User blog comment:Suparockr/List of Plotholes throughout the series/@comment-1679409-20120717153223/@comment-166.249.133.168-20120718020430

Alright, three ways to find an answer Mr. Wall Of Text:

1) Reading/listening to the Codex. It's there for a reason, usually described as elaborating and clarifying things from in-game. It explains that during the Battle of Palaven, the fleet was waiting near the Mass Relay or something and the Reapers FTL'd past them. Or something. Seriously I'm explaining it poorly you should read it for yourself.

2) Apply facts from the real-world and from in-game. Menae can have an atmosphere, as we can observe one of Saturn's moons (I think it's Saturn) having an atmosphere, although we cannot breathe it.

3) Inferencing a tad. You can infer that as the Shadow Broker, Liara dug up all the info she possible could about Primarch Victus to be sure that he was trustworthy. She probably researched his son too, because that's what you do when you profile people (I think. Did I use the right term? I don't think I did.) The comm tower can be repaired by non-tech expert since it was probably designed to be that way. Just because all turians have some military whatever, doesn't mean they're all techies, but they'll all be expected to do their damnedest to fix the thing. And also you just need to give room to some minor nitpickings, because no fictional universe is going to make absolute 100% sense.

Bonus, because I magically forgot how to count. 4) Following what the characters say. EDI says that she can't control the body outside of the Normandy's tightbeam range (or something) and that the majority of her still resides on the ship itself. All she probably did was download basic programs to emulate her voice and give the body a bit more grace, along with a probable extranet browser, since she loves looking schtuff up. Tali is an admiral, yes, and Garrus is an advisor who has generals saluting him. Tali has no fleet to order around, and she says that her position is more so that the admirals have a legitimate reason to listen to her advice. It's the same with Garrus. Their positions are token, and don't mean anything.

That stuff on Eden Prime weren't anything that needed to be asked if you actually paid attention. They sealed the civilians first I guess. Cerberus wasn't there in the beginning because when has it been proven that they are actually competent? Only Javik survived because of the power shortage. The Reapers didn't bombed it from orbit because they probably knew about about the sensor damage that would definitely lead to the power shortage. The bunker was designed oddly, yeah, but that's probably Bioware being stupid. And, for your final From Ashes question, Cerberus is stupid too. They leave credits lying around the place. I'm surprised there's no Easter Egg where a terminal shows a soldier's porn stash.

Aaaand... Yeah. There you go.