Aira walked silently amongst the various holding cores of the Atlas. The glowed dimly, giving the holding section a serene light blue color, like the refractions of light underwater.
"AVA, anything to report?" Aira asked, the Quin's health status still firmly ingrained in her mind, despite the calming atmosphere.
"Not yet, Captain," AVA chirped.
"..is it stable at least?" Aira asked, her one finger stretching across a core's glassy exterior.
"95% stable" AVA replied. "It appears part of the Quin's cranium was badly bruised, the brain damage is unclear at this present time. I don't have much in my database on the Quin, Captain. They were still tadpoles when I was first in operation."
"Yes, I am aware. Just keep me posted," Aira said, her eyes focusing on a suddenly little jut of light from within the core.
"Of course, Captain," AVA said.
Aira stood there a moment longer, wondering to herself why she'd taken such great concern to the Quin. Most of them were a bunch of docile servants. Some actually didn't mind slavery, even though it was illegal to do now. The Quin always took things lying down, not making a fuss. So why had this one seemed different?
Maybe it was guilt. Preying on passing travellers on the edge of the known cosmos wasn't exactly the moral high ground her people would have likened to.
Maybe it was loneliness. It had been ages since someone had been along with her, not any that were breathing organics at least.
"Jeiri..." Aira silently whispered as the glow in the core vanished, gone forever.
Approximately Twenty Thousand Years Earlier
Adrianne stood looking out at the leaveless trees. The ground was bare except for grass patches that remained after the Atlas had touched down. Her subordinate stood beside her, his rifle loaded and ready, but his eyes betrayed doubt.
Radikov was a well built man, short hair, proper uniform, but his face showed a hidden sullenness in it all. It wasn't uncommon – not many people liked working fringe assignments, stuck on your own for weeks charting planets.
"Ma'am," Radikov started, the question already in his eyes, "With all due respect, why are we here?"
Adrianne didn't turn to him as she quickly stated "Surveilance".
"Surveilance? This planet was charted three weeks ago by Missav's team. There's no native sentients here or a colony," Radikov said. "There shouldn't be any reason to survey anything here."
"Shouldn't is the key word," Adrianne replied, raising her rifle to scan the valley below. "Do you listen to the rumors at base, Radikov?"
"I don't believe in rumors, ma'am," Radikov said.
"Something's got our officers spooked. Brelin sent us out here on priority directive. It's not another stike force from Earth, word up the ranks is that the shaky peace between the UN and EAU broke down again and they're too busy shooting themselves," Adrianne said.
After a pause, Radikov spoke again. "Ma'am, are you suggesting we're out here to make contact-"
"No. Nothing that stereotypical. We sight, analyze, retreat... and probably shoot if they see us," Adrianne replied.
"Are we hoping they think that Atlas is just a big rock?" Radikov asked, glancing back for a moment at the tall vessel. Thin but tall, stretching back like a book. Three turrets sat on each side of it, although they'd need a full compliment crew to man them all.
"We've been experimenting with that," Adrianne said, checking her wrist control to see if AVA had activated the cover system yet.
"So our E.T.s aren't that bright?" Radikov asked.
"You could say that," Adrianne replied, scanning with her sniper scope again for any sign of them.
"Well, if they aren't as smart as a Gaz, then I guess we'll be making a trade up," Radikov said, giving a single humorless chuckle.
"That's what we're hoping for," Adrianne replied.
Offshoot's Guide to the Galaxy note: A Gaz' (Gazkagree) is a four-armed, bi-pedal alien hailing from Larka III. They, like humanity, believed themselves alone in the universe. When they met humanity, similar to humanity's response, they brought very large guns, and everything was very tense at diplomatic negotiations. Various small wars have broken out, along with some attempts at co-habitation. Aside from on the frontier though, each race is not commonly seen alongside the other in regular civilian sectors. Due to the fact that the Gazkagree also usually stick to living in their ships (exceptiosn being colonies, their home world, and their one major space port), they usually only have to interact with humans via communication interfaces. As a result, most humans have no idea what a Gazkagree actually looks like. Neither do some Gazkagree know what humans look like, which is, for the most part, good for the both of them, as humans appear to be balding apes to Gazkagree, and Gazkagree are awkwardly proportioned gecko's in a human's eye. As a result, there is no recorded inter-species relations of note and there have been no known hybrids. For the most part, both races agree this is a -good- thing.
And now for a brief dialogue about two very present figures in the gaming industry of recent. I hope to never speak about them pertaining to their game in question, ever, again, so please know that I'm not going to be touching on this subject after today:
EA and Bioware
Be calm, I am not going to go into a rage filled rant. I will merely be relating something to ME3, that is all, and I think it will shift things up a bit for at least some people.
Okay, so Bioware is releasing DLC for the ending of ME3. At first everyone assumed it was going to be an additional alternate ending. IMO, this would have been the best choice. We would get what we want but Bioware still gets their 'ending'. Instead, it has been clarified (very vehemently) that it only "explains" the ending and adds a few more CGI cinematics and some text. Apparently Shepard's voice actors aren't even being called in. Then almost at the same time, free ME3 MP content is announced, adding multiple new classes, four new weapons, and two new maps. If such an announcement was made from a Valve game, it would go without shock. Hearing this from an EA published game is astounding. Why is it that the MP content is for free suddenly? Because, Bioware is probably actually straight up ignoring EA. I can bet you good money EA would rather Bioware just made a new ending and sold it as DLC. I'm not going to get into the debate about whether Bioware -should- change its ending (I am honestly in favor of it though, sometimes you need to listen), but the fact that they pretty much have sidelined changing it in any way shows that they really don't care what the fans think. There was even a reference to the ending debacle in a video showing the Samara motion capture woman cosplaying as Samara, saying that she "understood" why people might not like the ME3 ending. Before she could finish the sentence, the Bioware employee holding the camera angrily and hastily states that "that's what the extended ending DLC is for" and then rapidly changes the subject.
It's not EA that's causing this, it's Bioware. There are plenty of times I won't blame someone for being pissed about EA. What with the BF1943 being removed from BF3 and all sorts of crap in the past like their horrible ad campaigns... but for once it isn't them.
Lastly: At with the storm of people arguing in favor of Bioware -- we're not trying to destroy artistic integrity, we're not trying to take ownership of the series, but we have a say in something we're buying and we didn't like it and it isn't just a vocal minority that doesn't like ME3's ending. It is a majority. We have done things calmly and have even taken positive approaches to things. Bioware's response is to ignore. That's it.
Fairwinds,
Fallen