More credible Reavers

[Paladin]

Drow. If you haven't, read the Dark ELf series by R.A.Salvatore.

 

[Walker]

The Bugs from David Weber and Steve White's "In Death Ground" and "The Shiva Option".

A race of Interstellar, warm blooded, hive mentality telepathic Spideresque creatures who categorize all other sentient life as either Enemies or Food Sources. There is no way to even reason with them. It is kill or be killed - or worse, eaten.

 

[Gaidheal]

Sturn I too got a "this is all a bit familiar.." kind of feel from Mass Effect, as though I knew the world from somewhere but it wasn't quite the same. At any rate, I think it's an excellent game, excellently produced and with a first rate background setting - ripe for adaption to RPG.

 

[Woas]

Well I think Mass Effect was just Biowares' way of doing a Star Wars game, without having to use the restraints of the Star Wars canon, license and IP.

That said, I always liked the idea of space vikings.

 

[lucasdigital]

The Reavers were really cool, so long as they remain boogie men. As soon as you put the spotlight over them, they lose that horror mystique. I assumed they were "pack" based, with the strongest, most aggressive taking on the role of a leaders.

If I was looking to transplant the Reavers into Traveller, I'd make them a large pirate gang that, under the command of a charismatic leader, turned into a diabolical cult. They use extreme violence to instill total fear in their victims, but have been driven mad by their own practices.

The Once great stellar empire idea sounds like Traveller:New Era...nothing wrong with that!

 

[Gaidheal]

Woas Trust me, the Mass Effect universe is a very different feel from Star Wars, not least because it makes more than a nod to hard science realities (like ships needing to bleed heat and being very easy to find against the relative cold of space, being unable to communicate when travelling FTL [aye, FTL is not hard SF but find me a setting without it!], etc).

I like both settings, but they're not similar beyond "stuff in space, with aliens".

 

[Woas]

Oh sure they have they're own feel but I mean.... a paramilitary branch of super cool lone wolf security dudes (the Specters) with access to all sorts of cool stuff doesn't seem like a Jedi Council in disguise? Bionics are pretty Force like. Huge metropolis government center (The Citadel) pretty close to Coruscant...

I mean there are Steampunk versions of Star Wars which have a completely different feel too.

Woas Trust me, the Mass Effect universe is a very different feel from Star Wars, not least because it makes more than a nod to hard science realities (like ships needing to bleed heat and being very easy to find against the relative cold of space, being unable to communicate when travelling FTL [aye, FTL is not hard SF but find me a setting without it!], etc).

I like both settings, but they're not similar beyond "stuff in space, with aliens".

 

[Gaidheal]

Honestly? I think you're really reaching. Also, at the risk of being branded a heretic, Lucas stole left, right and centre from elsewhere, so talking about something else as a clone of SW is a bit laughable anyway. ;¬)

 

[Klaus Kipling]

If anything ME is closer to B5 than SW.

Ancient enemy, big central diplomatic station, Earth the new kids on the block...

But really it's an amalgam of their fave sftv stuff, mixed in with their own ideas, and stuff from books.

There are several clear Traveller references in the Codex, too.

 

[Stofsk]

If you look hard enough, every sci-fi story has its antecedents in something before it. Look at Star Trek, then look at Forbidden Planet, a film made a decade before the show premeired.

And I wouldn't say Lucas stole, because that's actually a serious thing and called plagiarism. Lucas borrowed and was inspired from a lot of sources, including the Flash Gordon serials he grew up with as a kid to Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, where if anything, a lot more was borrowed from.

Mass Effect has a lot of similarities to StarControl 2, for those who remember that game. I wouldn't call ME a rip off of SW though; for one thing, there aren't any lightsabres! (that I've noticed so far, I've only started playing the game)