A couple of days ago, Aaryn Flynn spoke in his blog about the future of the Mass Effect universe. I might have overlooked something, but so far there seems to be no entry for this.
Aaryn reached out to the fans, asking us for our thoughts on the topic.
So what is your opinion on the topic? How should the story develop?
Mass Effect 4
Débuté par
quentinharlech101
, sept. 20 2012 10:42
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Posté 20 septembre 2012 - 10:56
quentinharlech101
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Mass Effect 4
Development for the Mass Effect Universe has to be pushed to a entire new level. There is simply no other solution.
We also need Sheppard. The fans will lynch you if the great commander is out of the picture. That does not mean that we have to sabotage the grand masterpiece that is the existing Mass Effect series.
The Time
]The solution I suggest is to take a bold step forward in time. This can be the elegant way to smoothly step forward within the same story line while bringing closure to the story we love and care about. This allows you to create an elegant way to portray Sheppard as the hero extraordinaire, while at same time providing you with the opportunity for a fresh start.
A jump of approximately 50 years allows you to show Sheppard as the great hero, the great commander, the retired general that still tries to fix everything. Just with very grey hair. And instead of the Normandy and her crew, he gets a nice big battle fleet, with a gigantic flagship.
The Enemy
Now, without an enemy the game would be useless. Now, we already had an intelligence that already controlled the known galaxy and ruled by machines. The reaping is already galaxy-wide and the scale could hardly be bigger.
Unless you go beyond that and create something that transcends the scale of the first three parts.
The Mass Relays are a very cool solution for traveling the galaxy. My suggestion is the following:
A science team that uses the Normandy discovers a Obsidian Relay. The relay is found in a system that already has a normal relay and already has a connection. Then by random chance, maybe some engine accident, the science team stumbles upon the Obsidian Relay in a nebula that shields the gate from normal scans and visual perception. (I suggest the Obsidian Relay to be a combination of two or three normal relays, with heavy
modification. The black stone should be roughly cut and should be a harsh contrast to the smooth metal relays that we are used to. This way the creation of the relay system could pre-date the Protheans.)
After setting up a drone, the team manages to activate the machine. They get transported to another universe far, far away. The teams reaction at first is thrilled excitement. They have just broken a dozen ironclad laws of physics and thread on unknown territory.
Then a living ship approaches, a little bit smaller than the Normandy, and the scientists are mind blown. First contact is peaceful. Communication is first priority and the crew works hard to make the impossible happen. But success is slow, and only brackets of information get translated.
After a while, two sentences get completed and the crew assembles to view the message.
“We are the shapers. Do you hear the song of the gods?”
And after conflict among the crew about the potential meaning of this message, one of the operators in his enthusiasm enters the words in the translation device and hits send.
Panic spreads among the crew members as the wiser crew members realize what a result the wrong answer could bring.
He writes:
“We hear no song. But we seek peace and friendship.”
As those words appear on the monitor, the oldest scientist gets pale, and asks..
“What have you done?”
More dispute among the crew erupts as the scientists argue. Then moments later another ship emerges, about the same size of the Normandy. And then two identical ones in short succession appear.
The message of the Shapers changes.
“The gods have spoken. You will submit to the song. You will be reshaped by the gods. You will abandon the abominable machines. Your worlds will be shaped by the song. You will adapt.”
More and more ships emerge. They are huge and monstrous. Some ship parts resemble faces. None of the forms look like anything we have in our universe.
The scientists fear for their lives now and yell at each other. One tries to dial back to our universe and tries to activate the Obsidian Relay. The Normandy tries to escape in a long curve to get back to the relay. The Obsidian glows, the relay is ready, but just as the Normandy is about to approach the relay, one of the larger living vessels grabs the so familiar ship with giant tentacles. There are explosions as the hull breaches.
One new installment on the Normandy are shields in case of breaches. As several cracks in the hull endanger the survival of the crew, several shields spring to action. None of the crew is capable of surviving the cold space. Only one crew member is capable of operating under these circumstances. Through the cracks humanoids emerge. They handle strange living weapons and they are heavily scarred. The scars are obviously battle marks.
The weapons spit forth bullet-sized insects. Those hit by the strange projectiles shudder, then fall into stasis.
The alien warriors are clad in strange armor that resembles the ship hulls. Maybe a similar genetic ancestor?
The last act of EDI is to establish communication with our universe. The drone in our universe gets bombarded with ship information and a compact version of EDI, containing all possible information of the alien universe and its inhabitants, as well as a shadow of EDI, containing the personal memory of the ship.
The Shapers
The Shapers are a religious race. The priests are the indisputable rulers of the shapers. They interpret the song of the gods and direct the will of the entire race. Technology is a monstrosity in the eyes of the gods every contact with technology ends with one clear outcome: domination by assimilation.
The shapers biggest weapon is the masterful genetic manipulation knowledge they have. They bioform, they terraform. Master Shapers are the genetic scientists that use the song of the gods to shape the universe to their will. Every major piece of technology we have, the shapers have a bioengineered version of it.
For example, we have the holographic interface, the shapers have a living biomass that takes the shape of the connected speakers.
Ships are very important in the Mass Effect universe. In the shapers universe, ships are grown. Gigantic worms harvest the material needed for ship growth. Master Shapers operate with seeds. They get planted on raw material and evolve then to the specified design. This way they can generate housing, ships, walls, gates, or whatever structure is required.
With more lively base material they can generate weapon hives. They can grow the guns and the ammunition basically instantly and the regeneration is quick enough to allow continuous fighting.
The warriors of the race are fierce followers of the song of the gods and the priests who speak for them. The words to describe them are fierce, brutal, strong, obedient, proud, agile, pain-immune. They would sacrifice their lives for a master shaper or a priest without second thought.
The Shapers Plan
Their gods have spoken, and our universe of machines is against their will. The command is simple. Adapt, or be
annihilated. They swarm through the obsidian relay and invade our universe. EDI’s distress call has reached central command on the citadel. A line of defense is already forming at the relay and a group of scientists tries to
disable the relay. Yet a large contingent of shapers breaks through before the defense forces and the scientists get destroyed.
Within their reach is a human colony on a red and blue planet. The colony is huge and the main city is brimming with life, guided by technology. The shapers rip the defenses apart and capture the inhabitants. Soon they do the unthinkable.
The entire planet gets terraformed into a living apparatus that can breed new ships, new soldiers, new super-weapons.
The Prothean connection
The obsidian relay is a mystery for our universe. The protheans are supposed to be the creators of the mass relays. But what if they just copied the black relay and delivered the copy all over the galaxy?
Problem:
Ok, I admit, this is really close to Star Wars, the Yuuzang Vong Storyline. This surely needs further thought and proper adjustment. At the same I think the new universe would be cool, also the total invasion part. I especially like the bioengineering part. This would be the crass opposite to the technology driven opponent from part 1-3.
I also like the religion part. And it would be cool to show acutal godlike beings that actually speak to the priests, and maybe they can be the final boss in part six
Development for the Mass Effect Universe has to be pushed to a entire new level. There is simply no other solution.
We also need Sheppard. The fans will lynch you if the great commander is out of the picture. That does not mean that we have to sabotage the grand masterpiece that is the existing Mass Effect series.
The Time
]The solution I suggest is to take a bold step forward in time. This can be the elegant way to smoothly step forward within the same story line while bringing closure to the story we love and care about. This allows you to create an elegant way to portray Sheppard as the hero extraordinaire, while at same time providing you with the opportunity for a fresh start.
A jump of approximately 50 years allows you to show Sheppard as the great hero, the great commander, the retired general that still tries to fix everything. Just with very grey hair. And instead of the Normandy and her crew, he gets a nice big battle fleet, with a gigantic flagship.
The Enemy
Now, without an enemy the game would be useless. Now, we already had an intelligence that already controlled the known galaxy and ruled by machines. The reaping is already galaxy-wide and the scale could hardly be bigger.
Unless you go beyond that and create something that transcends the scale of the first three parts.
The Mass Relays are a very cool solution for traveling the galaxy. My suggestion is the following:
A science team that uses the Normandy discovers a Obsidian Relay. The relay is found in a system that already has a normal relay and already has a connection. Then by random chance, maybe some engine accident, the science team stumbles upon the Obsidian Relay in a nebula that shields the gate from normal scans and visual perception. (I suggest the Obsidian Relay to be a combination of two or three normal relays, with heavy
modification. The black stone should be roughly cut and should be a harsh contrast to the smooth metal relays that we are used to. This way the creation of the relay system could pre-date the Protheans.)
After setting up a drone, the team manages to activate the machine. They get transported to another universe far, far away. The teams reaction at first is thrilled excitement. They have just broken a dozen ironclad laws of physics and thread on unknown territory.
Then a living ship approaches, a little bit smaller than the Normandy, and the scientists are mind blown. First contact is peaceful. Communication is first priority and the crew works hard to make the impossible happen. But success is slow, and only brackets of information get translated.
After a while, two sentences get completed and the crew assembles to view the message.
“We are the shapers. Do you hear the song of the gods?”
And after conflict among the crew about the potential meaning of this message, one of the operators in his enthusiasm enters the words in the translation device and hits send.
Panic spreads among the crew members as the wiser crew members realize what a result the wrong answer could bring.
He writes:
“We hear no song. But we seek peace and friendship.”
As those words appear on the monitor, the oldest scientist gets pale, and asks..
“What have you done?”
More dispute among the crew erupts as the scientists argue. Then moments later another ship emerges, about the same size of the Normandy. And then two identical ones in short succession appear.
The message of the Shapers changes.
“The gods have spoken. You will submit to the song. You will be reshaped by the gods. You will abandon the abominable machines. Your worlds will be shaped by the song. You will adapt.”
More and more ships emerge. They are huge and monstrous. Some ship parts resemble faces. None of the forms look like anything we have in our universe.
The scientists fear for their lives now and yell at each other. One tries to dial back to our universe and tries to activate the Obsidian Relay. The Normandy tries to escape in a long curve to get back to the relay. The Obsidian glows, the relay is ready, but just as the Normandy is about to approach the relay, one of the larger living vessels grabs the so familiar ship with giant tentacles. There are explosions as the hull breaches.
One new installment on the Normandy are shields in case of breaches. As several cracks in the hull endanger the survival of the crew, several shields spring to action. None of the crew is capable of surviving the cold space. Only one crew member is capable of operating under these circumstances. Through the cracks humanoids emerge. They handle strange living weapons and they are heavily scarred. The scars are obviously battle marks.
The weapons spit forth bullet-sized insects. Those hit by the strange projectiles shudder, then fall into stasis.
The alien warriors are clad in strange armor that resembles the ship hulls. Maybe a similar genetic ancestor?
The last act of EDI is to establish communication with our universe. The drone in our universe gets bombarded with ship information and a compact version of EDI, containing all possible information of the alien universe and its inhabitants, as well as a shadow of EDI, containing the personal memory of the ship.
The Shapers
The Shapers are a religious race. The priests are the indisputable rulers of the shapers. They interpret the song of the gods and direct the will of the entire race. Technology is a monstrosity in the eyes of the gods every contact with technology ends with one clear outcome: domination by assimilation.
The shapers biggest weapon is the masterful genetic manipulation knowledge they have. They bioform, they terraform. Master Shapers are the genetic scientists that use the song of the gods to shape the universe to their will. Every major piece of technology we have, the shapers have a bioengineered version of it.
For example, we have the holographic interface, the shapers have a living biomass that takes the shape of the connected speakers.
Ships are very important in the Mass Effect universe. In the shapers universe, ships are grown. Gigantic worms harvest the material needed for ship growth. Master Shapers operate with seeds. They get planted on raw material and evolve then to the specified design. This way they can generate housing, ships, walls, gates, or whatever structure is required.
With more lively base material they can generate weapon hives. They can grow the guns and the ammunition basically instantly and the regeneration is quick enough to allow continuous fighting.
The warriors of the race are fierce followers of the song of the gods and the priests who speak for them. The words to describe them are fierce, brutal, strong, obedient, proud, agile, pain-immune. They would sacrifice their lives for a master shaper or a priest without second thought.
The Shapers Plan
Their gods have spoken, and our universe of machines is against their will. The command is simple. Adapt, or be
annihilated. They swarm through the obsidian relay and invade our universe. EDI’s distress call has reached central command on the citadel. A line of defense is already forming at the relay and a group of scientists tries to
disable the relay. Yet a large contingent of shapers breaks through before the defense forces and the scientists get destroyed.
Within their reach is a human colony on a red and blue planet. The colony is huge and the main city is brimming with life, guided by technology. The shapers rip the defenses apart and capture the inhabitants. Soon they do the unthinkable.
The entire planet gets terraformed into a living apparatus that can breed new ships, new soldiers, new super-weapons.
The Prothean connection
The obsidian relay is a mystery for our universe. The protheans are supposed to be the creators of the mass relays. But what if they just copied the black relay and delivered the copy all over the galaxy?
Problem:
Ok, I admit, this is really close to Star Wars, the Yuuzang Vong Storyline. This surely needs further thought and proper adjustment. At the same I think the new universe would be cool, also the total invasion part. I especially like the bioengineering part. This would be the crass opposite to the technology driven opponent from part 1-3.
I also like the religion part. And it would be cool to show acutal godlike beings that actually speak to the priests, and maybe they can be the final boss in part six
Modifié par quentinharlech101, 20 septembre 2012 - 11:41 .
