Mass Effect 2 – Can Legion Be Taken on Tali’s Loyalty Mission and Save the Whole Crew?

mass-effect-2

In preparation for ME3, I'm doing a replay of Mass Effect 2 and I want to know if I can take Legion on Tali's loyalty mission, complete all other loyalty missions (including his), and still save everyone in the crew.

I know at some point, my ship gets invaded and collectors make off with a lot of my crew. I also know that there's some sort of timing mechanic built into the game where if I take too long after a trigger event (which is probably that same event… the crew being kidnapped… but maybe not, I don't know), some or all of them will be dead by the time I find them on the other side of the Omega IV relay.

I've read this and this but they just seem like pieces of the puzzle. I want the full picture.

  • What triggers my crew being kidnapped?
  • Is Legion's loyalty mission a special case that doesn't count as a mission on The Crew section of this chart? Are there any other special cases? Is that bit of the chart actually right?

As I said, the main reason I'd like to know all this is that, if possible, I'd like to get Legion in my party, take him on Tali's loyalty mission (because bringing a Geth to the Quarian flotilla sounds potentially hilarious), do his and every other loyalty mission, and still save my entire crew. I can't deduce the steps I'd need to take to accomplish this from the other related questions because I don't have a full understanding of what the trigger events are. Is it possible, and if so, how do I do it?

Best Answer

You can perform all the loyalty missions, take Legion on Tali's loyalty mission, and save your entire crew if you do the following:

  1. Do everything but Tali's loyalty mission.
  2. Do the mission to obtain the Reaper IFF.
  3. Do Tali's loyalty mission.
  4. Do Legion's loyalty mission.
  5. At this point, you should actually be out of things to do, and you'll be wondering why the Collectors haven't attacked yet. Go click your galaxy map. This should trigger the Collector invasion.
  6. Once it is over, go straight through the Omega IV relay. You don't have anything else left to do anyway!