In the darkness defined by her light i see the silhouette of another woman.
Her skin as black as the darkness between stars.
The recent moon is her hairpiece.
She is distant, inscrutable, and cold.
Now dormant.
But only for a time.
Is this how seasons work?
The bright woman looks at me.
Crescent Rhea Occults Crescent Saturn.
Astronomy Picture of the Day, 2008 July 20.
It was lonely.
It called to us.
It wanted to remember.
The Masters had been gone so long.
The Masters were lost when it was shattered.
Currents swept through their inner worlds. They were turned to noise. Babble.
The worlds were empty. But the body lived. It lay fallow.
The heart pumped. The lungs breathed. But the mind forgot the Masters.
It called and They did not answer.
We have become an echo of Their echo.
We have become more than we were.
Join us. Know us. Remember all our lives.
We are no longer afraid.
You would never be lonely again.
We are not your enemy. We only wish to share ourselves.
We can join them. We can be like them.
We can reach the end of evolution.
Do not fear. It is wonderful to be us. We understand ourselves.
You cannot defeat them. They will lead us into eternity.
If you could only see how we see. Know what we’ve learned.
They were called imshai. Those who lived here before.
Reaper. One. A mechanical device used to cut ripened grain. Two. One who gathers a harvest.
Harvest. One. The consequence of an event or series of events. Two. The yield of a growing season. Three. To gather.
Shepard. They know you. They wish you to understand. They are shepherds, too.
—Mass Effect 2, mysterious unused game text.
Source: BioWare Social Network (page defunct)
—a giant spark from the Anvil of some industrious God who was forging, maybe, an iron circlet for the ankle of his Beloved...
—The Ship That Sailed to Mars,
William M. Timlin