Since the bit about establishing a trade route with the Milky Way being the ultimate goal of the Andromeda Initiative has been deleted three times now, I feel like I need to put this here for posterity. The source is from the Andromeda Initiative site
, the first video, the first note:
"Founded in 2176 and launched in 2185, the Andromeda Initiative is a civilian, multi-species project created to send scientists, explorers and colonists on a one-way trip to settle in the Andromeda Galaxy. With powerful benefactors lending their support, the program has grown substantially in scope since its inception. The Initiative’s ultimate goal is to establish a permanent presence on the seemingly resource-rich frontier of Andromeda, and eventually create a reliable route between it and the Milky Way Galaxy."
I doubt it'll be important in the actual game, since it looks like the colonists will be far more concerned with survival than anything else. But it is still canon.
So. Looks like BioWare handled the multiple endings by avoiding them entirely. So what trope would this go under? It's not Cutting Off the Branches, because they're not declaring one ending canon, just sidestepping the issue entirely. Merging the Branches doesn't fit either. Any ideas?
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Would that be a Third-Option Adaptation? Other examples in it currently have V Gs and their sequels.
It's not quite an adaptation though, either.
I think it's Cutting Off the Branches, just to an extreme. It's the same spirit of the trope, but just taken to a level that whoever wrote the description never thought of. Rather than the devs picking ONE ending to make canon, they simply picked ZERO.
But they're not really Cutting Off the Branches. It's not that they're declaring the ending of ME 3 non-canon, they're just ignoring it all together. Cutting Off the Branches would be if they made a new ending canon – for example, a race from Andromeda randomly appeared at the last second and killed all the Reapers.
I honestly don't feel that it matters. "Ignoring" an ending with that sort of impact on the lore pretty much is making it non-canon. Like, for example, the Synthesis ending alone. Remember how everyone had glowing eyes and Tron Lines? And how EDI was boasting about how machines were "alive" and how everyone was practically on the cusp of ascending to levels undreamt of?
If we're just back to regular old humans and asari, that's a "branch" cut off right there.
See, the thing is they're not ignoring it in the way you're thinking of. The Arks left the Milky Way before ME3 ended. So, from their perspective, anything at all could have happened.
It's not that the developers are acknowledging an ending and then ignoring it. They're simply not addressing the issue, because no matter what happened at the end of 3, it is literally impossible for there to be any effect on Andromeda.
Here's an analogy: imagine a game where you play as a soldier from WWII. Right before D-Day you are transported to another planet. So D-Day still happened, but you have no way of knowing the outcome, and that outcome has no way of affecting you. It's not that the developers are "ignoring" any specific ending, it's just that for the purposes of Andromeda (and from the perspectives of its characters) it literally doesn't matter at all what happened at the end of the 3.
Edited by Epicazeroth
Soft Reboot then. Past continuity happened, but it absolutely doesn't matter for the sequel.
Thing is, I think that trope is still in YKTTW, and already has this as an example..
Edited by NubianSatyress
As I said, Third-Option Adaptation has been applied to things that are not adaptions. Specifically (and relevantly) video games and their sequels. If that is the incorrect way to apply it, that page needs to be cleaned up.
Should we really be adding stuff from the leak? For one thing, it's not really confirmed, even though it's probably legit. And for another, well, this is BioWare. It wouldn't be the first time they've planned for things only to go in a drastically different direction by the time the game launches.
re: Karma Houdini Not sure that Spender belongs here. It's pretty heavily implied that exiling Spender amounts to signing his death warrant, since the other Exiles *hate* him, especially the krogan. The words 'head on a pike' are mentioned.
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