#mass effect Andromeda

[omegastation]

Here comes my review (mostly writing & lore) of the Mass Effect Official Cocktail Book. I also included a list of all characters named with all page numbers related to their mentions.

I’m including this for our Andromeda Appreciation Week because the last part of the book is Andromeda-related :)

Introduction:

Cassandra Reeder is the recipe developer and Jim Festante is the writer.

The book is written by two writers in-universe. The first one is an asari calling herself “Ambree T’Sia” who is a lot like Gossip Girl (“you won’t guess and I’ll never tell” is an actual line in the book). We have to guess her identity but she doesn’t mind spreading a lot of stories about people and their drinks. 

The second writer is an angara called Roa who decided to add recipes to T’Sia’s existing ones, but more adapted to the Andromeda Galaxy. Roa dreams of a better world for everyone. He’s friend with Dutch and Anan from the Vortex.

Each writer presents drinks based on locations: bars and spots in the two galaxies. There also some snacks recipes as well.

Review: 

It’s hard for me to say anything about the recipes, though I will say it seems like there are different ingredients so a bit of everything for everyone. The difficulty can be adjusted: I thought some drinks looked really complicated to make (and some use other drinks in the books as base), but if you want to do a simple cocktail/mocktail, there are at least 10 good options.

Some recipes are directly named after characters or inspired by characters, so it might be fun to try some based on your favs. 

One drink seems weird to me, and that’s the N7 Shooter (mostly because of the mix of ingredients). If you try it, tell me what you think. 

Regarding American measurement: if you want to be precise, I would wait for a translation. Otherwise, I would get a cup and google some stuff before making it.

The drinks I'll try at some point, in a mocktail version only:

Tuchanka Sunset - 22

Perfection - 54

Tupari Blast - 61

Denorian Beer Granita - 64

Tequila Se’lai - 70

Shadowbrokertini - 74

The Mindfish - 83

Calibration Cooler - 95

Pink Marble - 130

Marljeh - 142

Kadara Sunrise - 143

So that’s pretty much it for the food & drinks, sorry!

My review is more about the lore and the writing.

I found the witty tone enjoyable. I like that there’s a distinction between how T’Sia writes and how Roa writes at the end of the book. T’Sia gossips a lot but there’s no malice. Roa is very earnest and seems quite adorable to me.

You’ll see I wrote down all the characters named and the pages, sometimes it says something about the writer, sometimes not.  A good example: Samantha is mentioned 5 times by T’Sia. She finds her charming and young, and mostly links her to drinks and other people (a full EDI/Traynor-like drink is in there). Meanwhile, Drack is mentioned 4 times, Vetra 3 times, but Roa has an entire page about how fascinated he is by Vetra.

Regarding what we learn, lore-wise: not a whole lot. It mostly plays on what we already know. 

What we do learn has to do with some characters. Without being too spoilery, it’s very light and fun for the most part - like Joker and Steve having a challenge, Vega seducing T’Sia, characters loving specific drinks (like Traynor), etc. Some characters (like Kaidan and Miranda) are sharing their woes or backstory. Roa, in the later part of the book, talks a lot about Dutch and their meeting is very very cute.

My favorite anecdote is that Liam’s movie night spreads to the Nexus and becomes a tradition :)

Some characters are very absent while others are more present. I would say it’s logical in a way, but it’s one thing to be aware of. If you’re a fan of Jaal, there are no mentions in the book. Though, like I said, a mention doesn’t always mean a lot: Peebee is mentioned once but we learn nothing new.  I also found it a bit sad that Ashley is not in the book. Obviously, I’m happy to have Kaidan there, but Ashley would have been a wonderful character for fun anecdotes here.

Characters named and pages:

Note: if you find that I forgot a mention, drop me a DM. I’ll add the page and/or character!

Joker - 12, 98

Sel Vass - 14

Solem Dal’serah - 21

Karin Chakwas - 25

Padok Wiks and and Urp - 26

Wrex - 26, 65, 106

Aria - 19, 27

Oleg Petrovsky - 27

James Vega -29, 46, 112

Shepard - 33, 30, 41, 93

Garrus - 37, 38, 95

Samantha - 42, 43, 73, 97, 106

Kaidan - 49, 106, 116

Miranda - 54

Kasumi - 55

Doran - 59, 60, 61

Grunt - 66

Fist - 69

Anderson - 71

Elijah Khan - 81, 88

Emily Wong - 93

Jack - 94

EDI - 97, 106, 

Steve - 98, 120

Tali - 101

Aethyta - 51, 57, 106

Dutch smith - 123, 126, 127, 131, 156

Anan T’Mari - 123, 127, 131, 156

Ryder - 123, 128, 133, 135

Drack - 133, 134, 137, 152

Umi Henon - 133, 134, 135, 138

Vetra - 137, 144, 154

Peebee - 137

Sloane - 138

Lexi - 138

Khan Dagher - 141, 143, 147

Kesh - 150

Suvi - 154

Buxil - 156

Niilj - 156

[camalyng]

don't make me turn this car around aka: Nomad conversations my beloved

Unsurprisingly, the woman who loves elevator conversations also loves Nomad conversations. Once again: A great way of adding characterization, squad dynamics, and lore, but this time with progression instead of just being random, and without mostly just having multiple slight variations on the same conversation!

Some fave tidbits once more:

Ryder actually chiming in once in a while! Not like Shepard awkwardly standing there while the squad throw around microaggressions.

Jaal asking everyone what they do for fun

Liam trying to tell everyone about his run-in with a scarred up turian vigilante

Jaal following up Cora's description of biotics being like a sneeze with "Amazing. What's a sneeze?"

"Sid asked if I could get her a timer, medi-gel, and fifteen pairs of socks."

Cora and Drack teasing each other a lot of the time but Drack genuinely comforting her after the asari ark

Peebee calling Cora out for being a weeablue and their tension between Cora's discipline and Peebee's free spirit

Liam constantly reminding Cora they're working with civilians who aren't at war, not soldiers

Jaal and Vetra talking about their sisters

Drack Surprise!

Peebee and Jaal wondering if angarans and asari can reproduce

Liam and Jaal swapping weird facts about their species

Drack being someone Vetra can vent to about raising Sid

Vetra and Peebee working through their initial tension about sister status to making plans to go out and do something stupid together

Vetra and Liam discussing combat music

Peebee and Drack talking about their ages and their species' longevity

Drack likes soccer!

Peebee thinking her and Liam would be "slapstick funny" as a couple

(I forgot who made these transcripts but here they are)

[birdylion]

Fascinating! I've used tactical cloak mostly with an assault rifle, but this kind of hit and run sounds fun, I'm going to try it out with my 2nd Ryder. Thanks for the explanation.

Some Things I Appreciate About Andromeda

Because it's not a bad game guys, it's just not the trilogy

For the Andromeda appreciation week, because I unfortunately don't know if I'm going to be able to do anything else 🥲

First: Nakmor Drack. I love this grumpy old krogan who adores his granddaughter and has absolutely adopted both Ryder and Vetra. He's just amazing.

FEMALE TURIANS! FEMALE KROGAN! FEMALE SALARIANS! AND ALL OF THEM HAVE AT LEAST ONE PROMINENT ROLE! Seriously, this is one of the areas where the trilogy really fell flat.

I actually like how it's not a full military operation. There might be several ex-military characters, but it's primarily a civilian operation.

The angara are amazing. I love everything about them trying to rebuild their civilization after the Scourge hit and the kett showed up to attack. And while I despise the kett as villains on their own merits, I do actually love the scenes where the angara are horrified at what exaltation means, and the way the angara split into two different factions thanks to the ongoing war.

Related to the above, but I absolutely adore the museum on Aya, and how you get a sidequest to bring stuff back to display there. I love how the angara are trying to reclaim the history that was lost to them.

Exploration is a lot of fun. Of course, I'm the kind of person that misses the Mako in 2 and 3, but still. It's nice exploring the various planets, doing sidequests and bringing the planets to viability.

Biotic charge + asari sword + tactical cloak is a godly combination and it's so satisfying.

The loyalty missions are extremely involved! My biggest complaint with some of them in 2 is how short they are, but none of the ones in this game have that issue. Some of them also tie directly into the main plot- Cora's is the big one, but Jaal's is close behind- which is something I really appreciate.

This is going to sound weird, but I actually like that Vetra and Liam don't get along. Yeah, I wish that it'd been written better, but I like it when not everyone is the best of friends.

I can't speak about most of them, but Vetra and Jaal's romances are both really sweet, and are up there with the best of the trilogy. Vetra hesitatingly asking if their connection is real, Jaal enthusiastically Introducing Ryder to his family... god, I love them so much.

The fact that you're able to choose between Reyes and Sloane for control of Kadara at all. Like yeah, Reyes is definitely the better option, but you're still able to pick one, and neither is really presented as the wrong choice. I saw that people complained about not being able to pick between Aria and Nyreen for control of Omega in 3, and this definitely fills that void.

Your choices are visibly shown in the ending. Again, this is something that the trilogy sadly fell short on, so I'm glad you actually see the people you helped show up to aid you in the final battle.

There's a post game. You can keep playing after the final battle. That's something I actually liked about 2, and I'm so glad they brought it back.

[gemsbokk]

i've said it before and i'll say it again:

if i had a nickel for every mass effect prologue with its protagonist suffocating to death, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice...

happy n7 day, soldiers! keelah se'lai.

[hmslusitania]

Mass Effect Andromeda is, of course, an imperfect game, but I remain absolutely enchanted with a couple things they did with the Angara still to this day:

1. They’re not a monoculture. Most often in sci-fi when we encounter aliens they’re all one culture. Not so, the Angara. One species, sure, but they’ve got different national identities for want of a better word.

2. Their history of having been space farers, losing that technological capability, losing the historical record of such capability, rediscovering it, and then voyaging out into the stars only to find that the people on other planets in their galactic cluster were also… them is such a meaty concept I want so much more of that

[ladygwyndolin]

[wetsocksinbed]

[lunaticqueen-art]

[sashthesloth]

POV the pathfinder is taking diplomatic relations a bit too seriously

[turiancalibrationcoil]

why did he do this, was he just aura farming?

[ssv-raven]

I remember coming up with a whole Asari Conspiracy theory due to wondering just who the Benefactor could be. I was of the thought that it could be a yet unnamed Asari Matriarch.

My conspiracy theory was all based on the sixty year gap from the time that the Asari discovered the Citadel to when the Salarians discovered the station. I always felt that it was unlikely that the Prothean team from Ilos that went through the Conduit wouldn't develop some kind of Keeper-proof time capsule with warnings about the Reapers for future species to find. I thought that it was possible the Asari did find this time capsule and it quickly became so heavily classified that it basically vanished from all historical records with only a select few Matriarchs being aware of it and its warnings. This cabal of Matriarchs would then be responsible for the long term planning of society and how to try and deal with the threat in dark space. (Effectively the group that Benezia and Tevos end up being a part of that are aware of the Athame Beacon. Though they are too public of figures to be allowed in to all of the cabal's secrets and are agents not leaders of the conspiracy)

However, that secrecy is threatened when the Salarians come onto the scene and the League of One begin poking around. The League actually do discover some of this or at least evidence that the Asari are hiding technology and information from the time of the Protheans. This led to political pressure to expose and disband the League in favor of the STG which while Salarian, also worked very closely with the Council and therefore could be influenced by the Asari.

As time goes on, more and more species arrive at the Citadel but the Asari cabal learned from their first encounter with the Salarians and kept a very tight hold on information and also galactic power, only allowing 'trusted' species (or species that were too powerful to be left on their own without some means of controlling them) to have a voice in galactic politics. That would only be the Turians, whose rigid hierarchical society was easy to control by simply giving out orders that the rank and file would then dutifully obey as society taught them to. But other less controllable species like the Rachni, Krogan, Batarians were destroyed, had population controls forced upon them and isolated. Easily cutting off any potential internal threats to stability and Asari control while also keeping them around in the event that they prove useful later on.

Unfortunately for the cabal, their habit of thinking in the extreme long term of centuries and millennia into the future backfires. Their time begins running out when Benezia becomes Indoctrinated due to working with Saren and Sovereign. She reveals information that she knew thanks to the cabal about the Prothean science team being from Ilos and that was the other end of the Conduit relay. However, she and Sovereign's pawns still needed to find Beacons and more information in general to actually carry out their plan and reach Ilos.

Disaster is averted thanks to Shepard, humanity and their military might which led to them being given a seat on the Council. The cabal hoped to use humanity's ingenuity and tenacity in the coming fight but also began to look into other options to perhaps outlive the Cycle just like the Protheans had hoped to do. This is what leads them to further invest in Jien Garson's Andromeda Initiative. If the Milky Way should fall, then the Asari would need another safe harbor to rebuild their strength and perhaps one day return to the Milky Way, perhaps even as saviors to future species who would welcome them with open arms for rescuing them from the Reaper threat.

The cabal and Benefactor then place agents within the Initiative and are responsible for eliminating key leadership such as Jien Garson herself in order to hobble the Initiative and give themselves the time and space needed to begin rebuilding their power base in this new galaxy. Admittedly, no one could have predicted the Kett but that does not stop the cabal from continuing their work of preserving the Asari and their power in this new galaxy.

Anyway, that's my grand Asari Conspiracy theory that I spent a lot of the time before and during the pandemic coming up with lol

TIME TO FIND THE MOST LIKELY SUSPECTS

We got 194 answers to the survey.  (Note: suggestions were provided so that makes it extremely biased. For example, I forgot to suggest Henry Lawson. I think more people would have voted for him if he had been on the list.)

FIRST GUESS: THE ILLUSIVE MAN (31,4% - 61 votes)

SECOND GUESS: AN AI (THAT WE HAVEN’T SEEN BEFORE) (10,8% - 21 votes)

THIRD GUESS: LIARA T’SONI (8,8% - 17 votes)

Other guesses by order of votes:

The Previous Shadow Broker: 15 votes

A Geth: 9 votes

The Jardaan: 9 votes

An Asari Matriarch: 7 votes

A private company: 5 votes

Rogue Reaper: 5 votes

Jarun Tann: 4 votes

Reyes Vidal: 4 votes

Addison: 3 votes

Avina: 2 votes

Saren Arterius: 2 votes

Shepard: 2 votes

Blasto: 2 votes

1 vote (almost all are suggestions):

Collectors

Another SAM

Henry Lawson

Asari Government

Conrad Verner

The Reapers

Biotic God, Niftu Call

Councilor Tevos

A Spectre

Todd Howard

The Final Pam

The Illuminati

Jeff Kaplan 

Paaran Shie

A combination of Saren, the previous Shadowbroker and the geth (heretic group)

Morlan from Morlan’s Famous Shop

A Leviathan hoping to start over in a Reaper-less galaxy

That one Salarian that asks you to stop touching his shit on Sur'Kesh

Space Hamster

me

Escaped AI from ME1

Helena Blake

The Shifty Cow

Jaa���m

Anderson

There you go :) Thank you for answering the survey!

[assassins-wasteland]

Mass Effect Andromeda is a good game and a great expansion of ME lore when you don’t have a bunch of bitches in your ear telling you it’s bad

[oh-kays-stuff]

Happy N7 day from our favourites, deafult Sheps and Ryders :)

Artwork without the title & closeups:

[sweeetestcurse]

Scenery in Mass Effect: Andromeda 06/??

[undergroundwubwubmaster]

Doodles of my MEA Pathfinder Ryder, drawn in Firealpaca because Clip Studio Paint is currently unoperational.