Going to also throw my vote in for incapacitation rather than slaughter of the colonists. How you do it (grenades or melee) is up to you. Just remember that there's a couple crates full of grenades in the colony itself, so it's not a total wash if you miss a few.
I think there was some discussion that the whole Haestrom / dark matter thing played a big role in Drew Karpyshyn's original ending for the series, but it got ditched in favour of the Mac Walters and Casey Hudson ending that we actually got. Whether the Haestrom one would have turned out better I guess we'll never know...
TopazFusion said:
This is the reason why I left Feros until last on one of my playthroughs, so I had accumulated enough morality points to use in this conversation (one of the most difficult Charm/Intimidate in the game).
Apparently, if you use a charm or intimidate here, you don't have to worry about keeping the colonists alive in the next part.
Yeah, we need 10 Intimidate / 12 Charm to get access to those options, as opposed to...
...the 8 Charm / 8 Intimidate required for a certain conversation with Wrex later, or the 9/9 for an even later one with Saren
I hadn't realised the Jeong ones were so high. At the moment, Grunka has 8 Charm / 5 Intimidate, but our bigger problem is that both are capped at 8 until we run up higher Paragon/Renegade scores. We're starting to run into the issue with balance playthroughs, I think, though if we run our Paragon score up just a little higher we'll have access to enough points to at least have the Charm option in most situations (including the ones mentioned above in the spoiler).
Anywho, it seems like saving the colonists by punching them in the face is the way to go, I'll leave voting open a little longer just in case then get cracking
I think there was some discussion that the whole Haestrom / dark matter thing played a big role in Drew Karpyshyn's original ending for the series, but it got ditched in favour of the Mac Walters and Casey Hudson ending that we actually got. Whether the Haestrom one would have turned out better I guess we'll never know...
TopazFusion said:
This is the reason why I left Feros until last on one of my playthroughs, so I had accumulated enough morality points to use in this conversation (one of the most difficult Charm/Intimidate in the game).
Apparently, if you use a charm or intimidate here, you don't have to worry about keeping the colonists alive in the next part.
Yeah, we need 10 Intimidate / 12 Charm to get access to those options, as opposed to...
...the 8 Charm / 8 Intimidate required for a certain conversation with Wrex later, or the 9/9 for an even later one with Saren
I hadn't realised the Jeong ones were so high. At the moment, Grunka has 8 Charm / 5 Intimidate, but our bigger problem is that both are capped at 8 until we run up higher Paragon/Renegade scores. We're starting to run into the issue with balance playthroughs, I think, though if we run our Paragon score up just a little higher we'll have access to enough points to at least have the Charm option in most situations (including the ones mentioned above in the spoiler).
Anywho, it seems like saving the colonists by punching them in the face is the way to go, I'll leave voting open a little longer just in case then get cracking
Wait, wait, what?! It takes you less Charm/Intimidate to talk down two of the most assured characters in the game, both of whom are talked into abandoning something that defines them should Shepard succeed, than it does to get some corporate schmuck with less personality than a wet napkin to not let a bunch of colonists get mind-controlled?!
Jeez, if he's that keen on the Thorian, maybe the Charm/Intimidate options should have just been different methods of execution. Bullet to the head, or getting chucked out of a nearby window... what a stubborn dick!
I found out last play through if you punch them they won't die but they will get knocked out. Either way I don't care. The turian is a prick either way.
Wait, wait, what?! It takes you less Charm/Intimidate to talk down two of the most assured characters in the game, both of whom are talked into abandoning something that defines them should Shepard succeed, than it does to get some corporate schmuck with less personality than a wet napkin to not let a bunch of colonists get mind-controlled?!
Jeez, if he's that keen on the Thorian, maybe the Charm/Intimidate options should have just been different methods of execution. Bullet to the head, or getting chucked out of a nearby window... what a stubborn dick!
To be fair, the second example I gave (the one from the end of the game - I'll keep up the pretense that it's a spoiler even though everyone here almost certainly knows how this all ends ) is only a 9/9 if you chose a particular dialog sequence earlier in the game, and it's 12/12 if you didn't. Pretty sure there's no prerequisite for the earlier sequence though, so there's really no reason for it not to be 9/9.
Actually what's even crazier is that...
...Saren is f&*king indoctrinated.
So overpowering the will of a Reaper is apparently easier than convincing Jeong not to be a corporate toolbox. Wow. Just... wow.
[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 4, PART 4 (Feros) - Little Shop of Horrors without the singing[/HEADING]
Previously, on Lets Play Mass Effect: We blew the shit out of a lot of geth before closing the ExoGeni garage door like a boss. Oh, and we learned about some kind of gigantic plant being called the Thorian that's living underneath the Zhu's Hope outpost and is somehow controlling the minds of the colonists.
After the last update, the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of saving the colonists. We have two options for that - we can use the gas grenade upgrade we got to knock the infected colonists out, rather than killing them, or we can just smack them upside the head with melee attacks for the same result. Smacking them upside the head sounds like more fun, plus grenades are irritating, unweildy things at the best of times in this game.
So that's what we'll go do, just as soon as we've tied up a few loose ends to tie up with these refugees. First there's the guy whose data we retrieved...
"That's very good news indeed. Thank you."
"Incidentally, I couldn't help but notice your 'office' was just a dead-end corridoor with no windows - what did you do that they chucked you in there?!?"
"Oh, you know, the usual office politics stuff. Photocopy your arse one too many times and all of a sudden nobody wants to work near you any more..."
"Huh. Well, sucks to be you I guess. Now just give me my credits and I'll be on my way."
Having collected our money (and omni-gel - go figure), there's just one more thing we need to do...
*both stare blankly at Shepard*
*sigh* "If Garrus were here, he'd be laughing... alright you lot, let's go."
More Armatures on the skyway. Killing them looks the same as it always has, so let's skip ahead to the bit where we arrive back at the Zhu's Hope garage.
"Are either of you familiar with Alliance Prime Directive 41.8 sub-section C?"
"Nope"
"Sorry Commander, no."
"Huh. Maybe it's something I just made up then. Either way, it states that anything encountered by an Alliance officer that looks even remotely like it came belongs in the Alien series of movies needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice by means of soccer kicks, rifle slugs to the cranium or nuking the site from orbit - just to be sure."
*shrugs* "It's you, not me, that faces the music if you just made all that stuff up... and I was just going to kill it on principle for being in our way" *grabs shotgun*
*under breath* "Keelah se'lai, it's a good thing you two don't make huge decisions on behalf of your entire species or anything..."
According to our targeting reticule, this is a Thorian Creeper:
Turns out it's a melee-only enemy and it's not one of the colonists. We know they'll be around somewhere though. I'm going to try to do this without grenades, but I'll equip the knockout gas upgrade just in case.
Behind the roller door, this is what we find:
Note the ones that are curled up in a ball on the ground - for whatever reason you can't actually do damage to those ones until they stand up, and they won't stand up until you get close to them. Mildly irritating. Otherwise though the Creepers can be dealt with using the same tactics as pretty much any other melee enemy: keep them at a distance, either using biotics or by walking backwards and filling them with slugs.
Having dealt with the creepers, we find the first infected colonists at the elevator entrance. It's face-punching time!
This is the scene that greets us at the top of the elevator:
Like I said, you can't hurt them in this state. Walk a little closer and they'll stand up though.
More infected colonists outside the door. Unlike the creepers they're armed with pistols, but take note of our secret weapon in the bottom left corner: the Immunity ability (indicated by the white health bar). All we do is fire it up, then their pistol shots do nothing and as long as we melee the colonists before Immunity wears off they won't do any damage to us. Which establishes a pattern for the rest of this section, really - trigger the Creepers so they'll chase you, back up a ways so you can kill the Creepers without catching colonists in the firefight, then whack the colonists over the head at your leisure, like so:
There's a grenade refill here if we need it, by the way, but so far we haven't used a single one.
For some reason the salarian merchant takes a few hits to knock out...
This is the most irritating thing about this mission: some of the colonists, and this one in particular (the last one) have a habit of getting stuck in walls so you can't melee them. I ended up having to relent and use a grenade so that the splash damage would knock her out.
With all the colonists dealt with, we can have a look at the crane controls to see what's being hidded under the freighter.
"But... it's just plant spores. Have you tried huffing insecticide?!?"
"I was supposed to be their leader. These people trusted me."
"I feel like I'm forgetting something, like there's something very simple I could do to resolve this standoff..."
*boom* (apparently I'm terrible at screengrabbing the particular moment NPCs take a slug to the head)
*sighs* "Couldn't we have just knocked him out with the gas grenades? We've got plenty left over."
*facepalms* "Of course! The gas grenades! I knew I was forgetting something! Too late now I guess. Let's go shoot a gigantic ancient plant in the face to take our minds off it."
After entering the staircase you get your score from the previous section - Fai Dan killing himself doesn't count, so we got a perfect score, all 16 colonists lived and for that we get +32 Paragon points.
"Nothing's ever simple, is it?"
"Well we have been kicking around this idea for making things really simple for the art department at the end of the series..."
Screenshots don't really do that justice, but the giant plant thing just oozed a fully grown asari out what I suppose is its mouth. Eeewww.
"I speak for the Old Growth, as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"
"You gave something to Saren. Something I need."
"Saren sought knowledge of those who are gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the Long Cycle. Trades were made. Then cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle. Flesh fairly given! The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!"
With that, we're thrown into combat with the asari clone. IIRC this is one of the first asari we've faced other than the slaver we killed in that side quest. They're biotics, which makes them difficult to deal with, especially in confined spaces like this where they can disable you then take a shotgun to you.
Here's a fun fact though - tech specialists (like Grunka and Tali) are actually awesome against biotics, on account of the Damping ability which temporarily disables an enemy's biotics. Without biotics, the asari is actually pretty harmless and since Tali and Grunka both have the ability, we can deploy it over and over. Throw in Sabotage to disable its weapons, Overload to drop its shields and this fight is crazy one-sided. Plus we get to fight with pretty fireworks going off!
Some more creepers wake up to join the fight, but don't last long.
"And people call me ugly! We need to kill this thing fast."
Grunka deals with the situation the way she deals with most situations: she shoots at it. Doing so seems to piss the Thorian off...
"How do you know?!? I thought there was no such thing as a krogan scientist?"
"Krogan may not know science, but we do know hurting things..." *cracks knuckles*
Touche. The rest of this section is pretty repetitive - we're at the bottom of a pit that has stairwells and balconys spiralling upwards above it. We need to work our way up, blowing the crap out of any of these nodes we come across. At various points more Creepers wake up to hassle us...
...oh, and it keeps spewing out more asari clones to bother us too. As mentioned before though, they're actually not that big a deal for us so this section is basically just time consuming. I'll cover it in a quick highlights package:
It's easily the most visually impressive section of this grey and brown world, FWIW.
We're at the top of the chamber and that node was the last one, so when we've shot the hell out if it this sequence is triggered.
"I'm free. I'm free. And I'm... covered in plant goo?!? Eeewww, gross!"
"How did you end up inside that thing?"
"Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have. She joined him to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren is compelling. Benezia lost her way."
"Oh shit - Saren can control minds?"
"Benezia underestimated Saren. As I did. We came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling. He has a vessel. An enormous warship unlike anything I've ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. It can dominate the minds of his followers. They become indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process is subtle. It can take days, weeks. But in the end, it is absolute."
"Saren offered me in trade. I was sacrificed to secure an alliance between Saren and the Thorian."
It turns out Saren wasn't a turian of his word though - as soon as he had what he wanted he ordered the geth to destroy all evidence of the Thorian, which is what the geth were actually up to upstairs. But back up for a minute - what was it he actually wanted from the Thorian?!? Shiala explains:
"To truly comprehend them, you must think like a Prothean. You must understand their culture, their history, their very existance. The Thorian was here long before the Protheans built this city. It watched and studied them. When they died, it consumed them. They became a part of it. To understand, you must have access to endemic ancestral memory. A viewpoint spanning thousands of Prothean generations."
Dunno about you guys, but while she may be saying "Relax" the look on her face is says "Imma f&*king kill you!" to me...
*shudders* "Cipher or not, I still feel dirty after watching that. Those Protheans were crazy. What's it all about?"
Shiala doesn't actually know what it's about, so we plug her for other information. Here's a quick overview.
Sovereign, Saren's flagship, doesn't match the design of any known spacefaring species. It's huge, dwarfing any vessel in the Citadel or Alliance fleets, its guns are huge to match, and then there's the mind control thing it facilitates. Doesn't sound good.
Benezia, according to Shiala, was a powerful and highly respected asari matriarch who always sought the paths of peace and harmony. That all went out the window since she fell in with Saren though. Shiala herself claims to not be very interesting, but says that she'd like to stay on Feros to help the colonists and make amends with them. I decide to let her because this whole update has been Paragon so we may as well stick with it (the alternative is killing her because she's done too much wrong and can't be trusted).
That's basically the end of the quest - we've cleared the geth out, we have the information that Saren came for, and we've freed all the poor innocent victims of the Thorian. We can have a quick chat with them on the way out.
We got a level up somewhere in there by the way, here's how we're built at the moment:
We've finally run up enough Paragon points to get access to the next few levels of Charm. With our new Charm score of 10 we've got enough skill to beat pretty much any Paragon conversation check left in the game (as discussed in spoilers after the last update). Our next challenge is to get our Renegade score high enough to do the same, and then see if we can still trigger both specialty side quests. I have a nasty feeling we won't quite pull it off.
Aside from that we've been building up our Spectre and Commando special class skills along with Assault Rifles since they'll be our go-to weapon for the rest of the game.
With maxed out Fitness Wrex is about as unkillable as anyone can get - now I'm working on maxing out his offensive biotic skills (Throw and Warp). Tali I've taken a bit more of a balanced approach with because she doesn't really have any one standout skill and we use all four of her tech skills pretty evenly depending on the situation.
So there we go, two main quests down! Next update we'll deal with the inevitable wall-of-text debrief from Feros. Then if it's cool with you guys we'll do a little more side questing in the next update or two, including a return to the Citadel and probably a visit to Pinnacle Station, before having a vote on where to head to next.
I still think it is rediculous that you are an infiltrator and using an assault rife. When I played my infiltrator I went for snipers as my main weapon. You know how hard that mission is with a sniper. It is pretty damned impossible.
I still think it is rediculous that you are an infiltrator and using an assault rife. When I played my infiltrator I went for snipers as my main weapon. You know how hard that mission is with a sniper. It is pretty damned impossible.
Partly it's because we still don't have access to any decent sniper rifles at this point in the game - the sights still wobble all over the shop and they've got terrible firing rates.
Partly it's because sniper rifles simply aren't as good in this game as they are in the later games in the trilogy. In certain spots in this game they're very handy but for the majority of Feros, for example, they're pretty much useless and you can't get anything like number of one-shot kills with them in ME1 that you can in later titles. We also don't have access to the time-slowing mechanic that makes sniper rifles a lot better in the later games. I rarely use them in ME1, but in ME2/3 I rarely leave the Normandy without them.
And lastly, it's partly just because assault rifles are crazy overpowered in this game and we've got access to decent ones now. Plus I think it's a nice nod to the people that voted for the soldier class back when we started this thing (the vote was pretty close between the two classes).
IIRC, technically high level pistols are actually the best choice for damage dealing in this game but I just don't think they're a lot of fun
I'm sure the facial expression is probably just a quirk of when I took the screengrab rather than how it actually looks animated. Still pretty creepy though, and much more so than when Liara does it...
[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 4, PART 5 (Normandy) - The curious case of the krogan testicles[/HEADING]
Previously, on Lets Play Mass Effect: We wrapped up our work on Feros by smacking colonists over head and then killing a plant that was hundreds of thousands of years old. Fair to say Grunka Shepard doesn't really have a green thumb.
Now it's time for the inevitable debrief session - let's cut straight to the Normandy's meeting room too see what's going on.
"I might be able to help you. I am an expert on the Protheans. If I join my consciuosness to yours maybe we can make some sense of it."
<font
color="0000BB">"Erm... we already knew all of that doc, I kind of assumed it's why we all got dragged in here."
"Stow it Chief - you should be getting used to the copy-pasting by now *turns to Liara* Do it. Hurry. We don't have much time."
*insert the exact same Beacon imagery that we saw last update*
*snorts* "I'm still no scientist, but even I'm pretty sure people only say 'the images were so vivid' when they've seen something - probably some vivid images."
Sometimes I really do feel bad for Kaidan. He seems to get more than his fair share of the "well duh!" lines.
"The beacon on Eden Prime must have been badly damaged. Large parts of the vision are missing. The data transferred into the commander's mind is incomplete."
"You sure you didn't come across any kind of clue or hint? Something we might have missed? No roadsigns saying 'this way to The Conduit' or '10 miles to the secret Prothean superweapon' or anything?"
"Everything I saw you already know. You were right about the Reapers. The Protheans were destroyed by a race of sentient machines. I think it's obvious there's a connection between the Reapers, the Prothean extinction, and the Conduit..."
"Seems obvious - they wouldn't call them Reapers if they didn't reap, huh?"
Um... indeed. But I didn't see anything that would help us find it."
Liara feels a bit faint, which causes us to replay the exact same "Doctor Chakwas should take a look at you" conversation we had with her earlier. The meeting wraps up on that note.
Interesting that it's the asari councillor, the one that's supposed to be the voice of reason, that's getting pissy with us...
Grunka has chosen to take the mature path, obviously
*harrumphs then changes the subject* "Did you get my file on Feros?"
"We did. Things would have been easier if Exogeni had warned you about the Thorian."
"You might have been able to capture it for study instead of destroying it."
"so we shoot various bits of it until it died. All in the name of science, obviously."
"Yes, kill it. That's how you humans usually deal with things you don't understand."
"The First Contact War again?!? Councilor, how many times do we have to explain - Alliance Prime Directive 41.8 sub-section C demands we kill any particularly ugly aliens we come across and, well, you turians really are an ugly bunch. For all we knew you had acid for blood! Besides, the Thorian wasn't complicated. It enslaved and killed innocent civilians."
"Of course it was saved. Shepard would go to any lengths to help a human colony."
That exchange netted us a couple of points each for our Renegade and Paragon scores - the balanced playthrough works sometimes!
Incidentally, I find it interesting that despite the fact the Council is portrayed as holding humanity back and getting in Shepard's way, if you take even a second to think about the situations they're faced with the Council actually makes the reasonable, logical choice at pretty much every turn.
Anywho, let's follow up all that talking with more talking, this time to our individual crewmates. We'll start with Kaidan because he's the first one we walk past...
"That's what she said!"
"Can it Joker, or so help me I'll come up there and break both your legs. You were about to complain about something in a long-winded passive-aggressive way, Lieutenant?"
"We've played it pretty close to the book so far. But we're a long way from backup. We've got some tough calls to make. I'm just saying, try to leave yourself a way out. I've seen what cutting corners can do to someone. And I'd hate to have that happen to you, Shepard."
Grunka chooses to play dumb - which isn't hard, because what Kaidan's rambling on about here doesn't really make a whole heap of sense. Seriously, last time we spoke with him he was telling us all about Brain Camp and how he had a thing for a Turkish girl there but he was too much of an emo to do anything about it.
"There's a lower-deck rumor..."
"That's what he said!"
"Dammit, deck! I said deck! Anywho, there's a rumour that she's, uh, interested in you. As more than a source of Prothean data."
This is the inevitable conversation that crops up when you've been cordial to two potential love interests. If we continue to lead them both on then at some point they'll confront us directly and ask us to choose. Everybody voted unanimously for Liara a few updates ago, so I was intending to do the merciful thing and just shut Kaidan down right now but the conversation options weren't particularly well labelled and this is what Grunka came out with:
Oh. We'll fix that in a moment. He talks a bit more about his experience at biotic training camp and how the Alliance cut some corners by hiring turian mercenaries to help with the early stages of human biotic research. Those mercs cut corners in the training, pushed the kids hard and a few of them died. So now Kaidan is allergic to corner cutting.
"So why are you telling me this? Are you saying I'm cutting corners somewhere, or are you mistaking me for your therapist again?"
There we go, shut down properly this time. Let's go deal with the other half of this love interest plot and talk to Liara.
"I did not really know much about your species when we first met, Shepard. I found it hard to take humanity seriously. Your kind always seem so rushed and high-strung. And you have hair on your heads, something which every other species in the galaxy did away with millenia ago...
Yes, I know the photo of Tali in ME3 shows that quarians have hair under their suits. But I'm still writing that off as lazyness on the part of the Bioware art department
"We don't have the luxury of time. An asari can live for a thousand years. We're lucky if we hit 150..."
Exactly. Which is why I was surprised that you all seem to spend so much time 'doing your hair'...
There's an interesting tidbit in that - humanity has apparently added quite a decent amount to its average lifespan by this point (incidentally, Shepard is 29 years old as of the events of this game. Joker is 28, Kaidan is 32, Ashley is 25 and Anderson is 46). Liara goes on to say that, follicles aside, humanity's comparatively short lifespan may actually be an advantage because it encourages us to get shit done - even though we tend to run over others in our hurry to do it.
The conversation eventually gets back around to why Liara is interested in Shepard.
"You intrigue me, Shepard. But I was not sure if it was appropriate to act on my feelings. I thought there might already be a relationship with you and Lieutenant Alenko."
"What? Oh gawd no. I don't go for the types that look like they'd start crying halfway through, if you know what I mean..."
"Um... I'm afraid I don't. Which just goes to reinforce the point that I'm not as adept at understanding human relationships as I thought."
There's some more stuff in here where Liara talks about how this makes no sense because she and Shepard are different species (even though, as has been established, asari in this period will bang anything with DNA and actually prefer other species over their own for that purpose), then they agree to take things slow so that we'll have to keep playing until the end of the game to see all the "controversial" alien side boob.
Garrus is the next cab off the rank:
In the interests of brevity I'll paraphrase this whole bit - Garrus tells us a story about a C-Sec case he worked once where a salarian doctor was growing cloned organs inside living people. The organs that developed properly were later removed for sale on the black market, while ones that didn't were just left inside the people. Dude was a psychopath. A side discussion at this point is also, I think, the first time we find out that krogan have four testicles.
Anyway, Garrus tracked the doctor down but he escaped in a shuttle with some hostages, and Citadel control wouldn't let Garrus fire on the ship because they'd donated their testicles to a krogan, so the bad guy got away. Garrus has looked into the case again from time to time since then. It turns out the doctor changed his name from Saleon to Heart and Garrus has the transponder frequency for the guy's new ship. We tell Garrus we'll check it out if we get a chance (we will, before the end of this update) and then go on our way.
Tali is next:
"I still think a lot about my Pilgrimage, though. I know Saren's our top priority. But with all the worlds we go to, I was hoping to find something to bring back to the fotilla. And it can't just be some derelict ship my people can use for salvage. It has to be more than that. There's a lot expected of me."
"What's so special about you?"
"My father is responsible for the lives of seventeen million people - our entire race is in his hands. And I'm his only child."
The thrust of the rest of the discussion is that the position isn't hereditary so Tali doesn't think she'll ever serve on the quarian Admiralty Board herself. Despite that, people apparently still expect her to live up to her father's example.
Tali says her people's greatest dream is to one day return to their homeworld and drive out the geth that exiled them, and she thinks the best thing she could bring back would be something that helped her people understand how the geth have evolved.
Future games in the series, of course, shed all sorts of interesting light on the issues she raises in this conversation... but that's a few games away. For now, we leave it at that and go talk to Ashley.
*from off screen* "Oh, before I go. We saw Kaidan in a news vid about the Normandy. He's cute. Later, sis."
"Let's pretend this never happened."
"Or let's say it did, because I can be an ass like that. Are you interested in the lieutenant, Chief?"
"Fraternisation is against regluations, ma'am. Don't ask, don't tell."
If we were playing a ManShep, then her sister would have said something about Shepard rather than Kaidan. But since we're not, the conversation thread dead-ends there and we end up talking about Ashley's family instead. Her dad was in the Alliance military and he was away a lot (like I said in an earlier update, everyone in this game has daddy issues) and Ash is the oldest of four sisters. She tells a story about how her youngest sister, who was still in high school, beat the crap out of a guy who refused to understand 'no means no'. The point, apparently, was this:
She then goes on to quote a passage from Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, which I won't bother retyping but you can read in its entirety here if you're so inclined.
Mass Effect nerd trivia tidbit of the day: apparently Ashley was supposed to recite the much shorter and far less subtle Cool Green Hills of Earth by Robert Heinlein at this point, but they had to change to the public-domain Ulysses after having an issue securing rights to Heinlein's work. Anyway, where were we?
"Well that came out of nowhere - you didn't strike me as the olde english literature type, Ash."
"I wasn't always, but it was Daddy's favourite poem and I figured everyone else was airing their Daddy issues so I may as well too. Every time he shipped out, he recorded me reading it. He had a dozen versions when he retired."
"I don't know if that's touching or... creepy. Does he still like it?"
"I sure hope so. I read it to his grave every time I go home. Dad passed on a few years back. He's probably still watching though."
We can choose to react to that question in various ways, ranging from "I do too" to "Keep that shit to yourself you crazy fanatic". Grunka chooses the middle ground:
Have you started to pick up that every single one of our squadmates has a very specific job to do when it comes to filling in the background lore of the game universe? Wrex, Liara, Tali and Garrus obviously have the job of teaching us about their respective species, while Kaidan is the one who teaches us about biotics. Ash, on the other hand, gets to fill us in on Alliance military life and how humanity has changed over the years.
The religion point here is an interesting one - it seems people that believe in gods have become very much the minority since humanity took to the stars.
Grunka decides that the best way to follow that conversation up is by provoking a krogan:
"Oo-rah. But aren't you at all worried about what will happen to the krogan?"
"What the hell do you want me to do about it Shepard? I'm tired of sticking my ass on the line and getting nothing for it. I decided killing for credits was better than killing for a lost cause. I'm not like you, Shepard. I'm no hero."
Oh Wrex, you're such a boss. Never change *grins*
Now that we've spoken with everyone and sold off all our useless shite we can get on our way...
...or not. The Council want to talk to us again so we wander back to the comm room.
We'll take this as our cue to be a dick, because the Council discussions are much more entertaining when we do that:
"Nobody on the Council wants to see you fail. So we contacted you with this latest information."
"We currently have several infiltration units scattered throughout the border regions of Citadel space. This particular unit was gathering intel on Saren."
"What did they find?"
"Unfortunately, the message we received was little more than static. We made repeated requests for them to hold the line while we tried to fix the signal, but they hung up before we could rectify the problem. But the message was sent on a channel reserved for mission-critical communications. Whatever they were trying to tell us, we know it was important."
And we will - but not right away. Since the Council's given the mission to us, it's obviously a major quest and therefore something we can put off until we're done piss-farting around doing other stuff - like tracking down Garrus's evil doctor!
We've brought Garrus with us, naturally, and Ashley as well. It's been a while, so let's take a quick look at their stats:
As requested we've maxed Garrus out on sniper rifles and he's got reasonably high level assault rifle and tactical armor skills too. For the next little bit I'll probably work on rounding out his tech skills a bit more. Ash is much more straightforward - she's basically the Mass Effect equivalent of a tank. From this point on we're really just plowing points into the weapon skills (we use first aid so rarely that I don't really see the point investing in it, unless there's some advantage that I'm missing?).
Anywho, back to the mission and finding the crazy doctor:
These things are labelled "test subjects" and there's a dozen or so of them running about the main cargo hold. They look exactly like the thorian creepers that we killed on Feros, but I'm pretty sure that's just the art department copy-pasting models to save time and money...
<font
color="0000BB">"Whoa - what kind of organs was this guy trying to clone, dynamite colons or something?!?"
"Whatever it is, they leave a hell of a stain..."
With the main hold cleared (but not cleaned), we check up the front of the ship.
"Erm... no, it's Saleon. I can tell because that's what it says in the subtitles. But just to be sure I'll ask Garrus."
"Positive. There's no escape this time, Doctor. I'd harvest your organs first, but we don't have the time."
"You're crazy. He's crazy. Please, don't let him do this to me. I'll give you my entire stock of krogan testicles to save me from him!"
So, what do we do? What kind of example do we set for Garrus? Do we:
Thanks This is the first time I've actually played the game with the subtitles on, so I'd never realised how they can occasionally spoil stuff.
Without them there's a tiny moment of doubt in this mission - is it possible this really is some poor innocent sucker whose name just happens to be the same as Garrus's psycho's pseudonym? With them on there's never any question though, same as the way they jumped the gun on telling us who Lizbeth was back on Feros.
Anywho, that's one vote for spare the doctor - what does everybody else think? Even if you've never voted before, please don't be afraid to join in!
Alrighty, cool. Now we're 2-1 in favour of killing Dr Saleon.
While it's true that Grunka has dealt with a lot of situations so far by shooting at them, I can actually see her reacting either way in this case - as I alluded to above though, what the game really wants us to think about in this spot though is what kind of example we want to set for Garrus. Do we want him to be a win-at-all-costs Renegade or a calculating, measured Paragon?
TopazFusion said:
In my several playthroughs, I've never cut off the council once (mainly because I like to hear every bit of dialogue, good or bad), so this dialogue here is new to me.
Yeah - the first time I played this game I did everything 100% Paragon because I hadn't quite twigged to how everything worked, to the point where I'd actually go back and reload a save game if I somehow accidentally got a Renegade point. That's obviously changed
I think it's just because I was used to the morality systems in things like KOTOR where getting dark side points meant losing light side points. That's obviously not quite the way this game works.
Anywho, it was probably on my second or third playthrough that I discovered the joys of hanging up on the Council - call me immature, but it still makes me smirk every time
TopazFusion said:
AD-Stu said:
I was intending to do the merciful thing and just shut Kaidan down right now but the conversation options weren't particularly well labelled
This was one of the biggest complaints about the romance options in this game - the dialogue choices were just so ambiguous. Now, I always recommend saving before talking to potential LIs, just in case you click the wrong option by mistake.
Yeah - I can't remember exactly what the label was, but the way I read it I thought it would make Grunka say she wasn't interested in Kaidan in that way... instead she said the same thing about Liara.
From memory the "GTFO I'm not interested in you" options are better labelled. For example, I think one of the options for Liara was actually labelled "But you're a woman!"
Kill him. Even on my own ultra-paragon goody good character, I put a bullet in this guys brain. Though, Caramel Frappe is right, it does leave a fairly big impact on Garrus' character and how he develops. I say kill him, if only because
His loyalty mission is much more powerful, especially if you find out the truth about Sidonis
Kill 'im off, I don't remember what happens too him, so there's that to look forward too. And in response to your spoiler involving the Quarians on all fronts I agree. Personally I liked
better. Still Alien enough to feel like it fits, yet not creepy enough to be really off putting. The other two in that picture are Kal'Reegar and Vetor if anyone's wondering.
Kill him. Even on my own ultra-paragon goody good character, I put a bullet in this guys brain. Though, Caramel Frappe is right, it does leave a fairly big impact on Garrus' character and how he develops. I say kill him, if only because
His loyalty mission is much more powerful, especially if you find out the truth about Sidonis
It's interesting that one. I know I've played the Dr Saleon mission both ways a few times, but when it comes to that moment in ME2...
...I think I've always just let him take the shot. I must've, because I had to go look at the wiki to be reminded what the truth about Sidonis actually was.
It's pretty weaksauce, really. I could buy it and feel sorry for him if it was his family or children or something that were being threatened, but for someone in his line of work, I'd have thought threats against his own life would've been pretty common
[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 4, PART 6 (Citadel) - Adventures in media relations and amateur psychiatry[/HEADING]
Previously, on Lets Play Mass Effect: We did the inevitable post-Feros wall of words debrief, then got told by the Council that they had an urgent lead on the possible whereabouts of Saren. So naturally we rushed off to a completely different part of the galaxy to help Garrus track down a minor bad guy from his C-Sec days.
When we left off, we were deciding whether we were going to kill the evil doctor or arrest him, and in the process deciding what kind of example we are going to set for Garrus. The overwhelming majority voted to kill him:
"That was... satisfying. Anyone got a smoke?"
"Sorry, nope. Stupid Alliance regs say only legit bad guys are allowed to smoke, and we're just Renegades. But anywho. Remember that feeling. That's how it should be."
"I will, Commander."
We do a quick bit of looting from the various lockers on the ship, then head back to the Normandy. I went down to the hold to try having another word with the crew, but nobody had anything new to say at this stage. So instead, we're going to head back to the Citadel to do a little shopping and knock off a few more side quests.
As soon as we exit the docking tube, this guy is waiting for us:
"Rear Admiral Mikhailovich, Fifth Fleet."
*snorts with laughter* "Rear Admiral?!? You humans sure give your soldiers stupid titles!"
"Yeah, I know. Between some of the rank names and the mere existence of the poop deck it's hard for me to keep a straight face around here sometimes. But let's humour the poor guy..."
*mutters under breath* "I wouldn't get your hopes up on that count Admiral,"
*glares at Kaidan but says nothing* "I command the 63rd Scout Flotilla. You and the Normandy were slated for my unit after shakedown. Then the Council got their paws, claws, tentacles... whatever. They got them on our ship. And you."
*cracks knuckles menacingly*
"Easy there Wrex - hundred credits says the Commander will do that for you before this conversation is over."
"It's a bet!" *turns back to the Rear Admiral*
"I don't begrudge the politicians' decision to throw you to the Council. It's an opportunity. I do begrudge this overdesigned piece of tin though. This experiment diverted billions from our appropriations bills. For the same price, we could've had a heavy cruiser! But no, we had to make nice with the turians. Throw money at a co-developed boondoggle."
This, of course, suggests that a billion credits is still a huge sum of money in this universe and that a million is nothing to be sneezed at either. Remember that when we run ourselves up to the 9,999,999 credit cap for the second or third time later in the game
Anywho, turns out the Rear Admiral is here to make an inspection of the Normandy. We can refuse him, but we get to make more snide remarks afterwards if we humour him so we let him aboard. He returns soon enough:
*slides hand towards pistol grip but says nothing*
The Rear Admiral has a few complaints, which we can address if we have a high enough Charm/Intimidate ranking (we do). He complains that the CIC (where we access the universe map) is too far away from the bow operators (like Joker). We tell him duh, that's what comms are for and besides, Grunka can yell pretty loud. He also belabours the point about the 120 billion it cost to build the Normandy's drive core.
"The bet still counts if the Admiral swings first, by the way..."
*kicks Kaidan in the shin*
The Rear Admiral's final complaint is about the crew makeup:
With that, he says he's off to make a report that won't be as negative as he initially planned, Kaidan pays us another hundred credits and we're finally on our way. We get into the elevator, but as soon as we get to the bottom we get this message:
"There's a woman here. She was rescued from batarian slavers a few weeks ago. She's from Mindoir. I guess she was taken in the raid on your town."
"Not really. She's a little messed up. She got free somehow. Grabbed a gun from one of my guys. Now she's holed up here in the docking bay. She says she wants to die. I hoped you'd talk to her. It's a long shot, but you went through the same thing. The raid. I figured maybe you could talk her out of her tree."
The docking bay he's talking about is the one we just left - how exactly this situation developed there between us leaving the empty hangar bay in the only elevator that connects to it and us getting out of said elevator right here is beyond me. We'll go deal with it in a second though. First, there's this iconic little scene...
"People back home have heard a lot about you, Commander. I can give you the chance to set the record straight. What do you say?"
"So long as you understand that I may not be able to answer all questions..."
"Humans have been trying to get the respect of the galactic community for 26 years. With that in mind, what are your feelings on becoming the first human Spectre?"
"Unofficially, I've only met one other one so far and he had some seriously questionable personal hygiene issues. But that aside, to be asked to join them is an honour."
"Some have said your appointment is the Citadel 'throwing humans a bone'. Have you encountered any situations where the Citadel asked you to place its needs before the needs of Earth?"
"Well, despite Ambassador Udina's most strident requests they did refuse to start a war with the Terminus systems. But I think they know not to ask me to work against my own people."
"You've been given command of an advanced human warship for your missions. Is there anything you'd like to say about it?"
"Yeah, I'd like to know how it suddenly became public knowledge that I'm commanding the Normandy, given my mission is supposed to be secret? And following on from that, if everyone does know it's my ship and I'm a Spectre, why don't I get more respect when I land?!? Aside from that, the Normandy was actually co-developed by human and turian engineers. Its design incorporates many innovations. All of which are classified, I'm afraid."
"At risk of getting punched in the face... do you think it was appropriate to hand Earth's most advanced warship over to the Citadel?"
"Heh - I doubt it. This headcase pulls guns on generals. Punching a reporter on camera is nothing."
No, I don't know why we got 2900 credits for that either - maybe we stole Khalisah's lunch money after we punched her? Anywho, that was the infamous punching-a-reporter scene that lead rise to the myth that Shepard punches all reporters. How quickly people forget Emily Wong even exists. FWIW it's completely possible to end this discussion civilly... but where would the fun be in that?
Now, back up the elevator to deal with that hostage drama:
He's got a sedative that he'd like the girl to take but she hasn't let anyone even talk to her, let alone give her drugs. We decide to give it a crack.
Huh. Of course, once again the subtitles have given the game away here and we know her name is Talitha. There's a few ways to approach this situation, but we're going to follow the Paragon one where we get her to tell her story, slowly talking her down in the process. The batarian slavers have obviously made a mess of her head...
Quick refresher on the Colonist background we chose at the start of the game: Shepard was 16 and living on Mindoir when batarian slavers raided the place. Shepard's friends and relatives were all killed, but Shepard survived and was rescued by an Alliance patrol and went on to become the super-badass we know and love today.
Talitha, on the other hand, watched her parents get killed - pretty brutally, by the sounds of it:
This is the basic progression - we talk for a bit, then take a step forwards until we're close enough to resolve the situation. Grunka's degree in amateur psychiatry tells her that the best thing to do now would be to make the discussion about herself:
We take another step and go back to talking about Talitha. She tried to play dead but the batarians didn't buy it. It's also hinted that the batarians fitted the colonists they took as slaves with cranial implants to control them. Why all the xenophobes in the game are still hung up about the First Contact War and not batarians/this I have no idea.
Anywho, many years later Alliance marines rescued the slaves:
Wow. Just... wow. With that we're close enough to end this. We offer her the sedatives so she can be taken away to get better. Talitha takes them voluntarily.
That was the side quest specific to our Colonist background. For anyone who's interested in how the other ones play out:
Spacer: you run into a bum who claims to know Shepard's mother (who is still alive, and serving on a starship - something unique to this background) and shakes Shepard down for some loose change. You can give him the money, or not. Later you can go back to the Normandy and call your mother, who will confirm that the bum is actually a war hero suffering from PTSD because he was at Mindoir during the batarian raid. Shepard can then go back and give the bum more help... or not.
On a side note, you meet the guy in the Wards access corridoor of the Citadel and since there's almost no reason to go there, it's entirely possible you can miss out on this quest altogether.
Earthborn: outside Chora's Den you run into someone from a gang that Shepard used to be a member of back on Earth. He wants Shepard to use his/her influence to get another member of the gang released from a turian prison - otherwise they'll go public with details of Shepard's less-than-noble past. You can negotiate the prisoner's release, or not. If you don't, the guy from the gang will get uppity and say he's going to make good on his threat to reveal Shepard's past. You can either kill him, or Charm/Intimidate him into keeping his mouth shut.
There's a few more things to do on the Citadel before we continue on:
Stone. Cold. Badass. I did mention we'd come here to go shopping, so we stop in at the C-Sec armory.
These Spectre Master Gear weapons are easily the best in the game, and they're about the only ones that you won't get as part of random item drops. The quartermaster on the Normandy sells them as well but we're here, so we'll pick up a few. How much better than the regular garbage, you ask? Let's have a look.
We also pick up a new suit of armour for Grunka before getting on our way. Remember that asari slaver we killed a while back, the one with the sister on the Citadel? Let's go talk to the sister. She's at the Worst Bar In The Citadel, near the embassies.
"Hmm. And I was all set to try to manipulate you into hunting her down for me. But I guess that won't be necessary now, will it?"
"Wait... you wanted your sister dead?"
"If people found out my sister was a criminal, I'd be considered a security risk. They'd revoke my clearance, or place me on administrative leave until she was apprehended."
"Oh, well when you put it THAT way..."
Nassana offers to give us some money for our trouble. We lean on her a little bit and she then gives us access to buy prototype asari weapon mods as well.
On the other side of the Presidium lake we find another headcase with a job for us:
"Word travels. Your name comes up in certain circles. Plus you look exactly like the person in that 'Spectre punches reporter' video that just went viral on the extranet."
"Oh. I should have punched the camera out first, right? Well, let's get this over with - what menial task would you like me to perform?"
"They're hiding on remote worlds, and I have the coordinates. You could do the galaxy a favour..."
Obviously there's more to this. Helena explains that she and the criminals used to "share interests in certain cooperative ventures", but her former partners have gone off the reservation and started doing stuff like selling red sand (a drug that gives the user a high AND temporary biotic powers) and slaves. We say we'll look into it, so she gives us coordinates for both of them, plus a third set to meet her at for a reward once her former partners are dead.
Next up we're going to settle a few arguments. The premise of the first one is so stupid that the developers actually poked fun at it in following games, and it begins when we walk past this couple and overhear them saying the following...
They're arguing over whether or not she should give her baby gene therapy, which has pros and cons. The stupid part is that if you talk to them, they'll basically let Shepard, a random passer-by, make the choice for them. FWIW I told them to just do whatever the mother wants to do, and that somehow netted me +9 Renegade points. Go figure.
Just across the bridge is a similar situation. But this one's a lot more fun:
"Why won't the hanar just do what it's told?"
Long story short, nobody is allowed to preach on behalf of a religion on the Citadel unless they buy a permit and do their preaching in certain designated zones. The Big Stupid Jellyfish / hanar basically revere the Protheans as gods, and refer to them as the Enkindlers. Naturally the BSJ doesn't think it needs a permit because it's not preaching, it's just "spreading the truth". Grunka decides to help the C-Sec officer out:
"The C-Sec officer requests that this one purchase an evangelical permit to spread the truth of then Enkindlers. The truth of the Enkindlers is universal. This one humbly believes that the truth should not be suppressed. Exacting payment as a means of imposing limits upon the truth is an abrogation of this one's religious freedom."
There's a whole background as to why the hanar talk funny and refer to themselves as 'this one' which you can read about <a href=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Hanar>here if you're so inclined. Anywho, there's a bunch of ways we can handle this, with getting the C-Sec officer to back down at one end of the Spectrum and threatening the hanar to shut it up at the other end. Grunka shoots for somewhere in the middle:
"If I want people's respect, I just point my sidearm at them. But I guess that's not really an option for you, with your tentacles and stuff. So if you want people's respect, you have to follow the rules. Buy the permit, and stay out of here."
That clocked us up another +9 Renegade points. The C-Sec officer also gives us a small amount of omni-gel for some reason.
"Since you helped me get information on the crime syndicate, I've gotten a lot more backing from my publishers. I'm investigating traffic controller conditions now, and I wondered if you could help."
It turns out she's actually talking about Citadel air traffic controllers, who are required to work dangerously long hours or something. She wants us to plant a bug inside the control room, which is inside C-Sec headquarters. This is apparently something a civilian can't do.
That's Wrex's disembodied eyeball sitting on our shoulder, BTW. It was there for the entire second half of this conversation, and it was kind of disconcerting His NPC model is bigger than everyone else's and it causes him to get in the way of the camera from time to time.
Anywho, we agree to help her because it's either help her or get nothing. So it's off to C-Sec!
"Huh, here we are. Guys, do you remember walking through any metal detectors or guard checkpoints or anything on the way here?"
"No ma'am."
"Nope."
"And there's civilians wandering around all through C-Sec, right?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Uh huh."
*shakes head in dismay*
Easy as that, bug planted. On our way out we come across this rotund little fellow complaining to a C-Sec officer about something.
"My colleague is trying to kill me. And I thought we were friends."
"How do you know he wants you dead?"
"He's changed. He won't talk to me at work any more, and... he started following me. Yesterday, he followed me all the way home. Just waiting for a chance."
"Well that doesn't prove anything! Maybe he's planning a surprise party for you. Or maybe he's interested in you for other... *shudders* reasons that I can't believe I just contemplated. Whatever the case, I can see where this is headed so is there something I can do? Talk to your friend, maybe?"
Fun fact - by 2183, nine out of ten murders can apparently be prevented by simply asking the perpetrator nicely to please not do it. Grunka is smart and knows this, so she agrees to give it a try.
So it is. There's probably more to this story, and we'll find out what it is in a bit. First let's go get our reward from Emily Wong.
Decent loot for all of five seconds' work. Now remember way back several updates ago where we investigated that missing squad of marines who'd been lured into a thresher maw nest by a distress beacon? Let's pick that story back up:
This pose got Shepard nominated for Derpiest Spectre of the Year, BTW.
While we're resurrecting old plot threads with the Rear Admiral...
Surprise surprise, it was the same team that wound up dead in the thresher nest. That's where the conversation thread ends though.
Meeting with Chorban in the markets is next cab off the rank.
Long story short, Chorban and Jahleed work for a company that developed technology for medical scanners, and they stole it to develop the keeper scanner. The data was going to Jahleed to analyse, but he kept it for himself for reasons that aren't really explained. We say we'll talk to Jahleed about it.
Of course, it wouldn't be a visit to the Citadel if we didn't stop past this fruit loop:
*facepalm* "I straight out admit it on camera, then punch a reporter for it, and it's still just a rumour? Geez, Conrad, what's a girl gotta do..."
"Hey, could I get your picture?"
*mutters to Wrex and Kaidan* "Well this just took an express train to Creepyville... *turns back* Sure. No problem."
"What the hell is wrong with that guy?!?"
"I honestly don't know - they're probably just trying to set up a joke for later in the series that won't quite work and will break continuity for lots of players as a result of a coding bug."
Alright, let's wrap this up. Jahleed is our last loose end before we can take off again.
I like how Wrex takes on the menacing badass role so naturally in these conversations
Jahleed maintains he was afraid Chorban was going to kill him to get the data, for reasons that aren't really explained. But when he finds out Grunka is doing the scanning he decides everything is OK again... again, for reasns that aren't really explained. This whole side quest is a bit of a pile of dumb, really. It plays out a bit differently if you talk to Jahleed before Chorban, and you can choose to end it a few different ways (killing Chorban and extorting Jahleed, for example) but the whole Chorban/Jahleed disagreement still doesn't make any sense.
And with that, our second visit to the Citadel is over. Grunka heads back to the Normandy to fly off towards the next update, which I'm thinking will be one of the two DLC packs for the game.
Just FYI, updates will continue to be sporadic for a while as my wife is due to give birth to our first child any day now. If you guys are happy with a bit of a gap between each update though, we'll get there eventually. As always, thanks for reading
Yeah, this miniquest is a bit silly, how they give the decision to a random passer-by.
It doesn't matter what you choose either, since the child turns out alright either way.
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the reason they included this side quest at all was to give us a bit more information about how humans are using genetic manipulation in this universe (as we've discussed previously, quite a lot of quests and characters are here largely to teach us about the universe or flesh its background out more). But there should have been a dozen other ways to give us that information without tacking a stupid "you choose for us" bit onto the end, something which Bioware obviously realised between ME1 and 2.
TopazFusion said:
On my first playthrough I assumed we'd need to make use of charm or intimidate to access the area, but weirdly you don't. I guess it explains why the security is so overboard in the next game - they've gone from one extreme to another!
Good point. I assume he's supposed to have taken the picture with his omni-tool, because anytime anyone needs to do anything ranging from opening a door to stabbing someone in the guts in this universe they seem to use their omni-tool for it
TopazFusion said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought that. The whole Chorban / Jahleed sidequest didn't make any sense to me at all.
Funny thing is, this was another one of those problems that I never actually noticed until I did this LP. I've played that side quest half a dozen times before this and never really stopped to think about it beyond the completely superficial "LOL stupid aliens had a misunderstanding" level.
Does anyone actually understand what Jahleed's motivations are supposed to be here?!?
TopazFusion said:
Take as long as you need. And congratulations! I hope the birth goes smoothly
Yeah, that whole encounter is a good few shades darker than I ever really expected from Bioware and the child-like language she uses throughout only heightens the impact. It was the line about the "reds and purples" in particular that got me.
What I find interesting though is that this whole thing is, I think, intended to build up just what an evil bunch of bastards the batarians are. But Bioware never really went for the payoff on that buildup. By the time ME2/ME3 roll around they're pretty much just another race. Nothing's black and white and there are bigger evils in the galaxy, I guess...
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