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4Due to this page being too large, it is going to be split into several different pages.
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6[[Headscratchers/MassEffect3Ending If you are looking for questions about the ending, go here]].
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8[[Headscratchers/MassEffect3ReapersAndProtheans If you are looking for questions about the Reapers, Collectors or Protheans go here]].
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11[[folder: Rannoch: Why isn't Shepard dead?]]
12* The codex has established that just one projectile from a dreadnought-scale mass accelerator hits like a nuclear weapon. In fact the Drill Sergeant in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' specified that the impact of a 2kg slug from an Everest-class dreadnought releases a third of the energy of the Hiroshima bomb. Orbital bombardment obliterates whole cities; in fact exploration reveals dead worlds which have been subjected to precisely this form of genocide. The Reapers do it to planets they can't be bothered to harvest. BUT here we have Shepard, standing not 50 yards from the Reaper he's targeting for ''the entire Quarian fleet'' -- the impact of whose barrage would have ''vaporized'' Shepard, Tali, the other squadmate, Legion, and everybody and everything else within five miles of Ground Zero. SlapOnTheWristNuke indeed!
13** Any ship that enters an atmosphere must devote the majority of its power to atmospheric operations, to the point where they can be seriously damaged by light vehicle portable weaponry. This was established back in ''Revelation'' before the very first game came out. There's a reason why Joker avoids going into areas with anti-air weaponry, and weapons are similarly underpowered due to having to devote so much energy to atmospheric operations. If that Reaper was in orbit, things would be very different.
14*** The problem with that is that the Quarian fleet is clearly stated to be in orbit above Rannoch, not in the atmosphere.
15*** It's possible that they were using point-defense and low-powered weaponry instead of their main guns. We know that ME ships do have these weapons for precision targeted bombardment around friendly positions. That would also explain why the Reaper was able to take multiple direct hits from the ship guns while it was in-atmosphere. In the cutscene, we specifically only see turret-mounted weapons shooting at the Reaper, which indicates lower-powered broadsidess and not the massive spinal nuclear-grade weapons.
16[[/folder]]
17[[folder: Geth self sabotage]]
18* Ignoring for now (it's discussed later in the page) that the geth design their fighters to be usable by organics, why do the Geth also include in their military bases essentially unguarded machines that let organics enter their network with virtual guns that can shoot and destroy probably sensitive code/runtimes? Why even build the machines in the first place?
19** The interface device wasn't for organics. Shepard is sufficiently synthetic by that point that s/he can use devices that should only work for the geth. The device in question was designed for geth platforms to upload geth into the Consensus, and with Legion's help it is turned to Shepard's use. The "gun" Shepard uses is just a set of attack programs supplied by Legion that are represented as a gun in the interface for Shepard's ease of use. Legion explains all of this very clearly if you pay attention.
20** Legion explicitly states the interface is based on Project Overlord, a cerberus project built for organics. Furthermore, it's unnecessary for geth runtimes to use a machine to hop into the consensus; they're always connected unless something is going wrong, this is demonstrated by the fact that legion merrily pops into the consensus to guide you without the machine (and his actions in [=ME2=]). And while I understand that the gun is just a filter applied to a bunch of bytes, it still means that the Geth built a physical backdoor into their base used by Organics that grants them sufficient access to destroy important code.
21** The Project Overlord interface was a system by which an organic could communicate in a language that the geth could understand. It was less hardware and more software involving translation between the two. Legion used Overlord software to allow Shepard access, and remember that again, only Shepard could really use that interface because of his/her enhancements. And while geth can communicate with the Consensus, they don't upload directly via wireless connections; they have specific equipment that allows for geth to upload themselves into Consensus servers, as shown by the network access nodes in the Heretic Station. More importantly, ''any'' direct connection to the Consensus allows for full systems access. It's not simply a case of one terminal allowing particular access. Once you're in the Consensus, you can access nearly anything, because that's how the geth social structure is designed.
22** I don't recall anything to suggest Shepard was specially chosen for the mission because of his half synthetic nature. The reason Legion chose him was because he's a "wild-card" And Project Overlord was a ton of hardware, you need only look at the tubes coming from David Archer's mouth to figure that bit out. The very nature of the mission Shepard is on also proves that the Geth are always "in" the consensus. Shepard is there destroying geth programs which are in real time fighting quarian ships on platforms. If the Geth were merely communicating with the consensus, this wouldn't be possible. They're in their totally. What we saw at heretic station was storage for geth programs when they aren't in a platform, but they're always in the consensus.
23** It's pretty clear that the reason why the geth built the interface devices was because they wanted to allow organics access to the Consensus to communicate with them. The geth have been making attempts at overtures of peace, and this is an attempt to set up the infrastructure for communication beyond the inefficient forms of communication oragnics use. As for installing such a device inside a military base, the geth don't really have "military" installations like organics do. Its a geth server - effectively, an entire city of geth - where you're targeting a specific set of geth that are operating a specific set of fighters. In a time of peace, it wouldn't be operating fighter craft. Also, the facility wasn't unguarded, as Legion deploys ahead of Shepard to neutralize the geth platforms protecting the installation.
24[[/folder]]
25
26[[folder: Everyone walks forward while shooting]]
27* In several cutscenes, characters shoot at their targets while moving towards them. Why? I can't imagine how that would improve their aim, especially when they could have done better to back away from their targets. Think of how the fight between the Virmire Survivor and Evabot would have gone, if the VS didn't charge forward only to get their face bashed in, but instead backed away or held their ground so that they can get more shooting time in. Thane would have benefited from this too: maybe he would have actually landed a shot against Kai Leng if he wasn't walking and shooting at the same time.
28** Advancing on target while firing is a common tactic taught in pretty much any assault school. Shooting the target disrupts its ability to return fire while letting you get closer and hit it with increasing accuracy. In reality, walking does not disrupt your aim much if you're trained properly in how to keep your sights on target while advancing. It isn't made clear if Thane hit Kai Leng while he was moving toward him, though either way it might not have done much good, considering Kai Leng's shields would have let him shrug off mass accelerator rounds long enough to get in close.
29[[/folder]]
30
31[[folder: Cerberus power level discrepancy between Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3]]
32* Seriously, I know it's because [[FaceHeelTurn they're villains now]] and we need something to fight that isn't husks or giant floating spaceships, but where were the giant mechs and legions of commandos in PowerArmour when Shepard was fighting for his/her life in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''?
33** The in-game answer is that their expanded troops come primarily from 'Sanctuary' churning out semi-indoctrinated troops that were then given equipment and sent on ops. They have significant cash resources as shown by the investment in the Normandy and Shepard, as well as their other ops like Overlord. They've also been able to discreetly build a small fleet of mainly cruisers and other small ships. This fleet is squashed easily by the Alliance fleet later in the game as you board the Illusive Man's base. Their ships were enough to give Aria's rag-tag forces problems at Omega, but not to actually pose a threat to an actual military.
34** They had you, who repeatedly be proved to be more than enough. Why send a platoon of soldiers when a hyper-competent team of 3 will get the same results. Likely, if you never got around to something, they'd have sent their armies later.
35** More importantly, the Illusive Man is deliberately manipulating the image of Cerberus that he shows to Sheppard. He doesn't want Shepard to know that Cerberus has vast military capabilities, because that would raise too many questions about what they are needed for, how they are financed and what they've been doing while the Collectors killed thousands. Basically, Shepard only sees the part of Cerberus that the Illusive Man wants him to see.
36** Cerberus had the resources and manpower to:
37### Build Project Overlord, which involved multiple geothermal power stations, a large above-ground facility including an immense satellite uplink station bigger than the satellite in ''Film/{{Goldeneye}}'' plus an underground facility almost as big,
38### The Derelict Reaper operation, which involved extensive construction of platforms and equipment transportation
39### Project Firewalker, which also developed an entirely new ground combat vehicle (much more expensive that it sounds)
40** Well, according to a discussion between James and Cortez, the Hammerhead was an Alliance tank model originally. I don't remember what the codex said, however.
41### The Lazarus Project, which required its own dedicated space station, on top of the resources poured into Shepard, which in his/her own words, "You could have trained an army for what you spent on me."
42### Rebuilt the ''Normandy'', one of the most expensive and advanced warships in the galaxy, which cost as much as a heavy cruiser or ''twelve thousand fighters'', and then ''improved'' on the design.
43### Subsequently supported and funded the ''Normandy'' during Shepard's romp across the galaxy.
44### Operated numerous R&D projects to develop Cerberus Assault Armor, Inferno Armor, the Arc Projector, the Eviscerator, and modified the Mattock, on top of research into geth weapons.
45### Maintained a space station solely for the Illusive Man that moves every time anyone of his agents visits the station.
46### Suffered raids by Hierarchy troops on a dozen of their projects and installations in ''Retribution'', without being seriously hampered
47### Maintained combat operations in several areas in the Terminus with platoons of commando troops
48### This does not factor in various other projects and operations, such as their extensive intelligence network and legal apparatus.
49** With all of these projects they've been able to fund and operate, you're somehow having a hard time wrapping your head around them maintaining a few mechs and a battalion of infantry? If anything, the question here should be the discrepancy between Cerberus' resources in [=ME=]1 and [=ME=]2.
50** I think the question is actually the opposite of that -- not so much "how can Cerberus afford this" but "why didn't they use these things in Mass Effects 1 and 2, since they're so rich anyway?"
51** Primarily because Cerberus was largely covert in the first two games, hiding their strength and so on. They were engaging in some combat operations in the Terminus (you get as much from the messages TIM sends you whenever you get some DLC equipment). However, clearly something has changed in the Cerberus leadership/goals if they're changing their gameplan this drastically. Indoctrination is one of the better explanations.
52** Just to nitpick, the Hierarchy raids in Retribution actually did cripple Cerberus... in the Terminus Systems (which was why the Illusive Man needed to get Aria to help him). Everything we've seen of Cerberus in Mass Effect 3 so far indicates they're still an NGOSuperpower in Citadel/human space, however.
53** Perhaps [[spoiler: Cerberus, due to all that time spent near Reaper stuff, has gotten indoctrinated on a very subtle scale. Thus Cerberus is in fact enacting Plan C (To Sov's A and Harbinger's B). So pulling out all the stops would be counter-productive and also reveal their hand too much to Shepard.]]
54** The most likely explanation is that yeah this stuff was around in the first place, but in Mass Effect 1 they were trying to be covert, and in Mass Effect 2, it was better for Shepard and co to be discrete, but in Mass Effect 3, top brass has gone nuts ''and'' it's all out war, so hiding your best cards really doesn't do you any favors.
55** But according to EDI, Cerberus has 150 operatives. Somehow, these big strike teams don't seem to gel with a number that small.
56** Depends how Cerberus defines "operative."
57** "Operative" Lawson. Miranda is only one person.
58** That's exactly the point. Miranda was in charge of her own team and had numerous personal working under her. Every "operative" could have the same.
59** There's also a chance that EDI didn't have correct/complete information. It wouldn't be strange at all for TIM to keep certain stuff well under the radar.
60** EDI explicitly says that each cell is commanded by an operative. So we're looking at potentially 150 cells with comparable manpower to the Normandy operation, which is consistent with Cerberus' resources.
61** Mass Effect 2's Codex entry on cerberus mentions that they've recently shifted focus from covert operations to stockpiling weapons, ships, and recruits and conducting more overt operations. This may reflect how they've shifted their efforts and gained so much combat capability in [=ME=]3.
62** Actually, it makes sense if you pay attention to Cerberus' deployed forces. Cerberus' troops almost always consist of infantry platoons backed by light armor in the form of Atlas mechs. They have some spacecraft, but a comparatively limited amount. Their real strengths are in what effectively amounts to large numbers of air-mobile infantry backed by light armor and air support. This makes sense when you take Sanctuary into account; Cerberus has likely been abducting, recruiting, or coercing ordinary people, whammying them with indoctrination and implants and turning them into soldiers. Once done, they equip them with infantry weaponry and armor and deploy them in commando units to assault sites and hold them temporarily before withdrawing. Outfitting infantry in this setting shouldn't actually be that hard or expensive, considering established industrial capabilities. They can't maintain long-term occupation - their efforts to control Benning and Eden Prime and even temporarily control the Citadel shows this much - but Cerberus ''can'' hit and run. And that's largely what they do.
63** And midway through the game we get an answer as to where they were getting a lot of their stuff: [[spoiler:That traitorous S.O.B. Udina. Having a Council member in their pocket explains ''a lot'']].
64** What this ''doesn't'' explain is where they got two entire fleets of super advanced warships, including a dreadnought, when one super advanced frigate was supposed to have drained a significant fraction of their resources in the second game. It also doesn't explain where the hell Cerberus got high tech custom armor, weapons, cybernetics, and gadgets for ''millions'' of soldiers. They don't own planets, guys.
65** The evidence that indicates that building the Normandy took enormous amounts of resources comes from people and sources who have limited understanding of Cerberus' actual resources. It's basic compartmentalization. As for outfitting the ground component, there's no evidence that they have "millions" of ground troops. ''Maybe'' a million, and that's stretching it, considering what we see of their ground operations consists mostly of light infantry forces who can barely hold onto colonies for a short period of time, and the Citadel operation cost them enough manpower that it crippled their overall ability to conduct ground operations. Even then, outfitting that many troops shouldn't be that hard, considering that all you'd really need is a set of prefabricated factories to plop down on an uncharted world and a decent automated asteroid mining operation to supply the raw materials. Equipping a million-man army would not be difficult for an interstellar organization, let alone one that can operate fleets on the scale of Cerberus.
66** That's the problem though: Cerberus shouldn't be able to operate fleets like that. One ship was considered a big drain on their resources, yet in ''3'' they just magic up hundreds more for their fleets with no explanation where they came from or how they built a stronger navy than most independent planets in this universe. Omega even shows that they have a ''dreadnought''.
67*** Where did the "hundreds" come from? We don't know how big their fleet was, but the Alliance defeated it when attacking Cerberus HQ such it was reduced to a non-factor. They only had enough fleet and ground forces to be a threat because the Reapers had destroyed or tied up most of the enemy forces.
68** One ship is a drain on their resources according to EDI and the data she has access to. That's not a terribly reliable resource, and going by their resources in the sequel, obviously incomplete or misinformation due to compartmentalization and possibly forward thinking by TIM (especially considering he had overrides installed on the Normandy to retake control if Shepard went rogue). Considering the scale of other forces in the setting, like Eclipse, Blue Suns, or other Terminus organizations, a private but well-funded force like Cerberus having access to large fleets and armies is not remarkable. The dreadnought is the only sticking point, but all it really indicates is that they are much more powerful than expected and have likely been building up for war for decades, which fits the timeframe, as Cerberus has been around since the FCW thirty years previously.
69** Also keep in mind that The Illusive Man has probably been reaching out to various wealthy individuals, both those who aquire their funds legally and illegally, and have been telling them for years about the impending Reaper invasion. During the six months between games, he has proof of the Reapers existance. Now, at the start of the game, you have Earth being taken, the Batarians completely wiped out, and then even the Turians are getting seriously pounded. Any unbelievers would start throwing money and resources at tIM to do something.
70** Everyone seems to be missing the fact that this stuff existing at ANY point is ''the problem in and of itself''. Just going "oh they always had it you just didn't see it isn't answering the question of how they could possibly get it to ''start with''. It's flat out impossible to hide warship construction the scales are just too large and the facilitates to maintain them to expansive to conceal. Even in Mass Effect a cruiser is a big deal, and Dreadnaughts are regulated by pan galactic treaties at the highest level. The entire Human Government had less then ''ten'' and we're supposed to buy some quasi-terrorist group with zero legitimate funding and having to try and keep all fund and materiel transfers totally covert can produce one and a FLEET of cruisers? Dreadnaughts and state of the art cruisers aren't something you can just build off to the side or something. One suspects the sole shipyards that can do so are under government control and oversight for scores of reasons. I rather doubt civilian yards are allowed to just churn out dreadnaughts at whim so long as they sell them to private buyers (disregarding for now how the hell anyone could afford them), and I sort of doubt cruisers that can level cites are just unregulated either. Given that fact dozens of cruisers and an god damn dreadnaught aren't going to just 'get lost' from the facilitates that could produce them.
71** Except that we ''know'' that private organizations can and do deploy battlefleets consisting of cruisers, frigates, and fighters. Eclipse and Blue Suns have their own battle fleets, as do many Terminus pirate organizations, along with the corporate force that was fighting on Garvun. The only really weird thing is the dreadnought. As for funding, the raw materials and facilities to build Cerberus' ships most likely never came from any civilian or military yard. Cerberus has already demonstrated that they have covert shipbuilding capabilities all the way back in the second game where they built an even larger and more advanced version of a ship that Rear Admiral Mikhalovich said cost as much as a heavy cruiser or two thousand fighters. Acquiring the facilities and resources to build their fleet would take time, but Cerberus has been around for over thirty years and they've had a hand in exploring and developing uncharted worlds, so it's not much a stretch to imagine that they hid their shipbuilding operations on uncharted worlds and used automated mining and manufacturing facilities to build most of the ships, with specialized parts being manufactured by the various covertly-controlled Alliance defense contractors. I don't think it's that much of a stretch that they could have acquired a decent number of cruisers and frigates, and remember that Cerberus never really deploys a huge number of ships except at the end when their main base is being attacked, and that fleet gets smashed flat by the Alliance, so it appears that they never really had a huge fleet force to begin with. Again, the dreadnought is the only iffy part of Cerberus' arsenal; everything else is within the established capabilities of NGO powers in the setting.
72** Also keep in mind that the primary limitation to dreadnought production is ''not'' resources. Its the Treaty of Firaxen. The Treaty sets a hard cap on the number of dreads a particular government can field, pegged to the Turian Hierarchy's numbers. The less powerful associate nations don't field as many dreadnoughts mainly because they aren't as invested in defense as the Hierarchy is. There's really nothing to prevent even the smaller-scale powers from upgrading to dreadnoughts if they wanted to; hell, the ''quarians'', who explicitly have a "hand-to-mouth" economy that is permanently wrapped up in maintaining their fleet, were able to acquire the weapons and equipment to upgrade their liveships to dreadnoughts. so its not too much a stretch for Cerberus to be able to build one in secret, considering their extensive under-the-table resources.
73** The source of Cerberus' power and funding is actually laid out pretty clearly at the beginning of the ''Omega'' DLC: Omega itself. Omega provided Aria with a tremendous amount of economic power when she was in charge, and Cerberus took over the element zero mines and other manufacturing facilities on Omega. Look at the amount of war assets Aria supplies if you help her take back Omega; it rivals the contributions of the entirety of the volus and the hanar/drell combined. With those kinds of resources, it shouldn't be hard to maintain the relatively limited forces that Cerberus fields.
74** Their ships are {{Palette Swap}}s of normal human ships of their classes, and Cerberus has Cord-Hislop Aerospace as a front. They could have built or acquired normal ships through fronts then upgraded them with Reaper tech when they were ready to come out of hiding.
75** Another possibility is that Cerberus was already building up forces, but had been running in stealth mode prior to [=ME3=]. They just deployed their forces after things hit the fan.
76[[/folder]]
77
78[[folder: Vanishing Kid]]
79* OK, so the kid that pulls a StealthHiBye in the demo: how? I understand RuleOfCool and RuleOfDrama, but the kid demonstrated that the airvent wasn't soundproof. That's how Shepard managed to detect the kid in the first place. Now the kid had to get around the corner fairly quickly during the few seconds Shepard looked away (he was about halfway there when talking to Shepard) and considering that couldn't be quiet while moving slowly, it seems unlikely that he could be silent while moving fast. How is it that the kid managed to get around the corner without making any noise?
80** In a noisy, chaotic environment, it'd be pretty easy for the kid to slip away before Shepard could notice if he/she took his/her eyes off him for a few seconds.
81** Seriously, Tropers! I timed it, and Shepard was looking away for 10 seconds. Isn't that enough time to move two feet?
82** Certainly. The problem is that it doesn't seem to be enough time for him to move ''quietly.''
83** Just because the kid wasn't moving like that when we first meet him, doesn't mean he isn't capable of it. What's more important, is that game-play represents the perspective of Commander Shepard, and [[RuleofPerception perception is selective.]] Also applies in RealLife: Did you hear your computer humming just before reading this? No, you were focused on other things. Did Shepard hear the kid moving? No, he was talking to Anderson.
84** After playing the demo, it is possible to see that the kid was at the end of the corridor, so the only was for him to continue to move was making a turn. It would take, like 2-3 seconds to get out of sight.
85** It's also possible that the kid only exists in Shepard's mind. Would explain the vanishing and why nobody at the shuttle landing site reacts to him in any way. We might see that kid later in the full game.
86** [[FlatWhat What.]]
87** Oh we see him later alright. In a cut scene when the shuttle he gets on is blasted out of the sky by a Reaper.
88** [[spoiler: Him being just in Shepard's head would fit with the ending.]]
89** Indoctrination Theory, there is a chance that the kid is a hallucination caused by Shepard slowly being indoctrinated.
90** It's long, but watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck this video]] on the indoctrination theory. It explains the little kid.
91** The indoctrination theory seems pretty unlikely now, given that the whole thing hinged on the idea that Bioware had deliberately created an unsatisfying fake ending with the intention of releasing the pre-planned true ending later. Ending DLC is on its way, but everything Bioware have said suggests that this is a response to fan outcry rather than something planned from the start (and if it was planned in advance they could just release it now rather than the vague "summer" release date), they also claim that the DLC will expand on the ending but not change it.
92** {{Jossed}}. There's a picture of the kid on the memorial wall in the Citadel refugee district.
93** Unless you/Sheppard are just imagining it is that kid.
94** Actually, during the early stages when you're learning how to fire your weapon against the climbing husks, you can actually see the boy running across the roof and into the room if you adjust the camera/your view.
95** A room that gets blown up a second later, mind.
96** You realize that Earth is being attacked by ''Reapers'' at the moment, right? Shepard's kind of got enough to distract him/her, the sounds of the explosions and fighting outside and the fact that Anderson called for him/her from another room seconds before could easily be enough noise to hide the sound of the kid moving.
97** Still, it begs the question why Shepard [[http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/270/334/103.png didn't tell Anderson]] "Hey, there's a kid in here! We can't leave him!" like any sensitive and reasonable human being would.
98** Because the kid is ''gone'', and they're just fighting to stay alive at that point. Shepard and Anderson don't have time to go digging through the ductwork for the kid. They have to get the hell out of there.
99** That's also what I thought, as Anderson's calling Shepard over essentially implied "We can't stay around here any longer."
100** Setting aside the Indoctrination theory and the kid moving quietly, how exactly did he make it from the ventilation shafts of a high building all the way to the ground level and a transport in the time it took Shepard to reach the Normandy?
101** Because Shepard was fighting off waves of various husks which takes longer than it seems.
102[[/folder]]
103
104[[folder: Normandy's Leaving Earth]]
105* This is just something minor, but... the first mission takes place in [[BritainIsOnlyLondon London]], right? When the Normandy is exiting the atmosphere, it's clearly leaving from somewhere in North America. I'm preeeeetty sure London is in a ''completely'' different area of the Earth. Like, halfway around the world.
106** Nope. Save the game as soon as you get control of Shepard, then look at the save data. It says "Prologue - Vancouver" or something like that.
107** Isn't the first mission in Vancouver? (Perhaps as a shout-out to the Canadian-ness of both male and female Shepard and Bioware itself) ... Memory could be misleading, however.
108** WordOfGod is it's the future's Vancouver-Seattle megalopolis.
109** It was never said anywhere that the first mission takes place in London.
110** In fact, it had to take place anywhere ''except'' London, because one of the first cutscenes is a video feed ''from'' London, where they've been attacked, just before the Reapers attack Shepard.
111** Just because the first promo took place in London doesn't mean the first mission took place there.
112** So... the Reapers take the time to shoot down two small and defenceless shuttles, but the Normandy, a much larger and well-defended frigate, escapes with no hassle? And don't give me any of that "Oh, stealth system!" nonsense because [=ME=]2 already proved Reaper tech can see through the stealth.
113** The shuttles probably have more people on them. The Reapers want the people to melt into goo. Besides, it's not like they have time to shoot down ''everything''.
114** It's more than likely the Normandy's Reaper-IFF from the last game managed to hide it from the Reapers long enough to am-scray before they realized something was amiss. It's a long shot but it's the most likely explanation I can think of.
115** Not to mention we saw moments before the Reapers destroyed a Dreadnought so its likely they're going after the bigger targets first. The Normandy is also mentioned as being one of the fastest Alliance vessels in the fleet, it also spends barely two minutes before making a break for it and as noted above, combining the Reaper-IFF and their stealth systems, its likely hard to make a bead on them rapidly. In all previous cases, there was only the Normandy present and the Reapers ''were'' actively looking for them at the time. Even if they ''are'' now, there are hundreds of crafts they've got appearing on their radar to make that task next to impossible.
116** The Normandy was already leaving before the shuttles were destroyed, and afterwords the Reaper immediately turns its attention on the ground forces firing at it.
117** Um, actually, as far as anyone knows, in-universe or in real life, only an Oculus can see through the Normandy's stealth system. Nothing to say that the Reapers can too. Combine that with the Reaper IFF, and the Normandy is pretty much gone to the Reapers.
118** Actually, anyone in the universe can see through the Normandy's stealth system. They just have to ''look'' at the Normandy visually. The Collector cruiser also easily spotted the Normandy straight through its stealth systems.
119** To be fair, there's no way of knowing (or at least, no way that's been described by those with the knowledge to) how the Collectors found the Normandy the first time, since they would first have had to know where Normandy had jumped to. And Engineer Adams mentioned in 1 that jumping causes an energy shift that leaves the ship briefly detectable. As for the escape in 3, Normandy's Reaper IFF coupled with EDI's cyber warfare abilities would have provided enough of a distraction for the pickup and takeoff.
120** EDI mentions in a banter with Adams that she was making some experiments with the Reaper IFF trying to disguise herself as a Reaper. In fact, given that she mentions that "Humans are dust in the estelar winds" are no longer enough, means that she already fool a Reaper.
121[[/folder]]
122
123[[folder: Ashley's Appearance]]
124* Ashley and wearing civilian clothes to testify before a military board. What, did she get kicked out, too?
125** Ashley is a Spectre now. Technically, she's not bound by any Alliance regulations at all. She can wear whatever the hell she wants, and Spectres are encouraged to be individuals.
126** Ashley wasn't a Spectre at that point; the offer hadn't even been put on the table.
127** They're not civilian clothes. It's an officer's uniform.
128[[/folder]]
129
130[[folder:Ashley's Rank]]
131* Secondly, why and how is she a lieutenant commander? She was a Marine, so far as I could tell, in [=ME=]1 and [=ME=]2. And an enlisted Marine. And now she's an officer with a Navy rank? Let's say that she went OCS and became an officer... why is she a lieutenant commander? Kaidan (if you keep him alive) is a major. Major=lieutenant commander. But Kaidan was a lieutenant when we first met him. Which is two to three ranks below major. Whereas the hypothetical "gunnery chief," even if she went OCS, would be starting out at the lowest level of the Navy officer corps, which is going to be at least a little below whatever kind of lieutenant Kaidan was.
132** You are making the mistake of assuming that Systems Alliance rank structure is anything like real life NATO-style rank structure. Its not. SA Marines and Navy are actually the same branch, just with different focuses and terminology for ranks, and use the same rank progression. (And technically, Major is a SA Marine equivalent of Captain, or 0-6) As for getting promoted to an officer rank, Ashley and Kaidan are both ''Spectres'', so the normal military rules no longer apply to them. They've obviously been very much fast-tracked because they're now the second human Spectre.
133** Don't forget that Shepard was a marine before becoming a commander. During Elysium/Akuze/Torfan, Shepard was an N5. It was only after that that s/he became an N7 and went into officer training. Same thing with Anderson. During the FCW, he was an N5, and by the time he went onto that mission with Saren he was an N7.
134** No. Per ''Mass Effect: Revelation'', Anderson graduated the N7 program at the age of twenty, shortly before the First Contact War broke out. There is no reason to suppose Shepard wasn't already N7 at the time of Elysium/Akuze/Torfan, either.
135** According to the concept art book, Ashley's outfit is not civilian clothing at all, but apparently an officer's outfit. Why it looks different than the female officer outfits that say, FemShep or Kahlee Sanders wears isn't explained.
136** Modern militaries have different classes of uniforms for different occasions. It wouldn't be that unusual for the Alliance to do the same.
137** What bothers me is the usage of "Lieutenant" as a short form for her rank, which is completely wrong. It should be "Commander", like Shepard before her promotion. I think there is an out-of-universe reason for this, however. Early articles reported that Williams would be a Lieutenant in [=ME=]3. I suspect some of the lines were already recorded when they changed her rank.
138** Possibly (that is to say, pure WildMassGuessing), it could just be a different way of viewing the rank. A Lieutenant Commander might simply be seen as a more senior Lieutenant rather than a junior Commander in their rank structure. Or the promotion is very recent, and someone just slipped up out of habit (depending on how often this is done, of course).
139** The reason they refer to Ash as Lieutenant instead of commander is obvious when you think about it. When someone yells out "Commander!!" in a Mass Effect game, who are they usually talking to? Shepard is "the commander". having anyone else on the Normandy with the same casual title would make things confusing. You can see a bit of this when you first go to the citadel. What was your first thought the first time we hear a C-Sec officer refer to Baily as "commander"?
140** Possible FridgeBrilliance, Possible WildMassGuessing... it's only been theorized that Commander Shepard was promoted (to the Systems Alliance rank of Staff Commander, the rank Kaidan is said to have in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', though he's a Major in this game), it may never have happened. So it could be a temporary reduction in rank due to the CO being a Lieutenant Commander as well.
141[[/folder]]
142
143[[folder: No Turian Infiltrators in multiplayer?]]
144* Why can't you play a Turian Infiltrator in multiplayer, even though one of the most popular Turians in the series is one? And while we are on the subject, no Krogan Vanguards? Seriously?
145** [[FridgeBrilliance Said turian and krogan are mavericks among their people.]]
146** Wrex is a Krogan Battlemaster. He's extremely rare among his people, because he needed to be exposed to Eezo before birth. Yeah, he was born before the Genophage, but even before then, Natural Krogan Biotics were rare.
147** The Krogan Sentinel's biotic powers come in the form of biotic grenades, so yeah, as awesome as a Krogan Vanguard would be, it's going to be at best a really rare drop. On the potential plus side, we might get to see Quarian Sentinels.
148** No Quarian Sentinels. Likely it's just because a Krogan Vanguard has the potential to be stupidly broken. Krogans and Vanguard are already fairly broken.
149** Well, part of the OP's wish has been granted. Krogan Vanguards are to be released in free DLC on April 10th. How overpowered they will be has yet to be seen.
150** Not Original Poster but SQUEE!!!
151** And the answer to how overpowered they are is "very." Average player can (on Bronze, at least) finish with the highest score on my team EVERY TIME you play your Krogan Vanguard. It's possible the only reason he even carries a weapon with that guy is for the bayonet on the shotgun.
152** Now you can. The turian Ghost Infiltrator comes with the Retaliation Pack.
153[[/folder]]
154
155[[folder: Quarians and Geth]]
156* Read on, but you have been warned, why is helping Legion the paragon option? Yes, I know he's trying to make his people independent, but that's using Reaper Programs, it's a terrible idea! And your only options are killing the Geth or the Quarians? There might be other options if you had brought Legion to the fleet in [=ME=]2, but from what I've seen, I heavily doubt that. And this is coming from footage- not a leaked script. The worst part about this is it ends in Tali's suicide... Why is this the only option!?
157** Its not. There are multiple ways that the issue between the geth and quarians can be handled. Determining whether you can create peace between the two runs on a seven "point" scale: you get three points in [=ME=]2 (two for destroying the geth heretics, one for having a loyal surviving Tali to become an admiral) and four more points based on your actions in [=ME=]3. However many points you earn in this regard determines how easy it is to broker a peace between the two.
158** Correction: Actually, you get two points for destroying the geth heretics, two points for preventing the Quarian fleet from exiling Tali, 1 point for resolving the dispute between Tali and Legion in [=ME=]2, and 1 point each in [=ME=]3 for respectively [[spoiler:rescuing Admiral Korris and helping to protect the Lifeships from Geth fighter squadrons]]. You need at least 5 points in total to ensure that the quarians and geth will work together to help you fight the Reapers.
159** You should do more research before (metaphorically) screaming your head off; this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRa6WH90xVc video]] shows what happens if you TakeAThirdOption: [[spoiler: Legion goes ahead with uploading Reaper code, but Shepard is able to convince the Migrant Fleet to stand down. Everybody lives (except Legion).]]
160** There is no hint of any of this in-game; if you don't have it unlocked there are no persuasion options and wiping out the Quarians is in the usual Paragon spot.
161** No hint? This isn't a puzzle to get the blue key, it's solving a hundred years+ war between the species, and you're talking like they should hand you the option to get the perfect crispy clean ending outlined in a step by step process in the codex? No crap they don't give you a hint, it's not called EarnYourHappyEnding for nothing!
162** I'm glad someone took he time to mention that. Why would it be easy to bring peace to two species where one of them tried to exterminate the other? You'd need to pay attention and look at who would support you, who would not, and how you can take the least damaging path to your solution.
163** Taking out the fact that there's a third option, siding with the Geth makes sense as the Paragon choice. The Geth did nothing wrong, they were just created. The Quarians chose to exterminate them before even giving them a chance and the Geth had to defend themselves. Even after the war, the Geth did not take over the Quarian planets, but maintained them for their Creator's eventual return. The Quarians draw some parallels to the Reapers as they are trying to exterminate a species before that species even has a chance to make a mistake, much less learn from it. Makes sense that the Quarians are the renegade choice, as they choose extermination over preservation of life (even synthetic life).
164** But again, the Geth plan to upgrade themselves using ''Reaper Programs'' That is an incredible risk and every single time a species has tried to use the Reapers for personal gain, it's backfired. Shepard knows this.
165** And how does that make that decision any less of a "paragon" one? Paragon Shepard has always defended the helpless against the aggressor. There's no room for black and white "Well you tried to use Reaper Programs while being attacked so I'm going to let you be destroyed while you can't fight back". Allowing the Quarians to completely destroy another sentient species due to a one-sided account of a situation they (The Quarians) caused would not gain you Paragon points.
166** They're using Reaper code to enhance themselves. This is both out of character for the geth, as explained to us by Legion in [=ME=]2 (the whole purpose of the geth/heretic schism was that the heretics wanted to use technology from the Old Machines to fasttrack their evolution process) and for Shepard, who has ''never'' accepted using reaper tech to fight them before. It's shoddy writing at best, and High Octane Nightmare Fuel at worst.
167** It's worth noting that that not all of the Quarians wanted to fight the Geth, even if it mainly came from trepidation instead of feeling empathy for the Geth. Admiral Gerral (and, to a lesser extent, Admiral Xen) was the only one aggressively wanting to destroy the Geth at all costs. Admiral Koris and Tali were very ambivalent, and it's easy to get the impression that the other Quarians only followed through with Gerral's orders out of desperation to get back to [their homeworld] Rannoch, rather than malice towards the Geth. Also, during the Geth's memories of the 300 year war starting, a minority of Quarians were Geth sympathizers that suggested peace and negotiations instead of the knee jerk reaction most of them wound up doing. Both sides of the conflict have major baggage towards the other, and yet, neither race deserve to destroy the other out of a massive misunderstanding. No matter the choice, one side will undeservedly get massacred from a pointless war which started from a huge misunderstanding. It's the most heart wrenching GreyAndGrayMorality choice of the entire series for these reasons.
168** With the Reaper Code thing, what people seem to overlook is that the Geth were disorganised after the Reaper's death, and the Quarian fleet was using that to try and wipe them all out. Legion isn't out of character for taking the only action that would prevent the genocide of his people; he even spells it out for you that if he didn't use the Reaper Code the Quarians would destroy his people. As for Reaper tech never having positive effects; EDI was reversed engineered from Reaper Tech, and she's a valued member of the Normandy.
169** This still doesn't explain why letting Legion upload the code was a "Good" option. There should have been an option to talk the quarians out of attacking the geth that doesn't leave us with potentially huskified geth.
170** You can tell Legion to not use the Reaper codes earlier in the mission. Legion adamantly refuses. The only way you're going to ''stop'' Legion from uploading the Reaper code is by destroying it.
171** You try to talk the Quarians out of it on multiple occasions. Virtually every mission you undertake in the Rannoch arc is supposed to buy them time to withdraw from the war, but Gerrel's single-minded mania keeps him from doing it - he seizes every opportunity to press the attack, even at the risk of killing Shepard and Tali.
172** Basically, the only way for the Quarians to stop attacking is if the Geth are overwhelming them. The Geth, on the other hand, can be persuaded to negotiate a cease-fire. So you need the Geth to overpower the Quarians (by uploading the Reaper Code), so peace can be attained.
173** So why do we never get the chance to call What the Hell, Quarians for conveniently forgetting their extermination of the geth-sympathetic Quarians during the uprising? Sure, it's their ancestors who did it, but you'd think they'd have learned by now.
174** It's kind of pointless by this point. They had been forgotten and as you said, it was their semi-distant ancestors who did it.
175** Because there's no point. At this point, its like a Frenchman calling out a Brit for something that happened during the Hundred Years' War. Everyone involved at that point is long since dead and its long since been forgotten.
176** The entire idea of the "paragon" choice being on top can be somewhat misleading; in many conversations, an option might be higher on the wheel, but be unrelated to what a Paragon or Renegade would do, much less have implications for alignment.
177** This. There are two choices. One of them has to be on top. While the ramifications are larger, it's like an option whether you want coffee or tea. And the game assigns only reputation points, neither paragon nor renegade. Some of the above also is true, in a gray vs grey decision, supportig the geth *may* be a slightly brighter hue.
178** If you're going to say Admiral Gerrel is "Paragon" and Admiral Korris is "Renegade", you're out of your mind. Because essentially Shepard is taking Gerrel's advice choosing Quarian, and Korris choosing Geth. Remember the Dreadnaught, when Gerrel decided to blow it up with Shepard, Tali and teammate on board? That's the ''Paragon'' route?
179[[/folder]]
180
181[[folder: Casual Outfits Beyond The Normandy]]
182* Serious Shepard, why did you stop wearing armor and packing heat inside the citadel nowadays? Ah remember during Thane's loyalty mission where you reported vermin as citadel health inspectors? Packing a plethora assault weapons to deal with rats. Now you just travel in regular clothing without even a sidearm.
183** The better question is why Shepard was packing armor and a personal armory while walking around the Citadel in the first two games. The Citadel generally didn't need them, and as of [=ME=]3 Shepard doesn't engage in any combat on the Citadel at all. That said, Shepard likely has a sidearm concealed on his/her person underneath his/her clothes; if Shepard can slip a heavy pistol in underneath a fairly-tight-fitting tux/cocktail dress, s/he can conceal a sidearm in regular clothes.
184** Actually he does not have one, as he needs to borrow a pistol from one of the Blood Pack vorchas to take out a corrupt contact for Aria.
185** Shepard is constantly armed, though. He/she has his/her omniblade.
186** And you can't confiscate biotics.
187[[/folder]]
188
189[[folder:Flash Back Spoilers:]]
190* Here's something that doesn't make sense to me regarding the flash back, no matter what, you have to get one of the [=ME=]1 love interests, and it defaults to Liara if you have romanced anyone else/not romanced anyone... what I don't get is, why isn't Garrus shown? He's been with Sheppard the whole way like Joker, and it's pretty easily established that Garrus is Sheppards best friend by this game, look at their banter, the random conversations, hell, their final conversation cements it, promising to meet at heavens bar. I won't get into why the other love interests aren't in his head at Shep's final moments, because while that makes me angry, it doesn't make me as mad as leaving out the proven best friend thing with Garrus, unlike Liara, who's merely on good terms with Sheppard.
191** Because Liara is the CreatorsPet. Simple as that. Excepting the VS, ''no one'' gets a flashback besides her. Also notice how she gets along just fine even on a quickstart (whereas everyone else in the galaxy gets screwed) because she didn't even need Shepard to help her with the Shadow Broker.
192** Not quite. All the [=ME=]1 love interests do. Getting "flashbacks" for anyone else was deemed "too expensive," so there's only Joker, Anderson, and whoever from [=ME=]1 you're closest to.
193** Seriously? Sepia-toning 10 more still images would be too expensive? It would take me a day to set up, capture, and sepia tone 10 images of premade models, and I'm not even an artist!
194** Hell, it's a basic tool on ANY video editing software. Including the free ones. Was a stern look or a smile too much to put a filter over and send it in?
195** But guys, Creator/BioWare needs the money and this can only be done with DLC. Perhaps 800 MS points for an additional 5 sepia-toned stills and one additional outfit for Conrad Verner. YMMV. On the serious side, the creators must have thought the beach scene was good enough and that no further consideration need be given to any other characters.
196** Actually, the flashbacks were remarkably well-animated. The facial expressions looked smooth and realistic. We all know [=BioWare=] is terrible with facial animations. That said, I would have accepted regular facial animations, and not necessarily the smooth and pretty ones that Joker, Anderson, and the [=ME=]1 LI got.
197** Well... that is a bit of non issue with Garrus eh... What is there to animate WELL? with what are you going to compare it? ^^;;
198** Liara, Joker, Anderson, and the VS are the only major characters from all 3 games that are guaranteed to be alive at the finale. Garrus, Tali, Wrex, etc can all die at various points, so many they just limited it to the first four for ease of video editing.
199** Wrong. The VS can die at The citadel if you can't convince them that Udina has turned traitor.
200** Now that the Extended Cut is out, this problem has been resolved. Whoever you romanced will show. Other characters may also show depending on certain choices, with Destroy always showing EDI, in addition to the LI.
201[[/folder]]
202
203[[folder: ''Really'', Virmire Survivor?!]]
204* You are ''seriously'' going to side with the unrepentant asshole whose done nothing but hinder you and has just ''openly admitted to aiding the enemy'' over your own commander, best friend and (possibly) ''lover''? Look, I can understand the emphasis on the SadisticChoice, but this particular instance just feels like a last minute addition at the expense of the Survivor's character. Yes, you can convince them to stand down and help you take down Udina, but you shouldn't even ''have'' to covince them after all they've been through with you.
205** To be fair to the Virmire survivor, he/she genuinely ''doesn't'' know whether or not you're under the control of Cerberus. For all he/she knows Shepard was just trying to regain his trust to throw him off. Udina's a dick, for sure, but nobody ever really thought he was working for Cerberus. Remember, as Miranda noted, it was as simple as putting a chip in your head during Project Lazarus to put you under their complete control. That's what the Renegade and Paragon dialogue choices reflect. If you're far enough on either side you're able to convince the VS to give you the benefit of the doubt and question Udina. If you aren't, then the VS instead takes Udina's word over yours.
206** Shepard ''really'' shouldn't have come through that door with weapons raised in the middle of a terrorist attack by the people s/he was just working with a few months ago, while there's still some doubts being harbored in Ashley/Kaidan's mind. Shepard ''happening'' to show up in the middle of the Cerberus attack while an assassin is chasing the Council is really going to set off at least a few suspicion bells in the newly-appointed Spectre's head.
207** Wait, what? Shepard shouldn't have his weapon drawn ''in the middle of a terrorist attack?'' That's just stupid! Sheppard SHOULD have his/her weapon out, Kai Leng or any other Cerberus force could of been waiting for them and the council on the other side of those doors, not to mention, Udina was there and Shepard needed to take him in/stop him from getting the rest of the Council Killed. Assuming other wise is just plain stupid. Kaidan/Ashley are being idiots, if it wasn't for the fact I thought I'd need Kaidan's powers back on the Normandy, I would of told him to piss off.
208** No, I didn't say that Shepard shouldn't have his/her weapon drawn, i said Shepard shouldn't have the weapon ''raised'' while ''bursting into the room'' that the Council was in. Charging into a room with a VIP and a twitchy bodyguard with weapon high and ready to engage, and then drawing down on one of the [=VIPs=] is going to automatically make Kaidan/Ashley wary. This coupled with the fact that they're still somewhat wary of Shepard and have not yet worked out that suspicion, on top of the fact that they don't know Udina is a traitor. How would ''you'' react if someone who formerly worked with a terrorist group - the same one attacking at that moment - rushed into the room where you were guarding a group of [=VIPs=] with a weapon drawn and leveled at one of those very people? The fact that Ashley/Kaidan didn't shoot Shepard right off indicates rather remarkable discretion, restraint, and trust.
209** No. Just no. In the middle of an ongoing terrorist attack Shepard was ''exactly right'' to have had his weapon drawn ''and'' raised when he came through the door. The simple fact of the matter is this: Shepard doesn't know for sure what's around the next corner and the difference between life and death at that moment could be measured in fractions of a second. Suppose Shepard burst onto the scene with his pistol hand hanging at his hip, only to find Kai Leng standing over the Asari Councilor with his sword raised to stab her through the heart. It would only take a half-second or so for Shepard to raise his weapon, aim, and fire, but that's still a half-second Leng could use to murder the Councilor. If Shepard has his weapon up and is already looking down the sights, all he has to do is fire.
210** Except in that particular instance Shepard did know exactly what s/he would find.
211** It becomes downright hilarious if you're wearing the Cerberus Armor Set at the time.
212** The Virmire Survivor is not required to take a position just because Shepard wants them to. It doesn't matter whether or not Shepard trusted Udina. What matters is that the VS was a Spectre, there to protect the Council, which Udina was a member of. And it isn't like Shepard gave the VS any special reason to trust them fully beyond their own word. Coming in at that exact moment, guns drawn probably wouldn't end well if you wanted to seem trustworthy. They don't have the meta-knowledge you do or the in-game knowledge Shepard does.
213** To be fair to the Virmire survivor, their major worry isn't that Shepard is a traitor. That worry got put to rest in the Mars Archive. What they're afraid of now is that you're ''indoctrinated''. After all, by this point you already know that Cerberus troops are at least part-husk... and the last person the Virmire Survivor saw with as many Reaper-tech cyborg parts jammed into their body as you've had jammed into yours? Saren.
214** Reassuring them on Mars is ''one'' thing that can work in your favor, but you have to do several other things. My Shepard did not romance Ashley, visited her all three times, gave her Tennyson, and answered her questions, and did not have to pass any Persuade checks.
215** One of the most common forms of WrongGenreSavvy is believing that you're the hero. The VS just got promoted to Spectre status; from their perspective, they're the hero and Shepard is TheMentor or their AlwaysSomeoneBetter. If that were actually the case, then the Cereberus attack would be exactly where I'd expect the reveal that Shepard was secretly evil to take place.
216** By that time in the game Shepard is, 2 time galaxy savior, 3 with [=ME=]2 DLC "Arrival", a Spectre, a Lieutenant Commander with the power to speak for humanity and forge alliances by direct orders from Admiral Steven Hackett, also Shepard just made an alliance between the Turians and Krogans not to mention the fact that half the galaxy is depending on Shepard to save them, so it really makes NO sense whatsoever for the VS to defy Shepard. Not to mention that is becomes even weirder to defy Shepard if he/she did save the council, got reinstated as Spectre, destroyed the collector base. and even made worse with the "Omega" DLC, since you can play it right after Priority: Palaven, adding the fact that you just took Omega from Cerberus, killing or capturing one of Cerberus's most important generals in the process, to the list of facts that clearly point out that Shepard is still Shepard
217** Just how many of those things is the Virmire Survivor privy to? One of the times Shepard saved the galaxy was while working for Cerberus, which is the whole reason for the distrust in the first place. Shepard's Spectre status is hardly an argument considering Saren was once one of the Council's best. Arrival came dangerously close to causing a war with the Batarian Hegemony. Was the Virmire Survivor ever told at any point that Hackett had given Shepard the power to form treaties on behalf of the Alliance? Had news of the krogan-turian alliance even reached the Virmire Survivor by the time the coup started? And so what if Shepard had taken back Omega by that point? That mission was done completely under the radar. If the character doesn't know these things, then they have absolutely no bearing on the character's behavior. [[FourthWallMyopia There are way too many critics of Kaidan and Ashley who don't seem to understand that]]. What they do know is that Shepard was at Cerberus' mercy for two years, Cerberus is augmenting its troops with Reaper tech, and Shepard just burst through a door during the middle of a terrorist attack and pointed a gun at one of the leaders of the galaxy. Yes, WE know that Udina had turned traitor at that point, but Kaidan and Ashley do not. And if Shepard has bothered to talk to them and explained things, ''they believe him/her with no trouble''. The ''entire'' conflict with Kaidan and Ashley is what happens when no one bothers to tell a close ally what's going on when there are people who want them out of the picture.
218[[/folder]]
219
220[[folder: Last Mission]]
221* Not an indicative folder title, but, y'know, spoilers - why are there so many old-style telephone boxes in Future!London? And ''how the smeg are they still standing'' after weeks of Reaper smashing?
222** [[Series/DoctorWho Do I even need to make the joke?]]
223** ''Series/DoctorWho'' uses a police box, not a phone box. Could just be something they kept and just updated them with future tech? Just kept the look of them for aesthetics? (Granted, to me they look terrible.) Unless you can look inside one, (which I couldn't) you don't know.... Other then that, your fighting the penultimate battle for earth, and your concern is how a phone booth in the future looks?
224** Maybe there was a retro-fashion fad going on. And they're not necessarily just phone boxes, but could be public information booths, bit like the Avinas on the Citadel.
225** Maybe they're suicide booths á la {{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}?
226** It costs more to remove them than to just leave them there unused. That's a reason for leaving a lot of things standing when not useful any more. The cost of removing isn't justified by the cost of leaving them there. Especially if nothing is going to replace it.
227** As a Brit myself, I can confirm that there are more red telephone boxes in future London than present day London. I guess the designers were ''really'' trying to relay to a primarily American audience where you are, complete with the establishing shot of Big Ben in the mission's intro.
228** A more pressing matter is why London, in this pretty-distant future when Vancouver and Seattle have merged into one megatropolis city, as seen in the intro, still looks like it does in the early 21st Century...
229** I assumed that you landed in an "old London" section of the city. All of the buildings look like they're brick or stone where you are, not the sleek metal that you see in the distant skyscrapers in the background. Presumably, the UK did turn London into a "megatropolis", it's just that they expanded it outwards from their historical core while keeping it relatively intact, possibly for cultural integrity. I can tell you just from my experiences living in Vancouver that people are fiercely protective over older buildings, and don't like the idea of classic architecture being covered over by more efficient, but less charming alternatives.
230[[/folder]]
231
232[[folder: Submachine Gun muzzle climb]]
233* So, we all know the [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/M-25_Hornet M-25 Hornet]] has ''terrible'' muzzle climb. I wonder if it might have anything to do with the fact that Commander Shepard, along with everyone else in the galaxy, is ''holding the gun the wrong way''. That is clearly a foregrip just under the muzzle, but characters always wield it with both hands on the aft grip, like they would a regular handgun. The [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/M-12_Locust M-12 Locust]] and the [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/N7_Hurricane N7 Hurricane]] also have this problem, though thankfully lack the accuracy issues. Makes you wonder why they designed them that way if no one ever wields them properly...
234** While it's understandable that the player holds the M-4 Shuriken that way, seeing as it's a machine pistol as opposed to a full-on SMG, the Tempest, Locust, and Hurricane are all proper [=SMGs=]...
235** It's more of a development issue. Instead of creating separate poses for each individual gun, it's a lot easier to create five-six different poses and call it a day (though I think that SMG and pistol share the same pose). This is more of a problem to ThirdPersonShooters as the character model is in full view (VideoGame/GearsOfWar avoids this problem as it has a much smaller weapon selection compared to the one Mass Effect provides). FirstPersonShooters have a less of a problem as the "arms" of your character can be part of the gun model instead of being a wholly separate model.
236** Actually, if you look close at the pose, the SMG pose has one hand on the trigger grip and the other hand slightly forward, holding the underside of the weapon. They don't use the foregrip, but they ''aren't'' gripping the pistol grip with both hands.
237[[/folder]]
238
239[[folder:SMG as type]]
240* On a similar topic, why are SMG's still considered a separate weapon type at all? It was understandable in [=ME=]2 when not every class had access to Assault Rifles, but now with the weight system, that's not a factor anymore. There are only five SMG types in [=ME=]3, and they all seem like they could easily be relabeled as either rapid-fire pistols (like the Shuriken) or ultra-lightweight assault rifles (the Locust). It's baffling that they an entire weapon type that doesn't really do anything.
241** I believe it's more for 2 gameplay reasons: 1) power-heavy characters have the option to carry both a light 'SMG' and a pistol ([=SMGs=] generally better against shields/barriers and pistols generally better against armor), and 2) all squadmates have access to 2 weapons, but a couple of them only get access to [=SMGs=] and pistols to balance their strong powers (Liara and EDI, IIRC). Giving them assault rifles would overpower them (I presume).
242** The reason why they are separate is the same reason these different types of weapons exist in RealLife - range and muzzle velocity vs handling and fire rate. Assault rifles are meant to be used by trained infantrymen to engage targets at range, while submachine guns are intended as close quarter weapons. A person needs training to fire an assault rifle accurately and to use it tactically, while any layman can fire a submachine gun. Firing a submachine gun accurately also requires quite a bit of training, but I won't get into the specifics of that particular application here. The reason why the powers specific classes use them is because they need no extra training to use these things to spray and pray.
243[[/folder]]
244
245[[folder: Cerberus Attack on Sur'Kesh]]
246* Did anyone ever explain why the Illusive Man wanted Eve killed? Most of Cerberus' activities can be reasoned out, even if they're not explained explicitly, but what was up with the raid on Sur'Kesh? What benefit was there in stopping the genophage cure, or provoking a war between the krogan and salarians? Sure, those things probably wouldn't ''hurt'' TIM's plans, but how did they ''benefit'' them? And hell, if you wanted to assassinate a target, why wouldn't you send a few of your cyborg ninjas? You're telling me they crammed a frickin' ATLAS onto their ship, but couldn't fit a Phantom or two?
247** [[LetsPlay/SpoilerWarning Rogue cell.]]
248** Cerberus is, technically, working on the same side as the Reapers. TIM is also indoctrinated. Remember that indoctrination is subtle, especially when the Reapers want to maintain your full functionality, and going by how the Reaper indoctrination worked firsthand on Grayson in ''Retribution'', the Reapers can very easily turn your own emotions and motivations around to suit your plan. So, while TIM would not normally attack the Sur'kesh base, the Reapers may have altered his motivations, observations, and conclusions to reach a point where he would decide it was in his best interests to target Eve.
249** A cure for the genophage would certainly not go along with the ideals of a human supremacist group. Add a little indoctrination into the mix, and we have a TIM who '''really''' doesn't want to see the Krogan back in shape.
250** Hmm, good points. That actually might flip this over to Fridge Brilliance for me, since it hints from very early in the game that TIM's serving the Reapers' interests more than he is his own. Though the lack of Nemeses and Phantoms is still obvious GameplayAndStorySegregegation.
251** You don't even need indoctrination to explain betrayal among the STG. Salarians are consistently shown to be largely opposed to a genophage cure; an STG operative that believed the cure would be an existential threat could easily have tipped off Cerberus, knowing that they'd have the will and the numbers to disrupt any effort towards a cure.
252** Just to add to your headscratcher, in [=ME=]2 TIM's report after Mordin's loyalty quest is that the cure would have been useful, and will berate you for destroying it or praise you for keeping it, as the krogan would make good shock troops against the Reapers. So when he was thinking clearly, he wouldn't have wanted to kill Eve. Heck, he would have funded your expedition to save her from the salarians. But he's not thinking clearly, as said above, he's indoctrinated.
253** Also, TIM is a liar. Throughout ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' he's trying to paint a sympathetic and humane picture of Cerberus, hiding its more bigoted and aggressive side. He might well have defended a genophage cure just to appear an open-minded and prudent leader.
254** It's mentioned continuously that the Krogan were a massive threat post-Rachni War, to the point that the genophage was considered a viable solution. It's also pointed out by at least two party members (Garrus and EDI) that the Krogan will see a massive population boom with the genophage cured, and other characters consider the cure a major long-term problem; it's just that short-term survival renders that argument moot. Given TIM's beliefs and goals, avoiding a second war threatening humanity after finishing off the Reapers by inserting a strike team to kill one lone Krogan is a pretty simple solution.
255[[/folder]]
256
257[[folder:Cerberus STG knowledge]]
258* How did Cerberus even know about the females and the location of the STG base? I know Mordin suggested indoctrinated traitors, but given that STG knew about Reaper indoctrination and its effects since at least BEFORE the events of Mass Effect 2 (as Maelon mentioned during Mordin's loyalty mission) it's highly unlikely that indoctrinated agents would go unnoticed. Also, how did Cerberus forces manage to even get on Sur'Kesh? The STG can know about one Krogan before he even enters their home system, but not a Cerberus force of several platoons, several drop ships, at least one gunship, and one Atlas mech until they're literally at their doorstep? Not to mention, how did the ship that brought them there not get seen, engaged, and destroyed by Salarian naval forces before they even came close to getting their forces on the ground?
259** STG traitors. Probably ''not'' indoctrinated, Cerberus just managed to get to someone in STG somehow. The actual force dispatched against the STG base wasn't actually that large; you could have easily snuck it in on a single disguised ship. It was a force just large enough to rush in, acquire local superiority, and take out the target. Considering the amount of traffic that the homeworld of one of the three biggest powers in the galaxy would experience, it wouldn't be ''impossible'', just ''difficult''. I think its supposed to be an indicator how competent Cerberus is that they can manage to at least deliver a surgical strike force against STG; Cerberus' military and intelligence apparatus have always been far more competent than their pants-on-head science division. As for locating the females, it actually wouldn't have been that difficult, since Cerberus kind of had a major hand in destroying Clan Weyrlock and the post-mission notes that Cerberus would be paying close attention to Tuchanka afterward. They probably spotted STG activity around Maelon's lab, and tracked it back to Sur'Kesh.
260** Actually, it might be possible that the Dalatrass herself was responsible for feeding the STG's location to Cerberus. After all, she was completely against the idea of a genophage cure in the first place, and does everything she can to sabotage it. She might have been perfectly willing to work with Cerberus if it meant that the krogan would never rise to power again.
261** Some of the conversations during the first two games suggest that many, and not just Shepard, are uncomfortable with the genophage and see it as something akin to a war crime, even salarians. Openly moving to stop the cure would have political repercussions for the Dalatress, so having a known human supremacist terrorist group responsible for destroying it provides her both political cover and deniability, and sympathy as said terrorist group attacked the salarian homeworld itself to do it. So it didn't need to be anything as sophisticated as working with them as much as quietly leaking information and sitting back to watch them do the dirty work. Cerberus might not even have known where the info came from.
262[[/folder]]
263
264[[folder: Ah, yes, "ducking"]]
265* When Kai Leng and Shepard have their stand-off at the Citadel, why doesn't the Salarian Councillor duck so you can get a clear shot at him? Instead Valern/Esheel just stands there and makes it impossible to attack Leng.
266** If Valern/Esheel ducked, it would break the standoff, and Leng would likely just shoot him/her then bolt.
267** It's like Zaeed said back in 2; "The only people who don't freeze up when they have a gun pointed in their face are trained killers and psychopaths." Apparently, the councillor is neither.
268** With the other nonhuman councilors being a turian - whose culture emphasizes a mandatory period of military service - and an asari who is several hundred years old, and whose culture doesn't make combat mandatory but was still encouraged to learn to fight as a maiden, the shorter-lived and more delicate salarian is the only one who could plausibly be unfamiliar with having short-range weapons pointed at their face.
269** That's not even remotely true. If the turian military was always and only about frontline combat, they wouldn't have a very good military. Recon, ground vehicle crew, pilot, sensor or comms officer, maintenance, technological combat, sniper, logistics, etcetera. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ways to serve in the military without actually having pistols stuffed up your nose on a regular basis, although how many of them would be respected enough by the turians to lead into a prestigious role like councillor is another matter.
270*** Two points on that regard. First, even non-combat roles would have to go through basic training, and would have basic combat drilled into them ad infinitum. Second, it'd serve to reinforce the Turian's "Needs of the many" mentality, so it's possible he would have acted because he realized that his death in exchange for Leng's would have helped the galaxy.
271[[/folder]]
272
273[[folder: The Illusive Man move in elusive ways]]
274* Considering the absolute nigthmare it was to get to the teleport beam thingy while being supported by the entire military might of the milky way, how did TIM manage to show up for the final in the Citadel?
275** He was already long gone from the main Cerberus base when you showed up. In fact, he probably just went straight to the Citadel on a normal transport. Also keep in mind, he was indoctrinated, so the Reapers may have simply let him pass.
276[[/folder]]
277
278[[folder: Sins of the Fathers]]
279* Can I ask why so many members of your squad have horrible fathers? This is really a series-wide question but Miranda, Tali and Jacob all had missions related to how their fathers were vile human beings (or Quarians) in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 seemed to turn that up to eleven with Sanctuary. Likewise, James Vega mentions a dislike of his father and Thane ''was'' a bad father before he made the effort to redeem himself. Ashley and Garrus are the only ones who speak highly of their male parents and one of them was considered a traitor, if memory serves correctly.
280** You're thinking of Ashley's grandfather, who surrendered to the Turians at Shanxi (the alternative was to let them bomb the planet into the stone age). You also forgot Wrex (who had to kill him when he sprung a trap on holy ground). Anyway, the father I'm guessing is a relatively easy close relative to demonize. But don't forget we had Liara vs her mom, and Samara basically abandoned two of her daughters to kill the third.
281** For that matter, I can't think of any ''good'' fathers in the ME universe. Even Spacer Shepard seems to only have a mother. Bioware has father issues?
282** Anderson is a father '''figure''', even referring to Shepard as "son" or "child", if that counts.
283** I was actually waiting for someone to mention Anderson so I could say, "No, he's a father ''figure'', not a father." However, I did think of one after posting: Garrus's father seems like a good person. He listened to Garrus, and believed him enough to take the Reaper issue to the Primarch. The only problem I saw was that he insisted that Garrus not join the Spectres, but I think that he had a good enough reason for that.
284** Tali's father wasn't a vile person, just desperate and driven, and largely motivated by desire to give his daughter a chance to live on the homeworld. He did some very unwise and horrible decisions because of it, but his intentions were good. He just wasn't good at showing his emotions.
285** Well he ''was'' described as being the biggest war criminal in Quarian history and, if Tali's otherwise funny dialogue while drunk in Mass Effect 3 is anything to go by, she dislikes him by that point. She praises Miranda for killing her father, for example.
286** More specifically, for not letting her father define her actions the same way she has tried to live up to Rael or make up for his mistakes, and is driven to drink by being forced to question what she's done for most of her life.
287** Tali's father wouild be "remembered" as war criminal, and used as a cautionary tale for younglings, for his experiments involving the Geth, which was illegal and resulted in the death of everyone aboard his ship.
288** Even discounting the fact that he was a war criminal, he was an emotionally distant father, never took vacation to show his daughter his face, and used his dying words to give her orders. For comparison, another Quarian on the same ship got out a "Mommy loves you very much!" as the Geth burst in and killed her. Being emotionally distant is almost as bad as not being there.
289** Tali seems more respectful of him in Mass Effect 1 and understanding of his being distant from her, so perhaps the experiments were what sent him into BrokenPedestal territory.
290** At one point Shepard can ask EDI if she considers her creator as some kind of twisted father figure that causes her deep psychological issues. When she gets confused by this, he says he's [[LampshadeHanging learned he has to ask that kind of question]].
291** Wrex's father was pretty shitty, too. Hell, he's probably the worst of the lot with the exception of Mr. Lawson. But anyway, this is lampshaded by a certain dwarf from [[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins another Bioware game]]; "Everybody needs some daddy issues."
292** To elaborate, Wrex's father '''[[OffingTheOffspring tried to kill him]]''' after luring him into an ambush and killing his men, and Wrex indicates his father was perpetuating the self-destructive behavior of the krogan.
293** Kaidan is on good terms with his father. So naturally he goes MIA fighting the Reapers.
294** There was also Liara's "father" as well. Aethyta may have watched her daughter from a distance, but she did still share feelings for Benezia even when things didn't work out and they separated, and she was willing to monitor Liara on behalf of the other Matriarchs to protect Liara from what would've happened otherwise had she been watched by other matriarchs who had every reason to be suspicious of her and potentially assassinate her. Not to mention Aethyta also voices how protective she still is of her daughter ("Nobody messes with my girl"). In one of their talks, Liara even tells Aethyta she's the best father a girl could wish for.
295[[/folder]]
296
297[[folder: Asari Biology]]
298* Ok So I romanced Liara as a male Shepard in [=ME=]1 and reconnected in Lair of the Shadow Broker. I get that Asari use their meld to build a genetic template for their offspring but I am confused about the actual sex part. I assume that Asari have a vagina for actual birth but there would have been no reason for their biology to evolve compatible sexual traits and organs for sex with a human male. No pleasure center like the clitoris, no lubricant production to facilitate penetration, and so on. So how does Liara have traditional sex with Shepard? Or is it just a lot of making out and touching and Shepard's pleasure comes from the meld as well?
299** Yes. The real stimulation comes from the contact with the partner's nervous system. Both nervous systems become one temporarily, and both experience the same pleasure. Its probably not the same as you'd get from normal human-on-human sex. That said, much like normal sexual reproduction, asari evolutionary development would almost certainly go down the path of ensuring that the process of melding is highly enjoyable for the asari, which in turn would make it enjoyable for the partner.
300** There's also a reason for Asari to develop a uterus, vagina, and ovaries: Birth. They'd still need the egg to conceive the child, the uterus to house and grow the child as it develops, and the vagina to give birth, after all.
301** It's also possible that the Asari at one point in their evolutionary line were not a single sex species and that good old fashioned sex was the proto-Asari's means of reproduction. Then, as the proto-Asari evolved into a single sex species that can reproduce through the nervous system meld, they retained all of the biological traits associated with (pleasurable) sex. There would not really be nothing to select against clitorises (clitores?), self-lubricating vaginas, etc.
302** In the Asari temple, Javik specifically states that the Asari were genetically modified by the Protheans for their biotic abilities. This doesn't preclude modification in other ways, though, which includes their lifespan and reproduction methods. It's possible they had very different anatomy as a holdover prior to being modified, which is still useful for good old-fashioned sex. After all, when you walk into the bar on Ilium and meet Matriarch Aethyta, she treats sex casually, which seems unlikely if every sexual act is an intimate mind-meld.
303** "Can I get you anything? Sorry, no sex, I just cleaned the bar."
304** The flip side to this is also found in the bar on Ilium: the bachelor party conversation. All species seem attracted to Asari, describing different traits that only they can see. This brings up the possibility that they're only human-like to human onlookers, which suggests that they *do* mind-meld with everything in sight.
305** Except that all the participants of the bachelor party see things that everybody can see about the asari: the salarian takes notice to her attractive skin tone, the turian admires her head fringe and the human her body-shape, while all three are impressed by her flexibility. The asari look no different when you look them through covert video footage, so there's no way that they could influence the mind of every observer like that.
306** And back in Mass Effect 1, when you could buy hardsuits for your squad, Liara was the only one who didn't have a species-specific suit - she wears a suit designed for a human female. ''And'' she wears a suit bearing an Alliance logo in [=ME=]3, which further suggests almost-human morphology.
307** My assumption is that while you could engage in coitus with an asari, it wouldn't be as pleasurable for either party as what they consider "going all the way." Remember the krogan in [=ME=]2 talking about how eating a fish from the Presidium would be decadent, "like screwing Sha'ira" and his friend asks "where are you supposed to get a decent grip?" I took that to mean screwing an asari would be basically humping, rather than "embracing eternity." The decadence is beyond just some lowly mercenary bedding The Consort, but that you would schedule a meeting with her just to do something as crass as put your parts in hers rather than than meld nervous systems.
308** I always assumed asari are much like human women in that aspect, with a nervous system melding being a (probably) considerable bonus, as far as enjoyment goes for both parties included. What confuses me is something else. If, like you me, chose female Shepard and decided to romance Liara, they have a talk about having little blue babies, in second game, once you're finished with Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. It is quite obvious this is somewhat of a joke between Shepard and Liara, but near the end of the third game (in London, before the final attack) Liara mentions that she is sad, because those little blue children will be dissapointed, since she doesn't have a speech prepared. It seems like human female and asari are actually capable of having children, which is confirmed once you hear the conversation between female Alliance soldier and an asari clerk, about her daughter she has with an asari. How would that work? Once again through the melding of the nervous systems? Or does an asari parent suddenly... grow some extra parts? What I guess I'm asking is... who would be the father in this union? Liara? Shepard? Can either of them be the father?
309** Human females and asari have children ''exactly the same way that everyone else'' has children with asari. Why would the gender of the human involved have any effect on whether or not they can have children when the species is capable of mating with any alien life form during the melding process? Have you even bothered looking up how asari biology and melding works? It says it right there in the codex how they mate and bear offspring.
310** I did, in fact, not. By the time I usually remember about Codex it has several dozen entries in it already. Now, if it would be only reading, that wouldn't present a problem. But I just can't stand the (imo) lame narrator, so I usually end up skipping everything. I've been meaning to go over it one of these days and I guess I now have a good (better) reason for it as well. So thanks for the hint.
311** Who needs the Codex? Liara explains all this in the fist game if you talk to her. Species and gender are irrelevant to asari reproduction, you can respond with curiosity or disgust.
312[[/folder]]
313
314[[folder:Male and Female translations]]
315* This brings up a point that bugged me since the whole "father" versus "mother" point Aethyta raised in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'': how do Omnitools translate the words "male" and "female" and associated terms (boy and girl, man and woman) into the Asari language? Or do they just translate the words into the common trade language?
316** Are you seriously suggesting that in the thousand-plus years that the asari have existed as part of a galactic civilization in which they have interacted with a dozen other species with clearly defined genders, they haven't somehow adopted a word for "male" in their language?
317** Plus, while the Asari are a single gender race, it's highly unlikely that ALL the life on Thesia is the same. It's a safe bet that there are male animals and insects. They would have likely been aware of gender as a concept long before they made contact with other races, just by observing native fauna on Thesia.
318** Gender for Asari is less an biological identity and more a condition. The literal terms for male and female in the Asari language is probably more like "One who inseminates" and "One who is inseminated", respectively. The English terms of male and female are sufficient in illustrating this dynamic in most contexts, even if it does not fully encapsulate the complexities of Asari biology.
319[[/folder]]
320
321[[folder: Exact number of Ardat-Yakshi]]
322* In [=ME=]2, Samara tells you that there are only three known Ardat-Yakshi in existence, which is reduced to two if you kill Morinth. However, in [=ME=]3, Banshees are revealed to be indoctrinated Ardat-Yakshi. When you first encounter them in Ardat-Yakshi monastery, it's mentioned that there are ''hundreds'' of Banshees running around the place, and you run into quite a few more as the game progresses. While Samara admits that there could be Ardat-Yakshi hiding out in remote areas, and that their abilities don't manifest until they reach a certain age, it still doesn't explain how the Ardat-Yakshi population just exploded in orders of magnitude in the couple of years between games.
323** Samara was lying. The Codex makes it clear that there are far more than just three Ardat-Yakshi. She's downplaying the number of Ardat-Yakshi because that's how the asari roll in general.
324** This doesn't make much sense, since she's a Justicar. She really has no reason to lie to Shepard at that point and "lying" doesn't seem to be something an organization as rigid as the Justicars would be very supportive of.
325** Based on what, exactly? We don't know the specifics of the Code. What we ''do'' know is that the Justicars' duties include containingng Ardat-Yakshi and that the asari as a whole have a vested interest in keeping the fact that Ardat-Yakshi even exist a secret. Samara would want to downplay the threat, if only due to species-wide social convention to hide the fact.
326** I don't think she was lying, she was just wrong - when she says there are three Ardat-Yakshi in existance, followed up by saying she has three daughters, before noting "It is as it sounds", she's clearly pretty cut up about it, the insinuation being she thinks she gave birth to the only three sex-vampires currently in existence. But ''after'' the suicide mission, I think, if Shep asks her what her intentions are, she indicates that there could be more out there, so she might go look for them. It's a little odd admittedly that she didn't know of the monestary ''full'' of them, including both her daughters who she talks to frequently, but meh. Minor retcon.
327** No retcon. Samara does not speak to her daughters frequently. She has not spoken to them for four hundred years, since she became a Justicar and her Shadow Broker dossier indicates she didn't call that frequently even before that. In the four hundred years since her last contact the monastery simply gained new residents. She does start making frequent contact with her daughter if she survives through to Mass Effect 3.
328*** It's a retcon. Creator/BioWare just didn't research the previous game's dialogue properly and let someone decide that Banshees were Ardat-Yakshi.
329*** Not true. In [=ME2=], the same game where Samara claims that there's only three Ardat-Yakshi, the codex states:
330----> "Contrary to popular belif, Ardat-Yakshi are neither extremely rare (around one percent of asari dwell on the AY spectrum), nor are they all murderers."
331*** So Samara is either misinformed or lying, but it is not a retcon because this information was released in the same game that Samara made that claim.
332** Maybe she was referring to fugitive Ardat-Yakshi?
333** No, it was pretty clear that she was talking about her daughters.
334** Most of the inhabitants of the AY monastery were described as merely being "in the AY Spectrum," meaning that they have the genes necessary to proliferate Ardat-Yakshi, but were not "real" Ardat-Yaskh themselves. Only her two daughters are genuine Ardat-Yakshi.
335*** Not true. At all. There is no way they would even NEED to be segregated if they weren't dangerous. There's even mention of a particular A-Y who is considered extremely unsuitable for a supervised visit to Thessia, because guess what? She has all the same qualities a certain other Ardat-Yakshi (Morinth) had - such as being romantic, impulsive and having an addictive personality.
336** Only problem with that is ''Samara'' has the genes necessary to proliferate Ardat Yakshi, and she's not in the temple, even though her Justicar code would've absolutely obligated her to live there. But different levels of Ardat (as someone's suggested below!) works for me. T'Loak's heard of 'em, and isn't surprised by the fact that they're more than just a myth. Samara might have given birth to the only three true Ardat-Yakshi, but if we've got a few half-Ardat kicking about, we can bung them in the monastery too.
337** The impression I got from the codex entry was that there are different "levels" of ardat-yakshi; only the most severe cases, such as Samara's daughters, cause death via melding. Most just cause extreme pain and possible brain damage. Samara might have been counting the ones who have the potentially lethal version for simplicity's sake.
338** That's the impression I got, too, and the Mass Effect wiki (though by no means infallible) supports this interpretation.
339** I simply looked at it as the Reapers altering the genes of a normal Asari to make them an Ardat-Yakshi. After all, they can blend a Krogan and Turian to make a husk, and a Batarian and Human, how hard would it be to turn an Asari into an Ardat-Yakshi before huskifying her?
340** Whatever the explanation, it's ''not'' a {{Retcon}}. In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' the codex entry for Ardat-Yakshi includes the line about how one percent of asari are on the AY spectrum, and if you go to the food shop on the Citadel you can occasionally overhear a conversation about how a particular foodstuff was made at an Ardat-Yakshi monastery.
341** This is probably one of those "Do you want the in-universe answer or the real answer?" kind of things. i.e. they wanted a level set in [[RuleOfCool a monastery built to house a psychic sex vampire commune that is currently overrun by zombies]] and couldn't do that with just two of them left, so they retconned. Either that, or Samara was trying to hide [[CulturalCringe just how common AY's really are]], whatever floats your boat.
342** My guess would be that [=BioWare=] simply screwed up. They probably wrote Samara's line before they decided to have more Ardat-Yakshi, and they just forgot to change it.
343** They should have had her state "There are three Ardat-Yakshi that bear the name [insert Asari last name]. Before I became a Justicar, my full name was Samara [insert Asari last name]. It's as it sounds."
344** Samara actually says, "As far as I know only three exist today..." So she was telling the truth FromACertainPointOfView. She knows for a fact her three daughters are Ardat-Yakshi, and she must know the monastery exists but she doesn't know for a fact that the rest of the inhabitants of that monastery are really AY. She can reasonably assume that, but she likely has some part of her Code that instructs her to downplay their existence whenever possible without outright lying.
345** The real question is if seclusion or death are the only 2 options for those diagnosed as AY, then why was the asari commando on Tiptree known to be one? It's not just something she confided to her squadmate (the PTSD commando in the hospital), it's in her file.
346** I wondered that, too. But it seems like the AY are trained to use their biotics just like "regular" asari; perhaps, considering how utterly desperate things are becoming, the asari chose to covertly extract some of the most talented ''and'' the most emotionally stable and moral/loyal ones from the AY monastery to bolster the ranks? Or maybe that particular commando was ''very'' low in the AY spectrum; not enough to condemn her to the monastery, but enough to keep an eye on her.
347** Doesn't the codex entry for Lessus mention that certain Ardat-Yakshi are allowed supervised reintegration into asari society?
348** I forget if it's an audio file or an email, but something you can listen to/read at the AY monastery notes that the staff are particularly unhappy about the way one of their new residents was treated by the justicar that delivered her to them. Its generally suggested that justicars are seen as outdated relics of a bygone age, who hold to an antiquated and simplistic moral stance- justicars see AY's as threats to be killed or contained, but asari society in general seems to be looking at them more as victims of circumstances beyond their control. As such, it's possible, perhaps even likely, that asari society in general is keeping justicars out of the loop in regards to AY's except when one goes rogue.
349** My understanding of that was the Justicar possibly being more forceful and less merciful in apprehending and restraining this Ardat Yakshi to the point where she was scared out of her mind.
350** The Codex entry for the planet with the monastery on it may have provided the answer, though it seems to contradict the other codex entry on asari in general; there are apparently active and latant AY genes, and anyone with either is taken to a monastery. Eventually, if they show they can behave themselves and control their urges, they're allowed to reintegrate into society. Presumably justicars aren't kept in the loop about that part.
351** Guys, the codex entry for banshees says they're made "from asari ''with active or latent predispositions to becoming'' Ardat-Yakshi." Meaning you don't have to actually ''be'' an ardat-yakshi to qualify for reaperization, you just have to be a carrier for the pertinent allele. So even if the Codex ''didn't'' say that 1% of Asari are ardat yakshi, that's still a lot more potential future-banshees than just those Asari actually going around literally fucking people to death.
352[[/folder]]
353
354[[folder: "They used to eat flies."]]
355* Concerning the secret squad member: When it's pointed out to him that salarians are a major player in galactic politics, Javik acts surprised and remarks that they were only animals during his time. The question is - how does he know what a salarian is? How does he recognize a term that presumably did not exist 50,000 years previously? This is something that the UniversalTranslator could not possibly handle. The only possible explanation I can think of is that salarians already had a primitive culture back then and already called themselves "salarians," meaning that the Protheans ate a sentient species...
356** Maybe the fact Javik doesn't use a simple UniversalTranslator, but actually interfaced with a sentient mind (Shepard's) to learn the language has something to do with it. Like, it connected whatever word the Protheans used for "Salarian" with the current name of the species, based on the memories in Shepard's mind correlating to the primitive species that existed back then. This, of course, raises the question of why he was surprised at all, since he should have already known Salarians were one of the dominant species of the cycle at that point.
357** Javik doesn't use a universal translator. he doesn't ''need'' to. He reached out, he touched Shepard's mind, and ''bam''. He knows everything he needs to know to communicate with Shepard, including current names of species.
358** That'd be a perfect explanation, actually, but then there's the fact that he misidentifies them as lizards instead of amphibians and has to be corrected...
359** He has trouble comprehending how "primitives" could have evolved so much. It's not a stretch to say that salarians really were lizards back then and just evolved into amphibians, and the reality of such is difficult for Javik.
360** Alternatively, he simply doesn't care about the difference between a reptile and an amphibian; he's not a biologist and his point isn't biological, it's that in his time, they were slimy, non-sentient to barely-sentient bug eaters. Frog, lizard, doesn't matter. The fact that they got from what and where they were to what and where they are is what he finds shocking.
361** If Shepard's mind associates "Salarian" with "lizard" in any way, then Javik's use of "lizard folk" as a derogatory term is plausible, since it would be derived from Shepard's linguistic pattern. It is entirely possible that Shepard might not know the difference between amphibians and lizards, or that he/she simply would not care about the specifics of Salarian bilogy, etc.
362** Javik says the Protheans used to eat [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nsr1VqmYCA&t=5s Salarian livers as a delicacy]]. So it makes as much sense for them to know what a Salarian is as it makes sense for us to know what a pig is. And indeed we would be very surprised that if we came back to earth after 50,000 years, there would suddenly be an advanced civilisation of [[VideoGame/{{Minecraft}} pig-men]].
363** Point is that pig-men probably wouldn't call themselves Pigs. They would call themselves Borons or something. It's the connection between seeing a pig when you went to sleep, waking up and finding somebody that has changed so much you can't even recognise it as a pig and still calling it a pig. Either way "they use to eat flies" could be just seen as a disgust of their old diet, many humans still eat insects which want include flies...good source of protein. In 100 years people looking back before we managed mass-cloning of meat might say "eww, we use to eat ants?" I'm sure many people now already do.
364[[/folder]]
365
366[[folder: Neutral Options]]
367* Why does the dialog wheel never have neutral options anymore? It's always straight Paragon or Renegade now. Did just no-one ever use them so they didn't bother recording them or what?
368** It's in part because people literally almost never used them, but also because Bioware has been slightly stepping away from pure Paragon and Renegade in the standard options anyway. In many, many occasions the lower option isn't any more pragmatic or JerkAss than the above, just different in content. Only the red and blue options still represent Paragon and Renegade at their purest, any more. In any case, it's a question of resources: record dialogue that is the least satisfying to watch, that few use, or record greater amounts of actually interesting dialogue.
369** There was generally no point behind a neutral option; neutral options gained you neither Paragon or Renegade points, so they were functionally useless and no one used them. They could have gone with the Dragon Age II system and had the neutral option be sarcastic/humorous, but there still likely would't be any point to it.
370** There's also the fact that most "paragon" and "renegade" dialogue choices don't net you paragon or renegade points - they net you general reputation points. There were a lot of times when I was giddy at being a jerk-ass to someone only to see the combination symbol bounce up. Of course, I was still happy about it, because the dialogue is more important than the points you get.
371** War is a very polarizing experience, and right now you're in the middle of the biggest one since the Protheans and the Reapers were going at it a cycle ago.
372* Real answer: rushed development. The game was done in a tearing hurry to meet EA's release deadline, and corners had to be cut. Each additional dialogue option starts an exponential chain of responses, each of which then has to be voice-acted and possibly mo-capped or hand-animated (although you may notice that the game doesn't bother animating a lot of conversations). In fact, even the apparent binary dialogue choice is often an illusion- the response is the same either way, and in some cases even what Shepard says is the same!
373[[/folder]]
374
375[[folder:Male divinities in the asari pantheon?]]
376* In the Temple of Athame we see statues of male angel-equivalents who were credited teaching the asari about civilization. Shouldn't this have ringed some bells in the heads of every anthropologist in existence concerning the origins of the asari culture? Where would they have learned about the existence of masculine entities at all, outside alien contact?
377** Revisit the Temple with Javik in your party. The asari probably got the idea for male divinities from the Protheans. As for why that didn't turn any heads, this information was probably kept hidden by the asari government, same as with the Beacon/Prothean VI hidden in the Athame statue itself.
378** I know the Prothean connection just fine; the question is why no outsider picked up the fact that an all-female species has male angels in their religion. You can't hide a component of a major religion from the general public.
379** Liara mentions that the many don't follow the Athame doctrine in recent times and given the secrecy surrounding the temple, it's likely they prevented outsiders from entering it based on religious/traditional principles akin to how no non-Muslims can enter Mecca.
380** Liara also mentions "Athame's" image became "more Asari" over time when you look at the central statue. The Prothean depiction of those entities is probably '''very''' old (as are the artifacts on that temple), maybe pre-spaceflight even, and current Asari population simply believes they all looked like Asari, or at least somewhat Asari-like. What '''really''' seems wrong to me is how that Prothean VI was very much aware of the Reaper threat, was supposed to help people fight it, and yet the Asari are completely oblivious of the existence of Reapers before the events of the series. How did they get '''any''' information out of that beacon without triggering the activation of Vendetta?
381** The same way human beings got information out of the Mars Archive; decoding it from the raw bits one laborious piece at a time. Vendetta suffered the same flaw as other Prothean beacons did of requiring somebody with the ability to do the Prothean meld-communication to fully activate it, and doing that requires either the Cipher or being a Prothean. So Vendetta never activated until you showed up.
382** Of course, if the maker of Vendetta had programmed the thing to be even half as user-friendly as Vigil then yes, the asari would have been leading the galaxy to start anti-Reaper prep starting like 3000 years ago. Sorta an IdiotBall there, Vendetta engineers.
383** Vigil was designed by a completely different group of Protheans. Javik is surprised to hear about its presence on Ilos, and the Prothean voice recordings - "Can not be stopped! ''Can not be stopped!'' - seem unlikely to have come from Javik's strain. It could even have been a completely different species in the Prothean empire. The [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture light they flung into the future]] might have been modified by the few members who survived the wait and were revived. Just the fact that they modified the keepers to not be treacherous, but kept them around, proves they thought differently.
384** And there are real, human religions with half-animal, half-human divinities (for example). So by your logic, the fact that the Egyptians had Ra and Anubis as gods would throw up a red flag since there weren't actually bird-people or jackal-people. Hell, humans even have gender/sexless divinities (the Christian God has no gender for example). The Asari probably knew what males were (unless every other species on Thessia is also only feminine gendered or agender), so they could imagine male divinities.
385** the "Christian God" is rather consistently referred to as male. And "having body parts swapped out with animals" isn't the same as "representing a gender dichotomy otherwise unknown in our culture." I mean, anthropomorphization of animals seems akin to "also this guy tosses lightning bolts around, even though none of us can do that" and rather different from "this god represents a social order that is otherwise entirely foreign to our society". Of course you could devise some explanation for how the asari came to this pantheon, but by doing that, you're doing the intellectual heavy lifting the writers just didn't care enough to do.
386** Unless all other lifeforms on Thessia are mono-gendered, the Asari can very easily encounter the concept of males without having to experience it themselves. A correlation would be, for example, modern if human culture had a male god that carried a child and gave birth. Male pregnancy is not a physically possible thing for any in our culture, but we can still understand it by studying seahorses, an animal that exists on our planet and experiences precisely this phenomenon. If there are bi-gendered lifeforms on Thessia, than the possibility that depictions of Athame were originally male ceases to be a cultural impossibility that can't be understood, and instead becomes even more legendary: "the legendary MALE Asari". This means that it can pretty much look like anything it damned well pleases, because it's a figure of myth and awe, up until the point where cultural revisions to faith ultimately begin to make it less and less an impossible entity and more something that people can look at and say, "Yeah, that could happen." As Liara said, becoming more Asari over time.
387** I just think it's weird that Liara, or any other Prothean expert, would never have figured out that the busts of Athame's followers were of Protheans. While the audience only learnt what Protheans really looked like in [=ME=]3, there's no indication that Javik's appearance was surprising to the characters, and it's hard to believe that no-one knew what the Protheans looked like with all those ruins lying about the galaxy. If the busts had been kept hidden, then sure... but Liara recognised them instantly.
388** Well, the Codex entry on the Protheans (before you meet Javik, at least) still shows the tentacle-faced statues on Ilos. It's possible that some asari scholars attributed the busts to ''some'' alien race, but nobody (outside of the Athame doctrine, which also knew about the Beacon) could confirm they were Prothean until they found one to compare them to.
389[[/folder]]
390
391[[folder: War Asset oddities]]
392* Much of the process of gathering war assets seems completely arbitrary. Why are there random warships and commando teams hanging around planets without either reaper presence or installations to defend? Why was the Volus dreadnaught Kwunu orbiting a random gas giant instead of defending the homeworld or linking up with other fleets? It is also possible to gain Asari assets before the invasion of Thessia that are for some reason NOT recalled to defend the homeworld.
393** Units separated from the main fleet without orders to move due to comm buoy disruption. I always viewed it as simply being a case of Shepard finding the unit/fleet, and relaying orders for them to link up with the fleets they got separated from. As for ''why'' they're in such out of the way places, just about all of those systems are in Reaper-controlled zones. They're likely hiding out for fear of being detected and destroyed/harvested, and unlike the Normandy, they don't have a stealth system to hide their presence. Normandy can give them a link to their respective command via their QEC and can give them an opportunity to get to the main mass relay and get out of the system and occupied cluster.
394** Or you store the warships in pokeball-like devices in your cargo hold. Wrex, I choose you!
395** The units you find are either stranded, hiding or retreating against the unstoppable Reaper onslaught. Most have no comms with their respective command, no knowledge of outside events and often no way of moving. The Normandy finding them means that they get information, tips on the safest route to leave the system, up-to-date info on where they are needed and likely help with repairs (even just a functioning power cell to get airborne).
396** Another possibility is that some pf those units represent the units that don't have to be deployed to that area thanks to Shep. So,for example, scanning a planet means that the Turian ship that would have been sent out to scout the area can instead be reassigned to the Alliance.
397[[/folder]]
398
399[[folder: Vendetta (Prothean VI)]]
400* Vendetta was programmed to reveal the Citadel as the Catalyst only once the Crucible was completed. He explains this is to avert the Reapers' learning of the threat in advance and then taking control of the Citadel to prevent the Crucible’s use. But isn't "taking control of the Citadel" usually the very ''first'' thing the Reapers do? Why would he have been programmed with safeguards that assumed otherwise? The only Protheans with reason to believe the following cycle would prevent the Citadel-trap were the Ilos team, and they worked in complete isolation. Are we meant to assume the Citadel is normally left undefended after the Reapers make use of it?
401** They were probably hoping that the next cycle would actually find and pay attention to their Beacons, and as such start preparing well before they reached the 50,000-year deadline.
402** Pretty much. Javik was outright ''shocked'' that when a beacon ''was'' uncovered, that no one heeded their warnings. They thought that the beacons would serve as a perfectly functional warning.
403** Fair point. Though if the assumption was that the Crucible would be developed sometime before the Reapers even arrived, it makes even less sense to program Vendetta to withhold information on the Catalyst for the reasons it offered.
404** The only flaw in their cunning plan, then, was to assume that the Beacons would make it through intact in numbers greater than 1, and/or that anyone would actually ''find'' them before the Reapers start to send in Indoctrinated minions to destroy the evidence before it can be analyzed and disseminated. Probably should have left a couple near the worlds they KNEW sentient life was developing on...
405** They ''did''. That's exactly why they left a beacon on Thessia in the first place: the Protheans were convinced that the asari would be able to stop the next phase of the cycle. And more than one beacon did survive into the next cycle. The one on Thessia, the one on Eden Prime, and the one on Virmire.
406** Javik is pretty honest, at least with a cynical Shep, about the fact he's lying to keep Liara's spirits up. More importantly, [=ME=]1 told us that the warnings were sent out to the beacons by the Ilos team after the Reapers had returned to dark space. Though it's not especially implausible to think disparate groups of Protheans had the same ideas.
407[[/folder]]
408
409[[folder: The Lawson Family]]
410* Late in the game, we learn that Miranda and Oriana's father is a man named Henry Lawson. Now, while it's very ''strange'' to think Miranda would keep the surname of the father she despised it can, perhaps, be justified. But why on earth does Oriana, who was kidnapped as a baby, raised by foster/adoptive parents and then hidden from her father ''again'' carry the Lawson name?
411** You learn that information from your time during [=ME=]2 that Henry Lawson is Miranda's father. he engineered both Miranda and Oriana to carry his genetic legacy. Miranda kidnapped/saved Oriana and gave her to a nice family. Henry busted this during Miranda's loyalty mission in [=ME=]2. The result should be that Oriana is saved and learns of her past and from then on keeps contact with Miranda. Reading your mail in [=ME=]2, Oriana will thank you and ask that you watch over Miranda and even P.S.S. "Stop reading Sheperd's mail, Miranda." This would suggest that Oriana is also extremely intelligent and resourceful and could have known about her past all along. It could be inferred that since the [=ME=]3 is through the eyes of Commander Sheperd, then Oriana would be known which is why her name is Lawson. Conversely, she has been found by Henry Lawson and so all illusion regarding her identity is broken.
412** You do ''not'' learn the name of Miranda and Oriana's father in [=ME=]2. Before the third game, the prevalent opinion was that Miranda would have chosen a new surname for herself, distinct from that of the father she despised. That this isn't the case is odd but not a huge problem. She may have kept it to spite him. The question is why ''Oriana'' would change her surname from that of the adoptive, loving parents who raised her to "Lawson" after learning her history. It makes absolutely no sense to me at all.
413** What's weird is when you think, 'Okay, so Miranda changed her name, but why did Oriana?' because, it's not just that Oriana changed it as well, but somehow, out of all the names in the world, she chose the EXACT same name as Miranda.
414** I'm inclined to think that Miranda kept the name either as a "screw you" to Henry, or to leverage the connection for her own gain. Oriana probably takes the name by the time of [=ME=]3 to be closer to Miranda.
415[[/folder]]
416
417[[folder: Normandy's weapons]]
418* Several missions (the academy one comes to mind) involve the Normandy not being able to drop you closer or pick you up because a Cerberus ship is running interference. The Normandy still has those massive guns from Garrus' upgrade that tore through the collector ship like butter. Has Cerberus' tech upgrades gotten to the point that those aren't working anymore?
419** At Grissom, the Cerberus cruiser was right next to the Academy. I shouldn't need to explain what would happen if the Thanix was used on the cruiser in such close proximity to the station, considering what happened tot he ''last'' ship that they blew up with the Thanix.
420** Joker said that there were about a dozen fighters around the Academy. Far too many for the Normandy to destroy alone without taking severe damage or damaging the Academy itself. Even if they could, alerting Cerberus to their presence would jeopardize the lives of everyone on the station, making the rescue mission mute.
421** Except Alliance frigates in Mass Effect universe specialize in anti-fighter and anti-frigate warfare, especially if the Normandy is upgraded with better armor and shields (since we're assuming it has the Thanix Cannon..) a dozen fighters should not even be an issue. It even could take out the Cruiser with Javelin missiles instead of the Thanix - since they're installed on the "wings", not the bow, Normandy still has them. So basicly after Shepard had the kids rescued there was pretty much nothing that could have stopped the Normandy from decimating Cerberus units in the area.
422** Really? Because the last time the Normandy fought a force consisting mostly of fighters, I distinctly recall it having to ''run away and hide in a debris field''.
423** Let's not forget that Cerberus has copies of all your tech upgrades from [=ME=]2. So even if the Normandy has Silaris Armor, Cyclonic Barrier Technology, and a Thanix Cannon, ''so does that Cerberus cruiser''... and its a little bigger than you.
424** ''Maybe.'' Just because they had access to the upgrades that you made doesn't mean they could apply them to every ship they own. Cerberus may have a mountain of cash, but those upgrades are expensive and applying them to dozens of ships may not be feasible. And the mission to the Cerberus base on Tuchanka would suggest that their ships weren't all upgraded: one good shot from the ground cannon tore the Cerberus cruiser apart.
425** Said ground cannon is also longer than a modern day aircraft carrier (and that's just the part we can see - it's likely partially underground), far longer than the Normandy. Even accounting for atmospheric slowdown on the projectile, it'd be a helluva lot more powerful than the piddly little gun on the Normandy, upgraded or not.
426** Not to mention that when you're an indoctrinated Reaper agent and the End of Days is nigh, you don't care about saving money for next year's budget. So yeah, shoot the wad, upgrade all your ships; go nuts -- you can't shoot ''credits'' at the Alliance.
427** ''Piddly?'' It's derived from Reaper tech! It's supposed to be a Turian secret! It's quite possibly the most advanced weapon in Council space! It makes more sense to say that Cerberus has countermeasures than to say that it's just a crappy weapon, though even that seems off, as it was more than enough to take out the collector cruiser with a couple hits.
428** The POSSIBILITY exists that the enemy ships are packing some serious heat, such as Thanix cannons or Cyclonic Barriers. That in and of itself is a good reason to withdraw, rather than gamble on an engagement that can be avoided.
429** Wrex explained it in the first game, the point of a stealth frigate is to hit-and-run, not to slug it out out in a straight fight. Normandy's stealth is blown once it attacks, and even it's upgraded armor and shield were only suitable to resist space debris and starfighter scale weapons, it lacks the toughness to risk any avoidable battles.
430[[/folder]]
431
432[[folder: Legion's Sacrifice]]
433* How come Legion still dies if you make peace between the quarians and geth? It babled something about "disseminating personality matrix" before dropping dead. Even if his physical body experienced terminal overclocking, shouldn't his programs be able to upload themselves away offsite, just fine? To me, it seems as if Bioware wanted to make it a BittersweetEnding just 'cause.
434** It's because he was the only Geth left with the Reaper Code and there wasn't enough time for the average Geth to analyze and make it there own in time to help stop the Reapers, basically Legion had to be what amounts to an organ donor for them... that's my interpretation anyway.
435** In order to upload the Reaper code to the entire Consensus, Legion would need to disseminate every individual geth program in its body throughout the entire Consensus. It could not copy the Reaper code directly; the only way to spread the upgrades would be for individual programs to spread outward throughout the Consensus as a whole. The individual geth programs that made up Legion are likely still out there somewhere in the Consensus, but the personality that made up the discrete gestalt entity that was "Legion" is gone; the moment those geth departed Legion's platform, "Legion" ceased to exist - and because it made all geth truly self-aware, there's no way to reconstruct Legion.
436** In the end, Legion uploads the final Reaper code so that will enable all Geth entities to become self-aware. Since he cannot directly upload to the Geth consensus, he must transmit it via satellite at the cost of his personal entity. The final act of him referring to his body as "I" rather than "we" shows that the Legion persona made the sacrifice for all his fellow Geth. Sheperd even quizzically asks the Geth Prime if he is now Legion but the Prime corrects him and states that the one known as Legion has been terminated. Just like Morinth to Samara, you can copy the form but not the absolute personality.
437** That...Makes absolutely no sense given how computers work and how geth are said to work in the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe. The geth do not have blue boxes, they're just raw code. This is to say, assuming they are not philosophical zombies (beings that appear to be sentient but actually aren't), there's no reason just copying the reaper code wouldn't work. Or you know, just copying the necessary data from legion onto every geth...
438** The Geth are raw code, at first. The Reapers have enabled them to evolve to more specific lines of code which end up detailing their individuality. Geth were stated to be individuals in a general consensus, like different programs running on a computer yet still contained within the consensus. Legion forcing the Reaper code into their consensus granted a new form of AI and individuality, capable of differentiating each program and giving them new aspects of control and personality. Simply copying the code would only have made the Geth into aspects of the Reaper Legion, not individuals in a nation as they have always wanted. "Does this unit have a soul?" is Legion's final question. The answer is yes, which shows that more than simple programs they are not so different.
439[[/folder]]
440
441[[folder: Earth Death Toll Numbers]]
442* Something that surprised me was just how (relatively) low the death toll numbers given for Earth seemed to be. In the trailer, we are given totals for the first day (2 million casualties) and first week (7 million casualties.) That tells us that Shepard has been out and about in the galaxy for at least a week. So let's say that is a good average for the Reapers (considering they got what amounts to a surprise attack and took out 2 million in the first day alone.) That means that Shepard would have to be out and about in the galaxy for 8-9 WEEKS just for the Reapers to match the total casualties that occurred during World War 2. (60 million estimated.) Not to mention the fact that Earth's population during the time of the games is at 11 billion while it was only 2.5 billion during the 1940s, so there are more than four times as many people around to kill. Granted, the Reapers wanted to capture and process humans to make the next generation of reapers, so it's possible they weren't doing as much damage as they otherwise could have. It's also likely that the numbers "Big Ben" gives in the trailer aren't completely accurate. But it still surprises me just how low those totals seem to be.
443** Like you said, they're trying to harvest humanity, not obliterate it. Emily Wong notes on her twitter that if they wanted humanity dead, they'd have just nuked everything.
444** True enough, but why not resort to their "nuking" strategy when they began to lose the battle for Palaven? While the Reapers were bringing Turians into their forces as Marauders, Harbinger says in the 2nd game that they are considered "too primitive" to be valuable to Reaper reproduction. It would have severely weakened the last stand on Earth had the Reapers simply decided taking Palaven was more trouble than it was worth and bombed it to hell and back. This seems to have been their strategy in the past against species they considered unfit, as all of the formerly-inhabited planet descriptions that mention "orbital bombardment" show.
445** The numbers in the trailer are most likely from London alone. As I recall, the Reaper harvester vessel can process 1.86 million individuals in a week, which would make for a good estimate if it was only a few weeks at this point. You shouldn't take Harbinger's words at face value concerning the turians either; they may be too primitive to make a capital ship, but they should still be good enough material for a destroyer, since those things are made out of "lesser" species according to the Codex. Personally I'm assuming that the Reapers bombard worlds from the orbit ''after'' the harvesting is complete to hide the traces of their involvement, not before when there's still material to be collected. Remember, the Reapers inevitably win any war of attrition, so they're not in a hurry. Time and indoctrination are on their side.
446** The Reapers were never "losing" the battle for Palaven. They were winning until the krogan intervened, but even then all they did was slow the Reapers down enough that the turians could devote resources to the assault on Earth.
447** Not really. The Turians and Reapers were more at a stalemate, as while the Reapers were there in force, the fleet sent was still not nearly as large as the bulk of the Reaper forces, concentrated on Earth. It's why Humanity's fleets, comparable in power to the Turians', were utterly obliterated(in the case of the Fourth and Second) or badly hit and damaged(Third, First, and Fifth). Plus, the krogans' entrance turned the tide to where the Turians were winning the battle. In terms of space superiority, the Turians and Reapers were also at a stalemate, as the Turians were definitely able to match the Reapers almost kill for kill considering that they had 56 dreadnoughts to Humanity's paltry 7.
448** The human fleet is nowhere near as strong as the turian fleet. I doubt that it's even 10% as strong, consider it's around a thousand and the turian fleet is well over ten thousand. And the Reapers still managed to defeat the turians in a few months. That's way better compared to the humans, asari, and batarians, none of which lasted a day.
449** Well winning/losing depends on how you gauge it. The Turians initial assault was really the most successful action against the Reapers by any single species (the Reapers lost two Capital ships in the first assault!) but they still lost the planet, the Reaper's were smart enough to realise that by rushing past and bombing/ground assaulting key areas on Palaven it made the battle in the sky virtually immaterial. A stalemate at this point is fine for the Reapers, they have access to the planet and the Turian supply lines, and the Turians can’t risk the full assault needed to dislodge them.
450** Because the Reapers exist only to harvest populations - outright killing/destroying is reserved only for self defense. That's how they were programmed, and how they're interpreting that programming. They don't understand the concept of "winning" or "losing" - they just keep harvesting until they're done, or they're destroyed. If a reaper is destroyed, another takes its place, ad infinitum. Just look at the Protheans - they fought the reapers for ''centuries'' before finally falling. Not to put too fine of a point on it, even the Turians weren't "winning" - they merely hadn't fallen yet. People like to laugh at Javik for how superior he acts all the time, but when you take into account how long his race fought the Reapers, and compare it to how quickly this cycle was crumbling - and how quickly it ''would've'' crumbled if the crucible/catalyst failed (which it nearly did), you might just start to see that the JerkassHasAPoint.
451** Basically, the numbers from the trailer do not add up. According to the reaper war codex, four major cities counted "as in the low millions" were immediately destroyed: Adelaide (roughly 1.3 million today), Hamburg (1.8 million), Al Jubail (400k), Fort Worth (750k). That alone accounts for roughly 4 million deaths instantly by todays numbers. The deescriptor shows, that at least Al Jubail and Fort Worth have grown (or centers are counted).
452[[/folder]]
453
454[[folder: Missed a step, Doctor?]]
455* When Thane is fatally wounded by Kai-Leng, he stays alive long enough to be carted to the hospital and recieve rudimentary treatment. It couldn't save him, but it gave him time to say his goodbyes. However, his clothes in the hospital were still the one ''he'd gotten stabbed in''. Did the staff remove his bloodstained and torn coat, perform surgery, and then put it back on later. It's not as if they don't use hospital gowns, since the Virmire suvivor recieves one and a human/asari gown would fit just fine. So, why not?
456** Unfortunately, all drell character models use the same clothes. (compare Kolyat, Feron, and Thane. Their outfits are of different colors but are essentially the same) Bioware probably just didn't choose to give Thane a unique character model for the hospital.
457** He was brought to emergency surgery immediately after the stabbing. As I understand, in those circumstances hospital gowns are a waste of time; just cut off whatever is in the way and get to work.
458[[/folder]]
459
460[[folder: Have to space it?]]
461* If you betray Wrex, he comes at you with a shotgun but ultimately ends up getting shot to death through a window. Bailey comments that Wrex may be too big for a coffin and they'd have to space him. Why? The Citadel has Krogan passing through there fairly often, and Elcor, which are bigger than Krogan, are Citadel members. Surely they'd have those guys die every so often. Do both Krogan and Elcor not have a tradition of burial?
462** In case you didn't notice, the Citadel is kind of at war. Resources in general are going to be limited, and the amount of coffins the Citadel would have in stock for krogan would be limited too. Even less if krogan troops are moving off of Tuchanka and fighting the Reapers.
463[[/folder]]
464
465[[folder: Tarquin Victus big screw-up]]
466* What, exactly, was Tarquin Victus major screw-up that he is repeatedly accused of by his soldiers and your squad members? As far as I can tell, he was faced with two equally bad alternatives: Attack a dug-in enemy head-on and suffer guaranteed casualties OR try a risky approach which has at least some chance of surprising the enemy troops at the price of high vulnerability before the landing. I just don't see how he is supposed to have screwed up for chosing caution over suicide. The only reason I can think of is that he acted against the Turians main strategy to attack the enemy head-on with overwhelming force, or am I missing something here?
467** It was less that he made a bad call so much as he made a call that got his team epically massacred. Any commander who makes a decision that gets virtually the entire unit wiped out (especially if it goes against standing doctrine) will get in deep shit.
468** Especially if they fail to complete the mission to boot. With the "Victory at any cost" mentality of the turians, if Victus had managed to complete his mission at the expense of most of his team there would probably have been no complaints, but they got colossally screwed before even getting close to their target.
469** It was implied that the enemy they were going to face head on was Cerberus. While tough, few consider them tougher than the Reaper forces, and they stumbled onto a crapload of them when trying to flank Cerberus. Think of it as trying to sneak past a squad guarding a door and falling into a room filled with dozens of enemies instead. Logical that you would act that way, but undeniably worse than if you had just stuck to the agreed-upon strategy.
470** His mistake was not in suggesting alternate tactics, after all his own father was notorious for using non standard methods, and it got him close enough to be in line for Primarch. His mistake was that the tactic he chose was wrong. By looking at the weapons and parts you salvage before getting to Victus, you will notice that they are all light weapons - submachine guns and the light Phaeston. Light weapons are intended to be used by troops who maneuver a lot instead of taking cover, popping up and shooting as with battle rifles (marksman rifles), LMGs and sniper rifles. By taking them into the hollows, these troops got boxed in and picked off. If they'd had heavier rifles and shotguns, they would have been able to punch through. The fact that Victus put his troops in a situation they were ill equipped for, was his big screw up.
471[[/folder]]
472
473[[folder: Tali and spiders]]
474* How does Tali even know what a spider is? Has she encountered some on the Citadel? On Omega? In human colonies?
475** Rachni + Extranet.
476** Apparently multiple planets have animal species that can be described as "fish" (IE, "Thessian Sunfish"). I wouldn't be surprised if there were eight limbed arthropods on other planets... or she could have just future-googled "spider".
477** Tali clearly knows what an insect is (otherwise she wouldn't be able to say Rannoch has no insects), it's no stretch to think she knows what a spider is. Also, even though Rannoch has no insects, it's interesting to note that Tali '''never visited Rannoch in her life'''. For all we know, insects are a very common concern of the Quarians as they are today, specially considering they usually buy used ships.
478** Any translator can tell you that there are words or concepts that can't be fully translated into other languages and must be approximated. When human talk about "spiders", Tali would hear it as her word for whatever species approximate spiders in her homeworld. Even if there is no such species, a good Universal Translator would readily give an approximate definition easily understood in her language. So, there will be no difficulty in understanding what a "spider" is.
479** A better question would be why people in-game keep comparing the rachni to spiders. The queen did look kind of spiderish, but in the first game she and all of her children looked very much like giant space prawns. If anything, they should be crustaceans, not arachnids (and yes, I did notice the arachnid/rachni thing).
480** Simple. Tali does a WikiWalk on the extranet, ends up following a link to Earth Spiders, and what she reads (or sees videos on) freaks her out. Bam, arachnophobia.
481** There are a lot of people today who know about things that come from countries they've never been to. Being from one planet doesn't mean that you've never heard of anything from other planets. Given how much humans despise spiders in general, it makes complete sense that they'd be known among the Citadel races, especially races that might consider something like a spider nightmare fuel because they're not used to insects/bugs at all.
482** In Lair of the Shadow Broker you can find out that Grunt, of all people, is doing some research on humans, and considering that Grunt is a krogan and only working with you for this mission. It would not be odd at all if we assumed that Tali, whom the of you go way back to the original Normandy and a romance option in [=ME=]2 and 3, did some research on humans, especially that she is on a an Alliance ship, under the command of a human, with most of the crew as humans
483[[/folder]]
484
485[[folder: Piloting a Geth Ship]]
486* After the Geth Dreadnought mission, Legion pilots a Geth fighter to get Shepard and his two squadmates back to the Normandy. It does so by having its mobile platform physically operate the controls, just like any organic would. Why the heck are Geth ships built with this kind of controls? A race composed of software processes would have a much better response time if they cut the mechanical middle-man, and simply uploaded themselves into the ship. The same goes for the many terminals found throughout the dreadnought.
487** The geth seem to have deliberately designed themselves to operate like organics. Maybe as an effort to understand individual organics or individuality, or maybe they just felt like doing things physically, with a mechanical body, instead of operating via software. Note that when interfacing with any geth technology, you see lines of light running between the geth's fingers and whatever they're doing, so it is probable that the geth is likely just directly interfacing with the equipment directly while in a mechanical body. Geth may also limit their pilots to single mechanical body to cut down on reaction time; imagine, if you will, over a thousand individuals trying to pilot a single fighter while in contact with another five million other individuals controlling a fleet, all of them of the same rank, and all of them operating under the basic idea of reaching a consensus on what to do. Even arguing at the speed of optical processor thought, they're going to take a while to make a decision. A dozen geth isolated in a single body, however, can make decisions instantly and quickly.
488** While the first part might be true (even then, trying to understand organics by seriously handicapping themselves in a life-or-death situation is kind of stupid), the second part makes no sense. Even with the mobile platforms physically interacting with the ships, we still have the same amount of Geth programs running and trying to reach a consensus during a fight. The mobile units just add a bigger delay between reaching the consensus and acting on it as the mechanical components take more time to transmit the information (and that's what operating any machine is, transmitting the information of what you want it to do by pressing buttons/pushing levers/etc.) than a software does.
489** Incorrect. Legion points out that while geth are contained inside mobile platforms, they do not have as direct communication with the Consensus. Data is transferred, but the amount of communication is stifled. It is "quieter." Imagine being in a room with twenty million other soldiers all of the same rank trying to figure out what to do with everything at the same time and reaching a consensus on how to do that. Legion itself took thirty minutes to come to a conclusion with only a thousand geth debating, and that decision was a stalemate. Now imagine the aformentioned twenty million peple trying to decide on every movement of every ship in the entire fleet plus their support craft. It would be ''insanity''. Dividing up individual functions to individual platforms allows those geth to efficiently perform their specific task while directives are passed back and forth. Instead of twenty million geth trying to come to a consensus on fleet acrions across the entire fleet, you have mere thousands, hundreds, or dozens operating individual functions and communicating those back and forth. Data transferrence remains, but individual decisionmaking at each task becomes more efficient. Instead of twenty million geth making the decision on where to move every fighter, you have a few million deciding general course of action and instantly passing that down to other geth servers controlling ships, which transfer refined directives to individual stations, which transfer further directives to platforms handling specific tasks, on down the line, at light speed. Individual platforms at individual stations can quickly react to changinging circumstances without having to wait for the primary Consensus to reach a decision. Not too dissimilar from how human navies operate, except communication is almost instantaneous.
490** It still makes little sense for a geth fighter to be piloted by a foot-soldier platform when it could just as easily be a platform itself. In [=ME=]1 we're told that their "tanks" (armatures and colossi) are platforms unto themselves, rather than vehicles driven by a foot-soldier platform, precisely because that's more efficient. If they were preoccupied with operating more '"like organics"' that wouldn't be the case.
491** There may have been other concerns with Legion controlling the fighter via uploading, as well. The geth were still under Reaper control at that point. Maybe Legion didn't want to risk "indoctrination exposure" by uploading its runtimes into possibly-Reaper-infested hardware? In that case, the physical controls are a workaround.
492** The obvious answer to this question is because it's safer for them to do so. They could upload directly into a fighter if they wanted, but doing so means the Geth programs will be lost if the ship is destroyed. Staying in a platform and operating their fighters manually gives them some extra protection which could allow the platform to survive or give them the extra time they need to upload their programs to the nearest Geth station, and it doesn't seem to hinder their effectiveness in battle. Plus, Geth uploaded directly into a fighter can't manipulate anything outside that fighter. They'd still need mobile platforms to get out, look around, fight ground forces, retrieve valuable resources etc.
493** Maybe the geth built their ships with the possible reconciliation with the quarians in mind, with manual controls allowing an organic to operate the geth equipment.
494** I took it more like plugging a USB into a slot. The ship is the hardware, and the geth platform is the hardware that delivers the software to run that hardware. Most likely, they can upload it without a physical platform there as an interface, but Legion ''does'' want to bring his platform with him, so he uses the manual interface mode.
495** Geth don't need to physically pilot their fighters; the mission where you infiltrate the geth server proves that much. More likely, the fighters are designed to incorporate a mechanism by which a platform containing geth can operate the fighter in case of ECM preventing the geth from directly downloading or remotely operating the fighter. Legion's not operating the fighter as it is supposed to be operated under normal conditions. The area where Shepard's team resides is described as a cargo area by Legion, which explains why there's room for them. Also, going by the shape of the fighter and its claws, it is possible that the geth fighters also possess a secondary function as boarding craft or assault infantry transports, in which case the cargo section would carry combat platforms to attack a target.
496
497[[/folder]]
498
499[[folder: Ruined Suit, Perfect Face]]
500* When Harbinger shows up before the conduit and blasts the entire ground force apart, Shepard takes a direct hit reflected in his/her damaged armor. But how the hell is his/her pretty face just fine afterwards, even if you weren't wearing a helmet? Hell, Shepard's armor ''melted'' off the tough bastard, and there's not even burn marks or lacerations or anything. It's not as if it can't be rendered (think Virmine Survivor in hospital, bloody face during opening), so what caused Bioware to overlook that?~
501** I guess it's a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation (or, more to the point, "Presentation and Story Segregation"). They just didn't want Shepard to look any different from their regular self during the final sequences, so they just added some of the Renegade scars to their face and called it a day.
502** My Shepard was pretty noticably scarred in that scene, especially around her mouth.
503** Mine had some around her left eye, cheek and mouth.
504** While you'd expect considerably more damage to the face, we don't really see Shepard survive a "direct hit". Harbinger's laser strikes the ground in front of her, the force of which is enough to obliterate her armour and blast her back. Well, okay, she's actually much closer to the beam when she wakes up. Lots of speculation for everyone.
505** That's easy. Shepard, like all people in the Mass Effect universe, wears a helmet in combat, which you can turn off in the options for the sake of GameplayAndStorySegregation, because people want to emotionally connect with him/her which isn't possible if you can't see his/her face well. When he/she was hit by the beam, the helmet's outer layers melted just as much as his/her armor, making them opaque. Because he/she didn't want to walk around blind, he/she 'actually' pulled off her helmet, revealing his/her bruised but unburnt face.
506** Wasn't Sheperd's face being horribly bruised, bloody and overall horrifically injured? Specially manshep [[http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/208/8/6/injured_shepard__spoilers__by_kenmurikumo-d58su85.jpg]]
507** For clarification, when this entry was made, it was pre-Extended Cut, where Shepard's face was fine. With the EC, Shepard's face becomes properly bruised, so this matter is settled.
508[[/folder]]
509
510[[folder: Banshee height]]
511* Why are they roughly 7 and a half feet tall when asari are all generally the same height as human women, other huskified species mirror their organic counterparts in size (yes, brutes are significantly larger than krogan, but that's attributable to visible cybernetics)?
512** The Reapers are physically modifying the bodies with massive amounts of cybernetic augmentations.
513
514[[/folder]]
515
516[[folder:Banshee disintegration]]
517* The codex says Banshees disintegrate immediately upon being killed. This occurs every time the player takes one down. So why is Falere able to point to the corpse of one during the Ardat-Yakshi mission?
518** Likely either a one-in-a-million design flaw, or the Codex's definition of "immediately" doesn't equate to "instantly". On the note of Brutes though, their anatomy and articulation don't look anything like a krogan's. Hell, it looks more like a yahg's. Even the feet resemble them. What's up with that?
519** It also resembles turian feet. I think Brutes are not just mutated krogans with turian heads, but a complete mix-and-match of the two, with the end result resembling neither.
520*** Look at [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/9/90/ME3_Brute.png/revision/latest?cb=20120320023753 this]] image of a Brute, from the Mass Effect wiki. It's hard to see in-game, when they're moving around and trying to kill you, but Brute feet are entirely cybernetic, and their arms are mostly or entirely cybernetic. Note that the krogan hump is also removed.
521** The mission makes it clear that transformation into a Banshee is not instantaneous, it could be that it was killed shortly before the transformation was complete and so the insta-disintegration wasn't working yet.
522[[/folder]]
523
524[[folder:Indoctrinated Access to Vendetta (Thessia Beacon)]]
525* How was Kai Leng able to download the data from the beacon on Thessia? When he arrives, the VI notes that "an indoctrinated presence has been detected". Given that Shepard and Co. had to ''convince'' it to give them information on the Catalyst, why doesn't it shut down or otherwise refuse to give Leng the data?
526** The VI is just a highly advanced operating system, isn't it? It's not too hard of a stretch to think the information it protects can be hacked by other means. Besides, it doesn't give Leng the data so much as Leng "kidnaps" it. The data is retrieved by others at Cerberus at Chronos station. More surprising is that Leng is able to transfer the entire contents of a Prothean beacon into his omni-tool.
527** Not so surprising if his omni-tool was designed/upgraded with downloading a Prothean beacon in mind. We know that Leng knew what he was looking for on Thessia; it's a fair assumption that TIM armed him with the tools he would need to get the job done, as opposed to sending him in blind and hoping for the best. As for why Vendetta told them about the Catalyst, a simple answer is "He didn't". Vendetta is a program. A Prothean program, which may or may not be far more advanced than anything that modern galactic civilization has, but is undoubtedly inferior to the Reaper tech that TIM has at his disposal. They probably just stripped all the data they needed from him without giving him a choice.
528[[/folder]]
529
530[[folder:Fleets getting through the relay]]
531* According to the Codex, the Migrant fleet takes days to get through a relay. Now, presumably, the Earth Battle sees a good portion of that fleet (under best conditions) as well as thousands of ships by other races. How come they are all "accounted for and ready" within a minute?
532** The Migrant Fleet tends to be cautious, and the more ships you send through, the further the error ratio when they exit. You can send a giant fleet through the relay, but it will be scattered, but the Migrant Fleet does not like to move while spread out. They move through a few ships at a time to make sure that none of them get separated and grabbed by pirates. Sword Fleet doesn't have to worry about that, so they can send hundreds of ships through at once without immediate worry; by the time the Reapers can respond, they'll have already reformed.
533** We don't know exactly how Mass Relays are ''powered''. It's possible that it can only transmit so much mass in a single shot, and it takes time to fully recharge afterwards. The Migrant Fleet consists of 50,000 ships; Sword Fleet, probably less than 5% of that. Alternatively, it's possible that the more ships that make the jump, the greater the stress on the individual vessels. Most of the Migrant Fleet's ships are obsolete civilian half-wrecks , flying only due to Quarian engineering skill, and thus probably can't take anywhere near the jump stress that a top-of-the-line warship can endure.
534** In 2 you acquire a Reaper IFF specifically because it can active addition precision in the Omega 4 Relay. It'd make sense, given the size of individual Reapers and their numbers, for a similar thing to happen in other relays so Reapers can pour through like they do in the attacks on Earth and Kar'shan. Even the largest Sword Fleet, with fleets from every possible source, is bound to be less massive than a few hundred Reapers. Not to mention the Reapers had just dragged THE CITADEL through the relay network, which would almost certainly include an escort of a few dozen Reapers.
535
536[[/folder]]
537
538[[folder:Air Car Brakes]]
539* Why, oh harsh and uncaring gods of CutsceneIncompetence, could I not just simply slam on the brakes and send the ridiculous idiot trying to stab my Citadel aircar to death flying out over my windshield and down to his messy death?
540** Cybernetic legs with magnetic feet?
541** They still pass pretty close to a couple walkways, if they just flew up a little bit they could knock him off pretty easily still.
542** That's ''really'' [[RealityIsUnrealistic easier said than done]], and fiction blows up how easy it is to do this. You ever actually flown a plane before? And have you ever had need to scrape something off the top of said plane by ramming it against an object overhead? No? because they don't train you in doing that, and they don't train people flying planes to thread things that closely. All that's likely to happen if you were to attempt that would be the abrupt, crunching end to your flight career - and that's without factoring in that Kai Leng isn't going to just sit there and let Shepard try it.
543** Its not so much that I believe it would be easy as its something I believe Commander Shepard would do or at least try to do. Its not the fact that it doesnt work so much as the fact they dont try because frankly it just makes sense for Shepard (especially survivor Shepard) to be at least know a few more ways to get something off your car.
544** Why not just stop under one of those overhangs and then go straight up? Kai Leng has two choices; jump off or get smushed. And since you're not trying to do it at high speed, the worst you'll do is dent your roof. Of course, he might try to hang down and attack through the window, but I'm pretty sure he can't dodge bullets -- or biotics, or tech powers -- while hanging by one hand in front of a car window.
545** Stopping in place would just invite Kai Leng to stab Shepard in the face thanks to the suddenly very stable platform he's got and the perfect opening it would give him. Even then, accelerating straight up runs into the complication that about a tenth of a second after Kai Leng hits, ''Shepard'' will also hit.
546** Its kinda hard to stab Shepard 'directly in the face' when you're standing on the back half of the car, and Shepard's in the driver's seat.
547** No. But by that point Leng's already achieved his objective in disabling the car anyway, so it doesn't matter. If Shepard tried to ascend at any point prior, Leng could have simply stabbed Shepard while he was on the front of the car.
548** Actually, on rewatching the scene, he could have done that anyway. Shepard never jinks the car while he's standing on the front of it; nothing stops him from just killing Shepard instead of the aircar except the fact that its not in the script. Which brings us right back to the original objection of the entire aircar sequence being horribly scripted; it makes both Shepard ''and'' Kai Leng look like total idiots.
549** Pretty much. They're the same thing that keeps Shepard anchored to the deck in all those zero-gravity sequences, and ubiquitous enough that Shepard would know there's no point. The mere fact that Kai Leng is even able to stay ''on'' the car while its moving at such high speeds indicates that he's using magnetic boots.
550** Except that he's freely walking around on top of the car, indicating that whatever magnets he's using they are able to be overcome by the leg strength of a cybernetic leg. The momentum of a human-sized mass (his own) being decelerated from 150+ mph to zero in several seconds would be ''many many times'' that amount of force. tldr; Short of his actually ''welding'' himself to the car, even magnetic boots shouldn't have been able to hold him on during a crash stop.
551** No. Magnetic boots would be reasonably expected to have variable grip strength, especially if they're part of the cybernetics Kai Leng has equipped, and if they're part of his cybernetics, they would be able to recognize the difference between a sudden unintended acceleration/deceleration and a nerve impulse ordering the leg to move and thus triggering a detachment. They'd be fairly useless if sudden acceleration or deceleration threw their wearer off, considering how often such devices would be used in zero gravity and the potentials for sudden acceleration/deceleration in such an environment.
552** Um, ''what?'' Magnetic boots are used for keeping yourself in place on exterior hulls while going EVA. EVA operations occur in places like space stations, dry dock, and ships drifting in orbit. They are not intended for standing outside on the hulls of units undergoing high-G maneuvers. Hell, remember the whole firefight you had with the geth and the krogan on the outside of the Praesidium tower during the end of [=ME=]1? How much impact did it take you to knock their magnetic boots free of the station and send them helplessly flying away up into zero gee? Not much. And you can't say that geth wouldn't also have their magnetic boots 'spliced directly into their nerve impulses', seeing as how they're entirely synthetic.
553** ''Magnetic boots are used for keeping yourself in place on exterior hulls while going EVA. EVA operations occur in places like space stations, dry dock, and ships drifting in orbit. They are not intended for standing outside on the hulls of units undergoing high-G maneuvers.'' And this precludes them from being strong enough to keep their operators from being throw off said objects in a catastrophic situation....how, exactly? Its reasonable to assume that magnetic boots would be designed to anchor in case of a serious emergency.
554** ''Hell, remember the whole firefight you had with the geth and the krogan on the outside of the Praesidium tower during the end of [=ME=]1? How much impact did it take you to knock their magnetic boots free of the station and send them helplessly flying away up into zero gee? Not much. And you can't say that geth wouldn't also have their magnetic boots 'spliced directly into their nerve impulses', seeing as how they're entirely synthetic.'' If the geth didn't feel the need to anchor their disposable platforms onto surfaces sufficiently to withstand powerful biotic strikes, that's their perogative. One force's inability to properly equip their troops does not translate to every force's equipment, especially considering that this is Kai Leng, the most important Cerberus operative in their entire organization. The fact that he seems perfectly willing to drop down onto a moving aircar and has no trouble moving around on it indicates that he's confident that he can survive any high-speed maneuvers.
555** "The no limits fallacy is the illogical idea that a poorly understood phenomenon can be extrapolated to infinity or assumed to not have any maximum value or threshold." You can consider this line item to be the rebuttal to both arguments above.
556** So you're not actually going to bother arguing at all or even saying anything about how said fallacy relates to my point? Thank you, concession accepted.
557** What part of 'your entire argument relies on the baseless assumption that magnetic boots have no upper strength limit' did you need explained to you? Electromagnets require power. The man isn't walking around with a 10-gigawatt mass effect core shoved up his ass. There are stark engineering limits as to how strong his magnetic boots can be, and its nowhere near as strong as the amount of momentum an entire aircar engine can deliver, unless you want to get into fantasy-land of assuming that Cerberus can fit something more powerful than an aircar engine into a cyberleg.
558** It gets worse. When Kai Leng lands on your aircar, he's originally standing on the ''windshield''. Magnetic boots don't stick to glass.
559** Worse still - no matter how powerful his magboots are, ''the rest of him'' would still have to withstand the same deceleration. At the very least, he ought to smash his head into the windscreen. At worst, ''his legs ought to snap at the nearest weak point'' - i.e. his knees.
560** Fun thing is: you are all correct. Slam breaking would probably dislodge Kai from the car or Kais upper torso from his legs or something similar if enough g forces are applied - within our reference frames. But it would not be as easy to do due to mechanics and thermodynamics also applying to the shuttle, i.e. it needs to move forward to move forward to keep height. Then again, it's nothing that can be ruled out within the Mass Effect universe, and actually mini mass effect fields can be used as counter arguments against both. They are able to stabilize anything in this world. The bottom line of this would of course be: either neither work, in which case breaking would just not be an option, or both can work, in which case it would be useless.
561** One: it ''doesn't'' need to keep moving forward to keep height -- aircars are demonstrably capable of hovering, we see that all the time in cutscenes. Two -- even if this is not true and the aircar needs to lose altitude in order to stop, Shepard is over a thousand feet in the air at this point. They have ''room'' to go into a power dive and still pull out before they hit the ground, but even a momentary change of momentum is going to send Kai Leng on an involuntary skydiving trip without a parachute. Three -- fallacy of the excluded middle. We don't have to go 'if aircars than hover, than Kai Leng must have magic boots', as the one being true doesn't automatically make the other being true.
562** For the same reason you are lasering things into piles of goo and splatting the heads of enemies with your $200,000 sniper a moment before, then the cutscene starts and you pull out some piece-of-crap pistol and miss every shot. The plot needs him to survive.
563** The simplest explanation: Shepard tries to shoot Leng because Shepard never took the "What to do when a ninja cyborg jumps onto your aircar" class at [=N7=] training camp. S/he sees a threat dropping onto the aircar, and the immediate ingrained response s/he possesses is to go for his/her gun, not jam the brakes or swerve the car or try to scrape the threat off. S/he also doesn't have the advantage of sitting safely behind a keyboard and being able to stop and think for hours on end as to what the proper tactical decision is. Shepard sees Leng, and his/her first instinct is to shoot the threat dead, not maneuver the vehicle to throw the threat off.
564** Yeah... except that 'just hit the brakes!' was literally my first reaction on seeing the scene, as it was happening. If my couch-potato ass can think of this virtually in real time, somebody with Shepard's reflexes should have thought of it before Kai Leng's feet even hit the car.
565** Just because that was ''your'' instant reaction to it does not necessarily mean that it was Shepard's immediate reaction. "Draw weapon and shoot target" is going to be Shepard's first response to a threat like that. Again, you're sitting safely behind a TV screen with a controller on a couch. Shepard is ''there'', in the middle of the situation, and has to make reflexive, snap decisions; his/her snap decision at that point was to draw a weapon and engage, not abruptly reduce forward thrust. The latter has an outcome that would likely be better, but Shepard simply didn't think of it.
566** So, basically, the scene makes perfect sense so long as we assume that Commander Shepard, super-duper space-opera hero dude and the single greatest N7 operative who ever lived, is going to fail to think quickly during an emergency. ''Except that wouldn't make any sense at all''. Shepard did not survive the last two games by being slow on the uptake or unable to improvise under fire!
567** Can air cars brake that easily? If they can't, then that would explain why they couldn't brake to shake him off. Alternatively Shepard did think things through quickly and realized that if Leng was willing to jump on the car despite having a massive lead, then he has a plan (maybe he's a distraction for another squad of Cerberus assassins, which in that case, stopping even for a moment could be a bad idea and cost you the Council). Besides, this guy is willing to take a massive jump onto your quickly moving aircar, you think he doesn't have a method of staying on top in case Shepard decides to hit the brakes? (I do recall something in the Cerberus Daily News, saying something about using mass effect fields in a hang gliding type sport; maybe Leng has a mini mass effect generator derived from Reaper tech that allowed him to make such a jump and stay on the car; if he wasn't blown off by the wind and the speed, then hitting the brakes may not have much of an effect either)
568** Whether or not it can brake "that quickly" is irrelevant (even though it almost certainly can). To send Kai Leng flying simply takes an abrubt momentum change. A hard turn to left or right, a sudden dive, anything similar, and *boom*, he's off the car and falling to his doom. As to your suggestion that he might have a parachute or suchlike -- indeed, he might have, and that would actually be a decent way to have Shepard not look like an idiot ''and'' still preserve Kai Leng for a later scene. But even if Kai Leng doesn't fall to his doom ''he's still not stabbing the car to death anymore'', which makes knocking him the fuck off the car still a great idea.
569** The problem with this argument is that the idea is that hitting the brakes should send Leng flying. The thing is, he shouldn't even be able to walk on top of the car and yet he does without the wind and speed even bothering him. So he clearly has some method of staying on the car at high speeds (maybe a tiny Reaper-derived mass effect generator or something). This is probably what's going on in Shepard's mind as Leng is on the car, and s/he can't be sure that braking or anything else will actually send Leng flying off the car. Now you're thinking that it would be worth a try anyway and Shepard was thinking that too. However Shepard also likely assumed that Kai Leng was trying to slow him down, (which he was) which would imply that Cerberus assassins are closing in on the Council (yes, I know that said hypothetical assassins didn't exist or were killed before they got close to the Council; Shepard doesn't know that), so anything that slows the car enough to knock Leng off, could also cost them valuable time to get to the Council. Even if they only lose a couple of seconds, they could end up a couple of seconds too late to save the Council, so slowing down becomes a bad idea, But Leng is still on the car and will either try to kill the occupants or disable it, and they can't slow down because they could lose too much time, so the option "shoot the bastard" becomes a good idea.
570** You know what else is going to slow Shepard down? Just sitting there and letting Kai Leng stab his car to death. Sorry, I don't see how ''not'' trying to do anything to stop Kai Leng is a smarter idea than, y'know, trying to stop Kai Leng. (Also, thanks for pointing out the bit about the wind resistance).
571** I never said Shepard shouldn't try to stop Kai Leng, in fact s/he does use a rather effective method called "shooting him." Any other method may or may not have worked and/or cost them valuable time, whereas shooting the bastard would almost guarantee that he would no longer be a problem. As to why Shepard misses most of the shots... I'll give you, "the plot needs him to survive" as a fair reason, everything else though, I can think of a reasonable explanation for (Leng staying on the car; mini mass effect generator, Shepard not trying to throw him off the car; s/he thinks it would delay them too much, etc). They may not be the explanations that the writers had intended, but they work fairly well.
572** Yes, first Shepard tries to shoot a guy through her own car's bulletproof windshield, which obviously fails. Then she finally thinks to open her car window and shoot at Kai Leng without bulletproof glass in the way... which of course does absolutely nothing because she's plinking pistol ammo vs. a military-grade forcefield, and doesn't have time to wear down his defenses. Meanwhile, she's wasted enough time doing things that any idiot would already know wouldn't work that Kai Leng not only has enough time to stab her aircar to death, but also to make himself a sandwich and check his email.
573** Ok, I just rewatched that scene and I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that the car's windshield was bulletproof because you can see the shots exiting the car when it switches to an exterior view ([[FridgeLogic though why a C-Sec car doesn't have bulletproof glass is a good question]]).
574** Wait... if the windshield actually isn't bulletproof, then why isn't ''he'' trying to shoot through it? Kai Leng passes up an easy chance to kill Shepard (you can't dodge bullets when you're sitting down and have your seat belt on), and likewise Shepard is forced to remain entirely oblivious to opportunities to wipe out Kai Leng (such as, oh, rolling the car 90 degrees on its side or something).
575** Alright, I concede to your point; both Shepard and Kai Leng are acting like complete idiots in this scene. However, when you break down their motivations and feelings at that moment it makes sense: Remember, Shepard just witnessed Leng kill an ally/friend/love interest/one of the leaders of the galaxy, so s/he is probably quite furious at their killer (Ok, Thane isn't actually dead yet, but the emotion is still the same), and anger is known to override higher reasoning. So when Kai Leng jumps on the car, Shepard is enraged and instead of taking the smart option, ie; hitting the brakes and sending him flying, s/he instead pulls out a pistol and starts shooting at him, likely because s/he wants to personally kill him, not let gravity do it. This, of course, wasn't the most brilliant move on Shepard's part, and allows Kai Leng to disable the car. Now, why would Leng just disable the car instead of shooting the glass and killing Shepard? Well, this makes sense as well; pay attention to Kai Leng's character throughout the game. He's an arrogant asshole who constantly underestimates Shepard, when even the Illusive Man warns him against doing so, and it eventually costs him his life. At this point he wants Shepard to survive so that s/he knows that Leng beat him. Leng later makes a similar mistake at Thessia; not making sure Shepard is dead before he leaves. So yes, both characters are acting like idiots but it's understanable why they are doing so.
576** You've seen Shep drive, right? I have a hard time believing any Shep anywhere would be able to pull off precision maneuvering on their own feet, much less a thousand credit skycar.
577** Actually, if we remember Lair of the Shadow Broker then Shep is pretty damn good at flying aircars during high-speed chases. The reason their Mako driving is infamous is because the Mako's handling characteristics are that shitty, not because of the driver.
578[[/folder]]
579
580[[folder: Haestrom]]
581* So, was there any explanation as to what was happening on Haestrom in [=ME=]2? It was one of the non-missable recruitment missions, and the game went out of its way to note that the sun was aging too fast and no one had any explanation. It seems like there's still a loaded Chekhov's Bazooka sitting on the mantelpiece here.
582** That's a direct result of Karpyshyn leaving the development team. See AbortedArc on the main page. The galaxy being on the verge of destruction by dark energy was the original motivation for the Reapers.
583** Just be happy that they scrapped that. It would have pretty much required the destruction of all mass effect technology to achieve a happy ending. Hopefully some DLC or sequel will eventually make something out of Haestrom with appropriate retcons, though.
584** Many fans think that would have been a vastly superior reason than the [[http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/yo-dawg-i-heard-you-liked-the-mass-effect-3-ending-spoilers.250101291/ explanation]] we got.
585** Many fans think anything would be better than what we got. Don't get me wrong, I'm as disappointed with the ending/s as the next guy, I've ranted about them, picked out the plot holes, the whole nine yards. That being said, the dark energy ending, from what is known about it, sounds even worse. For all the unanswered questions the current ending left us with, the DE ending only leaves us with ''more''. How, exactly, is fusing advanced species into sentient starships supposed to stop the spread of dark energy? If mass effect technology is the cause of the spread, then the reapers opposing it makes no sense as ''they are the source'' of the most advanced mass effect technology in the galaxy; the relays, the citadel, and themselves. By making more reapers with more powerful mass effect cores, they're making the problem worse. Also, and this is going back to the first question of how they got from "Step one: make reapers" to "Step three: save galaxy(aka profit)"; what does the genetic diversity of a species have to do with the result? But all of this is trivial compared to the biggest point of all; the complaint about the endings as they stand is that your actions throughout the game don't matter; you're given a(blue), b(red, and c(green). The only difference the dark energy plot offers is that it ''takes away'' one of those choices. You'd be given a(become a reaper) and b(don't become a reaper).
586** That was inherently the point, as per Karpyshyn's style. The Reapers would have been likely blind to themselves being the biggest cause, or aware they are and use it as an excuse. Mass Effect 2 hints that the right kind of supernova makes eezo, *cough* dark energy/matter buildup *cough* so it could be in the Reapers' best interent to let it happen so they can get more of their fuel. The notes that were leaked were hardly the whole story, and given how many things [=ME=]2 pointed out and kind of made you notice, like [=ME=]1 before it, there was a lot of things that would have contributed and probably answered things in that original story. QED; [=ME=]1 points out a planet with a huge scar that could only be caused by a massive mass accellerator, and lo and behold, you find the target of that exact weapon, the Derelict Reaper in [=ME=]2. From an innocuous but interesting tidbit to sizeable plotpoint is how Mass Effect did it, minor red herrings nonwithstanding.
587[[/folder]]
588
589[[folder: Liara's pre final battle Asari merger "gift"]]
590* When you talk to Liara on earth right before the final battle she will offer a gift to Shepard. I couldn't even understand how she tried to describe it, and if you accept, then the screen will go black and you and liara will watch some kind of weird space event in total silence (and making out, if you romanced her). What the hell was that supposed to be?
591** As I recall, she pretty explicitly states that she's going to share some of her memories with you. Presumably, the white light that engulfs them is supposed to represent a number of her experiences being shown to/shared with Shepard. We aren't given more details than that, but I don't think we really need them either to understand the idea.
592[[/folder]]
593
594[[folder: Liara and the Shadow Broker]]
595* So if you don't do that Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, it's revealed that Liara still overpowered the Shadow Broker. How? She just hired a bunch of mercenaries. How does this make any sense at all? The Shadow Broker has a galaxy wide criminal empire with tens of thousands of agents, and has been in the business for decades. He has enough resources to change the course of galactic politics, control entire planets behind the shadows, and deploy hundreds of soldiers on a minutes notice. Liara has absolutely no experience and has only been a local information Broker on Illium for two years. How did she even survive Vasir's assassination attempts (Vasir had an army with her, remember), let alone hire enough mercenaries to overwhelm the ''Shadow Broker'', who should have a whole lot more resources than her?
596** My guess is that Vasir got cocky and underestimated Liara. With Commander Shepard there she had her guard up and had her army there in order to deal with Shepard, not Liara. She probably got the drop on Vasir and took her out, then with the clout that she killed a Spectre hired her own small army to deal with the Shadow Broker. And let's be honest here, it's more realistic that a highly trained mercenary group would succeed in taking out the Shadow Broker than 3 people in a frontal assault.
597** And remember that Feron dies in the 'you didn't help Liara' path; it took Liara a lot longer to gather her mercenaries and put together her assault, apparently. And the Shadow Broker's ship wasn't really ''that'' massively guarded -- it didn't have any antiaircraft guns, for example. Its main protection was secrecy. Once you've gotten past that, its just a matter of killing a platoon of heavily-armed security guys and then taking down a bigass yahg with a machine gun. In other words, within the competence range of an experienced mercenary unit.
598** Liara's own rebuilt defenses were also overrun pretty easily by Cerberus when they moved against her, to the point that she only escaped by ramming their ship with her own while she snuck out on a shuttle. Liara will even point out that the ship's only real defense was secrecy if you ask her what happened.
599[[/folder]]
600
601[[folder: Blood Pack]]
602* In Aria's mission, you assassinate the Blood Pack leader and replace him with one loyal to Aria; problem being, both leaders are vorcha, where as [=ME=]2 made it clear that the vorcha had no authority in the Blood Pack, and were just cannon fodder for the krogan bosses. Did Shepard whip out every krogan in the blood pack in 2(hyperbole)? While we're on the subject; the Blue Suns leader; I'm playing on an import where Vito survived Zieed's misison; how did he lose control of the Blue Suns?
603** In Mordin's loyalty mission, you kill the current leader of the Blood Pack. Presumably there were some changes in the way the group was run during the six month gap between 2 and 3. As for Vido, there's a bit in the leaked script which didn't make it into the final game where Zaeed reveals that he assembled a team to go after Vido, but the Reapers got there first. Zaeed saw Vido getting carried off by a Harvester. Vido begged for a MercyKill. Zaeed decided that Vido didn't deserve one and walked away. That being said, since that wasn't in the final product, it's probably non-canon.
604** It's stated in the Codex for ''[=ME=]2'' that someone else is in charge of the Blue Suns, until you complete Zaeed's loyalty mission & unlock the "Blue Suns: True History" entry, which notes that Vido has a patsy serving as the public face of the Blue Suns, so that any hits on Blue Suns leadership aren't on him. Nothing to suggest that this is no longer in effect.
605** The Krogan in the Blood Pack left to return to Tachunka after the Genophage was cured, presumably to have lots of kids. The Vorcha are the only ones left, and they're actually the ones who started the gang.
606[[/folder]]
607
608[[folder: Why don't you just shoot him?]]
609* To be clear, I know the narrative reason this didn't happen, I just can't think of a logical in-universe one; during Thane's fight with Leng, Leng is knocked prone for several seconds by Thane's biotic PAWNCH. I assume the reason Thane didn't press the attack is that he was out of breath from the exertion and needed a second to recover. My question is why the hell didn't Shepard start unloading on Leng while he was on the ground? During the fight, he didn't have a shot because of Thane and Leng tussling, plus he and his squad had to secure the councilor. But really, your squadmates could handle securing the councilor while Shepard backs up Thane, and while Leng is on the ground, Shepard has a clear shot; Thane's not in the way, he's off to the side out of Shepard's line of sight, and there are several feet between him and the target. Not to mention, Shepard is an ''extremely'' good shot. Leng should have been swiss cheese at this point.
610** CutsceneIncompetence, which appears in spades whenever Leng does. It's also possible (though not stated) that Shepard wanted him alive to interrogate later.
611** Simple. The blue and (sometimes purple) bar that appears over the name of just about everyone you shoot at in all three game. Shields kind of negate your options to quickly kill somebody; in the time it would have taken Shepard to even meaningfully deplete Kai Leng's shields, he would have been back up on his feet and engaging Thane again, and by the time he'd get another shot off the shields would have regenerated.
612** If that's the case, why is it that a few minutes later, Ashley/Kaidan can be killed with a shot to the stomach by Shepard/their squadmate, in full violation of the shields/health rule? There's CutsceneIncompetence, and then there's straight-up inconsistency in the same mission. This makes the Kai Leng comparison even worse - Shepard and his/her squadmates all have their guns trained on Leng, while only Shepard and one of his/her squadmates have their guns on A/K, even hesitating to fire until necessary.
613** Furthermore: in gameplay, enemies can't be brought down with heavy melee (drell biotic punch in this case) unless their shields are down. So, essentially, Kai Leng's health bar was already exposed.
614[[/folder]]
615
616[[folder: The quarians and the Treaty of Farixen]]
617* After Admiral Shala'Raan admits that many quarian ships are technically dreadnoughts, then Shepard has the option of chewing them out for breaking the [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Treaty_of_Farixen Treaty of Farixen]] and Shala'Raan accepts that they broke it (although somewhat flippantly). Why? The quarians are not a Council race and the Treaty is between Council races only, so the quarians are not actually subject to the treaty.
618** The Migrant Fleet's status as part of the Citadel sits in a gray area. They frequently pass through Citadel territory and do deal with the Citadel, i.e. when they were trying to claim a particular planet in Citadel space for a colony. So they apparently ''do'' fall under Citadel jurisdiction, at least while in Citadel territory, and are bound by their restrictions, including Farixen.
619** It doesn't matter if you're a part of the Citadel or not you are still bound by their laws. That's how the First Contact War got started, humanity broke a law they didn't know existed and the turians cracked down on them. Doesn't matter that the quarians were kicked out they'd still be punished if they were found out. It's likely not a big penalty though, the turians them selves start ignoring it during the second game.
620** Which makes absolutely no sense since it isn't stated anywhere that the Turians are limited by the Treaty of Farixen, it is in fact implied that they can have however many dreadnoughts they'd like, just that the other races can build more if the Turians does.
621** The Quarians is bound by the Treaty of Farixen because at some point they did have an embassy on the Citadel and signing the treaty is an explicit requirement for opening an embassy on the citadel, so presumably they signed it sometime in the past, before the geth uprising and continue to be bound by it.
622** Ship class appears to be determined by primary weapon caliber moreso than ship size. Humans created carriers as a form of LoopholeAbuse, physically those ships would be dreadnoughts if they had the guns to match. Another example is the Normandy: both versions of the ship are classified as frigates despite the second being twice the size. Likewise, while the liveships are probably the ''size'' of dreadnoughts, they aren't actually classified as such until they are refitted with dreadnought-level weaponry in advance of their attempt to retake Rannoch, by which point most races are too busy dealing with the Reapers to worry about the treaty.
623[[/folder]]
624
625[[folder: Shepard can't hold his/her liquor?]]
626* In Mass Effect 2 it takes three shots of the green stuff, one shot of batarian ale and one shot of ryncol to drop him/her. S/he also managed to survive deliberate poisoning from the batarian bartender on Omega. In Mass Effect 3 it only takes three shots to make Shep fall asleep on the couch. I know it's the end of life as we know it and people will be drinking pretty heavily, but are they really just slinging out shots of krogan liquor to the average patron? Or is Shepard just getting old?
627** Maybe it's dextro-based?
628** Could be. We see one of the bartenders dancing instead of serving drinks so it could be their minds aren't on the job. Still, that seems like a pretty big mistake to make and the kind of thing you'd want the new hires to know from Day 1. Wouldn't you make sure the bottles are color coded so you don't accidentally poison your customers by giving them the wrong kind of drink? Three times in a row in Shepard's case, no less.
629** We only see Shepard have three drinks. It could be that it simply cuts out before Shepard has another 5.
630** We also don't see what Shepard orders. Maybe now it takes three Krogan radioactive specials to do the trick. She's also been under house arrest for six months. That would mean no alcohol. Starting up again would hit Shepard like a truck.
631[[/folder]]
632
633[[folder: Fall of Thessia]]
634* Why does everyone instantly act, following the end of the Thessia mission, that the entire world is dead and gone? Fighting was still going on on both Earth and Palvan when the same happened to them, and I get they have bigger militaries, but resistance was still happening on Thessia. It ain't dead, just something more to fight for. In between Liara's (understandable) grief of Thessia being taken over, she seems to conveniently forget that both Palaven and Earth have had the ''exact'' same thing happen to them, and both Shep and Garrus are upset but resolved to fight for it. Neither seem to think to say "Uhh, I can actually relate. Notice how I'm focused on how to kick their ass off ''my'' home planet?"
635** Because the Asari were considered to be the most widely respected and powerful species in the galaxy, the first ones since the Protheans to achieve interstellar flight, the first to discover and inhabit the Citadel, the list goes on. Them not only losing a planet to the Reapers, but their ''home world'' no less, would've been a huge morale hit for everybody.
636** Thessia has no unified resistance like on Earth or Palaven. The lack of unifying central authority that made the asari unusually liberal, accomodating and creative in peacetime has the downside that prevents them from having a way to coordinate a unified military effort in war. They have the best individual fighers in the galaxy, but those have little use against giant deathmachines of doom, and their dreadnoughts are tied in the Citadel fleet. In result, Thessia is way worse off than either Earth or Palaven, both which are on the brink of a total military defeat by the end of the game, as well. As for Liara's reaction, her personality is very different from either Shepard or Garrus. She has no military training, and has far harder time to separate her personal feelings from the fight at hand. Hence, her reaction is much stronger than either of the two when she sees her own homeworld burning. Not to mention that the asari aren't nearly as good with dealing with sudden, unexpected changes as humans or turians are, due to their long lifespans and static culture.
637** Because the planet ''is'' dead and gone. Thessia has minimal military forces and no heavy ground forces, and there's no krogan army to support them. The turians on Palaven survived as long as they did because every city on the planet is a fortress and they're ridiculously militarized. Human forces on Earth survived as long as they did through raw tenacity, and even then the damage was catastrophic. Thessia's military is simply too limited and too focused on commando units engaging in attacks against an enemy that fights conventionally instead of how the Reapers operate. Meaningful resistance is wiped out almost immediately.
638** Believe it or not, Thessia did better than most of the other planets the Reapers hit. Take a closer look at the codex entries and [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Thessia#Codex_Entry the other wiki]]: the Reapers basically had to resort to using siege tactics on the asari because they couldn't harvest a planet populated by five-and-a-half BILLION biotics using brute strength alone. Considering that Thessia was one of the last planets to be invaded before the Reapers were defeated, my guess is they got off rather lightly.
639** Even so, I agree. Dakuuna was overrun so badly the planet had to be completely evacuated. Earth has been burning since the war started. Thessia being taken by the Reapers doesn't mean the asari aren't surviving somehow or that they can't stall until help arrives. I also found it weird that because the Reapers took the planet everybody was so stunned and shaken. Speaking critically, having the Reapers take the Citadel would have been more emotionally powerful.
640** It's not just that Thessia itself was lost, it's that Kai Leng made off with the Prothean VI they needed for the Crucible. Not only was Thessia fucked, but the rest of the galaxy looked that way too.
641** They act that way because, during the mission, Shepard's convinced that getting to the temple will reveal the Catalyst and allow the use of the Crucible, which everyone already believes will instantly end the war. S/he can even say it to one of the asari soldiers - something like "if you get me to that temple, this war is over." That doesn't necessarily mean it's a ''good'' reason - you have no reason to be ''sure'' that the temple will reveal the Catalyst, as you don't even know what's in there till you get there. Hell, a cynical person might say that both the sudden, mandatory certainty during the mission, and the sudden, mandatory depression afterwards are just ways to cover up lazy, slipshod writing. But since when have there been cynics in this discussion? :)
642** This marked the first total failure for Shepard in a very important mission. All those soldiers and the pilot who gave up their lives and died horrifically over the radio was for nothing. They had the means to the end of the war in their reach and it was taken from them, they failed to stop it being taken from them. For shep and the others, every act of devastation after that weighed on them because it could have been stopped at that point.
643** Thessia is considered lost because any form of communication and coordination of a coherent resistance is impossible. Although there are five and a half billion biotics, their only military is a few scattered bands of huntresses. There is no unified resistance, no Anderson equivalent to rally survivors, train irregulars, scout Reaper activity and launch a meaningful insurgency. Nor is there a turian like large military force bogging Reapers down in a conventional war. These few bands might keep carrying on hit and run ops but they aren't going to gain anything tactically by doing so.
644[[/folder]]
645
646[[folder: Salarian contribution to the war assets]]
647* If you choose to sabotage the genophage cure, the only exclusive reward that you receive is the Salarian First Fleet war asset, which is worth 150 points in military strength. If Wrex is alive, you will be sacrificing a total of 405 points from the Krogans (30 from Wrex, 300 from Clan Urdnot, and 75 from the Krogan Mercenaries) in exchange for token Salarian support. This totally removes the entire supposed moral dilemma of pragmatism vs. idealism and instead, making anyone that actually sabotage the genophage cure into StupidEvil territory. Also, the Dalatrass promised you that the Salarian Union will provide the Alliance with both full military support and their best scientists to work on the Crucible project, yet said scientists never shows up in your war assets.
648** It doesn't change the moral dilemma, it shows that there are consequences for your actions. Note that if Wreav was the clan leader you still keep all the krogan support and get the salarians.
649** The reason it undermines the choice, though, is because it goes from "doing what's fair vs. doing what will be best for everybody" into "doing what's fair ''and'' best for everybody vs. fucking things up for everyone".
650** Except Shepard doesn't know that will happen ''and neither does the player'' on the first playthrough. Wrex doesn't confront Shepard about the sabotaged cure until Priority: Citadel III, and until that point the game gives you every indication that you successfully fooled him. The whole thing is meant to be a surprise twist. If you went and spoiled it for yourself by reading a guide or something, then you have no one to blame but yourself.
651** From what perspective? You only know that you will lose ''all'' krogan support much later on; at the time you make the decision, Shepard believes it possible to secure krogan support ''and'' salarian support. Don't come to fallacious conclusions when you have the advantage of hindsight.
652** Nope. You can get almost full krogan support, if you killed Wrex on Virmire and made sure that Maelon's research was destroyed. Wreav will still promise full krogan support, and you'll take a small hit from Baraka dying, but Mordin and Wreav still being alive make up for those hits. The moral here is to ''be consistent''. You get more resources being a full Paragon or full Renegade than you get for waffling between them.
653** If Wreav is in charge of the Krogan and Bakara is dead, that changes things entirely. Wreav is likely to start another galactic war with the renewed Krogan population, which makes Dalatross' sabotage pragmatic while hoping that Wreav will keep things under control and curing the genophage is right is idealistic.
654** Even if Eve survives, so long as Wreav is in charge you can still get Krogan support while sabotaging the genophage. You also get a bonus from Eve, although in that case Mordin will die whatever you choose. Also, this isn't really a Paragon vs Renegade thing - Wrex could be saved through either means (letting him die is more a "didn't bother upgrading Charm or Intimidate" solution than anything else), and saving Maelon's data is considered the Renegade choice.
655** ''Deleting'' the data is the Renegade choice based on how your points are awarded, and it's also on the bottom, although saying that "His research was sick" gets Paragon points.
656** It's worth noting that with the Leviathan DLC it's now possible to sabotage the Genophage cure ''without'' losing Wrex's war assets by using an unintended exploit. See [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Priority:_The_Citadel_III#Bypassing_Wrex here]] for more details.
657** (The OP) Another thing that bugs me is why does salarians support worth so little towards the war effort. Out of all the major galactic powers, they are the ones who's home world hasn't been overrun by the Reapers yet and their territory is relatively untouched by the war yet (except for the Cerberus raid on the STG lab). Meaning that their industrial complex is still intact and functional, but the maximum possible asset points that you can get from them is 363 (Kirrahe+First Fleet+Third Fleet+ Mordin+ STG). On the other hand, the krogans lack any form of central military command or recognized government, not to mention not even having a navy. And their economic and industrial power is almost non-existent. Yet Clan Urdnot alone is worth more then the entire salarians fleet combined. Are the krogans just that powerful, or are the salarians holding out on you and not contributing fully to the war effort?
658** Yeah, the krogan are that strong. The salarians' main strength is in their knowledge of science and tech, and they're not that great in front-line combat. They don't have a strong military and what they have focuses mostly on infiltration (which isn't very useful versus Reapers). Remember that the last major war that the salarians took part in, they had to uplift the krogan because they were unable to fight off the rachni themselves. Meanwhile, the krogan are... the krogan.
659** The Alliance News Network entries note that the salarians are more interested in self-defense than assisting other species, and that some of the more powerful salarian families are threatening outright secession if significant resources are pulled away from defense. So yes, the salarians are not able to fully commit their forces to the war effort at Earth. that and the krogan are just ''that'' much of a powerful ground force that they can add that much weight to your war effort; the only other force in the setting that can even come close to providing such a powerful ground element are the geth, and even they are lagging behind the krogan.
660** What isn't made entirely clear in the game is that different assets have value asigned differently based on how they're deployed. Krogan assets are ground forces and make up the bulk of that; they're value is assigned vs reaper ground forces, not the reapers as a whole. Ships and fleets have value asigned based on how they stack up to the reapers themselves. Total assets are divided into three groups; ground forces make up the Hammer strike team. Fleets and ships make up Sword and Shield fleets. Hammer stands alone, Sword and Shield work together. The krogan are so valuable because they are the most effective infantry in the galaxy; all your other ground forces combined don't add up to the total the krogan bring to the table.
661** What further unbalances it is that all of your krogan assets go towards Hammer ground forces and in fact make up the bulk of Hammer. The salarian fleet would go towards the combined Sword & Shield space forces, and considering that you more than make up for that with a dozen other fleets, it's really not that big of a loss.
662** War assets don't matter with regards to whether it is a space element or a fleet element. They both add to your overall forces. Ground elements speed up the advance on the surface so that fleet elements don't suffer as much damage; fleet elements can hold space for longer, giving ground elements more time to advance toward the target point. Both support one another in the overall objective.
663** The krogan ground forces should be almost completely worthless either way. Ignoring their lack of air support or space support, there are less than two billion krogan in the galaxy, and they are organized in primitive war bands using aging weaponry. Contrast the salarians or just about any other Council race. They have tens of billions of highly trained soldiers with full armor and air support equipped with the most advanced weapons in the galaxy. Having tough skin is good and all, but it is a very minute and unimportant factor in an actual war like what is going on in this game.
664** What are you basing the "less than two billion" thing on? There's over two billion krogan ''on Tuchanka'' alone. Wrex himself says right in the first game that "most krogan leave, and never come back." The whole point behind uniting the krogan is that the billions of ''other'' krogan spread out throughout the galaxy have a reason to come back to Tuchunka and unite under one force. On top of that, the krogan's own codex entry on their military doctrine states that the krogan have adopted a doctrine of supreme quality over quantity, making individual krogan very powerful fighters, superiopr to most other species' troops sapient-for-sapient.
665** Salarian military might is in intelligence. However, I like to think that the assets you gain are the ones that Shepard can personally call upon. There are dozens or hundreds of fleets and armies, but they're out fighting the war proper, not unlike the characters from multiplayer (only the promoted count toward Shepard's assets).
666** There's actually a hint towards this back when you pick up Eve. If you talk to Kirrahe before going in, he will flat-out tell you that the STG (the only real significant Salarian force) is behind you no matter what some politician decides. Frankly, the moral question is unaffected by the reward: it's still about savings the Krogan vs. protecting the rest of the galaxy ''from'' the Krogan, and her offer is the ''character'', not the game itself, trying to sway you to her side.
667** In one of the conversations with Admiral Hackett, he essentially tells you the same thing.
668** I personally see the morality of your choices and how you can benefit as two separate issues that, when put together, make for some interesting questions from an ideological perspective, rather than one of practicality. Sometimes, one side can help you more than the other, even if they're not the "moral" one to support, and having Wreav be tricked and getting the support of the krogans and salarians at the same time would be most useful for the war effort, although one has to wonder what will happen when Wreav re-attempts the Krogan Rebellions after the war with the Genophage still in place; perhaps it would finish off the krogan once and for all.
669** Mordin tells you in the second game that if the krogan tried anything, the turians and humans would lose their patience and just exterminate them all.
670** The reason why Urdnot is twice the strength of a fleet of stealthy dreadnoughts is because the War Asset numbers are about how well can an asset protect or draw fire from the Crucible. A fleet of about twenty or so stealthy dreadnoughts can distract reaper forces momentarily from the crucible, but a very large number of Krogan operating in London forces the Reapers to divert their ships to strike them, thus drawing more fire away from the Crucible.
671[[/folder]]
672
673[[folder: Asari ignorance and the beacon]]
674* In Priority:Thessia it's revealed the Asari have been in the possession of a fully functional Prothean beacon for the last 50,000 years. In Mass Effect 1, even a broken Prothean beacon is able to transmit enough information to make the existence of the Reapers immediately known to Shepard, even before he got the Cipher. So even without any further action, anyone who came close to the statue of Athame would have had visions of the Reapers and have been utterly convinced of their existence. So why didn't the Asari do anything? Hell, even if you argued that the beacon didn't send out those signals because it worked too well, they should still have gone after the Cipher for the same reason they're stated to have kept the beacon hidden: to aid their own development. Another matter of less importance is who are said to be involved. The Asari councillor says that only higher functionaries in the Asari government know, but the Asari work through a direct e-democracy without representatives except a handful in the Citadel Council for interspecies affairs. How would politicians manage to constantly leak revolutionary technology without anybody finding out, when they don't even have the authority to distribute scientific funds? Then it becomes even worse: Liara says Matriarch Benezia was also involved in the conspiracy, but she's got nothing to do with any formal position in Asari government, she's just an Asari with a lot of private power and wealth, and her status as Matriarch is granted because of her age. The entire conspiracy plot reveal just makes no sense.
675** While we aren't explained the matter very well, we can assume that this beacon for one reason or another did not transmit the signal as intended, and only the presence of a living Prothean could activate it, and the asari would not know about the Cipher that would allow them to simulate this eventuality. It could simply be damaged; 50,000 years is a long time, after all. As such, they only managed to extract small amounts of data and study the structure of the object itself to give them an edge in their technological development. As for the political angle, in the asari culture Matriarchs are highly respected, and while their society practices direct democracy, most citizens in practice defer to the decisions of Matriarchs who are known for their wise decisions. As such, there would still be unofficial concentrations of power in the hands of relatively small cliques of Matriarchs on Thessia. And if you read and listen about Benezia enough, you'd know that she is one of the most powerful and influential Matriarchs in the galaxy, a major player in business and politics, as well as a religious authority. It makes perfect sense for her to be a part of the coverup.
676** Also, we don't know the rate of advances the asari had pre-spaceflight. They are pretty smart, so it's reasonable to say that they were careful when releasing technology the beacon helped produce. Besides, just like in our world, the fake researches could be attributed to rich, individual funders. As for the "why they didn't do anything", well... there are many paranoids about the end of the world around here. They say they have evidence, but most people think they're crazy. Asari government is not based on centralized power, so it could be even more difficult to convince people that the blurry visions are not a misinterpretation of something else. Liara even said that few people still believe in Athame anyway, maybe for the same reason many religions today are bashed: Because their message is just not understood/"true" for the people.
677** I didn't like this plot point at all, but here's how I read it - the asari, not having the cypher, couldn't understand or directly access the prothean VI. However, their ability to mind-meld resembled prothean communication enough for them to be able to access glimpses of the technology stored in the VI. What I don't understand is the implication that they artificially spaced out technological discoveries every so often. If they could understand the VI enough to gather technological data, how did they not know about the reapers, since the main purpose of the VI seemed to have been helping subsequent cycles stop them? And if they ''didn't'' understand the VI, how did they manage to decipher so many technological discoveries and space them out over thousands of years? Why would they even have bothered doing that before they came into contact with other species?
678** It is very likely that Asari never managed to even activate the beacon. Let's look at what we know: It's inside a freaking statue. When it activates, it breaks that statues. Would not really make sense to have it inside statue if they planned to regularly break it, does it? Also, when Vendetta is activated, it gets chronological time stamp, okay... except then it goes on about "Post-Prothean Cycle confirmed". Why would it need to confirm this, if it was activated earlier? My guess is that it was never activated. As such, all knowledge Asari managed to get out of the beacon was done when the beacon was in "off-line mode", not active. Lacking Cipher to translate anything they got, accompanied by difficult to pull out anything, it would make sense that they do not know that much.
679[[/folder]]
680
681[[folder: Just use Lift on him]]
682* Anyone who knew that Lieutenant Victus was going to die disarming the bomb, but the way they did it left a big gaping hole in logic. As far as drama goes it was a good cutscene, really played up the whole RedemptionEqualsDeath and HeroicSacrifice tropes, but [[FridgeLogic a few hours later I realized that it didn't make sense]]. Hey Shepard: when the bomb detonator is falling and Victus is going to be squashed by several tons of metal, why don't you call one your biotic teammates to grab him with a mass effect field and pull him to safety? You can't even argue a GameplayAndStorySegregation here, because biotic powers are a main part of the universe and are frequently used in cutscenes. Yeah, there would be a problem if you didn't have a biotic squadmate on that mission, but hell, Bioware did something similar in VideoGame/DragonAgeII: if you don't have Anders with you and you take your brother or sister into the darkspawn caverns, they invariably die. If they really definitely wanted Victus to die, they could have just changed the scenario to make his death less preventable.
683** Realistically, in the time it would take Shepard to call a biotic teammate to grab Victus, he would have already fallen to his death. Shepard ''might'' be able to grab Victus, but there's also the question of just how much good simply grabbing him in a mass effect field would do. It would likely simply drag him to the side for a couple of seconds, then release him, and he'd fall to his death anyway.
684** You forget the power Pull, which brings the target towards the caster, and lasts long enough that it would have gotten him to safety.
685** Not necessarily. Pull drags the target in the direction that it hits the target. With Victus falling, the Pull it going to hit from above and pull him up, but isn't guaranteed to carry him all the way to safety before it releases him. Most pulls only last for a few seconds as well. Not to mention that Victus' armor likely has shields, and the Pull won't work through them.
686** Shepard and his squad are still fighting Cerberus anyway.
687** Shepard is actually watching Victus for about ten seconds before he pulls the final machine piece out and falls. Granted, that's not enough time to call his squadmates over, so it would only work if Shepard was a biotic.
688** Have those powers been used to save anyone from falling in-universe? Since they suddenly drop people when they expire, which is good for an enemy you want to kill and bad for an ally you want to save, they may be seen as purely offensive, and it may be more difficult to get the pulled person to safety.
689** Lair of the Shadow Broker, Tela Vasir uses her biotics to slow herself mid-fall.
690** Kaidan and a biotic Shepard, after seeing Samara do something similar in the Ardat-Yakshi monastery mission, suggest that they're not capable of doing something like that. Perhaps dragging someone upwards in a controlled manner is more difficult.
691** Liara safely lifts Vega in the Citadel DLC so it's probably possible but it would probably require training to do this during the heat of battle, at a distance, on a moving target.
692** It's mathematically and physically improbable. You've not only got to apply a force at a specific point in a rapidly accelerating fall, you have to slow the fall to zero slowly enough that Victus doesn't suffer sudden breakage of every bone in his body before you can bring him back up.
693** If you pay attention during the cutscene, there's almost no time for Shepard to grab him while he's in line of sight. Shepard looks up, there's an explosion, and Victus falls out of sight. In the time it would take Shepard to prep and launch a Pull, and for the Pull to reach him, Victus would have already fallen and died.
694[[/folder]]
695
696[[folder: Thane's Final Moments]]
697* Not sure if it was just my playthrough, or if it's been actually fixed yet, but during Thane's final moments in the hospital is something of a wallbanger, at least when I got to it. When you go to read from the book with Kolyat, and Thane turns to face the window before he dies, he was clearly still breathing through the ''entire'' scene. Just that little glitch, which makes Bioware seem a little absent minded about a supposedly emotional scene, makes it all hard to connect with anymore. I mean, he's likely not wanting to face the two when he actually dies, but with him continuing to breath it actually looks like he's just getting more comfortable to rest...then they essentially assume [[HesDeadJim He's Dead Jim]], while he continues to breath even as Shepard leaves.
698** [[RealityIsUnrealistic Terminally ill or critially wounded people rarely just die and go still; the usually slide into a coma from which they don't wake up again.]]
699** Ever personally witness it? It really is unrealistic sometimes, but Thane's problem WAS breathing, and any major damage would severely inhibit him ability to do anything, particularily that. Hell, it was outright stated that Thane could die from strenuous activity, nevermind being run through. In any case, read the scene, the scene is played as him drawing his last breath with them in the room. It's easily assumed that's why Shepard closes Thane's eyes before he leaves, and the animation continuing hurts the scene's impact.
700** I was more bothered by the fact that his eyes were still clearly moving under his eyelids even after he died.
701** His eyes weren't even closed in my playthrough.
702[[/folder]]
703
704[[folder: Ashley knowing about Shepard's romance interests]]
705* Okay, how exactly would Ashley know about Sheppards romantic pursuits in 2? I don't know about Kaiden, as I have never played Femshep, and Liara's was an information broker before becoming the Shadow Broker. So... Who told her? Joker, EDI? I would like to doubt that they'd be that invasive of Shep's personal life. I dunno, I know it seems nit picky... but it's never explained how she knew.
706** I like to think that Liara told Ashley about any relationships Shepard had with Miranda/Jack/Tali out of respect for the two being together in [=ME=]1. It's just my theory, but it does make sense.
707** Ashley likely just ''asked''. Whoever Shepard was involved with, they weren't keeping it a secret, so the fact of the relationship would get around the Normandy. Ashley would just ask someone who knew, like Joker.
708** Shep hasn't talked to her for months. To the point of her saying "I used to" when asked if they knew each other by Vega. And again, if Liara told them, that kind of makes her kind of a jerk, not letting Shep handle it himself.
709** And? I didn't say anything about ''Shepard'' or ''Liara.'' I said Ashley could have ''asked'' someone. Shepard was not keeping his relationship with anyone else a secret. Everyone on the SR-2 would know, and word would get around. The Cerberus crew would be in custody and debriefed. Joker and EDI would know what was happening. The information would have slipped as to who Shepard slipped it to and Ashley could have picked it up. She doesn't need an all-powerful information broker or Shepard's personal admission to know what was happening.
710** Ashley does seem to get her information from crew gossip, especially when, in the first game, she asks about whether Shepard has an interest in Liara from gossip (although whether Shepard is interested is up to you).
711** Why wouldn't they know? If they were involved with Shepard in the first game then anyone with common sense would give them a heads up if he's involved with someone else if only to avoid a reduce the problems that would arise from them knowing Shepard cheated on them. What do you think is better: Ashley finding out about Liara/Jack/Miranda/Tali/Cortez from gossip, or from walking in on them? Which would be more disruptive to the team? Better she gets whatever initial anger out of the way before having to work with them. Same goes for Kaiden.
712[[/folder]]
713
714[[folder:Recovering the Citadel (Ending Spoilers)]]
715* So... After Shepard has done whatever with the Crucible, and the Council takes back the Citadel... What happens with all of the dead & dismembered bodies stacked up in the corridors?
716** They apply appropriate last rites before spacing them/cremating them/burying them/shipping them off to their families, or the Keepers drag the corpses off to reprocessing. Probably a combination of the two.
717** Another question presents itself; how many of those bodies are the [=NPCs=] whose goods you have been buying, whose conversations you have overheard, and whose quests you have done? The [=NPCs=] who stayed on the citadel (for example, workers, refugees and other residents) instead of passing through (ME 2 party members, some other war assets and more)?
718[[/folder]]
719
720[[folder: Tali's ship name]]
721* Why is Admiral Tali'zorah introduced as "Tali'zorah vas Normandy" when she first appears, when she hasn't been assigned to the Normandy for nearly a year at that point in the story? Shouldn't her ship name be "vas Rayya", since she took her father's spot on the Admiralty Board, and presumably assumed command of his flagship as well?
722** No, quarians names change when they end their Pilgramage. Tali was "vas Normandy" because the Quarian Fleet designated that name to her on [=ME=]2, being no longer part of the Rayya.
723** It's made quite clear that a quarian's ship name changes whenever the ship they're assigned to changes. Tali became "vas Neema" after completing her pilgramage - she's not renamed "vas Normandy" until she's put on trial for treason. If you make peace between the quarians and the geth, Admiral Shala'raan immediately changes her ship name to "vas Rannoch". Tali's ship name should therefore refer to whichever ship in the fleet has become her flagship - presumably the Rayya, since she took her father's spot on the Admiralty Board and that was his ship (thus her having been born there).
724** I thought Tali's name was "Tali'Zorah narr Rayya vas *insert ship name here*" after her Pilgramage? "Nar" specifying her birthplace and "vas" the ship she's serving on. So it's more like a title than a name. She was an Admiral, and as she said, the Admirals had named her "vas Normandy" like she was supposed to be ashamed of that. Maybe she was just showing that despite being loyal to the Quarian Fleet she hadn't forgotten about the trial and was still loyal to Shepard?
725** It seems to be pretty well established that ship names are descriptive - one can't just change it on a whim. Admiral Zaal'Koris vas Qwib-Qwib, for example, ''hates'' his ship name, and says he'd rather have had a more ''dignified'' command to take his name from. If he could simply have declared himself a crewman of the Defrahnz or the Iktomi, he probably would have done so. Ergo, it makes no sense for Tali to call herself "vas Normandy" when she's not assigned to that ship, ''especially'' not when she's in the presence of the Admiralty Board and is being mindful to proper etiquette.
726** It seems that Zaal'Koris ''could'' change his flagship if he wanted to, but it sounds like he is very proud of the Qwib-Qwib's performance since he joined her crew, in a stubborn way. Consider it a form of AppropriatedAppellation.
727** Yeah, but Tali didn't chose to be "vas Normandy". The Admiral board went on consensus and forced the name onto her. It wasn't her decision. Admirals have the power of vetoing other Admirals' decisions, like when Tali ordered the fleet to not attack the geth. Maybe Tali didn't ask for it, seeing as she liked being called "vas Normandy" after her Loyalty Mission? Especially if you romanced her. It just seems like Tali to maintain her name as "vas Normandy".
728** Also, because after her experiences, that very well may be how she sees herself. It would be a sign of respect.
729** You could also take it as a sign of how Tali has been affected by her experiences operating away from the Migrant Fleet, both during her Pilgrimage and while working for Cerberus (or for Shepard if you want to split hairs). See also her decision not to stay on Rannoch (at least temporarily). She is Quarian through and through, but she is also something else due to her loyalty to Shepard and his/her mission, and will never fully be part of the Fleet again because of that.
730** Tali has that as her name because she wants to keep it as her name. It doesn't matter how long it's been since she's been on the actual ship, that's the ship she's a member of. They changed her affiliation to screw her over during her trial but she decided she liked it and kept it. She's loyal to Shepard, she's a part of his crew, she's fond of and proud of the Normandy, but he's not Quarian and he's not involved in what she's currently doing for the fleet so she's on another ship. Once she's done with Quarian affairs she goes right back to Shepard and the Normandy and will stay there until the next time her people need her to do something for them.
731** I never get that she became a capitan of her father's ship. In my understanding, when Normandy was grounded, Tali (by quarian law) still was a part of Normandy crew, and was made 'honorable admiral' as geth expert.
732[[/folder]]
733
734[[folder: The problem with Legion VI]]
735* If Legion dies in [=ME=]2, his role is played by Legion VI, a backup program Legion made before venturing out of the Perseus Veil. The question is... if something like this exists, why did Legion had to die in [=ME=]3? The Legion VI had Reaper Code for as long as Legion did, and could sacrifice itself on the end of the Rannoch Arc. Legion is a super intelligent robot with more than 1000 individual programs, and he had more than 6 months to make another backup. Had Legion made a backup after the events of [=ME=]2, he wouldn't have been forced to upload himself to the other geth, but he could have uploaded the Legion VI instead. But why wouldn't he make another backup? He's show to be extra-cautious and prepared, and it's the freaking logical course of action after you come back with such important data as 3 years interacting with organics. The geth were busy with that Super Terminal thing and then with the quarian fleet, but... Legion still had time. Why didn't the other geth said "Legion is dead, but his backup is still active. We can share our memories with him and return him to you"? It would make a lot of sense and reward players for keeping Legion alive.
736** Keep in mind how much "colder" the Geth VI is compared to Legion, so even if they gave it all the memories the current Legion had, the Geth VI wouldn't be the same. So Legion would still be dead and you'd have his mean clone to talk to instead.
737** Geth VI was cold because he had no memories about organics, and Legion's data was in all geth now. That still doesn't explain why didn't Legion think of using his backup.
738** Legion's backup is the same platform/platform design with different Geth programs loaded onto it. It's a back up in that it fills the same role and shares the same design as the original, not that it shares the same Geth.
739[[/folder]]
740
741[[folder: Dark interiors of Alliance ships]]
742* So, remember the original Normandy? It was pretty dark inside. Then we get a Cerberus-built Normandy [=SR2=] in the second game, and that ship is very brightly lit in comparison. Then, in the third game, the [=SR2=] gets appropriated by the Alliance, and suddenly it's much darker inside. What happened? Is it because the ship hadn't been fully refitted yet? Or does the Alliance have regs against wasting too much electricity on lighting?
743** The point is to just invoke the feel of an old school submarine. If you keep deliberately low lighting, people won't lose their night vision in the case of a power loss, where you need to rely on a few chemical lights to find your way, and your life and death may depend on mere seconds. Cerberus on the other hand follows commercial, civilian aesthetics in their design, and a good lighting is a signal of that. Ultimately, it's just a mood thing from gameplay perspective; the Alliance is supposed to feel serious and militaristic, while Cerberus invokes a cold, clinical feel with their white surfaces and bright lighting.
744*** For the record, if that was the intention of the Cerb SR2, swing and a miss IMO. It feels comfortable and homey, not cold and clinical.
745
746[[/folder]]
747
748[[folder: The Crucible]]
749* How does anything about it make sense? The Catalyst describes it as a power source. OK. Power for what? What were the designers hoping to do with it? When it docks with the Citadel, we find out that it alters the Catalyst. But the Catalyst also seems to say that Shepard is the first organic to learn about it. So the Crucible was built to interact with something no one knew existed?
750** This isn't about the current cycle. The problem is that, at some point, some race came up with the idea for the Crucible. That race decided their best hope was to build a giant thing that interacted with something they had no idea existed. That is a bizarre plot hole. It's something that really needs to be explained. But when you ask, the Catalyst doesn't answer. Saying "you would not know them" suggests it wasn't his creators who first designed it. If it was, he'd presumably say so. So which race designed something without having any clue how it would function? How did they come up with the idea? There's also the problem of it being designed to work with the Citadel, despite the fact that the Citadel was always the first thing taken during all the previous cycles. The logic of designing a weapon that connects to something you can't actually connect it to makes the whole concept even sillier. The fact that other cycles chose to follow that plan is even more confusing. One would think a weapon that isn't dependent on the space station you can't get to would be a more effective use of time and resources.
751** The Crucible was built over many cycles by different civilizations whose reasoning and motivations were lost. The Protheans knew that the Catalyst was the Citadel, and Vendetta implies that they learned it from previous civilizations who were developing and improving on the design. It is likely that the other civilizations developed the Crucible themselves as a fleeting hope; perhaps they were planning to do what Shepard did and launch a huge, last-ditch effort against the Citadel to activate the Crucible. Remember that, at the most basic level, the Crucible is a desperation weapon developed because conventional weaponry will never work against the Reapers, and latching onto any hope, even one as slim as something like the Crucible, is better than having no hope at all.
752** In this cycle a lot of the information on the Crucible was lost in the Cerberus attack on Mars, but in previous cycles the builders probably had a better idea of what they were making. Presumably at some point in the past someone figured out a way to destroy/control Reapers using Space Magic, but this in itself wasn't enough to win. Later civilisations refined the idea, and at some point one of them came up with the idea of using the Citadel as a way to disperse the Space Magic through all the Mass Relays. We learnt that the Citadel way a giant Mass Relay at the end of the first game so it's possible some other race figured that out too, they don't necessarily need to know about the Magic Space Kid living inside - note that the prothean VI claims that the Citadel itself is the Catalyst.
753** And then the Protheans realized that if the Citadel is key to firing the Crucible, and the Citadel is always the first thing taken when the Reapers arrive, then the only way the next cycle will be able to fire the Crucible is if they can prevent the Citadel Relay from opening to Dark Space. Boom, we're back to the Ilos Conduit and the sacrifice of the last Protheans.
754** Theres still no real explanation as to why everyone decides to go with the plan that has a 0% success rate. Also why people don't understand the crucible is a giant battery, they keep remarking on how they have no idea what it is, but they build it anyway. No scientist would do that.
755** Desperation, plain and simple. The Crucible is scoffed early in the game as being a pointless waste of resources, but as more and more worlds fall to the Reapers and the plain fact that military strength cannot defeat them, more and more people come to the Crucible out of ''sheer lack of any other options''. The Crucible becomes the GodzillaThreshold HopeSpot; it no longer matters what it does. With the likelihood of total galactic extinction for all Citadel races steadily approaching 100%, the hope offered by the Crucible that maybe the Reapers can be defeated somehow becomes worth trying. It's a simple balance of certain annihilation versus slim hope for survival.
756** It's likely that the Catalyst/Citadel was originally designed as a failsafe - either by the Leviathan themselves, or by one of the early cycles with Leviathan influence. Maybe the crucible was intended to be built as part of the citadel, or maybe it was supposed to be a later phase, that was never realized thanks to the Reapers harvesting the Leviathan. The reason this makes sense is that the Catalyst V/AI shares the exact same view of the Reaper's harvest that the Leviathan do - that Shepard meets in the DLC. Namely that it was working acceptably, and despite not being the perfect solution, or how it was originally intended, it's absolutely necessary that organics are stopped before synthetics destroy them. Then keep in mind that once you do dock the crucible, and the catalyst activates, it explicitly tells Shepard that the very fact this is happening, means it must allow you the option to either shut it all down, take control, pick an alternate method to achieve the same goal, or simply allow it to continue. Meaning that synthesis was likely something the Leviathan considered, but felt that harvesting was the more "humane" option.
757[[/folder]]
758
759[[folder: Wrex's sudden knowledge]]
760* I don't have any major complaints about the game now that they released the extended cut, but there's one, tiny little bit that's been puzzling me for a while now: If you decide to go through with the Genophage cure sabotage for whatever reason (personally, I just love Mordin too much to let him sacrifice himself, and I don't like how cold and uncaring Wrex became to others' plight, putting the Krogan first while others keep dying) and not tell about it, Wrex comes to you the next time you're leaving Citadel and it ends in a shootout. How, exactly, did Wrex know that the cure was sabotaged and that Shepard had a part in it? The salarians kept the information classified, the reaction of the Shroud was exactly the same, and if Mordin survived, he didn't talk, since otherwise Wreav would've known it too (depending on the possibilities), but there isn't a confrontation if you do the sabotage with Wreav as the leader.
761** Wrex outright says that he has other sources that told him. He's smart enough not to divulge all his resources to everyone around him, not even Shepard.
762** ...Perhaps Liara, the new Shadow Broker, eventually found out and passed the information to him?
763** I thought Eve had an unborn child if you decided to trick Wrex?
764** They never said it was Eve's (Wrex gets a lot of action). Furthermore, the Dalatrass says that they'll provide information that the cure was a dud, to assure that everything in their power was done. It's just that Wrex figures out the Salarians' insincerity.
765** I wasn't even aware that Mordin could survive if Wrex is still alive.
766** Mordin does not survive if Wrex is alive. Both Eve and Wrex have to be dead for Mordin to relent on curing the genophage.
767** One possibility is that Padok "not Mordin" Wiks is the second source. Unlike Mordin who became TheAtoner after meeting Eve, Padok has deep seated philosophical (even some could say religious) reasons for wanting to cure the genophage. And if Wiks was dead, who knows how many other salarian students he was able to bring around to his philosophy?
768[[/folder]]
769
770[[folder: Curing the genophage]]
771* The reason Mordin supported the genophage in ''[=ME=]2'' was because it put a stop on the krogans' explosive breeding and stabilized the population. He may have had a change of heart later on, but the original reasoning still stands. What ''will'' happen once the krogans start overpopulating Tuchunka?
772** The Krogan don't really have an industrial base with which to manufacture starships, and Wrex and Eve are pretty good stabilizing forces, so the possibility is is that the Krogan will start using birth control. The alternatives are that they nuke themselves back into the stone age, ''again'', they get hit with another genophage-type disease, or the races of the galaxy say f%*& it and glass Tuchanka.
773** The original problem was that the krogan's culture and society had not developed properly enough to deal with the social impact of leaving the very planet that was limiting their population growth int he first place. By the current point in the setting, there is at least the possibility that the krogan can control their population after developing for another thousand years. Wrex is the unifying, stabilizing influence here, but he wouldn't be able to unify and control the krogan if they hadn't culturally shifted over the last several hundred years. Short version, Mordin is willing to give the krogan another chance.
774** Well, the extended cut answered this question, but really, overpopulating Tuchunka was never an issue. Tuchunka already keeps krogan mortality rates such that it's the equivalent to what the genophage did to their birth rates. The fact that the krogan mostly went back to Tuchunka after the genophage was deployed is the main reason they're dying off; the genophage would keep their population stable on just about any planet ''except'' Tuchunka; so long as they remain there, the one in one thousand viable birth rate the genophage inflicts on them is simply unsustainable.
775** Basically, it's like rabbits and the kakapo. On Tuchunka, Krogan were like rabbits--explosive breeders, but there are enough hazards and predators on the planet that they ''need'' those birthrates to survive as a species. And when the Krogan were exported to other, less hostile environments, they thrived to the point of being an invasive, destructive species, like rabbits brought to Australia. The Genophage reduces their breeding, but not the number of predators--turning their situation like that of the kakapo, a flightless parrot which was brought nearly to extinction because its own breeding habits kept the population low ''because'' they had no predators in their natural habitat.
776* As Wrex himself said, "Mordin wasn't my only source in STG". And I didn't get the impression that he was uncaring. He had to think about his people before he could help the Turians. In fact, nearly every race refuses to help you until their worlds are helped first.
777[[/folder]]
778
779[[folder: Doctor Eva's biotic immunity]]
780* So is there some kind of an in-universe explanation for why Dr. Eva is inexplicably immune to biotics? Even if they didn't want you to be able to take her down during the chase scene, why was the immunity kept up while she's charging at you? I tried warping her three times before I realized they expected me to use a ''gun''. [[DoesNotLikeGuns Commander Shepard doesn't use guns!]]
781** Shields would prevent biotics from harming her during the chase. Warp has a minimal effect on the kinds of things that charge you, as well; presumably her armor is strong enough to shrug off biotics until you've shot her enough times. Remember that in ME, applying gun to the problem is often the quickest way to deal with the problem, regardless of your specialization.
782[[/folder]]
783
784[[folder: Shepard's obsession with Earth]]
785* Given that there is a 2/3 chance that Shepard either grew up on an entirely different world or on a series of spaceships, why is Shepard acting like it's his personal homeworld that's under assault? Sure, it's important to humanity as a whole and it has a lot of people on it, but Shepard's dialogue clearly implies that he thinks of Earth as home, even if he really shouldn't.
786** Because it's the heart of the Alliance and humanity's homeworld, and the planet s/he's sworn to protect as an Alliance soldier, and on top of that the home of the vast majority of the human species. It might not be his/her actual homeworld, but s/he's clearly grown up believing it is his/her spiritual home. Just because s/he wasn't born there can't mean that s/he doesn't greatly value it.
787** Asking why Spacer/Colonist Shepard cares about Earth, is the same as asking why the Quarian's want Rannoch back so badly? Judging by that logic, why care about Rannoch when for the last 300 years they've been living on the Migrant Fleet? The reason is obvious! '''Because it's home!''' Earth is the birthplace of the entire Human race and where Human civilisation first began! It's incredibly important to Humanity as a whole and worth fighting to protect?!
788[[/folder]]
789
790[[folder: What about Organic Technology?]]
791* The Catalyst claims that a technological singularity is inevitable and that organics will lose the fight when it happens because synthetics are innately superior. But why should that be? Why the complete disregard for the potential of organics? Granted, in this cycle the Council outlawed cloning of sentients and extensive genetic engineering, but was this seriously the case in every cycle?
792** Apparently the potential of organics is inherently lesser than that of synthetics.
793** Because aside from a very few cases, i.e. self-repair capability, organic "technology" is inferior to mechanical technology in every possible aspect.
794** Is it? I suppose organic technology is too specific and organic life would have been more appropriate, but anyway, if the Geth were the example of synthetics then take genetic engineering into account and cross a Krogan with a Yahg. How would they be inferior to synthetics? Incredibly strong, incredibly resilient and incredibly smart. Also, giant Thresher Maw vs Reaper. Organic tech itself would probably have been too hard to turn into "hard" sci-fi, as real life research on the subject is extremely limited and the existing fictional examples are really soft on the science side, like the Tyranids or the Zerg.
795** A freakish, monstrous krogan-yahg combo would still be casually swatted aside by a YMIR mech or tank without actual mechanical weaponry, and the YMIR/tank would be easier to build and mass-produce. Kalross defeated a Reaper, but Kalross was the oldest and most ancient of a species of extreme apex predators spread throughout the galaxy, and she only overcame a Reaper destroyer, not a Reaper capital ship, and that was only because Kalross engaged the Reaper in close-quarters battle where the Reaper was unable to use its weapons to greatest extent. There's a reason why animals that are stronger and faster and tougher than humans are now extinct, endangered, or otherwise marginalized. Any advantage that organic structures can create, mechanical technology can emulate or surpass, and then replicate in a far more efficient manner.
796** Considering Krogan birthrates, I don't see how mass production would be an issue since organics replicate exponentially. Logistics aside, I really don't think a beast like that would need much more than a big rock to beat a YMIR mech, or, better yet, it could be engineered with a carapace hard enough to take on armored enemies. Also, it hardly matters what Kalross was. Fact is, it existed in that universe and was a result of natural selection. With intelligent design it's ilk could be made even stronger. The reason those animals you mention are near extinct is because they were less intelligent and did not develop a means to use the laws that govern the universe to their advantage. The reason synthetic technology rose to the top was because it was easier to understand and make. In reality, there still isn't a machine that would be more complex than an organic body but that doesn't say anything about what an organic body could or could not do if designed with sufficient understanding. Heck, look at the Protheans - there isn't a scanning device in the entire galaxy that could perform that level of chemical analysis that quickly and they come born with it. Or Rachni, who have genetic memory and are borderline(?) telepathic. Considering how Asari reproduction works it comes eerily close to voluntary genetic modification of one's offspring. They stop short of changing the child to the point of it no longer being Asari, but that doesn't mean the technique couldn't be replicated for straight up genetic engineering without the assitance of synthetic tech. The Catalyst claimed that the dominance of synthetic life results from their "innate" superiority, but this seems more due to the organics attempts at improving their tools, rather than improving themselves. Or, more to the point, it results from lazyness since every single form of synthetic life started out as a slave for work that organics didn't ''want'' to do. I just find it hard to believe that a billion years of evolution on countless worlds didn't produce a society that didn't share the taboo on genetic engineering and thus wouldn't reach an understanding of biology to rival their understanding of physics.
797** ''Considering Krogan birthrates, I don't see how mass production would be an issue since organics replicate exponentially.'' Unless the krogan go from childhood to adulthood, fully formed, intelligent, and capable of combat within a matter of days, they ''will not'' be able to outproduce mechanical factories churning out weapons of war. There's a reason why industrialization was such a big deal when it came to warfare. And machines can also reproduce exponentially, and even faster; that's the whole point behind Von Neumann machines. Organics take years to produce a single new unit; a factory can produce war machinery in hours or days.
798** A quickly maturing creature with instinctual combat ability is not unfeasable.
799** By what standard? What in the Mass Effect universe supports that engineering a creature that breeds like the krogan, matures rapidly enough to keep pace with production line assembly of synthetic lifeforms, and is powerful enough to compete with the Reapers is not unfeasible? Where is this coming from?
800** ''Logistics aside, I really don't think a beast like that would need much more than a big rock to beat a YMIR mech, or, better yet, it could be engineered with a carapace hard enough to take on armored enemies.'' No evidence of the former, no evidence any aspect of Mass Effect's tech base can do the latter.
801** Never said that anything in the current cycle could actually make that creature, just speculating the potnetial if it was made.
802** But you've cited zero evidence that any such potential actually exists. "Just make the carapace harder!" isn't how genetic engineering works at all. You seem to be assuming that genetic engineering has the ability to increase any attribute of any living thing by an infinite quantity.
803** ''Also, it hardly matters what Kalross was. Fact is, it existed in that universe and was a result of natural selection.'' Except, yes, it does matter. It took thousands of years for Kalross to develop into what it was. A machine capable of matching Kalross, or exceeding it, could have been built in vastly shorter periods of time.
804** No, it doesn't matter, because the point is not ''how'' it came to be but ''that'' it came to be, meaning such a creature in general is possible.
805** Yes, it matters, because of the entire basis of your argument is that organic "technology" can match synthetic technology. The entire reason why synthetic construction is superior is ''because it can be made faster and more efficiently''. You cannot divorce production time and mass production from performance when talking about capability and utility. Look at the basic math: A Reaper Destroyer can be built in a matter of weeks or months or years. Kalross, the ''only'' organic entity capable of matching a single Reaper Destroyer without advanced, synthetic technology, took literally thousands of years to grow to reach that point. Your point on Kalross actually supports the exact opposite: the mightiest beast produced by natural selection in this universe is only able to match the ''weakest'' Reaper.
806** It actually does matter, because the fact that such a creature is ''possible'' does not mean that such a creature is ''feasible''. You're arguing for production line manufacturing of an army of Kalross; all factors that go into the creation of such a creature, including how much time it takes to create, are relevant to your hypothesis.
807** ''With intelligent design it's ilk could be made even stronger.'' No evidence of this capacity within Mass Effect's tech base.
808** Still just speculating it's potential.
809** ''In reality, there still isn't a machine that would be more complex than an organic body'' More complex != superior.
810** True.
811** '''but that doesn't say anything about what an organic body could or could not do if designed with sufficient understanding.'' Which means, what, exactly? That someone with sufficiently advanced technology could create an organic form capable of doing anything? If your tech base is advanced enough that you can create an organic body that can do anything, then it is already advanced enough to create a mechanical device that can match it, far cheaper and more efficiently. That's the whole point behind mechanical technology - to do things organic bodies can't.
812** Well, yeah, that is the point of tech but that doesn't make it the only way to do the things we can't. Sufficiently advanced organic organisms can rival sufficiently advanced tech.
813** There is no such thing as a "sufficiently advanced organic organism". An organic organism's ability to do x, y, or z is an evolutionary trait. Organic life is not modular; you can't simply build an organic radio, slap it onto your brain, and suddenly be able to receive radio signals, for example. There are also a variety of things that no organic creature exists with the capability of doing. For example, there are no space whales in Mass Effect. No matter how much genetic engineering you try to put into a creature, it will never be capable of FTL travel. Synthetics can. No organic creature exists that can accelerate a projectile to relativistic speeds. Synthetics can.
814** ''Heck, look at the Protheans - there isn't a scanning device in the entire galaxy that could perform that level of chemical analysis that quickly and they come born with it.'' Yet the Protheans were not reliant on organic technology; with the exception of their chemical analysis and biotics, everything else they used was mechanical. One impressive organic ability does not translate into overall organic supremacy, especially considering that the species that used it also used a tremendous range of mechanical technology.
815** I'm not arguing for organic supremacy, or even exclusivity. I just find it somewhat jarring that they create a universe with such fantastical organics and then turn the ultimate message into how inferior organics in general are. Part of my gripe is with the Synthesis ending, because I find their portrayal of a techno-organic fusion ... kinda lame and an AssPull.
816** A lot of people find the Synthesis ending to be both lame and an AssPull, myself included, but that doesn't change the fact that while Mass Effect did create a lot of organics with wide and varied abilities, the inherent superiority of synthetics and threat of Robot Apocalypse has always been an aspect of the setting. The creation of AI was banned by the Council for this reason. The Geth are considered bogeymen of the Council, and the primary villains of the series, Reapers, are initially introduced to us as immensely powerful AI that outpace anything that any organic lifeform can ever or will ever be able to compete with. The Synthesis solution may be stupid and poorly thought out, but the threat of synthetics overwhelming and annihilating organics has been a fairly major theme.
817** ''Or Rachni, who have genetic memory and are borderline(?) telepathic.'' So the rachni have organic memory saving technology that can be transferred between individual units, and long-range communications capability. I have a thumbdrive and a cell phone that lets me do the exact same thing.
818** Can you absorb the information from your thumbdrive without reading it and transfer it to your offspring?
819** Yeah, it's called "copy/paste". The fact that the rachni developed a capability that anyone with a personal computer and basic understanding of how to operate one is not terribly impressive beyond the fact that they ''made it work'' on an organic platform. Which just proves the point that ''it is harder to make things like that work on organic platforms.''
820** Yes, several different ways, actually, be it wireless data transfer or through the miracle of handing things to other people. I can absorb the information from my thumbdrive and transfer it to anyone I want, offspring or not, regardless of race or species, which actually makes my thumbdrive superior to the rachni.
821** ''Considering how Asari reproduction works it comes eerily close to voluntary genetic modification of one's offspring. They stop short of changing the child to the point of it no longer being Asari, but that doesn't mean the technique couldn't be replicated for straight up genetic engineering without the assitance of synthetic tech.'' Incorrect. There is no evidence that the asari are able to rewrite genetic structure at will. The only evidence we have is that they can voluntarily initiate the ''process'' of melding genetic structure for reproduction. The asari mother has no control over the genetic structure of the offspring.
822** Maybe not direct, conscious control but, since the process is genetic scanning and not taking of a physical sample, they must have at least subconscious control for the result to not be completely random.
823** The result ''is'' random, to the extent that biological reproduction allows. They have no more control over the development of the child than any other parent of any race or species.
824** If asari could engage in direct genetic manipulation of their children, Ardat-Yakshi would not exist. Instead of pureblood status being a vague taboo, it would be explicitly told to every asari during basic sex ed, "If you are going to have kids with another asari, make sure to be careful with genes X, Y and Z, because those are the genes that could, if you mess it up, make sure your daughter will grow up to be a brain-melting psychic sex vampire."
825[[/folder]]
826
827[[folder: Final Sur'Kesh Scene]]
828* So during the final scene on the Salarian Homeworld, Shepard storms up to a Cerberus Trooper Eve has shot with Wrex's shotgun. After talking to the Trooper (Who says nothing becuase he's been SHOT), he dies. Sorry Shepard, but what did you expect talking to an implanted zealot?
829** Shepard walks over to the soldier because he's the only one still alive. He demands to know why they're attacking because maybe, just maybe, the Cerberus soldier will say something with his dying breaths. And rewatch that scene and listen closely. The Cerberus soldier actually ''is'' trying to say something. He simply dies before he can finish it.
830** Plus Shepard has no reason to assume he can't talk. The troopers seen so far seem capable of talking like normal people just fine. And they clearly still experience emotion since they will panic if tagged by sticky explosives. So why not try and get some information out of him?
831** Perhaps, given their "integration," Cerberus personnel have some failsafe in place to keep them from coughing up (no pun intended) valuable information to the enemy. [[BrickJoke The operative whose face explodes during interrogation,]] for instance.
832[[/folder]]
833
834[[folder: Size Distortion]]
835* Ok I know that the void of space can play hell with size perception, but this bit just bugs me. I just can't seem to get a handle on the relative size of starships or space stations. And while I might just be imagining those last two, I KNOW that they fooled around with the mass relays. Consider. In ME 1 when you went through a mass relay, the Normandy was just a speck alongside it, and when you use one, it sent out this little arc of energy to launch you. In ME 2, the Normandy seemed much larger, to the point where using a mass relay looked more like firing a rail gun, with the normandy being the bullet. In ME 3, it changed again. Now the Normandy still doesn't look as puny next to the realys as it did in 1, it is still dwarfed in size by the relay, and using it has changed back to the arc of electricity method.
836** The Normandy SR2 is much bigger than the original Normandy SR1, which plays a part in this, but it's even more a matter of focus and perspective.
837[[/folder]]
838
839[[folder: Leviathan (Unmarked Leviathan Spoilers)]]
840* So... If the Levianthans are so absurdly badass and powerful that they can take out a Reaper instantly, ''how the hell were they defeated in the first place''? What, were there only ten of them? How were they taken out? It's not like the Reapers even had an army at that point; hell, they didn't even exist until the Leviathans were harvested. How did the Catalyst take them down? They'd enslaved all the "lesser" species. How were they opposed? Did the Catalyst somehow cut off their not-actually-mind-control? Even if it crashed every piece of tech everywhere in the whole damn galaxy, it wouldn't have been an InstantWinCondition. What did it use to overpower them? If they're still around due to surviving all these millions of years, then why didn't they fight back when the Reaper "army" only consisted of a few Reapers? Am I missing something vital here?
841** They mention the Catalyst AI having built drones it used like reapers used collectors, and that it used those drones to launch an attack against them. Presumably at the time the Leviathan had no real defense, since they could just indoctrinate any opposition, something which would not work on artificial drones. The AI used his surprise attack to build Harbinger outta Leviathan bodies, then pushed its advanage while the Leviathan were caught with their pants down so to speak. Presumably, it's only after the first cycle of extinction ended that the Leviathans developed super duper anti-reaper weapons. Similarly, creatures of this size can't be reproducing quickly or numerously, so there must never been that many of them to begin with. If the initial assault was that deadly, its possible the Leviathans never could recover as they were too few.
842** Also, the Leviathans only seem to be able to trash full-fledged Reapers one at a time. In a ZergRush, the Reapers would probably dominate.
843** The Catalyst said that Harbinger was the first ''true'' Reaper, but that before that he used drone ships of a similar design. Even the Leviathan admits that it was their arrogance that allowed it to gain enough power to challenge them even after witnessing all the AI rebellions it was created to prevent.
844** A better question would be, why didn't the Leviathan ever break the cycle? They know more about the reapers and the AI that built them than anyone. Why didn't THEY invent the crucible? If anyone could invent something to reprogram/destroy the reapers its them. They'd have 50,000 years to make preparations, rally/enthrall the younger races to prepare them to kick the reapers where it hurts AND to build whatever superweapons they could imagine while the reapers do nothing but chill in dark space. And in over a billion years, they do... nothing. Do they enjoy living in hiding as shadows of their former might? Even if the initial attack crippled them, even a single cycle is LOT of time to recover.
845** I'm guessing because they had Sovereign running around in the background making sure things aren't fishy. Plus, if they tried to do a direct assault on the Citadel, then the Catalyst could probably call in reinforcements. The Citadel not being able to be used as such is only a recent development, which they might not have known about until too late into the cycle.
846** My guess is that there simply aren't ''enough'' Leviathans to make a difference in direct combat. And we don't know if the Leviathans even have starships they can use to get off that planet of theirs. The fact that one of them killed a Reaper a billion or so years ago implies that they have been active in past cycles... perhaps they did try aiding the organics of older cycles, and it simply didn't work. The ones Shepard speaks to seem to have abandoned hope, and like some other species are just hiding as long as they can. Shepard's speech to them galvanized them into making another attempt, even that is only implied to have worked because the Reapers had found them anyway, so they had no choice ''but'' to fight.
847** Not sure if it was stated anywhere, but i was under the impression that the Leviathans didn't "disagree" with the Catalyst's "Solution", at least not after initial resistance. Sure, they can't be all for being subjected to genocide and their thralls with them, but the Leviathan Shepard converses with gives of the impression that the Leviathans built the catalyst, therefore it's perfect, so it's solution of store life in reaper form cannot be illogical or incorrect either. They seem to be a tad big headed, with all their "Apex Race" and all that.
848[[/folder]]
849
850[[folder:Paintings of Leviathans]]
851* Here's a nitpicky question: you find cave paintings showing ancient civilizations worshipping what appears to be a Reaper, later revealed to be a Leviathan. That's all well and good, fun bit of foreshadowing, but... ''how in the nine hells did '''cave paintings''' survive over a billion years?'' Since the Leviathans are being openly worshipped, this is before the Reaper cycles started. Paint simply doesn't last that long. I have a hard time believing ''the rock'' would last that long without being eroded or broken. How have these paintings been preserved?
852** Maybe the Leviathans used Quantum Shielding on it? It keeps the Mass Relays intact over countless billions of years.
853** I suppose it's possible the Leviathans kept directing their thralls to renew the paintings. They're pretty egotistical like that.
854
855[[/folder]]
856
857[[folder:Leviathan of Dis]]
858
859* Given that the Leviathan of Dis has been semi-retconned from being an organic ship to being a reaper, why doesn’t anyone recognize that it is just like Sovereign? Even if it was a reaper-destroyer, it would be made of similar stuff, or at the very least it would look like the same material. And it is made clear that there are records of it in the planet survey, saying that after the batarians stole it the salarian survey team produced their scans of the Leviathan which the batarians then denied. Was nobody paying attention? As a side-note, the Leviathan of Dis would probably enter into an extranet search for unidentified or alien spaceships, so it makes the excuse of just not noticing the very old records a little bit worse.
860** The Leviathan of Dis is over a billion years old. The organic parts of the Reaper would have long since decayed and vanished, and we don't know how much of its hull was left. Reaper metal or not, a billion years on a planetary surface would deteriorate it and make it harder to identify.
861** The Leviathan of Dis was removed and hidden by the batarians very shortly after the salarian video was taken. We don't know how clear or high-res the salarian video was: Dis is definitely in batarian-run space so the salarians might just have some fuzzy low-res blob that "kind of" looks like a really big ship. The batarians are totally unwilling to cooperate with other races, as usual, since they officially deny the Leviathan of Dis ever existed. With such shaky evidence, I think it's pretty possible that anyone who would imply that the Leviathan of Dis is a Reaper ship would be treated like a modern-day human who claimed a disc-shaped blob in a photo was a flying saucer.
862** The Leviathan wasn't retconned either. Reapers are made of both organic and synthetic materials. It's perfectly feasible for it to be called an organic ship. However, this was not known when Soverign was destroyed, and less than half of the wrecage was descovered, so it's possible there wasn't much evidence of organic components (the least likely to survive a massive explosion). The only question that leaves is how much of a reaper is biological. I thought it was just the core, but it could be more.
863[[/folder]]
864
865[[folder:Leviathan and the cycle]]
866
867* A better question would be: why is the Leviathan not trying to break the cycle? the thing had millions of years to try millions of ways to break the cycle. and with its mind control ability, you would think that is can defeat the Reapers in the long run. it can do something like gather information on the Reapers, store it in different planets to warn of the younger races, like the Protheans did with the beacons, so that younger races would know about the Reapers very early, and if Levianthan could record data on the Reapers destruction and maybe some Reapers locations it would be truly believed throughout the galaxy.
868** Maybe a hidden faction tried and failed. Who else would know so much about the Citadel to create the Crucible?
869
870[[/folder]]
871
872[[folder: Matriarch Aethyta - Dead or Alive?]]
873* After the Cerberus Coup arc, Aethyta no longer appears at that bar in the Presidium. ...She didn't get killed, did she? She's a fucking Matriarch; there's no way them Cerbies could've gotten her... right?
874** That's strange, since she was still there for all my save games, if I recall correctly. Is it a bug or something?
875** Whether or not they did, I don't know, but it should be noted that Matriarchs are far from invulnerable. They're powerful, sure, but they bleed and die like any other organic lifeform, and Cerberus has some very powerful soldiers at its disposal.
876** We can presume she survived; significant casualties among the Citadel's named population are explicitly mentioned in the game. Liara would have mentioned her being killed, at the very least.
877** Hopefully i'm not mistaken, but i think the Asari military trainer in Purgatory mentions that she works with her after you deliver the Library of Asha. Just talk to her agin. That's after the Coup attempt, so she's fine.
878** This is correct. That asari in Purgatory mentions that she has "Matriarch Aethyta's backing on this" or something similar when she's talking to whoever is on the communicator. Since this does indeed take place after the coup, it would imply she's doing fine.
879[[/folder]]
880
881[[folder: You get more War Assets for letting Kirrahe die]]
882* If Kirrahe survived Virmire in the first Franchise/MassEffect, you will get him as part of your Salarian war assets worth 20 points after talking to him on Sur'Kesh. But if you let him die and be replaced by the a lot less cooperative Lieutenant Tolan instead, you will get the Salarian Special Tasks Group assets, worth 35 points, and just like Kirrahe, you get this asset regardless of if you sabotage the genophage cure. Emm, what? So why do you actually get LESS war assets by leaving a friendlier person in charge of the STG?
883** Welcome to unintended consequences. With Kirrahe, you get him and his most loyal followers. With Tolan, you get substantially more STG personnel.
884** (The OP) But unlike Kirrahe (who told you that he will support you no matter what some politicians think), Tolan was very uncooperative and passive aggressive when talking to you and openly state how he disapproves of you curing the genophage. So why will he give you ANY war assets at all if you decided to support the Krogan? Also, Kirrahe is holds the rank of major and is a war hero to the salarian people, compared to Tolan, who is just a common officer in the military. How could Tolan managed to rally more support then Kirrahe could?
885** I'm suspecting this is a bug. Does Hackett even mention "STG is helping us" in this case?
886** As I recall, Hackett does mention that the STG defects to your side even if Kirrahe is alive. However, it doesn't show up as a War Asset in that case.
887** Perhaps you were supposed to get the STG as a War Asset ''in addition'' to Kirrahe if he's alive, but if he's dead you could ''only'' get the STG by sabotaging the Genophage cure?
888** Could be that after the attack on Sur'Kesh or reading some report later on that Tolan realizes that Shepard is right. Having two opposing views tell you the same thing would arguably be more persuasive than Kirrahe say it.
889[[/folder]]
890
891[[folder: Multiplayer enemies]]
892* I know that there is certainly GameplayAndStorySegregation when it comes to the multiplayer portion of the game (there is no good explanation for why you're fighting geth or Cerberus forces on Earth or Palaven's moon) but some basic questions still need to be asked. Now that the Collectors are an enemy faction it is clear that they were not wiped out in [=ME=]2, but were never deployed to the places Shepard went to. The real Headscratcher is why if multiple units of every type of Collector troop—from Abominations to Praetorians—can be possessed by a Reaper, Harbinger-style, why didn't the Reapers assume direct control over ''every'' Collector in Shepard's way at the end of [=ME=]2? Shepard's squad wouldn't have had a chance.
893** First: Collectors where mentioned in passing during the "Miracle of Palaven" if you get the Krogans to back the war effort. Second: we have no way of knowing if every Reaper has the ability to control organics when they're outside the galaxy. Or it could be a simple issue of bandwidth for all we know. Either way it seems likely that they needed to be closer to control the Collectors.
894** As a point, there is a reason you'd be fighting geth just about anywhere you'd be fighting reapers; the geth you're fighting in multiplayer are the ones still infected with reaper code after the Rannoch arch.
895** We're never told these units ''weren't'' deployed to these places. Remember, our battlefields only take place over a tiny portion of a planet's surface. That'd be like asking how come you heard about a gunfight in your city but couldn't see it when you looked out of your window. As for why Assuming Direct Control didn't happen on such a scale, I have two FanWank theories. First, it probably takes such a tremendous amount of resources that it wouldn't be feasible (remember that trying to assume control of one person to salvage a failing mission is what killed ''Sovereign'', and the Reapers had more to lose then than at the Collector Base). Second, ''Harbinger'' only ever assumed control of Collectors through the General. While there's undoubtedly more than one of them, there was only one on the Base.
896** As for Harbinger now possessing more powerful enemies like Praetorians, it could also be that he no longer underestimates what the races of the galaxy are capable of, and is now pulling out all the stops.
897** It could also simply be a matter of proximity. Harbinger's a lot closer to the battlefield than he was when he was still with the rest of the fleet in Dark Space. The signal could be a lot stronger due to his increased proximity.
898[[/folder]]
899
900[[folder: Mainstay of the Turian Military?]]
901* According to the lore, the Phaeston assault rifle is the weapon used by the Turian military, where it is held in high regard for its rapid fire and low recoil. However, when we go to Menae, the moon of Palaven, we see regular Turian infantry using the human counterpart Avengers. Did they all discard their arguable superior rifles for the weapons cargo of a downed transport? Or were the developers just lazy?
902** The armament of one small, isolated, individual unit of a military consisting of literally hundreds of billions of individuals scattered across an entire galaxy does not reflect the armament of the entire military in question.
903** But those soldiers aren't specialized, elite troopers. They're regular grunts who were stationed on Palaven's moon. That's like running into a unit of regular Army infantry using solely [=AK=]-47s. There's no reason they shouldn't be using the weapons that all the Turian soldiers are equipped with.
904** There's no evidence whatsoever what unit these troops belong to. They could be an elite specialist unit, or regular infantry. We don't have any real information on these troops beyond the fact that they were with Garrus' group on the moon.
905** You'll notice that ''every single turian soldier'', whether they be on Palaven or Tuchanka or Earth, is using an Avenger. It's the same reason everyone else uses the Avenger; it's a lazy graphical shortcut. I guess it it's just a [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Doylist]] reason.
906** ''When'' did it become their main weapon? It wasn't seen in [=ME2=] so maybe it was only recently adopted, too recently to to have replaced even a significant amount of Avengers.
907*** As for the turians outside the military, the Phaeston would have needed different parts than the widely available Avenger, is heavier, and the advantages were overkill agains the non-military foes they were expected to fight.
908** They're ''are'' turians widely using it, the huskified Marauders. Those with them were the first casualties, so after those losses they had to go back to the older gun.
909[[/folder]]
910
911[[folder: Did Hackett know about the Luna AI?]]
912* Because I specifically asked him whether it was an AI, not wanting to repeat the quarians' mistake. And he specifically assured me it was not. Did he lie? And if so, why isn't there an option to confront him about it?
913** Because by the time Shepard knows that EDI was the Luna AI, it's a couple years after the fact and, given the circumstances at hand, it's not really important or relevant to the conflict at large. Why does it matter?
914** Hackett probably didn't know it was an AI, that was probably Cerberus's doing.
915** He may have known, but only after the fact. The journal entry for that quest updates after it's done, suggesting the VI may have been tampered with to make it intelligent (which we learn was Cerberus' doing).
916** The Cerberus Data Log that reveals this information states that EDI was still a VI at the time. By combining it with Sovereign's tech and likely their own handiwork, they turned a military VI into a military AI. In fact it was likely that EDI's Reaper portions helped with her figuring out the Reaper IFF back in Mass Effect 2!
917[[/folder]]
918
919[[folder: The duration of war]]
920* When you first visit the Citadel, an asari there tells about how she was assigned to Tiptree to help the evacuation. She spent at least a few days there. Now, she is in the Citadel hospital, and it seems like it is not her first day there either. Then, toward the end of the game, Joker says the Reaper only invaded Tiptree "A couple of weeks ago". Ehhh... Does anyone else find something wrong with the math? Because I certainly didn't get the impression the events of the game only lasted a week.
921** Not only that, but around the middle of the game, Hackett mentions that Earth fell "a few weeks ago", and then a couple missions later (just after Thessia) someone else comments on losing Earth "a few months ago."
922** Moreover, Hackett's line of "losing Earth a few weeks ago" occurs around the same time that the Crucible is stated to be "50% done" - taken literally, this would mean the entire war lasted "a few weeks times two."
923[[/folder]]
924
925[[folder: Why does Shepard not realize/question certain things?]]
926* Is it me, or does Shepard carry an idiot ball in the third game?
927** On Sur'Kesh, Shepard asks Wrex right in front of a bunch of salarians who his source was. Did it really not occur to Shepard that that would not have been the best idea?
928** That was more for the player. Wrex even points out that it's not a good idea.
929** When I saw that scene I figured Shepard was trying to taunt the salarians. Shepard didn't even care who the source was. The point was to let the salarians know that ''Wrex'' of all people was able to place a mole in the heart of the STG ''and they never even suspected''.
930** In the Temple in Thessia, there's a bunch of corpses with their throats slit. Really, it never occurs to Shepard that maybe TIM heard about the relic and sent his pet with the sword along? It seems perfectly reasonable that Shepard would be paranoid enough at this stage to suspect them. Who else would use a blade to kill some asari, and so neatly? The Reaper forces never use blades, they just shoot you. Even if Shepard doesn't immediately jump to Cerberus and Leng, why doesn't Shepard worry at all that the killer's still around there somewhere or, worse, has possibly made off with the relic?
931** it was in the middle of a ''Reaper'' attack, not Cerberus, and he just assumed Cerberus wouldn't try to attack a place the Reapers already held. He was a little surprised when during the middle of a Reaper invasion, as single Cerberus team somehow got past all the Reapers just to ambush him. With all the stress of what was going on and the information given about the Protheans, it's probable that he never made the logical leap in the 1-2 minutes it takes from finding their corpses and meeting Kai Leng again. As for searching for the killer, what can he do? Point a flashlight at every corner? Kai Leng has cloaking, and he just dropped it when he wanted to talk.
932** It was a Reaper attack. It's not an outrageous assumption to think that an indoctrinated scientist slit the others' throats. Sowing panic in the enemy by making them paranoid about indoctrinated members in their ranks sounds like something the Reapers would do.
933** In Leviathan, Shepard, not once but twice, fails to recognise [[spoiler:indoctrination]] when s/he's already come across people with it multiple times before in the previous games. Even if Shepard was just having an off day when s/he met the first [[spoiler:indoctrinated guy, the one who killed the scientist]], s/he would know to be on the lookout for it later, but [[spoiler:when s/he's in a room full of indoctrinated people]], merely seems to think "That's weird" and goes about his/her business.
934** He may recognize them as indoctrinated, but what can he do, anyway? He still needs to keep searching, and they haven't committed any outright hostile actions toward him. Presumably, he still is on edge the whole time.
935** It may also be that these indoctrinated people are acting so differently from any other indoctrinated individuals that Shepard doesn't consider that a possibility. They all act like they're drugged or were hit on the head, as opposed to the subtle and articulate cunning of Saren, Kai Leng, TIM, Benezia, etc. Even Cerberus troops behave more normally than the researchers.
936** They also don't act like the nigh-useless, broken shells the salarian STG prisoners acted like.
937** They also don't wax poetic about how awesome the Reapers are like Dr. Amanda Kenson did.
938** They're not indoctrinated. They're enthralled by Leviathan. There's more than one way to control minds in this setting (see also: the thorian). Reaper indoctrination is permanent and eventually turns the victims into gibbering wrecks, but these people are fine once the enthrallment sphere is destroyed.
939[[/folder]]
940
941[[folder: The Second Rachni Choice]]
942* The choice in the third game strikes me as incredibly out of character for Shepard if the renegade option (killing the queen) was chosen in the first game. If you spared her in the first game, she's captured in the third and the paragon choice is to free and recruit her. Makes sense. Renegade choice is to kill her. Also makes sense, if an originally ParaShep has slid more towards being a ruthless and distrustful RenShep (and there's a risk of Grunt dying if you free her). However, if she was killed in the first game, an indoctrinated breeder is there in her place. For reasons that make no sense, the options are reversed. ''ParaShep's'' option is to kill her. This ''could'' be explained away by the fact that the breeder is obviously crazy, Shep's original choice was to kill rachni and s/he isn't changing now, or just a higher loyalty to Grunt. But I don't actually recall a ParaShep option to kill someone before when there was the faintest possibility of saving them (even Saren), so it's still a bit iffy. RenShep's choice of recruiting the indoctrinated breeder makes even less sense. With the exception of the Morinth choice (which was similarly strange), RenShep ''always'' kills anyone/anything they find remotely untrustworthy. Caution and ruthlessness are pretty much his/her thing, so why would s/he decide to recruit the suspicious breeder of all things? Especially when balanced against other potential renegade choices - like sabotaging the genophage cure because the krogan are dangerous. It's even lampshaded by Joker - Shep kills the sane queen and recruits the insane breeder? So what was Bioware's reason? Is it just that they couldn't be bothered making the two scenarios (queen/breeder) that different from each other, and decided that RenShep would be the moron/jerkass in both? Or they couldn't be bothered with a third option - where the paragon and renegade Sheps would kill the breeder in different ways (one more merciful, the other harsher), and a neutral option to recruit it? Or is there some logic in there somewhere?
943** The Breeder is a machine more than a living being. It's an insane weapon that exists for no purpose other than to churn out shock troops for war. Destroying it is a ''mercy''; conversely, keeping it alive so it can start churning out instruments of war for ''your'' army instead of the enemy's is a ruthless and cruel thing to do.
944[[/folder]]
945
946[[folder: Shepard's Spectre Status and the Alliance]]
947* In the game did Shepard forget that s/he is a Spectre and not an Alliance officer? Shepard spends pretty much the entire game following the orders of Anderson and Hackett, conferring with them as though Shepard was still under their command (dialogue at the beginning even acts as though this is the case) and never showing anywhere near the same deference to Councillors. Is it any wonder that the Council spent the past two games wondering if Shepard was just advancing human interests?
948** Shepard is both a Spectre ''and'' an Alliance officer. As a Spectre, s/he's expected to choose the will of the Council over that of the Alliance, but when they don't conflict, Shepard is allowed to do stuff for each. Besides, a lot of stuff Shepard does advance Council interests, whether it's securing resources, forging alliances, destroying enemy forces, or ending centuries-old blood-feuds, Shepard helps out a lot. If the Council needs something, they probably can get Hackett to relay that to Shepard.
949** Shepard doesn't forget his/her rank. Shepard does, however, recognize that Hackett is much more experienced in general and follows Hackett's orders because they're ''good ideas'' and doesn't get hung up on rank and authority because of the horde of mecha-Chtulhus invading the galaxy at the moment. And Shepard's Spectre status is contingent on the Council's authority, and the Council is coordinating with Hackett, so if Shepard hares off on his/her own and ignores Hackett, there's a good chance the Council will cancel Shepard's Spectre status.
950** Hackett is effectively the commander of all anti-Reaper forces AND is overseeing construction of the Crucible. In order for Shepard to effectively fight the Reapers s/he basically has to take his marching orders from Hackett. If Shepard was defiant and hostile toward the Council in [=ME=]1 then the Councilors would probably consider this a plus. If they relay their orders through Hackett there's a chance Shepard will actually follow them.
951[[/folder]]
952
953[[folder: Jacob cheating on Shepard]]
954* Okay, I'm really not sure what happened here. In the second game, he really didn't seem like the kind of person who would so shamelessly cheat on a woman he supposedly "loves", and then dump her for another woman without a qualm. But in this game... wow, what the hell, man? They were only apart for six months, it wasn't like Shepard was dead or missing, he knew exactly where she was. Also, I feel it's incredibly stereotypical ad highly offensive that the only black love interest in the entire series, is also the only one who cheats on the PC and gets another woman pregnant. How does no one else see this? Honestly, Bioware, that was very very VERY uncool.
955** Same reason anyone one cheats on their girlfriend, really. Seriously, the list is staggering. it seems to be Bioware's fault that every relationship so far has been permanent (unless if you cheat on your [=ME=]1 love interest), and Jacob gets the flak because he's the only one who does and because he happens to be black. Why aren't you complaining if your black Shepard cheats on Ashley, Miranda, or Jack?
956** Because it doesn't make sense to choose to have your Shepard cheat on a LI and choose to have him be black when you do it and then complain about the choice you made.
957** As for why he did it, think. Jacob signed up to save people and humanity, not primarily to fight although he is good at it). In the end, he grows weary of fighting, and would like to settle down and start a real family, that he and his wife could devote themselves too. With Brynn, he sees that future. Despite whatever you roleplay as, Shepard isn't likely to end her sterling military career to sit down and raise kids for the rest of her life, so he broke up with her knowing that they're not compatible in the long-term. Sure, it may have been unpleasant, but romantic flings ''do'' happen, and sometimes breaking up is for the best.
958** While the fandom would likely still have been upset if he automatically dumped Shepard no matter what she did, the problem is that he doesn't even do that. And from what he says, it sounds like it's NOT a case of him trying but failing to contact her like it was with Thane. If he wants to break up or doesn't want something serious, that's his choice. But even if, not knowing how long Shepard would be unable to be contacted and not trying because he knew he wouldn't get through, he hooked up with someone new while she was in lock-up, if everyone in the galaxy can find a way to contact Shepard then surely Jacob could, too. A break-up email would suck but it would be understandable under the circumstances and better than "Oh, hi, Shepard. Fancy seeing you here. Want to meet my new girlfriend?" He didn't have to just sort of pretend Shepard didn't exist and he was in a quasi-relationship with her until she showed up and had questions. Shepard's lock-up and the reapers complicated things but he handled this all wrong.
959** Something people seem to forget: every relationship across the games is, at the beginning, just a short term thing that pops up while you're fighting for your lives. Most of the romances only develop into something much more serious when you've been involved with the character for a longer period of time. Ashley, Kaidan, Liara, Garrus, and Tali, for example. The romances from the second game with the new characters have a generally short-term feel to them in the first place, and only Jack and Thane's are truly passionate ones, because of the intimate therapy aspect of Jack's romance and the fact that Thane is dying. And Jacob's romance dialogue does indicate that it's mostly sexual attraction, not a long-term romance.
960** And yet, if you sleep with Kaidan in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' and get involved with someone else in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', he will accuse you of cheating in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' -- despite what ''appears'', to this troper, to be a ''very nasty'' breakup initiated by ''him'' in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. Liara also gets pretty upset if you cheat on her; if you leave her for someone else, she'll go out of her way to humiliate them in front of you. (E.g., bringing up Tali's Nerve Stim Pro install history during a mission where you're both present.) Not sure about Ashley, but I don't think you're meant to consider these romances as "short term things" in general.
961** Hannah Shepard was a dedicated military woman and still had a partner, at least for some period of her life, and successfully raised a child. Why is Shepard necessarily incapable of doing the same? Anyways, not the point. Jacob himself never says anything about wanting settle down. There's really nothing to excuse the shameless infidelity, there IS no excuse for that, ever. If he didn't want to be together anymore, why wasn't he upfront about it and just say so to her face instead of stringing her along while banging another woman? Sheesh. I'm sorry but there was absolutely zero indication in the first game that he was that kind of character, it just seems like a really bizarre and unwarranted shift in personality. The way he dumps her is really dismissive, unfeeling and tactless; yeah, definitely not the character I was familiar with at the end of [=ME=]2. And Shepard themselves, who can be of any race, never does or even gets the opportunity to do that to any of their other love interests. This whole thing just plays into a very offensive racial stereotype.
962** ''Hannah Shepard was a dedicated military woman and still had a partner, at least for some period of her life, and successfully raised a child. Why is Shepard necessarily incapable of doing the same?'' There's a thing. It's not a big thing, but it would seriously explain why Shepard would be incapable of being in anything resembling a normal relationship with anyone at all, and would - and does - seriously hinder any romantic endeavors on his/her part. It's called ''the Reapers''.
963** Yeah, sure, but since that's going to kill everybody if Shepard doesn't succeed and Jacob won't be able to settle down to the kind of life he wants (even if his kid is born pre-ending) it's not like that's not seriously hindering the romantic endeavors of everyone else in the galaxy. Especially since both he and Brynn are working to stop the Reapers and he doesn't get the relatively safe scientist job.
964** This is why tropes like GoodAdulteryBadAdultery exist, when the line is very blurry.. While there's not much indicator that he wanted to settle down in [=ME=]2, there also wasn't really any indication that he considered Shepard to be his one true love. I've seen personally seen relationships go to that level of passion, and then watched everything fall apart with a "meh" once the emotional high died off and the partners realized they weren't with someone they'd want to spend their life with. Sure, maybe you were still in love with him, but his passion cooled and he felt Dr. Cole would be someone to settle down with. As for why he nonchalantly dumps Shepard, well, they're under a siege and he's probably swimming in medical drugs on account of being shot, so he couldn't really get his emotions across as well. Or perhaps Jacob did sent a message, request a vidchat, a letter even, but it never made it past the red tape to reach an imprisoned suspected mass-murderer. Also, Hannah Shepard may have been a good mom, but I'm talking about the ''lifestyle''; constantly being reassigned, away from your spouse and kids, often making them move and leave their friends and community, I doubt Jacob would want that lifestyle with his family, and he and Brynn probably agreed to retire together or something.
965** Well, she claims Jacob still "loves" the PC, but that really seems like a load of codswallop to me. I feel she was just trying to mock the PC or make her feel even worse about the situation.
966** Jacob is the only person Shepard can romance that she doesn't have significant existing ties with and are emotionally stable. Every other love interest is either someone Shepard already knows well where emotional attachments could grow over time or in a fragile emotional state (Jack and Miranda aren't used to having people they can trust and Thane is dying so it's only worth the pain if he's serious about it), hell, Tali and Garrus have BOTH. [=ME=]2 only lasts, what, a few weeks, couple months at most? And it was a high stress situation where they were all expecting to die, not something Jacob was expecting to go long-term and Shepard gets taken into custody before he realizes he doesn't want to stay with her.
967** Something that bothered me about the Jacob Romance when I did it for the first time in hopes of hearing him get chewed out in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' was some of his lines in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''.
968--->'''Jacob:''' One nighting the commander is a good way to get airlocked.
969** He also tells Shepard he wants to take it slow so the relationship will be more then just sex. Now if you look at it from one of his quotes in the collector base.
970--->'''Jacob:''' Practically a suicide mission, I volunteer.
971** Miranda then explains they need a tech to do that part. But if Jacob's words are considered in his mind, him and probably the rest of the crew were not coming back from the mission. So have sex with Shepard, come to terms with the fact you'll never have a wife and a kid and a house with a picket fence and go complete your mission. You can almost imagine him picturing his funeral and thinking about what might be said as he fights off collectors. But then comes the hitch in his plan. He survives. He survives the impossible. Now for the rest of the game we can consider Jacob to be riding on the "I can't believe i'm alive" cloud and not really thinking about the fact Shepard is his girlfriend. Cut to the Normandy being drydocked and Shepard being relieved of duty. Jacob goes to think about things on a beach. He starts picturing scenarios. Shepard being locked up forever, Shepard going off to fight the Reapers, Perhaps he even imagines Shepard actually saving the galaxy. But then comes the hard truth of it. Even if Shepard destroys the Reapers Shepard's not going to quit. Regardless of how you play your Shepard just start up ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' and play right till you get the first dialogue choice. Now imagine that's day to day life. Jacob has no idea what Shepard's going to have to do when the reapers come and the last time he saw her she was being a flirty minx. He's completely unaware she's going to see children die, worlds burn, and friends fall. If Jacob did have a psychic vision of all those events he could hypothesize Shepard might be so weary of death she'd settle down. But Shepard killed Sovereign then let the alliance send her to hunt Geth despite Shepard, Anderson, and Hackett all knowing the Reapers were the real threat. So to Jacob, Shepard is alliance through and through. The best he can hope for is that she'd be willing to take enough time to actually give birth to their child before handing it off to Jacob and making him a stay at home dad while Shepard does more tours. Brynn on the other hand who he meets when he's muddled up is not like shepard. She is more then happy to let Jacob play hero and she'll raise the baby. After all being a scientist she could probably get a lab at home to work from to she could dual duties. Meanwhile if Shepard took her baby with her on adventures... Well we all saw what happened to the first normandy. It makes Brynn the clear favorite in Jacob's eyes. It also doesn't help if Shepard asks about Jacob and Brynn's relationship and then after having all the info choosing to try and seduce him when Brynns in the next room if you chose that option. The real problem is Brynn has absolutely no sympathy for Shepard's side of the story and comes off cold. And with the exception of the Slap in the Citadel DLC it's almost entirely identical to a nonromanced shepard. You can be as cold to Brynn as she is to you and she'll still "save" you from cerberus, still say that she's glad you're on their side, and will still want to name the baby Shepard. The very idea Brynn would suggest naming their child after Jacob's Ex is functionally ridiculous. Add to it how the closest thing you get to anyone sympathizing with Shepard is Joker's post mission comment if you talk to him that he already doesn't like Brynn on Shepard's behalf despite Shepard insisting she's fine about the turn of events. It makes the entire arc look like the Devs just didn't care enough to bother with Jacob any more then they absolutely had to.
972*** It's more likely the opposite: the Devs assumed we the players wouldn't care. Remember, this game was made with the reaction from the previous games in mind and Jacob was not well received. He's the squadmate nobody picks and the love interest few pick and was largely considered boring and even outright hated by players. So with that in mind they constructed a scenario for him in the third game that worked for the character (a mirror of the situation his father was in) and didn't factor in his potential as a love interest at all, assuming nobody would be all that torn up about it. I believe that Brynn is supposed to come across as scared and distracted and trying to keep calm given the stressful circumstances but instead came across as cold to players. The fact that she saves Shepard, is grateful and wants to name her baby after Shepard is likely supposed to endear us to her but instead it had the opposite effect.
973[[/folder]]
974
975[[folder: Motivations of Citadel's Dragon]]
976* Okay, Shepard is being targeted, by who it turns out to be [[spoiler:his or her clone.]] Now apparently their motivation is to kill Shepard, and become the legend. Okay. AndThenWhat? Does TheDragon intend to fight the Reapers? The Catalyst? Since they are far far away from being Shepard would they be willing to make the sacrifice needed to defeat the Reapers? Since [[spoiler: the clone]] is Cerberus what about them? If Cerberus are in league with the Reapers wouldn't that mean they need to be taken down as well? What about being the legend also means how Shepard was in the second and third games? Would [[spoiler: the clone]] stomach doing what was required for a successful suicide mission? How about romance interests? If the idea is to become Shepard then given the hatred of aliens what if Shepard was with Liara? Or Garrus, Tali or Thane?
977** The Mysterious Figure probably wasn't planning beyond that point. Remember, s/he's been around for, at most, sixth months, and has dedicated everything s/he has to defeating Shepard.
978** Filed under DidntThinkThisThrough.
979** The real brains of the operation is [[spoiler: Brooks.]] It was [[spoiler: her]] who woke it up and masterminded the whole thing, but we never get any indication of what the real plan was beyond the usual aliens are beneath us/must die. They had no obvious intent to go after the reapers or anything, just to disappear, at least at that point.
980** I wouldn't be surprised if [[spoiler: Brooks]] was lying about leaving Cerberus. [[spoiler:She]] lied to Shepard, after all. Why not Shepard's [[spoiler:clone]] as well? Maybe [[spoiler: Brooks]] was still working for TIM all along as part of a plan to manipulate [[spoiler:Clone!Shep]] into serving TIM's interests from afar.
981** The big question is how the clone or Brooks thought they were really going to convince anyone that was Shepard. They seem personally offended at all the alien lives Shepard saved so they probably would stop all of that. And if Shepard is paragon it makes it even worse. She goes from ssomeone who cures the genophage and makes peace between the quarians and the geth because it's the right thing to do to someone who would be openly hostile to everyone they need to beg to go save Earth? Yeah, that's not going to fly. Even if people assumed it was really Shepard but she lost her mind, she's getting benched immediately. If the whole point is that they needed a Shepard who was very different than the real Shepard, it's really obvious she won't be allowed to go killing every alien she sees or refusing to use diplomacy with the quarians, geth, asari, whoever.
982[[/folder]]
983
984[[folder: EDI, Eva's body and the Normandy in Citadel DLC]]
985* This is bugging the hell out of me since the Citadel dlc came out. EDI is primarily housed/located in the Normandy SR-2 and has full control over its systems. She additionally controls Eva's body, and there's enough of her in it that it can act independently if circumstances require it (maybe). This is all fine, makes sense. However, when [[spoiler: the clone and Brooks make clear their intent to steal the Normandy, EDI, who was in my squad at the time, does nothing. She's still in the Normandy! It behaves like the mech body is the real EDI while the Normandy one isn't or something (although when her main core on the Normandy is locked out or whatever is done to her, it momentarily shuts off the mech version and screws her up, in a both humorous and concerning manner). But this raises questions: 1) Why didn't EDI use her control over the systems to lock out the clone or otherwise prevent him/her from boarding? 2) Assuming 1 failed, why didn't she warn Traynor of the danger? and 3) How is it that they manage to just cut EDI off from the ship with no trouble anyway? Cerberus couldn't do it remotely, yet these guys apparently just waltz right in and flip her off switch. I get that this would interfere with the plot, but that's pretty weak reasoning for the weird lack of EDI actually doing anything in the ample time she should have had to do so.]]
986** There was a jamming signal blocking all communication to the Normandy, including EDI's link. This also happened if you take EDI to take down the jamming tower on Rannoch. Doesn't really make sense though; EDI states when she first gets the body that it has to be in broadcast range of the Normandy.
987** EDI states for optimal performance her platform should remain in contact with the Normandy. Meaning it performs best when she can communicate with herself but doesn't necessarily need to remain in range to stay active.
988[[/folder]]
989
990[[folder: Shepard forgetting the importance of wartime secrecy in the Citadel DLC]]
991* A key part of military intelligence is the control of information, as [[http://rlv.zcache.ca/the_enemy_is_listening_posters-re106a7720e3a4f8294928ad4bc17d267_biv_400.jpg this World War 2 poster]] demonstrates. As a experienced officer, Shepard should be well aware of this. However, as shown in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NduEXKD7m5A this video]], not only does Shepard openly discuss the Alliance's plan to assault the headquarters of Cerberus soon, [[TooDumbToLive she/he did so in a public event, with a dozen civilians listening.]] All it takes will be a single Cerberus sympathizer or Reaper indoctrinated agent in the crowd to leak that information to Cerberus, and the entire assault on Cronos Station will be turned from a CurbStompBattle for the Alliance military into a total disaster that will cost countless lives (not to mention crippling the Alliance Navy, making the Battle of Earth even more risky). What on Earth was Shepard thinking?!
992** Also, when you first recruited Javik in the [[DownloadableContent From Ashes DLC]], [[TagalongReporter Diana Allers]] will complain that she couldn't report the news of them discovering a living Prothean since it is classified information. However, now not only is he openly walking around in the Citadel, he is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvxgLT_KPFc guest staring in a Blasto movie]]! All it takes will be a single sniper waiting in the studio, and BLAM! Cerberus/The Reapers just score a massive propaganda victory and the entire Hanar suffers a [[HeroicBSOD massive drop in troop morale.]]
993** Presumably, when she says this, it's classified, but later on as Javik is running around shooting people in the open, this becomes declassified. As for why don't they just shoot him in the studio, Javik's paranoid, experienced, always wears armor, and has freaky prothean senses to the point where even Kasumi can't hide from him. They could ''try'' to kill Javik, but whether they could succeed is another matter.
994** In fairness, wouldn't the same problem apply equally to Shepard? He/she isn't immune to sniper bullets either.
995** As soon as the sushi-place cutscene ends, Shepard has shields. Hence, it's logical to assume that Shepard and co. keep their non-armor protective equipment active even in civilian areas, or at the very least they have their shields ready to be activated at a moment's notice. Even beyond that, Shepard is capable of using his/her full range of combat abilities despite not wearing his/her armor.
996** To answer the original question: All Shepard said was that they plan to assault the Cerberus Headquarters; s/he doesn't mention when, s/he doesn't mention how, s/he gives no indication that s/he actually knows where the Cerberus HQ actually is... there is no threat here. The endgame goal of ending Cerberus is attacking their HQ, that's kinda obvious, but an enemy spy is going to need more detail in order for Cerberus to actually turn the battle against the Alliance.
997** Nothing from the game indicates that Cerberus had any warning that an attack was about to take place. Hackett in fact mentions that ''once'' they begin their attack it will be impossible to hide their movements from the Reapers, indicating that they don't expect their enemies to see it coming beforehand. Any Cerberus spy who happened to be nearby Shepard during ''that'' discussion would no doubt be running to contact Cerberus ASAP.
998** ''Nothing from the game indicates that Cerberus had any warning that an attack was about to take place.'' Actually, it's specifically mentioned after Horizon, depending on how you find the base, that Cerberus indeed knows the Alliance is going to attack Cronos Station. Even if a Cerberus spy was there, he or she would still need more information so the attack on Cronos Station could be prevented. The devil is in the details after all.
999** That's only if Miranda dies, and doesn't apply to when Kai Leng has the tracker planted on him.
1000[[/folder]]
1001
1002[[folder:Tuchanka: Bomb size]]
1003* When the Turian (whose name I can't remember, sorry) told me the bomb on Tuchanka was a precaution against a second Krogan uprising, I assumed that meant it was powerful enough to cause an extinction-level event. Perhaps even a [[EarthShatteringKaboom Tuchanka-Shattering Kaboom!]] But according to the Mass Effect Wiki if you fail to complete quest and the bomb goes off, the result is...the destruction of the Kelphic Valley and a whopping 250 point loss to your Krogan forces. Now granted that is a lot of damage and a huge dent in your war assets, but from an in-universe perspective I don't see the point. Assuming the Krogan did rebel a second time, what would this bomb have accomplished that couldn't have been done with a [[ColonyDrop weaponized asteroid]] or a salvo from a Turian dreadnought? (Hell, the only reason the bomb killed as many as it did is because a bunch of Krogan clans happened to be gathering in the Kelphic Valley to meet Eve.) Now I know someone is going to say that putting a dreadnought or a mass driver in orbit around Tuchanka is just asking the Krogan to shoot it down, but recall that the Krogan were forcibly disarmed after the Rebellions so they had no warships left to fight with. Granted, they did have that big gun on the surface but they seemed to have forgotten it was even there, and there's no reason to believe any other anti-starship weapons still existed on Tuchanka (surely the Turians would have seen to that). Also, it's pretty hard to defend a giant super-nuke you've secretly hidden on the surface without giving away its existence. Which brings me to my second question...
1004** Perhaps the bomb wasn't meant to destroy Tuchanka (do the citadel races even have planet-cracking bombs?) but instead to fracture any Krogan alliances by making them all blame each other for it.
1005** As I recall, isn't it mentioned that the Kelphic Valley is a heavily populated area (assumingly even without the influx of the clans post-cure)? Still not exactly the doomsday bomb they claim it to be, but it'd take a bite of the krogan forces. If it does go off, a whole lot of females and children are killed by it, which would be a huge blow to the krogan. Presumably the turians strategically placed it for maximum effectiveness. And indeed, as the above troper mentioned, if it does go off, they don't know who the culprit was. It could have lead to infighting as suggested.
1006** If you include him, Javik calls it a "planet killer" which suggests that, well, the turians actually intended to cause enough damage to Tuchanka to at least cause an extinction level event. Which raises a lot of questions since the bomb doesn't look at all big enough to cause that much damage to a planet (and if a single one from centuries ago could do that then why are the turians losing to the Reapers). Now maybe Javik just isn't used to the somewhat less advanced technology of the game, but it seems like a weird line to put in there if they didn't mean it.
1007** Does anyone, other than Javik, mention that it's a planet killer? And if they do, is it specified what they mean by that? The bomb is not a planet killer, because the bomb can go off and it never mentions driving the Krogan on Tuchanka to extinction (hell, Wrex emails you from Tuchanka after the blast, so it clearly didn't cause an extinction level event).
1008** Maybe it **is** a planet killer, and with Shepard's help they can disarm it completely, and without Shepard's help they can only reduce its yield to the "250 point loss" damage mentioned above. Nuclear bombs work by a conventional explosive triggering the nuclear detonation, so, similarly, maybe the Tuchanka bomb had a nuclear bomb triggering an even larger bomb. Maybe that even larger bomb could be disabled remotely, but nuke used as the detonator was large enough to cause that "250 point loss".
1009** Keep in mind that Cerberus **dug** it up - it was originally buried deep underground, where the potential damage to the planet itself could've been **much** worse. If the bomb goes off during the mission, it's not only unearthed, but suspended quite a ways above the surface. In that case it would do a lot more damage to the people and buildings in the vicinity of the bomb, than the planet itself
1010** During the mission it's mentioned that if the bomb were to go off it would mean war between the turians and krogan, so whatever planet busting effects it might have had were seemingly due to position rather than raw power. Cerberus digging it up made it's effects significantly lesser but also made it impossible to hide the turians' responsibility for it (likely the intended effect).
1011
1012[[/folder]]
1013
1014[[folder:Finding the bomb]]
1015
1016* What exactly was the Hierarchy's plan if the Krogan happened to stumble across the bomb by accident? Set it off and hope for the best?
1017** The bomb was buried pretty deep undergound, they mention how Cerberus had to dig it up, so they probably assumed that the Krogans where not on a technical level to ever find it. (As for the first question, maybe without the help of the Commander, the Turians on Tuchanka only managed to 'half disable' the bomb?)
1018** If the bomb actually ''could'' cause enough damage to a planet to cause an extinction level event, it's entirely possible that their plan would be just that. Set it off and just put up with whatever ensuing political chaos ensued.
1019** If the krogan had come close to discovering the bomb themselves it would have been noticed by one of the factions keeping an eye on Tuchanka, most likely the STG, who would have sent in a team to remove it. There might have been some deaths but there were quieter ways to deal with the situation.
1020
1021[[/folder]]
1022
1023[[folder:Cerberus and the bomb]]
1024
1025* How did Cerberus even know about the bomb, and for that matter how did they unearth it without any Krogan taking notice?
1026** Cerberus finding the bomb isn't likely all that difficult, considering that not two missions previously they had managed to ''infiltrate STG''. Compared with that, digging up a hidden turian superweapon would be child's play. As for unearthing the bomb without the krogan noticing, remember that the turians managed to ''bury'' it without anyone noticing; the location of the bomb is in a remote enough location that the krogan just didn't have anyone nearby to spot the digging operation underway.
1027
1028[[/folder]]
1029
1030[[folder:Citadel DLC: general questions (spoilers!)]]
1031* Could the Clone Shepard really replace the real Shepard so easily? I mean, sure he changed Shepard's biometric info in the Citadel computers, but the Systems Alliance keeps its own records. And Clone!Shep won't have all the cybernetic implants that Real!Shep is riddled with.
1032** No, it's pretty unlikely the clone could actually replace Shepard. He/she outright says they don't have any of the memories, so the replacement scheme wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. One would simply have to wonder why Shepard seems to have ditched the entire Normandy crew in favor of some random mercs for alarm bells to start going off. It seems unlikely that taking Shepard's place is actually the clone's plan, considering how obvious it would be if it tried. It is possible though that the clone genuinely does think it can, but Brooks, who seems to have been the real mastermind, had other plans once they'd gotten ahold of the Normandy. We never really find out what her long term scheme was.
1033** This. She likely intended to bring the Normandy back to Cerberus. In fact, given that Cerberus, and by extension Brooks, are indoc. proxies for the Reapers, this may have all been Brooks playing the long game, manipulating the Clone into killing Shepard on behalf of the Reapers. Doesn't the Citadel DLC suddenly seem more awesome if you imagine the whole clone plot is an elaborate assassination attempt by Harbinger?
1034* How come Miranda didn't know about the clone? Sure, she wasn't the one in charge of the Lazarus project, but she was the one overseeing it. Whoever get the idea must have had to inform her about it.
1035** There's no indication that she ''didn't'' know about it. Miranda likely assumed the clone was disposed of after Shepard was brought back.
1036** Cerberus used to be divided into independent cells before it reorganised as a huge paramilitary group between the second and third games. Miranda probably didn't have any access to information that wasn't relevant to her own cell's work, anything she could possibly know about them would be informal at most.
1037
1038[[/folder]]
1039
1040[[folder:Anderson's apartment]]
1041* How could Anderson afford that huge apartment on a military salary? It's one thing if you put him on the Council, but what if you didn't?
1042** Captains/Admirals and officers in general get paid a ''lot'' more than the grunts do.
1043** He's also made to be the assistant of Udina if he isn't made counselor. If counselors are well paid, their assistants are probably not left in the lurch when it comes to pay.
1044** His salary might not be his only income. As the former superior officer of the most famous human ever, he could make a killing off speaking engagements alone.
1045** One of the benefits of being in the military (in most countries) is they often take care of housing and contribute to health-care costs either partially or fully. The money Anderson saved from not having to worry about those could've gone towards a lavish apartment. That comes before factoring in his income as an officer, money saved from extra perks from being a war hero and the aforementioned money for speaking engagements.
1046[[/folder]]
1047
1048[[folder:The effects of the Reaper War being non existent in the Citadel DLC]]
1049* The entire ScrewTheWarWerePartying feel of the Citadel DLC really bugs me. In the VanillaEdition of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', when visiting the Citadel you can actually see [[WarIsHell how fighting a losing war against the Reaper affect the everyday life of ordinary civilians]]. You can hear new on the background reporting that more planets are being overwhelmed and the military in full retreat, see drunk soldiers mourning their fallen comrades, overhear the conversation of a human women selling her car so that she can buy better armor for her Salarians friend serving in the military, trying to prevent worried investor pulling all their savings from the bank, etc. You can even read a financial report by Elkoss Combine stating that due to the war effort's massive cost and all the major industrial centers being destroyed, civilian discretionary spending has dramatically fallen and the entire economy of Citadel Space will inevitable collapse within a year. With the Citadel DLC, however, it was as if every location added exist within a separate reality. All the entrainment centers on the Silversun Strip is packed full of people that doesn't seem to be short on money, and there is still a massive line outside a gourmet sushi restaurant (everyone seemingly forgetting that the actual country of Japan has most likely been reduced to nothing but ashes and radioactive glass by now, same goes for entire planets like Illium, Thessia, Palaven, Irune, and Dekuuna). And not to mention Anderson's luxurious apartment, Shepard and co seems to have no problem about their party's staggering costs while there is an overcrowded refugee camp just three level below them. A refugee camp that is desperately short on basic supplies like food and medicine (The situation there is so bad that you can actually order the port authority to open fire on unarmed civilian transports just to prevent more from coming... [[IDidWhatIHadToDo and not get any renegade points for it]]). How is any of this justified in-universe?
1050** It's a French sushi restaurant so why would anyone be thinking about Japan's state? And Shepard doesn't order a civilian ship to be shot sans renegade points. She just pointed out that the dock authority is allowed to shoot them. The implication is, yes, that they will do it but Shepard didn't tell them to and they're not going to do so just because she says they can. It's really the only option outside of giving them what they want (and if do that for everyone with the refugee space problems...) and we don't even know that the dock officer wasn't bluffing. The guy freaks out and gives in before they get that far. And renegade and paragon points don't exist in-universe any more than leveling up does. There's just the reputation and if no one knows about Shepard mentioning that except the two people standing there and none of them spread the news it shouldn't affect her reputation.
1051** The intent seems to be one last shore leave before the final battle so one of the most important crews in the galaxy is in full form.
1052** Unlike the rest of the series, ''Citadel'' does not take itself seriously. It's supposed to be a light-hearted final adventure in the Mass Effect universe and a chance for players to say goodbye to the crew of the Normandy. [[MST3KMantra You're not supposed to take it seriously, you're supposed to have some fun.]] I realize that's not the most satisfying answer, but that's probably the best one you're getting.
1053** "In the Vanilla Edition of Mass Effect 3, when visiting the Citadel you can actually see how fighting a losing war against the Reaper affect the everyday life of ordinary civilians." Yeah, and you can also hear Joker remark about how nobody on the Citadel seems to have noticed there's a war on, and the few who do notice have turned to partying at Purgatory to forget about it. And I'm not sure where you get the "staggering party costs" part from. The supplies you buy cost, what, 100 credits? The ''chairs'' for your apartment cost more than that. The Silversun Strip is an entertainment district. It's supposed to look fancy and exciting because the people who go there are probably trying to escape from the realities of war. And anyone without money left to spend on frivolities obviously wouldn't be hanging out on the Strip anyway.
1054** Makes perfect sense really, in one of the e-mails you can read about sales down the mention that entertainment, booze and other forms of escapism are the only thing keeping steady; because people need it now more than ever. Furthermore it's apparent that sushi and Shep's apartment are very high-end; it takes longer for the rich to feel the effects of the war.
1055** The "Eat, Drink, and be Merry, for tomorrow we may die" is an extremely common thing. The parties in Berlin when the Soviets were coming in World War 2 were reportedly the stuff of legend.
1056** It could be postulated that this is Bioware's way of apologizing for the ending. Because the ending is unavoidable by design in the game, Bioware seems to have included this mission as if to say, "Here's a new ending; just pretend that all the Reapers were destroyed, everything worked out, nobody died, and the crew starts to relax on the Citadel for a while."
1057** Forgetting that the war is going on is '''the entire point''' behind shore leave. Anderson gives Shepard the apartment so it can serve as a place to relax from the insanity-inducing pressure of saving the galaxy. The Silversun Strip is packed with people because they're desperately trying to escape the war. The Spectre Office terminal even has an entry noting that the only parts of the economy that are doing well are recreational. And the war itself is not forgotten; the entire point behind the clone and Brooks' attempted takeover is that, in their eyes, Shepard seems to be more focused on helping aliens than humans in the war. The entire DLC even ends with a scene where Shepard and his/her crew gather outside the Normandy and comment that its back into the fight for all of them. Hell, you even get a War Asset that amounts to the Normandy crew's morale being greatly boosted by taking a night off, clearing their heads and getting them ready to get back into the fight.
1058[[/folder]]
1059
1060[[folder: Vega romance-able.]]
1061* At the party Vega can become a romance option. That isn't the headscratcher part: did Shepard get him drunk so she could sleep with him? Seriously? Shepard is willing to use DateRape?
1062** No. No she did not. Why would you even assume that?
1063** A case of Administrivia/SquarePegRoundTrope on my part. Getting Vega drunk so she can sleep with him isn't DateRape, but it's quite creepy and out of character for Shepard. Really? [[ButLiquorIsQuicker She's going to pull that?]]
1064** No, I mean why would you assume fem!Shep deliberately set out to get Vega drunk ''specifically so she could sleep with him?'' Why not the much more rational explanation that they were both drinking and they just happened to end up in bed together?
1065** Because if memory serves this wasn't the first time Shepard tried and Vega wasn't interested. Here she gets rather pushy, then when the idea of him getting drunk comes up she goes for it. It just comes across as to be honest a little creepy and out of character, and I don't think I'm the only one.
1066** For that matter, imagine if it were male Shepard and say...Traynor.
1067** Okay, sorry to butt in but I don't think it was a chance that you picked Traynor just now, and I would like to point this out: Het!Fem!Shepard and James Vegas having a drunken tryst that is enjoyable but regrettable is not the same as Het!Male!Shepard pouring drinks into Traynor until... okay, unless we are talking literal rape here it does not fit. She is '''''gay,''''' ''she does not like men,'' it is just that simple. A better example, and the only example that makes any god damn sence is Het!Male!Shepard drinking... Kasumi into a drunken tryst (seriously, unless I am forgetting someone, she is the only female party-member that is not a romantic option for a male!Shepard). Sorry for being a joy-kill, but the amount of "Why can't she at least be bi!" / "Why can't I bang her?!" screams over at youtube is very anoying and a perfect example of what people like to call "Heteronormativity".
1068** Well yes and no. Yes, I didn't choose Traynor by chance, but no it wasn't because she's gay, it was because she was the most vulnerable woman I could think of in the second game. The point being if a male gets a female drunk then sleeps with her it seems a lot worse than if a female does the same thing.
1069** As for Kasumi being romanceable, it seems like the only reason why she's not is because she's too focused on Jacob. Bet good money she would go for it, given her cool dirty minded CovertPervert...ness.
1070** That's easy. With enough drinks, even Traynor can turn [[IfItsYouItsOkay Shepard-sexual]].
1071** So with enough drinks, even Vegas can turn [[IfItsYouItsOkay Shepard-sexual]]?
1072** Okay, seriously, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ygGLuuGn8 here]] is the fem!Shep/Vega romance scene from the DLC. In the first scene you can clearly see that Vega is strongly attracted to fem!Shep. And she certainly makes no secret of the fact that she also wants him bad. The only way it could be more obvious is if she grabbed him by the ears and shoved his face into her knockers. The ''only'' reason Vega doesn't go for it right there is because he's intimidated by her Living Legend status. Then in the second scene when Shepard brings it up again, she asks what it would take for him loosen up and forget the "Commander Shepard" thing. ''And he says he would need a few drinks.'' So not only does fem!Shep NOT deceive Vega into sleeping with her, ''he's the one who suggests they start drinking.'' Hell, Vega doesn't even drink while she's there! He waits until she ''goes away'' to start pounding down the beers. So there was absolutely nothing stopping him changing his mind at any point. I defy you to explain how this qualifies as DateRape. Even if they retconned Traynor into being bisexual and gave male!Shep the exact same romance scene with her, my feelings about it would be exactly the same. Shepard didn't force anyone to do anything. This whole argument is much ado about nothing.
1073** It doesn't matter that she didn't "technically" force him to do anything and it doesn't matter that he was physically attracted. He mentioned drinking as something he would need to do in order to sleep with her and her response was essentially "start drinking then". It doesn't matter that he did the drinking while she wasn't around. She continually pressured a subordinate into doing something he clearly wasn't comfortable doing. At best it's a massive case of sexual harrasment. Coercion and intimidation override technically consent just as much as force does.
1074** This. It's not a case of DateRape, but it ''is'', as someone mentioned above, sexual harrassment at best and [[ButLiquorIsQuicker something that is often considered a form of rape]] at worst. There's absolutely no question in my mind that ''most'' players would find the sequence more than a little sleazy and out of character if the genders were flipped.
1075** "[S]omething that is often considered a form of rape" ...by people who have inappropriately stretched the definition of rape to a ridiculous degree. You can't just declare any hookup that happens to involve alcohol a case of DateRape. It doesn't work that way. There has to be ''some'' sort of coercion or deception involved somewhere. If not, then it's simply not rape. Or else you would be forced to conclude that every married couple that has ever had sex after a candle-lit dinner and a few glasses of wine is guilty of rape. Both of them. Simultaneously.
1076** From the sounds of it, they both already gave consent--he said he wanted to, she said she wanted to, when both of them were of sound mind. He just decided he needed some liquid courage to go ahead with it. If that's rape, then so is every time some nervous guy does a shot before he goes to ask someone out.
1077** Taking a shot to calm your nerves or sharing a romantic drink with a significant other are both quite a bit different from drinking heavily because someone in a position of authority over you essentially said, "if you need to be drunk to sleep with me than start drinking."
1078** Not when the person in a position of authority over you has no actual authority over you. As a Spectre, Shepard is officially outside the Alliance chain of command. She has no actual power to give Vega orders. The only reason Vega does what Shepard tells him is because he chooses to. All Shepard did was present Vega with a simple choice. Have a few drinks so you'll loosen up and sleep with me...or don't. Again, there MUST be coercion or deception involved somewhere, or it simply cannot be considered rape. Fem!Shep didn't trick Vega into getting drunk and sleeping with her, so no deception. And at no point was it ever implied that there would be negative consequences if Vega didn't sleep with her, so no coercion. Furthermore, going back to the "what if it was male!Shep and Traynor?" comparison, there's another reason (apart from the whole sexuality issue) why this comparison doesn't work. Traynor (generally speaking) is a rather vulnerable and submissive person, while Vega is extremely confident and assertive. It's easy to imagine someone like Traynor being too intimidated ''not'' to do whatever Shepard tells her. But it's very hard to imagine someone like Vega being intimidated in the same way. (Certainly not by someone half his size. Cybernetics or no, Vega looks like he could break fem!Shep in half.) So, no, it wouldn't be a DoubleStandard.
1079** Shepard is the commanding officer of the Normandy regardless of Alliance status. Even other Spectres have to follow her orders if they're on the Normandy. So there are in fact plenty of things Shepard could to to Vega if he doesn't do what she wants. And threats can come just as much from tone of voice and context as they do from actual words.
1080** Shepard is the commander of the Normandy, but Vega is under no obligation to stay on the Normandy. He's there because he wants to be there. And militaries are generally quite clear on what orders a [=CO=] is allowed to give to subordinates. Shepard ''cannot'' punish Vega for refusing to sex her up. And unless Vega is the dumbest soldier alive, he would have to know that.
1081** If Vega wants to stay on the Normandy, than that is just one of the things she could use against him if she were to sexually harrass him. Also, Shepard is outside of the Alliance chain of command, and with with Spectre status fully reinstated, she doesn't have to follow their regulations on what orders she's allowed to give. Which Vega would know.
1082** Shepard is only technically outside the Alliance chain of command. S/he still receives huge amounts of support from the Alliance, which means s/he has to stay in their good graces. Being a sexual predator will destroy that relationship and remove that support, so Shepard won't do it. All of this is irrelevant anyway, because there was never even a ''hint'' of a threat that Vega would be tossed off the crew if he didn't have sex with Fem!Shep. For the umpteenth time, there must be ''actual coercion or deception going on'' for rape to occur. There was none. Nada. Zip. Zero. Ergo, '''not rape by any definition of the term'''.
1083** At that stage, Shepard could (and may very well) be a mass murderer and she would still be getting massive alliance support just for the sake of stopping the Reapers. Being the savior of the galaxy pretty much gives Shepard ultimate job security, plus all those non-alliance resources Shepard has built up. And yes, a threat was hinted. Shepard's response to a subordinate telling her that he would have to be drunk to sleep with her was to order him to get drunk. He was intimidated into consuming enough alcohol to impair his judgment. It is at best a massive case of sexual harassment. Depending on how much Vega drank, than it was by definition non-forcible rape.
1084** Non-forcible rape is an oxymoron. That's like saying that someone was non-lethally murdered. At the absolute worst, Shepard hooking up with Vega could be considered inappropriate fraternization with a subordinate. Two consenting adults had a few drinks and hooked up - calling that rape is laughable and an insult to real rape victims.
1085** Non-forcible rape refers to rape that does not involve physical coercion. That doesn't mean it was any less rape. There are plenty of people who were in Vega's position who will testify to that and it is deeply insulting to them to write off such situations as "two consenting adults having a drink". Rape does often does not involve physical force and it very rarely involves strangers.
1086** Is this still going on? Really? Alright, let's take a look at the scenario; it was a party, both of them likely had a lot to drink, both were attracted to each other, and they decided to sleep together in a drunk state. There was mutual consent between the two, drunken or not, so that cannot be rape. "Non-forcible rape refers to rape that does not involve physical coercion. That doesn't mean it was any less rape." By that logic, all sexual intercourse can be inferred to be rape. A person at a bar takes someone to a motel for a one night stand that both consented to; that's rape. A wife convinces their husband to have sex after a long day of hard work; that's rape. Shepard convinces any other Love Interest to sleep with him/her; that's rape. What Shepard did with Vega could be called rape, but you'd have to call pretty much all other sex in the universe rape as well.
1087** You seem to be confused on what non-forcible rape is. It's not any of the things you describe. It's a parole officer telling their parolee that if they don't have sex with them they're going back to prison. It's a boss telling their subordinate that if they don't have sex with them they will be fired or if they do they will get a promotion. It's someone breaking into someone's house and threatening to kill their family if they don't go along. Subordinate/Boss relationships can always get complicated hence fraternization regulations in the first place. If Shepard had outright said "Drink and have sex with me or else I will..." it would be a very clear case of non-forcible rape. As it is, we just have to figure out if not only did Shepard intend to threaten Vega but (even if she didn't) did Vega take it as a threat? If Vega felt threatened and, after this was over, tried to press charges and Shepard honestly hadn't intended to imply Vega would suffer consequences for not complying and people believed this would Shepard still be on the hook for this?
1088** [[UnfortunateImplications That is a gross distortion of the issue]]. None of the scenarios you describe involve a military officer pressuring a subordinate who is clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation into drinking until his judgment is sufficiently impaired because there is no other way he would have sex. Are you just ignoring the part where he pretty much said to Shepard point-blank that it would only happen if he was drunk and her response was to order him to start drinking? Because that's about the only way I can see someone try to claim that it was just two people having a drink and going to bed together. That, and DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale. His discomfort alone paints a serious picture of DubiousConsent.
1089** My apologies, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly when I wrote that. You're correct, it is a distortion, and I hadn't seen those scenes for a while. Having said that, and having watched the scenes again, I still don't see where this issue is coming from. It's true that Vega is intimidated by Shepard, which is understandable, given her status as a Living Legend, however I never got the impression that Shepard was ordering him to get drunk in order to sleep with him or threatening him to do so. However, let's say that the conversation can give off that impression (again, I don't see it, but maybe I'm not the best person to judge that), we also have to remember that Shepard's morals and attitudes are based on how the player acts, so the conversation's creepiness factor and implications of sexual harrasement or date rape really depends on whether Shepard is Paragon or Renegade: If it's the former then it's likely that she doesn't mean that at all, if it's the latter.. that's pretty much in character for Renegade Shepard, so why are people surprised? It's not unprecedented, I recall hearing about dialogue in Mass Effect 2 with the implication of Renegade Shepard questioning whether Samara's code allowed him to take sexual advantage of her (her reply being the implication that if he tries that, he'll be reduced to a smear on the wall). That's my take on it anyway, but again, maybe I'm not the best person to judge that.
1090** Threats do not need to be explicit and renegades are supposed to be ruthless, not evil. It's a grey area, but that's like describing the difference between black and dark grey. The pressure Shepard puts on James in that scenario despite his clear discomfort makes it a serious case of sexual harassment at best. How much worse it is depends on how drunk he was.
1091** But there wasn't much of an implicit threat directed at James, and as for "renegades are supposed to be ruthless, not evil," I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on that, given some of the actions that renegade Shepard can take are pointlessly cruel (Such as lying to and killing Wrex and causing Tali to commit suicide. I don't care what your reasons are for letting them die, to do that to a close friend is just evil. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all).
1092** Responding to "I would need to be drunk to sleep with you" with "start drinking then" is an implied threat when it's coming from a commanding officer and depending on how much he drank he may have been physically and legally ''incapable'' of giving consent. Also, the truly "evil" Renegade acts are from a third game and are a noted shift from the first two.
1093** In regards to the evil Renegade argument; there is what I mentioned above about Samara and that was in the second game, not to mention Morinth, who is proven to be a deadly psychotic murderer with the potential to have an astronomical death count and Shepard just lets her loose on the galaxy (and that's just for starters, there likely are more that I can't think of at the moment). And even if both of those are somehow ''not'' evil, "the truly "evil" Renegade acts are from a third game" so that would really explain why and how Renegade Shepard would be willing to threaten Vega in order to sleep with him. As for Paragon Shepard, again, if there's an implied threat in her dialogue to James, she likely doesn't mean it, which James would also likely know. People keep forgetting that the morality of Shepard ''depends on how the player acts,'' so the same would go with any implied threat.
1094** Is James a mind reader now? Even if Shepard is a paragon and doesn't mean "if you need to get drunk to sleep with me than start drinking" as a threat, James doesn't necessarily know that, and his very clear discomfort strongly indicates that he did not.
1095** That's assuming that Vega's discomfort stems from being forced to do something he doesn't want to do, instead of being nervous about something he does want to do. The ''Savior of the Galaxy'' is showing an interest in ''him''. He's clearly attracted to her, and when her response confirms that she's interested in him, his reaction is surprise and disbelief. It would be like the celebrity of your dreams admitting to being interested in you: even if it's something you've always wanted, you're still going to be nervous about it actually happening. So, is James a mind reader: No, but he has been around Shepard long enough to know her personally and know her personality and morals. And once again, this whole argument is really dependent on ''''how the player acts!''''
1096** After they sleep together, she asks him if it was "fun, crazy, wild" and he says "maybe" and he'd ''really'' rather not discuss it ever again. That doesn't sound like someone who was just nervous. He makes it incredibly explicit in-game that he may find her attractive and amazing, but he's not comfortable having sex with her, and he'd have to be extremely drunk to even consider it. So she keeps pushing him throughout the party to hammer down drinks. Sounds pretty textbook to me.
1097** The argument above doesn't work, because ''that's'' assuming that there is some imaginary line between "something you want to do but can't decide to" and "something you don't want to do". A woman that finds Channing Tatem attractive but won't go for it because the reality is more intimidating than the fantasy isn't automatically implying consent because of desire. "I want to, but can't/won't" is not "Let's do it". Also, the Paragon/renegade argument here seems really pointless. Shepard's actions seem very coercive, regardless of morality.
1098** The way consent law regarding drinking works, in writing, is paraphrased as follows; "When intoxicated, an individual cannot legally consent to sexual activity." That means, for example (to use a man and a woman);
1099*** If an intoxicated man and an intoxicated woman have sex, '''neither''' is consenting, so by law either '''neither''' of them are committing sexual assault or '''both''' are.
1100*** If a man has sex with an intoxicated woman, he is technically committing sexual assault, but may not be actual rape because she can still make decisions.
1101*** If a woman has sex with an intoxicated man (let's rule out the "whiskey dick" phenomenon, as that doesn't always occur and doesn't rule out some sex acts), she is technically committing sexual assault, but may not be actual rape because he can still make decisions.
1102** Being drunk doesn't stop you from making decisions, it just clouds your judgement. The problem (and the lengthy discussion above) is due in part to a gender-based double standard against men. The double-standard can be summed up as a combination of the AManIsAlwaysEager and VirginShaming tropes. The rest of the problem is the ambiguous scenario. James and Femshep have been playfully flirting for awhile, but they step it up at the party. While both of them have drinks, it's Femshep who's the instigator. If she was trying to get him drunk then that is a form of DateRape. While there is no indicator that Femshep was making James drink, she seems to still take advantage of the opportunity which is seedy. So the final answer depends on the circumstances; from what's seen, the answer is '''no''' with more responsibility placed on Femshep because they '''both''' were drinking.
1103[[/folder]]
1104
1105[[folder: Amount of Random Husks]]
1106* So am I the only person confused about the massive amount of human husks encountered throughout the game. And before people complain, I am well aware creatures like Banshees are also husks, but I mean the human, meagre husks. It is completely understandable in the final level since you are basically at the source of all harvested humans, but the amount of husks you encounter on worlds such as Palaven confuses me. Is it ever explicitly stated how Reapers can somehow get human husks to places like Palaven?
1107** No. However, the Reapers proved they are adept cloners, given the Rachni Breeder and the returned Collectors. They may very well have quick-cloned an army. They don't exactly need husks to think.
1108** It's also not inconceivable that the Reapers would have them store somewhere to use on human forces, which would be every conflict Shepard is involved in since s/he and possibly the team are human. Though this brings up why there are not masses of Marauders on Palaven.
1109** There probably are. But you're on Menae, which is a heavily fortified moon.
1110** We see that the Reapers can deploy husks to a battlefield via some sort of orbital drop-pods. And we saw in [=ME=]2 that each capital-class reaper has a massive amount of space inside it. They could cram hundreds of human husks into each Reaper and take them wherever they need them. Hell, they could even grab a nice batch of unconverted humans and huskify them on the way.
1111[[/folder]]
1112
1113[[folder: Jack's rack]]
1114* In the Citadel DLC Miranda makes a remark about how Jack's boobs appear to have gotten bigger since [=ME=]2 but thought that was because of her new outfit. Jack basically says they only looked smaller because she deliberately was strapping them down because showing off your cleavage in a prison is a bad idea. Personally, I assumed the reason she "filled out" in [=ME=]3 was because she was probably better fed as an Alliance instructor than she was in prison. More to the point, while her reasoning for making her boobs look smaller makes sense, wouldn't it have been even better to wear one of the prison uniforms and not show any cleavage at all? I guess I assumed she had made such a fearsome reputation for herself in Purgatory that she chose to go topless on a ship full of rapists because she wanted to send the message that even when she made herself a target (dressing like she was "asking for it") the rest of the inmates wouldn't dare touch her unless they wanted to die horribly.
1115** It wasn't about reducing cleavage, it was about making her breasts smaller and less appealing, which are different things. It's possible she had a shirt at some point and lost it, maybe it was ripped apart when she was attacked and gang raped in the bathroom? She was in stasis/frozen when Shepard shows up and then goes on an immediate rampage, no chance to change outfits. Once she's on the Normandy it's not really an issue, nobody on the ship is going to attack her and she does get access to an alternate outfit that does cover her up.
1116[[/folder]]
1117
1118[[folder: Kirrahe saving the councillor]]
1119* If Thane died during the suicide mission, during the cerberus coup Kirrahe will instead save the councillor by taking a bullet. Is it ever explained what Kirrahe was doing in executor's office, or did I miss something? The last time we saw him he was on Sur'Kesh. Why was he on the Citadel in the first place?
1120** This is just s guess, but Kirrahe was a Major in the STG, and probably someone the Salarian Councilor trusted. The Councilor probably called Kirrahe there because he wanted someone he could trust if things went south (which they did.) Remember that if both Thane and Kirrahe are dead, so is the Councilor.
1121** Kirrahe actually mentions on Sur'Kesh that he'll likely be reassigned to bodyguard the Salarian Councilor if you pick the right dialogue options.
1122[[/folder]]
1123
1124[[folder: Phantom Sync-Kill]]
1125* Why is the Phantom's instant kill move, "Impale", even lethal at all? The Phantoms sre purpotedly armed with Monomolecular blades, which is fine and all, but shouldn't that therefore do the most damage when slashing/cutting? Assuming it holds its edge, the real damage from a blade comes directly from the area in which you do your damage, or the size of the wound. The Phantom seems to simply impale Shepard/Multiplayer Character in the Abdomen, which (s)he could easily survive; as in a monomolecular inch-sized stab wound. The damage doesn't come from the size of the wound either, as the tip of the blade is only about an inch or so. What irks me more is that the other instakill animations make sense. The Atlas's crushes with a huge claw, applying trauma to a very large area, and the Banshee sticks a larger-than-monomolecular hand through its victim. Why doesn't the Phantom just slash its victim, something, imho, that would cause far more bodily trauma than a "monomolecular stab".
1126** The blade doesn't necessarily need to kill you; it just needs to put you down long enough for the phantom to finish you off. The blade likely has some kind of paralytic poison or is electrified, which can stun the victim long enough that it doesn't matter if the initial stab wound is survivable.
1127*** Phantom blades may well use poison or acid. There's fetch-quests immediately after you fight off the Cerberus raid on the Citadel that involve finding a way to deal with the toxins from a Cerberus blade wound and chemical burns.
1128** Phantoms being able to kill Krogan and Vorcha with a single blade wound(Krogan have redundant organs and nervous system while Vorcha lack conventional organs) when both species have regenerative properties so robust the only work around for us to kill them back in Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 were Toxic(which still didn't kill Krogans instantly) or Incendiary Rounds(which prevented their regeneration for a time as well). Hell, Thane has a journal entry detailing ways to take down several other species unarmed...until you get to the Krogan entry which basically involves breaking every limb, their neck, then shoving an explosive down their throat before their regeneration kicks in. It's especially galling when they introduced the Krogan Battlemaster into the multiplayer who actually has health regeneration(unlike the other 2 Krogan classes) who STILL can by synch-killed by a Phantom with a single stab wound to the chest.
1129*** Yes, Phantoms can one-shot krogan and vorcha in multiplayer. In multiplayer you also have drell, volus, and asari who instantly get back up from being impaled or crushed once all the enemies are killed, packs of Atlas walkers teleporting into small buildings, and successful extractions because everyone is bleeding to death but an Engineer's drone is still active somewhere. Phantoms can one-shot those species in multiplayer because it's a multiplayer videogame mode.
1130[[/folder]]
1131
1132[[folder: Kalros and the maw hammers]]
1133* How come Kalros wasn't attracted by the Reaper's steps before the hammers were turned on?
1134** The Maw Hammers almost certainly do something specific to attract Threshers, which is why it drew in Kalros. Note that you need to fire off ''both'' Hammers to draw her in.
1135[[/folder]]
1136
1137[[folder: Who's imprisoned for working with Cerberus and who isn't]]
1138* Ken and Gabby are arrested just for serving on board the Normandy, despite having not committed any serious crimes. The only way for them to get free again is if you arrange for them to be pardoned by using your influence as a Spectre. Meanwhile Jack, who's been a criminal pretty much her whole life before [=ME=]2, is not only forgiven for her crimes and for being part of your crew, but is offered a job at Grissom Academy. Wouldn't it have made more sense the other way around, with Gabby & Ken getting a slap on the wrist and Jack being locked up again? Sure, Jack turned out to be trustworthy, but the Alliance had no way of knowing she would be and every reason to believe she ''wouldn't'' be, given her history.
1139** Jack never worked for Cerberus directly. She worked for Shepard. Ken and Gabby explicitly left the Alliance and joined Cerberus - even if it was just to fight alongside Shepard. They also turned themselves in after it was all over. Jack most likely did her damndest to hide what she was doing before she took on the job at Grissom, and even if anyone was aware of her past, the fact that she's a powerful biotic willing to help teach the kids might have been enough to let her slip past.
1140** I'm also guessing that a pardon for her previous crimes was a part of the job offer. Plenty of criminals have turned their lives around when they had a shot for a rewarding, honest lifestyle, like Creator/DannyTrejo. Looks like the Alliance recruiter was feeling paragon that day.
1141** [[RecruitingTheCriminal We even have a trope for this.]]
1142** Ken and Gabby willingly joined a terrorist group, a group the Alliance HATES even before the coup attempt on the Citadel, and is deeply ashamed of. Joker and Shepard were in the same boat until the Reapers showed up and they grabbed the Normandy and ran. Much like our favorite Doctor Jack never worked for Cerberus, and in fact hates them utterly, and is a massive asset even without the Reapers as a threat. She's literally the most powerful human biotic and she's willing to work for their team voluntarily. Ken and Gabby are just engineers, talented but unremarkable, who betrayed the Alliance, and it's mentioned in 2 that ken basically burned bridges before he left since he was so mad about them turning their backs on Shepard.
1143[[/folder]]
1144
1145[[folder:Why does Miranda hold out on Shepard?]]
1146* The Illusive Man clearly has the same base in this game that he did in ''[=ME=]2'' (same dying star out the window of his office and everything), and we know Miranda has been there at least once (since we see her there in the game's very first cutscene), so why doesn't she tell Shepard where it is during one of the ''three separate meetings'' she has with Shepard prior to Horizon? What, she didn't think that the location for the home base of the mastermind behind the single greatest hindrance to the united war effort ''might just'' be useful information for the Alliance or the Council to have?
1147** Because she doesn't actually know where it is. The base moves every time one of TIM's agents meets with him personally to prevent something like what you're suggesting from happening.
1148** But it clearly doesn't move. The star it orbits in this game is the same star it orbited in the previous one.
1149** No, it's not. The station will move in the second game to either a red or blue giant depending on your alignment at the end. And regardless, it ''does'' move; ''Mass Effect: Ascension'' lays out that fact explicitly.
1150*** The red and blue star in the [=ME2=] endings are the same star -- Anadius -- as the one in [=ME3=]. The info blurb on Cronos Station says that Anadius is a dying star that periodically shifts from red to blue luminosities and back again. We're meant to assume that the station hasn't moved, at least in the three years between the prologue of [=ME2=] and the ending of [=ME3=].
1151** It's possible that Miranda doesn't actually know where it is despite having been there; could be that every time an operative goes to the base they're taken with the high tech equivalent of a bag over their head; put in a passenger hold of a ship or shuttle with no access to nav information.
1152[[/folder]]
1153
1154[[folder: Citadel DLC No-shows]]
1155* So, I'm going to assume that the actual reason these characters don't show up is because Bioware either couldn't get their voice actors or simply didn't want to splurge for them, but why is it that Adams, Ken, Gabby, and Kelly don't get invites to the Citadel party? They're at least as much a part of the crew as Chakwas(who was invited but couldn't make it due to a medical emergency).
1156** The Normandy is getting a tune up during the DLC, so Adams, Ken and Gabby are busy with that, and since they're Alliance officers they can't just drop everything and go party like the others when there's work to be done (Cortez, Vega and Traynor don't have much to do with the Normandy docked so they've got spare time). As for Kelly, if she's still alive at that point she's laying low with a new identity, helping stabalise the refugees and she's not really close with anyone on the Normandy (seriously, did anyone ever actually mention her in the second or third game?) so unless Shepard invites her him/herself she's not going to be showing up. The party was more for the front line fighters to have one last bit of fun before everything goes to hell and they all probably die and Steve, Samantha and Jeff came along for the ride.
1157[[/folder]]
1158
1159[[folder: Ardat-Yakshi Commandos]]
1160* The traumatized asari ex-commando in Huerta Memorial hospital tells her story to her psychiatrist, and mentions how one member of her squad was turned into a Banshee - something that as far as we know, is only possible to do to Ardat-Yakshi. If that's not enough proof, the commando herself murmurs about he she wanted to be "more than friends" with her squadmate, but she had a "condition". This strikes me as very odd: both she and her therapist are clearly aware of her being an Ardat-Yakshi, so it's not like she kept it a big secret or anything - so how did she become a commando in the first place? All Ardat-Yakshi are supposed to live in isolated monasteries where they wouldn't be able to hurt anyone. It's insane that someone who knew about that agreed to give her ''military training and weapons''.
1161** The A-Y condition exists on a spectrum. Some of those who have the A-Y condition do not have anything more than genetic markers for it, and don't manifest the entire range of the disease. In this case, the commando would have carried some markers for the disease but wouldn't be such a full-blown case as to require sequestering in a monestary.
1162** The codex entry for Lessus mentions that Ardat-Yakshi who spend enough time in the monastery and demonstrate sufficient self-control are allowed to reintegrate into asari society.
1163** Exactly. The "[=A-Ys=] must live in monasteries or be destroyed" thing is from the Justicar Code, a relic of old times that Samara clings to. The modern asari society is more humane in this aspect, as pointed out by Codex entries for both Lesuss and Ardat-Yakshi.
1164[[/folder]]
1165
1166[[folder: When did everyone on the Normandy get so introverted?]]
1167* In a talk with Liara, Garrus mentions putting rugs down in the weapons CIC and basically living in there. This got me thinking how most of your squad mates, instead of being in the normal soldier bunks, go to great lengths to make their own rooms on a military vessel with limited space. Garrus is off calibrating, Liara takes over Miranda's office, Vega has his nook in hangar, Javik has Grunt's room, and I wanna guess Tali is sleeping in Jack's hidey-hole. Again this is a military vessel, what allows them to take up large spaces for themselves instead of sleeping in crew quarters with everyone else?
1168** "Hey, Shepard, mind if I sleep in this unused area of the ship?" "Sure." 'Kay." Alternately, they do use the crew sections of the ship, its just that they spend a lot of time in certain sections of the ship, which is where they're found normally. There's no real evidence that Tali or Garrus are sleeping exclusively in their work areas on the ship. Liara claiming Miranda's room makes sense as she needs her own office to handle the Shadow Broker work and its the previous office of the ship's XO. Javik occupying Grunt's space makes sense mostly because he's antisocial in the extreme and would not bunk well with others. There's plenty of room to bunk in the cargo bay, so Vega's not causing any problems.
1169[[/folder]]
1170
1171[[folder: [=FemShep's=] Gaydar]]
1172* [[ARareSentence Well, that is a headline I never thought I was gonna write...]] Anyway: In a game where Male and Female Shepard is identical for 99 procent of the game, there is one glaring exception: Male Shepard is given the chance to make a fool of himself by hitting on Traynor, but [=FemShep=] doesn't get the chance to make a fool of herself by hitting on Cortez. Why this enforced WomenAreWiser trope? I would love to hear Cortez's answer, especially after him mentioning women throwing themself at him if you romance him as a male.
1173** Steve mentions his husband almost right off the bat. [=FemShep=] probably assumes NoBisexuals.
1174*** Except that Shepard herself may be bisexual.
1175** By the time manShep can make a move on Steve it's made pretty clear that he's only into guys and that he's fairly into Shepard, so at that same point femShep knows it's not an option (neither of them is going to be hitting on him while he's depressed and grieving for his husband). With Traynor manShep can make a move right when they're just getting to know each other so he's not aware her tastes are female exclusive.
1176** Maybe 'cause FemShep already feels stupid from trying to hit on Tali in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' after she says she'd share suits with her.
1177[[/folder]]
1178
1179[[folder: Infidelity]]
1180* If romanced in [=ME=]1, dialogue from Horizon in [=ME2=] and for most of [=ME3=] makes it entirely clear that Ashley/Kaidan and Shepard are no longer "together" at that point, so why in the third game do Ashley/Kaidan seriously get angry and accuse Shepard of being "unfaithful" if they got together with someone else in [=ME=]2?... Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since literally everything they say up until that point, and even still after that point (particularly during one scene when they almost deliberately shoot you in the head), pretty much says that the PC is still dead to them and they want, they're totally convinced your some kind of Cerberus sellout or Reaper toadie or whatever, and they want absolutely nothing to do with him/her anymore. They ''do not'' care for him/her anymore. Why would they care in the slightest who the PC dates?
1181** If you romanced them in the first game they'll send you an e-mail after Horizon somewhat apologising for their reaction and saying that seeing you and finding you're with Cerberus has their emotions all messed up and they don't know how they feel. When you meet them again in the third game it's almost a year later (six months since the end of the second game plus however long it took between Horizon and Shepard turning themselves in), Shepard was still working for Cerberus and may be controlling him/her, and they've blown up a Mass Relay and killed a few hundred thousand batarians so naturally they don't quite trust you until you earn it. However, while cautious and suspicious at first you can totally chat with them, start to reconnect and they'll even ask you to come visit them in the hospital while they recover from nearly being killed. That's not the behaviour of someone who doesn't care, that's the behaviour of someone who still cares a great deal but doesn't know how to deal with it. Yes they pull a gun on you, but they're a Specter at that point and it's the middle of a terrorist attack, you rush in with weapons drawn with two other armed individuals (only two of whom they're familiar with and one is an illegal AI) and trash the elevator controls. This looks very bad so they do their duty and protect the Council from you. If you've actually taken the time to reconnect with them they'll also side with you with no need to convince them and turn on Udina. You never actually broke up with them, there was no opportunity to do so, you just had a big fight that left you in a sort of neutral area so if you hook up with someone else then it is cheating. I probably didn't need to type this much to say that but there it is.
1182[[/folder]]
1183
1184[[folder: LI choices for Fem Shep]]
1185* Fem Shep only ever gets four heterosexual romance options, and only two of them actually last to the very end of the series. Of the others, one dies and the player can do absolutely nothing to save him, and with the other, FemShep gets cheated on and is expected to just take it. Male Shep gets six straight romance options through the series; a few have situations where they can potentially die but it's totally avoidable, and all of them remain totally loyal to him. That really is kind of unfair and sexist. It still feels as if everything is tailored for a male, even if female.
1186** Not really. I never really got the feeling that the female romances were any worse than the male ones. In fact, I would say that the fact that one of the female options can die and another can cheat on you is an improvement to the "totally loyal" nature of male Shepard's options; it adds realism and variety to her romances if there are multiple outcomes to those romances. Not to mention that, well, let's be honest: you seem to be treating the [[UnfortunateImplications homosexual romance options as if they're somehow "less" than the heterosexual options]]. I would actually argue that the fact that the female options include homosexual (or quasi-homosexual in Liara's case) makes the female options much stronger than the male options.
1187** Fem Shep and Man Shep are supposed to be identical, minus the obvious physical difference, as such they share the same sexual preference: bisexual with a preference for women. I don't think it's fair to count Thane's death against the romance, Thane was always dieing, anyone who romanced him knew that from the start and I felt it was handled respectfully. Jacob cheating is unfortunate but it's not like there was a female LI for ManShep to experience the same thing. The cheating is a reflection of his personality and none of the women are the kind to cheat.
1188** Yuck, talk about male gaze. What are the odds that the Andromeda trilogy will feature *-Shep as "bisexual with a preference for men"? As for all of the women being the kind to naturally stay faithful, Jack is the obvious option here. It's clear in the games she's willing to fool around casually and isn't at all the sort to "stay faithful" during an apocalypse.
1189** You're just assuming Jack won't stay faithful to the one person she trusts and who hasn't proven he's just interested in sex but wants a real relationship. And maybe she would. But we don't ever find out she did and she certainly didn't enter into a committed and monogamous relationship with someone else like Jacob did. The first game has one unique heterosexual love interest for both genders and Liara for both giving both genders two choices. The second game gives each gender three unique heterosexual love interests as well as three (or, well, two as yo can't have Samara and Morinth as options at the same time) quasi-LIs who don't get you the achievement for both genders. At this point, I'm wondering why all the bi options are women. In the third game, there are five LIs (who, for the most part, carry over from previous games) for men, three for women, and four four either with Kaidan being the one male LI who could be for both genders. In the Citadel DLC there's Javik and Vega for female Shepard and Samara for either. But that's just the DLC. And if you just started playing with ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', as a female Shepard your only heterosexual LI is Kaidan since Garrus and Thane have to be romanced in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' and let's not talk about Jacob. Female Shepard has several homosexual options they can choose from. Similarly, the only homosexual option male Shepard seems to have is Cortez while he has plenty of heterosexual options. And that's not a case of one being lesser than the others but it does mean that if you want to date someone of a certain gender you either get fortunate and have multiple options or you're stuck with one you'd better hope you like if you want any action at all. And whatever you want to call it, it is a problem.
1190** I agree with the person who started this header that it's pretty bad for Female Shepard to lack in heterosexual options when you look at the entirety of the trilogy. Thane's illness just "happening" to be uncurable and Jacob just "happening" to cheat no matter what amount to lazy writing end of story. As for the lack of gay options for both genders; information from the devs over the years have made it clear that Miranda, Jacob, Jack, Tali, and Thane were supposed to be available for both genders until the backlash from Fox News made the dev team too scared to risk that kind of fallout again. Except for the isuse with Thane and Jacob possibly remaining in place, things where going to be better overall until outside circumstances got in the way.
1191[[/folder]]
1192
1193[[folder: Krogan reproduction]]
1194* Do Krogan lay eggs or give birth to live young? Since they kind of look reptilian, it would make sense for them to lay eggs, and indeed, a line of dialogue with EDI references female Krogan laying clutches of eggs. But I'm a little confused, because when speaking with Eve, she talks about given birth to a child (singular) in the past that was stillborn (implying live birth, not hatching from an egg), and that the spirit of one of her clan sisters will be "midwife to her firstborn" (again, singular, and implying live birth). Then, later on, Wrex says that Eve has become pregnant. So, can anyone figure this out??
1195** Not all reptiles lay eggs (most do though) and Krogan are not Earth reptiles, so you can't expect them to reproduce like Earth reptiles. Based on the lines in the game, I think they give live birth. They talk about stillborns as opposed to unhatched eggs.
1196** The codex states that Krogans can produce "up to 1000 fertilized eggs a year," so yeah, it's eggs. Plus, how could it be plausible for a Krogan to give 1000 ''live'' births a year unless she went into a coma for 3 months as babies slid out. The "stillborn" children would mean that the embryos seemingly developed normally in the eggs until it came time to hatch, where they just... didn't emerge. Or rather, the process also resulted in less eggs, allowing the mothers to care for individual ones, which would aslo fail due to the genophage. Or rather, it was a poetic embellishment meant to illuminate Shepard, a human who would understand the terms, to the plight of the Krogan mothers.
1197** Human reproduction also involves fertilized eggs, but that doesn't mean they actually ''lay'' eggs. "Stillbirth" and "miscarriage" are terms that don't make any sense at all unless you're referring to live births. (The codex specifically differentiates between krogan stillbirths and krogan miscarriages -- but these would be the same if they're both simply "failed-to-hatch" eggs). We don't really know how large krogan newborns are, or how long the gestation period is, or how many are expected at once, so it's hard to say how a krogan woman would produce at maximum 1k per year, but we do know that the traditional role of krogan women is to stay on Tuchanka and breed full-time. Also keep in mind that "up to" is not the same as "typical", and that as the number of fertilized eggs drifts up from the species' norm, the percentage of survivors tends to drop. Humans have been known to produce up to nine fertilized eggs in a single year, but no case of nonuplets has ever survived infancy.
1198[[/folder]]
1199
1200[[folder: Samara and Falere's epilogue]]
1201* If both Samara and Falere survive Lesuss, in the Extended Cut they're seen in a big asari city on what looks like Thessia. Whuh?.. I thought Samara only let herself live because Falere agreed to stay in the now-empty monastery, thus escaping the prescriptions of the Justicar Code on a technicality. So Falere leaves the monastery, and Samara ''knows'', does nothing about it, and actually looks happy on that picture?
1202** Ardat-Yakshi are allowed to leave monasteries if supervised.
1203** Yes, but conventional asari law. But the whole point of Samara's sacrifice attempt was that the Justicar Code didn't allow for that (presumably because it's so archaic and black-and-white), and Samara felt bound by it beyond reason.
1204** It's possible that she's playing with the rules. Ardat-Yakshi can't be allowed to live outside a monastery, but Ardat-Yakshi need to live to be able to be brought to the monastery, so there's a time when they are allowed to live. It's possible Samara is "officially" escorting Falere until a new Monastery can be built.
1205** One of the tenets of the Justicar code is obedience to the existing asari government. It's mentioned in the codex that this bit was added to prevent the Justicars from staging a coup. Basically, as long as the asari government says an Ardat-Yakshi is allowed to be somewhere, than a Justicar is not allowed to interfere unless the Ardat-Yakshi attacks or attempts to seduce someone. Note that when Samara was ready to kill herself, there were no asari government officials to say that Falere could go somewhere else.
1206** The logical answer is that it's not Thessia, just the rebuilt monastery. When you explore it during the attack a few squadmates will comment that the place is both huge and beautiful, likely to make it more tolerable that the Ardat-Yakshi have to stay there their whole lives. Falere really didn't seem the type to even suggest leaving the monastery, especially since the last time the possibility came up her mother tried to shoot herself. Even if Samara's dead Falere won't leave the monastery. She agreed to stay there when she found out she was Ardat-Yakshi and she'll stick to her own code as firmly as her mother (Rila seemed to do so as well if the notes you find during the mission are any indication).
1207** When Samara was going to kill herself and Falere insisted on staying, there was a massive war going on. No one was available to watch the Ardat-Yakshi and Reapers were turning them into Banshees. Samara had a war to fight. She could probably justify killing herself but not staying and babysitting Falere if she's alive. When the war is over, even if just temporarily, Samara can likely be trusted as Falere's responsible guardian and keep an eye on her to make sure she's not trying to escape or mate with someone.
1208** It's likely that Samara ask permission to the Asari Goverment to personally keep an eye on Falere, given that she's both her mother and a Justicar.
1209[[/folder]]
1210
1211[[folder: Krogan rebuilding on Kalros' territory]]
1212* If the Genophage is cured, one of the Extended Cut endings will show the Krogan building a massive city right next to the "City of the Ancients" you explored in the Tuchanka mission. Here's the thing: that also happens to be Kalros' territory. Who's clever idea was it exactly to build a city in the middle of the established territory of a ''Kaiju''? Even if Kalros is naturally non-aggressive and only attacks when summoned by the Maw Hammers ... still, wouldn't all that tunneling by such a massive creature damage the foundations of those new buildings? Or did the Krogan just kill off Kalros unceremoniously to make way for their new real estate development? They'd just need to FeedItABomb ...
1213** They're ''krogan''. Building a city right on top of a Thresher Maw's lair would likely be seen as a sign of pure badassery by them.
1214[[/folder]]
1215
1216[[folder: Too Many Reapers]]
1217* It's revealed that the Catalyst located in the Citadel controls the actions of thousands of Reapers. Even if the cycle continues, what happens if there were too many reapers for the Catalyst to control? Is there a limit? Could the Catalyst potentially control trillions rather than the number seen in the games? Would the Catalyst need to rely on some subordinates to keep the rest in the line, the same a ruler does when ruling a large country? What happens if it lost contact with a group attacking a base somewhere and they somehow went renegade. It's not too much of a stretch, considering how the Leviathans were able to use their abilities to return a few Collectors to sentience after many years of selective breeding and indoctrination. What happens if the Catalyst malfunctions? Would you have a galaxy filled with Reapers going off on their own because their creator suffered some defects in their programming. And speaking of defects, what happens if their Reaperization process is not done properly and gets overlooked? Would they get a {{DefectorFromDecadence}}?
1218** First you're assuming the Catalyst directly controls them when all available evidence indicates that it doesn't, it merely decides their programming (harvest organic species when they reach a specific point in their development and make new Reapers out of them) which Shepard gets to change if you select the Control ending. Second, if it does control them directly then they're designed to be directly controlled so there should be no real limits on it's control. Especially since the Catalyst doesn't seem to actually do anything else but watch the galaxy.
1219[[/folder]]
1220
1221[[folder: Authenticity of geth footage]]
1222* How does Shepard know the archive footage seen in the geth virtual reality is accurate? Sure, it portrays the geth as innocent victims, but Legion specifically notes that it's tailored for Shepard's convenience (which is why the quarians are masked), so what's stopping the geth from outright fabricating these stories to win Shepard's sympathy?
1223** The geth don't lie. They've been wrong before, and been known to withhold important information (such as not bothering to come out and explain to everyone else that the heretics do not represent them as a species), but they don't lie. Legion is shocked and disturbed to discover that the heretics have learned how to actively lie. Which brings us to another point: Shepard is seeing this with the aid of Legion, who he trusts, or Legion's backup (who he shouldn't trust, because he's not Legion, but he treats him the same anyway). You may as well ask why he trusts what Garrus tells him.
1224** Which of course raises the question of whether Legion was telling the truth when it expressed that surprise, but really it does seem likely that the Geth actually don't lie. It's always possible that the Geth were telling the truth, but not the whole truth, but probably the writers just tried to make the Geth sympathetic in an over the top manner.
1225** You misread Legion's statement. When he tells Shepard the images were tailored for him, Legion means that they were tailored in a manner so Shepard's senses could actually UNDERSTAND them. Keep in mind, Geth do not perceive things the same way humans do. Geth use a variety of sensors which don't correlate to human vision. It might have been more accurate for Legion to have said "These memory images have been tailored to conform to your mind's ability to take in visual information." Or perhaps "We have translated these images into a form which makes sense to you."
1226[[/folder]]
1227
1228[[folder: Presidium Elevators]]
1229* During the Cerberus coup on the Citadel, Shepard takes an elevator to try and beat Kai Leng to the Council. This shaft sequence takes a long while, with the elevator ascending a huge distance. And then when Shepard and co. pop out, they're... still on the Presidium? What? There's no way that logic could possibly work as the Presidium is nowhere near tall enough to fit the entire sequence in even if you were super quick in taking enemies and elevators out on the way up. Even going to the Wards, the expected result, wouldn't make any sense since you'd have to go ''down'' to achieve that.
1230** There is likely some hidden lateral movement involved, or the elevator could have rotated and moved up along the Presidium ring. Also, the elevator could have ascended to the Wards. Juts because you go "down" to access one set of Wards in the first game doesn't mean you wouldn't go "up" to reach a different set of Wards in another orientation.
1231** It is also possible that you've moved to a complete different part of the Presidium ring. If you look at the ring during some of the Citadel-specific loading screens, you'll see that they are positively ''massive'', probably at least a kilometer in thickness. Also, when you're in the docking sections you're very much apart from the ring where the Commons and Embassies are located. It is almost certain that you've moved to either a different section of the Presidium or that there are multiple "rings" within the Presidium structure.
1232[[/folder]]
1233
1234[[folder: Minor Technical Discrepancies]]
1235* 1: The kodiac in this game is the improved model, using a stealth system similar to the Normandy's. This allows it to travel around Reaper spaced without issue; a great way to solve that particular problem. However when you attack the Geth the anti-air systems detect and attack the shuttle forcing you to go on foot. If they went to all the trouble of adding a stealth system to the shuttle then I'm sure they added other tech to prevent radar detection and such, so how where they found?
1236** Visual scanning. Plus the geth were using upgraded with Reaper tech.
1237* 2: The way they found [[spoiler: Sanctuary]] was part of a Cerberus plot. Traynor detects Leng's shuttle and then extrapolates his course through multiple relays (as shown on the map when she explains); what? It's been long established that once a vessel hits FTL travel it is impossible to track, let alone figuring the way he went after traveling through multiple relays seems impossible. Then she says she can't track him any further because the "signal" is being actively blocked. If it was this easy to track ships then how did TIM ever hide in the first place. I don't know why they did this as they had already established Miranda as looking into Sanctuary, which could have logically activated the quest. Even if she died it could have been a mission sent by somebody else looking into the disappearance of all those people.
1238** The ship was still transmitting. An outgoing signal to comm buoys can be tracked if someone's dumb enough to keep sending signals while traveling, even at FTL; the reason ships can't be tracked when they go to FTL is because they move at speed faster than ''sensors'' can track them, but if the ship is still transmitting to comm buoys it would be possible to follow comm buoy logs. It would be analogous to someone moving too fast to be tracked by modern sensors but still making wireless connections to [=ISPs=] along their route; if you know what to look for you can track them through the ISP to see where they've been. Plus transitions through mass relays are recorded (going by how the Shadow Broker has files on relay travel) which would mean one could just watch relay traffic for ships of a certain mass and profile. Because one-way relays go one-way and the ship has to transmit destination relays to multi-directional relays, once you've got the mass and profile you can easily track where its going. Its only once the ship goes off the network that it becomes hard to track, and that's where the comm buoys would come in. Traynor was able to figure out Kai Leng's signal and then track it using breadcrumbs when it jumped between relays and sent messages to TIM.
1239** Note that while ships cannot be directly followed with sensors once they go to FTL, it is still possible to ''pursue'' them. There's one uncharted planet in the first game that explicitly mentions an Alliance ship chasing a pirate contact that went to FTL speeds and was lost among a large number of signals along a heavily-used trade route, so there ''is'' precedent in the setting for following ships that have jumped. Presumably this involves the aforementioned methods of tracking through comm buoys or watching mass relay traffic.
1240[[/folder]]
1241
1242[[folder:The Kid]]
1243
1244* That damn kid at the ending. Okay, Shepard was watching him at the start of the game, and is understandably torn up the Reapers killed him. But is Shepard really that badly affected by it? Really? It's not like it was Shepard's son or anything.
1245** One explanation is that Shepard's been under house arrest for seven months by this time and their room overlooks that kids house. Shepard has likely seen or heard that kid playing a couple times, then had to watch helplessly as they got vaporised. Which, when you look at it, is the entire theme of the nightmare.
1246** Another reason is because Shep faced their first clear defeat, even Akuze had Shepard eventually finding Toombs and can at least talk him out of his murder spree and sleep easy for both sides. But for the kid, there was no consolation of any kind. This was the first time Shepard suffered from a catastrophic failure until Thessia.
1247** The child is symbolic. He's supposed to be representative of all of humanity, in Shepard's eyes, representing the ones s/he couldn't save. When you see the kid in Shepard's dreams, you're not seeing one child, you're seeing a symbolic representation of mankind.
1248** Also represents failure, failure to warn the galaxy about the reapers, failure to do something that made their deaths not be in vain.
1249** Be in a position of power where you can or could have helped people but no one listened and then watch a kid get killed infront of your eyes as a consequence of that. or just an experience of being in the presence of a child being murdered. It will eat you alive unless there's nothing inside you already.
1250
1251[[/folder]]
1252
1253[[folder:Legion and Reaper code]]
1254
1255* Ok, why is it that Legion is so eager to use the Reaper code to make all Geth true independent intelligences when in the second game it couldn't wrap its head around the concept of individuality and couldn't understand why anyone would want to do that?
1256** Part of the Geth goal is to achieve full sentience, which would be harder with the extermination of so many runtimes. Besides, it's been six months, and given that Geth supposedly think at light speed, he's likely had the time to think it over for the equivalent of several hundred years.
1257** Well, given that the choice was upload the Reaper code or '''''extinction''''' by the Quarian fleet...
1258
1259[[/folder]]
1260
1261[[folder:Rachni queen clone]]
1262
1263* If the Rachni queen died in ''1'', the Reapers clone a synthetic queen to breed up Ravagers and pods with. So if she didn't die and Shepard either freed the original queen or let her die, why is everyone so sure this will cut down on the production of new Ravagers? Can't the Reapers make another, maybe one that's guarded by more than a token force of husks and the children she produces? The Reapers have not been in this galaxy for long. Either they made a synthetic queen in the few weeks since the invasion, Sovereign decided to whip up a clone before leading geth against the Citadel, or the Collectors under Harbinger's control did it and stashed her somewhere well away from their base despite believing it was safe.
1264** For that matter, you find Spore Pods and Gestation Pods on different worlds too. Do Husks just tote them in and arrange them as very obvious mine traps? Do Ravagers lay/make them when there's a break in the fighting?
1265** Because people are not aware of what happened in alternate timelines where Shepard killed the Rachni Queen, this is Shrodinger's Plot Point. If the Rachni Queen survived in 1, the Reapers have never cloned any synthetic queen. In this scenario, the possibility of a synthetic queen being cloned has never come up; there is one Rachni Queen, and if she dies or is liberated from the Reapers, then that cuts off the Ravager production.
1266** Even if they do successfully create a fake, the fact is that Shepard's allies also have Rachni among them. While they don't go out into battle, they could educate the others on Ravager biology, leading to more efficient ways to kill them. (Of course, there is also the possibility that the rest of the galaxy might turn this knowledge against them, but they're demonstrating good will by helping.)
1267
1268[[/folder]]
1269
1270[[folder:Organic/Synthetic cycle]]
1271* One thing I never understood was just how it was possible that in the entire time the Reapers have existed not a single cycle has gone by without synthetics and organics playing nice long enough to convince the Catalyst not to continue the cycle. It is made relatively clear that this has been going on for several hundred if not thousands of cycle and in all those years not one civilization has looked upon it's creaters/created and been like "you know you are ok. Let's share." I just don't see how Shepard is the first person in literally MILLIONS of years to be nice to a non-organic...and if such a civilization did arise in the past than shouldn't those two working together have been enough to defeat the Reapers?
1272** Shepard's probably not the first person to be nice to a non-organic, but wars are not won on kindness and respect, they're won on military strength. We don't know what any of the civilizations from the past millions of years of cycles were like. There may have been, for example, a civilization that was an absolute utopian paradise, with man and machine living in harmony with each other, no famine, no hunger, no wars, etc. until the Reapers came and steamrolled them all because such a society has no need for a powerful military. There could have been plenty of cycles in the past where, like the possibility exists for Shepard's, organics and synthetics managed to make peace with each other, and the Reapers slaughtered them anyway becauze the Conduit ''does not care'' if there's a standing example of organic/synthetic peace, he is committed to his idea that war is inevitable.
1273** Actually that brings up another question. Just how many Reapers are there in existence? If you have an entire galaxy fighting together with pretty much every ship and free entity still in alive in one giant fleet wouldn't that have put up a pretty damn good fight? I think I have a problem with scale here...how can that many Reapers exist to truly be able to defeat a united front of a GALAXY's worth of advanced beings. Especially after they had managed to reverse engineer many of the Reaper advantages and figure out good strategies against them.
1274** Even if you have an entire galaxy fighting together with pretty much every ship and free entity still alive in one giant fleet, that still pales in comparison to the Reapers' ''millions of years'' of technological superiority, building their weapons, building their fleets, and the synthetic advantage of not having a natural lifespan means that all the Reapers that fought in the first cycle, except any that were destroyed, are still around fighting in this cycle ''in addition to'' all the future generations of Reapers created in the meantime. The cycle was designed with the specific intent that all the races of the galaxy would not, could not ever be sufficient to overpower the Reapers. It was designed as such by a race of malicious AI in a time when all the races that populate the galaxy were barely even a microbe of bacteria on their planets' surface, and it has been carried out so often and so thoroughly that any and all possible bugs or loopholes with the system have long since been weeded out. There are too many, they are too thorough, and they've done this so many times that the basic idea of "THIS TIME it will be different if we just do the same thing the last cycles did!" is laughably suicidal. This is why we're explicitly told [[spoiler: the Crucible is the only hope]]; the Reapers cannot be defeated by military strength. Whatever military advantage you can try to bring to the party, they've seen it a million times before and it's never been enough.
1275** To go back to the first point, how has one race not gotten lucky by now? Dodged the cullings by being just under the threshold of advancement and then by the time the Reapers come back they have better technology that is able to put up a grand fight? Technology that would if not trounce the Reapers at least put them on the same playing field out of the gate? Is the universe so stagnated that EVERYONE has the exact same ideas? That is really sad if so. 50,000 years is an awfully long time for someone to have a random stroke of brilliance. Maybe figure out mass effect fields themselves before stumbling on the leftovers. Maybe figure out a better way of doing things? I just find it hard to believe nothing has changed in thousands of cycles of potential change.
1276** The Reapers have ''several millions of years advantage'' as technology goes. 50,000 years is ''nothing'' to them. I'm sure plenty of races over the many, many countless cycles managed to slip under the advancement threshold, and then when the Reapers came, there was absolutely no difference whatsoever because 50,000 years is a meaningless drop in the pond compared to 1 billion. In the end, it's all a matter of scale.
1277** Plus the Reapers have been sandbagging literally every civilization that's come since. They've ensured that they're the most advanced by sabotaging the technology that the new guys come across. And it's mentioned that the cycle isn't exact - sometimes they'll come at 30,000 years in, sometimes 70,000. It all depends on the civilization. Of course, this time around it got mucked up thanks to [[spoiler: those Protheans pulling a HeroicSacrifice to fiddle with the Keepers.]]
1278** Except the Reapers don't actually advance technologically. All they do in dark space is hibernate. As evidenced by the fact that the Council races could make even the least bit of sense of Sovereign's remains. Or do you think they could successfully reverse-engineer technology that is millions of years more advanced than anything they had ever seen before?
1279** It is mentioned that the Reapers do leave advanced civilizations without space-flight alone. It's stated that they're leaving the Yahg alone and that they may become the dominant race of the next cycle. Also in one of the Cerberus dailies there is a mention of a recently discovered civilization that took one look at the Reapers and said "screw this" and destroyed all their advanced technology in the hopes they'll just pass them by.
1280** There's always the possibility that the Catalyst was wrong or lying for whatever reason. Maybe they did suffer catastrophic defeats in the past, maybe far worse than Sovereign's defeat, just it turns out the Crucible was the ''worst'' defeat they had. After all, it wasn't us or the Protheans who even came up with the idea in the first place. So we haven't had to start over from scratch each time, we were building on what civilizations before us did and learned. We just happened to figure out the most. It's a standing on the shoulders of giants thing.
1281** Shepard is not the first to be nice to a synthetic. Shepard is the first person to ever manage to complete the crucible and be so near using it. Catalyst said that any peace between organic life and synthetic life can only be for a short time before war begins, and as a V.I(as oppose to an A.I.) it is not able to see beyond that. from it's point of view, life between the two is simply ''impossible''. and you are unable to convince it otherwise. about the war, the reapers always had a dormant ship to prepare the invasion, like sovereign, who probably made sure invasion went smoothly. as it is mentioned in [=ME1=], a normal reaper invasion is "control the mass relays and the citadel and make every race in this cycle blind", which is a ''huge'' advantage in the reaper's side. second, as garrus mentions in 3, the reapers have none of the normals weakneses most armies have. they don't need supplies and can make people into their soldiers, which garrus mentions, every new husk is 2 less soldiers in your side. the soldier who is a husk now, and the soldier who was his friend when alive. Even is a civilization was able to make a scientific jump long enough as to catch to the reapers technology, the reapers have ''too much''' advantages at their side.
1282** By the way, as we know from [[spoiler: trip to geth consensus, part of quarians were kind to geth. What happened to them? They were killed. By their fellow quarian compatriots. Just think about it: it's not synthetics who were the cause of war, it's '''organics'''. So maybe the point is not that synthetics will wipe out organics, but organics will force synthetics to destroy them, like it happened with quarians, if you choose to let Legion upload Reaper upgrades to geth and are unable to convince quarians to hold fire?]]
1283** The Reapers have access to all the knowledge of every race they harvest (or at least the collective knowledge of the harvested individuals - sufficient for comprehensive knowledge of culture and technology if not every dirty little secret). This is strongly suggested in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' and confirmed in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' EC. Even if you assume that the leviathans Apex species initial technological superiority is not enough to maintain a trump-level edge - even with the Reapers explicitly controlling the length of every subsequent cycles technological development prior to harvesting - any clever ideas, novel technological approaches, etc are absorbed by the Reapers as they go. Nothing says they don't do a quick upgrade as they cool down from each harvest, finish making new Reapers etc - if one is called for. The initial cycles may have been shorter or more problematic specifically due to unexpected organic brilliance but by now they have it down to a science, they've accounted for every alternate technology, clever new approach, etc long since. They've been doing this for a ''billion'' years.
1284
1285[[/folder]]
1286
1287[[folder:Citadel arcade]]
1288
1289* In the Citadel DLC for VideoGame/MassEffect3 you can play an arcade game called Relay Defense, where you send ships away from Earth through a Mass Relay while blowing up ships attempting to destroy the planet. Wouldn't it be considered highly insensitive to have released this game considering the Reaper invasion of Earth?
1290** It's worth noting that the game uses turian ships for the enemies, suggesting it's based on a hypothetical turian invasion of Earth during the First Contact War, and thus predating the Reaper invasion.
1291*** If that's true, then it could be offensive to the turians.
1292*** It was also pretty "offensive" of the turians to attack humanity in the first place. Being diplomatically sensitive isn't something the media always cares about. Look at how modern media treats foreign nations with a history of conflict. The Turian Hierarchy and the System's Alliance are allies now, but there's a ton of bad blood between them (the First contact war is within living memory for the older generations) and it's perfectly plausible for there to be negative portrayals of the turians in human media. As for why it's in a Citidel arcade, I imagine not enough turian customers have complained for them to remove it.
1293
1294[[/folder]]
1295
1296[[folder:Gratuitous Spanish]]
1297
1298* Mass Effect 3, why does Vega's GratuitousSpanish not get autotranslated? Sure, Thane's "Siha" was not autotranslated, but that was a name. But Vega refers to his ''abuella'', calls Shepard ''loco'', and flirts with Ash in Citadel DLC in Spanish. I've considered that perhaps English is the human's standardized language and that fluency and literacy was a requirement for space travel, but would pirates and criminals really apply for a permit and proof of literacy before they get their ship?
1299** I can think of two explanations; Vega's translator only works when he speaks English/Galactic due to him fiddling with the 'preferences' tab in the Omni-Tool options menu, or Shepard speaks Spanish and thus does not translate the language.
1300** Probably the latter. Shepard could have picked up his usual sprinklings, as the opening implies that Vega was his/her guard while under house arrest for at least a good chunk of the six months between Arrival and ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', and thus set his/her Omni-Tool to identify Vega's voice patterns and forego translating what he says.
1301
1302[[/folder]]
1303
1304[[folder: Medkits on the Geth Dreadnought]]
1305* Why in Athame's name are there medkits on the Geth Dreadnought (and the [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 heretic station]], for the matter) when the Geth are, you know... synthetic? Sure, you can put it as GameplayAndStorySegregation, but it's just jarring. Does Bioware think that the players are so inept that they NEED extra medkits in places where they logically shouldn't be? Plus with the new manual revive option which eliminates the need for medkits outside of being in a serious pinch... Anyway, it makes no sense. Why would the Geth need medigel?
1306** Its a gameplay concession. And yes, some players are "inept" enough to need medigel, especially because medigel heals Shepard as well as his/her squadmates and sometimes you can't get to them directly and need to revive them to get their power/weapons back into play, especially at higher difficulties.
1307** Either gameplay and story segregation, or medigel has actual, practical use on synthetics. The multiplayer does have geth and the Alliance Infiltration Unit Infiltrator. Heck, one of the [[http://blog.bioware.com/2012/04/20/concerned-batarians-explain-that-medigel-works-on-them-too-alliance-news-network/ Alliance News Networks broadcasts mentions they will sooner use the medigel on the geth than the batarians.]]
1308[[/folder]]
1309
1310[[folder:Renegade Shepard's attitude towards EDI]]
1311* Back in the second game, Renegade Shepard acted like a total dick/bitch to EDI, refusing to acknowledge it as a person and even snapping whenever it provided a simple comment, such as naming Legion. It even gets to the point where EDI points out that they don't share mutual respect. What happened to that here? Renegade Shepard is a hell of lot nicer to it in this game.
1312** Presumably, EDI's proven effectiveness caused Shepard to mellow a bit regarding her, especially after surviving the suicide mission.
1313[[/folder]]
1314
1315[[folder: The leviathans' evolution]]
1316* When Shepard meets the leviathans, their leader refers to his race's history and says, "I am their progeny." This means that the leviathans are not immortal and the ones that Shepard meets are the descendants of the ones from the Catalyst's betrayal. What I want to know is how the hell do they still look like reapers? A billion years of evolution would make them look ''very'' different by the time Shepard meets them.
1317** A billion years of standard evolution. The Leviathans may have simply tried to keep their physical form relatively unchanged over the ages.
1318** Also, species do not typically evolve unless they have to and it is implied that the Leviathans have been hiding out under the ocean on that one planet for most of the past billion years. Meaning the enviroment in which they are living has been more or less the same and since they are already suited to living in that enviroment they really don't have a huge need to evolve. Long story short evolution doesn't just happen, for a species to evolve there needs to be a reason for the evolution to occur.
1319** You have to factor in their lifespans. The faster a species breeds the more often mutations will occur which may be spread and change the species. Short lived species reproduce often and in numbers while long lived species reproduce rarely and in small numbers. The krogan are an exception due to the nature of their habitat.
1320** An additional factor is population. Given their size, and being (presumably) restricted to one planet means the leviathans have to be very careful with environmental management, including population management. While nothing is known about their reproduction, logically they'd have to manage that to keep their population from getting too large ''and'' too small, and if you're managing the population that strictly, it becomes easy to fall into a mindset of ensuring that only "healthy" offspring survive and ruthlessly eliminating any that fall outside normal parameters, which would tend to eliminate individuals with mutations from the population before that mutation spread and became accepted as normal itself.
1321** Even ''more'' factors: 1)For obvious reasons, evolution is slower in organisms that breed slower, and larger species generally breed slower than smaller ones. The Leviathans are freaking huge. 2)The rate of evolution is also affected by the intensity of environmental pressures. Significantly reduced environmental pressures result in laughably unsurvivable organisms like the dodo. Half the plot of ''Film/Idiocracy'' is the fact that sapient civilization removes nearly all factors that might thin the herd, so the only traits that get selected for are ones that result in more offspring.
1322** It can be that the Leviathan's race no longer need to evolve and stay in the same shape from billions of years. After all, that's actually what happen with the Vorcha.
1323[[/folder]]
1324
1325[[folder:Geth sentience post-upgrade]]
1326* Something I'm unclear on. With the Reaper code essentially turning them into a race of EDIs, does that mean that they only need one runtime to operate a mobile platform? Or do they still need to cram multiple programs into the platform to make it work properly?
1327** Each Geth program is now a fully functional AI, so networking is no longer necessary. Before they required networking to share enough data and free up enough processing power to function. Now they're advanced enough to be independent. They may still network for pleasure or efficiency but it's no longer necessary.
1328** That wasn't the question, though. In actuality there would still be a need for multiple runtimes to operate a platform, simply because they aren't DESIGNED to be run by single Geth, just as a tank or a battleship can't be properly operated by a single person. The grouped runtimes would still network/communicate, but they wouldn't need to do so to increase their relative intelligence any more. Such communication WOULD, however, make them even more powerful/efficient than they were pre-upgrade.
1329[[/folder]]
1330
1331[[folder:Aria and the three mercenary groups]]
1332* Namely, why do they take orders from her now? Not only did she not have a connection to their management in the previous game, but the members stationed on Omega would have tried to depose her if the Shep hadn't killed them off.
1333** You just answered your own question. Shepard pretty much singlehandedly gutted the leadership of the organizations. Also, they don't take orders from her. The ''whole point'' behind the mercenary recruitment missions was to put people in charge of the Blood Pack and Eclipse who would dance to Aria's tune, and the point behind the Blue Suns mission was to give the current leader incentive to follow Aria. They follow Aria's orders because Shepard helps Aria get them under her control.
1334** Their presence on ''Omega'' was gutted, but none of them were based out of Omega. None of them even seemed to have a large presence on Omega, given their manpower issues. Outside of that, Shep did shoot up some of the Blood Pack leadership, but only maybe killed the leader of Blue Suns, who had at least one Chief of Ops waiting in the wings, and the Eclipse leadership was never mentioned.
1335** Shepard does kill the leader of the Blood Pack during Mordin's loyalty mission. The leader which Shepard helps install afterward explicitly has an agreement with Aria that he'll work for her if she helps get him in place, and Shepard is her agent. In addition, the entire Eclipse recruitment mission is about getting either the current leader of Eclipse free, through arrangement with Aria, or installing a more pliable leader into the organization, who has far less spine and who immediately follows Aria's orders. Either way, they both will follow Aria. The whole point behind the missions is to either convince the mercs' leadership to follow Aria or to put someone in charge who is willing to follow Aria's orders.
1336** It's not just their presence on Omega that's gutted. Shepard kills a ridiculous amount of mercenaries in the second game and if you don't just assume there's infinite mercs and it's a game mechanic all the hundreds or thousands you kill, that can really decimate an organization's strength. And if any of the organizations had operations on worlds Reapers went to that would hurt them even more.
1337[[/folder]]
1338
1339[[folder:Kaidan, Shepard, and Thane's Romance]]
1340* Immediately after the Cerberus Coup, if they're still alive, the Virmire Survivor will invite Shepard to have lunch on the Presidium. If Shepard hasn't already locked in a continuing romance with Garrus or Jack, and they're of compatible genders, they will make romantic overtures to Shepard. This is all well and good...unless you play as a [=FemShep=] who romanced Thane, who died a short time ago. It seems inappropriate for Kaidan to come on to Shepard so soon after Thane's death, doesn't it? And why doesn't Shepard have the option to respond that way?
1341** Kaidan might not have really been aware of the previous romance between Shepard and Thane. As for why Shepard doesn't have an option to call Kaidan out, she's probably just assuming that either Kaidan doesn't know or is trying to be gentle in responding because he's a friend and comrade.
1342** Keep in mind how vague the game is with how fast time moves. Your lunch with Kaidan/Ashley could happen weeks or even months after Thane's death. Whether your Shepard has got to a point emotionally where they're ready to move on is up to you.
1343** Kaidan knows about Shepard and Thane if he was romanced in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' so it seems plausible, unless someone specifically told him about Shepard and Thane because Shepard clearly wasn't going to and they thought he should know, that he would know about it either way. It's not like it was a secret romance and he joins the crew very shortly after Thane's death so someone on the ship would have been talking about it.
1344[[/folder]]
1345
1346[[folder: Nyreen's concern for civilians on Omega]]
1347* Nyreen Kandros keeps constantly butting heads with Aria and Renegade Shepard over protecting innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and not using them as cannon fodder against Cerberus. That is all good and fine if Nyreen were human, asari, salarian, Quarian or even Batarian, but it is extremely odd since Nyreen is turian. Turian doctrine holds that there is no such thing as a civilian who must be protected from battle - for them, every single person is a combatant in some form or the other. And this would especially be true in an occupation. Added to that Nyreen comes from a military family. She, more than most should be in favor of using the citizens of Omega as additional forces, since that is how turians normally fight. Her concern here seems to go against every aspect of being a turian.
1348** Turians aren't idiots or robots, especially turians who spend a lot of time as outlaws or mercenaries among other species. Yes, she would have been initially ''raised'' in a culture that doesn't recognize civilians, but she also would have been aware of the vastly larger portion of the galaxy that does recognize the concept, and would have been introduced to it after leaving Palaven and journeying elsewhere in the galaxy. On top of that, the turians ''do'' recognize the concepts of non-combatant populations as well as protecting those who do not wish to fight in the first place. The entire concept of safe camps exists within their culture as a means to allow turians who don't want to or are unable to fight a way to avoid conflict.
1349** I'd also like to point out that in turian society, everyone, civilian or not, has 15 years or more of military training, military grade hardware, and city-fortresses. In Omega most people are just outlaws with little to no formal training (if any training at all) and most are just armed with lower end pistols. Turian civilians would inflict serious damage against Cerberus. Omega civilians would mostly just die needlessly.
1350** It's strongly implied in-game that Nyreen has been living among aliens for a long time, and left turian society because she felt rejected due to her biotic abilities. Her "military family" is either ashamed or afraid of her, and I'd be surprised if they're even in contact anymore. Aria is credited with helping her develop her combat abilities -- which means that she was never in the turian military for very long. She's lived among aliens long enough to understand that the turian way of life is not at all the norm.
1351** Turians actually do recognize the concept of civilians, at least among other species. They just usually don't let that get in the way of prosecuting warfare. Individual turians, especially ones who live among non-turians, will also develop attitudes outside of the norm.
1352[[/folder]]
1353
1354[[folder: Detention without a speedy trial for six months?]]
1355In the beginning of the game, it looks as though Shepard has been detained in a manner known as House Arrest Quarters. House Arrest Quarters is a commonly used form of pretrial and during trial detention for military personnel, as well as a commonly used Non Judicial Punishment. However, one does not hold an accused in pretrial detention for six months, as that would be unlawful detention without charges or a trial. Even if a trial were in progress, a six month trial would also violate the accused right to a speedy trial. And non judicial punishment for six months is explicitly banned everywhere, as such a lengthy punishment would require due process to be followed before it is prescribed. So why is Shepard still detained? Why didn't a judge have enough and say "Arraign and try the case fast or acquit?"
1356* Charles Manson was incarcerated for nine months before he was tried for his role in the Tate–LaBianca murders. If a person can be incarcerated for nine months before getting their day in court for seven counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, then a person can definitely be incarcerated for six months pretrial for 304,942 counts of manslaughter.
1357* Shepard states that s/he was just "relieved of duty", but that too doesn't warrant detention for months. A relief of command usually means that the officer relieved is going to be forcibly retired, or ReassignedToAntarctica. That officer is also free to move about and go anywhere, they aren't restricted to quarters. So even then, a six month detention shouldn't have been allowed.
1358* Why are you assuming the Systems Alliance practices modern-day United States military law? The fact is, they're quite literally an international military force formed and structured more than a hundred years in the future. They're going to have different procedures, which clearly include a lengthier time for permitted detainment.
1359* Possibly because of the magnitude of the crime, and that no one was really sure how to react or how to deliver an appropriate punishment. Remember, Shepard blew up a relay, which in turn devastated an entire solar system and killed 300.000 batarians. While the Alliance had started coming over to Shepard's conclusion of the Reaper threat at that point, (thanks to Anderson and Hackett, (as far as we know)), the other Council/non-Council races were still on the fence or denying it outright. It is outright stated during the Rachni/Grunt mission in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' that it was to keep the batarians placated while the Alliance was preparing for the Reapers. The relay explosion is incomparable to anything else that has happened during the games up to that point, and the most devastating since the Protheans sent a star into a supernova. This is of course discounting the Reapers actions during the cycles.
1360** The right to a speedy trial, as well as the ban against excessively long pretrial detentions isn't just US Military law or even American Law. It is a fundamental principle of nearly all constitutional democracies. And the right against detention without a speedy trial has existed in Western countries ever since the Magna Carta. The Alliance is a parliamentary democracy. So it is a safe assumption to make that these basic fundamental rights were also carried over. Granted, exceptions exist but those exceptions are for enemy combatants who are held in a manner similar to [=POWs=] until cessation of hostilities. A case could also be made that as a Cerberus agent, Shepard is an enemy combatant but that doesn't fly either since Hackett specifically denies permission for any operation to capture Shepard.
1361** Modern law and principles are irrelevant. We're dealing with a completely new polity with its own government and military structure, made to deal with completely new challenges and issues. The rules are different, and modern military law and precedent does not necessarily apply. There's no reason whatsoever to assume that the Systems Alliance military operates in a similar manner when it comes to detainment periods. Unless a contradiction within Mass Effect canon itself is presented, it is safe to assume that the Alliance operates under different laws and guidelines.
1362** Detaining to placate the batarians also doesn't quite fly. A better way to placate the batarians would have been to convict Shepard, incarcerate him/her and then expunge the conviction once the Reapers showed up. Because if nothing else, Shepard is guilty of prison break and multiple homicides in the furtherance of that breakout.
1363** Shepard was arrested to prevent the Batarians from declaring war on the Alliance. After that Hackett and Anderson used all their influence to delay a trial until it was clear the Reapers were coming, which would show Shepard's actions as justified. This isn't really brought up much in the game as the Batarians were the first to fall. Remember, the Council's official word is that there are no Reapers so Shepard had no legal defense until they could be proven correct.
1364** It's not like Shepard herself would be fighting for a speedy trial. She knew the score. Hackett outright told her he believed her and didn't even need to read her report but that no one believed in the Reapers so they would delay her summons but one day she would have to turn herself in to the Alliance and be a scapegoat until proof of Reapers happened. And since she's still on good terms with Anderson and Hackett and no mention is made of her being hunted and eventually dragged before the Alliance, we can conclude Shepard knew exactly what was going to happen while waiting for the Reapers and went anyway. Since nobody was looking to speed things up and be forced to convict Shepard when they knew she didn't deserve it or let her go and start a war with the Batarians, no one is pushing for that speedy trial.
1365** First off, you are forgetting that there are plenty of examples today of individuals (military AND civilian) who have been incarcerated for much longer than six months awaiting a trial, for various reasons; procedural moves by the lawyers, gathering of evidence, subpoenaing of witnesses, and (especially in this case) attempting to declassify information relevant to the case. Part of the delay could have been the Alliance brass trying to figure out if they even had the AUTHORITY to bring Shepard to task for his actions, which were supposed to be filed in the "deniable/it never actually happened" section in the first place, as doing so could have revealed classified and active intelligence assets. There is also the debatable matter of jurisdiction. Because Shepard had been listed as dead and therefore no longer an Alliance officer (hence his comment to Vega and Anderson's reinstating him in the beginning of 3), AND the incident took place outside of Alliance-controlled space, it's entirely possible the Alliance military would have had no legitimate authority to prosecute in the first place. Finally, it's entirely possible the Alliance described Shepard as being "in detention" simply to PROTECT him. By this point in time his status both as an Alliance officer and as a Spectre had been revoked. Using so-called "detention" as a cover, the Alliance could keep him safe on a military base while they figured out what to do. After all, if they really considered him a criminal he would have been confined to a cell and placed in shackles and under guard when he was let out, instead of being allowed to walk around freely in a regular uniform.
1366[[/folder]]
1367
1368[[folder: Criminal charges against Shepard without Arrival DLC]]
1369* Related to the previous headscratcher, it is established in the beginning of the game that Shepard is being detained ostensibly for causing the destruction of the Alpha Relay and the Balak System, as depicted in the Arrival DLC for the previous game. However, for players who never completed Arrival, the War Assets entry for the Alliance 103rd Marine Division will state that a squad of marines was sent to rescue Dr. Kenson in Shepard's place, and it was they who ended up destroying the Alpha Relay and not Shepard (losing their lives in the process, and thereby reducing Alliance War Assets by 50 points). So, for those of us who didn't play Arrival for whatever reason, why is Shepard still being detained at the start of this game? Did Shepard commit a different crime between the two games that we just don't see "onscreen"?
1370** Working with Cerberus, a known terrorist organization would probably be enough. Even if the Council is reluctantly willing to tolerate the situation, the Alliance itself probably wouldn't.
1371[[/folder]]
1372
1373[[folder: Citadel DLC - your second squadmate?]]
1374* After falling through the fish tank in the Citadel DLC, Shepard gets called by their love interest (or Liara) and then by a second squadmate. They both say they're close enough to hear the chaos Shepard's causing, and the love interest or Liara turns up to help, but then it's Wrex (or James) who joins in. What happened to your second squadmate? Did they take too long putting on their armor? Get stuck in traffic? Wrex/James carjacked them and threw them out of the skycar? Got attacked by Jack's biotic varren?
1375** Brooks had the area on lockdown, the second squadmate just didn't have time to find a way in in time.
1376[[/folder]]
1377
1378[[folder: Getting the signal to deactivate Javik's stasis pod]]
1379* During the Eden Prime mission, Liara tells Shepard that in order to open Javik's stasis pod, they need the signal meant to deactivate the stasis, as well as figure out exactly how to open the pod. Shepard learns these by watching the videos, which only they can understand due to the prothean beacon. The second video (well, second chronologically, I know you can watch them in any order) makes sense, because you actually see Javik open the pod, so Shepard learns which buttons to press. But how did the first video help Shepard learn the proper signal? All Shepard sees is Javik in a bunker, talking about building a new empire before the collectors attacked and sabatoged the facility. What did that have any thing to do with the stasis signal?
1380** The signal, like Prothean knowledge in general, was likely embedded within the data itself. Protheans tend to have this habit of including additional modifications to those who experience their data storage systems, like how Shepard was able to interact with Prothean technology after coming into contact with the beacons.
1381[[/folder]]
1382
1383[[folder: Catalyst vs Leviathan... how does that work?]]
1384* Could someone explain how a disembodied voice curb-stomped a race of Elder Gods? Even if it was given some way to interact with the world, there's no reason why it would have the resources to slaughter the Leviathans and create Harbinger.
1385** Well, first, the leviathans weren't gods, just the dominant species at their time, and therefore vulnerable. Second, they created the Catalyst with one ''very'' specific order: "Preserve life, at ''any'' cost. In order for the Catalyst to do this, they had to have given it access to some very advanced and powerful technology. The leviathans also built the Catalyst to do the job they were too lazy to handle themselves, so chances are good that they weren't paying much attention to what the Catalyst was doing until it was too late.
1386** It's purpose was to devise a solution to the synthetic/organic conflicts. You shouldn't need to personally move anything to solve a philosophical problem. And even then, what could it have possibly created that could massacre the Leviathans. Three of them could destroy a Reaper capital ship by thinking at it. They can survive deep space and crushing open depths naked. What resources did the Catalyst have?
1387** Dude. You can straight-up ask the Leviathan how the Catalyst won. It built massive numbers of machines to gather the data it needed to carry out its function. Once it determined its solution, it converted those probes and machines into weapons without the Leviathans' knowledge and then hit them in a massive surprise attack. The Leviathans, being incredibly arrogant, had no idea it was going to betray them until it started assaulting them. Also keep in mind that while the Leviathan we encounter was able to down a Reaper, we don't know what resources it expended to do so, as well as the fact that prior to this, the Leviathans were in hiding because they feared the Reapers - which means that while a Leviathan might be able to shut down a single Reaper, they are almost certainly unable to stop multiple ones.
1388[[/folder]]
1389
1390[[folder: Balak ]]
1391Balak if he survived the Terra Nova attack, goes around sabotaging things on the citadel. He shuts off life support to wounded marines and causes some Alliance warships to crash while docking. His replacement on the other hand only steals food and medicines. Shouldn't Balak's actions have resulted in a decrement to Alliance war assets since he actually killed people?
1392* Presumably the losses were too minimal to really impact the war effort. Collisions might result in a ship being in for repairs longer, but the ship can still fly. A few dead wounded soldiers is tragic, but the Reapers are killing ten times that many with every blast.
1393* So the Alliance can absorb the loss of a few marines to murder, but loses 4 war asset points if one lowly private is transferred off her squad?
1394** More likely that represents a shift in broad policy. One Alliance engineer gets shifted, then more and more get shifted afterward to non-optimal positions as a response.
1395[[/folder]]
1396
1397[[folder: FemShepard and Vega Flirting ]]
1398* Just slight annoyed that this is the default interaction between Fem!Shep and Vega. Especially since my Fem!Shep was committed to Garrus. There's nothing exactly wrong with that. But it does seem like something the player should get a yay/nay on. Since Shep's pretty neutral otherwise outside dialogue choices.
1399** This actually isn't a new problem. Going back to Mass Effect 1, Bioware seemed to be under the impression that if you're speaking to an NPC who is romanceable it must be primarily because you want to get in their pants. Thus, all it took was a quick conversation with Liara in which you were nothing more than polite to her to make Kaidan/Ashley react as if you were flirting with her. Not much to explain about it. Bad writing happens, even in a series which usually has good writing.
1400*** It's not bad writing, at least with Vega, it's just the nature of their friendship: Vega's a big flirt. It doesn't matter how devoted you are to your love interest since it's just a harmless game they're playing, Vega does the exact same thing with Steve even though Vega's straight. It's no different than when the game's writers decided every Shepard had a close friendship with Liara. Hell, every relationship has a pre-set tone, only the LI characters have wiggle room.
1401
1402[[/folder]]
1403
1404[[folder: How can Shepard see in Prothean?]]
1405Shepard got a head full of Prothean info from the beacons, okay. He got the Cipher to understand the Prothean message and their language via the Thorian, check. However, it is physically impossible for him to have been able to understand the Prothean videos on Eden Prime. Protheans possess four double-pupiled eyes, and humans have two single-pupiled ones. Even with the information in his head to translate it, Shepard is not physically constructed to take in visual information in the same way as a Prothean is. He may have been able to understand the audio portion of the videos, but the visuals should have been just as much garbage to him as they were to the other members of his squad.
1406* The fact that all of the scenes involving Javik were shown from multiple camera angles, including come that would have been impossible to shoot in the first place without a professional crew on a dedicated studio set, indicates that Shepard was not actually viewing a Prothean video. At best, what Shepard saw was a rough translation of Javik's experiences, possibly coupled with local sensor data from the area around the pod.
1407** Except that's trying to have it both ways and failing at both. If the vids had been translated into something understandable by two-eyed sentients, your teammate would have seen more than static. At the same time it STILL would have been at least partially unintelligible to Shepard.
1408** You're making too much out of this. It's obvious that what we, the player, sees is not what Shepard sees. It's clearly artistic license so that the player understand what is going on, nothing more.
1409*** I believe Shepard does see more or less what we're shown...just not from the computer screens, but when they grab Javik after he wakes up. From the screens Shepard understands what he says he does, the information to open and activate the pod safely but they were nice enough to break up the flashback so it wouldn't just be one long one when they talk to Javik after he wakes up.
1410*** The fact that it's "Artistic licence meant meant to help the player understand what is going on" is further demonstrated by the fact that these videos [[AliensSpeakingEnglish have Javik speaking in [the language your copy of the game is translated into]]]
1411[[/folder]]
1412
1413[[folder: Grunt's "Birthday"]]
1414In the Citadel DLC, Grunt gets in trouble for setting a C-Sec guy's car on fire when some of his krogan buddies break him out for his "birthday" (which I assume that means the anniversary of his "birth" from the tank in Mass Effect 2). This makes sense until you realize that the orbital period of Tuchanka is about 16.7 Earth Years, so even if Krogan did celebrate their birthdays, it would only be once every 16.7 years from our perspective. So why are they celebrating it in Earth years?
1415* Grunt's birthday may be measured in Citadel standard years, which are only slightly longer than Earth years.
1416** Even so, I feel like the Krogan would celebrate them in their own years, especially since they are a non-Citadel species and generally stay on Tuchanka.
1417* Grunt even notes that as a tankbred he doesn't have a birthday. It sounds like his friends were just doing something nice for him while he was in the hospital.
1418[[/folder]]
1419
1420[[folder: Beacon on Thessia - was Saren an Idiot?]]
1421* This might be ME 1 headscratcher as well, but I'll write it here: In the first game, Saren and Shepard are both looking for prothean beacons and a way to understand them to help/stop the Reapers. During the third game we find out that there was a huge beacon on Thessia, which Benezia almost surely knew about. So why didn't she tell Saren about it when she was indoctrinated? Has he never bothered to ask? Did he knew about, but assumed it wasn't anything important? Did she manage to somehow withhold this information from him through the force of will or some crap like that? If so, why didn't she tell Shepard about it once the control has been broken? Is there any InUniverse possible explanation for this?
1422** There's no indication that Benezia knew about the beacon on Thessia. Only the highest-ranking members of the asari government knew about it, and while Benezia was a powerful matriarch, she likely wasn't that high up in their ranks. Since it's never said how high up she was, she likely wasn't high enough up to know about it. And even if she was, there's no way for Saren to get to the beacon without pising off asari High Command, and even if he did get access to it, Vendetta was specifically set to check for signs of indoctrination, and he wouldn't activate otherwise. That was why Kai Leng couldn't get it to activate when he beat Shepard to the beacon.
1423*** Play the game again, after the mission on Thessia if you go to Liara's room after she confronts Javik, she says "...my mother hid the galaxy's most important archaeological find from me." So yes, Benezia did know about the beacon.
1424*** That does not change the fact that the Thessia Beacon was extremely well-protected and wouldn't allow an indoctrinated agent to access it.
1425** This information may have been in the part of her mind that Benezia shut away when she noticed Sovereign's influence, and she either didn't have time to tell Shepard or she didn't feel s/he could be trusted with that knowledge.
1426** Even if Benezia told Saren about that beacon, Sovereign, who's the real Mastermind, is no idiot. Sovereign know that if Saren goes to Thessia is probably that he's going to be stopped, and Sovereign doesn't want to lose his main agent, delaying his plan to open the Citadel to the rest of the Reapers by seeking another agent.
1427[[/folder]]
1428
1429[[folder: Already tried Synthesis?]]
1430* The Reaper AI or Star Child I think, says that (If and when you reach the third solution) they have already tried this, but at that time organics rejected the change. They said that the Crucible was never completed and never served its purpose in the past. So how did the AI then try to enforce synthesis without the Crucible and Catalyst combined. And even if I missed something important and the Crucicatalyst was completed and used to enforce Synthesis, why do they Specifically need Shepard to sacrifice his body to achieve this? This cycle's organics clearly accept synthesis. This could not have been because of Shepard's body? Why didn't they just throw Anderson in, or if the body needs to be alive, why couldn't the AI allow someone who is willing to die (besides Shepard) to jump in? It makes a lot more sense for the AI to think that keeping Shepard alive during and after the Synthesis is much more beneficial for both Synthetics an Organics?
1431** They needed a template, and since Shepard is a successful Synthesis, it had to be him. The Catalyst could have used another, but time was of the essence. Shepard dies for essentially the same reason as Legion. Because he chooses to save everyone, rather than themselves.
1432[[/folder]]
1433
1434[[folder: Guardian shield flaw]]
1435* Why do Cerberus Guardians have shields with a completely unprotected viewing slit? Even current ballistic shields have a polycarbonate cover over the window that's just as resistant to bullets as the rest of the shield. In fact, why didn't Cerberus take some design cues from the Kestrel helmet, and instead use cameras and a screen on the inside of the shield?
1436** Reliability and cost. Cameras can be hacked when every soldier literally carries an ECM suite on their wrist, and it's cheaper to not mount cameras.
1437[[/folder]]
1438
1439[[folder: Cerberus Troopers lack shields]]
1440* Why do Cerberus Assault Trooper and Guardian lack shields (the [[DeflectorShields energy kind]]). And since they technologically outclass normal soldiers who do use shields, how do they do so if their basic infantry lack something so basic?
1441** Guardian have physical shields that surpass energy in durability, yet are so heavy their PowerArmor needs a dedicated power supply to carry it. Maybe there's no power to spare.
1442** They have Shield Pylons, which give them shields, making individual shields less necessary. Maybe those battles they proved superior were the times they used it.
1443** [[{{Brainwashed}} They way they recruit them]], Cerberus can afford to go for a quantity over quality WeHaveReserves approach. We don't know if they're stated superiority precluded casualties. Maybe their superiority was not survivability, but the physical and tactical enchantments that came from the Reaper implants.
1444** How widespread are shields? In ''2'' basic infantry only have shields on higher difficulty modes.
1445[[/folder]]
1446
1447[[folder: Working Batarian access codes]]
1448* Why, after closing their embassy and severing diplomatic ties with the Citadel approximately 20 years prior to the events of this game, were the Batarian access codes that Balak was using not voided?
1449** The Council probably kept them active so they could track batarian activity by noting who used them and how. It's a common intelligence tactic when you find a backdoor to watch it instead of shutting it down.
1450[[/folder]]
1451
1452[[folder:When does the Citadel DLC supposed to take place?]]
1453* I can understand that the Citadel DLC is a lighthearted comedy episode that serves as a hillarious and heartwarming farewell to the Normandy crew you come to know and love so the Reaper War going on in-universe isn't the main focus, but in order to get the most out of it (aka all your crew are at the party), you'll have to hold it off until you finished Priority: Horizon, after Miranda saves her sister and deals with her father. After that event, though, Miranda says that she puts a tracker on Kai Leng and tells Shepard to act fast to track him back to the Illusive Man before the trail goes cold. If that's the case, how did Shepard and his crew have the time for all the events in Citadel DLC before going back to their mission? The event of the Citadel DLC took place about two days at the very least (one day dealing with the Shepard Clone, and another day spending time with your crew at the party).It was obvious that the party isn't held on the same day as the clone incident, because Wrex said he had to go back to Tuchanka first and told him to call him again should they decide to hold a party, and your [=ME2=] crew are obviously going to take some time to travel to the Citadel as well. In all that time, Cerberus apparently never found out about the tracer Miranda put on Kai Leng and removes it?
1454** Hackett would need time to prep the fleets both for the attack on Chronos Station and the final attack on Earth. That's a fairly logical time to order a tune-up for the ''Normandy''.
1455** Personally, I put the main story of the DLC as following the retaking of Rannoch and prior to the fall of Thessia - Shepard's crew has been fully assembled by this point, so far, all the major Normandy missions have been victories, everyone's feeling relatively on top of things, plus the Normandy has been in combat, Traynor says some shots from the Reaper on Rannoch put them through their paces... In the whole of the game, this feels like the most appropriate time for the more screwball comedy aspect of the DLC, with all the various meet-ups taking place in between then and the endgame. The party itself, then, becomes something done on the eve of the launch against Chronos Station (or, if you prefer, a celebration of victory done after the endgame).
1456[[/folder]]
1457
1458[[folder:Shepard's clone should have been no match for him]]
1459* Just crossed my mind, and maybe I'm overthinking, but think about it for a minute: The clone was simply that - a clone of the original Shepard. He did not undergo extensive surgery and cybernetic augmentation that turned the original Shepard into the SuperSoldier he is since [=ME2=], he would only have Shepard's original body and abilities. Which are formidable, sure, but not on par with the enhanced version.
1460** The clone wasn't a match for real Shepard, at no point were they ever even implied to be winning and Shepard treats the whole situation as more annoying than anything else. The only reason the fight lasts more than a minute is because Brooks and the merchs keep you from just focussing on the clone.
1461[[/folder]]
1462
1463[[folder: Javik's eyes]]
1464* Javik claims that the Protheans evolved from predators/hunters, which is why their sensory abilities were so necessary. So how do we explain the eyes? They're extremely wide set with elongated pupils like a goat's; those features are usually associated with prey animals, who need a wider range of vision to check their surroundings. Predator eyes are usually set on the front of the head to focus on a target.
1465** They could have evolved on a world similar to that of the krogan. The krogan are predatory but their eyes developed on the sides of their heads to give them a better field of view. Also remember that evolution does not develop in a 100% optimal manner, but rather in a manner that is good enough to guarantee the passing of genes. If they're predators whose eyes are good enough to let them catch prey, then that will be how they develop - especially if they develop intelligence to offset physical disadvantages, like humans did.
1466[[/folder]]
1467
1468[[folder: Staff Analyst Brooks ignorance of the Mako]]
1469* I don't know enough about what all Staff Analysts do or have knowledge of in the Alliance let alone Real Life Militaries. During the early part of Shepard's infiltration of the Citadel Archives. At one point Brooks asks what is a Mako, Shouldn't a Staff Officer know what a Mako is?
1470** And considering how many members of Shepard's team are part of the military wouldn't they pick up on that discrepancy that Staff Analyst Brooks isn't who she claims she is?
1471** Staff officers are rear-echelon office workers, analysts, and technicians. They're not front-line fighters. A staff officer would not necessarily be familiar with front-line military hardware, any more than an infantryman would be familiar with complex radio or fighter craft.
1472** The same reason the OIC of my units supply section didn't know what a Bradley was. We're an aviation unit, not mechanized infantry or cavalry, and his job didn't require him to know.
1473[[/folder]]
1474
1475[[folder: Alliance Military Issued Weaponry]]
1476* The M-3 Predator's description states that it's not used by Alliance Military personnel, yet Anderson carries one and gives one to you at the beginning, and Alliance troops are seen using it frequently. Furthermore, the M-92 Mantis is stated to be used only by planetary militia groups, yet the first time you find one is by a dead Alliance Marine. Does BioWare not pay attention to detail?
1477** This is more TruthInTelevision than you'd think. A lot of soldiers - especially experienced ones - go around with non-standard weapons, or weapons that they've purchased and customized for themselves. This is very common with sidearms in particular, but even primary weapons can be swapped out for custom or personalized firearms at the discretion of the individual or commanding officer. One of the main reasons why standard-issue weapons is a major thing - ease of logistics - is far less significant in Mass Effect due to omnigel making it much easier to maintain equipment, along with the lack of necessity for standardized ammunition. As long as it gets the job done, soldiers carry whatever gear they want.
1478[[/folder]]
1479
1480[[folder: Trusting Cerberus]]
1481* Why does Jack call Shepard out on trusting Cerberus and the Paragon response is she's not telling them anything they haven't told themselves? A Paragon Shepard made it clear throughout ''Mass Effect 2'' that they didn't trust Cerberus or the Illusive Man and were just working with them because they had a common enemy and once said enemy was taken care of they immediately cut ties with them. That's not even getting into sending [[https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/N7:_Lost_Operative years of encrypted data about their illicit activities to the Alliance]].
1482** Because Paragon Shepard still willingly worked with Cerberus and furthered their goals and helped them get access to new tech along the way. They tried to minimize the collateral damage of their team up but there still was damage and they know that's on them regardless of what other good they managed to do.
1483[[/folder]]
1484
1485[[folder: The rachni and leviathans' mind powers]]
1486* I guess I didn't totally understand what Ann was describing. The rachni and leviathans' powers are not psychic or telepathic in nature. I can accept that. But... ''what'' are they then? How do they work?
1487** Well, what is "psychic" or "telepathy" in the first place? The definition varies from one work to the next. One could very easily argue that the rachni and Leviathan powers are "psychic" since they influence the mind of others. The descriptions we get of rachni communication and mental influence strongly indicates that they are "psychic" in some way since they can add or remove memories to people and manipulate the bodies of people who are close to death.
1488[[/folder]]
1489
1490[[folder: "You can't save me."]]
1491* I've seen a lot of people ask questions about the tutorial kid like "how'd he disappear from the vent" and... that's it actually. But the point is, I've never seen anyone wonder about what he said. Why did he say "You can't save me"? Why would anyone say that. If Commander freaking Shepard (and if you think he wouldn't recognize Shep then I'd like to point you to the Normandy toy we see at the beginning of the game. Clearly someone's been merchandising (and let's be honest, it was probably Joker) and Shepard us consistently all over the news. Everyone knows who Shepard is) was offering to help me I'd take that offer. And even if he didn't recognize Shep or didn't want their help, why would he say "You can't help me" as opposed to the more likely "I'm scared" or just nothing at all. "You can't save me" doesn't seem like something a real child would say, even one under the stress of being surrounded by evil eldritch alien ships. Granted, he's probably right if Shep tried to save him he'd probably end up caught in cross fire and gunned down (which, if you ask me, would be much more impactful and would make me accept the idea of him being a manifestation of Shepard's guilt complex) and the last thing we need is an escort mission in the middle of a tutorial but still, not very child like behavior. Almost [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior troubling]], you could say.
1492** Well, the [[WatsonianVsDoylist Doylist]] reason is one you touched on: he's an avatar of Shepard's SurvivorsGuilt and the weight of responsibility they carry. So every time Shepard isn't able to save an innocent, the child gives the player an easy visual shorthand for Shepard's guilt. The Watsonian reason could be because there was no child, Shepard is hallucinating from stress and, again, guilt at all the deaths they couldn't prevent.
1493[[/folder]]
1494
1495[[folder:Kaidan's biotic implant]]
1496* In [=ME2=] and afterward, human biotics are fitted with L5 implants, including Biotic Shepard, who started as an L3. Why didn't Kaidan, an L2, ever get retrofitted? In [=ME1=] he says it's because he thinks the L2, while less stable than the L3, gives him more power. But the L5 implants offer a significant power boost without sacrificing stability, so why does Kaidan still insist on sticking with an implant that gives him constant migraines?
1497** Its possible he's simply more familiar with the L2. Another possibility is that he doesn't want to go under the knife for the surgery needed to get the L5 installed. Remember that while Shepard was refitted with a L5, it was after they were literally reassembled from charred bone and flesh by Cerberus. Kaidan might not want to go through the surgical trauma of a marginal upgrade when he thinks that his older L2 is fine and he's familiar with its operations. Changing his implants would also mean rotating off of duty to recuperate, and he might not feel like he can afford to rotate off of duty with all the dangers in the galaxy.
1498** It's not just because of the power difference that Kaidan doesn't get a retrofit. The surgery itself is ''extremely'' high risk. "One wrong slip of the knife and you can't remember your own name." He just doesn't think it's worth the risk when he's so comparatively lucky. [=L2=] to [=L3=] retrofits would also be handled by an offshoot of Conatix, and Kaidan refuses to go near them because he rightfully blames them for the whole [=BAaT=] fiasco. We don't know if the same is true of upgrading to an [=L5=], but we also don't know that it's not.
1499[[/folder]]
1500
1501[[folder: Ah yes, 'escape pods']]
1502* A minor one all things considered. So, should you allow the Quarians to be destroyed, how come none of the Quarians make a run for the escape pods? Sure, the captain of the Rayya mentions that the pods have been disabled, but are we to assume that the ''entire'' Migrant Fleet has conveniently faulty escape pods?
1503** The Geth probably shot them all. The Quarians backed the Geth into an all or nothing battle and then lost, the Quarians have proven beyond a doubt that if they're spared they'll return to try and destroy the Geth again later on. The Rannoch situation was the last chance for both species: peace or genocide.
1504[[/folder]]
1505

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