#salarian lore

[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.

[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..."

[grtmnick]

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

[assmeffect]

I have a question about Salarians, specifically about the legal issues surrounding the 'breeding' contracts that they make. what happens when you break a breeding contract?? are you held legally liable? will you have to pay out the other party? what if your sterile and its not your fault? is the contract void? is the other party now SOL because they waisted their peek breeding years on a Salarian that can not or will not fulfil the contract?

ok this is a super interesting thing to think about. i had to quickly go over the Salarian entry on the wiki to jog my memory.

breeding contracts are never explicitly mentioned in the wiki, but iirc the salarian who's getting a bachelor party in me2 says that's basically what's going on.

so based on these 2 paragraphs, we can determine that these agreements/contracts (I'm going to call them contracts going forward) are only used to produce female salarians, as male salarians can be produced without the need for a second party.

looking at these 2 sections, they highlight just how important female salarians are to the species and their society. so any contract made to produce more females would undoubtedly be taken very seriously.

ultimately, I think the outcome of breaking a breeding contract comes down to one main thing; gender of the salarian breaking the contract

because of the way that the contracts seem to be formed, the candidates chosen are likely the most desirable of their clutch; most intelligent, physically healthy, no physical or mental "defects," etc. (Yes, this is kind of leaning into eugenics. but honestly, knowing salarians, that's not a huge suprise)

all that so say that I think questioning the viability of the other party involved wouldn't really be an option, given how much work goes into preparing these contracts.

ok so going back to what I think would happen if the contract was broken: I think it mostly depends on the gender of the one who breached the contract.

if it's the male that breaks the contract, it's still a big deal, and he'd probably end up disowned by his clan, but ultimately one of his relatives may be able to fill his place, purely due to the abundance of male salarians.

if it's the female, I think it'd be an absolute shitstorm. given that female salarians only make up about 10% of the population, there's a lot less options when it comes to repairing the contract.

HOWEVER, if the female breaks the contract due to infertility, I think it would become more of a mourning situation. having a female who's unable to even produce male offspring could be detrimental to a clan.

so that's what I think. If anyone else has anything to add please feel free to! I'd love to discuss this more and get other people's povs.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

(hey) (I'm officially back on the Empire of Preys grind 👀👀👀)

quick notes:

so SO grateful for past me who wrote a fucking 25 pages long worldbuilding document on the STG, including little graphs to help future me understand military ranks, internal organization, relationship to the government, history, current tension points, etc. It pulled me back instantly in what I should care about, and it's probably the most useful piece of writing I've done regarding worldbuilding

similarly grateful for the Aeon Timeline timeline I worked on a year ago, which helped me not be completely lost re: dates and when people were alive/dead and at which point, and also when specific treaties either I or the games made up happened historically

I think I managed to push past the initial bump, which was chapter 2; and by pushing past, I mean doing a new outline for a v2 since v1, while serviceable, was very meandery and didn't do a great job introducing the salarian cast that deserved something a little bit sharper to make a strong first impression. So I just cut through the meanders and "restarted" (aka: ripping through some parts of the old chapter and rearranging them in a newer one that is shorter and know what it's doing a little more). Not properly started on that yet, but the groundwork has been laid so that's good

there are so many salarians all of the time

I have done some thinking about each important member of the Liron dynasty (to the story at least), and yeah. No wonder they are all Like That

ouch???? I have reread my first attempts at the last chapter of the story and it's. It's a lot. I have not been in the TEoP headspace for a long time and it kind of tore my heart apart regardless, so! I cannot imagine how fucked up it will make me feel in due time!!

It's a smart story!!! I am sorry for saying this everytime I return to it and becoming insufferably smug, but seriously where the fuck did it come from conceptually, I don't feel capable of holding this in my brain, like I feel too dumb for some of the concepts and yet here they are. the sociopolitical worldbuilding feels very legitimate? why + how

I will probably (ughh) need to have it checked by someone who actually is very familiar with finance, just to make sure what I have written makes sense, because I'm confident about 70% of the jist, but there's 30% of like, niche regulations and attitudes and things you'd know if you have spent time in the stock market that I just couldn't guess even with a decent amount of research. which, yea

[rawliverandgoronspice]

what's incredibly funny to me is that I *never* dream about my current hyperfixation, but only about old and largely non-relevant ones to my current life

[stupid-tes-nerd]

What’s up nerds. There’s a new Mass Effect live on my channel! Today we get to drive the Mako on a new planet while we search for a new friend 👀

[edenprime]

One of the strongest points of Mass Effect, if not the strongest, is just how well written the characters are. From Shepard, to the squad, to the side characters like Anderson and Bakara, to barely-there NPCs like Ereba and Charr the lovers, Etarn Tiro the enthusiastic turian merchant, Kargesh the krogan who wanted a fish, Lia'Vael, the quarian who gets falsely accused of theft, and the Salarian who wants to buy a memento to his asari lover to remember him by once he's dead.

I feel like so many of them are memorable, and they all serve a purpose to the overall world building. The krogan show that they are not the violent thugs the galaxy has made them out to be. The salarian shows the struggle born out of building relationships with people of a species with a life expectancy so beyond your own. Lia'Vael illustrates what Tali says about the quarians being treated like second class citizens. Those small little side quests have a meaning and a purpose, it doesnt feel like they are Just There, and they add more to the lore of them game to those who care about that stuff.

[warningsine]

Mass Effect stories I would have loved to read:

The Rachni Wars that led to the Krogan Rebellions.

The Quarian/Geth conflict. In the first game, you spend so much time fighting Geth and the game paints them as typical synthetic villains and then you find out they were genocided and defended themselves. Surely, there must have been Quarians that sympathized with the Geth and were killed/imprisoned etc.

How the First Contact with the Turians went bad and led to the infamous war. (A good excuse to find out what Ashley and Garrus's dads were like, among other things.)

Lore about the Asari. Maybe a post ME3 scenario where they rebuild Thessia. They are nonbinary monogendered creatures with the most advanced civilization in the current cycle. Surely, there must have been more to them than gogo dancers and commandos.

Lore about any of the following races: Volus(es?), Drells, Hanars, Yahgs, Elcors.

Something about the Batarians and/or the Vorcha. You kill so many of them in-game and the only thing that you know about them is that they're considered ruthless slave owners (the former) and vermins (the latter). As if Batarians weren't right to hate the butcher of Torfan (ruthless Shepard) or the fact that Shepard was responsible for the destruction of an entire colony.

How Dalatrass and the Salarians under her command that didn't help fight the Reapers are dealt with post ME3. Are they punished?

How are Cerberus and ex-Cerberus affiliates dealt with post ME3. Are they tried in court, imprisoned or...? Surely, politicians will need some scapegoats and Miranda used to be TIM's right hand person.

What a post-Synthesis galaxy is like. It sounds like a utopia, what with having the knowledge of million years of civilization on hand and organics/synthetics peacefully coexisting, but is it a utopia for everyone? Every single being's genetic code changes on the spot. You have Reaper abominations that consist of multiple/incompatible species. Remember that brief moment in ME2 when Harbinger releases control of that poor Collector who looks panicked before getting killed? Straight out of a horror story. What happens with those creatures? They're not really sapient, are they?

How the Krogan rebuild their planet and find their place in the galaxy. Surely, Wrex and Bakara must have some adversaries that do not bow down to their authority. How are they dealt with?

What the hell happened to the Keepers? What cycle are they from? What was their civilization like? What happens to them post ME3?

What happens to the remaining Leviathans post ME3? They're powerful creatures with mind control capabilities. Do they just disappear once again?

[lyricsaboutcats]

There was this amazing salarian lore post here on Tumblr that I bookmarked a long time ago, and now that I have time to read it... I can’t find it again. My PC died and the bookmark is gone. I can’t remember the username, just that it was a really impressive gathering of official lore from the codex and books (I think they were also mapping ME’s galaxy using all three games, which was also amazing).

If this rings a bell for anyone, I would be really grateful for a link to it!

[sol-consort]

Do you think ME Andromeda is worth playing? It's on sale on Xbox and as you can probably guess I love the first 3 ones but I'm worried about the characters and story being different. Have you played it and is it any good?

I played through a good portion of it after finishing the trilogy, after 68 hours and getting spitroasted by the denial & bargaining stages, I accepted that the only thing in common between Andromeda and the Trilogy is the fact they're set in the same universe, that's it. That's where all the similarities start and end.

Is it fun? Yeah, no, kinda? It's not ME kind of fun, so don't expect that from it.

It's more like galactic sci-fi watchdogs. It's a semi-open world. Exploration and fighting random enemy encounters will be how most of your time is spent.

Unlock waypoints, find collectables, grab side missions along the way, get crafting materials to make armour and upgrade weapons—yes there is a big annoying crafting section now, credits alone don't cut it anymore and some materials are gatekept by only spawning on certian planets that are story locked so you can't simply hoard a bunch of materials at the start. Yes, getting matierals is a very prolonged and dragged out process. Yes, it's a hassle for no reason, but to purly inconvenience you.

In comparison to Mass Effect missions with set paths and clear goals, Andromeda is an entire different new game.

They don't give out much more interesting lore about the alien species either, at least the OG Milky Way ones. It's called new beginnings for a reason, everyone wants to forgo the way of the past and start anew with new cultures and believes. Female krogans and Salarians are a common sight, Turians are spread around instead of being a tight-knit group for the spirits and all. So many things changed, every race feels like "humans+" instead of their own people.

Especially the asari—god the asari. They lost their spark, yk how they're chill but suddenly say or do something very ominous that makes you remember oh yeah those guys are freaks with ruthless societies? Yeah...they're literally just humans now, completely utterly human.

There are politics to resolve, like always, but nothing with major scales like how Shepard was with the council. It's room-temperature political tension with you as the mediator.

...A mediator that no one respects or listens to much. You're a little bit more convincing than a sitting duck in any given argument.

You are unknown, young and a nepo baby so no one respects your authority. Your character doesn't know how to lead or take charge much either, you stumble along wherever the more capable people tell you to go run errands at.

Oh yes, running errands is the entire gameplay. So. Many. Errands.

Andromeda feels spread out thin. There were definitely attempts to build something intricate and ask meaningful questions, but everything was left half cooked.

It's not a nothing burgers... but it's definitely a watered-down cola, after all the ice melted and diluted it.

I heard the online play was fun? you can play as the other alien species and they each have their own abilities, I never tried it tho.

As for the "new" species, the angara are wonderful and held a lot of potential but we never get the chance to explore them much bc of...errands.

Finding out more about their lore was akin to finding a needle in a haystack because vital information gets dumped into stupid optional side missions that you could very easily miss. I felt like I had to complete all the side missions just on the off-chance one of them might grant me more angara lore crumbs.

They're a civilisation that rebuilt itself after near mass extinction, isn't that neat? So not only can you find out about their current lore and culture, but also about the civilisation they used to be, heritage they themselves barely managed to remember and pass down between generations.

But that's it, just the angara. That's the whole brand new alien race. An entire galaxy, and you only get one.

Actually, I lied you do get another alien race

The Kett... but they're surface level "baddies" species. They're not explored much, or if they were, it was so end-game that after nearly 70 hours of playing, I managed to acquire 0 information and a very "eh" impression

The new crew didn't grow on me like the Normandy one. It wasn't well done like in ME2 where they introduced amazing characters through personlised missions that made you form an attachment to them and seek them out.

No, they just...hand you the crew ready to go. From the start. You barely know their names. And you're the captain.

They don't treat you like the captian, this isn't the army. You're like a middle manager to them? a nepo one that's too young for their position. While the atmosphere is very causal, it doesn't translate into friendly or intimate. It's just...informal?

I liked Jaal and Vetra, but a huge chunk of their allure is the fact they're the first of their kind to be romance–able. I wanted to get with a women turian ever since the Omega DLC in Mass effect, and Jaal is already interesting by proxy of me being an honorary angara archaeologist. I would've slept with him just for the chance to study the angara up close.

I was that obsessed with this imaginary group of funky people yet the game was such a bore that it fumbled the bag and managed to lose my interest.

There is a hot Krogan dilf :( You don't get to romance him but the fucking asari doctor does! Let me fuck the old man krogan ughhh.

I got very bored playing Andromeda ngl, something that rarely happened in Mass Effect. The lack of action and your missions not holding any real plot relevance takes a toll on you. You're not in the army anymore, you're a pathfinder, an explorer. No one addresses you as commander :"(

If you want an exploration game set in the world of Mass Effect with none of the plot relevance, sure go for it.

If you want Mass Effect 4 or just Mass Effect 3.5 Then I'm sorry to say, just wait for Mass Effect 4 to release.

I understand that it is unfair to compare Andromeda to Mass Effect Trilogy because both of them aimed to achieve different things. The Trilogy wanted to be a story about war and it succeeded, Andromeda wanted to be a story about exploration and new beginnings, it kinda succeeded but the funding ran dry halfway and the time was ticking so they just delivered a half-baked pie.

Was it too ambitious? eh maybe. But not because of a desire to do something new or unique, it was because of greed. Andromeda reached for so many things at the same time, it never quite grasped anything fundamental.

For a Mass Effect-esque genre game it's like 2/10

for a sci-fi open world exploration adventure game it's 7/10

Will I finish it? no. I fucking hate open world exploration games, they do nothing but bore me + give me so much motion sickness.

Also it makes the romance routes progress very awkwardly because they aren't full missions to go on to like in Mass Effect? So you can't simply talk to your crew after each mission to see if the relationship progressed.

No, you stay in the open world when missions are done and leave on your own time. One mission is next to another and another and another plus the 50+ side missions littered around. It's a coin flip chance of either getting overwhelmed with so many new romance flags and plot progressing when you're done or getting nothing for shit at all despite wasting consecutive 5 hours just doing missions nonstope.

The ship is cool tho, loved its design better than the Normandy. It felt like a diplomatic ship set out to make a good first impression, The milky way races adorning a pretty dress to take the trash out just because they moved into a new apartment complex and one of their new neighbours might be outside!

[drelldreams]

Salarian anatomy headcanon: Adressing the myth of salarians being a weak species

Salarians are an incredibly physically powerful species, though they are commonly underestimated and stereotyped as being weak. While salarian muscles are not as dense, giving them less physical strength, salarians are immensely tough in many ways:

Salarian skeletons, for instance, are more tough and durable than human skeletons. This is because they‘re to large parts made out of connective tissue and cartilage, like a shark‘s skeleton. Salarians usually take less damage than many other species (i.e humans, asari) from fall damage or blows. Krogan may joke about salarian skulls being squishy, but that actually serves to protect their skull more. Killing a human by striking blows against their sensitive areas (chest, head) is far easier than it would be with a salarian. So while salarians may not have great offensive capability with their hands and legs alone, their defenses are quite strong.

Their skeletal structure provides additional benefits. Aside from the canon of increased flexibility giving them an edge in combat, the skeletal structure also allows the salarian‘s jaw to be more flexible and gives them stronger bite force. In that way they’re similar to sharks as well. So don‘t get bitten by a salarian, it hurts like a motherfucker.

Given their durable skeleton, superior reflexes, increased flexibility and strong bite force, that actually makes salarians formidable hand to hand combat opponents against humans. In a worst case scenario, a salarian could use their bite to kill a human.

Salarian skin is also tough and thick compared to human skin, protecting better against cuts, burns and scrapes.

Their metabolism helps them fight off poisons and toxins quickly — up to ten times faster than humans. So keep that in mind when using a tranquilizer on a salarian.

Injury, lack of food or water and exhaustion does not affect a salarian‘s mental capacity as much as a human‘s. Even when injured, thirsty, hungry or exhausted, salarians retain a great degree of their usual cognitive functions. Salarians will exploit such weakness in aliens.

[holedaemon]

Ass Respect 1

Last night @freakpatrol and I finished our Mass Effect 1 playthrough together. It was my first time playing, their millionth, and it was an Experience. I won't lie, I wasn't super invested in it until we got to Noveria, but once we did it kinda hit me. Let me explain.

Mass Effect 1 is a nightmare of a game. It's poorly designed, frustrating and definitely a product of the era. I think the biggest issue is accessibility. If Ari weren't there to guide me, I would have been so lost going through it and probably would have given up. Menus are confusing and there's virtually no explanation of anything. I literally did not mod any of my weapons or armor till the last stretch of the game just purely because going thru the menus sucked. Another lacking aspect were the side missions. In theory they were cool, but in practice it was a lot of

go to sparsely populated planet

find random building, go inside

oh the building is 1 of 3 different prefabs

kill enemies inside building

complete objective

go home

It was a slog. But if you didn't do them, then you're missing out on so much story, and it can affect your playthroughs of the subsequent games, so they were important. Realistically, this is excusable, the thing that really killed me was traversing the FUCKING PLANETS. THE MAKO IS A GENUINE PIECE OF SHIT. DRIVING THAT THING IS LIKE RIDING A HORSE WITH A DEGENERATIVE DISEASE. IT WAS TERRIBLE. WHAT MADE IT WORSE WERE THE PLANETS THEMSELVES. WHOEVER AT BIOWARE DECIDED THAT EVERY PLANET WAS GOING TO BE FULL OF MOUNTAINS THAT ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO SCALE IS MY ENEMY FOREVER. I WILL KILL THEM. Night before last we spent hours just doing side missions, and I guarantee a huge chunk of that time was spent trying to get to different objectives on each planet. Both of us were fucking furious by the end of it, I haven't been that pissed off at a game in YEARS. At one point I just gave up doing the optional stuff on the planets, like collecting minerals, etc.

BUT, for every bad thing about Mass Effect 1, the story, worldbuilding, and impact of decisions make up for it. The lore behind Mass Effect is so rich and expansive, it puts every other game to shame. I can't think of any other series that is so in depth about its races, characters, or universe. You've got the humans, who are just making their way into space & asserting themselves among the universe; the Turians: a militaristic avian-like race that mostly police the galaxy; Salarians: nerdy, feeble science types with short lifespans; KROGAN!!!! Badass fucking warrior race that are dwindling in numbers after being genetically sterilized & systematically purged after a burst in numbers; Quarians: AWESOME LOOKING tech-inclined nomads that travel the galaxy after being pushed out of their home system by their own creations; Geth: sentient machines created by the Quarians that evolved & rebelled against their makers; Asari: cool blue ladies; Batarians: a cool race that are unfortunately mostly only depicted as slavers & terrorists, not really seen in the game at all; Protheans: an ancient race with a technologically advanced society, that were mysteriously wiped out 50,000 years ago with barely a trace, whose technology we allegedly based our own on; Reapers: inorganic, sentient machines, and the true antagonists of the series, that reside in the void beyond the universe, waiting for their chance to return and purge the universe of all organic life; Volus, Hanar, Rachni, Elcor. ALL OF THESE COOL RACES WITH THEIR OWN QUIRKS AND MYTHOS THAT MAKE UP THIS RICH AND EXPANSIVE UNIVERSE. This is what the Elder Scrolls should have been, there's actual substance here.

Really hammering in the races making up the universe are the characters, especially the core team. My favorite members of the crew were Garrus and Wrex, I love them dearly and would protect them with my life. I chose them as my squad mates for every mission, partly because I love them, but mostly because they hate each other. Both are stoic hotheads set in their ways. Garrus is a Turian; former c-sec agent that wants out of the bureaucratic life. He's a little unsure of his path which I sympathize with. If you're nice to him, which you should be, he's a valuable ally. Wrex is a Krogan mercenary that you pick up on the citadel. He's had a tough life and likes to work alone, but you can eventually earn his trust and have him come to respect you. The part of Wrex's story that really stood out to me is when you make the choice to kill him or save him. You learn that Saren allegedly has a cure for the Genophage (the aforementioned genetic sterilization of the Krogan people) and is breeding an army of Krogan. You unfortunately have to put a stop to this. Wrex is rightfully pissed, and you can either calm him down or appease everyone else & kill him. I obviously made the choice to calm him down and save his life. I want to see him flourish. There's obviously more characters than that in the core team. For instance, Liara, the young Asari scientist that studies the Protheans and helps you gain insight on the galaxy's precursors. Who you can fuck. I fucked her. There's Tali, a Quarian on her Pilgrimage that joins your crew and helps on the ship. Kaidan and Ashley, the humans, who I didn't really give a fuck about. Ashley is a racist bitch and I absolutely let her die. Outside of your crew, there's Ambassador Udina, who sucks major ass and I hate. Captain Anderson, who punched Udina and generally rocks, I gave him the seat on the council at the end of the game. The council is another important aspect of the bureaucratic bullshit of the galaxy. I hung up on them a lot, but begrudgingly saved them at the end of the game so humans could continue to prosper and hopefully gain more respect throughout the galaxy. Saren, the "antagonist" of the game who was really nothing more than a pawn for the reapers. He was cool, and it sucks that he had to die the way he did. The point is, the characters are the lifeblood of this game and really stood out. Each having their own personality & story gave even more depth to the universe.

The last vital aspect of the game is you, and the chooses you can make. I'm a lil bitch so I went primarily paragon with my choices. I was mean when I wanted to be but mostly favorable to everyone I met. The coolest part is that this can change the later games. You can take your character with you into the 2nd and 3rd games and your choices in the previous adventures shape how the subsequent games are played. I think that's really unique, even by today's standards, and I'm really excited to see how it plays out in the later games. Especially for characters like Wrex. That's why we did the side missions, because the people you meet on the side can pop back up in 2 & 3. It's a really cool system that I wish more games worked with.

All in all, cool game, awesome experience. A nightmare in accessibility & game play, but makes up for it with the story, choice making, characters, and lore. After we finished, we immediately started 2 and I'm already loving it so much more. The world has been expanded upon, the accessibility is better, the game play is more streamlined, it's a better experience thus far and I'm excited to talk more about it when I finish it. Big thanks to my partner Ari (@freakpatrol) for introducing me to the series, playing with me & guiding me through it. It's really nice to play a story-based singleplayer game again after years of not. Okay that's my review rant. Thanks, bye.

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 3, exploring and Priority: Palaven:

-Broadly speaking, many planetary descriptions are the same as they are in ME1 or ME2. Some have minor differences.

It’s disappointing. The descriptions have always been an excellent opportunity for world building and ME3 barely utilizes them.

Harsa

-Khar’shan – It’s implied that the reign of the Hegemony is over. Whatever the future may bring, the batarian government will be different.

It’ll be interesting to see if the next Mass Effect game holds to that or not.

Annos Basin

-Sur’kesh – The salarians avoid overpopulation by careful breeding rules.

I suspect part of their frustration with the krogan is the krogan’s refusal to do the same. After all, both species lay eggs. If the salarians can maintain a steady population, why not the krogan?

I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but the salarians likely consider those bits irrelevant.

-The salarians are noted as an amphibious species.

Trebia

-The turians classifying information about their moons is amusing. I’m sure records already existed in other species’ systems; did classifying them actually accomplish anything?

Also, how hard is the information to refind? We calculate information about solar bodies that we will never reach in our time. Surely doing so for Palaven’s moons is even easier when you can just swing by a mass relay to observe them first hand.

-Menae – Shepard has no dialogue choices on the shuttle but speaks plenty.

I don’t plan to mention this every time it comes up, but the lack of control of Shepard in this game is grating.

-The turians are under attack and scraping by, so of course Shepard will loot multiple weapons and mods. I’m sure they won’t mind.

-Speaking of, the interaction sensitivity in ME3 is turned down way too much. You have to get very close to an item for it to alert you. The sensitivity in ME2 was much better.

-You should be able to speak to General Corinthus after the initial dialogue with him.

He could provide a lot of additional information and lore on the turian military and current situation. Huge missed opportunity by Bioware.

-Why are the primary enemies husks?

The Reapers are actively fighting the turians. Palaven is right there. We should primarily be fighting marauders.

-You get no additional information on what Taetrus is or why Victus was there, so if you’ve never read up on the Cerberus Network screw you. Figure it out by context.

I’m actually okay with that part – Shepard should know what Taetrus is. However, Bioware could easily have tweaked the dialogue to make it more clear for players and should have added a codex entry on the Taetrus war.

-I’m puzzled at why Victus’ actions on Taetrus are considered so radical.

He let the separatists and the salarians wear each other out, then swooped in and took both out.

Isn’t that what Palaven did during the unification wars?

Palaven remained neutral, let the colonies wear themselves out fighting each other, then swooped in and forced them to make peace and rejoin the Hierarchy.

If anything, Victus’ actions should be considered traditional.

-What’s the point of sending Liara back to the Normandy because it’s behaving strangely?

She’s not an engineer. She’s not even especially good with technology. She sent Shepard to hack those terminals in ME2 on Illium because they’re better at it than her.

I suppose that after the Collectors invaded the Normandy in ME2 it’s not unreasonable for everyone to be a bit jumpy and want a strong fighter on the ship.

-How do the turians feel about Garrus so easily falling in line with Shepard?

He’s clearly high ranking now, but he recognizes Shepard as a superior and accepts their orders.

Sure, Shepard’s a spectre and a war hero but that must still seem strange.

-As many have said, the image of Victus facing Palaven as he processes that he’s the primarch now is powerful.

-On the way to Victus, James mentions the lack of batarians and krogans at the war summit. They should be there as strong fighters.

The batarians are out of the picture because the Hegemony is effectively destroyed. The krogans hate turians and salarians and therefore won’t attend.

Then Victus immediately says the krogans will be needed.

Good foreshadowing on Bioware’s part, and Victus has already been established as a loose canon so it feels natural.

-What is Garrus’ title while he’s on the Normandy with Shepard?

He continues to be Victus’ advisor so there’s presumably some formal arrangement between the Hierarchy and Alliance that Shepard doesn’t care about.

Ambassador? Seconded? Detached?

Normandy

-Hackett acknowledges that everything he does is just a delaying action to build the Crucible. The war will not be won head on.

-Once again, the dangers of building the Crucible when nobody knows what it does is raised. However, there aren’t any better options so build it it is.

And they wonder why the other species are reluctant to join in?

-Hackett says that Cerberus does not have humanity’s best interests at heart.

Considering that Arrival is supposed to be played last in ME2 and it ends with Hackett saying that at least Cerberus is doing something about the state of the galaxy, that’s quite a turn around.

It feels like the writer of ME2 and ME3 were working from different scripts. Which is bizarre, because they’re mostly the same writers.

-Shepard mentions that TIM wants to control the Reapers. Hackett dismisses it; the war will end with dead reapers.

This is what I mean by the endings are not a natural extension of the game. This is the perfect opportunity to hint that Control might be viable – either by Hackett suggesting that TIM might be on the right track or Shepard pushing back that they think it may work.

But the way the scene plays out, Control is treated as failure state. Of course players reject it as valid choice. The game tells them it isn’t one.

Codex

-The Codex says that Reaper capital ships are created from one species each cycle.

It also says the Reapers have lost multiple capital ships this cycle.

That must be extremely heavy losses for them.

-The entry for krogan ancient history mentions Kalros to explain why krogan architecture can withstand vibrations despite Tuchanka not having many earthquakes.

Once again, good foreshadowing by Bioware. This is mentioned well in advance of Priority: Tuchanka.

-Why is Garrus referred to as a combat engineer? He’s an infiltrator.

[squigglysquidd]

Do you mind sharing how you're writing a codex? As in, are you making a document with a bunch of information about your world, a variety of different documents, a wiki??? I love worldbuilding stuff so I'm super interested.

I don't mind at all! Heck, you probably won't be able to get me to be quiet once I start talking! I absolutely love worldbuilding.

I'm taking from my experience with writing my Mass Effect fanfiction, Fibonacci, in that it was the first fic I ever wrote a Codex for. Mainly, I wanted to change the ME world into a fantasy one and, to me, that meant a lot of changes. Now, I do write in journals but they weren't necessarily the most efficient as I wrote ideas as they came to me so everything was mixed up.

So, I decided to write a Codex. I'm not sure if it's actually accurate to what a Codex should look like but it's how I organized my lore. I share it with readers and it's free to browse (I'll link it here if you want).

It's a large Google doc with a Table of Contents that I tried to keep somewhat organized. Everything is repetitive, so like when I'm talking about a species, I use a base list of what they're like. Sort of like how Wikis do it. I tried Scrivner but I just couldn't get into it after about two hours trying to get it to work. I'm sure if I started there instead of Google, I'd probably understand it better.

Funny enough, with it, I also started with a map as my starting point to the Codex. I don't know why my brain wants a map first but everything else was sort of just notes in a journal until I finished it. Now, it's Codex time and boy, am I a bit nervous because it's just so much I want to write that I'm having to tell myself to slow down and take my time.

[jtownnn]

3, 17, 25 and 50 from the fifty oops for Celine our beloved pls

can I just say how excited I am to be answering more of your Shep questions? because I'm thrilled. this is like Christmas to me.

under a cut because this got so long lmao

3. Armax arsenal arena: do they participate? How do they like it?

Here's the thing: Celine has complicated feelings about being a solider, right? Her parents were pacifists. She is very, very good at what she does, but she has deeply buried feelings of guilt and shame about it. So for her to be able to go somewhere where she can show off her skills with absolutely no negative repercussions? She is eating that UP. She is booking it for herself and her friends just for funsies. Celine and the employees of the arena are all on a first name basis with one another, essentially.

17. Have they done any interviews? How did the first one go? And the most recent?

She does interviews when it's required of her by the Alliance, but she doesn't seek them out. She's uncomfortable with the idea of being a public figure, but she's not shy and she knows how to hold her ground in response to uncomfortable questions. Since she works in politics for a while after the war I imagine she has to keep doing interviews, but once it's no longer a requirement of her job she is never doing one ever again.

25. Have they made pursuits into further education? Any degrees?

(thank you for asking this one and allowing me to get into the deep Celine Lore™️)

Celine spends her entire childhood begging her parents to allow her to leave Mindoir and go to the Citadel for school. Because Mindoir is essentially a grant-funded research colony, she has a lot of access to education that kids from other colonies don't get, and she's aware of how much there is out there to learn and experience. She loves learning, she loves school, she wants to see the whole galaxy for herself. Unfortunately, because she's biotic, her parents never let her leave the planet - they're (rightly) afraid that she'll get taken away and essentially recruited to be a soldier. Which...is exactly what happens after the raid.

Twenty-ish years and one Reaper invasion later, she's working as the human councilor because like. They ASKED and she's never said no to anything in her entire life. But she's miserable, and can't figure out why until her therapist very reasonably asks her, "Well, do you like your job? Or do you want to do something else?" And so, finally, Celine Shepard gets to do the thing she wanted to do so badly when she was a child: she gets to go to college.

And then she doesn't stop. She gets whatever the future version of a PhD is, and becomes a professor. Whenever people try to call her Commander, she goes, "it's Doctor, actually" and then smiles at them in a very scary way until they apologize. She finds it funny for the rest of her life.

50. What was the last thing (non-email) shepard read? Book, play, poem, essay etc

She loves detective novels! She grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, so now her goal is to read as many alien mystery novels as she can. She especially loves salarian ones, since they have the best plot twists.