Franchise retcon – the delusion that you could have made the story better
Sept 11, 2020 16:26:00 GMT
Post by fredlc on Sept 11, 2020 16:26:00 GMT
They say that hindsight vision is 20/20, and they are right. For that reason, I believe that everybody that is invested in a franchise that failed to deliver as well as the fanbase hoped thinks, even if ever so vaguely, that they know of a way that things could have been done better.
I believe that the whole indoctrination theory thing is a symptom of a fanbase heavily invested in, but also dissatisfied with the way it turned out.
It’s no wonder; Mass effect, in particular, is, after all, a franchise that is ripe for those ideas, considering the controversy of the trilogy ending and the bad writing that plagued Andromeda as a whole, but also considering the OT’s major catch-22; how to make the ending of the trilogy really matter without committing, and closing the franchise sequel potential for good.
So, this thread have 3 ambitions regarding the ME franchise; 1) that everybody brings forth what their ideas are; 2) that everybody shows the holes/problemas in each other ideas (everybody tends to fall in love with their solutions and disregards their potential problems), and 3) that everybody brings suggestions on the ideas that they like best – hopefully, combining brains and getting a truthfully consistent and interesting way that could habe been used by bioware.
So, here is my pitch:
I always lamented the dropping of the dark energy plotline. I once read an interview with Drew Karpyshyn, in which he argued that it was still un underdeveloped idea that brought a number of problems of it’s own, particularly the idea that you were left with nothing to fight against (as the problem to solve would have been existencial); I disagree, because I think it could have been a crazy dilemma to end the game (privileging the short term survival of your own cicle against the long term solution of the reapers); even their villainy would have been put in perspective if you found out that they themselves made the sacrifice they now demand of every following cycle in order to preserve life forever.
I have some ideas on this approach, but would require massive changes in the games as they were delivered, so I’ll refrain from it and work with the trilogy as delivered, changing extensively only Andromeda, because I feel therein lies the disconnect that alienated lots of people.
So, the starchild still exists, and still, you chose between three differently-colored explosions, and the reapers were not lovecraftian quasi-deities, but obedient robot machines that somehow preserved the lives they destroyed. If that is the scenario, how do you follow that up.
For me, the idea of going to Andromeda is an excellent, but short sighted solution. Why the heck you are to imagine that the reapers would not also farm different galaxies? The cannon establishes very clearly, and very early on, that reapers are able to travel from dark space to the galaxy and vice versa, and that they exist for millions and millions of years. The protheans theorized that they were dormant for most of the time, but why not them using part of the time to farm different galaxies? The smaller ones in the milky way local cluster, some other neighboring galaxies like Andromeda? What would be stopping that?
Also, you travel to Andromeda, fleeing from an advanced artificial intelligence in the milky way, just to find the remnants, another advanced artificial intelligence; quite the coincidence. Wouldn’t it make more sense to find the reapers there as well, filling that role of a foreboding threat?
Here’s what I think: Mass effect 4 is not Mass Effect Andromeda, but Mass Effect Exodus. It follows the story of disgraced former ex-N7 Alec Ryder, that after a heroic role defending civilians in the citadel during Saren’s attack, believes Sheppard that sovereign is not a geth ship, but a Reaper, and starts pursuing AI because he thinks it is the only way to prepare against that threat (so the game opens with a nostalgic trip, a sideline battle against the geth in the citadel, perhaps preventing the geth from overwhelming Sheppard as he was making his way for central control – a nostalgic dream and a chance to show that battle in a modern engine).
Citadel, saved, we jump two years in the future; Having no support for his AI defense plan from the council or the alliance, Alec joins Cerberus, that is the only group seemingly willing to help develop his plan (and here we could find that he was instrumental in creating EDI, linking again his story with the past of the franchise), and we get a second long linear mission during the events of Mass Effect two, where the Illusive Man has him on the team that locates the derelict reaper that you would later invade. You could have a mission where Alec tried the same infiltration Sheppard eventually pulled off, but he failed, leading the illusive man to send the job to his A team.
Those two linear missions would be there to establish the character in the OT timeline and flesh out his character and motivations, because the bulk of Mass Effect Exodus would be concurrent with the events of Mass Effect 3:
As Alec failed to invade the reaper derelict, and faced the horrors inside (being spared indoctrination himself because of the early AI implants he was experimenting with), he became convinced that the only way humanity would survive was by fleeing the galaxy, in the hopes that the reaper would not be there. But he never manages to convince the illusive man, who stays adamant to his plan to control the reapers. He leaves Cerberus at this point, making an enemy for life in the illusive man, as he takes all the data from his AI research with him in order to create SAM.
Thus begin the Andromeda initiative (he chooses Andromeda instead of one of the galaxies of the local cluster, because he speculates that the reapers might not be an universal power, focusing only in this area of space); so, it is a gamble, but one that would explain the necessity of braving the perils of dark space.); and the game proper begins at this point.
Alec, seeks the help of a billionaire tech company from a Volus board in order to fund the project to create an ark, bringing a few hundred members of the most prominent races of the galaxy; (the council species, plus volus, Elcor and Hannar – and, reticently, also Krogan, as it is deemed necessary that a wide range of biologies are important to augment chances of success, for they don’t know the environment that they will find). So, the bulk of the game would be made of missions to acquire resources and technology to complete that journey.
Being simultaneous with the war happening on mass effect 3, a decent writing team would have no trouble creating a variety of obstacles to be overcome, like, new engine technology to make the trip viable (governments would be kept in the dark so they don’t diverge resources to the war effort, but also that means they would not cooperate), new stasis technology to allow for survival (here I’d introduce the need for Quarian expertise and the need to bring allied Geth to maintenance during the stasis of organics for hundreds of years).
Thus, an excuse to bring all major players of the original trilogy to the new setting, something that the Andromeda game could not do for anyone (it had real problems with character motivations to even make that trip), but specially for the geth, that would be brought in my scenario out of desperation to make the trip work. I would, still in the motivation department, even toy with the idea of the Initiative Krogan being hired mercs, because honorable Krogan would want to stay and fight, something that might open the door to bring Vorcha (hiring the blood pack, for example) and could set up internal conflict, in that game or the next.
You could even have an compelling antagonist. Say, the leader of a Cerberus cell tasked with securing the AI tech back. They stalk Alec and add challenge in many occasions, but eventually find out about the initiative, and now the stakes are raised, you have to destroy that cell before they manage to alert the indoctrinated Illusive man, what would bring reaper attention to the effort (and maybe even attract them to Andromeda, making your gamble pointless).
The last trick on my sleeve for game number 4 is that the initiative would depart before the conclusion of Mass Effect 3; say, in between the fall of Thessia and the Attack on the Cerberus Base. So, all ties with the Milky Way would be cut before the members of the initiative knew whether Sheppard chose control, destroy or synthesize. So, whatever was your choice, it would not interfere with the new setting, but in an organic manner, and allow for pretty much the same scenario that Bioware created – a new beginning, though I’d end it with the bitter sweet realization that the reapers also exist in Andromeda – say, your ragtag fleet would, in being waken in Andromeda, discover signals of a mass relay, identical to the ones in the Milky Way - and they are a universal threat we have to face, there being nowhere to escape.
I imagine that this end, showing that the gamble of a centuries long travel to Andromeda didn’t pay off, would be an amazing setting for anticipation on what the franchise would bring next.
And there could be cool ideas for game five. This one, yes, to be called “Mass Effect Andromeda”; in which we could find caches of formerly harvested species from Andromeda (like the prothean beacons), and lots of local species that are space faring, but not advanced enough to have found mass relays yet; and dormant reaper technology (instead of remnant, the reapers would have that role, but they would be back to that stage of being an ominous and foreboding threat in the background, with conflict between factions taking center stage).
So you found Andromeda in between cycles of extinction, having no clue of when the next one would begin, but with many races aware of the threat, and of the need to prepare. It’s a scenario that could be very interesting as you face the dilemma of needing to uplift those local races as fast as possible to prepare for the next reaper attack (you imagine that there is a sentinel like Sovereign lurking somewhere and he can find you out at any time, so you cant risk waiting for your own population explosion), but at the very real risk of repeating the Krogan rebellions in an escalated, galaxy-wide fashion; Also, should you use (study), disable or destroy the reaper technology? What if you find the Andromeda citadel (the nexus never made sense to me)? Could be that knowing of the trap would be enough not to spring it? Would, OTOH, even be possible to prepare without studying reaper tech, and using mass relays to create a galaxy-spanning source of resources (and another problem solved; explaining how can you travel between systems in the new galaxy)?
And maybe, just maybe, try to prepare for a future new takeover of the milky way, if you decide to, and succeed, in deciphering reaper tech before the harvest begins, and you manage to defeat them in Andromeda. Nice existential goal to contrast with the existential threat.
So, these would be my concepts for the “future” of Mass Effect after the OT. I’d be interested in knowing what I missed, what doesn’t make sense, and what are good ideas, as well as love to know in what directions you guys would take the franchise if you were the ones holding the pen.
Regards
.
I believe that the whole indoctrination theory thing is a symptom of a fanbase heavily invested in, but also dissatisfied with the way it turned out.
It’s no wonder; Mass effect, in particular, is, after all, a franchise that is ripe for those ideas, considering the controversy of the trilogy ending and the bad writing that plagued Andromeda as a whole, but also considering the OT’s major catch-22; how to make the ending of the trilogy really matter without committing, and closing the franchise sequel potential for good.
So, this thread have 3 ambitions regarding the ME franchise; 1) that everybody brings forth what their ideas are; 2) that everybody shows the holes/problemas in each other ideas (everybody tends to fall in love with their solutions and disregards their potential problems), and 3) that everybody brings suggestions on the ideas that they like best – hopefully, combining brains and getting a truthfully consistent and interesting way that could habe been used by bioware.
So, here is my pitch:
I always lamented the dropping of the dark energy plotline. I once read an interview with Drew Karpyshyn, in which he argued that it was still un underdeveloped idea that brought a number of problems of it’s own, particularly the idea that you were left with nothing to fight against (as the problem to solve would have been existencial); I disagree, because I think it could have been a crazy dilemma to end the game (privileging the short term survival of your own cicle against the long term solution of the reapers); even their villainy would have been put in perspective if you found out that they themselves made the sacrifice they now demand of every following cycle in order to preserve life forever.
I have some ideas on this approach, but would require massive changes in the games as they were delivered, so I’ll refrain from it and work with the trilogy as delivered, changing extensively only Andromeda, because I feel therein lies the disconnect that alienated lots of people.
So, the starchild still exists, and still, you chose between three differently-colored explosions, and the reapers were not lovecraftian quasi-deities, but obedient robot machines that somehow preserved the lives they destroyed. If that is the scenario, how do you follow that up.
For me, the idea of going to Andromeda is an excellent, but short sighted solution. Why the heck you are to imagine that the reapers would not also farm different galaxies? The cannon establishes very clearly, and very early on, that reapers are able to travel from dark space to the galaxy and vice versa, and that they exist for millions and millions of years. The protheans theorized that they were dormant for most of the time, but why not them using part of the time to farm different galaxies? The smaller ones in the milky way local cluster, some other neighboring galaxies like Andromeda? What would be stopping that?
Also, you travel to Andromeda, fleeing from an advanced artificial intelligence in the milky way, just to find the remnants, another advanced artificial intelligence; quite the coincidence. Wouldn’t it make more sense to find the reapers there as well, filling that role of a foreboding threat?
Here’s what I think: Mass effect 4 is not Mass Effect Andromeda, but Mass Effect Exodus. It follows the story of disgraced former ex-N7 Alec Ryder, that after a heroic role defending civilians in the citadel during Saren’s attack, believes Sheppard that sovereign is not a geth ship, but a Reaper, and starts pursuing AI because he thinks it is the only way to prepare against that threat (so the game opens with a nostalgic trip, a sideline battle against the geth in the citadel, perhaps preventing the geth from overwhelming Sheppard as he was making his way for central control – a nostalgic dream and a chance to show that battle in a modern engine).
Citadel, saved, we jump two years in the future; Having no support for his AI defense plan from the council or the alliance, Alec joins Cerberus, that is the only group seemingly willing to help develop his plan (and here we could find that he was instrumental in creating EDI, linking again his story with the past of the franchise), and we get a second long linear mission during the events of Mass Effect two, where the Illusive Man has him on the team that locates the derelict reaper that you would later invade. You could have a mission where Alec tried the same infiltration Sheppard eventually pulled off, but he failed, leading the illusive man to send the job to his A team.
Those two linear missions would be there to establish the character in the OT timeline and flesh out his character and motivations, because the bulk of Mass Effect Exodus would be concurrent with the events of Mass Effect 3:
As Alec failed to invade the reaper derelict, and faced the horrors inside (being spared indoctrination himself because of the early AI implants he was experimenting with), he became convinced that the only way humanity would survive was by fleeing the galaxy, in the hopes that the reaper would not be there. But he never manages to convince the illusive man, who stays adamant to his plan to control the reapers. He leaves Cerberus at this point, making an enemy for life in the illusive man, as he takes all the data from his AI research with him in order to create SAM.
Thus begin the Andromeda initiative (he chooses Andromeda instead of one of the galaxies of the local cluster, because he speculates that the reapers might not be an universal power, focusing only in this area of space); so, it is a gamble, but one that would explain the necessity of braving the perils of dark space.); and the game proper begins at this point.
Alec, seeks the help of a billionaire tech company from a Volus board in order to fund the project to create an ark, bringing a few hundred members of the most prominent races of the galaxy; (the council species, plus volus, Elcor and Hannar – and, reticently, also Krogan, as it is deemed necessary that a wide range of biologies are important to augment chances of success, for they don’t know the environment that they will find). So, the bulk of the game would be made of missions to acquire resources and technology to complete that journey.
Being simultaneous with the war happening on mass effect 3, a decent writing team would have no trouble creating a variety of obstacles to be overcome, like, new engine technology to make the trip viable (governments would be kept in the dark so they don’t diverge resources to the war effort, but also that means they would not cooperate), new stasis technology to allow for survival (here I’d introduce the need for Quarian expertise and the need to bring allied Geth to maintenance during the stasis of organics for hundreds of years).
Thus, an excuse to bring all major players of the original trilogy to the new setting, something that the Andromeda game could not do for anyone (it had real problems with character motivations to even make that trip), but specially for the geth, that would be brought in my scenario out of desperation to make the trip work. I would, still in the motivation department, even toy with the idea of the Initiative Krogan being hired mercs, because honorable Krogan would want to stay and fight, something that might open the door to bring Vorcha (hiring the blood pack, for example) and could set up internal conflict, in that game or the next.
You could even have an compelling antagonist. Say, the leader of a Cerberus cell tasked with securing the AI tech back. They stalk Alec and add challenge in many occasions, but eventually find out about the initiative, and now the stakes are raised, you have to destroy that cell before they manage to alert the indoctrinated Illusive man, what would bring reaper attention to the effort (and maybe even attract them to Andromeda, making your gamble pointless).
The last trick on my sleeve for game number 4 is that the initiative would depart before the conclusion of Mass Effect 3; say, in between the fall of Thessia and the Attack on the Cerberus Base. So, all ties with the Milky Way would be cut before the members of the initiative knew whether Sheppard chose control, destroy or synthesize. So, whatever was your choice, it would not interfere with the new setting, but in an organic manner, and allow for pretty much the same scenario that Bioware created – a new beginning, though I’d end it with the bitter sweet realization that the reapers also exist in Andromeda – say, your ragtag fleet would, in being waken in Andromeda, discover signals of a mass relay, identical to the ones in the Milky Way - and they are a universal threat we have to face, there being nowhere to escape.
I imagine that this end, showing that the gamble of a centuries long travel to Andromeda didn’t pay off, would be an amazing setting for anticipation on what the franchise would bring next.
And there could be cool ideas for game five. This one, yes, to be called “Mass Effect Andromeda”; in which we could find caches of formerly harvested species from Andromeda (like the prothean beacons), and lots of local species that are space faring, but not advanced enough to have found mass relays yet; and dormant reaper technology (instead of remnant, the reapers would have that role, but they would be back to that stage of being an ominous and foreboding threat in the background, with conflict between factions taking center stage).
So you found Andromeda in between cycles of extinction, having no clue of when the next one would begin, but with many races aware of the threat, and of the need to prepare. It’s a scenario that could be very interesting as you face the dilemma of needing to uplift those local races as fast as possible to prepare for the next reaper attack (you imagine that there is a sentinel like Sovereign lurking somewhere and he can find you out at any time, so you cant risk waiting for your own population explosion), but at the very real risk of repeating the Krogan rebellions in an escalated, galaxy-wide fashion; Also, should you use (study), disable or destroy the reaper technology? What if you find the Andromeda citadel (the nexus never made sense to me)? Could be that knowing of the trap would be enough not to spring it? Would, OTOH, even be possible to prepare without studying reaper tech, and using mass relays to create a galaxy-spanning source of resources (and another problem solved; explaining how can you travel between systems in the new galaxy)?
And maybe, just maybe, try to prepare for a future new takeover of the milky way, if you decide to, and succeed, in deciphering reaper tech before the harvest begins, and you manage to defeat them in Andromeda. Nice existential goal to contrast with the existential threat.
So, these would be my concepts for the “future” of Mass Effect after the OT. I’d be interested in knowing what I missed, what doesn’t make sense, and what are good ideas, as well as love to know in what directions you guys would take the franchise if you were the ones holding the pen.
Regards
.
