#keely made the long 'here are the facts' horizon defense post

[meggannn]

i saw another "Garrus accepts Shepard in ME2 when they come back, why can't Ashley/Kaidan" post the other day and was gonna reply, then i realized my response was less about discussion and more about info-dumping/being right, so i decided to just make my own post. so here is the long explanation of why I don't and never will hold it against Kaidan/Ash for reacting as they did on Horizon just so I can point to it for later

I'm not gonna go too far into Garrus’s POV to Shepard's resurrection, just the VS's (Virmire Survivor's). I want to add crucial context for the VS's Horizon POV that is rarely mentioned in these sorts of comparisons, which is: TIM has been spreading rumors about Shepard being alive and with Cerberus that the VS is fully aware of by the time Shepard's boots hit Horizon. if you accept the comics as canon, then TIM's actually been seeding those rumors since before Shepard even woke up on the operating table. (see this panel in which one of TIM's Citadel operatives gets caught pre-ME2 trying to steal classified info about Shepard. TIM is pointedly not too bothered about it.) when you talk to Anderson and the Council at the Citadel, they both already know you're with Cerberus. how? you certainly didn't tell them. it was TIM, and he confirms this himself as well after Horizon. (Joker also says "[Horizon] was probably a set-up" if you talk to him after the mission.)

so the VS hears these rumors pre-Horizon. Kaidan says he asked about Shepard, and Anderson stonewalled him. by the time they're posted on Horizon, Kaidan/Ash have been hearing "Shepard's with Cerberus" for weeks, possibly months. if you’re the VS, you probably don’t want to believe someone you trusted to lead you into hell, maybe even trusted enough to break fraternization regulations with, would 1) lie to you about being dead, and 2) work with a terrorist organization. but then they get there and find out not only are they fucking alive and didn't contact you (not knowing they COULDN'T contact you because THEY were also stonewalled by Anderson); not only that, they're now trying to recruit you to said terrorist organization. they’d be questioning everything they thought they knew about their old CO.

the VS meeting Shep on Horizon after Shep saves the colony is not a "holy shit, you're alive!" moment like it was for Garrus's rescue. it's a "fuck, you're alive, and you have a Cerberus crew with you just like I hoped you wouldn't" moment. a "the rumors were true, I just didn't want to believe them because that means you're either a traitor or compromised" moment.

imagine after Anderson dies at the end of ME3, he suddenly shows up in ME5 going “Hey Shepard I’m back, also come join my team in my mysterious quest, let’s talk it out together in this private room over here and you’ll see my reasoning.” do you think I’m an idiot, Leviathan? we-as-Shepard saw Anderson die ourselves—like the VS was on the SR-1 when it crashed. the player would be 100% in the right to think the real Anderson was dead and this was a mangled copy of his corpse the Leviathan or some new fucking thing was puppeting from afar.

for Garrus, who was just told "Shepard's dead" after the fact but didn't see the crash, Shepard being alive is an unexpected miracle he doesn't want to think twice about. (Garrus was drowning on Omega, but Shepard arose from the dead just to save his life; Shepard knows what to do; Shepard can save him from his fuck-ups. Garrus is finally free from the burden of being a poor leader and can fall back on following someone else; everything is right again in his world if Shepard's at the helm.)

but for the VS, some small part of them may even be hoping the rumors aren't true, that Shepard's NOT alive, because if they are, it means Shep lied to them, or isn't who they thought they were.

then, for the VS to be told on Horizon “you’re overreacting, of course working with Cerberus is the only logical conclusion here!” honestly? sounds like radicalization.

“I was dead for two years!” = of course you were, that was Cerberus brainwashing time, baby. Shepard, how do you really know what happened those two years? was it really just "reconstruction"? maybe the real Shepard IS dead. (especially after the Citadel DLC confirms Cerberus did make a Shepard clone, we know the VS actually has a point.)

“fine, but then why doesn’t Shepard just explain stuff better?” this is less into characterization (because Shep is a player character and people can headcanon their Shep's rhetorical skills differently) and imo gets more into what the narrative is telling us. I see this criticism of Bioware's writing on Horizon (and I can't believe I'm defending Bioware writing) but I personally like that the player isn’t given decent, successful counterarguments in this situation. because let’s face it, the VS’s concerns are valid, and nothing Shepard can say or do on Horizon really can placate any of them. sometimes you just get outplayed; sometimes fights or arguments are just unwinnable even when people are trying their best.

would a persuasion check have helped? maybe, but that's not the point. it goes against our RPG brain where we're often wired to think every path is open to us with the right attitude or enough red/blue points. the Horizon reunion is two hurt people who are upset at each other, not realizing/acknowledging they've been put in an inconsolable scenario. they're both victims of stonewalling, one by Anderson and another by TIM. the Horizon convo was never going to be a “victory: squadmate acquired” scene because the deck was stacked against Shepard + the VS before they both even set foot on the colony. Shepard never got a chance to control their return narrative: Cerberus controls their team, their ship, who knows what, who they recruit, and when. TIM also knew that the VS was stationed on Horizon, as he confirms in the post-mission talk. the VS reunion was always going to be a car crash. and that works out great for TIM—Shepard is cut off from former Alliance allies, painting Cerberus as their only path forward to beating the Collectors.

but even if, for RPG purposes, Shepard had been able to reach out to the VS first… it’s still completely valid of them to question the situation lol. Liara had a hand in it so she ofc she wasn’t surprised at the return; Wrex adopts a typical krogan attitude of “you’re not dead? well that’s weird, but I’m a thousand years old, I’ve seen weirder.” there’s a reason Garrus accepts Shepard returning so readily and Tali/Ash/Kaidan take time: they’ve got healthier coping mechanisms and better support systems. Garrus cut himself off from his friends and family and is living out a Spectre fantasy on Omega. they others have moved on; Garrus hasn’t. he’s desperate for Shepard to come back, and why wouldn’t he be? Shepard was there when he felt like a hero for the first time in his life. if Shepard's back, he can be a hero again. but for the VS, Shepard returning means something is awfully, awfully wrong.