#SSV Normandy

[fisher-art]

[alphamecha-mkii]

SSV Normandy SR2 by Hexanity

[housederiva]

This blurry to hell version of my favorite digital painting I've ever done is the only copy of it that still exists (my old hard drive had a wine and cat related incident) which makes me so sad cause I had a blast with this background.

I've learned a lot since then so maybe one day I'll give it another go...

[xenowolfqt]

N7 Month - Day 3 - Flight

N7 Month Challenge 2023

Prompt List - @n7month

Decided on more of a painted idea of this one, if I keep putting this much effort into these prompts I'm going to burn myself out whoops But in all seriousness, I ended up taking a bit of a different approach with this prompt This flight was probably the most important and serious of Joker's life. Based on the destroy ending

based on this screenshot :D

[lorekeeper-backset]

Okay, so let's talk about something. The opening of the first Mass Effect us great. Like, really great. Like, one of the best video game openings ever great.

It opens with a shot of space and a planet while Udina and Anderson discuss Commander Shepard and describe your character who you just made like they're an actual person who lives in this universe and not just some avatar the players control. As they're talking it pans out to show the planet was actually put a window through which Shepard was looking.

Then as Anderson describes how humanity needs a hero and you're the best they've got and Udina says he'll make the call it fades to black and we get an opening crawl explaining the base premise as the music swells leading right into the title card proudly proclaiming that this is Mass Effect!

But it's not over, we get dramatic, sweeping shots of the Normandy soaring through space intercut with a simulated long take following Shepard through the Normandy as they are greeted by the crew who very clearly respect them and heroic music continues to play in the background.

Then, as Shepard reaches the cockpit we finally get to see our hero's face, the face you made, finished up with a shot of the Normandy flying through a Mass Relay that still gives me chills every time because Mass Relays make just the best sounds. It's all fucking brilliant and it had me hooked before I even had control of the character.

[veshialles]

Hanging around Omega

[mercyshepard]

[the-rogue-mockingjay]

Mass Effect: Cool Wallpapers Edition!

[enigmatist17]

Catch me thinking about Cmdr. Shepard and the Normandy crew meeting some clones.

Don't really care how it happens, just they and those on the Normandy circa ME 3 just end up stuck, and maybe it's the Negotiator that offers to help. The clones are surprised to hear about their war, and in return the Normandy crew can't even begin to understand their own war, but the realities of war are the easiest ice-breaker.

Joker is of course an instant favorite, making a lot of the men laugh while answering questions from some rather eager medics. EDI hangs around as well, and after a few pointed glares from Joker, any advances quickly die out towards her.

Garrus and James are also favorites, Garrus eyeing their weapon systems while James just lays into them about how the clones came to be and work. They're confused to learn there are no clones where the Normandy comes from, but pleased that none of them seem to judge the clones for just existing. Tali is aghast (and if she's honest not surprise) at how they're treated, and ends up ranting about how she'd start a proposal for their rights while a lot of people listen on.

Steve gets to fly one of the gunships, and becomes a favorite of the pilots, constantly asking questions about how their warp travel worked. Liara also asks her questions, making the occasional note, but is far more interested in learning about Basic and other various languages than her compatriots.

Shepard ends up hanging around Obi-Wan and Cody most of the time, if they're not watching the general interactions of his crew and those of the Negotiator. The protective side of them aches at learning how a lot of them men say they're expendable, angry at how this Republic is willing to just throw men at machines with the intent of just...creating more of them. Sure, they get teased at by the crew who say "don't adopt anymore strays, the Normandy can't hold everyone", but they'd be lying to themselves if they hadn't thought about it. Cody finds talking to Shepard is a lot easier than any natborn he's dealt with before, and you can spot the two pouring over reports and pointing out tactics to use for different battles.

Insert reason for the Normandy to get back home, and both crews find themselves missing each other when they leave :(

I am in the Feels tonight fam

[nylusion]

The Beachhead expedition in No Man’s Sky rewarded with a pretty cool frigate in collaboration with Mass Effect!

[fisher-art]

[gamer9439]

[missgamerin]

Mass Effect Scenery | SSV Normandy SR-1 - Interior

[msbarrows]

Been having fun the last couple of days working my way through the "Beachhead" expedition in No Man's Sky, which they put out for a two week re-run starting on N7 day, as its end reward is the SSV Normandy SR1 as a frigate to accompany your freighter and run frigate expeditions (not the same as the special event player quest expeditions - these are daily exploration/combat/trading/manufacturing missions that up to five groups of 1-5 frigates each can be sent on; they return at the end of the mission with currency and items, and sometimes acquire damage you need to repair).

The expedition started me out on a freighter with a starship - in this case a shuttle - to fly around in. I was playing from an established save game, so once I'd repaired my freighter and warped to a new star system I was able to summon the anomaly and 'purchase' my preferred multitool and the starship I'm currently working on fixing up with cargo space and technology augments (a turquoise and blue squid ship).

Ended up doing a little base building, one of the expedition stages involved catching 5 uncommon fish on an ice world (clearly a stage added since the original run of "Beachhead", as they only just added fishing recently). I like having a little shelter where I'm able to be in out of the weather but can cast through an archway into the water to fish, so I started off building a fairly simple little structure hanging off the edge of an elevated island. Later, when I was waiting out a stage that requires running 3 frigate expeditions, I started working further on it.

While I was there adding on to it another player showed up and made use of the base to also fish, which was nice to see (the guy standing on the path holding a spiky red staff weapon). They weren't the only visitor, either. Always nice to encounter other players in game, though they're pretty rare to trip across apart from locations and/or events that concentrate players within specific areas (the game has an ungodly number of worlds to explore: 2 to the 64, or 18.4 quintillion planets spread across 250+ galaxies).

Still waiting on my third frigate expedition to finish (about an hour to go) but I've finished everything else in Beachhead -including claiming my Normandy frigate - and will be able to close it out after that and return my character (and their improved starship) to my regular save.

[sinkthoseshipspoll]

Ship Poll: Round One

SSV Normandy SR-1[Systems Alliance Space Vehicle Normandy Stealth Reconnaissance-1] from Mass Effect VS. Moby Dick from One Piece

[sky-scribbles]

There are a lot of things to love about the SSV Normandy. It’s a symbol of cooperation between two species historically at odds. It’s a miracle of engineering, a technological masterpiece that could alter every pattern of space warfare. Its crew is the highest calibre that the Alliance has to offer, bolstered by multispecies allies: an emblem of flying hope.

It also has far, far too many flashing lights. Everywhere.

One hand pressed to the wall to keep himself steady, the other pressed against his forehead as if that’s going to do any good, Kaidan shuffles down the hall toward the med bay. Every light panel and display interface feels like a laser drill boring directly through his eyes, sounds reverberate against the inside of his skull, and his sense of balance is a distant, pleasant memory. Kaidan sucks in a tight breath between his teeth. It’s going to be okay. He can do this. He’s done it before.

He drags himself the last few feet, and the med bay doors slide open. Kaidan opens up his omni-tool – god, why are those so bright, too? – and does what he’s done a hundred times, scanning the medical interface so that the med system logs him. Doctor Chakwas isn’t here, which means she’s on her rest shift, but that’s fine. The med system will alert her if there’s a problem.  

Kaidan, turns, so ready to collapse into the nearest med bed – except he can’t. Because there’s someone already in it.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Hey, Tali.’

‘Hey, Lieutenant.’ She still seems shy about using his first name. Maybe it’s a habit from being raised on board ships, or maybe she’s just not sure if she’s allowed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I will be once the pain meds kick in.’ Kaidan makes it to the next bed along and finally, finally lies down and shuts his eyes. ‘Doctor Chakwas is just… pretty strict about me coming here whenever a migraine kicks in. Just in case it’s a sign of something going wrong with my implant.’

Through the fog of everything hurts, it finally surfaces in his brain that Tali in the med bay is… that’s bad, right? ‘What about you? Are you, you know –?’

Okay, he’s not sure how to finish that sentence. There’s probably not a polite way to say hey, are you here because you’ve picked up a fatal illness?

He cracks one eye open, just enough to see her looking glumly at him. He’s not sure how he can tell that she’s glum when all he can see is her eyes, but yeah. She’s glum. ‘You know how I took a hit on Feros?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And how I disinfected it, and used my patch kit on the suit breach, and told Shepard I was fine?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I was not fine.’ She slumps down miserably. ‘My throat is full of painful slime, my sinuses are on fire, and my halesh –’ Okay, that’s obviously some piece of quarian anatomy – ‘is more gummed up than I can describe.’

Kaidan shuts his eyes again. ‘Well, my skull feels like it’s slowly contracting and crushing my brain, so… I sort of feel you.’

She laughs weakly. ‘I should have run an extra med scan once I got back to the Normandy. I just – I wanted to help with the engine maintenance today. And there’s this combat drone design I’m working on. And now…’ There’s a sound of movement; Kaidan gets the impression that she’s gesturing at the med bay in angry helplessness.

‘I feel that too.’ And he does. He really does. This isn’t the worst migraine he’s ever had – he can actually hold a conversation, which some days would be beyond him. But it’s… it’s not great. And he had things to do. Ash was running a drill and wanted him to look over her plans. He had a cleaning shift at fourteen hours. Shepard wanted to talk strategy for Noveria.  And yes, he knows he has a right to take time off for a medical issue. He knows he’s no use to Ash or Shepard or anyone when he can’t even walk in a straight line. But knowing that doesn’t quite get rid of the squirm in his belly, the one that feels like letting people down.

Tali’s quiet for a minute, aside from the ever-present, barely-audible hum of her suit systems, and the occasional sniff from behind her helmet. Then she says, unexpectedly, ‘I’m just… I’m so tired. You know what I mean?’

Kaidan’s head throbs. He swallows. ‘Oh, yeah.’

The constant vigilance. Always having to be careful about where he goes – is this room too bright? Is this one too loud? – in case something triggers another bad spell. Taking hits to the head in a fight that anyone else could just shrug off, but that for him mean another trip to the med bay to make sure his implant isn’t damaged. Trying to do his job and suddenly finding, no, he can’t, because his body has decided that today’s the day he just doesn’t get to function.

Tali… she must go through the same awful deal, just in a different flavour. Always being careful, so careful. Someone else’s minor injury being her okay, let’s get a med check to make sure I won’t die. It’s not the same, of course: Kaidan can eat food without filtering it, touch people without protective layers, see people’s faces without a tinted mask. Still… there’s a tone in her voice that he knows from his own.

There’s a heavy silence. Then Tali says, ‘You know what’s really stupid? I left my datapad in my cabin, so I can’t even watch vids.’

Kaidan smiles. He’s seen her down in Engineering, a few times, hands flying around over the machinery, rocking back and forth on her heels. Idleness obviously doesn’t suit her. ‘You can borrow mine, if you like.’

‘Really?’ Her voice is already brighter. ‘I mean – won’t the noise will make you feel worse?’

‘Nah, I’ll be good.’ He’s not just saying it; there’s a blissful numbness creeping through his head which means that his meds are finally getting to work. He fishes the datapad from his pocket, taps in his passcode, and hands it over. ‘What kind of vids do you like?’

Her whole being perks up – tone, body, everything. ‘Oh, all of them.Any genre, any species. I mean… asari vids can be a bit long. I mean, they’re made by people who can spend a decade making a vid and a whole day watching it. Turians… their vids can be a bit depressing. There’s a lot of ‘this war ended with almost everyone dead, but one turian is still standing, so it’s a victory!”

‘What about quarians? What kinds of stories do your people tell?’

A small laugh echoes inside the helmet. ‘Quarian vids are pretty limited by environment. We don’t have a lot of varied sets to work with. So we tell the best long-running dramas. There’s one ship in the Flotilla that’s been hosting the same series for over eighty standard years now. Following the crew as they change over time, that sort of thing.’ She taps the base of her helmet. ‘It’s pretty good, but… I think if you watched it, you’d think there were a lot more explosions, murders and shipwide romantic entanglements in the Flotilla than there actually are.’

‘Human dramas are like that too.’

Tali laughs. ‘Quarian dramas make human dramas look relaxed.’

Kaidan finds he’s actually able to grin. ‘So what do human vids tell you about us?’

Her helmet tilts as she considers. ‘That you’re very individualistic. I mean, not every human culture. But you put a lot of focus onto characters and personal journeys.’ She scrolls down the datapad screen – looking through vid lists, presumably – then stops. It’s hard to tell, but Kaidan thinks she might be frowning. ‘I did notice… in a lot of human media, the biotics are…’

Another insistent pulse of pain through his temples. Kaidan sighs. ‘Crazy extremists?’

‘Yes. Do you… do you mind if I ask why that is?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Kaidan turns onto his back and stares up at the dim ceiling. ‘A lot of the early generation of biotics, the ones who got the same implants as me… let’s just say I got off lightly. Most ended up with much more serious medical conditions. And when people found out about the side effects of the L2 implants, the media got the bit between its teeth and –’ Yeah, no, that wasn’t going to translate. ‘Sorry. Human saying. They got a certain impression, and they ran with it.’

Tali’s quiet for several seconds. Kaidan twists his head to face her, and sees the pale eyes behind the mask giving him a long, steady look.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. And then, after a moment, ‘They tell lies about us, too.’

Kaidan holds her gaze, and feels terribly, achingly sad. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I bet they do.’

 The way people look at Tali as she walks through the Presidium… it’s familiar. Not quite the same. There’s a note of scorn in the looks they give to Tali – but there’s suspicion, too, and that’s something he knows. All the times back on Earth, after he got back from Jump Zero, when he shook someone’s hand or opened a door, and their eyes found the implants. They way they stared at him like he was a loaded gun. All the documents he had to fill out to do anything, the knowledge that any government he lived under would always be hovering a few steps away, keeping tabs, making sure.

Remembering Rahna – remembering that obvious, instinctive fear in her eyes – is an old memory now, the kind that’s a faded scar. But he remembers the shock of it, back when he was seventeen. When no one had looked at him like that before, and it was dizzying and new and felt like a hole in his gut.

He bets Tali has that hole in her gut all the time.

Kaidan pushes himself up a little – which makes his brain spin, but he manages it – and gives Tali a smile. ‘Well. Let’s look for something that gets us both right.’

‘Definitely.’ She flicks through the options for a minute more, then pauses. ‘Have you ever seen Fleet and Flotilla?’

‘I think I’ve heard of it.’ There’s a faint memory of seeing an ad for it, maybe, and thinking it was the kind of thing he’d have loved as a kid. Space exploration. Justice. Love. ‘The… war romance, right?’

‘Yes!’ Tali’s legs bounce. ‘It’s – keelah, it’s so good, it’s – it’s about this girl, Shalei, who’s on her pilgrimage. And she’s interested in the geth, because she’s got this dream of finding a way to defeat them and take back the Homeworld, right? And when she finds something, she goes to the Citadel for help, but no one will listen except this one turian called Bellicus –’

‘Hold up. Wasn’t that… exactly what you were doing when we met you? Minus the turian, I mean.’

Tali ducks her head, suddenly shy. ‘I… I really, really like the vid.’

No kidding. Kaidan smiles. ‘So let’s watch it.’

His head still feels like a bombsite, and when he thinks about all the things he wants to be doing for his crew and isn’t, the rest of him hurts too. But maybe he’s still doing something for his crew, sitting in the med bay with his sick squadmate – his sick friend – and sharing her favourite vid with her. Maybe he’s doing something for him, too. He doesn’t do that too often.

Tali props the datapad up on the table between their beds, her whole body one big smile. ‘You’re going to love this,’ she promises, and presses play.