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Post by xxphenomenonxx on Jan 27, 2009 16:08:10 GMT -5
(Alright. ^^ I wanted to write something, I’ve been dying to do a fanfiction for Mass Effect, which is basically a science fiction rpg. It’s an amazing game, you guys should go play it. Lol. On the Xbox 360 preferably. But that’s not the point. I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. xD I figured I should post it up here anyway ‘cause I know one person that’s gonna want to read it. In case any of the rest of you want to look into it, I’m putting a little guide up here so that you aren’t lost/left out on information/alien species, so on and so forth. It’s just a little something..maybe help with appearances and things like that, because we all know I suck at describing things. ._. But yeah. If you read it, I hope you guys like it. I’m liking it so far, anyway.)
Species Basic Appearances – Refer to for basic full body appearances.
Protheans- An extinct race of alien species. Highly advanced civilization inexplicably wiped out 50,000 years ago. We know now that they were destroyed by the Reapers.
Reapers- Threat to organic (living) creatures. AI (machines) that are hell bent on destroying all organic life. They allow organic life to reach its peak of existence, and wipe them out before retreating into Dark Space, allowing organic life to rise again, and then repeat the whole process. It is unknown why they do this. The Reaper in the picture is the large on in the middle. No other ship or machine in galactic space (those tiny things surround Sovereign ARE regular ships) can even compare in size and power.
Krogan- A dying, reptilian alien race. They are most known for their brutality, their animosity, and most especially, their combative natures. Their species is slowly fading away thanks to the Genophage disease, which renders only 1/50,000 Krogan births viable.
Salarian- An amphibian type alien race that it most renowned for it’s espionage and scientific exploits. They have fast metabolisms, generally speak faster then all other races and live only to about the human age of 40.
Asari- A diplomatic and ENTIRELY female race. Asari can have any color skin, and reproduce through a “mind link”. Any other species will do. Many Asari are extremely powerful at biotics.
Turians- A modern day alien species. Most commonly related to birds. Very disciplined, very honorable. Turian military requires ALL citizens to enter the military at the age of 15. Many Turians bear their own set of facial markings, dependent upon the colonies they each originated from. Turians that can use Biotics are called Cabals.
Commander Shepard- A human who managed to destroy Sovereign, a Reaper (the Vanguard for our destruction). A famous hero now, but also one of the main people involved in preventing the rest of the Reapers from leaving Dark Space and destroying all organic life as we know it. For this story’s sake, Shepard is Male.
Biotics- Any individual in ANY species that can use telekinesis, kinetic shields or matter disruption. This is the result of a fetus being exposed to Element Zero- the most powerful and unstable element in the universe, commonly used to power ships and instant warp transportation.
The System’s Alliance (Alliance)- Humanity. Earth’s combined forces in galactic space, from every nation, every country, every ethnic group on Earth.
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Post by xxphenomenonxx on Jan 27, 2009 16:23:55 GMT -5
Chapter One: Dirge of the Sagittarius Music- "Indestructible" by Disturbed [/color][/size][/b]
“There’s a certain line you don’t cross..sir. With all due respect.”
“Soldier…we understand that what you experienced on Faringor in the Hades Gamma Cluster was not something to be taken lightly. We aren’t making fun of you. We just want to know what happened.”
Smack.
An eighteen year-old Turian named Zayar, glanced up from the silver desk and the stack of papers that hit the metallic surface with a smack when her 42 year old superior officer and still in-field expert, General Lo, slapped the articles in front of her. Slowly, she looked back down to the desk, staring at the papers as if they held the answers. Honestly, she knew not a single thing to say. She doubted he would believe her if she told him.
Zayar’s skin was the color of metallic black. Like all turians, she had tough skin, almost reptilian in nature, which could withstand prolonged periods of radiation exposure. However, her skin was not thick enough (like the rest of her species) to be unaffected by bullets, lasers, knives and general weapons. She wore a familiar colonial facial pattern across the skin of her face, a tradition that had outlasted many years of strife and rebellion during the Unity Wars. The markings, as usual, were white and primarily dominated the lower half of her chin, below her eyes and across her jaw. She was smaller than her commanding officer; maybe around 5’7” in height, the obvious results of nature’s differences between the male and female aspects of the species; not nearly as broad shouldered and somewhat leaner.
The tines, or the spiked features that curled back over her head were long however, and dipped down at an angle, sharpening into fine points. Her eyes were a vibrant green, almost emerald. But her predatory gaze was fixed on the papers, almost wary as she reached out with two fingers and touched them. Her nostrils flared, and finally, she shook her head. The mandibles at either side of her jaw moved as she contemplated what to say, the sharp tines on each side pointed down and near her neck.
“General, please-“
“I’m not asking for anything,” he told her calmly, “but the truth. What. Happened. On Faringor?” General Lo watched her with more interest now, his own amber eyes boring into hers. He was much taller, over six feet, broad shouldered, with a pale grey skin and facial markings only around the tips of his tines at the back of his head. There was a pause between them. For an instant they could hear each other breathe, and finally the lower ranked soldier nodded.
It was a great disgrace for a Turian to lie, at any given time. Even murderers and serial killers had the (as some other alien species joked) unfortunate dismay of being honorable, and when asked, they confessed to crimes without hesitation. A Turian criminal would run until the day he was caught, and he would continue his work if necessary, but if ever subjected to interrogation…he or she would confess. The words “I cannot tell a lie.” meant something more to them, though unfortunately made the rest of the galaxy ogle at how far the Turians were willing to go to prove themselves noble. Was it not a lost cause to always be so up front and honorable?
Other species thought so.
But Zayar did not, and neither did General Lo. She felt a slight sting to her own pride as that question rose to the surface. She leaned back in her seat, pushed her hand off of the papers and sat up straighter. Her reply was a little more than angry.
“With all due respect…I joined the military at fifteen, as I was meant to. I’ve stayed on for three years, I’ve moved up a few ranks, a few tiers, I’ve done missions, I’ve done my duty.” She paused. The mandibles near her lower jaw moved, and she shook her head, nostrils flaring. General Lo could see a few of her teeth as she spoke. He was happy to see that her reaction was an angry one. It was the reaction he expected. “What happened on Faringor I can explain to the best of my ability,” she continued heatedly, “But don’t accuse me of withholding information from you, sir. I’m no barefaced, second class citizen. Not now, not ever. I tell the truth. I tell it fair, and I will fight anyone that says otherwise.” She paused again. A light growl issued from her throat, her emerald eyes flashing with a familiar challenge. As if to say, “Even you, sir.”
A silence settled over the small interrogation room. General Lo moved away from her, quite pleased. He crossed his arms behind his back, cocked his head a bit, and turned to look at her from over his shoulder. “Very good, Zayar. I apologize. However. I still need to know…what happened on Faringor?” He paused when she ducked her head again and stared at the papers. “It’s important,” he said finally with a soft sigh. “If anything is to be done-“
“Do you…ever hear things…General? Things you..you don’t even know what they are..?”
“…” He did not understand what she meant, but he did not interrupt her, not as she reached up and rubbed her temple with her fingers, trying to think. What did she mean?
“I do,” she said softly. “…but I didn’t use to.” She shuddered. “Like…buzzing…in my head. All the time- can’t…think.”
“…Are you hurt in any way?” Of course she was; a battle had taken place on Faringor, and she bore a few cuts and a few bruises here and there, but he wasn’t certain about the rest of her. Physically, she had injuries, yes, but mentally? He couldn’t say. He’d order a full body checkup once he was done with the interrogation; tell the doctors to give her the best treatment available. He wanted her to receive proper care and medicine for what had happened, and that meant giving her time away from the military, but at the moment his hands were tied by back-door politics. He had to find out what happened to her, or the politicians standing outside of the very room they were in (watching and listening to every word, no doubt) would eat him alive.
“No…I…well it hurts. But…you can’t fix it.” Her eyes closed and there was silence again. She sounded resolute.
“Zayar, I need to know-“
“We arrived there to search for that signal…it was so strange. Not a distress call but…not…ordinary. They thought it could be Prothean technology. Some ancient device triggered by some anomaly on the planet. But even the Captain thought it was strange. Said that Faringor was too cold and too barren to have anything to set off something like that.” She paused. “But after the incident a few years ago…no one wanted to take any chances.”
He watched her move back and forth in her seat for a minute, rubbing her temple with her fingers again. Now she was staring warily down at the desk once more. “..Captain Yurin went anyway, I presume.”
She nodded. “Under orders of the…ah..someone back home.” She shook her head, indicating that she knew not who. “Yurin was..very smart. The Captain knew what he was..d-doing.”
General Lo watched her, sympathetic. When she tripped over her words there was a sadness in there. He remembered flipping through a few old files before he arrived at the colony to interrogate her. Captain Yurin had control of the Sagittarius, a ship co-created by the Alliance and Turian military, almost like the Normandy. But nowhere near as advanced. Yurin had hand picked his crew, and she was one of the only new recruits he picked. Once a Turian, whether male or female, was assigned to a field or a crew, they stayed with that crew for most of their lives, unless something went wrong. Turian soldiers under the command of one Captain or so, even for a couple of years after bootcamp became close. Like a tight knit family. There was no doubt she had friends in her unit when the accident fell upon them all.
“I’m sorry, soldier. It wasn’t your fault. Or his…..please. Continue.”
“…augh. The buzzing…s-sorry. I’m sorry. It won’t- It won’t stop.” She growled at the end of that statement, sounding more feral, her green eyes flashing as she tore her hand away from her forehead. For a few seconds her nostrils flared, and finally she craned her neck back and closed her eyes. “I’m-I’m sorry. Trying to think-“
“Easy…soldier. Take your time, if you need it.”
“T-thank you.” She fell quiet again and spent a few seconds just breathing in and out deeply. When she was ready, she started up again, voice softer. “Once Captain had the orders..we followed through with them. He wasn’t the kind of man to say no when he was told to do something. And after a while, he seemed not to care anymore. He said something about superstitious nonsense.” She lowered her gaze sadly. “Just like the Captain to ignore something like that.”
“Go on.”
“We landed on Faringor without a problem at first. Though we spent a good two cycles…days, really, scouring that ice block of a planet from the Sagittarius. The Captain didn’t want to take the chance to dock and freeze the engine of the ship..and in truth we had thermal suits for maybe only a handful of men. Six to seven, no more, no less. He didn’t like to take risks…so we spent a good while scanning for the exact location to that signal at first. We knew the source was Faringor, but the Captain wanted to be sure that when we landed, we could find it in a heartbeat.”
Another pause.
“That didn’t go over so well, though,” she said softly.
“That sounds like standard procedure for any Captain to follow, given the situation. What next?”
Zayar ducked her head again and growled, the sound reverberating in her throat. Her brows seemed to furrow, her beak curled back a bit and her teeth were visible once more.
“Soldier. Tell me what happened,” General Lo prodded.
“Everything went wrong,” she bit out. “Everything!” She started to talk a bit faster, spurred on by anger and sorrow. “We landed on the damn planet just fine and we found the stupid signal. Yurin ordered half of us to go outside and at least observe the damn thing for a few moments to make sure we had it. If not, we’d get back onto the ship and search again from outside of the planet. He told a handful of us to get into the thermal suits. We did as we were told, nobody complained and we got out of the ship.”
“Is that when it happened?” He asked.
“No,” she bit out. She groaned, reaching up and rubbing her temple again. “S-sorry…I don’t mean to snap.”
“Just go on, soldier.”
“Sir, we weren’t equipped for something like that. Even with our weapons we didn’t stand a chance. We found the signal though….thing was buried under snow and ice. Half of it was anyway.”
“Half?” He questioned, cocking his head a little.
“There was a…podium-like thing. Maybe an antennae. I’m not sure which. But it was feeding the signal into outer space. It was loud. Like a device used to disrupt communication. Gave us a splitting headache.”
“What was it?”
“I’m still not sure,” she said honestly, sighing. “Pallus went up and scanned the thing, started checking it out…messed with it a bit.”
Now the General’s eyes flashed. “He played with it?”
She shook her head. “No…no. I’m not being fair. He was the ship’s best technician and even a bit of a doctor. He had a crazy streak…thought things that weren’t supposed to be funny were, but for the most part we ignored him. He was harmless. He was just a little strange is all.”
“Ancient technology isn’t a toy, soldier.”
“I know that,” she said softly. “And he did too. Normally he would have been a hassle to deal with on something like this. But from the first moment he set his eyes on the damn thing to…well. He was dead serious, that’s all. He knew what he was doing. I would say he messed with it, only because I have no clue what he was trying to do.” She paused. “But he wasn’t trying to kill us, General. I’m certain of that.”
“If he was we have no way to tell now. Continue.”
She sighed again. “I’m not sure if that thing was Prothean or not. Pallus knew ancient technology like the back of his hand. He was an expert on that kinda crap that the rest of us didn’t really care about. But ever since Shepard’s-“ she caught herself in time. “Ever since the Reaper invasion scare, every ship has been required to have some sort of expert. He was…a good man. A bit of a nutjob, but a genius at this. While the rest of us were setting up a parameter he was trying to turn the thing off I guess.” She shrugged, placing her hand over her temple again. “Yurin was with us outside…he started to get a little..nervous.”
“Why?”
“Instincts, I guess,” she said flatly. “He was good at hunches, good at…realizing things like that. He allowed Pallus to toy with the damn thing for a few minutes and told another soldier to go back to the ship and send out a message for support…I guess he was still adamant on trying to dig the damn thing up, but he wanted more help.”
“The Sagittarius had equipment and supplies-“
“To act as a fighter yes. But we didn’t have the tools of an excavation team. I’m…guessing I should be thankful Yurin ordered that message be sent out.”
The General said nothing. It was true. That message reached a nearby colony that sent out a team to help them retrieve whatever needed to be excavated. What they found however, was a drifting Sagittarius outside of Faringor’s orbit, the engines dead, the Captain missing, and only a handful of crew members still alive. In the end, only Zayar survived, the others having died not even an hour after being pulled away from the Sagittarius and into a medical bay.
The sole survivor, and the only person that could resolve this situation for both the Hierarchy of command, and the Turian military…was sitting in front of him, struggling to explain.
(More to come. :3 )
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