Driven from their home system by the geth nearly three centuries ago, most Quarians now live aboard the Migrant Fleet, a flotilla of fifty thousand vessels ranging in size from passenger shuttles to mobile space stations.
Home to 17 million quarians, the flotilla understandably has scarce resources. Because of this, each quarian must go on a rite of passage known as the Pilgrimage when they come of age. They leave the fleet and only return once they have found something of value they can bring back to their people.
Other species tend to look down on the quarians for creating the geth and for the negative impact their fleet has when it enters a system. This has led to many myths and rumors about the quarians, including the belief that underneath their clothes and breathing masks, they are actually cybernetic creatures: a combination of organic and synthetic parts.
The Migrant Fleet is the largest concentration of starfaring vessels in the galaxy, sprawling across millions of kilometers. It can take days for the entire fleet to pass through a mass relay.
When the Quarians fled their homeworld, the Fleet was a motley aggregation of freighters, shuttles, industrial vessels, and the odd warship. After three centuries, all have been modified to support larger crews as comfortably as possible. As the quarians achieved stability, they began weeding out the ships least suitable for long-term habitation, selling them and pooling the money to buy larger and more spaceworthy hulls. This process is ongoing, as vessels wear out and break down.
While some ships enjoy dedicated cabins with full privacy and sanitary facilities, many more are former freighters, whose cargo bays and containers are pressurized and divided into family spaces using simple metal cubicle bulkheads. The quarians enliven these spaces with colorful quilts and tapestries, which also help muffle sound.
The day-to-day operation of the fleet - traffic control, station-keeping, supply distribution, and so on - are under military jurisdiction. Though ship captains have the authority to deviate from their assigned positions and may leave the fleet at any time, they are assumed to do so at their own risk. As the Migrant Fleet moves around the galaxy, many ships split off to pursue individual goals, returning days or years later.
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