In The Face!

Ah, that's right! The Bioware Trademark Sex Scene shall soon be upon us!

So, EDI's got a message for us.

... what the fuck were they taking before? The teleporter? A fucking slide?

No, really honestly seriously, they take the damn shuttle for every mission. Turn around sometime when a level starts, you can see it. Why is EDI telling us this? How is this any different than anything ever?

But, nevertheless, the game lovingly shows a cut scene of every character boarding the shuttle.

Can they all fit? I thought they couldn't all fit. I thought that's why I only got to bring two squadmates. (You know how much better the Mass Effect series would be with three squadmates? You get three in Dragon Age, it's not like Bioware doesn't have the damn technology just lying around.)

Where the hell are they all going? I don't know. The game never answers that for us. It's just everybody piling into the shuttle, and then the next plot point happens. I think I read in the wiki like a hundred years ago that they're going on "the next mission", also defined as the one you just did, so, uh, Legion's loyalty? The whole Normandy went to Heretic Station? But that would mean ten people sat in the shuttle and ... it's Mass Effect. Ten people sat in the shuttle and played with whatever weird alien genitalia they have while Shepard, Legion and Whoever palled around Heretic Station. Why not.

... okay, let's give a real answer, even if we have to pull it from the dark recesses of our own ass. They're taking a shuttle to the Citadel. I'm the one with the copy of MSPaint, I'm going to make an executive decision.

lucky you, shepard~

Hell yes I'm doing a second one of these. Husbando~ requested it, and he's cooking tonight, so let's go.

Besides, this is preservation! This is important!

And how else will we understand the rich tapestry that is Mass Effect, unless we look at it's smaller stories?

The Citadel is full of these little sidequests detailing the individual struggles of these people living in --

... okay, so there's like three, and I had to cheat a little.

True story, I managed to trigger this Easter egg accidentally the night before Mass Effect 3 released.

NEXT TIME: plot

Ilos: Final Stretch

So, uh, hey Admiral Hackett, you wanted to talk?

I can never make Shepard punch al-Jilani in the face, I don't have the heart. What if al-Jilani's kid was watching the news that evening?

I'm not making that up, either, you can clock her in the face Anderson style if you want. Hackett has some, err, slightly different dialogue if you do.

I think, but I'm not sure, that this is where the Bioware Sex Scene comes in if you've been working toward that. Like I said, I play ME1 lone wolf style. My Shepard spends the evening with a dirty magazine and maybe a, um, inappropriate toy.

I just drew that.

MASS EFFECT TRIVIA: The most popular porno mag in the Mass Effect universe is Fornax, a magaine dedicated to cross-species porn. I am not even making it up in the slightest. Mass Effect: The Horniest Game.

Anyway, let's all cram into the cockpit and go to Ilos.

"Bean," you ask thoughtfully, "who the hell is that standing next to Shepard?"

Meet Presley. This is literally the only time in any of the three games that he does anything. Remember the beginning of the game, when Anderson was the captain of the Normandy and Shepard was the executive officer? Second in command? Spock, if you will? When Shep stepped up to captain, they gave Presley the job of second. The only time you're ever even really aware of him is when Shepard leaves the Normandy and a robot voice says, "XO Presley has the deck." You can talk to him, but he's honestly pretty easy to miss and all he does is spout space racism. In ME2 you find out he spent his time creepin' up on Tali. Classy!

He's a really odd addition to the cast, and truly could have been left out. In fact, they could have taken care of the whole thing once and for all by promoting Shepard to captain when she got spectre status and Kaidan to commander and letting him do the XO duties, whatever the hell those even are.

"But Bean, what if Kaidan and Shepard both had to go planet side?" Dude, you must've noticed by now that the Normandy has some fucked up methods of operations. Shepard had to go planet side all the time when she was the XO (Eden Prime?), and when she gets promoted? They send her commanding officer ass right into battle all the time like it's not a thing. Anderson got to stay on the damn ship when he was captain! Mass Effect borrowed enough from Star Trek, it may as well have gone full tilt and sent Shepard, Presley/Kaidan and Chawkwas on every damn mission.

Enough of my bitching. So, Presley's having heart episodes over the fact that there's no good place to land the mako on Ilos. Like, you need ... some meters to land, or something, and they only have, um ... less ... look, I didn't pay attention that hard. Everyone's yelling, Presley's reaching for his nitro, it's a giant mess.

And Joker's like, "No way, dude, I got this!

And Presley's all trying to answer and shit, but he's too busy hyperventilating.

And Joker's like, "No, fuck you, I've got this!"

So Shepard piles the shore party into the Mako, and Joker shoots them out into whatever his impossibly tiny little hole is.

(See, and once again, "Oh, there's something super dangerous to do! Let's take the commanding officer, shove her in the mako, and hope she only dies a little bit!)

Hey! If you're playing the game for the first time, trust my ass on this, do not go to Ilos without a biotic character or two. If you made Shepard not biotic, you dumbass, THAT MEANS LIARA NEEDS TO BE IN YOUR PARTY. Don't half ass it with Kaidan or Wrex.

There's your PSA for today. Anyway, Joker just so happens to dump Shepard right next to the door that Saren is currently going in!

Well shit. Looks like we'll have to find another way into Ilos' ... uh ... thing. Look, if Saren's going into it, it's probably important!

So Shep and the Shepettes go tromping around Ilos. Important to note! Shepard comes across these statues as she's going about:

Ahahahhaha the nerd tears will be delicious. They will make my skin soft.

Anyway, so, eventually they come on this security panel thing. Because this is sci-fi, Shepard activates it immediately without any forethought as to whether or not it would kill her, and the shore party lets her, because who the hell gives a damn if the CO gets killed?

This ... uh, thing pops up. It's a big ass hologram, I guess, but it's scrambled.

The hologram is speaking in Prothean. The universal translator can't pick Prothean up, so all non-Shepards in the party are lost, but Shepard had Prothean beamed into her head by the various beacons that love her, so she totally understands the beacon.

This makes Liara squeeful. Hahahahha, get used to that shit. Bitch loves Protheans.

Either way, the beacon isn't clear. It opens up that door that Shepard and pals needed open, though, so let's go through it!

In the motherfucking MAKO!

As you drive along, you see some glowing pods on the wall. The fuck are those things?

NEXT TIME: The fuck those things are.

Citadel: In The Face

Someone posed something to me. Hang with me on this next paragraph, I promise this is on-topic.

I think we can all agree that The Avengers isn't a good portrayal of Norse mythology. Yes? Good. But, Norse myth is so damn old, and most of it was oral, ergo, we're really never going to have an accurate portrayal of the story of Loki and Thor and pals. It would be like jumping a few thousand years ahead, and trying to talk with someone in the future about Professor Snape. To make it better, all Future Person has is two stained pages from a Harry Potter book, three fanfics (and, if you know anything about Harry Potter fanfiction, you know that that's going to go over well) and maybe 30 seconds of some nerd podcast to go on.

Future Person asks you, was Snape a good guy or a bad guy? But people argue over that NOW, how are you going to talk to Future Person about it? All he knows is that Snape diddled Hermione and turned into an elephant to fuck Remus.

Which led me, in a round about way, to think of story archival. Ye gods, what if all the copies of Mass Effect were destroyed? I know this is a huge stretch, because of all the digital copies, but play pretend with me.

It makes what I'm doing sound way more important that it actually is! What if, in the future, the only record they have of Shepard and pals are my shitty ass drawings?

Ha, sobering.

But seriously. First of all, I've left a few characters out.

What do you do, jam them all in at the last minute in some sort of poorly painted Hail Mary?

But seriously, I'm not sure I like the idea of future generations only having MSPixel to go on.

Even though I think I can sleep at night knowing that in the year 3500, they will know that Kaidan is a turd bag. I'm good with that.

There's a lot, though, that I can't show off. Like the wide open glory of the Presidium, or what it actually feels like to steer the Mako in some lava.

And then, too, there's facts about Shepard that I've lent her that may or may not be true ... hey, future people, not all Shepards were redheads! Not all of them liked peanut butter! Some Shepards call mom sometimes, some don't!

I don't even want to think about Professor Future at Future Horse Shit University writing a paper on the implications of Garrus and Wrex jamming out to One Direction. Wait, speaking of aliens, I haven't left any alien races out, have I?

Is there a way to make this more fair, more even handed?

Fuggit, let's just go to Ilos.

NEXT TIME: Hackett might have some words with us.