What did you do today in Mass Effect?

Not a lot of time, so I'll get to the "two year gap" and what I actually played.

Dear Faith: That thing I was telling you about. It was an explosion turned on me by so-called "anti-human terrorists". They weren't actually terrorists but the plan was to make aliens attack me and make me appear to be more likely to distrust aliens.

I woke up to alarms blaring. I was in a facility I didn't recognize with logos on the wall that were unknown to me. It wasn't Alliance, that's for sure. A woman's voice was telling me to get moving, that my armor and a weapon were in a nearby locker. I got moving. The room was on fire and mechs were attacking. Don't know if this was some sort of geth thing or something else was going on. I followed directions from this Miranda person until we lost contact. Then I came upon another man - a biotic - fighting more mechs. We fought the mechs off. He said his name was Jacob Taylor and that he was ex-Alliance. The scars on my face were from the explosion. The facility was called the Lazarus Project. That name had implications but I know I couldn't have been dead so something else was going on here. No time to sort it out yet.

Got a call from a guy named Wilson, one of the doctors. He was under attack by more mechs and we went to his aid. He helped us along and Jacob then revealed to me that this was a Cerberus facility. Shit. I mean, that's kind of where I wanted to be, but damn if being here didn't make me feel nervous. Eventually, we got to the door where we could take a shuttle out. When it opened, Miranda (per what Wilson said at that moment) was standing there. She fired her pistol at Wilson, killing him. Jacob was shocked but something hadn't been right anyway. Wilson worked in medical but had been trying to access security protocols. He wouldn't have had the authority to do so. If he knew how, it meant something was up.

Miranda and Jacob took me onto a shuttle leading away from the dying Lazarus Project where, they said, I could speak to the Illusive Man (TIM), the leader of Cerberus. Still missing you. Love, Owen.

I have to do Drack's loyalty mission and give Morda the core before I do the Salarian ark. You can guess why.
You actually killed her off? I half expected you to kill Owen so he gets Lazarused

I did all the the little personal quests like playing volleyball with Liam tonight. I also completed the family quest and of course Sara's awake now! It's a happy coincidence but I actually made my sara look a good bit like the mom in the flashbacks, it was pretty neat. She has blue eyes though, and a more pale skin tone-but they have the same hair and bone structure. it's kind of perfect!

Hmm, I took the remnant city that turned out to not be Merdian and jaal found out his people were created by an unknown other race called the jaardan. I wonder if they are simply ancient Angarans or if they look almost nothing like them? I really hope we find out eventually!

Jaal and Scott spent some time at the lake and confessed their truest feelings for one another. They also had some pretty naughty moments and I'm pretty sure Scott and Jaal had an amazing time of it! (OMG, that scene was as amazing this time as the first time I saw it-not sure why it was so impactful once again-but I was yet again blown away by how well done it is!)

Dear Faith: Finally got to meet the mysterious Illusive Man. He's a fearful guy, not willing to actually stand before me but instead as a hologram. Reminds me of how your meeting with Sovereign, who you could tell was lying and therefore had weaknesses it was afraid of being revealed. This guy said he wanted me precisely because I'd cost him billions when I took down the Cerberus branch that had studied the Thorian creepers, the husks and the Rachni. I was no common soldier and he needed more than that for the mission he had in mind. Think he'd still want me if he knew I was a Spectre on a mission to take down his organization?

He said there were beings out there called Collectors who were responsible for destroying the Normandy. Also said they were abducting entire human colonies, or so he believed, but didn't yet have all the proof. Why were they doing this? He believed in the Reaper threat and that the Collectors were working for them. Rather than take him at his word, he asked me to go to the colony of Freedom's Progress and investigate what had happened. Prove to myself one way or the other.

Well, I was going along no matter what since my objective was to be part of this organization. If I could take down another threat in the process I wouldn't be upset.

Miss you. Love, Owen.

Dear Faith: I went to Freedom's Progress. Whole place was empty, except for mechs that attacked on sight. Same types as the ones that attacked on the Cerberus facility. That was suspicious and I wondered if Cerberus weren't toying with AI and unleashed one that was infecting mechs around the galaxy. Seemed like something they would do. In any case, I did find a group of quarians, including Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. You may remember her as the one who had the evidence proving Saren was behind the attack on Eden Prime that landed you the Spectre gig. She wondered why I was with Cerberus. Don't blame her since she had helped me shut down several of their facilities. I told her about the missing human colonies and she more or less shrugged it off. Her companions, not so much. She did tell me a quarian named Veetor was there on pilgrimage and likely had seen what happened to the colonists. The real question concerned how he avoided capture.

I suppose it was predictable that the quarians didn't trust Cerberus. Tali told me they ran ahead and were being attacked by a heavy mech. She knew better, though, trusting me to do the right thing even while not understanding everything. It was a slaughter, with several of the squad ending up dead and others badly wounded. Tali was the only one uninjured. Miranda, Jacob and me were able to take down the mech, but we were also heavily armed. I used the time she spent tending to the wounded to find Veetor. He was a bit...off, consumed with what was on the security screens before him. I used my omni-tool to shut them down. We talked and he mentioned monsters and swarms taking them colonists away. Then he pulled up security cams and we saw creatures hauling off immobilized people. Miranda verified they were Collectors. We had no idea why they ignored Veetor but Miranda theorized that maybe they were specifically after humans. Also, the "seeker swarms" were what froze people, making it easy to collect them without damaging them. They emitted electromagnetic dark energy...or something. I'm not a scientist.

Miranda wanted to take Veetor back to Cerberus for questioning. Not that I trusted Cerberus with aliens anyway but I had already figured out there was bad blood between Cerberus and quarians. I couldn't see this ending well and even Tali said his omni-tool would contain everything he'd seen so it was unnecessary to take him. Besides, the poor kid was frazzled. Last thing he needed was an interrogation. We copied the data and sent Veetor back to his fleet. Wished Tali could come with me but she had something she described as a mission too important to set aside, "even for [me]". In any case, we now had proof the Collectors were behind the abductions, though nothing yet that showed a connection to the Reapers.

I'll say I was sold on this mission but that didn't mean I trusted TIM or Cerberus. He suggested some names but I really wanted people I could trust. Garrus disappeared, Wrex was on Tuchanka reuniting the clans, and he wasn't sure he trusted Tali (obvious reasons). I asked about Kaidan (apparently promoted and his file highly classified). I even suggested Liara, since you had trusted her, but TIM said he believed she was working for the Shadow Broker. That left me back with his list. This is where it gets weird. His first suggestion was a salarian scientist who he thought could find a way to counteract the seeker swarm. Second thing was the pilot, Jeff Moreau (Joker), your pilot. I would have loved my old pilot, Lani, but I would never ask anyone to defect from the Alliance to work for Cerberus. He said he'd been grounded by the Alliance and that's how he ended up with Cerberus. Also said the Council stopped believing in the Reaper threat. I'm sure he didn't go seeking him on his own. Must have been recruited by using the Reaper threat and maybe even me (because I'm your brother) as bait. Makes me think they had their eye on me for a while.

Next, a ship was shown to me. It was, I guess, a new version of the Normandy, even more advanced than the original. Hated that it was flying Cerberus colors but what could I do? I got a little rebellious and put on an Alliance uniform regardless. The CIC looked more similar to the one on the Normandy than to Alliance ships. Well, if you could adjust to it, so could I. What would take more work was its AI, which called itself EDI. It was designed for cyber-warefare, not to run the ship, but it's not like my experiences with other AI I'd encountered (the geth, the rogue "VI" on Luna and the one that siphoned credits from on the Citadel) had been positive. Then I learned this one was "shackled" so it couldn't turn against me.

I had email messages redirected to a terminal on this ship. No clue how that worked. Saw one from Anderson who, according to the message, wanted to give me an opportunity to "explain my actions". I mean, he knew what I was doing, so it was probably to get a report. There was more, like other suggestions on who to recruit, new weapons and armor available, and some side missions. The thing that caught my eye concerned the Normandy crash site. I was asked to place a memorial there and collect any dog tags or anything else that might help the families of the deceased find some peace. That was going to my first stop, even before Omega to find Mordin Solus.

Love, Owen.

Well, I finished Anromeda. I'm kind of sad that it's over. I wanted more time with Jaal for sure, but I think I've milked all the best content out of this game for sure.

Hmm, it was awesome seeing my allies in the field, in particular, I loved seeing Reyes, Kandros, and the Angara during the quest. It's also nice to see and hear the other team members I didn't pick show up during the final battle.

Some random stats: I took 11 impulsive actions, 133 casual choices, 265 emotional ones, 45 logical, and 114 professional ones. I am never surprised by these stats as the emotional ones are almost always my favorite. Though there are a few times when the logical is great. Also, the casual choices are awesome-though I often think they are "direct" instead of causal. I get confused by the labelings.

I didn't complete Peebee's loyalty quest, but maybe I'll do that next run. I only fought 2 of the architects, even though I had intended to fight them all. I just ran out of side questing steam, and wanted to focus on the story!

Despite switching powers around a lot, most of my kills were via biotic powers 741, second was actually my trusty sniper rifle 286, and tech powers came in at a respectable third 258. apparently, Ryder personally killed 1476/2100 enemies. I'm surprised my squad stole that many of my kills.

that second number was the one it said was killed by the squad, and I just assumed it was counting my kills too, but if not I guess they killed more than me which seems highly unlikely as it seems like they mostly just do nothing.

because: when the fuck did you ever see a gay sex scene that makes very clear tha a blojob os going to happen and that it will be good?
Its the same for f|ryder..
like.. having to see the dude go down on a woman or afab person without having the fade to black or that being censured..in a video game.. like omg..

like having the pleasure of female character or the pleasure of a dude getting head from another dude- i.e having a dude be the giving part.. without it being jokey, or cut short, or weird framing... thats

revolutionary, in a way, because I don't think I can remember any other game (that's isn't a straight up eroge/pornographic one) that dares to show this, shows it matter of factly at what it is.. a nice, hot act of love between two people that are ion a loving relationship that deviates from societal arbitrary standards of "normality"

This is a "what did I do yesterday" post -- I met Dr. Nakamoto on Kadara........<swoon>   Just saying......