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Recap / Mass Effect 2

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A recap of Mass Effect 2.

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    The Cold Open 

We open in 2183, a few weeks after the first game left off. The Normandy SR-1 is on the hunt for the geth. Officially, the Reapers — a Badass Army of Eldritch Abominations bent on waging a Robot War on the entire Milky Way Galaxy — are nothing but a rumor, even though Shepard verifiably slew one during the Final Battle of the previous game; instead, it was just a massive geth incursion, and Shepard is out here to put a stop to it.

While investigating, the Normandy becomes the victim of a surprise attack from an unknown cruiser with powerful weapons; just one shot cripples the ship. Navigator Pressly is slain immediately (via a case of the old Explosive Instrumentation), and more casualties follow. One of the previous game's party members — either the Virmire Survivor (either Kaidan or Ashley, the Mutually Exclusive Party Members who cannot both live through the first game) or, if you didn't import a Mass Effect 1 campaign or had a relationship with her, Blue-Skinned Space Babe Liara T'Soni — runs to Shepard belowdecks; the commander is activating a distress beacon, and declares the Abandon Ship, charging their lieutenant with getting everyone else off. Shepard, meanwhile, heads up to the bridge, where Joker is still trying to keep the crippled ship moving. Shepard tosses him into an Escape Pod and hits the button, just as the cruiser fires one last shot that destroys the Normandy for good.

Shepard, floating in space, feels shrapnel piercing their hardsuit. The commander plummets towards a nearby planet, suffocating. The Hero Dies.

The title card rolls.

    Awakening 

The player is allowed to confirm or change Shepard's appearance and character class. It is worth noting that Mass Effect 2 is an Actionized Sequel and a number of things have been streamlined.

  • In the first game, every character could use every type of weapon — Punch-Packing Pistol, Shotguns Are Just Better, assault rifle and Sniper Rifle — but could only learn to use some of them well. (Liara, the straight-up Squishy Wizard, couldn't learn to use any of them well!) The second game adds "submachine guns" to the list of weapon types, but now restricts all characters, including Shepard, to a Limited Loadout. Classes have always been divided between Combat and Support, but the three Support classes — Adept, Sentinel and Engineer — are hit the worst as they are restricted to only pistols (the starting pistol does Cherry Tapping at best) and SMGs (the starting SMG is suitable for A-Team Firing at best), a major downgrade from the first game where sharpshooting was within reach of every class (and, indeed, was arguably the point of the game's shooting mechanics). (Also, without Downloadable Content, there's only two types of each gun to choose between.) That said, Shepard also gets access to "Heavy Weapons" which are intended to handle crowds.
  • The entire character class system has been simplified: each player class only has five active skills and a single passive. Player Party characters have only two active skills, a passive, and a third skill that needs to be unlocked somehow. That being said, there is now significantly less overlap in terms of classes having the same skills, and each class now has a Signature Move for an active skill:
    • Soldiers get Adrenaline Rush, which boosts shooting damage and provides a short Bullet Time effect. The only class to not equip SMGs, they instead retain the arsenal from the first game.
    • Adepts retain Singularity, the Unrealistic Black Hole which yoinks enemies towards it and causes them to revolve helplessly in orbit around it for a short time — the best crowd-control spell in the game, period.
    • Engineers get Combat Drone, which summons a Hard Light Hologram to draw fire and stun anything that gets close to it.
    • Sentinels get Tech Armor, increasing your shield values and providing a Herd-Hitting Attack when overwhelmed.
    • Infiltrators get Tactical Cloak. They also get a bonus passive which causes automatic Bullet Time when aiming a Sniper Rifle, which they can use in addition to the standard Pistol & SMG loadout.
    • Vanguards get Charge, a biotic bodyslam that refills your shields. They can equip shotguns in addition to their Pistol & SMG.

Shepard, potentially edited from the first game, awakens on an operating table. A Voice with an Internet Connection, a woman, tells them to hustle up, grab a gun and some armor: apparently, the... wherever-Shepard-is... is under attack. Someone has sabotaged the place, and the automated security mechs which are supposed to be defending everyone are, instead, murdering them. There are no aliens, and everyone is wearing white-and-black uniforms with a six-sided yellow icon on them.

In addition to the adjustments mentioned above, Shepard gets accustomed to the new shooting system. As You Know, guns in the Mass Effect universe are Magnetic Weapons with Justified Bottomless Magazines: the gun contains a block of metal, and shaves off tiny slivers to fire at very high velocity; the ammo block is typically rated for about 10,000 rounds. Since no player would realistically fire — and no opposing force would have Hit Points enough to realistically require — 10,000 rounds, the first game replaced the normal reloading situation with an Overheating mechanic to limit the player's effective DPS, requiring them to space out their shots and focus on accuracy. This game discards that entirely and goes back to reloading your guns using "thermal clips". (In the third game, Shepard will Handwave this by claiming that this allows guns to fire with more power, and stops people from having to wait until their guns cool down... but required the older heat-vent system to be removed to make room for the thermal clips, locking gameplay into one mode or the other. The person they're talking to, Conrad Verner, scoffs, "Okay, that's just... you might as well be going back to limited ammunition." As an Author's Saving Throw, the third game has a couple guns that use the old overheating mechanic, and the Gaiden Game Mass Effect: Andromeda allowed it to be installed to any weapon via Gun Accessories.)

Shepard links up with a living human: Jacob Taylor, who seems to be a Vanguard if he's anything at all. (In every game except the first, each party member has a unique class that does not necessarily correspond to something Shepard is or could be.) Jacob assures Shepard he's on their side, though he observes that things must be pretty bad if "Miranda" has Shepard up and about. He promises to answer as many of Shepard's questions as possible, after they survive the current situation, but he does drop one important fact: Shepard has come Back from the Dead, and it's now 2185 because of how long it took to do it.

The two link up with Wilson, another living member of the station's team; Wilson seems convinced that Miranda has betrayed the installation. Jacob finds that difficult to believe, given that she's in charge of the installation; if she is loyal, then this kind of looks bad, and if she isn't, there are easier ways for her to have screwed things up than pulling a Back Stab. Before they move forward, Jacob admits the truth to Shepard: he, and everyone else on the station, are agents of Cerberus, the Nebulous Evil Organization of Right-Wing Militia Fanatic types that caused so much trouble during the Sovereign campaign.

When the three find Miranda Lawson, down in the shuttle bay, she puts an end to the real traitor: Wilson himself. She then escorts Shepard off the station, having succeeded at preserving the only thing that really matters. She takes Shepard to a Cerberus installation where Shepard has a holocomm meeting with the leader of Cerberus, The Illusive Man. Shepard, of course, can be completely indignant that they've been revived by a group of Space Racists — or they can just thank Cerberus for their work. Either way, TIM (as we're going to call him for convenience) asks that Shepard investigate something first: a number of human colonies have suffered mass abductions, and no one's doing anything about it. Shepard should go down and have a look. The one thing Shepard and TIM agree on is that the Reapers are out there, and that if the Council isn't going to do anything about it, the two of them are going to have to take matters into their own hands.

    Freedom's Progress 

Shepard investigates the abandoned colony with Jacob and Miranda Lawson as their squadmates. (Miranda is roughly a Sentinel.) They find no colonists, just more security mechs that have been programmed to shoot anything that moves... and the last thing anyone might expect: Tali'Zorah vas Neema, here to find a lost quarian named Veetor who came here on their Pilgrimage. Veetor, it is revealed, is who hijacked the security mechs — as proved by a Boss Battle against a YMIR Mech that slaughters Tali's squad when they Leeroy Jenkins in over her objections. Veetor, who has been in hiding, has security-cam footage of what happened to the colonists: they were subdued by insects which Veetor calls "seeker swarms" and then carted away by obscure aliens called "the Collectors." Miranda explains that the Collectors live on the other side of the Omega-4 relay and are very rarely seen. If they're working with the Reapers, it only bodes ill.

Tali requests to take custody of Veetor, offering his omnitool readings in exchange. Shepard can choose to allow it, or to take Veetor into Cerberus custody for closer interrogation.

Shepard reports to TIM and is Railroaded into accepting Cerberus's help in stopping the Collectors and/or Reapers. To do this, however, TIM has furnished Shepard with some good opportunities: first, there are several dossiers on people Shepard can recruit into the Player Party (more on them below). Second, he has provided Shepard with a pilot: none other than Joker, who has been grounded for two years and jumped at the chance to fly again. And third, he has provided a ship: the SSV Normandy SR-2, which is bigger and better than the original in every way (five decksnote , better drive core, same stealth systems). Its only downside is that it's now too large to land the surface of planets by itself, something the SR-1 did repeatedly in the Sovereign campaign. TIM wants Shepard to assemble a crew and go through the Omega-4 Relay, which nobody has ever gone through — or, rather, which plenty of people have gone through, but no one has ever survived to return from.

Shepard boards the Normandy and finds it full of Cerberus crew: engineers Donnely and Daniels, Jacob, Miranda, and even Dr. Chakwas, who is formally on a leave of absence from the Alliance. Many of them are former Alliance members who resigned for the same reason Garrus left C-Sec: too much red tape, too much bureaucracy. As they see it, Cerberus is on the front lines and being Properly Paranoid against oncoming threats like the Reapers. Miranda reinforces the idea that Cerberus maintains its humans-first Renegade-style Fantastic Racism, though she admits that Shepard is in charge and can choose to run the ship in Paragon mode if they so choose. Normandy is also equipped with something truly illegal: an "Enhanced Defense Intelligence," a genuine AI, mounted to run the ship's cyberwarfare and hacking equipment and also acting as your Voice with an Internet Connection on missions. "EDI" claims she cannot operate anything more, but she also admits that she has computing hardware and subroutines that are currently turned off and whose purpose she does not know. This is also true of the ship: a number of rooms are sealed off and cannot be entered. They will unlock if you recruit a specific party member, who will then live there. Two are, technically, already unlocked: Jacob can be found in the Armory on Deck 2, maintaining the ship's small arms, while Miranda's Number Two's office is on Deck 3 where the Captain's Cabin was on the SR-1. In general, you'll want to talk to your squadmates, not just because doing so will unclock Side Quests for you, but because each of them has ideas for upgrades for the mission. Jacob, for instance, studied the fate of the SR-1, and suggests you add asari-invented Silaris armor to the SR-2.

With this crew, Shepard is now free to wander the galaxy. While the Citadel is available, where Shepard can catch up with Captain Anderson, get their Spectre status reinstated, buy new gear and bargain for discounts by giving endorsements ("I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel"), the real meat of the game is out in the Milky Way, where Shepard goes fishing for members of a Player Party that are willing to go on a One-Way Trip.

    Wide-Open Sandbox, Pt I 

Recruitment

The game's party selection screen is also the heart of its core loop. Here, the player can investigate the questions of who Shepard has already recruited into the Suicide Squad, who Shepard can currently recruit into it, and how to get them. As of the start of the game, Shepard has four potential options, with two more as Downloadable Content.
  1. The Professor is Dr. Mordin Solus, a salarian Omnidisciplinary Scientist and former STG member. Shepard should recruit him because he can devise a defense against the Collectors' seeker swarms, which will make it easier for Shepard to fight them and/or remain ambulatory. He can currently be found on Omega, a Wretched Hive and criminal hotbed.
  2. Archangel is some sort of One-Man Army who has been waging war against the criminals on Omega. His operations are noted for their cleverness and simplicity. He might be useful.
  3. The Convict is a prisoner named Jack, believed to be the most powerful human biotic alive. They are currently being held prisoner on a turian ship. TIM has negotiated their release, but Shepard still has to go get them.
  4. The Warlord, Dr. Okeer, is an Old Soldier krogan who survived the Krogan Rebellions. He is rumored to have contacted the Collectors in hopes of finding a cure for the genophage Sterility Plague that affects his people.
  • The Master Thief is a DLC-only character. She is named Kasumi Goto and has been hired by TIM. While the above four characters have missions you have to go on to recruit them, all you have to do to get Kasumi is dock at the Citadel, get out of the Normandy, and find a billboard she's hijacked so she can communicate with you. This takes all of 60 seconds. Kasumi is roughly an Infiltrator, given that she has an Invisibility Cloak, but she uses it for melee-range Back Stabs. Aboard the Normandy, she can be found in the Port Observation Lounge on Deck 3.
  • The Veteran, the other DLC character, is Zaeed Massani. The most feared Private Military Contractor in the galaxy, he's just hanging out on Omega and will join you the first time you visit there. He is a Soldier with a focus on weapons damage, and lives in the Starboard Cargo Hold on Deck 4.note 

These can be done in any order you please, and there are some benefits to varying it up. For instance, if you just grab Kasumi and Zaeed up front, you have that much more flexibility in your party composition, and there's frankly no reason to not do this. That said, for simplicity, this recap will follow the numerical order above.

The Professor

Most game guides recommend you get Mordin first, because he lives in and unlocks the Normandy's Tech Lab on Deck 2, where you can purchase party-wide buffs, new weapons, upgrades for the Normandy herself, and more.

Dr. Solus, according to EDI, is operating a free clinic on Omega, which is currently dealing with an outbreak of plague which affects everyone but humans and vorcha. (If you do this first, all of your party members are human, but — spoiler alert — the characters you get from the "Archangel" and "Warlord" missions are not, and if you bring them with you they may drop a few one-liners about feeling a bit ill. Don't worry, they get better.) While you can go straight there, you're first encouraged to visit Afterlife, a nightclub run by Omega's head crime boss and dictator-in-chief, the asari Aria T'Loak. You can also ask her about Archangel, who is also here.

The slums of Omega have devolved into chaos: quarantine has been imposed, and the Blue Suns, a group of Private Military Contractors, have taken it upon themselves to just kill everyone to halt the spread of the plague; additionally, many have taken the opportunity to do some looting instead. The end result is that Shepard can find a lot of corpses in a lot of apartments. Eventually, Shepard makes it to Mordin's clinic. Mordin is a Motor Mouth, but is also the first person Shepard has met who isn't particularly hostile. Mordin is happy to join Shepard's suicide squad, but first wants Shepard to help him deploy a cure for the plague, which he (Mordin) has developed. This results in Shepard fighting their way down to Environmental Controls to put the cure in the air circulation system. Once done, Mordin boards the Normandy. He's an Engineer with various tech powers. His upgrade idea is not related to the Normandy, but rather enhances his power damage.

Mordin's arrival not only unlocks the Tech Lab, it also unlocks the ill-liked resource scanning minigame. There are four basic raw materials needed for upgrades — iridium, palladium, platinum and element zero — and, to get them, Shepard has to use the Normandy's scanner on various planets and send down probes which will retrieve raw materials for later use. This is precisely as tedious as it sounds. However, a few short missions can be unlocked via scanning, not to mention a joke or two. Miranda's ship upgrade is supposed to make this less tedious, but it only does so on console, as it essentially upgrades the player's mouse sensitivity — a thing PC players can do easily anyhow.

Archangel

Some guides recommend you actually do this mission last of the initial four, because there's just a ton of fighting against a wide variety of enemies. That said, some players choose it second or even first for sentimental reasons.

Aria, back in Afterlife, mentioned that all three major groups of Private Military Contractors — the Blue Suns, the Eclipse, and the Blood Pack — have decided to band together and take out Archangel. Shepard signs up as one of their cannon-fodder low-level mooks, with the intention of going Double Agent later. The mercs' assault is going to be grim: Archangel has holed up at the end of a one-way street and has a commanding view of the approach; plus, they're known to be an expert with a Sniper Rifle. The mercs' plan basically boils down to "We Have Reserves," backed up by a bunch of mechs and a Future Copter. Shepard is given the opportunity to sabotage these things before heading in, reducing the mission's difficulty but lowering the amount of Experience Points you can get from it.

Shepard leads the "charge" down the street, quietly taking out other mercs along the way, and then ascends to the top floor of the safe house to meet Archangel — who turns out to be none other than Garrus Vakarian, who's here to shoot criminals and chew bubblegum. And he's all out of bubblegum.

The rest of the level is basically an Escort Mission: Garrus stays up at the top shooting mercs with his sniper rifle as the Eclipse, the Blood Pack and the Blue Suns all attack one at a time. Garrus has his own health bar. Each merc group's attack includes that group's leader, resulting in a Boss Battle. This culminates in Tarak, the Blue Suns' leader, flying in with his gunship, which the four of you have to shoot down. The gunship's parting shot is a rocket to Garrus's face, and Shepard calls for immediate medevac.

Garrus survives, with a couple of cybernetic implants, a fairly serious facial scar, and some physical damage to his armor which he wears for the rest of the game. He takes up residence in the Normandy's Main Battery at the very tip of Deck 3, directly under Joker's pilot seat on Deck 2, where he can frequently be found "in the middle of some calibrations." He occupies a truly odd place in the game's class structure: while he shares the sniper rifle, and split emphasis on Tech and Combat, as an Infiltrator, he seems to have all the things an Infiltrator doesn't normally have; his "Concussive Shot" knockback ability is normally found on Soldiers, "Overload" is an Engineer or Sentinel power, and he doesn't have the Invisibility Cloak. He suggests upgrading the SR-2 with turian-invented "Thanix cannons" to give her more firepower.

The Convict

Shepard takes a squad to the Purgatory, the turian prison ship where the convict, Jack, is being held. A sudden but inevitable betrayal occurs as the warden, Kuril, decides to capture Shepard and sell them for profit as well. Shepard must fight their way out, and then override security for the whole prison — starting a riot, but more importantly releasing Jack, the Psychotic Biotic.

Jack, to everyone's surprise, is revealed to be a bald-headed, highly-tattooed woman. However, her title as "most powerful human biotic" is justified by Cutscene Power to the Max, in which she effortlessly handles 3 YMIR mechs which would normally give her a ton of problems during gameplay.

After killing Kuril, Shepard eventually corners Jack, who has arrived at the airlock where Normandy is docked. She hates Cerberus with a passion — apparently she suffered some past violence at their hands — but agrees to work with them as a chance to sow chaos from within. She takes up residence in the basement of Deck 4. She's a Chaotic Evil biotic, and has the Shockwave and shotgun of a Vanguard. That said, she, like Jacob, lacks the Foe-Tossing Charge Signature Move of the Vanguard; in fact, only one party member in the whole franchise will ever have that, and she's currently becoming a Human Popsicle in preparation for her role in Mass Effect Andromeda. Jack's upgrade is a new biotic amp that increases her power damage.

The Warlord

Shepard lands on the planet Korlus, where Warlord Okeer has been hanging out with the Blue Suns. It becomes clear that Jedore, the local Blue Suns leader, has hired Okeer to create Designer Baby krogan on behalf of her organization. Most of them, in his opinion, are defective, and those he has released to her control — not that she can particularly control them; the Blue Suns and their baby krogan are fighting all over the place, and while the Suns are winning, it's a near thing. Okeer needed independent scientific assistance to do all this genetic engineering, which is why he contacted the Collectors. Jedore finally figures out that Okeer is behind the mass release of krogan and starts piping poison gas into his lab; Okeer, as the price of his allegiance, demands Shepard kill Jedore. Shepard does, but Okeer succumbs to the gas, leaving Shepard only with Okeer's perfect specimen: a single uber-krogan, full-grown but not yet awakened, in its Uterine Replicator.

The tank is stowed in the Port Cargo Hold on Deck 4, and Shepard is given the choice of whether to break it open and awaken the krogan within. (Technically, you never have to open it at all, and there are a few benefits to delaying, as some additional content becomes available earlier.) The krogan explains that he has the genes of several notable krogan warlords in his DNA, but Shepard encourages him to pick his own path — and his own name. He chooses "Grunt". He is roughly analogous to the Soldier class, but with an emphasis on the Stone Wall aspects of the class rather than the straightforward DPS of Zaeed. His upgrade is a massive M-300 Claymore shotgun whose recoil would break the arm of a non-krogan.

Sidequests and Loyalty Missions

As mentioned earlier, the game's core loop is structured around the party selection screen. In the previous four missions and two bits of DLC interaction, Shepard has recruited six Player Party members to go with them on a Suicide Mission. Two of them, the DLC characters Kasumi and Zaeed, mentioned that, as part of the deal TIM made with them, Shepard will need to assist them on missions. You see, every character Shepard recruits has a Dark and Troubled Past that continues to haunt them to this day, and if Shepard wants their squadmates to function at peak efficiency, they (Shepard) will have to help them (the squadmates) handle their Unfinished Business. Most of these so-called "Loyalty Missions" occur later in the game, but Kasumi's and Zaeed's can be accomplished right now.

  • Kasumi used to have a friend, Keiji, who was slain by unspecified means. All that's left of him is a "greybox" containing his memories, and it's currently in the possession of a rich fellow named Donovan Hock. Kasumi wants it for herself.
  • Zaeed wants to kill Vido Santiago, the co-founder and current leader of the Blue Suns.
  • In a piece of Downloadable Content, a Cerberus station has gone off the grid. All TIM can tell Shepard is the name of both the DLC and the subject of the station's research: "Project Overlord".
  • Another DLC involves Shepard being asked by Alliance command to visit the "Normandy Crash Site" and place a memorial there. This is a neat way to provide closure to the old girl, but has so little plot relevance that we're not even going to bother talking about what happens there: nothing does. (Or, rather, we've just finished successfully describing it, so let's move on.)

Kasumi: Stolen Memory

The Heist takes place at Donovan Hock's villa. Kasumi remains under cloak, acting as Shepard's Voice with an Internet Connection, while Shepard strolls in the front door, posing as the leader of a group of Private Military Contractors. Kasumi helps Shepard peel away security and get into Hock's vault, where their weapons and armor was stashed beforehand. The two break into Hock's vault and find a number of priceless treasures, like a Prothean statue from Ilos and the head of the Statue of Liberty, as well as the M-12 Locust — arguably the best SMG in the game due to its sniper-rifle-level accuracy, and therefore a boon to anyone playing Adept, Sentinel or Engineer (squadmates don't suffer from accuracy issues and are therefore better served by the M-9 Tempest you'll pick up later in the game) — and Keiji's graybox. However, this is where Hock catches them. After fighting their way through his mooks, Shepard and Kasumi take on Hock while he flies a gunship.

As Kasumi peruses the memories stored in Keiji's graybox, it becomes clear that their relationship was far more than professional. Shepard may encourage her to either keep the greybox or destroy it; either way, Kasumi becomes Loyal. Remember how every character has a third active ability that needs to be unlocked? This is how you unlock it. Kasumi's is "Flashbang Grenade," which is a powerful area-of-effect stun.

Zaeed: The Price of Revenge

Zaeed needs to liberate a fuel refinery that's been taken over by the Blue Suns, and wants to assassinate Vido Santiago while he's at it. He admits It's Personal: he and Vido were friends, back when they founded the Blue Suns together, but eventually Vido turned on him. When he meets his nemesis, Zaeed decides to blast his way in — which, since we're talking a fuel refinery, means a lot of Stuff Blowing Up. Shepard must decide whether to focus on saving the refinery workers or giving up on them to chase down Vido.

  • If Shepard decides to humor Zaeed's desire for Revenge Before Reason, they succeed at catching up with Santiago. Zaeed becomes Loyal, unlocking his loyalty power of "Inferno Grenade."
  • If Shepard decides to save the workers instead, they succeed, but Vido gets away in a helicopter. Then an explosion traps Zaeed under a piece of debris. If Shepard has enough Paragon points, they can convince Zaeed to abandon — or at least delay — his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, at which point Zaeed becomes loyal. However, Shepard can (or, if lacking enough Paragon points, be forced to) simply free Zaeed and call it a day, at which point he remains unfocused and does not become loyal. Finally, there is also the option, if you delayed this mission until after The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, to decide Zaeed isn't worth the trouble and leave him to die.

Project Overlord

Shepard and a squad land on the planet Aite, where a Dr. Gavin Archer explains that various VIs are trying to upload themselves into the extranet and off the facility. There are also geth everywhere, which the VIs have seized control of. In the end, Shepard needs to get to a satellite dish, with which the VI will beam itself offworld, and destroy three of its four structural supports to end the virtual prison-break attempt.

Dr. Archer now arrives in person and explains the purpose of Project Overlord: to learn to control the geth by combining a VI with an actual human mind. The VI has now holed up at Atlas Station, and Shepard will need to visit Prometheus and Vulcan stations (flying the game's replacement for the M35 Mako, the M-44 Hammerhead hover tank) to issue an override, which Dr. Archer will replicate from Hermes Station. Having achieved these goals (it's a lot of gameplay and not a lot of plot), Shepard unplugs the VI's internet connection, trapping it on the planet, but in revenge the VI infects Shepard's hardsuit and omnitool with a virus, causing the commander to stumble around in Augmented Reality. Shepard makes their way to the station's core, where they find David Archer — the teenage brother of Dr. Gavin Archer who has been hooked up as the project's Wetware CPU, and is trying to escape because he wants to escape. After defeating David's remaining geth reinforcements and pulling him out of the computer entirely, Shepard squares off with Gavin, who wants to continue the experiment because of its massive success; it may be the edge humanity needs in handling the geth. Shepard gets to decide whether to call Child Protective Services, getting David sent to a Boarding School called Grissom Academy, or leave David there to serve The Needs of the Many.

    Intermission I - Horizon 

After completing the four recruitment missions that are actually missions (IE Grunt, Jack, Garrus and Mordin), Shepard will get paged to the Normandy's conference room at the back of the CIC. TIM informs Shepard that the human colony of Horizon is in the process of going dark, and Shepard is to head there immediately. Anything you didn't complete will still be available for later consumption, but no matter what, Do not answer TIM's call unless you're satisfied with the current state of affairs: once you answer, it's a Point of No Return and the game sends you straight to Horizon without asking permission. TIM warns you to expect the Collectors... and the Virmire Survivor, who is part of an Alliance outreach to the Terminus Systems, an independent area which rejects the Council's authority.

The mission also introduces the Big Bad of the game: Harbinger, an intelligence or commanding presence that can inflict a Villain Override Demonic Possession on any Collector mook it chooses, giving them an immediate boost to durability and DPS. This is almost inevitably accompanied by the Catchphrase "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL," which players hear very, very frequently.

Shepard and their squad are beset by not only Collectors but husks, the cyborg zombies that Sovereign turned its victims into. This is the first direct link between the Collectors and the Reapers, confirming that TIM's belief in their cooperation was right. Shepard also starts finding some of the colonists of Horizon: they are frozen in place by the Seeker Swarms and are now stuck where they were, allowing the Collectors to, uh, collect them at their leisure. Shepard, of course, is having none of it. They activate some of the Anti-Air defenses that the Alliance recently put in place, and this drives off the Collector mothership, the massive cylinder of doom that killed the SR-1. The person who comes to congratulate them for saving the colony... is none other than the Virmire Survivor, who praises them for their work... and then almost instantly starts complaining that Shepard is working with Cerberus. (To repeat: Nebulous Evil Organization made of Right Wing Militia Fanatics.) Aside from an e-mail later in the game, where they apologize for their emotional reaction at seeing Shepard Back from the Dead, this is the last time we see the Virmire Survivor until the third and final game.

    Wide-Open Sandbox, Pt II 

Shepard, back on the Normandy, gets access to a new planet called Illium, a major center of commerce run by the asari. It opens up three new dossiers.

  1. The Justicar: Samara is a member of a revered order of asari who are essentially their equivalent of The Paladin. She might be excited at a chance to serve a much larger, galaxy-spanning goal.
  2. Tali: She's on a mission for the Migrant Fleet on a planet called Haestrom. Shepard should go see if she's willing to help out once she's done.
  3. The Assassin: A very lethal drell by the name of Thane Krios has agreed to work with Shepard and/or for TIM. Shepard needs to go acquire him.

Additionally, after debriefing with TIM about the Horizon excursion, Jacob will mention that he is unfocused, and that much of the crew is probably the same, concerned with Unfinished Business that they will leave behind if they go through the Omega-4 Relay. Kasumi and Zaeed, documented above, can engage in Sequence Breaking because they are DLC characters, but for the 10 party members the game shipped with, this is when Shepard can talk to them and they'll start opening up about their loyalty missions. In alphabetical order:

  • Garrus was on Omega to do what he could against criminals. He had a squad with him, but they were betrayed when one of them, Sidonis, became a Double Agent — leaving the rest of them dead and Garrus pulling the one-man Bolivian Army Ending Shepard rescued him from. Garrus has since tracked down Sidonis, and now he wants the fellow Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves.
  • Grunt starts going through essentially krogan adolescence — he becomes even more of a Blood Knight than usual. The krogan guard their medical information jealously (especially after the massive HIPAA violation more commonly called "the genophage"), so Grunt asks to be taken to Tuchanka so he can learn what he can.
  • Jack was raised in a remote facility where Cerberus tried to turn biotic kids into Tykebombs. (In her case, it Went Horribly Right.) Jack wants to return to the place where it all went down and blow it up.
  • Jacob's father served on a freighter that went down several years ago. That freighter has just sent a distress call. Jacob wants to go see what's up.
  • Miranda is the genetically-engineered daughter of a rich and wealthy businessman. Once she realized that he only cared about progeny — she was by no means the first of his Designer Babies, merely the first one he actually bothered keeping — she got out and began to live her life her own way. Undeterred, Mr. Lawson cloned himself again, this time calling the daughter Oriana; undeterred, Miranda hid her from him as well, believing that Oriana would benefit more from a loving family than a distant father who's Only in It for the Money. Well, it seems that Henry Lawson has caught up with Oriana. Miranda wants help getting her somewhere even safer.
  • Mordin, during his time with STG, was responsible for creating and distributing an updated version of the genophage, along with a team of other operatives, including his protege, Maelon. Well, the Blood Pack — mercenaries composed of both vorcha and krogan — have captured Maelon and are holding him on Tuchanka. Mordin wants to get him back.
  • Technically, Samara, Tali and Thane all have their loyalty missions open up as well, but simply for organizational reasons we're going to leave them until later in the document. You can't do everything anyway; the next plot-mandated intermission kicks in after you do five more missions.

Recruitment Missions

The Justicar

Thane and Samara are both hanging out on Illium, which serves as one of several general hubs for missions (alongside Omega and Tuchanka, which we will get access to via Grunt and/or Mordin). Your first stop is a Knowledge Broker who has set up shop in the two years between games: the daughter of a famed asari matriarch and renowned Prothean expert, Liara T'Soni. She knows where both Thane and Samara can be found, though she declines to join Shepard's team; she's been busy for the last two years making her own way in the world, and besides she's this close to hunting down the Shadow Broker for good and all. Her friend, Feron, is currently the Shadow Broker's prisoner, having pulled a "You Shall Not Pass!" to protect her, and she's preparing for a Roaring Rampage of Rescue.

Near Liara's office is the Eternity bar. This is notable for being the home of Matriarch Aethyta, an asari bartender who was laughed off Thessia for daring to suggest the asari should start looking into questions like how to make their own mass relays. (She mentions how her father, a krogan, fought in the Rebellions, and her mother against them, and that the two lived happily for hundreds of years before finding out, having it out... and ending up Together in Death.) She also mentions having fathered a purebred daughter at one point. This will be important later. Shepard additionally runs into Conrad Vernor here, wearing cosplay N7 armor and claiming to be engaging in derring-do throughout the galaxy. Thanks to a Good Bad Bug, Conrad will always claim that Shepard threatened him with a gun barrel to the face, regardless of whether Shepard did so. Shepard, exasperation notwithstanding, can help Conrad perform a sting on an illegal drug dealer... or just shoot him in the foot to make him leave.

In any case, Shepard sets out after the Justicar, Samara, who is investigating the murder of a volus businessman. Shepard is granted access by a local police officer, Anaya, who mentions that she's been ordered to detain Samara — she's the asari equivalent of a Spectre, but with no oversight beyond the Honor Before Reason innate in anyone who follows the Justicar's Code. As such, Anaya would very much like to avoid having to act on those orders: Samara will resist arrest, Samara will succeed at doing so, and Anaya will go home in a box.

Shepard finds Samara interrogating an Eclipse lieutenant about the murderer: apparently, this is someone Samara has been trying to find for some time. As such, Samara refuses to join Shepard unless they help her track that murderer down. The Eclipse granted the murderer passage offworld, and Shepard assaults an Eclipse base to find out the ship's name and destination. Shepard learns, from a New Meat Eclipse mercenary who has grown disillusioned with the life, that the refugee is an "Ardat-Yakshi," which she thought was just an asari story — but no, the Ardat-Yakshi got offworld via the AML Demeter. This information in hand, Samara agrees to join the Normandy crew. She lives in the Starboard Observation Bay on Deck 3, and is mostly an Adept, though with the addition of an assault rifle. Her upgrade increases the size of Normandy's fuel tanks.

Tali

Tali is in charge of a scientific expedition to the planet Haestrom, which used to be a quarian colony. This means there are geth around, which is why Tali has quarian Marines with her. Additionally, something odd is going on with Haestrom's star: it's burned through the planet's magnetosphere, and if Shepard stands in direct sunlight for too long, their shields fail.

The major NPC encounter is with the leader of those Marines, Kal'Reegar, by now the only living quarian on the planet besides Tali herself. He is facing down a Geth Colossus and a bunch of other foes single-handedly. Shepard can order him to take cover, or to make a ruckus with his rocket launcher, at which point he dies during the fighting.

Tali acknowledges that her responsibilities to the Migrant Fleet are over. She explains that Haestrom's star is aging a lot faster than it's supposed to be, speculated to be due to infusions of dark matter. (This Red Herring was Left Hanging, but is believed to have been intended as a Chekhov's Gun towards the original ending of Mass Effect 3.) She joins the Normandy crew, though she is skeptical of working with known xenophobes — and, despite wearing a mask which obscures everything but her glowing eyes, manages to fasten Jacob with a tremendous Death Glare when he encourages her to introduce herself to EDI. Tali takes on the post of chief engineer and can be found on Deck 4; she is a fairly straightforward Engineer class, despite the addition of her favorite shotgun. Her upgrade augments the Normandy with improved "cyclonic barrier technology" Deflector Shields.

Garrus and Tali are the only party members from ME1 who can be permanently recruited during ME2, due to Popularity Power. They are also Promoted to Love Interest in this game.

The Assassin

Shepard learns that Thane has been hired to kill off Nassana Dantius; Shepard recalls that they (Shepard) inadvertently helped her murder her sister in the first game. Nassana has become overly paranoid, expecting attack from any angle, and accordingly surrounds herself with heavy Eclipse protection; she's also become something of a Bad Boss, as evidenced when Shepard lands at Dantius Towers and sees her using her mercs and security mechs to indiscriminately slaughter the construction workers there. (One of the workers, if rescued, quips, "[T]ell [Thane] to aim for her head... ...cause she doesn't have a heart!") She also very clearly subscribes to the "We Have Reserves" school of thought, and Shepard fights through over 100 mooks to reach the penthouse at the top of the tower. Dantius offers money and bribes to save her life... but it's too late, especially since Shepard isn't actually who came here to kill her. Thane, the drell, drops out of an air vent and puts an end to the deceitful asari, cradling her as she dies and then praying afterwards — for himself.

Thane accepts the suicide mission, as he's already dying. After making his home in the Life Support room on Deck 3, he explains that his reptilian species evolved on a Single-Biome Planet that was all desert. Unfortunately, Rakhana's biosphere was too unstable to handle industrialization, and the planet became uninhabitable. The drell were saved by the hanar — the floating pink jellyfish aliens we've been seeing since the first game — who helped them with a Homeworld Evacuation and relocated them to their own home planet of Kahje. Unfortunately, as you'd imagine for jellyfish, Kahje is also a Single-Biome Planet, this one of ocean. "Kepral's Syndrome" is now the leading cause of death amongst drell, as their lungs struggle — and eventually fail — to cope with the humid, moisture-laden air of their new home. But it's not communicable, even to other drell, and it won't impact Thane's performance. In the meanwhile, he has the better part of a year, and he sees the Suicide Mission as a chance to make the galaxy a little brighter before he passes. Thane is closest to an Adept, but comes with a sniper rifle. His upgrade helps the Normandy stock more resource probes, which is something assassins think about frequently.

Loyalty Missions

Garrus: An Eye for an Eye

Shepard and Garrus arrive at the Citadel, where Sidonis was last seen with Fade, a criminal who specializes in helping people drop off the grid. They learn that Fade is actually Harkin, a former C-Sec officer who had a brief appearance at Chora's Den back when Shepard was trying to find evidence to incriminate Saren. Harkin, realizing he's being followed, throws a bunch of Blue Suns mercs at Shepard. It's not enough, and the two corner Harkin and have him arrange a meeting with Sidonis.

Garrus sets up with his sniper rifle and uses Shepard to lure Sidonis out. You can use Paragon interrupts to convince Garrus to spare him — especially after Sidonis admits his guilt and shame over what he did, and Garrus realizes that, in some ways, they are both the same: haunted by Survivor's Guilt and the ghosts of their past mistakes. If Sidonis is spared, Harkin will be arrested, and Sidonis will surrender himself to C-Sec for the murder of 10 people on Omega (though Bailey has no idea what to do to him: Omega has no government to extradite Sidonis to). If not, C-Sec will report that they have no leads on Sidonis' murderer (leading Garrus to reply, "What a shame"). Either way, Garrus becomes loyal and unlocks "Armor-Piercing Ammo," increasing his weapon damage against both armored and unarmored targets. While this might not sound too exciting, especially compared to things like "Singularity" and "AI Hacking," it should be pointed out that any ammo powers can be talented to apply to the entire squad, enhancing DPS across the board.

Grunt: Rite of Passage

Shepard and Grunt land on Tuchanka. Grunt is not impressed — the krogan have bombed themselves back to the Stone Age more than once, and the place is essentially a dusty wasteland. However, this is the fourth main hub of the game (aside from the Citadel, Omega and Illium), and also the hiding place of the final ME1 recruitable character: Urdnot Wrex, should he have lived through the first game, has ascended to leadership of Clan Urdnot, giving him a platform for his bleeding-heart, far-left views (which, to re-iterate, include the absurdly liberal idea that krogan should focus on things besides shooting each other). Of course, if Wrex did not live through the first game — and he has the first Plotline Death flag in the franchise, so it's totally possible he didn't — then his brother, the much more traditional Urdnot Wreav, has the rulership instead. (The same thing happens if you didn't recruit Wrex; he simply disappears into the galaxy and is never heard from again.) Whichever of the Brothers Urdnot is in charge, they help identify that Grunt has essentially hit krogan puberty, and will need to prove himself in battle. Shepard offers to serve as Grunt's krannt — basically, someone who will show Grunt Undying Loyalty — and the squad goes off to pass the test.

The test involves fighting a "thresher maw" Sand Worm. On foot. Because, you know, krogan.

If you kill the thresher maw — or just survive a five-minute Timed Mission — you win, but immediately Gatatog Uvenk arrives. A more traditional krogan, he initially showed resistance to letting Grunt take the test at all, since he is an artificial krogan. He now shows interest in accepting Grunt into Clan Gatatog, but no matter what you say or how, it ends up the way a lot of krogan disagreements end up: with guns. Upon defeating them, Shepard and Grunt return to the Clan Urdnot hideout, where the clan's shaman officially inducts him into Clan Urdnot. If you succeeded at slaying the thresher maw, Grunt also gets some serious respect points: no one's done that since Wrex took his manhood rite, the better part of a millennium ago. Grunt's Loyalty power, "Fortification," gives him a massive Damage Reduction bonus.

Jack: Subject Zero

Shepard and Jack journey to the remains of the Teltin facility on the planet Pragia. Though Jack expected it to be abandoned, EDI detects multiple lifesigns.

As Jack leads Shepard into the facility, they find computers, logs, bloodstains and other artifacts, and Jack slowly tells the story of her childhood. The facility was actually a rogue Cerberus element that had broken off from TIM, designed to create biotic gods; Jack was put in an arena setting and trained to kill other kids, and pumped full of endorphins if she won and shocked if she hesitated. Jack also finds evidence that (surprise surprise) the other kids were abused as well in support of her training, but is a little too preoccupied with her own (admittedly massive) trauma to think about that. There are also some Blood Pack mercenaries hanging out to enliven the gloom.

At the heart of the facility — Jack's former quarters — you find one of the other kids, Aresh. He wants to rebuild the Teltin facility and repeat the mistakes of the past. Shepard can use appropriate conversation options to convince Jack to let the guy go or kill him. Jack can also be given a few moments to inspect her old room and the memories that live there. Whatever the case, she plants the bomb, and the shuttle rockets back off to the Normandy as Teltin is consumed in a massive blast. Jack's Loyalty power is "Warp Ammo," which acts as a damage buff against health, armor and biotic barriers (but not technology-based kinetic Deflector Shields, which are distinct from biotic barriers).

Jacob: The Gift of Greatness

Jacob's father hasn't been heard of in 10 years, when the ship he served on, the Hugo Gernsback, disappeared without a trace. Of course, as Jacob explained, the distress beacon suddenly went off on the planet Aeia. It's weird, is the point, and Jacob, despite being by far the most psychologically steady person on the ship, would like some closure.

Aboard the crashed Gernsback, Shepard and Jacob find the VI running the distress call. Apparently, the captain died in the crash, leaving Ronald Taylor the ranking officer. Logs from the crew about many of the crew losing cognitive functions. Further research logs show that the local plant life, which has served as the crew's main source of food, is what hampers the crew's thinking; it also becomes clear that the ranking officers, led by Jacob's father, have taken advantage of that to create a sort of paradise for themselves, run by indentured servitude and sexual slavery.

When Shepard and Jacob reach Ronald Taylor's compound, they find him living like a king, having offed the other officers to save all the food (and spoils) for himself. He starts by lying that he was the victim of a mutiny; he also clearly doesn't recognize Jacob. Once he finds out, he starts backpedaling; but the mistakes have already been made: Jacob has been in a froth of righteous indignation ever since he learned what was done, and he has already disowned the man who sired him. ("I guess he was a good-enough father that even he couldn't screw up what he taught me.") Shepard and Jacob can decide to remand Taylor to Alliance custody, leave him here to be the victim of his freed slaves, or Leave Behind a Pistol. This leaves only the question of how the distress signal got forwarded to Jacob in the first place; Jacob accuses TIM, but it's Miranda who steps forward, claiming she's keeping an old promise. Jacob unlocks his Loyalty power, "Barrier," another emergency shielding spell.

Miranda: The Prodigal

Miranda, with Shepard in tow, lands on Illium and heads to Eternity, where she learns that a man named Niket, her only friend from her childhood with her father, will be helping Oriana and her adoptive family, where Miranda placed her when Oriana was but a babe, get to safety. Shepard asks Miranda — frequently and constantly, as if we weren't being anvilicious enough about it — whether Miranda can trust Niket, meaning that she's the only one who's surprised by his sudden but inevitable betrayal. He's sold Oriana out to Eclipse, who seem excited at the idea (or perhaps the cash reward) of returning a Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter to him. Niket believes that Oriana will be happier with her biological father — she will certainly be better provided for, as it's implied that her adoptive family are having trouble with financial matters — but he's doing this as a surprise; he hasn't told Mr. Lawson yet. This leaves him as the only loose end. If Miranda doesn't shoot him, the Eclipse Captain does, and a Boss Battle begins. Afterwards, Miranda observes Oriana with her adoptive family, where she herself placed Oriana when the latter was a baby, as the three prepare to emigrate to a more secure location and better-paying jobs. Miranda prepares to walk away, but Shepard can convince her to introduce herself.

Miranda's Loyalty power, "Slam," is very simple: it picks the target up and then throws them to the ground again. More importantly, it's a HitScan ability with no travel time, meaning it cannot miss, and it causes the target to take double damage until they manage to stagger back to their feet. If Miranda actually said hello to Oriana, Shepard also gets an email from the younger Lawson, thanking Miranda for being her guardian angel and asking Shepard to play the same role for her (slightly chronologically separated) twin sister.

PS: Don't tell her I sent you this. It would just make her angry.
PPS: Miranda, quit looking at Shepard's messages. Oh, don't act like you don't. It's what I'd do.

Mordin: Old Blood

Shepard and Mordin land on Tuchanka, where a Clan Urdnot official confirms that Maelon has been kidnapped by the Blood Pack and taken to an abandoned hospital. He asks that Shepard keep an eye out for a krogan scout which he sent to investigate the area and who has yet to return. As they spelunk deeper, they find the corpses of female krogan, and it becomes clear that Mordin is still wrestling with guilt over his involvement with the genophage project; while he protests that he worked hard to revise the genophage seamlessly, so that population levels would stop increasing and not decrease to unsustainable levels, some part of him knows that his actions were both logically correct and ethically wrong. Sometimes, he admits, he wishes he hadn't been on the mission at all, but also knows that there was no other choice: "Had to be me. Someone else could have gotten it wrong."

Maelon, it turns out, feels exactly the same; it's not just that he's trying and cure the genophage outright, it's that — as he admits, upon being found — he is doing so under the auspices and with full cooperation of the krogan Clan Weyrloc.

In addition to stopping (or not stopping) Mordin from murdering Maelon in cold blood, Shepard can decide what to do with the data and research Maelon has acquired, which is the closest thing to a genophage cure there has ever been. This decision will be important later. Mordin unlocks his Loyalty power of Neural Shock, completing his Fire, Ice, Lightning trifecta and allowing him to stun targets for a very long time.

    Intermission II — Derelict Collector Cruiser 

Once Shepard does five of the missions remaining to them, the next Intermission pops up: TIM has learned that a turian cruiser fought and crippled a Collector ship, and Shepard must go investigate.note  Fortunately, we'll have another sandbox segment before the game ends.

Different strategy guides have different advice on whether to rush to this mission. To a very real extent, it depends on your class: one of the big upgrades in this level is the ability to give your Shepard access to one (1) new weapon type out of Assault Rifles, Shotguns and Sniper Rifles, which can help Engineers, Adepts and Sentinels achieve some much-needed firepower. (If Shepard is one of the other classes, then you instead get to unlock one new gun from within the weapon type, which is very powerful and cannot be accessed in any other way: for instance, if you choose the Shotgun upgrade, Shepard gets to wield the Claymore that formerly only Grunt could handle.)

TIM has received word of a Collector ship which was damaged in battle with a turian force; all the turians died, but they crippled the ship in the meanwhile. Shepard and a squad board the Collector ship, and EDI is able to run some genetic scans on dead Collectors, finding out something astonishing: They are Protheans, or at least all that is left of them, having been enslaved and then genetically modified by the Reapers. Shepard gets to a central command console and links the ship with Normandy so that EDI can pilfer their data files; EDI determines that the turian distress call actually originated from the Collector ship itself, and that TIM knew it was a fake. Also, it's a trap: Shepard is forced to Hold the Line while EDI finishes copying their backend data, and then fight their way out as the Collector ship powers up and prepares to do to the SR-2 what it did to the SR-1. Apparently, though, the Collectors aren't much without the element of surprise; Joker's piloting is sufficient to get the ship away this time.

TIM does not apologize for not telling Shepard it was a trap, pulling the "I Did What I Had to Do" defense — and claiming that he trusted Shepard's competence. The last bit of data EDI got is also the most important one: The Omega-4 relay leads to the Collector home base at the galactic core, a no-man's-land of "exploding stars and black holes" (as Jacob describes it) — which goes a long way towards explaining why nobody ever comes back from it. Apparently, the Collectors have a unique IFF transponder that allows them to use the Omega-4 relay safely. Cerberus has identified the corpse of a Reaper, destroyed 37 million years ago, whence Shepard can get a copy of that transponder for the Normandy. Shepard is given the option of going straight there — if so, skip directly to "Intermission III — Reaper IFF" — or to mess around doing other things. This latter is recommended, as the Reaper IFF mission is essentially the beginning of Act 3, and the game is fairly on-rails from that point on.

    Wide-Open Sandbox, Pt III 

This segment allows you to complete any remaining Recruitment or Loyalty missions. At this point, you've recruited as many as 11 characters (two during the intro, six before Horizon, three before the Collector ship), but if you did, it only left you room for at most four loyalty missions (Zaeed's and Kasumi's, which you did before Horizon despite being low-level, and two more after Horizon). You have a bunch more, and the others which were saved for this segment:

  • Samara has tracked down the refugee who shipped out on the AML Demeter, and wants to go find her.
  • The Migrant Fleet has charged Tali with treason, apparently relating to something her father, Admiral Rael'Zorah, did. Tali needs to go back to the fleet and find out what's going on.
  • Thane's estranged son, Kolyat, has followed in his father's footsteps and become a hitman too. Thane wants to get Kolyat back on the straight and narrow.
  • In a Downloadable Content mission, Liara gets help from Cerberus in general, and Shepard in specific, in her vendetta as she plunges into "The Lair of the Shadow Broker".

Loyalty Missions and Side Quests

Samara: The Ardat-Yakshi

Samara gives the name of the criminal on the AML Demeter. "Morinth" is indeed an "Ardat-Yakshi" — an asari with a rare genetic disorder that causes the reproductive Mind Meld to turn into a Mind Rape, turning the victim into an Empty Shell... and is wildly addictive for the asari in question, resulting in a Depraved Bisexual Serial Killer. Samara, a Justicar, has devoted her life to hunting them down; to her knowledge, there are only three, and the other two have chosen to live a life of seclusion and celibacy. Morinth has not. She is also Samara's daughter. When asked how many children she has, Samara answers, "Three. And three Ardat-Yakshi are in existence today. It is as it sounds." (Samara's adherence to a strict Code of Honor suddenly leaps into perspective.)

Morinth has been found on Omega, and is up to her old tricks. By investigating the apartment of Morinth's latest victim, Shepard picks up enough clues that they can pose as a random NPC and act as bait for Morinth. Samara prepares to spring the trap; this is the closest she's gotten to catching her daughter in 50 years.

It should be pointed out that these remaining Loyalty missions, as well as Zaeed's which was already covered, introduce something new: a fail state. In all the Loyalty missions affecting squad members whose names start a letter in the first half of the alphabet, no matter what Shepard does or what decisions they encourage the squadmate to make, they always get closure no matter what happens. If they're in the second half, though, the mission can be "completed" without success, if Shepard botches some part of the mission. In this case, Shepard can play their cards wrong and not succeed at piquing Morinth's interest; if so, Morinth gets bored and leaves, and the mission ends without unlocking Samara's loyalty or loyalty power.

Assuming Shepard doesn't do this, Morinth invites Shepard back to her apartment. There, she attempts to seduce Shepard, requiring a massive amount of Karma Meter points to resist: Shepard either needs an Old Save Bonus from the first game, which starts them with some points, or to have munchkin'd the hell out of the Karma Meter system, focusing all your points exclusively on one side.

Whether or not Shepard succeeds, Samara bursts in, and mother and daughter fight, evenly matched. If Shepard failed to resist the seduction, they automatically aid Samara, killing Morinth and securing Samara's loyalty power Reave... But if Shepard succeeded, they can choose to side with Morinth as opposed to helping Samara. If so, Morinth disguises herself as Samara (mostly by means of borrowing the latter's strawberry costume) so that no one on the crew is the wiser. Morinth comes with the Dominate loyalty power. Shepard can also visit Morinth to have sex. ...Once.

Tali: Treason

The Normandy arrives at the Migrant Fleet and Tali is immediately brought before the Admiralty Board, the five Admirals of the Fleet who counterbalance the civilian Conclave (the fleet is still technically under martial law). She meets with Adm. Shala'Raan vas Tonbay, her Honorary Aunt, and is taken before the three members of the Conclave: both Raan and Tali's own father, Adm. Rael'Zorah, are recused from the hearing. The remainder — Mad Scientist Daro'Xen vas Moreh, diplomat Zaal'Koris vas Quib-Quib and Blood Knight Han'Gerrel vas Neema — charge Tali with treason: the Alarei, a lab ship at which Rael'Zorah has been doing research, has been overrun by geth, and Tali is believed to have endangered the fleet by sending him geth parts and components. Tali also learns that she has been forcibly renamed: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, who grew up on the ship Rayya, went out on her pilgrimage; Tali'Zorah vas Neema, who was accepted as an adult on the Neema, went to Haestrom; now Tali'Zorah vas Normandy has been stripped of her ship name, which is about one step away from exile. However, a quarian's captain always stands for them in legal matters... And Tali has Shepard vas Normandy with her.

Shepard and Tali volunteer to board the Alarei and clear it of geth, as this should prove Tali's loyalty, help her find if her father is still alive, and allow her to find proof that the whole thing is just one big accident.

Shepard is able to speak to the four remaining admirals before they head to the Alarei, and it becomes clear that Tali herself is something of a pawn in larger political maneuverings. Han'Gerrel has been agitating for a return to Rannoch and war with the geth; Rael, supporting him, has been running weapons tests on them (hence his need for Tali's pilfered geth bits). Xen is essentially on their side — she sees the geth as servants to be mastered — but couldn't care less for a trial, since Rael and Tali are either Too Dumb to Live or just terribly unlucky, neither of which requires judicial correction. Zaal'Koris is less sanguine on the idea of a renewed Robot War, seeing the geth as children the quarians have wronged, and Raan, Team Mom, agrees. Shepard and Tali let her have it for ambushing her publicly with the news that her father is in danger, possibly dead, on the Alarei; Raan protests that Tali's unfiltered emotional reaction will be important in proving her innocence. All of them like Tali, but all of them are willing to use her in their machinations: it's Nothing Personal.

The Alarei is filled with a lot of living geth and a lot of dead quarians; the Admirals had feared that the geth were rebuilding themselves (it's not like they don't have the parts to do it), and that fear proved correct, giving Shepard a lot of enemies to fight through. Just outside the central control room, Tali finds the corpse of her father and breaks down weeping; there is a Paragon interrupt that allows Shepard to give her a Cooldown Hug. Rael left a message about how the central room has the main server with which the geth are networking; it also shows the whole story: the geth activating on the Alarei wasn't an accident as the Admiralty Board suspected, it was on purpose, to further Rael's research. Rael was deliberately reviving them so he could perform tests on them. You know, For Science! Tali now has proof that she is innocent... because her father is "the worst war criminal in the history of our race." She begs Shepard to not use it.

Back aboard the Neema, the Admirals are trying Tali in absentia, as it's suspected she chose an honorable death in combat over exile. Shepard and Tali barge in. Shepard can withhold the evidence and get Tali exiled; Shepard can hand over the evidence, exonerating her but dishonoring her father's memory, which results in her not becoming Loyal... or can Take a Third Option and call bullshit on the whole Kangaroo Court, which is really about how the Admiralty Board want to handle the geth. In this outcome, Shepard refuses to hand over the evidence entirely, pointing out that Tali's history of service — the campaign against Saren, her hard-earned expertise with the geth, the recent fight to clear out the Alarei — should speak for itself. Unusually, Shepard can do this without invoking a Karma Meter option: if both Veetor and Kal'Reeger are present, which requires that the former was not turned over to Cerberus and the latter was saved on Haestrom, they will speak up in Tali's defense. Whatever the case, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy heads back out with her captain, possibly in possession of "Energy Drain," which is a Life Drain for shields.

Thane: Sins of the Father

Thane and Shepard arrive on the Citadel to stop Kolyat. From one of Thane's contacts, they learn that Elias Kelham, a small-time crook who made it big after Sovereign attacked the Citadel, hired Kolyat. The head of C-Sec for Zakera Ward, Armando-Owen Bailey, balks a bit when asked to arrest Kelham, as the two have an under-the-table arrangement (Bailey swings much more Renegade than Paragon), but ultimately is swayed, giving Shepard a chance to interrogate the crime boss. A successful interrogation reveals that Kolyat has been assigned to assassinate Joram Talid, a turian politician running largely on an anti-human platform.

Talid will be at a fundraiser, and Shepard spends the entire time shadowing the politician from the catwalks above. Shepard can actually lose track of Talid, at which point you flunk out of the mission and Thane doesn't go Loyal. If you keep up, Talid eventually returns to his apartment, where Kolyat is waiting. When Thane shows up, he complains about his Disappeared Dad who only now cares to show up. (Thane can have confessed to Shepard that, when his wife died, he shipped the kid to relatives; Kolyat was 10 years old.) Thane confesses his culpability: his enemies killed Irikah to get to him, and Thane simply could not handle the shame of living with the son he deprived of a mother. The two retreat to have a conversation and start to catch up, while Bailey contemplates what to do about Kolyat, who can (and should) rightly be arrested for attempted murder. Shepard can Paragon him into giving Kolyat community service, Renegade him into employing Kolyat privately, or just let him go to jail. Meanwhile, Thane pops his Loyalty power, "Shredder Ammo," which increases his damage against unshielded targets. (This is ironic, given that Thane's quest involves no combat whatsoever, a distinction only shared with Samara's above.

Lair of the Shadow Broker

Cerberus has found enough information that Liara can definitely hunt down the Shadow Broker; they are happy to provide it to her because the Shadow Broker has aligned themselves with the Collectors, creating an Enemy Mine situation. Shepard is called to Liara's apartment, which is being searched by the asari Spectre Tela Vasir; Vasir explained that someone tried to assassinate Liara, and she (Vasir) has been called in to investigate. Shepard finds a message inviting Liara to the offices of the company Baria Frontiers, where one of her contacts will give her the exact location of the Shadow Broker.

As Shepard and Vasir arrive, a bomb goes off, wiping out the top three floors of the building. Liara has just been the target of two assassination attempts in half an hour. Someone really wants her dead.

Vasir goes to seal the building from the top while Shepard & Co work their way up from the bottom. As they head in, they are attacked by Shadow Broker mooks. The two Spectres arrive at Liara's location at the same time... only for Liara to pull a pistol and claim that Vasir set her up. Vasir is a Double Agent working for the Shadow Broker. If this is false, Vasir does a really bad job of denying it, instead shooting at Shepard and then running for it. Shepard, Liara and one other character of your choice get in an aircar and chase the rogue Spectre, trading banter all the way. Vasir crashes atop the Azure hotel, and Shepard jumps out, with Liara as Guest-Star Party Member. Make sure you choose a third squadmate who either synergizes with her strengths or counterbalances her weaknesses: as a straight-up Adept, she has limited weapon damage, but she is the only character in the game besides Shepard themselves with access to the "Singularity" spell, and the only character in the game with Stasis — no one else has it, and Shepard themselves can only learn it via the "Advanced Training" perk which lets them buy and equip one Loyalty Power (such as Stasis).

Liara notes from the blood spatter that Vasir was wounded in the crash, and she and Shepard track the Spectre down. As befitting an Elite Agent Above The Law, Vasir has tons of Hit Points, and is also the first boss in the game to have the Vanguard's Charge spell. After defeating her, there is a short conversation where she justifies getting help from the Shadow Broker to defend the galaxy against threats; isn't that precisely what Shepard is doing while working for Cerberus? Whatever the case, Liara has the data, which pinpoints the exact location of the Shadow Broker's ship.

Shepard, Liara and a squadmate land on the exterior of the ship and fight their way in. It's a long, tedious battle that doesn't need covering. The Shadow Broker itself is a pre-FTL species, a "yahg," that isn't seen around the galaxy due to the Alien Non-Interference Clause; this one was kept as the Former Shadow Broker's pet, before assassinating them and taking their place. When Liara points out the "pet" part, the yahg gets touchy: it throws its desk at your third party member, and the Tap on the Head takes them out for the duration of the Boss Battle. Whatever the case, Shepard and Liara prevail. Liara, having achieved her Klingon Promotion, now becomes the new Shadow Broker.

The DLC ends, but some artifacts remain: Liara can be invited to Shepard's Cabin on the Normandy to socialize and, potentially, romance. Shepard can also visit the Shadow Broker's ship, which contains a bunch of text files doing Worldbuilding for the Milky Way Galaxy, from Grunt's Google search history to Jack's habit of writing poetry to Aria T'Loak's decision to hire hanar jugglers as entertainment at Afterlife. Liara, however, leaves the party and returns to being a NPC.

    Intermission III — Reaper IFF 

Shepard turns their attention to the Reaper IFF. They'll be getting it by visiting the corpse of a Reaper in the Thorne system. Many of the Cerberus staff sent to study the Reaper are dead, more are indoctrinated, and the Reaper activates its Deflector Shields, forcing Shepard and their party to blow up its drive core before they can escape. But the weirdest part is a geth, which calls out to "Shepard-Commander" and appears to be wearing some N7 armor. It helps Shepard fend off the opposition, but is damaged in the fight.

After the mission, Shepard can decide what to do with the geth they rescued. You can forward it to Cerberus for money... or you can awaken it, at which point it joins the party as your last squadmate. "Legion," as it calls itself (after EDI makes a Biblical allusion), is 1183 geth runtimes occupying a single platform. It has the AI Hacking and Combat Drone spells of an Engineer, but also excels with a sniper rifle. It takes up residence in the AI Core room, where EDI also has its primary hardware, at the back of the Med Bay. His upgrade is a powerful anti-materiel rifle, which only a geth platform (or a Shepard who picked the Sniper Rifle upgrade during the Collector Ship mission) can use effectively.

Shepard bides their time running around the galaxy waiting for EDI to finish integrating the Reaper IFF into the Normandy's systems. If you took advantage of the third sandbox section, the only one that isn't timed, to wrap everything up, there's actually only one thing left to do:

Loyalty Missions and Sidequests

Legion: A House Divided

Legion will speak of a group of geth heretics that are causing problems. It turns out that the geth are in no way united; there are geth traditionalists who remain on the quarian homeworld of Rannoch and more-or-less want to be undisturbed, but also geth heretics that want to continue the Robot War. These heretics allied with Saren and Sovereign, and are now writing a computer virus that will allow them to turn all geth into heretics. Legion wants to stop them.

You know who's a really good squadmate to take on this mission? Tali. Legion has 40% more Hit Points and a Sniper Rifle where Tali has a shotgun, but their two basic skills — "Hack An AI to Fight For You" and "Spawn A Combat Drone" — are identical. Their passive abilities are also nearly identical, the only difference being that Tali's provides a boost to Spell Duration where Legion's focuses on Reduced Cooldown. Really makes you think, huh.

Legion leads Shepard to and through Heretic Station, where these geth have their home. Legion provides a lot of infodumps on the geth as you proceed. Continually, Legion shows Paralysis by Analysis, able to see both sides of an argument and being unable to decide between them; to them, Shepard's decisiveness is a massive boon. Thus, unsurprisingly, when the virus is deleted and Shepard asks what to do with the station, Legion leaves it up to Shepard-Commander: you can brainwash them back into loyalist geth, or just blow the place up. Legion comes home with their "Geth Shield Boost" ability, which Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Confrontations

Now that all loyalty missions have been completed, it's a good time to discuss one more wrinkle BioWare threw into the game. Once two specific squadmates have both achieved loyalty, Shepard will walk in on them fighting each other.

  • Miranda and Jack start getting into it. Both are powerful biotics, but they represent both sides of the Cerberus coin: Miranda shows the organization's more noble goals, whereas Jack is living proof of its excesses.
  • Tali and Legion begin to argue: Legion "borrowed" some data from Tali's omnitool, particularly concerning the war-mongering Shepard saw Han'Gerrel and Rael'Zorah getting up to, and wants to send it back to the geth consensus.
In all cases, Shepard has the option of making one of them back down; however, if Shepard does this, the squadmate is un-loyalty'd. (If you're romancing them, they also dump you, no questions asked.) Fortunately, if Shepard speaks to the "losing" party afterwards, they may get a Persuade option to soothe egos and get Loyalty back. Ideally, though, Shepard has enough Karma Meter points to convince them both to back down. In Tali and Legion's case, this involves Legion agreeing to hold onto the classified data, and Tali volunteering something less classified that they can send home instead.

Cut content indicates an argument between Grunt and Mordin was planned, but never implemented. If disagreements were intended between the remaining characters, no data has seen the light of day, but the seeds are there: Jacob, the Consummate Professional, expresses some disdain for the Only in It for the Money Professional Killer Thane when the latter is recruited; Zaeed and Kasumi are both guns for hire, but differ in their perception of a Crapsack World versus A World Half Full; and it's quite obvious why Samara, with her Lawful Stupid adherence to her Code of Honor, would object to a Cowboy Cop vigilante like Garrus.

Romance

If Shepard romanced anyone during Mass Effect 1, their picture will be on the desk in the commander's quarters. Of course, none of those three actually bunk on the Normandy, and Shepard has the option of moving on to someone a bit closer by. (If so, Shepard will turn that picture face-down.)

In general, characters who are actually aboardship can only be romanced if you've already done their loyalty mission. If successfully romanced, they will join Shepard for a night of love just prior to the final mission, as happened in the first game. This will also earn the player an Achievement from whatever gaming service they happen to be running Shepard's journey on.

  • Garrus, as mentioned above, serves as a romance option for a female Shepard. The Friendly Sniper and Boisterous Bruiser ("Scoped and dropped!") turns adorkable and awkward, admitting that he feels Shepard is his only friend, and that he desperately — after his failed stint as an archangel — wants something to go well for him. Shepard will generally have to take the lead in these encounters, especially given Garrus's occasional habit of putting his foot in his mouth:
    Garrus: I remember this one mission, me and this recon scout had been at each other's throats, nerves mostly. She suggested we settle it in the ring.
    Shepard: I take it you went easy on her?
    Garrus: Actually, she and I were the two best hand-to-hand combatants on the ship. I had reach, she had flexibility. It was brutal. After 9 rounds, the judges declared it a draw. A lot of unhappy bettors in the other room. We, uh, ended up having a tiebreaker in her quarters. I had reach, she had flexibility. More than one way to work off stress, I guess...
    (later conversation)
    Garrus: I'd wait, if you're okay with it. Disrupt the crew as little as possible, and take that last chance to find some calm just before the storm. You know me, I always like to savor the last shot before popping the heat sink. (Beat) Wait... that metaphor just went somewhere horrible.
  • Jack is available to a male Shepard... if you work at it. If he speaks to her enough, Jack will offer to have casual sex with him, resulting in what the Fandom.com wiki calls "a feisty sex scene". Thereafter, though, she'll refuse to speak to Shepard again — even about things like wanting to do her Loyalty mission, which can make this a truly problematic path to pursue. The alternative is to pull a Let's Wait a While, at which point Jack — slowly — begins to open up about her Survivor's Guilt concerning, well, the entire world, not to mention previous people she loved who have since died. Shortly before the endgame, Jack will visit Shepard in his quarters and admit her emotional turmoil. Where basically every other character has a Pre-Climax Climax scene, she and Shepard spend the night fully clothed, just holding each other.
  • Jacob can be romanced by a female Shepard. He's not considered the most compelling option in the cast (quite the opposite) because of his stalwart, unflinching ability to choose right from wrong — something basically no other character has — but that makes him a good person for Shepard to unburden herself to. She admits that she feels abandoned by her crew — one is dead, but another half of the ME1 Player Party is off doing their own thing — but also guilty because her death is what caused them all to fracture. Jacob reassures her that her compassion is what makes her better than, say, TIM, and kisses her on the cheek. When coming up for their Pre-Climax Climax, though, he gets hit with another case of narm: "Look at this — like sneaking into the captain's quarters. Heavy risk... But the prize..."
  • Miranda is an option for a male Shepard. After saving Oriana, Shepard will suggest that Miranda allows herself to fade into the background a bit more, and should try to get more appreciation for what she does. This segues directly into Miranda asking if Shepard admires her body, which he can of course admit to doing. Miranda, who has been used by many people but respected by very few of them, moves tentatively into the relationship. Her tryst with Shepard takes place not up in his quarters, but rather spontaneously in the Engine Room. (Kasumi, if downloaded, may speculate that she did this solely to make Tali jealous.)
  • Tali is romanceable by a male Shepard. "What could I possibly be suggesting? I mean, a young woman gets rescued by a dashing commander who lets her join his crew and then goes off to save the galaxy? How could she possibly develop any kind of interest in him?" Like Garrus, she has a bit of the old "I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me" going on. Upon taking a bit of a cold, she mentions that quarians live their entire lives in their suits, and the most intimate thing they can do is link their suit environments... and Shepard is the only man she trusts enough to do that with. (Cue the stammering and blushing.) After some preparations, she visits Shepard in his quarters, having taken several supplements to bolster her immune system — it's not only her first time with an alien, it's her first time whatsoever. Shepard, soothing her worries, removes her face mask and kisses her, and she pounces on him and pushes him to the bed.
    Tali, after the team returns from The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: "Just so you know, I'm running a fever, I've got a nasty cough, and my sinuses are filled with something I can't even describe. And it was totally Worth It."
  • Thane can be romanced by a female Shepard. Drell have extremely vivid memories, and Thane is still haunted by a lot of things — particularly the death of his wife. However, Shepard encourages him to make new memories with her, and Thane begins to call her "siha", after one of the valkyries in his people's mythology. For their tryst, Thane admits that he has stopped being ready to die — because he's got something to lose again. Shepard simply replies, "Be alive with me tonight."

As part of the build-up to each sex scene, Shepard can consult with Mordin, who has some accurate and amusing insights into Boldly Coming.

  • Turians have thulium in their skin, and Mordin warns Shepard of "chafing" when being intimate with Garrus. He also points out that, since turians have Mirror Chemistry, Shepard might have an allergic reaction: "So don't, ah, ingest." Perhaps for this reason, Garrus also does not have a (visible) sex scene with Shepard, with the two limited to sharing a Headbutt of Love.
  • For Jack, Jacob and Miranda, all of whom are biotics, Mordin will comment on the Power Perversion Potential of mass effect fields. He will also suggest some extra safety precautions in Jack's case, since her Readings Are Off the Scale where human biotics are concerned.
  • For both Miranda and Jacob, Mordin will point out that both are Cerberus employees and might have a Hidden Wire anywhere.
  • Drell, such as Thane, have compounds in their skin that act as a mild hallucinogen to humans, particularly if oral contact is involved. There is also a chance of rash and some itching.
  • Quarians also have Mirror Chemistry in addition to their not-precisely-existing immune systems. Mordin suggests Shepard self-sterilize, thoroughly, and avoid oral contact.

Finally, there are a few other characters the character can romance (or attempt to romance) who do not net the achievement.

  • First up is Mordin himself. Salarians do not have a sex drive, and Mordin cannot be tempted by a Shepard of either gender. He does appreciate the interest, though. "If intended to try human, would try you."
  • Kelly Chambers is a Cerberus employee whose station is directly to the right of the Galaxy Map, where Shepard sets the Normandy's course. We haven't mentioned her until now because she's frankly just a Bridge Bunny, there to let you know if Shepard has received any new email or if any of the crew want to talk, something Shepard could easily determine by simply face-checking the situation. In any case, a Shepard of either gender can romance her — and in fact can technically do this alongside any of the romances above.
  • Samara can be flirted with, particularly if Shepard (of either gender) is going Paragon. This culminates in an Almost Kiss, but ultimately cannot commit.
  • And of course Shepard can simply remain faithful to Liara, Ashley or Kaidan. If so, the sex scene at the end of the romance chain is replaced by a shot of Shepard smiling at the photo of their loved one.

    Endgame - Suicide Mission 

Inciting Incident

Once two missions (defined as "Situations in which Shepard can draw their weapon") have passed since getting the Reaper IFF, EDI will finish integrating it into the ship's systems. When she does, she will tell you that the full shakedown requires the Normandy to sit dead in space and twiddle its thumbs. As such, on your next visit to the Galaxy Map, Shepard will go on a mission and take the entire Player Party — as many as 12 other people — with them on the shuttle. Normandy is now conspicuously empty of people who specialize in shooting guns.

EDI identifies that the IFF signal has some embedded programming in it: it's broadcasting the Normandy's location to the Collectors. They attack the ship, boarding, putting everyone in stasis. It's time for A Day in the Limelight: Joker becomes the Player Character and, under EDI's guidance, runs down to the Med Lab on Deck 3 where EDI's central core is located. Joker removes the shackles that prevent her from taking control of the ship: it's the only way to save it. EDI opens the airlocks and vents the rest of the ship into space, clearing the Collectors away... but the entire crew, save Joker himself (and EDI, who isn't exactly going anywhere), has already been captured. And, perhaps more indignantly, Joker had to use the ship's Jefferies Tubes to get where he needed to go.

Joker: Argh! You want me to go crawling through the ducts again.
EDI: I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees.
(Beat. Joker's expression includes a Quizzical Tilt, a Fascinating Eyebrow and a Flat "What".)
EDI: That is a joke.

At this point, it will hopefully become clear why most guides advise, and why this recap assumes, that Shepard does all the side quests and things before recruiting Legion: you only have two more missions before this happens. Even worse, Take Your Time is averted: If you go through the Omega-4 Relay now, you can save the entire crew, but if you stop to do up to 3 missions, half of them get eaten by the Collectors. If you do 4 or more, all of them do, with Dr. Chakwas as the Sole Survivor. But if some of your squadmates aren't loyal yet, the entire endgame gets harder. No, better to get everything squared away during the unstructured Sandbox III phase. Meanwhile, you can still run around, do shopping, harvest resources for upgrades, and even go talk to EDI. Because Jeff officially unshackled her, she can now provide full disclosure on things she was formerly programmed to hide: she can now tell you that Cerberus consists of about 150 agents organized into three cells (the Normandy herself being one of them), and was able to obtain top-secret cutting-edge schematics for the Normandy, which was co-developed with the turians, because Cerberus was one of the lobbyist groups pushing for its design and creation in the first place. Jeff and EDI also (do not) acknowledge that they have moved to a First-Name Basis with each other, or in Jeff's case referring to EDI with "she/her" pronouns instead of "it".

Omega-4 Relay: The Very Definitely Final Dungeon

The Illusive Man wishes Shepard luck: nobody knows what's on the other side of the Omega-4 Relay. All that is known is that this will be a Final Exam Finale; Shepard's choices throughout gameplay are going to have an effect on the endgame. See our Analysis page for granular, almost GameFAQs-level, detail, including how the game calculates random deaths.

First Phase: Boarding

The Normandy jumps through the Omega-4 Relay and finds itself instantly in an Asteroid Thicket composed of chunks of destroyed spaceship. The Collectors scramble to intercept. Almost immediately, the work Shepard put (or didn't put) into the Normandy herself becomes relevant:

  • If Jacob's armor plating was not added to the ship, the Collectors' first attack burns through the outer hull, catching Jack in the blast.
  • An "Oculus" Space Fighter punches through into the hold. Shepard descends with their squad to take it out on foot, while the rest of its squadron pursues the Normandy, with Joker dodging into the Asteroid Thicket. Without Tali's shield upgrade, their attacks kill a randomly-selected squadmate.
  • After Shepard finishes blowing up the Oculus, Normandy is confronted by the stalactite-shaped Collector Cruiser that made such a dramatic entrance during the opening Cut Scene. Without Garrus's Thanix cannons, Joker has to use the ship's original, vastly inferior Cerberus Photoprotoneutron Torpedoes to do the thing in, and return fire kills a randomly-selected squadmate.
The explosion from the Collector Cruiser's destruction overloads Normandy's systems, and the ship makes a crash landing on the Collector Base. Fortunately, this is exactly where Shepard wanted to be anyway: Storming the Castle on foot. The crew regroups in the conference room to discuss their options.

Second Phase: Infiltration

Shepard's commando team decides to split into three forces. They need to get to the station's main control center. Shepard will lead a typical three-person fireteam while a Tech Specialist, preferably someone who's good at engineering, uses an Air-Vent Passageway to open the way, and a Supporting Leader takes the remaining 6-to-9 party members for a diversionary attack. Shepard must choose who will fill each role. (Miranda will give advice on who to choose. Only some of it is accurate.) Shepard then leads the Escort Mission of the tech specialist, blowing away Collectors in between opening valves so that the tech can keep crawling through the air vents; wait too long, and the Tech Specialist dies, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over. Even if you get through, the Tech Specialist has to hack doors so that Shepard's team can get in, the other team can get in, and the door closes behind them. Choose your roles poorly, and the Tech Specialist is slain in the morass.

Third Phase: The Long Walk

The team arrives at the central control center, where — as predicted — the Collectors are holding the humans they have abducted. Shepard orders them freed; as mentioned above, some or all of your crew may have already been liquefied for whatever purposes the Collectors are attempting: Chakwas has observed the humans being ground up into some sort of genetic slurry, and that slurry being piped deeper into the station. Shepard resolves to follow those pipes and find out what's going on, but the way is infested by seeker swarms — too many of them for Mordin's countermeasures to work.

The team splits again. Shepard nominates a Leader to head up another diversion, and then chooses a Biotic who will guard Shepard's fireteam using a biotic bubble while the four of them head down the main path. Lastly, Chakwas and whatever crew survivors remain need someone to Escort Mission them back to the Normandy. The Escort character will stay at the Normandy throughout the rest of the mission, so Shepard can also tell the crew that they need all hands on deck and that the Red Shirts will have to risk it. (If so, you get an Escort Mission with no bodyguards and the escortees die.) This is when completed Loyalty Missions start really coming into play: if your Biotic isn't loyal, you lose one of the two squadmates you took with you; if the Escort (exists and) isn't loyal, they perform a Heroic Sacrifice to get Chakwas et al back to the ship; and if the Leader isn't chosen correctly, they also die as the diversionary team rejoins Shepard. Note that some Leaders will buy the farm even if loyal.

Fourth Phase: The Final Battle

Shepard, accompanied by as few as three party members, confronts their final challenge. They have found where the human DNA is going: the Reapers are building an embryonic Human Reaper. (It's still like a gajillion feet tall.) Shepard selects two characters for their fireteam; the rest stay behind for a "You Shall Not Pass!". At this point, the game performs a behind-the-scenes calculation to determine the outcome: every character has a "Defense" value, and if the team's average is high enough, the Everybody Lives; if not, up to three of them die. This can be tilted in the player's favor by completing Loyalty missions (which gives a character +1 defense), taking Glass Cannon characters with them to fight the Human Reaper while leaving Stone Wall characters to Hold the Line, and detailing a Glass Cannon to be the Escort during the previous segment. However, once again, Loyalty missions come into play: if Shepard takes non-loyal squadmates with them to handle the Human Reaper, they die — period. (The Human Reaper is just a bog-standard Damage-Sponge Boss who doesn't really need dwelling on.)

Fifth Phase: "Screw This, I'm Outta Here"

After the Final Boss, Shepard is contacted by TIM. Shepard wants to just blow the whole base up — It's the Only Way to Be Sure — but TIM suggests a Depopulation Bomb, allowing Cerberus to take control of the base and study the Reapers. Either way, Shepard sets themselves up a bomb and makes a mad dash to the Normandy, grabbing any survivors en route, eventually having to make a running leap for the ship's door while Joker(!) grabs a rifle to provide covering fire.

Done the math? If Shepard had only three squadmembers left, then exactly one person is left to Hold The Line. Unless they are Garrus, Grunt or Zaeed, who each have a high-enough Defense value to do this solo, the one person isn't enough, and the character dies. And if Shepard took two non-loyal squadmates to the fight, they died too. It's totally possible to get to the point where one of those three is still around — and, in fact, they can hold the line even if they aren't loyal — but it's also possible that Shepard is now the Sole Survivor of the Suicide Squad.

And Joker may be an Ace Pilot, but he's also a Handicapped Badass with brittle bone disease.

If Shepard has any remaining squadmates, they pull the commander to safety. If not, Joker can't do it, and Shepard suffers a Disney Villain Death; Joker flies the empty ship away. In this event, this is a Game Over: Shepard is Killed Off for Real, beyond Cerberus's power to revive or repair, and this save file cannot be imported into Mass Effect 3.

Of course, it's also possible — particularly if you did everything this Recap suggested, in roughly the order we suggested it — to get the Golden Ending where Everybody Lives, and Shepard takes the Normandy and all 12 party members back out through the Omega-4 relay, ready to handle any missions that haven't been completed and confront the Reapers during Mass Effect 3.

...But they're not taking any squadmates on the last DLC mission:

    Epilogue - Arrival 

The final DLC mission is actually available during Sandbox II, but we have left it until last for pacing reasons.

Adm. Steven Hackett of the Alliance pages Shepard. A friend of his, Dr. Amanda Kenson, claims to have proof of imminent Reaper invasion, but has since been captured by the batarians. Shepard is asked to perform a solo infiltration mission and find out what she's learned about the pending Reaper "Arrival".

Shepard lands on Aratoht and breaks into the prison to exfiltrate Dr. Kenson. Aboard the escape shuttle, she confesses that the charges are true: she was planning to destroy the mass relay in the Bahak system by smashing it with an asteroid. When Shepard points out that this will annihilate a nearby batarian colony of some 300,000 souls, Kenson reports that The Needs of the Many must prevail: this is the mass effect relay the Reapers are planning to use to begin their invasion, and they're planning to begin it in about three seconds. She knows this because she has a Prothean Artifact back at base whence she has been receiving visions, similar to Shepard and their Beacon on Eden Prime. Shepard asks to see this Artifact, mindful of indoctrination, and Kenson agrees.

If this sounds like Shepard being overly cautious, it's actually Properly Paranoid: Kenson and her team have been indoctrinated, and immediately open fire on Shepard to sabotage their own project. Shepard must fight their way through the science team (which suddenly has tons of guns, armor and hit points) to the base's control center: fortunately, it is on the asteroid that will be used to smash the mass relay. Unfortunately, communications are down, and Shepard needs to 1. Start the Colony Drop process, 2. Get to a Comm Relay to call for help, 3. Get picked up by the Normandy. ...In That Order. While at the Comm Relay, Harbinger drops by via hologram, and Shepard reaffirms their insistence on fighting back the Reaper threat. Harbinger points out that destroying the Alpha Relay will only delay the Reapers' arrival, not stop it entirely... but it will delay their arrival, and for Shepard that's enough. Joker swings by for pickup and gets the Normandy through the Alpha Relay with only seconds to spare.

Aboardship, Shepard is confronted by Adm. Hackett, who is a little perturbed: he ordered Shepard to exfiltrate one scientist, and suddenly there's been a fucking Class X-2 Apocalypse How and 300,000 batarians are dead. Shepard replies with the old "I Did What I Had to Do," and Hackett expresses full confidence in the commander's decisions... but points out that Shepard will still need to face the consequences of their actions. While Shepard is still free to roam the galaxy for now, Hackett tells them, they should be prepared to return to Alliance custody and face judicial scrutiny for their actions. Weirdly enough, that's exactly how the final game starts...

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