Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation Discussion

Agree. That conversation feels to me it was done to show to the readers that Alec had no desire to dominate over everyone else, akin to what TIM wanted, he just firmly believe that humanity need a challenge to evolve and to grow better as a especies.

A quote from the end of chapter 1


By the way, when Alec and Cora first meet each other the launch date is scheduled to happen in six months.

I almost referenced and quoted that very conversation. I feel he makes his stance very clear, and that it's decidedly not "human supremacist". Short of the authors stating their intent, we just have to form our own individual opinions.

Yeah, I played the scene again about an hour after posting that. It is unspecific enough to allow for the book’s info. Still, it certainly sounded like she’d trained specifically as a future Pathfinder for years. It didn’t sound like she was trying to say “years of experience prepared me to become Pathfinder”.

I like that the book gives us a bit more concrete a timeline. I was reading it again yesterday. I came across a passage early in the book that specifically states that they’re 6 months from Hyperion’s scheduled launch. So, my estimates based upon other details were accurate. She seemed to be the first member of the team, excepting Alec and SAM, that was put in place. We can imagine the twins being officially added sometime just after the book’s events conclude, since some not insignificant training is implied for them. I’d have thought everyone would’ve been in place around this time; but Liam, Kirkland and Greer make it obvious that these people don’t know Scott/Sara. Silly writing.

She never specify "asari only families", she is talking about a general lack of parents with kids on Illium. She even pointed out in the previous paragraph how many members of other species she sees walking around as one of the things she wasn't accostumed to see in Thessia.

On Thessia she pretty much specified asari-only families by saying families are common, but non-asari are a one every few days sight

I'd thought of this, too. It makes the description work and I like it; but I'm not sure it was the author's intent. I think she just came up with two cool details, but failed to notice how they conflict. Either way, I like the book. I've never read any of her more acclaimed writing, but am aware of her accomplishments. Maybe I'll eventually look into her stuff. There are so many books in the world, just waiting to be read.

Edit: If my comment parrots another post in this thread, I'm sorry if I missed it.

After reading MEA: Initiation, I really want Cora to be added as another human pathfinder, in either a DLC or ME:A-2. Given that the other races' pathfinders received a generic SAM, Initiation made the case that Cora is definitely pathfinder-worthy and has real potential going forward. I'd like to see her character developed much further.

My comment is meant only for adding m2c to the overall discussions and impressions of the Initiation book, and not to seed an off-topic discussion of Cara's character, which already exists in another thread.

From my wrongly-placed topic in general, here's my 5 cents.

So, i was reading this novel an---TRIGGEREEEEEDDD!


Yeah, the novel has that kind of thing... which is good, kinda. If it represents humanity now but then 100 years into the future it's not even that far off, but stumbling across that little bit made me a little self-reflective in having to accept things I'm not used to!

That said, I actually started reading this alongside Mass Effect Retribution from the OT by Drew Karpyshyn, because I wanted to compare the writing styles. I gotta say, I think Drew K has better action and pacing and he keeps things simple and on-point. This goes more in depth about who Cora was before the initiative and how she feels about her own Asari-weebism when reuniting with humans, stating she finds it alien, and this quote was partly related to that part of the story, which is early on. A problem I noticed with the writing in this book is that it has passages of what I'd call purple prose, where it's just sentence upon sentence where the writer couldn't avoid using adverbs and adjectives to describe what is happening but without really going into detail. It's stuff like "The somewhat powerful weapon ended up killing so many krogan". In between the character relationships which is where the meat of the story is, and odd mentions of known locations, planets and Mass Effect Lore (like Thessia or Mass Relays), I found this novel to struggle with detail and world building. Instead of Mass Effect writing at its best it's all very vague, like there is not enough usage of scientific facts or known phenomenon to create a picture of what these worlds the story happens in look like, and it can really make this novel a doozy to get through.

A quarter through the novel the writing style changes. There's a good reason for it too, because the original writer of the book either left before finishing or she needed help to do it, and as such she got help from the man, the person who probably knows Mass Effect better than anyone else who's ever worked on the franchise.

Enter SUPERMAC!


...and BOY, does it show. I'll just read aloud here.
Bannyn smirked in unselfconsciousness pride, then winked back at Cora. "Tella and Leri are my muscle--" Ygara continued.
"Some of our muscle," said the krogan, sounding a little affronted. He really was tiny for a krogan--barely taller than Cora
herself, though he outweighed her by several pounds. Maybe he got overlooked a lot.
"Some, right." Ygara chin-pointed at the krogan. "Jorgal Kih. He's our pilot and drone-recon specialist." Kih folded his arms,
still looking disgruntled; Ygaya rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Kih, sorry, just forgot. And heavy weapons, when we need them."
Kih finally relaxed. "Damn straight."
"I'm Octavia Suran," said the turian, coming forward before Ygara could introduce her. She extended a slender hand, which Cora
took with some surprise. Octavia must have studied human greeting customs, since Cora had heard that turians weren't much
for handshakes. Races with natural talons didn't tend to be. "Researcher," she added.
Cora raised her eyebrows. "Researcher. Right."

I don't know if you can tell it yet, but there's something quite "eyebrows raised, wry smirk" esque over the entire way Mac writes. Sometimes I really hate this, particularly in ME3 when he wrote Anderson this way, and the larger problem is how Mac tends to write basically all characters in the same kind of boundary of this tongue-in-cheek tone except a few like Liara and other more formal characters. (doesn't come without badass executions and other edgy shit though). On the flipside, I do really like how he goes about describing things, and he really uses his own personality to create a good impression here. I do really like the part, with a little glint in the eye, saying the krogan must be overlooked a lot or Turians not being prone to handshakes.

Actually, I find the parts of the novel where the writing style shifts to this sorta tongue-in-cheek, hardboiled banter between characters and peculiar prose, I'm actually more entertained than the other drone-y parts of it, because whereas he might be too simpleminded, Mac has an interest in what he writes and it makes the story move along at a better pace. Instead of floundering about in meandering fluff like the rest of the novel, there's now grit, it tries to raise questions and the characters seem to have something that makes them tick. However, being Mac it's the usual teeth-grinding, hair-pulling exercise in shouting at a brick wall that cannot listen to you because WELCOME BACK "Organics vs Synthetics". Yeah, you thought this was dealt with? No, and not only that, this story definitely needed one more layer. I present to you "SAM-E" because one SAM was apparently not enough... >_>

Another thing is, while it makes sense to treat Cora as the potential first-in-row for Alec Ryder's replacement candidates, I think this novel at times seems to treat Cora almost like she's Shepard, just in how certain very public figures from the trilogy recognizes her, and I really feel like Cora was presented as a more obscure part of the universe which is why she works as a teammate in Andromeda, because everyone there are rogues and partly unknown in the OT to begin with.

Otherwise, the novel has references and direct interactions with known faces from the trilogy and the setting is the same, so if you miss some of that OT lore and world and characters since we embarked to Andromeda, I'll heartily suggest giving Mass Effect: Initiation a read.

Now that I'm done rambling about Initiation, I wonder what you guys might've thought, even if you never read it. If you haven't, feel free to bring up tie-in novels in general or weigh in on what you thought of previous Mass Effect novels!

You can tell and it's really funny. The entire writing style and dialogue changes in the chapters he wrote or rewrote. It also lost me at the introduction of "SAM-E" which is basically an excuse to make Cora a pathfinder despite her not being one yet.

Well, if the two timelines don't mesh, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Bioware and math are like matter and anti-matter.