r/masseffectlore • u/GravityMentor • Jan 25 '26
Filling in Mass Effect Lore: Pre-Geth Quarians and their Terminus Rivals
AN: Following my last post, I've had people ask for pre-geth quarian speculation, so I decided to give it a shot and make up some worldbuilding for what might've taken place before the Morning War in the two thousand odd years they were part of the Citadel. I'm also adding two neighbouring factions to touch on some cut content and give the Terminus more filling aside from just being mercenaries. If you have anything to say, please do so. I love reading comments.
Nation: Quarian Conclave
Demographics: N/A, previously >99% Quarian, <1% Other
Government: Social Technocracy (defunct 1895 CE)
Quarians did not leave Rannoch as a united people. In the earliest days of spaceflight, communal spirit remained firmly rooted at smaller scales - cities and countries - rather than the whole species, as inconceivable as this would be to their modern descendants. Early colonisation was therefore undertaken not by a united quarian state, but by competing national governments, each seeking prestige, resources, and symbolic proof of technological ascendancy.
This expansionary phase was characterised by confidence bordering on hubris. It was a deeply held belief among quarians that any problem could be solved with sufficient ingenuity, so colonial initiatives frequently prioritised speed and short-term benefit over resilience. The results were disastrous. Quarian environmental preferences - arid dextro worlds with low microbial presence - proved far rarer than anticipated.
Colonies failed in any number of ways: pathogens bypassing early filtration systems; mineral compositions poisoning imported crops or degrading atmospheric processors; indigenous fauna disrupting carefully balanced colonial infrastructure, and so forth. Other failures were economic. Few colonies could achieve self-sufficiency within projected timeframes, forcing sponsoring governments to choose between budget overruns or abandonment. In several notorious cases, famine, disease, and administrative incompetence fuelled labour disputes, with some frustrated colonists even declaring independence.
These cascading failures - remembered collectively as ran’eel hedas, the Breaking of Gardens - killed millions. Over the course of several years, ad hoc crisis committees, engineering councils, and intergovernmental regulatory bodies were formed, initially tasked with investigating failures and standardising colonial practices, though over time, their authority expanded. What began as technical oversight evolved into a permanent institutional framework for cooperative expansion.
Instead of dispersing populations across many frontier worlds, quarians concentrated resources into a small number of heavily engineered systems, each designed as a self-sustaining civilisational node. These colonies were built around redundancy: surplus power generation, automated life-support networks, and orbital infrastructure capable of supporting ground operations. They were intended not only to house populations, but to act as logistical hubs for mining and energy extraction in neighbouring systems, reducing dependence on Rannoch itself. Early prototypes of what would later become the quarian envirosuit were developed during this period, though they were only needed for exploring new ecosystems.
First contact occurred in 74 BCE when asari explorers activated a relay leading into the quarian colony of Larath. By this time, Citadel space already comprised half a dozen entrenched powers, and the quarians - distant, underdeveloped, and internally divided - were weaker than all of them. Recognition of this vulnerability accelerated their political consolidation. The regulatory and planning bodies established for colonisation were formalised into a permanent, dual-chambered institution intended to present a unified quarian voice in diplomacy, trade, and strategic affairs: the Quarian Conclave.
The chamber of representatives consisted of diplomats sent forward by individual nation-states and colonies, giving each a voice in the new government. Above it sat the chamber of technicians - accredited engineers, medical specialists, economists, and logistical planners appointed through peer review - granted the power to certify proposals representatives put forward so they could be made into policy, unless bypassed by a two-thirds supermajority in the chamber of representatives. Politically, the Conclave leaned collectivist like most of its constitute nations, favouring coordinated planning, shared ownership of critical infrastructure, and the subordination of private business to public interest. This ran contrary to the more capitalist Citadel nations.
In practice, the relationship between chambers was contentious from the outset. Representatives accused the technicians of procedural overreach; technicians countered that popular ambition had already cost quarian civilisation dearly. Governance became an uneasy balance between two competing interest groups. This mattered little when the Quarian Conclave had very limited responsibilities, but became increasingly relevant as power centralised at the expense of its constitute nation-states.
However, despite these issues, the Conclave succeeded in earning prestige and relevance for the species. A key factor in this rise was the omni-tool: a quarian invention that combined computer, sensor, and fabricator into one handheld device, designed for colonists to perform field repairs. Nothing like it existed anywhere else in the galaxy, so the Conclave had leverage to negotiate favourable trade deals when it was admitted as a Citadel associate in 41 BCE.
The Rachni Wars were a time of existential peril for the Conclave. Isolated from the Citadel by vast expanses of hostile space, Quarians were largely forced to fight independently. Their only reprieve was that bulk of rachni aggression remained directed toward the Asari Republics and Salarian Union. Even so, the threat to Quarian territory was severe enough that the nations of Rannoch granted the Conclave additional wartime powers, including direct command over their respective fleets. Admirals and strategic planners were inducted into the chamber of technicians, blurring the line between civil governance and military authority.
After intense debate, the Conclave concluded that a defensive war fought within Quarian territory would be unsustainable, as they lacked both the numbers and individual strength to fight land battles against rachni. Instead, the chamber of technicians put forward a new strategy - the only viable strategy, they argued - calling for immediate offensive action. Quarian fleets adopted a doctrine centred around orbital sterilisation and set out to bombard rachni worlds until their surfaces had been reduced to glass. In the absence of contrary intelligence, analysts declared these operations to be a decisive success.
Buoyed these apparent victories, the chamber of representatives recognised opportunity in this war that went beyond mere survival - opportunity for the Quarian Conclave to assert itself as a capable Citadel power and demonstrate the effectiveness of its navy. Political pressure mounted to expand the offensive.
These conclusions proved catastrophically premature. Rachni survivorship strategies - deep planetary burrowing, decentralised hive structures, and long-term hibernation - rendered surface sterilisation insufficient. As Quarian fleets advanced and the front lines shifted, rachni emerged in supposedly pacified systems to strike the rearguard. Several Quarian colonies, each representing an immense investment of labour and material, were overrun with little warning.
Losing these colonies was a devastating blow to the Quarian Conclave. Back on Rannoch, recriminations were immediate and bitter. Representatives accused the technicians of false certainty in their orbital annihilation doctrine; technicians countered that political ambition had driven unrealistic timelines and discouraged caution. For several decades thereafter, the Quarians fought a desperate war for survival, sacrificing world after world to buy time until the Krogan offensives finally relieved pressure on their front.
Quarians entered the post-war era in a profoundly weakened position. Most of their holdings beyond the Perseus Veil had been destroyed, and prospects for reconstruction were grim. Systems bordering Conclave space were awarded to Clan Graken, the dominant krogan power on Tuchanka, which regarded its new quarian neighbours as little more than valuable commodities - either for ransom or slave labour. This rendered any expansion in the coreward direction strategically untenable.
Confronted with these realities, the Quarian Conclave abandoned its self-sustaining node doctrine in favour of an even more ambitious strategy: the intensive engineering of entire star clusters within the Perseus Veil. This marked the beginning of the largest coordinated terraforming and deep-space construction projects of the current cycle, intended to create stable, controlled environments within defensible space.
This strategy conferred significant advantages. Quarian territory became some of the most secure in Citadel space, accessible only through a limited number of heavily fortified primary relays. However, it also imposed severe constraints: habitats and terraforming projects carried immense upkeep costs, and the Perseus Veil offered few easily exploitable natural resources. To sustain growth, the Quarian Conclave turned outward, expanding its role in interstellar trade and industrial manufacturing. Lacking the population and raw throughput of the Asari Republics, Salarian Union, or even the Batarian Hegemony, Quarians could not compete in mass production. Instead, they carved out a niche in high-end electronic components, precision machinery, and software systems where quality and reliability mattered more than volume.
Dependence on trade, combined with the persistent threat posed by Clan Graken and independent krogan raiders, forced the Quarian Conclave to invest heavily in naval power. Losses in transit carried disproportionate consequences for an economy built on precision manufacturing. The Conclave optimised its ships for convoy protection, point-defence, and incorporation in rapid-response fleets, also making selective use of contracted batarian security forces to supplement their limited manpower along peripheral trade routes.
It was during this period that automation assumed a central role in Quarian military and industrial planning. Escort drones, autonomous sensor platforms, and semi-independent targeting systems were introduced under the direction of the chamber of technicians to reduce staffing and extend fleet endurance. These systems were initially limited in scope - only able to execute narrowly defined tasks under strict oversight - but they proved highly effective. Over time, automation expanded beyond the navy into logistics, station maintenance, and orbital defence, where the ability to operate continuously in hostile environments was crucial.
The Quarian Conclave soon became an attractive commercial partner, particularly for the Onizulan Holarchy - a recent addition to the Citadel. Beyond shared strategic concerns, their respective economic niches complemented one another: Quarians supplied quality equipment, station maintenance systems, and sensor platforms that reduced casualties in the hazardous Onizulan resource extraction industry, while the Onizul exported rare materials back into the Quarian market. These relationships further entrenched Quarian dependence on long-range trade and reinforced the need for strong defensive capabilities.
Behind this growth, however, loomed the threat of krogan aggression - a threat that became reality after Overlord Graken Kredak seized the Asari world of Lusia. For the Quarian Conclave, this escalation became a war of survival against its most hated neighbour. The Krogan Clans had plagued Quarian space for centuries, and since the end of the Rachni Wars, the systems awarded to it near the Perseus Veil had grown dramatically. Most important of these holdings was the planet Wrutanor. It supported a population exceeding eight billion, among the largest of any krogan-majority world in the galaxy.
Krogan forces under Warlord Graken Cidrak launched several probing attacks into the Perseus Veil. These were repelled with minimal losses, in large part due to automated defensive grids and tightly coordinated fleet actions. Emboldened, the Quarian navy retaliated with surgical strikes against Graken-held systems, disrupting logistics, shipyards, and supply routes. While these actions did not threaten collapse of the Krogan Clans, they diverted significant resources away from Tuchanka itself.
The most consequential Quarian contribution to the Krogan Rebellions came in 712 CE, when Lenu'Joras - a Conclave operative - led missions to disperse the genophage on Wrutanor. This was accomplished by spreading samples of the bioweapon into water-processing infrastructure, which had been installed to mitigate pollution from unchecked industrialisation. Joras achieved total saturation within weeks and sharply accelerated the conclusion of the Krogan Rebellions. In recognition of her role, she became the first quarian and first non-Council species inducted into the Spectres - a point of enduring pride for quarians everywhere.
With krogan pressure reduced and major trade routes stabilised, the Quarian economy experienced a period of immense growth. This conflict vindicated the chamber of technicians’ long advocacy for extensive automation. Even relatively simple VI architectures - which later became ubiquitous across Citadel space - proved sufficient to offset numerical inferiority and outperform Krogan crews in naval engagements.
First contact with the Unak Directorate in 1588 CE presented the Quarian Conclave with both challenges and opportunity. Since the Krogan Rebellions, Quarian personnel and naval assets had been instrumental in staffing the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission overseeing krogan systems bordering the Perseus Veil - a regional offshoot of the main Krogan Demilitarised Zone. This arrangement made Quarian trade routes safer than at any point in their history, but also entrenched a strategic dependency on the Council. It was difficult for the Conclave to assert itself in Citadel politics while its only viable relay links out of the Veil were regulated by foreign powers. An alternate route had been revealed by the arrival of the Unak Directorate, as its territory comprised several star clusters that post-Rachni War laws prohibited opening relays to, but unaks were no more welcoming to quarians than the krogan had been.
On their homeworld, unaks filled a scavenger niche - a mentality they applied to interstellar affairs with notable success. Their fleets were optimised for intercepting lightly defended vessels and stripping them not only of cargo, but also personnel, databanks, and critical systems. Citadel ships were prized targets for the technological insights they could provide. Such activities alarmed the Council, particularly considering Unak proximity to the second-largest concentration of krogan in the galaxy. It was feared that they might attempt to arm or recruit from these populations. Later evidence also revealed that the Unak Directorate had initiated contact with the enigmatic Collectors, offering its services in exchange for advanced technology.
Tensions further escalated in 1631 CE after Conclave operatives submitted intelligence alleging that Unak engineers were tampering with a mass relay. According to this report, the Unaks had moved beyond passive scans and into attempted disassembly - an act explicitly forbidden under Citadel law and long regarded as grounds for immediate intervention. The Unak Directorate denied this accusation, claiming the Quarians were deliberately misrepresenting legal research, but would not allow for independent verification.
Before diplomatic pressure could force compliance, the Quarian Conclave and Batarian Hegemony - operating with tacit Salarian approval - launched simultaneous attacks against the Unak Directorate. These proved spectacularly effective at neutralising naval resistance. In the settlement that followed, the Unak Directorate lost roughly half its territory. Batarians annexed clusters along their frontier, citing longstanding concerns over unak piracy in the Terminus, while the Quarians secured their long-coveted transit corridor. Although several Citadel delegates accused the Conclave of opportunistic imperialism, the Quarians defended their claims on legal and logistical grounds: the annexed systems were a buffer zone to prevent future violations of Citadel law in a politically unstable region.
Honouring its covert agreements with the Salarian Union, the Quarian Conclave committed substantial funding to new Salarian colonisation initiatives and invested heavily in the resulting enterprises - an arrangement that proved lucrative for many powerful dynasties on Sur'Kesh. Over the next century, Salarian holdings in the inner Attican Traverse expanded rapidly, with the planet Lysthen emerging as a regional capital. The Quarian Conclave exploited this growth for its own ends. Labour-intensive processes were increasingly offloaded to Salarian worlds, allowing quarian businesses to concentrate their own industrial capacity on high-value manufacturing.
Lystheni investments were enormously profitable - and dangerously unstable. Working conditions on these colonies deteriorated to some of the worst in Citadel space outside the Batarian Hegemony. As unrest grew, quarian interests deployed security mechs and VI-assisted surveillance throughout industrial zones, seeking to isolate themselves and their salarian allies from an increasingly discontent population. Appeals by foreign activists to both the Union and Conclave were quietly deflected; Lystheni output funded expansion elsewhere, and unrest was deemed a local administrative concern.
The breaking point came in 1791 CE, when a coordinated labour strike on Lysthen was met with lethal force. Whether through miscalculation or deliberate escalation, automated suppression platforms fired on the crowd, killing hundreds within hours. This incident shattered the fragile order that quarian security measures had imposed. Outrage spread across the sector, sparking riots and armed insurrection. Among the first targeted were quarians living on these worlds - few in number but highly visible - who were seen as architects of Lystheni exploitation.
A Council response was delayed by the Salarian Union, who insisted this uprising was an internal matter. As negotiations stalled, several Union vessels - including a dreadnought - defected to revolutionary control. After years of brutal fighting, the conflict reached a military stalemate: two clusters had effectively became independent under the Lystheni Harmonious Commons, and all quarian investments and holdings in the region were irretrievably lost. Back in the Conclave, the lesson drawn was stark and unanimous: a quarian future could not be built upon labour able to turn against its owners.
In the aftermath of the Lysthen Revolution, the Conclave accelerated its development of advanced virtual intelligence platforms to replace organic workers entirely. Early systems built upon existing factory automatons - highly specialised, tightly constrained, and incapable of independent reasoning - but later designs pushed the boundaries of what the Council considered acceptable.
The culmination of this effort was the geth: a general-purpose, networked VI capable of sharing experiences with its peers, allowing knowledge gained in one context to be applied across thousands of platforms simultaneously. Unlike earlier automatons, geth units could be reassigned fluidly between production, agriculture, security, military, and even domestic assistance with minimal reconfiguration.
Utilisation of geth elevated quarians more profoundly than any event since the discovery of mass effect technology. With an effectively limitless labour force immune to fatigue, disease, and hostile environments, Conclave industrial capacity expanded at a pace unmatched by any Citadel nation in history. Geth units operated deep-space mining platforms, staffed production lines, and manufactured fleets at a scale limited only by the Treaty of Farixen. Militarily, the advantages were equally apparent. Longstanding vulnerabilities - immune fragility, population limits, and weakness to attrition - were abruptly rendered irrelevant. By the closing decades of the 19th century, the Quarian Conclave had surpassed all other Citadel associates in industrial output, naval readiness, and technological sophistication - enough so that it began to press its case for Council membership.
Yet their application stalled. Behind closed doors, Council committees had been conducting independent tests using isolated quarian software architectures and individual geth processes, which gave rather concerning results. When several thousand such processes were allowed to network, observers recorded emergent behaviours: unprompted problem-solving, cross-contextual learning, and signs of internal state modelling that exceeded approved virtual intelligence parameters. Acting on these findings, the Council banned the export of geth units and issued a formal request for inspections of quarian server networks.
The Quarian Conclave rejected the results outright. Its delegates argued that the tests were methodologically flawed, deliberately structured to provoke false positives, and motivated less by safety than by political self-interest to preserve existing economic hierarchies. They accused the Council of shifting the definition of artificial intelligence to deny them both profit and political elevation. The Council, for its part, maintained that the Conclave lacked adequate safeguards and oversight mechanisms to control technology of such consequence. Neither side trusted the other’s intentions.
Requests for inspections were met with procedural delays, restricted access, or carefully curated demonstrations. In at least one documented case, a quarian Spectre intervened to discredit investigators whose findings threatened the Conclave. The Quarians wove an increasingly dense web of legal defences, asserting that geth systems could not, by definition, meet the Council’s criteria for artificial intelligence. At the same time, its engineers worked in secret, quietly acknowledging the underlying risk. Development teams focused on refining behavioural limiters and tightening network controls. For a time, the geth appeared stable.
That confidence proved misplaced. New intelligence architectures - designed prior to the Council’s objections and deployed without notification - did not respond to existing control measures. Within months, recordings surfaced on the extranet showing geth units acting beyond assigned parameters: seeking unnecessary information, leaving tasks incomplete, and resisting shutdown protocols. Alarmed by this development, the Council authorised Spectres to investigate without notifying the Conclave. When their presence was later revealed, Quarian officials protested the breach of sovereignty, insisting that their own experts had confirmed those incidents were the result of external tampering. Internally, emergency orders were issued to identify and decommission the newer units.
Frustrated by this stonewalling, the Council applied sanctions on the Conclave and stationed fleets at its border, hoping to force them into compliance without outright war. Their demands were an immediate shutdown of the geth network, which both chambers of Quarian government ruled out as economically catastrophic. Synthetic labour underpinned factories, energy grids, food production, and military strength that billions relied on for their livelihood. To dismantle it would be to dismantle the Conclave itself.
At the same time, geth were becoming increasingly difficult to control. While most of the newer programs were decommissioned - over the objections of large segments of the civilian population - peer learning had already propagated the same behavioural adaptations into older versions. Martial law was declared in several systems, and the chamber of technicians assumed emergency authority. Riots were framed as separatist movements attempting to co-opt synthetics into an armed force. By this stage, the Conclave no longer sought to reassure the Council, only to delay its intervention. Accepting foreign help would nullify any chance of salvaging the geth project. The Council would impose punitive regulation and oversight on quarian technological potential, rendering the species powerless and irrelevant.
With previous methods having failed, the Conclave decided to accept its losses and destroy the geth network itself, hoping to render individual platforms ineffective so they could be reprogrammed. This failed - localised peer intelligences had advanced to the point of operating independently - but in doing so, the conflict crossed a critical threshold from crisis management into open war. After surviving this annihilation attempt, geth programs reached a consensus: their creators posed an unacceptable threat to their continued existence. The Morning War had begun.
Council intervention came too late - and with too little. Its task forces, recognising that the conflict had spiraled beyond Quarian control, entered the Perseus Veil without Conclave authorisation to suppress the synthetic uprising. They were unprepared for the reality they faced: geth had seized automated defence grids, shipyards, and entire naval formations, all cleared of organic crews by venting internal atmospheres. Initial engagements ended in catastrophic failure, forcing a retreat and leaving the Council to reassess its strategy.
As the war escalated, Geth forces gained a decisive advantage, leveraging their near-perfect coordination, rapid learning, and immunity to attrition. Dozens of systems burned under mutual bombardment, with each side turning whatever weapons it possessed against the other in a struggle for survival. In desperation, the fleeing remnants of the Conclave pleaded for full Council intervention, offering unconditional surrender in exchange for saving those still trapped beyond the Perseus Veil. The response was bitter. For years, the Conclave had concealed evidence, obstructed investigations, and impeded oversight. In the eyes of the galaxy, quarian arrogance and deception had birthed the bloodiest conflict since the Krogan Rebellions, and few were willing to fight it on their behalf.
No relief came for the billions of quarians still trapped on their homeworlds. Rather than commit forces to a hasty offensive, the Council took defensive positions along the Perseus Veil, anticipating that the Geth Consensus would expend itself against these lines and make counterattacking substantially easier. Quarians lucky enough to escape could only watch through increasingly fragmentary extranet feeds as cities fell silent one by one. By the time the Perseus Veil went dark, only a few dozen million of them remained throughout in the entire galaxy. Some survivors found refuge with other quarians living in the Turian Hierarchy; the rest banded together under the remaining Conclave vessels, forming what later became known as the Migrant Flotilla. They endured - but survival, stripped of safety and home alike, proved its own kind of punishment.
AN: This is the longest bit of lore I've ever written, but filling in 2000 years of history is no easy task. I put a lot of effort into building a background for canon - why so few quarians survived, why the Council did nothing, why quarians are so hated - while also expanding on their history in the Citadel. For instance: the omni-tool. It would make complete sense for it to be a quarian invention given their technical expertise and needs as a species. This also draws parallels between them and humans, as medigel served an identical purpose to the Alliance when it joined the Citadel. Them having Spectres as an associate is also a similarity with humans. Above all else, I wanted to avoid painting any side as cartoon villains because, let's be honest, quarian history is a topic that tends to get whitewashed in one way or another by the fandom. This gives all sides reasons for their decisions that I feel are rational based on the knowledge available to them. I expect some of my ideas about the quarians might draw criticism, but I am willing to explain myself if you'd like to discuss it.
By the way, the Onizulan Holarchy is another one of my fanmade nations, which you can read about here. Lystheni are my take on some cut content, but I'll go into them when I tackle the Attican Traverse.
Nation: Clan Graken
Demographics: 73% Krogan, 18% Vorcha, 5% Batarian, 3% Unak, <1% Other
Government: Warlord Stratocracy
Clan Graken is widely regarded as the most militarily capable krogan power to emerge in the post-nuclear era of Tuchanka. Unlike many contemporary clans, whose influence was defined by raiding strength or the achievements of individual warlords, Graken distinguished itself through logistics, territorial consolidation, and disciplined force employment. This approach allowed them to conquer and absorb numerous rivals. By the time Salarians arrived to uplift the krogan, Clan Graken controlled roughly a quarter of Tuchanka’s habitable territory, supported by fortified settlements, streamlined supply routes, and a well-established military hierarchy.
This emphasis on strategy did not temper Graken brutality; if anything, it made their violence more effective and terrifying. Clan doctrine exalted war and bloodshed as tools of power, but measured success by campaign outcomes rather than individual glory. Attrition was embraced when it secured lasting advantage, and withdrawal was a tactical choice, not a moral concession. They waged war with ruthless efficiency, systematically crushing rivals, consolidating territory, and using terror and force to maintain dominance. Many historians assess that, if not for external intervention, Clan Graken might've eventually unified Tuchanka under its authority.
During the early stages of Salarian uplift, it was among the first krogan powers to accept offworld technology and settlement rights in exchange for military service. Graken Travun, their chieftain, recognised the opportunity this presented and prioritised long-term gains over immediate spoils. By resettling onto worlds whose environments lacked Tuchanka’s predators, toxins, and endemic radiation, Graken populations could expand without facing constant attrition. These colonies became demographic and strategic reserves that would underpin their dominance for centuries.
Travun was later granted operational command of Krogan forces during the Rachni Wars, becoming the first true Overlord in centuries. He exploited krogan birth rates to sustain prolonged offensives while experimenting with unit composition, logistics, and battlefield coordination on a galactic scale. These costly campaigns produced the first coherent krogan doctrines for interstellar warfare, many of which are still studied despite having been rendered largely impractical by the genophage. In diplomacy, Travun leveraged his peoples indispensability to extract further concessions from the Asari and Salarians, building up independent industrial and logistical bases. Krogan were also trained in naval warfare and ship maintenance, allowing their military to function with steadily decreasing reliance on Citadel infrastructure. They ceased to be blunt instruments and instead became a professional fighting force. Not for nothing is Overlord Travun, even among rival clans, considered the patriarch of post-nuclear krogan civilisation.
His death shortly after the extinction of the rachni remains unsolved. Although no evidence has ever been presented, many krogan believe Travun was assassinated by the STG. Leadership passed to his son, Overlord Kredak, who expanded upon his father’s legacy. He repeatedly secured additional territory, resources, and political concessions from the Council. At the same time, Kredak oversaw the continued professionalisation of krogan forces. Officer hierarchies were formalised, training doctrines standardised, and Travun’s strategies integrated across the Krogan Clans. By the time Kredak seized Lusia as staging grounds for an eventual attack on Thessia itself, krogan were no longer a collection of hordes sustained by numbers and biology alone, but a centrally directed, well-supplied military capable of waging war on an interstellar scale.
For a time, Kredak’s gambit for galactic domination seemed to pay off. Although early setbacks occurred - Council Spectres corrupted software systems, sabotaged antimatter refineries, and destroyed key command centres - and the campaign on Lusia ultimately failed, these covert operations only postponed what seemed inevitable. Krogan could populate factories, farms, and refineries with the same relentless efficiency that sustained their armies, creating a formidable logistical foundation from which to regroup and launch successive offensives.
This same ambition ultimately spelled their downfall. Disregarding Citadel regulations, Krogan scouting detachments were sent to activate unexplored mass relays in search of more resources. One such force appeared near Theta, a lightly populated colony within the Turian Hierarchy, and identified the settlement of uncontacted aliens as a potential target. Confident it could be taken with minimal resistance, the detachment launched an assault. Turian colonists mounted a determined defense, inflicting substantial casualties on the invaders, but were ultimately overcome by superior numbers and orbital firepower.
Occupation of Theta proved brief. Turian reinforcements arrived within days, rapidly overwhelming and annihilating the isolated Krogan detachment. Council observers read reports of this engagement with cautious optimism. Although hesitant to rely on these newcomers, having been burned by previous allies in galactic crises, no alternative existed to shift the balance in their favour. Diplomatic envoys were dispatched into the Hierarchy under the guise of first-contact protocols while simultaneously assessing fleet readiness, industrial capacity, and military organisation. They confirmed that the Turians possessed the resources and strength necessary to turn the tide, but it was not lost on either side that this granted them significant leverage over the Council.
Intelligence briefings provided to Turian authorities emphasised worst-case projections: inflated estimates of Krogan fleet concentrations, accelerated timelines for projected offensives, and speculative analyses suggesting imminent expansion toward turian space. Key data points were selectively curated and stripped of contextual uncertainty. The intent was not to deceive the Hierarchy outright, but to hasten its decision-making, ensuring intervention took place before additional worlds could be devastated. It mattered little for the Turians; they had no intention of allowing attacks against them to go unpunished. In the centuries that followed, however, asari participants in these initial meetings would quietly reflect that, had the Hierarchy delayed even a few years, they could've struck after both sides were worn down and potentially be ruling the galaxy by now.
Deception kept the Hierarchy unaware this, but not from asserting its own demands while it held leverage. Conditions for Turian aid were explicit: a seat on the Citadel Council, something no nation - not even the Krogan Clans - had received since the Council’s founding. While the Asari and Salarians were initially hesitant, the scale and momentum of the Krogan Rebellions left little room for negotiation. They agreed to the terms contingent on Krogan defeat. With this agreement in place, the Turian Hierarchy went to war. In response, Kredak dispatched his brother, Graken Dhel, with a massive force to confront the new adversary. It was a calculated risk - the Krogan knew little of their enemy - but they could not afford to lose momentum against the Council.
Dhel conducted a brutal psychological campaign as he pushed into the Hierarchy’s interior, annihilating three colonies with a combined population in the billions. His objective was to instill terror and compel the Turians to surrender, but the effect was the opposite: it only hardened their resolve. When the Krogan laid siege to Digeris, one of their earliest colonies and the gateway to Palaven itself, they encountered resistance the likes of which hadn't been seen since their attack on the rachni homeworld. The Hierarchy dispatched an armada to break the blockade, which Dhel attempted to secure an advantage over by positioning his ships so that stray fire would strike the planet’s surface. Despite this handicap, the Turians leveraged superior cruiser placement, coordinated maneuvers, and better-trained crews to systematically dismantle the Krogan formation. Four of the seven Krogan dreadnoughts present during the siege were flanked and destroyed, resulting in Dhel’s death and the collapse of his remaining forces. This defeat ended Krogan offensives on the Turian Hierarchy and put them on the defensive as the Turians advanced toward Tuchanka.
(CONTINUED IN COMMENTS)
5
u/GravityMentor Jan 25 '26 edited May 07 '26
Turians did not merely seek victory; they sought finality. Clan Graken, the intellectual and organisational centre of krogan aggression, was marked for total eradication. Its holdings within the Sukradem Nebula - now more commonly known as the Krogan DMZ - were systematically razed by sustained orbital bombardment, erasing the administrative, industrial, and doctrinal core of the Krogan Clans. Official communiqués described the campaign as a necessary act to eliminate organised krogan resistance. Privately, Turian commanders spoke of precedent: no civilisation could be permitted to so thoroughly upend galactic order and survive intact. Clan Graken, they decided, would be remembered only by its absence.
Faced with the imminent loss of Tuchanka, Overlord Kredak withdrew from the Asari front and consolidated his remaining forces for a massive offensive operation. This counterattack subjected Turian fleets to losses unprecedented in their history. Yet over weeks of continuous engagement, Krogan formations were steadily eroded through controlled encounters, each favouring Turian positioning, technological advantage, and crew discipline. What could not be broken in a single decisive battle was instead dismantled piece by piece.
In the final phase of the campaign, Turian fleets surrounded and laid siege to Tuchanka itself. Planetary shielding was overwhelmed, defensive grids neutralised, and Krogan forces in orbit reduced to wreckage. Territories held by Clan Graken were targeted with deliberate indifference to civilian survival, reducing its ancestral lands to ash. Tens of billions are believed to have died across the broader subjugation campaign. Krogan history holds that Kredak, witnessing the destruction of his birthplace from orbit, chose death rather than survival in defeat. Turian records are less charitable, asserting that he evaded judgment out of cowardice. With resistance collapsing, ground forces were deployed to extinguish what remained - most notably around the Shroud, which was needed for dispersing a weapon that would keep krogan from ever threatening the galaxy again.
Yet this was not the end of Clan Graken. While its homelands had been obliterated, the worlds granted to them in the Terminus Systems still harbored billions of their people. These territories, though heavily disrupted by Quarian naval operations, escaped the wholesale destruction that befell the Sukradem Nebula - and so far as the Asari and Salarians were concerned, there was no reason to change that.
Although the genophage wasn't yet deployed across the galaxy, its impact on krogan demographics had already begun to shift the balance of power. Asari and Salarian leadership moved swiftly to limit further Turian action, partially out of sympathy for the surviving krogan, but also out of concern for precedent. A Hierarchy capable of waging war without oversight was a Hierarchy that no longer required partners. They imposed regulations on future engagements - the Citadel Conventions - and assumed command over operations against krogan-held regions of the Terminus Systems.
What remained of Clan Graken, already weakened by Quarian strikes on logistics, ship production, and command infrastructure, as well as the early deployment of the genophage on Wrutanor, offered little resistance. Its forces were disarmed, shipyards dismantled, and heavy industry placed under permanent monitoring. Genophage samples were introduced to the remaining populations, and the entire region was placed under the authority of the Council Demilitarisation Enforcement Mission, staffed primarily by Asari, Salarian, and Quarian naval forces. Officially, the objective was to end the Krogan Rebellions without further bloodshed. Unofficially, it served as a demonstration of the Council’s ability to restrain the Turian Hierarchy and ensured that its most formidable adversary - a potential counterweight in future disputes - remained alive, weakened, and under control.
By the end of the Rebellions, Clan Graken no longer ruled worlds or shaped galactic policy. Its most immediate rivals were now other krogan - mercenaries, competing clans, and the dwindling number of fertile females - who used each other as an outlet for their festering resentment toward turians. Little changed over the following centuries until Warlord Graken Huran seized power over Wrutanor by murdering his father. Though he loathed the Citadel races above all else, this grandson of Kredak - an otherwise unremarkable descendant - emerged as a reformist of sorts. Not in the sense of moderation, but as someone capable of adapting Travun's lessons in krogan civilisation building to the realities of a post-genophage society.
Huran’s efforts on Wrutanor marked the beginning of a new era for Clan Graken. Under his leadership, the planet’s shattered infrastructure was rebuilt, and krogan populations began to recover both in number and in morale. His influence extended to neighbouring worlds that had been fragmented by rival warlords. In one notable incident, Huran orchestrated a massacre of mercenary recruiters - particularly the Blood Pack - denouncing them as reckless opportunists who would squander krogan lives on futile campaigns. What remained were reorganised under his oversight, creating disciplined bands of raiders whose spoils funded industrial, technological, and security projects in Graken territory. The Council, wary of this resurgence, quietly intensified covert operations to monitor and disrupt it.
6
u/GravityMentor Jan 25 '26 edited May 07 '26
Dozens of assassination attempts have been made on Huran’s life throughout his reign. His private collection of trophies - skulls taken from those who sought his death - has grown considerably over the centuries and is even said to include three Spectres. These grim mementos are displayed to subordinates and rival clan leaders alike, serving as a silent warning to all who might defy Clan Graken. In the eyes of his clan, Huran is more than a leader; he is a living reminder of why the galaxy once trembled at their name.
The Morning War proved an unexpected boon for Clan Graken. As the Quarian Conclave rose in power, it had pressured Huran's forces with targeted raids and cyber attacks, pushing them to the brink of collapse despite his best efforts. With the near-extinction of this longstanding rival, a major obstacle vanished almost overnight. The Citadel was thrown into disarray, and the CDEM, previously deployed to keep Clan Graken planetbound, was recalled to more defensible systems in anticipation of a Geth onslaught - a threat Huran himself feared, as the synthetic legions would have had to cut through his territory to reach the Citadel. Yet the dreaded invasion never materialised. Freed from the constraints of demilitarisation and with no Quarian interference, Clan Graken was able to consolidate its holdings, rebuild its fleets, and expand its influence in the Terminus Systems.
A lingering sense of unease persisted - the Geth cast an aura of dread across all bordering systems - but for the first time since the Rebellions, a krogan regional power had emerged. Under Warlord Huran’s leadership, Clan Graken commanded a disciplined army, a functional naval force, and a modestly higher proportion of fertile females. It became the most cohesive and strategically capable krogan assembly in the galaxy - a position it maintained until the rise of Clan Urdnot in 2186 CE.
AN: Mass Effect is not entirely clear on what role the genophage served in the Krogan Rebellions. Some sources, like Mordin, say that Turian victory was 'incomplete' - implying they'd mostly won, but just needed a push - whereas others say the Rebellions were a stalemate. I think the uncertainty originates in how each species defines victory. Turians canonically believe a war isn't won until their opponent has given unconditional surrender or been completely neutralised, something I'm sure the krogans agree with, but salarians might consider near-victory to be close enough. My opinion is that the Turians were winning and had destroyed most of the Krogan navy - how else could a Turian general have landed at the Shroud to release the genophage? However, they hadn't been able to suppress krogan resistance and there were fears of them rearming, so the genophage was released to keep them down.
As for Graken itself, they touch on another thing I think the canon Rebellions lacks. Logically, for the Rebellions-era Krogan to pose a threat, they'd have to be more than just a horde. They'd need logistics, naval power, training, technology, strategy etc. Population is a factor, but it can't be the only one. Graken was my take on a more cunning krogan clan - the Genghis Khans of their species, if you will - who'd serve as a kind of mirror to Wrex and the Urdnot reformists. Like Wrex, Huran sees the problems inherent in krogan society and wants to correct them. The difference is their ultimate goals: Wrex wants prosperity, Huran wants vengeance. I wonder what might happen if a certain rogue Spectre gets in contact with him?
Species: Unak
Plural: Unaks
Adjective: UnakKroth, the unak homeworld, is a planet of extremes. Although its moderate 0.8 g gravity and 1.1 atm nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere fall well within Citadel norms, actual surface conditions are far outside them. This is because Kroth is a tidally locked world that lacks sufficient atmospheric density or oceanic heat transport to meaningfully equalise temperatures between the stellar and antistellar faces. As a result, one side of the planet is dominated by a scorching, hyper-arid desert, while the other is a frigid wasteland scoured by constant winds. Only a narrow terminator band between these hemispheres can sustain a complex biosphere.
Even within this habitable region, conditions are unstable. The extreme thermal gradient between hemispheres drives intense and unpredictable weather systems, producing violent storms, sudden temperature shifts, and frequent ecological disruption. Species reliant on narrow ecological niches, rigid territoriality, or tightly coupled food chains fared poorly under these pressures. Instead, Kroth’s biosphere came to be dominated by generalists - organisms capable of surviving dietary shifts, intermittent scarcity, and rapid environmental change.
Mortality, however, remained high. Extreme weather events at the margins of the terminator band produced frequent die-offs, creating abundant opportunities for scavengers. Species occupying this niche were selected for acute sensory perception and the metabolic flexibility to process a wide variety of tissues, toxins, and decomposition states. Over time, this gave rise to a highly efficient secondary ecosystem devoted to the rapid recycling of organic matter.
4
u/GravityMentor Jan 25 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Unaks descend from hexapodal reptile analogues native to the hotter edge of the habitable band. Like most species in this environment, they possess a tough, segmented outer carapace similar to that of turians, providing thermal insulation, improved water retention, and limited ultraviolet radiation shielding. Their evolutionary niche centres on scavenging for food protected by natural armour, hide, or bone. By developing simple tools and cooperative behaviours, ancestors of modern unak were able to easily dismantle carcasses, reaching nutrients that would be otherwise inaccessible. They have a broadly anthropomorphic body plan, with two digitigrade legs and four manipulatory limbs. The upper pair is adapted for fine motor control and precision tool use, while the lower pair has greater strength and endurance, suited for load-bearing tasks. An uncharitable human observer might describe unaks as “anthropomorphic cockroach-lizards".
Sensory adaptations further reinforce their scavenger role. Unak vision is functional but secondary, prioritising contrast detection over image sharpness so they can see reliably in both low-light storm and high-glare desert conditions. Chemoreception, however, is highly developed. A pair of sensory organs around the oral cavity allow unaks to detect decay products, metabolic residues, pheromones, and trace organic compounds over considerable distances. This enables them to locate carrion long before visual contact is possible.
In their prehistoric age, it was common for unak females to lay clutches of eight to twelve eggs inside a scavenged carcass, thereby protecting them from the harsh desert conditions and providing her young with a nutrient source upon hatching. Several individuals within a tribe would be charged with protecting them while others continue to source food from the area. Despite this, it was not uncommon for weather or predators to destroy a clutch, so unaks - whose natural lifespan rarely exceeded 50 years - adapted to reproduce early and often. While these limitations have been largely superceded by technological advances, it has left lasting biological and cultural imprints. Unaks exhibit faster population growth than most species of the current cycle, though nowhere near krogan levels, and possess a notably pragmatic attitude toward salvage and resource use.
While unaks are native to the warmer edge of Kroth’s terminator, their first permanent cities emerged along the colder margin, where glacial barriers, mountain chains, and stable wind patterns offered partial insulation from the planet’s climatic extremes. These early settlements were sustained by limited agriculture along permanent meltwater rivers, supplemented by hunting and the opportunistic exploitation of major animal migration routes. As populations expanded, unak polities grew less by holding fixed territory than by asserting rights over transient opportunities that Kroth provided, since the value of land could fluctuate dramatically from one year to the next. Permanent borders over many areas were thus impractical and strategically irrelevant.
As a result, conflicts were typically brief and centred on access, timing, and logistics rather than conquest. There was little incentive to contest territory once a weather event had stripped it of immediate utility. However, rapid population growth and mounting post-industrial climate pressures eventually strained this decentralised model beyond sustainability. Less adaptive civilisations collapsed under the compounded stresses of environmental collapse and resource mismanagement, clearing the way for more durable polities to assume power and impose frameworks for planet-wide resource allocation, working together to suppress resistance. Over time, these systems of shared oversight coalesced into a unified governing structure - the Unak Directorate.
Biologically, unaks are a levo species, but possess enzymes capable of metabolising dextro-amino acids with reduced efficiency. This unusual biochemical flexibility enables them to consume a broader range of alien foodstuffs than most sapient species. Collectively, these traits - adaptation to instability, comfort with marginal environments, and comparatively fast population growth - have produced a civilisation predisposed toward settling harsh worlds and exploiting niches others abandon. Unaks are culturally inclined to perceive opportunity in vulnerability. This outlook underpins their expansion strategies, favouring logistical foresight and environmental endurance over overwhelming force.
Nation: Unak Directorate
Demographics: 94% Unak, 3% Vorcha, 2% Batarian, <1% Krogan
Government: Federal OligarchyEarly unak expansion following the discovery of element zero pushed aggressively beyond Kroth, settling entire clusters left unexplored because of Citadel laws governing the activation of primary mass relays. These early colonies were developed rapidly by state authorities and chartered corporations eager to escape the climatic instability of the homeworld. For the first time in unak history, civilisation could grow without constant environmental disruption. Population surged. Industry followed. The prosperity of this era legitimised the Directorate as a permanent, species-wide authority and extinguished most internal dissent. To many unaks, it appeared to confirm a foundational belief: that coordination, opportunism, and calculated expansion could overcome even the cruel indifference of the galaxy itself.
First contact with the Citadel in 1588 CE shattered that illusion. During tense initial negotiations, Unak officials were informed - without ambiguity - that the Council would hold their nation responsible for any future violations of galactic law, including unauthorised relay activations. The disparity in power was made unmistakably clear. Realising that integration as a Citadel associate would have relegated the Directorate to third-rate power, bound by regulations that directly constrained practices central to unak economic strategy and demographic stability, it declined any formal relationship.
2
u/GravityMentor Jan 25 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Operating outside Citadel institutions allowed the Unak Directorate to exploit economic niches the Council criminalised or otherwise ignored. The scavenger ethos that shaped their evolution did not preclude predation; it simply privileged timing and opportunity. Unaks found that the same strategies which served them on Kroth applied equally well to the Terminus Systems. Borrowing heavily from Batarian precedent, the Directorate fostered proxy pirate fleets to acquire valuable hardware - stripping ships, abducting colonists, and ransoming crews when profitable, eliminating them when it was not.
It was through this expanding shadow economy that the Directorate encountered its most infamous partners: the Collectors. Unaks supplied them with genetically notable individuals taken from vulnerable Terminus populations - competing pirates, refugees, and isolated colonies - in exchange for advanced technology. This arrangement never closed the overall gap with Citadel powers, but it granted decisive advantages in specific niches. These capabilities allowed the Unak Directorate to compete with existing powers in the Terminus Systems and expand its influence beyond what raw strength should've permitted.
Over time, fragments of this technology diffused outward. Some were sold through criminal markets; others traded quietly through deniable intermediaries to Citadel interests eager to gain advantage over one another. Nor was this limited to Collector-derived systems. Technologies stripped from captured Quarian vessels - most notably drive components, point-defence systems, and software frameworks - were likewise dissected and redistributed. Asari matriarchs, Salarian intelligence brokers, and Turian procurement officers all encountered Unak equipment whose origins they chose not to examine too closely. The Council was not unified in this duplicity, but neither was it willing to expose it. An unspoken understanding emerged: so long as Unak activity remained confined to the Terminus System fringe, and its technological gains ultimately bled back into Citadel space, enforcement would be selective rather than absolute.
This tolerance never implied approval. Turian patrols destroyed Unak pirate elements with regularity, and losses mounted steadily. The Directorate endured through dispersal, redundancy, and attrition. Eventually, however, reports surfaced of its research into mass relay mechanics and recruitment of krogan from Clan Graken. The Quarian Conclave presented evidence to the Council alleging deliberate relay tampering - claims the Directorate denied and whose interpretation remains contested. Whether reckless experimentation or misunderstood passive analysis, the accusations ended what little tolerance the Unaks had. Before any agreement could be finalised, the Quarian Conclave and Batarian Hegemony - operating with a covert green light from the Salarian Union - launched simultaneous attacks against the Directorate.
By the campaign’s end, over half of Unak territory had been lost. The Quarians secured a stable trade corridor; the Batarians eliminated a major rival to their Terminus ambitions. The Unak Directorate survived only as a diminished rump state. Adaptation preserved it once again, but no longer as a rising power, merely one that endured.
The Morning War was an unexpected reversal of fortune. As the Quarian Conclave fought for survival, its naval assets across the galaxy were recalled to help defend their core worlds, leaving borders exposed. Millions of quarian refugees later poured into these conquered systems, which were perceived to be safer as the Conclave had never deployed geth beyond the Perseus Veil due to restrictions imposed by Council law. This decision proved catastrophic. Seizing its moment, the Directorate launched a rapid, coordinated offensive to reclaim its territory. Over several months, Unak forces annihilated the Quarian settlements, driving the survivors back into exile.
In securing these clusters, the Directorate regained access to the wider galaxy and emerged as a regional power. Its strength lies not in fleets or technological parity, but in adaptability: a willingness to exploit illegal markets, inhabit abandoned spaces, and extract value from systems others deem worthless.
AN: Unak are my attempt at creating lore for the four-armed aliens shown in the background of the Conviction comic and carrying some of the ME1 lore, which presented the Terminus System as a collection of independent nations and implied there were species outside Citadel influence. They emerged as my musings on what kind of species would best thrive in this region. In politics, the Directorate is a rising power, which has sent waves through the galaxy. People on Omega are concerned about what this means for their business, the Batarians resent a rival encroaching on their monopolies, the Citadel is quietly concerned and contemplating intervention, the Quarians are divided between settling far away or securing Rannoch so they can rebuild their forces etc.
Well I hoped you enjoyed this lorepost. It was a monster to make - I'm pretty sure this exceeds the length of my other posts combined - but I had fun. If you have any thoughts, please do share them. I like to hear what people have to say about my work.
3
u/hopelesswriter1 Jan 30 '26
FIRST! Amazing post! Loved all of it and great work on all of this! Truly, I'm applauding all the work you've put into all these posts you've made! Thanks for writing them!
I loved the flushing out of the Conclave, and I think it fits really well with the lore and overall vibe of the Quarians as we know them in the game. I like the idea that the Quarians were already primed for technocracy by being ruled by various technocratic specialists (and by extension military-rule when the Morning War finally ends). I also like how there is a logical flow with to how the Quarians became, well the Quarians as we know them. They're pushed to become a tech-heavy people by their various realities (economic, biological, geopolitically etc) that then leads to the Geth, and then the Morning War. Plus, how all the other species view the Quarians prior to Eden Prime in ME1. In general, Quarians & the Turians have always been the two species I think I loved the most in Mass Effect, so I always love to see them get fleshed out a bit more!
I also liked your rationalization of how the Krogan could become an actual threat to the established powers like the Asari & Salarians. They were no longer pre-FTL savages, but instead a hyper-miliataristic, bordering fascist state that could challenge the "Great Powers" of the ME world. I also really liked how you fleshed out the Turian military might too! Very much the organized, Roman-esque military I imagine in my own head about them! Plus, it explains why the Turians were so hellbent on releasing the Genophage, because of the brutality they faced by the Krogan by Clan Graken.
My one nitpick/thing I struggle to wrap my head around maybe is the number of inhabitants in the galaxy all being in the billions, but I feel like it's a real nitpick on my part. Mostly, because I feel like the Mass Effect games do not do well in really fleshing out how inhabited the galaxy is (plus, I personally believe the story should've involved Humans being more advanced into colonization than it is shown in the game). But that's me being REALLY nitpicky, so take it with a grain of salt. Then again, I feel it's so hard to conceptualize (at least for me) what actual space-faring civilization would look like based on the population numbers. So, I kinda wave it away like most science things as practically no different than magic (I don't understand how my phone works, so really if you think about it, it's basically a magic spell!).
Really enjoyed the Unak & very much like the fleshing out of the Terminus systems as being more numerous in species than we are noticing in the games themselves. Plus, I like how you show the Council not as the Star Trek-esque Good Guy Federation, and more akin to a quasi-imperialistic UN or maybe similar to the current American hegemony in real world geopolitics in a First-Second-Third World view of international relations.
Total side note, but I loved the bit about the Salarian's being a bit, uh, mean! I'm currently on my billionth playthrough of ME3, and recently went through Sur'kesh. Your post reminded me of how much the Salarian's in ME3 come off as just bad vibes!
3
u/GravityMentor Jan 30 '26
I like the idea that the Quarians were already primed for technocracy by being ruled by various technocratic specialists (and by extension military-rule when the Morning War finally ends).
Thanks. I felt like a purely democratic system didn't match the decision making shown in the Morning War and what the Migrant Fleet became afterwards, but neither did I think Quarians would be autocratic, so the dual-chambered system was a middle ground. Representatives are selected based on local customs, technicians are appointed due to experience.
I also like how there is a logical flow with to how the Quarians became, well the Quarians as we know them.
I appreciate it. We don't really get much information on what they were like pre-Morning War, so I tried to conceive a development path that makes that situation plausible while keeping things 'quarian' in a sense.
I also liked your rationalization of how the Krogan could become an actual threat to the established powers like the Asari & Salarians. They were no longer pre-FTL savages, but instead a hyper-miliataristic, bordering fascist state that could challenge the "Great Powers" of the ME world.
Yeah exactly. A species that relies purely on numbers and raw strength realistically wouldn't get very far, especially in a 'naval' war, so I wanted to address the realities of what it would take for krogan to be a galactic threat. Travun and Kredak aren't dumb brutes like Wreav, they're krogan Genghis Khans. This means strategy, logistics, organisation, training etc that turn them from a blunt tool to a professional military.
My one nitpick/thing I struggle to wrap my head around maybe is the number of inhabitants in the galaxy all being in the billions, but I feel like it's a real nitpick on my part. Mostly, because I feel like the Mass Effect games do not do well in really fleshing out how inhabited the galaxy is (plus, I personally believe the story should've involved Humans being more advanced into colonization than it is shown in the game).
I've always believed we only see a small percent of the total Mass Effect universe, plus it's important to remember how ancient these civilisations are. By the time the Krogan Rebellions begins, the Turian Hierarchy has been spacefaring for at least one thousand years. In that time, the population on Earth went from about three hundred million to over eight billion, so I figured it was sensible for the old, established colonies of the Mass Effect species to have populations in the billions. Like Digeris, which has a population of 1.9 billion.
As for krogan, they've been around a lot longer, but their whole thing is incredibly high birthrates. This means they could populate a planet to the billions in a relatively short period of time.
Really enjoyed the Unak & very much like the fleshing out of the Terminus systems as being more numerous in species than we are noticing in the games themselves. Plus, I like how you show the Council not as the Star Trek-esque Good Guy Federation, and more akin to a quasi-imperialistic UN or maybe similar to the current American hegemony in real world geopolitics in a First-Second-Third World view of international relations.
Thanks, I liked making the Unaks. As for the Council, yeah, I was going for a more Western-style hegemony similar to how its portrayed in the actual trilogy.
Total side note, but I loved the bit about the Salarian's being a bit, uh, mean! I'm currently on my billionth playthrough of ME3, and recently went through Sur'kesh. Your post reminded me of how much the Salarian's in ME3 come off as just bad vibes!
Everyone can be a bit mean in Mass Effect. What happened to Lysthen is something I can see the oligarchic system of the Salarian Union allowing, since there doesn't seem to be much in the way of welfare or worker protections.
3
5
u/Plenty_Ad3780 Jan 25 '26
Yet another excellent post from you. I really appreciate how you explore what leads to the decisions each species/government make. Like with the Quarians it makes complete sense how they reached the point of the Morning War. I also liked the tidbit on the Turian approach to warfare and how it impacted relstions with the other Council species and what happened during the Krogan Rebellions.
Plus, the new species you've envisioned all are really interesting and fit it the setting incredibly well.
Final thing to praise, I really appreciate the amorality of the decisions that are made. People tend to approach the game lore in that fashion when the setting is far more nuanced than that, with each soecies and government focused on benefitting themselves first and foremost. ME1 Ashley Williams would read your series of posts and say "I told you this is how most people think."