. It is a self-insert story, with the main character being transported to the world of Mass Effect to a point a few years before the events of Mass Effect 1.The story follows events on Illium as the protagonist, Cieran Kean, is forced to dive headfirst into his new environment. He is aware of the events to come, but is unable to do anything about them, as he is forced to contend with new enemies and would-be allies. To make matters worse, the method of his transportation to the alternate universe raises questions about who orchestrated it and why.
Has been removed from the internet, is being replaced by an original version; The Lost Knight
Another Realm contains examples of
- Abnormal Ammo: Cieran favours a tech mine-launcher alongside an SMG
- Abusive Parents: Nynsi's parents.
- Cieran's birth mother may also qualify after her reveal in Einherjar.
- Action Girl: Most of the women/asari introduced.
- Alternate Continuity: Played relatively straight in terms of the Terminus systems from the start. While things initially seem to follow canon in terms of Shepard's journey/Council space, Aethyta's interference at Noveria causes massive changes to begin unfolding.
- The Rachni queen escapes when Aethyta attempts to take out Benezia, Sovereign is badly damaged when it is forced to arrive to extract Saren, preventing anyone from finding the Mu Relay for nearly two years.
- Aria makes an attempt to secure Ilos and its Prothean technology by following the Geth that move to secure it, only to find that the system is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of destroyed Reapers.
- Amazonian Beauty: Illyan's impressive height and musculature is commented on more than once.
- Anyone Can Die: The list of introduced characters that are now deceased is nearly as long as the list of those who are still alive.
- Babies Make Everything Better: In a time of despair following Cieran's exile, Ghai announces she is pregnant with Trena's baby and things become a little better for the group.
- Arch-Enemy: What Krom wants to be to Cieran, to the point of killing Rane'li just to make sure that Cieran reciprocates the opinion.
- Battle Couple: Many.
- Trena and Ghai
- Idas and Faras Kithan
- Cieran and Nynsi in Arrival and Terminus.
- Terminus sees the beginning of Cieran and Rane'li as this, culminated in Ronin.
- In Einherjar Cieran and Illyan become this for a short while, as well as Shyeel and Voya
- Chevalier has Cieran and Voya become this.
- Beard of Evil: Inverted with Cieran
- Bilingual Bonus: The ninth and final story of the series is titled "Götterdämmerung", meaning in Norse mythology "Twilight of the Gods" as part of Ragnarök, a prophesised war among various gods and beings that results in the burning of the world and the birth of a new one.
- Big Damn Heroes: The final scene of Vengeance as Cieran and the remains of his group decide to risk it all and attack a bunker to end their campaign on Redcliffe, thus more or less saving the day for the forces of Warlord T'Ravt. Despite their unit being mauled, despite a lack of support, and in the face of overwhelming opposition.
- By-the-Book Cop: Pretty much most of I-Sec, holding Cieran and others after incidents as appropriate and chasing up leads. Averted later when things get rough.
- Character Development: Cieran, going from someone who had a mild break down at his first kill, to becoming a minor warlord running a PMC out of Omega. Also described as character degradation by some reviewers.
- Combat Pragmatist: Cieran's idea of sparring with his girlfriend includes tricking her into turning around and then shooting her in the back with his training pistol.
- Co-Dragons: Trena and Cieran to Nynsi in Terminus
- Covered with Scars: By the time of Chevalier, most of Cieran's torso is covered in biotic burns, gunshot marks, cuts from where his own equipment tore into him, and more.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Trena. All the time.
- Crapsack World: Just when things start to get better, it goes pear-shaped.
- Dwindling Party: Rane'li's squad is slowly dropping during the fighting on Korlus in Terminus
- Early-Bird Cameo: Jona Sederis, Aethyta, Spectre Tela Vasir, and Zaeed Massani have all made appearances long before the first game even begins.
- The Blood Pack and a variety of Terminus warlords in Vengeance.
- Every Scar Has a Story:
- Cieran's mess of scars.
- Shyeel T'Voth has most of her right face covered in a scarred brand thanks her former Batarian employer.
- Voya'chi vas Xentha has a ragged line across her throat.
- Ghai has a similar burn line across her own vocal cords.
- Evil Gloating: Ullik. Instead of simply drugging Cieran, he wastes time bragging about his superiority which leads directly to his death. Zero-One in Venegance. It ended poorly
- Evil Power Vacuum: Illium after the events of Arrival fit
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Cieran nearly kills General Petrovsky after the attack on Benihi in Einherjar, signalling the end of their very short alliance with Cerberus.
- The Exile:Nynsi declares Cieran Reyja'krem (the Batarian term for exile) at the end of the third act of Terminus, he is stripped of his title as Harath'krem, possessions and anything else belonging to the Shaayak family.
- Fantastic Caste System: Traditional Batarian culture mixes both castes (Warriors, Merchants, Artisans, Scientists, Laborers), with a ranking system (lowborn, midcaste, highborn). The former is determined at roughly high school age via aptitude testing, the latter is determined by parentage.
- Fantastic Racism: Crops up from time to time, primarily between humans and batarians.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Cieran adjusts relatively well thanks to landing a similar job, but is still a bit lost as the events he knows are still years off.
- Good Is Not Nice: Pretty much all of Cieran's new associates to some degree, except the younger or lower ranked ones.
- Good-Guy Bar: Aethyta's place in Arrival until a firefight where it basically gets destroyed
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Cieran's close combat style was originally a mix of Batarian boxing and folkstyle wrestling, but combat experience has seen him focus the style on fast attacks all aimed to kill or disable the opponent as soon as practicable.
- Guns Akimbo: Nynsi Shaaryak prefers a pair of pistols, but is a Type 3 in that she has yet to use them both at the same time.
- Hidden Depths: Cieran arrives in the Mass Effect universe seemingly without much to hold him over, but quickly adapts to the situation. Also applies to his personal relationships with alien characters, given the difficulties due to galactic politics and stereotypes.
- Humanoid Abomination: Krom.
- Ignored Enamored Underling: Subverted. Cieran is aware of how Rane'li feels about him, even if he has no idea how to shoot her down gently.
- Improvised Weapon: When Jack asks Cieran to train her, how to recognize and use these is one of the first lessons he gives her.
- Incompatible Orientation: Played with between Trena and Cieran, though the orientation issue is more a matter of species preference than gender.
- Inherent in the System: The Shaaryaks' status with the Batarian Hegemony traps them to a large extent, particularly Nynsi in Terminus.
- Insult of Endearment: Cieran and Trena refer to one another as Ape and Scales.
- Karmic Death: Both of Nynsi's parents, given the horrors they intended to inflict on both Cieran and their daughter.
- La Résistance: Subverted with the True Sons as while the claim is that they represent the non-asari of Illium, they are in fact puppets of the Blue Suns.
- Laser-Guided Karma: General Mascal's fate after betraying T'Ravt's forces, at the hands of Cieran.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Several reviewers have described Cieran and Trena as this.
- Love Triangle: Voya, Illyan and Cieran by the end of Vengeance, though the extent of their feelings remains unclear.
- Mob War: The Blue Suns and the Eclipse
- Mysterious Past: Several characters would very much rather not speak about their past Trena
- Mind Rape: How Cieran explains his supposed amnesia.
- Later in Arrival it is revealed that he actually does have the side-effects of being mentally assaulted by an asari. Which leads to more questions about just what happened to him.
- Einherjar and Chevalier reveal that the damage is far more extensive than originally thought, to the point where it is physically painful for asari to meld with him.
- Those Who Fight reveals some of the details about what happened to him and the other experiments. It is... less than pretty.
- Molotov Truck: Cieran and the other Blades routinely use this to kill bounty targets off-screen in 'Vengeance'
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Both played straight and inverted. It seems that no matter how much Cieran does to get clear of trouble, more shows up as a direct result. On the other hand, his treatment of Nynsi as more than just some stuck-up batarian noblewoman pays handsome dividends, while still landing him in more trouble.
- Official Couple: Trena and Ghai.
- Oh, Crap!: Cieran and Ghai's reaction to seeing Yi'ren in her military grade power armor.
- Offscreen Villainy: It is implied that Xerol Shaaryak didn't rise to his position on Illium by wholly legitimate means.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Jona Sederis, Matriarch Aethyta, Aria T'Loak, Ganar Yulaz
- Platonic Life-Partners: Trena and Cieran
- Power Armour:
- Cieran's modified construction exosuit
- Nynsi's Mother and her military-grade suit
- Private Military Contractors: Numerous
- The Eclipse, Blood Pack, Blue Suns, Scarlet Tears Defense, Silver Blade Corporation, and The Blade-Wind... just to name a few.
- Professional Killer: Many
- Cieran and his comrades got in plenty of bounty hunting during the wars.
- The asari commandos under the command of the Shaaryaks, Ghai in particular.
- Punched Across the Room: Krogan, especially krogan biotics, tend to do this to anyone they hit. Broken bones and a concussion are typically a best case scenario for the person hit. Cieran requires cybernetic repairs and sub-dermal armor to keep his ribs together after his fight with Ganar Yulaz where he was seriously struck once.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Xerol Shaaryak to the extent that he doesn't have the human killed out of hand when the issue with Nynsi is revealed, despite the animosity between humans and batarians.
- Rescue Arc: The first act of Terminus and act three of Einherjar
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: No one is particularly upset when Ghai executes Nynsi's butler for passing information to her parents.
- Rising Empire: T'Ravt's domain in the Terminus.
- Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: The Blue Suns and the Shaaryaks, as neither are "native" from the perspective of the asari of Illium and both have little hesitation in turning to violence to resolve matters.
- Self-Insert Fic: Sort of.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran:
- Cieran. As of part IV he can't sleep unless exhausted or drugged himself senseless. He also becomes more and more used to killing.
- Voya. She was a trophy-taker, who are not known to be nice people to begin with. After she was enslaved and raped she became a vicious bitch prone to fits on a anger on trigger-phrases, general asshole, and a sadist-slash-maniac.
- Sociopathic Hero: Numerous... it is the Terminus.
- Voya, full stop. She mostly lashes out against acceptable targets, but when she does she goes with excessive levels of cruelty.
- Jona Sederis of all people. She is a cruel sociopathic psycho that is barely functional thanks to healthy dose of medication, but she wants the galactic civilization to continue existing, even if it is only because she wants to continue exist herself.
- Statuesque Stunner: How Cieran views Nynsi Shaaryak, later Illyan T'Donna.
- Switching P.O.V.: Most of the story is told from Cieran Kean's point of view, but occasionally other characters have chapters, or 'post-chapter' short sections from their own perspective. A label at the start of a chapter or after a linebreak is used to indicate who's perspective is being used. For example, Trena T'Laria's POV label is 'Scaled Perspective', where Voya'chi vas Xentha's is 'Silent Witness'.
- Taking the Bullet: Cieran, repeatedly and intentionally, as he is often the best protected person in any fight due to his power armour.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- In Vengeance, played straight in the early parts of Cieran's team working with new groups for collective security against Hegemony extremists and factions of the asari Republics, including people like Jack. Eventually taken up to eleven as the team meets Mirala, AKA Morinth... who is eventually brought into the group as a member.
- Also applies to his relationship with Jona Sederis and the Eclipse throughout the earlier parts of the work. He becomes used to working with them, and even fond of few members of the group.
- The Chosen One:
- Korolev, according to the Matriarch after whittling down The Chosen Many. However, there appears to be a change of mind in Vengeance as the Matriarch attempts to reclaim Cieran, thus proving that It Sucks to Be the Chosen One.
- Also Shepard. Obviously.
- The City: Nos Astra on Illium, for Arrival at least.
- [spoiler:Later Illium Minor, a small district on Omega.]]
- The Engineer: Cieran's main focus thanks to working with Trena
- The Dragon: Given the nature of the stories, quite a few.
- Ghai to Xerol Shaaryak in Arrival
- Cieran to Nynsi Shaaryak until Ronin
- Ceiran to Ayle in Venegance and Einherjar
- The Spy Master: Matriarch Aethyta
- The Syndicate:
- The Shaaryaks and their business interests.
- The Eclipse and seemingly the entirety of Illium's underground bar the True Sons.
- Villainous Rescue: The Eclipse when their interests and those of the Shaaryak family align
- What the Hell, Hero?: Nikita Korolev and Liara both explode on Garrus when they find out what he's been up to on Omega
- Wicked Cultured
- Warlord T'Ravt has sponsored numerous raids, is involved in various morally questionable practices. She also enjoys complex mind games, likes to wear sophisticaded clothes and generally emulates an image of a proper warrior queen.
- Kai Leng. He got very little screen time, but was polite (even if he was ordered to) and professional all the time.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Cieran and Illyan, Cieran and Voya, possibly Voya and Illyan given their bickering closeness.
- Resolved between Cieran and Illyan in Einherjar.
- Cieran, Trena and Ghai play with this.
- Completely averted with Cieran and Amy Chang.
- Unwitting Test Subject: The Matriarch admitted that Cieran was brought to the ME universe to prove that it could be done, but refused to go into any more details.
- War Is Hell. Thanks to the ME verse prosthetic technology and generally advanced medicine the medical part is relatively clean, but other than that? Shell-Shocked Veteran, numerous corpses, pain and suffering are all presented in abundance.
- Wrench Wench: Trena T'laria, to a lesser extent Illyan
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Nynsi's parents to her, to varying degrees during their final battles
