Don't Blame The Viewer

In my previous article, I said that writing is a lot like sport. If you want to read that dull piece of text, here's the link:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-do-i-post-what-ruben-hilbers-ljhwe/?trackingId=QX4Pu6s45jaLkbay%2FibBbA%3D%3D

And I want to keep that analogy going here. Writing stories and novels is individual sport, but making a TV-show is a team sport. Soccer, American football, Curling or Cricket, you pick one you like in your head. The writer's room is the team and the show-runner is the coach.

The reason this article come with a Federation flag as included pic, is because Team #StarTrek hasn't been doing well recently. In fact, their latest bout, #StarfleetAcademy has been getting bad reviews from the average audience. Which has led to fiery responses from actors - especially Robert Picardo - and accusations of review bombing. Especially since critics seem to love the show. However, I feel that somebody needs to come out and say the obvious.

TV critics are essentially sport commentators, whereas the actors are on the team payroll. Both groups are telling the team and more importantly, the team #sponsor - #ParamountSkydance - what they want to hear. It's called #survival. They can't afford to get sacked or locked out of the stadium, they have bills to pay.

A good demonstration of this is John Boyega, who didn't air his true opinion about how #Disney treated his #StarWars character Finn until he was no longer financially depended on them.

So, where does #YouTube and the audience fit into this model? Starting with #YouTube, reviewer there are like people who have a good camera and a friend who lives near the stadium with a balcony. They can see the sport being played, but they are not part of the traditional system. And because they are not dependent on the studios for their survival, they can be honest. Hence the brutal burning of #StarfleetAcademy.

And the audience. The audience just wants to see a good game. Good entertainment. And if your team sucks - which as an audience member I can tell you, #StarTrek has been since 2017 under #AlexKurtzman, #AkivaGoldsman and #SecretHideout - they call you out on it. #StarfleetAcademy is not being review bombed, it's just bad. Stop blaming the viewer, learn how to play the frakking game.

Regards,

Ruben Hilbers

PS....In an ironic twist, the only parts of post-2017 #StarTrek that have been watchable have been the parts that neither Kurtzman or Goldsman have had anything to do with. Meaning Star Trek Prodigy and Picard Season 3. Talk about poisoning your own well.

Sorry, #Machinegames, but that's shitty writing...

So, I am a big fan of the #Wolfenstein games, but I have to be a bit critical of a scene they wrote in the New Colossus. After you liberate a cell in #NewYork, when you come back to your base, one of the new characters - SuperSpesh - freaks out at the sight of a working #toilet and quickly goes to use it.

Why is this such a big deal ? Well, the base in question is a nuclear SUBMARINE. And even a complete military nobody like me knows that the toilets aboard #submarines are special, pressurized and complicated gear. You can't just park a civy on the privy and hope it works out. It does in the game.

But, sorry #Machinegames, the most realistic outcome is that it would hit the van and everything and everybody else within a couple of meters. I know, eww !

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers

PS. The point of this article was to demonstrate then when you try to write a "hard" (meaning: following the rules of reality and physics) world, even missing the smallest detail(s) can break the immersion. This is true for all writing, but especially for computer game writing, since the player gets to walk around in your world and see it first (or third) person.

The Mass Effect spin-off of my dreams

BioWare Yep, I'm pitching again. So, enough preamble, let's get to it. Say hello to...

Mass Effect: C-Sec

One of the coolest - and most beloved - places in the Mass Effect Trilogy is the Citadel. A massive space-station that is the beating heart of galactic politics. There is just one problem with the Citadel....we get to see too little of it. Yes, we get snippets in all three games. (Which get smaller as the trilogy goes along.) But this place is MASSIVE, with so much potential for characters and adventures.

One of these characters is Owen Bailey. A Captain in Citadel Security when we first meet him in Mass Effect 2, he is promoted to Commander by Mass Effect 3. And it is this promotion that puts our character on a collision course with destiny. Because when Bailey is promoted, our (customizable) protagonist is promoted to take over his old post...

The Story

Our hero - let go with male and call him Mike - is promoted one week before the start of the Reaper War. Mike has barely read-up on all the files and gotten his new clearance level nailed down when all hell breaks loose. He now has to keep his people safe and do what he can to protect the innocent from the horrors of war. And then there's Cerberus...

The main story would end with the Crucible firing. It would be dependent upon which ending you picked in Mass Effect 3 and how much War Assets you had. But what if you didn't play ME3 ? Plan B is what I'm calling Citadel Readiness Points. You can gather these by completing side-missions. If you didn't import a ME3 save, the game would instead use the CRP's to decide the ending.

So if you did play ME3, the CRP's are useless ? Nope, because there are....

DLCs

The proposal is to do two DLCs. The first would be Aftermath. Which is exactly what it says on the tin. Aftermath picks up after the Crucible fires. In this DLC, you play as Mike's second-in-command. You have to find Mike and pick up the pieces aboard the station. If you had enough War Assets/CRP's, Mike is alive and you go back to playing as him.

If you have low CRP's, Mike is toast and you have to finish the DLC as the second-in-command. The CRP's and which side-missions you completed also decide who you have to help you and what resources you have to work with.

The second DLC would be Fuel Depot Alpha One. This is the fuel depot the closest to the Citadel when its in the Widow Nebula, One of big moments that didn't fit inside Mass Effect 3, was the Reapers taking over the Citadel and moving it to Earth. The main story will fill in this (major) blank from the INSIDE of the station.

FD Alpha will give us a glimpse of what this event looked like from on the OUTSIDE of the station. You will play the commander of FD Alpha as husks swarm the depot. Your job is to get everybody off the depot and somewhere safe.

How much of the Citadel would we see ?

The idea is took take all the sections of the Citadel already created and connect them to form the game world. I would also propose adding the pieces of the Citadel that previous games only let you visit once. A good example is the pre-fab factory where you confront Harkin in Mass Effect 2. In ME: C-Sec, this part of the Citadel would be converted into one giant refugee settlement.

Another example would be part of the Citadel that you visit for Thane's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2. In the original game, you can only access the upper level. C-Sec would add the full section. (Basically, all the loose parts created for ME2 and ME3 would be integrated into this Citadel 2.0.)

But wouldn't this make the Citadel where predictable if you played the trilogy ? After all, you would know where everything is already, wouldn't you ? Not necessarily. For example, the Volus Banker Barla Von moved offices between ME1 and ME3. So, who is using his old digs now ? And then there is the AI that committed suicide BEHIND his office.

So what is there now ? The Human embassy in ME3 is clearly NOT the same room where you sparred with Udina in ME1 and ME2. And the less said about the mess we made out of Chora's Den (which never reopened) the better.

There are more examples, but the point is that the Citadel has changed a lot during the trilogy. Which leaves plenty of room for new characters and stories.

A Short Announcement

Hello Reader(s),

So, I have something to confess. I haven't been taking very good care of this blog recently. Instead, I've been putting my time and energy into my YouTube Channels (Links below) and my LinkedIn profile. The thing is, my LinkedIn profile leads people...well, here. And if they do click the link and find a blog that has been gathering dust for months, that doesn't really score points.

It also doesn't help my efforts to recruit people to Star Trek: Forgotten Frontier one bit. So, I needed to do something about it. And then I realized that I posted a lot of my LinkedIn articles only on LinkedIn. (Shocker, I know.) Which left me with a way to kill two birds with one stone. Hence, the new From LinkedIn tag on this blog.

The plan is to (re)post my greatest hits from LinkedIn here, giving the blog a nice big influx of fresh content. Also, I'm going to (re)share those post with my X account in the hope of giving that a needed kick in the rear.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302)

Distant Stars

SSV Ain Jalut