Mass Effect Series: Some Questions *spoilers*

The Game Room
1

Well almost six years after picking up the original game I’ve finally finished the trilogy, and wow its my favourite game series ever and one of my favourite science-fiction ‘story worlds’ in any medium. Great story and excellent characterisation and writing.

Anyway there were a few loose story-threads that I probably missed given the decisions I made and I was wondering what the outcomes were.

(1) I thought they were building up to a choice that let Shepard choose between human domination of the galaxy via the Reapers or a more eglatarian and equal multiple species future. I’m ashamed to say I found the former option surprisingly tempting, I guess I’m more of a human-chauvinist than I suspected but I also have to say that I found the scenes of humans and other alien species working and fighting together to defeat the Reapers on Earth surprisingly moving.

(2) In Mass Effect 2 there is a small scene where the Collectors appear take control of the Normandy’s systems, a small image of Harbringer can be seen flickering in the holographic display. I thought that Collector/Reaper code had been embedded and hidden in the Normandy’s systems to activate at an inoppurtune moment later but this never happened. In fact when Joker radios to say he’s experiencing problems while Shepard is on Palaven I thought thats what was happening.

(3) After defeating the Reaper on Rannoch (which was another awesome moment in a series chock-full of awesome moments) you are given a choice between saving the Geth or Quarians, I have to admit I hesitated but chose the Geth, as Shepard puts it to Joker, the Quarians had their chance and the Geth deserved to have an opportunity to survive. Was there a way to save both species or was it always an either/or scenario, after my efforts to save the peace-loving Quarian Admiral as well…

(4) There is also a scene where Shepard is watching some CCTV recording of debates surrounding her resurrection, for a moment I thought they were going to go down the potentially interesting route that due to their inability to recover her body/brain in an intact enough condition they had to augment what they had with AI software, which would have been difficult for Shepard to accept (especially Dark Shepard who I was playing as an anti-AI bigot!), they kind of hinted at this later but never really explored it further.

(5) Is it possibly to safely make love to Morinth? I tried it with both of my characters who were nearly both maxed out but with fatal results each time.

I played two different Shepards, a version that was pretty much ‘me’ making all the decisions I would actually make in a given situation (and it made me realise how easily it can be to compromise your morals for what you believe to be the greater good) and ended up about 85% Paragon / 15% Renegade. Though I do question some of the weightings behind that, for example I sacrificed the Council in the original game not for some machiavellian scheme to enhance human interests but because we’re facing an existential alien threat of unknown power, its going to do the galaxy a lot of good if we throw 64 ships at it and fail when 65 would have done the job, but apparently that was the ‘Renegade’ decision.

Then there was ‘Dark Shepard’ where I basically choose all the Renegade choices, which was worryingly fun and its a mark of how invested I was in the game when I went back and chose not to betray Tali’s father because it made her so upset and I felt bad about it!

For my primary Shepard I chose the ‘Synthesis’ option to combine organic and synthetic life but it wasn’t an easy decision, I was worried that it would basically create an entirely new species/civilisation that had its origins in current galactic species but effectively wiped the originals out, but that wasn’t how it was portrayed. I’m guessing this was the ‘correct’ ending and the one Bioware wanted you to choose, but Joker and EDI got together (Yay!) so its all good.

I would say that one thing that does annoy me about it is the ‘extra characters’ business where you have to pay for them and by extension extra aspects of the story, really EA I’m paying good and honest money and not copying the game illegally or hacking it so give me the entire damn story and don’t try squeezing extra cash out of me.

However overall I doubt I’ll ever have as much fun playing a game series again, as you can probably tell I really liked it. :slight_smile:

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You can get both the Quarians and the Geth. Morinth will always kill you if you choose to have sex with her, AFAIK.

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I kind of suspected the former but I didn’t make the correct choices for it to happen (Tali died on both my Shepards storylines) but I’m really surprised at the latter, the conversation with her made it seem like it was possible, that Shepard really was something special.

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I also know only 3 and 5, unfortunately.

#3: You can save both, but you have to pick letting the Geth do their upload thingie, and…

[spoiler]I’m pretty sure you have to previously, IIRC, have saved Legion, and gotten Tali off from that issue with her father’s experiments without loss of honor to her or her family by doing the big speech asking how they f’ing dare cast aspersions on her after all she’s done, and they just say “our bad” and back down.

Then when you get to the part where Tali is fidgeting and Legion is uploading, you give the big speech to the fleet. I forget if there’s another option in how to do it, but as a super-duper Paragon Shep, I pleaded with the Fleet, asking them to just fucking back off for once, because the Geth only ever fought back when threatened, and that they still honored their Creators and wanted to live in peace with them if you gave them the chance, and finished with a big ol’ “Keelah selai.” And no shots came, and Legion finished the process of giving Geth autonomy by sacrificing himself, and even Tali got emotional over it. Then you have a nice talk, and she picks out a little spot to put her future home in, and you hand her a small rock from the planet’s surface so she can have a bit of her home planet with her.[/spoiler]

  1. Nope. She’s that hardcore.

I usually played uber-Paragon but sometimes picked “Renegade” options when I was pissed at someone else’s reckless actions, like when the Quarians fire on you when you’re still on a ship because fuck the Geth, so I yelled at the Quarian general for that.

I’ll admit I picked the “Destroy” ending because a.) fuck the Reapers, and b.) you get the “take a breath” special ending scene. (Then I went and installed the “Happy Ending” add-on, because Star-Child/press-a-button is crap.)

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Thanks Ferret, re Morinth I’m surprised and disappointed at that, I think Bioware missed a trick with that and why bring it up in the first place if it wasn’t possible?

btw I’m not sure why the Starchild after-credits scene seems to annoy people so much, the older figure, Stargazer, is voiced by Buzz Aldrin, Buzz Aldrin for gods sake! :smiley:

bttw there are some other pretty big names in the voice acting, Martin Sheen was great though I think they shouldn’t have made The Illusive Man look so like him, I found that rather distracting, and I thought Admiral Hacketts voice was familiar but didn’t realise it was Lance Henrickson until I watched the credits.

btttw meant to ask, I’m in the UK and the final mission is set in London, was that the case everywhere or was there ‘localisation’ for different countries (eg was it set in Washington DC in the American release or Moscow in Russia etc?)

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Star child/press a button? What do you mean?

It was London in the US release as well.

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Yep, fully agree, one of the best series of the generation, with a ton of characters and moments I’ll never forget.

Can’t ask for much more form this medium, IMHO.

Make sure you play the final piece of DLC, the one with the party. It was a great goodbye.

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Definitely my favorite series of games, as well, even despite the disappointing ending in 3.

Which piece of DLC are you talking about, Kinthalis? I thought I’d waited long enough for the DLC’s to be over with, but apparently they added a couple while I wasn’t looking.

I played pretty much a straight Paragon male in all my games - Paragon because I just can’t stomach being mean to people, even computer generated ones, and male because fem Shep just struck me as a bit too snide (at least after buying into male Shep’s oh-so-noble speechifying - fem Shep was a bit too cynical, even as a Paragon). So I never got with Morinth, but from what I read, yes, sex with her is death, which fits the lore that they set up for her.

I loved the bit with Aldrin, though. It brought a tear to my eye, and a great deal of “cred” to the game, in my view.

The ending sequence for me did take place in London - although wouldn’t be interesting for a game to be able to change settings depending on your actual location?

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You can save both. The quarians and the geth begin working together to rebuild though Legion sacrifices himself so that his unique code can be uploaded to the geth species as a whole.

She’s an evil siren who convinces/seduces people into having sex with her, the very act of which kills them. If you thought you’d found a way to bone her without paying the price, well… it just means she’s done her job. You’re only the most recent in a long line of victims.

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The Citadel one. Although really, all ME3 DLC is worthwhile, but if you’re not up to going back for the action/gameplay, then Citadel is really mostly about a fun, goodbye for the crew of the Normandy.

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I’ll take a closer look, thanks!

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Just using some semi-common slang for the ending bits, namely the child from your nightmares being displayed as the interface for the Crucible at the end, and how your endgame was basically just 3 different-colored buttons.

Hijack: I was a big fan of the “Indoctrination Ending” theory before the ending was patched; basically it was a collection of a lot of bits like how the music changed around the red “Destroy” button but not the other two (as if the Reaper-tech “Starchild” was trying to stay in existence by shooing you away from it), how Anderson mysteriously got ahead of you in the Citadel, how weird and dreamlike the Citadel sequence was, how you only get the extra “take a breath” ending if you are super-prepared and pick “Destroy,” possibly meaning that by choosing that, you wake up back on Earth from the indoctrination attempt and then go on to actually finish the mission, etc.

Turns out none of that apparently meant anything, except maybe the “take a breath” part. I think the fixed ending improves it, but I still usually quit playing my re-played games right as I enter the Citadel because I can’t be bothered to deal with all that stumbling and blah blah blah just for a long long cut scene capped by two (now three) endings that kill me and one that might.

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Missed the edit window:
Oh yes, and I highly recommend the Citadel DLC. It’s an awfully nice send-off from Bioware, lots of fun fanservice in the best sense. I recommend doing it really near the end of the game, though, because certain people may not have wrapped up their missions in time to show up. Finish Miranda’s mission, for instance - I think hers is the latest in the game.

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Is that the Citadel one? Apparently its 1200 Bioware points (which I don’t have) for the PC, aggghhhh Bioware you’re doing a damn good job on souring me on you as a company. Is there any other way to access it or am I missing something?

I played as female Shepard as I’d heard that the voice acting was better, I suppose I really should have played one story-path as male and the other as female just to see the differences.

As a straight male it was a bit worrying how much consideration I put into my relationships in the game, I have to say Garrus took me dropping him like a hot stone to rekindle my relationship with Kaiden surprisingly well, in fact he never even mentioned it! :smiley:

Sure, but she’s also somewhat sympathetic, she never asked to be born the way she was and apparently all she has to look forward to is a very long lifetime of monastic servitude and self-denial, its not surprising that she went off the rails.

And if really is the case that she kills her victims through overloading their systems with pure pleasure and not just a self-deception on her part its not surprising she could rationalise her actions to herself.

I would have liked to have seen her and Shepard able to safely and successfully make love because it would have shown that Shepard really is special and it may have taken the heartless edge of Morinth, she has found someone she really can have a true relationship with.

But all the characters were well designed with their positive and negative aspects and I was interested to follow the personal stories of each of them.

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  1. Control Path: You are the Reapers. There is a scene where Shepard is using them to restore the Mass Relays after they were damaged by the Citadel’s beam

Destroy Path: You destroy every “living” synthetic, Reapers and Geth and anything else that qualifies.

Fusion Path: Organic and living synthetic life is merged. Everyone keeps their pre-merged bodies, but everyone and thing in the universe is now suddenly connected. Peace and prosperity rule.

  1. Joker’s problems on Palaven probably have to do with the fact that there’s a few hundred thousand Reaper ships there and he’s playing dodge with all of them. Remember, the Protheans/Collectors weren’t compatible with Reaper physiology, which is why they were used as infantry instead of infant fodder. It could stand to reason that the Reapers learn through assimilation (like Star Trek’s Borg) and maybe can’t understand what they can’t eat. Therefore, after blowing the Collectors in ME2, the Reaper’s don’t know how to hack the Normandy. Also, the Normandy was probably wiped during it’s rebuild so that problem wouldn’t happen twice.

  2. Yes. You need to have enough Paragon/Renegade points.

Legion sacrifices itself to upload his own consciousness to the hive mind. The other Geth finally understand what is up, and actually work with the Quarians to jump-start their evolution to return to Rannoch’s environment

  1. They were considering taking the easy route and not spending the Illusive Man’s money just to get the job done and collect a paycheck. Miranda wanted to use everything to bring Shepard back as if she never died to begin with (albiet with a control chip, which Illusive Man overruled against).

  2. Samara explains that Ardat-Yakshi are sterile because the intercourse always kills the mate. There’s probably some kind of DNA transfer the “father” has to live through at another step. She also explains that the effect is very addictive, which is why there is the Ardat-Yakshi monastery in ME3. Ardat-Yakshi Asari willingly go there to ensure they are never tempted to use their disability to kill for pleasure.

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You buy Bioware points with money through the Origin/EA website. I play the ME games on the PC, and it’s worked fine.

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Is the Citadel DLC worth the $15?

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I’m generally a crazy Mass Effect fangirl (with said exception of the ending), so I’d say yes, if you’re a fan and want a nice little last hurrah from the game’s creators.

You get a short-ish but interesting adventure with some solo gameplay, some duo gameplay with your love interest/BFF, some where you choose your team like usual, and then some where your whole team is involved at least peripherally, plus it brings in a number of (surviving!) former teammates for you to interact with, if not group with. It includes espionage, some fairly desperate moments, and a awesome kickass battle or two. You also get a very touching look into the life of an important character in the game’s series*, plus a fun event that you can take your time with and do a lot of interaction with teammates.

  • Interview clips with Anderson

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I’m surprised how much the ending to ME3 soured me on this series. Having played ME1 and ME2 multiple times each (always male, but different classes and paths), I finished ME3 and simply uninstalled, having no desire to play it again.

Had they nailed the ending, I might have agreed with the OP. With the ending we got, my favorite series is still Baldur’s Gate.

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Thanks, I’ll check it out.