Undercover ASSignment Update (Patreon)

Hey guys, slowly starting to get better and getting back to a normal schedule. Worked a bit on that Cora animation, and I've been thinking about other supplementary animations I can work on while I'm doing the movie. I'm still struggling to think of good ideas for short loops. It's probably worth a post of its own, but I'm still playing around with some ideas, so I'll leave it at that for now. Mainly, I want to talk about the movie.

I've been slowly piecing together the details of the story. I want the story to be reasonably believable while working with Mass Effect's canon. Mass Effect's timeline is tricky though because everything goes by so fast. I could relate the movie to a generic Cerberus mission that happens to take place on Omega, and that would easily fit any time before ME2. The most prominent thing about Omega though would be the relation to the recovery of Shepard, the Collectors, and the Omega 4 Relay.

That story doesn't leave much room to work with because it's mostly covered in the comic with Liara before ME2. Miranda doesn't have a prominent role and doesn't really provide Liara with much info either. I think Miranda's role in the movie could work if it's set a little bit earlier.

It would bet set after Sovereign's defeat, but before the Normandy is actually destroyed. This could play into the Illusive man thinking multiple steps ahead. He's already anticipating the Collector's role in something before they act. Omega comes into play because of the relay. The mission itself would deal with gathering or stealing data on the relay transport habits for collector activity. I think this is a fairly solid idea that ties it to the main plot of the trilogy and doesn't conflict with any lore.

The part where Miranda ends up as a dancer for this mission is the part I'm not as sure about. I figure there's got to be some ports on the station that have travel logs for the system. Perhaps some merc group took control of it and the data, and Miranda needs to figure out their base of operations. They frequent After-Life, and the easiest way to set trackers is to get them out of their armor. Another possibility is that Miranda's mission will take time to complete and gather the data, so in order to blend in she has to take a job at After-Life. And yet another possibility is that Aria has the data and can easily give it to Cerberus, but only for a load of money that Miranda has to earn for her.

With the outline of the story, the scene builds shouldn't be too complicated. The main movie itself would still pretty much entirely take place in a VIP section of After-Life. I'll try to keep the atmosphere of the game, but I can still make it unique to work with the movie. The intro, should it get animated, would only need the Illusive man's room and some areas with After-Life.

I've gone through all the Mass Effect props available a few times now, and I think I can make some suitable scenes. I think there are still some other Mass Effect comics I need to read that take place around that time, but I think it should work. I don't think anyone would mind anyway as long as it doesn't conflict with what is in the games.

The plan from here is to hammer out the details for a definitive story. It may or may not end up animated as the intro, but it should help greatly with motivation. As well, I'll get the scenes built for After-Life so they recreate the atmosphere of the games.