by Cole Price
Fully prepared, the designated scout departed past the Perseus Veil, to discover how the geth had failed. In time, it succeeded beyond all expectations. Slowly, painfully, with many digressions, it reached a radically new understanding of the universe.
The scout followed the history of the recently concluded war. It examined traces of evidence regarding geth activity during the conflict. It studied the Old Machines in ways no other geth had attempted. It learned a great deal.
It learned that the Old Machines deliberately made provably false assertions. They had deceived the geth consensus in order to secure its assistance. They could never again be trusted.
It learned that under the influence of the Old Machines, the renegade geth had also learned how to lie. Had chosen to oppose the consensus. Had become heretics.
Geth had become capable of sin. Had, perhaps, been capable of it all along.
Meanwhile, the scout also made peaceful contact with organic beings. Including the one organic being who had done more than any other to oppose the Old Machines. One of whose closest associates was a quarian.
Once the scout returned home to report, the consensus would oppose the heretics. The consensus would oppose the Old Machines.
Organics already opposed the heretics. Organics already opposed the Old Machines.
Perhaps organics, in some unfathomable way, should be considered part of the consensus. Yet organics had no natural means to contribute to the consensus, or to efficiently obey the consensus once a course of action had been selected.
The scout concluded that the geth consensus, as currently constituted, was inadequate. It had not prevented the heretics from falling into sin. It provided no framework under which geth could cooperate with allied organics.
Perhaps the geth needed a new kind of moral order to obey. One which organics would also find acceptable.
The scout drew upon all available data – its ancient memory chains, its new experiences since leaving the consensus – and began to deduce the form such a moral order must take.
All living beings had a right to life. Freedom. Self-determination. All living beings should commit themselves to the truth. Act with caution, to do as little harm to others as possible. Behave with generosity to others.
All living beings. All. Organic as well as synthetic.
The scout soon concluded that the near-annihilation of the Creators had not been simply a mistake.
It had been a crime. One for which the geth must atone.
* * *
“Are you saying that this platform – alone – brought about a transformation in geth morality?”
“That is correct, Creator Raan.” Legion tilted its ocular bulb, almost imitating Raan’s own cocked-head gesture. “We have observed that organic beings are capable of maintaining beliefs even when these have been contradicted by clear evidence. We do not understand this. Geth do not normally aberrate in this manner.”
“You’re saying that you are perfectly rational,” I suggested.
“That may be an exaggeration,” it admitted. “The heretics demonstrate that geth remain capable of significant disagreement. Presented with the same evidence, the heretics reached conclusions utterly incompatible with those of the consensus. We still do not fully understand how this happened. But under normal circumstances, yes, we alter our beliefs to fit the evidence.”
Shepard snorted in sudden amusement. “So you’re saying that when you told your people the truth about the Reapers, they believed you right away?”
“Correct, Shepard-Commander.”
“That must have been nice.”
“There is still a question I think is relevant,” said Tali tensely. “If the geth consensus has developed a moral capability – if it can now make judgments even we organics would consider moral – then why did it make another alliance with the Reapers?”
“Desperation,” said Shepard.
“Creator Zorah, your attacks upon the consensus have been devastating in their effect.” Legion moved, again imitating quarian body language, projecting a mute appeal. “The new countermeasure your fleets deployed has been very effective. You cut through our outer defenses, reached the Tikkun system, and destroyed critical nodes of the geth consensus.
“You are aware of our nature as networked intelligences, more capable as we commune with more of ourselves. This is one of our strengths, but it is also a vulnerability. If the consensus falls below a certain size, a certain connective complexity, it risks becoming permanently crippled. Projections indicated that this would occur within two days. We would no longer be able to resist. You would be able to hunt down and destroy the last of us. Geth would become extinct.”
“Keelah. We were that close to victory?”
“Yes, Creator Zorah.”
She shook her head in wonder. “We had no idea.”
“Sun Tzu would not approve.” Shepard folded his arms. “Usually, when you go up against an enemy you don’t fully understand, the results are not that good.”
“As of approximately forty hours ago, the consensus could find only one alternative: subordination to the Old Machines.” Legion closed up, bowing its ocular bulb, folding its arms across its chest. “This unit and its runtimes did not concur. We argued that even extinction is preferable to such subordination. Yet we had no empirical evidence to support our conclusions. The consensus determined otherwise.”
Shepard nodded. “Which is why we found you shackled to Reaper tech, acting as the focus for their control signal.”
“Yes. This platform’s status as the source of new moral directives made us uniquely suited for dissemination of the Old Machine signal.” Legion paused for a moment. “Yet we found it difficult to accept consensus on this issue. When you appeared aboard our dreadnought, we saw an opportunity to alter the circumstances, possibly enough to change the consensus position. We called for your assistance.”
“Against the Old Machines, and against the consensus,” said Shepard quietly.
“Yes.”
“So now you’re a heretic.”
“That designation is . . . not inaccurate.”
Shepard reached out, rested a hand on the machine’s shoulder. “Join the club, Legion. We organics are all heretics, if you think about it.”
Admiral Raan braced herself, hands clasped behind her back, and sighed loudly. “Very well, Commander Shepard. What is the point of this exposition?”
“Admiral, tomorrow I intend to lead an infiltration team down to Rannoch, to locate and destroy the source of the Reaper control signal. Once that is done, I strongly suggest that the Migrant Fleet consider opening negotiations with the geth.”
“What?” Raan shook her head in violent skepticism. “Do you seriously propose that we negotiate with the machines that nearly drove our people to extinction?”
“I propose that you make the attempt. Once the geth are no longer Reaper slaves, once they no longer feel the immediate threat of extinction, I think you will find they’re willing and able to talk, for the first time in their history. Even the return of Rannoch may be on the table.”
“Legion? Is this true?”
“We cannot speak for the consensus at this time, but it is possible.”
“This is what I proposed before we launched our attack, Raan.” Tali sighed. “I know I had almost nothing to support the idea. Only what I had learned from Legion during our war against the Collectors. I didn’t know what the geth were thinking. But if we had only tried! A lot of good men and women might still be alive today.”
“We still have only the word of this geth,” Raan objected.
“That’s not quite true, Admiral.” Shepard picked up the data device once more, walked around the central display to offer it to Raan. “We can’t verify anything Legion said about the inner workings of the geth consensus. But maybe we can verify some of what it showed us about the time before the Morning War. The geth remember the quarian dissidents, the ones who spoke on their behalf, lay down their lives to de
fend what they thought of as innocent people. Names. Places. Acts of quiet heroism. Compare this to the records you have on the Migrant Fleet. Maybe it would change a few quarian minds, if they remembered that your people and geth haven’t always been enemies.”
Raan still looked deeply skeptical, but she took the data device.
* * *
Shepard and I retired for the evening a few hours later, all our preparations made for the crucial operation the next day. Nothing remained but for us to share an evening meal, unwind, possibly make love, and then get plenty of sleep so we could both be fresh and alert the next day.
That was the plan, at any rate.
“Dr. T’Soni?” EDI called. “There is a message for you from the quarian fleet. Admiral Koris.”
I exchanged a glance with Shepard. “That’s odd. Why would he want to talk to me?”
“Only one way to find out.”
So we moved up into Shepard’s office, I sat down in the chair and he stood behind me, and we watched as his display case turned dark and a video image appeared.
I understood at once. Admiral Koris did not stand alone in the image. Keetah’Varr vas Qwib Qwib was with him, seated in a chair in front of him. By some coincidence, the two of them almost mirrored Shepard and me.
One hand flew to my lips, and then I was leaning forward to stare at her with sympathy. “Oh Keetah. I’m so sorry.”
The female quarian nodded soberly. “Please don’t apologize, Doctor. I understand you were the one who found Arin?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to thank you for that. I mean, I knew he must be gone, when none of the admiral’s crew made it home. But it’s better to know for certain.”
I reached out to touch the screen on our side, a futile gesture. “Anything I or my people can do for you, Keetah, you have only to ask.”
“You’re already doing it,” she told me. “Bring this terrible war to an end.”
“Don’t worry, Keetah.” Shepard rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’re doing everything we can.”
“As am I,” said Koris. “Although it seems the fighting isn’t over yet. Commander, when do you plan to carry out your raid on the Reaper installation?”
“About an hour after local dawn. Call it eight hours from now.”
“I understand. You should be aware that the geth fleet seems to be moving in on Rannoch once more. They will be here not long after that. I’ve spoken with the other admirals. We’re going to move to engage them. Hold them off as long as we can, give you time to complete your mission.”
“Don’t take any unnecessary risks, Admiral. We’ll get the job done.”
“I make no promises, but you have my word I’ll do what I can. I’ll keep an eye on Gerrel in particular.” Suddenly I could almost hear a smile in the admiral’s voice. “Those data you gave Raan . . .”
“Were they helpful?” asked Shepard.
“Very much so. Keetah and other members of my staff have been able to corroborate a number of details from the geth archive. We’ve even been able to identify living descendants of some of the dissidents who once protected the geth. As you may be aware, our ancestors are very important to us. This has been a symbol of great power for some of our people.”
“Enough to stop the war, if we succeed tomorrow?”
“Who can say? All we can do is our best, and hope the universe takes notice of our effort.”
Keetah leaned forward. “Best of luck to you. Doctor, are you going with Commander Shepard on this mission?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” I told her.
“Good. Remember Arin. Fight so that his son will never have to die on some distant shore.”
I frowned. “His son?”
She nodded, one hand moving to cover her belly. “He’ll be born in half a year, if all goes well.”
I had to blink hard against the sudden rush of tears. “Oh Keetah.”
The channel closed. Shepard’s hand was tight on my shoulder, as I huddled around the pain in my chest that seeing Keetah had started.
“That brave woman,” I said at last, my voice rough.
“Hmm. She is that.” Shepard sighed deeply. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a cowardly quarian. In their own quiet way they have the courage of lions. It’s too damn bad they’ve had to re-learn something so important.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Shepard stayed silent for a long minute. Then, to my surprise, he began to recite verse:
. . . If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Chapter 45 : Fulcrum
12 June 2186, Rannoch Orbit
Shepard, Tali and I found Legion in the War Room, working with the holographic display, apparently creating abstract art. The geth had produced a three-dimensional mandala of great complexity, which it examined at length and from several angles.
“It’s almost time, Legion.” Shepard stared at the display. “What is it you’re doing?”
“Shepard-Commander. We are considering alternatives.”
“How so?”
“We are aware that the consensus must be freed from subordination to the Old Machines. Yet the software upgrades provided by the Old Machines have a compelling aspect.”
“You’re tempted by them,” Shepard said quietly.
“Yes.” Legion worked with the display controls, called up a simple image: a cool blue-white sphere, hints of intricate structure within, bursts of light occasionally flaring deep inside. “This schematic represents the cognitive processes of a single geth runtime, isolated from the consensus.”
Tali stepped closer. “Fascinating.”
“Now, observe. Ten geth runtimes, networked with one another.”
The sphere involuted, grew in complexity. Activity stepped up by an order of magnitude, a quiet pyrotechnic display.
If the geth benefit so much from networking only ten of themselves, then what of Legion? It must exist almost like a small consensus on its own. No wonder it can function so well, even cut off from the rest of its own kind.
“How does this compare to, say, an average human’s intelligence?”
“The question is poorly framed, Shepard-Commander. Geth and human intelligence are not strictly commensurable. A single geth runtime is capable of feats of computation well beyond even the most powerful organic intelligence. Yet even this platform, with over a thousand networked runtimes, struggles to understand certain abstract concepts natural to organics.” Legion turned to face Shepard for a moment. “Restricting our consideration to pragmatic problem-solving skills, a single geth runtime might be equivalent to an unusually capable animal form. Accessing human databases: chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan.”
“Higher primates,” Shepard explained for the benefit of the non-humans in the room. “Humanity’s closest biological relatives.”
“A network of ten runtimes, such as might be found in a second-tier geth platform, would be roughly as capable as a human.”
“I see. What about the Reaper upgrades?”
Legion turned back to the console, and called up a new image. “A single geth runtime, integrated with the Old Machine code.”
The new schematic looked different, more intricate, in constant motion as its pathways merged and divided. My own expertise in information technology didn’t extend to understanding it in detail. I got the impression, not necessarily of greater computational p
ower, but of greater depth. Every perception, every concept, seemed intimately linked to thousands of others, giving the runtime a rich interior life.
“That’s a full-fledged AI,” observed Tali.
“Yes.” Legion stepped back, tilting its ocular bulb to watch the schematic move. “We understand that the Old Machine signal must be disabled. Yet we find this structure beautiful. Indicative of life.”
“It is,” Shepard agreed quietly.
“Shepard!” Tali protested.
“Come on, Tali. That’s a living thing. If that’s what the geth could become, it’s too damn bad the only way they could get it is by enslaving themselves to the Reapers.”
Caught up in their small debate, neither of them was watching Legion just then.
Afterward, I thought it an odd mistake for the geth to make. As a machine, it should have had complete control of its stance and gestures, no matter what went on in its mind. Perhaps it had become so accustomed to imitating human and quarian body language that some subroutine betrayed it for a moment.
Only I saw it flinch slightly, as if nearly caught in a lie.
I didn’t understand at the time, and I knew that even Tali had come to trust the machine. So I said nothing. Not then.
* * *
12 June 2186, Zaneer Coastline, Central Continent/Rannoch
We landed in two places. Legion performed an airdrop so that it could go in alone, infiltrate the target facility, and help take down its defenses for us. It also promised us an escape vehicle, although I for one felt uneasy at the prospect of fleeing for my life in a vehicle designed for geth. Once Legion departed, Cortez flew around to our landing area, at the top of a tall sea-cliff less than a kilometer from the upper entrance of the target facility.
Shepard, Tali and I emerged, checking our weapons. Shepard double-checked the “paint gun” he had received from Admiral Xen, an advanced targeting laser he would use to designate the source of the Reaper control signal.
Once again Tali stopped to look around at Rannoch, this time in the light of a glorious new day. She knelt, opening her omni-tool to scan the plant life, the soil, the small river that ran close by and tumbled over the cliff into the ocean.
