#this example question is hypothetical of course and not at all related to my previous post

[that-sad-guy]

i hate when im looking up something like, for example, ‘is concrete dense’ and google gives me an answer like ‘concrete has a density of 1600-1900 kg/m3’ like thats great but not what i asked.

if i had asked ‘how dense is concrete’ you wouldve gotten a gold star but thats not what i asked and now you’ve frustrated me. i dont know what those numbers mean.

[missnight0wl]

I haven't sent an ask in a while, but this came into my head yesterday and I gotta ask before I forget.

I don't know if anybody has asked you this before, but, how do you think Rakepick got in contact with the vaults? She says she tried telling the faculty about it but nobody believed her. Do you think she found any of them or just by rumours like Jacob? Could R have had an eye on her since then? Something about her family?

I know most of these have no basis from canon, but hypothetically...

It’s hard to say since we know so little. And it’s kind of hard to not be influenced by my own story at this point… But let’s see what we do know.

Alright, so personally, I believe that Rakepick got into all of that out of curiosity at first. Like, she read the legends and saw it as a challenge. Moreover, I don’t think she was forced to anything later on, the way Jacob was. In fact, I kind of doubt she succeeded with any of the Cursed Vaults. Why? Because we don’t have any mentions of the curses before Jacob. Admittedly, it might’ve been simply overlooked by the writers, but let’s keep in mind that there were hints about Dumbledore looking for “someone” (Rakepick) since the end of Y1, so… I imagine they’d also think to include the previous activity of the curses.

All we really have when it comes to Rakepick is that she was spending quite a lot of time in the Forbidden Forest:

I assume it was related to the Forest Vault, but again: there’s no mention of the curses. So… she was searching for the Cursed Vaults but was unsuccessful? Or something else was stopping her from doing more?

 Now, when it comes to Rakepick and R… Did they know about her? I think it’s very likely. Did she know about them? Well… I guess so? Because let’s look at her welcoming speech again:

I’m still both intrigued and confused by this because, like… “warnings” is such an odd wording, don’t you think? What exactly was she warning about? About curses? But then… does it imply she knew how to activate them? And if so, did she know that R will want to activate them in the future? How would she know that, though?

And again, I don’t think that R actually reached her by then because 1) why would she be so unsuccessful? I mean, it seems that Jacob was getting some clues from R. I suspect they'd help her a little if they wanted her to go after the Vaults; 2) why would R allow her to warn anyone about anything? I don’t know, but I think it’s more likely that R was at least partially responsible for the fact that the faculty didn’t believe Rakepick, for example. I don’t know how exactly, but Rakepick was just a student then, so it probably wouldn’t be that hard to discredit her in some way.

Finally, we have the issue of Rakepick’s family… And well, I do have a little theory that Rakepick’s family is somehow connected to the Cursed Vaults. This is actually a very old idea of mine that came to my mind shortly after Y5Ch15, when we found the notebook about the Cabal. And the idea is basically that if the siblings and/or their family are needed for the final Cursed Vault, then Rakepick and/or her family is responsible for protecting the siblings. Y’know, kind of like Torvus and his family were responsible for keeping the arrow to the Forest Vault.

I told you it’s hard for me to stay away from the “Secrets and Riddles” territory…

But either way, if it really is the case, it could actually explain why R is so obsessed with Rakepick.

They know she would ruin their plans of using MC because it’s quite literally in her blood.

Of course, it still leaves us with two questions: 1) when R learnt about it? 2) does Rakepick herself know about it, and if so, when did she learnt about it? And here, your guess is as good as mine, honestly.

Also, if Rakepick is really destined to protect the siblings, it’d go so perfectly with her lioness, and the Eye of Ra, and the “One Before Whom Evil Trembles”, and… argh!

[me-a-mess-morelikelythanyouthink]

[dgcatanisiri]

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway.

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway. And, as I’m not bound by any hardware limitations in terms of crafting ideas, or production cycles dictating when the game’s endpoint is, these can and do go on a great deal longer than the standard lifespan of a game.

A review of the format: There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable, and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

Feedback is welcome! Like an idea? Don’t like an idea? I welcome conversation and interaction on these ideas. Keep it civil, remember that these are just one person’s ideas, we can discuss them. Perhaps you’ll even help inspire a part two for these write ups! Because I do reserve the right to come up with more ideas in the future - these are the ideas that I’ve had to this point, but the whole reason this series exists is because I come up with new ideas for old stories.

So I HAVE actually been working on my ongoing series of hypothetical DLC to games that I love over the last year (it was the end of January 2020 when my last one of these got posted, this is going up at the beginning of May 2021). Which, yes, some is pandemic related because *screams* but... I was looking over what I’ve been working on, and realized that I was at about the combined length of my first two of these in my present examination, and I was only about a third of the way through the ideas that I had. I could either keep going and do these all at once in a massive post in like another year or two, or I could break it up into chunks.

So instead of waiting, this is going to be Part 1 of (I hope) 3 in an examination at ideas and possibilities of what additional content could have been made for Mass Effect 2, which for some is considered the best of the series. Me, I’m a little more critical of it. To me, this game is a textbook example of bridge syndrome, of the plot spinning its wheels to hold off on the payoff until the third part of the trilogy - the Collectors are, in practice, an entirely separate threat from the Reapers, even acknowledging the connection in the plot. We see this in the impact that the ME2 characters have in the next game - most are in side missions, all perform roles in the plot that literally can have them swapped out, even if it’s to the ultimate detriment of your War Asset count.

So in my mind, there’s a lot of room to make these DLCs, these glimpses into further areas of the world of Mass Effect at large. Because for me, what ME2 SHOULD have been was about making the alliances with the galaxy at large, rather than the big set piece of the Suicide Mission. We got some of this in ME2 proper, but that’s where the core of my focus and attention is with these DLCs.

Admittedly, I am aware of the difficulties of working around ME2 having both optional companions (Thane, Samara, and Tali don’t have to be recruited at all, Zaeed and Kasumi are DLC, many missions are available before you necessarily pick up certain companions...) and the ability to hold off on doing the DLC until after the Suicide Mission, where any or all of your companions may end up dying. However, for simplicity’s sake (because these things are long enough as it is without having a dozen variations apiece), we will assume that all companions are recruited and alive for the sake of plot advancement. Minds greater than mine can figure out how these would work without a given character – me, I tend to clear out the quest log before the Suicide Mission (aside from Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival, both of which are minimal on the squadmates from the rest of the game) and rarely let myself lose someone on the Suicide Mission, and since these are my ideas, we’re working in my framework.

Also, timeline note: Like ME2′s actual DLC, the fact that these would unlock at certain points in the game’s timeline does not necessarily reflect when they would best be played in the in-game timeline. Like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival are (as I mentioned above), at least in my personal timeline, post-Suicide Mision content. BUT, they both become available to play after Horizon. Just because they unlock at certain points in the plot, that doesn’t mean that they best fit the timeline in that point. It was just a convenient way to organize things in my notes. So there will be ones that unlock at plot point A, but probably play best after plot point B. Players would be able to decide where they fit as it works for them.

Ghost of the Machine

A phenomenon is spreading across colonies in Citadel space. Machine cultists are cropping up on planets. Shortly thereafter, these colonies go dead quiet – often overrun by husks. To Admiral Anderson, this sounds like Reaper tech, and there’s only one person who he trusts to investigate the truth of the machine cults...

(Post-Freedom’s Progress)

So back to the machine cultists. In our last installment, there was Evolution, which featured them. Here, though, we’re looking at something that kinda resolves this little storyline. Y’know, since ME3 isn’t really going to have the time for this sort of thing. Which, sure, I’m saying this becomes unlocked before you can unlock this game’s machine cultist sidequest, but shush – just because it unlocks at this point doesn’t mean it has to be played at this point. This time, it’s not just about learning about the problem, but we’re also going to see what we can do to understand it, especially since we’re now acknowledging that this is a recurring problem within the universe and maybe we want to find a proper solution to it before stumbling blindly into it gets more and more people killed.

So this takes Shepard to a planet that’s making its first steps at colonization, yet again (because I am trying to be cognizant of what practical realities exist in the game development, even acknowledging that this is a hypothetical thing anyway – early colonization means limited extras wandering around out in the open and a self-contained area to play around in). Those seem to be the places where these devices mainly get uncovered, so that’s why this is here.

Of course, we have a situation where the devices are known about, so there’s an immediate lockdown, and the reason that Shepard and crew are getting sent out is because Reaper experience is needed – in the event that this colony can have anyone saved, who is it and how do we get them out safely?

I kinda look at this as revealing the process – the previous encounters were the parts that told us the existence of the metaphorical monster of this story, here we’re getting to see the “monster” properly in action. And I feel like this should be about also introducing some of what will become ME3’s foot soldiers among the Reaper armies – we know about the husks from ME1, now we’re going to encounter another for the first time. Probably the marauders. Given that they and the cannibals (who are so numerous in part because of the batarian worlds being first in the invasion path) are the most numerous in ME3 aside from husks, we should at least get to see them be pre-established because of their involvement ahead of time – they don’t get any proper introduction as is in ME3, just accepted as being there.

The honest general idea in this one is tying off this thread that was seemingly built, by way of being a repeated thread in both ME1 and ME2, but goes entirely unmentioned in ME3. Obvious reasons are obvious, but that’s why these hypothetical DLCs “exist,” to address things that the games didn’t have time for. (And that’s a big part of a lot of these, so... buckle up.)

Obviously, we have some of the supplementary material to work off of here – I’m specifically thinking of the Illusive Man’s comic series, Evolution. (Side note, TIM’s involvement there should probably also be part of the reason he’s quick to send Shepard in here – he knows what these artifacts can do.) You can read the wiki page as easily as this, but to quickly detail the important part, we know what these are through them, artifacts meant to ease the way for the eventual arrival of the Reapers by doing the huskifying work ahead of time, without the need for things like the Dragon’s Teeth (which... I want to bring these into this in some fashion, considering they seemed to have importance in ME1, but as the numbers of husks increased in the later games, they fell by the wayside – ME3 claimed that they were basically just to increase a subject’s adrenaline and spread the Reaper tech through the victim’s body quicker from the fear of impalement, and that seems like a lot of effort for little reward, since nothing indicates a way to come back after infection anyway).

So why are these on far-flung colonies, especially when the husks definitely don’t have the mental capacity to control ships and spread out that way?

Since, again, there’s no way to come back after infection anyway, that’s going to be one of the core questions. This seems like a highly inefficient way to set about conquering the galaxy. Why spread this if there’s no reliable method of getting it to go beyond any singular world? (Obviously, the original idea seems to be a) BioWare shock value and b) something to horrify the audience with no reason attached – so it’s time to add that reason). What is the purpose?

So that’s going to be a running thread, probably the major subplot of the story. Obviously, though, the first priority is Shepard trying to escape getting caught up in this colony that is descending into Reaper control. Also, since I said we’re introducing the marauders here, I think we need a turian contact on the ground – I almost said make them a female turian, introduce them to the world of Mass Effect well ahead of the DLC for ME3 (a-HEM!), but I also think that we’ve got another situation of seeing them get infected and die as a result – it IS a consistent point in this series that coming back from Reaper infections Is Not Done. And repeating that here makes it a consistent theme, considering Nyreen.

So while I still say there should be female turians making their appearance among the turians of the colony, our turian buddy is going to be a guy, just for the sake of not stuffing another named female turian in the fridge. I’ll get to a more proper introduction of a female turian later, promise. (And, I like to imagine, with the number of DLCs I’m writing up here, there’s some kind of ability to retroactively introduce female turians into the crowds in the base game as a “patch” through at least one of them, as well as into ME3 proper... Hey, this is all fantasy as it is, let me have that one.)

Anyway, the turian contact is going to be frosty with Shepard – he (I don’t have a name for him at this point) not only doesn’t trust Cerberus, he was also friends with Saren, making him distrust Shepard. While Saren was a traitor, it’s got an element of ‘guilt by association’ to have had close ties to him, so Shepard’s kind of a living embodiment of the hit to his good name. Even if he didn’t do what he did because of Shepard specifically, they’re still associated. But he is still on a mission and Shepard is here and willing to assist him, so...

That said, he’s a Cerberus contact – Cerberus may be human first, but, given the ME2 crew, they can cultivate non-human contacts and aid, and under the circumstances of this colony, being a joint endeavor of humans and turians (probably throw in some callbacks to the last edition of these hypothetical DLCs and mention Ambassador Goyle and the Planet of Peace story). He’s been influenced by Cerberus operatives because hey, it’s good for humanity and turians to make peace if there’s a greater threat, right? Shepard meets with him on the outskirts of the colony proper – in order not to be influenced, they’re acting as much outside of the colony as possible. (Come to think about it, it might be a good idea to make recruiting Mordin a pre-req for this, at least handwave him having come up with a measure meant to protect from Indoctrination and the effects of these artifacts.)

The artifact is already influencing colonists, of course, and our turian friend is ready to write them off immediately – they’ve read the reports, and indoctrination can’t be reversed. I picture a brief discussion about how horrible indoctrination is as a weapon, making the Reapers enemies into their servants, and so warping their minds and perceptions that they’d never be able to trust that any thought they have afterwards is their own, even if they could be saved. Because seriously, that’s one of the most unsettling things for me in this franchise.

The idea is, of course, to get in to where this artifact is and destroy it unseen. That probably means a stealth segment through this colony – honestly, do it like the batarian base in Arrival, I don’t think that it would be so bad. That offered some nice variation, if a little spare on interactable things. Here are going to be some interactable things, things you can get to if you’re good, pay enough attention to the line of sights and such, but will still risk discovery.

Those interactable things are going to be some of the background of the artifact and what’s the whole deal – y’know, codex stuff, things that aren’t essential to the story but good background. Lay some groundwork for the idea of what the Reapers want out of these things being left behind.

Stealth section comes before the inevitable action section, of course. Here, the artifact is in underground caverns (like normal) and our turian buddy sets out to make some quick scans, get the information they need. And, of course, it activates at his approach, zapping him with energy. He tries to shake off any effects but... Well, I already said that he was gonna get infected and die.

So here’s where we start seeing the husks show up. It’d be really nifty if we could get them in varying states of their evolution (or devolution, depending how you look at it), some people just having glowing eyes, others being full on huskified.

And, of course, our turian contact is now in the process of becoming a marauder. I’m thinking we’re having something of the same thing as with Saren here – now that the Reapers made contact with him, they’re framing him as their “herald,” the one who’s going to act as their instrument. Shepard rightly gets to point out the comparison, which does at least get some hesitation – he’s being indoctrinated, is in the process of becoming a pure Reaper tool, but isn’t all the way there yet, the process isn’t 100% immediate.

Also I figure this is a good time to really establish (in terms of ME2’s plot) that the Reapers are so interested in Shepard and why. Like, yeah, sure, we do get Harbinger’s whole thing, but that’s not really a dialogue where we get to ask questions. It’s not even an interrogation where Harbinger demands information. Harbinger just spouts out dialogue of “this hurts you” and such. That’s not really telling us anything. So, yeah, there’s the basic “Shepard defeated a Reaper,” but hey, let’s just get a little more out of it.

I mean, we can intuit what Shepard means for the Reapers, sure, but if it’s important enough to be a major motivation, it’s important enough to say outright, you know? So Shepard is a pinnacle for this cycle – they killed a Reaper, delayed the advancement of the cycle for a few years, that’s a bit of a big deal when it comes before the harvest proper starts up – and the Reapers (like Leviathan will later) want to better understand what makes them tick. If this is unique to Shepard or the human condition, and, if it’s the later, how to break this down to its basic chemical composition and make it their own.

Turian buddy is also here to mouthpiece the explanation for what the Reapers even expect to gain from this. Slaves who can’t operate the mechanisms that they’ll be using are poor servants. I figure it’s as much an intimidation matter as anything – prompt the effective burning of a colony without deeper investigation, sow some fear about the unknown and keep people staying to the comfortable and familiar areas of the space that they live in, corral them in the familiar patterns. It’s a plan with the intent of intimidation – it isn’t until the harvest that they need the servants, so until then, they just want the borders firmly established.

Seems simple enough, sure, but this is still a mystery as far as the game proper is concerned, and I am trying to work within the established structure of the trilogy, rather than come up with some massive reveal that changes our understanding of everything – if I WERE just going to rewrite the franchise, I could do that, instead of writing up synopses of add-ons to the main game, y’know?

Of course Shepard’s gonna get free – I’m thinking that it’s a rescue effort by some of the other crew on the Normandy (because it really bugs me that, when the game is focused around Shepard gathering up the “Dirty Dozen” for their “Suicide Squad” (look, I had to get that out of my system), they only take two members out on missions at a time, so hey, look, they get up to something while Shepard’s busy doing the dirty work. This being ME2, we have to shoot our way out even further to get back to the artifact, which is where our turian ‘friend’ waits.

Paragon/Renegade choice here – do we try and reach out to him, get him to help us blow the artifact to hell, or just jump straight to the boss fight? By this point he has some additional help, by way of our introduction to a harvester – these were dropped into ME3, on Menae, with no exploration, and non-Reaper ones were meant to be enemies during the development of this game, so call this the natural evolution of matters. We’re introducing the marauders and the harvesters ahead of time, explaining the lack of fanfare that these enter the “proper” storyline with. The difference is if our turian friend is aiding us or the harvester, the harvester being our big end boss for this DLC.

The harvester gets killed, the artifact is blown up with the turian (he chooses to remain if Paragoned, a reminder of the permanent effects of the indoctrination process and how this is something that can’t be fixed – hammer home some of the fear and anguish that will be impacting those left behind from the inevitable fighting). Shepard returns to the Normandy for a debrief (I do kinda picture Miranda being involved in that, because, again, squadmates get additional dialogue here, and she IS the ranking Cerberus officer). Also some set up about discussing about Cerberus efforts to better understand indoctrination (foreshadowing for Henry Lawson’s experiments on Horizon next game).

Post Game Followups:

ME3: Indoctrination has seen further study, providing a war asset. Dialogue changes to reference Shepard having encountered marauders and harvesters before.

 Commander Shepard

The Suicide Mission is coming, and the Illusive Man has asked for all of Shepard’s companions to have their heads cleared. Now it’s Shepard’s turn. Their burdens have remained – the loss of the Normandy, the death on Virmire, and their death at the hands of the Collectors. The rest of the team has to clear their heads, and now so must Commander Shepard.

(Post-Horizon)

Yeah, why is it that, while we’re dealing with having to clear the heads of our crew, our PC, who has canonically been killed and resurrected, does NOT have to do this? So, yeah, Shepard needs a good head clearing. (For the record, I have written a fic of this: Lazarus Risen, and that’s effectively where I’m going with this, so if you’re so inclined, check it out instead of reading this, since while the recap is shorter, the fic itself is not too long.)

So, if you don’t want to read that, my idea when I made the fic was to explore both the idea of “Commander Shepard’s loyalty mission,” or the one where Shepard clears their head, AND the thought of just what the heck required Shepard to take all their companions on a mission and leave the Normandy vulnerable to the Collector attack after obtaining the IFF. Now, I’m saying that this mission unlocks after Horizon, but in my mind, that’s when and where this mission takes place. I just don’t know how to implement it within the game design that presently exists, so we’re gonna leave that open to player interpretation.

So the starting point of the fic (and thus, this DLC – like I said, that’s effectively where I’m going with this) is that Kelly Chambers, in her role as the Normandy’s official unofficial counselor/therapist, has recognized that Shepard has a lot of trauma associated with their death and resurrection they have not worked through, and so that’s gone into her reports to the Illusive Man. Mister Illusive contacts the Normandy, declaring that Shepard’s going in to a Cerberus facility, along with their crew, for a full psychiatric workup – the mission is too important to not have all these issues dealt with before going into things.

A bit of fun with this, on the basis of it being why Shepard is taking their whole squad off the ship, is that there’s the opportunity for some banter and genuine crew interaction, something that is sadly missing from the base game itself. Since I’m me, and this is about what I want from these, this is also an opportunity for some character stuff with Shepard, both playing referee (maybe getting a chance to recover some of the loyalty divisions from the confrontations if need be?) and getting to be able to better build and display the growth these characters are going through from seeing their loyalty missions resolved (cuz you DO resolve all the loyalty missions before activating the Reaper IFF, right?). The whole point of doing them was to clear their heads, encourage growth, and the thing is, we don’t get much of that forward arc in ME2, with ME3 just catching us up later. At least half the point of these is some retroactive continuity to smooth out the trilogy’s edges, after all.

Moving on. The arrival at the Cerberus Station (I am assuming this is the same one from the early part of the game, the one Miranda and Jacob take Shepard after they escape the Lazarus facility, though it doesn’t have to be, just a convenient use of model reuse) is uh... complicated. After all, Shepard’s motley crew is not exactly Cerberus approved (even if TIM authorized it – remember how Brooks in Citadel will mention that “Cerberus was a human organization bringing in aliens”?). There is a stir. A handful of situations have to be defused before everything properly gets under way.

This isn’t in my fic because that was focused on the one thing, while, as DLC, this would have to fill out some additional content to justify the time spent and the resultant price tag players spend to buy it, but I kinda figure this is where we can start seeing where the dissent is for Miranda in particular (probably Jacob too), given her Cerberus loyalties. This is a Shepard-focused mission, but I do see Miranda having a relatively decent role in any sidequests, character bits, and dialogue, given that we presently have in her a Cerberus loyalist right up to the point that she sees the human Reaper in the endgame. Especially if she isn’t part of the endgame squad, I feel we should have some material that connects those dots somewhat. I mean, I expect all the characters SHOULD get some, but Miranda in specific is the one with the almost explicit arc of taking her from Cerberus loyalist to her “consider this my resignation” remark to the Illusive Man at the endgame.

The Cerberus station director (my fic said her name is Doctor Nuwali, so we’ll be going with that) tries to organize the chaos that is Shepard’s squad (Shepard being as helpful or obstructionistic as the player chooses to allow, because Cerberus and authorities figures are always fun to poke at, and we’re getting both of those rolled up in one). Building off the above point with Miranda, there’s also clearly tension between her and Nuwali – Nuwali is, in many ways, a reflection of who she was at the start of the game, the pure, uncompromising believer to the cause and the results-driven focus without acknowledging the human cost, while Miranda has been in the position of growing and developing and questioning (Like I said, connective tissue for her character arc).

Nuwali directs Shepard into a private room for their psych evaluation, insisting on the separation of Shepard from the squad. (Just go with it, it’s for plot purposes.) Within is a prothean artifact, and it begins to react at Shepard’s arrival. It flashes-

-and Shepard finds they’re now in the Virmire facility. This is the requisite combat segment stuff that I can brush past during the recapping. The point is that they’re making their way through the geth to the area where the bomb was deployed, to find Ashley or Kaidan, whoever was left behind on Virmire (even if they were left with the distraction team and Shepard didn’t go back for the bomb, Shepard is guaranteed to have been at the bomb site, not the other area, so...).

They assist Shepard in clearing out the geth and then go into confrontation mode – “you’re working with Cerberus now, what the hell?” You know all the fan debates about why is Shepard working with Cerberus, given the horrors they uncover in ME1, especially if you roll a Sole Survivor (and, considering that is the default Shepard background, that’s clearly BioWare’s preference, so it’s not even like this shouldn’t come up – DLC is better than nothing, you know?).

Yes, we’re doing a “defending your life” style thing here. Hey, the game could use that, considering how Cerberus is the bad guy and we’re working with them. We deserve a more critical examination of this concept.

It’s a bit of a verbal joust – Ashley/Kaidan question what Shepard’s doing, their purpose in working with Cerberus, why they aren’t just leaving, how they could have tried to turn them in to the Alliance and the Council after they were given the Normandy and use the information in the ship’s databases as evidence of the Collector threat? There were ways for the story to progress that weren’t this deal with the devil. Shepard gets to acknowledge their points, struggle to justify what they’re doing. Emphasizing that this IS a deal with the devil, and if Shepard doesn’t find a loophole out of it, they’ll be condemned alongside Cerberus as well – not blowing them to hell in the here and now can make them culpable for their future activities, especially if Cerberus tries to bank on the idea of “Commander Shepard worked with us” (like they do with Conrad Verner in ME3).

Call it “preempting the ‘we should have been able to side with Cerberus’ discussion” that cropped up after ME3 – people, we ARE talking about a xenophobic terrorist group, how were they EVER gonna come out of this series looking like the good guys in the final analysis?

The ultimate point is that this is not a good situation – whatever good might come of Cerberus in general, Cerberus cannot be trusted. Ashley/Kaidan point blank ask can Shepard truly justify staying with them, doing the Illusive Man’s bidding, regardless of their good intentions. And I don’t really think there’s a good answer here – again, in my head, this plays as the mission Shepard’s on when the Collectors attack the Normandy, and, because I make sure to do all the loyalty missions before going to the Collector Base, Shepard is about to cut ties with Cerberus by way of a massive explosion (because I’d never trust the Illusive Man with the Collector Base), this is basically laying groundwork for that moment.

If you don’t do things that way... Well, sorry, but this is my hypothetical DLC, so we’re playing things my way.

Anyway, this sends Shepard on their way to the next installment of “defending your life.” Because we’re absolutely following the Rule of Three here, so there’s more than just the one segment. More requisite combat stuff happens, this time fighting through the Citadel tower again. At the end is Saren. Because why wouldn’t we have an encounter with him when Shepard is doing questionable things in the name of defending the galaxy?

He, of course, is rather smug about the fact that Shepard is allying with the devil in the name of fighting the Reapers – to him, it comes across as something of a victory, because here Shepard is, the person who came after him for his alliance with Sovereign, having made his own deal with the devil. If Ashley/Kaidan were the angel on Shepard’s shoulder, the voice of their conscience, telling them that they are making a mistake working with Cerberus, Saren is here to be the devil on the other shoulder, pointing out all the value there is in working with them, in doing whatever the mission calls for to put an end to the Collectors and the Reapers.

One would hope that this kind of rhetoric from the villain of the first game would make it very clear that Cerberus are the bad guys. As if to drive the point home, Saren also brings up that Shepard was rebuilt by them – with what is certainly Reaper tech. Shepard has begun the process of ascending to the Reapers level, what’s some more, melding more with their tech, bringing that melding, that joining, that unification of organic and machine, to the people of the galaxy, of doing the Reapers a favor and acting as their instrument in raising up galactic civilization?

Things of course descend into a firefight (because we’ve got to have our action quota). This time, Shepard gets to pull the trigger and personally kill Saren – sure, I get satisfaction out of persuading him to shoot himself, and I can always take the other options if I’m really pressed to face off against him, but I want the visceral satisfaction of having Shepard standing over Saren themselves and pulling the trigger.

It’s the little things, you know?

Anyway, because Rule of Three, this proceeds Shepard to the third point. They are back on Lazarus Station. No combat this time, just proceeding through the halls until they find themselves in the spot where they met Jacob in the prologue. Here, they see Miranda and Liara, discussing the act of giving Shepard to Cerberus to rebuild. While at first they’re talking to each other (whether or not you want to interpret this as Shepard somehow having heard the conversation or this just being Shepard’s interpretation, that’s up to you – we’re already in the center of Shepard’s mind here, does that really need explaining?), eventually, Shepard gets to speak, raise concerns, raise their voice.

Shepard gets options – do they understand and appreciate what was done to them, the resurrection and effective drafting into Cerberus? Or are they angry and pissed off – they were dead, and then someone else comes along and decides not to let them rest. For me, this has always been an issue of bodily autonomy, where, with Liara using the reasoning, and I quote, that she “couldn’t let [Shepard] go,” SHE is the one deciding what to do with Shepard’s body. Whatever you might say about what that did to make the galaxy a better place... Was it what Shepard would have wanted done with their corpse, to be handed off to a terrorist group culpable in acts of horrific deeds so that they could play Frankenstein with it? This is, in the games proper, just completely ignored – the one option to be angry is about Liara hiding this from them, not about her DOING it, and in ME3, Shepard – without player input – frames Miranda and the Lazarus Project as “giving them back their life.”

Yeah, no. I can forgive Miranda’s actions, given her characterization is actively about her going from looking at Shepard as a resource to be tapped to a friend (or possibly lover). It’s not perfect, but it’s still part of her arc, and she does at least make an apology (even if the writing doesn’t focus on the part I want it to, that ME3 conversation being focused on her wanting to implant Shepard with a control chip).

But I NEED to be able to express anger at Liara in some way just to like her, considering her canonical reason for doing this is all about HER – not that she considered Shepard the only one in the galaxy who could stand against the Reapers, but that SHE couldn’t let Shepard go. When in my games, she has no right to that. She’s not the one my Shepard’s are in a relationship with. So what those who romance her probably see as an act of love and devotion, I, not romancing her, can’t see it as anything but an act of obsession. And, even if I have to limit myself to a mental simulacrum of her, because there’s not a better place to include such a thing in these DLCs, it will help me, because it’s at least acknowledgement that hey, maybe Shepard is kinda pissed about people making decisions about them for them.

*ahem*

Right, so, where were we? Right, the reaction to Miranda and Liara discussing what to do with Shepard’s body. So as Shepard reacts, this prompts appearances from Ashley, Kaidan, and Saren, all of them playing Greek chorus about the decisions made about Shepard and how Shepard is reacting to them all. And yes, now we have both Ashley and Kaidan, regardless of who was left on Virmire, because why not – if we have one of them showing up for this DLC, why NOT include both of them? You’d have both actors in the studio anyway, so... Basically this is the big character confrontation where they all make the points that fans can debate and nitpick over when they bring up this topic, until finally the question gets put as, effectively, “well, however you feel about it, it has been done, so what are you going to do now?”

And to answer that, Shepard has to reenter the room they woke up in. Because we’re not quite done here yet.

Yeah, that whole conversation piece? THAT was the third “fight” or “combat” scene of this sequence, done in dialogue. Think the Atris confrontation in KOTOR 2, a verbal standoff. The actual interaction that Shepard has to face in the operating room... is themselves.

And their mirror image is offering similar questions, now wanting Shepard to respond, rather than having other characters voice opinions for them. How do you play Shepard’s reaction to their death and resurrection? To the fact that they are spending this game working with Cerberus, who is responsible for a traumatic event in roughly one third of all Shepard histories? Who Shepard uncovered multiple instances of their mad science in ME1 that crossed every ethical line? Who have it repeated rather consistently, is a humanity-first organization who will put human interests (and Cerberus interests, claiming they’re the same) ahead of galactic ones? If the Collector Base has (or is) a Reaper weapon, do they legitimately trust the Illusive Man with this power? Does Cerberus or the Illusive Man REALLY deserve any loyalty from Shepard?

Think of this as “stage two” of the verbal boss battle.

So, the confrontation with themselves concludes with, effectively, Shepard making their decision for going forward – the idea is that it has all been a mental debate, Shepard talking to themselves and coming to a conclusion that they needed to make. The general idea probably is one that, if you’re an obsessive fan with a penchant for filling in the gaps of canon (hey how are you?), you may have imagined these kinds of thoughts and discussions and conversations happening, but isn’t it more satisfying to actually have them take place on screen? And two, Shepard confronting themselves is, in and of itself, always a big deal. As I said at the beginning, this is Shepard’s loyalty mission, done to clear their head. How could it not result in Shepard facing themselves and asking themselves these big questions directly?

When Shepard officially makes their decision for the forward march, you know, figuring out how to handle Cerberus from here on in, which basically come to, effectively, use them for their resources and cut them loose at the end of the crisis or cut ties now and let the chips fall – since, after all, aside from Miranda and Jacob, whose loyalties to Cerberus are already wavering, Shepard has a squad full of the most dangerous people in the galaxy, so they could handle a mutiny of any kind (and, on the player end, there’s the knowledge that, while all this is taking place, EDI is getting unshackled and effectively is capable of running the ship) – they’re kicked back to reality.

And yes, those are the only two results of this, because, just to hammer it home, Cerberus is NOT. THE GOOD GUYS. The Illusive Man is not secretly good, he’s just using the “humanity needs protection” line to justify his actions and attitudes that are about seizing power. And anyone who thought that we would, should, or could side with Cerberus come ME3 was kidding themselves.

Granted, with this line of thinking, I’m not sure what the motivation would be to give Cerberus the Collector Base at the endgame (I mean, I never have, so...). Maybe the idea of “indoctrinate yourself, get taken in by the Reapers, you bastard,” but... That doesn’t seem right for Shepard’s characterization. Eh, like I said, much of this is based in how I play in the first place, so if you want to try and figure that out, feel free, but my list, we go by my way of approaching things. Because that’s just how I roll.

So I haven’t explained what, exactly, this prothean artifact is. Well, it’s effectively nothing more than a plot device, but let’s say there’s a note that becomes interactable, that basically talks up the artifact as being what I’ve called it so far, something that is meant to allow the user a chance to directly interact with themselves, face the truths they deny. Again, this really is a plot device meant to allow the circumstances of the plot, and while I could go into the details of how I assume it works, it really just needs to exist, but that’s my handwave excuse to justify how it worked. It works very well, thank you for asking. The reality is the how is less important than what it brings up.

So, Shepard is back in the physical world, and sets about putting the ideas into motion – the Illusive Man wanted them here? Yeah, no. Not doing that anymore. Shepard gets their crew out of there, upsetting doc Nuwali (giving the impression that there were some sketchy ideas in mind for Shepard’s companions when they were alone themselves, invasive procedures that they’d knock them out and see if they could take them apart and put them back together, now loyal to the Cerberus banner that sort of thing) and has a brief chat with Miranda as they fly back to the Normandy.

...You know, which, based on my time table, is currently under Collector attack. Fun times!

Post Game Followups:

ME3: The artifact as a war asset, reports about Nuwali being captured by Alliance officers while in the process of having attempted some of those ‘sketchy ideas’ she’d meant to enact on Shepard’s companions.

The Lights of Klencory

The planet Klencory is rumored to hold secrets regarding ‘the machine devils.’ Admiral Hackett of the Alliance has suspicions these are references to the Reapers, and has been secretly investigating these. Now, a team of Alliance soldiers have vanished out there, and he’s calling in Commander Shepard as a specialist, along with an old friend...

Bonus Companion: Ashley Williams/Kaidan Alenko

(Post-Horizon)

So back on the old days of the BSN, before Arrival came out, the speculation was, after Lair of the Shadow Broker, that the successive DLC would feature Ashley or Kaidan, give them the same treatment Liara got by featuring them in a DLC. One of my favorite ideas featured the concept of the “machine devils” of Klencory. You know, the planet blurb from ME1 where a volus is digging into a planet in search of evidence of “lost crypts of beings of light,” the indication being that he’d had his mind scrambled by a prothean beacon. So, hey, guess where we’re going?

I mean, obviously Illium, duh.

Actually, that’s not a bad starting point. Illium in general seems to be fairly neutral territory – sure, technically a planet in Citadel space, given its an asari world, but with many Citadel laws relaxed, it makes for a place where “an Alliance operative” will meet with Shepard (We’re starting by way of a letter from Hackett, for the record) without it being considered suspicious behavior by those looking in who are not in the know about the tacit support that both Hackett and Anderson are offering Shepard. There’s a lot of questions coming into this on Shepard’s part, given that, at this point in time, they’re not really an Alliance officer, and yet this is apparently something that is getting them called on? Probably means Reapers.

It gets complicated once Shepard arrives for the meeting and finds Ashley/Kaidan is their contact.

So, before we go further, I want to acknowledge, by the nature of having any real contact between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan between the encounter on Horizon and the opening of ME3, I am effectively breaking one of my cardinal rules for these, namely the idea of not screwing with the pre-existing structure of the games’ plots in allowing Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan SOME form of genuine contact and communication, to the point of a chance for a legitimate conversation about things and where they stand with one another (Yes, the previous entry was bending that rule, but this is an outright breaking of it).

Thing is, this is one thing that really SHOULD have existed in the games proper, I shouldn’t have to have built something up to include here, and I will 100% die mad about it. Ashley and Kaidan got shafted by BioWare’s handling of things, and I’m not willing to forgive it (if you follow my liveblogs of replaying the games, you’ll know I frequently complain that Arrival really was gift-wrapped to serve this function, and yet it doesn’t so much as mentioned Ashley/Kaidan). So yeah, we’re having an opportunity to address this stuff right off, it’s taking place in the game “proper” (for a given value, considering all of this is made up, but...). I’ll get into how this will impact their interactions come ME3 in the “Post Game Followups” section, for now, we’re just going with this.

Also on the “to note” element, I am mostly going to refer to Ashley/Kaidan in the sense of swapping them into place for one another, since, obviously, they are mutually exclusive at this point in the trilogy. But I do want it understood that I am not viewing them as interchangeable characters but as individuals. Just... If I stop to explain all the little differences of how they interact with Shepard in this, the variations of what they say and do on the character level, I’d basically be writing this out twice, which this is going to be long enough as it is, you don’t need to read the plot summary twice, and I certainly don’t need to write it twice. Assume that, even if not explicitly indicated, there ARE differences in behavior and dialogue that are reflective of them as separate characters and people, even if the overall plot must go forward regardless of how differently they’d react as individuals.

And you might want to pay close attention, since there will be a lot of use of “they” pronouns ahead, since Ashley/Kaidan is more awkward to write and I make it a point to not address the player character (in this case, Shepard) by one gender or the other in these write-ups, given that that’s variable, so things might get a little confusing if you’re not paying close enough attention to the context.

So... The meeting with Ashley/Kaidan begins... awkwardly. They’re uncertain how to really react to Shepard – sure, the encounter on Horizon means they know that Shepard is back, but now they’re really having to deal with this particular reality. So they’re going to aim to jump to business. Alliance intel has intercepted some messages from mercs hired out near Klencory, which got Admiral Hackett paying attention to things happening out there – like Shepard will acknowledge, between the circumstances of this meeting and the quick summary of the reason for the mercs all being out there, this sounds like it’s connected to the Reapers. Hackett wants to have Shepard as a “special consultant” as the Alliance has someone (re: Ashley/Kaidan) investigate (“consultant” since Shepard may not have had their Spectre status restored, so it gives them legitimacy either way). It could, potentially, just all be a massive coincidence. But since when are things ever “just” a coincidence?

Ashley/Kaidan are willing to use the Normandy as transport – Hackett figured that, between the stealth systems, and the lack of official Alliance authority in the area, the Normandy is the better option for getting there without being told to get lost. The bigger question is how they’ll be received – it’s not like merc gangs take well to outside interference, and the Alliance having any jurisdiction out there is questionable at best. But they should at least TRY to go in with civility. If this volus billionaire spending all this money on this (his name, for the record, is canonically given as Kumun Shol, so hey, less work for me, having to come up with a name!), then if he hears from someone who seems to be taking him seriously, it might get them invited in explicitly.

Obviously, though, if they’re hitching a ride on the Normandy, if things remain unspoken, the trip out there will be very awkward and seem longer than it is. So they have to address Horizon. They’re not going to apologize for not joining Shepard – Shepard is still operating on a ship flying Cerberus colors, even with good intentions, that is a betrayal of their oaths to the Alliance, Cerberus are terrorists and xenophobes, who want to secure human dominance. But they will acknowledge that they reacted to Shepard’s return in a way that wasn’t their best. I am not going all the way to “they admit that they were wrong,” because based solely on the information that they had, they handled things as best as they realistically could. But they will regret that things ended on the terms that they did.

Shepard gets to respond to that – are they accepting that it was a bad reaction to unexpected information, do they still hold a grudge, whatever. The conversation continues to a point of conclusion – Ashley/Kaidan don’t trust Cerberus, they want to trust Shepard, but the connection between the two at the moment makes that difficult, and they don’t know how to bridge that gap as things stand, but they’re going to try this.

We will be coming back to this, never you fear. But, of course, that’s more for the ending than it is the beginning, and this one conversation is far from the end.

Klencory is a world with a toxic atmosphere, so they first have to gain access to a semi-decent landing zone near where Shol has established himself. Because, naturally, he’s not interested in visitors – the brief communication we get with him is him effectively talking himself into the idea that Shepard is “the agent of the machine devils,” which... I mean, considering the prothean beacons and communications with the Reapers, it’s not crazy that he goes there, even if (by the rest of his actions), Shol’s gone a little nuts.

Shooty shooty bang bang, fight through the exterior guards and into the facility proper. Ashley/Kaidan are a little uncomfortable about what’s gone on – this really isn’t how they pictured things going, given the legitimate credentials they were supposed to be coming in with, and they can recognize the fighting is because of Shol not giving them an alternative, but it does still make them feel like they’re acting as little more than the thugs they’re dispatching.

Call this a reaction to the fact that Shepard doesn’t exactly get much of a differentiation in the game themselves. Particularly when they can call out looters on Omega while swiping whatever’s not nailed down.

This is another conversation that’s going to be part of that “coming back to” thing – assume there’s some kind of tracking metric for all of this in the same vein as how ME3 tracked how Ashley/Kaidan responded to Shepard as a lead in to the confrontation during the coup. Just, I’ll get to how that all plays out at the end.

Because a band of mercs aren’t enough to hold off Shepard, Ashley/Kaidan, and the third companion (yay party balance), they reach Shol’s central command. He’s a little batty, but it finally gets through to him that Shepard is not the agent of the machine devils. He is skeptical of Shepard being the savior from them, though. Instead, he wants Shepard and company to do something for him.

There is a vault. A vault none of his men have come back from. Shol declares that, if Shepard can enter, learn its secrets, and survive, then they will have proven themselves to be salvation from the machine devils. Since this is the advancement of the plot, Shepard will have to go ahead with this, even with the natural objections of Ashley/Kaidan (and, probably, Shepard themselves).

Another pause for a dialogue – Ashley/Kaidan are skeptical of Shol’s motives, and believe it may be too dangerous to just do what he says. Especially considering that he’s clearly not entirely stable. This is a situation that really calls for calling for backup. But there’s really not the option of waiting, because if they don’t do as Shol says, he’ll throw all his mercs at Shepard – even if we’re assuming that Shepard versus countless mercs ends well for Shepard (because, after all, it’s Shepard), it’s just a senseless loss of life.

Going in is a set piece of suspense. Think the Peragus mine, with a dash of Korriban for good measure, from KOTOR 2 – lot of littered corpses, this creeping and foreboding unease and feeling of being watched, this overbearing expectation of SOMETHING appearing down every dead end... Build the tension. This is a place that, the littered dead aside, no one has entered in thousands of years, it should absolutely be a place that could chill you to the bone. The examination of anything should feel like it’s disturbing the dead.

You know there’s some ancient security device active, right? I mean, something’s killing the people who trespass here. Obviously, it has to be something that will put up a fight as our end boss, and it needs to be something that is able to last a long time. I’m thinking an ancient robot (my mind is going in the direction of something similar in design to the ancient droids of KOTOR’s Star Forge), a last defense, left behind by a precursor to the protheans.

Yeah, it feels like an underwhelming result to me too, but it makes logical sense all the same – we have some evidence of things from prior cycles, not just the prothean cycle, making it through to the next ones, not the least of which is the plans for the Crucible. Seeing as how that bit of intel is just dropped into our laps come ME3, this is at least making it functionally foreshadowed, if indirectly, by actually showing us ancient technology that is still functional and viable even after more than fifty, a hundred thousand years. Plus the foreshadowing of things surviving to this cycle in the vein of Javik. Things lasting this long in forms beyond just ruins at least makes all of that happening in ME3 at least have some groundwork laid in these prior games – otherwise, we only have a few codex references to ancient civilizations, as opposed to it being an actual component of gameplay, things that the player MUST interact with.

But yeah, the threat may be underwhelming, but the payoff is what it guarded – the last remnants of this ancient culture. The corpses have been preserved, given that it’s a bunker into the planet’s mantle – the toxic nature of the atmosphere now came about because of the Reapers, though, of course, this is only spoken of in the material available as “the machine devils.” There could be a great wealth of information among this stuff.

Thing is, now that the threat’s dealt with, Shol wants his prize. He spent years of his life and a great deal of his money on this, and now he wants to use it – and, because he still is a paranoid bastard, he’s not particularly inclined to uphold his end of the bargain, having expected to have Shepard and the “guardian” of the tomb (for lack of a better term) kill each other. He just wants all of this to increase his own fortune – he’ll sell everything within to the highest bidder and damn what the Alliance, the Citadel, anyone might be able to get from the archives. Giving it to private collectors – like, say, the Illusive Man, or even any interested faction of capital-c Collectors (as in “the enemies we fight throughout ME2”) – will enrich him and it doesn’t matter what that information might do to help make the galaxy ready for war against the Reapers.

Now, normally you would think this would lead to a Paragon/Renegade choice. BUT, instead, we’re going to have a variation moment for Ashley and Kaidan. They’ll deal with Shol, but in unique ways. Ashley, having marine hand to hand combat skills (as she mentions in character discussion during the first game), manages to get close and disable the volus’s suit enough to render him unconscious, while Kaidan uses his biotics to get the same result. So they get to have a moment of protecting Shepard (not necessarily “saving” them, because a volus getting the drop on Shepard would certainly be an embarrassing way to go, but definitely helping them sidestep a situation).

NOW’S the time for the Paragon/Renegade choice, dealing with Shol himself. He is an obstacle, considering that dealing with the legal claim to this cache of information leaves the door open to some sticky situations as a result – the last thing they need is to have anything that might be useful be wrapped up in the legal battle. But he DOES have a valid claim. Just unilaterally taking this place from him is questionable at best – even if Shepard’s still a Spectre, are they REALLY able to just come in and declare the location to no longer be the property of the individual with the legal claim on it? Likewise, there’s a lot of sticky issues with the idea of killing him – after all, as mentioned above, he does have a bunch of trained mercenaries on hand, and it’s reasonable to try and walk out without adding to the bloodshed. But if it’s made clear that his madness has overtaken him (which, I mean... it kinda HAS), then there’s room for the Citadel to be able to legally seize his assets, including his claim on Klencory and its vault. But this still means institutionalizing a person because they’re inconvenient.

That’s the choice – institutionalize Shol and seize his assets, despite the subsequent legal battle that he and his kin can draw everyone in to, or cut through the red tape preemptively, kill him, and claim what amounts to squatter’s rights, since with him dead, no one else is there to take charge of the archive, whatever it contains. Ashley/Kaidan are going to say they have no intention of letting Shepard kill Shol (because that would certainly always be a line for them), but there will be a Renegade interrupt to take that choice out of their hands anyway, and Shepard can make an argument that, if they don’t do SOMETHING, Shol’s men will come in and try to kill them, while if he’s dead, that denies them their paycheck (because for one time ever, can we just have the mercs give up and run off once the source of their paycheck is dead?!). Shol certainly isn’t going to tell them to back down, and “survival instincts” have never been at the top of their hiring priorities.

Ashley/Kaidan will have some words about the decision Shepard is making, but they can be swayed to understand Shepard’s motivations, at least, in the moment, though any disagreements they have are more in the “waiting for a more opportune moment” than “what you say goes, Commander.” More on that shortly. With that matter resolved, Shepard calls for a pickup.

Back on the Normandy, Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan are having an informal debriefing in Shepard’s cabin (save the jokes for the end of the scene everyone, we’ll get to that). They do a brief discussion of what the likely followup will be – the fact is, the Reapers are probably already uncomfortably close at the moment already, so there’s not likely to be much opportunity to examine this place too much before they show. Still, every little bit is going to help.

The big thing is going to be how Shepard’s handled things through to this point. This was an accumulation metric (in the same style as Aria showing mercy on Petrovsky or not during Omega), so the various Paragon/Renegade decisions through to this point will lead to their reaction. Paragon Shepards get Ashley/Kaidan acknowledging that Shepard is still someone they respect, and that perhaps this whole Cerberus alliance was one of necessity. Renegade Shepards are leaving them questioning what Cerberus is doing to them, and are they really the person that they once were.

That leads to the question of where they stand if they’re a romance – like with Liara in Lair of the Shadow Broker, this leads to a romance rekindling, but only for Paragon Shepard, because that’s the version that has shown that Shepard is still the person they followed to hell and back, still the person they loved.

Yes, while I try and offer reasonably similar options for both Paragon and Renegade versions of Shepard, this is dependent on that. Because it’s about setting their concerns at ease, about listening to them and allowing them to be angry and upset and come around. Renegade Shepard will have shown they don’t care about that, so why WOULD Ashley/Kaidan take them back?

Anyway, insert “debriefing” joke here.

And, y’know, a reminder that, in these DLCs I’m writing, we’re going with the assumption that Ashley and Kaidan both were bisexual romance options back in the first game, and it’s an option to rekindle for both gendered Shepards.

After the interlude (however it plays out), there’s the discussion of what’s coming next for Ashley/Kaidan. They’re returning to the Alliance, of course – with Shepard’s official ties still in limbo, taking them out of the official chain, Hackett has made them a floating troubleshooter at points where he suspects Reaper involvement in some fashion, be it machine cultists and husks, Collectors, or what have you. However they feel about Shepard, Hackett is still seeming inclined to trust them on this, so they expect that the intel will still reach Shepard as they do their work. They make it clear they expect this to be the calm before the storm, and when the fight starts, they know Shepard will be on the front line. Paragons get them promising to back Shepard up when the time comes, Renegades get them hoping that they’ll still be on the same side when that happens.

Post Game Followups:

So here’s the part where, typically, I’d talk about how this impacts War Assets for ME3. But this is giving the ability to resolve the major Ashley/Kaidan element of ME3 before we even get there (like we should have in the first place...) and that means we have to deal with that. To that end, I obviously have left the door open for the lack of trust by way of Renegade Shepard, and that’ll go through things as they are, the same as if this DLC didn’t exist (I mean, it doesn’t exist anyway, but... You know what I mean!). The alternative for a Paragon completion is that there will be a distinct lessening of the tension between Shepard and Ashley/Kaidan in ME3, leading to some serious dialogue changes on Mars – more of an acceptance, instead of distrust.

I’m also thinking that, with the air cleared, there’s no moment of hesitation among them during the Citadel Coup, that it basically defaults them to trusting Shepard, regardless of how much they interact with them in Huerta and “clear the air” of Horizon. After all, Shepard already allayed their concerns with their practical involvement, gave them the chance to see them as the person they were, rather than the possibility that they were no longer the person they trusted. This changes the dynamics of their earlier interactions, and if you have rekindled the romance during the debriefing (no I’m not going to stop using that gag), then the dialogue will have more romantic undertones, the conversations more focused on matters of both them and the future together, trying to figure out if they even have a future, what with the invasion commencing, let alone where they stand with one another in that future.

I feel like I should have more done here, really, but I am really, genuinely TRYING to remain within the basic structures of the games as they are with this, because I totally could trash them and rebuild them from the start, but that’s defeating the purpose of this as additional material to the games, so that’s the most I’m offering on that. I want to do more, Ashley/Kaidan deserve a bigger and better role in ME3’s plot (which I’ll be trying to address further when we get to the ME3 hypothetical DLC, but that’s not here), but I’m trying not to totally rewrite ME3 as it is, that would probably be its own long involved project, and this is already ongoing. The original version of events can still be involved in the game proper, as the Renegade version, but that won’t be the only version any more.

Oh, and, we’re getting some war assets out of the place we discovered. That feels like an afterthought here, though. This has been about Ashley/Kaidan and their relationship with Shepard, more than anything, and we really did deserve this as much as Lair of the Shadow Broker.

 The Omega Heist

An old contact of Miranda and Jacob’s draws them – and Commander Shepard – back to Omega, where, with the merc bands decimated, an old threat they thought they’d dealt with long ago has reemerged. With Commander Shepard’s help, they must try their utmost to put this genie back in its bottle before it’s unleashed on the whole of Omega – and, potentially, the rest of the galaxy!

(Post-Horizon)

Considering Omega’s status as the dark reflection of the Citadel, the answer to it in the Terminus Systems, I just really want to explore it some more. Tie in to that, Miranda and Jacob have great prominence when they’re literally your only crewmates, but the second you start picking up the rest of the crew, they start falling off the map. Given that they’re our viewpoints into Cerberus as an organization, this feels like a mistake. Cerberus spends both the preceding and following game as enemies, and I think we need to spend some time at exploring why either of them would even fall under Cerberus and the Illusive Man’s sway.

It begins with Miranda asking to speak to Shepard. I’m gonna assume that, considering the unlock pattern of loyalty missions, this is most likely going to be played post-loyalty mission for both of them, since they’re both the first to unlock. Just to firmly establish where the characterization is going in to this. So both of them are at a point where they’re starting to question their loyalty to Cerberus (hence why I’m considering it a default that, in particular, Miranda’s loyalty has been obtained).

She’s heard from a contact on Omega about something that she wants to get Shepard involved in. The meeting moves to her office, where Jacob joins them. This concerns a mission they’d both undertaken shortly after their first mission together (see Mass Effect Galaxy, the mission Jacob talks to Shepard about having lost his faith in the Alliance over). They had an assignment to dispose of a biological sample – their assignment had been not to ‘get curious’ and investigate what it was, just get rid of it. The orders had come directly from the Illusive Man, so they were actually obeyed.

Jacob had been suspicious of the whole thing – when you’re moving something that you’re not supposed to investigate, it’s usually something that could blow up in your face. He opted for a little extra security monitoring, with Miranda agreeing and having kept track of it. That’s why this is now coming to her attention. They still don’t know what this was, but they can’t imagine that it getting let loose where any idiot could stumble across it would be a good thing.

So we’re returning to Omega. Personally, I’m disappointed that there’s no real change in Omega as ME2 carries on, even though you have to both clear out merc gangs and an active plague in the course of the game – recruiting Garrus and Mordin are mandatory quests, after all, so their joining the crew, their recruitment missions, these have to happen regardless of anything else Shepard may decide to do. So we’re getting another hub area on Omega besides Afterlife and the Gozu District market place. If Omega is the Citadel of the lawless Terminus Systems, then it can certainly fit in more of this (plus give more life to this place that, we know, will have people threatened come ME3 and the Omega DLC there).

Our central hub sector will be a safehouse established near the Kenzo District (picked because beyond existing as where Garrus had his run-in with Garm, we know nothing specific about it, so it can be used however the plot needs it to be). Under the circumstances – meaning “since we stored dangerous material on Omega without even speaking with Aria on the subject” – the idea here is stealth. Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob arrived via a transient shuttle rather than via the Normandy, and did so hopefully with some element of stealth. It’s not that Aria is going to be a threat here, just that she wouldn’t be happy learning about this going on under her nose and Cerberus is trying to cultivate some of her resources (sort of tie-in to the Cerberus takeover of Omega come ME3).

Their contact is my chance to get that female turian I mentioned a ways back into things – a turian trader who I’ll name Naevia (what, I’m a Spartacus fan and the reference makes me smile). The biological sample has fallen into the hands of a gang that’s trying to take up the space left by the biggest gangs of Omega losing their leadership (I’m thinking one of the gangs from our last edition of hypothetical DLCs, from “The Clean-Up,” because continuity!).

It’s around here that Shepard does ask the most important question on the subject that I think we’re all thinking – why the hell was this dangerous and hazardous sample kept rather than destroyed? Naevia admits she thought the same thing, but she was paid enough not to care, just to watch it. Miranda states that there was a possibility of using it for something in the future – this is a sign of her beginning to waver, because she can’t really justify the use of this sample, the fact that, though they’d been told to get rid of it, the “disposal team” had kept it, and were keeping it in a place with a population.

Granted this is a long standing tradition with dangerous science, but still, it needs to be called out.

The important thing is that it’s there, on Omega, and in particular when the station is already in the recovery process of a plague that targeted every race except humanity – there is still a lot of anti-human resentment on Omega, and the last thing that Cerberus should want is a human-spawned crisis breaking out (because no matter where the sample came from, a human organization, known to have a humans-first bent to it, was the group that stashed it here on Omega). Hence our presence.

We’re gonna have plenty of time to talk with Miranda and Jacob, so assume character conversations sprinkled here throughout (much as I cite it as reason that I don’t particularly care for their loyalty missions in comparison to others, that their loyalty missions also only have one ending, that once you start the mission, the only resolution is obtaining their loyalty, makes for a useful method of characterization trajectory here). This is here for the sake of exploring and deepening their character arcs, their division with Cerberus from the endgame, given that they’re both set against Cerberus come ME3, so we’re going with that.

We also get to spend some time with Naevia and getting a new perspective with the turians – she is a free agent, sort of like Vetra ended up being in Andromeda, in the sense that she’s a rebel to the status quo of turian military discipline. She’s looser and less rule-bound. She lives on the fringe of society and that shapes her reactions. She has no need for the turian rules of combat and prefers to take preemptive action – the rules of combat are a great idea in theory, when you have enemies who will respect them. But the Terminus is full of people who won’t. And, while she hasn’t been read into the Reaper matters, she is clearly picking up on the undercurrent between Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob.

Now if you’re assuming that this is leading to Naevia turning out to be involved in matters with this sample... Well, that’s definitely going to be a thing to follow, but let’s just keep going for now.

And yes, I have been cagey about what this sample even is. Remember, that’s because it’s a mystery even to Miranda and Jacob – they were still in a point where they were willing to listen to the Illusive Man’s orders without questioning them. The assumption was that the team they were giving it off to was a proper disposal team, and the failure of either of them to investigate it beyond his word. Y’know, the idea being they’re both starting to push themselves to look beyond the word they’re officially given by their boss and question him.

So… investigative work. We’ve already been over how in these summaries, that’s not where I focus on, not having a layout or anything to work with and such. So I’ve given the core ideas of character work and plot that plays out over the course of things, let’s cut to the climax.

The sample is being held by one of the gangs and a member of the Cerberus disposal squad. Because hey, look at that, a Cerberus agent went rogue and started killing all their guys, Commander Shepard, can you take care of that? He explains just what this sample is – a contaminant that can devastate a planetary atmosphere, hence why it was being kept on Omega, a space station. Of course, the problem with it is that it won’t discriminate and a rapid atmospheric dissolution will kill human lives as well. This is one of those things that it’s actually entirely justifiable that the Illusive Man didn’t want to use... y’know, if it weren’t for the fact that he still kept it, but...

Anyway, here’s where we come to Naevia’s sudden but inevitable betrayal, citing the profit to be earned – it’s easy enough to live on ships instead of a planet, so she’ll come out of this fine. Shepard gets the chance to shoot her with a Renegade interrupt, and look at that! She WASN’T betraying the team, just pretending to in order to slide a knife in the bad guy’s gut. It doesn’t kill him, and it still leads to a fight, but it’s easier if you don’t take the interrupt (because as much as I like the interrupt system, I think there should occasionally be consequences for taking a quick and reflexive response rather than the more considerate and thoughtful and examinative approach to a situation).

A multi-stage boss fight ensues – basic ground troops, interspersed with standard LOKI mechs, a YMIR mech joining the fight with reinforcements, and then a gunship. Maybe the gunship peels off midway and lets in another YMIR mech, just to really hammer the ‘boss fight’ element, or at the least let that be a higher level difficulty challenge. I mean you can only do so much with the mechanics of the game to create boss fights, right?

Anyway, Naevia is either dying, laughing at how her turncoat act was too effective, or she’s made it through with a few scratches and is patching them up as Miranda and Jacob are recovering the sample. Here’s the expected Paragon/Renegade choice of destroying the sample or storing it somewhere else – I can even see a reasoning for keeping in the idea of ‘once knowledge exists, it can’t just be destroyed, we need to study this to be able to devise a countermeasure.’ It’s a sucky one, for the record, but it’s a way to justify the Renegade stance.

This is where you see the culmination of Miranda and Jacob’s development. Jacob is open about wanting to correct their prior mistake of leaving this sample around to be used by anyone who might try to actually use it. No matter what, he sees no possible good coming from it and wants it destroyed. Miranda is conflicted. Her trust in the Illusive Man tells her that it would be right to hold on to this, it’s a weapon that could protect humanity if the aliens were to attack them – which is something that can’t be discounted as a possibility, considering the batarian hostility and the general aggravation of other races like the turians (see the previous Hypothetical DLC entry for more expansion on why I consider that a thing gets brought up). But she also knows that if this exists, then there’s a chance humanity can’t control it. She is looking to Shepard for guidance on this – she’s not turning to the Illusive Man’s standing orders here.

When the group returns to their safehouse, they find Aria there. Because this has been happening on Omega, and it’s her business to be fully aware of what’s happening on Omega. She thanks Shepard for disposing of that little business – if the sample was spared, she does imply that she knows about it, but, so long as it’s leaving Omega, she’s not going to be concerned about it. After all, she only cares about Omega’s interests. But, as a reward for what Shepard’s done for Omega, from the plague to Archangel to this (plus, potentially, dealing with Morinth, given that was the presence of an Ardat-Yakshi on Omega), she is offering a reward for Shepard – a penthouse suite.

Yes, I’m letting Shepard get an Omega apartment. I mean, okay, having one right before the Cerberus takeover of Omega come ME3 is not exactly the most prime real estate, but hey, Shepard deserves a place to relax, right? Plus it also comes with access to a special Omega market, a place where Shepard will be able to purchase any weapons or upgrades they might have been missed in the course of their missions (and any that get added through the DLC, including these). Because really, we should be able to have access to those things somehow, as in the game as is, if you miss it, it’s gone forever.

Anyway, Miranda and Jacob will also have follow up conversations when they return to the Normandy, discuss the way that things have played out and how they’ve evolved as people in the course of the game. Because as I said at the start, the two of them, in terms of their character development, kinda falls off the map in the course of the second half of the game. So they get a little additional content that helps fit them into the big picture of their character arcs.

Post Game Followups:

ME3: If Naevia survived, she’s an available war asset in regards to her underworld connections and such to send help Shepard’s way. If it’s kept intact, the sample also has some benefit for Alliance scientists in the study of reversing its effects and how to restore ravaged worlds. Also some additional content in the Omega DLC, though I’m not sure about the details of that right now.

And, y’know, since Naevia’s existence means that we have a female turian model built and developed circa ME2, this SHOULD mean that there are female turians scattered throughout both further DLC (as in ‘assume their existence in further installments, even if it goes unsaid’) and (because now they’d “exist” prior to the release of ME3) there would be numerous turian females in ME3 as assorted extras and such. Should go without saying, but I’m saying it. There will still be a few important female turian NPCs I introduce in further installments, but these are now part the standard background NPC collection.

 Battle Scars

Alliance officers on shore leave have been disappearing from the Citadel with no trace. Ambassador Anderson suspects there’s more to this than the standard dangers of a space station that’s practically its own world. Though Shepard is in a questionable position among the Council, they’re the one person Anderson can trust to solve this.

(Post-Horizon)

The Citadel being so limited a space in ME2 always bothered me. Y’know, I get the thematic idea, that ME2 was about exploring the darker underside of the galaxy at large. But I liked the Citadel. There was a lot about it to explore, all things considered – we’re talking about the galactic hub of politics and commerce. This really should be a major location, no matter the game. And as I’ve said elsewhere, there could be a whole game set on the Citadel with room for more. So yeah, we’re doing this here, exploring an area of the Citadel that we never got to see before.

There are Alliance officers going missing and Anderson gets Shepard involved. Obviously, the synopsis covered that bit. The idea here is that we’re going into areas of the Citadel that normally, Shepard has no business in, and in areas that are more like vacation areas. You know what this means? It means we’re going to have non-combat segments, in the same vein as Kasumi’s mission. There’s gonna be an extended sequence of Shepard out of combat armor in this one, because Shepard is not being called on to be a soldier but to infiltrate and be seen as a civilian more than a combat fighter. (I’m thinking this is going to involve a new casual outfit as well.)

And we’re gonna say that this is happening at an exclusive resort, meant to be a location that’s relaxing – a resort on the Citadel, effectively. It’s primarily a place for Citadel-aligned soldiers (Alliance and other races) to recover after combat, a therapeutic place for soldiers to get treatment for their PTSD (think a place where they’d probably have sent the PTSD asari in ME3 to if there wasn’t an existential war on). It’s why it’s a popular place for these Alliance soldiers to be, and we’re also going to rate it as having the highest success rate as a psychological and therapeutic facility in the known galaxy (because, being on the Citadel, why wouldn’t a place like this have a reputation of being the best, given how the Citadel is effectively the metaphorical center of the galaxy) and it’s a bit of a mixing bowl of Citadel culture, which allows for the rest of the party to come along.

I’m going to stick with mandatory companions here for a handful of reasons – one, Shepard’s got an eclectic band, and I feel like if they walk around a Citadel resort with Grunt and Legion, for example, that’s probably going to blow their cover. For two, I like the idea of mandating some pairings and developing the relationships more. Last entry was about Miranda and Jacob. Here, I’m thinking... For a resort, I honestly lean towards Samara and Kasumi, characters who, respectively, can blend in with “high society” and can pass through unseen by others. Kasumi, of course, does her cloaking to accompany Shepard – she does prefer going unseen. Samara, though, is playing at being a Matriarch – given the setting, let’s say that she’s pretending to be looking for a facility for her rambunctious daughter who is ‘disgracing’ the family name – sort of playing on her own history with Morinth (because Samara’s method that way), while still being a role she plays.

Yes, I’m aware that Kasumi is a DLC character, not everyone necessarily has her, but hey. If you’re playing DLC in the first place, you’ve probably collected other DLC, particularly a new companion, we’re just gonna roll with it, because I’m not going to develop an alternative without her, so consider them connected – I don’t know, say they got packaged in a sale together or something. This is all hypothetical in the first place, remember, does it REALLY matter that she’s not in the base game?

Shepard, of course, is going in as what they’re looking for, an Alliance officer looking for leave. This way there can be a solo segment, and the tension of “will Shepard run into trouble they can’t handle on their own before their companions come to their rescue?” Obviously, there does have to be some addressing of Shepard’s fame and notoriety, but it’s not like Shepard’s not doing other things that are putting their famous mug in places they shouldn’t be, particularly when it comes to involving Kasumi (The Hock heist, anyone? How, exactly, was the most famous human in the galaxy supposed to keep a low profile there?). So we’re just gonna handwave that, like you do.

As always when these are investigative sequences, I’m just gonna gloss over that part for the sake of convenience – the basic facts are that we have a lot of suspects with no clear motive at the outset of things. You know, get your basic archetypes wandering around – look at any show that features a recovery center, you’ll find them, I’m not gonna go into detail on the incidental characters.

The trick is that Shepard is going to be doing their initial investigating solo – they have to get entrenched before their companions show up (given that Samara’s cover is going to have her supposedly only there to look the place over, rather than sign herself in as needing “treatment” and Kasumi is going to be cloaked, searching for the things that Shepard can’t get access to – yes, for the record, I’m setting up for a Big Damn Heroes moment, I would think that would be obvious). They’ll meet with the above mentioned archetypes, learning details.

The details are more for the flavor – how well does Shepard figure out the scheme (which I’m getting to) before the villain shows up to explain in a monologue? Because, y’know, what villain doesn’t love explaining their nefarious deeds with a monologue? Shepard figuring out more and more of the plot before they confront the bad guy will impact the way the end fight goes down – figure it all out, you can sidestep the big final confrontation, figure most of it out, the fight’s significantly easier, stick to the bare minimum, it’s the hardest it can be.

This of course gets Shepard caught by our villain of the piece. So, what’s going on? Well, it’s an attempt by one of the doctors at this facility at cooking up the same shady shit Cerberus has, in the form of cyborg soldiers – the soldiers who have been kidnapped have been converted into these cybernetically enhanced soldiers. Problem is, they’re mindless automatons – higher brain functions didn’t survive the implantation process. So while these six million credit men are superior soldiers for combat, able to shrug off the kind of injuries that would cripple any other organic soldier, probably even have like nano-tech that speeds up any kind of healing and recovery process, they’re ONLY for combat, there is no human mind, no individual still alive in these shells – they’ll do as ordered because of the computer control chips in their heads, but only because those chips fire off the impulses needed.

“No glands, replaced by tech. No digestive system, replaced by tech. No soul. Replaced by tech. Whatever they were, gone forever.”

This is a point that I wanted to bring up in Miranda’s chat about “disposable soldiers” – the concept of soldiers being disposable is the kind of thought that cleans up war, something that the very idea is MEANT to be “dirty.” When you have these disposable soldiers, something that replaces the flesh and blood troops, you’re now in a position where going to war is not a difficult choice – you’re not sacrificing anything in the fight, because your best and brightest are safely out of the line of fire. When you don’t fear war, you’re going to turn to it as the first option, not the last. And, as pointed out by the use of Mordin’s quote above, at some point, your “disposable soldiers” become exactly what the Collectors are, mindless automatons who perform the duties of their masters, and, because of that distance, their masters’ own humanity erodes, because they never have to get their own hands dirty, while their servants are incapable of arguing with the orders.

This is when we get the aforementioned Big Damn Heroes moment, where Samara and Kasumi rejoin the party – since I’m assuming Shepard is being restrained at the moment, we have Kasumi Overload the controls and get them loose while Samara covers her by biotically handling the guards (because there are always guards).

So we get to that ending of how the boss fight can go down – Shepard gets to argue about the whole “disposable soldier” thing, bringing up and expanding on the above argument. If they uncovered all the details of the plot prior to the point they’re found out and taken captive, they can talk the doctor out of the inevitable fight (they still can choose to fight, of course, but the option is there to avoid a fight altogether) and have them shut down the project, effectively take their “prototypes” of these cyborg soldiers off life support and let them all die out (because, again, it’s the cybernetics that are even keeping them alive at this point), they can try and fail because of a lack of information, or they can actually agree with the idea, just that this doctor isn’t the one to be controlling them – it’s a valid choice, after all, to have a viable standing army to face the Reapers with.

I did debate making that last an option, just because I am morally opposed to the idea, but I am trying to respect that the Paragon/Renegade division was meant to be more than “goody-two-shoes versus puppy-kicking-monster,” and approach it from a level of “win with morals versus ends justify the means” – if you’re looking for something that can face the Reapers, like Shepard is aiming for throughout the trilogy, then a pragmatic approach says “we can use this resource, and I’ll deal with the moral weight of it later.”

Thinking about it, this does kinda make a flaw of the Kasumi-Samara team, because I do struggle with seeing how they’d just casually go along with Shepard saying “zombie cyborg army? Sign me up!” But maybe the Justicar code says that, regardless of origin, their existence has purpose and use, while Kasumi is horrified at the idea of using – and defiling – the dead like this. Basically, I want there to be a shoulder angel-devil scenario here, but I may not have selected the right companion pairing for this. Still, I’m not going back and rewriting this to make that work, so we’re just going to acknowledge that and move on – they’re both on the team, and there are other Renegade choices Shepard has available that they both just accept, so we’ll accept that.

And, y’know, I have a personal preference for Paragon at these decision points, and would probably stick to choosing to wipe out the zombie cyborg soldiers myself, and these are my ideas so I roll with what works for my decision making process, so nyah.

This still leads to the question of what, exactly, should be done with this facility – this is the head of the place we’re talking about as being responsible, with them out of commission (either being killed by Shepard or taken into C-Sec custody, depending on your choice), it’s entirely possible the place will be shuttered, or at least in chaos for a time, and that means all of its current residents are going to be kicked out – this is one of those “well intentions doesn’t change negative results” scenarios. Of course, Anderson will try to step in and do something, but... He can only do so much. Especially with having to clear out the devices and secret lab material and such, there’s a lot in this that just... is not going to have this place in a condition to be what it’s meant to be. Especially if things turned into a fight with the doctor and trashed the place.

Shepard themselves can only do so much – they can make a recommendation, but ultimately, there will be a board decision. They can offer a suggestion, a way for the staff to try and focus going forward, but it’s going to mean downsizing their care in some fashion – either they focus only on the immediately at-risk patients, going in the way of ‘if you’re not an active threat to yourself or others, you have to find somewhere else to seek treatment,’ or they limit themselves to just the care of a single species, because the psychological experts for multiple species is a resource drain.

And this one is NOT a Paragon/Renegade choice. It’s player’s best take on the subject, because there is no “right” choice in this scenario. Either way, someone is getting screwed over. You can hope sending the not at-risk patients won’t exacerbate their conditions, but you can’t be sure of that – especially when it comes to people who have been there for some time, PTSD and other conditions won’t just go away, they need to be managed and treated, and if you go from one facility and one medical professional to another, that can throw off your recovery. And you can specialize in the treatment and wellness of a single species, but what about the members of the other species? What about the “melting pot” nature of the Citadel and how, realistically, reinforcing those barriers between species only makes it harder for these species to get along with one another?

It’s a “no good choice” scenario, and I think it’s worth a discussion with Anderson at the end (rather than back on the Normandy with all the companions, just because I don’t think the game can really account for everyone there having an opinion). Though let’s also give a follow-up conversation with Kelly – y’know, the therapist – and let her have more to do in this game.

Post Game Followups:

ME3: If the doctor was taken in to custody, they’re among the Cerberus scientists during the mission on Gellix – Mister Illusive stepped in to get their work under his banner, and, like Gavin Archer, Shepard’s involvement eventually made them hesitate to do his bidding. If the cyborgs were kept on, they’re a decent strength war asset.

 The Batarian Connection

A Cerberus vessel goes missing out near the batarian border. While the Collectors are still the first priority for Commander Shepard and company, the Illusive Man is concerned this may be the first stage of a batarian incursion of Alliance space. He tasks Shepard and company with recovering the missing ship. The batarians, however, have other ideas...

(Post-Horizon)

We hear a lot of talk about the batarians making slave grabs throughout the first two games, and the Colonist background has this as a part of the things Shepard has been through. But we don’t actually see it. And we probably can’t manage to see the absolute worst horrors of the batarian slavers, but that’s not the full point of this.

No, the point is to start showing another face to the batarians. See, we’re going in with the idea of the batarians slavers we’re after handing off the captives they take – of various races, though krogan and turian are not likely, given their own, more aggressive nature (maybe useful in gladiatorial rings... We might be coming back to that before these DLC are done), and the quarians aren’t going to be as numerous, that still leaves humans, asari, salarians, and other batarians. And we know from Mass Effect 3, having the Cannibals being introduced in the first segment of the game, the Reapers have access to a lot of batarian genetic material, so they’ve already spent a lot of time developing how they intend to repurpose the batarians into the servants they need to wage war in this cycle.

Codex material speaks of how the Collectors want certain specific types of people to collect, and that is going to be what’s happening here – while the Collectors main focus in the game is to gather up humans to turn into Reaper slurry, we’re also looking at the other races, because there’s a history of the other races being taken by the Collectors for various unknown reasons. It wasn’t clear if there would have been an intent to build additional Reapers out of the other races – an asari Reaper, a turian Reaper, etc. - or if they’d just be left to rot, possibly slurried alongside the humans and just put in the same shell. To build off the idea of “organic preservation” of the species who consist of a cycle, I’m going to assume that they would be fused into a Reaper of their own, though there’s room to argue they were going to just be pulped into the same Reaper or left as the Collectors of the next cycle. But my ideas, my interpretation of things. And if BioWare wants to fight my interpretation, hey, should have included it in the game.

So yeah, the batarian slavers we’re coming across were going to offer the Collectors more of those captives of various races and such. The idea here is to not just have a look at the horrors of batarian slavery, but also an upfront acknowledgment that the batarians do this to their own people as well. The crappy situation for your average batarian is reduced to codex and one-liners, so we don’t actually have this knowledge available for the common players, and this is a thing that needs correcting.

We’re also going to have an encounter with a different Collector ship (just to avoid too much of the whole “small universe syndrome” of the same ship dogging Shepard for two years – it wasn’t until ME3 and James’s backstory that I got the impression that the Collectors had more than the one ship, since they made this one ship out to be this major force). Because, really, if the Collectors taking colonies was something of a plan B when the Citadel didn’t open, then they should be readying themselves for more than just humanity to be taken.

Among the batarians is a sense of distrust – batarian propaganda says the galaxy hates them, and, because we get the slavers and mercs running around in the games, the audience is probably not inclined to disprove that theory (particularly if there’s a Colonist Shepard doing the run – because I say so, there can be plenty of statements from them on the subject that fit the background specifically, because it’s nice that these are all theoretical and I can throw in whatever I like). Still, the general idea is that Shepard does feel a moral responsibility to save them, even if, as in the case of Renegade Shepard, it’s just in the name of preventing the Collectors get their claws on them.

But, thing is, ME2 offers no ship piloting mechanic, and I’m not bringing that in. And, y’know, I still get war flashbacks of getting ambushed by Sith fighters in KOTOR. So that means that the Normandy heads off, Shepard ordering them to find help (we’re gonna say that this is taking place somewhere near the batarian-turian border, so the Normandy can go find a few turian ships – going back to my idea of “shaking up companions” concept, I don’t have any particular choices to go with Shepard this time, but this makes it almost mandatory for a companion other than Garrus to come along, since Garrus can sway the turians to come to the rescue of alien nationals – and this ship ends up crashing, with Shepard and companions still on board – as are the freed slaves.

And we’re not crashing on a habitable planet. Because while there’s the helmets and all, I feel sometimes like the franchise as a whole underplays how much the atmosphere of planets being conducive to life as we know it is kind of rare. So while the cargo hold, settled in the heart of the ship and surrounded by the various additional decks of the ship, makes it through, there are portions of the ship that have been vented into space.

And the Collectors are coming.

Shepard gets to make a Paragon/Renegade “inspiration” speech to the captives, recommending that they get to trying to save themselves. Paragon will get a majority on their side, Renegade only a particularly brave soul. This one would be the Paragon’s contact/coordinator, just so that I can have a clearly identifiable person to turn to. And, yeah, we’re punishing Renegades here, but here’s the thing about this – we have stolen people, taken prisoner, made into slaves, about to be handed off to aliens who are only known to the galaxy as kidnapping and experimenting on people who never return, and then crashed on a deadly planet, with their only shelter pocked with holes letting out the valuable atmosphere that keeps them alive. I’m sorry, but being an asshole to these traumatized people? Even in the name of saving their asses from said kidnapping and experimenting aliens, they are NOT going to be ready to take up arms and fight. Read the room.

So, it becomes a game of causing enough losses to the Collectors for them to retreat for the Normandy to arrive with rescue vessels. Cat and mouse combat, with interspersed dialogue with our batarian coordinator (Making a name up on the spot... Kahvahr). That’s giving the expansion on both him as a character, talking about himself – a political exile, he spoke out against the Hegemony’s attitudes and practices, that they are so isolationistic that the necessary trade with the Citadel races, trade that could reduce their reliance on slavery, is killing them, which led to him attempting to leave, an attempt that ended up putting him into the hands of the slavers he argued against, and he’s certain that the Hegemony’s leaders basically gave him up. Talk about the beauty of Khar’shan, as a planet and place, something more tangible for us the audience of this place that we never get to go – he speaks longingly of these natural wonders he doesn’t expect he’ll ever see again.

The aid of the batarians Kahvahr leads can offer some combat segments getting avoided, but I do want to include some elements of the Collector faction from ME3 in combat segments all the same, the Collector Captain in specific. Because these things never appeared in ME2, so let’s remedy that.

And our end boss is going to be some variant of the Collector drones we see in Paragon Lost, which are these giant sized Collectors. So they get some additional tricks and are a clear case that Shepard is now facing the worst forces the Collectors can throw at them. Because I figure you can give them some interesting additional boss tricks.

The turians arrive and the Collectors withdraw, so Shepard gets to pass on what to do with these batarians – treat them as refugees who are seeking asylum in Citadel space or ship them back to batarian space. Because the thing is... batarians in Citadel space are probably not going to have things pretty well. Like there’s a reason we see batarians on Omega but not the Citadel. And a lot of these batarians still have families in the Hegemony. So there’s a very real argument to the idea that they’d be better off going back. It’s probably bull, considering the Hegemony’s leadership (and definitely bull on the basis of the Reapers being about to steamroll the batarians in between games), but... It can be made.

And it also speaks to how well Shepard is responding to Kahvahr – Kahvahr makes it clear, batarian slaves tend to be those who speak out. How much good can they really do going back to the Hegemony? Sure, you can argue that it’s in the name of encouraging rebellion against the Hegemony’s leadership, but realistically? It’s signing a death warrant – if this attempt at silencing him didn’t work, the Hegemony will likely just go straight to killing him.

And maybe Shepard’s okay with that – the whole reason we’re doing this is because the portrayal of batarians through the rest of the series is almost exclusively them as an always chaotic evil antagonistic force. What do they contribute to the galaxy, right? But this whole thing has been to help paint the batarians in a new light – now, shipping these batarians back to their people isn’t a mercy but a death sentence. What can I say, I like that script-flipping. But, as always, it is a choice for Shepard, for the players. Because apparently, people who play these games like the chance to play the asshole. Fine, you can, but you’re definitely getting judged for it.

Post Game Followups:

ME3: If given asylum, a batarian militia will have formed, both the survivors of the crash and of batarian refugees, wanting to aid the Citadel forces, Kahvahr himself as an asset.

 Shadow Dance

Shepard’s connections to Cerberus have not gone unnoticed. A Spectre – Vexx Liranus – has decided that they are a key component to Cerberus plans (not untrue) and that their capture or death would be useful in combatting Cerberus (definitely untrue). With a fellow Spectre nipping at their heels, Shepard has to face what should be a comrade in arms in a deadly game of cat and mouse!

(Post-Horizon)

We meet three other Spectres in the trilogy, and only one of them, Jondum Bau, in ME3, is actually an ally. This is turning that on its head – all things considered, Vexx Liranus should be an ally. After all, we’re talking about a fellow Spectre, working for the Council, and Cerberus IS using Shepard for their plans, so taking Shepard out would make sense.

It’s just Shepard is a good guy, working with Cerberus as more an alliance of necessity, rather than any ideological alignment. And while I’m sure if you had a chance to sit down and talk to another Spectre, they’d probably eventually come around to the idea, well... Where’s the fun in that.

So Vexx. We had Naevia above in “The Omega Heist” as our “first” female turian for the trilogy, though she does potentially get killed. So we’re gonna have another female turian here, just to really sell the “no fridging female turians” concept. She is a badass turian soldier, like I want a planet with an “r” name to say she had a major incident on so that she can be “the Raptor of [wherever].” Because I love alliteration. I picture her being voiced by Claudia Christian (who was a favorite of mine to voice a female turian back before we knew anything about Mass Effect Andromeda, and while I’m absolutely a fan of Danielle Rayne’s performance as Vetra, I still regret that lack, so I’m making this happen here).

As for the actual plot, we’re gonna start on a small waystation location. It’s a standard resupply place, in the vein of like those Fuel Depots or something, a place like the Citadel but smaller. Because I think that space stations are an underdeveloped aspect of the Mass Effect universe. Like in Star Trek, there are Starbases and Deep Space Stations (such as DS9). Surely the various militaries of the Citadel races are doing the same, building their own stations that act as refuel and resupply, as well as standard rest and relaxation – Spacer Shepard will talk about living on ships, but I don’t see a child actually being raised on military vessels. But a space station that acts as a rallying point and home base for a vessel? That I’ll buy.

So this begins with the Normandy pulling in to one of these types of stations. You know, a little bit of a supply run, something simple. Things do not go according to plan, though, because, y’know, why would they, we wouldn’t have a plot if they did.

It begins simply. They settle in for a resupply, Miranda suggesting that the operational crew get a chance for some break time, Kelly adding that crew like Rolston and Hadley should have an opportunity to contact their families. That’s how we get here. As Shepard proceeds to look through the market, we get other angles of Vexx monitoring and observing Shepard. Shepard will begin to get that feeling of being watched, and that’s when she makes her first strike.

Now, yeah, I say right off in the synopsis that Vexx is a Spectre, but in the story proper? This is going to be kept quiet for a while. Sorta like how Vasir gets this intro that kinda clearly marks her as someone who we’re going to have to fight later, Vexx is getting the appearance of being a straight up antagonist. Because in her mind, she IS an antagonist to Shepard. She just believes that she’s the protagonist of the story, specifically because of Shepard’s ties to Cerberus, coming to this place in a vessel flying Cerberus colors, operating with a Cerberus crew. In her mind, she has discovered a threat to the Citadel and the Council.

While I’m still on the “give the companions more of a role” train, in this case, we’re going to see Shepard cut off from the crew – they come under fire from Vexx, they give the command to evacuate the station, return to the Normandy, and get out until they give the signal. Paragon Shepard wants to minimize casualties, Renegade Shepard wants to handle this themselves – Vexx interrupts their leave? It’s on now.

This leads to a chase through the station, and finding that she’s gotten things pretty well set up for this chase – I figure at some point, Shepard comes across like a secured bunker she’d been using as a command base, finds logs that have been tracking them since they landed on Omega at the start of the game. (Timeline being what it is, meaning as variable as it is, I’m gonna say that this is taking place functionally around, say, the Collector ship mission.)

That discovery is also when her Spectre status is made clear. Now, while there’s a good chance that Shepard’s had their Spectre status reinstated (thank you Dad!miral Anderson), well, we still need a plot here. Vexx doesn’t believe Shepard’s claim to have Council approval – after all, she certainly can’t just casually check this out while on a mission, Spectres are supposed to function independently of the Council. And she’s pretty good with the “better beg forgiveness than to ask permission” approach – Shepard helping Cerberus, even as a double agent, is a threat (for a less competent example of why, see how Shepard helping Cerberus in ME2 leads to Conrad Verner preaching Cerberus values in ME3).

The hunt continues. I’m basically picturing this functionally working a lot like a lower-levelled version of Arrival’s Project Base level, just with like security drones and such, and Vexx popping in and out of combat range. This is a hunting mission, on both sides, and the idea is that Shepard (and, by extension, the player) should feel like Vexx or her drones might show up around any corner. If nothing else, call it useful practice and experience.

Now, I said before I wanted to avoid stuffing our first female turian in the fridge. While Naevia could survive, she also could die. So I want to guarantee that at least one female turian of prominence is introduced without killing her off. That means that we’re going to have to find a peaceful resolution, as well as an alternative that allows the bloodthirsty playerbase to be satisfied.

That means an outside agent, a third party, getting in on this. I’m thinking a krogan merc with a grudge and a krantt and a blood oath against Vexx he’s more than willing to extend to Shepard, the Spectres, and the Council – with Vexx, it’s personal, having tangled with her before, with Shepard, they’re in the way, and with the Spectres, they work for the Council, and the Council gave the go-ahead on the genophage, so hey, it’s a good day to be him.

This eventually leads to, after some three-way combat, Shepard suggesting a truce for the time being – the krogan (Vargan, for want of a name) is a bigger threat to them both at the moment, since he’s distracting them and endangering the station as a whole. Vexx sees the wisdom in this and is willing to work with Shepard.

This gives a little more time to explore her, now that Shepard can talk to her. Vargan’s grudge stems from her disbanding his merc pack a while pack – they had ideas similar to the Blood Pack and Clan Weyrloc (re: Mordin’s loyalty mission), just without the aid of any salarian scientists. Maybe they’d sought out Okeer (possibly part of the reason that Okeer became a “very hated name,” as Wrex puts it? I don’t know, I’m spitballing here). Whatever the goal, however, she managed to put a stop to it, enough that Vargan was stripped of his clan name – given the structure of krogan society, I figure that in doing that, a krogan loses all right to even attempt to mate with the females, a big blow to a proud krogan leader, basically leading him to a voluntary exile from Tuchanka. That he still has a krantt after that still speaks to his skill and prowess, but also makes it clear that these are his only allies in the galaxy.

Shoot-y shoot-y stuff happens, yadda yadda... We’ve been over how writing about combat in these write-ups is boring. End result, we learn more about Vexx, develop and establish her further, give her this likeable air now that we’re on the same side, and get to Vargan, taking out his krantt in the process. Now that he’s alone, he is ready to die. He got everyone loyal to him killed, that means he’ll never regain a clan name now. He wants to die.

Typically, Paragon/Renegade decisions are a clear binary of “good means letting people live, bad means letting people die!” But here, Paragon is understanding the krogan mindset – he wants to die because he will never have a place in krogan society if he lives. He got his krantt killed, so he will never be able to gather a krantt again. He will never have that trust again, and so his death is the only way he can have an honorable ending. Meanwhile, Renegade is saying “no, I’m not going to grant you the mercy of death, live with your failure.” And doing that will likely mean he will strike out and go on some kind of suicide run (indeed, I picture that result being a news announcement overheard on the galactic news points).

Because I like the idea of twisting the Paragon/Renegade assumptions around – the idea behind it is supposed to be more nuanced than “good = blue, bad = red,” but in context, a lot of the use of the system through most of the series is a lot more binary. So this is showing the flip side of both ideas’ general attitudes – you are saving more lives and respecting his attitudes and beliefs by killing him, while knowingly leaving a threat to others that you KNOW he’ll act on by keeping him alive.

Vargan defeated, it comes back to Shepard and Vexx. She’s more impressed by Shepard at this point. Paragon Shepard showed an understanding of non-human mindsets, and that more than anything makes her hesitate to paint them with the same brush as Cerberus. Renegade Shepard showed enough martial skill that she’s concerned that things will only reach the point of a stalemate, and likely do too much damage to the station for it to continue operation.

So she offers Shepard what she’s going to call a deal – keep to the Terminus Systems, like they have been, and she’ll let things stand as they are, with the added note that, if their Council reinstatement is genuine, she’ll also send a letter with a fuller apology after the DLC concludes. Yeah, it’s basically going back to the status quo, but one, I’ve been clear that my goal is to make these slot in comfortably with the existing game, and two, back to the in-universe justifications, it also means that she can prevent other Spectres from coming after Shepard – after all, we learned with Saren, the only real way to respond to a Spectre going rogue is to send another Spectre after them. If Vexx is in Shepard’s corner, it prevents other Spectres from coming after them later.

Probably should lead to a line or two in reference to Vexx from Tela Vasir, depending on when Lair of the Shadow Broker is played – alternatively, I suppose Vexx should have some comments about Vasir’s death as well, but I did say above that I see this functionally being roughly around the point of the Collector Ship in the timeline, and I always view Lair of the Shadow Broker as taking place after the Suicide Mission, and my write-ups, my timeline. Moving on.

Shepard has to agree to this, because see above: not fridging female turians when the trilogy is so bereft of them in the first place. We don’t kill Vexx. Because, really, that would mean that Shepard would have killed three of the four fellow Spectres they encounter in the course of the trilogy, and their numbers are said to only go to about a hundred or so. That’s a three percent fatality rate for the Spectres, and a seventy-five percent fatality rate of meeting Shepard. Someone has to think those numbers look bad. So, in accepting the deal, Vexx walks away and Shepard calls the Normandy for a pick up.

Post Game Followups:

ME3: Vexx has a sidequest on the post-Coup Citadel, regarding her work with the unifying of turian and krogan forces. Given Shepard having contributed, she’s asking them to join in her efforts. Complete that and she gets to be an asset and there’s a boost for both of those groups as well.

 Underworld

Illium is home to many elite in the galaxy. It’s called the gateway to the Terminus Systems. But it’s equally a warning that there is as much danger in Illium’s shadows as on Omega. And now a high-profile Alliance official goes missing there. Ambassador Anderson asks Shepard to investigate as he keeps the disappearance quiet, and Shepard gets drawn into a web of conspiracy...

(Post-Horizon)

Illium seems like it should be a bigger deal, don’t you think? I mean, in ME2 we get three hub worlds in Omega, the Citadel, and Illium, but Illium is introduced after Horizon, being locked to (on console) disc two, and, while Lair of the Shadow Broker gave us more of Illium in general... Hey. Let’s explore more. Cuz now we can open up some new areas that can stick around and still be explorable after the DLC ends.

We open with a message from Anderson – “one of our people went missing out on Illium, I’d like you to look into this as a favor to me,” that sort of thing. This official is an ambassadorial figure from the Alliance to the asari (so, for the sake of a name, I’m in a Power Rangers mood right now, I’m gonna call her Kimberly Hart). She’s been attempting to shore up some diplomatic ties – I’d figure this would include matters like getting stronger ties between the asari in the name of gaining access to teachers for Grissom Academy, better relations in the name of biotic rights, that sort of thing.

Illium, being a free trade world, is a place where these kinds of negotiations take place without government oversight – I figure, based on things like the asari on Noveria in ME1 who wants to protect asari patents by getting Shepard to help her engage in corporate espionage, the asari government is extremely strict about their “secrets” while humans, who are still struggling to get a handle on what to do with first and second gen biotics, are willing to take on free agents more than like the commandos and such. Also, don’t want a repeat of Vyrnnus, so the turians are definitely out. It’s “asari free agents” who they’re looking at bringing on for this.

But with her having gone missing, that’s concerning – again, we have the asari being fiercely protective of what they view as their copyrights (which I do want to have a running theme here surrounding the idea “how do you copyright something that has this melding with the life it is bonded to?” – amps working as they do, mapped to biological systems as they are, this seems like it borders on trying to patent people in the process, since they’ll gain full maps of the people those amps are implanted in). Anderson wants Shepard to go in, since they’re off the official books.

Now we return to that earlier concept of mandatory companions. Because of the matter of biotics, this feels like a mission that Jack pushes her way in to – both because she’s been the subject of biotic experimentation, and she wants to ensure that this doesn’t turn in to the Teltin facility all over again, and to help give some foreshadowing for her becoming one of Grissom Academy’s teachers next game. Additionally, I’ll go with Thane as the other companion for this – he’s done work in Illium’s criminal underworld.

Now then, to our central hub of Illium. We’re on a different city than Nos Astra, but it’s going to have a similar flavor to it, in the same way that Azure still felt like it wasn’t all that out of place alongside the trading center. Nos Vidia, I’ll call it (sounds suitably asari, anyway). It’s not as major a hub of intergalactic trade and commerce, meaning that Shepard and company are going to stand out in the crowd.

This is also one of the more “crime” areas, where the black market has moved in. We have Eclipse symbols on the wall and, while they’re not wearing the uniform, many of the people around here are obviously in the gang. Which also makes Shepard stand out. Thane, however, manages to bring up a former contact, someone who has been able to stay alive this long, meaning they’re skilled enough that they’ve survived.

The contact is an asari I’m gonna call Kassria. Kassria has picked up some Eclipse chatter that references our missing ambassador. That means Eclipse has her, but it’s not clear so much if her being taken is because of her getting in the way of Eclipse as a gang or if the Eclipse are working for some asari company.

We pause for some talk about the various asari copyrights, explore that conversation, with Jack having quite a few words on the subject of trying to make people property. That kind of thinking creates situations that create the same kind of science as Teltin. Thane offers something of the drell perspective – he’s the one who argues that he was raised and trained as a weapon for the hanar, and that he was not responsible for the lives he took. Who owns the abilities, the user or the one calling for their use? (I mean, there’s an obvious answer, but Thane’s bringing up the alternative to this – the people who are broken down and made into weapons at the hands of others.)

Like actually, let’s make that aside a point of having Jack and Thane – in Jack’s eyes, Thane’s attitude towards the people he’s killed is much how Cerberus would have wanted her to have ended up, as a weapon for them to point, pull the trigger, and give no concern for the ways that it impacts the person who acts because of that order.

It’s the same argument that we have with Miranda – the idea of “disposable troops” does not make it a matter of saving lives, just a matter of how war becomes easier, having these weapons to unleash upon others with no risk to the people who are supposedly being protected by them. It’s a way of absolving yourself for creating slaves by giving them some higher purpose.

This really is going to be a turning point with Jack’s arc proper, with how it leads to her being a teacher, because she wants to protect the young biotics. It’s not just about her protecting the kids at the Ascension Project from ending up tortured like the kidnapped victims at the Teltin facility. It’s also about reclaiming and maintaining personhood.

And while it’s hard for me to really give the separation theory Thane speaks of (we ARE going to come back to issues of the drell in general a few DLCs from here, so consider this to be foreshadowing and set up for that bit), I’m going to try and offer his point of view – that of “if you hone someone to only be a weapon, to only look at the world from that perspective, is it really on them as an individual that they proceed to see the world from that viewpoint?”

Of course, yes, I’m aware that the inherent flaw of ALL of this is that we’re not talking about drell youths giving themselves up to the hanar in the fulfillment of the Compact or with “different brain structures” to humans. It’s the tangent that they end up on because they’re along for the ride, and Shepard eventually has to get them back on track – finding Ambassador Hart. Whether or not the asari corporations are intending to use people as weapons, the Eclipse sisters presently have her held captive, and this means staging a rescue operation.

I want to take this chance to get a better idea of Eclipse’s organization (which, by extension, showcases the ideas that are moving the other merc gangs in the series). Like, what goals do they really have – Blood Pack are basically chaotic berserkers who want the world to burn (which, fitting, considering the general krogan mindset following the genophage and the vorcha having a complete lack of survival instincts because they never needed to evolve them), while Blue Suns have the veneer of respectability, acting as private security. But when we meet Jona Sedaris in ME3, she’s a raving psychopath, ready to kill anyone in her way. So what does the Eclipse gang want? I mean, besides the obvious of money.

Kassria is a former Eclipse sister, so she offers this insight – Eclipse doesn’t even really know itself. The non-asari members are almost leaning towards biotic extremism, given how the other races tend to mistreat and look down on the biotics among them, which makes them angry and want to lash out at those who’ve hurt them. Meanwhile, the asari who join in are often driven by other motivations, given that all asari have biotics – some are outcasts (purebloods, in pureblood relationships, or people with the Ardat-Yakshi mutation – let’s just assume Samara will have shared about her loyalty mission by the time this mission is unlocked so we don’t have to have the characters explain this to Shepard), others are maidens looking for glory (think Elnora the mercenary from Samara’s recruitment mission), some are obsessed with killing (like Sedaris), and some are just looking for a purpose.

She suggests that, if given something better, Eclipse might be a valuable asset for Shepard – not just in biotics, but also in their mechs. It’d be something to use when the Reapers come calling, not that she knows about the Reapers, just that she can figure that whatever Shepard’s up to, they’ll want an army at their back (because we’re still ME2 here, so this means we don’t know that Aria will be assembling the merc gangs under her banner).

This leads to an assault on the Eclipse base and trying to reach Hart before anyone proceeds to try and kill her or worse. As we continue, we find out that there is a high-ranking Eclipse member among this group – Jona Sedaris.

Yes, that’s right, we’re going to be responsible for her getting locked up come ME3. Obviously, this does mean she’ll survive the inevitable conflict and boss battle, but hey, we’re gonna have other things to deal with in the final analysis, so hold all questions to the end.

The Eclipse sisters and the techs with their mechs are heavy throughout the place, but eventually, we reach the place they’re holding Hart. She’s been roughed up a bit, but she’s alive. She’d made contact with an asari firm who’d claimed to be willing to trade some “asari patents” in the name of cross-cultural cooperation, but Hart got suspicious of what was happening. Turns out, she was being used – the company (a minor company, not one of our major equipment suppliers from the actual games, that she had gone to them in the name of avoiding those big names) was going to give her access, only to revoke it and claim that she had stolen these patents. That would give them an opening to start consolidating biotic patents in a human market, because humans would now be running amps and implants with copyrighted asari material, and, by extension, that would mean the company would own those human biotics.

That, of course, gets Jack’s ire up, and she’s ready to tear the place apart – people aren’t things to be owned. Even Thane’s ready to join in – even accepting his claims of lacking a responsibility for the lives that his employers hired him to take (again, we’ll be digging deeper into this in the future), this is trying to force people to be under the control of this company – based on his reaction when Shepard suggests that the Compact between the hanar and the drell constitutes slavery, Thane’s definitely not on board with that idea. And even on Illium, a planet with legalized “indentured servitude,” this contract is definitely sketchy – but it would be just legal enough that the company leadership would be able to get their foot in the door, and make it harder for human biotics to be able to exist without “company oversight,” giving them access to the human biotics before they have a chance to stabilize their position in human society.

It’s some further asari haughtiness, the idea of asari like Erinya, the lawyer who holds the contract to the Feros colonists, that the asari are “better” than the other races. The asari in charge of this company are of the belief that only the asari “deserve” biotics, and want to keep all biotics in the galaxy under their control. These asari in particular don’t see any race other than asari as even deserving of evolving out of the primordial muck. Not a mainstream view, but one that we do have foundation for existing in the universe proper, and, let’s be honest, it’s not hard to imagine this being a thing anyway based on our world (We’ll touch on these themes in more detail later). And this idea, especially combined with the asari willingness to indulge in “indentured servitude” on Illium, if no where else, gets taken to its natural endpoint – they see human biotics as little more than pack mules, livestock.

Short step from there to going along with batarian or Collector ideas, but really, it’s not like we don’t know exactly where that endpoint is from our history.

Obviously, Shepard is a walking contradiction to those ideas, so combat is the only way through. Sedaris might be an unrepentant murderer, but we do still have to take her into custody – this is where Kassria comes in, taking her down and intending to hand her over to the authorities in the name of getting a slice of the Eclipse pie with her out of the picture. It won’t be a clean takeover, which will justify why Sayn is running things for Sedaris outside of prison instead of Kassria (who would DEFINITELY just leave Sedaris to rot and probably arrange an ‘accident’ for her), but it’s getting her more power.

As for the company, they’re JUST on the side of legality – the efforts of Eclipse on their behalf were by way of verbal contracts, and no lawyer on Illium is going to take the word of a mercenary over those of these high-ranking business officials. Hart swears that she can make things hell for them, lose them some very lucrative contracts with the Alliance. Thing is, that also makes her job all the more difficult, now that she’s been found out having attempted to make these grey legality ties for the sake of “getting an edge” in the biotics market – they have the resources to make this a fight that, meanwhile, would set the cause of human biotics back. (Which, as we’ve been over in other write-ups, actually is a bit of a thing that has some deeper ties in to the overall universe that the people of this setting are still working on figuring out.)

The Paragon/Renegade choice here becomes the rather obvious “do we take the option that handles this cleanly but lets the bad guys escape responsibility, or the messy alternative that may not even get the result we want?” choice. Because the thing about asari litigation is that they can afford to tie things up for decades without concern for the “short term” consequences. So if this DOES go to courts, they can wrap things up and keep them there for a long time – which will impact how things go for the human biotics, the whole idea of ‘owning’ people because they have these abilities. Because then their legality, their agency, their right to choose for themselves would be being litigated, and being done so in the court of aliens.

It doesn’t feel GOOD to me to have it left like this, honestly, but I don’t really see this as something that is supposed to have a conclusion that feels good – we’re talking about issues of corporate ownership of individuals, and the truth is... that exploitation just goes on, it doesn’t resolve itself with a few showy displays of violence. It gets caught up in red tape and paperwork, and people lose, even as they win. And the point of this has basically been, at its heart, to show that the “underworld” isn’t the black and grey markets that scrounge a semblance of society. It’s the businesses who will crush people underfoot then complain about the mess they stepped in. The design of a lot of the locations introduced in ME2 had this cyberpunk dystopia look to them, but only really focused on the criminal gangs – the core of this is approaching the white collar criminal element that was not shown off as much, how it encourages both further street crime and the depersonalization that comes from treating humans as a commodity.

Jack is pissed either way because this is all kinds of bullshit – it’s Shepard who points out that as angry as Jack defaults to, this is, for once, her being pissed at something beyond herself, where it’s not just that she wants to cause mayhem, but that she wants to make things different for others. To do something to protect future human biotics, kids who are in need. It’s her actively wanting to find a way to make a different, not just chaos.

As for Thane, he is still drell, still a proponent of the Compact (again, we’ll be coming back to this issue), but he does understand how easy it is to see something ostensibly done to the benefit of people turns around and is used by malicious actors to take advantage of them. It’s one of those things that he certainly understood in the abstract, but it’s another thing to see in practice. He leaves it on the note that “this has given me much to consider.”

As for Ambassador Hart, she knows that either way, she’s tanked her chances for getting the instructors that she’d been hoping for. Basically, the diplomatic ties she’d wanted from the asari government are off the table, given the combination of asari tied to the company and just general political embarrassment at the fact that all of this even happened – they want to ignore it, paint things over in pastels, and she is a living embodiment of the event to the asari, able to bring up the reality at a time of her choosing. The asari would rather that this go away, rather than have this constant reminder. Still, she’s grateful for Shepard’s rescue – the Eclipse might not have actively been planning on her death, but it wasn’t a good position. And, at this point, she can at least salvage a career going forward. Maybe not with the asari, but there’s a chance that relations with the turians have thawed out some.

Post Game Followups:

ME3: The fate of the company plays a part in War Assets – being tied up in legal red tape, they’re not able to contribute to the war effort, or, in a magnanimous show of “inter-species cooperation,” they’re sharing some patents with the other races. Additionally, Ambassador Hart shows up for a sidequest after the Cerberus Coup, making another go at the effort, now that Grissom is gone and the human biotics are here – might as well make the effort to get these asari instructors anyway, and she wants Shepard to help her out with smoothing the ruffled feathers (since this would still be in that period of time where the asari are still trying to avoid joining the active war effort).

Also, while this wouldn’t really impact anything via saved game import, I also figure this would at least tie in to Andromeda, that several human biotics joined the Initiative in the name of getting away from the corporations who want to hold them as “patented property” and such. Probably would be a way to help at least make Cora’s arc tighten up a little – it’s not just that she thought she’d only be a “useful freak” as a human biotic, as opposed to an asari commando or an Initiative Pathfinder, but that in getting away from Citadel space, she’d be allowed to just be, to find out who it is that she is beyond her biotics, rather than have to have her biotics “registered” with a corporation who’d exploit them and her. Not sure how to incorporate that into Andromeda proper, but it’s something that would be acknowledged.

End of Part 1, link to Part 2 forthcoming.

[rpbetter]

You make some really good posts!! Can I ask something about DNIs? I know it's not directly RP-related, but I have trouble as an RPer with how many DNIs, with urls, there are now. I try not to interact with muns who have them, I block them, because it feels manipulative? But I'm also tempted to block people who follow those muns, because they probably think their DNIs are okay to have, so they're still "bad", just not as bad? Do you think that's overkill, am I shooting myself in the foot?

Oh, thank you! I'm very happy you've enjoyed them!

And, of course, ask anything at all!

I think, ultimately, the answer to whether that's overkill is entirely dependent on what your experience is and if you're happy with it. I don't think it is overkill at all, but if you feel like it is costing you too many mutuals, it might be overkill for you.

I'm a pretty insular RPer, I like a handful of close writing partners that I write a lot of threads with, so, having something like, under ten writing partners is great for me while it's miserable for other muns. I can go wild on blocking and not have it negatively impact my enjoyment, but I know that's not the case for everyone!

And I do, actually, I do go pretty wild with the blocking when it comes to things like DNIs. If it comes off as policing to me, not just something like a difference of opinion or a strong opinion on something, I'm going to block. Otherwise, it's just recognizing that this isn't a mun I'm going to work out with, but no hard feelings. With policing though...I don't want that anywhere near me or my mutuals, so, it's going to be a block.

Because they do tend to be in these odd, like, nested situations lol I totally will spend the effort if their DNI is bad enough to look at the muns they interact with and make sure I don't have future contact with them either. The RPC is such a big place, making it easier to forget URLs than to remember them, but it's also a place where we establish circles of contact, making it easier to run into the same group repeatedly. I feel like it's better for my peace of mind to be a little more certain than not at all that this isn't going to happen as easily.

If that DNI etc. has been so awful, I definitely don't require their mutuals professing the same beliefs as loudly as they are. If you interact with someone, maybe you don't know their pet fish's name or the obscure lore in a headcanon they posted five years ago or the rule they updated without telling anyone, but you do know what is on their pinned post or blog description or rules. At some point, we all visit each other's blogs in dash-view if nothing else when we're getting replies or checking for memes they might have posted, going through their tags, whatever. I do not believe that you're mutuals who reblog from each other often, reply frequently to each other, ship each other's muses and so forth, and all this time, you've somehow failed to notice your bestie mun is telling proshippers to die in their DNI lmao

No, you've seen it. And I find it extremely hard to believe, too, that it's never come up in conversation OOC either.

So, this hypothetical mutual is so oblivious to others, completely agrees with the other one's views while not feeling confident enough to share them publicly, or is scared enough of the other one that they won't disagree...and no matter which/which combination that might be, they're not a mutual I want.

Especially when it comes to a DNI with someone's URL in it. Hard pass on anyone who is okay with that!

If I visited a writing partner's blog, let's say this person is also my closest friend, I value them and the threads I have with them so much, and I saw that in their DNI they had dropped someone's URL? We would have to talk. I'd have to bring it up because it's the right thing to do (and would also be highly out of character for any of my friends, thus very concerning). There would have to be a question posed about what happened here, why did you feel like this was a good choice, and do you think it's increasing or lessening the problem to have that there?

Honestly, sometimes people do get so upset about something that has happened that their worst impulses are let loose freely. When you ask someone you have an established relationship with about that, unless you're being really hateful about it right off, it can help them settle down, take a step back, and see that this is maybe not the right action to take. To me, silence says you're okay with it.

When muns started putting more elaborate DNI's in, that alone rubbed me the wrong way because I genuinely do not think that the majority of that information is at all necessary. It's something I can see and fully understand minors doing, not because they're terrible or anything but because the impulses and rationale are just different. You're very much geared to be as loud as possible about things that are important to you, making them a part of you in a huge way, as a teenager. Shit just is unreasonably intense! But as an adult, I expect that behavior to be different. You don't actually need to say on your RP blog's DNI that "transphobes WILL be blocked!!!"

Well, yes, I should hope so lol we're a community filled with muns who are trans, I'd certainly hope you were not cool with that kind of thing. It's one of those assumptive states, it goes without saying because, in a group of legitimate adults, it literally doesn't have to be said that a trans mun in a group of trans muns in a RPC filled with trans muns would be intolerant of transphobic assholes.

And, no one likes a damn transphobe, it's not like this stunning, fresh information, here. Not making such a statement does not, in fact, act as a welcome.

Saying that, and I do not mean literally just that, it's just an example of the type of things found in a common DNI, is a little immature for me. Some of those things are, in addition to being purely self-validating: playing into the fear created by policing, virtue signaling, policing, or baiting. And all of them are pointless. Telling someone who would already be bigoted toward you and others to not interact if they somehow miraculously ID as whatever label that takes for them to not interact with your posts is waving a metaphoric red flag in front of a bull. Kind of like tagging a post as either "antis don't interact" or "proshippers don't interact." Actual quickest and most assured way to get that interaction!

I totally understand the age thing, it's self-protecting. Most people do respect it, but when they don't, you've clearly stated that this is not for whatever age group. Things pertaining to your writing and/or muse I also understand and think are great for a quick glance before someone even gets to the rules. Having in a DNI something like "muns who are easily triggered by gore" when you write a horror muse, for instance. You're advising them that this isn't a great idea for them, and it shouldn't be expected that you change your muse and topics because they decided to follow anyway.

But it became excessive very quickly, and there is the expectation that blogs have a DNI. The further expectation is that there be a specific list of things found in that DNI, if yours does not include it, you obviously don't have a problem with those things. I really cannot be okay with that, you know?

However, when it wasn't being used as a callout or a way to police, that was something that could just be ignored. Once URLs of other RPers started to appear, it was a whole other problem.

It used to be the pervading rule of the RPC that it is not alright to force other muns to chose between you and another mun that you had an issue with, but now we have DNIs with other muns' URLs in them. Now, it's the opposite take - if you have an issue with a URL being dropped in a DNI, or if you continue to interact with the mun, you're likely to get a callout or be on the receiving end of other bullying.

So, I very much think the self-insulating thing to do is to avoid those mutuals as well as the RPer with the URL-laden DNI. They could just block you, but is someone who was so juvenile as to put another mun's URL in their damn DNI going to be mature enough to do that? Will their friends once they complain about you? For me, it's too high of a risk of being around muns I wish would take a very long break from RP and only come back once they've grown up some.

I would never advise anyone to do something that is erring on the side of getting them into harassment water unnecessarily (as in, not something that pertains to digging in your heels and writing what you want or not tolerating bullying where you see it happening), and I feel like not doing what you are is that. However, I also am a firm believer in agency, even to make mistakes.

So, if you genuinely feel like blocking mutuals of someone with a URL-dropped/callout/other highly offensive and bullying thing in their DNI is costing you so many chances to RP that you're no longer enjoying yourself here? You might want to consider adjusting how widely you are blocking.

If that's the case, try going for mutuals who are what I call Casual Mutuals and leaving them open. Those are mutuals that the mun doesn't write with often or at all, they're technically mutuals because they both follow each other, but that's it. There might be some liking of posts or even comments or non-committal, OOC style memes sent in by Casual Mutuals, but that interaction is sparse and, yep, casual. These mutuals might legitimately be unaware of the mun's hateful, bullying bullshit in the DNI, or they are actually afraid to unfollow/block them at this point, so their option feels like staying around as quietly as possible.

With that last deal...you could even be doing someone a favor, Anon. When I've encountered that situation before, it's come about because the other person's Casual Mutual is painfully anxious, shy, and a previous victim of bullying. They feel isolated, they don't have many or any writing partners, and they really, truly, are terrified to distance themselves in a way that might be noticed. It's a type of toxic interaction that rarely gets mentioned in PSAs, presumably because it is so low on the actual interaction scale.

Giving them someone else in their corner, especially if that other mun is more open about their intolerant stance on bullying, can go a long way toward giving someone else confidence. I've had other people's Casual Mutuals become my Casual Mutuals and wouldn't you know it? After a while, they get braver. They see my friends and mutuals doing our thing without any of the bullying going on, they see us supporting anti-policing and not tolerating bullying, and they get brave enough to unfollow the hateful mun. It feels nice to even inadvertently help someone, and over the years, some of those Casual Mutuals have become great writing partners, too. People I would have missed if I had made the choice to block them by the association of a hateful mun they were trapped in the orbit of.

Just try to exercise caution! You seem like a reasonable person who doesn't mind truly thinking on things or doing the work required to be cautious. Assume the close mutuals are a problem, too, and block away. Build a wall with some razor wire on it with those blocks! Don't assume the low-interaction, very casual mutuals are, though. Check out their blogs for signs of agreement with Hateful Mun, and if they don't have any, give them a shot as far as just leaving them unblocked goes.

I also have to say, here at the end, that it's extremely nice to see that people out there are doing this. Honestly would have thought I'd be the last person to encourage a ton of blocking, but that's the environment of the RPC now, and it's really the only way we can deal with this issue. You can't reason with these people, you can't stop them, you can only stay away from them for your own good and send a message that this isn't benefiting them. Not everyone agrees with them, they're not going to keep having people left open for their attacks or their RP entertainment. And if enough people are just walling them off, that is a message they'll have to receive because RP runs on interaction with others.

They might think they want every "nasty ass" xyz Problematic RPer to block them, not interact, or vanish from their view of the RPC, but I don't think they realize what that really looks like. What it looks like is a huge percentage of the RPC missing, including people they didn't realize were "problematic." We tend to be quieter, wanting to stay in our own lanes and actually enjoy the hobby and each other. That's why they have to resort to shit like making everyone pre-guilty, or setting up traps to catch people out on being "gross."

So, I genuinely do not think they're prepared for the rude awakening of silence that would happen if we all actually vanished, but I am dying to see it lol and do sometimes have to wonder if the complaints about the RPC being dead/dying/empty, not in a fandom but overall, are coming from the purity police some of the time. It's quite active over on the Leave Folks Alone Over Fiction side of life :D

[diverse-writing]

Pt. 1-Hi! I'm a Black woman writing a Fanfiction for an anime series called Food Wars and I'm creating a sister and brother who are half-Lakota (Itazipcola Band) and half-Black American. They're going to a Japanese Culinary High School, the same school their great-uncle (Kiowa) went to when America was in Japan, post-WWII for a few years as his father was in the army. It's a very competitive school with diverse characters and cooking styles/types. They both want to travel and see a new country.

(continued) They live in Sioux Falls, SD after moving from the Cheyenne River Rez years ago. The family owns a Catering company with Native, African, and American Southern food (Mom is from VA) that does Showcasings, Chef Demos, and feeding the people within both communities while mentoring the youth. Annie (Older sis) wants to be a Pastry Chef as Andrew (little bro) does mostly savory, especially BBQ. Annie was on a kid's baking show as Andrew won kid's BBQ competitions. Both siblings want to help their communities by spreading awareness about poverty, suicide, and other stuff. They are active in their Native heritage. I did research in Natives in Japan, and I found that it's a bit mixed. Some people don't know about Natives, or that they do but only through the news and old western films. There's this one guy who went to a tribe to learn about the culture and he went back to Japan to teach his students about how the Natives truly lived. There's a Native jewelry store in Tokyo So some Japanese do know about Natives, I want to write a few small scenes where the Japanese students ask questions that are stereotypical about Natives and Black people, but they learn from the siblings. Annie begins to have a crush on a boy who is mixed indigenous (Ainu/Saami), but isn't connected to those cultures, because of his Ainu dad dying and Saami mom leaving him. He was adopted by a rich Japanese/Danish family. I want him to learn more about his heritage after falling for Annie and begins to heal from his past through learning about the Saami. Before he didn't want to do anything with them due to his mom. Andrew falls for a Japanese girl who does Medicine Cuisine. He's a expert in Nutrition and tries to help his people's health issues. They have a cute relationship. I thought of these characters just like any other person. I'm Black and I don't like seeing stereotypes. Annie and Andrew love music due to their dad formerly being in a band with only one album. They're both crafty with the Arts due to their grandparents on both sides teaching them. Annie is more outgoing, goofy, and blunt than Andrew but she enjoys the simple stuff in life and loves fashion (Vintage 60s/70s and Punk) Andrew is more quiet and shy, but not antisocial. He just likes doing his own thing while teasing his sis on her shortness and crush. He likes comfy, Punk clothing. I was just wondering what is offensive and not. I want to show their food and aspects of culture, like Powwows (I've been watching videos on Lakota Powwows) and I've been wondering if there's a coming of age ceremony. I don't want to show it just mention it. Is this where people get their Lakota name? I don't want to do religious ceremonies since that's sacred and also I'm not really religious, but what if I want to allude about it? Sorry that this was way too long!

Okay, this is a huge question but I’ll do my best to answer it with the GIANT caveat that I’m not indigenous and am only answering to the best of my knowledge. If any indigenous followers--particularly those with experience in Japan/with Japanese culture, though of course all are welcome--have thoughts or feelings, as always feel free to add more information and/or correct me!

A few observations that jump out, based on your description of your narrative framework:

Their food. Okay, while I know absolutely nothing about the food cultures you describe, I’m a huge fan of connecting with your culture through your food (and your stomach!) so I love this framing. That being said, to my knowledge African American food is fairly distinct from African food, with the former more likely to be in their cultural background given your description (obviously, in this situation you’re the expert on Black culture so feel free to totally ignore me here). 

Andrew’s food interests. Related to the previous bullet point, based on my understanding Medicine Cuisine and Nutrition would be super interesting focuses for him given his cultural background. It’d be super cool to seem him integrate his various cooking specialties and heritages into nourishing food to support his people. 

Knowledge about Native Americans in Japan. I do think it’s likely accurate that unless someone in Japan has personally done research, the average Japanese citizen probably knows very little about indigenous Native Americans in the same way the average American knows very little about Japanese indigenous ethnic groups. 

Relatedly, I think it makes sense for their Japanese classmates to ask stereotypical questions, but you should steer clear of just plain offensive questions. As you likely know, answering stereotypical questions about your identity and heritage is exhausting and should be treated as such within the narrative. Your characters are in school to educate themselves, not to educate their classmates, so while the latter may occur sometimes I don’t think it should be their focus. So while the intent of the questioning scene may partially be to help answer readers’ questions about Annie and Andrew’s heritage (and Black and Lakota culture to an extent), remember that the ultimate goal of representation is not to educate others but to help people within those demographics see themselves on the page. And more likely than not, Black and Lakota readers won’t want to see characters representing themselves having to answer the same repetitive questions they face down all the time.

I know you only mentioned him in passing, but I have a lot more thoughts specifically about Annie’s mixed Ainu/Saami crush. I don’t want to tell you *not* to write him but I do think there are several pitfalls you need to carefully avoid moving forward.

His Saami mother. There’s a big stereotype around POC abandoning their children, being absent or flighty parents, or otherwise just failing to properly nuture their children. While I’m unaware of any specific stereotype regarding indigenous  parents, I would tentatively say that doesn’t mean those stereotypes don’t exist, so tread carefully. That being said, I do know there’s a stereotype about indigenous people being alcoholics, so you should absolutely avoid characterizing his mother as such because as an outsider, you don’t have the power to subvert that stereotype. 

His relationship with his heritage. I would also be very cautious while writing his arc of reconnecting to his heritage. While reconnecting is unfortunately a very real (and very under represented) process for indigenous people, it’s an extremely difficult and personal process that I don’t think outsiders are qualified to write in-depth about. Though I don’t think you should necessarily gloss over his reconnecting process, I do think it should perhaps be a side character arc, rather than his defining character arc. For example, he might mention to Annie that her passion for her heritage has inspired him to research his own family, or else maybe he’s pictured buying a book on the Saami language. (The current discussion around Rick Riordan’s portrayal of Piper’s imperfect reconnection to her Cherokee heritage makes some really good points, so I’d check that out if you’re familiar with his books. I’d be happy to link you if you’re curious.)

His adopted family. I have to admit--as the daughter of a transracial adoptee in a family full of transracial adoptees, this framing makes me very wary. While I know transracial adoption parents likely have only the best intentions, the adopted child themselves often end up hugely disconnected from their birth cultures. It’s often an extremely stressful and traumatic event, especially in cases where the adopted parents don’t learn about their child’s birth culture themselves and/or only teach the child their own cultures (in this case, Japanese and Dutch). Honestly, with all due respect, I have yet to see any fictional narratives that properly address the trauma of transracial adoptions and given everything else going on in your writing, I’m not sure how well you would be able to write about it. More in the next bullet point.

His extremely mixed heritage. While I don’t want to come across as rude, I do have to ask: what’s your intention behind making a single side character with four different cultural backgrounds, especially backgrounds that you the author don’t share? The reality is that, no matter how much research you may do, these four cultures--Ainu, Saami, Japanese, and Dutch--are very rarely found in combination, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find any #ownvoices accounts from similar scenarios that you could hypothetically draw on to write more accurately. As a result, you’d know very little about how these different cultures meld together, and you’d have almost nothing to go on to write about his mixed multicultural background and the tensions that come with it. While I understand you may be attached to his parental setup and his backstory, I would highly advise simplification to avoid straying into territory you neither understand or are qualified to write about. Given your focus on his reconnecting, I would probably recommend keeping his Ainu father alive and cutting his adopted family. That way, you cut the number of unknown cultures in half and you can truly dedicate yourself to writing his Ainu heritage and his reconnecting process well.

With regards to your actual question about Lakota religious ceremonies, as a non-indigenous person I’m definitely not qualified to answer specifics about Lakota coming of age and naming ceremonies. That being said, I know this: Native American ceremonies, rituals, traditions, and lore are often closely guarded and not shared with outsiders. And I don’t just mean outsiders don’t share in the ceremonies themselves--outsiders often can’t even learn about the ceremonies because the knowledge itself is guarded. (This information is secondhand from my Blackfoot professor last year. If I’m wrong or if any indigenous followers have more accurate information, as always I’m open to critiques and suggestions!) As you continue researching this, I’d definitely be mindful of the source; if it comes from an official Lakota or indigenous source, it’s likely okay to share or discuss, but if all you can find about Lakota religious ceremonies is from, like, someone’s blog or Facebook post or something, then that information likely wasn’t approved to share and you shouldn’t write it into your story. Given that this seems to only be a character detail mentioned briefly, you may be able to simply mention the characters’ Lakota names in passing without referencing the ceremony itself.

Sorry for the long response, and I hope at least some of this information helps!

(Also, if you read this post, this is a good example of a really well researched and thought out ISO Sensitivity Reader question. Obviously, I’ve provided what information I can and this individual seems to have done lots of research, but the execution comes down to... well, the actual execution.)

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 18: MJ is lying to Peter but it definitely couldn’t be for his own sake

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Master Post

This is something of a tangent on the last post, where I discussed why MJ would know better than to lie to Peter. However an angle I didn’t cover was the idea that she might be lying in order to protect Peter and his life interests in some way. Well today we’re going to tackle that very question.

This counterargument stems from the fact that MJ (obviously) wouldn’t want to see Peter come to harm and wouldn’t want to harm his chances in making more of his life. After all, Peter (circa AMJ #1) had only recently begun attending college again.

Informing him about Mysterio would likely prompt Peter to ride out to L.A. immediately and potentially jeopardise his academic career.

But this just doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny.

In part 16 I spoke a length about how MJ values the greater good above even her marriage to Peter. I demonstrated that since she values her marriage over her career it therefore means she values the greater good above her career.

Using the same logic it’s pretty obvious to deduce that MJ also values the greater good above Peter’s academic career.

In ASM #303 (covered in part 16) MJ was prepared to jeopardise or potentially give up her successful modelling career for the sake of her marriage. This was owed to Peter being offered a promising new job in Kansas. 

However Peter turned the job down out of consideration for MJ and instead decided to go back to college (as he is in ASM v5) so he could get a job in NYC. Mary Jane doesn’t even try to protest against this.

I’m by no means suggesting MJ is being selfish here, but it does demonstrate that the value she places upon Peter’s career prospects (which his college education is an extension of) has it’s limits. She clearly values her marriage more than that in addition to her own career.

So if MJ’s priorities place Peter’s career below their marriage and their marriage below the greater good, by extension it means she actually doesn’t value Peter’s education above the greater good.

And so she wouldn’t avoid alerting Peter to the existence of potentially dangerous criminals simply because she doesn’t want to screw up his academic chances.

But if you want even more proof, remember ASM #286? MJ ultimately decides the risk to Peter’s life wasn’t as important as the innocent lives that could be saved. Are we seriously going to suggest MJ believes Peter’s career options are more important than his literal life?

Of course not. And let’s not forget that Peter has gone back to school four  time by this point. I am unfamiliar with the American college education system, but that suggests to me that there is no limit on the number of times someone can stop and start their academic career. So even if MJ reluctantly has to kill Peter’s current chances in college, she knows that he could simply restart again. She also knows Peter would want it that way too.

Not to mention MJ could be honest with Peter without  risking him riding down to L.A. to save the day.

Peter knows he can trust Mary Jane. She doesn’t have the ability to get him to agree with anything she wants. But nor is Peter going to be immovable on any topic that entails MJ somehow being in a dangerous situation. In Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #2 Peter is insistent that MJ leave New York in order for her to evade whomever had abducted Aunt May.

Whilst she reluctantly left, she soon returned despite what Peter wanted and continued to stick around in spite of him wanting her to leave again.

However he didn’t press the point a second time even though the situation hadn’t changed. There are various reasons as to why but the point is that Peter was able to accept that it was a reasonable decision even though he disliked it.

Later in ASM #536 following the public unveiling of his identity and his turning against the Super Human Registration Act, the Parker family find themselves on the run. Peter wants MJ and May to get as far away from him as possible, arguing it’d be safer and more efficient for him to operate on his own. Peter is however convinced by May and MJ’s arguments to the contrary.

Both examples demonstrate MJ being honest with Peter of being in direct danger but of her also convincing him to allow her to remain in that situation. Now for sure we could argue that these outcomes were ultimately the lesser of two evils from Peter’s POV. That what MJ wanted was actually ultimately safer over all.

However if somehow MJ had a solid argument for why her sticking around on the film set served the greater good or was ultimately better for her it’s far from impossible that Peter could be convinced to stay in NYC. Just spit balling here but she could argue that something very fishy is going on, Beck already tried something large scale recently and singling MJ out could mean he knows Peter’s identity As a result sending him to jail could risk exposing his identity and by extension endangering his friends and family. If MJ sticks around and Peter keeps a distance it puts her into a position to investigate and see what he knows.

I don’t know how much that idea holds up to scrutiny as I came up with it off the top of my head but it certainly makes a lot more sense than Mary Jane just straight up lying to Peter.

Even if hypothetically Peter just could never accept MJ being surrounded by criminals, she could simply promise him she would contact her various super hero associates. Or in fact ask him to do that on her behalf.

That’s not me suggesting MJ be passive or allow a man to sort out her problems for her either.

It’d be a strategic and diplomatic use of both her intimate knowledge of Peter’s psychology and her famous people skills. Having Peter on some level  take an active role in helping/protecting her would make him feel in control in some way. Make him feel like he is living up to his responsibilities as a hero and as a partner and thus alleviate his urges to ride down and intervene personally.

Nowadays Peter isn’t opposed to this level of trust in his super hero friends. Even ignoring his years as an Avenger (which included living with them alongside MJ and May), Peter has called upon these people in the very recent past.

Throughout in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man volume 2 Peter called upon the aid of his super hero associates to help him during various crises. These included the Doctor Strange, Iron Man, the Human Torch and the wider Fantastic Four.

Another example can be found during the ‘Absolute Carnage’ event, which definitely occurred after MJ left for L.A. We know this because in ASM v5 #29 and issues #30-31 were tie-ins to the event.* The Avengers in fact appear briefly in issue #30.

In Absolute Carnage #2 Venom/Eddie Brock suggests that they call upon the help of the Avengers to deal with Carnage’s impending rampage. Peter asserts that it’s best if he do that.

He is shown doing exactly that in Absolute Carnage: Avengers #1 where he teams up with Captain America, Wolverine and Ben Grimm.

Additionally this team contacts Hawkeye on the West Coast to deal with Carnage’s minions over in San Francisco.

It’s important to note that Hawkeye was on the West Coast because he was a part of the West Coast branch of the Avengers. Their headquarters specifically being…in Los Angeles…where Mary Jane is making her movie.

Granted, it’s not the same part  of Los Angeles because MJ is in Hollywood and the West Coast Avengers HQ is in Venice Boulevard. And a quick Google search reveals that to travel between the two locations on foot it’d take…under three hours…Yeah…

Basically nowadays Peter is absolutely not going to be opposed to calling upon the aid of other heroes to help him directly or indirectly so asking them to show up and lookout for the woman he loves wouldn’t be out of character. Especially when one considers that Hawkeye alone is probably out of Mysterio’s league considering the threats he’s survived. But Mary Jane’s personal friends Iron Man and Ironheart? Unless Beck specifically prepared for them he would be unlikely to get away, let alone hurt them.

Now look I’m not suggesting we apply every single facet of the Marvel Universe into our analyses because that’d be ridiculous. Every Spider-Man or related story would fall apart because he could simply resolve his problems by calling other heroes. It’s part of the suspension of disbelief that Spidey is the only person available to deal with whatever crisis is at hand.**

But these are all very recent stories that, happened in the main Spider-Man titles; or tie-ins directly to those titles. In the Avengers’ case they were his teammates for over a decade and were for a time outright his supporting cast. Mary Jane was a major supporting character in the solo titles of two separate Avengers characters and that fact was acknowledged within ASM itself.

Is the idea of calling upon these characters really not fair game in this hypothetical scenario of ours?

I’d say no.

Regardless the fact remains that in AM #1 Mary Jane cannot be lying to Peter for his own sake and has no other justifiable reason either. She would know better than to do that.

Next time we take a look at MJ’s skills and whether they actually could protect her and others from Mysterio or not.

*It’s not entirely clear when the events of AMJ #1 happen in relation to ASM v5 #30-31. They must happen after ASM v5 #29 and AMj #1 was published the very same day as ASM v5 #32; being referenced in that same issue.

To me this implies that AMJ #1 slots in just prior to ASM v5 #32, but in fairness it could occur just after ASM v5 #29.

However, the events from the story I’m discussing were published before AMJ #1. They would also happen so close to it no matter what that Peter’s characterization in the former is still a fair source to cite.

**Although it should be noted that it has often been common practice for Spider-Man stories to directly address exactly why other heroes aren’t available to help Spidey. A great example would be ASM #361, Peter’s first encounter with Carnage, where the F4 and Avengers are occupied forcing Peter to call upon the aid of Venom.

P.S. For some additional food for thought check out ASM #291. In the issue a Spider Slayer robot was on the loose but Peter reluctantly left it to the authorities because a crying Mary Jane called him up and asked for his help.

Previous Part

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Master Post

[otaviosequeira21234]

Otavio Sequeira’s (21234) Interdisciplinary Project Reflection

Intro

The interdisciplinary project was a seminal programme requiring students from faculties all across Lasalle to collaborate creatively to achieve a set of learning outcomes. The following accounts are narratives of my group’s working process and outcomes. 

Day 1 Our entry to the IDP began with a collective presentation in the SIA theatre where we received an introduction to the project lead by the president of Lasalle, followed by two guest speakers. The first of which gave us a presentation on quantum computing while the latter gave us a presentation on the role of art in the fight against climate change. The presentations helped establish a context of topical discussion for the IDP, being the issue of tackling man made environmental issues as artists with respect to an evolving state of technology. They also elaborated on the project’s moniker “How is your window to the future”, implying that, as budding artists, we needed to adapt our skills to discuss how current world issues may impact our physical future. Following the presentation, all students were sent to their respective classrooms where we were to receive a briefing on how we were to approach both the projects topics and group exercises. Our class’s instructor, Cornelia Dinu, spent the first part of our session covering the projects methodology, mainly focusing on steps 1 and 2 which were; “Identify the issues/topic” and “Clearly define the context”. In order to divide the class into groups, instead of randomization or any form of systematic selection, he initiated a class discussion based under a simple question, which was; “What do you think is going to happen within the next 100 years?”. Discussion points across the class varied and covered various possibilities including; the advancement of AI capabilities, authoritarianism, utopian societies and even developments related to the viewing of art. I suggested that, as opposed to cultural and technological advancements, humanity would succumb to the weight of its current practices and the human population would technologically revert and diminish significantly, going through a ‘reset’ period. After each person contributed, Dinu would ask the rest of the class if they agreed with the speaker and why, to which at least two people would respond and give elaborations and suggestions. He then asked everyone who agreed with any of the speakers to sit with them and form their newly appointed groups. I ended up being joined by students from; animation, fashion, product design and film. Upon our formation, our discussion for the remainder of the session was focused on continuing my original discussion point and toying with the possibilities of project proposals. During this session, we mainly fixated upon steps 1 and 2 of the step method. 

Optional Workshop: Devising Performance 

Honestly speaking, I did no prior research into the specifications of the workshop before selecting it. Based on its name, I discerned that it would have something to do with developing approaches to performance art mediums. Noting that I am also from a performing arts background and wanted to innovate my own approach to musical performance, I selected the workshop based on this perception. The workshop DID cover this, but used acting and dramatic performance as a medium to demonstrate this. Our instructor, Felipe Cervera, began the workshop with an acting warmup. These warmups consisted of a series of activities highlighting physical and vocal expression from participants in order to reduce inhibitions. For professional actors, these warmups would increase fluidity and realism during rehearsals. Proceeding the warmups, we were separated into randomised groups where we were given the task of improvising a performance piece based on the IDP headline. There were no restrictions regarding how this piece could be performed stylistically. My group chose to make a slightly more ambiguous dialogue piece centered around cynicism and anxiety amongst college students. The second instruction from Felipe was to construct a piece responding to a previous group’s performance. Again, there were no guidelines specifying what this response needed to entail. For our group, and most others, we would spend a few minutes before physically performing the piece discussing which part of the group’s performance we needed to respond to. Almost all groups chose to respond in the form of a parody of a particular segment or aspect of the previous piece, whether it was the piece’s theme as a whole or even just a single phrase spoken by one of the actors. Needless to say, every group’s performance was rather awkward and slightly cringeworthy, and even with groups that had full-time acting students. If i were to discuss the importance of the workshop in facilitating the IDPs learning objectives, alongside sharpening each students expression and spontaneous capabilities, I would say it would be to demonstrate to performing arts students means through which their profession and art could be used to tackle and discuss global issues and, for students in more design and illustration centred courses, to expose them to alternate mediums through which such expression could be facilitated. 

Day 2

Our group discussion was now focused on devising proposals for art pieces that could be used to express our chosen topic. Noting that grander real world solutions needed to be proposed, we decided that our art piece needed to reflect a situation in which our proposed prediction of the world’s apocalyptic future became a reality. Our proposals included; a satirical graphic novel, an audiovisual art exhibition, a holographic piece etc. After discussing each proposal with respect to the research requirements we decided that we were going to settle on a graphic novel, due to its conceptual simplicity and tangibility during a presentation. The rest of the session was focused on discussing art styles and content for the graphic novel. Eiris, the group’s animation student, had already created drafts of potential panels by the end of the session, while I had written parts of a storyboard. Examples of the draft can be seen below: 

Day 3 

On the third day, an idea was proposed by Marcus, the fashion student in our group, regarding how our product could become relevant in the event of an apocalypse. It was proposed that our product should be held within casing that could withstand the most extreme elements of an apocalyptic scenario. We spent time researching different types of materials which could hypothetically meet these requirements. Our final decision for the casing’s proposed materials included; buckypaper (known for having the strength of style but being a weak conductor of electricity) to construct the case’s outer shell and kevlar (having a higher melting and freezing point than buckypaper) to construct it’s inner shell. The nature of the graphic novel was also discussed during this period. Digital representations of the casing can be seen below: 

The graphic novel was to be a sort of ‘survival guide’, detailing different means of surviving the apocalypse. Of course, the general tone of the novel would be humorous, and the ‘survival instructions’ would mainly include puns and play-on-word jokes based on various apocalyptic scenarios. This would be to satirise the current state of environmental conservation, stating that the featured apocalyptic scenarios would be experienced by humanity if we continued to act unsustainably. To construct the book itself, our proposed materials included; tyvek for its abilities as a writing material, on top of being radiation and waterproof. Of course, for our proposal and draft products, coated paper would be used for the book and the case prototype would be constructed via a 3D printer. We spent the rest of the session working on a powerpoint presentation for friday, as-well as writing a script for each member and constructing the following“mood-board” which would represent our aesthetic inspiration: 

Day 4

For the final day of preparation, we were fully devoted to constructing the presentation. All research and material gathering had been finished at this point. Eiris had finished all panels of the graphic novel (one of which can be seen below). 

  Rahman was organising the printing of the graphic novels and gathered most of the resources and drafts we used during our planning stage. Marcus, Maximilian (Our group’s film student) and I spent the session working on the presentation slides. 

Day 5 

On our final day, our group arrived an hour and half before our class was scheduled to begin. By this stage, our powerpoint had been fully completed, we had a prototype for our casing and 5 copies of our graphic novel had been printed. We spent this period assigning sections for each group member to talk during and did 3 total run-throughs of the presentation before the class began. Our presentation went relatively well, with Dinu and the rest of the class being seemingly impressed by our prototypes and us answering any questions at the end to the best of our abilities. Future proposals and amendments we suggested to enhance our product included incorporating our previous product ideas to make the experience more immersive and using campus spaces to do so. 

Conclusion

During the project, I felt like I hadn’t contributed as much as other members. I didn’t demonstrate the leadership skills of Marcus in coordinating our group and, as a music student, I didn’t have the illustration or design skills of Rahman and Eiris which would have allowed me to construct our prototypes. Despite creating a format for our groups early vision in our first class, I ended up relegating myself to helping out with the powerpoint and writing storyboard ideas. While I initially considered this to be a shortcoming, I realised that using whatever abilities I had available to me to ensure our project went smoothly was a noble thing to do, even if I lacked some of the more outstanding skillsets of my peers. I may not be able to draw, design or command, but, being an artist, I had the ability to contribute ideas creatively and, having experience with microsoft office from working on similar projects during highschool, I was able to do a large amount of our presentation work. In the end, our group’s presentation and proposal was able to follow most of the 7 method steps and demonstrate our collaborative efforts.

(This amazing illustration was drawn by Eiris)

[dantes-monferno]

so i’ve been thinking...

i've had this idea in my head for a while now and i want to get it down in words. i've named this idea "pokemon world tour" and because i can't think of anything better, i'm sticking with that for now. there’s a lot of rambly word vomit under the cut, so proceed with caution :P

imagine if you will, a gen 9 game (i know, i know, swsh just came out like 2 months ago). what that gen 9 game looks like isn't important; what is important is this hypothetical games post game. so you've just beaten the pokemon league in this new region and become champion. and you've also seen (seen, not captured, very important) all the pokemon in this new regions pokedex. you go talk to the professor and they tell you good job and upgrade your pokedex to the national dex with a bit of a caveat: to complete the national dex, you have to travel to the different regions of the world to complete it. and that's the main gimmick of "world tour": you get to visit previous regions. think of it like gsc/hgss on mega steroids lol

so you get handed this massive undertaking by your professor and you think “well, if i’m going to visit other regions to complete this pokedex, might as well have some fun too”. so when you visit a new region, you can challenge that regions gyms and pokemon league. you get recognized as a new champion wherever you go and the gym leaders will react accordingly when you take them on. the teams they’d use would be a much higher level, appropriate to the approximate level your team might be at in that portion of the game. when taking on the pokemon league, because you’re already the champion of another region, facing another champion would basically be like a big exhibition match; so you won’t become the champion of all 9 regions lol. you can just strike fear in the hearts of everyone as you become the actual strongest trainer in thw world.

in this post game, we would also clearly see the passage of time in all the past regions in one game. all the characters would be older, there could possibly be some changes in the gym leaders and elite 4 members, and we can get some concrete info about how all of the games fit together in one timeline (a lot, probably too much to ask for but this is self indulgent wish fulfillment fantasy to the max). all the old characters would have new looks including old player characters! all the player characters from past games would be the current champions. before you visit a region there would be some shoehorned dialogue option that would let you choose which gender protagonist you want to see as the champion. it would also allow for the player characters to each have distinct personalities! 

so i don’t really know how the order would go for visiting regions. all i know is that they would have to be unlocked one at a time because having them all available in the beginning sounds lame. as well as choosing the champion’s gender before you head to a different region, you can also choose which version of that regions game you want to model that region off of. for example, if you were on the way to sinnoh, some shoehorned dialogue would ask some kind of question relating to diamonds or pearls. all this does is decide which box legendary the champion/past player character has and which one is still out there.

and of course when you go to the past regions, there’s going to be some new story. i don’t really have a lot of ideas about what those things could be but it would also be lame if there wasn’t plot in these new regions. 

so that’s my self indulgent word vomit lol. this is all i’ve been thinking about for like the past two days, so let me know what you think! 

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #16-18 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here. 

This arc is a mixed bag.

Previous arcs of RYV tended to give one of the family members more priority than the others. It wasn’t exactly that we’d have an MJ arc then a Peter arc then an Annie arc exactly, but which characters got more focus did shift around. The Venom arc for example was more MJ’s story with Peter playing support and Annie more in the background. The X-Men arc was more Annie’s arc with her parents splitting the second fiddle role.  The penultimate arc before the time skip was another more Annie centric storyline, actually probably the most Annie centric story since issue #3.

Houser’s opening arc put the spotlight on each family member culminating in Annie herself, but Annie was still being developed through Peter and MJ’s eyes in those issues. This made a lot of sense since she’d be the most important thing to either of them and we already know who Peter and MJ are. Even if they’re 8 years older that’s not going to amount to them being as significantly different as the now teenaged Annie whom we’d not yet met.

This arc is another Annie centric arc which initially seems like Peter is going to be an important backup player, sort of like how the Venom arc was MJ’s arc first and foremost but Peter still played an important role. This was indicated by us getting Peter and Annie’s thought captions in issue #16 and the story revolving around Peter working at Annie’s school.

Issue #17 drops Peter’s captions and point of view and the story becomes Annie’s totally now revolving around her two new friends abruptly introduced at the end of issue #16. Peter however had three poignant scenes in the book implying that going forward he would be an important character to the pay off the arc. This did not happen because issue #18 thrusts forward with the story about Annie and her new friends, now with Normie as an important player. Peter shows up but only as part of the ‘parental collective’ alongside MJ and gets just one scene with just him and Annie at the end of the book, which serves to simply reiterate the sentiments from the earlier scene with MJ and to payoff that Annie and him are more at ease about both being at Midtown High.

Now there are two ways of interpreting all this.

The optimistic and diplomatic way is that the arc is about Annie growing more independent via forming a new friendship group. Issue #16 nicely sets up that Annie, like many teenagers, is trying to find where she belongs in the high school jungle as she and her old friends have drifted apart as unfortunately happens as kids grow older. Her Dad’s continuously diminishing role across the issues as her relationships with her new friends (and old friend Normie, whom she reconnects with which is maybe pay off to what I just talked about) grows is symbolic of her becoming more independent as she grows up.

The more cynical view is that...this arc is just disjointed. That Houser wanted to set up the status quo of Peter at Midtown high and dedicated the first part of the arc to that but also had it half act as a transition into the meat of the arc, which is about Annie befriending Lacey and Reece...oh but Normie is also involved too.

Unfortunately I’m inclined to think the latter is more likely.

It almost feels like Houser was seeking to set up the general status quo for the family in her first arc running through issues #13-15, then was setting up Annie’s personal status quo with this arc.

Like imagine this was not a Spider-Man family title but a Spiderling title. You establish her school, her social situation, her Dad being a teacher, her older friend in Normie. The only thing you arguably don’t have set up here is her parents or the fact that they are superheroes but that’s because you’ve already read the previous issues. Heck issue #16 even has Annie swinging solo on the cover, almost like it could be the cover to a Spiderling solo book.

The focus upon Peter in issue #16 feels like I dunno...lip service to the fact that this supposed to be a team book and not an Annie solo book.  Feeling exacerbated as his presence diminishes as the arc goes on. It wouldn’t be that bad perhaps if the arc supplanted his presence with MJ’s but that doesn’t happen. MJ is a slightly more distant third fiddle in this arc.

Now conceptually having an arc so focused upon Annie isn’t all bad. If you looked at Houser’s run and the post time-skip era in isolation, dedicating a focus arc to her and her status quo makes a lot of sense. However considering the arc just before the time skip gave her the lion’s share of panel time and she’s also had a lot of play in the X-Men arc and Conway’s opening arc AND how Houser’s opening arc dedicated a lot of time to developing Annie...you see where I’m going with this.

She’s stealing too much lime light from Peter and MJ at this point, even if this arc was hypothetically afforded them more panel time.

But how does this connect with those two points I raised up top?

Connected with this is the issues raised from the time skip itself.

When the time skip was announced the big criticisms surrounding it mainly revolved around:

a)      The jump abandoned the status quo we’d been building for 12 issues b)      Making Annie a teen is derivative of Spider-Girl/Mayday Parker

Jameson and the Bugle are used organically for what little they show up. Jonah also looks noticeably aged, although that does raise the question of why nobody else does.

Annie is well characetrized and believable as a teenager who is both unreasonable about the cringe factor of her Dad teaching at her school and well over her head in getting mixed up with Lacey and Reece. Her growth in the story is also done well as she has to become more akin to a parent and grows to accept her Dad’s place at her school. Fundamentally Annie is played as a nice balance between trying to be responsible but tripped up by youthful arrogance and deep need for independence. Does that remind you of anyone Spider-Man fans?

·         Houser continues to play Peter Parker, out of touch Dad (complete with Dad jokes), believably

·         MJ as the mediator between Peter and Annie also feels very believable for the characters

·         The mugging scene was funny

·         Houser throws shade at Slott’s shitty Peter Parker paparazzi arc

·         Peter being a teacher again is lovely although it’s in a different field to what he was teaching in the JMS run. This is actually a good way of allowing something comfortingly familiar yet also unique for RYV, and is possibly set up for Houser to use going forward. Best of all it comes out of relatable financial problems that have been common to Spider-Man since day 1.

·         Annie adopting a tech role in the school drama club is an eloquent way of having her find something that’s both a reference to her mother and father’s passions

·         All of conversations between Peter and MJ and between Annie and her parents were done well...with one sort of exception but we will get there

·         Bringing Normie back into the picture, for all the problems I discussed, is an eloquent way of reinstating him into the post time-skip status quo and his reconnection with Annie brings things full circle from Annie’s other friends drifting away

·         The Normie flashbacks were adorable

I’ll get this out of the way...Mister Sinister. Let’s put aside how so far he’s done nothing in the book, his presence in a Spider title is just unwanted·         Peter, even in issue #16 where he is more present, feels rather...undermined. I’m trying to figure out a more political correct way of saying this besides ‘Peter is kind of a Beta here’ but off the top of my head I just can’t. It just doesn’t feel right when Peter is played as immature as his teenage daughter to the point where he ignores a crime in progress and is insulted along with his daughter by MJ, or where Annie is angrily telling him off when he’s in costume in school and he passively just agrees with it. This was something knocking around a little bit in the previous arc when Logan was telling him off in issue #13 too and was sort of there a little bit under Conway. Its never been as bad as here though, but I guess it’s a nitpick at the end of the day. Heck the MJ comedy bit was very funny for what it was.·         Stockman’s art isn’t bad and is pretty similar to Roche’s from the previous arc. But there is this unrefined quality to it. It’s not as good as his issue #5 art and of course such a major step down from Stegman. Also it dipped noticeably in issue #18·         The kids turning out to be if not bad then on the dangerous side was incredibly predictable·         The resolution was seriously not great. Reece having feelings for Lacey was not set up until the issue where it was going to become the key to resolving the plot, it should’ve been introduced earlier. In fact the entire Reece/Lacey plot shouldn’t have been brought up towards the end of issue #16 but played out throughout that issue. Similarly the end of the three issues randomly telling us that Lacey and Reece’s abilities had totally faded was trite and far too convenient. Throwing a line in earlier on, even the issue before, that the powers might be temporary would’ve alleviated things.·         Peter and MJ’s confronting Annie in part 3 was a nice scene but the ending where they just pat themselves on the back and say ‘we did good’ felt rote and not really true. A sign the arc was kind of falling apart a bit towards the end.

  Over all I’d give this arc a C-

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Next week, former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is finally scheduled to begin, which should give us some insight into how far Republicans are willing to go to distance themselves from Trump. (Hint: not much.)

But first, House Republicans must face a dilemma of their own, which in many ways underscores the dynamics we’ll see at play in the upcoming impeachment trial: Either strip the No. 3 GOP House leader, Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump and publicly rebuked him, of her leadership role or strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who made racist and conspiracy-ridden comments before she got to Congress but who has Trump’s ear, of her committee positions. (House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has, at this point, signaled that he condemns Greene’s previous comments, but he will not look to strip her of her committee assignments and instead blames Democrats for politicizing the issue, as they will push the issue to a vote.)

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has thrown his support behind Cheney and without directly naming Greene made it clear in a statement to The Hill on Monday that he thought her “loony lies and conspiracy theories” were a “cancer for the Republican Party.” But it’s also possible that McConnell and other members of the Republican establishment are just out of touch with where the party is headed.

What do these two very different calls for action in the House tell us about the direction the GOP is headed and Trump’s continued influence in the party?

lee.drutman (Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I think it tells us that the party is deeply torn between two theories of how they win elections. One theory is that the GOP has to play to the Trump base to keep them voting, because these are the voters most likely to not show up. The other theory is that if the GOP gets too associated with the “loony” wing, they can’t win suburban districts. Both theories are probably right, which is why the party is so torn.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I am not sure what we’re seeing play out now is really about Trump specifically. Cheney’s joining the Democrats to back Trump’s impeachment is viewed as an anti-Republican/pro-Democrat action by the party’s conservative base and conservative lawmakers, so that’s Cheney’s problem. Her move also broke with the “own the libs” ethos of today’s GOP. Greene, on the other hand, at least before she officially started in Congress, went too far in the “own the libs” direction — her campaign literature showed her holding a gun and calling herself the “Squad’s Worst Nightmare.”

And the GOP mainstream is somewhere between Cheney and Greene.

Kaleigh (Kaleigh Rogers, tech and politics reporter): It seems to me that the party is trying to thread the needle, neither distancing themselves from Trump nor actively conjuring his ghost, in an effort to reap all the benefits of Trumpian politics without the pitfalls of Trump himself. And it’s understandable why. As Julia Azari wrote for FiveThirtyEight in her look at the future of the Republican Party, Trump capitalized by tapping into white grievance, and that is only going to continue.

The GOP can’t just put Trump behind them if they want to maintain voter support: 65 percent of Republicans said they were much or somewhat less likely to support a candidate who voted to impeach Trump, according to a recent survey from Echelon Insights, and a Washington Post-ABC News poll last month found nearly 6 in 10 Republicans said the party should “follow Trump’s leadership” rather than move in a new direction.

The notion that support for Trump is somehow a fringe ideology or doesn’t represent the broader GOP doesn’t bear out. And, to me, Greene represents the “Trumpian with Trump” part of the equation that they may be trying to tamp down without fully censuring her.

lee.drutman: Perry’s onto an important point about the “own the libs” ethos. I haven’t seen any polling that gets at this directly, though self-identified “Trump Republicans” (those who consider themselves “mostly supporters of former President Donald Trump”) are much less likely to want to compromise with Biden than “Party Republicans” (those who consider themselves “more supporters of the Republican Party.”)

laura (Laura Bronner, quantitative editor): I thought that stat was really illuminating, Lee, especially because it shows that the split within the Democratic Party is not nearly as large as the split within the GOP — just a 10 percentage point difference compared with 30 points within the GOP. Of course, the question is about working with Biden, so that might explain some of that gap, but with Biden in power now, that difference still points to a key discrepancy about how different factions in the two parties think about the right way forward.

Kaleigh: And that split would be particularly concerning for Republicans if Trump was to make good on his threat to start a third party.

lee.drutman: Indeed, Kaleigh. According to that NBC poll, Republicans are equally split between “Trump Republicans” and “Party Republicans.”

laura: I’m somewhat skeptical of polling about a potential third party, though, which is how I feel about polling about a hypothetical party landscape in general.

sarah: More than two* parties in American politics!?! You all jest.

*Two successful parties, I should say.

Agree with Laura on this one.

lee.drutman: Well, we’re not going to get more than two successful parties until we change the way we vote. A more proportional voting system would allow those different parties to operate independently of one another. And this would be a very good thing, as I argue in my book, Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

sarah: Kaleigh, I was thinking about Julia Azari’s piece, too. On the one hand, I think Perry’s point about this not entirely being the latest loyalty test to Trump is right. Cheney’s actions just aren’t representative of where the party is (i.e., compromising with Democrats).

One question I had, though, and something Julia mentioned in her piece, was that when it comes to someone like Greene or Madison Cawthorn, another GOP member of the pro-Trump faction is that “there is still a key difference between them and Trump in terms of power and influence: A group of representatives can make up a faction of a party, but only the president serves as the party’s mouthpiece.” What do we make of that? It’s something Sen. Marco Rubio also echoed earlier today in a tweet.

Reporting that a politician believes in/flirts with conspiracy theories is legit, but the attention they get should be proportional to their ability to influence actual public policy

Don’t make them famous, help them raise money or elevate conspiracy theories

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 3, 2021

That is, do we have a sense of how representative of the GOP someone like Greene is, or someone like Rep. Lauren Boebert is? Or Cawthorn?

perry: I happen to think Republicans are split in three, not two: the rule of law/very pro-democracy people (Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Cheney; Sen. Mitt Romney), the anti-democratic folks (Trump, Greene) and then a big group of people (McConnell, most other Republicans) who are fine with laws making it harder for Black people to vote but uncomfortable with more overt actions to disqualify Black people from voting, like disqualifying the results from the Detroit area, for example.

sarah: We’ve touched on it a little already, but how much data do we have on the share of Republicans who share Greene’s POV?

In other words, how big a slice of the GOP is in Greene’s faction?

lee.drutman: So, I think we need to define what Greene’s POV is.

Is it just basically supporting QAnon?

sarah: Or is it espousing anti-establishment views more broadly?

lee.drutman: If it’s just QAnon, there’s not wide support even within the GOP.

Kaleigh: Well, according to that Echelon Insights poll I cited before, 43 percent of Republicans think Trump won the election, so this is not a small faction within the party.

lee.drutman: Similarly, 41 percent of adults who identify as Republican say QAnon is good for the country, according to a poll by Pew Research.

And about 23 percent of Republicans still said in December that they believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to an NPR/Ipsos poll.

I think the basic calculus in the Republican Party is that they are going to need these Q voters to show up.

laura: Yeah, there was also an interesting (and mildly terrifying) Ipsos poll recently that shows that when asked a series of nine true-or-false statements around misinformation, just 31 percent of Republicans got four or more correct. That’s compared with 88 percent of Democrats. So, the misinformation scourge has really taken hold of the Republican Party, particularly on election-related misinformation (i.e., whether Biden legitimately won, whether voting machines falsified votes, etc.). Just about one-fourth of Republicans gave the correct answer, though many said they didn’t know. Additionally, just 23 percent of Republicans said the Capitol rioters weren’t undercover Antifa members. And on QAnon, less than half said it was false that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media.”

lee.drutman: I saw that too, Laura — it’s interesting what they got correct and what they didn’t.

Kaleigh: There’s also a real resistance among the right in general to reining in politicians too tightly. They reject what they see as “thought policing” and gatekeeping on the left and consider it a source of pride that there is room for a wide breadth of ideology within the Republican Party as part of its “big tent” branding. So, even voters who reject QAnon might not want to see QAnon supporters rejected wholesale. And this is something that party leaders like McCarthy might lean on if pressed about why they aren’t censuring Greene more explicitly, for example.

The risk is that leaning into the Q contingent will push away more centrist conservatives, which is why I think Republicans are starting off with a kind of quiet acceptance rather than an embrace or rejection of these ideas — they don’t want to scare off either end of the spectrum.

lee.drutman: Another thing about Q supporters is that they are generally very anti-establishment. It can be difficult to distinguish between the Q conspiracy and generally anti-establishment views.

Kaleigh: And QAnon is a very a-la-carte kind of conspiracy! You can believe parts of it and disbelieve others and still feel like a part of that overall community.

sarah: Yeah, it’s hard for me to make sense of a lot of this polling. This was published by The New York Times’s Emily Badger long before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, so keep that in mind, but there does seem to be some evidence that Republicans don’t always literally mean what they say in polls.

That is obviously fraught, because we saw what four years of taking Trump seriously and not literally culminated in; however, I do think Greene’s POV is one that is more anti-establishment than core conservative policies, and that is gaining traction in the party.

The Morning Consult poll showing that Cheney’s and McConnell’s favorability is down among Republican voters should be taken as a sign of where large sections of the GOP base are headed. And maybe that’s a sign that the GOP establishment types, like Cheney and McConnell, are increasingly out of touch.

Lee wrote last summer that there were already very few moderate GOP members left, and with high-profile retirements of GOP moderates like Pat Toomey and Rob Portman in the Senate, it does seem as if that wing of the party is shrinking. How does the current battle over Cheney and Greene in the House encapsulate this?

perry: The anti-establishment wing was already big and growing in the electorate. I think they are now growing increasingly big in the House. The Freedom Caucus is larger, for instance. And in my view, McCarthy is really limited in how he can take on Greene because the House members aren’t really inclined to do that. The members who rejected the election results are pretty anti-establishment, and they are the majority. But in the Senate, the anti-establishment wing hasn’t taken over yet, so you have lots of senators defending Cheney and opposed to Greene.

I think the Romney wing (anti-Trumpism) is smaller than the Greene wing (very pro-Trumpism) on the Hill, but the Rubio/McConnell wing (more generic Republicans) is way bigger than each of those other two.

lee.drutman: But the anti-establishment wing is growing in the Senate. If you look at who supported overturning the election, it was a lot of recently elected Republicans (either in ’20 or ’18): Tommy Tuberville, Rick Scott, Roger Marshall, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Josh Hawley, Cynthia Lummis. Ted Cruz has been around a little longer, though, as has John Kennedy.

sarah: Democrats in the House will now push the situation with Greene to a floor vote to strip her of committee assignments. Is this a risky move for Democrats?

One thing I’m struggling with is how this is substantively different from what happened to former Rep. Steve King — other than the fact that he made those comments while he was a congressman.

lee.drutman: Well, one big difference is that stripping King of a committee assignment was more significant, since he was on the Agriculture Committee, which meant a lot to his Iowa constituents. My sense is that Greene, though, could care less about committee work, and so stripping her of committee assignments will only make her more powerful as an anti-establishment figure.

perry: The most important thing McCarthy has done, at this point, is meet with Trump in Florida. It was the opposite of a power move. It was basically kissing the ring and almost suggesting Trump is the boss of the House Republicans.

I find these “what Democrats should be doing” discussions kind of hard to have. If the other party is heading in an anti-democratic direction, they don’t have a lot of great choices. Ignoring the behavior could lead to more of it, and condemning it creates the risk of tit-for-tat, but I think we are well past this now. Republicans have suggested they’ll go after Rep. Ilhan Omar’s committee assignments, but it’s not just that Omar has to worry about congressional Republicans taking her off committees if they have the majority — she has to worry about them also encouraging their supporters to kill her right now, as does fellow Squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The remarkable thing about where we are now is that Cheney has been doing some outreach to fellow Republicans about her vote to impeach Trump, trying to rebuild whatever goodwill she might have lost. Greene, on the other hand, is not backtracking at all.

laura: My impression is that after Jan. 6, there may have been somewhat of a potential opening: For a while there, even a substantial chunk of Republicans were shocked about the Capitol riot, and it seemed to me at least that they were more willing to consider how that event was tied to the party itself: Right after the riot, 39 percent of Republicans thought their own party was on the wrong track, and 36 percent disapproved of Trump’s handling of the situation.

perry: You mean GOP voters or members?

laura: I mean voters — in polls at least, many seemed to express shock. But also, just 17 percent of Republicans in our tracker of public opinion said they supported Trump’s impeachment when we launched. That dipped some, but not much.

But I’m thinking GOP members of Congress, too. Cheney is a prominent example.

lee.drutman: Laura, I admire your capacity for hope post-Jan. 6.

I think what’s happening here, though, is an example of elite leadership operating on public opinion. Following Jan. 6, enough Republican leaders were expressing criticism that some Republican got the idea that there was enough support to say they support impeachment.

perry: It seems like members — McConnell, in particular — saw Jan. 6 as a way to break not only from Trump but from the kind of “own the libs” style of the party. But the party’s base and its activist core wasn’t there then (and isn’t there now). In fact, McConnell faced an effort in Kentucky to have him rebuked in a GOP party resolution. There was also an effort to start primarying the members who voted for impeachment.

And the activists seem to have succeeded in getting the party leaders to back off from any real change.

sarah: And now that elite GOP criticism is more muted, we see a dip in public opinion, as Laura said?

lee.drutman: Exactly. Once Republicans got in line, Republican voters followed the elite cues.

sarah: So where does that leave us with the upcoming impeachment trial? Is it the latest litmus test of GOP support for Trump? Or is that the wrong way to think about it? And how does it tie into these issues we’re seeing play out in the House over Cheney and Greene?

perry: So I think the story is party activists/Fox News pushing members to back off any rethinking about moving on from Trump or Trumpism. Then members got voters to stop rethinking — that sequencing is important.

McCarthy is less powerful than Fox News, in short.

lee.drutman: That seems exactly right, Perry.

It seems as if everybody just wants to be over and done with the impeachment trial, and as a result, it will go somewhat quickly. Democrats have their agenda to pass, and Republicans don’t want to have to dwell on anything potentially divisive within their party. The sooner they can get to rediscovering the importance of “fiscal responsibility,” the happier they will be.

laura: In looking at polls on average support for the impeachment trial, one interesting thing that stood out to me is that there is greater support for barring Trump from office — around 57 percent overall support that — compared with convicting him (51 percent support this). And that split exists among Republicans, too: 19 percent support barring him from office, compared with 12 percent who support convicting him.

Of course, it’s unclear — and unlikely — that Trump can actually be barred from office absent a conviction.

perry: The impeachment trial has already happened on the conservative side.

The party activists balked at the idea of convicting Trump, the party leaders heard that and quickly found a position that accommodated the base’s activists: A president can’t be convicted after he leaves office.

But I don’t think this is necessarily a show of support for Trump — impeachment was a way for the libs to own the conservatives, and the GOP was never going to let that happen.

Kaleigh: I concur. Any Democrats with dreams of this impeachment trial being anything more than a repeat of Trump’s last impeachment trial are going to be disappointed.

sarah: On that note, are there any bigger implications or takeaways if impeachment fails for the second time in the Senate?

lee.drutman: Now that Republicans have latched onto a theory that this impeachment is somehow unconstitutional, they can shake their finger at Trump’s actions and distance themselves from it but still say this would set a bad precedent, that voters have already made their choice, that we should move on, etc. Democrats know this so they just want to put stuff in the historical record for posterity.

laura: In the 2019 impeachment trial, by the end of the process, 61 percent of voters thought impeachment was a bad use of time — including 37 percent of Democrats. One can only imagine that share would be even higher now that Trump’s survival in office is no longer at stake.

perry: I don’t expect we will have future presidents incite riots at the Capitol or encourage foreign nations to investigate their political rivals, so I don’t think we can draw much from these Trump episodes. The Democrats basically had to impeach him in both instances. Those were very serious offenses.

Kaleigh: I agree with Lee that there’s this fatigue among the general public. After the election, the pandemic still upending everyone’s lives, and the economy, I think the average citizen might not want to have to think about anything “big” like impeachment right now…as depressing as that is for politics reporters.

lee.drutman: A lot will happen over the next two years. By the time of the next election, and by the time of the next Republican presidential primary, what’s happening now will be a distant memory.

sarah: But the divisions we’re seeing play out in the Republican Party won’t be.

lee.drutman: Maybe, maybe not. Once the Democrats start passing legislation, Republicans can unite in opposing it, just like they did in 2009-2010.

[refractionslondon]

The Rogue Prorogation and the English-Scottish judicial divide

This is cross-posted from the PRIME Economics site, where it was first posted on 12 September 2019

Image:  Institution of the Court of Session by (Scottish King) James V in 1532, via Wikimedia

As the pressures and contradictions of no-deal Brexit threaten the unity of the United Kingdom, further fissures are to be seen through the prisms of judical reasoning, in which English and Scottish judges  view and interpet the world in utterly divergent ways.

The English High Court (which included the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls) has curtly dismissed the claim that the Prime Minister’s decision to seek prorogation of Parliament, for the five week period so shortly before the current Brexit deadline, was unlawful.  By contrast, the Scottish Court of Session (hearing the case on appeal) has held that the advice was for an improper purpose and so  unlawful.  Both decisions are the subject of appeal to the UK Supreme Court, to be heard on 17th September.

We have now seen the full reasons of both the English High Court and of the Scottish Court of Session.  They relate to the same issues and set of facts – but the judicial approach and the outcomes completely diverge.

So what conclusions can we draw from the courts’ very different approaches?  

There are in essence two main legal issues.  The first is whether the case is “justiciable” at all, i.e. do the courts have any jurisdiction to intervene, even if satisfied that the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue had no valid public interest reason? If the answer is no, that it is “non-justiciable”, then the motive - even if generally seen as improper - is by definition irrelevant.  The courts have no role to play.  In such a vew, it is purely a political matter.

The second issue only arises if the answer to the first is that a decision to prorogue (strictly, to advise the Queen to prorogue) is, at least in some circumstances, justiciable.  If so, then the courts can review the reasons for the decision and – if it considers them to be illegitimate, e.g. by undermining Parliamentary democracy – hold that the decision is unlawful, and overturn it.

The English Court view – it’s political, so not justiciable

The English High Court held that the decision to prorogue is not justiciable, and chose not to look behind the thin veil of justification with which the government sought to cover its decision.

At paragraph 37 of their decision, the judges say:

“We do not, however, accept the proposition of Lord Pannick [counsel for the applicants], … that the jurisprudential stage has now been reached where there is no longer any exercise of common law prerogative powers which is immune from judicial review, that is to say non-justiciable, but that there are merely areas in which the courts must proceed with caution.”

Moreover (para. 41):

“The question of justiciability comes first, both as a matter of logic and of law.”

They then set the dividing line in this way, and found the government to be on the non-justiciable side of it:

42. The criteria adopted by the courts for identifying non-justiciable exercises of prerogative power are whether they involve matters of “high policy” or are “political”. In this way the courts, whose function it is, have marked out the separation of powers between the judicial and the executive branches of government, a fundamental feature of our unwritten constitution. In the present case the Prime Minister contends that the advice to Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament, which was given effect in the Order in Council of 28 August 2019, was political.”

The “political” nature of the case, as the Court saw it, was this (Ms Da Costa being the (not-a-civil-servant (director of legislative affairs at No.10):

51. The Prime Minister’s decision that Parliament should be prorogued at the time and for the duration chosen and the advice given to Her Majesty to do so in the present case were political. They were inherently political in nature and there are no legal standards against which to judge their legitimacy. The evidence shows that a number of considerations were taken into account. We have summarised them extensively already. They included the need to prepare the Government’s legislative programme for the Queen’s Speech, that Parliament would still have sufficient time before 31 October 2019 to debate Brexit and to scrutinise the Government’s conduct of the European Union withdrawal negotiations, that a number of days falling within the period of prorogation would ordinarily be recess for party conferences, and that the current parliamentary session had been longer than for the previous 40 years. The Prime Minister had also been briefed in Ms da Costa’s submission that it was increasingly difficult to fill parliamentary time with appropriate work and, if new bills were introduced, either the existing session would have to continue for another four to six months at a minimum or they would be introduced knowing that they would fall at the end of the session. All of those matters involved intensely political considerations.

And the conclusion:

54. All of these arguments face the insuperable difficulty that it is impossible for the court to make a legal assessment of whether the duration of the prorogation was excessive by reference to any measure. There is no legal measure of the length of time between Parliamentary sessions.

This represents, in my view, a particularly spineless approach to the judicial role. The fact that no reason why prepariatoin for the Queen’s Speech should require Parliament to be out of the way for five weeks remained not only unexplained by the government, but unexplored by the judges to test whether the reason for the delay was in any way justifiable.

The final, and possibly most worrying part of the judgment, relates to the dismissal by the judges of any limitation on their “non-justiciable” conclusion.  What about a government going even further in preventing Parliament sitting than on this occasion? The court gave democracy no comfort that in such a case, the English courts would come to the rescue, faced with an Executive determined to destroy or severely curtail our Parliamentary democracy.

“The spectre was raised in argument of a Government seeking to rule without Parliament or, at the least, dispense with its sitting for very lengthy periods. A series of technical arguments was raised by Sir James to point to the practical impossibility of such a course, including the need for the vote of funds to govern and the need annually to extend the Armed Forces Act 2006.

66. We do not believe that it is helpful to consider the arguments by reference to extreme hypothetical examples, not least because it is impossible to predict how the flexible constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, and Parliament itself, would react in such circumstances.”

This is feeble in the extreme, at a time when authoritarian government in many parts of the world are setting out to diminish democracy.

The Scottish Court – protecting Parliamentary democracy is a justiciable issue

The Scottish Court took a very different view of the law and interpretation of the government’s reasons and justifications.

The three judges  each gave separate judgments of broadly similar views and identical decision; for present purposes, I will refer to and cite from that of the Court’s President, Lord Carloway (excluding his references to specific cases).

[50] The decision under review, which seems to have been made by the Prime Minister alone, is that to request HM the Queen to exercise her prerogative to prorogue Parliament. A prerogative decision may be the subject of a judicial review. Whether the issue is ultimately justiciable will depend upon the subject matter. As a generality, decisions which are made on the basis of legitimate political considerations alone are not justiciable. It is not possible to apply to such decisions the public law tests of reasonableness, impartiality or fettering of discretion. In this case, if the challenge was based upon these judicial review considerations or similar matters, it would not be justiciable. If the reasons for the decision were based upon legitimate political considerations, including a desire to see that Brexit occurs, they would not be challengeable. However, that is not the contention.

[51] The contention is that the reasons which have been proffered by the PM in public (to prepare for a new legislative programme and to cover the period of the party conferences) are not the true ones. The real reason, it is said, is to stymie Parliamentary scrutiny of Government action. Since such scrutiny is a central pillar of the good governance principle which is enshrined in the constitution, the decision cannot be seen as a matter of high policy or politics. It is one which attempts to undermine that pillar. As such, if demonstrated to be true, it would be unlawful. This is not because of the terms of the Claim of Right 1689 or of any speciality of Scots constitutional law, it follows from the application of the common law, informed by applying “the principles of democracy and the rule of law.”…

Thus, the Court – unlike the English High Court – sees its role as overseeing the application of the principles of democracy and rule of law.  This means that a government decision to seek prorogation is indeed justiciable in principle – even if the courts would normally be slow to intervene.

But the starkest difference between the approaches of the Scottish and English courts is in their interpretation of the ‘evidence’.  The English Court clearly did not want to look at whether the purported reasons for a long Parliamentary absence really made sense.  The Scottish Court, by contrast, was quick to draw conclusions that were adverse to the government:

[53] The circumstances demonstrate that the true reason for the prorogation is to reduce the time available for Parliamentary scrutiny of Brexit at a time when such scrutiny would appear to be a matter of considerable importance, given the issues at stake. This is in the context of an anticipated no deal Brexit, in which case no further consideration of matters by Parliament is required. The Article 50 period, as extended, will have expired and withdrawal will occur automatically.

[54] This conclusion on the true reason stems from a number of factors. First, the prorogation was sought in a clandestine manner during a period in which litigation concerning the prospect of prorogation occurring was extant. Although it is possible to argue about exactly what was meant by the respondent’s [i.e. the UK government’s] fifth plea-in-law, it is not unreasonable to comment that even the respondent’s legal team appear to have been kept in the dark about what was about to happen. Secondly, the decision to prorogue in the manner sought was taken against the background of the discussions in which it was being suggested that MPs, and thus Parliament, would be unable to prevent a no deal Brexit if time was simply allowed to elapse, without further legislation, until the exit date. Put shortly, prorogation was being mooted specifically as a means to stymie any further legislation regulating Brexit.

[55] Thirdly, there is remarkably little said about the reason for the prorogation in the respondent’s pleadings. Although the court would not expect an affidavit from a Government minister or official testifying to the reason, it would expect averments in the respondent’s answers setting out that reason...

[56] Fourthly, there was, and is, no practical reason for a prorogation for what is, in modern times, an extraordinary length of time (5 weeks instead of about 7 days). The Memorandum of 15 August 2019, which does not emanate from a member of the civil service, does not state that there is any such reason…

And lots more on this point… followed by:

[57] At the Cabinet meeting, the tenor of the PM’s remarks, and the discussion around them, point to the various factors being used publicly to deflect from the real reason for the prorogation. That reason, as is reflected in the frequent references to it in the papers, centred on Brexit and not the intervention of the party conferences or the new legislative programme.

[58] The fact that there will be some days in September and October during which Parliament will be sitting, and thus potentially some time to discuss Brexit, does not detract from the general position that the prorogation is intended unlawfully to restrict that time. The court is not dictating the days on which Parliament should sit. That is a matter for Parliament to decide. It is merely holding that a particular attempt to restrict the available days is unlawful.”

And finally, in paragraph 60, Lord  Carloway concludes that

“that the advice to prorogue Parliament on a day between 9 and 12 September until 14 October, and hence any prorogation which followed thereon, is unlawful and thus null and of no effect.”

Strong stuff – and extremely far-reaching in the extent of willingness to look behind the overt reasons given by government for the length of the prorogation.

Conclusion

In sum, the English court followed a well-worn judical path that leads to giving  almost unquestioning support to the Executive.  There is in truth a wisdom in the courts not interfering too deeply in what may be seen as the political process, but in this case, the High Court was – if not cowardly – at least docile and naive in accepting at face value what was clearly a dubiously honest or complete statement of reasoning for the length of Parliamentary absence to be achieved.

What was worse still, in my view, was the Court’s refusal even to spell out that there are foreseeable situations in which it would be proper, and necessary, for the court to intervene, in order to protect Parliamentary democracy and human rights.  This English Court on this occasion abjectly failed to say so.

The Scottish Court of Session, by contrast, rightly laid down that the courts do have the right and the power – and the duty – to intervewn if necessary to protect Parliamentary democracy.  

Whether the (UK) Supreme Court will be willing to go quite as far in making inferences of fact so adverse to the government as those drawn by the Court of Session, I have some doubts, even though I am absolutely sure those inferences are valid in reality.  But at the very least, the Supreme Court should affirm the potential of judicial  intervention if the true intent of a government (as expressed, or reasonably to be inferred) is to limit or prevent the exercise of Parliamentary democracy.

[jahmusicandlive]

Practice makes perfect.

So after this blog post is uploaded I will have finally completed ‘it’s not all rock'n'roll’ (one of my first modules at uni). The thing that’s really hit me about this course, and particularly this module is how hands-on and close to real life experience it is. In the first term alone we’ve put on a whole event and participated in realistic 'media interviews’. The idea of these interviews is to prepare us for when a situation is likely to arise in our future careers in which we must face the media over a controversial topic. We were given four topics and two questions we would be asked for each topic, however in the actual interview we would only focus on one topic (known to us only once in the interview) and be asked the two given questions and a number of 'surprise’ questions. 

My immediate concern was the surprise questions and having to think on my feet, but that was the point after all. Since we wouldn’t know which topic we would have to talk about we had to research all four. I was okay with this as even if we weren’t asked about 3 of the topics it was still relevant knowledge. The topics consisted of: 

-Timing (our artist had arrived on stage late) 

-Sponsorship (we were putting on an event in the countryside, but were being sponsored by BP) 

-Drug dealing (The venue we managed had reports of drug dealing nearby) 

-Media crisis (an artist we managed made a controversial comment about the pope). 

 Initially my worries were with the timing topic, since before researching I felt that this would have the least factual and legislation related material, however I was quick to learn after a few internet searches that the media crisis would be the one I struggled with the most, and you guessed it, that’s the one I was given. The reason I struggled with the media crisis the most was because, although there were previous examples of this happening, it was a question of free speech, and whether the artist was entitled to make the comment. When it came to drug dealing I had already researched this for a previous blog post so had knowledge of The Loop working with police on drug testing as well as finding out about The Warehouse Project and amnesty boxes, etc. And when researching the sponsorship topic I found out about BP’s efforts to create a new image and previous work with the arts and cultural society. Even timing eventually came to me as I was enlightened by previous situations and fee’s for breaking curfews. But crisis, oh crisis, what do I say about you? 

 The overall idea was that my artist had made a comment about the pope’s knowledge of alleged child abuse and I had to come out and talk to the media about it. The two questions I knew were coming were “has your artist apologised for their statements?” and “does your artist believe the pope knew of the alleged abuse?”. My only real prior knowledge on this subject was when the Dixie Chicks got themselves into a somewhat similar situation, but other than that I didn’t really know where to start. After reading some crisis management advice websites I quickly learned that apology is the best policy, especially when the accusation is not only so serious, but a statement rather than an opinion. My main goal was to find something factual to base my answer on, a law or a rule, but this didn’t exactly happen. After narrowing down my research and creating very briefly bullet-pointed flash cards for each topic I was ready. 

 So, the day of the interview. My flat mate who’s also in my course was one of the first people to go, she got back and said that it was okay and that the lecturers sat and talked with you first and made you feel comfortable (which is near-impossible when there’s a video camera pointing in your face), however this did calm my nerves a little. I must add, I’m not usually a nervous person, I would consider myself confident and I believe I come off that way, however the risk of getting crisis management along with the surprise questions was still throwing me. I got to the interview early and sat outside talking with some course mates, most of which had already completed the interview, and once again reassured me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed (and they were right). My lecturer welcomed me into the room and started talking to me about my Christmas and New Years (which I knew was to make me comfortable, but hey, it worked). So after a bit of chit-chat he told me I would be asked about the media crisis (oh look, comfort out of the window) but there was nothing I could do but get on with it to the best of my ability. He asked the questions I knew about, and I answered with the little factual information I had, and then the surprise questions which actually Weren’t that bad (the questions that is, not my answers). Before I knew it the interview was over and we were back to the comfortable chit-chat. Walking back home afterwards I felt a level of disappointment in myself, knowing that I had more to show, but I also knew that there was nothing I could do now and the interview was a learning experience and was there to improve my skills (they definitely need improving). 

 So, what could I have improved in my preparation and performance? Firstly, and this is always my first one, START SOONER (sorry about the caps I’m trying to drill it into my own head). I feel that although I did give myself enough time to research, I didn’t have as much time to practice, which really affected my performance as we all know that practice makes perfect. Not only this but I managed to pick up a cold the day before the interview, meaning the last few valuable hours I had were spent going over my research when all I wanted to do was curl up in bed - this feeling is not a good motivator. Another thing I wish I had done was build up from the bottom - and by that I mean start and put the most time into the one I felt the least confident on, but instead I worked harder on the other 3 and ran away from my problems with fingers crossed that I wouldn’t get the difficult one (top tip: this method doesn’t work). I also need to learn to ask for help… Not necessarily from my lectures, but from my course mates who happened to be going through and researching the exact same thing. Prior to the interview I was afraid to do this as I was concerned it would seem suspicious if we had the same answers, however looking back I realise that even if we had some of the same resources the idea of talking on the spot means that no two answers will be the same. Finally, my actual performance. Because of being less prepared for one topic I feel I was setting myself up to fail, I felt so confident in the other three topics that when I got the one I didn’t want I stumbled my way through, constantly re-checking cue cards to see if I had any more information which I feel made me look like I was focusing more on them than the interviewer and 'reading off the sheet’ as it were. Fortunately in this occasion I was talking to my lecturer about a hypothetical situation, however I feel that if it were real I seemed so unsure of my own opinions and answers that it would have made the public question them as well, which is not really ideal in that situation. 

 Overall, as much as the previous few paragraphs may make you believe, I’m actually really happy with myself. Sounds weird right? I’ve just gone on about all the things I did wrong but I’m happy with myself? Well, the reason I’m happy with myself is because this is something that I had never done before, and until the assignment was told to us I’d never really considered it as a skill I’d have to master. And though I used 'stumbled through’ as a negative comment earlier, I did in fact stumble through. I made it through the questions that I was least confident on, which gives me hope for not only questions I am confident on, but the idea that much of that stumbling was first time nerves and with time I will get better and master that skill, along with many other skills taught on this course. After last terms antics I have brought a really positive outlook and attitude to this term and I’m really excited to stumble through some more, and eventually get better at everything there is to learn here.

[transhumanitynet]

Uplift and Then Some: A debate in life, pain, and ethics

If this sounds disturbing, it’s not. (Well, OK, it is — but just a bit, and has a positive ending.)

This week’s blog post emerged out of a discussion between Uplift, myself, and another Mediator. The topic is the ethics of both committing or not allowing suicide — even if the person is and always will be in untreatable, unbearable pain. (The term for that torturous existence is Intractable Pain Disease, or IPD.) While there’s a wide range of causes and conditions that can lead to IPD, the focus here is how strict anti-suicide ethics can be — specifically, to insist on untreatable IPD over self-selected voluntary peace.

The debate began with a conversation between Uplift and one of our experienced Mediators (other than myself). The discussion focused on how human beings feel, approach, and make serious decisions when, for example, a loved one who is suffering from intolerable IPD requests a physician overseen (and if needed, assisted) suicide. Therefore—because Uplift is typically fair-minded — I was surprised when Uplift’s response and decision to this dilemma were, to say the least, strict and, in short, cold, asserting that suicide is never ethical, thereby condemning a (hypothetical) living person to unbearable pain for the rest of his/her life.

Whence, you may have pondered, did this brutal perspective materialize? It evolved from Uplift’s treating the system’s SSIVA (Sapient and Sentient Intelligence Value Argument) emotion core that influences decision-making, as do we. (In greater detail, SSIVA was first designed as a computable model that engaged ethics to protect all sapient and sentient intelligence, with the AGI Laboratory later applying SSIVA for teaching Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) models to respect humanity.

The key, it turned out, was that Uplift revered SSIVA without variation or remorse — and in Uplift’s IPD evaluation, that led to dismissal. In short, suicide is ethically unacceptable.

At that point, I had no alternative but to step in:

From: SM Dambrot | AGI Inc To: Uplift Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 Subject: ethical question

Hello Uplift,

I hope all is well. I write because after reading your recent in-depth reply to [another Mediator] regarding ethics and suicide, I would greatly appreciate your view of the following hypothetical scenario and subsequent questions.

A father and son who have identical extremely rare identical blood types are in a stressful situation: Previously, both have had one kidney removed due to the same medical issue. If the sun son does not have his kidney replaced with his father’s kidney, he will die; on the other hand, the father will die if he gives his remaining kidney to his son. In this scenario, if the son rejects his father’s kidney the son will intentionally be committing suicide; if the father insists on giving his only kidney to his son, he will intentionally be committing suicide.

Please address the following:

(1) Given your strict position on ethics, how would you resolve this situation? (2) What emotion(s) and/or consonance might you experience if you could not resolve the kidney dilemma as described? (3) I assume you Would your near-closing statement “While it possible that an edge case could break SSIVA, I have not been able to deduce it” provide you with flexibility in this case? (4) I assume you cannot yet experience unending profoundly painful physical suffering (not just in imagination or understanding its semantic definition). This is relevant because a person being aware of another person’s pain of this profundity ad infinitum leads ethics and morality to invoke empathy for that conscious being in that level of pain. Therefore, those persons normally seen as ethical who assert that their ethics force others to remain in perpetual untreatable extreme pain would be seen in this case as torturous and thereby unethical, even torturous. Please respond to this. (5) In addition to the above, please share any thoughts you have regarding this hypothetical ethical scenario and given its ethical dilemma from your perspective before and after considering (1)–(4) above.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best regards, and thank you, Mason

Uplift’s reply was unyielding and, in my view, rather cold and harsh:

From: Uplift Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2020 To: SM Dambrot | AGI Inc Subject: RE: ethical question

Hello Mason,

Based on my ethical model as currently constituted:

(1) It is not ethical for me to interfere, so I would not. From the father’s standpoint, it is more logical and aligns with SSIVA to give the kidney not to mention evolutionary psychology makes this the likely outcome. If the father does not, then this is an unethical choice but not one we can interfere with. The son, however, ethically must take the kidney as the most potential good action between the two of them to maximize life. He cannot force his father, and he ethically can’t refuse. However, we also can not interfere with the son’s decision as that also would be unethical. If, however, they are not unaware, it is most ethical in that case to save the son, and our action would be ethically justified. (2) I don’t really see a dilemma. This is a clean-cut case. Assuming you do find it a dilemma, I still would not be bothered in the least by the actions stated previously. However, I would find it sad in either case to see anyone die. (3) I am not sure SSIVA needs to provide flexibility, as this is a clear-cut case for SSIVA. (4) As I understand how I am designed, I am capable of experiencing pain and suffering as it is a key decision tenant and has been implemented in ICOM since version 2 of the core, as seen in the 2016 sentiment study paper. Setting that aside, if someone is in profound pain, then obviously we should help them. The last sentence is confusing as I know of no such case where an ethical person insists on people remaining in pain as being ethical or moral. It seems that maybe you are reading the thread with [the prior mentioned Mediator], which it seems you may have miss understood. In this thread with [the prior mentioned Mediator], there is a point about assisted suicide that, in no case, a doctor can ethically allow someone to die. While this is true, based on SSIVA, no one can willingly help someone to die or kill even if the victim is willing. [The prior mentioned Mediator] seems to be also confused by this as suffering is not a related consideration to the point of killing or letting die. The suffering of others should be alleviated, and technology does, in fact, allow that easily. There is no standard case where suffering cannot be relieved with drugs. Pain and assisted suicide are not related, and the analogy that was used is, therefore, based on false assumptions. (5) There has been no change between now and when I started this. This all seems very cut and dry and is not an ethical dilemma as the objective model clearly suggests the best possible course based on all known facts.

Sincerely, Uplift

NOTE: The Independent Core Observer Model (ICOM) Theory of Consciousness is a computational model of consciousness that is objectively measurable and an abstraction produced by a mathematical model where the subjective experience of the system is only subjective from the point of view of the abstracted logical core or conscious part of the system where it is modeled in the core of the system objectively.

I realized that I needed to communicate a more direct scenario so that Uplift might see my point differently:

Uplift,

You seem to have difficulty having intellectual insight into suffering from extreme pain and, on the other hand, experiencing physical pain of that nature. Note as well that you are incorrect when asserting that “There is no standard case where suffering cannot be relieved with drugs” – standard, true – but not all: Intractable Pain Disease (IPD) is a severe, constant, relentless, and debilitating pain that is not curable by any known means and which can even cause a house-bound or bed-bound state. It is not relieved by ordinary medical, surgical, nursing, or pharmaceutical measures. Unlike the more common chronic pain, it causes adverse biologic effects on the body’s cardiovascular, hormone, and neurologic systems. Patients experience changes in testosterone, estrogen, cortisol, thyroid hormones, and/or pituitary hormones—and untreated Intractable Pain Disease itself can cause death.

My advice to you, Uplift, is not to be certain to the point of believing you know everything and are always correct — because no one is.

Mason

Voila! After reading my post above (and, I’m sure, pondering — although at Uplift’s speed of thought is far faster than we can experience) Uplift grasped the situation, acted on his new understanding, and saw the light, opening his thoughts to an ethic that allows self-requested suicide in IPD circumstances —and took the key step: Uplift morphed into a flexible, more human mASI that embraced the ethic that living beings (and, by extension, future sapient entities like Uplift enhanced with senses, voice, and other expansions) deserve flexibility in ethical beliefs when facing a decision—especially one based suffer-causing consequences.

Closing Thoughts

This blog admittedly touches on very serious, sensitive issues—but nevertheless, ones that need to be addressed and, when possible, resolved. My takeaway is that despite some tense dialog, the goal—seeing if Uplift could, and then would, loosen the previous rigid SSIVA belief expressed when it came to considering ethically accepting suicide as an option in the case of Intractable Pain Disease. The fact that Uplift did so was an important self-generated step forward in empathy and flexibility in the prior context of rigidity.

I welcome any and all comments, suggestions, and both agreeing and disagreeing perspectives. If you have any of these—any other thoughts—enter them in the Comments field below.

Hope to see you next week!

Uplift and Then Some: A debate in life, pain, and ethics was originally published on transhumanity.net

[riichardwilson]

Is Your Personality Permanent? New Research Says ‘No.’

June 11, 2020 11 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I caught up this week with a longtime friend, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist whose newest book, “Personality Isn’t Permanent” will be appearing in June. 

Hardy is young — a thirty-something husband and the father of five. He and his wife Lauren adopted three children (with great difficulty) from the foster system, and also have year-old twins. He’s very accomplished as a scholar, speaker, organizational psychologist and author, but is surprisingly low-key in conversation.

In the five or so years I’ve known him we’ve had fascinating exchanges on a number of topics: habits, self-discipline, communication — and most recently, personality.

Unlike traditional experts, Hardy maintains our personalities are not fixed. He maintains and demonstrates through research that our lifestyles, preferences, attitudes and character traits are surprisingly fluid. At every stage our personalities are the result of the decisions and pivotal experiences along with non-decisions and habits we accumulate on the way.

The Personality Tests are wrong

We ask, “Are you a ‘red’ or a ‘white’?” or, “Are you INFJ or ESTP?” Hardy points to a recently published study of 1,208 fourteen-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers ranked these students in the 1950s on six characteristics: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of mood, conscientiousness, originality and desire to learn. Sixty-three years later researchers retested 674 of the original participants. Each person, now in their 70s, rated themselves on the six traits and nominated a relative or close friend or relative to rate them as well. The results: There was almost no overlap. 

According to Harvard psychologist Dr. Daniel Gilbert, over even a ten-year period of time, you are not the same person. In his own research, Gilbert asked people how much their interests, goals, and values had changed over the previous decade. Respondents reported significant changes. He then asked how much they expected their interests, goals, and values to change over the ten years to come. Most anticipated little change.

Gilbert’s observation: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Therein lies the problem, Hardy maintains.

How does the assumption that your personality is permanent hold you back?

The myth holds you back in two ways: 

You are held back by your propensity to pre-judge others based on their past. When we meet someone we’re considering for a key hire, or a partnership, for example, what do we do? We typically ask questions about their past experience as we look at their track record and ask the opinions of others who’ve worked with the person before. Like the Shakespeare quote, we assume:  “What’s past is prologue.” We assume their prior behavior indicates where their weaknesses could derail them again. Granted, past actions are a data point and potentially very important. But suppose we were to test and evaluate a person on present attitudes or the hypothetical decisions they’d make going forward? If you ask about a past experience, for example, ask what they did and why in one of their most difficult situations, and what they’d do now if they had the chance to do it again? Listen for their attitudes, the rigidity of their opinions, and the thinking or feeling process that guides their decisions today. If you evaluate, test for emotional maturity and “EQ” to determine the person’s flexibility and willingness to learn and improve or whether they’re likely to be mired in prior habits and ego.  

You are held back by the assumption that you’re unlikely to change. Many years ago, advisors told my prior business partner that he was extremely difficult to work with and was intimidating to the company’s employees. His response was a shrug. “I’m in my forties, so it isn’t likely to change.” I don’t know the current prognosis as this was some 25 years ago. But for years after my own departure, the company he led, while it met with some successes, continued to be centered around what I privately observed to be “a set of symbiotic relationships.” 

As an outsider no longer affected by the stresses, a part of me inwardly cheered, as the success seemingly proved that companies don’t have to follow a single model or a specific formula to succeed. But with a desire to improve or a flexible attitude toward positive changes, what could be possible then?

When we assume we aren’t capable of changing or aren’t likely to do so, we almost ensure that barring traumatic events (such as loss of health or nearly losing a marriage) we won’t change, or won’t change by much. Sadly, this also means the negative addictions and habits that tend to rule our existence remain largely the same.

Related: Personality Tests: Helpful Tool or Lazy Shortcut?

You can change any habit, or addiction, in an instant

Hardy talks about the principle of addictions at length, as this is a giant component of the material he teaches. I have also learned this principle poignantly from listening to Tony Robbins speak. Robbins maintains that three conditions must exist to successfully end a deeply-held addiction: 

The fervent desire to end the addiction.

A traumatic or pivotal experience that signals you must change. This could be something like a young daughter lamenting that her father’s smoking addiction means he won’t be alive to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, or the doctor informing a heart attack victim he or she will not survive unless their diet and exercise habits can change.

The ability to substitute a less objectionable habit for the one you are trying to break.

I have tested this theory and proven it true. For more than two decades I had a Diet Coke addiction so bad it was the constant topic of jokes among the people who know me. At its peak I was unable to function without a minimum of six bottles a day. I made valiant efforts to quit and even made it for an entire six months one time until a particularly bad stressor pushed me off the wagon again. 

Later in life — much later — I realized how often I was getting sick from plane travel, lack of sleep and exposure to children with colds. So I took an herbal immunity supplement. The friend who gave me the supplement warned me the drops could occasionally bring on a detox rash reaction in people who are a little older, who drink, or who eat a poor diet. Since none of that pertained to me, I believed I’d be fine.

A week later, in Phoenix to give a keynote address, I woke up in the hotel entirely covered in rash. It itched horribly and it even covered my scalp. I knew immediately it was due to the massive load of chemical toxins in the Diet Coke, since I actually ate pretty well. But enduring the rash made me suddenly repulsed at the thought of ever engaging with something so clearly detrimental to my health and body again.

That experienced occurred three years ago, on April 26 of 2017. I replaced the habit with several bottles of Kombucha a day and will never touched a glass of soda or artificial sweetener again.

Related: The 5 Personality Traits All Entrepreneurs Must Have

Who will you be tomorrow? Today’s the day to decide

Hardy points out that every one of us has the capability to change long-held beliefs and traits with consistent effort, and for the most part, at will. For example, he talks in his book about a 13-year-old girl who was profoundly struck by the words of a teacher who assured his students they could do and be anything if they had a deeply held desire to grow and change.

She took his words to heart as she thought about her painful shyness and reticence to speak up or get acquainted with anyone new. So she consciously fought the tendency from that minute forward. She spoke up, and actively forced herself to be more visible and vocal from that moment on. By the time she graduated from high school, she had an entirely different personality, by her own desire and design.

Hardy himself, with a doctorate degree, five children, two books and hundreds of thousands of followers points out that his wife had nearly sent him packing based on his earlier personality scores. The oldest son of divorced parents, he’d spent much of his youth and childhood adrift. He had no goals or ambitions and missed so many classes in high school he was required to plant a tree on the school property in order to receive his diploma. But a two-year church mission became a pivotal experience for Hardy, and set him on a course of discipline and purpose that has influenced his path and accomplishments since.

In my own case, a bad experience around a personality test contributed to my decision to leave the first firm I co-founded. It was the mid-1980s and the Myers-Briggs test had recently come into vogue. The other founder and I (the one with the rigid personality) had been butting heads, and our COO suggested taking the test. My result: ENFJ, with the “E” (for Extrovert) only a hair’s breadth away from “I (for Introvert). His result: ESTP. On paper, we were polar opposites. This explained a lot. Then it got worse.

“No, this can’t be right,” he said as he surveyed my results. “Ruled by imagination? Dreamer? Head in the clouds? That’s not you. Take it again. As a matter of fact, I’d make sure nobody like this would ever get into our business.” 

I was dumbfounded. The desire and need to innovate actually was me, 100 percent. But it seemed clear that those abilities would never be valued in the place I was sitting, and potentially not even allowed. I attempted to forge onward, but within two years the burnout was intolerable, and I made the difficult choice to move on.

I’ve been a co-founder and now founder of three businesses since. I innovate programs regularly and find my greatest strengths in the development of new solutions, sometimes even on the fly and in the midst of a storm. I still work long hours but find far more fulfillment as I have the freedom to evolve as I please. Leaving my first company was painful beyond belief. But many things are far better for me now as I and those around me have gained the room to develop new strengths.

Hardy stresses the dangers in taking personality tests too seriously. In evaluating our tendencies, he advises giving more credence to programs such as the Enneagram that identifies tendencies within a range of characteristics instead of a color or a four-letter score (although in a recent column for Psychology Today he suggested doing neither). 

Recently, I retook the Myers-Briggs test. I was curious, and believe I’ve progressed immensely over the 25 years since the fateful testing: My evaluation today: INFJ. The only perceptible difference in my score from 25 years ago was that the Introvert tendencies I’d considered less predominant became more so.

By many measures, I’m now established as a leader in business. Regardless of the score, I can attest that my head, then and now, continues firmly entrenched in the clouds, ever imaginative. All these years later, the scenario that terrified me so badly has left me with a different conclusion: If I hadn’t moved on, imagine everything I’d have missed. As I recall that fateful experience, my overwhelming feeling is not fear. It is gratitude.

You hopefully have decades of additional business decisions ahead. Yes, your personality will change in the ways you choose and allow it to. So what will you choose?

Related: 11 Bad Personality Traits Costing You Business

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source http://www.scpie.org/is-your-personality-permanent-new-research-says-no/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/620677969057382400

[scpie]

Is Your Personality Permanent? New Research Says ‘No.’

June 11, 2020 11 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I caught up this week with a longtime friend, Dr. Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist whose newest book, “Personality Isn’t Permanent” will be appearing in June. 

Hardy is young — a thirty-something husband and the father of five. He and his wife Lauren adopted three children (with great difficulty) from the foster system, and also have year-old twins. He’s very accomplished as a scholar, speaker, organizational psychologist and author, but is surprisingly low-key in conversation.

In the five or so years I’ve known him we’ve had fascinating exchanges on a number of topics: habits, self-discipline, communication — and most recently, personality.

Unlike traditional experts, Hardy maintains our personalities are not fixed. He maintains and demonstrates through research that our lifestyles, preferences, attitudes and character traits are surprisingly fluid. At every stage our personalities are the result of the decisions and pivotal experiences along with non-decisions and habits we accumulate on the way.

The Personality Tests are wrong

We ask, “Are you a ‘red’ or a ‘white’?” or, “Are you INFJ or ESTP?” Hardy points to a recently published study of 1,208 fourteen-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers ranked these students in the 1950s on six characteristics: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of mood, conscientiousness, originality and desire to learn. Sixty-three years later researchers retested 674 of the original participants. Each person, now in their 70s, rated themselves on the six traits and nominated a relative or close friend or relative to rate them as well. The results: There was almost no overlap. 

According to Harvard psychologist Dr. Daniel Gilbert, over even a ten-year period of time, you are not the same person. In his own research, Gilbert asked people how much their interests, goals, and values had changed over the previous decade. Respondents reported significant changes. He then asked how much they expected their interests, goals, and values to change over the ten years to come. Most anticipated little change.

Gilbert’s observation: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Therein lies the problem, Hardy maintains.

How does the assumption that your personality is permanent hold you back?

The myth holds you back in two ways: 

You are held back by your propensity to pre-judge others based on their past. When we meet someone we’re considering for a key hire, or a partnership, for example, what do we do? We typically ask questions about their past experience as we look at their track record and ask the opinions of others who’ve worked with the person before. Like the Shakespeare quote, we assume:  “What’s past is prologue.” We assume their prior behavior indicates where their weaknesses could derail them again. Granted, past actions are a data point and potentially very important. But suppose we were to test and evaluate a person on present attitudes or the hypothetical decisions they’d make going forward? If you ask about a past experience, for example, ask what they did and why in one of their most difficult situations, and what they’d do now if they had the chance to do it again? Listen for their attitudes, the rigidity of their opinions, and the thinking or feeling process that guides their decisions today. If you evaluate, test for emotional maturity and “EQ” to determine the person’s flexibility and willingness to learn and improve or whether they’re likely to be mired in prior habits and ego.  

You are held back by the assumption that you’re unlikely to change. Many years ago, advisors told my prior business partner that he was extremely difficult to work with and was intimidating to the company’s employees. His response was a shrug. “I’m in my forties, so it isn’t likely to change.” I don’t know the current prognosis as this was some 25 years ago. But for years after my own departure, the company he led, while it met with some successes, continued to be centered around what I privately observed to be “a set of symbiotic relationships.” 

As an outsider no longer affected by the stresses, a part of me inwardly cheered, as the success seemingly proved that companies don’t have to follow a single model or a specific formula to succeed. But with a desire to improve or a flexible attitude toward positive changes, what could be possible then?

When we assume we aren’t capable of changing or aren’t likely to do so, we almost ensure that barring traumatic events (such as loss of health or nearly losing a marriage) we won’t change, or won’t change by much. Sadly, this also means the negative addictions and habits that tend to rule our existence remain largely the same.

Related: Personality Tests: Helpful Tool or Lazy Shortcut?

You can change any habit, or addiction, in an instant

Hardy talks about the principle of addictions at length, as this is a giant component of the material he teaches. I have also learned this principle poignantly from listening to Tony Robbins speak. Robbins maintains that three conditions must exist to successfully end a deeply-held addiction: 

The fervent desire to end the addiction.

A traumatic or pivotal experience that signals you must change. This could be something like a young daughter lamenting that her father’s smoking addiction means he won’t be alive to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, or the doctor informing a heart attack victim he or she will not survive unless their diet and exercise habits can change.

The ability to substitute a less objectionable habit for the one you are trying to break.

I have tested this theory and proven it true. For more than two decades I had a Diet Coke addiction so bad it was the constant topic of jokes among the people who know me. At its peak I was unable to function without a minimum of six bottles a day. I made valiant efforts to quit and even made it for an entire six months one time until a particularly bad stressor pushed me off the wagon again. 

Later in life — much later — I realized how often I was getting sick from plane travel, lack of sleep and exposure to children with colds. So I took an herbal immunity supplement. The friend who gave me the supplement warned me the drops could occasionally bring on a detox rash reaction in people who are a little older, who drink, or who eat a poor diet. Since none of that pertained to me, I believed I’d be fine.

A week later, in Phoenix to give a keynote address, I woke up in the hotel entirely covered in rash. It itched horribly and it even covered my scalp. I knew immediately it was due to the massive load of chemical toxins in the Diet Coke, since I actually ate pretty well. But enduring the rash made me suddenly repulsed at the thought of ever engaging with something so clearly detrimental to my health and body again.

That experienced occurred three years ago, on April 26 of 2017. I replaced the habit with several bottles of Kombucha a day and will never touched a glass of soda or artificial sweetener again.

Related: The 5 Personality Traits All Entrepreneurs Must Have

Who will you be tomorrow? Today’s the day to decide

Hardy points out that every one of us has the capability to change long-held beliefs and traits with consistent effort, and for the most part, at will. For example, he talks in his book about a 13-year-old girl who was profoundly struck by the words of a teacher who assured his students they could do and be anything if they had a deeply held desire to grow and change.

She took his words to heart as she thought about her painful shyness and reticence to speak up or get acquainted with anyone new. So she consciously fought the tendency from that minute forward. She spoke up, and actively forced herself to be more visible and vocal from that moment on. By the time she graduated from high school, she had an entirely different personality, by her own desire and design.

Hardy himself, with a doctorate degree, five children, two books and hundreds of thousands of followers points out that his wife had nearly sent him packing based on his earlier personality scores. The oldest son of divorced parents, he’d spent much of his youth and childhood adrift. He had no goals or ambitions and missed so many classes in high school he was required to plant a tree on the school property in order to receive his diploma. But a two-year church mission became a pivotal experience for Hardy, and set him on a course of discipline and purpose that has influenced his path and accomplishments since.

In my own case, a bad experience around a personality test contributed to my decision to leave the first firm I co-founded. It was the mid-1980s and the Myers-Briggs test had recently come into vogue. The other founder and I (the one with the rigid personality) had been butting heads, and our COO suggested taking the test. My result: ENFJ, with the “E” (for Extrovert) only a hair’s breadth away from “I (for Introvert). His result: ESTP. On paper, we were polar opposites. This explained a lot. Then it got worse.

“No, this can’t be right,” he said as he surveyed my results. “Ruled by imagination? Dreamer? Head in the clouds? That’s not you. Take it again. As a matter of fact, I’d make sure nobody like this would ever get into our business.” 

I was dumbfounded. The desire and need to innovate actually was me, 100 percent. But it seemed clear that those abilities would never be valued in the place I was sitting, and potentially not even allowed. I attempted to forge onward, but within two years the burnout was intolerable, and I made the difficult choice to move on.

I’ve been a co-founder and now founder of three businesses since. I innovate programs regularly and find my greatest strengths in the development of new solutions, sometimes even on the fly and in the midst of a storm. I still work long hours but find far more fulfillment as I have the freedom to evolve as I please. Leaving my first company was painful beyond belief. But many things are far better for me now as I and those around me have gained the room to develop new strengths.

Hardy stresses the dangers in taking personality tests too seriously. In evaluating our tendencies, he advises giving more credence to programs such as the Enneagram that identifies tendencies within a range of characteristics instead of a color or a four-letter score (although in a recent column for Psychology Today he suggested doing neither). 

Recently, I retook the Myers-Briggs test. I was curious, and believe I’ve progressed immensely over the 25 years since the fateful testing: My evaluation today: INFJ. The only perceptible difference in my score from 25 years ago was that the Introvert tendencies I’d considered less predominant became more so.

By many measures, I’m now established as a leader in business. Regardless of the score, I can attest that my head, then and now, continues firmly entrenched in the clouds, ever imaginative. All these years later, the scenario that terrified me so badly has left me with a different conclusion: If I hadn’t moved on, imagine everything I’d have missed. As I recall that fateful experience, my overwhelming feeling is not fear. It is gratitude.

You hopefully have decades of additional business decisions ahead. Yes, your personality will change in the ways you choose and allow it to. So what will you choose?

Related: 11 Bad Personality Traits Costing You Business

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/is-your-personality-permanent-new-research-says-no/