My thought has always been that if someone were to write Steele's mother, they would only be writing their version of her. We know about Victor, or at least, the shadow of Victor. We know he was an attentive father, he was there for his last child, he was a part of their life until the day he died. We know a far bit about Victor, but the fact is that he'll forever be a shadow and an afterthought.
There's even less known about Steele's mother, other than a photo from when you were born. Writing a character in that much of a state of tabula rasa is going to be a difficult enough challenge - they're writing a character that is going to have enormous expectations and the onus is on them to live up to those expectations. This isn't a dig at anyone's abilities, but I don't think that there are many writers here who can live up to those expectations.
If Steele's mother were to show up in the game, it should only be through rather generic letters. "Hi sweetheart, saw this and thought of you. Take care and know that I love you lots. Love, Mom."
I was mostly thinking of the original reasoning I recall hearing a while back, which was that due to the several different races the player can select at the start, that somehow would make her too difficult to write, I find that reasoning rather silly. Whether Steele was an attentive father seems inconsistent depending on the writer, such as Jim's writing providing you the capability to decide for yourself; and too vague to say he was a particular good parent overall.
As I stated, I am personally of the opinion that a fleshed out parental figure doesn't necessarily negatively impact roleplaying potential, and I would argue the complete absence of Steele's mother is more immersion breaking. As far as the Tabula Rasa, an almost completely blank slate seems far easier to write for than one that had a backstory determined by another author. I'm sure there needs to be a standard of writing quality, but I'm unsure that the expectations would necessarily be beyond any other mainline character, I mean, Steele's cousin is hardly significant competition, and Fen always has the final say anyway.
I agree that even simple messages would be nice worldbuilding on its own.
I think Savin doesn’t want anything involving with Steele’s mother because it’ll just conflict some parts of the main plot. Also, you have to take to account that Briget is Steele’s surrogate mother (someone who birthed them, besides their biological mother) and from the Leithan codex, it literally tells you:
So in other words, the half-Leithan Steele is a designer baby created by Victor. He probably just took their biological mother genes just to make them and never got to meet their actual mother. Or, they had their mother throughout their lives growing up, but she’s too busy doing her own thing (probably vacationing with the dough Victor gave her).
I mean, if you want a motherly figure, there’s Milfs to choose from like Bianca and Beatrice.
Um, isn’t Shade like your half sister in the game? I believe that would count as incest which is one of the blacklisted stuff.
Perhaps I'm mistaken but I don't recall anything along the lines of surrogacy with Briget? And Ellie already demonstrated that cross species offspring doesn't require as such, rather individually modified genetic engineering between the two parents. I fail to see how it would conflict plot wise either.
I don't think being a parent has to categorize someone into the "motherly" personality, there is an expansive array of ideas and expressions that can be used to make different archetypes for any character, the mother included.
I don't think it is a big deal overall but I certainly feel it is possible, and I don't really see what major issue lies therein. I'm not fussed, I just found the reasoning as to why not odd.
