#mass effect: what could‘ve been

[drelldreams]

i just discovered that matt rhodes, one of the most amazingly talented concept artists, made this mass effect 3 concept art of the normandy.. featuring kasumi, thane, jack, grunt and what appears to be zaeed in the far background(?).

he envisioned that the normandy in mass effect 3 would be a pirated version. the crew would be on the run from cerberus and the alliance and they would fill the ship up with scavenged equipment, setting up bunks for extra recruited soldiers.

WE WERE ROBBED OF SOMETHING AMAZING

IMAGINE IF THIS HAD BEEN ME3

[drelldreams]

Not just Liselle but also Paul Grayson. Cerberus Agent who practically tells the Illusive Man „fuck you“ when he realizes what damage he‘d let them do to Gillian? Who escapes Alliance prison, joins Aria‘s ranks and dates her daughter?

He would‘ve been one hell of an addition.

Y'all know what...

Liselle would have been a fantastic addition to the Normandy.

[drelldreams]

can you believe that those were some of the concepts art for edi, as illustrated by matt rhodes. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. that we could‘ve had that badass edi on the left?? oh man, bioware. she looks so BADASS, whyy..

[drelldreams]

how i‘d rewrite jacob to make him a more likable squadmate:

• femshep‘s interactions with jacob would sound normal. none of them would sound flirtatious unless shepard is actually pursuing a romance with jacob.

• if you dump jacob for garrus, cut out the line where he calls garrus a cuttlebone. jacob is supposed the be the nice, good guy, the one who gives cerberus a good image, not some racist prick who uses first contact slur. this move was especially bad since garrus is a trusted squadmate! really, bioware? an easy way to make a character hated is to make home insult a character that is that popular among players.

• don‘t make him say „miranda deserves a better man“ in regards to his past relationship to miranda, and then have him be able to romance shepard. that makes it seem as if he is still head over heels for miranda but settling for shepard, who he thinks doesn‘t deserve a better man.. unlike miranda. cut out that line.

• leave out the ‚heavy risk but the priize‘ line. it‘s so dumb. it objectifies shepard and it‘s just cringy.

• he‘s supposed to be the nice guy yet miranda is more polite than he is. jacob should not be saying he is not in the mood to talk; he should be more open towards shepard

• let us find out more about his past life. he was a privatee with the corsairs, what was that like? also where did he grow up, which colony? why did he join the alliance? how long has he been with cerberus and how did he come to join them exactly? how did he find out about the organization?

• for his romance, make it a serious romance, not some hook up. give jacob and shepard a movie night date on the normandy in the starboard port and have them watch blasto and have us learn jacob has seen all the blasto movies. or have jacob play videogames with shepard. giving him a little of a nerdy side would have make him much cooler.

• to make him more sympathetic, write jacob as being the one who helped jack get the coordinates of teltin facility. after the confrontation between jack and miranda, jacob felt so awful that he decided to help jack sort through the files so she could get the coordinates of that place and nuke it. this would actually prove he is that kind hearted nice man he was supposed to be

• have him apologize to thane at some point, saying he was wrong about him. this would‘ve been a pretty great opportunity to give jacob some small character development

• don‘t have him cheat on femshep, most importantly.

[drelldreams]

jack concept art + a closer look at her tattoos. i wish jack would’ve worn the outfit in the middle or on the left rather than those straps.. she easily could‘ve worn the straps on the prison ship so that the player sees all the tattoos and then proper shirts on the normandy..

i love all of jack’s tattoos, but my favorite ones by far are is the one that says ‘to err is human ALL’ and that symbol for an asari family name of unknown history.

[drelldreams]

I actually have the headcanon that Garrus and Zaeed form a friendship during ME2 and it is Garrus who helps Zaeed take down Vido. Garrus, being Archangel, probably also wants this man dead.

More Mass Effect

I have a little beef with the Trilogy, continuity wise.

Vido Santiago. The asshole who is the head of the Blue Suns gang as a whole and co-founder with Zaeed.

For Zaeed's loyalty mission, you can either go directly after Vido or save the refinery workers. I know Bioware wanted to force players to choose one and sacrifice the other to play on the morality scale that all of us stuck with for our playthroughs. I always hated that if you help the refinery workers, you don't get a chance to help Zaeed get Vido after he escapes Zorya.

Well... it's more like I hated how he's never spoken of ever again once we hit ME3. Especially if the bastard is still alive.

In ME3, we're introduced to Darner Visque who apparently is in charge of the Blue Suns now?? What happened with Vido if he's still alive? Was this an issue that had been overlooked bc Zaeed is a DLC character?

I'm not saying that they have to give us a whole cutscene with Vido dying, but at least give the guy a proper write off to tie up that loose end. You could've had Shepard ask Visque about Vido and he could've said that he killed him to take over. Or Zaeed had reached out to Liara since he knows she's the Shadow Broker and got Vosque's location from her and that's how he finally killed the little shit. Shepard could discover that Vido was killed by Cerberus on Omega after they took it over. Aria could've admitted to killing him or her sources told her that he got done in by the Reapers.

Idk. Maybe I'm just complaining. That or I just wanted to know that Zaeed finally got to put a bullet in him.

Good thing I already wrote the scene with Zaeed killing Vido after he escaped the refinery. Nothing like fixing canon w fanfic to give fictional characters the catharsis they deserve.

[drelldreams]

honestly it would have been so much cooler if instead of some random C sec guy shooting down Wrex if you sabotage the genophage, it‘s Wrex who fights you in an epic boss battle and either you die or you kill Wrex

no way a few C sec rookies can take out a biotic krogan Battlemaster who was born around the time of the Rebellions, nope

[drelldreams]

scenario: liara giving jack intel on her mother‘s identity and location. miranda coming with jack because they’re friends by now and she thinks jack shouldn’t go alone. jack getting to meet her mother and being overwhelmed with emotions because she didn‘t ever think she could have a mother. her mother not being able to handle jack‘s terrible fate and blaming herself.

[drelldreams]

i wish we could’ve seen palaven in mass effect 3..

mass effect concept art by matt rhodes, turian structure

[drelldreams]

Zaeed deserved a dialogue wheel. And, I think, in ME3, Zaeed should’ve had the option of apologizing to Shepard for his reckless attempt of getting revenge at the refinery. It would have made his character so much more sympathetic. Unfortunately just like the other ME2 squadmates, he played a small role in ME3.

[drelldreams]

imagine if edi would‘ve gotten a completely androgynous robot body. that would have been kinda cool ngl

[drelldreams]

i do love the thought of jack and zaeed having a father/daughter kind of relationship, especially if jack turns out to be that little girl that zaeed rescued. it‘s definitely a bit canon bending since that little girl was eight years old and jack was probably older when she escaped, but then.. we can ignore that info or say jack looked a lot younger due to malnourishment and zaeed is not good at guessing a kid‘s age.

[drelldreams]

there was supposed to be a lesbian romance option in ME2

„“The Shipjacker", a female human who specializes in stealing ships. This character became reworked into "Young Thief", a ship stealer who dislikes men, would have been a lesbian romance option, and would have left the party if not loyal.“

that sounds kinda like jack? jack was a pirate before joining the party

but it also sounds a bit like kasumi!

[drelldreams]

I do think Aria should have the honor of killing that SOB personally. He took Liselle from her, there‘s no way Aria doesn‘t want to slowly and painfully kill him. But Aria definitely should‘ve found out about Kai Leng in the game. :( They rushed ME3 so much they left out a ton of stuff.

AU Idea: Instead of Cerberus being all overpowered and taking away Omega in the Omega DLC, the DLC is about investigating who is responsible for the death of Liselle. You find out it was Leng, you track him down, so Aria can kill him. In return you get her war assets. (And Thane alive 💚)

ALSO!!!

Thinking about Shepard contacting Aria after dealing with Kai Leng and just being like: “The son of a bitch is dead.”

Aria would know immediately what Shepard is referring to because Shepard had made Aria a promise to deal with that piece of shit for more than him being a pain in the ass.

[drelldreams]

a little jack character analysis because my girl needs love and recognition for the beautiful spirit that she has

her entire childhood jack went through abuse so horrific that she had to develop a harsh personality to shield her from more harm. she was in survival mode the whole time. jack is not not a psychopath. she is capable of feeling compassion for others, she is capable of loving.

unfortunately jack did not get the opportunity to express this side of hers often in her life because her past had taught her not to trust people. she was conditioned to believe compassion was weakness, that everyone was out there to get her. this is a woman who was literally kept isolated from others her entire childhood, who was conditioned to see life as a dog-eat-dog world, having been pitted against other kids and forced to kill them.

it was either her or them. she was a child who believed that the nightmare of a facility she was kept in was the whole world, a child who was manipulated to believe that all the other children hated her for no reason. a child who had never experienced love, but only complete ignorance and torture. this is a woman who was violated by a merc group and sold into slavery right after her escape. this is a woman who did not know what it is like to be loved and cared for. this is a woman who had been used for her abilities only to destruct, or for her body, a woman who was never recognized as a person deserving of compassion and love.

i am in no way saying her deeds weren’t wrong (piracy, kidnapping, etc), but jack was conditioned into this way of living right from the start. as a young child she was given drugs to enjoy killing. if she killed, she would get warm feelings, and she wouldn‘t get shocked. she learned that if she killed, she was safe. she‘d survive. there was no risk of someone harming her.

it was the only way she knew. and it was the only skill she had. where would she go? she was a child without any known family, who was, beyond doubt, still being chased by cerberus agents out to hurt her. there were only the gangs, and all they‘d taught her was violence, and she could find some sense of belonging for them at least for a while. of course she was influenced by them, she was already conditioned to kill as a young girl, it was all she ever knew, she was practically groomed into crime.

inside she‘s genuinely a kind well meaning individual, with a protective side, she‘s loyal like a mother hen and she has a soft spot for kids and i just know she would never betray you or lie to you. she would literally die to keep her friends safe. she is the one who would throw herself in front of a car to save a random kid she never met.

she could‘ve left the sr2 anytime during me2 but she didn‘t. instead she chose to remain on a cerberus vessel, working alongside an organization that was behind the horrific torture she went through. because she saw a better way than just piracy and murder. because she recognized the opportunity, the incredible gift that this was.

she was under no obligation to stay, technically speaking. she could definitely have ran off. but she didn‘t. she found family in the normandy crew, people she genuinely cared about because she saw she could trust them. and i strongly believe that she cared about the people being abducted, too, because she knows what it is like to be taken away and experimented on.

this woman was abused in ways most people could never imagine, her childhood was a bloody nightmare and yet, in mass effect 3 she forgives miranda in her own way, the cerberus officer who called her a mistake. she recognized there was more to miranda than just that exterior of the cold ruthless cerberus officer, that there was a woman who was capable of changing, who had been a victim of abuse just like her.

this is a woman who is so harsh and angry on the outside but if you break up with her, she doesn‘t even really seem angry. suddenly the otherwise so ill tempered jack is all quiet because she is fucking heartbroken. because she finally got to see a beautiful side of life and then it was all taken away. because she loves you with all of her being. there is no anger left inside this person who has so much anger normally, because she is so fucking hurt by the loss.

this is a woman who adopts a biotic varren because the dog reminds her of her younger self, troubled, lonely, misunderstood. this is a woman who only has to be shown once that there are people in the galaxy who genuinely cares for her, to show her true face to the world - a caring, loving person capable of compassion and kindness.

that‘s who jack is.

[drelldreams]

They‘re jerks for introducing Aria fucking T‘loak’s daughter, only to kill her off. This wasn‘t some random Asari, this was Aria‘s daughter!

They could‘ve written instead about Kai Leng attempting to kill Liselle, but she escapes (because she‘s Liselle fucking T‘loak and outsmarts Leng) and gives Aria a description of Leng.

Then you have a DLC in which you hunt down Kai Leng and kick his ass. Play as Liselle or Aria either and have the other one in your squad. Maybe Bray as an additional squadmate (would be nice to get a batarian squadmate for once).

That would‘ve saved Thane (and possibly Miri!) too!

Having lots and lots of feelings about Liselle T'Loak.

Fuck you Bioware for taking her away. She would have been such an incredible character to have throughout the games.

And I know she was super fucking beautiful.

UGH!

I hate it so much that she is gone.