What did you do today in ME?

That's the way I went in the end too I tried it out a little at Grissom Academy last night and it looked fun! So bubble it is. Tonight I'll play it properly and see how it goes, ha.

Welcome Dennis. If you have questions about the trilogy or your playthrough, ask them. I'm sure someone will have an answer

WoW, have forgotten what is like to be mortal and not super-hyper-ultra-optimusprime silver tongue irresistable powerhouse Shepard.

Chakwas is dead, so we go and recruit Dr. Michell, right?
Not so fast, she will think about it (reputation bar is too low).

Weapons? Since I've started a fresh playthrough I have to unlock EVERYTHING.

Playing as a Vanguard, still at level 7, don't even have cryo ammo available.

Health and shields are low.

It is a blast.


Udina is a coward. My decision to sacrifice the Council was purelly based in military strategy and survival of the galaxy when taking down Sovereign. The Council still acuse me of doing so to protect human interests and the guy don't even stand up to defend humanity from the accusation.

But yeah, he was trying to help humanity by siding with Cerberus later...

From the Journal of Ioan Shepard:

- Thessia: I guess I have to bring Liara along. She's probably the only one who knows anything about this planet and she'll want to be there anyway. Also having a strange intuition to bring Javik, which goes against my desire to have Kaidan along. I'm sure Kaidan can survive waiting for me to return from one measly mission. I mean, this is like a grab and dash kind of thing. Well, other than the massive attacks from Reapers, that is.
- Spoke to Lt. Kurin, an asari commando. They were getting their asses handed to them by non-stop Reaper forces, both ground troops and the Reapers themselves. I had to help her fend off an assault but that was just the latest. She planned to pull out because her orders to defend the area were vague and she was no longer sure her superiors were even alive at this point. This is where Javik proved his worth, touching her to get a sense of what she was feeling and giving her the resolve to soldier on. Contact had been lost with the Temple of Athame, so we had no idea as to whether or not we were going to be able to access whatever relic was there. But we had to try or else risk not being able to complete the Catalyst. The lack of it was what cost the protheans the war in their cycle.
- They were throwing everything at us: brutes, husks, cannibals, marauders, ravagers, harvesters and even banshees. Liara can't stand fighting them but Kaidan is sensitive to them. He's very sensitive to biotics, something I noticed in regard to the Conduit on the Citadel. He sensed it when no one else had in the thousands of years since the asari had found it. Guess it's good he's not hear.
- Thessia was decimated. I watched so many asari sacrifice their lives to clear a path to the temple. This mission had to be a success. Their deaths had to be worth something. When we got to the temple, there were no scientists waiting for us. We looked around at artifacts. The first one we saw looked just like Javik. Javik even pointed it out, since it was supposed to be a servant of the goddess Athame. That was troubling but then I had know protheans were on Earth in its prehistoric era. He confirmed that the protheans had alter the asari and considered them to be the best hope for the current cycle to defeat the Reapers. Then we found the scientists with their throats slit. That was Reapers but could be indoctrinated agents. Another couple of ancient paintings showed Athame (clearly a prothean) as a god-like figure before the asari. I can see why, though. The central statue looked asari, meaning that over time they altered Athame to look like themselves.
- Javik sense prothean technology and I sensed a beacon. I unlocked an artifact, sending a beam to the statue. We had to find more trigger artifacts to completely open up the beacon. When the activation was complete, the statue fell apart, revealing a prothean beacon. From out of it came a prothean VI. It was going to go back into hibernation when it saw that the Reapers had already attacked but I convinced it to stay. It spoke of patterns within the cycles, which it believed the Reapers to be part of rather than its creators. Even power, indoctrinated traitors appeared in previous cycles, which explained Cerberus. We did learn that the Crucible was not a prothean device but something millions of years old, created in a past cycle and improved on in each new cycle. None had ever completed it or been able to use it against the Reapers.
- The VI went into hiding when it sensed an indoctrinated presence, which is when Kai Leng showed up. He delivered a message from the TIM. I swear TIM had a moment of pause but the indoctrination was too strong. Instead, he told Kai Leng to retrieve the VI and kill us. He had some kind of crazy armor that regenerated his health which is the only reason why he was able to take us - that and the cover of gunship fire. This was terrible. The knowledge of the Catalyst in the hands of indoctrinated agents. Worse, the last of the asari commandos had gone done. I wasn't feeling very hopeful any more. Everything rode on the Catalyst and now that was dust.

- Normandy: I informed the asari councilor what had happened. She made no reprimand. I think she knew that keeping this knowledge a secret for so long - particularly after the war had started when they withdrew help - had cost us all dearly. Instead, she made plans for continuity of civilization but she was clearly in shock. But I don't blame her, not entirely. I'm sure the asari rulers themselves wouldn't allow her to reveal the information until things were dire. Or maybe just until there was no one left to challenge her.
- We wanted to go after Cerberus but weren't sure how. Except that Traynor had tracked to shuttle to the system where Sanctuary (the alleged safe haven from the Reapers) existed and from there the signal was actively blocked. Somehow, the idea that Sanctuary was a Cerberus trap was sounding more and more likely. EMS: 5467.
- I broke up a fight between Liara and Javik. She blamed Javik for not having all the answers. I understood her grief but this fight wasn't going to make anything better. Basically, the fault in him was that the protheans weren't what she had built them up to be in her imagination.

"When we arrived at Grissom Academy, we met with the director of the academy, Kahlee Sanders, who had contacted us earlier to help and had hidden in a room."
"Kahlee? I met her. She's such a nice person."
"Oh, during your time working on the Crucible?"
"Yes, we crossed paths a couple times. I heard she and Anderson had a history... It must be really hard on her what happened to him."
"No doubt, yeah. Well... Sanders stayed in her room and we went further in to find and protect the students from Cerberus."
"What did Cerberus want with them anyway?"
"Seems their potential made them a target. And with what I've seen Cerberus doing to people, I'd rather not think about what would've happened had they managed to take the students."
"What did they do to people?"
"They changed them into something else... just... cannon fodder. One Cerberus trooper we found on Mars looked similar to a husk."
"Oh my god... how can anyone do this to another human being?"
"Don't ask me. I've long given up to understand what the hell the Illusive Man tried to do. Anyway, so here's a surprise for you. We also met Jack, who had become a teacher at the academy."
"Jack? How did she end up there?"
"Alliance brass contacted her because they knew she had helped me with the Collectors. Jack seemed to really love the kids and she looked healthy and happier. The same as David Archer. We met him further in and he too looked better and recovered from what his brother had done to him."
"I'm really glad you could help him. And all of these people."
"Yeah, me too. In the end we managed to get out with most of the students and Sanders. We decided to put the students in support roles, helping with barriers and so on during the war. After that was over it was time for the summit. The asari didn't participate because the krogan had now been invited too in order to negotiate them helping the turians take the pressure off of Palaven, so the turians could help Earth in return."
"That... sounds complicated."
"It was. Even though the krogan was my old acquaintance Wrex, his deal for helping Palaven was a cure for the genophage. He had received information that a few female krogan had survived Maelon's experiments on Tuchanka back then, and were immune to the genophage, but they were held on a salarian base on Sur'Kesh."
"And let me guess, you had to get them out?"
"Yep. Well, in the end, it was only one krogan female that had survived, so she was important and we had to protect her at all costs. Oh, and the information Wrex had received were from Mordin by the way."
"You met Mordin again as well?!"
"Yeah. He helped us getting the female out, because Cerberus attacked the base shortly after we had arrived there."
"Cerberus again? What did they want?"
"They wanted to kill the female. I assume the Illusive Man wanted to shatter my efforts of an alliance between all races. Luckily he didn't succeed and we got the female out safely."
"Wow. So much depended on this one female krogan, huh?"
"Yeah. It really did. Mordin needed some time to synthesize a cure, and Wrex had mentioned something to me that caught my attention."
"Oh? What was it?"
"He told me about a missing squad of his, which alone I wouldn't find troubling in Reaper times. But there were rumours of rachni sightings, which was strange. So of course I wanted to check it out, but first, we returned to the Citadel for some errands."
"You sure were busy."
"If only you knew."
"Well it's your job now to tell me that."
"Ha. Good one, mom."

Pics


Jesse totally tested out EDI's abilities now that she has a body, then realised how much nicer it is to have James's squad Incendiary Ammo And yet, he died 3 times on Sur'Kesh, because it's always a good idea to run off and get flanked by enemies, or run into turret fire. Twice
The Stasis bubble is a lot of fun though. Just such a shame I can't use it on armored enemies

Today I met the best character in the whole ME franchise - the Asari matriarch bartender. Just look at those lines Mass Effect 2 will forever hold a special place in my heart just because of her. And she doesn't even have a name! She's just "Bartender"



When asked about why she serves drinks:





When asked about how it is to live for 1000 years:





I aspire to be like her when I'm old.

Lol what? The very foundations upon which I have built my existence have been destroyed :D8:

I've played ME3 and never found her. Gonna play Shadowbroker for the first time in this ME2 playthrough, didn't own it before. No big spoilers I kinda wanna marry her

The leaked secret e-mails from Normandy.


Cdr. Javik - Pathetic Human Soldiers
From: Javik

Commander why did you gave me this task? I have reviewed your marines. The majority should be sent to the front lines as cannon fodder. Private Campbell should be not even allowed to die fighting. I propose that she be executed in hand-to-hand training so I can demonstrate Reaper assault tactics. Your Alliance Command does not agree, but they did allow us more soldiers. Your EDI machine has added the notes to the primitives' manifest. The longer I am in this cycle, the less I want to learn.

Sorry, my mistake, I'll edit my post.

Aethyta, her looks change a lot from ME2 to ME3.
But Wildfire is right, she's the best!

After much misery (i.e. I didn't save as frequently as I should have ), completed Feros, Virmire, and rest of ME1 PT with Giovanna Shepard, Paragon Vanguard, on Hardcore. Two noteworthy Renegade breaks from an otherwise Paragon/goody two shoes PT: Giovanna shot the always sleazy Jeong on Feros and Rana Thanoptis on Virmire. This being my third or fourth PT on ME1, I finally noticed the way Rana was ranting on indoctrination sounded very much like that one indoctrinated salarian you find locked up in a cell. Still, rather painful to have Shepard shoot an unarmed individual, particularly a woman pleading for her life. (Jeong OTOH...) Speaking of Virmire, Giovanna chose to save her LI Ashley who she had sent to work with the STG. Kaiden died heroically defending and then setting off the nuclear device. (Ironically, I used Kaiden more frequently on this PT then I did in the PT where I saved him over Ash...)

For the first time ever, I came across some high level (Level VIII) N7 armor and used it on the Feros mission. Sadly, though, the stats on Onyx armor are as lame as those for Phoenix, and I ended up ditching it in favor of high level Mercenary armor. At one point, it seemed most of the team was suited up in Mercenary armor. Then I finally started to find Colossus armor. My final team for the Citadel battle - Ashley and Garrus - all had Colossus armor.

(It really would be nice if some modder would up the stats on the iconicN7 armor so that your Shepard would actually use it beyond Eden Prime!)