OK, people. Brace yourself for another wall of text. Here's....
The Miranda Lawson FAQPart I: the most frequently asked question:Why do you like Miranda?There are many different reasons why people like Miranda. Here are some of them. Note that the reasons for liking her as a character may differ from those for being attracted to her for a romance. I've tried to put the list in a descending order of importance, but there is some disagreement about the order, except for (1), which seems to be universal consensus among her fans.
(1)
She’s an independently powerful and competent woman who can deal with her problems – professional or emotional – on her own (note: that doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate help). She’s the only female LI character who plays in the same league as Shepard. That makes her a perfect companion for him.
(2)
She’s morally ambiguous. Black and white types tend to be predictable – and thus, often less interesting than those with grey morality. Her mental flexibility also means that she adapts better to situations where conventional morality just doesn't apply.
(3)
She’s emotionally detached... - enough to be fascinating and refreshing, but not so much as to be unlikeable. All too often women in fiction are represented as more or less defined by their emotions. Miranda breaks that pattern. She can be professional; she can be coldly detached or coolly unmovable. She can also be emotional, but she’s not restricted to that.
(4)
...but does warm up to those she respects and trusts. Trust and (professional) respect are interwoven in her relationship to you. Once you've gained them, she becomes more open with you, and you know that's something special.
(5)
She’s a “spy with superpowers”. This combination of power and mystery is irresistible to many of her fans.
(6)
She's a woman, not a girl. Her grown-up and balanced personality attracts many fans.
(7)
She's unapologetically sexual - and not presented as a sl*t because of it (forget the ass shots and pay attention to her behavior if you don't believe it). That's refreshing because more conventional stories like to paint a woman who enjoys sex - to say nothing of sex in engine rooms - in a more negative light.
(8)
She's human. For those who find interspecies romance unconvincing, that’s an important aspect if you want to romance her.
(9)
She’s engineered to be perfect. That makes her special in a way you cannot acquire by learning or even character development. While for some, that’s a point of attraction in itself, if you’re a transhumanist you might also be thrilled by the fact that she might be – dare I say it – the genetic destiny of humanity.
(10)
She’s beautiful. This point is not as minor as people might want to make themselves believe. It’s not a necessary condition for liking her, but Miranda would be a different character if she were ugly. If you think she's not beautiful, look at these screenshots:
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pic3Part II: Miranda’s creation and historyWhat exactly does Miranda mean when she says her father “created” her?Miranda says most of her genetic material was taken from her father’s, and then altered with material from various sources. This sounds like a “standard” genetic engineering technique, similar to what today's scientists already do with bacteria and plants. Since Miranda did have a childhood, we can conclude he created her genome but had her grown normally, either in a surrogate mother or an artificial womb. After she was born, most likely he kept tight control over her life, in order to make her exactly what he wanted her to become.
(For those who might misunderstand the term “create”: a genome is not a blueprint and you can’t “build” a human from one like a machine. Instead, the genome controls the growth process. Any technology for “constructing” an adult human (or an individual of any other organic species) would count as a technological miracle. There is no indication that anyone has such technology, possibly with the exception of the Reapers)
I’m confused about Miranda’s age. How old is she?The Mass Effect website says Miranda is 35. From in-game sources, we can conclude she is between 32 and 38: Miranda says she was a teenager when her father grew Oriana. Taking that literally, Miranda was between 13 and 19 then. Oriana is 19 when we meet her. So Miranda must be between 19+13 (32) and 19+19 (38).
Miranda says she’ll live half again as long as a normal human. Shouldn’t she look like 24 then?Aging and growing up are separate processes. You start to age when you are grown up. If you’re grown up at 20, and you age at 67% of the normal rate, then you’ll look like 30 when you are really 35, or more generally: if you’re grown up and your real age is X, you will look like 20 + 0.67*(X-20). Since how a grown-up human looks at a certain age varies somewhat, independently of his of her life expectancy, the difference between a normal human and Miranda will probably not become obvious until she’s considerably older.
(Note: while asari do have a longer phase of growing up than humans, that does not mean that humans would follow that pattern even if they had a similar lifespan. Growing-up and aging are separate processes.)
If Miranda is 35 in ME2, she can’t have been exposed to eezo before birth. So how did she become a biotic?The easy answer: the Mass Effect timeline, from 2148 onward, is a complete mess anyway and has a number of very implausible consequences. Don’t take the time scale seriously. Just ignore it.
For an in-world rationalization: Assuming that eezo was discovered with the Prothean cache on Mars in 2148, she could have been accidentally exposed before birth, before the first publicly known eezo accidents. But it is doubtful that Miranda’s father would have risked exposure of her to anything that could adversely affect her perceived perfection. And since eezo’s effects on human children were not known until 2156, he couldn’t have done it on purpose. So how did she become a biotic? The Codex mentions that some krogan can become biotics through surgery. A possible scenario is that Miranda’s father tried a similar procedure on Miranda after first contact. Biotic implants have to be implanted before puberty for best effect, so there would have been a window of about three years for this experimental surgery.
Is Miranda's father the Shadow Broker?This formerly strangely popular hypothesis has been disproven by the DLC "Lair of the Shadow Broker".
Is "Miranda Lawson" Miranda's real name?Niket calls Miranda "Miri", so "Miranda" is almost certainly her real first name. As for her surname, the most plausible assumption is that "Lawson" is a cover name, since it would be stupid to use one's own real name when working for a secret organization
and on the run from one's own very rich and well-connected father. However, Bioware could have used lore/gameplay segregation and given us Miranda's real name to avoid confusion should they decide to reveal more about her father in future.
What exactly did Miranda's father do that made her run away?There is no tangible information about this, but there are facts we can construct a plausible scenario from: we know that Miranda found *something* so unbearable that she not only ran away from a materially comfortable life using force of arms against those who'd prevent her, but took away Oriana to save her from the same fate. The question is: what is this "something". From Miranda's conversations, we know that her father was extremely demanding and controlling and didn't want her to have any friends (possibly because he didn't want her influenced by factors he didn't control). We also know he disposed of his earlier daughters in some way, although the exact manner remains unknown.
So a plausible scenario is that Miranda, already dissatisfied by the strict control her father imposed on her life and her lack of friends, one day found out what had happened with her older sisters and decided she didn't want to share their fate. Hypotheses about exactly which fate that was include that their father had them killed or institutionalized as mentally ill. It is unclear if she confronted her father about this, but his security guard tried to prevent her from leaving. Instead, Miranda shot some of them and got away. It seems likely that Oriana was grown in response to these events.
Another possibility is that her father set Miranda up for some kind of emotional or physical trauma in order to trigger her biotics, and Miranda found out about his involvement. This is plausible because he had ties with Cerberus and supported their agenda, and Cerberus is known to have used this to trigger biotic powers.
Part III: Common misperceptions and criticismsShe was rude to me at the first meeting. Why should I give her a second chance?She wasn’t actually rude. She wanted to keep her distance. In real life, asking about personal details in an inappropriate situation might come across as intrusive or at least impolite. As this is a game, we do not expect allies to not fall at our feet and tell us everything about themselves the first chance they get. Miranda does not follow that pattern, she is emotionally detached and wants the relationship with Shepard to stay professional. She stays that way for some time, and there are many fans who like her more for it, not less. She does open up more to those she comes to trust. In time.
Miranda works for Cerberus. I hate Cerberus. How can I ever romance someone like that?There is more to Miranda than the Cerberus agent. Yes, her perception of Cerberus is somewhat selective. It’s a character flaw. Other ME2 characters have these, too. Miranda will come to trust you if you do her loyalty mission, she’ll come to like you if you let her, regardless of her affiliation with Cerberus. You can choose to return that trust. Or not. If you hate Cerberus, that will remain a sore spot between you. You'll have to sort it out. Or not. It’s one of the difficulties your relationship has to overcome. Things are not hopeless: while Miranda will continue to believe in Cerberus' stated goals of the "preservation and advancement of humanity", her loyalty to TIM is not set in stone. And it seems she really doesn't know - or doesn't want to know (yet) - what he's capable of.
What’s this with the camera always focusing on her behind?You don’t like that excessive focus that turns her into a sex object? Then you’re in agreement with most of the regulars on the Miranda thread. However, that’s the camera man’s fault, not Miranda’s. She is interesting regardless of which part of her the camera man loves best. There’s more to her than her “assets”. Forget the camera angles and listen to the dialogue, and you’ll discover that for yourself. Or appreciate the camera angles, but don’t let them deceive you into believing that’s all there is to Miranda.
Why did she select the engine room?To be plain: Bioware probably selected the engine room for her because they thought it was cool. Obviously, that misfired – the engine room scene is controversial even among her fans. To answer the common “exhibitionism” claim: in spite of various manipulated pictures flying around the forums the place where Miranda and Shepard meet cannot be seen by anyone on the Normandy with the exception of Tali, who was relocated for that scene. For the common "rub it in my rivals face" claim: see above, and depending on how you play your Shepard, she might not have rivals. Both these claims are pure invention by people with a knee-jerk dislike of her. Apart from that, there are a number of in-world rationalizations for Miranda’s decision to use the engine room, for instance that she selected it because it was neutral territory, that a meeting in her or Shepard’s room would give it a power imbalance, or that it's the only unbugged place of the ship.
Isn't her romance just a fling, not much better than a one-night-stand? Judging from Miranda's behaviour, she considers it a rather serious matter. She's emotionally detached and wary of emotional entanglements as a rule. But in her romance scenes, it becomes very clear that she does open up to Shepard emotionally. That's something special for her. And to remove all doubt: "So don't die! You promise me, damn it!" - you don't say this to someone you don't care for beyond one night.
Part IV: Miranda's infertilityIs Miranda really infertile? Where do we get that information?The information comes from a dossier in the DLC "Lair of the Shadow Broker". The dossier contains, among other things, a copy of a mail message Miranda gets from a doctor, informing her that a "benign neoplasm […] renders [her] progressively unable to conceive a child". Due to the inconsistent content and phrasing, that message is widely open to interpretation. There are two distinct possibilities:
(I) The whole dossier, with the exception of the chat between her and Oriana, is phrased so over-the-top silly, inconsistent within itself and with the level of technology we see throughout the game that it can only be interpreted as satirical. Ignore it.
(II) In spite of the inconsistencies, the dossier has to be taken seriously. It we take it seriously, then the inconsistencies have to be resolved. See the other questions in this section for that. If taken seriously, Miranda's situation seems best described by the following statements:
(II-1) At the end of Mass Effect 2, Miranda is unable to have children naturally, i.e. to conceive a child by having sex, to become pregnant and to give birth.
(II-2) 22nd century reproductive medicine can create a child that is biologically of her and whoever she wants to be the father (i.e. Shepard). That child would be indistinguishable from one conceived naturally. Depending on the kind of infertility, the process is more or less complicated.
(II-3) The difference between (1) and (2) matters to Miranda emotionally, because it is another part of normal human life denied her.
If Miranda is infertile, is that infertility curable?I take "curable" to mean reverse her condition so that she will be able to conceive and carry a child to term naturally. See the next question for circumventing the problem.
Opinions on this also vary widely. The description of her medical condition ("
benign neoplasm") suggests it is easily curable, the doctor's recommendation for adoption as a "solution" suggests it is not. The phrasing "progressive damage renders you unable to conceive a child" is also open to the interpretation "She isn't yet completely infertile, and a medical intervention can still prevent it from becoming irreversible". It also tells us she is "unable to conceive", which may mean she can still carry a child to term.
If Miranda's infertility is not curable, aren't there still ways she can have a child? Yes. The doctor's recommendation of adoption as the "solution" presented in preference of any other is not believable. There are the following non-exclusive options:
(1) If Miranda's egg cells are damaged, new eggs would have to be created by artificial gametogenesis. Artificial gametogenesis is the process of being researched by present-day biologists (though not yet for humans. Also see
this paper on artificial gametogenesis), so it's plausible to assume 22nd century medicine can do it. This would also be consistent with the general level of biotechology present in the ME universe, especially considering the way Miranda's own genetic template was made.
(2) If Miranda cannot conceive, i.e. the sperm cannot reach the egg, fertilization can be done in-vitro. In-vitro fertilization is a routine procedure in present-day reproductive medicine.
(3) If Miranda cannot become pregnant, i.e. not carry a child to term, either a surrogate mother or an artificial womb is required to circumvent the problem. Given Okeer's research, it seems plausible that artificial wombs exist in the ME universe, though they may be cutting-edge technology. Surrogate mothers are always possible, but pose the question of whether the true mother of the child isn't the one who carries it to term.
(4) If Miranda's condition is genetic, genetic engineering should be able to repair the condition in her eggs, so that her children will become fully functional humans. (1) to (3) still applies.
(5) Miranda could also have children using a process similar to the one that created herself. This would likely include all of the above, and she would not necessarily need a partner.
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Any more questions that need to be answered? Alternative answers? Correction of mistakes? Anything else?
Modifié par Ieldra2, 23 septembre 2010 - 08:30 .
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I just think Miri being TIW sounds sexy and cool 
how do you get this one?
