More news from Earth: human leaders are ordering attacks on the people fighting the Reapers, Allers reports. Are they indoctrinated, she asks? Yes, I answer from this side of the screen.
Kaidan's got EDI looking for news on his missing squad, which I had pretty much forgotten all about.
Down on Rannoch, I find a dying quarian who says the civilians never wanted this war. Well, they shouldn't have, so good for them.
Koris is also alive and looking for survivors, and I need to shut down a jamming tower before I can radio him. Also, there are AA guns that are problematic.
Turrets. Hate 'em when they're used against me, love 'em when I get to use them! Which I do here, keeping the geth off Tali as she disables one AA gun.
Jamming Tower Data! I need that to bring to somebody on the Citadel to help them out, and would have missed it if not for the walkthrough. I never thought I'd say this after ME2, but I wish that I could just planet-scan for all this stuff.
Okay, without the guns shooting at him Cortez was able to blow up the jamming tower in the shuttle, I was able to contact Koris and convince him that we needed him back to end the war, and a kickass scene with me covering his dash for the shuttle by firing a mounted turret on said shuttle at his pursuers followed.
On the Normandy, we've found the groundside source of the Reaper signal and can blow it up as soon as I paint the target. For some reason, the game gave me the options of responding to Legion's statement that we can do so with "Good, then we can destroy the geth." Because I totally can't imagine him rethinking his decision to help us if we said we were gonna kill all his friends.
Let's take care of the geth fighters first, though.
Allers reports that Eden Prime's about to fall. So we kicked Cerberus off the planet, and then the Reapers came along and grabbed it.
Kaidan's located some of his recruits on Earth and sent them to meet up with Anderson's forces. So that's something.
Oh, Javik and EDI are arguing! Ah Javik, you're such a charmer; this is the first time that I believe I have actually heard anger seep into EDI's voice. Yeah, he's talking about how machines inevitably turn on organics (which is what Tali was saying in the first game, so despite Javik alienating her as well they may have more in common than they think), and that machines shouldn't have rights because they are only tools, and when EDI mentions how the Protheans enslaved other races Javik says that was just fine because they were weak and the strong have the right to dominate the weak, and I'm going to support Jav—just kidding, fuck you and your beliefs, Javik, I'm with EDI. Not only is she right whereas you are wrong, but she is much better company.
Garrus has made contact with his father! He, along with Garrus' sister, is doing his best to get off of Palaven. For now, they're alive.
Holy crap, the plan down on the planet to stop the fighter squadrons is for me to plug myself into the geth server! This is...interesting...
DIE....um....bad code...
I wondered why the quarians in the first historical recording I saw were suited on their world of origin, but then that was explained.
Meanwhile, back in the physical world, geth fighters are suddenly shutting down.
Meanwhile, back where I am, the Reaper code is replacing itself. But Legion helps me find a way around that...
Huh, so some quarians stood up for the geth back in the day. Good for them.
Shepard seems surprised that the geth let the fleeing quarians escape after they'd left Rannoch. It's not all that surprising, Shep. The quarians were trying to wipe them out, so they fought back. The quarians stopped trying to wipe them out in favour of running away, so the geth stopped fighting them.
Raan reports to EDI that all of the fighters are now pilotless, so looks like the job has been done.
The geth programs from the fighters have been convinced by Legion to switch sides! Excellent.
And back on the ship I am forced to endure a call from Admiral Xen. She should not have the power she does. I'd almost consider it worth it for the Admiralty to overrule the Conclave on something and then be forced to disband afterwards, as Tali said was procedure in the first game, if it meant that people like Xen and Gerrel would be unable to influence the direction of the quarians. (Of course, they could be replaced by worse quarians, and Tali and Koris could be replaced by much worse quarians. I'm still not sure what to think of Raan.)
Argument between Tali and Xen happening? I don't even need to listen to what they're saying before being inclined to support Tali, but I do, and it turns out Xen wants to grab some tech from the remains of the dreadnought, to study. Tali wants instead to rescue quarians in escape pods, to keep them from dying.
What is wrong with her? Tali's right, Xen, two against one. Pick up the pods.
Raan says the data I brought back was disturbing, since it doesn't match the stories she'd been told about that period. Asked if she's having second thoughts about the war, she says Admirals don't have the luxury of second thoughts. I do not understand what she means. It is in her power to prod her people into doing something wrong, or stop them from doing something wrong. For her to say "Well, we already started, so we can't just stop," makes no sense. Of course you can stop.
Kaidan says entering the geth consensus is gonna be the best chapter in my autobiography. He might be right. Probably be better than the final chapter, at least.
Garrus has awed Legion with his skill at calibrations!
Time to hit that Reaper base. On the ground, Tali's begun making plans for living on this planet. I think that's a little premature. You need to get permission from the geth first, Tali.
Legion reports that hostile geth are closing a blast shield over the base. That will interfere with our efforts to blow it up, and thus is bad. According to EDI, the Normandy's main battery would need hours to penetrate it. So we'll have to run to another part of the base and override the thing.
Blast shield not a problem any more but we can't go back out the way we came, so we need to go up in an ELEVATOR! Tali didn't like elevators before, and this one is carrying a geth Prime, so that doesn't endear the elevator to her, I'm sure.
BOOM! Signal gone!
SHIT! REAPER!
Oh boy, I've got to stand here in front of this Reaper and paint it as well for the combined forces of the fleet to hit it. James is absolutely right to call me Loco.
(At some point in there I fell a long way and walked away from it again.)
I can't believe I ever complained about having to fight Atlases and grenades. Those were nothing compared to this guy! I'm used to running out of the line of fire at full speed when something shoots at me, but in this fight I have to keep the target painted, which I can't do while running. So I have to roll, which is something I have much less practice doing in fights. And I have to roll out of the way when the sweeping laser beam is about to burn the ground I'm standing on, and I can't see how close the beam is if I'm looking up at my target...
Okay, the wiki was a big help. Learning that once the laser began firing at me it would not actually follow me around as I moved made things much easier, and the Reaper died.
The dying Reaper says that organics need to be harvested to bring order to chaos. You'll have to do better than that to convince me that we should welcome our "harvesting" with open arms, buddy.
And now Tali, after being reasonable, is begging me to let the geth be destroyed by her people. Screw that.
Well, that worked out pretty well. Aside from Legion not being with us any more, but in looking at the wiki entry for what I needed to do for the Party at my apartment I had seen that he was going to die and was prepared for the worst. That he died making a Heroic Sacrifice makes it easier to deal with.
The geth are okay with the quarians settling down there. Tali's okay with peace.
Aboard the Normandy again, the asari councilor congratulates me for the way I handled this, and then has something to tell me at the Citadel, in person. The last time one of the Council invited me to an in-person meeting, it did not go quite as planned, so here's hoping that this one turns out better.
