X Never Marks the Spot

gnine is here for the month, and with a little urging she re-played ME3 with the DLC. So I now have watched all the ME3 DLC, as well as the mShep romance with Kaidan. (Gnine was pleased to do so, as the main reason she played mShep originally was for the m/m relationship, which she screwed up the first time around by accidentally staying with Tali instead.) And most of the rest of ME3 again as well...random thoughts to follow.

( Spoilers for all the games, including DLC, plus a few fan theories )

Gnine and I have done some other things, last week we went to Age of Ultron and Furious 7, but while I enjoyed both and have some thoughts I might get down later, my fannish heart is definitely still taken with ME.

(And whyyyyyyyyy are there no space operas on TV now? I miss them more than ever! If only it were possible to adapt ME...it has to be a game, it wouldn't be the same any other way, but there's several non-gamers I'd love to show it to. They could at least do a mini-series set in the same universe, the First Contact war with the turians, perhaps?)

...In Mass Effect. (You weren't getting away that easily, sorry! :P) I do love voice acting, and this vid is a great example - it's a clip of Garrus's VA as a bit role on Castle, and it's awesome because he doesn't sound like Garrus at all...until the one minute mark when his voice drops and then he's instantly recognizable. Which everyone freaks out about in the comments, when they're not discussing Garrus chatting with Mal Reynolds... (I gotta say, I'm used to youtube comments being the bottom of the internet barrel, but for some reason a lot of the comments on ME-related clips are gold.)

For years now, whenever I complained about the lack of space opera on TV (which is every other month or so - and right now is more just "why are there no shows in space at all, argh?!" - but glorious sprawling epic multi-world culture-clashing space opera is my joy) my brother's answer has always been, "PLAY MASS EFFECT!"

So last month I finally did. And now I'm a couple hours away from beating the third game, and. Yeah. This is where the space opera has gone, and it is amazing. (Doesn't hurt that of all ME's influences - which range from Star Wars to Niven's Known Space - the strongest might be my beloved Babylon 5.) Being a game, it has elements in common with both visual and literary scifi - while it has the cinematics like TV and movies, it also has a ton of background text that fleshes out the universe, explaining details of aliens and technology in a way TV can only do in tie-in books. And yes, I'm one of those geeks who has to read the entire Codex.

And it's worth it! The alien species are fascinating, and not just in the character designs - though those are great, being a video game they aren't limited to humans in makeup. (Actually the aliens look better than the humans, who tend to live in that point in the uncanny valley where their fixed-plastic features don't quiiiiiiite ruin the dramatic scenes, but it's close.) All the species have distinct, complex cultures, and the story manages that difficult trick of having alien characters who are representative of their species, and yet are also unique individuals - their personalities are shaped by the societies they were raised in, but not determined by them. ( More random babble, no real spoilers )