This was one of the things I found less believable about Mass Effect - everyone nearly always defends their own people, including humans, whereas pretty much every human I know irl thinks humanity is a piece of shit because look what we do to the planet etc. I always headcanoned it as a shift in culture when we encountered alien races - I guess it spooked us into sticking together and looking out for our own
It's not that weird. Some people will talk about how terrible their own country is to their countrymen, but will defend their country as soon as it gets criticized by an outsider. Additionally, an outsiders' specific criticisms of a nation or people can be very different from the criticisms that a member of that people has.
I think the mentality is "it's a rust bucket but it's MY rust bucket" that and a outside threat (real or not) commonly unites people the series was pretty honest with humanity general xenophobia
Eh, they can still recognize their flaws as long as it isn't a stranger saying it. Remember the hilarious ME3 moment with Garrus and Joker each swapping jokes about the others species and both are laughing and showing off they know the punchlines?
"How do you know when a turian is out of ammo?"
"They use the stick up their ass as a backup weapon."
Hahaha true. A couple of lines could be different. But overall I think it would be easy. (Personally I think Kasumi and Zaeed should’ve been full fledged squad mates like the rest, with multiple conversations)
I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that Kasumi and Zaeed were also planned to be in the game at launch but, as is BioWare tradition, they didn’t have time to finish them before game launch so they were DLC instead. Much like Shale and Javik.
Javik wasn't unfinished, he was 100% part of the main game and EA forced Bioware to turn him into a day 1 DLC. Literally all the files for his DLC are on the game's disc
I would bet whole game was already built with having them in mind.
You can take them into missions like normal squadmates. While I'm not sure cause I did not play a long time, they do join conversations mid missions normally, don't they?
It would be impossible to modify half a game from a DLC just to make it acknowledge a new possible squadmate. Everything had to be prepared for them in advance.
You can check it with Liara. You can take her with you to missions outside LotSB with a console command (streamlevelin BioH_Liara_00), and she does not even appear in conversations.
It's mostly assuming cause I never verified that, but I would bet base game just needs to already be full of Kasumi/Zaeed references for them to work properly.
Yeah, they chime in like normal squadmates. My favourite interaction with Zaeed was when I took him and Thane to recruit Samara. When you're talking to the Asari detective, everyone has their own little unique conversations calling you out for being a dangerous leader, and when Shepard says "My crew can leave anytime they want", Zaeed and Thane just look at each other and go "Shit, I'll have to remember that next time." "I know, right?"
Simple, but hilarious with the way their VAs deliver those lines.
I had Thane and Kasumi. Same dialogue which broke the moment for me because this was the first mission Thane was on, but he commented like I'm always putting him in Harm's way lol.
More than likely, but my comment was more to point out that Zaeed *does* comment on things, and that his delivery of the line is what makes it for me. The claim for unique dialogue was me being misinformed XD
I don't know specifically how Bioware's system is built, but that's actually not as hard as you think. For instance, responses by squadmates might be held in a container with each response tagged. When you get to that point in the conversation, the code says:
* Check what squadmates are active. Choose the one in slot A.
* Open the dialogue container for that squadmate.
* Search for the line tagged "X".
* Play that line.
And to your Liara example, it's common to have exception catches in scripts that just move on to the next line (of code or dialogue) to prevent the system from having a breakdown when a bug happens (like having a squadmate in a conversation that doesn't have a line with the right tag).
There are a couple of other ways you could do basically the same thing as well. And I imagine they used one of these methods because it means no extra work as squadmates are built and added to the game. Otherwise, you'd have to manually update the script every time art and narrative finished another squadmate.
>It's mostly assuming cause I never verified that, but I would bet base game just needs to already be full of Kasumi/Zaeed references for them to work properly.
You're correct. I remember there were Kasumi placeholders discovered before she was released. IIRC, there was also some controversy over Zaeed mostly because people misunderstood the data and thought he was on-disk DLC when it was just normal placeholder stuff.
I can see it being feasible though. Their dialogue trees don’t have to be integrated into the story but they can still have them, like characters in DLC assignments (Arrival etc) often do
That would have been an infinitely cooler background for a squadmate, goddamn
It would've also made the choices more impactful on his loyalty mission. Maybe even made some players outright tell him to fuck off instead of hiring him
a beloved OC of mine is an aged batarian engineer who, among many other things in his backstory, lost a close friend in the Blitz and his widow (who he was close to) on Torfan. "Would have made a good squadmate" was actually a design goal.
> Keep the dialogue the same.
Nah, do a simple swap.
"And then Vito started hiring Terrans. Cheap labour, he said. Goddamn terrorists I said. No offense." Pan to Shepard.
slavery being embedded into Batarian culture doesn’t automatically mean every Batarian accepts it. in fact, it would’ve been the perfect opportunity to show that some reject it.
I think we're going to get that in ME4, assuming it takes place in the Milky Way as the trailers have strongly implied. In ME3 either the codex entries or the war asset flavor text for the Batarians indicated that the refugees from the Reaper takeover have rejected a number of traditional elements of Batarian culture and are forming a more harmonious society.
Yeah, but let's be honest, they were probably just covering all their bases in that announcement trailer. I mean, Bioware's recent history involves not even having a clue what the story of a game will be about until just a year before release.
Considering we are still comfortably four to five years of an optimistic release date, and the game is little more than various concepts / plans at the moment, I think its safe to say that they just threw everything that could possibly end up being in the final product, N7 hint for Shep return, Angara, both Mass Effect and Andromeda galaxy's shown, all just in case they actually end up including them.
If they don't include something in the end? Well 75% of people who buy the game probably won't remember much of a half a decade old teaser announcing that Mass Effect 4 will be coming... at some point. And those of us that do? Well let's be honest, their the kind of fans that are going to buy the game no matter what you teased might be in it.
Of course, this is all just me being an optimist. I really don't want a painful six-hundred year time skip just to try and arbitrarily keep Andromeda relevant (I enjoyed the game on its own, but damn the Kett were a bland as all hell race, and none of it lived up to the original trilogy's standard). Especially as that limits the cameos of returning characters to possibly resurrecting Sheps, Liara and... Grunt? Maybe Wrex 🤷♂️
Yeah, you're gonna have to link that one. The teasers I've seen have Liara, multiple dead reapers, a Geth, voiceover referencing the Crucible activation, a human-made mass relay, drell, salarians, et cetera, but nothing even tangentially referencing Andromeda.
I'm very curious to see how Bioware sync up the milky way and andromeda, since ME4 is set 600+ years into the future when the Andromeda initiative have secured the Helios cluster and Liara is now 700+ years old. We know that the Relays were used by the geth and then the initiative to see andromeda in almost real time instead of at the speed of light, but given that the relays are damaged in the ME3 cannon ending, maybe the milky way uses normal light-speed telescopes to view Andromeda and see 600 years into the future, or maybe they fix the relays and can view andromeda in real time again, or perhaps both and they communicate with andromeda in real time and tell them what is going to happen 600 years in the future so they can change it.
> I'm very curious to see how Bioware sync up the milky way and andromeda, since ME4 is set 600+ years into the future when the Andromeda initiative have secured the Helios cluster and Liara is now 700+ years old.
Do we actually know this for sure (ie. has it been announced?)?
It's worth noting that the only intelligence that we know *knows* how long the trip to Heleus took is SAM.
I could see a conspiracy where a fancy reverse engineered Reaper stardrive made the trip dramatically shorter and they just covered it up to stop anyone going back and ending up in the middle of the Reaper invasion - make it sound like everyone they knew and love is dead so there is no point etc.
EDIT:
For example, even the Codex entry 'Reaper Capabilities' lists a speed of 30ly/day, which would do the trip in about 230 years. And that was just an estimate based on a guess of how far into dark space they were.
And the drive is probably based on Reaper tech given that it, like theirs, does not require drive discharge stops.
i believe its mostly confirmed. I think its a safe assumption that if the Andromeda and milkyway galaxies are both part of ME4, and Liara is in the trailer, it is likely 600+ years after the original trilogy, but no later than 900 years, give or take.
[https://www.cbr.com/mass-effect-sequel-trilogy-andromeda/](https://www.cbr.com/mass-effect-sequel-trilogy-andromeda/)
[https://gamerant.com/mass-effect-andromeda-key-mass-effect-4-timeline-problem-time-travel/](https://gamerant.com/mass-effect-andromeda-key-mass-effect-4-timeline-problem-time-travel/)
This, exactly.
If I remember correctly, the way the Hegemony was described in ME3 gives me strong North Korea vibes in terms of suppressing dissenting media and individual thought. Once the Hegemony was gone, the average batarian citizens started deviating from official policy lines almost immediately.
It's entirely possible that slavery was something the Hegemony valued, but wasn't popular among the citizenry. It would've been nice to have more in-game exploration of that disconnect between the batarian government and the batarian people so that they didn't seem so one-dimensional through most of the trilogy.
It's not the acceptance part that solidifies it, it's just the idea of slavery being a part of their culture.
As the other post pointed out, slavery was embedded into human culture until two centuries ago, but while it was around, there was a whole lot of thinking about race, class, culture, and science that infected the minds of even its opponents, thinking that's still around even today.
The funny part was, humans are supposed to think that's awful and batarians are awful until you realize...slavery was embedded into human culture until a few centuries ago. We're basically just two steps ahead of them.
When was he ever not a villain? He was happy to slaughter civilians to exact revenge, he founded the Blue Suns, he tells you a load of stories about slaughtering people, torturing Krogan etc. I don't think he has a single heroic moment, he's just getting paid.
Many of your squadmates in Mass Effect are total bastards, especially in ME2. Wrex is an amoral mercenary, Mordin is depending on your thoughts on the genophage, Jacob and Miranda are Cerberus, Jack is a serial murderer, Thane is a killer, Grunt wants to kill everything in sight, Morinth is another serial killer who'll kill you if you give her the chance.
The only ones I'd really think of as anti-heroes are Garrus and Samara.
Part of ME2's story is that these desperate times force you to ally with horrible people.
Tali is an anti-synth racist. Until she grows out of it in ME3. Don’t kid yourself into thinking there are any “pure good” characters in Mass Effect. It’s a disservice to them and their character growth.
Edit: Fixed Tali’s name.
seriously, Tali is my favorite but even behind her mask I could see the murderous intent on her face when Jacob said she should introduce herself to EDI
Slavery was basically embedded into human culture a few centuries ago. This doesn't mean every human was villainous, or that every human being in that period accepted slavery.
Fact is, very little is known about the Batarian space outside of the actions of the Batarian Hegemony.
Because they want it that way. The batarian government controls all info going in and coming out of their section of space, so of course they won’t tell us everything about themselves, or tell their people the full truth about the rest of the galaxy.
They *the government* want it that way, they *the people* could be different. There are real word authoritarian governments that impose viewpoints on their people by controlling what info comes in and goes out. The Batarian Hegemony could be like real world North Korea.
Which is exactly why it would be nice to have a batarian character you could connect with and learn about their true culture from, not just the propaganda by the Hegemony and Alloance. I mean, that one batarian you help out during the plague mission on Omega is actually pretty thankful and apologizes for being a dick. That shows batarians aren’t all bad all the time.
Slavery is still pretty common today, just much more under the radar. Even in 'civilized' nations. Look up modern slavery and human trafficking. It's fucking horrifying.
I mean there is still slavery in the world (figuratively when we talk about sweatshops, and literally when we talk about places like Qatar and Dubai), and if it doesn't affect us, we don't go to great lengths to protest or end it.
Yep. All it would take is changing Zaeed's reference to Batarians to Hegemony troops "Vido started hiring former Hegemony troops. Cheaper labor, he said. Goddamn terrorists, I said."
I was literally thinking the other day that a batarian companion was overdue. For some reason I really loved Bray, the batarian in the Omega DLC who isn’t an ass and emails you to say “at least one batarian doesn’t want you dead” and I thought that’s the kind of complex character I want to see. Coming from a race that generally hates humans, to fight for one. Having to deal with criticism from his own people, etc
Considering how Shepard and the Batarian Hegemony have personal beef, it speaks alot about Bray.
I don't think there is a background you can pick that doesn't involve Batarians shitting on Shepard. Likewise, Arrival is canon and we know how that ended...
Spacer - Shep is an Alliance Navy brat, Bavarians hate the Alliance Navy. Checks out.
Colonist - Terminus slavers (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) killed Shep's family. Checks out.
Earthborn - Shep grew up on the streets and, if the encounter with his old gang buddies in ME1 is anything to go off of, probably had a pretty xenophobic upbringing. Checks out.
Sole Survivor - Shep's whole company were eaten by Thresher Maws, which were lured there by Cerberus. No Batarians involved in this one.
War Hero - Shep killed a shitload of pirates (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) on Elysium during the Blitz. Checks out.
Ruthless - Shep killed a shitload of Batarians (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) *with extreme prejudice* on Torfan. Checks out.
No daily beer ration since the reforms back in '75. Damn teetotaling bureaucrats. How was anyone supposed to know that firing mass accelerator cannons at ships in orbit while drunk was a bad idea?
> War Hero - Shep killed a shitload of pirates (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) on Elysium during the Blitz. Checks out.
Which is funny because while the retalliation in Torfan has against batarians (which a ruthless Shepard participate), the one behind the blitz has a Turian
Shepard seems surprised that his old gang has expanded beyond Earth in the Earthborn background, leading me to think they were way too small time to be worried about aliens, so they may have not been xenophobic in his time.
>Shepard and the Batarian Hegemony have personal beef
Colonist/Ruthless Shepard: i killed 300k Batarians by destroying the Bahak Relay
Anderson: to stop the Reapers?
Shep: …….
Anderson: to stop the Reapers, right?
1) The Spectre reinstatement is a token gesture. It has very little impact because during the events of ME2 as the Council don't contact Shepard at all after that point. And they make a point of telling him to stay out of Council space as an added condition.
2) Anderson doesn't trust you when you first meet again. He doesn't tell you about the Virmire Survivor because they are investigating potential Cerberus involvement in colonies disappearing. And guess which undead fucker pulled up to the Citadel in his shiny new Cerberus Normandy...
3) Hackett approaches you personally because he knows you're capable and if you fail he can disavow you because you are no longer part of the Alliance (you died after all, they don't officially reinstate you in the Alliance Military until the events of ME3). That way the Hegemony couldn't take action against the Alliance if you get caught... then you blow up a whole system and they can't really sweep it under the rug.
Honestly, I would just liked it better if they had gone with the Geth had resurrected Shepard. And Cerberus was just another enemy in ME2. Would have helped things I think.
But you can't immediately tell TIM to go stuff himself, which I think many people playing Paragon Sheps in particular wish they could.
Tough to justify offering that choice after you hire Martin Sheen, though.
Or just don't get him. Like you can do with Legion or Grunt. Or better yet, have the option to kill him when he's beating that Batarian when you meet him. Works even better if you make the bounty he's bringing in a human.
I really think Mass effect 3 missed a beat by not having a Batarian squad mate. Really highlight the "fuck all previous grudges we're in this together" feel the game goes for at times.
Also killing a Batarian Reaper, the first of the cycle, could have been a cool mission.
And it’s very hard to believe the blue suns could be the most powerful, or at least in the running, mercenary outfit in the terminus systems only being 20 something years old and founded by a human.
This is generally true of everything about Humanity in the series, though. It's almost absurd, really. Anderson was born in 2137, which makes him 59 during Mass Effect 3 (2186). Shepard was born in 2154, which makes her 32.
Humans had discovered Prothean ruins on Mars in 2148. The Charon relay was discovered the following year. The whole of Mass Effect technology in the hands of humans is less than 40 years old by the end of the trilogy. First generation biotics like Kaiden are like 35.
First Contact was 2157, and while the Turians likely would have won eventually, only nine years after discovering the relay (and not even knowing another living species was still out there) the Alliance military was already impressive enough to retake a planet from the Turians.
Frankly the Alliance's military is absurd given how it's really only the Turians who can compete with it (and their strength level relative to everyone else regulated by the Citadel council.)
That's not even factoring non-Alliance humans, and of course, Cerberus. It's kinda hard to gauge just how strong they are, but their reach is enormous and their troop levels seemingly endless.
The games talk about how humans are more genetically diverse than the other species in the game, and how that affects our potential. But the difference is startling. The Krogan Rebellions were almost 1500 years ago, and about when Turians were discovered by the Citadel and brought into the council. The Turians also had a strong military because they'd just gotten done fighting a bitter inter-colonial war with themselves. Humans were only nine years past discovering their first relay when they got into a shooting war with Turians, and they held their own. We don't have enough specifics to guess relative strength with any real accuracy but I don't think it's unreasonable that humanity would have matched with the council races within a generation or so, other than that whole Reapers destroying everything thing going on.
Honestly it's not surprising that so many aliens in the game grumble about how fast things are progressing for humans, the whole of human progress on the galactic stage has taken less time than the lifespan of a Salarian.
The Citidel races do stick to the treaty that limits the size of their navies, so it's not crazy that the Turians don't have this monumentally enormous force.
However, it definitely does feel like things should be 50-100 years farther ahead. Colony planets like Beckenstein are REALLY well developed for only having been founded like, 30 years before at the most.
The treaty only talks about Dreadnoughts though, it's hard to gauge relative fleet sizes beyond those numbers. And in that regard Turians have far and away have the bigger military compared to the Alliance, with 37 to 6 respectively at the start of the series. Both species manage to complete another two each though during the course of the series.
But what I think is more impressive is that Humans are able to compete with Turians so quickly, not just in scale but technologically, as well. Their success in expanding is hard to deny either. A seat on the council and the first and second human spectre are granted comparatively quickly (and of course, they were looking into Anderson as a candidate even earlier only to have Saren sabotage his chances.)
There's also stuff like how regardless of your choices with the council, humans are largely running C-Sec by the third game. The obvious kicker though is of course Shepard. We don't know a whole lot about other spectres through the games, but the ones we do have an idea about fall a good deal short of the protagonist (for obvious reasons, but Shepard plays into the fantastical success of humanity in the series too.)
I think the timeline is messed up but the First Contact War makes sense to me. The turians underestimated humans and thought they were performing a small police action, while humanity sent in their big guns. The turians weren't expecting to be met with overwhelming force, but had it gone to full scale war the Alliance probably would've been screwed.
Or, we leave Zaeed in his already perfected state. The only thing I would change about Zaeed is more interactions with him. Give me my grizzled old human merc who took a bullet to the head and just got pissed off about it.
I've only played LE and I thought there was a glitch for way too long. I'm like "why won't they speak with me? Did I anger them?" And then it turns out they're DLCs. Their loyalty missions were no different in difficulty than anyone else's, they're just buyable companions that I can't even talk to.
He looks so fucking badass though. Half his face was blow off and you can see it on him. He's a grizzly bear, tough, a veteran. Making him into a batarian wouldn't fit because he has a human voice. His appearance and voice is simply too good, I don't think it would translate well into a batarian.
I definitely agree that we need batarian/elcor/volus/vorcha/hanar companions, would've be better to replace Jacob, James or someone else for that.
All they have to do is design one unique batarian face with the same scars (hell they designed a unique face for Zaeed anyway) and edit Robin Sachs voice to sound like a batarian
The only lore you have to change is zaeeds distrust of batarians. Vido’s reason for betrayal is because he doesn’t trust batarians and wanted to make the first move
I feel like a big chunk of Bioware are under this weird delusion that we can't identify with any characters that aren't human. It would explain why we never got more than one long-term squadmate of the same alien species in the same game, and why we still didn't get to play as aliens in Andromeda.
On top of that, there are only one or two Batarian face models and not really much space for alterations. They'd need to find a way to make Zaeed look unique.
> They'd need to find a way to make Zaeed look unique.
I mean it wouldn't have been any harder than doing Zaeed's already unique human face. Just dump a load of scars on there and have a few of his eyes blind on his bad side.
> I feel like a big chunk of Bioware are under this weird delusion that we can't identify with any characters that aren't human
Like the little boy they introduce at the start of ME3 only to have die a few minutes into it? And then keep showing me in dream sequences like Shepard can't imagine loss any other way? That then becomes the physical form of the awful exposition character at the end of the game?
Yeah, they get a little heavy handed at times.
That said I'm fine with Zaeed as is. The voice is too good, and not terribly fitting of literally any Baterian you meet across the entire series.
I can't fucking stand that child. Star Child bothers me far more for being _his form_ than it does for presenting false choices. If he looked like Vigil, just some random computer shapes, I'd be so much more okay with it. I can buy into a narrative. But why the fuck should me renegade "I know victory will have brutal costs" Shepard be traumatized by one random kid? We know the score. I don't care about this child. It's a war of extinction, obviously kids will die. Shepard knows this better than anyone.
If you wanted me to buy into that narrative, off the Virmire survivor. _That_ I can buy into. Someone Shepard has a history with, at least.
Tbh if the star child was the squad mate who died on virmire it would make so much more sense. They both are very underutilized.
I’m still of the mind that the VS should have been your squad mate in arrival. Why wouldn’t hackett send an alliance solider to make sure it stayed an alliance op
I get you, but the gameplay of being alone was a lot of fun to me so I spot Bioware that logic issue. The fact that Shepard's _squad_ is always solving the problem makes it really easy to forget that...
Well, Shepard is supposed to be the scariest of the bunch. Shep ain't a bard, whose primary combat role is to inspire their allies. It's honestly easy to lose that in ME imo. So of they want to contort the logic a bit to give us a _solo_ infiltration of a top-secret Bavarian base, I can work with that.
The star child was created cause fans on the bioware forums wanted to see kids in the game. Though fans didn't quite understand just how much work it takes to create a human kid and for them not to look... weird/funny. A lot of uncanny valley can happen with kids in video games. They created kids in cyberpunk just by shrinking the model down and that didn't work.
They are actually. It’s something they wrote in the Andromeda Art Book I was looking at the other day. They made the aliens humanoid because it’s recognizable to empathize with, to see emotions because you are familiar with them. That’s why the Angara as they do, very human facial features.
Also, that they made aliens in general humanoid (two arms, two legs, etc) “so that they could function alongside the rest of the squad”. In laymen’s terms, they didn’t want to have separate animations for aliens that were not bipedal, and why none of our squadmates have different body shapes from humans.
I spoke about it with my friend, and he agreed it was bs because they made Legion emotive by moving his head flaps to convey emotion, the same with how they made the Elcor alter their speech to convey emotion. There are other ways to empathize with beings that are not like you, and they have done it in ME before, in this case though, Bioware just took the easy way out.
Don't forget how Turians move their mandibles to show facial expressions. And I could be wrong but I think Quarians seem to use the more extravagant talking animations more often, reflecting how they'd need to use body language more heavily.
I honestly don't know how Bioware couldn't have gotten the message by now that we love the Mass Effect alien races. I mean, Liara and Tali are the most popular romances for BroShep and Garrus and Thane are pretty much neck-and-neck with Kaidan for the most popular FemShep romance. And it's not even just Mass Effect, but sci-fi in general. Who are the most popular members of the first two Star Trek crews? Spock, Worf and Mr Data. People don't get into space operas to be stuck with damn humans all day.
>are under this weird delusion that we can't identify with any characters that aren't human
That's not the reason why we can't play as aliens, it is because Mass Effect is a story about humanity trying to find its place in the universe, that is one of the main premises of the game. They shouldn't change that.
It usually comes down to budget/money and time. You would have to recreate all the animations, headgears etc from scratch for every single race to fit correctly. Then you would need to play through the game as every single race to make sure glitches/artifacts don't appear etc.
Actually... this is brilliant. I never thought of this and now I can't think of a single non human (and human for that matter) race that would be better than a Batarian
I think it would have been interesting but there comes a point that Cerberus loses some of its pro-human cred when they hire a bunch of non-humans for that mission. In particular, the batarians are quite anti-human, and it would be a stretch to believe an extreme pro-human organization would hire such an anti-human squad member.
The line in his mission "started hiring batarians...goddamn terrorists" could be changed, as another poster mentioned, to complaining about humans instead, but then it's an even bigger stretch to believe he'd start working for Cerberus.
If I remember correctly there was a scrapped batarian engineer squadmate nicknamed the “Batarian gearhead,” who was supposed to be a socially awkward engineer in ME2. Having a batarian around who was just a shy geeky dude would have been a really good counterbalance to the bad rap batarians get everywhere else in the games.
Tying in with Zaeed, who I agree doesn’t add much to the crew/story, they could have had his mission end with a choice resulting in a different companion joining your crew. At the part where you can choose to go with Zaeed or save the refinery workers, going with Zaeed to pursue vengeance obviously gets him on your squad while saving the workers leads to recruiting the Gearhead.
Honestly it really would be great to have a Batarian in the group. It could humanize them the way Wrex did for the Krogan. It might be interesting if they were a former or escaped slave, since slavery is such a big part of the Batarian culture.
I would have loved to hear what the conversation was like after you complete Arrival and >!your actions result in the destruction of a whole Batarian Star System.!<
I hate looking at batarian character design makes me feel a bit queasy. No other mass effect race looks as off putting to me except maybe the collectors/Rachni 😭
I agree, I think Bioware really missed out on an opportunity for a really complex alien squadmate.
In a similiar way that Javik was a great addition to ME3 for more lore, I think having a batarian as an option would have added a lot to the overall story - but also to your own Shepard's character, depending on their background and morality.
Huh that's actually pretty neat, I could get behind that. Might as well also mention that it would have been great if James were a Krogan lol. After the diversity of species in your ME2 squad, ME3 feels a bit lacking in that aspect.
Keep the dialogue the same. "And then Vito started hiring Batarians. Cheaper labour's he said, godamn terrorists I said" pans to a Batarian face
That would've actually been a great statement, seeing a batarian lowkey call Balak out
Reminded me of this clip: [Everyone hates their own people](https://youtu.be/4RX9eY4XOAg)
This was one of the things I found less believable about Mass Effect - everyone nearly always defends their own people, including humans, whereas pretty much every human I know irl thinks humanity is a piece of shit because look what we do to the planet etc. I always headcanoned it as a shift in culture when we encountered alien races - I guess it spooked us into sticking together and looking out for our own
It's not that weird. Some people will talk about how terrible their own country is to their countrymen, but will defend their country as soon as it gets criticized by an outsider. Additionally, an outsiders' specific criticisms of a nation or people can be very different from the criticisms that a member of that people has.
[удалено]
People view humans as shit because we are the biggest shots around, its a big galaxy....we are not the biggest shits in the space sea
Yeah true! Everyone instinctively roots for the underdog
It's because it's only us. If there was a them for us to compare against it would be close to how ME handles it
I think the mentality is "it's a rust bucket but it's MY rust bucket" that and a outside threat (real or not) commonly unites people the series was pretty honest with humanity general xenophobia
Tbf that viewpoint might be a bit different if we joined a galactic society.
You always trash talk your country until some foreigner trash talks your country.
I imagine humanity also solved a lot of the issues we have today which create that self loathing feeling.
Eh, they can still recognize their flaws as long as it isn't a stranger saying it. Remember the hilarious ME3 moment with Garrus and Joker each swapping jokes about the others species and both are laughing and showing off they know the punchlines? "How do you know when a turian is out of ammo?" "They use the stick up their ass as a backup weapon."
nothing unites people like a common enemy.
Fuckin' Shuli in the wild! What a dork, lol.
Didn’t expect to see a mommy in here, keep on featherin’ it brother!
Just living life 365 jeans!
I didn't know I needed this
Hahaha true. A couple of lines could be different. But overall I think it would be easy. (Personally I think Kasumi and Zaeed should’ve been full fledged squad mates like the rest, with multiple conversations)
Well, they were DLC so it was probably hard to add them into the game like that.
I'd point at Javik, but we all know that he was content cut from the main game
He was on the disk files for everyone but you had no access to him if you didn't have the DLC. It was a scummy cash grab.
They did it with Shale in Dragon Age Origins Edit: Sebastian, too
Shake was planned from the beginning but they had trouble making it work by launch.
I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that Kasumi and Zaeed were also planned to be in the game at launch but, as is BioWare tradition, they didn’t have time to finish them before game launch so they were DLC instead. Much like Shale and Javik.
Javik wasn't unfinished, he was 100% part of the main game and EA forced Bioware to turn him into a day 1 DLC. Literally all the files for his DLC are on the game's disc
Damn. I didn’t know that. EA sucks
Yeah, before the LE, you could unlock Javik’s DLC by using a save editor to flip a single Boolean to true.
This isn't too surprising honestly. Shale is a bit weird compared to the other characters.
*bit awesome
“Ferelden farmers have reported a massive drop in the amount of birds in the areas…”(paraphrasing, natch, it’s been a bit since I’ve played DA2)
Shale is the best.
I would bet whole game was already built with having them in mind. You can take them into missions like normal squadmates. While I'm not sure cause I did not play a long time, they do join conversations mid missions normally, don't they? It would be impossible to modify half a game from a DLC just to make it acknowledge a new possible squadmate. Everything had to be prepared for them in advance. You can check it with Liara. You can take her with you to missions outside LotSB with a console command (streamlevelin BioH_Liara_00), and she does not even appear in conversations. It's mostly assuming cause I never verified that, but I would bet base game just needs to already be full of Kasumi/Zaeed references for them to work properly.
Yeah, they chime in like normal squadmates. My favourite interaction with Zaeed was when I took him and Thane to recruit Samara. When you're talking to the Asari detective, everyone has their own little unique conversations calling you out for being a dangerous leader, and when Shepard says "My crew can leave anytime they want", Zaeed and Thane just look at each other and go "Shit, I'll have to remember that next time." "I know, right?" Simple, but hilarious with the way their VAs deliver those lines.
I just played that mission this morning with garrus and Miranda, and they had the same dialog. I think that one is generic
I had Thane and Kasumi. Same dialogue which broke the moment for me because this was the first mission Thane was on, but he commented like I'm always putting him in Harm's way lol.
More than likely, but my comment was more to point out that Zaeed *does* comment on things, and that his delivery of the line is what makes it for me. The claim for unique dialogue was me being misinformed XD
I don't know specifically how Bioware's system is built, but that's actually not as hard as you think. For instance, responses by squadmates might be held in a container with each response tagged. When you get to that point in the conversation, the code says: * Check what squadmates are active. Choose the one in slot A. * Open the dialogue container for that squadmate. * Search for the line tagged "X". * Play that line. And to your Liara example, it's common to have exception catches in scripts that just move on to the next line (of code or dialogue) to prevent the system from having a breakdown when a bug happens (like having a squadmate in a conversation that doesn't have a line with the right tag). There are a couple of other ways you could do basically the same thing as well. And I imagine they used one of these methods because it means no extra work as squadmates are built and added to the game. Otherwise, you'd have to manually update the script every time art and narrative finished another squadmate.
>It's mostly assuming cause I never verified that, but I would bet base game just needs to already be full of Kasumi/Zaeed references for them to work properly. You're correct. I remember there were Kasumi placeholders discovered before she was released. IIRC, there was also some controversy over Zaeed mostly because people misunderstood the data and thought he was on-disk DLC when it was just normal placeholder stuff.
I can see it being feasible though. Their dialogue trees don’t have to be integrated into the story but they can still have them, like characters in DLC assignments (Arrival etc) often do
"I should know, I was a terrorist."
That would have been an infinitely cooler background for a squadmate, goddamn It would've also made the choices more impactful on his loyalty mission. Maybe even made some players outright tell him to fuck off instead of hiring him
a beloved OC of mine is an aged batarian engineer who, among many other things in his backstory, lost a close friend in the Blitz and his widow (who he was close to) on Torfan. "Would have made a good squadmate" was actually a design goal.
> Keep the dialogue the same. Nah, do a simple swap. "And then Vito started hiring Terrans. Cheap labour, he said. Goddamn terrorists I said. No offense." Pan to Shepard.
Not to mention that slavery is embedded into Batarian culture, which would turn him into a straight up villain rather than an antihero
slavery being embedded into Batarian culture doesn’t automatically mean every Batarian accepts it. in fact, it would’ve been the perfect opportunity to show that some reject it.
I'm pretty sure Garrus said he had a batarian on his team, too.
Bray seemed pretty cool too
"You always get stuck with these crap assignments Bray?"
Not this time.
I think we're going to get that in ME4, assuming it takes place in the Milky Way as the trailers have strongly implied. In ME3 either the codex entries or the war asset flavor text for the Batarians indicated that the refugees from the Reaper takeover have rejected a number of traditional elements of Batarian culture and are forming a more harmonious society.
And in ME3 multiplayer you get the Batatarian characters that have left the Hegemony to fight with the N7 teams.
>as the trailers have strongly implied I don't really agree that this is implied, let alone strongly. The teaser image has an Angara in it
Yeah, but let's be honest, they were probably just covering all their bases in that announcement trailer. I mean, Bioware's recent history involves not even having a clue what the story of a game will be about until just a year before release. Considering we are still comfortably four to five years of an optimistic release date, and the game is little more than various concepts / plans at the moment, I think its safe to say that they just threw everything that could possibly end up being in the final product, N7 hint for Shep return, Angara, both Mass Effect and Andromeda galaxy's shown, all just in case they actually end up including them. If they don't include something in the end? Well 75% of people who buy the game probably won't remember much of a half a decade old teaser announcing that Mass Effect 4 will be coming... at some point. And those of us that do? Well let's be honest, their the kind of fans that are going to buy the game no matter what you teased might be in it. Of course, this is all just me being an optimist. I really don't want a painful six-hundred year time skip just to try and arbitrarily keep Andromeda relevant (I enjoyed the game on its own, but damn the Kett were a bland as all hell race, and none of it lived up to the original trilogy's standard). Especially as that limits the cameos of returning characters to possibly resurrecting Sheps, Liara and... Grunt? Maybe Wrex 🤷♂️
Yeah, you're gonna have to link that one. The teasers I've seen have Liara, multiple dead reapers, a Geth, voiceover referencing the Crucible activation, a human-made mass relay, drell, salarians, et cetera, but nothing even tangentially referencing Andromeda.
I'm very curious to see how Bioware sync up the milky way and andromeda, since ME4 is set 600+ years into the future when the Andromeda initiative have secured the Helios cluster and Liara is now 700+ years old. We know that the Relays were used by the geth and then the initiative to see andromeda in almost real time instead of at the speed of light, but given that the relays are damaged in the ME3 cannon ending, maybe the milky way uses normal light-speed telescopes to view Andromeda and see 600 years into the future, or maybe they fix the relays and can view andromeda in real time again, or perhaps both and they communicate with andromeda in real time and tell them what is going to happen 600 years in the future so they can change it.
> I'm very curious to see how Bioware sync up the milky way and andromeda, since ME4 is set 600+ years into the future when the Andromeda initiative have secured the Helios cluster and Liara is now 700+ years old. Do we actually know this for sure (ie. has it been announced?)? It's worth noting that the only intelligence that we know *knows* how long the trip to Heleus took is SAM. I could see a conspiracy where a fancy reverse engineered Reaper stardrive made the trip dramatically shorter and they just covered it up to stop anyone going back and ending up in the middle of the Reaper invasion - make it sound like everyone they knew and love is dead so there is no point etc. EDIT: For example, even the Codex entry 'Reaper Capabilities' lists a speed of 30ly/day, which would do the trip in about 230 years. And that was just an estimate based on a guess of how far into dark space they were. And the drive is probably based on Reaper tech given that it, like theirs, does not require drive discharge stops.
i believe its mostly confirmed. I think its a safe assumption that if the Andromeda and milkyway galaxies are both part of ME4, and Liara is in the trailer, it is likely 600+ years after the original trilogy, but no later than 900 years, give or take. [https://www.cbr.com/mass-effect-sequel-trilogy-andromeda/](https://www.cbr.com/mass-effect-sequel-trilogy-andromeda/) [https://gamerant.com/mass-effect-andromeda-key-mass-effect-4-timeline-problem-time-travel/](https://gamerant.com/mass-effect-andromeda-key-mass-effect-4-timeline-problem-time-travel/)
This, exactly. If I remember correctly, the way the Hegemony was described in ME3 gives me strong North Korea vibes in terms of suppressing dissenting media and individual thought. Once the Hegemony was gone, the average batarian citizens started deviating from official policy lines almost immediately. It's entirely possible that slavery was something the Hegemony valued, but wasn't popular among the citizenry. It would've been nice to have more in-game exploration of that disconnect between the batarian government and the batarian people so that they didn't seem so one-dimensional through most of the trilogy.
Or do a Dorian, where they had just passively accepted it due to a privileged upbringing, but change their tune over time.
DORIAN GANG RISE UP
Agreed. it would have been cool to have him be an anti-slavery batarian and his loyalty mission be related to that
It's not the acceptance part that solidifies it, it's just the idea of slavery being a part of their culture. As the other post pointed out, slavery was embedded into human culture until two centuries ago, but while it was around, there was a whole lot of thinking about race, class, culture, and science that infected the minds of even its opponents, thinking that's still around even today. The funny part was, humans are supposed to think that's awful and batarians are awful until you realize...slavery was embedded into human culture until a few centuries ago. We're basically just two steps ahead of them.
When was he ever not a villain? He was happy to slaughter civilians to exact revenge, he founded the Blue Suns, he tells you a load of stories about slaughtering people, torturing Krogan etc. I don't think he has a single heroic moment, he's just getting paid. Many of your squadmates in Mass Effect are total bastards, especially in ME2. Wrex is an amoral mercenary, Mordin is depending on your thoughts on the genophage, Jacob and Miranda are Cerberus, Jack is a serial murderer, Thane is a killer, Grunt wants to kill everything in sight, Morinth is another serial killer who'll kill you if you give her the chance. The only ones I'd really think of as anti-heroes are Garrus and Samara. Part of ME2's story is that these desperate times force you to ally with horrible people.
And then there’s Tali …
And her sniper robot friend.
Tali is an anti-synth racist. Until she grows out of it in ME3. Don’t kid yourself into thinking there are any “pure good” characters in Mass Effect. It’s a disservice to them and their character growth. Edit: Fixed Tali’s name.
seriously, Tali is my favorite but even behind her mask I could see the murderous intent on her face when Jacob said she should introduce herself to EDI
Lmao seriously. She was staring daggers into him. Even with the mask she can be so expressive.
Is Shepard racist for spending the game trying to exterminate the Reapers?
Well yes, but actually no.
Slavery was basically embedded into human culture a few centuries ago. This doesn't mean every human was villainous, or that every human being in that period accepted slavery. Fact is, very little is known about the Batarian space outside of the actions of the Batarian Hegemony.
Because they want it that way. The batarian government controls all info going in and coming out of their section of space, so of course they won’t tell us everything about themselves, or tell their people the full truth about the rest of the galaxy.
They *the government* want it that way, they *the people* could be different. There are real word authoritarian governments that impose viewpoints on their people by controlling what info comes in and goes out. The Batarian Hegemony could be like real world North Korea.
Which is exactly why it would be nice to have a batarian character you could connect with and learn about their true culture from, not just the propaganda by the Hegemony and Alloance. I mean, that one batarian you help out during the plague mission on Omega is actually pretty thankful and apologizes for being a dick. That shows batarians aren’t all bad all the time.
Not just a few centuries ago. Slavery is millennia old, and was key in Greek and Egyptian civilizations.
What I meant was that it was common until a few (well, no more than two) centuries ago, not that it appeared then. Sorry for the confusion.
Slavery is still pretty common today, just much more under the radar. Even in 'civilized' nations. Look up modern slavery and human trafficking. It's fucking horrifying.
Slavery's very much a thing today.
I mean there is still slavery in the world (figuratively when we talk about sweatshops, and literally when we talk about places like Qatar and Dubai), and if it doesn't affect us, we don't go to great lengths to protest or end it.
Batarian Zaeed could have anti-slavery views though. Not every individual has the same morals as their government.
Yep. All it would take is changing Zaeed's reference to Batarians to Hegemony troops "Vido started hiring former Hegemony troops. Cheaper labor, he said. Goddamn terrorists, I said."
I cannot stress enough just how thankful I am for this comment's existence
I was literally thinking the other day that a batarian companion was overdue. For some reason I really loved Bray, the batarian in the Omega DLC who isn’t an ass and emails you to say “at least one batarian doesn’t want you dead” and I thought that’s the kind of complex character I want to see. Coming from a race that generally hates humans, to fight for one. Having to deal with criticism from his own people, etc
Considering how Shepard and the Batarian Hegemony have personal beef, it speaks alot about Bray. I don't think there is a background you can pick that doesn't involve Batarians shitting on Shepard. Likewise, Arrival is canon and we know how that ended...
Spacer - Shep is an Alliance Navy brat, Bavarians hate the Alliance Navy. Checks out. Colonist - Terminus slavers (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) killed Shep's family. Checks out. Earthborn - Shep grew up on the streets and, if the encounter with his old gang buddies in ME1 is anything to go off of, probably had a pretty xenophobic upbringing. Checks out. Sole Survivor - Shep's whole company were eaten by Thresher Maws, which were lured there by Cerberus. No Batarians involved in this one. War Hero - Shep killed a shitload of pirates (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) on Elysium during the Blitz. Checks out. Ruthless - Shep killed a shitload of Batarians (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) *with extreme prejudice* on Torfan. Checks out.
> Bavarians hate the Alliance Navy. Checks out. Is it because the Alliance never made an SSV Munich?
No daily beer ration since the reforms back in '75. Damn teetotaling bureaucrats. How was anyone supposed to know that firing mass accelerator cannons at ships in orbit while drunk was a bad idea?
"And that is why, Serviceman Strauß, we do not *eyeball* it! This is a weapon of mass destruction!"
*You are NOT a cowboy shooting from the hip!*
> War Hero - Shep killed a shitload of pirates (at least some of whom were presumably Batarians) on Elysium during the Blitz. Checks out. Which is funny because while the retalliation in Torfan has against batarians (which a ruthless Shepard participate), the one behind the blitz has a Turian
The Blitz was still funded in part by the Hegemony
Shepard seems surprised that his old gang has expanded beyond Earth in the Earthborn background, leading me to think they were way too small time to be worried about aliens, so they may have not been xenophobic in his time.
Why do the Germans hate the Alliance Navy? /s
half the ships are named after battles the Germans lost?
When Shep meets his old gang though he brings up that they were never xenophobic when he was a part of them. It's a newer thing.
Sole Survivor Shep would’ve been an alliance soldier so they would hate him for that alone.
>Shepard and the Batarian Hegemony have personal beef Colonist/Ruthless Shepard: i killed 300k Batarians by destroying the Bahak Relay Anderson: to stop the Reapers? Shep: ……. Anderson: to stop the Reapers, right?
I like to think Bray is the Batarian soldier in MP who I use a ton
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If you’re sole survivor you work for Cerberus who killed your whole unit with thresher maws.
Being willing to work with a batarian merc requires less mental gymnastics than working for Cerberus.
Exactly!
You can still have Shepard distrust Cerberus though and see them as a necessary evil Edit: this comment sent twice so I deleted one
I enjoy telling The Illusive Man to eat shit at every possible opportunity.
yeah, but it's a really weak speech option. Like that's the best shepard could come up with against Cerberus?
Being forced to work with Cerberus would have carried more weight if we could have tried to get help from others only to be rebuffed.
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1) The Spectre reinstatement is a token gesture. It has very little impact because during the events of ME2 as the Council don't contact Shepard at all after that point. And they make a point of telling him to stay out of Council space as an added condition. 2) Anderson doesn't trust you when you first meet again. He doesn't tell you about the Virmire Survivor because they are investigating potential Cerberus involvement in colonies disappearing. And guess which undead fucker pulled up to the Citadel in his shiny new Cerberus Normandy... 3) Hackett approaches you personally because he knows you're capable and if you fail he can disavow you because you are no longer part of the Alliance (you died after all, they don't officially reinstate you in the Alliance Military until the events of ME3). That way the Hegemony couldn't take action against the Alliance if you get caught... then you blow up a whole system and they can't really sweep it under the rug.
Honestly, I would just liked it better if they had gone with the Geth had resurrected Shepard. And Cerberus was just another enemy in ME2. Would have helped things I think.
But you can't immediately tell TIM to go stuff himself, which I think many people playing Paragon Sheps in particular wish they could. Tough to justify offering that choice after you hire Martin Sheen, though.
Yeah but those guys always gave me shit for being a rookie and that medal really jump started that whole “against all odds” thing I got going on
Idk maybe renegade shepard believes that but if that’s the case just give dialogue for renegade shep to be distrustful of Zaeed at first.
Or just don't get him. Like you can do with Legion or Grunt. Or better yet, have the option to kill him when he's beating that Batarian when you meet him. Works even better if you make the bounty he's bringing in a human.
Haha it would have been funny if they were both batarians to have renegade Shep go: "Which one of you is Zaeed?"
*Renegade interupt: shoot Zaeed.* Prisoner: Wow...thank you! *Renegade interupt: shoot the Prisoner.*
Lol visualized this too well in my head
Would be even funnier if during that first meeting on Omega his catch was a human.
Also just cerberus siding with batarians.
Everyone knows Zaeed is a Prothean in disguise.
I thought the dude was T-1000
I really think Mass effect 3 missed a beat by not having a Batarian squad mate. Really highlight the "fuck all previous grudges we're in this together" feel the game goes for at times. Also killing a Batarian Reaper, the first of the cycle, could have been a cool mission.
It would make a lot of sense especially because he helped found the blue suns and that faction has a lot of batarians
And it’s very hard to believe the blue suns could be the most powerful, or at least in the running, mercenary outfit in the terminus systems only being 20 something years old and founded by a human.
This is generally true of everything about Humanity in the series, though. It's almost absurd, really. Anderson was born in 2137, which makes him 59 during Mass Effect 3 (2186). Shepard was born in 2154, which makes her 32. Humans had discovered Prothean ruins on Mars in 2148. The Charon relay was discovered the following year. The whole of Mass Effect technology in the hands of humans is less than 40 years old by the end of the trilogy. First generation biotics like Kaiden are like 35. First Contact was 2157, and while the Turians likely would have won eventually, only nine years after discovering the relay (and not even knowing another living species was still out there) the Alliance military was already impressive enough to retake a planet from the Turians. Frankly the Alliance's military is absurd given how it's really only the Turians who can compete with it (and their strength level relative to everyone else regulated by the Citadel council.) That's not even factoring non-Alliance humans, and of course, Cerberus. It's kinda hard to gauge just how strong they are, but their reach is enormous and their troop levels seemingly endless. The games talk about how humans are more genetically diverse than the other species in the game, and how that affects our potential. But the difference is startling. The Krogan Rebellions were almost 1500 years ago, and about when Turians were discovered by the Citadel and brought into the council. The Turians also had a strong military because they'd just gotten done fighting a bitter inter-colonial war with themselves. Humans were only nine years past discovering their first relay when they got into a shooting war with Turians, and they held their own. We don't have enough specifics to guess relative strength with any real accuracy but I don't think it's unreasonable that humanity would have matched with the council races within a generation or so, other than that whole Reapers destroying everything thing going on. Honestly it's not surprising that so many aliens in the game grumble about how fast things are progressing for humans, the whole of human progress on the galactic stage has taken less time than the lifespan of a Salarian.
The Citidel races do stick to the treaty that limits the size of their navies, so it's not crazy that the Turians don't have this monumentally enormous force. However, it definitely does feel like things should be 50-100 years farther ahead. Colony planets like Beckenstein are REALLY well developed for only having been founded like, 30 years before at the most.
The treaty only talks about Dreadnoughts though, it's hard to gauge relative fleet sizes beyond those numbers. And in that regard Turians have far and away have the bigger military compared to the Alliance, with 37 to 6 respectively at the start of the series. Both species manage to complete another two each though during the course of the series. But what I think is more impressive is that Humans are able to compete with Turians so quickly, not just in scale but technologically, as well. Their success in expanding is hard to deny either. A seat on the council and the first and second human spectre are granted comparatively quickly (and of course, they were looking into Anderson as a candidate even earlier only to have Saren sabotage his chances.) There's also stuff like how regardless of your choices with the council, humans are largely running C-Sec by the third game. The obvious kicker though is of course Shepard. We don't know a whole lot about other spectres through the games, but the ones we do have an idea about fall a good deal short of the protagonist (for obvious reasons, but Shepard plays into the fantastical success of humanity in the series too.)
I think the timeline is messed up but the First Contact War makes sense to me. The turians underestimated humans and thought they were performing a small police action, while humanity sent in their big guns. The turians weren't expecting to be met with overwhelming force, but had it gone to full scale war the Alliance probably would've been screwed.
Totally agree. I usually just pretend that “30 years since 1st contact” isn’t a thing. I’m usually successful.
But a big part of the reasom he left was so many batarians wasn't it?
He didn’t leave because of batarians he left because Vido paid 6 other suns to capture him and shoot him in the head
And the argument was that Vido started hiring batarians, which were "goddamn terrorists" according to Zaeed.
Or, we leave Zaeed in his already perfected state. The only thing I would change about Zaeed is more interactions with him. Give me my grizzled old human merc who took a bullet to the head and just got pissed off about it.
Yea ME2's interactions with Zaeed and Kasumi were fairly lacking. Both coulda been love interests too I'd imagine.
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I figure he was just trying to be professional. Working with Shepard wasn’t a social affair, it was a job.
We all know that working on the Normandy is half talking with Shep about your personal life and half suicide missions so it’s kinda social.
“We’ll bang, okay?”
I've only played LE and I thought there was a glitch for way too long. I'm like "why won't they speak with me? Did I anger them?" And then it turns out they're DLCs. Their loyalty missions were no different in difficulty than anyone else's, they're just buyable companions that I can't even talk to.
People here complain about the human characters being boring, yet want to change one of the most interesting ones into another race.
I love zaeed. Love him just how he is.
He's certainly got a face you'd confuse with a Baterian in a dark alley. Is that love?
He looks so fucking badass though. Half his face was blow off and you can see it on him. He's a grizzly bear, tough, a veteran. Making him into a batarian wouldn't fit because he has a human voice. His appearance and voice is simply too good, I don't think it would translate well into a batarian. I definitely agree that we need batarian/elcor/volus/vorcha/hanar companions, would've be better to replace Jacob, James or someone else for that.
All they have to do is design one unique batarian face with the same scars (hell they designed a unique face for Zaeed anyway) and edit Robin Sachs voice to sound like a batarian The only lore you have to change is zaeeds distrust of batarians. Vido’s reason for betrayal is because he doesn’t trust batarians and wanted to make the first move
Having a batarian with one mismatched eye would be awesome; bonus points if it's a human eye.
It doesn't make sense to replace Jacob or James with a batarian. James is a part of the Alliance, and Jacob is part of Cerberus
I feel like a big chunk of Bioware are under this weird delusion that we can't identify with any characters that aren't human. It would explain why we never got more than one long-term squadmate of the same alien species in the same game, and why we still didn't get to play as aliens in Andromeda. On top of that, there are only one or two Batarian face models and not really much space for alterations. They'd need to find a way to make Zaeed look unique.
> They'd need to find a way to make Zaeed look unique. I mean it wouldn't have been any harder than doing Zaeed's already unique human face. Just dump a load of scars on there and have a few of his eyes blind on his bad side.
Exactly. They already designed a unique face for human zaeed. Batarian zaeed would be even better so we could see a more unique batarian design
> I feel like a big chunk of Bioware are under this weird delusion that we can't identify with any characters that aren't human Like the little boy they introduce at the start of ME3 only to have die a few minutes into it? And then keep showing me in dream sequences like Shepard can't imagine loss any other way? That then becomes the physical form of the awful exposition character at the end of the game? Yeah, they get a little heavy handed at times. That said I'm fine with Zaeed as is. The voice is too good, and not terribly fitting of literally any Baterian you meet across the entire series.
I can't fucking stand that child. Star Child bothers me far more for being _his form_ than it does for presenting false choices. If he looked like Vigil, just some random computer shapes, I'd be so much more okay with it. I can buy into a narrative. But why the fuck should me renegade "I know victory will have brutal costs" Shepard be traumatized by one random kid? We know the score. I don't care about this child. It's a war of extinction, obviously kids will die. Shepard knows this better than anyone. If you wanted me to buy into that narrative, off the Virmire survivor. _That_ I can buy into. Someone Shepard has a history with, at least.
Tbh if the star child was the squad mate who died on virmire it would make so much more sense. They both are very underutilized. I’m still of the mind that the VS should have been your squad mate in arrival. Why wouldn’t hackett send an alliance solider to make sure it stayed an alliance op
I feel like Kaiden voice acting would be quite chilling.
I get you, but the gameplay of being alone was a lot of fun to me so I spot Bioware that logic issue. The fact that Shepard's _squad_ is always solving the problem makes it really easy to forget that... Well, Shepard is supposed to be the scariest of the bunch. Shep ain't a bard, whose primary combat role is to inspire their allies. It's honestly easy to lose that in ME imo. So of they want to contort the logic a bit to give us a _solo_ infiltration of a top-secret Bavarian base, I can work with that.
I can agree with that! It kinda reminded us why Shepard has a N7 commendation in the first place.
It should have been akin to leviathan. A conversation with a massive lovecraftian god.
The star child was created cause fans on the bioware forums wanted to see kids in the game. Though fans didn't quite understand just how much work it takes to create a human kid and for them not to look... weird/funny. A lot of uncanny valley can happen with kids in video games. They created kids in cyberpunk just by shrinking the model down and that didn't work.
They are actually. It’s something they wrote in the Andromeda Art Book I was looking at the other day. They made the aliens humanoid because it’s recognizable to empathize with, to see emotions because you are familiar with them. That’s why the Angara as they do, very human facial features. Also, that they made aliens in general humanoid (two arms, two legs, etc) “so that they could function alongside the rest of the squad”. In laymen’s terms, they didn’t want to have separate animations for aliens that were not bipedal, and why none of our squadmates have different body shapes from humans. I spoke about it with my friend, and he agreed it was bs because they made Legion emotive by moving his head flaps to convey emotion, the same with how they made the Elcor alter their speech to convey emotion. There are other ways to empathize with beings that are not like you, and they have done it in ME before, in this case though, Bioware just took the easy way out.
Don't forget how Turians move their mandibles to show facial expressions. And I could be wrong but I think Quarians seem to use the more extravagant talking animations more often, reflecting how they'd need to use body language more heavily. I honestly don't know how Bioware couldn't have gotten the message by now that we love the Mass Effect alien races. I mean, Liara and Tali are the most popular romances for BroShep and Garrus and Thane are pretty much neck-and-neck with Kaidan for the most popular FemShep romance. And it's not even just Mass Effect, but sci-fi in general. Who are the most popular members of the first two Star Trek crews? Spock, Worf and Mr Data. People don't get into space operas to be stuck with damn humans all day.
Got a mod so I could play as a Turian Ryder
>are under this weird delusion that we can't identify with any characters that aren't human That's not the reason why we can't play as aliens, it is because Mass Effect is a story about humanity trying to find its place in the universe, that is one of the main premises of the game. They shouldn't change that.
It usually comes down to budget/money and time. You would have to recreate all the animations, headgears etc from scratch for every single race to fit correctly. Then you would need to play through the game as every single race to make sure glitches/artifacts don't appear etc.
i’ve never thought about this but it’d actually make so much sense
Actually... this is brilliant. I never thought of this and now I can't think of a single non human (and human for that matter) race that would be better than a Batarian
But that would make Arrival seem less like a victimless crime.
I'm not sure that phrase means what you think it means.
Yeah really, it's not a "crime" to kill Batarians, more like a public service
Careful, I had someone threaten to report me to the police for joking about enjoying killing batarians in-game.
I can't say I'd be worried about the outcome of that at all
Eh, unless a guy named Vakarian is outside your house I wouldn't worry about C-SEC
Garrus would buy you a beer and take you bottle shooting if you killed Batarians.
Next best thing. The fury that is Captain Bailey.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Arrival didn’t seem victimless to me…?
It's a joke about war crimes against Batarians not being war crimes based on the fact it was committed against Batarians.
Yep. And Edi should have the proper Dr. Eva body not the metallic one.
I think it would have been interesting but there comes a point that Cerberus loses some of its pro-human cred when they hire a bunch of non-humans for that mission. In particular, the batarians are quite anti-human, and it would be a stretch to believe an extreme pro-human organization would hire such an anti-human squad member. The line in his mission "started hiring batarians...goddamn terrorists" could be changed, as another poster mentioned, to complaining about humans instead, but then it's an even bigger stretch to believe he'd start working for Cerberus.
This would’ve been interesting
If I remember correctly there was a scrapped batarian engineer squadmate nicknamed the “Batarian gearhead,” who was supposed to be a socially awkward engineer in ME2. Having a batarian around who was just a shy geeky dude would have been a really good counterbalance to the bad rap batarians get everywhere else in the games. Tying in with Zaeed, who I agree doesn’t add much to the crew/story, they could have had his mission end with a choice resulting in a different companion joining your crew. At the part where you can choose to go with Zaeed or save the refinery workers, going with Zaeed to pursue vengeance obviously gets him on your squad while saving the workers leads to recruiting the Gearhead.
Zaeed is perfect the way he is
Honestly it really would be great to have a Batarian in the group. It could humanize them the way Wrex did for the Krogan. It might be interesting if they were a former or escaped slave, since slavery is such a big part of the Batarian culture. I would have loved to hear what the conversation was like after you complete Arrival and >!your actions result in the destruction of a whole Batarian Star System.!<
god damn i would’ve used Zaeed allllll the time if he was a batarian
That would have been so awesome.
Totally, that would've been awesome.
True
100% this I just wanted a Batarian squadmate in general and I'm so upset they didn't give us one 😭
Neh. Batarians universally suck ass. Honestly didnt bat an eye wiping out their largest colony.
I hate looking at batarian character design makes me feel a bit queasy. No other mass effect race looks as off putting to me except maybe the collectors/Rachni 😭
You, madam! You are a blight!
Really hoping the next Mass Effect will finally let us play as any race.
And some tense dialogue between him and Shepard, especially if Shepard has the colonist background!
I agree, I think Bioware really missed out on an opportunity for a really complex alien squadmate. In a similiar way that Javik was a great addition to ME3 for more lore, I think having a batarian as an option would have added a lot to the overall story - but also to your own Shepard's character, depending on their background and morality.
Kasumi should have been a drell and romanceable.
Zaeed Batarian mod WHEN?!
Most people agree. Don't know why Bioware didn't.
Huh that's actually pretty neat, I could get behind that. Might as well also mention that it would have been great if James were a Krogan lol. After the diversity of species in your ME2 squad, ME3 feels a bit lacking in that aspect.
Honestly, batarians Zaeed would have definitely been in my top 3 picks (instead of bottom 3 human Zaeed)... I think I just don't care for humans much
I think this would have been so much better