The Archdruid Report: The Hate that Dare Not Speak its Name

The Archdruid Report: The Hate that Dare Not Speak its Name: As the United States stumbles toward the last act of its electoral process two days from now, and the new administration prepares to take ...

TERRIFIED OF TRUMP? Here’s why you shouldn’t be

So, we have a new president. Donald J. Trump has taken the oath of office and and now holds the highest office in the land. A great many of us have greeted this event as a great victory for freedom. …. But many of us are yet wary. And some of us are terrified.

Well, I am all in favor of always maintaining a certain amount of wariness. Always keep your eyes open. But for those who watch this event in pure horror, I have a few words to say.

You can relax, Donald Trump is NOT a bigoted monster.

He really isn’t. I know they’ve screamed it at you all day long for months. But it is a lie, a bold-faced falsehood to manipulate you. I personally abhor racism. Early on in his campaign, when I was attending to the democratic nomination and catching only what was said about him (rather than listening to what he actually said), I believed him to be a monster as well. I was wrong. I was lied to. And when I investigated what he had actually said and done, the deception was revealed.

Donald Trump has not attacked racial minorities. He does not threaten women’s position in society. He has given the non-straight community to reason to fear. He does not promote religious persecution. He has not espoused hatred of foreigners. … Over the course of the year the major media institutions have taken things Trump has said, and by strained argument, perversion of facts, and sometimes whole-cloth invention, attributed monstrous meanings to him.

• Donald Trump HAS pointed out the high level of criminal activity among people who enter the country illegally.

• Their Story – Trump hates Mexicans.

There simply is a high level of crime among that demographic; that’s the statistics. That wasn’t about Latinos as a race. It wasn’t about Mexicans as a nationality. He didn’t even try and make out that all people who enter the country in a criminal fashion are bad people. (In fact, he made a point of saying the opposite.)  But factually speaking, the illegal traffic across the border does indeed bring crime and drugs into the states – that is well known. And yes, there is a disproportionate level of rape cases among people involved in the smuggling. These are simply facts. To try and swing a mere reporting of some unpleasant facts about a (relatively) small group of people (who happen to mostly be Latino) into an attack upon the entire Spanish-American race is a job so big, so far out, that I am genuinely impressed that they convinced so many people.

• Donald Trump HAS has put emphasis on upholding the border laws.

  • Their Story – Trump hates immigrants and is starting an unprecedented border tyranny

No, there’s nothing unprecedented or hateful about it. .... Continue Reading~>

Hello All!  The next Canto in my long science fiction poem is now available on my website.

The Song of the Shepard: Canto 4 ~ The Towers of Feros

 

Jan15by Charlotte Ann

© Bioware  –  Introduction

~ Stanza 1 · In the Shades of the Past ~

As the days pass the stars slide past.
Scarcely one grasps how extremely fast
The Normandy’s truly moving through space.
We seem to glide at a leisurely pace.
The space of the cluster is clear and fair
Untroubled by star winds or bursts from flares.
No traps lay in wait in the half-enclosed sea.
The sailing is swift and fine and free.
On some other voyage, I’d wind out the days
And savour each one in the apricot rays.
Would I could now! But Liara’s fell theory
Has donned the black shades that the beacon showed me.
I still can’t explain what I knew in that strife
Nor write it, nor trace it, nor carve with a knife.
Murder and fire and withering dark
But no tale, no fact, no info to mark.
I feel but can’t think! Though I wear my brain sore.
Even the colours I have no words for.
Yet as time goes by I grow more and more sure
That that’s what I saw – the end of a world.

Read More ~>

Deviantart Showcase - September 2016: 'In the End...'

Planetaryjunction's gorgeous render is not only one of the best 'after the war' pieces out there, it is - in my opinion - among the very loveliest works of Mass Effect fanart ever to be released on the internet.  The sweet subtlety of the light; its dusky shadows half concealing the ferns and their hands in the grass, the warm, soft, contented glow which suffuses and over-arches the whole image.  The simple, perfect composition of the two lovers amongst the leaves.  The beautiful treatment of the two characters themselves - there is none of the unwieldiness which so often plague such pieces; they look not only natural, but truly like themselves.  I see the quiet poise of Liara, and the relaxed self-possession of Shepard.

I think it a great pity that this is one of but two Mass Effect images that Planetaryjuction placed on deviantart.  The other 'Wish me Luck' is also a Shepard and Liara picture - a farewell on Ilium. 

This - though in my opinion far the inferior of the two - would in itself have placed Planetaryjuction in the very highest level of unofficial Mass Effect artists.  I'm sorry that these were the only we saw from him.  But!  I'm all for quality over quantity, and that certainly is the case here.

'Wish me luck' is taken from the middle of the Saga, with all the worst yet to come.  It seems to me that the uncertainty and the looming darkness are well conveyed in the cold color of the light and the distant, dark, separate nature of the surrounding structures.  The couple is pressed tight together, cut off from the hard, unfriendly world around them.

How different are the warm tones and the friendly closeness between the people and the world in 'In the End...'.  Here the couple is not only relaxed in, but also a part of, the world around them.  Their fingers twine in the grass and the gentle leaves brush them.  The light does not come coldly from a distance, but surrounds and bathes both them and the friendly, embracing world.

It is titled, 'In the End...', and subtitled 'My End'.  And that is exactly what it is.  Not only does the whole thing breathe of the content, the unafraid, the renewed life after the dark, the sweet maturity of the story that blossomed between these two ... belonging on at the end.  But this is a particular end.  The end that belongs to one Shepard, an end that not all would choose - that not all could reach even if they did choose.

It seems to be a common fear that since the 'end' of the game cut off so soon - the story too was ended thus.  The artist himself seems to fear this, and from the manner in which he presented this one almost gathers he put it forward in quiet defiance of the inexcusable ending of such a story.  And he was quite right to do so.  To view that tale as simply over at the end is unthinkable. And yet .... even within the context of the game, the story does not truly 'end'.  The game ends true - but it ends with a beginning.  And though we are not shown much of what it is that has begun, it may very well have been this.  It is no contradiction of the story, but rather a forging forward into it.  Since 'Mass Effect' did not tell us the specifics of the new it showed beginning, who but each of us individually may say what happened next ... in our end.

And few endings could be more beautiful than this.

Reflection on the Concept of a Free State

All forms of government can be divided roughly into slave states and free states. The slave state is a state where the people are there to serve the government. A free state is a state where the government is there to serve the people. Of course, very rarely (if ever) does a pure example of either exist.

The function of a free state rests somewhere between two extremes which I shall refer to as the libertarian and the socialist. The terms are imperfect and heavily weighted, but they shall have to do for now. The extreme which I refer to as ‘libertarian’ is where the government serves the people by leaving them alone. And the extreme I refer to as ‘socialist’ is where the government serves the people by doing things for them. The bill of rights and the absence of unnecessary government functions are examples of the first. Criminal law and public roads are examples of the second. Every free state must rest somewhere between these two ideas.

If the government swings too far to the libertarian extreme, it becomes totally absent and ceases to be a government at all. Then, in the absence of a free state, predatory forces have full leave to create their own ‘slave states’ (be these military, criminal, or economic). There is no protection against them, for there is no longer any state.

If the government swings too far to the socialist extreme, everything comes under the purview of the government, and once again, the people cease to be free. This government may ostensibly still be doing all these things ‘for the people’, but in reality the people become mere cogs to serve the functions of a ravenous bureaucracy.

Both the idea of leaving the people alone, and the idea of serving them, carried to their extremes, result in the loss of the free state. Without the ‘socialist’ element, it is not a state. Without the ‘libertarian’ it is not free.

A free state lies in maintaining that balance.

Canto 3 ~ The Search in Artemis Tau

~ THE SHEPARD ~

A CHRONICLE OF ROSAMUND AND THE REAPER WAR

  An interpretive poetic narrative of a Mass Effect play-through

 This is the third part of the Chronicle.  The first is available here Canto 1 ~ The Attack Upon Eden Prime

The following is fan-fiction. Mass Effect belongs to Bioware.  Image Credit: Bioware and Jason Behnke
PG-13 rating for scenes of battle and darkness.
For those interested, an image of Rosamund Shepard is available here: Commander Rosamund Shepard

Canto 3 ~ The Search in Artemis Tau

Artemis Tau is a cluster of stars,

Middled aged stars, hot, pulsing red stars.

They glow in the distance like apricot moons,

Blazing unceasing in unfading noons.

The Artemis dust cloud, hanging in space

Glows like a tapestry red-gold with lace,

Half hiding the blaze of the great Milky Way

Returning the light of Artemis’ day.

Somewhere within this shining expanse

Is the only child of our foe's confidant.

Whether Dr. T'Soni is friend or foe

At this point in time, I really don’t know.

But I fear the use she could be to Saren

And she may know her mother's location.

The Normandy's all that they said she would be,

Quiet and fast and quite hard to see.

She runs like a dream (I think Joker's in love)

Her drive core hums like a cooing dove.

The crew sails her well with eager intentions.

But under the surface, there's simmering tension.

Presley, the Navigator and new XO,

Is clearly unhappy but won’t tell me so.

Gunnery-Chief Williams however speaks straight.

She doesn’t trust our alien shipmates.

She doesn’t like that they are aboard.

She grates me with her suspicious, sharp words.

‘Will this be a problem in combat, Williams?

I need you to be able to work with them.’

‘No, Ma'am. It won’t be. I can rub by.

It's a matter of safety, of info-leaks.

But you ask me to jump, and I say, “how high”?

And if - “kiss a Turian”, well then, “which cheek”?’

She looks at me straight with bold black eyes,

Unabashed in her notions but bright in reply.

‘Well, I doubt kissing Turians will be necessary.

I’ll try not to ask you for something that scary.’

Wrex is merc, that is very true.

I don’t trust him and sometimes I rue

The impulse which led me to bring him aboard

Yet this is his job and he's known for his word.

He chills and cracks tales in the hold below,

Makes no sort of trouble, deals no foul blows.

Tali – the girl's barely more than a kid

Sent out alone, and for nothing she did.

The Quarian's have a rite of passage

Which they call merely the ‘Pilgrimage’

The Migrant Fleet leaves them, all on their own

To sink or to swim when they’re barely full grown.

Those who return and bring back something more

Than they started out with, are brought back aboard.

Tali assures me it need not be much

Just something to prove that you don’t need a crutch.

Her people are nomads, floating in space.

They built the Geth – that fell robot race.

Their servants revolted. They fought for their lives.

The battle was lost and they took to the skies.

So they float ever in rickety-ships

Pressed for resources, counting their chips.

I can’t help but smile and laugh when I see

How amazed the girl is by the Normandy.

She's made herself useful. She's a sharp engineer.

Chief Engineer Adams likes having her here.

And eager young Garrus, the Turian cop?

He has already fought beside me.

In the dim and grungy back-alley

Young Tali’s would-be assassin he dropped.

Garrus left C-Sec over this case,

Sick of the red-tape, the time gone to waste

Grieved for the unavenged victims defaced

Enraged by this Turian disgrace.

And he is as eager as any man here

To track down this criminal, this scourge of fear.

No! I have no fear for Garrus!

Unless it just might be

That in his righteous anxiousness

To do the rightful deeds,

In his single-minded focus

On preventing some injustice

He may trample heedless over something just as large

And, unthinking, towards some evil innocently charge.

In honest cheer, he mentions once:

‘That’s what I like about the spectres.

How did you do it? It shouldn’t matter.

As long as you get the job done!’

‘Not if it gets people hurt, Garrus.

We have leave to ignore the red tape.

But the “how” darn well better matter to us.

We do things right. Are we straight?’

But it was the right he was talking about!

Not just letting hurt happen oer bureaucrats’ doubts!

At least Alenko does not seem to mind

The presence among us of alien-kind.

He has concerns for the mission, true.

He thinks that we’re in a political brew,

And he doesn’t quite trust large organizations

With all their politics and limitations.

The Council, yes, and the Alliance too.

They can be corrupt, unwise, and untrue.

The current struggle for clout and positions

Might get in the way of this critical mission.

But on the plain topic of ‘aliens’,

He doesn’t seem to think ill of them

He doesn’t claim any special mistrust.

He says:

‘They’re jerks and they’re saints – like us.’

When a distress call draws us from our course

To barren Edolus where lies the weak source.

It's Tali and Garrus I take down with me

Down in the truck to look round and see.

The sky is the colour of mustard brew.

The cold ground beneath us could never construe

A fleck of good earth on its sharp barren slopes.

Sand trickles round us in hard wind-blown ropes.

In our truck, the “Mako”, we search fruitlessly

The Quarian, the Turian, and human me.

The site is bare rock, sand, poison wind

Though we scour the ground where the signal rings.

But there's scattered equipment about in the dust

Rent, as if gnawed, and half eaten with rust.

I know it still, the marks are still clear.

A squad of Alliance marines died here.

The killer soon finds us, a huge snake-like beast

With a foul ringed maw, six-foot at least.

I take the wheel and Garrus the guns.

Tali just tries to make sure the truck runs.

Long we give battle on pallid grey sands

Between the dark hills in their tumbling bands.

But the killer is killed by the Mako's hot blasts

And Garrus’ quick eyes and his clawed hand so fast.

The marines who died did not send the call.

It was set up before, they were lured to their fall.

We cannot discover who did it or why,

Who set it up to send cries to the sky.

One well placed shot blows the death trap away.

We contact the ship, and we fly away.

No travellers more will be lured to its hands

But never those men will return from the sands.

Therum was formed many ages ago,

From the hot iron rocks that round Knossos flowed

For aeons it bloomed and blossomed and grew

Peoples there flourished, who we never knew.

Long since it was emptied of rational ‘nau,

A few marks still stand, surviving somehow,

Where the land has not changed to bury them,

Where the sea has not risen engulfing them,

Where the mountains rose not to break them in pieces

Where they fell not as prey to weather's caprices.

It's chiefly for these few crumbling ruins

That the planet is taken note of at all

Few things now grow there, wizened and small.

An ancient world, drawn close to its sun,

A sad, empty world, it's days near done.

The few scattered miner’s posts send back our hails

But no Asari is told in their tales.

So to the bare ruins we turn our gaze,

Scanning for signs in each far hidden maze

Of recent activity, working machines

Or signs of life other than sad native gleams.

In a dry northern region not far from the pole

In a volcanic region where few things are whole

A ruin exists, extensive and crumbled

With quite recent structures, built-up and jumbled.

No one answers our hails, yet there's movement below

So down through the hot thinning air we go.

I assemble two teams to search through the ruin.

I take Alenko and Garrus Vakarian,

The second I place under Williams’ command,

Assigning her Tali and Wrex as her band,

The Quarian mechanic and the big Krogan merc.

Show me you can, Williams. Make this team work.

We drop off Squad Beta in a densely packed stretch

To search it on foot while my squad takes the rest.

Over a rippled and reddened landscape

Lit up with the glow of the rivers that drape

Their hot molten ore across the worn bluffs

The Mako rumbles and climbs through the dust.

We call through the hot, thin, but breathable air,

We scan for fresh footprints on weathered stairs.

Our infra-red scanners are no good at all.

Volcanic activity makes life-forms too small

To stand out on the background of radiant heat.

We look with our eyes, there's no way to cheat.

The sky is dark with volcanic smoke.

When the wind's from the north the air starts to choke.

Garrus keeps checking we don’t dehydrate

And bits of heat training he coolly relates.

As Kaidan Alenko wipes sweat from his brow,

He points out that at least the humidity's low.

They march cheerfully, stoutly along by my side

Combing the ruin in the dust, heat, and dry.

As we drive out of a rugged ravine

Onto a plateau that's ripped up and seamed

I glimpse swift bipedals of polymer steel

I hit the accelerator, grip tighter the wheel.

‘Beta Squad! We have Geth! Watch your backs!’ I shout.

‘Garrus! The guns. Lieutenant, scanner readout.’

A missile blast streams past, hits a cliff.

Rock flies into the skies, the ground shifts.

This was the movement we saw from the sky!

They’re here for T'Soni, as foes or allies.

Those blocking our path fall to Garrus's aim

And we swiftly keep on by the rivers of flame.

Shortly we come to a pass through a cliff

So small and so steep that the Mako can’t fit.

We leave the truck parked and slip into the rift

And climb between boulders that crumble and shift

Till we emerge on a broad rising slope

That leads to a open, wide miners’ stope,

A recent built shaft leading into the ground

With modern metals and platforms framed round.

But the open equipment shed before it...

Our omni-tools’ radar is picking up hits.

We creep quietly on, obscured by the rocks

Till we come in plain sight of the Geth in their block.

Forward we dash to the shed and take shelter

Amongst the equipment which lies helter-skelter.

Then from the dust beyond the platform.

On four mighty legs like a spider deformed

There rises a huge and terrible Geth

Nearly as broad as the low structure's breadth.

Great plasma bolts fly from its fearful head

Where the bolts crash, crushed metal glows red.

The lesser Geth fall as they come on.

But deadly, unmoved is the one beyond.

I lean out of cover to take a shot.

One moment I’m there, the next I am not.

I’m on the ground. My barrier's down.

My limbs are numb, head's spinning around.

Through foggy eyes, unfocused and red

I realize a Geth is come, over my head.

Crack! The sound of a lone sniper rifle.

The sharp scent of medi-gel through the air's stifle.

And a big Turian claw and a strong human hand

Lift me back to my feet, and I find I can stand.

Of the small Geth, not one soldier remains.

The one Garrus shot was the last to be slain.

But still the colossus, huge in the gloom,

Hunts in the twilight of volcanic fume.

The walls are scorched with the plasma blasts,

The abandoned equipment is pulverized, smashed.

But we can still hide, make it guess where we are.

We don’t have to guess, it's seen from afar.

Shot after shot, hurled biotic fields,

Little by little, we wear down its shields,

Til our blows impact on bare metal sides

And it collapses, burned out and fried.

We sink down on the rubble bleeding and dazed

Exhausted and bruised, relieved and amazed.

Smoke fumes up from the wreck of our foe

On hot blistering winds to the ash clouds it blows.

We apply first-aid before we go on

Sitting under the ramp where the dark stope yawns.

The medi-gel seals our burning gashes

Cools inflammation from forceful crashes

Refreshes, revives, and clears our sore heads.

We rise, lift our gear, and march on ahead.

The stope leads steeply into the ground

Echoes rattle away as our booted feet pound.

Lamps flash up before us, lighting the mine,

Flicker out as we pass, dark follows behind.

Long we search through the ancient rooms

Their purpose lost in endless glooms

Til deep in the maze far under the ground

Where clatter of rock is the only sound

I see in the distance a pale cool light

Beyond the orange lamps, in the long buried night.

We follow and come to a gap in the wall

That seems to be filled with a waterfall,

Translucent, impassable, softly it glows

Over our faces its rippling light flows.

Suspended within it, a blue maiden floats.

To us she calls in mellifluous notes.

‘Hello! Hello! Can you hear me out there?

Please help me, I’m trapped, I’ve been caught in a snare.’

Her face is young, like a blooming girl

Smoothly away her pert head-tails curl.

Her eyes are as blue and as round as the sky.

Her small, dainty hands are work-hardened and dry.

She is dressed in a slender tunic of green.

That face is the sweetest that I’ve ever seen.

‘We hear you!’ I call. ‘We’ll get you out.

But what is your name? What is this about?’

‘I’m just a researcher, Liara T'Soni.

This is an old Prothean piece of security.

I turned the field on to hold off the Geth.

But I did something wrong...’ she seems short of breath.

‘-This was probably meant to catch persons of doubt.

Now the Geth can’t get in, but I can’t get out.’

‘Can you tell me how to shut down the field?’

‘Yes, there's a button. Just past this shield.

It's out of my reach, over there on the wall.

But you can’t get through here, that's no good at all.

And I know of no other passage but this.

I cannot direct you to paths in the darkness.

‘We’ll find one.’ I say. ‘Stay calm, you’ll get out.’

‘The Geth have been trying, searching about.

Be careful out there, there's a Krogan who leads them.

The Geth may be deadly, but beware of him!’

I call to the ship, let them know she's been found,

But we’ll be some time for she's bound underground.

We leave the blue maiden floating alone

And take a dark path leading off through the stone.

Back and forth along the line

Through the dark and dusty mine

We travel scanning for a road

To lead us back into the hold

But paths all turn and twist away

Or turn to dead ends far from day.

At times we encounter small troops of Geth

Combing the labyrinth, searching the depths.

That they have pursued her is beyond doubt.

Garrus halloos:

‘Hey, Shepard! Check this out.’

It’s an old mining laser left here to rust

Worn, out of power, and covered in dust.

But he thinks he can get it to wake up and run

(He likes to tinker, it's useful and fun.)

There's power banks left, as shown by the lights.

Alenko sets out to the upper heights

To divert the power, whatever is left

And bring it down to the drill in the cleft.

I with my omnitool sound out the halls

The sonar bleeps testing the depth of the walls

The three of us haul the drill through the dark

To the spot that I’ve found, and set off a spark.

Red blazes hot in the narrow space

The three of us spin round and swiftly race

Away from the crack of rock, shatters of stone

As the drill breaks apart the earth's granite bones.

Then the scream peters out and the light fades away.

And we make our way back through the settling stone spray

Of splintered rock and choking hot dust.

The drill's power's gone, the reserves hadn’t much.

But a broken path lies through the bone of the ground.

The granite still rumbles; a strange shifting sound.

The opening of the tunnel is wide

The rock sizzles and cracks as we walk inside.

The heat's like an oven but air's rushing through

The hot and the cold turning it to a flue.

As we go on it gets filled with crushed rock

Till near the end the path's almost blocked

A biotic blast and then some hand-work

The narrow way widens. We climb through the murk.

In the blackness we search for an upward path

Climbing old stairwells half fallen and crashed,

Counting the levels and measuring the depth

Making sure that our sense of direction is kept.

Our only light is the lamps on our guns.

Now and again, the uncountable tons

Of granite above us, grumble and shake,

Slow growing tremors, minor earth-quakes.

Finally above us, we see the blue light

And climb the last stairwell, blinking in bright.

‘You made it!’

Her voice falls like dew on the grass.

‘I was afraid there might be no way past!’

‘We couldn’t find one. So we made one instead.’

‘Oh. That's what that was. The crash was widespread.

That panel, right there. It should release me.’

I reach out to touch it, but Garrus stops me.

‘Hang on, Shepard! You sure we can trust her?

Her mother's with Saren. Where does that leave her?’

‘I am not my mother!’ Liara cries.

‘I don’t know how she joined Saren or why!’

Her voice is indignant, her head is held high

Her hov’ring form quivers, and flash her blue eyes.

‘The Geth are clearly pursuing her, Garrus.

And even if not, I’d still have to chance it.’

A moment's work and the shimmering blue field

Flickers outs and collapses, the doorway unseals.

Liara lands lightly on slippered toes

And turns to face us where our white lamp light glows.

‘Thank-you. It was so long in the dark and the silence

… And the eyes of the Geth. You’re with the Alliance?’

‘Yes. I’m Commander Rosamund Shepard.

We came to find you, I take it you’ve heard

Of your mother's friend and the people he slew.

Do you know why his Geth have come after you?’

‘No I do not!’ She shudders, and then:

‘You don’t suppose that Benezia sent them?’

Alenko speaks out, calmly to her

‘You are a well known Prothean researcher.

Saren is looking for the “Conduit”.

He probably wants you to help search for it.’

Before Liara can answer a word,

A louder rumble, crashing, is heard.

The ground starts to shake and the stone above cracks.

Shattered rock crashes about in the black.

We’ve triggered an earthquake while under the ground.

This place is unstable. It's going to come down.

‘Let's go! No more words!’

I sprint through the trap.

Behind me, the three run behind in the black.

Without the orange lights, the way is more deadly

We run with our lamps held aloft so we see

The myriad pitfalls, precipitous drops,

The fallen stone heaps in leg breaking blocks.

Over my com, I hear Joker calling.

I do not stop. I answer while running.

‘That volcano, Commander? It's having a fit.

We’ve got to leave soon or we’re going to catch it!’

‘Squad Beta’s aboard?’

‘Not yet, Commander.’

‘What's held them up?! Go get them, Joker.

We’re on our way now. I’ll send our nav-point.

And the Mako is parked. Near the gorge. Just adjoint.

Pick it up and stand by. We’ll be there. Soon.’

‘Okay, Commander. But she's not immune.’

“She” is the Normandy, our beautiful ship.

Joker sounds worried...

Crack! The wall rips.

Stone slides and crashes to depths we just guess.

Light shines ahead through a doorway, lifeless.

In the chamber before us many Geth stand.

Silent and waiting, a cold statue band.

Through their ranks stumps a hulking orange mass.

The Geth slide aside, and slide back when it's past.

‘Just hand the Asari over, Human.

Or don’t, if you’d rather, that's lots more fun.’

The maiden beside me stands straight and stiff.

The chamber walls shudder, an ancient sill slips.

‘This place is collapsing.’ I shout. ‘We can’t fight!’

He oafishly chortles: ‘Oh, we can alright.’

‘What do you want with Dr. T'Soni?’

‘Saren wants her for something, didn’t tell me.

You better come, girl. You’ll find out more later.

‘No!’ Liara's voice rings through the air,

‘I will not go with you anywhere!

And I certainly will not help Saren the traitor!’

‘Thank-you, Liara T'Soni.’ I breathe.

I prepare to defend her. We all four will leave.

Alenko and Garrus, on our left and our right

Close quietly in, our circle grows tight.

The earth above groans in its own deadly fight.

Our barriers spring and our ring becomes bright.

‘You heard the Lady. Now let us pass!’

I speak mere defiance. He knows and he laughs.

His Geth slip tighter to seal fast the road.

‘One thing, ere we go-’ I add ‘-to what abode

Would you have taken her if she had come?’

‘To his ship!’ he snorts. ‘In space! Are you dumb?

Kill them.’ he croaks. ‘Except the Asari.

If you can help it. No skin off me.’

The change in the motionless horde is abrupt.

One moment they’re still. Then madness erupts.

The old dusty chamber so long dark and still,

Blazes with fury and gunfire screams shrill.

A whirlpool of chaos, of flying steel

Exploding plasma and biotic fields.

Tornadic winds send the dust all awhirl

Through the chaos the quake its sharp stone shards hurls.

On my right hand, Garrus’ rifle cries out

Back to my back, Alenko hurls Geth about.

On my left is the scholarly youthful blue girl.

But what is this? Around her light swirls!

I only half see her, beside as I fight

Yet her small hands spin masses of light,

Which form, coalesce into globes of dark blue

Pulsing and glowing with reflective hue,

And whirl away towards the mass of our foes

Catching them up in the field as they go.

The Krogan is dead. I saw not by whom.

Though we are battered, now fewer Geth loom

Driven back ‘neath our blasts to the walls of the room

Over our heads, the rocks itself booms.

‘Break off and come now!’ I shout to my crew,

And sprint up the steps to the chamber door, through.

‘Commander, where are you!?’ I hear Joker shout.

‘We’re coming! Hold on if you can!’ I call out.

Rock crashes behind, before, overhead.

I leap to the side and look back whence we sped.

‘Ahead of me! Go! Go! Straight up the slope!’

They hurtle past, in the dust, up the stope,

Garrus. Liara. Alenko. All there.

I swing in behind them and bring up the rear.

Light shines ahead, Therum's dim, rusty day

Seen through the dust and the fallen stone spray.

We leap from the tunnel, are hit by a blast

Of scorching hot wind, choking and fast.

Through burned stinging eyes, we see just above,

The Normandy swoop like a great silver dove

Down through the dust and the smoke and the ash

Towards the slow spreading streams of earth's blood that splash

Over the melting bones of the land

As the Mountain rumbles and coughs where it stands.

Before us she drops, her bay doors flung wide.

We sprint down the slope, and leap the divide.

The doors crash behind us. We breathe the cool air

As the Normandy bears us away from the flare.

The com-room is quiet, fresh, and clean.

Soft is the light from the circular walls

Silent the circle on which the light falls

Myself, T’Soni, and the two fire-teams.

I start to speak, but Joker’s wry tones

Over the coms, in a sarcastic groan.

‘So, maybe, Commander, for next time, ya’know

Don’t have us land in an active volcano.

They tend to fry sensors, and sometimes melt hulls.

We almost went swimming like hot lava gull.’

Liara looks up as Joker’s tongue runs.

‘We nearly died and he's making fun?’’

‘It’s a joke, he copes with stress that way.’

‘Oh. I see. I’ll get it someday.’

Williams gives me her mission report.

Her team hunted Geth up and down the old fort.

They cleared out several posts that were stationed by stopes

Her report is no-nonsense, her tale fills my hopes.

I’d intended that they would do naught but search.

But they saw battle and she made it work.

The Asari researcher quietly sits

Watching us speak, her mild gaze flits

From one face to another, like a shy child

Though she's held her own alone in the wild.

When I turn to her, she sits straight and replies

Looking up with her round, intense blue eyes.

I explain the matter, the little we know

And ask of her mother allied with our foe.

‘No I don’t know if my mother is near.

We haven’t spoken in over a year.’

‘A year? Why so long? Did you two fall-out?’

‘Oh no. We’ve been busy, both travelling about.

I knew she was serving as Saren’s advisor

But I gave it no thought til I heard he turned traitor.

This only I know, the woman I knew

Would have never conspired, or consented to

An act such as that done on Eden Prime

No matter the goals or the passing of time.

I can only hope now, from where I stand

That she first went to hold back his hand

And draw him along to a gentler path

She's done it before. I’ve seen it, she has.’

‘And what of this Conduit they’re searching for?

How does it connect to the Prothean's war?’

‘I’ve never heard of the Conduit.

But, Commander, I can tell you this,

The Council is wrong, the Geth unit right.

The Protheans saw that terrible fight.

Something destroyed them. They didn’t decline.

This matches with everything I can find.

It's said they just fell, as Empires do.

But I could find naught to attribute it to.

They didn’t destroy their resource base.

They had for their use everything found in space.

And their order, their structure, was maintained late

It didn’t fall to a slow, crumbling fate

Of corruption and layers of cancerous growth

Of disjointed complexities and broken troth.

It was cut off of a sudden. Still in its prime.

And all in a very, very short time.

And – here's the thing – they were not the first,

They were not the only to be thus curst.

Such civilizations have risen before

Though they come barely into our lore.

The Protheans killed them? No. Not at all.

Though that is the reason most thought for their fall.

The dates are not right. It doesn’t add up.

If they had, they would interrupt.

But the latest known marks of the elder folk

Were abandoned before the younger awoke.

Almost nothing we know goes back farther in time

But the little I’ve found, suggests it still rhymes.

A cycle of rises and then sudden falls,

Externally forced, not natural.

The record is strange to be so incomplete

Small quiet ruins pop up like wheat...

It's like someone's consciously foiling us.

Like somebody wiped the Galaxy bare

And purposely hid the past from us.’

She pauses a moment, inclines her blue head.

‘I’m young, and my theory hasn’t yet been much read.

And the lack of specific records of this

Have prevented others from suggesting it.’

‘Well, just how young are you?’ I ask the young lady.

I know spans are longer among the Asari.

She blushes and takes a deep breath ere she speaks.

‘I’m only one-hundred-two years and eight weeks.’

‘Damn!’

Williams interjects, blithely amazed.

‘I hope that I look that good at your age.’

‘Among the Asari I’m counted quite young.

A child almost, a girl barely sprung.

But, Commander, this is what alarms me.

If I see truly what I think I see,

If this is a cycle, as it appears,

Predictable over an average of years

Then within my life-time the next wheel is due

And we will fall. If the pattern holds true.’

Nobody moves and no one replies.

The sights of the beacon glare in my eyes.

‘Commander,’ Liara looks up to me.

‘I do not know how much use I can be,

I’m not an engineer or a mercenary,

I don’t have the intel, and I am sorry,

But, let me come with you,

I will try to help you,

There's few who know even the little I know

Of the last cycle spun so long ago.’

She sits, parted lips, hands folded before her,

Like a child facing a group of her elders.

But now that her explanation is oer

She look as though she’ll droop down to the floor.

Her eyelids flutter and trembling blue hands

Rest on unsteady thighs still covered in sand.

‘Hey, you don’t look so good, Dr. T'Soni.’

Alenko bends forward, his arm on his knee.

‘How long has it been since you ate? Or slept?’

‘Yes!’ agrees Wrex. ‘You need need food and rest!

Your kind aren’t as hardy as mine.’

The Krogan is gruff, but I think it's meant kind.

‘Maybe you should see the ship’s doctor.’

Alenko recommends to her.

‘I suppose … seeing a medic wouldn’t hurt.’

Liara agrees. She seems to exert.

‘Of course you must, I’ll send someone to guide you.

She gets first check-up, but the rest of you too.

But one more moment, before you all go

Our colony, Zhu's Hope, on the planet Feros,

As I recall, was built on a ruin

Ancient, alien, and I think Prothean.

Anderson said that they’d seen Geth about.

What might they have done there, what did they find out?

It can’t be coincidence Geth were there too.

They went for the ruins, or I misconstrue.’

‘The towers of Feros!’ Her tired eyes light.

‘I’ve heard, but I haven’t yet gone to that site.’

‘Then come with us now, Doctor! We’ll follow his trail.

What I’ve seen matches far, far too well with your tale.’

To be continued...