Lets Play: Mass Effect (Updated - Ch 6 Part 2 - Virmire)

Recommended Videos

woodaba

New member
May 31, 2011
1,011
0
0
Ugh, this sidequest is all the more horrible in hindsight. I remember logging up the ol' binary translator to decode this the first time through. I was immediately hit with horrible shame, and ME3 made that all the worse. Ah well, prestige classes make everything better!

Grunka seems like a commando to me. Not a person to waste time with that overload nonsense. Besides, don't we already have Garrus and Tali for that?

Eh... while Noveria is a more interesting mission, Feros seems more urgent. Noveria is just like "Hey, we might have seen Matriarch Benezia here. We're not sure though. You should check it out anyway, though." So, my vote is for Feros.

Update was worth the wait! Keep up the good work, enjoying it immensely!
 

Zen Toombs

New member
Nov 7, 2011
2,105
0
0
woodaba said:
I concur with woodaba in all respects.

Personally, I almost always go to Feros first (sometimes picking up Liara before that) because of the information you get. The three missions are described as "Hey, we have reports that there might be some Geth on a corporate world", "Hey, the daughter of Saren's right hand alien is alone in some random system" and "Hey, there were reports of Geth on Feros and then the colony went dark."

For some reason, the last one seems most pressing.
 

sage42

Elite Member
Mar 20, 2009
2,458
0
41
I agree with Woodaba as well. That and Commando Grunka sounds awesome. And for the planet I vote for Noveria, if only for the infinite karma points glitch.
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
Thanks so much for the positive comments everyone, much appreciated :)

OK, so we're 4-0 for Commando, but split 2-2 on Feros or Noveria. Anyone else want to come in with some tie-breaking votes? If you're reading but you haven't responded before don't be afraid to join in! :)

FWIW I'm not planning to exploit the infinite morality glitch on Noveria (though I will point out where it is and how it works at the time).

Caramel Frappe said:
Oh god.. it's true. My mind has been blown by this statement you've made and I know it was meant to be for comedy reasons but- I now see the bigger picture. Every ONE of my squad mates even after ME1 (Miranda, Jacob, ...Thane) have father issues. What the crap, over 80% of my entire crew has daddy problems. I wonder if this reflects on Shepard somehow, or least mine since my Shepard's parents were killed by raiders and crap.
Yeah - it's something that never actually occurred to me until I started writing this LP but it's true: pretty much all of our squad in this game have daddy issues. It's interesting to look at how that plays out in the following games...

Miranda in ME2 is pretty much defined by her daddy issues. Jacob's issues with his father are about the only interesting thing about him. I suppose it's fair to say Grunt has some father issues with Okeer. Tali still has daddy issues in ME2, and Garrus's don't change, but they don't make a big deal out of them.

It's interesting that they branched out after that though - Thane and Samara have issues with their kids. Jack has 99 problems, but a family ain't one.

Mordin, Zaeed and Kasumi have no family issues that I can think of. I was going to say Legion didn't either... but if you count the quarians as the creators/fathers of the Geth then maybe they do after all.

In ME3, however, I don't think any of the new characters have any special issues of note (James, Javik, Traynor, Steve the shuttle pilot). It's a bit of a refreshing change, but they're also pretty one-dimensional. So what I'm wondering is does this have something to do with it?

ME1: written by Drew Karpyshyn
ME2: written by Drew Karpyshyn and Mac Walters
ME3: written by Mac Walters

Coincidence? :p
 

Vuliev

Senior Member
Jul 19, 2011
573
0
21
I'm going to also throw my vote for Commando, but I say go to Feros next (I just think it flows better that way, idk.)
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
OK, we're 3-2 in favour of Feros now. Anyone else wanna get a vote in before we proceed?
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 4, PART 1 (Feros) - Of Darwin awards and structural engineering[/HEADING]

Previously, on Lets Play Mass Effect: We learned Wrex killed his own father, defeated a pretty stupid VI, gained our prestige class (Commando, by unanimous verdict) and told Casey Hudson to piss off.

We're off to rejoin the main plot now - by popular vote, that means we're off to Feros! But first, there's one more thing to do on the Moon:





I don't know why, but there's missile turrets down there and even though the rogue VI has been disabled, they still fire at us. Grunka cheapshots them for free XP:





Done - now let's get back to the story.













As I think we've mentioned before, Feros is a world of Prothean skyscrapers - the kind that would give even the Burj Khalifa penis envy. Somehow the colonists live near the tops of these things, despite the fact that they're over 50,000 years old and, let's be frank, don't look to be in the best structural shape...







There's a colonist at the end of the walkway who must have seen us coming, and tells us we need to go see Fai Dan, the leader of the colony. They even give this messenger colonist a name - David al Talaqani - which seems like a waste because as soon as he's told us where to go, this happens and he dies:







Yep, there really are geth here. Tech powers help to make short work of them though. Once they're dead we proceed further inside the tower.





I'm not really sure why these little buggers have rated a cut scene for the second time (we got one when we first saw them on Artemis Tau as well) because they don't deal all that much damage and they're not that hard to kill - at worst, if all you've got in your party is three soliders it's just a bit tedious to kill them because they don't sit still. As before though, tech powers make it easy:





<font

color=0000BB>"Seriously, people live up here?!? Look at the state of the place - Afghanistan was in better nick back in the early 21st century! I know we revere the Protheans and all, but surely we don't rate their structural engineering so highly that we think it's a good idea to set up freaking colonies up here?"

<font color=0000BB>"Maybe it was some kind of stupidity test? Like whoever said they wanted to live up here was too stupid to live anyway, and that's why they sent them here?"

At the top of the stairs we open out onto a landing where we find said too-stupid-to-live colonists:



They're a cheery bunch:



Smack in the middle of the camp is a downed freighter. Walking through it, we find this...



...and out the back we find Fai Dan:





<font color=0000BB>*shrugs* "I had important faffing about to do."

"Arcelia! <font color=0000BB>What have I told you about gift horses and... ohes noes, more geth!"





Once again, tech powers rule here.

<font color=0000BB>"This platform was formerly an adventurer - but then it was damaged in the central leg join by an assault rifle slug..."







<font color=0000BB>"Heh - they really did send the dumb ones here. Doesn't everyone know that shouting 'I don't want to die' is a sure-fire way to get blown the hell up?"

When we get to the top of the stairs, a dropship delivers a few extra geth troops for us to kill:







<font color=0000BB>"The vehicle... ugh, you mean the Mako, don't you? I guess at least if you puke it'll be inside your suit, not like Alenko."

Tali's side comments here are interesting too:



I mean sure, the geth kicked the quarians off their home world, but my understanding is that they haven't really bothered them since - backed up by the fact that everyone is making such a big hairy deal about the events of this game being the first time geth have been seen beyond the Perseus Veil in centuries.

If the geth really were relentless like Tali is saying, they would've chased the quarian flotilla across the galaxy and wiped it out. Anywho, back to the real story - let's go back to Fai Dan:





"If it's geth you're looking for, you've come to the right place."

<font color=0000BB>"You didn't hear me right, did you... I said I was looking for what Saren sent the geth to find. The fact that I get to kill lots of geth in the process, and the fact that killing them will help you, are both just fringe beneifts."





"We don't know what they're after. They came, they attacked us. That's all we know. Their main base is at the ExoGeni headquarters. A good place to start looking if you want answers."

We get a bit more background info filled in here: ExoGeni is the company that funds the colony and employs pretty much everyone here in their search for buried Prothean treasure. There were around a thousand people at the main site and two hundred more here before the attacks - there's only about 20 or so people here now. Pretty brutal. We can offer to airlift the survivors out on the Normandy, but Fai Dan thinks it'd be too dangerous with the geth fighters around.

This is, of course, a crap excuse when we're talking about a ship as advanced as the Normandy (we landed here, after all) but it's convenient as a means for stranding us here until we deal with the geth. Oh - the colony is also short on food, water and power.

Before we go do anything, let's get to know these colonists that we'll be helping out by proxy. First up is Fai Dan's security chief:



<font color=0000BB>*catches her fingers inch towards her pistol*





<font color=0000BB>"Um... like it was a regular day at work?"

Anywho, it turns out Arcelia is really just a rent-a-cop who's in way over her head and she's pissy that instead of the Alliance sending a fleet to rescue them, they only sent Grunka. So again, stupid people have stupid ideas about sending entire fleets against small ground-based units. It seems positively sane compared to some of the other people here though - like these two hanging out inside the freighter...







"Do you know anything about this planet?"

"Just what I was told by Colonial Affairs. It's a little... different from what they claimed. It's not all bad, though. When the geth are gone, we'll have the chance to create something even more spectacular than before."

<font color=0000BB>"That wouldn't be hard - you were living in the tops of bombed-out 50,000 year old skyscrapers before the attack... I mean, this place makes Tuchanka look classy!"

"What can you tell me about the colony?"

"I couldn't tell you - you'd need to speak to Fai Dan."

"Why can't you tell me? I just want to know about the colony."

"Fai Dan is our leader. Who better to answer questions about the colony?"

<font color=0000BB>"Erm... the person right in front of me, that I'm asking right now, who still has their whole face intact for the moment?"

<font color=0000BB>"Shepard, I get the feeling even your... legendary... persuasive skills won't work here."

<font color=0000BB>*mutters* "I don't get to have any fun any more!"

The guy's wife, who seems to be injured somehow, is no less cryptic:



"What's wrong with you?"



"She doesn't seem to be suffering from any physical injuries, but the pain seems to be real..."



There's a guy down the corridoor in charge of solving the food problem. His brilliant solution is to boost rations with varen meat. He only sees one problem with his plan, and that is:



<font color=0000BB>"Wait... an ordinary varen is basically just a bull shark with legs, and has the same good-natured temperament as an angry doberman... and you think the only problem with your plan is that there's an even bigger, even angrier one getting about?!? *sotto voce* This mob really are stupid."

The guy also gives us the same "speak to Fai Dan" run around when we ask him about the colony, so we move on.

There's a salarian standing in front of some crates outside, which means he's probably a merchant.



Bingo.





<font color=0000BB>"At risk of sounding culturally ignorant..."

<font color=0000BB>*mutters* "I don't think 'risk' is the right word..."

"...why is your name so long?"

"We are named for our origins. Gorot II is my homeworld, Heranon, my clan's country. Mal Dinest and Got are the city and district where I live."

Thus ends the educational part of today's LP update :p

He has little if anything good to sell us, but we take the opportunity to dump off about another 100K worth of useless crap. Geth drop upgrades when you kill them and most of them are useless, so even in the short time that we've been here we've accumulated a bunch and we're going to get a lot more before we leave.

Just a few more people to talk to. This person is in charge of getting the power back online, but when we offer to bring her some power cells from the Normandy, this is the response:



"<font color=0000BB>Oh, that's right... you guys go for the bombed out and depleted thing around here. OK, if I find anything while I'm looking around, I'll send it your way."

Next up, let's find out about the water problem:





<font color=0000BB>"So you know exactly what the problem is, it's not something you can fix from here, but you don't have time to talk to me because you're too busy doing, erm, what, exactly? Geniuses, the lot of you..."

We can rag on them for not just turning the mains back on themselves, but the response is that the colonists are too scared, weak and puny to go into the tunnels. Grunka believes them and moves on to talk to this woman, who's hanging about the side of the freighter:





"What's wrong with the ship? Isn't she spaceworthy?"

"There's too much damage. Maybe if the geth stopped attacking I could fix her. Then again, if there were no geth, I might just stay on a while."

<font color=0000BB>"In this mile-high shithole? Gawd, something really is wrong with these people..."

We confront Fai Dan about it, like everyone has been telling us to do, but don't get much of an answer:







<font color=0000BB>"From what I've seen this is really more of a minor skirmish than a war, but you're just a rent-a-cop so I'll let it slide..."

"This is our home. We've watched the geth slowly destroy everything that is important to us. Don't judge us too harshly."

<font color=0000BB>"I think you'll find it's much too late for that, Mr Dan."

We'll leave things there for this update - next time out, we'll go shoot more geth! Oh, and probably help the colonists somehow as a byproduct too.

As always, thanks for reading :) Don't forget too, if you want to be messaged when there's an update just let me know in this thread or by PM and I'll add you to the list.
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
Caramel Frappe said:
OT: I remember that particular mission- I hated it. So, so many sidequests I had to do for the whole colony there.. it was dumb. If I recall, there was a total of 11 side quest missions there including a really annoying one that took part with the main mission.
Yeah, we'll get to that in a few update's time ;)

On the whole Feros is my least favourite of the main quest worlds - I've never really stopped to reflect on why that is, but I think it's mostly down to boring level design. There's only a few moments where you even come close to getting the feeling that you're in a skyscraper up above the clouds, and the rest of it is just unrelenting brown and grey. All the other main quest worlds have a lot more character.
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
Yeah, the official line is that the surface is covered by debris "dozens of metres deep" from all the buildings, which makes the planet unsuitable for agriculture: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Feros

The debris obviously came from the skyscrapers, which again begs the question in my mind: why in hell would anyone volunteer to live at the top of one?!? :p
 

woodaba

New member
May 31, 2011
1,011
0
0
Well, maybe there's something here that's affecting people's minds. Something that may cause them to be incredibly stupid. I can't possibly think that could be the case though.
 

Vuliev

Senior Member
Jul 19, 2011
573
0
21
woodaba said:
Well, maybe there's something here that's affecting people's minds. Something that may cause them to be incredibly stupid. I can't possibly think that could be the case though.
I see what you did there.
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 4, PART 2 (Feros) - A road safety announcement from the Prothean Empire[/HEADING]

Previously, on Lets Play Mass Effect: We turned up on Feros and discovered geth attacking a bunch of colonists with serious mental problems.

We don't seem to be able to do anything about their mental problems, so for lack of any better ideas Grunka decides to go check out these "tunnels" they've all been talking about and see if she can do anything about their physical problems. There's a staircase that leads down to them inside the tower.





It doesn't take us long to find more geth:





Three flights of stairs later, we open out into this area:



I've never thought about this until it came time to write this LP, but now I just can't help but wonder: what the hell is this place supposed to be?!? We're in a skyscraper, way up above the clouds, and yet we walk down three flights of stairs and all of a sudden we're in some tunnel system that stretches as far as the eye can see in either direction?!?

The only logical explanation I can come up with is that these tunnels run underneat the skyways that we'll see in a little while, in which case I'm forced to instead wonder why we had to take the Mako out in the open when we could've just walked.

But I digress - we're here to turn the water back on, disable a geth transmitter, and maybe do something about this 'alpha varren' and find a power source too. Those are all side quests, BTW.

A little way in we find geth:





We also find this water valve, which we helpfully turn back on:



<font

color="0000BB">"I'd heard your people were pretty good with engineering, quarian, but with insight like that it seems people might have even been underestimating you!"

*under breath* "He's just trying to get a rise out of you, he knows your name is Tali. He's just trying to get a rise out of you, he knows your name is Tali..."

The engineering genius is right, of course. There's another valve at the other end of the room little further along:



"Now who's the engineering genius, krogan?"

"Knock it off you two - seriously, are you both just going to state the obvious all update?"

"Pretty much, yeah. There's not really a lot to this world so far."

*balls and unballs fists* "Then we have really got to find something to shoot..."

Fortunately for everyone concerned, a little farther along we find this door, which triggers a brief cutscene:







Those would be varren. They can do an awful lot of damage to us if we let them get to within melee range, and they run fast. Fortunately though, they're not too bright and we don't even need to resort to our usual cheapshotting tactics - we just need to stay put and shoot them from the doorway. For some reason (I think the AI pathfinding is messed up in this whole section - our companions are also more prone to getting stuck behind barriers than normal down here) they never actually run up to attack us. Instead, they just run in circles inside the room.





Having knocked them off, we go inside and sure enough, we find the alpha varren. It dies pretty easy thanks to a combination of Wrex's biotics and a good old fashioned endless stream of assault rifle slugs:







"Heh - varren. My people keep these things as pets back on Tuchanka. Can't believe these colonists couldn't deal with them."

"While I agree with your assessment of how pathetic the colonists are, I think it'd be remiss of me not to point out that your people are five-hundred pound, armour-plated, four-testicled killing machines, while these colonists are only brain-damaged humans."

In the same room, we find this crashed rover:





Further down the corridoor there's a few more geth to kill before we find another water valve:



"Wait... *looks at watch* You mean we just solved three of the biggest problems the colonists had in under ten minutes?"

"It seems that way, yes. Didn't they mention something about a geth transmitter that needed shutting down too though?"

"Huh - you're right, they did. Shouldn't take longer than a minute or two. Let's go back and check out the one door we didn't open earlier, I bet it's behind there."

"It's a good thing Lieutenant Alenko isn't here - he'd have taken you literally just then and probably lost another hundred credits..."

Before we go open that door though, there's the small matter of the crazy man at the end of the tunnel:













"Are you OK? It looks like you just pooped yourself..."



"Helps remind me I'm still alive."

"Why do I get the feeling that <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.338379.13689452>Varen got to you before I did?"

"You're here for the geth, aren't you? You're not the only one interested in those... things."

"Who else is looking for the geth?"

"Not looking for; looking to get rid of. They're a thorn in the side of the wlaaagh! Agh! Gyahh-ha-ha-ha! Ahahahahaha!" *clutches head seemingly in pain*



I don't think I've ever done this mission with this mix of squadmates (Wrex and Tali) before and I wonder if it's causing some strange responses - the above seems a bit out of character for Tali, but the same sentiment would have been right in character for Wrex. Weird.



"Help me? No. No one can help me now. I would rather die fighting."





Our conversation with the crazy person is interrupted by more geth:



He's still crazy once we've dispatched them...



...so we go looking for that transmitter.







We can't really see it, but there's three krogan in the next room. Just one of them is capable of (how to put this delicately?) fucking our shit up if it gets into close range, let alone three at once, so we try to draw them out individually. It works, mostly.







I did say mostly :p Once they're dead, we find this in the room they were guarding:





With that destroyed, we can go back upstairs and tell the disturbed colonists that we've fixed all their problems for them.





Wow, that's some serious loot. 8000 credits along with 8 Paragon points. These are what's known as free Paragon points, by the way, because you don't give up any Renegade points to get them - you either turn the water on and get Paragon points plus money, or you don't and you get nothing. Same goes for the next two people we talk to:









"Fork over the reward so I can get back to more important things."

"Of course. I don't want to delay you any more than I already have."

That just leaves Fai Dan to talk to:





"You've taken a great weight off my shoulders. I just wish I had such good news for every problem."

"There's a guy living down in the tunnels. He seems completely insane, so I figure he's one of yours - sound about right?"

"That would be Ian. He's very sick. He hasn't been the same since the attack. We tried to help him, but he wouldn't listen to us. I can't help my people if they won't listen, Commander."





That's all we can get out of him on the subject, so Grunka goes to do something slightly more interesting: riding an elevator, so we can get back onto the main quest.



It opens out into this garage, where we kill a few Geth drones while listening to more colonists piss and moan...



...before getting into a conveniently-placed Mako and going for a drive along a road with no saftey rails up above the clouds.







"Ugh, as if this wasn't a stupid enough idea already - seriously, we've gotta be a kilometre up and these roads have definitely seen better days. Couldn't we have just flown to the next tower or something?!?"

"And I'm disturbed about what this says about the intelligence of the Protheans. Usually when a civilisation is advanced enough to build an ecumenopolis, they're also advanced enough to build flying transportation that renders skyways such as this one obsolete... what were they thinking?!?"

"You both make excellent points. But I'd like to draw your attention to the walking tanks that just landed, which are shooting at us."





Tali obviously hasn't had enough talking. Regardless, we take care of the armatures the usual way, by hiding behind the abandoned vehicles that litter the skyway and cheapshotting them.





"More chatter, Commander Shepard. I still can't get a fix on the location."



For anyone who needs a better idea of why it's such a spectacularly bad idea to be driving up here:







For some reason, the skyway also has these little hidey-holes in it at various intervals that you have to get out of the Mako to enter. I actually missed them completely the first couple of times I played this game, so here they are for anyone else who fell into the same boat:



Naturally there's some geth in them.





And some loot once you've killed them.



That's it. Back on the road, and eventually we enter what must be another building or some kind of waystation or something. The radio chatter Tali heard before starts up again:



"Whoever that is, they must be close to have seen us."

"Or have surveillance cameras somewhere... but sure, we'll go with your idea."

Of course, Tali turns out to be right because just around the corner we find this.









"And you trust too easily Juliana."





"I thought you said they were all dead?"

"I said they were 'probably' all dead."

"They live, though the geth have decimated their colony."

"We know what that's like. Those damn synthetics are relentless."

"Yeah yeah, they don't eat or sleep and they won't stop until Sarah Connor is dead and Judgment Day is secured. Just tell me where I can find them."

"You see? They're not here to save us. We should wait for company support before we..."

"Ignore him. The geth are up in the ExoGeni headquarters. Just a bit further along the skyway."

"Those headquarters are private property, soldier. Remove the geth and nothing else."

Dick. There's more discussion here, in which we learn that ExoGeni established this colony four years ago for the purposes of treasure hunting researching the Prothean ruins. Turns out they haven't found very much, and the company is losing money as a result.

Oh, and Juliana's daughter Lizbeth is missing, last seem somewhere in the ExoGeni headquarters. Juliana would really like it if we could find her.

This guy is also hanging around down here:







That data is on his computer in the ExoGeni headquarters, plans for some prototype mods. Apparently they don't have wireless broadband here for him to retrieve them himself but he will, of course, pay us for retrieving the data, so Grunka says she'll see what she can do. But she's lazy, so she's going to have a nap right now and do it next update :p

The whole "why build a road a kilometre in the air" idea is one that only came to me while writing this update - I'm finding it really interesting how writing an LP is giving me new perspectives on a game that I've already sunk hundreds of hours into over multiple playthroughs.

Has that ever happened to anyone else? After playing or watching something over and over, something finally twigs in your brain and you think "Huh - that was really cool/weird/stupid/odd/whatever"?

Incidentally, in that same spirit (it was a cool one, don't worry!): woodaba, I've been reading your KOTOR LP for months, and it was only when I was writing today's update that I finally had the "Varen... oooooooohhhhhhhhhh, if you rearrange the letters... I see what you did there!" moment :p
 

Zen Toombs

New member
Nov 7, 2011
2,105
0
0
Caramel Frappe said:
I've dealt with Tali or someone I had with me say something that did not suit them whatsoever.
I remember in Mass Effect 3, Tali said something in the lines of "I can imagine, the temptation to violate your friend's privacy must be unbearable." to Liara
I can't hear her tone of voice, but that just sounds like sarcasm to me. Especially considering the fact that Liara is the Shadow Broker is something of an open secret among those who have worked with the Normandy.
 

Zen Toombs

New member
Nov 7, 2011
2,105
0
0
Caramel Frappe said:
Zen Toombs said:
Caramel Frappe said:
I remember in Mass Effect 3, Tali said something in the lines of "I can imagine, the temptation to violate your friend's privacy must be unbearable." to Liara
I can't hear her tone of voice, but that just sounds like sarcasm to me. Especially considering the fact that Liara is the Shadow Broker is something of an open secret among those who have worked with the Normandy.
Her tone sounded smug, shark-tongued as in harsh but expressing it in a vile way. I didn't like her tone, it did not sound like the nice yet nerdy Tali that I knew all three games. Then again, it was probably because I romanced Liara in the first game, but then romanced Tali the other two games. I think she was getting on Liara in a jealousy attitude sort of way *shrug*
I think that's the case. You get quasi-cat fight dialogue when you have an ex love interest and a current love interest in the same squad.

Also, remember that within Quarian culture, privacy is hugely important. She may have been upset/making a jab at Liara for violating both her privacy and the privacy of those that Liara spies on.
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
Yeah, it's interesting what the choice of squadmates can do to dialog. I guess with a game this big and so many choices it's always going to be impossible to get everything perfect.

Most of the weird ones happen when you have two goodie-goodies (say, Liara and Tali) or two badasses (Garrus and Wrex) with you because one has to present the Paragon option and one the Renegade, when in reality they'd probably both agree with each other. I can see what would happen if they did that though: gamers would be complaining that Bioware was "shoving choices down their throats" any time both options weren't presented equally :p

This one just seemed weird because we've got a goody two shoes and a badass with us, but for some reason it was still Tali that delivered the "meh, leave the crazy person to die" line.
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
Yeah - I specifically remember driving past them on my first play through, seeing the red triangles on the scanner, hearing the radio chatter, but not being able to see anything from the Mako so I just moved on (that was before I learned the fight outside the Mako for more XP trick too). Should've looked harder :p

I'm guessing the skyways are actually there for metagame reasons: every major quest in the game (and pretty much all the minor ones too, now that I think about it) apparently has to have a Mako section in it. Most of them have little justification: I think I mentioned at the time that the Artemis Tau one is just stupid, for example, because there's no reason the Normandy couldn't have dropped us right at the dig site. Feros is by far the worst though, I think - here, Bioware actually had to come up with a solution that makes absolutely no in-game sense just so we could drive the Mako somewhere on this mission.

I guess it makes for a spectacular view of the clouds at least...
 

woodaba

New member
May 31, 2011
1,011
0
0
The exact same phenomenon you describe is happening to me in my LP. There are so many things I'm noticing that just passed me by before, and I've played through that game about 6 times. Carth's general incompetence stands out, in particular :p.

Don't give me too much credit for the Varen thing. I used to play a lot of Kingdom Hearts 2, and almost everyone in that game's name is an anagram, so I guess I just got used to it.

Thanks for the shout out though!
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 4, PART 3 (Feros) - Tonight on Worst Workplaces: ExoGeni Feros[/HEADING]

Previously, on Lets Play Mass Effect: We asked important philosophical questions, most of which were variations on the "what the f&*k were the Protheans thinking when they designed this place?!?" theme. Then we shot some geth.

When we left Grunka, Wrex and Tali they'd just traced the mysterious radio transmissions to a group of colonists who had escaped the ExoGeni headquarters. That's apparently where the geth have set themselves up, so it's where we're off to now.









More geth on the skyway to shoot:





<font

color="0000BB">"So if we can hear these idiots, do they really think the geth can't track them?!?"



"Guess they just found out the hard way..."

That last message came conveniently as we approached another one of those hidey holes in the side of the road. Sure enough, whoever was sending the messages met an untimely end.







We find another body at the end of the corridoor.



It's never explained what these idiots were doing here. There's two crates at the end of the corridoor, in which we find nothing more interesting than a couple of mediocre guns and some krogan armor. Having picked up the loot, it's back on the road. After a minute we discover where that geth ship was going earlier - it's attached itself to the side of the building.





That gap is too small to fit through, so we have to abandon the Mako for the moment. I know, we're all terribly disappointed. Beyond the gap are some geth troops hanging about in the foyer. They don't take long to kill.





There's a storeroom at one end of the foyer, which has some interesting contents.





"Erm... Shepard? You know that's a geth armature and it's not dead, right? It's just in sleep mode."

"Yep. And I bet it wakes up for no particular reason when we loot that container over there. But it's OK, we can take it. Easy. It won't even get a shot in."



Sure enough...



But Shepard is as good as her word:



The secret? Sabotage. The same power that rendered those drones incapable of attacking us back on the moon base works just as well on these walking tanks. And it doesn't even try to do something different like, say, crushing us against the walls of this tiny room or anything - it just sits there and lets us shoot it in the face until it dies.

Back across the foyer is the entrance to the ExoGeni headquarters. There's a problem though...





"Are you sure? Because we've been able to shoot our way through pretty much every other force field we've come across so far."

"And it's not like we need to conserve ammo or anything..."

*goes to open his mouth, then thinks better of it*

*five minutes and a thousand assault rifle rounds later*

"Yeah, it's really not budging."

"I told you so..."

Fortunately there's this tunnel back in the foyer, about which Tali has some more useful advice:





"Tali... can quarians jump?"

"Of course, Shepard. Why?"

"No reason." *mutters under breath* "Lucky you're good with engineering... one way drop my arse..."

Of course the ultimate irony of this is that we, as Shepard, are the ones that can't jump - that functionality won't be implemented until a later game - so it actually is a one-way drop despite being only a foot above our heads.

Anywho, the tunnel is only short, and opens out unti this big cavern.











"I'm so sorry. I thought you were geth, or one of those varren."

"Huh?!? I can kind of understand thinking the quarian looks like a geth..."

"MY NAME IS TALI, FISH BREATH!!!"

"...but a varren?!? None of us looks like a varren!"

"Aaawww, c'mon Wrex - you're selling yourself short! Get down on all fours and you could pass for one in a dark alley. Now..."



The funny part is that she hasn't said her name yet, but because we've got the subtitles turned on we already know it's Lizbeth Baynham, the one whose mum was worried about her last update.



"Next thing I knew, the geth ship latched on and the power went out. I was trapped. I tried to get out, but the way was blocked."

"I'll fight my way through the geth soon enough."

"It's not the geth, it's the energy field they put up. They don't want anyone else getting access to the..."







"It's an indigenous life-form. ExoGeni was studying it. I really don't know that much about it. I think it's some kind of plant being. I know it's very old. Thousands of years, even."

That's about all we get out of her for the moment. She gives us her ID to get us past any locked doors, and then as soon as the conversation is over we get swarmed by varren. Actual varren, not krogan on all fours.



This was actually a bit of a hectic fight because I didn't bring a strong biotic with me, and the secret to killing melee-only enemies like varren is obviously to make them keep their distance with Throw/Lift/Singularity and the like. Tech powers (which we're pretty heavy on between Grunka and Tali) don't do much. We make it through, but a little worse for wear. There's a door on the other side of the cavern that leads into the building proper.













"The feeling's mutual, bucko..."

Through the joys of incendiary ammo, this is soon all that remains of the krogan:



"I don't get it. There's geth everywhere, and they're basically hacking machines on legs. Why would they have a krogan be trying to hack a terminal like that? They may as well have gotten a varren to do it... no offense, Wrex."

"None taken. Better a varren than a walking calculator! No offense, Tali..."

"What?!? Bosh'tet - you do know I'm not a robot under this suit, right?!?"

"Hey, at least he used your name..."

Grunka checks the terminal out before her squadmates' bickering degenerates any further.



"Killjoy."

"Welcome back, Research Assistant Elizabeth Baynham. What can I do for you?"





"What did you tell him?"

"I was unable to provide the previous user with any relevant data. Aside from lacking proper access, there has been no new data available on Species 37. All sensors monitoring the observation post at Zhu's Hope have been inactive for several cycles."

"What does Zhu's Hope have to do with the Thorian?"

"Species 37 is located within the substructure of the Zhu's Hope outpost."





"Through dispersion and the eventual inhalation of spores, it can infect and control other organisms, including humans. The Zhu's Hope control group has yielded interesting results. Before sensors went offline, almost 85% of all test subjects were infected."



"Is it intelligent? Can I reason with it?"

"The Thorian does not exhibit the focused behavior of a predator. The release of spores is an act of survival, not aggression. It does trigger advanced behaviors in the humans it enslaves, but we have yet to discover whether it recognises - or is capable of recognising - humans as more than tools. It is sufficiently alien as to defy classification at this time."

"So if I were to try to shoot this thing in the face, where would I go?"

"The Thorian is present as a weave of tendrils across much of the lower surface of Feros. As such, it doesn't have a 'face'. Observation of enslaved subjects suggests there may be key clusters that are tended by thralls."

That doesn't really help us much, but knowing it's somewhere near Zhu's Hope is probably good enough. The VI also tells us that it has no real data on the geth, because they've decommissioned all sensors since they arrived. It gives us a standard spiel about ExoGeni - apparently it funds colonial development and secures resource rights to ensure human progress. And it has some interesting information on Elizabeth...





"You are currently under probation due to disagreements with management over established company policy. These sanctions may be lifted if your next evaluation is more agreeable. You were marked as 'combative' about the operation of the Zhu's Hope project, specifically regarding the handling of the infected colonists."

With that gigantic infodump out of the way, let's see what else the geth are up to here. Down the corridoor we come out onto a balcony to see this:





When we're done killing the geth it triggers a brief cut scene where Tali explains what we need to do next.







Wrex raises an interesting point. It's never really explained what the hell was going on here - taken at face value, it really did look like they were worshipping at some kind of altar or something. But why would robots do that?!? Tali has a theory:



I guess since these geth would be heretics they revere the Reapers/'old machines' as gods, but it still seems really strange that the mobile platforms would be physically 'worshipping'. Go figure.

Anywho, we'll stop wondering if geth worship electric deities and move on to the lobby, where there are more geth waiting to be shot:





Here's the main entrance that we couldn't get past - we need to find a way to cut the power from the geth ship in order to get out, because our lack of a jump button means that we can't just go back out the way we came, even though we have the information about the Thorian that we came for.

The lobby gives us access to two staircases.







That's a fair few geth. Fortunately, tech powers + decent assault rifles = lots of dead geth fast. There's a terminal in this room which gives up the following information after decryption:



"Ugh - just once, can we have an interaction with a scientist that doesn't involve them having done something incredibly stupid that we have to clean up after?"

"Actually, there's a really cool scientist coming up that doesn't do anything stupid, and he sings a mean Gilbert and Sullivan patter song to boot."

"Sounds great - when do we meet this scientist?"

"In the next game."

"FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU......"

We'll track down that crypic message later. Now there's more geth to kill on the other side of the room.



Shut up, this is a totally serious and mature playthrough. I'm only trying to shoot it in the arse because I can't see its head... :p



I don't even know how Wrex is supposed to know that.



That's the last of the geth down here. There's a couple more terminals we can decrypt down here, one is the geth's and the other is an ExoGeni one:





Seriously, scientists doing dumb shit. It's like the writers thought we'd miss the point, so they had to use the device dozens of times over...

At the end of the room is another console which operates the shuttle bay doors. It has a note helpfully taped to it saying that absolutely positively under no circumstances should you operate the door when the pressure is between 31 and 34 PSI, because it'll snap shut with tons of force and wreck anything that's in the way.

Would that even include the claws of a geth ship? Only one way to find out. This is a very basic math puzzle: we've got five valves in front of us that add different amounts of pressure. We just need to flick the right ones so that the total adds up to something between 31 and 34, then flick the main switch.





















"I repeat, Normandy to shore party. Are you reading? Anyone there? Normandy to shore party. Come on Commander, talk to me!"



"We're in lockdown here, Commander. Something happened to the colonists. They're banging on the hull, trying to claw their way inside the ship. They're freaking out!"



One more thing to do before we leave - there was that staircase on the other side of the lobby.



We find three krogan in a dead-end corridoor at the top. Naturally, we kill them.







At the end of the corridoor is the console of the guy who wanted us to retrieve his data.



Anyone else get the impression ExoGeni really didn't like this guy, to give him an 'office' like this?

Grunka doesn't dwell on it though, because With the data downloaded, we can head back to the main entrance and get out of here.



"We should get out of here. I don't think this place is safe."

"How do you figure? We just killed all the geth that were in here. And besides, you were holding out on us before about the Thorian. Get talking..."



"When the geth attacked, I stayed behind to send a message to Colonial Affairs. I tried to tell them where to find the Thorian, but the power cut before I could send the message. I... I never meant for this to happen."

"You did what you could. I'll help them if you can tell me where to find the Thorian."

"The Thorian is underneath Zhu's Hope, but the entrance is blocked. The colonists covered it with the freighter just before the geth attacked.





"Normandy to shore party. Come in. There's another geth dropship inbound with troops, looks like they're headed your way."

Lizbeth decides to tag along with us as we head back to the colony - which means getting back in the Mako, something which I know everybody will be excited about!



There's a little bit of fighting on the way back, but if you've seen one armature being cheapshotted on a crumbling skyway, you've seen them all. As we approach the refugee camp though we pick up this chatter:











We jump out to see what's happening.



















"Hah, Shepard. Damn it! I knew it was too much to hope the geth would kill you. I found some interesting facts about you in the ExoGeni database. I know what you did during the Blitz, but your heroics aren't needed here."

"First of all, what I did during the Blitz is all over the extranet, you don't need any special database. Second, you clearly do need my heroics since your entire plan seems to revolve around staying camped in this hole making unsecure radio communications until the geth track you down and kill you. Despite that you're still being a dick, but we can talk this out. Nobody needs to get hurt."

"You don't understand. It's not that easy. Communications are back up. ExoGeni wants this place purged."







"The what?"

"It's a telepathic life-form living under Zhu's Hope. It's taking control of the colonists there. ExoGeni knew all along."





Unfortunately we don't have enough Paragon or Renegade points for the high-end conversation options here but it's OK, because the other options lead to what I assume everyone wanted to do anyway: shooting this guy in the head.





*boom* (sorry, missed the screengrab!)

"So what now, Commander?"

"I guess we could take photos of everybody teabagging his corpse?"

*whispers* "I think she meant about the colonists..."

"Oh, right. I need to find out why the geth are after the Thorian."





"You could safely use a nerve agent to neutralise the colonists. The insecticide we use in the gro-labs contains trace amounts of tetraclopine, a neuromuscular degenerator. If their nervous systems are already weakened, it may act as a paralysing agent."

"Or I could just, y'know, shoot them if they get in my way."


So we're about to head back to Zhu's Hope, how should we handle the infected colonists?

- Paralyse them with the gas grenades?
- Shoot them for the sake of convenience?
- Gas half of them and shoot the other half?

Place bets now! And as always, thanks for reading :)
 

AD-Stu

New member
Oct 13, 2011
1,287
0
0
Daaaawwww, thanks :)

My biggest problem with saving the colonists is that they make you do it using either grenades or melee attacks, both of which are pretty much useless in this game - seriously, this is about the only time I'll use either of them in the entire playthrough.

Unless the vote is for kill them all, in which case we needn't worry about using them at all :p