I haven't played the game but is this an unintentional spoiler? You are in essence saying that you completed the game and neither Cora nor Liam die.

@mike: I mean..maybe? Based on how you look at it? Though i wouldn't look at it like a spoiler, same as someone saying something like "The reapers do not come to Andromeda" isn't a spoiler to me.

OT, Liam sucks so I would gladly kill him if I could on the first planet. God he is insufferable and his loyalty mission makes me hate him more. He is an ass.

I believe at most I'm saying that you never have to choose between the two. One or both could very well die at any point in the game, and this question would still be valid. This is also Mass Effect we're talking about, so hypothetically, even if one or both didn't die in my game, they might in someone else's. It's kind of a staple of the series.

But I do try to be considerate when it comes to spoilers, so if you're still not comfortable with it, you may delete the thread. There will be no hard feelings.

If anything, this is more of a spoiler for the original Mass Effect, but even then I was intentionally vague about which squad members I'm talking about.

There were pre-release interviews where members of Bioware were straight up asked whether party members could die and they said "no." Like, they didn't even bother being coy or keeping the possibility open in the player's mind, just an unambiguous denial that is was even a possibility.

As for the question at hand, I don't know who I'd save. As is typical for Mass Effect games, I cared far less for the human squadmates than I did for the alien ones. For some reason, they can never manage to make the human squad characters even remotely interesting in these games in comparison to the alien characters.

Whatever. Flip a coin. They both had so little personality I can't work up enough passion to particularly care which one of them dies. Dying would probably be the most interesting thing either one of them did.

Personally, I'd probably leave most of the crew to die and just clone Drack a bunch of times, since he's the only character worth hanging out with.

@lawgamer: Amen to this. Drack was the only character I felt could hang with the original trilogy crew. He was a pretty neatly written Krogan that was also quite different from Wrex or Grunt.

Drack is a cool space dad!

Liam somehow made Kaiden more likable so yeah throw that guy out an airlock or something. Cora was bland but at least she wasnt a space racist.

@boozak: She's instead a space misanthropist, seeing as how she's an Asari huntress.

Where is the option to let them both die? Those two are the most uninteresting companions in the whole Mass Effect series.

I don't know that I'd necessarily agree with that assessment. It's not that she has anything against humanity, more that she's really obsessed with the Asari. People have been jokingly referring to her as a "weeablue."

Drack is my boy! I never go on a misison without him. Him and Vetra are great to have on missions because of their banter.

In terms of the above question I'd definitely kill Liam despite his loyalty mission being awesome. He's reckless and too emotional for my liking. I don't need that when I'm making first contact or exploring strange new worlds. Cora has the military discipline to at least follow orders in a heated situation where as I don't think Liam does. Basically what I'm saying is Liam is the worst party member of the entire group and fuck Liam.

Do I have to save one? Can't they both die? I couldnt stand either.

Liam without a doubt. From the very first mission on he is such a tool. While Cora is pretty bland she is at least not actively a detriment to my enjoyment the way Liam is and she does have some interesting things going on like being obsessed with the Asari and that she has been prepping to become the new Pathfinder, but then being fucked over and Sara or Sam being chosen instead. The only good thing about Liam is how much everyone you meet also hate Liam.

As others have mentioned Drack is great. He is the only squadamate that can stand on the same level as the great squad mates from the original trilogy. He even makes the other squadmates more interesting through his banter with them. I don`t hate the rest of the crew (expect Liam), but they are about on the same level as the low tier (but not terrible) squadmates from previous games like Kasumi or Vega.

Ha! That`s great!

If given the option I would kill Liam. ME games always have a bad starting male supporting character. Jacob still my least favorite by far but Liam is up there. I think there is only one time I saved Kaiden over Ashley in 1 and that was because I forced myself to do so, and I've beaten 1 close to a dozen times

Haha, "weeablue" is so fitting for Cora.

I'd throw Liam out the airlock, though. No hesitation whatsoever. I don't tend to expect much from human squad-mates in Mass Effect games, unfortunately. I don't think we're an inherently boring species, but what do I know? However, Liam ups the ante for being dull and uninteresting, going so far as to thrown in obnoxious as a surprise bonus. He spends all his time wandering my engineering bay shirtless, blathering his monotone, platitude laden, insipid drivel to any poor soul that foolishly makes the mistake of stumbling upon his six hundred year old, stain-caked couch.

To the void with you, sir. That having been said, I find Cora's endless Asari worship incredibly tedious (Hey hey, I worked with the Asari. Aren't they great? Hey hey, I sent you an email filled with Asari proverbs. Can we go looking for the Asari? I worked with them, you know. They're great. Want to hear more war stories about my time as a huntress with the Asari? They're so great), and her oppressed biotic garbage drives me up the wall. In the original trilogy, the government spent years tracking down people genetically predisposed to biotic augmentation, abducted them, inserted biotic amps and gizmos into their flesh, and hoped one out of ten would live and manifest some kind of useful power. In this... biotics are apparently X-Men and Cora magically manifested her power, sans augments, when she was a teenager. D grade fan fiction hogwash. A poor man's Dragon Age magus subplot without the fun Templars. Bleh!

But still... at least she actively annoys me. Liam makes me yawn and grimace in disgust. So... Cora wins. Congratulations, I guess. :-/

Edit addition: Drack is my favorite too. Every character is one or two simple notes played ad-infinitum here, but at least his are "grizzled bad ass" and "caring grandpa." I like it.

It's part of the reason I have a hatred for "weeb" based terminology. Desire to be a member of another race/nationality inherently suggests feelings of inferiority about your own race/nationality. It's a different kind of racism, but racism just the same.

@freedom4556: A fair point, indeed.

It's odd, but you just reminded me about the trope subversion that I miss from Mass Effect 1. The Asari are thousand year old space elves and you could theoretically view them as wiser, better, more advanced, overall superior beings if you wanted... except that they're also cliché sexy blue space ladies / sex symbols that often spend the first couple hundred years of their lives flying around getting their freak on with every kind of horrifying, bizarre alien creature imaginable. The whole concept was marvelously, endearingly risible and made putting them up on a pedestal a foolish endeavor... but I wouldn't even try to begin explaining that kind of nuance to Cora.

Kill them both.

I couldn't stand how much Liam went behind my back/undermined shit I did and so on. Shepard wouldn't have let that shit stand. Neither was particularly interesting but Cora at least stepped in line. My crew was Jaal and Drack though. Those guys are the best.

The moment I heard Liam's voice in one of the trailers, I knew he was gonna be my least favorite. I really dislike his dialogue and voice acting.
I find Cora's whole "everyone leaves me, because I have mad biotics" ridiculous, but overall I still kinda like her in most situations.

I would jettison them both into the sun, along with the rest of Ass Effect: Andromedont.

Definitely Cora, can't stand Liam

The choice in the first mass effect was only memorable to me because i remember that the sudden realization that i did not care about either character in a game that was in large part about caring about characters was a little shocking.

With Andromeda though? I felt prepared.

I'd send them both packing, if possible. Although I do think Liam is by far the worst of the two.

What misery to be stuck on a space ship with those two.

I'd choose to kill Liam, like I killed Kaiden. I sexed Cora, though I find her kind of boring, and... I don't like her hair. Honestly, Liam did have a somewhat sweet story about a vehicle.

I'd keep Cora I guess. Romanced her, so it'd be bad to just let her die. Liam was alright. I liked his first scene with him where you're just chilling on a couch. Nothing else really stood out in the same way though. He's just kind of there at best, and at worst he's doing some stupid shit with Jaal. The problem with this choice and the choice between Kaiden and Ashley is that I just don't feel overly attached to any of them. Now if you were to say like Garrus vs. Tali or Drack vs. Vetra then we'd be hitting a real tough moment for me.

Cora is the most useful party member for me in battle, so I guess Liam would have to go. Honestly though, I'd have no compunction for sending any of these characters do their death, and in Peebee's case, I'd relish it. Every single one of these squadmates I find to be extremely dull, if not aggravating, I guess I can say that Vetra is simply boring, not too annoying.

Drack is okay, I guess. Mostly due to the fact that he's a Krogan, and Krogan are awesome. Not a patch on Wrex though.

Never would I have expected to be so cold on a Mass Effect game.

Not to derail the thread but you can prefer something else without hating the other thing. Patriotism could also be seen as racism by your logic since it implies that you feel all countries are inferior to the one you belong to. Although I could see people taking their love of other cultures to an annoying extreme, thankfully I dont know anyone like that.

I'd definitely sacrifice Liam. He's just a fucking dumbass. I dunno what it is with Bioware, but for some reason every human male they ever portray is utterly unlikable.

You can certainly take patriotism too far, it's called jingoism and it is another kind of racism. As with all things it's a matter of degrees.

Since we're on a tangent anyway and it's a pet peeve of mine, this all started for me with the Internet dubbing Cora a "weeablue" and where that comes from. Weeaboo (akin to jigaboo) replaced the older wapanese on 4chan which was itself formed by analogy to wigger. None of these things are at all polite to say due to their origin in racial slurs, and they all refer to someone who behaves as a stereotype from a culture that is not their own. They all express hatred for the stereotype and for the person who would abandon their own to join with that stereotype.

Now, whether or not Cora crosses that line, or what a stereotypical Asari even is, is a whole other thing. /endrant

If given the choice I would space both of them. But, as that is not an option, I would save Cora.

Liam sucks.

@fredddi43 said:

This was totally what I thought too! Easily the two worst party members. I guess I like Cora maybe slightly more than Liam, but only slightly.

I haven't played much, but Cora has that ass going for her. Do I get the option to throw PeeBee out the airlock too? That would be nice.

I would sacrifice Liam because wtf is he doing on my ship? Hes the most unqualified and dumb partymember in the ME franchise and i wouldnt even trust him with reminding me when i got new mail.

I guess Ryder is just as unqualified as Liam but i cant really sacrifice myself.

Hmmm, Cora is a more interesting character but she's an Asari weeb and Liam had the best loyalty mission. I think I'd still want Cora to survive more.

To be fair, it's not like you can exactly trust SAM with that, either . . .

I'd want both to die, they both suck as characters

I want them both to die. Liam more so for being actively bad but Cora's every second word is Asari with the next word being commando

Liam and Vetra are the worst characters in the squad, so I'd have no problem with either dying. I like everyone else.

I'm pretty sure Bioware said no squad members die before the game came out. That was a dumb thing for them to say and they should've had that in the game since a squad member (or former one) dying was a part of every ME game.

I'd save Liam because of the limited early parts of this game I've seen, one of the moments that stuck out to me was of Liam. During the first moments on the new Normandy, Ryder has a strange vision and it is clearly blanking on Liam, his reaction when he realises (after Ryder returns to focusing on the present) is simultaneously caring and suspicious. Best character moment of the game that I've seen.

@rethla: Just had to mention the email notification system, eh? :-P

Probably a better job for Liam than SAM, truthfully. The most advanced intelligence to ever grace human existence, and it's stuck either telling me I have mail or repeatedly notifying me about the temperature every ten seconds. What a miserable existence. No wonder SAM speaks in a monotone and lies to me about having new emails half the time. Liam, on the other hand, doesn't have the cerebral capacity to be that passive aggressive. He was made for this.

Doesn't matter, you can always build more androids IMO

Both are pretty flat characters... but at least Cora never flat out compromised the integrity of our operation numerous times through ignorance and incompetence. Even after telling Liam to never do something like that again... he lies and makes an even bigger mess. Like seriously bro... get spaced.