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( voice | un: vakarian )

I noticed other new arrivals asking after their friends. While I could do that, my friends are generally difficult to miss. The Krogan ones especially.

The welcoming party and I had a bit of a go and that landed me nowhere. Sooo I figure maybe someone can help a poor guy out and show him where he can crash? Maybe even find something to eat that won't kill him?

That last one might be a little much to ask for.

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[It's like someone must have sucked the joy out of your life there, bud.]

Are we talking organic monsters or sentient machines hellbent on saving the galaxy by consuming its inhabitants monsters?

The latter I'd really like to never see again.

Edited 2017-06-14 00:10 (UTC)

[Don't mind the almost rattling laughter that comes from him upon THAT reply, Garrus. Because that sounds way too familiar, and even if he won't say anything like it: knows that feel, bro.]

Organic, lucky for both of us.

I've had more than enough of fighting of mechanical menaces for double my lifetime, too, thank you very much.

[Oh, so he can laugh. Or make a noise close to it. While Garrus isn't entirely sure why, he can make an educated guess. His conversation partner here at least confirms it for him.]

Now where I'm from, the Geth aren't too bad. At least Legion had never been a problem. Just consider yourself lucky you haven't had a run in with a Reaper. Nasty things capable of hiding out in dark space and infecting organic life.

So yeah. I'll be very happy to shoot something that bleeds instead for a change.

[.......]

Tell me more about these 'Reaper' things.

How do they infect organic life?

[This is suddenly weirdly focused. He'll get to the rest of Garrus' discussion after he confirms something.

(Coincidence it has to be a coincidence).]

Hopefully, you'll never find out.

They were created by a really ancient race to, basically, preserve life. Like most AI, they eventually started to interpret that a different way. So now they wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy every fifty-some thousand years. It's a cycle that we're doing what we can to stop.

[There's more to it than that, obviously. But that's the gist of it.]

Really there's more than one way they go about it. They can either control someone's thoughts or slowly replace organic tissue with cybernetics. The Reapers can control and possess them this way. Usually it involves killing the person through dehydration and reanimating them through these cybernetics.

[He'd be a fucking liar if he said he was anything but uncomfortable right now. It's lucky he has his face hidden behind a mask--as Garrus won't be able to see the twisted, conflicted look on it.

He's a military man, ex-Black Ops with over thirty years of experience: So he keeps any sort of emotion out of his voice.]

Death and rebirth, as something else. Do the living creatures they dehydrate and re-animate retain any of their previous self? Or do they become part of some hive mind, following the directive of 'wiping out' other life?

[There has to be something else here.]

That depends on the level of indoctrination. I've seen some people fight it off, if it's only their minds that have been tampered with. After it becomes more invasive?

No. Nothing remains that I have seen. They become a part of a collective.

[That'll put his mind at rest, at the very least. He's never been anything close to losing himself to the inorganic material that raged a war with his dying cells before, so maybe this is just a very uncomfortable co-incidence.

He nods his head once at Garrus' description, letting his fingers tap the side of his mask, nearly thoughtful.]

Sounds like you have one hell of a fight to get back to.

And yet you're here.

Going to hope these things stay far fucking away from a place like this. Don't think it's equipped to deal with a threat like that.

Yeah, it has been from the very start. I'm hoping that the blast that forced us to crash land might have been the end of it. The end of something anyway.

[Whatever the case, repairs would take a while before they can even start to assess exactly what had happened back on Earth.]

Also hoping they stay away. It took the entire galaxy coming together to fight these thing - with no guarantee of survival - to even stand a chance. This place? Yeah... Not exactly a situation I want to see myself in.

Tell me your machines are nicer to deal with.

One last blast to destroy them all, huh? I'll hold onto hopes for you that you're right.

[If there's one thing he can sympathise with, it's a war with machines. So Garrus will get a bit of a less snide response for this, luckily.]

Compared to hive-mind infecting machines, being stuck here and having to survive against monsters outside a shoddy wall is better. [But still a shit situation to deal with.]

As for my machines...

Land a few blows on them with a good weapon and they're easy enough to tear down. The problem is that they're AI. So there's a shitload of people on earth who fight for their rights.

Make a group of AI build your cities and then take away their rights as people and you're going to face civil war.

[Definitely a shit situation.]

At least I won't get bored.

[Dry humor there. Otherwise Garrus listens. He... Well he sees both sides of the fence. Before he'd have securely been on this guy's side. Back before they worked with Legion and realized that the Geth really aren't so bad.]

Mmm. Happened with the Quarians after they built the Geth. After that, the creation of AI was outlawed. For good reason. But that didn't happen on your end, did it?

You and me both.

[If it wasn't for the terror that lay outside the walls, after all, he'd be restless as hell.]

Hard to outlaw an entire group of people when their production is overlooked by the AI themselves. They exist on a more 'co-existent' path with people now.

Something an organization I used to work for made sure of before burning to the ground. But tensions are always high, because humans are paranoid fucks who expect them to rear up again without reason.

Valid point, I guess. It still stops people from attempting to develop one. Though I got to admit, EDI and Legion aren't too bad. As far as AI go.

[Exceptions to every rule, right?]

It's not restricted to humans - the paranoia. Heh. It's been a long time since the Krogan rebellions and people still expect them to just go off the deep end.

Glad to hear Paranoia is a galaxy-wide trait, then. [There goes all his expectations for races that aren't human. Not that he should be surprised--with intelligence came paranoia, that's just basic.]

EDI and Legion? Two completely separate races of AI, huh.

Universe just got a whole lot bigger from where I'm sitting.

EDI tried to kill us once, back when she was an evolving VI. The look on Shepard's face when EDI admitted it was kind of priceless. To be fair, we'd probably be dead if not for her.

[Legion to a lesser degree. EDI though? Super helpful. By now, Garrus can't really imagine the Normandy without her voice filtering through the comms. Or popping up on a terminal.]

You'll get used to the feeling. Already you seem like a fairly adaptable guy.

Guessing this 'Shephard' is your leader, or something.

[Because none of these names really make sense to him, but given he's been in military most of his life, he can connect the dots.]

I've been on this planet for three months. Spent four months out in space on the S.S. Eluvio before this.

While I'm a stranger to most things Not-Of-Earth, I guess I'm starting to get used to things, finally.

Friend. Commander. Terrible dancer. Just to name a few.

[Here for three months. Then four on a ship?]

Wait. You didn't come here from your Earth?

I came here from a space fleet. An entire world's worth of spacecrafts, all travelling together in an uncertain direction.

We were dealing with something tearing through the main ship when a bunch of us landed here, as if something reached out to rescue us...

...or something threw us through the portal to get rid of us.

I don't really care which it is. All I know is that it's been a while since I've last seen Earth.

In an uncertain direction?

[Sounds an awful lot like the Flotilla. Of course that's only because the Quarians don't really have a home planet now.]

Homesick? Just a little?

[He would be. Kind of. Two years on Omega and being able to go home any time he wanted is different than being unable to at all.]

Don't really know what the aim or destination was.

[To put it as simply as possible.]

Wouldn't call it 'homesick'. More along the lines of 'aimless'.
Had shit to do back on Earth. Can't get back, so now trying to find something new to concentrate on...

A bit irritating.

That's great. Having no destination in mind. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that.

[The sarcasm is thick, sorry.]

But really, I can relate. With all this free time I'm going to apparently have, I'm not sure I won't go nuts eventually.

...Hah.

Nothing possibly.

Nevermind that people kept getting killed and it forced us to land on some shit planet before I wound up here.

[He can appreciate your sarcasm, Garrus.]

You and me both. I'm shit at this idle business. Working for the perimeter guard is all I've got keeping me from going stir-crazy.

Oh sweet irony. The ship I was on got stranded on a deserted planet before I wound up here.

[You're not the only one that can have a bad day of it, Reaper. Though Garrus sounds more amused by the coincidence.]

I went ahead and joined Search and Rescue. Probably will try to sneak rounds in anyway. It's always a good day when you can look through your scope and hit your target before they even realize.

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( voice | un: vakarian )

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