Beginning of Mass Effect 2 - Teaser

Indoctrination.

One of the more sinister tools available to the Reapers, it allowed them to control the organic races via brainwashing. Continual exposure to the effects of indoctrination slowly drained the victim of their mental faculties, eventually becoming nothing but a mindless servant.

The Collectors had been exposed their entire life - if that is what it could be called.

While this made them pliable, they were little more than machines in need of guidance and direction. For this reason there were always several Collectors that were specially created to allow a Reaper to interface with them directly.

In order to make up for their deficiencies, the Collector’s were further altered, genetically and via cybernetics. While this increased their functionality, it was simply unable to reproduce the instincts and intuition found in most sentient beings.

For the most part that wasn’t an issue. The Collector’s were created with a specific purpose in mind, and the Reaper’s certainly did not care for their opinions. Instinct and intuition could be incorrect. TECH could process data faster and with more accuracy. TECH could recognize patterns and were more reliable in general. TECH was, in a word, better.

Yet there was a flaw.

Technology worked better on the condition that there was a prior pattern to follow. Technology simply did what it was programmed to do.

In short, technology did not know how to deal with unknowns.

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One month after the Battle of the Citadel

Harbinger looked impassively through the eyes of the possessed Collector at the destruction of the ship classified as ‘Normandy’.

Sovereign had been destroyed, but he had managed to send off a message warning of Commander Pendragon and Commander Emiya. While Harbinger was skeptical of the claims, he nonetheless took action as they had done in Harvests past and removed the threat.

Life pods could be seen launching away from the wreckage of the Normandy, but Harbinger ignored them. They had already been hacked, and it was confirmed - Neither of the Commander’s were on any of them.

A shame. Harbinger would have preferred to capture the Commanders alive - they would have made excellent specimens.

As it was, there was no reason to pick up a lifepod. An alert had already been sent out, and estimates showed that the Alliance military would arrive too quickly. They would have to gather the corpses at a later date.

Regardless, the main objective had been completed, and thus he was satisfied.

With that, he gave the order to retreat before relinquishing control, trusting in the Collector’s to follow orders.

As the Collector’s went about their tasks, their ship moving into position to leave the system, none were paying attention to the scanners.

Like everything the Collector’s owned, it consisted of technology far more advanced than anything available to other species at that time.

Alchera, the planet that the wreckage of the Normandy was above, was fairly unimpressive. It’s crust was composed of carbon and ice water, and it’s atmosphere was composed of methane and ammonia. Mineral deposits of Palladium, Platinum, and Iridium could be found in varying frequency.

All and all, fairly unimpressive.

This was already known and documented of course - As such, none of Collector’s were paying attention to the scanner when it reported an anomaly.

Then again, perhaps they would not have cared. They were here on an extermination mission, not for scanning.

Normally the scanner systems would simply log the anomaly. Perhaps it would submit a ticket for repairs. But when the issue was one that had never been seen before, nor had ever been documented, the only recourse left to it was to manually report an error.

And yet the Collector’s that were around, if any did see it, ignored it for their current mission. Mineral scans were unrelated to anything they were doing after all, why should they care?

As such, none of the Collector’s noted that the mineral composition of Alchera suddenly changed an instant before they left the system.

Palladium? Iridium? No more.

Had they been capable of free thought, the Collector’s might have looked into it. While not connected to their mission, this was undoubtedly unusual. Their scanners were the best in the galaxy after all, and an error of this magnitude had to have been caused by something.

Yet it was ignored, labeled as unimportant.

After all, how could it be?

According to the scanner results, the mineral composition of Alchera was nothing like it had previously been.

Mineral - Amount

Palladium - None

Iridium - None

Platinum - Low

Iron - Overwhelming

Steel - Overwhelming

Bronze - Overwhelming

Steel. Iron. Bronze.

Primitive metals, many species having long stopped using them in favor of better, synthetic materials. And while the metals themselves were hardly uncommon, what was unusual was the sheer amount that was suddenly being detected.

Enough to cover the entirety of the planet’s surface.

A world of metal.

But then, such a thing had to be impossible. There was no logical conclusion as to why it existed - therefore, it must be an error.

The Collector Ship left the planet and the wreckage behind, never knowing that which had just been done that day.

Through their actions, a Dragon’s power awoke in the galaxy - outside of Gaia’s influence for the first time since time began - and with it’s flame a Forge was relit.

As one chapter closes, another one opens.

The rules have changed Harbinger. Do you still wish to play?

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Notes:

This day has gone pretty rough for me, and by the time I got home I just wanted to lose myself in creating the scene I had thought up ever since I first came up with Effecting Fate. It works, because technology failing is related to my headache. I might be brain dead still, but here you go.

So, I am a computer engineer. I am well aware that technology is absolutely amazing… but at the same time, oh my gosh can it be annoying. Just today I spent hours testing several things, and despite the code being exactly the same each time, I was getting different results for no reason - sometimes even failing! And yet the logs kept on telling me that everything was doing just fine.

Technology is great. But it was created by poor mortal minds, and thus it can always fail in spectacular ways.

Sorry, I know nobody wants to hear me complain about my life, but I just feel awful today and have an overwhelming urge to vent a tiny bit, so I apologize.