I Can’t Believe More People Aren’t Talking About This Miranda Plothole In Mass Effect

Mass Effect 2 quickly finds a way to separate Shepard from their original crew on the Normandy and give them a new group of allies, including Miranda. Eventually, Shepard reunites with some of their previous allies, and they learn more about the backgrounds and lives of each companion joining them on their missions through individual loyalty quests. While they each have parts of their past that make them unhappy, some details in Miranda’s storyline have always left me a bit curious about both her views and the state of the beauty industry in the Mass Effect universe.

Mass Effect 2 opens with a dramatic sequence involving the Normandy taking a critical hit, requiring the crew to evacuate. As the commander, Shepard goes through the ship and makes sure that everybody else is able to escape before even considering their own safety. Because of this decision, Shepard is unable to evacuate, and they plummet to the surface of the nearest planet, labeled as killed in action. However, this sequence is the only reason that Shepard ends up willing to work with Miranda (and potentially romance her throughout Mass Effect 2) and her employer, Cerberus.

Part Of Miranda’s Loyalty Quest Feels Like A Plothole

Gene Editing Must Be Advanced In Mass Effect

Miranda, like the rest of your crew, has loyalty quests that let you change her outfit and later impact how likely she is to survive during the Collector Base suicide mission during Mass Effect 2‘s finale. However, I find her storyline to be a bit odd compared to other characters, and a large part of that is because I don’t understand why she’s upset to such an extent about something that other people would pay hefty sums of money to achieve. As you discover during the game, Miranda’s dad made her genetically perfect, and she’s not thrilled about it.

I never felt like this made a lot of sense, considering it would be a positive result overall if you’re genetically perfect and don’t need to worry about various hereditary conditions or diseases. At most, I can understand her being upset that she wasn’t given a choice in the matter, especially if she suffered side effects from the process, or it went wrong, but the game doesn’t give you a lot of information about how this process works, so it’s tough to guess at its exact nature aside from it happening before birth and using only DNA from her dad.

When it comes to disliking her dad, I think that she could feel wronged because he didn’t have her permission to alter her, and the way he treated her was abusive and horrible, so it’s understandable that she doesn’t like him. It’s also possible that she’s upset due to his reasons for wanting to make genetically perfect daughters, since he planned to make a superior family line. Unfortunately for him, Miranda ended up being infertile, and it could be a result of the process that made her genetically perfect. But the idea of being genetically perfect would realistically be popular.

Depending On The Technology

One lesser known piece of Mass Effect lore is that the Council has laws that ban genetic engineering, and the process used to create Miranda and her twin would certainly fall under that ban, I assume. Technically, that law should ban Medigel, but Medigel is incredibly useful for healthcare purposes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other health reasons why items and technologies that would normally be banned are exempt from these laws. I think that the engineering done to Miranda was either done illegally, or it was allowed under the pretense that it was for health purposes.

Alternatively, we know that Miranda’s dad is incredibly wealthy. It’s possible that the ultra wealthy are allowed more leniency in what they do, or that her dad bought off the Council and related officials so they would overlook his project. With those possibilities, and the likelihood that there would be other people with money they could burn on these projects, it seems strange that there wouldn’t be more people who have been extensively genetically modified among the wealthiest populations. It would also be a huge business if it was legalized for cosmetic purposes, considering how big cosmetic industries are.

Overall, it seems strange that Miranda’s situation isn’t more common in the world of Mass Effect, even with the Council’s laws. If Medigel is exempt from the laws, the Council could make similar exceptions for genetic engineering that impacts health or appearance, assuming that their main concern would be the wrong people trying to use genetics to engineer living weapons. When you look at all the cosmetic procedures and options available in our current society, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe that genetic alterations would be the next step, and popular among those who can afford it.

How Much Would Miranda’s Alterations Cost?

The Price Of Perfection

The only bit of information we’re given about how much money Miranda’s dad spent on creating her and her sister is that it was an immense amount. Then, to add an extra layer of difficulty in trying to compare the cost to real life, we don’t exactly have that same level of capability when it comes to tailoring somebody’s genes prior to birth in order to make them genetically perfect. Between those two factors, there’s not a reliable way to estimate the total cost, but we can guess that it would be at least tens of millions of dollars.

Currently, gene and cell therapy is rather restricted by cost alone, which puts us in the million range for Miranda’s situation as the lowest possible cost. According to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, a single dose of gene therapy is one million dollars on the low end. With that in mind, the cost associated with tailoring somebody’s genes to be perfect has to be astronomical, even in ME, limiting it to the wealthiest people, like Miranda’s dad.

Miranda is justified in being upset with her father for creating her for his own uses, and for the abuse she suffered from him, but it’s odd to me that there aren’t more people who are being made genetically perfect, regardless of its legality. I can see a strong argument being made that genetic engineering should be allowed to the extent that it only addresses health conditions or is used in cosmetic capacities. It’s a small detail, but it feels like a plothole that gene alterations aren’t at least a background issue in the world of Mass Effect.

Source: Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News