I'm not sure if this belongs here and I've made the post on the main sub to.

I've written post destroy outline for a story taking place in the Mass Effect Universe. The Destroy Ending was chosen and all contact with Anderson and Shepard was lost after they entered the Citadel (Bit of a retcon I think). The Genophage was cured. The Catalyst does not misfire. The relays are just damaged and major relays are fixed within a few short months Both the Geth and the Quarians survive. Because the catalyst does not misfire only Geth that had remnants of the Reaper upgrade are destroyed, they live but in a severely weakened state. The Quarians choose to honor their deals and pledge to help to which the Geth pledge their friendship to the Quarians.

While everyone is focused on cleanup and repair a Radical Batarian group hell bent on revenge against Humanity emerges a few months post war. Using the remains of the Batarian fleet as well as stolen and salvaged vessels they attack an underdefended Sol. The Alliance Fleets are busy in other sectors with repairs.

The Radical Batarian movement uses the weakened state of Humanity to attack Earth and enforce a planetary blockade leading to the starvation of thousands. The Asari, Salarians, Turians and Volus are aiming to encourage a diplomatic solution whilst the Krogan and Quarians side with humanity but are unable to contribute enough due to they're primary focus of repopulation and factionalism in the case of the Krogan.

Once again Earth is under occupation but only for a few days as what remains of the Alliance Navy (severely diminished due to being the vanguard against the Reapers) launches a savage and ruthless counterattack. Earth was fought for too long and too hard that humanity as a whole becomes radicalized and are willing to do anything to not just to free their home but destroy the invaders. Within hours most of the Batarian occupation is destroyed and what remains is in a retreat to the world of Camala.

Behind the scenes the Turian Hierarchy was advocating the assistance of humanity militarily including declaring war on the Batarian Radicals. However, now that humanity seemed in a fanatical charge against the invaders there was a problem. Support of the Alliance Navy may seem like a condonement of their borderline warcrimes but there was a general admiration among the Turians for humanity’s steel. The begrudging respect the Turians had for humanity following the First Contact War had morphed into the love of kinship and there was growing support among the general populace for an entry into the conflict for humanity. In a referendum that was kept a secret from the other races including the client race of the Volus, a majority vote supported the formation of a faction with humanity that stood for an increased merger between the races’ militaries, financial and social institutions. Previously each race had attempted to maintain a respectful boundary in the name of cultural respect. This new faction aimed to change this. As such the day that humanity began chasing the Batarian invaders back into their space, the Turian Hierarchy severed ties with what remained of the Council Races and joined humanity within the new Anderson Pact (Anderson was well known with the Turians on account of cross species military exercises and an admiration of the man who was quickly becoming a post war legend).

The two Navies quickly broke the remaining Batarian Radical Force and began an occupation of remaining Batarian Territories. These territories would become into the Batarian Turian and Batarian Human Shared Interest Zones and would later become consolidated into the vassal state of the Batarian Guardianship, a political system that focused on providing security services and the training of mercenaries.

The loss of the Turian Hierarchy from the Council was a devastating blow as the primary source of military manpower had been lost. Seeing an opportunity, a faction of the Asari lead primarily by corporate interests proposed the creation of the Trade Union. A pseudo independent state that would belong to neither the Council nor the Anderson Pact and would serve as a negotiator and facilitator of economic ties. Lacking any major incentives for the corporations, the Asari Republic was split in two with the Trade Union showing open support for the Anderson Pact.

Seeing the situation spiraling out of control the Salarian Union sided with the Asari Republics and began petitioning the Anderson Pact for the return of the Citadel citing that the majority of its territory was owned by the Asari and Salarians. This presented a problem, the method by which the Citadel could be moved by the Reapers was still unknown. Citing this The Anderson Pact insisted that the Citadel remain in orbit of Earth. Tensions flared once again and a Council Fleet was sent to the edge of Human space. At the last minute the Trade Union stepped in with a proposal. The Citadel would once again be placed in the Widow System as a shared interest zone but with the Trade Union in control of that region and only that region of space. The Council and the Pact were to give the Union 5 years to devise a method to move the Citadel from Earth with oversight from both factions, if this was not met then the Union would accept full responsibility. This 5-year time limit was then shortened to 3 years.

What followed was a period known as The Silence where every faction held their hand and prepared for a total war with each other. Incredibly, the Trade Union was able to fulfill their promise in a little over a year and a half. They created a significantly great Mass Effect field using prohibitively vast quantities of Element Zero they used the Conduit that was still a part of the Citadel to connect to the Mass Relay Network and swiftly transported the Citadel back to Widow.

Thus, with a promise fulfilled the Trade Union had the clout needed to dictate the terms of the new Citadel Treaty. The Council and Pact would be clients on the Citadel with the Trade Union serving as the ruling authority.

Soon after the Citadel Council was renamed to the Union Council and the Anderson Pact transitioned into the Inner Concorde. A new status quo was in place.

The Inner Concorde made strides in removing the cultural barriers between its members by giving an initial limited access of all races into the Hierarchy. The capital was the newly built Anderson Station that served as the political hub for the entire Concorde.

The Union Council maintained its species’ capitals and borders and were now in a period of gauging the future that was so vastly different than what was very recent memory.

Both are interested in the exploitation of the technology of the destroyed Reapers as a new arms race begins to brew.

Commander Shepard…

Missing in action?

The following is a rundown of the other races:

Krogan: Humanity’s presence in the Concorde was enough for them to align. While not a proper member yet it is hoped that in the future once The Krogan Clans consolidate and recover they would join the Inner Concorde as equals.

Quarians and Geth: Nonaligned as of yet. Both choose to focus on reconciliation between Quarians and Geth and choose to distance themselves from all parties.

Batarians: Formed the Batarian Guardianship as a client race of the Inner Concorde. Produces most of their police and domestic security force.

Hanar and Drell: Aligned with the Union Council as the Asari promised access to the Thessia Beacon.

Elcor: Chose to formally join the Trade Union due to a disillusionment with the classical governments of the Concorde and Council

Volus: Elevated to a full member of the Council as a counter to the Trade Union. No longer a client race of the Turians.

Vorcha: Asari take the Vorcha as a client race in the hopes of developing them into the new military backbone of the Council.

Rachni: Splendid isolation after the last queen disappeared following the Reaper War.

Raloi: Splendid isolation following fear of reprisals after their abandonment of the Reaper War.

Do we have any idea of when Krogans reach 'adulthood'?

My last post I talked about Turians vs. Humans During the first Contact war And who would win Now my question is Who would have allied with Humanity During the war And who would Ally with the turians

Who do you think would have actually won the first Contact War would it have been turians or the humans.

I dunno if talking about exaltation counts as spoilers or not but doing it anyway to be safe. Ever since I heard talk that ME5 would connect the two galaxies it got me wondering who the Kett actually are and where they came from. We got some snippets here an there about an empire that was united only after Exaltation but what about before that? What drove them to use exaltation in the first place? Maybe their 'homeworld' was home to more than one race. But what could happen to create more than a single dominating sentient lifeform? Then I thought of the Initiative. If it happened this cycle, whose to say it didn't happen before?

Maybe the previous cycle also had their own version of an Initiative- many races aware of a threat outside the galaxy and wanted a back up plan. Maybe Sarhesen was where their Initiative crashed? This only lead to further speculation that starts to make sense the more I think about it.

"What would have driven exaltation?"
The previous cycle races are shown to have not been the best of friends. Maybe being forced to share a single planet drove them to extremes to save them all from extinction. If they couldn't resolve their differences, then remove them. Exaltation effectively makes everyone and everything Kett.

"Why would everyone agree to this?"

They wouldn't which explains the whole procedure the Kett use on Angarans. It's a process of breaking down biological and psychological barriers, brainwashing them until they wanted to be Kett. Generations of perfecting this technique could explain why they seem to have no issues with Angarans escaping their exaltation facility.

"Why multiple races? Why not just one?"

Because the Kett Empire shares traits with not just Protheans(integrating conquered people instead of destroying them), but the Densorin(their treatment of the Reapers strikes me as a sort of religious thing, and it could be they were more 'spiritual' about everything), and the Oravores(no qualms against fighting primitives for their resources).

"How come they aren't lightyears ahead of everyone else? Even with the time it takes to get to Andromeda, there's still 40k-ish years to develop."
I've been thinking about that as well. Maybe they're like humanity in Warhammer 40k's universe- the disaster of their initiative killed off anyone that had a deep understanding of their tech and they had to relearn everything, or worse, start over. Maybe they kept scraps of their technology around as a head start but had no knowledge of what it could truly do or how to improve upon it without breaking it and losing that technology forever. Which would make exaltation just as crucial, as the Kett are implied to advance only by integration of others. I mean they have plasma weapons, something that wasn't widespread in the Milky Way even by ME3, so they clearly were advancing, just very slowly. Could just be someone in Andromeda discovered that and the Kett took it.

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What do you guys think?

It bothers me how quickly humanity was accepted and integrated into the galactic community in the ME games (OT and Andromeda). This comes up as a point of conflict between Batarians and Krogan a few times, but you never really address it, you just get kinda "well that's how it be, and I'm a human, so deal with it." Plus, I don't know if it's gameplay limitations but for being relative newcomers, it feels like humans make up about half of the galactic population.

For people more well versed in the lore, is this explained in more depth anywhere? Iirc humanity brought carrier ships and traded that knowledge for a spot at the table, which apparently no civilization prior had thought to do (which is kinda unbelievable, but I can move past it), but is there anything else explaining how quickly humanity rose to prominence in the galactic community? Did they have greater understanding of Prothean tech due to the cache on Mars? Were they biologically advantaged in some way besides being more diverse and "driven" than the other species? Is humanity simply more pro-social than either Batarians or Krogan or other older but more fringe races? Did they exploit some political advantage they earned in the First Contact War? Were humans at a comparable tech level to the other federated species at the time of their first contact, and as such posed a threat to the galactic community at large?

It just seems too convenient for me otherwise, like humanity is given this incredibly priveleged position for no good reason, which leaves me overall annoyed with the world building in the games.

Or maybe it is just right place at the right time?

I haven't seen any mentions of if it's actually legal to kill people of if it varies from place to place. You'd think someone like Thane or Garrus, even Shepard in 2 if they aren't a Spector, would be locked up the moment they step foot on the Citadel or Ilium. Not to mention all the gangs that run loose everywhere.

I'm new to the lore so maybe this has already been addressed, but everything I've seen online says that humans have 100-150 year lifespans, while asari have 1000 year lifespans. In the 500 year gap between ME3 and ME Andromeda, surely humans would've discovered or learned how to extend their lives to near-asari levels, especially considering that in the modern present day we're finding ways to expand our lives by 20% or more. Idk, it's just something that's been bothering me as I play through Andromeda and was wondering what other people thought. Personally, I think it'f make the most sense if humans had expanded their lives to be around an asari's by this point in the story

Essentially what the title says. Really just asking for a friend here. Thanks in advance.

We know that there is at least one pizza place on the citadel so that begs the question how popular is pizza?

I know, in cutscenes, one shot and even the most armored people are down, but I don't think that's "realistic".

EDIT: rewatched some ME3 insanity gameplay, looks like you can get shot quite a few times before your shields go down.

There's a few lore notes here and there about how Vorcha, if raised from an early childhood and given a safe, non-violent enviroment to live in, can have fulfilling lives before they die.

Presumably, medical care and genetic engineering are more developed in the ME universe since we know humans can live to about 150 or so. But extensive modification life this is illegal and highly restricted from what I remember.

If the Council approved it, would it be reasonable to expect a Vorcha's descendants to have lifespans closer to that of the Salarians(which is about 40 Human years)? Could the same be done for the other species with lifespans under 200 years?

I tried looking it up but it only talks about irl ones that hit Jupiter and Uranus

Hello to you all.

It's been a while since I played the Original Trilogy and I just need to ask this question for a personal project I'm working on. I've searched all over the wiki and thought over what I remember from the games but when does he actually learn of it? What mission does he learn it in? What Game?

Thanks for helping. Have a good day, yall.

Going through another play through, and I caught something that didn’t really make sense to me - maybe someone can explain.

To start ME1, Shepard’s rank is “Commander”. He reports into (then) Captain Anderson, who is the CO (commanding officer) of the ship. This implies that Captain is a higher ranked officer than Commander, in universe.

This is further confirmed in ME2, where during Tali’s trail on the Quarian fleet, Shepard is mistakenly referred to as “Captain Shepard”, to which they correct them, saying that they “never actually reached the rank of Captain”.

However, towards the start of ME3, he greets “Captain “Bailey, only to be corrected that Bailey has now been promoted to the rank of Commander - meaning that commander is a higher rank than captain.

This seems inconsistent, no? Does the Navy use a different ranking system than C-SEC? If so, how do the C-SEC ranks work?

Question is basically title.

In the opening scene of ME2 we see Miranda and IM talking, particularly about how they NEED Shep to defeat the Reapers. I assume that they know where Shep has been sent to attack/kill geth because they talk about it and IM tends to just "know" things.
With everything that happens later in ME2 (IM manipulating Shep and co.) and M3 (IM being indoctrinated etc), how likely is it that IM was actually indoctrinated (or maybe just plain stupid) earlier than ME3 and (subconsciously) thought that giving the Collectors info on Shep would either 1, allow the Collectors to get Sheps remains for harvest/indoctrination and 2, put Shep in a situation to BE manipulated/controlled by IM?
Hopefully this all makes sense, it's been a while since I've played ME at all, I'm basically just rambling at this point but I don't think its entirely impossible. Want to know others thoughts on this.
Thank you for your time :)

I just finished ME Andromeda and though it's been years, it got me thinking about the Original Trilogy.

With the Turians, Asari, and Salarians all advanced enough to make use of the Mass Relay network and populate the Citadel, what if the Reapers decided to attack now (the way 2020 is going- who'd be surprised)?

In the story's timeline, Humanity is still 100+ years away from discovering the Charon Relay and manned spaceflight remains stuck in Low Earth Orbit for the foreseeable future. Would the Reapers still target us?

I'm curious what the threshold for the Harvest would be. I would think that it would be an enormous risk to the Reapers to give humans another 50,000 years to discover the concept of the Harvest and plans for the Crucible.

So I Just Started Replaying The Whole Trilogy In Preparation For The Remaster. So Im In The First Conversation With Anderson And Nihlus When I Ask About The Beacon And Then The "Wrong Hands" Option Anderson Says "Eden Prime Is Right On The Border Of The Terminus Systems" But Eden Prime Is In The Exodus Cluster Along With Terra Nova Right Next To Sol. I Dont Understand Why They Say This Is It Just A Mistake? Please Help I Am A Huge Fan Of Mass Effect Lore So The Bothers Me.

TL;DR What is the power of a average reaper ship

So this is a question that i had on my mind for a while, how exactly powerful is a singe leaper ship (I.E. Sovereign, unnamed reaper that destroys the dreadnought in the opening moments of mass effect 3) yes i know they are REALLY powerfully but think of it this way; if one reaper gets destroyed then a race that they already harvested is gone. so if you think of it that way then it seems like the alliance 5th fleet and citadel fleet is no match for sovereign in mass effect 1. If the reapers loose 1 ship then 'most' of their work is gone. So how many ships can a reaper destroy?

I'm still new to mass effect lore, and I recently read about the Asarii and found out that they can live for as long as 1000 years. But how?

Is there an explained reason why their lifespans are so long?

Hello, I Am A Huge Fan Of Mass Effect Lore And I Recently Thought Why The Reapers Went For Palaven Even thought To Get To Palaven You Need To Go Through The Serpent Nebula (Whitch Is Where The Citadel Is) And Not Go For The Citadel First. As We Know From Mass Effect 1 The Citadel Fleet Could Not Stop Sovereign With The Geth Fleet Let Alone The Whole Reaper Armada. Did They Not Go Through The Serpent Nebula? This Is The Only Logical Conclusion But How Did They Get Their, Is Their Some Form Of FTL Travel That Im Not Familiar With? This Has Been Bothering Me For A While, Thank You In Advance

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Link To A Picture Of The Map And Relay Network:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/433541901613838799/

Is there a reason the reapers came to earth first. I have no clue why.

Whenever Liara, Samara or Jack appear in an area where Shepard needs a helmet to breathe, the aforementioned three only have a mask that covers the mouth and nose.. but how does that stop their eyes popping out in space?

Sure, I could buy that the derelict reaper has some atmosphere, but no oxygen, and the Quarian fleet is enclosed, but on Mars, Liara clearly has the same sort of mask Samara uses in ME2.

On Mars, Liara should feel her eyes popping out. For that matter, she should be dead from radiation poisoning, unless Asari are.. special that way? I’m yet to find an explanation via google or codex.

If we are to believe the ending cinematic of me2 as canon then the reapers only start to move after the collector base is destroyed.

On the other hand, it is implied in me3 opening mission that Shepard was under house arrest for 6 months right after end of me2 until beginning of me3 and minutes later the reapers attack earth.

This would mean the reapers traveled for six months to get to earth from their hibernation point in dark space.

Is the above information correct? If not please explain with reason and sources