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sky-ham · 6 years ago

Link

Game Designer @TheRealCLZ plays Mass Effect

"I can't view Mass Effect as a great game. I can't. I'm proud of what we accomplished with what we had, but it will always be less than what it could have been, to me, just because of what we went through."

CLZ worked on ME1 for about 2 years, and gives off a lot of interesting trivia about the game that I’ve never seen before, especially technical stuff, plus some stories from his time at Bioware. The link above is a 5-hour stream (intro up to Fist in Chora’s Den) and he’ll be playing the rest of the game in the following days.

I wrote notes in order and rearranged them - most are quoted directly from CLZ, others are paraphrased:

Characters and Locations

(Xfest 2005, first teaser) Shepard was supposed to be a very angry looking bald dude

they unveiled New Shepard at a team meeting - “he looked weirdly and distinctly like the project producer"

No one really thought it was the right look, there was a lot of complaints, so they asked for suggestions. Someone copypasted Mark Vanderloo's image. Everyone thought it looked good, wondered if they could convince Mark Vanderloo to do a headscan.

Mark Vanderloo was a fan of games and gave them a good deal on the headscan

Meanwhile fShep did not get a headscan, even in ME3

Seth Green added some lines and the writers rewrote his lines to match what he did. “A chunk of Joker is just Seth Green doing whatever the hell he felt like”

Took 3 days to get Joker to sit in his seat. “[Joker's] actual position is a few meters below the floor to the left/right” (an offset animation) due to collision problems

Nobody is actually sitting where they are sitting, they are offset from somewhere else

Kaidan is actually wearing Cerberus armor (the Onyx armor) on the field

Ashley’s Phoenix armor is actually medic armor - the same reason Kaidan’s in a Cerberus suit - they had accidentally released screenshots of them in that armor and had to stick with it

A similar story relating to this - a screenshot was released with a Vanguard in heavy armor. They requested if they could have Vanguards in heavy armor instead due to that screenshot, but that meant altering the balance of the game so they refused. Instead, there were artists who were not happy with the light armor, so they made new models for heavy armor; the old heavy armor became the medium armor (validating the screenshot) and the old medium became light armor.

There was a time when Ashley was assigned the wrong face and had a 5 o’clock shadow going on

Jenkins was just referred to as "redshirt" and was always slated to die at the beginning

The content on the Normandy pre-Eden Prime was supposed to be twice as long, about an hour’s worth; one was a scene of Jenkins pestering Kaidan to show him his biotics and Kaidan throwing him into a wall. it was cut because the pacing wasn't good - it was too long, and would be information overload / confusing for the players. (note: probably the scene that Chakwas describes while she's having ice brandy with Shepard)

original Nihlus was like "fuck you" to everything - “an asshole” - he didn’t think you deserved to be the Spectres

Nihlus was never intended as a party member

CLZ had a scene to showcase Nihlus being a badass on Eden Prime, but it was in a memory-heavy area, and late in development. It was cut eventually

the Nihlus scene was supposed to happen at the beacon dig site but the memory requirements were too high, so it was moved

Geth were inspired by their office lamps

the things Saren throws around in his cutscene were first represented by small cubes so he looked like a toddler throwing a tantrum

Benezia has no head under the headdress since they have to shave off polygon faces where not visible (note: this is usual practice in modeling, it is assumed these faces will never be seen so they are removed to save on memory)

They had an idea that for NG+, the player could snipe Sovereign at a key point when he ascends from Eden Prime and end the game right there, but they didn't have time to implement that easter egg

The husks are actually positioned at the base of Dragon's Teeth, so the animation is played for when they are lowered, then when they get off to realign with their position, and then collision is turned on so you can hit them with bullets

Volus, elcor and hanar are never seen walking due to memory; they have a skeleton with very few animations available, and could not be given walk cycles because the animations would exist with them all the time and these are unique animations that had to be loaded into memory

The Reapers weren't called Reapers originally, but “Nazare” (“Nazari”?) (note: Sovereign was Nazara to the Geth in ME2). They ended with Reapers since Nazare sounded close to Nazi (a geopolotical team from Microsoft would review content from the game that would be problematic in certain regions, and pointed this out)

The Citadel was originally “the Oculon” - the eye at the center of the civilized universe. Apparently somewhere that name meant anal sex, so it also had to be changed

a lot of the Citadel had to be redesigned because of the demand on memory

Citadel Rapid Transit wasn't planned, it was a result of the Lead Technical Designer getting tired of running around the Citadel

Garrus was one of the characters that was rewritten; originally he was a "stick-up-his-ass, lawful goody two-shoes paladin" then rewritten instead to be a "Dirty Harry in space"

Chorban was supposed to be checking the keeper near Avina, but was moved due to Avina's "please do not disturb the keepers" line. He was moved up to the Citadel Tower to be in on your way out. The keeper he's checking was added for that purpose, which made the final number 21 for the Scan The Keepers quest

Keepers don't spawn in areas with combat so it's possible to miss the one where you meet Tali since it's not there

If you don’t answer correctly to Conrad Verner, he gets into a fight with a turian and has his head caved in

Chora’s Den had some of the worst memory issues

The chair in front of the dancing asari stripper was added overnight, surprising CLZ when he came to work next day

They wanted to add male strippers but were out of memory

Fist originally had a shaved head and shades

Flux was originally an open space right as you ascended the stairs.

They added a wall and door as sight blockers to help with loading/memory

Flux dance floor: besides dancing with Doran and dancing with your LI, one more thing that CLZ didn’t manage to implement was dancing with Wrex. He would stand there looking around awkwardly, then leave.

Blasto is a random joke Patrick Weekes made

CLZ: “Always take game previews with a grain of salt” - because there’s a lot of cheating

[ Xfest 2006 demo ] the part where Shepard grabs Garrus and chews him off did not make it into the game because it was not a real interrupt in implementation yet; Garrus could have finished talking and stood there for 10 minutes and you could still "interrupt" him that way

[ E3 2006 demo ] Ilos was supposed to be at night; they weren't really showing off the galaxy map, they were pretending to play a flash video

Entire sections of the Citadel were deleted during the demo so the ship could “run with something resembling a framerate”

Q: "who gave shepard his dance animations?" CLZ: "I don't remember who did the mo-cap for that, but the first time we ever saw the sexy dance, it was on a krogan. At a team meeting.”

the particular dance the krogan was doing is the standing dance that asari strippers and clubbers do

The guy CLZ worked with wanted to get things done and found a way to work in punching the reporter (Al-Jilani). They loved it and made it an official thing

Technical stuff and trivia

back then Mass Effect was an Xbox exclusive; “there was no such thing as a PC version”

They used existing references to define a vision; Mass Effect was "Rainbow Six meets 24 in space"

A lot of ME architecture was inspired by Syd Mead

Used to have a video of the Mako breakdancing to techno music

The Mako was actually incredibly maneuverable via directional thrusters

CLZ: “Never ever ever autolevel up in a BW game, I don't know what they decided for leveling up... but it's the most inefficient terrible garbage ever”

Pressing the sprint button out of combat does not change the jogging speed, only the camera’s field of view, giving the illusion of speed. This is due to streaming - in combat, you’re locked into an area that’s fully loaded. However while exploring, sprinting could cause you to arrive in areas before they’re fully loaded, and break the game

Firing from hip, logically, meant less damage due to less accuracy. However they messed up and it was coded to actually have less damage, about a 30% reduction (note: so the next time you play ME1, remember to aim. Especially shotgun users)

“Hardening” is resistance to biotics and tech - the term was never really explained in game

N7 was a result of artists putting letters and numbers on stuff - they thought it looked cool, kept it, and just had the writers find a reason for its significance in lore

CLZ on the [Xbox] Inventory System: "I don't know, to this day, how this ever became a thing. Because it's just the most bizarre, counter-intuitive and horrendous inventory system in existence! I don't know how it got into the game!" "The one on the PC version is an improvement”

The circular icon that indicates a person or object that you can interact with is actually an invisible cube. At first assets had to be tweaked so they would have nodes to interact with, but later on this cube was introduced and made everything much easier

The original decryption minigame was a Simon Says with specific timing

Had huge animation libraries and were constantly requesting more for variations in cutscenes, also had access to animation weights + 8 different body weight shifting animations so that the characters didn’t look stiff while talking

Feet had to be anchored when ragdolled “in case something horrible happened that threw you out of the world”

Deaths from conversations happen offscreen because there was no good way to get the person shot out of there

After they tried having Shepard pull out weapons in conversations, they started doing it a lot because it looked cool. However, different situations had them pulling out different weapons (cutscenes pulled out rifles, conversations pulled out pistols), and they didn’t have a solution for that, so they implemented access to every weapon even if you didn't have training for it

The dialogue wheel went through several different looks before they settled

Doors, seats, and elevators are the “trifecta of go fuck yourself” - meaning they were seemingly mundane stuff that were an absolute pain to implement

Doors are mainly used as sight blockers - sometimes you can't interact with a panel until the other side has finished loading

You can't move in elevators because “everything colossally and horribly broke” if allowed to move around

Normandy’s Cockpit/Bridge is one of the most memory intensive areas in the game - a lot of areas toed the red line with the amount of memory had. Massive cuts on textures

Long ride on a short elevator shaft because the game is simultaneously dumping and loading floors since the Normandy is memory-intensive

Pawns are super light on memory, hooked into something called the Action Station - they don't have existing animations on them, they just draw from the AS pool - disconnecting would drop them to t-pose. This method was used to populate levels like the Presidium w/o crushing memory

Lipsynching is done through software called FaceFX - depending on priority, varying levels of tweaking were done

There were a lot of animations to go into from from certain poses, like idling - surprisingly still not seen in a lot of other games. Times when the animations “popped” was a result of these not matching up to their respective ease-in, ease-out animations

For actions like leaning on railings, assets needed a set height so hands from different species did not float or clip into walls

“ME1 did not know what kind of shooter it wanted to be for a very long time”

they once had a Target Acquisition System - slo-mo after every kill, but thought it was weird

at another point it was pretty much like Halo

ultimately became a cover shooter when one of the animators - Jonathan Cooper - simulated cover shooting with animated movement and showed the higher ups

Grenades originally had an effect on party members and would cause them to go flying all over the place - in the case of the area right before Chora’s Den, if the teammate fell into the middle it would break the game, so they took that out

The fight with Fist was originally in an open office with no cover. They added some cover, but when Wrex specifically took cover in those, a part of his collision stuck out a bit and could get him killed

For dancing, they had to terminate the player’s velocity, but didn’t always work. As a solution, during the fadeout to dancing, it kills the velocity and input, restages Shepard to a specific position, and activates collision walls around you so you don’t slide across, and then everything is reset as you come out of the dance

Autosaves happening before unskippable cinematics - they can’t be skipped safely because it’s in-engine and not pre-rendered, therefore affecting the location of everyone in the scene and any other script firing under the hood at the same time (note: there are cutscenes that affect the objects in the scene, like those bugged scenes where characters are moving around in the background. Usually to account for the different companions you’re bringing, your armor, etc. Pre-rendered ones are the ones like the Battle of the Citadel, with scenes that don’t really change)

Brown crates are dynamic and can be moved around

A tell for missions that might end up in combat is that the people around don’t spawn since they had no way of making them leave the area. Shopkeepers just “crouch and take cover”

Recurring outfits with minor color changes are due to memory constraints - they didn’t have enough memory to put varied outfits on people

A number of in-engine cinematics were run entirely through script (a large stack of delay-by-x commands, camera movements and cuts, teleportations, vfx activations, moving-to-waypoints) with no visual tools. Iteration meant they had to repeat stepping back into an area, eyeball things that needed fixing, tweak the script for adjustments, and repeat

Cover is based on an algorithm of angle-checking when you push against something that's flat

Paraphrasing was a skill writers had to learn along the way, since it was redundant to write down what was meant to be said and then saying it again

LOD popping was due to issues with UE3 (note: those times when at the start of the cutscene, the low-res textures load in first then switch to the high-res ones

Coordinating writing/animations: writers work within the conversation system editors; they just went through those and asked writers directly for any questions - this is the dialogue, this is what were trying to to convey -- Cinematic Designer works on it. A lot of back and forth

The guy who put together Atlas Base in the Overlord DLC also put together the Suicide Mission

Patrick Weekes wrote conversations between companions and elevator news about events that had happened. Also wrote Mordin.

Stories from CLZ’s time at Bioware

[Christmas 2006] CLZ said they crunched for 9 months, and he tracked over 700 hours of unpaid overtime

Bioware values designers in a way that other studios don't

After ME1, they lost nearly every senior animator that wasn't on cinematic animation

People were hospitalized for sickness + the Edmonton cold

A lot of the design team referred to the project as the Bataan Death March

They were fighting with the tools, with the lack of direction, poor project management

It was easier on ME2 and ME3 since they had sorted out most of the issues during ME1, like the pipeline

When the development for MEA came around, they had to use a completely new engine - Frostbite - which is optimized for a very specific kind of shooter. They couldn’t use the pipeline they had established from ME1, so the experience was similar and just as or even more harrowing. The team it was given to have never released a full game before

ME was decided to be a trilogy early on; there were two other games build in UE3, of the sci-fi genre which were also slated to be trilogies releasing in the same timeframe. They had issues with UE3 that led to lawsuits, although ME team's did not.

During ME's development, Bioware Corporation was purchased by a group called Elevation Partners. Bioware Corporation became known as Bioware Pandemic, after being merged. They were bought by investment partners including Bono.

Why did Bioware allow themselves to be bought? Because

Unreal Engine licensing was not cheap

Jade Empire did not sell that well because it dropped at the end of Xbox's life cycle when the 360 had been announced.

Bioware didn't have a ton of money, and the studio would have died if they had not been bought. ”then they did what venture capitalists do, they flipped us to someone else for double and it was how EA ended up with Bioware”

EA were pretty hands off, they created the Bioware label instead of shoving them in to the existing workforce; the hands-off gradually became less and less

CLZ was not a fan of some of the things that happened while working; such as the time they had the go/no-go meeting with Microsoft so they could start marketing; it was whether to ramp crunch time up accordingly. They were told was a go, they ramped crunch up, and it later slipped that it was a no-go and they just wanted an excuse to make them stay in the office more

Much of game dev is hacks "building an airplane that's already in flight"

The UE3 engine everyone was working with unfinished, unoptimized tools and not a lot of support since Epic Games were trying to ship Gears of War and were preoccupied - they were cramming RPG stuff since ME3 was not a plain shooter game

Kismet - UE3′s visual scripting language - couldn’t do math. There were no reference subsequences, and it was missing a lot of things that were the norm for RPGs and nonlinear quest progression

CLZ said that the positive reception to ME1 was an amazing morale booster. Had it flopped, it would just have killed the studio and everyone working on the game

#mass effect #therealclz #and this is why you'll never see me complaining about variety or the cut content or the lack of romances #there's so much pain that goes into games #writers had to change parts or come up with reasons to explain things just to cover for hardware/software limitations #commander shepard #kaidan alenko #ashley williams #garrus vakarian #urdnot wrex #nihlus kryik #richard jenkins #saren arterius #matriarch benezia #chorban #sovereign #developer commentary

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angelwingsl3 · 5 years ago

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Faded (The Inquiry)

More editing has occured! Enjoy 1700 more words in this newer version of the Inquiry.

Summary: Avitus Rix was Saren Arterius’ first student. It stood to reason he’d be questioned after his mentor went rogue.

Timeline: 2183, sometime after Saren was declared a traitor and before Ilos and the Battle of the Citadel.

#mass effect #fanfiction #m/m romance #saren arterius #avitus x macen #avitus rix #macen barro #andromeda #mass effect andromeda #me: andromeda

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wulfe021-blog · 6 years ago

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Spectres ( A Mass Effect Fanfic. ) Chp. One.

I have no idea how to write on here properly, I'm just winging it and hope this works. Tell me if I'm in the wrong here.

This fanfic is one that explores if there were two Shepards, Instead of one. John and Jane Shepard, and the consequences, and effects they can have.

It's a series, but I'll post a chapter or so at time. Probably short since writing on a phone isn't easy or fun. ____________________________________________________________

John Shepard, Spacer, Sole survivor, Solider, and now a Spectre candidate. He stared hard and long in exasperation at Eden Prime and the chaos around them, but he wasn't so upset at that, more at the Spectre who'd up and went solo the moment they touched ground.

" Now that we're on a actual mission, Nihlus gets his spikes outta my ass? Seems backwards." Shepard grumbled.

" I can hear you Shepard." Nihlus said in reply over their coms linked to their hardsuits. Shepard made a face Nihlus couldn't see, being the ' I like working alone' Spectre, and thus not being around Shepard and his crew mates.

" You going to answer me then Spectre?" Shepard asked annoyed.

" Was there a question there Shepard?" Nihlus returned sounding slightly amused, though it was hard to tell. John hadn't spent much time around Turians before. Shepard just glared holes in the Gassbags as they passed, feeling the need to shoot one in spite, he didn't.

" You were up my ass since you boarded the Normandy, and now that we're in action you run off alone? What kind of backward ass Turian logic is that? Somehow, you'll know if I'm right for the job by watching me everywhere else, except in combat?" Shepard demanded. He wasn't the only one who thought this was weird right?

Shepard glanced back at Alenko, still in shock over Jenkins, no help. Williams? Didn't know her well enough to read her expression or if she cared at all.

" I do work better on my own Shepard, like I said. I've seen the vids of you, and seen your record. I know you can handle yourself in combat. Being...' up your ass' will only enable your progress." Nihlus filled in. Had there ever been a more bullshit answer ever?

" There's a Spaceport ahead, I'll wait for you there." Nihlus said and the com connection cut.

" Damn Turian enjoys jerking me around." Shepard muttered frustrated. What if he went and got killed? How was that going to look when a Spectre actually wanted to promote a Human into their rank? Sure Shepard, let the Spectre go off alone, die because he wanted solo, and who gets blamed? Him. He was probably going to punch Nihlus if they got out of this alive.

After getting attacked by husks, they encountered two scientists locked in a shack. They were just finished getting Intel from them about the attack, and heading to the Spaceport, when a shot rang out followed by more. Shepard linked his com back to Nihlus'.

" Spectre what's your status? " Shepard called as they ran up the hill. The Spaceport came into view, but there was only static from Nihlus' com, they were too far out to make out anything. Shepard growled under his breath.

" I swear to the Maker if he got himself killed, I'll bring him back and kill him myself!" Shepard hissed as they got closer. Husks came into view, they surrounded the port in great numbers. Shots rang out and a Turian that had to be the one the scientists mentioned, and definitely not Nihlus, ran toward the tram to flee the scene. The Geth were firing on not one, but two figures, behind crates near a blazing fire. Shepard couldn't make them out, they too were overwhelmed with husks right after, so he didn't have time to sit and stare through smoke and flame, to identify either.

"Shit!" Shepard cursed as he drew his rifle and stormed toward the first enemy that drew close to them, a husk of course. Maker he hated the once humans turned whatever and however. They just creep the hell outta everyone. Kaidan was trying to take the heat off the two behind cover with his biotics. He tossed a Geth against one of the weird spikes coming out of the ground.

Williams shot husks and Geth with her sniper rifle, while Shepard continued his assault on the numbers. The two taking cover weren't being lazy by any means. A pistol rang out, and a tech sent out some overloads and then a second pistol joined the first and shot off chemical rounds that left little to no trace of who it hit. Dissolving any Husk or Geth it connected with. Kaidan tossed a Husk into the burning rubble and that was the end of the fight.

Shepard and the others rushed towards the crates hoping at least one of the shooters was Nihlus. He didn't need another person dying under his leadership today. Jenkins was loss enough. Approaching the crates he heard the familiar sound of a Turian voice, a familiar one, and Shepard relaxed his shoulders in relief. He was alive. Good.

" I appreciate the help. Saren will pay for this, I swear it. " Nihlus hissed. He sounded pissed. He'd hate to be this Saren guy.

" Will you keep still? You're more squirmy then a baby varen." A female voice responded frustrated. Shepard tensed up again as he spotted Nihlus and a human woman. Nihlus was against a crate with a grimace, the human woman applying omni-gel to his shoulder wound. If Shepard hadn't known the woman he might be happy she was here to help Nihlus, but he did know her, and they certainly didn't part on good terms seven years ago.

The woman stood and turned toward them curiously. She was petite with flaming red hair tied back out of the way, wearing expensive black and red colossus armor. She had thick black eye lashes that framed lilac colored eyes, red lipstick, and Freckles across her nose, she was tanner then he remembered. Those red lips twitched up at him slightly as she recognized him.

" Now why am I not surprised to see you here John? It's so like you to be involved in this crazy ass shit." She had a pleasant voice almost husky. Williams and Kaidan looked at him for answers or introductions.

" Jane, I thought you were dead. What are you doing here?" He gave them none. He tried to sound unbothered, but it came out a tad strained. Jane crossed her arms.

" Here on Alliance classified business bullshit I assume?" She returned without answering him. Shepard sighed at her. She shrugged.

" Me? I'm just here to collect the goods Powell failed to deliver."She offered finally. She even jetted a thumb to the corpse not too far from them.

" So you set up this little smuggling ring I heard about, why am I not surprised? " Shepard asked in turn sarcastically. Jane grinned unapologetic.

" Since when does the Alliance invite Turian Spectres to play?" Jane wondered out loud with a head jerk to Nihlus who was slowly getting to his feet cluching his arm.

" He's here to evaluate the Commander for Spectre status." Kaidan spoke up since Shepard hadn't answered right away, appernetly tired of being left out of the private conversation.

" What no shit?! That is sweet! Kicking ass and taking names eh John? " Jane was smirking at him, he ignored the look he knew where it was going. He wasn't going to turn to a criminal life, not like she did.

" It's not final yet Jane. I appreciate your assistance though." Shepard offered. He shook his head, he wasn't really happy to see her, but he was glad she was here regardless.

" Sure, I couldn't let such a sexy Turian get shot in the back." Jane said with a simple shrug. Nihlus looked over sharply mandibles twitching slightly, probably surprised.

" How did you save Nihlus?" Kaidan asked curiously as Jane went searching through the nearby crates for her merchandise, found little and went to raid the nearest corpse instead. She was quick, silent, graceful, he expected no less from an infiltratior.

" I heard..Saren," She glanced at Nihlus for confirmation, he nodded and she continued, " approach. I had my tactical cloak up to conceal myself as the shit load of Geth popped in. I was about to just knock Powell out and take my gear and go, but then this big guy walked up. I could smell a betrayal from a mile away and when he pulled the pistol on your sexy Spectre friend, I tackled Saren, sabotaged his gun to jam it, then as the guy ran I dragged the Spectre to cover and you conveniently show up to provide coverfire." Jane shrugged as she finished the recount. She was so chill about saving Nihlus' life.

" Saren was my mentor, I trusted him...I never would have thought he would betray me, let alone try to kill me. He's after the becon, leading the Geth. We should hurry to catch up." Nihlus looked toward the tram. Shepard nodded in agreement. He couldn't imagine how hard it would be for Nihlus if this Saren guy was his mentor, probably a friend too.

"A rogue Spectre isn't good for anyone and too top it off, Geth and Prothean artifacts, it's a recipe for disaster." Shepard muttered.

" Commander we can't just let her get away with this. Those supplies could have saved some of our men." Williams suddenly blurted out indignant. Shepard looked back surprised, he was use to Jane's criminal acts. Jane snorted and eyed Williams head to toe.

" Sweetheart, a few grenades, upgrades, and guns wouldn't have helped other then get you lot killed faster. These Geth took their time because they saw no real threat. Besides, it's so hard to take anyone seriously in pink and white armor, how the hell did they let you outta basic thinking that was a good choice?" Jane asked incrediously as she put her found gear in a bag a slung it over her shoulder.

" Why you-" Williams began in anger, but Shepard stopped her right there, with a hand he held up.

" Enough. Jane couldn't you have helped the people here? I know you're capable of that much." Shepard accused. Jane shot him an annoyed look.

" Hey, I shoved those scientists in that shack, a few others escaped too, I missed most of the action truthfully, some asshole, probably Saren now that I think about it, blew up my ship. Took me a bit to get here through the many dangerous obstacles." Jane shrugged, mostly sarcastic.

" They never mentioned help, they said they took cover themselves." Williams accused annoyed. Jane looked annoyed in turn.

" What ungrateful asshats. Should have left them to die then." Jane waved a hand done with the argument it seemed. Williams wanted to argue more, but Shepard beat her to it by engaging in further conversation.

" Are you going to steal a ship to leave? " He questioned. He didn't see her staying to actually help. Jane huffed.

" Would if I could, Formally mentioned asshole, blew up all the ships, not just mine. He must have not wanted more escaping." Jane shrugged. Then eyed him with a smirk.

" Give me a lift off of this rock and I'll give you some coverfire in return, sound fair?" She smirked. Did he have a choice?

End Chp. one.

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Well, there's that. I hope that was how it was supposed to be done. Chicken pecking the screen, hard work here.

This fic is a romance one to a point I guess. Mainly for Jane, but John gets his LI too. The first of this series is done, the second isn't yet, second is more with John a love interest, then this one. There are hints don't get me wrong. Anyway. Hope you enjoyed.

New to this, Tumblr thing, just want to fanfic some Mass Effect. I miss it. Until next chapter. - Wulfe.

Ps. If you'd like to read more, go over to fanfiction.net @ kyo12591 to read what I've got posted there same title. Who knows how long even this will be up till it gets pulled for some kind of 'adult' content.

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isrustandstardust · 3 years ago

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Can we rewrite the ending of the first Mass Effect?

This is not what I wanted to see on Twitter from Patrick before 7am. Someone needs to stop them...

#saren #saren arterius #turian #mass effect #romance options

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silver-turian95 · 2 years ago

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Mass Effect Series: Light Within Darkness Part 2

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theoriginalladya · 2 years ago

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I can't believe it's only been a year - seems like forever ago - but a year ago today, on my birthday, I got to post my MEBB story for 2021, No Rest For the Wicked.

No Rest For the Wicked

Summary: War is hell.

In 1940, just weeks after the Nazis invade and occupy France, Spectre-Commander Caleb Shepard is sent behind enemy lines to extract a Prothean beacon that could help Britain win the war. Instead, he encounters murder, double agents, and ends up on the run for his life. With help from an unexpected ally, he fights his way back to England, but will he make it in time…?

Relationship: (mShenko) Caleb Shepard/Kaidan Alenko

Characters: male Shepard, Caleb Shepard, Kaidan Alenko, Liara T'Soni, Ashley Williams, Saren Arterius, David Anderson, Steven Hackett, Admiral Kahoku, Major Coats, Dr. Karin Chakwas, assorted NPCs from the games

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Game Level Violence, Mass Murder (Mindoir), Realistic War Situation, WWII Typical Situation, Canonical Character Death

Tags: Crossover Fic, Mass Effect/World War II Crossover, Alternate Universe, Adventure, Angst, Sexual Content

Notes: This is a crossover fic for Mass Effect and World War II set in the 1940s/WWII. It is part of a new AU series I will be working on called Something Wicked This Way Comes featuring Caleb Shepard, an Earthborn Shepard from Shannon, Ireland. Shepard occasionally speaks Irish, and there are instances of Ukrainian and German that appear in the story. Any translations will show up in the notes at the end of the chapter or be explained within the chapter itself.

It started my ME/WWII crossover story experience which now has/will have at least three series tied into it: 1) Something Wicked This Way Comes - Caleb Shepard/Kaidan Alenko

2) Romance & Resistance - John (Shepard) Smith/Lachlan (Shepard) Berger (with @happychica)

3) On A Wing & A Prayer - Scott Ryder/Reyes Vidal [to be published]

It's been a wild ride over the past 365 days, and I'm damned proud of this story for far too many reasons to count and the art by @altnaharra is just perfect, so I thought I'd share it again on its anniversary.

#MEBB 2021 #No Rest For The Wicked #ladya writes #altnaharra #ME/WWII Crossover fic #the one that started it all #anniversary post #mShenko #Caleb Shepard #Kaidan Alenko

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sparatus · 2 years ago

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Exponential Differentiation Series Masterpost

welcome welcome, we’re now [checks notes] 3 major installments and some extras into my big no-reapers au, so it’s probably high time i actually make a big masterpost for it, huh?

Features

Premise: 50,000 years ago, the Protheans were able to complete the Crucible, but by the time of firing, their population had been reduced to unsustainability. Their technology still remained for the later species, but the Reapers would never return. All’s well that ends well, right? Well, not quite. When a routine artifact retrieval on Eden Prime once more goes awry, new Special Tactics candidate Matteo Shepard is thrown headfirst into the fray, hunting down the mysterious team that attacked the colony - and stumbling across something so much bigger than they ever could have imagined.

Our Hero: Matteo Shepard, DMAB nonbinary (they/he pronouns). Native of Terra Nova, Matteo’s mother disappeared at a young age, leaving their family fractured and their trust in others on shaky legs. When their team’s investigation into the disappearing colony of Akuze leaves all but themselves and two others (that they know) dead and them needing intensive psychiatric care, they withdraw in on themselves, not wanting to get close enough to other people to be hurt again. Unfortunately for them, the universe disagrees with this plan.

The Crew: The Normandy crew has been supplemented with a whole host of other Shepards imported into a different canon OCs to flesh out the crew, as well as a couple familiar faces - Nihlus Kryik, mentoring Shepard for the Spectres, is a fixture on the team, and his rude shadow Saren Arterius is (very grudgingly, because the boss said he had to) coming along for the ride. Beyond the Normandy’s hull, the rest of the galaxy’s got a lot of new faces too, both friend and foe, ranging from Saren’s secretive family to the batarian Resistance and back again! Both canon characters and OCs join the party to bring the awfully empty galaxy to life...

Most Wanted: ... including the antagonists, of course. An entirely new team of mini-boss antagonists causes problems for Shepard left and right as Shepard explores the depths of Cerberus’s depravity, and an enemy often overlooked gets their own time to shine, with a subplot all their own, because I think they deserved better and had a lot of potential, and I’m the author so I decide the subplots, dammit. (You didn’t think I mentioned the batarian Resistance up there just for fun, did you?)

Love and All That: It's no Truck Shepard and the Space Kissing Adventure, of course, but we're not leaving romance off the table entirely! There's both established relationships and budding relationships for the discerning connoisseur. A couple of them are even majorly plot relevant, check the AO3 tags. Endgame for Matteo themselves is with Jack, but we have to get there first ;)

Links

Full Series: Exponential Differentiation

Broken Mirror: Start here! The first fic in the series. 333k words, completed. The adventure begins on Eden Prime, as usual, but takes a turn for the Something Else when the beacon is assaulted instead by a human strike team, launching a manhunt across the stars that quickly spirals into something so much bigger than Shepard ever could have imagined. [LINK]

Blood in the Water: A novella in-between-quel set maybe a month after Broken Mirror. 50k words, completed. Shepard is taking a much-needed break from the hunt for Cerberus when an unwelcome guest turns up on their doorstep with dire news. It's a race against time to stop batarian terrorist Ka'hairal Balak and his genocidal plans, but this time, with some help: half-mad salarian Spectre Gurji Taeja and her pals from the batarian Resistance, Tarvok and Teezh Shad'derah. [LINK]

Where the Wind Rests: Two-shot glimpsing what Nihlus has been up to while Shepard was dealing with Balak. 8.6k words, completed. Nihlus takes a detour to Palaven to visit Saren and get an answer for an important question. [LINK]

In the Land of Giants: The second major installment. Currently in progress! With Hislop dead and Terra Nova safe, Shepard is back on the hunt for Cerberus. A friend's disappearance and a strange message both point them to Omega, where they encounter a surprising new ally... [LINK]

The Weight of Memory: Novella companion piece to In the Land of Giants. Currently in progress! While Shepard and Nihlus continue the hunt for Cerberus, Saren returns home to Palaven to get his new leg built and adjust to retirement. Unfortunately, the problems for the Arterius clan are getting too big to just retreat from and wait for the storm to pass... [LINK]

#mefanfic #no reapers au #mass effect #mass effect original trilogy #matteo shepard #exponential differentiation series #exdiff #kryterius #vakarennis

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