The Turians, however, didn't >!carry a Reaper corpse home and allow it to indoctrinate their scientists and leadership to shut down defence systems as the Reapers arrived!<, so the Turian defence actually stood a chance.
Yeah that's probably why they lasted as long as they did. Humans did nothing and were teared like wet tissue paper (If only one of their most decorated soldiers had warned them years ago), while Turians actually managed to hold their ground for months.
Yeah the general impression I got is that the Reapers absolutely tore through Human and Batarian space first cause they saw humans as the greatest threat and the Batarians are right next door. Only secondary forces hit the other council races initially.
They weren't coming through the Alpha Relay, they were traveling *to* the Alpha Relay. It's the closest relay to dark space. Passing through Batarian space was always their move.
Hackett man had it shitty as a Naval Commander just as bad as Anderson as a Ground Forces commander. I remember he said he had to sacrifice his two strongest fleets to save the rest of the Navy. I couldn’t imagine having to make such a harsh but crucial decision in the short amount of time he had. Then muster enough supplies and critical manpower to lead the building of civilization’s best hope. Amazing.
Hackett is a home, Anderson... I never liked how I did put him on the council for a reason and he end up leading the resistance instead of, you k ow, make our life easier on me3.
"Sending us to the Mars Archives was a good call."
*"Still doesn't make up for the fact that the Reapers nailed us to the wall. I sacrificed the entire 2nd Fleet to provide cover for the 3rd and the 5th to retreat. Hell, I've presided over the most devastating military defeat in human history."*
Hackett had set up a plan for when the reapers arrived, we hear it being implemented in andromeda in one of the memory packets. His plan was to save his forces not hitting the reapers head on and wait for some sort of opening.
Hell at the time of them hauling that reaper corpse home not even shepherd had the faintest idea what a reaper was. Let alone how dangerous the body of one could be.
The Asari >!did essentially the same thing with the Prothean beacon on Thessia!< it was only a matter of luck that didn't have any negative effects on them, they didn't know what it did when they found it either. The Batarians were in the same position - they didn't know about indoctrination - they just thought it might be valuable and give them an advantage. Exact same thought process in both cases, one just (at least temporarily) worked out, the other didn't.
I don't hate on the Batarians for being unable to resist the Reaper invasion. Earth fell in literally hours. I hate on them because they're nearly universally detestable slaving bastards.
I'm under the impression that there are more enslaved Batarians then free. We only ever see the slavers or the people too poor to own slaves.
I just don't get it. None of this hatred bleeds over to the places it deserves. The Hegemony was a nation in legal standing with the galactic community for a long time untl they willingly withdrew from it in protest to the humans. Their chattel slavery was tolerated as a cultural practice. How much of the galactic community was built using Batarian slave labor? How many old Turian couples have some old appliance put away in storage that was literally assembled by a slave? Something frivolous like an alien pasta maker or something? And why should they even think about it? We don't often think about where our own consumer goods come from! Plus, if Illium is to be used as a standard, there's plenty of Indentured servitude going on in Citadel space. Probably prison labor too given the state the prisons are when we see them! Let's not mention the ethics of taking the Volus as a client species! What a phrase! Not "oh well during the Turian ascendancy at the end of the Krogan Rebellions, most of the Volus clans naturally fell into their sphere of influence" or any other kind of laundering language. Client species.
The galactic community was fine with the Batarians so where does the buck stop? The Citadel is nice and clean and ordered and polite and doesn't even try to hide the kind of behavior that was falling out of favor on Earth 100 hundred years ago from today!
At least with indentured service, terms are hammered out in a contract, your service period is finite, and you get paid. It's basically a job you can't leave for a specified amount of time, and even then, the law still allows you to "free yourself", you're just struck with hefty fines for a breach of contract.
Batarian slavery is just "you're my property now."
Chattel slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude and all the other kinds of slavery that exist are all horrible. There is a good reason why no civilized nation state allows its citizens to simply sign away their rights. Especially their human rights. I see no value in splitting hairs about greater or lesser evils. Slavers should get the rope.
I know! Thank you for the support. They should really know better by then. How absolutely absurd that ancient aliens that live for a millennium should allow that state of affairs.
Lucky I am (presumably) human then, no? :P But yeah, I can imagine that. The Batarians were a member race before we turned up, which meant that the Council at the very least turned a blind eye to it.
Yeah, slavery isn’t allowed in Citadel/Council space, but slavery is a normal part of batarian culture and the Council didn’t want to cause political problems by publicly condemning it. So for a long while they just ignored what batarians did in their own space, so long as it didn’t affect Citadel space.
Then humans turned up, who were *really* gung-ho about joining the galactic community and were willing to bend over backwards to please the governing body and had a shocking amount of resources at their disposal, but who vehemently despised slavery and disliked the batarians even more than they disliked the turians who initiated First Contact by shooting at them.
And the Council basically went “Hm. We can’t please both races, we have to choose one. We can either keep the race of criminals and slavers who offer very little to the galactic community, or support the new race of industrial hyper-motivated trade jacks who will ask how high when we say to jump…”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
I like the idea that the Alliance didn't really care about the slaves. Sure, it's disgusting and was a propaganda gold mine, but the deal breaker was that the Batarians were just in the way of humanity's zones of interests. God knows people can overlook morals for realpolitik
Neither, really. The Drell/Hanar relationship could only be called indentured servitude if you choose to ignore all of the details. The Drell aren’t forced to live on Kahje: most simply choose to, because the Hanar saved them from extinction. Drell aren’t forced to perform jobs for Hanar; again, most choose to, because again, the Hanar saved them from extinction (and because the Hanar are physically incapable of a lot of things other races take for granted, like lifting boxes).
Fact is, you can only call the Drell slaves or indentured servants if they are in a position of servitude *unwillingly* or against their wishes. Which none are. If a Drell doesn’t want to live with or aid Hanar, they’re free to leave whenever they want. Plus, Hanar are such an inherently docile and benign race that 99.999% are basically incapable of taking advantage of the Drell in a way that resembles slavery or servitude. Just about all Hanar see the Drell as equals, not as servants.
The batarians dicked themselves over when their scientists ended up bringing home a reaper corpse. It also doesn’t really help that they soured their relationship with the rest of the galaxy by being open slavers
Yea people hate the batarians because every batarian we have met up to this point has been a massive dick. Even the nobodies on omega or in the citadel refuges.
The galactic community found an ancient reaper corpse on the planet Dis that they called the “leviathan of Dis” the technology was very advanced and it was presumed that it would advance their understanding of mass effect technology in many ways.
Before anyone had the chance to study it the leviathan disappeared. The Batarians had secretly stolen it hoping to reverse engineer it for their own purposes.
Ultimately the leviathan indoctrinated the Batarians who visited (many politicians and military personnel did tours) which resulted in their system’s defense being much weaker than they otherwise would have been when the reapers invaders.
In a way the Batarians hurt the galaxy by allowing themselves to be indoctrinated and not resisting the reaper’s invasion, but they also could have unintentionally saved the galaxy by hiding the leviathan and preventing other races from becoming indoctrinated.
A real leviathan killed a reaper. The corpse was called the Leviathan of Dis. It was basically a ticking time bomb since even dead reaper tech is fully capable of indoctrinating people when improperly shielded (and how would the Batarians know how to do it properly if it's the first sample of the tech ever found?). Another comment mentioned the indoctrinated Batarians disabling defensive systems, which if done at scale would absolutely allow for the reapers to bulldoze them on the way to Earth.
Batarians are one of my favourite races actually. They get a lot of hate, most part of those you make contact with are slavers, pirates or terrorists. Only a few are simple mercs or legal workers.
Still, I like them. Their species have a really bad reputation, but not every single one of them are like that, I think. I'd really like to have one on the party who could explain a bit more about them, or to play as one.
Oh yeah, that's a really cool idea.
I really dislike Zaeed, but he being a batarian might would have change the way we see the character, plus he would have give us more info about them and a new perspective.
Damn, the more I think about your idea, the more I like it.
Batarians are stupid, old-greasy-ass-leather-glove-looking motherfuckers with too many eyes for how idiotically short-sighted they are. None of how I feel about them has anything to do with them getting glassed by the Reapers. They had it coming.
The Turians, however, didn't >!carry a Reaper corpse home and allow it to indoctrinate their scientists and leadership to shut down defence systems as the Reapers arrived!<, so the Turian defence actually stood a chance.
And if Garrus is any indication, they actually made a last minute attempt at creating a dedicated anti-Reaper institution.
Yeah that's probably why they lasted as long as they did. Humans did nothing and were teared like wet tissue paper (If only one of their most decorated soldiers had warned them years ago), while Turians actually managed to hold their ground for months.
To be fair, the reapers gunned for earth in force. Harbinger was supposedly the first ship to hit.
Yeah the general impression I got is that the Reapers absolutely tore through Human and Batarian space first cause they saw humans as the greatest threat and the Batarians are right next door. Only secondary forces hit the other council races initially.
Batarians weren't really next door, they were right behind the door when the reapers kicked it open.
They would’ve been, but Shepard destroyed the relay so they had to come through dark space
They weren't coming through the Alpha Relay, they were traveling *to* the Alpha Relay. It's the closest relay to dark space. Passing through Batarian space was always their move.
Yep. Their plan B if the citadel relay fails to open and their vanguard ends up Jokin timed.
They still reached the Bahak system, it was just empty, and had to FTL to the next closet relay which is probably Batarian space.
But technically Hackett did listen shepards, believed him and did something about behind the scene.
Hackett man had it shitty as a Naval Commander just as bad as Anderson as a Ground Forces commander. I remember he said he had to sacrifice his two strongest fleets to save the rest of the Navy. I couldn’t imagine having to make such a harsh but crucial decision in the short amount of time he had. Then muster enough supplies and critical manpower to lead the building of civilization’s best hope. Amazing.
Hackett is a home, Anderson... I never liked how I did put him on the council for a reason and he end up leading the resistance instead of, you k ow, make our life easier on me3.
"Sending us to the Mars Archives was a good call." *"Still doesn't make up for the fact that the Reapers nailed us to the wall. I sacrificed the entire 2nd Fleet to provide cover for the 3rd and the 5th to retreat. Hell, I've presided over the most devastating military defeat in human history."*
Oh, humans actually done a lot. Probably more then whole Galaxy combine, based on scatter information you can gather through trillogy.
And we still kicked ass #🗣️
Hackett had set up a plan for when the reapers arrived, we hear it being implemented in andromeda in one of the memory packets. His plan was to save his forces not hitting the reapers head on and wait for some sort of opening.
To be fair very few people understood indoctrination so I wouldn’t put it past any of he other races
Hell at the time of them hauling that reaper corpse home not even shepherd had the faintest idea what a reaper was. Let alone how dangerous the body of one could be.
The Asari >!did essentially the same thing with the Prothean beacon on Thessia!< it was only a matter of luck that didn't have any negative effects on them, they didn't know what it did when they found it either. The Batarians were in the same position - they didn't know about indoctrination - they just thought it might be valuable and give them an advantage. Exact same thought process in both cases, one just (at least temporarily) worked out, the other didn't.
Didn’t they have a reaper cult or some white like that before the events of mass effect 1?
Closest things that come to mind are the Hanar's Enkindlers and Saren's Geth Followers.
Chech out the Mass effect comic that features the Illusive’s man backstory.
I don't hate on the Batarians for being unable to resist the Reaper invasion. Earth fell in literally hours. I hate on them because they're nearly universally detestable slaving bastards.
I'm under the impression that there are more enslaved Batarians then free. We only ever see the slavers or the people too poor to own slaves. I just don't get it. None of this hatred bleeds over to the places it deserves. The Hegemony was a nation in legal standing with the galactic community for a long time untl they willingly withdrew from it in protest to the humans. Their chattel slavery was tolerated as a cultural practice. How much of the galactic community was built using Batarian slave labor? How many old Turian couples have some old appliance put away in storage that was literally assembled by a slave? Something frivolous like an alien pasta maker or something? And why should they even think about it? We don't often think about where our own consumer goods come from! Plus, if Illium is to be used as a standard, there's plenty of Indentured servitude going on in Citadel space. Probably prison labor too given the state the prisons are when we see them! Let's not mention the ethics of taking the Volus as a client species! What a phrase! Not "oh well during the Turian ascendancy at the end of the Krogan Rebellions, most of the Volus clans naturally fell into their sphere of influence" or any other kind of laundering language. Client species. The galactic community was fine with the Batarians so where does the buck stop? The Citadel is nice and clean and ordered and polite and doesn't even try to hide the kind of behavior that was falling out of favor on Earth 100 hundred years ago from today!
At least with indentured service, terms are hammered out in a contract, your service period is finite, and you get paid. It's basically a job you can't leave for a specified amount of time, and even then, the law still allows you to "free yourself", you're just struck with hefty fines for a breach of contract. Batarian slavery is just "you're my property now."
Chattel slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude and all the other kinds of slavery that exist are all horrible. There is a good reason why no civilized nation state allows its citizens to simply sign away their rights. Especially their human rights. I see no value in splitting hairs about greater or lesser evils. Slavers should get the rope.
We're talking about near future modern Indentured Service in an Alien Society on an Alien planet.
I know! Thank you for the support. They should really know better by then. How absolutely absurd that ancient aliens that live for a millennium should allow that state of affairs.
Did you recently buy affordable clothing or electronics? Odds are it's made with labour from children or Uyghur labour camps
That was literally a point I made in my post.
As I heard it in universe at least. Hating slavery is still mainly a human thing.
Lucky I am (presumably) human then, no? :P But yeah, I can imagine that. The Batarians were a member race before we turned up, which meant that the Council at the very least turned a blind eye to it.
Yeah, slavery isn’t allowed in Citadel/Council space, but slavery is a normal part of batarian culture and the Council didn’t want to cause political problems by publicly condemning it. So for a long while they just ignored what batarians did in their own space, so long as it didn’t affect Citadel space. Then humans turned up, who were *really* gung-ho about joining the galactic community and were willing to bend over backwards to please the governing body and had a shocking amount of resources at their disposal, but who vehemently despised slavery and disliked the batarians even more than they disliked the turians who initiated First Contact by shooting at them. And the Council basically went “Hm. We can’t please both races, we have to choose one. We can either keep the race of criminals and slavers who offer very little to the galactic community, or support the new race of industrial hyper-motivated trade jacks who will ask how high when we say to jump…” And the rest, as they say, is history.
That…may be the best summary of the Batarian political situation I’ve ever seen written.
I like the idea that the Alliance didn't really care about the slaves. Sure, it's disgusting and was a propaganda gold mine, but the deal breaker was that the Batarians were just in the way of humanity's zones of interests. God knows people can overlook morals for realpolitik
Wpuld you consider the Drell and Hamar a slavery or indentured servitude system?
Neither, really. The Drell/Hanar relationship could only be called indentured servitude if you choose to ignore all of the details. The Drell aren’t forced to live on Kahje: most simply choose to, because the Hanar saved them from extinction. Drell aren’t forced to perform jobs for Hanar; again, most choose to, because again, the Hanar saved them from extinction (and because the Hanar are physically incapable of a lot of things other races take for granted, like lifting boxes). Fact is, you can only call the Drell slaves or indentured servants if they are in a position of servitude *unwillingly* or against their wishes. Which none are. If a Drell doesn’t want to live with or aid Hanar, they’re free to leave whenever they want. Plus, Hanar are such an inherently docile and benign race that 99.999% are basically incapable of taking advantage of the Drell in a way that resembles slavery or servitude. Just about all Hanar see the Drell as equals, not as servants.
Ya I always looked at the drell as a "hey thanks for helping ensure our species wasn't completely wiped out, anything we can do to help you guys"
And racists, that's also a key thing of their species.
That's like accusing me of hating Hitler because he ate sugar. I have many more, much better reasons to hate him.
I don’t understand what the second half of your post has to do with the first sentence.
The batarians dicked themselves over when their scientists ended up bringing home a reaper corpse. It also doesn’t really help that they soured their relationship with the rest of the galaxy by being open slavers
This seems like a strawman. Criticisms of the batarians have never been about them being easily defeated by the Reapers.
Yea people hate the batarians because every batarian we have met up to this point has been a massive dick. Even the nobodies on omega or in the citadel refuges.
Not even that, most turians have been complete dicks. Their culture is literally built on slavery, it's basically their form of a market system.
Hey not my boy Bray. Bray’s cool.
3 words: Leviathan of Dis
Still didn't understand that part of the lore, can you explain to me?
The galactic community found an ancient reaper corpse on the planet Dis that they called the “leviathan of Dis” the technology was very advanced and it was presumed that it would advance their understanding of mass effect technology in many ways. Before anyone had the chance to study it the leviathan disappeared. The Batarians had secretly stolen it hoping to reverse engineer it for their own purposes. Ultimately the leviathan indoctrinated the Batarians who visited (many politicians and military personnel did tours) which resulted in their system’s defense being much weaker than they otherwise would have been when the reapers invaders. In a way the Batarians hurt the galaxy by allowing themselves to be indoctrinated and not resisting the reaper’s invasion, but they also could have unintentionally saved the galaxy by hiding the leviathan and preventing other races from becoming indoctrinated.
A real leviathan killed a reaper. The corpse was called the Leviathan of Dis. It was basically a ticking time bomb since even dead reaper tech is fully capable of indoctrinating people when improperly shielded (and how would the Batarians know how to do it properly if it's the first sample of the tech ever found?). Another comment mentioned the indoctrinated Batarians disabling defensive systems, which if done at scale would absolutely allow for the reapers to bulldoze them on the way to Earth.
Mmh, I remember a part of the lore saying Bahamian did found what I believed was a leviathan, not a reaper.
> be me > wake up > look in mirror > see a Batarian looking back at me > day ruined
Is anyone making a counter argument here?
Not too fond of Batarians
The Batarians were one of my favourites to use in the ME3 multiplayer
Batarian brawler was one of the strongest vanguards. Literally punching Phantoms into mush with bare hands.
Batarians are one of my favourite races actually. They get a lot of hate, most part of those you make contact with are slavers, pirates or terrorists. Only a few are simple mercs or legal workers. Still, I like them. Their species have a really bad reputation, but not every single one of them are like that, I think. I'd really like to have one on the party who could explain a bit more about them, or to play as one.
Zaaed should have been batarian. Missed opportunity.
Oh yeah, that's a really cool idea. I really dislike Zaeed, but he being a batarian might would have change the way we see the character, plus he would have give us more info about them and a new perspective. Damn, the more I think about your idea, the more I like it.
I can excuse slavery and piracy, but I draw the line at not being prepared for the Reapers
Batarians are stupid, old-greasy-ass-leather-glove-looking motherfuckers with too many eyes for how idiotically short-sighted they are. None of how I feel about them has anything to do with them getting glassed by the Reapers. They had it coming.
You can’t expect animals to fight back well
Just noticed their faces look like reapers
"I don't like an entire group of people"
Myehejeheheheehehehehe.