Mass Effect Thread: Leviathan is out, buy it, it's great

[lestatdark]

Rhonin the wizard said:

SecondWar said:

Just resolved one of ending plot holes. Never heard this bit whilst playing the game, but it does clear things up.

Was watching a youtube clip of the part where Shepard, his/her squad and the rest of Hsmmer are rushing towards the Citadel Beam. After Harbinger slaughters them all (minus Shepard and Anderson), you see Harbinger leave and the Sword Fleet commanders panicking as no-one made it to the beam to activate the Conduit. With the mission seemingly failed, the Commanders order a retreat, telling ships head for the relays. This explains why the Normandy was in the middle of a relay jump when the Crucible went off, although not why Liara, who was with me why i was going for the Citadel beam, appear unscathed after the Normandy crashed.

It's the Hammer commanders that order retreat, Major Coats and an unnamed marine, see this video with subtitles. Sword is still fighting against the Reapers, as you can see in the conversation with the Catalyst.

A problem with the Normandy using FTL flight is how would the energy wave have stranded them on a planet outside the Sol system, as the nearest one is 4 light years away. And if the Normandy was affected, then it is probable all the ships in the Sol system were damaged as well. Maybe even those outside the system that were hit by the energy released by the relays.

FTL makes a 4 Light year travel go much, much faster. There are codex descriptions relating to ships travelling at 200 times the common lightspeed, so it's possible to achieve even faster speeds than that. If the Normandy has been on the run for a couple of hours (since they thought Shepard was dead after Harbinger's laser), it's possible they could have been passing through a System at the moment that wave hit them.