The Next Elder Scrolls Game (discussion)

Like many, many people, I’ve played a lot of Skyrim. And then watched as it got repackaged and released for various new consoles (next gen consoles, the Switch etc). And waited for the next Elder Scrolls game. And waited.

Skyrim came out in 2011 and there’s seemingly no prospect of the next Elder Scrolls game coming out this year, so it’ll probably be an eight year gap at best. Oblivion, the previous entry, came out in 2006/7 (latter year for the PS3).

I enjoyed both Oblivion and Skyrim a lot, but must admit I’m wondering if the next Elder Scrolls game will stand up against the competition. Videogame franchises can decline either due to making poor changes, or standing still whilst the industry moves past them.

Plenty of new RPGs have come out since Skyrim. Many of them have had a strong focus on your choices making significant changes to the world (in Skyrim, the only real choice is in the civil war, with the Dawnguard expansion choice of good/evil, although both choices have similar paths).

The Witcher 3 and Kingdom Come Deliverance are particularly good in this regard, as is Pillars of Eternity. When we look at the most recent Bethesda RPG (Fallout 4) I think it surprised on the upside when it came to companions, but there was, again, a lack of significant choice. Most quests were simply run on train tracks rather than presenting serious options that changed things in-game.

It is worth pointing out that there is no single way to make a good RPG. Games might emphasise realism/survival heavily, as per KCD, but The Witcher 3 takes a more traditional/softer/easier approach to this aspect. Both styles work perfectly well. However, the old style of quests, where almost all of them (including major storyline quests) have one outcome and no player input beyond jumping through hoops is beginning to feel as outdated as fetch quests.

A good example of how this could’ve been different in Skyrim would be the Thieves Guild. At no point can you destroy this, or report it to the authorities. You *can* do this with the Dark Brotherhood, although that isn’t flagged up so most people were never aware it was even a possibility. And the same opportunity (reporting werewolves to the authorities, for example) isn’t possible elsewhere either. You can’t side with the Thalmor, even if you’re a high elf.

Now, it might sound like I’m having a go at Skyrim. I have sunk a lot of time into it and really like the game. But if the next entry doesn’t make some changes it’ll suffer by way of comparison with recent RPG entries, many of which are really rather good.

I do have some optimism. The settlement system is overdone in Fallout 4, but the bones of the idea are sound. And imagine it in Elder Scrolls VI. It’d be building your own castles, and that sounds fantastic, if they take the good ideas from Fallout 4 and remove the repetition, giving us fewer but larger sites.

Likewise, the companions improved substantially from Skyrim to Fallout 4, from a huge number of people with little character to a smaller number who were much more individual and had more depth. Continuing that pattern for the next Elder Scrolls would be another good, and obvious, step.

However, the key for me is choice in quests. And not just X or Y which alters nothing (yes, Redguard woman in Whiterun, I’m talking about you), but a choice that makes a meaningful impact upon the world and/or my character. If I piss off a local lord, that should have consequences beyond a line of dialogue.

The next Elder Scrolls game will sell like hotcakes regardless of whether this change comes about. But in the long term, Bethesda can’t just rely on churning out the same game when we’re seeing others make more interesting RPGs that actually allow the player to make choices that affect their game.

Thaddeus

Thoughts on Babylon 5

On Pick (UK free-to-air channel 11), they often repeat sci-fi shows. I recently finished watching the full run of Babylon 5. And I’ve got to say, I thought it was pretty damned good. Despite being old enough to have once owned a walkman that only had three buttons (if you wanted to rewind you had to flip the cassette over and fast forward, then flip it back), I’d never seen Babylon 5 before, and it was interesting to see it a couple of decades after it aired.

Naturally, major spoilers abound in this discussion/review of the whole show.

Unlike most, maybe all, preceding sci-fi series, Babylon 5 was characterised by long-term story arcs and character development. Beginning with Jeffrey Sinclair (played by Michael O’Hare in series one, he had to leave due to sadly suffering from serious psychological problems) and then John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) the show followed the leader and crew of the space station Babylon 5 as it sought to be a meeting place for alien races and thereby foster peace.

Besides the senior staff (second-in-command Ivanova, security chief Garibaldi, Dr. Franklin), show regulars include the ambassadors of various races: Delenn, the wise Minbari representative; Londo, the dissatisfied Centauri who dreams of the glorious past; G’Kar, the Narn who (initially) delights in tweaking Londo’s nose; and the mysterious Kosh, the ambassador of the highly advanced Vorlons who never gives a straight answer to anything.

Over the first four series (of five) we see the preamble to and then break out of galactic scale warfare, with the lesser races being unwitting pawns in a proxy war of ultra-advanced races. This coincides with, and is related to, coups occurring on both Centauri Prime (where the emperor gets replaced with a Caligula-style lunatic), and Earth (where the president is replaced with a tyrant fond of secret police).

A feature of the show is the smart writing. One exchange early on, between Ivanova and Dr. Franklin, was very sharp. The doctor is forcing his colleagues to eat more healthily. Ivanova doesn’t want to gain weight and complains about becoming part of the ever-expanding Russian frontier, to which Dr. Franklin replies: “But you have such lovely borders.”

The writing quality isn’t limited to the comedy, which is present but to a lesser extent than, say, Stargate: SG-1 (rightly so, given the varying tone of the shows). There’s a fantastic scene in which Sheridan confronts Kosh, begging for help because the war’s going badly and his own government wants him dead, whilst Kosh led Sheridan into the war but appears to be doing little to help. What’s great is that the scene works perfectly in itself, but a short time later the meaning of it is turned on its head as both Sheridan and the audience realise that Kosh’s actions and words did not mean what we thought at the time, with tragic consequences. “You do not understand. But you will.”

The usurper who becomes Earth’s president institutes the Night Watch, a sort of delator/informant network. There’s a chilling line (“sedition comes in small packets as well as large ones”) when Zack Allan, a good guy who finds himself walking down a dark road, questions whether inconsequential things (people saying they dislike the president) really need to be reported. It’s the type of telling, and disturbing, political realism that helps make Babylon 5 great.

Walter Koenig, best known as Chekhov in Star Trek, recurs as the Psi Corps’ determined, self-interested and morally questionable Bester. Must admit he was a favourite mine, being dodgy as hell but smart too, so it was never quite clear whether he or the Babylon 5 staff, with whom he had a fractious relationship at best, would end up ahead. He also got to star in one episode which revolved around him and the Psi Corps, rather than the space station, and it helped give a new perspective to things.

Babylon 5 was one of (perhaps the) first sci-fi series to use CGI rather than models. Not unlike the videogame Vagrant Story (a pioneer of 3-D rather than pre-rendered backgrounds) this has led to the earlier series in particular sometimes looking rather dated. Later series and the specials, naturally, look a lot better.

A particularly strong episode was Intersections in Real Time, a late series 4 episode that is almost entirely devoted to scenes between Sheridan and his authoritarian interrogator, seeking to break Sheridan down and force or persuade him to confess. For his own good, you understand. It has 1984 vibes, and really works well laying down the hopelessness of the situation (and there’s a nice twist at the end too).

The fifth series is probably the weakest, but there is a good excuse for that. The show was meant to end after the fourth (which can be seen by the ending of that series), only to unexpectedly return with most of the long-running story arcs concluded. That said, the 18^th episode in particular is very good, in which the new war comes to a climax.

There was always a certain feeling of inevitable failure or doom about Babylon 5. Even in success. Sheridan wins the war but has his life expectancy severely curtailed. Londo becomes emperor, and finds himself little more than a slave. Ivanova is saved, but struggles to move on from the guilt.

Victory tinged with sadness, triumphalism curbed by the price paid, and the certain knowledge there’s more struggle to come in the future brings bitter sweet realism, and is, perhaps, why Babylon 5 at its best is fantastic.

Thaddeus

The Stargate Franchise: Universe

After the combined 15 series of SG-1 and Atlantis came something a little different. Universe features a small group, partly military, partly scientific, and partly wrong place/wrong time people, being hurled onto a ship far, far away from Earth and with no prospect of returning.

Immediate concerns are sustainable water/food supplies, ensuring the ship (Destiny) doesn’t fall to pieces and deciphering how the damned thing works. I really like the premise, and two of the leads (Rush, played brilliantly by Robert Carlyle, and Eli) gel very well together. I’m not normally a fan of everyman figures, but Eli (normal in character albeit mathematically genius) is great.

Most of the other characters were either ok or not of much interest, to be frank. There were some nice moments, such as coming at the friendzone from the other direction, when politician’s daughter Chloe essentially tells Eli there’s no chance of romance and doesn’t want him to see being a friend as a consolation prize or being second best, but on a persistent basis Rush and Eli were the two chaps I found intriguing.

However, there is a very big but. Two, in fact. The tone is grim and dark, which I like, but it absolutely doesn’t fit with the Stargate approach of all preceding series. There’s very little levity, and when O’Neill makes a guest appearance with his trademark humour, it grates against Universe’s dark and cynical tone.

The other problem is that of adversaries. Initially, there’s the problem of survival, and then an ongoing conflict between military and civilian personnel, and both are well done. Beyond this, there’s nothing to match the Goa’uld, replicators, Ori, or Wraith. A couple of persistent villain races (intelligent machines, and some aliens deliberately tracking the Destiny) are introduced, but neither are especially engaging.

There is the Lucian Alliance, a group of inter-galactic freebooters who cause trouble sometimes directly for the Destiny and sometimes on Earth, before a small number are incorporated into the crew. Individually these villainous groups aren’t bad, but they should be the garnish, not the main course. Nowhere is there a Baal being a smug jester, or Evil Carter outwitting everyone.

Viewership declined and the show was cancelled after two series. It did have a perfect ending, which leaves things open should anyone wish to resurrect the series. The central premise is great, as are the actors portraying Rush and Eli, but that isn’t enough, alas, to make Universe more than the third and least of the Stargate series.

I like grimdark things. But not everything has to be like that. SG-1 and Atlantis were fun, witty, and had great characters.

There’s been recent murmuring about a reboot or new series (although Stargate Origins hasn’t gone down too well, probably because fans wanted more than a few 10 minute episodes). I wouldn’t be surprised if Stargate returned. With a total of 17 series and over 300 episodes, there would certainly be interest. If it does, I hope they take their time with it, and get it right.

Thaddeus

Info-dumping, a few thoughts

When I did my first snapshots post (reviewing a small number of SFF samples) one thing that struck me was the varying approach taken by the authors when it comes to the problem of informing the reader about necessary backstory, without splurging information in a wall of text (info-dumping).

The background is, as the name suggests, just there as a backdrop for the action, it shouldn’t be the mainstay of the story. There’s only so much information people can, or want to, take on board at once. If you throw constant references to past events and new character names, keeping track becomes difficult. And reading for relaxation shouldn’t be about trying to remember a splurge of information.

There’s also a trade-off with pace. Beginnings can work whether fast or slow, but the more backstory you include the slower the pace. If you have a dramatic fight scene right at the start, and keep banging on about the past events of the protagonist, you slow down the action and rob it of urgency, making something that should be fast into something turgid.

Fantasy and sci-fi often have a lot of backstory and putting it into context (after all, there’s usually a whole new world to try and get across to the reader, although this should be done where it informs the story not to flood them with irrelevant information) without erecting a wall of info-dumping can be tricky. Character interaction can help. As well as fleshing out individuals, if someone’s mocked for a certain accent, you introduce [without it being clunky] the differing nations. Instead of writing ‘she was a man-hater’ you could have a woman mock a chap as a ‘fallopian-deprived ape’. If someone has long sleeves, they can dip in a drink or the sauce/gravy of their meal.

In short: show don’t tell, where possible.

That’s easier said than done, of course. [I’ll be doing more snapshot reviews in the future. At the moment, I’ve got books to read, so it’ll be a little while].

Thaddeus

The Stargate Franchise: Atlantis

The Stargate Franchise: SG-1

The start of Atlantis overlaps with the last few series of SG-1. A group of Earth’s top military and scientific minds are sent into another galaxy, into the lost city of Atlantis. It’s thought to be a fantastic hi-tech place, as it was built by the technologically advanced Ancients.

Almost immediately, problems start. As well as being a one-way trip (due to huge power requirements), Atlantis is underwater, the shield protecting it from flooding is failing, the military commander ends up dead, and his successor accidentally wakes up a far more advanced race from hibernation. To top things off, said race (the Wraiths) have a diet primarily consisting of humans. In short, it’s about as successful a start as a man attempting to impregnate a beehive.

After the initial woe is dealt with, the series settles down and is quite similar in nature to SG-1. There’s a four man team (Sheppard, McKay, Ford and Teyla) that swan off around the Pegasus Galaxy, trying to find allies against the Wraiths, recover technology and so forth. A nice addition is the discovery of Atlantis’ puddlejumpers, small space craft that can fit through the Stargate (especially useful for gates that are in space).

I do have a bit of a problem with the party. Ford is amongst the most boring of sci-fi characters (I’m glad the actor got to display a bit more range when Ford goes off the rails), and is duly replaced with Ronon. Ronon is a charismatic warrior, but there’s a bit of a lack of character development. His world has been destroyed so (excepting a couple of episodes where he encounters old acquaintances) there’s not the same level of interesting backstory we got with Teal’c.

This is the same for the first Pegasus resident companion, Teyla. She initially starts off with her people, they’re forced to evacuate to Atlantis, and then the two drift apart. Teyla does possess some vague psychic abilities to detect the Wraith, though.

Sheppard leads the team, and is a likeable character with a wry sense of humour. McKay is overloaded, I think. He’s not only the science guy, he’s also the chap who knows the most Ancient history, is the everyman (being far less gungho than others, and quite realistic in that respect), and has his own sarcastic sense of humour. Unlike the equal parts of the SG-1 team, it feels a bit imbalanced.

There are some interesting new takes on things, particularly two enclosed episodes. One features McKay trapped in a puddlejumper that’s halfway through an open gate. The gate automatically shuts down after about 38 minutes, and because the puddlejumper’s halfway through (and in space) that would mean he’d find himself floating in zero-G unless they can get him out. Another involves McKay becoming trapped with Carter (who commands the mission in the fourth series) and Doctor Keller in a confined room on an alien world (which sounds rather nice, to be honest), which featured a seriously tilting floor and was well carried by the three thespians who had almost the entire episode to themselves.

For much of the early days, the Wraith are treated as a kind of race threat, with no significant individuals. This changes later on with a couple of interesting characters (such as Tod), and I think that approach works better, as it allows for more nuanced episodes. Instead of simply being viewed as irredeemably evil, some level of trust can develop, which also allows for betrayal and uncertainty.

Atlantis is an enjoyable show, which ran for five series. Universe is the next and final Stargate TV programme (to date), which I’ll write about shortly.

Thaddeus

St George’s Day book suggestions

I hadn’t planned to write this, but was sufficiently aggravated by hearing some media clowns asking whether the English flag was racist I knocked it up quickly (speaking of which, best wishes to the Duchess of Cambridge, who is currently in labour).

Here are a quartet of biographies that cover from the 9^th century to the 14^th. They’re well worth checking out individually, and each offers great insight into both the individuals upon whom they’re focused as well as the state of England (which varies rather a lot).

Alfred the Great, by Justin Pollard

Depending how you count it, England has had kings for one a half millennia. Over a thousand years ago Alfred became the first, and only, man to be called the Great. Justin Pollard’s excellent biography paints a vivid picture of a king not easily pigeon-holed as either a warrior or a scholar, but who mixed the qualities and strengths of both. Not only that, Pollard manages to convey the strange, almost alien, realm over which Alfred reigns, including abandoned Roman cities and new innovations, such as Alfred’s burh system of defensive settlements. This is the only Anglo-Saxon era history I’ve read, but despite that I never felt lost, so it’s a great book for a first timer.

The Greatest Knight, by Thomas Asbridge

The Greatest Knight is about William Marshal, possibly the most important figure in English history that almost nobody has ever heard of. From childhood as a hostage, abandoned by his father to face probable death (which he only avoided by being so sweet and innocent the king couldn’t bring himself to kill the boy), through to tournaments and war in France, the Holy Land, England and Wales, William served numerous kings, from Henry II to John. Skilful in war, falsely accused of adultery with Young King Henry’s wife, taunted by the vindictive John, William Marshal had a hand in Magna Carta and, quite literally, saved England. A fascinating biography of the 12^th and 13^th century knight.

Edward I: A Great and Terrible King by Marc Morris

Edward I, a man so soft and fuzzy he’s been cited by George RR Martin as the inspiration for Tywin Lannister, grew up in the 13^th century during the reign of his loving but weak father, Henry III. A fearsome warrior, he imposed his will on England, strengthening the kingdom and conquering Wales (the castles he built remaining to this day). From the Holy Land to Scotland he fought, his reign marking a high point of royal power between the weakness of his father, and divisiveness of his son (with whom he had rather strained relations). In his latter days, his vigour was compromised and so too his judgement (his punitive approach to Wales was fair enough as it was they who dicked him about, whereas with Scotland the dickishness came from his own side [though Robert Bruce murdering a rival in a church was hardly gentlemanly conduct either]).

Edward III: The Perfect King, by Ian Mortimer

One of England’s greatest ever kings scarcely made it out of childhood. Kept as a virtual prisoner by the usurper of royal authority (but not title) Roger Mortimer, the teenage Edward was rescued by his friends in a daring infiltration by a castle’s secret passage. He rapidly grew into his new role as true king, executing Mortimer and embarking upon a series of wars to strengthen the kingdom. By keeping the Hundred Years’ War in France he protected the English from its worst effects, the huge victories at Crecy and Poitiers occurring in his reign (Poitiers under the command of the Black Prince, his eldest son). Edward also consulted Parliament more frequently than any predecessor, gaining popular support for his decisions and financial backing for his actions. During his reign England suffered the Black Death, and his own son pre-deceased him (due to a different illness). In all, he reigned for half of the 14^th century.

There you are, a quartet of fantastic historical biographies for those interested in learning more about English history. Happy St George’s Day.

Thaddeus

The Stargate Franchise: SG-1

The Stargate Franchise: Atlantis

The Stargate Franchise: Universe

A look at the Stargate TV franchise, beginning with Stargate: SG-1. Spoilers for the series and the preceding film follow.

Stargate began as a film in which the US military send a few chaps through the eponymous gate (think magic galactic doorway). They stumble upon a world akin to Ancient Egypt, ruled over by a tyrannical, parasitical alien. Plot happens, and one nuke later the good guys win.

Stargate: SG-1 begins with the Stargate mothballed. But then, a bad guy very similar in appearance to the film’s antagonist comes through, shoots up the handful of soldiers guarding it, and abducts a lady soldier. Cue the heroic(ish) attempted rescue, spearheaded by the SG-1 team. After the two-parter first story, the series gets into its stride, with a mix of monster-of-the-week shenanigans and longer plot arcs involving persistent villains (and allies).

The best thing about this very good show is the perfect balance of the main cast. Not only are O’Neill, Daniel Jackson, Carter and Teal’c all interesting and likeable (there is no Wesley Crusher in the Stargate universe), they all have the right mix of abilities and perspectives that brings some natural conflict on occasion, and leads to everyone having value, bringing something to the table.

The show also has a knowing sense of humour (“Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up.”), which is usually a nice addition and occasionally dominates an episode (the 100^th and 200^th in particular, as well as Window of Opportunity, in which O’Neill and Teal’c take advantage of a Groundhog Day situation to do what they like without having to face the consequences).

The Egyptian (mostly) background to villains (the Goa’uld) works well because it’s exotic enough to be interesting whilst still being somewhat familiar. Ruthless, arrogant, with a penchant for slavery, melodrama and megalomania, the Goa’uld have enough individual character for favourites to emerge (the relatively nice Lord Wu, or Baal). Their arrogance and ambition leads to petty infighting which has implications for the plot and means, early on when they’re hugely outmatched, the SG-1 team can play their powerful enemies off against one another.

In the last two series O’Neill is gone and two new characters, Colonel Cameron Mitchell and Vala, join the team. Vala is the first major character who’s mostly there for comic rather than plot reasons (the latter does change a bit later on). Not quite as good as the original lineup, and fans of Farscape might find it odd seeing Ben Browder be serious business and Claudia Black be silly and light-hearted, but it still works.

The final two series also sees a new enemy. The Ori are a race of evil ascended aliens, the opposite of the good but non-interventionist Ancients. They’re followed by a cult of religious zealots whose worship (in a bit of a cliché) empowers them further, and the Priors, priests endowed with immense power by the Ori in return for blind obedience and spreading their religion.

After the charismatic, if dictatorial, Goa’uld, the Ori are an interesting change of pace. It’s more about fighting an invidious ideology than a specific individual (mostly), which is especially tricky when the Priors do things like infect a world with plague that they’ll only cure if the inhabitants all worship the Ori.

Early on in the ninth series there’s a very well-written public debate between Daniel Jackson and a Prior, both trying to persuade a primitive people to either shun or follow the way of Origin (the Ori religion). The persuasive argument the Prior presents is compelling, and you can see why people would adopt such a belief (and for those who don’t, the threat of annihilation works pretty well).

There are two films that followed the tenth and final series, which saw the show cancelled (and kudos for the writers to put together a good final episode despite that limitation). Ark of Truth resolves the Ori storyline, and Continuum features Baal, one of the most popular Goa’uld, using stolen time travel technology to make himself ruler of the galaxy.

Overall, the excellent cast balance and knowing sense of humour make Stargate: SG-1 one of my favourite sci-fi series, perhaps *the* favourite. It could’ve gone on for longer, and it’s not surprising it spawned two more series (Atlantis and Universe). I’ll write about them soon.

Thaddeus

Three guides to the medieval mindset

Whether reading a fantasy with an emphasis on realism, or simply seeking to understand the way people thought in the past, these three books offer a great guide to political, military, and everyday thinking.

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

Strictly speaking more Renaissance than medieval, the archetypal politician’s handbook is still relevant to both the modern and medieval worlds. Machiavelli’s work, which includes many historical examples (frequently classical but also more recent), is a masterpiece on human psychology and the realities of power. It reached an infamous status in the past due to its chapters regarding when it’s appropriate for leaders to lie to their people, and why it’s better to be feared than loved.

The Prince offers little in the way of rhetorical flimflam, and offers the unvarnished (and sometimes uncomfortable) truth about why those in power act the way they do. It’s a great book to read in itself, and excellent as a guide for how leaders think and act (in both governance and military spheres), particularly before democracy became quite so popular.

[As an aside, those into audiobooks may wish to check out the edition narrated by Ian Richardson. It’s like having Francis Urquhart give you lessons in political cunning].

By Sword and Fire, by Sean McGlynn

Getting the balance right when it comes to mercy and brutality in medieval warfare can be very difficult, as the way of thinking in those days is so different to modern morality. By Sword and Fire does a great job of putting the rationale in context, and explaining why certain actions that today would be universally condemned (Richard the Lionheart and Saladin executing prisoners in the Holy Land) made sense at the time, without imposing modern norms on the medieval world.

As you might expect, it’s a grim book, so those who are easily upset by such things shouldn’t read it. However, I found it invaluable as a resource to understand how mercy and brutality could be justified (and advantageous for the commander) in a medieval setting.

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer

This is an absolutely fantastic read that puts the reader in the shoes of a 14^th century fellow. It’s a sort of everyman’s history, looking at the food people ate, the way they travelled, what they wore, how justice worked, and so on. For everyday details it’s utterly invaluable and packed with interesting snippets of information (one of the best is that monks had a rule preventing them eating meat in the refectory, leading them to invent a secondary dining room called the misericord, in which they did eat meat).

Being roughly situated in the 14^th century, the book includes information about what it’s like when harvests fail, or plague strikes. It is very much about people and the world in which they lived, and is of great use in trying to see things from the perspective of an ordinary sort of fellow.

[Equivalent editions are available by the same author for Elizabethan England, and Restoration Britain, the latter of which I’m currently reading and will review].

These three books collectively offer fantastic insight into the way power politics, military morality, and the everyday world operated in the medieval age. If you’re planning on writing something set in an approximately medieval setting, or simply find the history interesting, I can highly recommend all three.

Thaddeus

The Mass Effect of social media

We do things to ourselves we would never tolerate being imposed on us by others.

In 1984, the famous dystopian sci-fi novel, the Party has a television in every home. It’s two way, recording everything that is said, watching everything that is done. It’s always connected to some far off, unseen Party official, and able to chastise a citizen who is not keeping up with the Party’s official fitness programme (for example). But it doesn’t laugh like a witch, to be fair.

[Spoilers for the first three Mass Effect games follow].

The Mass Effect Trilogy* is a fantastic set of sci-fi games set a few hundred years in the future. Humanity has risen to the stars, and encountered numerous alien races. In this galaxy, the equivalent of a Galactic UN resides upon the Citadel, a space station discovered long ago (having been mysteriously abandoned). The Citadel sits at the heart of a Mass relay network, each Mass relay enabling immensely fast travel between two points.

It’s a trap. The discovery of the Mass relay network dissuades advanced races from developing their own faster than light capabilities, because they already have a system that works perfectly well. The Citadel space station being at the centre of the network, as well as being very sizeable and perfect for settlement, naturally makes it the seat of an inter-governmental organisation.

Advanced races are unwittingly funnelled into a pre-determined course of action. They’re surrendering their freedom to choose their own fate and develop in their own way because of the gifts they’ve been given, without realising there’s even a giver.

In the vast chasm between galaxies, a race of sentient machines known as the Reapers live. Once every age, they return to devastate the advanced races of the galaxy before they reach a stage where they might be a threat to the Reapers. The Citadel can be remotely controlled by the Reapers, and used to destroy the seat of galactic government. Lack of stand-alone faster-than-light travel capabilities means civilisations develop along the Mass relay network and can be readily obliterated. The path of civilisation occurs along lines laid down ages ago, in a repeated cycle of growth and destruction.

The funnelling effect (although, happily, not the mass extinction at the hands of heartless sentient machines) is something we’re seeing now in social media. The internet is becoming more and more consolidated, certainly in social media terms, in the hands of fewer and more powerful firms. Algorithms are used to massage/manipulate what stories get more coverage. Users can be shadowbanned so their messages don’t show up, without even realising it.

We’re collectively empowering these social media firms and limiting our own freedom to discover news free from the filter that such sites (must necessarily) impose. This is, perhaps, to be expected. Human history has seen a shift throughout the ages whereby the many villagers migrate to the few cities. There are advantages in scale to being a member of a large, rather than a small, community (just ask on Twitter if someone knows something, and you’ve got a decent chance of getting the answer).

But with social media there is also a significant downside. Such sites must have the right and ability to expel those who are troublesome. They are not free from laws forbidding, for example, the sharing of state secrets. And that requires punitive action to be taken. The problem is that, because they’re social media, this can extend to silencing the troublesome who have unorthodox/challenging opinions. Deciding where to draw the line in such cases is not easy. But drawing it wrong can stifle debate, even if said social media firm has no agenda of its own (and some clearly do).

You cannot like a comment if you never see it. And if the algorithm decides an unorthodox opinion is wrong and harmful, see it you shall not.

Social media is incredibly useful, and it’s here to stay. But I would strongly advocate not relying solely upon it (particularly a single firm) for news. Because doing so is to put blinkers on yourself, not even knowing what the filters are preventing you from seeing.

Thaddeus

*There is a fourth game, which I haven’t played, and the first three do form a single overarching story.