Mass Effect 1 : Spectre Status Conferred

There is a model of Mass Relay at the Citdel

            In the face of the recording Taali discovered, the Council has no choice but to accept the fact their illustrious Spectre has gone rogue. They are also able to recognize the other voice on the recording. She is another Asari who is old and powerful enough to be a matriarch. She goes by Benezia, and the fact that Saren has already corrupted her is an ominous sign. The Council members are able to tell Sheppard about her next of kin, one Dr. Liara T’soni. She is an archeologist who specializes in the study of Prothean artifacts. It will be a good idea to locate her. Not only will she able to provide more information about her mother, but she might also be able to help Sheppard translate some of the information the artifact has put in her head.

            The Council is not done being skeptic. Even though they believe Saren has gone rogue, they still are having a hard time believing anything about the reapers. This is going to be a thing with the people in power going forward. In the face of danger, they will constantly choose to ignore it instead of preparing to fight it. Maybe when this game came out, it may have been a fantastic position to take, but in the last two years it has become painfully obvious how true to life this is. People would much rather deny the deaths of 700,000 people than get a vaccine or wear a mask. The most Council is willing to concede is Saren is using the myth of the reapers to contril the Geth. But they are adamant they will do absolutely nothing to even explore the possible existence of galaxy destroying threat.

Sheppard becomes a Spectre

            Since the Council still finds it unnecessary to send in a fleet to protect Alliance colonies, they move to appease humanity by making Sheppard the first human spectre. They have also taken away the spectre status from Saren and strongly encourage Sheppard to hunt him down. Udina is bristling at the inaction and leaves after instructing Sheppard to meet him at the docks.

            There are quite a few things to do and places to explore in the Citadel. It feels quite a bit bigger here than it will in the next two games. The Citadel gets scaled down quite significantly as the series progresses. I think there will be far fewer things to do here in the later games as well. Eventually Sheppard finds her way to the docks. Udina  and Anderson are waiting for her. Sheppard will be taking over the ship, Anderson has been made to step down. He will be serving under Udina at the Citadel for the time being.

            Normandy is a beautiful ship. It is the firstin its class, and was made with shared technology of humans and turians. This is definitely the kind of ship worthy of being captained by a spectre. Anderson tells Sheppard about his past brush with Saren. There was a time when he was being considered to become the first human spectre. Saren was the supervising officer on the mission Anderson was sent on. The mission was sabotaged by Saren to make sure no human will join the spectre rank. It result in mass casualties and Saren went on dump all the blame on Anderson. The humanity was set back so much so no other human was even considered again until today. At the same time, Alliance lost their chance to have a seat on the Council.

            Ferro is another human colony set up by a major corporation. There have been recent geth attacks there as well. It will be a good place to start. There may be something Saren wants over there. If nothing else, we can help the colonist fend of the geth that keep attacking them.

Council washes their hands of any responsibility

No one really knows who built the Citadel.

            Normandy lands in the middle of a geth attack. After beating them back, Sheppard makes her way to Fai Dan. He seems to be the one in charge here. The colonists are not fighters. They all came here to work for Exogeni a while back. Whatever they were doing attracted the wrath of the geth. They have been under constant attack and have retreated to this area. The Exogeni headquarters have already been taken over. Now the geth use it as a base to launch attacks on the remaining humans. The colony is barely surviving. They are running out of power and water while being constantly ambushed by the geth from the tunnels.

            Sheppard will have to find a way to the HQ, but it is probably a good idea to reinforce the colonists first. I remember there is a persuasion check at the end of this mission which is impossible to pass if you visit it first. I don’t want to look it up, but I think it is important for the survival of Feros. I am not going to restart the game for it now, but I do hope there are other checks that can mitigate the failure of this one check.

Most of the reviews have commented on how awful the play experience is in the first Mass Effect, and how much better it gets with the second one onwards. I don’t know if it is just the nostalgia colored glasses, but I am having a whole lot of fun playing this one. As far as I remember, ME1 was the closest to being an RPG. The series became more action oriented as it went on. This one still carries some of the old Bioware charm. Bethesda is famous for jank in its games, but I remember games from Bioware to be deliciously janky as well. Even with the Legendary Edition polish, some of the old school messiness shines through, and Mass Effect 1 is all the more unique for it.