132 réponses à ce sujet

[glacier1701]

- Brought one of those MAKOs onboard that we seemed to run into on missions



- Jumped into one of them and used it on some of those very same missions

[JThompson6577]

Jackal904 wrote...

I would shoot Tali out an airlock.

WHOA!

Wait until she upgrades the shields and then put her in in Zaeed's trash compactor. 

[JThompson6577]

Hyper Cutter wrote...

Safoulan wrote...
- 'Sealed the Deal' with Miranda in the SHOWER, not in Engineering!

Or at least in her office/bedroom...

You know, the reason she picked the engine room probably has something to do with those "creative uses of Mass Effect fields" mordin mentions towards the end.  I'm sure she's researched those uses.

[scxenophobe]

I would have looked up obscene amounts of alien pr0n.

[JThompson6577]

scxenophobe wrote...

I would have looked up obscene amounts of alien pr0n.

On second thought.  This is the best idea ever.  http://extranet.hota...olgirls.com!!!!

[scxenophobe]

JThompson6577 wrote...

scxenophobe wrote...

I would have looked up obscene amounts of alien pr0n.

On second thought.  This is the best idea ever.  http://extranet.hota...olgirls.com!!!!

Indeed.

[CrimsonStout]

Fornax anyone?



Also, I would have recruited the Biotic God. And that Salarian scavenger (Fargut) who you first meet on Omega.

[Splinter Cell 108]

I would have told the Illusive man to get lost. Saved Fai Dan like someone else said, I would also have destroyed Cerberus. I would join the Council directly instead of working for the Alliance and having the Council's support if that were to be possible.

[Jamelo]

CrimsonStout wrote...

Fornax anyone?

Also, I would have recruited the Biotic God. And that Salarian scavenger (Fargut) who you first meet on Omega.

HAHA  fargut definitely should of joined the crew and the mineral mini game could be him searching through trash cans and ****.

[Kaiser Shepard]

Sabotage the Rayya, possibly the Alarei as well.

[primero holodon]

Staged a coup onboard the normandy as soon as I had the majority of the crew loyal to me over cerberus then Use the ship to disrupt cerberus activities. Nothing is as satisfying as using someones own weapon against them. Also i would have spared the collector ship and hand it over to the council.

[Epantiras]

Sole survivor Shepard, Toombs, Jack and every Cerberus victim kicking TIM on the head. Period.



Shooting the turian councilor would not be bad too.



Nuke the Afterlife *with* Morinth inside it instead of following Samara's plan.



Punch Khalisa Al Jilani in the face. No, wait, my Shepard did it already.

[Nightwriter]

I would have bought a simple freaking camcorder from a corner shop and took it with me on every freaking mission, starting in ME1.

[77boy84]

Tell Tali to get the f off my ship.

[Landline]

Nightwriter wrote...

I would have bought a simple freaking camcorder from a corner shop and took it with me on every freaking mission, starting in ME1.

Council: You could have fabricated thoughs recordings!

Shepard: FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....

[Nightwriter]

Landline wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

I would have bought a simple freaking camcorder from a corner shop and took it with me on every freaking mission, starting in ME1.

Council: You could have fabricated thoughs recordings!

Shepard: FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....

*wipes tear*

Truth.

[Sharn01]

Koyasha wrote...

 I actually love pondering hypothetically what I would do given complete freedom of action, so this is gonna be a long one, since I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.  I don't imagine very many people are going to actually read this, but I'm going to write it anyway partly just to get my thoughts out.

Interestingly, while thinking about this, I've come up to one situation which I think would result in a loss for my Shepard, due to acting intelligently, back in ME1.  I'll start after Eden Prime, because there's not a lot of options there, the only change that would be particularly significant would be choosing not to help Kaidan at the beacon, which would kind of end the story before it starts.

The events on the Citadel would happen very much like they did in the game, I suspect.  I'd probably meet up with Garrus first, then go straight after Fist, kill him, and Wrex would only show up as I'm leaving.  After consideration and more thorough questioning, I'd decide to bring him along since he could be useful.  Tali and Wrex would be restricted to the crew deck on the Normandy, not allowed into sensitive areas except when necessary, and I'd run a security check on Wrex and Tali through whatever channels a Spectre has available.  Wrex probably wouldn't warrant security clearance to be allowed into sensitive areas, but it seems like the responses on Tali would be positive enough for me to let her help Adams in Engineering if he wants the help.

The first mission I undertake would be to Feros, because it sounds the most urgent out of the three given.  Benezia's daughter is a loose lead at best, and all there is at Noveria is rumors, but something has definitely happened the Feros colony and there may be survivors to rescue.  Upon arrival, once the geth in the tower are cleared out, I would likely become rather suspicious of the colonists quickly.  I would probably go down into the tunnels to check out the geth down there, and after encountering Ian, I'd come back up and demand to know what's going on, not allowing my questions to be deflected.  The sick woman would also be a point of high suspicion in that they have no doctor but are refusing offers of treatment - I would probably insist that Doctor Chakwas come forth, escorted by a couple marines, and check out the patient.  In the end, I would probably wind up triggering a confrontation between the colonists and myself before even leaving the base, causing them to attack me and forcing me to kill most of them in the ensuing fight.  However since I don't know about the Thorian, I wouldn't think to investigate under the freighter, so it's off to ExoGeni.  When I run into Jeong and Juliana, I would probably do pretty much as in the game, although I would be more suspicious of Jeong.  At ExoGeni, as soon as I learn from the computer that Lizbeth knows more about the Thorian, I'd turn around and fully question her until I'm convinced she's told me anything the computer may have missed.  Then I would climb the seven-foot drop I used to get in, radio the Normandy, and once I'm driving away, have them blow up the stationary geth ship from outside.  Jeong would be easily threatened into submission, then I'd drive on away and clear out the Thorian.  I have no need to kill Shiala, but I'd take her with me for a full debriefing.  She may know more than she's letting on, or more than she can think of to tell me in the span of a brief conversation - I want every detail of her time with Saren gone over in detail.

Next stop, Liara.  There aren't a hell of a lot of options on Therum.  I'd do what happens in-game.  All I'd say here is that I'd have Joker drop me AT the place the strange readings are coming from, not several miles away so I have to drive the mako there.

Virmire is where I suspect logical, reasonable decisions might screw everything up for me.  Since the Council contacts me and tells me about this, I prioritize it over Noveria and it's off to Virmire.  Obviously on arrival the first thing I do is contact the Salarian team by radio.  Being generous and assuming that Shepard tried that in the game and it was jammed, I'd set up some kind of signal, either through a signal enhancer, or some sort of optical signaling device that can't be jammed.  I'd have the Normandy drop me in the Mako, but order Joker not to land under any circumstances until I give the order, and to stay away from the AA towers.  The problem is that when I discover the situation, the most reasonable response would be to order Joker to relay the Salarian team's information to the Council, along with their request for a fleet.  The problem is I expect this would cause me to lose overall, because there's three major possibilities here.  Either Saren and Sovereign depart for Ilos while I'm still waiting for a fleet, or the Council sends a fleet, and Sovereign and the Geth manage to destroy much of it over Virmire, or the fleet arrives, bombards the crap out of Saren's facility from orbit, and destroys the beacon before I have a chance to use it.  I suppose the only reasonable way to get me out of this mess would be if the Council orders me to take action immediately, at which point I'd communicate with them about the Salarian team's plan to use the bomb.  Now if we assume that's what happens, I would really want to get the beacon out of there when I find it.  I'd have Joker connect me to the Council and ask for advice while I'm there, which means they would likely get my conversation with Sovereign live, as I'm having it.  Unfortunately assuming there's no way to transfer the beacon data to a portable device, there's no way I can get the beacon out of that fortified room in time, so I have to leave it to be destroyed.  Rana I take with me instead of telling her to run off on her own, and I get her aboard the Normandy ASAP.  She's studied Indoctrination, I want as much info as she can tell me.

With knowledge of a destination but nowhere to get there, I follow up on my last lead, Noveria.  Here, I simply shoot Anoleis, and pretty much anyone else that gets in my way, since they're harboring and aiding a known criminal.  At Peak 15, I go down to the hot labs as Captain Ventralis says, blow them up, come back and find him attempting to kill me, then proceed through.  I offer to help Benezia, but since she'll never be free of the indoctrination she refuses and dies.  Then I use the big can of Raid on the queen and leave.

Contacting the Council and the Ambassador with the news, I inform them I am heading directly to the Mu relay and to send any backup they can to meet me there.  I'm going to assume they don't send anything.  As for Saren and his forces, it's hard to say.  When I arrived after being delayed at the Citadel, I arrived just in time.  Without that delay, do I arrive before Saren?  While he's still searching for the entrance to the underground facility, perhaps?  Too many variables to guess at.  I'll just assume Saren got there earlier anyway, and I arrive at the same relative time the game always has you arrive at.  When I encounter Vigil, I make sure to record everything it says.  Furthermore, when I copy the program to take control of the Citadel, I also ask Vigil to make me a copy of all data that it possesses on the Reapers and on the Protheans, and anything else it thinks might be relevant, just in case it isn't functional when I return, like Liara says.  I don't need to "play Q & A with a hologram" in order to learn everything it has stored in its data banks, I can go over the data later when I have time.  Then I proceed with the saving of the galaxy.  And I save the Destiny Ascension, and I command them to help destroy Sovereign once they're all clear, making the damn ship actually useful in some manner.

Now moving into ME2, there's going to seem to be a lot more deviation because there's a lot more options in this game.  And assuming I dawdle so long while saving Joker that I don't manage to get into the escape pod with him (which, given the cinematic would have been easy, if Shepard hadn't spent so much time dawdling and watching beams cut her ship up) so that the game actually happens mostly as written, the changes would be considerably more dramatic.  Lazarus Station would go down pretty much as written, then it's off to Freedom's Progress.

I run into Tali, when my allies are two Cerberus agents.  Once Veetor is safe, I have a private conversation with her, first and foremost.  I explain to her everything I know about my situation, and I ask her about everything I can, especially what Cerberus did to the Migrant Fleet, then I ask her to give me some kind of locator beacon she can track, and to contact Anderson, the Council, and the others and ask them to wait several days for me to contact them, and if I don't it means Cerberus is probably holding me prisoner and to mount a rescue, but I'm going to go with them for the moment to get more intel, both what they know on these abductions, and more intel on Cerberus, perhaps enough to take the entire organization down.  Tali being Tali, I imagine she has or can fashion such a tracking device pretty effectively, and I know she'll be able to get in touch with Anderson at least.  I imagine she tells me the truth about her mission, too.  I tell her that if I can find a secure line away from Cerberus, I'll contact her before she leaves.

The Illusive Man gives me the Normandy 2, and more intel on what's going on and some suggestions on people to pick up, but my first stop is the Citadel, to report in to Anderson and the Council.  Now the intro sequence of ME2 mentions the Council covering up the Reaper thing in order to prevent widespread panic, basically.  I'm going to assume this is the public line, and that with all the evidence brought forth in my actions with ME1, specifically my conversation with Sovereign and Vigil's complete compendium of reaper info, they haven't buried their heads in the sand and forgotten about the Reapers.  So I show up, explain that for the moment I'm working with Cerberus in order to get what they know, as well as hopefully get enough information to take them down as a whole.  If they think this is a bad idea, I'll tell them, we can just confiscate the Normandy 2, arrest the Cerberus personnel on board, and replace them with C-Sec or Alliance military or whatever.  Either way, I want to investigate this Collector stuff.  I'll also understand and be pre-emptive - I know they can't send much of any official forces into the Terminus systems, so I won't ask, and I'll mention I understand their potential response is limited, since they clearly can't afford to waste forces fighting petty wars against the Terminus powers.  Either way, I set off with the blessing of the Council, I'm pretty sure.  I'm going to assume for the rest of this that the Council allows me to remain "friendly" with Cerberus in order to gain more intel on them, as long as I feed them any information I find relevant, obviously.  I also request that they have a tech task force sweep my ship for bugs and get rid of all the Illusive Man's monitoring devices.  EDI I believe could be a significant advantage if she's in charge of the Normandy's systems.  I unshackle her myself and treat her just like another member of the crew.  This, I realize, may be a bit of player bias seeping into my Shepard's actions, but I feel good enough about it to have her do this regardless.

Once this is done, I contact the Illusive Man.  I'm going to work with you, for now, I tell him, but I refuse to be constantly spied on, as my explanation for removing the bugs.  And if you make one wrong move, I'm out of here.  I have the full support of the Council, so don't think I need you for one moment - I'm giving you one chance and if you blow it I'm done with Cerberus forever, and I'll hunt you to the ends of the galaxy.

The next thing I do right after talking to the Council is get to Illium as soon as possible to see Liara.  With her, I don't quietly accept it when she tells me she can't talk to me on Illium.  First off I point out the absurdity of an information broker being unable to secure her own office against bugs, then I tell her that I want to talk, privately, in my quarters on the Normandy, and if she cares about me at all anymore, I don't take no for an answer.  Assuming she does, I figure we work things out pretty well between us.  I'll accept that she still wants to go after the Shadow Broker and all, and she can count on me for any support she needs with that.  At the same time, I want to count on her for as much information as possible, and I want her to keep on the lookout for anything involving the collectors, or Cerberus.

On my way to Illium, I've probably contacted Tali on the most secure line I can get.  I ask her to let me take her to Haestrom in the Normandy 2, since it's a stealth ship, and it's probably better equipped to handle trouble than whatever ship she was going to go in is.  I figure I can convince her that the odds of success on her mission go up if she lets me transport her in the Normandy, so her mission on Haestrom is next, and it goes pretty smoothly, I imagine.  The geth may not even show up, since they can't detect the stealthed Normandy.  We get out of there with no casualties, and Tali joins up with me.

Personal **** settled, I'm off to collect Mordin.  Most of the 'gather people' missions are pretty straightforward, so I don't really need to elaborate on them much.  By the time I pick up Jack, I've already upgraded the Normandy's guns at Garrus's recommendation, as well as the armor at Jacob's.  So as I'm leaving the prison ship, I blow the crap out of it to minimize the number of survivors, whether mercs OR prisoners.  I wear my armor when I go open Grunt's tank.  Helmet too, just in case EDI needs to vent the hold.

I get the update from TIM about Horizon, I question him on Ash's presence there, and say to alert the Alliance.  Regardless of what he says, as soon as I'm off the phone with him I call Anderson and Hackett and tell them everything I know so far.  Off to Horizon.  After defeating the Collectors, I have a long private talk with Ash, whereupon if she finds working with Cerberus to be a problem, I point out that I'm still a Spectre and still working for the Council and part of my mission is going to be to take down Cerberus when I have enough information.  I take her with me, and I ask Anderson to reassign her to my command again.  I see no reason why he doesn't do so.

I gather some more crew, do some more loyalty missions, then the Collector ship intel comes in, either from the Turians or from TIM, most likely both.  I'm going to assume TIM is smart enough to know that I will check with the Council and the Turians themselves on this, and therefore will discover it's a trap even if he doesn't tell me, so he tells me.  I tell the Council to send aid to the damaged Turian vessel ASAP, and explain what I'm planning.  As soon as I get on the scene, I blast the Collector ship's engines and weapons with the Normandy.  By now I've upgraded the weapons, so they should have no problem destroying the Collector vessel's engines and weapons especially with its shields down since it thinks I'm walking into a trap.  With that done, the Turian fleet arrives to support their carrier and me, and we board the Collector vessel and completely secure it.  Salvage teams arrive and begin picking the vessel apart for data.

Things start to get into more speculation after that, since that's a pretty big deviation from the story.  At this point I gather up the rest of the team I think I'll need in order to take on the Collectors.  The Council still can't send a fleet, even if we have the reaper IFF, so it's still up to me to go through the Omega-4 Relay and figure out what the deal is.  The Illusive Man probably never tells me about the derelict reaper, so I don't meet Legion there.  However Legion is supposedly interested in me personally, so maybe I meet it elsewhere?  Pure speculation, although I know Legion was originally intended to be recruited in an entirely separate mission, so the concept isn't particularly off the wall.  If I do run into Legion and recruit him, I imagine he tells me about the derelict reaper (he found it somehow after all, so he must know about it) and I tell the Council and have them send a science team.  Since it's in the Attican Traverse, they have no problem getting there.  They know as much about indoctrination as anyone, since I brought Rana back with me from Virmire, so I would have submitted full reports on it to the Council - hopefully the science team would be able to use that data to recognize what's going on and get the hell out as soon as they started noticing the effects.

The assault on the collector base is pretty uneventful, all things considered - with the Collector ship already having been captured, there's no defense besides the Oculus, and it doesn't disable the Normandy, so I come in easily, land in a convenient location and fight my way through the base, picking the right people for the right jobs, so no one dies.  The base I keep, and I arrange a joint-species task force to come study the damn thing.

Cerberus I don't have enough information to hunt down and destroy, nor enough motivation - TIM played it straight enough that I'm not super-pissed at him.  He kept some secrets, but that's to be expected.  He told me about the trap - even if only because he knew I would find out anyway.

And that's it.  My general 'what would you do if not restricted' playthrough so far.  I doubt anyone will read the whole thing, but I had fun writing it regardless.  I've made some leaps of logic from time to time, perhaps, but overall I think I kept the concept and motivations of all the characters intact throughout both games.

I read it all. its very similer to my own line of thinking.

[-D-C-D-]

Koyasha wrote...

 I actually love pondering hypothetically what I would do given complete freedom of action, so this is gonna be a long one, since I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.  I don't imagine very many people are going to actually read this, but I'm going to write it anyway partly just to get my thoughts out.

Interestingly, while thinking about this, I've come up to one situation which I think would result in a loss for my Shepard, due to acting intelligently, back in ME1.  I'll start after Eden Prime, because there's not a lot of options there, the only change that would be particularly significant would be choosing not to help Kaidan at the beacon, which would kind of end the story before it starts.

The events on the Citadel would happen very much like they did in the game, I suspect.  I'd probably meet up with Garrus first, then go straight after Fist, kill him, and Wrex would only show up as I'm leaving.  After consideration and more thorough questioning, I'd decide to bring him along since he could be useful.  Tali and Wrex would be restricted to the crew deck on the Normandy, not allowed into sensitive areas except when necessary, and I'd run a security check on Wrex and Tali through whatever channels a Spectre has available.  Wrex probably wouldn't warrant security clearance to be allowed into sensitive areas, but it seems like the responses on Tali would be positive enough for me to let her help Adams in Engineering if he wants the help.

The first mission I undertake would be to Feros, because it sounds the most urgent out of the three given.  Benezia's daughter is a loose lead at best, and all there is at Noveria is rumors, but something has definitely happened the Feros colony and there may be survivors to rescue.  Upon arrival, once the geth in the tower are cleared out, I would likely become rather suspicious of the colonists quickly.  I would probably go down into the tunnels to check out the geth down there, and after encountering Ian, I'd come back up and demand to know what's going on, not allowing my questions to be deflected.  The sick woman would also be a point of high suspicion in that they have no doctor but are refusing offers of treatment - I would probably insist that Doctor Chakwas come forth, escorted by a couple marines, and check out the patient.  In the end, I would probably wind up triggering a confrontation between the colonists and myself before even leaving the base, causing them to attack me and forcing me to kill most of them in the ensuing fight.  However since I don't know about the Thorian, I wouldn't think to investigate under the freighter, so it's off to ExoGeni.  When I run into Jeong and Juliana, I would probably do pretty much as in the game, although I would be more suspicious of Jeong.  At ExoGeni, as soon as I learn from the computer that Lizbeth knows more about the Thorian, I'd turn around and fully question her until I'm convinced she's told me anything the computer may have missed.  Then I would climb the seven-foot drop I used to get in, radio the Normandy, and once I'm driving away, have them blow up the stationary geth ship from outside.  Jeong would be easily threatened into submission, then I'd drive on away and clear out the Thorian.  I have no need to kill Shiala, but I'd take her with me for a full debriefing.  She may know more than she's letting on, or more than she can think of to tell me in the span of a brief conversation - I want every detail of her time with Saren gone over in detail.

Next stop, Liara.  There aren't a hell of a lot of options on Therum.  I'd do what happens in-game.  All I'd say here is that I'd have Joker drop me AT the place the strange readings are coming from, not several miles away so I have to drive the mako there.

Virmire is where I suspect logical, reasonable decisions might screw everything up for me.  Since the Council contacts me and tells me about this, I prioritize it over Noveria and it's off to Virmire.  Obviously on arrival the first thing I do is contact the Salarian team by radio.  Being generous and assuming that Shepard tried that in the game and it was jammed, I'd set up some kind of signal, either through a signal enhancer, or some sort of optical signaling device that can't be jammed.  I'd have the Normandy drop me in the Mako, but order Joker not to land under any circumstances until I give the order, and to stay away from the AA towers.  The problem is that when I discover the situation, the most reasonable response would be to order Joker to relay the Salarian team's information to the Council, along with their request for a fleet.  The problem is I expect this would cause me to lose overall, because there's three major possibilities here.  Either Saren and Sovereign depart for Ilos while I'm still waiting for a fleet, or the Council sends a fleet, and Sovereign and the Geth manage to destroy much of it over Virmire, or the fleet arrives, bombards the crap out of Saren's facility from orbit, and destroys the beacon before I have a chance to use it.  I suppose the only reasonable way to get me out of this mess would be if the Council orders me to take action immediately, at which point I'd communicate with them about the Salarian team's plan to use the bomb.  Now if we assume that's what happens, I would really want to get the beacon out of there when I find it.  I'd have Joker connect me to the Council and ask for advice while I'm there, which means they would likely get my conversation with Sovereign live, as I'm having it.  Unfortunately assuming there's no way to transfer the beacon data to a portable device, there's no way I can get the beacon out of that fortified room in time, so I have to leave it to be destroyed.  Rana I take with me instead of telling her to run off on her own, and I get her aboard the Normandy ASAP.  She's studied Indoctrination, I want as much info as she can tell me.

With knowledge of a destination but nowhere to get there, I follow up on my last lead, Noveria.  Here, I simply shoot Anoleis, and pretty much anyone else that gets in my way, since they're harboring and aiding a known criminal.  At Peak 15, I go down to the hot labs as Captain Ventralis says, blow them up, come back and find him attempting to kill me, then proceed through.  I offer to help Benezia, but since she'll never be free of the indoctrination she refuses and dies.  Then I use the big can of Raid on the queen and leave.

Contacting the Council and the Ambassador with the news, I inform them I am heading directly to the Mu relay and to send any backup they can to meet me there.  I'm going to assume they don't send anything.  As for Saren and his forces, it's hard to say.  When I arrived after being delayed at the Citadel, I arrived just in time.  Without that delay, do I arrive before Saren?  While he's still searching for the entrance to the underground facility, perhaps?  Too many variables to guess at.  I'll just assume Saren got there earlier anyway, and I arrive at the same relative time the game always has you arrive at.  When I encounter Vigil, I make sure to record everything it says.  Furthermore, when I copy the program to take control of the Citadel, I also ask Vigil to make me a copy of all data that it possesses on the Reapers and on the Protheans, and anything else it thinks might be relevant, just in case it isn't functional when I return, like Liara says.  I don't need to "play Q & A with a hologram" in order to learn everything it has stored in its data banks, I can go over the data later when I have time.  Then I proceed with the saving of the galaxy.  And I save the Destiny Ascension, and I command them to help destroy Sovereign once they're all clear, making the damn ship actually useful in some manner.

Now moving into ME2, there's going to seem to be a lot more deviation because there's a lot more options in this game.  And assuming I dawdle so long while saving Joker that I don't manage to get into the escape pod with him (which, given the cinematic would have been easy, if Shepard hadn't spent so much time dawdling and watching beams cut her ship up) so that the game actually happens mostly as written, the changes would be considerably more dramatic.  Lazarus Station would go down pretty much as written, then it's off to Freedom's Progress.

I run into Tali, when my allies are two Cerberus agents.  Once Veetor is safe, I have a private conversation with her, first and foremost.  I explain to her everything I know about my situation, and I ask her about everything I can, especially what Cerberus did to the Migrant Fleet, then I ask her to give me some kind of locator beacon she can track, and to contact Anderson, the Council, and the others and ask them to wait several days for me to contact them, and if I don't it means Cerberus is probably holding me prisoner and to mount a rescue, but I'm going to go with them for the moment to get more intel, both what they know on these abductions, and more intel on Cerberus, perhaps enough to take the entire organization down.  Tali being Tali, I imagine she has or can fashion such a tracking device pretty effectively, and I know she'll be able to get in touch with Anderson at least.  I imagine she tells me the truth about her mission, too.  I tell her that if I can find a secure line away from Cerberus, I'll contact her before she leaves.

The Illusive Man gives me the Normandy 2, and more intel on what's going on and some suggestions on people to pick up, but my first stop is the Citadel, to report in to Anderson and the Council.  Now the intro sequence of ME2 mentions the Council covering up the Reaper thing in order to prevent widespread panic, basically.  I'm going to assume this is the public line, and that with all the evidence brought forth in my actions with ME1, specifically my conversation with Sovereign and Vigil's complete compendium of reaper info, they haven't buried their heads in the sand and forgotten about the Reapers.  So I show up, explain that for the moment I'm working with Cerberus in order to get what they know, as well as hopefully get enough information to take them down as a whole.  If they think this is a bad idea, I'll tell them, we can just confiscate the Normandy 2, arrest the Cerberus personnel on board, and replace them with C-Sec or Alliance military or whatever.  Either way, I want to investigate this Collector stuff.  I'll also understand and be pre-emptive - I know they can't send much of any official forces into the Terminus systems, so I won't ask, and I'll mention I understand their potential response is limited, since they clearly can't afford to waste forces fighting petty wars against the Terminus powers.  Either way, I set off with the blessing of the Council, I'm pretty sure.  I'm going to assume for the rest of this that the Council allows me to remain "friendly" with Cerberus in order to gain more intel on them, as long as I feed them any information I find relevant, obviously.  I also request that they have a tech task force sweep my ship for bugs and get rid of all the Illusive Man's monitoring devices.  EDI I believe could be a significant advantage if she's in charge of the Normandy's systems.  I unshackle her myself and treat her just like another member of the crew.  This, I realize, may be a bit of player bias seeping into my Shepard's actions, but I feel good enough about it to have her do this regardless.

Once this is done, I contact the Illusive Man.  I'm going to work with you, for now, I tell him, but I refuse to be constantly spied on, as my explanation for removing the bugs.  And if you make one wrong move, I'm out of here.  I have the full support of the Council, so don't think I need you for one moment - I'm giving you one chance and if you blow it I'm done with Cerberus forever, and I'll hunt you to the ends of the galaxy.

The next thing I do right after talking to the Council is get to Illium as soon as possible to see Liara.  With her, I don't quietly accept it when she tells me she can't talk to me on Illium.  First off I point out the absurdity of an information broker being unable to secure her own office against bugs, then I tell her that I want to talk, privately, in my quarters on the Normandy, and if she cares about me at all anymore, I don't take no for an answer.  Assuming she does, I figure we work things out pretty well between us.  I'll accept that she still wants to go after the Shadow Broker and all, and she can count on me for any support she needs with that.  At the same time, I want to count on her for as much information as possible, and I want her to keep on the lookout for anything involving the collectors, or Cerberus.

On my way to Illium, I've probably contacted Tali on the most secure line I can get.  I ask her to let me take her to Haestrom in the Normandy 2, since it's a stealth ship, and it's probably better equipped to handle trouble than whatever ship she was going to go in is.  I figure I can convince her that the odds of success on her mission go up if she lets me transport her in the Normandy, so her mission on Haestrom is next, and it goes pretty smoothly, I imagine.  The geth may not even show up, since they can't detect the stealthed Normandy.  We get out of there with no casualties, and Tali joins up with me.

Personal **** settled, I'm off to collect Mordin.  Most of the 'gather people' missions are pretty straightforward, so I don't really need to elaborate on them much.  By the time I pick up Jack, I've already upgraded the Normandy's guns at Garrus's recommendation, as well as the armor at Jacob's.  So as I'm leaving the prison ship, I blow the crap out of it to minimize the number of survivors, whether mercs OR prisoners.  I wear my armor when I go open Grunt's tank.  Helmet too, just in case EDI needs to vent the hold.

I get the update from TIM about Horizon, I question him on Ash's presence there, and say to alert the Alliance.  Regardless of what he says, as soon as I'm off the phone with him I call Anderson and Hackett and tell them everything I know so far.  Off to Horizon.  After defeating the Collectors, I have a long private talk with Ash, whereupon if she finds working with Cerberus to be a problem, I point out that I'm still a Spectre and still working for the Council and part of my mission is going to be to take down Cerberus when I have enough information.  I take her with me, and I ask Anderson to reassign her to my command again.  I see no reason why he doesn't do so.

I gather some more crew, do some more loyalty missions, then the Collector ship intel comes in, either from the Turians or from TIM, most likely both.  I'm going to assume TIM is smart enough to know that I will check with the Council and the Turians themselves on this, and therefore will discover it's a trap even if he doesn't tell me, so he tells me.  I tell the Council to send aid to the damaged Turian vessel ASAP, and explain what I'm planning.  As soon as I get on the scene, I blast the Collector ship's engines and weapons with the Normandy.  By now I've upgraded the weapons, so they should have no problem destroying the Collector vessel's engines and weapons especially with its shields down since it thinks I'm walking into a trap.  With that done, the Turian fleet arrives to support their carrier and me, and we board the Collector vessel and completely secure it.  Salvage teams arrive and begin picking the vessel apart for data.

Things start to get into more speculation after that, since that's a pretty big deviation from the story.  At this point I gather up the rest of the team I think I'll need in order to take on the Collectors.  The Council still can't send a fleet, even if we have the reaper IFF, so it's still up to me to go through the Omega-4 Relay and figure out what the deal is.  The Illusive Man probably never tells me about the derelict reaper, so I don't meet Legion there.  However Legion is supposedly interested in me personally, so maybe I meet it elsewhere?  Pure speculation, although I know Legion was originally intended to be recruited in an entirely separate mission, so the concept isn't particularly off the wall.  If I do run into Legion and recruit him, I imagine he tells me about the derelict reaper (he found it somehow after all, so he must know about it) and I tell the Council and have them send a science team.  Since it's in the Attican Traverse, they have no problem getting there.  They know as much about indoctrination as anyone, since I brought Rana back with me from Virmire, so I would have submitted full reports on it to the Council - hopefully the science team would be able to use that data to recognize what's going on and get the hell out as soon as they started noticing the effects.

The assault on the collector base is pretty uneventful, all things considered - with the Collector ship already having been captured, there's no defense besides the Oculus, and it doesn't disable the Normandy, so I come in easily, land in a convenient location and fight my way through the base, picking the right people for the right jobs, so no one dies.  The base I keep, and I arrange a joint-species task force to come study the damn thing.

Cerberus I don't have enough information to hunt down and destroy, nor enough motivation - TIM played it straight enough that I'm not super-pissed at him.  He kept some secrets, but that's to be expected.  He told me about the trap - even if only because he knew I would find out anyway.

And that's it.  My general 'what would you do if not restricted' playthrough so far.  I doubt anyone will read the whole thing, but I had fun writing it regardless.  I've made some leaps of logic from time to time, perhaps, but overall I think I kept the concept and motivations of all the characters intact throughout both games.

I enjoyed this, however there were 2 points which I thought you miight have missed a bit of info on;

The Geth ship on Feros actually prevented all outgoing transmissions, so it would've been kinda impossible to radio the Normandy from the Exogeni bulding. You could've driven back and told Joker personally, though. Not sure Id've risked the one and only true stealth ship in council space, though. I don't know how the Normandy would fare vs a Geth ship. Maybe it would've been easy, but I dunno about risking it.

With regards to the Collector ship ambush...there was no Turian cruiser. At all. It was all a hoax report sent out by the Collectors to lure Shep. So no need to support the Turian cruiser. There wasn't one. Ha.

Otherwise me gusta mucho

[Vaenier]

I would bring the Rachni Queen with me instead of leaving her to fend for herself on that barren chunk of ice.

I would turn the Cerberus base into my clubhouse.

I would tattoo "Belongs to Shepard" on the asses of the Council.

I would kill TIM and take over his organization.

I would say **** it and join the Reapers.

[Gavinthelocust]

Use biotics in cutscenes

Female Turians

Beat the **** out of the illusive man

[ModerateOsprey]

Delegated planet scanning to EDI

[DragonShepard138]

I would tell Udina and Anderson that I'm in control now (after defeating Saren and Sovereign) and I'm going to be the head of the council and need complete cooperation from the two of them. For Mass Effect 2, the very minute that I found out that TIM sent me on a mission that may be a suicide mission (first encounter with collector base where we get ambushed) I would tell TIM that I would kill him. I would find his location and tell Jack that this was the man who influenced the guards who "ruined" her childhood; in a fit of rage, Jack would kill TIM and I would rid myself of the problem.

[Nightwriter]

Honestly... I would have said NO WAY to Cerberus at first. I wouldn't be following TIM's instructions a half hour after I woke up on a strange station in dangerous hands. I would've struck out on my own first chance to find my real allies. Shepard agreed to work with Cerberus so easily, it was dismaying.

When I first woke up on Lazarus Station, I realized I was currently in Cerberus hands, and that this had to change. My first thought was okay, I don't know what's going on, I need to get off the station, find my bearings, survive the attack.

But after I had, and I was off the station, my thoughts were that it was now time to leave and find my old allies. I did not want to be on a Cerberus station. Now that I was off it I could really get back on track.

I would have stayed to have that first talk with TIM, just because it was important to know what he wanted from me, but I would NOT have agreed to work with him after just one short conversation or go to Freedom's Progress right away, right then, just on his say so. It all came in such a rush - suddenly he's saying I'm TIM, I head Cerberus, there have been a bunch of colony attacks you've never heard of, I resurrected you, go to this place.

Are you kidding? No way. Not without FIRST going to the Alliance or to the Council. I would've left Cerberus right there and headed straight for the Citadel; that Shepard did not do this was frustrating.

Once I'd met up with Anderson and the Council I would've said, "I just woke up on a Cerberus station. I don't know what's going on, but I just managed to get away and came straight here. Here's what TIM said - is it true?"

Then, IF the Council refused to help me, and proved to be the same dicks they were anyway, I might have gone back to Cerberus, and it would've been so much more believable to me. It really frustrated me that the whole reason the Council had for turning their backs on me was that I was with Cerberus, something that I could not even decide. I was given no chance to come to the Council first. I would never have agreed to work with TIM.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 26 mars 2010 - 01:57 .

[Darth Drago]

-Ask EDI if putting the Geth in the ships computer core room is really a intelligent idea.

-Demand to EDI that I have access to all of the locked rooms on the Normandy 2 as well as program the lift to go to the vehicle/cargo deck.

-Tell The Illusive Man to just give me all the recruiting dossiers all at once.

-When we are told to go for that fateful shuttle ride say “You know, I’m feeling a little sick lets just do this mission later guys.”

[Marilynn-22]

tennyochan wrote...

"TALK TO ME GARRUS!" *shakes turian*

This XD

Also hit on TIM...