Just a BioWare Fan

I’ve been pondering lately the point of the Mass Effect 2 plot. At first glance it seems a little silly: these bug people have started kidnapping thousands of humans to make a new Reaper and Shepard stops them.

The summary sounds like a mid-sized expansion pack to the original game, a side quest to kill time, and instead they pull in Cerberus and the Lazarus project. Throw in a whole new cast you have to go recruit and you complicate a little series of side missions into a whole game.

After some thought, however, I realized they had two choices of what to do with the end of Mass Effect. Shepard said that it wasn’t over and we’re led to believe that the Reapers are still coming in some undefined way. What happens next?

“Kaidan.”

I hoped I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt. I hadn’t had too many opportunities to practice my cool composure over the last several months. What else could I say to the man I loved, the man who’d already dismissed me once, who’d never even sent me a message after I’d survived my suicide mission and returned triumphant, much less while I’d been imprisoned in his home town?

He couldn’t have contacted me directly but surely he could have gotten a message through Anderson. He hadn’t. I still missed him so badly it hurt.

He looked down at me, his face coldly neutral. “Shepard.” Where was he hiding those eyes, the ones that had softened when he’d looked at me, the source of those looks that I dreamt of at night? He’d had them on Horizon. They’d flashed at me for a few long moments before he’d stuffed his feelings behind his good-soldier façade. No hint of them showed now.

Some of My Best Friends Are Artificial

Dance I did, a wild and wooly, high-kicking celebration with Garrus while Mordin sang salarian show tunes for accompaniment. The shuttle pilot finally told us to pipe down because he couldn’t hear Joker over all the pounding and yelling.

Garrus’s mandibles were spread wide in what passed for a cheese-eating grin among the Turians and Mordin’s flat lips were pulled back to show his own teeth. We sat as quietly as we could for about twelve seconds and then I jumped up and started pacing. The deactivated Geth lay in a tumbled pile off to one side and I was itching to boot it up but most of my energy came from relief at feeling no scrabbling claws in my head.

The shuttle docked and we staggered out, dragging the Geth between us, and found half the crew milling around the shuttle bay, slightly dazed and euphoric. They’d all been suffering the same sorts of exploration from the Reaper and were at least as relieved as I was to have been so suddenly released.

Once Upon a Time

Hackett had promised Alchera to be a deserted, frozen wasteland but I wasn’t taking any chances. We slapped armored environment suits and pistols on the doc and Joker and the four of us took the shuttle down to the surface with the monument on a hover cart.

It was a shame that such devices were notoriously unstable or we’d just have rigged up a chair on it for Joker and let him fend for himself. As it was we constantly had to keep the silly thing from tipping the chromed wave onto its side as it passed over rocks and drifts.

He had started out sitting on the cart but, after several close calls, decided that he’d walk for a bit. Dr. Chakwas paced his slow progress, ready to spring into action should her favorite patient stumble. Even such a minor incident could result in a broken ankle or shattered foot bones, after all. It came to me that her leaving the Alliance might have had less to do with me than with how needed Joker made her feel, despite her claim to the contrary. Certainly no other patient would put up with Chakwas clucking over him like a broody hen, scolding and encouraging in turns.

‘Round and ‘Round She Goes

Kaidan took my hand and pulled me past the couples lined up for their turns. This appeared to be the place to be for a romantic evening. I tried to protest the unfairness of cutting ahead of them all but he shushed me. “That’s the advantage of calling ahead.”

When we neared the front of the line I saw an area cordoned off within which a few people craned their necks to watch others swooping skyward or drifting down again. Kaidan gave a name to the Asari standing just outside this seeming VIP section. She checked her omnitool and gestured us through the boundary. The already-stately pace began to slow and the thing came to a stop. Squeals of delight issued from above our heads as the oval cages tilted and swung.

Within a few minutes we were ensconced in our own little coop. A bench ran along one side with just enough room to stand side by side before it. The door clanged shut and a lock hissed, ensuring we wouldn’t be foolish enough to leap from the thing fifteen stories in the air. After the prison ship incident I was a little nervous about being locked up but as soon as we began to move I forgot my concerns.