Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

Yes Paragon choices tend to be idealistic The Good Paladin stuff

but Renegade choicse also tend to be pointlessly ruthless, and done in the idiotic sense that Brutality = Pragmatism. IE dropping a guy out of building just so you can deliver a witty one liner.

The best examples of both failings is the Elara choice in the Samara mission.

Elara attempts to surrender...

Shepard A: Does not immediately tell her to drop her weapon before listening to her plea -IE Standard when dealing with a surrendering opponent- B: Modern soldiers actually carry zipties to secure surrendering combatants and hostages-you need to restrain them so they aren't in risk of panicking and being in the way- Shepard apparently thinks in a let them go or shot them is the only real way to do anything. -and yes there are ways around it... IE lock her in a room-

If she is genuine in her want to surrender She'll comply... if she refuses and tries something You're justified in killing her

Instead we get Bioware's standard writing... The choice is clearly refuse someone surrendering and gun them down just cause they are one of the baddies or let them live only to find out you let someone who just murdered someone to get into the group get away cause you were soft

and NO the pragmatic/professional thing isn't you discover the pad and go back and shot her anyway. You hand her over to the authorities and give the pad as evidence.

edited 30th Nov '15 8:42:26 AM by Nikkolas

Shepard is not a cop and Shepard is not an altruistic hero. Shepard in fact unleashed at least one serial killer on the galaxy to complete her mission. As such, why would she carry handcuffs?

Also you knock that guy out of the window because he's literally just another mercenary,the kind you have been killing since the start. You probably kill hundreds of them in ME 2. One more is irrelevant.

edited 30th Nov '15 8:48:17 AM by Nikkolas

That's not how it works.

Technically, as a Spectre (assuming you've been reinstated), you are the authorities.

Nikkolas: What really confuses me is the mental gymnastics required to justify letting a building full of people burn. It really shouldn't be that difficult.

You say Zaeed is a valued member of your squad. You make use of him a lot. Since you're not a Paragon, you don't have any other way to secure Zaeed's loyalty, and since you're going to need him to stop the collectors, sacrificing a building full of people in order to save many more is a fairly simple, if gut-wrenching moral choice.

Of course, you then turn around and betray Tali for no reason, so...make of that what you will.

edited 30th Nov '15 8:49:24 AM by BadWolf21

I 'betrayed" Tali by handing over the evidence to expose her father's crimes. I don't conceal evidence to try and make the genocidal race of assholes feel better.

As it turns out, I misinterpreted the situation and politics in the trial. I was under the belief that, exposing what her dad had done would cause public outcry and ensure that nothing like this happened again. Indeed, the one asshole female quarian admiral gets mad at you and says you set them back a long way by showing that evidence. I was trying to bring t o light a heinous crime, not hurt Tali. The fact the former happened was just a vaguely bad side-effect.

Shepard seems to have a problem with any solution that's not "shoot it or just let it do whatever".

No option to give the rachni queen to the Alliance, or Citadel governments, or anyone. Just murder her in cold blood or let her go.

No option to give the Collector Base to the Alliance or Citadel governments or Shadow Broker. Just blow it up or give it to the Cerbs.

No option to arrest Elnora. Either shoot the surrendering enemy or let the murderer (and you know she's a murderer at thay point- she's wearing an Eclipse uniform) go with no consequences.

The exact same thing happens with Fist in the first game. You either let him go or shoot him after he's surrendered; you can't hand him over to the police for some reason.

No option to have the Normandy come in and blast Vido's gunship with GARDIAN lasers; you either kill everyone in the building to get to him, or let him go.

It causes a lot of false dilemmas.

Two problems with that:

One, if you're supposed to be acting pragmatically, that's not the choice you would make. Your mission isn't to solve the flotilla's problems, it's to secure Tali's loyalty. You're intentionally failing your actual mission in order to play Quarian politics.

Two, you played them badly. There's only one person in that room who isn't itching for war with the Geth. There's not going to be a public outcry, because the public actually agrees with Rael's goals. It's his methods that were dangerous.

Ironically, by handing Veetor over to Cerberus, and probably also getting Kal'Reegar killed (if you played that section like it can be reasonably guessed you did), you lost the opportunity to leverage the situation so that you didn't have to commit one way or the other. You'd have been able to secure Tali's loyalty without getting her exiled, because they would have come to her defence and rallied the crowd.

That alone should be proof that you don't play pragmatically, because a pragmatist sees the value in having people around who owe you favours.

It's kind of a necessity of the medium. Creating branching paths that most people simply aren't going to see is needlessly expensive, so it's far more practical for choices to come down to a binary decision. At least then if everyone overwhelmingly picks one side (which is unlikely to begin with), it's only one scene that goes to waste instead of several.

No, the one dude who helped me fight the Geth Colossus was still alive. I didn't see an option for getting his help, though. Granted, I didn't really bother talking with any of the quarians before the mission. On my first "canon run' anyway, I talked to everyone my second time around.

I already confessed I didn't pay close enough attention to the trial and its politics on my first run. I noticed in my second run that the asshole persecuting Tali was in fact the least assholish admiral while Admiral Simon Templeman, who had seemed to be on Tali's side my first go around, was the worst of them all.

And I also already admitted that the absolute pragmatic professional was an ideal I strove for but never quite achieved. I don't like quarians, it's just part of both me and my Shepard.

Kinda sad I missed this when I ;actually played the game.

edited 30th Nov '15 9:34:29 AM by Nikkolas

TBH, I pushed the dude out of the balcony if only so a squad of dudes don't rush in and overwhelm me and my squad. And I also snapped that asshole commander on Miranda's loyalty mission's neck if only to get to get him out of my way.

I'm still a Paragon, by the way.

That would be me, too. Paragon, until I don't want to end up in yet another big firefight. Then I kill the one guy in a cutscene instead. :P

Yeah, the mercs on Thanes recruitment mission made it clear they have no objection to killing anyone who isn't specified to live. I have no reason whatsoever to believe whatshisface won't radio ahead the instant there's a door between him and me, and there's still civvies hiding on the lower levels, IIRC. The fact that taking him out without giving away my presence involves pushing him out a window in comedic fashion is simply an amusing circumstance. No more evil or sadistic than backstabbing the guy working on the gunship in Garrus' recruitment mission.

If I'm going to have to fight anyways, I might as well do it in a quick and quiet fashion that doesn't make things easier for the raging psychopaths.

edited 30th Nov '15 11:00:09 AM by TheAirman

She isn't hostile. She is suspicious, you were declared dead for very good reason - you were dead, and Tali saw you die - and when you reappear, you wear the uniform of an organization that is known for hating aliens. As far as she knows Cerberus could have come up with a clone to replace the real Shepard (guess what: if she thought so, she was right). If you pick the Paragon interrupt, aka the one where Shepard proves his/her ID without being a dick, she instantly warms up to you. And even without that, she is not hostile to Shepard - heck, Tali is never hostile in the entire trilogy, even if you choose to exterminate her entire race. Even Garrus threatens the life of Dr Michel because he is reckless, Tali doesn't even do that; Kaidan, Kasumi and her are flat out the nicest squadmates in the trilogy.

The issue isn't "Why shouldn't I believe Tali?", but "Why should I believe Cerberus?" On one hand you have an unequivocally heroic character who never did anything outright cruel during the entire game you spent with her, on the other you have an organization who was playing splice and dice with Thorian Creepers, Husks and Rachni while casually murdering Alliance officials.

If you are paranoid about Tali because she questioned your resurrection, you should basically have gunned Jacob down the second he says he works for Cerberus, then killed Miranda, stole the shuttle and ran away from the lab. Using "trust" as the reason for picking Cerberus over her is either proof that your Shepard is a psychopath, or a double standard of epic proportions.

Tali finds the experiments equally as monstrous as Shepard, but she begs him/her not to turn her into a pariah. That is the one thing she asks, she doesn't even ask you to prove her innocence, she just doesn't want to be hated by her entire race. If you do it nevertheless, then you Shepard really is a psychopath, aka someone who does not understand empathy.

You can't say "I didn't know it would hurt Tali", she says to your face that doing so would hurt her. That's the last line she says before leaving the Alarei. It's not misinterpretation, it's gratuitous cruelty. Plus, using the words "heinous crime" when you admit that you didn't help the refinery workers because Zaeed wanted to murder Vido is another shining double standard.

And seriously, if you consider that ruining the existence of your second-oldest ally who never did anything except following your orders is a "vaguely bad side-effect", it kinda proves your Shepard is a psychopath, and that there is nothing professionnal about him.

I mean, seriously. The sole selfish thing Tali does in the entire trilogy is to ask not to be known as the daughter of the Quarian Mengele. Even though she didn't know a thing about that and that the whole trial is a sham, you chose to give the proof.

edited 30th Nov '15 11:28:37 AM by Julep

You're forgetting the part that Tali and the quarians are even more leery of Cerberus because of the fact that said (terrorist) organization tried to wipe out the Fleet, if only because they were scared of aliens having the largest armada in the galaxy. I mean, really, after what she's seen Cerberus do in the first game, and what happened in Ascension (Ascension is canon, whether or not people like it), Tali showed incredible restraint in not just outright giving Miranda, Taylor, and an extremely suspicious Shepard lookalike a taste of her boomstick.

Okay first off, slow down there. Indifference to Tali does not make one a psychopath, nor is she as perfect and saintly as you seem to think.

Your claim that "Tali is never hostile" is patently ridiculous and untrue. You need only look at the video I just posted to see a hostile Tali. She is also hostile in her and Legion's little confrontation. Now you might say 'well she had good reasons" but reasons are irrelevant. The fact remains, she took an aggressive stance and hostility is defined as "unfriendliness or opposition." There are several times Tali is unfriendly and combative.

Also I've mentioned several times that my views of Tali and her race were colored by her history of the Quarian-Geth conflict. I have no sympathy for them as they brought this entirely on themselves by unprovoked genocide. They have continued to be this way up to the present, as seen by their experiments which are basically torturing sentient creatures. Although the argument of Geth "sapience' or whatever can be argued before ME 3, they were self-aware beings that the quarians do not respect as seen repeatedly with their genocides, inhumane experiments and unprovoked attacks.

Now, how is this similar to leaving a few refinery workers to die? It's not. My condemnation of the quarian' continued crimes is in no way relevant to me sacrificing a few people. The political and moral situations are wholly different.

edited 30th Nov '15 11:57:35 AM by Nikkolas

My question is this - if your stated goal is to earn the loyalty of your squadmates, and you let the workers die out of a desire to not deviate from that goal, then why did you do something that Tali explicitly told you not to do? I thought you were against deciding that you know what's best for your squadmates, seeing as you let Garrus kill Sidonis.

I do generally view it as being a nosy busybody to interfere with my squadmate's quests. Stuff like saving Sidonis or even encouraging Miranda to go meet her sister is just overreaching what was requested of you. I am a HUGE proponent of letting Mordin kill Maelon for example because Shepard is irrelevant. This is an ethical debate stemming from a historical matter between those two. Shepard has absolutely no right to stop Mordin from killing his wayward disciple.

So why then did I impose on what Tali asked of me? After all these recent posts, I'm beginning to think I probably hated her. I used to think it was indifference and maybe it is and I just project my hatred for her people onto her. In any event, I concede my hypocrisy.

Hostile towards Shepard. Of course she is rather hostile towards the countless mercs, geth or krogan she gunned down. And she is definitely hostile towards the racist duo cop/volus on the Citadel. She is (briefly) hostile towards Raan when she learns that Raan hid the truth about her father - and it's more a matter of family issues since she sees her as an aunt. She is definitely hostile towards Legion when she learns that the safety of her entire people - you know, the same people that don't have a planet to land on if something happens to their ships - is threatened. And she manages to give quite the Death Glare to Jacob when he mentions an AI on board. But she is NEVER hostile towards Shepard. Unlike Legion who tries to kill you if you choose to destroy the geth, might I add.

When you meet her on Freedom's Progress, she is more hostile towards her own squad when they refuse to put down their weapons than towards Shepard despite the presence of two Cerberus cronies. The Renegade option is ignoring that and making her, the sole friendly alien in the room, responsible for the fact that Quarians tend to be wary when they see the uniform of known supremacist terrorists. It's exactly like meeting a former black friend that is now part of a gang in the Bronx while bringing two pals with KKK uniforms. Then screaming at said former friend because the gang members dared to raise their weapons when they saw KKK members. That's completely dickish, unless you are a supremacist a-hole in the first place - in which case, note that said friend still followed you to hell and back, despite you being a racist dick.

I don't say that she is the Messiah, I just said that she was nice. Which she is. It's not a matter of YMMV, Tali is one of your nicest squadmates, period. Kaidan and Kasumi are nice too, Liara is rather nice too but a bit too detached in 1 and then too hardened from 2 onwards. And Traynor or Cortez aren't squadmates.

Also, being unable to disconnect the actions of Tali from the Quarian race as a whole is pretty much racism 101.

edited 30th Nov '15 12:12:11 PM by Julep

You would love 40s era Germany, they were really into the ideas of "collective punishment" and "genocide is a fine way to conduct war". They were fascists too, and you seem to love fascism non-ironically.

Lets all calm down, and remember to keep this about the games, not the people playing them. No need to get the whole series banned.

And, IIRC, Nikkolas has a severe visual impairment, to the point that he was literally incapable of seeing when a paragon interrupt appeared.

Agree with cooling down here. I mean, it is fiction.

That was a step too far Nihlus1.

I won't lie and say I'm not, in real life, attracted to authoritarianism. It's been a part of my political thought ever since I was a teenager. But, if it's any consolation, I recently had someone point out something that gave me a bit of an ideological shock. In addition to that I've come to also think that, just because I have a psychological and emotional need for control in my own life, this does not make it the best standard of governance for the world.

In short, read less Hobbes and maybe more Rousseau. Well, maybe not that far. Baby steps.

and Thank you. Also I do have a hard time seeing, which is why I never even knew the Tali Hug was a thing until my second run of ME 2. I mostly just kept pressing R1/R2 while watching a cutscene so that I would invariably catch any Renegade Interrupts that popped up. Did the same for Paragon on my second run.

edited 30th Nov '15 12:36:34 PM by Nikkolas

Can't blame you for the Tali hug, learned about it on the internet before seeing it myself. I think that is the second shortest interruption in the game after shooting the mech with the sniper rifle during Garrus' recruitment.

I do have to wonder who they will get to voice the new ME 4 Male and Female PC's. I know a lot of people say the guy who does Manshep got better but I just don't much care for him so I always stuck with Femshep. Kinda hoping the new guy's VA will be more to my liking.

As long as it isn't Nolan North or Troy Baker, I'll be happy.