Today in the 'verse...
... was not one of the galactic savior's better days. In all my playthroughs, I have never before sided with the geth when resolving things on Rannoch. 99% of the time I've yelled at the quarians until they stopped firing at the geth fleet, giving Legion time to upload the reaper code to all the other geth, and so free them from reaper control, or anyone else's for that matter, and ultimately bring peace to the centuries-old conflict. The other 1% of the time, I sent those synthetic b******s back to the hell from which they spawned... err, opted to give the quarians a do-over on their past "mistake" of forcing their creation to fight for its survival.
Today though, I decided to add a genocide of a different sort to my ever-growing list of different sorts of genocide. I opted to let the stubborn quarians continue to fight a war they couldn't possibly survive and watch my ex-girlfriend swan-dive off a cliff in despair. And she apologized for doing it. The hell is wrong with these quarians?
Truth is, I love the quarian people. Ever since being introduced to them in ME1, I've loved the concept of them as a race; their history, their passion, their togetherness -- everything done for the good of the fleet, their enviro-suits, their frailty, their voices (but not their singing voices), I love their "bosh-tets" and their "keelah se'lais". I love Tali, and Reegar, and Raan, and Xen, and Veetor, and Dorn, and Dorn's wife, and Jona, whom I've never met (yet), and that accused thief on the Citadel, and Kenn on Omega, and that one we saved from the Varren, and that one I helped to get a job with Synthetic Insights, and even Gerrel and Koris. They're a fascinating people to me, and so it was tough to just arbitrarily let them all die. I say arbitrarily because my behavior in the game up to this point suggested that would be the last thing I'd do. I can't help but feel that, if that had to be the way going forward, then the MEU would be less than it was for having lost them.
The reactions of the crew afterwards only made it worse... except Ash's which was kinda funny in the end:
First: shep and Hackett over the vidcomm. Hackett actually cut shep off in mid-sentence, which was just... "whoa!"
Hackett: Years ago, if you'd have told me we'd be fighting alongside the geth one day, I would have resigned on the spot. I've lost friends to the geth. No way I could share a foxhole with 'em.
shep: I understand the concerns, sir. I-
Hackett: But now we have a common enemy in the reapers, so I'm willing to set aside my reservations and go along with this. Truth is, the geth armada packs a hell of a punch.
Then Joker and EDI on the bridge:
Joker: I had to turn off the radio. Every channel was distress calls. And then static.
EDI: Jeff, if you need to express your anger regarding the situation at me, I will understand.
Joker: No, dammit. I just... Why the hell did they keep shooting? All they had to do was stop!
shep: The quarians have been unreliable from the start.
Joker: Even Tali?.... Sorry.
shep: I wish it had come down differently, but the geth deserve a chance.
EDI: Thank you, commander. I doubt many organics would have trusted a synthetic race.
Joker: I hope they've got a damn good fleet.
EDI: The geth are significantly stronger as a result of Legion's actions. Before it sacrificed itself, Legion referred to itself as 'I' instead of 'we'.
Joker: Yeah, so?
EDI: The singular pronoun indicates Legion's independent personality had fully actualized. In its last moments, it was not an avatar of the geth consensus. It was a person.
shep: That's what I figured.
Joker: So he realized he was a person just in time to die. I guess nobody got out of this one happy.
Stopped to check my e-mails next, and got this, which was kinda cool:
Status_Update_391.2F
From: Invalid Extranet Domain
Shepard-Commander- Our work on Rannoch continues- Repairs to ships and installations damaged by the creator fleet will be complete within ten days- Our existing ships are already attacking Old Machine forces. This has created a second flank to divert attention from turian and asari forces- Geth units specializing in technical construction have been deployed to the Crucible project- All geth intelligences not dealing with ship repair or deployment are performing technical analysis to improve the yield and efficiency of the Crucible- Calculations are being performed remotely and sent to the Crucible project via secure encryption to avoid causing tension with other species- We will prove that organics and synthetics can work together toward mutually beneficial goals- Your trust will make it possible.
Then Vega down in the shuttle bay, which wasn't so bad actually, but it was an interesting viewpoint:
Vega: I can't believe the geth are fighting on our side now. The devil you know... Looks like we just need to get the asari on board and we can finally focus on the reapers. But I don't suppose it'll be as easy as all that.
shep: Nothing ever is.
Vega: One step at a time, I guess. The geth machines took over the quarians' homeworld and never gave it back. Let's hope it goes better for us against the reapers.
Then Javik in the port cargo bay. Not an actual conversation, but two clicks of the mouse. I think I'm lucky he didn't shove my head into the tub of water and hold me there until the bubbles stopped.
Javik: Another reaper has died. You are proving that humans are capable soldiers, but I think you made a grave mistake allying with the synthetics. As this war has proven, they can't co-exist with organics. I would have destroyed them when given the chance.
Javik: Do not mourn the Tali-quarian. Mourn the fact that she died and the machines still live. That is the tragedy.
Then Garrus in the forward gun battery.
Garrus: I know you had your reasons for choosing the geth, Shepard, and I'll respect them. But Tali's choice, that'll be harder to get over. She was a good friend. I never did see her face, but I always imagine there was... what do humans call it? An angel... behind that mask, and now I hope she's resting with them.
Then Liara in her shadow-broker-hidey-hole:
Liara: An entire race... gone. I still can't believe it.
Glyph: I could order salvage teams to recover information from the crashed quarian ships, doctor T'Soni.
Liara: No. Not now. Let them rest. Let Tali rest. She deserves that much.
Liara: I'm so sorry about Tali, Shepard.
Finally, Ash, in the Observatory. Again, no conversation, but three separate mouse-clicks. After all that guilt beatdown I just went through on this whole mission, I just had to smile at the end of this:
First mouse-click: Ash is choking back tears, barely keeping it together, with lots of heartfelt sighs: Can't believe Tali's gone. I know you did what you thought you had to do, but... I don't... Tali was like a little sister, you know? I... I think I need some time. I'll be fine.
Second mouse-click: Now she's angry, like spitting-nails-angry: Just keep the geth away from me, all right?
Third mouse-click: Now she's a it's-a-brand-new-day kinda cheerful when she greets me with a hearty "Commander!"
She must have spent some time meditating on Sur'Kesh while shep was dead on a table at Lazarus Station or something; in the space of about fifteen seconds, she's processed all her emotions, just like a salarian. Thank you, Ash. This is why I love you. But if you start licking your eyeballs, we're done.
Next up: Back to the Citadel to meet with the asari councilor about Thessia. I know I've got a confrontation with Wrex coming up, too. *sigh* This playthrough is becoming more depressing than that import save I DL'ed, where everyone but Zaeed and Kasumi died on the suicide mission.
EDIT: Forgot to add the bright spot to the whole mission:
Retour en haut
. And we get to fight a lot of reapers in part two and crawl around some prefabs on the side of a cliff, and hear one of my favorite lines in the whole trilogy -- I dunno the scientific measurement of a sh*tload, but that seemed like a sh*tload of Harvesters. Was even funnier cuz Vega stayed on the Normandy this time, heh. Nevermind being king of the bottle-shooters; with that Javelin, Garrus is king of the ventilating-of-the-reapers. 
Avenger and Predator, Combat Drone, Sabotage only used on synthetics and Inferno Grenade for bosses and tough situations - my last playstyle 
