Wrex: Family Armor

It's implied as the game goes along that every one is making better friends with each other. Sometimes it sticks out when Shepard goes through dialog options with the crew -- for example, I was kind of surprised that Ashley told me to go comfort Liara after I killed Benezia. Wasn't she supposed to be space racist? Oh, right, I talked her down from that.

The vast majority of this delightful character development happens in the ever famous elevator scenes. ME1 didn't have loading screens, it just put elevators between different areas. If you took two squadmates together, you might possibly trigger a conversation between them that plays while you wait for the next area to load.

They all pretty much go like this.

Space racism is a Thing in ME1. You can bring pretty much any two combinations of squadmates (except Kaidan and Ashley, I guess) and get a space racism conversation.

But oho, the conversations you get if you bring Garrus and Wrex.

Turians and krogans get along just about as well as varren and thresher maws! Oho! SPACE HUMOR.

Okay, remember how I told you about those rachni guys? And the krogans defeating them? If you'll recall, one of the reasons the krogans defeated the rachni were because they reproduce so fast. Because they have four balls. They. Have. Four. Balls. Why is this not cross stitched in your home yet?

Krogan reproduction rates are as they are because their homeworld, Tuchanka, has four testicles is almost inhabitable. It's hot, nothing grows, no water, horrifying fauna, so on. But, if the krogan keep fucking, what with their four balls and all, they can sustain their population at a reasonable level. After the rachni wars, the council very dimly gave the krogan nice planets, ones previously inhabited by the rachni. The krogan went there, fucked like krogan, and overblew the shit out of their population. Worse yet, the krogan are still really violent fuckers, so now you've got ... enh, let's just say it's the same thing as having an entire galaxy overrun with Klingons.

The salarians made this thing called the genophage. Pay fucking attention, this is only going to come up like ten million more times. The genophage altered a krogan's genetics so that one in one thousand krogans lived. Ouch. The salarians asked the turians to deploy said genophage, and the turians did it because seriously, they are the patsies of the galaxy.

Soooooo, the short version is that the turans neutered the krogans.

but hey it's okay guys because that's how the turians got a councillor

Yeah, so, hey, that's going on in the Normandy's cargo hold like 25 earth hours an earth day. Tali keeps bitching that the Normandy's too quiet for her to sleep on, and I'm not actually sure why.

If you keep talking to Wrex, he'll eventually tell you about his solution to the genophage: fuck like rabbits. See, because this is Mass Effect, and if the plot can solve something by using alien sex, the plot is going to solve something by using alien sex. But this other dickwad krogan? He was all like, no fucking, fighting! But that's not the Mass Effect way.

So the krogans arranged for a crush --

Err. It's like a krogan meeting. So Wrex is like, "Fuck!" and this other krogan's like, "Fight!" and then they get in a huge thing, and then Wrex stabs the other guy, and PS, that other guy was his dad! Surprise! Twist ending.

Wrex stabbed his man over the ability, nay, right to get his swerve on with a lovely fertile female lay-day. Mass Effect, ladies and gentlemen.

Wrex isn't sad over losing his dad, what with his dad being a giant cockblock and all, but he's kind of emo about losing his grandpa's armor. Some turian took it back when the turians were neutering the krogans, and if Shepard ever wanted to go get it for him --

Okay, gameplay-wise, if Shepard isn't a tech expert (and just trust me here make Shep a biotic it sets you up so much better for ME3 Bean promises), you have to bring someone who knows tech shit just so they can hack into the vault for you. Wrex can't do it alone. Sure, we could bring Tali, but why, when this is so much funnier?

So Joker drops the team, and they're busting along in the Mako on this snowy planet, right?

They find the structure where Wrex's armor is hidden, and fight their way through some pirates.

Finally, they happen upon the safe, and Shepard dispatches whoever the tech expert is you brought to get the safe open.

Should you be successful, you get a text box describing what would be the next cut scene. Wrex takes his armor and probably looks happy, but you can't tell because he's an alien, and also space racism. Ta daa.

That text box is one of those old school Bioware elements that keeps cropping up in Mass Effect 1, but is more or less gone by 2 and 3. Back in the old days, Bioware games (and really, lots of different old games) would tell parts of the story via text box. It always makes me think of Jade Empire, honestly. The ending to that game was nothing but a few pages of text on the screen.

That was the ending.

It sure was a disappointing ending.

I am being a shit. Let's move on.

... except, we're at the end of our tale for today, and the only thing we have now is but to wonder: will Garrus and Wrex ever become best space bros?

...

Yeah, spoiler alert, they are totes best space bros by the time we hit ME3.

I have just drawn the equivalent of Mass Effect sacrilege and I don't even care.

Luna Base: Daisy, Daisy

There's a few sidequests in ME1 that either affect the other two games, show off some cool aspect of ME1, or both, and I'm going to be doing those for you in these next few entries.

The first one is Luna Base. Most people did this one just because you get to visit the moon, which is kind of hot shit. Of course, when you're working in a multiplanet universe such as Mass Effect, the question comes up: whose moon? Bira? Lethe? Nanus? Menae? Oltan? I am so proud that I had to look those up, you guys. I don't earn my super nerd badge today. Point being, since there's now other moons to worry about, Earth's moon is now called Luna in-game.

Hackett calls Shep up and is like, hey, there's a rouge VI shooting out all kinds of Alliance stuff, can you go shut it down since you're the main character and all? So off to Luna we go.

Oh, and hey -- if you're playing along at home, don't make the mistake I made when I first did this. Don't bring biotic characters, they can't hurt the enemies you find here. My Shep (as a vanguard) and Liara were hurting bad, while Garrus was working overtime to keep our asses alive. Bring Tali and Garrus. Tali eats the enemies here for lunch.

...

FINE, I guess you could bring Kaidan too. Maybe. If he promises to keep it in his pants.

seriously don't be a shit just bring tali and garrus

The first thing you should do is go visit the downed satellite. It's listed as "debris" on the map.

Also, you'll notice that all the characters have helmets for low oxygen situations, except Tali, who always wears a helmet anyway so whatevs. Sometimes during the Luna Base mission Shepard takes hers off, sometimes she doesn't. I couldn't figure out what the magic trigger was.

Anyway, let's continue on --

IN THE MAKO!

Until the crew get to three structures that compromise Luna Base.

Everyone goes in one of the structures, busts through, and encounters something called a "VI Conduit," whatever the fuck that is. Sadly, it's not the same one Saren's hunting. But, you're supposed to shoot them out.

The VI gets pissed and starts filling the room with toxic gas.

Does the VI really talk, or am I being some kind of shit to prove a point that's only obvious if you've played ME2 and 3? You decide!

Anyway, the shore party exits the building, hacking up lungs or whatever the hell turians and quarians use to breathe, and then goes into the next building.

But this time the VI's got Shep's number, man. It starts putting up barriers to protect it's conduits.

I just realized how much it looks like Shepard's fighting against a geometry book.

Well then. Shepard and the Shepettes go into the third area of Luna Base and try to destroy the last conduits, but not before the VI sends a bunch of droids after them!

S'cool, we brought Tali.

After that's done, the VI sends a message to Shepard's helmet, and then you get to pick a class specialization, because this is not Neverwinter Nights, you guys, not at all. Mass Effect 1 isn't really an RPG much at all, but it did make out with one at Bible Camp, and it shows sometimes.

Me, I always go Nemesis, because it ups your blue shit.

Damn, that was inconsequential and pointless! Next time: balls. Really.

Noveria: Who You Gonna Call?

So, how are we getting to Peak 15?

MOTHERFUCKING MAKO!

That's the best snow effect MSPaint's got, you all are going to have to deal.

Actually, why in the living hell would you drive the mako around on ice? It sounds like a great way to get yourself killed. The screen shows "Level 1 Hazard" in the bottom corner the entire time, and I've never figured out why. I guess the level 1 hazard is that you got into the mako and tried to pilot it around?

Damn, and you know the entire time, Garrus is just curled around the Mako's heater, like the big six and a half foot tall wiener he is.

So anyway, they reach Peak 15, and right after they resurrect Crono, they're sneaking around, but they don't see any life forms. No guys working the lab, no Benezia, no nothing.

No worries, Mass Effect aims to hit every sci fi trope you can think of. Yes, even the nasty ones.

So there's these giant crawdad things slinking around the lab, and also no humans/turians/asari/otherwise friendly aliens. WHY WHATEVER COULD HAVE CAUSED THIS.

Surprise, Shep and buddies run into the crawdads and shoot the shit out of them. Why, those crawdads, could those possibly be the reason why there's no one else here?

Shepard happens upon a station VI that can hopefully help her out.

Actual line of dialog. Shepard can even respond with, "Crap, a popup." Anyway, Le Shep pumps the VI (named Mira) for information. Benezia's tooling around somewhere, she took the train down to the other part of the lab, but lol, the train's broke. Mira tells you you can get it up and working again, if you do some shit for her, like open the landlines up and reconnect the fuel lines.

Seriously, there are kids born in 2000 that have no idea what a landline is, there's no way Shepard, born in 2154, knows what a landline is. I kind of doubt she's reminiscing for the days of AOL dial up. She probably thinks that electricity travels by blue tooth.

(The game implies, though never directly states, that Garrus is a huge damn nerd really good with technology and shit, so he'd probably be the one to ask out of all of them. Or Tali, I guess.)

So Shepard reconnects the landlines, probably, or maybe Garrus gets pissed and takes it from her, who knows, and then they reconnect the fuel lines, while also not using the power of mass effects.

Then we get to ride on the train!

That's what happens. Exactly.

There's two ways to do the next part. There's the way that everyone else does it, which involves talking to people, and the way that I always wind up doing it, which is wandering around, getting stupidly lost, and then tripping right over Benezia.

I will say that if you talk to people, you get some background on the crawdads: they are called rachni, they are pissed as fuck, and they're what cleared Peak 15 out. Surprise!

So let's say you take my route and just sort of fall over Benezia.

Liara tears her mother a new asshole for, you know, being evil and shit, and then there's a boss fight.

THE SHIT THAT BENEZIA SAYS AFTERWARDS IS REALLY. FUCKING. IMPORTANT. I NOW DEMAND THAT YOU PAY ATTENTION.

Afterwords, Benezia snaps out of it for a second. Saren's been controlling her, see. She describes it as him constantly whispering to her, like she's, I don't know, indoctrinated or something.

She says that wailing on her daughter and her friends isn't her will, go figure. But Saren's got this power, from that ship Sovereign, see, and he can just take over whoever he wants and get what he wants done.

Behind Benezia is the ever-famed rachni queen. If you've ever spoken to a Mass Effect nerd, you probably heard the name.

Apparently Saren is planning something in the Mu Relay, where the Rachni queen is from. But no one knows where the Mu relay is. Well, that's easy enough, Saren's got Benezia. He sent Benezia to vulcan mind meld with the Rachni queen so that she could figure it out and go tell Saren. In her moment of clarity, though, she puts the location on a usb drive and gives it to Shepard, so that maybe Shepard can go fix whatever Saren's got going on.

Saren grabs ahold of Benezia again, so Shepard finishes the job, kablam.

Then shit gets weird. One of Benezia's asari commandos that Shepard kills comes back to life.

(Fuckin' told you all this place was Death Peak.)

The rachni queen picks up an asari through her own sort of vulcan mind meld trick and starts talking to Shepard in shitty music metaphors.

The rachni in the lab were her children, but baby rachni need a mama rachni to develop correctly. Since the baby rachni were taken from her, they went crazy, which is why they're running around the labs eating people's faces off. She asks Shepard to kill them. Which, hey, Shep's a pro, she's got that shit no problem.

Now, then. The rachni queen's stuck in that tank, and she would like out, please.

...

But, see, you could kill her. If you wanted.

...

MASS EFFECT HISTORY TIME: Before humans, the other aliens were booking around the galaxy when they found the rachni. Oh, hey, they said, other aliens! That's rad. That's rad as hell. But the rachni were stupid powerful, and not really up for political debate like the asari liked. They were kind of into eating faces. So what do you do?

The salarians got the idea to "culturally uplift" the krogan. See, during this time, the krogan were just rock stupid turtles who wanted to eat, fuck, and kill, but the salarians put a bit in their mouth and turned them into something presentable. Also, they were strong and they bred like fucking rabbits, because they have four balls, so they made great soldiers. The salarians threw a zillion krogan troops at the rachni and killed them off until they surrendered. Such is the story of the rachni wars. If you're running around the citadel, you can see a statue of a krogan that the council erected in honor of them.

Long point made short, you can be nice and let her go, but she might go around killing everyone. Again. Or, you can just nuke her right there, but she might be a sane rachni, how would you ever know?

I always let her go, myself, you do what you want.

All right, one last thing. Shepard and pals travel down to another area in the lab to take care of those baby rachni like they promised the queen.

Horrifying space bugs are hard to draw, okay?

So anyway, Mira tells you you can activate the neutron purge to clean out the baby rachni. The neutron purge is when Mira fuses scifionium with bullshitium to form unobtainium and that makes, in effect, a tac nuke.

...

WHY IN THE HELL DID THEY NOT JUST USE A MASS EFFECT

I know, I'm only going to bitch about this 134703475 more times, but seriously, they've got this bangin' sci fi technology just lying around, they NAMED THE FUCKING SERIES AFTER IT, and then they just PISS IT DOWN THEIR LEG. It wouldn't be anywhere nearly so bad of a thing IF. THE. FUCKING. SERIES. WASN'T. CALLED. MASS. FUCKING. EFFECT.

So Shepard activates the neutron purge, runs like hell, and then I twitch and sob in a corner.

NEXT TIME: No mass effects, that's for sure.