Eden Prime War

The Eden Prime War was the conflict between the human Systems Alliance and the geth that began in 2183 CE, when geth forces launched a surprise assault on the prosperous human colony of Eden Prime. Though it appeared at first to be a geth incursion into Alliance space, the war was secretly directed by the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius and the Reaper Sovereign, and it would range across the galaxy before reaching its climax at the Battle of the Citadel.

The attack on Eden Prime#

The geth had not been seen beyond the Perseus Veil since the Morning War, the conflict in which they had driven the quarians from their homeworld centuries earlier. Their sudden reappearance in 2183, in a surprise assault on Eden Prime, one of humanity's most prosperous colonies, caught the Alliance entirely off guard. The attack was no random raid: the geth sought a Prothean beacon unearthed on the colony, and their true purpose was hidden behind the appearance of a simple incursion.

In the aftermath, Systems Alliance forces and the soon-to-be-legendary Commander Shepard were drawn into a widening series of operations against geth incursions into Alliance territory. What began as the defense of a single colony grew into a galaxy-spanning war.

Saren and Sovereign#

Behind the geth stood Saren Arterius, a decorated turian Spectre who had turned rogue. Saren directed the war from his flagship Sovereign, a vessel two kilometers long that proved invulnerable to conventional Citadel warships. Sovereign was no mere dreadnought but an actual Reaper, an ancient machine intelligence, and through it Saren commanded fanatical legions of geth and other forces in a hidden campaign to bring about the return of the Reapers.

Pursuing Saren across the galaxy, Shepard worked to expose his treason to a skeptical Citadel Council and to uncover the purpose behind the geth attacks. The investigation revealed Saren's search for a means to summon the Reapers from beyond the galaxy and the threat of indoctrination, the insidious power by which Sovereign bent minds to its will.

The Battle of the Citadel#

The war reached its climax when Sovereign led a massive geth invasion fleet against the Citadel itself, tearing through the station's defenses against which the Council fleet was nearly helpless. The fighting devastated whole districts of the station as Sovereign sought to seize control of it. With the timely intervention of the Alliance fleet, the geth assault was broken and Sovereign destroyed, bringing the Eden Prime War to an end.

The defense of the Citadel came at a cost that varied by the choices made in its final hours. In some accounts the Council was saved at the height of the battle, cementing humanity's standing within the galactic community; in others the Council was lost when the defenders concentrated their fire on Sovereign instead, reshaping galactic politics in the aftermath. By either account, the destruction of Sovereign ended the immediate threat, though it left behind the first proof that the Reapers were real and that a far greater war was still to come.