Javik | Mass Effect

Protheans possess two pairs of eyes with double pupils, capable of seeing even perfectly camouflaged and invisible objects. Their heads are covered in a strong shell. Prothean DNA has a quadruple-stranded helix structure, rather than a double-stranded one. This feature, among other things, grants them the ability to tactilely "read" the memories of beings and objects. This ability is bidirectional, meaning Protheans can both read and transmit knowledge to other beings. This effectively means that with just a touch, Javik can learn all the necessary information about an enemy (including techniques and abilities), and then pass it on to his allies.

In 2186, Commander Shepard and Liara T'Soni, while investigating Cerberus activity on Eden Prime, find and open Javik's pod. Emerging from stasis, Javik attacks his rescuers with biotics. At first, he is shocked to see fields, unfamiliar settlements, and the ruins of a Prothean city. Then Shepard touches him, triggering a vision of Javik's recent memories, and the Prothean quickly learns human language.

Javik learns that everyone he once knew has perished, leaving him as the last living Prothean. This news shocks him, but he agrees to join Shepard, vowing he will not rest until the last Reaper is destroyed. Javik is surprised that the "primitive" races once trained by the Protheans now control the galaxy. He cannot say anything about the Crucible and the Catalyst, as he was a soldier, not a scientist. Javik occupies the former quarters of the krogan Grunt on the fourth deck.

Javik compares the current races with their ancestors of 50,000 years ago. He is surprised that the "lizard-like" salarians evolved, and that the asari mastered writing. Shepard learns from Javik that during their cycle, the Protheans studied the ancestors of humans and many other races as potential sentient beings and, having donated their knowledge of science and culture, planned to make them "part of the Prothean empire." However, after the Reaper invasion, the Protheans, hoping that the primitiveness of these cultures would save them from the Reapers, shut down these projects and abandoned them.

The Prothean imperial policy is completely at odds with the views of modern historians and archaeologists. He finds it odd that races share power. A Prothean believes that potential enemies must be subjugated or destroyed. However, he doesn't care whether he will be understood in the current cycle. He doesn't refer to anyone by name, preferring to use racial or professional affiliations.

Prothean society had "avatars" who represented one side of society. Javik is one of them, the personification of vengeance.

Javik was born at the height of the Reaper invasion, when the Protheans were already losing the war. Javik's first memories are of his home planet engulfed in flames. He never visited the Citadel, as it had fallen long before he was born. For his generation, the station became a beautiful legend, the reality of which could only be believed by peering into the memory crystal—a universal miniature beacon that preserved memories through touch.

Javik played an active role in the Prothean war against the Reapers—he had his own ship and a crew of loyal comrades and friends, much like Commander Shepard. However, one day, the ship was captured by the Reapers, and only Javik survived. He considered this his own failure as a soldier and commander; it left its mark on him. But soon, worse happened—the Reapers didn't kill his comrades, but rather drugged them and released them. For several years, Javik fled from his former friends who intended to kill him, and every encounter with them was a reminder of that failure. This continued until the battle for the Kronova Nebula—armed only with a knife, Javik hunted down all his former comrades and slit their throats. And to ensure their deaths, he waited and watched as those who had once been his friends bled out. That day, Yavik understood the true meaning of war—cruelty committed for the sake of survival—a knowledge he wished he could avoid. Only years later did the memories begin to fade, and with them the pain that had haunted him.

Eventually, Javik became commander of a military garrison on the planet now known as Eden Prime. The planet's defenders decided to survive the Reaper invasion in stasis, then, after awakening, rebuild the Prothean Empire and prepare for the next "harvest." However, the Reapers learned of this plan and dealt a devastating blow. Of the million inhabitants selected, a third did not survive the attack, and Javik, unwilling to risk the remaining stasis pods, ordered the VI of the facility, Victory, to seal the bunker, sacrificing those who had not yet entered. However, the defense systems malfunctioned, and the huskies were able to break through the barriers. In the ensuing battle, the Protheans suffered heavy losses, and it was decided to conduct neutronic detonation to destroy the Reaper forces. Javik tried to resist this decision, but was forced to enter the capsule, after which the neutron treatment destroyed not only the Reaper forces, but also those Protheans who had not managed to enter stasis - out of a million inhabitants, only a few hundred remained alive, already in the capsules.

Javik despaired, realizing he couldn't rebuild the empire with so many Protheans, but soon VI Victory informed him that the neutron treatment had damaged the bunker's systems, preventing the capsules' automatic release from stasis, and that a power shortage was possible if the bunker wasn't discovered by other lifeforms. Ignoring Javik's protests that he needed every survivor, Victory declared that the stasis capsules' power would be redistributed appropriately, meaning unimportant capsules would be shut down to preserve the functionality of priority ones. After 50,000 years, only Javik's capsule remained operational.

Javik is the only known Prothean to survive 50,000 years of cryostasis. He awakens, adapts to the new cycle, observes previously less advanced races, and seeks revenge on the Reapers for the destruction of his people and the entire empire.