Quick Time Moral Tales 6

The Skull Plate

I am a terrible person.

Over an extended period of time, I have done things that would make dictators blush and lawyers frown. In younger days, I would take a giddy pleasure in finding out just how far away from the realm of human decency and compassion I could travel. I am an awful person.

Albion was hit hard when I visited. Not only did I become guilty of selling innocent people into slavery within moments of my arrival; I also tortured and deprived prisoners under my care of necessary sustenance, and robbed a young woman of her youth, so that I could maintain my own. A few years later, I returned to Albion, where my thirst for power led me a morally corrupt hat trick: In one fell swoop, I became guilty of fratricide, regicide and a coup. Once I had secured my powerbase, I was free to dismiss all the promises I had made to the people who helped me assume power, cackling like a deranged madman as they one by one stormed out of my throne room after being told exactly where to stick it.

The capital wasteland didn't fare much better, and the good people there soon became victims of my cruelty. Nuclear terrorism, poisoned water supplies, slavery, (again) murder, theft and general rudeness followed in the wake of my arrival, and I hadn't gotten any gentler by the time I'd made my way across the country to the Mojave wasteland either. Enemy leaders were assassinated; companions were killed and looted for their stuff. I stole everything that wasn't nailed down, and with the help of my crowbar, a few things that were. I sabotaged a rocket meant to take a group of friendly mutants to their promised land, ensuring that the trip became much shorter and more explosive than planned, and in the end, I sided with the deranged madman out to turn the wasteland into a dictatorship modeled on Roman ideals.

In Ferelden, my sadistic side was given more or less free reign. I purged a tower full of mages, just 'cause. In the dwarven tunnels, I salvaged a magical forge that could take the souls of unwilling individuals, and use them to power an army of rock golems and I let a boy possessed by a demon die, rather than bothering to make the effort to save him (which I could have done). And finally, I ensured an ally and a friend was sentenced to death, to make sure he couldn't usurp the new queen. Not that I cared, I just didn't bother standing up for him.

I've been to space and kicked people out of windows, been responsible for several murders and outright genocides. (plural) I've left human test subjects at the mercy of their captors, just incase their brutal experiments yielded results beneficial to me. I've shot admirers in the legs, I've punched reporters on more than one occasion and I've let alien politicians die to give humanity, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, a chance at seizing power.

I have uplifted entire civilizations from barbarians with loin cloths and clubs to the very summit of cultural and technological development, only to spend my entire wealth on a disturbingly large stockpile of nuclear weapons. There's only one way to find out if it's possible to irradiate every square mile of land outside my borders, right?

My list of crimes includes, but is in no way limited to, all these atrocities. And for years, I took a sick pleasure in being the biggest digital douchebag I could be. Until one incident, tiny and innocent in comparison to the disgusting war crimes I had perpetrated in the past, changed everything. The place was Tattooine, birthplace of my role model, Darth Vader. I was a mysterious young Jedi, who despite being sheparded by companions Bastila, galaxy-class nag, and Carth, do-gooder extraordinaire, had a problem suppressing my vicious streak. We'd just arrived on the planet, looking for a map to the legendary Star Forge, an ancient weapon, which in the wrong hands (he, he, he, he...) could ensure the complete subjugation of the galaxy. In a dingy little workshop, we'd come across a curious robot with a delightful penchant for murder and chaos. Realizing that I'd found a kindred spirit, I knew I had to buy it. Money was short however, and no matter how much I threatened the owner with a gruesome death if he didn't hand it over, I couldn't haggle the price down low enough to afford it.

So I had to get the money, somehow. In the local cantina, I was told about the hunter office, a market where treasure hunters and prospectors could sell their wares. All I needed was a license to enter, and I'd be set. I threatened the clerk to give the license for free, and walked into the street, ready to head into the desert to find my fortune. Before I got five steps, however, I was stopped in the street by a young woman, who had been waiting outside the office. She told me that she saw that I had a license, and wondered if I could do her a favour.

I sighed, audibly and deliberately, but agreed to listen to her tedious story. She was newly widowed, she told me. Her husband had been a hunter, and the sole provider for her and her two children. He had been killed during his last hunt, and now she was standing there, with no means of feeding her children, and nothing to her name, save for the skull plate of a Wraid, a large and notoriously hard to kill predator stalking the dunes around the town. Apparently, it was very valuable, and if sold, could support her and her children for a long time. She wondered if I could be so kind as to buy it off her, since her husband's hunting license became void upon his death, and she had no access to the hunter's market. I looked at her in silence, the way I imagine a snake looks at a mouse that thinks it is negotiation, rather than postponing the inevitable. I waited for her to finish her impassioned plea. Then I put my hand supportingly on her shoulder.
"I can't afford it myself," I lied, trying in vain to sound sympathetic. "But I can take it to the hunter's market for you. I promise I'll get you a good price."

She looked at me with eyes that told me that she had paid dearly for trusting strangers in the past. I could tell she wanted to believe me, but something in the back of her mind screamed at her to get away from this man. He will bring nothing but misery.

"I'd rather not," she said eventually. "I'll probably find someone else willing to pay me for it."
Unfortunately for her, I had already made up my mind. I wanted that skull plate.

"Come on," I said, and took a step forward, invading her personal space, making her uncomfortable, making her shift her weight backwards. "You can trust me. I'm a good haggler. I'll get you a much better deal than you can get from some bum you stop on the street."

"I'm sorry," she said, somehow finding the courage to oppose me. "I'm sure you're an honourable man, but I can't afford to risk my children's future. This is all I have left."

I'd had enough. Any semblance of the phony sympathy I'd mustered drained from my face in an instance, and a total, hopeless darkness took its place. I leaned in menacingly, and with a voice so icy even the twin suns of Tattooine would struggle to thaw it, I said: "Listen lady. Give me the damn skull plate, or I'll kill you."
I could see her struggle for breath as it sunk in what I'd just told her. She made no effort at hiding the shock and the despair which was paralyzing her body. She slowly reached into her bag, and handed me the skull plate, because she saw in my dead eyes that I was mercilessly serious. She had lost the ability to protest, even as she saw her children's future trickle out between her fingers. This woman had been treated to a look behind the curtain, and she had seen cruelty so deep and complete that it had left her utterly speechless. Despite repeated and angry protests from my companions, I turned on my heels, and headed back into the hunter office, to claim my ill-gotten reward. I had to smack the clerk around a bit to get a deal I was satisfied with, but as I once again walked out the doors, I pocketed a cool 200 credits more than the sticker price, which nicely put me over the top. I could now afford the sociopathic robot. I even started whistling a little tune as I headed down towards the workshop to get my new friend. I didn't get far before I was halted again, however. A light tug at my Jedi robes made he stop in my tracks and turn around, where I once again found myself face to face with the young widow, whose future I had just demolished.

"Did you get a good price for it?" she asked. To my utter surprise, there was no accusation in her voice. There was hope. After what I'd just told her she still held out hope that there was a shred of decency left in me. Enough to give her the money that was rightfully hers, and that she needed infinitely more than I did.
I didn't end up giving her any money. I don't know what became of her, but for the first time since I began my ruthless rampage through space and time, I felt guilty. And over time it developed into a creeping, bottomless guilt that ran a cold finger across my spine every time another chance at malice presented itself.
The change wasn't instantaneous, and before my conscience eventually overpowered me, I had the time to force Zalbaar, my friendly wookie companion to kill his closest friend for my amusement, and turn Bastila, my friend and mentor to the dark side.

As I've gotten older, I've stopped taking this deranged pleasure in creating virtual misery. I've become a paragon player, and doing something incredibly, and often stupidly nice now yields the same satisfaction my dickishness used to. And I think it all began with this young woman and her children, whose life I ruined just because I could. I'd quite simply had enough.

What about you? What is the most horrific thing you've ever done in a video game?

I want YOU to write QTMC 10!

 My dear, sophisticated, gorgeous reader, whose razor-sharp wit is matched only by your impeccable fashion sense; do I have something special for you. As I was finishing my last comic strip, which I don't think anyone got, and I'm not quite sure there there was anyhting there to get, I began to think. My readers, who have been conclusively proven to possess the highest intelligence quotients and the smoothest skin of those of any site on the internet, are probably burning with good ideas for what they'd like to see depicted in my stupid little web-comic. And before you could say the words "are you completely artistically bankrupt, Hjels!?" I had an idea.

 Why not, since we've reached the tenth strip, why not throw it out to you to tell me what number ten should be? Whether you have a full script or just a general idea for QTMC 10, I want to hear it. The game you want me to make fun of is entirely up to you, the situation and the punchline, all entirely up to you. As long as you feel you want to contribute, let me know, either by email, through twitter or any other way the intertubes allows us to communicate.

The best entry will be turned into QTMC 10, complete with your name on it. (No money, I'm afraid.) If I don't get any entries, which isn't unlikely, I'll have to write it myself, and you don't want that, no sir. I have a pretty good idea for a tasteless, sexist, incredibly racist joke set in the ICO universe. To save the internet this indignity, send me your ideas. Now!

The contest will run for one week from today, or until I get any entries. I can wait all day.

QTMC #9

Wait a moment! What's this? It hasn't been two years since the last comic strip already has it? No, for once I've finished another one in the same decade as its predecessor. No gratuitous spoilers this time, so you can uncover your eyes. As always, let me know what you think. 

Oh, and by the way. Something very special is coming up for QTMC 10, and I will need your help to do it. Check back.

I hated you so deeply because I loved you so dearly

Preface: This article contains massive, MASSIVE spoilers for Mass Effect 3. Do not read beyond this point if you don't want the entirety of the story spoiled.   


In December of 2007, I bought an Xbox 360 for the first time. I wasn't planning on doing it. After all, I'd been a PC gamer for several years, and the new consoles coming out offered me nothing that my gaming rig couldn't do better. And still, right before Christmas, I hurried down to the electronics store, and bought it, armed with a single point of justification: Mass Effect, Bioware's latest RPG was at the time an Xbox exclusive. From what I'd heard, it was a game right up my alley. An epic quest, a host of interesting, crazy characters and a genuine impact from the players own choices. I got home, booted up the game, and so began a four and a half year long love affair that was to culminate in one of the most soul crushing entertainment-related disappointments I've experienced: the ending to Mass Effect 3.
 
Let me get this on the table first of all: I love Mass Effect 3. Whoever said that video games are incapable of eliciting genuine emotion from the player is either talking out of his ass, or is unable to empathize with fictional characters. On three separate occasions during the course of playing Mass Effect 3, I was genuinely choked up with tears in my eyes. On a further two, the impact of the choice I'd just made rocked me so hard I had to get up and go for a long walk to process the implications of those choices, which are monumental. And I'm not some overly emotional sap either. I'm a big, hairy, sweaty man who keeps his feelings locked away at the bottom of a deep pool replenished by alcohol to keep them at bay. But oh my God; Wrex, the 800 pound alien lizard I've spent the last three games with just told me he considers me his brother. I love you too, Wrex!  


I think that's where Mass Effect's appeal comes from. The characters and the interaction between them. Take Jack for instance. When she is introduced, she (yes, she) appears like nothing but a tired archetype. An angry, powerful, borderline psychotic killer, with a tragic past which we've seen a million and one times in our games before. And while it's possible to get under the skin of the character in Mass Effect 2, you always kind of feel like she is a bit of a lost cause, that she'll never evolve into anything more than a biotic bad-ass, who doesn't care about anything.  


That's why the direction BioWare chose to take the character in for Mass Effect 3 was such a pleasant surprise. When you meet her again in the trilogy closer, she has evolved in a very interesting direction. During the Grissom Academy mission early on in the game, you find her having taken a position as a teacher for a group of biotic kids. It's an unexpected, but not uncharacteristic evolution. She retains her core personality, she doesn't hesitate to use her considerable powers to mercilessly kill her enemies, but she no longer does it for the thrill or for the hell of it. She does it to protect her students. It's not breaking new ground; it's not exceptionally good story-telling, but it really enjoyable and satisfying. That’s how I've always considered the Mass Effect games, like immensely entertaining pulp novels. For me, Mass Effect is, all hyperbole aside, the Star Wars of my generation. 


Which is a bit ironic, given that I'm actually old enough to be of the actual Star Wars generation.  


For nearly 30 hours, Mass Effect 3 was a thrill ride, the likes of which the gaming medium rarely delivers. The galaxy may feel a bit small at times, and the suspension of disbelief is stretched a bit thin at times, seeing as in a universe of billions upon billions it's never far between the familiar faces showing up seemingly by accident. But it works anyway. During the thirty hours it took me to reach London and the finale, my Shepard, "Vanilla John" as I like to call him, has been through some incredible things. Not only has he helped cure the thousand year old sterility plague which has kept the Krogan race subjugated for all that time, he has ended the threat of the geth, a race of sentient machines who decided to side with his enemy once to many and given the exiled quarians their planet back. He has also rekindled with whirlwind romance with Tali, the Russian-sounding quarian mechanic, fist bumped his way through his continuing bromance with Garrus, the rogue police-officer turned space-batman turned military strategist, and shared his hopes and fears for the future they're fighting for with gal-pal Liara, in addition to dozens of little events and scenes that make Mass Effect 3 one of the most memorable game experiences ever.  


And then you get to the end. Those of you who saw my last comic strip will know more or less exactly how I feel about it.


 It's really bad. Badly written, badly staged and such a sharp tonal shift I had to be examined for whiplash afterwards. It's horrendously bad. And I know bad fiction. I write bad fiction all the time, so I feel I can speak with authority on the subject. Basically, after fighting your way through London to get to a poorly defended space elevator, and being decimated by a Reaper laser, which also probably killed your teammates, you stumble up through the elevator to reach the big space maguffin (the crucible) which is apparently the only way of defeating the Reapers, the giant sentient space ships who are laying waste to all advanced organic species, you are suddenly taken on another, smaller magic space elevator, and set face to face with a little ghostly looking child in the familiar form of a human kid Shepard has been struggling with feelings of guilt for not being able to save in the beginning of the game. 


The ghost child then tells you that he is the one controlling the Reapers.  I had a bad feeling right there. If there is one sci-fi cliché I well and truly hate, it is when the main villain is introduced out of no-where literally in the last 10 minutes, just so he can cackle "it was me all along. MOHHAHAHA!" The ghost kid doesn't actually cackle, but he may as well have. Then the narrative starts sliding. The ghost offers you three choices on how to solve this conflict, to control the Reapers and die (don't ask), to destroy the Reapers and maybe die (again, don't ask), or to synthesize all sentient life in the galaxy into a single, organic/synthetic life form, to avoid an hypothesized conflict which is apparently the ghost's motivation ( what did I just tell you?)  


I have to kill you to save you. Imagine that, another sci-fi trope I hate down to my very soul. 


Oh, and by the way; picking any of these choices will demolish the mass relays, the ancient, mysterious superhighways which uphold the galactic infrastructure, rendering long distance space flight impossible. Why? Because space magic.  A little aside: Is it just me who's concerned with the moral of the synthesis ending? Because it makes it seem like only way to avoid conflict is to stamp out any sign of individualism or diversity. That's communist and racist in one package!  


Anyway, after being given these three choices, it is now the perfect time for Shepard to call on the strength of the considerable galactic fleet he has amassed to combat the Reapers to bomb the living shit out of the space station which the two of them are standing on, going down in a fiery blaze of glory, holding his middle finger high at the little shit how has the gall to give Shepard three stupid choices, which are all the same in the end anyway. 


 But no. Shepard can't do that. For three games and nearly a hundred hours, Shepard has defied the odds, and played by his own damn rules. But now, as he finally stands face to face with his enemy, he figures he'd rather not question the choices laid before him, and take whatever comes. And take it he does, no matter how much you as the player scream at him to sack up, and at the very least try to dig some clarity out of the little nonsense-spouting space spirit. You have to pick one of the three endings, which more or less boil down to which colour you want to destroy the universe with, blue, green or red.  And if that wasn't silly enough, you get a little bonus scene where you see your crew racing across the galaxy in your space ship, going... somewhere. It's never made clear where they are going, but they get hit by the coloured shockwave you just triggered up in the crucible, and crash.  


On a livable planet somewhere.  


With no scorch trail behind the ship.  


The door to the ship opens and out steps your pilot, who by the way suffers from brittle bone disease, and should have crumbled completely by the force of his ship falling out of the sky. Not content with that, however, you also find out that at least one of your teammates, who a moments ago was being burned to death by a giant laser at the space elevator, was also somehow on the ship. And then they walk off.  And that's how the game ends.  


Actually, there is another scene after the credits, but it's just too much for me to go on about. I was devastated. There was no way the amazing adventure that was the Mass Effect trilogy could end this way. I thought I must have picked the wrong ending, so I spent the next hour playing through the other two, only to realize they were almost exactly the same. So where does the ending of Mass Effect leave us?  


First of all, the mass relays are gone, so everyone is pretty much trapped where they were the moment the crucible fired its magic shockwave. Which is bad news for earth, given that pretty much every military space ship in the galaxy is orbiting it. Especially since it's been burned to cinder over the last few months. So as any student of history will tell you, this will lead to a war for the few resources that are left. All the aliens who are stranded, with no chance of ever seeing their homes again will turn on each other, and nearly finish the job the Reapers started.  


Meanwhile, your crew, who lack the genetic diversity to create a new civilization, will have to languish on this unknown world they find themselves on for the rest of their lives with only each other for company, and an unknown access to sustenance. Cheerful stuff. 


Mass Effect 3 is one of my favourite games of recent years. It is an absolutely fantastic game. But it leaves you utterly confused and depressed in the end. The ending veers hard away from any internal logic which has been established, it's difficult to believe the last 20 minutes are from the same game you've spent 30 hours with. The ending as it is, as I see it, is utterly broken, and I don't see any way it could be salvaged. 


Still BioWare, bless their hearts, are going to try, submitting to the massive fan outrage the ending triggered, and announcing new, free DLC which is meant to offer more clarity and closure to the ending as it stands.  I say this without snark or sarcasm: I think that is a good olive branch to those of us who loved so dearly and then hated so deeply. Despite my utter disdain for the ending, I never wanted them to change it after the fact, something a lot of fans did, and are still pissed off that they now definitely won't do. As an aspiring (read: failed) story-teller myself, I don't believe in narrative mulligans. You live with your decisions, no matter how much your audience hates you for it. 


And that I can respect BioWare for. They are still my favourite video game developer, and I'll probably continue to buy their games. I just wish they hadn't fouled up the ending to the greatest space saga in a long time.