What did you do today in ME?

Soldier FemShep, cont'd:

After rescuing Liara and briefing the Council, Shepard checked in with her crew to see how everyone was holding up.

Tali was feeling homesick and having trouble sleeping. Shepard tried to comfort her the best she could. Tali came to realize that one of the goals of the Pilgrimage was likely to help Quarians appreciate what they had in the Flotilla, despite the hardships.

It turned out that Garrus is the way he is in part due to his rebelling against his father, a by-the-book C-Sec officer who had discouraged Garrus from pursuing Spectre training when he was a recruit. Shepard took slight exception to the assertion that Vakarian Sr wouldn't like her (why the hell not, according to Kaidan on the Citadel everyone should like her ), but she now had a better understanding of why Garrus felt the way he did about things. They may not always agree, but Garrus did genuinely want to help people and fight for justice; Shepard respected that.

Wrex told of a time he worked as a mercenary and was hired by none other than Saren himself. The job was a raid on a Volus transport, but Wrex "had a bad feeling" about Saren and quit, which turned out to be a smart move as every merc who finished the mission ended up dead shortly after. Wrex didn't know too many details about the raid or why Saren was interested in a Volus ship - it was apparently carrying medical supplies - since he didn't stick around long enough to find out. Shepard wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with their current mission, but she couldn't figure out what. At very least, it suggested that Saren has been recruiting Krogan "muscle" for a while, and that the Battlemaster on Therum wouldn't be the last one they encounter.

Ashley raised the issue of the non-human crew members having unrestricted access to an Alliance ship, echoing concerns expressed by Pressly. This mistrust seemed to be fairly common amongst Alliance personnel, which was understandable. Shepard tried to convince Ashley that the benefits of building alliances outweighed the security risks; she didn't seemed convinced, but would respect Shepard's decision. And, Shepard had to admit, she had a point. Her analogy of the Council sicking their dog on a bear was precisely what they had done with the Krogan - sicking them on the Rachni to save their own skins. That hadn't ended well for the Krogan, and humanity would need to be careful to ensure they didn't suffer the same fate.

Kaidan gave some of his background at "Brain Camp", where students with biotic abilities were trained. He hid it fairly well, but Shepard could detect some bitterness over his experiences there, along with some suspicions about the actions of Conatix and other corporations around their role in "accidental" exposure to element zero that created human biotics. Shepard suspected there was more to the story, but didn't push it.

Liara had recovered from her ordeal of being trapped in the Prothean security field. She gave Shepard some intel on Benezia, and about the Asari and her life as an archaeologist. She speculated that Benezia had joined with Saren to attempt to influence him away from the destructive path he was on - that was the only reason she could think of to explain why her mother was doing this. Shepard hoped that they could get through to Benezia at some point, and with Liara's help convince her to turn away from Saren.

The Normandy had arrived in the Hades Gamma cluster. Shepard had heard news reports while on the Citadel that Exogeni had a survey team in the area that had gone missing, so she wanted to investigate to see if they could help. During the trip, they received a message from an Asari diplomat on the Citadel named Nassana Dantius, requesting a meeting with Shepard. She would have to wait - the Normandy was a long way from the Citadel, and weren't scheduled to return for some time.

They detected the Exogeni excavation site on the planet Trebin in the Antaeus system. Shepard took Tali and Liara to investigate the area. They discovered some wreckage from the Turian Unification Wars, and were attacked by a Thresher Maw shortly after. They defeated it, made their way to the Exogeni dig site and entered the underground mine where they were attacked by dozens of Husks, like the ones encountered on Eden Prime. Evidently the workers had discovered some "alien artifacts" that matched the technology the Geth used to transform people into Husks, and the Exogeni workers had suffered the same fate. There was no indication how the "Dragon's Teeth" got to this remote location, however, or for what purpose.

Shepard, Tali and Liara explored the area, finding some mineral deposits and encountering some pirates attempting to salvage a crashed probe. Shepard wasn't looking for a fight, but the scavengers attacked first and they had to defend themselves. The ground team then shut down a transmitter that was disrupting Exogeni satellites and causing them to crash - probably set up by the pirates. They returned to the Normandy to rest up and prepare for the next mission.

Erin Shepard:

1. Went to Benning to continue her new favorite hobby: kill Cerberus.

2. Back to the Citadel to hand out party favors.

3. Off to Tuchanka to deliver the genophage cure. She thought about sabotaging the cure, but Wrex is an old friend. She was even thoughtful enough to tell him about the Salarian Dalatrass' attempted secret deal. Hope the Krogan handle their second chance wisely.

4. More nightmares.

5. Kill more Cerberus at a Noveria fighter base! Cerberus is giving her lots of opportunity to indulge in her hobby.

6. Back to the Citadel, and ooh! More Cerberus! Erin was absolutely giddy at killing more Cerberus. They even had a new Cerberus type called the Phantom. How silly they would try to attack with swords. The black-armored guy got away though. He looks fun to kill.

* * *

Now Kim, Erin, Jen, and Jackie have all finished the Citadel Coup and are on the Citadel. Next I will spend a few hours between them all, running around the Citadel doing odd jobs and eavesdropping on conversations, and scanning the galaxy.

I finally finished recording and putting my "canon" playthrough of the trilogy on YouTube.

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP_raXapkm7cNTN34WmW_j7SNMqDP-xn6

I started my Mass Effect 2 replay, importing my ME1 save from a few weeks ago. To recap: Miriam Shepard is a spacer, war hero paragon who saved the Council during the Battle of the Citadel. Ashley and Wrex survived Virmire. Miriam did not have a love interest.

To make this playthrough different to my original ME2 experience, I've switched classes from Sentinel to Vanguard (headcanon: her L3 biotic implants were replaced with L5n implants as part of Project Lazarus) and bumped the difficulty level from Normal to Hardcore (can kick it down again if I struggle). I chose Fortification as my bonus power.

I also installed the Firefight pack so I can play with new guns, and the second alternate appearance pack so Miranda can wear proper armour instead of that ridiculous catsuit. (Already had the first appearance pack installed from my first playthrough so Jack could go on missions without catching a chill).

So...

Got thrown from the stricken Normandy SR-1 following an encounter with an unknown battlecruiser. Woke up two years later with a face like crazy paving. Escaped from the doomed medical facility and reluctantly agreed to work with Cerberus to solve the mystery of the vanishing human colonies.

Explored the deserted colony of Freedom's Progress (at night, which makes no logical sense; I guess Mr Illusive wanted the mission to be as atmospheric as possible). Fought a platoon of mechs, renewed friendship with Tali'Zorah. Obtained information about the Collectors from Veetor, whom Tali then took back to the flotilla for PTSD treatment.

Took command of the Normandy SR-2. Flew to the Citadel, recruited Kasumi, renewed friendship with Anderson, met the Council and was reinstated as a Spectre. Cllr Udina is still a pain in the neck. Gave a nice interview to Khalisah al-Jilani, aided a quarian who was wrongly accused of theft, and spent a load of the Illusive Man's dirty money on model ships and a pet hamster.

Flew to Omega, recruited Zaeed, convinced Harrot to stop bullying Kenn, and spent more Cerberus money.

Was ordered by some batarian blowhard to visit the local crime boss, Aria T'Loak. Ignored him. Instead, took Zaeed and Kasumi into the quarantined slums to make contact with Mordin Solus. Fought through a Blue Suns/Blood Pack turf war, assisted civilians where possible, discouraged looters, saved Mordin's assistant Daniel from a batarian mob. The plague in the slums turned out to be artificially engineered by the Collectors for reasons unknown, apparently some monstrous science experiment. Assisted Mordin in spreading a cure for the plague in exchange for his assistance.

Used the bulk of Cerberus' platinum reserves to upgrade the Normandy's medical bay. Healed facial scars.

John Shepard:

4.1 Headed to Edolus with Garrus and Kaidan. A distress beacon led to a lot of dead marines and a very living thresher maw. Unlike last time I encountered one of those sons of bitches, I had an M35 Mako and used it to send that thing to hell!

4.2 On Therum I ran into plenty of geth. Killed 'em all. Found Dr. Liara T'Soni in a prothean ruin. She was trapped in a prothean barrier she activated to protect her from the geth and other followers of Saren. I suppose that means she's not working with Saren and her mother. Used a mining laser to blast our way to the barrier and free her. Unfortunately it kick-started a dormant volcano and blew the place up. Joker showed up just in time to save our asses. Oh, and we kicked some krogan's ass before going. Given her prothean historical knowledge, her connections to Benezia and her biotics, I decided recruiting Liara was a good idea. I've now got four aliens in the crew and that's just one reason I'm going to win.

4.3 Nice chat with Kaidan. Liara was a little faint but she's doing fine. Garrus, Ash and Tali are all doing well. It turns out Wrex encountered Saren before and had a bad feeling about him. Trusting his gut saved his life so he sounds like he's good to have at my side.

4.4 Found a stronghold on Sharjila. I filled it with dead pirates. Found evidence that the pirate leader was the sister of an asari ambassador named Nassana Dantius - the same asari who had asked me to find her missing sister.

4.5 Rear Admiral Mikhailovich was waiting for me when I docked at the Citadel. He made an inspection of the Normandy and wasn't happy. Fortunately, both the Normandy and myself - as a Spectre - are out of his reach. Confronted Nassana about her sister and convinced her to give me asari mods. Emily Wong asked for help with an investigation into overworked air traffic controllers. Made a little profit from that deal.

Kim, Erin, Jen, and Jackie Shepard toured the Citadel, eavesdropping on conversations and doing odd jobs. Then it was back to the Normandy for some chit-chat with the crew and a planet scanning. Then back to the Citadel to drop some things off and deal with the Din Korlak situation.

Took me about 4 hours total (about 1 hour per Shepard).

Not sure if I will get to actually playing missions tonight, or if I will save that for later in the week.

Miriam Shepard recruited everyone's favourite turian:

Visited Aria T'Loak's den of iniquity and renewed acquaintanceships with some familiar people. Fist is still a waste of oxygen, but Helena Blake seems to have turned her life around. Good for her.

Confronted a batarian bartender who had been selling tainted drinks to human clientèle. He is no longer employed.

Met Patriarch, Omega's former ruler and now Aria's vassal. Acted as his krantt, defending him from a couple of mercs who wanted to kill him in order to undermine Aria.

Signed on as a freelancer with the Blue Suns crime syndicate in order to get access to Archangel, a local vigilante whom they were trying to kill, and whom Mr Illusive had identified as a possibility for the Normandy team. Encountered a young lad with a shoddy knock-off pistol who had also intended to try joining up. Convinced him to reconsider.

Took Zaeed and Mordin along to participate in the assault on Archangel's headquarters. Made contact with the vigilante, who turned out to be none other than Garrus Vakarian. Assisted Garrus in repelling the first wave of the assault. Enemy YMIR mech was an asset for us when it proved incapable of telling friend from foe. Wonder how that happened...

Went down to the HQ's basement to seal points of ingress; left Zaeed with Garrus to assist in sniping intruders approaching from the open. Close-quarters combat provided several opportunities to give the L5n implants a proper workout. Krogan aren't the only ones who can charge...

Destroyed a Blue Suns gunship, although Garrus was critically wounded during the battle. Took him back to the Normandy for emergency treatment. His face is a mess; unfortunately can't offer him the use of the dermal regenerator in the upgraded sickbay because it doesn't work on dextro-DNA. His armour is a write-off too; procured replacement armour from a grey-market vendor on Omega before departing.

Kim, Erin, and Jackie Shepard went to an Ardat-Yakshi Monastery. They found dead commandos, Reaper-modified Asari, Samara, and only one survivor who was Samara's daughter. They blew up the monastery before heading back to the Citadel. All three made prevented Samara from committing suicide.

On the Citadel, they all met with various squadmates on the Citadel: Liara, Garrus, and Samara. Erin and Jackie also talked to Miranda (Miranda is all kinds of dead in Kim's playthrough).

And for the record:
- Kim shot the bottle (she's a snipering Vanguard)
- Erin missed the bottle (she's a Pistol-SMG soldier; she's never shot a Sniper Rifle in the entire trilogy)
- Jackie shot the bottle (she's pseudo-sniper Infiltrator; she actually uses a scoped Saber. She sniped in ME1 and ME2; she used the Widow in ME2)

Jen Shepard:
1. Went to a monastery for some meditation, but the Banshees kept interrupting. Samara was there, but she did not do much to help stop the Banshees from ruining Jen's quiet time. Jen stopped Samara from killing herself.

2. Got the 10% store discount and upgraded a bunch of weapons to VII (so they jump to X when picked up later).

3. Talked to Samara, Miranda, Liara, and Garrus on the Citadel. She missed shooting the last bottle because it was windy. (She hasn't sniped since ME2.)

4. Rescued a Turian Platoon. Found out about a Cerberus bomb.

5. Stopped Cerberus from detonating the bomb.

I've returned to Kolyat, the Drell Adept in MP, though I did a bunch of solo attempts with a couple of new kits I unlocked, the Vorcha Sentinel and Asari Huntress. Vorcha got as far as wave 4 on level 9, which I thought impressive, but huntress went down by wave 2 on level 18. On the upside, I was actually able to shoot the damn mantis a couple of times. Dunno, those sniper rifles are just not my thing. Vanguard still can't make it past wave 9 in solo, but oh, well, may be if I actually load equipment on him...

In the campaign, I just started ME2, and decided to do Omega recruitment. Missions first, instead of going to Citadel. I was so glad to see Mordin, it's silly. Anyways, working my way through quarantine zone. And getting my first R-points. Readjusting to the new controls as well, and trying to remember if the Tech upgrades in ME2 was how my gear got better. Heh, I feel I need it with my OMG, normal difficulty run.

I am sort of tempted to kill Miranda, but if I hav e to take her along because of it... dunno if I want to.

I also created my 3rd Shepard (Destroy ending, Earthborn, Ruthless, Garrus rom), in ME1, but I have not yet decided if I am doing the full trilogy with her, or starting at 2 instead. Hmm....

Have fun gaming, good folks