Samara: Half Baked

We would be remiss if we did not take some time to visit one of the most popular NPCs in the Mass Effect universe.

I actually thought about skipping him, but how could you?

It may be up for some debate as to how he got so biotic --

-- yeah, okay, so no it's not.

I love moments in the Mass Effect universe where you see all these wild, fantastic aliens in all these hyperfuturistic settings doing average joe shit.

Like sitting with your feet up, dicking around on your space kindle.

Or drinking a coke. Also apparently coke survived this far into the future.

So begins the boss battle to the end of this section: you take out the coke drinking Eclipse merc, you get the justicar. Easy, right?

Okay, remember that red sand Pitne For was smuggling? He left it laying around, the jackass, and now there's red sand all over the battle field.

It doesn't do anything to characters who don't have biotics. I'm not even sure it raises their toxitiy level, but I don't know.

Biotic characters, though, get kite high and get like hella biotic. Which is nice for taking the Eclipse merc out.

DAMN biotic detonation as a vanguard rules. Try that shit. Try that shit in multiplayer, even. Truly, it is the raddest.

After the fight:

So! Let's bring three entries worth of shit to the detective, and see what's what!

... I think that Sex Boat entry is the most popular thing I have ever written in my life time. I think they're going to put Sex Boat on my grave. That's one of the more popular keywords for getting to MSPixel, did you know?

By the way, I was checking on my keywords the other day, and someone got to MSPixel using the search, "tali gets fucked by geth hentai". What in the hell do you think I'm drawing here!? I don't even what to know who that was. Don't tell me.

... this is actually factually what happens, Shepard hands off the evidence, the detective says she can't use it, Samara says she can, and the detective's like, "rad, I totally can now."

... WHAT. I have a VERY good understanding of the legal system because I've watched HUNDREDS OF HOURS of Law and Order, original AND SVU thanks so much, and I don't think it quite works like that! Unless asari courts are different? Bioware's Canadian, does Canadian law work like this? Like, "Oh, you said this evidence is good, ey? Oh, it's okay, we trust you know what yer talking aboot."

Wait, I don't think they have murder in Canada. Don't they just like, get mad and shake their fists instead? Maybe that's why Bioware has such a loose understanding of what a law even is.

But then, we still come to the matter that Shepard's murdered hundreds of bodies inside a crime scene and no one gives a shit, so maybe I should just stop talking.

Samara: This is the Horniest Fucking Game.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, our living room.

I'm not! I'm fucking not!

Bioware, err, modeled some ... assets rather prominently on Samara. You know she's got a mole on one of 'em? This is the horniest fucking game, I swear to hell. But look, I'm trying to almost show a modicum of respect, so this is what you're getting.

And you'll enjoy it. (Samara's outfit makes me think of that brief period in video game history during the SNES Golden Age when all female RPG characters wore battle bikinis. See: Celes, Terra.)

Anyway, Samara has a reasonable response to not getting what she wants.

So anyway, Shepard can go all paragon on her ass:

Because Shepard doesn't, you know, fucking leave a blood trail any time she drives through the damn McDonalds what the hell. Actually, I think Samara calls her out on that in game.

Oh, the code! Justicars work by a code, a document that lays out every situation that they could possibly be in and what they are supposed to do. However, you'll notice real quick that the justicar code is written on the same piece of paper that the Prime Directive is, which is to say, it doesn't exist.

Anyway, our detective friend rolls up.

... okay, again, Shepard murders people for sport, no one's ever brought her in. Is it the spectre thing? Is that it? But how is a justicar not on the same standing? We were told justicars embody the highest laws asari have, if they kill someone, isn't it somehow okay in the eyes of an asari?

Is there some sort of card that RPG protagonists just carry around that make them immune to local laws?

Welp.

The game takes you back outside of the murder scene, which I guess is like a double murder now. Hey, remember Pitne For? Wonder what Brother Pitne's up to?

Red sand is a drug in the Mass Effect universe that gives you mad hella biotics. They farted with it in Ascension. Actually, that may have been what they were doping Gillian with, but they never said it directly so who knows.

Man, do you not miss the elevator rides in ME1? I do. Now we're just left to imagine what they talk about in elevators.

Or we're left to draw it out in MSPaint, anyway.

I think we can all agree with that!

As everyone goes through the level, we find an Eclipse merc hiding.

...

Oh chidlren.

An Ardat-Yakshi is an asari who suffers from a specific type of genetic mutation. The mutation only occurs in asari who have two asari for parents ("pure bloods"), which is why asari have such a bias against them. Ardat-Yakshi are sex addicts. They mate with another being (remember, asari can fuck anything), vulcan mind meld with them, overload their neurosystem, and kill them, then search for another being to fuck and kill.

No. Really. That's what we're doing right now, we're learning about sex vampires. This game. This fucking game has fucking sex vampires. Fuck all of the living things on this earth. There is a group of people at Bioware, who -- you think about this, now! -- sat around a table and said, "Hey, this game? It's pretty good, but you know what it's missing? Sex vampires."

My favorite thing ever is when people try and tell me the damn game isn't horny. BULLSHIT. Pull the four balls out of your ears, wipe the turian spunk on your face, AND REALIZE THAT WE JUST ENTERED A STORY ABOUT SEX. FUCKING. VAMPIRES.

I maintain that this is not peak horny for this game. Y'all wait.

This may have been inspired by the fact that I just realized all my asari look like Sonic the Hedgehog.

Letting her go is the paragon path, I honestly don't know the renegade one. Probably shooting her.

Anyway, let's check the computer consoles.

You know? At this point? I'm surprised it wasn't just straight up asari porn.

NEXT TIME: The conclusion, whew.

Samara: Until You're Dead

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Enough shilling. We've got a mission on Illium, so let's go!

There's all sorts of incidental dialog I'm powering through.

And this is a true fact, this dialog? I never even got it until this play through. I'm not sure why it never came up before.

And this is a true fact, that is how quarians masturbate.

We're doing this.

This is no longer parody. This actually happens.

This is the horniest fucking game. The Japanese are jealous that Canada made such a horny ass game.

Anyway, we need to get Samara. (Quit laughing. I know this isn't leading us down a less horny path!) Liara tells Shepard to talk to an asari detective on the station, so:

Justicars are kind of like asari monks. They've given up their worldly possessions and families to travel about the galaxy righting wrongs and otherwise being super heroes.

Ummmm, but, they usually only stay in asari space. It's totally weird to have one leave the Thessian area.

Also they're, like, stupid deadly, like "make Saren look like a teletubby" style deadly.

Illium has many aliens on it, such as that quarian who just sits around and publicly masturbates what the hell, and the Illium police have no idea what the hell Samara will do when faced with an alien. If she kills one, they risk a cross-species political shitstorm.

Why is The Illusive Man bent on getting Shepard killed a second time? You'd think he'd maybe want her to live long enough to at least get through the Omega-4 relay, but apparently not.

Anyway, we're whisked away to a crime scene, a murder crime scene! Actually, doesn't Shepard murder people every day? The woman can't take a leak without leaving a pile of bodies, why's this murder special?

Meet another asari detective, and the volus Pitne (pit-ney) For, who's partner was just murdered. I mean, the guy was likely murdered doing something illegal, but a murder's a murder, unless that murder happened to be at the hands of Shepard, in which case no1curr.

Okay, this aside is dumb as hell, but there's a turian standing around the murder scene wearing a hat.

HE IS WEARING A HAT. How rad is that! Look at that damn hat. How do you not love a turian in a little hat?! It should be a santa hat.

Okay, sorry, this is a vry srs art blog, let's get back to vry srs art.

(See, if the detective detains Samara, she's keeping Samara from her Official Justicar Duties. How would Samara get out? Yup.)

... I can't be funnier than the original dialog here, moving on.

Anyway, to find Samara, Shepard is allowed in the crime scene. It's cool, there's a little laser DO NOT CROSS tape that you get to walk past.

And why is that?

Samara's recruitment is stupidly long, we're going to have to cut it short here. NEXT TIME: we'll actually find Samara.