What did you do today in ME?

Karen Shepard, Soldier (Shock Trooper), ME1 NG+:

Ilos

The Normandy arrived at Ilos, and the crew gathered on the bridge to go over their options. There was much arguing about the proposed landing site, with Joker insisting he could drop the Mako safely despite there being only 20 metres of space available - the Mako requires 100. With no other options, Shepard ordered Liara and Tali to the Mako so that Joker could attempt to drop them right on top of Saren.

They successfully land on the surface, but Saren had entered some underground compound and sealed the doors behind him. Shepard and her team would need to look for a way to open the doors. They backtracked through the ruins, fighting various geth along the way. There were some weird looking statues in the ruin, Shepard wondered if they were Protheans. They finally reached a security panel that would open the doors to the bunker Saren had entered. Shepard was the only one who could understand the language on the recording - Liara speculated that the prothean cipher Shepard had received from the Thorian must be the reason.

The team returned to the Mako and drove into the underground structure - called the Archives, according to the prothean recording. It appeared to be full of stasis pods which were no longer active. Liara, still an archaeologist at heart, was fascinated by the archives, while Tali tried to keep her focused on the job at hand - Saren, the geth, the impending destruction of the galaxy. Shepard found their exchange adorable.

An energy barrier of some sort blocked their progress. A nearby elevator took them down to a room housing a Prothean VI, called "Vigil". The VI was a treasure trove of information from the Prothean era. It revealed that the Citadel was a Reaper trap, a giant mass relay linked to the dark space outside of the galaxy. The Reapers used it to invade every fifty-thousand years or so, killing or indoctrinating every advanced life form in the galaxy, including the Protheans during the last cycle. The Reapers were "relentless, brutal, and absolutely thorough", according to Vigil.

Ilos had been a research facility, created by scientists whose goal was to infiltrate the Citadel via the Conduit (a miniature mass relay they had created), disrupt the signal to the Keepers that activated the Citadel relay to prevent the invasion in the next cycle, and repopulate the galaxy with Protheans from the in stasis pods in the Archives. The first part of the plan succeeded, but the Reaper conquest of the galaxy had taken longer than expected, and the stasis pods had run out of power and no one other than the top scientists had survived. They did manage to use the Conduit and disrupted the Keeper signal, which gave Shepard a chance to stop the invasion now. Saren was attempting to use the Conduit to gain access to Citadel Control and and hand control of the station over to Sovereign, who would activate the relay. If Saren could be stopped, the Reapers would be trapped in dark space.

Vigil provided a data file that it claimed would help regain control of the Citadel from Sovereign. It also provided additional information about the Keepers, Sovereign, the beacons, and the fate of the Ilos science team. (Liara had insisted on getting as much information from the prothean VI as they could, but Shepard would have done that anyway. She recognized what an opportunity it was).

Shepard took the data file, and the team returned to the Mako. They fought their way past various geth forces and eventually made it to the Conduit, and prepared to use it to infiltrate the Citadel and try and stop Saren's invasion. Shepard hoped they weren't too late.

Miriam Shepard's current loadout is the Adas with ultralight mod and extended barrel, and Phalanx with ultralight and piercing mods. Cooldown is around 140%, which I find to be plenty for shield-restoring Charge-spamming. My Charge build is 4b (radius), 5a (weapon synergy), 6b (barrier).

I think more recent interviews with Mac indicate that any connection to the endings won't be in the first game, but they are still not absolutely saying that one can just discard all their old ME3 saves either.  Part of what changed is that the Next Gen consoles came out, making those saves basically inaccessible for some console users.  Now, since then, Microsoft has made ME2 and ME3 backward compatible and I do think there is now a way to move those Xbox 360 saves onto the Xbox One.  Not sure what the imminent release of the Scorpio will do and I don't know if the PS4 can accommodate ME2 and ME3 yet.  We'd have to ask someone who plays on those consoles.

I do think that if they ever do connect the ME3 endings to the ME:A saga, they would almost certainly allows for a "DAI-keep-like" entry of that information.

140 is good. I didn't even think of toying around with the ultralight mod, as I usually always take piercing and damage. But I will definitely try it out and see how it goes. For spamming Charge it might be even okay with 100% cooldown, both my Infiltrator and Soldier didn't have much more than 100, but I have a bit of a harder time with Vanguard (plus I don't want to spam Charge all the time). Oh well, I probably just stay too long in the open and get shot a lot, haha.
But the ultralight mod is a good idea and there's also still the intel I can collect and exchange with Glyph, so there's some more cooldown % to be expected

PS: I forgot to mention in my previous post that I will never not recruit Wrex in ME1 again. So... many... inconsistency bugs. Ugh
Also it was funny that Liara and Kirrahe knew each other when I only recruited Liara AFTER Virmire... hehe.

Edited for Update: I now have ultralight mod Lv2, and cooldown is at 140

Yesterday, I start off saying no to an unemployed Turian, went to Feros, killed Jeong and creepy Thorian, argued with the Turian councilor, drop by Luna to see baby EDI, flirted with Kaidan.

Mark Shepard:

Menae (continued): Followed the path and made it to a General Corinthus. He informed me Primarch Fedorian was dead. He didn't know who was in charge other than that Palaven Command would know. Problem there was that the comm towers were down so they couldn't be reached. It was up to me and my squad to fix the tower.

I had Liara repair the tower while James and I killed husks. When it was done we continued fighting while waiting for information. Then Corinthus called me back. He hadn't named a name but then an unexpected ally walked up. It was Garrus Vakarian and a general was calling him "sir". He'd obviously risen up the ranks. Garrus said General Adrien Victus was next in line of succession and we had to go find him. Fortunately, Garrus has been with him earlier so we at least had an idea where he might be.

Before we could head out, a couple things happened. Something was going on with EDI on the Normandy. Liara returned to check it out. Then a harvester appeared in the sky. These were, as near as I could tell, those bug dragons I'd met while working with Cerberus. These things dropped husks and the like in battlefields. They dropped just outside the walls and we had to stop them. We saw some that looked kind of like turians. It seemed that the Reapers were turning all species into husks. I shuddered to think about a krogan or an asari husk.

When were done, we returned to base. Before we could reach Corinthus, he radioed us to say that Reapers were at the main barricade. We'd need to man a turret to deal with the threat. Then something new dropped in. Remember my concern about krogan husks? Well, this thing was as big as a krogan though it looked like something else was in the mix. I rammed the barricade and knocked me off. Once it was down, and with no other information on Victus, we decided to head to his last known location.

En route, Garrus pointed out a large orange blaze on Palaven. It was where he'd been born and he still had a father and sister there. This was currently day three of the Reaper attack and the turians had lost 8 million people in the first two days. I was thinking of Earth, though. It didn't have the finest military in Council space. What hope did it have? I had to get the turian support no matter what.

When we made it to Victus and told him the news he was more than a little shocked to find out he was the new primarch. He said his goodbyes but then he thew things for a loop. He'd only agree to help Earth if we got the krogan to help Palaven. The summit the salarians were having was going to be interesting. Too interesting for the asari, who opted out, even though acknowledging it was time to move past the krogan issues.

Normandy: Hackett told me to do whatever it took to get turian support. I was going to do my best but I didn't have high hopes.

War Assets: 765 + Javelin Missile Launchers + Turian 79th Flotilla = 855/2 = 427

Meanwhile, the power dipped and Joker said that EDI had gone offline. Everything pointed toward the AI core. When I went down there I found an electrical fire that Adams put out. It turned out EDI had placed part of herself into Dr. Core's body. The transition had been difficult, accounting for the fire. Now she had complete control.

Emails: Kaidan is up, a fellow Spectre wants help, Thane is also a Huerta under an alias, and Aria T'Loak is at a club on the Citadel for some reason.

Citadel: I had a few things to do here but first up was a visit to Kaidan at Huerta Memorial. We talked, cleared the air. Kaidan said we were good together and I hoped that we could be again. Then I left him to rest. Also talked to Thane. Tried to convince him to rejoin the Normandy but he said he was too ill and also had obligations to his son. I understood. He also mentioned that he would keep on eye on Kaidan in case anyone tried to attack him while he was still too weak to defend himself.

Talked to Aria in Purgatory. Cerberus had ousted her from Omega. She intended to get it back but understood the priority was getting help for the war. She offered me mercs: Eclipse, Blue Suns and the Blood Pack. This was going to ruin my "shoot on sight" policy for them.

From the Personal Logs of the SSV Normandy:

Dear Ashley,

Today was a good day. Garrus is now back on the crew. I'm sure the Illusive Man didn't realize who he was when he put him on the list of people I should recruit.Garrus had been going by the name Archangel and spending his time frustrating all the mercs on Omega... managed to cause them so much grief that the 3 major merc groups banded together to take him out. It was a good thing we got to Omega when we did. As good a shot as Garrus is, I really don't think he could have held out much longer. He had been keeping them at bay for over a day. Even as it was, he took a rocket to the face. He'll be OK, but now he looks a lot worse than I do (Yeah, my scars still aren't healing all that well. Chakwas says I need to be more positive. Yeah, right. Anyway, she has a surgical procedure she can do; and I think I'll spend some of the Illusive Man's platinum to get it over and done with... so the crew just won't be able to tell how I'm feeling.) We also recruited Dr. Mordin Solus, former STG and some sort of genius. He's working on a way to stop the Collector's seeker swarms from paralyzing us. It's pretty important that he get it done soon. Yeah, I probably should have taken Miranda's advice and recruited him earlier to give him more time. Live and learn, I guess.

Bye for now.
V.

Karen Shepard, Soldier (Shock Trooper), ME1 NG+:

The Battle of the Citadel

Shepard drove the Mako past 4 geth Colossi, straight into the Conduit. They emerged on the Presidium of the Citadel, the Prothean "statue" had actually been a fully functional mass relay all along.

Avina provided a damage report (in short, things weren't good), informed them that the Council had been evacuated to the Destiny Ascension, and Saren was in the Council Chambers, the likely location the control panel that would give control of the station to Sovereign. Shepard, Liara and Tali entered the elevator and began their ascent to the Council Chambers, but Saren stopped the elevator half-way up. "Suit up, we're going outside", Shepard told her companions, and Shepard shattered the elevator window and they stepped out on to the exterior of the Citadel Tower.

They made their way up the tower on foot, while Sovereign, attached to the top of the tower, looked down at them. It was a pretty spectacular sight. Sovereign had attacked using a geth fleet as a screen, and had gone straight for the tower before the Ward arms closed. They fought geth and krogan forces as they made their way up the tower, while outside the closed station the battle between the geth and Citadel fleets raged.

They finally reached the top of the tower and found an access hatch. Inside the Council Chambers, they fought more geth, and found Saren at a control panel attempting to grant Sovereign access to the station. Shepard once again implored Saren to stop this madness. Saren revealed that following their conversation on Virmire, he had begun to have doubts. Sensing his faltering commitment to the Reaper cause, Sovereign had implants installed in Saren, "to strengthen my resolve". He reiterated his belief that the Reapers were unstoppable and that organics needed to join with the Reapers in order to survive.

Shepard knew the truth - indoctrination was a battle of wills, and after their talk on Virmire , it was a fight that Saren had been winning. The implants were to overcome his resistance, not strengthen him. Shepard had gotten through to Saren on Virmire, so now she once again attempted to convince him not to give in, and to help her stop Sovereign. She succeeded in getting through to him once again, Saren overcame Sovereign's influence and shot himself to prevent him from fighting Shepard.

Shepard went to the control panel to activate Vigil's data file and regain control of the station. Tali and Liara suggested she get the Ward arms open, so the fleet could engage Sovereign, and open a comm channel. With communications back online, they heard a distress call from the Destiny Ascension, as well as a call from Joker. The Normandy was waiting with the Alliance Fifth Fleet in a nearby system, and that they could join the fight if Shepard opened the relay network. Tali suggested it might be better to wait until the arms were open so that the reinforcements could focus on Sovereign, but the biggest battle in decades - perhaps centuries - was happening at the Citadel, and Shepard felt there was no sense having an entire fleet sitting in another system twiddling their thumbs. Shepard activated the relays and told the Alliance fleet to join the fight.

At his point, they learned that it takes more than a gunshot (or two) to kill a cybernetic enhanced turian. Sovereign assumed control of Saren's corpse via the implants, transforming it into some sort of cybernetic monster. It attacked, but Shepard and her squad prevailed. At the moment "Saren" died, Sovereign's shields went down, and the Reaper lost it's connection with the Citadel Tower. Sensing it's vulnerability, the Citadel and Alliance fleets renewed their attack, and they finally overcame the Reaper and destroyed it.

The explosion damaged the tower. Liara and Tali were shaken up, but were assisted by Anderson and a squad of C-Sec officers. For a moment they feared that Shepard had been crushed by rubble from Sovereign, but the first human Spectre emerged triumphant from the wreckage, and rejoined her friends.

Aftermath

A small ceremony was held on the Presidium, where the Council expressed their gratitude for the heroic actions and sacrifices made by the Alliance in the battle. They also informed Ambassador Udina that humanity would be offered a spot on the Citadel Council, in recognition of their role in saving the Citadel. The Councillors asked Commander Shepard who she thought should be named as humanity's representative on the Council, as her opinion would likely carry a lot of weight. Shepard felt that it was a matter for others to decide, as a solder it wasn't her place to get too involved in political matters. She knew that the Reapers were still out in dark space, and were still intent on harvesting the galaxy. Stopping them Shepard's only priority, and she was determined to do just that.

Miriam Shepard began investigating Dr Bryson's research...

Still at the Citadel, took a cab to the home/laboratory of Dr Garret Bryson at Admiral Hackett's instruction. Bryson was heading up research into Reaper X-Files, looking for truths among the myths. Was shot by Derek Hadley, his lab assistant, during conversation; disarmed him before he could shoot again. Claimed no memory of the incident during interrogation; behaviour consistent with indoctrination.

Examined Bryson's lab with EDI, discovered research into the "Leviathan of Dis", a postulated Reaper-killer that killed a Reaper in the Hades Nexus. Deduced that Bryson's field researcher Alex Garneau had followed evidence of this "Leviathan" to the Caleston Rift; returned to the Normandy and ordered Joker to plot a course. Upon arrival, detected Reaper energy signatures in the vicinity of the mining asteroid Mahavid. Took a shuttle to the mining complex with Garrus and Ashley as backup.

Encountered Reaper ground troops at complex entrance; neutralized them and proceeded inside. Staff in lobby area behaving as if in trances, tried to warn Normandy party away. Proceeded further in; appeared that mining company was a front; complex actually scientific research station. All research staff behaving as if in trances. Located Garneau in medical wing: became possessed; spoke in inhuman voice, apparently channelling Leviathan; then fled into mines.

Followed Garneau; encountered heavy Reaper resistance including rachni artillery. Garneau sealed himself in inner room; used L5n abilities to reach him rapidly; power went out and sealed the door. Activated a drone to restore power; defended it from Reaper forces including husk type previously unseen: tall, distended, emaciated, female characteristics, biotic abilities, constantly screaming.

Entered the inner room, found Garneau with spherical artefact similar to one in Bryson's lab; he blew it, and himself, up. Miners snapped out of trances, believing it to be 2176; indoctrinated for a decade, seemingly. Research operations in mines appeared to be Leviathan using miners as puppets. Discovered that our "Garneau" was an impostor; real Garneau was dead all along.

Returned to the Citadel to investigate the artefact in the lab, likely cause of Hadley's indoctrination, very likely dangerous.

[Had to take Ashley, now she's onboard. I set her Inferno Grenades as Shepard's bonus power because I still hadn't picked one and wanted something that wouldn't clash with Charge's cooldown. Very good for firesploding Ravagers at a distance, using Shockwave as a detonator.

Which came first, this DLC or the multiplayer drone-escorting objective? Died twice while escorting that drone. Also, achieved an accidental team kill because Garrus and Ashley were both in the splash damage zone when I used the Blackstar to nuke the Banshee at the end

I don't remember from my first playthrough, but according to the wiki, there are also supposed to be Banshees in the battles before reaching the door in the mines, but because I Charged across the battlefield, I must've made it there and tagged the door before they spawned ]

Is there a way to play sidequest after the ending or do i have to restart from scratch?

Mass Effect 2 Introduction

Character import from ME1
Name: Karen Shepard
Class: Soldier
Background / Psych Profile: Colonist / War Hero
Romance: Liara
Alignment: Paragon

Summary of ME1 decisions:
- Shiala, Jeong, Feros colonists alive and well
- Helped Gianna Parasini and Dr Cohen on Noveria
- Released Rachni Queen
- Kaidan killed in action on Virmire, Urdnot Wrex alive and well
- Captain Kirrahe, Corporal Toombs, Chairman Burns alive and well
- Kate Bowman survived Bring Down the Sky, Balak allowed to escape
- Destiny Ascension, Council survived Battle of the Citadel
- Helena Blake, Rana Thanoptis alive
- Personal quests for Wrex, Garrus, and Tali successfully completed

Omega Nebula, Amada System


Awakening - Lazarus Station


Jacob


Wilson


Miranda


Illusive Man