#genophage

[or-4]

[drelldreams]

honestly it would have been so much cooler if instead of some random C sec guy shooting down Wrex if you sabotage the genophage, it‘s Wrex who fights you in an epic boss battle and either you die or you kill Wrex

no way a few C sec rookies can take out a biotic krogan Battlemaster who was born around the time of the Rebellions, nope

[neuralnetworkgallery78blog]

[craftyvideogaymer]

Also consider that it is implied that the Krogans had their own functioning society before the salarians "Uplifted" them.

i’d once read a Mass Effect take that has been stewing in my melon ever since, about Wrex and him demanding a cure for the genophage during the war in 3. (I think it was on twitter but I can’t remember for sure. Just the idea of it stuck with me.) The general sentiment was that this was a dick move on his part, that there were “bigger problems” and this wasn’t the time and it was cruel and manipulative of him to put Shepard in that position. He should have helped out first and Shepard would have helped him back once the war was over. A lot of people chimed in agreeing, saying how they stopped liking Wrex after that. It bothered me for a bunch of reasons I didn’t feel I could adequately articulate, but i’m gonna try now. Prepare for my meandering thought style! The governing bodies of the Mass Effect Galaxy have repeatedly proven that they believe themselves superior to other species and know what’s best for everyone. They don’t let all species have a say in the council, always look out for their own species’ interests in so much as it pertains to keeping things as they are, and will happily go along with literal genocide to aid this. They approve of secret police and biological warfare espionage tactics. They weaponise bureaucracy to hide their cruelty behind ‘oh red tape has us bound, sorry uwu’.   I’m going to try to remain pertinent to the Wrex subject but as one great example of these governing bodies ways of dealing with percieved outsiders: The first contact war is a great example of how ludicrous and fascist things are.. ‘It’s ilegal to use this thing so we’re going to kill you for it’ without so much as a heads up. How were humans supposed to know that, exactly? The governing bodies of this place do not care about anyone outside their own self interests. Fall out of line and they will work to end you. Until you prove you might be useful or of interest to them in some way (or a threat). And then of course we later learn the asari were breaking these laws themselves, hoarding this tech to stay superior. Classic. Anyway, back to Wrex. Wrex knows this. Wrex has seen how the krogan are regarded and treated, the dangerous monolith species, outsiders who can never be let in, never forgiven, never given a chance to grow or change. For a long arse time. “But the krogan were getting out of control and also committing genocide, the genophage was a last ditch resort to stop a galactic war” … And it’s been hundreds of years since then. That 'last ditch resort' wasn’t used as a stop gap, a reset to even out the playing field so that new negotiations and relations could be developed. It was used to end the krogan, and has been actively maintained to continue that, ever since. Do you really, truly believe that if Wrex petitioned the council/ world leaders to negotiate reversing the genophage, they’d even let him have an audience with them? And if they did, do you really think these people, with their history and all the shit they pull, would listen and be reasonable? I can already hear the responses, that weaponised bureaucracy (“you raise an interesting point Mr Wrex but unfortunately we are recovering from a war don’t you know, please come back in 300 years for review, we are very interested in discussing this further then!”) Wrex is old, wise and knows exactly what is up. The only way the governing bodies of power were ever going to have a listen, was if he had something they needed. The war with the reapers provided that. And even then, he knew that they wouldn’t listen outright; having Shepard’s voice was a way to get the foot in the door. It makes my heart hurt to think about that honestly; how dehumanising (dekroganising?) it must feel to be the ruler of your people and know that you have to rely on your alien friend to even get someone to listen to you, when what you want to say is an extremely reasonable “hey committing genoicde against my people sucks, stop that now”. Anyway, Wrex was right, this was his one chance to save his people and he took it. Good for him.

[st-just]

Bioware games are an interesting sort of fanon-bait because each one is like 80 hours long and has plenty of time to establish its own personality and themes, and set in motion plot threads and worldbuilding notes to be explored in late games - with a couple exceptions, each even clearly and conscientiously lays out the tracks for a sequel to follow in its footsteps.

And then after five years of dev hell, a total changeover in creative teams, and project management dead set on chasing the latest shiny industry trend, the actual sequel that comes out will inevitably do a soft reset and do its very best to ignore as much of that setup as is physically possible.

[breadedsinner]

If Mass Effect fandom were cool, there would be rampant headcanons about Wrex and Ashley being besties. You don’t think Wrex would hear about this squishy human picking up a rifle and getting back in the fight even though no one wanted her, and think that’s metal as hell?

“But she can kill him!” Wrong she steps ups when Shepard fucks up, Wrex even says in the Citadel party he respects that.

[unknown-dreams]

Mass Effect 3 Legendary Edition

"Mordin dying... it can't be easy"

"I'll sleep when I'm dead"

Garrus Vakarian x Female Shepard

[flame2ashes]

Finally finished Tuchanka......

[minweber]

Been replaying mass effect recently, and going through the second game it once again stuck out to me how Mordin's whole "modifying the existing genophage" thing feels a bit like a last-minute patch. Half of all conversations Shepard can have with him on the topic are about the original deployment of the genophage, not his modification of the thing, and not once during his extensive defenses does he try to fall back on the idea that he only maintained status quo. And so much of his arc revolves around not just guilt over having done something bad, but creator's guilt specifically...

What I mean by this is that I bet Trick Weekes originally wrote Mordin to be the actual creator of the genophage, and laid out his entire arc around that premise and probably wrote the key scenes... only for someone in the writers' room to be like "Uh, yeah, here is the thing about that..."

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF THE NORMANDY SUMMIT

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Primarch Adrien Victus, Dalatrass Linron, and Urdnot Wrex With: Comm. Specialist Samantha Traynor Commander, you need to keep Cerberus at bay- I can't overstate what a victory a treaty between the Turians and the Krogan would be for the Alliance. We need all the help we can get... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[skullmoss]

things i somehow forgot and then suddenly remembered while playing ME1, having not played it in idk over 5+ years??

>nihlus as a whole ass character. i confused him for saren. thought he was the dude who would betray us. i forgot that saren was a whole other turian. im sorry nihlus. RIP.

>that liara's mom is the big booby matriarch

>garrus would've happily shot down a ship and let hostages die just to take down One Dude

>conrad verner

>admiral hackett and how much i love that guy

>that kaidan fucking killed a man at brain camp

>rachni queen

>that wrex could also die on virmire

[nellasbookplanet]

I just finished my most recent Mass Effect playthrough (and I'm a big girl and absolutely didn't cry) and am once again thinking about the endings. I've spoken before about how the endings work weirdly against the core themes of the trilogy (tl;dr: Saren and the Illusive man argue for synthesis and control, and are both proven to be wrong and indoctrinated, yet they are presented as valid and equal endings; cooperation with the geth and EDI prove that peace between synthetics and organics is possible, yet destruction of all synthetic life is, again, a valid and equal ending), but as with the Arrival DLC I once again feel that my frustrations lie largely with the fact that it could so easily have been fixed, had only the narrative been ever so slightly nudged.

The endings are not only about making a choice, but making a sacrifice. You sacrifice your morals, your ethics, your allies' lives or agency, your own life and humanity, all for the sake of stopping extinction. And this isn't bad! It goes well in hand with the themes of choice and sacrifice throughout! But not only does it fail to take these previous choices into account (frankly, renegade and paragon endings should've looked wildly different even if you pick the same option), it also fails to make the choices you have feel feasible. (and then the extended endings seemingly caved to pressure and painted them all as wholly happy endings, while completely burying the inherent tragedy every choice brought with it, leaving you with a weirdly disjointed final product)

We know coexistence with synthetics is possible despite it being argued against by many characters because there is also a running theme of disproving it: in ME1 Tali's dialogue shows that the history of the geth is more complicated than them simply wanting to wipe out organics; in ME2 Legion and EDI show that cooperation is possible; in ME3 actual peace can be achieved. Yet none of this same care is shown to synthesis and control. Saren is disproven, the Illusive Man is disproven. There are little hints - such as EDI and the geth having reaper code and Shepard having A LOT of implants and interfacing with geth - that reaper upgrades or a mix of synthetic and organic could work, but it isn't enough of a running theme for it to rival the absolute dismantling of the arguments prior. Adding them as options feels, well, like the reapers' last attempt at derailing Shepard from destroying them (as I've said before, there's no wonder the indoctrination theory caught on). But they aren't. The endings are legit, no matter how out of left field they feel.

So, my recipe for fixing the endings: either actually do the indoctrination theory (they would have to change very little), or plant the seeds for control and synthesis being feasible without indoctrination throughout the game for narrative satisfaction, while also incorporating renegade/paragon in the epilogue for individual player satisfaction.

[edains]

me2's dialogue is soooo something like you can spend the entire time in mordin's loyalty mission reaming him for modifying the genophage and practically acting like he made the original one (homie was not alive! his like great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great - that doesn't look like a real word anymore - great great great great great great great great great great great grandma probably helped make it!)

until you meet maelon and found out that he wanted to help cure it and all of the sudden its "the genophage modification was the right call maelon and the krogan are dangerous" HUH?

[teiasviago]

sorry can’t talk i’m saving the galaxy and cross referencing my task list with data in the me3 wiki to ensure timely completion of all quests

[anghraine]

I love Tuchanka so much