Chapter Text
Welcome, let's get started. First real chapter follows.
Edit 5/5/26: Retcons
Edit 5/30/26: Further edits and retcons made to keep continuity with later chapters.
YEAR 0 AW (AFTER WITNESS) — THE WITNESS DIES
By the light of the Traveler and the strength of its Guardians, The Witness is destroyed inside the Pale Heart, never to return. For the first time since the Collapse, humanity has a future that is not defined by survival alone. The Vanguard, the Awoken Reef, Neomuna, House Light, and Empress Caiatl's Cabal all come out of the war battered but intact. The Last City celebrates, but the leadership does not mistake victory for peace. The Hive, Vex, and leftover Fallen raiders still exist. Cabal splinter legions are still out there. Humanity has killed the greatest enemy in known history, but the system is still full of things that can snuff out the Light. The first post-Witness policy is simple: Sol must become defensible without depending entirely on the Guardians.
In the months that follow, the Echo crisis nearly destroys what they were able to save, but thanks to the Guardian and his allies, the Conductor is pushed back and forced into hiding, abandoning the Echo of Command, while Fikrul is slain and his Scorn are slowly rendered extinct by the end of the decade. Xivu Arath, the Hive God of War, then makes her play. She fails and is severed from her Throne World — alive, diminished, and no longer connected to the paracausal wellspring that has sustained her power at scale. This does not kill her, but does weaken her in ways that will take humanity decades to fully understand. Simultaneously, Savathûn the Witch Queen, having watched the shape of what comes next, makes her own choice. She takes her Throne World ship, the Lucent Brood, and departs into unexplored deep space. She does not announce her destination. A small number of Hive Guardians choose to stay with humanity rather than follow her into the unknown. Their reasons are their own. The Vanguard accepts them and classifies their presence at the highest available clearance level.
The Vanguard then immediately secures Oryx's Dreadnaught, which has been drifting in Saturn's rings since Oryx's death. Its paracausal structure makes destruction unpredictable at best, so it is quarantined. The cleansing will take decades.
1 AW — THE RECONSTRUCTION MANDATE
The Vanguard, City Consensus remnants, Queen Mara's representatives, Neomuni delegates, House Light scribes, and Cabal envoys form the Reconstruction Mandate. Its goals: rebuild Earth, reclaim lost Golden Age infrastructure, secure Mars, Luna, Europa, Titan, Venus, and the Reef, create a permanent multi-species alliance, and begin planning for colonies beyond Sol. The Fallen of House Light are formally recognized as protected residents of the City and allies of humanity. This is controversial, especially among civilians who remember centuries of Fallen raids, but Mithrax uses the moment well. House Light pledges labor, engineers, Splicers, pilots, and shipwrights to the reconstruction effort. Caiatl does not integrate with humanity. She refuses to become a client of the City. Instead, she signs the Pale Heart Armistice, binding her empire-in-exile to Sol as a military partner.
The handful of Hive Guardians who remained when Savathûn departed are formally received by the Reconstruction Mandate. This is done in classified session. No public announcement is made. Their status is the most sensitive political question the Mandate faces in its first year — the public is not ready for it. They are assigned to work with Eris Morn on Hive contamination doctrine, Dreadnaught assessment, and Ascendant Plane intelligence. That assignment will remain their primary function for the next century.
The Kepler and Renegades Crises occur.
2 AW — THE GUARDIAN QUESTION
With the Witness gone, the political role of Guardians becomes a major issue. The Vanguard had effectively functioned as emergency leadership for centuries. That arrangement worked then, but it is too unstable for a growing interstellar nation. Crow, Commander Zavala, Ikora Rey, Saint-14, and other leaders support a reform. The result is the Guardian Charter. Guardians are no longer the de facto rulers of human civilization. They become a protected, semi-autonomous military and exploratory order under treaty obligation to the Sol government. They retain the right to act against existential threats but are no longer civil authorities by default.
3 AW — THE SOL RECOVERY FLEETS
Joint human-Eliksni-Cabal shipyards begin construction over Earth, Luna, Mars, and the Reef. Human shipbuilding had been scattered for centuries, encompassing City jumpships, Awoken vessels, Dead Orbit designs, Cabal war prizes, Reef corsairs, Golden Age derelicts, and Neomuni tech. The Reconstruction Mandate standardizes everything. Civilian recovery fleets are formed to reclaim planets, moons, and orbital infrastructure. System defense fleets are built around heavy weapons, drone screens, and Guardian rapid-response capacity. Survey fleets are designed for deep-space reconnaissance beyond Sol. The Eliksni become indispensable almost immediately — their culture already understands salvage, mobile habitation, ether logistics, and shipboard survival. Cabal engineers bring scale; Cabal construction is blunt, redundant, and hard to kill. Sol's new fleets inherit both design philosophies.
4 AW — MARS IS REOPENED
Mars becomes the center of postwar research. The planet is scarred by Golden Age ruins, Bray facilities, Cabal occupation zones, Hive incursions, time anomalies, and returned terrain created by the Witness's earlier actions. The planet is dangerous, but scientifically priceless. The Mars Reclamation Authority is created. Its mandate: secure lost archives, map remaining time distortions, recover anything useful before scavengers, Vex, Hive, or rogue Fallen get there first. Ana Bray, Hidden agents, Neomuni researchers, Eliksni Splicers, and Cabal security cohorts all operate on Mars.
5 AW — THE PROTHEAN ARCHIVE IS DISCOVERED
Deep under a region of Mars that had been repeatedly altered by the Traveler's terraforming and later paracausal damage, survey teams discover an artificial structure that does not match Golden Age, Vex, Cabal, Hive, or Eliksni design. It is older than human civilization. The first contact team assumes Vex involvement, but inside, they find the ruins of a Prothean archive. The archive contains star charts, historical fragments, mass effect physics, relay network data, references to the Citadel, and partial records of a galactic extinction cycle. The data is damaged. It does not give them a clean explanation of what happened to the Protheans, but it gives them enough to be afraid.
6 AW — THE ARCHIVE DEBATE
The discovery nearly fractures the Reconstruction Mandate. One faction wants to use the Prothean technology immediately. Their argument is obvious: humanity has been trapped in Sol for too long. The relay network could give them the galaxy. Another faction, led by a coalition of Hidden analysts, Awoken strategists, Neomuni scientists, and the Vanguard commanders, argues against it. Their argument wins. The Prothean archive proves that the galaxy has been shaped by inherited technology. Species discover relays, use relays, expand along relays, and develop around relays. Their economies, wars, and politics become predictable. Humanity recognizes the pattern because it has seen something like it before. The Witness shaped civilizations through its "salvation." The Worm Gods shaped the Hive through tribute. The Vex shape reality through simulation. The relays may not be malicious, but they are still a system someone else left behind. The No-Relay Dependency Doctrine is adopted; Humanity will study mass effect physics, but it will not build its civilization around the relay network.
7 AW — THE SOL CONCORDAT IS FOUNDED
The Reconstruction Mandate becomes a permanent state: the Sol Concordat. Its founding members include Earth and the Last City, Luna and the reclaimed orbital habitats, Mars and its research territories, the Reef as an associated Awoken sovereignty, Neomuna as a protected autonomous member, House Light as a recognized non-human citizen polity inside the Concordat, and independent human settlements across Sol. Caiatl's Cabal remain as a treaty-bound allied power under the Imperial-Concordat Compact. The Concordat government is formed as three major branches: the Civic Assembly, representing human and allied civilian populations; the Strategic Council, representing defense, intelligence, colonial, and interspecies security interests (commonly called the Iron Table); and the Guardian Order, descended from the Vanguard, with treaty-defined authority in paracausal and existential-threat matters.
Project Pale Covenant begins: [REDACTED]
8 AW — THE FIRST ELIKSNI CITIZENSHIP LAWS
House Light receives a formal path to citizenship. This does not mean every Eliksni becomes part of humanity overnight. Many still think of themselves as Eliksni first, House Light second, and Concordat citizens third. But their hatchlings are educated in mixed schools. Their engineers work in human shipyards. Their Splicers help rebuild networks that no human engineer fully understands anymore. Eliksni neighborhoods grow in the Last City, on Luna, and eventually Mars. The first mixed human-Eliksni naval crews launch this year. There is violence. There are revenge killings. There are anti-Eliksni political movements. There are Eliksni who cannot accept living under human law. But the integration holds because House Light keeps proving itself useful, loyal, and willing to bleed for the future of Sol. By the end of the year, The Last City, by popular vote, is formally renamed The First City.
9 AW — THE DEVIL REMNANTS REAPPEAR
Not all Fallen accepted House Light's path. Remnants of the House of Devils, the House of Dusk, House Salvation, old pirate crews, Scorn-tainted bands, and unaffiliated Fallen raiders begin attacking convoys. They target ether shipments, glimmer transports, food haulers, and lightly defended habitats. The Concordat classifies them as Devil Remnant Clans rather than a true House. They are not an existential threat, but they are a constant frontier problem. They see Mithrax's people as collaborators and traitors.
10 AW — THE FIRST HIVE RESURGENCE
Brood cells, Xivu Arath loyalists, hidden broods under old moons, necromantic cults, and throne-world remnants all begin fighting for meaning in a post-Witness universe. Some Hive double down on Sword Logic. Some pursue the Light. Some attempt to recreate tribute systems without the old hierarchy, while others begin worshipping the long-dead and defeated Oryx. The Concordat establishes the Oryx Protocols, named not in honor but in warning. Any colony showing Hive contamination is immediately quarantined. Any unexplained mass disappearance triggers Guardian review. Any suspected throne-space breach authorizes orbital sterilization if civilian evacuation fails. Guardians are on constant standby to assassinate anyone attempting to usurp the Taken throne.
With Oryx dead, Taken continue to be created by multiple sources. Xivu Arath creates Taken through Ascendant rituals — her primary tool for expanding her diminished forces. The Nine have demonstrated the ability to create counterfeit Taken using Dark Matter, which the Concordat's Hidden finds deeply unsettling. Additionally, fragmentary intelligence from the Lucent Hive consultants suggests an anomalous presence in the deep Ascendant Plane — something commanding and replenishing Taken in patterns that don't match Xivu Arath's known methods. This is filed under open investigation and named the Dire Taken file.
12 AW — RASPUTIN'S LESSON
Rasputin is gone, but his legacy remains. Humanity does not rebuild a single all-powerful Warmind. Nobody wants another strategic intelligence with enough authority to decide their civilization's fate. Instead, the Concordat creates the Seraph Lattice: a distributed defense network made of limited military intelligences, human oversight, Ghost-verifiable command chains, and hard physical separation between strategic weapons. While it is slower than Rasputin would have been, it is also much harder to corrupt, possess, subvert, or trick into genocide.
15 AW — THE FIRST MASS EFFECT EXPERIMENTS
The Prothean archive finally yields usable physics. Human scientists already understand impossible things: paracausal energy, glimmer-programmable matter, Golden Age field systems, Awoken spatial manipulation, Vex-derived mathematics, Neomuni nanotech, and the older Golden Age NLS drives. Mass effect physics gives them something different: a clean, mathematically stable framework for manipulating mass and inertia using element zero.
It is the NLS-R Drive — formally the Newton-Lorentz-Soteria Drive, commonly called the Soteria Drive — an advanced evolution of Golden Age NLS technology that does not use eezo to achieve FTL. Instead, eezo-based mass effect fields make NLS transitions faster, safer, and less punishing on the hull. Mass reduction lowers structural stress. Inertia-management fields improve acceleration around transition windows. Neomuni control systems stabilize the drive envelope. Awoken navigation mathematics help plot routes through unstable deep-space conditions. Eliksni Splicer engineering keeps the system repairable outside major dockyards.
In simple terms: The NLS-R Drive is a hybrid evolution of the Near Light Speed drive, using eezo as a performance and survivability enhancer.
18 AW — THE JOVIAN CAMPAIGN
Hive, Devil Remnants, and Cabal splinter groups compete over old Jovian facilities. The Concordat responds with its first true joint military campaign. Human warships provide command and logistics, House Light corsairs conduct boarding actions and electronic warfare. Cabal cohorts provide heavy infantry, Guardians eliminate paracausal threats, and Awoken pilots secure the deep-space lanes. The campaign succeeds, but at high cost. It teaches the Concordat that Sol cannot be defended by heroic reaction alone. It needs fleets, forts, patrol routes, civilian evacuation systems, intelligence networks, and military colonies. This campaign creates the future structure of the Concordat military.
20 AW — THE CONCORDAT NAVY IS FOUNDED
The old City fleets, Reef ships, Dead Orbit remnants, Cabal warships, and House Light ketch groups are reorganized into the Concordat Navy.
The Navy's core branches are the Line Fleet, consisting of conventional warships; Corsair Command, responsible for fast attack, scouting, and anti-piracy operations and heavily influenced by Awoken and Eliksni tactics; Guardian Strike Wings, small paracausal assault teams deployed from carriers or stealth vessels; Cabal Auxiliary Cohorts, treaty-bound heavy infantry and siege specialists; and Colonial Defense Forces, local planetary and station militias trained to survive until help arrives.
24 AW — THE ETHER SETTLEMENT
House Light's biggest internal problem is ether. A species cannot fully integrate if its biology depends on a controlled resource. Eliksni, human, and Neomuni researchers develop stable ether production systems that do not rely on Servitor worship or archaic Fallen hierarchy. This is politically explosive. Traditional Eliksni power structures were built around control of ether. House Light breaks that model. The Ether Settlement guarantees all Concordat Eliksni a baseline ether ration as a civil right, with additional allotments for medical, developmental, or military needs. This accelerates Eliksni integration dramatically, but it also enrages Devil Remnants, who view it as the final humiliation: humans feeding Eliksni hatchlings better than old Kells fed their own crews.
27 AW — CABAL SETTLEMENT RIGHTS
Caiatl's empire remains sovereign, but not all Cabal want to live under imperial military society forever. Veterans, defectors, engineers, and families attached to Imperial fleets begin requesting settlement rights inside Concordat space. Caiatl allows it under strict treaty terms. She would rather have loyal Cabal living among allies than lose them to splinter legions. The Concordat creates Martian Redholds: Cabal-majority settlements on Mars and Phobos. Cabal residents are not automatically citizens at first. That changes slowly. Their children, born under Concordat protection and educated alongside humans and Eliksni, become the first real Cabal-Concordat generation.
34 AW — THE VEX CONTAINMENT LINE
The Vex attempt to infiltrate new drive research. While they do not understand paracausality well, they understand infrastructure. They target navigation systems, arrays, shipyards, and predictive engines. The Concordat responds by creating the Glass Firewall, a set of anti-Vex restrictions around all strategic research. Nearly every facet of military technology and critical civilian infrastructure is deliberately compartmentalized.
35 AW — A HERO LOST
The Guardian — the one who stood at the center of everything since the Age of Triumph, who fought at the Pale Heart and ended what the Witness began — departs on a solo mission to hunt down Xivu Arath and track Savathûn into the deep space where she disappeared. They leave alone. Contact is lost shortly after departure. After a year of waiting for their return, the Guardian is declared Missing in Action. Saint-14 holds a closed vigil at the Cosmodrome, where the Guardian first rose. The site is preserved as a memorial. Saint does not speak publicly about the vigil and has not done so to this day.
The Nine go silent. The Traveler returns to its place above the City, and the anomalies on Earth that came about as a result of III's death peter out mysteriously. Lodi and Xur are nowhere to be found.
38 AW — THE FIRST EXTRASOLAR HUMAN OUTPOST
The Concordat establishes its first permanent extrasolar outpost in a nearby uninhabited system. Named Bastion after one of The Guardian's famous weapons. However, it is not a colony yet, simply a fortress-laboratory-waystation.
42 AW — THE COLONIAL CHARTER
The Sol Concordat passes the Colonial Charter, defining how extrasolar settlements will be founded. No colony may be dependent on Earth for survival past its first decade. Every colony must have hardened shelters, local agriculture, orbital defense, evacuation capacity, and anti-Hive quarantine systems. Every colony must accept mixed-species residency unless a specific biological hazard prevents it. Every colony must maintain a Guardian liaison. Every colony must have its own elected civil government.
47 AW — THE FIRST COLONIAL WAR
A cluster of Devil Remnants, Cabal deserters, and human black-market crews forms a pirate league around the new extrasolar routes. They attack weak stations and try to seize ether production equipment. The conflict is small compared to the Taken War or the Red War, but politically important. It proves that humanity's enemies will follow it beyond Sol. The Concordat wins after a brutal anti-piracy campaign. House Light crews are central to the victory. Their knowledge of Fallen tactics lets the Navy predict ambushes and infiltrate pirate supply chains.
Afterward, Eliksni officers become much more common in Concordat service. This is the moment many human civilians stop seeing House Light as guests or enemies and start seeing them as countrymen.
52 AW — THE MARTIAN ARCHIVE IS FULLY DECODED
The Prothean archive yields a larger galactic picture.
Humanity learns that the Protheans were watching ancient humans, as well as a few other species designated in the archives as Turians, Salarians, and several others. However, the information is obviously outdated by an estimated fifty thousand years, making the data largely unusable. But there are a few references to something called the Citadel, which researchers guess to be some kind of home base, though the condition of the archive had corrupted any potentially useful data. The archive does, however, contain enough to suggest that something destroyed the Protheans, but not enough to prove that their is any danger. The Concordat classifies the extinction-cycle material at the highest level. Publicly, the archive is described as a dead alien cultural database. Privately, the Concordat begins planning for eventual contact with a relay-based galactic civilization.
61 AW — THE GREEN MOON INCIDENT
A new colony survey team finds a moon showing signs of Hive contamination. The local science team argues for study, the Guardian liaison orders quarantine, and the civilian governor hesitates. Three days later, half the survey camp is dead, and the rest are hearing voices from under the ice. The Navy glasses the infected site after evacuation fails. The incident becomes infamous because it proves the Hive do not need Sol, ancient temples, or obvious rituals to become a colonial threat. A single buried relic, corpse-seed, worm-cult artifact, or throne-tether can doom an unprepared settlement. After the Green Moon Incident, every colony ship carries Hive detection systems, sterile burn teams, and emergency Guardian beacons.
62 AW — THE AEGIS HARDSUIT ADOPTED
After learning from Hive containment operations, Cabal joint campaigns, and extrasolar security operations, the Concordat Marine Corps adopts the Aegis-pattern powered combat frame as its standard infantry hardsuit. The suit combines Golden Age composite armor, powered musculature, kinetic barrier emitters, thermal/Arc/Void resistance, Neomuni nanite patching, glimmer emergency sealant, anti-Hive biofilters, radiation shielding, and a Field Lattice in the left forearm. Later marks incorporate Cabal hard-light bracing and Eliksni quick-access maintenance routing. It allows Marines to operate in vacuum, contaminated atmospheres, boarding actions, and hostile ritual environments long enough for specialist forces to arrive.
73 AW — THE ASCENDANCY COMPACT
Caiatl and the Sol Concordat formalize their long-term relationship. The Ascendancy Compact creates joint military basing rights, shared anti-Hive operations, controlled technology exchange, and mutual defense obligations.
78 AW — THE BLACK FLEET SALVAGE DISCUSSION
Some factions push to exploit remnants of Pyramid technology. The Guardian Order, Awoken, and Hidden oppose it. The Concordat does use some derived materials science and defensive knowledge, but direct Pyramid salvage is heavily restricted. However, this creates a black market. Human cults, rogue scientists, Fallen zealots, and Cabal splinter commanders all seek fragments of old Witness technology.
82 AW — THE SECOND DEVIL WAR
The Devil Remnant Clans unite behind a Kell candidate calling himself Solkis Reborn. His claim is simple: House Light has betrayed the Eliksni by becoming pets of humanity. The Devils launch coordinated attacks on ether refineries, mixed-species schools, orbital shipyards, and colony convoys. The war ends with the Devils broken, but not extinct. Many flee into dark space, where they become long-term raiders, mercenaries, and smugglers.
87 AW — THE PARACAUSAL ARMS LIMITATION
The Concordat begins regulating Light- and Darkness-derived weapons. After centuries of watching powers corrupt users, civilizations, and physics itself, the Concordat refuses to let every colony governor, admiral, or corporate director possess paracausal doomsday tools.
Guardians remain the primary wielders of direct paracausal force. The Navy uses paracausal technology only under strict control.
100 AW — THE OUTER COLONIZATION WAVE
The Concordat begins founding colonies beyond its original cautious perimeter. These are planned worlds with orbital infrastructure, military escorts, multi-species labor forces, and prebuilt emergency systems.
109 AW — SHANXI FOUNDED
The first settlers land on Shanxi. The colony's first city is built around a fortified landing zone, an atmospheric processor, underground shelters, and an orbital defense grid. House Light crews assemble communications towers and repair docks rapidly. Cabal engineers overbuild the main reactor housing by several hundred percent because "acceptable structural tolerance" means something very different to Cabal veterans. The first Guardian fireteam on Shanxi spends most of its time bored, which everyone agrees is ideal. The colony charter recognizes Shanxi as a full Concordat world once it reaches population and infrastructure thresholds.
The first Eliksni hatchlings are born under Shanxi's sky. The first Cabal child born under Concordat civil protection becomes a minor political symbol, whether anyone wants that or not. The Shanxi Defense Net comes online. Deep-space listening posts detect intermittent signals beyond the dormant Shanxi relay, operation Lantern Key is planned to investigate.
Peace be with you