Mass Effect 2 *spoilers around pg 29/30*

[Sjofn]

I can't play a game without at least skimming a walkthrough, just so I know about stuff like the crew death/who does what in the suicide mission.

Is it just me, or can you not hit a hotkey to go straight to journal/codex/squad in ME2?

No, you can't, and it drives me fucking crazy. I even looked in the keybind part to make sure I wasn't an idiot, and I couldn't find anything. :((((((((((((

[Shrike]

I don't recall all the details; been awhile since I"ve played ME1. I recall Vigil stating the reapers used the conduit to bypass most of the Protheans' defenses and surprise them at the citadel. Once they had control there and had decapitated the Prothean government and C^2, they were able to defeat the Protheans in detail. Although, you could slow them down even more if you blew the relays, but they weren't exactly in a hurry at this point. The conquest still took a century or thereabouts.

[Tebonas]

It makes it way easier that the relevant governments were at the same place in each harvesting cycle, a place the Reapers knew without having to scout it out and had a backdoor to.

I suspect in the end the only difference it made was time needed for conquest and amount of harvested material vs material lost in fights, though.

[UnSub]

Relays allow for near instantaneous travel between some very long distances. When the Reapers hit the Citadel they download all the information about the civilisation and use that to plan the best path of attack. (The reason that Vigil's planet survived is that it wasn't included in the records on the Citadel.)

Relays also shape where the target civilisations end up going, because they don't want to pick a galaxy too far away from a relay. So while not every civilisation will colonise exactly the same places (which can be seen in the issue that the destination point of some relays is unknown) it is safe to say that if the Reapers have the map of the relay layout, the data taken from the Citadel and access to fast travel through the relays, their targets are at a massive disadvantage.

So, if you blow up the relays, the Reapers might know where your civilisation is, but it might take them a few hundred / thousand years to arrive via normal travel. And that would be one system, not all of them. It's not perfect - lots of isolated worlds, communication maybe only possible through quantum communicators - but it would appear to be better than rapid and merciless destruction.

But it destroys the ME universe, which is centred around the relays (or requires BioWare to magic up a new transporter technology to replace the relays but stop the Reapers).

[Sir T]

Vigil mentioned the Prothean conquest took about a century or so. With this in mind, cutting yourself off from the relays would be A Bad Idea.

The Reapers hit the Citadel with the element of surprise though in order to take out that command structure. They needed the relays to do that. Destroy the relays and the Reapers have to physically travel the distance required to destroy / enslave sentient life. They might have the time to do that, but it screws up their plans quite a bit.

I don't recall all the details; been awhile since I"ve played ME1. I recall Vigil stating the reapers used the conduit to bypass most of the Protheans' defenses and surprise them at the citadel. Once they had control there and had decapitated the Prothean government and C^2, they were able to defeat the Protheans in detail. Although, you could slow them down even more if you blew the relays, but they weren't exactly in a hurry at this point. The conquest still took a century or thereabouts.

Since I Played Me1 only a few months ago my memory on this is pretty fresh. Basically what vigil said is that the citadel itself was a gigantic trap. Its actually a huge mass relay, which allows the Reapers to materialist inside the citadel itself,and cut it off. Since its on the face of it such a good location its nearly always the center of government for the galactic races, so cutting it off sends the organics reeling. Then they turn off the mass relays to isolate the pockets of resistance and then gobble up the planets one by one. They still have control of which relays to turn on so they can move around easily.

Vigil said it took centuries for the Reapers to cleanse the galaxy the last time, not just a century. And they kept people around as indoctrinated slaves during that time for reasons that are unclear

The conduit was the results of Prothean experiments to figure out mass relay tech. They had it pretty much cracked by the time the reapers came, but the only relay they managed to build was the conduit. So they used it to sneak onboard the Citadel and reprogram the Keepers so they would not turn on the Citadel super mass relay when the Reapers signaled them to do so, leaving the main reaper force stranded. Sovereign needed the Geth to help break through to the citadel so it could try and assume direct control if it in order to open the door to the Reaper main forces. It was a very powerful ship but not powerful enough to fight an entire defense fleet by itself.

Its not stated why Saren needed the conduit, but i assume its because Sovereign needed someone inside the citadel to stop it closing so it would have a chance to get in

[Merusk]

It is. Second fire team has to have Miranda , Garrus, or Jacob running the show. Anything else puts the tunnel rat in peril. Also, the tunnel infiltration requires a tech, and that's either Tali or Legion. No one else (yeah, that means no Kasumi).

I'm pretty sure I had Garrus, Miranda and Jacob as leads of the 2nd team through my various attempts (I even did Tali just to see what happens.. she gets killed instead of the tunnel rat.)   It's possible I just had some freaky bug, there were a few of those in my game.. like one level where all the enemies just up and disappeared mid fight.

[Mosesandstick]

Could be your upgrades then I think?

[Sky]

Reading through the bit about who dies at the end...I have zero recollection of who I sent where, who lived or who died.

[Morat20]

Its not stated why Saren needed the conduit, but i assume its because Sovereign needed someone inside the citadel to stop it closing so it would have a chance to get in

Pretty much that. They'd close it too quickly, and while Saren's all bad-ass Spectre, he's not really capable of fighting his way to the center and holding it long enough to program. They needed the Reaper inside and to close the arms around it, to keep it safe while it fixed whatever the Protheans did and to re-active the Citidel as a relay.

Part of it was that the Reapers and Saren didn't KNOW what the Protheans had done, only that their "Activate the Citadel as a Relay" code didn't work. They wanted to get inside in force to take over command, let the Reaper in and then close the door to have time to work.

[Spiff]

Saren had to get in to close the arms, not hold them open (no one else even knew it could close; which is why it's a bit of a surprise the master switch is the place where the council holds their public meeting type things).
Exactly why is never really explained, but it would seem that Sovereign becomes vulnerable when interfacing with the citadel (or maybe he just couldn't take the fleet on anyway).

The reason for all this is that the Proteans disabled the signal the citadel sends to activate the keepers (that was the whole reason they had to build the conduit in the first place: to sneak on to the citadel to mess with the programming; although they supposedly waited 'till the reapers retreated to dark-space already so that doesn't make sense 100%. Also: how did they get the mini-relay/monument onto the citadel? And why didn't the keepers just recycle that thing?).
Normally the keepers activate the citadel to do it's mega-mass relay thing and call forth the reapers, Sovereign has to get in to do that now (or reset the keepers perhaps, he doesn't go into the details  ), Vigil does a whole speech explaining it if you probe him enough.

That's why I always wondered: Why is Sovereign there in the first place? Why isn't he stuck in dark space with his reaper buddies?

P.S.: I'm just working my way through a back-to-back ME1, ME2 play through btw (not that I've got encyclopaedic knowledge of the whole thing  ). I'm surprised how well ME1 held up even compared to ME2, few things I like more about it even.

[NowhereMan]

I think they mention that the Reapers generally hang in Dark Space but they leave one or two behind to monitor organic life and wait until it's evolved enough to harvest but before they start to get too inquisitive about all this neat stuff they've found. Of course that concept raises questions like "What the hell has Sovereign been doing for the last few billion years?" or why do the other Reapers need to hibernate in Dark Space?

[Sir T]

Saren had to get in to close the arms, not hold them open (no one else even knew it could close; which is why it's a bit of a surprise the master switch is the place where the council holds their public meeting type things).
Exactly why is never really explained, but it would seem that Sovereign becomes vulnerable when interfacing with the citadel (or maybe he just couldn't take the fleet on anyway).

Actually everyone knew it could close. Its stated in its description in the encyclopedia, and when the big attack happens you see the Elerians yelling "Close the citadel!" "The citadel isn't responding to commands!"

As for why Sovereign wanted it shut, its fairly simple. It would be stuck in place once it was hooked up to the citadel and could not move. Unable to move = dead in space combat. Any dreads in the area could bombard it to death. Its shields were up once hooked up and you saw it firing its weapons at the human fleet that was firing on it, so its systems were very active.

<--- nitpick nerd with near photographic memory 

[Spiff]

Actually everyone knew it could close. Its stated in its description in the encyclopedia, and when the big attack happens you see the Elerians yelling "Close the citadel!" "The citadel isn't responding to commands!"

My bad  , the photographs that make my memory mostly look like the lens was covered in Vaseline.

Just finished ME2 again as well and the human'ish reaper baby still bugged the f*** out of me; I understand they needed some way to work the whole "harvesting organics for bio-mass" thing in, but huge super-being starships are basically a facsimile of sentient land animals? 

Loved the Collectors being re-purposed Proteans and the whole suicide mission worked excellently for me up to that point (even managed to get Jacob killed this time  ), but for the love of christ don't let ME3 see the universe infested with bipedal reapers  .

[Sjofn]

In my head, the goofy human thing gets put inside a Reaper Ship and we never have to think about it again.

[cironian]

In my head, the goofy human thing gets put inside a Reaper Ship and we never have to think about it again.

You could still make something workable from the concept. Instead of adding legs to the torso we've seen, just slap a couple (4? 6?) extra arms at the hip, distort the proportions of the whole thing and add some reaperish armor plating and the thing might start looking suitably like a space monster while still retaining the "reapers take characteristics of their parent species" idea.

[Stormwaltz]

Elerians yelling "Close the citadel!"

Heh.

[Morat20]

So, question -- anyone ever just left Geth or Grunt canned, and then gone ahead with the suicide mission?

I'm curious what happens. Heck, I'm curious what happens when the ship gets invaded and there's an unactivated Geth and a Krogan-in-a-tank aboard.

[UnSub]

Its not stated why Saren needed the conduit, but i assume its because Sovereign needed someone inside the citadel to stop it closing so it would have a chance to get in

One area I missed was how Saren found out about the Conduit - a secret relay built by the Protheans that linked to the secret base on Ilos. Saren / Sovereign is after it for all of ME1, but I don't recall an explanation of how they knew it existed.

[rk47]

The way I look at it is this:
Sovereign needs Saren to infiltrate the Citadel without raising an alarm. Obviously Shepard turns a spanner into the works with his EXTREME methods.
Also with the way Council is turning blind eye to the Spectre activity, the galaxy would have ended easily if Saren continue to operate unimpeded.

[Morat20]

One area I missed was how Saren found out about the Conduit - a secret relay built by the Protheans that linked to the secret base on Ilos. Saren / Sovereign is after it for all of ME1, but I don't recall an explanation of how they knew it existed.

There's actually a hint about the Citidel end of the Conduit, if you take Alenko past it -- I forget what he says, something about how the statue of the Relay makes his teeth hum or something.

As for how Saren found out -- it's possible the Reaper deduced it, or hidden scanners on the Citidel noticed a Relay field activating inside it when the few remaining Protheans snuck back in to modify the Keepers.

[UnSub]

I didn't think it was explained in-game and although I can come up with a reason ("The Reapers discovered notes related to the Conduit in other Prothean documents" or "the Collectors told them about the Conduit, but didn't know exactly where it was") it might just be a narrative hole I wasn't meant to think about.

[Ingmar]

On the heavy metal cover monster at the end, I figure that's just the thing that goes inside the actual ship later. It is the only way I can think about that stupid thing without sperging, really.

[Flinky]

I didn't think it was explained in-game and although I can come up with a reason ("The Reapers discovered notes related to the Conduit in other Prothean documents" or "the Collectors told them about the Conduit, but didn't know exactly where it was") it might just be a narrative hole I wasn't meant to think about.

I might be remembering wrong but I think you see Saren activating the beacon on Eden Prime before Shepard gets to it. That might explain what starts Saren/Sovereign down the path of hunting for the Conduit, though I'm fairly sure its left blank as to why they feel the need to check out the Beacon in the first place.

[Ingmar]

I didn't think it was explained in-game and although I can come up with a reason ("The Reapers discovered notes related to the Conduit in other Prothean documents" or "the Collectors told them about the Conduit, but didn't know exactly where it was") it might just be a narrative hole I wasn't meant to think about.

I might be remembering wrong but I think you see Saren activating the beacon on Eden Prime before Shepard gets to it. That might explain what starts Saren/Sovereign down the path of hunting for the Conduit, though I'm fairly sure its left blank as to why they feel the need to check out the Beacon in the first place.

To stop everyone from getting information about the Reapers existing at all, presumably. If the beacon had worked properly for Shepherd presumably he'd have known as much as Saren about what was going on, or close to it.

[Flinky]

Assuming Saren et al knew the Beacon contained information on the Reapers, that makes sense.

I always did figure Saren was getting a much clearer picture of the Beacon's information due to his prior contraction of acute aliens-to-the-brain.

[Lantyssa]

Saren learned about Ilos from the beacon.  It also malfunctioned on Shepard, so she got an incomplete picture while Saren got the full memory.  He still had to piece it together, but it gave him the clues he needed.

He went there to take it from the Humans though.  They had dug it up, so it was a new find, and it risked alerting the galactic community to the dangers of the Reapers.  He lost to Shepard there, but not before finding out about Ilos.  That's when it became the race against one another.

[Sky]

Saren was already cyborging at the beginning of the first game, since you're dealing with cybernetic beings, that might be why he interfaced with the beacon better than Shep.

It also bugged me to sit in front of the council with them defending Saren and saying 'geth? the cyber dudes? oh come on' while Saren clearly has implants running into his jaw and his eyes are all Illusive Turian.

Not sure if I can play through the first with the much clunkier systems and UI. Hate having to open a gajillion boxes everywhere and then deal with the crappy mod system. Also not looking forward to the mako, though I'm of the camp that the planets were the problem, not the mako.

[Soulflame]

The ridiculous physics on the mako don't help, but really it was level design for the planets that was terrible.

[Shrike]

To be fair, the Council races aren't concerned about the geth because they're synthetics, they're concerned about them because they're AIs, which presumably have a hardon for organic life as part of the whole AI package. We find out differently in ME2 (and will spread the gospel in ME3, I'd guess).

As for cybernetic implants, that seems very common. Saren is more heavily into it than most you see, but it's all over the codex. The quarians in particular are heavily into synthetic implants and it's mentioned again and again both in the games in the codex. In ME2, it's arguable how much of Shepard is still organic. Again, I"d expect that to be addressed in ME3 (hopefully; it is interesting).

[Velorath]

The first issue of Mass Effect: Evolution came out last Wednesday.  It's a four issue comic mini that covers the Illusive Man's origin, and feels a bit improved from the first ME mini (same creative team though).

[Shrike]

The PS3 release of ME2 also brought a trailer. It's nothing really new, but I was surprised they bothered with one. It's a slight revision of the release trailer for PC and 360, but with a slightly different take on the same events. Pretty cool.

Which is a good segue into the fact we're almost a year to the day after ME2 was released and this thread is still perking along. I've been through the game 9 times (both PC and 360), and still poke at it occasionally even now. Truly an outstanding game.

[Sjofn]

So I had skipped doing the Overlord DLC during my first playthrough, and I just did it yesterday. It confirmed for me that giving Cerberus the Collector ship would be extremely stupid. It was yet another example of Cerberus fucking around with tech they don't understand and whoops almost everyone is dead at the facility AND they sort of created a big potential problem for the galaxy. Yeah, I'm going to give you morons a Collector ship.

I can see the argument of "we need to investigate their tech so we are BETTER PREPARED," but these guys are way too terrible at their jobs for me to take the risk. How many side quests dealing with Cerberus end up being "Whoops, our bad! We accidently made something terrible happen mucking with shit beyond our comprehension." I think it might be ALL OF THEM.

[Tannhauser]

Well, one of their 'best' agents is Miranda, who has been genetically modified to give bad advice.

[Nightblade]

Well, one of their 'best' agents is Miranda, who has been genetically modified to give bad advice.

...And to also have an annoying shit eating grin no matter what situation you're in. I fucking hate her. Every scene she's in

:} People are dead

:} LOL melted peoples

:} Nooo my sister

[Sir T]

Hey don't look at me. I spent the entire game waiting to give her and Martin Sheen the finger. As far as I'm concerned, she set the robots rogue on the base at the start of ME2 and not the redshirt she conveniently killed and blamed for the whole thing.

I'd have accidentally shoved her out an airlock if I could have.

Just finished ME2 again as well and the human'ish reaper baby still bugged the f*** out of me; I understand they needed some way to work the whole "harvesting organics for bio-mass" thing in, but huge super-being starships are basically a facsimile of sentient land animals?  

....

...but for the love of christ don't let ME3 see the universe infested with bipedal reapers  .

Just in. A view of a fully grown human reaper...