In Mass Effect, the Shadow Broker built himself the perfect hideout: a ship floating in the clouds. Here’s what you need to know about it.
In the Mass Effect games, Commander Shepard becomes the first-ever human Spectre and takes on an impossible mission: to hunt down the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius and foil his wicked plot. Then, the Commander does the impossible again and takes down the insidious Collectors. But what can Shepard do when the enemy sees all and knows all, like the Shadow Broker?
The Shadow Broker is the ultimate information trader in the galaxy. They know every secret and can cut any deal or negotiate with any power player. But the Shadow Broker needs a secure base, and the Broker has the perfect solution for operating in total secrecy. The Broker’s ship is a marvel of engineering.
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Building & Running the Broker’s Base
The Shadow Broker’s base is a ship that hovers in place within a nonstop thunderstorm on the planet Hagalaz, acting more like a space station than anything. This location was carefully chosen: Hagalaz’s night and day sides have opposite extremes of temperature, causing roiling thunderstorms along the day/night border. All that lightning interferes with sensors and communication for outside parties who aren’t prepared for it, so the Broker’s ship is hidden from sensors and the naked eye alike.
It’s not entirely clear if the ship was built within that storm, or constructed elsewhere and flown to its current location. Decades ago, the original Shadow Broker commissioned a team of expert engineers to design and build this unique ship with Hagalaz’s thunderstorms in mind. Liara T’Soni suspected that the Broker had all the engineers killed to protect the ship’s secrets.
This large vessel is always running so it won’t fall onto the planet below, and it features many lightning capacitors that can draw electrical strikes from the storm and disperse the energy safely. There is no way that a vicious lightning strike will damage the ship, and even the foot soldiers patrolling the hull are safe from the risk of a lightning strike.
The ship is large but otherwise unremarkable on the outside, but on the inside, massive arrays of capacitors regularly channel away the dangerous electrical power. This ship also features a number of maintenance hatches, LOKI mech defenders and maintenance drones that can clear away debris or diagnose problems with the ship’s exterior.
The vessel has ramps and walkways for patrolling soldiers to use, but there are no handrails or guard rails. Either that is an oversight or an expression of the Broker’s attitude toward his minions, seeing them as disposable. Its interior is crewed by dozens of shipmates and many armed guards. The ship also features a prison block where the Broker can interrogate and torture anyone who ends up captured.
Elsewhere, the ship has a central operations room as well as the Intel Center where the Broker himself operates. This large space features all kinds of computer terminals and communication arrays, and there is even an advanced assistant drone on hand to help the Broker juggle many tasks at once. The Shadow Broker also has a separate office and private quarters. It may be noted that the ship has high-tech dampening arrays inside its hull to prevent the constant thunderstorm outside from shaking or rattling the ship, keeping the inside stable and calm.
The Broker’s Ship in the Story
For a long time, no one in the galaxy outside the Shadow Broker’s army even known this ship existed, let alone the details of its construction and operation. That all changed when Liara T’Soni resolved to rescue her Drell friend Feron and recruited Shepard’s aid. After defeating Asari Spectre Tela Vasir and recovering vital data disks from a Salarian agent, Liara pinpointed the Shadow Broker’s base’s location, and the Normandy SR-2 flew to the planet Hagalaz to launch the operation. The volatile storms kept the Normandy at bay, so Liara and Shepard took a Kodiak shuttle for a covert drop-off.
Shepard and Liara marveled at the ship’s many features while fighting off soldiers and combat mechs from the Broker’s army. Liara one-upped the ship’s security by using a bypass shunt (a super-hacker module) and forced her way inside. Shepard and Liara recovered Feron, finding the Drell strapped to an interrogation chair that could electrify him on command. Then, Liara and Shepard faced the Broker personally in his office, trading threats with the massive alien until defeated and killed him.
Now, the ship was in friendly hands. However, the Broker’s many agents across the galaxy (such as Eclipse mercenaries) demanded an update, and there was no Broker to answer. That is, until Liara accepted the role as the new Shadow Broker and took over all operations. She promised Shepard to use this ship and its features as a force for good, or in her words, “something better.”
Feron was freed, and Shepard was allowed to visit the ship anytime to make use of its incredible information networking. Liara enjoyed using the ship as the new (and more benign) Broker. However, when the Reaper invasion was launched, Cerberus found and tried to capture the Broker’s ship. Liara packed up whatever she could, fled the vessel and destroyed it.
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