Valmy in SPAAAAAAAAACE (Mass Effect Series AAR)

[Valmy]

Nice to see you doing another Bioware AAR. I greatly enjoyed your DA one. 

Thanks! I hope you are enjoying this one as well.

[Valmy]

Captain's Log: Stardate: Wednesday...er...point 6. We have accidentally destroyed a priceless Prothean Beacon and a large Prothean ruin but we did meet a hot blue alien babe. And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?

[viper37]

And in the end, is that not what man has dreamt of since first he looked up at the stars?

Yes, green, blue or red, so long as they are insanely hot.

[Valmy]

I noticed that the guy who mostly invented Mass Effect, Drew Karpyshyn, is back at Bioware. Unfortunately he moved here to Austin and is presently on the team of TOR MMO. I know he wrote Star Wars books but damn that seems like a waste. He should be the lead writer on this franchise again.

[Syt]

I know he wrote Star Wars books but damn that seems like a waste.

I ranted about him in the books thread. He wrote some good video games, but his prose is amateurish hackery. Strunk & White are rotating in their graves.

My rant: http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,124.msg932493.html#msg932493

[garbon]

Valmy even replied to you on that.

[Syt]

Valmy even replied to you on that.

I just noticed.

[celedhring]

I read his Revan book. Its overwrought prose singed through my horrified brain like a cold dagger in a hopeless night, as page after page it evoked anguish and despair, awakening dark desires of arson and tearing.

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part Four or The Cat's in the Cradle with the Silver Spoon and there is a Rogue VI on the Moon

Ok so I thought I would talk a little about our ship, the Systems Alliance Space Vehicle Normandy Space Reconnaissance 1. Or SSV Normandy SR-1.

So now that Shepard is in command his Executive Officer is Navigator Charles Pressly. I guess that is a rank in the navy? Navigator? They never address him as anything besides that. He commands the ship from the Combat Information Center, the CIC, which is where the galaxy map is. He has five other officers who assist him there. I guess they run all the weapons and navigation and all that good stuff.



'There is my loyal XO and his subordinates doing...whatever it is they do...there.'

Now Pressly and Shepard both served on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz, an incident that will feature in this part of the AAR, but they only mention it once. They have another conversation where Pressly is concerned about all the aliens on-board since his grandfather fought in the First Contact War against the Turians. And that is pretty much all he has to say about anything until the very end of the game. Considering he and Shepard are veterans of the same campaign and they are the two top officers on this mission there should be a bit more going on around here. Shouldn't the XO be attending briefings and giving his opinion on things?

Come to think of it you never actually see Shepard ever command the Normandy. At least not that I remember. Now maybe I am forgetting something so if I am wrong I will mention it later.

There is never a:

Shepard: Pressly set course for the Artemis Tau Cluster.

Pressly: Aye aye Commander. We will take the Citadel, Utopa, Antaaeus, and Helen relays. We will arrive at the outskirts of the Sparta System.

Shepard: Excellent. Let's go in quiet. Disengage the FTL Drive as far away as possible but I want the whole system scanned in less than three hours.

Pressly: Yes sir.

Shepard: Alright, let's go.

Pressly: Joker?

Joker: The Citadel Relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence.

Or whatever. I mean obviously we wouldn't want that very often but geez just a few times would be nice. We want to be a starship captain right? In the intro to the game we sort of get some of that but Joker does the talking not Captain Anderson. It would be cool just to see the ship in action.

Anyway.

So in front of the CIC is the bridge where, outside of the intro where Kaiden is sitting beside him for some reason, Joker sits all by himself aided by eight command deck techs. I think they run the sensors and crunch data, that sort of thing. Maybe.



'Hey! Two of the techs are not there! THE GALAXY IS AT STAKE HERE PEOPLE!!'

They probably need to sleep or something. This lack of commitment to the cause is noticed.

There are six marines on the ship, counting their commander Staff Lt. Kaidan Alenko. Hey he is a grunt, why is he a Staff Lt? I do not understand military ranks. So then there is Ashley and four others who are always at the back of the CIC, guarding the stairs to the lower decks and the Comm room at the stern. I am not sure what they are exactly doing there, but maybe the crew is running up long distance call charges and somebody needs to keep the techs from sneaking away from their stations. You saw the Comm room earlier; it is where everybody got together after destroying that ruin...I mean rescuing Dr. T'soni.

On the middle deck are the crews quarters and let me tell you this is not a pleasure cruise. The captain's cabin is pretty Spartan.



'Yes it is pretty rough but everybody else has to sleep in a pod on the wall so...'

Unfortunately there is no reason to ever go into your cabin during the game except to get one codex entry. Kaidan Alenko always hangs out at a console beside the crew sleeping pods, I guess to make sure none of his marines are taking any unauthorized naps.



'When you see those comfortable pods on the wall you really get a sense of the romance and adventure the military provides.'

In the middle of the deck is the mess.



'You ever notice there is never any food on this table? People just sit there doing nothing. Nor is there a place to cook anything but they probably get prepackaged rations or something'

Opposite the captain's cabin is the medical bay where Chief Medical Officer Major Chakwas hangs out.



'Notice how there is never anybody in here except her. I am just that good a Commander.'

Through the medical bay is the science lab where Liara surfs the extranet.



I just realized we do not have a Science Officer of any kind. So we are exploring the vast uncharted reaches of the galaxy and we do not have any science staff at all? Maybe Chakwas also handles that when we are not taking on alien freelancers like Liara

Then there is my favorite part of the ship: the elevator. Man does Mass Effect love its very slow moving elevators. It takes forever; I mean come we are just going down one floor.

The bottom deck has the storage room where half of our squad hangs out. Garrus Vakarian is there dreaming about shooting suspects and doing some kind of maintenance, calibrations if you will, on the Mako. I guess he and Tali are unofficial members of the engineering team. Meanwhile Ashley is there endlessly cleaning weapons and Wrex just stands there watching everybody silently. I guess the intimidation factor keeps everybody motivated. Also we have our requisitions officer who buys stuff for the crew but then they have to pay him for it. This is one bare-bones operation, I least hope Shepard can write buying his own gear off his taxes.



'Garrus is in there someplace'

Man is it dark on that ship. I guess they need to conserve energy bills. Finally we have the engine room where Chief Engineering Officer Lt. Adams is there with his three engineers and Tali.



'You better really like blue if you are going to fly on our vessel.'

So that is the tour. There are like 40 officers and crew and aliens on her right now.

Meanwhile they keep exploring the Artemis Tau cluster. In the Macedon System they land on Sharijila and go around looking for minerals.



'Mass Effect: Their continuing mission to scout out minerals none have mined before'

Not sure why the Alliance needs their military vessels out collecting minerals. I have a whole system on scouting these planets for minerals but man is it tedious. Also on the planet they find a base controlled by an Asari slave trader and her goons. They defeat them all and then loot all the treasures.



'Hard? OH COME ON.'

So yeah it looks like we will be returning to this cluster soon. The Athens System has no planets you can land on, the only such system in the game. I guess we were ostracized this year.

Shepard: Pressly set course for the Hades Gamma Cluster.

Pressly: Aye aye. Joker, take us through the Helen Relay.

Joker: Relay is hot. All stations secure for transit.

Glad to know Greek is the language of space in the future. Though what exactly 'Hades Gamma' refers to is beyond me. Is there a Hades Alpha cluster out there? That is probably where Legbiter lives. So they set off to find ExoGeni Corporation's Missing Survey Team.



'WORMSIGN!'

They eventually find the missing survey team but they have all been turned into HIDEOUS MONSTERS.



'Yeah text boxes are how most of the plots of these uncharted worlds get to be told.'

Granted these are usually very important plots and are constantly referenced in the rest of the series (or at least in Mass Effect 2 as I have not played the third one yet) but...lets just say production values on these missions are low. The planets mostly look the same with very similar terrain. The Himalayas represent the usual terrain for every other planet in the galaxy. The bases all used recycled maps, which I can only assume was a big inspiration for Dragon Age 2. I guess it is kind of fun? You know something fucked up is going to happen on every mission. The main part that sucks is looking for the minerals. There is nothing exciting about that at all but damn you get tons of EXP and credits for doing it so you are kind of compelled.



'Are we having fun yet? I hope we can use some of this lithium to treat the mental issues finding it is causing us.'

In another system they take down the first crime lord Helena Blake wanted Shepard to take out. Even though he refused to do so she just gave him the coordinates anyway knowing he would be compelled to do so due to his do-gooder ways. She knows him well.



'The text box of victory!'

The last system has a conveyor ship, the MSV Malthus...er...Ontario. On-board a bunch of biotic terrorists have kidnapped an alliance official in an attempt to get reparations for the defects of the L2 impants, which have horrific side effects. THIS IS AN IMPOSSIBLE AND IRRECONCILABLE SITUATION. But then Shepard is all 'No it isn't.'



'You're right Shepard! We will do exactly what you want.'

Man is this Charm Skill great or what?

So they leveled up a bit so back to the Artemis Tau Cluster to get that probe and loot that base.



'Oh Fuck. They were not kidding when they said 'hard'.'

So yeah you have to play that freaking mini-game for almost everything. Scan some minerals? Recover an artifact? Decrypt a computer? Disarm a bomb? Shut down an electronic device? All the same.

Oh and they also find this:



'This Text Box provides us with exciting blackmail opportunities.'

On to the Voyager Cluster! There is only one system here, for now, but it contains an exciting plot. Or a sort of interesting plot. The Alliance sent out probes into Turian space during the First Contact War but they were all loaded with small nuclear bombs to self destruct if captured. That seems like a bit of an overkill, but whatever. Anyway they just got a signal from one of them in the Voyager Cluster and want Shepard to go disarm it. IT IS A TRAP.

So let's talk about the Skyllian Blitz. The Blitz was a major attack by the Terminus Systems, Batarians aided by pirates and slavers, to destroy the human colony on Elysium which is located...someplace not in the game. Only a small Alliance force was on the planet at the time and Shepard held off the attack for a few hours almost single-handedly, winning him the Star of Terra, before reinforcements arrived. Pressly claims the Alliance so outclassed the Batarian navy that he does not even know how many Batarian ships he destroyed.

The guy who instigated the attack was the traitorous human criminal leader Elanos Haliat who hoped to use that attack to cement his position as super criminal warlord. So this whole deal is his attempt to get revenge on Shepard for his role in ruining his ambitions.



'Wait I think I can convince you to do what I want with my charm skill! Wait...no? Damn.'

So he tricks you into going into a mine and then, after some gloating, activates the probe. Though he probably should not have waited until you were within a few feet of the nuke since, last I checked, you don't have to be within a few feet of a nuke to be killed by one. Shepard quickly disarms the bomb and then exits the mine and kills everybody in Haliat's base nearby. Including Haliat. Also putting your base really close to where a nuke is going to go off is also probably a bad plan. No wonder this guy's schemes on Elysium failed.

Shepard: Pressly set course for the Gemini Sigma Cluster. Make the jump to lightspeed.

Pressly: I only hope Lando's people repaired the hyperdrive.

Shepard: Ok hit it!

Despite having a Greek name the systems here are named after Chinese Dynasties, both of which Mono consider illegitimate since they came to power through political violence.

The Han System has another one of those crime bosses. After beating him they discover that Helena Blake wants to meet then in the Horse Head Nebula (WTF? That's not random Greek words.) This is where Noveria is so we will take care of it when we decide to head there.

The Ming System has a freighter floating aimlessly in space. Inside everybody is dead and the place is booby trapped. Somebody tried to take a biotic woman's boyfriend off of life support. Even though he was brain-dead she went nuts and killed everybody. There is kind of a cool scene where you are reading logs about this and she just appears behind you and tries to kill you all. Then Shepard shuts down the life support after she is dead.



'Wait voice acting? Not just a textbox? Score!'

So with that it is time to return to the Citadel.

Shepard: Number one set course for the Widow System. Warp 3. Engage.

Pressly: Making it so Cap...er...Commander.

After arriving at the Citadel a certain Rear Admiral Michailovich is there for a surprise inspection. He is a little like Udina in that everything annoys him. Fortunately Shepard is a smooth talker so her promises to be less negative than he planned. SCORE!



'Holy crap, no wonder the Alliance makes us buy our own gear.'

No way any private organization could afford a drive core like that right? Right? 120 Billion is a lot right?

Apparently for that money the Alliance could have made 12,000 fighters.

After that Shepard takes an elevator ride down to C-Sec and gets ambushed again, by some reporter this time. No, he does not punch her. Admiral Hackett is pleased by how he handled it.

First they go see Nassana Dantius and let her know her sister was a horrid slave trader.



'Yeah we just happened to just randomly cross paths. Small Galaxy huh?'

Anyway they are able to twist this into getting Nassana to give them a high tech Asari license so that was cool. Anyway this is the last we will see of her right?

Next they run into a man and his dead brother's wife who are debating about whether their son/nephew (who is still in utero) should be vaccinated undergo gene therapy to prevent a dangerous genetic disorder. Well I have had enough of those anti-vaccinators so Shepard used his charm.



'Oh good you are doing what I wanted you to do.'

Man if only we had Shepard around to talk to Jenny McCarthy.

They meet a former comrade of Shepard's Mom, Zabaleta, who is suffering from PTSD from fighting Batarian Slavers on Mindoir. His is now living in alleys on the Citadel begging for credits. Shepard gives him some credits and then later calls his mom, Hannah Shepard, and she tells him the entire story and asks him to convince Zabaleta to go to the Veterans Affairs Office for help. Note: if you are a colonist Shepard you will be from Mindoir and a kid when the attack on Mindoir occurs.

Emily Wong, the reporter who had him get the data on Fist earlier, wants Shepard to plan a bug in C-Sec to monitor space traffic controllers to see if they are overworked. Eh why not? Shepard is above the law.

Finally they reach Read Admiral Kahoku. He thanks them for finding his marines but says he is going to investigate further to see why Cerber...er...some evil group would want to murder his men in such an unnecessarily elaborate and evil way.



'Believe me it is just going to get creepier'

Nice knowing you Admiral.

Oh and Conrad Verner wants a picture now in addition to his autograph. No harm in that right?

Getting back on the Normandy everybody wants to talk about their father.

Tali's father is one of the supreme leaders of then Quarian people and she is under terrible pressure to live up to him and get something really good for her pilgrimage.

Ashley's father was always off serving with the Alliance and they only had a relationship through his love of poetry, which she now recites at his grave since he recently passed on.

Liara is considered a second class citizen among the Asari since her father was another Asari, they prefer to inject diversity into their species so want everybody to mate with other species, and her mother always hid the name of Liara's father from her out of shame.

Wrex is exiled from Tuchanka because he was engaged in a war with a Krogan warlord who he eventually killed...and that warlord was, of course, Wrex's father.

Garrus joined C-Sec because his father is a stiff necked old school cop.



'Screw you old man!'

So as you can imagine he and his dad lock...er...carapaces on a regular basis.

The only one who does NOT have dad issues is Kaidan since his birth involved a usually fatal exposure to 'Element Zero' (eezo) granting him biotic abilities so all he has is horrific stories of systematic abuse he suffered at the hands of the Conatix Corporation. Oh and he also suffers from constant and horrible migraines due to his dysfunctional L2 biotic implant. Oddly none of this seems to bother him much. Kaidan is super zen.

So anyway just call us the SSV Daddy Issues. At least Shepard seems to be cool with his dad, who I presume is deceased. All this after Kahoku I have no screenshots of since I forgot to turn on Fraps for this session but it was short anyway.

Then they give Shepard quests about their fathers. Wrex wants you to hunt down a Turian Collector who has his father's armor, which is a family heirloom. Armor and weapons were confiscated from the Krogan after the Krogan Rebellion and this Turian is making a fortune selling them as collectibles. Tali wants key data about the Geth in order to live up to her father's legacy for her pilgrimage. Garrus wants them to hunt down a criminal Salarian black market organ harvester named Dr. Saleon, which the vile C-Sec rules his father made him follow allowed to escape. I should probably just get a psychologist on this ship instead.

They go to the Hawking Eta Cluster and pursue a weird biotic cult led by ex-Alliance Major Kyle who is a God to them Apocalypse Now style. The Alliance sent a few officers to attempt to bring Major Kyle in for treatment but his followers have already killed them. Shepard is sent in and convinces Kyle and his followers to surrender without bloodshed because charismatic cult leaders are no match for Shepard's charm skill.

I mean seriously it gets pretty ridiculous.

'WE WILL KILL ALL ALLIANCE!'

'No you won't'

'Ok we surrender'

Major Kyle got fucked up by seeing so many of his men die at the Battle of Torfan, which was the Alliance punitive expedition after the attack on Elysium. If Shepard has the ruthless background he is in the battle and is responsible for a slaughter of the Batarians.

Once they get back on the ship there are two messages waiting for Shepard. The first one is from Admiral Kahoku who has discovered a terrorist organization called Cerberus was responsible for the murder of his men. They have bases throughout the galaxy and he gives Shepard the coordinates for a base back in the Voyager Cluster. Then he says Cereberus is hunting him down so this will probably be the last time they talk.

Admiral Hackett calls Shepard and tells him a VI at a training facility on the Moon has gone rogue and somebody needs to break in there and shut it down. So here we go!

Next time: 'One of these days pow! Straight to the Moon!'

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part Five or Fly me to the Moon let me kill Geth among the stars let me scan for minerals on Jupiter and Mars.

Ok so I installed that graphics mod during this section. See if you can guess when that happened!

There are a few issues I didn't touch on earlier because they seemed kind of lore dumpy. I talked about these sorts of things in my Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition AAR because I was playing those games for the first time and knew nothing about them really. I already played ME and I assumed anybody reading this AAR not only played it but probably played more than once and knows all this stuff. But the game is 10 years old so you might not remember all this stuff and these plot points are about to become relevant in the game. So here we go.

First: the Rachni and the Krogan with a timeline based on Roman Emperors. During the reign of Caesar Augustus a group of Salarians discovered the insect race, the Rachni, who then captured the Salarians that discovered them. The Rachni used the Salarian's knowledge to become an interstellar empire, overwhelming all who stood in their path. During the reign of the Vespasian the Salarians developed a plan to stop the Rachni: they gave space technology to the Krogan. With these new allies the Council Races drove back the Rachni and, after centuries of war, the Rachni were finally driven to extinction during the reign of Diocletian. Centuries of uneasy peace followed with the fast breeding Krogans expanding rapidly. Finally they rebelled and tried to conquer the galaxy during the reign of the Emperor Justinian II. The Salarians stopped them two ways: first by recruiting the militaristic Turians to the Council Races and by deploying a genetic disease called the Genophage that dramatically reduced the Krogan's ability to breed by making them almost entirely sterile. So for the past 1500 or so years the Krogan have been steadily dying out. Though to listen to Wrex talk about it, it might as well have happened yesterday. But the Krogan can live for centuries on end and almost always die violently if they die at all. Wrex's father was a veteran of the Krogan Rebellion.

Now: The Quarians and the Geth with a timeline based on European History. During the year revolutions were breaking out all over Europe, the Quarians coincidentally invented a group of networking servant robots called the Geth. The Geth began to develop from very rudimentary Vis into self aware AIs and around the time of the death of Queen Victoria the Quarians realized it and tried to exterminate the Geth. The Geth won the resulting war, capturing the Quarian home world of Rannoch, and driving the Quarians into exile. And for two hundred and eighty years the Quarians have floated around in their increasingly antiquated space flotilla while the Geth have remained on Rannoch. I do not recall the lame justification the game comes up with for why the Quarians have not colonized any other worlds since then. Rannoch is hidden from the rest of the galaxy by a super heated gas cloud called the Perseus Veil and nobody has seen them since...until now. Or rather until the year 2183, when this game takes place.

Ok so you guys got all that? Ok because it all starts to become important.

Anyway so on to the moon to save the Alliance from their own networked VI that gained sentience. See how I tied it all back together?



'Oh Canada! Bioware's home and native land.'

Canada is looking down upon us like a benevolent creator.



'In Soviet Space Program, probe salvages you!'

Ok so they ride around on the moon and take out all the defense towers the VI has taken control of. Eventually they break into the VI core and take out its rocket drones. And then they get to do it two more times since this thing has a very extensive core. I hoped it would start singing 'Daisy' as it lost computing power.



'That is ASCII for help. Well now I feel like a murderer. Of course the Rogue VI didn't have to launch turrets and drones at people.'

So now Shepard is a Commando. Nice!

Now on to the Voyager Cluster!

Cerberus has set up three research facilities on Binthu in the Yangtze System. After they blow away the defense turrets, and man are those turrets slow firing, they start breaking in to shut down these terrorists and find the Admiral.

Here is a picture of Shepard meeting Cerberus for the first time:



'Why hello there Cerberus. I look forward to getting to know you better in the future.'

Inside these facilities they find loads of Cerberus mercenaries and surprisingly fierce combat scientists. What were they working on? Well they had Rachni. Yes, the bugs that were exterminated back during the reign of Diocletian. Now they are somehow being brought back by Cerberus to act as their army? Naturally none of the party comment on this since none of them knows what Rachni look like but you can imagine how confusing this was for me the first time I played this game having heard all about this story already. And they also have these Husk things.



'What the hell is that?'

Yeah so what is up with these Thorian Creepers and Rachni? Well you will just have to wait and see. At the end they find Kahoku.



'So much for our impeccable hero timing.'

He was killed as part of some sort of experiment, probably trying to turn him into one of those Creeper things. Now you also discover the location of Cerberus' main base of operations, suggesting you can destroy the entire organization right then. So you go to Nerpheron in the Columbia System and clear out one more Cerberus base. There you find a Cerberus computer and try to download everything you can before it self destructs.



'Well so glad we took care of that organization. Never hear from them again.'

I am not clear if Mass Effect 1 intended for that to be the end of Cerberus or not. More on that later.

They get back on the Normandy. Shepard talks to Wrex and he explains that after he lost the struggle on his homeworld of Tuchanka, the time he warred with and killed his own father, he has lost hope that the Krogan will do anything but die in pointless wars as mercenaries. Granted, Wrex himself admits that is simpler and more fun than trying to stop fate. That is, after all, precisely what he has been doing.



'You do realize we are not paying you for this right? You are putting your life on the line for free to stop Saren?'

Wait stop Saren? Is that what we are supposed to be doing? Because I was starting to think this was some kind of mining expedition.

Garrus is wondering when we will get around to it.



'Look! We will get around to it eventually! Just a few more dozen start systems.'

But really he is just worried we will fail to immediately murder him and he might be captured alive.



'Garrus you are one fucked up dude.'

I have never met a character so obsessed with making sure nobody ever lives long enough to go to trial. Why is this character so popular? He is a psycho. But to be fair he seems to be coming around to Shepards Paragon point of view but I think you can really make him a monster if you are renegade...or rather more of a monster.

Tali seems to be confused.



'It may feel that way because we have been playing this game for so long but actually we have made no progress.'

I mean besides finding a scientist who has no idea how she will be helpful they have not done jack. Shepard and Tali then have a conversation as if they have had a long campaign that is nearing the end, rather than one that has not yet begun. I think this conversation probably should fire a bit later in the game.

An agent of the Shadow Broker calls Shepard asking for those files he downloaded from the Cerberus facility. He threatens that is Shepard does not turn over classified Alliance information, the Shadow Broker may not cooperate if Shepard ever needs him for something.



'Pffft. When would I ever need the Shadow Broker for anything?'

With that they return to the Citadel, since they are reaching their item limit and they can sell things for more to Doctor Michel. One of the most important things to do in Mass Effect is get 1 million credits since it gives you access to Spectre Gear and gives you more money in the sequel.



'It is a little weird that all these little side missions are all galactic news. Does nothing happen out there unless Shepard does it?'

Shepard goes and sees Zabaleta and lets him know Shepard's mother wants him to seek treatment for his PTSD at the Veteran's Affairs Office.



'Yes. Stop begging on the streets and getting drunk as a personal favor.'

He thinks the VAO is useless and just gives people drugs. I don't think we ever find out how that goes though.

Shepard goes back and lets Cynthia Wong know her bug is in place in C-Sec.



'Having good relations with the press is important. This is something some American politicians might want to keep in mind.'

Conrad Verner has taken his fanboyism to the next level and wants to get out there in space and mine minerals as well. Shepard lets him know that he needs to go home to his family and work to keep humanity strong on the home front. Since he used his charm skill Verner immediately complies.



'Oh good. Glad this is settled and never to come up again.'

Once Shepard gets back on the Normandy and Alliance has another job for him: the Geth are moving into the Armstrong Nebula.



'Who? The Geth? What does that have to do with mining?'

Though the time spent mining on this quest will be quite extensive so don't worry.

They land on the first world in the Armstrong Nebula and go to work.



'Huh. What makes people think the Geth are here?'

This was an alliance research facility overrun by the Geth. The place was loaded with husks and once the Geth realized it was being attacked by Shepard they landed an assault team and attacked them from behind. What the hell Normandy? We have this undetectable ship in orbit and they cannot even take control of the skies from those wimpy Geth dropships?



'Luke we're going to have company!'

But once they are defeated the gang can congratulate themselves on being 25% of the way there.

The next world, Casbin, has a surface only Geth base and, once they drive off the Geth, a Geth dropship arrives and starts dropping Geth all over the place. Fortunately, the Mako can drive it away.



'Can you guys get lost? There are some nearby minerals to mine.'

The freaking Normandy cannot handle those guys but the Mako can. Meh.

The next world, Anitbaar, is a frozen iceball that contains Prothean Ruins. The Geth camp here is just terrible. It is located in a ravine so you get to play the role of the Orcs in Helms Deep. Gandalf is played by yet another Geth dropship. Those Geth Colossus are rough. One hit will instantly kill any squad member, even Shepard. So it is best to stay in the Mako.

Though the most annoying fun part of this world was the Prothean Ruin with a thresher maw. Fighting these things always has an element of luck to it since they can one shot kill you if they get lucky and this time the thresher maw was very lucky. It took awhile to beat it. The other thresher maws I had encountered so far I had beaten without dying at all.



'The limited visibility made it especially enjoyable'

Damn that is actually a pretty cool screenshot.

Finally they found the last Geth base over on Maji.



'Um somebody forgot to tell this world that Mass Effect is supposed to be mostly blue with some amber thrown in.'

But they notice that none of the bases contained a command center of any kind. Luckily my boy Alenko is on the job.



'The transmission is coming from WITHIN THE STAR CLUSTER.'

So anybody worried I only had four worlds to search for minerals can rejoice as their being a fifth. Yes I am getting a little punchy. It is on to the moon of Solcrum to destroy the Geth HQ.

After a pretty tough fight, including a Geth Juggernaut standing on a balcony blasting rockets at them, they manage to secure the base.



'Huh. What is that sad Quarian about? Some kind of Geth victory dance? And yes I get the irony that Tali was taken out there.'

So this was an offensive launched from the Geth at Rannoch and not Saren. That is Interesting, though they are probably allied. But hey Tali said she wanted some data on the Geth besides Saren's so this is a good place to find it. And find it they do.



'See? Even created beings evolve creationists.'

And it is back to the Normandy. Wrex tells him about this time a cowardly and stupid Volus (is there another kind?) sent him to take out an Asari Commando. Wrex thought he had blown her up but she somehow escaped and the contemptible Volus was scared she would come after him.



'LOLZ Volus amiright?'

Even though Tali said nothing during the actual mission she really wants that Geth data.



'What so you can plan your campaign of bloody reconquest? Oh right Geth don't bleed.'

Shepard goes ahead and gives it to her. She did play a pretty big role in that campaign after all. And besides there is little evidence at this point that the Geth are anything but aggressive monsters.

And then Shepard gets called again by the Alliance. This time somebody is hunting down scientists connected to a massacre at Akuze when thresher maws were made to attack and destroy an entire unit of Alliance Marines. Huh. Where have we heard that before? And yes if you choose the Sole Survivor background your Shepard will be a survivor from this incident. Anyway there is only one scientist left, a Dr. Manuel, and Shepard is supposed to go get him before he to gets killed.



'And while you are there Shepard please check for minerals.'

Yes I will never let that go. So it is off to Ontarom in the Newton system. One of the very few planets you visit that has native life.



'That space cow looks a bit shifty'

They find the facility and it is under attack by hostile mercs. Inside they find a surprise survivor of the Akuze disaster, one Corporal Toombs, who has been hunting down these scientists who were all working for Cerberus. Obviously Cerberus was perfecting their Thresher Maw attack schemes.



'Yep. Glad I destroyed them. All gone.'

Seriously was Cerberus only supposed to be a one off minor terrorist group you destroyed in side missions in the first game? Anyway Shepard convinces him to let the Alliance capture Dr. Manuel for questioning. This may seem like an IRRECONCILABLE situation...but hey Shepard has the charm skill.



'Well besides those other scientists you already murdered.'

Toombs and Dr. Manuel are then taken into custody. Manuel is going to be tried for terrorism and treason and Toombs goes into treatment for his PTSD.

Garrus' nemesis, Dr. Saleon, is in a nearby star system so they track down his ship and board it. His ship has been taken over by space zombies created by his experiments.



'You have got to love a game with three different varieties of space zombies.'

They find the Salarian cowering in his quarters and he tried to convince them that he is innocent, but Garrus immediately recognizes him. Shepard says they are going to take him into custody and not immediately shoot him in the back of the head. Garrus is outraged.



'Oh FFS Garrus'

Fortunately Dr. Saleon makes Garrus' day be refusing to come quietly so they have to shoot him anyway.

When they get back to the ship Garrus sees how he has been a bit extreme in his philosophies and decides to go back to C-Sec and Spectre training when they finish this Saren business and make his father proud. Because everybody in Mass Effect is heavily motivated by their relationships with their dads.



'Basically Garrus took it really personally that criminals were just walking around alive out there.'

Man everybody is already waxing philosophical and making plans for the future and we have not even followed up on our first lead on Saren on Noveria yet!

And we are not going to for awhile either because next time it is: Bogging down the game...er...Bringing down the Sky and that other DLC whose name I dare not utter.

[grumbler]

Thanks for doing these, Valmy.  I am enjoying them, and remembering why I never replayed this game! 

[Malicious Intent]

I do not recall the lame justification the game comes up with for why the Quarians have not colonized any other worlds since then.

There were some quirks to Ranoch's bio system that made it very difficult for Quarians to adapt to different environments. It also limited potentially habitable planets for them.
They actually tried to settle some planets, but the Citadel council either stalled negotiations for settlement rights or outright denied them. Where the Quarians tried to settle illegally, they were driven off forcefully by the Citadel races. Seems like creating an allegedly murderous AI species kinda makes you a Pariah.

Ok so they ride around on the moon and take out all the defense towers the VI has taken control of. Eventually they break into the VI core and take out its rocket drones. And then they get to do it two more times since this thing has a very extensive core. I hoped it would start singing 'Daisy' as it lost computing power.

Poor baby EDI. 

[Malicious Intent]

And we are not going to for awhile either because next time it is: Bogging down the game...er...Bringing down the Sky and that other DLC whose name I dare not utter.

Pinnacle station. 

Probably the dumbest DLC in the whole ME series.

[Valmy]

Thanks for doing these, Valmy.  I am enjoying them, and remembering why I never replayed this game! 

I suffer so you don't have to!

This game really suffers from sidequest-itis. KOTOR, Dragon Age Origins, and Dragon Age 2 were really good about not doing this, all the side content you either do during the main missions or what a side quest or a main quest is not clear at all (in DA2). In this game there is no damn reason at all why Shepard would do any of this side stuff. They dump the entire plot and all the leads on you right in the first few hours of the game. There is nothing that needs to be discovered. There is no reason to go out there in space and scout around, you are told exactly what is going on and where you need to go. But gameplay wise you need the experience and the money and the subplots end up being really important in establishing the lore in the setting.

But I do find myself starting to think 'hey I probably need to address this factor in the game pretty soon' or 'hey it is almost like Kaidan, Ashley, and Liara have nothing to say' but then I remember that despite the fact my character has already achieved the 1 million credit mark needed to access advanced gear and is already level 30 I really have not even started the game yet. Those other three characters all have their dialog tied to progression in the main game.

[Valmy]

There were some quirks to Ranoch's bio system that made it very difficult for Quarians to adapt to different environments. It also limited potentially habitable planets for them.
They actually tried to settle some planets, but the Citadel council either stalled negotiations for settlement rights or outright denied them. Where the Quarians tried to settle illegally, they were driven off forcefully by the Citadel races. Seems like creating an allegedly murderous AI species kinda makes you a Pariah.

Yeah but the Citadel has surveyed less than 4% of all worlds in the galaxy Yes they have been around for thousands of years but the galaxy is just that big. But anyway thanks for the reminder.

Poor baby EDI. 

Dude! Spoilers!

Yes Cerberus eventually steals this VI to make EDI. Whatever that is.