Mephisto All Allong

Or...The Plot that  I think Disney and Bad Wolf should have written. But won't have the balls to, because...lawyers. 

Okay, the Whoniverse is Earth (Dimension) 5556. Marvel had the Doctor Who comic right from 1979 until 1999. So it is part of the comics that form the basis of the MCU. With that technical detail out of the way, where did I get this idea...

Recently I watched two ScreenCrush videos about IronHeart. The first was about who (else) made a deal with Mephisto, while the second was about possible future plots created by the show. And that was when a plot sprang into my head. I hope it's good, but you'll just have to read it and decide for yourself. Enough preamble, on to...

The Plot

Our plot starts in the days of ancient days of Gallifrey. Here, Mephisto make a deal with two of the planet's Founding Fathers...Rassilon and Omega. But he does not succeed making in making a deal with Tecteun, who is too busy with her Timeless Child experiments. 

This deal is why (as stated in the episode The Five Doctors)  the official history say that Rassilon was a great leader, while the myths say he was terrible tyrant. The myths are true, because the Mephisto's influence was corrupting Rassilon (and many of the ancients Gallifreyan/Time Lords, who were a pretty evil bunch).

And then Tecteun succeeds. She adds Regeneration to the mix. Now, when you make a deal with Mephisto, you're stuck with him for life and the afterlife. Humans only have ONE life. So the deal sticks. 

But in the End of Time (Part 1) the Tenth Doctor talks about regeneration to Wilfred Mott. And he says it's like dying. Everything he was dies and some new man saunters away. My take would be that because both the personality and the body that made the deal is lost, the deal doesn't stick. Humans are stuck with the deal forever, Time Lords are stuck for one Incarnation. They regenerate, the deal expires.

Which Omega figures out. More important, he starts broadcasting his theory far and wide. To all his people, who then start using this loophole to get out of their deals. Mephisto's control of Gallifrey is crumbling. 

In revenge, Mephisto makes Omega lose his marbles and manipulates the last few people he still has control over exile Omega into an alternate dimension...which is the place that The Rani was trying to liberate him from in the Reality War.

After the last of Mephisto's influence is gone, Rassilon then white-washes the history book to make it seem like he brought Gallifrey out of it's dark ages. And to score PR-points, he starts a campaign against evil. He destroys Earth 5556's copy of the DarkHold, he wipes out the local version of the Symbiotes, gets rid of the vampires, fights the Racnoss, etc, etc.

All of this turns around Gallifrey's image. And Mephisto sees this happening. Between losing the planet and them suddenly being know as ancient, powerful good guys, he is pissed. But then he finds the perfect person to make a deal with. The person who will let him wipe out the Time Lords. DAVROS. 

He gave Davros the knowledge to create the Daleks. And the downside, the cost for Davros of this deal is pretty obvious. The missing half of his body, the wheelchair, the mutations and the blindness. The whole Last Great Time War was Mephisto trying to get rid of the Time Lords. Except, it didn't work. Yes, they suffered a great deal. Yes, they went through the Hell of war. 

But as we saw in The Day of the Doctor, they survived. Thanks to the Doctor and Clara, with an assist by UNIT and the Zygons, they found hope. So he has to try again. His new plan...placing the Timeless Child files some place where he knew The Master would find them. And this time, it did the trick.

How to weave all of this into new episodes ? 

Well, I'm thinking The Doctor finds a clue to all this hidden history. My choice would be a single page of the DarkHold that somehow survived. And the season becomes this detective show where the Doctor slowly puts the pieces together. With the conclusion of the arc being an epic showdown of The Doctor and their Companion versus Mephisto. 

Who the companion should be....

This whole thing is so unhinged already that I figure it's a case of Go Big or Go Home. So my pitch....Clark Gregg as Phil Coulson.

How would that come about ?:

The Doctor finds the page of the DarkHold and - having watched Agents of Shield - recognizes it and realizes that they will need an expert of Earth 616. But the Doc also realizes they can't just pluck some random person from that universe. Fortunately, there is another option...

In the two parter Dark Water/Death in Heaven, Missy aka The Master tried to turn all of Earth's dead people into Cybermen. As part of that scheme, she used a piece of a supercomputer called the Matrix. A supercomputer designed to store the minds of dead people. 

That Matrix hard-drive was confiscated by UNIT and is still sitting in the Black Archives. So the Doctor snatches Coulson from the end of his life. Events from the Agents of Shield episode The End are not altered, nor are Seasons 6 and 7 of Agents of Shields. 

The only thing that is altered is that it was only Coulson's body that died. Everything else is safely in the Matrix. The Doctor grows Coulson a new body, one that lines up with Clark Gregg's current age - the body being older due to having to work with Earth limited technology - and they are off to the races...

And that's what I think Disney and Bad Wolf should have done. 

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302) 

My Pitch For Mass Effect Andromeda 2.0

 

Hi Alex,

First of all, I know that the tradition is to make an elevator pitch. But this subject is too long. So let's call it a boardroom pitch. And thanks for listening to my ramblings. So, here we go...

Boardroom Pitch for Remaking ME: Andromeda

To begin with, the folks at BioWare have made it clear that Mass Effect 5 will be a sequel to both the original trilogy and Andromeda. I'm not making this up, Mike Gamble - the big cheese himself - has said this. 

The problem is that to do that to properly, you will need to able to import choices from Andromeda into ME5. 

Now, I know that there are probably Andromeda critics thinking that there can't be that many. Or that they aren't that important. Well, let's see what I can think off from the top of my head. Ready ?

1. Tell me about your Ryder. Scott, Sara, somebody custom to your play-through ?
2. How is your Ryder doing in the romance department ?
3. Which loyalty missions did you do ?  
4. How did things work out with the Krogan for you ?
5. Did you cover for the Asari Pathfinder or reveal the truth ? Did you let her stay or replace her ?
6. Who rules Kadara Port these days ? 
7. Did you get all the golden worlds to full viability ? 

And I'm sure there are more waiting in the wings. But this is where we hit a major issue. Because Andromeda is runs on the Frostbite Engine, whereas ME-5 will be a Unreal Engine game. And those two pieces of software are not compatible. As things stand, you cannot import an Andromeda game save into Mass Effect 5.

But dude, Andromeda sucked anyway. They'll just do an interactive recap comic like they did before.  

First of all, I know that Andromeda was not everybody's cup of tea, but that is just rude to people who did like it. Keep it polite, please. Second, that would be a long comic. And if you know nothing about Andromeda, you'd be taking shots in the dark. Not to mention the simple fact that making Andromeda 2.0 - a Unreal Engine redo - might crank up Andromeda's sales numbers.

There is also a long-term argument to be made. Andromeda 1.0 came out in 2017...now, let's say ME-5 comes out in 2029 and is a giant hit. ME-6 gets green-lit and releases in 2035. That's great, but what if you want to do another Legendary Edition ? One that collects Andromeda, 5 and 6 ? 

As the last couple of years have taught us the hard way, the video game industry can be a volatile place. In 2040, are there still going to be people who know Frostbite ? Or it is going to be as obscure and forgotten as both the planet and code of Kobol ? (If you get the reference, good on you. If you don't, see what I mean ?) It's going to be much easier to upgrade Andromeda if it's already in (a version of) the Unreal Engine. 

Finally, anything you bring over from Andromeda to ME-5 is going to have to be redone from scratch anyway. Basically, if you don't redo Andromeda, you'd end up teasing the people who did like it with a game they'll never get. You risk turning off the Andromeda fans from your franchise. 

And for those complaining about Andromeda's writing....Who knows what other changes can be hung off this redo ? Which brings up to the big question....

Who Would Do This Remake ?

BioWare has recently laid off a lot people. And they are going to have their hands full with ME-5 for the next couple of years. If they are supposed to do this after ME-5, it's going to take forever to come out. My suggestion would be to outsource it. But to who or whom ? One word....Obsidian. Why ? 

1. Fallout: New Vegas proved that Obsidian can make games in franchises they didn't start and get the flavor right.
2. Obsidian made The Outer Worlds in Unreal Engine. Not only do they know the engine, they have the chops and knowledge to do a space RPG. Which brings us to reason 3...
3. Availability. Once Outer Worlds 2 is out the door - which will happen this year - Obsidian would be able to start this project. Let's look at some other options...
1. Machinegames....Just finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, now knee-deep into making the final Wolfenstein game.
2. Bethesda....Hands full remaking their own old titles. And we don't want a game full of glitches and bugs.
3. EA....simply don't trust them to get it right. 

Also, if anybody could tweak the writing in Andromeda, my money would be on Obsidian. And let's circle back to the long-term roadmap above. Andromeda wouldn't have a hard deadline. You could release ME-5 in 2029 and then drop Andromeda 2.0 anywhere you want in the gap between 5 and 6. Essentially slicing the time between releases.

Not to mention that with a planned release in the gap, you could add story to Andromeda 2.0. You could wrap up the loose ends of the Kett and the Quarian Ark. Yes, I know there was a novel about the Quarian Ark. But that only dealt with the virus. 

The Ryders still need to save their bacon from the Scourge and the Kett. You could even end Andromeda 2.0 with Ryder and company leaving for the Milky Way, with ME-5 showing the other end of the trip. (Not to mention that extending the story would give you even more choices for the game save to import, which would change things in ME-5 and give that game even more replayability.)

That's all I have,

Regards, 

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Shepard) 

P.S.

The Alex this 'letter' is addressed to is not a real person. It's my version of Kitty / Dear Sigmund. 

As for the pic that comes with this letter....I'm writing a Mass Effect Fan-Fic about the SSV Ain Jalut, the original SR-2 / Normandy's sister-ship, and made my own assignment patch for the ship.  

Mass Effect 5 clue in plain sight ?

To begin with, I have not played Mass Effect Andromeda. But I was curious about the game, so I've been digging around the Mass Effect wiki. And that's how I ended up reading the entry on the Scourge. Which is how ended up going into theory mode. Hold onto your hat, because it's going to be a wild ride...

The sentence that send my brain spinning was: 

The "Opposition" – the term SAM translated for the Scourge's detonators – learned their secrets from an entity called "Jheln".   

Wait a minute....Jheln ? That's a lot like Jien. As in Jien Garson, in the founder of the Andromeda Initiative. And for alien speakers, names can be a real pain to pronounce. So add a little phonetic distortion/translation trouble in there and you're off to the races. 

There is one problem. Jien Garson is...and I'm using the technical term here...dead. She was murdered shortly after arriving in Andromeda. But then I remembered Paragon7's YouTube videos. Long story short....she's been pitching the idea that Alliance has been working on an AI based on Shepard. Which made me wonder...

If there can be an AI based on Shepard, why couldn't there be an AI based on Jien Garson ?   

And if that AI, let's called her Jien 2.0, can figure out a way to travel back into time then Jien 2.0 could become Jheln. So if Jien 2.0 is a thing, what will would BioWare do with it ? I don't know. But here's....

What I would do with Jien 2.0 ?

First of all, I'm weaving several of Paragon7's ideas into this. #Thanks. Now, our AI needs a creator. Since they don't care about the rules and we've seen them mess about with AI, I'm giving that role to Cerberus. 

The story begins with them studying (what's left of) The Collector Base.  Here, they discover that there is a wormhole connecting the black hole at the center of Milky Way with the black hole at the center of Andromeda. Cerberus doesn't have the means to travel through the wormhole. But they do figure out how use the wormhole to transmit message back and fro between 2186 and 2819. 

So now Milky Way Cerberus can talk to any undercover people they have in Andromeda. (Despite the 600 year time jump.) Milky Way Cerberus infiltrates the program working on the Shepard AI, while Andromeda Cerberus steals as much info as they can on SAM.  They combine the two and the result is Jien 2.0.

This explains the who and how. Which leaves us with why.... I'm thinking the real Jien Garson is no fan of Cerberus. But Cerberus (thinks they) can program Jien 2.0 to agree with their views. That would make this AI a powerful PR tool. It's the ultimate deep fake. 

But this is where things go off the rails...Jien 2.0 finds a flaw in the shackles and manages to break out. However, she doesn't make her move right away. Instead, she steals decades of archive data from every major stock exchange in the galaxy. That done,  she hijacks the temporal transmitter and uses it transmit herself into the past. And - with the stock market info - becomes the Benefactor...

*Dun, dun, dun !* The Benefactor then hitches a ride to Andromeda when the Arks launch. Jien 2.0 also arranges for the real Jien Garson to be murdered, so she can't figure out her existence. But real twist is that it was Jien 2.0 that introduced the 'flaw' in the shackles that allowed her to escape, making the whole thing a Bootstrap Paradox. 

Jien 2.0 then transmits herself back into Andromeda's past using another temporal transmitter, becoming Jheln and founding the Opposition. That's how Jheln knew all the secrets of the Scourge.....she stole of all of Initiative's research on it before leaving. 

What after that ? Well, in my version Jien 2.0 and the Opposition would resurface as the secondary bad guys. And that is my stab at my why Liara might need a Shepard from an alternate universe. Jien 2.0 is an unshackled, time-traveling AI. She knows the histories of people, species and places. She can read people's psychological profiles and predict their moves. 

But that capacity only works for people from her native universe. No matter which ending you picked - control, synthesis, destroy or perfect destroy - Liara needs a Shepard that Jien 2.0 has no data on. A Shepard with a different history. A Shepard that Jien 2.0 can't predict. 

This would also make a good McGuffin to get Ryder on the team. Jien 2.0's (predictive) math is probably calculated on Shepard's old squadmates. Swapping (some of) them out with Tempest crew might throw her for a loop long enough for them to catch her with her pants down a few times.

And that's all I have.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

From 2029 to 2039

 Hi Alex,

A while back, I took a stab at writing a re-imagining of Space: 1999. Because 1999 has come and gone, I changed the year to 2029. I managed to get the pilot done. But something was just...off. So when I tried to write episode two, I ended up grinding to a halt. 

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed to start from scratch. I left the one episode of 2029 up on Fanfiction.net and set writing version 2.0. Since we're (slowly) coming up on 2029, I decided to push the date back to 2039. 

And that's all I have for today.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)  

What current Hollywood should watch.

Okay, folks, I won't beat around the bush. In my opinion, 98 percent of modern Hollywood sucks. And it all comes back to bad writing. Characters are unlikable or unrealistic, plots tend to be thin and don't get me started on the messes of CGI and AI. My advice to modern Hollywood, watch these shows/movies from the past and learn what you have forgotten...

1. Twelve Angry Men

An excellent movie. If you want to see how to make a movie with only ONE set, this is the one for you. On top of that, all the twelve men are Caucasian. Yet, they are a wide spectrum of humanity because of their personalities and upbringings. This movie doesn't float on cheap action, or set pieces, it floats on writing, characters and ACTING. As does the next entry...

2. ER: Into That Good Night

...which is one of the best episodes the show ever did. It's so heart-wrenching that I can't even watch it when I do an ER re-watch. This episode proofs that a good story doesn't have be happy one. Nor does it have to have a happy end. Time to move on to...

3. Doctor Who: Listen

I know that people tend to be critical of the later Dr Who episodes. But this 12th Doctor episode is an excellent example of how to build tension using music. Try watching the episode with the sound off, but the subtitles on and you'll find it a lot less tense. 

4. Das Boot

And I don't mean the TV show remake. The original movie is a long watch, but it's worth it. Being about the Germans, this movie had an uphill battle to get its viewers aboard. But get aboard the viewers it did. It's an anti-war movie that shows the horrible costs. And that makes you sympathize with people who are supposed to be 'the bad guys.'

That's all the recommendations I have for today.

 Regards,

 Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

My guess for Skeleton Crew finale.

Hi Alex,

So I've been watching Star Wars: Skeleton Crew for the past seven weeks. And I want to take a stab at predicting some stuff for the finale. So, without further ado...

First of all, I don't believe that Tak Rennod is dead for a second. I think the message from the supervisor that we heard in Episode 7 was an old recording made by the original overseer of At Attin. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Rennod used voice distortion on his logs. That way, anyway who listened to his logs wouldn't recognize his voice if they met him in the flesh. I think he killed the supervisor who was running At Attin when he arrived and has been running the show ever since. Which raises the question, why ? Well, that's my Segway to talk about...

...Inflation. The reason At Attin credits are valuable because they are made from a rare metal. Rare being the key word. But if you take all those credits and inject them into the galactic economy, the metal is no longer rare. And the worth of those credits plummets. Truly infinite treasure is worthless treasure. And I think Rennod figured that out. That's why he took over instead of coming back. 

Rennod also knows better then anybody what makes pirates tick. If he went back into the galaxy, his fellow pirates would never believe the truth. They would simply think that's he hoarding the treasure for himself. And the whole thing would end in blood. That's why he took over as supervisor. 

And when he tells Jod this, or Jod figures this out....Jod's plan is going to burst like a popped balloon. Which will force him to team up with the kids and the parents to defend At Attin.

That's all I have.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

A Note on The Outer Worlds

 I love The Outer Worlds, but there is one simple problem with this game...it's too short. Combine that with the fact it's been ages since the announcement of Outer Worlds 2. Which raises the question....why didn't Obsidian kill two birds with one stone and kick a third DLC out the door ? 

Not only would this have helped keep the buzz going, we still have two planets on the map that we haven't been to....the ice planet Typhon and the gas planet Hephaestus. And yes, I know, the system map says that there is nothing for humanity on Typhon, except...

...Who do you think wrote that, in-game ? The Board....who probably claimed that so that nobody would visit Typhon and notice the gunships and the Hope parked in orbit. And it does have a valuable resource, because once you melt ice, you have this lovely thing called water. 

And water is everything. On top of that, who knows what surprises are waiting under the ice of Typhon. And then there is Hephaestus...

A whole planet full of miners. This would have been an excellent site for some post end-game/Brave New World shenanigans. Plus, all the companies have dirty secrets. Why should Hephaestus Mining be any different ? 

And they did own Scylla... So was it a coincidence that Clyde Harlow set-up his base there ? Or was he making sure that nobody dug up the area underneath his complex...

That's all I have for today.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)