Citadel Council

The **Citadel Council** is the governing body of the Citadel. Convening in the impressive Citadel Tower, the Council is the ultimate authority in Citadel space, passing judgement for violations of Council law, settling disputes between governments, and maintaining law and order, often through the use of its own covert intelligence service, the Spectres.

The Council is an executive committee composed of one representative each from the member species. Though they have no official power over the independent governments of other species, the Council's decisions carry great weight throughout the galaxy. No single Council race is strong enough to defy the others, and all have a vested interest in compromise and cooperation.

Each of the Council species has general characteristics associated with the various aspects of governing the their sector of space in the galaxy. The asari are typically seen as diplomats and mediators. The salarians gather intelligence and information. The turians provide the bulk of the military and peacekeeping forces.

Any species granted an embassy on the Citadel is considered an associate member, bound by the accords of the Citadel Conventions. Associate members may bring issues to the attention of the Council, though they have no impact on their final decision.

## History

**Foundation of the Council**

The Citadel Council was founded by the asari and salarians when the two races to independently discover the Citadel at the hub of the mass relaynetwork. Through much debate and worry it was the asari who suggested forming a governing body aboard the space station in partnership with the newcomer salarians.

Over the next 500 years, the Council rapidly expanded outward from the Citadel, encountering several new races and incorporating them into the growing galactic community. The volus were the earliest known race that the Council made first contact with and the Council granted them an embassy at the Citadel in recognition for their contributions to Citadel space such as the Unified Banking Act which established the credit as a standard currency. Along with the volus came the batarians, elcor, hanar, and quarians who were all welcomed to the fold over time.

The times of peaceful first contact ended abruptly for the Council with the accidental discovery of the hive-minded, insect-like rachni. They reacted with extreme hostility and initiated a large-scale war with the races of Citadel space. Negotiation with the rachni queens was impossible for they couldn’t be contacted in their underground nests on the rachni worlds.

A turning point in the war came when the salarians made first contact with the krogan in who had been living in the post-apocalyptic ruins of their homeworld Tuchanka for nearly two thousand years. The krogan were uplifted and manipulated into serving as soldiers for the Council. The resilient krogan succeeded where other Citadel races could not for they proved able to survive on the harsh rachni worlds. The krogan stormed rachni nests and exterminated queens one by one till the rachni were declared extinct. As a reward for their service, the krogan were given a new, pristine homeworld. A lasting result of the Rachni Wars was the Council's establishment of new laws which prohibited the activation of uncharted mass relays.

Some 400 years after the end of the Rachni Wars, the Council once again found itself embroiled in a galaxy-wide conflict as the krogan, having exploded in numbers and encroaching on the territories of other races, were asked by the Council to withdraw from the asari colony of Lusia to which in response the outraged krogan refused. The Council ordered the recently-formed Special Tactics and Reconnaissance division to make a preemptive strike against krogan infrastructures, and the Krogan Rebellions began.

This conflict persisted for a century, ending only after the Council made first contact with the turians, who agreed the krogan were a threat and declared war against them. The turians inflicted a lethal blow using the salarian-developed genophage; without the ability to quickly replenish their forces, the krogan dwindled. Following the Rebellions, the Citadel Conventions were drawn up and since then the turians have filled the military and peacekeeping niche in Citadel space vacated by the krogan. In recognition of their role during and after the Rebellions, the turians were inducted into the Citadel Council as the third race with full membership. The Treaty of Farixen is then made and signed by Council races limiting the number of dreadnoughts among the different Citadel races in their given fleets. At the Farixen Naval Conference, the Council races agreed to fix a ratio of dreadnought construction between themselves due to their destructive potential. At the top of the pyramid is the peacekeeping turian fleet which makes up most of the Citadel Fleet,second are the other Council races, the asari and the salarians, and lastly the Council associate races, like the hanar and volus are at the bottom of the list. The ratio of turian to Council to associate dreadnoughts would be 5:3:1, which essentially means for every five dreadnoughts the turians construct, the asari and salarians are allowed three, and all other Citadel races one. Signing the Treaty of Farixen would become a requirement for any race wishing to open an embassy on the Citadel. The construction of carriers however isn’t included in the Treaty of Farixen policy resulting in no legal limit upon building any number of Carriers for any race.

**War of Two Councils**

For a time the Citadel Council was at peace feeling that they have faced whatever challenge was hurled at them with their alliance standing on top. This changed with the first encounter between them and the Covenant. The conflict would emerge and the short lived Treaty of Farixen would no longer exist due to the immense power of the Covenant Navy and their technology.

**Interlude**

The next thousand years afterwards were relatively peaceful ones for the Council, interrupted only by some minor galactic incidents and the Geth War. In that conflict, the quarians were driven from their worlds by the geth, machines created to serve the quarians that had achieved artificial intelligence and rebelled. With invasion by the geth an immediate threat, the Council refused the quarians' pleas for help and revoked their Citadel embassy, and also implemented restrictive laws on AI research and development.

During this time the Council continued to explore the galaxy, encountering new races with varied success. One diplomatic failure occurred with the yahg, a pre-spaceflight race discovered by Council surveyors. A Council delegation was dispatched to the yahg homeworld Parnack, expecting to quickly establish diplomatic relations. Unfortunately, the predatory yahg misinterpreted the delegation's non-subservient behaviors as an attitude of contempt and promptly slaughtered the delegates. The Council responded by cutting off contact with the yahg and declaring Parnack off-limits to Citadel races; the Council asserted that the extremely aggressive yahg were poorly suited to integrate with the galactic community.

**Meeting Humanity**

The Council intervened in the Relay 314 Incident. A brief conflict instigated by the turians against the newly-encountered humans for what the turians viewed as a breach of galactic law, the First Contact War, as humans referred to it, was brought to an end when both sides prepared to escalate their involvement. The Council revealed itself and the existence of the galactic community to humanity and brokered a peace agreement which forced the turians to pay significant reparations. Humanity quickly rose to prominence and was granted an embassy on the Citadel. The Citadel would immediately lay down the rules and learn of a few worlds humans have discovered like the inhabited moon known as Pandora and the terraformed world in which these worlds were to be off-limits for varying reasons.

After their top Spectre agent, Saren Arterius, reported the UEGA's illegal AI research on Sidon, the Council holographically confronted the first human ambassador, Anita Goyle, and announced they would impose heavy sanctions on the UEGA with regular reports from personal overseers. Goyle predicted their ulterior motives – intending to curb humanity's rapid growth and expansion – and managed to negotiate a better deal with a passionate speech about humanity's growth as a species.

Goyle later asked for an audience with the Council, diplomatically offering UNSC participation in taking down the rogue AI researcher, Dr. Shu Qian, on Camala. She offered the services of one of the UNSC’s most decorated officers, Lieutenant David Anderson, and had him paired up with Saren to assess his Spectre candidacy. As Goyle left, she realised that the Council had anticipated all her requests, agreed measures in advance, and subtly let her know that she had a lot to learn about galactic politics.

Unfortunately, Saren secretly sabotaged the mission and falsified his report to make Anderson look responsible for the destruction of a refinery that killed hundreds of innocent people. It was enough for the Council to bar Anderson from the Spectres. After Saren stole Dr. Qian's research, the Council had no other evidence of the supposed artifact that Dr. Qian had discovered, and refuses to investigate further without proof.

Relations between the Citadel and the UEGA become more complicated when the Covenant came to Harvest where the ugly past between them resurfaced and the Citadel Council refused to anything that would officially violate the armistice between the two.

The **Eden Prime War**

The Shepard twins’ induction into the Spectres is seen as the first step toward humanity gaining a seat on the Citadel Council, but this is a thorny issue as humans are still newcomers. Initially the Council is reluctant to bow to the pressure from Ambassador Udina, but proof of Saren Arterius' treachery, and Saren's vendetta against humans, forced their hand.

However, the Council doesn't want to send their fleet into the Attican Traverse, as this could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems and the galaxy was already embroiled within another war as it is. They task the Shepard twins with tracking Saren down and gives them the authority to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate Saren. At the end of each mission, the Shepard twins reported back to the Council from the Normandy's comm room and discuss matters with them as they searched for Saren.

Despite this many humans still see the Citadel Council as anti-human and excessively cautious, which is not entirely unjustified. Much to Shepard twins’ annoyance, throughout the post-mission briefings, the Council refuses to see the Reapers as anything more than a story Saren was using to control the geth, and dismisses their vision as a simple dream. They justify the dismissal by saying that their own intelligence sources did not uncover anything Reaper-related. The salarian councilor explains their position: "the Council's decisions affect trillions of lives across the galaxy, and they cannot act on the say-so of a single person, even a Spectre, without evidence."

After the Shepard twins discovers that the Conduit is on Ilos, finds the coordinates for the Mu Relay to reach the planet and discovers that Saren and Sovereign are planning to attack the Citadel itself, the Council sends word that they are putting together a massive joint-species fleet to handle Saren and the geth. But when Shepard twins return they realize the Council is only prepared to put up a blockade to stop Saren reaching the Citadel itself and they had no intention of going to Ilos. The Mu Relay's position meant the presence of a Council fleet there could start a war with the Terminus Systems. The Council remains convinced that the Reapers are not real and only see Saren as a master manipulator who plotted to attack the Citadel and would not reveal his true motives. Shepard's protests only result in the Normandy being grounded by Udina, while the Council quietly closed diplomatic channels.

Shepard manages to escape the Citadel, but the Council had no time to retaliate, as they are soon faced with a massive geth armada led by Sovereign. When the Citadel fails to respond, the Council is evacuated to the Destiny Ascension, which then comes under heavy fire. Shepard, returning to the Citadel via the Conduit, has a choice of how to deploy the Alliance Navy ships as reinforcements, ultimately deciding the fate of the Council and the future politics of Citadel space.The UNSC fleet saved the Ascension and the Council, albeit at the cost of many human lives - in this event, the Council accepts that the Reapers are real and humans are invited to join the Council with Captain Anderson as representative. With the Council saved humanity gains their full trust, nonetheless there is not enough evidence to prove to the Council that the Reapers exist, even from what few fragments of Sovereign were recovered. From this, they convinced themselves, and the galaxy at large, that Sovereign was simply a geth construct, painting Saren as the mastermind behind the battle instead. But as a sign of faith and seeking to repay this debt the Council sends a large fleet to Reach to repel the Covenant forces besieging the planet thus bringing the Council once more to war against the Covenant.

The Council is contacted by the batarian ambassador, Jath'Amon, with the intention of bringing about a reconciliation between the batarians and the Citadel races. Meanwhile, Jacob Taylor, a former marine of the UNSC investigates batarian activity with the help of informant Miranda Lawson. During their investigations, they discover that the true purpose of the peace talks is to facilitate an assassination attempt on the Council by means of a deadly bio-weapon. After confronting Jath'Amon with the evidence of his treachery during a Council meeting, the batarian releases the weapon and infects the Council. Jacob repels the batarian insurgents and brings Jath'Amon to justice. With the help of an antidote manufactured by the asari scientist Batha, the councilors are cured of their infection before any major harm could befall them.

**The Great War**

When the Citadel Council joined the war against the Covenant to defend humanity they would put all their long research, observations, and preparations to effect and work to combat the feared Covenant war machine. Such and example was the development of the Turian Super Dreadnoughts.

## Astrography

The area of space controlled by the Citadel