As the group moved a couple of rooms further in, taking a couple of geth out on the way, they found an asari cowering below a desk. Fluttershy immediately lit up her wings but was blocked by Garrus as he quickly jumped between the pegasus and the asari.
“Don’t shoot! Please, I just want to get out of here before it’s too late!” she plead, Shepard had his weapon raised at the asari as he couldn’t afford to be caught off guard.
“Identify yourself,” he calmly stated but somehow that only made him sound even more intimidating.
“Rana Thanoptis, neuro specialist. This job isn’t worth dying over… or worse. Do you think the prisoners are the only ones affected by the indoctrination? Eventually, Saren will want to dissect my brain too!” she said very much in a panic. Shepard looked over at Fluttershy who no longer had her wings lit up in a biotic aura.
“Can you try to check if she isn’t indoctrinated?” the Commander asked, Fluttershy nodded and stepped forward, unleashing the stare at the asari. The pegasus still felt the strange disturbance in the asari’s brain but the moment she touched the contaminated spots of her psyche they withered and disappeared.
“She’s good, Commander,” Fluttershy answered as she released the stare, the asari gasping for air after having been exposed to the technique.
“I thought this was a breeding facility?” Shepard asked while Rana wearily glanced at the pegasus who was glaring at her.
“Not this level, here we were studying the effects of Sovereign on organic minds. Saren tried to keep us in the dark but that’s hard if you’re the one studying its effects,” She answered hastily, “I didn’t want to stay, but it wasn’t as if I could just leave. The position was a little more permanent than expected, but I can help you. The elevator behind me goes directly to Saren’s personal lab, and I can get you in,” she explained as she walked to a console and tapped a few commands, the door to the elevator opening. “I also gave you full access to Saren’s files. Please, can you let me go?”
Shepard looked troubled at the asari, “I don’t trust you, but if Fluttershy says you are good then I’ll trust her judgment. I suggest you start running because I’m going to blow this place to hell.”
“W-What! But… you can’t… I’ll never make it!” The asari panicked and rushed past the group to get herself to safety. Shepard sighed as the door closed behind them again.
“Come on, we need to figure out what Saren was doing in his personal lab,” the Commander stated and the group stepped into the now unlocked elevator and went up. As they stepped out of the elevator the group froze as they saw what stood in the lab.
“Holy crap, is that a prothean beacon?!” Garrus said as he was the first to come out of his stupor.
“Yes it is,” Shepard said as he immediately walked up to the device which seemed to activate in the Commander’s presence. Fluttershy tried to retreat from the device as she suddenly felt pressure building in her mind but was too slow.
The vision she had gotten from Shepard in the Normandy flashed through her mind again, only this time it was clear as day. The entire event only took a few seconds but by the time it was done both Shepard and Fluttershy were weakly trying to get up again.
“You two good?” Wrex asked as the human and pegasus found their feet again.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here. We got what we needed,” Shepard stated as he took the lead towards the exit. He didn’t get far as a hologram of the ship that had attacked the colony on Eden Prime came to life.
“You are not Saren,” It stated in a reverberating mechanical voice.
“Is that a VI interface?” Fluttershy asked, a shiver going up her spine
“Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.”
“I don’t think this is a VI...” Garrus said, answering Fluttershy’s question.
“There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign!”
“Sovereign isn’t just a ship, it’s a reaper!” Fluttershy said as she connected the dots.
“Reaper? A label created by the protheans and your species to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they choose to call us is irrelevant. We simply are.”
“M-my species?!” Fluttershy said alarmed, had ponies faced these things before? “How could you have even been there? That was fifty-thousand years ago!”
“Organic life is nothing but genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.”
“You will face a united galaxy when you come! We won't let you destroy anyone!” Shepard shouted at the construct in rage, not that that it seemed to faze it in any way.
“Confidence born of ignorance, the cycle cannot be broken.”
This time it was Garrus who first spoke, “Cycle? What cycle?”
“The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance. And in the apex of their glory, they are extinguished. The protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them, the legacy of my kind.”
“Why would you construct the mass relays and then leave them?” Shepard asked the reaper who answered in kind.
“Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.”
“We will not allow it! We’ll find a way to stop you!” Fluttershy shouted at the hologram in rage as she flew up into a hover.
“Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. Our numbers will darken the skies and extinguish the light of your civilizations. This exchange is over.” The glass window panes of the lab exploded inwards as the hologram of the reaper vanished, Joker’s voice coming over the radio almost immediately after.
“Commander, we’ve got problems. That ship sovereign? It’s moving. I don’t know what you did down there but that thing just pulled a turn that would shear any of our ships in half,” The pilot reported. “It’s coming your way and it’s coming hard! You need to wrap things up in there—Fast!”
“Fuck,” Shepard swore as he started running to the elevator. “We need to set that nuke and get out of here. Now!” He shouted as everyone got into the elevator. With time running out on them the group didn’t bother with overly clever tactics and charged in the direction of the base’s AA tower that was stopping the Normandy from approaching. Their shields took a beating from all the various resistance along the way, but nothing had yet to down them completely.
“Fluttershy, get up there and Disable that AA gun!” Shepard shouted as he cleared the last of the geth out from below the air defence emplacement. The pegasus flew up ahead and found the appropriate console, disabled it, and shot it a couple of times for good measure.
“Turret is down, Commander!” She called out to the squad that was just coming up the ramp, an elevator at the back wall came to life and a small group of signatures appeared on the group’s motion tracker.
“Enemy units in the elevator, take aim!” Shepard said as he himself also raised his weapon. The moment the doors opened, everyone let loose a barrage of fire, the few geth troopers in the elevator being destroyed within seconds. “Nicely done, let's get topside to secure the bomb site.”
Taking the same elevator the geth unit had used, the group found themselves at the site that had been designated as the place where the nuke had to be detonated. The STG captain soon after had reported that they had taken down their AA tower as well, clearing the path for the Normandy to approach. Joker didn’t waste any time bringing the frigate in close and dropping its lethal payload off. Ashley and a few other crew members carrying the bomb out of the Normandy.
“Bomb is in position, we’re all set here!” Ashley reported, but was interrupted by a radio transmission from the Captain Kirrahe and Kaidan.
“Commander, do you read?” The STG captain asked, gunfire in the background of the transmission.
“Five by five. Get your team to the rendezvous point, Captain. The nuke is set and ready!” Shepard warned the remains of the assault team.
“Negative, Commander. The geth have us pinned down on the AA tower. We’ve taken heavy casualties!” Kirrahe responded. Shepard swore and signaled the group to follow.
“Hold on, Captain. We’re coming!” he radioed to the assault team before turning to Ashley. “Get the nuke ready! I’ll come pick you up after we’ve gotten the salarian team!”
“Yes, sir!” Ashley shouted back at the Commander and quickly continued working on arming the nuke. Fluttershy followed Shepard as the Commander made a sprint to the other AA tower where the assault team was held up, on the way there they faced heavy krogan resistance, but that didn’t stop them from making slow progress towards the salarian strike team.
At about the halfway point between the AA tower and the bomb site a geth troop transport flew over and hovered above the latter location, Ashley opening a comm line. “The Geth just dropped reinforcements all over the bomb site! There’s too many. I’m activating the nuke!” she shouted.
“What the hell are you doing, Chief!” Shepard shouted back, calling Ashley by her rank.
“I’m making sure this bomb goes off no matter what! There, it’s done. Go get the Lieutenant, Commander!” Ashley said, something Kaidan didn’t take too kindly too.
“Belay that! We can handle ourselves. Go and get Williams!” He called out. Shepard stood still and didn’t look like he could make a decision who to pick. Only one could be picked up, which meant the death of the other.
Fluttershy didn’t envy the Commander’s position. If he left Ashley there would be a small chance the bomb wouldn’t go off, while if he left Kaidan he would also leave the STG team and open the possibility that the AA gun came back online.
But Shepard’s indecisiveness was costing them precious time. He needed a nudge in one direction or the other.
1. Encourage Shepard to go to Kaidan
2. Encourage Shepard to go back to Ashley
save Kaidan, Ashley is a racist bitch
Me just now:
"Who lives. Who dies? ... Eeny, meeny, miny, moe."
9658604
She really is, at first, but she's not irredeemable. It's better or worse depending on the dialog choices you make along the way. You can play Shep as a "racist bitch" too. And it's more fear of the unknown, a natural instinctive reaction, than racism. Many of the citizens of the galaxy feel the same way towards the humans in canon.
So, we either risk the nuke not going off failing the mission, or the AA gun coming back online and possibly shooting down Fluttershy and Co.
Oh, we also need to choose between Ashley or Kaidan, that too.
Or you fly the normandy to the bomb site while they get kaiden have the normandy obliterate the geth on the ground with ship weapons ...will take them 20 seconds tops... while having fluttershy fly ashley aboard its a frigate it can take a few hits with shields down. With no geth present ashley doesnt need to stay after all .... pick up kaiden and shepard when theres less then a minute left and fly away. Always killed me the AAs are down they can literally obliterate all ground forces with the ship in the area and shoot any transport ships close by. Their sensors can pick up reinforcements inbound. When the sensors read reinforcements 1-2 minute out pick up ashley then pick up the team get the hell out of their. It always killed me they went full retard having the ship stay out of the fight.
And now we come to the choice which gave me a big pause the first time. I REALLY didn't expect this sort of choice back then. It was full 10 minutes before I actually made the choice.
I chose Kaidan.
Urrrrgh I wish there was a choice for shy to go fly Ashley to safety while Shepard gets kaiden
9658674
It took me a bit to dig up my memories, but I had the same issue for awhile. The following is my ultimate conclusion, with some more thought put in today.
The problem is that even though the AA guns are down, they don't have air support of any kind besides the Normandy, which is probably flying around with the stealth drive active, maybe even taking out geth ships that would just swoop to offer their own fire support. Otherwise, geth ships would just destroy the Normandy as soon as they held position for pickup. Sticking around long enough to do two pickups in the same general area is a huge risk to the whole crew because it lets the enemy know their location for too long. Sovereign was inbound too. Maybe if Ashley didn't activate the nuke already, there would be a window of time to pull that off anyway, but she did, and the ship will need time to clear the blast zone too. It's still not impossible to save both, but it'd be a much bigger gamble.
The only reason they have any chance at all is because Joker is such an ace pilot.
9658857
Yeah, it took me at least 20 minutes to pick. I ended up saving Ashley because of her family, and I wasn't sure Kaidan would forgive me. I still don't see either as the "right" choice.
I hated this choice because while the game presented both as mutually acceptable for progression, to me there was only ever the choice of going back to protect the nuke. Sure it communicated that the nuke was going to go off, but how would the person in-universe know that? If the nuke gets disabled for any reason, the whole mission is a wash. So it was always the nuke, didn't matter who was tending to it.
9659093
Its tough to say they never really said in game their was a fleet in orbit. But why would soverign make a rush to the planet if their were ships in orbit he could order to attack. It was just a storyline the developers wanted to happen. Their was a few death choices moradin and the assassin ... damn wrex and grunt too. They really liked killing cast people.
9659132
I don't think they'd need a whole fleet, but you're right about them wanting the choice made.
I'm pretty sure you can save Wrex and Grunt? I replayed the first game early this year, but the others were too long ago.
9659148
Yah you can save them i meant you could choose the renagade options and kill them.
9658633
You are absolutely correct there. Most of the races are wary cause the humans moved TOO quickly for their liking, in relation to other Citadel races. They went from being found by the Turians to being a member species and even getting a human Specter within a short span of time (and its even worse when they get ON the council later). Humans always strive to push the boundaries and do more, the other races take their time and eventually will lag behind.
For those readers who never played the first Mass Effect, you can have either Ashley or Kaidan on the bomb, the other will help Kirrahe.
My choice is Kaidan, because we lose a lot more lives on the ground if we don't save Kirrahe. The bomb will go off one way or another, even if it requires the Normandy to shoot at it on the way out.
Screw this choice.
I decided to make this decision fast since Fluttershy wouldn’t have the time to think who to save, I choose Kaidan. Kaidan is with more people and I would not want to risk Shepard and his team dying since if they die, nothing currently is in the way of the Reapers. So it comes down to saving 1 and hope not to die, or save several people and make it out for sure. Saving Ashley risk losing the war, saving Kaidan risk losing a single battle, hence I choosing to save Kaidan.
Since I already know Ashley's storyline if I chose her I'll pick kaiden
I saved Kaiden the first time, because I never spent a lot of time just talking with my crew first play through. Second time around I spent a TON of time on the Normandy and learned everything about everyone.
Kaiden ended up being the one to take the fall the second time. While Ashley has some xenophobic issues, she has reasons for them, and the don’t get in the way of her working with her crew, and she is disturbed when Shep ends up working for Cerberus. She has a family back home she is supporting, and a reason to come back from the fight.
Kaiden doesn’t have anyone. Everyone he knew except for Chakwas is gone, his entire life is the military. His sacrifice inspires the construction of a school for the humane treatment and care of biotic children, something that was sorely needed. As much as I hate to say it about my boy, but Kaiden’s death has the least to lose and the most to gain.
Edit: Also it should be noted that both times I ended up sitting there for about an hour just staring at the screen, unable to make a decision. Glad I’ve never been put in a situation like that IRL, I would freeze.
Considering this characters fate in ME3, this probably saved her life.
Ah screw it, I wanted them to save Ashley
Not really, considering this is the same guy that will cause an asteroid to collide with a mass relay, destroying an entire Batarian system, just to slow you down. The same guy that just. Won't. Fucking. DIE. Shot down his ship, and spaced him? Revived, with more resources on hand than before. Suicide mission? Can survive without a single casualty. Try to attack his home planet? He escapes. He even manages to directly take out a Reaper, on Rannoch, and can do the impossible - unite the Geth and the Quarians.
He only ever truly gets demoralised once - he fails to save Thessia, due to an interruption by Tim Blue-Eyes and his loyal assassin. Does that stop him, though? NO. There's a reason why the name "Commander Shepard" is so feared and renowned.
Save Kaidan, screw that speciest bitch...
9658604
Yep, she is a waste of time. If i didn't know better i call her a Cerberus foundation member...
9658625
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe- who is a specist bitch and has to blow
9658633
Not really, The Codex entrys give quite a lot away actually...
9658654
Seriously i will write a Mass Effect story for the sole purpose to get Wrex layed and smack common sence into Ashley Botchface Williams...
9658674
The Normandy is a stealth ship... Why was that not used i wonder... O right... Teach players permanent crew losing. To bad i never learned it with laughing when Ashley died
9658857
Wow... You really needed that long? I think i laughed the first or second run trough when Ashley quite literally blow herself up...
9659045
Ashley is wasted space
9659104
Hm...Good point, counter Argument is Ashley don't disobey orders and have other Crew members support her...
9659093
Fun fact: Fans of the seriouse found cut out content eith vouce acting that let you save Ashley and Kaidan... Check youtube, actually:
9659132
Because if you don't play the full set you get the worst decisions by default
9659239
That would probably make Joker bad for damage on his ship...
9661559
Kaidrn is a swell character. Sad Fluttershy bearly knows him...
9858323
Nice if a OC can actually do something instead of tagging along...
9660665
Perfectly reasonable, let Ashley go out in a boom as big as her distaste of aliens
9659152
Huh... That was a thing?