A/N: Dear readers, this story is updated in response to criticism (and new ideas that come to me). If a review seems inconsistent with what you read, this is probably why. The reviewers are not stupid.

Two brown-skinned humans hovered over a digital schematic atop a table in a clean, white, Citadel office.

"This is what you wanted to show me, Ms. Garson? This blue-print...What is it? It's the strangest looking ship I have ever seen."

Titled "Hyperion", the design was almost comical. It looked like an augmented soda-can, since the vast majority of the vessel was occupied by storage for fuel and something called 'static collection foam.' The second largest area was the stasis pod chamber. Near in size was the mass effect core. Beyond that, it seemed ludicrously barren and cramped.

"It will be built for nothing we've ever done. A six-hundred twenty-five year journey through dark space. A journey of two and a half million light-years."

Councilor Udina looked up, wide eyed. "Two and a half million, you say? What could possibly wait at the end of such a journey?"

"Andromeda."

"Andromeda? Our neighboring galaxy?"

"Yes, why do you sound so surprised?"

Udina sighed, looked back down, and scratched his temple and furrowed his brow in thought.

"It's just...I...the resources this would require are...unthinkable...and the variables there must be...it's all..."

His eyes wondered down the lower corner, where a set of numbers lay: calculations of the ship's mass with and without occupants, the quantity of fuel it would need, and the estimated costs. The costs were most striking. The ship shown only held one-hundred persons, and cost hundreds of billions of credits. He had not seen numbers like that since-

"The same could be said about this 'Crucible' project of yours."

"Yes, but..." Donnell again struggled to find his words, looking down at the white lines and blue background. "I don't know, it seems like madness, Ms. Garson."

"People said the same about the Reapers. I believed Shepard's tale then, and I was right," she said stalwartly.

The Councilor looked up again. "A fair point. But you are a corporate executive, Ms. Garson, not a scientist."

"Several of our leading scientists have verified the design."

"That's..." Certainly that was encouraging, but...

"Our company has been the leading manufacturer of human ships since the Grissom Expedition. If anyone can be trusted on this, it's them."

Udina exhaled again, put his hands behind his back, and began pacing towards the side of the window, where traffic buzzed outside.

"Very well...but I assume you came to me for a reason." He turned. "With costs so astronomical, even your personal wealth could not fund such an endeavor."

"Precisely."

"And why should we redirect our resources to this...machination of yours at such a crucial time in our history? Every credit that goes into this 'Hyperion' is a credit that could have been spent on the war effort, or the Crucible."

"You really want to bet all our chips on the Crucible, Councilor?"

"A better bet than this, I think," he said, looking down and throwing his hand casually in its direction. "Even if you were to complete this...six-hundred year journey of yours, how much longer would it take to find a suitable habitat in the Andromeda galaxy? That could prove far more difficult."

"I've sunken well over a billion credits into research. Our long range scans indicate there are several potentially life-supporting planets in the Heleus Cluster. We are going to set the ark's course for a planet we've dubbed 'Habitat 7.'"

'The ark': a poetic name, showing how seriously she took her theory.

"Potentially life supporting, Ms. Garson?"

"At two point five million light years away, we can't know for certain."

"And what about food?" Udina said, stepping back to the table side and continuing his attack. "The more you take on board, the heavier your vessel will become. The heavier it becomes, the greater the cost of fuel. Adding an adequate supply for even a year would increase expenses astronomically."

"If these planets are indeed life supporting, we won't need to bring any food with us."

"And what if they are not? What if it's a dextro-DNA ecology? This vessel was designed with only humans in mind, was it not?"

"Yes. That's why I came to you. But it would take only miniscule adjustments to accommodate other species."

Donnell was even less interested in saving aliens, though certainly that would make it easier to procure funding.

"Well, that brings me to my next question. How are you going to choose who is going to get a seat on this vessel of yours?" he said, looking down at the schematic again with studious eyes. One-hundred seats.

"I have my eyes on several candidates already. But we'll have to be discreet. We don't want people pushing and shoving for their place on Hyperion."

"You'll also have to be persuasive," he said, scanning over the absurd design. "You're convincing people to embark on a suicide mission."

"You're saying our fight against the Reapers isn't?"

Udina had predicted that argument before he had even finished his sentence. "A valid point."

Councilor Udina looked up. "Now who did you have in mind for this journey?"