Kaidan Alenko is Back

Kaidan Alenko in ME3


After his absence from Mass Effect 2, it seems that Kaidan Alenko will be returning for Mass Effect 3. I love this man. That is all.

No seriously, I realize this post may seem like it makes absolutely no sense in the grand scheme of my writing life, but these games -- Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and the upcoming Mass Effect 3 -- comprise one of the greatest stories I've ever experienced in my life.

Maybe it is because the story allows me to create the main character, Commander Shepard. In the first game I get to design her physical appearance and pick her background - where she grew up, her parents, her military career, even the fact that she is a female, is all up to me. And throughout the game the choices she makes, the paths she chooses, these are my choices. I get to decide whether my Shepard does the right/moral thing, cuts corners to save time, or makes decisions based on her gut feeling.

Even if these choices lead her to mercilessly kill for the greater good of the galaxy.

Her choices affect the gameplay, and some of these choices could end up getting your squad members killed. But I think it's the life and death type of decision making that allows me to feel a deeper, more personal connection to my heroine than I would ever get from reading a book. I'm responsible for her. I'm going to feel just as guilty as she does if a choice I have her make means somebody dies.

For me it's just like writing. I have to make the hard, sad, emotionally eviscerating choices for my characters because I know that it is how they would respond.

In the first game, I chose Kaidan Alenko as my Shepard's love interest. I spent a lot of the game solidifying this burgeoning relationship. However, during one mission, Kaidan and another squad member, Ashley Williams, both get pinned down by enemy forces. They are in two separate locations. Saving one ultimately means leaving the other to die.

I adored Ashley. I knew her history. We'd fought together. She was my Shepard's friend. Still, I had no choice but to save Kaidan. My Shepard loved him.

So tell me, how can making this choice for her not emotionally cement me to my character?

My brother Joey teases me relentlessly about my affection for this game. He believes the time I took to play it bordered on obsession. But I worked hard to make sure my team was ready. I equipped my ship and my team with every available resource. I spent hours scanning planets for raw materials. I talked to my teammates. I delved into their lives, their history, their hopes and dreams, because I could not, like my brother, simply play the game and accept the result.

If I was going to be responsible for these people I needed to know who they were.

He lost team members in the final battle of Mass Effect 2. This would have been an unacceptable outcome for me. Not because of pride. But because I know that the Shepard I created could not live with the result. It would've devastated her.

I know that I can't break this hero in the second act. I need her in the best condition that I can manage. A bigger threat, a much greater battle, awaits us in Mass Effect 3. And I can't win if I'm playing with a worn and defeated Shepard. Having Kaidan by my Shepard's side will only make things easier.

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