The Story Thus Far

## 2185

In 2185, years of political unease and racial tension came to a dangerous tipping point when turian Councilor **Laius Caern** announced his plan to cure the krogan **Genophage**. The galaxy began to see more organized rallies and protests both for and against this plan, and soon peaceful campaigns gave way to virulence, rhetoric, and riots. Seeds of extremism began to flourish, and the most outspoken of these groups came from two opposing factions: the **Taetran Insurrection** led by trillionaire **Trajan Draculus** speaking out against the Genophage cure, and the newly formed krogan rebellion known as the **Blight Dominion** and led by **Drogar Ratarok**, who demanded retribution for crimes against the krogan.

The Dominion’s involvement interfering with Insurrection protests continued to escalate and climaxed in one fatal confrontation in Apollo's Cafe. In addition to lives lost on both sides, 15 innocent bystanders were caught in their crossfire, and many more were injured. This conflict, one of the first recorded instances of mass violence within the Presidium Commons, came to be known as the **Coffee Shop Massacre**. The Council responded to this unrest with a paramilitary organization of their own, and **GUARDIAN** was created September 2185. This venture proved worthwhile: the organization rescued the Primarch on Palaven from Insurrection forces, brokered peace with the Blight Dominion, saved the lives of two Councilors and deployed the long-promised Genophage cure over Tuchanka in December, a mere three months after inception. It was not able, however, to stem the political tension, and the situation between various factions continued to deteriorate throughout the year.

## 2186

**January 2186** saw the rise of the **Terminus Confederacy**. The **Batarian Hegemony** banded together with the **Krogan Empire** (the successor faction that absorbed the Blight Dominion) and a new faction known as the **Skyllian League** (already an alliance of pirates, raiders, and mercenaries under the singular banner known only as of the **“Pirate Queen”**). Soon after, for reasons mostly unknown, the **Migrant Fleet** surprisingly joined in with the Confederacy, and on April 24th, 2186 the Terminus Confederacy declared war on the **Citadel Council**. Conflicts continued, and after reflecting back on the assassination of the salarian councilor **Leral Veran** in December 2185, GUARDIAN broke away from Citadel Council control, citing corruption and other factors.

Allied now solely with the human **Systems Alliance**, GUARDIAN entered the war as a third party and accepted those disillusioned with civil war, regardless of nationality. This new direction saw the organization intent on reuniting the galaxy and rooting out corruption. They ended the **Second Skyllian Blitz** in October, evicting League forces from Elysium’s orbit. However, GUARDIAN. was soon distracted from the galactic conflict by the **Outsider**, an anonymous terrorist that harassed the organization with unfettered hatred. Two months after the Blitz, on the last day of the year, the Outsider struck a devastating blow in a single attack that destroyed all GUARDIAN’s vessels and their entire colony **Haven**. The casualty count was massive.

## 2187 and Beyond

Despite this setback, GUARDIAN reformed again in January 2187. Over the year, the organization learned the Outsider was **Rapture**, an extra-dimensional being known as a **Reaper**. Shifting their focus towards this enigmatic new threat, GUARDIAN made new allies, disrupted **Cerberus** plots and thwarted several Reaper schemes, and uncovered the Reapers' ultimate plot to annihilate the galaxy. When Eden Prime and the entire Alliance Fifth fleet was destroyed in a brutal display of Reaper forces, GUARDIAN operatives were sent deep behind enemy lines to obtain vital intel. They retrieved the **Crucible Engine**, a device that would prove to be crucial in changing the tide of the looming War. Using this new information, GUARDIAN forced both the Confederacy and the Council into a Galactic Summit to reveal the Reaper threat. All factions there came to Truce, except the Hegemony, who refused to capitulate and returned to batarian space to face the reapers alone. June and July were spent preparing the war effort for an offensive attack, with the hope that a massive fleet could prevent the large scale Reaper invasion. The Inner Council Space fared well in this regard, as the bulk of the galaxy’s military might was kept centralized around the Citadel, while the Reapers and their **Collector** forces ravaged the outer colonies, Terminus systems, and batarian space with disastrous efficiency.

On August 8th, 2187, GUARDIAN led the massive fleet to the **Omega Four Relay**. They had expected to arrive before the Reapers but instead dropped out of FTL and found they were the ones ambushed, and thrust directly into battle. The galaxy took terrible losses, with on average three out of four ships downed. Ultimately though they emerged triumphant when a GUARDIAN team managed to activate the Relay Network Weapon, and the Reapers were defeated. The Omega Four Relay was destroyed in the weapon’s blast, and the **Sahrabarik Exclusion Zone** remains to this day littered with the debris of battle, a silent testimonial to people who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the galaxy. After the war, changes swept across the galaxy. Days after the battle, contact was made with the Geth for the first time since the Geth War. Citadel space burgeoned into the war-torn edges of the galaxy. GUARDIAN, due to its innumerable loses, was unable to reform for the third time and was officially disbanded February 1st, 2188. For their tremendous sacrifice and effort, humanity was given the highest honors and celebrated a seat on the Council. The temporary Truce was solidified in a treaty known as **the Galactic Concordant**, and the galaxy was once again whole. Salarian and turian reparations for the Genophage were enacted, new embassies were created on the Citadel for adequate representation, and the Migrant Fleet once again enjoyed full Council citizenship.

However, not all recovered quickly across the galaxy. Many outer Relays were rendered inoperative after the Omega 4 weapon deployed, and must be reactivated manually. Refugees poured into Citadel space, causing housing crisis and food shortages. While the Outer Council, Inner Council, and Earth Systems Alliance space fared best during the war and enjoyed rapid reconstruction to pre-war conditions, others were more brutalized by war. Reconstruction efforts in the Attican Traverse region have made significant progress thanks to the Council’s hold over the region, but remain incomplete. Batarian space fractured into new conflicts and rebellions against the Hegemony sprung up in the Reaper’s wake. Council intervention in the Batarian Civil War absorbed all uprising-ravaged Hegemony planets under a new Citadel-supported **Batarian Provisional Government**; except for Khar'shan, where Hegemony loyalists now brace for invasion. Geth space remained untouched and largely enigmatic, and the Council placed embargoes on any military or civilian action beyond the Perseus Veil to deal with more pressing matters.

By far, the hardest hit by the Reaper War were the Terminus Systems, which lost many colonies and settlements entirely. What little infrastructure that once existed crumbled, and in the resulting power vacuum the Terminus Systems reemerged a reset frontier, as wild and lawless as ever. Council inroads into the Terminus Systems now launch from Illium, their reconstructed center of power in the region. Independent factions currently vie for resources and economic opportunities on Omega and elsewhere. In response to the public outcry for lack of support, continued political unrest, and allegations of disregard for "secondary" Council races, the Council once again created an organization to alleviate these concerns (and create a public scapegoat should recovery efforts fail). The **Council Recovery Corps** was officially announced on July 23rd along with Director **Julian Stoker**. Then on August 8th, 2190, on the third anniversary of **Victory Day**, the ***CSV* *Resurgence*** was publicly unveiled as the Corps flagship. The CRC was only tasked one mission: Stabilize the galaxy, by any means necessary.