Happy N7 Day (again!)

here be the goodest girl and the goodest ham

This is what pure panic looks like. (Sound on)

https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/War_Assets/Crucible#Interferometric_Array

This particular entry is pissing me off so much. Because it displays just how completely the people in charge of Mass Effect 3 refused to think about how war works.

If you had access to real-time locations for every Reaper in the galaxy, you just won the war. Hell, if this was the sole purpose of the big super-tech macguffin you were building all game, that would be a plot that made sense.

It’s established that one of the Reaper capital ships, the 2km long Nazara-class ones that are only produced once every 50,000 years out of an entire dominant species, can easily hold off the combined firepower of two of the Council races’ dreadnoughts, against three both sides would take significant damage and the outcome would be uncertain, and against four dreadnoughts the Reaper would simply die. Which is why Nazara needed the heretic Geth fleet before he was willing to move on the Citadel, why in every previous cycle the Reapers made sure to take control of all communications and the entire Relay network before they started harvesting.

During the invasion of Palaven, the Turians killed several Reapers by sending scouting drones ahead to confirm enemy positions and test capabilities, then dropping their main force out of FTL in amongst and behind their targets, and firing before the Reapers could turn around. Then of course they had to retreat, because they were terribly outnumbered and outgunned by an entire invasion force.

If you had real-time position data, you could do that everywhere, every time. Never engage when they’re present in force, but every single time one of them is alone, you send in four dreadnoughts, and it dies while you take no losses. As of 2185 the codex says that Council races had a combined 84 dreadnoughts (39 Turian, 20 Asari [though I think the codex writer was presuming the Destiny Ascension was lost; they had 21 in 2183], 16 Salarian, 8 Human, and one Volus; it’s not clear if the Elcor or Hanar ever built one). Even if you assume half of those were destroyed in the initial invasion, you could kill ten Reapers at a time in a single coordinated attack. That’s 500,000 years worth of their development, with no losses to the young races. Add in the Geth, who built “nearly as many” dreadnoughts as the turians and then lost very few, and you nearly double that.

[the Krogan can’t contribute to the space war much since they were forbidden from having warships, and most of the Terminus nations don’t seem to have the power to field dreadnaughts; even Aria was only using huge numbers of frigates and cruisers. The Batarians probably had the legal maximum for an “associate race” of seven before they cut ties with the Council, and as many more as they could manufacture after that, but they were probably all destroyed early in the war. The Quarians don’t have any real dreadnaughts, just a trio of liveships that should really not be used for this purpose. But combining Qurian transport capabilities with Krogan ground troops means you can massively reinforce every ground location that the enemy is about to invade, often before they even get there.]

They will of course learn and adapt, but if they pair up they halve the speed of the invasion, and you can still just send ten dreadnoughts to kill them both without any real risk. Pretty soon they won’t be able to go anywhere or do anything in a group of less than 20, making all their operations grind to a near-standstill, and meanwhile you have days of warning before they get there every time they try to make a move, allowing you to evacuate or ambush as you please. And since you never have any reason to engage in a fight you don’t expect to win, and have advance knowledge of the numbers and positioning of every enemy vessel every time, you never lose another dreadnought and can maintain this level of pressure indefinitely.

Meanwhile you can start blind-firing FTL torpedos from an entirely different system with perfect accuracy any time they cluster up enough to be worth the price of materials. Continue bullying until the entire Reaper force surrenders or retreats.

This makes some really good points. But it’s worth also pointing out that there are about TWENTY THOUSAND capital ships, because the reapers have been around for nearly a billion years. Even if you assume losses during harvests– hell, even if you assume a 50% loss rate which seems high for their usual tactics– this is a lot to pick off a few at a time with limited resources.

my girls

Somewhere in the galaxy the Lawson sisters are having a good time, doing Hot Girl Shit 🥂

M35 Mako

M35 Mako

For N7 month I'm trying to do a few doodles :)

Reference used for pose

𝗶 𝘄𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗶 𝗮𝗺

✦✧✦ 𝗻𝟳 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 ✦✧✦

This post was all it took to make me sit and work on something I've been thinking about for a while now, so here you go 🙈

cute green asari!

Not to make everything about the VS especially Ashley but that scenario where Shepard gets indoctrinated and the LI/closest friend goes after them would be SO POWERFUL with Kaidan/Ashley because they already held a gun at Shepard (which a romanced Ashley mentions) and now forces out of their control are making them do it AGAIN.

Kaidan I think would be more hesitant, try to talk Shepard “down”. He WOULD do it, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think he’d fire until he was certain there was no other way.

Ashley would grit her teeth, fire a warning shot, maybe even shoot in a way just to graze Shepard’s armor like come on, damn it Skipper, don’t you make me do this again.

Kaidan watches Conrad Verner walk away, in part just to make sure that he does. Shepard’s had unwanted followers before, but none who have asked for his autograph. When he’s a safe distance away, Kaidan raises an eyebrow.

“‘I was too busy killing them?’ Really?”

Shepard shrugs, quirk to his lip as he resumes walking, eyes on a kiosk run by a volus. “I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Oh yes, it precedes you. The beautiful Commander Shepard, was it?”

“I’m very pretty,” Shepard acknowledges, chin raised.

Behind them, William snickers. “The consort certainly thought so.”

“The consort gets paid to think so,” Kaidan mutters.

“Someone’s touchy.”

Shepard acknowledges the shopkeeper and peruses his selection of omni-tool upgrades. “He’s just upset no one called him beautiful.”

A sly look crosses Williams face that isn’t going to mean anything good for anyone. “Why don’t you do it?”

Called it.

“Only if he gives me his autograph,” Shepard replies. “But you know what? That gives me an idea.”

“That can’t be good,” Kaidan says, avoiding Williams’ gaze like the plague.

“You remember the server at Chora’s Den who comped your drinks?”

“The one who was dying for a drink, and it wasn’t water?” Williams chimes in. Shepard points at her in victory. Kaidan sighs heavily.

“Exactly,” Shepard goes on, ignoring him. “The beautiful Lieutenant Alenko is going to be the perfect distraction for me to plant that reporter’s bug in the traffic control tower.”

“Wait,” Kaidan says with a frown, trying to pull his brain off the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘Alenko’ coming out of Shepard’s mouth in the same sentence, even if it was sarcasm. “How…am I going to be a distraction?”

“Trust me. Come on.”

Shepard leads them into C-Sec with the kind of purposeful step that no one is going to get in the way of, and breezes into the control tower like he owns it. For a moment, he just scans the room, like he’s evaluating it for a report.

“Easy there, Skipper,” Williams murmurs. “You stand out when you look like that.”

He always stands out, Kaidan thinks, but manages to keep it to himself.

Shepard ignores her, gaze landing on a uniformed woman sneaking furtive glances over her shoulder in their direction. “Perfect,” he says under his breath, and puts a hand on Kaidan’s shoulder. “Quick, go over there and smile at her.”

“What?” Kaidan asks in confusion.

“Go…say something about her shoes.”

“Her shoes? What do I care about her shoes?”

“Shoes, shirt, whatever. I don’t care. Trust me, if you talk to her and stay in her line of sight, she will not notice me planting this bug.”

Williams nods sagely. “Skipper’s right. She is undressing you with her eyes as we speak.”

“For chrissakes,” Kaidan mutters. “So you want me to flirt with her, that’s what you want?”

“Yes,” Shepard says, fiendish look in his eye. “Williams? See that guy over there with the asshole face?”

“Oh yeah,” she replies. “Had my eye on him since we walked in.”

“Good. Go get belligerent. I need cover from all angles.”

“You going to bail me out if I get arrested?”

“Well, the Council never gave me a Spectre badge or anything, but I’m sure if I just tell them I’m above the law it’ll work.”

“This is a good plan,” Williams agrees.

“Wait,” Kaidan says, looking back and forth between them with an irritated scowl. “You’re sending me to flirt with someone, while Williams gets to pick a fight?”

“I’m playing to everyone’s strengths,” Shepard says.

“Great. Thanks.”

“I have faith in you, LT,” Williams says solemnly.

All right. Fine. If Shepard wants him to flirt, he’ll flirt. He approaches the woman with a tentative smile. “Excuse me, would you mind helping me? I’m not sure I’m in the right place.”

Her eyes widen a little, but she’s quick on the trigger to say yes. Kaidan’s smile deepens – it’s all about managing eye contact – and comes up with a quick story about trying to meet someone who gave him the location marker for the tower and told him it was a restaurant.

“Oh,” she says, sympathy in her eyes. “I, um. Think she mislead you. This is definitely not a café.”

“Such a shame,” Kaidan says, with just a hint of wistfulness in his voice. “She seemed so nice.”

A couple meters away, Williams’ voice gets a little heated. Out of the corner of Kaidan’s eye, Shepard maneuvers closer to a corner with a good vantage point of the room. His gaze, however, keeps flicking to Kaidan.      

“I, um, I know a good place in the Presidium?” the woman offers.

“Really?” Kaidan asks, sounding almost hopeful now, resisting the urge to check and see if Shepard is watching.

“My shift ends in about thirty minutes, if you want to wait….?”

“I—”

Before he can finish, Shepard swoops in with a patient but unarguable expression. “Excuse me. Sorry for butting in, but the Lieutenant is needed on an important mission.”

“Oh,” she says, crestfallen. “I could give you my number?”

But Shepard is already steering him away. “Williams,” he barks. “Move out!”

Williams, who looks ready to come to blows with her mark, gives him a winning smile and trots over to join them. “But I didn’t get to throw a punch.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Shepard says, double-timing it for the exit, casting the woman one last look over his shoulder. “Mission accomplished.”

“You sure?” Williams asks. The sly look is back.

“Yup.”

“All because of the Beautiful Lieutenant Alenko?”

Shepard shoots her a dark glance. Kaidan smirks, and raises his chin.  

“I’m very pretty.”

I’m going to be bold and I will hijack this post to link to two of my previous posts : one which compiles all canon facts (at the time of writing) about the volus (+ some inferences), including a subsection on Irune itself, and one where I hypothesize that volus breathe hydrogen gas. I hope you’ll find it enjoyable to some extent.

Welcome to my Halloween entry for @citadelfashionweek 2021!!

I could not participate for the main event but I wanted to contribute for a seasonal spook! This is a concept that was born from worldbuilding thoughts while working on my coming fanfiction The Empire of Preys.

Meet the Vrejjeen! I feel like many cultures share archetypes that follow some primal anxieties, so I wanted to figure out what would the salarian equivalent to a vampire look like. She's a legendary monster whose name refers to the co-dependant union of a salarian female infected with a melufer leech, a parasitic lifeform that breeds inside small living creatures, overtake their brain functions and eventually kill them. The popularity of that myth peaked during the rachni wars, but she's still a common figure in horror/gothic media nowadays, and would make for a cool costume for salarians pumped about human parties and traditions...

I left more "lore" informations about the Vrejjeen under the cut in case you want to hear about that spooky girl.......

Mass Effect au where instead of the Starchild, Shepard finally gets indoctrinated by the Reapers at the very end and you have to play as the squadmate with highest relationship points or their LI to stop them. 

If your ems is high enough, you can break through the indoctrination and bring Shepard back to stop the cycle.

If your ems is too low, you have to stop Shepard. 

Permanently. 

And it falls to you to activate the Crucible.

I got a new drawing tablet!

dodges pitchforks

part 2, low EMS Destroy ver.

part 3, low EMS epilogue

(I know I said the last one was the last but @rackofages had an idea)