Mass Effect: Glorious Shotgun Princess (ME/Exalted)

A part of me is curious as to how that ended... Because on one hand, we have Athame, who according to Gregg was 3000 years old. An Elder, a VERY powerful Exalt, probably somewhere around Essence 8 to even 10, a being whom the primitive asari called a god, and weren't exactly incorrect in the name.

On the other side, we have Javik. Tough, yes, but he's also new. A rookie Exalt, literally freshly Exalted. Essence 2, Essence 3 tops. Inexperienced.

And yet in my mind I wouldn't be surprised if Javik won.

Here's an idea, one of the.... other exalted was an uplifted Salarian or something, and that's the reason Javik has such disdain for them...

"They licked their eyes."

You mean;

"Dey yooze to eat fliez."

Or Javik's just an elitist cock.

Well, humans used to use feces as weapons...

Sadly, no. The other Exalted were Janiri and Lucen. Javik explicitely says that he and Athame are now the only protheans left on Thessia, so the other two in Athame's circle with both Prothean. Given, both were considerably younger and crazier than Athame. For all his mad science and depravity, Athame was either sane, or had parallaxed from insanity into a bastardry sanity.

So, not so much insane as far too sane. Good to know.

There's a Terry Pratchett line in there... Thief of Time I believe.

I see Athame as far too sane and outliving his own conscience. As Javik says, he was a great man who outlived his greatness.

"I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you... stranger."
- The Joker, The Dark Knight

"That which does not kill us, makes us stranger."
- Trevor Goodchild, Aeon Flux - "Thanatophobia"

Weird how both the anarchistic thug and the fascistic super-scientist agree that the world often succeeds in twisting you until even you can't recognize yourself.

In all fairness, the script writing for Joker in Dark Knight was basically taking Goodchild's lines from Aeon Flux, filing off the serial numbers, and hoping no one noticed.

Now I have this thought of Kasumi as Aeon...

I guess this adds to the mystique of Javik calling everyone primitive?

That which does not kill you makes you weirder.

After the nth failed assassination, it will become second nature to pre-emptively unload your grenade launcher at the glint of a distant scope - even if turns out someone just enjoying the view with binoculars.

After the xth attempt to car bomb you, you'll always just end up hijacking a random car in traffic, then drop out in mid drive to steal another, just to make sure.

After the yth attempt to poison you, you'll employ a legion of food tasters - while disguising yourself as your own cook, and cooking your own meals.

After the zth attempt to blow up your spaceship, you will develop a shoot first, ask questions to the charred remains later attitude.

And through all of it, you will survive.

But it will make people think you are a hyperviolent paranoid maniac with trust issues.

You mean this guy?

After the 63rd time the party rogue searches for traps on the door and floor, only to set off a trap in the wall, he starts taking cover after declaring "There are no traps, I rolled a twenty!"

(I am the rogue of my party. I once searched the floor of a hallway, identified a pit trap. the fighter tries to jump over it, and hits the steel wire halfway across.

I then search the door at the end of the hall for traps, nothing. The other fighter opens the door and steps inside, setting off a rolling log trap when he entered the square behind the door.

The logs knock 3 characters into the pit trap, and roll over the pit to pin two more against the wall, covering the pit. I had climbed above the door, so the logs missed me.

I was made to open every other door we encountered that session.)

And that's why you should be immediatly suspicious when your DM says. "You dont find any traps on the floor."

Heh-heh. "It looks clear."

Note that there's nothing that requires an Exalt to be combat-ready. The current generation of Exalted in Creation are probably dangerous in a way that hasn't been seen since the Primordial War, because of the harsh Darwinian pressure of the Wyld Hunt and the Second Age. This wasn't true for the Deliberative-era Solars; they were soft compared to both the PW and the Second Age ones, because they didn't have the pressure of "you will learn to fight at least enough to run away, or you will die". They weren't like the PW veterans, like Merela and Gold-Shadowed Arrow, who learned the art of paranoia combat from first principles fighting against deva and Primordial Races, nor like the modern ones who get hunted like dogs by Dragonblooded. And when they did, they were taught Charms by trainers, rather than internalising the basic precepts that "everything that extends your survivability is a good thing because in a fight, if you die you lose"

Especially since those two Exalts mentioned haven't had to fight a single other Exalt, since they've all been on the same side, and one is soft and drugged out of his mind, while the other no doubt had lots and lots of social and Investigation Charms for being a judge, and possibly never had to fight a armed-to-the-teeth combat-specced heroic mortal who's cheating like fuck.

Technically it wasn't Javik who killed Lucen. He just shot out Lucen's knees, headshot his brainwashed army, broke his spin and then cut out his tongue so Lucen couldn't use his social charms on him.

It was the Asari who then beat him to dead.

And now the reincarnation of said Goddess is very friendly with Liara...
will shepard be acknowledged as divine once it comes to light?

Javik sniped Lucen's entire army?!

Goddamn, Garrus has got nothin' on Javik.

It's impressive how much those last two or so health levels take to be ticked, eh?
That said, things really conspired in Javik's favor if he beat three exalts like that. He probably planned most of it too. Did he nuke anything from orbit?

It helped that said army was basically Lucen's puppets. Once Lucen was down with two nonexistant kneecaps, it was just pop pop pop.

So, bottom line is that you can kill an Exlated quite effectively if they are not paranoid enough or use mooks with sniper riffles to fire in succession and deplete his motes to nil as he each time has to re-activate 'Absolute Defense' protection?

Do you think there was Sid involvement?

Canonically, the asari have the best technology in the galaxy because they extract advanced technology from the beacon in the Temple of Athame and release it a bit at a time, maintaining their edge over the millennia. Even STG never discovered the secret of the Temple of Athame - because, or perhaps even despite it having the most advanced security on Thessia(think titanium safe with a retinal scanner labeled "family photos"). Was Athame a sane enough mad scientist that he kept an uber-library filled with the sum total of Prothean knowledge, and documented every single step of every single experiment he ever performed?

Cave Johnson: They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants. Not here. At Aperture, we do all our science from scratch. No hand holding.