In ME2, the cast is is much more varied. With few exceptions they choose to join on a suicide misssion. The team you build is not powered by a sense of galatcic or even purely human obligation. The team consists of dealists, pyscopaths, misfits and outcasts. Even the recurring characters are more interesting. Garrus is no longer a cop with a grudge against the one that got away but rather a striking reminder of what happens when even cautious idealism is stripped bare in the face of reality. Were it not for the offer of a suicide mission, Garrus would find some cause to throw his life away at, because for a Turian who has already betrayed his duties twice and seen everyone he has ever cared about killed at one time or another, the only solace to be found is in the face of certain death. Tali is no longer following Shepard out of a sense of greater obligation but instead for much the same reason as Garrus. Seeing the bulk of her team killed to retrieve data with no apparent importance, at least not one that justifys the cost paid has made Tali gunshy to say the least. People trusted her with their lives and one by one were sacrificed for a cause Tali couldn't understand. When a second offer to join Sheppard came along, I like to think she chose to come along simply because the stakes were clear - the survival of all sentient life.
For the most part, all the characters are interesting in some capacity - even Jacob. Here is a man who was a loyal alliance soldier who wanted to do his part and in the end, in spite of his service it became clear to him that he was wasting his time. As a former soldier, I can utterly emphatize with this. This is a man who wants to do the right thing and is willing to work with anyone who has the same objective. The simple fact that he doesn't trust a man he knows nothing about shows he learned the most important lesson a soldier will ever learn - if you're going to be sent to die by a superior, you must have absolute faith in their ability to make a decision.
Miranda is an interesting study in the limits of human perfection. Stronger, faster, smarter and better in every respect from a normal person, one would generally think her uninteresting. Yet, because of this inherent perfection any failure, no matter how minor is a personal blow. She has no usual weakness of the species and yet she is still able to screw things up - how does one reconcile flawed results when they express perfection in every other area?
Jack was unpleasant to say the least, yet in spite of this she at least managed to be a sympathetic character. Jack demonstrates the lengths Cerberus is willing to go, and even if the project was unsanctioned she serves as a reminder that regardless of the objectives of the moment, Cerberus as an orginization places value on nothing other than human advancement. She is what happens when you cruely forge a human into a lethal implement, her entire personality a reaction to her formative years. Jack is notable because she is the only member of the crew who had little choice when accepting the job, and her motivations remain unclear. Does she possess some unstated understanding of the risk inherent in securing her release or does she simply play along in the hopes that she may be granted an opportunity to destroy her creators? Jack is a question mark, a character that I despise and pity even though she would revel in the former and be disgusted by the latter. I wouldn't pursue a romantic relationship with her by any stretch of the imagination, but she is the most tragic figure in the tale. Her story is one where she never got to be a child, never could trust a soul and has, at ever turn, been rejected or betrayed by every single thing she has ever come into contact with. Perhaps Jack sticks around simply because she has always been on the run even if she won't admit it. Maybe all she really neeed was for someone to grab her by the arm for just a moment and remind her that one can't outrun their past no matter how far they go or how fast they travel.
Grunt, like Wrex, is a bland character. He is a warrior in the purest sense, seeking battle with any who proves worthy regardless of the cause. He fights with Shepard not because of vague attachments to the idea of the survival of the species but simply because Shepard promises to find the deadliest battles against which Grunt can test himself. To a Krogan there is only war - indeed every aspect of their society is so closely related to combat that a bloodbath could readily ensue over the preparation of a meal. Grunt never questions why he fights, nor did Wrex. The Krogan are literally nothing more than bioengineered supersoldiers with one reason for existance - and even if they say funny things from time to time, they are as one dimensional as they come.
Samarra is a light-side Jedi, only someone stole her light sabre. Her code is foriegen, inelegent and utterly useless to me. It provides the only arbitration over life and death that she needs. To encapsulate her in even less socially acceptable language, she is lawful neutral, a paladin on a quest without end or purpose. Her code provides a standard for all scenarios, and yet leaves no room for compassion, no need to consider the circumstances. Theft is always wrong, even if it serves to feed a staving family. She even enlisted the aid of the crew to murder her daughter for a crime of genetic abnormality exacerbated by a desire to not live a life in a prison.
Thane is an assassin who readily admits to having done things he is not proud of. Now he faces his mortality and has resigned himself to simply trying to better the galaxy through the only skill he possesses. A literal artist of murder, Thane is on a quest for redemption. For some, death offers the only hope of absolution for a life of vice and debauchery. We know precious little about Thane's past and he, like Jack, is a bit of a mystery. One can assume he has always attempted to spare the innocent when he could but one can imagine a man who fights with brutal calculated efficiency would have, at some point, been willing to kill an innocent if it brought him closer to his objective. There was problably even a time where he could convince himself that such sacrifices were necessary - he was, after all, tasked with killing people who utterly deserved to die for their social transgressions, and if a few people who didn't have it coming got in the way so be it. Thane is the only character for whom every mission is a suicide mission, and if nothing else I have to respect the character of a man who is literally staring death in the face and chooses to keep fighting. Most would simply resign themselves to a short life of comfort and peace rather than a shorter one of pain and violence.
Mordin, like Thane, is on a quest for absolution. Even with a loose moral code, Mordin clearly finds it difficult to square his duties as a doctor, a healer with is actions. He may not have ever killed someone outright but he has denied countless millions the right to life. Where Thane has the death of a relative handful of innocents on his head, Mordin has deined millions if not billions of Krogan the ability to even forge their place in the universe. Sure it was for the greater good, but any time sone uses such a phrase, someone has been hung out to dry. Pile on top of that the fact that he delivered consistant comedy gold and he is easily one of the most interesting characters in the game to talk to.
In the end, all of these people had a reason to march headlong into hell, none of them having anything to lose but their lives. There were characters that I saw as expendible going into the suicide mission of course, but this was not because they were uninteresting but rather simply because they were redundant. In my first playthrough (perhaps the only honest playthrough one will ever have), I made the right choices and everyone made it out alive. Most were interesting enough that I would gladly have them at my back in the final confrontation. This squad represented the cross section of the depest depths of galacticy depravity and yet, were I actually shepard, I would trust most of them with my life. This is more than I can say about most any NPC in games past.
