Following the news of PSN trophies which hinted at an upcoming piece of DLC called ‘Arrival’ for Mass Effect 2, files from the PC version’s Alternate Appearance Pack 2 DLC would appear to contain even more information.
The DLC pack’s TLK files, which can be converted to XML with a tool available on the BioWare Social Network projects pages, provide previously unknown information on five planets in a system as well as a quest marker relating to what appears to be a key DLC character. A reader and self-professed Mass Effect fan sent us the XML files, which contain information that appears to be a little too detailed to be a prank.
Be warned speed-readers, as this is potentially spoilerific info.
The data-entries directly follow the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC data and mention a Viper Nebula, which I couldn’t locate in the galaxy map of the Xbox 360 version. The Viper Nebula would appear to have five planets in the Bahak system — Clogon, Aratoht, Yunaca, Urnola and Bastzuda — and a quest location for “Rescue Dr. Kenson.”
The descriptions suggest that the Viper Nebula is in Batarian space and somewhere in the Skyllian Verge. While the description for the Bahak system only says “Bahak Description,” the other descriptions already provide detailed information about the planets.
Clogon:
A hothouse planet with a thick atmosphere of methane and ethane, Clogon has been left relatively untouched by the Batarian Hegemony. As with many batarian planets, spy satellites circle it, watching for pirates or other enemies of the state who come by the planet to discharge their ships’ drive cores.
EDI’S TRAVEL ADVISORY: The Batarian Hegemony considers any presence of Alliance military vessels in batarian space as hostile. The Normandy SR2, while an independent vessel, strongly resembles the Normandy SR1, an Alliance ship. Use of stealth systems is highly recommended.
Orbital Distance: 0.6 AU
Orbital Period: 0.5 Earth Years
Radius: 2,621 km
Day Length: 20.8 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: 14.65 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: 382 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.12 GAratoht:
“Like Mount Everest inside an oven,” was how Jon Grissom characterized Aratoht while on an Alliance fact-finding mission to see if the garden world was worth contestation with the batarians. His team ultimately decided that the planet’s air pressure and oxygen content were too low for large-scale human habitation, ending a year-long political battle with the batarians and the Citadel Council’s Committee on Habitable Worlds. Since then, the Batarian Hegemony has quietly colonized the planet’s polar regions, where the heat is manageable due to heavy rainfall.
Information on the colony itself is restricted by the Hegemony’s Department of Information Control, but a few facts are known. A large-scale operation to increase the oxygen content of the planet is under way: skilled workers constantly dump cyanobacteria into the oceans and seed the habitable zone with invasive plant species. Slave labor is largely reserved for the planet’s extensive mining industry, which takes advantage of the high-density planet’s rich lodes of ferrous and heavy metals. Alliance intelligence has also confirmed that the colony is home to several batarian military installations, a threatening sign for a planet this close to Earth’s local cluster and the Exodus Relay. Its infrastructure includes many satellites and several space stations.
EDI’S TRAVEL ADVISORY: The Batarian Hegemony considers any presence of Alliance military vessels in batarian space as hostile. The Normandy SR2, while an independent vessel, strongly resembles the Normandy SR1, an Alliance ship. Use of stealth systems is highly recommended.
Orbital Distance: 1.15 AU
Orbital Period: 1.2 Earth Years
Radius: 4,757 km
Day Length: 20.0 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: 0.57 Earth Atmospheres
Surface Temperature: 55 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.71 GColony Founded: 2162 CE
Population: Estimated 90,000 (free), 215,000 (other)
Capital: EctahYunaca:
A tiny rock planet, Yunaca’s atmosphere is a thin sheen of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Yunaca has abundant metals, but Hegemony protectionism makes mining on Aratoht more profitable for batarian corporations. A few aging spy satellites circle it, watching for unlicensed mining operations.
EDI’S TRAVEL ADVISORY: The Batarian Hegemony considers any presence of Alliance military vessels in batarian space as hostile. The Normandy SR2, while an independent vessel, strongly resembles the Normandy SR1, an Alliance ship. Use of stealth systems is highly recommended.
Orbital Distance: 2.4 AU
Orbital Period: 3.7 Earth Years
Radius: 1,769 km
Day Length: 63.5 Earth Hours
Atmospheric Pressure: Trace
Surface Temperature: -67 Celsius
Surface Gravity: 0.1 GUrmola:
A hydrogen-helium gas giant, Urmola is home to infrastructure that generates both helium-3 and antiprotons. Both sources of fuel are restricted to Hegemony ships, forcing merchant vessels to dock at Bastzuda to refuel before their journey. A sizeable naval station is stationed at Urmola, its ships guarding the installations from enemies without and within. As with other planets in the system, spy satellites are ubiquitous.
EDI’S TRAVEL ADVISORY: The Batarian Hegemony considers any presence of Alliance military vessels in batarian space as hostile. The Normandy SR2, while an independent vessel, strongly resembles the Normandy SR1, an Alliance ship. Use of stealth systems is highly recommended.
Orbital Distance: 4.3 AU
Orbital Period: 8.8 Earth Years
Radius: 71,610 km
Day Length: 13.7 Earth HoursBastzuda:
A hydrogen-helium gas giant, Bastzuda is home to infrastructure that gathers helium-3 as well as military space stations that supply and protect the resource. Spy satellites are in abundance here, watching for undesirables entering the system or fugitives fleeing it.
EDI’S TRAVEL ADVISORY: The Batarian Hegemony considers any presence of Alliance military vessels in batarian space as hostile. The Normandy SR2, while an independent vessel, strongly resembles the Normandy SR1, an Alliance ship. Use of stealth systems is highly recommended.
Orbital Distance: 8.9 AU
Orbital Period: 26.6 Earth Years
Radius: 65,015 km
Day Length: 13.1 Earth Hours
The planet names also match those found in the last Cerberus Network Daily News entries, which is currently on hiatus as the last entry states: “Daily postings will cease except for three weeks in 2011: a week of posts will precede a downloadable content release, and two more weeks will lead up to the release of Mass Effect 3.”
As there is no mention of multiple DLC episodes in that official statement, one could assume that ‘Arrival’ will be the next and final DLC to bridge the two games. The last couple of entries in Cerberus Network Daily News speak of planet Aratoth in the Bahak system, and some confrontation with an Alliance ship on a possibly covert mission. The tension between the Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony fits with EDI’s travel advisory to use stealth.
The entry for January 22nd:
Batarian and Alliance Forces in Standoff in Skyllian Verge
“The galaxy is on high alert as starships belonging to the Earth Systems Alliance and Batarian Hegemony refuse to back down from a confrontation in the Skyllian Verge. The encounter began when a frigate from the batarian colony of Aratoht discovered an Alliance cruiser, the SSV Budapest, on patrol in the Bahak system. The Alliance claims the Budapest was chasing a pirate fleet that has been harassing human colonies in the Skyllian Verge, and that it was fully within its rights to travel through Bahak’s space. The Batarian Hegemony has demanded the Alliance’s immediate withdrawal from their colony’s system. Three batarian cruisers stationed on Aratoht are now on their way to join the confrontation.”
The entry for January 23rd:
SSV Budapest Retreats from Batarian Space
“The Alliance cruiser that sparked a standoff between the Earth Systems Alliance and Batarian Hegemony has retreated from the Bahak system. Hegemony officials claim to have found no trace of the pirate fleet the Alliance was allegedly pursuing when the SSV Budapest flew into the system. The Alliance maintains it was chasing pirates raiding human merchant vessels when it crossed into batarian space, but refuses to release any of its ships’ logs. Despite this, Citadel observers say the Alliance’s withdrawal has done enough to ease tensions. “The Hegemony knows the Alliance is attempting to save face,” said one anonymous Citadel diplomat. “At this juncture, the humans’ retreat from Aratoht [in the Bahak system] has gone from a diplomatic crisis to an embarrassment they want swept under the rug.””
The following data from another TLK file seems to detail an incoming message about two distress calls you can respond to, as well as the dialogue options for responding to the message. Some interesting data concerns “New Mask Piece, New Torso Piece, New Shoulder Piece, New Arm Piece, New Leg Piece, New Material Type.”
It was easy to stick with full armor sets in Mass Effect 2, especially if you had pre-order bonuses or Dragon Age: Origins armor. BioWare has a habit of testing new features in their DLC, so perhaps armor will be a bit more intricate in Mass Effect 3?
The conversation tree information in the data suggests you have to choose which distress call to respond to, perhaps exclusively:
- We’ve had two incoming distress calls, Shepard. You need to decide which we should respond to.
- Of course, what would you like to know about?
- Well, there was a big battle and one of our ships was destroyed. There are some of our people on it now. The plot of aliens will probably start up on this ship though.
- A Batariaan Research vessel has fallen ill to some strange disease
- Setting course for the shipwreck
- Setting course for the stranded research vessel.
- Alright, Shepard, I’ll talk to you soon.
- I need some more details before I can act.
- Tell me about the shipwreck call.
- Tell me about the research vessel.
- Let’s go investigate the stranded research vessel.
- I’m too busy remembering how awesome I am right now. I might talk to you later.
- More Details
- Shipwreck
- Stranded Research Vessel
- Too busy
- Investigate Shipwreck
- Investigate Research Vessel
- Geth Rocket Trooper
- We have arrived at the research vessel and the airlock is now open.
- We have arrived at the shipwreck and the airlock is now open.
- The airlock is currently sealed but we will be there in a moment
All of the data only refers to the Male Shepard, with the Female Shepard only having a placeholder position and data entry. The lack of entries for Female Shepard and some typos like “Batariaan” seems to suggest that this is just some work-in-progress data that probably shouldn’t have been in the Alternate Appearance Pack 2 DLC. As I don’t have the PC version of Mass Effect 2 however, it’s hard to confirm at this moment.
Still, all the Batarian information and the mention of the Dr. Kenson quest-line does seem to point towards the still unannounced ‘Arrival’ DLC. If this is indeed data that will end up in ‘Arrival’ then it means it will contain a couple of sidequests, aside from the main quest-line, and will be set in Batarian space.
The mention of a Geth Rocket Trooper seems to be pretty randomly positioned, and even if there are Geth on the sidequest shipwreck or research vessel, it tells us nothing about whether or not the Geth will make an appearance in the Dr. Kenson storyline. Since it’s part of a conversation tree data-set, it could just as well be that the Research Vessel had a deactivated Geth Rocket Trooper onboard which they were studying.
[Thanks, Ferenc!]
