A New Frontier

The Dream and The Reality

So I was finally able to play Mass Effect Andromeda over this past weekend and it isn't Mass Effect 2, but I really don't see what all of the outrage was about. It's pretty on par with Fallout 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition in my book and I think a lot of people are just hating on it because it's the cool thing right now. Anyways I've only made it as far as getting Jaal and won't be able to play again until I go home again so no spoilers in the comments. I think Cora and Jaal are my favorite followers and may become my go to team like Cassandra, Dorian, and Sera did in Inquisition. None of the romances are really striking me as of yet, especially not like the Miranda one did in 2 and 3 so we'll see on that front. I was listening to Rain Is Falling by Electric Light Orchestra while writing this. I hope you like it.

The dream had been simple. There was the idealistic vision promoted by Jien Garson in all of the vids that they all bought into to one degree or another, but the underlying dream had been the same one that had guided pioneers to new frontiers since the dawn of time. It was a dream of exploration and new beginnings, a dream that the problems that they were leaving behind wouldn't follow them to the place of their new existence. It was a dream of a better existence that had come into constant conflict with the reality of their situation since the moment they woke up in Andromeda.

The reality was that the idealistic visions were nothing more than fantasy at this point, the Golden Worlds weren't very golden anymore, and there were Kett trying to kill them at every turn. This constant threat of conflict had forced them to go back on their dreams of new, peaceful lives and instead trade them in for preparations to go to war. Conflict on a large scale was apparently not something unique to the Milky Way and instead of the new beginning she had pictured having with her brother and father, Sara Ryder found herself fighting the same fight that intelligent life had been fighting with itself for a perpetual eternity.

"The new colony's looking good," Cora said from behind her. "Our first step to really making a life for ourselves here."

"Yeah," she said absentmindedly running her fingers along the barrel of a turret.

"Your people's resilience is commendable," that was Jaal from somewhere even further back.

"Third time's the charm," she said trying to make her voice sound genuine.

"Is something wrong Sara," Cora was too good at reading her sometimes.

"No, no it's nothing," she said regaining some control. "You two check and see if Bradley needs us for anything else; I'll only be a minute."

"Okay," Cora said unbelieving. "Come on cape, let's see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into."

Sara briefly watched her second in command drag the reluctant Angaran in the direction of Prodromos's mayor. Cora's tone of voice didn't exactly set her mind at ease but she trusted her people enough not to get themselves killed or embarrass the Initiative too bad, at least there wasn't a bar set up yet like there was on the Nexus. After a few moments of watching she turned her gaze away and found herself walking to one of the high cliff edges that surrounded the new outpost and sitting down to look out over the small, bustling community.

When she was a little girl, she would often do this to one varying degree or another at the various towns and communities that she found herself growing up depending on where her father was stationed. She wasn't looking for anything in particular, you could learn a lot from just watching people go about their daily lives, things you couldn't learn talking to them face to face. Scott would always tease her of course and she would of course throw being born first back at him, which always got him to shut up. After she joined the Alliance military herself the habit left her, whether it was from the military training or simply from getting older she wasn't sure. Now though, in this strange, new galaxy, pressured by responsibilities she had never been prepared to have, the action was just as calming as it had been all those years ago.

There was a group of colonists running drills in an open space near the outskirts of town, probably the military personnel that the Initiative had dethawed at her decision upon a more military minded outpost. Dr. Abrams was fighting with one of her assistants and shooing the man out the door on the other side of town. The decision to build a military outpost had been a relatively easy one all things considered. The previous two attempts to settle Eos had failed and if they were going to protect their assets the third time around then there was no room for the Initiative to play games. The Kett wouldn't back down and neither could they. Still a part of her, the part of her that had believed in the dream, couldn't help but mourn Dr. Abrams's plight.

"What are we doing Dad," she found herself asking the air.

"Your father would be proud of everything you've accomplished thus far," SAM's voice rang in her ear.

"SAM, could you do me a favor and not talk until we're back on the ship," she said.

"As you wish," he said politely.

The dream had been that it would be her dad as Pathfinder exploring new worlds and clearing them for colonization, making contact with new alien species. The dream had been that the Nexus would be a bustling base of operations, rivaling the Citadel as a thriving space station. The dream had been that she would have her father and brother by her side as they set foot on new worlds and tried to rebuild their lives individually and together. Instead the reality had her father dead, her brother in a coma, the Nexus barely getting itself off the ground, and her as Pathfinder building military outposts and preparing for war. Eos certainly wasn't the flying rocks and intense lightning storms that Habitat 7 had been, especially after fixing the Remnant tech that controlled the atmosphere, but it wasn't the promised Golden Worlds either.

Her gaze shifted to take in Cora and Jaal standing near the shuttle pad. Her second in command was pointing at the shuttles landing and taking off again and saying something animatedly. She couldn't help the smile that appeared on her face as she saw two members of her crew getting along so well. They really were building something now, a team, a family, a society and maybe they were building a new dream as well. Maybe after the Kett were defeated and multiple outposts were established, maybe after all of the problems that kept cropping up stopped cropping up, she could look back on everything they accomplished and be proud of it for what it was instead of comparing it to the pie in the sky dreams that her father and others like him had put forth back in the Milky Way. She certainly hoped so.

"SAM," she queried.

"We're not back on the ship Sara," he replied.

"Technically you are," she said. "So it's basically the same thing."

"Of course," he said.

"Do you think I'm in over my head," she questioned. "Do you think I'm doing a lousy replacement job for my father?"

"As I said before your father would be proud of everything you've accomplished thus far," he said. "And no I don't, the reason your father chose you as his replacement is becoming clearer and clearer to me every day."

"Oh," she said surprised.

"You're a fighter Sara," he said. "And right now, with the state of things the way they are, a fighter is exactly what the Initiative needs."

"Thank you," she said a smile flashing across her face.

"Glad to be of service," he said.

With that she began making her way back to her ship, her crewmates who were still shuttlegazing. The Andromeda they found themselves in was not the place that the Initiative had initially been designed for. The dreams that Jien Garson and her father had put forward at the Initiative's founding weren't the reality. Maybe though, she could still fulfill her own dreams and the dreams of every colonist now entrusted to her care. Maybe she could still build her own reality. She just hoped she was as up to the task as SAM made it sound.