DPSSOC wrote...
And here's where we run into an issue of gameplay continuity vs story continuity. Because in gameplay continuity I can offer to go hunt the Shadow Broker with Liara before I even find out she's hunting the Shadow Broker herself. In gameplay continuity I can start the Archangel recruitment mission where it's hinted he has days to live at most, and then go complete every available N7 mission, DLC, and recruitment missions and go back to Omega where he's still holding strong.
Story continuity however can't allow for these things. Shepard can't offer to help someone do something he's not yet aware they're doing. He can't travel the length and width of the galaxy and complete various missions in a number of days. So we have to ask ourselves when these events happen in the story, not the game. Now Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival were marketed as bridging DLC which would suggest they are meant (in story continuity) to be played after the completion of Mass Effect 2. The only reason they are available before you finish the suicide mission is so players who get their Shepards killed can still play them. So how long after ME2 does Arrival happen? Days, weeks, months? Hopefully Bioware will clarify but until then I wouldn't say stopping the Collectors changed nothing
Arrival can happen before the end of ME2 though.My understanding is that it isn't coded to be aftermath only. "Gameplay only" can be an excuse where mechanics are concerned, but it isn't where story is concerned, and regardless, if the Normandy had take the Crusier on head to head at Horizon (or possibly even on the initial encounter), the reapers would have been set back just as much.
Has anyone argued that it does? Being the only organization making an effort to halt or even delay impending doom on the other hand...
TIM suppressing intel regarding Horizon, the Collector vessel, the derelict reaper, the intact beacon, and undermining Shepard's credibiltiy went a long ways to ensure that Cerberus were the only 'saviors.' Concieling information about a crime just so you can look like a hero by stopping it yourself isn't very heroic.
Unless, and hold on to your hat cause I'm about to blow your mind, the Collectors set a trap. The Collectors didn't start abducting colonies until Shepard was out of the picture (if I'm not mistaken) so perhaps the Collectors captured a few ships, knowing that eventually the Council would send Shepard in to see what was going on (had they sent others and they simply disappeared they would have sent others and on and on until Shepard was the only available choice). So all they had to do was wait for the Normandy to show up, strike, and then Shepard (the only threat to their plans) is out of the picture and in their grasp.
While that is likely, the biggest problem with that encounter is that Joker suddenly forgot the most basic rule in the tactical manual, and that is to keep the enemy from closing on your six. The Normandy should easily have been able to maintain distance. They spotted the Collector vessel at long range and it revealed immediately by way of course change that it spotted the normandy. The codex itself states that battles only happen where both sides want to fight because when ships spot each other at long range, there is nothing to prevent one side from simply maintaining distance or disengaging.
Of course it is possible that Joker was coopted by Cerberus sometime between ME1 and ME2.... he did seem swayed a little easily simply by comfy chairs. It might also have been why he wanted to go down with the ship. It might have been guilt over the betrayal.
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