Codex/The Reaper War

The Fall of Earth
The Reapers took Earth in a matter of hours. The Alliance knew the first wave would arrive from batarian space, but they were unprepared for the speed and scale of the attack.

The Reapers bypassed the Sixth and Seventh Fleets at Terra Nova and Eden Prime, flying straight from relay to relay where they could neither be tracked nor intercepted. The tactic was unexpected, since the navies of organic species would never risk coming out of FTL within combat range or leaving enemies at their backs to threaten supply lines.

At Arcturus Station, more than a dozen Reaper capital ships engaged the Alliance's Second, Third, and Fifth Fleets. This was mere screening for the main force. Dozens more capital ships continued through the Charon Relay, where the First Fleet had been lying in wait but was soon destroyed. The Fourth Fleet, near Earth, had a few minutes of advance warning. It stood no better chance.

After destroying Earth's comm buoys, smaller Reaper destroyers wiped out all GPS and communications satellites in Earth's orbit and cut the undersea fiber-optic cables that linked the continents. Earth's resistance now relies on outdated radio towers and a few quantum entanglement communicators. whose matched pairs happen to be on other continents or outside the Sol system. Communication is so limited that the fate of entire nations remains unknown.

The capital ships bombarded defense installations and industrial centers, annihilating entire cities with populations in the low millions, including Adelaide, Hamburg, Al Jubail, and Fort Worth. Meanwhile, Reaper destroyers descended into the atmosphere to melt roads and capture population centers with minimal loss of life. This is not an example of the Reapers being merciful. More likely, they are herding their prey to make the coming harvest that much easier.

The Fall of Khar'shan
For every thousand batarian refugees, there are a thousand and one stories about how the Reapers invaded the batarian systems. A few elements are common to almost every version, however. The Reapers arrived first in the Vular system and immediately destroyed its communications network. The Hegemony's Department of Information Control blamed the loss of signal on space weather, but scrambled ships to the system nonetheless. Within a day, Reaper capital ships appeared in the Harsa system and descended on the batarian homeworld, Khar'shan.

For all the rhetoric about the Hegemony's military prowess, their response to the Reapers was uncoordinated. Moments after the information minister took to the extranet and announced that unknown ships were destroying all traffic near Khar'shan, the defense minister declared there was no reason to panic. The planet's comm buoys were destroyed next, creating an ominous silence that has persisted ever since.

Fearing they were next, batarian colonies across Hegemony space began evacuations. So many refugees poured into the human-occupied Exodus Cluster that Systems Alliance officials at first thought the batarians were invading.

More systems have gone dark as their comm buoys were destroyed, and millions more batarians, trapped on their planets, sit waiting for the Reapers.

The Battle of Palaven
When Taetrus fell, the turians knew little about the Reapers except that they wanted to enrage the turians. Staying calm, the turians massed force around Palaven, their homeworld. Fleet Admiral Irix Coronati, in what became known as the "Fifteen-Minute Plan," stationed only two carriers, Undaunted and Resolute, near the system's relay. When the Reaper fleet emerged, the carriers launched swarms of unmanned fighters and spy drones. These were quickly destroyed, but the drones transmitted vital data on the Reapers' effective range, fleet composition, and exact location. The turians' other ships then deployed to defend the system in earnest.

Knowing that the Reapers' weapons had a longer effective range than any of his own, Coronati made a short, daring FTL jump--landing his dreadnoughts in the middle of the Reaper fleet. The dreadnoughts then turned to line up their main guns on the Reapers, which also needed to turn to fire on the turians. This ploy used the Reapers' size against them--because they could turn faster, and their concentrated firepower downed several Reaper capital ships.

The Reapers countered instantly. Their destroyers performed a jump of their own to the skies above Palaven, beginning orbital strikes of turian cities. The turians, forced to defend the planet, found themselves in a pitched battle far from the relay, from which emerged a seemingly endless line of Reaper ships. After massive casualties, Coronati ordered retreat.

The turians insist that Palaven is not lost--the battle has merely moved to the ground. Reaper troop transports have dumped hordes of husk to capture Palaven's inhabitants, but met with little success. Reaper capital ships are destroying city after city. But much of the turian fleet is still operable, and the citizenry is heavily armed. The turians refuse to be intimidated.

The Cerberus Coup
Councilor Udina's attempted coup will no doubt be analyzed for generations to come, but a clear picture is beginning to merge. Udina had contacted Cerberus to coordinate what was intended to be a bloodless takeover of the Citadel, in which he would force the other councilors to grant him emergency powers so that he could command the Citadel Fleet. He would then direct the fleet to liberate his homeworld, Earth.

The plan fell apart early when Executor Pallin and the salarian councilor caught wind of it. In defense of the plan, the Illusive Man dispatched his top assassins, commanded by Kai Leng, to kill them. Udina had little choice but to support the assassins with an armed force sufficient to hold the Citadel. Captured confidantes have indicated that Udina and Leng's alliance was relatively fragile: Udina may have planned to turn on Cerberus once the fleet was his to command, and Leng departed when he calculated that Udina would not succeed.

Persistent rumors suggest that Udina might have been a high-functioning victim of Reaper indoctrination. His actions played right into the Reapers' plans: even if the coup failed, it would damage Citadel governance. If it succeeded, his plan to retake Earth would likely have turned into a military blunder that Council forces could ill afford. However, there is no direct evidence of his indoctrination, nor obvious opportunity. It is more likely that Udina acted out of desperation, and in doing so, cost humanity its councilor.

The Fall of Thessia
The assault on Thessia did not go as smoothly as the Reapers' strikes against other races. While other species met the Reapers head-on, the asari resorted to dangerous hit-and-run tactics to harass their attackers. By engaging in guerilla strategies--blast a Reaper ship, then jumping to FTL where they could not be tracked--the asari forced the Reapers to remain on the defensive.

Unfortunately, the Reapers' greater numbers allowed them to accept certain losses, so they soon ignored the attacks against them and began orbital bombardment of Thessia. This in turn forced the asari to defend their homeworld with a more traditional stance, facing the Reaper forces directly. As soon as the Reapers landed on Thessia, the harvesting began.

A swift and brutal slaughter of the asari ground forces followed. Resistance from trained biotics barely slowly the attackers down. In the end, Thessia's minimal military forces, combined with unpreparedness in the face of an overwhelming enemy, resulted in the fall of the planet.