Spoiler Warning
This story contains detailed descriptions and references to the Mass Effect Universe and the first two games of the Mass Effect Trilogy. There will be massive spoilers for both the first and second games, so read on at your own risk.
Mass Effect 2: Synopsis
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, please accept these links to find out a bit about this world I am taking you into. And please, please note that from here on in, there will be massive spoilers for both the first and second games. Read on at your own risk.
The Basics
Shepard Meets the Illusive Man near the beginning of Mass Effect 2
The crew of the Normandy SR-2:
Commander Shepard
Miranda Lawson: Cerberus Officer
Jacob Taylor: Former Alliance Soldier/Cerberus Lieutenant
Garrus Vakarian: Vigilante/Weapons Specialist
Tali'Zorah vas Normandy: Chief Engineer
Professor Mordin Solus: Biological Specialist/Former STG Operative
Thane Krios: Expert Assassin
Samara: Asari Justicar
Grunt: Krogan Super-soldier
Jack: Psychotic Biotic Expert
Legion: Geth Platform
Zaeed Massani: Mercenary
Kasumi Goto: Master Thief/Infiltration Specialist
Foreword
On March 6th of 2012, he game developer Bioware released Mass Effect 3, the final installment of a franchise that had arguably become one of the finest RPG experiences of its generation, as choices from across the previous two titles came to a head. Received with critical acclaim and a near universal awe from critics and fans alike, the record-breaking final chapter of Commander Shepard (in spite of some controversy regarding the series' unorthodox ending) left many questioning if it was possible to make the franchise better.
One caffeine-addicted, clinically-insane fangirl answered this question in one word.
Ponies.
At 7:15 AM, April 12th, 2012, the mad pegasister known as Loyal2Luna attempted to release DLC for Mass Effect 2 on the Xbox Live Marketplace for the price of 1000 bits.
Unfortunately, after having her morning cup of coffee, it was then realized that aside from lacking any programming skills or talents with digital media, she had no clue how to create downloadable content or how to make it available to fellow Mass Effect playing ponies.
So she settled on releasing the manuscript of this idea for her fellow sci-fi, pony-loving brethren on FIMFiction.net.
For all who participate in this mad little writing experiment:
Enjoy.
Mass Effect 2: DLC - “The Equestrian Equation”
The Premise:
This is an interactive story written in the spirit and style of the Mass Effect Universe and intended to be read as if it were additional content for the game. While the focus of the story is centered, of course, on the illustrious Commander Shepard, events will have a cinematic feel much as the game and be able to cut away to other characters from both the Equestrian Universe and the Mass Effect Universe.
Now, while I am well aware that no two players' Shepards are alike, we need a single Shepard... and since this is my story (ABUSES THE IMAGINARY POWER!!) the design of Shepard is based on my own primary incarnation.
Dossier:
Commander Leonardo Shepard
Gender: Male
Class: Soldier
Service History: Colonist, War Hero, Savior of the Citadel Council
Advocated: Councilor Anderson
Significant Other: ME1 : Liara / ME 2: Tali
Past Play-style: Paragon
Place in the Story:
"The Equestrian Equation" takes place as a side-mission during the events of Mass Effect 2. Available only for a short time, this additional mission set is available after retrieving the Reaper IFF for the Normandy, but before the crew of the Normandy is abducted. (If this is a spoiler for you, you may wish to stop reading now and go out to purchase all three games of the Mass Effect series and play them non-stop for the next 120+ hours to behold their awesomeness.) Before anypony says anything (I can hear you thinking out there): Yes I know you can only take two missions between these events, but consider this a hidden "third" available mission that does not take up one of those slots.
The Rules:
Barring unforeseen occurrences in real life, I intend to post a new chapter every two weeks until the conclusion of the story, premiering segments on the 1st and 15th of the month to make it easy to keep track of when new options become available.
These chapters will usually be between 3-7k words to prevent my tendency to snowball chapters (as fans of my Doctor Whooves series are keenly aware of) and to maintain a snappy reading pace.
At the end of every chapter, a dialog wheel of choices will be made available and normally include three options. For one week (until the evening of the 8th and 22nd respectfully) readers may vote in the comments (One vote per account name, anonymous postings and guest comments will not be counted to avoid ‘stacking’ votes) at the end of which period, votes will be tallied and the most popular choice will be written up for the next chapter, having ramifications that will effect everything that comes after and those choices not picked will be crossed out of the dialog wheel.
Addendum:
As the story has now been completed, the above rules no longer apply. This should not prevent you from enjoying the story, however. The choices made already and their respective consequences are simply set in stone.
Now that that’s out of the way:
Game on!
*Press the "Next" button to start*
first the doctor whooves series, now THIS GLORIOUSNESS!!!!!!!
marry me please
also, your shepard seem almost CREEPILY similar to mine.
Wow, just... WOW. I need to read this and THE Doctor Whooves series!
I was interested at "Mass Effect," intrigued at "interactive story," and hooked at the description of the character.
Let's see how this turns out...
You pretty much described my own Shepard. I shall read this!
Personally my Shepard Dossier is this.
Commander John Shepard (my actual first name is John)
Gender: Male
Class: Soldier
Service History: Earth Born, Ruthless, Savior of the Citadel Council
Advocated: Councilor Anderson
Significant Other: ME1:Liara / ME 2:Tali /ME 3: Tali
Past Playstyle: Renegade
Though at some point I'll read this.
Just thought you should know, Mordin's trailer has been taken down and needs a new link.
...(Comes back to refresh memories of the story)
Waitaminute, you cheated on Liara? Not gonna spoil it (Despite it being far past the expiration date), but that is one ex you do NOT want getting jealous.
Been getting a lot of people wanting to vote on chapters still?
>checks email
>Mass Effect 2 - DLC: The Equestrian Equation has updated!
>I was like scranton.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw910_Pinkie_Sees_rainbow.png
>but then I saw that this is the only thing that changed pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2241-confusion_for_piggies.jpg
Hmmm, slightly insane pre-story ramblings, a Commander Shepard practically identical to mine in all but name (and the background, mine was a fleet brat), same switch to Tali because she's so freakin' adorkable why wasn't she a choice in the first one— *Cough* Anyway. Looks interesting. I shall have a look-see.
The Eye of Colossus is upon you.
And she was right, because Ponies make everything better.
a littel late to the part. but i have something to add to mass effect 3's god awfull endings.(even with the extended cut) it can all be explained with the indoctrination theory. you can go to clevernoob.com and see 3 documentaries explainig it detail by detail. by the by, laughed my ass off at the verybeginning of this. love it. cheerio
"Rules: There are no rules." Heh.
All right. I've never played any of the games and don't intend to- I love the universe, but I suck at shooters. I've read a couple of tie-in comics and that's it.
But hey. You're Loyal2Luna. It's worth a shot. So let's do this.
Thanks for the trailer links; most of them were pretty helpful in getting more of a feel for the characters. Just for the hell of it, I think I'll summarize my first impressions here. Note: at some point I started wondering what everybody's D&D alignment would be, probably after I started picking out which ones were the Token Evil Teammates.
Let's face it, Shepard is the player character and that means he's going to be a blank slate in terms of non-game material. I can live with that. It's interesting how all the other characters seem to feature a Shepard of the opposite gender in their trailers, though, and that Legion gets a female Shepard. Obviously Shepard is Good, but the Paragon/Renegade system suggests that his/her place on the order/chaos axis is up to the player.
I'm not really sure what Miranda's motives are. She's definitely interested in completing the mission, which is a point in her favor, but it's not clear whether that means she wants to save the Lost, she wants to kill the Collectors, or she wants to earn points with the boss. I'm going to call her Lawful Evil, because it seems more likely that she's interested in success for the sake of success, and advancement in her case means advancement within Cerberus, and Cerberus, while admittedly helpful right now, are still a bunch of dicks.
I don't get much of a read from Jacob's trailer, but I like him. I get the impression he switched from the Alliance to Cerberus only because the Alliance wasn't doing anything about the Collectors- he's not a human supremacist or anything, he just wants to be on the team that has the resources and the initiative to save the Lost. That's encouraging. If I'm right about Jacob's motives, he's Lawful Good.
I already liked Garrus from the comics I've read, and this doesn't change anything. I can get behind anybody who stands up for what they believe in and fights to keep people safe. He does it from outside the law, which makes him Chaotic Good, but there's nothing wrong with a little chaos.
I didn't really get much out of Tali's trailer, but I guess that fits with the whole mystery vibe the Quarians have going on. She places a lot of value on the outcome of that trial, though, so I can gauge her as Lawful, at least, and her reaction later on to the mission to save the science team marks her as relatively Neutral to life for life's sake. I'll go with that for now.
You're missing the "url=" in the link code for Mordin's trailer, so I had to copy and paste the link. As previously stated, though, I like the guy. I didn't know about the whole "killing a race" thing before, though- that's an interesting wrinkle. He's hard to place in terms of alignment- he's interested in doing penance as well as saving these people, but there's not much info as to where the penance idea comes from. I'm going to call him Neutral Good for now. He certainly doesn't like Cerberus, which is a plus in my book.
Thane is... a good tactical asset, I guess? Maybe? I feel like assassination and warfare are different enough that I'm not sure why he's here. Like he says, he approaches killing as an art, whereas on the battlefield it tends to be more of a science- Shepard needs "how can I get all these bastiches out of my way as quickly and efficiently as possible?" whereas Thane is probably more about "how can I evade everybody else and eliminate that one guy as cleanly as I can, and maybe send a message about why he's dead in the process?". But I could be wrong. The whole assassin angle makes me think he's probably True Neutral.
Samara is creepy. Useful, definitely, but also creepy. That is the kind of loyalty I don't ever expect to see in real life... but then, maybe she talks the talk better than she walks the walk. Definitely Lawful Neutral as far as the trailer shows us.
Grunt is... Grunt is probably a really good example of the fact that in ME2 you do not have the benefit of being backed up by a trained and unified military force whose goals are aligned with yours and instead are relying on a ragtag bunch of misfits to save people nobody with real power can afford to care about. And I'll bet that makes the game really interesting! If not particularly encouraging with regard to your odds of success. He's only concerned with the quality of the fight and doesn't promise much in the way of following orders; I'm going to call him Chaotic Neutral.
Jack is... about what I expected. She's nuts, she's dangerous, she's powerful, she's selfish, she's aligned with you but still unpredictable. Definitely Chaotic Evil.
Legion is... oh man. Legion is super interesting. Do other people use the singular or the plural when talking about him/it/them? I'm going to go with "him" for now, I guess. I'm curious as to who it was that sent him looking for Shepard. He supports cooperation and self-improvement for everybody, which is definitely a plus. I'm going to quote HPMOR and say "not every change is an improvement, but every improvement is a change" as my justification for calling him Chaotic Good.
Zaeed is... well, he's a friggin' archetype, isn't he? The Retired Badass, pretty much. If he's a mercenary and only saving the galaxy for the cash, I suppose that puts him in True Neutral with Thane.
Kasumi is pretty cool; I definitely get the Catwoman vibe from her trailer. She obviously doesn't care about the law, but then her targets in this case are all very reprehensible people, so I'm inclined to call her Chaotic Good.
Final tally, taking into account that Leonardo Shepard has a paragon playstyle:
L N C
3 1 3 G
1 2 1 N
1 0 1 E
So a little over half your team is Good, a little over one-third is Lawful, another third-and-a-bit is Chaotic, about one-sixth is Evil, and another one-sixth is completely Neutral. Not terrible odds, I guess, but they could certainly be better.
Also wow, you have a big freakin' team.
You'd rather cheat on Liara than play Lair of the Shadow Broker?
Okay, just finished all 3 games, lets get to it
" On March 6th of 2012, he game developer Bioware released Mass Effect 3, the final installment of a franchise that had arguably become one of the finest RPG experiences of its generation, as choices from across the previous two titles came to a head. Received with critical acclaim and a near universal awe from critics and fans alike, the record-breaking final chapter of Commander Shepard (in spite of some controversy regarding the series' unorthodox ending) left many questioning if it was possible to make the franchise better.
One caffeine-addicted, clinically-insane fangirl answered this question in one word.
Ponies.
At 7:15 AM, April 12th, 2012, the mad pegasister known as Loyal2Luna attempted to release DLC for Mass Effect 2 on the Xbox Live Marketplace for the price of 1000 bits.
Unfortunately, after having her morning cup of coffee, it was then realized that aside from lacking any programming skills or talents with digital media, she had no clue how to create downloadable content or how to make it available to fellow Mass Effect playing ponies.
So she settled on releasing the manuscript of this idea for her fellow sci-fi, pony-loving brethren on FIMFiction.net.
For all who participate in this mad little writing experiment:" LMAO i am going to start reading this now ignoring all other stories for now ONWARD
*Reads first chapter*
First off, my first playthrough of the trilogy was identical save first name, home and ME1 romance.
Second, I'd never thought of doing an ME fic like this, and I immediately like it.
make a ME DLC on Xbox live, for 1000 bits
Me: quickmeme.com/img/68/68ef33082f60e3c894e14bcf368770f34cdfa48c4f84ddeedb2f946c3fc75094.jpg WHAT!?!?!?
6520005
Maybe try actually reading the story before assuming it will be bad based on your own arbitrary metrics?
6530164
I agree; "judging a book by its cover" is not a good rule to live by - some books may have awful covers, but the text within could be fantastically written and highly engaging.
That's why you should always read at least one or two chapters to see if it's any good, for your own personal tastes.
Oh, and there's also saying that "to assume is to make an ass out of u and me", which is what NINJAKILLER did - assume the story was X, when it could very well be Y, or even W.
6520005
I can usually tell a story's quality in the first few pages. This is page zero, otherwise known as the cover of the book. You don't judge a book by its cover unless you want to potentially miss something worth reading.
O boy... Time to Pony up and Brony trough!
Me: *Hysterical laughing ensuing*
Let's gallop hard