Forum:The Ryder naming "problem"

for now, this isn't really a policy to be voted on but a brainstorming session on how to handle the Ryders so that there won't be any more questions about this in the future.

as people may or may not know, this wiki's approach to Commander Shepard is really simple: gender-neutral pronouns, no first names, default face models when absolutely needed. it's to keep writeups as universally applicable as possible given that not everyone plays the trilogy the same way.

the emergence of two playable characters (and one guy whose title one of them inherits) in Mass Effect: Andromeda throws a complication in all but one of those things.
 * the twin you don't choose also has a significant story presence, meaning additional work tracing the how's and why's if the NPC twin does things differently depending on their gender. we can live with that, except...
 * the twin you don't choose has a default name. you can name your PC Kaldor Draigo Ryder, but your sister will always be Sara and not Mary Sue.

these present difficulties, how? well, this more or less cements a certain canon for the NPC twin that will be invalidated merely by the fact that the story may unfold rather differently depending on who's the PC. muh pleyer choiz!!! best case scenario is that it doesn't matter who among the twins is the PC if describing the plot in broad strokes and in the inevitable character arcs of squadmates and others. worst case is a ton of ifs and conditionals (like what's in the character articles already), only that we'll be at a loss on what to call the NPC twin if you're -the- Ryder or "Pathfinder".

the simplest solution would be to just use their default names in their articles: Scott Ryder for the male and Sara Ryder for the female.
 * this is at the expense of player choice, of course, in that we essentially assigned the default name to your awsum PC character regardless of what you want to name them. takes care of the referencing issue though.

another solution is to label the twins' articles like Ryder_(male) / Ryder_(female) or variations thereof. scott and sara ryder redirects respectively. personally not in favor as it's awkward and it's already stated the NPC twin has a canon name, but hey there's your player choice.

in terms of article content, what will the twins' biographies have? because one of them is an NPC, if you're playing as a female ryder, scott's article should predominantly be about scott's story as revealed while playing as the female ryder. female ryder goes nameless in scott's article, addressed only indirectly. same goes vice versa.

in other articles, an in-universe writeup mentioning the twins would probably look like this:
 * If the Pathfinder is male, his sister Sara is revealed to be in a relationship with Drack. Otherwise, Scott finds the krogan a pain in the ass to work with despite the latter saving his life multiple times.

the rest of the article will probably mention the Pathfinder in neutral terms whenever possible.

now, i'm giving this a week and a half for comments and suggestions before taking any action in the mainspace. it's only 40+ days or so as of writing before andromeda gets released. i will be defaulting to the scott and sara ryder naming and content conventions i suggested here unless there's a significant and reasoned discussion advising otherwise. T̴̴͕̲̞̳̖̼̱͒͛̎͒ͫ̃ͧeͩ̈̽̈҉͓̝̰̼̦̫̤̀͠m̫̪̪̯̻͎̫̅̇̓̇͌̚p̸̙̝̓̓͌ͨ͆ͣͥ̂̕o͒̽͐̽͏̞̬̻͕͔͕͚̰͍͠͞ṙ̢̞͚͈̹̰ͨ̓ͭ̈́̌ạ̢̧̪̹̺̺̣̹̲͂͆̏ͪͨ͒ͭř̹͈͜͠y̷͍̻̜̹̼̾̽̈́e̵̹̼̟̦͚͐̈́͌͘d͉̲̣̻͉̱͗̅ḭ̷̻̆͋̆̓̔͝t̨͍̦̫̗͂̅̍̋̆ͩ͝ộ̫̟̬̳̝̲̾ͫ̒̿ͮ̑̚rͯ̎ͨͭ̄̿̽͛҉̠̫̱̠̘̘̲́ͅ7̩̻ͤͩͨ͝͡8̜̣̙͇̻ͨ͛͛̆͒̆̽̒͐͜͡ ͥ̍̉̃̇ͥ̓ͨ͏̕҉̥̹͓̗̤̠̖̤ (talk) 09:07, January 31, 2017 (UTC)