Dear Alistair...

[Irridium]

I didn't think Alistair was that annoying, his jokes sucked but......... scratch that his comments did suck ass. Also I named my dog Bacon.

I named my dog Snuffykins.

I named my dog Doug after I went to see Up!

Doug is awesome.

 

[Scobie]

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[Cherry Cola]

I thought he was cute ^^

As did I.

His jokes hide his insecurity. He hides behind a mask of childishness because he can't take it to face the real world. At times, when confronted with very serious issues, he will be serious, and he does grow over the story.

And I consider the end to the romance with him to be the most touching moment in the entire game.

"Most sane thing I've ever done".

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

I thought you where talking about some one on the Escapist at first, but then you said about the dog and quests. But no, I dont hate Alistair, I always take him with Morrigan just because their conversation is amusing. Also I have some respect for him since he saved my ass a few times when he was the only person left alive in the party.

 

[kaveradeo]

I don't think Alistair is as bad as say, Ashely Williams from Mass Effect.

 

[Internet Kraken]

To be fair, that is possible, as ME2 demonstrates with the geth-logic-virus-thing. To be even more fair, the quarians have no idea that's it possible and probably don't have the technical knowhow or resources to do it themselves if they tried. In fact, they don't even know that there are separate geth factions. They are, as you mentioned, fantastically ignorant. So yeah, scratch that idea.

I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to, though I assume it is the reaper virus. If that is the case, then we need to remember that Reapers can also easily dominate the minds of organics as well. But like you said, there's no way Quariuans can developer a virus on par with the Reapers anyways. The most significant progress they made towards hacking came from Tali's father, and his work completley backfired on him. So I don;t have muc confidence in Admiral Morrigan's crazy plan to hack the Geth. Though its not really any more crazy than Admiral Loghain's plan to zerg rush the Geth. I find it funny how he brags about how powerful the Quarian's fleet is, when in reality the majority of their fleet is composed of scavenged ships that need constant maintenance to stay in barley operable condition. Meanwhile the Geth have highly advanced technology that can outmatch the advanced ships of the races that actually matter.

]I think they failed a fair bit anyway. Even if the quarians are meant to be dumb, their leaders' plan is so dumb that it's a wonder they ever managed to get into power, or keep the fleet alive for more than about four days. But I get the horrible feeling from a lot of the dialogue that you were maybe supposed to sympathise with the quarians. Advising them to attack the geth or leave the geth alone is presented as a moral choice. Regardless of whether you think the quarians deserve their world back or not, the war would be so transparently suicidal that the answer should be obvious. It's basically a choice between "quarians don't attack the geth" and "quarians all die pointlessly". And remember that the least sympathetic admiral on the board (the one who is most keen to convict Tali) is the so-called "geth apologist". It does strongly suggest that the writers though it might actually be considered a good idea.

I know what you mean, but I just can't bring myself to accept the idea that the writers would actually have the Quarians win that war. It wouldn't make any sense based on the established story. It doesn't matter how badass Shepard is. He can't make magically cause a fleet to be a thousand times more effective. To be honest though the whole trial is really weird from a moral perspective. Tali's dialogue clearly paints showing the evidence as a bad choice, yet decisively good things come from it depending on your viewpoint (example; Admiral Morrigan having virtually no public support for her stupid hacking plan). When you consider that the paragon choice is covering up the death of a dozen Quarian scientist and marines just to please Tali, that whole mission seems to be twisted.

As for how those idiots got into power.,I choose to believe that being an isolated nomadic society for several generations has fucked up the Quarian political system. I mean Tali, a young Quarian with no political experience or leadership skills whatsoever, is apparently being considered for a a position on the admiralty board.

 

[GloatingSwine]

And he's still not as bad as Anomen.

Alistair's role in gameplay is to be beaten repeatedly in the face with sticks, this has probably affected his brains somewhat.

 

[Punisher A.J.]

It was pretty irritating that he was pretty much whining about *all* of the other characters throughout the game, but he was a good tank so i kept him through it :\

Yeah, but then Sten comes along. And then I found the dog even more useful than him...

But who would you rather have enemies attack.... A "harmless" dog, The badass sten, a Pimp dwarf, or a whiny little *****.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Dear Father Grigori:
Please come back. We miss you so much.

-Most Heartfelt Regards,
The internet

 

[Scobie]

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[Mekado]

I did like Alistair, but honestly the main reason why i won't play without him is his cleansing aura (FU right in the ass, death hex or whatever spell that stops healing) Sten and Oghren can get it (speccing templar) but Shale can't ><

 

[Zillar]

I liked Alistair. He was one of the first video game characters I thought was actually funny...plus, romancing him produces some really heart-wrenching endings. The depressing kind.

Video game characters I hate, though? Casivir and Elanee and Zhjaeve from NWN2. They were always going on about the evil they were sensing. Also, Casivir's confession for the female PC was super lame.
and mario. I'm just sick of seeing him everywhere.

 

[Judgement101]

I liked Alistair, he made the party less serious and, even though he died the most, I found it quite interesting to have him along so he could soak up the damage before I could.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I was referring to the virus that's the focus of Legion's loyalty mission [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Legion:_A_House_Divided]. The Reaper-developed one the heretic geth plan to use to bring the normal geth around to their side, but which gets repurposed to alter the heretics instead.

Yeah that's what I thought. Unless the Quarians somehow get their hands on a virus of equal power (doubtful), any hopes of hacking the entire Geth collective are nonexistent.

And yes, the morality of the whole trial situation is upside-down. Concealing war crimes and lying in court in order to protect someone because of your personal feelings for her would certainly seem to be the more morally-questionable choice. I think in the writers' heads Paragon and Renegade respectively translate to "nice and lovey-dovey" and "harsh and abrasive", so making Tali all upset is the Renegade option. Problem is they haven't decided exactly what the alignments mean, hence the inconsistency. Also, Tali being considered for the board is weird, but it could easily be that it's not supposed to be weird. Because Tali is awesome and everyone loves her, so how could she possibly be a bad choice?

Yeah that's one of my problems with Mass Effect. There seems to be inconsistency among the choices. I always thought paragons were law abiding while Renegades would bypass the rules if they wanted to. It seems like renegades would be the ones to bend the rules to help a teammates, regardless of how it impacts others. Instead respecting Quarian politcs (no matter how stupid it is) and law nets you a hefty dose of renegade points. Because telling the truth about what happened to those Quarians is.....ruthless and aggressive?

If Tali did get on the board BioWare would probably make her a good leader anyways, despite that there's no logical reason for her to be a good leader. Covering up war crimes and supporting genocide, surely these are the finest qualities of all of histories great leaders. Interestingly though BioWare didn't treat Tali perfectly in all of ME2 though. Electing her to be leader of a firing squad during the final mission causes one of your teammates to catch a bullet with their teeth.

Honestly, while the writers are obviously not perfect, the ME universe is built fairly solidly, with a certain amount of attention paid to detail and plausibility. The quarians beating the geth would be so massively unbelievable that I'm also pretty sure they wouldn't do it. Maybe in ME3 if the quarians do go to war, they'll all be killed and then the game will be all "Hah! You were wrong, sucker!", and you'll have to live with the consequences of your dumb decisions. Hopefully. No way to tell until ME3.

Even if that is what should happen, I can imagine BioWare doing something else just to avoid the backlash. Hopefully they won't, but like you said we have to wait.

Just out of interest, what are your preferred end-game choices? Do you save the Destiny Ascension, and what do you do with the Collector base?

Destiny Ascension: This is an odd choice. Since you know what the immediate effects of this are (saving the ship does not cause Sovereign to win), it's hard for me to justify killing the council on the grounds that it was necessary. Personally I always save them, only because it nets you more dialogue down the road. Plus there's probably going to be a satisfying way to kill those idiots off due to their "Reaper" bullshit.

Collector Base: Always blow it up without exception. Not just because of the morals either. In both games we clearly see how Reaper technology has a tendency to backfire in horrific ways. I don't think that a massive Reaper base designed to produce Eldritch abominations is safe. And I definitely don't trust it in the hands of Cerberus, since the Illusive Man is clearly an evil bastard. Plus when you consider how many other projects Cerberus has screwed up, giving them the base might be the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

And is it just me or have we drifted slightly off topic?

Slightly? More like a lot. What exactly are you supposed to do when this happens though? Continue on? Start a new thread and carry the conversation there? Or just abandon it?