Massive Bunnies

Just finished a replay of Mass Effect 3, with the "Leviathan" and "From the Ashes" DLCs installed.



I’ve enjoyed many games, and many game moments (often, surprisingly small moments — like crafting at the forge in the rain in an early play-through of Skyrim). A smaller number have games have left an emotional impact. Bioshock, for instance — a strong, emotional and worthy ending (that was brutally undercut when instead of leaving you on a credit page to complete your catharsis, it quit and dropped you to the desktop.)

Tomb Raider 2013 stayed with me only in the intense frustration over so many missed opportunities and how badly the game sabotaged itself.

And then there's Mass Effect 3. An intense, emotional ending for a three-game series; no wonder it engendered such strong feelings among players, even after the too-brief, too-uninformative original was replaced with the Extended Cut DLC.

The other thing Bioware patched in after massive (heh) player complaints was a "third option" — also a source of heated discussion among fans, as some (like I) believe it is the “best” ending for certain ways of approaching the protean Commander Shepard.

The revised endings don't change the nature of what happens. It still remains three unpalatable choices foisted on you by an uncaring AI, three choices that seem to fly against much else that has been presented in the game to that point. The Extended Cut does, however, have sufficient gravitas to be a proper ending of a game (the original was practically a slide show with three optional color filters).

Thing is, the continuity that makes these endings even possible is new. It was created after the original writer left. And there are many places where the seams are visible. Worse, the two DLCs I mentioned above open up more of the back story and in some ways contradict even more what is forced upon you in the canon endings.

Basically, all of this makes the missed opportunities more obvious. And hence my Plot Bunnies for the day.



#1 Reignite. Start with the canon “third option” ending. Shepard rejects the stupid choices and shoots the catalyst in the face. The Crucible is destroyed. Earth falls and with it the last hope of stopping the Reapers from cleansing the galaxy of advanced life.

Except that, canonically, the Protheans lasted for another thousand years past this point in their own cycle, holding off the Reapers until their final bastion — and the Protheans fought alone. They hadn't managed an alliance of every major race. They hadn’t even built the Crucible.

Not only that, but the Leviathan have survived in hiding since the first Cycle. Of course now the Reapers know they are still around. On the other hand, these original creators of the Catalyst, the original model for and the race responsible for the Reapers, has reached an end of hiding. They are powerful enough to kill a Reaper...and they know the Reaper's secrets.

Shepard was left alone and gravely injured in the burning wreckage of the Crucible at the end of the game. Thing of it is, Shepard’s been in tight spots before....

So this is an “after we lost” story, a story of resistance, with all the heartache and loss that entails. A rather grim story, all told, which is why I also have another:



#2 Indoctrination. A leading fan theory is that all the events on the Citadel after Shepard rides the London Beam are illusion, brought on by Reaper Indoctrination (mind control). The three choices are at best a side game, trying to distract Shepard (at worst, they are trying to mislead him into either accepting Indoctrination fully, or helping the Reapers to destroy the Crucible.)

Shepard figures it out which is why he shoots the Catalyst (in true Hollywood fashion, breaking the illusion). Not so strange, this; both Saren and The Illusive Man were able to temporarily shake their Indoctrination, and Shepard's got Prothean downloads in his skull from two damaged Prothean beacons and mind-melds with...well, not just several Asari, but Leviathan and a living Prothean.

So Shepard breaks free and stands at the controls of the Crucible finally free of any illusion or control. To understand what is really going on and to pull the kind of solution that only Shepard Magic could make possible. After all, he brokered peace between the Quorrians and the Geth...

But that's a bit short, really a one-shot. So there's also...



#3 Shepard Fixes It. Roll the clock back, back to just after the Turian War, when Humans are the new guys on the block, only grudgingly allowed access to the glorious Citadel. Humanity is supposed to be learning how, not why. Absorbing the reluctantly shared knowledge of the Elder Races, not trying to strike out on their own.

Enter Andrea Shepard, a young civilian engineer constantly in trouble for asking questions. That being, any question that starts with “why..?”

But there are an awful lot of questions someone should really be asking. That someone — that is, someone from a younger race, someone that has her canonical descendent’s uncanny ability to Get Things Done, someone that finds herself not just asking but getting the often surprising (and scary!) answers to questions like “Who built the Citadel and what do these Keeper creatures actually do?” Questions like “How did the Asari get so damned advanced?” and “Could these myths and rumors about Leviathan actually have a basis in fact?” And “We found the first Mass Relay on Mars. I wonder if there’s anything else there?”

And even, "Whose bright idea was it to make weapons eject their own heat sinks?"

This is before Cerebus becomes the giant secret-hiding stumbling-block it would be in later years. Before humanity has had a chance to really meet Krogan and Quorrian and learn from them without the Elder Races building their own prejudices in.

For me, part of the joke is my playing as an Engineer Shepard (tech specialist over biotic powers or strict combat abilities) and finding out just how much of a cakewalk the game can be when you get enough points sunk in it. By the end of the game I'd just toss an automated turret on to the field and hunker down behind a wall until it was finished.

Canonical Shepard could unravel the conspiracies of a rogue Spectre, track the Collectors to their hidden base and destroy it, uncover the secrets of the Citadel, find the last Prothean bastion and the hidden Prothean AI on the Asari homeworld, confirm the Reapers and fight three of them on foot, and even locate the Leviathan who have been hiding for millions of years.

And, yes, civilians starship tinkerer Tali vas Normandy and archaeology geek Liara T'soni could mop the floor with elite Blue Suns mercenaries in the canon game (it does help being a daughter of one of the greatest Asari Matriarchs). A fast-thinking civilian Shepard who has a cool hand with a soldering gun could very well accomplish, well, miracles....



All bunnies free to go to a good home. I have other things I need to write...as much as the bunnies might bite.