PART FOUR- THE WAR AGAINST THE REAPERS
In part three, we talked about Mass Effect 2 and Shepard’s suicide mission past the Omega-4 Relay. In part four, let’s recap his attempts to bring together the combined forces of different races throughout the galaxy in order to take Earth back and bring the fight to the Reapers.
With the help of Admiral Anderson, Lieutenant James Vega and either Kaidan or Ashley (depending on who survived the events of Mass Effect), Shepard gets to the Normandy. Anderson gives him back command of the ship, tells him he’s off the hook for the trial (which, considering what’s going on with the Reapers, makes sense), and tells him to go to the Citadel to seek help from the Council. When Shepard demands that he come with him, Anderson informs him that he will stay on Earth and try to rally a resistance effort against the Reaper invasion.
Before they get to the Citadel, though, Shepard receives word from Admiral Hackett that Dr. Liara T’Soni has found something in the Prothean Archives on Mars, and that that something may be the key (the only key) to defeating the Reapers. Shepard heads to Mars facility with James Vega and Ashley/Kaidan, which has come under attack by Cerberus operatives. Soon, they find Liara, who tells them that she has found blueprints for a Prothean device, a massive weapon of some sort that can help them defeat the Reapers. Soon, however, the Illusive Man confronts Shepard via hologram (didn’t expect anything else, did you?) and tells him that he’s being a fool, that the only way to defeat the Reapers would be to find a way to control them rather than destroy them. There’s, quite predictably, heated disagreements between the two, and while this is happening, Cerberus operative Dr. Eva Coré, who is actually a synthetic android, steals data of the Prothean Archives and bolts.
Shepard and co. pursue Eva Coré, and just as she is about to escape, James Vega stops her, crashing one of the Normandy’s shuttles into her. However, it turns out that even the crash couldn’t kill the android. She attacks Kaidan/Ashley, and while Shepard manages to finally kill her, the Virmire survivor ends up unconscious with severe wounds. Shepard brings his unconscious mate to the Normandy and hurries to the Citadel.
After making sure Kaidan/Ashley is transported safely to a hospital on the Citadel, Shepard makes his way to the Council to make his pleas. The Council, however, as always, has no help to offer. They inform Shepard that the Reapers have been attacking a lot of the other alien races as well, not just humans, and that neither the turians, nor the salarians, nor the asari are willing to offer any support and help to Earth while they have their own planets and populations to look after. Shepard realizes that he’s going to have to help the other alien races in order to win their favour, and only with a united front will the inhabitants of the galaxy be able to defeat the Reapers. Meanwhile, Admiral Hackett informs Shepard that construction has begun on the Prothean weapon, and that it is now being called the Crucible.
Shepard travels to the moon of Palaven, homeworld of the turians, in order to enlist the help of the most militarily advanced race in the fight against the Reapers. He assists in the fight against the Reapers on the turian bases on the moon, while enlisting the help, once again, of his old friend Garrus, and ultimately leaves the moon with turian military leader Primarch Adrien Victus on board the Normandy.
On the Normandy, he convenes a war summit, with representatives for turians, salarians and krogans all attending. Primarch Victus represents the turians, a salarian daltrass represents her own race, while Urdnot Wrex represents the krogans if he survived the events of the first game. If he didn’t, his brother Urdnot Wreav attends the war summit as the krogan leader.
The war summit goes badly at first, and all talks are almost on the verge of breaking down, but the turians ultimately agree to lend support for the defence of Earth if the krogans- some of the fiercest and most able warriors in the galaxy- help the turians defend Palaven against the Reapers. The krogans, on the other hand, will only agree to do so if a cure for the genophage is created and distributed. And who has developed a cure for the genophage? None other than Mordin Solus- if he survived the suicide mission. If he didn’t, Padok Wiks, a new secondary character,has the cure. A female krogan who is being called Eve is, as it turns out, the key to that cure.
Shepard and co. manage to extract Eve and Mordin/Padok from the salarian homeworld of Sur’Kesh despite resistance from Cerberus invaders, and a cure is then developed rapidly. They decide to release the cure into the atmosphere of the krogan homeworld of Tuchanka using a massive salarian device known as the Shroud, which is what was originally used to disperse the genophage itself. However, Shepard is soon contacted in secret by the salarian dalatrass, who implores him to see that curing the krogans would be a grave mistake. She informs him of a malfunction in the Shroud, and tells him to use it without fixing it so that the cure isn’t actually dispersed, but the krogans only think it is.
Yes, you guessed it right- decision time for the players. What you do will eventually have an impact on how much support you may or may not have in the final fight against the Reapers from several races.
Either way, chances are, in the process of dispersing a cure, Mordin/Padok dies (only one out of three possible outcomes sees his survival). There is an awesome, climactic battle between a Reaper and a thresher maw (gigantic subterranean worm-like creatures), in which the thresher maw emerges victorious. The krogans land on Palaven and its moons, and with their help, the turians are successful in defending attacks from the Reapers, if not pushing them back completely. As a result, Shepard enlists the help of the turians, and depending on the choices he makes, the salarians and/or the krogans as well.
Before he can move further with his mission to accrue more allies though, Shepard receives word that the Citadel is under attack by Cerberus- yes, them again. A veritable force of Cerberus operatives led by a high ranking, notorious Cerberus assassin named Kai Leng have attacked and taken control of the Citadel, keeping the Council hostage. As Shepard travels to the Citadel and fights off the Cerberus forces, he discovers that the human Council member, Ambassador Udina, is in cahoots with Cerberus and helped them take over the Citadel. Shepard fights to save the Council (once again), and with the help of either Thane (if he survived the suicide mission) or Major Kirrahe (a secondary character from the first Mass Effect who takes on the role if Thane is dead), succeeds in doing so. If both the aforementioned characters are dead already, the salarian Councillor dies.
In the fight against Kai Leng to rescue the Council member though, Thane/Kirrahe get mortally wounded and eventually succumb to their wounds, resulting in a very heart-wrenching death in one case and a shrug-inducing one in the other. Eventually, Shepard catches up with Council Udina, who is with Kaidan/Ashley, who’s recovered and been made a Spectre. Chances are, Shepard is able to make Kaidan/Ashley see reason (depending on players’ previous choices, they may not do so, forcing Shepard to kill them), but no matter what happens, Udina is, one way or another, killed, resulting in the end of the Citadel skirmish and the retreat of Cerberus soldiers and Kai Leng.
Admiral Hackett then informs Shepard that while the forces he’s gathered so far are certainly a great help, they’re still going to need more ships and soldiers if they are to take back Earth. He tells Shepard that the quarians are willing to talk and negotiate if Shepard helps them with a momentous task- they have gathered their entire flotilla and are mounting an offensive against the geth to take back their homeworld of Rannoch and end the conflict between the two races once and for all. Over the course of the second act of the game, Shepard meets some familiar faces, such as Tali (or Admiral Xen if she died in Mass Effect 2) and Legion (or a random geth unit if he did not survive the suicide mission).
After a series of missions that take Shepard and co. aboard geth vessels and through several unique locations, things ultimately come to a head on Rannoch, where the geth are attempting to contact the Reapers to receive significant “upgrades” in exchange for their support, in order to defeat the quarians. Shepard finds and battles a Reaper unit on the surface of the planet, and with the help of the quarian fleet, he is able to bring it down after an intense sequence. What follows, though, is in a way even more intense. Legion/random geth requests Shepard’s permission to upload the dead Reaper’s code to the geth network in order to help its race achieve true intelligence and individuality. No matter what happens, Legion/random geth dies- if Shepard refuses, it attacks him, and is put down by Tali/Xen. If Shepard accepts, Legion/random geth sacrifices himself in order to fully upload the code.
If Shepard allows the geth to achieve true intelligence, they decimate the quarian fleet, as a result of which Tali/Xen commit suicide. If Shepard refuses, the quarians, conversely, destroy the geth completely. There is a third option, much harder for players to get to depending on their previous choices and progression throughout the trilogy, that allows Shepard to convince both sides to stand down and call for a ceasefire and peace between the two races, making Rannoch the homeworld for both of them. Depending on how the scenario ends, Shepard enlists the help of either one of the two forces or both of them.
Shepard then receives word from the asari Councillor that while the Crucible is close to completion, it will be of no use until the engineers have the final piece of the puzzle, something called the Catalyst. The asari Councillor informs him that there is a classified artifact on the asari homeworld of Thessia which may help them identify and locate the Catalyst. She begs the Commander to hurry, since the Reapers have already descended on the asari planet in full force.
As we’ve learned by now, though, things don’t exactly go according to plan, and as the war against the Reapers comes to a head, everything continues to go horribly wrong…
That concludes part four. In part five, we will go through the events of the final act of Mass Effect 3, Shepard’s assault on Cerberus and the galaxy’s last stand against the Reapers.
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