Evolution: Comics Confuse Me

My plan is to try and go through some of the Mass Effect media in addition to the games, particularly when we get little breaks like this. There's books, comic books, and ... uh, Paragon Lost, but the least said about that the better.

The first one we'll be doing is Mass Effect: Evolution, a comic series that came out last year. It spans four issues. Err, but I'll be putting them in one post, so this is the quick and dirty, okay? I've left some stuff out in hopes that you'll go pick this up and give it a read on your own.

Also worth noting ... I'm really bad at reading comics. This series just about blew my little dim mind. I've read it a few times, even sitting with the wiki summary open while I read, and I still don't get some of the shit that went down. If I mess something up, just call me an idiot and move on.

So! Evolution takes place at the very fucking beginning of the Mass Effect time line. That Mars Rover that NASA just sent up? It's going to uncover some Prothean technology in a few years. (Mass Effect nerds went APE. SHIT. during the launch.) We're going to bring it back to Earth, study it, and figure out how to use mass effects in a few years. Those mass effects are going to send us hurdling face first into the closest alien race to Earth: the turians.

Humanity handled this just about as well as you'd expect.

Thus began The First Contact War, when humans and turians started fighting ... because ... um ... look, there's probably a political reason, but "space racism" is probably the real reason. This whole thing is about 30esque years before the events of Mass Effect 1.

So, as the comic opens, the Alliance (remember those guys? Shepard works for them, that's the space army dudes) has figured out that the turians have A Thing, and they can't do that, because Space Racism. The Alliance hires three mercenaries to go find The Thing.

I am just going to have to learn how to draw men's hair before this is over, that is just going to have to happen.

Anyway, from left to right, you're looking at Ben Hislop, Eva Core, and Jack Harper, the later being the hero of our story.

The team manages to infiltrate a turian camp.

They don't get the Thing, but they manage to tie up a turian general, named Desolas, and interrogate him.

So, Desolas, he's got nothing, or at least, he knows that a pigeon don't squeal. Get it? Because they're bird aliens? Holy shit, I am hilarious. Anyway, Ben, Eva and Jack come up with a plan to get the goods. They rig up a hologram, uh, somehow, that looks like Desolas, and then they use it to call Desolas' lieutenant.

No, I don't know why they had to capture Desolas to get that done. If that's going to bug you, you're going to have a headache by the end of this.

So, anyway, they call Desolas' lieutenant at her camp.

Hey, for once I didn't fuck up the art! That turian on the right there is a girl. Girl turians don't have the head fringe stuff. You never see girl turians in the games, but they crop up in the comics. She even wears a neat looking dress, I'm kind of jealous.

So anyway, Desolas' lieutenant leads everyone to the cave that holds the Thing, and then Jack, Eva and Ben storm the place again.

Seriously, do turians not ever learn? I have this theory that they're the weiners of the galaxy, since they just kind of lemming off and do whatever they're told. Go fuck with the new human guys? Sure! Go deploy the genophage? Sure! Go stand outside a cave and wait for a bunch of humans to ambush us again? Why the hell not!

So I was expecting Jack, Eva and Ben to get their ass kicked, because it's seriously like a fifteen on three fight at this point, but nope, the turians kind of roll over and let the humans tie them up.

The THREE humans which are much smaller and more breakable than the ENTIRE TROOP of turians. Sure, comic, whatever you say.

Jack and Ben decide to go into the cave and get the Thing, while Eva stays outside and guards the prisoners. I'm a little surprised the turians didn't guide Jack and Ben inside and offer them cookies while they were at it, because damn. Really, Eva probably didn't even need to guard them. They could have just handed Desolas a notepad and told him to write the name down of any turian who talks.

Inside the cave? Yeah, there's this Thing.

And then shit starts getting a little familiar.

Yeah, hey, so, Shepard called, she wants her scene back.

Then again, I guess Jack and Ben did it first, technically. You guys, Jack and Ben were getting their minds fucked with by alien relics before it was cool.

So Jack wakes up on a turian ship.

Yeah, no, it's that Saren. Wave hello!

Desolas, by the way, is Saren's brother, so Saren's kind of got a personal stake in pissing on the humans this time.

Okay, this is going to sound like I'm going off topic, but I swear I'm not. One time, I was having something done at the dentist, and they gave me nitrous oxide. Laughing gas, right? When the dentist was done, it didn't wear off correctly or something, and I walked out of the dentist's office still a little stoned. This story has become famous among my friends, as it turns out I got this overwhelming need to go to Target. You don't know, man. I had to go to Target. No. No. I had to go to Target. I HAD. to go. to. TARGET.

I came to in the middle of a Target store not quite understanding why I was looking at wallets.

That's kind of what happens at this point in the story: Jack decides that he HAS to go to Illium.

And Eva's like, "What the fuck? Why do you want to go to an asari planet?"

And Jack's like, "No, you don't get it. I HAVE. to go. to ILLIUM.

And Eva's like, "Seriously, that's in the Terminus systems! You fly a ship out there, you'll cause a war!" (Remember, that's why Shepard and Udina were fighting at the end of Mass Effect 1.)

And Jack's like, "Naw, naw. Naw. See. See, I HAVE. TO. GO. to. ILL LEE UMMMMMMMMM."

And Eva's like, "Fuck it, I'm out of expositionary statements about Illium, let's go to fucking Illium."

So they go to Illium, because, uh. Um. It probably has to do something with that relic that Jack and Ben got all touchey feeley with, but seriously? It read just like my voyage de la Target.

While Jack's there, he decides he has to drive a space car. (In the Mass Effect universe, they have flying cars in the cities.) So he chats up an asari to figure out where one is.

Add this to the list of things that bothers me about this comic: it's a BIG DAMN THING that Jack can suddenly speak Asari, because the asari don't speak human languages because they're aliens. But the turians and the humans? Flawless English communication. Hell, Shepard had more trouble with Mr. Fly In The Ointment. So, what, was the universal translator discovered, made, tested, and 100% functioning in this teeny little time span just so humans and turians could slap fight each other during the first contact war? And if that's all it took, why the hell couldn't they just throw in whatever language it is that asari speak? It obviously can't pick up asari, because Eva can't understand the conversation, yet she can understand the turians.

The BEST I can come up with is that the universal translator was invented on Earth first to deal with all the Earth languages, giving them a head start in development, so that all they had to do was decode and add in Turian once they got out into space, but even then, that's giving a lot of people a lot of credit.

And this capitalization thing is driving me nuts, just as an aside. If it's an alien, their race isn't capitalized: asari, turian, human. (Prothean is always capitalized in game, if you were wondering what the hell I was doing with that.) But then, I guess if we're using the word as a language, we do capitalize it: he is speaking Turian? Would it not make more sense to just name the language after their home planet, as in Thessian, Palavenian, Sur'Kesheese? But then I guess you run into Earthien. Do all turians speak Turian/Palavenian then?

AUGH THINKING TOO HARD NERD QUOTIENT REACHING A BOILING POINT

fuggit let's fly a car

that is a good flying car

So, once they land the flying car, guess who pops up?

Damn! Wonder how that happened!

Saren's got this plan, see? He's going to drag Jack, Eva and Ben back to Palaven (the turian home world). And then? AND THEN? And then I'm like, YAAAY~~! because Palaven is, err, spoiler alert, like the one home planet we don't get to see in the games. Seriously, we get Earth, Tuchanka (Krogan), Thessia (Asari), Sur'Kesh (Salarian), Rannoch (Quarian), we get to see the Geth fleet, but legit? We got punked out of Palaven.

This is probably because Palaven isn't very hospitable to other species. As you can see from my beautifully rendered drawings of turians, they're covered in these big ass metalic scales because the planet has a huge gravity field. Anything that isn't turian has to wear an environmental suit to visit.

But YAY PALAVEN CAN'T WAIT LET'S SEE WHAT'S ON --

Wait, Jack's just STANDING THERE without an environmental suit? But! But! He can't live longer than like five minutes without one! What in the ever loving hell?

I am going to have a seizure when we get to Mass Effect: Deception. That book was so bad Bioware declared it non-canonical.

Meanwhile, Desolas has got all these turian husks -- fun fact, the technical term is a marauder -- and he's going to let them into a Palavenian temple that no one's been in for a thousand bazillian years. Seems legit. They're even going to move the relic thing in there, so they can make more marauders! God damn, you all, great ideas are everywhere!

I don't remember them ever going in to why Desolas wants to turn all of Palaven into marauders. I guess he thinks they're better soldiers somehow?

Anyway, Jack and Desolas have that standard good guy bad guy argument:

Desolas throws Jack in the cavernous dungeons below the temple, where the only thing Jack has to do all day is try and decipher the runes on the walls.

I think only the hardest of core nerds are going to be able to read that. Yes, it's a real code. Yes, from a real sci fi work. Yes, it really says something. Yes, I actually do lead a sad little nerdy life.

The runes in the comic books don't actually say anything, leaving the reader to figure out what they might mean.

close enough

So anyway, Eva tries to spring Jack from jail, and while they're running, SURPRISE SAREN.

Turns out the marauders dug one up while Jack was cooling his heels. Oh, and Jack can read the runes! The turians, a long time ago, had these "valluvian priests", also known as marauders. It makes me think of the valarians on Mystery Science Theater 3000. PS, if you haven't seen the entirety of the episode of MST3K I just linked, watch it, because we WILL be referring to it at a later date.

Meanwhile. The monoliths, surprise! They make valluvians or valarians or marauders or whatever you like, really, but it does so at the cost of making the host brain dead. Shit. That's a little bit of a thing.

So, the three of them run upstairs where Desolas is trying to chuck turians into the other monolith that they found at the beginning of the comic, and buddy boy howdy, it is a TOTAL battle royalle.

I thought about maybe keeping the ending a secret, but then it dawned on me that you could probably figure out that Desolas gets his ass kicked, since there are turians that aren't marauders running around during the time of Mass Effect 1. So, ta da, good guys win.

The last scene is Jack reflecting on all that he's learned.

Hmm. But I'm sure that won't come up again.

NEXT TIME: I read something I actually like.

Mass Effect 1: Finale!

Remember how I said the Citadel looked like a big ass petal? Each of those petals is a big arm of the Citadel. So, the asari tasked with guarding the Council gets an idea: close the arms, and the reapers can't get in!

Really, that's pretty smart if you get right down to it!

And how does that work out for them?

Oh, okay, cool, or we could just seal Sovereign inside. That's also a strategy that works. I guess. Promotions all around.

What follows next is a long, long combat sequence, where Shepard and pals fight through like, I don't know, a million and a half geth. Finally they get to --

What? That scene? I'm leaving that scene out. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played.

No, hush up! It's one of the coolest scenes in Mass Effect 1! Right next to, you know, that other scene I wrote around in the last post. So don't say anything!

So anyway, they bust in the council chambers, and guess who?

Yup. So, Shepard and Saren have the standard Good Guy Bad Guy banter.

And then they fight. Saren takes one straight to the head, and falls through the Presidium's glass to an area below. Shepard sends her two squad mates to check and see if he's really dead.

Meanwhile, Shepard gets a toy!

Then, Joker calls.

Joker needs someone with an actual rank and, you know, control of the whole damn Citadel to make a decision. The ship the council is on, the Destiny Ascension, is in distress. Joker's sitting at the head of the Alliance fleet. He can swoop in and save them, but he'll lose Alliance ships in the process. What does he do?

I mean, I know the council are dicks and all, but I never figured that was enough reason to let them die. The Alliance will lose ships to Sovereign either way, so I always just go ahead and save the Destiny Ascension. You do what you want in your game. This option actually changes some shit around for ME2, so choose carefully!

Once Shepard regains control of the Citadel, she's able to open the arms back up and let the Alliance fleet in.

Shut up, I hate drawing space ships. Which, trolololol I know, why did I choose a sci-fi story to draw? You know I considered drawing Final Fantasy 13 instead? I fucking love Lightening.

Okay, ANYWAY, more people start demanding The Shep's time.

Huh. Well. That's new.

Sovereign found a use for Saren! Just like Saren said he would. Sovereign takes control of Saren's dead body and attempts to use it to kick your squadmates' ass, which, first of all, eww. Anyway, Shepard makes it down to the chamber to help out some.

Hey, remember how I told you to bring a biotic? That's for this fight. Biotics carve Saren.

As you fight Saren, you get little cut scenes indicating that Sovereign's shields are depleting. Finally, when you bust Saren down again, Sovereign's shields depelete totally, meaning that Joker can swoop in and do this:

Hell YES Joker gets the kill shot! Go Joker!

So yay, Sovereign's dead! Woo! And dead reaper parts are flying everywhere! Woo!

Wait --

Sovereign's leg crashes through the council chambers. The aftermath ... it's not pretty.

As such, the ending scenes of Mass Effect 1 begin.

Anderson and some soldiers are searching through the Citadel ruins when they come across Shepard's squadmates.

Hmm. That's an awfully short ending. It's pretty conclusive, though, I mean, it's not like --

I'm going to shut up before I spoil something.

Since the council chambers are toasted, the councilors ask to see Shepard in the Presidum Commons.

The game gives you a choice of Anderson or Udina. It really seriously doesn't matter who you choose, but ... why in the living hell would you choose Udina? Lock the Normandy down again, motherfucker, I dare you. Let's go with Anderson!

That's the end of Mass Effect 1. However, we still have two more games AND some novels AND some comics to go through. And, I have surprises! You'll want to see these surprises, trust me.

You know, I think I'll post a surprise in my next entry, actually. Sounds fun!

Did I forget anything?

NEXT TIME: Shepard does not get a promotion.

Ilos: Vigil

So something stops the Mako from going forward other than the fact that it's a steaming pile of horse shit, so Shep and pals get out and go see what's up. They travel down this little cavern, down an elevator, and find themselves in a big cavern, but that's okay guys this is a shooter not an RPG.

And then they find a VI.

And then I try really hard to do art by fucking up the long-practiced ideas of perspective.

Remember when I was talking about the idea of MSPixel as a form of preservation? I hope you laughed your ass off.

Anyway, everyone, say hi to Vigil!

This is the other super important conversation Shepard has with an ancient such and such. You need to pay attention here too, Vigil's going to set up the plot of the next two games, particularly ME3. To tell the truth, I'm not that excited about giving Vigil its own post, but it was too long to stick pack in the last one, and it's too long to stick in the next section, soooooo here we go. Vigil.

So, Vigil imparts very important information. Hey, Vigil! Talk to me about the Citadel. That other holographic bastard Soverign told me reapers built it, what can you tell me about it?

PS, Vigil's not lying. The Citadel is an Admiral Ackbar certified trap. It links to "dark space", which the game never really gives a great definition of (maybe it's where they store their mass effects?), but anyway, dark space is where all the reapers are. Alls you gotta do is send a signal, and the Citadel opens up like a high school kid on prom night.

OH AND PS GUESS WHAT SAREN'S OFF TO DO?

So, hey, Vigil, what are our chances?

Hey hey, that's awesome.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the Protheans got ate by the reapers. They figured out that the reapers were reapin' early on, and tried to fight back, but ... well, that's why we have humans and asari and shit now. Vigil says that some Protheans were enslaved instead of reaped. Remember that for ME2. Are you remembering that? Write it down.

Ilos was a Prothean research facility, one of the last that stood against the reapers. One of the things that they did was install a mini mass relay in Ilos so they could just beam into the Citadel whenever they felt like. That mass relay is called the conduit, which is the thing that Saren is so hot for.

Vigil's not shitting. You remember those glowing blue pods? The Prothean scientists sealed themselves in those things to be cryogenically frozen just in case there was a chance they could be revived. Vigil was programmed, however, to shut the pods down if the facility got too low on power, and, welp, sucks to be a Prothean scientist.

But as much as Liara would like to hang around and stroke Vigil lovingly talk to Vigil, Saren's trying to get the entire universe reaper ate, so we must be off.

Vigil makes one last offer to Shepard: he's got this file that can control the Citadel if Shepard copies it onto a USB drive and then shoves the drive into the Citadel control panel. (What? The Citadel works via USB. The reapers are very concerned with the universality of technology. There's probably an app to control it to, but Shep doesn't have the 1.99 in her iTunes account.)

So Shepard drags Liara kicking and screaming back to the Mako, and then we all drive like hell to try and catch up with Saren.

I won't spoil it for you, but Shepard manages to get the Mako on the Citadel. She uses a mass effect! Really! It is the first and last time a mass effect affects the plot.

Oh, but also, that busts the Mako.

fuggit good riddance.

NEXT TIME: Fuck.