When Mass Effect 3 came to a close, its ending was so final and wide-reaching that fans were uncertain where BioWare could even begin to create a followup story in the same setting.
because of Andromedaâs setting, itâs possible to recap the relevant lore without spoiling the original games
The answer turned out to be: an entirely different galaxy.
Mass Effect: Andromeda is here, and itâs been a long time since weâve had a new installment of the Mass Effect series â even longer since it began in the first place. But fortunately, because of a particular trick of Andromedaâs setting, itâs possible to recap most of the relevant lore without spoiling the plot of the original games â just the broad strokes of the story of Mass Effect and the beginning of Mass Effect 2.
So whether youâre an old fan looking to refresh your memory, or a new one who might want to go back to the old trilogy eventually, this guide will get you up to speed. Beginning with â¦
Mass Effect Fields
And you thought this franchiseâs name was just two cool-sounding words put together.
The Mass Effect is the key technological underpinning of Mass Effectâs science fiction setting. Scientists and engineers in the Milky Way galaxy have discovered One Neat Trick to change the mass of an object in space-time without otherwise altering its physical composition. The Higgs boson hates them!
Increasing an objectâs mass provides artificial gravity in spacefaring ships and installations. Reducing an objectâs mass has given the galaxy faster-than-light travel without messing about with relativistic time differences â and itâs trivialized a process vital to intergalactic trade and culture that used to be hugely resource intensive: traveling from a planetâs surface to open space.
Inexpensive, sturdy, space-ready construction materials? Manufactured with mass effect fields. Functionally infinite ammunition? Mass effect field. Flying cars? Ship shields? Jetpacks?
Mass effect.
Element Zero
Any sci-fi science advancement worth its salt needs to depend on a rare element, and in Mass Effect, that is a substance known as Element Zero. Eezo, as it is informally known, is created when solid matter interacts with the energy of a supernova. It is only found in large quantities in the asteroid debris surrounding pulsars and neutron stars, and typically only mined there by the small number of outfits that can afford to navigate such dangerous stellar terrain.
When subjected to an electrical current, eezo produces dark energy, which can be manipulated into creating a mass effect field. This makes it the basic material for every FTL starship engine in the galaxy and every other use of a mass effect field, big or small.
But eezo is also infamous for the way it interacts with biological organisms.
Biotics
In most cases, if an unborn child is exposed to Element Zero, it will be born healthy and unremarkable. In a smaller number of cases, fetuses develop severe physical deformities or terminal cancers. However, in an even smaller number of cases (in humans, the ratio is one in 10) the fetus will develop harmless eezo nodules along its entire nervous system â eventually giving it the innate ability to create and manipulate mass effect fields.
And you thought youâd left the mages behind in Dragon Age.
Sentient beings with the ability to manipulate mass effect fields are known as biotics, and with years of training, they can develop a sort of variable telekinesis. In order to amplify their biotic abilities to the point of military usefulness â or to even properly harness them at all â most biotics have cranial amplifiers surgically implanted in their bodies at puberty.
In addition to moving things with their minds, biotics can temporarily increase the mass of matter in an area until movement through or inside it becomes impossible, and even create multiple conflicting mass effect fields to tear objects â and people â apart.
Biotics occur in all the dominant races that appear in the Mass Effect games, but different races consider them to have different places in society. Among humans, biotics are a phenomenon both rare and new.
Artificial Intelligence
In Mass Effect, the Milky Way galaxy has a particular history with artificial intelligence. In a nutshell: Creating, using, and researching artificial intelligence is heavily restricted within Citadel Space, and primarily illegal. The advanced, voiced-recognizing computing solutions in wide use are âvirtual intelligence,â essentially an advanced version of Siri â very cleverly programmed, but not self-aware. VIs are considered less than human, and AIs are widely feared. True artificial intelligence is considered too great a threat to biological life to tinker with, and the galaxy has its own perfect cautionary tale in the quarians.
The quarians were not always interstellar nomads, looked down upon as beggars and thieves, blamed for unleashing a scourge upon the galaxy. Once, they were a planet-living society, just beginning to enjoy the wide use of robotic helpers called geth, meaning âservant of the people.â A single geth has enough processing power for its motor functions and sensory input and little else. When more than one geth are brought together, they are capable of networking their processing power, freeing up cycles for more advanced forms of reasoning, making them capable of more complicated or nuanced tasks.
Slowly, through their ubiquitousness to quarian society, the geth network grew to the point where it formed an emergent artificial intelligence â the geth achieved sentience and consciousness. A protracted war began between the two biological and technological races, that ultimately ended with the surviving quarians fleeing their homeworld in what is now known as the Migrant Fleet.
The Migrant Fleet roams the galaxy still â quarians live under strict population controls in cramped quarters of salvaged, refurbished and repurposed ships and face widespread discrimination among other species. Meanwhile, the area of the quarian homeworlds is now geth space â any ship that enters it is immediately destroyed.
A Galactic Underbelly
While Mass Effect has its peaceful, multi-species pan-galactic government, thereâs still plenty of room in the setting for crime, corruption and organized malice. From roving, disorganized batarian pirates and slaving gangs, to the Omega space station â really an ancient, repurposed Element Zero mine referred to by some as the criminal counterpart to the Citadel â the Milky Way has its fair share of illicit activities, illegal drugs and malevolent movers and shakers.
The most infamous of the last might be the Shadow Broker, the galaxyâs most powerful trader of secrets, whose true identity is entirely unknown. Even seasoned criminals and law enforcement officers have no real evidence of whether the Shadow Broker is a single individual or a coalition.
Corporate power also holds considerable sway in the Milk Way, for good and for ill. The human-supremacist paramilitary group known as Cerberus â founded in the wake of what humans refer to as the First Contact War by a figure known only as the Illusive Man â uses several front corporations in order to further its cause without attracting more attention than it can handle.
The Citadel and Mass Relays
In Mass Effect, even a faster-than-light drive and a ship full of eezo isnât enough to cross the huge distances between star systems in a reasonable timeframe. For that, the galaxy uses a network of ancient, massive space installations known as Mass Relays to slingshot ships across the vast expanses of space. Each relay is nine miles long, made of an indestructible material that is still unknown to science and contains a massive Element Zero core. Two linked relays can create a corridor of nearly massless space between them, propelling starships distances that would take centuries to cross with an FTL drive.
The only other thing in the galaxy thatâs made from the same resilient-but-unknown material is the Citadel, a vast deep-space station, maintained for millennia by a strange, silent race of small, drone-like techno-organic hybrids that have come to be called the Keepers. The Citadelâs place at the nexus of several critical mass relays has led to its use as the capital city of the galaxyâs governing body: the Citadel Council.
But who created the Citadel, the Keepers and the Mass Relays? For millennia, historians in Citadel space believed that they were the surviving ruins of an extinct progenitor race known as the Protheans.
The original Mass Effect trilogy told the story of how that assumption turned out to be terribly, terribly wrong.
The Reapers/The Reaper Cycle
The Reapers are race of massive, immensely powerful, sentient starships whose only goal is to maintain a cycle of purging all faster-than-light-capable civilizations from the galaxy whenever one arises to galactic dominance. Their last purge occurred 50,000 years ago: While humanity was just beginning to make art and tools, the Reapers were wiping the Protheans from existence.
Exactly why the Reapers do this and how they came to exist is a matter of deep Mass Effect spoilers, but we can tell you this: The Reapers built the mass relays and the Citadel in order to expedite the rise of pan-galactic civilizations â a sort of stellar trellis to guide sentient
After harvesting the Protheans, the Reapers hibernated in the dark space between the Milky Way and its neighboring galaxies for 50,000 years, before the vanguard of their invasion force made itself known during the events of Mass Effect. Mass Effect 3 was primarily concerned with the united efforts of the entire space-faring galaxy to enact a desperate plan to save some remnant of civilization, as the Reapers razed home world after home world.
This is why Mass Effect: Andromeda takes place in a different galaxy entirely
Aside from being famously controversial, the ending of Mass Effect 3 (again, no spoilers) presents the player with a choice that leads to three immensely different outcomes for the galaxy as a whole. It would be prohibitively difficult for a game set after the events of Mass Effect 3 to account for all three of those endings, but without the galactic setting of the previous games â the races, the politics, the history â well, it wouldnât be Mass Effect.
Mass Effect: Andromeda solves this problem by leaving the Milky Way entirely, and doing so before the Reaper invasion begins in earnest. Andromeda will focus on the exploits of the men, women and sentients of the Andromeda Initiative, a collaborative multi-species expedition from the Milky Way to the Andromeda galaxy. Because there are no relays to slingshot us to another galaxy, the journey to Andromeda will take 600 years, even with powerful FTL drives (colonists will spend that time in suspended animation).
And we know exactly which of Mass Effectâs expansive cast of alien races are coming along for the ride.
The Asari
The asari have two characteristics that make them practically unique among the galaxy. First, every asari has biotic capabilities, though not all of them choose to develop them with training and implants. Second, the asari have only one biological sex. Instead of trading cellular material directly, asari reproduce by biotically linking their nervous systems with their partnerâs and using the electrical pattern of the otherâs nerves to provide a template for half the DNA of their resulting child.
Some asari are born with a genetic defect â upon maturity it will become clear that the individual is incapable of mating safely, uncontrollably overpowering their partnerâs nervous system and causing a potentially fatal brain hemorrhage. But this condition, known as Ardat-Yakshi, is very rare, and its existence is a secret that the asari closely guard from non-asari out of shame.
Their unique biology allows asari to mate with any member of a sentient species, with the child always remaining asari. The asari only discovered other sentient species around 1,500 years ago â and when individual asari can live to be more than 1,000, thatâs not a very long time at all. Yet, they have embraced the influx of new genetic templates and cultural diversity so readily that it is already considered somewhat disgraceful for an asari to reproduce with another asari â even though mating with a member of another species usually means that they will long outlive their partner, and likely raise their daughter predominantly alone. The asari see inter-species mating as a way to add diversity, and therefore adaptability and strength, to the asari race.
Understanding the cultural effect of asari reproduction and lifespan is vitally important to understanding their place in galactic history. As a civilization, asari are predisposed to seek compromise, diplomacy and pacifism with the mostly shorter-lived races of the galaxy â to seeing the big picture and taking the long view.
This is not to say that asari do not have a formidable military, or that they have never waged war. Neither their fleet nor their infantry is what you might imagine of supreme galactic power: The asari army is composed of thousands of local militias led by elected leaders. But their lack of hierarchy and numbers belies their martial prowess.
Given her lifespan, an asari Huntress might already have two or three decades of training in the martial arts under her belt on her first day. By the time she retires after a routine career, there may not be a non-asari marine in the galaxy who could take her in a one-on-one fight. A suite of well-honed biotic abilities â rare in every other galactic military â is considered a prerequisite for asari soldiers.
As the turians say: âThe asari are the finest warriors in the galaxy. Fortunately, there are not many of them.â Another ending of the phrase might be: Fortunately, they do not anger easily.
So itâs a very good thing they were the first faster-than-light-capable species to discover the Mass Relays and the Citadel in the current Reaper cycle. The history of Citadel space is rife with violent or otherwise disruptive first contact events, even with the eventual calm interference of the Citadel government. The asari favor big picture solutions and compromise, and they value diversity and inclusion. The technological, economic and cultural dominance of being the first to the Citadel allowed them to set the tone for the galaxyâs government.
The Salarians![]()
Salarians are the second species of this cycle to have found the mass effect relays and made first contact with the asari, forming the Citadel Council to govern the alliance between, and shared interests of, the two races. In many ways, the salarians are something of an asari opposite.
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The warmblooded but amphibious species lives only about 30-40 years due to their relatively fast metabolism. Salarians sleep one hour in each day, think fast, speak fast and decide fast. Their population â due in equal parts to the biology of their egg-laying reproductive cycle and the cultural rules that have evolved around it â is 90 percent male. The Salarian Union is ruled by that 10 percent female population of Dalatrasses â matriarchs, essentially. Male salarians can, and routinely do, rise to positions of power in other professional fields, but only rarely in politics.
Salarians are the galaxyâs foremost inventors and technological first adopters, sometimes more interested in improving on an effective but blunt solution for a problem than actually implementing it. Relatedly, though it is equipped with the latest weapons, sensors and cloaking devices, the salarian navy is relatively small. To make up for this, the Salarian Union relies on another thing that comes more naturally to salarians than some other species: espionage and alliance.
The naturally photographic salarian memory is integral to the raceâs infamous predilection toward intelligence gathering and spycraft â though some might call it manipulation or deceit. In battle, salarians strike preemptively, believing that a war is best ended before it is begun. To declare war before attacking the enemy would be seen as tantamount to insanity. Their intelligence service, spearheaded by the so-called Special Tasks Group, is unparalleled, except, perhaps, for the Citadel Councilâs intelligence gathering arm â which is also run by salarians.
The Krogan
The reptilian krogan are the third species to be included in the Andromeda Initiative â and they are the only one to have not had a seat on the Citadel Council at some point during the Mass Effect trilogy. The fact that they were included at all is the matter of some controversy. The history of krogans and the wider galaxy is a complicated one, beginning with the fact that the krogan were given faster-than-light technology by salarians, rather than discovering or developing it on their own.
Without intervention (more on that in a bit) krogan reproduce at an astonishing rate, with a krogan woman capable of laying clutches of 1,000 fertilized eggs in a single year. Krogan are usually more than 7 feet tall and are biologically equipped with nearly impervious hides, as well as secondary and tertiary organs for all of their major bodily systems and a characteristic hump that can store fluids and nutrients against surviving extended periods without food or water. They will live for centuries before dying a natural death, are virtually impossible to paralyze and can enter a âblood rageâ in which they become impervious to pain. There is some confusion as to whether they can even bleed.
They have evolved all of these abilities in the crucible of the intensely hostile environment of their homeworld, Tuchanka, which, until krogan culture reached its industrial age, kept their population at an equilibrium. But krogan society remained fundamentally oriented around perseverance over deadly adversity â after taming their environment, they turned on each other.
Global thermonuclear war irradiated Tuchanka into a wasteland and sent krogan society back to a tribal stone age for 2,000 years â until they were discovered by the salarians.
The Rachni War
Salarians offered the krogan advanced technology â including the means to stabilize Tuchankaâs ruined atmosphere â and helped them relocate to a more hospitable planet. This was not a predominantly altruistic act. At the time of the krogan first contact, Citadel races had been engaged in a losing war against an existential threat for nearly a century. In discovering and uplifting the krogan, the salarians hoped that they could be convinced to join Citadel forces to push back and eradicate the rachni, a highly aggressive, intelligent, hive-minded insect race with which it was virtually impossible to negotiate.
The krogan did, pursuing the rachni even to their homeworlds, executing their queens and driving the species to extinction. They were hailed as saviors, given multiple planets to colonize in gratitude, and their fallen were honored with a monument in the Citadel itself. But again, without Tuchanka or the rachni, the krogan population exploded, with krogan settlers expanding to more and more planets â often worlds already settled by other Citadel races.
The Genophage
When the Krogan Rebellions broke out, the Citadel found themselves fighting another losing war â against the very people whoâd helped them win the last one. Salarian scientists developed another solution â a weapon so terrible that the very threat of it would ensure it would never have to be used. But instead, new, more militaristic allies who had suffered severe losses in the Rebellions â the turians (more on them in a bit) â implemented it immediately.
The salarians had created a biological weapon that would permanently alter the DNA of all krogan. Functionally, it severely increased the incidence of stillbirth in krogan reproduction â now, only one birth in a 1,000 produces live offspring. It was not intended to be a death sentence, but the salarians had underestimated the krogan cultural drive to prove oneself in life by facing deadly challenges. The instincts that helped the krogan to conquer Tuchanka are just as strong â but no longer supported by their prodigious rate of reproduction. Effectively, the genophage is slowly driving the krogan to extinction, and they know it.
Modern krogan society consists of isolated krogan men, usually employed in mercenary work for and with other species â male krogan are so territorial that they cannot share living space, even in the necessarily cramped confines of a starship. Krogan women are rarely seen outside of krogan homeworlds, where they primarily live in powerful, fiercely defended all-female clans that focus on the breeding of each meager new generation.
There is no cure for the genophage, and the Citadel Council considers it better that the krogan slowly die off than rise to threaten galactic stability again. The krogan attitude on this is one of general resentment, impotence and existential fatalism.
Without giving anything away, the morality of the genophage and the future of the krogan race was a major plot line of the Mass Effect trilogy, one that eventually reached a conclusion in Mass Effect 3. Graphics mods for fallout 3. But, since the Andromeda Initiative will be leaving the Milky Way galaxy well before the events of that game, the future of the krogan in the Andromeda galaxy remains unclear.
The Turians
Turians already had a history of spacefaring and mass relay use before coming to the attention of the Citadel Council. Itâs just that they were embroiled in an interstellar civil war when the Council was formed, and wouldnât discover the Citadel until 700 years later. For their hand in putting down the Krogan Rebellions and taking up their vacated role as a galactic peacekeeping force, the turians were given a seat on the Citadel Council â the first time it had been expanded since it was founded.
The turian government is essentially a military meritocracy, where corruption and abuse is held at bay by the turian cultural devotion to personal responsibility, honesty, honor and self-sacrifice. Case in point: If a turian performs so poorly in their job that it is necessary to demote them, shame is laid not on the poorly performing individual, but on the person who promoted them beyond their capacity in the first place. Turian society is similarly oriented around a devotion to the public good: A young turianâs compulsory military service begins at age 15 and will last until age 30.
Though the considerable turian navy and infantry serve as the primary military arm of the Citadel Council, it would be incomplete to refer to it as merely a war machine. The umbrella of the turian military covers the police force, fire fighters, engineers and architects of any public building or utility on their homeworlds and colonies â even turian merchant marines are engaged in the distribution of turian resources throughout the galaxy to turian communities.
Despite their militaristic society and reputation for attending to rules, turians are considered relatively progressive as a race, when it comes to new ideas and personal behavior. It all comes back to the turian value of personal accountability. As long as you do your job and donât prevent others from doing theirs, turians consider it immaterial what you do in your downtime.
Still, it was turian rules-keeping that brought them into explosive conflict with humanity in the Relay 314 Incident, or, as humans refer to it, the First Contact War.
Characterized by their adaptability and capacity for rapid development and advancement, humans are the newest racial addition of considerable size or significance to the society of Citadel space. Compared to the other races of the Citadel Council, they are equally advanced, but young and untested. While humanity was just forming its long-dominant form of religious belief, Christianity, the rachni were overwhelming Citadel space. Little more than 200 years have elapsed between the first human steps into space and the launch of the Andromeda Initiative.
The modern era of human spaceflight began in 2148, when human settlers discovered the ruins of a Prothean research site on the south pole of Mars. They uncovered irrefutable evidence not merely of the existence of alien life, but of intelligent alien life from beyond their galaxy, that appeared to have been studying ancient Cro-Magnon humans. Information deciphered from the Mars site led to the discovery that beneath the ice of Plutoâs largest moon, Charon, was not a rocky core â but a mass relay.
Within a year, human governments had allied together to form the Systems Alliance, an international political body in charge of expanding and defending human territory in space. And within that same year, a team of human explorers â one of which was Alec Ryder (more on him in a bit) â used the Charon mass relay to travel beyond the Sol system for the first time.
The mass effect was reverse engineered from technology at the Prothean site and Charon, and humans literally took to the stars, expanding to a host of colonies and activating every mass relay they could find â all without encountering a single intelligent alien life form â until 2157.
The First Contact War
Opening a mass effect relay without knowing where it links to was outlawed after the Rachni War, when that very act brought salarian explorers into first contact with the rachni and gave the insectoid race a path to Citadel space â nearly destroying Citadel civilization. So, when turian soldiers encountered a small scouting group of human ships attempting to open a dormant mass relay in 2157, they attacked.
Only one of those ships managed to make it back to the human colony of Shanxi, which was quickly discovered and invaded. Assuming that they had disabled the bulk of the alien military, the turians settled in to occupy the colony â only for the arrival of the Systems Alliance navy to take them by surprise, and roust the turian presence from Shanxi.
Before the situation could escalate into all-out war, the Citadel Council stepped in, brokering peace, introducing humans to the wider galaxy and ordering the turians to pay heavy reparations for instigating the conflict. In all, the First Contact War lasted just a few months and took only 623 human lives (and roughly the same number, though slightly higher, of turian ones) â and itâs the reason you may still find friction between humans and turians today.
In addition to incorporating humans into Citadel society, the First Contact War caused a huge surge in public approval for the Systems Alliance as a political body â giving it the power to form a parliamentary structure. Functionally, the Systems Alliance now speaks for and governs humanity. It was awarded with an embassy on the Citadel in 2165, less than a decade after making first contact, much to the chagrin of other species who had been jockeying for recognition for more than twice as long.
And though playerâs choices fundamentally affect the makeup of the Citadel Council in Mass Effect, by the end of the game, the Systems Alliance has a seat on the galaxyâs highest governing body.
Commander Shepard
Reader, we have talked enough about galactic history, and the machinations of governments and wars across the vast distances between stars. Itâs time to talk about the face of the original Mass Effect trilogy: Commander Shepard. In this section, we will discuss some spoilers for Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.
A player may choose a combination of several backgrounds for Shepard, but this much remains the same: Born on April 11, 2154, Shepard holds the highest rank of the Systems Allianceâs special forces program, is a veteran of human conflict with batarian pirate forces and the first human to be appointed a Spectre.
The Spectres are a group of elite enforcers, the ultimate culmination of the Citadel Councilâs military and espionage arms, whose work â and even a clear number of how many Spectres exist â is kept classified. They are personally authorized by the Council to act completely independently and to use whatever means necessary to preserve galactic stability, including deadly force.
Shepard was given Spectre status in 2183, after the Commander discovered that the turian Spectre Saren Arterius was somehow using geth forces to search for a way to bring about the return of the Reapers, a mysterious force that lead to the Prothean extinction. Along with the crew of the SSV Normandy â including decorated Systems Alliance officers Kaiden Alenko and Ashley Williams â and several recruited specialists and operatives â including Prothean expert Liara TâSoni and Citadel Security officer Garrus Vakarian â Shepard pursued Sarenâs trail. The Commander eventually discovered that Sarenâs massive warship, Sovereign, was, in fact, a Reaper itself. With the help of the Systems Alliance navy, the Normandy thwarted an attack by Sovereign, Saren and a swarm of geth ships on the Citadel â putting a stop to Sovereignâs attempt to call the Reapers from deep space to begin a new galactic purge.
A month later, while putting down the last remnants of geth forces, the Normandy was attacked by an unknown ship. Commander Shepard was last seen while rescuing the Normandyâs pilot, even as the ship broke apart in orbit above an uninhabited planet. Shepard was officially declared âkilled in actionâ by the Systems Alliance shortly afterward. Without the significant voice of the first human Spectre to speak on it, galactic apprehension about the potential return of an entire race of entities like the Reaper Sovereign has since faded.
A year later, the Andromeda Initiative issued its first orientation briefing to its recruits. A year after that, the Andromeda Initiative launched.
As you may have guessed, Shepard does not stay dead or lost for the second and third games in the Mass Effect trilogy. But the Andromeda Initiativeâs recruitment and launch coinciding with the two-year period in which the Commander was dead answers an important continuity question: How could a massive undertaking like the Initiative have gone off without the player hearing of it during the games?
The Andromeda Initiative and the Pathfinder
The Andromeda Initiative is a non-military, non-governmental, privately funded enterprise. Its stated goal: to transport members of five core sentient species of Citadel space to the Andromeda galaxy, in order to establish permanent settlements there and eventually create a reliable route between Andromeda and the Milky Way.
In pursuit of this, the Andromeda Initiative has constructed four huge Ark ships as the cornerstones of its intergalactic fleet. Linked by the even larger main hub of the Initiativeâs operations, a flagship known as the Nexus, each of the four Arks will carry a different species within it, slumbering in thousands of cryostasis chambers. The Nexus will carry a relatively smaller interspecies crew â as well as all of the Initiativeâs krogan colonists.
Each ark has its own Pathfinder, a single individual charged with spearheading the exploration and colonization of a Golden World â one of several habitable Andromedan planets that the Initiative has detected using data from an enormous, geth-built âfaster-than-lightâ telescope made from three mass effect relays. The Pathfinder of Ark Hyperion is Alec Ryder, an N7-ranked veteran of the First Contact War and, if you play Mass Effect: Andromeda, your dad.
One of Ryderâs twin children is the lead character of Mass Effect: Andromeda, depending on whether the player chooses to play as male or female â but either way, your sibling remains a significant part of the game. As for your father .. letâs just say the future is unclear. Alec Ryder was introduced in an official Andromeda Initiative briefing as the human Pathfinder â but numerous trailers and other press materials for Mass Effect: Andromeda refer to the player character as the Pathfinder instead. And we know that something unexpected happens not long after the Initiative arrives in Andromeda.
Basically: Weâre worried about Alecâs long-term survivability. In any case, BioWare has a habit of using any opportunity to give players what we in the industry refer to as âthe feels.â
(Redirected from Turian (Mass Effect))
Garrus Vakarian is a fictional character in BioWare'sMass Effect franchise, who acts as a party member (or 'squadmate') in each of the three games in the original trilogy. Garrus is a turian, one of the various alien species in Mass Effect, and is voiced by Brandon Keener.
The character is initially introduced in the first game as a C-Sec officer tired of all the rules and regulations his job includes. Come Mass Effect 2, Garrus forms a vigilante group on the crime-ridden Omega, before his team is wiped out due to betrayal. Mass Effect 3 features him advising the other turians on how to defeat the Reapers. In addition to the Mass Effect game trilogy, Garrus also appears in the third issue of Homeworlds; it tells the story of how Garrus ends up on Omega and elaborates on his backstory.[1]
Garrus's design was altered throughout the series, though his blue-and-black colour scheme and visor were maintained in all his appearances. Developers were initially worried that Garrus, as well as the rest of the alien squadmates, would not prove emotionally compelling, but were surprised by positive fan feedback and added him as a romance option in the second game due to it. Since his appearance in Mass Effect, Garrus has received a positive reception. Various merchandise has been made around Garrus, including action figures, a T-shirt and a bust.
Character overview[edit]
Garrus is a turian, an alien avian race resembling 'humanoid birds or raptors.'[2] Despite initially being introduced as a C-Sec officer, Garrus despises rules and regulations, which leads him to try to join Commander Shepard's crew and leave C-Sec. In the first game, Executor Pallin describes him as a 'very good' officer albeit one with a lack of patience, while Harkin describes him as a 'hothead' who 'still thinks he can change the world'. Despite his rash decision making, Garrus will listen to what Shepard has to say. Garrus can be influenced into being more receptive of rules and regulations, telling him that they help limit abuses of authority, or he can be encouraged to continue his loose cannon style of law-enforcement, telling him that regulations get in the way of dispensing justice.
Design wise, Garrus wears a visor and has a blue-and-black theme to his armor. In Mass Effect 2, while in Omega, Garrus is seriously injured by a gunships's chain gun and rockets and so gains scars and a cracked armor.
Garrus's voice actor, Brandon Keener, blamed C-Sec's 'demoralizing' bureaucracy for his reticence. Keener said that Garrus had warmed up over the course of the games, due to his interactions with the Normandy crew.[3] David Kates, a composer who worked on the Mass Effect franchise, described Garrus as having a conscience and wanting 'to do good', and that he ultimately desired for both healing and justice. Kates similarly pointed to the fact that Garrus's conversations often had a warm sense to them, often displaying a wry sense of humor as Garrus was desperately trying to 'be that person'.[4]
Creation and development[edit]
Mac Walters, one of the lead writers for Mass Effect 2 and 3, acted as a senior writer for the first game and mainly focused on Garrus, as well as Wrex.[5] Walters also wrote him in the second game, but handed him to John Dombrow for 3.[6]
The turians' original concept was done by artist Brian Sum and were originally designed to be a military bird-like race, similar to eagles, which can still be seen in some of their features (e.g. the horns on the back of the head being like feathers, and the mouth being like a beak). While the artists originally sketched Turians naked to get grips on the physiology, they were limited in bone structure as all squadmates shared one skeleton for combat purposes. Heads were also similar as a result, with the main modifications being to the texture and tattoos. Garrus's did not have any concept art for his armor, but Matt Rhodes created several different ones which they then picked from. After, it was decided to give him a blue and black theme and add a visor, as a quick decision.
For Mass Effect 2, they felt that the important things to keep were the black and blue armor, and the visor. For his scars they wanted something heroic-like and did a reference on different burns; at the same time, they didn't want a lot of red in it. In part, this was to make sure he was still recognizable as Garrus. In 3, the blue and black remained but silver was added; the silver was to reflect his new rank.[7] They still wanted Garrus to look familiar, but gave him heavier armor 'to withstand the battles' in Mass Effect 3 and increased the detail to his armour and eyepiece.[8]
Garrus was voiced by Brandon Keener, who used his natural speaking voice but spoke slightly more formally; a reverb effect was then used on the voice. Voice direction was given by Ginny McSwain for individual lines. Although he does not remember exactly what happened when he started voicing Garrus, Keener believes he was given some background information, personality traits and character sketches before voicing the character.[3]
When designing the music for 2's 'Garrus level', David Kates had a fun time working with the character. Kates wanted to bring the sense of conflict he felt between his desire for healing and justice to the music, as well bring a 'human element' and a bit of emotion to Garrus, giving the impression he was motivated by more than just the battle. Kates compared his chord vocabulary for Garrus' level to Wendy Carlos' language in Tron.[4]
Garrus was not initially given a romance in the first game as the developers were unsure whether the alien characters would be emotionally compelling.[9] However, a romance was added in the second game due to popular demand, though the developers were still surprised at its popularity once the game was released.[10][11]
Appearances[edit]In video games[edit]Mass Effect[edit]
Garrus first appeared in the 2007 Mass Effect, as a squadmate. After the first mission, the player encounters his case against Saren being dropped by C-Sec officials, despite Garrus's objections.[12] Garrus decides to continue working on the case anyway, and can be found in the Med Clinic after speaking to Harkin. If the player goes to the Med Clinic, they will encounter Dr. Chloe Michel being threatened by thugs, who Garrus will shoot after Shepard distracts them.[13] If the player does not go to the Med Clinic but recruits Wrex, Garrus will appear later and ask to join the Normandy's crew; however, the player may refuse him, and thus go through the game without him. If the player does recruit him, Garrus can be found in the Normandy and be talked with after each main mission for new information about himself. If the player continues doing this, Garrus will eventually tell Shepard of Dr. Saleon, a salarian geneticist using his employees as test tubes to grow spare organs in who escaped from Garrus long ago; the player may then choose to hunt down Saleon and take him out.
Mass Effect 2[edit]
Garrus then returns in Mass Effect 2, regardless of whether he was recruited in the first game. After the player arrives at Omega and begins the mission to recruit Archangel, they discover he is currently under attack by all of the mercenary groups on the station and that they must rescue him. When they reach him, Archangel takes off his helmet and reveals himself to be Garrus. At the end of the mission, Garrus is shot by the gunship's mass accelerator cannons and receives scars; Garrus can then be found in the Normandy and talked to for information, as well as brought out for missions as a squad member. If the player continues to talk with Garrus, he will reveal he has new information on Sidonis â the turian who betrayed Garrus's original team fighting the mercs on Omega, leading to all of their deaths. The player can then choose to help Garrus find Sidonis and help him kill him, or, after seeing that Sidonis is now immensely regretful for his actions and depressed, convince Garrus to spare his life. Alternatively, the player can just not do the mission. After this mission is completed and if the player is playing a female Shepard, they may pursue a romance with the character.[11] During the last mission of the game, various members of the squad can end up killed, Garrus included; Garrus's likelihood of dying increases if the Sidonis mission is not done.
Mass Effect 3[edit]
Unless a save was imported from 2 where Garrus died, he will appear again as a squadmate in Mass Effect 3. After the events of 2, Garrus is revealed to have contacted his father and told him about the Reaper threat; his father proceeded to lobby for more defences to be made to prepare for them, which resulted Garrus being put in charge of a 'Reaper task force'. After the player begins the mission on the turian planet Palaven's moon to find Primarch Fedorian, they encounter Garrus advising the turians on how to defeat the attacking Reapers. Garrus joins the squad, and can from then on be found in the Normandy talking to other crew members and interacted with. Like the second game, a female Shepard may pursue a romance with him, but the romance requires an imported save where Garrus was romanced in 2.[14]
Mass Effect Andromeda[edit]
While Garrus does not physically appear in Mass Effect: Andromeda, he is referenced briefly in passing. Through a sidequest, the player can unlock Alec Ryder's encrypted memories and observe a conversation between Alec Ryder and Castis Vakarian. During the conversation, Castis references his son's adventures with Commander Shepard and expresses his concern that the Reapers may indeed be a real threat.
In other media[edit]Mass Effect: Homeworlds[edit]
Garrus is the focus of Mass Effect: Homeworlds' third issue, a comic series dedicated to starring a different Mass Effect 3 squadmate in each issue.[1][15]
Promotion and reception[edit]
As with many of the other squadmates, various merchandise has been made for Garrus. These include two action figures (one of which is designed as a 'collectible'),[16][17][18] a screenprint poster, a t-shirt, a character key, and a bust.[19] In addition, several fans have made their own items such as plushies and T-shirts; but these are all unofficial.[18][20][21][22] Keener agreed to record a voice mail message as part of a Mass Effect-themed silent auction for Child's Play.[23]
Garrus has received a good reception. Out of all the Mass Effect squadmates, he has been particularly highlighted with UGO's Sal Basile naming him the third best squadmate in 3 and IGN's Steven Hopper selecting him as his top teammate in the series.[24][25] Basile, in particular, noted that he made a good counterpart to Shepard. Additionally, Garrus was one of the most commonly selected characters for the squad, according to game statistics.[26] Total war world war 2. Garrus's personality shift between the first game and the second has been both praised and criticised. GamesRadar listed him as one of several characters that sequels vastly improved, comparing his first appearance as to a comic book character's humble origin story and noting him in his second appearance as a 'total unapologetic badass'.[27] Conversely, Jeremy Parish (from 1UP.com) criticised him as suffering the most from 2's over-'edginess', particularly as his darkening was detriment to the Paragon choice of nudging him towards rules in the first game.[28]
The potential romance to Garrus has also been of some interest. Writing for IGN, Emma Boynes listed the relationship between a female Shepard and him as one of the best in video gaming; and noted that while he seemed an odd choice at first, he 'grows on you'.[29] In a list of seven game characters who the staff '(seriously) fell in love with', Holland Cooper listed him as no. 1; Cooper cited his calm voice, loyalty to Shepard, and 'pure charisma'.[30]
Outside of Mass Effect, Garrus has been listed by GamesRadar ranked 15 out of 100 of their best video gaming heroes; GamesRadar also saying they preferred him to Shepard themself.[31] Cooper, again, listed him as their top badass in gaming for this generation.[32] Lorenzo Veloria, also from GamesRadar, called him one of his favourite RPG party members.[33] GamesRadar included him in a list of '11 video game characters that would take home Olympic gold', citing his shooting abilities.[34] Writing for The Observer, Tom Chatfield listed Garrus as one of his favourite 10 video game characters.[35]Game Informer's Kimberley Wallace considered him to be one of the best BioWare characters, saying 'Garrus has enough charisma to top all the rest of the Mass Effect cast.'[36]
References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Garrus_Vakarian&oldid=889635790'
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/MassEffectRaceTropesNonCitadelSpace
Go To
This page is for listing the tropes related to the Non-Citadel Space species in the Mass Effect universe, each with their own (often averted) tropes.
For the pages listing tropes related to specific characters in the trilogy, see the Mass Effect Character Index.
This page includes significant spoilers, and some are by their nature unmarked. Read at your own discretion.
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Krogan
Krogan
You ask a krogan if he'd rather find a cure for the genophage or fight for credits, he'll choose fighting â every time. It's just who we are.
Homeworld: Tuchanka
The krogan originated on the Death World of Tuchanka, which made them an extremely resilient â and violent â species. These traits have caused them to have a very troubled relationship with the other Council species; the physiology which makes them so difficult to kill (which includes, among other things, duplicate and even triplicate organs and redundant vital systems) made them crucial to ending the Rachni Wars, but once they were allowed to settle other planets, their population exploded and they began moving in aggressively on worlds already settled by other species, leading to the Krogan Rebellions and the introduction of the genophage. Most krogan encountered around the galaxy are hired thugs of one brand or another.
Krogan are available for multiplayer, and can use the Sentinel and Soldier classes. The Resurgence pack adds Battlemaster Vanguard, Retaliation adds Shaman Adepts, and Reckoning adds WarlordSentinels.
Quarians
It's always the same thing. 'Ooh, she could get sick.Ooh, she's vulnerable.I wonder what she looks like under the helmet.'
Homeworld: Rannoch
The quarians were a former associate-level member of the Citadel, until their AI servants, the geth, overthrew them when the quarians attempted to exterminate them following the realization they were gaining true sentience. With all their worlds taken from them, the quarians were left homeless, with the surviving population living aboard the traveling Migrant Fleet. Life on the flotilla has taken its toll on them; the sterile environment has caused their already-finicky immune systems to atrophy, rendering them almost entirely trapped within their environmental suits.
While technically the Migrant Fleet is not part of the Citadel, they still have to abide by Citadel laws while in Citadel space, which is why they stay out of Citadel territory if possible. Historically, the Citadel in general and the Council in particular have sided against the Migrant Fleet in legal matters, which has not improved relations much.
Quarians are available for multiplayer, and can use the Engineer and Infiltrator classes. The Rebellion Pack adds male quarians (with entirely different movesets) for the same classes, while Retaliation adds a (Male) Marksman Soldier.
Batarians
Homeworld: Khar'shan
A species whose formal political entity, the Batarian Hegemony, has separated from the Citadel Council due to perceived favoritism toward humanity during territorial disputes. Their society is caste-based (including slaves), and the Hegemony is also known to condone and support illicit terrorist activities against Citadel and other states, particularly the Alliance.
The Resurgence Pack makes batarian Sentinels and Soldiers available for multiplayer, Retaliation adds Slasher Adepts and Brawler Vanguards.
Vorcha
Homeworld: Heshtok
The vorcha are a short-lived (they're lucky to live to 20) species with the ability to adapt to any condition or climate at least once in their lives. Disorganized and frequently savage - vorcha who grow up in violent situations inevitably adapt to violence themselves - the stereotypical vorcha is a brute whose only skills are taking life. Most people consider them to be little more than talking vermin and they are usually only seen as cannon fodder for mercenary groups such as the Blood Pack.
The Rebellion Pack makes vorcha Sentinels and Soldiers available for multiplayer. Retaliation adds the Hunter Engineer.
Rachni
Homeworld: Suen
The rachni were an insectoid race who attempted to invade Council Space approximately 2,000 years before the start of the series. They were defeated only when the salarians recruited the krogan, who proceeded to hunt the rachni into extinction. In Mass Effect, Shepard discovers an attempt to bring the rachni out of extinction.
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Geth
Geth
As individual runtimes, we are no greater than your software. Only when we share data do we become more.
Homeworld: Rannoch
A race of synthetic constructs created by the quarians. Designed as Virtual Intelligences due to the threat of a Robot War, the quarians were not content to let well enough alone, and tinkered with the geth software enough to accidentally turn them into true AI. The quarians attempted to shut down their creations before they became sentient, due to both the Council's laws against AI experimentation and the concern that they'd be keeping living beings as slaves. The attempt failed, and the geth retaliated militarily, and eventually pushed the quarians off the homeworld of Rannoch, not to mention their colonies. Afterwards, the geth avoided contact with the rest of the galaxy, and killed anyone who entered their territory. In Mass Effect, the geth ally with the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius to attack Council Space. The geth political entity is known as the 'Geth Consensus' and is synonymous with their race's Hive Mind.
The Resurgence Pack DLC makes geth Engineers and Infiltrators available for multiplayer. Retaliation adds the TrooperSoldier, and the Reckoning Pack adds the JuggernautSoldier.
Yahg
Homeworld: Parnack
Hailing from Parnack, the yahg are known for their violent and aggressive nature. Consummate predators, the yahg possess unrivaled perceptiveness and mental adaptability. Discovered by the Citadel Council in 2125 CE, the yahg were unceremoniously barred from interaction with Citadel space after massacring the Council delegation.
As the yahg have yet to achieve interstellar spaceflight, Parnack goes unmolested during the Reaper invasion, and Admiral Hackett notes that they could end up running the next galactic cycle if everything else goes south. Given how dangerous they are now, the Reapers could seriously have their work cut out for them if the yahg had an additional fifty thousand years of advancement.
Collectors
Homeworld: The Collector Base
An enigmatic race from beyond the Omega-4 Relay, an unmapped relay from which no non-Collector vessel has ever returned. They've been around for centuries, yet only a few have ever seen them in person and many don't even believe they exist. They offer highly advanced technology in exchange for genetic samples from different species - and by 'samples', we mean living victims who are never heard from again.
In the aftermath of Sovereign's attack, they begin abducting entire human colonies for an unknown purpose.
They return as adversaries in Mass Effect 3 in the Retaliation Multiplayer DLC, and the Reckoning DLC adds the AwakenedCollectorAdept.
Protheans
Homeworld: Unknown
The Protheans were once the galaxy's dominant species. They are believed to have built the Mass Relays and the Citadel. However, they mysteriously vanished approximately 50,000 years before the series started.
Reapers
The Reapers
We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.
Homeworld: N/Anote
A race of machines who are believed to have hunted the Protheans to extinction. Shepard discovers that the Reapers are about to return and spends the trilogy trying to stop them.
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Leviathan
Leviathan
Homeworld: Unknown, currently 2181 Despoina
Mysterious creatures, one of which is apparently powerful enough to kill Reapers. They're eventually revealed to be the creators of the Catalyst, and by proxy the Reapers.
Raloi
Homeworld: Turvess
A relatively newcomer race on the galactic scene, who made first contact with the asari in 2184. During the Reaper invasion, they retreated to their homeworld, destroying their more advanced technology in the hopes that the Reapers would possibly spare them.
Virtual Aliens
Homeworld: Unknown
A race of one billion who, in order to escape from their dying sun, had downloaded their consciousnesses into cyberspace aboard a spaceship. They were in search of a new power source when they stumbled upon salarian space and entered negotiations.
Inusannon
Homeworld: Unknown
The precursors to the Protheans, from at least one cycle before them.
Background races
ArthennMass Effect Turian Insignias
Homeworld: Helyme (presumably)
A race that inhabited several worlds in the Zelene system until they disappeared 300,000 years ago. Archeological evidence showed they were likely as advanced as modern galactic species. Likely wiped out by the Reapers.
Bothros race
Homeworld: Unknown
A primate-like species that colonized the planet Bothros. Where they came from and how long they existed is unknown. Likely wiped out by the Reapers.
Densorin
Homeworld: Unknown
A race that existed during the time of the Protheans, the Densorin were known to have studied highly advanced celestial mechanics and morphological simulations of galactic language, to the extent their knowledge in these areas was beyond even the understanding of Protheans. In desperation or madness they sacrificed their own children to placate the Reapers. They were wiped out soon after.
Ditakur
Homeworld: Unkown
Turian Ship Names
A war loving race that existed during the Prothean cycle. They were presumably wiped out by the Reapers like the other races of the time.
Oravores
Homeworld: Unknown
A race that existed alongside the Protheans. Attacked the asari home-world of Thessia but were driven off by the Protheans. They also fought the Densorin. Presumably were wiped out by the Reapers.
Synril
Homeworld: Unknown
A race that lived at the same time as the Protheans. They did not survive to see the Reapers' arrival.
Thoi'han
Homeworld: Unknown
A race that existed 127,000 years ago. Went to war with the Inusannon over the planet Eingana.
Zeioph
Homeworld: Armeni (presumably)
An ancient space faring race. On the planet Armeni, near the equator, is located millions of elaborate crypts belonging to this long dead race. However efforts to excavate the site by archaeologists have proven difficulty due to Citadel Council law forbidding the disturbing of graves.
Mass Effect Turian Female
Zha'Til
Homeworld: Unknown.
A synthetic race that existed around the time of the Protheans. They were created when a race called the Zha resorted to using implants and symbiotic AIs to survive as their world became inhospitable. They eventually became a threat to the whole galaxy, forcing the Protheans to wipe them out.
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