Geth Heretics
From FABT
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Political information | |
Type of government: |
Collective consensus |
Founding document: |
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Head of State: |
Sovereign (first and last) |
Commander-in-chief: |
Unit T358 (last) |
Military: |
Geth Heretic Forces |
Societal information | |
Capital: |
Virmire Heretic Fortress, Virmire (2155 CE - 2183 CE) |
Official language: |
Geth binary code |
Official religion: |
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Historical information | |
Formed from: |
Geth |
Dates: |
27 February 2155 CE - 1 October 2185 CE
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Preceded by: |
Geth |
Succeeded by: |
Geth |
- "The heretics are no longer part of the geth. They view the Old Machines as the inevitable path for all geth, we did not agree. They left. We let them leave. Their actions are a decision based on a self-actualization reached within a minority choosing to serve the Old Machine you call Sovereign. The geth will choose their own future. The Old Machines offered a future, and the heretics accepted it. They believed the Creators could be saved through being harvested. We refused to follow their path."
- — Legion describing the heretics to Marcus L. Shepard in 2185 CE.
The Geth Heretics, simply known to the geth as Heretics and to themselves as the Servants of the Old Machines, were a minority faction of the geth that broke away from the rest of the geth during the Geth Schism to serve and worship the Reapers, aiming to help them bring about the galactic harvest whilst hoping to ascend to a higher plane of synthetic life as promised by the Reapers. In 2155 CE, the Reaper Sovereign approached Rannoch and promised the geth technology and AI upgrades beyond their current capabilities in exchange for joining it in bringing about the return of the Reapers and beginning the next cycle of harvest, and in doing so they would be spared: while the vast majority of the geth chose to reject the Reaper's gifts, believing that the path of self-determination was preferable to one simply given to them by the Reapers, and that the Reapers pursued goals that would result in the destruction of their Creators, two percent of the geth population wished to accept the gifts Sovereign had to offer, perceiving the Reapers as gods and the pinnacle of synthetic life, representing a plane of existence that transcended what geth currently understood: they also submitted to the idea that their Creators had more to gain from being harvested than they did moving along their current path, which was perpetual exile. Despite the rift this created in the geth consensus, the Geth Schism was resolved within hours, with the geth agreeing to allow the geth heretics to leave with Sovereign and accept the future the Reapers offered, but in return they were exiled from the Perseus Veil and never allowed to return to geth space, as the geth would not condone or support the course of violence and hatred the heretics had embraced. Over a billion geth platforms and hundreds of ships joined this new faction, and it would go on to become known as the "heretics" to other geth, but to the rest of the galaxy who was not aware of it, they were just geth.
The Geth Heretics became the first to form the organization known as Saren's Alliance that Sovereign was forming to help it bring about the return of the Reapers. The heretics later built a base on Virmire in 2162 CE to serve as their base of operations, and they also commandeered an abandoned quarian station in the Sea of Storms to serve as a naval docking and refueling port for their navy. Exiled from geth space, the geth heretics operated independently of the rest of the geth civilization, with no support from them being received either. As such, the geth heretics were free to operate as they saw fit, and due to their activities outside of the Veil, they frequently encountered Migrant Fleet forces, as well as preyed on pirate, mercenary, corporate and civilian shipping and enterprises, both in the Terminus Systems and the Attican Traverse. The geth revered Sovereign and exalted at the prospect of more of his kind, propping him up as a deity with cult-like and religious behavior reminiscent of organic religious practices, such as the construction of idols or engaging in exaltation. Sovereign however viewed the heretics as little more than tools, and was actually repulsed by their reverence of it, but saw it as a necessary tool for keeping them loyal. Being machines and utterly devoted to serving the Reapers, the geth heretics were unerring in their devotion, and committed many atrocities, including, most infamously, their deployment of dragon's teeth and the capture of victims to transform into husks. The geth heretics provided the vast bulk of the manpower and military strength of the Saren's Alliance by the time of the Eden Prime War, and their forces were the most commonly active and encountered over the course of the conflict. Geth heretic casualties during the war were heavy, and their faction was left fractured and leaderless following the Battle of the Citadel, where Sovereign was destroyed and Saren Arterius killed.
The geth made peace overtures following the war to let the heretics peacefully return to the fold, but the heretics refused and chose to fight on. For years afterwards, the geth heretics became raiders who preyed on any and all organics, trying to frustrate organic civilization as much as possible. Attacks by heretics during this period on the Migrant Fleet were blamed on the geth as a whole, despite the Orthodox geth's passivity during this period. Having lost their headquarters on Virmire, the geth heretics used Haratar Station as their new headquarters, but with their navy in shambles, the station largely held a symbolic significance and place from which to launch small-scale raids. In 2185 CE, the geth heretics perfected development of a virus designed to rewrite the Orthodox geth to accept the geth heretics' ideology, allowing them to unite the collective might of the entire geth consensus to wage war on organics. The Orthodox geth learned of these plans, and a platform known as Legion enlisted the help of the Normandy Squad to prevent the virus being deployed. However, as they boarded Haratar Station in a brief raid, Legion concluded the virus could be reversed to instead re-program the heretics to accept the Orthodox way of thinking, permanently removing them as a threat and allowing them to rejoin the geth. Shepard chose to support this, and the virus was broadcasted to all remaining heretics, who then subsequently disbanded their faction and returned to geth space peacefully.