What did you do today in ME?

Miriam Shepard helped Kasumi...

Ordered the Normandy to Bekenstein in the Serpent Nebula to raid the mansion of crime lord Donovan Hock in order to recover the greybox (memory recorder) used by Keiji Okuda, Kasumi's partner whom Hock had murdered.

Infiltrated the mansion by posing as a party guest. (Didn't care for the cocktail dress, but at least it didn't have Cerberus logos). Kasumi was denied admittance but came anyway using her tactical cloak.

All other party guests appeared to be representatives of crime syndicates, including Blue Suns and Eclipse. Overheard conversations about Normandy team, specifically "Archangel" and Zaeed.

Hock's vault was protected by voice recognition, DNA analyser and kinetic barrier. Disabled barrier, tricked voice recognition using a recording, obtained DNA sample from Hock's bedroom by sneaking in through a window. (Forced to neutralize Eclipse guards using M-3 Predator; woefully underpowered compared with M-5 Phalanx, but easy to conceal).

Recovered greybox from vault; obtained two M-12 Locust submachine guns from Hock's private collection. Greybox recovery tripped silent alarm, summoning Eclipse unit. Fought past guards, exited vault to shuttle pad; Hock's gunship prevented rendezvous with Normandy shuttle. Neutralized gunship; no evidence that Hock ejected.

Keiji's greybox contained stolen information that could discredit Alliance government officials; potential security risk, but also Kasumi's only memento of her partner. Kasumi willing to personally accept the risk of possessing it, so did not insist that she destroy it.

Ordered Normandy to Omega Nebula to locate cargo freighter MSV Strontium Mule. Boarded vessel with Mordin and Thane, met by Blue Suns welcoming party. Neutralized them and investigated vessel; found bodies of murdered crew, and evidence of infighting and mistrust among Blue Suns pirates. Neutralized remaining pirates and secured stolen cargo.


[Fond memories of Kasumi's mission from my first playthrough prompted me to save it for last, and I very much enjoyed it this time as well. Having unlocked assault rifles so early on, I didn't really need to unlock the Locust, so wasn't disadvantaging myself by leaving it so late.

In my first playthrough, I think I got into Hock's room through the front door rather than through the window.

My vanguard-fu was not strong during this play session, so mostly played a cautious, long-range game in both Kasumi's mission and the Strontium Mule assignment, waiting until I'd thinned the crowds considerably before getting stuck in with Charge. There were some nice opportunities for Shockwaving through obstacles though, and that's fun too

I'll do Overlord, Shadow Broker and the remaining N7 missions before hitting the derelict Reaper to obtain the IFF.]

Miriam Shepard completed some assignments...

Traced the Blue Suns pirate cell that had captured the Strontium Mule to the planet Sanctum in Sigurd's Cradle. Detected Blue Suns communications signals originating from a disused mining facility; took Mordin and Kasumi to the surface to investigate. Landing party ambushed by Blue Suns troops; quickly neutralized them and entered the facility.

Fought past moderate resistance through the mining tunnels and into an inner facility. Blue Suns captain Narom activated two YMIR mechs. Concentrated fire on one mech, destroyed it with a headshot, resulting explosion severely damaged second YMIR. Neutralized remaining mech, troops and Narom himself. Disabled communications system. Pirate threat to civilian transports now eliminated.

Still in Sigurd's Cradle, received news of a batarian assault on a human colony's missile defence system. Ordered the Normandy to the planet Watson; took the shuttle to the missile station on Watson's moon Franklin, with Garrus and Samara as backup. Neutralized batarian terrorists (not affiliated with any syndicate) and activated missile kill code. Missile targeting residential district was aborted successfully; thousands of lives saved. Missile targeting automated industrial complex did not abort; colony will be evacuated due to destruction of infrastructure.

Received intel regarding an Eclipse cache on Daratar in the Hourglass Nebula. Depot was unmanned but defended by three YMIR mechs programmed to destroy the cache upon detecting intruders. Infiltrated with Jacob and Jack; neutralized mechs using M-920 Cain and conventional weapons. Recovered 75% of cache contents.

Detected communications from Helyme in the Crescent Nebula matching Eclipse communication protocols. Traced signal to a mine operated by Eldfell-Ashland Energy. Investigated with Thane and Kasumi; discovered that mine had been seized by Eclipse for use as a base. Fought through moderate resistance; found computer mainframe with encrypted data. Defended mainframe from remaining Eclipse forces while decryption in progress.

[The battle with the two YMIRs in the first assignment took a few redos. Managing to headshot one mech and cripple the other in the explosion was a jolly satisfying way to win Couldn't do it again if I tried, I'm sure

Notwithstanding a few unforced errors (autosave is my friend), this was a much better play session for vanguarding. The fourth assignment was particularly enjoyable.]

Busy day for Jack. Kicked butt on Rannoch and made peace between the two fighters. Then he got his butt kicked on Thessia, but still did fairly decently combat wise. Side mission wise he visited an Asari Monastery and did surprisingly well on the bottom floor. Samara's rash decision was halted once more. He also helped Riley with some fuel reactors, saved Grace Sato and got the Priiize. Also did a ton of deliveries at the Citadel, met up with his companions at several places and got the time capsule scene with Liara. Also got to see James tattoo for the first time. Usually he is the shadow man, but now he had light! The tattoo was kind of ehh, but the back itself looked really good.
Jack ended his session at the Sanctuary entrance. Next session will probably wrap that mission up, get the remaining meet-ups at the Citadel and then start delaying the final mission by playing Sharon instead.

I have caught up on all the recruitment and loyalty missions with my Renegade Shepard.

The only thing that I found disappointing so far is Jack's romance. Don't know why I did not expect that, but yeah, it is the whole lot of working our way really slowly through the trust issues. They did Kalyio's romance better imo. I wonder if I get through another play-through without getting a romance achievement! Unless Jack counts unlike Thane. 

Recruiting Mornith over Samara actually did not feel as dark-stupid as I expected. Not that fond of the idea that Mornith masquerades as Samara, but I am guessing at this point Bio was feeling the overload of material.

Other than that, shooting Turian in Thane's mission (hostages are only valuable when we give a damn, kid) was pretty cool! His mission was much simpler with a Renegade. My Paragon was dancing around the mob boss forever, while all Mark had to do was to lean over and tell the guy: I am Specter, tell me what I need to know. And it worked. Woohoo!

Then, again, why would not it work, seeing how Mark now can give a Sith Lord a run for his money:

I've never had problems in ME1. Glad you got past it though.

The room with the varren is where your squadmates bug out, so do that one last. And they go back to normal when you go up onto the skyway.

Do you have any mods installed? I've never had any problems on Zhu's Hope at all.  

John Shepard:

Normandy SR-2: Private chat with Tali in my quarters so she could speak freely without the other admirals around. Even having fought by my side against Saren and the Collectors, she's still having a hard time and has the weight of her entire race on her back.

Rannoch: Had to take Tali with me on this mission to save Admiral Koris. I'm not keen on this guy since he put Tali on trial for treason a while back. However, he's the head of the civilian fleet and without that the quarians fall apart. Little chance of their race surviving. In any case, Koris didn't want to be saved. He preferred to save the civilians who were also on Rannoch. Problem is that without him the civilian fleet doesn't survive. It means sacrificing. Later, after he was safe, Koris recognized that it was the right call to rescue him.

I had that happen once on Feros as well, except it was on the skyway, and it was Tali that went insane instead of Liara. She used all her powers in rapid succession, then charged in like a Krogan (with predictable results, to borrow your phrase). So you know, she hacked a Geth, then sabotaged it, overloaded it, damped it, then charged headlong into a fight against a bunch of angry Geth. Good job Tali, you nincompoop.

Mark Shepard: (Vanguard/Colonist/War Hero)

Normandy SR-1: We were out around Alchera looking for geth. The Council had largely dismissed my claims about the Reapers and had me focusing on the foot soldiers as the main threat rather than the very powerful enemy they had out there. After all, if the geth had been powerful enough to create something like Sovereign we wouldn't be taking them down so easily.

We came under attack. Pressly thought it was the geth but it wasn't a ship design any of us were familiar with. Joker was smart enough that anything that could detect the Normandy while the stealth drive was engaged was a big threat. He began evasive maneuvers but the hits we took were bad enough that we had to abandon ship. Kaidan told me Joker wouldn't go and that he wasn't leaving either. I had to shift into the role of his CO - the tone of voice being the real key - to get him to evacuate everyone while I retrieved Joker.

It didn't take much to persuade Joker that he couldn't save the ship and that he'd just die with it if he stayed. Convinced, I helped him to an escape pod as the enemy ship came around for another shot. I managed to get Joker's pod off but couldn't get into one myself. My suit was also damaged and air was escaping fast. As the last of my air dissipated my only regret was that I wouldn't get to hold Kaidan again.

Unknown: I woke up in a lot of pain. Then nothing.

When I next woke up I still hurt but a woman's voice was urging me to get moving. There were alarms. The facility was under attack by mechs gone wild. The woman directed me to a gun and my N7 armor. The floors of this place were covered with a symbol I didn't recognize. Must be from whoever saved me.

Fought my was through the facility. Saw a lot of people getting killed by mechs. Couldn't save them. The woman's voice kept telling me to move forward, that I couldn't save them. Found a video log talking about my reconstruction. The woman in the video had the same voice as the one that was guiding me. An audio log in the voice I'd heard that first time I woke up said they had spent over four billion credits on me. Who even has the kind of money? No one springs to mind.

Came across a still living person who was fighting mechs. I lent a hand. He talked to me like he knew me, which was weird. He also told me that I'd been dead. I'm not sure if that was dead dead or just "died on the operating table for two minutes" dead. I'm assuming the latter since dead dead isn't known for coming back - except as husks. He also mentioned something about two years but I'm not sure I was ready to hear that.

The place was Project Lazarus and the only goal of it was to bring me back just as I had been TWO FREAKING YEARS AGO. It wasn't an Alliance facility and this guy - Jacob Taylor - was evasive about who had bankrolled all of this. I also learned that most of the Normandy crew survived except for some serving on the lower deck and, of all people, my XO, Pressly. Liara, Joker and Kaidan all made it to safety though Jacob couldn't say what had become of them.

After hooking up with and healing Wilson, Jacob dropped a bomb. He told me the funding for the Lazarus Project was Cerberus. Here's what I remember about these guys: They created husks. They created Thorian creepers. They killed Admiral Kahoku. These guys were mad scientists and never up to any good. I wasn't in any position to argue with them now, but later we'd have words.

Then we met Miranda Lawson, the woman who had been saving my life for two years now. The first thing she did was shoot Wilson in the head. She said he was a traitor and behind the mechs. Plausible, given that Jacob had earlier mentioned how a guy from the Bio Wing shouldn't have had mech security clearance. I accompanied Jacob and Miranda off the station to meet with their boss, the mysterious Illusive Man.

Came face to face with the Illusive Man, or a hologram of him. Bastard won't meet anyone if he thinks there's risk involved. I'm not sold on him but he claims to want to fight the Reapers. He also said entire human colonies have gone missing. Then he gave me a mission to check on Freedom's Progress, the latest colony to disappear. I guess I don't lose anything by investigating.