Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME1 Ep 10 – Planetary Exploration – Pt 5

We’re back with another bonus session of Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and the plan was to clear as much unfinished planetary exploration as possible before returning to the main storyline.

I had my spreadsheet ready, with roughly ten destinations to investigate. Of course, things didn’t quite go according to plan. Between a game crash, a cow stealing my credits, a nuclear bomb and some rather unpleasant Cerberus discoveries, we had plenty to keep us occupied.

We also started a little later than we could have, because Casserole had settled on my shoulder for some cuddles. Some things are more important than getting into space on time!

🌌 About the Game

Mass Effect Legendary Edition brings together the acclaimed Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, remastered and optimised for 4K Ultra HD. It includes the single-player campaigns and over 40 DLC packs, along with additional weapons, armour and promotional content.

We play as Commander Shepard, exploring the galaxy aboard the Normandy, investigating threats, meeting alien civilisations and making decisions that can influence how the story unfolds. Alongside the main storyline, there’s a huge amount of optional exploration, character development and side missions.

🪐 Where We Are in the Journey

We’re now on Episode 10 of our first Mass Effect playthrough, and I’ve been trying to complete as much optional content as possible before progressing towards Mass Effect 2.

Previous sessions have already taken us across numerous systems, collecting resources and completing assignments. This time, I wanted to finish the remaining accessible planets and deal with some unfinished Citadel business.

Unfortunately, certain clusters were still locked behind main-story progression, so the spreadsheet needed a few adjustments. Feros and Noveria were waiting for us, but there was still plenty to investigate first.

🚀 What Happens in This Episode

We began at the Citadel, looking for Lieutenant Zabaleta, an old acquaintance of Shepard’s mother. What initially appeared to be a request for credits turned into a much more serious conversation about his traumatic experiences during a batarian attack. After returning to the Normandy and contacting Shepard’s mother aboard the Kilimanjaro, we learned more about what had happened to him and why he’d been struggling for so long. Rather than simply give him money for alcohol, we decided to return later and see whether we could help him properly.

Unfortunately, the game decided to crash shortly afterwards. We’d barely made it back aboard the Normandy before everything stopped working. Thankfully, the autosave rescued our progress, so we didn’t have to repeat much. Chrissy somehow ended up being blamed for the technical difficulties and was assigned tea-and-biscuit duties. Not quite the start I’d planned, but at least we were soon back on our way.

Our first major planetary destination was Ontarom in the Kepler Verge, where we were investigating murdered scientists connected to the massacre on Akuze. Getting around meant another session of bouncing across the landscape in the Mako, investigating mineral deposits and dealing with anything hostile along the way. Before reaching our objective, though, I wanted to demonstrate one of the game’s stranger little secrets: the wonderfully suspicious shifty-looking cow.

It looks innocent enough, wandering around with the other creatures, but if you approach it and turn your back, it quietly follows Shepard and starts stealing credits. I deliberately gave it the opportunity, and sure enough, five credits disappeared before I moved away. It even continued following us for a while. It’s such an odd little detail to include in the game, and one that would be very easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it.

The actual assignment was considerably more serious. Inside the facility, we discovered Corporal Toombs confronting a scientist he blamed for his suffering. Toombs had survived the attack on Akuze, only to become the subject of horrific experiments involving thresher maw acid. Cerberus was apparently responsible, adding another unpleasant discovery to our growing list of encounters with the organisation. Rather than allow Toombs to kill the scientist, we managed to persuade him to stand down and let the authorities handle things. I wanted to resolve the situation without another unnecessary death, and thankfully the conversation gave us that opportunity.

Garrus also had some unfinished business involving Dr Saleon, a salarian geneticist who had been conducting illegal organ-growing experiments using people as living incubators. The whole thing reminded me of something from Firefly, and it certainly wasn’t a pleasant story. Garrus was particularly frustrated that Saleon had escaped justice and wanted to be there when we finally caught up with him.

When we located Saleon aboard his ship, I brought Garrus and Tali along. My intention was to take the doctor into custody rather than simply execute him, but despite the conversation, Saleon decided to attack us anyway and ended up dead. I was left wondering what the point of trying to arrest him had been! Still, the important part of the encounter was explaining to Garrus that we can only control our own decisions, not what somebody else chooses to do. It was another opportunity to keep Shepard on the Paragon path.

Our next destination was much closer to home as we travelled to Earth’s Moon to investigate a rogue virtual intelligence. With Wrex and Tali back in the squad, we took the Mako across the lunar surface, dealing with rocket turrets before entering the installation. There were three separate bunkers to clear, each containing assault drones and computer clusters that needed destroying. One room even began filling with toxic gas, which made an already awkward fight rather more interesting.

After working our way through the bunkers, we eventually destroyed the final VI cluster, shut down the system and earned another level-up. There was also some discussion about artificial intelligence and its importance throughout the wider Mass Effect series. I spent a little time appreciating the improved draw distances in the Legendary Edition, particularly the view of Earth from the Moon. We also made good use of the Mako’s rocket-assisted jumps while getting around, which certainly makes planetary exploration more entertaining.

Once the Moon was complete, it was time to consult the spreadsheet and continue working through our remaining systems. Unfortunately, the galaxy map wasn’t entirely cooperating. I’d planned to visit the Maroon Sea and Styx Theta clusters, only to discover that neither was accessible yet. After checking what was required, it became clear that we’d need to progress further into the main storyline before those destinations would become available.

That removed a fair amount from the afternoon’s original plan, but there were still plenty of other places to explore. We headed into the Voyager Cluster and continued scanning planets, checking asteroid belts for hidden objects and collecting whatever resources we could find. Much of the equipment we picked up was already below the level of what we were using, so quite a lot of it ended up being converted into omni-gel. At least it was useful for something!

The Voyager Cluster soon provided something more substantial when Admiral Hackett contacted us about a missing Alliance espionage probe. It had originally been launched during the First Contact War and contained a twenty-kiloton nuclear warhead, which seemed like a fairly good reason to investigate. We followed the signal to Agebinium and entered a mine, only to discover that the probe had been moved deliberately.

It turned out to be a trap set by Elanos Haliat, a pirate leader who blamed Shepard for preventing the attack on Elysium. With the entrance blocked and the nuclear device counting down, we suddenly had something rather more urgent to deal with than another mineral deposit. We managed to disarm the bomb before escaping through another passage, although there were still plenty of enemies waiting outside. Once they’d been dealt with, we could finally get back to our exploration.

The Cerberus storyline was another major part of the afternoon. We continued following the investigation involving Admiral Kahoku, visiting facilities guarded by turrets, snipers, Cerberus personnel and husks. Unfortunately, we eventually discovered Kahoku’s body, confirming that things had gone very badly for him. The evidence we recovered revealed more about Cerberus and its experiments, and we continued through the remaining facilities to finish the investigation.

There was plenty of Mako driving between objectives, including the usual struggle to climb awkward terrain and reach every marked location. We also encountered another thresher maw, this time with tentacles adding to the unpleasantness. I was determined to clear as much as possible while we were there, even if it meant another long drive across a planet we’d already spent plenty of time exploring.

After dealing with Cerberus, we received a message from an agent representing the Shadow Broker, offering to purchase the information we’d recovered. I decided against handing over classified Alliance files, although I did wonder whether refusing the offer might come back to affect us in Mass Effect 2. Given what we already know about Cerberus, I was particularly interested in whether these decisions might have consequences later in the trilogy.

Of course, we weren’t discussing the game for the entire afternoon. Chat was keeping us entertained throughout, with Royalty and Chrissy becoming involved in ongoing discussions about who was responsible for making tea, providing biscuits and generally behaving themselves. There were even suggestions about combining biscuits into elaborate layered creations, along with the possibility of being banished to the shed if standards weren’t maintained.

We also talked about the weather, cold drinks and what time it was in different parts of the world. At one point, I mentioned the camera-equipped remote-control vehicle I’d created in Mass Effect: Andromeda and said I’d share a clip of it on Discord. Meanwhile, the game provided its own running jokes, particularly Shepard having only one walking speed, the seemingly endless process of recycling unwanted equipment into omni-gel, and my continuing preference for taking Wrex and Tali everywhere rather than Kaidan.

Eventually, we returned to the Citadel to deal with some outstanding assignments. One involved Rebecca, a pregnant widow arguing with her brother-in-law Michael about whether her unborn child should receive preventative gene therapy. Michael was worried about the risks of leaving the child untreated, while Rebecca was concerned about making such a decision without knowing whether it was necessary. I chose to support Rebecca’s right to decide and encouraged Michael to stand by her rather than pressure her. Thankfully, we managed to resolve the disagreement peacefully and picked up some useful Paragon points along the way.

We also returned to Lieutenant Zabaleta to finish the conversation we’d started earlier. Now that we knew more about his experiences, we were able to encourage him to seek help through veterans’ services rather than simply give him money to continue drinking. It was good to see that assignment reach a more positive conclusion, especially considering how serious his situation had been.

Even Conrad Verner made another appearance. Our enthusiastic admirer had apparently decided that he wanted to become a Spectre himself, which didn’t seem like a particularly sensible idea. Fortunately, we managed to talk him out of pursuing that particular career and encouraged him to find a safer way to help humanity. Hopefully he’ll take the advice!

Back aboard the Normandy, we reviewed the journal and checked how much progress we’d made. Nearly all the currently available assignments were complete, although we were still missing one final Prothean data disc. Some of the remaining exploration would have to wait until the main storyline unlocked additional systems, so there wasn’t much more we could do about those objectives for now.

We also spent some time levelling up the crew, which turned into a slightly awkward process of repeatedly moving on and off the Normandy because I couldn’t find the squad-management shortcut I wanted. Eventually, everyone received their upgrades, and we had an opportunity to catch up with a few of the crew members.

Garrus spoke about his concerns that Saren might escape justice, while Shepard maintained that killing him should be a last resort rather than the immediate solution. Wrex also shared more of his history, including his attempts to persuade the krogan to move away from their constant fighting and the betrayal that eventually forced him to leave his home. I always enjoy these conversations because they give us a better understanding of the characters we’re travelling with, rather than simply having them accompany us into combat.

By the end of the session, we’d made some very worthwhile progress. We hadn’t managed to visit every planet originally planned, but we’d completed several important assignments, uncovered more of Cerberus’s activities, helped a few people on the Citadel and cleared almost everything currently available from the journal.

I finished by saving aboard the Normandy, ready to return to the main storyline next time. Feros should be our next destination, followed by Noveria, and then we can revisit the exploration spreadsheet once the remaining systems become accessible.

After that, it was time to find somebody to raid and bring the bonus stream to a close. Thanks to everyone who joined us throughout the afternoon, kept the conversations going and helped make another session of planetary exploration enjoyable. Between the nuclear bomb, Cerberus and that cow helping itself to my credits, we’d certainly had plenty to deal with!

▶️ Watch the Episode

If you missed the livestream, you can catch the complete session here:

Watch Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME1 Episode 10

You can also visit my YouTube channel or follow the full journey through the Mass Effect Legendary Edition playlist.

If you’re enjoying the series, leave a like, share your thoughts in the comments and subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

There’s always something unexpected waiting around the next planetary landing site, and it’s much more entertaining when we’ve got everyone along for the journey.

Join me live on Twitch or YouTube, where we can explore the galaxy, discuss the story and occasionally get distracted by suspicious wildlife.

You can also continue the conversations between streams over on Discord.

🔗 Community & Links

Want to stay connected beyond the Normandy? You’ll find my livestreams, community, music and other projects through the links below.

Live — Come aboard for the next livestream:
Twitch | YouTube

Community — Keep the conversations going between streams:
Discord

Socials — Follow what I’m getting up to around the galaxy and beyond:
TikTok | Bluesky | Instagram | Facebook | Threads | X

Music — Explore my music when we’re not exploring planets:
Spotify | Apple Music

Support — Help keep the livestreams and creative projects going:
Fourthwall | Teespring | Streamlabs

More — Discover my other projects, services and updates:
Business Centre | Download the Brochure | About Me | Blog

🐄 One Missing Data Disc and a Very Suspicious Cow

We finished back aboard the Normandy, with the journal looking considerably healthier and most available side quests completed. There are still a few things to revisit once more systems become accessible, but we’re finally getting closer to returning to the main storyline.

Next up should be Feros, followed by Noveria, before we return to any newly unlocked exploration opportunities.

Thanks to everyone who joined us live, kept the conversations going and helped make another afternoon of planetary exploration entertaining. I’m still keeping an eye on that cow, though.

— Dr Ravenholm