What did you do today in ME?

Jeff Shepard landed on Utukku with Liara and Garrus to investigate missing krogan scouts. This was a favor to Wreav and it made sense for me to make him happy at least until he's helping the turians. The krogan present were Aralakh Company, led by Urdnot Dagg. Disaster hit right away and my team was separated from the krogan. The caves inside were filled with rachni who had been altered by the Reapers. Thought I'd wiped out the last of them, both on Noveria and in random other places when I was aboard the Normandy SR1. Turns out the Reapers made some kind of rachni queen clone but she admitted to being a monster and that her children were "hollow". She said she's breed children who would fight Reapers but I remembered something the original queen told me. Without being raised to the mother's song, the rachni are insane. This ought to hold true for this clone as well. I had to assume she was also insane and any children she bred would be the same. I left her to the fate of her "children". Dagg sacrificed his life to insure that my team got out alive.

Went to Benning to investigate reports that Cerberus were abducting and murdering citizens. Stopped that current thrust. Hackett put troopers in place to prevent it from happening. And while Hackett thinks it's not Cerberus it isn't unlikely that the husk-like Cerberus troops aren't taking action based on being indoctrinated.

You can easily avoid romance with Ash by pulling rank on her, when she wants to talk about the aliens. Don't indulge it and it'll be fine from there. I think the dialogue is "You're out of line!"

Jeff Shepard: Helped Aria T'Loak take back Omega from Cerberus. Not too sure I trust her but the reward was a lot of resources that are needed to fight the Reapers. She did come true with getting mercs to fight in the war so this will probably work out. A turian biotic named Nyreen Kandros led a resistance against Cerberus and ended up dying for the cause. General Petrovsky, the Cerberus agent in charge, was defeated. Almost let Aria strangle him but thought the intel against the Illusive Man was too great to ignore.

Went to Tuchanka to administer the genophage cure. The wrinkle here was a Reaper. Managed to summon Kalros, the Mother of All Thresher Maws to kill it. Eve had been too fragile and didn't survive, but she was honored by the krogan. Padok Wiks also gave his only life to make sure the sabotaged cure actually worked. That a salarian - the race who'd created the genophage - was willing to do so spoke volumes. I don't really trust Wreav but he indicated he owed a lot to Wiks. Hopefully that will make a difference if we survive the war.

Had another nightmare with the kid from Earth. Heard the voices of Wrex, Eve and Miranda. Not liking this at all.

Shawna Shepard:
1. Went through the Omega-4 Relay.

2. Some Oculi attacked the ship. Jack got lasered to death. (Oops.)

3. Joker pulled off some crazy maneuvers in the debris field. Everyone survived.

4. The Collectors sent out a ship to take out the Normandy. Thane got crushed by a beam. (Whoops.) At least he killed an Oculus before he died.

5. Crashed on the Collector base. Came up with a plan to get the missing crew.

6. Tali snuck in some vents. Shawna led one team and Garrus led the other. Everyone made it to the next objective.

7. Rescued Chakwas and some colonists. Watched Kelly Chambers get melted into goo. (Ugh.) The rest of the crew was already dead. (Darn it.)

8. Sent Tali to escort Chakwas back to the Normandy. Picked Miranda to hold up a biotic bubble. Picked Samara to lead another fireteam.

9. Went to the next objective. Miranda failed to hold the bubble and Jacob got carried away (Uh oh.) Samara died from taking too much fire. (Aw nuts.)

10. Picked Miranda and Mordin to go into the central chamber. Everyone else held the line.

11. Saw a big, bad, baby Reaper. Knocked it down.

12. Got a call from The Illusive Man. Decided to keep the Collector Base. Armed the bomb with a timed radiation pulse instead to take out just the Collectors.

13. Baby Reaper came back. Knocked it back down again. Miranda died. (Such a shame.)

14. Flew back through the relay.

15. Met with Liara back on the Normandy.

So, another Shep down. I didn't get a chance to look at all of his stats, but, here's a final breakdown:

Alex Shepard
Nemesis
Level: 52
Primary weapon: Pistol
Secondary power:Assault Rifle, never used
Primary Power: Warp
Secondary Power: Singularity

Alignment: Even without the glitch, a damned near perfect Paragade
Romance: Ashley and I don't regret it. But it was an accident.
Councilor Choice: Udina. He wasn't going to saddle Anderson with that gig.
Primary Party: Ashley and Tali. Got the trophies for using both of them in most of the game.

Major choices: The same as my last game, except for Kaidan.

--Rachni Queen freed
--Feros colony 100% saved, including the asari
--Talked Wrex down
--Saved the Council. Last time I'm doing that, ungrateful bastards.
--Made Udina councilor. Alex loathed the guy, but thought he did well at his job.

I used Renegade options and dealt with Saren that way. A lot more satisfying than being polite and fuzzy to him. I also didn't take Liara with me on a single quest this time. Leaving her behind was a refreshing change of pace.

Note: I romanced Kaidan on my FemShep recently. I enjoyed it too. I like both of the marines equally.  I'm weird that way.   I changed it up this time for variety sake.

I got to see firsthand some real character progression from Ashley. She isn't the same person that the character meets earlier on the game. I'm glad I decided to push through with the romance. Turns out that her and my biotic were a good match.

I also did enjoy Mark's performance. It was a little flat, but I've heard much worse. His voice is perfect for a Paragade Shep. If this is his weakest delivery in the series of Sheploo, then I know he's going to be pretty fun in ME2.

Last note of humor before I get ME2 started: The last line Shepard can have, Renegade option, has Mark pronouncing Reapers oddly. It came out sounding more like "Rapers." I'm thinking, "You know, both are pretty accurate."

Edit:  Ran into a nasty bug when trying to import.  Check the ME bug thread for details.  

I'd love to ask you guys for some advice. I'm going to remain loyal to Ash, but I want to avoid a ninjamance. Based on my research, I've found out I've got to...

Jack--Avoid any flirt summations and kinda avoid her after her loyalty mission
Miranda--Do not take the option that says, "You're hard to give a compliment to."
Tali--Uncertain, but I know it's an option that comes up after her loyalty mission.

Is the list accurate? I really want to prevent an accidental romance. Again.

Hum...for Jack, just don't flirt. You can do her loyalty mission without problem.
Tali will flirt with you after her loyalty mission, there's an option to refuse (without being a dick)(and it works, unlike in ME1).
I never get ninjamanced in ME2 and most of the time, I don't play any romance with my male Shep until ME3.

Natashina: I've never been ninjamanced in ME2, and even if you are, you can actually turn them down/break up with them right away, unlike in ME1. Continually picking the top-right options will cause a romance with a character in ME2. So as long as you stick with middle options you should be okay to avoid romances in ME2.

Ah-ha-hah, ninjamaced, cool word, describes perfectly the fear I live in right now that someone's gonna spoil my perfect love-story for me in ME3.

Also, after keeping up with everyone's runs of ME1-2, I could not wait any longer, so I made my hot male Shepard. By some reason I went for an engineer, not sentinel, it's an oops, but I can change it in the second one. There was no Kai Leng's hair. I guess I will have to wait a few more weeks to indulge my deep spiritual need to create a male lead with a pony tail. Oh, well, them freebie MMOs they are good for something. Male Shepard's voice is cool too. Did not play him though, instead I went and finished a couple of sidequests on my gal.

Was really pleasant surprise to see Jacobs on the Evac Cerberus Academics. He's sort of a second rate character, but unlike Miranda he was not annoying in ME3 with the endless IMs. "oh, come to see me! Oh, my sister!" So, was good to see him. Glad he's found a girl, all that jazz. Also glad Atlas is not a big deal any longer, not with my uber level 5 weapons and a cunning use of the Battle Reflexes Sharpening thinggie with a really slow gun that blasts things into smithereens. I am lazy though. I over-use the pause.

Now, all I want is to kill Leng, and see how the story ends.

Cheers, and happy Thursday.

Well, I'm putting my other three play throughs on the go into abeyance for an ME1 project to see if BDtS still influences the amount of P/R required to unlock the Morality quests (per discussion I've been having on The Little Things thread... so,

Vance Shepard, N-7 Vanguard, received orders to report for duty as the XO aboard the Normandy SR-1. As he watched earth from the shuttle window, he couldn't believe his luck. "The Normandy" he mused "A brand new ship! And Captain Anderson - one of the most decorated soldiers in the Alliance!" Vance secretly thumbed his own Star of Terra in his pocket and wondered how he might prove himself... he certainly didn't want to mess up this opportunity!

Shortly after getting settled on board, Vance got called into a meeting with the Captain and a Turian named Nihilus. The Turian told Shepard that he was being considered for the Spectres. Vance generally hated Turians, but he figured he could set those feelings aside for that sort of opportunity... but the mission to Eden Prime was one big SNAFU from the get go... and now he can't shake this creepy vision the beacon planted in his head before it exploded. "The Council certainly still thinks I'm nuts," Vance muttered to himself as he opened the Galaxy map. "Where to, first?" Admiral Kohoku seemed pretty desperate when he spoke to Vance just after the Council begrudgingly made Shepard a Spectre so he could chase down a rogue Spectre named Saren and henchwoman Benezia. "Well, I guess the Saren thing can wait just a little bit. His coordinates are in the same cluster as where Benezia's daughter is supposed to be" Vance thought...

Mission Log - Edolus: Found Admiral Kohoku's men, all dead from a thresher maw attack. It looks like someone intentionally lured them there with an Alliance distress beacon.

Shepard diverted the Normandy back to the Citadel to tell the Admiral about the trap, the Admiral contacted him again over the comm indicating that the trap was set by some organization named Cerberus and that Cerberus was after him now. Shepard decided to divert the Normandy yet again to try to save the Admiral...

Mission Log - Binthu: Found Admiral Kohoku. Unfortunately, it was too late to save him. Acquired another lead on Cerberus.

"Well," Vance thought, tracking down Cerberus will just have to wait a bit... time to keep hunting the Artemis Tau cluster for Benezia's daughter. Hmmm... Anderson thought she'd most likely be found wherever there were Prothean ruins."

You can easily break off with Miranda and Tali even if you get in a little too deep with them... e.g. you can tell her she's hard to compliment or even go renegade and steal a kiss from Miranda and then tell her point blank "it was nothing" or that "you want to keep it professional" in the next conversation and she'll back right off.  Even if you indicate that you want a relationship in that convo, you can tell her in the next that you've rethought it and want to keep it professional.

Tali's interest conversation is the one where she brings up her suit rupture.  You can pursue the conversation to get the paragon points, but then just tell her that you're not interested.  Shep's line, as I recall, is "That's sweet, but I don't think of you in that way." (or something very close to that).  Again, if you accidentally get in too deep, you can clearly break it off in the next conversation.

Jack can be a little trickier. I find it best to avoid the second conversation with her (the one that can kick of having casual sex) until after her loyalty mission.... then after doing her loyalty mission, I go and make the mistake of having sex with her. That way, you don't lose her loyalty, she doesn't tell you to eff off, and you're locked out of any hope of romancing her after that. If you don't want to "accidentally" cheat on Ashley by one-timing Jack, then it is best to tell Jack you're not interested during that second conversation (which she'll ignore) and then, after you do her loyalty mission, completely avoid her after the loyalty mission wrap up conversation so that you never hear about Manara.  Once she dumps that conversation on you, you're locked in.  You can break off with her if you've also expressed interest in either Tali or Miranda (because everyone gets jealous and you have to choose between them).  I think you can also send Jack away once the sex scene starts... but I'm not sure how that counts with Ashley in ME3.

ETA:  I forgot, there is also a break up line with Jack... If you're into a romance situation with her (i.e. you notice that Ashley's photo is face down), just go tell Jack "You're taking too long."  She'll be PO'd, but Ash's picture will flip back up again and you're out of the romance.  Her picture flipping back up is true with any of them if you start a romance and then use one of the "break up" lines in a later conversation.  I've never done it, but I think you can also break up with any of them even after the SM and having the sex scene.  I'm not sure how that would go over with Ashley though either.