What did you do today in ME?

"Hi Alec,
we found the matriarch's daughter! She's called Liara T'Soni and is an asari Prothean researcher. We found her in some Prothean ruins on Therum (a fucking hot planet by the way).
She had gotten herself trapped in a Prothean device she had activated, which she did because Saren's geth started showing up and she wanted to protect herself. But we got her out safely, took care of Saren's troops and got the hell out of there. We almost didn't make it at all. Breaking out Liara involved blasting our way through a barrier with a mining laser, and those ruins were old, so... you get the picture. Joker got us out just in time. I really don't like close calls like that.
I asked Liara about her mother, but she hadn't seen her for a while, and she was worried. Said that this was not like Benezia. I believe her, I think she can be trusted to have told me the truth about Benezia. She looks like an earnest type, plus there was the fact that the geth were after her, too.
Unfortunately Liara couldn't tell me anything I didn't know already, except that she got this theory the Protheans weren't the first race to be wiped out, and that it's a cycle repeating itself. I'm intrigued about this. It's plausible, but that doesn't help us right now, so we're not closer to finding Saren yet. Got a couple of leads though, mostly geth sightings, so I will check them out soon. For now we are returning to the Citadel to stock up on some things and report back to Admiral Kahoku about his men.
I also spoke some more with Alenko, Williams and all our alien additions and learned more about them. I think you'd probably like them all, I know I do. It's a fine crew and I feel good with them. Williams is a bit suspicious of the aliens on board, but I think she'll be alright and get used to them. She told me she has never worked with aliens before, but I have a feeling there's something more to it that she didn't tell me about.
Anyway, for me it's time now for a little nightcap and some sleep, I'm absolutely beat. Until next time.

- Dee"

Some pics:


No death on Therum this time Even though I was lucky and the krogan glitched out a bit, as he just stood there at the beginning.
Kaidan went down, but Wrex and I managed without him, hehe. Also, I have Master Immunity for both Shep and Wrex now

What I did today? Only this...





Ok, I know this is a modded game and doesn't count as "official", is from EGM mod from those wondering.
But hell.

How about this? Instead of that crappy mission on Cione, we could have this.
The art style and most of the assets were already created, right?
After all, we even receive a mail in the vanilla game telling us the Collectors had surfaced again, remember?

Every time I play Leviathan the whole thing left a bitter taste in my mouth afterwards...

I'm slowing down with my ME2 pt, playing ME1 completely in a (long) weekend is a bit much.

After escaping the facility where project lazarus brought me back, I met with the Illusive man, told him I what I thought, but decided to check out the colony (would have been a very short game if I didn't).
In the colony I ran into Tali, it was weird, for me it was like I saw her yesterday, but for her it has been 2 years, but I could prove it was really me. I send Veetor back with Tali on the condition she would send me his omnitool data, which ofcourse she did.
On my return to Cerberus station, I had a short discussion with TIM (don't trust that man, he makes more than I do, Joker thought me well) and said I will look into these collecters. TIM said he found a pilot for me, and yes, it was my favourit Vrolik's Syndrome Sufferer and the ship we got to play with is just fantastic, especially the elevator is so much faster than the one we had before.

I was told to get Mordin first, but nobody tells me what to do so I went to see Anderson first on the Citadel. Had a good talk with an add there and accepted Kasumi as part of my crew.
Anderson was able to reinstate my specter status, and after that I did some shopping in the Zakera Wards.

Back aboard the ship I had a little chat with Kasumi and since we were in the neighborhood, we went to get her former partner's graybox.
The heist went well enough, and after a little shootout between a pistol and a gunship, we set course for Omega to look for Mordin and Archangel.

However, about ten steps in I ran into Zaeed, who was also on my todo list (not in that way, he's not my type) so I had a little chat with him and surprise surprise, TIM failed to mention I had to help him first, so after a little shopping on Omega and meeting with Aria, I went back to the Normandy and set a course to Zorya to kill the leader of the Blue Suns.
I made the tough call to sacrifice the workers there, to ensure the loyalty of Zaeed. And of course we succeeded our mission.

Back aboard the Normandy I was going through some files and noticed something about some mission scientist on Zeona, which was near, so I had joker plot a course there. After retrieving the missing vehicle (and collecting all research data scattered around we went back to the Normandy.

I haven't mentioned my PA TIM put in me crew, when I met her, and she told me she was also a shrink. I may have been to harsh on her, now she won't talk to my anymore (except business) and I can't stop thinking she's cute (and maybe she'd be willing to look after my fish while I'm on a mission...)

"Hey Alec.
Man, I'm pretty shaken up right now. When we had left the Normandy's docking bay and were just about to leave C-Sec, a lieutenant contacted me and told me there is a young woman at the docking bay and he thought I could help. She had been taken by those batarian fucks during the raid and spent 13 years as a slave. 13 goddamn years...
Her name is Talitha. She was rescued some weeks ago, but managed to get a hold of a gun and wanted to kill herself. Can't say I'd blame her for wanting to die. I know what it feels like. But I had to try and save her, maybe she can recover someday. Live a better life. Even though I don't know if she really can, it was terrible to hear all about it. She was a mess. That poor girl's been through some rough things...
She saw her parents die in front of her. These batarian scum burned them right in front of her eyes. Can you imagine that? The picture she painted was very vivid, it must've been so cruel. She was only 6 when it happened. I thought I've been through some crap, but hearing her story, I can consider myself lucky.
I'm glad she got out of this. I managed to gain her trust and was able to give her a sedative. I hope she'll get better, she has to.
I still took care of some things on the Citadel, which was a good distraction. But now that I'm back here and all alone, I needed some drinks. Half the fucking bottle is gone already and I just can't stop thinking about this whole thing. It was tough to see that suffering girl...
And now everything that happened back then is on my mind. I worked so hard to bury it, and now it all came back. Mum, Dad, Kait.
You. Our time together. Our first kiss.
I remember. We were out another night, and we lay on our backs watching the stars... dreaming about going to space one day. Like we did so often.
I remember you telling jokes. You made me laugh so hard I almost couldn't breathe. The funny thing is that I can't recall what the jokes were even about, but the next moment is so engraved in my mind as if it all just happened a minute ago. Me on the grass, almost dying of laughter, trying to calm down. Like an idiot, I blurted out 'Oh man, I love you', because you always made me laugh.
You looked at me, and our laughter ceased.
I know, you said.
I remember I was so scared that I had just fucked up our friendship with this stupid thing. I hadn't wanted you to know.
But then you leant over and kissed me.
You told me how you had noticed the looks I stole when I was around you. That you were drawn to me too, but never found the courage to tell me. I remember teasing you because you were never the shy type. We lay next to each other until it was almost dawn, holding hands, kissing, talking. I was so excited for what life had in store for us, the future we dreamed about. It was perfect.
But when we arrived at the colony...
It's just not fair.
Damn it, I still miss you so much. I wish you were here with me.

Love you, always.
-Dee"

Pics!


Talitha's quest always makes me sad. It's probably the most emotional scene in ME1 for me, and it's a damn good one.
Besides talking to Al-Jilani and Kahoku, I also helped out Emily Wong and Dr. Michel again, talked to Conrad, Rebekah and Michael, Helena Blake, and told Nassana about her sister. She took it well
Now I'm going out again to shoot at some things, yay!

Me, too. Colonist is some strong background. Can't wait to try a Shepard who has really dealt with the past. Must feel very different during this scene.

Also, forgot to answer you earlier. I actually don't mind not being able to mod The romances in ME1 are not my favourites, and when I tried out Kaidan's M/M romance, I liked the slow burn a lot. Though I can imagine it can be sweet if they fall for each other earlier on too.

Ahahaha, it seems that while Liara is very popular, there appears to me a significant minority who enjoy bashing her I don't hate her by any means; sure, she's got some issues, and I don't like the way she's put on a pedestal compared to other romances, but she's actually cute and she always turns on the charm for Shepard which kinda gets to you even though you try to resist. Like when she makes the comment about your outfit in Citadel DLC, at least if you wear the cocktail dress for the first mission. I'm just a bit disappointed that we can't date other asari - as the guy in the Silversun bar said, everyone wants to have sex with them.

Romances and relationships are the best thing in BW games and MET takes them into a whole new level because you have relationships spanning over two or three games. Just how cool is that? In my first PT I stayed faithful to Liara through the whole damn thing and the last scene was breathtaking. Especially in retrospect, because both Liara and Shepard died in the final push to the Citadel

Funny that you should mention Mr. Vega. I actually like him a lot

Also, the fact that asari screwed the rest of the galaxy is some pretty realistic writing from BW, even kinda ingenious - I would call that "human" nature

I think having an option, where none had existed before, is one of the things that makes it worthwhile.

Like I promised a few days ago, here is the write-up for Ahmed Shepard.

Ahmed Shepard on Virmire:
1. Discussed assault strategy with Captain Kirrahe. Kirrahe needed someone from Shepard's squad to put on his own team, and Shepard gave him Ashley. Ahmed needed Kaidan's tech skills to arm the bomb that they needed to use to blow up the facility.

2. Kirrahe gave a rousing speech. Even Ahmed was fired up, even though he was not really a 'hold the line' kind of guy; Ahmed preferred assaulting the enemy line.

3. Ahmed took Wrex and Garrus and made his way to the facility, taking out all Geth and Krogan resistance they met. They also managed to help Kirrahe's team by taking out a satellite uplink, disrupting enemy communications, destroying Geth drones, and shutting off alarms.

4. Ahmed found a back door into the facility, and immediately ran into some Salarian resistance. It appears that some of Kirrahe's captured men were now fighting for Saren. It seems it was more of this 'indoctrination' at work like Benezia explained.

5. Ahmed Found some Salarians locked in cages. One of them was antsy and really wanted out. His squadmates urged caution, but Ahmed would want to get out of a cage too, so he let the Salarians out. They then attacked him, and he was forced to kill them all.

6. Ahmed found some more Salarians locked in cages. He was more cautious with this group since the last encounter ended poorly, but this group was different. Unlike the last group, most of these Salarians were docile. Only of the Salarians seemed normal.

According to the Salarian, he was used as a control subject. They were studying the effects of indoctrination. The control subject was unaffected, but the others' minds were completely gone.

Ahmed decided to let the Salarian go. He was grateful and walked out. Ahmed left the other Salarians in their cages, since it was obvious there was nothing he could do.

7. Ahmed took an elevator up, where he found an Asari and Krogan scientist studying husks. Ahmed took the scientists down before they had a chance to fight back, then killed the husks.

8. Ahmed ran into another Asari scientist. She opened the door for Shepard, and then explained how they were studying indoctrination and how it seemed to work. She explained it was caused by some sort of signal or energy field emenating from Sovereign, Saren's ship. She also explained that the effects were subtle at first and that the man she replaced had been indoctrinated. Unlike the Salarians, Ahmed killed her. She had made her choice, and if indoctrination was as insidious as she claimed, then she was already indoctrinated.

9. Ahmed took another elevator and found a working Prothean beacon. He activated it and saw the vision again. This beacon did not explode and appeared to be more intact than the last beacon he used so the vision was much clearer, although it still did not make sense.

10. And then Ahmed found what he thought was a VI terminal, only it turned out to be a direct communication link to Soveriegn. And it was revealed that Sovereign was not a Reaper ship, but an actual Reaper! The conversation was short but chilling. The conversation ended when Ahmed threatened to break the Reapers like the machines that they are.

11. Ahmed headed to the breeding facility. He shut off the last AA gun, then headed to the rendevous point. Joker landed the Normandy and they planted the bomb. Ashley then called in. Ashley and Salarians were pinned down at the AA tower. Kaidan stayed behind to begin arming the bomb while Ahmed went to go help Ashley and the Salarians.

12. Halfway to Ashley, a Geth dropship flew over the bombsite and dropped off some Geth. Unable to hold them all off, Kaidan armed the bomb. Both Ashley and Kaidan insisted that Shepard save the other one. With time running out, Shepard chose to go back to the bomb site to rescue Kaidan.

13. Shepard made it back to the bomb site just in time to see some of his men die at the hands of the Geth assault. He killed the attacking Geth, but he heard Ashley on the radio fighting before she went radio silent.

14. Saren showed up on a hoverboard. He explained that he was working with the Reapers, trying to prove that organics were useful tools in hopes that the Reapers would spare organics instead of wiping them out. Ahmed suspected that Saren was being indoctrinated -- or at least manipulated -- by Sovereign. Saren asked Ahmed if he would join him, but Ahmed refused. Saren then tried to kill him, but the battle was short. Saren flew away to safety once the bomb's alarm went off, indicating it was only minutes away from exploding. Joker flew in with the Normandy just in time to pick up Shepard, Kaidan, Wrex, and Garrus, then flew away before the bomb exploded. Ahmed watched the explosion from orbit.

15. After debriefing the crew, he called the council. The council was grateful that the breeding facility was destroyed, but did not believe Shepard's report about Sovereign being a Reaper. Then Ahmed lost his temper at the Turian councilor and eventually he hung up on the council.


Story time:

I feel sad that THIS is all I did in ME today. I went to visit my parents and left my laptop behind by accident. I suppose I could install on their computer but I'll be back home Saturday evening.

I play tested the final edit for my mods patch 1.1 today, lots and lots of times Shepard landed on the turian moon to shoot husks before his killing spree was brought to a close for a reload.

Here is the mod:

www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/487/?

I'm looking forward to doing a proper playthrough again.

Well, this write-up turned out to be a lot longer than expected. Oh well.

Ahmed Shepard:
1. Went to go to after Saren and the Conduit on Ilos, but the Council recalled Shepard back to the Citadel. Ahmed was glad to hear the Citadel Council was assembling a fleet to go after Saren.

2. The Council was not going after Saren. Instead, they were assembling the fleet at the Citadel to protect it from Saren. Ahmed argued that they should go to Ilos after Saren, but since Ilos was in the Terminus system, the Council did not want to risk war. When Ahmed argued some more, Udina told him to get out of the meeting. He also told Shepard he had locked down all the Normandy's systems. Ahmed was angry but somehow managed to not lose his temper again (best to be nice to the council since their last meeting ended poorly).

3. Back on the Normandy, Ahmed sulked until he got a call from Anderson, asking that they meet at Flux.

4. Ahmed ran into a demonstration put on by Terra Firma party supporters. A Terra Firma party representative was running for political office and wanted Ahmed to endorse him. Ahmed is a supporter of the Terra Firma party, but could not endorse the representative since political endorsements are against Alliance regulations.

5. Ran into a negotiator named Elias Keeler, who asked Ahmed to go buy him some stimulants to help with a trade negotiation. Ahmed bought him the stims. A newscast later told him the deal went through. The Salarians were not too happy with the negotiations, but the Alliance was forecast to make billions of credits from the deal.

6. Met with Anderson. He wanted to help Ahmed retake the Normandy so he could go after Saren. After some discussion, Anderson agreed to go hack Udina's computer to rescind the lockdown order.

7. Anderson knocked out Udina and rescinded the lockdown order. Ahmed went to Ilos.

8. Ahmed told Joker to drop the Mako right on top of Saren. About a minute earlier, and they might have actually been able to drop the Mako right on top of Saren. Saren managed to lock a big door a few seconds before the Mako got there.

9. After a few minutes, Ahmed and his team (Liara and Kaidan) managed to find the console that unlocked the door. Then they went back to the Mako to chase after Saren.

10. The Mako was soon boxed in my energy fields, forcing them to go down an elevator where they found a damaged Prothean VI. It told them that the Conduit was a backdoor to the Citadel. It also told them that the Citadel was actually a Mass Relay that led to dark space where the Reapers were waiting. Saren was going to activate the Citadel to bring in the Reapers.

The Prothean VI also told them that Ilos managed to survive the last cycle and its Prothean scientists and researchers went into cryogenic stasis until the Reapers went back to darkspace. The remaining researchers discovered that the Keepers would activate the Citadel each cycle, so the Prothean scientists soon found a way to disrupt the Keepers so they would not send the signal. This meant that the Reapers were trapped in dark space.

But Sovereign was likely left behind as some sort of failsafe, and it was gathering allies so it could re-take control of the Citadel and bring back the Reapers. The Prothean VI gave Ahmed a data file that would counteract Saren's plan to use the Citadel to bring back the Reapers.

11. Ahmed got back into the Mako and drove to the Conduit, which was actually a mini Mass Relay that led right to the Citadel. They took it just before the Geth surrounding it shut it down.

12. The Mako crashed-landed on the Citadel. Ahmed talked to Avina and determined that Saren was entering the Council chambers. Ahmed took the elevator up to catch him, but Saren shut it down.

13. Ahmed walked outside to get to the Citadel chambers, then confronted Saren. Saren had been upgraded by Sovereign. Saren was tougher than he was back on Virmire, but eventually Ahmed killed him.

14. Ahmed used the data file and it worked. He had control of the station again. Ahmed heard the Destiny Ascension had the council on board and that it was under heavy attacked. Joker also called in, letting him know that the Alliance fleet was coming in. Joker wanted to know whether to save the Destiny Ascension or wait until they could attack Sovereign.

15. Liara argued that they should sacrifice the council for the greater good. Kaidan said they should save the Destiny Ascension. Ahmed told him to concentrate on Sovereign. The Destiny Ascension was destroyed, along with the council on board. Ahmed got the Citadel arms to open and the fleet attacked Sovereing.

16. Sovereign managed to take control of Saren's lifeless body through its implants and it attacked Ahmed so it could retake control of the Station. But with three Lifts, two Warps, and Two Overloads, Robo-Saren never stood a chance.

17. The Alliance Fleet destroyed Sovereign. Some of the pieces crashed into the council chambers, but Ahmed and his team survived.

18. Udina informed Anderson and Ahmed that since the council was dead, he was going to install a human-led council. Ahmed told him he thought Anderson was the best choice to lead it since they would need a military leader to deal with the Reaper threat.


In this playthrough, I used the Mako to kill a lot of things (-50% XP per Mako kill), and never unlocked the Paragon or Renegade-exclusive mission since I was a Renegon/Paragade (I think a slight edge to Renegon by the end). I ended ended at level 56. The highest level you can get in one playthrough is level 58, so in future playhroughs I probably will relax a bit and use the Mako a lot more.