Objective 3: Enter Archives; Pursue Saren

Ilos: Archives

Return to the Mako, pile your squad in and then roll through the massive doorway Saren escaped through. Shepard’s squad mates marvel at the massive tunnel as the Mako presses forward unchallenged.

They notice several stasis pods jutting out from the walls and can only surmise that the Protheans must have used them to try to keep themselves alive through the Reapers’ assault.

Reaching the passage’s midway point, the Mako falls under fire from a pair of geth rocket troopers stationed in the tunnel ahead. Stop the vehicle, zoom with its scope, and annihilate these minor threats before advancing. More rocket troopers lie in wait farther ahead; blast them to bits the moment you see them.

The team soon encounters a massive barrier that cannot be destroyed, even by the Mako’s formidable gunfire. Exit the vehicle and use the nearby elevator to access a side shaft. Perhaps a means of disabling the force field will be found inside.

The Watcher’s Chamber

The elevator leads to a small, abnormally quiet chamber. Approach and activate the terminal at the walkway’s far end to initiate a conversation with an ancient Prothean VI interface called Vigil.

The program remarks that it doesn’t see the taint of indoctrination upon Shepard’s crew as it did upon the other that came before. It must be talking about Saren!

Vigil informs Shepard that it purposely erected the force field in the archives to divert the crew’s course so they could have a chance to speak.

It wants to impart knowledge to the Spectre, information that may help their kind break the Reapers’ vicious cycle of galactic extermination.

Vigil tells Shepard that the Citadel is actually a devious trap placed by the Reapers. Its entire design is to ensure the downfall of every society that rises to power in the galaxy.

The Citadel is in fact a giant mass relay that links to dark space, from which the Reapers hail. When the Conduit is used to activate the Citadel relay, the Reapers will pour through and wipe all life from existence.

Probe Vigil to learn about how the Reapers were able to annihilate the Protheans. Seizing control of the Citadel made the task of eliminating the Protheans’ remaining settled worlds a simple matter, as each known system of planets in the galaxy is connected via the mass relays.

With the Protheans’ primary seat of power under their control, the Reapers had full access to their data logs and intel. Complete and utter extinction was achieved mere decades later.

Vigil explains that Ilos was used as a secret research facility by the Protheans, who had been trying to create a mass relay of their own. What they succeeded in building was the device known as the Conduit: a mass relay that links Ilos with Citadel station.

Ilos was never discovered by the Reapers, as all classified data pertaining to the Conduit project had been destroyed during the Reapers’ initial strike. This allowed the surviving Protheans to place themselves into a cryogenic state, hoping to survive through the Reapers’ onslaught.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough power to sustain all of the Protheans who lived at Ilos, even in their stasis. Vigil was force to systematically disable their life support systems to conserve power. By the time the Reapers had finally withdrawn back to dark space, only Ilos’s top scientists remained.

Determined to break the cycle, the Protheans’ greatest minds devoted the rest of their shattered lives to researching a means of interrupting the signal sent forth by the Reapers prior to each galactic invasion.

They were astonished to discover that this doomsday signal is in fact transmitted to the keepers, the Citadel’s enigmatic natives.

Once the signal has been received, the innocent keepers activate the Citadel relay on sheer instinct, enabling the Reapers to travel through dark space and commence their ruthless attack on the station.

Eventually, the Prothean scientists found a way to alter the Reapers’ signal. Using the Conduit they’d built on Ilos, they were able to return to the Citadel and make the necessary modifications.

This time, when Sovereign sent the signal to the Citadel, the message was scrambled, and the keepers simply ignored it.

The Reapers have remained trapped in dark space while their vanguard, Sovereign, has strived to correct what went wrong.

This is why Sovereign needs Saren: a humanoid creature would be able to use the Conduit to bypass the Citadel’s defenses without incident.

Once he’s inside, Saren would transfer control of the station to Sovereign, and the Reaper will activate the Citadel relay manually.

Vigil offers Shepard a glimmer of hope in the form of a special data file that it has kept safe all these years.

If the Spectre can travel through the Conduit and access the Citadel’s master control unit, the file can be used to give Shepard temporary control over the station. This may give the Spectre some small chance at thwarting Sovereign.

Question Vigil to acquire more insight into Sovereign and the Reapers’ cycle of extermination. Save your progress when you’ve finished, then return to the elevator and ride back up to the archives.

Vigil has lowered the force field you encountered before. Climb aboard the Mako and continue your pursuit of Saren.