History Fanfic / SpiritOfRedemption

* TruthSerums: Subverted. Prior to the series (actually, prior to MassEffect2), the location of the base where Archangel was hiding was discovered using Azure Dust on a already beaten up Lantar, which is a drug that has different effects on different species. In case of turians, it makes them extremely docile and suggestible.

* {{Adorkable}}: Lin is a history buff. Serana as well. [[spoiler: Their honeymoon is a tour of historic sites throghout the galaxy.]]

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: The council is portrayed this way. Shepard has become GenreSavvy enough to not even bother go to them if she doesn't have enough evidence that what she wants is for the best.

* NeverLiveItDown: InUniverse, Lin's knee. He does brake it twice onscreen but it never seem to hinder him any, but the Serana, Dara and Tel don't let him forget about it.

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Averted: Mordin, Dara and Narayana are shown to have knowledge way above what they should, but it's all on the same field.

* BadassGrandpa: Gavius

* EverythingIsBetterWithPrincesses: Kallixta.

* ChekhovsGun: Azure Dust's effect on rachni. This 'gun' collects a lot of dust, over 5 years to be exact, but when it fires it is a CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

* TheFaceless: The second generation of NCAI's avatars, before they are coaxed to present their self-images.

* IGotBigger: Eli grows from a scared, scrawny little twerp into a respectable young man throughout the story.

* ItsRainingMen: The Young Guns perform a Halo drop from 35000 feet to avoid detection from a facility.

* KarmicDeath: The SIU operatives that try to kill Eli and Lin with Vibroswords, are both skewered.

* SiliconBasedLife: Apparently, [[spoiler: the volus and a few others mentioned during the epilogue.]]

* SmarterThanYouLook: Fors was able to calculate down to a 1000 credits in margin of error, the numbers that would be necessary to [[spoiler:stage a coup on the Hegemony against a drown out campaign]] all in his head. While being treated for two broken legs. ''With data from the Extranet''.

* StarScraper: The buildings on the more populous centers around the galaxy tend to be several hundreds stories tall.
* StartXToStopX: The batarian Hegemony knows that there's a growing civil unrest inside the borders so, to not start a civil war, they start a war agaisnt the rest of the galaxy.

* StealthHiBye: Sam likes to pull this on his enemies, with the help of a stealth net. Serana, who trained with him and Kasumi, is very fond of her skillset as well, and is baffled when it doesn't seem to work on Eli.

* StudentAndMasterTeam: Dara and Shepard, Dara and Mordin

* TruthSerums: Subverted. Prior to the series (actually, prior to MassEffect2), the location of the base where Archangel was hiding was discovered using Azure Dust on a already beaten up Lantar, wich is a drug that has different effects on different species. In case of turians, it has the same effect as pot on humans.

* ArmorIsUseless: Zig-zagged; The armor the Young Guns start out with works as well as expected when it is 10-20 years old and comes face to face with modern high end weapons. However, when you take a vibro-sword to a rachni's natural armor, it will scratch it at best, and piss off the rachni at worst.

** Nala gets her upper eyes cut out for being suspected of reading a forbbiden book by batarian law.

* FacialDialogue: Subverted. People who aren't aware, think that two people staring at each other for longs periods of time changing expressions every now and then are talking this way, but they are actually talking telepatically using biotic powers.

** Siara gets to be on both ends of this trope. She dishes out on Dara and Eli at the start of the story, then suffers from this at the beggining of her stay on Tuchanka, before her CharacterDevelopment.

* FetchQuest: The mission on the Singing Planet starts as one of these basically. Finding a derelict rachni ship after 2000 years. ** The mission on the Hekate System during the war is basically this too, this time they need to find the [[spoiler:Lystheni base, that turns out to be a Collector Ship.]]

* FigureItOutYourself: The spectres' tryouts. They are told the objective of the exercise but not told on how or what they are been evaluated exactly.

* FireWaterJuxtaposition: Sky gives a imagery of a reactor burning and water cooling the reactor when he can't explain very well what's happening with [[spoiler:Rel and Dara's relantionship]] to the rest of the Spectres.
* [[FirstGirlWins First Love Interest Wins]]: [[spoiler:Dara and Eli.]] After more than 5 years of both of them making bad decisions.

* FormFittingWardrobe: Zasha, Serana and Dara during the bachelor party all used luge suits that leave little to the imagination.
* FreakOut: [[spoiler: Brennia's death is the point of both Lin and Eli's StartOfDarkness.]]

* FunctionalMagic: Biotics. Even more than on canon.
* GameBreaker: Joked with InUniverse. Everyone who sees Zasha using her shield for the first time tells her that it's almost like cheating.

* GentleGiant: Siege.
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: During the Terra Nova campaign a Tresher Maw attacks the Spectre convoy out of nowhere.

* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler:Joker uploads himself in to a prototype of the [[NighInvulnerability super tough]] [[EldritchAbomination ex BigBad Race]] to have a BigDamnHeroes moment leading to the CurbStompBattle with a surprising good guy bias]].
** The domination ardat-yakshi ability [[spoiler:that the Lystheni salarians spliced into some of their own genome.]]

* HealingFactor: Dempsey [[spoiler:and, later, Rel]] got a Krogan regeneration gene mod. [[spoiler: Zhasa got Prothean Nanites and Dara got rachni regeneration]]. To say nothing of the Krogan characters.
* TheHeavy: Several dependent mostly on the story arc. Arvak N'Mod during Victory is the most stand out example.
* HeelFaceTurn: Seheve. [[spoiler: Several captured batarian prisoners including people from SIU, and a female Yahg.]]
* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: Averted. Everyone is always helmets during combat situations and several times even out of them.

* HeroesPreferSwords: Lin and Eli both use Vibroswords they took from batarians they killed on Omega. Valak and K'sar being high and low batarian nobility, respectively, both have them as well.

* AceCustom: Several, starting with the "Pellak", a straight line ship that doesn't need a relay to travel to different systems.

* TheAlcatraz: Khakkathoria Prison on Kar'sharn.

* BestialityIsDepraved: Kallixta's uncle had a livestock habit

* BigEater: Dempsey

* BizarreAlienBiology: Averted. The author goes to great lenghts to make everything on the aliens biology seem plausible.
* BladeBelowTheShoulder: Turians carry wedding knifes in sheats on their wrists. These can and are used several times in combat.
* BlessedWithSuck: Dempsey is this in double. He can use both biotics and tech skills, but every time he uses both in sequence he has splitting headaches. He has a krogan regeneration gene mod that can heal almost any damage, but also has to contend with the krogan Bloodrage when he gets angry, to which the headaches don't help.

[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6735812/1/The_Spirit_of_Redemption Spirit Of Redemption]] by Myetel is a 3 million+ word AU Fiction set after the Reaper War is over. The fic disregards completely the plot of MassEffect3 and extrapolates from the end of MassEffect2 ten years later.

* CannonKeepASecret: Serana, among Eli, Lin and her brothers, cannot lie worth a damn.

* CompetenceZone: Zigzagged. At the start of the story, for someone to be called for a tryout for the Spectres, a 15 year period of service was necessary. Then when was time for the tryouts six years later, every major character and a few support characters had that stipulation waved for one reason or another. Then after THAT, the next batch of Spectres didn't even had to pass through the tryouts, then on the epilogue, everything reverted back again.]]

* ConverseWithTheUnconcious: Eli with Dara, at least three times. Everyone in the vicinity with Glory, late on the story.

* DiscontinuityNod: The author goes to great lengths to practically destroy the entire plot of ME3, with several well thought out arguments.

* EletricTorture: [[spoiler:Zhasa suffer from this on Lorek after she, Fors and Dara are captured by the batarians.]]

-->'''Kaius''': "Don't ask, please. Don't ask. I figured if I call anyone older than me on base "Uncle" or "Aunt" I got a fifty-fifty chance of being right. And if I call anyone my age or younger "cousin" I've got a good chance of being right too.
-->'''Severus''': "Except if they're quarian, right?"
-->'''Kaius: "Huh, no. [[spoiler:Aunt Dara's is bloodsister of the quarian Spectre Zhasa'Maedan."]]

* FirstLoveInterestWins: [[spoiler:Dara and Eli.]] After more than 5 years of both of them making bad decisions.

* StarScrapper: The buildings on the more populous centers around the galaxy tend to be several hundreds stories tall.

* WeHaveWaysToMakeYouTalk: Quoted almost verbatim by a batarian prision guard on Lorek.

* Adorkable: Lin is a history buff. Serana as well. [[spoiler: Their honeymoon is a tour of historic sites throghout the galaxy.]]

* [[spoiler: BarehandedBladeBlock: Dara]]

* RedOniBlueOni: Eli and Lin.

* TeleportSpam: Dances uses this to great effect during his battles.

* WeaponOfChoice: Rinus pointedly says that he prefer shotguns, but he does know how to use the other weapons on the arsenal.* WhamEpisode: The epilogue chapter 'Asari Civil War, Part 2.,' where [[spoiler: Dara makes an exposition that utterly shatters the image of the Ardat-Yakshi and sends ''Samara'' of all people into a HeroicBSOD.]]

* GenderIsNoObject: Subverted: Turian psychology is shown to be this at first glance but it's actually pretty segregated in a few places.

** Earlier than that, no one is surprised when [[spoiler:Serana and Eli get toghether]] besides the man himself.

* WhamEpisode: The epilogue chapter 'Asari Civil War, Part 2.,' where [[spoiler: Dara makes an exposition that utterly shatters the image of the Ardat-Yakshi and sends ''Samara'' of all people into a HeroicBSOD.]]

[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6735812/1/The_Spirit_of_Redemption Spirit Of Redemption]] by Myetel is a 3 million+ word AU Fiction set after the Reaper War is over. Shepard and Garrus have hybrid kids and are now in charge of the [[SpacePolice Spectres]]. The Reaper war is over but that doesn't mean the galaxy is at peace, new Spectres are needed and war is on the horizon.....

%%* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Eli and Lin.
%%* MamaBear: Shepard.

%%* MightyGlacier: Dempsey, Makur, any elcor that knows how to use a weapon...

* {{Determinator}}: All Spectres at one point or another have their moments. Lantar when given a facefull of azure dust manages to simply destroy their enemies. Eli manages to deny an answer to a simulation during the candidacy trials.

* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Eli and Lin.
* MamaBear: Shepard.

* MightyGlacier: Dempsey, Makur, any elcor that knows how to use a weapon...

* SecretTestOfCharacter: During the Spectre tryouts, the psych evals force them into situations, through the simulator, that have no right answer. [[spoiler:What they are looking for is actually the though process to get to an answer not the answer by itself.]]

* ShootingSuperman: The batarian always seem to think that they can get through Zasha's shield with enough ammunition.

* SimultaneousArcs: Several, since halfway throught the fic the characters are spread throughout the galaxy.
* SleepCute: Lanar and Sam pull one off while sick these leading to {{Squee}} from Katsumi.

* ThousandYardStare: [[spoiler:During the epilogue this happens to Eli and Dara, and later to Dempsey and Zasha.]]

** The Young Guns Dara, Eli, Lin, Dempsey, Rel, Seheve, Zasha, Orlan, Serana and Glory.

* UndisclosedFunds: While the characters are military/Spectres/researchers, they never talk numbers, only that it's apparently sufficient and that they received some bonus or other, hardly ever the exact ammount.

* WrenchWench: Zasha and Nali. Comes with being quarian.

* BestialityIsDepraved: Kalaxia's uncle had a livestock habit

* BlankWhiteEyes: James have this literally.

* BreakTheCutie: Dara, Lin and Eli during their time on the Turian Military, before the tryouts for the spectres. [[spoiler:Caelia in the epilogue.]]

* TheClan: Every turian has it's own, with they own diferent pattern of facepaint. It differs from canon in that a turian without facepaint isn't considered immediately dishonest, but part of the Imperial family.

* CommonTongue: Differs from the source material in that there's no magic translator for all the languages. There are VI's that can translate voice-to-text but not voice-to-voice in real time, as in the games. So, it is assumed that everyone speaks in galactic, until pointed out wich language they are actually speaking.

* CoolHorse: Dara receives one as a christmas gift from Sam and Kasumi. From a human point of view, riding a ''rlatae'' would qualify as well.

** [[spoiler:Dara and Zasha, when they were captured by batarians]] during a botched operation on Lorek.

* DeathGlare: Almost characters have been described to have one at one point or another, specially when it comes to they're own [[BerserkButton Berserk Buttons]].

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Eli, Lin, Makur, Siara and Mazz fight agaisnt a harvester during Makur and Mazz's Rite of passage in Tuchanka. Rel, Eli and Dempsey against a Thresher Maw during the Terra Nova campaign. Rel against the Yahg alpha on the Shanxi campaign. In the backstory, Sky outsinging the indoctrination from a Reaper allowing the rachni soldiers and workers accompaning him to destroy a Reaper from the inside out.

* DiscontinuityNod: The author goes to great lenghts to practically destroy the entire plot of ME3, with several well tough out arguments.

* DontThinkFeel: Asari biotic training rellies on demonstrating concepts directly into the mind of the student, where human (and turian) training rellies on verbal and physical demonstrations.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: [[spoiler: Rel and Dara's life after the simulation. They gone and done exactly what the simulation told them to do, but ended up almost destroying each other five years later.]]

* HealingFactor: Dempsey [[spoiler:and, later, Rel]] got a Krogan regeneration gene mod. [[spoiler: Zasha got Prothean Nanites and Dara got rachni regeneration]]. To say nothing of the Krogan characters.

* HeelFaceTurn: Seheve. [[spoiler: Several captured batarian prisioners including people from SIU, and a female Yahg.]]

* HighlyConspicuousUniform: Spectre's use black armor, with a golden emblem. Other than in the dark, they don't blend well anywhere.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: [[spoiler:The answer to the riddle Eli gives to Dara turns out to be that he just want to be one.]]

* KarmicDeath: The SIU operatives that try to kill ELi and Lin with Vibroswords, are both skewered.

* KillItWithFire: Orlan prefered weapon is a flamethrower, and he's squad name is Agni.

* MookHorrorShow: [[CurbStompBattle The Battle of the Vineyards]] from the batarians perspective.

* [[ScienceMarchesOn Evolution Marches On]]: The asari have been largely successful as a spacefaring race, but eventually they have to realize that parthenogenesis ''is an evolutionary dead-end.'' It's theorized that within 5,000 years - that's only ''five generations'' for the species - the asari civilization will completely collapse from cultural stagnation. Cue Lina Vasir, daughter of Tela Vasir whose genetic mutation made her the first documented asari to exhibit sexual dimorphism (read: a ''male'' asari). Too bad 'she' was also a [[OutWithABang Ardat]]-[[AxCrazy Yakshi]].
** [[spoiler: Fortunately, they found another male Asari later who was still in childhood and spirited him away, unofficially adopting him into the Spectre Clan after his mother died from the Batarians' SyntheticPlague.]] This led to a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming with Dempsey, and later confused the crap out of Madison [[spoiler: when 'she' went to the boy's restroom.]]

* UncannyValley: Practically a staple of the Spectre Base's residents is to be so used to strange things happening that almost nothing is too weird for them for more than a few minutes, before they accept as a normal occurence.

* AceCustom: Several, starting with the "Pella", a straight line ship that doesn't need a relay to travel to different systems.

* MightyGlacier: Dempsey, any elcor that knows how to use a weapon.

* TakeAThirdOption: Shepard does this when she decides to create a ''probationary'' Spectre rank, so she doesn't have to turn away people who have potential.

* Tele-Frag: Discussed, but never shown. Dances has the teleport ability, and this is one of the problems that could occur.

* EasilyForgiven: Averted hard with Lantar and later with Seheve.

* TheGlomp: Joy-singer(a Rachni Queen) to Dara in Chapter 151.
* GrandTheftMe: [[spoiler:Joker uploads himself in to a prototype of the [[NighInvulnerability super tough]] [[EldritchAbomination ex BigBad Race]] to have a BigDamnHeroes moment leading to the CurbStompBattle with a surprising good guy bias]].

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Seheve Liakos.]]
** Hell, the Spectres practically make it a ''policy'' to convert [[spoiler: batarians]] taken captive by them.

* MightyGlacier: Dempsy, any elcor that knows how to use a weapon.

-->Kasumi: "This is why I don't get up before seven most mornings... anything before seven is trouble..."

* RousingSpeech: Shepard is known for giving a few.

* SuperReflexes: Eli after his gene mods and boot camp. He once caught a falling glass almost as soon as he realized it was falling.

-->'''Eli:''' ''Wait, is Shepard technically family again?''\\
'''Dara:''' ''Technically, since you and Lin are blood-brothers, and he's married to Serana, yes.''\\
'''Eli:''' ''You ever get the feeling that someone in twenty years is going to try to do our genealogy and shoot themselves?''\\
'''Dara:''' Ciea'teilu'', I don't think there's any 'in twenty years' about it. Through Lin and Serana, you're also related to Kallixta. Which means the Imperial family technically has AIs, through Rinus and Kallixta. Hybrids, through Garrus and Shepard ''and'' through your parents. A salarian, through your dad adopting Narayana, a human, in you. . . you call Ylara your third-mother, so they can claim an asari. . . kind of. . . and when [[spoiler:we get married,]] they'll have rachni as cousins, too. Kallixta told me last week that the Office of Heraldry and Imperial Genealogy is usually all of two old guys, who mostly putter around with dusty old books. There are rumors that both of them are being kept away from sharp objects and shoe laces lately.''

* CuteKitten: Loki

* Cyborg: Shepard, [[spoiler:Dempsey.]]

* ArcNumbers: Eli has the number 3 as his throughout most of the story.

* UncannyValley: Practically a staple of the Spectre Base's residents is to be so used to strange things happening that almost nothing is too weird for them for more than an a few minutes, before they accept as a normal occurence.

** How Turians can raise a ''mastiff'' on [[BizarreAlienBiology Palaven]] is beyond this troper.
*** They didn't. In Boot Camp, Dara makes it pretty clear they got it after the Velnarans moved to Mindoir, even if she doesn't come right out with it.

* BerserkButton: Call Shepard's kids monsters, It'll be fun. Also, DO NOT BOTHER THE AUTHOR about [[spoiler: Dara and Rel's breakup]], ever. [[spoiler:You better not do anything that is not in Madison's best interest or else you will have Dempsey, a [[NighInvulnerability wolverine healing]] [[PapaWolf death machine with the same biotic power as a brood warrior]] who just happens to be immune from the law coming after you.]]

* YouAreTheTranslatedForeignWord: The Asari language is literally monogendered: it contains no masculine pronouns whatsoever. The best Asari can manage without resorting to speaking in another language is ''not-she.''

** [[spoiler: A whopping TEN PERCENT of all Asari (in-story statistics place this total at 1.2 ''billion'') carry a recessive gene on their [[BizarreAlienBiologyy 44th chromosome pair]] that emulates the functions of the Y chromosome in humans, producing the Asari analogue of testosterone. As it turns out, this recessive gene is the same exact gene that governs biotic capabilities such as Domination and Reave, both skills characteristic of stereotypical Ardat-Yakshi, and both used by many Justicars and Matriarchs. This means a tenth of all Asari are capable of giving birth to either hermaphroditic/male Asari or Ardat-Yakshi. The reason so few of them are actually identified is because that recessive gene also has a hand in the empathy ability (Asari can feel everything their mate feels), and the few genomes that end up failing to express that ability result in the Asari killing their partner during melding without them even realizing it.]] Sometimes though, such as in the case of Morinth, the Asari just got plain unlucky and were actual psychopaths.