The Europans
are the inusannonThey're decended from refugees from the cycle before the Protheans and are referred to as the 'precursors of the precursors'. The race that filled the 'precursor' role for the Protheans are the inusannon, about whom nothing is know beyond their tech and a couple of battles that they fought. Them being the same race would also explain why the author chose to name the Europans after where they live rather then giving them a proper species name; it's probably going to come up at some point in the future and he wants to have it as a plot twist. The Berserkers were created as anti-Reaper Training from Hell
Given that the timeline is techinally set in the Mass Effect universe, that means that the Reapers are out there. Given what the Berserkers are and their MO it's not too hard to see them being made by a long-dead race with the intention of 'toughening up' the Local Cluster races so that they'd have a fighting chance against the Reapers.- Possible evidence for this is that the Berserkers did start to adapt and grow stronger as the other races did. For example, it wasn't long after the first kinetic barriers started showing up on SAC ships that the Berserkers were sporting them as well.
The number of spacefaring races in the Local Cluster isn't natural
As has been mentioned on the main page the number and variety of spacefaring races in the Local Cluster exceeds that of the rest of the Mass Effect galaxy. If this was natural it'd be somewhat implausible,however if someone had been going around playing uplifter then it'd make a good deal more sense. It's even mentioned in-story that a precursor race (the 'Tharks') noted that the number of sapient species in the area was unusually high and suspected outside interference of some sort.- It does help that several of the races in the Compact were influenced and aided along by Ancient Quetzel astronauts, and the CDC was founded by the Cheb-elan, who live in a massive artificial construct.
The entire Local Cluster is part of extinct race's plan to get revenge from beyond the grave
Carrying on from the above two ideas, maybe the same race that created the Berserkers did something to ensure the development of as many space faring races as possible in order to better play the numbers with the above mentioned Training from Hell with the intention of producing at least one species, or alliance of species, that was advanced enough and tough enough to beat the Reapers, sort of an interstellar version of The Spartan Way.- A Leviathan perhaps, seeking a proactive solution?
When they finally meet, the Local Cluster races are going to be weirded out by the Council races
Specifically by the fact that so many of them are humanoid. After all, when it comes to sapient species in the Local Cluster, no two body plans occur twice, with even the other bipedial species having enough non-human characteristics to keep them out of the Humanoid Alien catagory. The Council species on the other hand are almost all humanoid which would most likely seem strange and possibly suspicious to the Local Cluster races. Or, to paraphrase a comment on the Spacebattles thread, once is convergent evolution, half a dozen times is suspicious, and the asari are a sign that there's something wrong with the universe.- The Local Cluster is the equivalent of Space Australia. The animals are cut off from the rest of the world when the land bridge (in this case the relay) is submerged, and the high concentration of competing elements (and a few extra factors, like the Berserkers and Astro Chickens) forces growth throughout the area. Those changes build upon each other, with competition forcing faster and faster changes, with new applications coming up all the time. Remove the Prothean-based technology (they could have missed the beacon, which was recovered by a later race), and you're on to a whole new way of doing things.
- Averted- while finding it unusual that the asari appear so similar, they largely take the matter in stride.
Anonymous will end up leading/guiding/otherwise influencing the geth
When the Local Cluster meets the Council races, it is only a matter of time until the internet comes into contact with the extranet and when that happens it is inevitable that a certain AI will find their way into the latter. Since the geth are stated to monitor the extranet, it is equally inevitable that said AI will run into them sooner or later. And given that getting involved with the geth has considerable potential for simultainously doing good and trolling the organics, Anonymous will almost certainly take an interest. Especially since Word of God implies that Nony may be literally living up to the 'We are legion' part of their namesake's motto.- Unknown, but his brother Skynet ends up taking control of the Berserkers and becomes a menace to the rest of the galaxy.
First Contact with the Council races will literally be with the Citadel itself
Word of God is that contact will take place in the 2080s. O'Neil is heading in the right direction and as of the most recent (as of 16th November) instalment they've spotted what is probably the Serpent Nebula, added it to their 'sight seeing' list and will get there sometime in the 2080s. Given that O'Neil is an FTL-capable mini-Citadel with a large number of armed escorts, if this guess is correct then things are going to be interesting.- Confirmed, sort of. It's actually a scout vessel travelling some way ahead of O'Neil that makes the initial contact, but the big cylinder isn't far behind.
- Also played with- they found an Asari about ten years earlier, but she wasn't in contact with her people, so how much that counts in terms of first contact isn't clear.
The Migrant Fleet are not the only, or indeed even the largest, remaining Quarian faction.
Based primarily on the author remarking that he always suspected that some Quarians chose to embrace the newly-sapient Geth as their equals, fought alongside them when others tried to destroy them, and were spared exile as a result. There's odd hints of this in the text as well, such as the wiki entry on the Geth specifying that "a part" of the Quarian population was forced off-world.- Confirmed. Roughly a billion quarians survived the Geth Uprising/Morning War on Rannoch and were cared for by the geth while the latter rebuilt. Their descendants are now happily co-existing with the geth.
We haven't heard the last of Skynet.
With or without his unfortunate Omnicidal Maniac tendencies. The fact that the Council races and their enemies have taken to using for-real Terminators doesn't bode well either. And come to think of it...- Confirmed. He took control of a group of Berserkers, and are threatening the Citadel races from the other side of what is known as the Caldaran Verge.
The relative legal status of A.I.s is going to create considerable friction when it becomes widely known in Compact space.
Council-space A.I.s being a Slave Race not wholly unlike the Jem'hadar is not likely to go over well with Compact A.I.s, an ethnic group that can all vote and include several individuals of no mean power and influence. The Berserkers are a Training Program from Hell... and an effort of this universe's Cerberus...
Think about it. The Compact's closest/friendliest allies outside the Local Bubble will be the Unified Assembly
After some initial tenseness the two seem to have hit it off when diplomatic contact was first established, it was the first time someone had made contact, and friendly contact at that, with the Assembly (aka the geth and Rannoch-born quarians) in a hundred and eighty years (they were very interested to hear news of what had been going on in the wider galaxy while they were isolated), and at the moment they're the only two polities where A.I.s and organics are equals and have a fully intergrated society.