Overview
Introduction
Mass Effect is a science fiction video game franchise developed by BioWare.
You play as Commander Shepard, a human soldier who must stop ancient, sentient spaceships called Reapers from killing all organic life in the galaxy. In pursuit of this goal, you go an a variety of missions, meet a bunch of fun aliens, and experience sci-fi nonsense. Usually all problems are solved by some combination of talking or blasting your guns. Pew pew.
The game is a third-person shooter with role-playing elements. You're allowed to customize Shepard's gender, appearance, and abilities. Shepard can be a soldier, engineer, or basically an off-brand Jedi with telekinetic powers called a biotic, or some combination of these classes. In addition to violently mowing down hundreds of sentient machines and alien mercenaries, you make decisions which can gain you morality points. These morality points come in two flavors: red and blue. I mean, renegade and blue. I mean renegade and paragon. Its kind of like evil and good but if both were kind of evil. Uhh. Gaining these points opens opportunities for resolving problems in (usually) more optimal ways.
There are four mainline games in the franchise: Mass Effect 1 [2007], Mass Effect 2 [2010], Mass Effect 3 [2012], and Mass Effect: Andromeda [2017]. Only the first three are relevant to Commander Shepard's story, and by extension, this page. Simply because I have not played Andromeda, which is a standalone story. Sorry! Maybe one day.
What's my problem
Lately I've been playing through Mass Effect again (the Legendary Edition). I ended up having a lot of thoughts. I even I started taking notes. And then I made a page that looks kinda like the codex menu ... and then I found myself writing a summary of all the missions because what if somebody doesn't even remember what happens? Its out of hand honestly ...
I played through this trilogy quite a few times when it first came out, but it has been years since I played it last. I love them, but like I said. I have notes.
Its probably a mess in here. I just kinda need to get it out of my system, and I'll come back around to edit later.
Forgive me please for any spelling errors, half-baked analysis, or some kind of lore mistake. I'm not the type to get that invested in memorizing lore tidbits. Also I have no knowledged of the the novels or comics or whatever exist, and as of writing I have not finished my current playthrough. So who knows what I misremember. Actually there's a few DLC I've never played that are included in the Legendary Edition, so that might also change some feelings when I get to it.
Right now, I only have ME1 stuff. I don't know what more I'll do exactly.
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Prologue - Eden Prime
Saren, loyal friend and mentor.
Mass Effect 1 begins with Commander Shepard already on route to a human colony called Eden Prime. Aboard the SV Normandy SR-1, a one-of-a-kind prototype ship co-developed by humans and aliens known as turians, Shepard is introduced to the setting through interactions with various characters. Joker, the Normandy's pilot, and Kaidan Alenko, a biotic sentinel with the human Alliance Navy, are already speculating on the nature of the mission, and expressing reservations about the turian spectre that is onboard.
Shepard can talk to several crew members about their opinions on the mission and related topics. This opening allows you to gain some basic information about the setting naturally. This is the template for how we learn about this world - Shepard is dropped into a situation, and then gets to cross-examine the people standing around for basic context about the situation. I think this is reasonably effective, although on subsequent playthroughs Shepard can come across as laughably ignorant of what surely is fairly common knowledge for someone in their position. Oh well, maybe Shepard is just a bit of a meathead. So what if Shepard doesn't know that artifacts from the ancient, long extinct protheans are the foundation for modern human spacefaring technology. Seems like something kids would learn in school, but maybe Shepard stopped going to school after their family was killed by slavers. Fair.
Oh yeah, Shepard has a backstory that can be customized, and NPCs will sometimes reference it in passing. Shepard can either be an orphan from the streets of Earth, a survivor of a slaver attack on a colony, or a secure kid who's lived their whole life in space. Their military background can also be established - Shepard can be a wholesome war hero, a traumatized sole survivor of a nightmarish ordeal, or have a reputation for being a borderline war criminal. In this game there is considerably more recognition of this backstory, with characters sporadically mentioning their knowledge of it. That happens here when you talk to Corporal Leroy Richard Jenkins.
After Shepard talks to the crew, they can meet with Nihlus, the turian spectre, and Captain David Anderson in the comm room and have a bit of conversation. Shepard learns that this mission is to pick up a prothean beacon that has been discovered on Eden Prime - but also, its a bit of a trial run to see if Shepard would be suited to joining the galactic alien super soldier squad known as the specters. In the middle of this conversation, they receive a distress message from Eden Prime. The colony is under attack by a huge, mysterious ship.
Fortunately, the Normandy is prepared to assist. Shepard, Nihlus, Alenko, and Jenkins deploy to the surface to find out what's happening. Nihlus goes on his own, leaving Shepard and the others to find their way.
After about two seconds, Jenkins is dead from drone fire. He's basically just there long enough for you to familiarize yourself with how to press buttons. But no big deal, he's replaced in about a minute with a soldier you find by the name of Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams.
It turns out the colony is under attack by geth, the artificially intelligent machines created by aliens called quarians in the distant past. But its unusual to see geth in these parts. There are also these horrifying spikes that impale humans and turn them into glowing zombies. Everyone's kind of confused about all that. The squad guesses that they must all be here because of the beacon and start to head over to the site.
On the way there, the group discovers Nihlus' dead body. Apparently, a human hiding nearby witnessed what happened - another turian he called Saren killed him in cold blood. Weird. As Shepard and team move further on, killing numerous robonoids along the way, they discover that Saren has rigged the colony with explosives and have to race to disarm them. Clearly he wants all evidence destroyed.
Eventually, the company makes it to the location of the beacon. Its still intact. While Shepard calls in the Normandy for pickup, the other two squad members investigate the beacon, accidentally activating it. Williams is lifted off the ground by some kind of force and Shepard leaps to push her out of the way, getting trapped themselves. Shepard gets a brain blast featuring images of weird goo and blood and circuit boards or something, and then passes out. Afterward, they wake up in the Normandy's med bay, already on its way to the Citadel space station to inform the proper authorities what happened to Nihlus and the colony.
Pretty effective opening, overall. Just typing out this summary made me realize how much information they need to dump on the player in this introduction. Some of it can be a bit clunky or awkwardly delivered, but when you have turians, quarians, protheans, geth, biotics, spectres, whatever mass effect drives even are … it is a lot. The faster you get the basics out of the way the better. These ideas are not exactly that novel, so while there is a bit of an info dump to get through, most people are going to be familiar with the idea of there being human-like aliens or faster-than-light travel.
I tend to think its good to throw players into the actual game as soon as you can after they start. And that's what this prologue does.
Citadel - Expose Saren
The Presidium
For this section of the game, you are stuck on the Citadel, the space station that serves as a central hub for the most powerful species in this section of the galaxy, essentially. Here, the player will have some freedom to choose how to progress - or just explore the Citadel and talk to the many alien inhabitants.
Shepard needs to meet with the Council. The Council are just three representatives of each member species: asari, turians, and salarians. They have some kind of nebulous governing status where they are simultaneously the most important people in the galaxy and also not able to do anything at all. I guess that's kinda familiar. What's most relevant to us is that they are the ones that give authority to the spectres.
On the way to the Council chambers, Shepard and pals meet Garrus Vakarian. He's a citadel security officer who was investigating Saren, but unfortunately he didn't turn up much. And that is unfortunate, because when Shep talks to the Council, its just their word against Saren's. The Council doesn't find Shepard's weird dreams to be compelling reason to fire Saren. Honestly they're valid for that. I don't know why the witness to the murder doesn't count but I digress. Shepard is gonna have to drum up some more evidence.
Shepard is given a few leads that will coincidentally put them in the path of additional companions. There are some optional threads, like talking to a representative of the Shadow Broker, an information dealer. One way or another, Shepard finds themselves meeting up with Garrus again. Shepard learns about a quarian that supposedly has information about Saren, and that an agent of the Shadow Broker named Fist is looking to acquire that information on Saren's behalf.
Shepard is also informed that a krogan mercenary named Wrex is known to be going after Fist. You can go recruit him now or wait; its worth mentioning that while you're required to recruit one of these two characters, you don't have to recruit the other. You can recruit Wrex first and let Garrus mill around on the Citadel for the rest of the game or vice versa. I don't know why you would, but its interesting that you can.
Fist runs a bar called Chora's Den. When you show up there, everyone inside is hostile and, of course, Shepard and whoever gets dragged along have no qualms about blasting everyone to death on the way to Fist. When you reach him, assuming Wrex isn't with you, you'll have the choice to spare his life. If Wrex is with you, he kills him. Either way, Shepard learns the quarian is meeting with some people who are planning to kill her.
The quarian is found in an alley right outside the bar, meeting with some shady individuals. She tries to back out of the meeting, realizing that something is off, but they draw their weapons on her. She's no slouch - she throws a grenade to start the fight.
The quarian's name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and she is on a coming-of-age pilgrimage away from her home. Due to quarians' history with the geth, she was curious about the recent sightings of them and managed to collect one's memory core. On that core was a recording that incriminates Saren in the attack on Eden Prime - exactly what you needed. Additionally, there is cryptic mention of something called Reapers and a conduit. Someone, later identified as Matriarch Benezia, is also speaking on the recording.
The Council conferring.
This evidence is enough for the Council to act on. At the next meeting with them, they decide that Saren needs to be stopped and the best way to do it is to send a spectre after him. Naturally, since Shepard was already being considered and demonstrated their ability to pursue the lead, Shepard is inducted into the spectres.
Afterward, Shepard learns that Captain Anderson has been relieved of duty and the Normandy is now Shepard's. Anderson is revealed to have been considered for the spectres himself in the past, but had been sabotaged by none other than Saren. After this bittersweet meeting you are unleashed on the galaxy with a few leads to follow at your own discretion.
This citadel investigation segment is a bit like a kiddie pool preparing you for the rest of the game. You're let loose in an open area and given a few options for how to proceed. Three more companions are introduced here; all aliens that also serve as a means of introducing more lore about their respective species.
Although you are given some freedom with how to approach the investigation, most of that freedom is superficial; there aren't many choices with long term impacts besides the choice to kill Fist or to leave one of the potential companions behind. And what kind of choice is that, really? This is a recurrent problem in Mass Effect, particularly ME1, where the "choice" you're given usually just locks you out of later content.
Killing Fist means you won't be able to meet him again later in ME2, and while that is a reasonably small encounter, who wants to see less of the game - especially on your initial playthrough?
This goes double for leaving a companion behind. Its interesting that you can leave Garrus or Wrex behind, and that it impacts whether they are present in ME2 or ME3. But you sacrifice all of their content in the first game and maybe only have a passing recognition of the choice later. In Garrus' case, they slightly change one line of dialogue in the second game but, amusingly, he later reminisces about the events of ME1 like he was there with you.
How big of a deal that is is up to the player. To be fair, most games don't provide a lot of choice in their stories. But roleplaying games do, which this series ostensibly is. Of course, it requires a lot of resources to add choices; splitting paths will start adding exponentially to the development. Even more when sequels get made with returning characters. And its obvious ME1 had to cut some corners.
It doesn't really matter to me when it comes to this particular segment, although there are definitely times when I wish choices were more meaningful. Almost nobody will turn down Wrex or Garrus here so its unlikely to even be noticed. But since this issue will come up again I thought I'd point it out here.
Up 'til now, you've had no opportunity to do any side quests, and a bit of the appeal of this section is doing that, or at least picking them up. There are lots of NPCs to talk to on the citadel and interacting with them will inform you on galactic politics, alien cultures, or just the state of human interests in space. I daresay any side quests you pick up on the citadel will be more interesting than any elsewhere in the game … but maybe that's not saying much. Side quests in ME1 are generally lacking. More on that later.
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Feros: Geth Attack
Cowabunga
You're let loose on the galaxy now and its up to you what mission to take next. There are reasons to do any order, but some seem to make more narrative sense. Feros, to me, seems like it should come first. If you want to rationalize it from Shepard's perspective: Feros is a human colony being attacked by the geth, just like Eden Prime. As an Alliance soldier and as the first human spectre, I imagine Shepard would feel responsibility to help in this emergency. Its the most urgent sounding situation.
As an aside. If you want the most morality options you need to have 12 points in Charm (paragon) and/or 10 in Intimidate (renegade). That's kind of high, especially because everything about this mission suggests that you should do it early on. I did just about every available side mission in the game, DLC and Therum first to accomplish this. But that kind of sucks, right? Why? Was it set that high so you would have something to achieve in new game +? The dialogue check is not particularly special or rewarding to warrant it. A bit frustrating.
When you get there, everything is in shambles. Some guy gets killed by geth immediately after you land, and you're tasked with fighting your way through the robots to get to the colony, Zhu's Hope. In the colony, you're encouraged to talk to the leader, Fai Dan. When you do, you learn that there are more geth to be cleared from the nearby tower before anything more can be done. After a straightforward but potentially tedious fight you'll be allowed to talk with Fai Dan more about the situation.
Fai Dan will tell you there are more geth in the tunnels below and that several townsfolk need help with various repairs or supplies. These tasks all basically involve picking up some item in the tunnels, so while they're technically optional there's no reason not to do them. As you talk to the people around Zhu's Hope, though, you might pick up that something is a little off. Maybe there's some kind of cult situation going on here?
You can't investigate much. You are directed to the tunnels to kill geth and that's what you'll do. I would say its straightforward, but I get lost down there every single time, which is bananas because its basically a linear pathway with a couple doors. But goddamn it they made the doors look like walls. Augh! The only thing of note down there is a weird guy who's talking nonsense. Intriguing, but there's nothing to be done for him.
After the tunnels are cleared and the side missions completed, Shepard decides to explore further using the beloved, magnificent, intractable vehicle of all time, the Mako. If this is your first mission and you haven't done any side missions, this is your first opportunity to drive this big chunky bug car. Shep and squad joyride through a crumbling ancient alien city (Feros is covered in prothean ruins) for a while, squashing harmless robos with the Mako's six huge tires and blasting them with its plasma cannons from a million miles away.
As they go, they pick up some radio chatter. Soon, you find the source - some human survivors are taking cover in the skyway's weigh station. Everyone inside seems to be employed by the ExoGeni Corporation, the company that funds the colony on Feros. Shepard can talk to Ethan Jeong and Juliana Baynham; Juliana is worried about her missing daughter and tries to help, while Ethan is mostly disobliging. Suspicion is building and the answers will surely be found at ExoGeni headquarters.
After a bit more riding the skyway and geth death, Shepard will find the headquarters and, not long after, Juliana's daughter Lizbeth. Shepard asks her if there's anything the geth might be looking for and she tells you: The Thorian. Uhh what? She claims not to know much, but she gives you her ID and hides.
The ID helps the squad explore further; after killing some random krogan (who are these guys? are they just getting hired to hang out with the geth? are they supposed to be coming from the lab on Virmire? seriously, I don't know.) Shepard can access a virtual intelligence program that tells them that the Thorian is some kind of ancient plant that controls people's minds. Apparently ExoGeni knew all along and was letting it control the colonists to study the results. Run of the mill corporatation stuff.
Feros: The Thorian
Shepard tries to contact the Normandy but finds that communications are blocked. There's a geth dropship attached to the building that is the likely source. Unfortunately, the rest of ExoGeni headquarters is a gauntlet of geth. A gethlet. A genthlet. A gauntgeth. Sorry. You have to kill a bunch of geth, do a trivial little puzzle to knock the dropship off the side of the building, and leave. Immediately after the job's done, Shepard is contacted by Joker. The colonists are attacking the ship, albeit harmlessly.
Lizbeth is waiting as they head back down to the Mako. She admits she knew more than she let on. She didn't agree with the project and was suspended for voicing her concerns. She also remained behind at the headquarters in order to send a distress call, but she wasn't able to complete it. It seems like the extreme ethical infringement would warrant greater action to me - but I guess that's for someone else to decide (or not ... does Shepard ever tell anyone about this incident? Do spectres file reports? Seems like some kind of regulatory agency should be informed about this one. Then again maybe they don't have that in this future, considering all the rogue corporate exploitation going on everywhere.) She hops in the back of the truck and you're off.
Back on the skyway again. There's some distressing radio transmissions from the weigh station. The group stops to let Lizbeth out and see what the problem is. Things have violently escalated; Ethan Jeong has ordered some security personnel to restrain Juliana. While you've been gone, he's been reading Shepard's Wikipedia page or something, and he references Shep's custom service history. Also, after communications were restored, ExoGeni ordered the colony purged.
This is where that high charm / intimidate check comes. You can either persuade him that saving the colony is a profitable alternative to killing everyone ??? and that ExoGeni resources can continue to expand the colony ??? - which is a paragon option ??? Or you can just threaten him with Shepard's spectre status for a similar result. If you can't choose these options, then you are forced to shoot him. Every choice seems like a disaster to me. We really want this colony to continue like this? Is this the good outcome? Uhhmmm. Anyway.
Juliana will ask you to spare the colonist's lives. Probably worth begging on hands and knees because most of the time, Shepard will cut down zombified civilians without a second thought. She tells Shepard that she has some nerve gas kicking around that she can staple to your grenades. Yeah, you have grenades. I usually forget. You chuck them like a frisbee and they sail through the air in slow motion.
After Shepard receives the anti-thorian gas, its time to head to the colony.
Once you get back over to Zhu's Hope, you have a pretty bizarre moral choice of whether to use the nerve gas or to murder everyone in cold blood for precious renegade points.
There are 16 named colonists that you can save or kill. You can also just punch them with a melee attack to knock them out. After you clean house, or I guess colony, Shepard uses the crane to lift some freight that was hiding a secret door down to the Thorian's lair.
A cut scene occurs where Fai Dan appears and tells Shepard that the Thorian wants him to kill Shepard - but he resists long enough to shoot himself in the head. If only Shepard could have thrown a grenade or bonked him on the head in time, he could have been saved. Alas.
I did the same thing after riding the Octopus at the carnival.
The fight with the Thorian is more like a marathon of killing zombies. The Thorian creepers are reskinned husks similar to what you fight on Eden Prime. On legendary difficulty it was a complete nightmare for me with my horrible AI Hacking engineer build. They kept one-shotting me and my companions with their damn vomit.
The Thorian spits out an asari biotic once in a while to spice it up, too. To defeat the thorian, you just have to shoot the tentacles holding the thing aloft. But there are five levels of it …
At the end, the Thorian dies and an asari, Shiala, is spit up out of some kinda pod. She was part of Matriarch Benezia's, I don't know, house? Cult? She tells you Saren was here to get the cipher, some kind of ancient knowledge that the Thorian picked up because it was old. It's just a MacGuffin that is supposed to help decipher the prothean beacon - but guess what. It doesn't work. Shepard does a vulcan mind meld with her and sees more goo and guts. It won't make any sense until later. Or maybe ever. Oh, and you can decide if Shiala lives or dies here. I guess if you want more blood on your hands ...
Zhu's Hope has been saved! Or destroyed. Or some combination. There's an equation to determine how good an outcome you get; if you want the best outcome you need >13 points. If Jeong lives, you get 12. Each side mission you completed and villager you save adds another point. If you meet the threshold, they're all happy that the colony continues.
This is kind of funky, right? Is it just me? I know that this is supposed to be their home, and maybe there's something satisfying about colonizing (in this context!) but do y'all really want to stay at this place? This seems pretty traumatizing. Also the company that exploited you is still going to be funding you and I guess Jeong will be in a leadership position. To me, this is absolutely rock bottom horrific. Like Shepard, what are you even doing? You protected the hell out of capital today. Good one. No exploitation will happen to these people again I'm sure (spoiler: it does).
Launching a colonist back into space.
I guess what bothers me most is that everyone seems so impressed by how Shepard handles it. I think Kaidan or Ashley or someone even comments on it like, wow, where'd you learn how to speak corpo so well? Good one Shepard. And, like, I guess avoiding killing people is good. Unless you're into that as a renegade.
But even that is kind of strangely inconsistent - renegade Shep's intimidation of Jeong results in the same outcome as paragon Shep. You're rewarded renegade points for saving his life or paragon points for choosing the paragon version of saving his life. Ok, that's just flavor. But killing the colonists also rewards you with renegade points. I don't know, I guess you could interpret it as renegade Shepard being just insanely chaotically evil, wanting only corporate interests to survive and not giving a fuck about anything else. Or Shep just wants to kill that plant as fast as possible, innocents be damned. But I find that kind of strange and hard to reconcile.
And paragon Shepard - for god's sake call a goddamn anonymous tipline or something to report his shit to! What the hell! Heads should be rolling at this company! Renegade Shepard should be allowed to hunt down the ExoGeni CEO or something. That's what renegade should mean, IMO.
Part of the reason I think this mission should be done first is that it gives motivation to find Liara; you obtained the cipher, it didn't help you decipher the beacon (damn there are a lot of MacGuffins) but its clearly important information. Liara is a prothean expert who hypothetically could help with that, besides, she is Benezia's daughter and its clear Benezia is playing a significant part in this conspiracy.
Frankly though, this is probably my least favorite missions out of the set because, although I enjoy the creepy prothean ruins and the atmosphere and the corporate exploitation themes and the evil mind control plant, its a bit of a slog and doesn't feel very rewarding. You don't really learn that much more. There are a lot of zombies and robots to kill and a lot of driving back and forth. Companions don't have much to say. The outcome seems incomplete. The Thorian sounds cooler than it is. The mystery of it is diminished by it being just kind of simplistically evil and literally talking to you about its motives (something that seems to happen a lot with these mysterious, ancient, "incomprehensible" aliens).
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Therum: Find Liara T'soni
In the prothean ruins.
I hope I can keep this section short ... So we keep hearing about this Matriarch Benezia. She seems like a key player in all this, maybe. And after the beacon and the cipher and the agglomerator, we could really use someone with a brain to help us figure this stuff out. Fortunately, we know about someone who can help with all of these problems: Dr. Liara T'soni, prothean expert and daughter of the Matriarch.
Alas, she has picked an isolated, actively erupting volcano planet to do her solo archeological research on - Therum. Which, by the way, seems like an extremely dangerous idea. Even in non-apocalypse times, what if a rock falls on you? Does Liara not have any colleagues? Did she at least tell someone where she was going to be and for how long? Tells you a lot about her, honestly ... relatable.
For the player, this mission will be one of the most straightforward. It begins with some Mako driving, and of course, if there's Mako driving, some geth armatures will be dropped and you'll have to repeatedly roll over them with your tires to watch them ragdoll. You'll drive until you reach a point where you're supposed to get out of the car, but if you're determined you can cram the Mako through anyway. Then there's a fight with some more geth outside the entrance to the ruin. You know the drill.
Inside, Shepard finds Liara trapped in a forcefield, apparently self inflicted in an attempt to protect herself from the attacking geth. Shepard can question her a bit about her mother, but she doesn't know much and claims not to have talked to her in several years (relatable). She doesn't know how to get out so she asks Shepard to use their brilliant mind to come up with a solution.
Shepard activates the industrial mining laser to blast a hole through the wall. It does allow you to get past the barrier, but it also triggered seismic activity - the whole ruin is coming down. Hopefully this 50,000 year old prothean ruin wasn't anything important.
How much is this guy getting paid? Those are geth next to you.
As the group is escaping (using the 50,000 year old elevator in an earthquake) they encounter another krogan merc and a half dozen geth. This could be a challenging fight (I remember it being in the original version) or maybe it's not (I don't know if this playthrough it was my class or what, but most combat in ME1 Legendary edition felt trivial. Not so much on later games ...).
There's a cutscene where everyone dramatically dashes out of the entrance as the whole place falls apart. The Normandy picks them up and soon the whole crew is in the comm room uncomfortably listening to Shepard question flirt with Liara. If Feros was completed, she offers to join minds to try to make sense of the prothean stuff Shepard downloaded. When you do, of course you will see visions of meat. Liara acts like she is really tired and awkwardly leaves the room. Relatable.
This mission is short and simple but it has a couple interesting points. Most notably, the order you do this mission in will have a meaningful impact on dialogue; if you do too many missions before it, Liara will act like she's been trapped for a while and assume you are a hallucination, and react fearfully when she sees the krogan mercenary.
Back on the Normandy, she will be devastated learning about the reapers and feel her decades of research into the protheans was a waste.
Its fun they planned for that variable, because none of the other missions acknowledge what order you chose to do them in. The down side is that you miss out on her dialogue with Benezia, which while brief, feels like an essential element to her arc and the main plot. It is ostensibly, why you are tasked with finding her in the first place, as opposed to some other prothean expert.
Which, by the way, Liara mentions that she is looked down upon by other researchers in the field because of her youth and her views. There's not much elaboration, but I wonder what other prothean researchers would even differ on - we never, to my knowledge anyway, get perspective on what conventional knowledge about the protheans is.
This mission does a good job, incidentally, of characterizing Liara. She comes here to do this research alone because she's that kind of socially averse nerd, she hasn't spoken to her mother in years for some reason unspecified, she seems to have nobody looking out for her (considering how long she can stay trapped before you find her). Some of these elements get lost in the sequels when she becomes more of a badass action hero, for better or worse. But I like this introduction.
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Virmire
The Normandy parked in picturesque Virmire.
Shortly after Shepard returns after the last mission they're notified that the Council is calling. They let Shepard know that a salarian reconnaissance team investigating Saren sent a puzzling message over their communications channel - just static. Given the mission, there's good reason to believe that means trouble. The council, however, reiterates that spectres get to decide what missions to pursue.
I think Virmire makes the most sense narratively as the third mission. It seems like most people (that bother to post about it online I guess) leave Virmire until every other available mission is complete. From a gameplay perspective, that makes sense. It initiates the endgame content. And you will potentially lose two teammates which might cause you to miss unique dialogue later or just struggle strategically.
But, imo, if you've completed side quests that require a visit to the citadel and completed companion missions, it feels more appropriate to complete immediately.
I think Shepard, getting this call personally from the Council, hearing that it relates to intelligence on Saren and that information might be in immediate jeopardy, would see that as more urgent than poking about Noveria on basically a rumor.
Paragon Shepard might also sense that lives are at stake and might not hold out for long. Of course that doesn't matter since that there are no mechanics that track how long you take to arrive (just wait for ME2 & 3), but in the narrative, Shepard has no way to know that. Its harder to make the argument that Shepard would ignore this to go to Noveria. Or Therum. Going to Feros instead might make some sense, since the colony is also in immediate danger, except that Shepard would have had to have done two other missions before triggering Virmire - which means Shepard must not be that concerned with the urgency of that situation much anyway.
The Mako wrestling with a geth colossus.
The Normandy drops the squad off in the Mako. As is traditional in ME1, this mission has a driving section. There are various kinds of geth milling around which you are meant to dispatch. Along the path there are three guarded gates where you are required to get out to flip a switch. Past them is the salarian infiltration team.
Shepard meets the captain of the squad, Kirrahe, who is disappointed to learn that this is the only reinforcement sent. He explains that he already lost half of his team investigating Saren's compound; apparently it is heavily guarded with geth. Additionally, the facility's purpose is evidently to breed krogan.
If you've ever bothered to talk to Wrex (as you should), you'll have learned that the krogan have been the target of a genocide via bioengineered weapon. Most krogan children are stillborn. The species is slowly dying because of it, though the extinction progresses in slow motion because of the long lifespan of the krogan. The implications of this are staggering and quite horrifying.
Wrex, naturally, is interested in this potential "cure" for the genophage. Kirrahe wants to destroy it. The genophage was developed by the salarian government and Kirrahe is salarian special forces, after all. But this leads to conflict; Wrex storms away, adamantly against destroying a potential salvation for his people. Kirrahe encourages Shepard to deal with Wrex so the mission can proceed.
You're given the opportunity to walk around camp and talk to people, but the main conversation that needs to be had is with Wrex. There's two outcomes to this encounter; either you convince him destroying the facility is necessary, or Wrex dies. You can persuade him with high enough morality rating, or if you helped him in his personal mission he will simply defer to your judgement. Interestingly, if you don't recruit Liara or Garrus before this mission, he will acquiesce regardless since apparently the game wants to keep a minimum of four companions available. If none of these options are chosen, Shepard or Ashley will shoot him. Cold.
Kirrahe's plan is basically to split up. One team to infiltrate and plant a bomb to blow the compound up, the other to distract. Before you proceed, you'll be asked to loan one of your two human companions to assist Kirrahe. The choice is largely for flavor. It does is lock out that companion so they can't accompany you for the rest of the mission, though, and it will determine who will be left over to arm the bomb at the end.
The next section of the mission is fairly straightforward, fight through enemies and optionally doing some tasks that will help Kirrahe's team. Kirrahe and his team will die if you do nothing to help them. You should help them, probably. It generally behooves you to keep characters alive because you are often rewarded with callbacks in the sequels, and that is especially true on Virmire.
In the facility, Shepard and whoever they brought will encounter geth, krogan, and a bunch of deranged salarians. A couple of these salarians can be talked to, though its clear that they are unwell. From them Shepard learns that Saren's ship, Sovereign, seems to have a strange mind-manipulating effect that emanates from it, causing the insanity you've seen among the salarians.
Further on, Shepard encounters an asari scientist, Rana Thanoptis, who provides additional information about this effect they call indoctrination. It seems Saren doesn't understand it either, and has been trying to research it further here.
Rana helps you access Saren's personal lab, where you find another prothean beacon. Shepard plugs right into that sucker and downloads the full prothean vision into their brain, which, of course, is still just a montage of gooey circuit boards.
"You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence."
Why are you talking to me then.
As they leave, a hologram of Sovereign appears and villain monologues at Shepard a bit. Shepard asks a few questions, Sovereign says traditional super villain stuff. You cannot possibly comprehend the complex reasons why organics must be destroyed. The reapers are so much more advanced, yadda yadda. Its true. The reapers' motivations are incomprehensible.
Shepard realizes, gasp, Sovereign isn't a ship, its a reaper. Sovereign basically says, you haven't seen the last of me! And hangs up the call. But Shepard still has an objective to accomplish. There are yet more enemies to kill, but eventually they make their way to location they need to plant the bomb. As you're doing that, the squadmate with Kirrahe contacts you to tell you they need help.
Shepard fights up toward the salarian team, but halfway there, receives a call from the squadmate arming the bomb that more geth are dropping down. You'll have to make a choice of who to help - but one must be left behind.
I'm personally split on what feels more narratively appropriate here. I'm inclined to think that Shepard would want to make sure the bomb is not disarmed by attacking geth. The whole reason everyone is risking their life is to blow this place up. But Shepard is only human and wants to save everyone, and because you are forced to run over there to attempt to save the squadmate with Kirrahe regardless, you can rationalize that decision as attempting to save the most people. Maybe Shepard hopes they can double back in time.
Either way, shortly after you arrive to help, Saren himself shows up. Shepard will be able to exchange some words. There's an opportunity to pass a charm or intimidate Reasoning with him doesn't work, and a fight commences. He flies away on his hoverboard when you take his heath down far enough, and everyone you're with makes a quick escape to the Normandy before the bomb explodes.
Pretty memorable, right? You can permanently lose two squadmates! We learn that Saren's ship is a reaper! And it controls people's minds! Saren himself is surely affected. Refreshing to learn some new information and exciting to be given some consequential choices. Especially after Feros and Therum, where if felt like not much progress was made.
The loss of a companion makes the fight against Saren more personal. Up until now there has been plenty of death, but because its a video game its easy for the player to dismiss. Sure some NPCs have died, but we don't know them and anyway, the player is asked to kill hundreds of similarly anonymous NPCs in the course of the game. If you have to let Kaidan die, well, even if you don't have much attachment to his character, it still limits the players options for the rest of the playthrough. You'll be wondering if you made the right choice. You'll be wondering what else might happen. It raises the stakes.
Of course, this decision poses more challenges to development in the later games. If you want to have Ashley or Kaidan appear in sequels, you have to split your resources and development time between two characters, although most players will only ever see one. I assume this is why their roles were so downgraded in ME2. BioWare opted for expanding the roster of squadmates in ME2 massively as well as giving each significantly more material. It probably didn't seem worthwhile to make essentially one companion character for the price of two. I think that decision frustrated a lot of fans. The Virmire survivor returns as a squadmate in ME3, for what its worth.
I'm not sure I buy that Wrex would go along with this and not push back more. It feels strange that Wrex would not even ask to save some data or investigate some alternative before agreeing. The wiki says there was cut content related to helping him find the genophage cure instead. It does feel like too big of a thing to solve as an afterthought on this mission, so I guess I'm glad it didn't resolve like that. But it would have been nice to tell Wrex that they can try to save some data and then maybe find out later that its impossible or it won't be useful or even that the krogan being created here are just zombified clones. I mean, I think the latter thing is implied already? Since they're being grown at the same time indoctrination is being studied? I'm not totally clear on whether they were supposed to be indoctrinated at birth. Some more dialogue clarifying the situation for Wrex would have gone a long way for me.
In general, I think the krogan genocide is severely underemphasized. When Shepard first learns about it from Wrex they, in traditional Shepard fashion, are completely meatheaded and totally ignorant of it. Then they basically say the same thing happened to humans (it didn't). Wrex dresses them down a little but it never feels like the full implications of the genophage are ever conveyed. At least not in this game. ME2 and especially ME3 address the genophage more directly. But ME1 is the only time when you have Wrex directly in your party.
Just think about this. Wrex has been alive for hundreds of years and presumably been witness to unimaginable heartbreak. One successful birth for every thousand pregnancies. Think of how traumatizing human miscarriage can be. On top of it, we learn that fertile krogan women are fought over and won like prizes. We don't even see a krogan woman until the third game (though, we don't see alien women much in general. It seems like most alien species are extremely patriarchal for there to be virtually no women anywhere). The evidence suggests that krogan women are enormously oppressed by the society the genophage helped bring about.
I'm being too negative though, because the reality is this is one of the unique situations where companion NPCs will actually have a moral objection to something Shepard does. Frankly, Shepard does a lot of questionable shit. Nobody has much to say when you kill someone you could have spared. Nobody worries about whether Shepard is violating someone's rights. Not a word if Shepard smuggles contraband or takes a bribe. So a character having independent motivations is very welcome. It just made me want more from the encounter.
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Noveria
It has to be drafty in here.
The Normandy docks at Noveria's landing bay and Shepard and companions are immediately confronted by guards who have some questions. Shepard is ask to surrender their weapons and Shepard refuses and one way or another everyone draws their weapons. Over the intercom, the security is informed that, as a spectre, Shepard is allowed to carry firearms, and the group is allowed to proceed.
This establishes the atmosphere here on Noveria; everyone is suspicious and most people are up to something.
A woman flags Shepard down as they pass through to the port. She's the secretary of the Noveria's Administrator, Anoleis. She can answer a few questions, chiefly about the arrival and whereabouts of the Matriarch Benezia. She already departed the port to a laboratory called Peak 15. If Shepard is to pursue her, they will need express permission from Anoleis.
Anoleis refuses to help. When you meet him, he is uncooperative and protective of the privacy of his clients, many of whom are spooked by the presence of a spectre. He says because of the blizzard conditions Shepard won't be able to leave the port.
Shepard has two options. Anoleis will happily give tit for tat; if you happened to learn about the attempted smuggling by one of the local merchants, he will give you a pass provided you snitch. Otherwise, he won't help you and you'll have to find another way.
If you don't rat out the smuggler, as you leave Anoleis' assistant will flag you down again. She tells Shepard to talk to Lorik Qui'in, a turian who has dirt on Anoleis. Shepard can then help Qui'in to retrieve the incriminating data. This involves breaking and entering and killing people. Definitely the more ethical route compared to exposing a weapons smuggler. (To be fair, Shepard doesn't know they have to kill people. Its just implied.)
Anoleis getting arrested by his secretary, Gianna Parasini.
The data can be used a few ways. You can give it to Anoleis, to Qui'in, or keep it as leverage. Anoleis' assistant will find you again and reintroduce herself as a Noveria Internal Affairs agent who has been working undercover to investigate Anoleis. She will ask you to convince Qui'in to testify against Anoleis. In order to do this you have to pass a substantial morality point check, but it will result in Anoleis being arrested and in Shepard being allowed to leave the port.
Regardless of how you do it, as you go to the garage to hop in the Mako (of course you'll be driving), you encounter some (what else) geth. Big surprise, Benezia brought geth with her and they are littering the road to Peak 15. But, same as always, you can plow right through them.
At Peak 15 its immediately apparent something is amiss. There are some geth and krogan lingering around, but no scientists. The virtual intelligence system announces that the facility has sustained significant damage.
Its soon apparent what did the damage when giant bugs emerge from the vents and attack. It looks like Peak 15 has a bad roach infestation.
Shepard makes their way to the virtual intelligence core and starts repairing station utilities, like the reactor and tram system, all the while fighting off robots and bugs.
With the tram repaired, the squad can travel to the next section of the facility. It turns out there are some survivors holed up in the science station. A guard named Ventralis is stationed at the entrance. He tells you that Benezia might be in the Hot Labs and gives you the pass for it. But you can also visit the rest of the surviving scientists first.
There are a number of side assignments that will reveal that there's more than meets the eye here. Some of the survivors are sick from exposure to a prototype bioweapon broke containment. In order to help those sickened, Shepard has to go into the lab where the bioweapon was released and retrieve the cure. But as they leave the lab, they are confronted by an asari scientist who reveals she is actually one of the matriarch's retinue - and of course, she attacks Shepard.
Nobody survives a fight with Shepard, so after that's over Shepard brings the treatment back to the survivors. A deranged scientist, Han Olar, will tell you the asari came from the maintenance area. The doctor that requested Shep's help with the bioweapon provides the maintenance access key.
Now its time to face Benezia herself. Hopefully Liara came along, because they have some brief dialogue between them. Benezia slips in and out of lucidity as she attempts to fight her indoctrination. In the end, indoctrination wins. She orders her commandos and geth to attack.
Mommy ... I mean, Liara's mother. Matriarch. Benezia. Ma'am.
At the end of the fight, there's another bit of dialogue as Benezia warns you that its Sovereign that is your main enemy - Saren is just a tool. She reveals her objective in coming her - to get the coordinates to the Mu Relay from this Rachni queen. With that, she dies. Quite dramatically.
So that's it, then. The bugs you've been fighting, if you haven't discovered before this, are the offspring of what was thought to be a long extinct alien species, the Rachni. They were eradicated during the Rachni wars, the conflict that lasted hundreds of years and is the reason the krogan were technologically uplifted into a spacefaring civilization. The krogans' martial prowess, population numbers, and ability to survive harsh conditions made them ideal soldiers for fighting rachni on their inhospitable homeworlds. It worked, and eventually the rachni were functionally extinct. A lot of genocide in these games.
The Rachni queen reanimates the corpse of a dead asari commando and uses her voice to speak to Shepard. She pleads for forgiveness, that her children had been driven mad by being separated from her. That the Rachni, even during the old wars, had been manipulated by some outside force in much the same way. The reapers? Shepard is given a choice to kill her, dooming the Rachni permanently, or to release her. If released, she promises to live in seclusion and teach her offspring peace.
After the mission, Liara will be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together; between the cipher, prothean beacon on Virmire, and now the Mu relay coordinates, Liara concludes that Saren is trying to find the conduit on Ilos.
I think this mission is best saved for after Virmire, to heighten the stakes to maximum and to make the confrontation with Benezia feel maximally significant. She is positioned as a kind of Vader to Saren's Emperor. Or maybe Sovereign is more of an Emperor. Anyway although you're free to fly straight to Noveria and kill her first thing, for dramatic reasons its better to put it off.
With the other missions complete, you have better context for what's happening; obviously it's sensible to pick up Liara before confronting her mother, you learn about indoctrination and the truth about Sovereign on Virmire, even Feros introduces you to the idea that Saren has been searching for ancient data held by ancient species like the thorian or the rachni queen. You know that you need to find the Mu Relay. And it just feels like a meaningful time for this secondary antagonist to be defeated.
Noveria was always my favorite mission in ME1 for some reason. I think the constant blizzards, cold cement architecture, the intrigue - it all creates a mysterious atmosphere. There are a lot of characters to talk to. It also feels like this is establishing the world (the galaxy I guess?) more than the other missions. Feros also had a corporation run amok - but Noveria is a whole world full of corrupt corporatations. We think capitalism is out of control on Earth. Apparently they even got this shit in space. Even aliens have it. Capitalism is inescapable in Mass Effect. I don't know how to unpack all that.
Peak 15 is fun to explore. I've always loved The Thing and this part of the mission invokes that vibe. There's a mystery to unravel, bugs coming out of vents unexpectedly and putting you on edge. Since you've come here to find Benezia, anticipation is building for that confrontation, too.
The reveal that this ancient species has been resurrected is also cool, and better yet, you have a meaningful decision to make about whether the rachni live or die. It'd be nice if you could choose to leave the rachni with the council since killing it immediately seems rash. But among renegade murders choices it might be one of the easier to rationalize. Well, easier to rationalize if you're a bug bigot. I'd never understand killing a big beautiful bug woman like that.
I do kind of wish that the first section, in the Port Hanshan, was completely combat free. Or could be depending on your choices with security at the start. Shepard is forced to be so combative. I think sometimes the scene is adjusted so your companions pull their weapons first, which I guess I prefer to Shepard escalating the situation so needlessly. It feels like Shepard should follow some protocols and procedures, right? They're a trained soldier. They'd have to.
Anyway, removing weapons would work so well here! This is a place where wheeling and dealing are paramount! Missed opportunity, I say. Yes, this is a total nitpick, but there are a few missions where I wish you were restricted from combat so they'd be a bit more distinct / would be more fitting.
Oh well.
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Lockdown
Udina: hunh
After the previous missions are completed, you'll know you have to go to Ilos and how to get there. But the second Shepard interacts with the galaxy map, they recieve a message calling them back to the Citadel. The Council has decided that the best course of action is waiting for Saren to attack and taking him out then. They believe that finding the conduit is unimportant, and that the "reapers" are probably a deception meant to incite the geth, who purportedly worship them.
To be fair to the Council, by all accounts the only evidence the reapers exist is testimony from people driven insane by mind control technology that no one understands. And Shepard. Whose brain has been scrambled several times by ancient prothean technology that no one understands. Yes, Shepard talked to a hologram of Sovereign once, but Shepard talked to a lot of VIs that looked like people. It could have been a trick. Not like Sovereign said anything only a advanced AI could come up with; it was just villain monologuing at you. If anything, it sounded like Saren if he was confabulating a speech for a fake robot god to say.
Apparently the Council also worries about sparking a diplomatic incident by sending an agent into the Terminus Systems, the region beyond the control of the Citadel Council. I would say what's the point of having morally bankrupt black ops agents if you aren't going to send them to sovereign (ha) systems. But I guess I appreciate that they have some restraint.
Obviously, Shepard is pissed. The Normandy is grounded. Captain Anderson tells Shepard that he'll help cut the Normandy loose so Shepard can pursue Saren - whatever the cost. There are two plans you can pick from; either he breaks into an area filled with C-Sec guards, or into Udina's office. The former causes Anderson to get shot in a cutscene but he'll be fine when you see him later. The later shows him punching Udina, so 90% of players will choose that option. It seems a bit more rational. Why take on armed guards when you can knock out a single middle aged man. Either one works the same anyway. This time, once you leave the Citadel you won't be let back in.
Ilos
Tunnels of Ilos.
Once you choose to land on Ilos, you'll be locked into the sequence that ends the game. There's a Shepard Sex Scene if Shepard didn't reject all the romance options. Otherwise, the mission starts with Shepard, Navigator Pressly, and Joker frantically finding a place to land on Ilos; there's not a safe amount of room near enough to Saren's coordinates. Of course they do it anyway, and the Mako lands with Shepard and chosen crew.
The mission is pretty simple: get through, figure out what the conduit is, leave. There are lots of geth in the way, some elevators to ride, some doors to open.
Ilos has an unsettling atmosphere. The surface is covered in towering ruins, much like Feros. But everything is overgrown with vegetation. There are creepy statues everywhere, of aliens with tentacle-like facial appendages sitting slumped. They're probably intended to depict protheans - although its a bit ambiguous and prothean design seemingly retconned in the collectors in ME2 and Javik in ME3.
Once Shepard has pulled enough levers and buttons, its time for - you know it - a Mako driving section! This is a nice sunday drive, though, since there's only a few geth and plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere. The Mako drives down a massive corridor with what some squadmates speculate are prothean stasis pods lining the walls. Eventually, the group encounters a barrier blocking further progress. They get out to explore, finding an elevator to a platform with a damaged VI projection already active.
Vigil.
The VI program identifies itself as Vigil. Vigil mentions that others with the stink of indoctrination had been here not long before. Saren. Not sensing indoctination on Shepard, it starts sharing valuable information. It confirms a lot of our hunches; the reapers are responsible for the destruction of the protheans. They are here again to exterminate organic life as part of a 50,000 year cycle. The mass effect relay system relied upon by everyone in the galaxy are actually reaper constructions, not prothean. In fact, the Citadel itself is a mass relay, designed to give transport to the reapers dormant in deep space.
There's also some additional information about Ilos. The conduit is actually the prototype mass relay reverse engineered by the protheans. The planet, by freak accident I guess, was protected from the reapers because all information about it was destroyed in the initial reaper attacks on their civilization. The scientists on Ilos, knowing the end was near, continued working on efforts to fight the reapers - or at least help the next cycle be broken. Many protheans enter cryostasis, leaving Vigil to maintain the pods and communicate with whoever might be searching for information about the reapers.
Over time, the power failed and Vigil was forced to withdraw life support to most of the pods. Shepard can make a judgemental comment here. Thanks to their sacrifice, the remaining scientists were able to use the conduit to travel to the Citadel and alter the keepers, preventing them from activating the relay when triggered by the reapers.
Vigil provides some data that will allow Shepard to access all the Citadel's systems, but to use it they will have to make it to the master control terminal. When you leave Vigil, the barrier that had been blocking the Mako's path will be gone and all that remains is to drive to the conduit and warp to the Citadel. There's even an exciting timer countdown that happens as you race to the conduit before it powers down.
Everything about this mission feels like payoff. We set up the conduit at the very beginning and now we finally know what it does and use it. We get to explore an ancient prothean ruin again - but this one, thanks to the spooky statues and overgrown tunnels filled with stasis pods - feels like an actual graveyard.
And in this cemetery we can make contact with ghosts. The conversation with Vigil admittedly still gives me chills. Its spooky, what can I say. Vigil is the imprint of someone who died 50,000 years ago. Humans only barely have an inkling of what our own kind was doing 50,000 years ago, inferred from scant bones and fragments of tools. This civilization, magnituded larger than we can imagine, lived and died completely beyond memory. Its eerie. Doesn't hurt that the mournful music that plays in the menu is playing during the Vigil conversation. Really underscores the significance of the scene.
Mass Effect 1 Missions
Story Missions
Final Battle
RIP Mako. We found so many minerals together.
Its a mess on the other side of the conduit. The Mako gets totaled. Everything is on fire. There are husks standing around. It looks pretty bad. Shepard can talk to a VI, but it doesn't know all that much about the emergency.
Ships above the Citadel are preparing for a fight. The defensive arms of the Citadel attempt to close, but Sovereign makes it through and parks at the top of the Citadel Tower.
A cutscene shows Shepard getting stuck in an elevator and stepping out on to the exterior of the Citadel. The camera turns to show Shepard standing at a seemingly gravity defying angle. This a space station so gravity is artifical anyway, why not walk on walls. Time to see the Citadel a new way.
There's tons of enemies along the path toward the tower, naturally. Fortunately, there's lower gravity on this mission, so its easy to toss enemies into the void with biotic powers. Along with the usual geth and krogan, there are some sections with turrets. But its nothing Shepard hasn't seen before. Eventually, the squad works up to the tower.
The Silver Saren.
Saren is already at the terminal hitting random buttons, probably frustrated that the Citadel relay isn't activating. When he sees Shepard, he throws a grenade and jumps on his boogie board. He says some boilerplate villain stuff, glad you could make it to see me win, etc. Also, Sovereign replaced my skeleton with a robo skeleton. Sounds healthy and totally consensual.
Shepard has some interesting dialogue options provided the morality check can be passed. Shepard can persuade Saren to resist his new implants if Shepard had convinced him he was indoctrinated on Virmire. Renegade Shepard tells him, basically, KYS. If you pass all the checks in the dialogue tree, he'll shoot himself, allowing you to skip the first Saren fight. Nice. I guess.
One way or another, Saren will end up in a heap on the floor a story below. Shepard now has the opportunity to access the master control terminal. Vigil's data is uploaded and Shepard opens up communications, immediately hearing that the council's flagship is in danger, and the council leaders are aboard. Shepard has a choice - to advise the Normandy and the Human Alliance fleet to intervene to save the council, or to hold back to focus on Sovereign.
Tali desecrating Saren's corpse.
Whatever the choice, the squad will then hop down to the lower level and make sure Saren is dead.
Saren's skeleton is finally free!
Saren might be dead but his reaper implants are not. Also, he hops around like a frog and shoots lasers out of his eyes. Its not that big of a deal. He dies again.
The alliance fleet attacks Sovereign with all their muster, tearing it apart and causing pieces to fall onto the citadel - including into the chambers. Shepard and company try to flee as the wreckage comes down on them, but its not immediately clear if they've survived. Captain Anderson is shown searching the wreckage, finding a one of the squaddies that you picked. They shake their head, assuming Shepard is squashed. But oh? What's that? An unknown figure emerging from the garbage? Can it be? Yeah its Shepard.
Considering they kill Shepard off in the first 10 minutes of ME2 maybe it would have been better for them to get splattered into paste here. Easier for Cerberus to peel off the Shepard skidmark from the council chamber floor than collect their bone dust after they burned up entering a planet's atmosphere. But that's hindsight I guess.
There's a corny little image displayed of your Shepard with a background dependent on whether you had more blue or red morality. Its cute. Then there's some falling action showing the consequences of your decisions in the battle - basically, if the council lives, humanity will be given a seat and the council will ask for Shepard's opinion on who should fill it. If the council dies, Udina will scheming on how to take advantage of the power vacuum. You'll basically have the same choice of who should sit on a council. Udina will also make some comments based on your morality score of whether the new council should be human only or not.
Shep will have some words about fighting the reapers, the jobs not done, whatever. But the job is actually done. Game's over, we're done.
So that's it. Its an exciting conclusion for the game, at least to play through. It always is fun to see a location recontextualized like this, where the previously squeaky clean and secure Citadel is now inundated with enemies and flaming rubble. And you literally walk up the walks. That's seeing from a different perspective.
The confrontation with Saren is pretty traditional for a video game boss fight. Kill him. He comes back in a stronger form, kill him again. Its somewhat satisfying to be able to charm / intimidate him to skip that first fight. But that also means you skip that first fight, missing some content. Its just a choice you get to have I guess. The second, mandatory fight is pretty goofy with the lasers and the hopping. But there is some creepiness in Saren's body being manipulated like a puppet by Sovereign.
The choice between saving or sacrificing the council is one of the more memorable decisions in the game. Too bad it doesn't have much impact in the sequels. It still feels significant in the moment. And it clearly delineates Shepard's values. Saving them is in line with an alien-friendly paragon Shepard who protects the collective above all. Sacrificing them is one of the more understandable renegade choices; Sovereign is the priority. Everything can be destroyed if Sovereign survives. You can also just read it as xenophobia, since that's in line with renegade Shepard, too. It seems like saving them is the better outcome, and it probably should be.
Controversially, Udina is the right councilor pick. Yes, he's kind of a dick to Shepard. Yes, we like Anderson more personally. But Anderson himself says he hates paperwork and isn't really suited for the job. He doesn't have much experience related to it. He ends up hating it and quitting later, I think. Udina has been continuously busting his ass to make gains for the human cause. He has tons of experience and he clearly knows what to do and how to handle people. Shepard might not get along with him, but it seems like Udina will do the job to the best of his ability.
Mass Effect Characters
Squadmates
Ashley Williams
"Look at that bug thing over there. What's it doing?"
Mass Effect Characters
Squadmates
Garrus Vakarian
(0^#) This is the police.
Mass Effect Characters
Squadmates
Kaidan Alenko
Carth I meant Kaidan. This is Kaidan Onasi. Alenko! Kaidan Alenko. He might seem a standoffish at first, but its because he's professional. He's a loyal soldier. He stuggles with his past. He has beef with a former mentor. If there are any strong women in leadership around, preferrably wielding kinetic magic, he might fall in love.
Mass Effect Characters
Squadmates
Liara T'Soni
She draws her eyebrows on with an eyeliner pencil every morning.
Mass Effect Characters
Player Character
Commander Shepard
To be honest, most of my playthroughs have been FemShep. I just think she has more flavor. I like when a space woman does space stuff, I dunno. FemShep hooks up with birdmen and lizardmen and beautiful bisexual women the whole time while MascShep is over there playing with blocks, barely learning that its possible to be gay by the third game. Catch up man.
With that said, here's my current Shepard. I wanted to play engineer. I tried to make Star Trek's very own Miles O'Brien. I failed because Colm Meaney is a very particular looking guy and the character creator is even more limited than I remembered. Oh well. He's just a regular guy. That's a victory in its own right when dealing with video game character creators ...
Don't be fooled by the blue, I actually maxed out my renegade points too. (I'm an evil video game exploiter)
Mass Effect Characters
Squadmates
Tali'Zorah nar Rayya
She's anti AI. She's never nude. She's on a dextro-amino diet. Her father is head of the Admiralty Board. She can hotwire a geth. She has a shotgun. She's on her pilgrimage.
Mass Effect Characters
Squadmates
Urdnot Wrex
I like turtles.