The Oath-Keeper's Tale

The Oath-Keeper's Tale is a Mass Effect fan-created short story by Gnostic. It reveals the details behind the downfall of the Office of Alliance Territorial Hegemony, and the fate of its last director, Jim Farrell.

The Oath-Keeper's Tale
"Good morning, sir! How are you today?"

Jim Farrell looked through bleary eyes into the face, such as it was, of Vee. A crude, LED smiley face looked back at him. It had taken all of his remaining charm to convince the Alliance to let him purchase the little LED screen and hook it up to his primitive VI, but he was glad to have it. Vee's old "face" had just been a creatively-arranged array of cameras and microphones. Now he almost felt like he had a friend.

"Good morning, sir! How are you today?" Vee repeated. His programming was a very simple set of questions, offered up based on input from anyone who happened to be nearby. If a VI could ache for anything, Vee ached for input. With it, he was alive for a few more seconds. Without it, he was dead.

"I'm the same as I was yesterday," Jim offered.

"I see," Vee said, unsure of how else to respond.

"I'm unemployed and depressed, and my only friend is a glorified alarm clock. How do you think I am?"

Vee paused, analyzing the words. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry, sir. Your question lies beyond the scope of my programming."

Jim groaned. A few months ago, he'd been the head of the Office of Alliance Territorial Hegemony, the Alliance's black-ops division. He didn't like the assassinations and false flag attacks that the office carried out, but at least the OATH was awash with cash, and he was free to research almost anything. Back then, he could have created a VI that would make Vee look like stone-age technology (not that Vee was that far off to begin with.) Now he was broke, with few employment prospects and faced the possibility of incarceration in an Alliance Naval prison if he tinkered too much with Vee's programming.

"You seem depressed, sir. Would you like to talk about it?" Vee asked. If he were human, he probably would have sounded morbidly hopeful; Farrell's ruminations stimulated his programming.

"Sure. What the hell? Not like I'm doing anything else."

He sat back in his chair, eyes almost staring into space. "I was born in 2159 CE, two years after the First Contact War, when the Turian Hierarchy attacked Shanxi to punish the Alliance for unauthorized exploration of mass relays that had been purposely deactivated.

"My dad was in the Alliance Navy, and was on the front lines during the war. He was there when Kastanie Drescher led the attack that liberated the planet. And he watched as the Alliance was forced by the Citadel Council to negotiate for peace. Afterwards, he would rant for hours about how humanity needed something to give them an edge over the 'aliens'. I wonder if he'd be proud of me if he'd known I became the head of OATH.

"But as it was, I was a disappointment to him. I joined the Alliance Navy the day that I turned 18, but I had no aptitude for combat. The best I could do was join the Engineer Corps. I thought he'd be pleased, but he never found out; while I was away for basic training, he tumbled down the steps at the T station on Church Street and split his skull open. The police told me he'd been drinking, but sometimes, late at night, I wonder if maybe he simply realized that he had nothing left to live for."