A No Humans AU

During my many years in the Mass Effect fandom, I’ve seen many fanfiction authors embrace the “No Reapers AU”, where AU stands for Alternate Universe, marking a departure from canon large enough to affect the entire setting. This may be done for a number of different reasons. The author may dislike the notion of the Reapers and the save-the-world narrative framework; they might want to distance themselves from themes such as indoctrination or ignore the existence of factions like Cerberus; from Shepard as the protagonist and their tired hero’s journey; last but definitely not least, this might be the means to keep favorite characters, like Saren and Nihlus, alive past the timeline of the first game. This comes at the price of effectively deleting much of the official content and usually requires supplementing it with much of one’s own world-building.

Needless to say, all sorts of AUs are possible and “No Reapers” is only an example.

Well, lately I’ve been thinking about a “No Humans AU”.

Maps for TTSS

While excavating the drawers of my former desk, I came across a bunch of development sketches for Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre (TTSS), my Mass Effect novel from 2019. It’s mostly maps and scenography plans.

Here’s an evolution of the overall itinerary:

Status Report

It’s been a while! I regretfully admit that I’ve all but forgotten about this website and my self-imposed obligation to post monthly. Ah, well. It’s happened before, and it will surely happen again. At least this time, I have a decent excuse.

I’ve been working on a story — an original piece — that’s been on my mind a long time now, but lacked a setting till recently. I know that sounds weird — how can you even conceptualize a story without a setting? Well, I totally can! I had some vague ideas but the vagueness was so vast that it was barely discernible from void. And then, pretty much out of nowhere, I knew how to fill that void; this in turn allowed me to start getting things from my head and onto the page.

Rename Retcon

One of my shortest and probably least well-known stories, Directed, features an original asari character named Olte, in the role of young Saren’s biotics instructor. She also appears in Sound of Silence, where, after the blowout in Unnerved and Unnerving and before the catharsis in The Candidate, Saren, now adult and already in service of Sovereign, seeks her company and council. Lastly, she is mentioned a couple times in my latest & greatest work, Thinker Traitor Soldier Spectre. It’s not much screentime, relative to the volume of my Saren/Nihlus verse, but she steps in the spotlight in a couple of important stories I’ve been nurturing in my mind for years, just haven’t written yet.

Well, one of those stories is getting written now, and in it, Olte will go by a new name: Elethea. I’ve already retconned all her past appearances to reflect the change.

Why do I want to rename her, you ask? Because, last year, my good friend Gladius, who is not a fan of asari, pointed out that Olte sounds a lot like the German word Alte, which means old. While Elethea is, in fact, quite old, at least by the standards of the humans, turians, and other short-lived sentients of the Mass Effect setting (well within the matron phase, which is upwards of 350 years of age), old is not the association I have for her, and I don’t want my readers, German or not, to have it either.

So I looked for something similar, but with a different sound, and different connotations, and found the word Elete (Greek: Ηλετη, meaning either “Grinding” (aletos), or “Prayer” (litê)). As most asari names end with an “a” (and because it’s easier to pronounce), this evolved into Elethea. I can still imagine a contraction that might sound like her old name—and that’s good enough for me.

What’s the new story about, you want to know? Shockingly—it’s about love and betrayal. Working title: The Precedent; current word-count: circa 8000; ETA: unknown.

NaNo 2019 Musings

In the previous post, I announced that this year I would be doing a modified Nano thing, whereby I’d try to complete the rewrite of the Nano 2011 draft for my story Ghost in the Machine. Tl;dr: I did not “win” Nano and I did not finish Ghost. I did write almost every day of November and I did draft two new chapters. But I’m thoroughly uninspired to go on with it.

Fanart (!) for TTSS, and Pre-Nano Ramblings

My friend, HeavenlyEros, made this fabulous poster for TTSS! Eros also helped me create the cover for it, and performed many other feats of great art and friendship, some of which I mentioned before. The Mass Effect fandom is truly blessed to inspire such talented, devoted and kind creators — and so am I, to have such friends. ♥