What did you do today in ME?

I think I've only completed Pinnacle Station once.  Once I finish my ME3 run maybe I'll start a new trilogy PT as a total completionist.  I imagine that'll get me through the next 52 days until MEA launches.

As for the apartment, heh, well, I'm assuming your post is RP.  Though it would be a nice place to retire with your LI after the war.

Dear Ashley,

You will never guess who (or what) the Shadow Broker turned out to be and who the Shadow Broker is now.  I helped Liara find him and her friend Feron.  The Shadow Broker was a species that I had never seen before, a Yahg; and now... I still can't believe... Liara is the new Shadow Broker.  Remember how much of a naive teenager she seemed to be?  Well, she's grown... up... a lot.  I took Jack with Liara and I for the fight.  She's the convict I picked up.  We made a good team.  Jack's a vanguard too and it was fun tossing the Shadow's Brokers agents off the hull of his ship left and right with our shockwaves after Liara stripped away the barriers of the enemy vanguards.  Don't get me wrong, I still would have rathered having you watch my back (or whatever it was you were looking at back there - wink, wink)
 
Now... this is difficult... I had a long talk with Thane, the assassin I mentioned in my last letter... about holding onto memories and guilt.  I realized that I do feel guilty about leaving you on Virmire.  I know... you were sacrificing yourself for the rest of the team and to complete the mission... to make sure that bomb went off no matter what.  Still, it was me who put you in that position.  Kaidan turned his back on me on Horizon and now I wish I had of selected Kaidan to arm the bomb instead.  It's unkind and petty, even silly... but right now, it's the way I feel... just empty... so alone and empty inside.

Missing you more than ever.
Love,
V.

Mark Shepard:

Normandy: Hackett was pleased to get a bunch of scientists sent his way. I suppose Dr. Archer would have been useful as well but I really didn't trust that guy. As for Jacob, he may not be bright but he's got heart and courage. That's something.

War Assets: 3877 X 82% = 3179.

I talked to Legion about an upcoming mission. Also discussed the implication of deleting the geth heretics. Legion confirmed it was a good decision because had we rewritten them we'd be facing that many more Reaper-upgraded geth today. He also says death for synthetics is different than it is for organics. It's something to keep in mind anytime I consider holding back. If it came down to saving the quarians or geth it sounds like Legion thinks I ought to side with the quarians.

Check-ins: Joker is happy Jacob is alive and awed by geth flying; EDI was contemplating "what if 1+1=3"; Traynor wants to make tally marks near the galaxy map for every time she "analyzes the crap out of something"; Kaidan flirted with me and then began to see Cerberus - the individuals rather than the organization - in a different way after saving the scientists; Garrus and James were trying to top each other with biggest enemy take down; Liara is happy to see me; Allers thinks Kaidan lacks presence before the camera; Cortez wants me to tell him I'm okay after I blow things up.

Cyone: This world has not fallen to the Reapers just yet but did need help. It provided fuel to military ships and the reactors were offline. EDI and Kaidan were with me for this one. Kaidan and EDI agreed that something was off and that it was strange that there were no signs of turians, dead or alive. Then we found husks and marauders. Captain Riley's team was being overrun so I sent Kaidan to help them out. EDI is still too much of an unknown to send out solo so it made sense to keep her with me - at least until one doorway opened and I saw a brute charging at me! After the battle, I was disturbed that Cortez couldn't raise Riley or Kaidan. What the hell could be there that could take down the combined forces of an N7 and a powerful biotic Spectre? When I got to the entrance, Riley, Kaidan and one of her squad were all present and unharmed. Must have been a comms issue. In any case, the reactors were up and running and fuel was once more available.

Normandy: Hackett is pleased.

War Assets: 3952 X 82% = 3240

Emails: Jacob wants to meet me on the Citadel; Dr. Cole is grateful.

Tuchanka: Finally time to rescue Victus's son. Kaidan and Tali with me here. There's something to be send for having the right equipment. Blowing harvester's out of the air is very rewarding, especially since I wasn't fond of the dragon bugs they were made from. A data pad we found suggests that Lt. Victus made a bad call that led to disaster. That's why we were seeing dead turians all along the way. Once we got there we learned that Cerberus had a bomb and the turians were trying to get it away from them. This seems sketchy. How would the turians even know about this? Still, if the bomb went off it might impact krogan participation and that wasn't something we could afford.

After reporting to Hackett I immediately went back down to assist Victus. This time it was an all-biotic squad of myself, Liara and Kaidan. When talking to Victus he finally came clean. The turians had placed the bomb there centuries ago following the Krogan Rebellions. Somehow Cerberus got wind of it and decided to use it for...well, I couldn't guess why they wanted to stop the krogan from helping the turians and, ultimately, Earth. There was no doubt that the krogan on Palaven would turn on the turians if this bomb went off.

Hearing that Cerberus was evacuating was worrisome. That means the bomb was activated. All of the turians went down while Victus programmed a bypass to the trigger. We had to defend him and he never got a scratch on him. That is, until it turned out he had to manually separate the trigger mechanism from the bomb. He was successful but it cost him his life. Kaidan said it reminded me of Ash and her willing sacrifice on Virmire.

Normandy: Hackett was pleased. Primarch Victus received an earful from Wrex about it but, mainly because the primarch's own son died making it right, he let it lie.

War Assets: 4052 x 83% = 3363. (Not bad considering I haven't completed a single DLC.)

Emails: Primarch Victus thanked me for my part with the bomb and was grateful his son died with the respect of his men, Captain Riley is continuing to defend the reactors on Cyone.

Noveria: No fond memories of this frozen hellhole. Still, there was a Cerberus fighter base here and it was going down. A note in the facility said that all personnel had been processed. I think that means indoctrination. We fought a lot of Cerberus troops but ultimately took down their base. Bonus is that we now control it and can use Cerberus resources against them.

Normandy: Hackett is happy.

War Assets: 4272 x 83% = 3545.

fraggle
Did you intend to romance Traynor this time or did it just happen?

Mark Shepard:

Eden Prime: Wish I didn't come back to here but there's another Prothean artifact and Cerberus has their hands on it. Liara is coming along because she's a Prothean expect. She's studied them and also spent some time digging through the Prothean Archives on Mars. Sure, I've touched three Prothean beacons, but even with the Cipher I mostly just got warnings about the Reapers. Not much help. We might be uncovering something new. Kaidan also stepped on to Eden Prime with me for the first time 3 years ago. Jenkins and Ash were there but they're dead. I'm sure this will bring back memories for both of us.

Our artifact turned out to be a Prothean in stasis. This might just be the last one. I remember Vigil saying it had eventually turned off the power to all the stasis pods on Ilos. I imagine the VI running things on Eden Prime must have done the same but somehow managed to keep one running. Only it was damaged and we were going to have to search the site for the method to properly unlock the pod. Otherwise, it would kill the Prothean. I don't think this would be swept under the rug as an accident if I were careless.

I definitely understand Prothean from when Shiala gave me the Cipher that she had gotten from the Thorian. Too bad I had to kill the plant. We probably could have learned a lot from it. But it did try to kill me so it's not like I had a lot of options. Anyway, this signal gave me the unlock code for the stasis pod. Next signal showed me how to physically open it. We were set.

Thing that really pisses me off are all the colonists who are dead. We found people watching games, in the kitchen, in bed or whatever but gunned down. No survivors where we were. And the sound of flies buzzing was terrible. It's not like I don't know death but this is just wrong. Whatever good was in Cerberus that allowed them to bring me back in fight the Collectors is now gone. Fortunately, we found some intel on Cerberus and there activities that we could pass on to the resistance. It should help them get Cerberus out.

We got back to the pod and I transmitted the signal to start waking the Prothean up. Then, once that was done, I opened the pod up. The Prothean opened his eyes and immediately went on the attack. He was disoriented and, after I'd touched him, I understood that he suspected he was the last of his kind. He said he'd consider helping us. But he wasn't the scientist or philosopher Liara had been hoping for. He was a soldier.

Normandy: Hackett wanted to know what the Prothean knew. Meanwhile, my crew decided to pull out regulations from 30 years ago that had been developed after our disastrous encounter with the turians. It was "assume hostility" and they wouldn't let Liara anywhere near him. But I overrode that and talked with him. He was supposed to return with thousands of his kind and force us to follow them in an attack on the Reapers. He can also "read" biology, which is why he is able to communicate with us. It goes both ways and I had seen his last moments before going into the stasis pod. In the end, the Prothean called Javik agreed to fight with us but he was no scientist and couldn't help with the Crucible.

Miriam Shepard infiltrated a geth dreadnought...

Ordered the Normandy to the Far Rim to rendezvous with the Migrant Fleet. Welcomed the five admirals aboard: Heavy Fleet commander Han'Gerrel, Civilian Fleet commander Zaal'Koris, Patrol Fleet commander Shala'Raan, head of research Daro'Xen... and geth expert Tali'Zorah.

Learned that an all-out war against the geth has been launched, aiming to re-take Rannoch. War-hawks Gerrel and Xen proposed the action, cautiously supported by Raan. Koris and Tali opposed. Geth have aligned themselves with Reapers in response; Reapers have upgraded their AI, broadcasting control signal from a dreadnought close to Rannoch.

(Lousy time for the admirals to take this action. Quarian people deserve better leaders. As James put it, the galactic situation seems to be making everyone loco).

Spoke with Tali privately. Delighted to have her back aboard the Normandy. She's troubled; weight of responsibility almost too much for her, and frustrated at the foolishness of the war.

Spoke with Raan about the Migrant Fleet's status. Entire flotilla is on war footing; civilian liveships converted into dreadnoughts. Madness.

Used Spectre privileges to requisition an M-11 Wraith shotgun to repay Tali for the Adas rifle. Immediately indebted again: received a newly-designed Arc Pistol from her.

Formulated plan to infiltrate geth dreadnought to disable Reaper control signal. Ordered Normandy to Rannoch in stealth mode; dropped out of FTL into the middle of a colossal fleet battle. Boarded dreadnought with Tali and Ashley. (Anti-geth operation with them; almost like being back on the old Normandy). Breather helmets necessary; no oxygen on a geth ship. That aside, Tali found interior quite similar to quarian vessels.

Encountered only light resistance from geth troops en route to operations centre; geth were not expecting intruders. Unable to disable control signal from ops centre due to lockdown; proceeded to engine core via main battery. Progress impeded by electrostatic discharges from cannon fire. (And for every discharge, a quarian ship took a hit).

At engine core, discovered control signal being emitted by an autonomous geth unit, seemingly against its "will". Disconnected it; would have destroyed it immediately, but it assisted in shutting down dreadnought's drive core in spite of heavy resistance from geth forces including Prime units. With drive core and shields disabled, quarian Heavy Fleet began bombardment of dreadnought immediately; commandeered a geth fighter to escape. (With its four small "legs", fighter resembles tiny Reaper).

Returned to Normandy; yelled at Gerrel for attacking the dreadnought instead of pulling the Fleet out to protect the civilians. Tempted to lamp him, but thought better of it.

Interrogated geth unit recovered from drive core; it is an autonomous virtual intelligence, not connected to geth hive mind, created to study Reapers. Holograms approximate appearance of geth unit encountered on derelict Reaper during Collector crisis. Claims that Saren's Reaper-aligned geth were "heretics" outside of the "true" hive. (Not seeing much difference now that the "true" geth are Reaper-aligned).

Learned that Admiral Koris and his crew were shot down over Rannoch while defending the fleet from planetary cannon. Without Koris' leadership, civilian captains may attempt to leave the flotilla to flee the war. Took Tali and EDI down to Rannoch to rescue him. After disembarking from the shuttle, Tali needed a moment, understandably overwhelmed to be walking on her homeworld.

Evaluated Arc Pistol, replacing Alliance M-5 Phalanx as secondary weapon. Charged shots highly effective at neutralizing enemies when close-quarters combat unwise. Seems that quarians make the best small arms in the galaxy.

Unable to contact Koris due to interference from geth communications tower. Towwer protected by anti-aircraft guns; proceeded to tower through moderate geth resistance; used nearby mounted turrets to repel geth while tech specialists deactivated AA guns. Of Koris' crew, found only one survivor, Dorn'Hazt, too seriously wounded to treat; posthumously granted "vas Rannoch" ship name by Tali.

Cortez destroyed comms tower using shuttle's cannons. Rendezvoused with shuttle and radioed Koris for pickup. Koris requested that his remaining crew be saved instead; persuaded him that the Civilian Fleet would likely be lost without his leadership. Extracted Koris safely and returned to Normandy.

[Because I wanted this playthrough to be a bit different from my first one, I arranged things in ME2 so that Miriam, Queen of the Paragons, might plausibly take an anti-geth stance. By leaving Overlord until fairly late in the game, and with the memory of Tali's loyalty mission still in her mind, I rationalized that she'd be a little too leery of geth to want to reactivate Legion. And by not doing that, she has less information about the geth's true nature. Being strongly pro-quarian is doubtless swaying her too. (That's as much me as it is Miriam, and I make no apologies for it )

Yes, I really did buy one of the most expensive guns in the game just for a squadmate. Tali is worth it.

I had forgotten that the background music on the dreadnought is the lobby music from multiplayer.

Geth are such fun for vanguarding against, but I had to take the second half of the geth dreadnought much more carefully due to the electric shocks in the main battery, and the bosh'tet Primes at the end. (In multiplayer, the only vanguard I'd risk going toe-to-toe with a Prime is the krogan, and even then, only in Silver). Had to do most of the final battle using the Phalanx, having run out of Adas ammo and inferno grenades.

Blasting Primes to pieces using the mounted turrets in Koris' mission was thoroughly cathartic ]

I don't know that ME3-dislike is a majority opinion; though as with all things, it's the people with strong opinions who are the most vocal.  The second half of your sentence is why I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite thread in the SP forum: it's where people can talk about what they've enjoyed playing recently.  I do like the consistently positive vibe in this thread.

Mark Shepard:

We found Garneau. He claimed the Leviathan was a myth but a vid call we'd found earlier talked of a Leviathan artifact. When we mentioned that he started to behave differently. The same voice that took over Bryson's assistant was coming out of Garneau's mouth. We were talking to the Leviathan. I said I wanted its help. Instead, it shattered a window and took off.

During the pursuit we encountered more Reaper forces. Yet, at least initially, they were more concerned with following Garneau than attacking us. Then I found a weapon that a Reaper had dropped. It kicked some serious ass but was one shot only. Wish to hell we could replicate it.

When we caught up to Garneau he was lying next to an artifact like it Bryson's lab with multiple husks coming for him. He activated a detonator that destroyed himself, the artifact and the husks. Which is when it got even weirder. Javik found a body that looked identical to Garneau. A data pad suggested it was actually him so I have no idea what we were talking to. Then some miners approached. They seemed to have come out of a daze and spoke normally. None of them recognized Garneau. They spoke of being in a dark place, something Bryson's assistant also mentioned. Plus, "the darkness cannot be breached" line. When they didn't know what Reapers were I finally asked them what year they thought it was. 2176. Damn. These people were missing 10 years of their lives because miners had stumbled across an artifact in the mines.

Miriam Shepard liberated Rannoch...

Quarian intelligence isolated location of Reaper base on Rannoch broadcasting short-range control signal to nearby geth. Orbital strike impossible due to jamming, but possibility of painting signal source with targeting laser from the ground. Also learned of nearby geth fighter squadron causing trouble to the Migrant Fleet; after consideration, decided to concentrate on hitting the main base to deal with the whole situation.

Took a shuttle to Rannoch with Tali and James. Geth VI accompanied due to interest in seeing geth liberated from Reaper control. En route, it admitted that Reaper code still active within its programming, elevating it above emergent consciousness to true AI; sufficiently intelligent to bypass Reaper security. Unhappy that it concealed the truth; Tali also agitated.

Disembarked from shuttle; again, Tali needed a moment. In daylight (Koris' rescue had been under cover of night), Rannoch's arid red landscape seemed serene; very different to the similarly-arid but utterly ruined Tuchanka.

Entered geth/Reaper base with Tali and James, while VI took another route to secure getaway transport. Met only light resistance from geth soldiers and rocket troopers. Security system triggered; closed blast shield over base; proceeded deeper into base to activate override. Listened to comm chatter from admirals coordinating fleet battle; Migrant Fleet consistently seemed to have the upper hand.

Heavier resistance within base, including from Prime units. Recovered geth plasma shotgun and "Spitfire" mini-gun; found the latter unwieldy; dealt with Primes using small arms, grenades, L5n abilities and Tali's hacking skills.

Located shaft above Reaper comms station. Targeted using laser; Normandy bombarded from orbit; source of comms signal turned out to be an actual Reaper. Fled to evac shuttle procured by geth VI unit. Signaled quarian Heavy Fleet to synchronize with targeting laser. Aimed at Reaper's sole known weak point (main cannon); orbital strike neutralized it.

Spoke to Reaper before it went offline. It claimed that Reapers bring order to chaos; that the harvest is salvation for the people of the galaxy.

Geth VI proposed uploading its Reaper code into the geth hive, upgrading them to true intelligence. Was unwilling to trust it following its earlier duplicity, especially considering likely geth response to presence of hostile Migrant Fleet. Tali also terrified by implications of truly intelligent geth. VI unit responded aggressively and attempted upload anyway. Tali neutralized it using concealed blade.

Geth fleet obliterated by quarian flotilla.

Tali requested permission to formally rejoin Normandy crew; wishes to aid her people by helping to defend them from the Reapers instead of immediately joining recolonization effort. Very pleased to accept. Sat with her as she removed her mask, looking on her homework with her own eyes.

Returned to Normandy, checked in with crew. EDI expressed reservations about the destruction of a synthetic race; opined that things might have been different if geth had been designed as individuals from the outset, like her. Joker, Garrus, Javik and James supportive of geth destruction. Liara supportive of quarians, but regretful of outcome. (Ashley unable to express an opinion due to hangover following all-night drinking session with James).

Checked in with Tali, making herself busy in the engine room. Civilian Fleet already joining war effort, assisting with evacuation of colonies threatened by Reapers. Heavy Fleet making repairs using material recovered from remnants of geth fleet; geth tech still understandable by quarian engineers despite three centuries of divergence. Migrant Fleet pledged to assist in retaking Earth.

The timing of all this was poor, and some of Gerrel's decisions were rash; still, can't argue with the outcome. Quarians have retaken their home; war effort has secured a powerful ally.

Gave an interview to Allers; spoke positively of the quarians' proven record in anti-synthetic warfare.

[Considering my Paragon approach to the Mass Effect trilogy, it almost feels guilty to say this, but: I killed the geth, and I liked it It's a fun coincidence that fraggle 's Renegade Shepard brokered peace on the same day that my Paragon failed to do so.

In my first playthrough, Legion had some dialogue about finding the Reaper upgrades "beautiful", "indicative of life", and worth dying for. I don't know whether I just failed to trigger those this time, or whether the geth VI simply doesn't offer that perspective. Perhaps the fighter squadron mission is required to trigger it? I didn't play that mission in order to conceal the truth about the geth from Miriam and thus make her decision "easier"; it was quite easy to handwave a strategic decision to avoid playing the mission.

Listening to the difference in tone between taking Renegade dialogue options when interacting with the VI and Paragon options when speaking with Tali was interesting, very much gave the impression of a person who has clearly picked a side.

The mission was fairly smooth-going (lots of vanguarding fun), apart from the bit with the three Primes. After a couple of false starts, I decided to forget about the Spitfires and deal with them conventionally, used Tali's Sabotage (hot Prime-on-Prime action!) and combat drone as distractions. Even got some Charges in, to detonate coup-de-grâce fire explosions.

The final part, with the Reaper, took many do-overs, as I knew it would; I found it very tough on my first playthrough.

I do like that there are dissenting voices on the Normandy; I thought Tricia Helfer's subdued delivery of EDI's lines during the aftermath conversation was particularly good, lending the smallest hint of emotion to EDI's usually-neutral voice.]