Mass Effect Universe
In 1978, astronomers at the US Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station, using photographic plates, discovered Charon, a moon-like natural satellite tidally locked with Pluto. In 2015, the space probe New Horizons revealed a reddish-brown smudge on the polar cap. Believing the essential ingredients for life could be housed in that rusty splotch of organic macromolecules, early astronomers postulated that the tidal lock with Pluto could have slowly siphoned from Pluto’s trace atmosphere. In 2149, the first research team set foot on the frozen moon. What they found was evidence of a massive series of cryovolcanic eruptions that had happened as long as fifty thousand years ago. Laser-drilling would soon reveal what lie waiting under the ice – and would mark the beginning of mankind’s intragalactic travel.
One year earlier, 2148 marked the greatest scientific discovery in human history – alien relics buried deep beneath the surface of Mars. Inside a labyrinth of caverns, explorers from a failing colony uncovered a trove of alien technology, enigmatic and advanced beyond human understanding. These artifacts had seemingly been abandoned tens of thousands of years ago with little clue as to why. New research had begun immediately, and all circles of human science focused on reverse-engineering this celestial technology. To Earth’s surprise, the tech was startlingly easy to unpack, as if mathematical instructions had been included. This technology could warp the very fabric of spacetime. It came to be called Mass Effect technology.
By the time the first team landed on Charon, at the edge of the solar system, eighteen months had passed and humanity had already built an entire fleet of naval spacecraft with their newfound knowledge. Colonization and mining operations became the next largest industries as they had spread across the solar system. It was then the Plutonian researchers lasered through the ice on Charon, discovering, underneath kilometers of ice, a dormant space station, engineered to maintain a tidal lock with Pluto to hide it from anyone looking with primitive telescopes. This was more Mass Effect technology – a massive and overwhelming amount. Only now, humanity had had a crash course in alien tech and now possessed a basic understanding of how to utilize it.
The Charon relay would be the first of several, as new solar systems became reachable in far distant galactic nebulas. Charon was a single piece of a vast network of wormhole-producing travel stations. What followed would be an eruption of new challenges, including the encountering of new species and a galactic political system established long before humanity’s arrival. Each of the advanced species encountered having utilized similar reverse-engineering with the Mass Effect technology they had uncovered in their own systems.
There were wars and treaties, expansions and betrayals. But in the story of the Milky Way, humanity is still considered young. It is a time of relative peace and stability. It has been thus long enough for the Council of the Citadel to consider offering humanity a seat on the Council.
The year is 2157.
Akralon World 