All Aboard the Alerai

The Alerai is totally devoid of life. Geth are all over, and they're ... geth aren't helpful folk, to say the least. The story of the Alerai is told primarily through holograms.

Geth work on networked intelligence: you get more of the bastards in a room together, they use each other's resources and something something mass effects and end result, they get smarter. If the Alerai had a bunch of geth get together, network, then attack, that would explain how they got to be rightly fucked.

As we go along the halls of the Alerai:

This moment, this paragon interrupt ... we're not going to talk about it right now. I just want you to take it and hold it in your heart for now. Hold it close. Hear it whimper quietly in the night. Journal about the experience.

Point being, we'll talk about this later.

There's one last console with information, let's check and see what's going on with it.

FUCK. Tali's dad activated all those geth! He's the one guilty, not Tali!

Even if the guy's dead, Tali doesn't want him dishonored. ... even if it means she goes to quarian jail.

Let's go back to the admirals.

Don't fuck this next part up. It affects ME3.

Woohoo! We did it!

Next time: oh hahahahahahah next time you guys. I'm not done with Tali, let's just say that much.

The Admirals: Not as Good A Documentary As The Captains

This is a real thing that happens, Squadmate #3 sits on the stairs and looks sad while Tali and Shepard go to the trial.

We have totally neglected the quarian language. Most of it translates thanks to the universal translator, but two notable exceptions are "keelah se'lai" and "bosh'tet." I'd suspect it's because neither expression totally translates over very well. Keelah se'lai can be a greeting, like they use in the trial, or sometimes you'll hear it as a salute. It can be used to wish someone well (as in "thank you, and keelah se'lai"). Sometimes it's used as an expression of excitement, like, "Oh, keelah!"

Bosh'tet is a swear word, but it doesn't directly translate to any of our swear words. Like, you can be a bosh'tet, just like you can be an ass, but you can't have hot diarrhea coming out of your bosh'tet. You can't tell someone to bosh'tet off, but you can use it at the beginning of an expression. ("Bosh'tet, I thought he'd never quit!")

It doesn't compound either. You can be an assclown, a fuckwit or a shitstain, but you can't be a bosh'tetclown, a bosh'tetwit or a bosh'tetstain.

And there is your nerd meditation for the day. The admiral board comes up again in ME3, so we'd better learn our quarian admirals now. We met Raan last time, she's Tali's aunt.

Are you kidding? There's only one reason in the entire universe as to why the admirals should let Shepard take a crack at it.

Before we all go traipsing off to the Alerai, we can visit various quarians out and about. Hey, what about Veetor and Kal'Reegar?

That's good news.

NEXT TIME: The most important paragon interrupt in the game.

Tali: The Migrant Fleet

I like Miranda's little work station. She looks like she's working so hard. You know that she sits there and watches extranet vids though.

Sorry. Space YouTube.

Tali's been served papers -- the Migrant Fleet has accused her of sending active geth when she was just sending geth parts. She was actually under orders to send geth parts too, it's a really odd scenario. Still, when you're called to court, you show up.

Or steal the Normandy and take off Thelma and Louise style, I guess that would be an option.

Aside from the septic system of the Normandy itself, the ship is carrying around a lot of germs that would make a quarian roll over and die, so Tali requests a scrub team for us. Also, any non-quarian crew members (ie: everyone) are required to wear a full helmet so that they don't sneeze and take out an entire ship. I like bringing Garrus because he actually wears a full helmet, as opposed to some other crew members (Jack, Miranda) who just wear facial breathing units. It seems polite, you know?

... Also, it never dawned on me until this playthrough where quarian came from until I heard Tali say quarantine. I always figured quarian had to do with rocks, shows how smart I am.

Either way, it means I don't have to draw hair for weeks! YEAH!

Moving on, let's go check in with one of the quarian admirals before the trial.

Yeah, so calling her vas Normandy? Giant dick ass move. Her former ship, the Neema, is saying that she's kicked off. To add insult to injury, the Normandy isn't a quarian ship. It's pretty much the equivalent of one of those skeevy guys on okcupid bitching about "race traitors." (Don't look that one up if you don't know what it is, I don't want y'all getting blood pressure spikes on my account.)

Anyway, so I'm sure the quarian court system will provide Tali a lawyer --

... how do ship captains get anything done if they're responsible for lawyering for all their crew? Can you imagine how much time that must take up? However do they clear their schedule to have sex with other space aliens?

Wait, is that only humans that do that? Science fiction is hard.

NEXT TIME: maybe I actually move the plot along what would you think about that