Mass Effect 2 Gameplay

[adam_grif]

'Blocking off' their entrance? How the fuck are they going to do that

I dunno, put some guns into orbit around the relay? They have huge ranges, and the relays aren't all that large. Fuck, if it makes you feel better, put some stealth guns. Normandy SR1 frame with an Axial gun and other systems stripped. Can build several of them for the price of a single SR2.

How would Aria take to having a small fleet of warships blockade anything in her system? How would the bands of mercs and criminals respond to that?

How would the mercs and criminals know about it? Ships are allowed to come and go, the SR2, despite not being stealth at FTL speeds, apparently comes and goes anywhere and nobody gives a fuck. Cerberus is a private organization, them being there can't trigger a war with the terminus systems since they aren't alliance or anybody else; them being there can't fuck politics up anymore than Batarian slavers regularly attacking human colonies does.

Nobody ever goes near the Omega 4 relay. Why would Aria or the Merc bands care about people putting ships into orbit around what they all know is a one way trip to nowhere? Even if they were suddenly struck by a bout of unreasonable rage and were determined to kill the Cerberus ships that aren't doing anything to them, how would they do it? Does Aria have a fleet of warships? Do the merc bands?

And how is sending in on stealth ship to see if the IFF worked or not a dumb idea, when as far as anyone else knew nobody who has ever gone through the relay has never returned?

Did the illusive man plan to randomly stumble upon the Reaper ship with the IFF codes / derelict collector vessel with information when he started constructing the SR2 and initiating the Lazarus project several years ago? Or was that more blind luck?

Sending a ship to scout out somewhere isn't stupid, but sending it and it's 10 man complement of soldiers to lone wolf it against an enemy of unknown size in an unknown location who shredded the last iteration of the ship nigh instantaneously? Yeah, that's pretty fucking stupid.

Ironically it would have probably had an easier time of smashing through conventional warships that same way Sovereign's finger beams sliced through Alliance heavy cruisers.

Not really, since the stealth systems are totally irrelevant. If you're discussing maneuverability, then a regular frigate or five would have done as well/better than the SR2 even with all it's fancy schmancy upgrades.

[Stofsk]

'Blocking off' their entrance? How the fuck are they going to do that, with their nonexistent space navy in the Terminus Systems where people like batarians and other merc groups fucking hate humanity? How would Aria take to having a small fleet of warships blockade anything in her system? How would the bands of mercs and criminals respond to that?

Well...if Cerberus spent those 4 billion creds on something else than resurrecting commander Mary Sue (like a huge fucking army), I'm not sure Aria would have anything to say about the matter.

Cerberus is a black ops organisation... some call it a terrorist organisation. Aria has plenty of merc groups already under her command, but how would the Alliance react to Cerberus suddenly runnng around with armies and fleets?

And how is sending in one stealth ship to see if the IFF worked or not a dumb idea, when as far as anyone else knew nobody who has ever gone through the relay has ever returned?

It was a dumb idea because it wasn't just a stealth ship, it was a gigantic investment carrying yet another (unnecessary to boot) gigantic investment aboard. They could've sent a stealth drone first, before telling Shep to go and hoping for the best.

If they weren't pressed for time, sure, they could have shot a probe in first. Shepard's crew had been captured, and any delay basically means leaving them to die when a rescue operation could be mounted.

The Collectors were never shown to have many ships either - just the one. And despite its impressive spinal mounted beam weapon, it was basically a large transport ship. Ironically it would have probably had an easier time of smashing through conventional warships that same way Sovereign's finger beams sliced through Alliance heavy cruisers.

It had impressive sensors, too, and cut up the first Normandy like it wasn't even there. Also, at the stage in the game I'm at now, nobody realizes they only have one ship, just that the same one appears all around the place.

Yeah, one hit and the SR1 sustained massive damage.

Also, we don't even know if they do just have the one ship. There was one ship at the base but there could still have been others. There may have been other relays. Nobody knows. You have to reconnoiter the place, but as I said above they had their hand forced with the crew being abducted.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and the mission was to stop the collectors, but TIM's secret mission was to actually capture the base - you can't capture territory you're blockading. And they didn't know for sure that the Omega-4 relay was the only means the Collectors had to come and go. AND the debris field directly in the emergence point shows seems to have deliberately been set up to have interlopers collide with them and be destroyed. You'd need a small, nimble ship to plot a safe course out of the Omega-4 emergence point.

Small nimble ship doesn't automatically mean the Normandy + Shepard. The point is they didn't even try to conduct recon with the IFF code before sending the Normandy in to capture the base, the IM was all "Shep, go and hit the Collectors, k?".

How do you conduct recon when you don't want to send in your stealh, recon ship to... do recon?

And sending in cruisers without first testing the IFF and without knowing what to expect would have ended in a supreme clusterfuck as every cruiser scrambles to avoid the large debris field directly in their path. And once again, the goal was to stop the collectors, not sit on your ass blockading one mass relay. In the first game, even the Citadel council was loathe to send a fleet to Illos because it would have to go through the Terminus Systems - which would have likely lead to war (to their estimation).

[Stofsk]

'Blocking off' their entrance? How the fuck are they going to do that

I dunno, put some guns into orbit around the relay? They have huge ranges, and the relays aren't all that large. Fuck, if it makes you feel better, put some stealth guns. Normandy SR1 frame with an Axial gun and other systems stripped. Can build several of them for the price of a single SR2.

How are static defences going to stop the collectors when nobody knows where they are, what they're doing, how they're doing it, etc.

how would Aria take to having a small fleet of warships blockade anything in her system? How would the bands of mercs and criminals respond to that?

How would the mercs and criminals know about it? Ships are allowed to come and go, the SR2, despite not being stealth at FTL speeds, apparently comes and goes anywhere and nobody gives a fuck. Cerberus is a private organization, them being there can't trigger a war with the terminus systems since they aren't alliance or anybody else; them being there can't fuck politics up anymore than Batarian slavers regularly attacking human colonies does.

That's a stupid argument. You were advocating blockading the relay - how can that NOT be noticed by pretty much everybody in the system?

Nobody ever goes near the Omega 4 relay. Why would Aria or the Merc bands care about people putting ships into orbit around what they all know is a one way trip to nowhere? Even if they were suddenly struck by a bout of unreasonable rage and were determined to kill the Cerberus ships that aren't doing anything to them, how would they do it? Does Aria have a fleet of warships? Do the merc bands?

Of course the merc bands do, how else did they attack Elysium, conduct slave raids on unprotected planets, and ferry those mercs around? Why was the Council in ME1 loathe to send fleets into the Traverse after Saren if they were afraid of triggering a war with the Terminus systems? Why would criminal and merc bands react with apathy to an outside, private organisation setting up a blockade (for whatever reason, criminals don't have to be rational when it comes to turf fights) in *their* system?

Sending a ship to scout out somewhere isn't stupid, but sending it and it's 10 man complement of soldiers to lone wolf it against an enemy of unknown size in an unknown location who shredded the last iteration of the ship nigh instantaneously? Yeah, that's pretty fucking stupid.

Delay means your crew is dead. You're not going to get help from anybody else - not the Alliance, not the Citadel. Merc bands like the Blue Suns are hostile towards Cerberus, other merc bands probably aren't interested in what is clearly a suicide mission.

There is no time to get 'back up' because there IS no backup. Cerberus isn't a space navy or a conventional military - it's a black ops unit.

Ironically it would have probably had an easier time of smashing through conventional warships that same way Sovereign's finger beams sliced through Alliance heavy cruisers.

Not really, since the stealth systems are totally irrelevant. If you're discussing maneuverability, then a regular frigate or five would have done as well/better than the SR2 even with all it's fancy schmancy upgrades.

Yeah, they would have done a great job sitting there and getting shot to pieces when the Collector ship comes through and guts them in a couple of shots. The SR1 and SR2 have better maneouverability and drive characteristics compared to conventional frigates as per dialogue you have with Engineer Adams in ME1 and Joker in both games. (and maybe also the codex)

[PeZook]

Cerberus is a black ops organisation... some call it a terrorist organisation. Aria has plenty of merc groups already under her command, but how would the Alliance react to Cerberus suddenly runnng around with armies and fleets?

No, the mercs fucking hate Aria. They even wanted to kill her before Garrus and Shepard killed most of them in turn. And I obviously didn't mean a literal, regimental army, more like a ridiculously well-funded mercenary organization.

Shepard's mission was essentialy intel gathering, anyway - or, more precisely, he was sent where there'd be need to pry intel out of people's (and Collector) throats with machine gun fire, so that IM would have something to send his other people after. The whole Collector base raid only comes up later, completely unexpectedly. For that mission (and the latter one, too) 4 billion spent on a mercenary army would go much further than one frigate + 10 guys in any situation Shepard faced.

If they weren't pressed for time, sure, they could have shot a probe in first. Shepard's crew had been captured, and any delay basically means leaving them to die when a rescue operation could be mounted.

Except you can delay the operation before going in, and nothing is done to get better recon anyway. Also, it would probably help if Cerberus kept their technical geniuses aboard a secure space station somewhere, and used more expendable personel to beat people up for intelligence. Then they wouldn't have to dive in headfirst if their intel gatherers were abducted...

Yeah, one hit and the SR1 sustained massive damage.

Also, we don't even know if they do just have the one ship. There was one ship at the base but there could still have been others. There may have been other relays. Nobody knows. You have to reconnoiter the place, but as I said above they had their hand forced with the crew being abducted.

What would've happened if the SR-2 was crawling with platoons of heavily armed commandos and dozens of YMIR mechs bought for the price of one Shepard?

How do you conduct recon when you don't want to send in your stealh, recon ship to... do recon?

You send in a probe, obviously, or send the stealth ship without also putting a 4 billion investment aboard in the hope it will turn out okay.

[Stofsk]

No, the mercs fucking hate Aria. They even wanted to kill her before Garrus and Shepard killed most of them in turn. And I obviously didn't mean a literal, regimental army, more like a ridiculously well-funded mercenary organization.

As much as the mercs hate each other, they hate the Council races more - and Cerberus isn't part of the Terminus culture.

Shepard's mission was essentialy intel gathering, anyway - or, more precisely, he was sent where there'd be need to pry intel out of people's (and Collector) throats with machine gun fire, so that IM would have something to send his other people after. The whole Collector base raid only comes up later, completely unexpectedly.

Shepard's mission was never solely intel - he was tasked by TIM to stop the Collectors right at the beginning.

For that mission (and the latter one, too) 4 billion spent on a mercenary army would go much further than one frigate + 10 guys in any situation Shepard faced.

How's that mercenary army going to attack the collector base for fuck's sake? Magically wish themselves there?

If they weren't pressed for time, sure, they could have shot a probe in first. Shepard's crew had been captured, and any delay basically means leaving them to die when a rescue operation could be mounted.

Except you can delay the operation before going in,

Yeah, and watch Kelly and most of your crew get dissolved.

and nothing is done to get better recon anyway. Also, it would probably help if Cerberus kept their technical geniuses aboard a secure space station somewhere, and used more expendable personel to beat people up for intelligence. Then they wouldn't have to dive in headfirst if their intel gatherers were abducted...

The crew of the SR2 aren't the tech geniuses BUT the expendable people you send in first.

EDIT- they also couldn't go in until they found a way to do so safely, which is where the IFF comes into it. Its part of the intel-gathering segment to find out how the Collectors come and go. Once you have the IFF though, shit quickly hits the fan. At that point, the Collectors may have been feeling overconfident - going through the relay to take them on head-first was bold, risky, suicidal - but not doing so means your crew dies, and the Collectors have more time to prepare for your assault. By going through straight away (and you should be ready with all the upgrades by then anyway) you're turning the tables on the Collectors - it was probably the last thing they were expecting because it was so reckless.

Yeah, one hit and the SR1 sustained massive damage.

Also, we don't even know if they do just have the one ship. There was one ship at the base but there could still have been others. There may have been other relays. Nobody knows. You have to reconnoiter the place, but as I said above they had their hand forced with the crew being abducted.

What would've happened if the SR-2 was crawling with platoons of heavily armed commandos and dozens of YMIR mechs bought for the price of one Shepard?

Shepard was brought back because he's fought the Reapers before and won. TIM had reason to suspect Reaper involvement in the Collector attacks. Ergo, he sought to bring back Shepard. That the Collectors were also after Shepard suggests there might be more to this that we don't know about yet - Shepard does have the Proethean cipher, he talked to Vigil, he's probably the only guy in the galaxy best suited to fight the Reapers. Bringing him back is a sounder investment in those terms.

And those YMIR mechs wouldn't have done much - they aren't mobile enough to help especially given the layout of the Collector base. Some extra forces would have certainly helped of course.

How do you conduct recon when you don't want to send in your stealh, recon ship to... do recon?

You send in a probe, obviously, or send the stealth ship without also putting a 4 billion investment aboard in the hope it will turn out okay.

So I spend 4 billion dollars bringing a guy back from the dead so I can task him with taking on the Collectors... then I don't send him in to take on the Collectors? Am I getting that right? What's the point in spending all that money on a ship and a guy if you're too cautious to use them? War is risk.

[adam_grif]

How are static defences going to stop the collectors when nobody knows where they are, what they're doing, how they're doing it, etc.

O4 relay is the only ticket to Collector space. Every active relay has been mapped, so alternate routes are a no go unless the collectors hypothetically opened up other ones to try to get there (they can't, but they don't know that). Wouldn't it be smart to wait there and ambush them since that's the route they always take?

That's a stupid argument. You were advocating blockading the relay - how can that NOT be noticed by pretty much everybody in the system?

Yes, which consists of parking some ships around it. Nobody cares about the O4 relay, so why would they care about that? How would they know it's a military blockade with the intent of destroying the collectors the second they came through? Even if they did, Aria / mercs can no doubt be bought off, especially since they have nothing to gain from attacking the Cerberus vessels anyway and they aren't interfering with their business in any way.

Of course the merc bands do, how else did they attack Elysium, conduct slave raids on unprotected planets, and ferry those mercs around?

Unprotected, key word. Elysium was a unique instance, attacked by a combination of slavers, pirates, warlords (with real, military grade hardware) and mercenary groups with funding and backing from a variety of Batarian sources, including governmental ones. This doesn't have anything to do with whether the merc groups on Omega have access to a fleet capable of taking multiple top of the line frigates or cruisers.

Do you really think they can get a huge coordinated attack together to achieve something that doesn't benefit them in any way? Will some mysterious backer suddenly drop gargantuan sums of money to make it worth their while? Work with me here.

Why was the Council in ME1 loathe to send fleets into the Traverse after Saren if they were afraid of triggering a war with the Terminus systems?

Because that's an official Citadel council fleet claiming important, resource filled planets in enemy territory. This is a private organization putting some ships into orbit around an object of no value.

Delay means your crew is dead. You're not going to get help from anybody else - not the Alliance, not the Citadel. Merc bands like the Blue Suns are hostile towards Cerberus, other merc bands probably aren't interested in what is clearly a suicide mission.

There is no time to get 'back up' because there IS no backup. Cerberus isn't a space navy or a conventional military - it's a black ops unit.

Oh no, 30 odd crew members dead? Well millions of colonists vanishing isn't a good reason to go as soon as possible, but 30 crew members? STOP EVERYTHING, FUCK PREPARATION, WE'RE GOING IN! WHO WILL FEED MY FISH IF KELLY IS GONE? If delay means ensuring victory, fuck the crew. Any sane person would think of a better plan than charging headlong into the frying pan with NO intel.

Cerberus is "just a black ops unit" that just so happens to have the military industrial capability to build the single most expensive ship in existence next to dreadnoughts. Apparently without attracting attention.

Yeah, they would have done a great job sitting there and getting shot to pieces when the Collector ship comes through and guts them in a couple of shots.

The second they clear the debris field they're already in firing range. For some insane reason Shepard tells joker to close in to point blank to fire off their guns (no real reason why they ought to, the damn thing isn't maneuverable at all and is so large you could probably accurately hit it if you were eyeballing your guns). Watch the cutscene again. Do you think that the sluggish evasive manuevers the Normandy takes are really indicative of insane drive core performance that only the Normandy could pull off?

The collector ship fires off what, two shots when they close? Even if you up that to three, and assume 100% hit probability, the 5 regular frigates (far cheaper than SR2) still have 2 surviving to fire their Normandy equivelant guns at similar point plank range to kill the damn ship.

5 frigates are more combat effective than one SR2, once Stealth Systems are made irrelevant (which they are). Pound for pound the SR2 is very impressive, but it's by no means something that you would trade in a fleet for.

[Stofsk]

How are static defences going to stop the collectors when nobody knows where they are, what they're doing, how they're doing it, etc.

O4 relay is the only ticket to Collector space. Every active relay has been mapped, so alternate routes are a no go unless the collectors hypothetically opened up other ones to try to get there (they can't, but they don't know that). Wouldn't it be smart to wait there and ambush them since that's the route they always take?

You don't know that, and you're pulling shit out of your ass re: 'every active relay has been mapped'. It's said in the codex that a pitiful percentage of the galaxy has been surveyed, and it's Council policy to not open inactive relays because the last time someone did that, there was a war, and the second last time someone did that, there was an even bigger war.

So thanks for explaining how sitting on your ass while Collectors run around kidnapping hundreds of thousands of humans beings is a winning strategy.

That's a stupid argument. You were advocating blockading the relay - how can that NOT be noticed by pretty much everybody in the system?

Yes, which consists of parking some ships around it. Nobody cares about the O4 relay, so why would they care about that? How would they know it's a military blockade with the intent of destroying the collectors the second they came through? Even if they did, Aria / mercs can no doubt be bought off, especially since they have nothing to gain from attacking the Cerberus vessels anyway and they aren't interfering with their business in any way.

Its in their territory, ergo you run the risk of people getting territorial. How many people can you buy off before it becomes prohibitively expensive? And once again, how is blockading the relay a sure-fire strategy for stopping the Collectors, when they don't know if it's the absolute ONLY way into or out of their territory?

PS The Collectors have done business in the Terminus systems in the past. They can also buy off Mercs to hit your blockade, now you're fighting a war on two fronts.

Unprotected, key word. Elysium was a unique instance, attacked by a combination of slavers, pirates, warlords (with real, military grade hardware) and mercenary groups with funding and backing from a variety of Batarian sources, including governmental ones. This doesn't have anything to do with whether the merc groups on Omega have access to a fleet capable of taking multiple top of the line frigates or cruisers.

So you counter my point that the Terminus systems have access to military hardware and mercs have sizeable forces that gave the Citadel Council pause in the first game, by claiming they only attack unprotected worlds and Elysium was a 'special case', which is total rubbish because even as recent as two years ago canonically, the Council would not send a fleet into the Traverse for fear of starting a war with the Terminus systems. They're fractured now, but when an outside force encroaches into their territory, it's expected they'll band together.

Do you really think they can get a huge coordinated attack together to achieve something that doesn't benefit them in any way? Will some mysterious backer suddenly drop gargantuan sums of money to make it worth their while? Work with me here.

To the first, yes, because a blockade in one of their key systems isn't going to be looked at favourably - and you have to be superdense to not see that.

To the second, yes, as said above the Collectors have done business with players in the Terminus systems before (including traitor Cerberus operatives in 'Ascencion' and with the Shadow Broker).

Because that's an official Citadel council fleet claiming important, resource filled planets in enemy territory. This is a private organization putting some ships into orbit around an object of no value.

Except private organisations have gone to war against each other over less, and some have done business with the Collectors - so again, it's not an object of 'no value' and it's not in territory that is unclaimed.

Oh no, 30 odd crew members dead? Well millions of colonists vanishing isn't a good reason to go as soon as possible, but 30 crew members? STOP EVERYTHING, FUCK PREPARATION, WE'RE GOING IN! WHO WILL FEED MY FISH IF KELLY IS GONE? If delay means ensuring victory, fuck the crew. Any sane person would think of a better plan than charging headlong into the frying pan with NO intel.

You've got the intel you dumbass. You've got the IFF. You've got the means to take the fight to the Collectors. No back up is forthcoming. No other ships are available. No one is going to help you. It quite literally is you and the SR2 AND THAT IS IT. And you were tasked with taking out the Collectors from the beginning, not sitting with your thumb up your ass waiting for the Collectors to come to you and hoping they don't fucking curbstomp your pathetic static defences (gee, look at how well that turned out for the Citadel fleet at the end of ME1). You don't win wars by fucking blockading one place. You win wars by going to the home of the enemy and kicking their fucking heads in, and you have the benefit of hitting them right back immediately - something which the Collectors arrogantly wouldn't be expecting (as evidenced by the fact the Collector ship was docked to the base and not out waiting for you with guns charged).

Cerberus is "just a black ops unit" that just so happens to have the military industrial capability to build the single most expensive ship in existence next to dreadnoughts. Apparently without attracting attention.

You're being inconsistent AND obtuse. First Normandy is worth a heavy cruiser (which is really the words out of one disgruntled asshole Admiral from ME1 who had a chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind), now its worth a dreadnought? When a dreadnought is worth dozens of cruisers, and carry thousands of crew? (and in the entire Alliance has only half a dozen of the fucking things) Make up your fucking mind.

And yes, Cerberus IS just a black ops unit, dumbass. It's not a space navy, it doesn't have the kind of budget the Alliance has, it doesn't have fleets or warships or armies or trillions of dollars. It is well funded, but ultimately it's a small operations.

The second they clear the debris field they're already in firing range. For some insane reason Shepard tells joker to close in to point blank to fire off their guns (no real reason why they ought to, the damn thing isn't maneuverable at all and is so large you could probably accurately hit it if you were eyeballing your guns). Watch the cutscene again. Do you think that the sluggish evasive manuevers the Normandy takes are really indicative of insane drive core performance that only the Normandy could pull off?

Its said in dialogue that it has 'insane drive performance' compared next to any other ship in the Alliance fleet. SR2 is basically an upgraded version of SR1, it stands to reason it would have an equivalent ability to manouevre to the SR1 which we saw in ME1 having far greater turn speeds to anything else in the Alliance or Citadel fleet. You hilariously neglect the cutscenes that show SR2 navigate the debris field - something which few other pilots and ships would have been able to match, and bigger ships would certainly never be able to - they would have just run into the debris and if not be utterly destroyed on impact, severely fucked up and easy pickings for the Collector defences.

PS You're completely forgetting the Occulus robot defences too.

The collector ship fires off what, two shots when they close? Even if you up that to three, and assume 100% hit probability, the 5 regular frigates (far cheaper than SR2) still have 2 surviving to fire their Normandy equivelant guns at similar point plank range to kill the damn ship.

And do those 5 regular frigates have the stealth capability to have performed the intel-gathering work needed prior to the final battle?

5 frigates are more combat effective than one SR2, once Stealth Systems are made irrelevant (which they are). Pound for pound the SR2 is very impressive, but it's by no means something that you would trade in a fleet for.

In order to once again extricate your head from out of its ass, Cerberus isn't a fucking space navy - 5 frigates needs 5 crews for those frigates. It needs 5 times the logistical support 1 frigate would need because there are 5 more of them.

EDIT - and i forgot to mention, so they can build one ship - the SR2 - that doesn't mean they can build more ships at that dock, or build five ships in the time it would take to build one stealth ship. Five more ships means five times more crew you have to recruit, five times the production capacity, five times the resources to build them versus the resources to build one ship. The SR2 has innovations over the SR1, is twice the size, but its still incomplete - that's the whole point of the upgrades to it. Cerberus doesn't have limitless resources.

[White Haven]

You're all missing one important thing...it's not an IFF code. It's a specific piece of the Reaper that is integrated into the Normandy. Cerberus can't send a probe, they can't send an escort, they can't send a battlefleet, they can't send some other scoutship, because they can only get one ship through the relay. Even if the Reaper hadn't been destroyed in the escape and even if the Reaper ship had more IFF bits and bobs lying around, they still wouldn't have more than one prepped and ready. Given that the ship was annihilated, that's a moot point anyway. The Normandy has the combination of maneuverability, offensive punch above her weight class, and stealth to make her the best choice for the job.

And also, Cerberus is fucking broke in the wake of Sheppard+Normandy. They're a small organization, if you do your research on them, and we've seen no sign that they have a navy tucked away.

[Losonti Tokash]

Cerberus, with a total number of 150 operatives, is totally capable of running a giant space navy. Most of them probably are all stuck in Minuteman Station making sure TIM doesn't run out of his cigarettes.

[fractalsponge1]

Why do people think 4 billion is such a huge investment in the greater scheme of things? Yeah, that would buy a lot of personal armor and guns at the in-game rates, but according to ME1 the eezo required for SR1's smaller drive core was 120 billion credits. The wetwork part of Lazarus (Shepard) was probably a pittance compared to building the SR2, but even the SR2 is a pretty small investment compared to the cost of a real navy and military. Frigate-sized warships aren't really that expensive or uncommon; Hugo Gernsback was a privately held example (not nearly as advanced, presumably, but a frigate still).

Also Cerberus is more in the information business than anything else, and funding a small stealth warship to carry a special operations team with unique experience with the threat to do recon isn't that out of place. The dialogue can get a bit over-dramatic in game, but overall, it's not too unreasonable.

[Aaron]

I never realized it before but if you save the station and Normandy is the only ship that can go through, I guess that means Shepard and Co. just became a very expensive ferry for the science teams.

[Vendetta]

Yes, which consists of parking some ships around it. Nobody cares about the O4 relay, so why would they care about that? How would they know it's a military blockade with the intent of destroying the collectors the second they came through? Even if they did, Aria / mercs can no doubt be bought off, especially since they have nothing to gain from attacking the Cerberus vessels anyway and they aren't interfering with their business in any way.

The Batarians might not care about the relay, they would care about a fleet in their space. They do have a sizable military force including at least one known dreadnought. Nothing Cerberus could muster would stand up to them, even if they do prefer piracy to open space combat, and it would likely cause a war between Batarians and the Alliance (the two are essentially in a cold war already).

[adam_grif]

You don't know that, and you're pulling shit out of your ass re: 'every active relay has been mapped'. It's said in the codex that a pitiful percentage of the galaxy has been surveyed, and it's Council policy to not open inactive relays because the last time someone did that, there was a war, and the second last time someone did that, there was an even bigger war.

Pay attention. Active relays have been mapped. The ones that are open and running. Dormant relays are not, hence my post. From their perspective the only possible routes are the O4 relay or some other currently dormant relay.

But either way it doesn't matter, since the O4 relay is the only route they've taken, and setting up an Ambush at it is the most logical thing to do.

So thanks for explaining how sitting on your ass while Collectors run around kidnapping hundreds of thousands of humans beings is a winning strategy.

As opposed to sitting on your ass for 2 years while you wait for a science team to glue bits of meat and tubes back together and invent new sciences just to bring back one random soldier for no well defined reason? At least this ambush/blockade makes sense and is based on actual intel that people have.

Its in their territory, ergo you run the risk of people getting territorial. How many people can you buy off before it becomes prohibitively expensive? And once again, how is blockading the relay a sure-fire strategy for stopping the Collectors, when they don't know if it's the absolute ONLY way into or out of their territory?

PS The Collectors have done business in the Terminus systems in the past. They can also buy off Mercs to hit your blockade, now you're fighting a war on two fronts.

Even if you had to buy off infinite people, the plan would still make more sense on paper than the Resurrecting Shepard Roulette, a directionless plan based on vague utterances of Shepard being our only hope. For some reason.

So you counter my point that the Terminus systems have access to military hardware and mercs have sizeable forces that gave the Citadel Council pause in the first game, by claiming they only attack unprotected worlds and Elysium was a 'special case', which is total rubbish because even as recent as two years ago canonically, the Council would not send a fleet into the Traverse for fear of starting a war with the Terminus systems. They're fractured now, but when an outside force encroaches into their territory, it's expected they'll band together.

No dumbass, the Terminus systems have governments which have navies which participated in the military action on Ellyssium, and you're talking about Aria and Mercenary bands getting annoyed that a couple of small ships are moving in on their gang turf. You have to explain why a coordinated, well funded military tack on a target of high significance is going to muster the same level of military support from Terminus governments as some random ships sitting around a relay that doesn't do anything a considerable distance away from anything valuable. What you're saying is that moving in on some street gangs territory is impossible because the combined NATO militaries will come down on you if you do. Even though Omega 4 doesn't belong to anybody, nobody gives a shit about it, and the Mercenaries down "own turf", and they all hate Aria who only owns some random space station and doesn't own the solar system.

And you're apparently convinced that buying them off with the 4 billion credits they would have spent on Commander Dumbass McPlotContrivance isn't going to be enough to placate them. Do you think 1 million credits per month would be enough considering the O4 relay is literally of zero value to anybody? That's enough to keep them at bay for over 300 years. 2 million a month for the valueless target? >150 years. 20 million per month? 15 years. They can call it parking fees.

The council not sending a fleet into the Traverse is because they're afraid a war will break out with the governments, not the fucking mercenary bands. There are no settled planets in the Omega system, the space station is the best you've got. And it's run by a profit motivated crime boss. Cerberus is not the Alliance or any Citadel backed anything, can buy them off with exorbitant sums for something that is of no value to them, and ~5 frigates or some stationary cruiser guns isn't on the same level as the combined Citadel fleet securing a garden world in the middle of contested systems.

You've got the intel you dumbass. You've got the IFF. You've got the means to take the fight to the Collectors. No back up is forthcoming. No other ships are available. No one is going to help you. It quite literally is you and the SR2 AND THAT IS IT. And you were tasked with taking out the Collectors from the beginning, not sitting with your thumb up your ass waiting for the Collectors to come to you and hoping they don't fucking curbstomp your pathetic static defences (gee, look at how well that turned out for the Citadel fleet at the end of ME1). You don't win wars by fucking blockading one place. You win wars by going to the home of the enemy and kicking their fucking heads in, and you have the benefit of hitting them right back immediately - something which the Collectors arrogantly wouldn't be expecting (as evidenced by the fact the Collector ship was docked to the base and not out waiting for you with guns charged).

Right, and how does any of this change how fucking moronic and suicidal a direct charge with no intel into what they think is a planet full of fucking collectors with a fleet of super-ships capable of seeing through their only advantage (the stealth systems)? What were they going to do about it? What were they going to do if what they thought was on the other side actually was?

It's a "suicide mission" yes, but you don't go on a suicide mission unless you have a good chance of succeeding with your objectives before you get blown away. And as far as they can tell, they're up against an entire species. Why the fuck did any of this happen other than "because the plot told them to do it"?

You're being inconsistent AND obtuse. First Normandy is worth a heavy cruiser (which is really the words out of one disgruntled asshole Admiral from ME1 who had a chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind), now its worth a dreadnought? When a dreadnought is worth dozens of cruisers, and carry thousands of crew? (and in the entire Alliance has only half a dozen of the fucking things) Make up your fucking mind.

Did you fucking read my post? The most expensive ship except for dreadnoughts? Heavy cruiser is the class that comes before Dreadnought frames (i.e. Dreadnoughts + Carriers use the same chassis and cost similar amounts), and the SR1 cost as much as it. The SR2 is twice the length of the SR1, needing a mass effect core (the most expensive component) more than twice as large to compensate.

Ergo, it is the most expensive ship except for Dreadnoughts, which is what I said before. Learn to read.

And do those 5 regular frigates have the stealth capability to have performed the intel-gathering work needed prior to the final battle?

And what intel gathering requiring stealth would that be? The derelict reaper in a totally unoccupied system? Colonies in human-controlled space? The only mission in the whole game that required stealth is Legion's loyalty mission. Was Cerberus supposed to know about Legion and the geth ahead of time?

Its said in dialogue that it has 'insane drive performance' compared next to any other ship in the Alliance fleet. SR2 is basically an upgraded version of SR1, it stands to reason it would have an equivalent ability to manouevre to the SR1 which we saw in ME1 having far greater turn speeds to anything else in the Alliance or Citadel fleet. You hilariously neglect the cutscenes that show SR2 navigate the debris field - something which few other pilots and ships would have been able to match, and bigger ships would certainly never be able to - they would have just run into the debris and if not be utterly destroyed on impact, severely fucked up and easy pickings for the Collector defences.

SR1 is still <half the price and half the crew so they could have had two of those instead. SR2 is an unusually large frigate, the debris it ran into on the other half of the relay would have scooted straight past them if they weren't so huge, + the collector ship apparently doesn't get killed every time it makes the jump back into their base, so it mustn't always drop you in front of large debris patches.

Oh, and the "debris field" is something they went into to avoid the occulus. It wasn't something they had to do.

PS You're completely forgetting the Occulus robot defences too.

You mean those fighter craft that would have been wasted if they'd activated the point defense instead of pulling a millennium falcon, shooting their mass accelerator main guns at it and getting into an oldschool, clearly atmospheric dogfight? Fuck, even without the PD that they DO have, they could have just swung around on the fucking spot and blasted them.

In order to once again extricate your head from out of its ass, Cerberus isn't a fucking space navy - 5 frigates needs 5 crews for those frigates. It needs 5 times the logistical support 1 frigate would need because there are 5 more of them.

EDIT - and i forgot to mention, so they can build one ship - the SR2 - that doesn't mean they can build more ships at that dock, or build five ships in the time it would take to build one stealth ship. Five more ships means five times more crew you have to recruit, five times the production capacity, five times the resources to build them versus the resources to build one ship. The SR2 has innovations over the SR1, is twice the size, but its still incomplete - that's the whole point of the upgrades to it. Cerberus doesn't have limitless resources.

5x crew figure is bullshit since the SR2 has a far larger crew than the SR1 did. It'd be more like 2-3x the crew for 5 frigates. They also have EDI, which if they weren't a bunch of bigots they would have let take over most of the mundane ship duties to begin with. You need what, a gunnery officer and a pilot then? Some engineering staff just in case?

Logistics isn't a concern here, it consists of them going to the public fueling depos and dropping a tiny sum of credits (seriously, it's dirt fucking cheap, like a few thousand credits to totally refuel the SR2).

The ship building is a question, it's up in the air. You might be right but we have no data about what Cerberus' ship building capabilities are, other than that they own a major aerospace corporation (which they used to build the SR2). The "cerberus logo" is actually that company's logo, which is presumably why you don't just get arrested on sight at the citadel.

Even if we accept that the SR2 was the right ship for the right job, there's no way that Cerberus could know any of that shit, and it still doesn't explain the fucking shameless Shepard Is Our Only Hope wankery or why he needed to be resurrected for an exorbitant sum. Or why they didn't just set the SR2 and it's stealth systems for the aforementioned blockade around the O4 relay instead of embarking on a moronically suicidal attack that given the intel they had access to, should have had a 0% chance of succeeding.

and it would likely cause a war between Batarians and the Alliance (the two are essentially in a cold war already).

Right, but direct government funding and military support for raids on human colonies isn't enough to trigger a war. Elyssium was actively participated in by the Batarian governments, and we all know how that turned out.

I never realized it before but if you save the station and Normandy is the only ship that can go through, I guess that means Shepard and Co. just became a very expensive ferry for the science teams.

It also means that the "save the base for Cerberus" vs "destroy the base" choice is artificial as fuck since you could send whoever you want through, i.e. Alliance, Citadel races etc.

the eezo required for SR1's smaller drive core was 120 billion credits.

You can multiply that figure by at least 2 since the SR2 was twice the length, and the drive core must have been at least twice the size to compensate. If you look at the drive core on SR1 vs SR2, it's probably more like 4 - 5x larger. Presumably because of the inverse square law and crap.

And also, Cerberus is fucking broke in the wake of Sheppard+Normandy. They're a small organization, if you do your research on them, and we've seen no sign that they have a navy tucked away.

Yes, we're discussing what they should have done instead of Shepard+Normandy. The Sperady "plan" (even though there was no plan and they all just made shit up as they went along) succeeding is the ultimate example of authorial fiat in the series so far. No sane person would have acted the way Cerberus did in the situation, and nobody would have acted the way that Shepard would have.

[open_sketchbook]

Just going to point out real quick that Shepard is the most famous person in the goddamn galaxy at the moment, so even just having him as a figurehead means that you can get pretty much anyone onboard with the project. Shepard isn't just Shepard, he's the ultimate PR symbol and he's your ticket to getting around the poor reputation that Cerberus has. He's the reason people like Mordin signed on. I'd say that'd be worth the comparibly small investment.

Not to mention how insanely valuable politically it is to have a Spectre in Cerberus...

[Havok]

Which they actually say in the game, but hey, why pay attention to the story?

[General Zod]

Not to mention how insanely valuable politically it is to have a Spectre in Cerberus...

I dunno. The Council dropped Shepard like a hot potato the moment they found out he was with Cerberus.

[Havok]

No they didn't. They thought he was dead when they learned he was with Cerberus, then they gave him the opportunity to explain, and they reinstated him.

In fact, he got more support than Saren. All the Council had on him was a recording about him being with the Geth. Shepard straight up admits he is with Cerberus and they still let him keep Specter status.

[General Zod]

No they didn't. They thought he was dead when they learned he was with Cerberus, then they gave him the opportunity to explain, and they reinstated him.

I don't remember any scenes with Shepard being reinstated other than the security chief changing his status from "not dead".

[Havok]

You have to go talk to Anderson and the rest of the Council, and I'm pretty sure they have to actually be alive.

[adam_grif]

Nothing changes when you're a spectre, so it's sort of a moot point. The only thing different is you say "... I'm a spectre" instead of "... I'm a former spectre" in the interrogation scene.

[Havok]

Yeah and? You are still a Specter, so Zod's assertion is still incorrect.

[General Zod]

Yeah and? You are still a Specter, so Zod's assertion is still incorrect.

Not at all. It just means I didn't import a ME1 save file.

[adam_grif]

Yeah and? You are still a Specter, so Zod's assertion is still incorrect.

Technically incorrect, but it's a blow against the thing he was replying to, which is "spectres are politically invaluable". Nothing changes either way. Getting reinstated is completely optional, too.

[Stofsk]

Pay attention. Active relays have been mapped. The ones that are open and running. Dormant relays are not, hence my post. From their perspective the only possible routes are the O4 relay or some other currently dormant relay.

They couldn't possibly know for sure that the Collectors don't have any other way out of their base of operations, or that the O4 relay is the only relay that they use.

So thanks for explaining how sitting on your ass while Collectors run around kidnapping hundreds of thousands of humans beings is a winning strategy.

As opposed to sitting on your ass for 2 years while you wait for a science team to glue bits of meat and tubes back together and invent new sciences just to bring back one random soldier for no well defined reason? At least this ambush/blockade makes sense and is based on actual intel that people have.

Irrelevant and pointless complaint. Ambushing the Collector ship as it comes through the O4 relay would likely work, but you have no way of knowing how many Collector ships there are, and blockading doesn't solve the problem of taking out the base. And your crew has been abducted, which to you is totally cool because none of them are worth saving.

Even if you had to buy off infinite people, the plan would still make more sense on paper than the Resurrecting Shepard Roulette, a directionless plan based on vague utterances of Shepard being our only hope. For some reason.

Except he has knowledge about the reapers and the protheans which is more than what any other 'random' soldier has. Just because you don't pay attention to the story doesn't mean the rest of us don't.

No dumbass, the Terminus systems have governments which have navies which participated in the military action on Ellyssium, and you're talking about Aria and Mercenary bands getting annoyed that a couple of small ships are moving in on their gang turf. You have to explain why a coordinated, well funded military tack on a target of high significance is going to muster the same level of military support from Terminus governments as some random ships sitting around a relay that doesn't do anything a considerable distance away from anything valuable. What you're saying is that moving in on some street gangs territory is impossible because the combined NATO militaries will come down on you if you do. Even though Omega 4 doesn't belong to anybody, nobody gives a shit about it, and the Mercenaries down "own turf", and they all hate Aria who only owns some random space station and doesn't own the solar system.

You're just repeating yourself. The point is Cerberus doesn't have the capability to mount a blockade nor does it have the clout with the Terminus systems to do it without provoking someone. The point which escaped your miniscule brain is that it doesn't matter who gets pissed off, someone will get pissed off. There's a fucking N7 mission where a bunch of mercs from the Terminus system kidnapped and tortured a Cerberus agent for fuck's sake - they don't have friendly relations with Cerberus.

And you're apparently convinced that buying them off with the 4 billion credits they would have spent on Commander Dumbass McPlotContrivance isn't going to be enough to placate them. Do you think 1 million credits per month would be enough considering the O4 relay is literally of zero value to anybody? That's enough to keep them at bay for over 300 years. 2 million a month for the valueless target? >150 years. 20 million per month? 15 years. They can call it parking fees.

'lol blockading is cheap and effective! That's why it always works in real life.'

The council not sending a fleet into the Traverse is because they're afraid a war will break out with the governments, not the fucking mercenary bands. blah blah blah

And the governments employ those mercenary bands dumbass. The attack on Elysium was part pirates, part slavers, and part mercs. You keep saying the relay has no value to anyone in the Terminus systems, except I fucking proved how people in the Terminus systems have done business with the fucking Collectors - a point you've totally ignored. Fuck off.

Right, and how does any of this change how fucking moronic and suicidal a direct charge with no intel

You really a brainless shithead. How do you propose to find out what's on the other side without actually GEE I DON'T KNOW fucking going to the other side and having a look-see? Idiot.

What were they going to do if what they thought was on the other side actually was?

If it was too much to fucking handle, they can turn around and then rework the plan. Apparently you can't withdraw and regroup in your bizarre military strategy, you can only sit on your ass and expect the enemy to do everything you plan for them to do.

It's a "suicide mission" yes, but you don't go on a suicide mission unless you have a good chance of succeeding with your objectives before you get blown away. And as far as they can tell, they're up against an entire species. Why the fuck did any of this happen other than "because the plot told them to do it"?

They don't know what they're up against - until they go through the fucking relay to recon the place.

Did you fucking read my post? The most expensive ship except for dreadnoughts? Heavy cruiser is the class that comes before Dreadnought frames (i.e. Dreadnoughts + Carriers use the same chassis and cost similar amounts), and the SR1 cost as much as it. The SR2 is twice the length of the SR1, needing a mass effect core (the most expensive component) more than twice as large to compensate.

Ergo, it is the most expensive ship except for Dreadnoughts, which is what I said before. Learn to read.

I did, now learn to read what I wrote moron. Admiral Mikhaelovich claimed that the SR1 was worth a single heavy cruiser. A heavy cruiser dwarfs the SR1, I find it extremely hard to believe they have equivalent costs - except for the fact that the SR1 was prototyping new technologies and was an R&D experiment - THAT was the true cost of the SR1.

But please, if you have any actual proof, go ahead and post it.

And what intel gathering requiring stealth would that be? The derelict reaper in a totally unoccupied system? Colonies in human-controlled space? The only mission in the whole game that required stealth is Legion's loyalty mission. Was Cerberus supposed to know about Legion and the geth ahead of time?

Oh Ok - so coming to the defence of Horizon while it was being attacked by the Collectors didn't require stealth did it? The Collectors didn't detect the SR2 so I guess that stealth drive they had was totally unnecessary lol

SR1 is still <half the price and half the crew so they could have had two of those instead. SR2 is an unusually large frigate, the debris it ran into on the other half of the relay would have scooted straight past them if they weren't so huge, + the collector ship apparently doesn't get killed every time it makes the jump back into their base, so it mustn't always drop you in front of large debris patches.

The SR2 is also more heavily armoured and armed than the SR1 you idiot. And yes, the Collector ship doesn't get killed when it enters and exits the relay - GEE MAYBE THEY KNOW WHERE THE FUCKING DEBRIS FIELD IS. So they can avoid it.

Oh, and the "debris field" is something they went into to avoid the occulus. It wasn't something they had to do.

No you fucking idiot, the debris field was right in fucking front of them and Joker had to make evasive maneuvres immediately. You're totally and completely full of shit.

5x crew figure is bullshit

No it's not bullshit, it's a simple extrapolation and your only counter is to completely ignore it. If you think 5 regular frigates which is what you originally claimed could do the job better, you need 5x the crew. Simple. And you claim SR2 is somehow a giant frigate with a larger than ordinary crew - prove it.

Logistics isn't a concern here, it consists of them going to the public fueling depos and dropping a tiny sum of credits (seriously, it's dirt fucking cheap, like a few thousand credits to totally refuel the SR2).

And yet, 5x the ships means 5x the logistical concerns. And logistics doesn't just mean fuel for fuck's sake.

Even if we accept that the SR2 was the right ship for the right job, there's no way that Cerberus could know any of that shit, and it still doesn't explain the fucking shameless Shepard Is Our Only Hope wankery or why he needed to be resurrected for an exorbitant sum. Or why they didn't just set the SR2 and it's stealth systems for the aforementioned blockade around the O4 relay instead of embarking on a moronically suicidal attack that given the intel they had access to, should have had a 0% chance of succeeding.

The SR2 was the right ship for the job, but Cerberus doesn't need to know that in advance. You haven't proved how Cerberus could have succeeded were it to send 5 regular frigates instead.

And they had no other option but to embark on that 'moronic suicidal' attack. They have no other ships, no other allies, and no back up coming from ANYONE. Meaning it's do or die for the crew and the mission. You completely ignored this point.

[PeZook]

As much as the mercs hate each other, they hate the Council races more - and Cerberus isn't part of the Terminus culture.

Dude, you don't actually need to hire the established mercenary groups. You just replicate what Shepard did with, well...anybody else. There's trillions of people in the galaxy, surely it can't be very hard to fine some ex-soldier capable of doing that?

Shepard's mission was never solely intel - he was tasked by TIM to stop the Collectors right at the beginning.

TIM never said Shepard would have to physically go and personally shoot every Collector in the head. If it turned out it could've been done by engineering a bioweapon and unleashing it, Cerberus would've done just that: "stopping the Collectors" involved, by definition, gathering intelligence on them. It was just expected the team doing that would eventually be shot at.

How's that mercenary army going to attack the collector base for fuck's sake? Magically wish themselves there?

Use a starship, obviously. I have a problem with Shep being resurrected, not necessarily the SR2 being constructed.

Yeah, and watch Kelly and most of your crew get dissolved.

Well, I just finished the game and White Heaven is right: the IFF isn't just a code, it's a specific piece of Reaper tech, which makes the point moot, since only one ship could've gone through anyway.

The crew of the SR2 aren't the tech geniuses BUT the expendable people you send in first.

Mordin is suddendly expendable now? Shepard is expendable? What about Miranda?

Shepard was brought back because he's fought the Reapers before and won. TIM had reason to suspect Reaper involvement in the Collector attacks. Ergo, he sought to bring back Shepard. That the Collectors were also after Shepard suggests there might be more to this that we don't know about yet - Shepard does have the Proethean cipher, he talked to Vigil, he's probably the only guy in the galaxy best suited to fight the Reapers. Bringing him back is a sounder investment in those terms.

Okay, so he fought "The Reapers" (P.S. He didn't, the council fleets fought Sov, Shepard fought through a bunch of Geth and then killed Saren twice) and has the cipher (he's not the only one, he got it from that Asari chick. Liara should also have it, or parts of it, since she helped Shep interpret Prothean vision). How does this translate into him being worth billions of credits? Patton fought the Nazis, does it mean the US should spend billions on resurrecting him if the III Reich rises again?

Shepard is tought, strong and resourceful, but the galaxy is inhabitated by trillions of people and uncounted billions of soldiers. How hard would it be to find and recruit someone else and give him orders of magnitude more resources to use with the cash spent on Lazarus?

And those YMIR mechs wouldn't have done much - they aren't mobile enough to help especially given the layout of the Collector base. Some extra forces would have certainly helped of course.

Huh? The only place the YMIRs won't be able to go are platform at the end, but other than that, they'd be fucking invaluable. Not to mention the Collectors boarding the Normandy would be utterly massacred.

So I spend 4 billion dollars bringing a guy back from the dead so I can task him with taking on the Collectors... then I don't send him in to take on the Collectors? Am I getting that right? What's the point in spending all that money on a ship and a guy if you're too cautious to use them? War is risk.

War is calculated risk. From what Cerberus knew, they'd lose Shepard, the SR2 and everybody onboard for no gain whatsoever.Of course, Shep being Shep, he'd have probably gone through regardless, but this doesn't mean it wasn't stupid to do so. The very fact they didn't get splattered all over the debris in the first ten seconds was pure luck.

Just going to point out real quick that Shepard is the most famous person in the goddamn galaxy at the moment, so even just having him as a figurehead means that you can get pretty much anyone onboard with the project. Shepard isn't just Shepard, he's the ultimate PR symbol and he's your ticket to getting around the poor reputation that Cerberus has. He's the reason people like Mordin signed on. I'd say that'd be worth the comparibly small investment.

Not to mention how insanely valuable politically it is to have a Spectre in Cerberus...

When, exactly, did Cerberus actually use Shepard to get "pretty much anyone" on board? When was he used as a PR weapon? The council doesn't give a fuck about what he's doing, the only people who joined up because of who he was were Garrus and Tali, and they're not invaluable. Mordin is, but he joined because he was asked nicely and because Shep helped him which, again, anybody could've done. On the other hand, 4 billion can get you an awful lot of resources Shep had to make do without, not to mention you don't have to spend countless man-hours of your small organization supporting Lazarus. Miranda could've done a lot to build a strong team in the time she spent trying to resurrect Shepard, for example.

Which they actually say in the game, but hey, why pay attention to the story?

No, they say he/she is a symbol and "they" will follow him. Except in the game nobody gives a fuck about Shepard when he's actually been resurrected and is running around, and if all you need is a symbol, you can make a new one out of somebody with that kind of money. It's all bullshit anyway, what they actually needed was somebody to break bones and blow people up, seeing the kind of missions they sent Shep on.