A People Lost in Time

Rannoch. A word that means everything to the Quarian people. A single word that could define their culture for the last 300 years. A word that represents their future, whether in life or death. But also a word that represents their past, a history far deeper and perhaps darker than any Quarian knows, any Quarian except Daro'Xen vas Moreh.

Murmurs of war are never far beneath the surface in Quarian society. The histories taught to the young paint almost every major event in the last three centuries as a stepping stone to that conflict, building momentum until one day Quarians finally reclaim their home. No mention of course, of the old admirals deliberately sabotaging Quarian settlement attempts. They had to keep the fleet together, Rannoch had to remain in focus.

Naturally these altered histories are propaganda. The generations since Rannoch have been a quagmire of infighting and struggle to survive, but everyone sees it in the light they choose. A march of conquest, a pilgrimage for the entire race, an atonement, or even a funeral precession.

Xen is unmoved by all of these conceptions though, preferring instead to fix her laser like focus on the relic in her hand, before letting her gaze drift into the star speckled space outside her window. She is alone now in knowing that this is not the first time the Quarians have been set adrift among the stars, that their ancestors are far more ancient and far more alien than anyone, even the Prothean Javik could know. Of course, Xen too is unaware how deep that history goes, but she is aware of her ignorance.

She turns her attention to the secure terminal in her chambers, the image on the screen is simultaneously haunting, intriguing, and exhilarating. The report attached to it is thousands of years old, written in a language that most Quarians would not even recognize though their ancestors spoke it on the home world. Xen does not need the translators, she can understands these words directly. "Ancient", "Biosynthetic", and "Indoctrination" are among the words the ancients used to describe what they had found beneath the stone shell of Rannoch's crust.

The Quarian ancients had uncovered the husk of what the galaxy now calls a Reaper. The derelict, badly decayed, but nonetheless extraordinary to the pre-space flight Quarians who uncovered it. A basis on which Quarian technology would be built, and most notably, fragments of code on which the programming for the Geth would be based on. This knowledge had been passed to her, as it had been to many other admirals, but not all, and only her now. She hadn't told them, not even Rael'Zorah. They wouldn't be able to use the knowledge for its full potential, not the way she could.

Perhaps this is why Saren was able to convince a number of the Geth to join Sovereign, or Nazara as they called it. The likeness to the Reapers was always there, buried deep in their code, their ancestral DNA in a way. "Heretics" they called them, blind to the irony that it is far more likely the unswayed Geth are in fact the Heretics, unaware of their lineage in the Reapers.

Or perhaps they do know, perhaps the Geth are willingly rejecting their heritage. A fascinating question, one that Xen retreats from for the moment, lest she risk her thoughts bestowing personhood on the Geth. They cannot be persons, they are machines, tools crafted by the hands of Quarians, even if it was done by the application of ancient reaper code.

The possibilities stagger her mind, even the clinical, analytical Daro'Xen feels overwhelmed by the implications, the potential of it all. She sighs slowly, calming and refocusing herself. There would be time to organize her thoughts later, and more importantly, time to take action.

The Citadel Council had not shown mercy to the Quarian people. Creating AI, unleashing the Geth into the galaxy. Their apathy would may even turn to hostility now if they only knew the secret of the Geth's development. All the more reason for them never to know, all the more reason the Quarians need to retake Rannoch.