Are the Clouds the key to Mass Effect 5?

 

I was thinking about the end of Mass Effect 3 and then I realized something. When we see the effect of the Crucible affect the Mass Relay network, we see it travel the galaxy. But, here's the thing, we see it travel ONLY the galaxy. 

How is this news? After all, Mass Effect Andromeda made it clear that the Reapers were only a Milky Way problem. Because if we zoom out just a bit, we see that the Milky Way has several satellite dwarf galaxies.

There's the Sagittarius Dwarf Spherical Galaxy and two Magellanic Clouds, one big and one small. And the end of the Mass Effect 3 shows crystal clear that they are not affected by the crucible's energy.

Which raises the question: Why? The simplest answers....Because they don't have any Mass Relays. They are outside the network. Which also puts them outside the cycles and the Catalyst's experiment. And in the millions of years and thousands of cycles, nobody has figured it out? I'm having a hard time believing that.

This also raises questions about the Andromeda Initiative and the Benefactor. Why foot the bill for a mission to Andromeda when there are three safe zones on your doorstep in universe terms? What's in those dwarf galaxies that the Benefactor doesn't want the people of the Milky Way to see? Could be our old friends, the Jardaan? Could the Benefactor BE a Jardaan? Let's ponder that for a second...

We know that the Andromeda Initiative's secret goal was to ensure the survival of the Milky Way species. But what if the Benefactor already figured out that the Milky Way species coming out on top was only a matter of time? And because the Benefactor is a Jardaan, they also knew what would happen once they were gone...a Jardaan invasion and enslavement of the Milky Way. 

So funding the Andromeda Initiative isn't about the Milky Way species surviving the Reapers. It's about them surviving what the Benefactor knew was coming after they were gone. And if Jien Garson figured out that was why the Benefactor footed the bill....well, that would give them motive to have Garson killed.

And that's all I have,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (@Dantes74302) 

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.

An Unhinged Mass Effect Theory

This post is exactly what it says on the tin. So, let's dive right into it... 

 

Welcome to the Prothean Empire ! The Protheans are fighting the Metacon War and things are not going well. So they decide, lets send an expedition to the galaxy next door to enslave us some reinforcements. Here comes the plot twist... 

Andromeda is the modern (2180's) name for that galaxy. But what did the Protheans call it ? What if the Jardaan are called the Jardaan, because the Protheans called it the Jardaan Galaxy. And it was the Jardaan Expeditionary Force. So the people on the mission started calling themselves Jardaan and it stuck.

(For Stargate Atlantis fans....like the folks Stargate Command send to Atlantis became known as Lanteans to the folks in the Pegasus Galaxy.)  

Now, there is the little hiccup of the timeline. From what Javik said, the Metacon War was happening when the Reapers showed up to end everything. So this expedition would have been thousands of years ago, while things in Andromeda only went pear-shaped a couple of hundred years before Mass Effect: Andromeda.. (While the Andromeda Initiative was in transit.) But then I had an idea...

Even with Prothean technology, going from one galaxy to another takes a long time. And without Mass Relays, you need another way to go faster then light and compensate for the pesky thing called relatively. My idea is that whoever the Protheans were fighting found out about the Expedition and decided to commit a little old-fashioned sabotage. This resulted in a trip that should have taken several centuries stretching into thousands of years. (Possibly tens of thousands.)

Undeterred by this little...uh...delay...the Jardaan continued with their mission and happily enslaved the Kett. Except they botched explaining the plan to the Kett. Javik said that the plan was to bring all the organic sentient species together in the Empire. Of course, he was talking METAPHORICALLY. But the Kett took the plan LITERALLY. And thus Exaltation enters the picture....

And that's all I have. Have a nice day,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302 on X) 

Trumpvilles?

Hi Alex,

A while ago, I started my own Star Trek RPG. I need a place to start my story and for reasons, I picked the ghost town of Nothing, Arizona. The rest of the story doesn't matter for this letter. 

What does matter is that by the 24th century, Nothing is a shanty town made out of tents, converted shipping containers and all sorts of makeshift homes. There are even a few brick and mortar buildings.

Nothing is home to roughly 900 people who fell through the cracks of the United Federation of Planets. But the most important thing is that the people of Nothing are there voluntarily. 

And all of this was some harmless fun....until Trump called the National Guard into Washington, DC. Which made we wonder....

How long before life imitates art ? How long before Nothing, Arizona really is repopulated. Except this time, there will be nothing voluntary about it. This time, it will because people will be forced into these...Trumpvilles (or Tarkin Towns if you've seen Star Wars: Rebels)...at the barrel of a gun. While that...chimpanzee...in the White House sells it as....*does his best Trump voice*....his Big and Beauty final solution for homeless people. *end Trump voice*

After all, what better place to dump the homeless the a ghost town. No locals to complain, no votes to lose. *Trump voice* After all, it's not like these homeless people as allowed to vote. And if they are, I'll pass another Big, Beautiful law to end that. *End Trump voice.* 

I really think this is scenario is a distinct possibility. Alex, Americans....please, worry.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302 on X)

PS. Alex is not a real person, it is my version of Hello, Kitty/Dear Sigmund.

My Pitch for Wolfenstein: Youngblood 1.5

Hi Alex,

There's an old saying that says that all good things come in threes. So far, I've pitched two game remakes. One for Mass Effect and one for Star Trek. To complete this trilogy, I thought I should do something different and leave the world of Sci-Fi games behind. 

Why Wolfenstein: Youngblood ?

Back in 2019, Youngblood was not as well received as its predecessors. And here in 2025, Machinegames has finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This means they now have the resources to start working on the final game in their Wolfenstein series...Wolfenstein 3.

The problem is that Wolfenstein 3 is probably years away from releasing. And because of Youngblood's reception, there is not that much buzz for it (yet). So my pitch is for a Youngblood DLC/Expansion that will hopefully do something about that game's reputation and give the series an injection of activity. Also, by going the DLC route, players won't have to wait as long as they would for a full game.

The Set-Up

In Youngblood, we learn that the @ssh@ts have just lost a major battle over the Strait of Gibraltar. Whoever they've been fighting in Africa is about to cross over and bring the fight to them. In this DLC, we learn that like in our timeline the Organization of African Unity was formed in 1963.

However, unlike the real OAU, this version has only one goal...to fight and kill the @ssh@ts. And for the past seventeen years, that is exactly what they have been doing. Pushing them out of one country after another. And now they invading Spain and Portugal. In this timeline, the @ssh@ts betrayed Franco and conquered the country. 

There is, however, one major barrier between the OAU and Berlin...the French-Spanish border. The enemy has fortified this border for just this scenario....

Cue the Blazkowicz's Sisters: ...which is where the sisters come in. Due to the Jess and Soph wiping out countless @ssh@ts in Paris, things are looking up for the Resistance in northern France. They've been able to steal supplies, re-establishing/reinforce cells in other cities...etc, etc. 

The plan is to drop the Sisters in the a southern city, so they can revive the Resistance there are well. Then the revived Resistance can start chipping away at the Border from the other side. Killing key officials, sabotaging supply routes, blowing up important factories, etc, etc.

The Setting

The @ssh@ts are kind of expecting this move, so they increase security in all major southern French cities. But the Resistance outsmarts them by sending the Sisters (and their ally Abby) to Monaco. 

In this timeline, Monaco is not a playground for the rich. It was invaded and all it's bank accounts were plundered by the Reich to pay for the fortifications on the border. Then they build a big uber-concrete wall around it and turned into a Ghetto. (The European counterpart to New Orleans from the New Colossus.) 

The Real-life reason is that Monaco is relatively small. You can map out a large chunk of it, maybe all of it (relatively) easy. And it is next to the sea, so you have a build-in perimeter for the map already. The wall on one side and the water on the other. And by making it a separate map, you don't have to mess with the pre-existing ones. Back to in-game...

...The Resistance also picked Monaco because it has a harbor. This allows for a supply line from the OAU. And once the Sisters help free the city, they can hijack the Wall's defenses and turn them against the @ssh@ts. 

The Secondary Plot-line

After liberating Monaco, the Jess and Soph go back to Paris. And here comes a chance to shake up the Status Quo if you've complete the main campaign already. Once you've done that, and completed all the side missions, there's not much reason to keep playing the game. Post-endgame, it just become a lot grinding to level up. 

The idea for a the secondary plot-line is to do a partial reset of the Paris maps to give players who have finished the campaign more Post-endgame content.

The Plot:  

While the Sisters were away, a new Uber-@ssh@t arrived in Paris. He ordered all the codes changed (the codes for the doors in the Brothers, the drone dispenser code, etc.) and had people going around placing new padlocks all over town. He also had all the entrances to underground maps sealed up. This is a major problem for the Resistance. So Abby comes up with a plan..

...which is to frame the Paris' chief @ssh@t locksmith. The current locksmith is loyal to the @ssh@ts, but his aide is a Resistance spy. She sends to Sisters on a couple of missions frame the locksmith and make the enemy think that its the other way around. Once the @ssh@ts execute the locksmith, the spy will be promoted to take his place.

That done, the Sisters must find a way to kill the new Uber-@ssh@t, so he doesn't catch on or cause more trouble. (Which is complicated by the fact that he moved into a heavily guarded apartment in New Berlin.) 

Once the new Uber-@ssh@at is dead and with the spy in place, the player can then proceed to find the new codes, destroy the padlocks and re-unlock all the underground areas. This is also where any potential expansions of the Paris map could be sneaked in. As sites for side-missions unlocked by this new key spy. (*Moans at that pun.*) 

And that's all I have.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302 on X) 

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)

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)

Cough, cough, cough....

...blast this thing is dusty !

Hi Alex,

It's been a while, so I figured it was time to kick another letter out the door.

Are you okay ? It's been ages since I got a letter from you. Are things okay on the island ? Anyway, with N7 day coming up, I think now is a good time to talk about computer games. (Again ? Well, it's been a couple of months since my last post on the subject. So, here we go...)

My wish-list for 2025...     

Mass Effect (Next)

I have zero interested in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. But I am glad that it is about to be kicked out the door. Once it is gone, BioWare can finally start proper work on Mass Effect. So the sooner it is out the door, the better. I know it will be years before we actually get the game, but I'm wishing for more news on the game...

Wolfenstein 3

...which is the same situation for another two games...Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (which is the game I don't care about) and Wolfenstein 3 (the game I actually want). Fortunately, Indy's game will launch on 9 December. Which means that 2025 will see Wolfenstein 3 going forward at last.

Outer Worlds 2

This game was announced back in 2021. The last update was in August 2024. Hopefully, it wouldn't be another three years before we get more information on this game. Come on, folks, give us some juicy details !

And that's all I have for now,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

Wish list for Prodigy Season 3

In my last blog, I pondered how Prodigy could be used to clean-up the messy Trek time line. But there are plenty of other plots that I would love to see in Season 3. So, without further ado, my wish-list is....

Dal's History

Yeah, we know that Dal is an Augment. And that he was created by proteges of Dr. Arik Soong. But how does that work ? Remember, Arik was seen in the 2150's and Prodigy starts in 2383. There's a piece missing here....Plus, how did he end up with DaiMon Nandi ? And speaking of Nandi, I want our crew to go another round with her and give Nandi her comeuppance.

Another Borg Day

The Neurolytic Pathogen is spreading through the Borg Collective. We've seen shades of this in Let Sleeping Borgs Lie, but what about the folks from Unimatrix Zero ? Did Starfleet just abandon the Borg Resistance created by Captain Janeway and company to be cannibalized by the Queen ? I think the crew of the USS Prodigy would have something to say about that.

Vidiians and Ocampans

Since the Borg plot would see our crew going (back) to the Delta Quadrant, I'd love to know if the Think Tank (VOY "Think Tank.") actually did cure the Phage ? I hope they did, because that would allow to see how such a cure would affect the Quadrant as a whole. And to see what the Vidiians are like now / were like before the phage. And who hired the Tank to cure the Phage ? If it wasn't the Vidiians, that could spell major trouble.

And speaking of major trouble. The Caretaker gave the Ocampans five years worth of energy before he died. By the time of Prodigy, that energy has long since run out. Add to that, there's a whole lot of Kazon on the surface...

Love's Labor Found

Moving on....Starfleet has the bad habits of visiting worlds once and then forgetting about them. Let's not make the same mistake with the Enderprizians. Especially since they are a pre-warp race, which means that Garrovick's crash there opened up a whole can of worms. The Protostar crew did their best clean up said mess. But if they want to get it right, they need to keep an eye on the place.

Rev-12

What happened to the Unwanted ? Did they find a place to settle ? Or are they still travelling the Delta Quadrant ? Maybe helping people like an interstellar version of the A-Team ?

And Finally...

There is Ascenia. What happened to her after she got arrested ? Will the 98 liberate her to come back and cause more trouble for our crew ? And speaking of crew....

There are currently seven people aboard the USS Prodigy, but Zero says in the pilot that it takes at least 20 folks to operate a Protostar-class. While our heroes have been doing fine so far, if they are going up against the 98, they might want to do something about the massive hole in crew roster. And with Starfleet being short on people, our crew might have to get creative...

That's all I have,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

Outer Worlds 2

Hi Alex,

I've been playing the Outer Worlds and it's a great game. Which is why it wasn't a surprise when The Outer Worlds 2 was announced in June 2021. I have no idea when it is coming out, but I do have a wish-list of things I'd to see in that game. So, without further ado...

Swimming

In the original game, you can walk through ankle-deep water. And on Monarch, you can walk through a waterfall or two. But that's where the interaction with water ends. 

The Unreliable...

One of the few things that is known about the story is that the setting won't be the Halcyon colony. The thing is...it wouldn't be the Outer Worlds without everybody favorite's rust-bucket. My workaround would be to take Skip Drive from Phineas Welles' ship aboard the Unreliable. (Welles' ship was totaled in the original game anyway.) The Unreliable would then be ready for a trip to new worlds...

...And Old Faces ?

...but with who onboard ? The flesh-and-blood crew all move on at the end of the game. (Presuming they survive that long.) But ADA and SAM are part of the Unreliable. So I am hoping that they will return in the next game. As for our hero....I hoping we get to pick between either creating a new one or importing our old character Mass Effect style.

Answers

We need to know what happened to Earth. And the Cornelius Vanderbilt which vanished while headed there. Which raises another question...there were TWO assault cruisers knocking around Halcyon. What is the name of the other cruiser and what happened to her ?

That's all I have.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

Arc 6 (Mass Effect Next Theory)

Greetings Internet (and Mass Effect fans),

I know, I know, there are plenty of Mass Effect theories out there. But the more the merrier. So, here we go...

Arc 6

Let's start with the basics, what is an Arc ? It's a vessel meant to allow a group of people to survive / escape a (natural) disaster (of biblical proportions in most cases). For the Nexus and Arc 1 through 5, the disaster in question is the Reaper War. But in Mass Effect Next, the war is over. (Regardless of which ending you picked.) So, Arc 6 needs a new disaster. The question is....what is it ?

The Disaster

One of the teasers that BioWare has given us is "Anomalies detected all across space." I think that the anomalies are the disaster, and that we have already seen this disaster play out on a smaller scale. In Mass Effect 2, we have a radiation source in the form of star Dholen, that is render the planets around it uninhabitable for organic life.

My theory: Whoever the new big bad is, messed with Dholen as a test of Milky Way galaxy shield technology. They also messed with the blueprints of the Crucible. Their alterations caused the Crucible blast to interact with dark energy and create the anomalies. Anomalies that are now the radiation source with the affected area being the entire Milky Way. 

Who is on Arc 6?

My guess is that like Arc 5 (aka the Keelah), Arc 6 will be multi-species ship. If I was designing it, I would use it to make the list of evacuated species longer. So Raloi, Virtual Aliens, Geth, maybe a second load of Batarians (now that their old government is gone, I figure they are no longer the outcasts of the galaxy), some extra Quarians and so on.

Who do I think the Big Bad are?

Some folks on YouTube have pitched the idea that the Jardaan are the next big bad. And having heard their arguments, I think they are right. It is simply to perfect a way to tie Andromeda into the story. If Dholen was a shield test, we know that our Milky Way heroes don't have the shields needed to withstand the lethal radiation the Jardaan unleash on the galaxy. But...

The Jardaan created Remnant tech and Ryder and co have access to that. I think they used it to upgrade their shields (probably to protect themselves against the Scourge), accidentally giving them the only Jardaan radiation proof shields around, which brings me to...

My Guess About The Story

My crazy theory....Next is going to be a loop. Sounds nuts? Well, stay on the crazy train, please, people. In your first play-through, Arc 6 doesn't make it. Instead, Ryder and co find a buoy, which serves as McGuffin for them travelling back to the Milky Way. 

They return to find a galaxy with only the Jardaan in it. Everybody else is dead. The organics were killed by the radiation and the synthetics were wiped out by the Scourge. So what do Ryder and co do? They travel back in time to recruit Liara and change history. (By doing all sorts of missions in the Milky Way. Since it confirmed to be the main setting.)

Now comes the good part. You had to replay ME3 several times to finish leveling up and get all the best guns. But in Next, New Game+ becomes part of the story. In every cycle, based on the decisions you made in previous games and in Next...

1. The fate / condition of Arc 6 at the start of your next play-through changes, resulting in...
   
2. ....Unlocking extra mission
3. ...More Squad mates (You start with Liara and Shepard. With each cycle giving you one extra.)
4. Upgrades for your ship...

As for the end game. I think the counterpart of the Suicide Mission is Shepard and his team (including Ryder) boarding Arc 6 and getting it safely into Andromeda, breaking the loop and setting up the next game. 

DLCs

Oops...almost forgot that there are two Ryders. So, how does that work ? I'm thinking at if you played Andromeda, your player Ryder goes to the Milky Way, while NPC/other Ryder stays behind to take over as Pathfinder. If you didn't play Andromeda you get to pick your Ryder at the start of your first play-through.

I also think that the Tempest stays behind in Andromeda for the other Ryder to use. And that the Mudskipper is a special craft build for the trip back to the Milky Way (Trekkies: Like Voyager build the Delta Flyer.) As what the DLCs are about, I think they'll fill in the Andromeda side of the story. 

With the rescue of the Keelah / Arc 5 being at the top of (other) Ryders to-do list. And that is the end of my thinking out loud. Have a nice day and...

Regards,

Ruben Hilbers (aka @Dantes74302)

Filling in the Holes, Part 2

Hello World,

Okay, it's been a couple of days since I've written one of these. And this one is different from the ones I normally write. 

To begin with, normally these are called 'Bits and Pieces Vol..." (I think I'm up to 12 now.) These hold the small bits and pieces (hence the title, duh) news about my life. The thing is, I've neglected this for the last couple of months and now I'm trying to catch up.

Which is my the last few are called Filling in the Holes. The problem is....the last couple of months have been boring. It just been day job, food and sleep. Except for the NYC trip - which I've already told you about - absolutely nothing has been happening. 

Well, nothing worth reporting over the internet. It has also absolutely killed my writing mood. So my projects have been going nowhere. Oh, there is one more thing to talk about...

Alex, Alex and Anne Frank

I normally start my entries/letter with 'Hello Alex'. To prevent any confusion, this is NOT Alex Kurtzman. I am not a fan of Kurtzman. I think he's a hack, who hired other hacks and failed upwards. 

His version of Star Trek - aka NuTrek - is horrible. The characters are unrealistic/unlikable and the plot-lines are worse. I stopped watching Trek back in the days of Picard Season 1. When they ripped out Icheb's eye, I was done. 

So, who is Alex ? Well, she's not a real person. I've read Anne Frank's diary more then once. And Anne came up with an imaginary friend called Kitty. Under the motto, I've your going to steal, steal from the best. So like Anne, I came up with an imaginary person to send my letter too. 

Alex - short for Alexandria - was a crew-member on a tramp freighter. Well, until her idiot captain ran her aground and said freighter sank. So now she's stranded on an island with miserable internet, miserable natives and miserable pay. Also, the island's connections to the outside world are well...miserable. So poor Alex is kinda stuck.

And that's it for this entry. As soon as stuff starts happening again, it's back to Bits and Pieces,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (aka Commander Nash)

A Small Update

Hi Alex,

It's been a while since I've put pen to paper. - Or should I say keyboard to e-mail ? - but here I am again. 

After I published Chess Games in Cairo things got kind a weird at my day job. It was that weird part of the year where there wasn't that much work. But because the place is running with a skeleton crew, you still end up working your butt off.

Fortunately, the end of the vacation period is approaching. Which means that everybody is coming back and soon we'll be swamped together as he we head towards the madness that is December. In short, everything is back to normal. Yay !

Star Trek

Meanwhile, at home, I've left Star Trek: Pathfinder and joined Star Trek: Freedom. Things on Pathfinder were really not going well. And Freedom sounded like a nice RPG. So off I went...

Getting started took a lot of time and energy. That and my latest Mass Effect play through was screaming for attention. But now things are settling down and I've found a better balance. Leaving me free time to...

Start Promoting My Book

Alas, promotion is expensive. So I decided to start by updating my LinkedIn page. (Yeah, I know, LinkedIn, who still uses that? But it's free and in my situation I'll take what I can get.) That done, I decided to dust off my blog. And here we are. I've got more plans brewing, but I need to do some homework. So for today, I'm done.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)

Bits and Pieces Vol. 7

Hello Alex,

It's been a while, but here we are again. So what I've been up to ? Well, here we go, starting with....

Star Trek

Nothing much happening on that front. I left Pathfinder and I've stopped watching Trek. Speaking of which, Rotten Tomatoes has stopped shielding Star Trek: Discovery and it went from 24 percent to 19. Ouch !

So, moving on to...

Writing Novels

Sorry, folks, but.....that is another front where not much is happening. I had a friend take a critical look at Chess Game in Cairo and he gave me some notes that made it clear that I need to do some (possibly major) rewriting. Alas, my inspiration has been in another place, which is my bridge to...

Stargate: Dark Empire

This is where things have been going strong. Currently, Dark Empire has 20 chapters up for reading. And I have 5 more chapters ready to go. I'm working on Chapter 26 and once that is done, Dark Empire is going to get a major update. 

And that's all for today,

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)

Bits and Pieces, Vol. 6

Hi Alex,

To begin with, is the Johanna still afloat ? Send you letters is going to be really hard if it sinks and you end up stranded on some island. And that's the best case scenario. Anyway, I don't have a big story, just small bits and pieces. Starting with....

The Next Bubble

In my last Trek article/letter - about it being in deep trouble - I said that a lot of critics would be gone soon. And that it was a longer story. Turns out it's not that long a story. You see, a while ago, Buzzfeed went public. And it didn't go well. In a matter of days, the stock went from $10 - which isn't that much - to only $5. It also didn't help that the employees couldn't sell their stocks due to some kind of mess-up.

Fast forward a couple of days and BuzzFeed's owner - Polygon - buys up one of its competitors, Voxmedia. Which is bad for the people working there. Whenever there's a merger, layoff's are never far behind. The problem is that two sites making too little, is still too little. Or put another way, two times zero is still zero. If this becomes a trend, the news sites are going to cannibalize one another. So it's not going to be a pop, but more of an implosion. Only time will tell, so moving on to...

Dark Empire

After I posted Chapter 18, I felt I needed a break to recharge the creative battery. Also, things got insanely busy at my day job. Which I why I haven't been writing letters for a while either. Also, what little free time I did have, was being taken by playing the Outer Worlds. (Great game, for the record. It was a bit short at first, but the DLCs fixed that.) 

But now, with Christmas behind us, the dust is settling and I can get back to it. So that is the plan. I want to write Chapter 19 and 20 and then leave it on a cliffhanger. (And nope, I'm not going to tell you what it is going to be.) Today, however, is going to be me finishing Outer Worlds. <G> Finally, I want to talk about...

Writing Letters to RMB

Speaking of things I haven't done recently....I haven't written to The Burnettwork for a while. Simply because I didn't feel like I had anything good to say. It was a case of quality over quantity. But now I want to try to get back into it again. All I need is something to write about/meaningful to say.

And that's all I have for today,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)

Updating and Connecting

Hello World,

Keeping it short and Sweet....

It's been a busy day. To begin with, I've begun proofreading a novel for a friend. It'll take a while to complete, but I got a good start in today. Once I managed that, I had to get rid of a pile of bills and a list of chores. This included an earlier blog that had been knocking around my head for a while. But I finally got it all done. Yeah !

Then I had to update several pieces of my internet footprint. My Fanfiction.net profile, my Twitter account, this Blog and even my YouTube page/channel got an update. 

And yes, I have a YouTube page. I've been trying to build it up. But because I don't have time - or the nerve - to make videos, its pretty bare bones. Still, I'm trying it to give it some substance. I've added several playlists and managed to fill in some of the sections.

And that's all for today. Back to proofreading.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)

Post 100 !!!!

 Hello World !

So...this is my 100th post. But....euhm....well, not really. You see, this blog is used to be bigger. I used to rant and rave about...well, a lot of stuff. And then I forgot about this blog for a couple of years, before rebooting it as something a LOT more professional. And as part of that reboot, I threw out a dozens of old posts. So it would be fairer to say that this is me getting back to 100. Anyway....

Silence 

My old PC - and when I say old, I mean OLD - has been replaced. After a whopping seven years, it is gone. And with a new computer came new games. So I have been busy playing through The Outer Worlds - which two expansions - and the Mass Effect Trilogy (Legendary Edition). I've also replayed Wolfenstein: The New Colossus and Wolfenstein: Youngblood . So that's why haven't blogged for a while. But now I'm getting back to it. Which brings me to....

Other Stuff I'm Up To

Besides dusting off my blog, I've also written a letter to Robservations. Presented by Robert Meyer Burnett, Robservations is a show about popular culture on YouTube. And one of the features on the show is reading (and responding to) fan letters. So fingers crossed.

And by sharing this blog entry on Twitter, I can begin dusting off my Twitter feed as well. As for Facebook....well.....I tried that for a week once. It drove me nuts, so I quit and I'm never - ever - going back. I also don't have any other social media. Twitter is it for me. I also didn't install it on my phone, on purpose. Only having it on my PC make it easier to ignore.

Finally, I want to get back to writing Stargate: Dark Empire. I'll have to check my notes and read the last few chapters to get back into the zone. But the plan is to get back to it. 

That's it for now, folks,

Ruben A. Hilbers

Madness, Space and LinkedIn.....

 ....thrown together.

(Because otherwise this would be a really short blog)

Hello world,

So......I'm updating this blog and getting my brain away from my day job. Because, well...

I'll spare you the boring details, but my day job is the mail/post business. And with Christmas coming up, the craze has REALLY hit home. And with another four working days to go, I really needed to get away from work. And with all this insanity going on, there hasn't been much energy to spare for my writing. But it is not all bad news, because....

There's Space: 2029 and other writings

Episode 1 - Breakaway is done. Further more, the first chapter on Episode 2 - Earthbound - is on Fanfiction.net. On another front, the writing rate of the Star Trek RPG I'm a member off - and tells the adventures of the USS Pathfinder and her crew - had tanked. 

October was a utter disaster with only one mail....November was a slight improvement with four mails and this month has seen ten mails so far. And I get the sense that there are a few left in the pipeline. So, we're on our way to recovery. Yay !

And moving on to...

LinkedIn

...where my profile page has been gathering dust for quite a while now. How come ? Because, frankly, I don't use it. So why do I have it ? It's not like I'm looking for new job. And even if I was, using LinkedIn for that is iffy. So to answer the question. "To look like a professional." And it was nice, free way to increase my internet footprint. 

So, after this blog is done, I am going to update it. Maybe try to knock out an article. And with that, I'll stop booooooriiing all of you. I know, my blog isn't big, spectacular or exciting, just....average and tiny bit dull. But that's life for most people, especially in these Covid-times. On the bright side, that gives me time to continue watching Space 1999 and my ER Season 1 rewatch. Laters !

Ruben A. Hilbers