Sol Bulletin #2

(The Sol Bulletin is an initial effort by me to create a "head canon" about the ending of Mass Effect 3. It is in fact a singularly dry and geeky form of fan fic. The ending has been discussed ad nauseum by more patient and eloquent people  than me; I'm less interested in discussing what was wrong with it than in beginning to craft something that's going to work for me as a payoff to this great story. The only things I can absolutely promise right now is that a) the Reapers were defeated, b) organics and synthetics weren't synthesized, and c) the Normandy didn't crash land on an alien world after going through a Mass Relay. The Indoctrination Theory is on the table. Everything is provisional.

WARNING. Spoilers abound.)

The following is excerpted from issue #2 of the Sol Bulletin, an ad hoc news sheet distributed electronically among survivors of the Battle of Earth in the chaotic period following the firing of the Crucible. Issue #2 was released four days after the Crucible fired.

Charon Relay Reactivated
After days of around-the-clock effort, scientists formerly attached to the Crucible Project succeeded in reactivating the Charon Relay. In a statement, Admiral Hackett said that the process used by the Crucible scientists was fundamentally similar to the known procedure for activating a dormant relay, but required a massively higher amount of power. The main innovation of the scientists was a procedure for combining the power output from many ships - apparently a significant percentage of the craft surviving the Battle of Earth - and feeding it directly into the relay.

Following the Relay's activation, a special detail of ships, jumped through to Arcturus. Since it it believed that the Crucible may have drawn power from many or even all Relays, their mission will be to scout the system and, if necessary, activate the Arcturus Relay in order to make the return journey. The small fleet, dubbed the Arcturus Flotilla, included craft manned by every species with an organized presence in Sol. It will operate under the command of Major Kaidan Alenko of the Systems Alliance Navy.

Hackett said he is optimistic about the success of the Arcturus Flotilla, and that a plan is being prepared to begin a larger-scale activation of the Relay network. Thanks to the complexity of the procedure and the amount of power required, it may take years to fully reactivate the network. Hackett said the Fleet's first objective will be to make contact with the partially intact colonies in the Exodus Cluster, to confirm that the Reaper threat has ended there, and to stabilize a food supply for survivors on Earth and the huge force of levo-amino sentients present in the fleet that liberated Sol.

No ships have yet returned, but scientists predicted that it may take up to two days to complete the Relay activation process.