What did you do today in ME?

completed ME1

- went to Eden Prime to visit some friends
- I met with a travel agent on the Citadel to give me suggestions on what places to visit
- on Feros I did some camping
- Went to Noveria to do some skiing
- sat on the beach soaking up some rays on Virmire
- went to Therum to see a volcano
- Ilos was alright. Just a little too quite for my taste
- went back to the Citadel to see if the travel agent had other places I could visit

I should've worded that better I meant that Jacob likely still comes forward and mentions unfinished business for everyone in the crew, because it's a scene that happens no matter what, right? I didn't know though if Jacob and Miranda immediately give me their LM when I talk to them for the first time at that point.

Some progress from last night:
"Ah, it's really nice out here."
"It sure is. But do you want to go back to your room now?"
"We can stay a while. I wanted to tell you about Kasumi and the heist anyway."
"The heist?"
"Yes. It was the time we attended a party and sneaked into a rich guy's vault to get something back that belonged to Kasumi's former partner."
"Okay, wait. You're telling me you broke into some vault? You?"
"Heh. Yeah, I did. This guy was a scumbag, ma. An arms dealer. And he had killed Kasumi's lover because he wanted his graybox."
"What's a graybox?"
"It's a neural implant that can store information. Even memories. I could understand why Kasumi wanted it back."
"Yeah, me too. Hard to lose someone like that."
"It didn't really go as planned though. As soon as we were inside the vault, this guy, Hock, sent his mercs after us. We had to fight our way out and even kill Hock himself in the end. Kasumi pulled off some crazy stunt to help take down his gunship."
"Gunship? Do I really want to know?"
"Probably not. It all went fine, don't worry. So, we had the graybox and Kasumi accessed it. Her dead lover had information that could've implied the Alliance severly. He asked Kasumi to destroy the graybox, because he was afraid it'd make Kasumi a target."
"I see. What did she do?"
"She didn't want to lose him again of course, but I offered to destroy it on her behalf, and she agreed."
"Oh... how sad."
"Maybe it was for the best. She got some closure."
"I guess you're right. Hm. I've never heard about this Hock."
"Should've seen his collection, mom. He had the head of the Statue of Liberty inside that vault."
"No way!"
"Yeah. It was crazy. But everything during that time was crazy. Because next, I decided to head towards Omega in order to follow through with all these dossiers. But on the way we stopped at Korlus, and picked up a baby krogan bred in a tank."
"A baby... krogan?!"
"Well, he was a full-grown krogan, but he was… new. As I said, crazy times. I was actually supposed to talk to his "father" about the Collectors, to get more information on them. A krogan warlord who wanted to breed the perfect krogan to defy the genophage. His name was Okeer. He had started to send all the imperfect krogan to a faction of a merc band called Blue Suns - you will hear more often about them - but they now wanted to kill Okeer because their leader couldn't control the krogan properly. In exchange for information on the Collectors I was to get rid of the leader, and I did. But Okeer died anyway due to toxins released in his lab, and all that was left was that one krogan. His legacy. And we took him aboard the Normandy. I didn't let him out right away, I had to consider whether that was the right decision."
"I assume you did later on?"
"Yeah. And after some initial complications I got used to him, too. His name is Grunt."
"You sure met a lot of interesting people and aliens in your life."
"Interesting doesn't even cut it... everyone was unique in their own way. Sure, I didn't like some of those people I had to work with, but the majority was just fine."
"So tell me about who you met next!"
"Alright, alright, mom!"

More pics:


So I died once in each mission and I had some shitty bugs In the vault Shepard wouldn't move anymore at some point after the mercs attacked, even though I could look around with the camera. Maybe he Stasis'd himself On Korlus, Kasumi froze and I couldn't use her anymore and had to reload at some point. In general, I pretty much solo'd a few sections of this mission because the squad was too stupid to follow orders into cover. I refuse to give them Medi-Gel for that behaviour
Also, it was the first time I thought about using the tank to get rid of the second wave of enemies in that one room during Kasumi's LM, and it was beautiful!

The Last Will and Testament of Commander Shepard.

I hereby bequeath all my belongings to Conrad Verner. What a wonderful man. He said I was beautiful. Thank you Conard. I also regret not giving you a hug for that. I'm sor......



Where I'm I? Is this the afterlfe? Now I have voices in my head. Its a female. Her name is Marinade. She tells me the facility is under attack. This definitely is not the afterlife. I shoot some robots. Who's this guy? He calls himself Jory. He tells me I was dead as dead can be. He works with Cerberus. They wanted to bring me back.  I get it. They want me to give Conrad that hug. Just thinking about him brings a tear to my eyes. I hope he's doing well.

I meet the Wilcox guy with the injured leg. Fight more robots. The Marinade woman shoots the Wilcox. Ok. I will keep my eye on her.

I talk with TMM, The Marboro Man. He brought me back for two reasons. To deal with the one's kidnapping colonists and to give Conrad that hug.

I meet Tally at the Free of Progress. She is here to get her friend Velcro. I find Velcro and also learn of a species that's called Protheans. Never heard of them.

I get a new ship. I call it My Ship. The pilot is Bozo the Clown.  My ship has a voice. It calls iself edi. I will call it shut up.

I walk around My  ship talking to everyone. The Jelly Climbers woman seems a little too friendly for my taste. I meet with the cook. This man deserves respect.  Mr. Rupert Gardner will be cooking my meals. I make him Co-Commander of My Ship. I talk with Dr. Bones. I talk with Gabber and Kenron.

Ok. Where should I take My Ship first?

She does. She will mention a name who wants to talk to you even if Shepard doesn't talk to her when Shepard walks by her. Plus I know who I want to talk to since I know what loyalty missions I will do.

Went to the Citadel. Recruited Kickme. Not sure what she will add to the squad. Talked with Anders. He said its up to me to find a way to stop the giant flying hands. Makes working with Cerberus so much better.

I'm (insert store name here) and Commander Shepard is my favorite customer.

Went to Omega. Talked with the Area of Losing. Her motto is "Don't laugh at the Area". Ok. She told me where to find the Angel of Arches and the scientist called  Mouthy.

Fought against a bunch of dirtbags. Mouthy is now on the squad. Hopefuly he will find a way to stop the protheans.

So Garfield is the Angel of Arches. He gets in the way of a rocket. Why would he do that? Hopefully he has good insurance.

I recruit Strap of Tattoos. Not sure what good she will be.

I get the extra layer of skin and bigger gun upgrade for My Ship.

For now, I will head to my cabin for some rest.

I recruit Zed Massive. I like this guy. He will be very useful on the mission

So we head to some planet to recruit a krogan named Oakley. I have to fight through a bunch of lowlifes. There's a woman's voice over the speakers. I like the sound of her voice. Maybe she should become a singer. This is Oakey? Ok. I have to stop the talking woman. Done. Oakley died for his krogan-in-a-tank. Alright lets take it back to My Ship. I release the baby krogan. Its gives itself the name Geralt. I leave a box of diapers for him to use.

Marlboro Man tells me the protheans might be attacking the planet Beyond Horizon. So me, Garfield and Zed fight the protheans. Some of the colonists are frozen and put in pods. What's that? A prothean starts to glow. ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL. Ok. The protheans are being controlled by someone or something. It says my name. I will call it Harpyger. What are those hump looking things? I will call them the Hunchback of Prothean.

After dealing with the portheans, I see Askly Willow walking towards me. Good to see you Askly. She calls me a trader. Not sure why. I have traded on occasions. She won't join me to stop the protheans. See ya later Askly.

Back on My Ship, Jelly Climbers was excited at what I did and that I was ok. She also told me that Marinade and Jory wanted to talk to me. I check my messages first.

Its Admiral Homer. He wants me to rescue his secretary, Always Kidding, who has been taken by Batarians because she has the skills they need to fix their paper problems. Fine. When I get the time I will see about rescuing the secretary.

Now we head to Illium.

The Lazarus project clearly went badly wrong in this playthrough. I choose to believe that this Shepard has a derpy Sheploo meme face.

From the Journal of Ioan Shepard:

- Zada Ban: Blood Pack base here. Worth destroying so I'm going down with Zaeed and Grunt. EDI says "Kill the Power Source and save the world." Watching vorcha bounce from Slam is the best. This L5 implant Cerberus gave me really kicks ass. Also fun is hitting a charging krogan with a biotic charge. My charge was stronger. Sucker went down. Then I took out the power source and got a big boom out of it! I have no idea why people the Council thought I couldn't do subtle.
- Canalus: Geth activity here and strange weather patterns. Time to investigate. Tali is an obvious choice to come along. Garrus also has plenty of geth experience, so he can come as well. There was some kind of machine that was altering the weather. It was questionable why the geth would do this since they can survive in extreme conditions. Theory: they're testing to see if worlds can be made uninhabitable for organic life, thereby allowing them to settle all worlds throughout the galaxy. Destroyed the 'bots and disabled the machine.

Also, this happened.


- MSV Broken Arrow: On a crash course for an ice giant. Only signatures on board are geth. I guess somehow there's a colony on that ice giant. Don't know how. In any case, this ship will hit it unless stopped. Time to kill some more 'bots! I brought Kasumi and Thane. It's almost like having Tali and Garrus, but shadier versions. Six minutes to reactivate the engines or there's no way to avoid impact. Why was there even a colony on an ice giant in the middle of geth territory? It's like they wanted to die. In any case, I restarted the engine and killed all the geth on board.
- Omega: Decided it was time to track down Samara's vampire daughter. Aria pointed me in the direction of the mother of a likely victim. We spoke with her. She was still grief-stricken. Strange, when I listen to a message from Morinth to Nef, there's excitement in her voice, like she actually cares about this person. Almost like she's got two personalities, one is the lure while the other kills. I got some insights about Morinth as well as how to find her.
- We headed to Afterlife's VIP area. I was the bait and had to go in solo and unarmed. Samara would have to follow from a distance or else risk alerting Morinth. I danced with an asari, convinced a bartender to buy a round of drinks for everyone and helped a reporter out of a tight spot. That drew Morinth right to me. After a chat, she wanted to take me right home. No wasted time drawing me in like with Nef. At her apartment, we talked before I mentioned that though we were both killers, that was where the similarities ended. She tried to control my mind but found herself unable. Then Samara came in and they fought. Despite it all, Morinth told me she'd work for me if I helped her. I'm no fool. She's too dangerous and I wasn't going to betray Samara like that. Morinth tried to claim she was the genetic destiny of the asari but the fact that she can't actually reproduce makes that seem unlikely. She died at her mother's hands and Samara finally felt some relief after 400 years of hunting her. Also, now loyal to me.
- Lattesh: More data scans to be found here. Hammerhead in a frozen zone. Not fun. Some followup email said they hoped the data would help with terraforming.
- Aite: TIM asked me to investigate a problem in another division called "Overlord". Name was ominous enough, so ominous that I thought it might be something I'd have to shut down. Don't want anything too powerful in his hands. For that reason, I couldn't bring Miranda and Jacob, but also didn't want anything too biased like Jack. I settled on Tali and Samara. Dr. Gavin Archer said there was a "catastrophic VI outbreak". Reminded me of Luna, and of Hahne-Kedar. All seems a little too coincidental. Not that it matters because we can't have a potential AI running loose. There were a lot of dead inside but they were all Cerberus. Not sure I'm broken up about that. Aaaand, they were working on live geth. Didn't I just do this same mission with the quarians? I retracted a satellite dish to prevent uploading of geth programs. Then a green face appeared on the scree before me. It was hard to make out, but I could swear it said "please, stop". That doesn't sound very geth-like.
- Retracting the dish wasn't enough. Had to destroy the antennae as well. After that was done, had a chat with Archer. Overlord was about integrating a human mind with a VI to gain influence over the geth. It had worked. All the geth we had fought were under the control of what I soon learned was Archer's brother, David. He was trying to infect all tech. But I couldn't dismiss what I'd thought was a cry for help, either. David might not have had full control of his faculties.
- Headed to Prometheus Station which turned out to be a crashed geth ship. This wasn't going to go well. It was never going to go well. It was also surrounded by a shield which I had to disable while be shot at by a shielded cannon. Since I was now sure Cerberus had fucked up, I felt comfortable taking Jack and Grunt along. Still not bringing the Cerberus apologists. First thing I saw inside was a geth prime inside of an energy field. You just know this thing was going to bite me in the ass later. Inert geth all over the place. They must have been active at one point since all the researchers are dead. Okay, I definitely heard "please make it stop". I'm starting to doubt the volunteer status of David Archer. Hit the override switch and all the geth came online. Try not to be shocked when I saw the geth prime was active at the exit to the facility. It still exploded in the end.
- Arrived at Vulcan Station with Garrus and Mordin. First had to travel across rivers of lava in that damnable Hammerhead. This facility didn't have geth. Instead, it's those LOKI mechs again. Hit the override and moved on. One LOKI mech was definitely showing signs of fear. Not VI behavior at all.
- Just to see reactions, I brought Miranda and Jacob with me to Atlas Station. How would Miranda justify this? One machine randomly opened Archer's video log to offer up the most damning evidence yet. David Archer is autistic. I'm not saying that means he's dumb but I have no doubt he was unable to make an informed decision about connecting to the VI. Another log confirmed that it wasn't just any VI network. It was the geth neural network to which David had been connected. And why? Because they weren't getting results and TIM was going to scrap the program. In another entry, Archer acknowledged David could be harmed but deemed the project more important. Then I was led to the VI Server Console. It was little more than a button with "press me" metaphorically labeling it. So I did and it sent my mind into some kind of virtual environment.
- In this place, there was a clear "stop" from David. A recording of a past event shows how David was able to mimic the geth language and thereby control them. This poor kid. He's with his brother for protection and is treated like nothing more than an experiment. One thing that was abundantly clear was that David did not like what had been done to him. When we got to the core, the David/geth hybrid was trying to upload itself to the Normandy. I cannot even imagine the world of shit we'd all be in if it took control of EDI. Once I severed the connection the VI display shorted out. Then I saw the real horror. David was bound naked to some device. Metal tubes went down his throat, his eyes were forced open, metal claws dug into his skin, cables dug into his arms. It was an atrocity and Archer was still trying to defend his actions. Once I finally got through to him, Archer said he wanted to care for the boy. I in no way trusted him. I don't think he had the ability to do such a thing. When I told Archer I was taking him, he pulled a gun on me saying that David was too valuable. That right there told me I'd made the right decision. He'd never see David as more than a tool. I arranged for him to go to Grissom Academy, and told Archer that if TIM didn't like it he could fire me. No consequences were forthcoming, other than an email saying how removing David would set back their efforts for years. Out of fucks for that asshole. And Miranda had absolutely nothing to say. For once in her life, she didn't defend Cerberus.

Went to the planet Chunk. Geralt needs to complete the Rite to Wear Pants. Swell. Lets get this over with. Have to defeat a giant worm known as the Trash Mullet. Done. It was easier than I thought it would be. Some krogan named Ulcer wants Geralt as a trophy. Yeah. That didn't work out to well for him. Now Geralt is part of Clan Uncle.

Now to find Mouthy's assistant, Melon. Fight through a bunch of krogan. There's the Melon salarian. Mouthy sends him away and deletes his data. Back to My Ship.

TMM wants to talk to me. He tells me to head to a disabled Prothean ship.

Big ship. You will never believe what I found out? The protheans are Collectors. The reapers turned the collectors into workers . ITS A TRAP. Fight the protheans and Harpyger. Come on Bozo the Clown. Get My Ship out of here.


sidenote: I took Kasumi on Mordin's loyalty mission. Don't believe I've done that before. They had some good dialogue

From the Journal of Ioan Shepard:

- Citadel: Time to make Thane happy. After all that nonsense with Overlord, I wanted to help someone not go down a dark path. We asked Captain Bailey for a way to find him and he pointed us toward someone called "Mouse". We found him and asked him who hired Thane's son. It took some persuasion, and a promise of protection, but he finally relented. He told us it was a guy named Elias Kelham. I'd actually seen video of him running over a turian on Omega while at the Shadow Broker's Lair. Bailey didn't like hearing that name since he was basically taking a bribe from the guy. When pressed, he still agreed to have Kelham brought in. Thane played good cop while I punched him. Kelham didn't understand his situation, threatening me each time I hit him. When Thane wanted to back off I told the guy I'd cut off his balls and sell them to a krogan. That gave me the name of Joram Talid, a turian. He's a politician who says he'll end organized crime but is also anti-human.
- We went to the 800 block to find this guy. I tailed from the catwalk while Thane trailed below. Our hope was to nab Kolyat before he could go through with the assassination. The guy was campaigning, schmoozing with voters. He had a krogan bodyguard with him. The krogan went into a shop while Talid remained outside. It was a shakedown. Guy was ballsy to do this while promising to end organized crime. When the krogan emerged, the two took off running. Then another shakedown of a bartender before meeting up with some krogan mercs. That's when Kolyat emerged. He actually took out the krogan bodyguard before chasing Talid into his apartment. When we got there, Talid was on his knees with a gun to his head. This was turning into an execution. I fired a shot to distract him and then punched him. C-Sec had also arrived on the scene, taking Kolyat into custody. Yet, Bailey gave them privacy to work out their problems since Thane had been an absentee father. I convinced Bailey to give Kolyat off-the-record community service for his crime of attempted murder. And...Thane was now loyal to me. I miss the days when loyalty was just a given because you had soldiers with integrity guarding your back. But this was Cerberus and it was necessary to "buy" the help.
- Corang: One of Cayce's survey sites. Wouldn't bother, since I already found the prothean artifact, but there are geth here. May as well turn the 'bots off. Nothing special here. Killed the geth, got some historical data, moved on.
- Derelict Reaper: At this point, all that was left was Hackett's solo mission to rescue Dr. Kenson and acquiring the Reaper IFF. Since I deemed Hackett's mission equally dangerous to that of the suicide mission, I decided I needed to get the IFF. Getting through the Omega-4 relay was now priority #1. Headed to the derelict Reaper. Peculiar things: there was a geth ship docked next to the derelict and the Reaper's mass effect field was still functioning. Call me paranoid but I'm not so convinced this thing is dead.

"So we had to talk with the ruler of Omega, an asari called Aria, in order to get more information on Archangel. She told us that there was a merc recruitment going on at that moment because Archangel had become a huge problem for the local merc bands... so that's where we went."
"My son, a merc..."
"Oh mom, it wasn't really like that. It was for like half an hour and only to get to Archangel. Besides, we were meant to be just cannon fodder anyway."
"Oh that makes it so much better!"
"Relax, nothing bad happened. Because... I actually knew Archangel."
"Wait, are you saying--"
"It was Garrus, mom. He was fed up with C-Sec and went to Omega to do some good in his... very special way."
"Meaning?"
"He made life hell for the merc bands there - Blue Suns, Eclipse, Blood Pack - and killed a lot of them. That's why he was named Archangel by the locals and all the merc bands were out to get him. He had attracted a whole team for this whole thing, but then he was betrayed by one of his own. And his whole team got killed by this guy, with Garrus being the only one left."
"Oh no, that's terrible."
"Yeah, such things are never easy. It had definitely left its mark on him. But anyway, the merc bands carried out their attacks as planned. They approached Archangel's base after one another, but we repelled them all. Even took down a gunship."
"Gunship. Again?"
"Not the last time. But Garrus had been hit by one of its rockets. After we dealt with the last attacking merc wave, we brought him to the Normandy's med bay asap, where Dr. Chakwas took good care of him. He was scarred, but fine otherwise."
"I'm glad nothing worse happened."
"Yeah. Me, too. And I knew Garrus would be another person to have my back when it came to Cerberus. It was really nice to have him there."
"I can imagine."
"So that was the part about me meeting Garrus again, and I won't mention that I was nearly poisoned when I went to get a drink on Omega afterwards..."
"Son. Please don't. I don't need to know everything."
"Hehe. Sorry, ma. Alright, I think it's time for me to go back to my room."
"Sure thing, honey. Then let's go."

Some pics:


I didn't die, yaaaay! But Garrus died during the fight with Jenta. She was the only one left and I had her health almost down when she got him But overall it went unexpectedly fine, even though the shutter section was reaaaally a slow one for me this time.
I'm slowly starting to learn what the Sentinel is capable of, and I like it. Tech Armor is a very nice power so far. I have not yet developed it further, but I'll focus on that now I think.