as a whole is wiped out by their synthetic creations.
There is a lot to be said about and against those endings, and I'll come to that in a moment. But let's hold the line .. of argument.
Shepard now has the option to reject all three of those endings, and instead to decide that the options presented by the Crucible-cum-Citadel are unpalatable. Better to choose one's own destiny than to be dependent on a glowing deus ex machina, she concludes.
So be it, says the child (in the voice of head reaper Harbinger, which seems significant but probably isn't - we already know that the child is the controlling intelligence of the Reapers, because it has told us) and we cut to a garden world, in which a beacon is transmitting. Beneath the beacon, in an underground chamber, a hologram of Liara T'soni, Shepard's faithful and bookish companion, explains that the massed forces of the galaxy could not defeat the Reapers, and were defeated. But this message represents the history of their war with the Reapers, and their accumulated knowledge of how to fight them.
Rage against the machine
Cut to the epilog, where in a distant future an adult - the 'stargazer' - and a child talk about 'the Shepard' and how she saved the galaxy. Except instead of an old man - Buzz Aldrin probably being harder to get back for more voice recording than the endlessly professional Lance Henrikssen, who plays Admiral Hackett like, appropriately, a boss - there is a female voice, belonging to a member of some form of humanoid race. In this case, Shepard is credited not with defeating the Reapers, but with giving this future generation the opportunity to live in peace.
This did not, it is fair to say, make Erik's commenter, Rob Munsch, happy. Quite the reverse:
And then the kick in the nuts. Nope, wrong choice, screw you, everyone dies, you fail, nothing’s changed.
I've been talking with Rob, and he and others have inspired me to put all of my thoughts on the narrative into a single place. I have no particular qualifications to make these judgments, of course - I have probably talked to a lot of games writers, because writing is an area which interests me, and I have studied narrative both academically and informally, but I certainly wouldn't want to tell anyone that they were wrong to feel as they do.
And there is a degree of speculation necessary which could be waved away as 'headcanon'. However, I don't think that asking the audience to do a little extra work is always a bad thing, and most of the conclusions one is asked to draw are pretty obvious, I think. It is in video games still something of an unusual thing, and I can see why it was a risky move. Did it pay off? As I said, the sales of Mass Effect: Origins in 2015 are probably the ultimate arbiter. But once can discuss the artistic and creative decisions made.
Three colors dead
First up, yes - if you, the player, decide to go it alone, the Reapers defeat Shepard's galactic alliance.
Of course they do.
It has been stated clearly throughout the game that no matter how many side-missions or mini-games are completed, and no matter how many allies are reecruited, the galaxy is living on borrowed time. Even the combined forces of every race in the galaxy are not going to be able to win a conventional war against the Reapers. The entire purpose of rallying them is to buy time for the Crucible to be built and deployed. So, the options at this point, if one decides not to deploy the Crucible, are:
1) It turns out all to be a dream (the Indoctrination Theory ending). Shepard shakes off the illusory blandishments of the Reapers, destroys the enemy using the real Crucible, and everyone gets to go home.
2) The Catalyst is so impressed by Shepard's sheer doggedness and refusal to compromise that it reveals yet another option, which it had so far withheld while testing her mettle - one which allows her somehow to pull one of the giant cthulhoid tentacles from the body of Harbinger, her mile-long sentient spaceship nemesis, and beat it to death with it, as a prelude to the wholesale destruction of the Reapers.
3) All the starfaring races of the galaxy die. Depending on the size of Shepard's alliance, and their military readiness, it may take a long time. The races are heterogeneous, an advantage they have over the Protheans, whose advanced technology was offset by a lack of strategic diversity.
Further, this set of races avoided the decapitation strike which traditionally begins the Reaper attack, thanks to Shepard's heroics in the first Mass Effect. They go down hard, they go down swinging, they go down over the course of centuries, during which other races may be recruited and uplifted, but they go down. No space magic, no last minute saves. Just a long fight to the finish, at the end of which the Reapers know they've been in a fight, and are at their weakest for millions of years.
And here's the thing. That third option? It's the right option. I suppose one could take it as an insult if one wished - perhaps it was even meant as such. Who knows? But it makes perfect dramatic sense. Shepard may die - Shepard's galaxy may die - but she has done enough to buy time for the true hero of the Mass Effect series to ensure future victory over the Reapers.
I refer, of course, to Doctor Liara T'Soni.
No, seriously. Weren't you paying attention?
The last, best hope for peace. And squid-headed alien loving
Our T'Soni hope
Commander Shepard is a soldier - clearly a very good soldier, but essentially a soldier - until she touches the Prothean relic. At that point, she becomes a soldier who has weird dreams.
Without the intervention of Liara T'Soni, the rest of Mass Effect would be an increasingly frustrated Shepard roaming the galaxy shooting at Geth while having nightmares that resemble nothing so much as a Nine Inch Nails video covered in marmalade, until the Reapers arrive and civilized life is extinguished from the galaxy.
Liara brings knowledge, and the ability not just to extract the visions of the marmalade apocalypse from Shepard's head, but to interpret them in a useful fashion. Without Liara, the entire mission is dead in the water.
So, ultimately, Liara T'Soni successfully directs Shepard to Ilos, and thence to the Citadel to save the galaxy. Without Shepard, Liara would have died on Therum, but without Liara Shepard would have died along with everyone else, and for nothing.
T'Soni the Lonely
Cut to Mass Effect 2, and Shepard's two-year spell spent dead for tax reasons. Liara recovers Shepard's corpse offscreen, and is thus instrumental in returning her to life. Then, while Shepard addresses the most immediately pressing battle, Liara sets her own plans in motion to accumulate the informational resources necessary to win the war.
At the end of Mass Effect 2, and the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, Liara is the single most powerful information broker in the galaxy, and dedicates those resources, as far as possible, to finding ways to assist the Alliance in preparation for the Reaper threat. It is this that leads her to Mars, where she is reunited with Shepard in time to help her to rescue the plans for the Crucible. Leaving aside what one might think of its use at the ending, this is presented throughout as the MacGuffin: the only chance the galaxy has to fight off the Reaper threat. It has been developed incrementally, one imagines, from pieced-together research across cycle after cycle - the Protheans being the last of a serried rank of races who tried and failed to gather enough archeological data and do enough research to create an ultimate weapon against the Reapers before their walls fell.
So, while Shepard cannons around the galaxy recruiting allies however he can, Liara devotes her archeological skills and network to trying to do what none of these previous races have achieved. However, she also has a backup plan. If the allied races are not able to defeat the Reapers this cycle, she plans to make sure that the next cycle will not be scrambling around, like Shepard and she are, trying to find obscure clues from archeological artifacts. Pokemon cloud white online. Instead, she is going to take advantage of the time they have to create a complete record of all the available anti-Reaper data up to that moment, so that, instead of being surprised when the Reapers appear from deep space, the next cycle of spacefaring races have millennia to prepare.
What should I say about you, Shepard? Possibly I'll skip over that dress.
There's T'soni one problem
Yes, yes, I hear you say, but what about all that nonsense with the Catalyst? What's that all about?
Well. Let's stay inside the narrative for the moment. When Shepard reaches the Citadel, and meets the guiding intellect of the entire megillah, she is presented with up to three immediate options, depending on her success in rallying and readying forces:
None of these are perfect options - and, of course, Shepard is not aware that she is a video game character, and thus has no reason to believe that these options are actually true. To quote myself:
Think of it like this: if you were exploring a dungeon, and suddenly came across a blue potion of unknown provenance, would you drink it? Probably not. If your character does the same, you will think nothing of telling the character to drink it. Blue potions have thus far restored magical power, and this should be no exception. And, if it turns out to be poison, the penalty is relatively minor – having to restart the level, say.
BioWare has given Shepard another option – to refuse to drink the red, green or blue potions, in effect – and although it may not look like a happy ending, it is by no means an unrealistic or frame-breaking one.
So, the rejection ending. From Shepard's point of view, none of those options are viable. Either she does not trust the mysterious new character offering them, or she will not sacrifice billions of Geth, even if the alternative is most likely the extinction over the coming decades or centuries of the Geth and many other races. Or she very wisely does not believe that she can control the Reapers, or that even the remarkably advanced science that created the Reapers could amend the DNA of every being in the universe.
She's got a point.
So, she opts out. She refuses option A, option B or what's in the DNA box. As far as she is concerned, the Crucible is a dead end. Either it will not do what she needs it to do, or the Allies did not have time to understand it well enough to make it a tool that wipes out the Reapers without taking all synthetic life with it.
So, instead, Shepard rejects the options the Crucible has provided, and commits instead to a long war. And why is she ready to do that? Because she knows Liara T'Soni has her back.
Liara? I hardly know 'er!
If the Reapers triumph - which they almost certainly will (Shepard is nothing if not a realist) - they will retreat to dark space. That's the cycle. Arrive, reap, return, wait. During which time Liara's complete collection of Reaper intel will be found - someone smart enough to get this far will, it is fair to say, find a way to conceal it from the Reapers while making it available to future races.
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Shepard and his allies had to scramble through Reaper-occupied space scanning for possible clues, as their industrial and scientific base was destroyed around them. The next cycle, thanks to Liara, will potentially have millennia to prepare, and a complete set of plans to start out from. During this time, whichever species are at the apex of galactic civilization can perhaps work out how to get the Crucible to function more as hoped, or reverse-engineer its technology to create a different weapon entirely.
Shepard is dooming her cycle to almost certain defeat. But she is doing so in the knowledge that the next cycle will have the tools to win - and to win without compromise.
Ladies, Gentlemen. I give you the true true hero of Mass Effect. Scourge of the Reapers. Saviors of galactic civilization..
The Serrice University Archeology Department, Thessia.
Wait, what?
Shepard is all about direct action - the default mode for Shepard is either shooting somebody who is standing between her and an objective, or banging a table and telling a skeptical Council that they have to act now.
Archeology teaches one to take a longer view. The Troy that was destroyed by the Greeks in the Iliadwasn't the first city built on that site - it wasn't the second. As best one can tell, it was the sixth or seventh. Nor was it the last, despite the story of its ruin being so legendary that it clearly inspired BioWare to call the ruined heart of the Prothean resistance Ilos.
The 'reject ending' is Shepard ceasing to think like a soldier, and deciding instead to think like an archeologist. Specifically, like Liara T'Soni.
All right, but the Star Child is pretty ridic, right?
Well, it's certainly narratalogically tricky - in the sense that a lot of exposition is squeezed into a very short space of time and put in the mouth of a new character. It would have been a lot easier to have gone for the obvious ending - the Crucible fires, the Reapers are destroyed or damaged to the point where they can be overcome at great cost, or survive and continue to wipe out galactic civilization, depending on one's military assets and readiness at the end of the game. Shepard and his crew live or die, again depending on military readiness. Roll credits.
Since that ending is so obvious, it's curious that BioWare didn't go for it. What was their thinking? As a thought experiment, let's forget everything we know - which may be that the ending is stupid and wrong, and makes no sense - and think about the narrative role of the Catalyst. Looking at what it is saying, and also what is it actually telling us.
When the only tool you have is a Reaper, every problem looks like a synthetic uprising
Fairly obviously, the Catalyst is the anthropomorphic personification of an AI - and, it is safe to assume, an AI created by the last survivors of the race which also created the first Reaper.
And when we say 'created', we mean 'were agonizingly rendered down into paste and turned into'. One can assume further that they did this as a last-ditch response to impending annihilation by synthetic life.
(Erik Haltson has been good enough to note by Twitter that the Catalyst in the Extended Cut specifically mentions that the Catalyst was created to resolve the recurrence of conflict between organics and synthetics, and resolved it by turning the race that created them into the first Reapers against their will - which is to say, pretty much as described. The first Reaper was created without consent - just like every Reaper since.)
This first Reaper then wiped out the rebelling synthetics and/or the remaining organics, saving the primitive species which would otherwise have been destroyed, and allowing them to become spacefaring races in turn. And then those races developed synthetic life, and the Reaper did what its creators - confronting the possible extinction of all organic life - had unwittingly programmed it to do.
So, yes - the whole idea of eliminating high-level organic life whenever it reaches the point of creating artificial life is pretty crazy. That's because the race that came up with it was mad. As in insane. And also probably quite angry.
Insane, angry and, even worse, generalizing from the particular. They had created synthetic life which then drove them to create a being which felt that liquidizing its creators and making them into a giant techno-organic space cuttlefish was a pretty good plan. Not ideal.
So, the Catalyst is implementing insane instructions, and the Reapers are obeying orders based on the trauma of a long-dead race of creators. Their entire mission is ill-conceived. But, to quote Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
They firmly believe that what they do is for the good of the galaxy, and that they’re preserving these races in Reaper form, but they do not see how evil their actions have become. They’re wrong. But they’re wrong from a position of enormous power, and it’s a power that not only dominates the worlds of Mass Effect, but also the player.
Incredible power, agony, grief and a pretty hefty dose of post-traumatic stress disorder. They have been carrying out the same mission a billion or more years, based on the instructions of a race convinced that every other cycle would make the same mistake they did - thus endangering all organic life - unless prevented.
The old machines
The Reapers, after all, are machines - very smart, very old, very complex machines, but machines; Shepard is using that term against Sovereign as far back as Mass Effect - telling Sovereign that it is just a machine, and can be destroyed like any other. Ultimately, it seems, they have considerable flexibility but no actual free will when it comes to fulfilling their objective. So, when the Protheans sabotaged the Keepers, so that they could no longer arrive automatically, the Catalyst (presumably) tried to route around the point of failure by ordering Sovereign to open it by hand. Well, tentacle. Well, cat's paw.
Anyway.
When that failed, the Collectors appear to have been another failsafe - a way to harvest enough material for a Reaper ahead of the fleet's arrival - presumably allowing the deployment of total destructive force, in lieu of the information on planetary population contained in the Citadel. And so on. The Reapers are still fulfilling their programming, however they approach it. It seems that they cannot do otherwise.
However, the game is clearly up, or nearly up. The Protheans found out enough to sabotage the Keepers, which meant that Shepard and company were alerted to Sovereign's existence early - and that the spacefaring races had time to prepare - however badly they used it - and to consolidate information. This cycle will fall, if the Crucible does not work, but the next cycle will have Liara's knowledge. Maybe not this cycle, maybe not even next cycle, but soon, the Reaper model will cease to work, and the Reapers will cease to exist.
That's why Shepard can refuse to use the Crucible - because she knows that, even if the Reapers win - which they probably will - they will suffer greater losses than perhaps ever before, and will face a better prepared galaxy at the next cycle.
Breaking the cycle, one tentacle at a time.
Let's assume that the Catalyst is the AI which coordinates the Reapers once they arrive in Citadel space. And let us further assume that the Catalyst is aware that, on some level, its programming is wrong. Shepard has demonstrated that, potentially - synthetics and organics may be fighting together outside the Citadel even as the Catalyst is maintaining within that synthetics will always turn on organics. Because that is what it is programmed to believe, and to say, and to act on.
Some of this is surmise, although it is all pretty safe surmise. Some of it is directly or indirectly stated in the dialog:
We created the cycle so that never happens. That's the solution.
But you're taking away our future. Without a future, we have no hope. Without hope, we might as well be machines, programmed to do what we're told.
You have hope. More than you think. The fact that you are standing here, the first organic ever, proves it. But it also proves my solution doesn't work any more.
So now what?
We find a new solution.
Yeah, but how?
The crucible changed me. Created new possibilities. But I can't make it happen.
This all seems pretty clear. The Crucible is a way to reprogram the AI controlling the Reapers - or managing them by exception, perhaps more accurately. The AI knows that continuing to follow its programming will lead to the destruction of the Reapers - probably not this cycle, but soon. But the AI cannot reprogram itself. The race that made it gave up their lives in exchange for a specific kind of immortality, and wrongly believed that every other apex race would make the same mistakes and want the same kind of immortality - as hugely complex and somewhat autonomous tools of their grand, misguided plan.
The Crucible uses an organic being's free will as the impetus to change the direction of the Reapers, or destroy them. In a sense, it's a refinement of the Reapers' technology rather than a weapon against it. Which sort of makes sense, since it requires the Citadel - the heart of the Reapers' plan - to work.
We've actually seen this tension of free will and programming play out repeatedly across the game, beginning with Saren Arterius, running through the Geth (who when the Quarians attack abandon their free will in exchange for the intelligence and complexity of the Reaper upgrades) and on to the Illusive Man. We are specifically told that the more indoctrinated a subject is, the less capable they are of independent action, and thus the less useful. The Reapers have considerable flexibility of doctrine, but they are caught off guard when organics exercise the extremes of free will - as they did when wiping out millions of their own people at Palaven, say, to inflict a military defeat on the Reapers.
Not only actions but perspectives can be programmed in - we see this with the Illusive Man, who is sincere in his indoctrinated belief that he is doing what is both right and necessary, just as Saren was, and cannot overcome that belief for more than a brief period. In a sense, the Catalyst and the Reapers, it seems, are quote-unquote indoctrinated with the programming they have been given.
They believe that they have to prevent the obliteration of organic life by synthetics. They believe, perhaps, that they are choosing to do this. But, even when it is clear that they will no longer be able to do this, and that attempting to do so will lead to their destruction, they cannot stop themselves from intending to do it. The Crucible is the thing that allow their programming to be revised (or obliterated): if Shepard had just reached the Citadel without the Crucible being in place, the unchanged Catalyst would, it seems, be unable to change its ways. Shepard reaching the Citadel proves that its solution will not work any more - the galaxy has, over countless cycles, developed increasingly effective countermeasures - but only the presence of Shepard and the Crucible together creates the possibility of changing the cycle. It's a programming interface.
Crux and Crucible
Mass Effect Harbinger
So far, so self-explanatory. However, the Crucible was rushed, built under terrible conditions by people who barely understood what they were building. So, none of the options are ideal. Control seems far too close to indoctrination for comfort, and even the Catalyst seems cagey about whether Shepard will be able to control the Reapers, although it is considerably more confident in the Extended Cut. Synthesis is a huge change to the basis of all life in the galaxy. Destruction will treat billions of Geth as an acceptable cost to preserve the rest of the galaxy - and it would be blood (well, oil) on Shepard's hands, and staining the foundations of post-Reaper galactic civilization. And, of course, Shepard has no reason to believe the Catalyst. This could all be a trick.
By refusing to use the Crucible, Shepard is taking a moral stance - saying that she is willing to play the long game, if that's what it takes to defeat the Reapers. She is not prepared to write off an entire sentient race as an acceptable cost. She is, in that sense, refusing to think like a Reaper - with their genocidal utilitarianism - or to accept the Reapers' tools as the only way to deal with them.
Without Liara T'Soni's knowledge, making that choice would be insane. Without Liara T'Soni's perspective, Shepard would not be able to consider it. But she has both. So, the rejection ending is the ending where Shepard stays true to her principles, refuses to compromise and places her trust in her current cycle not to want victory at any cost, and the cycles to come to defeat the Reapers without having to compromise. It's a difficult ending, and certainly a bittersweet one - in all probability, none of the characters we have met over the three games will get to live to a ripe old age surrounded by $alienskintone babies. But it is still a heroic ending - and, thanks to the real hero of Mass Effect, still a hopeful one.
Disclosure: The author had to delete a whole side-thread about Aeneas. I'm just saying. You got off easy.
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Discussion in 'Vs. Debates' started by Tyzuris Vinserix, Aug 20, 2018.
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Discussion in 'Vs. Debates' started by Helezhelm, Aug 14, 2012.
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What if Humanity had evolved during the same time as the Protheans, and what if a damaged and delusional Reaper had crashed onto Earth and advance the human race by hundreds of years.
But most importantly, what if Humanity had chosen to Ascend themselves, to willingly convert its people into machines that resembled nothing of the Reapers true form.
50 000 years ago..
In endless void of space above the glittering world known as Horizon, raged a terrifying battle between monstrous synthetic machines known as Reapers and the humanoid insect species known as the Protheans and their various followers of countless other races.
Mass Accelerators, long ship mounted weapons capable of giving a 17 kg projectile the kinetic energy of a nuclear warhead. Hurled through space at 0.4% the speed of light and slamming in violent explosions of energy against near invisible kinetic barriers that covered the Reaper dark blue hull.
Mass Effect Reaper Ships Youtube
Magneto hydrodynamic cannons fired beams of liquid metal travelling at similar speeds to lash out through space, their red glow descending upon unlucky warships that were ripped apart in a single or repeated blows with devastating ease on the Reapers part.
General Javik of the Prothean military stationed over Horizon bellowed orders angrily like a bull at his subordinates. Inside his massive dreadnaught class warship measuring over 1km in length, streams of mass accelerator rounds hammered against Reapers both big and small, showering the upper atmosphere with deadly projectiles at Javik fleet sought to protect the fleeing civilian ships as they prepared to enter FTL.
'Focus fire on the left flank!'
'Bring cruisers 014, 034 on an intercept course with those Reaper destroyers we cannot allow them to pass our defences!' bellowed Javik like a mad man, his Dreadnaughts main weapon fired a devastating salvo into Reaper forces, blasting away the small 160meter tall Reaper support ships that could be devastating in close combat.
'Where are those cursed apes and their demon warships!' demanded Javik as he slammed his fist on a terminal before the Dreadnaught shook violently as a beam of liquid metal slammed into its shields and over loaded several systems.
'We can't take another hit like that General!' warned someone while several Protheans rushed about to put out electrical fires on the bridge.
Javiks Dreadnaught was slowly being surrounded as dozens of Reaper Destroyers swarmed his battle group, latching onto the warships hulls before cutting them in half with their primary weapons.
However as everything seemed loss, the fabric of space began to rip apart with massive purple portals that lead into the Abyss of time and space.
'General Slip Space Portals just materialised, it's the Humans!' yelled someone, and just in time as from those massive portals leapt forth massive machines.
Massive robotic warships that resembled the mythological dragons sprang from the portals, hulls gleaming white with glowing gold lines amongst the armour plating giving them an unusual similarity to the massive aquatic like forms of the Reapers.
Like predators, the machines launched themselves at the closest Reaper. Ripping away at shields with tooth and claw or blasting them with their own magneto hydrodynamic weapons with devastating effect.
Missiles flew from their forms to hammer against Reaper kinetic barriers, while small AA size Mass accelerators fired away at enemy fighters zooming through the battle zone.
The Guardians had arrived, along with several human warships of various size. But what drew Javiks interest the most was the towering flagship of the Guardian fleet that emerged off the bow of his warship.
Rising from her portal, Shepard flared her massive wings that hummed with biotic energy and reached out with massive clawed hands to grasp a Reaper Destroyer in her claws. Manoeuvring the smaller vessel between both paws, Shepard crushed the Reaper warship into a twisted pulp of metal that she than threw casually into the void of deep space.
From behind Shepard's hull, two more dreadnaught size Guardians materialised from their own slip space portals to enter the fight, moving into planking positons behind Shepard to guard her from attack.
They were the famous Admiral Hackett of the Guardian Everest, second in command to the Guardian fleet. Unleashing a wave of missiles from various missile tubes on the Guardians body, the form of Captain Anderson stood proudly beside their leader who was surveying the battle with a critical gaze.
'Javik, have your forces defend your civilians, we'll handle the Reapers!' Bellowed Shepard, her voice ripping through the communication network like the voice of a divine angel.
'Hackett, move in and take over ground operations. Give the civilians planet side more time' ordered Shepard, prompting Hackett to dive downwards to the plat surface below.
As he descended, he launched countless drop pods ahead of himself into the midst of the Reaper forces. Amongst the hordes of enemies, glowing red pods slammed into the surface like missiles, blasting the mutilated and cybernetic forms of Reaper victims into the air moments before massive creates exited the pods.
Humanities Demons were an abomination to behold, standing nearly 9 feet tall with long slender tails and a split lower jaw. The Demons were a biological weapon constructed from human host who were heavily augmented, genetically modified and cybernetic enhanced into beings of devastating power.
Fitted with their own Mass Drive cores in their chest, they were effectively super weapons on steroids.
One of these Demons, a tall almost 10 foot tall giant covered head to toe in technological battle suit, raised both arms towards the Reaper horde around him.
Lieutenant Vega didn't even blink as a pair of heavy machineguns materialised in his hands, and he unleashed a storm of mass accelerator rounds down range.
Rushing past him more Demons appeared, some wielding unusual duel blade swords of energy. Others carrying rifles or heavy weaponry, several even flew overhead using hard light wings upon their backs. While others just unleased their biotic potential upon the walking dead that was their enemy.
Back in orbit, Anderson had split from his Commander and was dancing around the hull of a Reaper capital ship that effectively dwarfed him in size. The hulky machine couldn't move fast enough to get him in its weapon sights, and the Reapers secondary weaponry was ineffective at fighting the powerful kinetic barriers of the Guardians hull.
However while Anderson was fighting the Reaper, he failed to notice Shepard had become isolated from the main forces. The large Flagship of humanity flared her wings, blasting beams of liquid metal at any Reaper in sight while barrages of missiles flew from her body at various angles.
'Shepard!' Boomed a synthetic voice that rumbled with the power of a god, hearing her name being called through the void of space.
The massive 1.7kms of synthetic and organic warship turned its reptilian head upwards and away from the fleet battle raging before her. As she looked to the heavens, her eyes narrowed and her wings flared with energy, Shepard's jaws glowing as she charged her primary cannon to fire at the descending form of Harbinger looming above her.
The largest and most deadly of the Reapers, Harbinger was over 2km long and sported massive appendages that flexed wide like the gaping jaws of a predator, reaching out to ensnare Shepard in their grip.
Slamming together in a furry of sparking metal the white and gold plating of Shepard's Guardian was thrown backwards as Harbingers navy and blue plating slammed into her hull. Knocking her head to the side and causing her stream of molten metal to launch harmlessly into the void of space.
Harbinger used this to his advantage, firmly grasping Shepard in his appendages and holding her in place. Ignoring her pitiful efforts to claw and bite at his hull as his own primary cannons glowed red in preparation to fire.
Latching on with her fangs, Shepard sing her teeth deep into Harbingers hull. From her back and other weapon turrets launched dozens of flickering lights, that launch out into space before curving back to slam against Harbingers kinetic barriers.
That would be the last display of violence Shepard's Guardian, the Normandy who had accompanied her through so many battles. Would ever utter before a stream of red light burst through the draconic warships chest. Blasting one of her 1km long wings from loose in the process and tossing it limply into space.
Anderson roared in horror as he watched the display from his own Guardian warship, his blood boiled inside his armoured hide. Fangs snapping shut and dripping with venom as he stared at the display of Harbinger with a murderous glare.
'No Shepard!' cried millions of voices in Andersons mind as the people that comprised the core of his warship all registered the horror that was taking place.
'ALL SHIPS DISPERSE!' cried out Shepard's voice over all channels, and Anderson could only watch on as the Guardian equivalent of blood spilled from the Normandy's hull and jaws like a dying animal.
'I repeat get out of here, continue the plan!' was Shepard's last words as Harbinger proceeded to rip the Normandy apart limb from limb.
Anderson could feel the thousands of human minds inside his ship's hull cry out in grief, in outrage and protest as they refused to leave their leader behind. But with the destruction of the Normandy, the Guardian Fleet fell under Admiral Hackett's command.
'All ships, proceed to rally point Alpha… Horizon is lost' said the demons voice over the intercom system, despite the authority in his voice, all Demons and Guardians alike could feel the sorrow in his words.
This was their last offensive, they lost so many in this brutal war over the past 50 years that there wasn't enough humans to rebuild the Guardian fleet. Despite this Anderson felt some satisfaction knowing they had destroyed nearly 1000 capital Reaper warships, which would lead a deep scar in the Reapers forces and hopefully allowing the civilisation of the next culture in 50 000 years some chance at winning.
All through the conflict of space, Guardians either dived down to the planet's surface to collect ground forces or flared their wings with biotic energy to create barriers that would protect them as massive portals materialised behind their 900 meter tall and 2 meter wide wingspan frames.
With violent flashes of light, Guardian after guardian vanished into the void of space while the Prothean warships still in the region snapped into FTL or faster than light travel as quickly as possible. In their wake was a field of destruction from all sides, several dozen capital ships from both sides were torn and mangled, drifting lifelessly in space while others burned with battle damage.
As for Shepard, the Normandy was a twisted mess of metal and parts that hovered beneath Harbingers frame.
Far away, the last remnant of the species from this cycle gathered together in a massive fleet of thousands of ships both military and civilian in design.
All organics were placed into stasis, while the Guardians and their crew of artificial Demons stood watch over the massive fleet as they all drifted into dark space outside the relay network.
It was a massive gamble on their part, the Reapers were numbering nearly a million strong in total. Intel gathered that only 2/5th of the Reapers forces had actually mobilised to attack, meaning continuing the fight would only lead to their utter demise.
So the survivors of this cycle and their 5000 Guardian escort drifted into space, splitting into three divisions to make themselves harder to track down and destroy by any perusing Reapers.
For the next 10 000 years, the three fleets would drift in empty dark space while the Reapers exterminated the remains of civilisation from the galaxy and allow a fresh chance for new races to develop and be harvested at the start of the next cycle.
But when the Reapers returned to hibernation, the fleets returned to their homes to survey the damage. Nothing remained of their old lives and so all species began to plant seeks for the next species of the cycle to discover, the Citadel was rigged to prevent the Reapers from ambushing the next races and archives were left behind for the more promising species that were developing in the galaxy.
It would be this cycle's final gift to the children of the next cycle.
The Guardians oversaw this operation and uphold their duty as protectors of the galaxy and its people, they helped them farm and gather raw resources, used their hive mind network to relay information and kept an ever watchful eye for a Reaper ambush.
Over the next few thousand years, the Guardians had slowly grown in numbers as more species admitted their fate and allowed themselves to be Ascended. With their flesh transformed into 900meters of reversed engineered Reaper Technology with a single Demon to act as their voice and captain.
But it wasn't enough, they only grew by less than 1000 Guardians, and slowly the last the organic species from this cycle were preserved inside a Guardian before Admiral Hackett ordered one last sweep of the galaxy.
In doing so they planted the seeds for new species to develop, adjusted planets once inhabitable into the early stages of sustaining life. Making sure to leave clues behind of Humanity and the Prothean Empire on several worlds, the Guardians returned to the Sol system.
To the charred surface of Humanities home world where they dug deep into the surface and remained there in hibernation. Waiting to be awaken by the next cycle and reap vengeance upon the Reapers for the genocide of so many species.
A vanguard was left to watch over the galaxy in the Guardians absence, a Vanguard who would guard the 314 Relay and wait for the day the children of the next cycle would awaken the Guardians to protect the galaxy.
Right so I've been trying to come up with a Mass Effect story idea for ages and I think I finally got something solid to use.
I know it needs a lot of work but does the story sound interesting thus far?
Please leave your opinions in the review below I'll need a lot of help to get this story into anything resembling a series.
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