The Solitary Path to Salvation

Pity the prophet. For years, his sceptics challenged him to produce evidence for his faith in a higher power. But when the deities themselves descended from Heaven and mingled amongst man, his sceptics then claimed that they could not possibly be gods. The mind of the narrow is akin to the pupil of the eye: the more light you shine upon it, the further it contracts. His example is my example, and the example of all similarly-minded individuals across the cosmos.

Which brings me to my query. Are there others here who have witnessed the numinous presence, awesome and unutterable, and were intrigued rather than repelled? Have you gazed upon the terrible face of the mysterium, and seen the light behind the pitiless eyes? Have you too experienced the advent of the Reapers, and discerned the divine intent behind the horror?

I expect neither courtesy nor understanding, nor indeed do I demand it. Were I the witness rather than the criminal, I would no doubt gaze upon myself with the same malice. But if I may find only one other elucidated soul on this forum, it shall be worth it.

I'm sorry but your translator seems glitchy, your thread is a bit hard to read.


I believe your question was "did someone here understood the reaper threat before it was too late", I believe the member known as Capice did.

Really, blink? Because what I got from it was she needs a bullet in the head because she thinks the Reapers are something holy. Probably a Sovereign Nation type, or another cult.

It fucking figured that one of you would show up here eventually.

Let me guess. You were never in one of the Reaper war zones. You just heard about them on the news, saw the reports. You thought they were incredible, unstoppable. And you figured it was by their own free will that the politicians on the occupied worlds spouted their shit about appeasement and cooperation with the Reapers. You would call the likes of me narrow-minded, yet like all the other cowardly idiots with no fucking will to live or fight, you took the route of seeing them as gods, because you couldn't believe that something so evil could possibly exist without some benevolent justification. You couldn't believe that they could be stopped, so you just lay down and accepted it.

I fought Reapers from the moment they hit Earth to the day the Crucible fired. I got to see their 'divinity' first-hand and close-up, day after fucking day. I watched comrades and civilians find their 'salvation' by the thousands, and some of them I had to kill when they did. I watched men and women spout the same lines you are as they gunned down soldiers, people who were risking their lives to help them against the Reapers. And guess what? Those centres of 'divinity,' the processors? You could smell them miles away: blood, shit, ash, and burning flesh. That's your portal to godhood, right there.

Nobody ascends when their city is bombed from orbit, or when a building is dropped on their heads, or they're incinerated by a Reaper's beam, or they're torn apart by fucking husks. And those that aren't were melting into a fucking fluid, or turned into mindless husks. Not exactly spiritual and dignified, is it?

There's a billion people on Earth alone who couldn't escape these gods of yours. They died. They died in ways that I can't even describe, and you couldn't begin to fucking imagine. They died while you sat in your pretty little apartment on the Citadel, getting all hot and bothered over the idea of the millions being killed every goddamn minute. The only ways the Reapers are impressive is in their technology, and their ability to kill efficiently. And that loses its lustre pretty fucking quick when you're the target of both. But I'm guessing you wouldn't know a fucking thing about that.

You can hide it all you want behind your mysterious philosophical bullshit, but I know what you are. You're a fucking indoc, who hasn't had the decency to lie down and die, now that your 'saviours' have flown off. If the galaxy had a sense of kindness or justice, you and everyone like you would be put down, before you add millions more to the graves.

Burn in hell, you piece of shit.

Ho goddess I didn't get that at all, as I said his flowery language was terribly translated.
Then your answer would be "of course not, what is wrong with you".

Cultists. Great. It HAD to be cultists.

A cultist, no matter how stupid or delusional, is far from the worst thing we've had on the boards. Come on, show it some mercy. Maybe this Sov. Nation fellow was attacked by the reapers, and this is his way of coping.
Either way, cultist guy, you might be interested to know that we have another "prophet," on this board, who goes by Capice. I'm pretty sure she's not crazy, so that might be a turn-off or something, but yeah.

I was, at that time, a sister of the Apostolic Carmelite order in Bangalore. I was there when the Reapers descended upon our world. As we scurried for safety, we saw their terrible labours; the barbarous brutality with which they exterminated our children. And it was not with wonder that I witnessed the destruction of all I beheld, but with ineffable fear. I believed, as I am sure you did, that it was the end of the world; that there was no hope for recovery from the onslaught of the Reapers.

And then it stopped. Without impetus, and without cause, the Reapers withdrew. The galaxy was in their grasp, humanity was on its knees, and there was nothing left in our arsenal to compel surrender - and yet they withdrew all the same. Not only that, they repaired the damage done to the relays, before immersing themselves in the dark void from whence they had first emerged, furious and unrelenting. It was a modern miracle, and witnessing it is the only privilege I can claim from seeing the harvest through to its grisly conclusion.

You are right. The victims of bombs and bullets do not ascend: they perish. The industrial charnel-houses bloated with the bodies of the fallen were no necropolis. More than a billion souls were consumed. But one soul survived. One soul ascended. One soul turned the tide where a thousand starships failed. A soldier named Shepard: the prophet of peace, who so impressed the instruments of divinity that they carried her with them as they returned to Heaven.

For she understood, as I now understand. The Reapers were not sent, as you insinuate, to reward us for our piety; they were sent to punish us for our malice. We were insular and hateful, despising the other races and coveting their influence, plotting conflict and conquest to enhance our empire against them. We did not appreciate the munificence of peace, and the value of cooperation. Is it any coincidence that, imminent to the arrival of the Reapers, we were on the precipice of intergalactic war? And is it likewise coincidence that it was only when the children of God were united as one, under the rallying banner of that same Shepard, that the Reapers departed?

I am not of Sovereign Nation. My order, if you would know, is the Celestial Union of the Penultimate Harvest. Our mission, gifted from God, is to ensure that humanity never forgets the lessons of the last harvest; that we never lapse into our old habits of chauvinism and avarice. The universe has been offered a golden chance to establish a permanent, perpetual peace. If it fails, and we are reduced once more to war, then the Reapers shall return for the ultimate harvest; and mankind shall be swept from the face of the cosmos, once and for all.

Hey.

The crazy person actually has a point. And it makes sense.

What Talonz said.

Goddammit, you crazy person. Don't make me agree with you, to a certain extent; be like the rest of the crazy people here and interject random CaPTILal LeTTers into your speech and wear tin foil hats.

So it appears understanding the grace of the Divine transcend racial boundaries.

Interesting.

Oh good, well that confirms it then, 'cause I was just assuming you were some fucked-up sympathizer or low-level indoc on the Citadel. But now I can see it clearly.

You're the real deal, a full-on indoc. Fucking called it.


Without impetus? Let me tell you something you little shit. The Reaper were blasting us to pieces in London, and showed no sign of stopping, until.... Do you remember?

The big fucking blue wave of light? The Crucible?

The damn thing was faulty or overestimated, because it didn't destroy the Reapers like Shepard, Anderson, and everyone else was saying it would, but it sure as fuck pacified them. I don't know if you stuffed your head in the sand by then, so I take it you didn't notice that when the Crucible hit, they stopped shooting. And guess what? The Crucible wasn't the work of God. Those lowly mortals He resents so much built it. Hackett and Shepard built it. The galaxy built it. And we were only able to build it because of the Protheans. You know, those ancient sinners that God must have despised as well? And furthermore, Shepard had to sacrifice herself to set it off, because she was the only one had what it took to do it.

There's nothing fucking coincidental about that.

And it wasn't just us who got fucked over, you idiot. Palaven might as well be half ash at this point, the asari got slapped around too, along with just about every other major species. Did they deserve that? We they horrible sinners whose crimes demanded punishment? Are the salarians God's favoured children, because the Reapers didn't so much as piss on Sur'Kesh?

You've got something in that we have a chance to start over, to build a stronger, more united galaxy. But you're delusional if you think that it'll be founded on peace. Because you're right about the Reapers, in some sense. They fixed the relays and left us alone, thanks to the Crucible...

But if they come back, it won't be because we've 'sinned'. It'll be because whatever the Crucible did will wear off, because only a fool would believe that'll last forever. And when they come back, you naive idiot, they're not going to just kill us, they're going to destroy everyone. Because that's what they were doing anyway.

So I have anything to say about it, if the galaxy is going to unite over anything, it'll be to prepare for that day. So that when they come back, looking to blast us into oblivion, we'll be ready. We'll be waiting to tear those monsters out of the sky, and show them we are not cattle to be harvested. That we have not forgotten nor forgiven their atrocities, and that we remember who and what they took from us.

And if they are the servants of God, then we'll burn Heaven down around them, and see what He makes of that.

Oh, I get it. Cassandra, because no one believes you.

Yeah, I bet you're the first person to ever reference that. Though in your case, I hope you're aware it's not because you've been cursed.

It's because you're an idiot.

This is an absolutely insane belief system. But please, please, PLEASE don't stop believing in this utter insanity! You might actually help people with it. So whatever you do, stay crazy.

The reapers carried no holy mandate. They bore no witness to divinity. They spread no word but death. Their indoctrination is the antithesis of free will, one of our most precious gifts. The reapers are more akin to a possessing demon than an angel of light. I will not bow before them, nor what they represent.

This one finds the statements of the other, Cassandra, difficult to process. It believes there may be some confusion regarding the other's interpretation of events leading into the Reaper War and the Darkening. It suggests such may be the case because rarely has this one found in another's words such a confusing mix of worthy sentiment regarding the spiritual potential of the galaxy's peoples - and disregard for the content of their voices. For certain one cannot find greater spiritual illumination when one seeks to obscure the light of the voice, but that is precisely what lurks in undercurrent here. Forgive this one's boldness, but while many of the thematic and rhetorical swells in the other's preaching pull towards truth or enkindlement, the general argument is murky water of the most troubling variety, diminishing the luminous word of so many surviving voices...while seeming to cast doubt on the worth of those voices so horrifically dimmed. As the youngest of hanar learn, the beauty of the gift that is structured communication is precisely its capacity to carry multiple and often conflicting layers of meaning simultaneously - but for such diametrically opposed sentiments as pursuit of spiritual illumination and darkening of voices to be placed in the same speech and held to form a unity...the argument breaches its own structure. There surely must be confusion, for this one is disturbed to find such elegantly crafted speech conveying such a broken argument.

Should there be no confusion...

This one admits that it has thought for some time about how to respond in this thread. It would like to offer its guarded respects to the other, for recognizing that an integrated, peaceable galaxy in which greater truths are revealed and new spiritual paths opened to all is indeed a potential positive long-term consequence of the War. It also acknowledges the decorum with which the other's comments have been expressed, and finds the other well-spoken and polite. However, this one believes the other has attempted to suggest that the darkening of voices, en masse and across the galaxy, is an occurrence that represents the wishes of what this one understands to be the ultimate Enkindler of your traditions. Such an argument carries no internal consistency...further, it is an impediment to the goal, expressed elswhere in the argument, of reaching out to others across the galaxy in peace and understanding. One cannot offer peace and understanding to the galaxy if one fails to speak in sympathy with the pointlessness of their loved ones' darkening.

The lady has a point. Perhaps a bit misguided, but the intentions are clearly good. I see no reason to insult her over this or attempt to turn her from her way.

While I may not necessarily agree in the message sent that the Reapers were sent to punish, I do agree that a galaxy founded upon peace and cooperation is preferable to one caught up in greed and war.

Within the next few decades we may transcend 'want.' We already have the power to control mass, it is only a matter of time until we can control the structure of molecules, creating whatever we need out of base materials.

Without a need for more resources, and the ability to essentially infinitely expand spaceward, there would be little in the way of overpopulation or suffering caused by a lack of necessities, thus ending much of the purpose of war.

And really, would that be so bad? Mindsets such as these might actually be what we need now to spur a focus on this kind of development, though perhaps more grounded in reason and logic.

Arbitrary, I have a question.

Are you drunk? What happened to the Arbit I knew and was terrified of? The one that would sooner cut me and than say confusingly not-flirtatious things while whats-his-face cowered in a corner? When I was a young lad of 18, on Pilgrimage and doing stupid shit, you were always a source of violence and disturbing augmentations that must have been a bitch to pay for, not to mentioned the anti-rejection drugs!

Lo, how the mighty have fallen, how the capricious eb and flow of your emotions has now caused you to become something akin to a flower picking-

you're trolling aren't you.

You cheeky bitch.

You know. For once I don't think I'm entirely trolling.

Well.

That's at once both a relief and kind of concerning. Reaper War must have been amazingly... well, everything to get that sort of change out of you.

You're not gonna go nuts are you?