Is Mass Effect a Star Wars derivative?

[Fairfax]

Off topic: Technobabylon is made by totally different people, and is quite different from Primordia. (Primordia, in my opinion, is very soft sci-fi, it's probably more allegory or fantasy; Technobabylon is more classical scifi/cyberpunk. Reminds me a little of Van Vogt's work.) But thanks for the nice words about Primordia.

On topic: I agree that Mass Effect relies upon unexplained magical devices wrapped up in technobabble, but I think that's a staple of space opera that goes far beyond Star Wars, so using that as a basis to say that it's Star Wars inspired seems off to me. Many other space operas have techno-magic at their core (Star Trek, Dune, Babylon 5); in fact, probably all of them do, it's just a question whether it is buried really deeply (as in, say, Rendezvous with Rama) or worn openly and proudly (as in, say, Warhammer).

Intersting. Are you working on another project, then? Perhaps a CRPG?

As for the topic at hand, again, I should've said KotOR derivative, because as a game, I stand by that. It's way too similar, and the game suffered for it in many aspects (paragon/renegade being the worst offender).
I don't have a problem with techno-magic. It's fine, as long as it has some form of impact on the world, which is what Mass Effect lacked.

 

[MRY]

Yeah, I've got a cRPG of my own in the works (the bastard child of the failed space opera game mentioned at the outset), and I'm also working as a writer on Torment.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Guys, you better watch out or they'll split this thread yet again

 

[Sranchammer]

Anything with 'aliens' is fantasy

 

[Jaesun]

So after all these years the movie Alien is actually a Fantasy movie?

Well fuck me running...

 

[Vernacular]

Force powers, hot blue aliens. Shrug

That's been a staple of Science Fiction since the Sci-Fi golden golden of heroic space operas. Don't forget, that's what Star Wars is. In it's day it was a modern interpretation of matinee serials.

 

[GuiltyofBeingTrite]

Mass Effect is so much more Star Control II than anything else, I think. Whether the devs knew it or not.

 

[Infinitron]

Star Control 3 too, with the "Eternal1s".

 

[pippin]

So after all these years the movie Alien is actually a Fantasy movie?

Well fuck me running...

Well at least it does explain inter-species romance in a more detailed way than Mass Effect...

 

[MRY]

Mass Effect is so much more Star Control II than anything else, I think. Whether the devs knew it or not.

They have specifically said they were inspired by Starflight. It is almost literally and actually impossible that they are unaware of Star Control II.

 

[Lhynn]

Welp, i had lost track of this thread. now i feel like i threw the stone and hid the hand.

MRY Impressed with your knowlege of this crap. Looking forward to seeing that cRPG you are working on.

 

[Beastro]

What all of these series share -- and what Star Wars, particularly the original triology but really the whole thing, lacks -- is having a large number of competitor alien powers (usually a different tiers). They often feature a kind of alien UN, and also often also involve old enemies having to ally to face a greater threat. Themes like uplifting undeveloped aliens often show up over and again. I would situate Star Trek within this genre except that Star Trek doesn't like war (DS9 notwithstanding), doesn't really have economy (which is always important), or meaningful power-level differences among the core players (again, this is why the show feels so much more like space opera when, say, the Borg show up). Some of the Star Wars EU draws from these themes, but that's not Star Wars leading the way, it's Star Wars following. While these stories have a smattering a science in them, they're mostly about romantic, somewhat fantastical Great-Game style diplomacy and World War-style space battles. (The original Star Wars is totally uninterested in that kind of politicking, though it shows up to some degree in the prequels.)

You forgot the Precursors, ancient alien race(s) that are god-like by our standards that suddenly and mysteriously vanished long ago for not very well explained (or very good reasons when explained).

I also fucking loath the space UN shit.

I wish a Sci-Fi setting would have varying human nations expand into such an alien setting and fuck shit up as humanity alternates between cooperating with each other to shit on alien powers if they're too tough for one nation to crush and competing with each other over the rewards of said wars when there's lulling in between shitting on them like we would.

 

[Beastro]

I dont think that word means what you think it means.

Straczynski's inspiration for B5 was Tolkien's Legendarium first and foremost. He admitted that he essentially took each race in Tolkien's work and slightly changed them to be aliens to fit into his world, the most apparent being theElvish Minbari.

On top of that he wanted to create a story loosely based on Babylonian mythology about chaos and order and largely failed at that because the Vorlon's and Shadow's are as good/evil and they are order/chaos, the Vorlon's are pricks and expected people to do as they're told, but had their welfare in mind.

This argument is also showing how transparent the divide between Science Fiction and Fantasy is, especially with regard to soft Sci-Fi that gives a new spin on Clarke's old quote about technology and magic, only placed in a context where the technology is as fantastically impossible as magic.

 

[Lhynn]

Yeah, cool. There are still very fundamental differences between them, it would take an extremely thick headed individual not to acknowledge this.

 

[MRY]

I wish a Sci-Fi setting would have varying human nations expand into such an alien setting and fuck shit up as humanity alternates between cooperating with each other to shit on alien powers if they're too tough for one nation to crush and competing with each other over the rewards of said wars when there's lulling in between shitting on them like we would.

I don't think it works at scratching the core space opera itch, which is the Little Guy doing Outsize Things. Humans have the be young, scrappy outsiders who punch above their weight -- either because they're uniquely creative (a typical trope, one variant of which is that they're not so much creative as newcomers who don't know the "box" well enough to think inside it) or uniquely good at war or uniquely determined to never give up. In the U.S., at least, that seems to be part of recreating the glorious youth of our nation in space -- at the end of the day, it's the tired old empires of Europe who have to beg us to save them from dark forces, etc.

You could do it your way, but I think you'd just degenerate into having one of the human factions be the Little Guy, and go from there. Incidentally, it is typical to have a Little Guy within the Little Guys: the academy goat who turns out to be the one captain who can save the day; the man summoned from the past; the sole survivor of a fatal accident. Typically he (and it is typically he) will be opposed by Big Guys within the Little Guys -- a blind and priggish admiral, a feckless and peace-desperate politico, a war-crazy and xenophobic general, perhaps all of these guys.

Incidentally, all of these are pretty important because an outsider can receive expository dialogue and narrative more easily and a Little Guy can be the focus of the action in the way that a Big Guy (who necessarily is defined by the vast bureaucratic machinery in which he is situated) cannot be.

Straczynski's inspiration for B5 was Tolkien's Legendarium first and foremost. He admitted that he essentially took each race in Tolkien's work and slightly changed them to be aliens to fit into his world, the most apparent being theElvish Minbari.

He wedded Tolkien with the many-alien-factions brand of space opera. Too much of Babylon 5 is too obviously traceable to existing space opera books -- the entire Stephen ?? doctor guy is straight out of the sub-sub-genre that includes Sector General, for example. Obviously the Minbari / rangers thing and the Ancient Evil is pure Tolkiena, but I think crediting JMS with building it from that foundation is giving him too much credit.

This argument is also showing how transparent the divide between Science Fiction and Fantasy is

I'm not so sure. I spent a big chunk of my childhood reading fantasy (basically the only thing I read from 10 to 18, and back then I would read something like 100 books a year) and then, like I said, a couple years reading space opera (probably no more than 100 books total, though). The two feel very different to me. For one thing, fantasy tends to emphasize items in a way that space opera doesn't: the problem, and its resolution, often turns on a particular thing or things. Not always, but with some regularity. That is rarely the case with space opera. There are other distinctions, but that one stands out immediately to me. I think planetary romance (e.g., John Carter of Mars) is probably classifiable as fantasy though.

It's kind of odd to chart -- it's definitely not a two-dimensional spectrum, more like some kind of polygon.

For example, down one vector you can go from Pure Fantasy to Crossing Over Fantasy (e.g., Narnia) to Fantasy-In-Our-World (e.g., Harry Potter) to Cyberpunk to Pure Sci-Fi. But on that route, you never come anywhere near Space Opera. That route is more like Pure Fantasy -> Epic Fantasy (e.g., LOTR, Shannara) -> Sword & Sorcery (e.g., Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Conan) -> Planetary Romance (e.g., John Carter of Mars, Planet of Adventure) -> Fantasy Space Opera (e.g., Star Wars or WH40k) -> Soft Space Opera (e.g., The Dark Wing, Babylon 5) -> Hard Space Opera (e.g., Revelation Space, the Culture series) -> Core Sci-Fi.

At the margins, things definitely get blurry, but I still think you can define categories with at least a little bit of confidence.

 

[Beastro]

I don't think it works at scratching the core space opera itch, which is the Little Guy doing Outsize Things. Humans have the be young, scrappy outsiders who punch above their weight -- either because they're uniquely creative (a typical trope, one variant of which is that they're not so much creative as newcomers who don't know the "box" well enough to think inside it) or uniquely good at war or uniquely determined to never give up. In the U.S., at least, that seems to be part of recreating the glorious youth of our nation in space -- at the end of the day, it's the tired old empires of Europe who have to beg us to save them from dark forces, etc.

It also echoes an Idealized Americanization of the British love of Balance of Power: The good guys help others to stop the bad guys and remain powerfully benevolent over everyone until the next bad guys come along instead of being like Perfidious Albion.

The problem I have with it is it's only one take on things and I'm fucking tired of Mankind being the young, idealistic race. It also prevents a lot of relateable history from sinking in and filling a creators work where iconic planets can be looked at at various stages of history like ancient cities are. Only Earth has that much emotive power in Sci-Fi because it's so icon to us before we've even picked up a book.

Pretty much the only Sci-Fi setting that does steep their places in a good sense of history is the Star Wars EU, but even then 99.9% of the planets are unaltered over thousands of years, like Coruscant being one huge city planet for God knows how long.

I guess my issue is the idealism around such a conflict setting whereas I prefer a more dry, historical look on things that can reflect on some depressing angles of human nature. From the example I gave in the previous post, it would have drama set in a universe where Mankind steadily kills off everything alien as it expands without any real rhyme or reason, it's just what we do as local conflicts draw our ire and unite us against literal aliens until those aliens are gone and we more on to more unknown space and repeat the process in much the same way we've come to spread and effect our planet, for good or ill.

The two feel very different to me. For one thing, fantasy tends to emphasize items in a way that space opera doesn't: the problem, and its resolution, often turns on a particular thing or things. Not always, but with some regularity. That is rarely the case with space opera. There are other distinctions, but that one stands out immediately to me. I think planetary romance (e.g., John Carter of Mars) is probably classifiable as fantasy though.

For me, when a Sci-Fi starts to push into plots hinging on Macguffins to save the day (or doom it), they've strayed into space opera. One can see that with the repeated crap the Stargate series ran around trying to find and much of that goes back to Star War and the Death Star being The Ultimate Weapon that victory and defeat hinged on. It was only self-reconning when people realized how silly it later was to have the Emperor and Empire be obsessed with super weapons and that play a part in their defeat because it was what Lucas and everyone else who worked on the original trilogy (and drink it up watching it) believed would win or lose the day naively ignorant of what real warfare is like.

I admit I don't read much fantasy, Sci-Fi or Space Opera, much of my feel for the genres comes from a general feel of what is thought of them with the only depth being in tv Sci-Fi, Macguffins being things Star Trek fell into and others, like Farscape turned into knowledge being the damning Macguffin (which was a huge hit for it in my eyes how the series resolved itself - having everyone agree to not develop or use wormhole tech after the genie is out fo the bottle that screams of idealistic, juvenile wish fulfilment that those big, mean nuclear weapons were never made when it was an inevitability that they would from scientific discoveries going back into the 19th Century.

For example, down one vector you can go from Pure Fantasy to Crossing Over Fantasy (e.g., Narnia) to Fantasy-In-Our-World (e.g., Harry Potter) to Cyberpunk to Pure Sci-Fi. But on that route, you never come anywhere near Space Opera. That route is more like Pure Fantasy -> Epic Fantasy (e.g., LOTR, Shannara) -> Sword & Sorcery (e.g., Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Conan) -> Planetary Romance (e.g., John Carter of Mars, Planet of Adventure) -> Fantasy Space Opera (e.g., Star Wars or WH40k) -> Soft Space Opera (e.g., The Dark Wing, Babylon 5) -> Hard Space Opera (e.g., Revelation Space, the Culture series) -> Core Sci-Fi.

Too many sub-genres for me. I prefer to try to keep things as unspecialised as possible and try to work with archetypes, be as broad as possible and, I guess you can see why I have no trouble with seeing Sci-Fi and Fantasy being two aspects of the same thing with the major differences being between them essentially a focus on progress and the future in the former and traditions and the past in the latter.

 

[Infinitron]

Speaking of fantasy->sci-fi influences, it's been said that Star Control's Ur-Quan were influenced by the Githzerai and Githyanki (who existed long before the Planescape setting).

Pretty much the only Sci-Fi setting that does steep their places in a good sense of history is the Star Wars EU, but even then 99.9% of the planets are unaltered over thousands of years, like Coruscant being one huge city planet for God knows how long.

I guess my issue is the idealism around such a conflict setting whereas I prefer a more dry, historical look on things that can reflect on some depressing angles of human nature. From the example I gave in the previous post, it would have drama set in a universe where Mankind steadily kills off everything alien as it expands without any real rhyme or reason, it's just what we do as local conflicts draw our ire and unite us against literal aliens until those aliens are gone and we more on to more unknown space and repeat the process in much the same way we've come to spread and effect our planet, for good or ill.

Do I have to page Commissar Draco?

 

[MRY]

I can't see how the Ur-quan /talking pet story and the gith / ilithid story could have sprung up independently. I just wonder if there might be a common root.

 

[MRY]

The problem I have with it is it's only one take on things and I'm fucking tired of Mankind being the young, idealistic race. . . .

I guess my issue is the idealism around such a conflict setting whereas I prefer a more dry, historical look on things that can reflect on some depressing angles of human nature.

There are a fair number of space operas where humanity is no longer young and idealistic. Revelation Space, A Fire Upon the Deep, and the Culture series are all examples of harder space opera along those lines, then there are also a number of softer ones like really any of Vance's work (Demon Princes) or the Praxis, and classics like Foundation and Left Hand of Darkness. You might also enjoy A Talent for War: the sequels aren't that great, but that one is about a historian researching space-opera humanity's foundation myth. John C. Wright's Golden Age is not great as a whole, but the first one is pretty good and while it is idealistic in a libertarian way, it's certainly also a look at human failings. (The ones after he became a born-again Catholic have a different feel. Wright has also since become a big figure in the Hugodammerung, which is what it is.)

 

[Commissar Draco]

Speaking of fantasy->sci-fi influences, it's been said that Star Control's Ur-Quan were influenced by the Githzerai and Githyanki (who existed long before the Planescape setting).



Do I have to page Commissar Draco?

Both Dune and Warhammer 40K are perfect example of settings free of Kwan idealism, faith in Progress and Peace among the stars they even have Humanity which has fallen at the hand of its creations precisely cause they achieved those and people got too comfortable, lazy and careless after living in prosperity and peace (Conflict with Iron Men/AIs and fall of Eldar). Both have detailed History too with much more change than color of Republic and Sith/Empire soldiers uniforms. Both were infuenced by both fantasy and modern mythos with Imperium being Eastern Roman Empire in Space and Fremen being Muslim sect which found its Mahdi... Only to be betrayed and destroyed by his line.

 

[Beastro]

There are a fair number of space operas where humanity is no longer young and idealistic. Revelation Space, A Fire Upon the Deep, and the Culture series are all examples of harder space opera along those lines, then there are also a number of softer ones like really any of Vance's work (Demon Princes) or the Praxis, and classics like Foundation and Left Hand of Darkness. You might also enjoy A Talent for War: the sequels aren't that great, but that one is about a historian researching space-opera humanity's foundation myth. John C. Wright's Golden Age is not great as a whole, but the first one is pretty good and while it is idealistic in a libertarian way, it's certainly also a look at human failings. (The ones after he became a born-again Catholic have a different feel. Wright has also since become a big figure in the Hugodammerung, which is what it is.)

From what I know of those is that they present atypical human societies, usually formed around Mankind spreading out into the star initially under a united banner, not a continuation of modern competitive nations that spread out and went on to lay the foundation of new cultures and societies on worlds in the same way Western Civilization did during the Age of Discovery and Imperialism.

The other problem with most Sci-Fi that deals with that closely is that colonization usually revolves around the presentation of independent expansion of social groups like the historical Pilgrims, instead of national governments handling the heavy cost of terraforming a world and inviting anyone willing to go to a planet to set up shop there and make it viable.

It's one thing for a small ethnic, religious or idealogical group to raise money for ships and supplies to head off and settle a new shore somewhere away from civilization on Earth, it's another to try to convince reads and that Neo-Hippies or Neo-Puritans in 2555 will have enough money and resources to strike out into the stars and bring the means to turn an alien world.

The closest one could compare that to would be the Pilgrims landing on Antarctica and turning it into a habitable place while managing to independently survive while still benefiting from free air and water, something places like McMurdo can't do (though no one is trying to make them self-sufficient I'll admit).

Both were infuenced by both fantasy and modern mythos with Imperium being Eastern Roman Empire

Dune's Imperium is more closer to the post-Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Empire than the ERE. The Noble Houses remain collectively strong enough to enforce a decentralized system of states with a state as they did in the HRE after Frederick II allowed decentralization to increase, and holding powerful sway over their territories long enough that they've become synonymous with the worlds they rule, in the same vein as the the Wettins rule over Saxony, the Wittelsbachs over Bavaria, the Premyslids and Hapsburgs, over Bohemia and Austria, etc.

 

[MRY]

From what I know of those is that they present atypical human societies, usually formed around Mankind spreading out into the star initially under a united banner, not a continuation of modern competitive nations that spread out and went on to lay the foundation of new cultures and societies on worlds in the same way Western Civilization did during the Age of Discovery and Imperialism.

I actually don't think that's right -- at a minimum, I'm pretty sure Vance deals with a future with separate colonial groups, but Vance is about as soft as space opera gets, which I sense might not be up your alley.

You might like Fallen Dragon. It's perhaps more "mil SF" than space opera, but it seems to fit your bill at least somewhat. The premise is that interstellar travel is outrageously expensive and is financed by large corporations, which then have the right to collect their costs plus a reasonable return from the colonies they establish. Naturally, once a few generations pass, the colonists are not especially happy at paying costs. The book focuses mostly on one difficult effort to expropriate a colony's assets. There are parts of the book I didn't like, but at least the depiction of colonization seems to satisfy your rigor.

Another possibility is the CoDominium series, which is very dated, but does at least end up with the US and USSR fighting over a space empire. The Mote in the God's Eye -- one of the books set late in the series, or maybe after the series -- is considered a classic first contact novel, though candidly I was underwhelmed.

Scalzi's Old Man universe, if I recall correctly, still has nation states, but they're just really the scale on which the stories' politics take place. (Basically Earth is still more or less our Earth, but there's a secret space defense force doing exciting Heinleinian things.) I think the starting premise is that there was a war between the developed Western nations and developing countries that led to the developing countries being rendered not very inhabitable, so non-Westerners are the primary colonists, while the defense force is primarily Westerners, which creates some tensions (though not much, to be honest).

 

[Beastro]

Another possibility is the CoDominium series, which is very dated, but does at least end up with the US and USSR fighting over a space empire. The Mote in the God's Eye -- one of the books set late in the series, or maybe after the series -- is considered a classic first contact novel, though candidly I was underwhelmed.

I've read up a lot on it. I wouldn't call it exacted dated, a lot of things like the Welfare Islands seem increasingly prophetic as time goes on.

Falkenburg's Legion I think would be a neat basis for a game combining Jagged Alliance type combat and Civ style nation build, though. It would also help undermine the OP advantages you get later in the latters gameplay against AI, since once you're done with one world you move on and get hired to save another, starting fresh.

 

[stray]

Influences from everywhere... but half assed when compared to any of them.

It fails at being the childish space opera adventure of Star Wars (although DAI tried to do some of this too and it still sucks. The whole game plays up the bombastic notes too far, and yet still takes itself too seriously. Lucas himself said the movies were meant for kids)..

It fails at conveying even the rudimentary poltical intrigue of Trek (and has nastier Alien sex to boot. Captain Kirk didn't care about Tali sweat and getting it on with some chitinous bird like thing).. might be as bad as the BSG remake maybe. BSG veered into a cheesy Touched By an Angel in Space series. That isn't much different than Mass Effect and "Space Jesus sacrificing himself for robots". But why people think BSG is any good I don't know. That show was originally created by a Mormon and it still has it's stink written all over it.

Lastly, it has some Alien influences.. what with Cerberus and evil corps raping colonists and all. But since they also try to be childish and Star Wars like and Cerberus loses it's intrigue and becomes silly, then it doesn't hold up either. It's kind of like the politics above. The evil corp angle loses it's intrigue too.

 

[Beastro]

The whole game plays up the bombastic notes too far, and yet takes itself seriously. Lucas himself said the movies were meant for kids)..

What do you expect when theymain audience for the games are the same 30 and 40-somethings that refuse to leave Star Wars in their childhood and continue to drag it along as they try (still) try to mature into adults.

That's what's rotten about the explosion of old childhood IPs turned into major adult franchises now like comic book movies, they're there to cater to that group and are subsequently stuck between two worlds instead of remaining products for kids and introducing a new generation to beloved classics.

Even your example falls flat. Whatever youthful spark Lucas had that connected with kids in the late 70s and early 80s was absent where it mattered in the prequels when he began shoving in so much fucking political discourse and serious shit into his "movies for kids".

Lucas matured in his sensibilities and wanted to bring that maturity into his creation despite them being a work for kids. This is why there is a gap between adult and juvenile fiction and it fucking sucks that it's been blurred in the last 15 years.

It's like a 40 year of Linus, ex-Marine with 3 kids who still walks around carrying his blanket trying to convince you it's not what it appears to be. Leave that shit behind and deal with something that is 100% adult.

I love things like Transformers, GI Joe and other things from my childhood for the reason that they were a part of my childhood, and if I have any kids, I hope to introduce them to old cartoons and shit (and point out how much better they are than their own contemporaries), but I don't want to make them mature things I carry with me, I have different interests now and I've chosen different works of fiction free of childishness to explore them in.

All of this just boils down to the unsettling trend of Mankind, if only in the West, increasingly self-selecting to domesticate themselves. Anyone who's had a pet knows the essence of what makes a pet is carrying an infants mentality into adulthood, it's what makes them manageable and reliant on you. All of this is just a human equivalent of a cat refusing to hunt live prey and trying to remake his toys as bad ass, mature alternatives completely missing the fact that toys are for juveniles!