***Mass Effect Andromeda SPOILER Thread***

[TheodoricFriede]

As in, I'm not sure if it's lesbian subtext or not.

No, im pretty sure its confirmed shes with that turian.

[Vol]

They imply that very strongly with her POV thoughts, so she likes that guy at the least, but the way she talks of Garson comes across as a mix of childish awe and yearning.

[TheodoricFriede]

Why do i get the feeling people LOOOOOVE Sloane on Tumblr?

[Vol]

You know, I think there's a chance, but from the people I've seen on other forums fawning over Reyes, he just might edge her out in the hivemind.

Yonnic

[TheodoricFriede]

Reyes is a pretty typical swave, untrustworthy rogue. Hes pretty easy to like.

Sloane seems to be designed for that weird pseudo-anarchist crowd that hangs out on the internet making blog posts about how morally bankrupt everyone is except them.

[Vol]

Peebee seems pretty clearly as "much better than I thought she'd be." Vetra, oddly, seems to get split opinions. Reyes, people seem to love him, but his charms didn't do a thing for me, because I didn't trust him at all. Which makes it funny that I didn't see the twist coming at all, because I was pretty sure it was a kett trick.

Sloane, I can't tell, but I don't think there's any significant group that _loves_ her in any place I've seen. Jaal seems solidly well liked. Liam, I haven't seen a single positive opinion. Drack, beloved. I think he's the best krogan squaddie so far, others, behind Wrex. Addison, she pisses me off a lot, but some people seem to be into that kind of attitude. Tann, interestingly, appears to be 80/20 dislike/like. It seems to be a case of going along with the narrative, "He's a spineless numbers man, boo him, boo this man!" versus challenging it.

That moment when he congratulates you on going to Meridian, despite his orders, I was entirely expecting a betrayal. But he was sincere. It was odd. That's when I started questioning what I'd been told.

But Sloane does have that "I'm tough, gruff, don't take no shit, strong independent woman who don't need no man, but I got one who does everything I say anyway!" vibe to her. I'm sure she appeals to some people.

[TheodoricFriede]

I dont know, people seem to be pretty good on Vetra. I havent really seen any split on her. Maybe with Liam fans.

I agree with the rest of that though.

[Vol]

I've seen people who don't get into the mama-bird thing, and then in the reddit poll of ME4, she pulled about 24% of romances with either Ryder, I believe.

However there is a minor thing about people ignoring that she's bi, not sure if I mentioned that before.

[TheodoricFriede]

I've seen people who don't get into the mama-bird thing, and then in the reddit poll of ME4, she pulled about 24% of romances with either Ryder, I believe.

However there is a minor thing about people ignoring that she's bi, not sure if I mentioned that before.

Shes also the least human looking of all the romance options, its no real surprise she doesn't place that high.

I saw that study and she tended to be pretty consistently placed and well liked.

As far as the bi thing goes, people literally ALWAYS do that. They did it with Merrill too. Gay people seem to have a serious problem with the idea that someone can like both genders. Its like they see it as a dilution of their brand.

[Someone With Mass]

I've seen people who don't get into the mama-bird thing, and then in the reddit poll of ME4, she pulled about 24% of romances with either Ryder, I believe.

However there is a minor thing about people ignoring that she's bi, not sure if I mentioned that before.

[Vol]

Shes also the least human looking of all the romance options, its no real surprise she doesn't place that high.

I saw that study and she tended to be pretty consistently placed and well liked.

As far as the bi thing goes, people literally ALWAYS do that. They did it with Merrill too. Gay people seem to have a serious problem with the idea that someone can like both genders. Its like they see it as a dilution of their brand.

I was surprised Peebee was #1, then Cora, _then_ Vetra. Though reddit's probably somewhat skewed. Had the same revelation on another forum when I noticed literally every poster had a female Ryder. Would figure she'd be #2 among the sum of all (male) Ryders, unless Peebee is way more popular than I could anticipate.

Oh? I found out about this case because a (bi) guy was complaining about how nearly all the fanart was lady Ryder/Vetra, and when it was rightfully pointed out that artists have no obligation to meet a quota, he clarified that it was people calling her an obligate lesbian, "BIG GAY SPACE WIFE," that was pissing him off.

@SWM: You just know she's into some mother-play behind closed doors. Preening.

[TheodoricFriede]

I was surprised Peebee was #1, then Cora, _then_ Vetra. Though reddit's probably somewhat skewed. Had the same revelation on another forum when I noticed literally every poster had a female Ryder. Would figure she'd be #2 among the sum of all (male) Ryders, unless Peebee is way more popular than I could anticipate.

No way man. Look, you have the bisexual character thats more sexually liberated. That will ALWAYS be on top. Then you have the human offered to you immediately, she will ALWAYS win out over an alien (that actually looks like an alien).

Its like how for all we like Tali here, and for all her popularity, its almost assured that the most "popular" romance are probably Ashley and Miranda for no other reason than they are the first things with breasts that you can flirt with in the games.

@SWM: You just know she's into some mother-play behind closed doors. Preening.

Hey you know how to write, hit it maestro.

[Someone With Mass]

Considering that Peebee was the first squadmate to show up in the advertising campaign, I'm not surprised at all that she's the #1 romance.

Cora's outfit leaves very little to the imagination, so anyone driven by anything but their head will likely go for that second if Peebee's personality is not their style.

I'd assume that a lot of Garrus fans are going for Vetra, expecting her to be the rule 63 or at least because she's a more lenient turian. If I hadn't already known that Vetra was bisexual, I'd be a little surprised to find that out on my own. Mostly because the dialogues that hints at it glitched out for me.

The fact that Liam is universally hated is not a shocker either, since he's often about as pleasant as those assholes that talk in the theater.

@SWM: You just know she's into some mother-play behind closed doors. Preening.

What happens in the nest, stays in the nest.

[TheodoricFriede]

The fact that Liam is universally hated is not a shocker either, since he's often about as pleasant as those assholes that talk in the theater.

Whats weird is hes only really bad when you take him with you. Its like as soon as a mission starts he goes from easy going, if immature, kid to complete judgmental asshat.

[Someone With Mass]

Whats weird is hes only really bad when you take him with you. Its like as soon as a mission starts he goes from easy going, if immature, kid to complete judgmental asshat.

On the Tempest, Vetra offers to help Liam make ice (just something to get away from helping Peebee, I know) and often helps him find stuff, but the second they hit the ground, they hate each other to the point where they'll want to stay as far away from each other once the whole thing with the Archon and lack of colonies is over.

TEAMWORK!

[Raga]

It's almost like different people were writing the Nomad banter and weren't communicating well with the people doing the Tempest dialog or something.

[magnuskn]

Whats weird is hes only really bad when you take him with you. Its like as soon as a mission starts he goes from easy going, if immature, kid to complete judgmental asshat.

On the Tempest, Vetra offers to help Liam make ice (just something to get away from helping Peebee, I know) and often helps him find stuff, but the second they hit the ground, they hate each other to the point where they'll want to stay as far away from each other once the whole thing with the Archon and lack of colonies is over.

TEAMWORK!

Yeah, Liam turns into a raging twat on the Nomad. No idea why, on the ship he is only mildly annoying.

[Alienmorph]

Liam is a twat, but most BW teams have one or two insufferable character into them. Everyone else goes from decent to actually good, as far as I've seen tho. So not too shabby at all in that regard.

[magnuskn]

Liam is a twat, but most BW teams have one or two insufferable character into them. Everyone else is goes from pretty decent to actually good, as far as I've seen tho. So not too shabby at all in that regard.

None of the others are actively bad, but I found most a bit uninspiring. But I already did my complaints about that in my review, so I'll leave it there.

[Alienmorph]

There is alot of "paint by number" stuff going on with the characters, but at the very least seems executed well. As usual the most 3 alien-y aliens are by far the best, while the more you get to the human (and asari) side of things it gets more uninteresting. But hey, I'd take a Cora Harper over a Jacob or a Kaidan no problem.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaHHC0U65dU&list=WL&index=11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMVcB9-PSmE&index=11&list=WL

[Vol]

@Theo: I'm fairly sure it was said at some point that Ashley beat out Liara in ME1 among male Shepards, and was top pick for female Shepards, but it was 90/10 or something male/female. ME2, I have no idea, but I always assumed Miranda was the most popular, and Tali would have been second or third. ME3, I guess Liara would've won out, since she was made inviolable.

So the bisexual choice might win out as a whole, even though the female protagonists are a minority, if they run real close to the human/default with the males.

@Raga: I was wondering how that would logistically work, squad banter. Each character should have their own writer, so how do you construct a conversation without writing one line at a time with 2 people? Either let one person do it all, and thus get disconnected personalities (Liam), or have one person do a draft, then the character writer touch up their guy, or some such. It seemed clumsy in my head.

My problem with Liam is that I didn't understand him. What his deal was, what he was trying to do, why he was doing what he was. It was like his conversations started in the middle of one. His loyalty mission, I had no idea what he was talking about, who the angara was, why we needed to save her, and so forth, until afterwards. The scanning on Aya, it popped, I followed objectives, but I didn't know what the hell was going on until I run back to the bar to talk to him! It was annoying.

[Deano]

It was like his conversations started in the middle of one.

This definitely resonates with me, if a bit more exposition had been wound into his dialogue he would of made a lot more sense.

[Vol]

Interesting. Tann calls up Sloane to ask her to talk to Addison to try and help with her depression, because she's a human female too, and Tann is written like a less tactful version of me. Tann clarifies that he figures they'd bond better than he could hope to, in a non-romantic way, then hurries to clarify as if that might have caused offense, and says it's fine if she _was_ romantically inclined towards Addison.

So that implies homosexuality is still a sensitive enough topic that a salarian man with little social graces would be aware of it.

[Vol]

It was like his conversations started in the middle of one.

This definitely resonates with me, if a bit more exposition had been wound into his dialogue he would of made a lot more sense.

The scene with the armor swap and them getting naked, that was a clear example. I had no idea what the fuck they were doing until it was spelled out for me by Liam after Jaal left. Whereas the scene should have spoken for itself, visually and with dialogue, and then Ryder's reactions were restricted to various shades of disapproval.

[TheodoricFriede]

So that implies homosexuality is still a sensitive enough topic that a salarian man with little social graces would be aware of it.

Which is funny, because its not. Thats been established.

This is why you just have to ignore the books. They aren't good, they add nothing, and no one should care.

[TTTX]

My problem with Liam is that I didn't understand him. What his deal was, what he was trying to do, why he was doing what he was. It was like his conversations started in the middle of one. His loyalty mission, I had no idea what he was talking about, who the angara was, why we needed to save her, and so forth, until afterwards. The scanning on Aya, it popped, I followed objectives, but I didn't know what the hell was going on until I run back to the bar to talk to him! It was annoying.

From what little I could gather from Liam, he basically jumped galaxies for the hell of it.
as for the whole scanning and his loyalty mission thing, those examples are him cutting corners when it comes to diplomase, like sharing nexus codes with the Angara we are suppose to save because it'll threaten all of the nexus because of what he did.
Liam is a bit of an idiot and an asshole (according to Vetra).

There is alot of "paint by number" stuff going on with the characters, but at the very least seems executed well. As usual the most 3 alien-y aliens are by far the best, while the more you get to the human (and asari) side of things it gets more uninteresting. But hey, I'd take a Cora Harper over a Jacob or a Kaidan no problem.

First time I really talked with Cora about the asari I got a "notice me senpai" vibe from her, which made me laugh a bit.

Still though I still think either Miranda or Kaidan are still the best human biotic characters in ME so far, I think, since Kaidan does give some insight to how the first human biotics got treated and such and Miranda because of her background story and her releationship with her sister and father (Although it got a bit old in ME2 about how she complaint on how perfect she was created).
Cora is more limited in character since she basically have abandonment issues and really wants to be an asari (which is bad when you force an entire race into a human character just to try and make her interesting.).

I kinda get the feeling Cora was originally intended to be an asari, but it got changed during development.

Interesting. Tann calls up Sloane to ask her to talk to Addison to try and help with her depression, because she's a human female too, and Tann is written like a less tactful version of me. Tann clarifies that he figures they'd bond better than he could hope to, in a non-romantic way, then hurries to clarify as if that might have caused offense, and says it's fine if she _was_ romantically inclined towards Addison.

So that implies homosexuality is still a sensitive enough topic that a salarian man with little social graces would be aware of it.

Either that or Tann have no idea how talk about it, since he is a Salarian (and they generally don't have romantic relationships) and maybe isn't as familiar with human culture and customs (since humans are still rather new to the galaxy).

The scene with the armor swap and them getting naked, that was a clear example. I had no idea what the fuck they were doing until it was spelled out for me by Liam after Jaal left. Whereas the scene should have spoken for itself, visually and with dialogue, and then Ryder's reactions were restricted to various shades of disapproval.

Ryder, was basically reacting like most players (and people) "What the fuck is going on?" and hell I still don't understand why Jaal had to be butt naked.

[Alienmorph]

I kinda get the feeling Cora was originally intended to be an asari, but it got changed during development.

I can totally see that. Probably we were gonna get a badass asari commando in the crew originally, then PeeBee became a thing, and we ended up with an human that is aking to an asari commando, and an asari that is similar to a quirky quarian. But even as it is Cora is at least... alright.

[TheodoricFriede]

Im just going to go ahead and be the voice of reason and say that she was probably a human from the get go.

Because they pretty much always start the game with two humans.

[Vol]

Which is funny, because its not. Thats been established.

This is why you just have to ignore the books. They aren't good, they add nothing, and no one should care.

I'm trying to think of any interaction ever where it's brought up as an issue. But the book is official, so it's canon.

@TX: That's what I mean, we'd have the conversations, do stuff, and then retroactively I would understand what the hell happened. It's a frustrating setup, because he's not like Kreia, where you're supposed to appreciate the character in hindsight, what you should have seen, the subtlety. He's a guy who was some sort of crisis response cop, good family, then jumped galaxies for a fresh start and gets pissy because not everyone is the same. I can understand that, but then the conflict with everyone in the Nomad and the confusing scenes, it makes it hard.

Tann is written as pretty decently socially aware and calculating, but too cold, and everyone sees through him and insults him. The chapter I just finished, he notices that only 2 living people can open stasis pods, Kesh and Calix, her direct subordinate. He goes to each of them to ask they write down how to do it somewhere as a contingency, in case they die, because then everyone else is stuck in stasis. They refuse and mock him. What kind of good guy mocks their superior for trying to preserve vital mission knowledge because he doesn't sugarcoat his words well enough?

Jaal was naked as a punchline to the scene. We see them both shirtless the entire time, armor swap, got it, then Jaal walks out bare-assed. He took Liam's offer to the comical endpoint, and everyone was too polite to say anything. It was actually a decent moment in visual storytelling.

[Alienmorph]

Im just going to go ahead and be the voice of reason and say that she was probably a human from the get go.

Because they pretty much always start the game with two humans.

That could be the "problem". They had ideas for two asari characters, and re-wrote one as an human to fill the usual starter characters quota. Considering how often in the past characters ended up being completely different from what they were in the beta-scripts, I wouldn't rule that out.

[TheodoricFriede]

Danielle Rayne, the voice actor for Vetra, was asked who she romanced when she played Andromeda.

She responded with "I'm ashamed to admit... Vetra." adding, "If the relationship fails, I only have myself to blame."

[TheodoricFriede]

That could be the "problem". They had ideas for two asari characters, and re-wrote one as an human to fill the usual starter characters quote. Considering how often in the past characters ended up being completely different from what they were in the beta-scripts, I wouldn't rule that out.

I think that is about as likely as her being the Illusive Mans daughter.

Which is to say, not.

[TTTX]

I can totally see that. Probably we were gonna get a badass asari commando in the crew originally, then PeeBee became a thing, and we ended up with an human that is aking to an asari commando, and an asari that is similar to a quirky quarian. But even as it is Cora is at least... alright.

yep.

Im just going to go ahead and be the voice of reason and say that she was probably a human from the get go.

Because they pretty much always start the game with two humans.

Who know? this game have been in development for almost 5 years, it quite possible Cora started as an asari and then got turned into a human, because they needed to fill that slot.

I'm trying to think of any interaction ever where it's brought up as an issue. But the book is official, so it's canon.

@TX: That's what I mean, we'd have the conversations, do stuff, and then retroactively I would understand what the hell happened. It's a frustrating setup, because he's not like Kreia, where you're supposed to appreciate the character in hindsight, what you should have seen, the subtlety. He's a guy who was some sort of crisis response cop, good family, then jumped galaxies for a fresh start and gets pissy because not everyone is the same. I can understand that, but then the conflict with everyone in the Nomad and the confusing scenes, it makes it hard.

Tann is written as pretty decently socially aware and calculating, but too cold, and everyone sees through him and insults him. The chapter I just finished, he notices that only 2 living people can open stasis pods, Kesh and Calix, her direct subordinate. He goes to each of them to ask they write down how to do it somewhere as a contingency, in case they die, because then everyone else is stuck in stasis. They refuse and mock him. What kind of good guy mocks their superior for trying to preserve vital mission knowledge because he doesn't sugarcoat his words well enough?

Jaal was naked as a punchline to the scene. We see them both shirtless the entire time, armor swap, got it, then Jaal walks out bare-assed. He took Liam's offer to the comical endpoint, and everyone was too polite to say anything. It was actually a decent moment in visual storytelling.

I see the books in the ME universe as loose cannon at best, since the game developers don't care about much.

I wouldn't be surprised if more then 1 writer wrote Liam that would explain it, similar to how Miranda in ME2 had 2 writers (If I remember correctly) which is why she was an ice cold bitch in the beginning and becomes all like you are my best friend when the Normandy shows up.

I blame poor writing, it happens in ME books.

yeah, I still don't get why Jaal had to be completely naked (not to mention his room isn't around the corner so how did the other react to him walking around naked during that time, because someone had to see him), while Liam still had his pants on

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIKQnGiT5SY

[Someone With Mass]

To be completely honest, I often forgot Cora was even there. Nothing wrong with her or anything, I just...forgot. It might have something to do with the fact that Drack, Vetra and Peebee were my most used squadmates.

[Vol]

When doing the rounds, Liam was generally someone I wanted to get it over with as fast as possible. Cora, 50/50, she had some interesting stuff as a weeablue. Drack was damn fine. Vetra was always good. Suvi, eh. Kallo, kinda interesting, but him and Gil, the slapfighting was tedious. Lexi was a delight, and I wanted to fuck her, number 2 right after Vetra. Peebee was interesting, so I liked chatting. Jaal, eh, didn't do much for me on the ship, but he's a decent guy.

Thinking about the tech levels of each galaxy. It made sense to me that Andromeda is roughly our level, because there _were_ type 1, hyperadvanced people around, but they started fighting, and so it makes sense we only see the remains, and then some relatively primitive survivors (angara, kett).

However, then I also considered the MW. The Reapers reset us every 50k years or so, but they _also_ accelerated us bigly. How long were the Leviathans in power? How long did it take them to develop their tech, the relays, from scratch? Millions of years? Dozens of millions? Billions? And then there's the Great Filter, in which you can fairly assume only some amount of advanced sapient races make to the stars, and in the MW, we had less than 1 success per cluster, and that's _with_ uplifting with Leviathan tech and Citadel help.

[Raga]

I think Jaal is naked in that Liam scene just because the devs had bothered to model a naked angara and wanted to use it outside of just Jaal's romance scene (which probably only like 10%-25% of players will ever see). You also see a naked angara during the exaltation scene.

Also, I don't think Cora was ever intended to be an asari for the simple reason that if she was, she would literally have no abiding personality or character arc other than "Hi, I"m an asari commando!"

[TTTX]

Thinking about the tech levels of each galaxy. It made sense to me that Andromeda is roughly our level, because there _were_ type 1, hyperadvanced people around, but they started fighting, and so it makes sense we only see the remains, and then some relatively primitive survivors (angara, kett).

However, then I also considered the MW. The Reapers reset us every 50k years or so, but they _also_ accelerated us bigly. How long were the Leviathans in power? How long did it take them to develop their tech, the relays, from scratch? Millions of years? Dozens of millions? Billions? And then there's the Great Filter, in which you can fairly assume only some amount of advanced sapient races make to the stars, and in the MW, we had less than 1 success per cluster, and that's _with_ uplifting with Leviathan tech and Citadel help.

Well we have only seen the Heleus cluster, so it's hard to say if the Jaardan and whoever attacked them are gone for good, how far they spread around Andromeda or how the rest of Andromeda are and how many other species are out there. We do know the Kett have an empire somewhere, but that's really it.

After all only around the 1% of the Milky Way was explored and there was around 10-15 different thinking races around the time ME1 came out.

[Raga]

Something else I realized last night. I think Drack's mother is Shiagur. He describes her as one of the last great krogan warlords, killed during a battle in the Rebellions, that with her death krogan organization fell apart, and that some went out on bloody missions of revenge for her. Seems to fit Shiagur perfectly.

[Someone With Mass]

Also, I don't think Cora was ever intended to be an asari for the simple reason that if she was, she would literally have no abiding personality or character arc other than "Hi, I"m an asari commando!"

Being a human doesn't really change that, though. It's not exactly blowing my mind with the different perspectives or something.

[Raga]

Also, I don't think Cora was ever intended to be an asari for the simple reason that if she was, she would literally have no abiding personality or character arc other than "Hi, I"m an asari commando!"

Being a human doesn't really change that, though. It's not exactly blowing my mind with the different perspectives or something.

It's not a mind-blowing arc but it's a character arc nonetheless. Her arc is all about her lack of leadership potential because she hero worships the asari personified in the person of Sarissa. She doesn't just hero worship Sarissa because she's powerful and competent, but because she has idealized the whole asari race and their teachings. She's like an American otaku following Hiyao Miyazaki around or something. Realizing how fallible Sarissa (and through her asari) are snaps her out of it and lets her start developing on her own.

If she was an asari, she would be nothing but a devout commando.

[Vol]

Jaal's nudity with Liam was for a comedic beat to cap off his part of the scene. "Oh, that's his ass, he was naked the whole time, because he is an alien and doesn't understand body-shame, and nobody said anything so as not to offend him...but the purpose of the time with Liam was to learn what was offensive to begin with! <Sensible chuckle here>"

Cora has to be a human for her character to function, since she needed to be someone who was discriminated against, so she can be looking for acceptance, so she could become a commando, so she could become _heavily invested_ in a foreign people and become blind to reality, so she could be hurt by being sent to the AI, so she could latch on Alec, so she could be wounded by being passed over, so she could finally come to terms with herself as her arc.

There are other ways she could have been created for that setup to work, as a pureblood asari, or a bare-faced turian, or a male krogan engineer, but at that point it's academic, since you'd be making a new character. In this utopia of egalitarianism, being a human biotic is probably the last (and safest) way to show irrational bigotry in an understandable way, since she's a magi.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqcyomAiwdY&index=12&list=WL

[TheodoricFriede]

Noooooope.

That's the dumbest thing.

[Mobius_118]

Noooooope.

That's the dumbest thing.

No more stupid than you denying lore-backed races.

[Alienmorph]

Same as Cora Harper being related to TIM... unlikely, but not impossible. Remember that the idea of "world building" Mac Walters had in the past was "connect everything to Cerberus or the Reapers!" and also that apparently there's a ridiculous number of friends, collegues or straight up relatives of people from the Shepard's trilogy that got in the arks and to Andromeda.

[TheodoricFriede]

unlikely, but not impossible.

Its as possible as all of human existence really only being a computer simulation being run by a dreaming machine.

[Alienmorph]

Thank God you're always so sure of everything, I guess.

[Vol]

Heh. So Sloane, apparently is attractive to every turian man she's ever met, as evidenced by how she notices they show aroused behavior whenever she starts acting bossy around them.

With the sole exception being the turian Pathfinder.