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Mass Effect: Deception Discussion Thread (Updated 2/2/2012) *Now with 30% more links!*


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#11301
roflchoppaz

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Relix28 wrote...

I see everything is well in here. Still no response from Bioware, huh?


Dunno if ye seen it, but we caught Penny Arcade's attention, there's a comic about Deception out.

#11302
Priisus

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roflchoppaz wrote...

Priisus wrote...

Ok what's the deal with the toothbrush though? Does it involve Kai Leng again?


Yep, Kai Leng kills Gillian with a sharpened toothbrush.

^_^


Somebody really need to put the Kai Leng meme sig on the OP because I totally want to put one right now <_<

#11303
Arcadian Legend

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So anything from BW yet? I saw the Penny Arcade strip.

EDIT

Nope. >.>

Modifié par Arcadian Legend, 03 février 2012 - 02:07 .


#11304
CroGamer002

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Never mind.

Modifié par Mesina2, 03 février 2012 - 02:08 .


#11305
RiflemanUK

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Nothing from Biowhere (hurr)

#11306
nitefyre410

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Arcadian Legend wrote...

So anything from BW yet? I saw the Penny Arcade strip.

EDIT

Nope. >.>

 


if  we have Penny Arcade strip this bodes well - they  will taking notice. 

#11307
LGTX

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I thought we were avoiding spoilers here?

...

Not that I care. I had the ending spoiled by a forumite, and it was no doubt infinitely better worded than in the book. :D

#11308
roflchoppaz

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LGTX wrote...

I thought we were avoiding spoilers here?

...

Not that I care. I had the ending spoiled by a forumite, and it was no doubt infinitely better worded than in the book. :D


Exactly.
Nobody cares.

That's why I believe spoilers are ay-okay.

#11309
ElitePinecone

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LGTX wrote...

I thought we were avoiding spoilers here?

...

Not that I care. I had the ending spoiled by a forumite, and it was no doubt infinitely better worded than in the book. :D


People started posting spoilers after the book's official launch, especially since it was very cumbersome to individually PM each person who asked about the ending. 

I'm sure the wiki will have the other half of the plot summary up soonish, there was one there based on the excerpts but it obviously wasn't complete. 

#11310
Eski.Moe

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It's ok tho.
Kahlee has 5 Dragon Balls. She only needs to get two more which are in Barla Von's (the Asari that Nick was getting all bothered in his sleep about) possession. Then she can wish Gillian, Hendel and Nick back to life! :)

#11311
Someone With Mass

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LPPrince wrote...

62 of 65 found this review helpful-

jnie8412 wrote...

Although I'm a fan of science fiction and a huge fan of the Mass Effect video games, I honestly had no plans of checking out the novel Deception, but then I started to read news from others on the BioWare forums that the novel blatantly (and in some cases, horribly) altered and changed elements from the Mass Effect series canon. Hearing those reports, I decided to take a look for myself and read it... this novel is bad - it is wretchedly, horribly bad and for far more reasons that just canonical errors to the lore of Mass Effect.

For someone unfamiliar with Mass Effect, many of the major canonical issues brought up by Deception to the series lore might fly over your head (like how the alien race of the quarians are suppose to be wearing environmentally-sealed suits or why a human wouldn't be allowed on the batarian home-world of Khar'Shan), but the sheer number of errors to the series on display in this novel is simply staggering and suggest a complete lack of research and/or understanding on the author's part for the universe that he was writing for. The errors to canon even extend to the previous three novels Revelation, Ascension, and Retribution: characters ages are rewritten for no reason (Gillian and Nick, who should be 15-16 by the correct ME timeline, are now 18), a character described as a hardened racist and xenophobe in the previous novel now openly flirts with alien women, and a character previously killed off in the novel Ascension has been magically brought back to life in Deception (only to get unceremoniously killed off shortly after he's reintroduced, I might add).

Two of the most egregious example of poor canon inconsistencies and downright offensive "retconing" displayed in Deception comes in the form of two of the novel's main characters, Gillian Grayson and Hendel Mitra (two character which we haven't even seen since the novel Ascension):
In Ascension, a crucial defining character trait of the character Gillian was that she suffered from a severe case of "high-functioning" autism, which made normal social interactions with most of the other characters next to impossible. Well, not so, according to Deception - in this novel, Gillian behaves and thinks like a perfectly normal girl, with the only explanations by the author for her complete lack of autism was that she previously was a very angry "unstable 12 year old" and that she simply "outgrew it"... to me, that is one of the worst recons I've seen in any media in ages and is completely offensive to those individuals who do suffer from autism in real life to state that a person could simply "outgrow it" like its a case of the Terrible Twos or something. Things aren't any better for the Hendel character, who up until this point was the Mass Effect series only established homosexual male character - thanks to Deception, though, the character has now been completely rewritten into a straight heterosexual man, even going so far as to "oogle" women and female aliens with the other main character (pretty sure that human sexuality doesn't work like that, Mr. Dietz...).

All of these problems with the plot, the characters, the lore inconsistencies, etc., all of those things would have been somewhat easier to swallow all down if the novel has actually been written reasonably well... which it isn't, not by a long shot. I have not read any of Mr. Dietz's previous works, but I honestly have no desire to do so after this novel, because the writing skill displayed by its author is so amateurish and poorly constructed, you would have thought it was written by a middle school student for his English Lit. class. The book's prose never goes any higher than an 8th grade comprehension level, exposition is constantly delivered in the simplest of terms to the reader, characters reactions and emotions are surprisingly muted and schizophrenic as the novel jumps from one scene to another, elements from other fictional works are slap-dashingly ripped off and inserted into the plot... it's all just a great big mess. Honestly, as someone who has been reading novels for nearly his entire life and who greatly values the art of writing, Deception is truly one of the worst written works of fiction that I've read in well over a decade.

And now I reach what I view as the principle, primary flaw of Deception - an issue that I truly can not overlook whatsoever:

**SPOILERS!**

How completely worthless is this novel when the entire plot contained within is MEANINGLESS? The only major outcome that occurs in Deception is that the three characters previously created in the novel Ascension - Gillian, Hendel, and Nick - are all randomly killed off at the very end for no other purpose other than to erase their existence from the Mass Effect universe. Other than that, nothing matters in this novel to the plot of the Mass Effect series, NOTHING - Anderson and Kahlee make no progress into investigating either Cerberus or the Reapers, the Council still actively dismisses the existence of the Reapers, there is no mention of the events of Arrival or the escalating tensions between the Alliance and the batarians over it, there is no active effort by Cerberus into any of their secret projects... none of the characters grow or evolve, none of the conflicts previously established in other Mass Effect media are resolved, nothing is any different for the Mass Effect universe or its characters from the beginning of this novel to its end, not a single darn thing...

This is no "lead-in" to the Mass Effect 3 video game, as some of the game developers previously claimed... there's nothing for it to lead to anywhere! It's utterly pointless, a waste of the trees used to make the paper to print this worthless book and a waste of the time and energy of anyone who bothers to read through it from start to finish.

If you're a fan of science fiction, there is literally an infinite selection of better novels out there that are worth your time.
If you're a fan of Mass Effect and its lore... just wipe this stain clean from your mind and pretend that it never existed.


Quoted for the truth.

It's not even funny how little was accomplished in Deception. If it was meant to lead to ME3, then how come it has absolutely nothing to do with the games and has no builup? You can just as easy skip the book and have a note in the game that says which major characters were killed and the player wouldn't miss one bit.

#11312
nitefyre410

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Eski.Moe wrote...

It's ok tho.
Kahlee has 5 Dragon Balls. She only needs to get two more which are in Barla Von's (the Asari that Nick was getting all bothered in his sleep about) possession. Then she can wish Gillian, Hendel and Nick back to life! :)

 


Sorry just got a report in - in the Epilogue.. Dietz  somehow jumped in the the Dragon Ball Canon killed Dende and was able re-write  that canon so his re-write of   Mass Effect could work. 
:blink:

#11313
ODST 3

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Captain_Obvious_au wrote...

Has anyone considered a fan project to 'fix' the book? By that I mean a re-write of sections of it to bring it into line with canon, such as eliminating the age discrepancies and Hendel's sexual preferences?

I've begun an audio book in which I've already changed a few lines because they just sound wrong... like "earth people" to "earth clan" and "Oh God" to "By the Goddess." www.youtube.com/playlist

#11314
schwarzaj

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We have Penny Arcade!!! Great comic on the current situation, might I add. This is great, the word will get out to even more people now.

#11315
ElitePinecone

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Eski.Moe wrote...
Barla Von's (the Asari that Nick was getting all bothered in his sleep about)


You know, it's kinda damning had little editing this book actually had. 

Given that the author gets confused between Zon and Von, and mixes the names throughout the last half of the book, occasionally on the same page.

One read-through, surely, would have picked that up. 

#11316
schwarzaj

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ElitePinecone wrote...

Eski.Moe wrote...
Barla Von's (the Asari that Nick was getting all bothered in his sleep about)


You know, it's kinda damning had little editing this book actually had. 

Given that the author gets confused between Zon and Von, and mixes the names throughout the last half of the book, occasionally on the same page.

One read-through, surely, would have picked that up. 


Dude, did Dietz rip off House of the Dead: Overkill, Barla Von sounds really close to Varla Guns.:blink:

#11317
ElitePinecone

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He turned back toward Von. “So what does ‘discipline’ mean in this case?”
“There will be a trial,” Zon replied.


Mythra Zon made the opening statement.
...
Kim looked defiant. “Let’s get something straight . . . It’s true that I had feelings for Kai at one time. But that isn’t why I helped him escape."
Von looked surprised.


Gillian was immediately behind him followed by Von. Only three people. That was all the Illusive Man had been willing to agree to. They were protected by the biotic barrier Von had established, however, and that made Gillian feel safer.



#11318
Binkery

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 Ah first post.  When all things are good one can stay quiet but when things are in a grey area you just have to say something :police:

There is no possible way Mr. Dietz could ever convince me, and most likely you guys, that he read the other books.  Maybe a quick 2 sentence synopsis of the whole series but nothing in detail.  Not one character acts like they did in the other books.  I can get past the whole Mitra thing as only Sanders suggested he was maybe gay but it was never confirmed.  Even with Jero having extensive files on all employees thanks to Cerberus he was still in the dark about Mirtra maybe being homosextual.  That said he still was an Alliance soldier for life and yet in this book became a drunk who couldn't keep it together.  Then you have Nick who was becoming the poster child for the Ascension Project suddenly forgetting all his personal traits to join a rag tag team of punks.

The time paradox is probably the best part of all this.  Grayson hacking into secret Cerberus files while indoctranated and then being able to bend the fabric of time to send a necklace to his daughter.  Also lets not forget that only two people knew Grayson wasn't Gillians true father Grayson and The Illusive Man.  Seeing one was already dead without giving up the info and TIM not being one to tell anyone anything it stands to reason that this knowlege Sanders and Gillian had was magically implanted...

Glad the web and fans are calling foul.  Sure it's still a work of fiction but if you read the other books you can only come up with the idea that this book was writted in vein of a Fringe episode that takes place in the other universe.

#11319
Someone With Mass

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Just in case someone missed it:

Image IPB

#11320
Someone With Mass

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_symphony wrote...

Nick kills Hendel, Nick dies, Guillian takes a toothbrush to the neck and dies.... redacted without any sort of emotion as if EDI were the narrator.


Hey, that's not nice to say about EDI.

I think she'd be able to write it so it doesn't look like some high school fan fiction. Not a difficult task, mind you, but it's the thought that counts.

#11321
crimzontearz

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thank you penny arcade...

now IGN needs to do something to


sorry for the question but I only arrived last night in NC and in the latter part of my trip was devoid of wifi so was there an official response?

#11322
roflchoppaz

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Gotta love how there still isn't an "Mass Effect: Deception Out Now!" announcement.

#11323
JoeLaTurkey

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roflchoppaz wrote...

Gotta love how there still isn't an "Mass Effect: Deception Out Now!" announcement.


That's the most telling sign. If Bioware were pleased with Deception, they'd all be shouting it from the rooftops.

Imagine if they'd launched a creative writing contest like after Asunder! You'd just get rewrites. :lol: 

#11324
Arcadian Legend

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crimzontearz wrote...

thank you penny arcade...

now IGN needs to do something to


sorry for the question but I only arrived last night in NC and in the latter part of my trip was devoid of wifi so was there an official response?


IGN HAS done something. BioWare just won't respond to them. Or they did respond but IGN aren't telling the public in tandem

#11325
Arcadian Legend

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JoeLaTurkey wrote...

roflchoppaz wrote...

Gotta love how there still isn't an "Mass Effect: Deception Out Now!" announcement.


That's the most telling sign. If Bioware were pleased with Deception, they'd all be shouting it from the rooftops.

Imagine if they'd launched a creative writing contest like after Asunder! You'd just get rewrites. :lol: 




Hmm, maybe one of us should actually attempt a fan rewrite of Deception.