Revan sat stunned as Mordin and Jacob filtered out of the room, leaving her with the Commander and her XO.
They turned their ship into a droid?
Of all the short-sighted, unprofessional, amateurish, just...plain stupid ideas Revan had ever heard of.
She stopped and brought an armored hand to her still helmeted head, trying to physically hold back her disdain for such an action.
This wasn’t her home. There was a common sense there that didn’t apply to these people and their primitive starships. She needed to remember that and look at the decision from the perspective of a culture that had only seemed to accidentally create Artificial Intelligence on occasion.
“Revan?” Miranda’s annoyed tone broke through the Sith Lord’s musing. “We would like to discuss the abilities you’ve shown on the last mission. If you’re ready to pay attention to us?”
Commander Shepard was a little more diplomatic. “Is there something wrong about having EDI on the ship? We won’t replace her because of you, but we would like to understand any issues you have with AI’s.”
“I have no ‘issues’ working with a droid. What I have issues with is the sheer stupidity of not only wiring one directly into the ship itself, and then intentionally limiting it because your scientists are apparently too incompetent to come up with a decent loyalty or personality matrix.”
That seemed to catch the two women off guard.
“I am not a droid.” EDI helpfully commented from her display at the end of the table. “I am an Artificial Intelligence intended to run the ship’s electronic warfare suite and offer analysis and advice. I was not designed to interface directly with the ship’s systems.”
“Semantics, EDI.” Revan dismissed. “In my galaxy all artificial life was generally called droids. Though I will admit instances where one was tied directly into the facility it served were vanishingly rare.”
“Wait, your galaxy has AIs?” Miranda asked.
“At nearly all levels of society.” Revan confirmed. “Though like I said, they tended to be housed in mobile platforms rather than tied to an installation or ship.”
“Why not?”
“Safety and convenience really. If you are swapping ships you don’t want the risk of someone stealing or corrupting your data. Not to mention it’s easier to guard a few access panels to the ship’s systems than trying to guard against a potentially hostile mind in the ship itself.”
Miranda seemed to be reassessing how advanced Revan’s galaxy was if people could swap starships with the ease of owning a planetary transport while Shepard seemed more interested in the thought of people living side by side with AI companions, though she tried to keep it confined to starships at the moment.
“So what does that mean for ECW? Having a bunch of electronic minds trying to hack into systems must make space combat pretty chaotic.”
Revan huffed in amusement. “Space combat can be chaotic no matter what. But not because of external hacking threats. Outside of the sensors and communications there are no systems that can be accessed externally that cannot be overridden by a mechanical control.”
“But what about docking? Traffic control? Emergency response? They need to coordinate between ships or there would be dozens of crashes in an hour. How can they do that if they can’t control the ship?”
“Uploaded routes that either the pilot, autopilot, or onboard droid follows for the first two and hardpoints with manual access for data splices or droids for the last. I’m stunned how inefficient your current systems are actually if you need to dedicate resources to fend off attacks before an enemy even takes a shot at you.”
Shepard opened her mouth to ask another question when Miranda cut her off. “As fascinating as it is to learn about another civilisation’s culture, we seem to have gotten a bit off track with what this conversation was about.”
Shepard scowled but ultimately agreed. “Don’t think this conversation is over.” She pointed a finger at Revan.”
“I would also like to hear more about AI advancements when there is time.” EDI commented.
“We’ll see.” Revan deflected.
There was a small pause as the two humans refocused their thoughts back to the original questions they wanted to ask.
“So we went over all the scans we had of both you and your ship just to make sure, but from what we can tell there isn’t a speck of eezo anywhere.” Shepard started easing into the conversation. “You definitely aren’t using biotics like we’re used to, is that just natural to your species or is it something else?”
“You have species in this galaxy naturally capable of generating electricity and telekinesis?” Revan returned, wondering if this meant there were more Force sensitives in this Galaxy than she had been led to believe.
“Hanar can generate a weak bio-electricity for communication and all Asari are natural biotics and thus capable of telekinesis to some degree. But those are nowhere near what you did or are applications of ME fields. Please stop avoiding the question.” Miranda said frosily.
“I’m not avoiding the question. Just trying to learn more about the new species I might be faced with.” Revan reassured her. “As to my abilities...there is actually quite a bit of debate as to the exact nature to them back home. I spent years studying what I could from the smallest nomadic sects to the largest ruins of long destroyed empires. The source has been called many things by many people...psionics, spirit calling, cosmic energy, magic...just to name a few, but the largest and oldest institutions simply call it the Force.”
“The Force? How exactly does that translate to lightning fingers?”
“The Force is an energy field. One that connects all of existence together. In my galaxy there are certain people, and some species, that have a deeper connection to this energy field that allows them to manipulate it. I am one of those people.”
“Like the Sith.” Miranda’s comment made Revan’s eyes widen behind her visor but she made no visible reaction.
“Yes, like the Sith...you know of them?”
“The Sith, a term used to describe three of the antagonists in the Star Wars series Darth Maul, Darth Sidious, and Darth Vader. Enemies to the destroyed Jedi Order and tyrannical rulers of the Galactic Empire. Known to use red colored lightsabers and powers that stem from the ’Dark Side’ of the Force.” EDI reported.
Revan didn’t know what to say. “You said you didn’t know anything of my galaxy.”
“Correct. All information has been pulled from informational databases regarding a fictional movie series. We do not possess any information on your galaxy of origin. Though the two seem to share many similarities.”
Revan mulled over this new piece of information and eventually realised there was an explanation. It just wasn’t one she wanted to reveal about her personal abilities. Sadly, she didn’t see an option not to tell them without everyone instantly calling her into question when there were coincidences.
“That...makes some amount of sense.”
“It does!?” Shepard exploded incredulously.
Revan nodded. “There are historical reports about force visions being made into entertainment, especially when the seer is especially weak. The closeness of the seer is almost directly proportional to the seer’s strength in the Force.” She looked off to one side, “Though to receive a vision from my galaxy from here...either event in the vision was powerful enough to ripple all the way here or the seer was specialised in it. Did they make a great deal of such stories?”
“Only four films were released.” EDI supplied.
“The event then.”
“Okay, I’m the last person to call people crazy for getting mysterious visions but does that mean that we have movies showing actual events in another galaxy?”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Not necessarily.” Revan assured Shepard. “I would need to see these recordings to be sure but I don’t recognize the Sith you named and the Jedi Order was still a major presence in the galaxy so I doubt it was a vision of the present or recent past.”
“Oh future events, because that’s so much better!” Shepard collapsed dramatically into her chair.
“That something you can do too?” She demanded from her slouched position.
“All Force users can do it, but it’s not something I consider myself skilled with. Like all skills there is a measure of talent that determines how much potential someone has.”
“Tch, no getting rich off of the lottery then.” Revan blinked at the startling childish desire to use precognition. “So is that stuff actually real? The light side and the dark side. Good and evil and all that?”
Revan felt the desire to sigh in resignation but felt it would be a sign of weakness. “First of all, Light and Dark do not equate to good and evil. Not many things are that clear cut.”
“You called yourself a Sith earlier.” Miranda recalled from when Revan had first introduced herself. “In our source the Jedi were the good side, and you claim to be their opposite? Or do you not consider yourself a Sith?”
“Not technically, but I accept the title because I enjoy watching the annoying Jedi squirm when I do things better than them.” The Sith Lord nodded to the dark haired woman. “What you need to understand is that the Jedi and the Sith are religious organizations at heart. They are not the definitive source on everything and they themselves split from another religious order.
The Jedi worship the light side which focuses on order, stability, and the community. This tends to make them seem like the good guys to the uninformed because these qualities often promote peace in chaotic situations. And they generally are...up until they take it too far and start letting entire planets get invaded and slaughtered because they would need to step out of the roles they built for themselves.
On the other hand, the Sith deal worship the dark side focusing on change, chaos, and the desires of the individual. If used correctly, the Dark can greatly empower an individual but the risk lies in letting those individual desires overwhelm all logical thought. But that doesn’t mean that all Dark side users are psychotic maniacs. They just get that reputation because the more powerful ones encourage that behavior.”
Revan stopped talking as she realised that she had begun ranting a bit. She had just wanted to give a general explanation. It seemed the jedi were still a touchy topic for her.
“So yes the Light and Dark are aspects of the Force, but I do not believe they make up the whole thing. They certainly have no influence if a person is ‘good’ or ‘evil’ as you put it. Those standards are determined by society. From what I understand the Batarians would consider me evil because I did not accept becoming a slave.” Revan wrapped up her rather lengthy answer. “Next question?”
-o-
Shepard watched the potentially evil alien from another galaxy from the corner of her eye as she pretended to sulk. A rarely used skill nowadays she had developed growing up that gave her time to think and made others ignore her for a bit. Not much use for it when everyone expected professionalism in the Alliance.
As she had hoped, the attitude change had shocked Revan just enough to get her off balance. Enough so that Shepard got quite a bit more from the elf’s mini-rant about the Jedi and Sith than she was expecting. It wasn’t exactly reassuring that Revan had thrown around words like chaos and maniac when talking about the Sith and accepted claiming the title. Damn it, she was hoping Revan would be different from Cerberus. Not just the same thing under a different name!
Shepard calmed herself.
Revan said she accepted the title of Sith, not that she followed their beliefs. There had been enough incidents in human history where one group demonized another and they accepted that as a point of pride that Shepard wouldn’t immediately dismiss Revan’s argument.
She would find out more but first there was a question that had been bugging her ever since they pulled Revan’s helmet off.
“So what do we call you?”
“Excuse me?” Revan’s black visor was now pointed directly at Shepard.
“Like your race. I’ve been calling you a space elf in my head because you resemble a fictional species, but I’d like to know what to actually call you.”
“I see… Well unfortunately I can’t tell you that.” Revan said.
“Why not? Is there some cultural reason?” Thankfully Miranda was coming off as more interested scientist than condescending human supremacist right now. Shepard appreciated it, even if she would still keep an eye on the woman in the future.
What worried her was that Revan was visibly uncomfortable, even through the armor. “No, nothing cultural. It’s more a personal reason…But I suppose a little personal history is expected.” she slouched a little as she sighed. “I was raised from a very young age as an orphan by the Jedi order.”- Of fucking course she was. -”I grew up among them. Eventually graduating to the position of knight. When I said the Jedi were content to sit by as planets were consumed by war that was not a hypothetical situation. Shepard, recall how I told you about the Mandolorians?”
She nodded.
“When they started to invade many people looked to the Jedi to intervene. They had marketed themselves as ‘peacekeepers’ and ‘defenders of the Republic’. But when something big enough came along that actually demanded they step up and help...they refused.” Shepard couldn’t help but compare the Jedi with the Council. “So I led a group of mostly younger Jedi and Padawans (apprentice Jedi) into war against the wishes of the Grand Council. And we started winning.” Revan said proudly.
“This is very interesting,” Miranda said slowly. “But what does it have to do with why you cannot tell us the name of your species?”
“Patience, I’m getting there.” Revan assured them. “So the Mandalorians were largely driven back by my forces and the war was nearly over. Then on an abandoned moon in the middle of nowhere, I stumbled across an outpost of the Yuuzhan Vong, a race of humanoids with the numbers and desire to eradicate all life in my galaxy provided the opening. I brought word of this threat to the Council and my recommendations of how to prepare for them but…”
“You were ignored.” Shepard was definitely feeling the parallels in Revan’s story with her own. She almost didn’t care if Revan didn’t answer her question. This was more interesting! And maybe it would give her an idea on how to prepare for the Reapers.
“I was ignored. In their rush to return to the previous status quo, the Jedi Council even proposed several demands to decommission fleets across the galaxy to remove the threat of war. Which would have opened us to invasion immediately. What’s worse is that much of the Republic approved of this action, as it would weaken the systems outside of it’s control greatly.
So with the galaxy about to return to peace and it’s defenders unwilling to acknowledge the distant threat I, along with several of my followers, decided to do the unthinkable. We would become the distant threat I had warned of, but with a mission of subjugation and conquest rather than eradication like the Yuuzhan Vong wished.
I took the name of the Jedi’s historical enemy as our banner to ensure everyone in the galaxy knew the war was not over. That the Sith had returned as an empire to take the galaxy for themselves.”
Shepard was surprised how bitter Revan sounded at being forced to grab unlimited power in the form of her own fucking empire! It was reassuring in a way that meant Revan didn’t like that her actions plunged her galaxy into more war. It was also concerning that Shepard couldn’t exactly blame the elven woman for her decision either. Hadn’t she done the same, if on an infinitely smaller scale, agreeing to work with Cerberus?
“It worked. The Republic was outraged that the Jedi war hero had turned into a warlord. The Jedi lost members, trust, and influence between people defecting to my cause and others wondering if I as one of the most promising of them could ‘fall to the Dark side’ like I did.
So for years, I fought a galactic war against the very people I dedicated my life to protecting. Keeping a careful balance of winning the war and not reducing our galactic strength. It was...hard...to say the least. Eventually I thought I had found the solution to that problem and readied my forces to crush the Republic. And in that moment... I was betrayed. The Jedi council, cowards and hypocrites that they are, decided that the best way to end the war was to kill me and convinced my apprentice to cooperate in an ambush.” Shepard waited for Revan to continue, sharing glances with Miranda about the crazy tale a single question had evolved into. When it seemed Revan wasn’t about to continue Shepard carefully prodded her on. She recognised the tone Revan had slipped into, she heard it enough from soldiers sharing stories of ops gone bad.
“Was that how you ended up here?”
Revan snorted in amusement.
“No, that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? No, that betrayal cut a million times deeper than this one. My apprentice, Malak, had fully given himself over to indulging in his rage and power. It’s an addictive feeling, having the Dark side leap to your side and grant you power. But just like any normal person drowning yourself in negative emotions for any reason isn’t healthy and it twisted him.
The Jedi felt like they could deal with Malak because he lived up to all the old stories of the Sith. Impulsive, destructive, insane… all things that despite how they called me a Sith Lord couldn’t really be attributed to me, because I refused to believe there was a single path to power and wallow in my passions like an unthinking animal.
I was more powerful than all but the oldest Jedi masters, and yet I was also in complete control of myself. This scared them. If I ever taught a true apprentice how to use that same power then it would be the end of the Jedi. They played off of Malak’s insecurities of his inferiority to me and cooperated to have a Jedi kill squad infiltrate my flagship.
In the middle of my battle with the Jedi, Malak had his ships fire on mine, interrupting the duel and ironically possibly saving my life. It caused our forces to lose the battle, but Malak took the opportunity to flee and unite my empire under his own name after my assumed death.
I was greatly injured in the crash of my ship, where I was captured by the surviving Jedi and brought back to the council. Where they performed a ritual, which is also the answer to your question.”
Shepard couldn’t resist a question. “They didn’t just kill you?” That seemed like the natural thing to do if they went that far to take a shot at Revan.
“You would think they would after going through that much trouble.” Revan agreed, a hint of a smile in her voice. “But Malak was more cunning than they had accounted for. When he slipped away from the battle he did so to launch a terrible blow to a nearby world. Free from my oversight and restrictions on his actions, Malak utterly destroyed practically everything there.
His power and ruthlessness were beyond what most of the Jedi were capable of handling. So the cowards on the council saw my capture as the perfect tool to destroy Malak without risking any of their own.”
Once again Revan stopped talking and took a deep breath.
“Something you need to know about the so-called ‘sides’ of the Force is that certain abilities come much more easily to one than the other. The Dark grants many physical boosts and powers. Elemental control, physical reinforcement, draining lifeforce and other such things fall under this category. It’s one of the reasons that those that ‘fall’ to it see such an improvement in power in such a short time.”
Shepard blinked at the sudden tangent. What did this have to do with anything?
“The Light is mostly aligned with mental powers. Empathy, telepathy, precognition… mind control… and things like that. This isn’t to say that using one means you are incapable of the other. Just much harder and slower to improve.
When I was presented to the Council, they ‘debated’ what to do with me. Whether my actions meant I deserved to be executed or not. Eventually the highest members of the Council convinced the others that I had caused too much evil in the galaxy to be simply granted death, but I was also not trustworthy enough to repent for my actions on my own.”
Shepard was starting to feel uneasy when Revan mentioned mind control. Her buried fear of what Cerberus had done to her on the operating table springing to the surface.
“It’s called ‘Death of the Personality’, a Light Force technique so powerful that it can erase every aspect of a person and replace it with a crafted persona of the user’s choice. Darth Revan ‘died’ that day and Naver, Jedi Padawan replaced her.” Revan laughed hollowly at Shepard and Miranda’s incredulous faces. “Yes, they weren’t very subtle about it were they? I managed to regain most of my memories through luck and circumstance but pieces are still missing. My early years are nearly entirely lost to me still. If I ever knew what my race was called, I cannot remember it now. So that Miss Lawson, is why I cannot tell you my species name. Now I know I promised more info about me, but I have spoken more about things I would have preferred to never remember again. If you’ll excuse me…”
Revan stood up and made her way out the door. When it shut, Miranda turned to her commanding officer.
“What do you think Shepard? It seems completely crazy but…”
“I don’t think she was lying. About any of it.” Shepard agreed. “Revan just got a whole lot more complicated than we first believed, but if what she said was true...then maybe more visions of her galaxy exist here. We can ask her more questions later if we need things clarified.”
“Should we keep a closer eye on her?”
“Yyyess.” Shepard ground out, hating herself a little for spying on someone who had just become a part of her crew. “But nothing invasive. We keep a lookout for any odd behavioral changes around the ship and nothing else. The Collectors need to remain our top priority.”
“Understood, Commander.” Miranda nodded and looked at her datapad, adding some final notes to the ones she took during the meeting. “I’ll inform you if we discover anything new.”
“Good, what’s our status on finding Archangel?”
“I have picked up reports of Blue Sun, Blood Pack, and Eclipse mercenaries gathering in one location.” EDI reported. “I have also accessed messages between mercenary groups regarding plans to deal with Archangel. There's a recruiting station at Afterlife that may have information on him.”
“Okay, then we head there first thing in the morning.” Shepard said placing her hands on the table and rising to her feet. “Let Jacob know I’ll need him ready to go.”
“And Revan?”
“Let her know too, but if her head isn’t in the game I don’t want her coming with.” Shepard decided. “I should go...keep me informed of any changes.”
‘I need a shower after hearing about that personality thing.’ She thought as she made her way up to her quarters and hopefully a few hours of sleep.