#i cannot however joke abt killing mordin. that's fucked up and i will have to close my eyes when i hit the renegade interrupt

[nulfaga]

i want to do an absolutely miserable "everyone dies and suffers the whole way down" me playthrough too. so i spent some time yesterday looking at the me2 suicide mission and carefully plotting how to leave only the bare minimum amt of squad members alive (2, fewer than that and shepard herself will also cark it). weird amount of math involved. ideally those 2 survivors would be those who can meet an even more horrible fate in me3 (jack and tali for instance. there are many more squad members who can die in me3 but they tend to be heroic/meaningful deaths). liara is basically immortal and vega doesn't show up enough to be endangered but you can take them along to the final battle and (so i understand) if your war assets are absolutely shit tiny then they'll be vaporized by a reaper beam w/ no more ceremony.

i think the funniest option of all (you know in a cosmically evil kind of way) is to have an LI you scrupulously keep alive thru me2-3 (or 1-3) and then at the culminating moment they just get zapped and that's it.

here's my sample plan (choosing garrus as the cursed immortal cause i've been told i never gave him a fair shake. what fairer shake is there than this)

this is not "meet as few characters as possible" btw this is "kill everyone" so while not recruiting them at all would yield the same results what we're after is a pipeline of recruit -> kill (in the most tragic/unsatisfying way possible, wherever possible). death and despair in the milky way etc ME1:

-leave ashley/kaidan at virmire (in practice it doesn't matter who) -don't kill wrex (for now) -kill the rachni queen (though it doesn't make a big difference; grunt won't be alive to sacrifice himself w/ the aralakh company) -don't disrupt geth communications on virmire (kirrahe dies)

ME2:

-don't recruit kasumi or zaeed (they fuck up the numbers for the suicide run. i'm sure there's a way to bring them and successfully kill them while keeping the 4 squadmates we need alive but i haven't figured it out) -destroy maelon's data -let morinth kill samara (if possible. otherwise it doesn't make a difference past the suicide run) -successfully complete loyalty missions for jack, garrus, tali & mordin -keep DISloyal: miranda & grunt -doesn't matter (as in: do the loyalty mission if you like, but they'll die regardless): jacob, samara, thane, legion -get the silaris armor upgrade, but NOT the thanix cannon or cyclonic shields -do as many missions as possible between the reaper IFF and hitting the collector base (to ensure crew death) For the suicide mission:

-silaris armor means jack survives (for now) -no shields means legion dies (don't bring him to the cargo bay fight, or someone else will die instead and throw off the numbers) -no thanix cannons means thane dies

-assign jacob as the vent specialist (he dies) -assign samara/morinth as the fireteam leader (dead) -assign a loyal jack as the biotic specialist (no one dies!) -assign a disloyal grunt as the second fireteam leader (dead) -assign a disloyal miranda to escort the crew (dead) -this should leave tali, mordin, garrus & jack (all of whom should be loyal!) -leave garrus and jack to hold the line (no one dies) -bring tali and mordin to the final fight (no one dies)

-destroy the collector base -shepard survives with 4 crew members

ME3:

-pick every renegade option and DON'T visit the virmire survivor in the hospital after the mars mission -ignore the grissom academy mission (jack gets recaptured by cerberus) -later on, fight jack as a cerberus phantom (dead) -kill the rachni queen, or leave her alive and let her betray you idk -don't warn the krogan -sabotage the genophage cure; shoot m...god forgive me. shoot mordin when he tries to fix it himself (dead. rip) -since wrex is alive, he'll know about the sabotage; he will fight you and get killed (dead) -during the coup in priority citadel 2, don't try to persuade the virmire survivor, just shoot them (dead) -kill falere at the ardat-yakshi monastery -don't do the rannoch: geth fighter squadrons mission -during priority: rannoch, let the geth upload the reaper code and don't try to persuade/warn the quarians (tali dies) -gather NO war assets. you need under 1600 EMS. -bring 2 squadmates. at this point you can choose between garrus, liara, vega and edi. and javik if he's there. -i recommend bringing garrus and liara, the last surviving LIs, your ride-or-dies from the very beginning. (they will be vaporized by a reaper beam) -you should have only one choice for the crucible: destroy. because of your low EMS, shepard dies and this choice also destroys the mass relays as well as all life on earth.

-fin-