Mirandabio(fixed)

 

 

Miranda Lawson

 

Role:

Miranda's role in the story differs depending on whether she was loyal or not.

If loyal in ME2, Miranda acts as a mission-briefing officer on the Shadow Base. She assists Liara in tracking down and infiltrating Cerberus, providing tactical information on Cerberu's bases, and locates TIM's Cronos Station for the final assault on Cerberus. After the organization is over run, Miranda – having been inspired by Liara -- will advocate keeping the base, and reforming Cerberus into a better organization able to provide resources to the war effort. If Shepard destroys the base she (slightly disappointed) will continue her work for the Shadow Broker.

If not loyal in ME2, Miranda betrays Shepard by ordering Dr. Eva to assassinate him in the medical wing of the Shadow Base, in order to get at the Cipher in Shepard's skull. After Eva is deactivated by Liara, Miranda flees the  Shadow Base (with an Jacob if he is not loyal as well). She then serves The Illusive Man as head officer at Cerberus's “Barn” facility, where she performs experiments on mercenaries. For the mission “The Barn” she is the main antagonist.

 

Recruitment:

 

Miranda's recruitment changes depending on whether she is still a member of Cerberus or not.

If Shepard is aligned with the Alliance at the start of ME3, Miranda will be found at the Shadow Base upon first visit, where she now works as an agent for Liara T'Soni.

If Shepard is aligned with Cerberus at the start of ME3 (only optional if Shepard kept the Collector Base at the end of ME2), Miranda will be found and recruited on the Normandy at the end of the game's Earth tutorial.

 

Missions:

 

Miranda, if loyal, is an available temporary squad-mate for all missions in the Shadow Broker's “Shadow War” campaign. She is also available for the missions “The Hidden Wards”, “Track a Killer” on the Citadel, due to her knowledge of Kai Leng. If Miranda is not loyal, she is the antagonist and final boss for the mission “The Barn”.

 

Assuming Miranda is alive and loyal, she requests to go with Shepard on the mission “The Barn”. Miranda has discovered that her father (a man named Henry Avel) has been shipping supplies for Cerberus. Miranda wants to know why Avel has made an alliance with The Illusive Man, and hopes that by exploring Cerberus's Barn station, she can gain insight as to her father's motivations for hunting her and Oriana (Miranda's sister).

If Shepard is aligned with the Alliance, Liara lends Miranda a captured Cerberus shuttle.

If Shepard was aligned with Cerberus, Shepard and Miranda take that shuttle.

 

Miranda flies the shuttle to the Barn, and enters a Cerberus password given to her by Randall Ezno – who (if not a squad-mate) is acting as a radio consultant for Shepard during the mission. The password tricks the Cerberus security tower into thinking that the shuttle is friendly, and Miranda and Shepard land in the empty docking bay and make their way into the base. Miranda uses a security hacking mod given to her from Kasumi/Liara to tamper with security cameras as they proceed through the halls. As they progress through the base, Shepard sees that Cerberus uses the Barn for torture experiment on aliens, who are locked in cells. Most of the aliens are in such bad physical and mental shape, that even Miranda is stunned at Cerberus's cruelty.

 Shepard can help these aliens escape by breaking into their cells, though this causes alarms to go off, and Cerberus to become aware of the intruders. The aliens will make for the cargo bay (where they can wait on Shepard's shuttle).

Shepard can keep to the mission, knowing that there is little he can do for the aliens. This allows Miranda and Shepard to avoid detection.

Shepard can flood the cells with toxin, painlessly killing the aliens. Alarms won't go off, but the cells – having life-sign monitors – will alert Cerberus's security to take a look at what is happening. Alarms will be set off shortly after security investigates.

Miranda and Shepard (and squad-mate) make their way deeper into the base (either stealthily or combatively), and eventually enter the Barn's empty headquarters. Miranda recognizes one of the ornaments on the room's central desk, and realizes that it is something her father had. She rationalizes that her father is now in charge of the Barn. Miranda tries to hack her father's computer terminal to discover what he is planning, but can't find anything of value. Shepard notices a conspicuous button on the desk which, after scanning with his omni tool, realizes activates some sort of display case. He is about to push the button, when Henry Avel enters the office, escorted by special female soldiers in high tech armor, and carrying SMGs.

 

Miranda interrogates Avel on his deal with Cerberus, and Avel explains that he was originally obsessed with her escape from him, because he thought he'd made the perfect clone (albeit a clone with a gender change so that he didn't have to look at exact replicas of himself while working). Later Avel realized that Miranda was not, in fact, the perfect clone he had imagined. Despite all of her skills and abilities, Miranda was infertile (something Avel didn't realize when she was younger, or he would have simply killed her). Oriana is actually the clone he managed to perfect, having solved the problem of infertility, and he has been seeking to recapture Oriana ever since.

 Miranda is embarrassed when Avel admits her infertility in front of Shepard – especially if she is romancing him.

Miranda is embarrassed when Avel admits her infertility in front of Jacob – especially if she is romancing him.

[Note: Miranda dealing with infertility as part of her character development just felt right to me if she is romancing Shepard. I got the idea from the Lair of the Shadow Broker dossiers.]

 

Henry Avel and his guards circle Shepard and company, drawing them away from the desk. Miranda, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation, changes the subject and asks Avel what why he joined Cerberus, and what Cerberus promised him. Avel explains that, after  Oriana was kidnapped by Miranda, he continued the cloning process. The products he came up with were nearly as genetically perfect as Miranda, but still faced the problem of infertility. Because both TIM and Avel had been betrayed by Miranda, they decided to form a partnership. The Illusive Man provided funding for Avel's business empire (especially helpful in the Reaper war), and Avel, rather than destroying his clone subjects, would supply them to TIM. Henry Avel pushes the button on his desk, activating the lights in the display case, and revealing its content: a clone of Miranda, incubated, curled into infant-like ball, asleep in some kind of liquid.

 

Shepard can ask what TIM needs Miranda clones for if he has EVA androids.

Shepard can tell Avel that he is a sick bastard (for renegade points) for making such abominations.

 

Either way, Avel turns to one of his troopers, and tells her to remove her helmet. Shepard and company are momentarily stunned. The soldier reveals that she looks almost exactly like Miranda – although she has an emotionless face, eyes with pale blue pupils (like a blind person), and has a different hairstyle.

Avel explains that these are the best soldiers in Cerberus's military. He notes the expensive costs of cloning have stopped him mass producing more soldiers.

 

 If Shepard kept the Collector Base, Avel explains that the collectors had the means to rapidly clone humans for making their own Reaper, but abandoned the concept because they required humanity's genetic and mental diversity, which could only be found in humans who actually were from the colony worlds. As a result of using the Collector data's, every Miranda clone is almost an exact copy of the next.

If Shepard destroyed the Base, Avel explains that he had to use research data he collected from the dead krogan scientist “Okeer” to come up with clones that were mostly close copies of each other.

 

Miranda holds back (rare) angry tears, and clearly furious, demands an explanation as to why he kept pursuing Oriana if he could create almost perfect clones. Avel explains that Oriana's fertility is the key: he plans on creating clones that can reproduce with any man, but will always give birth to another genetically perfect clone – essentially making the mother a self sustained factory. Avel (being quite egotistical) wishes for his genes to spread throughout all of humanity. Miranda exclaims that he is insane.

A fight commences between Shepard's squad and Avel's guard. After the troops are killed, Avel, wounded during the fight, crawls over to the wall in front of the clone-containing display case, stretching out his hand to caress the glass. Miranda points her gun at him.

 If Miranda was a paragon in ME2 (didn't kill Niket), she lowers the gun and walks out of the office. Shepard and company follow her, leaving Henry Avel to die slowly, looking up at his incubated genetic legacy.

If Miranda was a renegade in ME2 (killed Niket), she furiously shoots her father several times rapidly, then shoots the cases containing the clone. The company walks out of the room.

 

Potential death:

 

After killing Henry Avel, Miranda and Shepard fight their way down through the Barn to its cloning labs, where five tanks with full grown sleeping clones are being held. Upon evaluating computer data, Shepard discovers that it takes roughly 3 months to fully develop an adult, which is (thanks to either  the Collector Base data, or Okeer's  data) “imprinted” with knowledge like speech, combat training, and tactical abilities. According to records, a man named “The Director” prepared to have these clones shipped to a location known as “Project: Aegis”, which is some kind of Cerberus synthetic-engineering base. “The Director”  wanted to implant the clones with cybernetics to improve their performances. Shepard scans the Project Aegis's data, in an attempt to get information onto its location.

If Shiala is part of Shepard's squad, she will remember the memories of being cloned by the Thorian, and will be greatly disturbed. Shiala will want to destroy the Barn.

If Jacob is part of Shepard's squad, he will ask Miranda is she will be alright emotionally. Miranda will coldly tell him that she is fine, and just wants to focus on the mission.

If Shepard is romancing Miranda, he has the option to ask Miranda if she will be alright. She will coldly tell him that she is fine, and just wants to focus on the mission.

 

[Note: for more detail on the series of events and specifics of the mission , read “The Shadow War” in the story missions list]

 

EDI informs Shepard that a scan off the Barn has revealed the location of its central power core. Shepard can disable or destroy the core, depending on whether he wants keep or destroy the base. The company make their way to the power core's chamber.

 

 If Shepard decides to destroy the Barn, Miranda (provided she is in Shepard's squad) can sacrifice herself by locking herself in the space stations power center, and overloading the core. This deactivates the Barn's orbital shields for a few minutes, causing the asteroids surrounding the Barn to collide into the base. Shepard and company escape, while Miranda dies. If Shepard has high enough paragon points, he can convince Miranda to unlock power center's doors and escape with them, by exclaiming that Oriana still needs a protector. If Oriana and Miranda never met, then Shepard will convince Miranda to unlock the door by explaining that she doesn't need to throw her life away. Similarly, if Shepard is romancing Miranda, he can convince her to leave with him.

 

Miranda can also be killed by Jack if Shepard chooses to let these women fight at the end of the Shadow War campaign. For more details, please read Jack's bio.

 

If Miranda was not loyal at the start of ME3

 

If Miranda was not loyal at the start of ME3, she will be found on the Barn as its chief overseer, and Henry Avel will not be part of the story. Miranda's security are not clones, merely female mercenaries sge hired and implanted with cybernetic enhancements. Instead of discovering a cloning lab, Shepard and company discover a lab devoted to creating cybernetic enhancements.

After going into the Barn's power center and preparing to access the vulnerable core, Miranda attacks Shepard and company as a boss, along with a group of phantoms. After she is defeated,

Shepard can arrest her and knock her out, and the Normandy will take her to the Citadel where she will be arrested and put in a maximum security holding cell.

If Shepard destroys the Barn, he can leave her in the power center, wounded. As the base is crushed by asteroids, Miranda will try to crawl her way to the core's command council, but the base will be destroyed.

If Shepard keeps the Barn, he can leave her in the power center, wounded. She will sit on the floor, while she bleeds out.

 

Romance:

 

Miranda's romance revolves around her overcoming the fact that she is infertile, her slight jealousy that Oriana is fertile, and her hopes for Cerberus's future.

 

If Miranda is romancing Shepard, after the Barn mission she can explain that she didn't want Shepard to find out about her infertility. Shepard can respond that he doesn't care about that sort of thing, that they can work it out, or that he wants to share a life with someone who can give him a family someday. The final option results in Shepard and Miranda breaking up.

If Miranda is not a LI, then she will reveal to Shepard that she originally broke up with Jacob because she was afraid he would find out about her infertility. Shepard can persuade her to attempt to get back in a relationship with Jacob (if he is not a LI of course), keep Jacob as a friend, or stay in a strictly professional relationship with him.

 

Ironing out variables:

If Miranda was killed in ME2, she does not appear in ME3. Her role during the Shadow War as a briefing officer is replaced by Jacob (if alive) or Randall Ezno.

If Shepard didn't do Miranda's loyalty mission in ME2, then Lawson managed to save Oriana from her father's mercenaries after the Suicide Mission, but Oriana's family was killed. Miranda's sister works on the Citadel, helping colonist refugees, and doesn't wish to talk to Miranda.

If Miranda met Oriana in ME2, her family and Miranda agreed to send Oriana to live with her. Oriana works on the Citadel as a C-sec secretary, and is under the protective eye of Bailey, Liara, and Miranda. The two sisters have a good relationship, and easily relate to each other. Later in ME3 Shepard can meet with them both for a date on the Citadel.

Regardless of whether Shepard is aligned with Cerberus or not, loyal Miranda sticks with Shepard and Liara. However, if Shepard wishes to reform Cerberus, Miranda wishes to help him, having been impressed with Liara's use of the Shadow Base.

If Jacob died in ME2, and Miranda is un-romanced in ME3, she will mourn him as one of her closest friends.