Mass Effect Deception: Oral Hygene

I hate this book, film at 11.

Okay, so before we start, I realized something: McCann told Gillian that The Illusive Man killed Paul Grayson, right? Okay, but hang on. This is the passage from Retribution where Paul dies:

Anderson killed Grayson. Cerberus had jack all to do with it. I guess maybe Brother TIM turned Paul into a reaper, but Gillian's looking for the guy that killed Paul. She never said anything about reaperized. What I'm saying is, one of the book's sub plots is about chasing after a fact checking error.

Okay, so TIM calls up Kai Leng and tells him that Gillian's after him, which is true, and that Kai Leng is to travel to Omega to hunt her out. Maybe it would be more efficient to email Gillian a copy of Retribution?

Meanwhile, Nick, who's mixed up in a group called the Biotic Underground, robs a bank.

Not to be one-upped, Gillian goes to Afterlife, then gets in an argument with Aria's assistant Immo. While they're bitching each other out, some krogans invade Afterlife, and Gillian zaps them all biotically.

Kai Leng watches the commotion from an apartment.

... an apartment he stole.

An apartment he stole and pissed in.

This happens in the book, this is not parody.

Look at that image. It is a metaphor. We are currently tied up and watching Kai Leng pee on things.

Gillian gets exiled from the quarian fleet, but apparently it's no big, because Cory Kim from the Biotic Underground comes around and scoops her up. OH BY THE WAY, Kim and Kai Leng? Totes used to fuck. Of course they did. Why wouldn't they. I bet he peed on her. Anyway, Kim introduces Gillian to Nick and Kasna Vas Kathar. Are there quarian biotics? I don't think that's a thing? I guess it's possible. They tell her that this pendant thing she has is a USB stick in reality. They also reveal the Biotic Underground's master plan: they're going to Pinky and Brain it all the way to the top. To prove themselves, they want to take out a major organization, but can't think of one. Gillian suggests Cerberus.

So Kahlee, Anderson and Hendel arrange a meeting with Aria where they strike a deal: Aria's got a bounty on Gillian, but she agrees to demand Gillian alive in return for access to Paul's hard drive. (Apparently Kahlee has access to Paul's hard drive because he emailed it to her before he died?) Oh fuck, you guys, you could not pay me to to through someone else's hard drive. Think of the porn you'd find. Aria gives no shits, hacks a gibson, and gets to Paul's files anyway. The files say that Kai Leng killed Liselle, so Aria decides to find --

Wait, hang on. Let's go back to Retribution for a second.

A nameless Cerberus agent killed Liselle. He's dead. How the fuck much are we going to put on Kai Leng? He's kind of coming out this smelling like a rose!

Anyway, Kai Leng goes into a bar -- I swear that's not a joke! -- and orders a honzo. THERE we go, a honzo is a drink! I guess. He also orders a bunch of Mexican food, but doesn't get the chance to eat it, because Aria has the place stormed. Kai Leng runs out, and straight into Cory Kim.

Actual exchange from the book.

Gillian's with Kim, so she pops Kai Leng with a dart and knocks him out, then they pile him in a van and drive off to the Biotic Underground's lair.

Kai Leng wakes up in the Biotic Underground's jail, which is perfect because this gives him time to flashback to that time he knifed a krogan.

Mass Effect nerds got pissed off at this scene, since krogans have extra organs, therefore it would be really hard to kill one with a knife. I ... stick with me here, I think there's a scene you should probably be madder at.

Anyway, that knife fight? The Alliance sent Kai Leng to a super dank nasty prison ... but all he did was knife a krogan. Shepard killed like a billion batarians and she gets to chillax in a super nice brig? Anyway, that's how he got into Cerberus, a recruiter visited him in jail.

The Biotic Underground sends a ransom note to Brother Tim, demanding ten million for Kai Leng's return. He decides to pay it because he's got more money than sense.

And then, this happens.

I mean, the book says the other caller Dor Hana, the not-actually human councillor, but no, this is the scene, the plot calls and ask what the fuck with the corpse.

This is another major problem with Deception, there's several plot threads that don't matter or never resolve. I'm leaving out several sub plots, like Nick's girlfriend, or Kai Leng's handler Mott. Speaking of Mott, Deception also has a trillion characters that either come and leave the plot prematurely (Ken, Ken Hobbs) or stick around even though they're not needed. The Biotic Underground is a huge offender here: it could get along with just Cory Kim, but there's also Zon, Lem, Sallus and Kathan, all totally auxiliary.

Actually, you could safely cut Anderson, Kahlee, Hendel, Nick, maybe TIM and definately Aria and still have a decent novel overall. The only parts that matter are Kai Leng and Gillian chasing each other.

Deception made me realize something: I can bitch all I want about Bioware, with its Casey Hudsons, Mac Walters and Drew Karpyshyns, but the game stories are tight and delightly free of crap.

You know what? Since I'm on my soap box, there are a lot of pages wasted where Scene A will occur, and once the scene switches, Characters X, Y and Z will spend 20 pages trying to find out all the shit that the audience already knows happens in Scene A. Like so:

Hendel decides to stake out a biotic repair place and also doesn't pee in anything. Nick strolls by and Hendel tails him all the way to the Biotic Underground.

The next scene is Hendel busting in on Anderson and Kahlee eating lunch and telling them the whole previous scene. Why? We, the audience, already know all this shit!

Back at the Biotic Underground, Kim decides to spring Kai Leng, because they banged surprise, she's a secret Cerberus agent! They escape, and Kai Leng's captured and taken back to the Biotic Underground, so that was nice.

Hendel, Aria's assistant Immo and some random fucker named Pa-dah crawl through a vent because this is a science fiction story.

Hendel then starts toward the Biotic Underground lair.

Hendel kills Marisa, another canon fodder character who Nick liked.

So Nick kills Hendel.

He then gets toasted by some random off-screen character.

That's okay, because Kahlee manages to find him before he dies:

Willian C. Dietz is the master of the double tap.

(I kind of suspect Dietz was told to kill off all of the novel characters. You can probably forsee where this is going.)

So anyway, Gillian's trusted to make the final hand off and give Kai Leng to TIM. But Gillian's pissed that TIM didn't kill her dad.

But her biotics don't cut it, so, uh?

Fuck! He's a hologram!

Kai Leng takes this opportunity to Polish Hammer Gillian, all Jim Kirk style:

I want us all to read the next line of Deception together. When I first crossed it, I had to read it a few times, just because it was so surreal. I mean, it's ...

It's ... uh? Okay? What does that mean?

This is the climax. Brace yourself.

Kai Leng had fashioned a toothbrush into a shank and managed to stab Gillian.

Nope. Surprise. Ta daaaaaa. Gillian died from a toothbrush to the leg. I threw my iPad.

WHY. WHY THE FUCK. A TOOTHBRUSH. WHY ARE MORE PEOPLE NOT PISSED OVER THIS. THE ENDING TO A MASS EFFECT THING IS BAD. FLOW INTO THE STREETS. IGNITE A COUCH. I'd trade the krogan stabbing for maybe killing Gillian off by, I don't know, Kai Leng's sword? A gun? Biotic blast? A toothbrush is insulting.

oh wait I get it it's because he eats all that sugary cereal isn't it

The book has an ending, something about the council seeing video of Paul getting reapered and burying Hendel, Nick and Gillian on Eden Prime, but I don't give any more shits about this book. I can't.

Also, none of the characters EVER find Paul Grayson's stolen corpse. Gross.

Don't read this book. There are reasons to read the first two, but this book? I don't know how you spend your days, but there's something else you could do besides reading Mass Effect Deception. You could learn a skill! Learn to knit! You could drink some water, hydration is important! It makes you poop, pooping is healthy. Read to a blind kid! Just don't read them Deception, they didn't ask for that.

We have one. Last. Piece of media. I'm dying, but secretly? This last one is my favorite.

NEXT TIME: Something good.

... obviously Kai Leng's gonna kill someone with a water pick.

SATURDAY POST: Why is Deception So Bad?

So we've started Deception, and it is shitty. But why?

"Well, it's got a bunch of canon mistakes in it," everyone always answers. I mean, that's true, it does. Here's the thing you can't see through me MSPainting Kai Leng giving the finger to the Trix Rabbit: it's just full stop a shitty book.

If you strip out all of the stuff that's Mass Effecty, it's still a shitball. It's poorly written. I would willingly believe this was a draft that got published, both because Bioware obviously didn't fact check it and because it has moments when it's almost incomprehensible. I had to read whole passages out loud to decypher them, and Husbando~'s skin would crawl any time he had to overhear it.

Since I'm reading on my iPad, I'm able to screenshot awful passages and present them to you. Here, this is a good example of the rest of the book:

... you know, I'm not a good writer, but I think I can edit this into something more readable:

Atmosphere was rushing out, taking anything unsecured with it. A batarian pushed a hatch open, causing the suction to grow more intense. When both crews opened fire, they found relief from the sucking, even if they had a new problem to worry about.

Gillian couldn't hear any gunfire thanks to the vaccuum, but the orders coming over the comm were clear.

That's not great, but it's a shit ton better. That's without me adding any details, too. ("Gillian saw a batarian grab a hatch in her peripheral vision. She braced herself, knowing that the suction was about to increase tenfold.") I actually considered a contest where we all take a shot at rewriting a section of Deception, but how would we judge? Anything any of us come up with would be better!

Sometimes the writing is just dumb for a fifth grade level book, much less one for adults:

Imagine yourself right now sitting in front of twenty-five kindergarteners reading that on cardboard pages. "That was very surprising, because McCann was dead!" you'd say in your best Mother Maggie voice, verbally inserting a comma where there was none.

Deception, by the way, got plenty of heat for the numerous typos within the book. I promise I'm not one of those "EVERYTHING MUST BE TYPED TO MY HIGH EXPECTATIONS" sorts you find on social media, the ones who get their panties in a wad over the Oxford comma, but there's some shit in this book that I learned not to do in the fourth grade:

1. And, Like, and Because do not start sentences.

2. I get that you can use sentence fragments sometimes, especially when you're a blogger with a smart mouth writing colloquially, but come the fuck on.

You Never Saw This Post!

So, the members of my household: me, Husbando~, Max the little striped kitty, and Chloe the little fuzzy kitty. That's everyone, right?

There is one last member of my house that you haven't met.

My bunny Pepper hates the living room. She's never seen any Mass Effect as a result, and has thusfar avoided being immortalized in MSPaint.

When I read Mass Effect media, I go into Pepper's room and I sit in a beanbag and read on my iPad.

Pepper loves this dearly, and comes and hops to me and reads with me.

So. When I was reading this piece of media, Pepper had opinions.

That story is 100% true. When Pepper started reading this particular novel with me, she got so mad that she stole my pencil, threw it across the room, then attempted to EAT MY MSPIXEL NOTEBOOK so that I couldn't bring you today's entry. Pepper cares for you all. She cares.

She is a fucking rabbit, you think about that. This shit is so shitty that a fucking rabbit took a stand. She knows shit. Rabbits eat their own shit, okay? That is a true fact. She is a shit connoisseur.

(Also she'll come if you call her Commander Peppard. She is the best rabbit.)

When you all figured out I was doing media, don't a single one of you lie to me: every one of you sat straight up in your chair and was like, "Oh, fuck me, she's going to do Deception." So yes, fuck it, merry fuckin'a, let's go, let's do Mass Effect Deception.

This bullshit was published on January 31, 2012. Since Drew Karpyshyn had left the project to pursue getting more Ys put in his name, William C. Dietz wrote this book. Mr. Dietz also wrote the Halo novels. The Halo novels are like Reason Prime as to why I'm not going to do Halo for MSPixel. At least for a while.

Anyway, I think Bioware described Mass Effect over Google Hangouts to Dietz one evening, but there was probably some drinking and loud children and a mariachi band in the background, and the result is a novel that sort of resembles a horse anus spelunking adventure. This novel is so bad that Bioware actually declared it non-canonical. So SHHHSHSHSHSHHSHHH, this shit? Never happened! We weren't here!

Before we start, there's a ton of stuff in Deception that doesn't fit with canon. I could hit on every single point, but you'd get bored, and anyway, people much smarter than me have compiled everything into a lovely Google doc that I reccomend reading. Some stuff is small potatoes, I don't know that we all need to get mad about a krogan losing a knife fight. Some stuff is ... uh, we'll get to it.

Deception starts by Kai Leng traveling to the ancient city of Thandu on the batarian homeworld to buy an artifact that's seriously never mentioned again. There's a lot of this novel that's seriously never mentioned again. Remember while you're reading this that you're getting the version of Deception that I've had to cut and edit to make some damn sense.

Anyway, Anderson (who the novel describes as having "olive-colored skin," the weirdest description ever for a orange black dude) and Kahlee come to the council chambers to show off something they picked up in the last novel:

It's Paul Grayson's corpse! Anderson and Kahlee are just, like, dragging that shit around, I guess because they're totally gross? They're hoping to convince the council that the reapers are a'comin', and it works, because they decide that there's a non-zero chance that reapers might actually be somewhere in the galaxy.

Which, by the way, is the only piece of plot that Deception actually contributes to the Mass Effect canon. That's it. We're like 20 pages in and we can all go home now.

Real quick: do you remember at the end of Mass Effect 1, when Shepard could elect Udina or Anderson to the council? That choice hella fucks with the comics and novels. As far as the novels are concerned, Anderson is a councillor, but he rage quit back in Retribution. Deception, however, makes a big damn deal out of all the influence Anderson has as a councillor that he's not? Also, the novel refuses to mention Udina by name, since Udina is the councillor, since Anderson rage quit, except he didn't, so why is Udina not even not in this?

By the way, do you remember Nick? Of course you don't, no one remembers Nick, but Nick's back, and he's living with Anderson and Kahlee because _____. He wanders off, though, and Anderson and Kahlee freak out.

Hey, let's go check in on Gillian Grayson and Hendel. We last left them on the Idenna, a quarian ship, right? Hey, Gillian, how you doin'?

Oh, that's good, you guys! They cured autism! I guess the cure is horse anuses mass effects!

That was a major criticism of Deception at the time, that Gillian just sort of got over her autism. That ... doesn't ... you don't do that. But anyway, in the scope of the story, WOOO WE CURED IT WOOOOO~

The Idenna gets into a space fight with a slave ship called The Glory of Kar'Shan. The Idenna sends its battle krogans to fight (... not sure why quarians have krogans just, like, around?), captures The Glory of Kar'Shan, and takes all the slaves as prisoners. Among them is a fellow named McCann, who Gillian talks to.

McCann then recounts Retribution for Gillian, and says she could probably find Paul's killer on the Citadel, so she's like, "Rad, let's me and you and Hendel all go to the Citadel."

Meanwhile, Nick still isn't anywhere, so Anderson and Kahlee call his parents. If his parents are alive and well, why is Nick not living with them? Nick's parents are PISSED, and rightly so, because two assholes just lost their kid. They track Nick's omnitool to the morgue, but he's not there. I don't know, I guess Dietz just needed some suspense.

Anderson decides to dress up as a 'shady businessman' and wears a very flashy suit with a big fancy hat, and has Kahlee dress in a slinky outfit with a ton of gold jewelry.

...

... I, uh.

... Could we maybe not dress the black guy up as a pimp, complete with a ho? Please?

I'm not fucking drawing that.

Anyway, he goes to the shady parts of the Citadel, gets his ass beat, and decides that they'll just have to dress as another tremendous racial caricature to get what they need.

Meanwhile, Kai Leng decides that he needs to bug Anderson's apartment, so he busts in and does so. And then he ...

Welp.

Follow me for a moment, I'm going somewhere.

Sometimes for MSPixel, I'm a parodist. I take what I see and twist it and hope it makes you laugh. Sometimes I go through this series and annotate, sometimes I explain or clarify. What I'm saying is, I wear many hats, all of which are poorly drawn.

Sometimes I'm just a presenter, because there's just nothing more that I can say to make the story any funnier. This is one of those times.

This is what Kai Leng did while in Anderson's apartment.

That is the kitchen.

This is going where you think it is.

Kai Leng steals Anderson's cereal and pours himself a bowl, just for the sheer shit of it.

I thought people were fucking around when I first heard about this. ("I'm going to eat your cereal!" is a common taunt among Mass Effect nerds.) Then Husbando~ explained that no, Virginia, this shit was real, this shit was really really real, and I laughed for an hour.

Welp, they always after his Lucky Charms, I guess.

Fuck it. Gillian, McCann and Hendel land on the Citadel and run into Kahlee and Anderson, who all totally recognize each other, even though Anderson's never met Gillain, McCann or Hendel in his life. Kahlee catches Gillain up on Retribution again, and also none of them do anything towards finding Nick. I think somehow they decide he's in a capsule somewhere?

Gillian decides she needs to upgrade her biotics from a "level 3" to a "level 4." I think Mr. Dietz didn't understand a lot of shit what Bioware meant by L3 and L4 implants, so Deception uses a weird level nomenclature. Anyway, Gillain gets them upgraded and also doesn't dress like a pimp to do it. She pays for them in "beryllium slugs" because Bioware forgot to tell Dietz that the galaxy pays for shit in electronic credits.

Mr. Dietz then gets bored of McCann, so Kai Leng takes care of him.

No really, after having a meal that is a complete part of a balanced breakfast, Kai Leng likes to position corpses on toilets. If you ever do lose your mind and read Deception, skip around and read the parts with Kai Leng in them, because they're at least insane enough to be funny.

Next, Kai Leng walks into a bar and tells someone he needs to hire two "honzos." What the fuck is a honzo? I read that part like six times and I still have no idea what the fuck a honzo is. I thought maybe he meant "hanar," but he winds up with two humans. WHAT THE FUCK IS A HONZO.

So anyway, two characters just approach him cold, all honzo-like.

I have no idea why Ken, Ken Hobbs tickles me so.

Ken, Ken Hobbs is joined by Ree Nefari, who is black and has dreadlocks. I only mention this because I wanted my Shepard to be black and have dreadlocks, so she sets off my feelings of face maker regret.

Nefari busts Ken, Ken Hobbs in the shit, and Kai Leng decides she's totally cool and hires her. They break into this facility and steal Paul Grayson's nasty reaperized corpse. You guys, I've known blankets and stuffed bears that don't get dragged around as much as Paul Grayson's corpse. Anyway, Kai Leng leaves Ken, Ken Hobbs' body in a tank in the facility to suffocate and knifes Nefari in the parking lot because Dietz doesn't leave a character alive longer than ten pages if he doesn't have to.

We now cut to Aria, who's now in her mansion on Thessia --

... yeah, no, really. She's there for Liselle's funeral, but still, Aria on Thessia? Aria is the OMEGA QUEEN. Her whole story arc hinges on how dear Omega is to her, she doesn't just fucking summer on fucking Thessia much less bury her family there.

Anderson and Kahlee go to see the Salarian councillor. He explains that a C-SEC officer has been combing Anderson's apartment, because C-SEC officers are totally above the law and can do what they need to do given authorization from the council. (... what?)

This happened, Kai Leng sat around and ate fruit loops while watching Anderson fruit Kahlee's loop because even when Mass Effect is shitty and nonsensical, it's still Mass Effect, the horniest series ever.

Anyway, they decide to go to Omega to rescue Gillian and Nick.

They get on this little shuttle, and on the very next page they fuck, and it's such an abrupt change that I woke Husbando~ up laughing at it.

No really, and you know why they were fucking on their vessel? They were sitting close to each other. Would you not hate to see Anderson on a bus? Like, how do you function if sitting next to someone gets you that hot?

Meanwhile, Hendel has a major Thing, so a volus comes to get them.

I guess Kahlee is coo coo for cocoa puffs?

Holy shit I apologize, that's like the worst joke I've ever made.

I might hate this book.

They pull out, roll off, get dressed, and go find Hendel, who's gone batshit and beaten up a bunch of crew members because he's sad because Gillian ... went off on her own? I have no idea, Hendel was always carted as this really level-headed character who could handle shit, this scene is just bizarre. Kahlee offers him ice cream or some shit and he feels better.

There is much more Deception to do, I couldn't fit it all in one post.

NEXT TIME: Get your vases ready!