Rho, Rho, Rho Your Boat

Do you like infodump entries? This is an infodump entry.

Hey, Kenson, fill me in on this reaper stuff.

Uh, they don't really explain what the artifact has to do with this story that Kenson relays on the shuttle, but they'll sort of imply it soon enoigh.

Here's the thing about Arrival: the plot's pretty good, until you actually start to ask a few questions. Such as:

Oh man! Destroying the relays, that sure would be a shitty ending for the galaxy!

Moving on.

Oh, Shepard, who are you kidding? Any time anyone says "reapers" you're there with bells on.

So, let's go to this Project Base. Or is it a project base? You know, I don't really know.

See, that would have been a time to shove mass effects into the plot. Did we? Of course not. Object Rho is telling Kenson how long until the reapers arrive because of horse anus spelunking adventures.

Kenson takes Shepard in to see object rho. Wait, is it object rho or Object Rho?

Does that look familiar? It fucking should! Let's go:

• This is the thing that Jack Harper and Desolas fought so hard over.
• Vega and Treeya found one of these things and got in a fight over it.

I suspect, but cannot prove, that this is the same thing that got Kahlee into trouble back with Dr. Quon. I don't know for sure because we don't actually see it because that's how fucking books work.

I don't think these objects ever have an actual name besides Object Rho I guess, but are they all rhos? Like, what's the noun here that I'm referring to? I don't know, and they're never explored much past "big thing with spindly bits that reapers can indoctrinate you with." They actually look different in each incarnation -- notice Vega's thing is green? And Object Rho has more purple than I MSPainted there, because I've got a pallet of like 16 colors damnit. They all have different amounts of spindles, too. Jack and Ben's only had two, but Rho has like a zillion.

They all indoctrinate differently. Vega's was kind of dormant, it didn't do shit besides block some frequencies and get blown up, but Jack's indoctrinated the fuck out of anyone who touched it, turning them into husks full stop. It's sort of implied that Quon may? have gotten a touch of the indoctrination from his, but Kahlee obviously worked with it and came out okay.

Shit, that would be a good Saturday post, to compare the Object Rhos. Remind me to do that. Anyway, the point is, I'm only sort of fucking the art up here. It's interesting to me that these things are a recurring theme, but Bioware didn't seem to have any sort of consistency with them.

... wait, did I say indoctrinate? Like that shit that happened to Saren? HANG ON!

FUCK FUCK FUCK THAT'S HOW BEN HISLOP GOT TURNED INTO A HUSK RUN SHEPARD RUN!

Luckily for Shepard, the team that worked on Evolution didn't confer with the team that worked on Arrival, so it just shows her a vision of reapers floating toward the alpha relay.

Kenson pistol whips Shepard out of this vision because ... fuck it, I don't know.

This part of Arrival starts to get a little, um, thin. Kenson's indoctrinated. Surprise! So she wants to get back to Project Base to stop the reapers. Wait, what? No, hang on, it's totally cool, she wants to stop the project now so that the reapers can come through the alpha relay. But now she's got to stop Shepard. But she brought Shepard onto the base?

... this was hinted at in Mass Effect 1, and we're going to learn this in some extended media coming up, but if I had to explain this away, it would go as such: the reapers aren't actually good at indoctrination. If they totally indoctrinate a soul, they turn into a husk. They don't have any skills any more, they're not very useful. If they indoctrinate someone less, that person/alien retains their skills and can use said skills to help the reapers. The danger there is that that person still retains free will. We saw this with Benezia and Saren. Both characters' final moments had them overthrowing their indoctrination just long enough to give the reapers a middle finger.

So it's possible that Kenson had a moment where she realized she could undo what the reapers were forcing her into by bringing Shepard into Project Base, but that is me pulling that one from the deepest recesses of my ass.

What does Shepard do when she's down?

Punch. Good lady, Shep, good lady.

Thus starts an unwinnable fight with Kenson's henchemen, who bring flame throwers. Try to last as long as you can in this one, if you go long enough, Object Rho will actually talk to you!

NEXT TIME: Hey, that timer will be down about 48 hours! Shit! We'll have to hustle!