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Biomass Effect
is a Mass Effect/[PROTOTYPE] crossover fanfic by Beastrider9.
All life on Earth had been consumed by Blacklight. With no Biomass to feed on, Blacklight had to evolve, adapt, and grow. Now a collective Council of Aliens discovers the existence of such a life form. How do the aliens see a form of life that is viral, how they deal with it, what are the consequences to the galaxy of such a race existing at all.
The story can also be read here on SpaceBattles.com.
This fic provides examples of:
- Always a Bigger Fish: Morinth is freaked out by Blacklight for this reason.
- The Anti-Nihilist: This is Blacklight's mindset.
- The Assimilator: Deconstructed, Blacklight no longer assimilates any organic it encounters because as a Hive Mind where everyone instantly knows everything as soon as one person learns it means there is no such thing as novelty, learning things by assimilating creatures for knowledge bores them.
- Chekhov's Gun: During an interview a Salarian asks Blacklight whether they communicate the same way as the Rachni, later after Miranda and Jack spawn from a preserved sample of Blacklight from before Blacklight assimilated the Rachni they can't communicate with the rest of the Hive Mind because they evolved to use the Rachni's method of communication.
- The Dreaded: Blacklight is feared by by most of the galaxy. Unsurprising, since Blacklight is a planet spanning Eldritch Abomination that devoured every living thing on it’s home planet by accident.
- Eldritch Abomination: In addition to the things we see in Mass Effect and [PROTOTYPE] we have the things created by the "Children of Saleon" virus created by Saleon, for reference, this is a virus that is both too spicy for Blacklight to consume, can incorporate inorganic matter into its form, and according to Blacklight which can rewrite its DNA however it wants, makes zero biological sense, examples include:
- Hearts mutant Varren, one of which devours the leftovers from his experiments by vomiting its stomach inside out, wrapping it around its food and using mucus to make it stick before pulling it back in, another, one Heart uses as a Lab Pet gets killed killed by Blacklight along with the others only to come back as an even bigger, more monstrous version when one of its claws gets chopped off via the door to Hearts escape pod. Later, Heart decides to improve it further by giving it cybernetic implants.
- Later, when Heart finally realizes he went too far. he tries to destroy his lab via a nuke. When a group of mercs he hired earlier check to see what happened they find a radioactive monster made from Heart, his pet cyber-varren and the rest of the biomass in the lab.
- The Mother Husk, an amphibious, huskified, Kaiju sized amalgam of Saleon virus infused biomass, spaceship wreckage and anything else it assimilated after crash landing in Khar'shans oceans. When Blacklight sends its own giant biomass creature to stop it, the Batarian navy watching describe it as something between a Kaiju Battle and two cosmic horrors duking it out.
- Later the Batarians end up trying to nuke the Mother Husk, not only does that make it more powerful, it splatters most of their equipment with Saleon virus biomass causing their vehicles to turn into mechanical abominations.
- Expy: Jobol was inspired by Gendo Ikari.
- Frame-Up: During Blacklight’s stay at the Citadel, the Reapers use their powers to cause the biomass creatures to go berserk, resulting in Blacklight being banned from Citadel Space.
- Freudian Trio: A unique case, the thorian plays the role of superego, the rachini is the ID, with the blacklight majority and minority playing the role of ego, what makes this case unique is the fact that blacklight, the thorian, and the rachini are 3 facets of one greater hivemind.
- Humanity's Wake: Humanity as a species is extinct, but they live on as part of Blacklights Hive Mind.
- Insult Backfire: Desolas Arterius calls the Blacklight species a blight on the galaxy, and is surprised when Blacklight agrees with him.
- It Amused Me: Blacklights personality as a whole, a side effect of their Hive Mind and ability to assimilate information from living things they lost the ability to enjoy learning new things.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: This is a [PROTOTYPE] fanfic, of course this trope is present.
- Organic Technology: Blacklight almost exclusively uses organic technology.
- Running Gag: Liara, Samara and Morinth all learn about the Reapers via Mind Meld and are asked what the first thing that comes to mind is when they hear the word "Reapers", all three react by vomiting in terror.
- Villain Respect: The Leviathans consider Blacklight to be a fellow apex race. Considering in canon they believed they were the only apex race in the galaxy, that is probably the highest compliment they could possibly give to anyone.
