Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME2 Ep 20 – Reaper IFF – Legion and Legion: A House Divided

We are getting very close to the end of Mass Effect 2 now, but before we can start worrying about the suicide mission, there are still a few important jobs left to finish. This stream gave us a bit of everything: planetary cleanup, a journey inside a dead Reaper, far too many husks, Legion finally joining the Normandy and one last loyalty mission to squeeze in before things become considerably more serious.

It also turned into one of those streams where the actual game regularly had to share attention with chat. We had a raid, ongoing reminders to save the game, conversations about everything from Fortnite to dash cams, and the now apparently permanent threat that everyone will eventually be tested on how much attention they have been paying during mandatory Mass Effect Friday.

🌌 About the Game

Mass Effect Legendary Edition brings together the single-player content from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, along with more than 40 DLC packs, promotional weapons, armour and other content, all remastered and optimised for 4K Ultra HD.

Across the trilogy we follow Commander Shepard through a galaxy facing the growing threat of the Reapers. Here in Mass Effect 2, the immediate focus is on building a crew capable of taking on the Collectors and preparing for a mission that the game rather reassuringly keeps referring to as a suicide mission.

🧭 Where We Are in the Journey

We are firmly into the late stages of Mass Effect 2. Every available side quest has been completed, the Normandy has received most of its upgrades and we have been working through the remaining loyalty missions while trying to keep everything lined up for a 100% run.

That means this episode is not really about looking for more work. We are clearing the last pieces that need doing before the endgame properly starts. The plan was to finish the remaining planetary exploration, recover the Reaper IFF, recruit Legion and hopefully trigger Legion’s loyalty mission before the game pushed us any further forward.

⚠️ What Happens in This Episode

Before Shepard can go anywhere near a dead Reaper, there is some unfinished business in the galaxy map. With every side quest already completed, the opening stretch becomes a final bout of planetary cleanup: checking systems, chasing completion percentages, firing the occasional probe and repeatedly topping up the Normandy’s supply of “space petrol.” It is the sort of completionist housekeeping that sounds simple until one stubborn system refuses to show 100%.

The stream settles into that familiar rhythm almost immediately. ithinkimapenguin8p arrives with a raid after a winless Fortnite session and is promptly informed that Friday means mandatory Mass Effect, complete with the threat of a test at the end of the series. Chat keeps the exploration lively with jokes about scanning Uranus, Fortnite bonus skins, chicken costumes and the usual collection of completely unrelated conversations that somehow become part of a night spent saving the galaxy.

There is also one rule becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: save the game before Frodo gets upset. frodolotr33 keeps a close eye on the situation, so suspicious rooms, important conversations and major transitions are regularly followed by another manual save. Feeding the fish becomes a similarly important Normandy ritual. Between that, the “space petrol” and the looming Mass Effect exam, there is plenty of nonsense bubbling away beneath what is about to become a much darker mission.

After roughly forty minutes of galactic housekeeping, Shepard finally heads for the derelict Reaper to recover the IFF. The atmosphere changes almost immediately. The Normandy passes inside the dead Reaper’s still-active mass effect field and becomes trapped behind kinetic barriers, leaving Shepard with a straightforward but deeply reassuring plan: board the wreck, destroy the systems holding those barriers in place and then escape before the enormous corpse falls into the planet below.

Inside, the abandoned research site does very little to improve matters. Logs left by the science team reveal people becoming increasingly affected by the Reaper, sharing memories that should not be shared and slipping further into indoctrination. The deeper Shepard travels, the clearer it becomes that whatever happened here was not simply an ordinary expedition going wrong.

Then the husks arrive.

The Reaper interior provides some of the roughest combat of the night, with narrow spaces quickly filling with enemies and larger husks making retreat increasingly attractive. Miranda and Tali develop an unfortunate habit of going down when they would be most useful, ammunition starts disappearing at an alarming rate and one encounter ends with Shepard dead before a reload sends us back into the fight.

Chat offers some practical advice, with justanatomy recommending melee and, more importantly, backing up. “Retreating smartly” quickly becomes a perfectly respectable combat philosophy. From there, the fighting settles into a mixture of gunfire, cries of “Shields!”, falling back whenever things become crowded and the increasingly reliable application of “punchy punchy” to anything foolish enough to get close. The squad AI does not exactly cover itself in glory either, giving Dr Ravenholm plenty of opportunities to wonder why the companions seem so determined to spend difficult battles lying on the floor.

The stream remains conversational even during the worst of it. New viewer johnsmithgamer69 explains that he is recovering from a broken leg after being hit by a car while riding his motorcycle in London. His helmet GoPro footage proved important after blame was initially directed toward him, and the conversation briefly shifts to dash cams, dangerous driving and the damage to the bike. Chat rallies around him, with happy_cat_lady pointing out the part that matters most: he is still here. For a few minutes, the dead Reaper becomes background scenery while the community talks with someone who had simply dropped in because recovery had left him bored.

Back inside the mission, the expedition eventually discovers something considerably more interesting than another room full of husks: an intact Geth platform capable of speaking. After recovering the Reaper IFF and destroying the core, Shepard chooses to bring the Geth aboard the Normandy rather than hand it over to Cerberus or throw it out of an airlock.

Activating a dangerous Geth beside the Normandy’s AI core is, naturally, treated as an entirely sensible idea.

The platform explains that there is no single individual inside it in the way an organic would understand one. It contains 1,183 programs working together, and EDI gives it a name: Legion. Suddenly one of the most distinctive missing members of the Mass Effect 2 crew is finally aboard. Dr Ravenholm’s priorities are immediately clear: save the game again, find out everything possible about the new arrival and raise the important question of whether Shepard can romance Legion.

More importantly, recruiting Legion unlocks the loyalty mission Dr Ravenholm had been hoping would still appear despite every other side quest already being finished. Legion explains that the Heretics—the Geth aligned with the Reapers—have developed a virus capable of subtly altering other Geth until they reach the same conclusions and accept the Reapers’ path.

That leads the Normandy to the Heretic station for “A House Divided.” What begins as an infiltration becomes one of the more interesting moral choices of the run. Rather than simply destroy the Heretics, Shepard has the option to use their own virus against them and rewrite their thinking. Legion’s explanations of Geth identity make the decision more complicated: Geth exist through shared programs, memories and consensus, meaning the Heretics are both separate from Legion’s people and still connected to them in ways that do not translate neatly into organic terms.

Dr Ravenholm leans toward rewriting them, and when the decision finally arrives, that is exactly what Shepard does.

Mass Effect being Mass Effect, there is no opportunity to stand around contemplating the ethical implications afterward. Releasing the virus triggers a huge electromagnetic pulse, meaning it is time to run. Shepard and Legion escape, “A House Divided” is completed and Legion’s loyalty is secured.

The next threat is waiting aboard the Normandy.

Tali confronts Legion after discovering it scanning her omni-tool and preparing to transmit information about the Migrant Fleet. With the Quarians already considering action against the Geth, the argument carries far more weight than a simple disagreement between squadmates. Dr Ravenholm recognises the scene immediately as one of those dangerous loyalty checks where the wrong response can undo a great deal of preparation for the suicide mission.

Fortunately, Shepard manages to calm both sides. Legion agrees not to transmit the classified information, while Tali offers non-classified data instead. The argument ends without either loyalty being lost, leaving two extremely important squadmates still fully committed to the mission ahead.

Chat has also undergone its own change of heart by this point. ithinkimapenguin8p goes from joking that Legion should be shot to declaring it the new favourite, while the Geth’s wonderfully awkward interactions become another source of entertainment. Earlier, the community heist had already produced casualties, loot and the inevitable “#sacrificeFrodo,” so Legion is joining a Normandy crew surrounded by a community that may be only slightly less chaotic than Shepard’s actual squad.

By the end of the stream, the save has taken a major step toward completion. Legion is recruited and loyal, the Heretic problem has been resolved through rewriting, Tali and Legion have both survived their confrontation with their loyalties intact, and the Reaper IFF is installed and waiting for the next stage. A check of the remaining research suggests only a handful of upgrades are still missing, likely leaving one final shopping trip before everything is ready.

Every side quest is finished, the crew is effectively assembled and attention is now turning toward the suicide mission. The goal remains the same as it has throughout this 100% run: get everyone through it alive. That means the next big challenge is not simply surviving the mission, but remembering exactly which crew members need to be assigned to which jobs when the time comes.

The night closes in suitably familiar fashion: another reminder to feed the fish, another save, mandatory Mass Effect Friday officially dismissed for the week and one final warning that the test is still happening. The stream began with planetary percentages and “space petrol.” It ends with Legion aboard the Normandy, another loyalty mission complete and Mass Effect 2 standing very close indeed to the point of no return.

🎥 Watch the Episode

If you want to see the entire Reaper IFF mission, Legion joining the Normandy and the decision at the heart of “A House Divided,” you can watch the full stream here:

Watch Mass Effect Legendary Edition: ME2 Ep 20 on YouTube

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow the whole playthrough through the Mass Effect Legendary Edition playlist.

If you enjoy the episode, leave a like or a comment and let me know what you would have done with the Heretics.

📡 Join the Adventure Live

These streams are always better with chat involved, whether you are offering useful combat advice, checking that I remembered to save or arriving through a raid just in time to discover that Mass Effect attendance is apparently mandatory.

ithinkimapenguin8p brought their community into this one, and at the end of the night we passed things along by raiding Fahr_Avayana.

If you want to be there for the next part of the journey, you can join us live on Twitch or YouTube. Just remember to revise for the test.

🛰️ Community & Links

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🐟 Legion Loyal, Fish Fed

We started the night hunting down the last unexplored planets and ended it with Legion aboard the Normandy, another loyalty mission finished and both Legion and Tali still on our side.

There are only a few loose ends left now before the suicide mission becomes unavoidable. I just need to finish the remaining upgrades, remember who gets assigned where and, apparently most importantly, keep saving often enough to keep Frodo happy.

— Dr Ravenholm