I do not own Mass Effect.

Mass Effect 2: Lanius

Lanius: Forward Final Thoughts

Congratulations! This is The End of Lanius 2, as written.

There was a gameplay outline for how the Omega Crisis would have played, complete with a fluff mechanic of being able to track how many people died/how much money Cerberus stole based on the number of rounds it took you to stop them (in short: you could use teammates to help you advance faster, and specialties/loyalties gave even better results), but that was simply too dry and too irrelevant to post. It would have made a nice comparison-scheme, with people able to compare how many people died based on how loyal/effectively deployed their team was, but it was really just fluff.

As it is, there isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. Lanius was an attempt to write a competent, consistent, and frequent antagonist in ME2, as well as to elevate the quality of Cerberus as a Shepard opponent. Overall, I feel I succeeded: sometimes it didn't come out as smoothly as I hoped, such as with Samara's loyalty, but overall I felt that a direct, constant enemy was an improvement. Recasting character missions into a cohesive narrative, rather than a grab-bag of unrelated issues, should be a goal in story-driven works like Mass Effect.

It was a good write, and fun to see what people thought of this. Which leads to a populr question of late. With Lanius 2 posted, the bottom line about prospective Lanius 3 is...

Probably won't happen.

I don't have the time to write as much as I used to, and have greater priorities. Among the upteen different ME3 remake ideas, a Lanius equivalent would have been the least defined, not least because I could never decide on it. Instead, a brief summary of some concepts that raised their head in the planning phase. However, this was all before ME3 came out and so some of it is dated. There were a couple of different draft ideas.

The Main was included...

-The Butcher is Lazarused with Reaper tech that Cerberus successfully controls with the advances of the Overlord VI. By bridging the gap between organic and synthetic, the Butcher is able to fake being indoctrinated without actually falling prey to it. While much of Cerberus is indoctrinated via implants, the Butcher controls the implants and so when the Butcher reveals he's not actually indoctrinated the Cerberus forces flip as well. In order to win trust, however, the Butcher has to do a lot of nasty things for the Reapers to 'trust' him.

-During the Geth virtual world mission, Shepard would have been virtually kidnapped and interfaced with the Reaper on Rannoch: it would appear to be a utopian existence of all the 'individuals' inside the Reapers living as gods inside their virtual domain. Then, when the Butcher interfaces and launches his betrayal, that virtual world becomes a killing field as the Butcher enters, and begins to massacre everyone ala a Reaper in the Reaper's own mind. While this frees Shepard from being trapped by the Reapers, who are trying to convince Shepard to join their utopian state, it also drives in that every species that is a Reaper still exists within the shells.

The key development here was that the Butcher actually becomes a means to defeat the Reapers: the substitute of the Destroy option, in fact. As a Overlord-style hybrid-VI, the Butcher is able to interface directly with the Reaper gestalt consciousness... and then justify the name by massacring the trillions individual personality-aspects of the Reaper, leaving the Reaper a dead shell. The Crucible/Catalyst becomes a means for the Butcher to interface with every Reaper at once, leading to the greatest genocide in galactic history.

-Another key development was that Shepard being indoctrinated is a key part of the story. Beginning at the Object Rho exposure, Shepard is slowly being indoctrinated with each exposure to the Reapers. Something like the 'Would You Kindly' effect becomes clear as Shepard becomes more and more subtly undermining the war effort. While at the beginning it seems like pure player agency (alignment-specific choices that cut off allies: exposing the Salarian plot to sabotage the cure, or persuading others into taking huge risks on moral stands), as the game goes on Shepard seems increasingly restricted regardless of alignment. You become complicit in the Udina Coup, rather than oppose it: Shepard's inflexibility on gathering allies for a liberation of Earth becomes a more pronounced flaw as allies are lined up for a conventional battle that almost certainly will be lost. All the while, Shepard still sounds P/R even as the actions taken endanger the war effort. That you're actually indoctrinated, and how your actions have aided the Reapers, is only spelled out on Rannoch by the Butcher's betrayal of the Reapers.

Shepard's indoctrination becomes the reason Cerberus (as opposed to the Butcher and his indoctrinated troops) is trying to fight Shepard: Jacob and Miranda try to stop you because the desired battle for Earth is actually a Reaper trap to destroy the galactic forces in a decisive battle.

Of course, no one believes Cerberus when they try and warn anyone that Shepard is indoctrinated. Taking advantage of Shepard's strength as a leader, indoctrinated!Shepard is able to easily reassure everyone that, hey, no one wants to fight the Reapers more than Shepard... even though Shepard's dreams become increasingly clear indicators that indoctrination is taking a toll. This makes a pretty creepy twist on the limitless trust of your companions and LIs, for example, because even as Shepard says all the right things to ease their concerns the player can feel like a trapped voice not being heard... ie, the indoctrination sensation. So while Garrus says that he trusts you more than anything else in the world, and indoctrinated!Shepard says that he relies on him, the player can be yelling at the screen 'It's a trap! Stop me!'

The only saving grace, however, is that the Butcher is able to control the effects of Indoctrination: similar to how Cerberus controls its own troops in canon, the Butcher is able to mitigate the effects of Indoctrination on Shepard when the Butcher joins the party late in the game... though you can kill the Butcher instead, if you really want.

Indoctrinated Shepard, if not freed, will be forced to choose between 'Control' or 'Synthesis' for the endings... but with the implication that Shepard is just doing something acceptable to the Reapers.

-Ending-wise, the canonical endings would be similar in effect, but without the destruction of the relays and the different contexts.

Destroy: If Shepard recruits the Butcher, rather than killing him, then the Butcher can use the Catalyst to interface with all the Reapers. Starting the greatest genocide of all time, the greatest monster of all time kills all the Reaper aspects. While this explicitly said to finally break Shepard free of the indoctrination effect, Shepard's salvationcomes at a cost: after breaking the Reapers, the Butcher can control their troops and husk armies to use however he sees fit. The Butcher claims they'll be deterence, only used to attack those who attack Humanity, but-

Control: Any Shepard can choose to sacrifice themselves take control of the Reapers. If the Butcher is dead, however, the Indoctrination implications suggest that the reprieve is only a temporary one, as Shepard will eventually resume the cycle. With the Butcher alive, however, Shepard can still do it... if the Butcher is persuaded to let it happen. If so, the Butcher withdraws, promising to be there to check Shepard if Shepard turns against Humanity but otherwise letting Shepard do as Shepard sees fit.

Synthesis: Shepard can choose Synthesis if Indoctrinated, or with high enough War Assets if not indoctrinated. Synthesis is more about becoming one with the Reapers than a new existence: all life, organic and synthetic, is elevated to Reaperhood. If Shepard is indoctrinated, the implication is that these new Synthetics will eventually agree with the Reapers and resume the cycle. If Shepard broke free of indoctrination by recruiting the Butcher, then the implication is that the Reapers will actually stay in this new galaxy and settle it, keeping new life from developing but no longer destroying the old.

This is all. Like I said, very nebulous and ill-defined. Other ME3 ideas are much closer to fruition, if they ever come.

But I do hope you enjoyed Lanius ME2, and please: share your final thoughts, and your middle thoughts, and your overall thoughts.

Thank you for staying for the ride.