Sympathise with this post entirely.

I also cringed a bit ... eh, cringed a lot when I kept reading the little pieces of Japanese thrown in. Reminiscent of far too many misadventures in fanfiction I read in my younger days.

Mordin's voice was brilliant though, nailed that sweet spot dead on.

 

New chapter currently being beta read.

 

New chapter is out.

Petition to name Team Butcher, Zaeed, Jack and Grunt into Team Fuck You.

 

New chapter almost done, and undergoing final polish.
Nemrut: LogicalPremise asked to tell you that Team Fuck You is a go and will feature in the fic. Congrats, man.

We don't get to see much of Shepard and Revenant gang but Garrus and his team are making alien salsa on Omega. Place must be stinking worse than a butcher's shop by now.

Oh yeah, Aethyta makes a cameo. Only a few lines between her and Aria but goddammit you just can't help but despise the Queen Matriarch of Asari. The broad makes Game of Thrones look tame with her scheming. Talk about being five steps ahead of her enemies and rivals. I wonder if Benezia ever cottoned to it? And that part about Uressa T'Shora made me only more curious about her endgame.

 

I am humbled and grateful.

Well, seems like the Red Wedding is a normal, if not tame wedding on Omega. Looking forward to see what harmless shenanigans those loveable rapscallions are up to.

Edit: Having read the chapter, I have to say, I squeed a bit when I saw Team Fuck You mentioned, thanks LP.

As to the chapter itself, yeah, it was appropriately titled. Not a good day to be in a gang on Omega. They have a surprising amount of tech people, though.

 

As a random snippet that may not make it into the main story (a DLP Exclusive of Sorts)

Aria was in a pretty involved, deep relationship with Nyreen Kandos, who was in some trouble with the Hierarchy. As a love-gift, the suit of SKYTALON armor that Garrus uses as Archangel was custom commissioned by her once she saw some troops of the Shifter use them.

Unfortunately, by the time the order was ready, the Burning had commenced, and some of Aria's more brutal acts during that time soured Nyreen on her. Didn't help that Nyreen was having other issues and that Aria herself, since she trusted no one else, relied heavily on her as a sort of crutch and support.

Aria made an attempt at changing how she acted, but Nyreen ended up leaving anyway. Angry, frustrated, hurt and bewildered, Aria tried to stop her, ending up in a battle -- a battle that spilled over into a fire-team being sent out after the fact to prevent Nyreen from escaping Omega, as she knew too many of Aria's secrets.

One side effect of this is that an overzealous servant (Bray's nephew) put out a hit on the merchant that was bringing the completed gift for Nyreen, by letting Nyreen know about the suit and setting a trap. The trap blew up, the merchant was killed, his ship crashed, and the servant covered the whole thing up to prevent Aria from finding out and killing him.

His deletion of information was lucky, as it not only removed the records of the merchant's gift but his warehouse as well. And thus it could be said the rise of Archangel, made possible by the suit designed for Nyreen, was all done by the hand of Aria.

Irony is truly an evil bitch, no? Once Aria finally got a very good look at the suit she realized what had happened, and eventually tumbled to the hapless nephew, who is now a nicely trimmed foot rug in her study.

As for Nyreen...she will definitely show up again.

 

For anyone interested, I just put up a guide to ME technology as well.

 

So I'm all caught up on this shit (glad LP is getting some control on his medical issues. shit sucks)

And all I'm wanting is a meetup between Grunt and Ahern. Some 1v1 shit, and by extension of that, some Grunt getting BTFO, and some Grunt learning. And evolving. And becoming fucking terrifying. If the endgame of Shepard vs Tetrimus doesn't end with Shepard's thumbs up approval to Execution-via-Grunt (I want this to become a thing now) taking hold of his legs and his torso, then pulling and laughing, all the while while Archangel is sitting on the broken ass bleeding form of Tazzik, I might just shake my head in disapproval.

My prototype Wrex will always be the earthbender version of Wrex from that Avatar/Mass Effect series. He was the GOAT.

I can't wait to see Grunt surpass that in this story.

 

New chapter and I don't know about you guys, but I need a cigarette.

 

Truly was a helluva chase scene. I have to say I didn't see

Spoiler

Shift

dying like a bitch, after all the hype, but such is life.

This upcoming angstrofuck on Ilium with Tel and Liara is going to be physically painful.

 

I liked that, it's good to know that even being a level 20 epic hero doesn't protect you from point blank annihilation if it catches you off guard.

I mean, yeah, an epic one on one fight is always cool but we have a lot of those already. knowing that they aren't all demigods who can wander into every situation and walk out again is pretty satisfying.

 

So, wanted to talk a bit about a few characters and thoughts I had.

One would be Anderson. On one hand, he clearly cares about Shepard. He has shown to not have his emotions under total control, like with Saren and the Council and I really doubt he can fake concern, love and affection well enough to fool people like Liara's father. Then there is his "arrest", him being detained in an asylum for losing his shit after Shepard died. Clearly, not the actions of someone who only sees Shepard as a tool.

On the other, we have more than a few mentions on how he seemingly has strong ties to Cerberus, how his initial meeting with Shepard was contrived and reeked with manipulation and how he took to great lengths to make sure Shepard stayed a specific, angry, broken way throughout her career.

Now, it seems that connection is more from the previous Cerberus, before it went completely off the rails but I guess there is a whole program. We know that the SA (or any race, really) have no real qualms about anything and morality is something that people have heard off but don't see the point of it. So, that makes me think, how much of Shepard's life was planned?

Ahern, in the second story, does wonder if Shepard was crafted into a super soldier. At first glance, it does seem to be a bit ...dumb. That's some Aizen level shit right there, to believe that Shepard's whole life has been planned, especially seeing that she could have, very easily, have died at any point, seeing that I doubt she had shadowed snipers and biotics looking over her shoulder. At any given situation in her fucked up childhood, in her service, in her training, heck, whenever, she could have died, been injured or broken too much to be of any real use.

That's impossible to plan for, to create one perfect soldier, have them be exposed to eezo during their time in the womb and have them go through a traumatic childhood in order to be a good, a very specific kind of good, soldier.

I don't think that happened here. I think there was a whole program or two, with maybe hundreds or thousands of kids like Shepard. Spread across the slums of earth and other primary colonies, probably half exposed to eezo, other half not, have them live through similar circumstances.

I believe there is a program, and not simply exploiting promising candidates that rise up in places like that, because a) how else would Anderson have gotten wind of her? She was a not that impressive street rat, no way did she catch anyone's eye. Cerberus/SA is too busy to have eyes on a low level gang and take notice of a ten year old girl who is marginally good at killing. So are thousands of kids. Rather, they had someone periodically check up on those kids and were looking for signs of greatness and Shepard showed them and then they pushed Anderson there.

The other is, well genetics and asskicking are closer related in the LP Mass Effect verse. The 30 are objectively better at the whole biotics thing, Liara, with relatively little training, is kicking everyone's ass at it, simply by virtue of having two of the strongest Asari biotics as parents. Ahern's daughter was by all accounts a certified badass who may have caught up on her old man had she lived and I'm tempted to think that her outpost was targeted because of her, to not have a second Ahern run around. Explains why a no name outpost was severely overrun like that. You can always argue about nature vs nurture and while both are important, I think in ME, nature might be more important than it is let on. Garrus is a badass, like his father before him him, Wrex's father and grandfather were conquerors and his son somehow had the charisma to make everyone like him, whether it was crazy ancient Asari or former human enemies.

Heck, Kyle has a daughter named Valerie Kyle affectionately named The Little Butcher.

Miranda, Grunt, various experiments, we have ample proof how people want to exploit that genetic something that makes some people better at some stuff, preferably fighting. One big exception I see is Sarachino whose son seems to be trash but that's more on his character as a person rather than his actual abilities, but exceptions do happen.

So, where I was going with is this, I kinda doubt that Shepard, if planned, was actually the daughter of two no-name alliance mooks. Of if she was, her genetic makeup was altered before her birth. Her mother, was probably controlled with her substance abuse and worked on by Cerberus/SA scientists. And I believe that Shepard was just one among many, that countless children were treated that way and that Shepard was one of the few who managed to claw their way into success. Another one could be the Commissar Susan, who had a similar past. It might be that these children are more malleable in terms of cybernetic and genetic manipulation, among under things, and this is why al those Commissar alterations and the revival were possible in the first place.

And I think Shepard's family tree will be of some importance further along the line. We have been told in her file that she has a younger sibling who was whisked away and they will surely pop up at some point. Whether as that clone of Shepard in ME3, I don't know. If anything, I had expected them to roll out Shepard 2 during Shepard's disappearance but that probably just means someone infiltrated the program and stole the second Shepard child. Probably an alien institution or some really deviant portion of Cerberus. Heck, for all we know, TIM and Miranda caught that kid and used them as an organ farm for Shepard's recovery but I think Miranda would have mentioned that in her inner dialogue.

And we will probably see some soldiers from the same program as Shepard, where the SA countered the one in million odds by throwing a million children out and hoped that one or two of them did as planned.

So, yeah, some of the things were captain obvious stuff, some a bit farfetched. Sorry for the rambling.

 

I'll just also add that Anderson obviously messed something up and did so in a spectacular manner:

Before the FCW, at the inception of SA Special Forces program David Anderson is a lieutenant while Rachel Florez a corporal and that after being knocked down in rank after one offense or another. Please note that this wasn't the first time she had been busted down in rank. (Lions in blue and silver)

In 2176, Anderson is a lieutenant commander while Florez is a full colonel. See the difference? Whatever he did he got blackaballed and kept down. It could be his Spectre assessment going south or a number of other reasons. It could be his failure with Shepard, anything really. Fact is that he did something 'wrong' along the way.

I don't know what rank Ahern was at the time, but he, unlike Anderson, completed his mission. But from what I remember he told the SA to get bent about him being a Spectre. Seeing as he saved Thana's life during that mission I'm positive that if he really wanted he could have been a Spectre but chose not to.

I don't know if you're on to something about DNA, 'famous' ancestors, or figures of note playing a part in who becomes who in Premiverse, Nemrut.

By all accounts Michael Saracino was a simple guy who found his zen blowing off heads with a rifle. And sleeping with Florez. The fact that their kid ended up being a piece of scum... Well, things like that happen all the time, I'm sorry to say. The "she/he was such a nice neighbor/guy/fellow" until he ax murdered someone just happens and every time it does people still act surprised and can't believe it actually did. Saracino Jr. could have been such a case.

As for Liara, she's such a badass biotic because she's almost an ardat-yakshi. Yeah, Benezia and Aethyta dodged a bullet there with their kid by a hairbreadth. That gave her biotics a serious boost, and that's beside the fact that the Thirty are genetically engineered to be superior to the rest of the asari.

Then we have human nobles which are a mess and a bit of a circus all things said. Check the Order of Battle section, a lot of them are financial/bankers jockeys and not real aristocracy.

I think the message in the story is: you are what you make of yourself.

Point in case: Sara(gutter rat, exploitation, victim), Miranda(test run), Liara(pureblood asari and a Thrity to boot), Rachel(3rd generation prostitute), Tali(spoiled kid), Master Chief Cole(shitty parents), Joker!!!(debilitating condition), Kyle(a follower, genius yes, but a follower).

How did they end:
Sara - first human Spectre. Nobility. The best N7 - according to the scores she achieved.

Miranda - techno necromancer, TIM willed Cerberus to her in case he bought it during Benedict, XO of the Revenant cell.

Liara - PhD, scientist, officer in the SA, Counter-Intelligence, assassin and terrorist.

Rachel - Solguard, Special Forces, SA general, one of the three heads of Cerberus.

Tali - officer, combatant and she got the scars and prosthetics to prove that.

Cole - First Shirt aboard the ship commanded by the first human Spectre.

Joker - the best pilot in the SA navy(tm).

Kyle - Solguard, SF, officer, noble, legend, 'traitor'.

 

It's not all what you need, of course. Willpower, ambition, hard work, training, dedication, luck and many other things also play a role, but many of the MVPs so far also have family members who are similar in strength or at least in potential.

I mean, in that list of yours alone, the only person standing on their own, really, are Rachel and Joker. And even there, we just don't know yet. Everyone else has family members who are either important or had been badass in their own right.

Heck, even Cole, who, relatively speaking, was a small fish, has a son following his footsteps with similar potential.

Kyle's two sons come up a lot, and Kyle even hinting that the death of his sons was planned in some way. Why? To get at Kyle? Or to cut off a potential enemy while they were still young? What about little Butcher, his daughter?

Saracino was part of an elite unit and apparently one of the best snipers ever born. now, he might have been just that, completely unremarkable in other areas and just excellent in one, similar to Joker in that regard, but hey, who knows?

And really, the mother of his son was Rachel? Missed that.

It does seem to me, you need some specific, vague genetic potential to succeed. It's not all you, need, of course, and having that doesn't guarantee anything, but if you want to play in the big leagues, you kinda seem to need that and various agencies, institutions and factions do mess with genetics a lot.

Wouldn't be surprised if the Insunnon or a race like that spread some genetic markers through the lesser races so they could have a better chance against Reapers. Long term planning like that, messing with others against their will, does seem par for the course with them.

Actually, could go the either way as well. They know the Reapers "absorb" other races, they could have manipulated genes so, that ages later, once they are absorbed, that that harms the Reaper network and consciousness somehow. Lot's of angles to play with. Would say that fits, tbh. This way, it's clear why they couldn't do it to themselves, changing the genetic make-up of a species takes too long so, they couldn't do that with themselves or the other active races, they don't necessarily care about the later coming species to win as much as they want to make sure that the Reapers lose. Think they would be fine with sacrificing everyone else.

All wild, baseless speculation, of course.

 

Dude, that is a Thing in the Premiverse. You have that flat out stated pretty much, and in some cases not so in your face but it's there.

You're hitting a lot of nails.

Check LP's website and the forum in particular(Speculation thread).

A lot of that info is strewn throughout the story and addenda files, pointing that at one point or another almost all species had been messed with. That's a theme.

EDIT:

To a point you're right about lineage, ancestors in the case of the SIX and the Thirty. Less so about the turians - yes, they're a bunch on clanish murder machines but the Hierarchy is a functional meritocracy and nepotism is a bad, bad, scary thing. Turians have something akin to group responsibility in the case of societal/military promotions. That there are a lot of hoops to jump is one thing, but if a turian gets promoted and then they fucks up the senior officers who signed under the promotion are in trouble and pretty much everyone else they promoted gets investigated.

Quarians have to work their ass off the prove they're worthy(can contribute to the Fleet) and competent. Tali actually thought that Joker would be a good 'tribute' she could bring back to the Flotilla at the end of her pilgrimage. ^_^

 

Thanks, will check it out.

Ah, but those are social issues, not genetic ones. It just means their social structure places no specific worth on special families (although we know that's not completely true), not that they don't have those genetic traits in some families.

 

But for example social issues(privilege, preferential treatment, initial startup point) are tied up into being a member of the Thirty, Clans, Clanless(for asari) and being one is very much a hereditary, lineage based result.

You don't get more DNA-special-snowflake than being one of the Thirty and that translates into a plethora of advantages, one of which is social station and your startup position within it.

Like we have ab-humans in WH40k: ratlings, navigators, ogryns and so on.

We have ab-asari in Premiverse: uber-blue in this case, the Thrity.

The genetics/social stratification relationship isn't so clear-cut in the Turian Hierarchy unless you're a Palavanus or the other freaky turian bloodline.

Beyond the Palavanus family it hasn't been mentioned once as far as I can remember. And they are the exception, as in lineage results in social placement.

But like the Thirty and the SIX, Palavanus are different.

You mentioned Kyle's children, Ahern's daughter earlier.

I think we must make a clear distinction between:
a) following in your parents' footsteps.
b) genetic potential passed down the line, giving an individual clear predispositions towards one field or another.

I think in the case of Kyle's children and Ahern's daughter we're dealing mostly with: a.

They wanted to be like their parent/parents. They probably thought(b) that since their folks were such badasses they will be too(again, b), or at least have the potential to be ones(b).

 

The thing is, we can't really tell since they are both as likely.

It could be that Ahern and Kyle are just exceptional individuals, and have normal children who pushed themselves because of their fathers. On the other hand, Kyle's biotic son's are dead, Ahern's talented soldier daughter is dead, Kyle's living daughter is an N7 marine making a good Shepard impression and Ahern has a niece of which he said that she will follow his footsteps and I don't think he meant that she will just join the marines.

So, did they think they were as good as their parents but obviously weren't since they died, or did some people see what Ahern and Kyle potential could do once fully realized and wanted to stop the SA from getting other such soldiers.

We have examples of bloodline purges, if I can use that term. We have the fall and categorical dismissal of the Williams family. Several members of them sacrificed themselves for the restoration of their family name in vain, and apparently did so in pretty great manner. Ashley is often named to be an exceptional soldier. I mean, Kaiden is a biotic, so that makes him stand out more but whenever they were mentioned, Kaiden was often described as okay, a normal, capable, good soldier whereas Ashley was lauded. Then again, we also know that nobles can be petty, pure and simple.

Then we have the Urdnot clan, which was often targeted by Okeer. Killed the father of Wrex, had his son killed and then lastly, could have killed Wrex if he wasn't so sadistic. I can get killing the father, I can get the hatred on Wrex but Wrex's son? That does seem to me to be about making sure that genetic line does not flare up to ruin his plans. Then again, it's just as likely that it is pure politics there, since Clan Urdnot is the other big leadership clan.

Asari are big on this, since they blame the sins of the parent on the child. I could see them trying to purge the main T'sioni line, and they did try, they did want to go after Liara, although there was more talk on the political aspects. Then again, politics and tradition explain this as well but it may be seeped in something like this.

None of this is proof or anything, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to interpret it like this.

I don't think there is a special snowflake gene per se, but I do think there is ancient alien manipulation at work that rears its head from time to time in some families, a few of those in leadership/monarch/nobility positions, most of them not.

 

Nemrut: Did you read A season of sorrows unending -- the Cerberus Files : Citadel Races ?

 

I think I skimmed through some half a year ago but not fully yet. I probably should before speculating like this xD