The higher I climb the ladder toward raging heaven the wider the gap between me and those yet to take their first step becomes. As a younger cultivator, I thought it was merely arrogance that led cultivators to think that a tyrant couldn't have anything to learn from a mere philosopher. After all, every single one of us had our own track in the divine mountain, surely their unique lived experience and perspective would be of some value. Surely.
Merciless reality laughs at humanity's wisdom. Those who dared transgress beyond the design of the Fates live in a different world from those languishing in the Fates design. A different world with different rules. Most mortals are… boring. There is no greater cardinal sin in the world of epics and legends. They always come to the same conclusion parroting words of dead men whose bones have long since returned to the earth as if they were the first ones to reach them. I have long since learned to quantify a man down to a number before even reaching the realm of legend myself.
The average person down the street is so dull that my soul is filled with despair. That is okay though. That is part of why I enjoy teaching. The detailed work of cultivating a crude soul into a uniquely excellence existence is not that different from cultivating my fields or rescuing a statue from the stone that entombs it. It is a creative process but said that it is still work. That is why I always greet with open arms any chance I get to eat my words. Be it bitter, sour, or sweet, the taste of wild fruits is always novel and delightfully unpredictable.
No place has surprised me like the Citadel.
This colossal deep-space station serves as the capital of intelligent space-faring species of the Milky Way. Similar in shape to a pentagram. It consists of a central ring 7.2 kilometers in diameter, from which five arms protrude, each 43.6 km long and 330m thick. This is twice the length of Manhattan's 21.5km long, allowing the Citadel to house over forty million 'intelligents'.
Sure, I could go on and on about its architecture, yapping about its history or ranting some drivel about the current political climate but to be frank I don't care. And the best part is, most habitants don't care either! Aliens discovered the Mass Relays and ended up bumping into the Citadel due to its strategic placement as the figurative starting point of the whole project, making the Citadel into a glorified port town.
It takes a certain type of character to abandon everything and everyone they know to search for their luck among the stars. This profile is what unifies both colonials and reavers alike, the mix of hope and desperation to gamble with one's own life as collateral. The inhabitants of Citadel? For one reason or another they wouldn't last a circle back in their home planet. Be it bohemians too acclimated to the cosmopolitan life or rebels chaffing under the yoke of authority or mavericks that are more at home inside their ships than in anywhere else.
Behind the veneer of enlightened society comprised of intelligent lives in the galaxy is raw greed shining through in hungry eyes. And because there is no rest for the wicked the Citadel never sleeps. Be it night or day cycle there is always entertainment to be had, each Ward (arm) possesses its own little personality and quirks... the Citadel is a place worth knowing.
It was pathetically easy to get a visa into Citadel. As wide as the galaxy may be, the concept of 'magic' is simply too farfetched for most intelligent life. Quiet the peculiar phenomenon: scientism. The blind bias that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality while scaping superstition and ignorance. Ah, the beautiful irony of faith! It was honestly funny to see the morties rationalizing themselves into denying the conclusion most obvious to their lying eyes. The positivist supposition is that 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. If only they paid less attention to the third and more to the first and second laws of Clarke then they wouldn't be so hopelessly gullible.
The more we were passed from hand to hand the more the details of our first contact got skewered as the 'absurdities' were omitted one by one. The krogans were rebelling after all, the higher-ups had greater concerns to worry about than a pair of hairless monkeys poached from their planet as an exotic species. The abduction of primitive species was a sad but common reality but since the perpetrators are dead the bureaucrats in charge were all too happy to wrap things up. Crazy how you can always count on the incompetence of bureaucracy.
Reila was not happy with it but she understood that this worked in our favor. She wanted to contribute to the war effort and was frustrated with the managerial incompetence of the Galactic Council. She also felt responsible for cajoling me into throwing our weight on the scales. But at the same time, she didn't want to ask me again to simply bulldoze through the red tape. I wasn't in the best of humors and the skepticism of the council races wouldn't be dispelled easily. The only medicine to both these problems was time. Time for the news to simmer, for our blessings and curses to spread and grow roots, and for reality to set in.
Reila hated to wait. A typical radiant soul, she was charismatic and well-liked. She had always gotten what she wanted by just trying hard enough. At some point, she just thought that was simply how the world worked. The first time she got a reality check was the Kaiser, and I suspect this is in no small part why she hates him. That is why she uses her time busing herself with what she can so, ergo pampering me!
She knows I will be more inclined to act once I have a rapport with real people. After all lizard people eating frog people and jellyfish people is just the way of nature, I can watch it without blinking an eye. It becomes another matter entirely once you have given each of them names and have learned their personality traits. She also knew I held some sympathy for the Krogans. It was the salarians cowardice that had led to the 'uplift' of Krogan civilization or lack thereof.
Instead of being left to their dark age in peace until they learned to tolerate each other for long enough to escape the dead rock their homeworld had become, the salarians rewarded their most destructive traits. As things were the Krogans would conquer the galaxy or they would go extinct trying and neither option was acceptable. I would not allow the Council to simply push their reckless imprudence under the hug like a youthful indiscretion. They would instead struggle right alongside the krogans as punishment.
Understand my stance in the matter Reila did what she could to protect the rights of the krogans that still call the Citadel home. The Dead Internet Theory is more than a conspiracy when she is involved; not that I am complaining. Spurred by the disintegration of the krogan front and strategic use of morally dubious mind control she managed to work some terms of amnesty and sell it as a strategic stunt.
And now after one year of living with me in the Citadel, she is preparing to make an offer I surely wouldn't refuse. Surely.
"Zagreus, I need to talk with you about something-
"My latest atelier is finally completed. We have an exposition to run. Can you send the invitation? Ever since my exposition of jewelry and dresses my work has been all the rage among the asari and I don't want another scandal like last time where two matriarchs started cat fighting in the middle of the auction."
"I swear, you use a blue cheek as a living canvas once, and now they think they can purchase commission if they just spend enough. Eh? I mean- yes, sure. It might take some time so we might as well have fun now. The Auxua School of the Arts of the Tayseri Ward is always a tread if only it wasn't crawling with asari…"
"Jealous?"
"As if! And stop saying things like that! People are misunderstanding our relationship!"
"Reila is so cute when she's possessive and worked up like that."
"I said to cut it out!"
"Brother, about what I told you before-
"Check it out Reila, Bral just opened his dream nightclub! My favorite krogan is going places, we have to there to his inauguration to make sure it is a success. Can you take care of his publicity in the extranet so everyone knows where is the best party house of the Citadel?"
"You really love a riot, don't you? Your swam song is a bit too much for mortals, Bral won't have a bar by the end of the night circle."
"That is the best part! Krogans are a rough bunch so he prepared it for those eventualities! People of the Citadel love trouble anyway, they will go there expecting things to go wild. If people wanted a tamed experience, they would go for night clubs in the Zakera Ward."
"Don't use this as an excuse to start trouble! I am tired of cleaning your messes."
"Does that mean that I should call Bral to cancel things?"
"Don't do the Puss and Boots teary eyes on me, that is cheating!"
"I didn't hear a no."
"Tsk, fine! Just… avoid any permanent damage."
"I will try."
"I want more than that!"
"Zagreus!"
"Yes, sister dear?"
"You promised me!"
"I promise many things, you will have to be more specific."
"Don't play coy, I am talking about the promise you made to let me take the lead in this adventure," Reila says fuming.
"You finally lost your temper, did you? I was wondering how much longer you could take before you decided to pull that card." I say with a check smile.
"You!?... I genuinely want to throttle you right now."
"My dear little sister, I kept my side of our deal exemplary. It's not my fault you are a wimp who fold at the slightest pout or teary eye. It's just as you said – I am too cute for my own good."
"Okay, first of all, I am the older sibling here!" She said while pointing a thumb at her own person.
"That is debatable," I argued. Petulant of me since we both agreed our relationship status is marked by our tied godhood. I could try to argue that she only qualifies as an Ascended God because I killed and absorbed the soul of the Heartless One, putting us on equal footing to Almer and F&H who had a new god parent, but this would play to her favor.
"Second," She steamed rolled my objection to seize me, and put me on her lap despite my protests. In hindsight, I have grown too comfortable in my puer aeternus form, while Reila is a prune granny people of her generation had no reservation about engaging their parental instincts so she could be really touchy-feely. "I am calling the shots now. You are going to the Presidium today. You will meet the Council Chambers at the Citadel Tower and you are going to accept the position of Specter when they offer it to you." She dictates like the tiger mon that she is.
"Do we really need to? Haven't you already showered the turians with gifts? I am sure they can handle it from here."
"I don't know what you are talking about." She says a bit too quickly, or as the Turians call it - bare faced. Because she is a lying lier that lies.
"I am talking about all the numerian technology you gifted them with, plus the guidance in Roman-style cultivation."
"How did you…
"Please, I am the ruler of shadows here. Besides angels are surprisingly competent infiltrators from the get-go, painting them in the colors of my banner only increased their disposition."
"I really should have seen this coming… anyway. You already know this, but the Turian got a seat in the Council. I am not making the same mistake again, they are disciplined and civilized, more than capable of exerting restrain and grandstanding instead of blind force and their focus on the collective has set them as political animals more than capable of easily integrating with the galactic community and defending it from aggressors."
"And that was a sales pinch if I have ever heard one. Good for them to get a patron goddess like yourself, but I am still skeptical. Plus, I might joke about 'morties' but I haven't completely lost my sense of scale."
Reila signed, she sort of saw the point I was harping about, my blessings were a bit… overwhelming. When I first came across Toji Fushiguro I had already started to shed my silk bonds of mortality and reached the precipice of the mortal realm, my level of raw bodily refinement surpassed his own so I saw nothing of exceptional worth at first. That is until Yuki pointed out its particularities, and while she was more focused on the heavenly restriction ability to sever him from negative energy, my own background made me curious how the mechanics of heavenly restriction could make an ordinary person into a superhuman.
A Titan is to an Olympian what an Olympian is to a man. The divine sparkle of the Titan of the Molten Clay refined both body and soul. Between Prometheus and Vitruvia, two architects of the human body, it was clear the body is a black box endowed with an opaque and profound mystery similar to the soul. Aristotle once compared cultivation to the untangling of the knot in one's soul and between my ten years studying both, my peek at Toji's body and Bakkhos's starlight marrow as reference points, Rher's Greater Mystery, Aang's energy bending, Mahito's Idly Transfiguration, Areelu's Transformation experiment and my own heroic mysteries I have cracked the code.
As someone whose soul was awakened twice by the hands of two different gods, I can say with authority that besides Sukuna and Gojo, all sorcerers I had met were just skin and bones, only those two ever reached the bone and marrow of True Jujutsu. The same could be said for Joji with respect to the body, by accident or design a complete heavenly restriction forces the awakening of the body. When I skewered Gallun and friends with the light of my Star Rage I reached into their soul and body and unfastened the gordian knot of their soul with a precise and brutal sword blow. Not only did they seize their virtue in its truest sense but their body went from mundane clay to a superhuman level similar to Toji's without the drawbacks.
I wasn't kidding when I said they had become stronger than any first-rank civic cultivator had any right to be. There is a reason I can't perform most shapeshifting magic from the transmutation school on myself as freely as other casters. My bodily refinement had reached a level where my body was a perfect house of mirrors with my soul. Yuki told me Toji had something similar which explained the anomaly that happened when I animated him.
I intellectually knew that a mortal's reality was fixed, that the divine could seize mortal souls in hand and not only unmake all of their efforts but also make it better or reshape it to suit their fancy. There is no security to be found in a sound mind, the idea that mortals held any kind of sovereignty over their own souls is a mortal conceit. Rher had carved this lesson in his very bones but it was still galling how easy it was once I had figured out said trick.
But this also means I am responsible for everything that follows. Giving my blessing to the Turians would elevate them into a race of super soldiers capable of conquering the galaxy. I might have bestowed this blessing to the kellids of Sarkoris and crusader knights of Mendeve to push back against the demonic incursion but the only reason I trust them to not start a campaign to conquer the inner sea the moment my back is turned is in part because they now have a silver bright kingdom worth more than anything they mind find beyond their walls.
Besides, such shortcuts had their downsides. Because Heaven is cruel even for those it means well and for all intents and purposes heroes are demi-gods counted among the ranks of its agents. While Aristotle described cultivation as the untangling of a knot Socrates described it as an unbridled chariot running downslope. My interference was effectively cutting off the brakes, they would either reach the pinnacle of mortal cultivation or they would die on their way down. That is what it means to 'solve' the Gordian Knot.
Reila could see my skepticism as a palpable thing, so she pampered me some more before she went for the kill. "I promise that unless we find a danger threatening the entire galaxy you don't have to worry about any of that. You can think of it as a bis of our little adventures in Numeria. Spectres have unparalleled freedom and autonomy in how they perform their mission. We can explore the galaxy at our heart's content and if really decide you can't stand it then you can abdicate at any moment."
"Um, that is cheating, you know I am hated by the Fates, no matter how generous your proposition I will end with the short end of the stick. With my luck, we won't be able to get out of the Citadel without stumbling over a galaxy-ending treat." I say while standing up.
"Come on, you big baby! It will be fun. We are finally getting a real Star Trek adventure!" She says excitedly.
Despite myself I couldn't help but get infected by her enthusiasm, Reila was truly radiant when she got passionate about something. By the end of the Krogan Rebellion the Turian Hierarchy will have to anoint her as their state religion or they will have to face a second Unification War, and considering the first one slowed their space exploration for one thousand years I don't see them take those chances. For them the Krogan Rebellion is their Great Patriotic War, the means to consolidate their race into a single organization.
Spectres, space super agents with a license to kill. And I am not exaggerating either. These agents are entrusted with extraordinary authority by the Citadel Council, including the power of life and death over the inhabitants of the galaxy. Spectres work either alone or in small groups according to the nature of a particular task and to their personal preference.
Their structure is inspired by salarian Special Tasks Group (STG), which is responsible for monitoring developing situations and taking necessary action, usually without the shackles of traditional laws and procedures. Even right now the salarian have followed the increased attrition between the krogans and the rest of the galaxy for the last three hundred years and prepared accordingly and when the krogan finally turned against the Citadel, the Spectres were ready for them, using guerrilla tactics such as computer viruses and devastating sabotage to slow the krogan down before the turians joined the conflict.
I am, of course, aware that as soon as the higher-ups realized they left the guy responsible for cursing the krogans inside the Citadel heads started rolling and the Spectres were the ones taking them. They at first suspected some kind of brainwashing technology or biological ability, and considering how spread out and autonomous they are, the salarians among their ranks almost made some… let's say regrettable decisions. As in their descendants would curse them. But fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and when I say that I mean asari heads. Instead of trusting their decisions to frogs who live for up to forty years, they decided to give the wheel to the species that has to live with their mistakes for a millennium.
The Council contacted the Turian Hierarchy and decided to expedite their promotion. With the turians joining the council their first spectrer candidate was not a turian but me. Which means Reila totally tattled on me.
I am fully aware of how capricious I can be but the fact people are starting to plan around me by counting on it bothers me greatly. They want me out of Citadel space past haste but know better than to force the issue. There is also the growing humor that, well, magic is real. I really hope to see how people will report this in the future, this will be the clown show of the millennia! A bunch of white-collar bureaucrats dancing around the obvious. People won't be able to accuse me of not having a sense of humor.
That is when Reila came up with this plan and the fact that people at the top of the ladder of Turian Hierarchy green-lighted it shows how little say they had in the matter. We will still get one member of each race for our crew like they were Pokemon for the sake of appearances and so the Council could feel like they had some semblance of control by keeping tags on me while I galivant across the galaxy.
That isn't to say that those races aren't worth some respect. Every single one of their society has their own virtues and flaws, and like always, it shows. The fact they had the tact to appeal to higher power instead of going off on me is truly commendable. I am often disappointed so indulging their temperance in the face of stress is the minimum I could do in recompense.
This is a pretty sweet deal, spectres have no command structure. They answer only to the Council, and in some cases, the Council prefers not to know the exact details of how a Spectre accomplishes their mission.
Besides I am curious about the proteans. Or to be more specific, whatever f*cked up civilization was responsible for designing the keepers. Named for their role as custodians of the Citadel, this insectoid race is the opposite of androids - the lights are on but there is nobody home, these things are souless. The only life forms I have ever come across that were absolutely incapable of cultivating were aberrations and biological constructs such as homunculus. And considering what I learned from the mi-go it seems that what separates those capable of cultivate is purpose. The blind miracle of life is fundamentally senseless, the only purpose life forms can be said to have is to propagate yet we still have to live even before we reach sexual maturity and after menopause. So we search to fill our lives with purpose and meaning and we grow and change while being fated to die.
Most intelligent robots, even the magical ones, can't cultivate. Unity was far more than a glaring exception, it was a damming indiction of its defectiveness, glaring proof that it was damaged beyond anyone's capacity to repair. Some aberration slave races like the shoggoth were no different from machines too. The thing is, those don't really happen in nature by accident. Someone went out of their way to make a biological slave race when a robot would do just fine and that worries my funny bone, a prescient intuition I inherited from Shadow.
The whole Citadel makes no goddamn sense! What kind of asshole builds an intergalactic highway and then just leaves without leaving a trace? The asari didn't even find some protean secret p*rn stash hidden somewhere. That is how I know something is up, the only intelligent species not up to so dirty fun are those with mating seasons and rachni who are a hive-mind colony of space bugs.
The races living in the citadel don't even have the means to scan the keepers or know about their secret tunnels inside the inaccessible core of the citadel. There are too many things unknown about the mass relays, the Citadel, and its keepers and I want to know them. Especially since I am not as limited as the mortal races of the Citadel, the moon god cursed me with sight to rub the ugliness of the masses to my face. My eyes are better, more precise, and more penetrating than any scanner a mortal could ever come up with. That is why I know based on what I learned from the macabre biological science of the Dominion of Black that the keepers have been programmed to react to something every fifty thousand years. A fact whoever actually created the keepers wanted to keep a secret to the point of designing self-destruction protocols to obstruct any study of these enigmatic beings.
And so, I went to the Citadel Tower to meet the Council. They were so spooked that they didn't dare meet me in person, bestowing my new office through a video call on the excuse they had urgent matters related to the war. In their defense, mortals are easily overcome by awe at the sight of a hero, which is fair since heroes are a mix of celebrity and living saint, living proof that the peak is within reach. But for scientifically oriented aliens it looks like I am broadcasting some mind-controling radiation. The works of art and items that I fashioned are being scrutinized like dangerous alien artifacts.
From the messages Reila has intercepted the Council thinks we are some kind of super-advanced god-like alien race. They haven't exactly been subtle with the scanner and that is why they know my heart is an atomic reactor thanks to Eminence in Shadow's little gift which both spooked and also gave them a teether as something that scientifically make sense. It's quite amusing actually, I finally understand why some aliens would carve circles in some hick's plantation, their wild theories are amazing! I even started to show off a little just to see what wild theory they would come next.
They theorize that my kind is either solitary or prone to live in small groups which is accurate and why they don't need to fear an invasion. Their goal is to collect some data by observing directly which is why I was granted a list of operatives to be my chaperone/spies.
"Alright, try out the ladies. Let's take a look and see," I say aloud as I browse through a list of asari huntresses. "I hate her hair, not my type, yikes… yikes, yikes, and let me guess she has a great personality."
"You are not searching for a date." Reila chastised me for my attitude.
"Never say never." I say coyly.
"… I am not falling for your little games. You are doing it just to rile me up."
"Oh, this one!"
"Let me see that!"
Reila took the folder from my hand as soon as I chose it even as her ears burned with the side glances it earned her. "Taeze Helisus, a matron huntress which is unusually old. It seems she spent her latter years settled down broadening her horizon and eventually developing a fascination with protean archeology. That- that is a perfectly reasonable choice…
"And she is also the only milf of the lots."
"Ahhhhhhh," Reila growled as she crumbled the folder in her hands. And here the people of the Citadel went through the trouble of printing it instead of using a digital archive.
"I already let you pick the Turian, one Varden Vakarian. Scarface-looking motherf*cker, the perfect little soldier with the typical stellar record with more medals than chest area to pin them all on. What is it with you and military man, are men in uniform you type?"
"Perish the thought! It is just… he is more sensible than his background would suggest so I thought he would fit while still fulfilling his role as a representative of the Turian Hierarchy."
"And the salarian? Did you pick an egghead scientist?"
"Dr. Torparth Sassi Camalo Aelane Inmorne Arall is a perfect fit for your team, I am sure of it!"
"Now say his name again six times as fast as you can."
Reila answered by doing just that in pin, the closest I will probably get of her flipping me the bird. "Salarian names are very long and are as follows: 'Homeworld, Nation, City, District, Clan Name, Given Name'. Just call him Dr. Arall, and he is open-minded enough for a scientist to embrace outlandish possibilities."
"Yeah, if he was any more open-minded it would fall right off his brain case though. The guy is a loon."
"You know how enlightened souls can be. He is mostly excited by the new horizon of knowledge discovered by us."
"I wasn't chastising you. I love Mad Scientists!"
"Dr. Arall is a respectable member of the scientific community! I am sure he is more ready to deal with the madness that follows you! Far better than the krogan brute you are recruiting!"
"Hey, Bayle is a seasoned veteran of the Rachni War and nothing short of a consumed professional soldier."
"The first time we met he was beating another krogan with his own severed testicl*s like some macabre flail!"
"Krogans have redundant biological systems, the other guy still had a pair left after that and an improved behavior as well so no permanent harm was done."
"How considerate."
"And that makes four. I think we are done here. Send the missives and let's meet our new teammates."
"Please, don't make me regret this," Reila says while massaging her forehead.
"I make no promises."
Now that I had some time to myself, I had to admit I was a bit excited. While we had a destination in mind there were some interesting sights across the galaxy. The perfect opportunities to build a rapport with our new comrades before we reach Eden Prime. This is a good chance to make some memories.
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
Chapter got delayed because I was reviewing the ME plot, plus I got distracted. The writers clearly were making up things as they went along just to then glue them together. I cool feature of the first games that were lost by the end of the series was the damning implication of the existence of the Reapers. They claimed to not have a beginning nor end, a cyborg race that defied the common assumption and stated that the galaxy was theirs and organics were simply living in it. This was a powerful statement and the fact the reapers were in no rush to explain themselves as they consumed organic species gave them gravitas, an aura that got lost once they started to explain themselves.
At its core Mass Effect was a conflict between those chaotic beings tied to the mystery of life that caused the periodic tablet to sprout legs and evolve and orderly beings of sterile perfection and purpose. Reapers most devastating avenue of attack is metaphysical, putting into question organics' subjective experience of reality to get inside of their minds. This is indoctrination, it is subtle cancer to the mind that infects the body and severs it from said mystery. Just an empty husk as good as dead and replaced by a malevolent and hateful ghost inside the bionic machine.
