Fanfic / Inglorious Bosh'tets

Inglorious Bosh'tets is a comedic Mass Effect fanfic written by 500 Metric Tonnes of Palladium. In it, Tali'Zorah vas Neema learns two valuable lessons during the two years of Commander Shepard's absence: One, that the universe hates her guts, and two, that the entire galaxy is insane.

Set in a bizarro version of the Mass Effect universe, Inglorious Bosh'tets follows Tali and her crew of complete idiots as they go from one adventure to another, each one stranger than the last. The universe itself looks like a Mega Crossover Fantasy Kitchen Sink with Inglorious Bosh'tets and its sequel Project Gethinator containing things such as Valhalla, The Warp and Chaos Gods, Chainswords, characters from games like Baldur's Gate, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox and so on, with the characters treating all this weirdness as completely normal.

In the end it all looks more like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than Mass Effect.

The one-shot Fursecution Complex is also set in the same universe and referenced in the sequel, Project Gethinator.

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This fanfic provides examples of the following tropes:

• Action Girl: Tali is quite capable of handling a situation on her own — and given the crew she has to work with, she often has to.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: The Collectors have every season of Doctor Who.
• All Myths Are True: Averted. It is specifically stated by the Norse gods that, out of all the gods humanity has ever worshipped, they are the only ones that actually exist.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Literally. "Omega was a haven for criminals, assassins, pirates, slavers, mercenaries, thugs, smugglers, tax-dodgers, and jaywalkers."
  • Given that, from what we see of Omega in Mass Effect 2, the cars fly, jaywalking is either really, really impressive or really, really lame.
• Badass Normal: Kal'Reegar, who single-handedly slaughters all the mooks when he temporarily joins Tali's team in one of the chapters
• Bilingual Bonus: A lot of them, all in Finnish. A small sampling:
  • The disaster-causing mineral scanner is named the Perkele5000. "Perkele" means "devil", and is generally used as a profanity.
  • As noted under Meaningful Name, Juodaan'Viina means "Let's drink booze".
  • Tali's second ship is the Kamala Kohtalo, which means "horrible fate".
• Butt-Monkey: Zig-zagged. Poor Tali gets this a lot. Whenever something crazy happens, at least one of the crew (often Prazza, who's usually the cause of the crazy) will pin the blame on her. However, most people outside of Tali's crew recognize Tali as having been a positive example of the quarians, and that it is her crew that is incompetent.
• Chaotic Stupid: Tali's entire crew. Especially Prazza.
• Chewbacca Defense: Or as the quarians know it, Hyyvaa Raanaa. During Prazza's court case, his lawyer admits that this is their only hope of winning, so he goes for it. By accusing every turian in C-Sec, and the opposing counsel, of being a geth infiltrator. He succeeds in getting the case dismissed.
• Continuity Nod: In a rather subtle nod, Shepard's bank account on the Citadel contains ten million credits, which was the maximum amount you could accumulate in the first game. (Technically it was 9,999,999.)
• Cosmic Plaything:
  • Tali simply cannot catch a break. Even the simplest missions have a tendency to go bad. Most of the time, Prazza's aggressive stupidity is the cause.
  • The minor character Dr. Helstrom van de Ontploffende Hoofd, who meets with Tali-related disasters wherever he goes.
• Dysfunction Junction: Tali's crew, which consists of:
  • Prazza, whose extreme idiocy, incompetence, and laziness frequently get the crew into trouble with anyone he comes across, including the Norse Gods.
  • Vrael, who is outright stated to be a criminal psychopath, and by policy tells off Tali for anything she does and blames her for anything bad that happens.
  • Juodaan, whose suit is configured to dispense alcohol directly into his bloodstream.
  • Skaal, who suffers from extreme depression.
• Expy: Two from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Skaal is one of Marvin, and the briefly-appearing Dr. Helstrom van de Ontploffende Hoofd is one of Agrajag.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: On top of the SF universe that is Mass Effect, the author has added some fantasy and paranormal elements.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: The "Forbidden Issue" of Fornax caused many who viewed it to go insane or commit suicide because of the sheer horror and depravity of...well, whatever the hell Prazza did in that issue, which thankfully remained undescribed.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Tali and company investigate a derelict Cerberus cruiser and find it overrun with mutant monsters. Turns out the scientists on board had been researching a cure for the common cold. Whoops.
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Some of the technologies make no sense and are in-universe referred to as breaking the laws of physics. No one is bothered by this, nor does it stop the technology from working.
  • Time travel is achieved by randomly pressing buttons.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Prazza, when attacking the Arcturus Geoscience base. And probably on a few other occasions as well.
• Long-Runners: In-Universe, Doctor Who is still being made in 2185.
• Meaningful Name: One of Tali's crewmembers, who has configured his suit to dispense alcohol directly into his bloodstream, is named Juodaan'Viina, meaning "Let's drink booze" in Finnish.
• Mega Crossover: In the same universe, one can find things from The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Warhammer 40,000, Baldur's Gate, Event Horizon, Finnish metal and so on.
• Metaphorgotten: Prazza, while discussing a certain person's odds of surviving a fall from space onto a planet:
  Prazza: ...the speed of impact with the planet's surface would have splattered his remains across many kilometres. It would be like throwing an egg against a wall really, really hard, and watching the gooey bits fly everywhere, and then your mother comes in and scolds you for playing with your food, and you beg her not to chain you to wall this time and...wait, what we were talking about again?
• The Millstone: Tali's entire crew, although Prazza best qualifies for the description.
• Negative Space Wedgie: There is an in-universe technical term for this, Big Impossible Thing Causing Havoc. Such an event sent Tali and company to Earth in 2005.
• Never My Fault: Whenever something goes wrong, Prazza and Vrael always blame Tali, even though the problems are almost entirely Prazza's fault.
• Noodle Incident: We're never told what, exactly, Prazza did in that issue of Fornax that got it labeled the "Forbidden Issue." But we know it was enough to violate thirteen laws in Citadel space, that it drove most people who viewed it to insanity or suicide and scarred the remainder for life, that Prazza did it to try to raise money for a Pilgrimage gift and got disowned by his family because of it and was unable to complete his Pilgrimage as a result, that the owner of the magazine was arrested the day after the issue was published and the magazine got a tarnished image and a ton of lawsuits because of it, and that it was something that went against the law of the galaxy, if not the universe, and most definitely didn't do much to improve relations with quarians in general.
• Overly Long Name: A Reaper is called Shug'nargoth'shemfhnargataghn.
• Only Sane Woman: Tali.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Tali has made this somewhat of a habit of hers. It's gotten to the point that she's a legitimate scientific explanation for unexplained cosmic explosions. Please note she's been around more than one.
  • Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Averted; Most of the time it's not actually her who's responsible. Just someone who happens to be in the same room as her.
• Retirony: Apparently, all the guards at the secret Arcturus Geoscience base were just two days away from retirement.
• Running Gag:
  • Almost every ship given to Tali ends up destroyed.
  • Kal'Reegar keeps naming famous wars and battles that he supposedly took part in, each one further and further in the past. By the third or fourth time he's describing events that took place well before he was born.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title, to Inglourious Basterds.
  • The name of the Space Pirate ship Queen Anne's Bosom is a play on the name of Blackbeard's ship, Queen Anne's Revenge.
  • Kal'Reegar's little speech about fighting in The Vietnam War is more-or-less quoting Rambo in First Blood.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Prazza, BIG TIME. He believes in his own skill and popularity even after the lack thereof is repeatedly pointed out to him.
• Space Pirates: The Pirates of Pestulon, aboard their flagship Queen Anne's Bosom. Complete with goofy accents, goofy outfits, buried treasure, and threatening to make people "walk the plank" (in space, no less).
• Star Killing: The faulty mineral scanner on board Tali's ship in the beginning is apparently capable of doing this, as Prazza accidentally finds out.
• Time Travel: Tali and her crew briefly travel to and crash on Earth in the year 2005.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Tasi'tasi vas Nedas tells Tali and her team that they will never be able to bring themselves to shoot him, since he is a fellow quarian.

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