Mass Effect: Reaper Dreams

The Hounds of Hell

"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, when we could have said - no. But somehow we missed it."

Tom Stoppard

December 8th, 2187

Dr. Gavin Archer

Gavin Archer's life aboard the Roraima had been restrictive and tedious. The spools of data he worked on every day were nothing short of confounding. He'd never seen anything like it. The only thing he'd rightly deduced was a base of the numeric system he was working with, which was nine-hundred and six. Why that number? Gavin found it damn peculiar. It was clunky and restrictive. He'd yet to see any civilization, ancient or otherwise, that had a need for such a bulky base of numerical values.

The other thing he discovered, was that the data he was seeking was apparently encoded on a sub-atomic level. The ability to encrypt data onto atoms themselves, well, it was simply astonishing. It also caused him to reflect. What device could read or write such data? Gavin recalled one piece of the Crucible that had astounded the scientists who were constructing it. A device that seemingly had no purpose, yet was the single most difficult item to create.

From what they could gather, it was a highly advanced EPD with a quantum stabilized atomic mirror crafted of a cryzon crystal, wave polished to a half micron in thickness, and coated with a three picometer layer of element zero. It was the single most delicate instrument produced in galactic history—a scientific achievement in its own right, and the bugger of it all was that they didn't know what it was, or what it was going to do.

On the one hand, much of the Crucible was straightforward, almost too straightforward, but there was an underlying complexity that went beyond the most brilliant minds. It confounded and vexed the greatest scientists in the galaxy. Much of the time they were flying blind. There was an argument for bypassing some of the undefinable and yet complex sub-assemblies altogether, but Hackett wouldn't hear of it. He insisted that every portion of the Crucible be included, and for the whole operation to be built in record time.

The Admiral was asking scientists to make a leap of faith, to believe in miracles. They did so under protest, but they did it because it was the only option. The Asari scientists handled the awkward working conditions the best.

"It is a Prothean design," they would say.

For the Asari, that was enough, but not so for the Salarians. There were arguments aplenty, frustrations, and at times a sea of doubt, but what else could they do? They built it. They had no time to test it, in fact the final touches were put on in transit, and somehow—someway it worked. Gavin didn't believe in miracles, yet he had witnessed one firsthand.

Why had it happened for their cycle and not of the others? The Council affiliated races were nothing compared to the Prothean Empire. Their fleets were a joke compared to the armadas the Inusannon once deployed. There were ancient races that had developed weapons powerful enough to destroy Reapers with one strike, and yet all of them had fallen. Why had this cycle succeeded? Was it blind luck, fate, or was it something else?

He turned his attention back to his work. What kind of AI was he dealing with? This was far beyond quantum computing. The ability to read and store data on single atoms in such large base blocks, well it was inconceivable. A sub-quantum AI, capable of God-knows-what. The Reapers were able to indoctrinate by altering brain waves, but it was a crude level of manipulation that eventually caused irreparable cellular damage in the brain.

An AI that could do this? The implications were indescribable, and terrifying. Computer firewalls would be rendered obsolete. Stopping a sub-atomic code with their current technology would be like trying to filter bacteria out of water with a pasta colander. Any VI or AI in the galaxy would be vulnerable. This AI could control any computer in existence, and possibly even organics.