What did you do today in ME?

I haven't used my Cain yet funnily. I guess I'll bust it out for the SM.

I finished all recruitments and loyalties.. then saved at Derelict Reaper earlier. Left Overlord unplayed so far.. I'll try to fit that in with the little time I get Legion.

Strange. Never happened to me on 360. I'll try to save as much as possible. Ever since ME3, I like fitting in Legion, Jack, and Jacob in there somewhere. That's if I don't play it early. Sometimes I do that too.

Resuming ME1 Insanity Run Today - Shepard (soldier with decryption), Wrex, and Liara cleared out a bunch of mercs on Tuntau. Three turians were guarding the front of the merc base and Shepard decided to try to take them out with his sniper rifle. One turian insisted on spamming his immunity and wound up getting pushed back out of sight behind the base. Shepard decided to get up close and personal with that one. Vaporized him neatly with the SR at point-blank range . Entered the base and quickly cleared it out - Liara throwing out a singularity, Wrex throwing in a warp, and Shepard providing some concentrated assault rifle fire. Ton Actus was the first to fall and everyone else just neatly fell into line one by one. (I don't think I've ever had this fight go quite this smoothly on insanity.)

Shepard retrieved Wrex's family armor, and Wrex told him that he's starting to like him... I'm not sure how well Shepard is going to sleep tonight. He's starting to feel a little uncomfortable with all of his crew - Kaidan is continually hinting at "personal debriefings," Garrus is thanking him profusely every time they talk, and Tali there might be a tone of suggestion in Tali's voice whenever she asks if he "wants something." Then, there's Liara, rambling on about Asari mating practices and Ashley asking him if she should ask Liara about her sex life. Shepard is wishing there was a way he could lock his cabin door... as he plots a course for the Horse Head Nebula...

I've finished all the remaining companion quests in ME2 - Grunt's, Mordin's and Samara's.

Design wise, Grunt's was the most interesting one, with all those enemies popping up and an uber-boss. Dialogue wise Mordin's wins by miles. I can see how genophage is becoming more and more complex ethical dilemma going from a no-brainer to an actual "can I have someone else make the call, please?"

Samara's was bland, but at least it did not end up in some sort of tearful reunion, and the gal actually was evil. So, kudos.

I suppose, it's back to the storyline for me tonight. what happens next, eh?

In my first playthrough, I found Samara's loyalty quest the precise opposite of bland, personally. I found the interactions with Morinth quite unsettling; I found the final stage of the mission, in Morinth's apartment, to be so unpleasant that it was actually freaking me out. The option for betrayal at the end knocked me sideways; I found the notion of betraying someone who had pledged total loyalty to Shepard so repugnant that it blew my mind that it was even an option. Took about a day to get it out of my head.

So yeah, kudos.

I've half-considered not recruiting Samara just so I can avoid her loyalty mission when I get to my ME2 replay, but now I know what to expect I guess it won't be so bad.

Well, that would have been one solution to the problem with Major Kyle; perhaps the ultimate Renegade interrupt

Finished ME2 with Kirstin today. First, the Lair of the Shadow Broker. Was kind of disappointed she could not claim that her reason for fighting was to have blue babies with Kaidan...wait he's human, make that pinkish babies. But it was fun, even if Garrus got hit with the stupid stick and constantly tried to take cover on top of the covers.
Next Kirstin recruited Kasumi, since Tali couldn't hack Kaidan's space book, and went to a fancy party. Then she made some food deliveries for Gardner and brandy deliveries for Chakwas.
The final mission was Arrival. Got back my sneaky-sneak achievement and the Last Stand achievement. The latter one was not planned, but Kirstin got it with only one shotgun clip to spare. Good for her. Otherwise, things went as well as things could go.

Decided to skip Arrival with Carter, since he's more fond of Cerberus than the Alliance. So he's not willing to go solo for Hackett. Kirstin is skipping Overlord, since by this point she has pretty much broken up with Cerberus and is itching to get back in her alliance uniform. That's the story reason, the real reason is: I don't wanna.
Will probably start ME3 next, if I can figure out if I want to mod the game or not. Which was one of the bigger reason for the two year Mass Effect hiatus. So, until the answer is made, Kirstin will sit there like a proper lady and wait. (Since I had no creepy smile pictures and I kind of liked that theme...)
Edit: Ugggh. Was just musing over why I picked Kirstin as her name opposed to Kirsten and ended up thinking, what ever reason, I really like that name. Then I forget and call her Kirsten here :C. 
Edit 2: Hehehe. She's off, with a few mods. 

This thread is addictive. I feel like I've spent most of my free time over the last few days either playing Mass Effect or reading about everyone else's playthroughs.

Speaking of my playthrough, since my last post I finished my Soldier FemShep ME1 run, but I think I'll save the details for the NG+ (which is imminent), rather than repeat myself.

Here are the highlights:

- Investigated the human colony of Chasca and found everyone had been turned into husks. Cerberus again.
- Went to Noveria and made what you'd probably call the typical Paragon choices - helped Lorik Qui'in, then convinced Lorik to help Gianna; helped Dr Cohen cure the sick scientists to get the pass to the maintenance area; spared the Rachni queen.
- Helped Garrus track down Dr Saleon aka Dr Heart. Convinced Garrus to bring him in rather than execute him on the spot, only to have Saleon attack us anyway, which reduced his expected life span to about 0.5 seconds. Like someone said earlier in the thread, why don't these people have the sense to turn themselves in?
- Found Corporal Toombs holding a Cerberus scientist hostage, but wasn't persuasive enough to convice Toombs to stand down. Shot Toombs, arrested the Cerberus guy.
- Cleared our a Rachni infestation in the Styx Theta cluster. Cerberus again.
- Went to Virmire to check out Saren's base. Wrex trusted Shep enough to make the call to destroy Saren's genophage cure, after Shep had earlier helped Wrex recover his family heirloom. Ashley went with the Salarians, and when Kaidan decided to sacrifice himself to ensure the nuke went off, Shep went to the AA tower, confronted Saren, and got Ash and the STG away just in time.
- Normandy got locked down on the Citadel, and on the way to meeting up with Anderson, Shep told Terra Firma to buzz off and convinced Keeler that junkies make bad trade negotiators. Anderson decided to use Udina's computer to remove the lockdown, meaning the team was free to head to Ilos.
- On the way to Ilos, Liara visited Shep's cabin to provide "moral support". Cringe-worthy dialogue and blue side-boob ensued.
- The team fought their way through Ilos trying to stop Saren from reaching the conduit, meeting Vigil and getting much info on the Reapers, the Protheans and the Citadel, along with a data file to help stop Sovereign from taking control of the Citadel. Liara was beside herself with all of the Prothean history on display, while Tali tried in vain to keep her mind on the task at hand. It was adorable
- Used the conduit, fought Saren (not enough charm points) and robo-Saren / Sovereign. Told the Alliance fleet to hurry up and join the fight, meaning the Council survived.

Finished the game at level 55. Up next, the road to level 60 begins as we do it all over again with a New Game +.

Interlude, Part 2.

This letter takes place about 3 months later. From the look of the weather at the start of ME3, I'd say things went bad in June of 2186. It looks like early summer in Vancouver.  At this point, it's around spring. Shep can't sleep.

--Forwarded to Captain Hannah Shepard
--Date: March 15th, 2186
--Time: 0100



--End of Message

Aww, thank you. I appreciate that. My favorite is the second one. It sounds more raw and realistic. The grammar is fairly bad and I left any typos in there on purpose. I wanted it to sound more like a confessional letter, the kind you'd write at 1:00am. I've always felt that Shepard started to have bad dreams before ME3. Not due to anything like Reaper influence, but just good ol' Shellshock. PSTD for you youngin's out there.

S/he is the mega-badass, but still human. I've known vets that came home with milder cases of PTSD that talked about having dreams like that. Shoot, I actually like the dreams in ME3 for the most part. Apparently the tone and colors of those dreams fit very well with severe PTSD dreams. While it was a little overbearing, props to the writers and designers for that. They showed their homework.

I've already started ME3, but I'll give a daily log later if I'm up for it. I'm sicker than hell and running a fever. One of the people my husband works with has 4 kids. Kids are great, but they are human petri dishes. If Sasquatch (the nickname for my husband,) is ill, I'm within a day or two. I'll be getting meds down my throat shortly.

Jonathan Shepard:

1. Aria T'Loak asked me to take back Omega from Cerberus. I agreed, but mostly because she promised me a lot of resources that are better in my hands than in those of Cerberus. The whole thing was a mess but I think if I hadn't been there a lot of civilians would have died - and that's assuming Aria succeeded. If she didn't, "a lot" would have become "most". A turian biotic (a rarity, even if one gave Kaidan his initial training) also aided us but she died to keep some Cerberus-controlled Reapers called adjutants from killing civilians. Aside from the resources, I got a chessboard. *shrug* Maybe I can use it was Traynor.

2. Got word that the quarians needed help. Since I need the Migrant Fleet, I'm off. Turns out the idiots decided, in the midst of a Reaper invasion, to take on the geth and reclaim Rannoch. Tali was there, having been promoted to an admiral (despite them trying to exile her six months ago), but she had little influence. Kaidan, Tali and I infiltrated a geth dreadnought to disable a Reaper signal that had the geth firmly in control of those monsters. The transmitter turned out to be Legion, the only geth I've ever trusted and who I would still trust with my life. He was the dissenting opinion in siding with the Reapers. We freed Legion. In gratitude, Legion turned off the dreadnought's defenses. Admiral Han'Gerrel decided to attack the dreadnoght with us still on board. I was pissed. I know I shouldn't have but I punched the loser in the gut and kicked him off my ship. This whole mess was of his making, start to finish. Then Admiral Xen thinks she's going to study Legion after he saved us? She didn't get her way.

3. Had a nice chat with Tali in my quarters. She doubts herself. She forgets that she really does know what she's doing. Also, as Kaidan put it, she's a good egg. She's probably the only quarian that's trustworthy - or at least the only one in a position of power - but she might be the difference between life and death for her people.

4. Headed to Ontarom to prevent Cerberus from obtaining Alliance operations protocol. This would endanger the lives of countless Alliance operatives. The person best positioned to help was a civilian tech named Grace Sato. Everyone else had died and she was in hiding. Unfortunately, each time I shut down a decryption device Cerberus got closer to finding her. I wasn't sure she was going to come through but talked her into it. Bonus: I found Cerberus ciphers that I later gave to C-Sec. Given the sensitive nature of this mission James and Kaidan were the only options for squadmates.

5. Delivered Prothean Data Drives to a soldier near the Normandy dock, helped Cortez say his final goodbyes to Robert at the memorial wall, helped a refugee with reliable information on a Prothean Sphere to get credit for it from the Alliance, reminder James not to lose all of his clothes in poker since it's Alliance property, said a goodbye to Samara, had a drink with Steve (he thinks I'm hot!), talked with EDI in Purgatory, delivered the Rings of Alune to an asari consultant at Huerta Memorial. Caught up with Jacob, who is also at Huerta. He mentioned Dr. Cole is pregnant and wants to name the baby after me. Jacob says he'll talk her out of it but she could be set on it, just as Bakara is with naming her child "Mordin". Brought a turian poison to a doctor who can probably create an antidote for it to save a turian general. Bought a Kar'Shan snapping eel. It's a good thing I have that Aquarium VI to feed all these different fish I have and make sure they don't eat one another. I think I've completed my model collection. Or at least I don't have any more room in my quarters. Gave Weshra a final message from her wife, Tashya, who died at the Ardat-Yakshi monastery. Offered Cerberus turret schematics to a C-Sec officer. Gave a kakliosaur skull to a salarian war strategist who wants to clone it to make mounts that krogan can ride on toxic worlds. Damnedest thing that I'd find such a rare thing and that it'd be useful.

6. Met with Miranda on the Presidium. She needed Alliance access. I'd come to trust her over the course of the suicide mission. I gave her the access. Then she started in with the confession of wanting to plant a control chip in me and how she would have done so had the Illusive Man not insisted I remain unchanged. The thing is, it's one of the first things she told me after I woke up. It bothered me at the time but I've long since moved past it. It seems like Miranda is concerned that she might not survive the attempt to rescue her sister and wanted to deal with loose ends, like lingering guilt over her past behavior.