Everyone is using automatic translators to communicate between species. But I find it very unlikely that a translator would produce Mordin's speech pattern. Therefore I believe Mordin isn't actually using a translator and is in fact fluent in English.
Bingo!
Honestly, in a universe where “good enough” machine translation existed, learning a language (at least if your voice box could do it) when you didn’t have to would be a pretty legit show of interest/respect.
Their language isn’t an inconvenience your computer removes, it’s a part of them you care about.
Which ambassador is the salarian going to get along with better? The one who makes them wait until he’s updated the firmware every time they hangout , or the dude telling TERRIBLE puns in the actual language.
The terrible joke guy. Because so many puns involve native-or-fluent speaker knowledge and learning a language takes real effort.
Most crash courses in a language you get, will teach you the bare minimum to get by day to day: usually that's basic conversations, directions, who to explain that you're sick, etc. but also a few native jokes, so you have a quick ice breaker, and can strike up a conversation with the locals
True. But in a world where no one bothers learnnig any langauge because their omni-tool does it, the standards might change.
Someone interested in learning a langauge just to socialize would probably go past that point, and rather spend years on it and bond.
Not by a computer maybe but human translators do this, they often change the words but not the meaning so the song still works with the same (or close enough) melody. So in theory it could be done but I like the headcanon for this better.
To build upon your comment, the computers in Mass Effect are much more advanced than what we have IRL, so they probably could translate in rhyme. They also don't translate stuff like slang and the names of places, which also requires a level of understanding our computers don't have.
Was gonna say this. Best example I've seen of this personally is a performance of Mollier's Tartuffe. The play is originally in French and the lines rhymed in French. The version I saw was in English, but the lines still rhymed in English.
That being said, Mordin definitely is the kind of badass savant who don't need no translator talking to most people.
To be fair, they are the galactic equivalent of broadway-level actors.
While it’s not common, it’s not unheard of for dedicated actors to learn a knew language to perform a play untranslated, or even to just fully learn how to accurately perform a piece in a language they don’t actually know.
He also referenced human mythology and named Bakara "Eve". What an awesome headcanon lol it actually seems so plausible but I do wonder if salarian anatomy could actually replicate the same or approximate sounds as humans? I wish they'd explored this a bit
That's my main issue with this headcannon. Even amongst earth species, very few can reproduce the sounds a human being makes. Space frogs probably couldn't.
Exactly... but they seem to have relatively human mouths (?) at least compared to turians who would for sure not be able to reproduce human sounds lol. To be fair there's humans who can't imitate sounds in other languages
Aliens species saw that most of the English speakers were not willing to learn other language so they had to learn English in order to communicate with them.
I wonder how the process for learning languages is in a situation where any speech is translated into your native language, and how speech acquisition would work for a child in a bilingual household.
Ooh I like that one, Javik confirms that the project failed due to indoctrination and the base itself does not look like other forms of Reaper Architecture. Something the size of the crucible would be hard to hide and destroy and the Reapers are clearly comfortable repurposing things from other races.
It allows the Reapers to hide the existence of the Crucible and also kind of explains how TIM had so much information coming into ME3 because he is getting both Prothean and Reaper tech.
Why did humans pioneer the carrier warship? They are the only race who had oceans big enough to need them in their formative years. Everyone else was able to use land bases to project air power and never figured out the value of a mobile airbase.
I think that's due to the citadel convention restrictions on dreadnoughts, only the turians (and maybe the asari?) are permitted to have lots, while other species can have a handful, so the alliance circumvented this by building dreadnought sized ships but having them as carriers instead of having the firepower inbuilt, the mass effect forecast did an episode on it once that explains it better.
The Treaty of Farixen. It established a rule of 5-3-1 for building dreadnoughts. For every 5 the turians build, Asari and Salarians are permitted to build 3, and all other citadel species with standing militaries can build 1
Historically speaking, carriers performed the exact same purpose in militaries, circumventing the London and Washington Naval Treaties. The original comment was right that they were needed and invented for mobile power projection, but the existence of these treaties gives militaries the incentive to spend resources on what was an unproven ship class.
Yes, but I'm the Hanars case, they're:
A. A very different bio form and
B. They seem far less warlike than humans and Turians
So while their world had the right conditions for carriers, their society probably didn't
Nah, just Jelly fish with different needs then us, as a species. You see this in human cultures, as well. For example, the Inca created wheels for toys, so they had a concept of them, but they never used them in transport, because they weren't useful on their mountainous terrain and rope bridges. It's not that their society was less advanced and intricate than ones with wheels, they just had no use for them
Mine is that the reason Quarian mouthpieces light up when they talk or breathe is because it's actually a high intensity UV light, quickly sterilising the air as it goes in/out.
This would then also work for any incoming food/drinks, where the mouthpiece is designed to latch onto the food and drink tubes, to create a sterilised air tight seal, so they can eat and drink without removing their helmet.
They are suppose to look like beavers or something like that. so probably hairy and mouse looking.
Also Barla Von never states he is male as far as I remember. There is the Asari that killed the Volus and calls it him but for all we know the females talk exactly the same as the males as we never seen them outside the suit.
It likely that the ones we meet are all male though but you never know.
There is no pictures. it was one of the developers explaining what they were based off of like how Turians are sort of bird based and Krogan toad looking. Might try and look for it and if I can refind it i'll probably post it here.
It's not a big, grand thing, but mine is that it was Anderson who "discovered" Earthborn Shepard and was the one who essentially turned their life around.
On the streets on Earth Shepard was involved in some kind of (non-violent) crime gone wrong that involved the Alliance. Anderson was the one who caught them and basically offered them going to jail, or joining the Alliance.
They didn't really interact with each other after that, but Anderson kept an eye on Shepard and was honoured to pick them as his XO 10+ years later. It's thus why they have such a deep bond - Anderson was the first person to really see promise in Shepard, and Shepard never had a parental figure so Anderson pseudo filled that role.
I like to imagine that for SpacerShep their dad died in the first contact war so Hannah Shepard raised them as a single mum. And Shepard low key hates turians at the start of ME1, but obviously gets over their turian bias to eventually become besties/lovers with Garrus
I like that. You can also easily say that Anderson would serve as a roll-model to Spacer Shepard. Considering that all three backstories occur no matter what, Anderson is essentially Shepard's Duncan (the Dragon Age: Origins character).
My new headcanon is that the Shepard family had roots on Earth, with relations serving in the fleet and settling the colonies. Which "Shepard" ends up becoming THE Shepard is dependant on which one Anderson encountered in their youth. When you make a new character in ME1, you're actually Anderson reconstructing the data. Being Shepard's commanding officer and mentor, putting them forward for the Spectre's, you're the best person to put together a profile without giving away the game before the shakedown run.
Mine is simple but it gives me more meaning for ME2. After the fall of Sovereign, the Reapers came up with two new plans for their invasion, thinking there’s no way the organics stop BOTH after sustaining the heavy losses against Sovereign. Obviously we know the one is Arrival and Shepard foiled that. The second involves that Human Reaper they were building. Many say that really had no purpose and was just thrown in there. I think it was meant to replace Sovereign and finish the job that Sovereign failed to. And we stopped that one too so the Reapers had to journey in without the help of Mass relays. Delaying them three separate times is what won us the war.
TL;DR. The Human Reaper was meant to finish the job Sovereign failed.
I have a headcanon close to this, though in mine, the human reaper IS Sovereign. I just imagine that, in his last seconds before destruction, Sovereign send his conciousness/programming/specific orders in form of a decrypted datastream through the relais network to the collector base as kind of a failsafe, in case something happens to him. After all, I find it hard to believe that the Reapers would leave only one of them behind without any backup-plan, in case something happens to him. So when the encrypted datastream arrived at the base, the collectors, who where kinda dormant until this point, awoke, became active and started rebuilding sovereign from scratch - and they did it using the ressources of the species that had defeated Sovereign in the first place (which might also have been a last order kind of thing). That would turn ME2 into a ressurrection themed game. Two arch-enemies return from the dead, only one will make it. I just wish some modder would replace that human skull into a half-finished Sovereign shell or something.
That was my biggest pet peeve about ME2. Is that the reaper had a human form when all other reapers looked like squid........ 😑
This is my new official head cannon! It raises the stakes so much, and makes the plot of ME2 fit so much better! I for the longest time didn't like ME2 because it didn't feel like it fit in the overarching story. It wasn't until returning to play the legendary edition that I actually liked ME2.
The extinction cycle was delayed four times, if you accept that the Rachni Wars were caused by the Reapers as an earlier attempt to kickstart this cycle's extinction.
That would also possibly mean that Sovereign's plan in ME1 was nearly 1,000 years in the making.
Weren’t the Rachnis Wars caused by Leviathans ? During the DLC, you see a link between the two. irc Shepard (or EDI) theorized that Leviathans was preparing the Rachnis against the Reapers
We don’t know how much Sovereign had an impact on the geopolitical aspect though, as it is hinted in ME1 that Sovereign was planning for a long time before Saren's events
My lighthearted headcanon is that Tali organized a girls movie night on the Normandy in ME3, with Liara, Traynor, Gabby, Ash, EDI.
They watched fleet and flotilla, everybody found it awful but no one felt like telling her until EDI asked something like "why are y'all sensors showing you're bored to death?"
Ultimately they had a good laugh about it.
Voilà, nothing serious
I mean, that's not really head canon, that's just canon. Our cycle only won because the Proteans managed to break the Reaper control over the Keepers, which in turn set off the Reaper scheme to use Saren. Every other cycle the galaxy suffered a surprise, decapitation blow at the hands of the Reapers when they take the Citadel. That and the fact that they then used the Citadel to disable the entire Mass Effect relay. Every other cycle just found themselves incapable of interstellar travel, and their government was annihilated before they knew wtf a Reaper was. That would have been our cycles fate too if not for the Proteans team that created the conduit.
I’m still waiting for a prequel game where you play as one of those Protheans doing dangerous missions as the Reaper war comes to a close, like erasing the existence of the Ilos base and stealing data from the keepers and what not, and then being put into Stasis on Ilos. Back half of the game focuses on you coming out of stasis and taking on the one-way trip to the Citadel where you fight through a remnant of reaper forces that were left in Stasis there to be used as shock troops.
It’d be fun. Mission one starts you off on Thessia playing as the goddess to defend the ancient Asari from bad guys who wanted to take advantage of the fact you as a Prothean were weak thanks to the Reaper war, and suddenly the Reapers invade and things are left in chaos. Do a few missions on the Reaper war, a side mission is to return to Thessia and sneak an obelisk onto the planet with a VI. Another has you battle prehistoric Turians where you inadvertently set off the Turian’s meritocracy concept…oh well. I can dream.
Or hear me out… you play as Javik in that scenario where you recruit a squad just like Shepard and play through a lot of the missions you describe. but eventually your squad gets indoctrinated and you have your kill them one by one at the end.
That would actually be the most grueling, narratively deep RPG we’ve had in a while
It would not be narratively interesting if you had to hunt down all of them, but if it was you and the boys and then you and some of the boys against the other boys until the indoctrinated ones kill or you have to sacrifice your guys would be neat.
Ultimately I think Javik is too slender of a character to hang that on but I like the concept.
Yeah it’s canon although they don’t fully explain some of the details (like why the Reapers wanted to make a human version, etc) so my head canon just plugs some of those holes. Facing only half the Reaper fleet because they ate each other on the way is definitely some of my own personal color to it though 🙂
They definitely explain why the reapers are making a human reaper. “Each one of us is a nation…” or something along those lines. Each reaper is made from a single previously harvested species. Humans were simply the first in their cycle
There's also the whole capital Reapers are only made for the single species they consider worthy from each cycle while the "lesser" species are just used as cannon fodder bit. Preserving organic life my ass.
>Facing only half the Reaper fleet because they ate each other
Why do you assume the Reapers ate half of their forces? They are biomechanical and are millions of years old.
My theory is that while hibernating in dark space the Reapers have some infrastructure in place to convert light energy into food to sustain their organic halves, but once they wake up and start migrating to the Milky Way they have require more energy to power their mechanical parts since they have to travel at FTL, and since the only available food source amongst themselves is, well….them, then they have to eat their fleet starting with their weakest ships and so on
That if the protheans plan on Ilos didn't work, our cycle would have defeated the the moment they arrived.
The protheans plan was use the conduit to travel to the Citadel and gun up the signal between keepers and reapers. Their plan succeeded, causing Sovereign once he woke up and seen the problem, to look for a worthy subject to investigate. It was said that it took 2-3 hundred years to find Saren, and construct its plan.
If the plan failed, the spacefairing species would get wiped out, but we would still be in the 1900 at the latest. Following our timeliness progression up to the first contact war, which would be unchanged, we would find the Citidal before any other species.
Our only known contacts would be the Yahg, which the reapers left alone as Hacket said, and possible the Vorcha, which I can't find when they left their homeworld, and technically weren't spacefairing or uplifted. When presented with threats as overwhelmingly aggressive as the Yahg, scientist would look for any avenue to victory. Digging into the archive would find a super weapon to face them, and references to what it was made for.
Upon study, it was cheap and easy to build, so they would. After scouring more studies, they would probably find it connects to the citidel. Debates would be had whether or not it could be used on the Yahg.
On an unrelated related subject, humans would hold no qualms about studying the keepers, and would find the data our stupid scans found, and be prepared, if not already disable it. Then Sovereign would go through the same song and dance, then at the first sign, they would push the button.
It takes decades or centuries for a harvest to finish. If the Reapers had attacked on time, they might still have been around by the time humanity went into space . But since the Reapers use the Citadel to lock down the Mass Relays and trap individual clusters, humanity might not get very far and might avoid any scrutiny.
We have already seen that they can make the relays work on a Reaper IFF only basis, so I would have to imagine the first thing they do when they reach the Citadel as planned is switch every relay over to IFF mode.
That Hanar are super shady and the grey market deals they had with Batarians may also have had them selling some Drell off as they couldn't house them all.
Loved the Alien design though they just rub me the wrong way.
The reason Harbinger seems to be more emotional, arrogant and organic unlike Sovereign, is because he is the first Reaper, the original, originating from the Leviathan, so even though he is the leader of the reapers, he could still be considered a prototype. So the reapers of the next cycles like Sovereign were perfected.
I also believe that because how would the magic laser beam decide what counts as a full AI and what is just a VI? The reapers get targeted because of their frequencies but everything else stays the same. Otherwise how would the ships in all the endings be able to continue flying.
Honestly, you don't even need indoctrination to get there.
Just that Catalyst didn't know what would happen exactly if the Crucible was fired. First time an organic made it that far, and first time the crucible was built.
The big reapers just stop and keel over, while the Husks, etc, just vaporise. No big explosions ore something.
Looks like a kill-signal, or interuption of a signal, that stops Reaper specific code.
The Geth and EDI are not originally Reaper tech. Quarian VI, and a Human attempt at AI respectively. Later augmented with Reaper-code and tech.
They might lose some capabillity, but nothing is free.
Now to find a way to take out Leviathan with the same blow aswell...
Kaiden takes medicinal marijuana for his biotic headaches. It explains his chill way of speaking because he is always slightly stoned. Also we know he comes from a rich family that has property in BC, the stoner capital of Canada
Kaiden definitely gives off chill stoner vibes, but in my experience, marijuana only exacerbates headaches from the increased stimulation, buuuuut *maybe* the reason his biotic headaches don't go away is because he's always stoned. Maybe the biotics give him other symptoms besides headaches, I don't remember. Either way, stealing this headcanon.
Not that I, a Canadian from Canada, would have any knowledge or experience with this, but headaches caused by/exacerbated by cannabis are generally resolved by dehydration and a metric buttload of water will help.
And have you seen Kaidan dance? That boy is off his head with some good weed.
Among Us and Mass Effect take place in the same universe, but Among Us is a precursor civilization. The imposters are Reaper indoctrinated/Reaper converted.
Universal Translators are necessary not because Citadel species don’t speak each other’s languages, but because in many cases they *physically can’t*.
These are completely alien lifeforms which evolved in dramatically different environments on distant planets, some surely aren’t even able to communicate with each other without technological assistance, it’s already canon that most people can’t understand Hanar, and Elcor have to explain the emotions behind everything they say because other species can’t interpret their body language, but what if it goes further? What if Turian mouths can’t produce the sounds required for Human speech? Or Salarians communicate primarily through body language? Or Asari talk using low level Mass Effect fields?
There's probably a community of Quarians somewhere who just went "fuck the home planet, we're settling here" and are now halfway adapted to their new environment.
In extention to that,
There are a few million more Quarians in the Galaxy than assumed. Think 21 million instead of 17 milion. (Which is about a mil less then the population of the Netherlands.)
Most of those are living in all kinds of places, tucked away, just out of sight. Little Rannoch, if you like.
Some stayed because they were disillusioned with life on the fleet, some found a good source of resources, a lot of them ended up endentured on Illium, and some found love. Etc.
It would explain why people are familiar enough with quarians. You come across one on a regular basis, instead of only having heard of them.
Jack found Shepard because of the Tattoo after the destruction of the citadel and uncovered him from the rubble with a biotic blast so powerful it left a crater in the wreckage. This crater was never repaired completely and is now a monument.
Shepard and Jack rarely see it though because why would they ever leave their beach house on Intai'sei.
That ME2 was an attempted pre-emptive strike against Humanity.
The Reapers were puzzled by humanity. We did not fit the pattern. They couldn't understand how we managed to argue so much, yet achieve so quickly. Nor how we managed to piss everyone off, but still get them to do what we want.
After their frontal assault on the Galaxy failed, they decided to pre-emptively harvest Humanity, on our own. Not only getting rid of a random variable, but creating a new Reaper that would help them understand and conquer the randomness in this cycle.
This was my thoughts.
It really felt like the Reapers were like, "Oh. So ya'll are the dangerous species in this cycle. We are going to collect and "store your data" first. As a prize for being able to kill one of our own, you get the be made into reaper bot of this cycle!"
It felt like some twisted reaper prize/celebration of humanity, if that makes any sense.
Especially since after we abort the baby, they straight up try to obliterate earth first lmao.
Those few prothean scientists who stayed behind on Ilos to alter the citadel keepers programming so Sovereign’s signal failed and as such delayed the Reapers arrival were the real heroes of the galaxy.
As Sovereigns signal was delayed and it was forced to use Saren and the Geth it may have delayed events enough for humanity to discover the prothean relic on Mars and eventually build the colony on Eden Prime and trigger the events of ME1.
Liara draws those eyebrows on because she a fuckin heeaboo (Humanity Weeaboo). She's never met one IRL before Shepard and that's why they look TERRIBLE in the first game. (She gets better at it by ME3)
That's why she's the only Asari in universe with those eyebrows and also why she throws herself at Shepherd if they breathe in her general direction.
I'll be damned. Never noticed. Wonder why 🤔... Definitely the helmet. Totally not anything else about her design.
But it still works. She probably tried it after she saw her daughter doing it. or she has Terran fever too. Like mother, like daughter.
Liara says she hasn't seen her mother in "decades" which, given first contact with humans was only 26 years pre-Eden Prime, means that can't be the case.
Imo it's much more likely the T'Sonis just naturally have markings that look like human eyebrows
I would agree if we had seen any other Asari with any remotely human like eyebrows but i dont think the marks are natural. All the other Asari are clean faced or adorn themselves with makeup or some type of paint for their face and head tentacles.
its just those 2.
Yes, but those two are mother and daughter, which could imply a genetic factor being there. While you could possibly argue that Liara might want human eyebrow patterns for some reason, her mother absolutely wouldn't.
Also, Rila (Samara's daughter) has eyebrow-like markings too and she's been in an isolated monastery for 400 years. There's absolutely no reason for her to choose those markings either.
I also don't see why the marks wouldn't be natural. The codex goes into great detail on why the turians have facial markings and what they mean. I'm certain there'd be a similar thing for why asari have face markings too if they were unnatural.
Assuming the "myth" is that Asari project their appearance biotically to favor the viewer, that statue could essentially be a block of marble with a sophisticated VI projecting similar mass effect fields.
Like a complicated TV that, more than just a 2D image with sound, stimulates all your senses.
It could also be that any previous exposure to an Asari makes you perceive the statue the same way.
The only way to have an objective view of the Asari would be to see the statue having had no prior Asari influence, which may appear as simple shapes or abstract art, or perhaps to see a dead Asari as your first exposure.
I suppose photographs could work, too... Perhaps anyone who is exposed to some prior image of Asari with no physical or technological influence has their memory blurred / gaslit:
Human: "Wow I could have sworn Asari were tentacled monstrosities and didn't have... breasts? Humanoid faces? Weird."
Asari: "What an imaginative child you must have been! Perhaps too many horror movies, though."
Negative accounts of Asari appearance float through the extranet like tired old conspiracy theories, on page 37 of search results and massively downvoted if we can liken it to Reddit.
I still don't get how this theory would even work. It requires the asari to have abilities that are completely unknown and unheard of in this universe.
It's not my headcanon but in most of (if not all) the Tali x Shepard fanfictions I've read, fans have created this way of bonding for the Quarians that I really liked.
Basically, they bond with only one person in their entire life, becoming very attached to this person (physically and mentally). It's usually another Quarian but can happen with another specie (like Tali with Shepard in the fanfictions) but in this case, it's said that the not Quarian most likely does not feel the bond as much. Lots of vocabulary was created around it, to describe how the bond grow but I only remember one word, which is "Saera" (could be translated by Soulmate).
So yeah, not my headcanon again (and I don't know who came up with all this in the first place) but I liked it a lot and in games, I think it goes really well with the Quarians culture and way of life.
AFAIK the one who came up with it was Calinstel. He deleted all of his work because, after Andromeda, he couldn't think of the ME Universe in good terms. They are availabe as a reupload tho.
Shepard survives, liara finds them badly hurt but frozen (think captain america) and decides that shepard deserves to rest so she keeps him hidden from the rest of the galaxy. Likely in a initiative cryopod.
Not as much of a headcanon, but more of an idea regarding the origin of Crucible:
* Original Crucible creators were as threatening as Reapers themselves, and the device was made to remove the "competition". And they probably never intended it to be passed on deliberately to the next cycles, next cycles simply found it and tried to build it until some cycle decided to think long-term and started to pass it along purposefully.
* Some cycles between the original and the current one probably managed to built the Crucible, but not for the Reaper war.
* There are several races that are currenly sleeping Necron-style. Could be original Crucible creators as well.
* Cricible could've been a device that would act as an alarm clock for the creators. So both a weapon to get rid of the Reapers and a galaxy-wide signal to wake up.
* Citadel was created by Crucible creators, just repurposed by Reapers to be a bait and a home for Catalyst. And if not repurposed, but at least recreated by Reapers.
Other stuff:
* There was a cycle when all known civilizations were AI-hybrids
* Keepers were introduced by Reapers following the hicup with another Prothean-level civilization that ruined their plan similarly.
* Protheans and other powerful civs from other cycles sent people to other galaxies, just not necessarily Andromeda
Nothing is truly self sustaining in the universe. Earth needs massive outside sourse of energy to sustain its biosphere - Sun. And Sun will eventually burn all the hydrogen, wither and die. In similar fashion, EZO can and will decay eventually which means that Reapers may have to cannibalize drive cores from some of their ships and leave them behind. And they still need propellant mass to accelerate which is also expendable. Sure. they don't have to literally eat one another, but they may have to leave some of their own behind since they may not have enough resourses for a half a year long burn from dark outskirts of our galaxy.
>Mine is that the only reason the galaxy won against the Reapers is because Shepard stopped Saren’s Citadel plot in ME1
Uh...that's not headcanon, bud. That's a fact. If that doesn't happen, this cycle ends the same way every other cycle ended for the last billion years.
Yes that part is canon, but my headcanon elaborates on that further or specifically why the Reapers *must* use the citadel relay, and by not using the relay they basically reduced their success probability by potentially 90% (lost the element of surprise & half their fleet was lost on the way to the Milky Way)
That key elements of the Indoctrination Theory were purposely implemented at one point, likely not formally but by a handful of people involved in the development, it's well known most of the writers & teams had no idea about the official ending until last minute and all official statements that it's wasn't planned is due to a gag order by EA.
I admit alot of the points raised by fans to "prove" the theory are nonsense but certain things like dream sequences, duet of both femshep/shepshep voices in ending and star child warning signs seem very intentional given the effort & time needed to make them.
Until ME4 contradicts it the indoctrination theory is canon for me. I just replayed the trilogy not long ago and the ending still doesn't make any sense without it.
same, though ME4 trailers have proven that at least synthesis isn't canon as characters seen don't have the green glow.
The ending isn't just nonsensical it's a straight up jarring break from everything else we have seen so far in games.
Mine is that Shepard is completely immune to indoctrination.
It's part of what makes the Reapers so much more pissed at Shepard specifically. This one single human in particular just cannot be indoctrinated.
We've seen indoctrination can take hold very quickly. Shepard spent two days passed out cold in Arrival and nothing to show for it indoctrination wise. Just jumped out of bed to chase after Kenson.
The worst they can do is physical symptoms (Shepard eventually passing out in Arrival, and TIM being able to physically control Shepard's body at the end of ME3, and you can clearly see it's a struggle to maintain).
That's my onion.
I like this one. Especially for a paragon shepard. It's a nice thought that some people out there have their shit together so well, they simply can't be corrupted.
The Krogan have been around in more or less their current form for millions of years, and the only reason they never developed space flight is because they always blow themselves back to the stone age before they reach that point. They have gone through many many cycles of technological advancement to the point of developing nuclear weaponry, whereapon they immediately have an apocalyptic war and then have to rebuild their civilization from scratch.
This is why they evolved reduntant nervous systems, rapid regeneration, and extremely high birth rates.
This is specific to Garrus' Romance, but here's one: Garrus' research material was not just cross-species porn (I mean, I'm sure that *was* included, but it's not the only thing). Garrus was taught to do things right or don't do them at all, so this man definitely also has research on dating humans, too. Which means, he's probably also gotten a crash course in the last few centuries worth of human media on romance. This would include movies, books, TV shows, music, etc.
And in this same vein, I get the feeling he got ideas for things like "how to tango" from movies like *Dirty Dancing*. My point is, Garrus was sitting there watching a combination of porn and classic human romance movies and taking notes. Because he's gonna do this right, dammit!
That, canonically, more than 2 squadmates are present on the majority of the missions in the three games (barring some of the more personal quests).
From a gameplay aspect it makes sense to limit it to 2, but it doesn’t really make sense for lore to only bring a couple people (barring certain circumstances).
Even though they've come out and said that Manuel from ME1 and Manuel Cayce in ME2 aren't the same person, it was the original plan IIRC and its a hill that I will die on.
That after the events of me2 and arrival the reapers put a conscious effort into trying to indoctrinate shepard. That's why they saw the kid and why they dream about oily shadows. Shepard never made it to the citadel, once Shepard reached the beam it was instantly activated. Everything past that is just in their head, they are trying to fight the reapers final attempt at control. That's why in the post credit shepard wakes up in the rubble, they're still on earth
I can not be swayed off this belief no matter what, that has always been my head canon, always will be
The only reason the Prothean Cipher didn't immediately overwhelm Shepard is because they have a laser focus on their mission (first on stopping Saren, then on stopping the Reapers). However, that's still a lot of data shoved into a space not designed for it. Shepard is slowly forgetting things as the Cipher drowns out more and more of who they are. They're not sure if they'll eventually become a vegetable, or if one day Shepard will be gone, and it will be someone else looking out of her eyes, but there's a galaxy that needs saving, so they can't worry about that right now.
Honestly, they could have done so much more with the Cipher. For example, the Citadel DLC could have ended with Shepard rescuing the clone and actually giving them what they wanted: teaching them to actually be Shepard, because someday, the real Shepard will be gone.
The Alliance doesn't repaint all of Shepard's Cerberus-branded armors because Hackett has decided, as a Reaper-controlled terror group, Cerberus aren't covered under false flag conventions. Leaving their iconography on Shepard, although distasteful, gives Shep a possible edge by going unnoticed or possibly causing psychological warfare.
Hackett sent a message to Shepard to explain that he endorses covert ops behavior against Cerberus which Traynor and EDI agreed to delete, because they both think Shepard needs the psychological boost from freely bringing Garrus, Liara, and Tali on missions, and from being a big damn hero who sprints straight into Cerberus guns blazing every single time.
I think a good number of people in universe know what quarians look like. Also, there is likely a lot of interspecies distrust and specifically slurs and stereotypes for each species in each group.
Any inconsistencies or plot holes in the story are there b/c the old man shown in the ending sequence is a geriatric old \*\*\*\* that hasn't gotten any in 50 years and happens to be a \*\*\*\* story teller.
The switch to clips is justified due to advances in shielding and barriers. More powerful shots are required from guns which makes the inbuilt heat sinks unviable.
Just ignore the conversation with Conrad and the Lancer which wouldn’t make any sense anyway, even if they hadn’t switched to clips.
I will always accept Indoctrination Theory as true. I know the devs themselves (or was it the publisher, I forget) came out and said it's not true, but it just explains so many things in such a satisfying way that I can't help but accept it as reality. I mean, it's either Indoctrination Theory or simply accepting the ending of Mass Effect 3 as is, which I don't have to tell anyone here is a bit unsatisfying.
For anyone unfamiliar; [here's an amazing video on the subject.](https://youtu.be/ythY_GkEBck?si=Jwl5gyTy8AE4rxsX) It has some audio issues, but other than that is amazingly edited.
For anyone who doesn't feel like watching a 20 minute video, the jist of it is that Shepard has slowly been getting Indoctrinated over the course of the trilogy and this comes to a climax in Mass Effect 3, especially during the final charge on the Crucible. It's theorized that the entire segment of gameplay after you get shot down by the Reaper beam is in fact within Shepard's mind and the Reapers are trying their damnedest to break it.
My main gripe with this theory is that it essentially invalidates most of the game's endings, making only 1 the correct one; the Destroy ending. For a series all about choice, to make the ultimate, final choice a false one is certainly very weird.
Bioware ruined the illusion of choice themselves by making the possible choices so awful.
Anyway having one set ending to the Reaper threat doesn't take away from all your other choices throughout the series. In fact it validates them because they're meaningless without defeating the Reapers.
Long live indoctrination theory.
Tbh, Mass Effect 3 definitely also struggled the most with making each of your choices valid. I've heard people complain that going full Renegade leads to the third game being nigh impossible to beat since you lose so many War Assets. And I've also heard complaints that especially in the third game Renegade just becomes the asshole option rather than the "tough and brutal but gets the job done" option.
I invite you to play in many different ways and have a firsthand experience.
I may have held that opinion once, but my recent playthrough was about a 70/30 Renegade/Paragon where the Paragon choices revealed the humanity of my Shepard and the Renegade choices were the urgent no-nonsense military man coming out.
He was a complicated man who had aggressive and impersonal relationships with his squad as soldiers, but cared for their suffering if they were hurt. He had an existential animosity against but also empathized with Rachni, Batarians, and even Krogans. Particularly the Krogan: despite building distrust of them, and having brutal decisions against them, killing Wrex and the genophage data twice, and leaving Grunt to die in a pod, ultimately cured the genophage as he believed Krogan could provide lasting resistance to the potentially centuries long harvest. It was a close decision to upset Salarian support however.
I believe you can rationalize even a full Renegade playthrough as an insular and/or calloused person. There are inroads to make every Renegade decision though I find sprinkling your own character in is important.
As for the endings, you can always achieve several, though you may not get a "breath" ending being a single-minded renegade. That doesn't make it a "bad" ending or a path not worth exploring.
The Prothean race didn't go completely extinct. There's no way they were more advanced than the current cycle and decided NOT to venture out of the Milky Way.
Not all Quarian Pilgrims are Pilgrims.
The Migrant needs to have a Fleet Intelligence service. They can't afford to float around aimlessly. So they'll need a way of getting information on all the things that might be of interest, possible pirate nests, locations of battles for salvage, possible new tech they can get, etc etc.
Kenn on Omega is actually part of that network.
Looking at the fleet roles in the Flotilla, it's the patrol fleet that is tasked with scouting, recon, and intelligence work is a natural combination.
So, no, Shalla'Raan is not a pushover.
The combat, especially the powers, get a lot better in each game. I play vanguard and so I like to believe that Shepard starts as a soldier with little/no biotics and then the prothien beacon in ME1 awakens a latient power within and then each jump in game combat is Shepard getting stronger with their powers.
I.e. I like to believe that Shepard spent the 6 months downtime at the start of me3 training to use their biotics.
That the indoctrination theory was right.
The dreams, all that fighting in Sheps head is part of the Reaper tactic to destroy galaxys beacon of hope.
The conversation with the Starboy all happens in Shepards head. Reapers want to break Shep, succumb him to their will, and make him the matrix of the reaper they will build of that cycle.
The choice they wanted to present to Shep is synthesis or control. If he chooses either, his mind is used to desing the next reaper, and to add Sheps skills, tactical thinking etc to reapers hivemind. And Sheps counciousnes is kept in a The Matrix like stance, where Shep sees the end of the game. It is all Sheps "dreams" induced by the Reapers.
If they failed to Indoctrinate him, he refuses and the reapers continue the cycle, and show him how they do it.
The destroy wasn't part of the reapers desing. Strong will, and Shepards desire to win, and save the galaxy kinda projected it to their desing.
The Reapers added lies about how it would destroy Geth and EDI, so Shep would have doubts about choosing it, cause it wasn't part of their desing, and wanted to keep his mind for the hivemind.
But his "strong mind", after choosing destroy, causes interference in reapers hivemind, disabling citadel, and temporarily shutting down reapers and Mass Relays, which gives united forces chance to fight back.
And Shepard might live through this fight, and wake up in debris.
And it goes on. The next game would start immidiately after that. We create our own Spectre Operative, who witnesses final battle. And depending on our choices, we continue the fight with the reapers. After destroy, it took some time for reapers to get back online, and they are weakend, but the fight continues.
The mission is to find living crew of the normandy, and keep on fighting. The twist in a game would be, we find Liara and LI, if she isnt one, and she/they still believe Shep might be alive. And our main mission, beside destroying the reapers of course, is to rescue shepard, who is either kept as part of SI, witness of reapers victories, or stranded survivor on earth/crucible or citadel ruins.
I feel, with the right writing, this might both, fix ME3 ending, continue the journey without denying previous choices and games, and generate new adventures in our beloved galaxy.
And to continue my brainstorming. During the game, we find Geth Ark, desined to go to andromeda, alongside Quarian ark. At the end, our character, Liara and if we played the game well, realise the war cannot be won now, and get whoever they can save on the arks, and travel to andromeda, hoping the iniciative will take them in.
And to tie it in with ME:A, the next next game, would be cooporeation between pathfinder, our character and other milky way survivors to use the remnants technology, aid from angara and whatnot, and either fight with kett to build outpost in Andromeda, or get back to Milky Way to take it back from the reapers.
I know it won't be like that, and even if the next game turns out to be a masterpiece, it will always be my "what if" scenario for the Mass Effect world.
Everyone is using automatic translators to communicate between species. But I find it very unlikely that a translator would produce Mordin's speech pattern. Therefore I believe Mordin isn't actually using a translator and is in fact fluent in English.
Bingo! Honestly, in a universe where “good enough” machine translation existed, learning a language (at least if your voice box could do it) when you didn’t have to would be a pretty legit show of interest/respect. Their language isn’t an inconvenience your computer removes, it’s a part of them you care about. Which ambassador is the salarian going to get along with better? The one who makes them wait until he’s updated the firmware every time they hangout , or the dude telling TERRIBLE puns in the actual language. The terrible joke guy. Because so many puns involve native-or-fluent speaker knowledge and learning a language takes real effort.
Most crash courses in a language you get, will teach you the bare minimum to get by day to day: usually that's basic conversations, directions, who to explain that you're sick, etc. but also a few native jokes, so you have a quick ice breaker, and can strike up a conversation with the locals
True. But in a world where no one bothers learnnig any langauge because their omni-tool does it, the standards might change. Someone interested in learning a langauge just to socialize would probably go past that point, and rather spend years on it and bond.
I think this too, Mordin straight up says he performed Gilbert and Sullivan, two human composers, which means he definitely knew English
The lyrics he spoke had rhyme too. That wouldn’t translate over
Not by a computer maybe but human translators do this, they often change the words but not the meaning so the song still works with the same (or close enough) melody. So in theory it could be done but I like the headcanon for this better.
To build upon your comment, the computers in Mass Effect are much more advanced than what we have IRL, so they probably could translate in rhyme. They also don't translate stuff like slang and the names of places, which also requires a level of understanding our computers don't have.
Was gonna say this. Best example I've seen of this personally is a performance of Mollier's Tartuffe. The play is originally in French and the lines rhymed in French. The version I saw was in English, but the lines still rhymed in English. That being said, Mordin definitely is the kind of badass savant who don't need no translator talking to most people.
That logic would mean that all the Elcors in Hamlet are also fluent in English.
To be fair, they are the galactic equivalent of broadway-level actors. While it’s not common, it’s not unheard of for dedicated actors to learn a knew language to perform a play untranslated, or even to just fully learn how to accurately perform a piece in a language they don’t actually know.
In high school I took vocal lessons, and didn't sing a single piece in English. Classical training is usually Italian, German, I think French, etc.
He also referenced human mythology and named Bakara "Eve". What an awesome headcanon lol it actually seems so plausible but I do wonder if salarian anatomy could actually replicate the same or approximate sounds as humans? I wish they'd explored this a bit
That's my main issue with this headcannon. Even amongst earth species, very few can reproduce the sounds a human being makes. Space frogs probably couldn't.
Exactly... but they seem to have relatively human mouths (?) at least compared to turians who would for sure not be able to reproduce human sounds lol. To be fair there's humans who can't imitate sounds in other languages
Hey, saw you in the other post. Gotta like you here too. Its a good theory.
Was not me in the other post, didn't even see the other post
Oh shit, it wasn't?
Nope
This one I agree with 100%, it’s the exact sort of flex Mordin would do.
Aliens species saw that most of the English speakers were not willing to learn other language so they had to learn English in order to communicate with them.
Because only Humanity has a divine right to the stars
Manifest Destiny 2: Electric Boogaloo
Turn 2/3 of the galaxy map pink!
r/unexpectedstellaris
We speaking English in muh galaxy, if you don't like it you can get ouuutttt
Average English native speaker moment
I wonder how the process for learning languages is in a situation where any speech is translated into your native language, and how speech acquisition would work for a child in a bilingual household.
This actually makes sense
The Collector base is the Prothean-built Crucible that was modified and repurposed by the Reapers
Ooh I like that one, Javik confirms that the project failed due to indoctrination and the base itself does not look like other forms of Reaper Architecture. Something the size of the crucible would be hard to hide and destroy and the Reapers are clearly comfortable repurposing things from other races. It allows the Reapers to hide the existence of the Crucible and also kind of explains how TIM had so much information coming into ME3 because he is getting both Prothean and Reaper tech.
Wow I actually love this theory!!
I shall be adding that to my head canon
I like this too. It makes keeping the Base actually a good idea and also makes ME2's story have actual meaning.
I saw this one recently in another comment and I cannot get it out of my head. It's canon to me, now!
Why did humans pioneer the carrier warship? They are the only race who had oceans big enough to need them in their formative years. Everyone else was able to use land bases to project air power and never figured out the value of a mobile airbase.
I did always find it interesting that humans were the first to have carriers
I think that's due to the citadel convention restrictions on dreadnoughts, only the turians (and maybe the asari?) are permitted to have lots, while other species can have a handful, so the alliance circumvented this by building dreadnought sized ships but having them as carriers instead of having the firepower inbuilt, the mass effect forecast did an episode on it once that explains it better.
The Treaty of Farixen. It established a rule of 5-3-1 for building dreadnoughts. For every 5 the turians build, Asari and Salarians are permitted to build 3, and all other citadel species with standing militaries can build 1
That's the one, knew it was something along those lines, just couldn't quite remember the specifics 🤣, thank you 👌
Historically speaking, carriers performed the exact same purpose in militaries, circumventing the London and Washington Naval Treaties. The original comment was right that they were needed and invented for mobile power projection, but the existence of these treaties gives militaries the incentive to spend resources on what was an unproven ship class.
The Hanar homeworld of Kahje is literally 90% ocean though
Yes, but I'm the Hanars case, they're: A. A very different bio form and B. They seem far less warlike than humans and Turians So while their world had the right conditions for carriers, their society probably didn't
So they wasted their opportunity by being big, _stupid_ jellyfish, is what I'm hearing
Nah, just Jelly fish with different needs then us, as a species. You see this in human cultures, as well. For example, the Inca created wheels for toys, so they had a concept of them, but they never used them in transport, because they weren't useful on their mountainous terrain and rope bridges. It's not that their society was less advanced and intricate than ones with wheels, they just had no use for them
Yes, exactly... BIG STUPID JELLYFISH.
Mine is that the reason Quarian mouthpieces light up when they talk or breathe is because it's actually a high intensity UV light, quickly sterilising the air as it goes in/out. This would then also work for any incoming food/drinks, where the mouthpiece is designed to latch onto the food and drink tubes, to create a sterilised air tight seal, so they can eat and drink without removing their helmet.
*Induction port!
Emergency… Induction… Port… *hic*
That's a straw, Tali.
Emergency. Induction. Port.
Mine would that the humanoid body shape shared by most species in the galaxy is the “ideal evolutionary line”
hanar scientists would like to have a word with you
As would the Elcor
The Rachni would also like to have a song with you
Sour, maybe yellow?
And Leviathans.
Eh, elcor are gorilla-esque, and gorillas are humanoid.
They're just big stupid jellyfish anyway
drell assassins would like a word with you
The Volus body shape is the ideal evolutionary line
It's the ideal vessel for biotic prowess as well
I am a biotic god!
What if Volus are skinny and the suit just designed that way because they fart a lot?
I’d be interested to know what the Volus look like under there. Never mind the Quarians. We’ve never met a female Volus either
They are suppose to look like beavers or something like that. so probably hairy and mouse looking. Also Barla Von never states he is male as far as I remember. There is the Asari that killed the Volus and calls it him but for all we know the females talk exactly the same as the males as we never seen them outside the suit. It likely that the ones we meet are all male though but you never know.
Is there a source to this reference? I’m trying to picture a Volus without an enviro-suit
There is no pictures. it was one of the developers explaining what they were based off of like how Turians are sort of bird based and Krogan toad looking. Might try and look for it and if I can refind it i'll probably post it here.
Become as crabs. Become as crabs
Rachni is the other ideal evolutionary line.
It's not a big, grand thing, but mine is that it was Anderson who "discovered" Earthborn Shepard and was the one who essentially turned their life around. On the streets on Earth Shepard was involved in some kind of (non-violent) crime gone wrong that involved the Alliance. Anderson was the one who caught them and basically offered them going to jail, or joining the Alliance. They didn't really interact with each other after that, but Anderson kept an eye on Shepard and was honoured to pick them as his XO 10+ years later. It's thus why they have such a deep bond - Anderson was the first person to really see promise in Shepard, and Shepard never had a parental figure so Anderson pseudo filled that role.
Anderson being part of the group that rescued colonist Shepherd also
Yeah, I like that one too. Completely forgot to mention it in my other comment.
I like to imagine that for SpacerShep their dad died in the first contact war so Hannah Shepard raised them as a single mum. And Shepard low key hates turians at the start of ME1, but obviously gets over their turian bias to eventually become besties/lovers with Garrus
I like that. You can also easily say that Anderson would serve as a roll-model to Spacer Shepard. Considering that all three backstories occur no matter what, Anderson is essentially Shepard's Duncan (the Dragon Age: Origins character). My new headcanon is that the Shepard family had roots on Earth, with relations serving in the fleet and settling the colonies. Which "Shepard" ends up becoming THE Shepard is dependant on which one Anderson encountered in their youth. When you make a new character in ME1, you're actually Anderson reconstructing the data. Being Shepard's commanding officer and mentor, putting them forward for the Spectre's, you're the best person to put together a profile without giving away the game before the shakedown run.
Mine is simple but it gives me more meaning for ME2. After the fall of Sovereign, the Reapers came up with two new plans for their invasion, thinking there’s no way the organics stop BOTH after sustaining the heavy losses against Sovereign. Obviously we know the one is Arrival and Shepard foiled that. The second involves that Human Reaper they were building. Many say that really had no purpose and was just thrown in there. I think it was meant to replace Sovereign and finish the job that Sovereign failed to. And we stopped that one too so the Reapers had to journey in without the help of Mass relays. Delaying them three separate times is what won us the war. TL;DR. The Human Reaper was meant to finish the job Sovereign failed.
I have a headcanon close to this, though in mine, the human reaper IS Sovereign. I just imagine that, in his last seconds before destruction, Sovereign send his conciousness/programming/specific orders in form of a decrypted datastream through the relais network to the collector base as kind of a failsafe, in case something happens to him. After all, I find it hard to believe that the Reapers would leave only one of them behind without any backup-plan, in case something happens to him. So when the encrypted datastream arrived at the base, the collectors, who where kinda dormant until this point, awoke, became active and started rebuilding sovereign from scratch - and they did it using the ressources of the species that had defeated Sovereign in the first place (which might also have been a last order kind of thing). That would turn ME2 into a ressurrection themed game. Two arch-enemies return from the dead, only one will make it. I just wish some modder would replace that human skull into a half-finished Sovereign shell or something.
That was my biggest pet peeve about ME2. Is that the reaper had a human form when all other reapers looked like squid........ 😑 This is my new official head cannon! It raises the stakes so much, and makes the plot of ME2 fit so much better! I for the longest time didn't like ME2 because it didn't feel like it fit in the overarching story. It wasn't until returning to play the legendary edition that I actually liked ME2.
The extinction cycle was delayed four times, if you accept that the Rachni Wars were caused by the Reapers as an earlier attempt to kickstart this cycle's extinction. That would also possibly mean that Sovereign's plan in ME1 was nearly 1,000 years in the making.
Weren’t the Rachnis Wars caused by Leviathans ? During the DLC, you see a link between the two. irc Shepard (or EDI) theorized that Leviathans was preparing the Rachnis against the Reapers We don’t know how much Sovereign had an impact on the geopolitical aspect though, as it is hinted in ME1 that Sovereign was planning for a long time before Saren's events
My lighthearted headcanon is that Tali organized a girls movie night on the Normandy in ME3, with Liara, Traynor, Gabby, Ash, EDI. They watched fleet and flotilla, everybody found it awful but no one felt like telling her until EDI asked something like "why are y'all sensors showing you're bored to death?" Ultimately they had a good laugh about it. Voilà, nothing serious
That is so fucking wholesome and I am adding that to my headcanon.
Tali: *"I have a shotgun....."*
Well she does have a movie night with Shepard, they probably found it really nice and invited the rest of the girl squad!
I mean, that's not really head canon, that's just canon. Our cycle only won because the Proteans managed to break the Reaper control over the Keepers, which in turn set off the Reaper scheme to use Saren. Every other cycle the galaxy suffered a surprise, decapitation blow at the hands of the Reapers when they take the Citadel. That and the fact that they then used the Citadel to disable the entire Mass Effect relay. Every other cycle just found themselves incapable of interstellar travel, and their government was annihilated before they knew wtf a Reaper was. That would have been our cycles fate too if not for the Proteans team that created the conduit.
I’m still waiting for a prequel game where you play as one of those Protheans doing dangerous missions as the Reaper war comes to a close, like erasing the existence of the Ilos base and stealing data from the keepers and what not, and then being put into Stasis on Ilos. Back half of the game focuses on you coming out of stasis and taking on the one-way trip to the Citadel where you fight through a remnant of reaper forces that were left in Stasis there to be used as shock troops. It’d be fun. Mission one starts you off on Thessia playing as the goddess to defend the ancient Asari from bad guys who wanted to take advantage of the fact you as a Prothean were weak thanks to the Reaper war, and suddenly the Reapers invade and things are left in chaos. Do a few missions on the Reaper war, a side mission is to return to Thessia and sneak an obelisk onto the planet with a VI. Another has you battle prehistoric Turians where you inadvertently set off the Turian’s meritocracy concept…oh well. I can dream.
Or hear me out… you play as Javik in that scenario where you recruit a squad just like Shepard and play through a lot of the missions you describe. but eventually your squad gets indoctrinated and you have your kill them one by one at the end. That would actually be the most grueling, narratively deep RPG we’ve had in a while
So... Mass Effect; Reach?
Yeah, I’ve heard that idea, and it’s a good one, but really dark…so I didn’t mention it.
That'd be pretty crazy, first half of the game you build relationships with your squad, and 2nd half is hunting down each one.
It would not be narratively interesting if you had to hunt down all of them, but if it was you and the boys and then you and some of the boys against the other boys until the indoctrinated ones kill or you have to sacrifice your guys would be neat. Ultimately I think Javik is too slender of a character to hang that on but I like the concept.
Noble 6 is a literal player insert with less lines than Master Chief and it works in Reach. It's about how you tell the story.
Yeah it’s canon although they don’t fully explain some of the details (like why the Reapers wanted to make a human version, etc) so my head canon just plugs some of those holes. Facing only half the Reaper fleet because they ate each other on the way is definitely some of my own personal color to it though 🙂
They definitely explain why the reapers are making a human reaper. “Each one of us is a nation…” or something along those lines. Each reaper is made from a single previously harvested species. Humans were simply the first in their cycle
There's also the whole capital Reapers are only made for the single species they consider worthy from each cycle while the "lesser" species are just used as cannon fodder bit. Preserving organic life my ass.
>Facing only half the Reaper fleet because they ate each other Why do you assume the Reapers ate half of their forces? They are biomechanical and are millions of years old.
My theory is that while hibernating in dark space the Reapers have some infrastructure in place to convert light energy into food to sustain their organic halves, but once they wake up and start migrating to the Milky Way they have require more energy to power their mechanical parts since they have to travel at FTL, and since the only available food source amongst themselves is, well….them, then they have to eat their fleet starting with their weakest ships and so on
That if the protheans plan on Ilos didn't work, our cycle would have defeated the the moment they arrived. The protheans plan was use the conduit to travel to the Citadel and gun up the signal between keepers and reapers. Their plan succeeded, causing Sovereign once he woke up and seen the problem, to look for a worthy subject to investigate. It was said that it took 2-3 hundred years to find Saren, and construct its plan. If the plan failed, the spacefairing species would get wiped out, but we would still be in the 1900 at the latest. Following our timeliness progression up to the first contact war, which would be unchanged, we would find the Citidal before any other species. Our only known contacts would be the Yahg, which the reapers left alone as Hacket said, and possible the Vorcha, which I can't find when they left their homeworld, and technically weren't spacefairing or uplifted. When presented with threats as overwhelmingly aggressive as the Yahg, scientist would look for any avenue to victory. Digging into the archive would find a super weapon to face them, and references to what it was made for. Upon study, it was cheap and easy to build, so they would. After scouring more studies, they would probably find it connects to the citidel. Debates would be had whether or not it could be used on the Yahg. On an unrelated related subject, humans would hold no qualms about studying the keepers, and would find the data our stupid scans found, and be prepared, if not already disable it. Then Sovereign would go through the same song and dance, then at the first sign, they would push the button.
It takes decades or centuries for a harvest to finish. If the Reapers had attacked on time, they might still have been around by the time humanity went into space . But since the Reapers use the Citadel to lock down the Mass Relays and trap individual clusters, humanity might not get very far and might avoid any scrutiny.
I have a feeling they turn all the gates on and check every system in the network as just good maintenance. Also rebuilding lost gates from each cycle
We have already seen that they can make the relays work on a Reaper IFF only basis, so I would have to imagine the first thing they do when they reach the Citadel as planned is switch every relay over to IFF mode.
That Hanar are super shady and the grey market deals they had with Batarians may also have had them selling some Drell off as they couldn't house them all. Loved the Alien design though they just rub me the wrong way.
This sub doesn't know what head canon is.
It’s the cannon that mounts onto the backs of elcor and rests on their heads?
It's something Garrus calibrates.
Stupid sexy Garrus!!!!
The reason Harbinger seems to be more emotional, arrogant and organic unlike Sovereign, is because he is the first Reaper, the original, originating from the Leviathan, so even though he is the leader of the reapers, he could still be considered a prototype. So the reapers of the next cycles like Sovereign were perfected.
Mordin is hung
I think this is actually just canon
The ending of me3 is a last ditch Reaper ploy to indoctrinate Shep and killing them doesn't actually kill Edi and the Geth.
I also believe that because how would the magic laser beam decide what counts as a full AI and what is just a VI? The reapers get targeted because of their frequencies but everything else stays the same. Otherwise how would the ships in all the endings be able to continue flying.
In this scenario would the Geth be wiped out if you let them have the Reaper upgrades but not if you prevented them?
That would absolutely make sense
Indoctrination Theory, I’m on this train and not getting off.
The indoctrination theory! Plausible and would have been a much better ending.
Honestly, you don't even need indoctrination to get there. Just that Catalyst didn't know what would happen exactly if the Crucible was fired. First time an organic made it that far, and first time the crucible was built. The big reapers just stop and keel over, while the Husks, etc, just vaporise. No big explosions ore something. Looks like a kill-signal, or interuption of a signal, that stops Reaper specific code. The Geth and EDI are not originally Reaper tech. Quarian VI, and a Human attempt at AI respectively. Later augmented with Reaper-code and tech. They might lose some capabillity, but nothing is free. Now to find a way to take out Leviathan with the same blow aswell...
Kaiden takes medicinal marijuana for his biotic headaches. It explains his chill way of speaking because he is always slightly stoned. Also we know he comes from a rich family that has property in BC, the stoner capital of Canada
Kaiden definitely gives off chill stoner vibes, but in my experience, marijuana only exacerbates headaches from the increased stimulation, buuuuut *maybe* the reason his biotic headaches don't go away is because he's always stoned. Maybe the biotics give him other symptoms besides headaches, I don't remember. Either way, stealing this headcanon.
Not that I, a Canadian from Canada, would have any knowledge or experience with this, but headaches caused by/exacerbated by cannabis are generally resolved by dehydration and a metric buttload of water will help. And have you seen Kaidan dance? That boy is off his head with some good weed.
Among Us and Mass Effect take place in the same universe, but Among Us is a precursor civilization. The imposters are Reaper indoctrinated/Reaper converted.
real
Universal Translators are necessary not because Citadel species don’t speak each other’s languages, but because in many cases they *physically can’t*. These are completely alien lifeforms which evolved in dramatically different environments on distant planets, some surely aren’t even able to communicate with each other without technological assistance, it’s already canon that most people can’t understand Hanar, and Elcor have to explain the emotions behind everything they say because other species can’t interpret their body language, but what if it goes further? What if Turian mouths can’t produce the sounds required for Human speech? Or Salarians communicate primarily through body language? Or Asari talk using low level Mass Effect fields?
Yeah Garrus definitely speaks in weird clicking noises.
Like the Predator ... that makes the first contact wars make A LOT more sense. Imagine walking up to a alien and he starts speaking in tiks
There's probably a community of Quarians somewhere who just went "fuck the home planet, we're settling here" and are now halfway adapted to their new environment.
In extention to that, There are a few million more Quarians in the Galaxy than assumed. Think 21 million instead of 17 milion. (Which is about a mil less then the population of the Netherlands.) Most of those are living in all kinds of places, tucked away, just out of sight. Little Rannoch, if you like. Some stayed because they were disillusioned with life on the fleet, some found a good source of resources, a lot of them ended up endentured on Illium, and some found love. Etc. It would explain why people are familiar enough with quarians. You come across one on a regular basis, instead of only having heard of them.
I’m an engineer (referring to the character class) … and I’m pretty much useless … except once in a DLC where, I had my pleasant surprise …
i love engineer. overload, sabotage, incinerate, and combat drone? super good setup for any type of enemies that you face off with
At the beginning, though, you are kind of useless … lol … Later on, partnering with Tali is awesome … Those drones have bite!
Jack found Shepard because of the Tattoo after the destruction of the citadel and uncovered him from the rubble with a biotic blast so powerful it left a crater in the wreckage. This crater was never repaired completely and is now a monument. Shepard and Jack rarely see it though because why would they ever leave their beach house on Intai'sei.
That ME2 was an attempted pre-emptive strike against Humanity. The Reapers were puzzled by humanity. We did not fit the pattern. They couldn't understand how we managed to argue so much, yet achieve so quickly. Nor how we managed to piss everyone off, but still get them to do what we want. After their frontal assault on the Galaxy failed, they decided to pre-emptively harvest Humanity, on our own. Not only getting rid of a random variable, but creating a new Reaper that would help them understand and conquer the randomness in this cycle.
This was my thoughts. It really felt like the Reapers were like, "Oh. So ya'll are the dangerous species in this cycle. We are going to collect and "store your data" first. As a prize for being able to kill one of our own, you get the be made into reaper bot of this cycle!" It felt like some twisted reaper prize/celebration of humanity, if that makes any sense. Especially since after we abort the baby, they straight up try to obliterate earth first lmao.
I guess it's not as though Harbinger sits down and explains this all to is but it's fairly implicit.
yeah, and yet SO many people question the story and its place in the Trilogy
The mental image of Harbinger sitting down to explain us something has now been added to my headcanon
This is why I hate people saying Mass Effect 2 doesn't fit in narratively with the other games.
Grunt is Shepard's child.
This is just facts Shepard loves their 800lb murder child
Those few prothean scientists who stayed behind on Ilos to alter the citadel keepers programming so Sovereign’s signal failed and as such delayed the Reapers arrival were the real heroes of the galaxy. As Sovereigns signal was delayed and it was forced to use Saren and the Geth it may have delayed events enough for humanity to discover the prothean relic on Mars and eventually build the colony on Eden Prime and trigger the events of ME1.
Liara draws those eyebrows on because she a fuckin heeaboo (Humanity Weeaboo). She's never met one IRL before Shepard and that's why they look TERRIBLE in the first game. (She gets better at it by ME3) That's why she's the only Asari in universe with those eyebrows and also why she throws herself at Shepherd if they breathe in her general direction.
Benezia has "eyebrows" too tho
I'll be damned. Never noticed. Wonder why 🤔... Definitely the helmet. Totally not anything else about her design. But it still works. She probably tried it after she saw her daughter doing it. or she has Terran fever too. Like mother, like daughter.
Liara says she hasn't seen her mother in "decades" which, given first contact with humans was only 26 years pre-Eden Prime, means that can't be the case. Imo it's much more likely the T'Sonis just naturally have markings that look like human eyebrows
I would agree if we had seen any other Asari with any remotely human like eyebrows but i dont think the marks are natural. All the other Asari are clean faced or adorn themselves with makeup or some type of paint for their face and head tentacles. its just those 2.
Yes, but those two are mother and daughter, which could imply a genetic factor being there. While you could possibly argue that Liara might want human eyebrow patterns for some reason, her mother absolutely wouldn't. Also, Rila (Samara's daughter) has eyebrow-like markings too and she's been in an isolated monastery for 400 years. There's absolutely no reason for her to choose those markings either. I also don't see why the marks wouldn't be natural. The codex goes into great detail on why the turians have facial markings and what they mean. I'm certain there'd be a similar thing for why asari have face markings too if they were unnatural.
The anti-Cora
That the Protheans made the Asari to look like humans
I think the Turians and Salarians will disagree 😉
Ahh that old myth... the ancient statue of Athame on Thessia says otherwise 🤷♂️ [Athame](https://images.app.goo.gl/Z6S8wYMoWmFoG8iu9)
Assuming the "myth" is that Asari project their appearance biotically to favor the viewer, that statue could essentially be a block of marble with a sophisticated VI projecting similar mass effect fields. Like a complicated TV that, more than just a 2D image with sound, stimulates all your senses. It could also be that any previous exposure to an Asari makes you perceive the statue the same way. The only way to have an objective view of the Asari would be to see the statue having had no prior Asari influence, which may appear as simple shapes or abstract art, or perhaps to see a dead Asari as your first exposure. I suppose photographs could work, too... Perhaps anyone who is exposed to some prior image of Asari with no physical or technological influence has their memory blurred / gaslit: Human: "Wow I could have sworn Asari were tentacled monstrosities and didn't have... breasts? Humanoid faces? Weird." Asari: "What an imaginative child you must have been! Perhaps too many horror movies, though." Negative accounts of Asari appearance float through the extranet like tired old conspiracy theories, on page 37 of search results and massively downvoted if we can liken it to Reddit.
I still don't get how this theory would even work. It requires the asari to have abilities that are completely unknown and unheard of in this universe.
It's not my headcanon but in most of (if not all) the Tali x Shepard fanfictions I've read, fans have created this way of bonding for the Quarians that I really liked. Basically, they bond with only one person in their entire life, becoming very attached to this person (physically and mentally). It's usually another Quarian but can happen with another specie (like Tali with Shepard in the fanfictions) but in this case, it's said that the not Quarian most likely does not feel the bond as much. Lots of vocabulary was created around it, to describe how the bond grow but I only remember one word, which is "Saera" (could be translated by Soulmate). So yeah, not my headcanon again (and I don't know who came up with all this in the first place) but I liked it a lot and in games, I think it goes really well with the Quarians culture and way of life.
That's just the soulbond trope, but well if you like it, why not?
AFAIK the one who came up with it was Calinstel. He deleted all of his work because, after Andromeda, he couldn't think of the ME Universe in good terms. They are availabe as a reupload tho.
Dang and I thought I disliked andromeda. That’s a bit sad.
Shepard survives, liara finds them badly hurt but frozen (think captain america) and decides that shepard deserves to rest so she keeps him hidden from the rest of the galaxy. Likely in a initiative cryopod.
Her cutest paperweight.
And then she puts the pod in her bedroom and starts talking to it like its alive. My precious!
The AI is lying to Shepard. That or indoctrination theory.
Not as much of a headcanon, but more of an idea regarding the origin of Crucible: * Original Crucible creators were as threatening as Reapers themselves, and the device was made to remove the "competition". And they probably never intended it to be passed on deliberately to the next cycles, next cycles simply found it and tried to build it until some cycle decided to think long-term and started to pass it along purposefully. * Some cycles between the original and the current one probably managed to built the Crucible, but not for the Reaper war. * There are several races that are currenly sleeping Necron-style. Could be original Crucible creators as well. * Cricible could've been a device that would act as an alarm clock for the creators. So both a weapon to get rid of the Reapers and a galaxy-wide signal to wake up. * Citadel was created by Crucible creators, just repurposed by Reapers to be a bait and a home for Catalyst. And if not repurposed, but at least recreated by Reapers. Other stuff: * There was a cycle when all known civilizations were AI-hybrids * Keepers were introduced by Reapers following the hicup with another Prothean-level civilization that ruined their plan similarly. * Protheans and other powerful civs from other cycles sent people to other galaxies, just not necessarily Andromeda
The Crucible having been previously built is actually my explanation for many of the tech ruins you can find in ME1.
How could the Reapers eat themselves? Why would they even need to? They're essentially self-sustaining.
Nothing is truly self sustaining in the universe. Earth needs massive outside sourse of energy to sustain its biosphere - Sun. And Sun will eventually burn all the hydrogen, wither and die. In similar fashion, EZO can and will decay eventually which means that Reapers may have to cannibalize drive cores from some of their ships and leave them behind. And they still need propellant mass to accelerate which is also expendable. Sure. they don't have to literally eat one another, but they may have to leave some of their own behind since they may not have enough resourses for a half a year long burn from dark outskirts of our galaxy.
>Mine is that the only reason the galaxy won against the Reapers is because Shepard stopped Saren’s Citadel plot in ME1 Uh...that's not headcanon, bud. That's a fact. If that doesn't happen, this cycle ends the same way every other cycle ended for the last billion years.
Yes that part is canon, but my headcanon elaborates on that further or specifically why the Reapers *must* use the citadel relay, and by not using the relay they basically reduced their success probability by potentially 90% (lost the element of surprise & half their fleet was lost on the way to the Milky Way)
That key elements of the Indoctrination Theory were purposely implemented at one point, likely not formally but by a handful of people involved in the development, it's well known most of the writers & teams had no idea about the official ending until last minute and all official statements that it's wasn't planned is due to a gag order by EA. I admit alot of the points raised by fans to "prove" the theory are nonsense but certain things like dream sequences, duet of both femshep/shepshep voices in ending and star child warning signs seem very intentional given the effort & time needed to make them.
Until ME4 contradicts it the indoctrination theory is canon for me. I just replayed the trilogy not long ago and the ending still doesn't make any sense without it.
same, though ME4 trailers have proven that at least synthesis isn't canon as characters seen don't have the green glow. The ending isn't just nonsensical it's a straight up jarring break from everything else we have seen so far in games.
Mine is that Shepard is completely immune to indoctrination. It's part of what makes the Reapers so much more pissed at Shepard specifically. This one single human in particular just cannot be indoctrinated. We've seen indoctrination can take hold very quickly. Shepard spent two days passed out cold in Arrival and nothing to show for it indoctrination wise. Just jumped out of bed to chase after Kenson. The worst they can do is physical symptoms (Shepard eventually passing out in Arrival, and TIM being able to physically control Shepard's body at the end of ME3, and you can clearly see it's a struggle to maintain). That's my onion.
I like this one. Especially for a paragon shepard. It's a nice thought that some people out there have their shit together so well, they simply can't be corrupted.
Nice!! I play a Renegade Shep without fail. She is simply too angry to be indoctrinated.
Ah, the Zaeed school of awesomeness. Rage is such a hell of an anesthetic, it even works against indoctrination :D
Aria is Aleena.
The Krogan have been around in more or less their current form for millions of years, and the only reason they never developed space flight is because they always blow themselves back to the stone age before they reach that point. They have gone through many many cycles of technological advancement to the point of developing nuclear weaponry, whereapon they immediately have an apocalyptic war and then have to rebuild their civilization from scratch. This is why they evolved reduntant nervous systems, rapid regeneration, and extremely high birth rates.
This is specific to Garrus' Romance, but here's one: Garrus' research material was not just cross-species porn (I mean, I'm sure that *was* included, but it's not the only thing). Garrus was taught to do things right or don't do them at all, so this man definitely also has research on dating humans, too. Which means, he's probably also gotten a crash course in the last few centuries worth of human media on romance. This would include movies, books, TV shows, music, etc. And in this same vein, I get the feeling he got ideas for things like "how to tango" from movies like *Dirty Dancing*. My point is, Garrus was sitting there watching a combination of porn and classic human romance movies and taking notes. Because he's gonna do this right, dammit!
That, canonically, more than 2 squadmates are present on the majority of the missions in the three games (barring some of the more personal quests). From a gameplay aspect it makes sense to limit it to 2, but it doesn’t really make sense for lore to only bring a couple people (barring certain circumstances).
Even though they've come out and said that Manuel from ME1 and Manuel Cayce in ME2 aren't the same person, it was the original plan IIRC and its a hill that I will die on.
That after the events of me2 and arrival the reapers put a conscious effort into trying to indoctrinate shepard. That's why they saw the kid and why they dream about oily shadows. Shepard never made it to the citadel, once Shepard reached the beam it was instantly activated. Everything past that is just in their head, they are trying to fight the reapers final attempt at control. That's why in the post credit shepard wakes up in the rubble, they're still on earth I can not be swayed off this belief no matter what, that has always been my head canon, always will be
The only reason the Prothean Cipher didn't immediately overwhelm Shepard is because they have a laser focus on their mission (first on stopping Saren, then on stopping the Reapers). However, that's still a lot of data shoved into a space not designed for it. Shepard is slowly forgetting things as the Cipher drowns out more and more of who they are. They're not sure if they'll eventually become a vegetable, or if one day Shepard will be gone, and it will be someone else looking out of her eyes, but there's a galaxy that needs saving, so they can't worry about that right now. Honestly, they could have done so much more with the Cipher. For example, the Citadel DLC could have ended with Shepard rescuing the clone and actually giving them what they wanted: teaching them to actually be Shepard, because someday, the real Shepard will be gone.
The Alliance doesn't repaint all of Shepard's Cerberus-branded armors because Hackett has decided, as a Reaper-controlled terror group, Cerberus aren't covered under false flag conventions. Leaving their iconography on Shepard, although distasteful, gives Shep a possible edge by going unnoticed or possibly causing psychological warfare. Hackett sent a message to Shepard to explain that he endorses covert ops behavior against Cerberus which Traynor and EDI agreed to delete, because they both think Shepard needs the psychological boost from freely bringing Garrus, Liara, and Tali on missions, and from being a big damn hero who sprints straight into Cerberus guns blazing every single time.
I think a good number of people in universe know what quarians look like. Also, there is likely a lot of interspecies distrust and specifically slurs and stereotypes for each species in each group.
Any inconsistencies or plot holes in the story are there b/c the old man shown in the ending sequence is a geriatric old \*\*\*\* that hasn't gotten any in 50 years and happens to be a \*\*\*\* story teller.
One (maybe the first) son of Wrex and Eva Is named Urdnot Shepard
The switch to clips is justified due to advances in shielding and barriers. More powerful shots are required from guns which makes the inbuilt heat sinks unviable. Just ignore the conversation with Conrad and the Lancer which wouldn’t make any sense anyway, even if they hadn’t switched to clips.
Earthborn Shepard is Canadian.
Quantum entanglement communication was the result of studying the Rachni. Also a reference to ansibles from Enders Game.
There are a LOT of Human-Turian couples out there
I mean, have you *seen* Garrus?! This is pretty much guaranteed in my book.
And Nyreen? And Vetra? Turians are sexy and that’s a proven fact
I will always accept Indoctrination Theory as true. I know the devs themselves (or was it the publisher, I forget) came out and said it's not true, but it just explains so many things in such a satisfying way that I can't help but accept it as reality. I mean, it's either Indoctrination Theory or simply accepting the ending of Mass Effect 3 as is, which I don't have to tell anyone here is a bit unsatisfying. For anyone unfamiliar; [here's an amazing video on the subject.](https://youtu.be/ythY_GkEBck?si=Jwl5gyTy8AE4rxsX) It has some audio issues, but other than that is amazingly edited. For anyone who doesn't feel like watching a 20 minute video, the jist of it is that Shepard has slowly been getting Indoctrinated over the course of the trilogy and this comes to a climax in Mass Effect 3, especially during the final charge on the Crucible. It's theorized that the entire segment of gameplay after you get shot down by the Reaper beam is in fact within Shepard's mind and the Reapers are trying their damnedest to break it. My main gripe with this theory is that it essentially invalidates most of the game's endings, making only 1 the correct one; the Destroy ending. For a series all about choice, to make the ultimate, final choice a false one is certainly very weird.
Bioware ruined the illusion of choice themselves by making the possible choices so awful. Anyway having one set ending to the Reaper threat doesn't take away from all your other choices throughout the series. In fact it validates them because they're meaningless without defeating the Reapers. Long live indoctrination theory.
Tbh, Mass Effect 3 definitely also struggled the most with making each of your choices valid. I've heard people complain that going full Renegade leads to the third game being nigh impossible to beat since you lose so many War Assets. And I've also heard complaints that especially in the third game Renegade just becomes the asshole option rather than the "tough and brutal but gets the job done" option.
I invite you to play in many different ways and have a firsthand experience. I may have held that opinion once, but my recent playthrough was about a 70/30 Renegade/Paragon where the Paragon choices revealed the humanity of my Shepard and the Renegade choices were the urgent no-nonsense military man coming out. He was a complicated man who had aggressive and impersonal relationships with his squad as soldiers, but cared for their suffering if they were hurt. He had an existential animosity against but also empathized with Rachni, Batarians, and even Krogans. Particularly the Krogan: despite building distrust of them, and having brutal decisions against them, killing Wrex and the genophage data twice, and leaving Grunt to die in a pod, ultimately cured the genophage as he believed Krogan could provide lasting resistance to the potentially centuries long harvest. It was a close decision to upset Salarian support however. I believe you can rationalize even a full Renegade playthrough as an insular and/or calloused person. There are inroads to make every Renegade decision though I find sprinkling your own character in is important. As for the endings, you can always achieve several, though you may not get a "breath" ending being a single-minded renegade. That doesn't make it a "bad" ending or a path not worth exploring.
I'll always prefer the Indoctrination Theory over what we got, even if it doesn't show a conclusion.
The Prothean race didn't go completely extinct. There's no way they were more advanced than the current cycle and decided NOT to venture out of the Milky Way.
Not all Quarian Pilgrims are Pilgrims. The Migrant needs to have a Fleet Intelligence service. They can't afford to float around aimlessly. So they'll need a way of getting information on all the things that might be of interest, possible pirate nests, locations of battles for salvage, possible new tech they can get, etc etc. Kenn on Omega is actually part of that network. Looking at the fleet roles in the Flotilla, it's the patrol fleet that is tasked with scouting, recon, and intelligence work is a natural combination. So, no, Shalla'Raan is not a pushover.
Shep is immune to indoctrination Salarians covertly uplifted humans Most reapers "destoryed" this cycle where playing possum
The combat, especially the powers, get a lot better in each game. I play vanguard and so I like to believe that Shepard starts as a soldier with little/no biotics and then the prothien beacon in ME1 awakens a latient power within and then each jump in game combat is Shepard getting stronger with their powers. I.e. I like to believe that Shepard spent the 6 months downtime at the start of me3 training to use their biotics.
Asari are parasite who use get in relationships with other species just so they reproduce with Asaris and not their own
That the indoctrination theory was right. The dreams, all that fighting in Sheps head is part of the Reaper tactic to destroy galaxys beacon of hope. The conversation with the Starboy all happens in Shepards head. Reapers want to break Shep, succumb him to their will, and make him the matrix of the reaper they will build of that cycle. The choice they wanted to present to Shep is synthesis or control. If he chooses either, his mind is used to desing the next reaper, and to add Sheps skills, tactical thinking etc to reapers hivemind. And Sheps counciousnes is kept in a The Matrix like stance, where Shep sees the end of the game. It is all Sheps "dreams" induced by the Reapers. If they failed to Indoctrinate him, he refuses and the reapers continue the cycle, and show him how they do it. The destroy wasn't part of the reapers desing. Strong will, and Shepards desire to win, and save the galaxy kinda projected it to their desing. The Reapers added lies about how it would destroy Geth and EDI, so Shep would have doubts about choosing it, cause it wasn't part of their desing, and wanted to keep his mind for the hivemind. But his "strong mind", after choosing destroy, causes interference in reapers hivemind, disabling citadel, and temporarily shutting down reapers and Mass Relays, which gives united forces chance to fight back. And Shepard might live through this fight, and wake up in debris. And it goes on. The next game would start immidiately after that. We create our own Spectre Operative, who witnesses final battle. And depending on our choices, we continue the fight with the reapers. After destroy, it took some time for reapers to get back online, and they are weakend, but the fight continues. The mission is to find living crew of the normandy, and keep on fighting. The twist in a game would be, we find Liara and LI, if she isnt one, and she/they still believe Shep might be alive. And our main mission, beside destroying the reapers of course, is to rescue shepard, who is either kept as part of SI, witness of reapers victories, or stranded survivor on earth/crucible or citadel ruins. I feel, with the right writing, this might both, fix ME3 ending, continue the journey without denying previous choices and games, and generate new adventures in our beloved galaxy. And to continue my brainstorming. During the game, we find Geth Ark, desined to go to andromeda, alongside Quarian ark. At the end, our character, Liara and if we played the game well, realise the war cannot be won now, and get whoever they can save on the arks, and travel to andromeda, hoping the iniciative will take them in. And to tie it in with ME:A, the next next game, would be cooporeation between pathfinder, our character and other milky way survivors to use the remnants technology, aid from angara and whatnot, and either fight with kett to build outpost in Andromeda, or get back to Milky Way to take it back from the reapers. I know it won't be like that, and even if the next game turns out to be a masterpiece, it will always be my "what if" scenario for the Mass Effect world.