A New Mass Effect Fic: I’m Watching You

I’m Watching You is another Saren/Nihlus story from the period of training, which is to say, the period before The Candidate, and as such, it deals with the theme of friendship slowly turning into something more, despite Saren’s efforts to keep it strictly professional. Posted on FFN and rated M for mild explicit content. Namely…

When Saren had set up the hidden cameras, he knew there would be things he didn’t want to see. Like Nihlus drinking on duty, or hiding drugs on the ship, or taking out dirty clothes from the washer and wearing them. But he wasn’t expecting… this.

Image: Anjian @ DeviantArt

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand, thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Image: nicktheartisticfreak @ DeviantArt

Closure

Ha. I was neither right nor wrong. There will be an “Extended Cut” DLC for Mass Effect 3, but it will offer no new endings and it will cost no money. It will extend the existing endings by including additional cutscenes and dialogs in order to provide more closure. ETA: summer 2012.

Continue reading Closure

Drew Karpyshyn [Allegedly] Talks ME3 Ending

Former Mass Effect Lead Writer Defends Series Conclusion

Contrary to what you might assume, I’m not interested in the “defense” of the endings. This is what got my attention:

The Reapers’ goal was to find a way to stop the spread of Dark Energy which would eventually consume everything. That’s why there was so much foreshadowing about Dark Energy in ME2.

The Reapers as a whole were ‘nations’ of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of it’s genetic diversity and represented the universe’s best chance at stopping Dark Energy’s spread.

The original final choice was going to be “Kill the Reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy in finding another way to stop the spread with what little time is left” or “Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means.”

Continue reading Drew Karpyshyn [Allegedly] Talks ME3 Ending

The Story of ME3: A Fair Critique

Gareth Fouche analyzes the plot of Mass Effect 3 in a well-reasoned, level-headed post. Can’t help but agree with most of his points. Can’t help but be grateful for my wonderful ability to keep disbelief suspended so high up, it spends most of the time clinging to the ceiling.

A New Elder Scrolls Fic – Report No. 1772

Well, take “new” with a grain of salt. I think I wrote this during 2009, before the first Elder Scrolls novel – which pretty much kills the point of this story – was published. Back at the day, there was still room for speculation about the true nature of the Landfall, and Report No. 1772 was a way to present my theory about it in the most indirect way possible. I considered submitting it to Temple Zero, but simply couldn’t, perhaps on account of excessive technobabble that doesn’t fit well with the mythopoetic atmosphere of that place. So here it is now, made public for the first time.

Image: tarnvogL @ DeviantArt