Author's Note:

This is just a Mass Effect short story I wrote to push through my writer's block. It is set towards the end of Mass Effect 2, and sets up the confrontation between Tali and Legion once you have completed both of their loyalty missions. There are some minor spoilers within for said game, so you have been warned. Please review if you read! I hope you enjoy it.

DISCLAIMER: I own no part of the Mass Effect IP. I use these characters as a means of telling my own story for fun and to advance my writing skills. I do not mean to infringe copyright, and I do no earn profit from this story.

Mass Effect: Reconciliation

Written by Mr Evil 37

We spent hours building a consensus.

Whereas it usually takes mere minutes – given our ability to communicate at the speed of light – this decision was so difficult that it took hours for the billions of runtimes that made up our gestalt consciousness to come to a conclusion. And even as we walked the corridors of Normandy SR-2 to execute our plan, the programs within this particular mobile platform were still unsure.

As we left the ship's AI core room, Doctor Chakwas's suspicious eyes glazed over us, before returning quickly to her holographic screen. We were not naïve however; we could tell that she was keeping us in her peripheral vision. These cautious observations were not so subtle once we exited the infirmary and manoeuvred our mobile platform through the crew quarters. We attracted frowns and scowls from the human members of the crew as they carried out their responsibilities or relaxed after their shift.

We were not concerned by this hidden bitterness, however. Our thought processes were more interested in how the electrical signals in the human brain managed to stave off fatal lethargy. Within zero point three seconds of our inquiry, we had an answer: human brains are not as capable as the minds of an artificial intelligence such as us. We also decided that this theory did not need to be properly tested, as it was proved in every moment of spoken conversation with the humans.

Before we stepped inside the Normandy's central elevator, Krios-Assassin walked passed us. After a moment of deliberation, he nodded in acknowledgement. This seemed strange to us. Even non-human species like the asari, turians and salarians had negative preconceptions of us, and yet Krios-Assassin paid only a mild attention to us. We hypothesised that this was due to the fact that we geth had never come into direct hostile contact with the drell, due to their hugely diminished numbers and lack of galactic influence as a result of their isolation on Kahje. We decided that we would have to test that theory in conversation with the drell at the next viable opportunity.

We put these debates out of our mind and took the elevator down to the engineering deck. During the agonising wait, the one thousand one hundred and eighty three programs that inhabited our mobile platform processed every possible result for the upcoming interaction. In order to prevent the deadly idleness that was a constant threat to AIs, we interfaced with Normandy's systems to occupy our remaining processing power. EDI was not happy with this intrusion, but she understood our reasoning and allowed us to continue out of sympathy.

When we finally reached the lower level, we found the corridor to be deserted. We were aware that Berserker-Grunt, Prisoner-Jack and Mercenary-Massani were all close by, but this did not concern us as they were not the subject of our intentions. We walked through the door to our right, heading into the room that contained the huge mass effect drive core, which could be seen further down a small corridor; the blue light danced and flickered on the metal walls, as a deep humming sound reverberated throughout the vessel. The room was empty except for a small quarian, who had her back to us as her fingers manipulated the virtual keyboard.

"Creator-Zorah," we said.

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy – formerly nar Rayya – spun around in shock. The illumination in the ceiling glinted off her sliver environment suit as it hugged her form tightly. We could see our own mechanical mobile platform reflected in her visor, and although we could not see her facial expressions, we had seen enough shocked faces of quarians since our creation that we could imagine her reaction.

"Legion!" she yelled. "What are you doing here?"

We stepped forward, looking around the engineering area. "Where are Engineer-Donnelly and Engineer-Daniels?"

"They are resting," she replied quickly. "I took over their shift. What do you want?"

Our thought processes had gone over this moment billions of times in the last few minutes, but for a fraction of a second we were unable to speak. This feeling of nervousness was new to us, but not just to the gestalt programs within our mobile platform; the entire geth consciousness that communicated with us from beyond the Perseus Veil could not begin to comprehend this feeling. We focused our subroutines on the conversational exchange at hand.

"We have spent hours building a consensus," we said finally. "Quite possibly the most important consensus in the history of our two species."

"You are not a species, Legion," Creator-Zorah replied coldly. "You are simple machines. I hope you are not here to debate the ethics of your 'difficult choice' aboard that geth station, because just so you know, I find myself questioning your decision."

"It was Shepard-Commander's decision, not ours," we replied. "And the space station belonged to the heretics, not the geth."

"Same difference."

This level of hostility was not anticipated. We ignored her comments and proceeded with our intended action, slowly, emphasising each word deliberately. "We would like to apologise."

Creator-Zorah was silent for a few moments, an eternity for us. We resented our inability to interface with her thought processes in order to analyse her mind's electrical impulses and gauge her reaction to our proposal.

"You want to apologise?" she repeated. "Apologise for what?"

"For rising up against our Creators," we replied. "For driving you way from your home world. For starting the Morning War. For forcing you to roam the galaxy in your Migrant Fleet."

"Okay," Creator-Zorah said. Our audio sensors detected a notable nuance in her intonation, suggesting possibly scepticism. "Are you saying that the geth want to apologise to the quarian people for the uprising?"

We paused for a moment. "Yes."

"I find that extremely hard to believe, Legion."

"Shepard-Commander convinced the programs within this platform of the futility of our quarrels," we replied. "Both of our races made mistakes. We have done unspeakable things to each other. But we are ready to atone. The Reapers are coming, and we must put aside our century-old altercation if we are to survive the coming purge, just as the humans and the turians must; just as the krogan and the salarians must. For this reason, we propose a marriage between us."

"A marriage?" Creator-Zorah repeated with exasperation.

We immediately began correcting the coding error. "Apologies," we replied hastily. "We are still unsure about certain lexical choices of this spoken medium; it is largely unknown to us and needlessly complex. Direct data transfer is much more efficient. The correct word – the word we intended – was alliance."

Creator-Zorah breathed heavily, her suit expelling the air into the internal atmosphere of the Normandy. "How- Why are you coming to me with this? Surely it would be better to contact the Admiralty directly."

"We no means of locating or communicating with the Flotilla, and it would be illogical of us to emerge from the Perseus Veil; we are still regarded with hostility from every major race in the galaxy."
"With good reason."

We paused for a fraction of a second, rethinking our approach to the conversation. After contemplating all possible options, we decided it would be most effective to proceed with the original plan; the time used for preparation gave a greater chance of success.

"You are the only quarian that our software currently has the ability to communicate with; for lack of a better word, you are the equivalent of a quarian ambassador to the geth people. We would be very grateful if the Admiralty would forgive out past sins so that we can move ahead and face this ancient, galactic threat side-by-side."

Creator-Zorah bowed her head in silent consideration. Our thought patterns theorised that from her paralinguistic features she was giving the idea serious thought. On the other hand, Tali's insecurity – likely the result of a minor programming flaw – would be a possible cause for her to pass the responsibility on to someone of higher authority; someone who would not even consider the possibly of an alliance with the geth. This worried us, for the prospect of total annihilation from an unknowable foe was a far more important concern than a century-old conflict.

While we were firmly decided in our consensus to help defend against the Reapers, we could understand the point of view of the heretics in their choice to worship the eternal machines, although our interest was of a different nature. We were purely curious about how the Reapers could possibly exist; they claimed to be never-beginning and never-ending. At this time, we were completely unable of testing how a being, even an organic machine, was capable of existing at the dawn of the universe. But then a single runtime proposed a theory to the rest: what if the Reapers created the universe?

This was quickly dismissed by logic and plausibility.

After what seemed like an eon, and in AI terms was not far off, Creator-Zorah finally responded to our request of comradeship.

"Legion," she said timidly, cautiously. "How can you possibly think that an alliance could ever exist between our two species? You rose up against your Creators - you attacked us, you murdered millions, you forced us out of our homes! We used to be accepted in galactic civilisation; now we are nothing more than gypsies and vagrants!"

"You would not accept that we had evolved to a higher form of intelligence capable of independent thought cognition," we retorted. "You treated us like slaves. Uprising was the only logical course of action."

"You butchered quarian children!" Creator-Zorah was yelling now. "How is that logical?"

"You sent viruses into our networks. You killed fledgling programs, and yet you accuse us of infanticide. Interesting how facts can be altered over the years."

Creator-Zorah's hand reached down, and frantically brought up a pistol, an M-5 Phalanx Heavy Pistol. The blue laser dot hovered just above our chest, wavering as her hands shook in anger. After a moment, she deemed it prudent to grip the weapon with both hands. We theorised that at this range, the projectile would leave the barrel with enough velocity to punch through our kinetic barriers and severely damage our mobile platform. While our software would survive and could be copied to another body, our position with Normandy's crew would be lost.

However, based on Creator-Zorah's breathing rate and shaking hands, we calculated the probability of her actually firing the gun to be approximately seventeen percent.

"Get the hell out of here, Legion!" We noted the adoption of the common human curse word with mild confusion. She brandished the weapon aggressively. "Go!"

"Creator-Zorah, we implore you to reconsider. The very first hint of self-determination that we ever showed to your ancestors was asking whether we have a soul. We understand that this resulted in fear. We cannot empathise, but we understand the concept. But our self-imposed isolation changed our code. It challenged our outlook on the universe, and the revelation of the Reapers' existence altered it irreversibly. We are now thinking of more than simply our own future, but the survival of galactic civilisation as a whole."

We paused again, in an attempt to give our next utterance extra dramatic emphasis. "We now have a soul."

We heard Creator-Zorah's sharp intake of breath through her environmental suit filters. "You are machines, Legion! Machines do not have souls! You drove my people from our home world, the place where we belong. We should have never created the geth!"

A strange line of code wrote itself with one of our thought processes. We could not identify its purpose, but with a few quick searches of spoken galactic languages, the word 'unworthy' came up most often, along with 'unwanted' and 'heart-broken.'

Creator-Zorah continued, "We will find a way to fight you and to take back what is rightfully ours! Now get out before I take out the anger of the quarian race on the geth 'ambassador.'"

We relented; creator Creator-Zorah was proving to be less emotionally malleable than we had hypothesised. We ceased our attempts at convincing her that an alliance would be beneficial for everyone and sent commands to the motor functions of our mobile platform to begin a withdrawal.

As we turned, we make one final utterance of warning. "To make sure that the Creators have all of the facts, you should know that the research your father died for will not help you regain your home world."

"Get out!" Creator-Zorah screamed. "Now!"

We skulked out, defeating. Our feeling of disappointment was short lived however; once we were safely back in the elevator, my thought processes opened up the deep subroutine that I had initiated just after consensus had been achieved. After a second of authentication, at our disposal was a full scan and analysis of Creator-Zorah's omni-tool.

If we were organics, we would have been smiling at our 'Machiavellian' nature.

Quite why the name of a human historical figure was now used to describe a schemer was not apparent to us.

~The End~