you get a message from hackett about some chick in a batarian system, who has found evidence of the reapers, but shes been captured and is being tortured for info

you bust in to the base, and get her out.

you go back to her research base, where she tells you that shes found a reaper relic, that she has magically discovered signifies that the reapers will arrive in TWO DAYS (ZOMG!) and will use the very mass relay in this system to lauch their attack.

none of this is explained, how they can arrive here.. i mean why did the citadel even matter in the first game if they could just show up easily without it and launch their attack via another relay..

but whatever, its bioware, so we'll just go with it.

anyway, she tells you that their plan (her and the scientists at the base) was to launch the asteriod the base is located on, INTO the relay, thus destroying it, and meaning that the reapers would have to physically travel to another relay in order to begin the invasion, thus buying the galaxy many more years to prepare - atleast thats what i understood.

she takes you to the reaper artifact, and like the scientist lady, you get a quick reaper vision 'flash', that lets you know that what she was saying was true, but then you also realize that she and everyone on teh base have been indoctrinated, and are now working FOR the reapers, and try to stop you from destroying the relay.

eventually you are captured, and sedated for quite some time (i think almost the entire 2 days was it?), youre trapped in a medical room, but you use a console to take over one of those droid things for 20 seconds, and shoot the scientist guarding you, and some other droids before using it to break yourself out of the locked room you're stuck in.

then you fight your way through a lot of linear corridors,so that you can enact the plan - to drive the asteroid the base is on, into the mass relay.

the scientist lady tries to stop you, but after some more shooting, you manage to set course for the relay, and thwart the scientist ladies plan to disable the asteroid by fucking with the cooling systems that drive the thrusters, or something like that.

you then get a renagade quick-time option to shoot the scientist lady when she tries to blow up something that would stop the asteroid.. i took it naturally, but i assume that if you dont take it, she probably dies anyway.

you then have minutes to get to an escape pod and get off the asteroid before it hits the relay.

at some point its pretty much revealed that when the relay is destroyed, the ENTIRE system will be wiped out, which will mean that about 300,000 batarians will die. when you initiate the sequence to send the asteroid into the relay, you have an option to send warning to the batarians.

i didnt. because i hate those guys. whether you do or not probably has some effect on the next game.

anyway you go to find an escape shuttle, but it leaves, so you have to fight your way across to a communications tower, and radio in the normandy, which you do, and you get rescued, and use the relay to jump out of the system seconds before its hit by the asteroid and everything blows up.

just before the normandy pickup, you get a quick bit of dialog from some random reaper.. its meaningless dialog about how we're all gonna suffer and blah blah blah useless. nothing epicly awesome like the first reaper discussion in the first game.


then hackett shows up, and theres some meaningless dialog, but basically it implies that he believes you about the reapers now - thats not saying that EARTH believes you yet.

he also says that this will cause some kind of diplomatic problem (all the batarian deaths), and that there isnt much, but there is SOME evidence that you were involved, so at some point you will have to head to earth and explain your actions, but hackett says he will stall that as long as possible.

the end.

If you try to send a warning to the Batarians to evacuate you get cut off and no warning is sent.

If you don't take the Renegade interrupt to shoot her, she triggers a bomb which blows herself up and briefly knocks you out.

Also, the Reaper you speak to at the end is Harbinger, who was controlling the Collectors.

warn the batarians. im positive thats the only thing that will matter.

ME3 will default to the assumption that shepard stops the reapers coming through and using that relay, whether you played the dlc or not. i just wonder how teh batarian angle will matter.

if i warn them, will they be happy? or will they be mad that they know a human was responsible?

if i keep quiet, will they be angry, or will they be ignorant as to what happened and who was involved?

in the end when hackket said that i has to go to earth and face the music
i think my "TRIAL" could include this dlc events in it but i don't think it will change anything major

well yeah but beyond attempting to warn the batarians (which im informed you cant even DO anyway because you get cut off) is the only thing you can influence in the dlc

so yes this dlc could be a bridge as to why you end up on earth, probably at the start of the game maybe?, but if thats the canon story the game will follow, and it appears you can influence nothing during the dlc, theres just no reason to really play it unless youre just doing it for the sake of having a complete save to go into me3 with.

im sure everything at the start of me3 will sum up what happened in arrival, especially if its the reason youre on earth, so youll still get the story.. what little there is to be had...

i would ATLEAST have liked the batarian warning choice to have mattered. i think that would have made the dlc slightly worth playing... but if its true that either outcome is the same... its just stupid.

I'm talking about Dead Space and the marker

the beacon, what it does to shepard, what it did to the main villain, and the resulting indoctrination.

Can u avoid being captured altogether and warn the batarians earlier?

I survived the ambush till the end and killed everyone (including the mech) only to be knocked out by the wave from the artifact....

I think the idea is, that the Reapers would "spawn in" right at the Citadel from whatever place they were at, far away from the galaxy, if not for the outcome of the first game.
Now though, they had to travel via usual means to the edge of the galaxy, which took longer (around 2 years it seems), and from there they could have reached every other relay. The battle for the Citadel was still important, it just now seems that it hadn't bought as much time as was first assumed.

If destroying the relay will throw the reapers attack off by months or years, because they can't use it to get to the other relays, then how do Shepard and his crew reach galactic civilization again, after destroying the relay?