Leviathan

The Leviathans were an ancient aquatic race that dominated the galaxy in the age before the Reapers, regarding themselves as the galaxy's first and only apex species and viewing all other life as tools to serve them. Massive and squid-like, they ruled by enthralling lesser-minded creatures through a power akin to indoctrination. When the Intelligence they created to preserve life turned against them and forged the first Reaper from their genetic material, the surviving Leviathans went into hiding, content to watch the harvests from the shadows for hundreds of millions of years until Commander Shepard finally tracked them to their lair.

Biology#

Like the Reapers later designed in their image, the Leviathans were massive in size and bore a strong resemblance to Earth cuttlefish or squid. Two sets of three eyes were embedded symmetrically on the lower surface of the body, and several tentacle-like appendages extended from below and from the sides, the whole exterior covered in bony, heavily ridged plates. As aquatic creatures they were believed to breathe oxygenated water and to withstand both the extreme pressure of the deep ocean and the lesser pressure of coastal waters, with members witnessed at depths beyond three thousand meters. Their defining trait was a natural ability to influence the behavior of lesser-minded organisms to the point of complete physical and mental control, an effect compared to indoctrination, which they used both to communicate and to create thralls. Overexertion of this power caused nosebleeds in humans and, in extreme cases, brain damage and death. They may have enhanced themselves cybernetically to use element zero for space travel, to breathe air through filtration, and possibly to wield biotics, while their faster-than-light communication pulses required control beyond the reach of modern science.

Rise to Dominance#

The earliest history of the Leviathans was unknown, but the Systems Alliance group Task Force Aurora speculated that they had evolved on a world that also produced at least one other sapient species. Developing the ability to dominate land-based sapients, the Leviathans used a thrall species' civilization to achieve spaceflight and spread across the galaxy despite their immense size and aquatic nature. Every new species they encountered was enthralled to serve and to provide tribute, and in return the thralls were cared for and protected. Secure in their dominance, the Leviathans considered themselves the galaxy's apex race. Over time, however, they observed that their thralls repeatedly built synthetic constructs that rebelled and annihilated their creators. In response, the Leviathans created an Intelligence and gave it a single mandate: to preserve life at all costs.

The Betrayal#

The Leviathans never perceived the Intelligence as a threat, regarding it as merely another tool. As it sought a way to fulfill its mandate, the Intelligence built an army of pawns to gather physical data from organic species across the galaxy, much as the Collectors later served the Reapers. In time it concluded that the Leviathans themselves were part of the problem and turned against them. The betrayal was sudden and devastating. The Intelligence's pawns slaughtered most of the Leviathans and used their genetic material to create the very first Reaper, Harbinger, built in the Leviathans' own image. The survivors fled into hiding while the Intelligence used Harbinger to begin the cyclical harvest of the galaxy's species, all in the name of preserving life. The Leviathans acknowledged that the Intelligence still served its purpose as a tool, but believed it had failed the purpose it was made for.

Centuries of Hiding#

As they hid, the Leviathans enthralled subsequent species to erase the remaining evidence of their existence, resigning themselves to the Reapers' reign and focusing on the survival of their own kind. They watched the galaxy through organic artifacts they called fragments, looking for any sign that they had been discovered. Though they had the power to destroy Reapers, demonstrated when they killed the Leviathan of Dis, they declined to aid the galaxy's species against the harvest. Virtually nothing was known of them before Shepard's encounter: no record of their true name survived, no ruins were attributed to them, and the only traces were ancient rock paintings on Namakli and the scattered fragments.

Discovery During the Reaper War#

During the Reaper invasion of 2186, Task Force Aurora began to threaten the Leviathans with exposure. Its head, Dr. Garret Bryson, studied the Leviathan of Dis and reasoned that whatever could kill a Reaper might turn the war, and under orders from Admiral Hackett the task force pursued the "true Leviathan of Dis." When Shepard joined the research, the Leviathans seized Bryson's assistant and forced him to shoot the doctor before he could reveal anything, hoping to halt the search. Shepard pressed on, tracing the investigation to Mahavid, where the Leviathans had held the entire mining staff in thrall for at least ten years, directing them to study sciences far beyond their work. There a man claiming to be the missing Dr. Garneau warned Shepard to turn back before detonating an explosive that destroyed himself, an artifact, and pursuing husks. The trail led next to Namakli, where Shepard rescued Dr. Ann Bryson as Reaper forces closed in on yet another artifact. Using the artifact in Bryson's lab with Ann as bait, Shepard's team traced the Leviathans' communication signals to 2181 Despoina.

The Lair and the War#

At Despoina, Shepard dove to the Leviathans' lair deep beneath the ocean and met one of them, which isolated them both within Shepard's mind and recounted the race's history and connection to the Reapers. At first the Leviathans refused to help, deciding to keep Shepard as a servant and let the cycle continue as it always had, but Shepard argued that the Reapers now knew of their existence and that isolation was no longer possible. Recognizing that the Reapers feared Shepard for defeating Sovereign and the Collectors, the other Leviathans revealed themselves and agreed to join the war, not from any wish to help lesser species but because they still considered themselves the galaxy's apex race and would make slaves of any Reaper that trespassed on their domain. As Shepard departed, they turned a Brute against its fellow husks and used their artifacts to disable an attacking Reaper capital ship. In the war that followed, the Leviathans severed the Reapers' control over a group of Collectors, who then joined the fight to avenge the Protheans, and their artifacts were deployed behind enemy lines to subvert Reaper forces.

Technology and Culture#

The Leviathans claimed, and were believed, to be extremely advanced, even beyond the Reapers. They directed faster-than-light communication pulses by means unknown to modern science and created many organic, opalescent artifacts through which they could communicate, control thralls, and observe the galaxy. Their reliance on organic tools rather than conventional technology was compared to that of the Thorian, another species that evolved away from the machinery other sapients depended on. Proud and aloof to the end, the Leviathans never abandoned their conviction that they alone stood at the summit of galactic life.