SBbase (4)

The Shadow Broker Base (The Shadow Base)

 

Role:

Liara has SB resources onboard the Normandy, throughout the story of ME3 she will occasionally return to the planet of Hagalaz to use the technology on the base, and manage her own information personal empire – the largest known information empire in the entire galaxy.

The SB base acts as a hub world for purchasing supplies and recruiting certain squad-mates, an extra living arrangement not unlike the SR2, an intel center on characters and locations, a mission provider for a few main quests and a number of side quests, a command center for Liara's “Hidden War” campaign against Cerberus. It manages to disable much of The Illusive Man's “Cronos Station” during the final assault on Cerberus.

Mission:

 

After the death of Kumun Shol on Klencory, Shepard takes the information from the Prothean A.I, Vehemence, to the planet Hagalaz. Liara hopes to review the Shadow Broker's information to find any other possible locations of other Prothean technology. The Normandy flies down to her base, and docks in the a frigate docking bay in its side. Once inside, Liara is greeted by her personal staff including the drell Feron who acts as her top spy, the drone named “Glyph”, and a few other assistants.

Assuming Shepard was not aligned with Cerberus...

If Miranda Lawson was loyal in ME2 and survived, then she will be working with Liara as a Cerberus spy, tactician, and assistant. If she was a LI, romance dialogue is appropriate in greeting her.

If Jacob Taylor was loyal in ME2 and survived, then he will be working as Liara's top Shadow Ops leader. If he was a LI, romance dialogue is appropriate in greeting him.

Assuming Shepard was aligned with Cerberus...

If Miranda Lawson was loyal in ME2, she will leave Shepard's place as a temporary squad-mate to work for Liara, as a Ceberus spy, tactician, and assistant.

If Jacob Taylor was loyal in ME2, he will leave Shepard's place as a temporary squad-mate to work for Liara as her top Shadow Ops leader.

Liara leads Shepard and company up to her new and improved office, and manages to come up with some fleeting details on Prothean A.I data which she will have to keep digging on. Shepard complains of a headache, likely received from exercising his Cipher, and Liara sends him to the Shadow Base's medical bay.

If Dr. Eva is with Shepard, she will decide to take a look at him.

If Dr. Eva was not recruited by Shepard on Earth (not aligned with Cerberus) she'll instead be found in the Shadow Base's med center already, and will take a look at him.

Shepard will lie down on the medical bed, and will faint. He'll have his first dream sequence, details of which can be found on Shepard's character bio. After Shepard is asleep, Dr. Eva checks the medical bay to make sure the room is clear, then begins to type a coded message into her omni-tool. Her omni-tool sends her a message back, and she takes a set of tools out of the cupboard, including a drill. Eva activates a small eezo powered device which creates a micro stasis bubble, then she looms over Shepard, putting the drill to the side of his head. Suddenly, one of Shepard's squad-mates bursts into the room, and attacks Eva. After a brief scuffle, the squad-mate manages to blast Eva in the head with a powerful tech or biotic attack. Eva's skull underneath is comprised of polished metal and silicon. Shadow Broker operatives enter the room, and shoot the machine-woman, knocking her to the floor. Liara enters the medical bay, and stands over the black-blooded robot, which tries to activate it's omni-tool. Liara stamps on Eva's wrist, the grabs the robot and begins to interrogate her.

 If the Shepard recruited Eva on Earth by being aligned with Cerberus, Eva explains that she is a android, created by TIM to simulate the similarities between the bio-synthetic Reapers, and normal organic life. TIM now uses androids as a assassins, spies, lab rats, and Eva even hints that he uses them as sexual outlets. When Liara asks why TIM wants androids for experiments, Eva explains that she doesn't know.

If Shepard only met Eva on the Shadow Base by not being aligned with Cerberus, Eva explains that she is a Cerberus android  created by TIM to simulate the similarities between the bio-synthetic Reapers, and normal organic life. TIM now uses androids as a assassins, spies, lab rats, and Eva even hints that he uses them as sexual outlets. When Liara asks why TIM wants androids for experiments, Eva explains that she doesn't know.

 Liara asks why Eva was trying to kill (the still unconscious) Shepard. Eva explains that Shepard's headaches were being caused by the Prothean Cipher, which manifests itself as an a static electric pulse in the center of Shepard's brain. The Cipher is no bigger than the head of a needle, but it contains vast amounts of knowledge on Prothean data and helps protect organic minds from indoctrination – though over time the Cipher can deteriorate under the constant strain of indoctrination, and eventually fail. To prevent the Cipher from  dissolving into the atmosphere upon exiting Shepard's skull, Eva planned on using her small custom made stasis device to capture it. The stasis bubble could hold small amounts of energy, and Eva would take it to TIM.

Liara asks who Eva was contacting before she operated. She explains that there are Cerberus frigates in Hagalaz's atmosphere trying to track the Shadow Base. Unfortunately the electrical storms make it difficult to pinpoint Liara's location, even though they can still send coded messages to communicate with Eva.

Liara asks why Eva is telling her all of this. Why a machine wouldn't just shut down. Eva explains that she is an android, and is capable of feeling physical pain.

Liara stands up, and shoots Eva, deactivating her, then commands the Shadow Base to move deeper into Hagalaz's violent and stormy lower atmosphere.

If Miranda/Jacob is not loyal, they will flee the SB base during this time, having taken a kodiak out of the base to rendezvous with the Cerberus ships in Hagalaz's atmosphere.

A few hours later, Liara is relaying the information she learned about Cerberus to Shepard, who has woken up.

Shepard can be disappointed that TIM betrayed him, having believed in Cerberus ideals (unique to Cerberus alignment).

Shepard can be curious about what Cerberus is planning, and angry that TIM isn't cooperating.

Liara promises to investigate Cerberus's treachery more closely, but tells Shepard that they have more pressing things to worry about: Earth's situation is continuing to get worse, the Reapers have assaulted Palaven, decimating the turian fleets, and there are rumors of another Prothean dig site on the planet of Eden Prime, which has attracted the Alliance's attention. There is apparently an Alliance adrmiral on the Citadel who can direct Shepard to this dig site. Most important though, Liara reviewed the data disc of Kumun Shol, and sees that it indeed holds massive amounts of funds which would be valuable for setting up his alleged “War Summit”. Liara advises Shepard to go to the Citadel first, to provide his findings to the council in attempt to gain Citadel support. Shepard can agree or disagree.

 

If Shepard agrees, the SR2 makes it's way automatically to the Citadel. On the Citadel, either in the war summit meeting, or before the councilors, he will be briefed on missions which will become available.

If Shepard disagrees, then he can be briefed more on the missions at the Shadow Base. Miranda (if alive and loyal) will act as a briefing officer. If Miranda is dead/not loyal, Liara will act as a briefing officer.

Missions made available (either at the Citadel or Shadow Base) are: “Eden Prime Ruins”, “Extract Garrus/Extract Talon”, “Assist Rachni Queen” (if alive), “First War Summit” – which in turn unlocks the mission “Meet with the Krogan”.

Before the Normandy departs the Shadow Base, Liara shows Shepard a custom model of a LOKI security mech she created for EDI, which Shepard can use as a combat model (aka a squad-mate).

[Note: I needed to introduce EDI as a squad-mate at this point for one simple reason: if Shepard was aligned with Cerberus before their betrayal, Miranda and Jacob – loyal or not – would be unavailable as permanent squad-mates. More than that, if Miranda and Jacob were dead, then Shepard, upon leaving the Shadow Base, would only have one other squad-mate – Liara. EDI needed to come into play as another squad-mate. If Shepard was aligned with the Alliance then there wouldn't be a lack of squad-mates at this point, as Shepard would have James, Liara, and Kaiden/Ashley, but EDI is still introduced anyways]

[Note: Shepard can continue his relationship, conversations, and interactions with characters like Jacob and Miranda onboard the Shadow Base at any time. Throughout the story, other characters who can be recruited to the Shadow Base for more permanent roles there. There are two different types of recruits Shepard can get for ME3.

 The first kind are  field team members. These are squad-mates that come into combat with Shepard, perform missions with him on a (semi)regular basis, etc. James, Ashley, Garrus, etc are part of Shepard's field team.

The second kind of recruits are support team members. They help maintain either the Normandy or Shadow Base in some capacity – and can be either temporary squad-mates (like Miranda, Mordin, Jacob, etc) performing other galaxy-saving roles, or non-squad-mates, like Dr. Michel, Shiala, Engineer Adams, etc.]