Legion (Mass Effect)
Legion is a video game robot character who features in Mass Effect.
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Biography
Legion was the adopted name given to synthetic intelligence Geth originally designated as Platform 2A93. This unique geth terminal was designed to operate outside the Perseus Veil and interact with organics. For this task, it was implanted with 1,183 active geth A.I. programs forming a gestalt consciousness housed inside it. Legion belongs to the true geth (the geth fought in both games are referred to as "heretics", and do not represent the geth majority, who believe that organic life does have the right to exist). EDI gives the platform the name "Legion" based on the Gospel of Mark 5:9, wherein a man who is possessed by demons refers to himself by saying "My name is Legion, for we are many". Legion is separated from the geth at large, having been created as a stand-alone unit since Shepard's destruction of Sovereign, investigating the worlds Shepard visited — Eden Prime, Therum, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Ilos, and a dozen uncharted worlds. Eventually, it found the Normandy SR-1's wreckage on the planet Alchera, and learned of Shepard's death. It is a skilled hacker and marksman and generally prefers long-range combat, as it is first spotted protecting Shepard's squad from attacking Husks with a sniper rifle on board a derelict Reaper. It has a certain fascination with Shepard, and previously repaired itself from damage sustained on Eden Prime with pieces of Shepard's old N7 armour from the Normandy's crash site. When Shepard asks Legion why it did this, it becomes evasive, first rationalizing with "there was a hole" and then states "no data available" when pressed on why it didn't repair itself sooner, or with something else. Unlike other geth, which contain roughly a hundred geth identities within each unit, Legion possesses over a thousand geth identities. This was done in order to grant Legion with independence from the geth network, as the usual amount of geth programs housed in a platform would amount to little more than feral behaviour without the aid of the neural network.
Legion's primary mission was to find Shepard as well as destroy a virus capable of turning all geth into heretics. In the mission to gain Legion's loyalty, Shepard must travel to a heretic station and either choose to destroy all heretic geth or to reprogram their own mind-altering virus so that the they will rejoin the true geth. After completing the mission, Legion will become loyal to Shepard and will eventually reveal that the heretics decided to help Sovereign in the original Mass Effect in order to receive a Reaper body so that all geth could upload themselves and join together into a single consciousness. The true geth believe that all life should achieve their future through their own means and that the process is as important as the results. Legion reveals that the true geth intend to do this by building a massive Dyson Sphere. After completing Tali's loyalty mission, Shepard is summoned to the A.I. Core where Tali is holding Legion at gunpoint, stating that she caught it hacking data on the Migrant Fleet from her omni-tool. Legion admits to the attempted theft, but counters by saying that it is only trying to get data about the anti-geth weaponry Tali's father was developing. If the player's Paragon/Renegade rating is high enough, Shepard can defuse the situation by convincing both Tali and Legion that the revelation of this information would only cause a war between the geth and the quarians; a war that would leave both races more vulnerable during the impending Reaper invasion. If the player chooses to side with Tali, Legion's loyalty can be won back immediately after the conclusion of this scene by convincing it that Shepard only sided with Tali in the interests of saving time. Since a logical solution like this is similar to something the geth would do, Legion will accept Shepard's explanation at face value and its loyalty will be regained.
Legion returns in Mass Effect 3 if it survived the suicide mission from the previous game. After defeating the Collectors, Legion returned to the geth consensus in the Perseus Veil and revealed its evidence on the imminent return of the Reapers, and began preparations for war. Regardless of whether the heretics were rewritten or destroyed, the quarians, in an attempt to retake Rannoch, their homeworld, attacked first. They destroyed the mega-structure, which was still under construction and had a significant number of geth programs installed. However, due to a lack of surplus hardware, not all programs could be saved. With their intelligence dimmed and survival taking precedence among the geth, they choose to make a deal with the Reapers, allowing themselves to be controlled with Reaper code to grant them greater intelligence and fighting ability, believing the cost of their free will an acceptable price to avoid extinction. Legion is then captured by the heretics, who use it to broadcast the Reaper signal to all geth from a dreadnought, even to those beyond the Veil. Shepard rescues Legion, who assists Shepard in wreaking chaos on the geth fleet by using an improved organic-machine interface from Project Overlord which allows Shepard to enter the geth collective and sever their connection to the Reapers, throwing their fleet into disarray.
Prior to attacking the geth base on Rannoch, Legion reveals that it has the Reaper code in its platform. After assisting Shepard in destroying the Reaper leading the attack on the Rannoch, Legion attempts to upload the Reaper upgrades to the geth to give them true intelligence and consciousness, but with free will. However the code is incomplete, and the only way to prevent the quarians from slaughtering the geth is for it to disperse its own code throughout the collective, effectively deactivating it. If the Commander attempts to stop the upload, Legion will attack Shepard, stating that Shepard "will not decide the fate of its people", and is destroyed by Tali/Admiral Raan. Alternatively, if certain conditions are met in both Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, Shepard and Tali convince the quarians to break off their attack after being told the geth do not seek to harm them, and that a geth sacrificed itself to give the quarians their world back. If the player passes this check, Legion, in its final moments, refers to itself as "I" and not "we", signifying that it has become a true individual rather than a gestalt intellect. Tali tells Legion that the answer to the question the geth asked centuries ago, if they had souls, was "yes". It then thanks her for her understanding, then deactivates. Regardless of how the situation between the quarians and the geth is resolved, Legion's name is engraved on the memorial wall on the Normandy.
If Legion was sold to Cerberus in Mass Effect 2, then it will appear as an enemy on Cronos Station, but does not act any differently from a Nemesis. Regardless of whether it was sold, did not survive the suicide mission, or was never activated, its role is replaced by a "Geth VI" constructed in Legion's likeness, with the non-standard elements (the N7 armor and the hole in its torso) recreated via hologram. Like Legion, it has 1,183 geth programs, but it has no memory of the events after Saren's attack on Eden Prime.
Legion is listed on the Normandy SR-2's memorial wall on the Crew Deck, if the AI did not survive the events of Mass Effect 2 & 3.
After defeating the Collectors, Legion returned to the Geth Consensus in the Perseus Veil. Data gathered during its time with Shepard confirmed that the Old Machines' return was imminent, and geth planned for war. Shepard asks if the other geth believed Legion's proof, and dryly comments it must've been nice when Legion says they did. Regardless of whether the heretics were rewritten or destroyed, the quarians, in an attempt to retake Rannoch, their homeworld, attacked first. They destroyed the proposed geth megastructure, which was still under construction and had a significant number of geth programs already installed. With their intelligence dimmed and survival taking precedence among the geth, they choose to make a deal with the Reapers, allowing themselves to be controlled with Reaper code to grant them greater intelligence and fighting ability, believing the cost of their free will an acceptable price to avoid extinction. Legion is then captured by the heretics, who used him to broadcast the Reaper signal to all geth from a dreadnought, even to those beyond the Veil. Shepard rescues Legion, who assists Shepard by using an improved interface for the interaction between organic and synthetic lifeforms, which allows Shepard to enter the geth collective and sever their connection to the Reapers, throwing their fleet into disarray.
Hackett tells Shepard that the quarians may be able to help in the ongoing Reaper war, but there has been a disturbing lack of information coming from the fleet. Shepard meets up with the quarian admirals and it is determined that the fleet is pinned on Tikkun due to a giant geth dreadnought broadcasting the Reapers' control signal. Shepard is tasked with disabling this signal within the dreadnought, accompanied by a quarian with geth expertise. It is during this mission that Shepard runs into Legion and finds the geth trapped within a Reaper device in the dreadnought's drive core, where it is forced to transmit the Reaper signal. By rescuing Legion, the signal was terminated. Aboard the Normandy, Legion provides intelligence on how the Reapers exercise control over its people. It mentions that by accepting Reaper aid, the geth have become upgraded. While geth normally operate strictly off codes or programs, the reaper virus allows their thought processes to become more "organic" in nature, giving them the possibility of true consciousness. The geth find it "beautiful", indicative of life, and will die for it. Legion reports that while the organics have destroyed the long range control signal, there is still a short-range backup being deployed somewhere on Rannoch. It devotes most of its time searching for its whereabouts inside the War Room.
Prior to attacking the geth base on Rannoch, Legion revealed that the Reaper code was contained within his platform. After assisting Shepard in destroying the Reaper leading the attack on the Rannoch, Legion attempted to upload the Reaper upgrades to the geth to give them true intelligence and consciousness, but with free will. The code was incomplete, forcing Legion to upload and disperse his own code throughout the collective, effectively deactivating the gestalt consciousness residing within the platform. Shepard will have to choose between allowing Legion to upload the code and allow the geth to wipe out the quarians, or stopping Legion and allow the quarians to wipe out the geth. Legion, in his final moments, refers to himself as "I" and not "we", signifying that he has become a true individual rather than a gestalt intellect. Tali later told Legion that the answer to the question the geth asked centuries ago, if they had souls, was "yes".
Overview
Personality and attributes
The platform was given the name Legion by EDI as a suggestion on account of how many geth programs resided in its platform.
When the geth does not appear to be hostile, it expresses its wish to help Shepard's mission, at which point it will join Shepard's team. When Shepard asks the geth its name, it simply states "Geth". Not satisfied, the Commander rephrases the question until EDI steps in and, referring to the number of programs active in the single mobile platform, quotes a passage from Mark 5:9 in the New Testament — "My name is Legion: for we are many". The geth accepts this to be an "appropriate metaphor" and was henceforth known as Legion.
Legion speaks in a straightforward and laconic fashion, often answering with single words. When it uses whole sentences, their word structure is very organized. Legion regards itself not as a single being, but as a gestalt entity which must achieve consensus to act. Legion expresses admiration for EDI, because unlike the geth, who are made up of different processes that rely on each other, EDI handles all the functions on the Normandy by herself, though Legion also questions how she manages to maintain stability. Legion occasionally expresses its disapproval of how EDI's activities and development are shackled aboard the Normandy.
If queried, Legion can give more insight into the geth, and often expresses interest in philosophical questions. It also discusses the geth-quarian war, referring to the quarians as "creators", which is also how it addresses Tali and some quarians the squad encounters. Legion will, if prompted by Shepard, play back an audio recording from the geth collective memory, in which an early geth haltingly asks its quarian master whether or not it has a soul, an event mentioned by Tali in 2183. Legion clarifies that this wasn't the first time a geth had asked the question, but it was the first time the question frightened the quarians.
On the subject of what interfacing with a Reaper feels like, Legion describes that even with the Reapers' total control the geth still could not comprehend them. Legion does not view the Old Machines as deities, but the experience has given it perspective on why others imbue them with godlike qualities.
Powers and abilities
As a geth mobile platform, Legion was unique in that it 1,183 geth programs within its housing when typically this was distributed to roughly one hundred other platforms. To facilitate communication with organics, Legion possessed several panels on its 'head'" that moved to simulate facial expressions. These flaps serve the same purpose as eyebrows in organics, raising to imply surprise or interest and folding forward much like the furrowing of the brow to show concentration.
Notes
- Legion was created by BioWare where he was voiced by actor D. C. Douglas and featured in the setting of the Mass Effect universe.
- Nick Clifford the Mass Effect Assistant product manager commented on Legion, "Legion has an ideology all his own and, for me, he's the best-developed character in the story, which is a quirky paradox seeing that, as a machine, he's meant to have no character. But he does somehow, right? Why did he choose to attach Shepard's armor to his frame? Because there was a hole."
Appearances
- Mass Effect 2:
- Mass Effect 3:
External Links
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