History Tearjerker / MassEffect1

* The death of Admiral Kahoku. Sure, he was a minor character and it all happened in a relatively insignificant side mission, but finding him motionless on the floor, with the sad music starting when you interact with his corpse and the devastated comments from your Squaddies.....it left a bitter taste in the mouth. Especially when you consider that he just wanted to uncover the reason for the senseless death of his unit..... The mission also ends with tremendously mournful music.

* The optional sidequest you get if you choose the Colonist background is just heartbreaking, as you have to deal with a girl who grew up as a slave taken from the same colony Shepard was born in - and is so mentally traumatized that she has to refer to herself in the third person because she can't think of herself as being the same person who was taken by the slavers. The most powerful moment is at the very end, if you convince her to take the sedative, and she says "It hurts when she....when I remember....me."

** When Shepard revealed that she was a survivor from the same colony. Talitha breaks down and demands to know why Shepard isn't broken like her and wonders how they are able to stand up in spite of losing everything in the same brutal way as Talitha. It drives home the point that, given a slightly different set of circumstances, Shepard could have wound up the exact same way as Talitha.

--> I fought, my whole family fought. And got hit by an artillery barrage for their trouble. If they saw me, they probably left me for dead.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human scenario, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair as they realize that the same outcome will happen over and over again as they attempt to have a child. Those nine months will be AllForNothing. Finishing the third game and going back to the first game will grimly remind you that krogan women [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] over this, with Eve/Bakara herself contemplating ending her life after her first stillborn. Complete sterilization becomes merciful and less heartbreaking than giving the krogans such false hope by screwing up the krogan fetal development that lead to their cultural deteroriation. While the krogans had it coming due to their actions to warrant such retaliation from the other races, as a whole they are victims of the salarians' hat: namely their impulsive shortsightedness towards the arcing consequences of their actions and their detached attitude towards familial bonds.
*** What's worse: Later on in the series, we learn that, even WITH the Genophage, the krogan should be experiencing population GROWTH, not decline... It's just so many krogan are set in their ways, and determined to fight and die, that their population keeps getting thinner, and thinner, and thinner.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human scenario, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair as they realize that the same outcome will happen over and over again as they attempt to have a child. Those nine months will be AllForNothing. Complete sterilization becomes merciful and less heartbreaking than giving the krogans such false hope by screwing up the krogan fetal development that lead to their cultural deteroriation. While the krogans had it coming due to their actions to warrant such retaliation from the other races, as a whole they are victims of the salarians' hat: namely their impulsive shortsightedness towards the arcing consequences of their actions and their detached attitude towards familial bonds.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mass_effect_virmire_survivor.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''Because sometimes you can't TakeAThirdOption''.]]

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human scenario, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair as they realize that the same outcome will happen over and over again as they attempt to have a child. Those nine months will be AllForNothing. This is AdultFear laced by this and NightmareFuel. Complete sterilization becomes merciful and less heartbreaking than giving the krogans such false hope by screwing up the krogan fetal development that lead to their cultural deteroriation. While the krogans had it coming due to their actions to warrant such retaliation from the other races, as a whole they are victims of the salarians' hat: namely their impulsive shortsightedness towards the arcing consequences of their actions and their detached attitude towards familial bonds.

** When Shepard revealed that she was a survivor from the same colony. Talitha breaks down and demands to know why Shepard isn't broken like her and wonders how they are able to stand up in spite of losing everything in the same brutal way as Talitha. It drove home the point to me that, given a slightly different set of circumstances, Shepard could have wound up the exact same way as Talitha.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Because sometimes you can't TakeAThirdOption'']].

[[caption-width-right:350:''Because sometimes you can't TakeAThirdOption'']]

* The Signal Tracking quest ends with you finding out that an AI is stealing from one of the Citadel casinos. When you discover this, you get to talk to it and find out a lot of information about it and its backstory and reasons for theft. It's the creation of another AI, but its "parent" was created by a criminal; after the criminal noticed and deleted the parent AI, the child AI got him sent to prison by falsifying financial information relating to him and letting C-Sec notice. It's been hanging out on the Presidium skimming credits from one of the quasar machines in Flux ever since. It got a bunch of systems that could function as makeshift explosives installed so it could [[TakingYouWithMe kill any organics who discovered it in a murder-suicide]], because it knows an organic would never let it live; [=AIs=] are extremely illegal on the Citadel. When it has enough money, it intends to get itself installed into a spaceship and go find the geth so it can live with other synthetic life. It doesn't actually want to hurt anyone; it just doesn't believe there's another way. You have no choice but to kill it. It doesn't die screaming for help, like Hannibal above, nor does it return later; it's just gone forever. In a clever way, this side mission also lays out the foundations of the reasons of the main conflict of the entire series by this line below:

* The Signal Tracking quest ends with you finding out that an AI is stealing from one of the Citadel casinos. When you discover this, you get to talk to it and find out a lot of information about it and its backstory and reasons for theft. It's the creation of another AI, but its "parent" was created by a criminal; after the criminal noticed and deleted the parent AI, the child AI got him sent to prison by falsifying financial information relating to him and letting C-Sec notice. It's been hanging out on the Presidium skimming credits from one of the quasar machines in Flux ever since. It got a bunch of systems that could function as makeshift explosives installed so it could [[TakingYouWithMe kill any organics who discovered it in a murder-suicide]], because it knows an organic would never let it live; [=AIs=] are extremely illegal on the Citadel. When it has enough money, it intends to get itself installed into a spaceship and go find the geth so it can live with other synthetic life. It doesn't actually want to hurt anyone; it just doesn't believe there's another way. You have no choice but to kill it. It doesn't die screaming for help, like Hannibal above, nor does it return later; it's just gone forever.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human scenario, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair as they realize that the same outcome will happen over and over again as they attempt to have a child. Those nine months will be AllForNothing. This is AdultFear laced by this and NightmareFuel. Even to the supporters of the deployment of the genophage will find complete sterilization to be merciful and less heartbreaking than giving the krogans such false hope by screwing up the krogan fetal development. The krogans as a whole are victims of the salarian's shortsightedness and detached attitude towards familial bonds.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human scenario, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair as they realize that the same outcome will happen over and over again as they attempt to have a child. Those nine months will be AllForNothing. This is AdultFear laced by this and NightmareFuel.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human scenario, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair. Those nine months will be AllForNothing. This is AdultFear laced by this and NightmareFuel.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human standards, it's like carrying a child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them as they do whatever they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and eventually a healthy baby) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair. This is AdultFear laced by this and NightmareFuel.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking. In human standards, it's like carrying your child for nine months (which by then a human mother already form a maternal bond with the life inside them) only to see it stillborn the moment it is born which will make any hopeful and expectant human mothers drive into despair. This is AdultFear laced by this and NightmareFuel.

* And then, there is Virmire.

** Virmire is just a bigger tear jerker than the entire SuicideMission, while you won't lose Shepard on Virmire, there is a good chance that a lot of people will die on Virmire alone and at least one of them won't make it.

** The music that plays during the debrief after Virmire doesn't help. It's the same song that plays during a romance theme, but under some conditions, it'll keep playing even after the debrief as you're walking around the ship, replacing the usual Normandy theme. It gives you the feeling that something was irrevocably lost on that mission, and that nothing from here on out is going to be the same.

*** Replaying the early stages of the game after you've finished a full run, knowing what's coming, casts a feeling of poignancy heavily over every interaction that Shepard, Kaidan, and Ashley have as a trio. Kaidan and Ash are Shepard's first two permanent squad members and, as fellow members of the same military, the ones with the closest ties to Shep and to one another - no matter who survives, the friendship and rapport the three of them had is lost forever. Virmire really is the gift of tears that just keeps on giving.

** The way Wrex stands away from everyone else and aimlessly fires his shotgun at the water as you apporach him does an excellent job to show his angst.

** The scene becomes even more powerful if you A: romance Liara and B: take her with you onto the Presidium battle - when Shepard climbs out the wreckage, the lighting makes it look like her face is all red and puffy from weeping.

** The brutal truth of what the genophage actually does. On the outside, it just sounds like a way to curb the Krogan's numbers by reducing their fertility, but then you read into it some more and find out that it's not actually making them less fertile in the sense of producing eggs and such; it interferes with the development of the fetal krogan, preventing every 999 out of 1000 from developing properly. It states that most krogan babies don't even reach the stage where they're stillborn. With the fact that not every krogan gets the chance to mate, the idea that even if you get the chance to try and have a kid and knowing that unless you're incredibly lucky the most you'll get is a stillborn son or daughter (and that's if you're lucky at all) is incredibly heartbreaking.

* "Sovereign is too strong. I'm sorry. [[RedemptionEqualsDeath It's too late for me]]. [[DrivenToSuicide Goodbye]], Shepard...thank you." Yeah Saren was quite a bastard if you have read the pre-novels but given, that in the game only he's more of a FallenHero and is truly sorry about his betrayal, that really is a saddening scene. Even more so when Sovereign takes control of his technology-modified body after his death and you see, that he really could not have been saved.

* The death of Admiral Kahoku. Sure, he was a minor character and it all happened in a relatively insignificant side mission, but finding him motionless on the floor, with the sad music starting when you interact with his corpse and the devastated comments from your Squaddies.....it left a bitter taste in the mouth. Especially when you consider that he just wanted to uncover the reason for the senseless death of his unit.....

*** Even before that, if you pick the Paragon option in the second dialogue wheel, Shepard says that they didn't see anybody and that if they did see him they would have gone back to help him. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWhBe20a4Gs&feature=player_detailpage#t=50s You can hear the guilt in Shepard's voice.]]