The Consort

I'm not going to show off many sidequests, particularly because they're a little boring to watch. We might visit Conrad Verner and the fair lady Al-Jilani, but after that, they don't stoke me so much.

But we're going to do this one because it illustrates a very important theme in the Mass Effect series.

While Shep's tooling about the Citadel, she comes across the Consort's office. Shepard has the same reaction you and I do: what the hell is a consort?

While the Consort's secretary is no damn help, she does offer to let us see the Consort. You know, when she has an opening in four months. Shep's like, "That is some raw bullshit," and just as she goes off, the Consort floats back in and is like, "No, shit, let me see Shepard now!"

So, um. Seeing the consort is ... uncomfortable.

First off, is it not freaky that the Consort and her secretary dress exactly the same? Meanwhile. She's really super flirty and touchy, like "eww eww I need an adult" style touchy. She says something about going to see a guy in Chora's den, so Shepard pries her off, hoses her down, and runs screaming out of the Consort's office.

Shepard finds the turian general inside Chora's Den. Turns out, he's bummed because he wanted to stick his hog in her ass and she's not down with that, especially bareback. Shepard's like, "What the hell, go buy a dirty magazine, your right hand is your best friend." So, once she finishes hosing him down, he thanks her, hands her a datapad (it's the exact same thing as a Kindle, but this is the future, so it's a datapad okay?) and says to go deliver it to an elcor diplomat.

Elcor! They're one of the alien races that Bioware didn't have to design to be able to hold a gun and not break the combat engine's animation. They look like giant ass elephants. Elcor communicate by sending pheromones and colors through the air, but most of the other alien races can't perceive them. So Elcor tried learning to talk. Turns out they're really bad at it -- they speak totally flat, and no one can tell what sort of emotion they might have. Elcor, then, always say an emotion before they continue with their sentence.

Tadaaaaaaaa.

So you go back to the Consort's office. The Consort offers to give you a gift as your reward. See, her whole deal is giving you exactly what you need when you need it, right? Depending on how you go through the dialogue options, you can get --

Yeah, no, hey, that's an MSPaint sex scene. I drew that. I kind of hate myself right now. I kind of hate myself a lot.

I'm not faking either, that's what the Consort thinks you need most right at that moment. Sex. Alien sex. Blue chick alien sex. In our house, those are called 'bloobies,' by the way. Aren't you happy you know that?

While hilarious, this little Mass Effect universe parable illustrates a very important point: the Mass Effect games are the horniest games ever made. I mean, maybe those Japanese hentai games where the guy gets off on chicks pissing themselves are worse, but here's the catch: not by much!

For one, the series isn't even barely shy about alien sex, so take THAT shit, Japan!

Mass Effect 1 tries to keep it reigned in somewhat. I mean, there's only two blue chicks you can fuck in the entire game, that's not so bad, right? Oh, and the constant "krogans have four balls" thing. Mass Effect 2 tries to keep it under wraps, but you can tell that about halfway through the game, the writers gave the fuck up and just let the horny flow like mana. Mass Effect 3 is ... is ... it's special. Oh God. You all wait.

The Council

So Anderson's all, "Hey, go talk to Joker when you're ready." It's one of those classic video game "Do this when you're ready to progress the plot!" sorts of things.

I haven't mentioned Joker so far, mostly because while he's present in ME1, he doesn't do a whole lot. I can think of maybe one portion of the game where he affects the plot. But he's gonna come in to play in the next two games, so you need to get familiar with him:

Joker is voiced by Seth Green, and also looks just like Seth Green wearing a hat. He's the pilot of the Normandy. He's got Vrolik's syndrome, which is actually a real thing that you can have. It means that his bones are more or less hollow and break easily. That's why Joker never goes with you on missions, and also that's why I had to draw him up there with crutches.

(See, kids with real life brittle bone disease typically die, but this is the future, so Joker's good to go.)

So anyway, you tell Joker to punch it, and he drives the Normandy up into the Citadel.

The game legit goes into some Star Trek 1 The Movie style shit at this point.

"Why the hell did you draw a giant flower?" you ask? Because the Citadel looks like a giant flower, I say, at least in the first shot they show you.

The Citadel is the most important area in all three games. It's a space station, not a planet. It's a giant city where all the races gather, live, and get along about as well as they're going to get. It's also where the Council lives! Hold on to your ass, we're about to infodump.

The game drops you into the following scenario:

Over there on the right, the red guys? They're the council. They rule the universe. Really! All three of them! Bet your ass feels important now, having met them. They're red because we're currently seeing them through holograms, because Mass Effect is once again trying to pretend that all their space future technology shit isn't so great. From left to right, the councilors:

The turian councilor: Is a dick. You already know what turians are, so let's move on.

The asari councilor: Is a bigger dick. People rag on the turian councilor all the time, but I'm sorry, she's a way huger wang noodle. Asari are your ... fourth alien race? I'm starting to lose count. They're blue chicks with head tentacles ... except they're not actually chicks. Asari are genderless beings that can reproduce with either gender of any alien. You heard me. Any. Alien. You can probably smell where this is going. Asari are the dominant species in the galaxy.

The salarian councilor: Never does anything. Ever. I'm not convinced Bioware hired a voice actor for her. Salarians are lizard guys with big ass eyes that live about 30 years. This salarian is a female dalatrass, a very old, powerful female, so she wears that hood thing.

Oh, and on the left, the pissy guy? That's Ambassador Udina! He's the human representative to the council, and he's pretty much always having some kind of cardiac event over some shit.

(Hey, do you notice something? The most powerful races in the galaxy, the turians, the asari and the salarians, have council members. Humans are very new to the galactic scene, and in the Mass Effect universe, they kind of get treated like dog shit. One of the sub plots of the series is trying to get humans some political power. That's why Shepard being a spectre would be such a big deal: she'd be the first human spectre, earn humanity some serious rep points with the council, and maybe get a human council member.)

So Udina is having it out with the council: Udina's pissed that the council won't send any kind of support or investigation or ANYTHING regarding Eden Prime, and the council's all, "Nope, sorry Jack, you said mean things about Saren! We like Saren, he's good people!" Seriously, that's the argument.

You're going to learn really quick that the council's #1 job in live is to give the finger to humanity.

Something neat about this scene: you can tell that they didn't have the pronunciation totally finalized yet. One of the councilors talks about Soren, and someone else says "tor-rian." It may be worth mentioning that Bioware is stationed in Backwater, Canada, too.

So Anderson, Shepard, Kaidan and Ashley roll up, and Udina's all, "Fuck you guys and fuck your mothers, they're having a trial for Saren, be there in ten before I eat your hearts out of your chests." So everyone goes to the council chambers.

This is a long scene, but let me summarize it for you.

Shepard: Saren shot Nihlus!

Council: But we need proof.

Shepard: Here's the report from Eden Prime. We also have an eye witness. Also he's an asshole, you know he is.

Council: But we need proof.

Shepard: I ... I just gave you proof?

Council: But we need proof.

Shepard: What the hell are we doing here?

So. Fuck me. Let's go get evidence.

Anderson gives you a couple of options. There's actually many ways for this part to play out, but for simplicity's sake, we're doing it my way. I always go to Barla Von, first.

Barla Von is a volus that chills in the financial district. He's an agent for the Shadow Broker, some sort of mysteeeeeerious guy who knows everything about everyone. He never deals with people directly, just through agents, and no one ever meets the guy. Shepard's like, "Tell us shit," so he spills: The shadow broker is pissed at Saren. Mr. Broker went ahead and hired a krogan named Urdnot Wrex (Wrex is his given name, Urdnot is the clan name, so Wrex for short) to take Saren out, and Wrex is likely chilling in C-Sec.

Oh boy, Krogans! So many info dumps for you today! Krogans are huge pissy turtle aliens. They are pissed off because the turians neutered them. More on that later.

Krogans have four testicles. The game will bring up this fact every single chance it gets. Four. Balls. Remember it.

You remembering?

Good, let's go to C-Sec, which is short for Citadel Security. That's the police guys. In ME1, C-Sec is almost exclusively a turian unit.

Wrex has all four of his balls in a huge wad (he can do that because he has four balls) at some C-Sec officers, but for some reason they don't cart him off, and also he turns around and talks to Shep like it ain't no thing. Wrex reveals that he was hired to kill a guy named Fist because, are you ready? I had to write this down, I knew I'd never remember it: some random quarian (another kind of alien) got uppity at the shadow broker because she had some evidence proving that Saren was up to no good, that he had started making trouble in his neighborhood. She wanted to meet the broker himself, so Fist offered to arrange it. But, Fist betrayed her, and set her up to meet with Saren's dudes instead, 'cause this quarian chick's got shit on him and Saren wants her dead.

Take a breath. Read it twice.

Wrex suggests that Shepard go talk to this C-Sec officer who'd been hot on Saren's trail; he's pretty sure he saw the guy down around the clinic. Thanks, jackass, because a major space metropolis only has like one of those.

At this point, the game gives you the option of changing party members. Buddy boy howdy, I ripped Kaidan out of my party so fast his faux hawk spun. Ashley and Wrex is an acceptable party, but we're about to go make it better.

So apparently there's only one clinic on the Citadel, what the hell, and when we bust in, we see:

Shit, that's Dr. Michel! She's being held hostage by Fist's thugs, but that's okay, because Garrus Vakarian, that C-Sec officer we were hunting, is a shoot first and ask questions later kind of guy. He shoots Fist's thugs, and Shepard thanks him kindly.

Actually, this might be a good point to mention the paragon/renegade system. Since this is a Bioware game, there's a "good/bad" sort of system, the idea being that the more good you've got the more good things you can do and vice versa. In Mass Effect, "good" is paragon and "bad" is renegade. Technically, 'paragon' is supposed to be the guy that wants to do the right thing by the most people, and 'renegade' is the one that wants the most effective solution, even if it winds up being one that isn't popular. What usually winds up happening is 'paragon' is how normal, sane people would react, and 'paragon' is a huge hyper dick move.

I usually play really super paragon, partly because I have trouble seeing the text on the TV (it's something about the XBox, I have really good vision otherwise) and it's just easier to pick the blue text or the text highest on the screen for me. I also play paragon because I am literally six fucking years old and don't want to see Shepard do anything mean.

I will say, sometimes I pick renegade when I know that the result will be funny, or when I think Shep has every right to be pissed off.

Anyway, if you pick the paragon option, Shepard rips Garrus a new asshole. Cloaca. What the hell do turians shit out of? None of you answer that, I'm happier not knowing.

Y'all go off down through the wards, to this place called Chora's Den, a "gentlemen's cub". It is a stripper bar. Really, go through it sometime when Fist's dudes aren't shooting at you.

Oh, right, Fist's dudes start shooting at you. Anyway, they start shooting at you, and you mow them down and go through the back to find Fist himself. He tells you everything you already knew, and then says the quarian is probably down by the shops.

Remember the paragon/renegade thing I mentioned earlier? The game gives you the option to either kill or spare Fist.

Unless you're a dumbass like me who brought Wrex.

Oh, Shepard! This is going to be a hell of a mission!

So anyway, the game puts a timer on you, but you'll beat it pretty easily. You find yourself in a back alley with a random pervert and a quarian.

Oh, by the way, a quarian? Those are chicken legged space gypsies in hazmat suits. If I'm lying, I'm flying. They always wear these suits with helmets because they've got like no immune system. (Quarian culture is pretty central to the game, and there's a lot of it -- I seriously don't even have the space here. If you read one link I give you, make it that one.)

We learn that the quarian's name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, but we can call her Tali for short. Anyway, she offers us the information against Saren, because I guess Shepard kind of looks like the shadow broker or some shit, and we run screaming back to Udina.

Those orange things I keep drawing on their arms? Those are omnitools. They're pretty much futuristic holographic smart phones.

I'm not even being clever, by the way, this really is exactly how Tali implicates Saren.

I'm not even shitting there, either, that's legit Troi.

Anyway, there's some discussion over what the hell a reaper is, and why Councillor Troi is so concerned with them, but overall, they come up with nothing. But, they've got the shit to implicate Saren, so they bust back off to the council.

That was long and texty. The next one hopefully won't be so bad. Til next time!

Eden Prime

So, the fair lady Shep beams down to the planet, which totally doesn't at all look like backwater Canada, thanks sci fi, with her two handy cohorts.

One of them is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko.

Holy shit, you all, remember that name, because I will be screaming it later. Kaidan drives me nuts. He has such a punchable face, it's not even funny. Also, he has a faux hawk. Who the blue fuck rocks a faux hawk? Douches named Kaidan, that's who. Douches are also named Kaidan, that's a provable fact. He doesn't even have the decency to spell it Kaiden or Caiden like the rest of the fucking universe.

You all watch, I'll fuck up and type Kaiden at least once.

Anyway, the other guy is Lt. Bioware. He has a name, but I'm calling him Lt. Bioware. Why? This is a fucking Bioware game, you tell me what happens next.

So, they land, and Lt. Bioware runs right out into the middle of the gunfire and dies.

Seriously, you've played a Bioware game, right? You DID see this coming, right?

Hell yes I went there.

If you don't get the joke, you are one of the blessed ones.

So anyway, Shepard and Kaidan discover that Lt. Bioware was shot down by the darkspawn. Sorry, sorry, it was the geth

Hey, hot damn! This is like your third alien race, right? The geth!

Err, we're starting to play fast and loose with the definition of 'alien'. I mean, they're from another planet, but they're robots, so. Can a robot be an alien? Mass Effect 3 seems to think so, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Geth are giant plastic robot guys with one giant light where their face would normally be. In Mass Effect 1, they're white, but in the other two games, they tend to be black or brownish. Actually, they make all colors of geth, but that's what you'll see the most of.

Kaidan gets all freaked out, because he is a wiener, and also because the geth typically don't go out past "the veil". "The veil" is a place in space geography. Trust me, it's like a million mass effects away or some shit. Anyway, he's got a point: there shouldn't be geth here.

Also, they shouldn't be killing people and hoisting them up on spikes.

For whatever reason, these big ass spike things are a Major Thing in Mass Effect 1, and totally forgotten in the other two games. Kind of a shame, they're badass.

Not far from the spikes, they find Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. Remember the chick in the video with the pink armor? What up.

I've got everyone turned to the right. Help me remember to turn the next one to the left.

I am the only person on the Internet that kind of likes Ashley. I love how everyone who's played this game before just winced, because they know what's coming.

By the way, I swear I remember reading that Ashley's Hispanic. Is that true? I can't remember if I've got that mixed up with the fact that she served in Brazil or what. Meanwhile, take note that Kaidan's Serbian, or at least his family is. Mass Effect has a deep minority representation, it's actually pretty cool.

I don't know what Lt. Bioware's family history was. Whatevs, he's geth food now.

So Ashley's all, hey, let me show you to the dig site where we found the Prothean thingie, and Shep's all, hey that rules, so they go there, and there's no Prothean shit anywhere, and Shep's like, the fuck, and Ashley's like, the fuck I don't know, and then Nihlus (remember that bastard?) calls up, and he's all, lol, they moved the Prothean thingie, you're gonna have to take a train to find it, and I'm like, THE FUCK KIND OF WEIRD ASS STORY TELLING IS THIS SHIT?!

Meanwhile!

Yeah, so Shepard, Ashley and Kaidan hear a gun shot for no reason. No reason, you guys.

They also find Nihlus' dead body. Whoops.

Shep and crew take the train as instructed, and in true video game fashion, it's not an actual train as much as it is a sliding platform. Some geth are trying to blow the platform up, so Shepard has to disable the bombs in a sequence that is Mass Effect Multiplayer's grandpappy.

Then they find it.

The Prothean thingie!

Shep makes a call to the Normandy to let Anderson know that she's got the goods, but the beacon is so fucking shiny that Kaidan has to go touch it.

I'm not shitting! That happens!

I love all the people who played manshepard right now who think I've messed up. Nope. If you play ladyshepard, Kaidan grabs the dildo.

Also, this is the entire thing the plot is based on: a giant ancient space dildo trying to kill us all. Mass Effect!

So Shepard dives forward to save Kaidan as the dildo (okay fine the Prothean beacon) glows green.

She chucks Kaidan out of the way, but the beacon starts ... it starts doing some shit, man.

So, while Kaidan and Ashley are hopefully calling for emergency medical transport for their unconscious commanding officer, Shep starts having weird dreams. They're red, and something is roaring, and there's no green nor blue, and shut up I am hilarious.

Shep wakes up in med bay, with Dr. Chawkwas overseeing her. Kaidan's there too, and he's like, "Sorry I tried to touch the shiny," and Shep's like, "Nah, we cool," and then he starts smiling or some shit, and I'm like, "You turd sack, I AM NOT FLIRTING WITH YOU."

So then Anderson comes in to sick bay, reminds you that you're second in command (gee thanks), and then broadcasts an important info dump: that guy that killed Nihlus? That was Saren. He's a spectre, but if he's running around killing other spectres and chilling with geth, he's gone rogue. Spectres work for the council, so Anderson's got this brilliant idea: the Normandy's gonna go tell on Saren.

So then they're all like,

Because they're going to the Citadel, the most important Mass Effect location! But that'll have to wait for next time.

Effecting Mass

So. The opening of the game.

You've probably seen promotional materials relating to Mass Effect -- they only played like 7000 million trillion commercials for Mass Effect 3. So, a great game probably opens with explosions and shit, right? Guns blazing? Women fainting? Men waving penises?

Mass Effect starts with three dudes standing around muttering about some asshole named Shepard. One of these dudes is Admiral Hackett, the highest ranking military officer the story gives a name to. I don't think he ever physically enters the story of ME1, so I'm going to be a shit and not draw him. The other dude talking about you behind your back is Donnel Udina, a human diplomat.

Then there's Captain Anderson!

Who apparently salutes with his left hand! Hush, no one promised you good art.

Oh, Anderson. He's easily one of my favorite characters. He's smart, strong, brave, high ranking, the Captain and commanding officer of the good ship Normandy --

Um, and not the hero of the story, either. Sorry 'bout that.

(This is a true story, when I first played ME1, I had no idea Anderson was supposed to be black. I'm not trying to make some sort of statement on my own color blindness or whatever, I'm trying to say that I am literally so fucking stupid that I thought Anderson was supposed to be a bright orange human. I was halfway through Mass Effect 2 before my husband was like, "You know he's supposed to be black, right?" And I was like, "The hell, when did that happen?" Apparently it happened when they hired Keith David to be his voice actor, who knew. He is pretty fucking orange in Mass Effect 1, though.)

So after that happens, the screen flashes black, and tries to go all Star Wars on your ass by giving you a text dump of some history: in ... some year, you know, that one year, humans made it to Mars, and discovered all this wacky technology that let them use mass effects. The mass effect let them travel way out into space so they could meet all kinds of fucked up aliens.

This is about the only time the story tries to sit down and address what a mass effect is. No, really. I've played all three games, and I can tell you with authority that this whole mass effect thing? It's space magic or some shit. I think it's blue? It rarely comes up. Like, it makes their ships go or some shit, but that's it. It's like taking the movie Thelma and Louise and calling it Gasoline. Nerds have tried to define exactly what a mass effect is, but they are nerds, and should not be entertained. "Blue space magic" is all you need to know.

Okay. Anyway, the game pops you on the bridge of the Normandy, the space ship of the game. Get used to this bitch, you're gonna be living on it for three games. The camera follows behind the shmuck who's second in command, the Spock if you will:

Commander Shepard!

WHOA WHOA HEY QUIT HAVING A FIT HEY HEY HOLD ON

Mass Effect 1 is very very Bioware. As such, you get to make your own Commander Shepard. You can make him a dude, dudette, blonde, black, whatever you can think of. When I first fired up the character creator, I was like, "Hot damn! I'm going to make a black lady Shepard, except she's got green dreadlocks!" Then, I got disappointed that I couldn't make green hair. Then, I got disappointed that I couldn't do dreads. I farted with the character creator forever, trying to make a black Shep, but the best I could do was a white Shep that had a horrible tanning bed accident. That's not the character creator's fault, I'm pretty universally bad with face makers. (Oh Sims 2, the abominations I brought into this world.)

So deprived of my original Shepard plans, I made the snuggly preciousest Shep I could, a teeny little red headed Shep. The idea of something totally pwecious saving the galaxy made me laugh. Actually, I picked the orange hair because it was the same color as one of my pet rabbits. I love that color.

For simplicity's sake, we're all just going to calm the fuck down and use my Shepard. I know, you love your Shep too, but There Can Only Be One. This is Millicent Shepard, Vanguard.

Speaking of. If you didn't have any fun playing Mass Effect, it's because you picked soldier for your class. Don't pick soldier. I'm a big fan of vanguard, but I'll let you get away with picking adept. Engineer is okay. I'm not a big fan of infiltrator or sentinel, but other nerds love them.

So, Shep's rolling up through the Normandy, when she hears that Anderson wants to speak with her, so she goes to hunt him down.

This is when she happens on Nihlus.

Hey, welcome to Mass Effect! You just met your first fucked up alien thing! Get used to it, there's a shit ton more where this came from.

Nihlus is a turian, which is some kind of giant ... space ... cricket ... lizard. Bioware says they're based on birds. Um, sure. They've got big long head spikes (they call it a 'fringe'), and a huge circular neck ... collar bone ... thing. Also! You never see a female one in game, because Bioware was too afraid of putting tits on a turian and calling it a girl turian. To be fair, that's pretty gross.

Nihlus is also a spectre, meaning he's got diplomatic immunity dripping out his cloaca. It's really weird for a spectre and a turian to be aboard a human ship, but there he is.

So him and Shepard chillax for a bit,

Until Anderson rolls in. He's like, hey Shep, don't tell anyone, but:

• We're landing on Eden Prime because we found a Prothean thingie.
• Nihlus here is gonna watch you find and do shit with the Prothean thingie, 'cause we think you might make a decent spectre.

And Shep's all, "WHOA WHOA WHOA WHAT THE HELL," and Anderson's all, "WHAT THE HELL WITH WHAT THE HELL."

Actually, Shepard takes it quite well, but she shouldn't, because those are two really big bombs to drop. The Prothean thingie? The Protheans were these aliens that lived long ago, but they died out, because, um, old stuff dies. They made the mass effects. The last time the humans found a Prothean artifact, they got enough mass effect power to go out to meet the aliens, so who the hell knows what this could do.

Also, a spectre? Is a hell of a promotion! Shit, Shep might even be in line to get promoted from commander! Wouldn't that be --

The pilot interrupts them with a youtube video.

A transmission comes in from Eden Prime. It's one of those grand moments where there's static everywhere and we're supposed to pretend that the technology isn't that great in the future.

Among the images is a woman in bright pink armor getting shot at.

And hey, what the hell?

Some sort of ... fucked up spider thing?

Congrats, you just met your second Mass Effect alien, but the game's not telling you what it is yet. I guess I'll save it as a surprise for later, too.

This was way, way too info dumpy for my tastes. Let's cut here and land on Eden Prime next time.