History Tearjerker / MassEffect2

* How Shepard just stands overlooking the Galaxy map. And then the system turns red. Guilt much? It's even worse because you can try to ''warn'' them - try to save ''somebody'', even if it's not everyone, even if it's only a handful of handfuls, but the message doesn't get out.

*** The payoff is that if you remain loyal to your ''Mass Effect 1'' romance, before the Suicide Mission, Shepard picks up a photograph of their loved one and looks at it with a small smile.

** Not hugging Tali. Can't do it? Don't worry, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk8_iHLSwMA this guy did it for you]]. The scene is painful enough ''with'' the hug; not taking the interrupt takes the tear jerking up to eleven. Some may feel hugging her at that point is patronizing and letting Tali vent is a better option, which is also a heartwrenching moment on its own.

** The revelation that Tali's father did love her dearly and that all he did, the experiments, the parental neglect through his constant work, all of it was so his daughter could eventually and finally have a home again. The man made heartwrenching sacrifices for his girl. In Tali's own words, she didn't know what was worse - that she spent her life believing that her father didn't love her...or that he did, [[WellDoneSonGuy but never knew how to show it while he was alive]].

*** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' goes on to make this ''worse'' when you encounter a dying quarian on Rannoch who asks you to tell his son, Jonah, that his father made it to the homeworld. Jonah is ''also'' the name of ''Alarei'' quarian's son, meaning this poor kid loses both parents to the geth within a year.

** Just to make this one a tiny bit worse: It's implied that Shepard may have met both of her daughters on the Citadel. One was the Presidium receptionist; the other worked for the asari Consort.
** "There is enough grief in the galaxy, no need to add to it." The way the voice actress drops that line is terribly convincing and filled with grief.

* In ''Mass Effect 2'' your toast with Dr. Chakwas after bringing her a bottle of good brandy, especially the ToAbsentFriends toast.

** Another one on Tuchanka: a krogan is talking to his companion about a vid about the Citadel, wishing he could see it in person, while the second krogan berates him for looking at it because he's never ever going to get off his radioactive, warring DeathWorld of a planet. Same krogan also expresses interest in science (of the intellectual sort instead of the BOOM sort) and documentaries. Hearing the other (bigger) krogan crush the smaller ones dreams is hard to listen to. One hopes that the little guy gets a chance to tell Wrex that he's interested in being smart not just strong.

* The Overlord DLC Mission is a literal example as even ''Shepard'' tears up just a little at seeing the atrocities done to an autistic David.

** Gavin could be seen as a sad character too. He cares about his brother and knows what he did was wrong but at the point Shepard shows up it's too late to stop. "What I have done to David is unethical. If he dies, it's unforgivable." That's undermined by his near-immediate attempt to stop Shepard from taking him away, but he does eventually get it, going so far as telling the Illusive Man when he wanted to repeat the experiment to piss off.

** The woman in the crew's quarters who was always talking with a male crew member about his family, especially his baby daughter. Their first conversation that you hear has him telling her about how he's never actually seen his daughter in person yet, but he has a recording of her giggle. If half of the crew is killed, the woman is sitting alone at that table, and says quietly, "I'll make sure she knows her father was a hero." ''[[WhatTheHellPlayer You could have prevented that]]'', ''[[YouBastard you bastard]]''.

* The nameless, faceless tank-bred krogan on Korlus made me start bawling when he said he would not move from his position, because "has a purpose." Not to mention the way he kept repeating that "I am not perfect." He just sounds so... ''lost''. It gets even worse when we ultimately learn that Okeer essentially created an army of rejects and discarded the poor guy, and he's likely going to stay where he is until he starves to death or a Blue Sun finally kills him. The entirety of his seven-day life has been spent fighting, and he's going to die for a lunatic krogan warlord who dies a half-hour later, and there was ''absolutely no reason for any of it.''
* Thane reuniting with his son at the end of his loyalty mission is sad enough, but the achievement for it is called Cat's in the Cradle. It's the name of a song. YouTube it, and make sure to look for the Harry Chapin version. You will cry.

* Speaking of Thane, his breakup scene if you choose to end a romance with him. There's a reason that most of the comments on the YouTube video of the breakup dialogue are variations of "YOU MONSTER!"

*** The things she "bequeathed" when she became a Justicar include a "personalized "Happy Birthday Mom" travel mug with photo of Samara and her children (handle cracked and repaired, some glue marks visible)."

** If Shepard is romancing Thane, there's an extra file on his dossier; it's a goodbye letter meant to be delivered to Shepard after passing away from his disease. That alone is depressing, but it tips into heartbreaking once you read it further and he declares that he'd rather face a machine-bound, long and painful death in a hospital bed than [[DeathSeeker get himself killed]] as he originally planned if that means he can be together with Shepard just a few months longer. The whole thing will make you wibble, but the final line is the killer: "I will await you across the sea."

** Mordin's dialogue about the mission on Tuchanka, which is expanded in the folder. How he was delivering the modified genophage, had to kill female krogan, and how Maelon was complaining about the ethics of the mission and he simply dimissed it. In fact, when he talked about killing many, his major highlight in his life was the genophage deliveries. Most of his acts of violence were part of the mission.

* When you first meet Garrus AKA Archangel in ''Mass Effect 2'' seeing how much he's changed and how cynical he's become is a real punch in the gut. This is especially heavy on MoodWhiplash because it goes from joy from realizing who Archangel really is, to sadness when you see how much he's changed, to all out crying when he gets injured. Seeing him on the floor in a pool of his own blood is heartbreaking, and it just ''gets worse'' when you get his Shadow Broker file and realize what else was going on before you found him.

* Niket's HeelFaceDoorSlam, if you convince him to help Miranda and he gets gunned down by the asari commando, almost casually. Miranda was telling him she didn't want to see him again, but his death clearly shakes her. After all, Niket ''was'' her only friend as a child, and Niket really only was doing what he thought was best for Orianna, not knowing what kind of monster her father was.

* The [[WhatTheHellHero email]] from Corporal Toombs, the Akuze survivor experimented on in the last game, assuming you were able to convince him to stand down. He's in complete disbelief that Shepard is working for the same group that used him as a lab rat for years on end. It's worse if you have the Sole Survivor background: Imagine finding out one of your fellow soldiers is working for the same people who killed everyone else in your unit and experimented on you.

--> '''Tali:''' ...Shepard, I spent my whole ''life'' watching my father make decisions I didn't agree with. He always told me he was "doing it for me". I just saw him commit ''war crimes'' on my behalf and without my consent. I didn't need another father back there. I needed a friend. [...] Don't...don't talk to me, unless you need something.
** Everything about Tali is a tear-jerker. She secretly fell in love with Shepard during the first game, but couldn't bring herself to tell him, so she possibly had to watch him become romantic with another crew member. Then, she spends two years convinced he's dead. After you meet her on Freedom's Progress, a good portion of her squad gets massacred through no fault of her own. When you meet her on Haestrom, ''another'' squad under her command has been slaughtered. Then, after you take her onboard, she gets charged with treason, then finds out in one of the most painful ways that her father is dead, ''then'' learns he was breaking essentially every quarian law by building geth aboard his ship and has to choose between condemning her father or being exiled from the fleet. And this all happens to one of the sweetest, most likable characters in the game.

** The end of the quest, where you learn that his student didn't get kidnapped, but allied himself to the krogan of his own free will so he could try to find the cure to the genophage? That doesn't sound too bad, but when your party fails to convince him that the Krogan might start a rampage from the ensuing power trip, Mordin pulls out his gun and shoots him if the player doesn't use a Paragon quick-time event and prevent him. Just listen to his voice after that... he's so disappointed and crushed.

*** If you let Mordin kill Maelon, then the above quote is absolutely heartshattering. After spending the entire mission trying to convince himself more than Shepard that he did not kill needlessly, Mordin ''murders Maelon in cold blood'' because once again, he had no other choice.
*** Knowing this, his line after using the Paragon quick-time provokes also to wipe eyes. It really shows how much of effect the mission had on Mordin. Again, the tone of his voice really tugs the heartstrings.
---> '''Mordin''': No...not a murderer! Thank you, Shepard.
** The dead woman herself. She volunteered to be a subject for Maelon's experiments because she couldn't have children, and they killed her. We have no idea who she was, where she was from or what her name was, but she's a heartbreaking reminder that for all of Mordin's protests that the genophage killed no one, only limited fertility, it ''did'' kill people, and one of them is an unknown krogan woman who just wanted to have children who could live. One has to wonder how many others killed themselves for similar reasons -- or might have been killed for being infertile. The effect is amplified by Mordin saying a [[DueToTheDead prayer for the departed]] and citing a Salarian philosophy which claims [[BackFromTheDead you reincarnate after death and can then work to fix mistakes you made in past lives]], and by Paragon Shepard hitting him with a [[BrutalHonesty harsh truth]].

*** Made even worse in the third game when you talk with Eve, one of the surviving female krogan who volunteered to this experiments. She mentions that some of the krogan women did, in fact, wandered off in the wilderness to get killed by the fauna after their children born dead. It's pretty clear that, when the Salarians created the Genophage, they didn't even think about the emotional impact.
** Maelon comes off as a real tragic figure. He sees those involved in the dispersal of the modified Genophage as [[YouMonster monsters]], [[IAmAMonster including himself]], is implied to be mad with [[DespairEventHorizon misery]] and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone regret]] and it's clear he's desperate to undo what he sees as a horrible mistake. Not to mention his [[BrokenPedestal disillusionment with Mordin]], his old mentor.

** Mordin's [[VerbalTic unique manner of speaking]], voicing his thought process out loud as he works through problems and questions, takes a whole new darker role here, practically telegraphing Mordin's conflicted emotions and multi-layered excuses for working on the genophage project ticking away one by one if you confront him about it. Most of the times, at the end of his spiels, he will take a breath before giving a final, decisive conclusion in a terse manner, before moving onto the next topic, but here, he never reaches that point. Every time he almost reaches it, he's hit with another cruel reality, forcing him to confront what the STG did, what ''he'' did, on Tuchanka. And every time, he goes off, giving scientific explanations, referring to statistics and scenarios that show that a Krogan resurgence would have been disastrous, that they ''had'' to upgrade the genophage... and yet nothing he says adequately justifies the atrocity he was a part of, and deep down, ''he knows it.''

* Samara's mission. She has to kill her own daughter, [[MamaDidntRaiseNoCriminal because she's an out of control murderer]]. And that's mostly because of her genes, which are also partly Samara's genes. The way she is after it all...
* Adding on to the tragedy is the story of Nef, the teenage girl whose murder Shepard and Samara investigate at the beginning of the mission. Nef was just a girl living on one of the worst shitholes in the galaxy when she had the grand misfortune of catching Morinth's attention. Morinth spent a period of time appealing to Nef's artistic and musical tastes and also got her addicted to a drug, Hallex, that made her more impressionable and open to suggestions. Nef's diary entries show how badly she had been influenced by Morinth, with her final entry having her excitedly talking about her dreams of running away with Morinth to live an idyllic life with her after getting an invite to her apartment, wondering how "dumb trash from Omega" like her could be so lucky. For some players, the sticking point in putting Morinth down was that [[MoralEventHorizon she was planning to snuff out this poor girl's life from the word "go" and any kindness was just a means to lure Nef into her web.]]
** Nef's mother is one of the most depressing parts of the quest due to how heartbroken she is over her daughter's murder and how little the people of [[WretchedHive Omega]] even care. She had to witness as her shy daughter started acting oddly, taking drugs and spending near all of her time at a club until one day she never came home, a terrifying situation that's made even scarier by the fact that it happens ''in real life.'' Her explanation as to why she hasn't gone into Nef's room since her death is heartbreaking and provides a Paragon Interrupt that carries the same kind of emotional guilt as Tali finding her father's body.
--->'''Diana:''' Everything is the way she left it. The way it will always be. (starts sobbing) My baby is gone. She's gone and nothing will fix that.

** This line from Samara: "There are three Ardat-Yakshi, I have three daughters. It is as it sounds" She delivers it very matter-of-factly but you can just tell she's absolutely crushed inside.

** It's even worse for Samara's other two daughters. Both of them have accepted their fate to being isolated, but are pained that she never visits them. When she agrees to being a Justicar, to accept the Oath of Solitude, they give a tearful goodbye because they ''love'' their mother, have been good daughters and done what is expected of them as Ardat-Yakshi. It's because of ''Morinth'' that they'll never be able to see her again. One daughter, Rila, barely even speaks during their final conference call together. Her other, Falere, calls her out on her decisions:
--->'''Samara:''' The life of a justicar is dangerous. I will make enemies and they would seek to use you -

* You may be morbidly curious as to how Shepard is able to die, considering how much [=BioWare=] played up the AnyoneCanDie angle. Well, it only happens if you screw up the suicide mission so badly that ''every single one of your squadmates die''. Once that's happened, Shepard will make the final leap to the Normandy, but Joker can't pull them up. The typical "End Run" theme [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al-VeZaTKSk turns darker and tragic]], while Shepard tells Joker to warn everyone else, and despite Joker shouting "''You'' tell them! You're not doing this to me again!" Shepard will lose their grip and fall to their doom. The anguish in Joker's voice and his face is palpable in the following ending scenes; he sounds almost broken when he speaks to the Illusive Man in Shepard's place. Seeing him looking at all those coffins is absolutely soul shattering, especially when he places his hand on the coffin with the "N7" symbol on it. The part that makes it is when Joker stands alone in the Normandy's hold, looking into space with a mixture of sadness, uncertainty, and determination as the music reaches its crescendo and the Reaper fleet mobilizes in deep space. The cutscene actually seems more like Shepard willingly lets go in order to save Joker. At that point, Shepard knows that Joker isn't going to willingly leave them behind but that Joker can't possibly pull them up between Joker's condition and the Collectors firing at the ship. Shepard knows that. So they let go to give Joker a chance to escape so that the message gets out. This is the second time he's seen Shepard die, and once again it happens as a result of something Joker did/couldn't do. Even though the worst ending is absolutely Shepard's fault, that kind of bookend can't have gotten past Joker's notice.

* On a similar note, there's an asari when you first get to Illium who is distraught about losing a precious memento from her bondmate. During Miranda's loyalty mission, you can find a locket containing a picture of an asari and a human male. Hearing the asari's "Oh...''Steven''." when you return it is already enough to make it tug at your heart, but when she explains that Steven recently passed away, and that the locket is all her daughter has to remember her father with... Worse, humans have only been on the galactic scene for somewhere around thirty years at this point... meaning that he probably only met her sometime in the last few years. This wasn't some ageless being like another asari, or a krogan (Wrex is 1,400, after all), this human... with his short, little life, came into her life... and gave her a daughter. A daughter that this asari will raise for years and years to come... and she'll forever be reminded of this one alien who blitzed his way into her heart, gave her nothing but happiness for a brief flash of an instant... and then faded away. And then you realize: This is the fate of almost all who love asari. It's a really poignant reminder that even for a race as powerful, and ageless, and wise... there are still some things that can lay us all low.
* Another one on Illium. Having the conversation with the asari who lost her wife and daughters as a result of all the violence in the galaxy, getting her to open up and break down in tears about this terrible tragedy and the pain it still causes her, and convincing her to honour their memory by forgiving the aliens she holds responsible... only to overhear two racist asari thoughtlessly bitching about her and her family, because she's pureblood and she married an asari. "She's pureblood. They're all like that."

* Jack's story about Murtock during her romance sidequest. The guy was a one-time partner of hers who, while on a criminal job, came back to rescue her when they got seperated instead of leaving her behind, only to get killed in the process. A couple of days later, she found a recording on their shuttle that he'd left for her in case he died; it talked about the future they were supposed to have, how he planned to build a home for them, about how he loved her and was sorry it wasn't going to happen. The crack in her voice and the clear tears that appear (clealry implying a ''massive'' amount of SurvivorGuilt) as she describes his dying message are the clincher.
* Jacob gets a tear jerker moment after his loyalty misson, even when playing as a Male Shepard. After it is revealed that Miranda told him the location of the planet his father was on, he and Shepard have a conversation about Miranda. His final words are heartbreaking. "She...deserves a better man than I."
* If you played a Paragon Shepard in the first game, in the second you get occasional letters of thanks from the people you saved with updates on what they did with their lives. That includes Talitha, the girl from "I Remember Me," if you had the right background. Probably the nicest touch in terms of giving your choices lasting emotional impact in the game.

* Two krogan talking on Tuchanka. One of them thinks that one of the children kept away with the female tribes for protection is his son. A surprisingly touching moment from the race best-known for mindless violence. Even more moving when he asks if he should apply for right of parentage and his friends says "you know you've sired a son - leave it at that." He's worried that his friend might be wrong about siring a son, and doesn't want him to be disappointed. But even if the child is his son, it's still tragic to see how a plague has made children so heavily protected that a father can't even be with his own child.
* Another one on Tuchanka, a krogan is talking to his companion about a vid about the Citadel, wishing he could see it in person, while the second krogan berates him for looking at it because he's never ever going to get off his radioactive, warring DeathWorld of a planet. Same krogan also expresses interest in science (of the intellectual sort instead of the BOOM sort) and documentaries. Hearing the other (bigger) krogan crush the smaller ones dreams is hard to listen to. One hopes that the little guy gets a chance to tell Wrex that he's interested in being smart not just strong.
* The salarian workers that you meet during Thane's recruitment mission, especially the first one. The shell-shocked way he says "we're just night workers..." just tugs at the heartstrings, and he follows it with the horrible story of what Nassana did, including how some people were jumping off of ledges to escape the dogs (and note that 'dogs' in this case are FENRIS mechs armed with tasers -- at least with organic dogs, you could hurt them and maybe get them to back off). As several characters have noted, you never get used to seeing dead civilians.
* Half the Loyalty Quests are this. The other half are either SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments, [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments of Awesome]], or all three.

** When you realize that the whole time the [=VI=]'s been screaming "PLEASE MAKE IT STOP" at you... David is an autistic and extremely sensitive to loud sounds. Now imagine being locked in a room full of people ''who never stop talking'', ''and'' do so at the literal speed of thought.
** If you decide to take David from the facility, you're treated to a extended scene you wouldn't see otherwise. You focus in on David's face, eyes pried open by clamps, tears flowing, the camera moving closer and closer as the mission draws to a close as he repeats the same equation over and over again, mimicking his elder brother's words as he spoke about what he had done to him...
---> '''David:''' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tWhNMqCYhQ Square root of 912.04 is 30.2. It all seemed harmless]]... Square root of 912.04 is 30.2. It all seemed harmless... Square root of 912.04 is 30.2... [[WellIntentionedExtremist it all seemed harmless...]]
** Just before the final decision to either send David to Grissom Academy or leave him with Project Overlord, right as the dialogue wheel pops up, you're once again treated to a closeup of his horribly scarred face...and the "...pleased make it stop." he delivers in that particular moment is absolutely heartbreakingly pitiful. It almost feels as if David is begging YOU, the player, to save him with the last bit of strength he has left. Renegade or not, Shepard would have to be an utterly heartless monster to leave David behind.

** You spend a decent amount of time trying to stop the "VI" from Uploading itself offworld. It becomes FridgeHorror when you realise it's not trying to infect other systems, but David, trying to get away from the noise.

** If Gabby from engineering dies, but Ken survives. Seeing him down there, alone, and hearing him say that it was so weird without Gabby makes you tear up, especially knowing all of the history they had.

* Thane reuniting with his son at the end of his loyalty mission is sad enough, but the achievement for it is called Cat's in the Cradle. It's the name of a song. Youtube it, and make sure to look for the Harry Chapin version. You will cry.
** The conversation with Thane where he asks for your help has a few. Shepard can ask how a raw rookie could be hired for a contract killing. Thane theorises that someone saw that they have the same name, and thus the same skills, but he can't figure out why Kolyat would do it in the first place. Shepard can suggest 'To be closer to you, maybe?' to which Thane responds:

* Speaking of Thane, his breakup scene if you choose to end a romance with him. There's a reason that most of the comments on the Youtube video of the breakup dialogue are variations of 'YOU MONSTER!'.

* If you fail to track Kolyat during Thane's loyalty mission, he gets away with the hit. Thane becomes even more depressed and more of a DeathSeeker now that he has absolutely nothing in the world to live for and hasn't even managed to put any good into it. Its heartbreaking to watch/hear his dialogue back on the ''Normandy''.

* Shadow Broker DLC: Reading the Shadow Broker's [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_Broker_Dossiers files on everyone]].
** There's a ''massive'' MoodWhiplash when you go through Miranda's dossiers. Most of them are records of her conversations with possible partners on a extranet dating site which are mostly SugarWiki/FunnyMoments. Then you get to the last one, and it's like a punch to the gut. Miranda is completely barren, and the clinic that she went to can neither confirm nor deny if it was due to her genetic engineering.

*** Even MORE fridge horror (after a long line of funny instant message logs) when you realise that she was probably only using the dating sites to solicit sex (hence her abrupt disconnection after giving her address), and possibly only to the end [[LawOfInverseFertility of impregnating herself]]. Coupled with the obvious way she looks after her sister like a daughter, it's clear, (regardless of your feelings on how well she'd do) that Miranda very badly wants to be a mother... especially since a child is the only person she could love without reserve, without worrying if she'd be betrayed or was being manipulated. This, likely along with the desire to never do to her child what her father did to her.

** Samara's is even worse, just how the stupid quirk of genetics has ruined her life and her daughter's lives. They're going to be prisoners for a thousand years and Samara herself has given up everything to hunt down her rogue daughter. Also there's something sad about learning Morinth's real name, like she was trying to escape the fate forced on her at birth. It makes their confrontation even sadder. Morinth never uses her real name. ''Samara'' calls her Morinth. Whoever Mirala was, she's long gone to the both of them.
*** The things she "bequeathed" when she became a Justicar include a "personalized "Happy Birthday Mom" travel mug with photo of Samara and children (handle cracked and repaired, some glue marks visible)"
*** There are also items such as intimate negligees, bonding ceremony gowns, a bonding ceremony bracelet that appears to be the asari equivalent of a wedding ring, and a statue of Samara and her unnamed bondmate. Samara was not the only parent to have her family torn apart due to quirk of genetics. Samara also mentions that only purebloods can be Ardat-Yakshi. That's when it hits: despite the [[MalignedMixedMarriage social stigma]] and the discrimination Samara no doubt faced over her own asari father, she fell in love with another asari and tried have a family with her, only for them to get slapped in the face with the real reason relationships such as theirs are so stigmatized. The fate of Samara's bondmate and said bondmate's feelings over the entire situation is sadly unexplored.
** If Shepard is romancing Thane, there's a extra file on his dossier; It's a goodbye letter meant to be delivered to Shepard after his death from his disease. That alone is depressing but it tips to heartbreaking once you read it further and he declares, that he'd rather face a machine-bound, long and painful death in the hospital bed than [[DeathSeeker get himself killed]] as he originally planned if that means he can be together with Shepard just a few months longer. The whole thing will make you wibble, but the final line is the killer: "I will await you across the sea."
** Jack's dossier. When she was a baby, her mom went to the local medical facility because a doctor said that baby Jack needed a checkup. Apparently, all that doctor wanted was a reason take Jack away from parental custody since he is a Cerberus operative and Jack was exceptional. So the bastard lied to the mother, made up some sob story about how her kid had seizures due to biotics, told the mom that the government did this, and tricked her into releasing custody of Jack. Right after that, Jack was sent to Pragia.
** When Jack is about to ask Shepard for help with her Loyalty Mission, we get this exchange.

*** Zaeed gets about as shocked here as you'll ever see him as well. "[[http://youtu.be/YY30-TYul3w?t=8m56s Looks like a lot of kids died in these experiments]]. [[HiredGuns I've]] done some bad stuff, [[EveryoneHasStandards but this...]]"

** Jack's dossier also features some poetry she wrote. It's obviously about herself, referencing her tattoos as something she gives herself both to hide the surgical scars and to make herself look tough--like the kind of chick you wouldn't want to mess with. She's obviously made herself unusually vulnerable writing it; all the same, it's a bit amateurish and you could ''almost'' laugh. Until you get to the WhamLine: ''"This is not a place of honor. No honored dead are buried here."'' She's quoting the ''[[https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/ Yucca Mountain Project]].'' HiddenDepths doesn't begin to cover it.

** In addition, she was making long term preparations for living in a human vessel learning about human behavior. Having next to no sleep as the threat of exile and living on the Normandy for the rest of her life.

*** And then there's the records of the extranet games he plays. Although the purpose of it was probably observation, there are just weird little hints of a personality, like the infraction report that states that Legion was reprimanded for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Think about it: Legion got an infraction for TAUNTING other players, an inherently human reaction. And then there's the note that, despite the fact he's logged several days into the game, he got an absolute crap score at a quarian dating sim. It's like it was trying to see what would make the quarians love them again, to accept them again, to stop the feelings of uncertainty of creating their own path without them... but no amount of consensus and research could find out what is required for the peace between both races. Which could come true in the next game if Shepard does not set up the conditions for peace and one race will end up extinct.

** Mordin's mission dialogue about the mission in Tuchanka which was expanded in the folder, how he was delivering the modified genophage and how he had to kill female Krogan and how Maelon was complaining about the ethics of the mission and he simply dimisses it. In fact when he talked about killing many, his major highlight in his life was the genophage deliveries, most of his acts of violence were part of the whole Genophage mission.

* If your Shepard stayed faithful to Liara, the entire ending and epilogue of Shadow Broker DLC are tearjerking CMOH at its finest. Liara has struggled so much with her quest for revenge and with her mourning for Shepard, and it isn't until the very end, if you've hit all the right conversation points, that Shepard finally manages to get across that they are back for real and in it for the long haul.

** The romance scene between Liara and Shepard at the end of the DLC. You barely see anything but they just seem so happy. It's really a testament to Bioware's writing that they are able to make a love story, let alone an InterspeciesRomance so convincing.
* If you chose to romance Thane, and he dies while leading the second squad on the suicide mission, his dialogue changes.
-->'''Thane''': ''I hear it. The sea...you look beautiful, my siha....''
** If you romanced Liara in the first game but took another love interest in the second, Liara notices and gives a sharp comment before you go after the Shadow Broker's base itself. Most of them are funny and sound like sharp-edged humor hiding pain; she says Garrus is doing more than calibrating the guns, that now Shep prefers Jacob or Miranda or Jack or is trying to get into Tali's helmet. But her comment about Thane is ''harsh''.

** To put this in perspective: Samara has loved before, out of those unions she had three children, all of them Ardat-Yakshi, one of whch she has to mercilessly hunt down and kill. The very thought of her finding happiness again and the chance of af anything being wrong with either her lover or any offspring is too much for her to bear. Least of all the thought of having three children who have a condition which is an insult, a social taboo and a deep personal shame... Samara might be the most tragic mother figure in all of (electronic) entertainment.

* Often overlooked as a shallow, brutish gun for hire by many, Zaeed Massani is at his core a tragic individual. Zaeed is the living example of what Garrus could have become if he did not have Shepard at his side. Betrayed and left for dead, Zaeed spent 20 bloody and brutal years seeking revenge against a man who he had once counted as one of the few friends he'd ever have. He's become so desensitized to dealing death that he's not at all afraid to die himself... something that is core to being human. He's become so used to his lifestyle that it scares him to imagine a life where he can settle down, to the point where he'd rather ''kill himself''.
** Yes, Zaeed was a ruthless bastard, and yes he's a goddamn murderer. But when you take the Paragon options on his loyalty mission and gain his loyalty, he shows a lot of depth in that he regrets a lot of the thing's he's done over the years being a brutal sunnuvabith. But even then, when he talks about the shit Vido had done with the Blue Suns organization, which Zaeed had originally intended to be rather honorable and fair, the anger in his voice at the stuff Vido did showed a more [[EvenEvilHasStandards decent side]] to the guy.
** Zaeed's story about his favorite rifle, [[ICallItVera Jessie]] is absolutely heartbreaking. The one thing he can rely on in this f*ed up galaxy and "she" finally jams. It's tragic for him personally, but it's equally tragic because it implies that he is utterly alone for him to care so much about an inanimate object.

** It's even sadder if he dies during the Suicide Mission. All he says is "Too many of them. Shields couldn't hold up. Figured it might end something like this." Now take into account what his Shadow Broker dossier says and you realize that when he says that he's ''relieved''.

* The ending of Arrival. 300,000 lives, gone, in a flash. And Shepard pushed the button. While they did it with the best of intentions and bought the galaxy valuable time it still doesn't take away from that fact that 300,000 are dead and they're going to take the bullet for those lives. And this probably won't be the last time we'll need to sacrifice the countless nameless to fight the Reapers. Yes, for now, we can [[IDidWhatIHadToDo comfort ourselves in the knowledge that we've delayed the Reaper's invasion]], but it doesn't cushion the fact that Shepard's now a [[WhatTheHellHero mass murderer]].

** It's worse if Shepard has the colonist background. Humans and batarians already have a hostile relationship with the other, and for Shepard the hate is personal, everyone they ever knew was taken their parents included to live and die as slaves to the batarians. Yet despite all this, a Paragon Shepard will STILL try and warn these people what's coming so they can evacuate. The amount of effort that Shepard must have put into trying to be the better person is nothing less than saintly. And Kenson, or more like the Reapers, ruin EVERYTHING, turning what could have been a CMOH into... this.

* The infected area on Omega is pretty horrifying, but there's one room that's just awful. Two turian plague victims were locked in a room together by the Blue Suns to try and halt the disease spread. What really makes this bad is the audio logs one of the turians left behind.
--> '''Turian:''' Daelus died last night. He's still talking to me though. It's good to hear his voice, the company is nice...Nobody should have to die alone...
* Another, far more subtle Garrus moment. When confronting Sidonis, if you take the what-seems-to-be "Paragon"-option and don't let Garrus take the shot. The increasing desperation in his voice with every missed opportunity, the look on his face, makes you feel like one more person betraying him. It was the very last line, the broken way he tells you to "Tell him to just... just ''go''," makes you want to just ''hug'' the poor guy. The voice acting ''sells'' that moment. That entire mission overall, in fact, as you see the extent of just how much Garrus has changed and how broken that betrayal really made him.

* The Collector ship attack. The attack itself is too frightening and chaotic to count (and, uh, rather darkly funny at one point) but the ''after'', when Joker is picking himself up and ''everyone is gone''. Dragged away kicking and screaming or killed trying to defend themselves, the ship, and the crew. Your efforts saved the ship, but was too late to help anyone else. And after, while Joker just watched his girl be attacked a ''second time'', watched people- some of which he knew or even cared about- be taken or murdered horribly, and is clearly not doing well for it, the first thing Miranda does is light into him for it, attacking and blaming him.

** One thing that rarely gets acknowledged is that EDI was forced to watch the whole thing. She's grown rather fond of the crew of the Normandy but since she's still shackled she couldn't do anything but watch as every single member of the crew, save for Joker, was killed or kidnapped, dragged screaming in terror to what seems like certain death.
** The moment after the Normandy jumps away with just Joker on board, there's a moment where Joker sits there in the Normandy....alone. Everyone but EDI is gone, taken by the collectors, and Shepard's team hasn't returned yet. One wonders how similiar Joker's feelings were to when he was trapped in the escape pod after the destruction of the first Normandy.
* Even if you rescue Kelly from the collector base, when you talk to her, she [[http://youtu.be/v3OyfP9IXPg spins out into a thousand yard stare and recounts her experience in a similar way to how Thane recalls his memories]]:

** Even by Mass Effect 3, Kelly still can't go back to the Normandy, should Shepard invite her, because she fears she will only associate the ship with her traumatic abduction.
* Garrus' romance. On the night before the suicide mission, he'll break down a bit and admit that he just wants something to go ''right'' for once. He mentions C-Sec as one of the things that he failed in, [[FridgeHorror implying that his "decision" to leave may not have been a decision after all,]] and after this [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments Shepard will reach up to stroke the scar on his face.]]
** Even worse is when he gets rejected. It's obvious he's heartbroken even when he tries to play it off. This is after all that time he just wanted something good in life, and all he got was built up and broken down.
* The letters you get if you completed your Background-specific quests in the first game are pretty sad too. As a Spacer, your mother gets upset that she had to hear about her child being alive third-hand, having thought for two years that her child was dead; as a Colonist, fellow Mindoir colonist Talitha (whom you talked down from killing herself) tells you that she's getting better, but she knows that other people are being abducted just the same as her; as an Earthborn, your old criminal buddy Finch reveals that [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes he had family on Freedom's Progress]] and asks you to find those responsible and kick their asses for him.
* Bioware even manages one for ''a minor enemy'' of all things. During Mordin's loyalty mission, you encounter a spokeskrogan for Clan Werlyoc, who's infamous among the fanbase for his monologuing. However, with the right dialogue choice he drops the line; ''"No human, you understand nothing! You have not seen the piles of children that never lived!"'' Mordin states the genophage alters fertility rates... and prevents the development of the foetus' nervous system. That means the genophage results in a lot of eggs with dead krogan babies in them. To put that into perspective, horrific as it is, it's like if so many human babies were stillborn their corpses could be piled high; THAT is what the krogan have been enduring for ''centuries''. Even the fanatical bloodthirsty spokeskrogan sounded sad when he uttered that line. No wonder Mordin had a change of heart about the genophage.
* Diana from Samara's loyalty mission has lost her only child as the latest corpse in a four-century killing spree. This is doubly tragic when you think about it a little. Diana has lost her only daughter - the only hope she had for a future, for a legacy, somebody who all of her hopes were riding on. She lost Nef through no fault of her own, not to anything she had any possible chance to control, and she is left with nothing.. just like Samara herself. That must have been ''harsh'', even for somebody as emotionally distant as Samara.
** If you take the Paragon interrupt during the conversation with her, Samara says that she also knows how it feels to lose a daughter. It's [[IHaveNoSon easy to assume she's referring to Morinth]] - but if you read her Shadow Broker dossier, it becomes clear that she's ''lost three''.
* The wreck of the ''Hugo Gernsback'' and what Ronald Taylor did in the aftermath. Jacob Taylor's shock and anger on seeing what his father has become--this isn't the Ronald Taylor he remembers--and the plight of the crew (and murder of the other officers)! And they have to kill some of Taylor's victims in self-defense, victims who have gone mad in a violent way.

* The email from Corporal Toombs, the Akuze survivor (the other one if you have Sole Survivor as your backstory) experimented on from the last game(assuming you were able to convince him to stand down), where he's in complete disbelief that Shepard is working for the same group that used him as a lab-rat for years on end. It's worse if you have the Sole Survivor background. Imagine finding out one of your fellow soldiers is working for same people who killed everyone else in your unit and experimented on you.
* The whole situation with Lia'Vael puts the FantasticRacism against Quarians on full display. For her Pilgrammage, she comes to the Citadel after the Geth attack hoping to find some work and maybe a used ship to take back to the fleet. Instead, she's met with signs saying "Not Hiring Quarians," rude looks from the residents and she winds up spending most of her nights eating nutrient paste in a Turian shelter. Then while she's out shopping, along comes a Volus who bumps into her and then accuses her of stealing his credit chit (which he forgot at a different store), and a C-Sec agent who thinks her kind only cause trouble and is prepared to run her even without the chit, assuming she must be a vagrant. Not even finding the chit changes their attitudes at all. While Shepard can rightfully call them both out on their bigotry and she's thankful for all the help, there's not much that can be done to help her situation. All you can really do is wish her good luck.

--->'''Tali:''' They'll strike his name from the manifest of every ship he ever served on! He'll be worse than an exile. He'd be a traitor, a monster to be held up to children in a cautionary tale! I can't let all the good he did be destroyed by this!