ACT 2:
Priority: Citadel II
Shepard and Shield head back to the Citadel at roughly the same time as eye witnesses for a Council Briefing on Cerberus and the Salarian Union's activities. This sabotage and inner turmoil couldn't continue to go on. Upon arriving at the Citadel however, they find the station's arms closing. They race in to land, and get the sitrep that there's chaos going on inside and that several Reapers are even headed for the Widow Nebula. Landing, it's clear its the Cerberus Coup. At least to Shield, who immediately goes to find the Council and kill Udina while Shepard rallies C-Sec and other forces on the station to take it back. It's not just limited to the Presidium this time around. The two teams communicate with each other throughout the fight. As Shield kills Cerberus troops who're killing various aliens in the streets, his team's headed off by some of their soldiers posing as human civilians, who are mostly members of the 10th Street Reds (10SR). Their leader on the Citadel, Fyod (from AHM), makes his return.
Though he says Cerberus and them are helping, that they're saving humanity, Shield says this has been a long time coming. During AHL, Fyod had been one of the people that would have constantly appeared in Shield's nightmares. Closing that chapter of his life, they duke it out again, and Shield comes out victorious once again. And this time...Shield spares his life once again, as Fyod seemed to be telling the truth. He wanted to help humanity. Shield tells him that Cerberus isn't the answer. Instead of hurting people, why don't you actually help them by saving them instead. Turn the criminal organization's efforts to charitable work instead of racism. Shield's team then quickly reaches the Council Tower afterward where he finds Udina and Goyle cornered by several aliens. Udina's treachery has already been discovered, and he's about to get his. Then Kai Leng shows himself, killing all the aliens. Shield gets excited to go toe to toe with the edgelord while Udina and Goyle flee. They are about to fight right when more aliens show up, and that's when Shepard radios back in. She's found the rest of the Council with Thane and Bailey's help, and they've made it clear it's not a Cerberus Coup. Their enemies are indoctrinated agents and Dalemitrians.
Despite the IDK's, the sheer amount of refugees they've been receiving has prevented them from scanning everyone. The Cerberus troops Shield killed were actually rushing to the Tower to help. In disbelief, Shield is forced to reassess, and begrudgingly, works with Leng to protect the two politicians. In the aftermath, the four Councillors and Goyle reconvene in the Tower, assessing the situation. With the indoctrinated agents failing to take the station and the Citadel sealed, the Reaper ships headed there have abandoned course, and returned to the war effort elsewhere. Thankfully, the Reapers are not in the mood to siege the station just yet. Cerberus is acknowledged to have played a role in defending the station, showing that they're still interested in the public good. They're off the hook for their activities at the moment. Salarian Councilor Valern is told that Sur'Kesh will receive reinforcements if Linron is deposed, and that they commit their fleets to the Allied Forces and Crucible. But Goyle counters, telling him that Cerberus would supply reinforcements had they asked. Despite defeating their previous efforts, the Union and Cerberus officially form their own bloc. The Council session ends. After both teams catch up with one another and some more down time, Shepard then heads back out to assist in the war, while Shield remains on station to investigate the Dalemitrians, as he's curious where exactly they came from and what they even are.
Priority A: Side Missions
This would be where most of the character and world building happen for Shepard's story. Side plots like Shepard meeting up with old squadmates, her thoughts on the war, her building stress and doubts as it takes its strain, and her relationship with Kaidan patching back up. Shepard does some N7 missions, saves Jacob and the Cerberus Defectors on Gellix, helps Jack and her students escape Grissom Academy from Rasa's forces, and unites several war assets spread about. After delivering the latest resource to the Crucible, Udina would then call Shepard and tell her to head for the Perseus Veil as the quarians have recently contacted humanity, and wish to join the fight against the Reapers.
Priority B: Citadel II (Cont.)
Shield uses what remains of the Broker's network to investigate, and meets with Executor Chellick who is running his own investigation. They both discovered that a majority of the indoctrinated agents weren't refugees. They were citizens living on the Citadel. Someone's indoctrinating them aboard the station. Shield (along with Liara, Javik, Ta'lako, and Karg) go undercover to the party of a well-known Dalemitrian to follow up on this, Tandy Noble, the daughter of a media mogul billionaire. After talking to Tandy at the party, it becomes clear that she isn't a real member, especially with the Dalemitrians being declared terrorists, and just wanted to ride its ever-exploding popularity. It has become very common among the powerful and the rich (essentially being space Scientology). Her friend, Aish Ashland, claims that Fell Fannus is an actual convert however, and constantly invites big time names to his mansion on the Presidium to join the Church. They're hurt they haven't been invited themselves, but Shield says that's probably a good thing.
As someone who's watched a lot of movies since coming to the future, Shield immediately recognizes the name belonging to the famous AAA-list drell actor who most recently starred in 'A False Face'. It seems they have their lead. As they're about to leave, they're approached by a turian at the party. Thinking it's an assassination attempt, the turian quickly clears the issue up, revealing himself as Rolan Quarn, the infamous con artist. His next big heist was going to be Fannus, especially after the Dalemitrians' assault on the Council, and he couldn't help but overhear what they learned. Teaming up, his ploy takes them to Fannus' mansion, and a light-hearted Mission Impossible rip-off ensues. As Rolan distracts him, Shield and Liara go in, revealing he has a cult in that ish, the Dalemitrians believe the Citadel to be a space ark, they're told opening it will save them from the oncoming apocalypse, the rest of Shield's team come in, going loud, breaking some necks and cashing some checks, find a giant Reaper indoctrination device (object being a rho look-alike) within its basement, plant detonators, clear house, big BOOM for big finale. Fannus offers Shield a role in his next heist, but Shield passes. The intelligence they got from their investigation is passed to Chellick, and Lamont Taneer (the Special Response agent who fought alongside Shield and survived the events in AHM Ch 46) makes an appearance, being sent to raid every Citadel resident Fannus had in his registry. Shield volunteers to follow up on where the Indoctrination device was apparently sent from...Kahje.
Priority A: Perseus Veil
Transition to Shepard meeting with the Admiralty. Tali's father is still very much alive, and very dead-set on owning the geth along with Daro'Xen. Auntie Raan and Qwib Qwib had the opinion the geth should be left alone, but for different reasons. Han'Gerrel is the only neutral party, but only because he wants them destroyed outright. Tali is assigned as the Flotilla's liaison to the Alliance and Normandy. And things go from there. Geth sought Reaper help after having their dyson sphere annihilated, and are now bashing the Flotilla in their home system. Shepard infiltrates the dreadnought, rescues Legion, takes the ship down, and returns to the Normandy. There Vamshi enters the Normandy's room alongside the admiralty, and it's revealed that Cerberus helped the quarians develop their geth anti-measures, in exchange for their help in defending Earth. Vamshi and the hardliners tell Shepard to destroy Legion as soon as they see it. Despite Shepard's initial qualms with Legion, she'd like BOTH forces to help the war, and it isn't possible without it.
Vamshi and Rael opine differently. Meeting with her alone, they tell Shepard that Cerberus has studied Reaper code from the get-go. With quarian help, they had already rewritten it so that the Geth would obey them instead of the Reapers. Shepard asks who would specifically control them. Rael believes the quarians would, but we all know Cerberus would backstab them. Refusing to give Cerberus such a powerful tool, she refuses to help them betray the geth AND the quarians who believe otherwise. The whole situation becomes more sticky when Tali's father essentially becomes an obstacle, threatening to commandeer the Normandy when Shepard refuses to destroy Legion or agree to the plan. He becomes an actual threat especially with Cerberus' backing. Tali confesses that he had even gone far enough to abandon Zaal'Koris so his ship would go down. With his charisma and the Qwib Qwib out of the way, Rael rallied the rest of the live ships to the hardliners' cause. Tali's torn over what to do.
Priority B: Kahje
Continuing the Dalemitrian/Indoctrination plot, Shield's team lands in Cnidaria City, one of Kahje's few domed cities on the planet's surface. There they are contacted by Jondum Bau, who's leading his own investigation into a supposed indoctrinated hanar diplomat. Alongside hanar spectre candidate, Illyndyr. Yup. Blasto's based on real life. It's happening. Deal with it. Bau thinks their two cases are linked. Shield speeds up their investigation, telling Jondum the hanar he's looking for is Zymandis, They who Regard the Work of the Enkindlers in Despair. Who instead of being on the Citadel, is apparently on planet? After fighting off some drell assassins, they realize they're on the right path. The indoctrinated hanar plot is essentially blown up to be a lot bigger, with Zymandis having brought back indoctrination objects to his homeworld, and starting the Dalemitrian movement. Similar to the batarians, a TON of hanar government officials have been indoctrinated in the Illuminated Primacy, and are sabotaging their own people, along with the rest of the galaxy. No IDK's are even being used due to the wide-spread infiltration of its leaders. Kasumi, who's been helping Bau unnoticed the entire time due to her ties to the mission, finally makes her appearance, helping them get into a heavily secure underwater government building. The team's investigation eventually uncovers a large cache of Object Rho/Arca Monolith type indoctrination devices stockpiled deep underwater, which the hanar have been sending out to indoctrinate other people. They immediately scramble out of the area to avoid being mind-controlled, and sink the entire thing into an underwater abyss. They then race against time to stop Zymandis from desperately uploading a virus to infect their homeworld's defenses. After successfully stopping them, they obtain the Primacy's compliance from its sane members to help in the Allied Forces' war effort. Illyndyr also expresses its will to join Shield's team, as it believes those who work with the true Enkindlers and fought alongside Commander Shepard and Nona B'Sayle (asari spectre from AHM) are allies it desires. Biotic Hanar Spectre trainee get. Yeah. We're doing that. Kasumi is invited to join them as well but she opines her efforts are better used elsewhere. Close the Dalemitrian Saga. Except for one loose end. As Jondum Bau assigns several other Spectres to track down the missing devices from the Dalemitrian manifest, he sends Shield's team to find one that was sent to the notorious Ghost Ship. A ship whose location has recently been lost.
Priority A: Rannoch
After rescuing Zaal'Koris from the planet, he and Tali bring to light what her father did. This divides the quarian cause, and after disabling the geth fighter squadrons, it has now become a stalemate between the two sides. The bunker broadcasting the Reaper Code is the only thing left, and Shepard descends to take it out. Though quarian marines and Cerberus troops led by Vamshi also descend to attack the bunker, it becomes a race to the finish line due to their different goals. Give the Geth free will, or enslave them to another master. Or destroy them. But we already know that Han isn't getting his way. So once they take out the Heretics at the base, Vamshi and Shepard begin to clash, fighting over the console, right when the Reaper reveals itself. Big explosive finale, Shepard and the Flotilla and Cerberus all working to take it down, and the Reaper taunts Shepard one last time before being obliterated by the combined efforts of the Flotilla. Han immediately starts firing on the stalled geth, Legion starts uploading a clean version of the code to resume the fight, Rael yells at Shepard to force the robot to upload their code instead, Vamshi sending the virus to her via omni-tool, and Tali has no idea what she wants to happen. Shepard goes big or goes home. She ignores everyone, and tells them all just to stand down with her almighty presence and booming voice.
She gives a huge speech about determinism, not falling victim to the past, and uniting against the Reapers. Being moved, Legion does not upload the clean Reaper code, realizing it'd be invalidating every single thing the geth said in ME2. I mean really, dude, what the fuck. Legion literally says in his loyalty mission that the journey matters, not the destination. Despite the stakes, why would the True Geth want to use the Reapers to achieve Consensus when they said the whole reason the Heretics split off from them was because they didn't want to do that in the first place? Stop invalidating an entire race's dogma Bioware. At the same time, Zaal'Koris convinces the Live Ships to stand down, agreeing with Shepard's take. Peace is the answer. Raan, Xen, and Han follow his lead one by one, as they hear Legion attest that the Geth do not wish to fight. They always presumed the Creators wished to destroy them, propagating what has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only Rael is left as his ships have started firing, realizing Shepard won't use the code, and that the Geth must go down to reclaim their home-world. After a heartfelt speech and being begged by Tali...he curses, and orders his ships to finally stand down too. If their people die, at least it's above Rannoch. He hopes Tali didn't doom their race by working with the enemy.
And as the Geth recover from their reboot...they don't fire upon the quarians. Yaaaaaay. Conflict resolved, both war assets gotten, happy ending for everyone. Despite their suspicions, the Geth agree to help the quarians start resettling their homeworld, and the Flotilla offloads a lot of civilians on the planet. Mainly because the Flotilla will now direct its efforts toward the war. Don't want a bunch of children being caught in it. And so will the Geth. And Legion, who survived because he didn't finish uploading the Code. Which is still a stupid thing to happen in the first place. Why would uploading a code kill Legion. That doesn't make any sense. Get out of here with that shit. If you wanted to make Legion a martyr, just have it shutdown due to damage sustained during the battle, or being partly destroyed by saving Shepard's life from the Reaper. Don't just have the dude pull a Padme. COME ON. Regardless, neither will be helping Cerberus. Despite looking for them in the aftermath, it appears Vamshi and Cerberus has fled the scene. Shepard shows Legion the code they sent her, and the Geth start coming up with countermeasures to prevent it from being used against them in the future.
Priority B: Ghost Ship
As Shield let slip that he had access to the Broker's Network, Jondum wants him to find where the notorious Ghost Ship now housing a reaper artifact went. The Ghost Ship being a newly discovered cruiser that housed the minds of one billion individuals who downloaded themselves into a virtual world to avoid the destruction of their people. Believe it or not, this is canon. After they were first sighted by the salarians, they had come to an understanding with the Council. They'd trade their advanced technology in exchange for a power source to keep their ship (and world) running. To communicate with the outside world, the virtual aliens also have the technology to download AND upload people's minds onto their servers. Someone can essentially swap places with a virtual alien's place in their virtual world, allowing the virtual alien to virtually control their body in turn. When it was made known that many of the virtual aliens wished to leave their virtual world, several hundred volunteers came forward from the galactic community to mind swap with them.
Shield contacts Doctor Detweiler who made first contact with the aliens, and he points them in the direction of the colony that the newly inhabited bodies had been starting in the Traverse. 90% of what is known about the virtual aliens has been kept secret by the Council, and so he explains most of the exposition. He was recently contacted by the inhabitants there for help before losing connection. Though he tried to relay this to the Council, they've decided to ignore the problem. Too much else is going on in the galaxy. Shield goes in his stead. They fight off some reaper troops there, and destroy the harvester scout abducting people. However, the pod people still alive say their comrades are still in danger. The artifact they had plugged in uploaded a virus onto their ship, and is killing their people. They have to board it, enter the world, and save their society. So they go on to the ship above the planet, walk through its deserted halls to the bridge, and Shield volunteers to download his mind into the world. Despite everyone saying that was a bad idea, as he could be indoctrinated or killed instantly, Shield's chosen to help these people regardless.
Queue a similar mission to the Geth upload. Despite the swap necessary, Shield's body remains comatose, as no virtual alien is able to upload themselves into the body to steal it. Gray box OP. Or something. Shield walks through their society, reliving their history, and finds the source of the Reaper code. And in a twist, finds out this had been their own doing. They sought the Reapers' help when they were contacted by one, as they still have around 500 million citizens who wish to be free of what they now call their prison. However, instead of giving them freedom like they sought, the Reapers have uploaded a virus that is destroying their populace. Oopsie. The Reapers don't need another AI mucking about their organic galaxy. The virus is coming from somewhere on the ship however. He uploads himself back to his own body, and directs the crew to the ship's stores. Indoctrinated agents come out of hiding to stop them. They reach it anyway and find the Reaper artifact there. They destroy it safely, the whole ship comes back online, virtual aliens saved. During Shield's entire investigation, Hackett has still been sending out requests for what the Crucible needs. One huge component needed being super computers. A lot of them. Shield asks the virtual aliens if they'd be willing to help with the Crucible. After saving all their lives, they agree, and add their enormous processing power and advanced AI heuristics to the Crucible's cause. Though it's top secret, the Alliance has been making Alliance Infiltration Units (that are basically the Alliance's version of Cerberus' Eva and all look exactly like EDI, ALSO CANON), and allow the virtual aliens to use these advanced robots as hosts for the minds of those who wish to leave their virtual world. In exchange for helping with the war effort. Essentially being sentient beings, they maneuver their new bodies a lot more ably than the previous VI. And of course, one of said machines who's an ambassador for their people named Sygan volunteers to join Shield in his efforts to win the war. AI teammate get.
Author's Notes:
So I forgot to mention that the codex entry equivalent for this story would be War Assets. I'd have a counter for points and descriptions and everything. The Turvess Lost Vault would be like 400, Lamont Taneer and C-SEC Special Response would be like 25, Rolan Quarn a fat 10, Virtual Aliens would add like 100, etc etc. Though they essentially just boil everything down to meaningless points, I love war assets. Seeing all the different lore objects and stuff of Mass Effect compiled into one great list with descriptions of how they are contributing to the war effort is pretty cool IMO.
Also, do you like the parallels? Shepard and Shield addressing the issue of uplifting on Tuchanka and Parnack. Shepard and Shield addressing the issue of AI on Rannoch and the Ghost Ship? Pretty nifty right?
Also, the galaxy still being split up into factions is something I really think engaging, increasing the stakes and sense of desperation going on. The Alliance, Turians, and Krogan vs Cerberus, Salarians, and Volus isn't exactly the most equal match-up. But what one team makes up for in military might, the other team makes up for in sheer intelligence and resources. They aren't actively warring with each other of course, that'd be stupid. But their influence is tipping what outcome or movement might be passed when it finally comes to how society defeats the Reapers. Though the addition of the quarians and geth obviously change the power dynamic to the quote unquote good guys.
