Mass Effect Stole It's Story Outright!

So I was reading up on the "JRPG's aren't RPGs" bullshit when I came across a Kotaku member that mentioned how Mass Effect was a work of outright plagiarism. They name-dropped a novel called "Revelation Space", and I just had to see if this was true. No way was the game I held in such high regard a work of plagiarism.

It is.

At first glance, there's only a few similarities between the two. Archeologists studying a 900,000 year old dead race that left behind tons of tech and was killed by a single cataclysm, tech-enhanced humans fucking with colonies, grotesque deformed monsters born from mutated tech-enchanced human (slightly resembles husks the way they describe it in the summary)...

But then I happened across the crux of the novel, the whole point laid bare, and I shat a brick...

"As Sylveste [Main character & archeologist] and the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity [tech-enhanced humans] approach Cerberus [a planet, not the organization], Sylveste realizes the massive celestial body isn't a planet at all -- but rather, a massive technological beacon, aimed at alerting machine sentience to the appearance of new star-faring cultures. It is this beacon, Sylveste belatedly realizes, that alerted a machine intelligence known as the Inhibitors to the presence of the Amarantin [the protheans in this case], and ultimately caused the demise of that race."

Fuck me, mate. This novel's pretty renoun in the UK, listed as a collectible being a first in a series of Revelation Space novels. Surely I don't have to point out the copy-paste plot here, right? Oh, and the novel was published in 2000.

Link to Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space

Well from what Im reading theres quite a few games that rip off bits and pieces from that story.

Well a lot of things have been done before and been accused of being plagiarized. ex lord of the ring and eragon, pocahontas and avatar, ect. But as long as you enjoyed the game, I don't see any reason for you to start disliking it because it resembles something else. Also since I'm not familiar with the novel, how did Mass Effect 2 match up with any sequels Revelation Space had if any. I think people will find similarities if they over analyze anything enough. Personally I think that if you enjoyed the ride then don't rock the boat.

Try to look at it from a writer's point of view. For those who write stories, be they short or long, novels or ballads, their work is like their child. They create it, raise it, and then let it out into the world to become something of itself. When someone steals even the main idea of an author's work, they're kidnapping that child and claiming it as they're own. Dramatic, I know, but that's the truth behind a writer's devotion to their stories.

I can't condone this kind of thing the same way I can't condone Rockstar's over-working of its devs on Red Dead Redemption. I like the game, but I don't care as much about it anymore. As fun as it might be, at its core it stands for everything I stand against. Anyway, I just wanted to spread around what I found out.

-I think from ME2 on the plot won't be so closely copied from Revelation Space, seeing as how they're supposedly bringing in characters from the novels written alongside the games.

Is this supposed to be read as: "It's ok to plagiarize if people end up liking 'your' work."?

Hmmm, that part of the story is just somewhat similar to the time when the Alliance first discovered that Pluto's moon Charon is a Mass Relay.

Sad to say, the similarities end around the part of the Beacon, since it obviously doesn't serve as any means of FTL jumping. Also, in Mass Effect's story, the Beacon in Revelation Space the would most likely be the Citadel, though, sad to say, 1. The Asari found it first and not humanity 2. There is no planet near the Citadel 3. The Reapers leave one of their kind to monitor the Galaxy, and if the races in the Galaxy advances enough, will signal the other Reapers to return.

Also, I don't see anything said that is similar to the other aliens in Mass Effect (Asari, Elcor, Turian, etc.) or the Citadel or any other shit in Mass Effect's story.

Kind of like what ExESGO says. The general idea of the story is the same but the details are different. This is not plagiarism. Otherwise all the Harem anime out there would all be plagiarizing each other. Also, I would bet there was probably a Star Trek episode about this exact same thing.

+rep for explaining it better than I did.

Very good summary of what I said. XD +1 for uber summarize.

Nachbar, quit plagiarizing ExESGO. This is your last warning.

Remind me to plus rep than when I can.

I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel.

Also, Krogan Testicles.

Spoilers: there are only under ten basic plots in all lit/film/games/etc.

Everyone steals from something... just unfortunate that they did so to the extent they did.

Krogan Testicles = Quads.

LMFAO

Yeah - to the OP I plagiarized the hell out of ExESGO -,-

Now i don't know about you but sure to copy something is bad but hey if i was a writer and wrote a story then someone stole that idea id be pretty happy that it was so popular as to be used, sure I could have got money if i made a game of it myself but to late for that. Plus you would have never heard about that book if it wasn't for mass effect.

How generic can you get?

Super advanced alien race, dies off, technology of theirs left around. That shit is in a thousand games and stories.

Hell, you want to see some great similarites, go take a gander at Starcraft and Warhammer 40k. Obviously they're different, but the similarities are undeniable.


Point is, it happens, get over it.

I give up. It's not my place to teach others what's really being said here. If you think summarizing someone's statement is the same as stealing their story, go right ahead. If you think the point of all this was the "ancient race--> dead--> left behind tech" and not the whole "Inhibitors = Reapers", then go ahead.
-If you think that, so long as something is fun, it doesn't matter if it was plagerized, then never become friends with writers, and if you do, never spout that ignorance in front of them.

As for if you were a generally unknown author, and your work was plagiarized like this (your story stolen, made to a be a huge success under someone else's name with no credit to you), then I'd have to say that's subjective. Some writers actually care for their creations (like me), while others warp their brains to see it as, "Hey! Th-they're looking at me! THEY'RE LOOKING AT ME!!".

Either way, I'm done. I've seen too many come and go on countless occasions saying everything you lot are saying. I hope you don't work so hard on something, you pour your heart, your soul, your blood and sweat into something, just to watch some fucker(s) come along and parade it about as if it was their genius that created it from thin-air.

--*scoffs* "So you don't like the game, now?"


Never blame the work for its creator's faults

What that means is to not take out your rage on the novel/game/movie/etc. The blame for anything in regards to the story is in the creator(s). Mass Effect has Garrus, Tali, Wrex, and now Mordin and Legion! When I buy ME3 (assuming they don't turn the game-play into even more generic 3rd person shooter shit), it will be for those characters that I like.

Until then, I'm off to play Trauma Team. You guys can go ahead and tease this thread all you want. I'm done.