Mass Effect Andromeda Appreciation Week Day 6: Mysteries
You settle into a corner outside the Resistance Base's information center. The inside of the base is still freezing, but you can tolerate leaving your helmet off to eat a ration bar. You huddle next to a heat lamp. It feels like standing next to a campfire. Jaal wanders off to who knows where. Liam also wanders off–to socialize, he says. Drack starts disassembling and cleaning his shotgun. You think he might be doing it just to have something to do with his hands.
You sit down on a crate and take the opportunity to quiz yourself on the Shelesh alphabet. When Jaal returns, you don’t even notice until he’s leaning over your shoulder to read your omnitool display.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Uh…” you stumble, feeling caught out. “Trying to teach myself Shelesh?”
“Why?” There’s something suspicious in his expression that makes you uncomfortable. “You have a translator.”
“Sure but…” You sigh. You aren’t sure how to explain that living life with communication mediated entirely by machine translation can be an exercise in frustration. Idioms never translate correctly. Slang gets made and discarded too fast for programmers to update the translation models. Puns never land properly. There’s so much lost in translation. Over the course of two lifetimes, you had learned two and a half human languages, and gained a passing familiarity with a couple of others. You’d wanted to learn the turian language as a child, but half of it is literally unpronounceable with your vocal cords. Regardless, you understand the kind of insight you can get into a culture from its language.
The angara are supposed to have a lot of languages, you remember from reading the game's codex entries. When they recovered from the Scourge enough to venture back out into space and rediscover their own lost colonies, they had a communication breakdown. Their compromise was the resurgence of Shelesh–a trade language designed to bridge the knowledge gap between their populations. Now, almost everybody knows Shelesh, even if it’s not their native tongue; they don’t really have to rely on translators. Frankly you would be amazed if the angara had successfully distributed the translation program for Initiative languages widely enough to avoid encountering a breakdown in communications at some point.
“I live here now,” you tell Jaal. “I can’t just pick up and leave back to my own galaxy, even if I wanted to. The angara are my neighbors, and there are a lot more of you than there are people in the Initiative. I’m going to be trying to communicate with angara for the rest of my life. I don’t want to screw it up because I lack the context to understand what you’re talking about, or because I don’t understand something basic that I could’ve picked up by just learning the language. I want to learn because I want to be able to speak to you in your own language without worrying about whether my meaning is being mistranslated.”
“That’s a smart attitude,” Drack rumbles from his place a few meters away. He doesn’t bother looking up from his gun.
“Yep. If there’s any mistranslation going on, it’ll be my own damn fault,” you quip.
Jaal’s expression has lost its suspicious edge. He blinks at you. “Why didn’t you ask me to teach you?”
You smile wryly. “I was going to. I just didn’t think our relationship was really at a point where I could make such a huge request of you yet. It’s a lot of work, teaching somebody a new language. I wasn’t sure you would want that kind of time commitment.”
“I…” He hesitates. “You’re probably right, I don’t think I have the time to teach you all of it, but I don’t mind teaching you parts of it. How far have you gotten?”
He perches on the crate next to you, and you explain the work you’ve done to try to memorize the Shelesh alphabet, and how you had only just started working on basic grammar and vocabulary in the present tense. You’re not sure, but you think Jaal might be charmed by your efforts. He seems enthusiastic enough.
At some point, Liam returns, crowing about being gifted a schematic for an angaran shield upgrade for vehicles by a friendly angaran mechanic. You smile and tell him to send it to Gil, with the suggestion that if Gil wants to share a schematic in exchange, he’s free to do so. Liam opens his omnitool interface to forward the schematic, and you and Jaal get back to your discussion of Shelesh. Liam gets pulled in, and starts trying to learn the language himself, and before you know it, a couple of other angara have joined you around the heat lamp, and discussion has devolved into trying to stump the humans with increasingly difficult Shelesh words. You’ve always been good at accents, so you manage most of them without stumbling too badly, rolling R’s and all, but Liam’s attempts are positively hilarious.
Time passes. When you start yawning, you know you have to stop. You excuse yourself, and go in search of the angara restroom facilities, leaving Liam and Jaal deep in discussion. You take a wrong turn somewhere, and end up in front of the medical bay. The Resistance base is bigger than you remember.
You hesitate for a moment. Angara are private about illness, but you don’t know their attitudes about injury. You don’t really need to go in, but you're curious. Would they resent your presence?
Across the room, you catch sight of symbols on the walls.
Oh. Of course. You’d nearly forgotten.
You enter the room with unthinking urgency, following the symbols. It doesn’t take long for you to find who you’re looking for.
She introduces herself to you as soon as she sees you approach: Roshwar Linn, the priestess. She offers you a blessing in a gesture of goodwill.
“I…” You swallow, feeling a lump rising in your throat. Religion is a difficult topic for you. “I’m not a practitioner of your faith. I… don’t really have a faith. I’m not a member of your people. But I could really use your counsel, if you’re willing.”
She examines your face. You’ve left your helmet off. You don’t know what she sees in your expression, but she tilts her head to one side, then the other, and draws you into a secluded corner. “I will help anyone who asks,” she says.
You draw in an uncertain breath. “Have you ever met someone who remembers a past life?”
Her eyes widen. It’s not a topic she expects. “Yes, but only a few times in my life. It’s very rare.”
You nod, then catch yourself and imitate an angaran nod. “I’m the only human I’ve ever heard of who has ever remembered a past life. I don’t know how it happened.”
Roshwar draws in a sharp breath. “This is possible for your people?”
You choke on something that wants to be a laugh and a sob at the same time. “If you had asked me that question even a year ago, I would have told you that any human claiming to remember past lives was lying or delusional. But now… I got into an accident on the same day I arrived in this galaxy, and my heart stopped. I had to be resuscitated. When I woke up, I had two sets of memories.”
“Do you… Is…” The priestess seems at a loss for words. “Is your past life a member of your family?”
“I don’t know,” you tell her. “We look genetically similar, but that’s about all I can say for certain.”
Roshwar studies you for a moment. “The angara believe that souls grow by reincarnating within a family in a never-ending cycle. A righteous action in this life begets enlightenment in the next.”
“Enlightenment being the ability to remember a past life?”
“Sometimes,” she tells you. “Sometimes it’s simply a great wisdom of the soul.”
“I didn’t do anything particularly great in my past life,” you confess. “I was disabled.”
“Disability doesn’t prevent you from bettering yourself and others around you.”
“No, of course not. I was an artist and a musician. But I was also shut in my house for a significant portion of my adult life. I was so focused on getting through my daily life that I never really had the opportunity to do anything that could be considered a great righteous action.”
The priestess looks pensive. “Perhaps it works differently for your people. You learned to withstand hardship in that life. It gave you perspective on the suffering of others, did it not?”
“Yeah. I’ll never take being able to walk without pain for granted again.”
“And as a leader of your people, you’re in a singular position to perform great righteousness in this life.”
“I mean, yeah. I’m very aware of that. I plan to forge an alliance between my people and yours so that we can both become stronger. But I think I would’ve planned that anyway.”
“Perhaps. But with the perspective of your past life, do you think you can do it better?”
“Yes.” You’re absolutely certain of that, if not for the reasons she expects.
“Then maybe that is the reason.”
You shake your head. This isn’t really what you wanted out of this conversation. You want to know if the way you remember your past life is the same as the way angara remember their past lives. You want to confide in someone who would believe you. You want to feel less alone.
“That’s… that’s just conjecture,” you stumble. “That’s… I know you can’t give me answers about why this happened. It’s alright. I just… wanted to know if it’s the same for angara as it is for me.”
Roshwar leans forward to better look into your eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… I just woke up with both sets of memories, whole and unbroken. It caused me a little bit of cognitive dissonance to reconcile choices I made in one life that I wouldn’t have made in the other, but both halves just slotted into place seamlessly. When I think back on my life experience, I draw equally from both lives. I wasn’t a different person from one life to another. They’re both me.”
“Oh,” says the priestess. “I see.” She frowns pensively for a moment. “In all the cases I have met, or heard of, it was not so easy.”
You deflate. “Oh.”
“They all remembered pieces at a time. Eventually some of them could construct a full life narrative, and at that point they could draw equally from their experiences in either life, but it took time, and didn’t happen for all of them. Some only gained scattered memories, or skills they never learned.”
You nod, catch yourself, and perform an angaran nod. You hadn’t really expected otherwise. You still aren’t convinced that the phenomenon the angara experience is actually reincarnation, and not a memory transfer from an artifact, or something else equally explicable.
“How did they cope?” you ask. “How am I supposed to cope? Everyone I knew back then is so long dead that nobody will even remember who they were.” That is, if they ever even existed in this alternate universe you have found yourself in–but as much as you want the priestess’ advice, you aren’t prepared to part with that secret.
Roshwar offers you an expression of such aching compassion that your chest feels tight and you have to look down at the floor. “The same way you handle any other loss,” she answers. “Give yourself the space to feel your grief. Meditate on your emotional responses so you understand their origins, express all of your emotions and not just the ones that feel safe, talk to and rely on the people that care about you, and don’t neglect your life.”
You draw in a shaky breath. “That’s… that’s good advice.”
“I would tell you to take comfort in the knowledge that their souls may reunite with yours when they are reborn, but it sounds like you have some reservations about that.”
“Yeah, that’s not exactly comforting.”
“Would you like a blessing, regardless?” the priestess asks.
You bite your lip. So far, you don’t have any problems with the angaran religion. It doesn’t seem to involve gods, or proselytizing, or any form of behavioral control aside from encouraging righteous actions. It’s nothing like the religions that do bother you. “Okay,” you whisper.
The priestess smiles and holds out her hands. You aren’t sure what to do, but you tentatively put your gauntleted hands in hers.
It seems to be the right response. She takes a deep breath, and suddenly you feel a tingling warmth spread from her hands to yours, and up your arms. “I offer you strength and courage,” she says in a quiet voice, “and bid you clarity of heart.”
The tingling warmth spreads to your whole body, nearly overwhelming. You feel as though you are floating, as though you are wrapped in fur, as though your lungs are made of light. Distantly you notice the blue frills you don’t know the name of along the sides of the priestess’ head are emitting an electric glow, like luminous plasma.
When the sensation fades, you discover tears on your face. “Thank you,” you croak hoarsely. Whatever that had been, it’s the most comforting thing you have ever felt. You had no idea bioelectricity could do that. Your thanks feel inadequate.
“You’re welcome,” the priestess replies, then hesitates. “Is your head alright?”
You reach up with one hand and pat your head. The short flyaway hairs that had escaped your ponytail are all standing on end. You give a watery smile and pat them down again. “Yeah I’m fine. My hair just does that when it gets staticky.”
The priestess squeezes your hand and excuses herself. You turn away, and immediately catch sight of Jaal watching you from the doorway of the medical bay. You hastily swipe tears from your face as best you can wearing armor, feeling embarrassed and vaguely like you had been caught doing something you shouldn’t have been doing.
Jaal pushes himself off the doorway he had been leaning against and walks up to you.
“Hi,” you offer, trying to piece together your scattered emotional state.
“Hello,” he responds, some indecipherable expression crossing his face.
“How long were you standing there?” you ask.
“A short while. You didn’t return, so I came looking.”
“Um, yeah, I got lost.”
He smirks suddenly. “The Pathfinder? Lost? How can this be?”
You huff out a breath and push past him. “Was looking for the restroom and took a wrong turn.”
“It looked like the right turn to me,” Jaal replies, keeping pace with you as you walk out of the medical bay.
You glance at him inquisitively.
“You looked like you needed that,” he clarifies.
“Uh, yeah, probably,” you admit.
“I find myself… intensely curious regarding what that was about.”
It’s not precisely a question. He’s just leaving you an opening to talk if you want to. You consider it. Telling an angaran priestess about your previous life is one thing. She’s not likely to go gossiping with other people from the Initiative, or be believed if she did. Jaal, though….
You think about the priestess’ advice: talk to people and rely on them, express all of your emotions, and not just the ones that feel safe.
You stop walking and turn to face Jaal. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell any of my people.”
Jaal blinks at you. “Why would you want me to keep a secret from your people but not my own?”
“Because my people wouldn’t believe me.”
Jaal’s expression is inscrutable. “You feel you cannot confide in any of the people close to you, so you confide in strangers and near strangers instead?”
You wrap your arms around yourself awkwardly. You don’t really consider Jaal to be anything like a stranger to you, but… “Yeah, basically.” Put like that it sounded a little pathetic, but you desperately don’t want to feel so alone anymore. “SAM’s the only person I trust to believe me, and he doesn’t really understand emotions….”
“Alright,” Jaal replies after very little consideration. “I won’t tell your people.”
You let out a long breath. “Okay, but.” You hesitate, embarrassed, and make a face. “I still need to pee.”
Jaal laughs. Your heart thumps in your chest. It’s a really nice laugh. You think you catch a glimpse of sharp canines. You mentally smack yourself to get yourself to stop staring at his mouth. Heat rises to your cheeks. Why can’t you be normal around this guy?
Jaal doesn’t seem to notice, and leads you to the restroom.
You get momentarily stymied by the alien restroom setup. Apparently they use squatting toilets instead of the kind you’re used to–you haven’t seen one of those since your previous life–and you have to figure out how to navigate that in below-freezing temperatures, in armor, with no toilet paper. It’s fine, you have sanitation wipes.
You click the codpiece of your armor back in place when you’re done. There’s a weird kind of washbasin, but there’s no way you’re washing your hands–well, armor–in this cold. You retrieve another sanitation wipe from its armor compartment and clean the gauntlets of your armor like that as well.
“Is this a good idea, SAM?” you ask over your private channel.
“To what are you referring, Cypress?”
“Telling Jaal about my previous life,” you explain. “I’m starting to feel like I’ve lost my objectivity when it comes to him.”
“You have expressed both a desire for companionship, and a reluctance to confide in the other crew members. As Jaal’s species apparently hold spiritual beliefs regarding reincarnation, and your circumstances could be interpreted through that lens, Jaal is quite likely the best member of the crew to confide in if he is in fact as trustworthy as you believe. He will, most probably, be open minded as a result of his species’ belief system. If you are asking for my endorsement, I will endorse this as a method of managing your stress levels, and as a test of Jaal’s ability to keep his word.”
“That’s certainly a clinical analysis, but I’ll take it. Thanks, SAM.”
“You are most welcome, Cypress.”
You exit the restroom to find Jaal leaning against the door frame again.
“You still wanna know?” you ask.
“Yes,” he responds promptly, then steps out of the way of another angara trying to get into the restroom. “But not in the middle of the hallway.”
“Alright.” You offer him a smile. “Let’s find someplace private to talk.”