What did you do today in ME?

Filed under: Personal
I can't go into much detail, but the justicar came back from pursuing her daughter a little differently. Problem solved. Just not exactly as I expected. It will be very interesting to see how Samara develops.
Krios's son is fine as well, as I successfully stopped him from assassinating a turian politician. This C-Sec captain Bailey did a lot to help, and even though he is corrupt, I appreciated what he has done. Having a helping hand at C-Sec doesn't sound too bad...
Things with Jacob are finally in motion. Obviously, I noticed how he sometimes glances over to me, how his eyes wander my body. He'll get what he wants. And I got him right where I wanted.
Surprisingly, this all excites me very much. Mr. Taylor certainly is an interesting man to engage with. I will see what I can dig up about Cerberus, about their structure, how they operate, where their boss hides. When this is over and I am still alive, Anderson will want to hear it all. I want to crush Cerberus. Their intentions with the colonists might be good, but I can't help but wonder if the Illusive Man doesn't have some entirely different agenda. He's a smart man, I have to give him that. But I am smarter.

Mostly Jacob-related pics, forgive me


Oh my... yep, I picked Morinth. I actually had a high enough Renegade score to resist her, and so it all happened
Jacob's romance dialogues couldn't be better with a character like Neva. She's so bitchy and playful and it all fits wonderfully. I shouldn't be too excited about the romance parts in this game, but they are so great with certain characters
And haha, despite things going well with Jacob, Kasumi said he and Shep 'were' a great couple and that she might try something herself. It seems like it's a common glitch

What's happening?  Is it just going to black after the first intro.  Is so, try going into the ME2 Importer file.  See if there is a Saved Game file still sitting inside the importer.  If there is, try deleting that saved file and trying the import again.  My importer does this whenever I import a file and then don't fully complete the Lazarus mission before trying to import another file.  It seems the save file stays in the importer until after the Lazarus mission and then gets transfered out of it... and with a save file already in the importer, it won't start another import.

So, managed some things recently that i've never done before (back with Jenna Shepard, the Vanguard of somebody's destruction, this time returning to Kaidan's arms after a brief thing with Garrus, and loving it.)

Beat Jacob at Shattered Eezo. Mwhahahaha! He seemed so upset.

Watched Thane's messages after the funeral/wake/memorial thing. Kolyat's always mentioned he sent some but i've always looked on the terminal because i assumed they were attached to emails. Turns out they were on the TV email instead...baffling. Also made a better job of the Thessia mission this time around and yes Kaidan is as "called it, Prothean", as Ashley is, if not as sarcastic as Javik.

Filed under: Personal
Well, well, well. Ever since getting the IFF from the derelict Reaper, things have gotten even crazier. A geth helped Jacob, Lawson and me on the Reaper, shooting husks with a sniper rifle. It knew my name. We could salvage it after we blew up the Reaper's mass effect core and brought it aboard the Normandy. Risky, but I was curious, because it knew me and wore a piece of N7 armor. I had to find out more.
And now this geth platform is our ally. It told me the geth we fought two years ago were heretics, geth that followed the Reapers. The 'normal' geth allowed it. Stupid idea, but what's done is done. Luckily we could destroy the heretics after that geth gave us the coordinates of their space station. I was suspicious of it, just waiting for it to turn on Jacob and me, but it never did. It actually wants to be of assistance. Even typing this it sounds ridiculous...
Either way, from what it looks like the IFF is ready soon enough and we can finally finish this. Just waiting for this damned AI to tell me that it's done.

Pics!


Managed to do the Reaper IFF mission without any casualties, but Legion's LM was hell. No squadmates that could strip shields... quite the experience I died 4 times overall, 3 were at the end in that room with all the turrets. Legion's hacking was of some assistance at least

I don't think you can import an incomplete ME1 into ME2. But you also need to run the configuration tool (for ME1, I think) in order to get the save games to show up properly for import.

You run the MassEffect2Config.exe from the ...\Mass Effect 2\Binaries folder.

Filed under: Personal
Still alive, but a lot has changed. The Normandy is very quiet. I knew chances of us surviving were slim, but I had confidence.
After we successfully went through the Omega 4 relay, we crash-landed on the Collector ship. We were able to save the crew that had been abducted by the Collectors, but I couldn't afford to send someone with them. We had already lost Jack, Goto and Krios by then. Dr. Chakwas shook my hand and said she'd hope we meet again. Guess that's out of the window.
We then lost Vakarian and Massani, but in the end, all these deaths counted for something. The Collectors were building a human-looking Reaper with the abducted colonists, and Jacob, Lawson and I took that thing down. I was just about to blow up the Collector base when the Illusive Man chimed in and tried to convince me to keep the base, use their technology against the Reapers. Even if he is right and it could help us in the fight against the Reapers, this was exactly what I had suspected. This man does have his own agenda and I did not want to give him this advantage. I could not leave the base in his hands.
Lawson surprised me. She quit Cerberus on the spot. Smart woman. I actually started to like her.
The human Reaper came back after that, but we managed, and now it's officially done. We reached the Normandy in time, and after talking to what's left of my crew, I enjoyed another night with Jacob.
We are now on the way to the Bahak system, since Hackett had requested my help with his friend Dr. Kenson. Now that I left Cerberus behind for good, this is my way back into the Alliance.

Suicide mission pics:


Oh gooood. I had so much trouble with this part this time, unbelievable I will not mention the part where I died at least 4 times fighting the human Reaper Somehow it felt super glitchy and the beam from that thing didn't kill the spawning Collectors as well as it did in my other runs. Plus of course my squaddies that never seem to obey my orders, Harbinger popping up as many times as I have never seen before, and Shepard suddenly only walking sideways. Highly frustrating stuff, hahaha! Not to mention how useless Jacob was during that fight.
What was really nice was the husk rush during the long walk. For once I tried out the Arc Projector, and it was over really quick. Nice weapon for that part
All the suicide mission casualties went as I had them planned, woohoo. Until minutes before I started the SM, I was actually contemplating whether to let the crew go back alone or send Zaeed with them. Had I gone that way I would've activated Grunt and let him die holding the line, but then I decided against it because I wanted to have Dr. Michel on board in ME3 without having to send Chakwas away.

Did plenty yesterday, did things differently when rounding up the mercs under Aria, I ordered the hit on that Turian general and let that nutbag Jona Sederis out of prison. It'll be fine.

I also saved teh kidz in Grissom, a small part of me wanted to see what would happen if I opted to put them on the front lines as combatants buuuuuuut then I wussed out, they're just kids, they'll get slaughtered. I can't full renegade it seems. Met up with Grunt and his company, since I killed the Rachni queen didn't have to think twice about not helping that weird clone breeder. So that was a first, I always save the Rachni queen.
Also did a few N7 missions, met up with Ashley, was harsh with her when she told my Shep about getting promoted, just to see the difference, lol assShep strikes again! Liara also showed me her project, told my Shep he was a good friend, he replied that's nice, that's assShep for you. Also rescued the Primark's son, Eve is pretty sick, Wrex really distrusts my Shep right now and with good reason. Tuchanka is gonna hurt.

Cerberus Interoffice Memo

To: Illusive Man

From: Kelly Chambers

Re: Psychology Report on Commander Shepard

I suspect that the Commander has been having some difficulty processing the loss of the Normandy and that is potentially why he has been so reluctant to go into the Omega Nebula in order to start recruiting people to join our mission. Currently, he seems to be wandering rather aimlessly about the Terminus Systems, scanning for minerals and signals coming from various planets. We have discovered the wreck sites of two freighters, MSV Estevanico located in the Hourglass Nebula and MSV Corsica located in Eagle Nebula. Unfortunately, there were no survivors found at either wreck site. I am aware that he has received an email from Admiral Hackett asking that he return to the Normandy SR-1 crash site in order to retrieve the dog tags of some 20 lost crew and place a commemorative monument there. I am encouraging him to undertake this mission soon in the hopes that it will help him find some personal closure. I have managed to get him to flirt with me a little, and I continue to encourage him to start talking to some of the other members of the crew as well. While I share some of your concerns, I am confident we will get him back into his old form soon.

Kelly

I love the Revenant in ME2 but I've only gotten to use it a couple times.

Mark Shepard:

Karumto: Checking out a volcano research station. Doctors Cayce and O'Loy were looking for a Prothean ruin but kept it quiet to avoid an attack by the bad guys in search of it like happened on Eden Prime. I turned on some sensors but somehow that made the area even more unstable. The volcano was beginning to erupt! Just barely escaped. That station is gone but I was pointed in a new direction.

Sinmara: The magnetic shield around this station was failing. The sun was going to roast it. Popped it, reset the shield, and popped back out.

Taitus: A YMIR mech was transmitting data about large mineral resources. The mech was a wreck. I had to fix a memory error just to get it started. Then it was leaking fuel but the fuel cells lying around dealt with that. It gave me access to the minerals - 5000 platinum - just before exploding.

Corang: More of O'Loy and Cayce's research here. Oh, and there's geth. Should have brought Tali. I've learned it is possible to ram enemies in the Hammerhead but it's not nearly as satisfying as rolling over them repeatedly like in the Mako. I retrieved all the artifacts but man is this boring. I love to shoot things but with my gun, not the half-assed missile system in the Hammerhead.

Gei Hinnom: Distress signal from a quarian ship. A lot of dead quarians and one alive. Attacks by varren. Rescued to survivor and got out. The jungle was full of varren, something that couldn't be an accident. Varren are from Tuchanka.

Kopis: Prothean artifacts detected! Also, geth. Turns out O'Loy was indoctrinated and sending the coordinates to the geth. Cayce was also indoctrinated, or starting to be, and was aware of it. He decided to destroy the Prothean relic and kill himself. A datapad says O'Loy had made a deal with the Collectors for this artifact in exchange for sparing his home colony. The artifact itself was a large sphere, similar to the one that I'd encountered on Eletania that gave me visions of ancient humanity being visited by the Protheans. When I touched this one I received no visions. Instead it emitted a burst of energy and shrunk down to a size I could carry. Took it to the Normandy but I have no idea of its purpose or if it's simply too damaged to operate. The burst turned out to be a transmission that was able to be partially decrypted. It led to some biotic advancements.

Pragia: Time to deal with Jack. I brought Jacob along out of curiosity. Miranda is too much of a Cerberus apologist to see anything bad we might find here as evidence that her organization is evil at its core.

I saw nothing in the facility that made me not want to kill anyone who had ever been involved with it. Full of biotic children that were expendable, most of them tested on to make sure Jack wasn't harmed.

We fought some Blood Pack mercs before finally finding who hired him, a guy named Aresh. He was the only other survivor of this facility and had it in his head that if he restarted it he might find answers. Jack had the right of it wanting to destroy the place. Aresh wasn't sane or smart enough to restart the place and I convinced Jack to let him go. Then we planted a bomb and detonated it, leaving nothing but a smoking crater that the jungle would soon reclaim.

Normandy SR-2: Miranda and Jack got into a fight. Joker wanted pictures. Miranda still couldn't back down that Cerberus was wrong at the Teltin facility. However, since it was in the XO office I have to assume Jack instigated things. I really wanted to put Miranda in her place but it was more important that they all follow my direction with no question. I remained neutral and told them this aggression needed to be channeled to the Collectors. They agreed to set this aside until the mission was over.

Karen Shepard, Soldier (Shock Trooper), ME1 NG+:

Exodus Cluster - Asteroid X57 (Bring Down the Sky)

A distress call was received from Asteroid X57 near the human colony of Terra Nova. The asteroid had been moved into orbit using fusion torches, to be used as an orbital facility. Now, the torches had been reactivated and the asteroid was hurtling toward the planet. If it wasn't stopped, it would collide with the Terra Nova, causing catastrophic damage to the colony. Shepard, Liara, and Tali landed on the asteroid to investigate. They received a transmission from a woman who informed them that the facility was under attack and that they needed to shut down the fusion torches to avert the disaster.

The Spectre and her team entered the building housing one of the fusion torch controls. Inside, they came face to face with a number of Batarians, who attacked immediately. After a tough fight, Shepard and her friends prevailed and shut down the fusion torch. The woman who contacted them previously - named Kate Bowman - radioed again. She was in hiding and didn't know much, only that the facility had been attacked by batarian extremists and that the remaining torches had to be shut down or millions would die. She was forced to sign off to avoid discovery.

Shepard headed toward the second fusion torch. On the way out, they met the chief engineer, Simon Atwell. He confirmed the information provided by Kate, and said that the main facility was currently held by the batarians, who had changed the access codes to lock everyone out. The batarian leader's name was Balak, and Simon was of the opinion that the other terrorists were afraid of him. He was relieved Kate had survived, but was worried about an engineering crew of his that had been working on the surface when the attack hit. Shepard promised to try and find them if she could, but only once the torches were dealt with.

Simon had mentioned the main transmitter, so Shepard went there and reactivated it. This highlighted important locations on Shepard's map. The team then went to the second fusion torch and shut it down, a task made tricky by more batarians as well as a field of blasting caps surrounding the entrance. Kate contacted them again, but was discovered, presumably by the leader, Balak, who demanded to know who was shutting down the torches. When Kate refused to answer, Shepard heard a shot over the comm - Balak had executed someone.

Shepard and her team went to the third fusion torch, defeated the guards, and shut it down. Hopefully, Terra Nova would now be safe, all that was left was to free the hostages from the main facility. As they were leaving, they were confronted by Charn, Balak's second in command. Charn wanted to talk, to try and end this peacefully. He claimed that destroying Terra Nova hadn't been his idea, he was just looking for a little profit from a "quick slave grab", and that it was only when Balak came along that the plan changed. Shepard challenged Charn to just walk away, if he was sincere in wanting to end this without more bloodshed. He finally relented when Shepard promised to deal with Balak, obviously he was afraid of the guy (Simon had been right about that). Shepard took Charn's pass for the main facility, and warned him to never set foot in human territory again.

With the data from the main transmitter, Shepard was able to find the locations of the three missing engineers from Simon's team, along with one other. Unfortunately, they had all been killed by the attackers - Hymes died from explosives set outside the survey station's door; Mendel appeared to have surrendered only to be executed; Slajs, who was to have relieved Mendel, was shot trying to escape a burning vehicle; Montoya was killed by a sniper shot while heading to the main facility to investigate. They also found a pirate radio station, "Radio X57" who's programmers had evidently created controversy with their "extreme" music, which was causing youngsters to "riot and sleep with aliens." Shocking. Shepard fired up the transmitter, but found the music not very "extreme" at all - it sounded like the elevator music from the Citadel.

Shepard, Tali and Liara went to the main facility and defeated all of the batarians guarding it. Balak showed up, ranting about the plight of the batarian people, how it was all the Alliance's fault, as if that justified what he had tried to do to Terra Nova. Shepard's attempts to reason with him failed. Balak had set explosive charges around the main facility, so any attempt to arrest him would result in the death of all the hostages. Shepard felt she had no choice but to let him go - she would deal with him someday, but wouldn't sacrifice more innocent lives to get him. It meant breaking her word with Charn, but he shouldn't have needed persuading to walk away from this madness, and Shepard felt no guilt about breaking a deal with a slaver.

Simon confirmed that Terra Nova was safe - the torches were shut down with one hour to spare - and offered an extra set of heavy armour he had as thanks. He was saddened by the loss of his crew, but relieved his family on Terra Nova would be OK. Shepard spoke to Kate, and offered her sympathies - Kate's brother Aaron was the guard that Balak had executed. She had been brave and strong through the whole ordeal, and Shepard was relieved she had made it.

Shepard ordered her team back to the Normandy so she could file her report - the Alliance would need to be on the lookout for Balak and Charn, in case they tried to pull something like this again.