Cerberus Daily News

Here's a social experiment:

Take a popular sci-fi series. In this example, Mass Effect.

Start up a page doing nothing but reposting the official, daily in-universe news blurbs.

Add a commentary box.

And watch the roleplayers just pour in.

That's what happened to Cerberus Daily News. A fake news site that grew into a roleplay community overnight, with its own forum, storylines, chat channel, wiki, tropes and tropers. The last one is to blame for this page's existence.

Even after BioWare announced that it would be putting its own news updates on hiatus beginning in January of 2011, save for the weeks preceding the release of the final Mass Effect 2 DLC and Mass Effect 3, CDN's members volunteered to write daily in-universe news stories of their own.

Cerberus Daily News can be found here. There's a wiki that can be found here. If you want to submit your own CDN story,here are the posting guidelines.

Tropes used in Cerberus Daily News include:

Abad Sam-mel: What the hell?! 'CDN' stands for 'Cerberus Daily News', not 'Cosmic Dating Network', damnit.

<TSS> I AM BESIDE MYSELF WITH ANGER AND BEING PUNKED
<TSS> I WILL DESTROY YOU HARRAD
<TSS> WITH FIRE AND THINGS LIKE FIRE

  • Even Evil Has Standards: Several of the "evil" characters, such as Penumbra and RememberTheBlitz.
    • Not so much with space rapist extraordinaire, Abattoir.
    • Despite Cerberus using the pro-human Terra Firma party as a political front, the majority of the humans on the board despise TF and all it stands for,
      • This is actually inverted shockingly, as quite a few TF members are level-headed, kind, and decent people save for a an extremely Vocal Minority like we see in the games.
    • Counterexample: SuriNeyvi.
      • Some_Random_Merc will not smuggle Red Sand. PERIOD.
    • After Discord massacred an entire colony just to get at Gorik, Arbitrary and her Reavers joined Gorik's army to kill Discord.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: Biotic grizzly
  • Expy: Asharia is based off of a certain blood-spatter analyst.
  • Extranet Counterattack: Taken to an extreme with Operation Down With Discord. Discori made some postings offering to sell slaves. An army of mercenaries launched a coordinated attack on his base.
  • Eye Scream: Desta T'Res loses her left eye during Operation Down With Discord.
  • Fail O'Suckyname: Apostate Hanar's previous ship was called the Peanut Butter.
  • Fantastic Racism: RememberTheBlitz really hates batarians. Urdnot Durg seems to really hate turians, but being a krogan, that's par for the course.
    • Everyone despises vorcha as a rule.
    • Newcomer Captain Dharma seems to be quite wary of Asari... check out his signature.
    • Newcomer We_Standalone/Job Martins has a fear for anything not human, but gets better as time goes on.
  • "Faux To" Guide: The "Serious Life Coach Column" should totally be taken at face value and obeyed to the letter. No, really. No flippancy or satire goes anywhere near those posts, honest!
  • Field Promotion: SvChief Jaquento Schmidt got one to GyChief after his unorthodox idea saved the Teutoburg Forrest from being destroyed by crashing into a planet. For another one (to OpChief) see Kicked Upstairs.
    • Likewise for GyChief Tritt, who got his current rank after ending a hostage crisis with no civilian loss of life. Unfortunately, he's now stuck as company logistics NCO
  • Fridge Horror:
    • So, the Alliance Towers Military Moonshiner uses keeper-food as carbohydrate source? The keepers are known for throwing dead people in their food supply, regarding them as organic waste.
    • See the entry for Nightmare Fuel below.
  • Gambit Pileup: This happened when Varril was imprisoned and several different complicated plans were hatched to rescue him, but most of the disorganized confusion you'd usually expect is averted, as Varril gets out in the end.
  • Genki Girl: Grackel and Naaya.
  • Happily Bonded: Isaac (Asarilover267) and Dellia.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: The epicness that is this.
  • Has Two Mommies: Some_Random_Merc
    • Laelix, Harrad and Cour's adoptive son, has two daddies.
    • Kolya (Human Quarian). Technically it was one dad and one Honorary Uncle and it was only for four years of his life but it still counts.
  • Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Happens with disturbing regularity. One of the more recent occasions, where in Suri'Neyvi posts a disturbingly sexual image, and much of the forumites have this reaction.
  • Heroic BSOD: TSS/Abattoir fanfiction is leaked. To everyone. TSS doesn't take it well.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: By one of the villains, no less.
  • Hideous Hangover Cure: Goronak's concoction. Whatever it is, it tastes awful, but works.
  • Holier Than Thou:
    • Kel'Jaroth may not be religious, but he preaches at everybody.
    • Same with John Galt.
  • Hooked Up Afterwards: Kel'Jaroth and Kiae'Era, after Kel helped save Kiae'Era's settlement and discovering they have a lot in common.
  • Hurricane of Puns: This thread.
  • I Call It Vera: Quint's FMBLA and Aphin's Fishjolnir. The former is a gun that shoots spent heat sinks at their opponents. The latter is a three foot-long rubber fish on a handle. And don't forget Lode's crowbar, which he named Gordon.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Asharia was reluctant to establish a close relationship because of her "condition". However, that changed when she hooked up with Son_of_Orion. In an attempt to curb her impulses, she started visiting Ana'Therion vas Nedas.
  • Ironic Nursery Tune: Robin Goodfellow speaks almost exclusively in them.
  • Jerkass: RememberTheBlitz, AI Architect, Urdnot Durg, Dr. Domicilia, Steel Unifier, Terrorbyte, Infra Struct, Corona... It's sometimes shorter just to list those who don't come under this.
  • Just Think of the Potential: RememberTheBlitz uses this argument to justify his work with Cerberus.
  • Keet: Thalyr'ra nar Thunderchild.
  • Kicked Upstairs: (For lack of a better trope.) When Jaquento Schmidt accepted a position at the Alliance Tower on the Citadel, he was promoted for formal reasons only, giving him rank superiority over his coworkers and a bigger pay check.
    • Same for Gunny Tritt, whose new rank came with the billet of company gunny, placing him in charge of logistics and training, and taking him off the line. He's doing his best to get put back on the line, though.
  • Killer Rabbit: An expedition to an uncharted planet yielded the discovery of small blue lizards with biotic powers, though they seemed pretty harmless. Then a huge pack of them started all Charging the expedition party at once.
  • Knowledge Broker: Digital Dragon is starting a business in this field as well.
  • Lady of War: Talyra Kerun, the female turian duelist.
  • Large Ham: SNOW VARREN SPEAKS IN GREEN, BOLD, ALL-CAPS SENTENCES, WITH NO CONCEPT OF FIRST-PERSON SINGULAR.
    • ALSO Jon Briggs, respectable BUSINESSMAN, whose BOMBASTIC and RANDOMLY CAPITALIZED speeches remind one of Peterman, a bit.
    • Algar has also tasted of the ham and found it sweet. Not only does he prone to ranting as loudly as possible, he follows so many villain tropes he might as well get a union card for Bond Villains R Us.
    • Rakho Shoval, the abolitionist batarian preacher. "Be strong, for DELIVERANCE is at hand!"
  • Law Enforcement, Inc.: The Omega-based organisation AEGIS walk the line between this and mercenaries
  • Les Yay: Between Arla'Neeri and Suri'Neyvi.
  • Let's Play: An in-universe example: Asharia plays X-COM.
    • Some_Random_Merc is an AVID Alliance Corsair player.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters
  • Love Triangle: Formerly one between Digital Dragon and Vox, who were both after AI Architect.
  • Made a Slave: Nearly happened to Aragem23.
  • Madness Mantra:

Suri: BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD

  • Mad Scientist: Legitimate_Human_Merchant, or LHM, creator of the biotic grizzly bear and more than one Wave Motion Gun. Augment/Algar was also revealed to be this.
    • Linya (Scientific Pursuits) subverts this, being a researcher who just happens to be an industrial-strength Cloudcuckoolander and Genki Girl.
  • Mass "Oh Crap": A number of influential Omega underworld characters hold a meeting to discuss uniting to take over the Embodiment's territory after Abattoir retired. Abattoir decided to turn up as well.
    • Also the nature of the main feed regarding the last few days up to the Mass Effect 3 launch.
    • And the forum itself now that the Reaper invasion has begun in the forums.
  • Mean Brit: Wolfgang. Or at least, incredibly acerbic and sarcastic Brit.
  • MSTing A fictional James Bond IN SPACE is ripped apart here.
  • Mugging The Separatist Survivalist: Sylvion meets Sicaria.
  • My Master, Right or Wrong: The indentured servants that belong to Johnny/Some_Random_Merc. Goddess knows that he has done some unpleasant thing, but they stick by him, despite their contracts.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: A significant number of characters behaves in ways you wouldn't expect from their species. Given this is Mass Effect, it's only to be expected.
    • Most notably with three batarians on the board: despite being commonly viewed as slavers and criminals, Goronak, Julmoth, and Zerak are quite nice guys. The latter is also a batarian abolitionist of sorts.
    • Averted with three batarian slavers: Abad Sam-mel, Kalla, and Malak.
    • And there's Fero the Swift, who is probably the most intelligent and polite vorcha out there.
  • Mythology Gag: All day, every day.
  • Never Found the Body:
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Who Goes There storyline. A sentient parasite Hive Mind that can take over anyone with no outward sign of control? An unknowable entity with its own alien agenda? A charity network that goes around infecting new people under the guise of collecting blood? Yeah, that counts.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Lady Sweat.
  • Noodle Incident: Laid-back quarian Tomaz still hasn't given the full details of the event that ended his Pilgrimage, other than it involved combat drones, gunships, and playing Die Walkuerenritt at max volume.
    • The incident on the Citadel with Thalyr'ra and the baby he allegedly stole became this when multiple people became involved and the thing devolved into a complicated, albeit hilarious, mess.
    • Gunny Tritt apparently had his ship boarded by a merc team led by a Krogan battlemaster. He refuses to elaborate.
  • No Social Skills: Twisted Logic, whose species, the Raloi, joined Citadel space. Grackel, the other Raloi, is this crossed with Genki Girl.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: One Classy Bloke - ha ha, it's a volus in a top hat with a cane! Funny, right? Well, he's not only showing signs of being a Magnificent Bastard...he's a biotic vanguard on top of that.
  • Obviously Evil:

Silas: I don't know, but something about Varana seems a little...off.
Varana: Mercy is for the weak!
Silas: If I could just put my finger on it...

  • Oh Crap: When the official news feed restarted in preparation for the release of Mass Effect 3, the boards picked up with speculation, conspiracy theories, etc. Then came the last report that contact with Earth had been lost. Cue total panic.
  • One Steve Limit: Completely averted. Not only are there now two forum users who go by "Quint," but there is a recurring joke involving every other batarian being named "Goronak."
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Modem's (assumed) name is Sarah. The only person who actually calls her this is her handler, Tracer T.
    • Sylvion intentionally keeps tight control over who knows his real name. At present, only three living people other than him know what it is.
  • Only Sane Man: Master Gunnery Sergeant Brandis plays this to the crew of the Nialla.
  • Overprotective Dad: Desrevni, who threatened Procul His with all sorts of damage, should he get into a relationship with his daughter, an Alliance Marine.
  • Painting the Fourth Wall: The 'Cerberus Log Reports' are essentially just the characters' bios, disguised as info files compiled by Cerberus on the subjects.
  • Play-By-Post Games: Notable in that it wasn't, originally.
  • Practical Joke:
    • Aphin/The_Sarcastic_Salarian claims to be the king of them, despite being taken down several pegs by Hok in the past.
    • Resident psychopath Abattoir got into a prank war with the above-mentioned Aphin. Naturally, hilarity ensued.
  • Private Military Contractors: About a third of the cast are mercenaries.
  • Psycho for Hire: At first, you'd think this was Abattoir. But, then, if you think so, you haven't met Sanguine and Robin Goodfellow.
  • Punch Clock Villain: Penumbra's not exactly an upstanding moral citizen, but comes off both pleasant and reasonable, and compared to some of her associates she seems like a regular paragon.
  • Really Gets Around: Both Abattoir and Diplomatic Immunity, despite both of their rather fearsome reputations.
  • Redshirt Army: Played in the background by many players, but also the chief forte of the "Mook Squad" account.
  • Remember When You Threw An Alliance Cruiser Into The Sun
  • Retcon: Julmoth's appearance/avatar. Started with the pre-Bring Down the Sky codex image, later changed to a Blue Suns merc, currently sporting a double aviators look.
  • Retired Badass: Ex-wrestler banker, ex-special forces cop, ex-mercenary ship repairman, ex-military mechanic...
  • Rock Beats Laser: Sling Beats Drone.
  • Rouge Angles of Satin: Orion suffers from this in "So a krogan walks into a bar..." when he attempts to contact Asharia via text after drinking two shots of batarian ale and eating krogan food.

Son_of_Orion: ashria/sick/tuhaka's deligt/zakra ward/hlep

  • Rule of Cool: How most stories are played.
  • Running Gag: Diplomatic Immunity has a habit of inviting each new member over for a [redacted]. In response, several other members warn the newbies to "watch out for Dippy."

Procul His: Cerberus science program goes horribly awry. Or as the rest of us call it, Friday.

Sklikos Gamic: [...] ...The Truth of how the alien corrupters corrupted the Hierarchy with their corrupting Alienenss and how they control our glorious corrupted Hierarchy with alien corruption.

Velinara: (to Abattoir) But before you make a further move, you should know that if you draw your weapon anyways, you will be drawing on the mother of your child.

    • Also:

Long live the Hegemony.

  • What Did I Do Last Night?: Julmoth lost two weeks due to some really strong drugs and ended up on Earth with a bunch of human junkies and a volus prostitute.
    • Asharia, Urdnot Nutanx, and Elara T'Meyra found themselves in a Tasbin-fueled threesome, with... violent results to Ash's apartment.
    • Juhani at Diplomatic_Immunity's penthouse after the party. Went there to say hi, ended up taking part in an orgy with krogans, turians, Dippy and one asari, while drunk.
  • What You Are in the Dark: The Chresk threads are a near perfect example on this, as you'll never know who will actually bet on the slaves being forced to fight to gain freedom until they do so.
  • Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Zig Zagged Trope and Parodied Trope with The Palace, the most popular gay bar on Tayseri Ward. It features the requisite annoying electropop and some of the sexual depravity. However, it also has bouncers to prevent things from getting out of hand, as well as a variety of theme nights like Elcor Beat Poetry Night where the stereotypical music stops playing.
  • Wrench Wench: Kim (Digital Dragon) is one part this, and one part Playful Hacker.
  • You Have to Have Jews: Asarilover267, and apparently Gunny Tritt.
    • Rasbai is a rabbi.
  • You No Take Candle: Skarch the vorcha's occasional posts; overlaps with Rouge Angles of Satin.
    • Dreket, Abad's vorcha sidekick, does this as well.
    • Dit, too. The Nialla vorcha Fero is exceptional in that he appears to avert this, but it took months of training.
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