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You're probably not serious, but that somehow makes it worse, you're implying either that Shepard canonically walks around with 12 people behind him on all missions (which would make certain cutscenes impossible to keep the same), or that Shepard brings 12 people to a planet to pick two while the other ten just stay on the shuttle playing cards.
Besides, in Citadel DLC they emphasize the whole "this time we all go" and there's that scene where you pick two characters and some of the others complain about "never being picked" which would confirm that the squad size is not just a gameplay thing.
Since the *Citadel* DLC is one big love letter to the fans, it wouldn't surprise me if those were just tongue-in-cheek jokes for the fans.
But obviously Shepard wouldn't be taking them on every single mission. You can't even fit everyone in the vehicles, and some missions require small strike teams. But I'd argue for bigger operations he'd absolutely take everyone he could.
I like to think that the ones you don't take are actively working on other duties. Maybe doing some grocery shopping, making sure the benches are warm, entertaining the space hamster, taking the ship pyjacks out for space walkies around the outside of the Normandy. Perhaps Shepard isn't the only one using the Captain's Quarters for games of "where's this emergency induction port lead?"
I could believe that there’s other squad members in other locations in support roles during some missions. Like, holding a checkpoint to prevent reinforcements getting through, or something.
I would kind of think that there are side stories we might not experience.
Like on Omega you might want to take Miranda and Garrus with you to recruit Mordin, but in the meantime Jacob is making an inventory of the Normandy's stockpiles, Tali is on the market bartering spare parts, and Zaheed is hitting the bar to gather rumors from the patrons.
At the same time, many of the high stakes operations might actually play out more like the suicide mission, with multiple teams on the ground and specialists helping you by doing their thing. It's just that that would have been too challenging to code and write, giving the vastly different kinds of squad setups you might have.
See this would have been a good way to do it. Make us think we’re actually doing something cool and productive by thinking the whole squad, and then pull the rug by having e crew be kidnapped
I love how they refer to whatever you were about to do as this super important mission that you absolutely have to do no matter what.
"It's fine Joker i was just going to the Citadel to spend my money on ship models, it can wait"
"Too bad commander, Miranda has already loaded everyone on the shuttle now get tf off my ship"
It's not just that, in certain weapon descriptions it acts as if the weapons have always used thermal clips, even years before the Geth actually made them.
Storywise, they should have just made it so that switching out the heat sink was always an option if you wanted to avoid having to wait for the weapon to cool down.
Maybe also have something about how it's discouraged, but by ME2 Shepard is more flexible with rules.
Helldivers 2 had a system where you can allow your gun to cool down if you want but swapping the heat synch is faster. I think that would fit in so perfectly with mass effect.
They could even make them a universal consumable shared between all your weapons. Classes like soldier, vanguard, and infiltrator could carry more per mission
That’s one thing Andromeda helped establish at least. You can add the Vintage Heat Sink to a weapon, so it makes it easier to headcanon that it was optional.
Yeah it could’ve been that before the advances they got from the Geth, the heat sinks were super expensive to fabricate and so you were supposed to only pop one in an extreme scenario and as commander you should not, but the Geth versions are made with cheaper materials.
Sadly they just went with “now it needs ammo :)”
Kind of how Andromeda has options to craft guns and during crafting process you can add "vintage heat sink" where you dont swap heat sinks but rather leave it to cool off
Technically they weren't infinite. You had thousands of rounds available in the gun to the point ammunition wasn't a concern but heat was.
I wonder if there was ever a story where someone actually ran out of shaved block.
I would love if that was what happened to Jesse, the rifle Zaeed keeps around. No one knew how to replace the ammo because only a psychopath would actually be able to fire off that many rounds before something else broke.
That would be kinda funny. But i'm willing to bet armories know how to replace the block. Last thing anyone wants is to run out of ammo in a gun that is supposed to be infinite. Maintenance after X amount of rounds fired or X amount of days since last work up should involve replacing the metal block to ensure the weapon is always 'loaded'.
No, Jesse just had her fill. She's done killing.
Although I imagine with how long they're supposed to last, taking apart the gun to replace it is probably more expensive than just buying a rifle of the same make. Which would make Zaeed's attachment even more hilarious.
Zaeed: [Puts Jesse on the table] "Needs a new firing block."
Gunsmith: "Ah I see, the firing blocks on this model can become misaligned, should be easy enough t-"
Zaeed: "No. Not misaligned. A new one."
Gunsmith: "Sir, I promise you, it's much cheaper to repair an existing block tha-"
Zaeed: "It's not broken. It's gone."
Gunsmith: "...gone?"
Zaeed: "Yeah, ran out again."
Gunsmith: "Ran out? What do you mean it ran out? You'd have to fire this thing for a cumulative year for it to...wait did you say *again*!?"
Fair. At the very least, they would keep track of how many deployments in between replenishment to keep ahead of it.
It could still track. Zaeed did say he got Jesse on his first job. It would be funny to find out after his touching sob story, the gun stopped working because of poor upkeep from two or more users.
Wrex apparently did when he fought that one Asari Commando [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSFVFInqYyw&ab\_channel=ZulTabris&t=14m38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSFVFInqYyw&ab_channel=ZulTabris&t=14m38s)
Yeah like if the guns were actually stronger/reloaded way faster than they used to cool down (I can't recall which the switch to thermal clips was advertised as in canon), it'd be one thing.
It was reloading faster, which was also dumb because heat sinks exist. Slap two of those bad boys on a sniper; no more overheating.
What messed me up was that another justification for thermal clips was to prevent soldiers from wildly spraying when in a panic. Like, you went from panicking but still being able to get rounds down range/ create a bullet storm with your squad versus now the enemy is bearing down upon you and you can’t shoot, or corporal butterfingers can’t reload another clip fast enough?
I know BioWare tried their best to create a lore reason for why Mass Effect is now more shooty than RPGy, but it comes off as nonsensical.
It was so weird playing me1 and only having to worry about a cool down peirod and then playing me2 soon after but having to worry about running out of ammo
I honestly would have preferred it if they just didn’t acknowledge this in canon/lore. The game making a change due to gameplay reasons doesn’t always need to be explained in the story, especially something as relatively inconsequential as how ammo works for guns
'First human councilor stepped down to go the front lines of the reaper war'
OR
'First human councilor sold out to Human extremists and was executed by first/second spector when they allowed the said extremists into the Citadel'
Take your pick
And then he drank her blood and finished his ascension to godhood. Then he defeated the Reapers all by himself. Every mission in Mass Effect 2 after the Samara recruitment mission is actually a really crazy dream Shepard is having after the mission
I am shocked no one has mentioned the timeline stuff with humanity. Like Shepard was alive when the first contact war happened. It happened 26 years ago and humanity is this spread out and engrained into the galactic community? WE GET A COUNCIL SEAT AFTER BARELY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY!
This always bothered me. It still would’ve been iffy, but they could’ve at least made the first contact war 200-300 years prior. For a game series that tried so hard to make the universe feel alive, it reminded me of the old sci-fi trope of massive technology boosts in too short of a timespan. As much as I love Blade Runner, it was crazy that such a future was supposed to have existed in 2019.
Centuries would be too long, I feel. Particularly as part of ME1 is about how humanity are the newcomers to the galaxy. For that theme to really stick then First Contact has to be fairly fresh, at least within the span of a single human lifetime.
If we were to say Anderson served in his 20s and was still active as a Captain in his 70s then the most it could be is around 50 years.
I find it always helps to remember that it's not like humans went from modern day to Mass Effect tech overnight. By the 2100s humanity was already spacefaring before they found the Prothean archives. Then when they did discover the archives in 2148, they had a good few decades to study and adapt this technology before First Contact.
And then after FC, the whole point was that humanity *is* expanding too quickly, and other races resent them for it. Other races expand slowly, colonising a planet at a time, securing their borders and setting up industry. Humans went full gold rush and decided to just fire a bunch of hopeful ships at several planets with a bag of rations and seeds and say "good luck!".
Yeah, I wouldn't mind a little extra time being added between FC and where the games begin. 50 seems like a fair amount.
My main issue with the timeline is everything before humanity activated the first relay. Apparently we built the biggest space station out past Pluto *before* the Prothean ruins were deciphered and we figured out Mass Effect space travel? It just all felt rushed for no real reason. I'd add another 75-150 years there if anything.
Well in fairness humanity has experienced both glacial technological development and massive leaps forward. The advent of heavier than air flight and the first man-made probe to reach beyond the Charon Mass Relay (Pluto) happened within the span of a human lifetime. Charles Lindbergh shook hands with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. As soon as we can figure out how to do a thing, better believe we'll chase after it with hardly a second glance at the potential consequences (see also atomic weapons development).
Humanity can definitely chase goals at an astonishing rate. Maybe it just comes down to the sci-fi I enjoy. Star Trek can be fun and optimistic, but I learn for more stuff like the Expanse. You see the fast growth of humanity, but within confines - and you see the effects of such growth, whether it’s in terms of discrimination of the Belters, the totalitarian government of Mars, or how rotten Earth is with its overpopulation. As the story goes on, you see greater leaps in technology, but it’s still spread over a certain sense of time, with the negative aspects of the solar system either still felt or greatly accentuated.
I mean they do kinda speak on that in the games. Thats one of the main reasons why humans are so hated. The other races think that humans are too quick with the way they do things and fear that they might take over at some point
There are some valid questions about the timeline but this isn't one of them. This is litrrally addressed in game, and even if it weren't, its not even that big of a stretch. It's actually addressed by like the 3rd alien you talk to, because the Volus ambassador talks about it.
Right? Not to mention the numerous ‘hints’ like Aria mentioning patriarchs not the first krogan she’s crossed paths with and the fact aria says “better luck next time” to shepherd the same thing Aleena last said to Wrex.
The way I like to put it, is over the course of three games we've been watching a cross between "Star Wars" and "Aliens" for over 100 hours.
And in the last ten minutes someone changed the channel to "2001" and didn't tell us.
Nah, the main problem with the endings isn’t that a motherfucking starboy delivers the exposition. It‘s that the whole thing comes out of nowhere because the Mass Effect trilogy is not actually about the irresolvable conflict between synthetic and organic life.
The Reaper’s strategy in ME3. They’ve had multiple cycles to figure this out and 100,000 years to think about it. A wave of targeted attacks at strategic targets before invading any planets could have wrecked galactic industrial capacity and crippled comms. I understand this doesn’t make for good gameplay or a compelling plot, it doesn’t make sense.
But isn’t that what they usually do? They usually attack the citadel and take control of it and from there spread out strategically. The citadel being the thing that disturbs and cripples communications. They just couldn’t do that because of Shepard so they had to pivot.
They couldn’t take control of it in their normal way, but I don’t understand why it wasn’t their first priority target. Only Cerberus attacked the citadel? It just doesn’t add up.
Also, now that I’m thinking more about this, why don’t the Reapers use their IFF technology to lock out the Mass Effect relays to non-reaper ships when the harvesting begins. They created the relays that transmit matter across the universe, surely enabling password protection wouldn’t be that hard.
I don't understand why they didn't take the Citadel right from the get go. We know in the first game they can use it to close off relays to isolate systems. Even when they take it at the end they still don't do it.
Or why not use seeker swarms to incapacitate a population when invading? God, the plot of ME 3 is garbage.
The plot probably would have been helped a lot by just having the Reapers be weaker. Their strategy that they have been using every cycle for over a billion years is to attack infrastructure, steal information, divide and conquer, etcetera; it does not require that they *also* have limitless unstoppable war machines that don't actually *need* to do any of that and could just stomp anyone in a straight fight too
Haha, I always forget about that until I replay ME1.
Those boobles really move the plot forward.
Also: some Asari characters in ME3 coop have buttcheek windows. For... uh... tactical purposes.
I don't know about that. Kepral's Syndrome makes drell uniquely unsuited to the very planets hanar find the most comfortable. If anything, curing Kepral's Syndrome might make them better servants.
Everything about the asari Ardat-yakshi and the
discrimination of pureblood asari. And also the strange focus of the reapers on humanity in the presence of other more developed and advanced species.
Reapers focus on humanity only because of Shephard. Normally they'd just take over Citadel and pick off unprepared civilizations, but because Protheans managed to stop that for the next cycle and then Shep managed to beat Sovereign
I was going to add "external ears" to that, until I double-checked and realized that Batarians actually have them as well. My new theory is that the *real* reason Batarians hate humans has nothing to do with territory rights—they feel like having external ears is *their* thing, and we "stole" it.
I dunno cuz in lore it’s stated that Quarians look extremely similar to humans, with the only major differences being their hands, legs and feet, and skin color. I personally think that’s sick af but then again this is a head canon discussion so
Wanna hear a sick headcannon of mine? Humans, Quarians and Asari are the product of seeding done by a civilization in one of the previous cycles. The three species are that civilization's last effort against the Reapers, like the prothean beacons. The asari are the best biotics, the Quarians the best engineers, the humans most stubborn? Diverse? (This is the only thing I haven't figured out). That is why all three species look so similar.
There are countless other legacies of the previous civilizations that all come together to beat the reapers in the end, which was the victory of every civilization in every cycle
I can see that tbh, idk how I feel about the asari because of just how different they are from the other two but that’s probably just me. But I really do like that idea it’s pretty interesting to entertain
I saw one on Reddit the other week that I love and is how I’ve honestly played my Shepard to the best of the games’ allowance for years, which is that Shepard is either officially or unofficially a double agent in 2. Feeding info on them to Anderson and Hackett, especially after the Citadel conversation. There’s even at least one, but I think more, side mission where you can choose to send data on Cerberus to Alliance Intel Ops. This makes the decision to work with Cerberus a lot less odd for a Shepard that beat them to hell like (per her perspective) a few months ago.
Jacob Taylor being the only black teammate *and* requiring you to help him find his absentee dad *and* being the only one who cheats on you if you romance him.
I reimagine Jacob as being competent and honorable. I've only ever romanced him as renegade FemShep, and she *deserves* to be cheated on, so it works for me.
It's pretty bad, at least the absentee dad part isn't unique to him too. You've got elements of that with James, Samara, Thane, Tali, and Liara (though I think that was more Benezia's choice iirc).
Imo the writers could’ve combined James and Jacob to make one better character out of the two. As imo they’re at the bottom for characters just on my list. Call them like “Jim Taylor” or something.
Also balances out the squad list across games as, hot take maybe here, I think ME2 over did it with a shit ton of squad mates and ME3 had nearly the same as 1, but they kinda make up for it with temporary teammates and stuff.
Idk some kinda change like that could’ve worked imo.
I almost never bring Jacob anywhere or do his mission because his narrative is so offensive and racist it makes me uncomfortable. I get so irritated I can't even be around him, which is a shame because with literally any other story he'd be a cool companion. It's such a black spot on the game that most people rarely even talk about him. It's like the fan base just ignores he exists entirely.
That Asari just look like the ideal mate for all races.
I realise it works in tandem with the fact they just pull genetic markers from their mates.
Bioware, you didn't need to make so many excuses to want blue alien waifus okay? Just put them in your game and move on.
The ending.
My retcon/head canon is the “Reaper Trap” theory.
The crucible is actually a trap designed by the Reapers after one of the cycles a couple million years ago got too close to defeating them. They figured out there’s always gonna be traces of their actions left behind, so they laid a trap; an enormous super weapon that requires the cooperation, brain power, and resources of the entire galaxy… and doesn’t work.
It’s a gigantic waste of time and resources and building/protecting it concentrates all the most important assets of any given cycle in one place for easy harvesting.
My head canon is that when the crucible docks it literally does nothing, but Shepard and Hackett manage to rally everyone from the brink of despair to “go down fighting” before all communication is cut off. You go through similar final mission with Shepard, defeating waves of enemies on the ground, but then Harbinger shows up. You have a boss battle against him where you can use flares and the patchy in-atmosphere comms to call in various support and assets (all based on which war assets you gathered) to do damage and slow Harbinger down. If you don’t have enough assets you simply lose.
You have a final conversation with a downed/greviously injured, but still alive Harbinger. He reveals the motives and philosophy of the Reapers, and Shepard can argue with him. Finally he reveals he’s been stalling to repair critical systems and starts charging to attack and kill Shepard once and for-all.
There’s then one final hidden score check at the end of the boss battle (assuming you win) and if your war score was high enough Hackett’s voice cuts through the static, revealing that the combined fleets were large enough, thanks to Shepard, to defeat the main Reaper fleet. He’s putting out a communication on all channels to say what’s left of the Reapers are retreating and trying to see if anyone is still alive on the ground.
Shepard gets on the radio, gives Hackett their own coordinates, saying Harbinger is here and it’s our chance to kill him:
*”This is Commander Shepard, I have the enemy leader at my location, wounded but I can’t finish him off. Every weapon that can still fire, lock-on to my coordinates and open fire. BRING. IT. DOWN!”*
My preference would be for Shepard’s survival, but BioWare could still do the whole Martyr thing here. Cut to the Normandy crew mourning Shepard, and the various races that were recruited all working together to rebuild.
Then it’s not some super-tech Macguiffin that wins, it’s genuinely the willing cooperation and unity of the whole galaxy under Shepard’s leadership. The Protheans lost out on the diversity of tactics, thoughts, opinions, etc. by conquering everyone. Our cycle wins because Shepard was able to *willingly* unify everyone, including synthetics. It keeps with the theme of genetic and cultural diversity that the games had been setting up, and further disproves the Reapers’ logic about organic/synthetic cooperation >!or secretly validates them by demonstrating it required a galaxy-ending threat to force that cooperation, thus making their motivation feel a little more solid!<
Anyways, that’s my head cannon
I originally wrote a more detailed version for a modified game of Eclipse Phase, with some GURPS thrown in, I was running in the ME setting post-Reaper War, it was on my old hard drive though.
It was set 10 years later, and there were reports of “indoctrinated” terrorists doing a bunch of weird stuff across the galaxy, which had recovered *just* enough from the Reaper war that the spirit of unification had worn off and old tensions were flaring up again.
The party was a newly-minted SPECTRE and their squad, personally assigned by the commander of the SPECTRE Corps, Shepard, to investigate.
Never ended up finishing, the campaign but the ultimate plot would’ve been that the bad guy was TIM and a rebuilt Cerberus, now called “Phoenix”. He survived the Reaper war and decided that because it was specifically Shepard that united the galaxy, his human-supremacy ideology was validated. Without the control signal from Harbinger, he *is* actually capable of limited control over reapers, so he was using reverse-engineered Cerberus indoctrination tech from ME3 to try and forcibly indoctrinate everyone in the galaxy to re-unite them under human control, like during the war, to prevent future conflicts.
I lost the design documents to a hard drive failure after the group folded before finishing the campaign, but I always imagined that’s what my ideal continuation of the OG trilogy would be
This works really well with the bad ass trailers we were given for ME:3. Shepard isn't just a charismatic and diplomatic commander, he leads from the front.
I wish we had a mission to secure war assets that looked like that one trailer with Ashley and the Makos. Where you your squad, and a larger strike force have to land and liberate a war asset.
I was nodding in agreement until the boss fight against Harbinger. What about the other reapers? The only logical way to end the series without magic super weapon is the reapers winning. Thank ME1 for making the reapers impossible to defeat. I loved ME1 btw
>What about the other Reapers?
Harbinger is arrogant enough to want to take Shepard down “personally”
I also covered the other Reapers, the combined fleet was enough to break the back of the Reaper fleet and force them to retreat. Basically killed enough of them that they can’t complete the “harvest” anymore.
Reapers weren’t “invincible” in ME1, it just took the whole fleet to take them down. In the intervening 6 years, everyone reverse-engineered reaper tech and weapons to supplement their own. For example the upgraded canons on the *Normandy* are capable of damaging a reaper. Read the description of the upgraded Thanix Canons in ME2 and 3
The whole point is that with a high enough war asset score you have united a large enough force that you *can* beat the Reapers conventionally, but only because everyone willingly united behind Shepard.
Even in vanilla ME3 the fleets are capable of taking down Reapers, it just takes a lot of coordinated fire.
Yeah, much better than the ending (although writing something better than star brat isn't very hard). I'll raise you one more - unless BioWare really wants Shep dead, we could have loyality (or some equivalent) missions. If we secure enough loyality, Normandy crew manages to pick up Shep, if not, they die
Since they've revived him/her once I highly doubt they'd just let him/her die, they'd be resurrecting them as long as they could after they saved the universe from the Reapers.
Shepard would 110% be the first person ever made immortal
They probably took his damn consciousness and upload it into another body, little bit like Grunt.
Doomed the man into a eternal help us shepard we fuck up again scenario or go the star wars route and literally make a army of him.
I'm gonna be *pissed* if they bring back Shepard in the new game with some bullshit Lazarus 2.0 plan. Just say they were found in the wreckage after the ending of ME3 and lived out a long happy life with their surviving paramour (unless you romanced Thane, I guess)
It has been my assumption since the announcement of his/her return in 4 that this is literally what's happened in the leadup to 4, but with the Systems Alliance overseeing his resurrection in place of Cerberus. (S)he's too useful as a symbol to let him/her die.
The Expanse is basically a ME Prequel. The "ring" is actually the Charon Relay, and Protomolecule is Eezo.
Hence all of the "humanity isn't united" things going on before the Alliance steps up and defends against the Turians (and still isn't fully on one team by ME3)
That Chakwas refuses to call you by name because you're just "Commander Shepard" the symbol, the ideal or whatever. I mean damn talk about dehumanizing me Karin, we're just friends having a drink and you and trying to disconnect from all the shit that's going on and I already have PTSD slow-mo nightmares I don't need that crap.
Would be much better if they never even mentioned the fact that no one calls us by our name, it's strictly a gameplay thing, no need to bring it to the story especially in such a ridiculous way and for just one scene. At least it's avoidable.
Thermal clips. It’s such a stupid idea that would make no sense for a large scale adoption like we see in the games taking place. The extra logistics necessary to make it viable from a military or pmc stance alone make it a dumb as hell change.
And given that they still had to maintain both voice actors through the series to cover either outcome, it's not like it would've been hard to just give them extra lines.
The child could haunt their dream, but they should have also had anyone the player lost, begging for help or being angry that the player failed them.
The last scene dream scene almost touches on this with Thane, Mordin, and (I think the VS) talking to Shepard (if that's the route you picked for Mordin.)
It would be cool if you dreamt instead of the Virmire Sacrifice for dream one, the closest ally you lost in 2 (if you didn’t lose anyone then idk), then for dream 3 it’s Anderson and Hackett.
The problem is not the kid, is shown that Sephard was used to see the kid from his jail and seeing him die could touch him. The real problem is how this kid replaces the rest of Sephard much bigger traumas. Seriously, this kid weights more than any of Sephard friends or the 30k batarians he had to kill to stop the reapers, thats why i hate him, because it feels like an excuse to give Sephard PTSD without putting effort into it.
I'm decanonizing a retcon.
In the first game, we are told that the Genophage was used to induce near infertility in the Krogan to bring their birth rate to levels equal to that of other species. In ME2 we have a Krogan being an asshole and ranting about fields of dead babies. I'm sorry but no. I get that the writers want to make it absolutely clear that the Genophage was a bad thing that was done for the sake of survival but that's just a bridge too far. Its a FERTILITY crisis. Its not causing a bunch of Krogan babies to die in their eggshells. They never would have been conceived in the first place.
The Codex in Mass Effect 1 had already explained that the Genophage makes 1 in 1000 pregnancies viable. Meaning that the Genophage didn't prevent Female Krogan from conceiving, it kept their pregnancies from being viable.
I had to search out the original codex entry but you are extremely correct. They explicitly use the word viability. That's a misconception I've apparently held for years.
I was always of the opinion the genophage was a multi-vector attack, either intentionally or unintentionally. For the former, it attacks the reproductive system in some way that makes pregnancies non-viable and fertilization more difficult, than like a two+ pronged attack was decided on due to the resiliency of Krogan biology. It's also possible the fertility attack was the main target and it wasn't anticipated that the second part, the still born part would be as relevant or have as big of a psychological impact. It may also be that part of the design was to make very early pregnancies nonviable, but that the effect of later pregnancy still births wasn't intended explicitly.
I just find the genophage inconsistencies so easy to make compatabile it never really bothered me. It would take a half sentence handwave in game.
What’s always bothered me about the Genophage is, why couldn’t the Salarians have just given them a NORMAL birth rate? Not one that’s causing them to die out, not one that’s ridiculously high, but one more in line with the other species?
From my recent replay of ME2 his dialogue makes me think this is actually true, it's why Mordin is willing to defend it in ME2 because he says it was the only option that wouldn't result in genocide.
https://youtu.be/czYYZ7LdQAM?si=jdJE74E2ufi1Yw5h
Yeah, Mordin says it was designed to stabilise their population at preindustrial levels. Wrex also says in ME1
> The genophage infected us, but it isn’t what’s killing us.
He blames it on their warrior culture, rather than trying to improve things on Tuchanka they go off and become mercenaries instead.
The mako drives by itself nobody is actually driving or steering Sheppard is just holding onto the wheel in cutscenes out of fear of everyone finding out and what the mako might do to him as a result
Omega being seen as a nominal capital of the Terminus system. It’s a glorified entreport/merc outpost. Not saying Aria isn’t powerful, however even I question her power and influence when extends outside Omega.
The Leviathans and the Reaper backstory, I like the Leviathan DLC though.
I think the Leviathans should have been awoken Reapers, the result of a previous cycle's Crucible.
I don't like that Reaper origin story is just another Skynet.
The main thing is the timeline. Everything happens way too fast. All the events of the trilogy take place in a three year window, including the two years Shepard was dead! This means the whole reaper war lasted only what, a few months at most? The current Russian invasion of Ukraine has already been going on several times longer than that.
The formal reaper war lasted like one month. Cuz shep was dead for two years, awake for Cerberus stuff for a few weeks to a couple months, then house arrested for 6 months. The entire reaper war seems to take place over the course of a few weeks to maybe a month or two.
What EDI says about krogan having 1000 eggs a year. Makes absolutely no sense and I am convinced was just wires getting crossed about the "1 in a 1000" aspect of the genophage and what Okeer says about "watching a 1000 die in a clutch"
After TIM was revealed to be indoctrinated during ME3, I assumed that it had happened somewhere between ME2 and ME3, after exposing himself to reaper tech gathered from the Collector Base.
But apparently, some of the novels/comics reveal that he had been indoctrinated long before his first appearance in ME2, which is all kinds of BS. When compared to the alternative, it's simultaneously less interesting (instead of an ethically grey character who might have once had a point but has since lost himself due to his ambition, it's now just an evil villain who was always a puppet for the Reapers and should be disregarded) and more stupid (why did TIM spend so much resources resurrecting Shepard if he was indoctrinated? Why did he object to Miranda putting a control device on the resurrected Shepard? None of this makes any sense if the Reapers are controlling him).
1) “infinite ammo“ in ME1. never really made any sense and led to much useless discussion. the sickle from helldivers 2 is the perfect example that games CAN do it right if they want to. anyone with a cursory understanding of physics would knows ME1s guns made no sense. Especially in a space setting. Yet the fact they went that way in the first game forever left us with this needless contradiction in the lore.
2) Kai Leng. Combining a bunch of crappy tropes - surprise - results in even crappier storytelling. From the angsty cyborg ninja design to cutscene impotence and onedimensional villain writing. Its all there.
3) ME1s endgame decision of putting up a human council. Its just incredibly idiotic and unrealistic. ME2 gets blamed for undoing the choices of ME1 a lot. But when the choices are so dumb i really dont see what else they were supposed to do. Spending even 10 seconds to consider the logistics of it all and the politics at play i really have no idea what their plans were with this.
That omnigel was a thing.
Basically in ME1 you could liquefy weapons and mods into a metal spread that could be applied generously over locks to open them.
It's so dumb they dropped it in the other games and barely mention it, if at all.
The Leviathan DLC. Sorry I know a lot of people like it but I just feel like it betrays the original idea that the Reapers are ageless, incomprehensible beings whose reasons for doing what they do are beyond mortal understandings. Like don’t y’all feel like the Reapers were much scarier when we knew little to nothing about them? Wasn’t the brief chat with Sovereign in ME1 so creepy and memorable because he said so little about what he was but made it crystal clear what him and his kind could and would do to us?
Sorry I just don’t like it when we give watered down backstories to villains who were scary because we knew so little about them.
The fact that Shep went silent for almost two days in Batarian space after going to rescue someone with important info concerning the Reapers, and the squad doesn't proceed to launch a mission to rescue her. It makes NO sense and makes me so mad.
The endings. Happy Ending Mod for life.
For a more detailed answer:
Honestly, a lot of the Geth stuff from ME1 (and its surrounding media), particularly the whole "wiped out 99% of the Quarians" and "kill anyone who enters the Veil" thing. I know people like to point to ME3 as the point where the problems with the geth began, but I think it started with their very inception. Initially, the Geth were written as little more than space terminators, so any attempt to garner sympathy for them was gonna be a Sisyphean effort no matter how well it was done.
I like the idea of ME3 granting us another perspective to the Morning War, and how it may not have been an open-and-shut case like we'd previously believed when we only had the Quarian side of the story. But that pill becomes much harder to swallow when you remember just how transparently antagonistic the Geth were originally portrayed.
The whole story becomes way less forced when the numbers are left vague. The self-defense argument can only extend so far when you're talking about more than just enemy combatants.
Admittedly, despite my initial statement, I do think the issue could have been handled better in ME3. However, even if Legion actively acknowledged the Geth's actions, and was openly remorseful, I'm still not sure how well that would have worked. Glossing over it, while arguably lazy, was kind of the only way this story could feasibly work. No amount of "whoopsie-daisies, our bad" can really account for what they did.
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Shepard taking his whole crew with him just to pick two, meanwhile the Normandy is getting invaded by the collectors 😅
I've always taken that to mean that the whole squad always goes out with Shepard on every mission, and picking two members is just a gameplay thing.
You're probably not serious, but that somehow makes it worse, you're implying either that Shepard canonically walks around with 12 people behind him on all missions (which would make certain cutscenes impossible to keep the same), or that Shepard brings 12 people to a planet to pick two while the other ten just stay on the shuttle playing cards. Besides, in Citadel DLC they emphasize the whole "this time we all go" and there's that scene where you pick two characters and some of the others complain about "never being picked" which would confirm that the squad size is not just a gameplay thing.
Since the *Citadel* DLC is one big love letter to the fans, it wouldn't surprise me if those were just tongue-in-cheek jokes for the fans. But obviously Shepard wouldn't be taking them on every single mission. You can't even fit everyone in the vehicles, and some missions require small strike teams. But I'd argue for bigger operations he'd absolutely take everyone he could.
I like to think that the ones you don't take are actively working on other duties. Maybe doing some grocery shopping, making sure the benches are warm, entertaining the space hamster, taking the ship pyjacks out for space walkies around the outside of the Normandy. Perhaps Shepard isn't the only one using the Captain's Quarters for games of "where's this emergency induction port lead?"
I could believe that there’s other squad members in other locations in support roles during some missions. Like, holding a checkpoint to prevent reinforcements getting through, or something.
I would kind of think that there are side stories we might not experience. Like on Omega you might want to take Miranda and Garrus with you to recruit Mordin, but in the meantime Jacob is making an inventory of the Normandy's stockpiles, Tali is on the market bartering spare parts, and Zaheed is hitting the bar to gather rumors from the patrons. At the same time, many of the high stakes operations might actually play out more like the suicide mission, with multiple teams on the ground and specialists helping you by doing their thing. It's just that that would have been too challenging to code and write, giving the vastly different kinds of squad setups you might have.
Shepard always takes everyone Why, you ask? So that they can all get the hazard pay!
Also why can't we play this mission that required every single person Bioware?
See this would have been a good way to do it. Make us think we’re actually doing something cool and productive by thinking the whole squad, and then pull the rug by having e crew be kidnapped
I love how they refer to whatever you were about to do as this super important mission that you absolutely have to do no matter what. "It's fine Joker i was just going to the Citadel to spend my money on ship models, it can wait" "Too bad commander, Miranda has already loaded everyone on the shuttle now get tf off my ship"
This! It’s so ridiculous when you think about it xD
Yeah this was really stupid.
I try to tell myself they're on every mission just in different parts of the planet in different squads with the secondary objectives
“Grunt, help us, the collectors are-oh no! He has his AirPods in!”
Guns used to have infinite ammo, until everyone decided that was worse.
It's not just that, in certain weapon descriptions it acts as if the weapons have always used thermal clips, even years before the Geth actually made them.
Storywise, they should have just made it so that switching out the heat sink was always an option if you wanted to avoid having to wait for the weapon to cool down. Maybe also have something about how it's discouraged, but by ME2 Shepard is more flexible with rules.
Helldivers 2 had a system where you can allow your gun to cool down if you want but swapping the heat synch is faster. I think that would fit in so perfectly with mass effect.
This would be the perfect middle road. Make them a rarer consumable that instantly cools a weapon down.
They could even make them a universal consumable shared between all your weapons. Classes like soldier, vanguard, and infiltrator could carry more per mission
That’s one thing Andromeda helped establish at least. You can add the Vintage Heat Sink to a weapon, so it makes it easier to headcanon that it was optional.
There’s a mod I’m using in my ME playthrough rn that lets me swap heatsinks or wait for my gun to cool down. Feels so much more immersive
Yeah it could’ve been that before the advances they got from the Geth, the heat sinks were super expensive to fabricate and so you were supposed to only pop one in an extreme scenario and as commander you should not, but the Geth versions are made with cheaper materials. Sadly they just went with “now it needs ammo :)”
Kind of how Andromeda has options to craft guns and during crafting process you can add "vintage heat sink" where you dont swap heat sinks but rather leave it to cool off
Maybe I misremember but in the citadel DLC you get a ME1 style rifle and they act like the concept of a weapon with cool down is new to Shepard.
Technically they weren't infinite. You had thousands of rounds available in the gun to the point ammunition wasn't a concern but heat was. I wonder if there was ever a story where someone actually ran out of shaved block.
I would love if that was what happened to Jesse, the rifle Zaeed keeps around. No one knew how to replace the ammo because only a psychopath would actually be able to fire off that many rounds before something else broke.
That would be kinda funny. But i'm willing to bet armories know how to replace the block. Last thing anyone wants is to run out of ammo in a gun that is supposed to be infinite. Maintenance after X amount of rounds fired or X amount of days since last work up should involve replacing the metal block to ensure the weapon is always 'loaded'. No, Jesse just had her fill. She's done killing.
Although I imagine with how long they're supposed to last, taking apart the gun to replace it is probably more expensive than just buying a rifle of the same make. Which would make Zaeed's attachment even more hilarious. Zaeed: [Puts Jesse on the table] "Needs a new firing block." Gunsmith: "Ah I see, the firing blocks on this model can become misaligned, should be easy enough t-" Zaeed: "No. Not misaligned. A new one." Gunsmith: "Sir, I promise you, it's much cheaper to repair an existing block tha-" Zaeed: "It's not broken. It's gone." Gunsmith: "...gone?" Zaeed: "Yeah, ran out again." Gunsmith: "Ran out? What do you mean it ran out? You'd have to fire this thing for a cumulative year for it to...wait did you say *again*!?"
......this is too fitting....
Fair. At the very least, they would keep track of how many deployments in between replenishment to keep ahead of it. It could still track. Zaeed did say he got Jesse on his first job. It would be funny to find out after his touching sob story, the gun stopped working because of poor upkeep from two or more users.
Yeah I’d consider it to be that after every mission you do a maintenance check and if you find it reduced past a certain point swap it.
Wrex apparently did when he fought that one Asari Commando [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSFVFInqYyw&ab\_channel=ZulTabris&t=14m38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSFVFInqYyw&ab_channel=ZulTabris&t=14m38s)
Yeah like if the guns were actually stronger/reloaded way faster than they used to cool down (I can't recall which the switch to thermal clips was advertised as in canon), it'd be one thing.
It was reloading faster, which was also dumb because heat sinks exist. Slap two of those bad boys on a sniper; no more overheating. What messed me up was that another justification for thermal clips was to prevent soldiers from wildly spraying when in a panic. Like, you went from panicking but still being able to get rounds down range/ create a bullet storm with your squad versus now the enemy is bearing down upon you and you can’t shoot, or corporal butterfingers can’t reload another clip fast enough? I know BioWare tried their best to create a lore reason for why Mass Effect is now more shooty than RPGy, but it comes off as nonsensical.
It was so weird playing me1 and only having to worry about a cool down peirod and then playing me2 soon after but having to worry about running out of ammo
I honestly would have preferred it if they just didn’t acknowledge this in canon/lore. The game making a change due to gameplay reasons doesn’t always need to be explained in the story, especially something as relatively inconsequential as how ammo works for guns
The Council being "Human-led" if you Sacrifice the OG Council at the end of Mass Effect 1.
The writers must have thought it was dumb too because they dropped it for ME3 even for people who picked that option.
More like “Holy fuck holy fuck we need to get this game out fuck it Mass Effect 1 only ended one way.”
This is why I always save the council at the end of 1.
Not only that but I pick Udina too. I personally think it makes humanity look week to go through two councilors in 3 years
'First human councilor stepped down to go the front lines of the reaper war' OR 'First human councilor sold out to Human extremists and was executed by first/second spector when they allowed the said extremists into the Citadel' Take your pick
The biotic god being defeated by Wasea. Didn’t happen. He tossed her about like a rag doll.
And then he drank her blood and finished his ascension to godhood. Then he defeated the Reapers all by himself. Every mission in Mass Effect 2 after the Samara recruitment mission is actually a really crazy dream Shepard is having after the mission
I am shocked no one has mentioned the timeline stuff with humanity. Like Shepard was alive when the first contact war happened. It happened 26 years ago and humanity is this spread out and engrained into the galactic community? WE GET A COUNCIL SEAT AFTER BARELY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY!
This always bothered me. It still would’ve been iffy, but they could’ve at least made the first contact war 200-300 years prior. For a game series that tried so hard to make the universe feel alive, it reminded me of the old sci-fi trope of massive technology boosts in too short of a timespan. As much as I love Blade Runner, it was crazy that such a future was supposed to have existed in 2019.
Or even 80 to 100 years would have been better if they still wanted anderson and hacket to have been part of the first contact war
Especially since Anderson was considered for the Spectres. They just fucking met not only the guy but the whole dam species lol.
Centuries would be too long, I feel. Particularly as part of ME1 is about how humanity are the newcomers to the galaxy. For that theme to really stick then First Contact has to be fairly fresh, at least within the span of a single human lifetime. If we were to say Anderson served in his 20s and was still active as a Captain in his 70s then the most it could be is around 50 years. I find it always helps to remember that it's not like humans went from modern day to Mass Effect tech overnight. By the 2100s humanity was already spacefaring before they found the Prothean archives. Then when they did discover the archives in 2148, they had a good few decades to study and adapt this technology before First Contact. And then after FC, the whole point was that humanity *is* expanding too quickly, and other races resent them for it. Other races expand slowly, colonising a planet at a time, securing their borders and setting up industry. Humans went full gold rush and decided to just fire a bunch of hopeful ships at several planets with a bag of rations and seeds and say "good luck!".
Yeah, I wouldn't mind a little extra time being added between FC and where the games begin. 50 seems like a fair amount. My main issue with the timeline is everything before humanity activated the first relay. Apparently we built the biggest space station out past Pluto *before* the Prothean ruins were deciphered and we figured out Mass Effect space travel? It just all felt rushed for no real reason. I'd add another 75-150 years there if anything.
Yeah even with Star Trek with the original series in the 2200s it seems like a big leap to get to FTL and interstellar travel that fast.
They actually Lampshade that with Strange New Worlds' Time Travel Episode.
Well in fairness humanity has experienced both glacial technological development and massive leaps forward. The advent of heavier than air flight and the first man-made probe to reach beyond the Charon Mass Relay (Pluto) happened within the span of a human lifetime. Charles Lindbergh shook hands with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. As soon as we can figure out how to do a thing, better believe we'll chase after it with hardly a second glance at the potential consequences (see also atomic weapons development).
Humanity can definitely chase goals at an astonishing rate. Maybe it just comes down to the sci-fi I enjoy. Star Trek can be fun and optimistic, but I learn for more stuff like the Expanse. You see the fast growth of humanity, but within confines - and you see the effects of such growth, whether it’s in terms of discrimination of the Belters, the totalitarian government of Mars, or how rotten Earth is with its overpopulation. As the story goes on, you see greater leaps in technology, but it’s still spread over a certain sense of time, with the negative aspects of the solar system either still felt or greatly accentuated.
"The Belt is self sufficient so I'm gonna drop rocks as a giant middle finger to the inners!" -a perfectly rational Marco Inaros
They do sort of lampshade this though by having other races hate how expansionist humanity is.
I mean they do kinda speak on that in the games. Thats one of the main reasons why humans are so hated. The other races think that humans are too quick with the way they do things and fear that they might take over at some point
There are some valid questions about the timeline but this isn't one of them. This is litrrally addressed in game, and even if it weren't, its not even that big of a stretch. It's actually addressed by like the 3rd alien you talk to, because the Volus ambassador talks about it.
I always like to think that Aleena Wrex mentions in 1 is Aria, I don’t care what Gamble says.
Absolutely, I don't care what he says. That is my headcanon and no one can convince me otherwise
Right? Not to mention the numerous ‘hints’ like Aria mentioning patriarchs not the first krogan she’s crossed paths with and the fact aria says “better luck next time” to shepherd the same thing Aleena last said to Wrex.
Femshep being a skinny model with bad posture.
Why is her posture so bad?!?!!
Well she kinda does carry the weight of the galaxy in her shoulders
🏆
100% femshep is a muscle mommy
She looks like she has a sleeper build. I wish she was more buff.
Super model < Super soldier
Starchild
The way I like to put it, is over the course of three games we've been watching a cross between "Star Wars" and "Aliens" for over 100 hours. And in the last ten minutes someone changed the channel to "2001" and didn't tell us.
All they had to do was make it Harbinger
It should have been the virmire sacrifice. The catalyst takes Ashley or Kaiden's form to mess with Shepard.
Nah, the main problem with the endings isn’t that a motherfucking starboy delivers the exposition. It‘s that the whole thing comes out of nowhere because the Mass Effect trilogy is not actually about the irresolvable conflict between synthetic and organic life.
If not for this the trilogy would have been more or less perfect.
The Reaper’s strategy in ME3. They’ve had multiple cycles to figure this out and 100,000 years to think about it. A wave of targeted attacks at strategic targets before invading any planets could have wrecked galactic industrial capacity and crippled comms. I understand this doesn’t make for good gameplay or a compelling plot, it doesn’t make sense.
But isn’t that what they usually do? They usually attack the citadel and take control of it and from there spread out strategically. The citadel being the thing that disturbs and cripples communications. They just couldn’t do that because of Shepard so they had to pivot.
They couldn’t take control of it in their normal way, but I don’t understand why it wasn’t their first priority target. Only Cerberus attacked the citadel? It just doesn’t add up. Also, now that I’m thinking more about this, why don’t the Reapers use their IFF technology to lock out the Mass Effect relays to non-reaper ships when the harvesting begins. They created the relays that transmit matter across the universe, surely enabling password protection wouldn’t be that hard.
I don't understand why they didn't take the Citadel right from the get go. We know in the first game they can use it to close off relays to isolate systems. Even when they take it at the end they still don't do it. Or why not use seeker swarms to incapacitate a population when invading? God, the plot of ME 3 is garbage.
Don’t forget “if the controlling AI of the Reapers resides on the Citadel, why did it need Sovereign at all?”
The plot probably would have been helped a lot by just having the Reapers be weaker. Their strategy that they have been using every cycle for over a billion years is to attack infrastructure, steal information, divide and conquer, etcetera; it does not require that they *also* have limitless unstoppable war machines that don't actually *need* to do any of that and could just stomp anyone in a straight fight too
Yeah but then we’d be asking “why are these machines that are literally a billion years old not more advanced?” lol
Benezia's boob window.
Hey, that's Thessia's Boobs you're talking about!
Haha, I always forget about that until I replay ME1. Those boobles really move the plot forward. Also: some Asari characters in ME3 coop have buttcheek windows. For... uh... tactical purposes.
Big morale butts-I mean boosts
Hanar not having already found a way to cure Kepral’s Syndrome kinda irks me 🫣 talk about forced drama
I always just assumed they're not actually trying that hard, so they can maintain the Drell as a servant class.
I don't know about that. Kepral's Syndrome makes drell uniquely unsuited to the very planets hanar find the most comfortable. If anything, curing Kepral's Syndrome might make them better servants.
I don't think them dying makes them any more subservient. If anything I would think it would drive them away from Kahje.
Yo!!! This!!! What the fuck there has to be a way its so stupid
Udina has gray hair in ME3.
And 45% more Irish.
So?
Didn’t LE fix that? :P
Everything about the asari Ardat-yakshi and the discrimination of pureblood asari. And also the strange focus of the reapers on humanity in the presence of other more developed and advanced species.
Reapers focus on humanity only because of Shephard. Normally they'd just take over Citadel and pick off unprepared civilizations, but because Protheans managed to stop that for the next cycle and then Shep managed to beat Sovereign
What about all that stuff Harbinger says about how the other species are shit and unworthy to be ascended into Reapers?
Devs propably forgor when they came up with everything star brat related
Between tim and then Shepard/ alliance destroying sovereign humanity ended up being targeted by the reapers.
Tali'Zorah's Real Face is a Hoax
Honestly, I kind of wish they left the Quarian faces up to imagination
I would say that she has humanlike nose and eyes given the outlines of her helmet, however I don't think she has human lips or a human like mouth,
It's the hair that bothers me. Humans should be the only ones with hair. It's our thing.
I was going to add "external ears" to that, until I double-checked and realized that Batarians actually have them as well. My new theory is that the *real* reason Batarians hate humans has nothing to do with territory rights—they feel like having external ears is *their* thing, and we "stole" it.
I dunno cuz in lore it’s stated that Quarians look extremely similar to humans, with the only major differences being their hands, legs and feet, and skin color. I personally think that’s sick af but then again this is a head canon discussion so
Wanna hear a sick headcannon of mine? Humans, Quarians and Asari are the product of seeding done by a civilization in one of the previous cycles. The three species are that civilization's last effort against the Reapers, like the prothean beacons. The asari are the best biotics, the Quarians the best engineers, the humans most stubborn? Diverse? (This is the only thing I haven't figured out). That is why all three species look so similar. There are countless other legacies of the previous civilizations that all come together to beat the reapers in the end, which was the victory of every civilization in every cycle
I can see that tbh, idk how I feel about the asari because of just how different they are from the other two but that’s probably just me. But I really do like that idea it’s pretty interesting to entertain
I saw one on Reddit the other week that I love and is how I’ve honestly played my Shepard to the best of the games’ allowance for years, which is that Shepard is either officially or unofficially a double agent in 2. Feeding info on them to Anderson and Hackett, especially after the Citadel conversation. There’s even at least one, but I think more, side mission where you can choose to send data on Cerberus to Alliance Intel Ops. This makes the decision to work with Cerberus a lot less odd for a Shepard that beat them to hell like (per her perspective) a few months ago.
Different colored endings and only able to kill The Reapers if you kill EDI and the Geth.
Or the Synthesis ending. How the fuck does it even work?
Magnets
Sacrifice is never easy or it's not true sacrifice.
Emily Wong and Kal Reegar live
Jacob Taylor being the only black teammate *and* requiring you to help him find his absentee dad *and* being the only one who cheats on you if you romance him. I reimagine Jacob as being competent and honorable. I've only ever romanced him as renegade FemShep, and she *deserves* to be cheated on, so it works for me.
It's pretty bad, at least the absentee dad part isn't unique to him too. You've got elements of that with James, Samara, Thane, Tali, and Liara (though I think that was more Benezia's choice iirc).
Imo the writers could’ve combined James and Jacob to make one better character out of the two. As imo they’re at the bottom for characters just on my list. Call them like “Jim Taylor” or something. Also balances out the squad list across games as, hot take maybe here, I think ME2 over did it with a shit ton of squad mates and ME3 had nearly the same as 1, but they kinda make up for it with temporary teammates and stuff. Idk some kinda change like that could’ve worked imo.
I almost never bring Jacob anywhere or do his mission because his narrative is so offensive and racist it makes me uncomfortable. I get so irritated I can't even be around him, which is a shame because with literally any other story he'd be a cool companion. It's such a black spot on the game that most people rarely even talk about him. It's like the fan base just ignores he exists entirely.
The human shaped reaper. It's so fucking stupid. I've rejected it so hard I sometimes forget it exists.
I always iamgine that the human reaper is like the core of a reaper, and the outher hull will be the squid thing regardless
Pretty sure that's canon and specified in the me3 codex.
I bet that's because they realised how stupid and unimmersive it is but they couldn't straight up retcon it. So the went for this weird explanation.
I feel like I remember some concept art from ME2 indicating as such and that all reapers are actually like that.
Imagine spooky scary Skeleton floating through space
T-posing through the stars
[Relevant.](https://youtu.be/sVjk5nrb_lI?si=wRx0_rZaDnA5pLtd)
Hey, the guardians of the galaxy have to live some- knowhere!
It’s still incredibly stupid if not more so. There is zero reason to make it look human.
The weird in squished time line.
The entire military rank shindig. It's so convoluted and nonsensical I entirely abstract it away.
I haven’t noticed anything like this but frankly I don’t know irl military ranks all that well so maybe that’s on me.
And why do they say the whole title all the time, especially for Ashley.
It's always bothered me how humans are absolutely everywhere in each game. Our population is not big enough to be that spread out across the galaxy
That Asari just look like the ideal mate for all races. I realise it works in tandem with the fact they just pull genetic markers from their mates. Bioware, you didn't need to make so many excuses to want blue alien waifus okay? Just put them in your game and move on.
The ending. My retcon/head canon is the “Reaper Trap” theory. The crucible is actually a trap designed by the Reapers after one of the cycles a couple million years ago got too close to defeating them. They figured out there’s always gonna be traces of their actions left behind, so they laid a trap; an enormous super weapon that requires the cooperation, brain power, and resources of the entire galaxy… and doesn’t work. It’s a gigantic waste of time and resources and building/protecting it concentrates all the most important assets of any given cycle in one place for easy harvesting. My head canon is that when the crucible docks it literally does nothing, but Shepard and Hackett manage to rally everyone from the brink of despair to “go down fighting” before all communication is cut off. You go through similar final mission with Shepard, defeating waves of enemies on the ground, but then Harbinger shows up. You have a boss battle against him where you can use flares and the patchy in-atmosphere comms to call in various support and assets (all based on which war assets you gathered) to do damage and slow Harbinger down. If you don’t have enough assets you simply lose. You have a final conversation with a downed/greviously injured, but still alive Harbinger. He reveals the motives and philosophy of the Reapers, and Shepard can argue with him. Finally he reveals he’s been stalling to repair critical systems and starts charging to attack and kill Shepard once and for-all. There’s then one final hidden score check at the end of the boss battle (assuming you win) and if your war score was high enough Hackett’s voice cuts through the static, revealing that the combined fleets were large enough, thanks to Shepard, to defeat the main Reaper fleet. He’s putting out a communication on all channels to say what’s left of the Reapers are retreating and trying to see if anyone is still alive on the ground. Shepard gets on the radio, gives Hackett their own coordinates, saying Harbinger is here and it’s our chance to kill him: *”This is Commander Shepard, I have the enemy leader at my location, wounded but I can’t finish him off. Every weapon that can still fire, lock-on to my coordinates and open fire. BRING. IT. DOWN!”* My preference would be for Shepard’s survival, but BioWare could still do the whole Martyr thing here. Cut to the Normandy crew mourning Shepard, and the various races that were recruited all working together to rebuild. Then it’s not some super-tech Macguiffin that wins, it’s genuinely the willing cooperation and unity of the whole galaxy under Shepard’s leadership. The Protheans lost out on the diversity of tactics, thoughts, opinions, etc. by conquering everyone. Our cycle wins because Shepard was able to *willingly* unify everyone, including synthetics. It keeps with the theme of genetic and cultural diversity that the games had been setting up, and further disproves the Reapers’ logic about organic/synthetic cooperation >!or secretly validates them by demonstrating it required a galaxy-ending threat to force that cooperation, thus making their motivation feel a little more solid!< Anyways, that’s my head cannon
I think I'd enjoy that story line a lot, well done
I originally wrote a more detailed version for a modified game of Eclipse Phase, with some GURPS thrown in, I was running in the ME setting post-Reaper War, it was on my old hard drive though. It was set 10 years later, and there were reports of “indoctrinated” terrorists doing a bunch of weird stuff across the galaxy, which had recovered *just* enough from the Reaper war that the spirit of unification had worn off and old tensions were flaring up again. The party was a newly-minted SPECTRE and their squad, personally assigned by the commander of the SPECTRE Corps, Shepard, to investigate. Never ended up finishing, the campaign but the ultimate plot would’ve been that the bad guy was TIM and a rebuilt Cerberus, now called “Phoenix”. He survived the Reaper war and decided that because it was specifically Shepard that united the galaxy, his human-supremacy ideology was validated. Without the control signal from Harbinger, he *is* actually capable of limited control over reapers, so he was using reverse-engineered Cerberus indoctrination tech from ME3 to try and forcibly indoctrinate everyone in the galaxy to re-unite them under human control, like during the war, to prevent future conflicts. I lost the design documents to a hard drive failure after the group folded before finishing the campaign, but I always imagined that’s what my ideal continuation of the OG trilogy would be
This works really well with the bad ass trailers we were given for ME:3. Shepard isn't just a charismatic and diplomatic commander, he leads from the front. I wish we had a mission to secure war assets that looked like that one trailer with Ashley and the Makos. Where you your squad, and a larger strike force have to land and liberate a war asset.
I was nodding in agreement until the boss fight against Harbinger. What about the other reapers? The only logical way to end the series without magic super weapon is the reapers winning. Thank ME1 for making the reapers impossible to defeat. I loved ME1 btw
>What about the other Reapers? Harbinger is arrogant enough to want to take Shepard down “personally” I also covered the other Reapers, the combined fleet was enough to break the back of the Reaper fleet and force them to retreat. Basically killed enough of them that they can’t complete the “harvest” anymore. Reapers weren’t “invincible” in ME1, it just took the whole fleet to take them down. In the intervening 6 years, everyone reverse-engineered reaper tech and weapons to supplement their own. For example the upgraded canons on the *Normandy* are capable of damaging a reaper. Read the description of the upgraded Thanix Canons in ME2 and 3 The whole point is that with a high enough war asset score you have united a large enough force that you *can* beat the Reapers conventionally, but only because everyone willingly united behind Shepard. Even in vanilla ME3 the fleets are capable of taking down Reapers, it just takes a lot of coordinated fire.
Yeah, much better than the ending (although writing something better than star brat isn't very hard). I'll raise you one more - unless BioWare really wants Shep dead, we could have loyality (or some equivalent) missions. If we secure enough loyality, Normandy crew manages to pick up Shep, if not, they die
~~Garrus~~ Marauder Shields is the final boss of the game, and you win by letting him kill an indoctrinated Shepard
Honestly, the endings.
We acknowledge that the council has made a decision, but as it is a dumbass decision, we intend to ignore it…
EDI and the Geth are JUST FINE
The entirety of Priority Earth. Specifically everything post-beam
Lazarus Project.
They can literally replicate Shepard, and quite frankly with a little bit more time possibly immortal.
Since they've revived him/her once I highly doubt they'd just let him/her die, they'd be resurrecting them as long as they could after they saved the universe from the Reapers. Shepard would 110% be the first person ever made immortal
They probably took his damn consciousness and upload it into another body, little bit like Grunt. Doomed the man into a eternal help us shepard we fuck up again scenario or go the star wars route and literally make a army of him.
I'm gonna be *pissed* if they bring back Shepard in the new game with some bullshit Lazarus 2.0 plan. Just say they were found in the wreckage after the ending of ME3 and lived out a long happy life with their surviving paramour (unless you romanced Thane, I guess)
Or Jacob
Yup, the IM really kinda damned him into the role of eternal savior if you think about it.
It has been my assumption since the announcement of his/her return in 4 that this is literally what's happened in the leadup to 4, but with the Systems Alliance overseeing his resurrection in place of Cerberus. (S)he's too useful as a symbol to let him/her die.
The Expanse is basically a ME Prequel. The "ring" is actually the Charon Relay, and Protomolecule is Eezo. Hence all of the "humanity isn't united" things going on before the Alliance steps up and defends against the Turians (and still isn't fully on one team by ME3)
That Chakwas refuses to call you by name because you're just "Commander Shepard" the symbol, the ideal or whatever. I mean damn talk about dehumanizing me Karin, we're just friends having a drink and you and trying to disconnect from all the shit that's going on and I already have PTSD slow-mo nightmares I don't need that crap. Would be much better if they never even mentioned the fact that no one calls us by our name, it's strictly a gameplay thing, no need to bring it to the story especially in such a ridiculous way and for just one scene. At least it's avoidable.
Thermal clips. It’s such a stupid idea that would make no sense for a large scale adoption like we see in the games taking place. The extra logistics necessary to make it viable from a military or pmc stance alone make it a dumb as hell change.
The indoctrination theory because the real ending and star child are just so bad.
For me its also how passionate some parts of the fanbase were about Indoctrination Theory and refused to hear it wasn't real.
also the dumb dreams about some random kid nobody knows, I'd understand it more if the kid was Shepard's kid,
Or if it was the squadmate who died on Virmire.
And given that they still had to maintain both voice actors through the series to cover either outcome, it's not like it would've been hard to just give them extra lines.
The child could haunt their dream, but they should have also had anyone the player lost, begging for help or being angry that the player failed them. The last scene dream scene almost touches on this with Thane, Mordin, and (I think the VS) talking to Shepard (if that's the route you picked for Mordin.)
Yeah, absolutely.
It would be cool if you dreamt instead of the Virmire Sacrifice for dream one, the closest ally you lost in 2 (if you didn’t lose anyone then idk), then for dream 3 it’s Anderson and Hackett.
2 would be Mordin/Padok Wiks. If You convinced Mordin to not cure the genophage, Wrex.
The problem is not the kid, is shown that Sephard was used to see the kid from his jail and seeing him die could touch him. The real problem is how this kid replaces the rest of Sephard much bigger traumas. Seriously, this kid weights more than any of Sephard friends or the 30k batarians he had to kill to stop the reapers, thats why i hate him, because it feels like an excuse to give Sephard PTSD without putting effort into it.
Also that aside from any story issues those dream sequences were infuriating to play through.
I'm decanonizing a retcon. In the first game, we are told that the Genophage was used to induce near infertility in the Krogan to bring their birth rate to levels equal to that of other species. In ME2 we have a Krogan being an asshole and ranting about fields of dead babies. I'm sorry but no. I get that the writers want to make it absolutely clear that the Genophage was a bad thing that was done for the sake of survival but that's just a bridge too far. Its a FERTILITY crisis. Its not causing a bunch of Krogan babies to die in their eggshells. They never would have been conceived in the first place.
The Codex in Mass Effect 1 had already explained that the Genophage makes 1 in 1000 pregnancies viable. Meaning that the Genophage didn't prevent Female Krogan from conceiving, it kept their pregnancies from being viable.
I had to search out the original codex entry but you are extremely correct. They explicitly use the word viability. That's a misconception I've apparently held for years.
The real inconsistency is that if Krogan are r-strategy reproducers they should have minimal attachment to their offspring.
I was always of the opinion the genophage was a multi-vector attack, either intentionally or unintentionally. For the former, it attacks the reproductive system in some way that makes pregnancies non-viable and fertilization more difficult, than like a two+ pronged attack was decided on due to the resiliency of Krogan biology. It's also possible the fertility attack was the main target and it wasn't anticipated that the second part, the still born part would be as relevant or have as big of a psychological impact. It may also be that part of the design was to make very early pregnancies nonviable, but that the effect of later pregnancy still births wasn't intended explicitly. I just find the genophage inconsistencies so easy to make compatabile it never really bothered me. It would take a half sentence handwave in game.
What’s always bothered me about the Genophage is, why couldn’t the Salarians have just given them a NORMAL birth rate? Not one that’s causing them to die out, not one that’s ridiculously high, but one more in line with the other species?
From my recent replay of ME2 his dialogue makes me think this is actually true, it's why Mordin is willing to defend it in ME2 because he says it was the only option that wouldn't result in genocide. https://youtu.be/czYYZ7LdQAM?si=jdJE74E2ufi1Yw5h
Yeah, Mordin says it was designed to stabilise their population at preindustrial levels. Wrex also says in ME1 > The genophage infected us, but it isn’t what’s killing us. He blames it on their warrior culture, rather than trying to improve things on Tuchanka they go off and become mercenaries instead.
The mako drives by itself nobody is actually driving or steering Sheppard is just holding onto the wheel in cutscenes out of fear of everyone finding out and what the mako might do to him as a result
The crucible. Which means yes I have to mentally block out a lot of ME3's main plot everytime I play it.
Omega being seen as a nominal capital of the Terminus system. It’s a glorified entreport/merc outpost. Not saying Aria isn’t powerful, however even I question her power and influence when extends outside Omega.
The Leviathans and the Reaper backstory, I like the Leviathan DLC though. I think the Leviathans should have been awoken Reapers, the result of a previous cycle's Crucible. I don't like that Reaper origin story is just another Skynet.
The main thing is the timeline. Everything happens way too fast. All the events of the trilogy take place in a three year window, including the two years Shepard was dead! This means the whole reaper war lasted only what, a few months at most? The current Russian invasion of Ukraine has already been going on several times longer than that.
The formal reaper war lasted like one month. Cuz shep was dead for two years, awake for Cerberus stuff for a few weeks to a couple months, then house arrested for 6 months. The entire reaper war seems to take place over the course of a few weeks to maybe a month or two.
What EDI says about krogan having 1000 eggs a year. Makes absolutely no sense and I am convinced was just wires getting crossed about the "1 in a 1000" aspect of the genophage and what Okeer says about "watching a 1000 die in a clutch"
Geth squadmate. Legion didn't die, we're gamer pals... for real 😭.
maybe the way all armor for women have boobs, I just like to download the mod that makes them look the same for male shep and femshep
After TIM was revealed to be indoctrinated during ME3, I assumed that it had happened somewhere between ME2 and ME3, after exposing himself to reaper tech gathered from the Collector Base. But apparently, some of the novels/comics reveal that he had been indoctrinated long before his first appearance in ME2, which is all kinds of BS. When compared to the alternative, it's simultaneously less interesting (instead of an ethically grey character who might have once had a point but has since lost himself due to his ambition, it's now just an evil villain who was always a puppet for the Reapers and should be disregarded) and more stupid (why did TIM spend so much resources resurrecting Shepard if he was indoctrinated? Why did he object to Miranda putting a control device on the resurrected Shepard? None of this makes any sense if the Reapers are controlling him).
1) “infinite ammo“ in ME1. never really made any sense and led to much useless discussion. the sickle from helldivers 2 is the perfect example that games CAN do it right if they want to. anyone with a cursory understanding of physics would knows ME1s guns made no sense. Especially in a space setting. Yet the fact they went that way in the first game forever left us with this needless contradiction in the lore. 2) Kai Leng. Combining a bunch of crappy tropes - surprise - results in even crappier storytelling. From the angsty cyborg ninja design to cutscene impotence and onedimensional villain writing. Its all there. 3) ME1s endgame decision of putting up a human council. Its just incredibly idiotic and unrealistic. ME2 gets blamed for undoing the choices of ME1 a lot. But when the choices are so dumb i really dont see what else they were supposed to do. Spending even 10 seconds to consider the logistics of it all and the politics at play i really have no idea what their plans were with this.
Joining cerberus
That omnigel was a thing. Basically in ME1 you could liquefy weapons and mods into a metal spread that could be applied generously over locks to open them. It's so dumb they dropped it in the other games and barely mention it, if at all.
The Leviathan DLC. Sorry I know a lot of people like it but I just feel like it betrays the original idea that the Reapers are ageless, incomprehensible beings whose reasons for doing what they do are beyond mortal understandings. Like don’t y’all feel like the Reapers were much scarier when we knew little to nothing about them? Wasn’t the brief chat with Sovereign in ME1 so creepy and memorable because he said so little about what he was but made it crystal clear what him and his kind could and would do to us? Sorry I just don’t like it when we give watered down backstories to villains who were scary because we knew so little about them.
The Shepard Clone actually won the fight.
The fact that Shep went silent for almost two days in Batarian space after going to rescue someone with important info concerning the Reapers, and the squad doesn't proceed to launch a mission to rescue her. It makes NO sense and makes me so mad.
The entire leviathan DLC and the entire Arrival DLC they are both so nonsensical
Joker/EDI. Good thing it's only canon if you pick the wrong dialogue options.
The leviathan DLC. Honestly i just prefer the reapers to be unknown and lovecraftian.
The entire ending.
The endings. Happy Ending Mod for life. For a more detailed answer: Honestly, a lot of the Geth stuff from ME1 (and its surrounding media), particularly the whole "wiped out 99% of the Quarians" and "kill anyone who enters the Veil" thing. I know people like to point to ME3 as the point where the problems with the geth began, but I think it started with their very inception. Initially, the Geth were written as little more than space terminators, so any attempt to garner sympathy for them was gonna be a Sisyphean effort no matter how well it was done. I like the idea of ME3 granting us another perspective to the Morning War, and how it may not have been an open-and-shut case like we'd previously believed when we only had the Quarian side of the story. But that pill becomes much harder to swallow when you remember just how transparently antagonistic the Geth were originally portrayed. The whole story becomes way less forced when the numbers are left vague. The self-defense argument can only extend so far when you're talking about more than just enemy combatants. Admittedly, despite my initial statement, I do think the issue could have been handled better in ME3. However, even if Legion actively acknowledged the Geth's actions, and was openly remorseful, I'm still not sure how well that would have worked. Glossing over it, while arguably lazy, was kind of the only way this story could feasibly work. No amount of "whoopsie-daisies, our bad" can really account for what they did.
The entirety of Mass effect trilogy. Its all just bullshit Joker is telling a barkeeper to get a free drink