Fanfic / Mock Effect

They called it a dull, uninspired fanfic.
The two or three people who enjoyed it call it…
(The text is replaced by an enormous, shiny title.)
MOCK EFFECT

Written by Mister Buch, Mock Effect is an Affectionate Parody of Mass Effect, the award-winning Space Opera from BioWare.

Commander Jane Shepard is the pride of the Systems Alliance Military, professional and intelligent. Behind closed doors, she's also being considered to become the first human Spectre. The only drawback is her twin brother, Commander John Shepard, a violent, juvenile, wannabe badass with a penchant for pushing people into walls and casual swearing.

The Shepard twins' journey begins on the Normandy, a state-of-the-art ship flown by Seth Green Jeff 'Joker' Moreau. After meeting Nihilus, a idiotic turian Spectre there to evaluate Jane for the organization, they land on Eden Prime to secure a Prothean beacon. It gets worse from there.

It can be found here

A sequel, written by clintjohnston23 can be found here

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Mock Effect provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming: Kaidan is continually frustrated by both Jane and John's complete inability to remember his name. Eventually he just gives up and settles for Carth (which Jane, being voiced by the same VA as Bastila Shan, is actually able to remember, more or less).
• invoked Actor Allusion: Kaidan flat out changes his name to Carth in the ending. Meanwhile, Jane Shepard has dreams and memories of being Bastila from the same game, overloading the dialogue with KOTOR references.
  • Admiral Hackett has been replaced by Admiral Bishop-From-Aliens.
  • Seth Green's various roles are also mentioned. In fact, let's just head this off by saying that if anyone in the game was in anything else remotely well-known, it's referenced at some point.
• Anticlimax Boss: The Saren-husk. They just shoot it while it's helplessly suspended in the air by Liara's biotics. Which works in-game, incidentally. invoked
• Anti-Hero: Saren wants to be remembered as one of these, but is more of a Anti-Villain
• "Ass" in Ambassador: Udina, though he's the one character who really is just as bad in the actual game.
• Butt-Monkey: Garrus Vakarian, most of the crew of the Normandy tend to pick on him, probably because he's useless harmless. Jane Shepard and Captain Anderson to some extent.
• invoked Captain Obvious Aesop: After the encounter with Dr. Saleon, Garrus learns "that… that… killing people… is wrong".
• Evil Matriarch: Played for laughs when Liara confronted her mother on Noveria.
• Harmless Villain: Saren is completely useless.
• Hollywood Hacking: Captain Anderson's seemingly magical hacking skills are mocked.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Many chapter titles, such as Beacon and Eggs
• Jerkass: John Shepard.
  • Larry the turian councilor, much like his game counterpart.
• Master of None: Kaidan is described this way. "Yeah, he's a passable engineer, a basic biotic and a half-assed marksman all rolled into one."
• Motor Mouth: Dear lord, Tali!
• Mr. Exposition: Tali again, with her tendency to dive into hours-long descriptions of quarian culture unrelated to the plot.
• No Fourth Wall: Blatant actor allusion, Lampshade Hanging and even references to the actual game are incredibly common.
• One-Liner: Wrex is inordinately fond of these, much to John's delight.
• Only Sane Man: Jane Shepard. Also Udina.
  • John Sheppard would be reasonably sane if his actions were viewed in the context of playing a video game, which is sometimes contrasted with Jane's habit of following boring/pointless sidequests or getting shot dozens of times trying to knock out 16 armed enemies with 4 gas grenades.
• invoked Recycled Script: Jane keeps pointing out the sheer number of plot elements lifted from earlier BioWare games, most notably Knights of the Old Republic and to a lesser extent Jade Empire.

• Stop Being Stereotypical: Jane yells at Liara for propagating negative bisexual stereotypes when she learns Liara is pursuing both siblings at the same time.
• Stupid Evil: John Shepard, being a Parody of Renegade Shepard.
  • Saren too, as he believes the only way to save all life in the galaxy is aid the Reapers in destroying it.
• Stupid Good: Jane Shepard occasionally falls into this to parody some of the Paragon quest conclusions. She's just ludicrously trusting of people that were shooting at her seconds before, leading to more than one minor villain promising to turn themselves in and then just walking away.
• Take a Third Option: Leaving Tali on Virmire. Much to everyone's dismay, it doesn't stick.
• Take That!: Saren's indestructible base is apparently made of the same stuff as Indy's fridge.
  • Also, the fic in general. While obviously written by someone with a great deal of affection for the series and all the weird things you realize when you poke in the dark corners, there's a lot of pretty harsh criticism in some parts. Hence the name of the fic...
• Technobabble: Joker freely admits to making up everything he says while flying, mostly because Captain Anderson thinks it sounds impressive.
• Too Dumb to Live: Captain Kirrahe and the salarian STG. Also Saren for trying to help Sovereign kill everyone in the galaxy, to save everyone in the galaxy.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The Shepard twins
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Garrus has a squad of C-Sec employees to complain to, John Shepard has been demoted to coffee boy, Tali managed to survive Virmire, Liara is in therapy for her addiction to sex, Wrex writes action movies for Hollywood and Jane Shepard is still on the Normandy, waiting to get blowed up by the Collectors.