What did you do today in ME?

Ah, then I misunderstood you, apologies. I'd had it in my head that peace was possible with a non-admiral Tali if the heretics were destroyed because the geth forces are somewhat weaker that way, making the quarians more amenable to standing down.

Well, in that case, Melody Shepard's ME3 story will not go quite according to my original plan.

From the Journal of Ioan Shepard:

- Daratar: It's an Eclipse smuggling site. Cerberus wants to steal from the smugglers. Can you guess how much I don't care which group of criminals has it? Well, I got 6150 credits out of it. I suppose it was worth my time.
- Normandy: A message from Kate Bowman came through. She wanted to thank me for saving Terra Nova on the anniversary of me and my squad saving it from destruction by batarian terrorists. And she told me I'm doing the right thing now. Nice to hear. Also heard from Chairman Burns, who did come through for those biotics with L2 implants who suffered from serious mental problems. He said he's taken some heat for his decisions but is glad he was convinced to do the right thing. Sometimes a gun to your head will do that.
- Zanethu: Distress signal from the MSV Estevanico. Found the wreckage teetering on the edge of a cliff. Needed to find its black box. Good times. Accessed the mainframe just in time. Hotfooted it to the shuttle as the Estevanico fell into the chasm. A follow up email said that it was attacked by the Blood Pack and was the first lucky Alliance encounter with the vorcha. "How frightened they must have been!" a museum curator wrote. What an ass.
- Purgatory, a Blue Suns prison ship: This was my last recruit, a convict named Jack. I already suspected the worst considering who was running this place so I thought "thugs" were the people to bring with me. That meant Zaeed and Grunt. Let's just say I wasn't surprised when Warden Kuril tried to ransom me to Cerberus, I wasn't surprised. Fighting ensued. I released Jack, who was a powerful biotic. She tore path through the ship which we followed, cleaning up anyone that she didn't kill. It came to a showdown with Kuril but he lost. Jack was pissed when she realized her rescuers were with Cerberus. Apparently, they'd met before. I agreed to hand over any files she wanted to see if it would help move things along. Fuck if I care what she finds out about Cerberus. Miranda wasn't happy about it but, then, if you're scared of your secrets maybe you're not in the right.
Normandy: TIM told me that he had intel that the Collectors were going to attack the human colony of Horizon. He also said Kaidan Alenko was there, despite it being in the Terminus Systems. Officially an outreach program, his presence there is believed not to be a coincidence. Fortunately, Mordin had found a way to protect us against the Collector swarms.
- Horizon: Touched down with Garrus and Jack. If she was as powerful as she seemed, she'd come in handy here. Of course, given her lack of protection, I'm sure the swarms are going to take her anyway. The Collectors didn't seem as tough as you would have thought. I'm guessing the swarms take care of most of their opposition and then there isn't much fighting for them to do. Then there were the husks, but no dragon's teeth. That meant the Collectors brought them. Also confirms a link to the Reapers. Even Jack put that one together and she's had no contact with Reapers or Collectors before now. Wish I'd had this biotic charge last time I fought husks. It shreds them.
- Lots of pods around. Also, found colonists frozen in stasis, just standing there with this weird dark energy around them. It's a damn good thing Mordin's field was keeping us invisible to the swarms. Then the Collectors attacked. One transformed and started talking to me by name, telling me how it would destroy me if it had to and that the universe bent to its will. Then I killed it with a Collector Particle Beam I found lying around.
- Talked to Delan, who was convinced the Alliance was at fault for the Collector attack and that Kaidan was there to spy on them. Worse, the GARDIAN defense towers had serious targeting problems. Sounds more like the Collectors were behind that, or maybe indoctrinated agents. As much as the Alliance was being a pain in my ass at the moment, they would not want human colonies to suffer, even those outside of their control.
- Made it to the tower. Had to fight some new kind of husk we were calling Scions. They were way tougher than your average husk, or even the Collectors, but they did go down. Then I hacked into the defense systems and put EDI on the calibration task. However, bringing the batteries online would be obvious and attract attention. More scions, husks and Collectors came our way, including the talkative one called Harbinger. Got to admit that Jack is fun to fight with. She pulls no punches and is perfect for an op like this. Then this thing called a praetorian dropped down. Major defenses that replenished. Reminded me of the geth colossus in that respect. It was full of human skulls, though they looked like husks. There was no end to this horror show. We beat it just as EDI got the GARDIAN online, immediately firing upon the Collector vessel. It retreated. It sucks to call them only taking half the colony a victory.
- Then Kaidan showed up, thankfully not among those taken. He gave me a hug but he didn't seem very happy. He wanted to know why I'd let him believe myself dead for two years and I told him I was in a coma during that time being rebuilt by Cerberus. Then he stepped away. He couldn't see past the Cerberus part, and I couldn't entirely blame him. I felt the same way. I just knew that working with them saved half of this colony. I tried to get him to come with me, but not very hard. In a way, I'm glad he didn't come because I knew we were on a suicide mission. There was every chance some or all of us wouldn't return. His safety mattered more. Yet, it still pissed me off. I wanted him to see me for me, dammit! Even Garrus by my side didn't convince him.
- Normandy: Found out TIM let the Alliance know I was alive and with Cerberus specifically to bring Kaidan to Horizon since he had suspected the Collectors were after me or those close to me. One more reason it's better Kaidan isn't here to be used further against me. TIM also gave me a few more names to track down to help on the mission. Then Hackett contacted me on a private channel to say he had a friend in deep cover who had discovered a Reaper artifact that suggested an invasion was coming. I wanted to check it out but it was going to have to wait. The suicide mission was a priority and since he wanted me to do this solo I didn't think taking off on my own was a good idea.

No but it's ok.   Here is the what did you do today in MEA  thread you're looking for. 

finished ME3. Chose destroy. I will import this character into ME4

There's a particular scenario that I'm wanting to set up for ME3 that involves one of the squad not making it through the suicide mission. I've done some checking with the SM calculator. and it is possible for that squadmate to die and Legion to survive even if Legion isn't loyal yet. So in the event that I'm not able to do Legion's loyalty mission until after the SM, it should still be possible for me to set up both the scenario that I've been planning and the scenario that you describe.

... Shepard's mother and Tali becoming friends? How wonderful

I wanted to finish the Brawler achievement, so I did it the easy way: loaded up some old saves from my Hardcore vanguard playthrough and had some charge-punch-blast fun. (And died a couple of times because Geth Primes, but hey).

I guess that some might find it surprising that I didn't get this achievement fairly early during my vanguard playthrough, but my combat style was to charge and then shoot, without the punch in between.


I now have all the ME2 achievements except for Paramour and Insanity.

From the Journal of Ioan Shepard:

- Karumto: EDI found a research station in a volcano. I mean, of course she did because that's where you put these things. And I had to take the stupid Hammerhead with the faulty power steering issues. I figured if I was gonna die I'd take the Cerberus flunkies with me. Joker could always take the ship back to the Alliance if need be. Hmm...a data log said this site was a road map to a prothean ruin. This mission suddenly took a much more interesting turn. Might make using this Hammerhead worthwhile. Oh, and I forgot. Jacob and Miranda are dead due to catsuits and no head covering in a volcanic environment. Then I activated some sensors. That ended up reigniting the volcano and I wasn't so sure I'd survive. Onyx armor is quality but not meant for live volcanoes.
- Normandy: Kaidan apologized for what he said on Horizon. All well and good but no time to deal with it now. Might draft something to be sent in the event that I don't survive the trip through the Omega 4 relay. Also, Project Firewalker people blabbed on about some transmissions and a significant prothean site I should visit immediately. Yeah, top of my list, buddy. I mean, after feeding my fish and visiting my space hamster. Then came "Jack would like to talk to you". If not for Sha'ira's message, I don't know. But. It turns out Cerberus raised her in a lab, drugging and torturing her until she escaped, all in a rather successful attempt to make her a powerful biotic. No wonder she hated them so much. Also explained the crazy. I wanted to confront someone about it but the way Miranda brushed aside everything I'd seen Cerberus do in the past, or what they'd done when invading the Migrant Fleet, I knew she'd also spin this to somehow make it not their fault. Even setting my own experiences aside, the evidence was continuing to mount as to how dirty they really were. In any case, she found the facility where she'd been raised. It was abandoned now and she wanted to decimate it, blow the place to bits. I was down for it.
- Sinmara: The magnetic shield around a research station was failing. It endangered a small colony. Since I was right there I took care of it. One of the easiest missions ever. Paid better than those crates I salvaged.
- Normandy: "Mordin requests to see you." I mean, do they all wait until I've got other shit to do before saddling me with all their problems? I come visit them all the time, but nothing. Then they spring a crap load on me. In this case, another member of his STG team who had worked on a modified genophage had been captured by the Blood Pack and taken to Tuchanka. Mordin wanted to rescue him. I supposed this was likely more important than blowing up an empty facility full of memories but I wasn't sure I cared too much about the fate of someone who worked on the genophage - and wasn't directly working alongside me.
- Taitus: A YMIR heavy mech is transmitting a looped message. Time to figure out the problem. The mech was disabled. A datapad said a memory leak caused it to drain its power cells quickly. That meant constantly replacing them to get it to do its mission. The reward was minerals. After going into the mine and blowing open a path, it promptly exploded. Plus side was the 5000 platinum it uncovered.
- Normandy: First, spam is a thing. What kind of shitty spam filters does Cerberus have? Second, "Grunt seems very agitated." Grunt is krogan. They all seem agitated. All the time. He doesn't understand his anger and wants to. That meant a trip to Tuchanka, which was fine because it was already on the agenda. I decided Mordin and Grunt took priority. But first, to the Citadel to see if they had any new fish. Thessian sunfish. Score! And for good measure, they had a new model ship. It was Sovereign but, hell, that sucker was dead. This is a reminder of what I had done and what was still to come.

I finished the ME1 PT with Infiltrator Loredana Shepard on Veteran. I wanted to do something different from my previous PTs which had more biotic Shepards. I also got to play around with the sniper rifle which was clunky at first, but became better with higher skills and better quality rifles. Loredana reached Level 53 at the end. I tried to complete all secondary missions: I missed one of the keepers and didn't complete all the planetary fetch quests but otherwise did everything else. On planetary missions, I typically used the Mako rather than dismount for more XP. Any special achievements for going higher?

Loredana romanced Liara and chose to save Kaiden at Virmire. In my first two PTs, my Fem Sheps saved Ashley. Leaving her behind this time was painful; even without romancing her, you do get to learn a lot about her and her backstory is interesting. I tried to get to know Kaiden better this PT, but his backstory seemed far less fleshed out. I learned he's an L2 biotic who suffers migraines as a result of flawed L2 technology. I also learned he killed a sadistic Turian instructor at brain camp. Perhaps he's better in ME3.

A bit put out by Conrad's accusation that Shep shoved a gun in his face, Shep gave him a kick in the nuts. at Aethyta's reaction on hearing that his "wife" paid his shuttle ticket after he bought the N7 armor. Rather than throwing Conrad out by his ear, Shep said she'll look into the asari who sent him to Eternity. Had a chat with Aethyta and learned a bit of her history.

At the market, Shep reconciled an unusual krogan with his girlfriend whom he was trying to convince to have a relationship with him. Shep also sent the asari claiming to be secret police to the Eternity club by saying everything was settled. All she had to do was walked in and claimed ownership.

Met Shiala who asked for help with a medical contract. Shep settled the problem without fuss. After getting discounts, Shep went on a shopping spree, snapping up all the upgrades. Didn't buy any fish though. After that, Shep did some illegal hacking for Liara.

I don't think I'll ever get Paramour because there's no chaste/platonic option, as far as I am aware. Having made it past the Collector ship, Insanity seems achievable now. (And I hope that I haven't jinxed it now )

"Ready for one more?"
"Aw, only one?"
"Sorry, mom. But I'm starting to get tired and I think it's best if we continue tomorrow after I had physiotherapy."
"Wow, you're right. Time flew today, I didn't even realise it's that late already. Okay, then we better get to it right away. Shoot."
"Well, after these few detours, we made our way to Noveria to check up on geth sightings around the area. At Port Hanshan I had a chat with the secretary of the administrator there, Gianna Parasini, who was quite helpful, and not actually a secretary. But we'll get to that. Turned out that even though no one saw geth at the port, Benezia had passed through it with a lot of crates and asari commandos. She went to Peak 15, which was one of the Binary Helix research facilities they had there. Coincidentally, Saren was a major investor in Binary Helix. I had to get to Peak 15, but I quickly learned that something had gone wrong over there. And the only way to leave was to get a garage pass. Parasini advised me to talk to the administrator, Anoleis, who was a bit of an ass and didn't give me the pass. On my way out of Anoleis's office Parasini said to contact someone called Lorik Qui'in, turian manager of Synthetic Insights. He had data that proved Anoleis was corrupt. Well, we had to get the evidence from his office, because Anoleis had closed it off for him. Parasini stopped me on my way back to Qui'in and she turned out to be an Internal Affairs agent. She asked me to convince Qui’in to testify against Anoleis, and after doing so, the administrator was arrested. In the end I got my pass and we were on our way to Peak 15. The power was out there, so we first had to repair it before we could take the tram to Rift Station. That done, I helped a doctor out there and in return he gave me access to the lab Benezia was in. And we soon found her. Her mind was gone, just like Shiala had said. But she was able to briefly break away from the indoctrination and tell us what Saren was after. He was looking for the Mu Relay, a relay that had been lost several thousand years ago. To get the coordinates, Benezia extracted this information from a rachni queen held in a tank. Binary Helix had found in egg form on an ancient ship and hatched it. After the indoctrination got a hold over her again, Benezia attacked us and we had to kill her."
"Such a shame. How did Liara take it?"
"Surprisingly, better than I had thought. She told me she'd rather remember Benezia for who she was before she met Saren."
"I see. Must've been hard on her nevertheless."
"I guess. But we didn't dwell on this topic. I was just glad for her she wasn't with us on Noveria to witness it. So after Benezia... there was still the matter of the rachni queen. She spoke to me through one of Benezia's dead commandos, it was surreal. She asked me to free her, but I couldn't do that. What if the rachni came back and overran the galaxy? Or what if Binary Helix or Saren were to track her down again? They wanted to create a rachni army with her. So I killed the queen. Kaidan mentioned afterwards on the Normandy how we should've let the Council decide on what to do. He was right, but it was too late. Maybe I overreacted a little, but after all these creatures and experiments I had seen in these research facilities, it felt safer that way."
"I understand, honey. Sometimes we regret the things we do. That's just the way it is."
"I know. But anyway, after also purging the other rachni that had already hatched, we returned to the Normandy, still not any closer to Saren. We didn't know where from the Mu Relay he wanted to go. It was time to follow some more leads in order to find that out. But we'll get to that tomorrow, alright?"
"Definitely. Are you okay? Need anything else?"
"No no, I'm good. Thanks. And good night."
"Good night, sweetie. Love you."
"Love you too, mom. See you in the morning."

Pics:


Ugh, I still hate the dialogue when killing the queen. It's too bad you can't show any remorse at all, or rather express that it's too dangerous to let her roam free. But yeah, did it again and every time I feel sorry for that poor little critter
Surprisingly, all of Noveria went fine and I didn't die once, not even during the Benezia fight. However, how could it be any different, shortly before the end I got killed 4 times before I finally made it through the rachni in the purge area
Now for some more side missions and then Virmire, yay!