Feros: Geth Attack

• Landing zone
• The literal high road
• Opportunity checkpoint
• ExoGeni outskirts
• ExoGeni downstairs

1/5

The geth have attacked the world of Feros. Your primary objective is to go to the Zhu's Hope colony to investigate what Saren is after, and why he sent his geth troops to the planet.

Acquisition

Prerequisite: Citadel: Expose Saren

This mission is acquired after Shepard is given Spectre status. Upon reaching Dock 422 afterward, Udina and Anderson are standing next to the SSV Normandy's entrance and will brief you on your next moves after granting you command of the ship.

Udina relays reports of geth sightings on Feros. Anderson's speech about the planet is that it is a very young colony. It's covered with an old Prothean megatropolis that covers about 2/3rds of the planet. Anderson says that the colonists were attempting to build on what the Protheans left behind.

Preparation

If you are playing on a high difficulty level, then of the three core world missions initially available this may be the most straightforward to survive with a low-level character, since the battles tend to be amenable to "proceeding with caution" and less likely to force you into close quarters with extremely powerful opponents. Also, the unique grenade upgrade you receive during this mission will be extremely powerful regardless of your level—another factor amplifying the ability of low-level characters to do well here.

If there's an opportunity to upgrade your grenade capacity at one of the Citadel shops before you head here, it's well worth it. Try to avoid using many grenades early in this mission, however, as you may need them later. Always make sure they can be replenished.

Your early adversaries on Feros are mostly geth and a few krogan, and really any squad abilities you bring will be useful. In armor terms, for much of the mission, use shield or health regeneration armor upgrades as much as possible, and in the later portion, damage protection and health regeneration upgrades.

There comes a point in the mission where you will be cut off from the Normandy, preventing you from changing squadmates, flying elsewhere, or doing whatever business you have on the ship. It lasts until the next mission, so be warned and plan accordingly. In subsequent sections, biotic crowd control powers such as Throw, Lift, and Singularity will be especially valuable for keeping masses of enemies from closing to point blank range. The Neural Shock ability, if available, will also come in handy against certain organic enemies ahead.

If you wish to make all morality-based choices available, it is highly recommended not to continue beyond the mission's point of no return until you have at least 10 points in Intimidate and/or 12 points in Charm. Go offworld and develop your morality alignment elsewhere first, if needed.

Walkthrough

Head to Feros in the Theseus system of the Attican Beta cluster.

Arrival on Feros

On the approach to Feros, unlike the Citadel and Noveria, no one is responding to hails and no one contacts the Normandy. Prep yourself and your squad for a lengthy adventure.

After exiting the Normandy head down the platform and you will run into David Al Talaqani. He welcomes you and tells you that their leader Fai Dan wants to speak with you. Respond with what you will, no matter what you say David will tell you to speak to Fai Dan, then some geth come up and promptly shoot him in the back.

The initial wave of enemies consists of Geth Troopers and a Geth Shock Trooper. Deal with them; put your squadmates in the limited cover that exists. Further ahead there are a few more Troopers, Shock Troopers, and a Geth Sniper that will block your path. The geth will frequently not use the cover or move out of it so don’t worry if you can’t get at them, they will do that themselves. Note: Throughout this mission the numbers and types of enemies will scale based on your current level - for instance the enemy count may vary if you have a low level character, even if you are playing on high difficulty level.

Once the geth fall move up and head up the stairs. You are treated to a quick cutscene showing some Geth Hoppers jumping around and Shepard and the squad moving into the stairwell. When you regain control head up the stairs and watch for the Hoppers - they're fast and agile harassment units and are difficult to track and take down. Use some biotics to get them off balance and then it will be easy to take them out; if not then make them fall into the abyss. Head up the stairs and into the colony, or what’s left of it.

Zhu's Hope

When you get to the top of the stairs you come across some defense barriers where two people are arguing about who is going to go and look for geth. Go past them and into the structure ahead of you. Really it is a downed freighter, the Borealis, but just keep going. You may have noticed a few named people around, but at this point they can only offer perfunctory one-liner dialogues and can be mostly ignored.

Your map points to Fai Dan's location. You may go around the Borealis to get there, or through the ship itself. If you enter the ship, you can encounter Calantha Blake lying on a cot and Hollis Blake by her side. Interact with Calantha for +2 morality points in either direction, and gain a Codex entry from the terminal in their room if you haven't obtained it from other sources yet.

Legendary Edition: The Asari Clone no longer targets Shepard with her biotic knockdown ability; however, you can still get hit by it and incapacitated when she targets a squadmate.

When you reach Fai Dan's location, he's accompanied by Arcelia Silva Martinez. Strike up a conversation with them since attempting to proceed further will do it for you anyway. Fai Dan will thank you for your arrival, and rebuffs Arcelia who scoffs at you being late arriving to the battle, and only bringing three people. However your conversation is cut short as more geth arrive, and Arcelia instructs you toward the tower.

Tower Trouble

When you regain control of Shepard, take cover behind the defensive barriers to safely deal with the mass Shock Troopers, Troopers, and Snipers that attack you. The colonists also fire their weapons at the geth, but this is your show, not theirs, so it's still your responsibility to do most of the fighting. Once you manage to take out the geth, head up the stairs and on the stairs you may encounter yet more Hoppers depending on your level. Destroy them and keep moving up the stairs.

When you reach the top you will hear a colonist panicking because they are being chased by geth. There is nothing you can do to save the colonist but take out the geth that killed him. Because there is little cover here watch your health and shields as you combat the geth.

Once you are done dealing with them, head through the door. Turn left to keep going and complete the current objective at the tower, or turn right to detour into the tunnels, gain some exp fighting more geth, and make preemptive progress on some of the upcoming assignments. For simplicity's sake push forward to the tower for now; the context of events at the tunnels will be explained later.

When that's settled, head to the upper level and use the limited cover to your advantage as you take out the few geth that are in the room. The enemies there are positioned and attack in a sequential manner: first you'll see three Troopers, then two Geth Recon Drones arrive out of the broken ceiling. Shock Troopers and a Sniper emerge from the back end of the room, and finally there's a Geth Destroyer. An additional three Troopers are deployed from the sky once initial enemy numbers drop too low. Stay in cover and take them out, you can move if necessary but shoot the Destroyer at a distance otherwise they will get up close and personal with their shotguns and melee you and the squad.

Insanity Tips: If you're playing this in Insanity and have a low level character, the above fight can be very tough because your squadmates don't have much cover and enemies try to flank and charge you. Recommended is to stay in the very entrance area and give your squadmates an explicit order to stay there. Edge out and kill some of the easy initial targets; then the drones and shock troopers will appear -- retreat back into the entry alcove to deal with them without being sniped and so forth. Then rest until your health is full and abilities are active before taking out the Sniper which will shoot you down if you're careless. After that you're safe to emerge with your squad and lay waste to the remaining geth.

Once all the geth have fallen, a short cutscene will play showing a geth dropship leaving. One of your squadmates will say that they should report to Fai Dan and tell him that the tower is clear. Before heading back however, go to the other end of the tower, opposite the entrance, because there will be a Medical Station (easy decryption) and an upgrade kit there waiting to be picked up. When you have them, head back to Fai Dan, and don’t worry because there are no more enemies for now.

When you report back to Fai Dan he will thank you for clearing the tower but there are apparently still geth in the tunnels below the colony. The colony is in dire straits because of the ongoing attack and its myriad other problems, and you can ask him about what is needed to get the colony back on its feet. He will direct you to the appropriate person and you can pick up an associated assignment:

• Water Problem: Feros: Water Restoration: Macha Doyle
  • Find her near the entrance to the colony that leads back to the Normandy, near a pipe
• Food Problem: Feros: Varren Meat: Davin Reynolds
  • Find him in the downed ship, the Borealis
• Power Shortage: Feros: Power Cells: May O'Connell
  • Find her near the power generator near the entrance.
• Geth Problem: Feros: Geth in the Tunnels

You can bypass these assignments; whether or not you complete them will impact the fate of the colony. Even if you don't plan to save Zhu's Hope, there's little reason not to do them, as the exp, credits, and equipment that you can earn are well worth the time. You need not actually start off by walking around and talk to the people involved in order to do the assignments: it is possible to do any or all of the assignments first and only return to talk to the folks around the colony afterwards.

Before you leave, however, peek at the Public Extranet Terminal inside the ship for a codex entry, and hack a terminal in one of the pods of the freighter for the assignment Investigate Shipments (the terminal is only accessible if you have not already received the assignment from Admiral Hackett). Legendary Edition: After hacking, you can hack again by saving and reloading.

If you haven’t already, talk to Ledra to unload some materials and maybe acquire some licenses. Tip: If you happen to favor shotguns for some of your squad members, the Tornado models Ledra sells are some of the best available for their level - definitely worth checking against your current shotgun.

Head out when you're ready, up the stairs past Fai Dan and Arcelia then a right turn. A previously inaccessible door is now open, an elevator to a garage fronting the skyway to ExoGeni Headquarters. Ignore the elevator if you choose to handle the tunnels situation, or skip to here in the walkthrough if otherwise.

Into the Tunnels

Continue past the elevator and head down the stairs. About halfway down you'll hear a colonist running from the geth, though she doesn't get far before she's gunned down. There's a Stalker, a Trooper, and a Recon Drone here, so deal with them. When you are finished, head down and into the tunnels proper.

When you reach the lowest level of the colony follow the path until you reach an underground reservoir. Consulting your map, the route to take should be fairly straightforward with an impending crossroads ahead. Before the crossroads, you'll encounter two Shock Troopers and a Trooper. Take them out, and inspect the tunnel they're in for two of the three water valves pertaining to Feros: Water Restoration. You can't miss them, they're white contraptions attached to pipes right by the steps in and out of the corridor.

After this corridor is the aforementioned crossroads. Left and right lead to doorways, while forward goes to the farthest reaches of the tunnel complex. Go right to complete the Feros: Geth in the Tunnels assignment. Go left to complete Feros: Varren Meat and the Feros: Power Cells assignments. Go forward to find the third water valve for completion of Feros: Water Restoration.

At the furthest north of the tunnel system loiters a guy named Ian Newstead. You may ask him some questions as he's behaving strangely.

Depending on the end you choose for the conversation Ian will note incoming hostiles and two Geth Troopers indeed appear behind you. If you want to spawn the geth, ask him the two questions which appear on the left side; avoiding the questions by choosing the right-hand statements results in no encounter. Shoot them full of holes if they appear, and then head back, because talking to Ian again will not resume the conversation and he will just spout nonsense. Whichever the case, an autosave is generated after your talk with Ian.

Heading Back

If you did any of the assignments, then you will be greeted by some more geth when you reenter the first tunnel. You can use the cover provided to take out the attackers: a Shock Trooper, a Sniper, and a Destroyer.

When you get back up to the elevator, and before taking it, if you did the assignments go back to the colonists first to collect your rewards because otherwise you may not be able to later. Talk to the relevant folks and get the associated rewards. Offload your loot to Ledra and/or buy some of his stuff as well. Note: This is the last convenient opportunity to return to the Normandy and select the squadmates and equipment for the rest of Feros.

The Long and Bumpy Road

Now head back up the stairs and take the elevator. When you get to the top you'll find some colonists fighting a Geth Assault Drone, so assist them and then climb into the Mako for the trip.

First, some primers on what to expect on the road. When traveling to ExoGeni Headquarters you will encounter many geth, including large Geth Armatures. Remember that kills on foot net more experience points in the original version of Mass Effect while in Legendary Edition there are no more experience penalties for killing while in the Mako. Alternatively, if you are careful, you can tip the enemies over the edge of the skyway by ramming them for your own amusement. Try to avoid falling off the skyway yourself because you will die. Sporadically there are fires burning on the road, and it should be obvious you should avoid them whether on foot or Mako as they're level 3 hazards.

If you're speedrunning the game, the combined firepower of enemies present won't be dangerous enough to destroy your vehicle. Be wary, though, of the numerous obstacles that might knock your Mako off in physics-defying directions. Conversely, you can exit the Mako and proceed on foot after the initial requirement of boarding it to enter the skyway, but there's no benefit for doing so as the way to the HQ is long.

As you move along the skyway, you may notice some red dots on your radar when no geth seem to be around - those geth are under the skyway, reachable through the little passageways you will see in the middle. These often have lootables, making it worth your while to get off the vehicle and collect them. Note: There are numerous Czech hedgehogs along the skyway. While these can be easily pushed aside by the Mako (or with effort using biotics), try to angle your vehicle to shove them away from an under-the-skyway passage entrance as these cannot be moved by any other means and may seriously impede your ability to explore said passage. In the original version of the game they can be destroyed with the Mako's main gun, though in Legendary Edition they are indestructible objects (if you wait for a while or drive away, when the game wipes the geth corpses the obstacles may disappear as well). Therefore, just shove them aside properly for less hassle whichever version you're playing.

Mako Tip: Geth that shoot relatively slow-moving large projectiles, such as the Armatures, will always aim for the front tip of the Mako. Turn your Mako perpendicular to them, and you will quickly get the hang of rocking back and forth without ever being hit. Even better there are several encounters in this section where you can hide the front of the Mako behind a door or bulkhead while leaving the gun free to fire. Aim directly at the geth when hosing them down with the Mako's machine gun, but aim at the ground at a geth's feet when firing the "big gun". With practice you can make it through this entire section on Insanity level without ever losing the Mako's shield.

To exit the initial garage area, you must be in the Mako. One of your squadmates will snark about heading into the geth base. The door will then open, and shortly after you exit, a cutscene will play in which a Geth Dropship drops two Geth Armatures. You can retreat back into the garage and exit the Mako to save your game, BUT if you reload without defeating the Armatures, they will have vanished.

Right after gaining control, about 280 meters away you'll see the first of two geth groups before the halfway point of the journey: the two Armatures, two Shock Troopers, and one Geth Rocket Trooper. Take them out either on foot or from the Mako. A few meters away from the garage you will hear a radio transmission, but your squadmates can't pin down the source. When you reach the (former) position of the geth enemies you'll hear more chatter, this time talking about someone named Lizbeth Baynham.

Further along the road the woman talking on the radio reveals Lizbeth is her daughter. At that point you should encounter the next group of geth defenders on the skyway: an Armature, two Rocket Troopers, and a Shock Trooper. This group is next to the first of three aforementioned under-the-skyway passages, which has a Geth Trooper inside. When you've dealt with them, turn your attention to the lootables: a locked crate (easy decryption) and a technician kit. Get back into the Mako and head through the door at the distance when you're done.

Skyway Weigh Station

Inside the skyway weigh station you'll hear another transmission: someone saying that they can hear a vehicle, yours, and that it’s clearly not the geth. When you see a large platform to your left and a stairwell heading down, you can ignore the area for the moment as you will find out about it later, or you can exit the Mako and head down to investigate. Their radio chatter will change depending on whether you meet them first or move forward first.

When you reach the bottom you see a group of refugees, and you begin a conversation with Ethan Jeong and Juliana Baynham. Juliana is one of the people you've been hearing on the radio: she thanks you for your arrival and tells you of what happened during the geth attack and of her daughter who might still be alive in the ExoGeni headquarters. Juliana is cooperative and gives you a good amount of information, while Jeong is more concerned with ExoGeni and its reputation; he is also generally uncooperative as he is more concerned with a lawsuit or the like.

You can talk to the guards and refugees, though they're basically riffs about the same topics. The guards toe the company line and reiterate the situation on Feros is unusual while the refugees mostly complain about the lack of support from ExoGeni and how overwhelming the geth are as adversaries.

When you have all the information you want, or just get tired of Jeong, end the conversation and then head over to the left and talk to Gavin Hossle. He has just a small task for you. Since you are already going to ExoGeni, accept it because you will get some credits later. Tip: If you are in a hurry, it is possible to pick up Hossle's assignment without triggering the conversation with Jeong and Baynham by taking a sharp left at the first opportunity and carefully staying as far from them as possible while walking over to Hossle. There is no change in the later outcomes if you do this.

The Long and Bumpy Road, Part 2

When you are done leave and head back to the Mako. Drive up and around to exit the station. There's a recommended save point when you reach the top just before the door.

When you exit there are more geth awaiting you outside and behind barriers, one of each: an Armature, a Trooper, a Shock Trooper, and a Rocket Trooper. Roll up slowly and back if you need to, the door will close on its own. When you reach their position, there is another transmission - "the package is secured" - signalling another opportunity to hunt geth underneath the skyway. There are two Troopers in the tunnels, and the lootables are a medical kit and an upgrade kit.

When you move a little farther along you hear another transmission, but this one is panicked. On your right you should see another opening under the skyway so exit and head down for your third and final of these under-the-skyway encounters. In this area you'll find up to four Geth Troopers, two human corpses, and a single crate. Take out the geth and grab the loot then reenter the Mako and continue. When you get closer to ExoGeni’s garage there is a final round of large geth, as usual scaled to your level. Enemy composition could have three Geth Juggernauts and an Armature.

When the final geth falls head inside ExoGeni HQ and serve the geth an eviction notice.

ExoGeni HQ

When you reach ExoGeni's garage, your radar gets jammed, unless you have the appropriate Weapons Upgrades. Exit the Mako and proceed on foot since you'll pass through a narrow opening that the vehicle can't conventionally squeeze through. The enemies waiting beyond are a Shock Trooper on the same floor as you, a Trooper and a Rocket Trooper on a higher platform, and a Geth Sapper and a Geth Stalker jumping around from place to place. Tip: If XP reduction is irrelevant to your case, you can take almost all of them out with the heavy explosive rounds from the Mako's gun just by firing in through the opening.

Once all the geth are down head up the ramp and take in the blasted surroundings. At one end is a weakly secured door (easy decryption), and at another end is an energy barrier you can't penetrate.

Inside the door is a deactivated Armature, a malfunctioning object, and a fusion containment cell. Don’t shoot the explosive canister for the moment. The second you loot the malfunctioning object in the room, the Armature wakes up, so shoot (or better yet Overload) the container, then use biotics to take the Armature off balance or tech talents to keep it from disintegrating you. Killing this Armature is strictly optional, however.

The way around the barrier is a one-way drop near it leading inside ExoGeni HQ. Warning: This is a point of no return for going offworld, chatting up colonists, offloading accumulated items, or changing squadmates at the Normandy. Once you drop down major story developments will occur, and when you get back out you'll be returning to a markedly changed colony. Your squadmate choices will be locked for the rest of the Feros story arc.

When you've committed your choice, you emerge into a huge cavern. A cutscene starts where someone shoots and the shot gets deflected by Shepard’s shields. The person approaches and apologizes, you can respond to that and she eventually introduces herself as Lizbeth Baynham. You can ask her some questions about what the geth are doing on Feros and she replies that they are probably there for the Thorian. You can ask about it but she apparently doesn’t know much. When you are done, she will give you her ID badge and she will go and hide, again.

When the conversation ends, you will be attacked by about 7 varren so watch out. Because there is no cover here and the varren all attack at once, it can devolve into a challenging fight, especially at lower levels and on harder difficulties.

There is a piece of wood bridging a gap between two concrete pillars in the middle of the area - get out to the end of it as quickly as possible, before the varren swarm you. The varren will have a hard time reaching you there, and will often clump up making themselves vulnerable to area effect abilities. If worst comes to worst you can jump off and they will take the long way round to find you again. Biotics such as Lift, Throw, and Singularity are handy for keeping the varren away from you while you whittle their numbers. Likewise consider equipping shotguns for all party members even those not trained in them - especially if you have Hammerhead rounds which will greatly increase the chances of knocking varren off their feet. Remember to use your storm ability to run quickly away from groups of varren when needed.

When the varren are finally down, move across the room and to the door to the facility.

When you start to climb the stairs you hear a Krogan Commander yelling at a "stupid machine". You can stand for a second and hear the krogan get more frustrated but eventually when you get up far enough a cutscene will play showing an ExoGeni VI dismissing the krogan and revealing your presence. The Krogan Commander turns and fights you.

Considering that he has a shotgun and krogan are good at close quarters fighting, you do have a fight on your hands, especially because he loves to go after Shepard. As always, keeping krogan off-balance with powers is standard procedure and here there's three of you versus just him. Spam him with bullets and abilities.

When the krogan falls, the VI automatically talks to you and it will remind you that discharging weapons on company property is forbidden. It welcomes you as Lizbeth, even if Shepard is male, because of her ID badge. You can ask the VI questions about the Krogan Commander's last query and Lizbeth. Apparently Lizbeth knew a lot more than she let on and also what ExoGeni was doing. The Thorian she was talking about is a plant-like creature that took over the colony, and ExoGeni allowed it to happen to study the results.

Now that you know more about what happened on Feros, it's time for the next mission: get out of ExoGeni HQ and head back to the colony. You'll try contacting Joker about the Thorian reveal, but there's a dropship attached to the building, and the field it's emitting must be blocking off the comms.

Enemies

• Geth Armature
• Geth Assault Drone
• Geth Destroyer
• Geth Sapper
• Geth Stalker
• Geth Juggernaut
• Geth Recon Drone
• Geth Rocket Trooper
• Geth Shock Trooper
• Geth Trooper
• Krogan
• Krogan Commander
• Varren

Trivia

• 
  On the first part of the skyway, in the corridor under the road (just after surmounting the collapsed portion of the bridge), there is an easy-decryption crate which can be opened an unlimited number of times. After opening the crate save the game; then load that save, and you will be able to decrypt the crate again for new items. Save again, load, and re-loot; this process can be repeated as many times as you wish, and the crate will again be accessible on your return trip. It is only available until you're locked out of the skyway by returning to Zhu's Hope in the next mission.

Cut Content

• There are several unused voicelines related to this mission, mostly linked to squadmates or Zhu's Hope colonists. Among other things, Joker voicelines point to the Normandy landing on Feros while under fire from the geth.
• Unused data references the player having to defeat several waves of geth attacks to protect Zhu's Hope.
• At one point during development, Shepard was planned to have to battle through a building in order to defeat geth snipers at the top. Fai Dan and Ian Newtead would have reacted in the aftermath.

References

Feros Mission Navigation

	Mission Index	Next Mission →
	Missions	Feros: The Thorian