"Mass Effect" - Universe [4] - The Milky Way Again Quiz

Answer: Feros

Feros played host to a colony called Zhu's Hope, which was placed on top of a living entity known as the Thorian. The Thorian was many thousands of years old, and had been alive during the time of the Protheans. In order to understand the contents of the Prothean beacon, Saren needed the Cipher - the essence of being a Prothean.

The Thorian used its spores to, over time, take control of other organics. It would reward compliance, and inflict migraines when it met resistance. The longer an organism was exposed to the spores, the more intense the punishment would get, ensuring complete control.

Due to the way the Thorian interacted with other organic species, it had the Cipher. Saren struck a deal with the Thorian to gain the Cipher. Saren then sent his geth troops to kill the Thorian to prevent anyone else (i.e. Commander Shepard) from acquiring it.

Answer: Virmire

The Special Tasks Group, or STG, was the pride of the salarian military. The salarians were physically weaker than other species, and used this perception of them to their advantage. Instead of boasting large militaries like the turians or humans, they instead relied on stealth and information gathering to fight their battles. For the moments when action was required, they called upon the STG.

The STG generally worked in small teams to perform surgical strikes, and specialized in stealth missions.

Answer: Noveria

Noveria had a very cold environment, and seemed to experience a constant blizzard. Corporations used Noveria's lack of regulations to carry out questionable research, or research with questionable methods. Noveria had a number of labs located away from its main hubs that companies could rent.

In the event that a catastrophe did happen, such as the outbreak of a fast-acting lethal virus, most labs would purge the experiment. They could do this by dropping the lab into the glacier where it would freeze over and kill everything inside, or they could use neutron purges to sterilize everything within a certain radius.

Answer: Ilos

The Condiuit was located on Ilos. Ilos was a long-lost Prothean world only accessible through the Mu relay. It was where a secret team of scientists worked to create a countermeasure to the Reaper threat after the galactic Prothean extinction event. On Ilos, they created the Conduit - a small, one-way mass relay that linked to the Citadel. The Citadel was the key to the Reaper invasion of the galaxy. The Citadel was actually a very large mass relay that let the Reapers enter the galaxy from dark space. It was also the central hub of the mass relay network, and from the Citadel they could quickly spread across the entire galaxy.

While most species attributed the mass relay network to the Protheans, the truth was that the Reapers made the relay network, and that the Protheans just used it the way every other spacefaring species did. The Conduit was the only mass relay known to not have been created by the Reapers.

Answer: Eden Prime and Noveria

Eden Prime had a tram system that brought Shepard, Ashley, and Kaidan from the docks to the spaceport. At the spaceport they had to disarm the bombs that the geth had set, and find the damaged Prothean beacon.

On Noveria at the Peak 15 research facility, a tram took Shepard and company from Central Station to Rift Station, where Matriarch Benezia was found.

Answer: Feros

Feros was a former Prothean metropolis with very tall skyscrapers. ExoGeni set up a headquarters in one of the buildings and funded the colony Zhu's Hope in another nearby building in order to further research the ruins. They purposely set up Zhu's Hope above the Thorian to study the effects of the Thorian's spores on the colonists. The geth attacked and occupied the ExoGeni headquarters during their assault on Feros.

After the Thorian had been dealt with, ExoGeni abandoned Feros unless Commander Shepard used Charm or Intimidate dialogue options to convince them to stay and help rebuild the colony.

Answer: Noveria

Saren was a major shareholder of Binary Helix, which had rented labs on Noveria. Matriarch Benezia went to Noveria to use the company's labs to breed Rachni. A Rachni queen egg had been found. Rachni were able to pass memories between generations, and so the Rachni that hatched had knowledge of the Mu Relay's location. The Mu relay was once in Rachni territory, but drifted of course. After the Rachni war, no one knew how to find it again. The Mu relay was a relay that allowed travel to Ilos, where the Conduit was located. Benezia used her ability to meld minds to rip the information from the new Rachni queen, and gave it to Saren.

She also attempted to breed the Rachni to create another army for Saren, but the Rachni, raised away from their queen, proved to be untamable, and instead destroyed much of the facility.

Answer: Virmire

Using limited resources, Shepard and the STG on Virmire decided to destroy Saren's base to prevent him from gaining an army of loyal krogan. They infiltrated the base, secured a landing area, and planted a nuclear device in the middle of the breeding grounds.

The largest problem came when the team had to defend both the bomb and disable the anti-air towers that would otherwise shoot down the Normandy during takeoff. This led to Commander Shepard only being able to save either Kaidan Alenko or Ashley Williams.

Answer: The Citadel

Saren, after using the Conduit, ended up on the Citadel. There he stormed the Citadel Tower to take control of the Citadel's relay functions which would let the Reapers start their invasion. When Shepard finally caught up with Saren, a quick conversation took place. If Shepard used Charm or Intimidate dialogue options, Saren committed suicide. If not, then an easy fight ensued, with Saren falling into the small garden below the council chambers.

Down in the garden, Saren's corpse became possessed by Sovereign, removing the remaining organic parts of the turian, and leaving only the implants and modifications. This form moved like a Geth Hopper, but was much more resistant to damage, and could be very deadly to stationary targets (you should move around a lot when fighting it). When Shepard brought its health down to about half, a cutscene played. After the cutscene, Shepard had to fight it again from virtualy the beginning of the fight, but once it died, the game was over, and the final conversations played, followed by the credits (set to M4 by Faunts).

Answer: Eden Prime

All explorable planets and most main planets had vehicle sections. The exceptions were the Citadel, Eden Prime, and any spacecraft that Shepard boarded.

Noveria had a Mako section along the Aleutsk Valley, which connected Port Hanshan and the Peak 15 research facility. It was lined with geth troops, geth turrets, and one geth armature.

Feros had a Mako section connecting Zhus's Hope to the ExoGeni headquarters, with a weigh station in the middle housing the surviving ExoGeni staff. Shepard had to cross the Prothean Skyway twice. It was usually defended by small troops, Juggernauts, and Armatures.

Virmire started with a Mako section leading to the STG camp. The route took Shepard through a series of gatehouses defended by a large variety of geth.