Mass Effect 2 - Arrival DLC (contains spoilers)

[mjc0961]

There was a moment earlier, when Shepard and the agent were talking about the plan to destroy the Mass Effect relay. It was revealed that doing so would destroy all life in the system ? the aforementioned 300,000+ Batarians. Shepard was reluctant to engage in the plan because he, being Paragon, was unwilling to risk that many lives based on shaky evidence. Shepard needed absolute proof. Even in the presence of absolute proof ? I?m personally disappointed that Shepard?s earlier reluctance disappeared completely.

Well, there is a paragon option to try and warn the Batarians, but as soon as you start, you get interrupted. And then Shepard never bothers to try again. I'm not sure if that makes it more or less stupid.

But yeah, Arrival is pretty week, both in story and in gameplay. I get that the gist of it is that we now have more time to deal with the reapers. Okay. And if they made it so you could only do it after beating the main game, it makes a little bit more sense. But you can do this after finishing Horizon, so like you said, then it's dumb because they're still on their way (which you aren't really supposed to even know yet) while Shepard and his crew are still dicking around with the Collector problem.

I really just wish BioWare would stop with the DLC. Okay, Shadow Broker turned out okay, but pretty much everything else has been super bland at best. And now they have to figure out how to get around this mess they just made for ME3. Joy.

Maybe I need to go play ME1 again, but I'm pretty sure the Reapers had been awakened and had started travelling just after Sovreign's defeat.

Actually, that happened at the end of Mass Effect 2, and it was after the defeat of Harbinger, not Sovereign.

No, because Harbinger wasn't defeated at the end of Mass Effect 2. Harbinger was using the collectors as a bunch of puppets. All that happened is that he lost his puppets (this is when you see the collector general lose his glowing eyes and looking around confused right before he dies), but Harbinger himself is still out there and still coming because he's gotta get that Shepard.

As for when the Reapers woke up and started coming, yes it was before the end of ME2. Obviously Harbinger was already awake at the start of the game as again, he's the puppet master behind the collectors, so one could certainly argue that if Harbinger was active, so are the other reapers.

It still makes. The Reapers can stroll into the galaxy in a matter of days and yet they were willing to sacrifice one of their own just to active the Citadel? What, are they that impatient?

Somebody is forgetting that two year gap between Shepard dying at the start of ME2 and them him being revived much later, during which Harbinger and his collectors were trying to get his body, meaning they were also likely heading towards the galaxy during all that time. So if you consider two years to be "a matter of days" like it's no big thing, okay sure. I guess the reapers are impatient.
You also forget that if Sovereign had succeeded in opening the Citadel relay, it would have meant instant victory as there was no way the other races would have been prepared to deal with that.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

]Somebody is forgetting that two year gap between Shepard dying at the start of ME2 and them him being revived much later, during which Harbinger and his collectors were trying to get his body, meaning they were also likely heading towards the galaxy during all that time. So if you consider two years to be "a matter of days" like it's no big thing, okay sure. I guess the reapers are impatient.
You also forget that if Sovereign had succeeded in opening the Citadel relay, it would have meant instant victory as there was no way the other races would have been prepared to deal with that.

It would take more than two years. In fact, it would be amazing if it took less than a hundred years. Remember, the distance between galaxies is huge and they would need to be far out in space so as to not get detected. Also, the distance between the Reapers and the Milky Way seemed quite huge. Since FTL travel is only achievable through the Relay's it would be impossible for them to reach the Milky Way. But even so, if they were only 2 years away what was the point of making their presence known? The ONLY reason Shepard caused all that trouble for the Reapers was BECAUSE Sovereign made its presence known and 2 years isn't that huge of a distance for the them. Think about it. If no one knew about the Reapers no one would have bothered to prepare for their arrival. The Reapers could have strolled into any cluster on the edge of the galaxy and use the nearest Relay to travel to the citadel.

Hell, in fact, is there any reason for the Reapers to attempt to rush this extinction? Does it really matter to them how long it takes to anihilate life? They're machines, they're immortal and they're also extremely powerful. The concept of "rushing" or "time" would be technically meaningless to the Reapers as they can take their time with anything. If they were really that desperate why not just link the Relay near the Citadel with one to the place where they're hiding? They would have reached the relay, attacked the citadel and end life in a matter of minutes.

There's so many gaping plot holes it's amazing. Mass Effect's dialogue might be good and the combat system engaging but when it comes to story and characters, everything just falls flat. Bioware can do better than this. I don't know why but since they've joined up with EA Bioware's games have been steadily declining in quality.

 

[Krion_Vark]

I would just like to say playing both ME and ME2 and NONE of the DLC. I for some reason think that we will have to activate the Citadel to activate to destroy the ONLY reasper becuase they seem like a Hive mind more than different Intelligent Entities.

 

[Krion_Vark]

AndyFromMonday, want me to blow your mind about ME1 canon?

The game only happened at all because Saren and Sovereign acted stupidly about information they couldn't have had. If the Reapers knew about Ilos, they how did the Protheans there survive the purge? The Conduit is just a shortcut from Ilos to the Citadel. Saren is a Council Spectre - he probably has an office on the Citadel. So why didn't he wait until Council wasn't in session, walk in and just do what Sovereign told him to do - activate the Citadel Relay into dark space. There was no reason to go to Eden Prime at all, or go about the business of finding Ilos, the Conduit, or the Mu Relay.

Sovereign knew how to activate the Citadel, he just couldn't do it himself. So he had Saren do it. There was no reason for ME1 to have been a game. That's how doe-eyed people are when talking about Bioware games - these laughable plot holes get completely ignored.

This so called plot hole is actually patched up by the fact that Saren had not been to the citadel since he became a spectre taking orders from his email account. The fact that once he was indoctrinated by Sovereign why he couldn't have just walked into the citadel goes into how Spectres are pretty much Spec OPs and their where abouts are closely monitored and if he were to just walk into the Citadel after the indoctrination he would probably be detained by Citadel Police for breaking Council orders. Have you noticed that there are ZERO Spectres on the Citadel? Also Sovereign probably thought it to be a good idea to keep him away in case the indoctrination wore off. Kind of like that queen lady(name escapes me right now) from ME1.

Hell if you want to find plot holes you will find them. If you want to not find plot holes you will cover them up. (In a similar way that I just did.) Everyone's thoughts are different on what they experience but I do believe that a lot of the plot holes are actually implied with real like rules and regulations of armed forces and law enforcement.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Why no other party members?

Because anyone other than Shep would have been indoctrinated. Of course, that's a Meta reason.

Also, it's a spoof on the ME1 DLC, hence the slightly odd plot.

And finally... what parallel universe are you from that Mass Effect 1 and 2 didn't have a ton of plot holes? I've already commented before about the fact that Tali's immune system works differently between ME1 and ME2. More recently, it's been pointed out that many of the options in Mass Effect keep the player from actually making the logical decision.

Anyway, the plot fails in Arrival didn't bother me any more than the plot holes anywhere else. It's sci-fi, not high literature.

Plus, I got to blow up a solar system. How awesome was that?

 

[Etra488]

[ul][li]Spectres are closely monitored? Really? And that's why no one really knew where Saren was, right? Like, the Council couldn't determine if he was at Eden Prime at Nihlus's time of death.[/li]
[li]Ask someone what indoctrination looks like. How would you tell? The most typical warning sign is that the victim tells you they're indoctrinated.[/li]
[li]Zero Spectres on the Citadel, and how would you know? If the Asari Spectre in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC hadn't identified herself, how would you know that she was a Spectre? What if she wasn't one, but was just lying? How would Shepard have known the difference? Spectres have no insignia, no badge, and apparently no phone number that Shepard could call up and check on. [/li][/ul]

Buddy, don't paint me as some anal-retentive nitpicker. I didn't enter the game looking to tear it down. These problems readily presented themselves to me. I write - a lot. And one thing I think about when writing is, "So what would happen if there were no hero? What would the villain's best-case-scenario look like?"

Sovereign's best case scenario would have involved the Protheans not sabotaging the Keepers. Well, that means that Sovereign is just a caretaker - he watches from afar. His mission only requires him to interfere if something unexpected happens. But because the Protheans were able to escape the galactic purge and sabotage the Keepers, that means that Sovereign failed in his job.

Because the Protheans were able to execute their plan at all means that Vigil wasn't lying about the Reapers not knowing about Ilos or the Conduit. Or else the Reapers would have done to Ilos what they did to every other Prothean planet. So Sovereign isn't communicating regularly with the Keepers - Sovereign doesn't do tests on the Citadel, he doesn't run a perimeter check to ensure none of the Mass Effect relays go missing (oops, forgot the Mu Relay there...), and Sovereign never performs regular maintenance on the Reaper scheme to maintain their dominance. He just kind of hibernates like a cartoonish villain.

All I'm expecting is that the Reapers behave as responsible small-business owners. If the Reapers are intended to be a metaphor for what happens when you become prideful and complacent - then all this incompetence fits. Except that's not the case: the Reapers are supposed to be this inevitable force of entropy. That's their entire MO.
[ul][li]The Reapers aren't suppose to be incompetent.[/li]
[li]The Reapers shouldn't be caught napping on the job.[/li]
[li]The Reapers should at least be as proactive as a night-watch mall cop.[/li][/ul]

And they aren't. For no good reason. They're stupid and Saren is foolish to facilitate the weak plot. There was no reason for Mass Effect to have been made if this is the way the story was going to unfold - Saren could have, should have, just pressed the button on the Citadel. And that would have been that.

Instead, Saren and Sovereign know all about a planet they couldn't have known about, knew they had to use a device on that planet - when Saren has the right to go to the Citadel on his own - and there was no reason for either of them to visit Eden Prime.

 

[Souplex]

I think it was to set up a Batarian-Human conflict for 3.

 

[Etra488]

Magenera, that's a nice bit of fan-fiction there. Questions:
[ul][li]How were the Rachni anything but insects fulfilling their biological imperative?[/li]
[li]Are the Krogan part of the Reaper plan too?[/li]
[li]The Collectors exist during all this time. Why not play your ace-in-the-hole first, instead of strengthening your opponents by sending waves of incrementally more powerful stooges at them?[/li][/ul]

No doubt what that 4-plan model does is show how the Reapers have had to change their plan when faced with obstacles. But presuming that all that was in place from the start?

When did Sovereign figure out the Plan A wasn't going work, and when did he decide to send the Rachni?

Why wait something along the lines of 3,000 years between Plans B and C?

Plan D is occurring right now - the Reapers are just chugging along over. If this was the plan that has the least risk and the highest chances of success, then why isn't this the Plan A?

I think it was to set up a Batarian-Human conflict for 3.

This was my conclusion as well. But after the Skyllian Blitz, the ME1 DLC with the asteroid crashing into the planet, and humanity's cultural distaste for slavery, there was already enough fodder for conflict between the two races.

This DLC is intended to prejudice the Batarians and the galaxy-at-large against Shepard exclusively. Shepard's the bad guy now. And my question is, "You already saddled Shepard with an evil organization in ME2, why would you want to paint the hero as the bad guy in Me3?"

How does this new twist of fate improve the narrative?

 

[Windupferrari]

Definitely felt like a rush job to me. I mean, I was expecting something lengthy, like LotSB, not a DLC with less than 2 hours of gameplay. Also, the reason they didn't let you have your teammates was because they didn't want to call al their voice actors back to give them situation specific lines. Basically, they were lazy.

 

[Spitfire]

No, because Harbinger wasn't defeated at the end of Mass Effect 2. Harbinger was using the collectors as a bunch of puppets. All that happened is that he lost his puppets (this is when you see the collector general lose his glowing eyes and looking around confused right before he dies), but Harbinger himself is still out there and still coming because he's gotta get that Shepard.

Harbinger's plan was to use the collectors to abduct human colonists and use their genetic material to construct a Human-Reaper. Shepard hindered Harbinger's whole plan when he/she destroyed the Human-Reaper itself and then blew up the Collector Base. So yeah, Harbinger was defeated in that instance.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Since FTL travel is only achievable through the Relay's it would be impossible for them to reach the Milky Way.

For someone taking Bioware to task for creating plot holes, you evidently haven't been paying very good attention to the background of their setting, because that is not correct at all.

From the Relay Codex entry (emphasis mine): "Relays create corridors of virtually mass-less space that allow for near instantaneous travel between two distant points that would otherwise be years or even centuries away at conventional FTL speeds."

Oh look, faster than light travel is indeed possible without utilizing relays[footnote]There are multiple codex entries that reference independent FTL travel, not just that one.[/footnote], and in fact the way they explain the council's policy of only activating dormant primary relays once they have found the corresponding twin doesn't make sense unless they have bloody FTL drives that work independently from the technology of the relays - if the respective races of the galaxy couldn't travel faster than the speed of light without using the relays, the entire setting collapses, there simply hasn't been enough time for the current inhabitants of the galaxy to have found anything, they would still be in transit if their ships couldn't break the light speed barrier. Travel via relays is just better, and thus what everyone comes to rely on, all faster than light travel requires is mastery of Element Zero.

Oh, also the notion that Saren couldn't have known where Ilos was? Completely false! If you actually read the codex entries on the subject, you would know that at various points several expeditions to Ilos were planned but then scrapped due to concerns over costs and the long duration of conventional FTL travel such a trip would require. The Council races, and thereby Saren, knew full well that Ilos existed - they just didn't visit it because the relay that pointed at it was lost. As for why Saren would have wanted to go there, that's easily explained by his viewing of the Prothean beacons (which also explains why he went to Eden Prime with Sovereign and the Geth - reports of a beacon being unearthed).

Whether or not he ever actually needed to attack the Citadel through that "back door", well there the naysayers may well have a point, but several key aspects of these rants fly in direct contradiction to the facts as Bioware laid down through their codex. Might want to make sure you have those straight before you harangue Bioware for violating their own internal logic.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Oh look, faster than light travel is indeed possible without utilizing relays[1], and in fact the way they explain the council's policy of only activating dormant primary relays once they have found the corresponding twin doesn't make sense unless they have bloody FTL drives that work independently from the technology of the relays - if the respective races of the galaxy couldn't travel faster than the speed of light without using the relays, the entire setting collapses, there simply hasn't been enough time for the current inhabitants of the galaxy to have found anything, they would still be in transit if their ships couldn't break the light speed barrier. Travel via relays is just better, and thus what everyone comes to rely on, all faster than light travel requires is mastery of Element Zero.

[HEADING=1] SPOILERS [/HEADING]








Sure, but this just strenghtens the point that there was absolutely no reason for the events in ME1 to happen. Why did they have to sacrifice one of their own just to activate the Citadel if they could have just used FTL travel and reach basically any relay on the outer edges of the galaxy? In fact, what was the point of ME2? Did they really have to take such a big risk in creating another Reaper by using the collectors? Why not arrive in the galaxy and do it themselves like they have done for billions of years. It doesn't make any sense that a race of sentient and extremely intelligent machines would act like this. Hell, they were extremely close to the galaxy giving that right after their reaper larva was destroyed and the collectors anihilated they still managed to reach the galaxy. What was the point of them exposing their actions like that? It just makes no fucking sense.


Hell, the entire plot of the first game is about the Reapers finding a way to return. They made the entire galaxy aware of their pressence and lost a valuable soldier. Was there a reason for this? Now the entire galaxy is preparing for their arrival. If they wouldn't have made such a fuss and had just returned quietly they would've had their human Reaper and they would have also wiped out all life with almost no resistance at all. And is ignoring the biggest plot hole in basically the entire series. You know which one? Remember the reason why Sovereign wanted to reach Ilos in the first place? To use the mini relay found there in order to get Saren into the Citadel. What was the point of that? Why all the fuss? Wouldn't it have been easier if Saren would have maintained his cover in the citadel? Think about it. Sovereign comes in with its army of Geth. The Geth keep the citadel fleet in check whilst Saren goes into the now vacant council chamber and activates the citadel. The actions of Sovereign during the first game make absolutely no sense.

Let's look at the second game. Was there any reason at all for the collectors to try and create a human reaper? Were the Reapers that desperate? Couldn't they have waited until they arrived in the galaxy and create the Reaper themselves? Was there a reason for them to be so impatient? It cost them one of their most valuable agents and a goddamn Reaper. For a hyper intelligent race of sentient machines they're pretty goddamn stupid. In fact, was there even a reason to create the collectors in the first place? No, there wasn't. They served no purpose whatsoever.


And let's return to the distance argument. They were pretty far out in space, most likely thousands of light years away from the galaxy so as to not get detected. Even at FTL travel arriving in the galaxy in two years and a few months is pretty goddamn impressive. And let's not forget that galaxies move through space. If the Reapers truly hibernated in space they would have had to devise a way to keep moving in the direction the Milky Way was moving, otherwise they could have woken up only to realize the Milky Way was nowhere to be found.

 

[Etra488]

Gildan Bladeborn, if Ilos was so known about, then why didn't the Reapers destroy it too?

If Ilos was re-discovered after the Reapers left, then why didn't Sovereign float over and... make sure none of the Protheans survived? You know, make sure they didn't set a time bomb that was going to sabotage the Reaper plan?

Why didn't Sovereign, of all people, re-discover the Mu Relay? You'd think being a Reaper, he'd have his own way of tracking their location. But I guess not.

*** *** *** *** ***

It's just really stupid, Gildan Bladeborn, that archaeologists can find Ilos, but the Reapers can't, especially when there were Protheans alive on Ilos at that time. You want to find a lost city? Well it's easier to do that when people are living at that city at the time. You're going to make the argument that a bunch of meatbags are going to be more thorough, analytical, and intelligent about minute details than a eons-old machine?

The Reapers leave no survivors. They haven't left a survivor ever before, in probably a thousand of cycles. But they left survivors this time. But... Liara T'Soni or whoever is special and out-thought the Reapers.

My point is that Ilos being "missed" by the Reapers, but "found" by the next-cycle races is stupid. Why didn't Sovereign swoop in and finish the job? He didn't. Because he's a dummy.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Gildan Bladeborn, if Ilos was so known about, then why didn't the Reapers destroy it too?

If Ilos was re-discovered after the Reapers left, then why didn't Sovereign float over and... make sure none of the Protheans survived? You know, make sure they didn't set a time bomb that was going to sabotage the Reaper plan?

It was more a case that the existence and general location of Ilos was worked out through second-hand references found at various other Prothean ruins (much like the city of Troy), and I would imagine Sovereign didn't attempt to fly out to the location of a "lost Prothean world" for the same reason the Council never made the attempt - by the time its existence was postulated, there was no easy way to do so without the Mu relay in place. The Reapers didn't target Ilos in the first place because the records of the Conduit research project were destroyed during the initial Reaper assault on the Citadel, and the facility itself went dark when they learned about the purge.

Also, finish what job exactly? The 12 remaining Protheans on Ilos, after the AI killed off most of those in stasis to keep systems running while they waited out the Reaper purge (which lasted for centuries), were the ones who ultimately sabotaged the next extinction cycle, and they did so a handful of decades after the Reapers had left - by the time Sovereign discovered they'd tampered with the Keepers, they'd been dead for something like 50,000 years, having presumably starved to death after traveling back to the Citadel via the Conduit prototype miniature relay and doing whatever it was that they did to the Keepers that broke the cycle. There was never any "bomb", or reason to believe that Ilos was in any way linked to the Citadel failing to respond to Sovereign's signal to trigger the current purge; the only people interested in Ilos were archeologists, who had no idea what they would actually find if they ever went there (what with the Conduit records being destroyed).

The only reason Ilos was important at all in the present day was as a backdoor onto the Citadel, and if the Protheans on Ilos hadn't sent out the signal that reached the various Prothean beacons in the hopes of reaching other possible survivors, nobody would have any reason to suspect that backdoor existed. Of course there were no survivors for the signal to reach, and the beacon found on Eden Prime was the first that anyone had ever found intact, so it doesn't stretch the bounds of credulity much that Sovereign wouldn't have been aware of the Conduit project until right around when Shepard first came into the picture (and even then the data itself was somewhat less than useful without the benefit of a Prothean racial perspective, requiring additional interpretation before the message was clear).

 

[Lord Krunk]

Eh.

For some reason the presence of plot holes doesn't particularly bother me. I do not play Bioware games for the plot.

What does bother me is that it didn't really add anything to the story.
Before Arrival the plot was at the point of: "The Reapers are coming on the next bus to fuck us up."
After Arrival the plot was at the point of: "The Reapers missed their bus. They'll catch the next one and come to fuck us up."

I actually laughed my ass off at hearing this description. Granted, I love the Mass Effect games, warts and all, but I get the impression that Arrival is probably the first ever game equivalent of filler.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Eh.

For some reason the presence of plot holes doesn't particularly bother me. I do not play Bioware games for the plot.

What does bother me is that it didn't really add anything to the story.
Before Arrival the plot was at the point of: "The Reapers are coming on the next bus to fuck us up."
After Arrival the plot was at the point of: "The Reapers missed their bus. They'll catch the next one and come to fuck us up."

I actually laughed my ass off at hearing this description. Granted, I love the Mass Effect games, warts and all, but I get the impression that Arrival is probably the first ever game equivalent of filler.

Not at all. I'd wager that most of the Oblivion gate closings, besides the first and the large gate, was pure padding.

 

[Etra488]

Gildan Bladeborn, the only thing I find funnier than your lame response is that you actually think you filled in that plot hole.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Eh.

For some reason the presence of plot holes doesn't particularly bother me. I do not play Bioware games for the plot.

What does bother me is that it didn't really add anything to the story.
Before Arrival the plot was at the point of: "The Reapers are coming on the next bus to fuck us up."
After Arrival the plot was at the point of: "The Reapers missed their bus. They'll catch the next one and come to fuck us up."

I actually laughed my ass off at hearing this description. Granted, I love the Mass Effect games, warts and all, but I get the impression that Arrival is probably the first ever game equivalent of filler.

Not at all. I'd wager that most of the Oblivion gate closings, besides the first and the large gate, was pure padding.

I'll reiterate that you never play Bethesda for the main quest though.

While I know what you mean, at least it was a part of the actual game and the main story, regardless of how badly paced it is. This is a segue into the next big story, and so actually fills a void from which there was nothing.

What does it achieve? Nothing.
Does this DLC matter that much? Nope.

I'm calling it filler because it keeps the fans happy while they wait for ME3. I'm just going to point out that I'm one of those suckers as well.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Gildan Bladeborn, the only thing I find funnier than your lame response is that you actually think you filled in that plot hole.

Is there some particular reason you keep responding to me without using the quote function? It's generally regarded as common courtesy to quote someone when you're engaged in something reasonably approximating a discussion.

But I digress - precisely how is my response "lame" when I've essentially spelled out the canonical details of the plot practically verbatim, with almost no commentary on my part? You don't find it at all odd that you've constructed elaborate rants about the declining quality of Bioware's storytelling seemingly without actually knowing the fine details of the plot you are ranting about?

I'm not defending the Mass Effect storyline at all, or any of its perceived or actual plot holes, missteps, or what have you - I'm advocating that all you armchair critics get your bloody facts right. Hell, I will be the very first to agree that Mass Effect 2 did some absolutely boneheaded things from a story perspective, but that doesn't mean detractors get a free pass to make the background info of the Mass Effect universe say whatever the hell they want it to if it strengthens their argument.

The fact of the matter is that the entire Mass Effect story hinges on a small team of Protheans surviving their culture's eradication and acting to (hopefully) save future civilizations from the fate theirs witnessed - arguing that "allowing" that to happen makes Sovereign "stupid" begs the question: Precisely how would you go about fixing this perceived plothole of the Reapers not being 100% infallible? Here I am stupidly thinking that the one event upon which the entire plot revolves must at least be the one thing we can all point to and say "Well at least that's not a plot hole", but you evidently know better.