Just a BioWare Fan

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,

I crossed the open room toward Admiral Anderson, surrounded by people in familiar Alliance blues going about their business. Six months’ isolation had allowed me too much time to contemplate the fact that I had, as accused, blown up an entire star system and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The anticipated dramatic accusation, or at least gasps of recognition from the soldiers around me, never came. No one paid much attention to the notorious Commander Shepard in their midst, at least openly. I suppose I should have been relieved that the staff at HQ had that much discipline.

In all the time I’d been under arrest only Anderson and James Vega, the soldier who’d guarded my cell on the day shift, had been even vaguely friendly with me. I’d been held strictly incommunicado, even from my closest friends. Anderson had passed along a couple of declarations of support, though not the one I wanted most to hear. Otherwise it had been aloof guards and interrogators going over the same information for the hundredth time.

Head Games

A couple of relay jumps and hours’ worth of cruising through the backwaters of the galaxy brought us to a Reaper, as TIM had promised. Its presence made no sense at all, considering it had have floated there since the last invasion 50,000 years before, but there it was.

No one on my ship wanted to go into that thing, me least of all. I still didn’t fully believe Miranda hadn’t inserted some sort of control chip in my brain while she’d been up to her elbows in my skull. Well, so to speak. My head isn’t that big.

The idea of intentionally going inside something capable of commandeering my brain made my morning coffee try to come up for a reprise. Going in I was, however. TIM was right about our needing the IFF and, unless we happened upon another handily disabled Collector ship laying about the galaxy this was likely to be the only one available.

War of the Words

The nature of the place wasn’t the only surprise Pragia had in store for us. Halfway in we found a freshly-shot varren. I tried not to think of Urz, all alone on violent Tuchanka without me, while Jack, already edgy from the revelation that she perhaps hadn’t been the worst-off kid in the galaxy, paced about raging. It got tougher when the wild dog-lizards started rushing us from dark corners and corridors.

We soon began running into mercenaries, as well. Miranda made half-hearted attempts to counsel us on control, more to prevent Jack from bringing the whole place down on our heads than actual training. I remembered to toss the occasional blast at someone between sniper shots but mostly I just pegged idiots in the head from behind cover. At that I’d had plenty of practice and Miranda barely noticed.

We passed down a hallway of cells that seemed to frustrate Jack even more. “What the hell?” she finally asked. “These cages are even smaller than mine.” Her entire memory, everything she’d believed about herself, had been undermined by what we’d found here. Instead of the most-abused victim of Cerberus she’d been protected from the absolute worst because she’d been the strongest all along.

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:

Some Powerful Therapy

Kaidan and I finished eating and he tucked everything away in that clever basket. It had begun to get dark by the time he finished and he came over to sit close, pulling me into him. We watched the sun set over the far hills, the lake turning a dozen unlikely colors, and a sense of unreality washed over me.

In all my life, I’d never known something like this. My defenses had dropped, even with my heart so exposed. It wasn’t that Kaidan would be with me forever, it was that he would never use my emotions against me. I trusted him never to exploit this weakness, something utterly new and wonderful. And so I sat with him, the most content I’d ever been, watching the sun go down on Horizon.

There were some other things soon after that that you don’t need to know about in detail. Suffice it to say that the springy grass under the blanket made for a comfortable surface and that we spent quite some time working off those sandwiches.

If Life Were a Picnic

Just as Morinth was leaning in for whatever freaky thing she intended to do to me, the door slid open. Samara didn’t even speak, just hammered her daughter so hard that the backwash of her biotics sent me tumbling off the couch.

The pair seemed evenly matched and only the colors of their catsuits let me tell them apart as they and assorted debris flew about the room. I stayed on the floor, propping my back against the couch but otherwise keeping out the storm of objects and flailing limbs the two Asari created.

The fight raged on for about three weeks and I barely dared to get the occasional lick in when I could. I managed the occasional, biotic cheap shot at Morinth as she flew over my head before bounding back to charge a toaster for use as a projectile but mostly I just tried to keep my head attached to my body by keeping it down.

The two were having the sort of family fight about which I’d heard. It involved a lot of “because I said so” and “you made me like this” and “I brought you into this world and I can take you out” sorts of things. In the end it was Samara who was right: she did take Morinth out.

Huerta Memorial has terribly narrow beds. The hospital also fails to provide the usual gowns to its patients, which was how I’d ended up lying tucked up in one of those beds with a nearly-naked Major Alenko in the first place.

He’d been in the hospital for a while and the now-greening bruises on his face reminded me anew each time I visited how close I’d come to losing him before we could do this again. The weeks he’d lain here, first unconscious and then too badly hurt to touch, we’d talked about what we’d been doing for the past four years without one another.

He’d told me he still loved me, that coming so close to death had proven to him there was no reason to hold back and no time to start over. Then he’d held my hand while I swallowed the relief I’d thought might burst my heart. He knew I was no good with words but his smile, even through the wince it caused, told me he knew what I couldn’t quite bring myself to say.

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.
_________________________________________________________________

Daddy Know Best?

Naturally I ordered Joker to head straight for the Citadel, it being essentially next door. Once I’d changed back into my BDUs and thrown my armor in the wash I thought I’d visit Jacob. Hopefully his little display in the shuttle bay had only been an aberration.

When I walked into the armory, he turned from cleaning my sniper rifle. “What were you doing, bashing mechs to death?” he complained good-naturedly.

“That may have happened once or twice,” I laughed. “We were rather outnumbered.”

He set the Viper to one side. “I’m glad you came down,” he said gravely. Ah, crap, I thought, he’s going to bring it up.

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.

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.

All Dressed Up and Somewhere to Go

On the way across the galaxy I had time to get into an argument with Miranda about removing the Cerberus logo from the shuttle. “Look,” I said for the fifth time, “we’re undercover. A badass pirate isn’t going to be flying around in a shuttle with that freaking logo on it.”

“This is Cerberus property, Shepard,” she said, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. “The logo stays.”

I cursed colorfully for a bit. “I’m in charge, damn it, and the logo goes.”

We stood in the cargo hold and the crew I’d detailed to paint over the thing all sat around watching the show. I gestured at the shuttle and they crawled to their feet, waiting to see if she would try to countermand my orders.

It’s time for another NSFW one-shot, dear readers, this one a Mass Effect 3 story. As ever, you young (or shy) folks out there ought not to click to finish the story. Here’s my retelling of the night Kaidan finally gets up the nerve to visit Shepard in her quarters. He knows her well enough to understand that she needs something to take her mind off the next day’s fight and the last few weeks’ horrific events. He’s decided he’s got just the thing.

I was keyed up, pacing my quarters in impatience. We had finally pinned down Cerberus headquarters and, in a matter of hours, would be knocking in TIM’s front door. I could hardly wait to get my hands on the bastard.

Until then I had nothing to do but brood. Fantasies of the hundred ways I could kill the twisted son of a bitch warred with the reasons I wanted to do it in the first place. I owed him more suffering than I could really dish out, not being a morally-bankrupt, sadistic puppet of the Reapers…like he was.

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.

A quick word of warning: this is a précis of the Kaidan-Shepard relationship in Mass Effect 3. It contains spoilers...kind of a lot of them. If you don't want to read spoilers, don't click "Read More" below. Naturally I've added rather a lot of conjecture and dialogue that you don't get in the game. I wrote this as a way to explain to myself how the relationship worked at the incredibly slow pace at which it progresses. Naturally, it's all Kaidan's fault.

I’m violently opposed to spoilers. I’ve avoided watching or reading anything about Mass Effect 3 for months, as hard as it has been to resist looking. I wanted to be surprised by every plot twist and retcon in the game.

In part it’s because I wanted the intended effect of BioWare’s writers’ and actors’ efforts. I don’t want to know if someone is going to die or blow me off or betray me. Commander Shepard doesn’t cheat.

Imagine my shock at the Horizon scene with Kaidan in Mass Effect 2! Had I known what was coming it would have all but drained the impact from the confrontation. (I’m avoiding spoilers with this example. See how nice I am?)

A Quarian in Need Is a Friend, Indeed

Kaidan whispered lewd suggestions enough to keep me entertained during trips to the dance floor. He made them casually, all the while looking as bored as one can with three quarters of one’s face covered.

I was glad for my own mask several times, though the exposed skin on my chest colored enough to make him laugh once or twice, despite his act of sophisticated nonchalance. In part my flush came from pleasure at knowing he never showed this side to anyone else. He was the consummate professional, a military man to the bone, regimented and controlled.

But once we’d become friends, and then broken that pesky fraternization rule, our time away from duty was filled by a man I’d never have known filled out those tasty, generic BDUs.

I Could Have Danced All Night

Kaidan gave that honeyed, throaty chuckle that did strange things to my insides. Over the course of our relationship I’d found myself doing things just to hear it that I would once have considered beneath my dignity.

I’d pulled goofy faces behind the back of Captain Anderson in Council meetings, danced a little jig of mockery during one of the ambassador’s tirades, and tried to juggle pistols in the Mako on the way to a tense mission. Though we’d all cracked up, high on adrenaline, when I’d dropped one and nearly shot Garrus in the leg, we decided that last little stunt had been a bad idea.

Maintenance hadn’t been too thrilled about patching the hole, either. The surprise factor had been worth all of the grief I’d taken, though. Kaidan gave me an excuse to crack the badass Spectre façade from time to time, to be a juvenile prankster more interested in a successful joke than saving the galaxy. Because I’d learned to loosen up with him I found it easier to do so with other people, letting go of some of that military rigidity behind which I’d so long hidden.

But it was a long way from practical jokes to wearing a scrap of a dress and attending a masquerade ball. His eyes sparkled behind his own mask, a wild affair that stretched from the corners of his mouth to a point a good two inches above his hairline, thus hiding his tell-tale waves and that dimple that made me want to nibble on him. He could have been any tall, fit Human on the Citadel.

Who Was that Masked Man?

I took another tour through the weapon shops on the Citadel, picking up what upgrades we could afford and drooling over the shiny guns that were financially out of reach or simply impractical. I also had to pick up a pair of dressy shoes, as my usual boots would at best look bizarre paired with that tiny, stupid dress. Those I left at the store to retrieve later.

Unable to put it off any longer, I returned to the SR-2. As EDI began to announce my arrival I interrupted. “EDI, do you have to announce to the entire ship that I’ve left or returned?”

“How else will everyone know who is in command at any given moment, Shepard?” the AI responded in a perfectly reasonable voice that yet betrayed a suppressed hint of laughter. For the second time that day my palm met my forehead. I swear the AI had grown a sense of humor. I could also hear Joker laughing over the com from his seat at the controls not far from the airlock where I stood. They’d probably cooked this up together, the weasels.