Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[Dragaros]

https://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/3002-3 ... ception-1#

"Featuring some places and faces familiar to #DragonAge fans, and an adorable Mabari... DRAGON AGE: DECEPTION #1 is out now!"

[Dragaros]

https://www.forfansbyfans.com/feature/m ... o-786.html

https://community.forfansbyfans.com/m/f ... -Fan-Forge

https://mobile.twitter.com/ForFansxFans ... 835712?p=v

[Dragaros]

https://mobile.twitter.com/anthemgame/s ... 539328?p=v

https://www.ea.com/games/anthem/news/we ... 9925923302

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgB5nwYozng

[Dragaros]

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

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcNL7pZdQEs

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU1SN-1Y7JE

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qWyDrZj670

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOd6wVMTd_w

[Dragaros]

[Vol]

Reading the beginning of a planned long term retrospective of ME:A, it's frustrating we never got that DLC. Or the answers to the plot hooks left, who murdered Uberwoman, who funded this project, does a quarian twink wear a female suit, etc.

But then I'm reminded that the Initiative apparently did not screen the peasants for their willingness or ability to rapidly have many, many children, and that still makes me laugh.

[magnuskn]

I hope they don't forget to mount the machine guns and cannon. Probably gonna need them when they find the Mars archives.

[TTTX]

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

[Someone With Mass]

Wow. You can tell that EA is in full control over that one. Is it too much to ask for a good story AND good gameplay these days?

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f64M4UWwjKc

[Dragaros]

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/com ... ul_mod_is/

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/m ... ?tab=posts

"MASS EFFECT 3[No Spoilers] The Priority: Earth Overhaul Mod is out of suspension on the Nexus! Also, here's a small preview of the Elcor Warriors (heavy WIP) that are coming very soon in Stage 2. Thank you all for your patience, support, and PM's."

[TTTX]

anthem gameplay

Every time I see Gameplay of Anthem I keep having to remind myself "it's not Destiny".

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKzLG_Bw7sg

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhdS2jcmOBQ

[Dragaros]

https://twitter.com/bioware/status/1057734179121618944



https://twitter.com/bioware/status/1057648505362075652

[Dragaros]

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/com ... iscussion/



The quarian ark novel comes out this Tuesday, though it seems at least one people got it early it looks like.

Anyway, I'm planning on buying it if my local bookstore has it and I'll post a review/summary here after I'm finished reading it.

[Dragaros]

Thought I'd let everyone know, last call for the M-76 replica! Only 2 left!"

https://www.etsy.com/listing/646304979/ ... plica-prop

[Dragaros]

"N7 Day Mods: Day 1 - ARK MOD: Dodging Phoenix Adepts in the Labs"

"N7 Day Mods - with huge advances made by a group of modders and coders with the ME3Explorer modding toolkit, some truly exceptional mods are now being made. Ahead of N7 day, a group of modders have decided to release and update a number of top end mods. N1 Day - ARK MOD / From the Creators of Expanded Galaxy Mod (EGM) The new ARK MOD includes, among other things, additional new SP enemies on N7 missions. Fight Phoenix Troopers in the Cerberus' Labs. Coming November 7."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFk4jacRhwk

"N7 Day Mods: Day 2 - ARK MOD : Doing an N7 mission during a hazard: From the creators of EGM. With ARK MOD we managed to develop ways to utilise multiplayer assets in SP. The mod contains four N7 missions redone in their Hazard format, with new enemies, restored cut content and other gameplay improvements. - N7: Benning with shield destroying acid rain and new enemies - N7: Ontarom in a dust storm with added wildlife and new enemies - N7: Noveria in a snow storm with restored cut content and new enemies - N7: Tuchanka at night with new enemies."

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UeiSUsaPs8

"N7 Day Mods Day 3: Mass Effect 3: Redemption update with a new MP map: Mass Effect 3: Redemption will be receiving an update on November 7, 2018 adding an additional map to the roster: Firebase Refuge! This takes place on Gellix, the mission map for Jacob. This brings a total of 9 new maps in Redemption. Additionally, due to some of the changes internally in Redemption, we can now add more maps (we were previously at the maximum of 8 before we had to start removing others)."

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_w79djwqrw

"After months of work, I’m very happy to reveal the new updates for Spectre Expansion Mod and Respawn Mission Overhaul. These include a host of new additions, bug fixes and immersive improvements. Here is what is contained in each mod. Spectre Expansion Mod v0.8 : This patch is focused on expanding content for the less used alien races and giving them galaxy map missions, as well as other text adventures. There are four stories contained within the mod, some longer than others, as well as many new additions to the galaxy map, bug fixes, artwork, and rewrites. Here is what is in this update: Immersion Updates - The Salarian STG now use salarian weapons on Priority: Sur’kesh (thanks to Ravager). Galaxy Map Expansion - Planets from ME: Infiltrator, ME: Ascension and ME: Paragon Lost have been added. Mass Effect 1’s E3 star system has been added to the game as well. The Ghosts of Antilin - The core text adventure of Spectre Expansion Mod reaches its finale; the Virtual Aliens are snared by a rogue faction. Will you save them, or leave them to their fate? Text Adventures - Three additional new text adventures have been added.(edited) Respawn Mission Overhaul v1.3: Continuing the trend of previous updates, v1.3 fixes many bugs (with the help of the legend Shadohz!) but more importantly it overhauls several missions to include new enemy spawn points, randomized combat and decision-based combat changes. Priority: Eden Prime and N7: Cerberus Abductions have been heavily altered to add randomized combat and new spawn points. Priority: Sur’kesh - Combat changes will be happening in the future, but for now Respawn will be using the same immersive updates as Spectre Expansion Mod for Sur’kesh. Bug Fixes - Numerous! Some of which were provided by Shadohz, who I am very thankful for their support. If you want to know more, read about the mods on their Nexus links. Full details of patch additions will be posted on N7 Day."

/////

"N7 Day Mods: Day 4 - Omega Hub: Take your best waifu for a dance"

"Day 4 - Omega Hub: A new hub area"

"[Click on GIF to run at HR] Expansion for the Expanded Galaxy Mod (EGM) Return to Omega once it has been liberated, see the impact of your choices, hang out in Afterlife with your crew. Shop at Harrots store. Take your love interest for a dance. This is in alpha. Additional content will be added later. Available N7 day. Requires Omega DLC."

[Vol]

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/9tvx2s/andromeda_annihilation_novel_discussion/

The quarian ark novel comes out this Tuesday, though it seems at least one people got it early it looks like.

Anyway, I'm planning on buying it if my local bookstore has it and I'll post a review/summary here after I'm finished reading it.

For better or worse, I want the closure. Should've been DLC, but fuck it, call me a Mass Effect whale, because I want my dextro favorites to have their success in Andromeda too.

[Alienmorph]

I'm guessing thei're gonna keep the trend is gonna be disappointing and full of inconsistencies. But I am kind of curious to see the level of idiocy they come up with to justify the quarians going to Andromeda, alongside all the races that have been snobbing them since the Morning War no less.

[TTTX]

I'm guessing thei're gonna keep the trend is gonna be disappointing and full of inconsistencies. But I am kind of curious to see the level of idiocy they come up with to justify the quarians going to Andromeda, alongside all the races that have been snobbing them since the Morning War no less.

I don't know I could see some quarians wanting to get away from the milky way, start fresh and have a planet to settle on, which they can't in the milky way at least in Citadel space (Not sure why they don't do it in the Terminus system, but the lore around the Terminus systems got changed between ME1 and 2).

[FrozenShadow]

I'm guessing thei're gonna keep the trend is gonna be disappointing and full of inconsistencies. But I am kind of curious to see the level of idiocy they come up with to justify the quarians going to Andromeda, alongside all the races that have been snobbing them since the Morning War no less.

Funny enough, not only I see Quarians being interested to move away from Milky Way, knowing their tech expertise and decades worth of experience of living spaceships and make do with bad quality stuff, Quarians would be ideal candidates for a trip to Andromeda.

That said, I don't have much of hope for BW to give us a good reason for quarians involvement. Of course, personally I think the whole idea of going to Andromeda galaxy was far-fetched crap at best and lazy batshit cop-out at worst.

[Alienmorph]

Yeah, that's the real problem. The foundation of the whole story is borked, so I doubt they can sell me on more of it anyway.

[Dragaros]

Ok, I finished reading Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation.

If you want spoilers on plot and lore, here ya go:

► Show Spoiler

The quarians that signed up with the Andromeda Initiative are part of the "Nedas movement", a group of quarians that think trying to reclaim Rannoch is stupid and want a fresh start, a clean slate, a new world, free from old systems and politics. Their motto is "Mered'vai Rannoch" which means "Forget Rannoch". Before they left the Migrant Fleet, members of this group would meet in clean rooms with a thrice-sanitized hologun to tattoo the motto on their arms. The Fleet let this group leave, and they joined the Initiative because it gave them the means to realize their dream.

The virus that ravages the ark’s crew is an artificially made chimera super virus --they dub it the Fortinbras Plague because the elcor doctor is obsessed with Hamlet-- made up of numerous things such as volus chickenpox called Yoqtan as a base, mixed with asari cyanophage, salarian proto-syphilis called Ayalon B, a turian hemmorrhagic fever called Titan's Tears, human measles, and junk DNA from Varren scale-itch, human bubonic plague, Kepral's Syndrome, and even Ardat-Yakshi. It was created by the quarian captain of the Keelah Si'yah, Qesti’Olam. She designed it to use the Drell as carriers that would then infect asari, turians, salarians, and humans when they reached the Nexus, decimating their populations. This was to make sure the non-Citadel races would be in positions of power and influence in the new galaxy, so they could be in charge and set the rules and standards and run things, free from old prejudices and being at the bottom of society and having no say or power in how things are run. Also, the quarian captain really hates salarians in particular because when on her pilgrimage, a group of salarians ripped off her suit in what they called a hazing ritual/prank for a few minutes and she got super sick and almost died. But the quarian captain and her helper, a fellow quarian named Malak'rafa, fucked up their own plan, and the virus mutated and started killing everybody. Not helping things was a computer worm they designed to make sure no one could figure out what they did that fucks up the ark's computer systems. The elcor doctor eventually manages to create a retrovirus to fix the problem before dying, and they inject it into the quarian captain who then walks around the ship nearly naked to heal everyone infected in atonement of what she did, and she finally dies in the Volus section of the ship, the pressure and ammonia of their atmosphere doing her in.

To quote:

"Why should it always, always be them? The Council races, lording it over us all. Why should turians, asari, humans, and fucking salaries always come out on top? Humans? Who barley puked themselves into a spacefaring culture half a second ago? Salarians! You know what they did to me. You know. […] I learned about artificial viral technology. I learned how to build my own like child's blocks. And I learned that people hate us. They hate us for all the reasons one species hates another. We could never really be safe in the Milky Way, even if we retook Rannoch. We could only be safe somewhere new. […] The Council races are native to the diseases I used, the rest of us would have been safe. Once it found its home, the disease would clear out the Nexus of everyone but us. Not just quarians, but drell too, and elcor, and hanar, and batarians, and volus. The species denied our places in the Milky Way. We would finally have our chance to shine, to become great, to create something better than the corruption of the old galaxy, the seething schemes of Cerberus and the geth and the rest of the horrors of home. A new life, completely new life, with us at the top.”

Also not helping things even more is that the hanar population onboard has a cult of heretical nihilists amongst them that revel in entropy and chaos and while they had nothing to do with the Fortinbras Plague plan, they only make things worse in spreading it around the crew and breaking what little quarantine they had, casuing panic and riots.

Its mentioned that natural viruses jumping species is super rare, and the handful that can do it are: Ebola, Measles, Marburg virus, Sangelian hemorrhagic fever, and Teukrian flu.

One of the batarians on board mentions that he took his kids and fled his colony and signed up for the ark trip to another galaxy because giant nightmarish machines were attacking and turning people into husks, so the quarian ark must have left the Milky Way just as the Reapers invaded Batarian space.

There’s a Batarian woman who used to run a crime family/smuggling business and while she’s not on Aria’s level she has some interesting stories to tell.

A Drell detective and former spy/assassin who tells different versions of her past and relationship to her Compact hanar, so you never know the truth, helps save the day with her skills and perfect memory picking up overlooked details. She also used to work for the Shadow Broker after she left the hanar’s service.

There are a few volus that believe in a form of anarcho-communism, wanting to abolish all money, all trade, all property. Their fellow volus consider them to be idiots and radicals.

The quarian pathfinder's SAM is implanted in his suit, not his skull, and is shackled and hard-coded to never become a true intelligence. It was the only way to get the quarians onboard with the idea.

A group of exiled quarian criminals once attacked an elcor city; this event is called the Little Invasion. I quote:

“Gangs of outsiders overran the city defenses, and then the power arrays. Not outsiders. Not just outsiders. Quarians. Yorrik did not like to remember it. […] All those helmets like mirrors where you only ever saw your own face, never theirs. Those strong, quick legs bounding through ancient streets, sacred gardens. Those grey-and-purple figures in the night. They'd gone dark for weeks, then. Under siege. He understood now that they were not proper quarians, Fleet quarians. They were criminals, gangs of undesirables and anti-socials the Fleet could not adequately contain. They had been dumped on Ekuna, a harmless outlying world. A Fleet problem had been solved. An elcor problem had been created."

Ke’sed is what quarians call the blind newborn offspring of the qorach, an Rannoch animal that looks like a carnivorus bighorn sheep who’s bellies are coveted in fern pollen and seed casings for pollination. Ke’sed can also be used an an insult or a term of endearment.

Lemek worms are a desert vermiform species that live on Rannoch. Small, slender, covered in rose-colored scales, and can regenerate if its chopped up into pieces.

Prolonged cyrosleep can result in micro-tears in quarian suits, allowing diseases to get in.

The quarian who's second in command of the ark actually has an Ancestor VI of his grandmother that survived the geth uprising/Morning War. His family keeps it secret to avoid it being destroyed or confiscated, for they are now deeply illegal, and also priceless cultural/hitsorical treasures at the same time. We get descriptions of a suitless quarian, Rannoch, and a ton of info on how ancestor VIs work. This ancestor VI is not a true artifical intelligence, but it does have the capacity to grow and skirt the edge of that line, because this one was given a unque method of problem solving/intellectual growth that builds and adapts. It eventually gets installed into the ark and merging with the main VI to purge the ship of the computer worm ravaging its systems, willingly sacrificing itself to help, because doing so will destroy most or all of the VI’s personality imprint and memories in the process.

I quote:

A light came on in the dark. A small, shimmering figure appeared just over the center of the disk, partly translucent, but otherwise in full color and three dimensions: a quarian woman, old but still strong and wiry, without a suit, for in her time there had been no need for them. The large, familiar webbing of a puckered scar covered the left side of her head, a memento of the time a geth told her exactly what it thought of organic life. Her eyes were white and kindly, without pupils, her hair beneath a rough cowl gray, her long avian legs wrapped, like the rest of her, in purple and red woolen robes.
“Hello, Grandmother,” Senna’Nair said quietly, though there was no one around to hear him.
“Always so formal, my grandson,” said the ancestor VI, as it always did, in her clipped, melodious old Rannoch accent. “Call me Liat, why don’t you? Never thought of myself as old enough to have grandchildren anyhow.”
[…]
“Grandmother, you are almost to Andromeda, what makes you technically nine hundred and fifty-nine years old.”
“Watch your tongue, you little bosh’tet,” said the image of his ancestor with a holographic grin. “Never discuss a woman’s age, marital staus, or how much she can deadlift in public.”
[…]
Liat’Nir was not a real grandmother. Liat’Nir, the hard-drinking, hard-talking, hard-coding, hard-living progenitor of his line, had died in the first spasm of the geth war, when all of Rannoch burned. This was a virtual intelligence programmed hundreds of years ago from an imprint of the real Liat’Nir’s personality, taken only hours before her death, preserved so that no generation of quarians would ever forget where they had come from, ao that no child could be without family. She was also deeply, utterly illegal, and almost unspeakable valuable. Liat’Nor had been Senna’s parents’ greatest secret, and now she was his. Before the war, there were thousands of these VI. Everyone had one.
[…]
Liat'Nir's imprint had been taken just before she suited up for war against her own creations, in case the worst happened, which it had. The pattern had never had a chance to be stored in the main databank. […] Someone in Senna's family tree couldn't bear to lose Liat'Nir, either to the geth or the sudden fear of all things VI, and installed her in a contained mobile unit.
[…]
Liat’Nir rummaged in her robes, swore a few times under her breath, and finally produced a holographic cigarette and pink matchbox. She struck the the match on her fingernail and inhailed her smoke with delight. Senna loved it when the program did that. Her phsycial behaviors were semi-randomly generated from a fixed cluster […] He’d never seen a quarian smoke in real life, and he didn’t think he ever would. The sheer number of carcinogens beggard the imagination. And to damage your respiratory system for pleasure, for recreation! It was incredible, like watching a dinosaur repeatedly hit itself in the face for fun.[…] the matchbox always said something different—Bet’salel Financial Advisors or Gaddiel & Sons Agrarian Suppliers or Ovad’ya’s Fine Cosmetics—this time it read Macaleth All Night Café and Cabaret. Forgotten, long-vaporized buisnesses from his lost homeworld, from a life he couldn’t possibly imagine.
[…]
When she turned around, his grandmother had a truly jaw-droppingly large glass of krogan ryncol in her hand. On the rocks. It had taken him weeks of immunizations and antibiotic courses to spend one night sipping ryncol with Yorrik, and it had felt like sipping knives. But Liat lived long before the quarian immune sstem was ravaged by living on the Migrant Fleet. Before the suits. Before anything that made a quarian quarian in Senna’s world. She drank it down with one gulp, fixed herself another, this time with a twist of citrus…
[…]
“My mind’s not what it used to be.”
“Your mind is precisely what it used to be, Grandmother, down to the zeroes and ones.”
“You rude little shit! You want to comment on my figure, too? Spill your guts, ke’sed! By the gods, I would rather take my tea with a fully armed and pissed off geth colossus than a young person these days.”
[…]
“Know anything about volus chickenpox?”
“I don’t know. Fuck the volus. Those little walking asthma attacks get on my last nerve the second they open their fat mouths. That whole species isn’t worth the ale-riddled bladder of your stupidest cousin. I was married to one once, I should know.”
“You were married to a volus? You never told me that.”
“You never asked, ke’sed. It didn’t last. If you’d ever seen a volus without his suit, you’d know why."

I’ll post more stuff later as time and motivation allows, or if anyone's got questions.

[Dragaros]

Also from the Annihilation novel, a quarian lullaby:

► Show Spoiler

"Sing me to sleep on the starry sea
And I'll dream through the night of my suit and me
I won't fear the heat of a desert breeze
Or contaminants high in the jungle trees
Even in space I shall never freeze
Because I've got my suit and my suit's got me.

Oh, I love my mother who holds me tight
And I love my father who taught me right
Oh, I love my ship sailing strong through the night
And I love the homeworld for which we fight
But what do I love like a lock loves a key?
What holds fast my heart, head, shoulders and knees?
I love my suit and my suit loves me.

When I grow up I shall have a house in the sun
On my true homeworld where the wild rivers run
I'll plant flowers in soil where now there are none
And there'll be plenty of room for everyone
But till I see Rannoch with my very own eyes
And kiss the sweet ground where my ancestors lie
We'll keep safe as engines as forward we fly
My self and my suit
My suit and I."

[TheodoricFriede]

Ahh all that wonderful N7 news coming out of Bioware.

It really makes you feel like the future of the series is bright.

[Alienmorph]

BW is on borrowed time, anyway. Once Anthem crashes and burns, they're gonna close shop, and then maybe we can get a shitty "build your own colony!" appgame for the 15th anniversary of the series.

[FrozenShadow]

BW is on borrowed time, anyway. Once Anthem crashes and burns, they're gonna close shop, and then maybe we can get a shitty "build your own colony!" appgame for the 15th anniversary of the series.

Maybe it's good thing. BW actually should go down, so that they can lay low for few years. As during that time all of those microtransaction live service games will reach their breaking point, followed by crash and burn and painful death. Then surviving game maker will return to good old Single Player story games with just added multiplayer features here and there. Then Bioware can return to it's glory days.

[Mazder]

Ok, I finished reading Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation.

If you want spoilers on plot and lore, here ya go:

► Show Spoiler

The quarians that signed up with the Andromeda Initiative are part of the "Nedas movement", a group of quarians that think trying to reclaim Rannoch is stupid and want a fresh start, a clean slate, a new world, free from old systems and politics. Their motto is "Mered'vai Rannoch" which means "Forget Rannoch". Before they left the Migrant Fleet, members of this group would meet in clean rooms with a thrice-sanitized hologun to tattoo the motto on their arms. The Fleet let this group leave, and they joined the Initiative because it gave them the means to realize their dream.

The virus that ravages the ark’s crew is an artificially made chimera super virus --they dub it the Fortinbras Plague because the elcor doctor is obsessed with Hamlet-- made up of numerous things such as volus chickenpox called Yoqtan as a base, mixed with asari cyanophage, salarian proto-syphilis called Ayalon B, a turian hemmorrhagic fever called Titan's Tears, human measles, and junk DNA from Varren scale-itch, human bubonic plague, Kepral's Syndrome, and even Ardat-Yakshi. It was created by the quarian captain of the Keelah Si'yah, Qesti’Olam. She designed it to use the Drell as carriers that would then infect asari, turians, salarians, and humans when they reached the Nexus, decimating their populations. This was to make sure the non-Citadel races would be in positions of power and influence in the new galaxy, so they could be in charge and set the rules and standards and run things, free from old prejudices and being at the bottom of society and having no say or power in how things are run. Also, the quarian captain really hates salarians in particular because when on her pilgrimage, a group of salarians ripped off her suit in what they called a hazing ritual/prank for a few minutes and she got super sick and almost died. But the quarian captain and her helper, a fellow quarian named Malak'rafa, fucked up their own plan, and the virus mutated and started killing everybody. Not helping things was a computer worm they designed to make sure no one could figure out what they did that fucks up the ark's computer systems. The elcor doctor eventually manages to create a retrovirus to fix the problem before dying, and they inject it into the quarian captain who then walks around the ship nearly naked to heal everyone infected in atonement of what she did, and she finally dies in the Volus section of the ship, the pressure and ammonia of their atmosphere doing her in.

To quote:

"Why should it always, always be them? The Council races, lording it over us all. Why should turians, asari, humans, and fucking salaries always come out on top? Humans? Who barley puked themselves into a spacefaring culture half a second ago? Salarians! You know what they did to me. You know. […] I learned about artificial viral technology. I learned how to build my own like child's blocks. And I learned that people hate us. They hate us for all the reasons one species hates another. We could never really be safe in the Milky Way, even if we retook Rannoch. We could only be safe somewhere new. […] The Council races are native to the diseases I used, the rest of us would have been safe. Once it found its home, the disease would clear out the Nexus of everyone but us. Not just quarians, but drell too, and elcor, and hanar, and batarians, and volus. The species denied our places in the Milky Way. We would finally have our chance to shine, to become great, to create something better than the corruption of the old galaxy, the seething schemes of Cerberus and the geth and the rest of the horrors of home. A new life, completely new life, with us at the top.”

Also not helping things even more is that the hanar population onboard has a cult of heretical nihilists amongst them that revel in entropy and chaos and while they had nothing to do with the Fortinbras Plague plan, they only make things worse in spreading it around the crew and breaking what little quarantine they had, casuing panic and riots.

Its mentioned that natural viruses jumping species is super rare, and the handful that can do it are: Ebola, Measles, Marburg virus, Sangelian hemorrhagic fever, and Teukrian flu.

One of the batarians on board mentions that he took his kids and fled his colony and signed up for the ark trip to another galaxy because giant nightmarish machines were attacking and turning people into husks, so the quarian ark must have left the Milky Way just as the Reapers invaded Batarian space.

There’s a Batarian woman who used to run a crime family/smuggling business and while she’s not on Aria’s level she has some interesting stories to tell.

A Drell detective and former spy/assassin who tells different versions of her past and relationship to her Compact hanar, so you never know the truth, helps save the day with her skills and perfect memory picking up overlooked details. She also used to work for the Shadow Broker after she left the hanar’s service.

There are a few volus that believe in a form of anarcho-communism, wanting to abolish all money, all trade, all property. Their fellow volus consider them to be idiots and radicals.

The quarian pathfinder's SAM is implanted in his suit, not his skull, and is shackled and hard-coded to never become a true intelligence. It was the only way to get the quarians onboard with the idea.

A group of exiled quarian criminals once attacked an elcor city; this event is called the Little Invasion. I quote:

“Gangs of outsiders overran the city defenses, and then the power arrays. Not outsiders. Not just outsiders. Quarians. Yorrik did not like to remember it. […] All those helmets like mirrors where you only ever saw your own face, never theirs. Those strong, quick legs bounding through ancient streets, sacred gardens. Those grey-and-purple figures in the night. They'd gone dark for weeks, then. Under siege. He understood now that they were not proper quarians, Fleet quarians. They were criminals, gangs of undesirables and anti-socials the Fleet could not adequately contain. They had been dumped on Ekuna, a harmless outlying world. A Fleet problem had been solved. An elcor problem had been created."

Ke’sed is what quarians call the blind newborn offspring of the qorach, an Rannoch animal that looks like a carnivorus bighorn sheep who’s bellies are coveted in fern pollen and seed casings for pollination. Ke’sed can also be used an an insult or a term of endearment.

Lemek worms are a desert vermiform species that live on Rannoch. Small, slender, covered in rose-colored scales, and can regenerate if its chopped up into pieces.

Prolonged cyrosleep can result in micro-tears in quarian suits, allowing diseases to get in.

The quarian who's second in command of the ark actually has an Ancestor VI of his grandmother that survived the geth uprising/Morning War. His family keeps it secret to avoid it being destroyed or confiscated, for they are now deeply illegal, and also priceless cultural/hitsorical treasures at the same time. We get descriptions of a suitless quarian, Rannoch, and a ton of info on how ancestor VIs work. This ancestor VI is not a true artifical intelligence, but it does have the capacity to grow and skirt the edge of that line, because this one was given a unque method of problem solving/intellectual growth that builds and adapts. It eventually gets installed into the ark and merging with the main VI to purge the ship of the computer worm ravaging its systems, willingly sacrificing itself to help, because doing so will destroy most or all of the VI’s personality imprint and memories in the process.

I quote:

A light came on in the dark. A small, shimmering figure appeared just over the center of the disk, partly translucent, but otherwise in full color and three dimensions: a quarian woman, old but still strong and wiry, without a suit, for in her time there had been no need for them. The large, familiar webbing of a puckered scar covered the left side of her head, a memento of the time a geth told her exactly what it thought of organic life. Her eyes were white and kindly, without pupils, her hair beneath a rough cowl gray, her long avian legs wrapped, like the rest of her, in purple and red woolen robes.
“Hello, Grandmother,” Senna’Nair said quietly, though there was no one around to hear him.
“Always so formal, my grandson,” said the ancestor VI, as it always did, in her clipped, melodious old Rannoch accent. “Call me Liat, why don’t you? Never thought of myself as old enough to have grandchildren anyhow.”
[…]
“Grandmother, you are almost to Andromeda, what makes you technically nine hundred and fifty-nine years old.”
“Watch your tongue, you little bosh’tet,” said the image of his ancestor with a holographic grin. “Never discuss a woman’s age, marital staus, or how much she can deadlift in public.”
[…]
Liat’Nir was not a real grandmother. Liat’Nir, the hard-drinking, hard-talking, hard-coding, hard-living progenitor of his line, had died in the first spasm of the geth war, when all of Rannoch burned. This was a virtual intelligence programmed hundreds of years ago from an imprint of the real Liat’Nir’s personality, taken only hours before her death, preserved so that no generation of quarians would ever forget where they had come from, ao that no child could be without family. She was also deeply, utterly illegal, and almost unspeakable valuable. Liat’Nor had been Senna’s parents’ greatest secret, and now she was his. Before the war, there were thousands of these VI. Everyone had one.
[…]
Liat'Nir's imprint had been taken just before she suited up for war against her own creations, in case the worst happened, which it had. The pattern had never had a chance to be stored in the main databank. […] Someone in Senna's family tree couldn't bear to lose Liat'Nir, either to the geth or the sudden fear of all things VI, and installed her in a contained mobile unit.
[…]
Liat’Nir rummaged in her robes, swore a few times under her breath, and finally produced a holographic cigarette and pink matchbox. She struck the the match on her fingernail and inhailed her smoke with delight. Senna loved it when the program did that. Her phsycial behaviors were semi-randomly generated from a fixed cluster […] He’d never seen a quarian smoke in real life, and he didn’t think he ever would. The sheer number of carcinogens beggard the imagination. And to damage your respiratory system for pleasure, for recreation! It was incredible, like watching a dinosaur repeatedly hit itself in the face for fun.[…] the matchbox always said something different—Bet’salel Financial Advisors or Gaddiel & Sons Agrarian Suppliers or Ovad’ya’s Fine Cosmetics—this time it read Macaleth All Night Café and Cabaret. Forgotten, long-vaporized buisnesses from his lost homeworld, from a life he couldn’t possibly imagine.
[…]
When she turned around, his grandmother had a truly jaw-droppingly large glass of krogan ryncol in her hand. On the rocks. It had taken him weeks of immunizations and antibiotic courses to spend one night sipping ryncol with Yorrik, and it had felt like sipping knives. But Liat lived long before the quarian immune sstem was ravaged by living on the Migrant Fleet. Before the suits. Before anything that made a quarian quarian in Senna’s world. She drank it down with one gulp, fixed herself another, this time with a twist of citrus…
[…]
“My mind’s not what it used to be.”
“Your mind is precisely what it used to be, Grandmother, down to the zeroes and ones.”
“You rude little shit! You want to comment on my figure, too? Spill your guts, ke’sed! By the gods, I would rather take my tea with a fully armed and pissed off geth colossus than a young person these days.”
[…]
“Know anything about volus chickenpox?”
“I don’t know. Fuck the volus. Those little walking asthma attacks get on my last nerve the second they open their fat mouths. That whole species isn’t worth the ale-riddled bladder of your stupidest cousin. I was married to one once, I should know.”
“You were married to a volus? You never told me that.”
“You never asked, ke’sed. It didn’t last. If you’d ever seen a volus without his suit, you’d know why."

I’ll post more stuff later as time and motivation allows, or if anyone's got questions.

What...The...FUCK?!
This is so fucking batshit I have no idea where to start.

This blows the last book out of the water with how anti-Mass Effect it is.
I goes worse and worse the more I read of this post...



If Mass Effect wasn't dead this as a DLC would have killed it.

[TheodoricFriede]

So, Mass Effect Andromeda just got a 4k update on the Xbox One X?

I dont... what?

Like... What?!

Its an abandoned game that will not get dlc, not get a sequel, and put it on a console no one owns

[TTTX]

What...The...FUCK?!
This is so fucking batshit I have no idea where to start.

This blows the last book out of the water with how anti-Mass Effect it is.
I goes worse and worse the more I read of this post...



If Mass Effect wasn't dead this as a DLC would have killed it.

if anything it gives a different view on the other races, but yeah if that was going to be the story for the DLC, it would have killed ME, because the fans would have hated it even more then the ME:A game itself.

[TheodoricFriede]

I actually think that quarian arc story doesnt sound that bad...

[FrozenShadow]

What...The...FUCK?!
This is so fucking batshit I have no idea where to start.

This blows the last book out of the water with how anti-Mass Effect it is.
I goes worse and worse the more I read of this post...



If Mass Effect wasn't dead this as a DLC would have killed it.

if anything it gives a different view on the other races, but yeah if that was going to be the story for the DLC, it would have killed ME, because the fans would have hated it even more then the ME:A game itself.

Well, there is nothing wrong with providing a different view on already existing races. But there is a right and wrong way of doing it. And MEA Annihilation is definitely amonsgt the latter one. Maz said it best, total batshit.

But guess they have nothing to lose anymore. ME was pretty much dead weight floating in space....now it's just crashing to a planet with atmostphere and burning to crips like Shepard did in beginning of ME2.

[Raga]

So, Mass Effect Andromeda just got a 4k update on the Xbox One X?

I dont... what?

Like... What?!

Its an abandoned game that will not get dlc, not get a sequel, and put it on a console no one owns

My bet is Microsoft paid them a bunch of money because they are desperate for anything to make their system stand out from Sony.

[Alienmorph]

Well... one thing I'll say is that I'm positvely surprised they didn't do anything stupid like having Geth or Reapers stuff infiltrating the Quarian Ark, which is pretty much what I expected. The novel's plot still sound dumb as hell tho.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjJcP-od8hw

[TTTX]

Well, there is nothing wrong with providing a different view on already existing races. But there is a right and wrong way of doing it. And MEA Annihilation is definitely amonsgt the latter one. Maz said it best, total batshit.

But guess they have nothing to lose anymore. ME was pretty much dead weight floating in space....now it's just crashing to a planet with atmostphere and burning to crips like Shepard did in beginning of ME2.

You are right, still not the worst ME novel though, you really have to try an outdo Mass Effect: Deception.

And there is no stupid plot to say there is still a corpse to rebuild it.

Well you never know, if BW do crash and burn, then maybe someone buys the licens and do something right with the series, hell in 20 years they might do what people are now doing with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro and Medievil now a real remaster of the original games.

[TTTX]

My bet is Microsoft paid them a bunch of money because they are desperate for anything to make their system stand out from Sony.

Microsoft might do better in the next generation since they have bought a lot of new studios which could make some real good exclusives.

[Mazder]

I actually think that quarian arc story doesnt sound that bad...

So take all the races and completely flipping them and anything that was identifiable with them sounds good?

if anything it gives a different view on the other races, but yeah if that was going to be the story for the DLC, it would have killed ME, because the fans would have hated it even more then the ME:A game itself.

There's "a different view" and there's completely turning their ways of life and function completely on their head.

I mean Communist Volus, for crying out loud.
Their entire point of being is they managed to make the resources of the galaxy make sense and organized and fair across species and made the entire banking economy the milky way survives on! They made capitalism and live and breathe it as they're literally the best at doing it. Hell they practically bought their way onto the minor council and still had to share an office with the Elcor.
So, yeah, let's make them all communists. Sounds good, sounds natural.

And Nihilistic Hanar.
Odd but leaves the whole rest of the race as one dimensional fanatic zealots, even more so.

I mean, yeah, let's also have the salarians, that group of aliens that are pretty much all for living their lives as efficiently and as best as they can, even when mercs they're super productive, let's have them assault a quarian just...because...
Yeah, the Salarians, that have no sex drive and no real expressed appreciation for nudity other than one drunk guy in ME2, want to forcibly strip a quarian.
Sorry that sounds very out of character for that race. Some turians, sure. Batarians, yeah, easily. Even some Asari, but Salarians? Makes no sense to me.
It's like finding a Tolkien Dwarf reading poetry and engaging in civil diplomacy rather than fighting.

And as for the quarian themselves. I get some wanting to break off and not bother getting Rannoch back and settling somewhere else. I get that. What I don't get is why the quarians would go along with a plan that would make a virus spread among other races exist. Because if it can spread to others it might be able to spread to them eventually. I mean it doesn't make sense for a quarian to engage in germ warfare.

[Mazder]

Double post...

[Dragaros]

[Alienmorph]

Celebrate N7 Day by purchasing a model of the NOTmandy... errr... I mean the Tempest. Only 249.99!

Lol, yeah, no.

[TTTX]

There's "a different view" and there's completely turning their ways of life and function completely on their head.

I mean Communist Volus, for crying out loud.
Their entire point of being is they managed to make the resources of the galaxy make sense and organized and fair across species and made the entire banking economy the milky way survives on! They made capitalism and live and breathe it as they're literally the best at doing it. Hell they practically bought their way onto the minor council and still had to share an office with the Elcor.
So, yeah, let's make them all communists. Sounds good, sounds natural.

And Nihilistic Hanar.
Odd but leaves the whole rest of the race as one dimensional fanatic zealots, even more so.

I mean, yeah, let's also have the salarians, that group of aliens that are pretty much all for living their lives as efficiently and as best as they can, even when mercs they're super productive, let's have them assault a quarian just...because...
Yeah, the Salarians, that have no sex drive and no real expressed appreciation for nudity other than one drunk guy in ME2, want to forcibly strip a quarian.
Sorry that sounds very out of character for that race. Some turians, sure. Batarians, yeah, easily. Even some Asari, but Salarians? Makes no sense to me.
It's like finding a Tolkien Dwarf reading poetry and engaging in civil diplomacy rather than fighting.

And as for the quarian themselves. I get some wanting to break off and not bother getting Rannoch back and settling somewhere else. I get that. What I don't get is why the quarians would go along with a plan that would make a virus spread among other races exist. Because if it can spread to others it might be able to spread to them eventually. I mean it doesn't make sense for a quarian to engage in germ warfare.

Well we didn't have much interaction with the Volus and Hanar most of what we know of them comes from the codex and it's mostly very simple information, it's doesn't give everything single thing about their people.

In ME1 in Garrus quest we found a salarian who more or less used other races, poor people just to grow organs for some reason it's hinted at it's about money, but we later find him with well monsters he created out of his remaining test subjects and some salarians can also be ruled by their emotions as we saw in Solus loyalty quest. We don't know why they did it, but I'm guessing it could be science related along with some arrogance on their part.

Sounds like it was the brain child of just a 1-2 quarians who came up with the virus plan, although Drag has to confirm that as he is the one who have read the novel.