*** Liara and Kaidan ***
At the sound of the Medbay door opening, Doctor Chakwas looked up from her desk. "Well, if it isn't my favourite biotic," she said. She realized an asari was standing next to Kaidan. "Oh, I'm sorry. Lieutenant, is something wrong?"
"Hey, Doctor. Uh, no…not really. The mission was a success." He looked at Liara quickly and then again at Chakwas. "No casualties, and we found Benezia's daughter."
"I'm pleased to hear it. But I assume you didn't come down here just for show and tell."
"No, ma'am." He lifted a hand, palm up, toward the asari. "Doctor T'Soni here spent over a week in a Prothean stasis bubble. The CO said to have her visit you to make sure she's okay." He turned to Liara, directed his hand toward the CFS and added, "This is Doctor Chakwas."
Doctor Chakwas rose from the desk and walked toward them, "Good afternoon, I'm Normandy's Chief Flight Surgeon. I'd like to help you if that's all right."
The asari looked uncertainly at Kaidan, and then at the doctor. "Doctor…Chocolate?"
"'Chocolate'?!" Karin laughed heartily. "Oh, my dear, I've been called many things in my career, but that is now officially my favourite. You are welcome to call me 'Doctor Chocolate.' Please, won't you sit here?" She waved a hand toward the nearest of the three exam tables.
As Liara moved to sit, Kaidan took a step back toward the door. "When you get done here, join me in the Mess," he pointed to port through the bulkhead. "You really should eat."
The asari glanced at the doctor, and then back at Kaidan. "Oh, Lieutenant…could you stay? I've been completely alone for over nine days, and…ah…I would like it if…you stayed."
Kaidan smiled impishly. "Well, if it's okay with Doctor Chocolate."
Doctor Chakwas looked over her shoulder with another chuckle. "That would be perfectly all right." She fitted an HUD projector over her head and activated it; turning to Liara again, a glowing holograph scrolled down over her right eye, displaying a world of information about the asari perched on the side of the exam table.
As the medico waved her omnitool methodically around the asari, Liara gestured to her own, and then did so several more times with no result. "My omnitool is having…significant problems," she sounded embarrassed.
"I can help with that," Kaidan said. He lit his gauntlet, waved his hand past the asari's left arm, and studied the results. "Hm. Looks like you ran it right out of power. Or did that Prothean bubble thing do this?" He stepped around Doctor Chakwas to the control wall and started to pull out a length of interface cable.
"Normally, it wireless charges automatically, so I assume that is what happened," Liara replied. She took the connector offered by Kaidan and snapped it into her sleeve's magnetic flatjack. The gauntlet lit immediately, and began running through a self-check.
"Hopefully it didn't do anything other than neutralize your omnitool," Kaidan said, studying the interface.
"If I might interrupt for a moment," said Doctor Chakwas. She extended a large tumbler full of enhanced water. "It looks like you are severely – but not dangerously – dehydrated. I recommend you drink this."
Wide-eyed, Liara took the water in both hands, looking at it as if she had never seen anything like it. "Yes," she said, and began drinking in earnest.
Dr. Chakwas lifted a datapad from the wall connector and continued to work it as she walked around behind Liara. By the time she'd arrived, Liara had drained the container. Chakwas looked at the tumbler, then casually back at the display with Liara's state of health.
"Well done…I'll get you another if you're all that thirsty." Karin waved her stylus at the asari's hearing organs and added, "I see your coloring here is still nicely salmon, so there should be no serious or permanent damage. It also looks like you're a little sleep-deprived. My advice is that you take the Lieutenant's advice and have a meal, then take a nice cool shower, and then get some sleep. At least before you do anything terribly exciting again." Slotting the datapad into the wall, she stepped away and began to refill the tumbler with more of the same liquid.
Kaidan pointed at Liara's left forearm. "Looks like it passed the self-check; it's running an ISC that'll take a few minutes, but you should have enough charge to get through the day." He smiled. "That's an Intelligent Systems Check. And I suspect you're as hungry as I am. Biotic combat always wipes me out." He gestured toward the door. "Come on…it'll help."
Liara looked to Karin for approval.
Doctor Chakwas handed the tumbler to Liara with a reassuring smile. "Yes, good. Take the tumbler with you, and do have a meal. And when you're done, come back and see me again; you can take that shower, and there's a little more work to do before we get you all settled in."
Liara had a hand to the side of her head, rubbing a spot there. "Ah…of course. Thank you. I will."
Kaidan led her through the Mess; as they walked, Liara noticed she was drawing a lot of looks, but that the human crew more often looked away rather than make eye contact.
Kaidan walked toward the tables, and sat at one on the port side, gesturing across to where Liara could sit. "I know you might feel a little isolated, being the only asari, but I also want to say it's really great having another biotic on board. I hardly ever have anyone to compare notes with. What kind of amp do you use?"
Liara looked at him oddly, and blinked once. "Ah…a Serrice Council…the Savant was an experimental amp when I was doing my postgrad work there. Now they're simply rare, but then, most Serrice gear is. This is a Nine; my mother spent some time talking with the developers at the university, and worked out a mutually beneficial arrangement to get the heavy-use field data of – I mean from – the Archaeology Department."
Kaidan turned his head slightly, and grinned. "You?"
Liara shrugged, looked embarrassed. "Of course…and it was about that obvious at the time, too. Fortunately, I had several field seasons of experience already, and they had been looking for an excuse to get me to endorse the Bedna Tract feedback tech they were working on."
Kaidan squinted. "Hm. The Bedna tract I know, but what's feedback going to do?"
Liara nodded, "I am sorry, I suppose I should be surprised if you did," she gestured to the top of her head, "Humans do not have them. Well, not usually. They are part of the Farillian Loops; the new amp design switches its output between the normal emitters and the Bedna tracts inside the loops, causing the field to feed back through control and amplification; the output is higher and easier to control because of it." She looked away apologetically, "Ah…for an asari."
Kaidan was nodding, "Actually, I did hear about that…or…the loop technology, anyway. One of my friends from Brain Camp got artificial ones installed when she took the L3 crap shoot. She said it works really well, but not all her hair grew back. She was wearing a hat until she could afford the replacement, but she liked the look, and now she just wears hats or other headgear all the time. The L2 made her see things in shades of orange…which went away after the upgrade. No other effects that she ever talked about, though. It never seemed like enough a good enough reason to take the risk."
"Risk?"
"Installing the biotic amp BMI is risky and dangerous…uh, at least for humans. Especially since she would have to take out the L2 wiring to install the L3. I had other friends who were never quite the same." He shook his head sadly.
"What's this about 'risk'?" said Ash. Out of her combat armor and now dressed in the standard QuickVert fatigues, the raven-haired human was carrying a tray that was steaming invitingly as she approached the table.
Kaidan seemed to speak directly to the tray of food. "Now that is a good idea." He glanced at Liara as he stepped backwards over the bench, "What can I get for you?"
"I'm utterly famished," she said, "I'll take whatever you have to offer."
Kaidan stopped at the end of the table, "We have quite a variety, actually. Do you…uh…know any Earth foods that you like?"
The asari paused, looking down. Her omnitool illuminated briefly, seemingly on its own; she raised her arm and looked at it, but did not appear to be operating it. "Fish. I have had a fish from Earth called shark. It was good."
Ash looked up. "You've eaten well. Shark is a little hard to get offworld."
Kaidan shook his head, "Not here it isn't, Chief. You still need a proper tour of the ship; Normandy has four shiny new food printers, and more software than you can shake a fork at. Great printers, too; I already ran the banana/lettuce/coconut test, and they're great. Though it's been my experience that shark actually prints up nicely even on a Foody-12 or a PocketChef...I wonder if it'll taste better with these? Aw, it might just be faster." He didn't wait for an answer, but stepped quickly to the portside AutoChefs.
Ash turned to Liara. "So…welcome aboard. Sorry for the…you know…" she shrugged, gestured vaguely.
Liara was confused. "Sorry for…? I'm not sure what you mean." As far as Ash could tell, the blue alien was genuinely at a loss.
Ash's eyes wandered around the tabletop, "I didn't need to beat you up for just making a recommendation. I'm just…I think I'm…still shook up about Eden Prime."
"Forgive me…I had not heard."
Ash made eye contact briefly, then looked back at her tray, shaking her head in embarrassment. "Of course you haven't. You've been here." She sighed. "I mean there. In that bubble." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "I am…or I was…a platoon leader at Sargon ACI. On Eden Prime. It's one of our colonies. That was where some researchers found that Prothean thing – the researchers kept calling it a beacon – and they were digging it out."
"Excavating it?" Liara prompted.
"Yeah, that's it. Anyway, the day it was supposed to be picked up, this gigantic ship airdropped about a thousand mechs on us." There was pain and anger on her face. "They wiped out my whole damned unit before anyone knew what was going on."
Liara recoiled slowly, looking concerned. "I am so very sorry." She was silent in thought. "I don't know what else to say. But I wish I could make it not hurt you so."
Ash glanced up at the asari, and then back at her plate. "That obvious, huh?" She broke the fork and knife off the sides of the one-piece tray, noting the display on her omnitool that kept her aware of the emotion-stabilizing medication that was still modifying her behaviour. "Yeah, I suppose it is."
Kaidan approached slowly, carrying two food-filled trays stacked vertically. "You okay, Chief?"
Ash looked over her shoulder, but not actually at him. "Not really. I'm still…I don't know…dealing with Eden Prime."
Kaidan nodded as he set trays before Liara and himself. "Well, for whatever it's worth, you're sure keeping it together well. I've never…seen a mess like that." He shook his head as he stepped over the bench.
"Thanks," Ash said, and closed her eyes, sighed, and opened them again. "My VI's telling me I should talk about something else."
The asari looked startled. "Oh, I am so sorry. Um…the Lieutenant and I had been talking about biotics."
"Biotics?" Ash turned to the Lieutenant. "What's to talk about? You wave your arms and people fly around."
Kaidan raised his fork as if it were an expressive finger, "Ah, but which people, and how far? And in what direction? These are not trivial questions. If I Lift someone, it's usually so disorienting, I can pacify them without killing them. Very effective at de-escalation."
"Have you learned Stasis?" the asari asked.
Kaidan looked deflated. "That's one I can do, but I really wish I could Reave. With humans, it's usually only two or three abilities, maybe four. You either have them, or you don't. I know there are more biotic capabilities than I have, but I only know of a few humans who have actually learned new ones."
Liara's omnitool chittered and illuminated as it restarted; she looked down at it. Her expression fell.
Kaidan recognized one of the default sounds. "Backlog of emails?"
"And an increasing number from Aldrin Discounters," Liara scowled at the omnitool's display, "They must have someone dedicated to finding ways through the mail filters."
Kaidan chuckled, "I know, right? I get the emails all the time about reduced-cost amps, but you get no support from the maker if you buy it through a clearinghouse." He tapped his head, "Bad idea when it's your only brain."
"You also have a Serrice amp?" Liara looked up, suddenly curious.
"Yeah. Mighty expensive, but worth it, I think. I especially like their customer support, probably because asari have been using biotics for so long, that the importance of maintaining a stable and safe interface is well understood by their designers."
"Expensive?" Liara sounded confused. Her omnitool VI reminded her that Earth still largely used a Scarcity Economy.
"You bet," Kaidan said. "Cost almost six months' pay, even with the military discount. And I had to get a special leave to stay there long enough to get approved for the fitting and integration." He shrugged. "I could only afford a Three, but I got it kitted with a fully integrated omnitool. Really helps me because I use both biotics and tech." He leaned toward the asari and stage-whispered, "I was pitied by the installer, and she put in a Five instead of the Three. Kind of subversive, but hey, we'll have to get there at some point."
Liara nodded, smiled impishly. "Athame would approve; 'Only those who crave power fear its dissemination.'" She looked at his gauntlet, and then toward his belt for backup amps. "Have you ever used different amplifiers for different applications?"
Kaidan shook his head. "No, I only wear one, and there isn't realistically time to switch out amps in a firefight. But I went on a retreat to Thessia right after Brain Camp and had a chance to try out several different amps." He flexed his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side. "Only the Serrice seem to actually move with me comfortably. It's important when you're under fire not to have to be fighting your own gear." He shrugged, and smiled as disarmingly as he could. "Why do you ask? Are you from Armali?"
"No. I was grown and educated in Serrice. I share your opinion about Serrice amps," she looked embarrassed as she smiled, "but I have an understandable bias."
Ash rose silently, picked her tray up off the table, and took the lift down to the armory, leaving the two biotics talking. As she stepped out of the elevator toward her workbench, she noticed the turian's clawed feet sticking out from under the M-35 Mako. Continuing forward and to port, she set the tray on her bench, picked up a chicken leg and walked across the hangar. Smells of electronic insulation and lubricants were stronger near the APC.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," came the balky reply. The turian slid himself out from under the Mako on a mechanic's creeper. He picked the bright orange cloth chamois off his torso and began wiping down the tool he was holding. He looked up at the human. "Quite a fight down there. With that crazy extraction, I didn't get to thank you for your membership and work."
"Thanks…uh…I was just wondering what you're doing there."
"Doing?" Garrus glanced at the Mako. "Trying to earn my keep," he rapped knuckles on the hull as he looked up at he APC. "The M-35 may not be a turian design, but this one was built at Aephus, and I'm seeing what kind of differences that makes." He indicated his holographic visor with a talon, "The service VI is fairly helpful, and the differences seem to be pretty trivial."
"Does the Captain know?" Ash took another bite of drumstick. "I mean, the Commander?"
Very precisely trading the tool he was polishing for another, Garrus continued wiping grime from the plated ceramics. Can you really not see I am trying to do my part without even being asked? "No," he said, "but this seemed a better use of my time than watching Fleet and Flotilla. I don't even think anyone in the Alliance crew actually has experience servicing a light tank/APC."
"Maybe. But the R&M chief has access to the whole Alliance library of trainings, including the ones for the M-35."
"If you'd like to bring it up with him, I happen to know he's down in Engineering, cursing gods that don't exist because of some decisions by designers who do." It was something of a struggle not to flare his fringe at the human, but he didn't notice that he was continuing to scrub a socket that was already gleamingly bright. "I assume it's because this ship is still relatively new that he has many more tasks to assign than he has personnel to assign them.
"Apparently half of the internal locks and external logic nodes aren't talking to each other," the turian aimed the chrome instrument he was holding toward the hangar door, "and the slip-turbulence during the launch nearly evacuated the entire hangar. I think you'd say the Air Boss was less than pleased. When we talked about it, he seemed relieved I had worked on the D-7 Basilisk and was willing to 'lend a hand,' as you say." The turian flexed a claw as if to indicate the distinction.
He pointed to where he had been working. "So I've replaced the two catapult connectors with updated 24-channel units, replaced the busses with newer versions that support them, and tested for interoperability all the way into the cockpit. There are a couple of assemblies to reinstall, but I am about to analyse the error codes on all the portside drive motors while I can still get to them easily."
Ash sighed and took another bite of the drumstick; her eyes roved over the sleek lines of the Mako. He is not making this easy, she thought.
Garrus finally traded the clean socket for another that was not yet ready to be stowed, scrubbing it without taking his eyes off the female human.
"And I suppose I should be happy you're helping, too," Ash finally said. "Uh…but I'm not."
"Then I will stop right now." Garrus put the tool down very deliberately and slid all the way out from under the Mako. "Chief, I don't know if you're aware of the jurisdiction here. This is no longer an Alliance vessel. It is a Council vessel with Alliance markings." He rose from the creeper as he spoke, and pushed it neatly into its garage under the hangar's raised middle with a foot. "However, I am hungry, and if clearing this up now will give me a few minutes to eat, I am only too happy to accommodate." He turned and headed for the lift.
Ash stood next to the Mako for almost a minute, looking at the tidy workspace the turian had been maintaining, even while working single-handed on an APC, wondering if she had done the right thing.
Presently, she tossed the leg bone in front of the nearest cleanerbot, and returned to the armory to begin servicing the fireteam's weapons.
# # #
The tiny salarian pocket cruiser tumbled and juddered as it plunged toward the planet surface, white-hot ablative shielding burning away as it did. Captain Kirrahe glanced occasionally toward the pilot, glad to have had him recommended by a superior. It was well-deserved; they surely gave the appearance of a random bit of debris falling from space. The pilot looked confident, and so Kirrahe simply enjoyed the view of the planet spinning and whirling as it grew in apparent size.
He had been disappointed to hear that a Spectre had been linked to the report about this facility, but his oath was to protect the Union from enemies both foreign and domestic. The turians were both, in a way, but it made no difference; when the Council really needed help, they called on the STG. He smiled inwardly; it made him proud.
Their ship was designed to have a smaller silhouette, lower emissions, and a reduced e-sig than a standard stealth insertion vehicle, but the trade-off was a lack of performance. The tiny ship had no mass effect drive of its own, which made its electronic signature look unlike a ship of any design, but it had a small fusion loop drive that ran on hydrogen. (When they were ready to be extracted, they would notify their Mission Handler, and a relay-capable ship would be sent to pluck them from orbit.)
They had dropped through the atmosphere using a minimum of lift, relying mostly on air friction and cooled braking thrusters. If Saren's minions had kept tighter patrols, they might have been spotted, but once they were under 25 meters, Kirrahe was confident they would make it to their final LZ safely.
Still, it took another nine hours to get to the base, doing their utmost to stay undetected. Secrecy was critical now, speed would be critical only after certain conditions had been met.
After setting down a safe distance away, they set up camp; deployed camouflage, bugsensors, and drones, and sent a mission report using their very new Quantum Entanglement Communicator to the Council. Untraceable and undetectable.
"The facility is larger than we expected," his XO reported after lunch. "First Scout reports that there are signs that it is an older facility, dating from the late 2150s. Most likely Saren acquired it from someone else and installed a camouflage organization.
"Also, there are traces of human, krogan and asari. Analysis indicates krogan and asari presence is current," Rentola continued. "Facility appears to be largely empty at this point. No other salarians present, standard infiltration may not be possible.
"Additionally, fuelmaker operating at capacity, but will not be able to depart for at least two weeks."
Kirrahe folded his meal scoop into the recycler. "Group and prepare scouting team. Will want current layout with building functions and occupation schedules before we really start 'stealing their eggs.'"
Rentola held up his omnitool as an item was highlighted and flashed. "Team already dispatched. Microdrones have built up map of 72 percent of facility. Should be able to begin data gather and facility virtualization by end of day."
# # #
As Shepard came down the ladder, he noticed Kaidan sitting at a table in the Mess, talking with the asari. He accepted the printer's offering of personalized post-combat food, and headed back up the port ladder to his bridge workstation.
Shepard found himself feeling pleased for Kaidan. That should be interesting for him, he thought. He hardly gets a chance to talk with another biotic, let alone an asari. I wonder if he's talked to Wrex about that sort of thing? The physiology may be too different.
He carried the tray up to the bridge, secured it to a clasp on the outer bulkhead. As he slid into the left seat, his workstation illuminated around him.
Joker leaned over and stage-whispered, "I prefer gold to silver."
Shepard gave him a blank look. "What?"
"You know…for my medal," Joker continued. "I figured you'd recommend me for one since I pulled your…uh…boots out of the fire."
Shepard manipulated the holographs. "If we present you with a medal, you'll end up sitting on a stage for hours in front of people you don't know, listening to politicians you don't like make speeches about things you don't care about. You really want that?"
"Hey, they'd be talking about me." Joker paused, then waved a backhand, "Aw, I suppose you're right." He shook his head. "No medal's worth that. So what are you still working up here for?"
Shepard didn't respond for a moment, interacting with one of the tiles floating in front of him. "What do you mean?"
"Now that you're a real officer, you got your own office, right? I assume you're up here only because you're slumming."
Shepard didn't acknowledge the joke. "I got distracted when I saw Alenko talking with the asari in the Mess. I have work to do, and was halfway up here before I remembered I could have worked there." He shrugged. "But it's not like I'm sitting in your seat."
Joker glanced across at Shepard, looking pleased with himself for having caught someone else in a mistake.
"Though that reminds me," Shepard continued, "I did read the report about your engaging the geth ships. Sierra Hotel, Joker. You managed to outmaneuver them without revealing anything definitive about the ship's new capabilities." He made eye contact with the pilot, gave an approving nod. "I especially liked how you made them think they just plain missed us when they fired. Truly exceptional work, Joker. Wish I could have seen the look on their faces."
"Yup. Thanks." Joker looked away, trying to act like the compliment meant nothing. He drummed his fingers on the armrest for a second or two, and then asked, "Okay, skip–uh…Commander…so where are we going?"
Shepard shook his head. "Not sure yet. But I'd bet you diamonds to donuts that Saren isn't down there on Therum. So wherever we need to go, it's almost certainly going to involve a jump through the relay network. Might follow up on the lead at that human colony…" His VI noticed his uncertainty, researched his conversation records, and prompted him with a single word on his ARO, "Feros. If they're having a serious problem, it's our job to make it not be a problem."
"Nope," Joker shook his head once. "You're a Council Spectre now. Council doesn't care about humans, remember?"
"I'm following a lead provided for the Saren mission." He continued to poke and swipe the holograph. "Hopefully I'll have something more definite by the time we get to the relay."
Joker checked his displays. "So…design a course to the relay, you'll figure out where we're going by the time we get there?"
Shepard looked from one tile to another and sighed in exasperation. "Yeah, at least for now. Hopefully we'll know something more by the time we get back to the relay." He pointed to several of the tiles in turn as he spoke about each. "The asari…Dr. T'Soni…knew nothing helpful, but might at least continue to draw Saren to us. I'm messaging the skipper, the asari Spectre I met on the Citadel, and Trident, and I'm going to ask the Captain to get someone at DSI to help me."
He sat back in his chair with a sigh.
"But no one's answering yet. So I'm tasking a bunch of the ship's intelligence with predicting what Saren might be up to, and where he'd go to do it." He pointed at one of the holographic tiles irritably. "And this damned thing won't release the necessary compute."
Joker raised one eyebrow, squinted the other eye at the tile in question. "That looks like AliComSec."
Shepard nodded. "Right."
"Have you tried to run this from the Captain's cabin? I mean your cabin? Or have you transferred your workspace from there to here and back?"
"No…why should I?"
"Because it's not nearly as smart as you think. Or maybe it's just more paranoid. With us now working for the Council, AliComSec is probably going to get real stupid…or cranky. Try pulling your workspace down to your cabin and running it from there, and then come back up here if you want. That's why the thing probably hasn't figured out that you're the new CO."
"How'd you find out about this?"
Joker's expression managed to be both exasperated and self-satisfied. "Who interacts more with the ship? The one who says where to drive it, or the one who knows how to drive it? I've been playing whack-a-mole with technocrap like this since we left Arcturus. At least until I knew how to get it to fail reliably. Ludtke, Adams, and I hunted all kinds of problems with the new DCE to a standstill, but all we have are kludges until Trident sends the latest upgrade." He looked away from his console and glared at the tile Shepard had indicated, his face contorted into an expression of great annoyance, "But since we're probably the only ones having these problems, I wouldn't hold my breath."
Shepard looked from one holotile to another, and then at his food tray. He sighed. "Crap. All right, thanks for the tip. Sounds like I need to go down there anyway, so I probably won't be back."
"Fine by me," Joker shrugged. "But if you don't want it to happen again, you should let the thing migrate your high-clearance processes from there to here at least once."
With his tray in hand again, Shepard was already getting up and heading aft. "Well, glad to know it wasn't my fault."
"Sure it was. You're the Old Man now." The pilot snorted a laugh. "Everything is your fault."
*** Glossary ***
ACI: Alliance Colonial Installation, usually a military base
AliComSec: Alliance Command Security
APC: Armored Personnel Carrier (the Mako)
BMI: Brain-Machine Interface
Bugsensors: device for detecting and instantly triangualting on transmissions within a given perimeter
CFS: Chief Flight Surgeon
CO: Commanding Officer
DCE: Distributed Computing Environment
DSI: Deep Space Intelligence, a division of the Alliance that coordinated work from intelligence agencies around the world, and now the galaxy
e-sig: electronic signature
ISC: Intelligent Systems Check
Ladder: "Shipspeak" for any ladder or stairway
LV: Landing Vehicle
LZ: Landing Zone
Old Man: term for the captain of a ship, used by the crew
Sierra Hotel: a congratulatory term for exceptional work (i.e., "Super Hot")
XO: Executive Officer
*** Playing Mass Effect: Andromeda ***
Okay, I'll own this: After the utter betrayal of ME3's ending, I was…disinclined…to like anything Buy-o-ware had to sell me.
And I have some issues with the premises. (Would a venture of this scale really let the "arks" be so widely separated that they'd lose contact with each other? Would they really not wake some people up when they were still a significant distance away to get better and more current data about their intended destinations? And did they really and truly design the helmets to have glass so far up over the user skull that you'd get sunburns on your scalp? Admittedly, it's convenient as plot devices go, but…seriously?)
And is everyone running to Andromeda from something? Shouldn't we have had a team of top-notch explorers instead of near-criminals and malcontents? When Elon Musk put out a request for people who wanted to go live on Mars and not come back, he got an avalanche of applicants. Wouldn't Jien Garson have gotten similar results from a galaxy with trillions of inhabitants?
I'm having some trouble relating to the team as people. It seems like that aspect of storytelling has changed a lot. But I reserve judgement for later.
Considering such scandalous initial conditions, the story is unfolding rather enjoyably. (On the other hand, the only way to go was up.)
I have several very nice things to say about it. To start with, it is beeeeautiful. Extraordinarily demanding for video cards, but technologically impressive. Things have actual shadows, and they're surprisingly realistic, whether on canyon walls or ship bulkheads, or whatever. Even the background NPCs are having conversations and you can eavesdrop on them…and they're credible. The aliens in the distance in one scene were play-fighting, and doing a passable job of it. Everything you see is beautiful, and it looks like it almost all has to be designed and animated on the fly. NPCs move around the ship like they're actually doing something. You have email, and something like a believable amount of junk mail.
Traveling to another destination? Now you can see sort of what it would be like to accelerate at hair-starching (technically improbable) speeds, watch the destination worlds grow as you approach; they even blueshift on approach, fercrysakes.
But let's say you're in a hurry and don't want to see these spatial wonders rendered in realtime (or that you are as artless as can be, in which case you probably should stick to Wolfenstein or Doom.) Just hit the TAB key and you can zip right past it.
The kett (and especially their technology) are as creepily alien as can be. Someone put a lot of time and love into the design of everything you see and interact with, and they have done a commendable job. Having your Ryder interact with technologies via omnitool? Notice how the hand gestures look credible, right up to the final swipe right, and it's synchronized with the end of the process (whether long or short.) Face animations? I've heard there were problems, but haven't seen any myself. And what I have seen is marvelously expressive on all counts. I'm more than a little surprised there weren't more problems with Bioware's first use of the Frostbite engine. (FWIW, I'm using a 2010 HP z800 24-core Xeon system with 24 GB of RAM and an Nvidia 1060.)
The series is still hammering at false religions, and I heartily approve of that. (Example: The conversion facility that you can blow up showed how it seems to be the same sort of indoctrination that virtually every religion in the world uses; the bad guys get type titles like Chosen, Anointed, etc.) You can even hammer one of your crew who seems to act as if there's a supreme intelligence in the universe (though it seems she's just a sexed-up Deist or Pantheist.)
I'm not a fan of some of the accents. Suvi is so over the top, she's occasionally incomprehensible. I wish both she and Liam sounded as erudite and as they seem to be. A lot of the angara voice talent seem to be from Australia (it was hilarious to hear one of them talk about having gone to school in Estraaja [pronounced esTRAAya…get it?].) I've spent way too much time there (and like the people too much) to think of them as strange or alien…and apparently the developers were only trying to recreate accents, rather than hire local talent.
We're only in one cluster of the galaxy, so they've left themselves a lot of space into which to grow. Being able to scan your environment with your omnitool...yes! good! And about time!
And the remnant vaults! They're simply exquisite! (I can hardly wait to find out the back story. At the moment, I think they might be angaran, but the Scourge hammered them so badly that they've forgotten. It makes me really reticent to shoot them, because they're just service 'bots, performing maintenance and repairs on the terraforming systems (I'm not even halfway through the game, so at the moment, I don't know where they came from.) They waste their time by fighting non-threats. And can't SAM exert control over them as he does with non-mobile remnant technology?
I simply can't believe there's never a way to talk the "outlaws" down. Even when they're fighting local megafauna, and I try to help, they start shooting at us; the squad goes in and tears 'em up, and I can't tell them to stand down. As new arrivals in Andromeda, we have it even worse than the quarians…every time you kill someone, you reduce the population by .0001%. Don't think that's significant? On Earth today, with a population of seven billion, that's like killing 70,000 people.
Kill seventy people and you're an world-class mass murderer. Kill a hundred people in Andromeda, and you've joined the ranks of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, or the Plague (in terms of reducing the population); it's practically genocide. We're talking Rwanda here – a now-Earth analogue of killing 700,000 people – but all by yourself. Am I the only one who notices or cares about this?
Still, a shooter game has to have bad guys, and Bioware likes to have at least three factions.
For all that, I'm still having a glorious good time. And I want it to last, because I won't get another first time through. (Not that that will stop me from a second round.)
So the next few chapters might be a little slow coming out.
