#Mass Effect Lore

[continuous-spec]

The Shadow Broker Dossiers are one of my favorite bits of lore in the Mass Effect series because they intrusively probe the characters' lives. Into things, the characters obviously wouldn’t share with Shepard. You, as the player, choose whether Shepard is going to probe further into their companion's private lives.

My favorite entries have to deal with Garrus, his sister Solana, and his mother's condition with Corpalis Syndrome.

There is so much that can be picked apart in the above message exchange between Garrus and Solana. It’s all we know of her character, yet she feels very real, very raw in how she talks to her brother.

It touches on a lot of Garrus’ failures up to this point, too, in ME2. Saying that he's playing Spectre, which is a very fair comment that Solana makes at Garrus. He threw away his C-Sec career or possibly Spectre training for a third worse option that ends up literally blowing up in his face and getting people killed.

There's a lot of jealousy in that comment as well. Solana probably had to give up her career and life ambitions to take care of her mother. Her brother can’t even bother to show his face. Just a thirty-minute text exchange. She probably hasn’t seen him in years, and their mother is deteriorating day by day in front of her.

Garrus, for obvious reasons, can’t be there and isn't going to let Solana know. This message is one of the last ones Garrus sends out before hitting the Omega Relay, so at this point, he thinks he might end up dying.

There is a sense that they were probably close when they were younger. They share a sense of humor and end on a joking note. But in the end, Garrus finally tries to reach out and fails to make a connection with his sister. It is such a bittersweet family situation.

On a more hopeful note, with Mordin's connection with STG, Garrus is able to get the right connections to help his mother.

On a less hopeful note, by the time ME3 rolls around, Garrus only mentions his father and sister. So even with the possible connections with treatments, it's implied his mother had passed between the events of Mass Effect 2 and 3.

[c-rowlesdraws]

✨Excellent News📰

for sophisticated enjoyers of obscure Mass Effect lore! This reddit user compiled ALL of the old Cerberus Daily News e-mails into a google doc, helpfully formatted for better readability and organized by topic! There are plenty of one-off articles about various aspects of galactic life, but also a bunch of multi-installment stories. The whole thing is very entertaining and compelling despite CDN having been written as "just" a fun extra thing for players to read along with in ME3, and it's packed with tons of neat glimpses into the setting outside of Shepard's immediate circle and experiences.

[verynonyideas]

Today is Garrus Vakarian’s birthday?!?!

Happy Birthday, Garrus!!! Nope, it is not.

This has been corrected as information from a fan site and is not canonical. It would have been awesome if it were true. Oh well.

[n7cloacadestroyer]

"ACAB applies to Garrus"

I've heard this independently 3-4 times over the past week, and it strikes me as such an odd thing to say. Not because it isn't true--we know Garrus wasn't above working a suspect over if he thought it would make them talk. Like, he wasn't just a cop, he was kind of a dirty one. Not in the same way as someone like Harkin, but definitely in the "you better hope his hunch doesn't lead him to you or you're getting beaten with a rubber hose until you tell him what he wants to hear" kind of way. Which is arguably just as bad, if not worse.

No, the reason it's such an odd thing to say is that ACAB honestly applies to about half of the characters in the visible universe of Mass Effect. It's a very "save us, military industrial complex," sort of narrative in many respects--up to and including the part where all the politicians and diplomats basically have "beta cuck," or "dick dastardly's understudy," tattooed on their forehead with very few exceptions.

That's just something you have to accept if you want to enjoy the series. It's a star war, not an insightful commentary on power structures and the abuse of the people therein.

If you want to evaluate it as one, then there are quite a few bigger fish in this particular pond. The Citadel Council alone is one of the most abusable legislative mechanisms conceivable, and admission to their ranks is predicated solely on approval by the current Council. The council whose individual votes would be weakened by adding another member. Not to mention that the idea of an individual speaking for their entire species is bananas on its face.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but Shepard is a fed. Like, a "clandestine intervention and special operations" kind of fed. ACAB absolutely applies to them too.

The Point™: The Mass Effect universe was created solely to facilitate a role playing game in which the player had more narrative freedom than was typical of AAA titles at the time. If you apply any degree of knowledge regarding sociology or political science, the thing falls apart faster than the M-44 Hammerhead. Basically anybody who has spent more than five minutes thinking about it could tell you that. Anybody can also tell you that if the game mirrored an effective and equitable political process, there probably wouldn't be much call to splatter some faceless space pirate against a wall with your dark energy mind powers. If you want to be all cinemasins about it, that's your call, but I don't think you would make a very good action game going about it that way.

I'm not trying to say that you're wrong if you don't like Garrus. It's a matter of opinion, first and foremost. There are valid reasons to dislike him. Like his elevator conversations, for example. But it's more than a little disingenuous to pretend he is uniquely or egregiously problematic in his abuse of power while we control Commander Shepard--the literal avatar of abusing their power with little to no consequences.

[drelldreams]

Thinking about humans learning alien languages and vice versa. On one hand, you’d have humans butchering alien languages. Can’t produce the chirping and bellowing sounds of alien languages. Humans trying to speak the turian or krogan language would come out as an incomprehensible mess. Turians speaking human languages wouldn’t be able to pronounce b, m and p due to not having any lips.

On ther hand, you probably have languages with eerily similar phonology by sheer coincidence, so you wpuld have asari who can speak Finnish with a perfect Finnish accent, which leads Finnish speakers to believe the asari’s speech is being translated, but nope! The blue lady is speaking your language!

Maybe some turians would sound just like native German speakers when speaking German, except they leave out every p, m and p and you wonder what the hell your translator is doing.. turns out the turian guy is speaking German.

[not-a-newt]

Anyways, here's an excerpt (Mass Effect Initiation) on the way that turian, asari, and krogan crowds move as opposed to humans

[exoartmakes]

I am a bald Quarian truther

It’s perfectly fine for Quarians to biologically grow hair like Humans, but I think that Quarians would have experienced frictional alopecia from wearing their environment-suits their entire lives. It also likely caused permanent follicle dormancy, if they’re anything like humans. This would mean that first generation suit-less Quarians on Rannoch would have no hair at all for the most part and would be unable to grow any even after removing their suits. Only second generation Quarians and beyond would have the chance to grow proper hair.

So unfortunately, Tali would not be sporting 2 feet of flowing, thick wavy hair, Bioware… That’s okay though, I’m sure she’s just as beautiful with a bald head.

[evilgothgirl]

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝟑 // 𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

⸻ ❝ i suppose i did just write your name in the stars. ❞

[average-mako-enjoyer]

I’d love to know where the hell you came up with “Kaidan tells Shepard they gave children red sand at BAAT” because I’ve been in this fandom for years, played this trilogy through ten times, and romanced Kaidan every single time and he literally never says anything of the sort.

I'm sure he says something along those lines during either the L2 mission in ME1 or the Cerberus mission in ME3.

But you know what, even if I'm misremembering and Mandela Effecting this whole thing, I still stand by the idea that the kids at BAaT were given drugs during training.

It was the most advanced and least humane experimental facility working with human biotics (before Cerberus, of course). Kaidan says that several children literally died during training. A number of them were psychologically and physically broken. Like, if you open Kaidan's chapter in Foundation, you will see a kid tied to a pole after being tortured. Shit was wild there.

The fact that they hired someone like Vyrnnus to "train" these kids shows how desperate they were to figure out how to turn these kids into living weapons.

Red Sand is a human-made drug, it's old, it's made out of eezo, and we know that Conatix definitely knew about the connection between eezo and biotic abilities. So of course they used it on the kids to boost their biotics. It's also a stimulant, which makes it a perfect thing to push the limits of biotic abilities and allow for longer, more effective training sessions.

Maybe I'll replay these missions once I'm done with DAI, idk. It wouldn't really change my opinion on this subject.

[grtmnick]

"My name is Padarth Raelbano. You killed my squamates. Prepare to die!"

[illusivesoul]

Unpopular opinion, but I think ME2 and the Suicide Mission are made more impactful when some squadmates die during the mission.

I know we all love the squadmates and we'd all prefer them to live, but I think that having some of them die really adds to the weight and impact of the mission and the game overall. It goes to show the sacrifice the crew and squad had to do in order to fight back and stop the Collectors.

It also just adds to the already massive emotional weight ME3 has. Plus, some of the replacement characters for the me2 characters that you meet in 3, like Padok Wiks, who replaces Mordin, are pretty awesome, and characters like Rodriguez and Falere being more prominent in their missions if Jack and Samara are dead respectively is also quite interesting.

[ferniliciousness]

Ok question for the mass effect fans out there, it's pretty much cannon that biotics make your metabolism faster right? Jack makes a comment about how she's never hung over because her biotics burn the alcohol away so fast. So my question is, would that also apply to things like medications? Say someone had a condition that required a certain dosage, would they need more to see the same results? And does anyone know if it's based on like, how often someone used their biotics or is it just a background effect?

Biotics is the one topic in mass effect I know almost nothing about since I've only ever played half of me1 using them 😅 and I don't currently have space for the games to boot it up and talk to Kaiden and Jack lmao. Atp even just widely accepted fannon cause ya girl is struggling 😭.

[mephestopheles]

According to the Lore, humans "discovered" aliens or vice versa in 2157. Shepard was born in 2154, which means he's three when humans enter the galactic stage. So he's 29 at the start of Mass Effect.

Which means humans haven't been on the radar of the council for even a full human lifetime, and they're pitching a fit about not being on the council?

No wonder the council species treat humans like they're toddlers whinging about toys at the playground. We're the kid that arrive five minutes ago and are trying to take the toys from the ones quietly playing well for the last two hours.

The Council has a lot to answer for, and a lot of decisions are made like they're "father knows best", and maybe they've gotten too comfortable in that role, but this is a lot to take in.

[n7cloacadestroyer]

Very true. I also have doubts that the thorian that Shepard fights on Feros is well and truly dead. Shiala and ExoGeni's recovery team are the only sources we have that confirm its apparent demise. ExoGeni has a vested interest (as well as a demonstrated willingness) to lie. They were willing to purge the colony to protect their secrets and probably would have if Shepard hadn't intervened. So we know that we can't trust them.

Shiala, on the other hand, seems trustworthy at first. She's vital to the plot of ME1, as the prothean cipher would be lost to Shepard after the thorian's supposed death had she not intervened. She wishes to stay with the colonists to atone for their suffering which she feels responsible for. Even if you take the renegade option to kill her, it still reflects well on her character.

But something we often overlook is that she was definitely indoctrinated by Sovereign, following Matriarch Benezia to join Saren. A reminder that Matriarch Benezia was so far gone that she couldn't stop herself from trying to murder her own daughter. Sovereign probably couldn't have exerted any more control over her without turning her brain into pudding.

Indoctrination is stated to be a degenerative condition by multiple characters throughout the series, but we hear about it first from Rana Thanoptis, who was studying the phenomenon at Saren's base on Virmire. We learn that Sovereign (and later, all reapers) emit a kind of energy field undetectable by contemporary technology that subtly alters brain waves and thought patterns, making organic minds more susceptible to suggestion by slowly removing the capacity for independent thought.

If we take the narrative at face value, Shiala remains the only character in the entirety of the Mass Effect series that has experienced any degree of remission in their level of reaper indoctrination. This isn't extremely suspicious on its own within the context of Mass Effect 1, but given what we learn about it going forward? Gigantic red flag.

It's also worth noting that Saren offers Shiala to the thorian in exchange for the cipher, a fate she willingly accepts as an indoctrinated slave. Saren then betrays the thorian, as he has a reputation for. No surprise there. What is surprising is his apparent lack of target priority.

If Saren/Sovereign wanted to breach the colony to destroy the main thorian node beneath it, why didn't they just bombard it from orbit? Instead, they send the geth to attack the humans in the colony and the nearby ExoGeni building. "Killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle," as the thorian says.

There is another creature within the Mass Effect continuity that reproduces via spores--the Thresher Maw. That's the reason we find them on so many different worlds in-game. Their microscopic spores are hardy enough to survive dormant within the vacuum of deep space and atmospheric reentry, so they are unwittingly spread by space travelers, both past and contemporary.

What if Saren was cutting off the thorian's vectors of propagation without directly attacking it? Because large-scale disturbances like bombardment risk throwing its spores into the atmosphere or worse--into orbit where it could cling to passing vessels along with other bits of magnetized space dust.

I also suspect that the geth platforms on Feros were so entrenched because they were never intended to leave. If the thorian's influence can indeed overpower reaper indoctrination, as it seems to be doing with Shiala, the machines have a very good reason to be concerned and act accordingly. They seemingly intend to starve it out/quarantine it--a smart move, all things considered. Especially if my suspicions are correct.

We meet Shiala again on Illium in Mass Effect 2. Her skin has turned green, and she seems fatigued, to put it mildly. We learn that the colonists continue to experience strange side effects and rudimentary linked nerve signals, even sharing sensations like heat and pain when near one another. In addition, they experience headaches and muscle spasms similar to when they were under thorian control seemingly at random. She also notes that her biotics have become 'unstable'.

The colonists contacted a Baria Frontiers survey group to perform some medical scans to diagnose and resolve their chronic issues and were offered a contract to get them for next to nothing. The problem was that they had unknowingly agreed to "invasive follow-up procedures" at the company's behest. With enough charm or intimidate points, Shepard can help Shiala by convincing the Baria Frontiers rep to revise the contract.

Now we're led to believe that these procedures are being forced on the colonists simply because an uncharacteristically racist asari just wants to see them suffer… but what if the initial scans showed some kind of anomaly? If there are parasitic spores within their bodies controlling (or at least influencing) their minds, discovery of this fact would certainly spell doom for the parasite in question. So would it not be in the parasite's best interest to avoid anyone looking at the colonists too closely?

Furthermore, it's strange that the symptoms result in biotic instability for Shiala, an asari commando who has been training her biotic abilities for at least a few hundred years. Unless the thorian spores have begun to sprout and grow throughout her central and periphery nervous systems, thereby disrupting/altering the path that nerve signals must take to reach the eezo nodules in her nerves?

In Mass Effect 3, we meet her on the Citadel presidium after the evacuation of Zhu's Hope. She confirms that she is indeed indoctrinated, but says that her connection to the colonists through the residual thorian spores "is louder" than the tell-tale whispers. She and the colonists have seemingly adapted to the presence of the thorian spores and can now "feel" one another, and "act with one mind" as they fight against the reapers, "ignoring pain when the need arises." They can share some degree of learned experience as well, as Shiala further elaborates, "with one mind, the untrained fight with the skill of veteran commandos."

She's also, notably, still green. So it seems like the colonists just abandoned the whole "let's get medical care" idea and just learned to live with their new hivemind? Yeah, that's extremely suspicious given everything we know about the thorian.

Conclusion: Shiala and the colonists are simply an extension of the thorian, and this is how the creature propagates itself. Feros was not the Thorian's home world, and it was likely carried there by the protheans or a space-faring civilization that predated them as spores within their bodies. When they die, their bodies will be consumed by the spores within them and begin a new "cycle" for the thorian. (got to thinking about this reply from @dragonflight203, but it got a little too big for the reply box.)

[drelldreams]

Headcanon: Affectionate phrases in alien languages - Riikip-lur volg olem [Salarian]

Riikip-lur volg olem is an affectionate phrase in Puron, a salarian language spoken in the Northern regions of Sur’Kesh and many colony worlds. It can be translated as ‘You are my mind palace’, though it is difficult to translate as there is not a specific term in English that has a meaning akin to ‘mind palace’. The phrase is very meaningful and not used casually.

Mind palace refers to an individual whose mind you deeply admire. To be someone’s mind palace means to be their source of inspiration, to provoke deeper thought in them, and for them to wish to learn from you. You look up to your mind palace; they’re a mentor, an idol.

While this is much about the intellectual aspect of a relationship, being someone’s mind palace means much more than them admiring your intelligence. Is is a form of affection; to be in love with the beauty of someone’s mind.

To not only admire someone’s raw intellect but their insight and wisdom. Your mind palace is your friend who you will skip the entire hour of sleep for just to engage in nightly philosophical discussions.

To a salarian this is perhaps one of the most beautiful and meaningful things you can say.

[not-a-newt]

[tweet] [batarian image/wikia] [bat image]

I recently noticed how bat-like batarian noses are and was so excited to find out via the mass effect wikia that it was an intentional design choice