It was granted to him by the Krogan Emperor.

 

Welp... in that case I got to say that Okeer at least proved competent and his chosen successor won't suck as much as the armless-wonder-Ezykle-Abadon(badass name btw).

That's cute.
Was it him who provided the krogans she raised and made her bodyguards?

Religious experience, coming this week.

---------- Post automerged 10-26-2015 at 03:18 PM ---------- Previous post was 10-25-2015 at 06:18 PM ----------

New chapter in beta group.

Garrus.
The Council.
Aria.
Mordin.

 

Order in which they appear or order of sanity?

 

The former.

 

Well, Council still has more or less the same problems, Garrus dun fucked it up and has joined the club that Liara's dad was apparently a member of, that of child murderers, and is gearing up for a last stand, we got to know Arya's sob story, which doesn't quite humanize her, seeing the scale of atrocities she is committing/enabling/profiting from, but, well, at least we got more infos on it. Although, old school team up between Wrex, Arya and Jenaris should be fun. Heh, you know, speaking of surviving trauma, crimes, atrocities, betrayal, loss and whatever, counting all that, Wrex is probably the one person in the galaxy who is dealing with all of that the best. Relatively speaking, that makes him one of the best adjusted, mentally balanced people. It didn't break him quite as it did Shepard, Arya and even Okeer.

Wrex.

Oh, and Mordin is quite awesome and am looking forward to more interaction from that particular team-up.

Good chapter all around.

 

Chapter 23 in beta group.

 

I fucking love Vigil

 

I'm here to steal ideas.

I know roughly some of what would be on Keji Okuda's gray-box, but not all of it. What could be worse, something so bad that it would have truly started interstellar war and yet be useful to Cerberus?

 

You've set the bar so high regarding "horrifying shit that a government does that would freak the fuck out of another government" that I really have no idea what the hell would be so bad to actually start an interstellar war. Maybe Okuda just knew the aforementioned horrifying shit and had the intent to make it as public as possible -- basically a Mass Effect version of Edward Snowden. Or maybe it's just something that causes a negative chain-reaction; the information would destroy one of the pillars of the interstellar community, and the vacum of their fall would lead the other races to overextend to try and grab up as much power as possible, resulting in war between the Counsel races that leaves everyone weaker for it.

As for Cerberus, Vigil presents a very tall roadblock for anything being useful; he can get access to so much stuff that it isn't likely that anything Okuda could find out isn't already known by Cerberus, or otherwise easily accessible thanks to Vigil. The only thing I can think of would be some kind of hard manuscript, something that hasn't been digitized at all, that talks about the Reapers or the Protheans. Maybe something that the Thirty wants to keep under wraps as much as possible because, if known, it would fracture Asari society completely (leading to the above mentioned domino effect that their fall would create).

 

How about a secret agreement between the Big Three to work towards the destruction of Batarian Hegemony. By destruction I don't necessarily mean it in literal sense. Bankruptcy, social collapse, founding and funding insurgents, assassinating people who are working towards making the Hegemony a better place(I know, a laughable notion, but hey), stealing whatever technological breakthroughs they make and claiming them for themselves(the Big Three).

I'm thinking something on the order of Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The secret Annex that was added to the official version.

Now why would the Big Three do that?
1. It satisfies the turians.
2. It denies Aria batarian assets and cuts into her business ventures with the Hegemony. (Something that should make the Thirty very happy)
3. The Salarians get to remove a threat - a species they consider dangerous, according to the files you produced about the Union.

Such a pact would obviously freak the fuck out of every other race in a big way. It would also hammer the nail that the SA is still in the short bus when it comes to underhanded tactics and revolting stuff pulled in the shadows.

 

Yeah, I like that and if that is not viable for already in motion story reasons, I concur that it should be a secret of an agreement in-between several races. Any one race/government doing fucked up shit is pretty blasé at this point, we kinda expect it from everyone, no matter what. If it is between several, it at least has huge potential for Cerberus.

 

*vile laughter* You three have possibly given me the most evil idea ever. I am in your debt.

It won't be quite what you expect, but... *gleefully rubs hands together*

 

Guys, this might have been a mistake

 

To quote every redshirt ever, right before their death, what could possibly go wrong?

 

New chapter in beta group.

Almost exclusively pure dialog. A lot of TIM/Shepard coverage and LP is really hitting his Mordin Voice.

 

Last chapter's revelation was superb, potentially galaxy shaking while addressing pre-ME Earth's seemingly spontaneous fall.

 

Love his Mordin, great take. Also, good to see Shepard and TIM finding more and more common ground but he really is a magnificent bastard. Loved his lone about letting Hades do all the morally shady experiments and the profit from their findings.

Also loved Mordin's line of finding the brightest grey moral stance and working to make it brighter, that's just a beautiful sentiment.

 

I'm thoroughly satisfied with this chapter, especially the parts involving TIM and Mordin.

Yes, this part was pretty great. Why dirty your own hands and risk the possibility of getting ODINed by the cyborg you built when you can use your enemy to do your dirty work? The Illusive Man is one Magnificent Bastard Ascendant once again. Richard Williams could only hope to look so cool doing his stuff.

He was pretty open with Shepard during their interaction in this chapter. I wouldn't go and say he laid all his cards on the table - I mean, c'mon! This is Harper we're talking about here. Of course he has an ace or a dozen up his sleeve. But I'm optimistic about their future relationship(Ib4 LP rolls in and ruins my fun by torching Harper/Shep in Liara/Shep blue petrol. While Trelli strikes the match, cackling).

What are your thoughts about Kasumi Goto, guys? I'd like to get your thoughts on her character. Story or even canon-wise.

I'm not well versed in how she was received in the fandom of ME but I have a soft spot for her. How can I not when she's a sneaky, killy ninja-chan?

That's a bit concerning. She's obviously not a spectacular combatant but I'm holding my thumbs for Kasumi and hope she doesn't get horribly injured and avoids any unfortunate cybernetic corrections in the Premiverse.

Anyhow, cool chapter and I'm glad Shep's on board with TIM.

 

Here is my issue, I guess, with Kasumi: I like her voice but the Japanese words annoy the fuck out of me, and it's honestly simply because it's Japanese. Not because I hate the language but a gazillion badfics have conditioned me to nope the fuck out of a story that had arbitrary Japanese words inserted into it.

I get why she uses them, and they do work, in a way. Spanish speaking crewmembers in the canon game threw in a few words here and there, and a few non native speakers to throw in a few words of their main language from time to time. And honestly, if it was Italian, French, Arabic, Turkish, Swahili, Inuit whatever, I probably wouldn't mind.

But Japanese has been overused and abused in fanfiction so much, I did not joke when I said I have been conditioned to react negatively to it by now. So, her saying taichou and kaasan and whatnot just, argh.

But that's just for me.

 

Yeah, I kind of get what you're getting at. I had the same problem a few years back... It went beyond pet peeve and infuriated me more than was reasonably healthy to get worked over by fan fiction. I literally felt like gnashing my teeth as I hit the big red button and X the story.

Surprisingly, it went away on its own and I could once again enjoy a fic with Japanese words sprinkled here and there. I blame all the naruto fiction I read years ago where every second word seemed to be Japanese.