#and abandoning the tempest crew and all the loose threads in andromeda

[crookytails]

me watching the new mass effect teaser:

[lhs3020b]

End of Andromeda

So, I have now reached the end of the main plot of ME:A...

Apparently hanging onto Sarissa was worth doing, and having the salarian Pathfinder was handy too. Also Ryder seems to have more-or-less managed to keep the krogan on-side, which is a bonus. And Reyes and the Collective made themselves useful, as did the angaran Resistance. So it appears that Ryder made mostly the right decisions.

The ending sequence was quite dramatic and actually quite enjoyable. (There were, though, some glitches with badly-placed event triggers and things not going off in quite the correct sequence, so sadly, the Andromeda problems were visible even here.)

The Archon also revealed himself as an idiot - monologuing at Ryder wasn’t smart. (If he’d just cut Ryder off from SAM and not said anything, his plan probably would have worked.) Also I don’t think he made good use of the robo-worm thing - surely he should have just smashed Ryder with it? It looked big and heavy and mean, after all.

Also, I wasn’t expecting to have a section in control of Ryder!Sibling - being back on ME2 rules was unexpected.

But, getting a happy ending was quite nice. Everyone survived and everyone had stayed with the team, so doing all those loyalty missions was worth it. Also, I am sort of glad that Habitat 7 Ryder 1 isn’t being abandoned. Otherwise it would have been a bit too much like Planet Tombstone, really.

Also, I was surprised that the Primus was still alive. I thought we’d shot her on not-Meridian? Apparently that was someone else?

It was also nice being able to go and talk to everyone at the end of the game.

It’s also good to know that the quarian ark is still out there, even if it’s apparently had some troubles. TBH I expect the quarians will be OK - they know space, and they’re proven survivors. It’ll probably turn out that their problem was something silly like a lot of blocked toilets or something (”Stay away, because keelah but it stinks in here!”).

Now, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of dangling threads...

- Nothing on the Benefactor. Just who were they, and why was Jien Garson murdered? How could she still be a threat to them?

- Ellen Ryder, who is still deep-frozen in a pod. Maybe she’ll be all right.

- Just what exactly happened to the Jardaan? Who released the Scourge, and why?

- What will the Primus do, since she’s still loose out there?

- As mentioned above, the quarians.

Overall Thoughts

I’m glad the ending was good. I’m also glad both Ryders survived, and things are looking reasonably hopeful overall.

Thing is, I also feel sad. I wish I could have fallen in love with Ryder’s story the way I did with Shepard’s, if that makes any sense?

The ending did feel like it went some way to redeeming ME:A - there is enough payoff to make it feel like yes, it was worth finishing. The character-based sections were enjoyable and the Tempest crew were likable.

But it’s a shame that there was so much weaker stuff. There are numerous side-quests I haven’t even touched - I ran out of patience with scanning all the minerals, for instance. The awkward truth is that the payoffs take too long to arrive.

Also I still don’t feel like the kett were particularly-distinctive as villains. Basically they felt like a hybridisation of the Collectors and the Covenant - I mean, religiously-motivated genocidal aliens is a little bit early-2000s really, isn’t it?

I also feel that ME:A couldn’t quite make up its mind what it was trying to do. I think this is partly why there are so many dangling plot-threads at the end. (Just how many DLCs were they planning?)

I also feel sad that the game had so many structural and coding-behaviour issues. (This was visible even in the final confrontation inside actual!Meridian, where Ryder would be at a marked location long before the game actually noticed it.)

It’s possible I may poke around a bit more in ME:A, just to look at a few final things. But I doubt I’ll be playing this one again from beginning to end, the way I did with the trilogy.

Goodbye, Ryder, and goodbye, Andromeda. So long and farewell.

[lilithhawthorne]

Title: Blood of the Brotherhood Fandom: Mass Effect: Andromeda  Relationships: Sara Ryder x Jaal Rating: M Chapter: 1/? Fandom: ME:A Cross posted on A03 / FFN Next

Summary: In a desperate, last ditch effort to save her team, Sara Ryder transfers the Pathfinder duties to Cora before allowing herself to be taken by a merciless group of exiles. Deceiving them into believing she is still Pathfinder and willing to give them whatever they want, she boards their shuttle with the intention of keeping them fooled for as long as possible. As new light is shed on the motives behind her kidnapping, Ryder begins to question her role and her ability to lead. Is she a Pathfinder for all?

Ryder knew the battle was lost when she heard SAM’s voice, his warning crackling through her head with an edge so blunt she staggered with the impact: “Pathfinder, the power has been severed to the room. The other exits are blocked.”

“Great. On to ‘Plan B’ then.” Plan B… she had a handful of seconds to think of a Plan B.

She laid her pistol on the ground and pressed trembling fingers against her eyelids. The clip had been exhausted minutes before but she had held it out menacingly, scarring away heads that poked over cover with a threat she couldn’t back up. Her shotgun had been lost in the initial attack, a series of explosions sending the team reeling in search of cover. 

At the time, the squat, portable hovel common in all the settlements had seemed like their best bet. It had been easy with SAM’s help to lock the door behind them, buying them precious extra seconds to coordinate their retaliation. So concerned with covering the three points of entry - two doors and a window - Ryder didn’t notice the twisters of dust dancing above their head, disturbed from where it had rested just moments before on the floor.

Beside her Cora grunted, her arms trembling above her head. Sweat, before only a glistening patter across Cora’s forehead, ran in rivulets down her cheeks and into her eyes. Her barrier had been what was keeping them alive, their last hope as they held out for an override of the door they were pressed against.

Ryder didn’t know how to tell them it was over. She didn’t even know where to begin, how to unravel the thread of their story to find where it had begun just that morning, unpack how it lead to this.

Jaal caught her eye, his jaw tightening as he read something on her face. Noticing the pistol abandoned where she knelt, he reached across Cora to hook his fingers around Ryder’s elbow. His voice dropped as he pulled her closer to him and Cora, his tone tinted with a coloring of intimacy that belied their situation. “We can’t let them overwhelm us!”

As if they heard him, the exiles pushed forward. A new round of grenades rained from above and slid down Cora’s biotic barrier, some bouncing away while others pooled at the lip of the barrier. The explosion knocked her back, the barrier flickering before snuffing out. Her limbs were too heavy to lift again and she leaned against Jaal, her eyes unfocused and mouth slack. 

“Bring me the Pathfinder!” The roar of their leader carried easily across the space. This was a man who was used to being heard over gun fire and explosions. No, this was a man who <em>wanted</em> to heard over the sounds of war. His was a voice that would chase you straight into hell.  “She is the only one we need alive!”

“I won’t,” she assured Jaal. She held no intimacy in her tone, only wistful resignation. 

She took in the scene around them, felt a tremor in her bones as gun fire popped around them, bullets ricocheting. She thought of what it would mean if she couldn’t get them back to the Tempest: Jaal being killed, his mothers never knowing what happened; Cora’s limb body, drained and near to death already, left to rot in this metal tomb, denied a chance to plant her garden.

Plan B had to be the most batshit crazy idea she’d ever had, it had to be something that would guarantee Jaal and Cora’s survival, and by extension, the survival of the Tempest, her crew. No, not her crew: her family. 

”SAM, I’m going to ask you to do something and I need you to promise to do it.”

“Yes, Pathfinder.”

Could he predict what she was going to ask? Did being hardwired into her brain, given front row tickets to every stunt she’d pulled, give him an insight that allowed him to predict her moves? It was easy to imagine a web laid out in front of her, SAM calculating quicker than any human which direction she would take, resigning himself to accept the consequences.

Careful to keep below cover, she edged away from Jaal, crawling on her hands and knees. When the echo of shots subsided and was replaced with the sound of furious reloading, she ducked from behind cover, arms raised in the air and her useless pistol sling over one hip . A  bullet whizzed past her, lodging in the door behind her. “Don’t shoot! I’m the Pathfinder, I yield!”

The next few seconds of confusion bought her all the time she needed. Before Cora could protest and before Jaal could reach her, Ryder took another step forward. “SAM, transfer the Pathfinder connection to my second.”

“No!” Cora struggled to her feet, lost her footing and slid to the ground

“I’ll come with you!” Ryder shouted at the advancing line of troops, their guns still raised. Another bullet whizzed past her. Were they threatening her or just shit shots? “For fuck’s sake, I’ll give you what you want but that might be hard to do if you shoot me.”

“Stop firing, you idiots!” The voice rang out again and though Ryder looked for the source, she couldn’t tell who was speaking. They all stared back at her through the same dirty brown visors, it was impossible to differentiate them.

A dozen guns lowered near simultaneously. The air crackled with silence, the sudden turn of events taking everyone by surprise. Ryder pressed her lips together to keep from choking on the dust.

When she was sure she had everyone’s attention, surrounded from the front by an unknown force intent on who knows what, motivated from the back by the force of lives dependent on her, she made her demands: “I go with you without a fight and they get to leave, unharmed.” She raised her fingers to start a count.  "And no one follows them. And you don’t blindfold me, I’m not into that.“

"We don’t negotiate,” one of the exiles spat at her. He rushed to fill the gap between them, his long legs making quick work of the distance. To illustrate his point, he swung his gun towards the stack of crates she had been cowering behind moments before. “You’re the only one we require.”

“I’ll make it easy, there’s no need to negotiate.“ She stepped in front of his gun and pulled her own, holding the muzzle to the space beneath her chin. ”Someone wants me alive. Are you going to be the one to disappoint? In my experience, schemes like this tend to thrive when the person you’re trying to take alive doesn’t die.”

“Come now, we can speak about this like adults.” Jostled aside from behind, the exile yield the floor to the man whose voice matched the commands Ryder had been hearing.

Noticeably absent of any weapons, this one was dressed differently than the shock troops they had squared off against. No armor, dressed like a man running errands, Ryder wondered where he had been this whole time - surely it couldn’t have been in the midst of all that had happened. He approached with his chin held high and arms folded loosely behind his back. About the same size as Ryder, he moved like a caged beast. Underestimating him based on his small stature hinted at being the wrong choice. 

"Oh, no wonder I couldn’t see you!” Ryder snapped her fingers together like she had just solved the most pressing mystery of the day. “I never look down, it’s a bad habit I know. I’m always tripping over my feet.”

He inspected Ryder like a disappointed teacher preparing to lecture his least favorite pupil. When his gaze swept over her, climbing slowly from her feet to the top of her head, her stomach soured. She matched his gaze and titled her to the side, a dangerous smile hiding the panic she felt. 

“Your terms are acceptable,” he conceded. Without turning away from her, he dictated a series of orders in a language she didn’t recognize and her translator couldn’t pick up.

With an expectant and wicked smile, he focused his attention on her once more and held out his hand. “Your weapon.”

She had already decided when she saw Cora’s barrier falter that she would be willing to do anything to get the other two off this damned astroid. Holding onto a useless weapon and risking their ire was not part of the plan and she handed it over willingly. She had other ways of making them regret trapping them when it was time.

He examined the gun with a shrewd eye, the fingers of his free hand roaming over the barrel and grip before finding the clip release. Surprise, followed by a twisted smile of approval, blossomed across his shriveled features. “How bold.

“I was never very good at math, could have sworn I had one bullet left,” Ryder said with a shrug. “I would never willingly deceive you.”

Quick as a viper strike, he grasped her upper arm and jerked her forward, his grip strong enough to pinch her skin beneath the armor. The smile had melted, his face pulled into a scowl that left crevices in his brow and cheeks. “It would be best not to test me,” he hissed in her ear before shoving her backwards. “Take her now!

“NO!” 

Ryder turned to see Jaal rushing from cover with his gun raised. Cora reached out to stop him, her hand closing on the edges of his cape for a single heart beat before it ripped from her finger tips. She lowered her arm in defeat, agony etched deeply in her sallow features.

The air disappeared, sucked out of the room or else out of Ryder’s lungs, speckles of dust halting their downward spiral to hang in the air like decoration. She counted the steps it would take for Jaal to reach her and the number of bullets that would hit their mark when he did.

Careening recklessly, she thrust herself in front of Jaal, her hands held out to stop him. She meant to yell at him, tell him to stop or urge him to turn back, but the words fizzed on her tongue when she heard the pop of a round being fired behind her.

It was hard to tell what was worse, the loss of feeling in her legs or the ripping sensation across her back that sent shockwaves of spams through her body. The ground was not kind as she bowed to meet it. Another sharp pain stabbed through her shoulder and she finally gasped, the air bubbling in her throat. 

Through a rapidly narrowing tunnel, she saw Jaa thrown to the ground. A glimpse of a boot pressed against his chest. The muzzle of a gun swung low, an easy shot.

“Leave them!” She winced as the shout reverberated in her ear. “Get her out of here. When I find out who pulled the fucking trigger - 

Blissful darkness and silence finally enveloped her as frightfully strong arms gripped her around the middle, lifting her off the ground and into unconsciousness.

- - -

Cora heard the door’s lock click seconds before it hissed open. She had triggered the motion activated mechanism being pressed so closely to the metal, but she was too tired to shift her body away from the door in time. Yelping in pain, she fell through the opening, tumbling onto the stairs, only a last second decision keeping her from snapping her wrists as she attempted to catch herself.

Starved of fresh air, she drew in as many lung fulls as she could handle without making herself black out. Even in the open she could smell the sweat and dust that clung to her. Without the stench, she might have confused the silence all around her for peace. 

Bruised and limping, Jaal followed her out into the open, although his entrance was less dramatic. If he noticed the tumble Cora took, he didn’t make a move to help her up. Instead he lowered himself to the top step. 

The pair sat in silence, drifting through space the same as they had been when they had first left the Tempest. Neither could say how long ago that had been. Time had stopped for them while they had been trapped but apparently it had kept a linear path all around them.

“We lost the Pathfinder,” Cora finally said.

“No, we have the Pathfinder.” Jaal’s hand found hers and he gave her a consolatory squeeze. “We lost something we can’t replace.”