Canadian Delicacy - The Kaidan Alenko Thread

But his ME3 model is more stubbly compared to ME1\ME2 model 'as is'. Used to shave more often as an LT, I guess.

Personally I would take anything (like ANYTHING) coming from this DLC with a (Jupiter-sized) grain of salt. It has some decent character-related scenes, ok. But lore-wise and story-wise it's a real mess.

I once watched some ME3 clips with Ashley as the VS, just to see if I could go ahead and attempt to leave Kaidan behind in 1... And then this dialogue happened.

Shepard: Kaidan. He died on Virmire to buy us the time we needed to stop Sovereign. Looking back on this now, I wonder if he'd think his sacrifice was pointless.

Liara: Kaidan would never think that.

Shepard: I know. And that makes me miss him more.



Me: Damn it... *Imagines Shepard glomping a (confused) Kaidan and yelling "I'M NEVER LEAVING YOU BEHIND!"*

Oh, sorry.

Yep. That was one of those moments that really got to me.  I think part of my attachment is also due to how he's always been in my runs, so when he finally wasn't it was really difficult. Had I done it sooner it might've been easier.  But I thought it was (and still is) worth it to play through the trilogy with both of them (and since I have an import with Ashley I don't have to relive... Virmire again. Technically.)

And I still like the idea of them both existing in 3... It would've been fun.

Looked that way. He is older and has been through... stuff. I like it.

They aged a few of the characters...though they also gave some of the grey headed characters bad dye jobs as well (Udina and Bailey).  I never quite got why so many hair changes were made, but I suspect it had to do with the rush job or some kind of limitation they ran into? -shrug- Still, I think the grey hair looks great on Kaidan...anything would. <.< >.>

Actually, it has much to do with the engine tweaks. Sometimes the textures and meshes are identical, but the lighting and some other stuff work differently. That was one of the things that had ruined customSheps, by the way.

If you pay attention, you'll notice that lighting noticably changes even between the in-game scenes. E.g. what you see in CC, what you see on your squad screen and what you see in cut-scenes is not the same. ME3 prologue has one of the worst setup, the way things and models look in that intro scene they don't look anywhere else during the game (including Shepard, Vega and Kaidan). It took me hours to realize that and to stop testing my custom-tweaked imported headmorph on the intro scene.

But yeah, I like how Major looks older in ME3, salt&pepper looks good on him. The only issue here is that his ME2 model should have been different too, something between ME1 and ME3. But it's not bothering me too much (especially when I think about the transmutations Ash had to go through).

It doesn't really carry over in any way that suggests he still has those views. At most, ME3 might reference it by him saying Shepard sided with him about Vyrrnus though that could still apply to a non-renegade Kaiden.
ME1 gets pretty creepy with Kaiden taking a major personality change. From making comments like, "Those damn aliens sure like getting technical" to actively telling Shepard to let the Council die because, "What did they ever do for us?"

I like him far more that way too. He's more mature and insightful as he is and even though it was for the sake of roleplaying a different way to see missed content, I wanted to smack that Shepard for bulldozing over Kaidan's views and browbeating him into agreeing with her.

ME1 Renegade Kaidan was a joke really. But it was funny to renegade him and then confuse the heck out of him.

Although Kaidan appears a few minutes in Mass Effect 2, I do somewhat enjoy their separation arc.

Shepard saw him last when he left her to help evacuating the rest of the crew. She was killed and woke up two years later and suddenly she's at war with Collectors and was forced to ally with her enemy, Cerberus. All of this happened almost immediately after she woke up and she didn't have any time to process her emotions or what happened to her so she pushed everything deep inside. She became emotionally detached, unusually distant and numb. The world moved on without her and she was simply going through the motions and basically sign her own death warrant by attempting to go through the Omega-4 Relay. She was dead and preparing to die again.... pfft..

And for Kaidan, its been two years since he lost her and it did tore him apart. The world moved on without her and he tried as well and suddenly there's rumors that Shepard is alive with Cerberus. But Cerberus had nothing to do with the attack on Normandy, or did they? Shepard's only connection to Cerberus was Akuze but how is she alive? She was spaced and she couldn't have survived but there was no trace of her corpse. Cerberus do crazy science, maybe Shepard did survive? How? Why? Imagine spending two years going crazy thinking just that. Chasing Cerberus operatives to try to find out and possibly get brain matter splatter whenever he tried to interrogate them. Then he was lead to an Alliance-hating colony at the edge of Terminus system. Suddenly, he got bitten by a stasis bug, but luckily he can do biotics with his brain. Bipedal insectoid aliens began to transport everyone into their ship and their only hope was the broken canon emplacement everyone hate. He fought through Collectors only to see his girl again who now stare at him with blank eyes and then offer him to join her suicide team.

As much as I am frustrated by the scene, it was Shepard that make me want to shake her. Just a hug. No kissing. No begging. Just short conversation of "why are you angry, see the bigger picture, you won't listen, so long"? No private moment in the cabin to explain things? No secret meeting with [Investigation] dialogue where you could say something relevant to him like you're in direct communication with the head of the terrorist organization that everyone failed to find and she didn't want to risk this being compromised. No.. you just had enough of the colony and pretend you don't feel anything for him as if your eyes doesn't look sad most of the time.

Anyway, it took only a few months for this overly drama queen to finish off Collectors, screw with Cerberus and destroy Bahak system where she can go back to Vancouver and do another one of those long meaningful "I want you but I can't have you" stares.

Then in the third game, go all Kaidan 

I'm currently making a run through Mass Effect 3. My male shepard has the default look since I can never seem to get a good looking customized Shepard in 3. Anyone else have issues with that character creator? If I wasn't on ps3, I'd imagine there would be some great mods to fix that. 


I locked in my romance with Kaidan yesterday.    I am looking forward to the Citadel DLC content.