Having just played the Fuel Depots mission, I can confirm that it does involve toxic levels of radiation, depicted as clouds of greenish gas that you need to disperse.


Anyway. I recently decided to play through the entire Mass Effect trilogy for the first time, and I came across - this evening - one of the few instances in which my enjoyment of media was enhanced by spoilers.

Spoiler
Show
I knew, going into the final mission on Rannoch, that there were three possible results: I could betray the Geth, leading Legion to turn on me; I could let the Quarians die, leading to Tali's death; or I could broker peace between them, and everything would be happy forever. As a pro-free-Geth, Tali-romancing Paragon Shepard, the last choice was obviously the best one.

So I go kill a reaper, and brace myself to make some wicked peace, yo. Legion brings up the idea of using Reaper upgrades to make all Geth truly sentient, Tali objects because General Warmonger is charging the Geth fleet, and then I get the choice: upload the upgrades and doom the Quarian fleet, or backstab Legion and the entire Geth race. Wait, where's my third option?

Where's the third option?

If I hadn't thought that I held the lives of Legion and Tali in my hands with that one decision, I don't think I would have ended up staring at the screen in mute, wide-eyed horror. I certainly would have felt some of the gravity of the moment, but not with vivid, terrifying intensity - it wouldn't really have sunk in. Betray a fledgling, oft-betrayed AI race - not so different to EDI, a loyal companion - to save the life of Shepard's beloved, out of naked fear and selfishness. Or give them the chance to truly live, at the cost of the Quarians who trusted Shepard, who Shepard had been fighting for, Tali most of all. The cursor flicked back and forth between the two choices; again and again, I came to the brink of selecting one, only to back down, uncertain again.

But what it boiled down to, in the end, is that there was a chance - however slim - that no one else had to die. Betraying the Geth was a hopeless choice, born from fear. ("I won't let fear compromise who I am.") I couldn't choose it. And if that meant losing Tali, then... so be it. Upload the upgrades.

I was very gratified when it turned out that the next thing I could do was Paragonning the Quarian fleet to stand down. Less so when Legion's last words were keelah sel'ai. Ow, that hurt.

I don't think I'm going to be forgetting that anytime soon. Right up there with the last rendition of Scientist Salarian and praying for Thane.