Mass Effect Andromeda Meta & Plotbunny

Ever since I played the game, I have a plot bunny hopping around in my brain about a continuation of the game. I recently came to realize that I'm not going to write the story, all things considered, so I'd like to share it here. If anyone wants to adopt the poor bunny and use it in their fanfiction, go ahead.

Story Structure of Mass Effect Andromeda

Mass Effect Andromeda is a wonderful game, it was the first ME game I played, and I love it. However, when I finished it, I felt that it wasn't truly ... well, finished. It was like I just finished the first part of a trilogy:

The world is established, and all the major players (Angara, Kett, and now the Milky Way species). There is an immediate antagonist (the Archon) who fights the main character and is defeated at the end of the story arc. However, there are still some mysteries open, and some threats are still active. Within the Andromeda Initiative, there's still the question about Jien Garson's murder and the mysterious founding of the Initiative. In the outside world, the Kett are still fighting. The invasion isn't stopped just because they take out its local leader. The Kett are still coming from somewhere, getting orders from somewhere, and it's clear that the Angara and the Initiative will still have to fight them. This would be the second part of the trilogy.

And then, there's a mystery that runs deeper: The truth about the Angara, about the Kett, about the Jardaan and the Jheln and their opposition, about the Remnants - about the history of the Heleus cluster. It's a really fascinating bit of worldbuilding, and I'm still running through the implications and possibilities. This, in my eyes, would be the grand finale of a trilogy: bringing peace to the Heleus cluster, and solving those mysteries.

Characters of the story I'm not going to write

In this story, the Ryder twin who isn't Pathfinder would be the main character. In my case, I was thinking of Sara, first because my own Ryder was Bro!Ryder, and second because I'd like to write this story with a female protagonist. There's no appeal to me in playing as Bro!Ryder and then turning around and writing the sibling left behind as Bro!Ryder too. Anyway, Sara. She has lived through a lot, too: First her induced coma after the botched cryo, then the information that her father (who she perhaps still idolized) is dead, then waking up only to have the Kett invasion on the ship and the Archon hooking up her nerve system to use her as a pain buffer. And during all of that, her brother is the hero everyone celebrates.

She wanted to go to this new galaxy to explore it, and now she's stuck in a hospital bed. Even with advanced scifi medicine she probably needs some time to heal. That has to be frustrating, and I wanted to give her an adventure of her own. I also wanted to give her permanent nerve damage from the pain torture.

Sara wakes up to a world that works without her. A lot of people are already awake and have built a world for the others to wake in. Her brother is the human pathfinder, and the other species have more or less experienced pathfinders too. They do the cool heroic work of pathfinding, of finding new homes for the Milky Way species. She was supposed to be on such a team, but now she isn't, because she has recovery to do and her brother already has a full ship, and also she doesn't want to depend on him, even though she loves him. Once she is done with her recovery, she needs work. She needs a task. But who is going to give it to her?

Enter Vederia. She's the youngest pathfinder, the most inexperienced one, in the world of this story. Sure, Pathfinder Ryder is young too, but he's proven his capability beyond doubt. The other pathfinders are experienced, and if not the ones originally chosen for the job, then at least they clearly know what they're doing. So they get the high profile missions, the dangerous ones, the ones the Milky Way species depend on the most. But Vederia. She's new to this job, and her only qualification was that Ryder chose her ... (well, that's not true, but that's how everybody sees it). Nominally she can chose her own missions, as long she doesn't get in the way of the other pathfinders, and of course Tann and Addison and so on try to manipulate her, but while she seems young, she still has a core of steel. She chooses her mission, and she chooses her team. Sara is on that team.

As is a Salarian, a Quarian, and an Elcor. Yes, this is set after Annihilation, after the last arc came to the cluster and came out of quarantine. I love Quarians and Elcor, I want them on board. The Salarian is a pilot, and the Quarian and the Elcor are a battle unit: The Elcor is a tank and has a battle armor with artillery, and the Quarian can sit on the Elcor's back in a shielded bubble and direct an army of drones as well as use a sniper rifle.

The Andromeda Initiative doesn't have enough ships of the Tempest type, and Vederia's team doesn't get one. They start with a freighter, and work their way up.

The story

So Sara is part of Vederia's crew who wants to map the Scourge. That means travelling through very isolated and rarely travelled regions of the Heleus cluster. They can come across a good deal of secrets that way ... and even though they're not expected to meet much in way of combat, they still could, because these regions might well be a hiding place for ships that don't want to be found. After all, the Archon's fleet was hiding in such a space too. They would have to be very careful, especially since they only have a freighter.

Their first big mission would lead them to finding an abandoned Kett ship which they take over. This ship belonged to the Archon's scientists; they had to hide it before the big assault on Meridian due to some internal Kett politics, and obviously never got around to retrieving it again.

This way the team gets inside information on the Kett and their work in the Heleus cluster, especially the Archon's work. These two are not necessarily the same: the Archon was the leader, but he wasn't uncontested, as seen in the person of the Primus.

The Kett were in the cluster to make everyone they find there into more Kett. But once he was there, the Archon followed another goal, which is to study the Remnant technology. We never quite learn why he's so interested in it, even before Ryder arrives. I have a theory about that.

At some point, the team is going to get at least one Kett team member: one that was loyal to the Archon, but is not loyal to the Primus or the Kett leadership back where they came from. One who wants to solve the same mysteries that Sara's and Vederia's team is also looking to solve. As a side note, I was thinking about playing with language around gender a bit more with this team member. In the game, all Kett are called 'he', even though they're a non-gendered species who call other species 'it' per default. So I thought that maybe they have two pronouns, one for Kett and one for non-Kett. I would argue that once the automatic translators factor that in, they would reflect that in the language. I suggest the pronoun 'kett' for all Kett, which would be how and why that's the name given to them by the Angara.

The love interest

The story doesn't need one, but I had an idea that I find absolutely fascinating which could also drive the story forward.

Depending on the player's choices, there are multiple outcomes for Reyes Vidal. When I played it, he and my Ryder flirted, but it never went anywhere. When it came to the High Noon confrontation, Ryder saved Sloane, but let Reyes get away. That's what I want to play with. It leaves open a lot of possible paths for Reyes.

So after he left Kadara, Reyes retreated into deeper space and rebuilt his information network. He has the skills. So he's always on the move, sees a lot of things, knows even more people ... which makes him a perfect contact person and bringer of plot, which is how he meets Sara.

Having both of them do their own thing that takes precedence makes for a very compelling romance in my eyes because it's never going to be obvious and easy. Being together is going to be work, and sometimes maybe not in their own best interests, which makes it an interesting story. Also I like the idea that Reyes leaving Kadara isn't a defeat in the long run.

The big mystery

I admit, I'm not really interested in the internal politics of the Andromeda Initiative. I want to write about the Heleus cluster, about the Andromeda galaxy. Who are the Kett, where do the Angara really come from (why were they created), what happened to the Jardaan. And I have an idea about that.

Why is the Archon so interested in Remnant technology? I don't believe the Archon's argument that it's just the hope for advantages in the war. There are too many risks and not enough benefits. In fact, I wrote a short story about that: To Serve the Sacred, written from the POV of a Kett who becomes disloyal to the Archon because of the Archon's focus on Remnant Technology.

tbc