#(This happens after you did all the missions relating to Kadara and Reyes.

[galedekarios]

♥

[smartalker]

Magpie Bridge [5/10 - Samael]

ENTITLED: Magpie Bridge FANDOM: Mass Effect Andromeda - Reyes/Ryder RATING: M LENGTH: 50k via 10 chapters GENRE: Romance/Sci-Fi/Drama/Humor, in that order SUMMARY: With the Kett subdued and Andromeda’s terraforming system running at full power, Kadara Port swiftly establishes itself as the trade capital of the galaxy. The city’s unique combination of affluence, corruption, and growing power inevitably earns the ire of both the Nexus, and Aya. Under tremendous pressure to disavow a known criminal’s legitimacy, Ryder once again returns to Kadara hoping to broker peace, but the Charlatan wants something very different from her�� ALT SUMMARY: Two people fall in love, galaxy breaks. 

Ryder returned from her tryst to confront worst-case walk of shame material.

"Hey sister," Scott said.

"Fuck. FUCK!" Ryder whirled away from her twin, but the Tempest's halls were unhelpfully void of any distractions or potential shields. She turned back to Scott, teeth set. "Fuck," she whispered to herself, for good measure.

"Nice hickey."

She couldn't just keep swearing. Ryder cleared her throat, bracing herself for some old-school twin throw down. She had this. There had been a time (once) when she'd been able to beat her brother's ass into submission. Trying to sound like Keema, Ryder asked, "And just why are you concerning yourself with my hickeys, again?"

Scott dropped some serious stank eye. "God you're annoying. Now that you're finally back from your boy's opium den or whatever he's running—"

"Opium den," Ryder repeated, and laughed shrilly. She tried edging towards the Med-Bay. Maybe there was some lightly bruised body part Lexi urgently needed to examine.

Scott, with freakish speed and probably a dose of telepathy, inserted himself into the middle of her escape route. "The Nexus sent me. Tann's bugging out, says if you don't get someone dragged out and locked up he's going to start a trade embargo or something."

Shit. But also, she totally called that bluff. Like Tann had the balls. Except: Addison was also on the Nexus and Ryder wasn't sure she wanted to deal with that phone call.

She groaned. "You know, finding freaky doped up murder cults isn't as easy as it looks on television. Tell them I need more time! We're making headway but it's not exactly like we're in a position where we can go around interviewing known felons because, oops, everyone on this stupid planet was birthed in the, like, the undead Alcatraz of Hell!"

Scott was doing the thing where he started to look uncomfortably similar to their father. Ryder scrunched her nose, her stomach cramping. She hadn't wanted to fight. She could see the reluctance in Scott's face, the guilt that echoed her own. She could still remember his excitement, the first time they'd hunted outlaws on Eos together. Her brother, who'd known her father a thousand times better than she ever had, he'd said, "Dad would have been proud of you."

Somehow, she didn't feel like the sentiment had survived.

"Sara," Scott insisted, voice slowing and lowering. "Really. Are you okay?"

Ryder squirmed. "Fine."

"What happened to your face?"

Her hand twitched up to cover her injuries before she could stop herself. Ryder grimaced. "Okay. I'm sub-fine. But you can tell the Nexus I've got it, it's under control."

Scott shook his head. "Tell them yourself. I'm staying here. You need me."

Ryder went still as her mind raced through the possibilities, the plausible reasons for dismissing Scott, the pros and cons of having him around. Her brother. The one person who remembered what she looked like plastered after eight margaritas, the one person who knew about her cornrow phase, the guy who'd held back her hair when null-gravity training had made her sicker than the plague.

"Okay," she heard herself saying. "No problem. You can get a bunk in my quarters. We'll figure something out that's more permanent later."

Scott, still wearing their father's face, relaxed. He smiled at her, his face shining. "I thought you'd say no," he admitted. "It's going to get better, Sara. You'll see. We'll look out for each other."

Ryder made herself smile back. A forgotten, queasy feeling pushed against her—as unwelcome and unwarranted and nameless as it had been back when, as children, Scott had suddenly grown stronger than her. "I should wash up," she said, instead of everything else.

To begin with, she really did have to wash up. Ryder spent long minutes in the shower, her forehead pressed against the warming tile. "If you have any suggestions, now would be a good time." She mumbled. SAM kept quiet. It figured. Ryder rubbed the warm water over her legs, between her thighs. She was newly bruised, purple memories knocked across her legs. Lexi would say that was a sign of a low iron count.

His hand on her throat, how the pressure increased with a surgeon's precision, how warm her head became the moment she knew she couldn't breathe—

Ryder punched the shower's switch, cutting the water. She'd start with the problems she could solve. "SAM, scan for that Lithium deposit. Nexus satellites only, please."

She dressed as SAM let himself into the satellite's server, feeling pretty sincerely excited at the prospect of returning to her own bed. A few deposits pinged nearby, and she had the coordinates sent to Suvi for further analysis. One night off. Pathfinder was officially off the clock.

Ryder burrowed as deeply as possible into her bed, missing the heavy quilt she'd owned a lifetime ago. The ship hummed gently around her. Now and then a passing crew member's footsteps wandered past. Ryder flipped over. She flipped over again. She should have spent the night with him.

And right on cue, her omni-tool buzzed in a new message. Probably Suvi. Probably Scott. Definitely business related and therefore requiring her immediate attention.

Ryder wiggled from her cocoon, groping around. His letters became lasers, beams in her eyes. She read them over, and over, and over again.

I wish you'd stayed.

In the morning, Ryder gave her orders.

Through a note.

"Really?" Cora hissed. Her hiss was caught by the transmitter, drawn out as a spit of static. "Really. Again."

"No." Ryder said, in her best Pathfinder voice. "I know what you're thinking, and I want you to know, I have simply delegated responsibilities. I thought about calling a meeting, but you all seemed to be sleeping so nicely. Notes are cool. Vintage."

Cora stepped back from the conflict. She let go. She was too disciplined, too proud to whine. A fact that Ryder knew and fully intended to leverage for as long as possible. "Fine." Cora breathed out. "Why am I stuck with your brother while you get to blow things up?"

"You also might get to blow things up," Ryder pointed out. "I trust your judgment around explosives. Not Liam's. But you get me. Anyway, you're the only person I can trust on a bar-recon mission. Everyone else would just get drunk."

Cora seemed to be deeply struggling with something. Finally, she eked out. "First: I don't like the idea of you going somewhere without back-up. But I'm tired of fighting that point. The second thing is, I don't get along with Scott. No offense. But please keep that in mind in the future."

Ryder assumed a mask of benevolent patience. The Nomad, which she had clipping along at over a hundred-fifty kilometers an hour, ricocheted its way down a steep valley. The shaking and crashing were not the best sound effects for serenity. "Cora. No one gets along with Scott. He's like dad. Why do you think I picked you?"

"I'm hanging up," Cora announced, and cut the call. Ryder checked her map. Still fifty kilometers to go. Maybe by then Cora and Scott would be making out. It was possible. There was ample sexual frustration to go round. Now seemed like as good a time as any to stop thinking about her brother kissing people she knew.

Now Liam was calling. Ryder let him through, "What's up?"

"Pathfinder," Liam whispered, "Just because you put Jaal and I on the same team as Vetra, don't think we're happy about things."

"You ain't gotta lie." Ryder drawled. Jaal forced his way into the picture, essentially just seizing and maneuvering Liam by the wrist.

"We are concerned for your safety," Jaal said gravely. "Everyone else has split off with at least one partner to investigate their lithium site. And yet, we have formed a party of three while you operate alone. While I appreciate your consideration for our personal feelings, your security is more important."

"Yeah," Vetra added, from somewhere off-camera. "I'm sure I couldn't possibly imagine how this came to be. The subtle machinations of a Pathfinder. A mind that operates beyond the barriers of convention, species, and basic combat protocols."

Jaal and Liam were now eyeing each other, probably for some hint as to how they might decipher Code: Vetra. Ryder growled as she tore the Nomad through an innocent shrubbery.

"I'm not alone, I have SAM. Besides, this is just a little recon work. If I get a hit, I'll call you in," she lied breezily. "Surely I can handle that much." She could see Liam's face folding itself into a frown, his mouth opening to protest further. Ryder cut him off with a quick, "Sorry, call from Drack!" and switched the line. Twenty kilometers out. Drack's perpetually grim visage filled her screen.

"Are you going to yell at me?" Ryder asked, by way of greeting. Drack, who had incorrectly angled his camera to video his left shoulder, snorted as he made some adjustments.

"No. We Krogan have a long tradition of taking off for a long walk in the desert when the kids start bitching too much. It helps them appreciate you more when you feel like coming back." Drack paused thoughtfully. "Doesn't work as well on the wives."

Ryder suspected many Krogan owed surviving their adolescence thanks to this practice. "Is my brother there?" she whispered. "He's not going to like, bust out from behind you or anything, is he? Did you and Peebee already leave?"

"He isn't here. He was loud. I'm too old for loud. Sent him and Cora off a while back." Drack paused, and the camera began to shake wildly. "Sorry Ryder, hard to cut through this casserole. And I'm not having the sausage one." He took an enormous bite, and chewed thoughtfully. "You doing okay out there? Seen the scans."

"Yeah. Fine." Ryder shrugged. "Just, you know. I think I'm about to go ape shit on a den of drug lords. Should be fun."

Drack grunted approvingly. "If you're going to run away from your brother, at least make it count." Drack paused, then added. "No offense, but he's more strung out than a Turian cadet. I like you better."

Ryder was suddenly a little misty eyed. She blinked rapidly. "Thanks, um. But I'm not running away from my brother," Ryder laughed. She kept laughing. It was hard to stop laughing. "No way. Definitely not."

"Look kid," Drack sighed. "I got no reason to be busting your ass over what you do. Hell, I killed one of my brothers." He paused, then added, "Asshole. Still, it upset my mother. I feel bad about it. The point is, take your space if you need it."

Ryder had already been pretty busy dealing with her affection for the old Krogan. His continued understanding wasn't making it any easier. "Drack. Thanks."

"Whatever. We both know I'm not the one who's stuck playing host," Drack grunted. "I'm hoping Cora's identity feels threatened enough to ice him. Anyway, don't get shot anywhere important. Let me know if you need some backup and I'll meet you out there."

He hung up on her without further niceties, and Ryder spent the rest of her drive in relative silence, contemplating the many merits of her squad mates. She eventually shook herself from her sentimental haze. No time for that. She was less than a kilometer back from the center of her own Lithium deposit – one of three that SAM had picked out, each less than an hour's drive from the Port itself. Ryder had chosen this one because of the punishingly high mountain-face the lithium deposit was embedded into—in her experience, the preferred terrain of peoples trying to remain hidden.

Jaal, Liam and Vetra would hopefully be enjoying the spectacularly scenic waterfall she had sent them to by now.

Pathfinder, we will need to continue further exploration by foot.

She climbed out. "See anything? Smoke signals? Tire marks?"

Overlaying geological surveys with our present map indicates that there is an underground river beginning at the top of this mountain. The river is known to branch in several directions, with its waters emerging above ground at several sites near Kadara Port. Proposal: this river would serve as an excellent natural vehicle for transporting illegal goods, with the additional advantage of having no energy signature.

Ryder considered this. "I have to climb the mountain."

Analysis suggests—

"You're such a bastard." Ryder complained. In truth, the Nomad had nearly taken her to the top already. But the remaining meters up were almost a complete vertical, an obstacle that even her jump jets would likely have her bouncing off of.

It was a good thing no one was around to witness this.

Reyes called her halfway up. Ryder declined a video feed. "Hey."

"What are you doing? Why are you panting like that?"

"I'm—" Ryder desperately clung to what felt like about three blades of grass, both feet kicking over what she felt comfortable describing as a chasm. "—jogging."

"Huh." He moved on. "Listen. I want to do something different. Let's have dinner?"

"What!" Ryder screamed, now throwing herself into a desperate free fall. She collided roughly with the cliff face, and scrambled to find purchase.

"What?" Reyes echoed. He was definitely alarmed. "Turn on your camera."

"Dinner sounds nice," Ryder squeaked. She heaved herself onto the narrow ledge, gasping wetly. This was stupid. She should have taken the waterfall. "Are we going to get a pizza before or after your political enemies literally eat us?"

There was a pause of silence from Reyes. "Did you just spit?"

She definitely had. Adrenaline made her mouth wet. It was just a thing. "No. What time's dinner?"

"I'm not sure, probably as soon as I find out where you are and what you're doing."

Ryder had a pretty strong suspicion he was pulling up a screen that advertised her as a tiny, blinking GPS marker at that very moment. She wondered how exactly he was tracking her. Something on her suit? Could people ingest trackers? She wouldn't put it past him. "What's wrong, can't stay away from me?" She hunched, jets ready, preparing to fling herself into an absurd vertical leap.

Reyes laughed. "I can't, and I don't want to."

Ryder was pretty sure she had never jumped so high. Arms shaking, she hauled herself up inch by painful inch, her struggle made more difficult by trying to muffle her own ragged breathing. "I'm hanging up. Team's checking out those Lithium deposits. I'll have more for you soon." She managed to kick one leg up, hooking her heel over the cliff's edge, then rolled inelegantly forward. Finally. Finally. Dazed with exertion, Ryder let herself simply lie there, gasping.

"Be careful," he said. She was too tired to really listen to him. "I don't want to lose you," he added, and ended the call.

Ryder kept lying there, her muscles reduced to yogurt, as the seconds and minutes ticked past. Finally, finally, she pushed herself up, grinning. He liked her. Did he like her? No, that was stupid. Stupid Ryder.

Upon standing, the most obvious thing of note was probably the landing pad. Ryder stared at it, seething. Those cheaters. The likely well-air conditioned cheaters. Who were also, by the way, nefarious drug chemists and child murderers. Their base, now that she was finally on top of the stupid mountain, was only a short distance away from the landing pad, and clearly visible from her position.

Ryder zipped towards a nearby rock outcropping for some cover, getting ready to radio Peebee and Drack for backup, when a sudden thought made her pause. Because—she hadn't gotten to try out those combat matrices, after all.

She bit her lip, finger literally hovering over the call button. They could be here within an hour. But the base was right there, and—and! She would be able to tell, right away, if taking out the drug ring was enough to change Reyes' future. Somehow, she doubted her crew would be all that thrilled to watch her have another seizure-vision.

They also probably wouldn't be that excited to know that she'd died because she'd gone into a fight without backup.

"Fine," Ryder bargained, either to herself or SAM or Reyes' hypothetical tracker chip. "If there's less than five, I take them on. Five and up, I call in my Krogan."

The universe heard.

Ryder darted between the wind-smoothed rocks, ears pricked, eyes narrowed and fixed on the drug base's windows. She inched nearer, discovering and tucking herself into a choice spot for visibility, for target sighting. Methodically, she began setting up her sniper's rifle, hands moving without thought. She'd done this a thousand, ten thousand times. "Okay," Ryder coached herself. "Step one. We reinstall our psychic combat thing. Step two, we don't have a seizure. Step three, we take out this base. Step four, we get our seer on. SAM, you are on seizure duty. Don't make me replace you with a dog."

SAM immediately began prattling on about how 'the combat matrices were dangerous' and 'her current plan of action seemed extremely ill-advised.' Ryder wanted to roll her eyes except she was trying to be more mature. She settled for some rapid blinking.

Stop that.

"If you don't install them, I'm probably going to get shot," Ryder pointed out. "And die. Also, you do as I say. So do it. Now." Yes, much better. Strong Pathfinder moves.

SAM began doing his uncomfortable mind-rearranging thing. Her omni-tool flashed, and Ryder tapped in her user permissions. Five minutes to reinstall. Faster than she'd expected. Maybe SAM had left a few back doors open for himself. "So walk me through this, how does it work and when should I haul ass to clear the area? Are headaches the only way for me to realize we're about to go under?"

Now that I am more familiar with system diagnostics, I should be able to monitor synchronization rates and give you ample warning before we overload. An attack such as the one you suffered before should be easy to avoid, so long as we are able to distance ourselves from stressors in time. I can uninstall the program if need be. I would advise that all adversaries be eliminated prior to the uninstall.

"Can we film this? I mean, for the documentary. Because I think I'm going to kick some ass." Ryder trilled, and then actually slapped a hand over her own mouth. She was starting to sound like Liam. Or, just, insane.

Program docked.

Ryder checked her guns, then lay flat on the sun-warmed rock, dragging herself forward with her elbows. She mounted the sniper rifle, checking the base's windows through her scope. At least four people inside, two Salarians that wore heavy gas masks, a tweaked out Turian, and a human woman with bold lipstick. Four targets. Just under quota. Ryder zoomed in. "Launch," she ordered.

And then the world dropped out from under her, her ears became speakers that angled inward. She felt her heart beating as she never had before, felt each bone and muscle of her body, that fantastic machine. The woman's lipstick shone with a light—an unnatural light, a purple light, UV? Ryder adjusted the scope. Perfect clarity. Perfect purpose. She didn't see things anymore, so much as she saw the space around them, the narrowed and swelling spaces.

She shot.

The bullet made an satisfying, circular hole through window's glass. Through the Turian's skull, into the woman's thigh, where at last the missile lodged in bone. The Turian went down and the Salarians were already ducked for cover, the woman with the bleeding thigh and the red mouth had drawn her weapon, and—the lights went out. They'd cut power, made it harder for her to pick them out from the darkness, at least at a distance.

Ryder stood.

She pulled up her shields, and simply walked towards the front door. She didn't need to run. They couldn't get away from her. Her legs, in all their power and strength, carried her forward.

"Get the fucking bomb," one of the Salarians was shouting. "Get the fucking bomb!"

The door blew outwards, slamming flat against Ryder's shields, an impromptu ballistic powerful enough to make her stagger, then the woman with the lipstick was there and swinging what looked like a sharpened bone for Ryder's face. Almost dreamily, Ryder pulled her head out of the way, noticing the bone-blade's carvings, the well-smoothed place on its handle that could only have come from years of wear.

The woman's beautiful mouth was opening. She had very light, almost colorless eyes. Ryder's ears rattled with the sound of her own breath, her life.

"Bye," Ryder offered. She reached out and grabbed the woman's wrist. Her thumb dug into a nerve, and the woman's hand flew open, so that the bone-knife went flying away. One of the Salarians was coming out—and that was a Krogan, shit—but later, first—

She shot over the woman's shoulder, catching the Salarian's soft, wet flesh with a spray of buckshot. The Krogan was maneuvering what looked like a small canon, swinging it around to face her, his armor and his body like a wall—indifferent even as she shot him in the face. No time—Ryder kicked the woman's knee, catching the edge of her kneecap and smashing it, and they dropped together so Ryder could lift what remained of the base's door—a heavy thing, at least thirty pounds of warped steel, and even that buckled violently beneath whatever the Krogan was packing. She could hear his weapon charging, the high whine of it—another blast from that thing would end it, would rip through the steel door she hid behind or break whatever body part she used to support it.

"SAM, drones!" Ryder hissed. The woman was screaming, clutching her head. Ryder lobbed a flash grenade and sprinted—no time no time—her eyes closed, her nose stinging with ozone. Two of her fingers were badly jammed, numb and stiff and uncooperative. She dropped the combat drones behind her, anything that could buy her some time, fumbling to swap out shotgun for pistol—she needed precision, not force—

Ryder ducked around the building's corner, hearing her drone detonate, the Krogan's furious roar. She peeked out, snapping off her pistol's safety and aiming—breathe, breathe, breathe—her brother had always been better shot and always, her dad saying the same thing: "You're all over the place, you need to focus, you need to let go of everything else, you need to be empty."

And they hadn't understood, her army friends or her teachers, why she spent so much time at the firing range. Because she was a good shot, she was steady and practiced and not everyone can have perfect eyesight, a little blurriness wasn't the end of the world, her natural endurance would have been wasted on a sharp-shooter anyway, she didn't have to be a sniper—

Flash grenade hadn't worked, hadn't blinded him, the Krogan saw her, he was aiming, he was—

But she wasn't the same person anymore.

Ryder shot. A single, clean crack of a noise. It was almost beautiful.

The Krogan was dead, though still standing, still rocking forward, his body struggling to understand the death of its brain. Ryder stepped. One foot forward, then the other. She expected to feel something, elation or nerves or, just, anything. The cannon slipped from the Krogan's grip, banging loudly on a rock as it fell. The woman with the lipstick was still alive, but sobbing. Ryder bent to pick up the bone-blade and the Krogan finally crumbled, as the woman too surrendered to unconsciousness.

Ryder stepped over the dead Salarian and squinted through the dark lab, fumbling at the walls for lights. Her head was starting to ache, even as the air just to her left rippled, and Ryder dodged—throwing herself deeper into the darkness as the living Salarian tried to bum-rush her. "Cut the shit," she hissed, swinging the bone knife out, and cutting, and there—at last—were the lights.

The other Salarian's hands pressed over his chest's gash, gasping. He panicked as the lights came on, fumbling with the lab's tables for a weapon. He snatched and threw blindly—pencils, vials, half a sandwich, a Bunsen burner—Ryder moved forward, listening to the raspy, frantic gasp of his breath. "Stop," she said quietly. "Sit down."

He froze, still quivering, large eyes darting sideways, up—not a fighter, not even a real scientist, she could see the burn marks and the ink stains on his sleeves. Imperfect, a cook rather than a chemist. His long, thin fingers flattened protectively over the cut she'd given him. "Pathfinder," he managed to squeak out. "I don't want to die."

"Then sit. I need to scan."

"The computer's locked. I'll let you in," the Salarian babbled. "It has everything. All our trials. I didn't think the Nexus would get involved, it's not like we're that important—"

Ryder's hands clenched. Her temples were throbbing, insistent. Empty. She had to be empty. "It's a problem when you start tearing kids into itty bitty pieces. Who knew?"

"We—what? We didn't. I swear, we didn't. Is this about those murders?" He was still babbling as she steered him bodily towards the computer, watched the long, spindly fingers strike the keyboard. She could feel SAM sync up, drain the data, screens and lights flashing wildly, painfully. Ryder closed her eyes, wincing.

"Yeah," she rasped. Not much longer. "Yeah, it's about the murders."

"It wasn't us," the Salarian yelped. "My god. I don't know anything about that. But if you're here—then someone must have been on the drug. PX-92230. I don't know, I didn't even handle the selling. I was quality control."

"How can you be quality control if the product is still evolving?"

The Salarian blinked. "What? It's not." His attention swung away from her, as was often the case with Salarians. He prodded the flesh near his wound, seeming terribly young, almost childlike. "PX-92230 is a mood modifier, a…an antidote. When people begin coming out of stasis, many of them require extensive psychological care. For whatever reason, the centuries of suspended life activity leaves them with an intense, chronic depression. They can treat you for it on the Nexus, but it takes time, and many of us left the Initiative before we could complete treatment."

Ryder could only stare at him, her ears ringing. Leave. She had to leave. "It's not…it's not a party drug?"

"What? No!" The Salarian had nearly yelled in outrage, but now coughed, wincing. "I'll admit we're a knock-off brand, but the effects are the same as what the doctor ordered. We help people. Pathfinder, you can see for yourself. You have our records."

Her hands had started to shake. Ryder hesitated. He could be lying. Or she was missing something, she should—she should burn it, she should burn the whole place to the ground, they'd shot at her—

She stared down at the Salarian, her gut twisting. She hated killing Salarians. They were always so young.

Pathfinder, we need to force uninstall your combat matrices or else risk overload.

"No," Ryder ordered. She turned, and broke into a staggering run. Leave the Salarian. Leave the busted lab. Leave the woman in lipstick, the dead Krogan. They weren't innocent, she told herself. They weren't murdered. "SAM, leave the matrices. Upload all data to the Tempest, have Suvi c-cross reference with the Nexus." She shook her head. Had she just stuttered? Shit.

She kept running, her eyes slitting, something comforting about the even pound of her feet against the ground, the air rushing past her. She threw on her jets, bouncing down the mountain side faster than she should have, faster than she could really control or stop. Her matrices were still running, still nudging her away from a jammed ankle, a smashed spine. She crash-landed against the Nomad, rolling awkwardly into the driver's seat. She slumped forward into the steering wheel, her body still remembering, her body and her vehicle's smart sensors driving her a full fifteen kilometers forward to safety, to desolation.

Ryder fumbled at the car door, rolling out, dropping painfully to her knees. She huddled down. Head: officially zero inches from the ground. Shields: fully functional. Sharp objects: at a safe distance. Armor: very secured.

She focused on Reyes. It was harder to fully picture him than she would have initially guessed. Her mind felt like a camera struggling to focus, so that by the time she'd finished recalling the timbre and roll of his voice, the way he dragged some letters or skipped others or had a way of changing questions into implications—she'd lost herself, given up too much room, so now the mouth that spoke the words she could so perfectly recall became opaque, and overly soft.

It was easier to remember flashes of him than the full picture—the slight squint, his wide shoulders, how he never seemed to face her completely. Despite herself, this incompleteness disturbed her.

Pathfinder, our synchronization levels are rising.

"I know," Ryder mumbled.

Why are you doing this?

The question she definitely did not want to answer.

Children torn to pieces, faces grown from moss, the sick feeling she was learning to associate with plants and wine and debauchery, a sort of sick paranoia, the way he looked at her, his face destroyed by bullets, Keema Dohrgun sitting high upon her throne, the lies, the—

Her head was ringing, and tinny, her ears full of metal. Ryder grit her teeth. She opened herself to fear. Fear of fire, fear of starless space, a void that could overtake people, a void that lived in everyone. Fear: Reyes, too far and too close. Fear: the ground beneath her fingers—a tremor? Footsteps! No.

P-Pathfinder you are approaching critical synchronization levels—

"Let it run," Ryder gritted out. Her face was bloated, bursting. Had she really endured this before? Had she hidden this, from Liam and Jaal? Was she insane? Something scratched away at her peripheral vision, an intrusion, an ill-fated visitor.

Ryder opened her eyes, her body vibrating, her heat pushing out in waves to feel the vast room around her. The Collective's Base. And Keema, sitting on her throne, up above her. Ryder stared up at the other woman, watching her pour, watching her drink. The wine became beautiful, molten ruby as it swallowed the light. It stained the Angara's lips, which were spreading, and smiling, and there was a taste at the back of Ryder's mouth, something thick and bitter—tannins from an old red, the exposure of some dead, crushed vegetable. Plants. Keema wasn't looking at her.

There was something else, too, a kind of roar, a thing that hugged the room's windows. The pressure that is felt upon being stalked by some great predator.

Ryder turned slightly, following Keema's gaze, and there was Reyes—one hand smoothing back his hair, one reaching behind his back, looking for something hidden. He moved so slowly, like a man that had been poured from a honey jar. Her mouth sweetened, just seeing him. She knew, too late, his saunter.

Reyes, his mouth curving up, the space in his eyes opening to allow room for expression, for romance—then vacant, dead, his body collapsing in a slow arc back from her, and laughter—ugly, laughter like a gunshot, like the silence that enters when life has left.

Traitor, Ryder wanted to say, and she turned away from Reyes, his silence. She looked back up to Keema, and the Angara's seat atop power, but Keema's hands were empty. The glass she'd once held was now shattered, and the Angara's rich, complicated smile now deepened, cut like a diamond. She held no weapon. She held no malice.

She was looking into the shadows, the shadows just past Ryder's shoulder. And Ryder realized that she'd been wrong, that Reyes had been shot from behind, he'd never been harmed by Keema at all but now his murderer was just behind her, and the windows, the thing beyond the windows was swelling—

And Ryder turned and she stopped and she saw the gun, the lies, the face of the killer. The room's windows burst inward as a great tide rushed in, drowning them.

And then, she saw nothing, she saw the sound of white noise.

A man's feet, his legs. The man, stooping to lift her, and without meaning to, she began to cry. "You came," she said, and then nothing else.

The thing under her head was alive.

Military training kept Ryder still as she awoke. The thing under her head shifted. Thighs? A familiar smell. Someone's voice, she didn't know them, they were talking about their route up the Corsica valley, a blockage in supply lines…smugglers? Ryder sniffed again.

"You're awake," Reyes' voice spoke. Ryder opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, closing out of whatever he'd been reading on his omni-tool. A lazy swing from an old fan twirled overhead. They were towards the back of an old cargo area, mostly empty, while at least two pilots chatted on the bridge.

"Hi," Ryder managed to whisper.

"Good morning," Reyes replied. Ryder sat up gingerly, wincing in anticipation. She didn't hurt as much as she'd expected. He'd found her somehow (she still suspected a chip) and brought her on one of the Collective's ships, something small and slower than most people would guess. Her armor was lying in a neat pile on the floor near her.

"You're pretty good at finding me. Insert romantic platitude here." Ryder glanced at him hopefully, poking carefully around at her old injuries. Nothing seemed disturbed. Reyes glared.

"You were bleeding from your eyeballs when I found you, you know," he said.

"Ew." Ryder immediately rubbed at her face. No blood. Her eyes stung. "I mean, hardcore, but super gross."

Reyes raised an eyebrow. "So? You've obviously had another seizure, I can only assume either something went wrong with your AI and I should be taking you to a surgeon—or you did it on purpose and I should take you to a psychiatrist."

"It's helpful that Lexi is both," Ryder acknowledged. Reyes was still glaring at her. She shifted her gaze, swallowing. It would be easier to spend time with him if she didn't have to keep up the evasive maneuvers.

"So? Am I still dead in your visions?"

Ryder stared determinedly at the ceiling. "You don't have to sound so flippant about it."

Something flashed across his face. "Yes, then. Obviously. I've heard about your prediction matrix thing from one of your crew. So, what did you see? Who killed me?"

Ryder hesitated. She chewed the inside of her cheek and regarded him, wondering how long it would take for her to learn the trick to lying well. A lock of hair had broken free from the others, and swung now across his brow. Ryder reached up. She smoothed it back in place. She wanted to put everything back, just the way she found it.

"It was you," she admitted. "You did it."

It had been him—walking out of the shadows, old swagger, an echoed memory of the day he'd revealed himself as Charlatan, a pistol in his hand—shiny, silver and antique. A pistol her father had owned, a memento from some family member. It hadn't made it to Andromeda. It was a pistol that could never kill him, only her own idea, her perception of what a pistol should look like. Ryder frowned.

Reyes snorted. "Oh. Well. That makes security pretty easy."

"No—" she began to protest, throat closing. "You don't understand. I don't think it's literal."

But he was rising, brushing himself off. Dismissing her fear. "I've never been the suicidal type." He fixed her with a hard look. "Can you say the same?"

Ryder stumbled to her feet, chasing after him. The cargo ship was unsteady, veering through tight canyons with old, hashed up tech. She had been spoiled by the Tempest. She needed to keep one hand on the wall—or maybe that was her own vertigo? "Reyes, wait!" she insisted. "I was wrong about the drug ring—"

"I know," he interrupted. Why wouldn't he look at her? She stared fixedly at the hard tendons of his neck, where the muscle met his hairline. Right there. She wanted to kiss him right there. But Reyes was still business, still talking. "Your crew's been in touch. Those records you found check out. That base you found was run by criminals, but they're hardly cultists. Your science officers seem to think that the drugs were purchased from the base you found and then modified by the cultists somehow. We've been cross-referencing the buyers while you recovered."

Ryder froze.

Reyes, still angrily striding away from her, took several paces before turning. "What?"

She'd killed them. Not innocent. Deserving murder?

Ryder licked her lips, her heart suddenly pounding. "What about the bodies?"

"The bodies?" Reyes echoed. He frowned at her. "What bodies?"

"The chemists. The people at the base. I killed—three of them, maybe four." Stop. Stop. Stop. Ryder took a breath. Even Addison would tell her, these things happened. People made mistakes, even Pathfinders. Let it go and move on. "I just—I just thought, maybe—" she trailed off, clamping her mouth shut. She thought what? That an exception should be made; that acknowledged criminals should be extracted from a lawless land just so they could be buried somewhere else? For what, her own childish sense of guilt? Ryder swallowed. "Nothing. Sorry."

She wanted to put her armor on. With that determination, Ryder turned to leave him. She'd ask the pilots to drop her at their earliest convenience. She'd radio Gil, ask for an extraction—

Reyes caught her wrist. "Hey," he said, more gently than she'd expected. Ryder held perfectly still, focused on making not one single noise. She felt, before he spoke, the slight shift of his grip, a loosening. "I want to surprise you," he said. "Have you played the game where you close your eyes, and someone leads you to a present?"

Ryder sniffed. It was either sniffing or irreversible water damage at this point, and she really didn't want to cry. "What kind of present?"

"A good one," he promised.

She rubbed her face with her sleeve. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but nothing seemed ready to come out. Instead she closed her eyes, and let him take her hands. She followed him, lurching with the ship, but somehow never stumbling into walls or tripping. After some time had passed and they'd made probably a shorter journey than she would have guessed, he helped her sit. Ryder spread her hands across the cool, flat surface in front of her. "Are we in the kitchen?"

"Yes."

"Are you feeding me?"

"Close."

With her eyes still closed, Ryder laid her face against the countertop. It was cool, soothing against a face that felt so swollen, so damp. She'd absorbed her tears back into herself. She didn't want to think about this anymore. "I can't really cook," she told him. "I guess most people can't anymore. But my dad liked it. That surprises people. When he died I—there was this one thing he would make me on my birthdays. I mean, mine and Scott's. I don't know why he kept making it, it was this…I think it might have been Chinese, this kinda dumpling soup thing. Scott really liked it but I never finished mine. When he died I, um, I had another birthday and I kind of wanted to keep the tradition going. I wanted to make it again, but I couldn't. I don't know what it's called."

The chair across from her scraped back, and Ryder startled upright, her eyes flying open. Reyes froze, his arm outstretched. He'd been just about to press a mug of something brown into her hands. Ryder blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to look."

"It's fine," he shrugged her off. She drew the mug to her chest, sniffing. Something with booze. Something with fire, and chocolate. Reyes caught her eye and smiled. "What my father made me. So I'd shut up and sleep."

Ryder started to laugh, and then quickly stopped herself. She sounded awful, like someone about to have a nervous breakdown. "Thanks," she rasped, and took a quick sip. And then a big one. She hadn't realized she'd been freezing.

"Let's stop splitting up," Reyes said. She looked up at him, still clutching her mug. He shrugged. "I mean it. Let's just stop. You're here, I'm here. You can't order me away like you can with everyone else, so at least someone will be around to watch you rampage." He shrugged again, now with an odd, dismissive gesture. "I don't want to fight anymore. You'll do what you want."

She looked down into her mug. "I'd like that."

"Okay."

"My brother probably won't." Ryder muttered, more to herself.

Reyes leaned across the table, face intent. "So what? You're the Pathfinder, not him. I know you want to help people, but you've gotta stop taking their shit. You've earned your title. You've done so much—too much. In fact, I think you should step back. Let people figure things out on their own for once, or at least stop doing everything by yourself."

She finished her spiked hot chocolate. There wasn't anything else left for her to hide behind. "I know, Reyes," she admitted, her voice shrinking. "I know. I get it. I'm tried of it too. But I just…can't. I can't let go yet. I just don't want something bad to happen. I don't want to fail."

"You won't. You can't. You've already succeeded. Look at what you've done."

"I don't want to be—just, you know, some girl with the famous dad who fucked everything up. You know, I—I didn't really want to come to Andromeda. I guess not that much was happening for me in the Milky Way. I was just, you know, normal. I'd just finished school, my military training. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next but I—I had friends and, like, a favorite bar. I had things. I wanted adventure but I didn't—I mean, Andromeda's so…so far. There's adventure and then there's…I don't know. I didn't want to leave everything behind. But my dad did. For him, he took off the past like it was nothing, like a…like a shrug." Ryder stopped. She felt uncomfortable, the way he was looking at her. He wasn't smiling. She'd spent so much time wishing he'd take her seriously, only to discover how much harder it became when he actually did. She started speaking to her toes.

"I found out later that there was…some shit going down. Some war I didn't know about. But he didn't tell me. He didn't tell me any of that. He told my brother and me that he'd signed up as Pathfinder for the Andromeda Initiative, and Scott said he'd go, like no hesitation. Plus, mom had just died, so, I—what the hell was I supposed to do? I had to go. I would have followed them anywhere."

Reyes nodded. She could just see the bottom of his chin, the edge of his sympathy. "When I got in the cryo pod, I thought maybe I'd never wake up," she admitted. "I guess lots of people did. Some of them were right. Even then, I followed them."

"I'd say it worked out okay," Reyes said. Her shoulder twitched, rather than shrugged.

"Yeah. I guess." Her dad was dead. Ryder swallowed. "I can't really remember it, honestly. Before. Do you ever feel that way? We haven't even been in Andromeda that long but sometimes…sometimes I wonder if the person I was before just disappeared when I became the Pathfinder. I know that sounds dramatic. Sorry. I didn't mean to be such a bummer."

She couldn't look at him. She'd felt less exposed with his head between her thighs, and she could feel him now as he watched her, the weight of his gaze, the way he saw everything. She wanted to evaporate.

His hand curled around hers, pulling. She let herself hide against him, let him pull her upright. He twirled her slowly around, and when she was at last brave enough to face him, the look on his face was almost gentle.

"Do you remember the first time we did this?" he asked. She rested her cheek on his shoulder as they drifted, now hardly moving. She felt heavy, her body handing loosely from its spine as she swayed with him, puppet-like. Back and forth and back, hypnotic, the swing that was used to put babies to sleep.

"Of course I remember," Ryder murmured. "Why did you think I could forget?"

He held her back, her hip. Not enough. "You're a busy woman. I would never be so arrogant."

"Shut up," Ryder grumbled. They held each other, still gently moving, and she breathed carefully, trying to pull out the smell of his neck. "I thought you were kind of corny." She admitted. "It made me let my guard down. But then I wondered if maybe that was the point, if it was a feint."

"Why, because I did the things you wanted?"

Ryder narrowed her eyes. "Exactly."

Reyes laughed. There was a longer pause than Ryder expected, one full of his indecision. Finally, he said, "It's true. I was corny. I wanted to try being different."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," he sighed. He pulled her hair tie, dragged it loose. He considered her, for so long she began to blush. "Maybe I should say this makes you look softer. But you know, it doesn't. You're still the same." He brushed a few strands behind her ear. She hadn't known they could feel so sensitive, so nervous. She had thought that she'd feel differently about him once they'd had sex, but that wasn't true. She still didn't know him at all.

"You're always talking about being different. About changing," Ryder noted. She asked, knowing he wouldn't tell her, "Why?"

Sometimes, his eyes looked green. They did now. His head bent, and he kissed her. She would never get used to him. She kissed him back, trying to soak her way inside. She could feel herself coming up short, tripping over some hidden wire. She couldn't tell who or what was responsible anymore, who was to blame, she could only keep trying to force her way through.

"It's because I hate the idea of destiny," he whispered in her ear. "Because if that's true, then what's the fucking point? Why are we even alive? My life was supposed to be something very different. You, too. We became different people, when we came to Andromeda. Nothing was certain. Everything could be chosen. And I want you to choose me, a person you should never have met. Choose me anyway."

Her world, in that second, became they point of a dreidel. The universe could only spin around them, and he was right there at her center, unmoving. Ryder swallowed, her lips parting, because even as her head became perfectly empty, even as something unnamed shook within her, she knew that she had to—she had to say something—

His hand covered her mouth, catching the little noise she had started to make. Reyes was looking down at her, with an unyielding intensity. "Or don't. But stop trying to see the future. Stop believing that there's only one outcome. It'll be okay. And more than that, I don't want to see you hurt like that again. Trust me. We'll find a way. Trust me."

He didn't lower his hand. His palm was warm, a little chapped. He wouldn't let go until she nodded. She didn't want him to let go at all.

She nodded.

[seren-rees]

UPDATED: HOW TO ROMANCE BOTH GIL & REYES! (W/STEPS) (COMPLETE)

I wasn’t sure how to completely romance both Gil & Reyes at the same time, so I decided to do a sort of speed run to make sure I wouldn’t mess up my game. I’ve played it until before after the last main mission & finally found the right pattern of missions to get it to work. The way I did it triggers both of their “main” romance scenes (Ryder’s room & Kadara cave) (I’ll play the last quest tonight (......or in two days whoops, sorry guys about to start playing right now) & update this with any scenes/conversations affected by the Gil & Reyes romance at the end)

UPDATED/COMPLETE: I finished the main story and added on to the end!!! tldr; Everything seems to work out! ♥

STEPS & MISSION ORDER: (under a cut cause of spoilers + it’s really long)

(1) Pick every flirt option with both Gil and Reyes whenever you have the chance (and make sure you were flirting with Gil to this point)

(2) After completing “Trail of Hope” speak to Gil and choose the option “Slow down big guy”

(3) Start “Hunting the Archon”, Interrogate Vehn Terev, go flirt with Reyes in the Tartarus bar in the Kadara Slums, then COMPLETE “Hunting the Archon”

(4) Back on the Tempest read Gil’s email about meeting on Eos at Prodromos and ACCEPT the mission (Gil Brodie: The Friend) Do not complete just yet.

(5) Go back to Kadara

(6) Complete Murder in Kadara Port, A People Divided, Helping Kadara’s Heart, Modern Medicine, Behind Enemy Lines, Precious Cargo, Night on the Town

(7) Leave Kadara for a bit (try traveling to another world or something) Then go back to the Tempest and you will have an email from Sloan. Select it to accept the mission “High Noon”

(8) Go back to Kadara to complete “High Noon”. Don’t save Sloan and you’ll get the romance scene for Reyes. Go back to Tartarus in the Slums and talk to Reyes a few more times for other scenes/dialogue.

(9) Now go to Eos to complete “Gil Brodie: The Friend” (and obviously choose flirt/romance options)

(10) Now complete the main mission “The Journey to Meridian”

(11) When you get back to the Tempest, talk to Kallo in case you haven’t triggered the Kallo/Gil scene yet.

(12) Now Gil should be in engineering, where you can talk to him to trigger his romance scene.

UPDATED PART BELOW

(13) After leaving the Tempest and coming back about twice, Kallo said Gil wanted to talk to me. I talked to him in engineering and the conversation about being dads happened!

(13.5) If these codex entries look like this for you then you should be good! Thank you @slskenandore for this info!!!

(14) Here's when I did the "Movie Night" mission. I'm not sure how much it matters when you do this, but doing it in this order worked out well :)

(15) Do the final main mission ("Meridian: The Way Home"). After the first part, when you get back to the Tempest, go to the bridge to continue the mission you get a little scene with Gil.

(16) At the ending of the mission Gil & Ryder talk/kiss. Reyes is standing in the background but doesn't talk to Ryder/isn't mentioned at that time.

(17) During "Epilogue:The Way Home", when talking to Gil and Reyes separately you get the romance dialogue for both of them....it worked!!!!

(18) Talk to Gil back on the Tempest for a little more romance-related dialogue.

Note: (Don’t forget to check your emails at some point cause these boys are aDORABLE omg)

This is how far I’ve gotten for now, but I do want to see if it affects any kind of ending scene/convos with either of them after the last quest, so I will update this post with that tonight. (It’s now almost 9am and I started playing around midnight sooo hopefully this makes sense, but I had to post it now cause i spent way too long on it) (btw I tried like 2-3 different combinations of missions that messed up the cave scene why can’t bioware just let me be poly in peace)

I finished! Everything seems to work out in the end and I don’t think anything conflicts too much. The scene right before the epilogue may be a little different if you only romance Reyes, but other than that everything looks good. Now let’s all hope Bioware doesn’t update something/mess anything up and just lets all our poly mlm Ryders be happy with their boyfriends ♥

[makoparkingonly]

MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDAAAAAAAA

This is gonna be a rambly mess of feelings because I played end game last night and have a lot of thoughts. I’m using a cut but if you’re reading on mobile just scroll really fast past this post.

Okay first of all, I played Sara Shepard, kept the default name (you get to hear it in dialogue!!!!) and default appearance (during the preview I was hesitant to waste even a second of play time on altering my appearance). I romanced Jaal because I really loved his emotional dialogue. I saved the salarian pathfinder instead of the krogan (I thought Drack was gonna kill me). I put colonies on every world, got everything up to 100% viability, and had a planet named after me. I saved Sloane but I couldn’t shoot Reyes in the back.

I got everyone but Peebee loyal because no where on the description box does it tell you how important getting remtech out of the vaults is. By the time I realized I needed it to trigger her mission, I had already cleared the vault and couldn’t go back in. So if you’re reading this and you haven’t cleared all the vaults yet, GET THE REMTECH. 

This is going to be so rambly and out of order but I just found the Jaal sex scene on youtube so let’s start with that. I try really hard not to judge other people’s player creations but this one is . . . not great. Please pay no attention to that. 

It’s like they tried to recreate Amy Schumer and could only work with what Bioware gave them. It’s uncanny valley for sure. 

I actually really like that the romances are so different??? That it’s not “and here you’ll get a romance scene and of course before endgame you’ll have the sex” and the formula from the first three games. I like that this was just a random date on Aya that ended up being, like, the ultimate romance moment of the game. It’s frickin great. 

I’ve since watched the Suvi romance just for some contrast and because she’s the one I’m least likely to want to romance on my own playthrough. Though Ryder has some HILARIOUSLY awkward dialogue (“I like you you’re pretty I like seeing you on the bridge.” Kallo: “kill. me. now.”) that romance doesn’t do nearly as much for me and lacks any semblance of the scorching alien sex scene you get with Jaal. No one takes their clothes off, for starters, and you definitely don’t get boobs and alien oral sex.  

So anyway: romance in this game is great. I’m pretty sure I could have romanced Vetra as a lady, because she was responsive and didn’t shut me down, and I really want to try that. Obviously Liam. Cora shot me down, and so did Lexi. Kallo and Drack weren’t even options, though I’d only romance Drack for the novelty of it. Gil’s only an option for dudes. 

Okay let’s talk about ENDGAME because I just played it and it’s still fresh in my mind. The endgame of Andromeda is what Mass Effect 3 should have been. YOUR WHOLE SQUAD SHOWS UP. ALL OF THEM ARE THERE IN THE FINAL BATTLE and since you can’t direct anyone it doesn’t matter that you can’t direct them either. As you’re charging through the forest in the Nomad all of the various fleets show up. I literally cried when Sloane showed up to make sure that everyone knew that Kadara had helped. 

SPEAKING OF KADARA let’s talk about open world. I’m really grateful that I spent the week before this playing Dragon Age because the maps in Andromeda are basically identical, only space age. It also employed the same method of highlighting loot (only they call it crates). So it’s nice that in the vaults where you need a path, you get the path of previous Mass Effect missions, but you still get open world exploring. 

THE VAULT PUZZLES lol so many videos on youtube of people bitterly complaining about the vault puzzles, I thought they were going to be murderously hard. One guy spent literally two hours trying to figure out a puzzle that you couldn’t use the vault key on. I finished it in under two minutes. It’s basically sudoku with shapes instead of numbers and oddly shaped boxes but it’s still sudoku. I got that. I did not have nearly as much luck with knowing which console to interact with at which time, but you know whaaaatever.

BACK TO FEELINGS also I had a lot of siblings feelings about Scott, and a ton of feelings about the fact that I, the sister, saved him, the brother. It was like Jill of the Jungle all over again. I want to play as male Ryder but I also don’t want to lose that feeling ever. 

I was playing on easy and the endgame was actually super easy. I mean yeah and architect showed up AND nullifiers AND observers AND whatever the ones that make other ones are called, but honestly with your whole squad there it barely mattered? By the time I figured out what Scott was doing and actually paid attention to the architect they’d already mostly taken it down themselves. 

It was just nice to feel like all of the work I’d put into the galaxy paid off. That all the other pathfinders showed up and had all their moments. That you fought beside salarians and turians and also the angara. 

WHICH ALSO OKAY so when you get to choose a representative to the Nexus you can choose the Moshae??? Love that that’s an option. 

AND back to combat I really miss the power wheel, even though this made combat go a lot faster. I didn’t like that I couldn’t direct my squad powers, so combos largely happened by accident, or I made my own with my powers. I never could figure out the mechanics of the favorite profiles, let alone how to switch on the fly like they showed in the combat video. Nor could I find any guide online. 60 hours of game play and I couldn’t figure it out. So much for that being intuitive, Bioware. BUT, I like that there’s finally a reason that Shepard I mean Ryder has so many extra powers and abilities, and Sara teaching Sam how to be a real boy was really cute. ALSO CUTE: THE SPACE HAMSTER. 

And idk I just started thinking about the throwbacks to ME3, the fact that you meet ex-Cerberus scientists in the wilds of Kadara and Conrad Verner’s sister in the port. That Zaeed Massani’s son is in the desert of Eos. That fallout from the Overlord Project follows you to Andromeda. There are so many interesting easter eggs for those who played the original trilogy but this also was really accessible for anyone who’s never played the originals. 

Not related: I had some HILARIOUS bugs in later stages. My ship wouldn’t load sometimes and I found this out because I went up the stairs to the conference center and literally fell out of the spaceship into space because the floor hadn’t loaded. Related: I like that falling off shit doesn’t get you the dreaded death music, that you just pop back up right next to whatever you fell off. 

I like some of the social issues it touched on. The trans woman you meet in the colony on Eos who came to Andromeda to start her new life as a woman. Gil deciding to have a baby with his friend Jill. 

COLONIZATION BABIES. Y’all I want to read (or write) the fic where plural marriages are a thing, and Sara proposes to everyone (including Drack) on the Tempest to make sure they always get to stay together and also because they’re all pretty conveniently in love with each other in various ways because what they really love and want to keep doing is exploring and pathfinding. I want one of them thinking maybe I want to colonize and farming for a bit and being okay at it but ultimately finding it boring as shit so they come back and they’re given a bit of shit for it but it’s okay. I want Sara having Liam’s baby but sleeping in Jaal’s bed most nights while Liam hangs out in Peebee’s escape pod. I want Cora having Gil’s second baby and letting him name it whatever he wants, which is how she ends up with a child named after a drive coil. I want them having petty fights about who left crumbs on the counter in the galley that Lexi tries to mediate. I want them to go to port thinking they want nothing more than to not see each other for a few days and then to end up back in each others presence in an hour because they had a thought they couldn’t wait to share. This may or may not have been influenced by the latest book in the Expansion series, but that’s a different post. 

Because, finally, I LOVE THIS CREW. I started this game off just so unsure of Cora and her talking about what a poooowerful biotic she is and how she scared everyone in the Milky Way and blah blah blah but by the time I finished her loyalty mission I was literally crying about how much I loved her. Last night after endgame I finally finished all of the piddly requests and requirements to make movie night happen and it honestly was the best fucking thing to end a game on. Next play through I’m waiting to do that the very last thing, because it felt like the end of the party at the Citadel DLC, everyone sitting around on a couch and laughing and just being their perfect selves. 

In conclusion: 

Detractors: no power wheel, no squad powers, actually wonky facial animation, some game glitches (I could never complete a mission on the Nexus because I’d already scanned a thing and it kept telling me I hadn’t.) (previously mentioned falling through the floor of my ship)

Positive: heavy on feelings, so many feelings, all of the feelings, my crew, INTERESTING AS FUCK stories, choices that matter, endgame appearances by everyone, twin feelings, open world exploring

EDITED TO ADD: OMFG THE QUARIANS. WE GONNA GET QUARIANS IN ANDROMEDA 2. 

[sleepymarmot]

MEA liveblog #6

Spoilers!

Kadara

Alright, let's hope this virus sample is as harmless as SAM said... Why doesn't this scene have an interrupt? Why does Andromeda have so few?

Oh, right, there's still a quest with Reyes and Drack's story about Spender

I think I should also try the monolith again. Regardless of politics, activating the vaults for Ryder is like closing rifts for the Inquisitor.

Thank you internet for telling me how to activate the southernmost monolith! There's a cave entrance at the base of the mountain, on the road to the east of the monolith and north-east of the forward station.

Ugh, navigating this vault and trying not to die took a long time...

Why do I get flirt options with Reyes in 90% of dialogue wheels?

Okay, I finally crafted something. Chest and legs for armor. Iitiative V. Together they give +11% XP instead of +15 I had on the pre-order set, but I could put lots of bonuses onto them. Used "25% shields on kill" as enhancement and "+50% recharge speed, -30% weapon damage" as a mod.

Yikes! It looks so ugly! Here I thought Deep Space looked mediocre compared to Scavenger, but this...

My adept profile is now rank 4!

Zia's voice sounds terribly familiar.

I literally met murderers disposing of a body, why can't I interact with them?

Two Hydras, more like "run around the entire time". Ugh, why are biotics in this game so weak against armor? And where's the fall damage? The entire point of biotics is killing enemies with physics! Why does a combo, on normal difficulty, not kill a mook, but throw him somewhere I can't see him with a sliver of health so he continues to shoot at me? This is ridiculous!

Me: Ugh I don't wanna do Kadara Also me: *does every single sidequest in the Badlands, raises viability to 70%*

Tempest

Peebee: idk why I wanted to write to you -- Aww :D

Yay, finally I can make my inventory bigger!

"I like it when you flirt" is still an option smh. Clicked it because I think someone mentioned that the zero-g scene is repeatable, but nope.

Alright, time to finally move on to the loyalty missions!

Cora's LM

Convenient when you can reuse an entire map huh :D

TBH most of the things people are saying are flying right past me. I'm just following the quest markers. So, is the arc pretty much empty now? 

Asari sword V!!! Something I wanted to craft or find a long time ago. 

This ascendant wasn't even dangerous. Just a boring bullet sponge. I need to get more weight capacity so I could always carry a sniper rifle just for those guys...

I'm a biotic too!!! I walked through this entire mission as an adept! Why am I not helping with the shield?

Revealed the truth, then said Sarissa should stay as the Pathfinder. Not a difficult decision.

Tempest

"Outcast HQ" sounds ridiculous...

Meanwhile, my Bronze/Silver strike team has five positive traits and no negatives...

Nexus

Good thing I went here before moving on to Vetra's mission! There's a follow-up scene. And apparently, there were a lot of asari still in cryo?

Is this the guy who already sent me a grateful email? This game really fails at continuity sometimes.

Fuck! Jien Garson "died alone"?! All this time I was suspicious about her absence, but people talked about her death so confidently I was sure there were witnesses!

lmao a burned body in an unexpected place. suuuuure

Oh, so she is dead :(

Okay, this is simpler than I thought. The Initiative was about escaping the Reapers. And I thought they were looking for something in Andromeda...

If there's really nothing more to it -- I'd actually be disappointed. The game just continues to subvert its own most ridiculous statements. Pretty much everyone assumed that building something called Arcs and moving to another galaxy right before the Reaper invasion is an attempt to preserve people and culture. The game insisted that wasn't the case, except of course it is. There were only two new races, suspiciously alike -- are they related? Nobody even mentioned the possibility in the game until it was confirmed. On the one hand, it's a relief that the game doesn't believe its own bullshit. On the other, I'd like not to be treated like an idiot. I'd like a story with a premise that makes sense by itself, and with reveals that are genuinely surprising. What's next on the list of predictable "plot twists"? Is Alec alive? Is Reyes the Charlatan?

Tempest

What, I got a bunch of AVP just for promising to do Drack's mission?

Fuck yeah vanadium

H-047c

When you land, the subtitles just disappear...

I almost fell off a cliff and Liam shouted "Ryder!!" in a very startled voice

Whoa, a Reegar!

Took the interrupt, of course.

After Liam's mission, the other two seemed bland...

Havarl

Thanks to the internet, finally found the Fusion Mod of Adrenaline. How can anyone find that by themselves?!

Archon's ship

I'm tired of messing around, let's get on with the plot

Let me guess, I'll have to choose between the map to the Meridian and the salarian arc's survival?

This Pathfinder actually sounds like a Salarian!

A new carfalon, nice

this fight didn't go well lmao

Oh great, now we wiped everything but the ascendant and then he killed me

Ughh, on the third try...

Poor Ryder

Yeah, yeah, we've already heard all that from Harbinger...

Archon's chamber, health and ammo packs... Annoying boss battle, here we go

oh great, it's the Krogett

ah, so it's a mix of Virmire and Priority: Tuchanka

Ouch, I wish I didn't take Drack on this mission...

Well thanks I feel like a monster now

And of course, the autosave is after the choice. I've long suspected that the lack of saving in priority mission is designed to make us live with our decisions...

Honestly when I was making a choice it seemed simply whether a bunch of krogan or salarians are saved from exaltation, the krogan are connected to your friend but the salarians have a Pathfinder. But then the game seems to present it as "many krogans, your friend's friends, vs one Pathfinder"?

So, where to now? After the Nexus.

I have 3 loyalty missions in progress, Peebee, Jaal and Drack, and the last one seems pretty urgent. 

I need to go to Elaaden, especially because after this I need to restore my relationship with the krogan.

I need to activate the vault on Voeld, people in my outpost and my angaran allies has been freezing their limbs of for a long time.

Kadara is the only place where nothing important is happening, but I need to get it to 90% asap to unlock the fusion mod perk.

Tempest

Poured some more points into combat to decrease the weight of sniper rifles, and crafted a Vintage Isharay V. Now I can carry it along with the Hornet and a shotgun of my choice. Some power user I am... :D

No, Gil, I don't really want to meet your friend. Though on second thought, maybe if the Pathfinder tells her we're not here just to breed, maybe she'd believe...

"My mother created the implant in my head, and my father created the AI that uses it. I haven't lost them either" ;_;

Suvi organized a comparative religion seminar, and Jaal and Kallo signed up!

Got myself a bald space mouse

"Okay, I'll learn a new party trick" :D

"You are daring. I had to up my game" It's just a casual option, but sure sounds like flirting... :D

"Just don't get yourself exalted" -> "Just don't relax too much" The translation is getting worse and worse... There's some nonsense in almost every conversation.

Aw, Vetra!

Nexus

Thanks, Tann! Now I have time to do sidequests and loyalty missions without guilt!

No thanks to other Pathfinders, seems like I have to rush the main plot after all :(

Scott!!!

Why is Ryder asking him about things she must know just as well?

Honestly, this game design is super stupid! Kadara opens up a lot of new quests, but also the rushes the main plot like hell! Am I supposed to do the loyalty missions and shit after the end of the story??

Wait, how exactly did Keri scare people? Why was she arrested? I don't understand.

Tempest

Aw, Liam is worried about how I'm coping with my clinical death! *Shepard sighs with envy from another galaxy*

Kadara

Why does the game shower me with shippy Reyes material even when I'm not trying to romance him?

Finally another interrupt lol

"Try to settle here, and I'll consider it an act of war" If I took the story seriously and roleplayed honestly, this would be the point I'd abandon this planet forever, even if I didn't do it far earlier. There's no reason for Ryder to plan for an outpost here -- and I only do because of the queat description. Ughh, the writing in this game is killing me.

How do you take a recipe anyway? How do you make sure there isn't a copy left on the person's computer? Anyway, took it from the asari because I assumed I could destroy the info instead of giving it to the doctor, but had to give it back anyway.

Whoa, the date with Vetra is incredibly romantic

Was it really necessary for two freaking eirochs to greet us as we exit the cave?!

People who lit Sloane from behind so that every time there's a closeup on her, the camera adjusts to that bright light and her face becomes a pitch black blob: please don't ever stage anything again

Travel from the Badlands to the Port, meet Sloane, immediately travel back to almost the same place in the Badlands. Is the game intentionally trying to waste as much of our time as possible?

I think my game ran out of save slots... Without any warning. When you try to write in a new slot everything seems normal but the save just doesn't appear.

Whoa! Ryder WASN'T surprised that Reyes is the Charlatan! I didn't expect her to figure that out...

I'm not sure how Reyes's actions were supposed to weaken Sloane but whatever

First I shot him because I use interrupts instinctively, then replayed and didn't. I don't give enough fucks about this petty war.

100%! Now I can finally leave this snake pit.

BTW, re: the choice: Sloane is almost as bad as Aria at this point, the only redeeming quality is her backstory. And she's proven herself a bad leader, while Reyes could turn out to be better. But deciding to let her die within a split second -- that's not something I or my idealistic character could do. And now Reyes has a potential for a cool comeback story, and Sloane -- for a redemption arc. We have both characters alive and active, while the other option kills one off. (Which, I realize, is a reason that we might never see an interesting follow-up.)

Tempest

Reyes bothered to send a letter! I hope we'll see his dramatic return in a sequel or a DLC. Imagine if you romance him and then save Sloane -- that's a good story! Also, glad I didn't shoot, because the internet says the letter is very bitter and ominous in that case.

Aaand what some people on the internet were saying is true. Fusion Mod Support, which was the sole reason I went to complete Kadara, is broken and deprives you of all buffs. Well, whatever.

Drack doesn't tell me to fuck off anymore. Does this mean I don't need to "give him space" anymore and can plausibly do his loyalty mission? It's weird that the game just ignores all that's happened -- it's not like he tells me he forgave or anything. Consequences my ass. Just lazy writing.

And Lexi just repeats her first description of Drack -- that he's "always good". Ugh. No, he's not!

NOW you want to talk about my death, Cora! Not when I approached you after that mission!

Elaaden

The krogan have a nice flag!

Logical: "Don't make me headbutt you. I absolutely will" Ha! The emotional option was some shit about friendship... 

The worm? That thing from the promo pictures, right? Is it the same thing as the Architects people on the internet are mentioning?

Aww, is this a letter from multiplayer's krogan engineer?

A krogan LARP!

The krogan are literally the only people whom I can understand and support in a decision to jump galaxies

Drack's LM

I don't understand how Vorn got here...

For once I'm not the one with a dilemma lol

"There's only one thing getting destroyed today (...) So there are a lot of things getting destroyed today, actually"

Drack please don't talk during fights, I don't hear a single word, too busy charging people and slashing them with my sword

I still don't understand what all of this has to do with Spender, and don't remember Drack ever mentioning before that the botanist is so important and irreplaceable.

I love being a vanguard on normal because even with an incomplete build you can tank two hydras. To be fair I was standing right on top of a health box...

That's all?? So short...

At least Drack hasn't forgotten my choice...

Ah, so the botanist who sent us on this mission and the botanist we rescued are two different people? Okay, one question answered.

Elaaden

Hmm, this puzzle seems more difficult...

The second monolith has a console puzzle instead of sudoku. I spent a pretty long time on it before realizing there were three consoles, not two...

WHy am I breaking into this base and slaughtering everyone inside??

Couldn't solve the console puzzle in the vault, looked it up, didn't understand the explanation, clicked some more and activated it by accident.

Shit, is this the same puzzle but on pillars?

I fell into the water and the game respawned me into the same fall -- but in the Nomad.

Jumped around and activated the bridge somehow, but the door behind it is still closed

How am I supposed not to fall from the pillars? It's impossible to know if you're jumping not far enough, too far, or not high enough.

Oh, here's that difficult sudoku. I spent like 15 minutes on it and still can't solve it...

Holy crap, I solved it! Took me about 25 minutes...

The purification field was already in the room when I closed the door on it...

Lmao apparently the main krogan on this planet is right in the starting zone... I searched the entire colony for him! And now, with the planet at 83% viability, I finally meet the guy I came here for :D

I clearly was meant to do all of this right in the beginning lmao. But I was in a rush to do Drack's mission...

Pressuring women into childbirth is bad enough in normal circumstances, but when children have about 1% chance of surviving? Back the fuck off.

Messages on the terminal are interesting. I don't like the confirmation of too-earthlike misogyny on Tuchanka, but at least things are getting better here. And I'm still impressed by the letters from the krogan engineer -- do other multiplayer character have presence in the main game too?

And here's the deal with the Remnant ship! I was waiting for the reason to visit it...

I like Morda. I hope I won't have to fight or depose her.

(Btw she's Norda in translation because "morda" means "face, mug")

It'd be much more fun to fight fiends if they weren't sync-killers. I can't even use a shotgun -- the entire fight consists of running away, throwing powers at them when at safe distance, turning around to run again, and if I'm very lucky, finding a moment for a sniper rifle shot a couple of times.

Btw this entire time I thought fiends were exalted eirochs -- but they're just a normal local species? What?

Lmao the viability is at 99% now

The Remnant Ship is a lovechild of the Collector ship/Derelict Reaper and all those veilfire dungeons from DAI

The Nomad looks bad in this planet's lighting... Or is it because I raised texture quality? On Eos and Voeld the entire hull looked the same, now I can see the difference between two areas.

Oh. Is this why I was supposed to break into the scavenger base lol

Well, this was a good planet to bring Drack and Peebee with you everywhere! Sorry Peebs, but even you didn't feel joy when we finally found that drive core after all the bloodshed; plus it's your own philisophy to look into the future instead of the past; plus we might find other Remnant ships but this diplomatic opportunity is huge and unique. It's a laughably small price to pay for so many good things -- not just the outpost, but paying our debts and renewing friendship with a good ally led by an admirable woman. This makes me feel really good, unlike Kadara. New Tuchanka in generally is a feel-good place. The krogan look more real with their occupations and interests, their reason for being here makes perfect sense unlike the rest of the Initiative, and they're happier than in the Milky Way (at least until the end of ME3. Yeah, they have the genophage here, but also the Reapers aren't killing and harvesting them, so I'll call it a draw).

Oh my god, the translators misread "fiends" as "friends"! "Even if it means taking out three friends at once"! L M A O

"We're all a little krogan in here" That sounds pretty racist, Ryder

Nexus

Wait, how is exile harsher sentence for Spender than jail? In exile he'd just be free to continue his racist criminal activities.

"It is the will to continue living" Ugh, don't give me that Padme bullshit

Eos

That's all? This short rude conversation is why Gil called me to meet his shitty friend?

Aw, Cora started a garden! Right on a nest of poison-spitting bugs, but still cute. 

Just as I switch from Flamethrower to Annihilation, I get attacked by two fiends -_- Where's my biotic armor damage, Bioware?!

Btw the Nomad now looks plastic on Eos too :(

And here's the Architect! I avoided looking up videos because I wanted to find out how this fight goes by myself.

And of course, when I died the autosave was glitched and froze my entire game -_-

And it happened again -_- The cutscene doesn't start and I can't do anything

For fuck's sake, on its leg WHERE?

Managed to shot down a leg, got killed trying to shoot its head

Whoa, I won! Ate like 20 shield boosters, though. What a bullet sponge, I felt like I was doing no damage at all. And in the final section of the fight it spent like 5 minutes just shooting and throwing grenades at me without ever exposing the vulnerable spot, I thought that maybe the game just forgot to indicate it. I used Vanguard, Charge/melee/Lance for adds, gun/Lance/Charge for the Architect itself. For some reason it didn't occur to me to switch to Infiltrator or Soldier or even Explorer for sniping lol

Now that I finally leveled up Lance today, I tried a lot of setups... Flamethrower/Energy Drain/Lance (Sentinel), Annihilation/Energy Drain/Lance (Sentinel), Annihilation/Charge/Lance (Vanguard), Pull/Charge/Lance (Vanguard). Next time I'll try Singularity as the first primer. I don't have the final evolution of Annihilation yet, so it's not at full synergy. I really don't know what I like better -- ED/Sentinel or Charge/Vanguard. The latter is novaguard reborn, basically, but I already have one Vanguard profile, which is melee/tank oriented, and I don't want to remove Backlash, especially to replace it with a power that slows down Charge. Four favorites are not enough, Bioware! At least seven -- one for each profile. I still don't have a build for Remnant VI and I really want to use it! Btw, my final blow to the Architect was with Lance -- ending the testing session with style!

I can craft N7 armor X already! Wow. Why no level requirement? I'll replace my chestpiece -- massive buffs to biotics >> 4% XP. Don't know if I should disassemble my old armor or just buy more enhancements...

I just (re-)realized that Charge/Lance/asari sword is basically N7 Slayer... I definitely need that N7 armor!

I'm watching other people's Architect fights -- and turns out, Backlash can deflect its attacks! That's what I should have used as the third skill.

Not related at all, but I hate how people put spoilers in thread titles on Reddit :/ I guess the most obvious ones get filtered out, but indirect spoilers stay. "What are your theories about [thing]?" -- thanks a lot for telling me it won't be explained in the game, dude!! >:[