#dunno

Aradia Jones????

Everyone in every previous cycle was cut off and isolated before they even knew what hit them. If they didn’t even know the reapers existed, it might be years, even decades before they knew what happened at all! There would be no way to share intel, to warn others about reaper movements, etc. A society that developed to rely on the relays would be utterly crippled without them, and every previous cycle lost the relays in the opening minutes of an attack they didn’t even know was coming.

Except us. Our cycle kept the Citadel. When the reapers showed up we still had control of it AND the relays. We were the first cycle in the history of the reapers to keep that advantage - because of the prothean scientists on Ilos. It's really an incredible thing when you think about it.

The previous cycles couldn't evacuate, fall back and mount a defense with their allies. They couldn’t reach safety. Without the relays there was nowhere to go! All the reapers had to do was go system by system to wipe everyone out systematically, and all that any previous cycle could do was wait until they were next and fight the best they could with what they had available.

The crucible is such an insane concept because there would have been no way to pull it off. You don't have the resources, the labor, the logistics, to even begin to build it, because you don't have the relays to move the resources or the people where they need to be. And even more insane, the battery for the whole damn thing was the Citadel, which every previous cycle lost access to in the opening minutes of the initial attack!

Even if the protheans or anyone else could have found a way to build it, there would have been no way to use it. Why in the world would you base your MacGuffin on something so inaccessible?

If you had to use the Crucible as your win button, it could have been interesting if you looked at it not as something that everyone else ran out of time to build, but as something other cycles had conceived of and had no way to build - but we did. At a cost.

The reapers are here. We might still have comm buoys and the relays, but the reapers are still killing billions, destroying strategic locations and wreaking havoc with supply lines. So if you are diverting supplies to build the Crucible...who are you taking them from? Whose front collapses because you took what they needed to build that thing? Who gets fucked over because this ship had to mine minerals to build the crucible instead of run supplies to refugees? A war table like you had in DA:I could have been so interesting in Mass Effect 3.

The fact that the protheans reached through time and made one, small change that dramatically changed the way the reapers harvest a cycle had so much potential. We were different. We had a chance no one else ever had, not just because Shepard is a badass, but because a small group of people who had no hope for themselves decided to have hope for someone else. We weren’t better than other cycles – we were gifted something no one else got: the protheans broke the cycle. We didn’t. They did.

AU where Grace dies not long after getting to Erid

Together, Simon and Rocky make a statue of Grace as his grave.

Later, while still grieving, Rocky makes a computer projection of Grace. It can move and still teaches young pebblings about what Grace used to teach in his classes on Erid.

It's not an advanced AI or anything. It only contains the information that Grace had on his pc or had recorded. His voice has been reconstructed to sound as familiar as possible; that was probably an easier part of the process for Rocky.

When Simon first goes up to it, HoloGrace recognizes him. There's user recognition integrated so that communication with it is simpler and slightly more realistic (Rocky still wants to pretend like he can still talk to his bestie). Simon isn't aware of this and instantly tears up. Does he have his Grace back?

They go through a few conversation points, prompted by Rocky cuz Simon was too speechless. At some point, Simon prompts something. Calls the thing "my angel" or something. And HoloGrace does something it's never done before.

It crouches down, gives a genuine smile and says, "Simon, I love you. I know you know that. But I've been too big of a wuss to actually tell you. Argh, maybe I should tonight..."

Rocky checks where that came from cuz he's not entirely sure. It's the last thing he ever recorded. The motion, the emotion, everything.

Simon is sobby at the hologram's feet.

Later, Simon ends up doing small things for Grace even if he's gone. He makes sure his research goes somewhere, takes care of his favourite plant, takes care of his personal belongings. And every time he does something for Grace, he mumbles to himself, "I love you too."