So Tali plays Sarenistotally100%guilty.mp3 (in the future they can have symbols in file names, see, 'cause it's the future), and the council's like, "Shit, I guess Saren DID do it!" Don't get used to this, this is like the last time the council backs you up over three games.
They have a quick discussion over what the hell Saren and Benezia are talking about, so let me get you up to speed really quick:
- Benezia is still the same lady as Troi.
- The reapers are giant space bug things that kill people.
- The geth think the reapers are gods.
- Saren and Benezia are after the conduit, but no one knows what it is or what it does.
And then the council's like, "Welp, this reaper stuff is a load of horse shit."
And Shepard's all, "What the hell, I brought you total proof that this reaper stuff is totally not horse shit."
But unfortunately, Tali hasn't synced with iTunes lately, so she doesn't have Thisreaperstuffistotallynothorseshit.mp3 at the ready. She offers to see if she can do a cloud sync, but the council just decides to do this:
Udina bites the head off a cat, eats it, and then demands that the council send in a fleet to the other human colonies to protect, you know, humanity. So the council's all:
And Udina rage humps the railing. The council, for once, actually doesn't have a bad reason: they'd have to send the fleet into the Terminus Systems, which is the Mass Effect universe's own Neutral Zone. It would set off a war. Okay, cool, but there's still humans dying. Is there a good compromise?
They shit a brick, but their hands are tied: the council makes Shepard a grey warden spirit monk jedi spectre, and they hold this little ceremony thing, but there's no punch so who cares.
Speaking of, when I first played the game, I though that "spectre" was the English spelling, and Bioware, being Canadian, which is foreign and all if you're American like me, maybe they use foreign spellings of things? But, my Googlefu tells me that "spectre" is a horse shit spelling, and the actual word is "specter", even if you're in Canada. There's no reason not to call them specters, unless maybe it's a James Bond reference? Why the hell would you be referring to James Bond in your space opera? Fuck it, call them daisy scouts, see if I care.
So you go talk to Anderson, and he's like, "You need a ship. Good news! The Normandy's yours!"
That's really actually what's going on in that conversation, by the way. The story that Anderson keeps dancing around is all in the novel Mass Effect: Revelation. Allow me to summarize it for you: Anderson gets this totally adorable crush on a blonde chick and tries to get his swerve on, but Saren salts his game. If you ever want to turn your brain off and read something a little fanficcy, it's not bad. I'm not going to lie, I read it and was a total girl through the whole thing.
So anyway, Shepard gets the Normandy!
Joker invites Shepard up to the Normandy and tells her to say something to the crew. They make this A Thing through out the games: Shepard is apparently a fantastic motivational speaker?
Motivates me! Let's go!
The game gives you a choice of three areas to go to: Kashyyk, Korriban and Tatooine the various regions of Neverwinter Beregot, Nashkel, and Cloakwood Forrest sorry, you can either go to Ferros and see what's up with the human colonists, you can go to Hoth Noveria and wave hello to Benezia, or you can go to the Artemis Tau cluster and see if you can see what's up with Benezia's kid.
I always do Artemis Tau first, because you get a squadmate. Some people do it last because the dialog changes, but I don't think it's worth it.
So, you roll up to the planet, and Joker drops you off in your little planetside vehicle, the Mako.
Oh, the Mako. We have to stop and discuss the Mako, because the Mako is a piece of shit.
Here are some of the features of the Mako. It can drive up 89 degree inclines!
It will never flip! Ever! Try it! You can't do it.
You know how, in video games, when you have a little car, and you press forward on the sticks, the car goes forward?
You can press forward on those sticks all you want to, champ, but the Mako is way too busy expressing its individuality to take orders from you.
The Mako fucking loves lava. It loves lava more than a lawyer loves ambulances.
The Mako has a gun, but I hope you weren't intending on hitting anything with it.
Seriously, the geth just stand around and laugh at me when I use the Mako's guns.
Anyway, if this is your first time playing, I hope you like the game over sound! I hope you like it a lot! You will be hearing it. Frequently. I seriously nearly quit playing on this mission my first time through.
There's a path you drive along, with geth and everything. You're supposed to shoot them, but, you know, Mako, so I just run them over. It's funny to watch them squish. There's a boss fight, and then you enter a door that I'm pretty sure looks just like a geth's asshole.
Turns out geth keep Prothean ruins in their ass! Why not. So you're in these ruins, and you go down, down, down, down, speaking of very good sci fi, and at the bottom --
-- what the hell, were the Protheans building a pool, what with the white tile?
Oh! The Protheans were building a random asari chick!
Wait, what?
Everyone welcome Liara T'Soni to the stage! She's a graduate student and PHD candidate at Space University. (I love forever that someone's going to know the real name off the top of their heads and call me on it. You nerds.) She was down here, digging around for Prothean shit, when the geth busted in. To protect herself, she activated a Prothean shield, but she got herself stuck and can't get to the controls to get herself out.
She is a PHD candidate.
So Shepard comes up with a safe and sane solution to this.
So Shepard blasts the ground out from under Liara and gets her out that way. Oh, and also, she kind of maybe destroyed the ruin a little bit, so they have to haul ass to escape before they die.
(I always wonder about sequences like this, particularly very early in the series. I mean, Shepard's some sort of hot shot super soldier, so she'd be fine, but her cohorts at this point are a grad student, a mall cop, someone who would die without her hazmat suit, and a guy with four nuts. Don't forget those four nuts, you all. How the hell do they haul ass and keep up with Shepard? Especially with four testicles in the way? I mean, you've got to be in some kind of shape to -- right right, it's just a show, I should really just relax.)
They have a real brief battle with a krogan battlemaster who was sent to capture Liara and drag her to Benezia -- apparently Team Saren thinks that Liara knows what the conduit is? Liara says she doesn't, though. The battle is real damn brief if you took my advice and picked vanguard or adept. Then Joker shows up with the Normandy, and hooray, the day is saved!
There's this room in the Normandy that probably has a real name, but I call it the pow wow room, because that's what it is. Everyone awkwardly sits around in a circle while Shepard stands in the middle.
Liara infodumps for us: she's studying Protheans, and while she doesn't know what the conduit is, and she has no idea what wiped the Protheans out, she does introduce the extremely important concept of cycles. Remember this, because you'll be screaming it come Mass Effect 3: there were guys before the Protheans. We don't know who they are. But, because of ... space magic? ... every 50,000 years, ~something~ comes along and wipes out the dominant species before starting a new cycle.
And Shepard's like, "I bet I know what wiped the Protheans."
So Liara's all, "Nuh uh."
And Shep's like, "Yuh huh."
And Liara's like, "Wull, humans have stinky butts."
Shepard's pretty sure the reapers did it, as per her space dream, but Liara doesn't buy it because Shepard doesn't have a PHD in Space or whatever. Either way, welcome Liara aboard the Normandy! She's our last squadmate until ME2!
This blog always make me lol. And "spectre" is written funny because it's an acronym. Why the bloody hell the ENTIRE galaxy uses English, even in acronyms is beyond me, but it stands for "SPECial Tactics and R REconnaissance".
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