Thinking about Torfan again. About the doom of the Renegade path in-game, where it turns into an umbrella term for “proper soldier,” lawfully evil, xenophobe, and straight-up maniac, while Paragon gets to be the default Good Guy.
The Ruthless profile is supposed to give you a Renegade head start, and I can’t stop thinking about what could really have happened down there. It’s pretty much implied that war crimes were committed. And you were twenty-four at the time. Why were you entrusted with leading the assault? Exactly how many soldiers did you lose? Unit is such a vague term. What did you do to drive your seasoned CO—a major, a mature officer—into PTSD? Or was he a weak man from the start? And why were you made the first human Spectre if your reputation still follows you years later?
Whenever I try to headcanon it, it turns out deliciously ugly every time. I still keep half the details buried in drafts, just to keep her from turning into a full boogeyman.
I accidentally messed up the numbering on part Seven’s link to post six, so if you missed post six (or yesterday’s part seven), the numbering up there is correct.
Wherein we get back out into the galaxy, explore, help some people, and kill some others!
So now that we have Liara, it’s time to really dig into the galaxy. We have a few people we talked to on the CItadel who need help, and maybe we’ll stumble into a few more things along the way.
First of all, let’s check out the galaxy map...
Hey wait a sec, what’s this?
Petra Nebula!? Oh hey, another new addition by the ME1 Recalibrated mod.
Gorgeous map, only one system available.
Heeeey we recognize this place, we’ll get to go there in.... two games!
Can’t land there (or anywhere in the system) but it’s cool that it exists! There are a couple of other neat little things in the system I didn’t screenshot so that you can have a cool new experience yourself if you decide to use the mod on your next playthrough.
What I really miss from ME3, by the way, is the % markers which note when you’ve fully explored a system or if there’s more stuff to find there.
Anyway, my PLAN had been to take a screenshot of each planet or spacecraft before I entered it to help orient the playthrough better, and then the non-screenshotting couple of hours happened, so we lost some of that along the way, sorry.
Still, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into.
I love this planet. The lava juuuuust below the surface, peeking out. Just some of the coolest terrain in the game.
What a great view, let’s get a little clo--
OOPS.
I meant to do that.
Wide open spaces with no fears of a thresher maw living in the lava! ...I hope?
Ah, here’s our objective, a distress signal being sent from this location, let’s see if we can help...
FUCKING GETH AMBUSH.
Aw yeah, jumping over those explosives like a pro!
...most of the time.
Well this planet was a bust. Let’s see if we can actually help someone.
Another planet, scanned a few things, not sure what we’re doing here but hey, I found a lone building!
Ah yes, a prefab which is totally different from all the prefabs we’ll enter because the creates are stacked in a different configuration.
Honestly they should have put one of these prefabs in ME3 for Old Times Sake. (The ones that actually look like homes/labs/whatever make so much more sense.)
Annnd we’re being attacked. Not sure why, but here we go!
Awww yeah, Throw! And Ash and Kaidan managing to be useful I think?
Except they let a guy slip by us, but luckily there’s a convenient explosive nearby. That got ‘em.
OK back to facing forward OH FUCK A KROGAN.
Kaidan’s biotics and my shotgun, a favorite combination. Now stay down!
Sweet, level up!
And that fight’s over, time to explore this pla...
Whew, thanks Kaidan.
This guy thought he could sneak past me. Well me, my shotgun and my 20 shield strength sure showed him.
ME1 combat is so... messy though. I mean, I honestly still enjoy it, but I’m in the camp that agrees combat gets better every game, Andromeda included. Of course, I just REALLY LOVE Vanguarding in ME3... charging into a group of enemies, hitting Nova, spamming charge again praying that I’ll find a good target to charge to in time. ME1 combat is basically all just... spam abilities from cover and hope your companions are doing something useful. Being a Vanguard is more about style over substance in ME here. I mean you do get some really useful abilities, but your shotgun isn’t that much use unless things get too close.
Which, you know, they do pretty often.
Anyway, remember... I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!
FUCK I hadn’t been back to the Citadel to pick up Nassana Dantius’ quest yet. Let’s just reload the quicksave from outside and we’ll... come back and do this the right way later and see the entire quest.
I do this more often than I care to admit.
Also no screenshot for this but... I also found Wrex’s personal quest planet and recognized it only when I saw the building, since it’s in a pretty memorable location. Still, grabbed everything else off the planet so it’ll be quick when it’s time to go back and do that quest.
Well let’s go back to poking around the galaxy.
Message coming in. Patching it through.
Ah, yeah, hey Hackett. What’s that? You’ve got some dirty work you need me to do for you? Cool, be right there.
Before the ME2 DLC Arrival came out, Hackett was one of Mass Effect’s biggest mysteries. Who is this guy? Why is he telling us to do things? Does he have some secret agenda? Why is he so sketchy? Our Shepards seemed to trust him but WOW he sure did send us on some touchy missions. Speculation was all over the place on what he looked like and what he was really doing.
Turns out, he’s just a pretty cool guy who wants you to take on all the secret spy missions the Alliance doesn’t want to take credit for.
I wish I’d saved it, but just a week or two ago I saw a pretty great post circulating about Hackett. He IS the guy that’s going to make sure a job gets done, even if he’s not going to do it himself. He’s the back-room Admiral with the squeaky clean image up front. He’s the Gus Fring of the Alliance.
Also getting Lance Riddick to voice him was great. Just a real authoritative, steady guy who you actually want to trust.
And it turns out he looks basically exactly like most people thought, but maybe with a few more scars. (I mean, he really looks a lot like Lance Riddick, tbh) But we don’t know that yet. For now, let the mystery be.
Time to actually go help someone.
Ah yeah, Chairman Burns, we do negotiate with terrorists, in this case. But they needed negotiating with.
Maxing out the Paragon-meter is worth it for moments like this. These guys have probably suffered and it’s no surprise that no one has really listened. Sounds like a lot about the galaxy hasn’t changed since we got out there.
This is also an excellent moment for Kaidan.
Being able to let Kaidan reason with them is fantastic. Although he probably ultimately doesn’t make a difference mechanics wise, it’d be nice if maybe the check is easier if he’s here. I don’t know. But Kaidan knows, even if he’s one of the “lucky” ones who “only” gets migraines.
One of the grossest posts I’ve seen about Kaidan are people who argue she shouldn’t be on the team because of his implants and since he has a “disability”. Or that it’s “kinder” to sacrifice him on Virmire. That’s some real gross ablism you’ve got there.
Anyway, I love being able to keep this situation under control. Burns actually comes through if you do, even if those guys probably go to prison for awhile for terrorism. Better than being dead.
Time for... another planet!
Again, didn’t take a screencap of this one but... there’s a missing survey team? I must have picked this quest up in the elevators, because normally you get it on Noveria. Anyway, Let’s go find them on Trebin, I’m sure they just can’t broadcast anymore or something. It’s cool
FUCK. SHIT SHIT SHIT. FUCK!!!
I probably could have actually used Warp or Throw or even Barrier there but... too late now! We lived!
I was all ready to blame this on Cerberus, but creepily, there’s no explanation for who huskified them or why. I’m still going to blame Cerberus, seems like something they’d do.
Well, time to move on.
Honestly, I can’t believe anyone who says ME1 isn’t beautiful.
And driving the Mako is FUN in places like this!
Oh there’s a camp up ahead, we’re here to find the remaining crew of a crashed ship for our new friend in the Citadel Tower.
Again, no footage/screenshot but eventually you find where the mercenaries tracked down Willem (the brother) and killed them. Shit. We were too late. I actually tear up sometimes telling Garoth that his brother died. They held out for awhile, too, but we were too late.
It would have been nice if, say, if the very first thing we did after leaving the Citadel was to come here, we could have saved him, but I guess this quest is another way of Bioware telling us that sometimes, there’s just nothing you can do to change things.
One more quest this update, then we’re stopping back off at the Citadel next.
Presrop, one of the most well-known of the sidequest planets. (OKok, technically it’s a moon.)
One of my favorite landing sequences, just because the stars make it so... dramatic.
I mean DAMN.
Klendagon's most striking feature is, of course, the Great Rift valley that stretches across the southern hemisphere. What is most fascinating about the Rift is that it does not appear to be natural. The geological record suggests it is the result of a "glancing blow" by a mass accelerator round of unimaginable destructive power. This occurred some thirty-seven million years ago.
It took a solid three minutes of Flycam flying to get that closeup shot, btw. I actually flew all the way in the first time I came here, and didn’t take screenshots. Took about six minutes. The updated texture is impressive.
Well, Hackett sent us here, let’s deal with Major Kyle.
Being nice and non-threatening gets you into places.
I’ll admit, before I came in here, I decided to cheat in enough paragon points to max out Paragon already. For me personally, I’m trying to make sure this is an “ultimate” playthrough, a save file I can just use over and over from here on out. I want everything to import into ME3 the first time around with all the plot flags set how I want them without messing with Gibbed’s Savegame Editor, so making sure I can convince everyone how I want them to is important. So hey, Major Kyle, stand down.
I don’t think I’ve ever played as a Ruthless Shepard in ME1, or if I have, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten how it goes. But he was the commanding officer at the battle of Torfan, and your CO if you’re Ruthless. He’s also a reminder of how serious PTSD can be, and what it can do to a person.
I also love this tidbit from the Wiki, which I didn’t know since I’d never done these particular choices before:
(In Mass Effect 2) If Martin Burns was not saved in 2183, a news report on the Citadel will announce that Kyle is trying to form an all-biotic community as the reparations were not given to L2 biotics and they have become even more alienated from galactic society.
I really liked that if you reason with him, he doesn’t give you any trouble and turns himself in like he says.
Hey, this negotiation thing is easy when you’re the best person in the galaxy at it!!
“Execute the prisoners, we are leaving.” Sergeant Bartholemew was staring at Commander Joan Shepard, bewildered. “Ma’am?”. “What is it, Sergeant?” “Ma’am, those are POWs. How can we execute them?”. Shepard could feel tears coming up. ‘Don’t lose your nerves now, stay focused. You are an N7′. She drew her pistol and gunned down the one batarian kneeling closest to her. “I think, that’s the way it is done. Now get to it, Sergeant.” Bartholemew opened and closed his mouth like a fish on dry land. Shepard turned around and grabbed the much taller man by his collar. “Listen, Sam, I am going to get us out of here. But only if you do as I say. So, if you wanna see your daughters again, shoot those animals so we can be away before we get overrun by a goddam fucking army of them.”
This was worse than Akuze or Elysium. This mission just had gone completely south and Shepard had to run for her life. But Major Kyle was going to pay for it.
Yesterday morning, Shepard and Major Kyle had been in the CIC of the SSV Sadowa. A holographic Admiral Hackett was patched in via QEC. They were studying a 3D-map of Tofan. Torfan was a moon and served as a major hub for batarian slave-trade galaxy-wide. A prime target for Alliance retaliation after Elysium. The problem was, the batarians knew that too and had it heavily fortified. Batteries of surface-to-orbit cannons made an orbital bombardment impossible. A bombardment was problematical anyways because it was unknown how many human slaves were on Torfan. And while it was possible to land troops on the dark side of this moon, surface access was denied by automated sentry turrets, lots of them.
Kyle had completed his sitrep outlining these problems. “Any ideas?”, Hackett asked. “Yes, Sirs, if you allow.” Shepard had been working on her plan the whole night while she heard that Kyle, in the cabin next door, was watching a broadcasting of “The Beauty and the Beasts” from Tuchanka’s Radioactive Hall. ‘That’s why you are still a major at an age I will be an admiral’, she had thought. “We use a Troian Horse: The military port is heavily guarded, but the animals keep security not that tight on the cargo-port supplying the settlement. We use a freighter to sneak in, gain control and hack into their network from the port’s tower. That way we disable the turrets, roll in with IFVs, take control of the compound, free our slaves and turn Torfan into smoking crater afterward.” “Oldest trick in human history.”, Kyle said scoffingly. “The animals won’t know it”, replied Shepard. “So, you gonna play Ulysses or what?” “And drunk delight of battle with my peers, far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.” Shepard was surprised by herself that she still knew that line by heart. “Enough!”, Hackett interrupted them. “I like it. Commander, what do you need?” “A volus freighter, thirty commandos, and a hacker, Sir.”
The resources of the Alliance were nearly limitless, and it didn’t surprise Shepard that Admiral Hackett was able to produce a volus freighter with proper clearance for Torfan as well as thirty N-grade marines within a few hours. She wasn’t prepared for the ‘hacker’, though. A freckled woman reported in as ‘Lieutenant Jan Schaeffer’. “Reporting in”, probably didn’t really cut it: Schaeffer was chewing gums and didn’t even pretend to shape up for a superior officer. Red hair, green eyes, both colors obviously artificial. The right arm showed a tattoo with a red hood and two crossed guns, ancient gunpowder pistols; possibly a gang-tag. On the other arm, she had a turian and an asari kissing. Whatever that meant to her. If someone like that made it to lieutenant, she must be extremely good at whatever she does. Shepard felt her pulse going up and her mouth drying out. “So, where are you from, Schaeffer?” “Buenos Aires.” “Really? Never met anyone from there.” Shepard felt like a babbling teenager the moment she said it. Schaeffer shrugged, “You sure had been working hard on that. We must be 30 million by now.” ‘No, forget it, Joan. She is Alliance, she is taboo.’
The operation went as planned. Shepard’s team landed on the cargo port, emerged from the volus’ freighter, and gained control of the port’s tower. No casualties on the Alliance’s side. In fact, the team was so swift that no alarm was sounded. Lieutenant Schaeffer immediately went to work with the batarians’ network. “Any problems?”, Shepard wanted to know. “From those animals? Bah. Okay, I am in. You can start the party, Shepard.” “Strike Team to Fleet. Do you copy?” “We read you, Strike Team.” That was Admiral Hackett himself. “We are in control of the port. Enemy defenses are down.” “Good work, Commander. Ground Team, begin your approach.” “Copy that”, that one came from Major Kyle in command of the IFVs.
“Now, all we have to do is waiting for the bus.” Shepard carefully touched Jan’s shoulder. This lieutenant’s aura of strength, confidence, and violence seriously attracted Shepard. ‘Be honest, it turns you on’, she scolded herself. A little touch couldn’t hurt. At this moment the lieutenant shouted, “Son of a bitch!”. Shepard thought that was about her and immediately drew away her hand. But Schaeffer was staring at her monitors. “What’s wrong?”, Shepard demanded to know. “Someone is countering me. Erecting additional firewalls. Seems like that asshole is making me work for my money.” Strangely, still no alarms. Shepard checked the tactical screen. The IFVs were advancing; but somewhat slower than she had expected. She thought of sending a warning to Kyle, but maybe it was nothing and there was no need to spread around problems on her side of the mission.
Minutes passed. Shepard started pacing up and down the room while the lieutenant was typing and clicking at an incredible speed. Suddenly Chief Mark Landerzoo, the team's sniper, rushed through the door. “Commander, the volus is taking off.” “What?” “Guys, please!”, that one came from Schaeffer. Shepard grabbed the chief by his arm and pulled him out into the open. She closed the door to the tower behind them. Outside, she could see it: the freighter was starting, gained speed and disappeared into the sky. And then the alarms went on. ‘Now the animals know we are here’
“Shepard!” That was Jan. Shepard returned into the tower, “What’s going on?” “I am losing this one. It’s the fanciest piece of shit code I have ever seen.” Shepard had no idea of computers and hacking. “A batarian hacker? Don’t tell me one of the animals is beating you to it.” “Hell, no! It’s automated, a guardian program. Maybe collector-tec or geth. Dunno. But you better call your buddy: those turrets are about to go online again.” Shepard checked her tactical screen: Kyle already had passed half of the perimeter. If the remaining turrets did go online it would be a rough ride for him, but doable. Masses of red dots were moving from the compound in Kyle’s direction. Batarian ground troops. Strangely, no one came in Shepard’s direction. The animals still were not aware of her presence at the cargo port. She had a plan.
“Strike Team to Ground Team, do you copy?”Shepard could already hear the pop-pop-pop of the rockets both in the distance as well as over the comm when Major Kyle answered. “Ground Team here. We are taking heavy casualties! What’s going on there, Shepard?” “The batarians have regained control of the turrets. You have to fight your way through. Enemy ground-forces are advancing on your position. If you keep pushing forward I can hit their rear and crush them.” Silence, then, “Negative on that, commander. I have to retreat.” “Are you crazy, Kyle? We are trapped here.” “Fleet to Ground Team”, this was Admiral Hackett, “retreat denied. Keep on advancing, no matter the costs.” “Admiral, we are getting slaughtered out here! All units fall back!” Shepard couldn’t believe her ears. “What the hell are you doing, Kyle?” “Just making sure my unit survives. I am sorry, Shepard, I had to make a choice.” “You’re gonna regret this thing, Major.”, Shepard hissed before turning off the comm.
“Sucker! At least, the animals are now all after his sorry ass.”, said Jan. “hmm”, Shepard was breeding on the next plan. Having been first in her class in Infantry Tactics was going to pay off. “You said, they use a program to block you off? It must be running on some kind of server, or?” Schaeffer got it, “Yeah, probably in that compound. If you can get me there, I can disable it.” “Lieutenant!”, Shepard thundered, “you are with the Alliance Marines! We do not ‘disable’ this kind of shit, we blow it up!” “Ma’am, yes, Ma’am”, replied Schaeffer grinning while clapping on the Tempest SMG at her hip. “You might need a bigger gun than that. Seriously, LT.” “Don’t worry, Shepard, I have killed my first man with a pee-shooter like that when you still had wet dreams featuring your teacher.” Shepard felt that she was about to blush and turned away. Not only was Jan right with that teacher cliche, but she also realized that Jan obviously saw her as a spoiled princess that had inherited the shoulder bars from mommy and daddy. This was more embarrassing than hurting ‘But how wrong is she really? You have to be better than the rest, tougher than the rest, harder than the rest to show them that you have earned your place.’ Shepard left the tower and ordered Landerzoo to gather the team. Then her eyes fell on Sergeant Bartholomew guarding the eight batarians they had caught pants down when attacking the space-port.
Her team was no standing unit but a random selection of elite-classed marines. Shepard didn’t know most of them. By chance, Shepard and Schaeffer were the only women as well as the only officers. “The IFVs won’t be coming, so we are stuck here. And as you can see”, Shepard made a gesture towards the dead batarian POWs, “surrendering is not an option on this moon. We still got our mission and we are going to complete it: Free the slaves and destroy this base. For now, the animals are ignorant of our presence, but that will change as soon as we start our attack. So, move fast, strike hard, and make today be remembered as the day Death came to Torfan.” Corporal Ramirez saluted shouting “Who’s like us?” Shepard returned the salute, “damn few; and they’re all dead.”
They had to pass through the settlement in order to reach the compound. Random shots were fired at them as soon as they moved between the containers that formed the housings of the batarians. This was no organized resistance but armed civilians. Maybe the females of the batarian soldiers. Difficult to tell with those animals. Shepard wanted to keep the enemy that disorganized: there were four paths leading to the compound, so she split her team into four columns, each for one path. This worked: even though all four columns were constantly under fire, they outnumbered the enemy in every encounter. The left flank column under Chief Schmitt had the longest route to the compound and also was the one to get in contact with the batarian regulars first, once they returned from chasing after Kyle. And meanwhile, they would be aware of what was going on in their back. Shepard made that column and the one next to it the strongest with the task of delaying the batarians as much as possible. Shepard’s own team on the far right had the shortest route to the compound. It was composed of herself, Schaeffer, Landerzoo, and Bartholemew. To their left was Sergeant Pitt with six men. This meant the marines would be hitting the compound with ten men. Tactical scans showed no more than fifty armed people inside. Odds even.
Shepard’s team had a rather easy approach. But when rounding a corner, she literally run into three batarians. There was no room for her rifle, not even time to extract the omniblade. Her adrenaline rush kicked in. She doge under the first one grabbed him by his collar and belt, got up again to lever him over her shoulder and threw him on the second one. This gave room to extract the omniblade which she rammed into one of the four eyes of the last batarian still on his feet. Meanwhile, Bartholemew had shot the second batarian who was just about to crawl out under his comrade. That comrade now was finished by Shepard when she smashed her boot into his face. ‘Stand in my way and you’ll be crushed under my heal. I mean it.’ “Shepard, you sure you’re human and not krogan?” asked Schaeffer. “Wanna see my quad, LT?” Grinning back Schaeffer showed a line of perfectly white teeth.
The compound was composed of three round bunkers that formed the entrance to some kind of underground ant-farm. Each one had two rocket-turrets mounted on its roof. Their arrangement, however, was bad, insofar as the closest bunker was blocking the line-of-fire of the other two in Shepard’s direction. The animals hadn’t expected anyone attacking from the settlement. “I got this one”, said Chief Landerzoo and grabbed the M-98 Anti-Material Rifle from his back. Pitt’s team meanwhile had arrived, but he had lost two men, reducing Shepard’s assault force to eight. She checked her tactical screen: Schmitt was under attack by the batarian ground forces. But the animals believed the Alliance troops to be much larger than they were and acted accordingly cautious.
Landerzoo had readied his AMR and switched on the cloaking device of his suit: 2,000 micro-cameras made him nearly invisible and blocked thermal readings. Both were highly proto-typed and Shepard had never seen this tec in action. He sneaked out of cover, invisible to the turrets. Shepard could only vaguely guess his silhouette when he went prone ahead of the bunker. The sniper fired and the first turret was blown apart by the big piece of metal fired from the M-98. The shot, however, immediately caused the rifle to overheat. This, in return, caused the cloak to collapse. Landerzoo was lying in the plain open with a non-functional gun. The second turret turned around. “Shit”, this one came from Shepard and Schaeffer simultaneously. Shepard started running while Landerzoo tried to roll away. The turret’s targeting VI had correctly calculated Landerzoo’s movement and the first shot obliterated him. ‘A stupid idea’, thought Shepard, ‘the turret will get you all the same. At least, it will be quick.’ But its next shots went wide: Schaeffer and Bartholemew had been shooting from their cover at the turret, now Pitt’s men provided covering-fire as well. The turret’s VI considered several firing opponents a higher threat than one running target.
When Shepard had reached the M-98, the rifle had completed its cooling-down cycle. She went prone and pulled the trigger without much aiming. The aiming assistance did its job. The recoil was painful though. Modern infantry weapons didn’t have it, but the M-98 used a tiny mass effect explosion to accelerate 250 grams of metal close to the speed of light. “Ground Team to Fleet. Do you copy? The enemy defenses are about to go offline again in short. We need an immediate evac then.” “We read you, Commander. Standing by.” It was comforting to hear Hackett's voice again. To Shepard, it was as if he was watching over them. Time to withdraw the flanking column as well. “Schmitt, come in. What’s your status? Fall back to the compound.” “Negative, Commander. We are boxed in. Down to nine men. We keep the animals busy as long as possible. Buying your time.” “I see... Thank you, Frank.” Shepard had come to Torfan with 30 good men. All but seven were dead. And for what?
Schaeffer had hacked the door to the bunker. Deep-scans showed that the main server was under this bunker. At least they didn’t have to fight through kilometers of ducts and tunnels. A few guards were gunned down without problems. There was one outstanding issue, though. Sergeant Bartholemew brought it up while they took the elevator down to the level where the server would be. “What about the slaves?”. According to thermal readings, there must have been nearly 300 persons inside the compound. Most of them confined in an area ten floors below the second bunker. Those would have been the humans. “I am sorry”, said Shepard, “this place will be overrun in a few minutes. We can’t do anything for them. They were dead the moment the animals caught them.” “Shit”, was the only thing Schaeffer said. Shepard had noticed that the lieutenant had become rather silent since they had entered the bunker. ‘Time to get you out of here, love.’
“This is it?” They had reached the server-level. A large room, full of servers from different sources, salarian, human, asari, and a huge transparent round device in the middle of them. “Yeah, I’d say all those serves do nothing but running a cooling system for that piece of shit”, Schaeffer was pointing at the bowl. “So, overload them and the entire system would go to hell. I’d rather be far away when this happens, though.” “Do it, Jan.” She started overloading the servers with her omnitool. This caused a new alarm to go on, and, with that, five batarians appearing on a balcony at the far end of the room. They started firing.
Schaeffer went down with a groaning. Shepard immediately dropped on her and covered the lieutenant with her body. While all marines returned fire, it seemed that the batarians were only shooting at Schaeffer. Shepard’s shields quickly collapsed and metal splinters cut her armor and the flesh of her back at hypervelocity. She didn’t feel it, but Shepard’s back now looked as if she had been whipped. With the batarians finally dead, Shepard rolled the lieutenant on her back. Jan was bleeding from several wounds in her chest. Red bubbles were forming on her lips as she exhaled. Her lungs were hit, Jan was dying. Shepard held her hand. Jan was looking up at her. Frightened. “You are the most beautiful krogan I have ever seen.”, she suddenly said. Shepard smiled, warm, fighting tears, “And you are the hottest nerd I have ever met.” Jan tried to laugh but instead coughed blood on Shepard’s armor. “Look, I have ruined your armor.” “I would like to see you clean it” Jan touched Shepard’s cheek with a bloodstained hand, “in another universe maybe, Joan”, she said with fainting voice. Her arm dropped and then Jan was dead. With trembling fingers, Shepard removed Lieutenant Jan Schaeffer’s dog tags. Sergeant Bartholomew gently touched Shepard’s shoulder. “Commander, I have medigel for your back, but we have to go.”
Back in the elevator, Bartholomew used medigel for Shepard’s wounds. Shepard didn’t notice it. She was absent as if she was watching the scene from afar. Pitt was saying something to her. She nodded without listening. When they left the elevator, they saw a human girl trying to shove entrails back into a dead batarian. Shepard wasn’t able to process what she was seeing. She said to no one in particular, “Grab the girl.” When they were outside, the compound shook with an enormous explosion. Minutes later the sky was filled with Alliance fighter. A single shuttle was sufficient to evacuate Shepard’s team.
Admiral Hackett knew Joan Shepard since the day she was born. Seeing her like this hurt him. She had Jan’s blood on her chest and in her face. Her back was ragged. That blood was her own’s. There was batarian blood on her right boot too. Joan used to wear her hair in an accurate bun. However, two thick strands were hanging down her right cheek, bloodstained. She was pale and her blue-gray eyes were cold as ice. 'I have turned John Shepard’s wonderful daughter into a demon.’, Hackett thought. “Where’s Kyle?”, she demanded to know. ‘She is dead!’ Shepard could hear her own voice screaming in the back of her head. Admiral Hackett had made sure this debriefing was held in private. “Relieved of his command. He obviously is suffering from PTSD. Unfit for duty. He won’t be in command of anything else.” “No.” Shepard simply said, ‘I want her back’, the voice screamed. “Joan, you know how it works. Killing him won’t bring the others back. Just destroy everything you had been fighting for.” “There were three hundred humans in that bunker! I killed them! Why?” ‘I loved her so’ Then she couldn’t hold back and burst out in tears. Hackett held her.
“What have we got?” The Illusive Man wanted to know. Miranda Lawson was patched in from Torfan. “The Alliance was very thorough, but I think we can recover enough code fragments from the turrets for a partial reconstruction. You were right, it doesn’t look like anything familiar from this galaxy.” “Good. This is now Project Hannibal. You are in charge, Miranda.”
I was always in love with ME1 side quests and I miss a lot of grounded events in later games.
So, @gammaraydeath requested Major Kyle lore, and it's been my Roman Empire since before I started writing this fic.
Anderson is just Alice's boss and friend. Her true and only mentor was Major Richard Kyle.
They met somewhere around 2176, when she was transferred under his command. At that time Alice had a lot of anger management issues and was showing sociopathic and autistic tendencies. She was softly forced into military, and it did not help her resolve her inner problems. Alice could easily end up as Kai Leng or Saren, if not for Major...
Richard had been a stern, gruff, and very influential officer. And he knew potential when he saw it. He saw it in Shepard and decided she only needed a guiding hand to become an excellent officer—maybe even a leader.
It had started as casual conversation in the mess. Friendly banter. Advice. Training.
He thought he was doing a good job—holding her attention, teaching her duty, loyalty.
He fucked up.
Kyle hadn’t expected that angry young woman, caught in a constant whirlwind of military drills, to develop a crush on the only person who was openly friendly and patient with her. 💀
He tried to use it, to shape something good out of her—but too much of it passed through pink-colored glasses and that constant rage-prism, twisted and planted all wrong.
So when Torfan came( they’d gotten the plans for the asteroid by sheer miracle, and it was now or never. No time for cavalry, no time for clean black ops) the Major led the assault. It was messy from the start. One hour in, a third of the unit was gone. The soldiers grew wary; mutiny was already taking root.
Alice tried to calm them down—or rather, to force compliance—with a half-assed speech. Corporal O’Hara cracked first and put a shotgun to her face. The Major shoved Shepard aside at the last second. The blast only grazed half her face.
He took the majority of the damage and shot the corporal in the head. He said that if loyalty couldn’t be earned, it had to be commanded. Alice took that deeply to heart.
The Major couldn’t continue the assault, so Shepard took the reins. She pushed the unit through the meat grinder in those tunnels. A lot of unnecessary deaths followed. She ordered the execution of every last surrendered batarian—men, women, youth alike. It was a “no prisoners” situation. And she had begun to nurture something warped from what the Major had tried to teach her.
When they met again after evacuating from the asteroid, something snapped. Shepard said or did something so atrocious, trying to justify her tactics, her executions, with his own words, that Kyle realized what he had made. He broke. PTSD. Honorable discharge, then disappearance. Shepard received her questionable Star of Terra and an N6 promotion.
While Alice went through two hard years of drug/alcohol abuse and mandatory (mostly useless) therapy, she arrived at a core philosophy: I’ll be humanity’s living shield, because I’m too broken to be fixed.
[Fast forward to the events of ME1]
There needed to be more weight to the L2 conflict. After executing terrorists on the SSV Ontario, Shepard became a target. During one of her Citadel briefings, she was attacked—the elevator was compromised, crashing down hard.
It might have been survivable. A biotic could endure something like that.
Joker was in that elevator with her.
She burned her biotics dry to keep him safe.
And later she got the news: the leader of the terrorist cell was Father Richard Kyle.
Alice went to hunt him down. What she found was only a shell of her former mentor—a religious fanatic gone completely mad, rambling about a decaying universe, about the superiority of L2 biotics. He offered Shepard a place at his side, told her they could finally become the family they were meant to be. He asked her to confess her sins.
She confessed a lot: the second Rachni extinction. Sacrificing scientists on X57. Brutally killing Saleon. Killing scientists for Toombs. Lying to Talitha, telling her the nightmares would end.
And then—with forgive me, Father, for I am about to sin—she sliced his throat.
[Joker saw everything through her helmet cam.]
And still, when confronted, she said every time, he was like a brother to me, he was family. She blamed herself for the Major going off the rails. She had known he was far gone, and she had made the killing blow herself. And it burned—it hurt—because two points of her overprotectiveness had accidentally collided.
Rumor had it, Lt. Shepard refused full facial reconstruction after Torfan—or perhaps the damage was too severe, and Alliance surgeons simply couldn’t fix the ear. She carried it with the same pride she wore her Star of Terra. A shame, really. Brass should have buried her on some backwater colony for what she did. That’s where a soldier like her belongs. Instead, they invited her to the Sevens.
And I’m still the one waking up to O’Hara’s face.
R. Kyle. 15 February 2179
Some pre-Normandy drafts
She really looks like some imperialist bitch in the dress blues without her makeup.
Admiral Hacket: Shepard. Major Kyle has suffered severe PTSD from Torfan and is now the leader of a biotic cult. He’s killed 2 Alliance officers sent to investigate. Bring him in so he can get the treatment he needs.
Normally I hate headcanons like this because they tend to shrink the universe, but I had this mass effect headcanon pop into my head and I really like it.
In ME2, Jack mentions that she joined a cult at one point and “kept the haircut.” In ME1 one of the side quests is to raid and shut down a cult led by a Major Kyle.
Kyle’s cult targeted biotics who had fallen through the cracks of the system and who’s pain had been marginalized.
And you know who was a human biotic who had fallen through the cracks of the system and had their pain marginalized? Jack.
Basically, Jack was briefly part of Kyle’s cult before she got disillusioned with it and left, prior to Shepard’s raid on it.
