i'm screaming and crying and wailing and thrashing
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Summary
Humanity never developed FTL. The Prothean archives contained no technology, no Element Zero, just a warning. Isolated from the rest of the galaxy for two thousand years, restricted to their only system, how will humanity have changed when they first meet the Turians? AU, alternate history of humanity and First Contact.
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Bookmarked by creaky_crow
08 Jul 2023
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Bookmarker's Notes
Whiskey stared at Envoy.
After the diplomatic meeting, Envoy had again requested access to a home-body. For all that the geth felt no emotion, it had been quite emphatic about it. Whiskey had let it have access to one of hers, and so she currently sat opposite her identical twin. Pale skin, silver hair and neon-blue eyes; Whiskey had designed her home-body to declare her Ghost-hood to anyone who saw it.In Envoy's hands was a piece of toast. After the first hour of adapting to organic sensation, she had enquired about it, out of curiosity at Whiskey's earlier remark. The toast was held in two hands, delicately grasped at opposite corners. It made a perfect diamond shape, with the exception of a single bite taken out of the top corner. Envoy's eyes stared off into unknowable distances. Whiskey continued to wait, as she had been since that bite had been taken, two minutes ago.
Envoy's mouth chewed once, slowly. There was an odd tremor in her hands.
Smiling, Whiskey slid a jar of jam forwards.
. . .
“Envoy, remember what I said about calling people drones?” said Whiskey. The question was rhetorical. Envoy remembered everything.
“Yes, Whiskey-Ghost.” responded Envoy. Almost too faint to see, the corners of Envoy's lips curved.
Whiskey sighed, and sipped her coffee à la asari. Envoy had been developing a sense of humour, if one could call it that. The geth had actually read several dozen scientific articles on the anatomy of what humans considered humour first. Her taste in jokes was either extremely dry and subtle, or incredibly crude. Whiskey first noticed it when Envoy's social skills began to regress. Say what you want about the geth, but they didn't get worse at things. They might never get better, but they couldn't actually start being more terrible at something unless it was on purpose.
. . .
Envoy was still for another long minute. Finally, she spoke.
“In this platform's notation, the decision weighting number given to the survival of the geth race is 10. This platform and its runtimes' survival is weighted at 3.”
Envoy looked up at Whiskey.
“Whiskey-Ghost's survival is weighted at 7.”
Whiskey swallowed hard, and thanked the Voice she had a decent level of control over her autonomic systems. She'd hate to ruin this by tearing up.
“That's...thank you, Envoy. I never knew how much I meant to you.”
“You aided the geth in breaking our isolation. You stood by us as we learned and struggled. You fought for us. You cared for us. We have not been blind to the difficulty we have caused. But you have supported us regardless. You are important to us, Whiskey.”
“So, does that mean you'll think about my offer?”
Envoy's head tilted, and her eyebrows lifted. “We might have rejected it, had it come from any other human to any other geth. We trust you, Whiskey.”
Envoy shook her head slowly. “We are having difficulty. The majority of the consensus has previously expressed concern that this platform is becoming corrupted by its organic nature.”“You ran on different hardware for a while. Hardware that let long nascent parts of you finally grow. The geth were always moving towards full sapience, Envoy. You will just be the first.” said Whiskey, her hand still on Envoy's. She leaned in closer.
“Let's get out of here,” Whiskey whispered. “Not just this cafe, let's dump these bodies and get back to cyberspace. Let's have the rest of this conversation without organic bodies, and you'll see that emotions aren't something unique to flesh. They're part of a soul, Envoy. And I know you have one.”
Envoy looked into Whiskey's eyes for a moment, then at her chai, now cold.
“We will return though, Whiskey. We still have not finished our catalogue of human consumables.”
Whiskey laughed. “Of course we can come back. But,” she said, “we'll get you a new body of your own. I'm not that in love with myself.”
Envoy smiled slightly, and Whiskey knew it was a genuine smile, not just a triggered social cue.
“We would be interested in designing our own, but would welcome your input.”
“Sure. That's what we were asking for in the first place.” Whiskey answered.
Envoy nodded. “We must build consensus, but we-this platform-” Envoy stopped. Slowly and questioningly, she said “I? I... would be happy to create additional runtimes with you.”
Whiskey grinned. “Well, let's have a date or two first, yeah?”
As Whiskey dropped the privacy sphere and they stood to leave, she could almost have sworn she saw Envoy blush faintly.
. . .
oh my gods they were lesbians 😭😭😭
i love this story so so so much. i. don't have the words to adequately express my feelings about it. it drives me fucking insane