Mass Effect Revelation

Mass Effect: Revelation is a novel within the Mass Effect universe, written by then-lead writer Drew Karpyshyn.

It serves as a Prequel to the first game, telling the story of Saren Arterius's descent into evil.

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Mass Effect: Revelation provides examples of the following tropes:

• Anti-Hero/Villain Protagonist: Saren Arterius.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Councilor Tevos asks one of Goyle, when she asks her whether humanity has ever put the interests of the galaxy above its own interests as a species.
• Badass Normal: In a universe with dinosaur-like aliens with extremely fast regenerative capabilities and people who can manipulate gravity with their minds, David Anderson manages to nearly kill Skarr, a member of said aliens AND able to manipulate gravity with his mind, with a mere pistol. By himself, twice.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Dr. Qian is heavily implied to have become this.
• Bullying a Dragon: One young and particularly nervous human Blue Sun mercenary makes the mistake of pointing a gun at Skarr, a krogan Battle Master and biotic. It doesn't end well for him.
• Call Forward:
  • The retired Admiral Jon Grissom (not fond of visitors) goes to answer his door and wonders who it might be "If it was a reporter, he'd punch him - or her - right in the mouth".
  • Edan tries pleading with Saren that he might need his resources, with Saren retorting that he can get money another way. As Mass Effect shows, he was eventually able to become a major stockholder in Binary Helix.
• Can't Kill You - Still Need You: Edan Had'dah tries to convince Saren of this, arguing that, without his wealth and resources, it will take Saren up to ten years to exploit the potential of Sovereign. Saren merely retorts that he doesn't mind being patient, then promptly kills Edan.
  • Saren also implies he has this view of Anderson. Doesn't stop him from threatening Anderson's life when a disagreement turns into a scuffle.

"...If I kill you, the Alliance will be crying out for my head, and the Council might just give it to them. At the very least, they'd revoke my Spectre status."

• The Cavalry: The SSV Iwo Jima for the squad sent to extract Kahlee. Proves to not be successful when Skarr blows it up with a BFG.
• The Chessmaster: Saren deliberately leaks information about Kahlee's extraction in order to ensure that Skarr captures her. He does this so that Skarr would lead him right to the masterminds of the attack on Sidon. He later destroys the refinery where the bad guys are holed up to deliberately discredit Anderson's Spectre candidacy, and by extension, the Alliance and humanity.
• Cold-Blooded Torture/Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Depending on whether you view Saren as an Anti-Hero or Villain Protagonist.
• Distressed Damsel: Kahlee in the climax. Probably deliberately set up this way by Saren to induce The Dulcinea Effect in Anderson to throw him off his game at the worst possible moment.
• Didn't Think This Through: Grotto Ib-ba, a batarian, walks into a high-class joint and asks for a human consort, intending to torture the girl for his own amusement. As Saren explains before torturing him, this immediately tipped off the staff that he was up to no good, and if it hadn't been for Saren, then the minute he tried anything, a bunch of krogan bouncers would've burst through the door.
• The Dreaded: Saren has a reputation for his ruthlessness in the Attican Traverse. Even Skarr, a biotic Krogan Warlord, is driven off by a bullet in the chest (a minor wound to a Krogan) when he sees that Saren was the shooter and expresses fear towards him.

"I make a point never to get involved in Spectre business... especially this one! Turian bastard!"

• Drowning My Sorrows: Anderson heads to Chora's Den to do this when his divorce becomes finalized.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Though Saren's torture of Grotto was for information, Saren also stopped him from torturing a human prostitute and was disgusted by Grotto's intentions. This trope is in play because Saren despises humans.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: At the end, Saren figures he'll use this "Sovereign" to get revenge on mankind... and then all the other Citadel species, putting the turians on top. Anyone who's finished the first game will know how well this works out for him.
• Eye Scream: Grotto Ib-ba, a mercenary member of the batarians, a species whose members each have four eyes, gets one of them burst - not removed, burst - by his torturer during interrogation. This particular instance is also one of Pay Evil Unto Evil, as the victim in question was also hateful of humans and had planned to use one of them as a means of "stress relief". The novel also states that Grotto even went out of his way in an attempt to pick the weakest prostitute to ensure that he broke her.
• The Fettered: Anderson believes in operating this way, refusing to risk innocent lives. It also makes him a Good Counterpart to Saren, who is more of The Unfettered Combat Pragmatist.
• First Contact: The book begins not long after the "First Contact War" between humanity and the turians.
• Foreshadowing: Ambassador Goyle suggests that there could already be an advanced AI out there somewhere in the galaxy (besides the geth).
  • Kahlee claims that humans are researching ways to induce biotic abilities in themselves.
  • People find an alien artifact and suddenly undergo personality changes, developing an obsession with it and ultimately suffering mental faculty decay from prolonged exposure.
• Framing Device: Set up the Mass Effect universe, since the game was unreleased during its publication.
• Freudian Excuse: Apparently, Saren's hatred of humanity was caused by his brother's death during the First Contact War. Of course, that does nothing to defend Saren's brutal treatment of every other species that gets in his way.
• Head-in-The-Sand Management: Goyle accuses the council of adapting this approach with potentially hostile synthetic life, when they attempt to sanction the Alliance for carrying out "study them in order to neutralize them" research on AIs. The council retorts by claiming that humans are acting like General Rippers, perceiving everything around them as a threat to be conquered. Councillors Tevos and Valern then give Goyle a lecture about how mutual cooperation should be a default stance all species should take.
• Humanoid Aliens: Early on, the book lampshades their commonness in the franchise. Anderson subscribes to the most common explanation, that there's some undiscovered evolutionary advantage to the humanoid body structure.
• Humans Advance Swiftly: Ambassador Goyle suspects that the Council races are imposing crippling sanctions on The Alliance because they are scared of the implications of this and want to slow down that advance as much as possible. She isn't aware that it is actually an elaborate negotiation ploy by the Council to ensure that the Alliance accepts the less severe sanctions they wanted to impose all along.
• Kick the Dog: Saren interrogates a badly-injured female Batarian on life support (who was also kept in a medically induced coma because her injuries caused her terrible pain. Her doctor also gave Saren medicine to put her back under and save her life if necessary) by shutting off said life support and taking advantage of her pain to coerce her into telling him what he wants to know, refusing to put her back under until he got the information he needed. Saren then waited for her to die before putting the medication in her IV and lied to the doctor, saying that the medicine didn't save her.
  • Arguably Skarr killing the Alliance soldiers rescuing Kahlee after they had surrendered and been disarmed.
• Knowledge Broker: Anderson uses one to figure out that Kahlee is Jon Grissom's estranged daughter.
• Married to the Job: This was what caused Anderson's marriage and Grissom's relationship with Kahlee's mother to end. Kahlee even rebuffs Anderson because she can see an actual relationship in jeopardy for this reason.
• Mythology Gag/Self-Deprecation: There's a line somewhere about a lengthy elevator ride.
• Once Is Not Enough: Anderson puts a small clip's worth of gunfire into Skarr. Since he doesn't have enough experience with krogan to always make sure that they're dead before rummaging through their pockets, something Skarr informs him of when he gets up.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Had'dah notes with some consternation how he's working with a human, but can't figure out why. It's implied he's already been indoctrinated.
• Prequel: Takes place several years before the events of the first game.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain/Start of Darkness: Revelation is this for Saren, though the story shows that he was a huge racist and Knight Templar even before he turned to villainy.
• Ramming Always Works: The APC driver who is transporting Kahlee for extraction does this to some pursuing vehicles to buy them some time. Reality Ensues when the impact not only destroys the other vehicle, but cripples the APC and kills the driver.
• Revealing Coverup: How Anderson gets a lead on Sanders' parentage. Her files have any and all hints as to her father's identity erased, something entirely beyond Sanders or her mother's ability, but which could be done by someone high up in the alliance.
• Rule Number One:

"I have two rules I follow", Saren explained. "The first is: never kill someone without a reason." "And the second?" Anderson asked, suspicious. "You can always find a reason to kill someone."

• The Scapegoat: Saren makes Anderson this, deliberately misleading him about how much time they had to complete the mission then making sure to blame him for having to resort to "desperate measures to ensure success".
• Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: Anderson's squad discover this when they finally reach the interior of the Sidon Research Facility.
• Spanner in the Works: Dr. Qian's attempted cover-up at Sidon goes belly-up thanks to Kahlee noticing he'd gone nuts and walking off-base for a serious drink or several.
• Spotting the Thread: Having been confronted by an Alliance officer, Kahlee allows him to handcuff her, until she notices his sidearm doesn't match Alliance regulation. She promptly beats him into a bloody mess while handcuffed and then escapes.
• Stock Subtitle
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Between Anderson and Saren at first during the refinery mission. Subverted as the mission progresses when Saren blows the refinery up.
• Token Romance: Anderson and Kahlee Sanders, though it does not actually go anywhere. Later subverted by Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC, or at least implied as such, as Kahlee leaves bags of her stuff at Anderson's apartment.
• Vasquez Always Dies: Subverted; Dah is 6' 3", stated to be stronger then most of the men in her squad and with an attitude that's kept her from advancing in her career. She gets ambushed and badly hurt, but ends up recovering to full health.
• Villains Want Mercy: One of the Blue Suns mercs shot by Anderson begs for mercy, insisting he was just following Skarr's orders to kill the Alliance soldiers and didn't enjoy it. Anderson coldly retorts that the merc still obeyed those orders before putting a bullet in the guy's head.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When confronted by Saren, Had'dah says this of Dr. Qian, stating that Qian's obsession with the artifact he's studying (in truth, Qian had been indoctrinated by Sovereign) had made him a liability, after which Saren promptly puts a bullet in Qian's brain.