Notes: Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and comment! Everyone's reviews helped tremendously!

Of course, the standard disclaimer: One of my favorite games, but I do not own Mass Effect or any of its characters, I'm just having some fun with it.

Ch 1: New Kid on the Block

Humanity's greatest achievement yet-a successful manned landing and exploration of the Red Planet in the year 2148 ended with discoveries greater than any rover had ever revealed. Who could have guessed Mars held evidence of ancient space faring civilizations, known as the Protheans? Less than a year later, humanity discovered that Charon, Pluto's moon, hid a tremendous technology which allowed mankind to travel farther than ever thought possible. It had been theorized for years, but who knew we would ever be able to truly bend space and time to rapidly travel huge distances across the galaxy. The scientists called it…Mass Effect. The relay was a technological marvel to behold. A huge structure, orbiting in space, with a dark energy that pulsed around its core. It had an oblong casing, with counter-rotating disks at the core and dual arms that extended away like a tuning fork, providing a directional vector for whatever entered its reach.

They initially experimented with probes; without fail, the probes would approach the relay, the relay would light up, and the probe would accelerate off the end of the arms in a bright streak of blinding light and vanish. The communications link would last only nanoseconds before the probe disappeared forever. There were two primary schools of thought; either the probe didn't survive the encounter, or the trip took the probe so far away the scientific team could no longer talk to it. Months of debate brought the scientific community no closer to a resolution and it was finally decided the only way to know for sure would be to send an all-volunteer manned mission through the device. Volunteers were in no short supply, and soon a small team of men and women was assembled, led by Captain Jon Grissom.

As the small research vessel approached the relay, Grissom echoed the words of Neil Armstrong, "One small step for man, one giant step for mankind," and then they were gone. Those waiting at the Charon relay did not have to wait long. Within thirty minutes, all the probes they had sent through the relay started showing back up on the Charon side. The conclusion was obvious; the research vessel survived the transit and they were collecting and returning the probes for study. It was another two days before the team of explorers showed back up at the relay, but they returned with glorious news. After completing a star map, they matched the location to known stars and determined the distant end to be near a star known as Arcturus, and several other relays were in close proximity to enable further exploration.

Jon Grissom was a reluctant hero, but accepted a promotion to Commodore and the job of organizing construction on a multi-national space station, aptly named Arcturus Station. It would serve as the jumping off point for future exploration and as a defensive station guarding the mass relay to Earth. The station was inaugurated in 2156 and Earth's continued expansion into the Milky Way commenced. The humanity Alliance quickly became efficient at using mass relays to explore the galaxy, reaching farther into space every year. In 2157, they discovered, in truth, what they were always afraid to find…they were not alone. An unknown alien force attacked an Alliance outpost on Shanxi and resulted in what became known as the First Contact War. Jon Grissom was again thrown to the front and promoted to Rear Admiral. After a series of battles, the war was stopped by a multi-species government recognized as the Citadel Council. Responsible for preserving peace and stability, they intervened and Earth suddenly found themselves thrust onto a galactic stage much larger than they ever realized existed. After the First Contact War, Rear Admiral Jon Grissom retired amidst political blowback from his complaints about how the war was handled. Grissom retreated to colonial life on Elysium in 2160 and became a recluse, refusing all contact by the Alliance.

Construction on Arcturus station was completed in 2162, and by 2165 humanity had already been recognized as a council race and granted an embassy on the Citadel. It was a huge step forward, and many other races who had been part of the galactic community for centuries felt only two decades was too short a period for such an honor. Some extreme cases felt neglected, mistreated, resentful…and angry. Relations with the enemies of the First Contact War gradually improved over time, and finally, in 2183, a joint Human-Turian venture birthed a new prototype ship, the SSV Normandy, a frigate with advanced stealth technology. On board was Captain David Anderson, ship's captain, and Commander Samantha Shepard, executive officer, along with Turian Spectre Nihlus Kryik, an elite agent for the Citadel Council. The Normandy's first shake-down cruise was two-fold; a mission to retrieve a newly discovered Prothean beacon from a human colony on Eden Prime and deliver it to the Mars Archive, and a chance for Spectre Kryik to evaluate Commander Shepard's potential to become the Council's first Human Spectre.

As the Normandy approached Eden Prime, a video transmission showed Alliance soldiers ground-side, under heavy fire, with a huge airborne dreadnought in the background sky. The dreadnought was like nothing any of them had ever seen, and as the video feed got abruptly cut off, they all realized the mission was not going to be as simple as everyone expected.