Just a BioWare Fan

Despite whatever else might be going on with Mass Effect, regardless of any feelings left about ME:3, no matter what else may have happened in the past five years surrounding the ME franchise, I’m buying Mass Effect: Andromeda.

How do I know, after a single teaser trailer? BioWare is finally giving me back my Mako.



Now, as Johnny Cash fan and someone mildly obsessed with Mass Effect, the trailer alone might have been enough to guarantee a preorder the moment I can make one. Add to that the sneaky announcement that the N7 featured in the trailer isn’t the protagonist and top it off with the beloved Mako finally returning to the series and I was looking for the “shut up and take my money” button the second I hit the end of the trailer.

Realistically, I have no idea where BioWare is taking the franchise (beyond a new galaxy, obviously). I must admit that I don’t care. There will be new companions to adore and new worlds to explore with a customized new face over which I can spend two hours agonizing.

SWTOR swallowed me alive several months ago because I finally picked up the Shadow of Revan expansion. (It took some time to get my characters ready start it.) The first run blew me away and I’m chomping at the bit for more BioWare-style stories. Knights of the Fallen Empire comes out in two months so running my twenty characters through the whole mess should keep me occupied for another year.

Eventually I’m going to need something new, however. Just knowing that the Mako is rumbling patiently out there, somewhere, just waiting for my shiny new space cowboy to saddle up is enough to get me excited about Mass Effect all over again. Oh, and there’s that jetpack.

Stay tuned for more flailing and happy dances as BioWare begins the drip feed of ME: Andromeda information. Also, I’m finally going to post more, starting with a review of the SWTOR expansions and some screen shots of the gorgeous worlds Shadow of Revan brought us.

Stormy Weather

Thankfully, Captain Anderson proved to be as anxious to confront the ambassador as his trumpet player. Kaidan got a reply while he was still assembling his meal.

Having a deadline settled his stomach further. By the time he’d finished eating he had begun to look forward to clearing the air. It almost doesn’t matter what Udina says, he thought. I’ll just be glad to be done with it.

The next morning dragged with routine problems and fixes. The green recruits under his training could tell their Lieutenant still hadn’t fully returned to them, though they assumed he still suffered from his migraine rather than simple distraction. He’d long ago earned enough respect to keep them on diligently on-task without his scrutiny, a fact for which he was thankful as he found his thoughts turning every five minutes to the afternoon’s confrontation.

Something’s Gotta Give

In a low voice, Kaidan told the group about the camera and microphone he’d found in Jenkins’s crushed pin. “I wasn’t about to confront Udina right there but Captain Anderson and I thought you should know.”

Pressly leaned back with a low whistle. “No wonder they always put the spike-heads on the right.” Jenkins, whose eyes were already round with surprise, turned to stare at the navigator as comprehension dawned. Pressly nodded knowingly, as though none of this were a surprise to him.

A passing wave of suspicion left Kaidan dismayed. Pressly enjoyed the way Jenkins looked up to the more-senior officers and was just playing the world-weary cynic. He didn’t exactly embrace alien relations but there was no way he was a good enough actor to have sat through all of those discussions about the insignia with Kaidan and Anderson without giving away that he knew something.

I’ve been pondering lately the point of the Mass Effect 2 plot. At first glance it seems a little silly: these bug people have started kidnapping thousands of humans to make a new Reaper and Shepard stops them.

The summary sounds like a mid-sized expansion pack to the original game, a side quest to kill time, and instead they pull in Cerberus and the Lazarus project. Throw in a whole new cast you have to go recruit and you complicate a little series of side missions into a whole game.

After some thought, however, I realized they had two choices of what to do with the end of Mass Effect. Shepard said that it wasn’t over and we’re led to believe that the Reapers are still coming in some undefined way. What happens next?

It’s conspiracy theory time, boys and girls! I’ve come up with my own little pet theory regarding the fantastic news about Dragon Age: Inquisition that has now been released. We’re waiting an extra year but oh, the tradeoff!

We’re told that the extra year will be spent on such beautiful things as mounts, multiple player races, and wider exploration with partially interact-able environments. Should you not have heard this news, enjoy the squee of joy over letting your dwarf ride a pony for a moment.

Now that you’ve considered the excitement of playing elves (prettily redesigned once again) and weather affecting movement and combat, you might wonder at how BioWare convinced EA to grant them this extra year. This is where that conspiracy theory arises.

It suddenly dawned on me why BioWare shoved the ME2 love interests out the air lock, as it were. They couldn’t explain, otherwise, why they waited 95% of the entire timeline to leap back into bed with the Commander. I haven’t played my lone Garrus-mancer yet and I never romanced Tali so I don’t know how they handle that but if Thane, Jacob, or Miranda were part of the crew why on earth would they be anywhere but sharing Shepard’s cabin? Damn, I’m going to have to do some research on this.

It’s only been six months since any of the second game’s love interests saw the last of the Commander. Why wouldn’t Tali or Garrus be right back into it, especially if they were on the mission that landed Shep in jail in the first place? All of the “three years apart, you worked for Cerberus and I’m a loyal Alliance soldier” trust angst that Kaidan and Ashley have for (completely believable) excuses fail in the face of anyone that accompanied Shepard on the ME2 journey.

So they get Jacob a new woman, which is okay because it always seemed like a fling rather than a romance to me. They give Miranda massive family issues (and then massive internal injuries) that keep her away from the Normandy. And Thane? Thane they kill,

With renewed energy Anderson and I fought our way to the pick-up point. Earth may have been under attack and the war with the Reapers just beginning but this was one tiny battle we would win.

In the distance I spied the long lines of the ship I loved, the replacement for the one the Collectors had taken from me. I wondered briefly if my armor still lay tucked away in my old quarters then I turned my attention back to the sons of bitches who were keeping me from finding out.

I cursed my frustration at them, my anger at what the Reapers had done to my life, my fury at their appearing just when the Alliance had finally started to take the threat seriously. The almost-Turian creatures kept coming, snarling and shooting, and they kept falling before us. Their recognizable weapons proved that they’d once been a more-familiar species but at least they kept us in ammo as we advanced.

Kaidan’s hackles rose a bit. He’d heard rumors of an organization within the military, an analog of the distasteful Humans First political movement that held the occasional rally on the Citadel and, in his opinion, set back the cause of human integration into galactic society every time they opened their mouths.

Such a speciesist group within the Alliance would have access to technology and funding about which the rabble busily spouting human superiority in the Zakera Ward wouldn’t even know. It would explain the band’s presence at the cross-species receptions as the only people in the room not subjected to careful scans.

“Is that what this is about?” Kaidan unconsciously kept his voice low, the wheels turning in his head. A scandal confirming the existence of Cerberus, it there was such a thing, within the military could destroy the tenuous alliance that held the two species together on the SR-1 project.

I’ve been trying for months to wrap my head around the implications of the ending of the Mass Effect franchise. The universe in the games has a few rules that imply some fairly unsavory problems for the species trapped in the Sol system if Shepard chooses red on the Citadel and the mass relays are destroyed. To that end I’ve put together some thoughts about what it would mean for those left in our immediate, stellar vicinity.

There aren’t going to be any female Krogan on Earth so Humans will only have the ones still alive after ME3 to venerate—until they die. That would be hundreds of years, of course. The surviving Asari will live as long or longer. Generations of Humans will grow up around the very people who fought what will become a storied war. That can keep it from fading to a myth on Earth, if not anywhere else in the galaxy.

Asari can interbreed with anyone, which means that will eventually start outnumbering the other species, except Humans, and us only because we have a head start with the billions of people who don’t live in the large cities targeted by Reapers. I suspect the Asari would try to take charge of Earth in the future, which would make for an interesting story.

“Kaidan.”

I hoped I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt. I hadn’t had too many opportunities to practice my cool composure over the last several months. What else could I say to the man I loved, the man who’d already dismissed me once, who’d never even sent me a message after I’d survived my suicide mission and returned triumphant, much less while I’d been imprisoned in his home town?

He couldn’t have contacted me directly but surely he could have gotten a message through Anderson. He hadn’t. I still missed him so badly it hurt.

He looked down at me, his face coldly neutral. “Shepard.” Where was he hiding those eyes, the ones that had softened when he’d looked at me, the source of those looks that I dreamt of at night? He’d had them on Horizon. They’d flashed at me for a few long moments before he’d stuffed his feelings behind his good-soldier façade. No hint of them showed now.

The events of Mass Effect 2 rightfully make Kaidan distrust Commander Shepard, particularly in light of their ME1 anti-Cerberus missions. The timeline that BioWare gives us for the entire span of events in Mass Effect 1 through 3, however, squeezes character arcs and the acts that influence them into a too-narrow slot.

They timeline that BioWare gives for events in the Mass Effect games runs from 2183 through 2186. Even assuming that you being in January of the first year and end at the very end of the last that's only four years for the entire series and Commander Shepard spends half of that dead.

Here’s how it runs in my head canon:

Two more relatively uneventful weeks passed, filled with work and practice and three performances. On a Thursday evening the band met in the same corridor in which they’d gathered for their first Turian-Human dinner show.

Ambassador Udina strode down the crowded hall toward them, nose first, in one of his innumerable white tunics. He gave the crew a once-over before every performance, though he’d never found reason to complain. His persistence finally paid off.

“Where’s your pin?” Udina snapped at Jenkins.

The corporal paled and fumbled with a flap on his dress blues. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I just had my uniform cleaned and I hadn’t put it back on, yet.” His shaking hand fished out the little note but it fell from his fingers. Udina made an impatient noise that prompted Anderson to step in to help.

The men practiced and played, worked their day jobs as usual, and socialized of an evening. Kaidan and Anderson made no headway in figuring out what Udina’s angle might be in arranging these performances. At the Alliance gatherings their energetic numbers had people dancing but turian reactions evolved no farther than polite applause and the occasional, furtive tapping toe.

Dr. Chakwas flitted in and out, now showing up for a drink or brainstorming a set list at a rare lunch, now popping in to practice for an hour, otherwise disappearing for days. It was no wonder so many had shown up to celebrate her birthday. She’d treated soldiers on nearly every ship in the fleet helped members of several species over the previous twenty-odd years.

Many of them kept in touch and the doctor followed on-going cases when they docked on the Citadel. Several high-ranking Turians and Salarians owed her their lives. At least one Asari refused to see any other doctor. That all made for a lot of demands on her time.

The men met Chakwas at the rear entrance to the hall where the first reception was held. The dim corridor bustled with people of every species, the work that went on behind the scenes that few people even considered. Jenkins kept dodging trays of one thing or another that the serving crew carried past at impressive speed.

“Turians can’t even eat real food,” Pressly observed as a passing tray of some mysterious meat left a lingering, pungent odor. “The cooks have to make two full meals.”

“Half the species in the galaxy have different metabolisms,” Kaidan said, irked a bit by the navigator’s superior attitude. “It’s not like they chose to evolve that way, any more than we did.” Pressly shrugged and they both dropped it.

Kaidan hadn’t thought about how awkward parties would be to throw on the Citadel. You’d have to make sure that the right species got the right food or all of your guests would be off to the infirmary instead of celebrating. As he pondered how much must have gone into pulling off Chakwas’s birthday party Udina strode down the hall, beak of a nose in the air, impatiently maneuvering around various aliens without ever deigning to speak to them.

Picture, if you will, the dedication of a memorial to Commander Shepard in her absence after she’s saved the galaxy. This is both a picture of her as she lives in my head (at least one version of her) and a complete and utter spoiler of the Mass Effect series as a whole. Remember: this comes from the perspective of a person on Earth when the ending happened.

Shepard was the Chuck Norris of her century, guns and all. Sure, all of those touching emotional scenes in the games made for a more-human hero. She could have love affairs and close friends, could be affectionate and even playful.

But Commander Shepard, as the Mass Effect series plays out, can’t be those things at heart. Shepard had no well-connected mother out there, easing her path up the ranks. She grew up on the streets, tough as nails and twice as hard. She paid for everything she ever won, one way or another. Even my fail-Shep was six kinds of epic but she had a terrible, heart-wrenching time of it in Mass Effect 3. This eulogy is for her. I don’t know who’s giving it but apparently he knew her well.
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Today's fic comes from the lovely Acidqueen of BioWare Social Network fame. As the contents are explicit and inappropriate to those of you who are under 18 or happen to be easily shocked or embarrassed, as ever I ask that you not click the "Read More" button or scroll down to see the delicious details.

Longing was inspired by a Kaidan sketch from diraemythos. Most of her work is more R-rated than NC-17 but this particular piece is definitely not something you want your boss, your kids, or you mom seeing over your shoulder. You've been warned!

Longing

Kaidan sighs. He reaches over to touch the button on the sound system...and smells her as his nose mashes into her pillow.

The scent is intoxicating, and memories flood back to him. Their first night, her visits during his hospitalization after Mars, their reunion after the Udina Coup. He breathes in deeply, then rolls onto his back, alone with his thoughts.

Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian can’t have babies because they’re of different species and neither is an Asari. Believe me, I’m not one of those people who wants their Shep to retire and start popping out the kids so I’m okay with that. But that wasn’t my point.

If they could, the kid might look like a what BioWare shows as a Quarian in Mass Effect 3: human face, Turian arms and legs. And that’s why I think Tali’s face in ME3 is a bunch of bullshit. I love a lot of things about Mass Effect, obviously, but even though I don’t much care for the character their “reveal” of her face disappointed me.

Can Tali look humanoid? Certainly. Lore has all of the aliens (except the Keepers and the Hanar) looking more or less human. She’s got boobs, for heaven’s sakes, something apparently universal to all species except Krogan and, perhaps, female Salarians and Turians. As I’m not sure we ever saw one of the latter two I can’t really say.

Let’s play a little logic game with changing the ending to Mass Effect 3. The prevailing winds seem to be blowing the idea that Shepard was indoctrinated when Harbinger lazed him or her at the bottom of the beam to the Citadel and the rest of the game was merely the Commander’s internal struggle against it.

That’s fine as far as it goes though normally I despise the “it was just a dream” ploy as a cop-out of the highest order. Many have suggested that the best possible thing for BioWare to do would be to release an expansion pack that lets Shep “wake up” and then have an epic space and ground battle between the Reapers and the galactic fleet, not destroying the mass relays and most certainly, definitely not having the Normandy en route to god only knows where before the fight truly began.

While I’d love to see such a battle, it removes Shepard from the playing field and relegates our champion, savior of the galaxy, to the cheerleading squad. Considering how difficult it was for the ground team to take out one reaper on the way to the beam, I hold out little hope of such a war being won by humanity.

SPOILER ALERT! I have some questions about and some support for the ending. Naturally that requires me to write about things that those of you who have not finished the game do not know. If you’re anti-spoiler please don’t click and then yell at me for giving it all away, okay?

I can say, without spilling any details, that the finale was moving. It wasn’t what I wanted but what happened with Shepard made sense within the context of the story. My issues lie with the aftermath. I’d love to hear your thoughts so please do share any comments or quibbles with me.

You know I couldn’t possibly wait more than half an hour to play the Mass Effect 3 demo when it became available. I didn’t. Though the taste whetted my appetite for the game (new abilities! familiar faces!) what it did more than anything was frustrate me.

If you’ve played the demo, you know what I’m talking about. “Do you know Shepard?” “I used to.” Squees became howls of frustration (and let’s not talk about Ashley’s dye job.)

All I can say is that BioWare better have come up with a damned good explanation for why loyal Shep hasn’t been with Kaidan or Ashley between games. “I used to…” I ask you!