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I did the meme

Hey congrats on your exams and follower count! 💜

If you get the chance maybe #16 Falling short with a character of your choosing who you think doesn't get enough love?

Thank you so much! 🖤

I've spent so long deciding whom should I choose for this, honestly. So many absolutely wonderful characters I would want to see more of, really. Ended up doing the most interesting salarian lady around.

All I ever wanted is clarity. I devote much of my time looking in the mirror, trying to understand myself. Some might find it narcissistic. But in knowing myself, I can be true in the moment, with little self-interrogation.

Pathfinder Raeka my beloved

Requests info

Who do you save on the Archon's ship and why: Raeka or Drack's scouts?

I know this is a volatile topic, and there's a lot of conflicting opinions, but I'm curious. Myself, I always save Raeka, and Drack's response to that has always been frustrating.

Of course I feel for Drack, and I completely understand why he's pissed and hurt. But I hate hate hate that you can't make the argument of "It's not about krogan versus salarians, never was. It's about scouts versus Pathfinder. and civilians" Especially when, if you save the scouts, he tells you straight up that tough choices have to be made and to brush this off, ultimately this was a victory and you slapped the Archon in the face.

My reasons for why I save Raeka:

1. First and most important, in my opinion, she's a Pathfinder, and an OG Pathfinder. I know some people like if all the Pathfinders are newbies who all learn together and whatnot, and while that's a nice thing to romanticize, pragmatically it makes more sense to have one of the originals. For multiple reason, too. Raeka can offer guidance, answer questions if they arise, and she knows all the protocols and how to make the hard choices. 2. Raeka is an expert biologist. If there's going to be any form of countering exaltation, etc., she's one of the best people to help with that. Are there other expert biologists in the Initiative? Most likely, but having another one who was responsible for saving an entire planet's biodiversity is nothing to sneeze at. 3. The salarian ark's population was decimated. I know people like to argue that more salarians came to Andromeda than krogan, but the salarians still ended up in a worse situation than the krogan. Out of all the arks, I believe it's the salarians that lost the most people, including most or all of their leadership. They also reproduce much slower than krogan. With the krogan and Nexus docs working on reversing or reducing the genophage--and Kesh having an entire clutch of viable eggs, if you choose to save the scouts--the krogan will be just fine. It's probably a ways into the future, true, but brings it back around to the fact that krogan live SO much longer. They have plenty of time to kick the genophage in the teeth and have babies. Salarian lives are short, they don't lay nearly as many eggs, and producing a new, viable population with the remaining salarians is crucial. 4. The writers did a piss poor job of making me give a damn about the scouts. I care about them, of course, because I adore the krogan and who WANTS to leave them in kett hands? But these scouts are only mentioned a few times in passing! I don't know them, they're not brought up on that mission until the very end (like, I know it's supposed to be spur of the moment or something, but it just feels cheap), and after Raeka helped create diversions and wanted to save civilians that she found? I'm sorry, but I'm helping Raeka. Drack never asks you to help look for them, not like Wrex does in ME3 with the rachni shit--and even then, I save the Queen I released on Noveria because, again, pragmatically it makes more sense. Both are unfortunate, difficult decisions that I hate making, but in terms of survival, there are very clear answers as to which decisions are best, in my opinion. 5. Finally, those krogan are scouts. Scouts know that there's a possibility that they won't return from the mission. Raeka made a bad call, and she owns that, but I don't think one bad call means she should die. One could argue that the scouts made a bad decision and got caught, but we really don't know how or where they were caught, just that they were. And sure, there's no guarantee a Pathfinder will return from a mission, either, that they know what they're getting into, too. But after all the shit that went down on the Archon's ship, I still feel it's more important to save a Pathfinder and the civilians she went to rescue than a group of scouts.

I really wish I could save both. I hate binary choices, and I hate that Drack can't seem to see the decision as anything other than salarians versus krogan--which it's just not. Not for me or how I choose to play Ryder. If you choose to save the krogan because you enjoy Drack's special, exclusive "mission" after you beat the game, I get that. I've saved the scouts before, just to do something different and get that mission, but I felt terrible doing it. It felt like the wrong decision, one made with pure emotions as the motivator and not thinking about what would benefit everyone, yes everyone, who came from the Milky Way.

I really do dislike the "poor krogan, poor krogan" undertones to that mission. I help them out in every other scenario, too. I give Morda the Remnant drive core, I nail Spender and exile him because he's a little bitch, I help Drack save the seed vault. I'm sorry it upset him that I chose to save a Pathfinder and some civilians (I cannot stress enough that they're civilians, who didn't sign up for this shit and woke up to terror) over four random scouts, but for the writers to paint that mission's end as either you care about the krogan or you don't is just stupid.

Ah Ryder, my hero.

-for @tali-zorahs

Pathfinder Raeka my beloved...

i need help developing motivations for this silly fic lmao

I JUST FUCKING FINISHED ANDROMEDA

Over a week of playing nearly every single day, 56 hours and 42 fucking minutes-

I have loved every single second of this game

Upgrading armour and crafting, doing silly side quests, loyalty missions, collecting data from all around, upgrading the Nomad (which I despised at first, and then... I loved so much)

This game was an absolute joy from start to finish and I don't understand how, even with the ME trilogy having come first, people don't like ME Andromeda

This game was stellar and beautiful and I felt like I could really sit there and appreciate the silliness, the seriousness, the awkwardness, all of it

Every little decision mattered

Every little decision defined my character and looking back at the files and all? I got to play a perfect rendition of myself in my Pathfinder and I have my own story I've made along the way, just helping wherever I could

I got Wrex back in my good side after I chose to save Raeka and we're closer than ever, I've done every loyalty mission, I won a damn bar fight, I got blackout drunk, I lost poker, I got a Turian girlfriend, I spared Akksul, I got Evfra and Reyes and Kandros and Tann and everyone else on my side so we could protect all our worlds and make a home

And I'm so emotional over this game because it was perfect

The nods to the trilogy- the nomad paint that says "hold the line" in its description and the other salarian's words in battle as a nod to kirrahe? Mordin's photo being in the Salarian info stuff at one point while he smiles? The archangel paint? The collection of model ships?

It's all incredible

People don't seem to like this game but it opened up a whole new side of our universe and it doesn't take away from it at all

It's just the other side of it all that we have so far

It connected everything and I couldn't have asked for a better game

This game has broken me in the best way and I love both Andromeda and the trilogy

Anyways, little freakout over, just really happy right now

I love almost every character and interaction and I really hope they make another Andromeda game because these characters are wonderful and deserve a chance to keep growing just like Shepard and their friends did

Personally, choosing 'Newbies' as Pathfinders when they all didn't get much of a formal training....

I like it.

It kinda makes me feel like Scott/Sara won't feel so left out as being the only Pathfinder who was appointed because the original perished.

If players chose to save Raeka and keep Sarissa as Pathfinder, it would pretty much only be Ryder and Macen as the suddenly appointed Pathfinders.

So, I kinda like all of them being newish.

Ryder. Avitus. Vederia. Hayjer.

My go-to Pathfinder squad.

I'm on track to finding the Archon's Flagship, and I'm reminded that I'm definitely in the minority of people who let Raeka die.

I know people are like 'why tf would I save some random scouts when Raeka is right there!' but in my mind that's... kind of the point. Those scouts are Krogan, who have historically been used and discarded every time they're no longer of use. Against the Rachni, against the uprising, and potentially against the Reapers if you sabotaged the Genophage cure. These scouts are just some krogan who happened to be in a bad situation, and they need help. They have nothing to offer you, they have been of no use to you, but they will die without help.

I choose to save those scouts every single time because it's about proving that, in Andromeda, things will be different. Krogan do not exist purely to be useful. Their lives are valuable, and their allies will come for them, and they don't have to fend solely for themselves. Raeka is a great character and I don't fault people for wanting to keep her around, it's just my preferred read of the situation.

And I love my 'I didn't think I'd actually be a Pathfinder' club 💜

One of the most agonizing decisions Sara has to make in Andromeda is aboard the Archon's flagship, when it comes down to saving Pathfinder Raeka at the cost of leaving Drack's scouts behind. While some might think it is a pragmatic choice, to have at least one of the original Pathfinders that had first been assigned to the arks, the truth is far more emotional than most people might consider unless they're familiar with Sara on a personal level.

She never wanted to be Pathfinder, and she frequently has doubts and fears, especially when the fate of the whole cluster rests upon her shoulders. And as much as she respects and adores Drack, frequently going to him for his insight, she's terrified of being the most experienced of all the Pathfinders, and it's that fear that drives her to choosing to go after Raeka rather than the krogan scouts.

Sara is utterly heartbroken in the aftermath, when Drack refuses to speak to her - only his staying aboard the Tempest gives her any hope whatsoever that she didn't completely ruin their relationship. She does her damnedest to make it up to him in every way she can, supporting the krogan on Elaaden, helping him get the seed vault back without a moment's hesitation, exiling Spender, ensuring the krogan reunite with the Nexus, and more.

Though every time she goes to speak to Raeka in Pathfinder Hall on the Nexus, she's struck with both a wave of relief and guilt, knowing that her own fears are the only reason Raeka is alive while Drack's scouts suffered at the hands of the kett.

WIP of the cutest Pathfinder

I FOOLISHLY thought that I could stomach making a different choice on the Archon's ship this time... Save Raeka, have at least ONE original Pathfinder survive... I thought I'd do it for Raeka, for Kallo.

But honestly having my Krogan space dad be upset with me was so bad I almost stopped and reloaded the last save right there 😭😭😭😭

I'M SO SORRY DRACK. YOU'RE MORE OF A DAD THAN MY STUPID SPACE DAD AND I LET YOU DOWN

I'M SO SO SORRY

ughhhhh i cant decide whehter to go after the krogan scouts or the pathfinder raeka........ like on the one hand krogan have been treated as expendable for so long, and in another lifetime i promised wrex i would do right by the krogan. but on the other hand, not to be callous, but she's literally a pathfinder and a good one at that, and the krogan scouts are like....... theyre scouts.... and im here FOR the salarians, to try and save the salarian ship. so surely i should save the people im here to save, and the experienced leader who just risked their life to save everyone, right? like those salarians are alive. i should be getting them off the ship.

but. so. are the krogan??? like im just. its soooo. its literally equal its exactly equal how am i supposed to pick..... i think this is the very first hard decision in mass effect andromeda

I spy your tag and so I raise you: POV!

Oh ho so I really like writing the same events from differing POVs so here we have... baby pathfinder Ryder desperately looking for an adultier adult and very much not finding one in a morose old ex-spectre!

Heart Of A Dancer, Ch 1: The Lifeline

“Older than that.” He completed, and his eyes were a long way distant. Stuck some six hundred years in the past. It aged him something terrible, in truth. Maybe SAM had some clue how old he really was. He had to be like… late thirties, right? Young enough to still be a soldier, old enough to have spent the fifteen years he’d once claimed to have spent as a spectre. “Avitus Rix was born in 2129. In the alliance standard calendar, the date would correspond with the fourth of September.” SAM informed her, quite casual about reading her mental questions these days. So that made him… fifty eight. Just twenty-odd years out on her assumption. Turians aged unfairly well. And, shit. He was three days younger than Dad. That was weird to think about. She’d genuinely assumed that he was younger than that given how he threw himself headfirst into firefights, given the stories already being told about how he took on the kett like a one-person army. Given how angry he was with the universe at large. Fifty eight and a widower with a damaged AI he’d not intended to host forced into his head. Actually, it was little wonder he was this pissed off with his life. He… hadn’t signed up for this part of the job any more than she had. Did he know he wasn’t alone, though? “You know… you’re not the only one with a SAM issue.” Sara said, desperate to fill the yawning silence as much as to reach across the metaphorical gap and remind him that there were people who could understand some of his pain. The slow way his head turned towards her, one eye laser focused and distinctly more sober than she’d expected, wasn’t pleasant or friendly. A flash of teeth with his intake of breath and a low rumble that her translator stubbornly refused to parse vibrated through the air. It was weirdly reminiscent of that classic horror vid with the dinosaurs. Only… this velociraptor one was clever enough to talk and had a fuckoff big gun strapped to his back to go with the claws and teeth. “My dad shoved a bunch of his own memories in the human SAM and locked them up tight, I’ve had to jump through hoops to get them accessible.” She continued, a thought coming to her regardless that she was being sized up like dinner by a prehistoric monster. “They were… tough to see. Wish I hadn’t.”

And to compare

Beyond Familiar Stars, Ch 1: 2821 - Anger

“Older than that.” He admitted cagily. Avitus wasn’t about to admit that he’d come up here to drink and mourn the fact that Raeka was right; he had nobody to miss that had not died by now. There was nobody to miss him, there was nobody to care that little old Rix was still clinging to life. Hell, the closest thing he had to a friend in either galaxy was the twenty-two year old kid of a man he’d given war trauma to, and wasn’t that just fun? “You know… you’re not the only one with a SAM issue.” Sara said, quite out of the blue after they had lapsed into companionable, sorrowful silence. At this, he looked over, senses dulled to a point where he did not feel the immediate urge to snap at her that she had no idea, nor to react with outright hostile suspicion at whatever she was about to admit. “My dad shoved a bunch of his own memories in the human SAM and locked them up tight, I’ve had to jump through hoops to get them accessible.” She said, and the haunted look only deepened. “They were… tough to see. Wish I hadn’t.”

(Poll) Mass Effect Andromeda - Save Krogan Scouts or Salarian Pathfinder?

In the Mass Effect series there are some choices where you have difficulty choosing. Like which is right or not. This is one of them. It's especially difficult since Andromeda doesn't have a sequel yet so you don't know the consequences that would carry over to the next.

For this you must choose whether to save the Krogan Scouts, or to save Pathfinder Raeka.

Pathfinder Raeka is the last original Pathfinder and a close friend of Alec Ryder. She's a competent leader and has saved your life. She doesn't seem to see Krogans with prejudice. But if you choose to save her and the other Salarian Civilians then you not only have a pissed Drack (Who won't trust you enough to show you that Kesh has children), but also have to face Krogan Behemoths (Who are strong difficult enemies)

If you save the Krogan Scouts then not only Drack will trust you enough to show you that Kesh gave birth to a clutch of her own but you won't face difficult enemies (mutated Salarians aren't difficult to fight). The Krogan Scouts will also assist you in Meridian: The Way Home.

Priority Op - Krogan Scouts or Salarian Pathfinder?: https://strawpoll.com/qpzyszp91/r

If you wanna read about my opinion involving Shepard background and vote on their Background/Class preferences go here: https://quietsun5268.tumblr.com/post/663393551709863936/spoilers-poll-which-background-and-class-do

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If you want to vote on "Some polls about Major/Moderate Mass Effect 3 Choices" go here: https://quietsun5268.tumblr.com/post/665578001693540352/some-polls-about-majormoderate-mass-effect-3

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