Alex's Batarian Application

Ghorvak was born as the second son of a rather well-known high-caste family, the Nahd’Dans, on the capital city of the Batarian homeworld of Khar’Shan. Being from a high-caste family, he was taught how to navigate a social event or even a small amount of training on navigating a political event. This was a common custom for high-caste families, as nothing means more to high-caste Batarians than social appearances and financial wealth. He lived in extreme comfort (Or, at least, as comfortable as one can be under an aggressive, crazy dictator) in a rather swanky mansion with his family, a Varren pup and multiple slaves, both domestic slaves and, ahem, ‘pleasure slaves’. He had large amounts of the Hegemony’s infamous anti-alien propaganda shoved down his throat from a very young age, most of them utilizing negative stereotypes or just plain fear mongering in order to discourage young Batarians from involving themselves with these “Apes”, “Bird Brains” and “Blue Succubi”. Along with this, he often came into contact with the family’s multiple slaves, many of whom were aliens with only two being low-caste Batarians, and thus often saw his family mistreating off-worlders and having the off-worlders serve him, gradually conditioning him into assuming that he was superior to them and this was par for the course in other cultures too. As a young child, he didn’t quite know what he wanted to do in life. Military? Science? Medicine? Politics? All possibilities, lots of options were available for a high-caste Batarians nowadays. Ghorvak attended an exclusively high-caste school with his brother, Mazrah, who was his elder by two years and the two had, at best, a good relationship during that time. As a young child he often tried to establish dominance over others of the same age group in his school the only way young Batarians knew how: physical competitions and conflict, with some verbal confrontations occasionally. He managed to succeed in some of these conflicts, although only barely and with the occasional help of his brother, and almost always came out victorious in the verbal attacks. He was rather prideful as a child and considered himself to be more intelligent and mature than most of his age, although whether this was true is up for debate.


As he began to reach the age that the Batarian Hegemony considered to be legal adulthood, 16, he started to take an interest in joining the Batarian military. He knew that he wasn’t the strongest in the world, but he was somewhat stronger than some and he hoped that his brain would help to propel him where his brawn could not. So, when he was 16, he enlisted for the Batarian military and was accepted. He began training a couple of weeks later, originally going through the standard infantry courses. He kept with these for a little while before deciding to instead focus on becoming a Combat Medical Technician, finding it a much more helpful and needed position in the Batarian military. Although one would expect that this knowledge would only be used on fellow Batarians, he was taught the biology of various other races that which was, while mostly accurate, usually spoken of with a slight xenophobic twist (The occasional insult, some little comments on how weak they are, etc). His fellow cannon fodder-in-training were from a wide variety of different backgrounds, although they were mainly middle-to-high caste. He got to know these people rather well as they trained, and he was around 17 and a half when he had finished his training as a combat medic and was finally ready to be sent on his first assignment. Finally, a chance to prove himself! The first assignment was a relatively easy one, although it was a rather infamous and undeniably illegal act under Citadel Law: A slave run. They were to attack an Asari-Human mining colony out on the verge of the Terminus Systems. The intel that had been gathered indicated that the colony was relatively easy to enter: Quite light security, plus any survivors couldn’t exactly demand that the Council send help to the Terminus Systems, either. They were to take civilians live, if possible, and hand them over to be implanted with a Slave tracking and controlling chip, and then receive their pay. The job went off without a hitch, even with the group using the infamously terrible Batarian State Arms armour and weapons. Around twelve new slaves were captured and almost no injuries apart from one of the Batarians getting a small burn after getting an ejected thermal clip thrown at them. Thankfully, it had cooled down enough that the clip wasn’t too hot and no permanent damage was done to the Batarian in question.


He continued to do work for the Batarian military as a Combat Medic until the age of 28. It was mainly strikes on mining facilities to begin with, although it later began to escalate to attacks on larger weapons colonies and other more important things, although they were almost always in the Terminus Systems, far from the prying eyes and grubby mitts of the Council.  The Hegemony was always quick to deny these attacks having any connection to their official military, insisting on their units arriving in unmarked ships and armour or decorating their armour with the symbols of well-known terrorist groups in order to throw off unwanted suspicion from the Council. At the age of 26, Ghorvak arrived at his family home to find something beeping on his Omni-Tool… A message? From whom? He checked the message, only to find an invitation from someone. Someone special. The message was a set of instructions to join the Batarian Special Intervention Unit, essentially the Batarian equivalent of the Salarian Special Tasks Group or Asari Commandos. He followed the instructions to the letter, eager to join and delighted to have received the great honour of being invited into the SIU. Little did he know the hell he would have to endure in the coming days, weeks, months. The training was to be held off-world in a planet, surprisingly, relatively close to Khar’Shan. In the same system, in fact. The planet was called Ilem, a small ice planet that had been partially colonised from the failed attempts of a, thankfully, long-dead mad dictator. The first thing that Ghorvak noticed was the surprising lack of people in the training camp, and they were mostly high-caste, with only the occasional mid-caste. It should’ve been obvious that low-castes wouldn’t be prevalent in the SIU. The training began within two days of arriving on Ilem, and it was immediately quite simple. Just basic training courses and tactical evaluations. Ghorvak supposed it was mainly to gauge the capabilities of each new recruit, of which there were only six, and they were roughly all on par with one another. Shortly afterwards, the real hell began. The SIU training was quite literally non-stop, with breaks only to rest or receive medical care. It was mainly focused around tactical training, survival skills and weapon handling, although the physical training, combat sims and obstacle courses would last days when they did happen. It was extremely difficult, with people passing out almost daily from exhaustion in the earlier days, and even a few fatalities! The instructors were strict, beatings and near-torturous punishments were the usual for those who did not comply or were simply not able to, and sometimes even those who did comply just for good measure. The training was much more rigorous than the training for the Batarian’s standard military, and for good reason. Most of the Batarian populace had only heard urban legends of what the SIU had done, and even less had heard of them outside of Khar’Shan. A lot of the work would include staying concealed and quiet, and even some work inside Khar’Shan’s own borders. Ghorvak only barely made it through training at the age of 28, and the group of six that had started the training had become smaller, with only 4 passing, the other two dying or simply failing… Or both.


Ghorvak began work in the SIU a month or so after training completed, and finally received more information on what he would be doing for, most likely, the rest of his career. He was told that the SIU had multiple goals:
One, crush any rebellions, of which there were many and always had been, against the Great Emperor of Khar’Shan.
Two, keep the Batarian population safe from any malicious data entering Batarian space, and keep any negative data from escaping.
Three: Keep Khar’Shan safe from outside threats to the best of their abilities, although not through direct conflict. Through embracing the Salarian methods of subterfuge and misinformation, the SIU has kept Khar’Shan relatively safe for as long as it has been a part of the Galactic Community.
Four: Keep the Emperor alive, at all costs, and do as He commands. If He tells an SIU team to demolish a city after the slightest wiff of rebellion, it must be done.
The work began shortly after the initial briefing, and it was not as easy as one might expect for a first assignment. He was to infiltrate a low- and mid-caste focused rebellion based in the city of Hurthak, a couple of hours to the west of the Capital. He was required to paint his face with a semi-permanent paint, as lower castes had slightly darker skin than the white-skinned high-castes, although whether this was due to a biological reason or simply the low-castes being covered in such a thick layer of grime that they were permanently stained was a topic of much debate,and he was forced to change his accent as best as he can and dumb his vocabulary down slightly in order to blend in. He’d also have to put up with some verbal abuse that a high-caste would most likely respond to, although to fulfill the role of a low-caste convincingly he’d need to restrain himself. As soon as he arrived, he felt uneasy. He’d never been as poor as he was now. He was quite literally homeless and a viable slave should a greedy slaver pass by, whereas he’d lived all of his life in large mansions, with slaves serving him. He just tried his best to keep his head down and get to work. He’d been given the name and location of a SIU informant, as well as a key phrase to slip into a conversation, who’d help him infiltrate the group of rebels. He managed to get into the group with the help of the informant, Sarn Del’Haid, and was a somewhat trusted member within a few weeks. Now, time to get down to the nitty-gritty. He began to send as much information as he could sneak out to the SIU, which was mainly just junk info. Every once in awhile, however, he would stumble upon a good source of information such as planned attacks, weapons storage locations and dead drops. Within two months, he’d gotten out enough information. Time to begin the attack. The SIU sent out the same group that he had trained with back on Ilem, plus a few new units, and he was to act as the team’s Combat Medic. The group was sent to the rebellion’s main HQ, and began shooting before the low-castes realized what had happened. A couple more bullet wounds and shrapnel injuries later, the building had been cleared and this particular sect of the rebellion was no more. They tried to salvage any information from the corpses and terminals that linked them to a larger sect of rebellion, but no luck. Nevertheless, they had eliminated a part of the rebellion and that was enough for the mission to be considered a success. Ghorvak continued to do work for the SIU, his assignments mainly comprised of other rebellion-crushing, patrolling openly ‘disloyal’ cities and obeying his superiors. He always acted as a Combat Medic whenever a chance for a team assignment arose and, due to his prior training in the Batarian military and the slightly more advanced and, surpsisingly, species-neutral teachings taught in the SIU, he became rather good at healing other Batarians and, in theory, other races.


8 years later. Ghorvak is 36, and has many more assignments under his belt. He has noted that The Great Emperor seems to be acting… strange, although he certainly never said it aloud. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Batarians have had an Emperor with a ‘unique way of thinking’. It also seems that the assignments have been less frequent, and what does come through seems to be less inwards-focused. More and more assignments seem to involve travelling away to deal with off-worlders… Seems to be a lot of intel-gathering. Odd. At least it means he gets to learn more about the other races. Apparently some giant ship-robot thing attacked the Council? And insects have been kidnapping Humans? Pfft, serves them right. Anyways, it’s best just to keep focused and work, nevermind the whys, just figure out the hows. They were on the way back to Khar’shan from one of these off-world assignments when they saw something behind the planet, something big and… Was that a red dot, right on the Capital? Are they having a light show or something? Suddenly, a large beam of light comes down and when it disappears, the city is gone. The Emperor! Why is no-one mentioning this? Everything on the radio seems to be “Everything’s fine!” And “There’s nothing happening, don’t worry.” Something was wrong, definitely. The crew landed not too far from the capital, weapons readied for any resistance. What was happening? An invasion? None of the scanners had picked up anything. As soon as they arrived in the Capital city, they were surrounded by destruction. Corpses and crumbling ruins of what were buildings just ten minutes ago.. This was an attack. He ran towards his family mansion, they weren’t too far from the Emperor’s palace, he could search for the Emperor later.. Or rather, what would be left of him. He believed, along with most other Batarians, that the Emperor was holy in some way, but nothing could’ve survived that kind of explosion. After arriving to his family’s home, he found it relatively undamaged… At least, it was fine compared to the other areas he’d seen running here. In reality, it was quite damaged and in the process of burning. He ran inside, giving out a few loud yells, “Mazrah, mother, father!”... No response. He ran deeper in, his shields powering to protect him if there should be resistance inside. He checked the rooms one-by-one. Nothing. No sign of life, but also no sign of death. They could still be alive, right? He regrouped with the group, who had also went to check on their families or simply assess the damage, and they hurried towards the Emperor’s palace, although it was less of a palace now and more of a pile of rubble and ash with crushed and incinerated corpses thrown in the mix. There seemed to be multiple other teams of Batarians, both standard military and SIU operatives, gathered. They were already aware of the situation, and had already started to begin evacuation procedures. They gave the Capital a quick search for any survivors and carried all they found to their respective ships… A deep rumbling sound filled the area, and another red beam was fired down onto the city to their west. They shielded their eyes and looked up to find the cause of the attack. Were those… Asari ships? They had the same tentacles.. No, the Succubi didn’t have the firepower to destroy the Capital in a single blast. If not the Council, then who? And why weren’t they blasted to pieces by the defenses? Nevermind, the main priority was to escape before they were burnt to a four-eyed crisp. They managed to get to their ship with a handful of civilians each, some injured and some only with minor wounds. No matter, Ghorvak would try to stabilise them while they flew away from… Whatever dared to attack the men, women and children of the Batarians!


Less than two months later, and the group had landed on a rather unlikely place. The Citadel… It seemed they weren’t the first, and they definitely weren’t the last, to try to find refuge here. The Council was already well aware of the situation and, luckily, there was only just enough room to accommodate the soldiers and civilians, who reluctantly agreed to get medical help from the Huerta Memorial Hospital, so they were given cheap homes in the lower districts in which to stay for the time being. During this time, Ghorvak regularly watched the news.. Khar’shan was destroyed, that was for sure, so why hadn’t it been mentioned on the Citadel news? All that had been mentioned was that the Emperor and other leaders had been… Indoctrinated? Hmph… Interesting. Turns out even the Emperor could be controlled, maybe none of them were as special as he had been led to believe? He kept in touch with the other members of the SIU, at least those who had survived, to make sure they had settled in and were all ‘in the loop’. He had trouble settling in with the other races himself, although the off-world experience in the SIU did help a bit. Nevertheless, he was able to temporarily forget about the mental conditioning of the Hegemony for the most part. Less than a week later, Earth had been hit and Humanity was in pain. The rest of the SIU operatives had decided to see if they could help out. They’d heard that these things that had attacked Khar’shan -- The Reapers, they called them -- Had been fusing Batarian and Humans together as a foot soldier, or something like that. What vile creatures, forcing Batarians to live a life of pain in the same body as an ape! Pfah. Revolting. Anyways, the rest of the SIU operatives, and even some of the standard military soldiers, decided that they wanted to see if they could help out. If they didn’t have Khar’shan as a viable home anymore, then they’d better try to get on the good side of the Council races. Ghorvak agreed, albeit reluctantly, and gathered up the scraps that remained of the Batarian Special Intervention Unit, and whatever of the military that were willing to join them. Under the command of the most high-ranking survivor, the rather large team left for Earth in the hopes of helping out as best as they could and trying to get some reputation in for the inevitable point in which Batarians will have to become part of the galactic community once more. Who knows, maybe Khar’shan’s government will be replaced with a democracy, like those off-worlders? Pah, the Batarians have lived too long under an Emperor to resort to the Council’s democracy… But who knows? Stranger things have happened, especially in recent times. The team arrived on Earth and got through easily, there wasn’t much focus on border control now that the world had gone to shit. It wasn’t as bad as Khar’shan, though. There were still people here, and the buildings were still standing for the most part. The planet was a lot different from Khar’shan, the team noticed. It was colder and wetter, more greys and blacks than the oranges and browns of the Batarian homeworld. There was the occasional blast of gunfire and a yelling of someone getting attacked, but the group could only imagine what was fighting them. They’d been told that Batarians and Humans had been fused, somehow, but they hadn’t actually seen it with their own four eyes. They hoped they could soon, and could help put some of their own out of their misery. They’d need to slum it with whatever remains of the Apes, but they’d manage. Once they showed they were their in good faith, they should be allowed to help.. Unless the Ape-.. Humans were as bitter as the propaganda said.


Many months later, and the mixed group of 12 Batarian military units and SIU operatives have been reduced to just 8, with most of the military soldiers being either too poorly-trained or poorly-equipped, or both, to survive as long as the Special Intervention Unit operatives. They were holed up in what appears to be an old Chinese restaurant somewhere in London. Some big clock was visible somewhere in the distance, chiming occasionally. The Humans nearby called it… Big Bill? Ben? Something with a B. The group have managed to integrate with a group of survivors consisting of some unarmed families, some children included, and a couple of armed Humans. The Batarian group, after showing that they had came to Earth in good faith, had managed to become the security and protectors of the group. Ghorvak, being the only person with real medical knowledge as well as having extensive combat experience, the group had a veterinarian trying to heal the Humans, became a mixture of a doctor and security guard. They weren’t able to maintain contact with the outside world, nor hear about anything happening to the other races. They’d heard through rumours and the brief contact they’d had with other groups that Thessia had been hit and destroyed, as had Palaven, but the Toads’ planet was untouched. Figures. Maybe the Batarians would find a way to slip into the Council, then? Replacing the slimy toads? Nevermind that, world domination comes later. Their equipment and training certainly helped to protect the group and keep them all alive well enough, and the group managed to survive up to the end of the war, when the Citadel closed up, lowered onto the Earth, the Crucible was fired and the reapers were crushed. As the re-animated Human corpses, referred to as ‘husks’, the sickening Batarian-Human fusions, the metallic Turians and the Asari monsters fell to the ground, whatever the reapers had been doing to control them now ineffective. As the survivors began to show themselves and communications began to operate again, the Batarian group were not given much recognition for their services, only within that single group were they given much thanks... Figures. Well, better find the earliest shuttle off of this miserable rock and find new work, we all need to rake in the creds somehow. Perhaps something that will be more widely-noticed in Batarian favour, like a mixed-species military group of some kind? The SIU weren’t exactly functional anymore, what with the almost complete collapse of Khar’shan and all, so he definitely needed something potentially non-permanent where he could keep in track with the state of his homeworld. He’d heard that the low-castes, and even some of the high-castes, had returned to start rebuilding afterwards. Who knows, maybe the Batarians will become great once again?


And after that, world domination!