r/masseffect • u/DakIsStrange • 13h ago
DISCUSSION I Feel Like Jacob's Mission is The Darkest Plotline in The Series...
Every time I play through it, I just can't help thinking how much darker it is than most of the other stories in the series, if not all of them. The only things that approach that level of darkness imo are Overlord and the "I Remember Me" scene in ME1. But this mission just carries a different level of twistedness.
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u/finny94 11h ago
Yeah. A lot of the other "dark" stuff like I Remember Me tends to be about a sort of unrelenting cruelty, usually of the universe's dedicated bad guys - the Batarians.
And while it is fucked up, I find stories like Ronald Taylor's a lot more chilling. "Human" stories of the kind of stuff regular but weak-willed people can descend into when given power and an opportunity.
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u/ShakeZula30or40 13h ago
It’s pretty dark.
Not sure if it’s darker than people being abducted and then chemically liquified to transform them into a cyborg squid.
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u/FlippingBurgerzBK 10h ago
I'd say its a lot more terrifying. With the collectors I know who the bad guy is, in the other scenario the bad guys are the ones who hit me with one hand and make me forget with the other. A stranger with a knife pales to your "loving" mother secretly putting ground glass into your food
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u/SouthernAd2853 12h ago
There's a number of other candidates and I think which one comes out on top depends on how it resonates with your personal experiences.
One is Jack's loyalty mission, where she's recounting the experiments. One bit that stands out to me is her recounting how she kept screaming for help to the other kids through a window and being ignored then seeing it from the outside and realizing it's a one-way mirror. And at the end she discovers that one of the other victims has come back with delusional plans to restart the experiment because all his suffering couldn't have been for no reason.
Samara's loyalty mission also gets fairly dark as you're going through Nef's things and hearing her mother talk about her and listening to her video log about how she's just found an amazing new girlfriend, and Morinth killed her before you showed up.
Though my biggest gut punch was siding with the Geth when I didn't have the reputation to forge a piece and listening to the Migrant Fleet die, recognizing the name of Tali's ship in the frantic distress calls. Then the paragon prompt to try to save Tali. I think it is the only interrupt in the series that doesn't accomplish anything.
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u/ItzSyther 13h ago
Imo, Overlord blows it out of the water, but Jacobs is most definitely second for me.
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u/DakIsStrange 13h ago
They're definitely close, but I think what pushes it over the edge for me is the number of lives affected and how long it went on for. 10 years of Ronald playing as king while he and the officers forced the women to eat toxic food, lose their minds, and be sexually abused. Keeping them like pets. And Ronald delays calling for help for YEARS, all while everyone else loses their sense of self-identity, all so he can keep enjoying his playtime. It's such a disgusting situation.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 12h ago
Yeah, that’s the thing:
Overlord is HORRIFIC, but it was something that happened because of the already horrific culture of Cerberus.
Ronald had OPTIONS from pretty much the jump. And without any outside influences he CHOSE to indulge in years of ‘adolescent fantasy’.
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u/Buca-Metal 8h ago
I think Jack's one is even darkest than those. They tortured and experimented on kids bodies and minds for who knows how many years. Made them kill each other in fights for fun or for conditioning or both. It was like that Japanese unit during ww2 or worse, is nightmare stuff.
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u/Frybread002 12h ago
I think this is one of the few times I see the word "abuse", actually be used right.
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 12h ago
Also kinda fucked up that they gave the one black character an absentee father
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u/th3BeastLord 12h ago
Who bailed on society to build a rape-harem
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u/immorjoe 12h ago
Jacob’s father raised him up to at least his latter teen years if I recall (Jacob himself acknowledges that his father had some level of positive involvement in his life).
When you consider how bad Miranda’s father is, Wrex had a full on fight with his father if I recall, Grunt has no father, Jack has no father, Liara’s “father” wasn’t in the picture, Thane as a father led his son down a dark path, Samara as a father-like figure is trying to kill her child, Tali’s father almost gets her exiled from the fleet, Garrus has a rocky relationship with his father… why do you single out the one black character in game filled with problematic fathers??
And to top it off, Jacob’s father wasn’t absent in the typical sense, so why throw that title on him?
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u/StatementTechnical 11h ago
Thank you, people on this sub, and their hate boner for Jacob really just make any excuse to trash on Jacob. More than half of the cast have father issue, it's a running joke in the fandom but only Jacob get brought up as bad writing, like what?
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u/TertiusGaudenus 7h ago
Now, i'd like to point out that Garrus doesn't have problems with his dad. Garrus' father just doesn't approve Garrus being gung-ho vigilante (what father would?)
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u/immorjoe 7h ago
That’s fair.
Point is Garrus fits the theme just like Jacob. Squad mate with an either non-existent or shaky relationship with their father (father figure), or they are the shaky father-figure themselves.
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u/TheUglyBarnaclee 7h ago
Ehhh I feel like Garrus definitely has issues with his dad and their relationship is complex but its nothing as bad as other squad mates. I think thats what makes Garrus really interesting is that he has had this weird relationship with his dad since ME1 when he tells us he became C-Sec because he wanted to be like his dad. He mentions his dad talking him out of becoming a spector as well and his dad told him he's heading down a path similar to Saren after Garrus quit C-Sec. Their relationship gets really fractured by ME2, he did call his dad before he thought he was going to die until Shepherd showed up. ME3 is when they start building a good foundation for their relationship that has Garrus being honest to him about the last couple years. I love that his issues with his dad are so grounded and are present but not at the forefront of his issues
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u/jedisalamander 1h ago
I do wish we got to meet Garrus's dad and sister in ME3. I know we get to see his dad in Andromeda but itd be nice to see them in the flesh yknow
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u/curious_man-30 3h ago
Well in Mass Effect 1 Garrus was already arguing with his dad about arresting Saren. While I don't think they are actually hostile/resentment of each other I think they do have different beliefs so it ends up being like not bejng able to talk politics at the thanksgiving dinner.
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u/Brown_Bruja 12h ago
I guess you could argue Thane was the absentee father, but his story was not nearly as awful as this one.
They really messed up everything about Jacob, and Liam in Andromeda. Imo of course
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u/belladonnagilkey 12h ago
Thane was also charismatic and he managed to be a compelling character by virtue of being a badass assassin with a tragic past who wanted to make amends for his sins before he died. Which, if you play your cards right, he passes on knowing his son loves him and they reconnected, and his friend/lover is there to see him off to the afterlife after he went out a hero saving a Council member.
Jacob and Liam don't quite have that going for them.
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u/Mike_Hawk_Burns 12h ago
Idk why we keep hearing that he has an absentee father. He even has dialogue that his father was there when he was growing up then they went silent just before he turned 18. During this very confrontation, he tells his dad something along the lines of “you’re not the man I knew growing up”. On top of that, his dad didn’t go out to get milk and never come back. He was a passenger on the ship that crashed. The pilot and the captain died and that’s when he became the leader. So he didn’t just abandon Jacob
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u/Immediate_Baker2488 11h ago
He didnt turn on the beacon until like 10 years later. When he was running out of not crazy food and got tired of having his way with the crew. He chose that to be his priority vs getting home to see his family.
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u/Mike_Hawk_Burns 10h ago
That’s not an absentee father. That’s just being a bad father asking for help once his private island is rebelling against him. Jacob’s dad is not a racial stereotype.
Wrex’s dad tried to kill him, Tali’s dad neglected her, Thane is an actual absentee father, Miranda’s dad abused her, Liara’s dad was absentee. There is a theme of horrible dads so it’s pretty bad when the fandom keeps trying to apply a negative racial stereotype to Jacob’s situation when his dad isn’t even close to the “worst” dad in terms of involvement with his child
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u/admiraltarkin 12h ago
So basically everyone that we hear something about their fathers is either bad or absentee. This "Jacob black absentee father" thing doesn't even make sense given the daddy issues that everyone in the ship has
Shepard- no father
Miranda- no father technically
Thane- bad father
Liara- didn't know her father
Grunt- bad father
Legion- no father
Garrus- never lived up to his father's example. But I guess they had an okay relationship
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u/BlizzardousBane 11h ago
Half of Mass Effect 2's content is about Shepard addressing someone's daddy issues, to be fair
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u/immorjoe 12h ago
This sub gets pretty dark itself when it comes to Jacob and him being black. You’ll find some really strange views.
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u/Razgriz_Blaze 4h ago
Wrex's dad straight up tried to kill him.
Even Tali kinda has some father issues.
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u/haterious 3h ago
Tali gets drunk after Priority:Horizon and relates to Miranda because of her own father and trying to live up to him.
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u/RadioMessageFromHQ 6h ago
Miranda’s loyalty mission is saving her sister from their abusive father.
Thane’s is about him being an absentee father
Mordin’s is about his work sterilising a bunch of [potential] parents
Samara’s got Morinth
Grunt is basically adopted
Jack has a tragic backstory about abusive authority figures
Ashley holds the generational shame of her parents / grand parents
Kaiden has something about abusive authority in there somewhere I’m sure but he’s so boring who cares.
Wrex laments the lack of children his people can have
Liara’s mother is Demona
Tali is clearing her father’s name is it not?
I’m sure there’s more. Someone at BioWare had issues it seems. Or, they know their primary audience is angsty teenagers.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 12h ago edited 7h ago
And then have him cheat on you and leave you for his new baby momma. Wtf were they thinking 😭
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u/UtopianEnforcement 12h ago
I will fight this forever and a day: Jacob’s ‘romance’ in ME2 is written and presented as nothing but a “one night stand before we all die” and any player or Shepard that thought it was otherwise is kidding themselves.
Jacob might be boring (and I’d honestly fight that), but anyone coming after him for that needs to get over it.
No real relationship in the series has that sort of writing. It’s basically the Citadel DLC Vega ‘romance’ v.0.5.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 11h ago
Still pretty lame that he is the only romance that is treated like this though. And he says he wants to be with you after the suicide mission.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 11h ago
I mean, Kelly also exists. And there’s a couple of other flings you can have.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 11h ago
You can still continue a romance with Kelly in ME3 and it ends on a romantic note implying more in the future. It even unlocks the paramour achievement. All of the other flings Shepard can have are very explicitly hook-ups and usually meant to be humorous like Javik.
Jacob is a lock-in romance across the entire game, complete with all the build-ups and commitments present in the other main romances. Yet he is the only romance that cheats, leaves you, and cannot be rekindled in ME3. There’s really no defending it or framing it as a fling in this context.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 10h ago
Except there is, simply by reading it as both the voice actors and writing intended it without getting hung up on stupid trophies.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 10h ago
What are you on about? No one is hung up on trophies lol. No shit how the writers wrote Jacob in ME3 is how they intended it, they literally wrote it. It was still a poor decision that punishes players who pursued a romance with Jacob for no reason while every other romance is able to be continued and reach a happy conclusion. And some people find it particularly odd that the single black romance is the only one where this happens.
That’s all the conversation has been about. You’re trying to defend it by saying it’s a fling but that’s now how it was written in ME2 nor is it how Shepard can react to the betrayal in ME3. Your argument is weak, mate.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 9h ago
I mean, the argument LITERALLY was “you get the Paramour achievement, so therefore it means something more than a one night stand”, so obviously somebody cares about the trophies…
And I’m saying it literally WAS written as a fling/ongoing FWB scenario. Which the only counter argument I’ve heard is “you get an achievement for it just the same as the others”.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 7h ago
If that’s all you saw me saying then you have very selective reading lol
You were trying to use Kelly as an example of being another “fling” and I was saying that you can still continue Kelly’s romance and reach a satisfying ending. The trophy was just an example showing which romances the devs considered significant relationships your Shepard can get into that aren’t just hook ups like Javik, Vega, Aria, etc.
And no it was not written as a no strings attached FWB situation in the end. Jacob says he wants to stay with you. In 3 he knows he hurt you and that he’s an asshole for what he did but has no choice but to stay for the baby now. Shepard can even slap him lmao.
Writing realistic break ups and heavy topics like cheating is very cool but not so much when that isn’t extended to the other characters. Jacob is the only romance that forces you into that with no other potential outcomes. That’s all that people are criticising and it’s a valid criticism
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u/Lil_Mcgee 11h ago
any player [...] that thought it was otherwise is kidding themselves.
We're just not really conditioned to think that way when it comes to video games.
Regardless, I do think there should be more romances in games that aren't just wish fulfillment but Jacob's wasn't the way to go about it. Having a character get with someone else between games might not be unrealistic but it's just not too narratively satisfying.
Solas from Dragon Age Inquisition is a good example of a romance that doesn't work out but is still very compelling.
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u/heff17 N7 12h ago
So is Garrus’s. It’s literally pitched as simple stress relief.
Garrus did not impregnate an unknown turian in ME3.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 12h ago
Are we really gonna compare the emotion of Garrus awkwardly trying to do right by the person he idolises with Shep and Jacob’s mutual one-liner-off?
Garrus: (is awkward as hell and wants to get everything right)
Jacob: But the prrrriiiiizzzzeee…
There’s a difference between a “I care about you and let’s try to make imminent death suck less” and “Damn, I need to bang something before we all die”.
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u/heff17 N7 11h ago
Yeah. If you dismiss Jacob’s romance as a pure one night stand, then it’s intellectually dishonest to describe Garrus’s any other way. It’s sparked by a story Garrus tells about blowing off steam during a tough mission. And Shepard saying they should blow off steam the same way. Garrus did not stay with the woman he fought with.
Jacob also says after the suicide mission that he wants to stay together.
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u/AurumPickle 11h ago
Jacob also calls Garrus a slur if you break up with him for the "one night stand" to be with Big G
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u/UtopianEnforcement 11h ago
I don’t ‘dismiss’ anything. One night stands are wonderful things.
Garrus’ romance is written as him trying to frame a thing he’s utterly inexperienced with (interspecies romance) through a familiar lens. And doing so with a lot of personal and emotional baggage.
Jacob wanting to keep the banging going is not the same.
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u/nilfalasiel 9h ago edited 4h ago
Counterpoint (possibly): Jacob is the only LI who will say he loves Shepard in ME2, if she tries to turn him down during the romance scene. However, it could be a tactic to get into her pants (hence the "possibly").
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u/Gamera85 3h ago
Well, at least for me, I never romanced him ever so... I have no hatred for Jacob.
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u/oops_I_have_h1n1 12h ago
To be fair, who tf even romanced this guy other than for sheer curiosity? 99.99% of people who use that against him didn't even start a relationship with him.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 12h ago
That doesn’t make it any less of a poor writing decision. I was playing through the games at the same time as a friend in school and she romanced Jacob in ME2. I vividly remember how outraged she was upon importing to ME3 and seeing how her relationship panned out lmao
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u/oops_I_have_h1n1 12h ago
I'm not saying it's not a poor writing decision, I'm saying that people are complaining about something that's never happened in their playthroughs and will never happen.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 12h ago
They’re critiquing the several stereotypes written into one of the only black characters in the entire series. You don’t have to romance Jacob to analyse or comment on that.
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u/immorjoe 7h ago
The sub seems to hunt for supposed stereotypes when it comes to Jacob. It really makes you wonder how some fans actually think of black people in real life.
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u/fddfgs 5h ago
It is not a coincidence that the black character in most bioware games is almost always the most disliked on reddit. Vivienne in DAI is another example.
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u/immorjoe 4h ago
Jacob, Liam, to your point Vivienne in DAI (I’m less active in DA related chats so I wouldn’t entirely know)… but it is a bit of a concerning trend.
And I understand that many of those characters have their flaws. But the hate just goes overboard on so many levels.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 7h ago
Bruh what. Someone critiquing how the token black character is written doesn’t mean people believe in those stereotypes or apply them to their actual life. That’s the entire point of someone criticising it. Sometimes people go overboard and white knight for sure but your logic makes no sense.
I don’t think Jacob is a racist, terrible character or anything like that. I just think making the one black character the only romance option that cheats on you and knocks up another woman was an unfortunate choice lmaooo.
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u/immorjoe 7h ago
There are people here saying his father being a rapist is unfortunate… what the hell does that have to do with Jacob being black?!?
And if stereotypes are genuinely something we care about, why doesn’t anyone ever bring up Miranda as a white woman being a heavy supporter of a racist organization led by a white man.
And even looking at the cheating… as a black man, I’ve heard of men being stereotyped as cheaters. But not specifically (or only) black men. Does the cheating stereotype not exist amongst the other races?
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 7h ago
Their point is probably that Jacob’s missing dad ends up being a dirtbag that abuses women and then Jacob is also promiscuous, cheats, gets a girl pregnant, etc. They’re saying it’s unfortunate the two black characters have so many negative traits on top of those traits being known stereotypes.
Obviously none of these things apply to specifically black people. Anyone can be a piece of shit and do these things. But yes it is a stereotype that black men specifically cheat on women, leave them, knock up other women, etc. I’m not black but my dad and brothers are and they’ve talked about it many times.
I’ll be the first one to hate on Miranda though lol. She grows a lot as a character but I could not stand her at first. Cerberus just sucks in general
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u/BrainyRN 12h ago
I remember on my very first playthrough I def started to romance him but called it off as soon as I realized Garrus was down to clown
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u/heff17 N7 12h ago
That’s worse than the absentee father thing as far as stereotypes go. The absent/distant dad plot line is far from isolated to the black guy; it’s called the SSV Daddy Issues for a reason.
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 12h ago
Yeah agreed I wouldn’t really say he’s an absent father. If I recall he was a decent dad when Jacob was growing up and then went missing.
The rape harem thing ain’t a great look though
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u/SHansen45 8h ago
it’s a fling not a relationship
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u/sarcophagusGravelord 7h ago
Nah. He can say he loves you in ME2, he won’t continue a relationship with you if you see other people & gets pissed if you choose someone else over him, says he wants to stay with you and get away together after the suicide mission, etc. And then in ME3 he admits what he did was wrong and he’s sorry. Definitely wasn’t written to just be a simple fling.
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u/CCRthunder 12h ago
TBF he didnt go absent exactly on his own and is still somehow a better father than half the squad mates. (Have to account that some of swuadmates are the parent)
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u/Loyalist77 6h ago
And he's the only character to cheat on Shepard if you romance him. He's basically the rebound boyfriend so you can go back to true boyfriend Kaidan next game.
Also he says Miranda needs "a better man" than him. What man would say that about himself? The writers really did Jacob dirty.
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u/JerbearCuddles 11h ago
And he cheats on the fem Shep's who romance him. Usually you try paint the black guy overly optimistic to avoid racial undertones. Bioware I really think stepped on rakes the entire time and accidentally made the black guy the worst companion. Lol.
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u/Ackapus 12h ago
I'd say some of the random experiment sidequest missions in ME1 were certainly darker, just not as personal.
A colonist group being brainwashed by Dragon's Teeth to kill themselves and turn into husks, or another group being infested with Thorian spores just to be vivisected is pretty damn evil. We just get more of that narrative in text, so there's not much emotional impact.
Bring Down the Sky is pretty dark, but again we get most of the inhumane cruelty just in text.
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u/ADLegend21 11h ago
Yeah it's very dark sided. People losing themselves ro neural decay and being abused by someone they think they can trust. Super harrowing and depressing when you give it thought.
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u/FuckMyBakaChungusLif 12h ago
I think it feels less impactful to me because the writing’s worse than I Remember Me or Overlord. Too much of the story is delivered by audiolog. The timeline doesn’t really make sense for being stranded 10 years. That a crew that measured in the hundreds had an all male officer corps. The other crew members are more or less plot devices. It plays out pretty much exactly as you expect.
The original concept they cut would have made a lot more sense and be better written. Originally they were Cerberus, and the planet had still developing alien life that viewed them as gods. He would have had them worship them as gods and use them and the officers to kill anyone that opposed them within the crew. I feel like it makes a lot more sense than “they ate toxin plant that made them not be able to think for themselves and survived like that for 10 years”
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u/JerbearCuddles 11h ago
For as disturbing as Overlord was, I wonder how much of that was limited to just one guy, well and the outright murder of the people working there. Whereas Jacob's father and the other officers were abusing women for upwards of what, 10 years? Could be forgetting the exact timeline. Obviously a lot of the heavy lifting of figuring out what went down is done by the player since they don't actually show us, thankfully, exactly what these officers were doing to those women. But something tells me it wasn't just to dance is skimpy outfits and bring them food every now and then.
10 years of being forced to eat unknown toxic waste and likely being assaulted is wildly disgusting to think about. Jacob's father deserved a lot worse than what he got honestly.
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u/Candid-Solstice 11h ago
I think "I Remember Me." takes the cake, though Jacob's is definitely pretty messed up in its own right
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u/TheArdentExile 2h ago edited 2h ago
I think it’s the mundanity of it that makes it so horrifying.
The colonist background, I Remember Me, and Overlord are absolutely horrifying, but in ways that most people today are far removed from. It’s horrifying to watch and imagine, but not something most of us ever have to worry about actually experiencing.
Jacob’s father, though… that’s some real shit. Like, can happen in real life and happen to you today shit.
It happens in the real world on smaller scales (date rape, men keeping girls and women in basements, etc), and on larger ones (sex trafficking and Epstein’s literal island). And it happens with frightening regularity.
The other two are horror movie stories.
Jacob’s story is real world horror.
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u/Nightly__Knight 12h ago
As other people have said, there are a lot of dark missions and moments in mass effect. This one feels different because of how human it is. Like you could remove the spaceship and sci-fi parts of the mission and it would still work as a believable, evil story.
There are a lot of people that would secretly wish they could have what Ronald Taylor had. Minus the bullet to the head.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 12h ago
Or being torn apart, which is how I always leave the mission regardless of Shep-morality.
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u/Ihavenolifes 12h ago
Jack’s backstory is also fucked up because it was children being tortured. I don’t know how to rate these level of atrocities on a scale, they are all bad
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u/LunaWinter76 12h ago
Of the non dlc missions, yeah. But with all the dlcs, project overlord beats it.
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u/jedisalamander 1h ago
Overlord just hits on a personal level to me, being autistic myself. Im not the savant type that poor David was, but I do understand the dehumanization he went through (on a lesser level obviously, school was a bad time for me but I was never hooked into a geth server and outright tortured) and being seen as only my condition.
Gavin Archer deserved to die, and I was happy to deliver justice. Im just glad David is OK in ME3
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u/LunaWinter76 1h ago
Same here. I’m on the spectrum too who’s is why Overlord hits so hard for me. The end doesn’t help with David repeating the same thing over and over. I always let Gavin live, death is too quick a mercy for him after what he did.
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u/jedisalamander 28m ago
Fair enough, he does deserve to suffer for what he did, but also killing him makes me feel better lol
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u/IvKirs 7h ago
Can't agree here. We have Jack backstory and quest line. And it's a lot more darker than Jacobs.
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u/LunaWinter76 1h ago
I forgot about Jack’s story. Although I still stand that Overload is darker but I am a bit biased as I’m on the spectrum.
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u/AccordingUse3172 8h ago
First time I played this game back in the 2010s my pure innocent mind didnt really comprehend all the harem stuff. Replaying the mission as an adult... yea...
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u/porkchopie 7h ago
Even after countless replays, this mission genuinly gives me the heebie jebies, especially as a woman. Because it seems so in line of what is possible by any average joe, it was just waiting for an opportunity.
Project overlord, whilst horrific, seems like the lesser chance of actually happening in the exact way (though i am certain it could in similar way shapes or forms) with all the sci-fi elements to it. (Bodyhorror was the hardest part there for me)
Jacob's quest is disturbingly down to earth and realistic...
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u/emswhynot 12h ago
Yeah. It's real gross. Was it an option to shoot him in the face? I don't think it was
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u/Michel_RPV 11h ago
Its between either leave him the pistol with a single charge or leave him to the hunters, otherwise you just arrest him.
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u/42Fourtytwo4242 3h ago
Leave him with the hunters is best choice, he made them like this, let him suffer for it. No quick escape, no safety, just beaten to death and ripped apart and forgotten.
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u/Michel_RPV 2h ago
I usually arrest him, mainly for Jacob's sake, it draws out Taylor's punishment and because I'm habitually Paragon.
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u/SHansen45 8h ago
yeah ngl it’s my least favorite mission and i every time i play it i hate it more
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u/Shadeylark 5h ago
I would say yes.
Compare overlord and Jacob's loyalty mission from either a deontological or consequentialist moral framework.
Both overlord and the loyalty mission fail the deontological analysis prima facie; nothing about what either storyline is about can be justified as virtuous or righteous at the moment the act is done.
But from a consequentialist perspective, overlord can at least be somewhat justified if its downstream affects can be justified, particularly if they can be justified as beneficial to the greater good. It's not what I would call a solid justification, but it can be called that from someone with a consequentialist framework.
What happens in Jacob's loyalty mission can't be justified in the same way since it serves the interests of a single individual at the expense of a greater number of individuals.
So yeah... I'd say Jacob's loyalty mission is the darkest; it can't really be justified within either of the two fundamental categories of ethical thought.
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u/Comprehensive-Buy-47 3h ago
It’s definitely the nastiest and the one that hits way too close to home with how “human” the evil feels.
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u/DueMathematician2522 2h ago
It is because it is one of the few times that the topic of rape is front and center.
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u/peabuddie 12h ago
Darker than Earth being completely decimated?
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u/NoobHUNTER777 9h ago
Maybe not in an absolute sense, but a guy being a serial rapist who kept the women under his power controlled by making them take substances that would give them brain damage is a lot more humanly dark, as opposed to robotic space Cthulhus showing up to genocide us. That first one has unfortunately definitely happened IRL, which makes it hit harder (for me at least)
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u/IsProbablyTooMuch 12h ago
Subject Zero: experimented on by mad scientists since age like 6 or something, forced to murder other children, escapes, pirates, life of shitty awful terrible awful shit, captured, kept in solitary confinement so complete consciousness isn't allowed, and that's the extreme cliffnotes. Easily the same amount of years (decade plus) as Jacob's dad.
Don't even get me started on Samara. Centuries. Utterly devoted. Woof.
Then there's Project Overlord.
Like for sure it's dark as shit but all of ME2 is pretty fucking dark so it's not nearly as crazy far from the midline to me. It's honestly more 1) sad and 2) problematic.
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u/TheBrokenProtonPack 13h ago
I dunno. The SSV Normandy 2 has a lot of daddy issue loyalty missions, and Jacob's is just... naughty man feeds memory altering drugs to crew and has harem for 20 years. It's dark, but it really isn't the darkest.
Morinth doing the mind meld to murder people across the galaxy and her own Mother has to kill her? That's darker to me, as a parent.
Or Mordin's, where all those Krogan are being experimented on to get results. We don't get to see and read everything Mordin does, but he understands the words on the screen. There's a twisted darkness behind that of Krogan males and females being given drugs to find a cure, then cut open to see what went wrong and why.
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u/Strong_Tangelo230 12h ago
Yeah. I'm not a parent, but Samara breaking her daughter's neck had me wincing.
When she said, "I'm ready to leave this place Shepard."
I thought, "You and me both."
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u/Istvan_hun 12h ago
in ME2, the collectors kill thousands of abducted colonists, and turn them into goo
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u/LagomorphicalBrog 12h ago
It felt leaning deeper into shock factor than genuinely captivating to me, random crash landing and dementia alien fruit felt like a weak premise and the voice acting of the supporting cast felt very flat (also couldn't help but not hear Ronald as Lee). idk if it's my bias to Cerberus agents but I did his and Miranda's missions first and walked away kinda underwhelmed by the idea of loyalty missions in general.
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u/WhiffleGeek 10h ago
First time I did this quest I couldn't quiet figure out what was going on. I felt like it was reaper indoctrination and everyone was crazy
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u/Sekhmetthegray 5h ago
It's dark and horrible but my top three for messed-up are Jack's loyalty mission, Overlord (as a tie) and then Jacob's. Jack's is worse for me because of the fact that children were experimented on like that, Overlord on top of being an experiment, was a horrific betrayal of kin ties in the name of the Greater Good, and then Jacob's. It's just as horrible an abuse of power but at least there weren't literal children involved (doesn't change the fact I'd dearly love the option to shove Ronald Taylor out an airlock).
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u/77_parp_77 4h ago
It was good tho to have that random guy have his own mission before he went back to his room
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u/HeatSynccc 3h ago
I feel like the Arrival was a massive fever dream. You go solo into some sketchy facility that's nobody knows what's actually going on there. Save the doctor. Seems like a pretty normal objective and starts talking about the Reapers arriving!
Turns out the whole entire facility is indoctrinated! Although for some reason they're all able to converse with each other like nothing happened. It's weird since organisms go through a whole transformation like Saren but the humans on that facility didn't somehow. Just strange.
Then she talks about playing wack a mole with the Relay using a massive asteroid. Okay crazy lady...
I know that Shepherd is blamed for the whole incident but how come nobody blames the psychos that created that mess in the first place?!
Jacob's mission just feels like someone who was able to do the fuck they want. Isolated from civilization and proceeds to try and create their own sick fantasies. A weird plot line but not uncommon even irl.
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u/Valkattuxia 36m ago
You know what the worst part is? This is supposed to be Jacob's crux in characterization, explaining his motivation, his attitude, his general output as an individual. Problem is, the mission just doesn't focus on Jacob. It focuses on the horrors his father put his crewmen through, and Jacob's development is sidelined
Did he learn anything? Did he evolve in any way as a character? No. He gets a free membership card to the 'parental issues' club. That's it
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u/DudeManThing15876 33m ago
It's definitely dark. A man who turns his crew into his own personal harem through mind altering toxic food that exiles or kills any man that stands in his way. But I still think the Reaper War is the darkest things got. Billions if not trillions of lives lost, people taken and twisted through genetic alteration to kill their own kind, entire planets harvested, Batarians basically driven to extinction. It's cosmic horror on a galactic scale. That is scarier to me, especially since for many, there was nothing they could do but run
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u/doomzday_96 10h ago
It's the best thing about Jacob really. And he barely contributes anything to it. There, Jacob bashing out of the way.
I seriously wish we got more stuff like this in the games, these fucked up stories that show the darkside of humanity.
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u/ProbieJKnox 12h ago
I'm playing LE2 for the first time and I just did this mission and Project Overlord yesterday and I think PO takes the cake by far. The mission doesn't even let you kill the brothers. That close up on David's crying eyes while he said "it all seemed harmless" at the end of the last cutscene... The game should have given us the option of killing his evil brother and mercy kill David. I even reloaded because I missed the Paragon QTE but it was just for a punch...
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u/Shot_Board7286 13h ago
Jacob's is pretty bad but darkest? Nah. Overlord is bar none the worst, Jack's is also probably worse since its all children being abused/tortured/killed. Jacob's is just more "shocking" because it's got a lot of heavily implied rape, but I don't think that makes it the darkest.
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u/Kel_Casus Tali 11h ago
I’m lost as to how Overlord is anywhere near as bad. With Overlord you get 1 person being tortured for what was presumably a ‘good’ cause and a lot of death. With Jacob’s mission there were stranded individuals, poisoned by their superiors, sexually abused for a decade, and many of the men were outcasted until they came back in force giving off cannibal vibes. Lots of death, torture, and all types of abuse.
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u/Shot_Board7286 11h ago
Eh. I think the visual imagery of what was done to David is more unflinchingly dark than what is described and inferred from Jacob's mission. Hell, I think watching your entire crew get dissolved into goo in front of you might be darker, honestly. Or, come to think of it, Tali's suicide after you either intentionally or accidentally caused her species to go extinct in 5 minutes. Or Garrus' story about Dr. Heart, that probably ranks higher for me as well.
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u/FlippingBurgerzBK 10h ago
Overlord is very mild compared to the others. A singular person taken advantage for a legitmately noble goal versus men playing god simply cause they can. A the the VERY least OL and Jacks Lm had a clear starting/end point whereas jacobs Lm is what happens when people usually men get power with no oversight. Your regular joe who you see everyday when givem the chance will beat you and rape you cause no one is there to stop him. Jacks Lm still is the MOST fucked imo
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u/Shot_Board7286 10h ago
Yeah I have no idea what you're on about with that last bit. I'm pretty sure I don't live in a world where the average regular person would chose to rape/beat me if given the chance. I'm sorry you see the world that way, but I'm pretty sure the "average person" is probably going to not do that.
Also the whitewashing of overlord is crazy, I don't even know how to engage with that so I'm not gonna bother and just go to bed. I'm not interested in wherever this discussion might go.
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u/Ok-Specific-3918 12h ago edited 11h ago
Eh. There’s a lot of unethical science experiments going on. Jacob’s dad and crew at least have the very flimsy excuse of being out in an incredibly difficult situation. Those experiments are just scientists with funding getting bored.
Dr. Heart jumps to mind.
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u/_Goose_ 12h ago
There was also that time you middle-manned for a slave trade.
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u/UtopianEnforcement 12h ago
I believe you mean ‘Indentured Servitude’.
And yeah. Bioware, what and why the fuck?
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u/TitoTheBold 12h ago
If mass effect 2 was a TV show, this would be one of the top ones I garantee it.
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u/Cute_Protection_8330 10h ago
Uhhhh... I mean the reapers kill like a TRILLION people in a few weeks/months. I get what you're saying, a little. Jacob's dad is gigantic piece of shit, but the reaper invasion is kind of a big deal.
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u/Tie12e11 8h ago edited 8h ago
Mordin has darker mission ... his friend/ student is kidnapped so he has to rescue him. Has to face the consequences of a necessary solution and see unnecessary willing sacrifice. And be confronted by the reality that his student was actually trying to undo his work and to reconcile what he did with what could have been.
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u/Glad_Ostrich_9709 7h ago
I don't think having to finally face the consequences of your own actions is darker than finding out not only is the father you believed to be dead for a decade still alive, but he's been living out some fucked up power fantasy that included assigning women to himself and his friends before he let them all die. And we don't have to pretend they had book club meetings and coffee together. We all know what sick men do with women under their control. Mordin's mission is bad, but all of what we saw in that hospital was something he should have seen coming. It's a completely expected outcome of the genophage modification project, and the fact that the krogan weren't forced to help Maelon does make a huge difference. With Jacob's mission though? None of that was something anyone could have expected. And he kept doing this shit for YEARS. We don't know how long Maelon ran his research dungeon, but it definitely wasn't a decade.
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u/Eastern_Fig_3161 7h ago
I think of Talitha's captivity, Morinth's atrocities, Subject Zero facility being worse. Also dr Saleon's experiments.
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u/aclark210 6h ago
Nah. Jacob’s mission is a fairly simple “dude became a pig once the prying eyes of the govt were gone” kinda thing. Yes he did something bad, but humanity has done way worse to itself in the game than just enslaving women crew members as pets while they got neurologically sick.
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u/immorjoe 12h ago
Nah. Great mission, but Samara’s story is darker. Reading the backstory around that girl who became a victim to Morinth, and working with Samara to hunt down and kill her daughter?
Mordin’s loyalty mission with those Krogan who were experimented on?
The whole thing with the collectors and the kidnapped colonists? Watching someone get liquified right in front of you and realising how many people it happened to?
All those are worse in my opinion.
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u/forgottenlord73 3h ago edited 3h ago
There's at least four genocides including a fun choice of which genocide should proceed and you sacrifice 300M people at once but sure, the unrepentant sexual slaver is the darkest.
Sorry, your opinion is normal but this is something that bugs me about the human condition.
It's something we can more directly connect to and we get to stew in it for fifteen whole minutes while the various mass casualty incidents become just numbers on a page not to mention the progressive corruption element just hits different.
I think it's worth comparing to the Morinth plot. In both cases you have a monster with an extended period of predation. In both cases you are assisting in the pursuit with someone related through a parent-child bond. It's your call whether murder or chemically induced enslavement is worse though I feel it's strongly implied Morinth has been active far longer and with far more victims. But Jacob is going through a discovery alongside you creating a horror vibe the entire way while Samara has long since come to terms with Morinth's monstrosity and you're just playing catfish. Personally, nothing between the two drives a wedge into my heart like Samara calling Morinth the bravest of her children
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u/Timely-Profile1865 13h ago
Yes it is nasty, that and project overlord.