What did you do today in ME?

I played a bit of ME 2 last night. I finished Mordin's mission, went to the Citadel, and started Kasumi's loyalty quest.

In one fight, I used charge, then beat a group of 6 guys nearby with melee. I was so surprised I managed to beat them so easily that I laughed.

From the Personal Logs of the SSV Normandy:



Which I actually done. but...well bit of a fun story with that. After I got done with LOTSB I accidentally hit the load button, instead of the save button...ten hours ago. So then I hit the button on the load for the auto save which saved just after the boss fight...but it seems I got corrupted. Because it loaded in the middle of...well darkness. Only my Shepard, which was decked out in her full breather armor...in the middle of blackness, and she was even blurred out. When I tried moving, it fractured. So I tried my third save. And...well...its ok. Just back to when Shepard borded the Shadow Broker Ship. So I just have to hope the problem does not repeat itself in the future. And the audio goes back to being normal.

Mark Shepard:

Derelict Reaper (continued): More husk attacks. Scions, too. Lots and lots of them. [Note: I'm really grateful to the Gibbed Save Game Editor that allowed me to move Shepard's location back just enough to get me unstuck from some crap on the ground. This is a drawback about Vanguard's I had forgotten.] Finally, when they were all down, I got my hands on the Reaper IFF.

When I opened the next door there was a barrier blocking me from moving forward. That geth was doing something at a terminal, occasionally stopping to shoot some husks. After a few moments, the barrier dropped. It was necessary to destroy the Reaper Core to get out. Theoretically, it would take a lot of shots. Or, as it turned out, one shot from the Cain did the trick. Saved a lot of fight time.

The geth who had helped us was down and I opted to grab it. I had heard that geth are never taken intact so this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. The fact that it saved my ass a couple of times was also a good enough reason to take it. Not that I trusted it but maybe we could figure out how the geth are connected to the Reapers.

Normandy SR-2: Discussion with Jacob and Miranda about the geth I brought on board. I get it with Miranda. She's XO and I suppose has a right to make suggestions. Jacob, though? Let's be honest. He was not given command of this vessel or this mission. I was and there's a reason for it. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes but he wants to space the thing even though it saved my life and was wearing a piece of my armor. There's something unusual about it and I needed to learn what that was. Turning it over to Cerberus also wasn't a great option since it probably wouldn't get me the answers I need.

Got a report saying the Illusive Man wanted me to know he'd shut down the Subject Zero project before the riot broke out. Doesn't matter. He was still buying biotic children and experimenting on them to create stronger biotics. Unforgivable. I'm sure Jack would agree.

I went down to the AI core where the geth had been stashed. EDI erected a shield and additional firewalls in preparation for a potential attack. Then I turned it on. It said it (meaning the geth) had never met me even though I've killed many geth. It said it monitors organics and general but me as well. It also mentioned "heretics" that went to the Reapers. Apparently there's a schism of some sort between them. It's certainly implying that there are two factions of geth and that its faction has never encountered me before. It said that its faction opposes the heretics and the Reapers. Since I do as well it thought cooperation would be beneficial. I decided to let it join us and dropped the field.

I wanted to know its name but it said they didn't have those sorts of things. Given that the unit in front of my contained over 1,000 programs, EDI suggested Legion based on a Biblical reference ("My name is Legion for we are many.") Of course, Legion in the Bible are demons so make of that name what you will.

From the Personal Logs of the SSV Normandy:



So yesterday on mass effect, started worrying about my available resources and if I have enough to get everything I want. On the one hand I think I am close to getting everything I really need. Very few upgrades are still out there, I think, but on the other hand I only have one of the ship upgrades and do not know what the effect of the others will be. And I never precisely crunched/ looked up the numbers I have needed to finish everything in the game. Though I am hopeful.

Dear Ashley,

Still missing you more than ever. I visited the crash site of our Normandy. I guess about 20 of the crew are with you now - I found their dog tags... and my old helmet. The ship is broken up pretty bad. You must have known I was feeling pretty low, 'cause the most awesome Aurora erupted just as I was placing a monument the Alliance gave me. As the light was dancing in the sky, I remembered our dance so long ago in Flux. I knew then that I'd get this job done somehow.

I'll tell you though, Cerberus isn't making it easy... the list of people they've given me to recruit... it's something else. So far - I've got a lovesick master thief who is really just interested in getting her partner's memory box back and gossiping about the crew. I've got a hardass bounty hunter who is mostly intent on chasing some gang leader down. I got a tank-bred baby krogan who is actually bigger than Wrex, but is searching for a purpose to his life... And last but not least, there's Jack. She was being kept in cryo on a prison ship and seems to really hate Cerberus. I've convinced her to come along for now by giving her access to the ship's Cerberus data bases. She says she's looking for names and dates and places and I don't think I'm going to like what she's hoping to do with them when she finds them. She offered to be my First Mate... didn't have the heart to tell her that the job was already occupied... You know that's still you, Ash.

Of course, I also have two stooges from the Cerberus ranks. Miranda, my second in command and the one responsible for putting me back together, really believes in Cerberus. It seems they helped her escape her father's control; but she doesn't seem to even notice that she really just exchanged her dad for the Illusive Man. She is, at least, proving to be pretty useful on the battlefield. The other one, Jacob... well, he just doesn't seem to be all that confident. He pretends to be critical of Cerberus, but I sort of get the feeling he's even more of a Yes man than Miranda.

I finally got to meet with Anderson and the Council. The Council was it's usually helpful self... not; but I am reinstated as a spectre. Anderson says he's going to try to keep everyone off my back for now so I can get this thing with the Collectors sorted out. I'm off next to sort out some sort of problem Cerberus is having at a research base in the Phoenix Massing. Promise I'll write you again when I get back,

Love, V.

Mark Shepard:

Heretic Station: Everyone else was loyal to me and I needed to make sure this geth had no doubts. I did find Joker's robot imitation amusing.

I brought Tali along on the geth heretic ship. I figured she knew more about the geth than any of the rest of us and might notice hidden traps. Or they could just hate her for being quarian and make things worse. Still, I was willing to take the risk.

We were here to destroy the geth heretics but Legion send they could be re-written, that a new choice now existed. Tali cautioned that leaving all those geth intact might lead to disaster if they should all turn heretic down the road. I saw her point. Plus, brainwashing was never my style. Free will matters, even if it means you get killed for your decisions.

We had to go around the ship destroying all these geth hubs where 3 or 4 of them were hooked up to a central device. If I killed them without triggering their alarms it was good. Didn't always work and we were attacked at times.

Legion was able to access the geth heretic programs. Then it came time to rewrite or destroy the heretics. The geth couldn't reach a consensus and left the decision to me. A few thoughts crossed my mind. The dead on Eden Prime, a paradise human colony: Jenkins, the first of my crew to die, and the colonists who were massacred or turned into husks. Ash, dying on Virmire. Then the many encounters with them while aboard the SR-1. No, I wasn't about to let the heretics off the hook. Destroying them was the option that made sense so they don't draw a different conclusion yet again. And given that the influence of the Reapers is still alive and well I could imagine that being possible.

Once this was done we had like 3 minutes to get out. We ran hard and fast, killing anything in our way, and were able to escape on the Normandy before the heretic ship blew up.

Normandy SR-2: Joker warned me that Tali and Legion were fighting in the AI core. Legion was going to transmit some sensitive information about the quarians to the geth. Tali objected. I talked sense into them. I understood both of their positions as did they understand one another. However, sending the information would have led to direct war and neither would be in a position to face the Reapers. They both backed down and Tali made a hell of a compromise by giving Legion some non-classified information.

All of my squadmates left with me on a mission. When we came back, we found the entire crew minus Joker missing and EDI was unshackled and in full control of the Normandy. The Collectors had homed in on the Reaper IFF, meaning it was a trap all along. They abducted everyone on board. Joker freed EDI and hooked up the drive core. Then she sealed him in the engine room before opening all cargo doors and airlocks to eject any remaining intruders.

Now was the time to go after the Collectors. I don't know if there was anything else I might do, besides try to help Hackett's friend, but I didn't want to risk losing a crew that was loyal to me and trusted that I'd take care of them. Dr. Chakwas and Kelly were among those taken and I couldn't leave them to their fate. The humans I saw on the Collector ship were all dead and had been experimented on. I wanted to avoid losing another Normandy crew to such a horrific end.

OMG, OMG, I can smell the end of the DA: Awakening. So, I tossed the coin for finishing my ME3 run or starting a DA2 run. And... Hang in there, Mark Shepard! We are (almost) back in business!

I have a sort of premonition that I am going to pull an all-nighter finishing the DA:A to start the re-immersion in ME3 + ME3/MP over the weekend.

I had that thought that it would be wise to cut back on gaming again to avoid the burn-out before Andromeda. Yeah, that went well.

I kind of liked messing with him.  If you save him he is all like "thank you Shepard thank you for saving me after all we understand each other!"  And then as he is doing this you can get up to two Renegade Interupts.  I do the first one to scare the shit out of him, confuse him, and make him realize I am not his friend.  Don't do the second one though, I suspect Shepard would have shot him dead there.  Didn't want him dead, just wanted him shitting his pants so he would be giving up all of his secrets.  

***  

Anyways, From the Personal Logs of the SSV Normandy. 



So yeah I did do the missions for Kasumi and Zaeed. 

Mark Shepard:

Aratoht: The thing about rescuing Dr. Kenson is that I have to get into the Bahak system, which is part of the Batarian Hegemony. These guys do not like humans and I don't like batarians. Also, Hackett asked me to do this mission solo. Not even allowed to bring people I've trusted all along like Tali and Garrus. I don't know what's in store for the rest of us right now but I do know I don't want to be on the outs with Hackett. I'll do as he asked.

The place was a shit hole, even for a batarian prison. I eventually found her being tortured. I freed her but it was still going to be work escaping. We had to fight our way through an Kenson had to hack the system to get us out. We made our way to a shuttle and got out.

Kenson told me she had learned that the Reapers were arriving through the Bahak relay and would use that relay to invade all of the other systems. She referred to it as the "Alpha Relay" because it maybe had the ability to travel to any relay rather than have to made successive jumps. The plan she and her allies came up with was to hurl an asteroid at the relay to destroy it, though she believed the resulting explosion would destroy the system. I could understand why the batarians wanted her dead when they found out about it by hacking comm buoys. Even though batarians had destroyed my entire colony I could not in good conscience retaliate. I didn't know what the solution might be but I intended to find out.

She told me her proof of invasion came from a Reaper artifact she called Object Rho. I was immediately suspicious because I knew that Reaper artifacts tended to indoctrination. If Kenson were indoctrinated she might not even realize that her plan was somehow beneficial to the Reapers. I had to find out more. More included visions from the artifact. This was pretty sure evidence but I was going to have to let this play out.

The Project: This is where they came up with the plan to destroy the relay. The first thing I saw was a countdown that gave a little more than 2 days until the arrival of the Reapers. Kenson was ushering me to Object Rho but as I looked around a saw people who were very relaxed rather than anxious. They were engaged in conversation rather than preparation. These are not signs of people worried about the arrival of the Reapers.

When we got to the lab I saw a completely unshielded artifact. It gave me a vision of the coming of the Reapers and sent me to my knees. Then Kenson drew a gun on me, saying she couldn't allow me to stop their arrival. I knocked the gun out of her hand but others came to attack. She escaped and locked the door behind her. While fighting, Object Rho spoke to me. It sounded exactly like Harbinger. Of course, it also sounded exactly like Sovereign. That meant this either was a Reaper or there was a Reaper speaking through it. I took everything that threw at me. What finally brought me down was a pulse from Object Rho.

When I woke up I was in on a table. There was a doctor and some guards but I took them out. They took away my armor but I was somehow in that Cerberus uniform I'd ditched as soon as I found an alternative. However, I was locked in. I managed to take control of a LOKI mech and use it to blow a power juncture to take down the barrier holding me in. I discovered I'd been sedated for two days. The countdown showed I had less than 2 hours before arrival and that left very little time to get that asteroid moving.

The guards I had to fight were nothing like Blue Suns, batarians, or anyone else I fought. They weren't a match for me but they were determined and Kenson was guiding them from over the comm systems.

The logs are interesting and the indoctrination process is more understandable. A guard noticed that Kenson seemed happy the Reapers were coming but also talked of strange Reaper dreams. Kenson's log said she wanted to stop the Project because they didn't know enough about the Reapers. Since they had been through before and life existed, she concluded that they needed to talk to the Reapers. I know what Sovereign told me so I know what the Reapers are about. I wonder if I'd see it so clearly under indoctrination.

Once I made my way to the engine control I activated the Project. The VI told me it would result in about 305,000 batarian deaths. In many ways this was unforgivable, even if it delayed the arrival of the Reapers. Yet, I had no choice. 300,000 vs trillions. I know war isn't about math - or at least it shouldn't be - but this was going to be hard to live with. That is, assuming I survived it.

I tried to send out a warning to the batarians but Kenson interrupted me. She decided to cause a core reactor meltdown to destroy the asteroid. I had to stop her. I managed to avert the reactor overload but then she planned to blow the engines. I found her and shot her but not before she triggered a bomb. The explosion knocked me out. When I came to there were about 28 minutes left until collision. Communications were down so I was going to have to take a shuttle but I'd have to fight my way to it. When I got to the site, the last shuttle was leaving. However, this was the comm tower and I used it to signal the Normandy to pick me up.

As I was making the call, Harbinger in its true form appeared to me. It was a hologram like the one of Sovereign I'd encountered but I knew even these light displays were powerful. It told me everything I was doing was pointless but I couldn't help notice it was trying to stop me. That meant I was making things difficult for them. I told it humans would find a way to stop them. It's parting comment suggested to me that their planned invasion would not be happening on schedule. I believe this is the second time I prevented that.

Then the Normandy arrived and we made it through the relay just before it exploded. I watched the system blink out of existence. Thinking not just of the slavers, but the children and probably slaves from other races in that system made it difficult. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it.

Normandy SR-2: Chakwas gave me a clean bill of health and there were no signs of visions. However, Admiral Hackett was present. Since I had done this mission as a favor he came to me in person for a debrief. He wanted to know what happened and I explained it all, regardless of potential consequences. He understood why I did what I did but also said the batarians would want my blood. Given the animosity between humans and batarians it would be easy for them to conclude that this was an act of war against them rather than the Reapers.

Hackett made it clear he knew the Normandy was no longer a Cerberus ship. He also said I was eventually going to have to return to Earth to "face the music" for my actions. However, he said that with the understanding that being on Earth was going to be necessary so that I would be in position to fight the Reapers. With the Suicide mission done and no other plans, I decided to just deal with it now. I let the crew and my squadmates know the situation. I'd drop any of them off wherever they needed to go since I didn't expect everyone to turn themselves in with me.

[End of Mass Effect 2]

Miriam Shepard helped the krogan people...

Ordered the Normandy to Tuchanka to implement the genophage cure.

Planned to use the "Shroud" (salarian atmospheric processing tower installed during uplift, designed to cleanse atmosphere of nuclear pollution) to disperse the cure. Plan threatened by presence of Reaper near Shroud, using it to poison atmosphere. Primarch Victus agreed to deploy turian squadron to act as diversion; Wrex's troops would simultaneously attack from the ground, clearing path for Mordin and Eve to enter Shroud and disperse cure.

Received private communication from salarian dalatrass; learned that Shroud includes safeguards to prevent use as genophage cure delivery system. Was urged to leave safeguards in place; salarians still seriously concerned about implications of resurgent krogan.

Landed on Tuchanka with Wrex, Eve, Mordin, Garrus and Javik. Came in hot; husk mob at landing site easily neutralized. Met Wrex's brood brother Wreav, conservatively-minded krogan who objected to Mordin's presence. Wrex put him in his place.

Proceeded towards Shroud in armoured truck convoy. Explained about conversation with dalatrass en route. Mordin anticipated no problems with disabling safeguards and successfully dispersing cure.

Journey interrupted by Reaper attack; forced to proceed on foot through ancient ruins. Found murals depicting Kalros, mother of all thresher maws. Earth tremors indicated that Kalros is no myth. Architecture of ruins impressive, predating krogan industrial revolution. Ruins opened out into verdant area, stark contrast to much of Tuchanka, almost like a different planet. Garrus and Eve optimistic about krogan future; Javik more cynical.

Encountered light resistance from Reaper ground forces, including rachni artillery.

Krogan convoy attacked by Kalros, demonstrating territorial instinct. Wreav's truck presumed destroyed. Mordin, Wrex and Eve formulated plan to have Kalros attack Reaper: Shroud built near shrine to Kalros containing "maw hammers" that can summon it. Proceeded to shrine, evading Reaper main cannon and heavy resistance from "Brute" entities. Activated maw hammers; proceeded to Shroud while Kalros destroyed Reaper.

Shroud critically damaged by ground tremors and Reaper interference. Mordin insistent on finishing work regardless. Cure dispersed successfully; Shroud collapsed. Mordin presumed deceased.

Krogan assistance on Palaven and Earth secured. Turian assistance on Earth guaranteed.

Mordin's name added to Normandy cenotaph. A good man, he will be missed.

[Played this one conservatively when the Ravagers were around and vanguard-style the rest of the time. The husk mob at the beginning was particularly enjoyable. No deaths in combat, though the Reaper laser got me a few times. I left most of the Brutes alone at the end, but got a bit of mileage from using Charge to target the ones nearest to the hammers so I could zip right past the bulk of them. I found the Brute rush quite tricky during my first playthrough, so was pleased to find it much easier this time.

With Wrex alive and Maelon's data saved, full Paragon is the only way of playing this, in my opinion. So there was no difference in outcome from my first playthrough. I think I took Garrus and Liara the first time, so did hear some different dialogue this time by having Javik along.]