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Citadel: "You can only have this many dreadnoughts." Human 1: "Wait didn't we already figure out how to get around this in the 1900-" Human 2: "Shut up SHUT UP!"
The Citadel: "You can only build this many battleships." Systems Alliance: "You know we already found a loophole to this one, right? Back in the 1930s. We had the Washington Treaty back on earth that imposed similar limitations. We just built Carriers and this shift put Dreadnaughts out of service from our oceans." The Citadel: "I'm sorry, what are Carriers?" Systems Alliance: "Not Dreadnaughts."
Also here System Alliance: We dont bow to you and we will defend ourself. We can build any large ship as much we want. Know this we have battlecruise, heavy cruise, battleship and they are over 1 km and are not a (dreanought) as you would called. Councilor: you are not allow to build large ship System Alliance: Of course we will and will not join as citadel. So bye!
The Alliance workaround with Carriers was a practice pioneered by necessity due to the Washington Naval Treaty. USS Saratoga and Lexington were both slated to be Battlecruisers until the treaty was signed, then they were converted into Fleet Carriers, just like their contemporaries Kaga and Akagi.
Yes, I always saw this treatise in Mass Effect as a parallel to the Washington Naval Treaty. in view of the naval development of aircraft carriers here on earth, it is not strange that our species has taken that into space.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Those were purpose built Carriers, especially Shoukaku and her sister Zuikaku. I was only covering the conversions spurred by the treaty, but you are correct.
One thing has to be said for Systems Alliance navy, unlike most of the similiar counter-parts in sci-fi, they were quite competent in what they did. I always liked, especially in ME 1 where the love was biggest, to read about their ships, ect. in the game. Humanity trully kicked ass.
@@efxnews4776 Yea, just played that scene again and i still feel bad for a poor fela, his lack of plot armor and battle eagerness made a him a prime target for kinda sad joke: /
sorry late to the party... i mean how more competent than first council race to face the full brunt of the attack almost all goverment head are decapitated, capital planet razed and still slowed and grind reaper invasion almost to an halt (after earth reaper need few month to attack other council race) and can attack reaper here and there.. and mind you this is againts reaper.. i think the only race on the same level as system alliance are salarian union (which is almost have the same doctrine but heavy on tech while alliance scrounge whatever tech they can find (human ingeniuty FTW or FTGalaxy))
"You can only have limited numbers of Battleships or dreadboughts" Humans: "Ok" "Ok?" Humans:"OK. We're good with that." Earth looks at the US: Soon Carriers? USA: How Big and how many? Earth: Yes USA: Less Gooooooo
From what I understand from my own knowledge of the lore. The 6th, 7th and 8th fleets were the colony defense fleets. Broken up into several smaller patrol fleets scattered throughout alliance space. When the reapers attacked earth, its unknown where 8th was but the majority of 6th was at Terra nova and the majority of 7th were at Ontarom. They were told to hold positions as backup. The 5th fleet, more commonly called the Arcturus fleet was stationed at Arcturus station(alliance hq) as the main guard force, with 2nd and 3rd also there most likely meant to serve as a rapid response force. When the reapers hit Arcturus all 3 fleets tried to defend it. After realizing that it was a loosing battle Admiral Hackett of the 5th fleet made a judgment call to sacrifice the entire of what remained of the 2nd to provide cover for what was left of the 3rd and 5th to retreat. The first(and largest) fleet was located at the Charon Mass relay(the gateway to the Sol system). After the reaper were done with Arcturus, they poured through, during the battle, the 1st fleet's forces were cut in half and the Admiral was forced to sacrifice a tenth of his remaining forces to provide cover for the rest of the 1st to limp away through the relay and regroup with the 3rd and 5th The 4th fleet was stationed in earth's orbit, dispite the advanced warning, they never stood a chance Final casualties 1st - 55% 2nd - 100% 3rd - about 30% 4th - 100% 5th - about 30% That's at least 45% of the Alliance fleet lost
It's cool to see Mass Effect tackles how humanity's constant infighting and differing ideas led to the unorthodoxy and pragmatism of its interstellar military. Unlike the other galactic species which has united centuries earlier and thus remain to their tried and tested formulas the humans who only united recently allowed them to formulate better strategies and innovate new ideas other species have not utilized or even acknowledged in the first place.
What's that sound byte from? Is there an organization called the templin institute from mass effect? Or did the templin institute just get the voice actor to say that line?
"Congratulations humans. As council members, you are now permitted to have 3 times as many dreadnaughts" Alliance looks at massive fleet of carriers "no thanks, we're good"
I was always a little disappointed that the game never actually shows the carrier concept in action. Prior to the release of ME3, I was sort of hoping there would be some depiction of a space version of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The closest we'll ever get to this was the battle for Earth in ME3. Those fighters dogfighting beside the Normandy have to come from somewhere. Remember that carriers are best situated outside of the actual fighting zone and thus they would've probably stayed near the mass relay or behind a planet to prevent Reaper detection. Like in the Battle of Midway, both fleets never really saw each other in person, only by the aircraft they launched from their respective carriers.
It's one of the biggest missed opportunity in the original trilogy tbh. We hardly get any view of the various things mentioned in the lore. Alliance carriers was never shown, we never visited Arcturus Station, never see the Destiny Ascenstion fired its main gun, hell we haven't seen the salarian and batarian ships
@@azrielmoha6877 For Arcturus Station, you can find images of that space station in the comic books _Mass Effect: Evolution_ and _Mass Effect: He Who Laughs Best_ .
Humans, left alone for long enough, will find a reason to break into factions and fight each other. Sometimes with horrific weapons and tactics. But nothing unites like a common enemy. "Red Sox!" "Yankees!" (fist fight until) "Baseball sucks!" Then the two baseball fans shook hands and beat the stuffing out of the third person.
It was for that very reason the Citadel council had humanity sign those dumb naval treaties. They knew that humanity had far greater numbers then the three council races combined. As such they feared that should Humanity get pissed off enough, it would create an interstellar juggernaut, the likes of which the galaxy hadn't seen since the Krogan rebellions.
@@Predator42ID Well, yes. But those treaties were not just for humans only, every citadel race had to sign them. They were no doubt cautious of humanity, considering how powerful they are even with their very limited manpower pool, but it's not like the Council singled them out.
When the choice is between spending billions and waiting centuries to figure out a new way to do something... or using the proven and established way that everyone in the galaxy has used for millennia I think almost everyone would choose the second option.
There's literally no other way to develop Faster than light travel. Even in a completely separate galaxy, the Kett and Angara still use Element Zero based FTL.
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim The only known method of FTL to the reapers is ezo based. That is a very important distinction. Their creators were not creative and the reaper actively funneled civilizations down a specific tech tree to avoid nasty surprises. An alternative method of FTL travel based on wormholes is not impossible, though modern science has no idea how to make it happen and ezo doesn't help there. A slipspace, hyperspace, warp, or warp-drive equivalent may also be possible. The reapers merely dismissed these options as impossible because they knew others had tried and failed to develop them.
@@maledwarfwarrior Incorrect. In the Mass Effect universe, using Eezo is the only way to develop FTL travel. As I mentioned, both the Kett and Angara from the Andromeda Galaxy, a Galaxy completely untouched by the Reapers, use Element Zero in their FTL drives. They just use it in different ways: The Kett use Eezo to power an Alcubierre Warp Drive. The only thing that the Reapers used for their trap was the Mass Relays and Citadel *specifically*.
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim That's FTL, fine, but I mean it's literally in everything, from weapons to armor to body enhancements to just general everyday items.
I love the lore on the initial conflict between humans and turians where they pushed humanity off a colony and then humanity showed up with a sector fleet or something and the turians were about to escalate it further but the council was like.... Maybe we should have these guys join us
@Neutral T.K. That's what it was! Yeah humans basically fought the turians on equal military footing when they showed up to reclaim it. I like to think that's were the little bit of hostility from turians comes from. Basically we showed them up a bit.
The fluff is that usual military strategy amongst Citadel members was to garrison everywhere equally, however the Systems Alliance operated with minimal colony protection but massed fast-response forces capable of intervening within hours of their assigned sector. The turians were angry when they saw an unidentified specie settled within their reserved part of space, attacked what they though to be a weak enemy, and suddenly got their asses kicked by an actual fleet just after.
@@scorpixel1866 yeah that's probably the first time in their history with the citadel where they got outmatched by what would be considered an emerging species...also I think humans scared them. The fact they were outmatched in such a fashion was alarming. Also I love the fact humans created fleet carriers to get around the dreadnought issue. We definitely had superior experience in warfare.
@@C0LL0SSUS I don't think thaat's exactly true. Wasn't it like the "Humanities top fleet" vs a patrol squadron? Turians would absolutely hand the Alliance their assess, were it not for Asari's diplomatic intervention. Remember, what the Humanity calls "First Contact *War*", they call "Relay 314 *Incident*"
Gotta hand it to Mass Effect. They did some research on naval doctrines, and history. As a naval historian, I really appreciated their nods to real history. From my perspective, using the Island Hopping campaigns of the Pacific War as inspirations for space combat doctrine is inspired. That and I just love the Alliance.
All the more a shame that they set the setting on fire after ME3. No chance for any medium to really show how Humanity and its quircks settle into its role as a junior-senior race
@@MijmerMopper The point of that interruption in our specie's progress was to effectively show the threat the Reapers posed. Even with our new standing of a valuable, effective military, the Reapers kicked EVERYONE'S asses. But hey, we won in the end.
Funny enough, it was the Americans who abided the Washington Navel Treaty even though they were the only ones who could afford building battlecruisers and dreadnoughs. For instance the Britain for a certain timeframe could build up aircraft carriers, battlecruisers, and Battleships as they were low on those. Japan was the one that broke that treaty.
The System Alliance Navy I have found to be one of the coolest and most fascinating Human Sci-Fi space navies. Especially when _"The Fleets Arrive"_ plays in the background. I will enjoying seeing these designs again in Legendary edition. It would also be cool if there was a game on the SAN specifically, lot's of potential there.
@@SuperThest yeah, and it was pretty great, i think a lot could be done with a heabier story focus, you could even incorporate some of the same co-op element, somithing a bit like left 4 dead or warhammer darktide
@@efxnews4776 space combat would be amazing, the ship design has always been one of mass effect's best parts, to see them in action outside cinematics would be awesome
@@michaelandreipalon359 Then do them again and again and again. I want to buy the legendary addition so bad since it has everything that I couldn't afford the first time. Unfortunately, need to upgrade the Xbox with a bigger memory core since five hundred gigs only gets you five games now, which sucks.
I freaking love the fact that we’re not push-overs in the M.E lore ! We may not be as strong as the Turians (on paper) but our military doctrine and our resourcefulness is truly impressive.
Actually, we are. We have nine dreadnoughts and an unknown number of carriers. Turians have twenty-seven dreadnoughts. Our largest colony has a population of ten-million. The largest Turian colony you find in the game has over a billion. We’ve been in space a few decades, they’ve been in space a few centuries. Yes, we caught them off guard with a few tricks they hadn’t seen before, but tricks can be learned and countered. Superior numbers, technology, and industry cannot.
Knew it was only a matter of time before you got to the Alliance Navy. Hope you'll do some Arsenal videos on the Normandy and other ships of the Systems Alliance and the rest of the Mass Effect universe.
Love how the Alliance Navy pulled a Japan Self defense force "It's not an airceaft carrier, it is a helicopter destroyer", or Starfleet's "It's not a warship, it's an advanced tactical escort"
The war of first contact, when turians and humans fight each other, and at the end of the story, the best friends of all are a turian and a human both paragons of their species and both of them don't wanting anyone else to fight in their side Theres beauty in such story.
Incidentally, Systems Alliance is a great name. It is above all forward thinking, to a time when Earth is not the total hegemon of human space, and inclusive (systems) without being exclusive (X systems).
There's a reason that carriers were not used by aliens before humans came along. It's the fact the alien fighters couldn't reliably harm big ships. And due to the proliferation of GARDIAN lasers starfighters became tools for scouting and orbital support rather than contesting enemy ships. Then came the alliance with the new disruptor torpedoes and the whole naval doctrine , changed on its head and suddenly starfighters became relevant once more. To clarify disruptor torpedoes and their more advanced cousins javelin torpedoes were extremely fast torpedoes with a mass effect warhead that can damage armour and sheilds by causing rapid changes in space and time. Essentially it replicated the biotic singularity. To clarify on how fast the torpedoes were in a ME2 mission it took only 5 min for them to get from a moon to the planet below. Despite this speed they needed to launch in mass (as in macross missile massacre style) where each fighter would dump the equivalent payload of a Sherman calliope (as in 36 to 60) and pull up. The torpedoes got their cute little nickname "Callie's" from this tactic. So in a strike wing it would result in 300 - 600 torpedoes. And yet despite all this the first few wings were nothing more than cannon fodder because enemy defences are 100% accurate and work at light speed. It's a actual laser after all. It's only through over saturation and subsequent over heating of enemy laser defences , is there a possibility of getting hit iin. Imagine seeing hundreds of star fighters attacking a single Imperial star destroyer with thousands of torpedoes , and you might get what I am pointing at. The council had experienced thousand of years of peace with turians being the premier military power with no one coming even close to challenge them. They probably allocated that R&D money to some place else.
The system alliance navy and unsc navy have to be my favorite human navies from sci fi. Both have to fight enemies far stronger then them. Yet they still never give up. That shows humanity is the best
One of the most well-thought out military forces in any alternate universe. I wish we could have seen more of its ships in action! ... now that all the fanboys are gone, can we talk about the ridiculous rank structure and titles? "Staff Lieutenant?" Seriously???
Fantasy military do as fantasy military do, I think the focus was more on stirring political thought than structure. Would have been helpful if it were more grounded but yeah, mostly fantasy sci-fi
Have you not seen star wars, The ranks are Captain, commander, General, and Admiral. With no difference between army, marine or navy rank which is confusing as hades. Stargate did it right as they knew what they were, US Airforce, Army, and Marine Corp.
It makes sense as much as Staff Sergeant does as an enlisted rank in the US Army and Marines. The former US Army E7 and current US Air Force E6 rank of “Technical Sergeant” has a better ring to it, in my opinion, and I think “Tech Lieutenant” sounds like a good futuristic naval rank. They may have avoided it because “Tech” almost always means squad-level electronic warfare in Mass Effect. Just think of it as the opposite of the relationship between a Lieutenant Colonel and a Colonel.
I love Mass Effect so much and the Alliance as part of that but I couldn't agree more. The rank structure is positively nuts. I get that they were trying to make it unique from major earth militaries like the US and Commonwealth systems but it seems unlikely that they'd through all rank convention out the window. Like a Marine Major being equivalent to a Navy Captain (when in modern militaries that would be a full colonel)
Based on the comments, I'd guess something more like modern navies (which is based on the star trek model, funnily enough - with the captain surrounded by their subordinates). So think anything from star trek, the expanse, and/or battlestar galactica and you'd be well on your way.
@@skepticalmagos_101 Yeah, especially as those are less bridges and more combat information centers (CICs), they'd be ideal for larger scale fleet actions where more than one ship or more complex systems are involved than the single main gun and secondary GARDIAN lasers of a single frigate.
I will say, I love the first System Alliance overview that was done years ago. The music, the emotion, and the tone were all in perfect sync. However will give this one a like because one it's the System Alliance and Mass Effect. And two, the voice actor for Shepard at the end was a nice touch. But my all time favorite will be the first System Alliance overview.
2:55 That actually is taken from history. In the 1929 Washinton naval treaty the Japanese navy size was restricted to 60% of either the American or British one. To combat this Japan put most of it's resources into aircraft carriers.
I remember how the System Alliance got around the Dreadnaught treaty by being crazy enough to develop massive carrier fleets, just couldn’t seem to casually find it in any lore entry.
The carrier thing seems to have been dropped in the later games. Only two carriers were ever named, and there’s no mention of them during the Reaper War. Considering strike craft were stated to be useless against the Reapers, I’m gonna guess things didn’t go well for the carriers.
I don't know why, but I love the idea that in 5,000 years of Galactic history, none of the Council races figured out Carriers until humanity showed up on the scene and bamboozled them. Somewhere on Shaanxi, there was a Turian Admiral smacking his forehead thinking "Damn it, why didn't we think of that?"
They didn’t think of carrier’s because fighters were obsolete until humanity showed up with the Javelin torpedo system. Before that, GARDIAN laser systems rendered fighter attacks suicidal.
Well I remember it's said that space fighters are only viable because they use special torpedoes that use Element Zero, something that no other race thought to develop because they consider eezo to be too precious to waste in such weapons.
@@battlesheep2552 It wasn't that Eezo was too precious to waste, it's just that they had no reason to develop such a weapon. The Council has only ever fought two wars in their history. Beyond that they only fight pirates and other criminals. There's no demand for new, cutting edge weaponry.
@@addisonwelsh could have sworn the codex said that specifically. Anyways, i always liked it in sci-fi when they explain humans being exceptional as them being boneheaded in a way that lets them think outside the box. Besides, even if you only count the times there wasn't relative peace in the galactic community, they still had more time to develop it than humanity, who at the time of the games only knew about the Mass Effect for about 30 years.
@@battlesheep2552 Yes they had more time develop, but without major conflict there was no incentive to develop weapons. A world at peace will develop technology to benefit that peace. Also, carriers are not nearly as useful in Mass Effect as people think. This is because of GARDIAN point defense systems. These lasers have one hundred percent accuracy at the beginning of a fight, so any fighter attack is going to suffer heavy casualties.
Humanity's involvement in the Reaper war which ultimately tipped the scales was basically a final 'F You' from the protheans. Were it not for the latter, humans wouldn't have found the Charon Relay on time, and wouldn't have scared the other races into militarising more. Without that, even with the prothean rewiring of the keepers, the galaxy wouldn't have stood a chance. That's not even counting Shepard's contribution. Basically humans were never supposed to be present in this cycle, especially considering Sovereign tried to send the signal even way before first contact. Humans were why they had to Reap every 50,000 years and not wait any longer. The Reapers wait too long and it's more likely that a wild card shows up and throws the whole refined system into disarray. Classic cascade effect (systems theory). Complex systems have redundancies, and the cycles were no different. Sovereign could manually override the citadel but that failed (first true sign the cascade had begun), then the alpha relay was a tertiary redundancy plan (it could have sent the Reapers straight to the citadel) but the cascade (embodied by Shepard) was already way underway and that failed. By 2186 the Reapers were improvising and somewhat on the back foot, they had never been in that situation before and it is an indirect result of Prothean defiance. The Reapers are fascinated by humanity and by Shepard, they would likely justify their intense focus on humanity in cold, rational terms. But I think they were experiencing irrationality for the first time and were clumsily lashing out at Earth, though they would never admit it.
The main issue I see with the Alliances doctrine regarding warfare is that it relies on extremely accurate intelligence reports, the assumption that the enemy will dig in at predetermined locations, and that they have the forces sufficient enough to effectively engage these preferred targets. They essentially put all of their eggs in one basket when it comes to warfare. This extremely limited approach to warfare also assumes that they will only fight enemies that operate along the extremely narrow criteria that the Alliance military have identified to qualify for an engagement.
All militaries rely on accurate intelligence reports, and the Mass Relay network makes enemy fleet movements very easy to predict. I don't know what you mean by "assumption that the enemy will dig in at predetermined locations." I assume you mean that the enemy will occupy a colony's population centers, in which case... yeah, obviously. That's not an assumption, that's something that's been a part of warfare for all of human history. As for the assumption that they will always have forces sufficient to engage their preferred target, I don't know what you mean by preferred targets. Alliance doctrine is to break through enemy weak-points and encircle their stronger defensive positions, a tactic that goes back to WWI. Having forces sufficient to attack your chosen target isn't an assumption, it's a basic necessity of any offensive operation.
I just left Mass Effect Legendary Edition 5 minutes ago and I see a video on the Alliance Navy. God I love this franchise. Ad Astra Per Aspera. Looks like I live in Mass Effect. I wake up, I play ME, then I eat, then I play again and finally, I eat and play again until I want to sleep. That will be my life for the next 3 weeks : Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
I love the reaction of the galaxy when humanity essentially says "fine we don't need dreadnoughts, here is our carriers with more guns and tiny ships!" They collectively went "wait what? How did this happen?"
The irony is that a Carrier would carry way more firepower then a dreadnaught. Sure, A dread naught could put a round clean through a carrier, perhaps, much like how a WW2 BB would tear a carrier apart if it was in range. If that Carrier is on the other side of the planet, behind small moon, etc, that over size MAC wouldn't be able to hit the fighter and its primary armaments become useless, much like a WW2 BB.
@@Spinikar Except GARDIAN systems exists. Reason why nobody build carriers was not because idea what somehow never thought up, it was because there was no fighter based weapon that could threathen a dreadnought. Imagine if fighters in our time didn't carry bombs or torpedoes, and instead had to rely on machineguns to sink battleships. That was the situation until Alliance came along with disruptor torpedoes.
Now, this is how you do a lore video! Gamespot was a more gamers perspective. This is more a in-universe perspective. Also, nice touch about the Carriers. That was Larissa's piece and didn't change it.
Great video Templin, Hackett would be proud. Hope to see more ME vids! The Quarians seem particularly interesting as a nomadic military state in essence.
I love the Mass Effect universe and more or less all lore. But the ending of ME3 really made the game toxic and left a very bitter taste that could not be washed away. I purchased the Legendary Edition and have finished ME1 and ME2 but will not play ME3 as the one play through I did in 2012 was enough. To me the game ends with Shepard and his friends and loved ones defeats the creation of a “human reaper”. In that way the universe can still exist in my own head-canon instead of being destroyed in one of three different colored galactic apocalypse. Shepard and his crew deserved better but maybe even more important, the ME universe deserved better than being mega-nuked into oblivion.
So much lore here.... feel free to dive back into the mass effect universe any time templin institute. So much back story open for deeper analyses, I am gratefull you guys aren't rushing these video's
I love it humanity was limited on the number of dreadnought they can build. But just build a bunch of carriers. Basically the same size as dreadnoughts with just fighters and its a human design!
*topic suggestion* Are the Skaven a metaphor for Corporatist society? 1:Highly competitive but won't abide real merit in underlings without taking credit 2:serves the ultra 1% who are frequently themselves incapable of leading their societies 3: like McDonalds ubiquitous in every human city 4:doom of kavzar can be interpreted as exchanging the good old ways for hubristic efficiency, only to be corrupted by the bargain and destroyed, creating a new corrupting society in the process *Please* don't waagh me guys I am not a WH lore fan I was just playing TW and was thinking about it.
I got a genuine interesting Sci Fi question that relates to economics. What would have the national debt of the UNSC looked like after the Human-Covenant war and would have the aggressive re-armorment of the UNSC navy as seen in Halo 4 made the national debt worse in the long run? Something similar happened with the Germany leading up to Ww2 where the massive government spending was causing massive strain on their economy before they invaded Poland to claim it's resources. This is quite intriguing to think about because when it comes to national debt it's hardly mentioned in fictional universes. I can only think of a few that specifically mentions national debt having a major negative effect on a nation (or kingdom if you will) for years to come say like from massive government spending and what not.
Wait, someone describes the Shanxi Conflict as the relatively small affair it actually was and being a case of ignorance on both sides rather than "hurr durr turian oppression!"? Nice to see someone say it as it was!
So fucking true. The ending of ME3 did really fuck up the story of Shepard and his crew but even worse was that it destroyed a vast and interesting space opera setting. Whom in their right mind kills the golden goose when there was potential for numerous stories to be told in the ME universe? Destroying an entire franchise just to be edgy was and is a great mistake that made me not touch any ME games since 2012 when I finished the shitty ME3. I have now purchased and played the Legendary Edition for nostalgic reason and because I love the setting but I just finished the second game and will not play the third, the pain from 2012 is still real and I have no wish to open old wounds. To me the Shepard story ends with ME2 and that because of Shepard and his crews actions in ME1 and ME2, the reapers are unable to ever reach the Milky Way and they are forced to hibernate in dark-space maybe forever. That is to me a much more satisfying end to both Shepard’s story and leaves the ME-universe alive instead of half dead after a mega nuke in the Color of ones choice destroying everything and everyone.
Best way to get around a treaty is to build a ship that the treaty doesn't outright ban :p Templin Institute: Thats not a Dreadnought, that is a Aircraft Carrying Dreadnought "cough" i meant carrier, complete different!
How large is the Alliance Navy? In 2157, the Alliance had 200 ships, divided into at least 2 fleets. The Alliance has 3 Everest-class Dreadnoughts. The class has been discontinued, indicating that these are most likely First Contract War era vessels. Giving a maximum of 3 Dreadnoughts in 2157. I'd say, 2 active and 1 under construction. So 1 Dreadnought per 100 ships seems accurate. As for composition, it's stated that all Cruisers have a dedicated escort of 4 to 6 Frigates. So a ratio of 1 Cruiser to 5 Frigates in a fleet seems accurate. Plus carriers. Carriers are stated to be the size of Dreadnoughts so I'd say that there wouldn't be more than 1 or 2 in each fleet. In conclusion A standard Alliance fleet would most likely consist of 98 vessels. 1 Dreadnought, 1 Carrier, 16 Cruisers and 80 Frigates. The 1st Fleet possess 2 Dreadnoughts, so it stands to reason that they possess twice the number of ships. 2157 - 194 Ships divided into 2 Fleets 2 Everest-class Dreadnoughts, 2 Einstein-Class Carriers, 32 Berlin-class Cruisers, 160 Frigates. The Carrier used by the Alliance is said to be called the Einstein-Class, but I don't know if this is canon. The Frigates used at this time would all be the Berlin-class Light Cruiser seen in Mass Effect 1. 2183 - 588 ships divided into 5 fleets 3 Everest-class Dreadnoughts, 3 Kilimanjaro-class Dreadnoughts, 6 Einstein-Class Carriers, 96 Cruisers(Berlin and York class), 480 Frigates. At this point the Berlin-class would have begun to be phased out for the new York-class Heavy Cruiser seen in Mass Effect 3. 2186 - 882 ships divided into 8 fleets. 3 Everest-class Dreadnoughts, 6 Kilimanjaro-class Dreadnoughts, 9 Einstein-Class Carriers, 144 York-class Cruisers, 720 Frigates. At this point the Berlin-class would have been completely phased out or at least almost phased out.
This Citadel council: you only allowed to build only 12 dreadnought System Alliance Navy: fine, I am so dissatisfied, so you know what let build carrier then, so we could build more of this dreadnought ship without a constraints of Citadel Council rule The Citadel: can you tell me what is a carrier is, please System Alliance Navy: well is a ship that carry Starfighter not a massive Schwerer Gustav gun in space, and now I'm leading the race in Carrier 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎉🎊, yeah Turian admiral: we need to build a similar ship Asari admiral: yeah,we need it too
Me waiting for the new Mass Effect Legendary Edition update to install on my ps4, and meanwhile watching a Templin Institute video on the System Alliance Navy. Perfection.
@@addisonwelsh unless you ignore the fact that there is a lot of fighter aircraft that System Alliance used during the Reaper War, and Mass Effect tend to stay out of the direct battle, because why not
@@addisonwelsh yeah, you called it useless when they deployed lot of the fighter aircraft during the battle on Earth, it's only useless if you don't know to used it properly
In the lore, the population of Earth by itself is 11.4 billion. If we applied the 3% of people who volunteer for military service just from Earth that means there are 342 Million people serving in the systems alliance navy. Just goes to show how much smaller Earth's forces are when compared to the Asari and Turians. who effectively have billions.
god damn alliance navy, it ain't perfect but fought toe-to-toe with the turians (1st Contact War) and has the capacity to dominate the system ala Warhammer 40k or Star War's Empire. Those aliens will respect humans by sheer firepower.
We didn’t beat the Turians, we took down a small punitive fleet using superior numbers. We didn’t get anywhere close to fighting the proper Turian military.
Council be like: Ok you can only have this many dreadnoughts. Humans: We now introduce carrier warfare. Fleet Air Arm, I wonder if the namers were British. So the Alliance uses blitzkerig tactics whereas the other races uses trench warfare as an example.
I just can't wait for ME4 or whatever they call it cause that game will, more than likely, say which of the three endings is canon and allow videos like this one to not have such vague endings about whether humanity survived or not.
After the ME3 disaster and the embarrassing that is Andromeda, one can mildly say that my confidence in BioWare and my respect for them is low. I hope for a truly great ME4 as I love Mass Effect up to the later parts of the third game. Heck, I even named my oldest daughter Tali so that should be evidence enough how much I loved everything about the ME universe, sadly the third game made my soul turn dark and a Mass Effect 4 really needs to be great for me to play it at all.
Can you imagine a mass effect 4 where commander shepheard survives and the game is just about defeating the last of the reapers in the galaxy. Like you won the battle for Earth but there are still hundreds to thousands of reapers left in the galaxy. The game can span years in which Earth trys to rebuild while holding the line while the whole time you are dropping behind enemy lines to disrupt and stall the other reapers advance and try to prevent them from reorganizing for another attack. You decide which planets to save while others are destroyed. Like Gaurus leaves you if you decide to save the asari homeworld over the turians and vise versa for Liara.
So 8 fleets... An apparently we had the most BIG ships... Just not a lot of the most powerful.. Though we DID have are share... Mostly playing the numbers an shock an awe game.
The largest military ship among the species on the board is the Battleship Destiny Ascension of the Asari fleet. But if we’re talking about a class of ships, probably Allience Navy ‘aircraft carriers’ are the biggest since the Destiny Ascension is a single ship.
@@victoroduarte some this stuff is news to me. Rest not so much. I knew we had fleets almost as many as anyone else in this franchise BUT in some classes we apparently had MORE then anyone else. Especially in fighter power sounds like. An like you said the carriers to carry them. While seems we had as many fleet Dreadnaughts an "battleships" but also one of if not the biggest an most diverse cruiser, destroyer an/or frigate an similar ships ... Which i guess are all firesupport an/or escort vessels of any or most the Races.. Even 1 thats unique seeing as we basically turned Normandy ARe into a stealth Pocket Battleship capable of overpowering an defeating powerful enemy vessels a lot bigger an by extention shoulda been a lot more powerful then itself an outta Normandy's league. I also thought we only had about 4 Or 5 fleets. This says they're almost twice that making them a hell of a lot bigger militarily then even the games let on.
@@robertagu5533 I agree with you. like I said. in the "aircraft carrier" sector we have more than any other species. Escort ships must be proportionally in greater quantity as well.
@@victoroduarte if only we'd outfitted all our smaller supports with similar armor or least similar weapons as the Normandy the Reapers would a had a much harder fight at least at the end. 7 Fleets backed by the rest of the galaxy... Most packing Thanix firepower... I wonder if thats what was originally kinda the plan when the Admirals an Shep said "were nit ready, not by a longshot" an they just never got the chance to do so.
@@robertagu5533 the modernization of Normandy was ridiculously expensive. This is even reflected in game play where you have to spend a lot of time collecting materials to get it completely modernized and it takes a long time. Do it for every fleet and bigger ships would be ridiculously expensive and no species in the galaxy would have enough money to do that, but it would make the fleet much more capable of facing the Reapers.
Got any questions for the Templin Institute? Our first Q&A session is currently taking submissions on the Templin Institute Patreon page, and the Community tab here on UA-cam. Patrons and UA-cam members will get priority, but everyone will have a chance for their question to be answered!
www.patreon.com/posts/templin-q-may-51334525
ua-cam.com/users/TheTemplinInstitutecommunity (may need to scroll down slightly)
gaming
@@jacobs279 I'm not sure you know what a question is.
@@TemplinInstitute 😂
When's the High Command video for Siege of Terra?
Please do a video on the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Citadel: "You can only have this many dreadnoughts."
Human 1: "Wait didn't we already figure out how to get around this in the 1900-"
Human 2: "Shut up SHUT UP!"
Lmao this was great, my sincere gratitude.
immediate gut punch for thinking back to the history books lol
Lmfao.
You forgot the VERY HARD and PHYSICAL ribbing.
"So _exactly_ how big does a ship have to be, to be considered a Dreadnaught?"
"And if it's just a little bit smaller then it's ok?"
“Who’s like us?”
“Damn few, and they’re all dead!”
The Citadel: "You can only build this many battleships."
Systems Alliance: "You know we already found a loophole to this one, right? Back in the 1930s. We had the Washington Treaty back on earth that imposed similar limitations. We just built Carriers and this shift put Dreadnaughts out of service from our oceans."
The Citadel: "I'm sorry, what are Carriers?"
Systems Alliance: "Not Dreadnaughts."
Cool joke 🤣😄😄😄😄😄😄🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😄🤣🤣😄🤣😄🤣😄
lol nice one
It's not a dreadnought... It's a heavy missile battle cruiser 😊
I always loved the way they wove in history bits like this into mass effect.
Also here
System Alliance: We dont bow to you and we will defend ourself. We can build any large ship as much we want. Know this we have battlecruise, heavy cruise, battleship and they are over 1 km and are not a (dreanought) as you would called.
Councilor: you are not allow to build large ship
System Alliance: Of course we will and will not join as citadel. So bye!
"I'm Commander Sheperd and this is my favorite channel on the Citadel."
nice
the most obligatory remark on any ME fan tribute
For some weird reason your pfp reminds me of Setsuna F. Seiei from Gundam 00
@@grantdelosangeles5357 I guess it is setsuna.
It's is Setsuna from 00 :) I see there are fellow people of Culture
The Alliance workaround with Carriers was a practice pioneered by necessity due to the Washington Naval Treaty. USS Saratoga and Lexington were both slated to be Battlecruisers until the treaty was signed, then they were converted into Fleet Carriers, just like their contemporaries Kaga and Akagi.
Yes, I always saw this treatise in Mass Effect as a parallel to the Washington Naval Treaty. in view of the naval development of aircraft carriers here on earth, it is not strange that our species has taken that into space.
“Starfleet don’t build warships, they build escorts”
And now Japan gets around their carrier ban by making "helicopter transports"
@@michaelandreipalon359 Those were purpose built Carriers, especially Shoukaku and her sister Zuikaku. I was only covering the conversions spurred by the treaty, but you are correct.
@@HydratedBeans Or as we call them Assault Carriers, which sounds a LOT cooler.
One thing has to be said for Systems Alliance navy, unlike most of the similiar counter-parts in sci-fi, they were quite competent in what they did. I always liked, especially in ME 1 where the love was biggest, to read about their ships, ect. in the game. Humanity trully kicked ass.
Yeah, it really shows something more akin to an actual space military doctrine.
The only red shirt in the entire game is the poor Jenkins.
True... Starfleet in TNG era (Star Trek) Was too peacefull sometimes.
@@efxnews4776 Yea, just played that scene again and i still feel bad for a poor fela, his lack of plot armor and battle eagerness made a him a prime target for kinda sad joke: /
sorry late to the party...
i mean how more competent than first council race to face the full brunt of the attack
almost all goverment head are decapitated, capital planet razed and still slowed and grind reaper invasion almost to an halt (after earth reaper need few month to attack other council race) and can attack reaper here and there.. and mind you this is againts reaper..
i think the only race on the same level as system alliance are salarian union (which is almost have the same doctrine but heavy on tech while alliance scrounge whatever tech they can find (human ingeniuty FTW or FTGalaxy))
I'm always a sucker for any sci-fi organization that has at least somewhat of a blue aesthetic going for them 😊
What’s your opinion on the Ultramarines and Roboute Gulliman?
Red is nice too
Blue color is like the sci-fi genre's middle name
Cyan do be gucci. Especially cyan lights.
@@josephmoffatt4696 Toilet
"You can only have limited numbers of Battleships or dreadboughts"
Humans: "Ok"
"Ok?"
Humans:"OK. We're good with that."
Earth looks at the US: Soon Carriers?
USA: How Big and how many?
Earth: Yes
USA: Less Gooooooo
Council Species: "Wait what"
Salarians: "Wait a minute. How did this happen? We're smarter than this"
@@daedalus4748 apparently not 🤣😂🤣😂
You know, This is totally how the US would be. >.
Humans : We introduced the concept of Carriers.
Reapers Troop transport/ Carriers : Go away noob
From what I understand from my own knowledge of the lore.
The 6th, 7th and 8th fleets were the colony defense fleets. Broken up into several smaller patrol fleets scattered throughout alliance space. When the reapers attacked earth, its unknown where 8th was but the majority of 6th was at Terra nova and the majority of 7th were at Ontarom. They were told to hold positions as backup.
The 5th fleet, more commonly called the Arcturus fleet was stationed at Arcturus station(alliance hq) as the main guard force, with 2nd and 3rd also there most likely meant to serve as a rapid response force. When the reapers hit Arcturus all 3 fleets tried to defend it. After realizing that it was a loosing battle Admiral Hackett of the 5th fleet made a judgment call to sacrifice the entire of what remained of the 2nd to provide cover for what was left of the 3rd and 5th to retreat.
The first(and largest) fleet was located at the Charon Mass relay(the gateway to the Sol system). After the reaper were done with Arcturus, they poured through, during the battle, the 1st fleet's forces were cut in half and the Admiral was forced to sacrifice a tenth of his remaining forces to provide cover for the rest of the 1st to limp away through the relay and regroup with the 3rd and 5th
The 4th fleet was stationed in earth's orbit, dispite the advanced warning, they never stood a chance
Final casualties
1st - 55%
2nd - 100%
3rd - about 30%
4th - 100%
5th - about 30%
That's at least 45% of the Alliance fleet lost
Damn I feel the 3rd game fails to show how badly humanity was damaged after the atck on earth.
It's cool to see Mass Effect tackles how humanity's constant infighting and differing ideas led to the unorthodoxy and pragmatism of its interstellar military. Unlike the other galactic species which has united centuries earlier and thus remain to their tried and tested formulas the humans who only united recently allowed them to formulate better strategies and innovate new ideas other species have not utilized or even acknowledged in the first place.
Fuck yeah, MASS EFFECT!
Edit: You're gonna milk that audio byte at the end for forever, aren't ye, Marc?
it's what Shepard would want
What's that sound byte from? Is there an organization called the templin institute from mass effect? Or did the templin institute just get the voice actor to say that line?
@@bm6632a They got the actor to say it
@@TemplinInstitute I cant argue with that
@@bm6632a check out the video on Garrus, it's voiced by MaleShep's VA
Me : Starts playing Mass Effect again
Templin Institute : Here's some lore homie
"Congratulations humans. As council members, you are now permitted to have 3 times as many dreadnaughts"
Alliance looks at massive fleet of carriers "no thanks, we're good"
More like why not both lol
There's no kill quite like overkill
I was always a little disappointed that the game never actually shows the carrier concept in action. Prior to the release of ME3, I was sort of hoping there would be some depiction of a space version of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The closest we'll ever get to this was the battle for Earth in ME3. Those fighters dogfighting beside the Normandy have to come from somewhere. Remember that carriers are best situated outside of the actual fighting zone and thus they would've probably stayed near the mass relay or behind a planet to prevent Reaper detection. Like in the Battle of Midway, both fleets never really saw each other in person, only by the aircraft they launched from their respective carriers.
It's one of the biggest missed opportunity in the original trilogy tbh. We hardly get any view of the various things mentioned in the lore. Alliance carriers was never shown, we never visited Arcturus Station, never see the Destiny Ascenstion fired its main gun, hell we haven't seen the salarian and batarian ships
Battle of Earth and Arcturus station assault were closest thing to Battle of Guadalcanal and Pearl harbor attack
@@VinceOliver04 Fighters have mass effect drives, I'm pretty sure they can use mass relays just like any other ship
@@azrielmoha6877 For Arcturus Station, you can find images of that space station in the comic books _Mass Effect: Evolution_ and _Mass Effect: He Who Laughs Best_ .
Humanity kicked itself so hard for so long, when it introduce itself to the alien races they went "Oh crap."
To be fair, the Turians did the same with Unification Wars, but then again, they never managed to get that collective stick out of their asses ^^
Humans, left alone for long enough, will find a reason to break into factions and fight each other. Sometimes with horrific weapons and tactics. But nothing unites like a common enemy.
"Red Sox!"
"Yankees!"
(fist fight until)
"Baseball sucks!"
Then the two baseball fans shook hands and beat the stuffing out of the third person.
It was for that very reason the Citadel council had humanity sign those dumb naval treaties. They knew that humanity had far greater numbers then the three council races combined.
As such they feared that should Humanity get pissed off enough, it would create an interstellar juggernaut, the likes of which the galaxy hadn't seen since the Krogan rebellions.
Not as much as the Krogan. They got us beat on beating on themselves.
@@Predator42ID Well, yes. But those treaties were not just for humans only, every citadel race had to sign them. They were no doubt cautious of humanity, considering how powerful they are even with their very limited manpower pool, but it's not like the Council singled them out.
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket"
*discovers mass effect*
*proceeds to make literally every piece of technology using mass effect*
When the choice is between spending billions and waiting centuries to figure out a new way to do something... or using the proven and established way that everyone in the galaxy has used for millennia I think almost everyone would choose the second option.
There's literally no other way to develop Faster than light travel.
Even in a completely separate galaxy, the Kett and Angara still use Element Zero based FTL.
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim The only known method of FTL to the reapers is ezo based. That is a very important distinction. Their creators were not creative and the reaper actively funneled civilizations down a specific tech tree to avoid nasty surprises.
An alternative method of FTL travel based on wormholes is not impossible, though modern science has no idea how to make it happen and ezo doesn't help there. A slipspace, hyperspace, warp, or warp-drive equivalent may also be possible. The reapers merely dismissed these options as impossible because they knew others had tried and failed to develop them.
@@maledwarfwarrior Incorrect.
In the Mass Effect universe, using Eezo is the only way to develop FTL travel. As I mentioned, both the Kett and Angara from the Andromeda Galaxy, a Galaxy completely untouched by the Reapers, use Element Zero in their FTL drives.
They just use it in different ways: The Kett use Eezo to power an Alcubierre Warp Drive.
The only thing that the Reapers used for their trap was the Mass Relays and Citadel *specifically*.
@@VelociraptorsOfSkyrim That's FTL, fine, but I mean it's literally in everything, from weapons to armor to body enhancements to just general everyday items.
I may be partial to the Mass Effect universe but, this may be one of your best videos ever.
I fully agree, also the partial part
@@jezusbloodie here's hoping they decide to do a video on the first Contact War and the Skillion Blitz.
@@justevil100 or an Incoming on mass effect weapon design or something
@@michaelandreipalon359 yeah I figured I was spelling it wrong. I was driving and just wouldn't take the time to correct it.
@@michaelandreipalon359 voice to txt
I love the lore on the initial conflict between humans and turians where they pushed humanity off a colony and then humanity showed up with a sector fleet or something and the turians were about to escalate it further but the council was like.... Maybe we should have these guys join us
@Neutral T.K. That's what it was! Yeah humans basically fought the turians on equal military footing when they showed up to reclaim it. I like to think that's were the little bit of hostility from turians comes from. Basically we showed them up a bit.
The fluff is that usual military strategy amongst Citadel members was to garrison everywhere equally, however the Systems Alliance operated with minimal colony protection but massed fast-response forces capable of intervening within hours of their assigned sector.
The turians were angry when they saw an unidentified specie settled within their reserved part of space, attacked what they though to be a weak enemy, and suddenly got their asses kicked by an actual fleet just after.
@@scorpixel1866 yeah that's probably the first time in their history with the citadel where they got outmatched by what would be considered an emerging species...also I think humans scared them. The fact they were outmatched in such a fashion was alarming. Also I love the fact humans created fleet carriers to get around the dreadnought issue. We definitely had superior experience in warfare.
@@C0LL0SSUS carriers to get around a dreadnought treaty happened in real life around the 1930s so we had more experience.
@@C0LL0SSUS I don't think thaat's exactly true. Wasn't it like the "Humanities top fleet" vs a patrol squadron? Turians would absolutely hand the Alliance their assess, were it not for Asari's diplomatic intervention. Remember, what the Humanity calls "First Contact *War*", they call "Relay 314 *Incident*"
Gotta hand it to Mass Effect. They did some research on naval doctrines, and history. As a naval historian, I really appreciated their nods to real history. From my perspective, using the Island Hopping campaigns of the Pacific War as inspirations for space combat doctrine is inspired. That and I just love the Alliance.
All the more a shame that they set the setting on fire after ME3. No chance for any medium to really show how Humanity and its quircks settle into its role as a junior-senior race
@@MijmerMopper The point of that interruption in our specie's progress was to effectively show the threat the Reapers posed. Even with our new standing of a valuable, effective military, the Reapers kicked EVERYONE'S asses. But hey, we won in the end.
i love how the humans in mass effect are all about adapting, its both a very good characteristic for an underdog story and also a very human quality
The "can do" attitude is also one of our best traits
Americans and British see the Treaty of Farixen "We've see this before! How did we bypass it last time?" 😎
"Its free real state"
All other species seeing Humanity with ships bigger and more versatile than their Battleships:
Surprise Pikachu Face
@@victoroduarte Reapers : Go away Noobs
Funny enough, it was the Americans who abided the Washington Navel Treaty even though they were the only ones who could afford building battlecruisers and dreadnoughs. For instance the Britain for a certain timeframe could build up aircraft carriers, battlecruisers, and Battleships as they were low on those. Japan was the one that broke that treaty.
The System Alliance Navy I have found to be one of the coolest and most fascinating Human Sci-Fi space navies.
Especially when _"The Fleets Arrive"_ plays in the background.
I will enjoying seeing these designs again in Legendary edition.
It would also be cool if there was a game on the SAN specifically, lot's of potential there.
We really need a mass effect spinoff title where you play as marines and pilots on different fronts of the reaper war
That’s technically the multiplayer in ME3
I miss space combat in mass effect, you know? Fleet battles, fighters.
I think one game that capture this feeling of battle is X4: foundations.
@@SuperThest yeah, and it was pretty great, i think a lot could be done with a heabier story focus, you could even incorporate some of the same co-op element, somithing a bit like left 4 dead or warhammer darktide
@@efxnews4776 space combat would be amazing, the ship design has always been one of mass effect's best parts, to see them in action outside cinematics would be awesome
God, how I would love a proper Mass Effect RTS in the vein of Company of Heroes or something.
It would be a bloody dream.
A very underrated science fiction Navy, as far as I'm concerned. Bravo, Templin Institute!
With Legendary Edition finally released, it's time to replay this masterpiece of a saga and kick some reaper butt once more!
@@michaelandreipalon359 Then do them again and again and again. I want to buy the legendary addition so bad since it has everything that I couldn't afford the first time.
Unfortunately, need to upgrade the Xbox with a bigger memory core since five hundred gigs only gets you five games now, which sucks.
Not before they bin the choose three colors endings.
Last time i was this early, Eden Prime was stil a colony without Geth.
Council:You can build limited number of dreadnoughts...
System Alliance:Carrier building go brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I freaking love the fact that we’re not push-overs in the M.E lore ! We may not be as strong as the Turians (on paper) but our military doctrine and our resourcefulness is truly impressive.
Actually, we are.
We have nine dreadnoughts and an unknown number of carriers. Turians have twenty-seven dreadnoughts.
Our largest colony has a population of ten-million. The largest Turian colony you find in the game has over a billion.
We’ve been in space a few decades, they’ve been in space a few centuries.
Yes, we caught them off guard with a few tricks they hadn’t seen before, but tricks can be learned and countered. Superior numbers, technology, and industry cannot.
Knew it was only a matter of time before you got to the Alliance Navy. Hope you'll do some Arsenal videos on the Normandy and other ships of the Systems Alliance and the rest of the Mass Effect universe.
It may not be anywhere close to being the most powerful in Sci-Fi, but the Alliance Navy holds a special place in my hearts.
Gotta say, I love the use of historical realism and naval politics. Not often a scifi AU makes me think of the Anglo-German naval arms race
Love how the Alliance Navy pulled a Japan Self defense force "It's not an airceaft carrier, it is a helicopter destroyer", or Starfleet's "It's not a warship, it's an advanced tactical escort"
:=
The war of first contact, when turians and humans fight each other, and at the end of the story, the best friends of all are a turian and a human both paragons of their species and both of them don't wanting anyone else to fight in their side
Theres beauty in such story.
Garrus and Shepard(don't forget Wrex), they are like the trifecta of BROPOWER!
By ME3 I think there's even a saying in-game: "Thank god turians and humans can't mate; their children would be unstoppable"
Incidentally, Systems Alliance is a great name. It is above all forward thinking, to a time when Earth is not the total hegemon of human space, and inclusive (systems) without being exclusive (X systems).
Yet alliance sounds like it isn't a nation, rather instead it sounds like a alliance of Systems with their own individual army, even if that's wrong.
Confederation would be more accurate.
@@beanboi8838 Confederation is more exact...
I really dislike heavily fractured yet pretending to be one fanction names.
@@rpk321 Or Federation, or Union.
@@beanboi8838 Yes, something Templin institude done a video about, if my memory is not messing anything up.
There's a reason that carriers were not used by aliens before humans came along. It's the fact the alien fighters couldn't reliably harm big ships. And due to the proliferation of GARDIAN lasers starfighters became tools for scouting and orbital support rather than contesting enemy ships.
Then came the alliance with the new disruptor torpedoes and the whole naval doctrine , changed on its head and suddenly starfighters became relevant once more. To clarify disruptor torpedoes and their more advanced cousins javelin torpedoes were extremely fast torpedoes with a mass effect warhead that can damage armour and sheilds by causing rapid changes in space and time. Essentially it replicated the biotic singularity. To clarify on how fast the torpedoes were in a ME2 mission it took only 5 min for them to get from a moon to the planet below. Despite this speed they needed to launch in mass (as in macross missile massacre style) where each fighter would dump the equivalent payload of a Sherman calliope (as in 36 to 60) and pull up. The torpedoes got their cute little nickname "Callie's" from this tactic. So in a strike wing it would result in 300 - 600 torpedoes.
And yet despite all this the first few wings were nothing more than cannon fodder because enemy defences are 100% accurate and work at light speed. It's a actual laser after all. It's only through over saturation and subsequent over heating of enemy laser defences , is there a possibility of getting hit iin.
Imagine seeing hundreds of star fighters attacking a single Imperial star destroyer with thousands of torpedoes , and you might get what I am pointing at. The council had experienced thousand of years of peace with turians being the premier military power with no one coming even close to challenge them. They probably allocated that R&D money to some place else.
The system alliance navy and unsc navy have to be my favorite human navies from sci fi. Both have to fight enemies far stronger then them. Yet they still never give up. That shows humanity is the best
One of the most well-thought out military forces in any alternate universe. I wish we could have seen more of its ships in action!
... now that all the fanboys are gone, can we talk about the ridiculous rank structure and titles? "Staff Lieutenant?" Seriously???
Fantasy military do as fantasy military do, I think the focus was more on stirring political thought than structure. Would have been helpful if it were more grounded but yeah, mostly fantasy sci-fi
Have you not seen star wars, The ranks are Captain, commander, General, and Admiral. With no difference between army, marine or navy rank which is confusing as hades.
Stargate did it right as they knew what they were, US Airforce, Army, and Marine Corp.
It makes sense as much as Staff Sergeant does as an enlisted rank in the US Army and Marines.
The former US Army E7 and current US Air Force E6 rank of “Technical Sergeant” has a better ring to it, in my opinion, and I think “Tech Lieutenant” sounds like a good futuristic naval rank. They may have avoided it because “Tech” almost always means squad-level electronic warfare in Mass Effect.
Just think of it as the opposite of the relationship between a Lieutenant Colonel and a Colonel.
I love Mass Effect so much and the Alliance as part of that but I couldn't agree more. The rank structure is positively nuts. I get that they were trying to make it unique from major earth militaries like the US and Commonwealth systems but it seems unlikely that they'd through all rank convention out the window. Like a Marine Major being equivalent to a Navy Captain (when in modern militaries that would be a full colonel)
"From the Halls of Moctezuma to the surface of Shanxi..."
Last time I was this early, the Alliance just re-captured Shanxi.
I'd like to see what the bridge of a regular SA ship looks like, since the Normandy was and backwards. 😎
Based on the comments, I'd guess something more like modern navies (which is based on the star trek model, funnily enough - with the captain surrounded by their subordinates). So think anything from star trek, the expanse, and/or battlestar galactica and you'd be well on your way.
@@alexandermackie7621 I would favor the BSG & Expanse designs. especially for Frigates and larger ships.
@@skepticalmagos_101 Yeah, especially as those are less bridges and more combat information centers (CICs), they'd be ideal for larger scale fleet actions where more than one ship or more complex systems are involved than the single main gun and secondary GARDIAN lasers of a single frigate.
You do sorta see it when Admiral Hackett brings the Crucible to the Sol System. He was on the bridge of his Flagship Dreadnought
If you want a game that does very well ships like this, i recommend X4: foundations.
I will say, I love the first System Alliance overview that was done years ago. The music, the emotion, and the tone were all in perfect sync. However will give this one a like because one it's the System Alliance and Mass Effect. And two, the voice actor for Shepard at the end was a nice touch. But my all time favorite will be the first System Alliance overview.
2:55
That actually is taken from history. In the 1929 Washinton naval treaty the Japanese navy size was restricted to 60% of either the American or British one. To combat this Japan put most of it's resources into aircraft carriers.
I remember how the System Alliance got around the Dreadnaught treaty by being crazy enough to develop massive carrier fleets, just couldn’t seem to casually find it in any lore entry.
The carrier thing seems to have been dropped in the later games. Only two carriers were ever named, and there’s no mention of them during the Reaper War.
Considering strike craft were stated to be useless against the Reapers, I’m gonna guess things didn’t go well for the carriers.
I don't know why, but I love the idea that in 5,000 years of Galactic history, none of the Council races figured out Carriers until humanity showed up on the scene and bamboozled them.
Somewhere on Shaanxi, there was a Turian Admiral smacking his forehead thinking "Damn it, why didn't we think of that?"
They didn’t think of carrier’s because fighters were obsolete until humanity showed up with the Javelin torpedo system. Before that, GARDIAN laser systems rendered fighter attacks suicidal.
Well I remember it's said that space fighters are only viable because they use special torpedoes that use Element Zero, something that no other race thought to develop because they consider eezo to be too precious to waste in such weapons.
@@battlesheep2552 It wasn't that Eezo was too precious to waste, it's just that they had no reason to develop such a weapon. The Council has only ever fought two wars in their history. Beyond that they only fight pirates and other criminals. There's no demand for new, cutting edge weaponry.
@@addisonwelsh could have sworn the codex said that specifically. Anyways, i always liked it in sci-fi when they explain humans being exceptional as them being boneheaded in a way that lets them think outside the box. Besides, even if you only count the times there wasn't relative peace in the galactic community, they still had more time to develop it than humanity, who at the time of the games only knew about the Mass Effect for about 30 years.
@@battlesheep2552 Yes they had more time develop, but without major conflict there was no incentive to develop weapons. A world at peace will develop technology to benefit that peace.
Also, carriers are not nearly as useful in Mass Effect as people think. This is because of GARDIAN point defense systems. These lasers have one hundred percent accuracy at the beginning of a fight, so any fighter attack is going to suffer heavy casualties.
Humanity's involvement in the Reaper war which ultimately tipped the scales was basically a final 'F You' from the protheans. Were it not for the latter, humans wouldn't have found the Charon Relay on time, and wouldn't have scared the other races into militarising more. Without that, even with the prothean rewiring of the keepers, the galaxy wouldn't have stood a chance. That's not even counting Shepard's contribution. Basically humans were never supposed to be present in this cycle, especially considering Sovereign tried to send the signal even way before first contact. Humans were why they had to Reap every 50,000 years and not wait any longer. The Reapers wait too long and it's more likely that a wild card shows up and throws the whole refined system into disarray. Classic cascade effect (systems theory). Complex systems have redundancies, and the cycles were no different. Sovereign could manually override the citadel but that failed (first true sign the cascade had begun), then the alpha relay was a tertiary redundancy plan (it could have sent the Reapers straight to the citadel) but the cascade (embodied by Shepard) was already way underway and that failed. By 2186 the Reapers were improvising and somewhat on the back foot, they had never been in that situation before and it is an indirect result of Prothean defiance. The Reapers are fascinated by humanity and by Shepard, they would likely justify their intense focus on humanity in cold, rational terms. But I think they were experiencing irrationality for the first time and were clumsily lashing out at Earth, though they would never admit it.
Mass Effect is still my favorite fictional universe. It's just so well-designed and in-universe everything makes sense
The main issue I see with the Alliances doctrine regarding warfare is that it relies on extremely accurate intelligence reports, the assumption that the enemy will dig in at predetermined locations, and that they have the forces sufficient enough to effectively engage these preferred targets. They essentially put all of their eggs in one basket when it comes to warfare. This extremely limited approach to warfare also assumes that they will only fight enemies that operate along the extremely narrow criteria that the Alliance military have identified to qualify for an engagement.
All militaries rely on accurate intelligence reports, and the Mass Relay network makes enemy fleet movements very easy to predict.
I don't know what you mean by "assumption that the enemy will dig in at predetermined locations." I assume you mean that the enemy will occupy a colony's population centers, in which case... yeah, obviously. That's not an assumption, that's something that's been a part of warfare for all of human history.
As for the assumption that they will always have forces sufficient to engage their preferred target, I don't know what you mean by preferred targets. Alliance doctrine is to break through enemy weak-points and encircle their stronger defensive positions, a tactic that goes back to WWI. Having forces sufficient to attack your chosen target isn't an assumption, it's a basic necessity of any offensive operation.
As a massive mass effect fan, well done. As always.
I just left Mass Effect Legendary Edition 5 minutes ago and I see a video on the Alliance Navy. God I love this franchise.
Ad Astra Per Aspera.
Looks like I live in Mass Effect. I wake up, I play ME, then I eat, then I play again and finally, I eat and play again until I want to sleep. That will be my life for the next 3 weeks : Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
I love the reaction of the galaxy when humanity essentially says "fine we don't need dreadnoughts, here is our carriers with more guns and tiny ships!"
They collectively went "wait what? How did this happen?"
The irony is that a Carrier would carry way more firepower then a dreadnaught. Sure, A dread naught could put a round clean through a carrier, perhaps, much like how a WW2 BB would tear a carrier apart if it was in range. If that Carrier is on the other side of the planet, behind small moon, etc, that over size MAC wouldn't be able to hit the fighter and its primary armaments become useless, much like a WW2 BB.
@@Spinikar Except GARDIAN systems exists. Reason why nobody build carriers was not because idea what somehow never thought up, it was because there was no fighter based weapon that could threathen a dreadnought.
Imagine if fighters in our time didn't carry bombs or torpedoes, and instead had to rely on machineguns to sink battleships. That was the situation until Alliance came along with disruptor torpedoes.
Ngl, Mass Effect 2 had a huge impact on me that I spent days just listening and reading the codex in the game. Amazingly rich lore.
Mass Effect is back baby and I'm all about it. I'm not exaggerating when I say I played the Mass Effect trilogy dozens of times.
Now, this is how you do a lore video! Gamespot was a more gamers perspective. This is more a in-universe perspective. Also, nice touch about the Carriers. That was Larissa's piece and didn't change it.
I'm surprised there are no miniature games for Mass Effect. It seems like the perfect setting for a fleet game or something of the sort.
Or a spin-off game about space combat
I think I may be mis-remembering but I think someone made a fan-made game based on the Infinity engine.
Great video Templin, Hackett would be proud. Hope to see more ME vids! The Quarians seem particularly interesting as a nomadic military state in essence.
I've played Commander Sheperd and this is my favorite channel on the internet!
I always loved the alliance ship’s design, though I might like the Turian’s a little more!
The two dislikes are harbinger and sovereign
I know how to deal with Squids who think they can assume control.
I'm so glad Mass Effect is being talked about again; it's been so long.
Did ME3 Ending left the franchise a toxic property for ten years?
I love the Mass Effect universe and more or less all lore. But the ending of ME3 really made the game toxic and left a very bitter taste that could not be washed away. I purchased the Legendary Edition and have finished ME1 and ME2 but will not play ME3 as the one play through I did in 2012 was enough. To me the game ends with Shepard and his friends and loved ones defeats the creation of a “human reaper”. In that way the universe can still exist in my own head-canon instead of being destroyed in one of three different colored galactic apocalypse.
Shepard and his crew deserved better but maybe even more important, the ME universe deserved better than being mega-nuked into oblivion.
I had to choose between a Templin Institute and a Spacedock notification (on mass effect and bsg nonetheless) :'(
thankfully, I don't think either of our videos are live and not likely to disappear in 10 minutes.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Oh yes, I watched both of them, but I had to pick which one to see first. That was a difficult choice.
Good I’m not the only one.
So much lore here.... feel free to dive back into the mass effect universe any time templin institute. So much back story open for deeper analyses, I am gratefull you guys aren't rushing these video's
I love it humanity was limited on the number of dreadnought they can build. But just build a bunch of carriers. Basically the same size as dreadnoughts with just fighters and its a human design!
*topic suggestion* Are the Skaven a metaphor for Corporatist society?
1:Highly competitive but won't abide real merit in underlings without taking credit
2:serves the ultra 1% who are frequently themselves incapable of leading their societies
3: like McDonalds ubiquitous in every human city
4:doom of kavzar can be interpreted as exchanging the good old ways for hubristic efficiency, only to be corrupted by the bargain and destroyed, creating a new corrupting society in the process
*Please* don't waagh me guys I am not a WH lore fan I was just playing TW and was thinking about it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again the Mass Effect universe needs more games in it in different genres. Namely strategy
I got a genuine interesting Sci Fi question that relates to economics.
What would have the national debt of the UNSC looked like after the Human-Covenant war and would have the aggressive re-armorment of the UNSC navy as seen in Halo 4 made the national debt worse in the long run?
Something similar happened with the Germany leading up to Ww2 where the massive government spending was causing massive strain on their economy before they invaded Poland to claim it's resources.
This is quite intriguing to think about because when it comes to national debt it's hardly mentioned in fictional universes. I can only think of a few that specifically mentions national debt having a major negative effect on a nation (or kingdom if you will) for years to come say like from massive government spending and what not.
the unsc is an extremely militarist society. pretty sure they were by and large just making people produce what they needed.
I can't wait for more lore about the Templin Institute
The Citadel Council: "NOoOoOoh YOu Can'T BuiLD ToO Many BiG SHiiPs"
The Alliance: "HAHA SPACE STRIKE CRAFTS GO BRRRR"
Wait, someone describes the Shanxi Conflict as the relatively small affair it actually was and being a case of ignorance on both sides rather than "hurr durr turian oppression!"? Nice to see someone say it as it was!
This channel deserve million subscribers you can see their works it's super perfect plus putting efforts on it
They really need to expand more on this series Its too fucking great for 3 games and a shitty spin off.
So fucking true. The ending of ME3 did really fuck up the story of Shepard and his crew but even worse was that it destroyed a vast and interesting space opera setting. Whom in their right mind kills the golden goose when there was potential for numerous stories to be told in the ME universe? Destroying an entire franchise just to be edgy was and is a great mistake that made me not touch any ME games since 2012 when I finished the shitty ME3. I have now purchased and played the Legendary Edition for nostalgic reason and because I love the setting but I just finished the second game and will not play the third, the pain from 2012 is still real and I have no wish to open old wounds. To me the Shepard story ends with ME2 and that because of Shepard and his crews actions in ME1 and ME2, the reapers are unable to ever reach the Milky Way and they are forced to hibernate in dark-space maybe forever.
That is to me a much more satisfying end to both Shepard’s story and leaves the ME-universe alive instead of half dead after a mega nuke in the Color of ones choice destroying everything and everyone.
I actually like Mass Effect Andromeda...
Best way to get around a treaty is to build a ship that the treaty doesn't outright ban :p
Templin Institute: Thats not a Dreadnought, that is a Aircraft Carrying Dreadnought "cough" i meant carrier, complete different!
How large is the Alliance Navy?
In 2157, the Alliance had 200 ships, divided into at least 2 fleets. The Alliance has 3 Everest-class Dreadnoughts. The class has been discontinued, indicating that these are most likely First Contract War era vessels. Giving a maximum of 3 Dreadnoughts in 2157. I'd say, 2 active and 1 under construction. So 1 Dreadnought per 100 ships seems accurate.
As for composition, it's stated that all Cruisers have a dedicated escort of 4 to 6 Frigates. So a ratio of 1 Cruiser to 5 Frigates in a fleet seems accurate. Plus carriers. Carriers are stated to be the size of Dreadnoughts so I'd say that there wouldn't be more than 1 or 2 in each fleet.
In conclusion
A standard Alliance fleet would most likely consist of 98 vessels. 1 Dreadnought, 1 Carrier, 16 Cruisers and 80 Frigates. The 1st Fleet possess 2 Dreadnoughts, so it stands to reason that they possess twice the number of ships.
2157 - 194 Ships divided into 2 Fleets
2 Everest-class Dreadnoughts, 2 Einstein-Class Carriers, 32 Berlin-class Cruisers, 160 Frigates.
The Carrier used by the Alliance is said to be called the Einstein-Class, but I don't know if this is canon. The Frigates used at this time would all be the Berlin-class Light Cruiser seen in Mass Effect 1.
2183 - 588 ships divided into 5 fleets
3 Everest-class Dreadnoughts, 3 Kilimanjaro-class Dreadnoughts, 6 Einstein-Class Carriers, 96 Cruisers(Berlin and York class), 480 Frigates.
At this point the Berlin-class would have begun to be phased out for the new York-class Heavy Cruiser seen in Mass Effect 3.
2186 - 882 ships divided into 8 fleets.
3 Everest-class Dreadnoughts, 6 Kilimanjaro-class Dreadnoughts, 9 Einstein-Class Carriers, 144 York-class Cruisers, 720 Frigates.
At this point the Berlin-class would have been completely phased out or at least almost phased out.
Who needs to re read the codex when we have the templin institute!!
This Citadel council: you only allowed to build only 12 dreadnought
System Alliance Navy: fine, I am so dissatisfied, so you know what let build carrier then, so we could build more of this dreadnought ship without a constraints of Citadel Council rule
The Citadel: can you tell me what is a carrier is, please
System Alliance Navy: well is a ship that carry Starfighter not a massive Schwerer Gustav gun in space, and now I'm leading the race in Carrier 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎊🎊🎉🎊, yeah
Turian admiral: we need to build a similar ship
Asari admiral: yeah,we need it too
Admiral Hacket is such a G
I absolutely loved this video
‘Relatively bloodless incident’
- Turians on Shanxi levelling entire blocks from orbit if resistance was even suspected to be present.
Me waiting for the new Mass Effect Legendary Edition update to install on my ps4, and meanwhile watching a Templin Institute video on the System Alliance Navy. Perfection.
I just knew that a sound byte was coming at the end. Always love hearing about the alliance navy. Keep up the good work 🖖
Good vid. Researched and straightforward as expected
I knew TI couldn’t resist doing something for Mass Effect with LE being so popular.
When council banned dreadnaughts, Human created Carriers which are much more dangerous than dreadnaughts when use correctly.
True, Aircraft Carrier destroy more ship than Battleship in ww2
@@curious5887And they were useless during the Reaper War.
@@addisonwelsh unless you ignore the fact that there is a lot of fighter aircraft that System Alliance used during the Reaper War, and Mass Effect tend to stay out of the direct battle, because why not
@@curious5887 In other words, they were useless.
@@addisonwelsh yeah, you called it useless when they deployed lot of the fighter aircraft during the battle on Earth, it's only useless if you don't know to used it properly
Ah, the alliance navy..
Ah Shepard there is a problem, only you can resolve moltiplicated x1000.
In the lore, the population of Earth by itself is 11.4 billion. If we applied the 3% of people who volunteer for military service just from Earth that means there are 342 Million people serving in the systems alliance navy. Just goes to show how much smaller Earth's forces are when compared to the Asari and Turians. who effectively have billions.
It gets worse when you realize the Alliance’s largest colony only has a population of about ten million
god damn alliance navy, it ain't perfect but fought toe-to-toe with the turians (1st Contact War) and has the capacity to dominate the system ala Warhammer 40k or Star War's Empire. Those aliens will respect humans by sheer firepower.
We didn’t beat the Turians, we took down a small punitive fleet using superior numbers. We didn’t get anywhere close to fighting the proper Turian military.
Council be like: Ok you can only have this many dreadnoughts.
Humans: We now introduce carrier warfare.
Fleet Air Arm, I wonder if the namers were British.
So the Alliance uses blitzkerig tactics whereas the other races uses trench warfare as an example.
No one puts humans in the corner!
Can't hold us back! Lol
Not only do we get a new upload, it lines up with the Mass Effect remastered release! Someone at the institute is paying attention 😉
After the Reaper War the Alliance could potentially build more Dreadnoughts
I just can't wait for ME4 or whatever they call it cause that game will, more than likely, say which of the three endings is canon and allow videos like this one to not have such vague endings about whether humanity survived or not.
After the ME3 disaster and the embarrassing that is Andromeda, one can mildly say that my confidence in BioWare and my respect for them is low. I hope for a truly great ME4 as I love Mass Effect up to the later parts of the third game. Heck, I even named my oldest daughter Tali so that should be evidence enough how much I loved everything about the ME universe, sadly the third game made my soul turn dark and a Mass Effect 4 really needs to be great for me to play it at all.
I actually think one of the reasons MELE was released was foir you to import the ME3 save file, if it's a direct sequel of course.
Can you imagine a mass effect 4 where commander shepheard survives and the game is just about defeating the last of the reapers in the galaxy. Like you won the battle for Earth but there are still hundreds to thousands of reapers left in the galaxy. The game can span years in which Earth trys to rebuild while holding the line while the whole time you are dropping behind enemy lines to disrupt and stall the other reapers advance and try to prevent them from reorganizing for another attack. You decide which planets to save while others are destroyed. Like Gaurus leaves you if you decide to save the asari homeworld over the turians and vise versa for Liara.
I absolutely love this page! Keep it up!
So 8 fleets... An apparently we had the most BIG ships... Just not a lot of the most powerful.. Though we DID have are share... Mostly playing the numbers an shock an awe game.
The largest military ship among the species on the board is the Battleship Destiny Ascension of the Asari fleet. But if we’re talking about a class of ships, probably Allience Navy ‘aircraft carriers’ are the biggest since the Destiny Ascension is a single ship.
@@victoroduarte some this stuff is news to me. Rest not so much. I knew we had fleets almost as many as anyone else in this franchise BUT in some classes we apparently had MORE then anyone else. Especially in fighter power sounds like. An like you said the carriers to carry them. While seems we had as many fleet Dreadnaughts an "battleships" but also one of if not the biggest an most diverse cruiser, destroyer an/or frigate an similar ships ... Which i guess are all firesupport an/or escort vessels of any or most the Races.. Even 1 thats unique seeing as we basically turned Normandy ARe into a stealth Pocket Battleship capable of overpowering an defeating powerful enemy vessels a lot bigger an by extention shoulda been a lot more powerful then itself an outta Normandy's league. I also thought we only had about 4 Or 5 fleets. This says they're almost twice that making them a hell of a lot bigger militarily then even the games let on.
@@robertagu5533 I agree with you. like I said. in the "aircraft carrier" sector we have more than any other species. Escort ships must be proportionally in greater quantity as well.
@@victoroduarte if only we'd outfitted all our smaller supports with similar armor or least similar weapons as the Normandy the Reapers would a had a much harder fight at least at the end. 7 Fleets backed by the rest of the galaxy... Most packing Thanix firepower... I wonder if thats what was originally kinda the plan when the Admirals an Shep said "were nit ready, not by a longshot" an they just never got the chance to do so.
@@robertagu5533 the modernization of Normandy was ridiculously expensive. This is even reflected in game play where you have to spend a lot of time collecting materials to get it completely modernized and it takes a long time. Do it for every fleet and bigger ships would be ridiculously expensive and no species in the galaxy would have enough money to do that, but it would make the fleet much more capable of facing the Reapers.
The alliance is goat 🐐
Thank you for this
It is only human to develop a work around to that limiting treaty.
Ha ha carriers go brrrrr
Mass Effect totally needs a freaking movie
i am trazyn the infinite. we love this channel's voice.
*A Sci Fi faction request vid:* "The Xeelee" from *(Xeelee Sequence).*