Let the Princess go, she’s way more knowledgable on magic depletion. 47%
Luna signed and looked typed a message into her omni-tool. “I will be going Captain, I would be remiss if I let one of the few subjects I have here to perish without me doing the utmost to help. Doubly so for one of the bearers.”
Shining gave her a respectful nod in return. “As you wish, Princess.”
“You go meet your appointment. Having those sets of armor ready would be a massive boon to our efforts were we to find our home again,” The Princess said as she closed down her workstation. “I'll meet you soon at the hospital, Fluttershy.”
“See you when you arrive. We're on the fifth floor, emergency room four.” Fluttershy closed the call again as she likely was busy filling in the doctors about pony physiology.
“We shall meet up later again, I need to go.”
“Of course, I'll be over at the hospital once I'm done as well.”
With that Luna strode out of her little building, across the street to a taxi parking area where she got one of the shuttles to take her to the hospital. Once there she found the hallways relatively quiet so she could stride swiftly to the emergency room was located, multiple doctors walking in and out of the room and moving equipment.
“Is this the room my subject is in?” Luna asked of one of the doctors. The asari looking over and making an awkward little bow.
“Yes it is, we were told by miss Fluttershy to wait with any serious treatment until you arrived.” The asari led her into the room where Rainbow lay on the bed, Fluttershy sitting at the edge of the room so she wasn't in the way of the doctors. Rainbow, though, looked like a mess. Her hair was blackened and at least half the length it had previously been, her armor that had already been black was only charred further and around its neckline blisters were plainly visible for anyone to see.
“How much do we know about her injuries?” Luna asked as she lit her horn for a scan of her own.
“From what we understand she was subjected to an extreme amount of energy, scans revealed that her skin below the bodysuit is completely burned away. Her internal organs seem to be fine which, considering the state of her skin, is a bloody miracle. We're prepping to remove the armor and undersuit so we can access and tre-”
“You can't,” Luna interrupted as she looked up from Rainbow briefly and once again lit her horn, the armor becoming slightly translucent which revealed the burned mess that lay below, a faintly glowing red gem embedded in her undersuit under the main chest plate. “Understand that our species has a very tight connection to magic and miss Dash here is completely out of hers… and that's not even the worst of it.” Adjusting the spell slightly, Luna made the undersuit light up in a faint red aura. “The gem on her chest has been the driving force in keeping her alive, I can feel it trying to heal her skin even though it's practically not there anymore.”
“So removing the undersuit and element would disturb that?” Fluttershy asked getting a nod from the princess in confirmation.
“We can't leave it on either though, our scans revealed that what remains underneath is fusing with the suit itself!” the asari doctor protested, bringing up a hologram with the particular scan open. “If we don't remove it now it might very well not be possible to ever take it off without killing her, not to mention that leaving it on might be just as lethal.”
“Can't we treat her through the medical ports in her armor?” Fluttershy asked, trying to see if there were other options but only got the asari shaking her head.
“Half of them have molten shut and we can't treat something like this where all of them available anyhow.”
Fluttershy rubbed her head as she went over all the information she'd just gotten. “So to get this all straight, we either take off the undersuit and risk the Element stopping its efforts to keep her alive or we leave the undersuit and armor on and have a chance she succumbs to her injuries?”
“Leaving it on also means she won't ever be able to take it off ever again,” the asari added, “We also don't know how it'll affect her movement, this isn't exactly something we deal with often.”
“If the Element does its job well then it's my opinion it won't affect her in the slightest,” Luna chimed in as she refocused on some small patches where the red magic wasn't active, the tissue below cleanly bound to the undersuit and had none of the damaged scarrings that covered the rest of her body.
“That's amazing… and impossible,” the asari gasped as she saw the healthy tissue. “I'm sorry but I don't have a good understanding of how this magic of yours works. My medical recommendation is still to remove the undersuit, graft some skin from her neck, and clone it to give her a brand new skin.”
“That's provided she survives the removal of the suit in the first place,” Luna pointed out again.
“What is the survival chance of the procedure, doctor?” Fluttershy asked, swallowing as she trembled slightly.
“Something this extensive? Honestly, one in ten is probably a positive estimate,” the asari admitted, sending a cold chill down Fluttershy's before she looked over to Luna for her assessment.
“Better than one in ten but even I have to admit I do not know what the element is exactly doing, they're mostly an enigma to me as well. My assessment is just the best I can give with what I can see and sense.”
“But she'll most likely have a permanent reminder of what happened fused to her body.”
“Yes.”
Fluttershy looked back over to the unconscious form of Rainbow as the room was uncomfortably silent, Luna and the few doctors in the room quietly looking at her.
“Why are you all looking at me like that?” Fluttershy asked as she noticed.
“Well, from what I've gathered Rainbow Dash practically considers you her next of kin if anyone should make this decision it should be someone she considers family.
Fluttershy's face became even paler than before, looking back at Dash's peaceful form, old anxiety she hadn't felt in a long time bubbled back up along with the associated doubts.
They want me to choose… how can I pick between two options that might kill my best friend…
1. Have the undersuit removed and graft new skin.
2. Leave the suit on and let the Element do its thing.
hmmm, if the elements are mysterious magic artifacts it might repair the armor as well...
Soooo...this is probably one of the toughest decisions you've laid out for us thus far if only cause...I'm not sure if leaving the suit on is going to be good in the long run.
Something tells me that this was another "We should have had Fluttershy wet herself" moment, in that sending Shining would have given us more options, but now Rainbow is going to be crippled in one way or another no matter what we choose at this point.
And on that point, what is stopping them from cutting off the under armour in pieces and leaving the Element for last? Or simply using gauze or other medical tape to hold the Element in place? It isn't like the Element is using the under armour as a conduit for distributing the magic, right?
10341585
That's not what I experienced, and I used to play the HELL out of the Mass Effect Trilogy a couple of years ago, on the PS3 (I was late in getting interested; maybe 2015, 2016? Long enough after release for ME3's servers to be barren, completely wrecking the War Effort values - ugh).
Every. Single. Time. I played Mass Effect 2, I always got cut off by an "urgent mission" from TIM before I could finish stuff, since the game counts the number of side missions the player completes before triggering one of these. The same thing occurred with the Collector ambush, forcing me to leave a handful of side missions until the postgame.
This might be due to me having the DLCs installed, raising the total number of available missions by a significant amount; I dunno. I've never played ME2 without the DLCs, and the forced interrupts SUCK.
Goddamnit, BioWare. You had it done well before AND after this game; why'd you screw it up here? Why couldn't you have also included a few ME1-cooldown guns, like you later did in ME3?
ME3 just has better pacing and better guns than ME2, along with having Armax Arcade. I quite liked ME3's gun customisation, actually.
10341623
Honestly my memory is a little fuzzy on the subject. See the "Guide Damn It" trope comment. I do remember clearing all loyalty missions, and could've sworn that there were points in the game where the plot could be paused.
10341623
Horizon gets triggered automatically after recruiting everyone out of the first dossiers and after the Reaper IFF you have a single mission before the crew gets captured.
10341504
All three games have this. There's a mission where, once you take it, you're on rails for the final boss fight. Once you know what that mission is, however, you can avoid taking it until you're ready to trigger the final fight. The first time is frustrating, but after that, you plan for it.
Frankly, after the first game did this, I researched the mission structure for the other two games and identified the final boss run mission so I would know what to avoid until I was ready for it.
The Reaper IFF mission triggers the endgame. You can put it off indefinitely, but once you do that, you get one loyalty mission with Legion, and then you have to commit to the endgame if you want to save everyone.
10341623
10341864
I don't think any missions ever become unavailable, and plot progression halts indefinitely after completing the Collector Ship mission. Once you reach that point, you can stop and do whatever for as long as you want. The main plot resumes when you do Reaper IFF, which is available immediately after Collector Ship but waits until you choose to do it. After Reaper IFF, a few missions later (or when no missions remain) the endgame starts.
10341612
I suspect the issue here is that the undersuit is acting like a surrogate skin. I've seen people with massive skin injuries before. Hell, I knew someone who had an experience like that. Just losing skin isn't inherently lethal. But it means you spend half a year in absolute dark, since even casual contact with the sun will burn you hard as your regrowing skin has no pigment to protect itself from UV radiation. In Rainbow's case, that doesn't count the additional injuries.
Here's the thing, as I see it. Even if the Element is doing something to save Rainbow, if the damage is extensive enough, it might only be acting as a stopgap until proper medical care arrives. If everyone does nothing, the element might - in its own way - be sitting there saying, "Aww, Come on people! I can only hold her together for so long! Do something already!" So doing nothing and trusting it might be the worst choice.
I'd say there's an optional third choice here. If Fluttershy could tap into her element, it might give her a feel for what the other element was up to, and even support it. At the very least, it might give her an idea about whether or not taking action is what the other element needs to save Rainbow.
Depends if the Element is going to use its magic form rather than Dashs almost current nonexistant to Gas Mask her, instead of Butler or Crystal Pony her?
If it converts the armor to Crystal Pony Dash form, then its reasonable that her natural base toughness and defence would increase stupidly.
Given Changelings have highly manouverable Exoforms, I wouldnt expect a Harmony Element to screw up that badly, if at all, as long as it is supported and has the resources.
Allow the Element to heal Dash, and blame the Dice for being a Baxter if required.
I gotta abstain from this one. I don't really get it. Why not do it piece by piece? Why not contact shining and pretend he has more extensive medical knowledge while letting the little AI feed him into? Did Mordin have nothing to add to help her treatment? If her element is helping why can't fluttershy's?
I feel like I'm being forced into bad choices and I don't like it.
Is this going to be one of those pointless decisions? Okay, fine. I think they should remove that damned thing and clone her skin.
10342354
I too feel like I'm being forced into 2 arbitrarily bad choices.
Abstaining from the vote.
The primary question is "what would Rainbow Dash Want" and if I'm being Honest, I think she would want her normal body back. Even though I think the Elements would make her new body work for her, I don't think she would like the (likely permanent) change. Thus, I vote to cut the suit off.
I say take it off. Rainbow is going to HATE not being able to get out of the suit and will most likely resent Fluttershy for it. I don't think Rainbow is the type to be permanently stuck in one place. Plus, whose to say that the suit will be 100% functional?
2. Because... 1 / 10 is not good enough...
Im going to be a asshole and say RD get what she ask for playing hero without thinking.
10341541
I just hope they remember to make rear exits for later...
10341551
Dying sucks more than a high tech skin replacment...
10341612
The Element uses the Suit itself as replacment skin.
Take what is there...
10341905
Exacly how i do it always.
10341917
This sounds the most solid, especially that we know mow Communication is possible.
10341918
Magic bullshit powers go
Why can't they ask Tali for help? Quarian environment suits are basically their skin after all!