Yeah, the first few parts of this already went up on AO3. It's fully written now, so I'll be getting the forum up to speed and then simultaneously posting the end and bonuses in both places. (Plus, I wanna see what happens when I pretend that I do regular updates instead of chucking out a few thousand words every couple of months). One chapter per day guaranteed for the next week. Okay, off we go.
Humanity is, to all intents and purposes, a rather unspectacular strain of life. They do not think so quickly as the salarians, nor do they acquire the long-lived wisdom of the asari. They have none of the durability of turians, the krogan or the vorcha. Any batarian or elcor can crush a human's skull with a blow. Their memory is astoundingly inferior to that of the drell, and they cannot match the beautiful bioluminescence of the hanar. Frankly, humans aren't good for much. Middle of the road in almost every way, never visibly excelling.
A scientist, if called upon to show some enthusiasm for the humans, will likely babble on about their extraordinary genetic diversity. And it's true that humans come in a rather incredible array of colours, palest white to midnight black, that their eyes have dozens of shades to them, even that they are extraordinarily varied in their sexualities compared to other species. But this (though it skims the truth for an instant as a stone skips over water) is a detail, a curiosity. Humanity's variety would not make up for its weakness, and we must plunge further on.
If you ask some average person, wandering the Wards, they are actually more likely to pick up on their hair. Uncovered hair on an intelligent species is rather a novelty to the longer-established civilisations, and the wonder has still not worn off. Partners to aliens are known to have been trapped for hours with a lover who simply strokes and strokes their hair, learning colour, texture, length. (Amongst other things, this means hair is beginning to become symbol of romantic interest, inside and outside human space. Show yours off and fling it about to show that you're available; brush theirs with a hand to show you'd like to take up the offer).
A historian might perhaps get closer to the truth. Humanity, it will be noted, have expanded far more rapidly than any other recorded civilisation. They were pressed into war on their very first contact with an alien species (and for all that the Hierarchy records it as an 'Incident', the idea of the 'First Contact War' is far more pervasive in historical and popular discussion). They went up against the turian military machine even a small part of it and came out of it with a creditable draw. They made outstanding contributions to tactics, to new ship designs. They have won themselves a seat on the Council more quickly than anyone thought possible.
But the facts of history will not tell you the truth. At least, not all of it. Humanity has been vastly more successful than it has any right to be, but that does not get at the why of it, not the root. There is an extraordinary drive there. Krogans are bloody-minded to be sure (and can afford to be, even as more and more are born without full redundant systems), but they lack purpose in their stubborn nature. For that reason, they die the genophage's slow and lingering death, not only as their numbers dwindle with each warrior dead and each stillborn clutch, but also as they degrade themselves into feuding brutes. Brutes who forget the glory of their ancestors and will not stoop to curing their species' quiet death even as they rage about it to all who would hear.
And so the utter determination of humanity, gives them something no other species has. Something no species has ever had, according to the thousand cycle-long data banks of the Eldest, ancient Harbinger. It gives them Alaya. The great unconscious embodiment of human will. Alaya processes the belief and conviction of humanity. It shapes the gods. It elevates legends to be recorded in the Root, the Spiral of Origin, Void, 「」, siari, the fabric of the universe itself, whatever word or symbol or phrase you try to dedicate to that enormous, inexpressible concept.
But the gods left two thousand years ago, with all the other beasts of fantasy and legend, leaving humans to their Age of Man, the age of Technology. Scraps of their presence remain an old sword, handed down through the clan's generations; the religions who were too stubborn to die when their heads were cut off and their feet shattered; a few families in which the bloodline was preserved and who are stronger or quicker than humans really should be (this, O learned scientist, even if you will get no proof, is where humanity's genetic diversity comes from the inhuman constructs of human faith). Yet, they are only scraps. The gods have no place in the normal life of humanity any more, and humanity dwindles, invention after invention compensating as godsblood thins and the old, testing wilds are tamed.
Alaya's role, then, is more subtle in this day and age. The gods are gone and humanity relies too much on technology over personal strength for people to ever become true legends again. Occasionally, it will draw the attention of ancient heroes, the great unconscious calling the past to defend the present. But mostly it is nudges in the mind and manipulations and shadows, not the blowing horns of battle.
The time for that subtlety is past now. Humanity is under threat as never before. Alaya is under threat. For all that humans have made a hundred other planets homes, Earth is still the homeworld, the centre of its self-identity. If it were to fall Alaya might not survive. Insofar as an extension of unconsciousness can be afraid, it is terrified. It is not a screaming panic that is the realm of the conscious but all those uncontrolled signs of fear. A trembling in the hands, a shivering, a pacing to-and-fro. All multiplied eight billion times over as the Reaper horns shake the land and their crimson streams of metal carelessly gut humanity's ships.
It might be stopped. A faint hope, but there, a single shooting star upon which all Earth's children can wish. As the Reapers' initial attack brings panic and terror, people falls back on the old superstitions and traditions. They grasp at straws, but that is enough. The King Under The Mountain. The Captain In His Hammock, A Thousand Mile Away. The Once And Future King. A hundred million despairing prayers soar, filled with belief. And the desperate sincerity is itself what means those prayers can be answered.
Their contracts are answered. Their vows fulfilled. Their legends reborn.
Charlemagne walks out of his mountain cave. He is in his prime, golden hair flowing down his shoulders, and the golden sword, Joyeuse, at his side.
Barbarossa stands tall again, brushing burial-earth away from massive shoulders and bright red beard. The Holy Roman Empire is no more, but its Emperors rise once again.
As a distant drumbeat sounds, by Plymouth a massive fleet of galleons rises out of the water, and the Golden Hind is at their head.
At the third cry of their horn, the cave entrance cracks open at last. First to march out is Fionn, old Ireland's saviour. And behind him are assembled the Fianna - Diarmuid and Oisin and Oengus and all the others - ready to protect the Emerald Isle once more.
Deep within the corridors of Kronborg Castle, the old statue shudders and then seems to fill with colour and texture and life until King Holger the Dane stands tall once more. And in his hand is Curtana, sister to Joyeuse and Durandal.
Near Athens, Theseus strides from the sea, his father's ancient kingdom. Just as at Marathon he came forth to sweep the Persians before him and the army of his countrymen, so he has returned again for his city's sake.
And though he never died, the call sounds loudly to another too. From the faery realms steps the healed Arthur, ageless ever since he took the scabbard of Excalibur, and so young that he seems a maiden girl at first sight.
But it is not only these legends who are realised now. Alaya's plea has no hold on them save the common bond of humanity, but few indeed are the heroes who would abandon their species, their planet, or a damned good fight. The path to the Throne of Heroes has been forced wide open, and the best that Earth has ever had to offer comes pouring out.
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Originally Posted by Tiresias
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