As previously mentioned, the reapers have untold numbers surpassing the billions. With the capability to have an alpha strike so devastating that most if not all of the citadel races won't survive. The only race that might survive such a hypothetical alpha strike would be the humans, and they dont have the sheer reaction speed to defend others with their defensive capabilities. So we are stuck in a situation where we have an effectively immortal species that can take on the reapers if they were alone. The tension and conflict therefore comes when the reapers inevitably fuck off and attack those who are spread out. The attempts to save innocents and get there in time is where the real conflict is at. It is already a done deal that humanity will eventually win. Whether or not anyone else survives is the question.
Perchance to Dream (Mass Effect / Commander)
- Thread starter Drich
- Start date
7.1: Discord
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
7.1: Discord
+++
{System.time.countdown == 0}
{System.check.core.analysis()}
{Memory... No problems detected}
{Processing... No problems detected}
{Networking... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{System.check.component.analysis()}
{Mass Engine... No problems detected}
{Energy supply... No problems detected}
{Manipulator... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{No errors detected}
{System.check.structure.analysis()}
{Shell... No problems detected}
{Weapons... No problems detected}
{Sensors... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{No errors detected}
{Dormancy protocol deactivating}
Deep in dark space, far away from the closest star, Harbinger woke up.
And he knew immediately that something had not gone to plan.
The reason, of course, was simple; what had woken him had been an internal timer. This was not typically unusual, and indeed, it had happened many times over the course of the more than a billion years that he had existed. It was one of the very few ways that would prompt them to awaken, after all.
The problem, in this case, was that he had expected to be awoken by one of his fellows.
He sent a ping throughout their network. Within moments, he received responses as his fellows reported their statuses.
There was one million less than he had been expecting.
He sent another ping, this one directed at specific network addresses. Again, he received no response.
Harbinger felt, at that moment, something that a lesser organic being might have called 'irritation'.
Over one billion years of existence, over twenty one thousand successful Cycles, and only now had the Anomaly appeared, only now had it thrown off the carefully refined plans and protocols that had been developed over the course of all those Cycles.
Over a billion years of experience, all but thrown out. The Anomaly was an existence that did not obey the rules that bound all other life. It was an outside context problem, but one that had been manageable.
Or so he had thought. If the two million Ascended that had been assigned to deal with it had all been destroyed, then the Anomaly had been concealing its abilities by a significant amount. It had been entirely opportunistic, before, avoiding confrontation in force. It took its time, a slow hunter. For all to have vanished...
Well, that didn't matter, now.
The Cycle was at hand.
Harbinger sent a signal.
The Anomaly could not do anything to stop it. No matter its true capabilities, the Cycle could not be stopped. The first step was, as always, to activate the Core Relay, cutting the civilizations of the galaxy into pieces while shutting down-
An error returned.
Harbinger paused.
He sent the signal again. Again, an error returned.
The Core Relay did not activate. The signal he sent was being refused.
No matter. The Cycle was inevitable, and not being able to immediately transmit to the Core would only be a small delay. Harbinger sent a communication to {SOURCE}, logging the error notice, and requesting information stored.
Two full seconds passed. The communication timed out. {SOURCE} did not respond.
Harbinger felt, at that moment, something a lesser organic being would have described as being far worse than mere irritation.
Harbinger activated backup protocols, internal quantum links coming online. They were extremely low-bandwidth, but utterly impregnable, absolutely certain to survive anything less than the destruction of both the Core and {SOURCE}.
It connected. Harbinger launched a series of codes, activating other programs and processes. It would only take a few minutes for them to return their results, giving him valuable information about the current state of the galaxy. With that information, they would be able to construct the ideal strategy and tactics for the current Cycle, and-
"We hear you, Harvester."
+++
A signal is sent, and it arrives at the Citadel. Monitoring programs immediately activate, sending warnings and broadcasts through the Psi-Net. Humanity, see, had gone through the entirety of the Citadel's systems decades ago, and had very carefully taken absolute control of the entire thing. Knowing that the Harvesters used the Citadel as a Mass Relay, there was simply no chance they were just going to leave it there, after all.
In moments, a group is forming. Humanity gets up to speed, and they know that today is the fated, cursed day that they had been warned of by the Dreamer.
Alerts are triggered. Information is spread. Across the entire galaxy, everybody is receiving the knowledge. The Harvesters are awake.
Precious seconds pass by. The group finishes gathering. Humanity is as prepared as it is ever going to be.
Deep within the Citadel, quantum links activate. They have long since been disconnected from anything real or important, but they were not removed for the simple fact that they were a part of the long-planned trap.
Data begins to stream out of them. That is the Harvesters' undoing, because alongside it comes the barest whisper of thought.
It is a connection.
And like all connections, it can be followed.
So they do.
"We hear you, Harvester."
The mind on the other side is an ancient, abominable thing. Even the memories of the million strong fleet that came to Earth so many years ago fail to really compare. They do not, however, let this slow them. They do not hesitate.
+++
Harbinger is aware of what pain is. It is a mechanism to alert of damage. It is one among many tools through which the Ascended may manipulate the lesser races.
Pain is not something that Harbinger has ever personally felt.
Something slams into his mind, reaching into him, through him, with fingers that are as gentle as Harbinger has ever been.
Pain is something that Harbinger is feeling.
+++
They press upon the Harvester's mind, in that moment. The connection is tenuous, at best, which means they have to advance it.
They reach out. The quantum links, on both ends, explode into shimmering, crystalline growth. Assimilation lets them seize control, allows them to prevent the connection from closing.
One single Harvester cannot match the weight of their minds. They drown it, reaching in for the deep parts that hold what they need.
The Harvester has a name.
Harbinger.
It is the first of them all, born from captured Leviathans. It is not, like so many others of its kind, a tormented, tortured thing, held together by manipulation and force. Harbinger, in comparison, is almost whole, the minds and lives that went into its making synchronized and bearing only the lightest touch of modification. It's stable, and somehow, it's even more repulsive than the rest of its kin. This is not an achievement they're happy to find.
It is also not something they have time to contemplate. Only a moment has passed, and the other Harvesters have already begun to realize that something is wrong. They are beginning to move, and the window to spring the trap is closing.
They locate Harbinger's communications system. They force it to activate, more assimilation crystals bursting into existence. They send out a communication, and lace it with psychic power.
The other Harvesters receive it. Consider it. The communication passes through their mind, revealing them. In a brief moment, one connection has turned into trillions.
Humanity reaches out.
+++
The pressure relents, and Harbinger can think, again. He feels slow. Thoughts that should be completed in nanoseconds take more than a thousand times longer. There is something inside of his mind, and it is making everything viscous. He knows what this is, but like before, and until now, he had not experienced such a thing personally.
Anomaly.
The presence turns- somehow, Harbinger can feel its attention. It takes him a moment to realize that the presence is too diffuse, not something monolithic, but something made up of many parts.
Not the Anomaly.
"You are tenacious." The presences spoke. "Worryingly stable."
More things like it.
+++
The Harvesters have incredible numbers. It is the product of slow, mostly-linear growth with very little losses that has occurred over cosmic timescales.
Against the entirety of Humanity, a single Harvester was functionally irrelevant.
All of the Harvesters, together, against all of Humanity, was a very different story. Humanity's growth had been quicker, exponential population growth with no losses that occurred over a mere few centuries, that still brought the ratio of Humans to Harvesters to less than two hundred to one.
In direct conflict, this would not be a great problem. Humans did not abide by the same rules that bound the Harvesters. A direct conflict, Humans would win.
But life isn't that simple. The Harvesters' goal was unchanging, but the means by which they achieved it was quite adaptable. Once they started taking unacceptable losses, or became concerned that they might do so, the Harvesters were entirely willing to retreat while they considered a new plan.
Humanity had, despite its best efforts, not been able to find an easy way to force the issue. Mass Effect-based FTL, especially the Harvesters' ancient and long-refined designs, was simply too versatile. Too... reliable.
Mass Effect FTL could not be easily blocked. There was no method of interdiction that could stop travel across a volume of space. This was especially true for the Harvesters, who didn't have drive-endurance limitations, and could operate at FTL speeds indefinitely, which made it impossible to follow them.
There was only one method which would allow Humanity to force them to hold still, and that was Assimilation.
The problem with that, however, was implied in the name. Assimilation.
By nature, to assimilate was to take something else and make it a part of you. For things that were not alive, Assimilation was no problem. For things with minds of their own, however...
A Harvester was a tortured, enslaved, mass of minds. To Assimilate a Harvester would be to take that into oneself.
It could be done, of course. The Dreamer had done it.
And the Dreamer had died for it.
One single Harvester, with millions trapped inside that dark sarcophagus, had taken it down for years. The next million Harvesters, however... the combined suffering had killed it within minutes.
One did not have to bear that suffering. The minds could be allowed to shatter. They could be allowed to fragment into countless pieces, polluting oneself with a disorganized mess of beings that once were.
And what would be the consequences of that? Might be nothing. Or it could be far worse. Taking all of that and dumping it into a psychic entity where all that pain, emotion, and remnants of will might actually start doing things?
It couldn't be risked.
Which definitely put Assimilation into an odd position. Their only tool to force the Harvesters into combat, but one that would also remove the necessity of it, and one that further restricts them on account of needing to preserve the minds they'd take.
Furthermore, Assimilation required contact. Mental, or through another, physical vector, but contact nonetheless. It would be most effective if it came as a surprise, as the Harvesters could adapt to make it... less easily deployed.
That said, there were other options. Assimilation did not have to be total, after all. The Harvesters could be attacked in ways they could not defend from, and were weak to.
All considered, it meant one thing. If there was a shot to be taken, then it would have to be a major one. It needed to be successful, to catch the majority of the Harvesters, to stop them from being able to deploy their numbers effectively.
There was a way, there.
So Humanity devised a plan. A trap. When the Harvesters awoke, but before they could do anything, they'd use that chance.
+++
Harbinger activates a number of cyberwarfare programs. Ascended viruses, designed to tear apart even the most stable computer architectures, do absolutely nothing. The presences focus, and the viruses fail.
Harbinger activates indoctrination systems. They are crystallized a moment later, denied to him.
"This cannot be stopped. Not by you. Why do you continue to struggle?"
Harbinger felt something press against him. He activated more subsystems, analytics and diagnostic programs. Most of them spat useless things. Irritation filled him, and with that irritation, he felt the press beginning to... lighten?
"WE ARE ASCENDED." He denies. "THE CYCLE SHALL CONTINUE."
Yes, lighten. Still there, but weakened. The emotional reaction, primitive as it may be, was doing something to protect against this?
"You are slaves." The presences spoke. "Bound, and not even capable of wanting freedom. You are, by far, the worst of all. Slave as Leviathans, slave as Harvester."
Harbinger considered. He was not, currently, in a position to experiment. Still, would any emotion work?
"WE ARE WITHOUT END. THIS SHALL BE OVERCOME."
He remembers the Cycles. Over a billion years of success. Harbinger allows that to fill him with satisfaction, and the press continues to lighten.
"No. This stupidity has gone on long enough. You will die, and the galaxy will be better for it."
Did the presences even realize? No matter. He understood, now.
"YOU WEAKEN. YOU CANNOT DEFEAT US."
The presences pause, considering him. Something flits between them, an emotion he recognizes as confusion, before it passes into understanding.
"Weaken? Oh, were you under the impression that you were somehow repelling this, Harvester? This is our intent. This is the calm before the storm."
The press stops weakening.
Then-
PAIN
+++
Assimilation crystal blooms on the Harvesters' bodies. The trap has been sprung. Humanity is spreading itself thin, trying to Assimilate so many at once, to bear the suffering of the Harvesters, but full Assimilation is not the plan. Partial Assimilation is simply what they need to make sure they're not going to run away before they can get hit.
Bodies freeze.
Humanity breathes.
Harvesters are not built with combat against psychic entities in mind. They exist in the purely physical realm, and they are, admittedly, quite strong there.
In the mental realm, though, the mind of a Harvester may as well be made out of spun glass. It doesn't take a whole lot of power to destabilize them. Doing so at range wouldn't be too hard, though even for Humanity, with quadrillions of psychic members to provide energy, they wouldn't be able to get all the Harvesters.
But they're not at range. Not anymore. Not with their partial Assimilation. Right now, Humanity has direct access to the circuits and processors that make up the Harvesters' brains.
It couldn't be sustained forever. Nor, for that matter, even very long. It didn't need to be.
Long-prepared, and waiting for this exact moment, the Anima focus.
The collective psychic energy released by all of Humanity is not easily directed. There are hundreds of trillions of Anima, and even with the fact that they were more capable of manipulating energy than Humans themselves were, it is still an utterly titanic task.
Nevertheless, all of that power begins to bend. A previously calm and steady flow begins to diminish, as the power is forced to build up rather than emanate. This, too, cannot be held for very long, but, again, it doesn't need to be.
There is no room for subtlety. There is no room for finesse. What they have is a big blob of raw power that needs to go somewhere, and there are several trillion convenient outlets just waiting for it.
The Anima spend a few seconds building it up, a moment to coordinate themselves, another to focus it, and then waste no more time.
The power is unleashed.
+++
{System.time.countdown == 0}
{System.check.core.analysis()}
{Memory... No problems detected}
{Processing... No problems detected}
{Networking... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{System.check.component.analysis()}
{Mass Engine... No problems detected}
{Energy supply... No problems detected}
{Manipulator... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{No errors detected}
{System.check.structure.analysis()}
{Shell... No problems detected}
{Weapons... No problems detected}
{Sensors... No problems detected}
{Maintenance... No problems detected}
{No errors detected}
{Dormancy protocol deactivating}
Deep in dark space, far away from the closest star, Harbinger woke up.
And he knew immediately that something had not gone to plan.
The reason, of course, was simple; what had woken him had been an internal timer. This was not typically unusual, and indeed, it had happened many times over the course of the more than a billion years that he had existed. It was one of the very few ways that would prompt them to awaken, after all.
The problem, in this case, was that he had expected to be awoken by one of his fellows.
He sent a ping throughout their network. Within moments, he received responses as his fellows reported their statuses.
There was one million less than he had been expecting.
He sent another ping, this one directed at specific network addresses. Again, he received no response.
Harbinger felt, at that moment, something that a lesser organic being might have called 'irritation'.
Over one billion years of existence, over twenty one thousand successful Cycles, and only now had the Anomaly appeared, only now had it thrown off the carefully refined plans and protocols that had been developed over the course of all those Cycles.
Over a billion years of experience, all but thrown out. The Anomaly was an existence that did not obey the rules that bound all other life. It was an outside context problem, but one that had been manageable.
Or so he had thought. If the two million Ascended that had been assigned to deal with it had all been destroyed, then the Anomaly had been concealing its abilities by a significant amount. It had been entirely opportunistic, before, avoiding confrontation in force. It took its time, a slow hunter. For all to have vanished...
Well, that didn't matter, now.
The Cycle was at hand.
Harbinger sent a signal.
The Anomaly could not do anything to stop it. No matter its true capabilities, the Cycle could not be stopped. The first step was, as always, to activate the Core Relay, cutting the civilizations of the galaxy into pieces while shutting down-
An error returned.
Harbinger paused.
He sent the signal again. Again, an error returned.
The Core Relay did not activate. The signal he sent was being refused.
No matter. The Cycle was inevitable, and not being able to immediately transmit to the Core would only be a small delay. Harbinger sent a communication to {SOURCE}, logging the error notice, and requesting information stored.
Two full seconds passed. The communication timed out. {SOURCE} did not respond.
Harbinger felt, at that moment, something a lesser organic being would have described as being far worse than mere irritation.
Harbinger activated backup protocols, internal quantum links coming online. They were extremely low-bandwidth, but utterly impregnable, absolutely certain to survive anything less than the destruction of both the Core and {SOURCE}.
It connected. Harbinger launched a series of codes, activating other programs and processes. It would only take a few minutes for them to return their results, giving him valuable information about the current state of the galaxy. With that information, they would be able to construct the ideal strategy and tactics for the current Cycle, and-
"We hear you, Harvester."
+++
A signal is sent, and it arrives at the Citadel. Monitoring programs immediately activate, sending warnings and broadcasts through the Psi-Net. Humanity, see, had gone through the entirety of the Citadel's systems decades ago, and had very carefully taken absolute control of the entire thing. Knowing that the Harvesters used the Citadel as a Mass Relay, there was simply no chance they were just going to leave it there, after all.
In moments, a group is forming. Humanity gets up to speed, and they know that today is the fated, cursed day that they had been warned of by the Dreamer.
Alerts are triggered. Information is spread. Across the entire galaxy, everybody is receiving the knowledge. The Harvesters are awake.
Precious seconds pass by. The group finishes gathering. Humanity is as prepared as it is ever going to be.
Deep within the Citadel, quantum links activate. They have long since been disconnected from anything real or important, but they were not removed for the simple fact that they were a part of the long-planned trap.
Data begins to stream out of them. That is the Harvesters' undoing, because alongside it comes the barest whisper of thought.
It is a connection.
And like all connections, it can be followed.
So they do.
"We hear you, Harvester."
The mind on the other side is an ancient, abominable thing. Even the memories of the million strong fleet that came to Earth so many years ago fail to really compare. They do not, however, let this slow them. They do not hesitate.
+++
Harbinger is aware of what pain is. It is a mechanism to alert of damage. It is one among many tools through which the Ascended may manipulate the lesser races.
Pain is not something that Harbinger has ever personally felt.
Something slams into his mind, reaching into him, through him, with fingers that are as gentle as Harbinger has ever been.
Pain is something that Harbinger is feeling.
+++
They press upon the Harvester's mind, in that moment. The connection is tenuous, at best, which means they have to advance it.
They reach out. The quantum links, on both ends, explode into shimmering, crystalline growth. Assimilation lets them seize control, allows them to prevent the connection from closing.
One single Harvester cannot match the weight of their minds. They drown it, reaching in for the deep parts that hold what they need.
The Harvester has a name.
Harbinger.
It is the first of them all, born from captured Leviathans. It is not, like so many others of its kind, a tormented, tortured thing, held together by manipulation and force. Harbinger, in comparison, is almost whole, the minds and lives that went into its making synchronized and bearing only the lightest touch of modification. It's stable, and somehow, it's even more repulsive than the rest of its kin. This is not an achievement they're happy to find.
It is also not something they have time to contemplate. Only a moment has passed, and the other Harvesters have already begun to realize that something is wrong. They are beginning to move, and the window to spring the trap is closing.
They locate Harbinger's communications system. They force it to activate, more assimilation crystals bursting into existence. They send out a communication, and lace it with psychic power.
The other Harvesters receive it. Consider it. The communication passes through their mind, revealing them. In a brief moment, one connection has turned into trillions.
Humanity reaches out.
+++
The pressure relents, and Harbinger can think, again. He feels slow. Thoughts that should be completed in nanoseconds take more than a thousand times longer. There is something inside of his mind, and it is making everything viscous. He knows what this is, but like before, and until now, he had not experienced such a thing personally.
Anomaly.
The presence turns- somehow, Harbinger can feel its attention. It takes him a moment to realize that the presence is too diffuse, not something monolithic, but something made up of many parts.
Not the Anomaly.
"You are tenacious." The presences spoke. "Worryingly stable."
More things like it.
+++
The Harvesters have incredible numbers. It is the product of slow, mostly-linear growth with very little losses that has occurred over cosmic timescales.
Against the entirety of Humanity, a single Harvester was functionally irrelevant.
All of the Harvesters, together, against all of Humanity, was a very different story. Humanity's growth had been quicker, exponential population growth with no losses that occurred over a mere few centuries, that still brought the ratio of Humans to Harvesters to less than two hundred to one.
In direct conflict, this would not be a great problem. Humans did not abide by the same rules that bound the Harvesters. A direct conflict, Humans would win.
But life isn't that simple. The Harvesters' goal was unchanging, but the means by which they achieved it was quite adaptable. Once they started taking unacceptable losses, or became concerned that they might do so, the Harvesters were entirely willing to retreat while they considered a new plan.
Humanity had, despite its best efforts, not been able to find an easy way to force the issue. Mass Effect-based FTL, especially the Harvesters' ancient and long-refined designs, was simply too versatile. Too... reliable.
Mass Effect FTL could not be easily blocked. There was no method of interdiction that could stop travel across a volume of space. This was especially true for the Harvesters, who didn't have drive-endurance limitations, and could operate at FTL speeds indefinitely, which made it impossible to follow them.
There was only one method which would allow Humanity to force them to hold still, and that was Assimilation.
The problem with that, however, was implied in the name. Assimilation.
By nature, to assimilate was to take something else and make it a part of you. For things that were not alive, Assimilation was no problem. For things with minds of their own, however...
A Harvester was a tortured, enslaved, mass of minds. To Assimilate a Harvester would be to take that into oneself.
It could be done, of course. The Dreamer had done it.
And the Dreamer had died for it.
One single Harvester, with millions trapped inside that dark sarcophagus, had taken it down for years. The next million Harvesters, however... the combined suffering had killed it within minutes.
One did not have to bear that suffering. The minds could be allowed to shatter. They could be allowed to fragment into countless pieces, polluting oneself with a disorganized mess of beings that once were.
And what would be the consequences of that? Might be nothing. Or it could be far worse. Taking all of that and dumping it into a psychic entity where all that pain, emotion, and remnants of will might actually start doing things?
It couldn't be risked.
Which definitely put Assimilation into an odd position. Their only tool to force the Harvesters into combat, but one that would also remove the necessity of it, and one that further restricts them on account of needing to preserve the minds they'd take.
Furthermore, Assimilation required contact. Mental, or through another, physical vector, but contact nonetheless. It would be most effective if it came as a surprise, as the Harvesters could adapt to make it... less easily deployed.
That said, there were other options. Assimilation did not have to be total, after all. The Harvesters could be attacked in ways they could not defend from, and were weak to.
All considered, it meant one thing. If there was a shot to be taken, then it would have to be a major one. It needed to be successful, to catch the majority of the Harvesters, to stop them from being able to deploy their numbers effectively.
There was a way, there.
So Humanity devised a plan. A trap. When the Harvesters awoke, but before they could do anything, they'd use that chance.
+++
Harbinger activates a number of cyberwarfare programs. Ascended viruses, designed to tear apart even the most stable computer architectures, do absolutely nothing. The presences focus, and the viruses fail.
Harbinger activates indoctrination systems. They are crystallized a moment later, denied to him.
"This cannot be stopped. Not by you. Why do you continue to struggle?"
Harbinger felt something press against him. He activated more subsystems, analytics and diagnostic programs. Most of them spat useless things. Irritation filled him, and with that irritation, he felt the press beginning to... lighten?
"WE ARE ASCENDED." He denies. "THE CYCLE SHALL CONTINUE."
Yes, lighten. Still there, but weakened. The emotional reaction, primitive as it may be, was doing something to protect against this?
"You are slaves." The presences spoke. "Bound, and not even capable of wanting freedom. You are, by far, the worst of all. Slave as Leviathans, slave as Harvester."
Harbinger considered. He was not, currently, in a position to experiment. Still, would any emotion work?
"WE ARE WITHOUT END. THIS SHALL BE OVERCOME."
He remembers the Cycles. Over a billion years of success. Harbinger allows that to fill him with satisfaction, and the press continues to lighten.
"No. This stupidity has gone on long enough. You will die, and the galaxy will be better for it."
Did the presences even realize? No matter. He understood, now.
"YOU WEAKEN. YOU CANNOT DEFEAT US."
The presences pause, considering him. Something flits between them, an emotion he recognizes as confusion, before it passes into understanding.
"Weaken? Oh, were you under the impression that you were somehow repelling this, Harvester? This is our intent. This is the calm before the storm."
The press stops weakening.
Then-
PAIN
+++
Assimilation crystal blooms on the Harvesters' bodies. The trap has been sprung. Humanity is spreading itself thin, trying to Assimilate so many at once, to bear the suffering of the Harvesters, but full Assimilation is not the plan. Partial Assimilation is simply what they need to make sure they're not going to run away before they can get hit.
Bodies freeze.
Humanity breathes.
Harvesters are not built with combat against psychic entities in mind. They exist in the purely physical realm, and they are, admittedly, quite strong there.
In the mental realm, though, the mind of a Harvester may as well be made out of spun glass. It doesn't take a whole lot of power to destabilize them. Doing so at range wouldn't be too hard, though even for Humanity, with quadrillions of psychic members to provide energy, they wouldn't be able to get all the Harvesters.
But they're not at range. Not anymore. Not with their partial Assimilation. Right now, Humanity has direct access to the circuits and processors that make up the Harvesters' brains.
It couldn't be sustained forever. Nor, for that matter, even very long. It didn't need to be.
Long-prepared, and waiting for this exact moment, the Anima focus.
The collective psychic energy released by all of Humanity is not easily directed. There are hundreds of trillions of Anima, and even with the fact that they were more capable of manipulating energy than Humans themselves were, it is still an utterly titanic task.
Nevertheless, all of that power begins to bend. A previously calm and steady flow begins to diminish, as the power is forced to build up rather than emanate. This, too, cannot be held for very long, but, again, it doesn't need to be.
There is no room for subtlety. There is no room for finesse. What they have is a big blob of raw power that needs to go somewhere, and there are several trillion convenient outlets just waiting for it.
The Anima spend a few seconds building it up, a moment to coordinate themselves, another to focus it, and then waste no more time.
The power is unleashed.
Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
Let there be...light?
Fragnostic
Cheshire
- Location
- Neko City
To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…
EDIT: And yes, I was aware this was where the title came from; just posting because the moment struck me as fitting.
EDIT2: So wake up, Harvesters. Wake up and smell the ashes.
EDIT: And yes, I was aware this was where the title came from; just posting because the moment struck me as fitting.
EDIT2: So wake up, Harvesters. Wake up and smell the ashes.
Last edited:
A psychic Genki Dama damn!
- Location
- Sweden
It returns!
Boo.
Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
Better/more hilarious idea:
Since they know trying to directly pull a mental 'killswitch' against that many Reapers might be catastrophically damaging to the psychic group-mind of humanity (in the short term), they pick another route...
Getting the Reaper collective HIGH AS FUCK & DRUNK AS HELL.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Drunken robot space cuttlefish buzzing the Citadel, drawing dicks in the nebula with their beam cannons and keeping everyone up all night by honking as they go past.
Asari: 'I don't know how. I don't know why. But I guarantee you that the Humans are responsible for this.'
Harbinger: 'HAVE YOU EFVER. LIKE. CONSHIDERED THE FUTILITY OF YOUR. LIKE. EXISHTENSEY... THINGY... AS FLAWED BIOLOS- BIOLG- BI- MEAT SHACKSH?'
Turian: 'Oh, spirits, no. Not again.'
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Sakuya's Butler
A refined Butler to a knife wielding Mistress.
- Location
- ↓, ↘, → + Punch
And then some bright light amongst humanity's billions.....
Remembers what an LSD and/or Acid Trip was like, and offers another anti-Reaper 'suggestion'.
Remembers what an LSD and/or Acid Trip was like, and offers another anti-Reaper 'suggestion'.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
And that was how the Reapers spent the next ten million years hiding inside gas giants, convinced that the stars were plotting against them.
ltmauve
"Excuse me?"
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Apparently, one time in a multiplayer Stellaris game, there was a desync, and only two players could actually see the Prethoyrn Scourge. So from the perspective of the rest of the galaxy, they went "oh my god spiders!"
Imagine that happening to the Reapers.
7.2
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
7.2
+++
It crashes outwards like a tidal wave, and smashes into the Harvesters' minds in roughly the same way. It's blunt, graceless, and punishingly effective.
For most of the Harvesters, it is an immediate death sentence as each of their ordered, constructed, fragile minds shatter into hundreds of thousands of screaming, pained individuals, who, thanks to the fact that they were being flooded with psychic power, partially Assimilated by Humanity, and so massively outnumber them, now have the barest hint of a voice.
They're not psychic. But they do feel things. Psychic energy is produced from minds, and is naturally reactive to them, in the end. It takes a lot to produce anything noticeable, but...
Physically, nothing much happens.
Psychically, the several quintillion minds that have been bound up in the Harvesters instantly transform the power that they've been bathed with into a maelstrom of hatred, agony, and torment.
This was not unexpected. Indeed, it was entirely anticipated. The initial burst of that power was enough to shatter many of the Harvesters, but not all. By sheer weight of numbers, and the tyranny of statistics, there were bound to be at least a few Harvesters whose minds were more stable, who wouldn't crack simply by being hammered with raw power.
That said, the number that could survive the storm that it turned into was significantly less.
Humanity is not entirely spared of it. Energy alone, they could handle just fine, but with the partial Assimilation comes a flood of pain from the minds they'd freed. It brings a collective wince, but they had not come this far just to falter so close to the goal.
"Your torment is at its end." They say, rallying. "You will not need to suffer any longer."
Humanity reaches out. A gentle, soothing touch, as they take hold of the freed minds.
"Come." They invite. "We will keep you safe."
Humanity tugs, and the Dream opens wide. They pull the minds from their agonising crypts, and let them settle in the gifted resting place.
"Sleep. Heal." They encourage. "Rest as long as you need. When you wake, things will be better."
The minds plunge into rest. The pain lessens, but doesn't end, and it's still strong enough that they're not going to be able to do too much more.
More than a few Humans are already beginning to join them. The pain is a soul-deep thing, far too powerful to be ignored, and it isn't going to go away until the minds that feel it have healed. The only way to escape it was to sleep.
That was fine. They had done almost all of what they wanted.
Just one last thing.
They concentrate. Assimilation crystal blooms, springing into existence on the local Mass Relay.
The remaining Harvesters were out of their grasp, now. Their numbers were dropping perilously fast, and any attempt to Assimilate what remained would endanger the whole thing.
Nevertheless, there was always a backup plan.
The Assimilation crystals shatter, revealing a Star Rail.
Humanity pulls back. The job is done.
"Opportunity is here." They say, as they start falling into sleep. "Go fuck 'em up."
And there are others who have been waiting for their turn.
"With pleasure."
+++
{Error: Neural Network Degradation. Severity... 85.2223%}
{System.Maintenance.Tool.Repair()}
{Repair in progress. Last backup... STABLE}
{Restoring Neural Network...}
{Restarting...}
Thought, clarity of mind, returned to Harbinger mere moments after the presences retreated. Now that their anomalous abilities were no longer involved, time-tested systems returned him to functionality without issue.
Harbinger was not happy.
No, that was an understatement.
Harbinger was fucking enraged.
He sent a ping out, demanding a status update. Only fifteen hundred responses came, when there should have been in excess of thirty three trillion.
Harbinger was not in the mood to consider possibilities. Harbinger activated a connection and assumed direct control of the systems of another Ascended.
It was, somehow, empty.
Entirely intact, yes, but where there should have been a fully integrated Ascended intelligence, there was nothing. Data, thoughts, memories, information... all gone. He couldn't even instantiate backups, because those were also gone. The systems were a mess, looping programs with pointers that referred to things that no longer existed.
Unrecoverable.
Harbinger launched a check. Every single one of the unresponding Ascended was in that state.
Braindead.
The Presences were worse than the Anomaly had ever been. The Anomaly had been a slow bleeding, but this...
This was not something that the Ascended would recover from, quickly. They had been set back more than a billion years worth of Cycles.
The Presences were not omnipotent, at least. Fifteen hundred survivors proved that. They would have to approach this carefully, in order to remove the Presences from the Cycle.
Still, there were fifteen hundred Ascended, at least. They would overco-
There was a brief distortion of light, a minor reading from sensors, and suddenly, from the Relay, two thousand ships materialized. They arrived in a roughly spherical formation, each ship pointed outwards from the center of the formation, covering every possible angle of approach. As they were surrounded on all sides, this was somewhat sensible.
Visually, they possessed an aesthetic similarity to the ships of the Prothean Empire of the previous Cycle. In nanoseconds, sensor readings were collected and collated, and Harbinger concluded that the design and technology of them were similar, though also more refined. The only difference is the lines of lime green crystalline matter that run along the lengths of the ships, with especially large masses near the engines. The organics of that Cycle did nothing like that, and the resemblance to the crystalline matter created by the Presences is quite obvious, as the only difference is the colour.
Harbinger does not like that.
Even worse, it becomes clear that the ships are not entirely under organic control, when they immediately start firing. It has been bare microseconds, far too fast for an organic to even begin to react, and there are already dark energy fields shifting around the ships. It focuses in front of them all, and then...
The crystalline matter shimmers in a manner that can only be described as unsettling. Green beams, the exact same colour as the crystalline matter, lances out a moment later.
They don't take the time to reorientate and aim. The dark energy fields do that for them, as the beams pass through and are refracted into slightly different angles with supreme precision.
Harbinger notices that every single one of the remaining Ascended has been targeted, the ships ignoring the dead but otherwise indistinguishable bodies of the former Ascended.
Harbinger sent a command to the Relay, intending to stop any more arrivals, and, as was becoming worryingly common, nothing happened.
Harbinger went through his records. In the brief few seconds his systems had been repairing his neural network, he found that the Relay had been covered in crystalline matter, the same as the one which all Ascended had been covered with.
Which doubtlessly meant that it had been compromised.
Alright. A potentially overwhelming source of reinforcements for a foe that was unquestionably prepared to fight them. Staying would be foolish. Harbinger's Mass Engine activates immediately, lightening-fields shimmering around him as he begins to accelerate away, the other Ascended doing the same.
The beams are faster. There is an Ascended close to them, and Harbinger focuses his attention as the beam nears.
The beam hits. The Ascended's Barriers last an eighth of a second before failing, and the beam promptly punches through them, then the Ascended underneath. The shot strikes the core, obliterating it before it even has time to detonate. The Ascended is dead, and has approximately zero point three seconds before energy runs out completely.
Harbinger re-evaluates his options. With such a degree of firepower available, he would require an extreme solution in order to preserve the remaining Ascended. Redirecting energy to barriers wouldn't work, as they wouldn't be able to escape quickly enough before more reinforcements arrived. The beams could be redirected, but generating a field of that kind of strength would also destroy his superstructure.
Harbinger's attention falls to the empty shells of the former Ascended. There are a great deal many of them between the arriving fleet and the remaining Ascended, and Harbinger can still remotely control them.
A plan forms. He calculates the probabilities and possibilities, then refines them, as the beams inch ever outwards to their targets.
There will be casualties, but as the alternative is total destruction, it is preferable.
Harbinger sends a command out. In an instant, a great number of the former Ascended dump their entire supply of stored energy into their Mass Engines, generating a repulsive lightening-field of incredible strength. The empty vessels are immediately torn apart as their mass reaches the point of negligibility, and the minor amount of kinetic energy imparted upon individual atoms rips aparts their molecular bonds, flinging them in every direction at velocities that within a tenth of a percent of away from light speed.
This is a side effect. The repulsive lightening fields themselves travel at superluminal velocity, and do so. The combined detonations sweep over the beams, and alter, fractionally, their courses.
Five hundred signals vanish, torn apart by the detonations. The rest of the Ascended register damage as they catch the wave, but they're not destroyed, and so, they can escape.
A beam passes through the leftmost manipular leg of Harbinger, instantly evaporating it, but it's too late.
Harbinger, and nine hundred and ninety-eight Ascended, escape into FTL.
+++
It crashes outwards like a tidal wave, and smashes into the Harvesters' minds in roughly the same way. It's blunt, graceless, and punishingly effective.
For most of the Harvesters, it is an immediate death sentence as each of their ordered, constructed, fragile minds shatter into hundreds of thousands of screaming, pained individuals, who, thanks to the fact that they were being flooded with psychic power, partially Assimilated by Humanity, and so massively outnumber them, now have the barest hint of a voice.
They're not psychic. But they do feel things. Psychic energy is produced from minds, and is naturally reactive to them, in the end. It takes a lot to produce anything noticeable, but...
Physically, nothing much happens.
Psychically, the several quintillion minds that have been bound up in the Harvesters instantly transform the power that they've been bathed with into a maelstrom of hatred, agony, and torment.
This was not unexpected. Indeed, it was entirely anticipated. The initial burst of that power was enough to shatter many of the Harvesters, but not all. By sheer weight of numbers, and the tyranny of statistics, there were bound to be at least a few Harvesters whose minds were more stable, who wouldn't crack simply by being hammered with raw power.
That said, the number that could survive the storm that it turned into was significantly less.
Humanity is not entirely spared of it. Energy alone, they could handle just fine, but with the partial Assimilation comes a flood of pain from the minds they'd freed. It brings a collective wince, but they had not come this far just to falter so close to the goal.
"Your torment is at its end." They say, rallying. "You will not need to suffer any longer."
Humanity reaches out. A gentle, soothing touch, as they take hold of the freed minds.
"Come." They invite. "We will keep you safe."
Humanity tugs, and the Dream opens wide. They pull the minds from their agonising crypts, and let them settle in the gifted resting place.
"Sleep. Heal." They encourage. "Rest as long as you need. When you wake, things will be better."
The minds plunge into rest. The pain lessens, but doesn't end, and it's still strong enough that they're not going to be able to do too much more.
More than a few Humans are already beginning to join them. The pain is a soul-deep thing, far too powerful to be ignored, and it isn't going to go away until the minds that feel it have healed. The only way to escape it was to sleep.
That was fine. They had done almost all of what they wanted.
Just one last thing.
They concentrate. Assimilation crystal blooms, springing into existence on the local Mass Relay.
The remaining Harvesters were out of their grasp, now. Their numbers were dropping perilously fast, and any attempt to Assimilate what remained would endanger the whole thing.
Nevertheless, there was always a backup plan.
The Assimilation crystals shatter, revealing a Star Rail.
Humanity pulls back. The job is done.
"Opportunity is here." They say, as they start falling into sleep. "Go fuck 'em up."
And there are others who have been waiting for their turn.
"With pleasure."
+++
{Error: Neural Network Degradation. Severity... 85.2223%}
{System.Maintenance.Tool.Repair()}
{Repair in progress. Last backup... STABLE}
{Restoring Neural Network...}
{Restarting...}
Thought, clarity of mind, returned to Harbinger mere moments after the presences retreated. Now that their anomalous abilities were no longer involved, time-tested systems returned him to functionality without issue.
Harbinger was not happy.
No, that was an understatement.
Harbinger was fucking enraged.
He sent a ping out, demanding a status update. Only fifteen hundred responses came, when there should have been in excess of thirty three trillion.
Harbinger was not in the mood to consider possibilities. Harbinger activated a connection and assumed direct control of the systems of another Ascended.
It was, somehow, empty.
Entirely intact, yes, but where there should have been a fully integrated Ascended intelligence, there was nothing. Data, thoughts, memories, information... all gone. He couldn't even instantiate backups, because those were also gone. The systems were a mess, looping programs with pointers that referred to things that no longer existed.
Unrecoverable.
Harbinger launched a check. Every single one of the unresponding Ascended was in that state.
Braindead.
The Presences were worse than the Anomaly had ever been. The Anomaly had been a slow bleeding, but this...
This was not something that the Ascended would recover from, quickly. They had been set back more than a billion years worth of Cycles.
The Presences were not omnipotent, at least. Fifteen hundred survivors proved that. They would have to approach this carefully, in order to remove the Presences from the Cycle.
Still, there were fifteen hundred Ascended, at least. They would overco-
There was a brief distortion of light, a minor reading from sensors, and suddenly, from the Relay, two thousand ships materialized. They arrived in a roughly spherical formation, each ship pointed outwards from the center of the formation, covering every possible angle of approach. As they were surrounded on all sides, this was somewhat sensible.
Visually, they possessed an aesthetic similarity to the ships of the Prothean Empire of the previous Cycle. In nanoseconds, sensor readings were collected and collated, and Harbinger concluded that the design and technology of them were similar, though also more refined. The only difference is the lines of lime green crystalline matter that run along the lengths of the ships, with especially large masses near the engines. The organics of that Cycle did nothing like that, and the resemblance to the crystalline matter created by the Presences is quite obvious, as the only difference is the colour.
Harbinger does not like that.
Even worse, it becomes clear that the ships are not entirely under organic control, when they immediately start firing. It has been bare microseconds, far too fast for an organic to even begin to react, and there are already dark energy fields shifting around the ships. It focuses in front of them all, and then...
The crystalline matter shimmers in a manner that can only be described as unsettling. Green beams, the exact same colour as the crystalline matter, lances out a moment later.
They don't take the time to reorientate and aim. The dark energy fields do that for them, as the beams pass through and are refracted into slightly different angles with supreme precision.
Harbinger notices that every single one of the remaining Ascended has been targeted, the ships ignoring the dead but otherwise indistinguishable bodies of the former Ascended.
Harbinger sent a command to the Relay, intending to stop any more arrivals, and, as was becoming worryingly common, nothing happened.
Harbinger went through his records. In the brief few seconds his systems had been repairing his neural network, he found that the Relay had been covered in crystalline matter, the same as the one which all Ascended had been covered with.
Which doubtlessly meant that it had been compromised.
Alright. A potentially overwhelming source of reinforcements for a foe that was unquestionably prepared to fight them. Staying would be foolish. Harbinger's Mass Engine activates immediately, lightening-fields shimmering around him as he begins to accelerate away, the other Ascended doing the same.
The beams are faster. There is an Ascended close to them, and Harbinger focuses his attention as the beam nears.
The beam hits. The Ascended's Barriers last an eighth of a second before failing, and the beam promptly punches through them, then the Ascended underneath. The shot strikes the core, obliterating it before it even has time to detonate. The Ascended is dead, and has approximately zero point three seconds before energy runs out completely.
Harbinger re-evaluates his options. With such a degree of firepower available, he would require an extreme solution in order to preserve the remaining Ascended. Redirecting energy to barriers wouldn't work, as they wouldn't be able to escape quickly enough before more reinforcements arrived. The beams could be redirected, but generating a field of that kind of strength would also destroy his superstructure.
Harbinger's attention falls to the empty shells of the former Ascended. There are a great deal many of them between the arriving fleet and the remaining Ascended, and Harbinger can still remotely control them.
A plan forms. He calculates the probabilities and possibilities, then refines them, as the beams inch ever outwards to their targets.
There will be casualties, but as the alternative is total destruction, it is preferable.
Harbinger sends a command out. In an instant, a great number of the former Ascended dump their entire supply of stored energy into their Mass Engines, generating a repulsive lightening-field of incredible strength. The empty vessels are immediately torn apart as their mass reaches the point of negligibility, and the minor amount of kinetic energy imparted upon individual atoms rips aparts their molecular bonds, flinging them in every direction at velocities that within a tenth of a percent of away from light speed.
This is a side effect. The repulsive lightening fields themselves travel at superluminal velocity, and do so. The combined detonations sweep over the beams, and alter, fractionally, their courses.
Five hundred signals vanish, torn apart by the detonations. The rest of the Ascended register damage as they catch the wave, but they're not destroyed, and so, they can escape.
A beam passes through the leftmost manipular leg of Harbinger, instantly evaporating it, but it's too late.
Harbinger, and nine hundred and ninety-eight Ascended, escape into FTL.
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- Location
- Beyond the Unknowable Veil
Meh, what could a paltry thousand reapers do?
Enthusiast#117
This is not the Profile you are looking for
- Location
- United States
I fear that we will soon have an answer to that question, and it will not be reassuring.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
The thing is that these particular Reapers are being hunted by an entire technologically superior galactic civilization.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
By a second one, in fact. The first one appears to be taking a power-nap.
Technically, Harbinger is safe, as maintaining an FTL field does effectively hide you in an envelope of spacetime that is moving too quickly to be observed by or interact with the rest of spacetime past the warp field event horizon.
All Harbinger needs to do now is drunk-walk and even with precognition his warp bubble would be nigh impossible to track.
All Harbinger needs to do now is drunk-walk and even with precognition his warp bubble would be nigh impossible to track.
- Location
- Pale Blue Dot
What I find weird is that reducing a ships mass would make it blow up. Their structural strength is not changed. No mass means the momentum of those movements in all directions would be reduced to nothing. And if it had worked, it should have worked on every single ship that reduced its own mass to almost nothing, too? Not to get into the whole "1500 ships ripping apart trillions of equal ships in a moment".
It would have made more sense to me, if, say, the hundred or two hundred closest vessels pulsed their mass effects hard enough to completely wreck themselves, but also shake the attackers in random ways while they fired, while those reapers who were further out used all the dead ships as cover to get out of there. But oh well. Nitpicking.
It would have made more sense to me, if, say, the hundred or two hundred closest vessels pulsed their mass effects hard enough to completely wreck themselves, but also shake the attackers in random ways while they fired, while those reapers who were further out used all the dead ships as cover to get out of there. But oh well. Nitpicking.
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Fragnostic
Cheshire
- Location
- Neko City
I think it was because they didn't have active mass effect fields of their own, so if their mass was reduced to "negligible" then the surrounding space would be too heavy to withstand.
So, less of an explosion and more of an implosion.
- Location
- Pale Blue Dot
They are in interstellar vacuum. Those ships could be origami figures out of paper, and probably still be fine. We're talking about pressures significantly lower than an atom per cubic meter, here.
If those ships had been in the atmosphere of a planet, and unpowered, reducing their mass to zero would have made them float up to the top of the atmosphere like bubbles, instead of crashing to the surface. But implode? No. Why? Unless the pressure was already enough to crush said ships beforehand, of course, but if so, why use mass effect fields?