Mass Effect 3 Demo Footage Appears Online

bdemell

I only watched the first clip (wanted to see the opening cinematic) but I need to point out a major plothole in this series and I'm wondering what all of you think or if I'm just looking at this too closely.

In ME1 Shephard becomes a Spectre. Now by everything we've been told about Spectres they are only under Council jurisdiction and oversight. That means that at the moment Shephard became a Spectre he should no longer be part of the Alliance. In essence he would have been discharged in order to become a Spectre. So his rank as Commander should have been gone though I can accept that people who knew him would still call him Commander. As a Spectre (no longer part of the Alliance) Shephard was given control of the Normandy (basically the ship was commandeered by the Council for his use) to hunt Saren. But again at no time was he still a member of the Alliance.

In ME2 your still doing the Council's bidding of cleaning up the geth with the Normandy (this parts a bit fuzzy because the opening credits make it sound like the Alliance gave the orders) and then die from the Collector attack. You are labeled KIA by the Council and lose your Spectre status and if you were still a part of the Alliance then the Alliance should have labeled you KIA and no longer a member either. So when you are brought back by Cerberus you are neither a Spectre nor in the Alliance anymore. You can regain your Spectre status but you are still not part of the Alliance.

The final DLC for ME2 was Arrival, which takes place between ME2 and ME3. Without spoiling the story, at the end your actions cause quite the international steer, particularly with the batarians.

So here's my question going into ME3......how does the Alliance have any authority to ground Shephard and strip him of his rank for the actions of ME2 and Arrival if Shephard was no longer part of the Alliance in ME2? I can see where they might take the Normandy, since it was based on Alliance technology even if it belongs to Cerberus, but Shephard being back under the control of the Alliance makes zero sense. Yes the mission in Arrival was for the Alliance but Shephard wasn't acting as an Alliance officer but as a Spectre on an unsanctioned mission.

It just seems to me that a better opening to ME3 (after the Reapers invade Earth of course) would be showing Shephard in a batarian prison because of his actions in Arrival and the opening mission is him getting freed by Ashley/Kaidan on orders from the Council using the new version of the Normandy.

Or am I thinking too much about this?