What did you do today in ME?

I almost feel sorry for the robot squids. But not by much... 😈

Finishing up from last weekend, Barbara "Barbie" Shepard...


General Corinthus: Commander Shepard, it's a pleasure to meet you.

Barbie: It's a pleasure to meet me, too!

Corinthus: Um,... what?

Liara: Ignore here.

Barbie: We're here to pick up the Primarch to bring him to a war summit.

Corinthus: Primarch Vidorian was killed.

Barbie: Well then resurrect him so we can get going!

Corinthus: You can't just raise people from the dead!

Barbie: Can you at least try?

Corinthus: Is she always like this?

Liara: Yes.

Barbie: I'll start the summoning circle!

Corinthus: Please don't. We just have to find the next Primarch.

Barbie: We need an animal sacrifice. Somebody get me a chicken!

Corinthus: If you can get our comms tower operational, we can find the next Primarch AND WHY DO YOU HAVE A

CEREMONIAL DAGGER?

Barbie: Doesn't everyone have one? AND WHERE IS MY CHICKEN!?

* * *

Barbie: I need one of you to repair the tower while the other one helps me defend it.

Liara: Why don't you go up and fix--

Barbie: Okay you're up Liara! You ready, James?

Liara: Fuck me. (climbs up)

Barbie: (looks up at Liara, shakes tower) Earthquake test!

Liara: GAAAAAH!

* * *

Corinthus: The next Primarch is General Victus. It will take some time before we can locate him.

Barbie: I still say our best bet is to summon a demon.

James: I thought you wanted to raise the dead?

Barbie: Been there, done that. Now let's summon some hellspawn!

Corinthus: How about we don't and say we did?

Barbie: How about we do and then brag about it?

Garrus: General, need some help?

Barbie: GARRUS!

Garrus: FUCK!!

Corinthus: You two know each other?

Barbie: Garrus is my best friend!

Garrus: Please kill me.

Joker over comm: Commander, we have a situation up here! EDI just went offline!

Liara: I'll go check it out! (speeds off)

(Reaper troops drop in)

Corinthus: Commander, if you can go deal with that, I would appreciate it.

Barbie: I'm on it, General, sir!

Corinthus: Garrus, go help her.

Garrus: (wimpering) Please no.

Corinthus: That's an order, Garrus!

Barbie: All right! Let's go kick some Reaper ass!

* * *

Barbie: General Victus? I'm Commander Shepard of the Normandy.

Victus: Ah, Commander. I know who you are.

Barbie: Awesome! Do you want my autograph?

Victus: No not really,

Barbie: What if I autograph your armor?

Victus: That won't be necessary.

Barbie: What if I autograph my armor?

Victus: That's not how autographs are supposed to work.

Barbie: What if autograph my boobs?

Victus: That's not... what? Never mind. Garrus, where have you been?

Garrus: Heavy Reaper unit on your right flank? I believe your direct orders were 'get that thing the hell off my men'.

Victus: I appreciate it.

Barbie: Did you try 'Bug-B-Gone'? I find that keeps most pests away from you.

James: That's only for bugs.

Barbie: It says 'pests' on the label.

Garrus: (dousing himself in Bug-B-Gone) Worth a shot.

Barbie: Hmmm. I love that smell.

Garrus: Dammit.

I sent Jenkins ahead to die, then told Kaidan to get over it. I then blamed Ashley for getting her entire squad killed, even though I let my entire squad die on Akuze. They don't need to know that.

Kaidan tries to act way too friendly and nice. If an opportunity arises to get him killed too, I think I will take it.

Accidentally may have given Cortez certain ideas.

Days worth of gameplay I haven't posted. I've been playing instead. Still, I took notes so here we go!

Previously, I said John Shepard was an Adept. I was mistaken. He's still and Earthborn/Sole Survivor but he's my standard Vanguard. I kind of wish he were Adept but that'll have to wait for another run. I had thought Vanguards could use better armor but it's only the lightweight stuff.

Agebinium: Hackett sent me to disable an old Alliance probe armed with a nuke. It had suddenly become active and if the Citadel found out about it, humanity would be censured and face sanctions. It wouldn't look good. Tracked it down and disabled it. Turned out some asshole behind the attack on Elysium wanted to secure his power by taking out the first human Spectre. One of us made it out alive. Was accidentally rude to Kaidan and I hope he doesn't take it personally. (Kaidan/Tali)

Luna: Another Alliance mission, this time to Earth's moon. There was a VI that had gone rogue that was acting a hell of a lot like an AI, though Hackett swore that wasn't the case. Rumors are that in the early days of human entry into Citadel space, humanity had worked on a secret AI project that went awry and was covered up. So it was hard to credit this wasn't an AI. Then again, the geth weren't meant to become sentient but here we are.

Following the destruction of the VI, a binary code was sent out, or so Kaidan's omni-tool recorded. In ways I can't fully explain, my biotic powers were greater for it. The same was not true of Kaidan, so I don't quite understand what happened. (Kaidan/Ashley)

X57: Distress call from Terra Nova. The ship's VI (an actual VI) said that a asteroid was hurtling toward Terra Nova and would destroy the colony, if not the planet's ecosystem. I had four hours to avert this tragedy by shutting down three fusion torches. Turned out the batarians were behind it in response to humans invading their space and the Citadel ignoring their pleas for aid. Did these assholes really think the Citadel would side with an aggressive race of pirates and slavers? (Note: That's a generalization since most batarians never leave their sector of space.)

The mission was fucked up. Some engineer who was helping me find the torches allowed her brother to die to protect my identity. I can't even comprehend why since I'm a marine and had every intention of taking out the batarians. I encountered one batarian who wanted to cut a deal, even giving me the old "I was only following orders" bullshit. He's dead and I got a key to the main base. Went there and confronted the batarian leader, someone named Balak. Unfortunately, he had taken hostages. As much as I'd have liked to have but a bullet in the guy's head, I decided to save the captives. He also left behind some bombs that needed to be disabled so I couldn't simply follow him. One day, I'd get that bastard, but I'm not the type to let innocents die. (Kaidan/Liara - Paragon 4-1/4, Renegade 2)

Xawin: killed a thresher maw that almost took out the Mako. Geth attempted to lure me into a trap but failed. Checked out a merc camp and found the body of the brother of a guy named Garoth, who I'd met at the Citadel Tower. (Kaidan/Wrex)

Noveria: a bunch of assholes run the place, something I noticed even before encountering their security, nevermind the salarian who ran the place. The security was about the start a fire fight until they were told that, yes, as a Spectre I was allowed to carry my weapons wherever I want. Then one of them had to gall to tell me to behave. I'm sure I could have gotten away with putting a bullet in her brain, manufacturing some fake threat from her. But I didn't want anyone comparing me to Saren.

Fought out Matriarch Benezia - Liara's mother - had passed through. To get to the facility where she'd gone, Peak 15, I needed a garage pass from some dick I'm called Director Asshole. He wouldn't let me through and it turned out they could ignore the rules of Council space and were outside of Citadel jurisdiction. His assistant, Gianna Parasini, offered another way, sending me to meet Lorik Qui'in, a turian who had gotten on Asshole's bad side. I had to get him some information from his office (which was being illegally searched by Asshole) that would implicate the director. I went in and got it. On the way out I ran into Ms. Behave. Since she was there illegally I was in my rights to take her out, which I did so with glee. Then Parasini revealed she was with internal investigations and had been investigating the Asshole. With the data she now had, she arrested Asshole and gave me a garage pass.

Encountered a lot of geth on the way to Peak 15, and there were plenty of them in Peak 15, along with krogan. There were also some giant bugs that attacked on sight. Eventually, we learned they were rachni, a species that had attacked Citadel space 2000 years earlier. The krogan had been uplifted specifically to fight them.

When we reached Benezia, and defeated her, we learned that she was under the mind control - indoctrination, as she called it - of Saren. She said the real threat was his ship, which she called Sovereign, since it gave Saren that power. It was the same ship that was seen over Eden Prime. Benezia believed that, though she could temporarily fight the indoctrination, it would soon take her over again. She became aggressive and we were forced to kill her.

Then there was the matter of the rachni queen. She had been found as an egg. One story was that the rachni were meant to be cloned as an army for Saren. Benezia said that they wanted the queen to find the lost Mu Relay, which is where the rachni were originally discovered. Queens passed down memories from one to the next, so she had this information. Benezia gave us the location of the relay, but we still had no idea where to look on the other side. The queen said something had taken control of the rachni in the past since they weren't normally aggressive. The rachni we'd found hadn't been properly raised in connection to the queen and were insane as a result. She said they all needed to be destroyed. I decided to trust her and allowed her to go freedom. The Council wasn't exactly happy with that decision, especially the turian Councilor. But I give as good as I get. (Kaidan/Liara, Paragon 7-1/4, Renegade 2-1/4)

Citadel: Did a bunch of minor missions to gain good will among those living on the Citadel.

Klensal: Another crime lord bites the dust.

MSV Ontario: resolved a situation with L2's who had been seeking reparations for the implants that had driven most of them insane or crippled. They took hostage the guy who voted against said reparations. I talked them down and Chairman Burns agreed to revisit the request, not realizing how bad off they were. I let him know he wasn't doing his job if he didn't know. A lot of L2's in my died because of this. I can't help but think that if things had been a little worse for Kaidan he'd have been among these people.

Trebin: Took down another thresher maw. Wish I'd had the Mako on Akuze. Maybe then the rest of my squad might have survived.

Investigating an ExoGeni investigation site, we found husks and dragon's teeth. The only other place we'd encountered them were on Eden Prime and in one of the Cerberus facilities. I couldn't help but wonder if there were a link, since there was no geth activity.

Mavigon: Cold as hell and I wondered if I couldn't get Kaidan's mother to knit me a sweater.

Another crime lord went down.

MSV Worthington: A crazy biotic killed the entire crew to prevent them from turning off the life support for her brain dead boyfriend. We took her out and put the let the other man finally die.

Metgos: A distress signal turned out to be a geth trap. It failed.

Barbara "Barbie" Shepard...


Barbie: Kelly!

Kelly Chambers: Shepard!

Barbie: What are you doing here?

Kelly: I left Cerberus. When the war started, I came here and started helping refugees. How have you been?

Barbie: Let me tell you all about it!

Four hours later...

Kelly: (on comms) Karl? I need a new identity and the name of a good plastic surgeon.

* * *

Barbie: Kahlee Sanders? It's me, Shepard.

Kahlee: Thanks for coming. I need you to go rescue the students. They're in Orion Hall.

Barbie: On it! (runs off)

Barbie and company see Cerberus dragging a student off to goodness knows where.

Barbie: I haven't seen someone dragged like that since I was last on the Extranet.

EDI: Shouldn't we try help him?

Barbie: That's indestructible glass. We can't break through it.

Garrus: But we have piercing mods.

Barbie: I didn't design this station, okay? If I did, everything would be a bit more... explodable.

EDI: That seems worse.

Barbie: What do you mean? Explosions are cool!

EDI: But people could die.

Barbie: You say that like it's a bad thing.

Garrus: That is a bad thing.

Barbie: Are you sure?

* * *

Jack: Kahlee said someone was coming, but she didn't say it was the Queen of the Girl Scouts. (jumps down

and punches Barbie)

Barbie: Hit me harder, daddy!

Jack: What?

Barbie: You heard me.

* * *

Barbie: Hey David! You still good at math? What's 3 times 3?

David: 9.

Barbie: What's 4 times 4?

David: 16.

Barbie: And what's 5 times 5?

David: 25.

Barbie: (counting in her head) Damn, you're good.

* * *

Garrus: Will you hurry up? We have to get to the shuttle bay.

Barbie: I'm looking for the guns!

Garrus: You already got the gun.

Barbie: He said 'Guns. Lots of guns.' One gun is not 'lots of guns'.

Garrus: Maybe he included the mod?

Barbie: Where are all the guns!? Who in their right mind thinks one guns is 'lots of guns'?

Garrus: Someone who hates guns?

Barbie: Who hates guns? Guns are cool! You can shoot things with guns.

Garrus: Some people don't like shooting. Or seeing people shot. Or getting shot.

Barbie: Who doesn't like getting shot?

Garrus: Everybody.

Barbie: What are you talking about? I get shot everyday and I'm just fine.

Garrus: Are you, though?

* * *

EDI: I suggest you take control of the Atlas Mech, Shepard. It would provide a tactical advantage.

Barbie: No it won't. I'm better than a mech!

EDI: But Shepard, my analysis suggests---

Barbie: I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA LA...

Okay, I've got a backlog. I'm going to start and work my way as far as I can. Don't have much left of ME1 at this point.

Eletania: Found a gigantic reflective sphere floating over a Prothean ruin. Trinket from the asari consort that fit right into a slot on the underside of had an effect on me. Gave me visions of proto-humans being visited by space ships, most likely the Protheans since it's part of their ruins. Behaves similar to the beacon but without the searing pain and unconsciousness. Very clear visions this time.

Looked for a data module in a probe that went missing. It was stolen by space monkeys. Found deep inside of an abandoned mine where we recovered it after a spooked space monkey dropped it. That's when the geth popped up but we took them out.

Feros: This was the third location to seek out Saren or whatever he was seeking. The man greeting us at the dock was immediately killed by geth, who were immediately terminated by us. Entire colony of Zhu's Hope was under siege so Saren was seriously after something. Met with the colony leader, Fai Dan. His assistant was a real bitch. Hope she didn't turn out like that woman in security on Noveria because I promise she'll have the same fate. When geth did attack, the rallying cry was "Protect the Heart of the Colony". Damn peculiar thing to say.

Fought off the attack and the geth dropship. It didn't take long to realize that everyone on this planet is fucking crazy, including the guy we would scream in pain and then start laughing. During my exploration of I found some problems. Water pipelines were turned off, a varren with an alpha leader was endangering everyone and recovered some power cells. Took out some more geth and a few krogan, destroying a geth transmitter in the process.

Colony was founded by ExoGeni corporation, the same one who had turned people into husks. Crossed the ancient Prothean skyway to reach the scientists. A lot of geth were trying to stop us but the Mako was up to the task. Picked up someone transmitting messages and decided to investigate. Another asshole, like the one on Noveria, tried to get in my way. Must be a trait of these corporate types. I followed up on a lead to ExoGeni HQ and found Lizbeth Baynham. She said the corporation was studying a native lifeform called the Thorian which could control people through spores and lived under Zhu's Hope. That explained all the craziness of the colonists. Meanwhile, the asshole decided Zhu's Hope was going to be "re-purposed" which would lead to the deaths of the colonists. Let's just say he was "re-purposed" as fertilizer.

Didn't know how to deal with mind controlled colonists but Julia Baynham had an idea. A nerve agent that only worked on plants could be loaded into my grenade launcher and should take care of the spores. Worked well except that I ran out of grenades and was forced to kill one of the colonists. Felt bad but it was out of my hands. Worst, though, was Fai Dan feeling guilty and somehow not free of Thorian control. He was being ordered to kill me but resisted long enough to kill himself. That willingness to sacrifice himself was downright heroic.

Went underground to face the Thorian. It shit out a green asari that spoke to us. Saren had made a deal with the Thorian but then betrayed it so it was unwilling to work with me. I had to fight a lot of these weird Thorian creepers, as well as more asari clones, but also destroy some nodes. After the fifth, the Thorian fell into some deep pit and I just hoped it took that thing out. Then the real asari was released from a pod. Her name was Shiala and she explained how she had worked for Benezia and was handed over to the Thorian as part of the deal. The Thorian had been alive when the Protheans inhabited Feros. It had insight into the way Protheans thought, their culture, their belief systems and so on. That would help better understand the visions from the Prothean beacon. She passed on to me what she gave Saren. It still wasn't clear but Shiala said it would take time to sink in. I really wanted this asari commando to join my team but she wanted to help the colonists of Zhu's Hope to recover. Couldn't blame her for that. Still, got what Saren got, and freed the colonists, so I guess it was a success of sorts.

I played some more Barbie Shepard the past few days, but have not gotten around to writing about it yet. I may do that starting Sunday or Monday (I may spend time Sunday playing some more Mass Effect).

I actually rewatched Paragon Lost yesterday after years. And I actually enjoyed it a lot more the second time for some reason. I will also say that I didn't really care for the fact that once again Liara was the only Shepard squad mate (besides obviously Vega), that gets shown and referenced. And she is referenced like she is best buds with Shepard again. Another thing I wish is that James maintained his professional, but relatable attitude that he had in this movie. Him being flippant and acting bro-ish in me3 is actually very off putting when you compare these two James.

Other than that, been playing two different Shepards lately. I am playing my mean female Shepard again. She romanced Kaidan, but cheated for Jacob. I am torn if I should kill Kaidan or just have him rejoin. I might have him rejoin to hear any dialogue from when they break up. Other than that she kills everyone she comes across and helps no one. I also realize that Vanguard is such a painfully boring and repetitive class in SP. It feels so one note.

I am also playing my male Adept romancing Miranda. Miranda and adept is sooo fun. Like her and Adept fits so well. I am also trying him out with a Scimitar shotgun as well. GPS is too overpowered. I like it so far. I also plan to kill everyone except Miranda, Garrus, and Thane.

A couple of months' downtime coming up - got the trilogy and all DLC lined up on the XB1 for a new playthrough, my first trilogy playthrough in about 3 years!