Mass Effect 2 - Arrival DLC (contains spoilers)

[Etra488]

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.

When the story establishes that a pattern is at hand, and the plot involves that pattern, then my first question is, "Alright, then why is it any different this time? What changed that makes the pattern no longer viable?"

In the case of Mass Effect, the Protheans lucked out and a planet full of them survived. The AI Vigil, unfortunately, couldn't keep the number that high. The few survivors were the first ever to live through a Reaper cycle, and they executed a plan to assist the next-cycle's galactic inhabitants resist the Reapers.

I get it.

How did Sovereign come to be aware of Ilos?
[ul][li]If Sovereign was always aware of Ilos, then why did the Reapers allow that planet to be spared?[/li]

[li]If Sovereign wasn't aware of Ilos, then how does he know about it now?[/li]

[li]Did he wait for contemporary archaeologists to find it for him? If so, why didn't he dispatch the Collectors to hunt for Ilos immediately? Hire some slavers to capture Liara and other prominent historians, steal the information from the extranet, whatever it takes. The Collectors have a ship and tons of mercenary contacts. Don't tell me the Collectors didn't exist in ME1 - because that would mean Bioware lied when they said that this was always supposed to be a trilogy.[/li]
[li]From the failure of the Keepers, did Sovereign deduce that a pocket of Protheans survived the last cycle and this is a work of sabotage? That still doesn't answer how Sovereign comes to know about the "lost planet" or about the Prothean tech on its surface.[/li]
[li]The Reapers are supposed to be infinitely patient and benefiting from the experience and veterency of having performed these cycles numerous times. The Reapers know what ruins look like and they're very good at leaving no trace behind. How was it archaeologists found anything that the Reapers didn't want them to find?[/li]
[li]Even after archeologists found evidence of Ilos, why didn't Sovereign act on that information immediately? What the Council races consider uncharted planets - to Sovereign those worlds may have been the birth planets of hundreds of species terminated over the course of dozens of cycles. Sovereign would have more complete celestial maps than the Council. To him, nothing is lost; it has drifted according to gravity and time. Sovereign would be incapable of forgetting or "losing" anything, much less a Mass Effect Relay.[/li]
[li]In ME2, the whole premise is that one man in one ship CAN navigate through the Terminus systems without difficulty. So why wouldn't Saren and Sovereign be able to accomplish the same? What could the Terminus systems possibly assemble that could threaten Sovereign and a Council Spectre?[/li]
[/ul]

We keep coming back to the qualities that Bioware wants the audience to associate with the Reapers: timelessness, intelligence, entropy. The Reapers are the end of all life. They build their children out of organics, achieving a particular union culminating in biotic machines. That is how they are sentient - they have souls but without the mortality. I think this makes them a unique and terrifying villain.

But then you have the way they're portrayed in the game. They're stupid. It is bad writing to make the plot possible only by the stupidity and incompetence of the villain, especially if they're supposed to be infallible god-machines.

Let's make a list of what Bioware needed to contrive the plot they wanted:
[ul][li]An eternal cycle of destruction.[/li]
[li]Heroes that long ago, martyred themselves to break that cycle.[/li]
[li]A great struggle as the dominators attempt to restore the cycle.[/li][/ul]

That's it - all the writers had to do was fill in those blanks. Where Bioware failed was making the Prothean's the beneficiaries of luck. They survived their Reaper cycle not because of their greatness, not because of some ineffable quality that exists in organics but is absent in the Reapers - but because of blind, stupid luck. Why didn't the Reapers get lucky and find the hibernating Protheans on Ilos - despite all records of the planet being lost?

This idea could explain the Reaper's preoccupation with humanity: of all the Council races, only humans have that one thing that the Protheans had, with which the Protheans were able to resist and damage the Reapers. Because humans have it too, and the Reapers are aware that this quality is the real threat (after what the Protheans did to them), this would explain why the Reapers are targeting humans and Shepard in particular, because he has an abundance of it.

This thing could be an inherent part of being organic that the Reapers have tried and failed to replicate. This thing could be common but underrated. It could be anything. It could be imagination, or faith, or whatever the writers wanted it to be. Instead, they chose not to make being a mortal special - they just chalked it all up to luck.

So what it all comes down to, when you break the problems down to their fundamental parts, the Reapers didn't act smart enough. They made poor decisions with the information they apparently had, despite the inconsistencies that result in them having that information. The core of the plot hole is that the Reapers acted out of character with how the story characterizes them.

 

[Penitent]

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.

For the sake of defending Mass Effect (1, that is; pick on the sequel all you like), I don't quite think that's how it works. You're making an assumption that if the Reapers know a planet exists, then they will go to it and eradicate all life there. That's not been their strategy: their strategy has been to go to every planet with advanced sentient life and then kill it off. How do they know which planets have these? It's why they storm the Citadel first - the records there tell them everywhere they need to go.

Given the size of the galaxy at large, it'd be ridiculous to search it planet by planet until they find every last Prothean-esque race. They also don't seem interested in destroying a species unless it has advanced sufficiently - otherwise they'd be destroying planets until they couldn't sustain any life. This is why those on Ilos were able to stay hidden: because there were no records of Ilos ever left to find.

Is the notion of a species living in a place unrecorded being ignored a mistake on the Reapers' part? Of course it is: it's severely underestimating the potential of thinking beings. But it's also the intention of the writers - who I dearly hope will expand upon this with some actual characterisation of the Reapers in Mass Effect 3. But hey, they'll probably have the B-Team working on the story again.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

For the sake of defending Mass Effect (1, that is; pick on the sequel all you like), I don't quite think that's how it works. You're making an assumption that if the Reapers know a planet exists, then they will go to it and eradicate all life there. That's not been their strategy: their strategy has been to go to every planet with advanced sentient life and then kill it off. How do they know which planets have these? It's why they storm the Citadel first - the records there tell them everywhere they need to go.

Given the size of the galaxy at large, it'd be ridiculous to search it planet by planet until they find every last Prothean-esque race. They also don't seem interested in destroying a species unless it has advanced sufficiently - otherwise they'd be destroying planets until they couldn't sustain any life. This is why those on Ilos were able to stay hidden: because there were no records of Ilos ever left to find.

Is the notion of a species living in a place unrecorded being ignored a mistake on the Reapers' part? Of course it is: it's severely underestimating the potential of thinking beings. But it's also the intention of the writers - who I dearly hope will help explain this with some actual characterisation of the Reapers in Mass Effect 3. But hey, they'll probably have the B-Team working on the story again.

It's never explicitly spelled out, but there may have been another reason why Ilos was "overlooked" beyond the records being destroyed. For one, the fact that the next generation of advanced civilizations learned that a place called Ilos existed through second-hand references in other Prothean ruins around the galaxy, and were even able to roughly determine its location from those sources, would suggest that the planet itself wasn't "missing"; in fact, what we're actually told is that it was the records of the Conduit research team on Ilos that were destroyed in the initial attack on the Citadel, not the records of Ilos itself.

Why then would the Reapers overlook it? For my personal explanation, I shall reference Mass Effect 1:

In the golden age of the Protheans, Ilos was a verdant world, dotted with the spires and arches of magnificent cities. Even casual observation shows this is no longer the case. Ilos has been devastated by means unknown, its entire surface changed to the color of rust. The atmosphere shows heightened levels of oxygen. Wildfires, presumably ignited by lightning strikes, can be seen burning on the dark side. This indicates that most - if not all - respiring animal life forms have died off.

As you can see, the current state of Ilos differs quite a bit from the descriptions the Council races uncovered - which would make sense if what they were reading were historical accounts from the golden age of the Protheans. At some point though some unknown catastrophe happened/was inflicted/what have you, and in the modern era it's hardly any sort of paradise. What we aren't told by that description is roughly when that act of devastation transpired, and that's where my personal interpretation comes in - I think that whatever devastated Ilos led to the Protheans abandoning the planet as a viable colony before the Reaper purge began.

As you pointed out Penitent, the Reapers aren't systematically scouring the galaxy of life, they're harvesting/wiping out advanced life, so while we can certainly argue that they're not deliberately cleansing the galaxy every 50,000 years or so and could (and will) overlook some life here and there (it's the whole point behind leaving the technology of the relays around, they ensure each generation of space-faring civilizations evolve along a pathway they've devised), it also really didn't make any sense that a unfathomably old methodical race of machine intelligences would have overlooked an entire Prothean planet that a bunch of jumped up organics could learn about without too much trouble. After all, they spent centuries systematically demolishing the Prothean civilization, it beggars credulity that they would have simply never checked Ilos out at some point during that process.

Unless they never had any reason to suspect there were any Protheans there anymore - official records of a colony world abandoned thanks to ecological disaster would hardly suggest that "Hey, this world harbors advanced life!". Heck, let's assume that the Reapers didn't necessarily trust the records and checked it out in person - by that point the research team on Ilos would have received fragmentary reports of the purge underway and gone into hiding via cryo-stasis in the underground bunker, and the Reapers would hardly have reason to suspect they were there at all when even a cursory glance at the planet confirms that the official record wasn't lying.

As for why a Prothean research team was operating on an abandoned planet, this particular piece of DLC of all things might have an answer - remember that the Conduit project was an attempt to replicate primary mass effect relays on a small scale. We see exactly what happens when something goes horribly wrong with the big versions - goodbye star system! - so it's certainly within the realm of possibility that something going wrong with a miniature version could obliterate a planet (or at the very least give anyone on it a very bad day). So if you're the Protheans and you're going to construct a prototype mass effect relay of your very own somewhere, building it somewhere that you wouldn't mind losing because hey, you've already abandoned the place just makes sense; nobody would miss Ilos if it suddenly exploded.

One could point to the other relay inside the bloody Citadel of all places as proof that my interpretation above is a load of bull - the lynchpin of your inter-stellar empire is certainly the exact opposite of "remote and unlikely to be missed if things go horribly awry" - but there's no reason to suspect they put that one there until they were damn well certain it wouldn't violently explode on them. After all, we know that by the point the Ilos team went into cryo-stasis, they already had the technology working; it was how they got back to the Citadel to enact their tampering that eventually saved our collective bacon.

Maybe I'm completely off-base and the real explanation is something else entirely, but with the facts as we are presented them now I think that my interpretation makes the most sense (and leaves the Reapers looking much less foolish). Mass Effect 2 is still a(n admittedly entertaining) mess though.

 

[Etra488]

Hi Penitent. You say the Reapers wouldn?t waste their time scrutinizing every single planet. Do they have something better to do? I?m being serious. They?re sentient computers. They don?t get impatient.

You say that the Reapers are reliant on Citadel records ? what about their own records? They don?t have their own celestial maps ? no chart telling them which planets are most likely to support sentient life? And then they don?t scout these ?likely? worlds? Ilos being a crap-hole is really irrelevant in a universe where every single creature wears an environmental suit.

As an aside ? by this metric ? the Reapers would overlook Tuchanka because the Krogan wouldn?t be ?sufficiently advanced.? That just sounds so strange ? that the Reapers would focus on humanity but at the same time, skip the Krogan. So the idea that the Reapers only focus on ?sufficiently advanced? races must be wrong.

Gildan Bladeborn, you have returned. How?s it hangin.

And your answer is? guesswork. You?re pulling a Mordin Solus and fabricating a theory that fits available evidence, with no consideration if it might be true or not. How about this for theories: The Reapers that attacked last cycle and wiped out the Protheans were a splinter faction. They weren?t following standard procedure and these mistakes are what happens when rogue groups cut corners.

There, that theory fits available evidence, and it?s in continuity with what the audience has seen with Cerberus and other groups. Any time there?s a mistake or a disaster ? rogue group. Whatever. If the Bioware writers don?t care then I won?t either.

 

[GodofCider]

Maybe the reaper's were using the Artifact as a way of messing with the human's and Shepard before they arrived? Also maybe they weren't actually 50 hours away and the reapers' were planning on using the time constrants as a motivator for Shepard to push the button?

Maybe their plan was to use the Artifact:
To further lower the universe's view on Shepard through the death of a large number of one species.
To incapacitate Shepard.
To weaken the Human's influence in the universe.
To remove a potential threat (agent) and use her to their advantage.
To confuse and disorientate the human's and alien's and where they stand in the war.
And
To troll Shepard into destroying an easy to defend position and believing that they were 50 hours away. Easily done due to his reaper fear.

Viewed from this angle, it puts down what others have written here, a significant amount.

 

[Etra488]

Odd that's your 3rd playthrough of ME2, because I felt your review showed a substantial lack of understanding of the ME mythos. (for example, the doctor may not have been fully indoctrinated - it's possible for Reapers to change the rate that it occurs; the caviate being that the faster one is indoctrinated, the quicker mental processes degenerate [this is just ONE example though, I don't have time to go into other points I'd argue against... though one thing is............ who said the Batarians were EITHER a facist state OR that they had tons of spies around the system? though I agree with the whole shuttle flying down to the base thing... didn't get that one either).

Having said that, I do agree with you. I can totally see how this DLC can play a major role in ME3... but it was too short (I beat it in an hour and a half) and the moments that were supposed to be epic felt underwhelming. I think the biggest reason why this occurred was because there was no build up to the climaxes. The entire thing just felt like a quick plot development - an after thought probably conceived during the development of ME3. It just felt rushed because of that. Like they didn't REALLY want to make it, but they knew they should for ME3's plot.

Shepard and the doc - that's actually a conversation choice. Shepard ASKS her about the indoctrination and she responds "You think we haven't thought of that?" with no greater elaboration. And because Shepard is an idiot he doesn't press the issue.

I only leap to the conclusion that the Batarians live in a fascist police state because, if you visit the other planets in the solar system, the planetary descriptions make numerous note of spy satellites monitoring the planets. You are walking into a prison and it is very apparent the race is savage. Everything about the Batarians is veiled behind a cloak of militarism.

So it just seemed like a natural supposition to make.

Nile McMorrow, what GodofCider is commenting on is garbage. It's that kind of fan fiction that confuses canon. Yes, that is an alternative theory that fits available evidence, but it's also bullshit because it isn't true. Reinterpreting events to fit an alternative script is not honest storytelling - Bioware has told the story and it is disagreeable. Saying that it's actually different from what it is doesn't fix the problems - it just shows your willingness to ignore Bioware's storytelling deficiencies.

 

[Penitent]

Hi Penitent. You say the Reapers wouldn?t waste their time scrutinizing every single planet. Do they have something better to do? I?m being serious. They?re sentient computers. They don?t get impatient.

You say that the Reapers are reliant on Citadel records ? what about their own records? They don?t have their own celestial maps ? no chart telling them which planets are most likely to support sentient life? And then they don?t scout these ?likely? worlds? Ilos being a crap-hole is really irrelevant in a universe where every single creature wears an environmental suit.

Thank you for replying, David. I know you're being serious, no need to stress it.
Even though the Reapers technically may have an eternity, they're performing a genocidal hunt, and in order to keep their prey under heel, they need to make the most of their time. Imagine if they spent a generation scouring one whole corner of the galaxy, only to find that advanced life hasn't populated any of it yet; in the meantime, the Protheans would have had time to recover, or to flee elsewhere and have time to hide - even on planets the Reapers had deemed clean.

You misunderstand me when I speak of records. I don't speak of records regarding which solar systems and planets exist, heavens no; that's very simple in this context. But what's more complicated is finding out which of the existing planets have organic life on them that is advanced enough to be destroyed. There are a lot of planets out there, too many to count; some of them can host sentient, intelligent life, but not all of them at once. Planets like Earth and Palaven have been around for more than millions of years; that doesn't mean humans and turians have been travelling across space for just as long. For a reason as yet unknown, the Reapers only exterminate species which have existed for long enough at the set technological threshold (i.e. before they can expand beyond the technology the Reapers have given to them) - not those who have yet to reach it.

Ilos being inhospitable is relevant, in truth, especially when you consider that nobody wants to spend their days living in an environmental suit. Just look at the Quarians: all they want to do is go back home so they can walk around without a suit for two minutes and not need medical treatment. If a planet is reasonably inhospitable, and alternatives to establishing civilisation there exist, it's hardly irrational or foolish to conclude that the Protheans (in this case) have left it for greener pastures.

As an aside ? by this metric ? the Reapers would overlook Tuchanka because the Krogan wouldn?t be ?sufficiently advanced.? That just sounds so strange ? that the Reapers would focus on humanity but at the same time, skip the Krogan. So the idea that the Reapers only focus on ?sufficiently advanced? races must be wrong.

You're trying to break the rule by pointing out an exception that doesn't exist. I may not be following you completely here, but since the Krogans' advancement was rapidly accelerated into the space age thanks to Salarian involvement, they technically do qualify, since they're more than familiar enough with technology, spaceships and mass effect energy. Heck, despite the stereotype, there are even Krogan scientists! Since they're part of the intergalactic society, then of course they would be.

 

[Etra488]

Hi again Penitent.

So all it would take to escape the Reapers is a moon-base. Make an artificial living environment on a world that can't sustain life - like on the moon - and the Reapers will overlook you.

And the Reapers - being machines that live in the vacuum of space where no life exists - hadn't considered this. They've never once - in all their time doing this job - ran across a space station and learned that the stupid meatbags will go out of their way to live where the universe, very clearly, says they don't belong.

The presence of environmental suits built for day-to-day use should be evident that organics can be found in unlikely places.

And this point needs to be made: Mass Effect already has FTL travel. The ME relays allow for instantaneous travel. So even talking about the vastness of space is irrelevant - the Bioware writing staff has very cleanly negotiated that obstacle.

So no - over the course of the centuries long harvesting process, the Reapers, with all their numbers, CAN check every planet. They can - all of them. They have already distributed the ME relays across the galaxy. They know what clusters and systems are the hot spots. They know where to go.

Ilos has the ruins of Prothean structures. Ilos was a Prothean planet. Better head back there and double check that we didn't miss anyone! You know, because it would be a shame if we left survivors on a planet that we know from the ruins belongs to our victims. They might feel bitter about this whole gencide thing and fuck up our scheme. We wouldn't want that!

 

[Penitent]

Hi again Penitent.

So all it would take to escape the Reapers is a moon-base. Make an artificial living environment on a world that can't sustain life - like on the moon - and the Reapers will overlook you.

And the Reapers - being machines that live in the vacuum of space where no life exists - hadn't considered this. They've never once - in all their time doing this job - ran across a space station and learned that the stupid meatbags will go out of their way to live where the universe, very clearly, says they don't belong.

The presence of environmental suits built for day-to-day use should be evident that organics can be found in unlikely places.

Now you're putting words in my mouth.
Before anything else, just how far, exactly, do you expect me to take this? I'm starting to think that no matter what potential explanation I give, you'll find something to question or nitpick about it. Do you want me to give my analysis on every single detail until I convince you? Because that's not going to happen; if you convince yourself there's something wrong with a story, you always will believe that, regardless of whether or not there is one. Believe me, nobody and no amount of debating changes your mind - only you can decide that. If you want to believe that this really is a gaping, irredeemable plot hole, then go ahead. But if all we're going to do from this point on is nitpick because we're unwilling to concede a single point as if each stray thought were all that mattered, then we may as well agree to disagree and part here.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

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."

It couldn't add to the story, that's the problem. Having DLC directly related to the main story of a game in between sequels is destined to fail. You shaft fans who didn't buy the DLC when they fire up ME3 if it contains significant plot details. You shaft the fans who bought it if you don't do that and just return it to the status-quo. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Which is why this DLC shouldn't have been made.

 

[Saviordd1]

-snip-

I admit it took alot of the plot on faith but it is actually just a set up for ME3, if you saw the new details the game opens with you on trial for the murder of 300000 batarians so they sort of had to shove it down your throat to make it work.

All in all, it wasn't horrible like your putting it but i could have been way better. But im willing to forgive Bioware since their (hopefully) busy on ME3 and had a last minute thought of "Oh shit, how are we gonna explain shepard being on earth?"

 

[Zhukov]

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."

It couldn't add to the story, that's the problem. Having DLC directly related to the main story of a game in between sequels is destined to fail. You shaft fans who didn't buy the DLC when they fire up ME3 if it contains significant plot details. You shaft the fans who bought it if you don't do that and just return it to the status-quo. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Which is why this DLC shouldn't have been made.

Well, apparently ME3 will open with Shepard standing trial for her actions during Arrival. So it would appear that they're going for the former option.

I personally don't have a problem with this. Especially considering that they have stated that the DLC episodes were intended to bridge the gap between ME2 and ME3.

 

[lordtec]

Normally wouldn't reply but I just can't stop myself.

1) Small point ? in the planet descriptions in that system, the story is that the Batarians have spy satellites set up everywhere. Even if the Normandy has good stealth, it?s just so incredibly stupid that Shepard can be dropped off via shuttle on the prison?s shuttle pad and walk right in through the backdoor without anyone noticing. For the fascist police state the Batarians are described as living in, the security for it all is really lame.

Hey, with so much police action and surveillance, how did the Batarians miss a human moon-base being built right under their noses? And so close to their system?s Mass Effect relay?

Aside from that, the DLC has gotten off to a good start ? there?s a damsel in distress, go get her and learn about the Reapers! Sounds good. We get her, we learn that the enemy is close, but there?s a plan to stop them. Awesome, let?s kick them in the quads!

2) Well, if the agent was indoctrinated all along, then why did she tell Shepard in detail how to stop the Reapers? Shouldn?t she have kept that a secret? If the indoctrination had worn off, then why didn?t she tell Shepard about the indoctrination?

3) Really? For two days, the agent and her staff just sit on their hands ? they don?t unplug the loaded gun or anything? They don?t turn that computer off, they don?t dismantle the rockets, and the Reapers don?t do anything useful with their indoctrinated servants?

4) Exactly what purpose did the Reaper artifact serve? Where did it come from? And why was it broadcasting the timing of the Reaper's arrival, of all things?

5) Have you ever read really bad fan fiction, the kind of stuff that makes the expanded universe of any setting look really bad? Like the idea that Boba Fett escaped the sarlacc pit on Tatooine and continued to have adventures - those sort of really bad ideas? The Arrival DLC feels like that. This story cements my feeling that the Bioware B-team is at the helm concerning Mass Effect.

6) 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.

7) Admiral Hackett tells Shepard that the Batarians are pissed and Shepard will have to answer for it. Exactly what did Bioware accomplish with this DLC other than to make Shepard look like a complete tool?

Especially because it all amounts to contriving a reason for Shepard to become an intergalactic jerk. Killing the Batarian colony to stall the Reapers is a reason for aliens to hate on humanity, and especially to hate on Shepard. So now when Shepard says, "Let's all unite to fight the Reapers," they have a leg to stand on when saying, "No, because of what you did to the Batarians." And of course, Shepard escapes the agent's base with zero proof of what had transpired.

8) The worst part? I was in the middle of my 3rd playthrough of ME2. So I did the Arrival DLC before destroying the Collector base. So in my game's timeline, by the time the Suicide Mission rolls around, the Reapers are already here - just cruisin about.

1) Well I think Shepard could just land there in a shuttle because the satelites there had a malfunction caused by a virus called EDI. Remember, the Normandy AI, she was made partly for electronic warfare, she probably hacked the satelites.

For the moonbase, to be fair, it was located on a moonsized asteroide in an asteroidebelt. It can be easy to miss such a base if they have some kind a sensor jamming devices installed. And there are millions, billions even of asteroids in an asteroidebelt.

2) I think she told Shepard because she believed he wouldn't be able to activate the plan and that way she could fool Sheppard to lower his guard. She probably planned to capture Shepard so she could offer him to the reapers. From ME2 we know that the reapers want Sheppard very much.

3) Maybe they didn't dismantle the plan because they just didn't think anyone would be able to activate it. They believed they had Shepard under control and nobody else was around to activate it.

4) I asked myself that aswell, all I can think of is that the reaper artifact is actually some sort of Reaper and it is just acting like a beacon. Or it is a sort of computer that is getting ready to activate the aplhe relay to it's true function and the countdown wasn't until the reaper arrival but until the execution of it's function. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe we will learn what it was in ME3.

5) I don't think the B-team is at the helm of Mass Effect, just see the Shadow Broker DLC. But they were at the helm of this DLC.

6) If you have the choice to save 300.000+ people who hate your race or give the galaxy a few months time to try to get a defense ready, you just choice the galaxy, if you are sure of the danger.

7) I'm pretty sure only the Batarians are angry for what shepard has done, but they couldn't become more angry then they were before, so who gives a damn? For the rest of the galaxy, well Shepard is the hero who saved the rest of them, so they will give him the benefit of the doubt. And besides, my Shepard already has a big army backing him, the Rachni will follow him and the Geth as well, who needs the rest of the galaxy, and let's not forget about the Flotilla.

8) My opinion is that Arrival only makes sense if you play it after the mission.

Now for some other things I read here.

The reapers can come to the galaxy so fast because they probably have a Citadel like relay in the dark space. They should have one else it wouldn't make any sense to activate the Citadel as a relay if they can't depart. It normally is connected to the Citadel, but because the citadel is not activated they can link it to the alpha relay, because it is special. Probably a back-up plan or an earlier plan. No way to know if the citadel was always the way the reapers got in, maybe they originally used the alpha relay.

Now for the reason that sovereign wanted to go through Ilos and not use Saren directly, that might be because he needed to transmit the signal himself and I'm pretty sure he didn't trust Saren seeing Saren still had a mind of his own. And seeing Saren only opened the ciatdel for Sovereign it was probably to complicated to do the rest. Sovereign needed a hell of a lot time to do the rest, so much time that he was destroyed before he could accomplis it. Also if Saren was killed before he could do what he had to, then Sovereign wouldn't have been able to do a thing. Now there was an entire army there who would have been able to do it.

And Sovereign could have learned about Ilos on one of his awake periods after the last attack. He sometimes became awake to check how the galaxy was. It is very possible that he learned about it, but didn't do anything abaout it because he thought that the Protheans didn't do a thing. And later the mass relay was blasted away.

Now as for where the Collectors where during ME1. Every tactician knows you shouldn't show all your cards, always keep a few behind. Or uh, the reapers forgot about them?

But I agree that Arrival sucked.

 

[FreaKing]

I am thinking that some people are playing the wrong game, since they are not getting the story. Perhaps it could be that they have an axe to grind with Bioware in regards with another title that they just released. For instance, criticizing questions are made up just as I can make up valid answers for those questions. Example: The travelling from dark space. How did they get there in the first place? Other thing is that some are forgetting that a game does have to sacrifice the plot for the game play (I think Extra Credits did mention this at some time).

Final thing that I was the most upset about and that got me cursing at the screen is the "a place completely open to the public" referring to the Council chambers. Perhaps some should go play ME1 again. Right at the beginning, Avina (don't know if spelt correctly) says "Only a select few are invited up to the council chambers." Come on guys! Go play something else if you can't get the story or if it rubs you the wrong way.

 

[Irridium]

Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.

Some gripes I have:

1) Why do Batarian helmets have 2 eye-holes? Batarians have 4 eyes, and I'm pretty sure they would need 4 holes to see correctly.

2) So Shepard, who fought tooth and nail for the past 2 games yelling at everyone about the Reapers, suddenly needs absolute proof that the doctor found something? Wut?

3) So they had the base a button push away from destroying the relay... and they just left it like that? If they were indoctrinated, why didn't they, you know, get rid of it or something? Or destroy the console, or just cover it up?

4) When they sedate you, why the fuck do they dress you in Cerberus clothes?

And yeah, thats about it really.

 

[kelsyk]

Concernying QEC:
davidarmstrong48, you said on page 1 that the agent tracked the QEC. When does the agent say this? I don't remember it at all. Assuming they are have any understanding of what quantum entanglement actaully is, then they would know that it cannot be tracked, intercepted, eavesdropped or anything else.

Concerning plan B:
For those wondering why a race without any worry about time, wouldn't always use the safer, but slower, method of normal FTL to reach the galaxy. Two theories why:
1: they seldom, if ever, in the past have had to go the slower route. So they have simply become used to using the faster method.
2: perhaps they can't change long terms plans easily. Look at strategy game AI today, espically in games like the Total War series, it can skillfully adapt and improvise on the battle field but is utter crapt at reacting on the long term strategy level.

Concerning a new reaper:
Perhaps the new reaper was meant to activate the Citadel relay once it was completed, this fulfilling soveriegn failed task (see above for why they would bother).

Concerning target selection:
We know that the reapers have some technological criteria for exterminating species. Humans were sentient 50,000 years ago. Humans weren't wiped out.

Question:
How did the Quarian immune system change from ME1 to ME2?

 

[Branches]

I thought it was kind of funny that when you get on board the Normandy, and you're standing over Joker. You assume he'd scream hang on or something, but it's kind of awkward when he's silent for the first time ever.

The DLC overall, was a little fun, but mostly just padding. It would've done better in being released maybe closer to ME3's release date? Even then, the story in Arrival was quite, well, Yeah, underwhelming. It was a mix of normal elements, mixed in with what felt like a thrown together plot, and a 'twist' at the end that sort of just fell flat.

"Don't worry! I'll hold them off for a while so you can finish all these side quests from the rest of the DLCs! That'll only take you, say, 3-4 hours. So report to The Hague ASAP for trial by fire."

 

[Etra488]

kelsyk, Redingold floated the idea that the countdown came from the Reaper's using a QEC to communicate with the artifact, and by monitoring that connection, the agent was able to derive the timing of the Reaper invasion, ala Jeff Goblum in Independence Day.

It was Redingold's idea - all I said was that the concept of QEC is stupid and a plot contrivance in itself.

How did the Quarian immune system change from ME1 to ME2?

Can you be more specific?