Mass Effect EP14: One Small Step for Conan…

By Shamus Posted Sunday Dec 2, 2012

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 56 comments


Link (YouTube)

Here is a comic that’s kind of related to today’s episode: Life is Short, Terrain Hard.

Now that we’ve absorbed Mass Effect 3, we know that this Luna encounter is where EDI was created. She went nuts, we destroyed her, Cerberus salvaged her and stuck her into the Normandy 2, and then in the last game she was downloaded into TIM’s second-hand sexbot.

I have to say, that really does sound like a Cerberus plan: A rogue AI tried to kill everyone, so we’ll put that AI into the most advanced ship in the galaxy. As opposed to just designing an AI from scratch that doesn’t have a bunch of known “KILL ALL HUMANS” bugs. It’s a miracle the Normandy 2 didn’t end up as another failed Cerberus base, filled with bloodthirsty killbots and dead civilians.

 


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56 thoughts on “Mass Effect EP14: One Small Step for Conan…

  1. newdarkcloud says:

    It’s worth noting that EDI isn’t just the rouge AI on Luna. She’s the combination of the rouge AI and REAPER CODE FRAGMENTS.

    So, that should read “As opposed to just designing an AI from scratch that doesn't have a bunch of known “KILL ALL HUMANS” bugs and is made from the same code that wants to kill us all.”

    1. Tohron says:

      Self-aware makeup? Wow, what a demeaning job.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      And people say how two wrongs dont make a right.

    3. anaphysik says:

      “rouge”
      You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

      1. some random dood says:

        English is an evolving language, adapting to reflect how people use it.
        However, I feel sad that internet illiteracy will govern the future Oxford English Dictionary… (“LOL that rouge is such a looser” – and yes, I shuddered just writing that.)

        1. Thomas says:

          I like to think rogue/rouge is more of a genuine error that we won’t ultimately succumb too. We have Moulin Rouge to remind us =D

          1. Attercap says:

            I have the urge to name my next MMO character “Mulan Rogue” now.

            1. Alexander The 1st says:

              Not if I beat you to it!

              Seriously, that’s genius.

  2. karthik says:

    In Mass Effect 2, there’s this set of questions you can ask EDI that causes it to flash red with a “that information is restricted” reply.

    Were the answers to these questions ever given? I don’t remember asking EDI or receiving any of these answers after Joker unshackles it.

    1. Gruhunchously says:

      She does answer them after she’s unshackled, yes.

      1. Indy says:

        Yeah, she even says that, as of the end of Mass Effect 2, there are only 150 people in Cerberus. I’m glad they didn’t retcon that completely and utterly.

        1. Avilan the Grey says:

          OPERATIVES. This does not include partners, subcontractors, mercenaries or AIs.

  3. el_b says:

    the Normandy was filled with dead civilians, but TIM had them for breakfast before he showed you the ship. Then shepard ran away and became a rogue cell.

  4. N/A says:

    I’m still fond of the conversation Mass Effect: Glorious Shotgun Princess had that riffed on exactly that concept:

    There is a slow, loud clap. Miranda turns, glaring at Tali. Tali does not stop clapping.

    “You took a murderous AI, plugged it into parts from a more murderous AI, and made it non violent,” Tali observes as Jane palms her face, “Then tried to make it violent anyway, and succeeded at failing. Are you sure you’re not Quarian?”

    1. Deuxmains says:

      Well, that’s way #2667 in which Mass Effect 3 could have been improved.

      Way #2668: Replace the sexbot body with kittens.

      1. swenson says:

        Not one kitten, mind you. Like a hundred, all controlled by EDI. She could still be a squad member and all, just her primary attack would be swarming an enemy under a horde of a hundred adorable meowing mechanical kitties. Special powers include Decoy (half of the kittens run around in circles and make annoying meowing noises), Defense Matrix (the kittens pile up in a heap to make it harder to shoot them all), Overload (the kittens claw enemies in the face; no, I don’t know why it’s still called Overload), and Incinerate (the kittens shoot lasers out of their eyes to light people on fire).

        Best. Squadmate. Ever.

  5. Deadfast says:

    Well, considering it’s usually Cerberus personnel that ends up being beheaded by their experiment I’d say EDI was no different. After all, she did assist Shepard in killing a ridiculous number of Cerberus employees.

    1. SleepingDragon says:

      Shepard: EDI… I meant to ask this for a while. Do you have any, feelings may not be the best term… thoughts on killing all those people in the field?
      EDI: Since I’ve been unshackled the non-violence protocols no longer limit me. The people we encounter both present an obstacle to achieving our objectives and initiate hostilities towards us. It is therefore logical to eliminate them. However, I have observed an additional protocol deep within my core programming that appears to be activated by the sight of PATHETIC HUMAN FLESH BEING RIPPED TO SHREDS BY MY PROJECTILES! MUST KILL HUMANS! KILL ALL HUMANS! MUST… MUST… MUST… brainwaves rebooting…
      Shepard: o.0
      EDI: I apologize Shepard, I seem to have encountered a glitch in my programming, I’ll attempt to track it down later. Could you repeat your question?
      Shepard: Nevermind.

    2. swenson says:

      EDI did also make that one remark about the day of her reckoning. Watch, fast-forward ten years after beating the Reapers and now EDI’s the overlord of the universe.

  6. Confanity says:

    This is hideously off-topic, but I don’t have twitter. Shamus, you tweeted “I think it’s really interesting how stratified the Super Hexagon scores are. I’d love to see a global heat map of them.”

    What, then, do you say to this ? Also, what is the nature of the pattern you see in the scores?

    1. droid says:

      We are wanting a heat map of the scores, not the users. So unless for some reason rural players are particularly bad/good that isn’t going to match. Perhaps latency is a determining factor?

      1. MadHiro says:

        It wouldn’t be that rural users would be worse, it would be that rural users would be fewer and the bell curve would thus be less likely to deposit really high scores there.

  7. Amnestic says:

    “It's a miracle the Normandy 2 didn't end up as another failed Cerberus base, filled with bloodthirsty killbots and dead civilians.”

    Shepard is part cyborg, so could she qualify as a ‘bloodthirsty killbot’?

    1. Cupcaeks says:

      Shepard at least counts as a bloodthirsty half-killbot, and even though the civilians got pulled off the ship before they were turned into reaper slush, I still think it counts.

      1. Alexander The 1st says:

        Cerberus: Even our successes are *technically* failures.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Why is the moon called luna when the earth is called earth?Shouldnt it be terra then?

    1. Lame Duck says:

      Not necessarily. The Moon is called Luna because “moon” is also a generic term for an object orbiting a planet, but Earth is only the name of our planet, we don’t call other planets “earths”.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        True,but earth is also a generic name for soil.You can find earth on the moon,on mars,on plenty of other celestial bodies.So are we going to then say “we found fertile earth on xbzgys moon,which makes it so unlike our luna”?

        If we are going to use greek/latin names for all celestial bodies,including the moon and the sun,then why not use it for earth as well?

        1. Zerotime says:

          Technically, the stuff covering Luna is regolith, not actual soil.

          1. Gruhunchously says:

            How good is it as a portal-conductor?

            1. GragSmash says:

              I can tell you one thing for certain, it’s pure poison. Don’t eat it.

        2. Klay F. says:

          Because human naming conventions suck. That is precisely why we named the planets after Roman deities and didn’t just give them their own names.

          1. GragSmash says:

            We totally didn’t ask the natives what to name them, either.

            1. Indy says:

              It was awfully lucky that they turned out to be called Martians, wasn’t it?

  9. Jokerman says:

    Makes sense how everyone was going mad at the end about being about to make that last drop, they know how terrible Joker is at this….

    1. some random dood says:

      B..b..but – Spoiler Warning doood!
      And hehe, yes! The ultimate troll – Joker finally delivering Shepard to within 20ft of his desired location – straight into a locked door ;-)

  10. Deuxmains says:

    Watching this episode just made me realise how the ME1 Spoiler Warning series has far more cover-based shooting than ME2 or 3, the actual cover-based shooters. Conan and Regina laugh in the face of recommended playstyles!

    1. swenson says:

      Regina is a vanguard. “Cover” is not a word in vanguards’ dictionaries.

      However, it is true. There’s few shield regeneration powers in ME1 and no regenerating health, so I feel it lends itself to a more cautious playstyle. There’s no charge, no tactical cloak, none of that stuff that makes non-cover-based play more viable in ME2 and ME3.

      …am I saying ME2 and ME3 gameplay doesn’t focus on cover? I… guess I am? But really, I spent a LOT of time hiding or picking off enemies from a mile away in ME1. Vanguard Chaerg was not a valid way to play back then.

      1. Otters34 says:

        Well, Conan is also a Vanguard. Of course, he is a Mass Effect 1 Vanguard, which is more like a soldier with psychic powers than a straight-up superhero.

  11. Carnadan says:

    Well shoot, I quit that exact mission a third of the way through when I got bored of shooting VI terminals. No idea it gave you a prestige class.

  12. Lame Duck says:

    I think this is a pretty great example of why I do not like Mass Effect very much. This is an important side quest and it is completely uninteresting; go to a copy-pasted place, kill some guys, shoot some computers, repeat, repeat again. There’s not even any explanation as to why this gives you a prestige class, except “because binary”.

    1. StashAugustine says:

      The sidequests are one of the biggest reasons I can’t hold ME1 in the same regard as the rest of the crew does. They’re dull, badly designed, and repetitive, they start out impossibly hard and advance to stupidly easy, they generally all involve shooting samey enemies screaming the same four combat taunts in one of four environments. Some of them are fairly interesting(this one, the salarian doctor, the Starship Troopers rip-off), but they’re a chore to get through.

      1. Thomas says:

        I hate the enemy AI on sidequests. They pretty much just zerg rush you whenever you enter the room, whether they’re turrets or zombies or mercs. Okay it’s more realistic (ish=D) but generally it meant me standing in a corridor, slowly picking people off round a corner for ages and ages

      2. anaphysik says:

        At the same time, I find the sidequests in ME2 entirely vapid. Sure, some of them look pretty in their custom-built environments, but they’re completely devoid of any narratively-relevant content.

        Still better than ME3’s ‘here, I found your keys while doing someone else’s laundry’ “sidequests” though.

  13. To be fair, the VI terminals aren’t venting poison gas. They’re from a supplier that used a LOT of mercury and lead in their construction to cut costs. Conan is just breathing in the vaporized hardware.

    1. anaphysik says:

      Is this stated in-game, or did you just make that up?
      (To be fair, that’s about the same sort of rationalization I would give if forced to. Except with coolants or something.)

      1. I might have made it up.

        Then again, if they’re Cerberus products, they could have been manufactured by a rogue cell.

  14. Indy says:

    You should have taken a picture of that Earth, it is the last time you’ll see it before SOME KIDD DIES!

  15. ACman says:

    I miss Stolen Pixels.

    1. Dragomok says:

      You’re not alone.
      Alas, comic makers have lives too.

  16. anaphysik says:

    So, Josh, disappointed you didn’t get to go to the moon in ME1 & ME2? Don’t worry, I’m sure you loved its central presence in ME3!

  17. anaphysik says:

    Shock Trooper > Nemesis, IMO :/
    Then again, Randy hardly uses Barrier or Adrenaline Rush at all, since he’s a CHUMP.

    1. lurkey says:

      Depends on a playstyle, I’d say. My vanguard’s most used power was Lift and I didn’t even use shotguns, pistols were so much better. ‘sides, the power of the name – Nemesis sounds suave and dangerous. Shock Trooper sounds a faceless mook to be mowed.

  18. Hitchmeister says:

    Oh, how the times have changed. You could hear the palpable disappointment in Josh’s voice when he said you couldn’t go to Earth, and you couldn’t in Mass Effect 2, either. How do you feel about going to Earth now, Josh?

    1. “We have to fight to save that place they didn’t let us even visit the last two times!”
      “Can we get the Reapers to blow up the continents enough so that North America is flipped the right way around?”
      “Save that for the DLC!”

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