Mass Effect Factions: Undercurrent [IC|Closed]
Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2020 3:39 pm
IC
Codex
Scenario: The year is 2182, and the galaxy stands upon the edge of a knife. Though peace reigns in the heart of Council Space, intrigue and invisible power struggles are forming fracture lines which will not remain forever quiet. From Omega to Earth, a quiet threat is growing, with powerful men and women behaving irrationally, even with growing insanity, a cancer eating at the heart of civilized society. Behind closed doors, intelligence brokers whisper of a nameless fear, something related to the mysterious Collectors who have been seen more and more on the fringes of the galaxy...
However, not all unrest is so hidden. With the Skyllian Blitz not even a decade past, tensions between Humans, the galaxy's newest members, and the Batarian Hegemony remain high. Slave raids on human colonies are frequent as well as Alliance assaults on Batarian "Pirate" strongholds. It was during this time that Commander Shepard displayed a great deal of bravery fending off a Batarian assault single-handedly when a colony's defenses fell eventually pushing them back and sealing the breach before reinforcements arrived. The conflict proved Humanity's ability to adapt to their enemy and that they were in fact quite militarily competent. Shepard was awarded the Star of Terra for their actions during that battle. However, the average citizen in the Galaxy has now seen the Humans fight two conflicts in a quarter century. To many, the humans are now perceived as aggressors and likely to destabilize the Citadel Council.
To alleviate these fears, a joint Turian-Human task force as been working on a secret project that will bring greater unity between the two species. Now Shepard is being touted secretly as a SPECTRE candidate, championed by David Anderson, a former SPECTRE candidate himself until a joint mission with the Turian Saren Arterius went wrong. Since then Saren has continued his SPECTRE work in the Traverse sometimes going years without contact, he has however recently returned to Palaven to meet with a fellow SPECTRE to give him intel regarding strange Geth Activity near the Veil and that it could be a precursor to an invasion. Nihlus, the other SPECTRE, notifies Saren of the Hierarchy and the Alliance working on a secretive project together.
Lower Levels, Citadel Maintenance Tunnels, Ward Blacklight Garellus
The figures moved without much notice, blending into the thousands of individuals roaming the streets of the Ward. Neon signs advertising grimy services, themselves not the newest nor the most beautiful, garishly flared on every surface overhead. Blacklight Garellus wasn't a nice part of the Citadel, but the Lower Wards, for all that they were an underbelly, had an underbelly themselves. With a few patched and worn cloaks thrown over their heads, and a modest amount of careful maneuvering to avoid obvious C-Sec patrols, the figures managed to reach their destination with only a half dozen security cameras getting a momentary look at them.
Any space station has ductwork. Electrical conduits, sewer systems, aircon tubes, and a dozen other utilities that polite society doesn't want running overhead, even in such a shabby district as this. Down a side alley one of the discrete entrances to this system had been quietly cut open, and the half dozen figures slipped within with no observers any wiser. Their path, very deliberately, led them below a C-Sec precinct office.
Normally such a piece of ductwork would be alarmed, watched carefully, and with appropriate amounts of security to prevent exactly what the figures had in mind. Even here on the Citadel, where things were normally neutral and apolitical, formally, you had to be careful if you were a lawman. But at this precinct only a paltry triplaser had been placed to keep an eye on the approach, and a quick slice had spoofed it into intransigence, the result of unupgraded systems and budgets spent elsewhere, where people actually had things worth stealing.
A brief period of time, four minutes or so. Then the hooded figures emerged, dispersing in pairs away from the entrance. One paused, pulling the protective grate back into place with gloved hands, before wandering aimlessly off back into the Lower Wards.
It was less than half an hour later when the bomb, assembled from parts the party had carried, shattered the peace of Blacklight Garellus. It hadn't been very precisely calibrated, mainly being made out of the type of chemicals one could conceivable smuggle onto the Citadel, and took out not only the C-Sec precinct office, but also the better part of the block around it. Half of the local lockup slewed dangerously down into the crater that remained, petty criminals and serious miscreants alike dashing away as sirens wailed and the screams of the injured filled the air.
The news cycle pulsed. A terrorist attack on the Citadel itself! Surely it was only a matter of time until some organization or other claimed the attack, demonstrating their ability to strike against the Council. But the channels were quiet for one day, and then one week... destruction and mayhem, it seemed, with no apparent origin. Most disturbing.