Ancient Asari Artifacts Discovered on Palaven, Prompting “Visitor” Discussion

Nas Phunitori, Palaven - Three years have passed since the Reaper Occupation of Palaven, and even now, new things are still being brought from the wreckage and rubble into the light. While the majority of Palaven has been largely rebuilt thanks to efforts from the Vol Protectorate and the Alliance, the amount of damage in some capital cities is still extensive enough that deep-crust excavation is required to remove the worst of the scars.

However, it seems that the excavation has unearthed more than just broken buildings and old bones. According to Reconstruction Site Manager (A Grade) Tannis Calvekkian, Heirarchy Reconstruction Efforts Inc. uncovered an ancient turian burial chamber under Nas Phunitori - a chamber with some unusual secrets.

“We cracked it open when we were moving [some debris] from Dret Park,” Calvekkian told the press earlier this morning. “There’d been a lot of infrastructure damage there, and a lot of the old plumbing and electrical work from a few centuries ago had to be replaced. We ended up digging in deeper than we expected and that’s when we discovered it.”

‘It’ turned out to be an ancient turian burial chamber that has been dated back to the Jikorge era, or about two thousand years ago, back when Nas Phunitori was first founded by the Jikorge settlers. The burial chamber itself was considered an oddity by the Nas Phunitori Planning and Historical Council, who had no idea such a thing was even hidden in Dret Park; but the fact that the chamber contained several artifacts that were decidedly of asari origin resulted in some startling revelations, to say the least.

“Look at these; these aren’t turian artifacts, certainly not of the Jikorge era” Professor Durchet Valanisiri told a mob of raving reporters at a conference this afternoon. “We hadn’t even made contact with the asari at this point yet, and yet these are clearly asari artifacts. No turian hand ever made these. No turian hand of that era would know how.”

Among the artifacts listed are an assault rifle, a sidearm of some kind, a partial set of ceramic armor, and several technological artifacts of indeterminate purpose. However, no asari remains were reported discovered in the burial chamber. Durchet went on to say that the remains were clearly several thousand years old.

“While we haven’t tested these thoroughly yet, cursory radiological testing suggests that these artifacts are far older than Nas Phunitori itself. These weapons are older than a great deal of turian society.”

Representatives of the Asari government refused to comment on the matter, but a statement is expected soon. The Hierarchy, however, has promised it would “get to the bottom of this mystery” and “reveal the truth as soon as all the facts were available.”

Fascinating. Unless this is proven to be a hoax or misunderstanding of some sort, this implies the asari have known about the turians centuries prior to the krogan rebellions. Or at least some of them did. Which begs all sorts of interesting questions. For example, was this information simply lost to history, or, did were our long lived blue friends keeping secrets again?

I wonder, what you would find more disturbing, using a prothean beacon to stay one step ahead technologically, at the rest of the galaxy's expense, while hypocritically forming laws to forbid others from doing the same, or quietly manipulating a species unaware of your existence centuries before they catch on to your presence?

Again, quite fascinating.

Oh, fascinating indeed.
Maybe one of our generation ships of the first era of discovery made it to palaven? This is a fair possibility since almost all of these ships never made it home again or never were heard of again.
The contact couldn't have been a big one, otherwise the turians would have some stories or legends about it probably. Anyway, interesting to see what this is about.

Sorry can't hear you over the HOLY FUCKING SHIT alert on my Xemnashit-meter.

Eh, I wouldn't get too worked over this. This just screams hoax.

Well, the information on this find is still sketchy.
The turian scientist can't place it and announces it to be "totally asari" is currently all that we have. No proof, just a theory as of yet. I won't hold my breath until the finds are thoroughly examined.

I am a bit amused that people assume, the asari would want to cover up an early contact with the turians. If, as Taleeze suggested, some early space travelers ever encountered the turians, they never reported back about it and the turians don't remember either.

Also, another theory: The stuff could as well be not from this cycle. Maybe not even prothean.
Who knows what the ancient turians unearthed and re-burried thousands of years ago. It will be interesting to find out though.

Yes there are some sketchy details here. If it's true though it's surprisingly irresponsible for the asari of then to leave such dangerous and way-too-advanced weapons behind. It could have changed the course of turian history.

Also I'm a bit surprised about the mention of the vol protectorate and the alliance helping rebuild palaven. The human alliance? Don't they have a wrecked homeworld to rebuild first?

Mr. Ranak, I think you caught something interesting here.


This is something that's really strange. Of course, the Vol Protectorate and also Alliance have in one way or another assisted, as have asari or even salarians most likely, in one way or another, but this makes it sound as if Palven would be hopeless without their help.
Mentioning something as strange as this, which has nothing to do with the rest of the article is odd.

I bet the next thing we'll learn is that the asari enkindled the hanar in reality.

Perhaps there are. I agree (unless it's some kind of hoax) that this was a very small-scale meeting - given the few details, perhaps what remains are the possessions of a single explorer? Suppose she was the only survivor of a stricken vessel, or maybe even a lone traveller, who came to be on Palaven, and perhaps lived among the early turians for a time? Or, a grim thought just occurred, if she had limited equipment, maybe she was simply unable to find a suitable food source, with all the local crops being dextro. Unless she got lucky - and landed in the right kind of ecosystem, geographically - she might've just had whatever supplies she had with her. Those first star Maidens paid heavily for their curiosity sometimes.

In any case, I'd be interested to hear more about the iconography of the burial chamber - if it's that much younger than the supposedly asari relics, perhaps they may have been handed down generation to generation after their owner's passing, and stories of her presence became mythology in which she eventually was depicted as turian.

That's a first guess, anyhow. I wonder if there are any traces of her ship? But of course, the relics may have been carried quite a way from wherever they first came to Palaven, if the ship/wreck (it doesn't seem like an explorer would leave her weapons behind, if she were able to take off again) hasn't been found yet it may never be unless by utter fluke.

Ah, but there are stories!

Lexivius XIV mentions the following tale (summarized for brevity)

O, He Who Once Walked Alone
Capacious And Solid On His Throne
He Grew And Grew But Did Not Learn
To Grow And Grow Did He Yearn
Sudden Noise And Sudden Silence
Sudden Peace From Sudden Violence
The Sky Gave Birth To New Arms And Breath
To The Sky Again Our Hearts Were With

The initial assumption is naturally that this referred to the spirits; and indeed, could still be the case, as Lexivius was an insane despot on the other end of the planet. However, he was noteworthy for having an expansive set of courtiers... There is a conflict in that he would have been 250-300 years after the Jikorge Era, during the Kelsin Reconstruction... It is indeed possible that this tale has no connection, and is simply one of many ravings of an insane and zealous nobleman. However, if we take it as evidence of some sort of knowledge, this would indicate not only a better system of communication and transport but also a more complex recorded history than we initially expected preceding the Mallix. If that's the case... A comparison is the discovery of Xhebeth Era Salarians using explosives, or the Romans of human history colonizing the Amerigos. Truly, the implications are astonishing. This could literally redefine turian history!

And you fools say history is boring. Nonsense! Things like this are infinitely more exciting than the nonsense most people enjoy! Oh, my only wish would stand for an archaeological overhaul, but it seems unlikely in this sour age of reconstruction.

I'll admit, when I first read this, my pride drove a bit of fury about the allegations of asari visiting we pathetic lot. But honestly, the potential statements this makes for turians at the time drives a new wave of pride in itself. Glorious.

You know, one of these days people are going to listen to good old Job. One of these days.

Yeah, I'm not believing this for a second.

Could be faked. Guy could sneak those in, put 'em down, claim he found them there. Provided he was careful enough.

Anyone heard of any museum robberies?

It would still be really stupid to do, of course. Who gets in a place and then says, 'hey, I'm going to make people think asari were here thousands of years ago'?

But hoaxers will be hoaxers.

I don't know about hoax, but I'm going to bet on misidentification or something. I mean, there WAS a war on Palaven, right?

Biased rag, sounds like. Don't know what they're trying to prove.

Looks like a very interesting find that should be investigated.

Doesn't look like a reason to start throwing accusations around.

If we go around blaming each other for bad things done by our races back in the day, well, very hard to know where to start is it? No race has a good record there. Some hid prothean stuff, others applied genophages and were militaristic assholes, some turned their own world into a nuclear waste and then tried to invade everybody else, back home we committed regular atrocities on our own kind for the most stupid of reasons. Hei, even hanar piss on their own soup and they have yet to apologize for that Blasto character.

In the end, if all our races were NOT the descendents of evil-minded militaristic nasty bastards, we'd have all been killed off by the reapers without a struggle.

More science, less blaming.

Cheers, everyone.

...

This article makes me want to know when exactly turians came across the idea of guns.

That was IEN, actually. Kahje wasn't exactly pleased about it when it started, either.

So I'm at a loss here. What, other than a big public relations scandal with Thessia, would this do to turian history? Would we have to re-examine old stories about turian war spirits or empires here? I man, I'm not exactly a historian, we're talking some two thousand years' worth of turian civilization.

UPDATE:

The Heirarchy has issued a statement regarding the so-called ‘asari artifacts’ revealed earlier this month in Dret Park, calling the situation ‘a regrettable state of confusion’ amidst some of the clean-up efforts of Nas Phunitori.

“What happened here was the remains and belongings of some poor asari victim from the Reaper Occupation getting mixed up in some ancient turian artifacts,” Hierarchy Inquisitor Jace Xannthenon released in a national broadcast earlier today. “We have examined the artifacts extensively, and it is clear that a mixup of colossal proportions has occured. We would like to apologize to the Thessian government for any trouble this may have caused them, and to the turian people for any confusion that has arisen.”