Finally, The Finale To Horizon

Okay, in case you can't follow it that well, or you didn't pick it up from my delicate yet detailed artwork in the last post, or possibly you're just stupid (this is me), here's the skinny on what's going down:

Horizon was a colony of feral peasants humans in the terminus systems that was just kind of sitting around doing its colony thing until the Alliance came in, possibly wearing Captain America costumes, and installed a bunch of big ass defense towers. The logic there was that if the collectors came knocking, the colonists could shoot them out of the sky. However, the collectors saw the big ass defense towers, figured the colony was a threat, landed, took out the defense towers, and is currently collecting the shit out of some colonists. Whoops! Oh Alliance, you so cray!

But, if Shepard can get those towers back on line, she can unload a hot load in the collector's ass!

... a hot load of lead.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Look, this is Mass Effect, it's actually quite surprising that the final solution to the collectors isn't having sex with them.

There's some people out there that think Shepard's some kind of technical supergenius; I rather like the idea of her being something of a big dumb coconut.

Oh, but hey, guess who's calling!

saying nothing moving on

Oh, honey. None of us like being creeped on. It's quite surprising that Harbinger isn't rocking a neckbeard and a fedora.

So anyway, we now come to a battle between the speed of the DSL connection on the Normandy and Harbinger trying to keep it in his pants.

Oh, and Harbinger brought his best friend, the praetorian!

Even if Shepard does get Harbinger to fuck off, the collector ship toasts out of there, unharmed and full of colonists. GOOD MISSION EVERYONE, GOOD MISSION.

I'm only being a little bit cute, here. I think the actual in-game line is email, but no, that's what this portion of the game is, it is Spacebook drama.

Shepard says a really important thing here -- you'll notice, she doesn't understand that she was dead. This comes up in ME3.

I like bringing Garrus and Miranda on this mission for a wide variety of reasons, one of which is that you get four totally different viewpoints: Ashley, who's very pro-Alliance, Miranda, who thinks Cerberus is pretty rad and does a lot for humanity, Garrus, who's an alien and isn't going to like Cerberus no matter what they do for him, and Shepard, who wants everyone to shut up long enough for her to kill the reapers.

Right, I know, I could have done the same thing with Mordin and Jacob, but I like drawing Garrus and Miranda better.

(This is one of those fun scenes that can change around depending on how you interpret Shepard. I always thought Shepard wanted back into the Alliance and would leave Miranda cold in a heartbeat if she could, but some people think she's more chill with Cerberus than that.)

So, uh, time to check in with the Illusive Man. Shepard's in a good mood, though, so allow me to sum it up for you pictorially.

Okay, I've never figured this one out, but Brother Tim somehow lets slip that he lured the collectors and the Alliance to Horizon by leaking the fact that Shepard was ressurected. I have no idea how that works. Did the collectors (or the Alliance) think Shepard would specifically hit up Horizon first? I've watched the scene a few times, I've hit a few sources on the Internet, I've asked my husband, I can't figure it out. Either way, it's a good opportunity for Shepard to get pissed, so,

Then, Brother Tim drops an endgame clue.

Oh man! We'd better build our team!

I wonder if we have any extra team members just, you know, lying around?

NEXT TIME: Krogan bongs, which I hear are legal now.