Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME1 Ep 7 – Bring Down the Sky

Episode seven brought a rather urgent problem: asteroid X57 heading for Terra Nova, with Batarians determined to make sure it arrived. I had Tali and Wrex along, a terrain map on my second screen, and a plan to explore without doubling back all evening.

Saving four million people didn’t stop us talking about Minecraft builds, controller problems and the Mako’s handling. Serious decisions and the usual conversations made for quite a mix.

🌌 About the Game

Mass Effect Legendary Edition combines the remastered single-player campaigns of Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, plus over 40 DLC packs and extras, optimised for 4K Ultra HD.

We’re playing the first game as Commander Shepard, navigating alien worlds and difficult decisions. Bring Down the Sky shows how stopping a disaster can be only part of the problem.

🗺️ Where We Are in the Journey

By episode seven, I was working through optional planetary content rather than rushing ahead. Maps and a tracking spreadsheet helped me clear locations and remember which systems we’d covered.

Our main stop was X57, where three hijacked fusion torches were pushing the asteroid towards Terra Nova. Afterwards, we’d explore Eletania in the Hercules system, continuing through the first game before moving on to the sequels.

☄️ What Happens in This Episode

We started by heading to asteroid X57 for the Bring Down the Sky mission, with Tali and Wrex joining Shepard. Three fusion torches had been hijacked by Batarian extremists and were accelerating the asteroid towards Terra Nova. The immediate job was to shut them all down before the asteroid could hit the planet. I also had a terrain map open on my second screen, which was useful for planning our route and finding everything without constantly travelling back and forth.

The first encounters involved hostile turrets and Batarian soldiers, and my shields disappeared rather quickly during one fight. An enemy also managed to overload my weapon, forcing me to change tactics. I remembered having much more powerful equipment during previous playthroughs, but we managed well enough. There were plenty of containers to loot along the way, and after dealing with the first fusion torch, we heard from engineer Kate Bowman, who was hiding from the Batarians and trying to help us stop the asteroid.

We also met chief engineer Simon Atwell, who nearly shot Shepard before realising we were there to help. Simon explained just how serious the situation was. X57 was twenty-two kilometres long, and an impact would devastate Terra Nova, where four million people lived, including his children and grandchildren. He was understandably worried about his missing engineering crew and asked us to find them. He also warned us about blasting caps surrounding one of the fusion torches, so driving straight towards everything in the Mako wasn’t going to work this time.

Getting around X57 was another opportunity to test the Mako’s handling. The boost was useful, and I appreciated the improvements in Legendary Edition, but some of those hills were still awkward to navigate. Having the terrain map available helped considerably, particularly when looking for equipment stations, relay points and other locations worth investigating. We did some exploring and collecting between the main objectives, although there were a few moments when the terrain made getting from one place to another more difficult than expected.

The minefield was particularly interesting because we had to leave the Mako behind and approach on foot. The blasting caps were triggered by proximity, so I carefully worked my way between them until we could deactivate the explosives. There were more turrets, drones and Batarian defenders to deal with, and I also picked up the Electrical Specialist achievement during the fighting.

As usual, we had plenty of other conversations happening while all of this was going on. Chrissy and Royalty were talking about Minecraft, including plans for a fairy-style build, collecting oak, growing mushrooms and preparing for the changes coming with version 1.17. I offered some resources from our existing storage and farms, and we discussed using deepslate, moss and shroomlights in future builds. I also talked about a recent Minecraft flight through a narrow passage that hadn’t gone particularly well. I ended up crashing and having to return with spare armour to recover everything. There was quite a bit of Minecraft planning happening alongside our efforts to save Terra Nova.

Back on X57, the search for Simon’s missing engineers wasn’t going particularly well. We found a recording from one of them, revealing what had happened when the Batarians attacked, and eventually discovered that the missing crew hadn’t survived. Kate’s situation was becoming more dangerous too, with Balak threatening the hostages and preparing explosives inside the main facility. Once the final fusion torch was disabled, we could concentrate on dealing with the remaining Batarians and confronting whoever was responsible. I saved before heading further inside, partly because I remembered there being an important decision coming up.

Before reaching Balak, we encountered one of his lieutenants, who wasn’t particularly happy with how the operation had developed. Apparently, the original plan had involved capturing people for a slave raid, rather than crashing an asteroid into a populated planet. I managed to persuade him that continuing to follow Balak wasn’t worth it, and he agreed to leave with his people. That saved us another fight, although we still had drones and other defenders to deal with inside the facility.

During those encounters, I was also trying to get some melee attacks in for an achievement. That wasn’t always straightforward, particularly when the enemies were moving around and Tali occasionally got in the way. At one point I was mostly trying to get her to move so I could actually hit somebody. We also had more problems with weapons being overloaded, but eventually cleared the remaining opposition and made our way towards Balak.

The confrontation with Balak was the biggest decision of the episode. He blamed humanity for the problems facing the Batarians and believed his actions were justified. When it became clear that Shepard had stopped the asteroid, he threatened to kill Kate and the other hostages unless we allowed him to escape.

I chose to save the hostages rather than pursue Balak. Letting him get away wasn’t ideal, but I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice innocent people just to capture him. There might be another opportunity to deal with Balak later, whereas the hostages wouldn’t get another chance if we made the wrong decision.

Of course, Balak hadn’t finished causing problems. He left explosives behind, and we had to deactivate them before they killed everyone. There were still enemies interfering, and one of the charges was tucked away on a lower level, which made finding everything a little more awkward. We managed to disarm all the explosives in time, saving Kate and the other hostages and finally bringing the immediate crisis on X57 to an end.

Afterwards, we spoke with Simon again. He was grateful that we’d saved Terra Nova and his family, and he offered us a choice of equipment as a reward. I went with the omni-tool. Unfortunately, we also had to tell him that his missing engineers were dead, which was a difficult conversation after everything that had happened. Kate was also dealing with the death of her brother Aaron, who had encouraged her to work on the asteroid project in the first place. It was a rather sad ending for some of the characters, even though we’d successfully stopped the disaster.

With Bring Down the Sky completed, we returned to the Normandy and continued our exploration of the galaxy. Our next destination was Eletania in the Hercules system, part of the Attican Beta cluster. One of the more interesting discoveries there was a mysterious Prothean sphere. We were able to activate it using the trinket we’d previously received from the asari consort on the Citadel.

The sphere revealed a strange vision connected to the ancient history of the galaxy. That got us talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation, particularly the episode where Captain Picard experiences an entire lifetime through an alien probe. Babylon 5 also came up during the conversation. I always enjoy those connections between different science-fiction stories, especially when Mass Effect introduces something mysterious like this.

Eletania also had a rather different problem involving the local monkey-like creatures. One of them had taken a missing data module, so we had to search around the various locations to recover it. I was being careful not to run the creatures over with the Mako while checking the area. We explored their settlements, visited a familiar-looking mine and eventually recovered the module. Along the way, we also surveyed mineral deposits, collected more equipment and cleared the remaining points of interest from the map.

There were plenty of conversations with chat during this part of the stream as well. We talked about pet birds, Turkish delight, family heights and home decorating, along with a problem involving a racing-game controller. The controller had shortened trigger travel, which made acceleration awkward because the game wasn’t receiving the full input. We also discussed Mass Effect’s limit of forty save slots. I’d certainly prefer to have considerably more available, especially in a game where I like keeping saves from different stages of the playthrough.

By the time we returned to the Normandy, I checked the tracking spreadsheet to see how much progress we’d made. We’d completed fourteen of the forty-one star systems, including the story missions counted in that total. There was still plenty of exploring ahead, with Gemini Sigma and Hades Gamma among the regions I was considering for our next Mass Effect session.

We finished with a bit of conversation about the upcoming streaming schedule, including Counter-Strike, The Crew and other games. I also looked for somebody to raid, with Chrissy suggesting a destination before we signed off.

Overall, it was a productive episode. We’d completed Bring Down the Sky, saved Terra Nova and the hostages, explored Eletania, uncovered another interesting piece of Prothean history and recovered the missing data module from the local wildlife. Balak was still out there, but we’d made the decision to save the people we could, and there were plenty more systems waiting for us when we returned.

▶️ Watch the Episode

Watch the full crisis and Eletania detour in ME1 Episode 7.

Catch previous episodes in the series playlist or visit my YouTube channel. Likes, comments and subscriptions are appreciated.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

There are more systems to explore and probably more awkward Mako climbs ahead. Come along live on Twitch or YouTube. Whether you’re following Shepard’s choices or talking Minecraft with us, you’re welcome.

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🐒 A Saved Colony and a Missing Data Module

Terra Nova and the hostages are safe, though Balak escaped. We’ve found the data module and made more progress across the galaxy. Gemini Sigma and Hades Gamma are possibilities for next time. Thanks for joining me through all the detours, including the Minecraft plans.

— Dr Ravenholm