Paragon Lost Parte Dos

... I had this entry all prepared and didn't hit post. Again. I'll fall on my sword shortly.

When we last left James Vega, he was screaming "BULLSHIT" anytime anyone made a statement. Everyone hears some sort of shaking, so they go and check it out. Turns out it's that krogan from the prologue, who's named Brood. They kept him around as a prisoner because, uh, _____. They leave him behind, but they come back for him later, so no big ... ?

... okay, so Brood goes nowhere. Most of this goes nowhere. Look, if you haven't seen Paragon Lost, and you go out and see it right after reading all this, you'll realize:

• I'm leaving huge parts of this movie out.
• That's okay, because you could edit half of the stuff out and have a pretty cohesive movie still.
• Because there is a shit ton of filler.

Okay, so crap happens, they all take a swig out a canteen and swear to go on the collector ship, and then they wind up on the collector ship, but SURPRISE the collectors pod them up.

Oh, shit! Vega's in a pod! That's the end of this shit, I guess we'll have to --

... right, so that canteen I mentioned earlier? Vega spiked it with antidote for whatever it is the collectors use to paralyze people. He just pops right out. Those pods must not be that secure.

Meanwhile, Ash Ketchum Messner has kidnapped Treeya, and takes her to a Prothean database thing. He needs someone to interface with it and get the data, but it turns out that it's killed every human that has tried to interface with it.

Like, Treeya doesn't put up any fight, no trepidation, just WELP LEMMIE AT IT.

Hey, didn't Shepard interface with a Prothean interface? It didn't kill her.

So anyway, she sees this shit:

and comes to the same conclusion we already came to:

The collectors capture them both and get pissed, especially with Messner, who brought an asari aboard their human fuck juice factory.

As Messner pushes Treeya into a collector pod, she manages to steal a cuff that he was wearing. The collectors, uncaring for Messner's animu accessories, seal Treeya up and send her flying through the air.

Okay, now: I understand I'm little miss bad art, but you've got to believe me, this next section is framed just like I've drawn here.

Treeya goes flying past Vega to a ... uh, hole in the collector ship.

Vega shoots off in the distance because .... welp.

This part cracks me up every time, I can't draw it as funny as it is in the DVD. Like, Vega shoots some rocks above the hole, they fall, and Treeya goes careening out into space.

Why is there just a hole going out into space? Wouldn't all the air rush out?

Meanwhile, the colonists have escaped from their pods!

Yay! April! Hi April!

Okay, but bigger problem: the collector's ship is now crashing!

Shit, we've got to stop the ship from crashing and save the --

Oh, wait, Treeya's calling.

... Hmm, okay, so we can't save both because, uh, _____. Let's just pretend Vega doesn't have charm/intimidate.

But the only real advantage to saving Treeya is the data. And Vega gettin' some blue, I guess, but that's not really a consideration since I don't care if Vega gets laid or not. Here's the thing, that cuff has the data that Treeya mined off the collector's ship. If we save the collector's ship, we get the colonists and we can just call another asari and get the data. Hell, we can just *69 Liara if we want.

Also, remember, this is the same series who allowed Shepard's body to survive both reentry to an atmosphere and planet fall unharmed, Treeya's chances are pretty good inside that pod.

Besides, April's on the collector's ship, and she rules. Right. It's decided, let's save the colo --

BULLSHIT

VEGA YOU GOD DAMN STUPID FUCKSTICK. FUCK YOU AND YOUR MOHAWK AND EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER LOVED.

This isn't the reason I hate Vega so much, but killing April is ON THE DAMN LIST.

So Vega saves the ship by, uh, _____. I have no idea how that works out, it just fades to white. There's two Anderson and Hackett impersonators that want to see everyone, let us travel to the Citadel --

Oh, how the nerds lost their collective shit to see the Citadel just, like, chillaxin' outside Earth.

I'm not doing the end to Paragon Lost, it's so bad it's embarrasing. But it's important to note that the Hackett and Anderson impersonators promote Vega to lt. commander, which is a huge plot hole. Vega's not a lt. commander in ME3! Even better, Shepard is a lt. commander, so says the wiki, but at the beginning of Mass Effect 3, she outranks the fuck out of him. Unless the Alliance promoted Shepard when she became a spectre? But we never saw that happen. So which is it?!

Of course, Vega's got some N7 armor in the last shot, which shits directly in the face of ME3, so maybe we need to get over it and move on.

NEXT TIME: Hey, what does Hackett look like? Let's find out!

Paragon Lost, Parte Uno

CHILDREN, PARAGON LOST.

Earlier this year, Bioware, sensing that its fanbase was comprised of tremendous nerds, decided to deliver a Mass Effect "anime". ... I kind of hate the word "anime", because really, it's a cartoon, but sure, anime. They actually farmed this out to a Japanese studio. As far as I can tell from spending three minutes on Wikipedia, Production I. G. is responsible for this hot mess. They've actually got a pretty impressive resume. I mean, I know very little about anime, but even I can recognize Ghost in the Shell and Evangelion. Of course, it might be more prudent to blame T. O Entertainment, who has produced exactly zero things that I've heard of. FUNimation had their mitts in this too, but I thought they only distributed anime? I don't know enough about what I'm talking about.

We all bitch about Paragon Lost, but you want to know a secret? I fucking love this movie. I love bad things.

Whoever made this realized that making an adventure starring Shepard wasn't going to work, since we can't even pin down Shepard's own gender. So! So we must then turn to a new protagonist. Meet James Saunders!

Actually, ahem, he only started as James Saunders. Bioware found out that Freddie Prinze Jr. was a HUGE Mass Effect nerd, called him up, and James Saunders became the tremendously ripped bemowhawked deuteragonist James Vega.

Before we continue, you must know: I absolutely cannot take James Vega for even ten seconds. He's my second least favorite character after Kaidan. We're going to have to wait a bit to find out why. Let's just meet the rest of Vega's buddies in what we're now calling Delta Squad.

This takes place during the two years that Shepard was dead and all of council space had "dismissed" the "reaper" claim.

... except Vega, who remains deeply in love with Le Shep.

The rest of Delta Squad has names, but trust me, you don't care about them. They exist to both ask Vega why he is not currently having sex, and die. Truly, they are the essence of Mass Effect.

So anyway, Delta Squad is going to a planet to fight some krogan.

Um. Well. Those are krogan now.

Look, I'm little miss bad art, I get it, but some of the shit in Paragon Lost? It's like Bioware described some of the art assets over the phone to someone in Japan who sort of spoke English, but couldn't really understand a Canadian accent, ey, and also the connection was really bad and one of the people on the call had crying twins in the background. So those pointy things are krogan, okay? That is a krogan.

They kill all the krogan except one named Brood who James spares. Two dudes who sort of look and sound like Hackett and Anderson give Delta Squad commendations and tell them that they're now stationed at the colony they defended, Fehl Prime.

Let us now move two years later. Shepard's currently just waking up on a Cerberus station, wondering what the hell is going on with that, but let's stay with Vega, who's been living in Fehl Prime with the colonists.

Meet April. There's exactly three children in the Mass Effect canon: Gillian Grayson, April, and a third that I'll keep under my hat for now. April lives in Fehl Prime and is best buddies with Vega.

Also among the colonists is Treeya, an asari doing research on, uh, something. She's --

... is April playing with Vega's mohawk?

HOLY SHIT. That is AMAZING.

Fuck Shepard. April's my new favorite. Holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

Yeah, so the rest of Delta Squad is still horny.

That's a real quote, by the way, about how everyone wants "the blue." Is that not amazing?

There's a construction crew at Fehl Prime (they're building a huge fuckoff canon to protect people against ... hmm, I wonder) that discovers some kind of artifact. Since it's jamming communications, Delta Squad is asked to go check it out. Treeya comes too just in case she knows what it is.

... hey, Treeya, don't put yourself out or anything.

Okay, so that happens. Treeya decides to have a fit of Useful and, since communications are back up anyway, goes to Skype with her old mentor to see if she's got any ideas.

Hell yes that's Liara. Wave hi! Remember this moment, too, it's going to create the first of like a hundred plot holes.

Treeya's all, "What the hell? Reapers are a myth, Shepard totes made that up, the artifact wasn't reapers," and Liara's all, "Hey, eat my ass, you called me."

... because ... because the artifact repaired itself? Maybe? I have no idea why the call dropped.

... hey, over there in the distance, is that ... ?

YOU GUYS THAT'S A TURD

WAIT WAIT IS THAT COLLECTORS

This was, if you'll recall, the entire plot of ME2.

Seeker swarms run rampant, grabbing whatever colonist they can, to include my new best friend April. The bastards!

Delta Squad remembers that the Alliance was building a huge fuckoff gun for moments like this, so they all run to the control panel and fire at the turd collector ship.

But that was about as effective as pissing on it.

Everyone who's still alive runs underground: Treeya, Delta Squad, and this one guy who looks exactly like Ash Ketchum. His name is Messner. He just hangs out, I guess.

One member of Delta Squad starts fishing through files while he's down there, just for shits. The results are surprising!

Messner works for Cerberus! Fuck!

Vega knocks him senseless, but Messner points out that they're all trapped in the bunker, so they're all on the same team and they may as well start sharing what they know. As a peace offering, Messner starts:

That is a real moment in the movie, and it is amazing. Husbando~ and I still, to this day, scream bullshit at each other when someone says something innocuous.

... this is taking so long that I'm going to cut here.

NEXT TIME: BULLSHIT