Good final setup chapter getting the last pieces into place for shit to hit the fan plot.

That initial quote from Ahern was both awesome and ominous. Awesome in that Shepard actually made him proud. Ominous because when Illium blows the fuck up happens, shit goes totally wrong it’s enough to shift him from proud to homicidal. Combined with Pressley’s quite about Shepard becoming the Butcher, fuck all of us we’re dead things should be pretty damn apocalyptic interesting.

The bit where Garrus is doubting Shepard worked, but didn’t quite work well for me. He and Shepard are open and honest enough he’d go ask if he had any concerns. That said, Melenis’s commentary about what a totally fucked up place Shepard has to be in mentally and emotionally worked really well. I was happy to see her finally get her man, and I’m looking forward to what happens when Garrus’s girlfriend meets his wife. Personally I think they’d form a group. Both women love Garrus, garrus loves both of them. Telnaya is his wife sure, but Melenis put him back together and kept him from falling a part for years. If not for her Garrus would be in a recycling bin somewhere. Toss in the fact that Asari don’t seem quite as posessive as other species, and I could totally see Garrus having two wives. After all all three of them have been through, once the dust settles, yeah. Bridal quite for three.

Shepard’s briefing for the unit worked great, and it gave people a pointer at how much she’s changed. She’s looking at things from a commander’s point of view, not a soldier’s. That’s a huge leap for her, and people would notice that fast I’d think. The bit where she says they’ll kill the sisters of vengeance if they’re too far gone was pure Shepard however, and will come back to bite her hard when she finds out who they are.

Athyta and the Black Blades was great, and the fact the Black Blades see Tela as a rookie gives us a great idea of how badass they are without giving us specifics. I wish I could do the same but I just don’t have the knack yet. Also, the mere fact Athyta has some of the deadliest Asari killers in history on speed dial, and that they call her Mama Fish (Great nickname) also points to how badass Athyta is since in her fight with Benezia she really didn’t get much time to shine.

That last bit with Thax I could’ve done without. You already have a couple dozen fuses lit. Adding another just seems superfluous. If Shepard runs into him after she learns Liara’s alive, well, the words ‘Apocalyptically pissed off Biotic goddess’ come to mind. Sure he’s tough, but Shepard took out Okeer in single combat when she wasn’t even in butcher mode. Toss in butcher mode and he’d be turtle sausage in about the time it takes Mordin to blink.

Overall I loved this chapter, other than the bit at the end I think could’ve been skipped. Good backgrouns setup, lot of little details and foreshadowing, ramping up the ominous factor to 20 on a ten-scale without going overboard on the exposition. (I seriously wich I could do that half as well as you do lol)

Looking forward Climbing the goddamn walls to reading the next chapter post that shit before my brain melts soon.

I’m not gonna do a super in depth review but I will say…

It was great to see the Alliance pulling everyone together for an ‘Oh shit, if Shepard’s alive we are SO screwed’ moment, and that Ash DIDN’T take the chance to stab her in the back (Like in the game, which made no sense at all). It was also good to see a member of Neutron there backing Shepard and feeling like crap for having once not backed her previously. The fact both he and Ash were going ‘Dude, if she is alive you do NOT wanna piss her off. Seriously. Don’t do it.’ was a nice touch too.

The stuff with Athyta and Tela was great too, and really showed how burned out they are as well as Tela realizing if Shepard finds out she was involved with Liara’s and her’s deaths, well, the word ‘fucked’ doesn’t even come close.

Great background chapter that sets up people’s motivations, makes clear who the villains are, who the unwilling draftees are, and who might prove to be a hero.

“Shepard? Why is there a 2 meter tall Krogan child following you around?”
“Uh, well, funny story that. See I went to go kill Okeer, you know, that pyjack-humping vorcha warlord fuck that killed Wrex’s son, and well, came home with a thousand-pound bouncing boy?”
“HEY! I only bounced that one time you gave me a shotgun!”

😀

Review time! (Ch 34)

The bit with the civvies up front was okay, but really didn’t have that frantic ‘Get to the choppa!’ feel. It did lay the groundwork for civvies escaping however, whch was good.

Seeing Shepard finally hit her endurance limit’s great however. It makes her more human, less a feral wrecking ball with super biotics and a fucked up past. Her reactions to her losses also showed growth on her part. She didn’t like losing troops, but she knew things could easily have gone a lot worse so she’s trying to look on, if not the bright side, the not so dark side. Same for her interactions with timmy. She doesn’t like what’s going on, but she’s finally realized that fucked up as it all is, it’s still the best of all options.

Incorporating media reaction was awesome however, and the fact Shepard’s thought to check on the ‘hearts and minds’ possibilities shows again that she’s grown enough to look at the strategic aspects of a situation, not just the tactical. It also shows she’s getting into the game enough to give a damn instead of simply bitch about it. Same for her conversation with Tim. She’s getting into strategy, not just tactics, and she’s accepting that she doesn’t have to agree with what he says to still see the value of it. It also shows that she’s finally learning to handle being outside her mental and emotional comfort zones without going apeshit in the process.

Tela and Ahern’s interactions were great and really captured that ‘old friends’ vibe. That said, I dunno why but EDI’s sudden revelations regarding Shepard just feel off. Too soon maybe, or too fast. Not sure, but it could simply be the fact I’m sick as a dog and not thinking completely straight. Edi being into Porn however, that had me LOL’ing bigtime. Great work making her even more distinct than she already was and injecting some humor into things in the process. 🙂

The council being a bunch of self serving idiots was, well, an all too realistic rendition of their short sighted idiocy. That said, seeing Ahern show up and say ‘Sup? Shep’s alive, peace out bitches’ was awesome, as was that Turian officer not liking him and Sparatus’s reaction. Good stuff. Using Tela to contact Shepard’s their best bet, but I don’t remember if Shepard’s ever actually met Tela. I’d need to re-read everything and I can’t focus long enough to do that atm.

Lastly the bit with Susan. Again, just felt off. Sure it’s been two years, but even an organization as ruthless as the Commisars would find better ways to use someone like her than as experiment fodder. Also, her being blamed for Liara’s “Death” makes no sense. Commisars would be fact-oriented enough to see she did everything she could and got wrecked in the process. They might not give her an attagirl, but blaming her would be blatant scapegoat-ism and they just strike me as the sort to focus on the facts and be realistic about the possibilities. Also, when Shepard met Chisolm mentioned Susan he said she’d been hurt pretty badly, not blamed or screwed over. He doesn’t strike me as the sort to sugarcoat the facts, so that left me with the feeling she was on limited duty, maybe as a teacher or the commisar version of a support person. Not subjected to two years of torture and brain-fuckery.

Overall I liked the chapter. There were, as I mentioned, a couple hiccoughs for me but it had real character development and pointed us at Illium, as well as setting up a reunion between Shepard and Liara.

AA pretty much said what I was going to. It was great seeig Shepard finally use the warp sword, and seeing the collectors reaction to it. It also have us a great sense of scale since the ships the collectors were fighting were blowing normal ships out of the sky like toys, and here the collectors are, hammering the hell out of them with upgraded freighters, not even actual battleships.
The supernova thing makes no sense however.
I think however that the collectors would retreat, wait for a better opportunity, and then hit again, or simply leave Horizon be. They want biomass for the proto-reaper, so obliterating an entire solar system full of potential biomass is counterproductive. If they were thinking to destroy their enemies, it’s true they’d kill a lot of them, but the most important of them would be able to get away.
It was good to see Delacor finally brow a set of balls, man up, and say ‘Fuck alla you, I’m gonna take as many with me as possible’ and try to ram them with the Kazan. I’m kinda surprised Shepard had no reaction to the Kazan tho. It was her flagship for a while and she was heavily involved in refitting it.
Seeing Williams again was great, as was her wanting to get home to her and Kaiden’s son. Her reaction to the ruthless practicality of Shepard’s group after the fighting ended was perfect too, as was Jiong’s. He’s gonna know when a situation’s not survivable, and the intel he needed to relay was pretty obviously more important than pissing off Shepard.
Overall a great chater, with an actual Battle for Horizon, just with a ‘wtf’ ending.

Himura, I think at this point Liara, Tel, and Athyta are hoping to die, and their only real goal in life is to take Tetrimus with ’em. They’ve lost everything they care about, or are watching it die before them, so all they really have left is revenge.

When the only things you have left are rage and pain, trust me. Thinking like that’s called having a good day.

The bit with Tela Vasir was great. A bit slow, but it worked perfectly to give people a bit more of an idea about the life of a Spectre. The bits with her nearly being killed because of Delacor’s bad luck were ludicrous and hilarious, adding a bit of needed levity.

The bit with Delacor was solid too, and a great foundation for Horizon. That whole ‘Pilot Program’ thing in the game never did make much sense. I gotta ask though. What happened to Ash and Kaiden’s kid? Is it a girl? A Boy? Twins or more?

The section with Tazzik and the Broker was good. Not tense though. It had more of a ‘Tazzik, go kill these people because they’re annoying the fuck outta me’.

The section with Liara/Tel/Thyta. Did Liara lose an eye? If so, how? Is she wearing an eyepatch now? She doesn’t seem surprised to see Athyta. That whole section had a huge ‘Somethng major happened’ feel with no details. Almost as if you skipped a chapter, or I missed one somewhere. The part with Athyta demanding to go along with Liara was great though, and captured that ‘We’re all gonna die, so let’s do it together and make it count for something’ vibe.

Shepard and Garrus section. It’s great they had a sit down and talk time, and I realize they’re sorting shit out, but, and I hate to say it, We all know Shepard’s been through a lotta shit. Gonna have to go Ahern on this one. The bit where Garrus talks about light though, that was solid, and would, I’d think, help serve as a kick in the shorts for Shepard. Her best friend is telling her to have hope. Now, I know it’s more than possible to literally beat the hope out of someone, and Shepard might be there, but even then someone with no hope can sit there and say ‘Whether or not the universe is goodness and light in the end or not I don’t give a shit. I simply refuse to let them win’. It’s not hope, but it’s resolve, and from what my therapist tells me, it might someday become hope. Theoretically. Until then, as I tell people, for me the word’s simply a statement on preferred odds.

Overall a good chapter, but it feels like we skipped one somewhere, especially with the section concerning Liara. Good foundational work, lot of setting up for future events in a realistic manner.