What did you do today in ME?

Miriam Shepard encountered some rachni...

Ordered the Normandy to Utukku in the Attican Traverse to search for a krogan scout party reported missing by Wrex. They had been investigating suspected rachni activity.

Went planetside with James and Javik. En route, Javik explained that rachni were active during Prothean cycle, bred by Protheans for violence, used as weapons, then exterminated when out of control. (Prothean treatment of rachni not unlike salarian treatment of krogan).

Met by Urdnot Grunt, now commander of Aralakh Company. Good to see him again; still a berserker, itching for battle. Obtained M-300 Claymore heavy shotgun; new model with reduced recoil. Decided to evaluate it immediately.

Descended into caverns the hard way; got separated from Grunt's squad. Proceeded through caverns; pitch-dark, necessitating use of flashlights. Found fallen krogan scouts; one turned out to be Charr, previously encountered in Nos Astra during Collector crisis. Found Reaper tech and large insect eggs.

Deeper inside caverns, encountered heavy resistant from human and batarian husks, and modified rachni soldiers outfitted with heavy cannons. M-300 Claymore effective, but power transfer from L5n amp to hardsuit ergonomics proved disadvantageous; will revert to Adas for next mission. Javik's "Dark Channel" ability and Prothean particle rifle proved highly effective, especially in concert with L5n abilities for biotic detonations.

Discovered rachni queen in centre of caverns, captured by Reapers, forced to breed soldiers for Reaper use. Queen spoke through bodies of fallen krogan, requested to be freed, promised to fight Reapers upon release. Determined that allowing the queen to leave would cost the lives of entire Aralakh squad defending her escape. Furthermore, if captured once, she could be captured again; production of soldiers would restart. Reluctantly decided leaving her behind to be best course of action. Queen accepted death without protest.

Retreated to shuttle with Aralakh Company; Grunt stayed behind to cover escape, then emerged from the fray, bloodied and exhausted but alive.

Hackett supported decision to abandon rachni queen; his approval doesn't make it easier. Hardest command call since Virmire. History may condemn this decision; rachni species now likely extinct.

Approached by Liara regarding a personal project; she has constructed time capsules containing information about the current cycle, the Reapers and the Crucible. If the war is lost, the capsules may help the people of the next cycle to win. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Returned to the Citadel. Broke the news about Charr to his wife, Ereba.

Tracked down a turian officer and turned over the Banner of the First Regiment, recovered by Normandy while searching the Apien Crest. Turian morale boosted by recovery of banner. After the rachni events, this good news was more than welcome.

At James' suggestion, bought a round of drinks for some off-duty Alliance marines in the Purgatory bar. (Messed the toast up, though; marines and naval officers have different traditions).

Overheard Liara and Aethyta discussion another of Aethyta's children. Liara has a half-sister with a hanar father. Mind blown.

[Despite going into this mission fully intending to save the queen, when the dialogue wheel popped up I found myself wondering whether a Paragon might consider making the opposite decision; what might motivate the decision and how she might justify it.

Switching to the Claymore proved to be the wrong decision. So many deaths! Insanity really did feel insane! I use the Claymore in multiplayer, but not on vanguards because I find it too heavy; I use it on infiltrators exclusively. Miriam's cooldown with the Claymore was 96%, versus around 160% with the Adas. Turned out to make quite a bit of difference, less frequent Charging made for less survivability. There was also the slow reload after one shot to contend with (due to multiplayer, I'm only conditioned for effective reload-cancelling when playing infiltrators), and the shortage of ammo. Still, made it through without reducing the difficulty level.

Even if I'd had the Adas, I suspect this would not have been a good mission for vanguarding due to the constant pressure from Ravagers.

Grunt's Crowning Moment of Awesome at the end was just as awesome the second time around.]

Mark Shepard:

Citadel, Factory District (continued): Some of the Blue Suns mercs I'm getting to kill are also batarians. I'm from Mindoir. Win-win!

As we get closer to "Fade" I try to suggest maybe Garrus not kill Sidonis, or even Harkin. I know I pushed him in the direction of becoming a Spectre back aboard the SR-1 but I always knew when the push a guy through a window (hint: Eclipse mercs are always good for that) and when to let them walk. And vengeance hasn't really been my thing. Always looking to save as many as I can and put down the bad guys. I don't like batarians but not too long ago I was giving one infected with a plague some medi-gel. If I were running on vengeance I'd have killed him in a heartbeat. Don't want that for Garrus. Ultimately it's his choice but I'm hoping he'll decide on something less based in anger.

When we got to Sidonis I convinced Garrus to let me talk to him. He agreed but lined up a shot. While talking it became clear that Sidonis was more of a coward than anything and was paying for it with little sleep, nightmares and the kind of dreariness about him that suggests depression. Definitely has a guilty conscience, something which a brutal killer doesn't have. In the end, Garrus backed down. I had hoped he would. Maybe I need to be a better example for him.

Since we were here, Thane also had a problem that needed to be taken care of. His son, Kolyat, had decided to become an assassin. Unlike Thane, he was not highly trained. He was likely to harm himself, both physically and mentally. Thane wanted to stop him from going through with the assassination. Captain Bailey again helped out, pointing us to an informant named Mouse. As it turned out, Mouse had known Thane since he was a child. It cost me money, but I got the info out of him. I also got a Shepard VI from him that had been made in my long absence. It's garbage but a reminder of how things kept going on while I was out of commission.

Had Bailey bring in Elias Kelham for questioning. Thane and I took him into a private interrogation room and strapped him down. I played bad cop, mostly because I thought Thane's spiritual nature wouldn't let him play rough. I slapped Kelham a couple of times but he was resistant to say who had hired Kolyat. Finally, I threatened to cut off his balls. That did the trick. The target was a turian named Joram Talid who is running on an anti-human platform. It's been bad on the Citadel ever since the Council died aboard the Destiny Ascension during Sovereign's attack. Since humans were placed in the top tier of power it was considered by many as a coup. Curious how my choices have played out.

Never use the Claymore I unless you are an Infiltrator, and even then I would avoid using the Claymore I.

The Claymore is a heavy weapon to begin with, but at rank I it is just too heavy for its own good, especially since it only has like 8-9 shots total. And ammo pickups on Utukku can be weird, especially on that last fight. It is a little better after you upgrade it. In New Games (after upgrading it to V), it can help a bit if you equip some Power Cooldown armor. Vanguard has some good weapon damage bonuses in passive and Charge, plus Vanguard also has access to Incendiary Ammo with Explosive burst at rank 6. Plus Nova with Half Blast. (Vanguard can be really good with the Claymore is what I am trying to say.)

Filed under: Personal
Jack and Vakarian are taken care of. I'm pleased this is out of the way, since both of them were deep into their revenge and would've been too distracted for the mission. Jack was having second thoughts about blowing up the Cerberus facility she was kept in as a child at first, but she's easily influenceable. We found a man in there, one of the survivors from this place, who wanted to restart the facility. Jack pulled out her gun and I didn't think she'd have the guts to shoot him, but a little nudge from me into this direction made her do it. We blew the place and I saw that Jack is grateful. Good, very good. She owes me and she knows it. She won't try to pull any more shit, even though she threatened Miranda as soon as we returned to the Normandy. I get she hates Cerberus, but I won't tolerate her outbursts on this ship. Good for the health of both of them they quit bickering on my orders.
Vakarian's revenge trip was... interesting. We stumbled upon dear Harkin, whom I despised from the moment I first met him. What a cretin. He was our ticket to Sidonis, Vakarian's target, as he was the one that made Sidonis disappear. Harkin set up a meeting with Sidonis and Vakarian shot him in the leg as a Goodbye. Mh, I would've shot a bit higher than that.
I didn't see any point in letting Sidonis live, I just didn't care. I only cared about Vakarian getting his revenge and not getting sidetracked anymore by this. Success, I'd say.
The justicar and Krios now also pulled me into their family affairs. Does this ever stop? Seeing all this I'm almost happy I never had any family. Made me strong.
After these little chats, the Illusive Bastard sent me to investigate a disabled Collector ship. It was a trap. I have underestimated him. I didn't anticipate he'd play with our lives that way, but I know better now. My lack of trust in him has turned to absolute disgust. Maybe I should applaud him for playing me, but I am too enraged about it. No one plays with me. I'm retaining my composure, but I will not forget this. Lucky for him I don't know where he hides, and this smart-ass AI on board could actually dig up some information on how we could get through the Omega 4 Relay unharmed. Just need to take care of some more things first.

Some more pics:


Ahahahaaa, Collector Ship was SO much fun I almost rage-quitted. I died around 4 times or so, got a lockup, charged the husks during the Praetorian section which made all enemies disappear but then I was stuck inside this room and even though EDI said her texts about opening the door, it didn't open So I had to reload, and generally, my squad sucked during this mission since every enemy on Insanity has a protection layer and I only had Miranda to do some Warp damage (when she was not dead ). My own fault for taking Jacob everywhere I guess
I ended up using Dominate a lot more than charging enemies because I'm definitely not comfortable (and good enough) to charge everything I see and actually survive that, hehe. Maybe some day (one can dream, right?).
I tested the Scimitar a little during missions earlier and kinda liked it, and now I picked the Claymore. So low on ammo, but pretty good on a Vanguard I think. Still love the Eviscerator, but I have to play around some more with different Shotguns to eventually pick a favourite (it could also be depending on the build I guess). I cannot do the Claymore reload trick yet, so I need to practice that a lot.
Jack's and Garrus' LM were almost equally fun and I died at least once in each Still I enjoy playing Neva a lot, though Vanguard is indeed high risk.

Filed under: Personal
If there's one other place that's worse than Omega, it's Tuchanka. Krogan get on my nerves. Such a vile, savage race. Thankfully we dealt rather fast with their clan leader and went on to look for Dr. Solus's protégé. As it turned out, this Maelon didn't need our help, didn't need to be rescued. Instead he worked with the krogan in order to cure the genophage. We had come across Maelon's experiments earlier and Dr. Solus wasn't too pleased with how his former student conducted them. Upon meeting Maelon, the doctor showed his ruthless side, another point why he is a valuable asset to the team. In addition to his scientific background, he killed his former student without batting an eye. I had to convince him though to delete Maelon's research data. The genophage was definitely the right call and the krogan cannot be unleashed upon the galaxy again, this would be a fatal mistake.
When talking to the doctor back on the Normandy he appeared fine. Very fascinating creatures, salarians. Deal with emotions and events fast, a remarkable trait.
I ordered Moreau to plot course to Haestrom, to find Tali'Zorah vas Neema next, the last on the list of the Illusive Man's dossiers.

Vanguarding adventures:


That was A LOT of fun! This mission went so smooth, except for dying once in the krogan clan speaker room. But other than that, it was a blast. Jacob is a pretty good squadmate whenever I can pull something. His incendiary ammo also came in handy for this mission, even though I still use Cryo ammo for Neva, and that won't change
Damage output of the Claymore is pretty neat, I really like it. And now I have more ammo capacity thanks to another upgrade, woohoo!

How did being nice kill your comrade?  I've played full Paragon with no casualties.

Mark Shepard

Citadel, Factory District (continued): Joram Talid really does hate humans. He considers us as having taken control of the Council via a coup. I wonder if he really believes that or it's just election propaganda. While following from Keeper platforms, I saw Talid engage in two shakedowns. Then he met with some krogan members of the Blood Pack. Well, you know how I feel about mercenaries.

Ran into a stock boy. Looked like he might have been trouble. Punched him in the gut to take the wind out of him. I'm sure he'll report it but, hey, I'm a rogue Spectre. I can do whatever I've got to do to complete my mission.

Saw Kolyat making his way toward Talid, gun drawn. Thane and I both jumped in, following them to Talid's apartment. Inside, Kolyat had Talid on his knees, ready to kill him execution style. We distracted him and I shot the gun out of his hand. C-Sec arrived to arrest Kolyat but then Bailey told his men to escort Kolyat and Thane back to the precinct and to give them a room and as much time as they needed. Bailey's got scars of his own that led to this decision. When I suggested that Bailey leave this out of the courts and give Kolyat community service, he actually said he'd think about it. And he did because Kolyat never did go to jail.

Lorek: EDI detected Cerberus encryption from a deep cover operative. Also found transmissions matching Eclipse. Whatever happens, someone I don't like is going to die. Upon investigating, Eclipse had captured Cerberus agent Tyrone Rawlings to get a Cerberus encryption cipher to access some data files they had acquired. Rawlings died in interrogation.

Found the data, which is when EDI chimed in, saying it could adversely affect Cerberus if it were circulated. I had three options: 1) keep the data for myself to use as potential blackmail material against the Illusive Man, 2) give it to Cerberus or 3) send it to the Alliance. I think I know where my loyalties lie, even if I'm away for now. I sent it to the Alliance. Honestly, the Illusive Man can fire me if he wants but he needs to know I'm not his man.

I think there's even a loading screen tooltip that says the same thing (especially wrt heavy weapons) but I've never seen it happen in my games.

Omega: First up, deliver the intel that the mercs on Omega were planning on going after Aria once they'd defeated Archangel. She wasn't pleased that her own people hadn't caught it but she liked me more. That's useful. She also pointed me in the direction of where she thought I might find an Ardat-Yakshi.

Spoke to a woman Diana whose daughter Nef died a week prior. No one has offered to help her seek justice. Nef was a loner and artistic. According to Samara, that's the kind of person Morinth (Samara's daughter) would go after. Her diary indicated she had low self-worth and that Morinth gave her attention. Last entry her her going to Morinth's apartment.

Headed to the Afterlife VIP Lounge. I'm sure Aria could have gotten me in there but I decided to drop the same name Nef did to get in. The less I involved Aria the better since she wasn't interested in helping and would probably attach a price tag for it.

I came in, convinced a bartender to buy a round of drinks, helped a reporter out of a jam and defender a dancer from an overagressive customer. That's when Morinth stepped in and invited me to her table. I had to admit, she's charismatic. If I didn't know what she was I'd really like her.

Morinth asked me to her apartment. We talked. She's got interesting tastes. Curiously, she didn't want me to take any of the drugs that I know she fed to Nef. Said I should keep all my senses sharp. Yet, she put me under her spell. I couldn't resist. I was ready to kill for her. Then Samara burst in and the spell was broken. Morinth offered to join me if I killed Samara but how I could trust this person who had already succeeded in controlling my mind? I couldn't. They were evenly matched but I was the deciding factor. Samara finally put an end to Morinth.

The Migrant Fleet, Rayya: Tali has been accused of treason. She doesn't know why because it's not the sort of thing they'd transmit through unsecured channels, never mind to a Cerberus ship. When we got there we learned the charge was bringing active geth to the fleet. Serious charge but she says she's not guilty and I'm inclined to believe her.

[Can't explain this glitch but as soon as I got to the trial room it was already over. That is, the part where they charge Tali and she discovers her father may be dead aboard the Alarei. Except my journal is still telling me to go to the trial. Very weird. I'm proceeding to the Alarei.]

The Migrant Fleet, Alarei: When we reached the lab ship we were immediately attacked by geth. That confirmed the presence of active geth. However, Tali found geth parts she had sent herself that were not in use. For my part, I used the Collector particle beam to disintegrate the geth we encountered. No parts to activate.

Various logs we found, including one from Rael'Zorah, say that they accidentally networked all the geth they had reassembled. For geth, the networking means sentience. Stupid on their part and it got a lot of quarians killed, including those who had been sent over to investigate. Tali broke down for a bit when we found her father's body. I hugged her and told her I'd do whatever I could to help.

Found a model of a flotilla vessel. Score!

When we found the evidence the Rael was entirely responsible for what had happened, Tali begged me not to give that evidence to the admirals. I wasn't sure that was the best idea but she said her father being called a war criminal was something she couldn't live with. I had to accept that and hope for the best.

The Migrant Fleet, Rayya: The admirals were about to declare us dead when we showed up. The admirals asked for evidence exonerating Tali. I couldn't give them that. Instead, I gave a moving speech. Since he judgment was in question I talked about how she saved the Citadel against Sovereign and saved the Alarei against the geth. If that didn't prove her loyalty and judgment nothing would. Then, for good measure, I cited the admirals' own indecision about whether or not they should go to war with the geth to retake their home world as being the real reason for the trial. They backed down and found her not guilty. I asked them not to go to war because they'd be needed when the Reapers showed up but I could tell that fell on deaf ears. Tali, who opted to keep her forced renaming as Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, came back with me.

I anybody having trouble going online to Origin?
I was downloading ME3, it went offline half way through and no amount of rebooting or clearing caches will let me back on online mode.
Edit: Now I can't log in at all, not even in offline mode.

At least I can play DAO, I have the disc version that doesn't require origin login to play.