What did you do today in ME?

Reave is great, sucking the life out of everyone around you.  I think it's less powerful in ME3.  But I truly love Biotic Charge.  Watching vorcha and other annoyances going flying through the air is awesome (especially when they're knocked over the edge of something into the abyss), as is watching a LOKI mech break into pieces.

Started what will probably be my last playthrough of the entire trilogy.
New account, new achievment.
Difficulty: veteran (Mass effect); hardcore (2&3)
Main objective: complete the game without ever dying. No reload. So: no sentimentality, maximum effectiveness, best squadmates always with me.
Let's try


John Eric Shepard.
Triple S: Spacer, Survivor, Soldier.

Eden Prime: completed without trouble.







let's go to the citadel

No pun intended here, LOL.

But seriously, looking forward to it. And be careful with the Tresher Maws on those unknown worlds that tend to appear out of nowhere and insta-destroy your Mako.

Owen Shepard:

Outside of Baria Frontiers there were a lot of injured civilians as the result of the explosion. It was even worse inside. No one I saw was alive.


Encountered a lot of resistance from agents of the Shadow Broker. When I finally made it to Sekat's office, he was dead and Vasir shot the agent who had done it. Then Vasir asked about Liara, which was when she showed up with a gun pointed at her. Liara seemed to think Vasir was the enemy and it turned out she was right. Spectre or not, she was working with the Shadow Broker.


Vasir fled in a skycar and we took one of our own. It only had room for three so I chose Samara. She was more powerful, more stable and really hated criminals. Exactly who I wanted by my side. Oh, and Liara really is some kind of bad ass. She was tossing mercs aside like they were nothing. Something changed in her since she ran with my sister.

We followed after. Vasir crashed on the veranda of a resort. We had to take care of the mercs she put in her way before following but she was injured. Fortunately, Vasir left a trail of blood for us to follow. Unfortunately, she also left dead bodies. Vasir tried taking a hostage but we managed to free her without injury. Problem with Vasir was that she was a Vanguard. No other Vanguard I'd ever met had biotic charge but she did. Made it hard to catch and she had a huge supply of medi-gel. She retreated when she was hurt too much, sending mercs and drones to attack. It was a good thing that she wasn't faster than me. I also had reave, a power she was lacking. Finally, we took her down. She said she was loyal to the Council and did work for the Shadow Broker for the intel he provided. She said it was worth taking out a few people here and there to get that intel. Then she talked about me working for Cerberus. The difference is that I don't do Cerberus missions that run contrary to my conscience. I don't engage in terrorism. It also wasn't my choice to worth with them so much as the only alternative. Unlike with Vasir, the Council did look closely at my actions. Hell, they locked down Faith's original Normandy when she was going to do something they didn't like. Vasir didn't like to be judged, which is the last thing she said before dying.


Having discovered the location of the Shadow Broker, we left for it on the Normandy. It was a huge ship constantly moving through the atmosphere of Hagalaz, keeping ahead of massive storms. Hell, the view was outstanding, but I wouldn't want to fall off - though one of the Broker's agents did after being hit by a biotic charge. (FYI, the Vanguards here lack biotic charge, so it must be a rare ability.)


We fought our way through and finally got to the hatch leading inside of the ship. Problem was the lock was something crazy. Security updates in locks made omni-gel useless in most cases. This was one of those instances. Liara had a hack but it was going to take some time. Meanwhile, we were under constant fire and could abandon the hatch without risking the hack being stopped.


Aside from taking the Shadow Broker out of commission, Liara was also looking for her friend, Feron. After fighting through another wave of SB agents, we found Feron. He was strapped to a device that would kill him if we removed him from it. The only way to free him was from the SB's own terminal. Even if we weren't after him, we had to take him down to save Feron. Feron did tell us the SB was big and we assumed it was some kind of exceptionally smart krogan. When we got there, the first thing evident is that it was not a krogan. They looked small in comparison. Liara identified him as a yahg, a pre-flight species who were confined to their planet for massacring the Council's first contact team.


The tough part was his shields. Energy and projectiles bounced off of it but it wasn't immune to a fist to the chin. I hammered on it until it went down. Then he shoved me away and held up a shield of energy in front of him. Of course, that also left him with only one had to use in a fight. It was a tough one, but in the end he went down. And Liara, of all people, took over his role. No one alive knew what he looked like and there was a voice modulator that altered her voice to sound like him. She'd run things differently but it took her job as an information broker to the top level.


I got a look at some of the SB archival footage. One curious thing was I saw Anderson meeting with a Cerberus agent. That's peculiar, to say the least. Or, as I suspected, allies for me were planted in Cerberus. I saw Emily Wong, my favorite reporter, dancing. Also saw the reporter who liked to do smear jobs get smacked down by a krogan. She had that coming. Weirdest one was a keeper next to a dead krogan. I think that meant they're not to be messed with.


Liara came for a tour of the SR2. She had chats with Joker and Chakwas, who she knew from the SR1. She also brought me Faith's dog tags. That would go nicely with her helmet. Despite not knowing her well - meeting her for the first time at Faith's funeral - I found that I was beginning to like her. We might even be friends.


Headed to the MSV Strontium Mule. It had been taken by the Blue Suns and there was some cargo Cerberus wanted. Supposedly this was a derelict ship, but the burned out bodies said otherwise. The Blue Suns had to have overtaken it and murdered the entire crew. It's shit like this that makes me hate mercs. The original captain left a message should he be dead. Said they answered a distress signal that ended up being a Blue Suns trap. Damn them!

The moon Franklin was under attack by batarian terrorists. They hired fired missiles at two locations and I had five minutes to stop them. Five. Hell. We took them out and got to the console directing the missiles. Problem was, we could only stop one missile. It was either save a spaceport/industrial district, which would protect Alliance interests, or the one headed to the Capital City, saving hundreds of lives. Of course, without the financial district the colony couldn't survive, but at least the people could be relocated elsewhere. I decided to save the people.

On Sanctum, we tracked down the false distress beacon that Blue Suns had used to lure the MSV Strontium Mule. Cleared out the base of all mercs. Fortunately, it had been clear before the Blue Suns arrived. Then I blew up the distress beacon, insuring it couldn't be used again.

Next up, the MSV Broken Arrow was in a decaying orbit over the planet Jonus. High probability that it was crash into the planet's largest colony. This time, I had six minutes to restart the engines, something made more difficult by the geth presence. Was able to take out the geth, restore power to the engines, and leave it for someone to retrieve. As it turned out, there were munitions crates on board that were going to help the colonists protect themselves from the geth.

Picked up geth activity on the planet Canalus. There was a climate altering device to make it uninhabitable for organic life. Had to be a prototype for future use but I was going to make sure it was destroyed. Resistance was light but the device is no longer viable. Maybe that would put a stop to future attempts to decimate all organic life.

I was now convinced that it was time to go to Haestrom and recruit Tali. I'd only held off because I knew there was bad blood between Cerberus and the quarians. Garrus is a little more professional, able to put his grudges on hold until the time was right. I wasn't sure about Tali but I didn't want to wait any longer. Since I thought she could use a friendly face, I brought Garrus and, for the heck of it, Samara. Haestrom was once a quarian colony prior to the geth revolt. Now its sun was unstable, ruining the magnetosphere of the planet, and really fucking with our shields.

The place was crawling with geth. Also heard a message saying to find Tali. Had to blow up a wall in my way. Found a log of Tali's saying she wished I were there. Wish granted! Pretty much every quarian that was protecting Tali was dead. The only survivor is one I'd talked to on the radio, Kal'Reegar. Fought my way to Reegar. He really was all that was left but was under heavy fire from not just geth troops but also a massive geth colossus. He couldn't get to Tali and so was drawing attention to himself instead. That's some serious loyalty. Anyway, he said the colossus had a repair protocol, huddling up when injured to make repairs. The outer shell was a lot tougher than the rest of it. Well, he wasn't alone now and I convinced him to remain under cover as my backup in case more geth arrived. Besides, what Reegar didn't know about me was that my charge could have me on the other side of the battlefield before the geth could get at me. I was able to get into position to attack the colossus while Garrus and Samara picked off the geth behind me. Then we made it to Tali. She decided she'd join me now, sending the information on Haestrom's sun back with Reegar.


Back on the Normandy, Tali made a point of saying how she distrusted Cerberus and was only there for me. Then Jacob did what I call a dick move. He told her to make sure she introduced herself to the ship's AI. Really unwarranted, especially since the history between Cerberus and the quarians was one in which Cerberus attacked the Migrant Fleet because they were harboring people on the run from them. Funny enough, Tali said she assumed I was undercover and maybe planning to attack Cerberus. Little did she know...

[I'm not necessarily done playing today but this post is definitely long enough.]

No wonder he's so crazy AND indoctrinated!  I figured that started on Eden Prime.

Owen Shepard:

Landed on the planet Lattesh to follow up on the stupid Firewalker project. By which I mean my model ships are better armored. The damn things engine kept trying to seize up in the cold! For inexplicable reasons, scanning shit on the ground warmed up the engines. Whatever. I got what I needed and got the hell out of there.

First, got a message about the geth weather device. Cerberus seemed to think data about it could be used to help with terraforming planets. Of course, I could see TERRORforming as a thing for them, which is to say that they'd threaten a planet with atmospheric destruction if they didn't fall in line - particularly planets where non-humans lived.

Second, Tali was upset about something. She was accused of treason. No way that was even remotely possible so I was going to take care of this ASAP. I'm sure Tali wouldn't be able to concentrate with this on her mind. Since this was a sensitive matter, I brought the only other person I thought she'd trust, which was Garrus. It was only after we arrived at the Migrant Fleet that we learned she was being charged with bringing active geth to the fleet. Tali wasn't stupid. She'd never do anything like that. This is the girl who was able to retrieve a memory core from a geth before it self-destructed - which provided the evidence needed to remove Saren as a Spectre. No way she'd make a mistake like this. From all the time traveling with her in the past I would trust her with my life.

We met with someone Tali knew who called her "Tali'Zorah vas Normandy" rather than "vas Neema". It was a move made based on her leaving to work with me on the Normandy. They didn't do this when she worked with me in the past. It wasn't unreasonable to believe that they wanted her off-balance. Moreover, her captain was supposed to defend her. Admiral Koris tried to object, saying a human should not be a part of this. However, Admiral Shala'Raan reminded him that it was his idea to strip her of her ship name and call her "vas Normandy". He was forced to withdraw his objection. Then the bomb dropped. The geth seized the Alarei and killed all aboard, including her father. A hell of a thing to drop on her during the trial but, again, it was clearly to unbalance her. Sadly, I found myself agreeing with some of Koris's ideas, though not they way he was handling the situation. He wanted to avoid a war with the geth, knowing they'd probably lose. However, he also wanted peace with the geth, and the geth I'd encountered turn people into husks and tried to make worlds uninhabitable. This went far beyond their desire to retaliate against the quarians.

We headed to the Alarei to retake it from the geth. Tali hoped to find her father alive but I'm pretty sure that's wishful thinking. One log we said that all the geth were linked and in the system and it was implied that Rael'Zorah was behind it. Another message said something about making sure "their mistake" wouldn't endanger the fleet. Then she died, leaving a message for her son, Jona, saying she loved him. I know how hard it can be to lose your family. Tali said her father specifically told her not to send any active geth or anything dangerous. He had to be protecting her, despite his intentions to network them.


Then we found Rael's body. Tali was so distraught that I had to give her a hug to calm her down. She found a message on his omni-tool saying that the geth had gone active and how to prevent them from creating new neural networks - meaning, they could not make more of themselves. We fought through a lot of geth. Once we walked over the corpse of a geth prime we found evidence that would clear Tali, but which would also strike his name from the manifest of every ship he served on and use his name as a cautionary tale. Tali begged me not to use that data, even if it meant she were to be exiled. I had to think about this.


When we got back to the Rayya, the trial was already underway. We showed up just before they rendered judgment. I decided I was going to do as Tali asked, even if it meant exile for her. I reminded them of Tali's great knowledge of the geth, her history of service to the galaxy and how the trial had nothing to do with her and everything to do with politics. Basically, I put them in their place. They voted and decided there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict and cleared Tali of all charges. Damn good thing I can be charismatic when need be. I also urged them not to go to war since the Reapers were coming and I'd need their help. Back on the Normandy, Tali upgraded its shielding, which I'm sure we'd need when we went through the Omega-4 relay.


The planet Gei Hinnom was engaged in conflict. Something about scientists and miners fighting over Prothean ruins. I was going to check this out. If anyone was going to stake a claim on this it was going to be me. I had the Prothean cipher in my brain. What I actually found was a single quarian who was badly injured and a bunch of varren trying to make the final kill. We were going to have to defend her until help could arrive. Pretty wild coincidence that I brought Tali along with me. I don't care if you send a pack of varren against me. They're all going to die. Got her safely aboard our shuttle and then back to the Idenna. No sign of any Prothean ruins. Did get a message from the captain of the Idenna thanked me for helping.

Also got a message from Admiral Xen. She now knew that Rael was guilty but didn't really care. What she did care about was the data, which she believed could be used to "create the largest synthetic army" the galaxy had ever seen. She would have shared it had we handed over the data. I didn't trust the geth situation and my conscience was clear.

On the moon Kopis we found evidence of Prothean ruins and this was where Cayce and O'Loy had gone. Once inside the mine I found a dead Blue Suns merc. A log from Cayce said O'Loy was sending data to the geth, suggesting he was indoctrinated. He killed O'Loy to avoid another Eden Prime, though this planet was uninhabited. I did wonder what was killing all these mercs, though. Couldn't have been the researchers. Cayce seemed to think he might also be indoctrinated so decided to destroy the relic and himself. A last message from O'Loy said he'd made a deal with the Collectors to hand over the relic in exchange for sparing a planet someone named Helen lived on. What I found was some giant sphere, much like the one I'd encountered on Eletania that had given me visions of pre-humans who had encountered Protheans. No visions from this one but it did shrink down to the size of beach ball. One more paperweight for my cabin. Turns out it had let out a burst of energy that was intercepted and decrypted. It helped with research on energy transfer and biotics. They suggested if there had been more time to study it that they could have learned a lot more.


EDI picked up something on her scans of the planet Aequitas. We decided to investigate. It was a distress signal and EDI detected possible alien signatures but not the facility staff. The last thing I expected to find were husks. No signs of dragon's teeth or Collectors. Logs said an alien machine had been discovered. Also, just being near the machine made the miners feel better. Then I found the machine and, sure enough, it was manufacturing husks. Not quite sure how since I didn't see any humans around. It had indoctrinated them long enough to turn them into husks. Blew that thing up and got the hell out of there.


I realized it was high time I helped out Garrus. Thane, too, since both things were on the Citadel.

Not being able to dodge attacks is killing me - literally.

The renegade/intimidate option is literally "buy him out". So you convince Harrott to buy the Quarian's shop, which theoretically gives the Quarian the money he needs to pay his way off the station. Everyone wins.

Nah, I actually meant the time they really appear out of nowhere right below you and instakill. Sure, after they appear, it's easy to avoid them doing this, but the first time, I had my troubles with suddenly appearing Maws.

PS: kalreegar I think ME Wikia has a map on every UNC World you explore and it includes Tresher Maw sites if you want to avoid them or be extra careful while traversing those fields.

After the disastrous mission on Eden Prime, I took a tour of the Normandy. Reassured Ashley that she deserved her spot on the crew. Spoke to the Requisitions Officer to get started with our little gun running operation (Normandy Firearms Emporium: a division of Elkoss Combine). Went to see Joker to pass on the Captain's orders to take us to the Citadel.

After the meeting with Udina, I explored the Embassies and talked to the people there.

Pics:

He and I will get very rich. (Then TIM will steal it all )


SR1, the best Normandy


Donnel Udina, outraged.


And that's why I love Ashley


Din Korlack, outraged.


Executor Pallin knows the score


Enjoying the Presidium


I should go. (I SHOULD go? *I* should go?)