Things you've never did in the trilogy

I never intentionally did the above.  On my first ME2 PT, I didn't know anything about the suicide mission guide.  Hence, I sent - I think - Legion into the vents, which in turn got him killed.  And that affected by ME3 experience as well.  I also had a non-loyal Miranda (since my Paragon and/or Renegade points weren't high enough to make both Miranda and Jack loyal), but she survived because I just happened to put her in a position that was safe for her.  I've also had Mordin die because he was in the wrong place.  I use the guide now because I like everyone to live.

The geth ships are irrelevant. If Sovereign wins it's all over. Taking it out is the first and only priority, everyone else is expendable.

I can't recall if there's a dumber way to make that choice (something, like "screw teh council, let'em die") but "everyone focus on Sovereign" seems to me like the clear logical choice.

What was literally, the first thing I said?

ah yes. To save or not to save the council?

As I posted. I have never saved the council, nor do I have any reason to save the council.

As soon as the geth start firing at the Citadel fleets, the destiny Commander says abandon the Citadel. Ok. I get that. You want to lure the enemy away from the Citadel. She then says evacuate the council. Why? They're not in any immediate danger. Don't they have a security team to get them to safety?.

The next scene shows the destiny flying away from the Citadel. Ok. I guess the council is onboard and the destiny is taking the council to safety. Turns out it wasn't. Why? Once onboard, its the Commanders responsibility to get them to safety.  She failed.

In comes the Alliance. At that point, Hackett can view the battle and decide if he has enough to save to destiny. Shepard has no idea what is going on with the battle. Doesn't know how many geth ships there are. Hackett does.

And yet you ignored how leaving their rear exposed puts them in jeopardy to be able to attack Sovereign.  And they do it twice and yet some how win because the game has to let the player proceed even though they pulled the equivalent of looking down the barrel of their own loaded gun with safety off to check to see if it was clogged while their finger is on the trigger while doing jumping jacks. That is the amount of stupid action the sacrifice the council really is.

At the point Shepard is capable of unlocking the Relays the Geth Fleet have pushed back the Citadel Fleet badly. To the point the Destiny Ascension the largest and most powerful dreadnought organic life has created in this cycle is in peril. 

Taking what you said into account means the single smartest thing they could do is save the Council. Because the Alliance attack hits the Geth from the rear. Destroying ships and forcing other Geth ships to break off the attack on the Citadel Fleet to engage the Alliance Fleet. This give the Citadel Fleet a chance to regroup and counter attack.  You save the DA allowing it to continue attacking and taking out Geth ships.  Once the Alliance Fleet passes the Citadel Fleet to take on Sovereign it leaves their rear guarded because they have the Citadel Fleet now protecting it.

When you sacrifice the council you allow the Geth Fleet to continue to hammer the crumbling Citadel Fleet's line.  When the Alliance passes by the Geth Fleet it gives them plenty of time to take pot shots at the undefended rear of the Alliance Fleet.  And the suspension of belief needed to think the Geth wouldn't be capable of calculating speed, distance, angle and velocity to fire their main guns. Which propel slugs faster then a ship can travel sub FLT speed so far beyond capability. I'd sooner believe someone if they said that they saw Gandhi, Ben Franklin and Lincoln having a 3 way on the beach.  This is the first time the Alliance would be under attack from the rear.  Then once they reach Sovereign without helping the DA it is destroyed. This opens a gap in the Citadel Fleet's defensive line allowing Geth ships to enter it to pursue the Alliance Fleet. Any attempt by the Citadel Fleet to close the hole in their defensive line would require them to pull ships from the rest of the line to fill that gap. Which would weaken their lines even further.   Since the Geth Fleet was not weakened by the destruction of ships. Nor did it require some of the forces to break off the attack stalling the momentum of the attack slightly.  This would allow the Geth Fleet to ram though the Citadel Fleet and attack the Alliance Fleet's completely exposed rear. Because they are drawn up in a circle firing at Sovereign.  This will result in 1 of 2 possible out comes. First one they keep firing at Sovereign resulting in them getting picked off several at a time till they are completely destroyed. Second one is they are forced to break off the attack of all or most of the fleet to protect the remaining. This severely reduces to removes the risk Sovereign is under.

That's headcanon/player rationalization, the choice is about focusing on sovereign vs saving the council, that's it. Just like how i can kill a character for the lulz, but that doesn't change how the choice was presented or Shepard's reasoning for it.

What was it canon Alliance lost 8 ships. Heavy loss is debatable on that.  Unless the entire Acturis Fleet only consists of 12 ships. And I see a lot more then 12 when they exit the Relay.

And your absolutely right you don't get a critical damage. How ever the lay out of the ship puts the main cannon as the center line of the ship facing the front.  From the rear at best missile and AA laser fire is all the ships can counter with. Mean while their rear is fully in line with the main cannons of the Alliance Fleet. The engines are also typically rear facing meaning you have the best shot at destroying them. Destroy the engines and it leaves the ship dead in space.  While it doesn't completely render them helpless it does prevent them from responding to the Citadel or Alliance Fleet movements.

On top of that turning still takes time to do. At that point they are still incapable of bringing the main gun to bare against the Alliance.  On top of that because the Geth Fleet is currently engaging the Citadel Fleet to turn and meet the attack of the Alliance only a portion of their fleet is capable of responding.  This means at best the Geth Fleet is cut in half trying to respond to each attack point.  Or to put it simply what was 2 vs 1 is now effectively 2 vs 2.

If you let the council die and the Geth breaks though you are repeating the same issue only with Alliance. The Fleet will be caught between Sovereign OHKO and the Geth attacking their rear. If they stop attacking Sovereign then it simply gives him time to take control of the station again.  It puts the Alliance Fleet and the galaxy in a less tactically sound position then trying to take on an M1 Abrams Tank with a Glock 19.

If the Citadel Fleet wasn't so depleted then why were they not capable of helping the DA? Why did they even need to put out a general distress call? The fact it was their flag ship and would be the largest target to take out first.  Are you saying the entire Citadel Fleet is commanded by people less versed in even the most basic strategy that even elementary school kids understand?

That sounds interesting.  I mean, I'm not sure I could bring myself to kill Samara just to recruit Morinth but if you do so you have to know she's ultimately going to be your enemy.  She's going to turn on you, or just try to seduce you, because that's what she does.  So the true path with Morinth should be "use and discard".  If I ever have a morally dark Shepard (not just Renegade but bad) and do something like this I'll try to make sure Morinth dies.

The Shepard that recruited her was actually pretty paragon.  My headcanon for that run was that he simply didn't buy into Samara's tale of woe about Ardat-Yakshi and took her to be just a psychotic mother bent on killing her own children.  After all, Liara was a pureblood Asari and was such a "goody two-shoes" that he just couldn't believe Ardat-Yakshi were so bad and not redeemable through some means - drugs or psychotherapy - after diagnosis.  He "sympathized" with the free spirit in Morinth, so he decided to give her a chance by recruiting her.  He had no sexual interest in her, so was not susceptible to being seduced by her.  While on the team, she did her job and no one on the Normandy was either seduced or harmed by her.  He put her in the wrong position during the SM and genuinely mourned her death.  (The last conversation he had with her was indeed worth the mental finagling I did to get the story to that point.)  One of my best playthroughs, IMO.

I know but I like Chakwas.  And if it comes to "come to my ship" versus practically wooing Michel onto my ship....I'm going with Chakwas.

And yet that codex entry contradicts what is shown in game.



They actively state that they are ready if Saren decides to attack the Citadel. That they have patrols at every Mass Relay linking  to the Terminus system.   Patrol doesn't mean massive fleet.  And that actually only makes it worse if the majority of the Fleets were at other Relays then it means the Geth Fleet still crushed multiple Fleets to even reach the Citadel.  Which would also explain why in ME 2 it is stated that a Human Fleet had to protect the Citadel for what was it 8 months.

As well the fact that if they were stationed at Relays the second a distress signal would have been sent from any of the previous fights from Virmine to the Citadel the Geth took. The use of Relays would allow instant travel. Meaning by the time Shepard unlocks the relays around the Citadel far more then just the Alliance Fleet should have poured in.

All this further enhances my point of sacrifice the council should have ended in a game over. Because Sovergein and the Geth already ripped the Citadel Fleet several new butt holes before they even got to the Citadel. To the point there were no ships within range to respond.



There are only a handful of Relays that connect to the Terminus System to the Citadel and Council Space. Literally only Horse Head Nebula, Ismar Frontier and Eagle Nebula besides Sol System connect to the Citadel.  And all of them are literal hop, skip and a jump away from the Citadel.

Far more then just the Alliance should have flooded though those Relays when they were opened.



The choice to sacrifice the Council should have within all game universe logic resulted in the Citadel Fleet being over whelmed without the Alliance taking out a few Geth ships and taking the heat off the DA. Which would also result in the Alliance Fleet being caught between a rock and a hard place.  They had to destroy Sovereign who was capable of destroying Alliance Ships in one hit. They needed every ship attacking him but blindly attacking would allow the Geth to pick ships off one by one destroying the Alliance Fleet. Ships breaking off to engage the Geth would only result in Sovereign taking less heat thus allowing him to sit on his perch till he regained control of the Citadel.  Call in the Reaper Fleet and wipe everyone out.

The paragon choice at least has some basis to have the events play out as they did using in game logic. The Renegade option hand waves a metric ton of stuff to allow it to happen and any attempt to justify it is contradicted by information in later games. Like ME 2 were the Alliance had to protect the Citadel for 8 months because the Battle of the Citadel decimated the Citadel Fleet to the point they couldn't protect the Citadel anymore for a few months before ships could be brought in to replace the lost ones.