Mass Effect-Talk

Re: Ashley/Kaidan: Roland, I think both you and I have played with Ashley living, most of the time.

GM: Since you're the only person to express an opinion thus far, Ash lives. I'm thinking of moving Shepard away from straight Soldier as a result, though; strategic options usually inform my decision on Virmire to some extent (Sentinel is my favorite class, though, so yes, Kaidan does usually buy it ;-).

Also: you had talked about us doing the Toombs mission, which would conflict with what we have here. It makes sense that way, with Edith as the Sole Survivor.

GM: Fixed.

Re: Cerberus missions- I think- and may disremember correctly- that we had talked about playing those out as well, in the vein of down the road, when Shepard is revived and starts working for Cerberus, having the option for Edith and the team- who know some of the nastier stuff they've done- to have to deal with their feelings about this. I don't really care about this, but it does make some sense.

Morgan sez: There are four separate Cerberus assignments. Edith did #2, but the others are still open for discussion. Roland wants Shepard to have done at least one of the others.

"Missing Marines" (thresher maw) > "Cerberus" (find Kahoku) > "Hades' Dogs" (Cerberus data)
"Dead Scientists" (Toombs)
"Colony of the Dead" (husks)
"Depot Sigma-23" and the two "Listening Post" assignments that lead up to it (rachni)

Seosaidh pontificates: It seems as though the "Missing Marines" line would make more sense. It would certainly be more personal for Edith, for obvious reasons. If we don't know about the rachni- and the fact that Shepard encountered one, or even several, doesn't mean we know about it or that it's more than rumor ("You know what I heard? Shepard killed a swarm of rachni out in the Erebus System?" "Rachni, huh? Was that before or after he knocked up the governor's fourteen nubile virgin daughters all in one night?"), so there's at least some mystery left! :-)

GM: I'm leaning this way. I figured that the Missing Marines/Kahoku sequence was the most "iconic" of the four, in terms of its role in ME 1 (it's also the hardest to miss, what with Kahoku being RIGHT THERE in the Council chambers trying to get results), but yeah, the parallels with Akuze definitely make it more appropriate for Edith. Meanwhile, the rachni fight is much more of a straight-up bug hunt -- not usually Edith's sort of gig. Now, there was *one* rachni in the room with Kahoku, but if you don't know what it is, the crew goes WTF?! and moves on (I just did this one before Noveria, and they still didn't know what rachni were). It'll also be interesting if Shepard only knows from Cerberus as "those idiots who played with crazy rachni," while Edith's education is more...complete. *eg* So for the moment, I'm leaning towards Shepard having done Depot Sigma-23 and leaving the rest for Edith. "Just getting a sense of where the crew's at. Thoughts?"

Seosaidh (who can't type his own name this a.m.): I don't think that the "Colony of the Dead" contributes anything in particular, other than to confirm- at least to Edith- that the Cerberus folx are unmitigated bastards. Additionally, since at least in canon the data that leads to the mission is found on Feros, you'd have to come up with some other way for her to get the info. I don't care either way, though. Question: are these missions ones we're _going_ to do, or ones Edith _has_ done?