Mass Effect Generations

The Mass Effect original game trilogy spun an incredible saga filled with unique species, impressive environments, memorable characters and thrilling missions. The interaction between people, the technology behind weapons, starships and cities, the biological design of species, the portrayal of distant planets, the social structures of civilizations, its all detailed as it could get. It created a rich and complex galaxy, and most importantly, one worth fighting for. On its core, the Mass Effect trilogy and its main plot, the Reaper Invasion tells us of the endeavor of this galaxy to survive against dire odds. Nonetheless, the Reaper Invasion-saga was only one story in the vast possibilities of this universe. Inevitably, other tales would be imagined, tales of dreadful challenges, true romances, and extreme war efforts, and as all great stories, they should be given an opportunity to be told. The premise of the Mass Effect: Generations (ME:G, for abbreviation) setting is the interest to spin these new stories. It takes after the resolution of the Reaper Invasion-saga, and puts the galaxy in the year of 2399CE (Common Era), 213 years past those events. This gives a timespan long enough for many generations of soldiers to be come and gone before your main characters begin their journeys to prove themselves, fight for their beliefs or take a stand for some cause, and so they can develop and participate in their very own sagas. ME:G uses the same set of rules as the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG. Some of these rules will be repeated here for easy reference, other will be altered as appropriate for the setting, and new ones will be introduced.

Not all of the characters have military backgrounds, but they all partake in a certain militaristic mentality. Their explorations are filled with dangerous assignments that require a certain kind of organization, level-headedness and combat practice to be dealt with. Thus, the militaristic operation feeling is a recurring one.

The overall nature of the events presented in Mass Effect cannot be described as less than epic. They start with a cowardly treason, revelations about an ancient Empire, and build into a siege against the very center of civilization by a primeval threat. They evolve into the return of the hero(es) from perdition, a race to stop mysterious enemies and the exploration of an unknown region of the space. Finally, they culminate into a full galactic war to defend nothing less than life as it is known. By definition, an epic is as a story centered on heroic characters, facing impressive struggles through a lengthy period of time, for the sake of creed, culture or nation. The characters take part in an important journey, face adversaries, develop their traits, and are significantly transformed at the end. Their simple routines escalate into larger responsibilities, until they become forces of destiny, or succumb to their own failings. The Mass Effect trilogy is heavily influenced by the epic narrative gender, and so ME:G stories should reflect this.

Of all the story themes present in the Mass Effect experience, perhaps the most distinctly evident is the militaristic structure. The narrative follows a team of specialists assembled through interest and hierarchy, performing high-risk missions that no casual civilian could take, by means of arms and cunning. They form a crew where collaboration is paramount and delivering their assigned orders or not is crucial for the resulting outcome of events.

The Mass Effect universe presents us to mass-accelerator weapons, faster-than-light travels, artificial intelligences, cybernetic implants, holographic transmissions, and a variety of other futuristic concepts. These elements assure us that this universe is a place of wonders and technological miracles. Still, they are not simply surrogates for supernatural forces; they work at least under rational pretenses, and at best, scientific principles. The science-fiction gender differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are only possible through scientifically postulated laws of nature (in this case, the existences of element zero, dark energy and mass effect fields). It is important to note that these elements are not part of the universe by chance; they are also plot devices. Exploring the consequences of scientific innovations is one of the purposes of science fiction. The original Mass Effect trilogy threads on the dichotomy between synthetic and organic beings, but there are

Mass Effect Generations

many other subjects to be explored. A well organized and explained science-fiction can establish a degree of suspension of disbelief from which any ME:G narrative can take advantage. The RPG material presented here assumes that the reader is familiar with the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, published by Wizards of the Coast, and the Mass Effect games trilogy, designed by Bioware. If you have never played the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, you should read first the Appendix: Basic Rules section of this document. If you never played the Mass Effect games, stop reading and go do it. It will be worth your time. This document can wait for you to come back. Otherwise, you may occasionally face spoilers that can diminish your overall gaming experience. The ME:G setting has no lucrative purposes, nor it is its intent to violate the intellectual property of any artist or author. Do not pay for this document under any circumstances.

There is a pair of characters fairly indispensable to the Mass Effect trilogy: the SSV Normandy SR-1 starship, and its successor, the Normandy SR-2 . They have personalities of their own, and their presence (or absence), resources, and performance in decisive moments play a major role in how the story develops. In a way, the ships are also the stage from where the story is shown, as they are never far from the characters, and they house most of the dialogues intended to enrich them. The space opera genre emphasizes on romantic, often dramatic adventures, set in the outer space, and generally involving conflicts between opponents armed with advanced technology or abilities. Other traits of the space opera are that the settings, battles, and themes tend to be very large-scale. In the particular case of the Mass Effect saga, there is also a strong military element involved, together with a detailed description of the conflict and the tactics used for it. Therefore, space travel and its consequences should also be a key element in ME:G stories.