UNC: Listening Post Alpha

Listening Post Alpha in the Erebus system is reportedly being attacked by unidentified life forms and is requesting assistance.

Acquisition

Prerequisite: Noveria: Matriarch Benezia

Prerequisite: UNC: Listening Post Theta

The plot on Noveria must be completed first before gaining access to the gateway cluster Styx Theta.

Simply entering the Erebus system triggers a distress call from Lieutenant Durand and this assignment will appear in your journal. If you landed first on Altahe and explored the Alliance facility there, you will gain this assignment from one of the terminals in the comm room of the base.

Preparation

Combat in this assignment is a mix of outdoor and claustrophobic scenarios against swarms of organic, unshielded enemies. Consider equipping everyone's armor with regeneration and/or anti-toxin upgrades. As the enemies are also deadly in close range, having biotic backup plus whichever combination of hard-hitting/anti-organic ammo mods will be of particular use here.

Walkthrough

Surface

Land on Nepmos and make your way to the listening post. From afar you may notice they're shooting at something, and as you drive closer you see they're under attack from rachni. Three marines on three barricade-platforms against a swarm of brown claws and tentacles. Note: Unlike other battles, you will gain no experience points, credits, nor loot from the rachni killed in this segment.

There is a small generator in the middle of the camp that supplies power to the twin rocket turrets on the base perimeter. However, it needs a power source. You can either activate the turrets by connecting the generator to the Mako, or keep using the Mako for your own purposes. Hooking up the Mako to the generator disables the vehicle, so there's a tradeoff to consider. The base turrets cannot be targeted by the critters and direct hits from them can one-shot the bugs, though they have a slow firing rate and their rockets can be outrun by the bugs. To use the Mako again, you will have to disconnect it. Distance of the Mako to the generator is irrelevant, you can park the vehicle anywhere and connect them both with no problems.

If you choose to conduct the battle on foot with the Mako powering the turrets, you'll have your choice of a mobile offense out in front of the Alliance soldiers, or remaining in cover on the center platform/barricade. The latter course does offer the substantial benefit that the rachni spittle will basically never hit you; your squad can be afforded similar protection if you manually order them into the open slot of one of the other platforms. In addition to the tactics you might normally use against rachni, immobilizing them through any means will also tend to improve the accuracy of the rocket turrets.

The rachni attack in three waves, including the one you witness going in. All of them are Rachni Soldiers that emerge from the holes a few meters in front of the listening post. After the first two waves you get two 1-minute rest periods to heal up, configure your loadouts, etc. If you talk to Lieutenant Durand or interface with the game menus during the lulls, the timer stops until you exit the conversation or resume the game. She will tell you that this assault has been happening for the last few days and that the few marines remaining are all that is left of a platoon of 90. There will be some slight dialogue changes depending on whether you finished UNC: Listening Post Theta first.

After the third wave, talk to Durand to get things going. One of the marines will say that one of the UAVs has found a hollow space about 500 meters below the surface. Lt. Durand will ask Shepard to check it out. Choose your responses, then decide on your next course of action. If you haven't done Listening Post Theta yet, you're doing this only after escaping from the Citadel lockdown, and you selected the middle response when Durand mentions the other outpost, Shepard informs her of both the Citadel and Fifth Fleets being after the Normandy. Otherwise, the discussion is solely about the matter at hand.

At this point the assignment proper is already as good as complete for the purpose of unlocking the Gorgon system for the third assignment leg UNC: Depot Sigma-23. Accomplishing UNC: Listening Post Theta is the other criterion required. Clearing the Rachni Infested Mine now on your map is optional, though you need to in order to close the journal entry.

If you have other places to be, or not really seeking extra loot and/or experience, then you can return to the Normandy. Otherwise, head over to the mine on the southwest. Before you leave, grab the med kit from one of the shacks, and an upgrade kit and another med kit from the other.

Note: It is possible to just let Durand and her cohorts do the fighting while you and your team wait out the rachni waves. They're fairly durable and can occasionally invoke Immunity to bolster their damage reduction. Durand's buddies can die from the onslaught, but she herself won't even if she's swamped by rachni claws. However, this will take a long time even with assistance from the turrets (and will result in the cutscene locating the nest to be missing a marine if both died), so unless you're cooking up snacks in the background or something it's still recommended you do your part.

Rachni Infested Mine

The mine is slightly northwest of the listening post, or southwest from the initial Mako landing zone. Note: If you stumbled upon the mine before saving the listening post the door will be locked. It will be unlocked after speaking with Durand after the third wave.

Head down the entrance tunnel to reach the first room. When you reach the first room you will see some holes on the far wall, but nothing will come out of them. Before entering the tunnel to the main room there is a locked crate off to the right of the entrance that requires Easy Decryption. This is a good point to save the game because of the many rachni you will encounter in the main room.

In the main room there are eight rachni holes, each of which will only release its rachni when a squadmate gets close. When you enter the room, watch your right because there will be a hole there, though it will only release one Rachni Soldier; the remaining holes will release one to three apiece - it's twenty rachni if you choose to clear the whole room, and unlike the ones near Durand these rachni do provide experience points. Keep cover in mind as you do this. Clear out all the holes before heading to the tunnels in the back of the room. There is an open crate to the north of the main chamber, and another in the south-eastern corner.

The two branch tunnels are the next rooms. This is another good save point because you will face Rachni Soldiers and Rachni Brood Warriors. Note that the Brood Warriors have some biotic potential and use stasis and a form of barrier to defend themselves, so be prepared for quite a fight, but the Brood Warriors will come out last. You have to enter the room, i.e. step out of the tunnel, in order to get the rachni to come up from their holes.

• 
  The left-hand tunnel has four Rachni Soldiers and one Brood Warrior, though they appear sequentially so you'll only be fighting two rachni at any given time. Once you kill three of the Rachni Soldiers, the Brood Warrior comes up. There is a Secure Crate in the room that requires Average Decryption.
• The right-hand tunnel has two Rachni Soldiers and a Brood Warrior. Once you have killed one of the Rachni Soldiers, the Brood Warrior will emerge. The locked crate in the room requires Easy Decryption.

Note that the left room has an angled tunnel and jump, stopping the rachni from leaving the room, allowing you to fight from the main room and use the walls as cover. The right room is flat; rachni and the Brood Warrior will charge towards you. Run in, pull the rachni out, and find some sort of cover/obstruction to stop them from going into melee.

Upon the deaths of the two Brood Warriors a lore message pops up to report that you've eliminated the rachni on the planet. There is no need to return to Lt. Durand as she will have nothing new to say.

Enemies

• Rachni Brood Warrior
• Rachni Soldier

Trivia

• This assignment was written by Chris L'Etoile.
• This assignment may be a homage to the book/movie Starship Troopers.
• There also seems to be a bug where Shepard or the teammates 'float' quite far above the ground when near Lt. Durand or the other Alliance soldiers. This is easily fixed by moving far away from them ‒ Shepard will harmlessly 'fall down', and the teammates will teleport to Shepard's side.
• This assignment is referred to as "Rachni Rebirth: Listening Post Alpha" within the game's internal data.

References

Cerberus rachni Experiment Navigation

	Mission Index	Next Mission →
	Assignments	UNC: Listening Post Theta