#swaps replies

I have been turning this over in my head since you sent it, because it is such an EXCELLENT and revealing question.

So, as the overlapping element, here are things Kaidan knows that almost no one else from either squad does:

Sam's estrangement from his mother and the details about his father's disappearance (Liara knows a little bit about this through the melds).

The mashed potatoes as a trauma trigger.

That Sam put a gun to Major Kyle's head on Torfan (Aslany...might know this. I am not committing to that).

To answer your question, I thought a lot about the different influences, sources of stress, pressure, etc. exerted on Sam on the Normandy vs. the 'Yang, and how that changes him. I also did a lot of thinking about who Sam is to each squad as a result, where the differences are in their perceptions of him, what sides of him they know best, and where those things overlap and don't between the two squads.

On the 'Yang, Sam isn't in command. He's an XO, but ultimately he is executing someone else's orders. He goes on the missions he's sent on, not missions he chooses. He's leading, sure, but he has oversight. On the Normandy, the buck stops with him. And...now the galaxy is at stake. He's under a LOT more stress and carrying a lot more responsibility while being under a lot more scrutiny, not to mention he is now serving as an ambassador of sorts to four different alien races. I think the Normandy crew sees a lot less of 'Sam' and a lot more of 'Commander Shepard' than the 'Yang crew. But conversely, the 'Yang crew knew the Butcher of Torfan when he was a lone wolf asshole. Garrus and the SR2 crew have now met that asshole, but unlike the 'Yang crew they don't know how to handle him. In part, this is because Sam uses his reputation as both humanity's first Spectre and the Hero of the Citadel to bully anyone on the SR-2 who tries to stand up to him. On the 'Yang, he was just that guy who ran the early am drills they all hated, making it easier to call out his bullshit.

If Kara Pendergrass had been successfully recruited by Cerberus, at the first meal Sam skipped in the mess she would have barged into his cabin and dragged him down to the crew deck, because she knows from experience that the worst thing for everyone when Sam is being a stubborn prick is to let him sit in a hole and stew. But no one on the SR1/2 outside of Kaidan gets this, and even if they did, none of them have enough of a casual relationship with him to feel like they can do that.

ALL THAT SAID, here are some fun specific things the 'Yang crew know that the Normandy crew does not.

That Sam's favorite band is Galactikraken*, his favorite song is 'Starship Velociraptor*,' and he will sing it at karaoke under the right conditions.

His exhaustive list of food crimes, of which the Normandy is only aware of a few.

That he does have a limit with said food crimes, and to the utter dumbfounding of everyone on the 'Yang, it's drinking pickle juice. (Aslany will drink an entire jar).

His obsession with really shitty B movies. This might come out a little during ME3, but not with the ME1/2 crews.

That in a bet involving "who can put more of 'x' in their mouth," Sam will always win - unless Aslany plays. The only one who understood Clay's lament about Sam being asexual was also Aslany, who just rolled her eyes.

The 'Yang crew also had their own unique approaches to being prepared for a Sam Glucose Crash. For instance, Pendergrass made sure she always carried a salarian MRE (which is just a nutrient brick). The Normandy crew is largely unaware of the glucose problem, or do not understand how serious it can be - because he had a much better handle on it by that point.

What does the Normandy crew know that 'Yang squad doesn't?

That he likes having pets. They would be shocked by the fish tank. Less surprised by his track record of taking care of fish.

That he paints models and is good at it. He never did it on the 'Yang. It was a childhood hobby he resurrected during ME2.

I don't think the 'Yang crew outside of Kaidan really clocks how important Anderson is to Sam, whereas the Normandy crew gets a front row seat for that relationship.

Only Garrus and possibly Joker know just how shitty Sam was on Zorya. No one on the 'Yang crew learns how far gone he was during ME2.

Do you possibly have anymore pictures of Nyquist?

Sadly they didn’t get him out of his stall, and I had to act quick when they opened it up to give him a supplement! This is the only other one I got. Not particularly remarkable, but at least it’s in focus? 

I am so, SO glad to hear this (and so sorry my reply is so late). I live in fear that I will fumble the ball badly with Jacob, but I am giving it my best shot.

I'm also thrilled that you've caught the parallelism with Kaidan. I love the idea that they're similar puzzle pieces, but one fits and one doesn't. I think they fact that they have so many similarities and both Kaidan and Jacob have tried to get close to Sam but only one of them succeeded further highlights a) how hard Sam is to get to know b) how easy it would have been for any relationship between Sam and Kaidan to never get off the ground. So many unique circumstances had to exist for Sam and Kaidan to even get a chance.

A foundational piece of how I have gone about developing Jacob is a big spoiler, but the nuts and bolts of it more or less revolve around taking a lot of time to dig down deep, take what little we know about the character, and then figure out things that could motivate and drive him that fit in with the direction I want to take him in.

The things I knew:

I was going to throw out his loyalty mission, because fuck that nonsense. In addition to not wanting to touch the wildly unnecessary racism and sexual abuse with a 10 foot pole, I didn't want Jacob's story to revolve around his father - I wanted it to be about him, and his own internal struggle (which I would need to define).

I liked the idea of a Cerberus Cheerleader - but Miranda's core narrative is more about learning to accept herself and her imperfections than it is about her loyalty to Ceberus. So...what if Miranda looks like the cheerleader...but the reality is that the true cheerleader is Jacob? And what if his 'loyalty mission' revolved around that, in a more abstract way?

Cerberus is more or less a cult. So I started asking myself how they got their hooks into them, what power they would have over him, and how they would continually reinforce that power. We know that Jacob has a chip on his shoulder regarding the Alliance, but it's very poorly defined - more of a nebulous frustration and general disillusionment than a specific, alienating event. So I needed to create a reason for Jacob to not just be disillusioned, but to really have a grudge. A reason - and a very justifiable reason - to have it out for the Alliance. And it needed to be something that gave Cerberus a chance to swoop in and play the hero and win over his allegiance.

Luckily, I had a great opportunity, because I want to involve the Conduit in the events of ME3. So I had the thought...what if the Alliance basically stole it while no one was looking in the aftermath of the Battle of the Citadel, and what if Jacob's Corsair team was assigned to recover it? And since I have never liked the abundance of human biotics in ME2, what if Jacob manifested his because of this event? And what if the side effects were nearly fatal? The Alliance doesn't want anyone to know they did this, so it's in their best interest to bury it and consider Jacob a casualty of war. Cerberus would see an opportunity to test Lazarus tech they want to use in Shepard, and get themselves another very capable agent in the process. Win-win for everyone!

It's a messy set of circumstances that have been very challenging to pick through, but very rewarding. There are some REALLY interesting dynamics to explore. Before writing Jacob POVs I have to really take some time to sit between his ears and think about how these events color his view of the world, of Cerberus, of Sam, and how they move the story along.

Oooh, this is a fun question, in part because it defies one of the core purposes behind the Virmire Decision: the No Win Scenario (the Kobayashi Maru, if you speak Star Trek). You can do everything right and still lose, which is a vital moment in the Mass Effect story and why I have never really been interested in They Both Live scenarios (even though I love both characters). I think the game really thrives on that moment where no matter what you do, you don't win. Or, in the case of Virmire, the price of winning was higher than you were willing to pay.

It's also a fun question because of Sam himself - he's a character who, quite frankly, isn't all that burdened by the responsibility of getting everyone out alive. The mission objective is what he cares about. So long as the mission is accomplished, some losses are generally acceptable.

So what does a time loop do to that?

First - if we define 'everyone' as Ashley Williams and Kaidan Alenko, I think it only takes 1-2. Sam is a brilliant tactician. If he knows what the chess board looks like before his boots hit the ground, he will be three steps ahead of everyone the entire time. Instead of guesswork on enemy numbers, locations, tactics, he has hard information to work with.

Time is part of what works against everyone on Virmire, but if Sam has all the intel going in, he can get a lot of the time he needs back. He knows exactly where the beacon is. He knows about indoctrination. He knows about Sovereign. He might even be able to bypass the krogan lab to keep Wrex from getting distracted (though to keep it interesting, let's say that Wrex gets pissy and splits off from the team to find them on his own, and on a third time through, now Sam has to save Wrex from getting nuked).

Would everyone think he was nuts for making what appear to be wildly, grand assumptions? Yes, but they also trust him. They'd listen first, ask questions later.

Saren gets a bullet between the eyes while he's still on the hoverboard because Sam's got aim on him before he even comes into scope.

But, if we consider 'everyone' to also mean all of the salarians, now we're in for a ride. That's a much taller order, and one he would strive to meet not because of altruism and the right thing to do, but because now it's a challenge, a mission in and of itself - save everyone.

Sam is also a guy who would fight god in a Target parking lot just for something to do, and he's convinced he's never been good enough in his life for anyone. So this mission - save everyone - especially if he thinks it's the only way to stop the loop - would eat him alive. It would be obsession. All-consuming. He'd find entirely new ways to speed run destroying friendships because he wouldn't be able to get anyone to understand why it was so important, why it mattered so much, especially when the lives he's trying to save don't really matter all that much to him.

And ultimately, I don't think it's possible. No matter how hard he tries.

If this concept were the means of telling a story, the question for how it ends would be...what's the 'goal' of the loop? It won't make him a better person - it will make him worse, because it plays into some of his biggest insecurities. It won't teach him to give up and accept failure - he'll ruin himself first.

Maybe it's a lesson in empathy. He can't save these people, but he can get to know them. Learn who they are, so he can remember them when they're gone. But I also think that part of the reason Sam is able to save the galaxy is precisely because he does struggle with empathy. If he feels the true grief of the losses he suffers, he would never be able to do what he does for the sake of the greater good.

Again, I loved the chapter! This is my fav fic and series EVER, and I look forward to the next update :)

THANK YOU!! I have been chewing my fist off to get this chapter out there. I have been so excited about it.

Now, before I dive into this. Remember that there is a lot of fiction in this science. We don't know what it feels like to manipulate gravity or create mass effect fields or how dark energy works. So I take a lot of liberties and have a great time, lol.

To answer your question - the biotic "fingerprint" that Kaidan recognizes is not anything Sam does with the gravity well or how he uses it - it's the sensation created merely by his existence within it. This is different from Sam actively engaging with the gravity well to create mass effect fields, which has also been changed, but by the thorian, and not Miranda. And I think that would be harder to spot.

In Opus, that 'sixth sense' tells biotics when another biotic is passively in their vicinity, and for each biotic, that sensation is unique. Biotic implants make that fingerprint stronger, and influence how it "feels."

I do imagine the distinctions are subtle, and really only stand out when you know someone really well. If you walked into a room with two biotics you had never met, you would know there were two distinct fields, but if you ran into them again later, you likely wouldn't clock, "hey that's the asari who served my coffee yesterday!" unless there was something very, very distinct about it.

But Kaidan knows Sam's field very, very intimately. Even without language to describe it, he would - and does - immediately recognize that it's wrong after Lazarus.

Before Lazarus, I don't think humans had any reason to make the distinction that the implant influenced that field significantly enough to alter it, because replacing an implant is so rare. So the assumption that biotics feel unique in the gravity well didn't have a documented connection to the implant.

Now, how is all this different from the way Sam generates biotic fields?

What the thorian did through the cipher was change enough of Sam's brain chemistry that he no longer creates fields like other humans, or even like every other alien race in this cycle. He now creates mass effect fields like the protheans did.

In Opus, most species biotics work through displacement. They create a field in their hand, then send it where they want it to go. There is, in essence "travel time" between the field being created and it reaching its target. But gravity moves at the speed of light, making that "travel time" happen so quickly it's not really visible to the organic eye - and that's the key.

Because what Sam does post-thorian cipher is create fields through superpositioning - when he generates a field it exists in two places at once, his hand, and at the target. When the waveform collapses, the field now only exists at the target.

It's possible this feels a little weird to him, and possible it feels a little weird to someone like Kaidan, who is so in tune with Shepard's biotics. But it wouldn't trigger the same wrongness that the implant change did.

Now, why does charge feel so weird and unsettling to Sam and anyone near him when he does it? Because charge is going to take the superpositioning one step further, which we'll get to soon. Charge is not something he would have been capable of before the implant upgrade. Because 1) it would have been beyond the limitations of his previous implant. 2) He wasn't fucked up enough yet to be that stupid.

<3

You so kindly sent this to me back at the beginning of November, and I am so sorry it took me so long to thank you, but you know. Everything happens so much. XD

Nothing singularly terrible or distressing has befallen me, but there have been a lot of stressors in play eating up all of my available spoons for the last few months. Not all of them bad, either! Just...extremely exhausting.

But I am still here!

Where do you think Sam would be if it weren't for his posting on the 'Yang and that fateful morning meeting Kaidan over pancakes? Would he still have finished the N program and risen in the ranks? Would he still have wound up on the Normandy and gotten plagued by the prothean visions? Or would he have ended up somewhere else, set adrift without Kaidan as his stable ground?

Cantata is such a huge part of Opus that I struggle to imagine Sam becoming the Commander Shepard we know and love from the game timeline without those years spent finding a family with the 'Yang Gang and that lasting bond with Kaidan. Mezzo has been especially interesting (and heartbreaking) to watch as Sam is forced to endure without Kaidan at his side for the first time in so many years. But while it's clear he can find some way to keep going even "on his own," I've been imagining that a history without Kaidan at all is a very different one for Sam. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts!

'The Words That Change Us' is probably the multiverse story I revisit the most, and I just love it when other people connect with it.

You ask a wonderful question, one that I more or less asked myself all the way through Cantata, because Cantata is very much the story that builds Commander Shepard.

Without the 'Yang, does Sam get the Normandy? Probably. With all the strings attached to him, he was being steered in that direction no matter what happened on the 'Yang. The important thing about the 'Yang and the people he found there was that he had advocates - people who cared about the human behind the soldier, and people who brought that human out of his shell. They didn't change his trajectory; they made him more successful in his path.

So what happens, then, if you take away the 'Yang?

Quite simply - he fails. The galaxy falls to the reapers.

I see Sam and Saren as two beings cut from the same cloth. Two people ordered to protect the galaxy, who were ruthless enough to do whatever had to be done to accomplish that goal. Saren went astray. Sam didn't.

The reason Sam didn't follow in Saren's footsteps was the five years he spent on the 'Yang that taught him not just how to save a galaxy - but why he was doing it in the first place. The 'Yang taught him that he isn't in that fight alone, and that he's stronger when he works through other people rather than just depending on himself. If he doesn't learn those things, he can still make N7, he can still be humanity's first Spectre, but he can't save a galaxy.

We're seeing that Mezzo. It's not Commander Shepard who needs saving in Mezzo - it's Sam - and you may be surprised at who ultimately rescues him.