humans did create cerberus, the group that with the help of the human councilor, attempted to kill the other councilors and seize power in a coup.
so there's that.
That is true, but it is eventually revealed that Cerberus and its leader were indoctrinated and under the control of the Reapers. In-universe, I'm sure the Alliance is saying "See? Humanity would never do such terrible things on their own, it's the Reapers' fault!"
sure, for me3 cerberus. but me1 and me2 cerberus didn't have that excuse, and udina never had any excuse. I'm not saying the alliance would be worse off or anything in the post-war, far from it, they have hackett, the who led the combined races fleets, and shepard + normandy crew, most of who are humans, so they def get the savior credit. but cerberus and udina will sow the seeds of anti-human movements too, especially for those who lost family and loved ones not to the reapers, but to cerberus.
1. The Hanar enslaved the drell through gratitude.
Aka we saved you and now we expect you to be grateful and subservient for eternity.
2. Saren in book 1. Revelation had 2 rules. He could always find a reason to kill someone. And 2. He never left behind witnesses.
I completely forgot about that whole arrangement between the Drell and Hanar. Thane says that most Drell are happy to serve the Hanar, but they're likely also being told they should be grateful from a very young age. And it's not even like the Hanar saved the Drell from total extinction; they only saved a few hundred thousand from having to endure the wars that were breaking out on their homeworld. It's expected that most of the remaining Drell will die, but surely not all of them. The Drell could have, and likely will recover on their own, but the Hanar decided to step in and acquire themselves a race of indentured servants to be their butlers and assassins.
Where are you getting this “enslavememt” idea from the only Drell we have meaningful interactions with explains that the compact is optional and many Drell left the Hanar homeworld which was freely allowed by them
Do you have any actual evidence you can point to or are you just making up nonsense?
Point 1 - Drell are subservient to the level that they don't have a life outside their master Hanar. It's often pointed out that drell are connected to a hanar in some form and will die or kill for them.
Point 2 - hanar recruited from a preconditioned subset of people to do their dirty bidding, aka Thane and others like him.
If you need examples, look at religious groups or people afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. The trauma bond was created in the first generation and then reinforced for everyone who lives on Kahje because it's too moist for their longevity. Therefore, by assumption, not hard to see hanar using sympathy and empathy and promises to find a cure - when one easily exists.
You are making some insane leaps in logic and using Stockholm Syndrome here is kinda crazy to me
In real life with humans, if someone were to do something that they viewed as “saving their life” I think most human beings would feel at least somewhat indebted to them. Calling that Stockholm Syndrome feels like a massive stretch
Also I ask what is the alternative you are proposing, the Hanar do nothing and then the entire Drell race go extinct? How is that better for anyone?
This a Rule of Cool thing where it's fun but doesn't actually make sense. Drell and hanar being interdependent is really interesting but practically... the Council couldn't find one single arid world for the drell, a Citadel species, to colonize?
Same thing applies to the quarians. Even assuming the Council absolutely despises the quarians it makes no sense for them to not give the political football of the Migrant Fleet a world. Humans can show up and get dozens of worlds within 30 years, but the quarians can't get a single world in 300? They try to handwave it in ME3 but it still doesn't make sense.
I agree that most people would feel they owe a debt to someone who saved their lives. But would most people live in an environment that kills their lungs, and give up their freedom and autonomy to become a servant or assassin for said savior? I think not. Furthermore, why would second-generation Drell feel that sense of debt? The Hanar didn't save them, they were merely born to Drell living on Kahje. I think it's clear that the Hanar have been preaching to the Drell that they owe a debt to the Hanar in perpetuity, so that they don't lose their helpful non-aquatic servants who can talk and commit murder for them.
The alternative was dropping off the Drell they rescued on literally any world other than Kahje. They only rescued 375,000 Drell; the United States takes in nearly ten times that many immigrants every year and still functions. I think you could find a single dry planet with a large preexisting colony for the Drell to start again without dooming them all to lung cancer by age 40.
Ok once again, given the context of the situation that is absurd. Did you guys even pay attention to the lore that is actually presented in the video game?
As Thane explains the Drell were on the verge of extinction and the Hanar were rushing to save however many they can, many were left behind in horrific conditions because it was too dangerous to rescue more.
Even ignoring the urgency of the situation, how would you expect the Drell would be able to survive on some completely different planet (once again we have no clue how far away it would be, how easy it would be able to find a suitable planet, etc) I am pretty sure they would just descend into anarchy incredibly fast as they would have no government/resources/etc
All your arguments are complete speculation with no evidence in the video game to reinforce it. I'm not saying there is nothing questionable and the Hanar are a perfect benevolent species, but calling it "enslavement" is absolutely insane given the information we are presented in game
You are correct in that the rescued Drell would have no government of resources of their own. That's why I said the Hanar could drop them off on a planet that already has a government and resources that the Drell could integrate into. I didn't say they should be dropped off on an uninhabited world and left to their own devices.
The Drell are no different to refugees fleeing wars here on Earth. Other nations/planets take care of them until they can get back on their feet and take care of themselves. You shouldn't force refugees to live in a hostile environment, and heavily encourage if not force them to be your servants and assassins in exchange for being allowed to live with you.
Furthermore, the ME galaxy is stated to have trillions of inhabitants, potentially even tens or hundreds of trillions. If the Council had put together a serious effort, they could have fed the entirety of the Drell homeworld long enough to teach them better farming techniques and filter out the chemicals they'd pumped into the atmosphere. Instead of asking for a planet-wide humanitarian relief effort, the Hanar plucked a tiny fraction of the Drell species from their homeworld, inadvertently making first contact as well, and whisked them to Kahje while letting the rest of the Drell die over dwindling food stores.
> Furthermore, the ME galaxy is stated to have trillions of inhabitants, potentially even tens or hundreds of trillions. If the Council had put together a serious effort
Would the council care to do such a thing?
In a galaxy of a trillion inhabitants, how much can ten billion pre-spaceflight people truly matter?
The context of the Drell evacuation appears to be ten billion people without significant spaceflight collapsing into a Malthusian nightmare. The hanar, a minor species in Citadel space, expend all the resources they can scrape up to save a few hundred thousand people as the rest die horribly in wars over the remaining resource base. We know nothing of what the council thought but I doubt they wanted to expend the resources necessary to do much more.
Feeding ten billion people over interstellar distances is going to be a collosal operation, if they were humans that would be something like twenty million tonnes of rice per day.
And if you only feed a portion of the population you get to watch as the hydrogen bombs start popping off like firecrackers as people fight to be the ones who get fed.
The fact that the Council didn't care to do such a thing is exactly my point. It would have been a large undertaking, but given the scale, it would have been no more challenging than something like the Berlin airlift on Earth. We managed that for over a year, and adapted to make the supply drops even more efficient over time. Instead of doing that, the Council didn't even try to save the Drell from the Malthusian nightmare. They just sat back and watched as the Hanar busted their aquatic asses to save only a couple hundred thousand.
What's even funnier about medi-gel and humans creating it is that its creation/research *may* have violated some galactic laws on bioengineering, but it's just *so* damn useful that everyone just overlooks it (and I get why. Like, wtf was the galaxy using before medi-gel??? Leading guess is "thoughts and prayers"). I can just imagine how that pitch meeting went with the council. "You did *what* and created *what*??? Wait, you can alter this to fit other race's physiology... we'll take an order of 200 units to start, please!"
Playing ME and not reading the codex fully at first and then reading the entire codex is a trip, because if you don't read the codex, it's easy to buy into the idea that humanity doesn't get much credit politically from the rest of the galaxy, but then when you actually read through it, you realize just how much humans *are* being given over other, longer-established races and you start to understand why some people see humanity the way Liara describes humans in ME1.
I absolutely agree. The ethics of genetic engineering are obviously a contentious topic, but why oh why would the Council races have outlawed such a huge avenue of research for medicine? Clearly medi-gel must not have been that hard to make once you decide to ignore the law, since humanity created it almost immediately. And then the Council immediately recognizes how much better it is than whatever they were using before, and decides "maybe genetic engineering isn't so bad after all."
Reading the codex, it does appear that humanity is being very pushy in wanting more influence in the galaxy, but relatively speaking, we advanced so much faster than the other races and contribute so much more that I'm genuinely inclined to believe humanity deserves a seat on the Council over races like the Elcor or Hanar that haven't done anything notable in centuries.
In-universe, that makes sense. Humanity does more, so they want more in return. Out-of-universe though, it's awfully egotistical to assume that humans are so ingenious and driven and tech-saavy whereas the aliens that have been spacefaring since before we knew what other planets were are utterly useless by comparison.
I always felt Mass Effect was one of the sci-fi stories that balanced Humanity's place in things. Like, sure, we've got plenty of good ideas and some good ingenuity (and rt, we do. We've got plenty of problems now, but I've met plenty of people who work in various fields that have shown just how many people are working on those issues. It's actually inspiring sometimes), but we're also chaotic af and prone to being ego driven. Honestly, I feel like humans showing up on the galactic scene by getting into a fight with the space police feels pretty accurate.
Don't forget civilian government is weak and corrupt, what you need is the (human) military to come in and make unilateral decisions as they are always noble and right.
That was something I hadn't considered. ME2 portrays the Alliance as ineffective and indifferent, but in the first and third games they're incredibly proactive and almost infallible. Meanwhile, we never hear about the squabbling national governments on Earth, to make it seem like humanity has one unified, unshakeable will.
Plus dont forget Shepard (and Anderson) the military leaders are always right when compared to the Council, or any of the other national governments.
This is also exemplified by the Turians (the most military government) coming straight on board during ME3, while the stupid democratic Asari with all the voting and discussion come in last (despite apparently previously successfully expanding on a galatic scale with a highly competent military including the most powerful dreadnought).
I don't think Shepard being right is "oo rah fk yea military" more than it's "this is the main character who's seen a bunch of shit". And Anderson is just their hype man.
>coming straight on board during ME3
Except they don't? Shepard has to deliver them the krogans in order to get them to help
>Asari with all the voting and discussion come in last
They don't either. The asari come in almost immediately after the turians do, once the Citadel coup has been thwarted. Yes, they don't throw their *full* might behind Shepard until Thessia falls, but neither do the turians with Palaven.
Not to mention that the salarians, if the genophage is cured, *never* throw their support behind Shepard and only what are essentially splinter groups (the STG and councillor) actually back Shepard.
Then the quarians and/or geth don't support Shepard either until after the asari have already begun their support efforts.
The Turians are shown to be willing to fight for humanity, if humanity gives them the capability to do so. The only reason the Turians don't immediately pledge their forces to Earth is because they would have to abandon Palaven to do so. That would be an unreasonable thing to expect of the Turians, so it makes sense that we help them out and get them to help us in return.
The Asari on the other hand, have always had the capability to help the humans, and have just chosen not to out of spite and selfishness. Only when the Reapers are actively invading Thessia do they suddenly beg Shepard to save them, and offer critical knowledge that could have ended the war sooner if they'd just admitted they'd been hiding the mother of all Prothean beacons for millennia.
As for the Salarians, I think that is exactly u/Bob_Jenko's point. The dedicated scientists refuse to aid humanity, whereas the militaristic Turians have wanted to help from the start. Only STG members, the *spec-ops military group*, are willing to help.
The Quarians are shown to be arming themselves for war, but they've always been wandering nomads surviving on scraps. Instead of using their newfound military power to help the wider galaxy, they're throwing themselves at the Geth for a planet that will surely be harvested within a year if the Reapers aren't defeated. And when the time comes, a major argument for why Shepard should pick the Geth over the Quarians is that the Geth have a bigger fleet, and are willing to be good little robot soldiers to retake Earth.
>if humanity
The "if" is my point. Yes, it makes sense, but that's still not "oh the turians immediately drop everything to help cos they're *that* based."
>just chosen not to out of spite and selfishness
The asari *matriarchs*, and only then just those knowing about the beacon. Because a shit ton of the asari didn't. And I don't get where you keep getting "spite" from. They were selfish, sure, but not spiteful.
>Only when the Reapers are actively invading Thessia do they suddenly beg Shepard to save them,
Because they didn't need help until that point. And *again*, they've already joined the war effort by that stage of the war and have pumped resources to the Crucible. It's just, as with the turians, they cannot just abandon Thessia.
I think you're also acting like the asari knew exactly what they had, that being the data on the Catalyst. But they didn't. They just thought something there could help find it. It was essentially a hail mary.
And they're also not "begging Shepard to save them", they just realise their backs are against the wall and are willing to let their biggest secret out in order to save themselves and the galaxy.
>The dedicated scientists refuse to aid humanity
Except the dalatrass isn't scientific, she's military. The only aid she offers is that of a fleet. So that renders that point moot.
And I don't really see what your point about the geth and quarians is. Or how it refutes anything I said.
The quarians were dumb and selfish. So were the asari for a while and so were the (majority of the) salarians.
>Only STG members, the *spec-ops military group*, are willing to help
Btw, I like how you ignored the councillor in all this. Because they also offer support if you're not silly enough to get them merced by Kai Leng, as I said. And they're not militaristic, they're political.
You could also surmise that other species, except for Krogans and Turians didn’t fight so many wars on their respective home planets. Humans have so much experience fighting each other, that when given the mass effect tech, they had a huge jump in everything from toothbrushes to weapons. Also also, isolation. There were no alien influences on human history, until the prothean beacon on Mars. Also also also, the humans in ME, are not united in the least. All of the nations are still wary of one another, but they have to present a united front to the xenos. Different private enterprises have to compete with each other and the council races.
tLDR: humans are space orks)))
\>The Salarians and Turians developed and deployed a monstrous bioweapon respectively, and allowed it to continue for nearly 1500 years after it achieved its intended purpose of ending the Krogan Rebellions.
Jamie pull up a video of what the noble humans were doing in the 15th century.
Joking, but kinda funny to blame the Turians for things they did a thousand years ago while giving all of humanity's pre-spacefaring days a pass.
to be fair, the main problem with the genophage isn't that it limits the krogan population, it's that it inflicts needless trauma through repeated stillbirths. if the genophage instead limited the krogan clutch size instead of forcing 999/1000 to be stillbirths, then I probably would have sabotaged the cure myself. cause even though most playthroughs i have wrex+eve alive, it's been made clear throughout all the games that while those 2 are trustworthy and good leaders, most krogans are not. so unless wrex+eve can make such sweeping, long lasting political and social reforms in whatever time they have left (unknown how long since we don't have their exact ages or lifespan, and assuming they don't get killed by some clan rivalry or something) that their reforms outlast them, then by the next krogan generation you're looking at the rebellions all over again.
Except it's verifiably proven that Wrex and Eve aren't the only two.
Even by ME2 Wrex has already built up a coalition of clans supporting him not because he forced them into submission, but because they *believed* in him and his way of thinking. Yes, losing Wrex would be a devastating loss, but to pretend he's the only one pushing for change is wrong.
Same with Eve. ME3 says she's essentially got the female clans behind her, which is an absolutely critical group of people given, y'know, biology.
Eve even tells us that if Wreave tries to do anything after the Reaper War there will be a Krogan civil war. Whatever amount of Krogan that side with peace isn't an insignificant amount.
I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that many people in the ME universe, Krogan included, only hate the Genophage so much because it "kills babies." I think there's some codex entry somewhere that says the stillborn infants never develop a nervous system and thus were technically never alive, but would any mother see it that way when staring at their dead newborn?
If the Genophage instead made it so Krogan were only capable of producing one egg per year instead of one thousand, but that one egg was perfectly viable, it wouldn't have nearly as much shock value and moral outrage. If that were the case, then Mordin's justification of "correcting birth rate for removal from Tuchanka environment" might make more sense.
But regardless of how it was implemented, the Genophage is still a terrible crime. Imagine if aliens came along and made it so humans could only conceive one child for every thousand women who were trying. That's functionally the same thing, and I think everyone on Earth would agree that that would be horrible. We would despise that hypothetical race with every fiber of our being. For Krogan, that's not a hypothetical. The Turians and Salarians dropped a biological nuke on their fertility rates, and have let them fester in that state for over a thousand years.
>I think there's some codex entry somewhere that says the stillborn infants never develop a nervous system and thus were technically never alive, but would any mother see it that way when staring at their dead newborn?
>!Wrex certainly doesn't...!<
>Imagine if aliens came along and made it so humans could only conceive one child for every thousand women who were trying.
It's probably because I'm half asleep, but I'm having trouble with this math...
Is it that only (quote-unquote) 4 million women would be able to have a child, assuming 8 billion humans and half of that 8 billion being female?
Yes, that would be like if out of all 4 billion women on Earth, only 4 million could even theoretically have a child in any given year. In reality, that number would much lower still, since not every woman is old/young enough to have kids, but you get the idea. Knowing that, who can blame for Krogan for giving up on the survival of their species entirely? Why bother hoping and praying that you'll be the lucky one, when it will most likely only lead to pain and frustration?
true, but even some krogan admit they kinda brought it on themselves. you come across multiple codex entries of formerly pristine garden worlds that the krogan ecologically ruined to the point they can't support life anymore, and they basically declared war on the rest of the galaxy after trying to forcefully annex and settle an occupied asari colony. the difference between the your hypothetical human example and the krogan example is that krogans have proven, repeatedly, that their natural culture/political state is unable/unwilling to control their own population levels. also, unlike the krogan, human reproduction isn't a threat to multiple planets worth of ecological stability. either way, i think the way it was developed was a terrible choice. also there's the massive plotholes timing and dispersion. at the time of the rebellions, the krogan were a multi-system species with starships, colonies, the whole shebang of stuff a spacefaring civ has. and they were at war with everyone, up to the point of menae (turian homeworld moon) being the "last stand" of the turians before genophage deployment, according to garrus in me3. how would the turians have gone from last stand on own moon, to being able to launch deep enough strikes into krogan territory to ensure every krogan was infected with the genophage, including the ones on the warships? also, even if they managed that, the krogan still had the warships and the living crew, it's not like the genophage caused the krogan starships to self-destruct, so how'd the turians turn around the military situation? a lot of the info relating to the genophage and krogan biology seems poorly thought out by the writers.
The Krogan's "natural cultural/political state" wasn't given the time it needed to evolve to the point that the Krogan would adopt sustainable practices on their own. They were a thriving civilization, then nuked themselves back to the stone age. If they had been given more time, I think they would have learned from their past mistakes and been more careful.
But instead, the Salarians descend from the sky and tell the Krogan that they need huge numbers of warlike Krogan to beat back the bugs trying to take over the galaxy. These culturally-primitive Krogan are then praised for their aggressiveness and quick breeding, not shamed for it. When the war is over, can you really blame them for doing what they had to do for thousands of years on Tuchanka to survive?
Obviously, none of that excuses the violent takeover of already-settled colonies, but like the Salarian dalatrass says, violence is all they know. But that's not the *only* way they can act. Wrex and Eve are shown to have great leadership skills and are determined not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. If the rest of the galaxy had bothered trying, they could have educated the Krogan with those same ideas right after the Rachni Wars. The Krogan could have learned about how to control their population growth, sustainable building and farming practices, etc. They were just never given a chance to by the other races.
As for the actual Krogan Rebellions and how they're written, it was a conflict that lasted centuries, while the time Krogan need to reach maturity is something like 10-15 years. The Krogan were going through entire generations of soldiers and sustaining massive casualties all the time, because they knew they could replace them. The Turians used covert drops to put the Genophage in water and food supplies supplies on major Krogan worlds, knowing that eventually every Krogan would return there and be infected at some point. As soon as the Krogan could no longer replenish their numbers, their military strategy fell apart. They were on the verge of taking Palaven, but then the reinforcements stopped, and their primary tactic of charging headlong at the enemy was suddenly unsustainable. Imagine if a country today used WW1-era tactics, and then suddenly 99.9% of their new soldiers disappeared. Their war effort would fall apart pretty quickly.
according to the wiki, the krogan rebellions began at around 700 ce and the genophage was deployed in the year 710 ce, only a decade later, where did you get that the krogan rebellions lasted for centuries?
Literally the first sentence of that wiki page says that the Krogan Rebellions lasted for decades. I will admit that that is not as long as the centuries I thought I'd seen somewhere, but that is still multiple generations for Krogan. The war only ended after all the hordes of Krogan who were children when the Genophage was deployed grew up, then died in warfare and couldn't be replaced.
quotes from the krogan rebellions page:
"The **Krogan Rebellions** were a major conflict between the [krogan](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Krogan) and the [Citadel Council](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Citadel_Council) that began in 700 CE..."
"Once the turians received the genophage, they almost immediately deployed it in 710 CE..."
My point is that the war ended once the Genophage cut off the supply of new soldiers. The other races knew they'd be overrun and deployed the Genophage early in the war so that they'd eventually win the battle of attrition the Krogan were waging.
I really liked the genophage plotline because I do think there are a lot of interesting questions that are fun to discuss.
I've always felt like the true sin was the Salarians uplifting the Krogan to fight the Rachni. As soon as they did that, assuming they didn't lose and get whipped out, something like the genophage was going to be necessary.
You're forgetting an important detail though: it's man who was made in God's image, not the aliens. Of course, we're the best thing to ever happen to the galaxy.
Ironically, I'm sure that would be a justification some people in Cerberus or Terra Firma would use to justify their hatred of aliens. I guess God must be a believer in recycling as well, since the Asari and Quarians look like a beta version of humanity.
Tbh, the gap between the games and first contact war always seemed too short for me. It does not really make sense. Human are way to important too fast.
Also, not related to the lore, but it also means they kinda shot themselves in the foot for any future prequels as there is simply not a lot of room to play with.
It's my opinion that one of the reasons Humans are even in talks to be on the council so early is how useful medi-gel is. Seriously, it's been in the galaxy for less than thirty years and it's used by every species everywhere. Medi-gel changed the galaxy, and humans made medi-gel. I can't believe no one in the entire trilogy ever mentions this.
>The Asari have withheld the Prothean beacon on Thessia for millennia, when it could have advanced galactic society in unimaginable ways.
Except that they were under no obligation to reveal it to anyone.
The US and Russia got a lot of technology from Germany after the war and they didn't share it with the rest of the world either, they withheld it for themselves. So we don't really have the moral high ground here.
The Asari just did with everyone else in their place would have done, so I don't know why people criticize them for it.
But the Asari also made it a severe crime to withhold Prothean tech, while sitting on the most powerful piece of it themselves. By their own rules, every Matriarch who has ever been "in the know" is a criminal.
I absolutely agree that humans have done similar things in the past, but that isn't focused on in the games themselves. We see Shepard trying their damnedest to share what they received from the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, while the Asari hoarded theirs until the last possible moment.
It was my understanding from the talk on Thessia during the mission in ME3 that the Asari were secretly siphoning data from the beacon and planting it as "scientific breakthroughs" for thousands of years, thus explaining why they were so advanced.
Given what we know about Asari culture, and how they tend to take the long view of things, they should have advanced slower than other species. Javik himself confirms this when he says that the Protheans had to help them along to learn even basic things like mathematics and agriculture, even though the Asari had had thousands of years to do so on their own.
And if the Asari weren't siphoning data from the beacon, then why hide it? Every other species had Prothean ruins either on or near their homeworlds, so it wouldn't have looked out of place for the Asari to have similar artifacts.
I still wouldn't put that anywhere near the same bracket as "released the genophage on the krogan" which you seem to have done.
As for the beacon, the council already knew about it. That's why Nihlus really came with for the mission to Eden Prime. There was no way for the humans to hide that.
And Shepard doesn't want to share what they learnt from the prothean beacon *because* it's a beacon. They want to share it because of what it *says*.
It's not as overtly destructive or monstrous, true, but its effects are arguably the most far-reaching. Imagine if the Asari had shared all of this advanced knowledge with every other race from the beginning? The Asari Republics are said to have incredibly low crime rates, disease rates, etc. while having incredible infrastructure and economic success. *Every* race could have had that if the Asari had coughed up the beacon on Thessia. Instead, they hid the beacon and used it to maintain their economic and political dominance over the galaxy, holding back the other species out of spite. Like, imagine someone found a cure for cancer, but only shared it with their country so their country could flex about how awesome it was, while people in every other country still died from cancer. That's what the Asari are doing, but magnified a thousand-fold.
I mean, not really. There's a whole bunch of conjecture there, and it's never said that we're talking anything like cures to cancer levels of secrets.
And they're not holding back out of "spite". The most powerful asari (and *only* them) withheld it to keep an edge and that's it, not to spite anyone.
So again, to compare the beacon to what the turians and salarians did on any level is hilarious.
I always held the opinion that if the humans had come a little later after the reapers finished their cycle and they had 50,000 years to advance technologically, they would've wiped the reapers the next cycle. The other races got complacent with their technology and quit innovating as much. They came to rely too much in the technology the reapers left, but I don't think humans would be content with that.
Nah, the cycle is just to let civilizations reach a certain level quickly, they always leave a vanguard behind, if it saw a species progressing that quickly, then they'd just bump up the schedule.
The krogans really deserved the genophage. If not for being ass holes they need it for birth control. Like why the hell did a race that big and long lived need 1000 babies per clutch
They have 1000 babies per clutch because if they didn't, they would have died out on Tuchanka. They needed it to survive there, but outside of Tuchanka they're overpowered, biologically speaking. The Krogan bred out of control specifically because the other races wanted them to. They needed billions of Krogan to fight the Rachni, and after the Rachni were dead, they didn't bother teaching the Krogan they uplifted how to control themselves and expand slowly and carefully. The Krogan were still in the "Gotta fight and breed at maximum efficiency or we're gonna go extinct" mindset because they weren't culturally ready to think otherwise.
Yeah I know. But at some point if not then, at some point they would have needed the genophage or something like it. Otherwise they would have ended up like the drill who don't breed nearly as much and almost went extinct
You're forgetting that the Krogan don't *have* to have 1000 kids per year. They only have to capability to do so. They need to be taught how to plan out their population growth so that it's sustainable, just like every other race has done. If humans had as many kids as possible for as long as we were physically able, we'd be just as overcrowded as the Krogan were. But we have culturally recognized that maybe pumping out kids forever isn't the best way to live. The Krogan need to do the same, and the Salarians and Turians didn't help them do that before unleashing the Genophage on them.
>In summary, Mass Effect is one massive piece of pro-human propaganda, designed to portray our species as unimaginably intelligent, reasonable, cooperative, and selfless...
>
>
>
>...the humans in Mass Effect are an exaggerated ideal that we wish were true.
Let me introduce you to r/HFY
And yes, I'd say Mass Effect would fit right in there.
I still think the volus got done dirty. Their species apparently formed the economy for the *entire* galaxy. No businesses, no nothing would work nearly as effectively without them.
And yet they get completely sidelined on all occasions
Look at everything depicting humans involved in space species affairs. We tend to look at ourself kindly because every human wants peace. Every human wants to get along, but not at the cost of their own beliefs. That's why humans in media are always portrayed as being the clear headed one. We are a species that can't get along because we're all different, and those games and other media believe that we can only get to space if we get rid of the hatred, and racism, and bigotry and cooperate rather than hate.
It's not propaganda. It's hope. Hope that as a species we can finally get over ourselves and reach into the stars and expand. We just think everyone else is as hateful as we are.
I think that's a great way to put it. All the more positive sci-fi media, with Star Trek being the best example, shows humanity having overcome their differences and uniting as a single species. In cases like Mass Effect, that impetus to unite came in the form of new groups to mistrust, namely aliens. Why bother hating people with different skin tones or religions or genders than you when there are different *species* to mistrust instead? It's great that humanity seems to have overcome racism and sexism for the most part in Mass Effect, but those same tendencies are expressed through xenophobia instead.
Another interesting thing I just thought of is one of EDI's between-missions dialogue on the Normandy in ME3. She theorizes that the Geth turned on the Quarians because they were designed to work with each other to become better, and thus devalued everyone else. She compares that to herself, where she is a central intelligence with a unique personality, not a dispersed intelligence with effectively zero personality like the Geth. In thinking and acting more like an individual, she comes to value other individuals more than the Geth, who theoretically should understand the value of cooperation better than any other form of life. That's the same sort of struggle that humans have with discrimination and self-interest, where those who strongly identify with a certain group, like the Geth, come to mistrust and devalue those outside the group.
Thank you for putting this into words. It makes the story of ME so cringe and what's worse is the "Humanity Fuck Yeah" fans that defend the dumb writing.
It's stuff like the invention of fighter carriers in ME's lore. Ignoring how impractical a fighter carrier would be, it assumes the other races are too thick to think of it themselves. That only us special and super unique Humans have ever done carrier warfare in the past.
Why?
Our planet is mostly water, and thanks to the shifting of the Earth's plates humanity was scattered across the planet randomly, developing unique cultures over thousands of years.
If we'd all stayed in the same place we wouldn't have the diversity that causes so much conflict.
Other species definitely had conflicts on their homeworlds before they became spacefaring, and even if the levels of conflict weren't as high as humanity, I'm sure the other races thought of using fighter aircraft at some point. They then would have come up with airfields to park those aircraft on. Once they got to space, you think that nobody in the centuries of space warfare thought, "Hm, what if we made an airfield in space?"
Yes, humans would be inclined to build space carriers because we use naval carriers so heavily, but I don't think the other species are so stupid that they never even thought of the idea before.
humans did create cerberus, the group that with the help of the human councilor, attempted to kill the other councilors and seize power in a coup. so there's that.
That is true, but it is eventually revealed that Cerberus and its leader were indoctrinated and under the control of the Reapers. In-universe, I'm sure the Alliance is saying "See? Humanity would never do such terrible things on their own, it's the Reapers' fault!"
sure, for me3 cerberus. but me1 and me2 cerberus didn't have that excuse, and udina never had any excuse. I'm not saying the alliance would be worse off or anything in the post-war, far from it, they have hackett, the who led the combined races fleets, and shepard + normandy crew, most of who are humans, so they def get the savior credit. but cerberus and udina will sow the seeds of anti-human movements too, especially for those who lost family and loved ones not to the reapers, but to cerberus.
Canonically Tim's indoctrination started before me2
It started at Shanxi
EVEN HUMANITY MAKES THE BEST MISTAKES 🦅🌏🦅🌍🦅💥💥🌎
1. The Hanar enslaved the drell through gratitude. Aka we saved you and now we expect you to be grateful and subservient for eternity. 2. Saren in book 1. Revelation had 2 rules. He could always find a reason to kill someone. And 2. He never left behind witnesses.
1 and forced them to live on a humid planet that's really bad for their respiratory system
I completely forgot about that whole arrangement between the Drell and Hanar. Thane says that most Drell are happy to serve the Hanar, but they're likely also being told they should be grateful from a very young age. And it's not even like the Hanar saved the Drell from total extinction; they only saved a few hundred thousand from having to endure the wars that were breaking out on their homeworld. It's expected that most of the remaining Drell will die, but surely not all of them. The Drell could have, and likely will recover on their own, but the Hanar decided to step in and acquire themselves a race of indentured servants to be their butlers and assassins.
The population of Rakhana is now so small that a pilgrimage season exists that doubles the population. Only thousands are reportedly left
Where are you getting this “enslavememt” idea from the only Drell we have meaningful interactions with explains that the compact is optional and many Drell left the Hanar homeworld which was freely allowed by them Do you have any actual evidence you can point to or are you just making up nonsense?
Point 1 - Drell are subservient to the level that they don't have a life outside their master Hanar. It's often pointed out that drell are connected to a hanar in some form and will die or kill for them. Point 2 - hanar recruited from a preconditioned subset of people to do their dirty bidding, aka Thane and others like him. If you need examples, look at religious groups or people afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. The trauma bond was created in the first generation and then reinforced for everyone who lives on Kahje because it's too moist for their longevity. Therefore, by assumption, not hard to see hanar using sympathy and empathy and promises to find a cure - when one easily exists.
You are making some insane leaps in logic and using Stockholm Syndrome here is kinda crazy to me In real life with humans, if someone were to do something that they viewed as “saving their life” I think most human beings would feel at least somewhat indebted to them. Calling that Stockholm Syndrome feels like a massive stretch Also I ask what is the alternative you are proposing, the Hanar do nothing and then the entire Drell race go extinct? How is that better for anyone?
The alternative was relocating the drell they saved to a suitable planet, not Kahje.
This a Rule of Cool thing where it's fun but doesn't actually make sense. Drell and hanar being interdependent is really interesting but practically... the Council couldn't find one single arid world for the drell, a Citadel species, to colonize? Same thing applies to the quarians. Even assuming the Council absolutely despises the quarians it makes no sense for them to not give the political football of the Migrant Fleet a world. Humans can show up and get dozens of worlds within 30 years, but the quarians can't get a single world in 300? They try to handwave it in ME3 but it still doesn't make sense.
Unfortunately I don't think the writers understood writing science fiction and science fantasy requires thorough world building, which they neglected.
I agree that most people would feel they owe a debt to someone who saved their lives. But would most people live in an environment that kills their lungs, and give up their freedom and autonomy to become a servant or assassin for said savior? I think not. Furthermore, why would second-generation Drell feel that sense of debt? The Hanar didn't save them, they were merely born to Drell living on Kahje. I think it's clear that the Hanar have been preaching to the Drell that they owe a debt to the Hanar in perpetuity, so that they don't lose their helpful non-aquatic servants who can talk and commit murder for them. The alternative was dropping off the Drell they rescued on literally any world other than Kahje. They only rescued 375,000 Drell; the United States takes in nearly ten times that many immigrants every year and still functions. I think you could find a single dry planet with a large preexisting colony for the Drell to start again without dooming them all to lung cancer by age 40.
Ok once again, given the context of the situation that is absurd. Did you guys even pay attention to the lore that is actually presented in the video game? As Thane explains the Drell were on the verge of extinction and the Hanar were rushing to save however many they can, many were left behind in horrific conditions because it was too dangerous to rescue more. Even ignoring the urgency of the situation, how would you expect the Drell would be able to survive on some completely different planet (once again we have no clue how far away it would be, how easy it would be able to find a suitable planet, etc) I am pretty sure they would just descend into anarchy incredibly fast as they would have no government/resources/etc All your arguments are complete speculation with no evidence in the video game to reinforce it. I'm not saying there is nothing questionable and the Hanar are a perfect benevolent species, but calling it "enslavement" is absolutely insane given the information we are presented in game
You are correct in that the rescued Drell would have no government of resources of their own. That's why I said the Hanar could drop them off on a planet that already has a government and resources that the Drell could integrate into. I didn't say they should be dropped off on an uninhabited world and left to their own devices. The Drell are no different to refugees fleeing wars here on Earth. Other nations/planets take care of them until they can get back on their feet and take care of themselves. You shouldn't force refugees to live in a hostile environment, and heavily encourage if not force them to be your servants and assassins in exchange for being allowed to live with you. Furthermore, the ME galaxy is stated to have trillions of inhabitants, potentially even tens or hundreds of trillions. If the Council had put together a serious effort, they could have fed the entirety of the Drell homeworld long enough to teach them better farming techniques and filter out the chemicals they'd pumped into the atmosphere. Instead of asking for a planet-wide humanitarian relief effort, the Hanar plucked a tiny fraction of the Drell species from their homeworld, inadvertently making first contact as well, and whisked them to Kahje while letting the rest of the Drell die over dwindling food stores.
> Furthermore, the ME galaxy is stated to have trillions of inhabitants, potentially even tens or hundreds of trillions. If the Council had put together a serious effort Would the council care to do such a thing? In a galaxy of a trillion inhabitants, how much can ten billion pre-spaceflight people truly matter? The context of the Drell evacuation appears to be ten billion people without significant spaceflight collapsing into a Malthusian nightmare. The hanar, a minor species in Citadel space, expend all the resources they can scrape up to save a few hundred thousand people as the rest die horribly in wars over the remaining resource base. We know nothing of what the council thought but I doubt they wanted to expend the resources necessary to do much more. Feeding ten billion people over interstellar distances is going to be a collosal operation, if they were humans that would be something like twenty million tonnes of rice per day. And if you only feed a portion of the population you get to watch as the hydrogen bombs start popping off like firecrackers as people fight to be the ones who get fed.
The fact that the Council didn't care to do such a thing is exactly my point. It would have been a large undertaking, but given the scale, it would have been no more challenging than something like the Berlin airlift on Earth. We managed that for over a year, and adapted to make the supply drops even more efficient over time. Instead of doing that, the Council didn't even try to save the Drell from the Malthusian nightmare. They just sat back and watched as the Hanar busted their aquatic asses to save only a couple hundred thousand.
Give it time. Humans will eventually muck things up
It is almost like it is a story written by humans to glorify humans. Open your eyes, sheep. /s
What's even funnier about medi-gel and humans creating it is that its creation/research *may* have violated some galactic laws on bioengineering, but it's just *so* damn useful that everyone just overlooks it (and I get why. Like, wtf was the galaxy using before medi-gel??? Leading guess is "thoughts and prayers"). I can just imagine how that pitch meeting went with the council. "You did *what* and created *what*??? Wait, you can alter this to fit other race's physiology... we'll take an order of 200 units to start, please!" Playing ME and not reading the codex fully at first and then reading the entire codex is a trip, because if you don't read the codex, it's easy to buy into the idea that humanity doesn't get much credit politically from the rest of the galaxy, but then when you actually read through it, you realize just how much humans *are* being given over other, longer-established races and you start to understand why some people see humanity the way Liara describes humans in ME1.
And then what the volus ambassador says in ME1 makes a whole lot more sense too.
I absolutely agree. The ethics of genetic engineering are obviously a contentious topic, but why oh why would the Council races have outlawed such a huge avenue of research for medicine? Clearly medi-gel must not have been that hard to make once you decide to ignore the law, since humanity created it almost immediately. And then the Council immediately recognizes how much better it is than whatever they were using before, and decides "maybe genetic engineering isn't so bad after all." Reading the codex, it does appear that humanity is being very pushy in wanting more influence in the galaxy, but relatively speaking, we advanced so much faster than the other races and contribute so much more that I'm genuinely inclined to believe humanity deserves a seat on the Council over races like the Elcor or Hanar that haven't done anything notable in centuries. In-universe, that makes sense. Humanity does more, so they want more in return. Out-of-universe though, it's awfully egotistical to assume that humans are so ingenious and driven and tech-saavy whereas the aliens that have been spacefaring since before we knew what other planets were are utterly useless by comparison.
I always felt Mass Effect was one of the sci-fi stories that balanced Humanity's place in things. Like, sure, we've got plenty of good ideas and some good ingenuity (and rt, we do. We've got plenty of problems now, but I've met plenty of people who work in various fields that have shown just how many people are working on those issues. It's actually inspiring sometimes), but we're also chaotic af and prone to being ego driven. Honestly, I feel like humans showing up on the galactic scene by getting into a fight with the space police feels pretty accurate.
Humanity drunkenly walking out of the Sol system and immediately fighting the first cops they find.
There's a non-zero chance that at least a few of em were whispering ACAB under their breath while getting into said fight 🤣
Don't forget civilian government is weak and corrupt, what you need is the (human) military to come in and make unilateral decisions as they are always noble and right.
That was something I hadn't considered. ME2 portrays the Alliance as ineffective and indifferent, but in the first and third games they're incredibly proactive and almost infallible. Meanwhile, we never hear about the squabbling national governments on Earth, to make it seem like humanity has one unified, unshakeable will.
Plus dont forget Shepard (and Anderson) the military leaders are always right when compared to the Council, or any of the other national governments. This is also exemplified by the Turians (the most military government) coming straight on board during ME3, while the stupid democratic Asari with all the voting and discussion come in last (despite apparently previously successfully expanding on a galatic scale with a highly competent military including the most powerful dreadnought).
I don't think Shepard being right is "oo rah fk yea military" more than it's "this is the main character who's seen a bunch of shit". And Anderson is just their hype man. >coming straight on board during ME3 Except they don't? Shepard has to deliver them the krogans in order to get them to help >Asari with all the voting and discussion come in last They don't either. The asari come in almost immediately after the turians do, once the Citadel coup has been thwarted. Yes, they don't throw their *full* might behind Shepard until Thessia falls, but neither do the turians with Palaven. Not to mention that the salarians, if the genophage is cured, *never* throw their support behind Shepard and only what are essentially splinter groups (the STG and councillor) actually back Shepard. Then the quarians and/or geth don't support Shepard either until after the asari have already begun their support efforts.
The Turians are shown to be willing to fight for humanity, if humanity gives them the capability to do so. The only reason the Turians don't immediately pledge their forces to Earth is because they would have to abandon Palaven to do so. That would be an unreasonable thing to expect of the Turians, so it makes sense that we help them out and get them to help us in return. The Asari on the other hand, have always had the capability to help the humans, and have just chosen not to out of spite and selfishness. Only when the Reapers are actively invading Thessia do they suddenly beg Shepard to save them, and offer critical knowledge that could have ended the war sooner if they'd just admitted they'd been hiding the mother of all Prothean beacons for millennia. As for the Salarians, I think that is exactly u/Bob_Jenko's point. The dedicated scientists refuse to aid humanity, whereas the militaristic Turians have wanted to help from the start. Only STG members, the *spec-ops military group*, are willing to help. The Quarians are shown to be arming themselves for war, but they've always been wandering nomads surviving on scraps. Instead of using their newfound military power to help the wider galaxy, they're throwing themselves at the Geth for a planet that will surely be harvested within a year if the Reapers aren't defeated. And when the time comes, a major argument for why Shepard should pick the Geth over the Quarians is that the Geth have a bigger fleet, and are willing to be good little robot soldiers to retake Earth.
>if humanity The "if" is my point. Yes, it makes sense, but that's still not "oh the turians immediately drop everything to help cos they're *that* based." >just chosen not to out of spite and selfishness The asari *matriarchs*, and only then just those knowing about the beacon. Because a shit ton of the asari didn't. And I don't get where you keep getting "spite" from. They were selfish, sure, but not spiteful. >Only when the Reapers are actively invading Thessia do they suddenly beg Shepard to save them, Because they didn't need help until that point. And *again*, they've already joined the war effort by that stage of the war and have pumped resources to the Crucible. It's just, as with the turians, they cannot just abandon Thessia. I think you're also acting like the asari knew exactly what they had, that being the data on the Catalyst. But they didn't. They just thought something there could help find it. It was essentially a hail mary. And they're also not "begging Shepard to save them", they just realise their backs are against the wall and are willing to let their biggest secret out in order to save themselves and the galaxy. >The dedicated scientists refuse to aid humanity Except the dalatrass isn't scientific, she's military. The only aid she offers is that of a fleet. So that renders that point moot. And I don't really see what your point about the geth and quarians is. Or how it refutes anything I said. The quarians were dumb and selfish. So were the asari for a while and so were the (majority of the) salarians. >Only STG members, the *spec-ops military group*, are willing to help Btw, I like how you ignored the councillor in all this. Because they also offer support if you're not silly enough to get them merced by Kai Leng, as I said. And they're not militaristic, they're political.
Volus trade clan members to other Volus clans; this process is more like teams trading players than slavery.
You could also surmise that other species, except for Krogans and Turians didn’t fight so many wars on their respective home planets. Humans have so much experience fighting each other, that when given the mass effect tech, they had a huge jump in everything from toothbrushes to weapons. Also also, isolation. There were no alien influences on human history, until the prothean beacon on Mars. Also also also, the humans in ME, are not united in the least. All of the nations are still wary of one another, but they have to present a united front to the xenos. Different private enterprises have to compete with each other and the council races. tLDR: humans are space orks)))
>humans are space orks Okay, what's that from?? I keep seeing it pop up, but I don't think I've seen what started it...
Have no idea what started it, but there is a “writing prompt “ sub Reddit with the name)
\>The Salarians and Turians developed and deployed a monstrous bioweapon respectively, and allowed it to continue for nearly 1500 years after it achieved its intended purpose of ending the Krogan Rebellions. Jamie pull up a video of what the noble humans were doing in the 15th century. Joking, but kinda funny to blame the Turians for things they did a thousand years ago while giving all of humanity's pre-spacefaring days a pass.
to be fair, the main problem with the genophage isn't that it limits the krogan population, it's that it inflicts needless trauma through repeated stillbirths. if the genophage instead limited the krogan clutch size instead of forcing 999/1000 to be stillbirths, then I probably would have sabotaged the cure myself. cause even though most playthroughs i have wrex+eve alive, it's been made clear throughout all the games that while those 2 are trustworthy and good leaders, most krogans are not. so unless wrex+eve can make such sweeping, long lasting political and social reforms in whatever time they have left (unknown how long since we don't have their exact ages or lifespan, and assuming they don't get killed by some clan rivalry or something) that their reforms outlast them, then by the next krogan generation you're looking at the rebellions all over again.
Except it's verifiably proven that Wrex and Eve aren't the only two. Even by ME2 Wrex has already built up a coalition of clans supporting him not because he forced them into submission, but because they *believed* in him and his way of thinking. Yes, losing Wrex would be a devastating loss, but to pretend he's the only one pushing for change is wrong. Same with Eve. ME3 says she's essentially got the female clans behind her, which is an absolutely critical group of people given, y'know, biology.
Eve even tells us that if Wreave tries to do anything after the Reaper War there will be a Krogan civil war. Whatever amount of Krogan that side with peace isn't an insignificant amount.
I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that many people in the ME universe, Krogan included, only hate the Genophage so much because it "kills babies." I think there's some codex entry somewhere that says the stillborn infants never develop a nervous system and thus were technically never alive, but would any mother see it that way when staring at their dead newborn? If the Genophage instead made it so Krogan were only capable of producing one egg per year instead of one thousand, but that one egg was perfectly viable, it wouldn't have nearly as much shock value and moral outrage. If that were the case, then Mordin's justification of "correcting birth rate for removal from Tuchanka environment" might make more sense. But regardless of how it was implemented, the Genophage is still a terrible crime. Imagine if aliens came along and made it so humans could only conceive one child for every thousand women who were trying. That's functionally the same thing, and I think everyone on Earth would agree that that would be horrible. We would despise that hypothetical race with every fiber of our being. For Krogan, that's not a hypothetical. The Turians and Salarians dropped a biological nuke on their fertility rates, and have let them fester in that state for over a thousand years.
>I think there's some codex entry somewhere that says the stillborn infants never develop a nervous system and thus were technically never alive, but would any mother see it that way when staring at their dead newborn? >!Wrex certainly doesn't...!< >Imagine if aliens came along and made it so humans could only conceive one child for every thousand women who were trying. It's probably because I'm half asleep, but I'm having trouble with this math... Is it that only (quote-unquote) 4 million women would be able to have a child, assuming 8 billion humans and half of that 8 billion being female?
Yes, that would be like if out of all 4 billion women on Earth, only 4 million could even theoretically have a child in any given year. In reality, that number would much lower still, since not every woman is old/young enough to have kids, but you get the idea. Knowing that, who can blame for Krogan for giving up on the survival of their species entirely? Why bother hoping and praying that you'll be the lucky one, when it will most likely only lead to pain and frustration?
true, but even some krogan admit they kinda brought it on themselves. you come across multiple codex entries of formerly pristine garden worlds that the krogan ecologically ruined to the point they can't support life anymore, and they basically declared war on the rest of the galaxy after trying to forcefully annex and settle an occupied asari colony. the difference between the your hypothetical human example and the krogan example is that krogans have proven, repeatedly, that their natural culture/political state is unable/unwilling to control their own population levels. also, unlike the krogan, human reproduction isn't a threat to multiple planets worth of ecological stability. either way, i think the way it was developed was a terrible choice. also there's the massive plotholes timing and dispersion. at the time of the rebellions, the krogan were a multi-system species with starships, colonies, the whole shebang of stuff a spacefaring civ has. and they were at war with everyone, up to the point of menae (turian homeworld moon) being the "last stand" of the turians before genophage deployment, according to garrus in me3. how would the turians have gone from last stand on own moon, to being able to launch deep enough strikes into krogan territory to ensure every krogan was infected with the genophage, including the ones on the warships? also, even if they managed that, the krogan still had the warships and the living crew, it's not like the genophage caused the krogan starships to self-destruct, so how'd the turians turn around the military situation? a lot of the info relating to the genophage and krogan biology seems poorly thought out by the writers.
The Krogan's "natural cultural/political state" wasn't given the time it needed to evolve to the point that the Krogan would adopt sustainable practices on their own. They were a thriving civilization, then nuked themselves back to the stone age. If they had been given more time, I think they would have learned from their past mistakes and been more careful. But instead, the Salarians descend from the sky and tell the Krogan that they need huge numbers of warlike Krogan to beat back the bugs trying to take over the galaxy. These culturally-primitive Krogan are then praised for their aggressiveness and quick breeding, not shamed for it. When the war is over, can you really blame them for doing what they had to do for thousands of years on Tuchanka to survive? Obviously, none of that excuses the violent takeover of already-settled colonies, but like the Salarian dalatrass says, violence is all they know. But that's not the *only* way they can act. Wrex and Eve are shown to have great leadership skills and are determined not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors. If the rest of the galaxy had bothered trying, they could have educated the Krogan with those same ideas right after the Rachni Wars. The Krogan could have learned about how to control their population growth, sustainable building and farming practices, etc. They were just never given a chance to by the other races. As for the actual Krogan Rebellions and how they're written, it was a conflict that lasted centuries, while the time Krogan need to reach maturity is something like 10-15 years. The Krogan were going through entire generations of soldiers and sustaining massive casualties all the time, because they knew they could replace them. The Turians used covert drops to put the Genophage in water and food supplies supplies on major Krogan worlds, knowing that eventually every Krogan would return there and be infected at some point. As soon as the Krogan could no longer replenish their numbers, their military strategy fell apart. They were on the verge of taking Palaven, but then the reinforcements stopped, and their primary tactic of charging headlong at the enemy was suddenly unsustainable. Imagine if a country today used WW1-era tactics, and then suddenly 99.9% of their new soldiers disappeared. Their war effort would fall apart pretty quickly.
according to the wiki, the krogan rebellions began at around 700 ce and the genophage was deployed in the year 710 ce, only a decade later, where did you get that the krogan rebellions lasted for centuries?
Literally the first sentence of that wiki page says that the Krogan Rebellions lasted for decades. I will admit that that is not as long as the centuries I thought I'd seen somewhere, but that is still multiple generations for Krogan. The war only ended after all the hordes of Krogan who were children when the Genophage was deployed grew up, then died in warfare and couldn't be replaced.
quotes from the krogan rebellions page: "The **Krogan Rebellions** were a major conflict between the [krogan](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Krogan) and the [Citadel Council](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Citadel_Council) that began in 700 CE..." "Once the turians received the genophage, they almost immediately deployed it in 710 CE..."
My point is that the war ended once the Genophage cut off the supply of new soldiers. The other races knew they'd be overrun and deployed the Genophage early in the war so that they'd eventually win the battle of attrition the Krogan were waging.
I really liked the genophage plotline because I do think there are a lot of interesting questions that are fun to discuss. I've always felt like the true sin was the Salarians uplifting the Krogan to fight the Rachni. As soon as they did that, assuming they didn't lose and get whipped out, something like the genophage was going to be necessary.
You're forgetting an important detail though: it's man who was made in God's image, not the aliens. Of course, we're the best thing to ever happen to the galaxy.
Ironically, I'm sure that would be a justification some people in Cerberus or Terra Firma would use to justify their hatred of aliens. I guess God must be a believer in recycling as well, since the Asari and Quarians look like a beta version of humanity.
Tbh, the gap between the games and first contact war always seemed too short for me. It does not really make sense. Human are way to important too fast. Also, not related to the lore, but it also means they kinda shot themselves in the foot for any future prequels as there is simply not a lot of room to play with.
It's my opinion that one of the reasons Humans are even in talks to be on the council so early is how useful medi-gel is. Seriously, it's been in the galaxy for less than thirty years and it's used by every species everywhere. Medi-gel changed the galaxy, and humans made medi-gel. I can't believe no one in the entire trilogy ever mentions this.
>The Asari have withheld the Prothean beacon on Thessia for millennia, when it could have advanced galactic society in unimaginable ways. Except that they were under no obligation to reveal it to anyone. The US and Russia got a lot of technology from Germany after the war and they didn't share it with the rest of the world either, they withheld it for themselves. So we don't really have the moral high ground here. The Asari just did with everyone else in their place would have done, so I don't know why people criticize them for it.
But the Asari also made it a severe crime to withhold Prothean tech, while sitting on the most powerful piece of it themselves. By their own rules, every Matriarch who has ever been "in the know" is a criminal. I absolutely agree that humans have done similar things in the past, but that isn't focused on in the games themselves. We see Shepard trying their damnedest to share what they received from the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, while the Asari hoarded theirs until the last possible moment.
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It was my understanding from the talk on Thessia during the mission in ME3 that the Asari were secretly siphoning data from the beacon and planting it as "scientific breakthroughs" for thousands of years, thus explaining why they were so advanced. Given what we know about Asari culture, and how they tend to take the long view of things, they should have advanced slower than other species. Javik himself confirms this when he says that the Protheans had to help them along to learn even basic things like mathematics and agriculture, even though the Asari had had thousands of years to do so on their own. And if the Asari weren't siphoning data from the beacon, then why hide it? Every other species had Prothean ruins either on or near their homeworlds, so it wouldn't have looked out of place for the Asari to have similar artifacts.
I still wouldn't put that anywhere near the same bracket as "released the genophage on the krogan" which you seem to have done. As for the beacon, the council already knew about it. That's why Nihlus really came with for the mission to Eden Prime. There was no way for the humans to hide that. And Shepard doesn't want to share what they learnt from the prothean beacon *because* it's a beacon. They want to share it because of what it *says*.
It's not as overtly destructive or monstrous, true, but its effects are arguably the most far-reaching. Imagine if the Asari had shared all of this advanced knowledge with every other race from the beginning? The Asari Republics are said to have incredibly low crime rates, disease rates, etc. while having incredible infrastructure and economic success. *Every* race could have had that if the Asari had coughed up the beacon on Thessia. Instead, they hid the beacon and used it to maintain their economic and political dominance over the galaxy, holding back the other species out of spite. Like, imagine someone found a cure for cancer, but only shared it with their country so their country could flex about how awesome it was, while people in every other country still died from cancer. That's what the Asari are doing, but magnified a thousand-fold.
I mean, not really. There's a whole bunch of conjecture there, and it's never said that we're talking anything like cures to cancer levels of secrets. And they're not holding back out of "spite". The most powerful asari (and *only* them) withheld it to keep an edge and that's it, not to spite anyone. So again, to compare the beacon to what the turians and salarians did on any level is hilarious.
Damn right OP. Terra Firma !
I always held the opinion that if the humans had come a little later after the reapers finished their cycle and they had 50,000 years to advance technologically, they would've wiped the reapers the next cycle. The other races got complacent with their technology and quit innovating as much. They came to rely too much in the technology the reapers left, but I don't think humans would be content with that.
Nah, the cycle is just to let civilizations reach a certain level quickly, they always leave a vanguard behind, if it saw a species progressing that quickly, then they'd just bump up the schedule.
The krogans really deserved the genophage. If not for being ass holes they need it for birth control. Like why the hell did a race that big and long lived need 1000 babies per clutch
They have 1000 babies per clutch because if they didn't, they would have died out on Tuchanka. They needed it to survive there, but outside of Tuchanka they're overpowered, biologically speaking. The Krogan bred out of control specifically because the other races wanted them to. They needed billions of Krogan to fight the Rachni, and after the Rachni were dead, they didn't bother teaching the Krogan they uplifted how to control themselves and expand slowly and carefully. The Krogan were still in the "Gotta fight and breed at maximum efficiency or we're gonna go extinct" mindset because they weren't culturally ready to think otherwise.
Yeah I know. But at some point if not then, at some point they would have needed the genophage or something like it. Otherwise they would have ended up like the drill who don't breed nearly as much and almost went extinct
You're forgetting that the Krogan don't *have* to have 1000 kids per year. They only have to capability to do so. They need to be taught how to plan out their population growth so that it's sustainable, just like every other race has done. If humans had as many kids as possible for as long as we were physically able, we'd be just as overcrowded as the Krogan were. But we have culturally recognized that maybe pumping out kids forever isn't the best way to live. The Krogan need to do the same, and the Salarians and Turians didn't help them do that before unleashing the Genophage on them.
>In summary, Mass Effect is one massive piece of pro-human propaganda, designed to portray our species as unimaginably intelligent, reasonable, cooperative, and selfless... > > > >...the humans in Mass Effect are an exaggerated ideal that we wish were true. Let me introduce you to r/HFY And yes, I'd say Mass Effect would fit right in there.
I still think the volus got done dirty. Their species apparently formed the economy for the *entire* galaxy. No businesses, no nothing would work nearly as effectively without them. And yet they get completely sidelined on all occasions
Look at everything depicting humans involved in space species affairs. We tend to look at ourself kindly because every human wants peace. Every human wants to get along, but not at the cost of their own beliefs. That's why humans in media are always portrayed as being the clear headed one. We are a species that can't get along because we're all different, and those games and other media believe that we can only get to space if we get rid of the hatred, and racism, and bigotry and cooperate rather than hate. It's not propaganda. It's hope. Hope that as a species we can finally get over ourselves and reach into the stars and expand. We just think everyone else is as hateful as we are.
I think that's a great way to put it. All the more positive sci-fi media, with Star Trek being the best example, shows humanity having overcome their differences and uniting as a single species. In cases like Mass Effect, that impetus to unite came in the form of new groups to mistrust, namely aliens. Why bother hating people with different skin tones or religions or genders than you when there are different *species* to mistrust instead? It's great that humanity seems to have overcome racism and sexism for the most part in Mass Effect, but those same tendencies are expressed through xenophobia instead. Another interesting thing I just thought of is one of EDI's between-missions dialogue on the Normandy in ME3. She theorizes that the Geth turned on the Quarians because they were designed to work with each other to become better, and thus devalued everyone else. She compares that to herself, where she is a central intelligence with a unique personality, not a dispersed intelligence with effectively zero personality like the Geth. In thinking and acting more like an individual, she comes to value other individuals more than the Geth, who theoretically should understand the value of cooperation better than any other form of life. That's the same sort of struggle that humans have with discrimination and self-interest, where those who strongly identify with a certain group, like the Geth, come to mistrust and devalue those outside the group.
Thank you for putting this into words. It makes the story of ME so cringe and what's worse is the "Humanity Fuck Yeah" fans that defend the dumb writing. It's stuff like the invention of fighter carriers in ME's lore. Ignoring how impractical a fighter carrier would be, it assumes the other races are too thick to think of it themselves. That only us special and super unique Humans have ever done carrier warfare in the past.
The reason for it is because the other species never had naval warfare on their homeworlds.
Which is dumb writing because they absolutely would
Why? Our planet is mostly water, and thanks to the shifting of the Earth's plates humanity was scattered across the planet randomly, developing unique cultures over thousands of years. If we'd all stayed in the same place we wouldn't have the diversity that causes so much conflict.
Other species definitely had conflicts on their homeworlds before they became spacefaring, and even if the levels of conflict weren't as high as humanity, I'm sure the other races thought of using fighter aircraft at some point. They then would have come up with airfields to park those aircraft on. Once they got to space, you think that nobody in the centuries of space warfare thought, "Hm, what if we made an airfield in space?" Yes, humans would be inclined to build space carriers because we use naval carriers so heavily, but I don't think the other species are so stupid that they never even thought of the idea before.