#unusual masseffect

[lyricsaboutcats]

"That’s what happens when you don’t bring protection. Idiots."

"What do you mean, ‘protection?’"

During development of Mass Effect 1, Noveria’s Aleutsk Valley had several encounters and enemies that were eventually left on the cutting room floor. Here’s another one where I’ve spliced the leftover audio files together.

After defeating a group of hostile krogan in the valley, Shepard comments on how lethargic they seemed. Wrex explains that krogan feel the cold more intensely than other races, and has a final request to get out of the weather (which is an ambient comment not directly tied to the conversation).

Every squadmate has recorded lines for this encounter. It was probably intended to be a short cut-scene with dialogue options. 

----

(Sources: ice25_trig05_chilly_krogan,snd_ice25_exterior, ice25_trig04_open_boathouse.upk, Mass Effect PS3 Edition. Spliced with Audacity, Image by Bioware for Xbox 360 promotional material)

[nonbinarysparrow]

Enjoying having an unusually placid and cuddly Morrigan as my partner in space exploration ✨ 🐶🌏 . . . #masseffectandromeda #bostonterrier #bostonterrierlife #bostonterriersofinsta #masseffect

[lyricsaboutcats]

"Ambush, huh? I need to get my cowardly bastard scanner fixed."

"Temper, temper, Shepard."

During development of Mass Effect 1, Noveria’s Aleutsk Valley had several encounters and enemies that were eventually left on the cutting room floor. 

This particular set of leftover dialogue, where Shepard is ambushed in Aleutsk’s tunnels after either a tunnel door or the Mako itself is sabotaged, was probably intended to be a cutscene with a few dialogue choices for the player. The assassins were sent by Saren and Shepard’s renegade responses to them are a highlight.

----

(Sources: ice25_trig09_assassin_enc,snd_ice25_tunnels.upk, Mass Effect PS3 Edition. Spliced with Audacity)

[lyricsaboutcats]

This is a sampling of the leftover alien language sound files that can be found in Mass Effect’s PS3 release. These were meant to be walla, which is an ambient sound effect that mimics a crowd speaking.

At some point during ME1′s production Bioware created these for the alien races and then decided not to use them. The file paths suggest that they were meant to be used in a bar.

Asari (0:01)

Turian (0:11)

Salarian (0:19)

Krogan (0:25)

Volus (0:32)

(Sources: as_env_asari_walla, turian_walla_04, salarian_Patron_02, as_env_krogen1, volus_walla_01, etc.)

Edit: You can actually hear the turian walla in-game if you stand by the stairs in Flux! It seems a few of these leftover sounds (there are about forty sorted by race) were combined into a single generic soundcue. Thanks to @sciencefictionismyjam​ for the correction!

[lyricsaboutcats]

Keeping peace on this floating city can't be easy.

Here is a set of three ambient conversations, all between a salarian and a somewhat distracted volus, that were cut from the final release of Mass Effect. These leftover sound files can still be found inside the Playstation 3 release of the game, and the file paths suggest the player would have encountered the conversations in Chora’s Den.

C-Sec (0:00)

Citadel Council (0:25)

The Traverse (0:58)

Each conversation has been transcribed under the cut:

About Citadel Security:

Volus: No, he didn't get in. He did well, but it wasn't good enough. Salarian: I hear the entry exams are brutal. Volus: Yeah. Say what you want about C-Sec, but at least they've got high standards. Salarian: I believe it. Keeping peace on this floating city can't be easy.

About the Citadel Council:

Salarian: Don't kid yourself. They're no different than you or me. Volus: Yeah. Except each decision they make effects every living thing in Citadel Space. Salarian: Whatever. The Council spends so much time bickering and posturing, they don't get to make any real decisions. Volus: I don't know. Salarian: Think about it. When was the last time anything changed around here? Volus: Yeah. I guess.

About the Traverse:

Volus: I find that hard to believe. There's no real proof. Salarian: Not yet. But there's something going on in the Traverse. You'll see. Volus: Maybe. But I've got runners going through there all the time and they haven't seen a thing. Salarian: I thought you lost a ship out there. Volus: I've lost ships before, but that's the only one I've lost out in the Traverse. It doesn't mean anything.

—— (Sources: Mass Effect US release for Playstation 3, sta60_amb_choras_customers.isb, sta60.isb, mixed with Audacity)

[lyricsaboutcats]

Datamining Mass Effect: The Lystheni UNC Mission

“Lystheni means ‘the old blood’ in their tongue.”

If you’re a fan of Mass Effect you may have heard of the lystheni, which are an off-shoot of salarians that are unwelcome in Council space. They’re mentioned in passing in Drew Karpyshyn’s novel Mass Effect: Ascension and were eventually used as a catch-all faction for salarians found in the Terminus systems.

And by accessing leftover sound data from a cut UNC mission in Mass Effect 1, we can learn a great deal about the developers’ original intentions for this mysterious group and the quest they were originally a part of.

So here’s a summary of that mission, along with some general information about what might have been.

------

“This one is ashamed to say we are at war with our lystheni neighbors.”

Commander Shepard receives a request from an asari official named Elarya on the Citadel. She is looking for a missing asari scientist and believes a hanar colony in the Attican Traverse called Elder Home may know what happened to her.

Once Shepard travels there, a hanar senator reveals that Elder Home is at war with a group called the lystheni, who have abducted the scientist.

During the initial conversation with the senator, which sets the stage for the rest of the mission, a detailed background about the lystheni is provided:

“Lystheni means "the old blood" in their tongue. They separated from their kin centuries ago during the formation of the Citadel Council. Their language and  their cousin's language have evolved differently.

They are biologically similar to salarians, but different in culture, language, and ideology. Of  particular note is their dislike of the Citadel Council and everything it stands for. The lystheni vehemently oppose all Council edicts, often to their  own detriment.

Of course, it means they don't abide by any of the Citadel's laws, either. It makes them a very dangerous enemy.”

Elder Home once had an uneasy truce with the lystheni, going so far as to let them mine nearby asteroids for valuable resources. But the lystheni became upset when the colony also allowed other groups to mine those same asteroids. Now they’ve kidnapped the asari scientist to force her to develop a bio-weapon that will destroy Elder Home.

The Citadel Council has taken a non-interference stance on the issue according to the senator, and it pleads for Shepard to stop the bio-weapon from wiping out the colony.

But when Shepard locates the scientist, who is being held on one of the asteroids, the situation takes an unexpected turn. She has been working on a virus for the lystheni, but secretly altered it so it would infect them instead of the hanar. It turns them into violent monsters and she has released it on the asteroid.

Shepard is able to save her by fighting off some of the lystheni she has infected. Shepard may also save her asari assistant, who reveals that the hanar senator has not been completely honest.

And if Shepard saves the assistant, they find her hiding in a room with a fatally injured, uninfected lystheni lab technician who is trying to protect her.

"He won't hurt you, he's just scared. He was attacked by those things out there.”

Shepard is unable to understand the injured lystheni when he tries to communicate. Their language is not programmed into the universal translators. The assistant explains that the technician saved her life when the infection broke out.

The assistant also reveals that Elder Home declared martial law over the lystheni mining the asteroids when the dispute arose. The hanar have been forcing them to conform to hanar cultural rules and laws, going so far as to turn them into prisoners in their own homes. They were going to release the bio-weapon so they could escape.

“The hanar are destroying their culture. They’re enslaving the lystheni.”

The technician succumbs to his injuries, and the assistant is horrified when she discovers that the asari scientist is the one who created and unleashed the virus.

In the end, as the asteroid begins to fall apart, Shepard can make a decision. They may side with the assistant’s sympathetic view of the lystheni and confront the senator, or side with the scientist and Elder Home. Siding with the scientist, who takes a colder view of the situation, will sacrifice the assistant to the infected lystheni for the sake of stopping a radio transmission of scientific data concerning the virus.

And when Shepard returns to Elarya on the Citadel, she rewards the Commander for taking care of the matter. She also insists that Elder Home was hiding the conflict from the Council the entire time.

But it’s very convenient that a Spectre took care of everything so the Council won’t have to take an official stance on the matter.

----

Some notes about this UNC mission:

There are about 314 audio files for this mission, including squad-mate comments.

If Shepard runs into the assistant first, she will falsely claim to be the scientist until it is later revealed she is lying.

The asari scientist’s name sounds like Doctor Euthalya, and her assistant’s name sounds like Neriem, but without any text data for reference I can’t vouch for the accuracy of either name.

The hanar senator is voiced by George Szilagyi , who is better known as Captain Kirrahe. His voice had not yet been modulated.

The text in italics is transcribed dialogue. I’ve done my best to summarize an account of the audio, but due to the unfinished nature of the content, it’s impossible to recreate the mission’s plot with perfect accuracy.

------

If you’re interested in more datamining content, here’s a few tags:

Datamining Andromeda

Salarian Lore

------

(Sources: Mass Effect US release for Playstation 3, gbl03_amb_trig04.isb, gbl03_amb_trig10.isb, gbl03_elarya.isb, gbl03_hanar_senator.isb, gbl03_lystheni_technician.isb, etc.)

[lyricsaboutcats]

Rayla Sanai is an unused asari character from the Pinnacle Station DLC. You can find her name on the station’s scoreboard, but much like Fre Natha you won’t find her lounging around the station. Her character model must be loaded manually with an ini edit. 

Most NPCs in Pinnacle Station were meant to be rivals and quest givers for Shepard, and Rayla’s information suggests that she might have originally been a part of the story-line like Bryant and Vidinos. She is listed as a young asari commando.

(sources: BIOA_PRC2_C.upk, DLC_Vegas_GlobalTlk.upk)

[lyricsaboutcats]

“Andrew was just saying the salarians came up with satellites that eat orbiting debris. So their space isn't all cluttered like ours.”

During the Citadel DLC’s casino infiltration mission, Commander Shepard can mingle with guests and have conversations with them. In one conversation, with casino-goers Andrew and Tina, Shepard listens to Andrew talk about working in a lab on Sur’Kesh.

There are two conversations, both transcribed under the cut.

Conversation One:

Andrew: The thing about salarian parties is, they all do it too well. My lab group on Sur'kesh, all salarians but me, all with damn near perfect memories.

Tina: Oh, that could get awkward.

Andrew: Exactly! It was all about who burnt the cake six months ago, or arguments that two people continue when they meet up once a year...

Shepard: So they never let anything go.

Andrew: Yeah, it was constant one-upmanship. I couldn't keep pace with them if I'd wanted to.

Tina: So you don't miss Sur'Kesh at all?

Andrew: Not the humidity and not the lack of privacy. But the science was like nowhere else.

Shepard: What did you work on?

Andrew: What didn't we? Food scanners for the paranoid, chemical bonders, self-cleaning mating pools...

Shepard: Learned a lot, huh?

Andrew: For the mating pools, way more than I wanted to know.

Conversation Two:

Andrew: Hey again. Back for more tales out of school?

Shepard: Sure.

Tina: Andrew was just saying the salarians came up with satellites that eat orbiting debris. So their space isn't all cluttered like ours.

Shepard: Nice trick. What won't they think of next?

Andrew: Hair extensions, I imagine.

Sources: Citadel DLC, screenshot courtesy of fluffyninjallama’s video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6MHOYRBZ10)

[lyricsaboutcats]

“I told you, Shepard. We salarians pay our debts.”

Originally, if the player saved Captain Kirrahe on Virmire in ME1, Kirrahe and his team would have appeared during Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel to assist Shepard. This encounter was cut before release.

The files suggest that this was intended to be an ambient encounter, and not a cut-scene, much like Kirrahe’s speech at the end of ME3.

(Sources: end80_salarians_D,end80_salarians_N.upk)

[lyricsaboutcats]

Datamining Mass Effect: Liara’s Recruitment Mission on Caleston

As you may know, Caleston was a mining hub in Mass Effect that was scrapped before release and then replaced by Therum. Its assets were repurposed into the environments used in the Bring Down the Sky DLC, while the general idea of a criminal underworld was refined into the Omega hub in Mass Effect 2.

I’ve posted unreleased content about Caleston before, but by data-mining leftover content from Liara’s recruitment mission it’s possible to paint a more complete picture of what Caleston might have been like for the player if it had been finished and released.

So, let’s take a look. c:

Caleston’s Hidden Codex summary:

Geysers of molten sulfur dot the rugged landscape of this volcanic moon, its atmosphere a toxic layer of sulfur dioxide. Eldfell-Ashland Energy established mining operations on Caleston to extract the scattered deposits of element zero leftover from an ancient meteor strike, making this moon the largest source of starship drive core material in the Attican Traverse.

This summary can be found in the localized text strings inside the game’s files. Text strings are usually out of order and look like a mess.

Like this...

But you can find a lot of interesting things hiding in ME1′s strings, including details about Liara’s original recruitment mission. It was centered around rescuing her from a salarian drug lord named Smiley.

Here’s my summary of it, after reading through the game files:

When Shepard arrives on Caleston they speak to Administrator Tombiri, who informs them that Liara has been kidnapped by a salarian drug lord who runs a red sand cartel on Caleston. The salarian’s name is Smiley. Tombiri then directs Shepard to the Miner’s Union and a woman named Sessa Tarrent for help.

Shepard, with direction from Sessa, lures Smiley’s younger brother, named Raciloma, out into the open by destroying a drug cache of red sand. Using Raciloma’s pass code leads to the inner sanctum of the cartel, where Shepard then defeats Smiley.

But the entire plot was a ploy. Administrator Tombiri was using Shepard to eliminate a group that she saw as competition. She was secretly running the Miner’s Union and all of its own secret, unsavory activities.

Presumably, completing these quests and deciding what to do with Tombiri would lead to the true location of Liara and the quests would continue much as they did in-game.

---------

And here are the official entries for the quest:

Caleston’s Hidden Quest Journal Entries:

Administrator Tombiri told you that Liara is being held by Smiley, a local salarian drug lord. Unfortunately, Smiley is quite paranoid, and is sealed inside the station's former medical bay.

Administrator Tombiri suggested you work with Sessa Tarrent to get at Smiley. Sessa works for the Miners' Union, an organization which appears to have its fingers in a number of unsavory pies. She can be found in the Refinery level.

Sessa Tarrent asked you to help her team destroy a cache of Cartel drugs. They are at a test bore site outside the mining station; exit through the garage below Throw Down Plaza.

The test bore site, and the Cartel's drug cache, have been destroyed. Report back to Sessa Tarrent in the refinery.

Your destruction of the drug cache has drawn out Raciloma, the younger brother of Smiley. He will meet to negotiate with Sessa in the shut-down southern line of the refinery. Your team will precede them to the meeting site, and prepare an ambush to kill Raciloma.

Your team and Sessa Tarrent have killed Raciloma. You now have a pass into Smiley's heavily guarded sanctum. Head to the former medical bay in Throw Down Plaza.

You've been deceived; Smiley never had Liara. Administrator Tombiri has secretly been running the Miners' Union. She lied to get you to eliminate Smiley for her. It's time to pay a little visit to the Administration Office.

--------

Once the player recruited Liara there would have been two possible conclusions to Caleston depending on the choices made during the mission. They would have been revealed by the news reports players hear during elevator rides and the audio can still be extracted from the game. 

Caleston’s Hidden News Reports:

“Administrator Nonya Tombiri of the Caleston mining station has vanished and is presumed dead following a violent incident at her offices. Local officials have not provided details, but Tombiri was allegedly involved with the Caleston Cartel, a group of red sand dealers. Administrator Tombiri’s successor has not yet been named. ”

Or...

“Administrator Tombiri of the Caleston mining station reports that the Caleston Cartel has been brought to justice. The Cartel, a powerful group of red sand dealers, has defied authorities for years. EAE, which owns the Caleston mining facility, was reportedly pleased that the Cartel is no longer operating in its station.”

---

(source: GlobalTlk.upk )

[lyricsaboutcats]

These are the human male consort acolytes that were cut from Mass Effect before release. Theoretically, they would have been located in the Consort’s chambers on the Presidium. They remain in the game files and have a unique color scheme.

(Source: BIOA_STA_AMB_C.upk)

[lyricsaboutcats]

Salarian Councilor Valern without his Robes of Councilor Mystery.

By editing ME1′s upk files Valern can be placed in an unused Citadel outfit, which is the same medical uniform that Maelon Heplorn wears in Mass Effect 2.

[lyricsaboutcats]

Fre Natha

“Unfortunately, my squad's missions are all covert, so even the most important ones go unnoticed.”

Fre Natha is an unused salarian character from Mass Effect’s Pinnacle Station DLC. Only his name appears up on the station’s scoreboard and you won’t find him lounging around the station like many other unused quest NPCS. But, by editing an .ini file it is possible to load him into the game.

(sources: BIOA_PRC2_C.upk, DLC_Vegas_GlobalTlk.upk)

[lyricsaboutcats]

These are the unused “rival” NPCs from ME1′s Pinnacle Station. There are references to these characters giving Shepard challenges to complete in the DLC’s game files, and you can find a few of them relaxing in the station’s lobby area. Some of them have armor that you won’t find anywhere else in ME1.

By sifting through the model files it is possible to match the names on the Station’s scoreboard to the respective NPC:

First image row: Chior (salarian), C’Sell (asari), Minket (asari)

Second row: Prochor (turian), Fre Natha (salarian), Sophomin (turian)

Third Row: Tahoka (krogan), Mimanox (turian), Thaidi (asari)

There is a lot of unused material in the Pinnacle Station DLC, including unused text conversation lines and Vidinos leaving a note in Shepard’s apartment. Early in development the station was named Meditatus Station.

(Source: DLC_Vegas_GlobalTlk.upk)

[lyricsaboutcats]

Here’s some leftover audio content concerning the Caleston mission in Mass Effect 1. Caleston was featured in the 2006 demo released by Bioware but was cut before release.

Caleston’s description from the demo:

The hostile moon of Caleston is the largest satellite of the gas giant Cernunnos. An ancient asteroid strike deposited major lodes of element zero within its molten sulphur mantle. Eldfell-Ashland Energy's mining operations have made it the largest source of starship drive core material in the Attican Traverse. Caleston is wracked by constant volcanism, due to the tidal stresses from Cernunnos. It has some silicon-based native organic life, though populations seem to be in decline.

It seems that there were three possible outcomes to the mission. They are described in leftover news reports that would have been heard in the Citadel’s elevators:

“Nonya Tombiri has been arrested and removed from her post as administrator of the Caleston mining station.”

“Administrator Nonya Tombiri of the Caleston mining station has vanished and is presumed dead following a violent incident at her offices. Local officials have not provided details, but Tombiri was allegedly involved with the Caleston Cartel, a group of red sand dealers. Administrator Tombiri’s successor has not yet been named. ”

“Administrator Tombiri of the Caleston mining station reports that the Caleston Cartel has been brought to justice. The Cartel, a powerful group of red sand dealers, has defied authorities for years. EAE, which owns the Caleston mining facility, was reportedly pleased that the Cartel is no longer operating in its station.”

[lyricsaboutcats]

So if you dig through ME1′s game files, it turns out that Bioware labeled the salarian consort acolyte’s 3D model file  “Gigolo.”