Somehow, I suspect Tchaikovsky will have his fun in revealing the truth behind these enigmatic precursors, and just what the heck happened with them. ItвЂ™s safe to assume the answer goes well beyond вЂњBecause it would make for a boring storyвЂќ. So where are the Originators? Why havenвЂ™t they solved all the Architect problems in the galaxy, the whole bloody universe? Turns out, the Originator ruins and artifacts keep the Architects at bay - which humanity catches on a little too late, only after Earth has been transformed into a crystalline sculpture of horror. These are not quite the Prothean ruins of Mass Effect fameвЂ“they donвЂ™t seem to offer great technological advances to humanity and seem overall useless, or so humanity thinks at first. The Originators have done more than just carve out paths into unspace, however they have also left ruins and artifacts behind. Throughways are the only lanes accessible to ships that lack navigators who, like the human Intermediaries, are capable of accessing and navigating unspace.

TheyвЂ™ve gone to all the trouble of creating the Throughways, paths between planets that make use of unspace. It could be that the Originators are a neglectful lot. Shards of Earth deploys a number of tropes that will be familiar to those of you who fancy themselves veterans of the Clone Wars of the space opera subgenre of sci-fi! The ten tropes below only begin to cover all the fun inside Shards of Earth but hell, itвЂ™s a grand beginning if there ever was one! At the title of every one of these is a link thatвЂ™ll guide you to tvtropes, if youвЂ™re interested in reading more about these tropes in general.

Tvtropes eye of the beholder 3