What did you do today in ME?

Finished ME1 again. This is actually my "canon". Romanced Liara, ran with her and Tali at the end, but listened to Tali and focused on Sovereign. Now on to ME2, whereby I dump Liara.

As much as I like Liara and Ash at the end, this works for me more. Because then I run with Jack and Legion. Then Javik and EDI.

I like that. Krogan in a bottle  Don't believe I've heard/read that before.

Not much activity for Shawna Shepard today. She talked to the crew a bit, did a little shopping, then helped Garrus fill Dr. Saleon/Dr. Heart full of bullets.

Jenna's died a couple of times today, once by random guards early on in Jack's recruitment mission (keep your barriers up girl!) and the obligatory at least once in the final fight on Horizon.

Jenna got a call from the Illusive Man asking her to check out the colony on Horizon, and by the way, your old flame Kaidan's there. The place was swarming with collectors, including one who seemed like all he wanted to do was piss Jen off, but Mordin's whatjamacallit worked. Ran into Kaidan, he wasn't entirely pleased to see her. Is it over for Jenna and Kaidan? It probably depends on how bored Jenna gets waiting for Garrus to finish his calibrations...

Brief Update:

--Did some more scanning. Promised my finger that I would only stick to the worlds that are likely to have eezo, like most garden and post-garden planets.

--Started the Zaeed mission at almost max Paragon. Yes, I've got some renegade. Shep has got a mouth this time around and has no qualms shoving mercs out the window or taking a free shot.

--Got to the last fight area with the mech. Game locks up along with the PS3. Known bug and it happens at random. First time it's happened to me. May it be the last.

--Restart the console and the game. Finished the mission. Paragon outcome, naturally.

--While shopping, Shep told Ish that selling out Aria was a terrible idea.

--Saving on Omega and shutting the PS3 off for a couple of hours.


Next update!

--Samara's loyalty mission. I was going to do Mordin and Grunt's next, but I'm already at Omega.

--Grunt's loyalty mission. Krogan Dancing with Worms.

--Mordin's loyalty mission. You can probably guess what my Shep is going to do here.

--"The square root of 3.14 is 1.77. It all seemed harmless."

ME1 is still a very solid game overall, but it's age does show in parts. I think the inventory system and the autosave feature has aged the poorest.

Random ME2 fact! Ish, the salarian on Omega, has a history with Jacob. Apparently they worked together once and Jacob does not like Ish at all.

ME1 was terrible with the autosaves.  ME2 was similar when it came to Firewalker.  ME3 was, in balance, good with the autosaves.

Jonathan Shepard:

1. Talked with Aria T'Loak in private about helping he retake Omega from Cerberus. Man, those guys are a pain in the ass.

2. Answered a distress call from Kahlee Sanders at Grissom Academy. Apparently she's an old friend of Anderson's. Jack was also there. She punched me in the face for working with Cerberus. I already know what they are but I can't feel guilty about taking out the Collectors. However, I did save Jack, all of her biotic students, and - once again - David Archer. I sent him here to get away from that monster he calls a brother. All students survived. Suck it, Cerberus.

3. Visited Kaidan again. He's now the second human Spectre. Definitely earned it. Invited him to join the Normandy again but he wants to look for his old spec ops students.

4. Spoke to Miranda. Her sister Oriana has gone missing. She thinks her father is behind it but she doesn't want me help, at least not yet.

5. Helped Jondum Bau track down an indoctrinated hannar diplomat. Kasumi helped out, secretly, but then badly faked her death to avoid arrest. In the end, the hannar homeworld was saved, Bau got together a Spectre unit to aid in the war effort and Kasumi was convinced to use her hacking skills on the Crucible project. Not a bad day's work.

6. Met with Primarch Victus, Urdnot Wrex and the salaraian dalatross. The salarians refuses to see sense, preferring to risk the annihilation of everything over the cure for the genophage that Wrex has demanded. She'd never have gone along with the retrieval of krogan females that Maelon had cured on Tuchanka several months earlier except that Victus told her plainly she'd have an enemy in the turians for doing so. Somehow her twisted mind translated that into me being a bully - when, in fact, it's her who's playing that part.

7. Landed on Sur'kesh with Wrex, Liara and Garrus.

Kinda funny not doing Omega first and going to the Citadel early. Dr. Michel still sends her letter when you get back on the Normandy, wondering if you know what Garrus is up to. She just assumes you're both alive together. But the letter is funny, because it's all an excuse to just talk about Garrus. She's definitely got a crush.

Part 3. Stage one of ME2

****

They took out the security mechs across the hall smoothly, moving as a team. Just after the last mech went down, they received a call for help from someone called Watson. Shepard frowned for the name was familiar. Before she could place a face to the name, the shock and surprise in the man's voice when he learned she was awake roused her suspicion. Not noticing her reaction, Jacob instructed him to stay low, they were on their way. Probing him about her circumstance was out of the question when they were not safe so she moved readily when he suggested she took point since she was in a hardsuit.

While she trusted him enough not to shoot her in the back in the middle of a bad situation, she could not ignore the possibility he might be playing her. So she kept him at the peripheral of her sight when possible. They ran into several more mechs and cleared them out as they made their way to the upper floor. Watson sent them another message, more frantic this time. He was cut off abruptly just as he shouted he was shot. Jacob moved forward anxiously, quickening the pace to one of the doors on the next floor.

Opening the door, Jacob stepped in cautiously. There was no one except a man dressed in the black grey white shipsuit, leaning against a stack of crates and bleeding from a wound on his thigh. When she saw his face, Shepard recalled she had seen him before. She had thought it was a dream, waking up in pain, but it was not. As Jacob attended to him, she surveyed the room. There were no remnants of mechs. Nor was there any blood trail leading from the door on the other side. If this Watson claimed he was attacked and survived it, it was plainly false.

"Thanks," said Watson.

"I remember you. You were there when I woke up," Shepard said easily as she stepped nearer, noting the wary look Watson flashed at her. There was also fear which he hid quickly.

"Yeah," he said shortly. "I guess you didn't think we would meet so soon again eh?" He tried a smile and dropped it when she only looked at him.

"What're you doing here? This is the tech security section," said Jacob.

"I came here to do something about the mechs."

"You're med staff, what did you think you could do?" Jacob said in puzzlement.

"Hell, I have to try. What do you want me to do, stand there and be shot?" Watson snapped.

"Have you heard from someone called Miranda?" Shepard asked.

Watson scowled. "Miranda? I never heard anything from her. I don't know what happened to make the security mechs go crazy but she has high clearance. Maybe she's the one who caused it."

Jacob stared at him in astonishment. "Why would she do that?"

"How would I know? Maybe she has a secret agenda, to kill you maybe," Watson said and looked at Shepard.

"Then why did she wake me up?" asked Shepard. Watson went white at that.

"So she's the one who woke you," Jacob frowned, not noticing Watson's reaction. "It couldn't be her."

"If she's not responsible, why haven't we heard from her?" Watson demanded.

"She could be trapped somewhere. We have to find her."

"Fuck Miranda, we have to get out of here," said Watson as he hobbled to his feet.

"I'm not moving until I get some answers," said Shepard. "Who are you, who are you working for and where is this place?"

Both men stared at her.

"Well?" Shepard directed her glare at Jacob.

"All right." Jacob shrugged. "We..."

"We're not supposed to tell her anything," Watson interrupted. "Not our place."

"It's not going to help us if she doesn't trust us."

Watson shrugged. "It's your funeral."

"We work for Cerberus."

I had forgotten how prettiful Virmire is. It's almost as if Bioware intended a deliberate contrast to the events at the end of the mission...

Miriam Shepard chose Ashley and Kaidan as her squad for the drive to the salarian camp. It was as if she felt a premonition to take the two of them together.

At the camp, Captain Kirrahe explained Saren's scheme to breed a krogan army, and his own plan to destroy it in nuclear fire. Wrex was understandably furious that defeating Saren meant destroying a hope for his people, but Shepard calmed him down. (No Charm option was offered during the conversation; I understand this was because I'd done his loyalty mission). Even so, she thought it best not to choose him for any subsequent missions on Virmire, lest his feelings get the better of him.

Shepard assigned Ashley to assist Kirrahe's troops and picked Tali and Liara as her party for Shadow team. They pressed onwards towards Saren's labs, detouring as necessary to disrupt the geth communications, satellite uplink and drone refuelling. Arriving at the facility, they were distressed to discover Kirrahe's vanguard troops, indoctrinated and hostile. Despite hoping that those in the cells were still lucid, they had no option but to euthanize them after they too proved hostile.

After destroying the main research lab and putting the lead krogan scientist down, Shepard and co happened upon Saren's private offices, occupied only by a self-serving asari neuroscientist regretful of her career choice. Miriam gave her a head start to high-tail it out of there before the nuke went off.

Exploring Saren's private rooms, the party discovered a second Prothean beacon and a communication link with Sovereign, where they learned the awful truth about Saren's vessel's true nature.

With the bomb in place, Kirrahe and Ashley's squad came under intense fire. While half-way to their position to assist, Shepard was radioed by Kaidan, whose squad was under similar pressure. Knowing that he couldn't hold out for long, Kaidan armed the nuke, and now there was only time for Shepard to save one of her comrades.

I made opposite decision from my first playthrough. The first time, I made the decision trying to think like a military officer, deciding to protect the most valuable military asset. However, as a gamer and enjoyer of stories, I regretted the decision almost immediately. The character who died was my favourite of the two; the survivor never made it into my main squad in ME3, as it happens. So this time, I did it the other way round.

And the decision?



Miriam had no opportunity to think about her decision as the party came under attack by Saren himself. Attempting to Charm the rogue Spectre into seeing things her way proved futile, he proved to be too far indoctrinated to be reasoned with. Despite their best efforts, the party were unable to prevent Saren's retreat.