#mass effect world building

[not-a-newt]

Anyways, here's an excerpt (Mass Effect Initiation) on the way that turian, asari, and krogan crowds move as opposed to humans

[teamdilf]

J. J I am so. Excited. Because you have the prim and proper estate politics and I —

Happy WBW btw

— HAVE to know about shit that would totally get my ass kicked out of one of those fancy parties. Swears, rude gestures, etc.

Fancy estate parties consist of the following:

Fundraisers with nice dinners, auctions, etc.

Private events in someone's home (which may or may not have a fundraising element to it).

Political events (once a year the parliament building opens its senate room to the highest-ranked in the Hierarchy and it's generally expected that you attend).

At these events, it's generally expected that you behave in a deferential manner towards those who are of a higher tier than you are, but also those who are in a higher social class than you (IE, a general might be required to behave in a deferential manner to the head of an estate household). This is a bit of a deep, dark secret because the Hierarchy makes a big deal about its citizenship tier, and those outside of this world assume that merit is the only thing that matters at these levels, but just like every other society... money matters too.

So, failing to be appropriately deferential is one way to get your ass booted from one of these events. There is (usually) some grace given to those new to this level of social gathering, who may not understand this unspoken rule. But people like Adrien who just don't give a fuck? Well... it's a good thing he did all he could to avoid those parties as a general until he was senior enough that Fedorian couldn't really kick him out (but could give him a chewing out).

A common rude hand gesture in the Hierarchy that translates as "go fuck yourself on a stick of dynamite" is a good way of getting yourself blacklisted. The gesture consists of a jerking off motion, followed by a hand flourish to signify an explosion, and is generally regarded as a juvenile insult.

Causing a scene is a massive no-no. Even if someone is behaving rudely towards you or your family, you're expected to just... keep your mouth shut and accept it for the sake of not causing trouble. Picking a fight in a dress or suit is seen as gauche, which allows the very worst of the estate turians to get away with a whole lot because nobody wants to risk gaining the reputation of "the person who was kicked out of that party that one time". In a way, it's seen as a form of hazing - if you tolerate the crass insults, when you have inherited your own family's estate, you can do the same thing to the junior little rich estate kid that's irritating you. Calling someone out on their shitty behaviour is probably the single worst thing you could do.

That being said, there are limits to the rude comments/hazing. Insult someone's family - yes. Demean their appearance - sure! But don't you dare insult their professional competency or imply that they don't deserve their rank! No, that'll get you booted out (and possibly challenged to a duel or fist fight).

Wearing clothing that's deemed unsuitable (not a designer label, ill-fitting suit or gown, dirty shoes) won't get you kicked out of most events, but you will get a ton of side eye and people will gossip about you for a long while. It's expected that you know how to dress and, if you don't have the credits to buy a proper outfit yourself, you will rent one, or wear your military dress uniform (which is always accepted at these events, though most will know you lack the means to purchase your own outfit).

(As a side note, this last rule is one of the reasons why Adrien pointedly refuses to dress in anything aside from sweatpants, shorts and a t-shirt (usually with a rude slogan on it) unless he has to. He was practically born in a fucking suit and they hate him anyway, so he's going to be comfortable, dammit. It's a small bit of rebellion that makes him happy. Also, he wore sweatpants underneath his suit pants at his parents' funeral just to prove a point - though Tullia is the only one there who knows it.)

Sex in the coatroom is also against the rules. Especially if you use a random's scarf to muffle yourself. Adrien and Tullia definitely never find that out for themselves; never ever.

Dick jokes are frowned upon too. Again, Adrien and his sister, Sabina wouldn't know that at all; they'd never make dick jokes about the life sized ice statue of a turian man at a party their parents threw.

[slavicafire]

finished the ark natanus quest. going a bit crazy about the arks plot and the transfer of pathfinder duty after such immense loss. there is no other way to becoming a pathfinder in andromeda: only loss and death. only that yields hope, in the end, among the dead and inhabitable worlds so so far from home.

[cloudyswritings]

Is anyone else haunted by the idea of a mass effect and hollow knight crossover? Like just the idea of a very very distant future for the world of Hallownest is them being among the stars. So anyway you’re gonna be forced to listen to my thoughts about it.

Two possibilities:

One:

The time of Hallownest(Hallowworld? Hallowholm?, idk man) arriving in the stars is during the rise of the prothean empire, and the two of them end up sharing a very very uneasy border. See I imagine the bugs would generally be a lot hardier to damage but would probably be behind technology wise. I imagine the war would escalated as both civilizations grow in power with the Protheans glassing planets and the bugs doing crazy shit like dumping a higher being on a Prothean world and letting them slowly(or very very quickly) subsume it, or like intentionally making world uninhabitable by dropping Wyrms onto them. Like without any of their natural predators or detergents Wyrms could completely devour the life of a planet kinda fast.

Why the reapers show up both civilizations begrudgingly band together to fight them, and like things go mostly like in cannon? But the bugs weather it way way better because the gods and higher beings can and do protect their people, but because of that the overall civilization of the bugs splintered into basically a bunch of nation states but on a planetary scale and while there’s still nominally a capitol in the form of Hallownest(run by little ghost or perhaps Hollow??) the bugs largely stayed isolated and eventually stopped spacefaring—with the reapers basically saying good enough—and that’s basically the state they’d be in when canon rolls around, with a lot of their larger scale infrastructure having fallen apart and a very stressed Hollow basically supergluing shit together and maybe having time to meet with human delegates.

Also I like to imagine that the earth was one of the worlds that got Wyrms dropped on it during a border skirmish, for whatever reason the particular Wyrms that got dropped didn’t do too much damage and basically just live in the Sahara desert, that said they’re completely genetically different from beings that evolved on earth so humans in this verse would be very unsurprised to find alien life given they’ve been living with some freeloaders on earth.

Two:

The other option is that the bugs come onto the scene a little bit before humans do, but as a race that isn’t dependent(at first) on mass effect technology. Instead they’d use dreamgates and other soul magics(especially giant soul batteries that basically work like a stargate) to move world to work without ships. This might sound great but it’d be much more intensive energy and resource wise so I imagine they’d start using ships eventually, though still way less than other species.

I think they’d end up being the species that the Rachni end up with, like a sort of political asylum thing, but that decision would put them on the shit list of the council, they definitely wouldn’t be getting a seat on the council at all.

I feel like they might end up stumbling across the first combat war between the humans and Turians and basically trying to mediate a peace accord of some sort.

Also Hollow would still be extremely stressed.

In both of these AUs here’s what I think Shepard would be like:

She’d most likely be a demigod of some sort, specifically I love the idea that she’s a half root, and like her wounds just get sealed up by this pale pink wood.

she’d absolutely have the lifespan of a root and probably be somewhere between a hum and root in height

she’d really look like a bunch of flesh colored roots grown into the shape of a human I think.

Her hair would be like, really fine needles or maybe really bushy leaves.

she’d probably fully ascend when the Normandy gets shot down, and like the planet ends up being fully overgrown by her when Cerberus comes looking for her.

[arts-butthound]

Mmm, I be listening to sea shanties lately. And it's making me think about salarian sailors before the salarians became a space fairing people...titillating thought. Gotta make note of that. That might be something I want to play with someday.

[wondrouswendy]

The secret to happiness may really just be making some OCs hyper-tailored to your tastes who happen to exist in your favorite media’s universe.

[cuboos]

Planets Part 2.

Modeled, Textured and Rendered in Blender.

GeoSims Shader by https://nuggetblends.gumroad.com/?recommended_by=library

[evil-ontheinside]

Sometimes i think I have a pretty good grasp on time and how I spend it and then I play video games and remember that I really don't know anything

[carelesscuriosity]

actually no im not done ranting about captain laserhawk b/c why couldn’t they maintain a singular objective throughout the season? it’s so fucking aimless the moment Alex dies b/c it switches to a whole new objective/enemy spurred on by Sarah choosing to save Laserhawk bc he’s just such a cool and important badass unlike any other who she can use. forget all the build up with one rebellion that laserhawk has an actual reason to be involved in (either with or against), we’re just gonna switch to a new, totally separate rebellion/takeover effort that’s literally only linked to the previous plot via random characters we’ve been given no time to even start being interested in

[lestatslefttit]

Am I the only one who really likes Bray??? I wish he had more screen time, specially during the huge Omega mission

Also I just got his email thingy and like??? It really makes it seem like he’s gonna show up later and help Shep with smth. Why else would they include the email? It literally adds nothing to the game except hinting that there’s more to this batarian character than one might have thought at first. Which was already pretty obvious. He didn’t have to email Shep. He made it a point to tell her to be careful. Ik she helped Aria and clearly he’s loyal to Aria but how does that translate into him caring about Shep’s safety. AND right afterwards he basically makes it clear again that he cares at least a little tiny bit when he says that he’s a batarian (probably one of the only ones) that doesn’t want her dead. Why not explore that more? Make them friends or smth idk??? BioWare why do you disappoint me like this. I just want one (1) important batarian character ffs

Unexpected rant about mass effect aliens under the cut

Also on that note I really wish we got at least one important character (like a squad mate or at least a secondary character or smth) that was a batarian.

I know it’d be impossible to have squadmates of every single species mentioned throughout the trilogy, but I feel like the batarians and vorcha are specially underused. I’d feel like they’d be able to bring different perspectives to the squad, not to mention how the whole vorcha health regeneration thing would definitely be useful in combat.

Idk, I just really like worldbuilding in the trilogy and I wish we got to see a closer look at some of these species, cause honestly think all of them are super interesting in their own ways.

[not-a-newt]

Excerpt from Mass Effect Initiation on other species' perceptions of volus gender

[teamdilf]

turian world building gets me so excited! i’d love to hear anything you’d like to share about estate turian culture. i’d also love any fic links you’d like to throw up that explore this topic.

Ooh, I’ll bring you on a journey today!

The turian estate families are a small group of families (Victus, Sparatus, Malso, Kandros and Surcus being a few examples), who live in massive estates in an old neighbourhood in Cipritine. They are descended from soldiers whose actions were so heroic; so helpful to the cause during the Unification War, that the Hierarchy gifted them with large plots of land in what was, at the time, the edge of Cipritine.

Every one of them opted to build a house, with the mindset that it would be the family home. Over generations, the houses are expanded to accommodate the growing number of family members, but soon this idea becomes twisted as it becomes clear that they’ll never have a house large enough to fit everyone. So, someone comes up with the bright idea that the highest ranking child of the owner is the one who inherits it. Every other family follows suit.

The result of this is that there are different tiers in these families. There’s the family that resides in the home, and then those who need to either marry into another estate family home, or live as (mostly) ordinary citizens with a very good name.

Arranged marriages are common, and so are accidents befalling the top-ranked child. Adrien’s father, Erasmus Victus’ older brother fell victim to such an accident, when he and Erasmus were on the same mission. Just a tragic coincidence… right?

Over the centuries, some families fall on hard times and must sell their estate to a “new credits” family. No matter how long the new residents live in the estate, they’re never seen fully as part of this exclusive club, but it is common for less highly-ranked children to marry into a new credits family to take advantage of their wealth, increasing the opportunities for them and their children. This is what Sparatus winds up doing - he and his wife wind up becoming friends, and have two children, but never fall in love with one another. But, his wife’s wealth and influence allow both of them to go far in Hierarchy and galactic politics! Sparatus’ niece was initially promised to Adrien, who rejected an arranged marriage, estranging himself from his abusive parents for years because he fell in love with Tullia, who comes from an ordinary middle class family.

Adrien loathes his origins so thoroughly that he works to shake his upper class accent as a young man, adopting Tullia’s accent instead. It slips out when he’s been drinking - especially at formal events with estate turians in attendance and it pisses him off.

All but two of the estates are destroyed during the war, but the remaining families petition the Hierarchy to purchase government land outside the city, which they use to build gaudy new mansions. The official who made that call did not consult Adrien, and made the deal because they determined that they needed the credits more than the land. Adrien, who recognizes that his people needs land to grow food, is furious and tries to stop the deal, only to discover he’s too late. This both infuriates and devastates him.

A lot of my Victus-focused work gets into Adrien’s horrific childhood and the deep scorn he feels for the wealthiest in Hierarchy society, but here are a few that really get into it:

A Broken Old Estate - Adrien’s origin story, told through a mix of flashbacks and current events. CW: child abuse, death of a sibling, death of a child, and drug/alcohol addiction.

The Family Dinner - Tullia meets Adrien’s parents for the first time. CW: child abuse, and drug/alcohol addiction.

The In-Laws and the Grandparents - A minor deviation from my canon universe wherein Adrien’s parents attempt to assassinate his adopted daughter, Aurelia, with Adrien covering her and taking the hit. The focus is on their father-daughter relationship, but there is a heavy helping of estate turian culture and politics - and even more in a coming chapter. CW: attempted murder of a child, major character injury, medical procedures, PTSD, and child abuse.

[mephestopheles]

Welcome to the brainrot, have we considered Geth naming conventions?

Geth are autonomous small running programs stacked on top of each other in a "mobile platform" that generally becomes more intelligent the more there are. Even post Rannoch and with the upload Reaper code their sense of individuality is going to be very different than humans or other organic species.

Legion was content with being given a name in ME2 but that's because to them* naming the part that speaks is weird, it would be like naming a toe. At least in a Geth, their toe would also be part of the consensus so to speak.

This got long, the rest is under the cut

Post Rannoch, (and leaving aside that the sudden and faulty storytelling of trying to repeat Mordin's sacrifice) we see Legion not only say "I" instead of "We", they sacrifice themselves to complete the upload, spreading their many programs amongst the rest. The other Geth that comes over does note that Legion's sacrifice will be remembered, which suggests that instead of individual programs creating a higher intelligence based on numbers, they're unified in each mobile platform.

Does this mean that the individual smaller programs are now considered individuals, or is it still many smaller programs that inhabit a mobile platform? Only becoming a single being as they evolve together to develop personality quirks and preferences as time goes on?

From a writing standpoint, it was definitely easier for them to basically hand wave the "there they're intelligent now and understand the difference between I and we. But the hand wave doesn't work for me. If they're essentially software and can go anywhere, do they "die" when they leave their platform to rejoin a hub?

If that was the case before the upload, what happens now? Are they locked into specific platforms now and can't bounce from one to another? Does that frighten them because that locks them out from the way they used to understand and know each other? If they're not locked out from rejoining hubs or becoming part of a ship or space station, do they retain who they are when they return to their mobile platform?

Legion's sacrifice suggests they can't, but given that's to complete the upgrades, it stands to reason the Geth would either find a way to maintain cohesion while changing spaces, or would remain in one platform.

Now granted this is a very limited viewpoint. It assumes that the Geth's response to individuality would align with other organic responses to it, and with a sense of "self" would begin to understand self preservation.

They understand preservation of their species as a whole, as we see with them willing to forgo freedom and autonomy for base survival. But individual freedom and individual self preservation is going to be very new, they might even as a species refuse to participate in that kind of individualism even if they have to work harder to maintain the community they are used to.

All of this so I figure out naming conventions among Geth.

I can't see them suddenly developing names as organic species understand them, although they might start using a similar convention as the Quarians use. They might also prefer numbers or codes. Shepard was inside the consensus for a while, it's unclear how long, but when I species measures in nanoseconds even a few minutes would be a lifetime. Would that impact any human-like characteristics upon the Geth? Do we think that Shepard has that much influence even as he's removing the virus from the Geth?

I think Legion believes so. I think that Legion has felt and responded to Shepard's influence even when they were speaking across a gulf of disparate understanding. Shepard's willingness to give Legion a chance, willingness to help Legion, and treat them as an equal in the latter half of ME2 and when you meet him again in Me3 make me believe they fully believe that Shepard is enough to change things.

So a new Geth, someone joining the Alliance to help but doesn't have a name, or designation that humans would understand. Would they accept a name given by a human, or an Asari? I'm not even sure the Asari would try to impose a name on a Geth.

I know humans will. We can't help it. We fucking named a roomba Stabby. We name snow plows. I know humans on some level are nervous of artificial intelligence, but let's face it, the Geth arrive to give us a hand, we will adopt them, even if they don't understand why.

So, that leaves me with a couple of possibilities, the Geth that stick around Rannoch and decide to help the Quarians rebuild will likely take their naming conventions after the Quarians at first before developing their own names over time. The Geth that interact with humans more are probably going to develop human naming patterns, if not outright named by humans to the point that maybe some Geth develop a culture that your name is bestowed by your favourite human.

Maybe that is a piece of code that's left over from Legion, a small program replicated many times that is within all of the Geth, but cultivated in those that stick around humans, that being named by a friend becomes a coming of age so to speak.

*they being used as the collective noun, and not the singular personal pronoun. I'm not even getting into Geth genders or if they even have a concept of gender. They're just figuring out person hood, nevermind gender roles.

[wibbley-wobble]

I need a new rpg video game to get into I need to relive the euphoria of making up some guy on the spot and choosing their stats with no actual clue about what I’m doing

[ofdinosanddais1]

I figured I should give a little more background to the four main characters in my book.

There's Maelyrra who is a mage attending the Arcane Academy of the East. She was born in Marene, a kingdom made up of three islands, on the island of Rela to a family of bakers. She attended school on Rela where she was shown to excel in magic and encouraged to attend the Arcane Academy. She is disabled. Her disability is rheumatoid arthritis (although, to keep it in line with this being a separate realm, it's simply referred to as arthritis) and she often switches between using a cane, forearm crutches, or a wheelchair. She loves children and is attending the Arcane Academy because of their program for midwifery magic. While other people typically use a staff to focus magic, she chose a wand because it's easier for her to use while using her mobility aids. Because she is at the top of her class, the Dean of the Academy chose her as one of the students to attend the Winter Summit.

Then there's Edea who is a stewardess to the Queen of Pelyra. She grew up in an industrial city in Pelyra called Para. One of her parents were arrested for treason and the other died in a bar fight leaving her to grow up on the streets until she was recruited into the Pelyran military at the age of 10. She graduated at 16 as a spy and was sent to Mimore, the capital of Pelyra. While there, she uncovered an assassination plot against the Queen. She tried alerting her higher ups who dismissed her as a kid exaggerating everything. Despite this, she successfully foiled the assassination plot on her own, saving the Queen's life. The Queen thanked her by hiring her as an attendant where, once again, she uncovered another assassination plot involving poisoning the Queen at a dinner with the Prime Minister of Mora. Everytime attempt to prevent the food from being delivered failed so she stopped the Queen and ate the poisoned food to prove it was poisoned. Luckily, she was able to be treated for the poison and the Queen promoted her to head stewardess and thus she attended the Winter Summit with her.

We also have Igor. He is known as the Last Dragon's Knight. He was born in the coastal city of Imsathyr in the Kingdom of Eshilan. He joined the Eshilan military when he was 16 and eventually joined the Peacemakers, a branch of the military dedicated to bringing peace by repairing infrastructure and ensuring the people of Eshilan have their needs met. When the Corruption began, Igor was visiting his home city where his sister Inna was the captain of the guard. Creatures crawled up from the bottom of the ocean and began attacking Imsathyr. His sister told him to go get help from the neighboring kingdoms while she protected the city. The closest kingdom was Dragon's Watch, inhabited by the last dragon Melusine and her clutch of fifty eggs. He reached Melusine's home where he explained what was going on. When she heard the description of the creatures, she explained that they were called Kadather and that they could be led back into the portal in the ocean where they came from and that it could be sealed by a dragon's power. She explained that she could not endanger her life because without her, her clutch would die and so all dragons would be extinct but that she could bestow her ability to seal portals onto him with the possibility that he could die. He accepted the risk and returned home with the power of a dragon. Upon hearing the plan, Inna gathered a crew to lead the Kadather back into the ocean. Then, he swam straight down to the bottom to seal the portal. He was able to successfully commence the sealing of the portal when he started to drown. One of the Kadather recognized he was trying to help them and brought him back up to the surface before it returned home. By that time, however, he was dead. His sister's crew somberly sailed back to shore where Melusine was waiting. She asked the magical forces within the realm to bring him back if he was worthy of life and the magic did bring him back to thank him for restoring balance. After his revival, he decided to retire from peacekeeping and moved to Melusine's Peak where he now focuses on bringing peace and unity throughout the kingdoms.

And finally we have Melusine, the last dragon in the realm. Melusine witnessed the abuse of power that existed among the Republic of the Dragons that led to the Dragon War; in which the dragons of the realm terrorized the people of Aesadell and the people decided to kill them all. While the other dragons certainly provoked the Aesadellians, Melusine did not want to hurt anyone and lived peacefully in Pelyra until the Rizarites (people from the kingdom of Rizaris) decided that all dragons must die. Pelyra, as well as Eshilan, Mora, and the Peninsulas guided her back to Dragon's Watch while they sent people to find as many dragon eggs as possible and to bring them back to Melusine. After the Dragon War concluded with a treaty signed by all the countries, Melusine concluded that the way the dragons lived before could not continue. She vowed to teach the next generation of dragons to be diplomatic and live peacefully alongside all Aesadellians.

And those are the four main characters.

[felassan]

"If you don't romance characters in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, they'll find other partners for themselves

"Some characters may be a little more steamy..."

---

"Dragon Age: The Veilguard features a far more fleshed out romance and relationship system than in previous BioWare games, the developer has told Eurogamer - including the ability for party members to go off and find their own love interests, should you not be interested yourself. Speaking to Eurogamer's deputy editor Chris Tapsell at an event in LA this week, The Veilguard's creative director John Epler revealed more of the game's relationship system. "In Dragon Age games, BioWare games, romance is a core part," Epler said. "We wanted to give each character their own flavour, or their own style, of romance. So some characters may be a little more steamy while some characters maybe a little bit more innocent. But for each one, you can build these relationships. "And what's interesting in this game is, if you don't romance characters, they may decide to find their own romances for themselves, whether within the team or within the world itself." It's reminiscent somewhat of how Shepard could walk in on Garrus and Tali locked in a kiss towards the end of Mass Effect 3 - but only if you had chosen not to show romantic interest in either one beforehand. What sounds like another improvement from previous BioWare games is how a character's romance arc will be better woven into their own personal story arc, and their involvement with The Veilguard's core questline. BioWare has also worked to ensure that getting to know your characters as friends feels just as satisfying - and that just because you're not banging your buddy, their (platonic) relationship with you will still continue. "One of the things we tried to do with The Veilguard is it's not just romantic relationship building," Epler continued. "You need to get to know a person before you can really build that kind of relationship with them, and if you choose not to build a [romantic] relationship, we never want to feel like you're being cut off. There's no 'okay, well, their arc isn't progressing, I'm done'. "We want to make sure the non-romantic relationships are deep as well, with friendships not just for companions and yourself, but also between companions across the party." For much more on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, be sure to read Eurogamer's full preview of the game's opening hour, as well as much more from Epler on lessons learned for BioWare's present - and future."

[source]