What did you do today in ME?

I do that sometimes too. Same here with Armax/Garrus lol. Elanus looks good for Liara and Tali, I guess..even if it is Turian.

Although this last run I intentionally gimped everyone and just kept HK weapons.

Bah. Restarted ME2. It just feels right to do Omega first, after all. Or maybe get Jack, then Omega. I dunno.

Thematically, it kind of makes sense to go to Omega. With the whole Hell/Afterlife theme. And the two Cerberus dogs with you. Jack isn't in Hell, but Purgatory.. which seems more like a second step. And so on and so forth. Horizon is like a sign that things are getting better, so that comes after everything automatically, of course.

Plus, Aria gives you a Datapad that takes you to Jack/Hourglass Cluster anyways. As open as the game is, they still seem to direct things a little.

Jonathan Shepard:

1. Rescued "Eve", a krogan female who has been cured of the genophage, from Sur'kesh. Fortunately, because Mordin and I saved Maelon's data when he was experimenting on the krogan females, she's been made healthier than she would otherwise have been. The rest of the females died before Mordin could make use of this data.

2. Went to visit the rachni relay. Grunt was present, leading Aralakh Company. Found evidence of reaperfied-rachni. Eventually discovered the rachni queen, who was chained in place. Chose to free her, just as I had a couple years prior on Noveria. All of Aralakh died except Grunt. A bonus is that the rachni have proven extremely useful in working on the Crucible.

3. Learned of a Cerberus plot to abduct humans on Benning. Headed out there to stop them. Cerberus said it "wasn't them". But, really, who would impersonate them? And it's not even a little unusual for Cerberus to take unwilling subjects for their experiments.

4. Nice chat with Steve watching the ships coming into the Citadel. Need this guy in top shape or he's not going to make it.

5. Informed Ambassador Osoba about the death of his son on Benning. Based on chatter from his squadmates near Purgatory, he gave his life to save them.

6. Gave a Prothean obelisk to a volus outside of the embassies. I think it's actually a crime not to turn this artifacts over to the Council but *shrug* I have one on my desk, too.

7. Informed an asari named Ereba that her krogan mate Charr died fighting the rachni.

8. Reactivated an ancient krogan cannon and kept it out of the hands of Cerberus.

9. The dalatrass tried to convince me to sabotage the krogan cure. Like I said before, she'd rather genocide for the entire galaxy because of her fears. If it were anyone other than Wrex I might agree with her but he won't let the krogan live in the past. He's building a real future.

10. With EDI and James, set boots on Palaven to have Mordin load the cure for the genophage. Encountered a few problems, like a Reaper that was using the Shroud to poison the atmosphere. Eve came up with a plan to sic a thresher maw on it. This one had a name - Kalross, the Mother of All Thresher Maws. It lived up to its name. I've fought thresher maws before but this one was just as big as the Reaper. The plan worked and the Reaper was destroyed. Mordin got into the Shroud to make sure that the cure was released into Tuchanka. Unfortunately, the Shroud blew up with Mordin in it. For all that I was initially mistrustful of him when Cerberus had me recruit him a year ago, I was truly saddened to lose someone I came to see as a friend.

11. Stupid nightmare. Chased the boy who I watched die on Earth. Heard Ash's voice. Now Mordin's joined the mix. Like last time, the boy burned before my eyes. Hell of a way to wake up.

12. The salarian councilor, Valern, wanted to talk to me. He suspected Udina might be dirty. I've always suspected he was shady so I'm not surprised. I agreed to investigate.

13. Returned to the Citadel. All official channels offline. Thane warned that Cerberus had attacked.

14. Went into battle with Garrus and James. Saved Commander Bailey and then headed out to find Valern. For the most part, I found a lot of dead members of C-Sec. The rest were Cerberus, who joined the others in death. Found Valern but he was attacked by some weird guy who a sword (later learned he was called Kai Leng) who had a Cerberus logo on his chest. Thane showed up in time to keep Valern from dying but suffered a sword through the gut. Chasing after Kai Leng led me straight to the Council. Kaidan was protecting them. Udina nearly convinced Kaidan I was with Cerberus but the second human Spectre knew he could trust me. He backed down. When Udina tried to open the door where Cerberus agents were coming, and then pulled a gun on Tevos, Kaidan had to shoot him. It wasn't a fun day but Kaidan finally agreed to join my on the Normandy afterward.

15. Went to see Thane on his deathbed. His son, Kolyat, was also present. I helped him read some final prayers. If there was ever any doubt what a great man Thane was, those last prayers were said for me instead of himself. At the end, he didn't fear for himself; his thoughts were on me.

Daily log of events!

--Did Samara's mission. As soon as I went back to the galaxy map, the second game crash happened. What's funny is that I remember the first time I played ME2 on my PC. The game crashed at the same point. However, as it CTD, an image of Mornith flashed on the screen, with her black eyes.

--Waited a couple of hours and played with my dogs. Fired the game back up.

--Did Grunt's mission. I made sure I had one shot of the Cain and brought my Widow. I got the shot off, but it was Garrus that made the kill shot. One worm down and dead.

--Did Mordin's mission. I brought Samara, which was a story mistake. Garrus makes a few comments. Samara makes exactly one. I still really enjoy that mission. It's probably one of two I'd say that ties into the overarching plot. Tali's is the other.

--Successfully dodged any chance of being ninjamanced by Jacob. I did all of his conversations for the first time since my first playthrough. He's really not bad, but whereas Kaidan strikes me as more levelheaded and calm, Jacob just seems boring.

--Shut the game off because it's the weekend and my husband is off of work.

Next time!

--Overlord. Hurrah for the story. Boo for that damn Hammerhead.

--Lair of the Shadow Broker. Pretty good story, but some of the upgrades are very nice.

--Sidequests!

--Arrival. My favorite DLC in ME2. Delightfully unsettling in parts.

I'm waiting to do Tali's mission until after I get Legion. I can't resist bringing a geth onto the Flotilla. On a gameplay level, having two party members with AI Hacking is very useful for dealing with the geth. I use Tali for Legion's mission as well.

Continuing from earlier:

On the way to Sol, Shepard stopped off in the Artemis Tau cluster, where Admiral Kahoku had determined the precise location of his recon team. While orbiting the planet Edolus in the Sparta system, Joker discovered a weak transponder signal originating from the surface.

Lillith looked out across the barren wastes of Edolus, large rocky debris burning up as it entered the atmosphere and smashing into the ground. Through the dusty, yellow haze, Shepard noticed a smoking vehicle nearby. This is not good, she thought, as Kaidan followed more tyre tracks leading off to the North-West, while controlling the vehicle expertly along the soft, sillicate sands.

As they came over a hill, Shepard saw something which shocked her. It was a massacre. An overturned M-29 Grizzly, had been torn in half, several armoured bodies had been flung around like rag dolls, scattered across the deserted waste. The ground had been completely torn up, with a large distress beacon flickering across the sand.

"Get on that gun, Williams!"

A slight audible vibration had risen to a deafening roar, as a Thresher Maw burst through the ground. Lillith had never seen anything like it, aside from the vids of the Akuze massacre, where about thirty marines, one from Shepard's old barracks during her basic training, had lost their lives.

After a few minutes of heavy gunfire and frantic evasive driving, the Thresher fell below the ground, a large dust cloud thrown up into the air.

"Those were Kahoku's men. We need to tell him what happened."

...

I was making my ways through the sidequests, enjoying the exploration (I LOVE scanning the planets for resources and doing the research) and an occasional mission on a moon. 

I did Jack's origin story, and it was very good, made me actually like the character.

Then, I finally got to Illlium, and while I do not like the large hubs, I got my next moment of: "and when I thought he game can't get any better...." Ta-da-da! I meet Thane. Oh, please, BioWARE don't be like always, please, don't make him yet another coolest male character in the without a romance. Aww....

Shawna Shepard was a little busy today:

1. Helped Wrex take down Tonn Actus and retrieve his family armor. (SPOILER ALERT: She is still going to kill Wrex on Virmire.)

2. Answered a distress call that turned out to be a Geth trap. The Geth were trapped on the same planet as Shepard. The Geth did not survive.

3. Major Kyle was leading a cult of biotics. He had killed some Alliance investigators. The Alliance wanted Shawna to take care of the situation. She managed to convince the cultists to let her speak to Major Kyle by telling them she was with him on Torfan. Major Kyle was not so easily convinced to surrender. Shawna shot him, then put down every last cult member in the commune.

4. Shawn landed on a planet and found Rachni at a base. She killed them all. Then she travelled to another planet and helped an Alliance outpost stave off some Rachni attacks, before exterminating the rest of the Rachni in their nest underground. She tracked the Rachni shipments to an unmanned ship. She destroyed the ship. The whole operation had been run by that Cerberus group.

5. Shawna tracked down and killed the two crime bosses for Helena Blake. Then she went to go see Helena Blake. Helena Blake resisted arrest so Shawna killed her and wiped out the rest of the gang.

6. Shawna found Exogeni's missing research team. They had been turned into husks.

7. Chairman Burns had been kidnapped by biotic extremists. Shawna tried to negotiate with them, but they shot the chairman. That was the last mistake they ever made.

8. Shawna found a ship adrift in space. It was filled with husks. It was the Geth's fault apparently.

Jonathan Shepard:

1. Took Kaidan and Liara with me to New Eden to retrieve a Prothean artifact. It turned out to be a Prothean but it required dealing with Cerberus yet again. This Prothean was alive and in stasis. His name is Javik and, once awakened, he came on board the Normandy.

2. Played chess with Traynor - she kicked my butt. Gave an interview to Allers about the Cerberus attack on the Citadel. Talked to James about him joining the N7 program - which he later decided to go for by getting a tattoo. Met Garrus on the Citadel. Let him "win" a shooting contest. It made him happy. Stopped Cerberus from poisoning medigel dispensers on the holding docks. Conrad Verner was involved but he did try to save my life by jumping in front of a bullet for me. Turned out the gun had been sabotaged by Jenna - a waitress I had helped out shortly after being assigned to the Normandy 3 years ago. Went out to dinner with Kaidan. We solidified our relationship and are now a couple - no secrets this time around, regardless of the risk. Put an end to batarian terrorist Ghorlek. He was dying and this was mercy. He had lost family when I destroyed the Alpha Relay - 300,000 batarians died. It was to delay the Reapers but I can see why he'd be angry. Helped C-Sec Officer Jordan Noles disable some batarian codes that led to a hundreds of human deaths. Balak was behind this. I encountered him 3 years ago when I tried to send an asteroid crashing into Terra Nova. I let him go in order to save civilian lives. Ironic that I later sent an asteroid into the Alpha Relay and destroyed a batarian colony. In the end, since he was the highest ranking batarian alive, I convinced Balak to give the remained of his fleet to the fight against the Reapers.

3. Went back to Tuchanka with Kaidan and Javik. First we rescued a turian squad that was on a mission to disable a bomb that Cerberus had control of. Then we had to help them actually disable the bomb. Primarch Victus's son was in charge and the whole thing was a disaster. The one good thing that came out of it was that the bomb was taken care of. It cost Lt. Victus his life. Kaidan and I talked about how much the whole situation reminded us of Virmire where Ash went with the STG team while Kaidan armed a bomb. I could only save one of them. In retrospect, it's obvious why I chose Kaidan. I miss Ash, but then I wouldn't have Kaidan by my side.

4. Investigating an Ardat-Yakshi monastery. Samara had previously said there were only 3 known Ardat-Yakshi, all of them her daughters. Turns out that wasn't the truth. There was a bunch of them but these ones weren't violent. Still, they couldn't mate without killing so here they are. No surprise that Samara is here. The Reapers had invaded. They killed or transformed the Ardat-Yakshi into banshees - very powerful biotics. Their screams actually hurt Kaidan. I wonder if it's because of the dark energy since it doesn't bother me so much. At the end, Samara's daughter Rila sacrificed her life to detonate a bomb that killed all of the banshees. Falere, the other daughter, was the only survivor. She vowed to remain in the ruins of the monastery. That's good because otherwise Samara was going to kill her. Samara wouldn't join me on the Normandy but she has taken up the fight.

5. Found some ex-Cerberus scientists on the run. Jacob Taylor was with them and trying to defend them. We got them all out alive and put them to work on the Crucible.

6. Kaidan flirted and then questioned if the Illusive Man were ever a good person. Hell if I know.

Lillith Shepard arrived through the Charon relay feeling rather worried. What was going on? Kahoku's men were lured into a Thresher Maw's nest, but who did it? Lillith wanted some answers, but they would have to wait for now.

The Earth loomed up as Joker dropped the Normandy out of conventional FTL, however, they turned off towards Luna. A few hours later, Lillith, Kaidan and Tali had kitted up and were sitting inside the Mako. The cargo bay door opened, a green light flashed on, and the vehicle's wheels were detached from the ground.

A minute later, an orange concussive missile flew towards the Mako, yet the shields flashed up, disintergrating the missile before it could deal some real damage.

All six Alliance turrets destroyed, Lillith stepped out from the mako and headed inside the first bunker. A swarm of combat drones approached and began firing. However, after tech mines exploded, warp fields swirled, and bullets flew, the drones were nothing but scrap metal littering the floor.

The whole operation took about 20 minutes, until the last of the VI conduits flickered and died. Some binary rapidly flashed up on a screen, then disappeared.

'So,' Kaidan said 'back to the Normandy for a byte to eat, I reckon.'

'You know I have zero tolerance for puns, Alenko' said Shepard 'one day I shall be forced to sanction you.'

Returned to Tuchanka and helped the Turians disarm the bomb there -

Jenna took Jack back to her old stomping ground. It was fairly harrowing for everybody involved, but i felt extra badly for Kasumi who seemed more distressed about it than Jack was. Still, Jack can have a t-shirt to wear now, I fear for the poor girl, she'll catch her death of cold. I'm trying to play Jenna more renegade, but still had a virtually full paragon meter and managed to break up the Jack vs Miranda fight without upsetting anybody. Probably just as well, I thought Jenna would get along with Miranda well, but I think she feels closer to Jack.

I thought it about time to go and collect Thane, so Jenna headed back to Ilium. Still loving those salarian builders, Nassana kind of deserved what she got just for abusing those poor guys. Jenna didn't have a lot of sympathy for Nassana, she hates snobs and people who think that riches mean they can walk all over the little people. She should really meet Sera from Dragon Age.

Also she flirted a little with Garrus, and that was great fun. Kaidan who?