Mass Effect 2 Final Mission Spoilers

TheCounselor wrote:

So, I'm fishing here, but I played a Renegade Shepard, and her eyes started turning red as the game went on and she accumulated Renegade points. Could the Illusive Man's blue eyes mean that he's really a paragon, and that those of us who don't entirely trust him are off base?

It's not the blueness of the eyes that stands out to me, so much as it is the circle and three large dots that make up the iris. Very mechanical looking.

Teneman wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Y'know, since anyone can successfully escort the survivors, I'm starting to think that it's not a matter of Mordin randomly dying. I think that maybe he's the one you're "supposed" to send, just like the other specialists, and if you don't you get punished with a death.

I'm wondering that too. But if so it's the weakest of the choices you have to make, gameplay wise. The rest are all fairly well supported by their backstories (Miranda and Garrus having leadership experience, Samara and Jack being strong biotics, Tali and Legion being strong in tech). Mordin however was a member of an elite special forces unit, how are we supposed to pick him out as the weak link that should be sent to handhold the survivors?

Re: Mordin

I sent him back to the ship with the survivors based on the fact that he was a doctor and the ships doctor was one of the survivors so he would be needed to provide any medical assistance. Made perfect sense from the backstory to me.

Infyrnos wrote:
Teneman wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Y'know, since anyone can successfully escort the survivors, I'm starting to think that it's not a matter of Mordin randomly dying. I think that maybe he's the one you're "supposed" to send, just like the other specialists, and if you don't you get punished with a death.

I'm wondering that too. But if so it's the weakest of the choices you have to make, gameplay wise. The rest are all fairly well supported by their backstories (Miranda and Garrus having leadership experience, Samara and Jack being strong biotics, Tali and Legion being strong in tech). Mordin however was a member of an elite special forces unit, how are we supposed to pick him out as the weak link that should be sent to handhold the survivors?

Re: Mordin

I sent him back to the ship with the survivors based on the fact that he was a doctor and the ships doctor was one of the survivors so he would be needed to provide any medical assistance. Made perfect sense from the backstory to me.

Hmm, I didn't think of that. Makes sense though.

Teneman wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

So, I'm fishing here, but I played a Renegade Shepard, and her eyes started turning red as the game went on and she accumulated Renegade points. Could the Illusive Man's blue eyes mean that he's really a paragon, and that those of us who don't entirely trust him are off base?

It's not the blueness of the eyes that stands out to me, so much as it is the circle and three large dots that make up the iris. Very mechanical looking.

Also they glow in the dark.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Y'know, since anyone can successfully escort the survivors, I'm starting to think that it's not a matter of Mordin randomly dying. I think that maybe he's the one you're "supposed" to send, just like the other specialists, and if you don't you get punished with a death.

I sent Jacob, and Mordin did not die. So its not a 100% guaranteed death at least. I did not have him on my own team either.

Still its probably not random. Would be cool if your decisions taken pre-Omega 4 relay influences who lives and dies as well. (beside the obvious 'loyal or not').

I was kinda worried someone had died, actually, because the game kept dropping hints that someone had. For example, during the last fight when you contact the team holding back the Collectors, I picked Miranda to lead, and when I called them, Thane answered instead. I thought maybe Miranda had been killed.

Then, right before you do the heroic running jump, Jokers says all the "survivors" are on board, leading me to think, "Well, who didn't survive?!"

But, the final cutscene showed everyone fixing the ship and no coffins, so I guess I was ok.

Teneman wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

So, I'm fishing here, but I played a Renegade Shepard, and her eyes started turning red as the game went on and she accumulated Renegade points. Could the Illusive Man's blue eyes mean that he's really a paragon, and that those of us who don't entirely trust him are off base?

It's not the blueness of the eyes that stands out to me, so much as it is the circle and three large dots that make up the iris. Very mechanical looking.

The red-eye thing is just a graphics engine lighting thing I think, I spotted that several times in my paragon character thoughout the game.

Although it does state in one email from the doctor though that having a "positive outlook" is important for healing your scars, and vice versa if you have a very negative outlook, which does suggest some physical differences if you go renegade. (unless you use the medical table - then your scars are permanently healed...something I regretted doing actually, the scars are kind of cool )

And I DEFINATELY made sure to destroy the station at the end - keeping it and trying to use it for your own purposes is the same trap Saren fell into with Sovereign. (also see Borimir Re: The One Ring )

LobsterMobster wrote:

Y'know, since anyone can successfully escort the survivors, I'm starting to think that it's not a matter of Mordin randomly dying. I think that maybe he's the one you're "supposed" to send, just like the other specialists, and if you don't you get punished with a death.

I sent Jacob and had no problems.

edit: Oops, I guess someone else had already figured this out.

I'm just glad that even if you do lose most of the kidnapped crew, you still get the survival achievement if you don't lose anyone on the mission itself. I was trying to hit level 30 in a single playthrough so wasted a lot of time after getting the IFF online. And I couldn't do any better than 27.5 by the end of the game, even after exploring all the planets.

casktapper wrote:

I'm just glad that even if you do lose most of the kidnapped crew, you still get the survival achievement if you don't lose anyone on the mission itself. I was trying to hit level 30 in a single playthrough so wasted a lot of time after getting the IFF online. And I couldn't do any better than 27.5 by the end of the game, even after exploring all the planets.

That's exactly where I ended up, and I am fairly confident I hit every quest in game. At least I explored every planet, investigated every anomaly, and spoke with everyone I could speak with. I've got a feeling that you can't hit 30th on one play through, unless perhaps playing on a higher difficulty gives you an experience point boost...

I researched everything. Medic table, Mordin's tech upgrade, everything. He still died, till I sent him back to the Normandy and told him to sit in the corner and think about how useless he is.

TheCounselor wrote:

So, I'm fishing here, but I played a Renegade Shepard, and her eyes started turning red as the game went on and she accumulated Renegade points. Could the Illusive Man's blue eyes mean that he's really a paragon, and that those of us who don't entirely trust him are off base?

I think it means he's just got cybernetic eyes, and that Saren's eyes glowed because he also had cybernetic eyes, and that Shepard's eyes can glow now because he/she has cybernetic eyes. I think you guys are reading way too much into it. There is absolutely no support that "indoctrinated" people get glowing eyes, especially since you meet plenty of people who are indoctrinated and don't have glowing eyes. Not to mention the Reapers might want their indoctrination to be a little more subtle than spontaneously glowing eyes. Saren was very worried that he was getting indoctrinated, so much so he started a big old research facility to look into it. I don't think he would have done that if a 2 credit mirror would have sufficed.

I understand the paragon/blue and renegade/red idea, though that doesn't make much narrative sense either (then again, neither does putting gratuitous LEDs in cybernetics). It's not like the doctors would ask around about what kind of person you were before picking the color of your new optics. Also note that the cybernetics showing through Shepard's scars at the beginning are red, even if you import a paragon save. In fact, the Garrus romance line shows (female) Shepard in the shower briefly and there's a glitch that shows the scars. Even with the paragon scale maxed out, they still glow red. Of course you might argue that the cybernetics are not red but simply luminous and the light is shining through Shepard's skin, giving it a red tint.

I think that's over-analyzing it.

The red-eye thing is just a graphics engine lighting thing I think, I spotted that several times in my paragon character thoughout the game.

No no, I know what you're talking about, it looks like the redeye seen in Blade Runner. No, if you go Renegade, Shepard's irises turn bright red and your scars get far worse.

muttonchop wrote:

Legion wasn't loyal for some reason (I did the loyalty quest, but I guess I did it wrong?) so he died.

What did you do when Legion and Tali were fighting with each other?

Hypatian wrote:
muttonchop wrote:

Legion wasn't loyal for some reason (I did the loyalty quest, but I guess I did it wrong?) so he died.

What did you do when Legion and Tali were fighting with each other?

Yeah, I figured that one out. I sided with Tali and didn't try to talk Legion down afterward.

Has anyone taken Legion to do Tali's loyalty quest. Do the Quarians get upset if you take him with you?

Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:

Has anyone taken Legion to do Tali's loyalty quest. Do the Quarians get upset if you take him with you?

I got Legion last, but did take him around to a few cities with me. I figured someone at the Citadel or Illium might comment on a Geth walking around, but nobody did. It seemed like an odd oversight.

Teneman wrote:
Mr E.B. Slugworth wrote:

Has anyone taken Legion to do Tali's loyalty quest. Do the Quarians get upset if you take him with you?

I got Legion last, but did take him around to a few cities with me. I figured someone at the Citadel or Illium might comment on a Geth walking around, but nobody did. It seemed like an odd oversight.

It is strange, though it's possible not everyone knows what a Geth looks like. I imagine all it would take was one off-duty Alliance officer to start freaking out, though.

I think I'll take Legion to the Flotilla next playthrough. It'd be funny if they just exiled Tali on the spot. Or maybe one of the Admirals could call for the jury to disregard the Geth standing there.

EDIT: I went back to the Citadel and spoke with Anderson about the Geth. He said that the war is basically over and everyone's in "clean-up" mode, and that people aren't really afraid of the Geth anymore, which is why no one's too upset over my "trophy bot." A bit of a stretch, but not too ridiculous.

LobsterMobster wrote:

EDIT: I went back to the Citadel and spoke with Anderson about the Geth. He said that the war is basically over and everyone's in "clean-up" mode, and that people aren't really afraid of the Geth anymore, which is why no one's too upset over my "trophy bot." A bit of a stretch, but not too ridiculous.

That makes a certain amount of sense. In the opening cutscene Miranda says that sending Shepard against the Geth is essentially busywork, and it's been two years since then.

I started a new game. To answer a few questions:

You cannot pick a new class but you can pick an "advanced training" skill from all those your teammates had. No idea if you'll be able to pick a second through the research menu yet but I suspect not. It kind of makes me wish I'd picked up Morinth on the first playthrough so I could get her powerful Dominate ability (like AI hacking but for organics) without sacrificing Samara on the save I'll likely import into ME3. Maybe I'll power through and play a third time.

You can change your appearance again.

You keep all of your weapons, not just the heavy ones. Even though you get a full load out at the beginning of Freedom's Progress, it's all tier 1 stuff. You need to get to the Normandy SR-2 before you can pick what you want. Jacob and Miranda get upgraded weapons (don't know if it's what you had them equipped with last game or if it's just the default tier 2 guns). You also keep all of your armor, which you receive right after waking up in the beginning, in the configuration you were using on your import file .

You keep the "specialization" that you selected on the Collector Ship (so my Vanguard started out with an assault rifle). I don't know if you get to pick another when you get there a second time. I imagine you do (so if you play multiple times you can get all three tier 3 weapons) but your choices may be restricted. For instance, there are only five weapon slots on the little tactical menu thing, and if I could select sniper rifle training that would give me access to six weapons.

Import bonuses from ME2 are different than ME1: when you import an ME1 save you start out with some paragon/renegade points and a bunch of resources, except only a little element zero (relatively speaking). Importing from ME2 you don't get any paragon/renegade points but you get a full 50,000 element zero, just like all other resources.

You do not keep any research or upgrades except for the ones that unlock your various heavy weapons.

One other thing. Switching the difficulty to hardcore really defangs the Vanguard. It only takes a few hits to bring your shields down, then a few more to kill you. Charge is suddenly much more risky.

LobsterMobster wrote:

One other thing. Switching the difficulty to hardcore really defangs the Vanguard. It only takes a few hits to bring your shields down, then a few more to kill you. Charge is suddenly much more risky.

I noticed the same thing with my Soldier "immunity-lite" barrier or geth shield or armor setup, which I played pretty aggressively on Veteran. Going to have to play much much smarter on hardcore.

I finished the game about twenty minutes ago. Thank god. Seeing this thread in the list and not clicking it was torture.

I picked Legion as the specialist for the first bit of the attack and Garrus as the fire team leader. The next part I picked Samara as the biotic specialist and stuck with Garrus as the fire team leader. The only thing I did differently was picking Thane to escort the crew back to the Normandy. Mordin never even crossed my mind, not sure why.

Everyone survived, no issues. Garrus seemed like the obvious choice for the fire team leader spot both times to me. I sort of see Samara, but.. eh. I always took Miranda on missions because she had both Overload and Warp. As an Infiltrator I had, Incinerate, I think it's called, for armored enemies, and the third spot usually went to Samara or Jack for crowd control. When the possessed collector guys pop up I'd fire on them with the SMG until the barrier was gone (usually before they finished the possessing animation and actually got on their feet) and then hit them with heavy warp from Miranda and Incinerate (only level 2!) from me and it killed them every time. In the meantime, Jack was handily taking care of all the regular enemies. Shockwave is particularly awesome.

Oh, and I chose to blow up the base with Miranda quitting Cerberus and all.

Thin_J wrote:

Oh, and I chose to blow up the base with Miranda quitting Cerberus and all.

How do you get that to happen? Every time I've played through it tempers stay cool, Illusive Man doesn't give any orders and Miranda doesn't quit.

Miranda has to be in your party to quit. There's a little scene where you decide to destroy the base, and TIM starts ranting. If Miranda's not in your party, one of your squadmates just turns off the comm. If she is, then you get some extra dialog before she, too, cuts him off.

I found that if you've completed the game, and THEN import a ME1 save, you get the bonus Paragon and Renegade points and 10k of each mineral for the ME1 import, PLUS 50k MORE of each mineral and the bonus power for having finished ME2 already.

Malor wrote:

Miranda has to be in your party to quit. There's a little scene where you decide to destroy the base, and TIM starts ranting. If Miranda's not in your party, one of your squadmates just turns off the comm. If she is, then you get some extra dialog before she, too, cuts him off.

I found that if you've completed the game, and THEN import a ME1 save, you get the bonus Paragon and Renegade points and 10k of each mineral for the ME1 import, PLUS 50k MORE of each mineral and the bonus power for having finished ME2 already.

Ah, thanks for the info.

But if you do that, you don't get to keep your "specialization," right? That's worth much more to me than any amount of minerals.

ruhk wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Considering that all of the Reapers that we've seen so far, Harbinger, the derelict, and Sovereign, as well as that last shot of the fleet, look similar, I think the human "Reaper" section is probably more of the brain of the operation and Reaper ships all look similar. Also, considering how large Sovereign was, and the fact that Soylent Galactus didn't look much larger than the Normandy 2, I don't think he was the whole Reaper.

Plus, the idea of a giant cybernetic organism controlling a Reaper ship appeals to me a lot more than a human-shaped ship flying through space. Images of Mega Maid come to mind.

I forget where exactly, but at some point in the 30+ hours of the game it is pointed out that the reason The Collectors are abducting people was because of Shepard's so handily disposing of Sovereign, the Reapers now view humans (or at least Shepard) as a serious threat rather than an annoyance like the other life they've encountered, so it was my interpretation that the Human Reaper was being built using human genetic material specifically to be used as a weapon against humans.

There are implications also that each Reaper was built by one of the organic species they "harvested" every 50,000 years. They say in the game that there's evidence they tried to build a Prothean Reaper and failed.

I lost half my crew due to dawdling with Legion's loyalty mission and some mining but otherwise everyone else survived. I didn't even know you could so easily lose people until viewing this thread. Guess I was lucky.

NSMike wrote:

Considering that all of the Reapers that we've seen so far, Harbinger, the derelict, and Sovereign, as well as that last shot of the fleet, look similar, I think the human "Reaper" section is probably more of the brain of the operation and Reaper ships all look similar. Also, considering how large Sovereign was, and the fact that Soylent Galactus didn't look much larger than the Normandy 2, I don't think he was the whole Reaper.

Plus, the idea of a giant cybernetic organism controlling a Reaper ship appeals to me a lot more than a human-shaped ship flying through space. Images of Mega Maid come to mind.

I forget where exactly, but at some point in the 30+ hours of the game it is pointed out that the reason The Collectors are abducting people was because of Shepard's so handily disposing of Sovereign, the Reapers now view humans (or at least Shepard) as a serious threat rather than a mere annoyance like the other lifeforms they've encountered... so it was my interpretation that the Human Reaper was being built using human genetic material specifically to be used as a weapon against humans.

ruhk wrote:

I forget where exactly, but at some point in the 30+ hours of the game it is pointed out that the reason The Collectors are abducting people was because of Shepard's so handily disposing of Sovereign, the Reapers now view humans (or at least Shepard) as a serious threat rather than a mere annoyance like the other lifeforms they've encountered... so it was my interpretation that the Human Reaper was being built using human genetic material specifically to be used as a weapon against humans.

I don't think they saw the humans as such a big threat that they needed a new flavor of reaper to kill them, never mind a reaper based on humans, which by all accounts isn't any different from any other reaper except for its shape. That'd be kind of like if a bear hurt you, so you killed a bear and made a hat out of its head, and then wore that when you went bear hunting. It's a nice thought I guess but it wouldn't really help...

If they're building the human Reaper because they view humans as some sort of unique threat, then that's just plain silly. The only reason Shepard was able to stop Sovereign in ME1 was due to Prothean technology, and the only reason the Protheans were able to come up with that solution was because the Keepers had evolved over time and no longer responded to Reaper control. Both Shepard's team and the fleet that destroyed Sovereign included a variety of races, so humanity can't take all the credit for killing a Reaper, and the derelict Reaper in ME2 was destroyed by some other race so it's not like this is the first time a Reaper has been killed.

I suspect that the decision to make a human Reaper was largely opportunistic: a lot of humans were colonizing the Terminus systems, which are well outside Council jurisdiction. This allowed them to collect a lot of genetic material from one of the races responsible for stopping Sovereign without directly provoking the Council, which had proven itself to be a serious threat. Of course, that still doesn't explain why Soylent Galactus was human-shaped.

Squad, schmaud. I'm still pissed about what happened (and was not shown) with Tali. Pissed, I tell you!

Rat Boy wrote:

Squad, schmaud. I'm still pissed about what happened (and was not shown) with Tali. Pissed, I tell you!

Got to leave something for the sequel. Alien brothel. Naked quarians, female krogans and turians... naked volus?

LobsterMobster wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Squad, schmaud. I'm still pissed about what happened (and was not shown) with Tali. Pissed, I tell you!

Got to leave something for the sequel. Alien brothel. Naked quarians, female krogans and turians... naked volus?

All of whom have daddy/mommy issues, if Bioware keeps its current streak going. Jeez, would it kill them to create a love interest who isn't angry at one parent/parent figure?