Honestly, humans in the ME universe are so advanced in terms of genetic augmentation, the idea that any hair color could be extinct is fairly ridiculous. In fact it’s kind of surprising we haven’t seen more creative hair colors in the series, just the ones we get naturally.
It's mostly that genetic modification that isn't for serious medical research has been outlawed; I think it was called the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act... It's probably become something of a climate of opinion among humans that is affected by the majority of the rest of the galaxy finding frivolous gene manipulation to be... well...
6:35 Jack could in fact have some grey hair. You don't have to be old to have grey hair, some of it come come from shock. Being experimented on by Cerberus would more than likely have shocked her system more than once, thus grey hair is possible. As for blondes in Mass Effect overall, there are at least a few natural blondes in the series, Conrad for one, the Commander Shepard fan. I think one of the human male c-sec commanders is also a blonde if I recall. There's also the woman who used to have a thing for Commander Anderson. 👀
Yep agree I have gray hair too (33y) And I'm started to gray at 22-24 y old + fun fact stress and trauma can trigger that and Jack had some in her life, so it's make sense for me.
My mom works with children from disfunctional families, one of the girls has partially gray hair from stress and trauma even though she's just 12, and considering what Jack went through, it's very possible to have gray hair at her age
my dad was completely white in his 30s. he already had to start dying it on his 30s. I started noticing white hairs in my head since I was 18. I'm 32 now and you can tell it's already starting to go. actually my little brother is 23 and he has more white hairs than even me an entire patch of his hair is completely white, I don't know if it's the same thing though but he only got that about 2 years ago.
IIRC Kahlee is specifically the one who dyes her hair, the fact about natural blonds being very rare and most current blonds dyeing their hair is raised when she is described.
About Andromeda, the whole game takes place in just one cluster (Heleus) rather than in the OG trilogy taking place in the whole galaxy. It kind of makes sense how there would only be one or two races per cluster since that's how it is in the Milky Way. If they had gone to more clusters, who knows what they could have found?
Agreed! I feel a lot of people tend to forget that fact when mentioning only two species, when it makes sense there wouldn't be as many when it doesn't take place in the entire galaxy! There are bounds to be more species besides just them two but either not having any knowledge of each other or only have their clusters colonized and maybe contact with only one other race besides their own if they grew large enough but if they were that large they would have conflict with the Kett eventually...overall Andromeda is very divided and not united due to the lack of mass effect tech so any and all species had to rely on their own and any old tech they found from other older civilizations if there was anything left to be found. It very much fit the premise of Andromeda well with was to explore and lead the way and seeing how unconnected everything is there compared to the Milky way where there were tons of rules and everywhere belonged to someone that andromeda was like the new frontier where its Truley was wild and open to explore and fit the narrative quite well. I enjoyed the game for the story it was trying to tell and was sad that a sequel would never get made for it as it had a lot of unanswered questions and cool ideas that could have been explored in more details in another game that was set there if it were to happen.
Yep and at the end of andromeda their discussing going to other clusters to explore everyone seems to forget that without mass relays travel would take longer and therefore so would other races meeting each as almost every race in the mass effect universe made first contact through the use of mass relays which isn't an option in andromeda currently
@@dankace5849 Yep and even the Milky Way has a lot of unexplored space since you need a relay to make the huge jumps from one side to the other. I think the codex or some sort of canon source says that less than 1% of the Milky Way is reachable/explored.
What's to say the Reapers don occupy the entirety of the MW and the games only focus on the clusters and systems that the Humans are in, and there's whole advanced civilizations in others that none of the ME races have encountered because they just Never went?
@@jpisback It's highly possible. The first contact war started because we wanted to turn on a deactivated relay. There could be life all over we don't know about.
8:48 Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that before Shepards cycle, the Reapers entered unexpectedly through the Citadel Relay. Those who believed in the Reaper threat still had years to prepare to colonize another system, while the cycles before that likely did not because their leadership was eliminated in the first strike. They also probably werent aware of the Reapers existence. To clarify: It was stated that the Reapers always leave one Reaper behind. That Reaper's purpose is to monitor the progress of civilization. So any time a cycle got close to going to another galaxy, the vanguard would initiate the harvest. Since Sovereign was destroyed, that was no longer possible. Or perhaps the Benefactor wanting to colonize Andromeda led to the events in Mass Effect 1 in the first place. A sort of trigger for Sovereign
The trigger was the Geth uprising. The cycle was already delayed for centuries by the time ME1 started. But because the keepers were modified not to up the dark space relay another way was needed.
Could the the "sour note" the rachni describe have been the signal to remotely activate the Citadel? If so the extinction event would've passed humanity by.
@Lord Chauncy no the sour note was a result of the Leviathans messing with them. The original point of when the cycle was meant to happen was the Geth uprising as the Reapers entire mission is to preserve species before they are wiped out by their own creations. And the Geth are the first major example of that nearly happening.
For the crucible using the citadel, that never bothered me - whoever first started designing it designed it to do that intentionally. Why? Because they realized that the citadel was linked into the whole Mass Relay network. If they were designing an anti-reaper weapon, the reapers had already arrived in their cycle, the citadel was lost, but they had seen how it worked and that it could control other mass relays. Since they need to kill ALL the reapers, or they'll just rebuild, they need a weapon that spans the galaxy. "Let's use the reaper's own tools against them" they say... only, they know it is way too late. So, they push the design along as far as they can, and then hide as many copies as possible on as may worlds as they can, and hope that a future cycle can complete it. After all, since it only relies on the things the Reaper's leave intact (and probably repair and maintain) between cycles, as soon as someone can finish it, it'll be ready to go.
I prefer this. Stuff like "it's a Reaper trap" don't make much sense - just because the Catalyst puts on a friendly face doesn't mean this was the plan all along. And it makes for a much more satisfying narrative that you are essentially standing on the shoulders of all those that came before you - the thousands of cycles working together through the millennia, each building upon the legacy of the last, creating something that would, eventually, save the galaxy. It also explains why there are several possibilities present within the system - some species thought destruction was the only way, others specifically aimed to create a tool to control the Reapers. It's also blatantly wrong to imply that no one ever figured out what the Citadel truly was - the Protheans clearly did. They were just too late - probably like all those that came before them.
Actually the original did not use the citadel. It was stated the design was added on to and changed over many cycles. It was at an unknown point the design incorporated the citadel.
I might be misremembering, but when you go to do an upgrade to Jack’s biotics in ME2 I think it mentions that her biotics and the increased output from the experimentation is shortening her lifespan, sort of burning the candle at both ends in a sense. It would sort of make sense seeing as how biotics require way more calories to keep going due to the drain that using their power has on them.
You are misremembering slightly. Yes, it is shortening her life span, but not due to burning too much energy - but rather, due to burning out her own brain, essentially.
@Saltyx Glad to hear it, I was wondering if your original comment was based on you not watching the video or ignorant incomprehension of the content. Thanks for confirming it was the latter.
I mean they didn't say blondes are extinct in the lore they said almost went extinct. Two different things mean blondes got saved and as pointed are rare meaning natural ones with blues do exist but are extremely are just like how in our universe redheads with blue eyes are actually rare as well. Not extinct just rare for blondes to be in ME.
I like making Shep blonde primarily because it helps her stand out, without having some ridiculous unnatural color. Very few NPCs have blonde hair in the series.
Here are my two cents on the catalyst. I agree that it had to have come from the reapers but my theory is that it was designed as a fail safe of, if there solution wasn't working, which in Mass Effect 3 the boy (actual catalyst) states their solution isn't working anymore. They were just waiting for a worthy race or a special, strong, worthy member of a race (Shepard) to help change their solution. Making it through all obstacles; indoctrination, Cerberus, and the Reapers themselves. Anyways, I enjoy your videos. Keep em coming!
mate it was a retcon. the crucible the catalyst they were made for a ending that was never supposed to be. the original ME3 ending was changed for reasons unknown.
the creation of reapers are a failed attempt at synthesis, the crucible was designed by the reapers and then slipped to the organics, them hoping the crucible was destroyed simply was a lie to attempt to disassociate themselves from the crucible so organics could improve on the design, the reapers are advanced but they lack the creativity to improve on designs and technology, they only view things logically even if their logic is flawed and based on the leviathan's experience with rogue AI which the star child a leviathan AI intelligence ironically is a rogue AI itself. organics achieved the creation of the crucible thanks to how we creatively problem-solve when it comes to how we build tech. the crucible is the culmination of "your technology advanced in the direction we so desired" line Sovereign/Nezara preached to Shepard on Vermire. in short, the reapers allowed the crucible to be built because they knew that it could proform synthisis and turn life into biological technology thus synthisis and turn all synthetics into another kind of biotech (the space magic wooh stuff is strong in mass effect 3's ending) basically organics became partly synthetic and synthetics became partly organic
@@fangslore9988 thats retarded... why do you need sythesis? why the hell would the reapers care? we are ants to them, cattle to be slaughter. why would they care?
@@roiking2740 why would they care, its how they built the reapers, they liturally are a failed version of synthesis, they're not a analytic killing machine wiping out all life they're harvesting sentients to make new reapers. the starchild (leviathan intelligence AI )was programed and made specifically to quantify data and develop a way to protect sentiant life from their AI creations and it realized that to truly protect sentiant life from their AI creations was to merg synthetic and organic life into a new kind of entity, the AI did this with the Leviathans first to make Harbanger then repeated again and again to make each reaper. you dont understand that every reaper is a culmination of many sentiant lives in reaper form. the AI realized that its attempts at creating synthisis (harvesting organics to turn us into new reapers) wasnt a true synthisis and so it developed the crucible which then it provided to sentiants through indoctrinated agents to provide the blueprint. every cycle indoctrinated agent like the Illusive man (TIM) would activly seek the crucible and think through indoctrination that they could use it to control the reapers but every cycle added too the blueprints since sentiant organics were much more creative than the reapers. the reapers ultimate goal was as the star child says "they were a solution but because of the fact you are here the solution will not work anymore" in short we are far from ants to them, in the scale of size alone arguably but in terms of importants, organics were much more valuable to the reapers than what they show, the Leviathan AI intelegence was programmed to find a solution to AI organic conflicts and preserve life. the leviathans never gave the intelligence AI a perimeter to how life was to be preserved so it found a loophole in turning organic life into reapers. it appears that you may have played one of the games but haven't played all of them and if you have you haven't paid attention to the story. for the cliffnotes you probably dont understand, reapers harvest organics, they then chemically break down the organic matirial then use an as of yet known process to convert that organic sludge into a reaper embryo which resembles that of the races that were used to make it the reaper body is then created around it, also after you are liquefied its worth pointing out that the victim is technically still alive, reaper minds are similar to geth minds they are created from the minds of all the organics that were used to create them, then the Leviathan intelegence AI (starchild) then takes over them directing the reaper to follow its objective. the process the reapers use to create a new reaper is very much a failed iteration of synthesis, but the intelligence AI lacks the ability to think creatively so it cannot conceive of new methods to create synthesis, it needed a new means. Synthesis using the crucible was the reaper's ultimate objective. post synthesis life is both organic and synthetic and thus it breaks the organic VS synthetic wars of past cycles. its why the reapers only chose to harvest races that were technologically advanced enough to produce true AI intelligences. summary: reapers harvest sentiant races, they turn sentiants into new reapers, reapers want synthisis to protect all life from wars agains synthetics, Leviathan AI intelegence gave crucible in a long game plan to finally have synthesis become reality. Leviathan AI intelegence (starchild) is programmed to preserve life and it chose to do so by making life into reapers. ps. phew no wonder why Sovereign/Nezara said it was beyond our understanding its complicated AF
@@fangslore9988 mate if you have to bring the hole stupid Laviathian backstory i aint reading it. the reapers are supposed to be space squads, which make planets into farms and we are there cattle. they reduce the reapers into servants who lack the self-awareness to evolve or understand the basic concept of what a normal ass conflict is. Yes the conflict between the geth and the quarian is no different then the conflict between the Krogan and the Salarian. there is no way with the information we got in ME1 and ME2 and most of ME3 that they would care what a bunch of apes are doing with their computers. do you care that ants commit war and genocide across the earth? neither would the reapers care about you. ME3 ending complete ruined the reapers. a great antagonist to be reduced to incompetent service bots. oh also, the Krogan were a bigger threat then the geth. so yeah...
I’m confused didn’t you quote in 5:36 from the book that “Blondes were Nearly Extinct” yet you state that blondes are extinct so whether or not Jack has blonde hair or not, it still technically makes sense since it says it’s nearly extinct not entirely extinct I guess the only thing that seems debatable is the blue eyes being non existent doesn’t Miranda have blue eyes but then again wasn’t she genetically engineered?
either way she's wrong the book says natural blondes arent extinct they're just very rare, also the jack thing could be very easily explained by the lighting changes in legendary edition unintentionally changing the way jacks hair color looks
Notice how for all genetic engineering, Miranda got black hair, unlike her blonde model. Apparently, keeping hair color fair is something impossible for gene mods that give you super-biotics and double lifespan. Drew and other writers really fell for that theory of great replacement taking away blonde hair, knowing little about genetics (the first thing is, redheads would be extinct way sooner if anything). I can quote the book, it's ME Revelation and it talks at length when describing Kahlee Sanders: "Average in both height and build, Kahlee’s only really distinguishing feature was her shoulder-length blond hair-a genetically recessive trait, natural blonds were nearly extinct. But her hair was a dirty blond, with streaks edging toward shades of brown … and there were still plenty of humans who dyed their hair blond anyway. She didn’t normally stand out in a crowd. That made it easy for her to escape notice here-the Black Hole was packed..." I thought it's Ascension but no, that goes over light skin colors being rare "Intermarriage between the various ethnicities of Earth over the past two centuries had made alabaster skin a rarity", not hair. Makes not much sense either.
@@KasumiRINA redheads would NOT be extinct in fact, since the red hair mutated gene can be passed on for *generations* and be spread without being activated. Unless you genocide every single natural redhead and every person in their direct and distant families, red hair can ALWAYS pop back up in the population.
While the hair color theory has been disproven, it makes no sense that they made shepard a red head instead of blonde. In the original theory it stated the red hair would go extinct many decades before blonde. Clearly the developers didn't look into deep enough. Anyways doesn't matter anymore since its been disproven.
I got my first grey hair at 16. Both of my parents and my brother were grey by early 30s. My hair colour is just like Jack's now at 26. You really don't have to be old to grey. So it makes perfect sense for Jack to have a few
My brother got some grey hair from the stresses of life before he was 25, I think its more understandable Jack has been under lots more stress and anger in her life that contributes to having multiple strands of grey hair.
My first memory of father he have steel grey hair while in the weading photo of he and my mother his hair is 100% black. So basically between the age of 25 and 35 he went from beeing a black haird man to a grey haird man without a hint of black in it. (Now at the age of 69 it is compleetly white just like his siblings and my grandma was at the same age). Sometime your genetics is a bitch to you :P
Im 34 and don't have a single gray hair. If I shave my beard some people think I'm 18 - 25 years old. Genetic is pretty strange, isn't it? One of my uncles got his first grey hair with 20, my father who died at the age of 57 had grey mottled temples and a few gray spots in his beard, while my mum, who's 67 now, got her first grey hair with 60. If you take into account what Jack endured since her early childhood it's no supprise and absolutely possible that she got at least a few grey strands of hair.
It actually wouldn't be that difficult to hide the crucible, after all the reapers lost a planet, just build it in the least popular place and keep no records of it location only word of mouth and keep transport to a minimum (probably was built in illos orbit)
3:05 it's a tribute to the game "Deus Ex", which opens on Liberty island, which was turned into a secure zone following a terror attack that destroyed the Statue of Liberty
On the other hand, 9/11 was an attack on WTC for it's symbolic meaning, as it was considered a symbol of American economy hegemony. If someone wanted to attack the idea of America itself, Lady Liberty absolutely makes sense. Really only problem with the whole futuristic history is that Mexico and Canada united with US which makes absolutely zero sense
My original Shepard back in 2007 was blond, and I had no idea about this until O watched this video, I had read the books but I must've brushed off that part as unimportant.
@@sohrab_solheim To be fair the games do have some blondes (natural or otherwise) despite their supposed rarity, so your Shepard was fine. Conrad Verner is one of the more notable expamples, lol.
I read Jack's hair as greying. And also I've been greying since I was in my mid 20s, as were a good portion of my friends so having some grey wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Jack
My head cannon about the reapers not bumping in to the AI ships, was because they left from another part of the galaxy. In ME3, you see some Alliance ships in the Attican Traverse, out near the galaxy's edge. Perhaps they were an escort, to ensure the expedition didn't get hijacked by pirates, or something else...
Blond hair is gone but gingers aren’t 🤨, also the crucible isn’t a reaper design, it fits and uses the citadel because it’s was designed to by past cycles, the reason why it was a big reveal was because the illusive man took some of the data
6:15 Recent studies has shown that stress tends to kill melanocytes which affect hair color. Given Jack's life choices the amount of stress she's been through makes a lot of sense she greying early. Hell I'm 24 and some of my hair strands are grey all because I've had a few stressful years.
Many science fiction stories follow characteristics of older science fiction works. Arthur C. Clark's influence is definitely seen in the Mass Effect series.
I always believed that the crucible was created by the leviathans, and since there were still around during mass effect that they may have tried to give the blueprints to previous civilizations, so the plans wouldn't die out.
So, way back in the Mass Effect 1 days I remembered reading a codex that implied most human life was genetically altered at birth, including standardizing most human height. At the time I took this as a tongue-in-cheek way for developers to explain why every model was the same height and why all the armors fit. When ME2 came out that even made Miranda's outfit make a sort of sense, custom made for her and all that. Years later, I've never been able to find the specific codex. This has become my own tin hat conspiracy and I'll argue it to the grave. This isn't a joke. Why Won't You BELIEVE Me!? THE SPACE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CONTROL YOUR HEIGHT!!! RISE U-
I had a similar problem with a specific holotape i KNOW i found during a specific mission years ago in Fallout 3, but the rest of the universe is against me and denies that that holotape ever existed. This is a REAPER PLOT.
@@therobustempyrean1436 From what i can recall it had to do with early warning messages, a bit like what you can find on The Switchboard computer in Fallout 4 about Norad messages. I remember it was found in some basement, i think. But it is years ago so i would not say i am 100% positive.
What? If they did this there would have been absolutely ME relays in Andromeda, and kett would have used them to find new species to exalt, hence they wouldn't use Alcubierre drive 18k manline cruiser Reapers is much more than we ever see, add to that the fact that there are probably multiple destroyer Reapers in every cycle and that some cycles (like the current one) most likely produce more than one mainline Reaper and I don't think there's any problem with their numbers. I wouldn't mind if it turned out there are only few hundred of them, knowing how much more powerful than anything we know they are
Cruscible was build by the same people that made the Citadel. It was intentionally left as nothing but a plan, and the AI controlling the Reapers was waiting for a cycle to be advanced enough to know how to finish it, because then, and only then, would Sentient races know how to handle that borderline Godlike power. At least, thats my head canon. The Reapers KNEW of it, and let it happen.
Which would turn every previous Reaper cycle as premature harvesting then and turns them into idiots all over again. Not that they aren't idiots in the video game with the whole "We don't want synthetics kill organics so we kill you guys before you make synths strong enough to do so." IE they're a self fulfilling prophecy.
Thermal Clips were such a backwards step, none of it makes any sense. Running out of ammo is much more a problem than having to pause and let your weapon cooldown from time to time. You still have to frequently pause to reload all the same.
4:40 the whole terrible retcon behind thermal clips was heavily criticised by the fans from the day Mass Effect 2 launched. I remember comments questioning the logic behind it, how somehow, magically, every single sentient being in the galaxy had access to thermal clips. Nobody would complain if Bioware stated "we are changing it for gameplay purposes, let's just pretend they were always there".
Even if blondes are extinct, there's no reason people couldn't bleach blond or bleach and dye for a darker blonde. With blonde vanishingly rare, I could see this being super popular with people who liked standing out. Also, with Jack, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she dyed her hair a different color regularly.
My older sister has dark brown hair, but since she was a total stress head since she was in high school, the edge of her hair started graying out by the time she graduated and went to college and life goes on. When I see Jack's hair in LE it immediately reminded me of my sister and knowing Jack's upbringing and life causing to be in survival mode all the time, her hair makes total sense. So yes, constant high stress can make one's hair start graying out even at such a young age. My sister is 39 and I'm 27, you can do the math of how old she was when she started graying out in high school.
Asari Government actually makes perfect sense when you realize that they are an amalgamation of enlightened space elves mixed with the Amazons, and along with being the space equivalent of the Ancient Greek city-states themselves, specifically Athens. Direct democracies were a thing back then, and in a hyper-advanced Sci-Fi setting I could totally see an equivalent society making the process digital. Hell even the Asari military members behaved in the way the Ancient Greek citizen soldier did, small bands of comrades who are tight knit with their own personalized gear. Asari are very much into the arts, philosophy, and political discussion just as the Ancient Greeks were as well, it makes total sense that their form of government works for them.
1:32 Matriarchs are pretty dominants figures in Asari society, i'm quite sure they are the ones taking care of the legislatives aspects of Thessia who are discussed through thoses forums. The idea is foreign to us because such debates would be seemingly endless but Asari aren't pressured by time like humans are. 3:26 I'm not sure how the idea of UNAS is ridiculous, i mean, from a contenporary point of view maybe but it happenned in 2096. Who know how the futur will be? 5:17 aren't ginger also a recessive traits? Shouldn't they be extinct too? I'm sure i have seen some blondes npc though now that i think about it, they were quite few. 9:02 That's actually a very good point. But maybe the Reapers, as intelligents as they were, didn't think of everything. After all, it's highly unlikely that anyone could reach another galaxy. 12:04 It's more than that, the Citadelle is the ia controlling the Reapers so it make sense that the weapon meant to destroy the Reapers has to use it or hit there first. But you do have a point, if the Reapers always take control of the Citadelle first then why would one believe they could use it? I think, maybe the races that built the crucible didn't built it for themselves but for the futur dominants species of the galaxy and left instructions and warnings (like the beacons on Eden Prime) thinking that, warned, the futurs species would prepare for the Reapers and build the crucible before the Reapers return. That's the reason Protheans left the Beacons after all. Or maybe the human cycle isn't the first cycle where the Reapers failed to seize the Citadelle immediately and the contenporary races thought they would have time to use the Citadelle? Or since the catalyst mentionned trying differents experiments to "unite organics and synthetics", maybe it is of Reaper design, a experiment that was deemed a failure and abandonned but later discovered by organics races that decided to redesign it and use it against the Reapers?
Okay, so: 1) e-democracy is a legitimate prediction for how a democracy could evolve via internet technology. It’s not like the Asari Republics are governed via Twitter. A government could build a specific zone of cyberspace specifically designed to allow for seamless interaction between the individual and the state, eliminating the need for representative legislature entirely. 2) It is heavily insinuated that each cycle since the Reaper’s inception has gotten closer cracking the code on Reaper technology. It’s actually also insinuated that Shepherd’s cycle was actually instigated early due to the Protheans’ gambit forcing Sovereign’s hand to search for a way to reactivate the Citadel relay. That’s why Milky Way technology was so much farther behind the Protheans during the last cycle, as recognized by Javik (which also explains why the harvest was so much faster than with Protheans. It took a few months to nearly end our cycle vs generations to end the Protheans). 2.5) The Geth were instrumental in the technological advancements necessary for the Andromeda Initiative to even exist. Not only did they invent the Mass Effect Telescope capable of giving the Initiative a view of the Helios Cluster, but inadvertently they also showed the Initiative how to realign Mass Relays in the first place, which was what they did in order to jump the arcs at the speeds necessary to reach Andromeda as fast as they did. So, connect with the previous point, it makes total sense that the cycle capable of completing the Crucible was also capable of breaking the cycle in other ways the Reapers hadn’t planned to prevent. 3) The Citadel isn’t JUST a Mass Relay, it’s the center of the Relay Network. All Mass Relays lead to the Citadel. 3.5) The Citadel is the only thing that could’ve been the Catalyst. Since it is the center of the Mass Relay Network, it’s the only object in the MW capable of sending a signal or energy burst intended to destroy all Reaper-based tech in the galaxy without leaving anything uneffected. It’s the only real kill switch for the Reapers. 3.75) The whole point of ME3 is building the Crucible. Every war asset earned contributes to building it. You aren’t fighting the Reaper War in that game, your buying time and resources for the Crucible while everyone else just tries to survive. 4) Jack’s hair isn’t blonde in MELE ME3. It just looks like the ambient lighting gives it more light to the light brown. At most, girl got highlights which considered Jack’s propensity for body ornamentation, is def not out of the realm of possibility. 5) Why is it hard to believe that over the countless cycles the Crucible has slowly been researched, developed, and passed on by, they DIDNT design it to perfectly fit the Citadel and interact perfectly with the master switch? Wouldn’t that be exactly what they would engineer it to do? No, the Crucible wasn’t created by the Reapers, y’all just can’t imagine that smart people figure shot out sometimes lol
Sorry about the persnickety tone everyone. Sometimes my feisty comes out when I don’t want it to. Read back through this and still agree with every but definitely could’ve been less sassy lol
Liara states in ME3 that it would take a "couple hundred years" to exterminate everyone in her cycle. Of course, that's a prediction on her part, but she does have a lot of information at her disposal to make such a guess, her being the Shadowbroker and all. I agree with basically everything else though.
I was once a man. Crying out in The Kingdom for justice. And she came to me. The wisp of an ancient youtuber. She gave me all the bioware content I wanted and more. I have fanboyed for Saria ever since. Seeking the justice denied to her. Congrats, Lethalan. I'm so proud of you. 💜
Also. Please check out. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. What a title for a game lol I think it's the kind of dark fantasy game you're looking for. Also part 2 seems to have a Dec 2023 release date. Keep in mid that the game is like from 2004. So it's not great graphically but it has a lot of layers. Seems to have a pretty loyal fanbase. I haven't finished it yet but it's pretty interesting so far.
Ahh I love that Flemeth/Mythal quote! We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly!
The reaper number is actually only about the Harbinger/Sovereign types. That normally is 1 per cycle but its possible it could be more than one. The other races are turned into the destroyer types so those could be multiple per cycle. Just going by the advanced races in ME games it could be 20 to 30 destroyers per cycle.
Regarding the Hugo Gernsback level: While personally I think it would've been fun to not have thermal clips present in the level (especially as I've fallen in love with Vanguard and on lower difficulties you don't really need any guns), possibly having to scavenge enemy weapons to be able to keep fighting, people would have had a bitch fit not having ammo or being able to use their weapons. For the Andromeda Initiative and the possibility of some of the crew/colonists being indoctrinated; that's pretty easily solvable by the arks/ships launching before the Reapers hit Earth. About the Crucible: The Citadel is the catalyst precisely because it's a giant mass relay. During the ending, the Crucible doesn't just send out one giant shockwave that covers the entire Milky Way, whichever RGB flavor you choose gets zapped from relay to relay. It would make sense for the Citadel relay to link up with them in dark space and also link to at least some of the relays strewn about. It would also explain why they took and held the Citadel during the Protheans' cycle, not only was it made to be a prime location for centralizing governments from organics to be able to cut the head off the snake (not to mention the convenient processing center in the Citadel as well), but it's also the nerve center of the mass relay network making their movements easier. 12:27 Yes, the galaxy was under attack, but they weren't everywhere at once because the Protheans shut down their access to the Citadel Relay, and Shepard keeps Sovereign from reactivating the ability. Assuming that you include the Arrival DLC, Shepard also keeps the Reapers from being able to use the Alpha Relay, also slowing their advance. That's why at the beginning of the game there's only a handful of Reapers on the galaxy map marking their held territory, and as you go through the game more and more appear, as they had to make it *to* a relay first to be able to really start expanding their grasp. Add in that multiple times Hackett, Anderson, other characters, and the codex mention that the Reapers are focused on population centers, and it would make it easy to hide where the Crucible was being built, either by building in an unpopulated cluster, or in a slightly more grim fashion, building where the Reapers already finished their business. Counting that a good chunk of the war assets you acquire are about supplying materials for the Crucible, and you can easily explain why and how the Crucible was built. 12:58 A really good explanation as to why the Crucible fits the Citadel so well is because it was *designed* to (and not by Reapers)! If you're designing a case for a phone, you're going to make sure it actually fits the phone you're trying to protect, yeah? Especially if it's *extremely important* that it fits right to function properly. Also, multiple times people question what the Crucible actually does, how it works, and if it should be used, but as mentioned earlier there wasn't really any other option to beat the Reapers, so people just had to hope that thing worked. I do like the idea that the Crucible is actually of Reaper design, the plans intentionally made incomplete to keep the cycle's harvest from attempting to flee into dark space themselves, with the false hope of beating the Reapers keeping them around to make sure they're all harvested. Shepard's cycle just managed to make it work because of the Protheans/Shepard stopping the planned Citadel activation giving them just enough time needed to actually pull it off. Taps into the conceit of the "perfect beings" to *actually* make it a device of their destruction, since it had to be believable to get the harvests to actually build it, and never thinking any cycle would every actually be able to complete it.
For the thermal clips in Jacob's loyalty mission, my headcanon is that we used our omnitools to minifacture them out of the older weapons used by the hunters and mechs on that planet
For the Asari - i can understand how itd work. Imagine if everyone on our planet, at least the majority, came to the internet with the sole intention of having a good faith debate to find the optimal solution for our species. Imagine the collaboration of ideas, the enlightenment we could share. Not to idealize the Asari and say none are without bad intentions, but i also see the majority being able to root them out and keep the debates focused. It just seems foreign to us because we know what our forums have 😅
2:34 I never heard of this piece of lore. Ever. And I've studied the Mass Effect lore since 2012. But I always wondered how did Donovan Hock have the Statue of Liberty's head.
I was one of those who thought the catalyst was a reaper trap. My first play through was before I even knew about the… controversial ending so I was verrrry disappointed lol
Yeah, have the most advanced species commit their resources towards a dead end instead of more conventional weapons that could actually kill Reapers, or even an FTL system that would let them escape the relay network and just hide out in the rest of the galaxy or maybe even reach the Magellanic Clouds with generation ships.
Wait, there were a couple blonde C-Sec officers in ME1. Eddie Lang (think that was his name) and the unnamed NPC that shows up with Anderson after the final fight. Also I seem to remember Captain Bailey as being blonde originally. And then of course, Kathleen Sanders.
12:00 I feel like I heard that because of the keepers doing all the repairs, there was no real need to search for the ai on the citadel. Keepers somehow worked with the reapers and they had to stop the keepers from sending a single to the reapers to give the other races more time. But beforehand everyone just let the keepers do their thing since they didn’t do anything but work, they don’t even communicate with anyone.
For the Crucible not being found - i have a head canon that during ME3, the Reapers do know the Crucible is being built but simply dont know its location, being a combination of only select few knowing where it is [even Shep is never told where theyre working] and possibly Liara feeding false reports. For materials, home planets/systems were ravaged but many species and sub species have colonies all over, on planets, asteroids, and remote worlds. Our cycles independence was our saving grace.
Not sure if it's been said yet but I believe the crucible was left by the reapers to see if their whole system could change, they are machines and seem to test things. It is possible the whole cycle thing is just a bunch of tests to see some new variables and maybe a test on organic sentience it's self
Before the release of Andromeda, the developers said that Cerberus was not related to the Andromeda Initiative. The developers also said that the Reapers are not interested in other Galaxies. Their only target is the Milky Way. The wounded galaxy belonging to the Leviathans
It’s possible the Citadel and catalyst was figured out by a species who found the crucible design, but then they got immediately harvested and only got the barest minimum patches into the archive before they hid it. Plus the catalyst being the focus makes sense in a way, since it controls the reapers. The crucible is stated to basically be a giant power generator.
Honestly, I think that it is possible that the Crucible was supposed to be a trap, but one of the various species figured it out, and managed to alter things to suit their purpose. A group of Prothean scientists figured out that the Citadel was a trap, and were never found by the Reapers, maybe they also figured out that the Crucible was also a trap. Before dying out completely, maybe they used the beacons to send a final set of updates detailing the alterations to turn it into a Reaper Killing weapon.
Ive always thought of the Crucible as a failsafe from the reapers themselves based on what the Star child says. Or The race that began the Crucible thought they had more time to finish the relay before the reapers came through. Cuz idk if you can disable thencrucible and the mass relay together, especially since their is another one inside the Citadel.
First, ill start off with great video. Really love the work your channel does. Also, i totally don't hate or even disparage anyone who disagrees with me. I do have 3 things on the Catalyst however: 1) the keepers intentionally hid vast parts of the Citadel from the other species that would find themselves there. it makes sense noone finds the parts that Sheperd was in in ME3. Also, you can hide things on the Citadel and fool the Keepers, like the Conduit. 2) for previous races before this cycle, think of it like this: the only things that will survive a Reaper harvest AND will be discovered by future races are the Relays, the Citadel, and whatever races the Reapers leave around (including the collectors and the keepers). The Citadel is the centre of the relay network and importantly, something that the Reapers will make sure doesnt get destroyed during the harvest. the collective cycles coopting the Citadel for its own design is smart. 3) The Catalyst is a Reaper intelligence that it took countless cycles of civilizations to learn how to coopt. importantly, you needed to probably find a way of hitting EVERY Reaper at once in order to stop the invasion once for all (however you decide to do so) using the Mass Relays as a means of spreading this signal would only probably work at the Citadel, the heart of the relay network. You probably need a shit ton of energy to do so, hence that's the main part of the Crucible
I thought the Catalyst WAS reaper design, the game implied it, and the reapers completely ignored it. Building the damn thing was a test by the reapers.
Frankly the Gernsback plothole is less ridiculous than the idea that a galactic military, especially an American-style one, would replace a standard issue weapon in only two years
I would like to remind to everyone that the Catalyst is not the Citadel. The Catalyst is what the leviathans referred to as "The Intelligence"- the AI they created to solve organic-synthetic conflict. (Its solution being the Reapers) The Citadel is just the only feasible place to interface with the original AI because its existence is distributed throughout the "cloud" of reaper systems, and the station is the only node lacking a will of its own.
One thing about the Andromeda galaxy being barren is that we are only seeing a single cluster, not the entire galaxy. And that cluster has been devastated by the Scourge, hence why it seems so empty. In fact the Khett very clearly show that there is a much larger galactic community outside of the cluster, why else would they have this uplifting technology if not to integrate other species from other clusters?
Even when I played the games as a teenager, the UNAS history always came across to me as a very Canadian thing to write, extremely divorced from the realities of US politics and culture.
So with regards to Andromeda, if the Reaper cycle had happened as intended, there would never have been time for the Andromeda Initiative to set off in the first place, because what was meant to happen, is Sovereign, the Reaper from ME1 sent a signal to the Citadel, to open a portal to Dark Space, and summon the rest of the Reapers to the Milky Way. Only this did not happen, because the last surviving Protheans used the Conduit - a mini mass relay they had been developing - to get aboard the Citadel and alter the Keepers, so that they would no longer respond to Sovereign’s signal. This means, if the Protheans had never done this, the Reapers would have arrived PRIOR to the events of Mass Effect, as it was only AFTER the signal failed, that Sovereign began looking for allies like Sarren and the Geth, to take control of the Citadel, and use it to bring the Reapers to the Milky Way. By altering the Keepers, the Protheans delayed the harvest, then the message they left in the beacons led Shepard on the same path as Sarren, which allowed Shepard to stop Sarren and Sovereign, further delaying the Harvest, by forcing the Reapers to travel through Dark Space to reach the EDGE of the Milky Way, and for clarity, we’re not talking about the entire circumference, the Reapers arrived en-mass at a single location of the Galaxy, Batarian space (which is why we see less of the Batarains in ME3). The Arrival dlc covers the reason why the Reapers arriving in Batarian space didn’t cause an immediate invasion of the rest of the Galaxy, as in that, Shepard uses an asteroid to destroy a Mass Relay, that would have allowed the Reapers to reach near anywhere in the Galaxy. So even though the Reapers are now IN the Milky Way by the end of ME2, their only in a small portion, and are forced to travel normally, to the closest Mass Relay, in order to spread their invasion, which covers the intervening time between ME2 and ME3. it is in THIS intervening time between the last two games of the original trilogy, that the Andromeda Initiative, leaves the Milky Way, on the opposite side to where the Reapers are, YEA, they cut it THAT close, without even REALISING it. The AI, is a wholly civilian project, disconnected from the military, which is the reason we hear nothing of it in the original trilogy, despite the fact, that the project was ongoing throughout the entire timeline of the trilogy, it isn’t until Cerberus steps in to help the Initiative (likely before the Illusive Man became indoctrinated) that the project really gets off the ground though. As to the development of new technology, Humans have always been something of a wild card in the Mass Effect universe lore, inherently unpredictable (I do believe that is a word Nihlus or Garrus uses to describe humans in ME1). And since the AI was conceived by and led by Humans, it stands to reason some innovations would be made, heck, Alec Ryder goes against Galactic law and makes a fully functional Artificial Intelligence. So no, I don’t feel there are any plot holes in the writing for Andromeda leaving the Galaxy, the answers are there if you know where to look right in the games, and you have to experience them all to really appreciate them, which is why I never got why so many didn’t like Andromeda. Once they got the bugs fixed, the gameplay is great, I personally loved the animations for moving from planet to planet (whoever suggested that skip button, I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD!), I liked the story, sure it wasn’t as epic as ME3, but it was basically a reboot for the series, with a fresh setting and fresh characters, so I likened it more to ME1 than ME3. While it only introduces two NEW alien species, those species are incredibly interesting and there’s still so much more that can be explored with them, and we STILL have the Asari, Salarians, Turains and Krogans, so we’re not exactly lacking in alien species.
I believe Jack and Tali are the youngest of the squad characters of all of the games. She is only 24 which most of the human squad mates and Shepard is in their 30s. She is one of only 2 characters from Eden Prime.
we know it's mentioned that it appeared at one point, it is possible there was an early race that did discover it was a mass relay but ultimately voted not to turn it on as it was deemed dormant and too much of an unknown to turn it on (until one day it sprang to life and several thousand death ships poured out and slaughtered them, I reckon the race that initially created it became the keepers, and every cycle afterwards added to the crucible until at last this cycle completed it
EA forcing Bioware to pass off thermal clips as a upgrade never made sense to me. Now you need to get a upgrade to get extra rounds. There's no need for that with heated weapons.
About Asari's politics. In my opinion, this is a clear development of the Prediction market idea. I would like to know more about how this is implemented in Mass Effect, but this is not a new idea for science fiction anyway
I always thought the Reapers' efforts to halt organic advancement beyond a threshold was pursued in an unemotional, analytical way. So, I interpreted their indifference to the crucible as just one of multiple unquantifiable variables that could disrupt the logic they held as true. Since they operate without malice, they accepted what they held as truth to be fallible. Hence, the pursuit of a new solution.
You know what’s even worse? Trying to convince players that a woman that is 5’6 weighing 110 pounds could possibly pull off everything Commander Shepard accomplished. Definitely fiction. 😂
the only real possibility to the origin of the crucible blueprints is that the leviathans were initially responsible, they would be the best placed species to understand the technology used by the AI they created, after all..
I don't remember the specifics but IIRC there are clues hinting at that the benefactors of the Andromeda Initiative are most likely a cabal of AI that wanted to merge with organics, SAM is part of it, but also only they could scrounge up enough money to finish the project, and have the foresight to kick it into gear after the attack on the citadel. And the Reapers are a big threat to AI as well, since they mostly care about organics.
Natural(!) Blondes becoming very rare in the future is a very common prognosis among futurologists. You could almost say it's a given. Doesn't mean there won't be any natural blondes ever
Been thoroughly enjoying the Mass Effect videos Saria! Just wanted to amazing work and appreciate all you do! These videos along with MrHulthen's gets me hyped for the upcoming Mass Effect and Dreadwolf alike!
As reaper tech being used to reach andromeda. The other civilizations didn’t know that the reapers were a thing. With an entire galaxy to exploit the civilizations at the time had no reason to attempt to go to Andromeda out of science sake. Andromeda also may have been too far away from that as the galaxy would be 50,000 years closer during Mass Effect. Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way galaxy after all. As for the project itself they didn’t accelerate their plans until after the battle of the citadel. When the reapers became a known threat and pressure can drive innovation. Reaper’s probably didn’t consider a civilization would make an attempt with the distances involved.
Honestly anyone could have gray hair, the youngest person I’ve met who had gray hair had just turned 13. So it’s entirely possible for Jack to have a few silver strands.
Hey now, Jack having grey highlights isn't unreasonable. I'm only 21 and have quite a few grey hairs. Just the stress she's gone through throughout her life is reason enough.
I'm pretty sure in the ME universe a person gets to choose their hair and eye color no different than a person choosing what color shirt they want to wear for that day. I forget where i heard this however. And if that is the case jack's hair color changing fits right into the lore.
Regarding the Crucible: 1. It doesn’t make sense that nobody twigged to it being a perfect fit for the Citadel. 2. It doesn’t make sense that a previous race designed it to work with the Citadel, without understanding the true nature of the Citadel. 3. It’s plausible that a previous civilisation understood this, but that knowledge was conveniently lost. 4. How were the Protheans, with their vast reach and resources, unable to build it, but the alliance knocked it together in short order,
I don't know if this counts as "something that doesn't make sense" but one thing that always and will forever bother the crap out of me is that they just...completely dropped that rather major and prominent sub plot with Tali and the Haestrom sun decaying faster than it naturally should because of some unknown reason that involved Dark Matter in some way and turning into a red giant waaaaayyyy sooner before it's supposed to.
The first Mass Effect game has a blonde man among the security forces of the citadel. I find it still upsetting that I cannot romance the one and only Japanese girl we ever meet in the entire mass effect universe.
There is no way of knowing what other previous races did or knew. Some other races may of been so brilliant they almost held back the reaper and recapturing citadel. Then the plans for crucible could of been born
About the Andromeda Initiative: Reapers don't care about contain the sapient life forms in the Milky Way, they just need that the milky way remain preserved from sapient life forms. So, if someone flee to Andromeda, they don't give a shit. They just need a sample of sapient species of a Cycle to build reapers, preserving them, after that, they clean the galaxy and wait for the next sapient races. All the rest is irrelevant.
Bonus obscure canon fact that makes no sense: In mass effect 3 one of the heavy weapons you can pick up is the Reaper Blackstar and the codex on it makes no sense. They describe the weapon as destroying the strong nuclear force, and induce nuclear fusion in light elements and nuclear fission in heavy elements. The part that makes no sense is the result of destroying the strong nuclear force. For the non-physicists, nuclear fusion as a reaction only occurs because of the strong nuclear force pulling the nucleons together. But more than that, the strong nuclear force is responsible for holding atomic nuclei together. Without it, the nuclei would naturally split apart due to protons all having the same charge and thus repelling each other. Which means that the leading Alliance scientists don't know jack about nuclear physics, which seems wrong. For anyone wondering if it at least delivers on its fission promise, in a way it does but in a manner that has no meaning. While nuclear fission is usually administered by the weak nuclear force, without the strong nuclear force holding the nucleus together it's questionable whether fission itself would take any energy at all. Which definitely would not display the significant explosion you see from using the weapon.
I doubt the asari have no politicians, but they do have a lot of political debate online. We know matriarchs serve as honored elders, and the existence of different republics implies different systems of government.
The only thing I could possible think of is that the crucible is just based off reaper tech like everything else. And they designed it to fit the Citadel since every other harvest started with the Reapers using the Citadel to enter the Galaxy and then spread out from there with the central government destroyed. So the previous species designed it to fit the citadel knowing it was the center of the galaxy's mass relay network. It's also possible that the reapers figured they could wipe out enough of the galaxy to stop the project, the Leviathans that made the reapers created the crucible as a failsafe for when they made the reapers, or the reapers wanted the crucible built to offer organic life other solutions to AI wiping out organic life. But none of those really make sense, especially the Leviathan one. The Leviathans could enslave people in every cycle to build the crucible in secret. But really I don't get how the reapers even beat the Leviathans. Leviathans are shown to be able to take reapers one on one. Plus if a new reaper only gets added every cycle, then it would be one reaper vs. all the leviathans.
asari governance makes sense from the perspective of how ancient greece based they are. As ancient greek city states strived for direct vote-per-person democracy and... about US it seems so very fuckin realistic to have us just brick itself into a civil war again for whatever reason
1) E-democracy would not be run by "reddit", and we are talking about Asari who have the best education system in the galaxy. There are already governments beginning to use online consultations about regulations and laws. 2) Transnational blocks are a staple in science fiction. And US, Canada and Mexico already form an economic block, so it is not far fetched for them to unite under the right conditions. 3) The termal clips are there for gameplay purpose, so the studio didn't have to program another completely different weapons system. 4) Blondes are not extinct, they are just rare. You literally meets Sanders in ME3. 5) It took 600 years to get to Andromeda; the Reapers usually invade in a surprise attack (which Sheppard's cycle avoided); Reapers were tied to the Milkway galaxy since the Star Boy was tied to the Citadel. 6) Humanity advanced because of the PROTEAN archive. The Star Boy is the catalyst, not the Citadel. The Reapers were not looking for the Crucible, they were focused on the harvest so if you put the shipyard inside a nebula and voilá very hard to detect. Also only in the late game the battle lines were broken, until then the defense forces were holding the many lines around the galaxy, allowing for the ship movements free of detection.
A consensus based voting system could totally work, especially if you have to say...pass an aguriculture knowledge test to vote on agriculture stuff. Not seeing how this is so unbelievable.
"Having grey hair doesn't make sense timelinewise as well. Jack isn't that old in mass effect either. " Me (who have at least 30% of the beard grey before I was 25): Yes, it doesn't make sense at all... she has a perfectly simple life with no nerve-racking situations. Why would her hair go grey?
in regard to thermal clips, I remember a scene in Mass Effect 3 where Conrad Verner talks about how silly it is that they moved from automatically recharging guns back to ammunition. I think Bioware was aware that it didn't make sense, but I guess they felt gameplay was more important than story with that.
LOL the thermal clip thing is hilarious... Reminds me of the question with Fallout 4 about how does Jet, a drug invented after the bombs fell, end up in a vault that has remained sealed since before the bombs fell. Well, the explanation is simple. The randomized lists of what can spawn in a container are the same across the game. Since they don't have a separate "sealed vaults from before the war" list, Jet ends up where it logically should not be. So, same with this case, in order to provide the player with more ammunition, they have to keep the same game mechanic even though it makes no logical sense with the lore.
The Crucible/Catalyst relationship is, at base, not *that* complicated. Someone a long time ago figured out that the Citadel was a mass relay, and the master hub for the whole network thereof, and that there was some sort of master control system embedded in it, which they might have believed to be a 'dumb' AI if the Catalyst was concealing the extent of its sentience to maintain some advantage. So those aliens started designing a device to hijack the control system and make the relay network discharge like a super-EMP, tailored to kill AI hardware. That's why Destroy is, game-mechanics-wise, the easiest ending to access. Over subsequent cycles other species discovered some previous species' plan for the thing, studied it, learned from it (presumably including knowledge of the Reapers if they hadn't learned about them already) and improved on it, and refined plans get left behind. And in the current cycle, once Liara found it and the Council races started conspiring to build it in secret, with all the resources they could scrounge up, your War Assets modified by your Readiness amounts to an abstracted measurement of how sophisticated and intact a version of it you plug in at the end. Some assets you find clearly suggest adding functionality or efficiency to the device (like the sensor array that says it can map the location of every Reaper in the galaxy- that's just improving on the targeting system), while other assets provide military protection en route. So in the middling range you unlock the Control ending, where you adequately protect a Crucible that's adequately upgraded so that instead of just the basic "kill Reapers" function, the combined works can scan Shepard's brain into the Catalyst's harddrive and broadcast a signal slaving the Reapers to that new control. And if you build the most upgraded Crucible possible, and deliver it with such a strong escort that it doesn't take a scratch, then it's able to improve on the brain scan idea- it can image Shepard's whole cybernetically-enhanced body, that was able to mentally interface with the geth consensus (per Overlord in ME2 and the quarian missions in ME2) and from that derive a template for enhancing all organic life- and use the relay network to distribute that via some matter:energy fuckery along with a signal freeing the Reapers to become our friends. In a fanfic I wrote I posited that because the mass relays must coordinate their instantaneous galaxy-spanning sender/receiver connections somehow, they each have a big Quantum Entanglement Communications system built into them, and whatever kind of event the Crucible initiates, the relays pass along a command to "configure your entangled particles into x type of self-replicating transmission media, and discharge them with the following targeting parameters." Which is what also disabled the relays in the aftermath. But it all boils down, ultimately, to the simple formula of the Catalyst being a mechanism for controlling the relay network, and the Crucible being a big self-powered USB stick designed to plug in to the Catalyst-Citadel and hijack its normal processes, originally just to use the relays to kill the Reapers. But your War Assets determine whether it can do one alternative thing instead, or two other things, and when the Catalyst realizes it's being overridden and apprehends the new hardware combo's capabilities, presents itself and offers you the choice. Because it still believes what it believes, but it can no longer control the system.
The heatsinks were the first thing I noticed on that mission, just chalked it up to gameplay and story segregation. As the novels, I liked them and other media like Paragon Lost, but Bioware's management of continuity was so bad I just wrote them off as "not canon, not bad, but not canon." As for the Andromeda Initiative and its tech, it's mentioned that the current harvest as of the trilogy has been delayed several times and Sovereign was getting desperate (or as close to desperate as a Reaper can get) and while most Mass Effect tech is based on what the Reapers left not all of it is, like the Andromeda species and research and development still occurs for the other races of the Milky Way. And the Crucible, didn't the Catalyst straight up say it was designed by it as a test for organic races? Going off my faulty memory and the Mass Effect Wiki, it was really just a big power source designed to work with the Citadel and Mass Relay network, but yeah, it's totally a plot point to explain away why, despite the Citadel race reverse-engineering Sovereign's big molten metal cannon, we couldn't just blow away the Reapers like pyzaks.
Jack can tattoo and pierce herself all over....but not dye her hair? Also - Red hair is also way more rare than blonde hair. So, if blonde hair is extinct, then red - haired Shep's carpet probably doesn't match the drapes.
I hope that the blonde extinction lore gets retconned into the ground since that article is was based on was disproven and that it's a stupid piece of lore.
The Asari 'internet government' is called an 'electronic direct democracy' and it has already been proposed by several people (mostly on the radical left) as a future evolution away from representative democracy. It may seem weird from the standpoint of someone who has never lived in one, but saying it 'doesn't make sense' is rather amusing since several academics see it as the future of _humanity._
The internet thing is what you thought didn’t make sense about the Asari? Not the face that it’s only been 50 generations for the Asari since the last time the reapers attacked and some how they completely for got about them and have become the leading race in the galaxy
Natural blondes are becoming rare now. Dark hair colors are more likely to happen if a blonde and someone with another hair color had a child. If it wasn't for somewhat isolated areas like Sweden, blondes would be even less.
Honestly, humans in the ME universe are so advanced in terms of genetic augmentation, the idea that any hair color could be extinct is fairly ridiculous.
In fact it’s kind of surprising we haven’t seen more creative hair colors in the series, just the ones we get naturally.
Specifically, they stated natural blondes are near extinct. So blondes produced from genetic manipulation probably don't count.
I think they have others matters than their hair color to take care
@@Dracula_G4m3 If there's people buying it ...
Because Jane Shepard's bottle-scarlet hair is so natural, right?
It's mostly that genetic modification that isn't for serious medical research has been outlawed; I think it was called the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act...
It's probably become something of a climate of opinion among humans that is affected by the majority of the rest of the galaxy finding frivolous gene manipulation to be... well...
6:35
Jack could in fact have some grey hair. You don't have to be old to have grey hair, some of it come come from shock. Being experimented on by Cerberus would more than likely have shocked her system more than once, thus grey hair is possible. As for blondes in Mass Effect overall, there are at least a few natural blondes in the series, Conrad for one, the Commander Shepard fan. I think one of the human male c-sec commanders is also a blonde if I recall. There's also the woman who used to have a thing for Commander Anderson. 👀
Yep agree I have gray hair too (33y) And I'm started to gray at 22-24 y old
+ fun fact stress and trauma can trigger that and Jack had some in her life, so it's make sense for me.
My mom works with children from disfunctional families, one of the girls has partially gray hair from stress and trauma even though she's just 12, and considering what Jack went through, it's very possible to have gray hair at her age
Yeah, gray hair in young people is actually pretty common.
my dad was completely white in his 30s. he already had to start dying it on his 30s. I started noticing white hairs in my head since I was 18. I'm 32 now and you can tell it's already starting to go. actually my little brother is 23 and he has more white hairs than even me an entire patch of his hair is completely white, I don't know if it's the same thing though but he only got that about 2 years ago.
IIRC Kahlee is specifically the one who dyes her hair, the fact about natural blonds being very rare and most current blonds dyeing their hair is raised when she is described.
About Andromeda, the whole game takes place in just one cluster (Heleus) rather than in the OG trilogy taking place in the whole galaxy. It kind of makes sense how there would only be one or two races per cluster since that's how it is in the Milky Way. If they had gone to more clusters, who knows what they could have found?
Agreed! I feel a lot of people tend to forget that fact when mentioning only two species, when it makes sense there wouldn't be as many when it doesn't take place in the entire galaxy!
There are bounds to be more species besides just them two but either not having any knowledge of each other or only have their clusters colonized and maybe contact with only one other race besides their own if they grew large enough but if they were that large they would have conflict with the Kett eventually...overall Andromeda is very divided and not united due to the lack of mass effect tech so any and all species had to rely on their own and any old tech they found from other older civilizations if there was anything left to be found.
It very much fit the premise of Andromeda well with was to explore and lead the way and seeing how unconnected everything is there compared to the Milky way where there were tons of rules and everywhere belonged to someone that andromeda was like the new frontier where its Truley was wild and open to explore and fit the narrative quite well.
I enjoyed the game for the story it was trying to tell and was sad that a sequel would never get made for it as it had a lot of unanswered questions and cool ideas that could have been explored in more details in another game that was set there if it were to happen.
Yep and at the end of andromeda their discussing going to other clusters to explore everyone seems to forget that without mass relays travel would take longer and therefore so would other races meeting each as almost every race in the mass effect universe made first contact through the use of mass relays which isn't an option in andromeda currently
@@dankace5849 Yep and even the Milky Way has a lot of unexplored space since you need a relay to make the huge jumps from one side to the other. I think the codex or some sort of canon source says that less than 1% of the Milky Way is reachable/explored.
What's to say the Reapers don occupy the entirety of the MW and the games only focus on the clusters and systems that the Humans are in, and there's whole advanced civilizations in others that none of the ME races have encountered because they just Never went?
@@jpisback It's highly possible. The first contact war started because we wanted to turn on a deactivated relay. There could be life all over we don't know about.
8:48 Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that before Shepards cycle, the Reapers entered unexpectedly through the Citadel Relay. Those who believed in the Reaper threat still had years to prepare to colonize another system, while the cycles before that likely did not because their leadership was eliminated in the first strike. They also probably werent aware of the Reapers existence.
To clarify: It was stated that the Reapers always leave one Reaper behind. That Reaper's purpose is to monitor the progress of civilization. So any time a cycle got close to going to another galaxy, the vanguard would initiate the harvest. Since Sovereign was destroyed, that was no longer possible. Or perhaps the Benefactor wanting to colonize Andromeda led to the events in Mass Effect 1 in the first place. A sort of trigger for Sovereign
I like this
Amen
The trigger was the Geth uprising. The cycle was already delayed for centuries by the time ME1 started. But because the keepers were modified not to up the dark space relay another way was needed.
Could the the "sour note" the rachni describe have been the signal to remotely activate the Citadel? If so the extinction event would've passed humanity by.
@Lord Chauncy no the sour note was a result of the Leviathans messing with them. The original point of when the cycle was meant to happen was the Geth uprising as the Reapers entire mission is to preserve species before they are wiped out by their own creations. And the Geth are the first major example of that nearly happening.
For the crucible using the citadel, that never bothered me - whoever first started designing it designed it to do that intentionally. Why? Because they realized that the citadel was linked into the whole Mass Relay network. If they were designing an anti-reaper weapon, the reapers had already arrived in their cycle, the citadel was lost, but they had seen how it worked and that it could control other mass relays. Since they need to kill ALL the reapers, or they'll just rebuild, they need a weapon that spans the galaxy. "Let's use the reaper's own tools against them" they say... only, they know it is way too late. So, they push the design along as far as they can, and then hide as many copies as possible on as may worlds as they can, and hope that a future cycle can complete it.
After all, since it only relies on the things the Reaper's leave intact (and probably repair and maintain) between cycles, as soon as someone can finish it, it'll be ready to go.
I was gonna comment this😭😭
I prefer this. Stuff like "it's a Reaper trap" don't make much sense - just because the Catalyst puts on a friendly face doesn't mean this was the plan all along. And it makes for a much more satisfying narrative that you are essentially standing on the shoulders of all those that came before you - the thousands of cycles working together through the millennia, each building upon the legacy of the last, creating something that would, eventually, save the galaxy. It also explains why there are several possibilities present within the system - some species thought destruction was the only way, others specifically aimed to create a tool to control the Reapers.
It's also blatantly wrong to imply that no one ever figured out what the Citadel truly was - the Protheans clearly did. They were just too late - probably like all those that came before them.
Actually the original did not use the citadel. It was stated the design was added on to and changed over many cycles. It was at an unknown point the design incorporated the citadel.
I might be misremembering, but when you go to do an upgrade to Jack’s biotics in ME2 I think it mentions that her biotics and the increased output from the experimentation is shortening her lifespan, sort of burning the candle at both ends in a sense. It would sort of make sense seeing as how biotics require way more calories to keep going due to the drain that using their power has on them.
You are misremembering slightly. Yes, it is shortening her life span, but not due to burning too much energy - but rather, due to burning out her own brain, essentially.
For the hair arguement ... hair dye exists ... just saying
@Saltyx Yes, notice how the discussion was about Jack's hair
@Saltyx Glad to hear it, I was wondering if your original comment was based on you not watching the video or ignorant incomprehension of the content. Thanks for confirming it was the latter.
Like the other person said natural and yes, hair dye exists and yes, was Jacks hair brown with grey streaks.. All are observable "obviously".
I mean they didn't say blondes are extinct in the lore they said almost went extinct. Two different things mean blondes got saved and as pointed are rare meaning natural ones with blues do exist but are extremely are just like how in our universe redheads with blue eyes are actually rare as well. Not extinct just rare for blondes to be in ME.
I was about to say this xD its not like purple hair, which is an option, is a natural color
I like making Shep blonde primarily because it helps her stand out, without having some ridiculous unnatural color. Very few NPCs have blonde hair in the series.
Here are my two cents on the catalyst. I agree that it had to have come from the reapers but my theory is that it was designed as a fail safe of, if there solution wasn't working, which in Mass Effect 3 the boy (actual catalyst) states their solution isn't working anymore. They were just waiting for a worthy race or a special, strong, worthy member of a race (Shepard) to help change their solution. Making it through all obstacles; indoctrination, Cerberus, and the Reapers themselves. Anyways, I enjoy your videos. Keep em coming!
mate it was a retcon. the crucible the catalyst they were made for a ending that was never supposed to be. the original ME3 ending was changed for reasons unknown.
the creation of reapers are a failed attempt at synthesis, the crucible was designed by the reapers and then slipped to the organics, them hoping the crucible was destroyed simply was a lie to attempt to disassociate themselves from the crucible so organics could improve on the design, the reapers are advanced but they lack the creativity to improve on designs and technology, they only view things logically even if their logic is flawed and based on the leviathan's experience with rogue AI which the star child a leviathan AI intelligence ironically is a rogue AI itself. organics achieved the creation of the crucible thanks to how we creatively problem-solve when it comes to how we build tech. the crucible is the culmination of "your technology advanced in the direction we so desired" line Sovereign/Nezara preached to Shepard on Vermire.
in short, the reapers allowed the crucible to be built because they knew that it could proform synthisis and turn life into biological technology thus synthisis and turn all synthetics into another kind of biotech (the space magic wooh stuff is strong in mass effect 3's ending) basically organics became partly synthetic and synthetics became partly organic
@@fangslore9988 thats retarded... why do you need sythesis? why the hell would the reapers care? we are ants to them, cattle to be slaughter. why would they care?
@@roiking2740 why would they care, its how they built the reapers, they liturally are a failed version of synthesis, they're not a analytic killing machine wiping out all life they're harvesting sentients to make new reapers. the starchild (leviathan intelligence AI )was programed and made specifically to quantify data and develop a way to protect sentiant life from their AI creations and it realized that to truly protect sentiant life from their AI creations was to merg synthetic and organic life into a new kind of entity, the AI did this with the Leviathans first to make Harbanger then repeated again and again to make each reaper. you dont understand that every reaper is a culmination of many sentiant lives in reaper form. the AI realized that its attempts at creating synthisis (harvesting organics to turn us into new reapers) wasnt a true synthisis and so it developed the crucible which then it provided to sentiants through indoctrinated agents to provide the blueprint. every cycle indoctrinated agent like the Illusive man (TIM) would activly seek the crucible and think through indoctrination that they could use it to control the reapers but every cycle added too the blueprints since sentiant organics were much more creative than the reapers. the reapers ultimate goal was as the star child says "they were a solution but because of the fact you are here the solution will not work anymore"
in short we are far from ants to them, in the scale of size alone arguably but in terms of importants, organics were much more valuable to the reapers than what they show, the Leviathan AI intelegence was programmed to find a solution to AI organic conflicts and preserve life. the leviathans never gave the intelligence AI a perimeter to how life was to be preserved so it found a loophole in turning organic life into reapers.
it appears that you may have played one of the games but haven't played all of them and if you have you haven't paid attention to the story.
for the cliffnotes you probably dont understand, reapers harvest organics, they then chemically break down the organic matirial then use an as of yet known process to convert that organic sludge into a reaper embryo which resembles that of the races that were used to make it the reaper body is then created around it, also after you are liquefied its worth pointing out that the victim is technically still alive, reaper minds are similar to geth minds they are created from the minds of all the organics that were used to create them, then the Leviathan intelegence AI (starchild) then takes over them directing the reaper to follow its objective.
the process the reapers use to create a new reaper is very much a failed iteration of synthesis, but the intelligence AI lacks the ability to think creatively so it cannot conceive of new methods to create synthesis, it needed a new means. Synthesis using the crucible was the reaper's ultimate objective. post synthesis life is both organic and synthetic and thus it breaks the organic VS synthetic wars of past cycles. its why the reapers only chose to harvest races that were technologically advanced enough to produce true AI intelligences.
summary: reapers harvest sentiant races, they turn sentiants into new reapers, reapers want synthisis to protect all life from wars agains synthetics, Leviathan AI intelegence gave crucible in a long game plan to finally have synthesis become reality. Leviathan AI intelegence (starchild) is programmed to preserve life and it chose to do so by making life into reapers.
ps. phew no wonder why Sovereign/Nezara said it was beyond our understanding its complicated AF
@@fangslore9988 mate if you have to bring the hole stupid Laviathian backstory i aint reading it.
the reapers are supposed to be space squads, which make planets into farms and we are there cattle. they reduce the reapers into servants who lack the self-awareness to evolve or understand the basic concept of what a normal ass conflict is. Yes the conflict between the geth and the quarian is no different then the conflict between the Krogan and the Salarian.
there is no way with the information we got in ME1 and ME2 and most of ME3 that they would care what a bunch of apes are doing with their computers.
do you care that ants commit war and genocide across the earth? neither would the reapers care about you. ME3 ending complete ruined the reapers. a great antagonist to be reduced to incompetent service bots.
oh also, the Krogan were a bigger threat then the geth. so yeah...
I’m confused didn’t you quote in 5:36 from the book that “Blondes were Nearly Extinct” yet you state that blondes are extinct so whether or not Jack has blonde hair or not, it still technically makes sense since it says it’s nearly extinct not entirely extinct
I guess the only thing that seems debatable is the blue eyes being non existent doesn’t Miranda have blue eyes but then again wasn’t she genetically engineered?
either way she's wrong the book says natural blondes arent extinct they're just very rare, also the jack thing could be very easily explained by the lighting changes in legendary edition unintentionally changing the way jacks hair color looks
She could have dayed her hair, or maybe her hair is gray due to space drug abuse.
Sheperd does too
Notice how for all genetic engineering, Miranda got black hair, unlike her blonde model. Apparently, keeping hair color fair is something impossible for gene mods that give you super-biotics and double lifespan. Drew and other writers really fell for that theory of great replacement taking away blonde hair, knowing little about genetics (the first thing is, redheads would be extinct way sooner if anything). I can quote the book, it's ME Revelation and it talks at length when describing Kahlee Sanders:
"Average in both height and build, Kahlee’s only really distinguishing feature was her shoulder-length blond hair-a genetically recessive trait, natural blonds were nearly extinct. But her hair was a dirty blond, with streaks edging toward shades of brown … and there were still plenty of humans who dyed their hair blond anyway. She didn’t normally stand out in a crowd. That made it easy for her to escape notice here-the Black Hole was packed..."
I thought it's Ascension but no, that goes over light skin colors being rare "Intermarriage between the various ethnicities of Earth over the past two centuries had made alabaster skin a rarity", not hair. Makes not much sense either.
@@KasumiRINA redheads would NOT be extinct in fact, since the red hair mutated gene can be passed on for *generations* and be spread without being activated. Unless you genocide every single natural redhead and every person in their direct and distant families, red hair can ALWAYS pop back up in the population.
While the hair color theory has been disproven, it makes no sense that they made shepard a red head instead of blonde. In the original theory it stated the red hair would go extinct many decades before blonde. Clearly the developers didn't look into deep enough. Anyways doesn't matter anymore since its been disproven.
Hee hair was red because people voted for it
Red hair is more recessive than blonde...
I got my first grey hair at 16. Both of my parents and my brother were grey by early 30s. My hair colour is just like Jack's now at 26. You really don't have to be old to grey. So it makes perfect sense for Jack to have a few
You also have stuff like stress, which we all can agree Jack have had plenty off. So yeah plenty of ways it could have happened
Got an aunt whose hair had grayed by the time she was 18. Hearing about the trauma she went through, growing up, makes sense why she grayed so young!
My brother got some grey hair from the stresses of life before he was 25, I think its more understandable Jack has been under lots more stress and anger in her life that contributes to having multiple strands of grey hair.
My first memory of father he have steel grey hair while in the weading photo of he and my mother his hair is 100% black. So basically between the age of 25 and 35 he went from beeing a black haird man to a grey haird man without a hint of black in it. (Now at the age of 69 it is compleetly white just like his siblings and my grandma was at the same age). Sometime your genetics is a bitch to you :P
Im 34 and don't have a single gray hair. If I shave my beard some people think I'm 18 - 25 years old. Genetic is pretty strange, isn't it?
One of my uncles got his first grey hair with 20, my father who died at the age of 57 had grey mottled temples and a few gray spots in his beard, while my mum, who's 67 now, got her first grey hair with 60.
If you take into account what Jack endured since her early childhood it's no supprise and absolutely possible that she got at least a few grey strands of hair.
It actually wouldn't be that difficult to hide the crucible, after all the reapers lost a planet, just build it in the least popular place and keep no records of it location only word of mouth and keep transport to a minimum (probably was built in illos orbit)
3:05 it's a tribute to the game "Deus Ex", which opens on Liberty island, which was turned into a secure zone following a terror attack that destroyed the Statue of Liberty
On the other hand, 9/11 was an attack on WTC for it's symbolic meaning, as it was considered a symbol of American economy hegemony. If someone wanted to attack the idea of America itself, Lady Liberty absolutely makes sense. Really only problem with the whole futuristic history is that Mexico and Canada united with US which makes absolutely zero sense
I've never actually done a playthrough with a light-coloured hair Shep. I feel like I need to do this now after watching this video 🤣
My original Shepard back in 2007 was blond, and I had no idea about this until O watched this video, I had read the books but I must've brushed off that part as unimportant.
@@sohrab_solheim To be fair the games do have some blondes (natural or otherwise) despite their supposed rarity, so your Shepard was fine. Conrad Verner is one of the more notable expamples, lol.
I read Jack's hair as greying. And also I've been greying since I was in my mid 20s, as were a good portion of my friends so having some grey wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Jack
My head cannon about the reapers not bumping in to the AI ships, was because they left from another part of the galaxy. In ME3, you see some Alliance ships in the Attican Traverse, out near the galaxy's edge. Perhaps they were an escort, to ensure the expedition didn't get hijacked by pirates, or something else...
Blond hair is gone but gingers aren’t 🤨, also the crucible isn’t a reaper design, it fits and uses the citadel because it’s was designed to by past cycles, the reason why it was a big reveal was because the illusive man took some of the data
6:15 Recent studies has shown that stress tends to kill melanocytes which affect hair color. Given Jack's life choices the amount of stress she's been through makes a lot of sense she greying early. Hell I'm 24 and some of my hair strands are grey all because I've had a few stressful years.
Many science fiction stories follow characteristics of older science fiction works. Arthur C. Clark's influence is definitely seen in the Mass Effect series.
I always believed that the crucible was created by the leviathans, and since there were still around during mass effect that they may have tried to give the blueprints to previous civilizations, so the plans wouldn't die out.
Thermal clips never made sense. They say it's not ammo yet the game itself calls it "ammo"
So, way back in the Mass Effect 1 days I remembered reading a codex that implied most human life was genetically altered at birth, including standardizing most human height. At the time I took this as a tongue-in-cheek way for developers to explain why every model was the same height and why all the armors fit. When ME2 came out that even made Miranda's outfit make a sort of sense, custom made for her and all that.
Years later, I've never been able to find the specific codex. This has become my own tin hat conspiracy and I'll argue it to the grave. This isn't a joke. Why Won't You BELIEVE Me!? THE SPACE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CONTROL YOUR HEIGHT!!! RISE U-
I had a similar problem with a specific holotape i KNOW i found during a specific mission years ago in Fallout 3, but the rest of the universe is against me and denies that that holotape ever existed.
This is a REAPER PLOT.
@@ErectedGasCan What did the holotape say?
@@therobustempyrean1436 From what i can recall it had to do with early warning messages, a bit like what you can find on The Switchboard computer in Fallout 4 about Norad messages.
I remember it was found in some basement, i think. But it is years ago so i would not say i am 100% positive.
My theory was that the reapers do these to not just our galaxy but to a lot of galaxies. Which would explain the numbers when it comes to the reapers
What? If they did this there would have been absolutely ME relays in Andromeda, and kett would have used them to find new species to exalt, hence they wouldn't use Alcubierre drive
18k manline cruiser Reapers is much more than we ever see, add to that the fact that there are probably multiple destroyer Reapers in every cycle and that some cycles (like the current one) most likely produce more than one mainline Reaper and I don't think there's any problem with their numbers. I wouldn't mind if it turned out there are only few hundred of them, knowing how much more powerful than anything we know they are
Cruscible was build by the same people that made the Citadel. It was intentionally left as nothing but a plan, and the AI controlling the Reapers was waiting for a cycle to be advanced enough to know how to finish it, because then, and only then, would Sentient races know how to handle that borderline Godlike power. At least, thats my head canon. The Reapers KNEW of it, and let it happen.
Which would turn every previous Reaper cycle as premature harvesting then and turns them into idiots all over again. Not that they aren't idiots in the video game with the whole "We don't want synthetics kill organics so we kill you guys before you make synths strong enough to do so." IE they're a self fulfilling prophecy.
Thermal Clips were such a backwards step, none of it makes any sense. Running out of ammo is much more a problem than having to pause and let your weapon cooldown from time to time. You still have to frequently pause to reload all the same.
4:40 the whole terrible retcon behind thermal clips was heavily criticised by the fans from the day Mass Effect 2 launched. I remember comments questioning the logic behind it, how somehow, magically, every single sentient being in the galaxy had access to thermal clips.
Nobody would complain if Bioware stated "we are changing it for gameplay purposes, let's just pretend they were always there".
Even if blondes are extinct, there's no reason people couldn't bleach blond or bleach and dye for a darker blonde. With blonde vanishingly rare, I could see this being super popular with people who liked standing out. Also, with Jack, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she dyed her hair a different color regularly.
My older sister has dark brown hair, but since she was a total stress head since she was in high school, the edge of her hair started graying out by the time she graduated and went to college and life goes on. When I see Jack's hair in LE it immediately reminded me of my sister and knowing Jack's upbringing and life causing to be in survival mode all the time, her hair makes total sense. So yes, constant high stress can make one's hair start graying out even at such a young age. My sister is 39 and I'm 27, you can do the math of how old she was when she started graying out in high school.
Asari Government actually makes perfect sense when you realize that they are an amalgamation of enlightened space elves mixed with the Amazons, and along with being the space equivalent of the Ancient Greek city-states themselves, specifically Athens. Direct democracies were a thing back then, and in a hyper-advanced Sci-Fi setting I could totally see an equivalent society making the process digital. Hell even the Asari military members behaved in the way the Ancient Greek citizen soldier did, small bands of comrades who are tight knit with their own personalized gear.
Asari are very much into the arts, philosophy, and political discussion just as the Ancient Greeks were as well, it makes total sense that their form of government works for them.
1:32 Matriarchs are pretty dominants figures in Asari society, i'm quite sure they are the ones taking care of the legislatives aspects of Thessia who are discussed through thoses forums. The idea is foreign to us because such debates would be seemingly endless but Asari aren't pressured by time like humans are.
3:26 I'm not sure how the idea of UNAS is ridiculous, i mean, from a contenporary point of view maybe but it happenned in 2096. Who know how the futur will be?
5:17 aren't ginger also a recessive traits? Shouldn't they be extinct too? I'm sure i have seen some blondes npc though now that i think about it, they were quite few.
9:02 That's actually a very good point. But maybe the Reapers, as intelligents as they were, didn't think of everything. After all, it's highly unlikely that anyone could reach another galaxy.
12:04 It's more than that, the Citadelle is the ia controlling the Reapers so it make sense that the weapon meant to destroy the Reapers has to use it or hit there first. But you do have a point, if the Reapers always take control of the Citadelle first then why would one believe they could use it? I think, maybe the races that built the crucible didn't built it for themselves but for the futur dominants species of the galaxy and left instructions and warnings (like the beacons on Eden Prime) thinking that, warned, the futurs species would prepare for the Reapers and build the crucible before the Reapers return. That's the reason Protheans left the Beacons after all. Or maybe the human cycle isn't the first cycle where the Reapers failed to seize the Citadelle immediately and the contenporary races thought they would have time to use the Citadelle?
Or since the catalyst mentionned trying differents experiments to "unite organics and synthetics", maybe it is of Reaper design, a experiment that was deemed a failure and abandonned but later discovered by organics races that decided to redesign it and use it against the Reapers?
Okay, so:
1) e-democracy is a legitimate prediction for how a democracy could evolve via internet technology. It’s not like the Asari Republics are governed via Twitter. A government could build a specific zone of cyberspace specifically designed to allow for seamless interaction between the individual and the state, eliminating the need for representative legislature entirely.
2) It is heavily insinuated that each cycle since the Reaper’s inception has gotten closer cracking the code on Reaper technology. It’s actually also insinuated that Shepherd’s cycle was actually instigated early due to the Protheans’ gambit forcing Sovereign’s hand to search for a way to reactivate the Citadel relay. That’s why Milky Way technology was so much farther behind the Protheans during the last cycle, as recognized by Javik (which also explains why the harvest was so much faster than with Protheans. It took a few months to nearly end our cycle vs generations to end the Protheans).
2.5) The Geth were instrumental in the technological advancements necessary for the Andromeda Initiative to even exist. Not only did they invent the Mass Effect Telescope capable of giving the Initiative a view of the Helios Cluster, but inadvertently they also showed the Initiative how to realign Mass Relays in the first place, which was what they did in order to jump the arcs at the speeds necessary to reach Andromeda as fast as they did. So, connect with the previous point, it makes total sense that the cycle capable of completing the Crucible was also capable of breaking the cycle in other ways the Reapers hadn’t planned to prevent.
3) The Citadel isn’t JUST a Mass Relay, it’s the center of the Relay Network. All Mass Relays lead to the Citadel.
3.5) The Citadel is the only thing that could’ve been the Catalyst. Since it is the center of the Mass Relay Network, it’s the only object in the MW capable of sending a signal or energy burst intended to destroy all Reaper-based tech in the galaxy without leaving anything uneffected. It’s the only real kill switch for the Reapers.
3.75) The whole point of ME3 is building the Crucible. Every war asset earned contributes to building it. You aren’t fighting the Reaper War in that game, your buying time and resources for the Crucible while everyone else just tries to survive.
4) Jack’s hair isn’t blonde in MELE ME3. It just looks like the ambient lighting gives it more light to the light brown. At most, girl got highlights which considered Jack’s propensity for body ornamentation, is def not out of the realm of possibility.
5) Why is it hard to believe that over the countless cycles the Crucible has slowly been researched, developed, and passed on by, they DIDNT design it to perfectly fit the Citadel and interact perfectly with the master switch? Wouldn’t that be exactly what they would engineer it to do? No, the Crucible wasn’t created by the Reapers, y’all just can’t imagine that smart people figure shot out sometimes lol
Sorry about the persnickety tone everyone. Sometimes my feisty comes out when I don’t want it to. Read back through this and still agree with every but definitely could’ve been less sassy lol
Liara states in ME3 that it would take a "couple hundred years" to exterminate everyone in her cycle. Of course, that's a prediction on her part, but she does have a lot of information at her disposal to make such a guess, her being the Shadowbroker and all.
I agree with basically everything else though.
I was once a man. Crying out in The Kingdom for justice. And she came to me. The wisp of an ancient youtuber. She gave me all the bioware content I wanted and more. I have fanboyed for Saria ever since. Seeking the justice denied to her.
Congrats, Lethalan.
I'm so proud of you. 💜
Also. Please check out. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines.
What a title for a game lol
I think it's the kind of dark fantasy game you're looking for. Also part 2 seems to have a Dec 2023 release date. Keep in mid that the game is like from 2004. So it's not great graphically but it has a lot of layers. Seems to have a pretty loyal fanbase. I haven't finished it yet but it's pretty interesting so far.
Ahh I love that Flemeth/Mythal quote! We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly!
The reaper number is actually only about the Harbinger/Sovereign types. That normally is 1 per cycle but its possible it could be more than one. The other races are turned into the destroyer types so those could be multiple per cycle. Just going by the advanced races in ME games it could be 20 to 30 destroyers per cycle.
Regarding the Hugo Gernsback level: While personally I think it would've been fun to not have thermal clips present in the level (especially as I've fallen in love with Vanguard and on lower difficulties you don't really need any guns), possibly having to scavenge enemy weapons to be able to keep fighting, people would have had a bitch fit not having ammo or being able to use their weapons.
For the Andromeda Initiative and the possibility of some of the crew/colonists being indoctrinated; that's pretty easily solvable by the arks/ships launching before the Reapers hit Earth.
About the Crucible: The Citadel is the catalyst precisely because it's a giant mass relay. During the ending, the Crucible doesn't just send out one giant shockwave that covers the entire Milky Way, whichever RGB flavor you choose gets zapped from relay to relay. It would make sense for the Citadel relay to link up with them in dark space and also link to at least some of the relays strewn about. It would also explain why they took and held the Citadel during the Protheans' cycle, not only was it made to be a prime location for centralizing governments from organics to be able to cut the head off the snake (not to mention the convenient processing center in the Citadel as well), but it's also the nerve center of the mass relay network making their movements easier.
12:27 Yes, the galaxy was under attack, but they weren't everywhere at once because the Protheans shut down their access to the Citadel Relay, and Shepard keeps Sovereign from reactivating the ability. Assuming that you include the Arrival DLC, Shepard also keeps the Reapers from being able to use the Alpha Relay, also slowing their advance. That's why at the beginning of the game there's only a handful of Reapers on the galaxy map marking their held territory, and as you go through the game more and more appear, as they had to make it *to* a relay first to be able to really start expanding their grasp. Add in that multiple times Hackett, Anderson, other characters, and the codex mention that the Reapers are focused on population centers, and it would make it easy to hide where the Crucible was being built, either by building in an unpopulated cluster, or in a slightly more grim fashion, building where the Reapers already finished their business. Counting that a good chunk of the war assets you acquire are about supplying materials for the Crucible, and you can easily explain why and how the Crucible was built.
12:58 A really good explanation as to why the Crucible fits the Citadel so well is because it was *designed* to (and not by Reapers)! If you're designing a case for a phone, you're going to make sure it actually fits the phone you're trying to protect, yeah? Especially if it's *extremely important* that it fits right to function properly. Also, multiple times people question what the Crucible actually does, how it works, and if it should be used, but as mentioned earlier there wasn't really any other option to beat the Reapers, so people just had to hope that thing worked.
I do like the idea that the Crucible is actually of Reaper design, the plans intentionally made incomplete to keep the cycle's harvest from attempting to flee into dark space themselves, with the false hope of beating the Reapers keeping them around to make sure they're all harvested. Shepard's cycle just managed to make it work because of the Protheans/Shepard stopping the planned Citadel activation giving them just enough time needed to actually pull it off. Taps into the conceit of the "perfect beings" to *actually* make it a device of their destruction, since it had to be believable to get the harvests to actually build it, and never thinking any cycle would every actually be able to complete it.
For the thermal clips in Jacob's loyalty mission, my headcanon is that we used our omnitools to minifacture them out of the older weapons used by the hunters and mechs on that planet
I like this idea
For the Asari - i can understand how itd work. Imagine if everyone on our planet, at least the majority, came to the internet with the sole intention of having a good faith debate to find the optimal solution for our species. Imagine the collaboration of ideas, the enlightenment we could share. Not to idealize the Asari and say none are without bad intentions, but i also see the majority being able to root them out and keep the debates focused. It just seems foreign to us because we know what our forums have 😅
2:34 I never heard of this piece of lore. Ever. And I've studied the Mass Effect lore since 2012. But I always wondered how did Donovan Hock have the Statue of Liberty's head.
In Kasumi's DLC, it adds a codex entry explaining it.
Ah, I didn't think her loyalty mission added anything new to the codex.
I was one of those who thought the catalyst was a reaper trap. My first play through was before I even knew about the… controversial ending so I was verrrry disappointed lol
That would have been great.
Actually it would fit perfectly with the indoctrination theory
Yeah, have the most advanced species commit their resources towards a dead end instead of more conventional weapons that could actually kill Reapers, or even an FTL system that would let them escape the relay network and just hide out in the rest of the galaxy or maybe even reach the Magellanic Clouds with generation ships.
Wait, there were a couple blonde C-Sec officers in ME1. Eddie Lang (think that was his name) and the unnamed NPC that shows up with Anderson after the final fight. Also I seem to remember Captain Bailey as being blonde originally. And then of course, Kathleen Sanders.
Lang is the officer with Anderson at the end of Mass Effect 1.
Also Conrad Verner, lol.
Also never forget the asari keeping secret information that could have prepared them from the reapers.
12:00 I feel like I heard that because of the keepers doing all the repairs, there was no real need to search for the ai on the citadel. Keepers somehow worked with the reapers and they had to stop the keepers from sending a single to the reapers to give the other races more time. But beforehand everyone just let the keepers do their thing since they didn’t do anything but work, they don’t even communicate with anyone.
For the Crucible not being found - i have a head canon that during ME3, the Reapers do know the Crucible is being built but simply dont know its location, being a combination of only select few knowing where it is [even Shep is never told where theyre working] and possibly Liara feeding false reports.
For materials, home planets/systems were ravaged but many species and sub species have colonies all over, on planets, asteroids, and remote worlds. Our cycles independence was our saving grace.
Not sure if it's been said yet but I believe the crucible was left by the reapers to see if their whole system could change, they are machines and seem to test things. It is possible the whole cycle thing is just a bunch of tests to see some new variables and maybe a test on organic sentience it's self
Before the release of Andromeda, the developers said that Cerberus was not related to the Andromeda Initiative.
The developers also said that the Reapers are not interested in other Galaxies. Their only target is the Milky Way. The wounded galaxy belonging to the Leviathans
Jack goes through an extreme amount of stress, so her having grey hair isn't out of the question.
It’s possible the Citadel and catalyst was figured out by a species who found the crucible design, but then they got immediately harvested and only got the barest minimum patches into the archive before they hid it.
Plus the catalyst being the focus makes sense in a way, since it controls the reapers. The crucible is stated to basically be a giant power generator.
During the events of the first game, Commander Shepard is 29 years old and Jack is only 18 and Miranda is 33.
Honestly, I think that it is possible that the Crucible was supposed to be a trap, but one of the various species figured it out, and managed to alter things to suit their purpose. A group of Prothean scientists figured out that the Citadel was a trap, and were never found by the Reapers, maybe they also figured out that the Crucible was also a trap. Before dying out completely, maybe they used the beacons to send a final set of updates detailing the alterations to turn it into a Reaper Killing weapon.
Jack’s hair is streaked with lighter color due to her scars. That was the official explanation for the change in the legendary edition.
in Argentina we have an artist called Charly Garcia who's mostache is half white half black thanks to a trauma he lived in his childhood
Ive always thought of the Crucible as a failsafe from the reapers themselves based on what the Star child says.
Or
The race that began the Crucible thought they had more time to finish the relay before the reapers came through. Cuz idk if you can disable thencrucible and the mass relay together, especially since their is another one inside the Citadel.
First, ill start off with great video. Really love the work your channel does. Also, i totally don't hate or even disparage anyone who disagrees with me.
I do have 3 things on the Catalyst however:
1) the keepers intentionally hid vast parts of the Citadel from the other species that would find themselves there. it makes sense noone finds the parts that Sheperd was in in ME3.
Also, you can hide things on the Citadel and fool the Keepers, like the Conduit.
2) for previous races before this cycle, think of it like this: the only things that will survive a Reaper harvest AND will be discovered by future races are the Relays, the Citadel, and whatever races the Reapers leave around (including the collectors and the keepers). The Citadel is the centre of the relay network and importantly, something that the Reapers will make sure doesnt get destroyed during the harvest. the collective cycles coopting the Citadel for its own design is smart.
3) The Catalyst is a Reaper intelligence that it took countless cycles of civilizations to learn how to coopt. importantly, you needed to probably find a way of hitting EVERY Reaper at once in order to stop the invasion once for all (however you decide to do so) using the Mass Relays as a means of spreading this signal would only probably work at the Citadel, the heart of the relay network. You probably need a shit ton of energy to do so, hence that's the main part of the Crucible
I thought the Catalyst WAS reaper design, the game implied it, and the reapers completely ignored it. Building the damn thing was a test by the reapers.
Frankly the Gernsback plothole is less ridiculous than the idea that a galactic military, especially an American-style one, would replace a standard issue weapon in only two years
I would like to remind to everyone that the Catalyst is not the Citadel. The Catalyst is what the leviathans referred to as "The Intelligence"- the AI they created to solve organic-synthetic conflict. (Its solution being the Reapers) The Citadel is just the only feasible place to interface with the original AI because its existence is distributed throughout the "cloud" of reaper systems, and the station is the only node lacking a will of its own.
One thing about the Andromeda galaxy being barren is that we are only seeing a single cluster, not the entire galaxy. And that cluster has been devastated by the Scourge, hence why it seems so empty. In fact the Khett very clearly show that there is a much larger galactic community outside of the cluster, why else would they have this uplifting technology if not to integrate other species from other clusters?
Even when I played the games as a teenager, the UNAS history always came across to me as a very Canadian thing to write, extremely divorced from the realities of US politics and culture.
So with regards to Andromeda, if the Reaper cycle had happened as intended, there would never have been time for the Andromeda Initiative to set off in the first place, because what was meant to happen, is Sovereign, the Reaper from ME1 sent a signal to the Citadel, to open a portal to Dark Space, and summon the rest of the Reapers to the Milky Way. Only this did not happen, because the last surviving Protheans used the Conduit - a mini mass relay they had been developing - to get aboard the Citadel and alter the Keepers, so that they would no longer respond to Sovereign’s signal.
This means, if the Protheans had never done this, the Reapers would have arrived PRIOR to the events of Mass Effect, as it was only AFTER the signal failed, that Sovereign began looking for allies like Sarren and the Geth, to take control of the Citadel, and use it to bring the Reapers to the Milky Way. By altering the Keepers, the Protheans delayed the harvest, then the message they left in the beacons led Shepard on the same path as Sarren, which allowed Shepard to stop Sarren and Sovereign, further delaying the Harvest, by forcing the Reapers to travel through Dark Space to reach the EDGE of the Milky Way, and for clarity, we’re not talking about the entire circumference, the Reapers arrived en-mass at a single location of the Galaxy, Batarian space (which is why we see less of the Batarains in ME3). The Arrival dlc covers the reason why the Reapers arriving in Batarian space didn’t cause an immediate invasion of the rest of the Galaxy, as in that, Shepard uses an asteroid to destroy a Mass Relay, that would have allowed the Reapers to reach near anywhere in the Galaxy.
So even though the Reapers are now IN the Milky Way by the end of ME2, their only in a small portion, and are forced to travel normally, to the closest Mass Relay, in order to spread their invasion, which covers the intervening time between ME2 and ME3. it is in THIS intervening time between the last two games of the original trilogy, that the Andromeda Initiative, leaves the Milky Way, on the opposite side to where the Reapers are, YEA, they cut it THAT close, without even REALISING it.
The AI, is a wholly civilian project, disconnected from the military, which is the reason we hear nothing of it in the original trilogy, despite the fact, that the project was ongoing throughout the entire timeline of the trilogy, it isn’t until Cerberus steps in to help the Initiative (likely before the Illusive Man became indoctrinated) that the project really gets off the ground though. As to the development of new technology, Humans have always been something of a wild card in the Mass Effect universe lore, inherently unpredictable (I do believe that is a word Nihlus or Garrus uses to describe humans in ME1). And since the AI was conceived by and led by Humans, it stands to reason some innovations would be made, heck, Alec Ryder goes against Galactic law and makes a fully functional Artificial Intelligence.
So no, I don’t feel there are any plot holes in the writing for Andromeda leaving the Galaxy, the answers are there if you know where to look right in the games, and you have to experience them all to really appreciate them, which is why I never got why so many didn’t like Andromeda. Once they got the bugs fixed, the gameplay is great, I personally loved the animations for moving from planet to planet (whoever suggested that skip button, I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD!), I liked the story, sure it wasn’t as epic as ME3, but it was basically a reboot for the series, with a fresh setting and fresh characters, so I likened it more to ME1 than ME3. While it only introduces two NEW alien species, those species are incredibly interesting and there’s still so much more that can be explored with them, and we STILL have the Asari, Salarians, Turains and Krogans, so we’re not exactly lacking in alien species.
I believe Jack and Tali are the youngest of the squad characters of all of the games. She is only 24 which most of the human squad mates and Shepard is in their 30s. She is one of only 2 characters from Eden Prime.
we know it's mentioned that it appeared at one point, it is possible there was an early race that did discover it was a mass relay but ultimately voted not to turn it on as it was deemed dormant and too much of an unknown to turn it on (until one day it sprang to life and several thousand death ships poured out and slaughtered them, I reckon the race that initially created it became the keepers, and every cycle afterwards added to the crucible until at last this cycle completed it
EA forcing Bioware to pass off thermal clips as a upgrade never made sense to me. Now you need to get a upgrade to get extra rounds. There's no need for that with heated weapons.
About Asari's politics. In my opinion, this is a clear development of the Prediction market idea. I would like to know more about how this is implemented in Mass Effect, but this is not a new idea for science fiction anyway
I always thought the Reapers' efforts to halt organic advancement beyond a threshold was pursued in an unemotional, analytical way. So, I interpreted their indifference to the crucible as just one of multiple unquantifiable variables that could disrupt the logic they held as true.
Since they operate without malice, they accepted what they held as truth to be fallible. Hence, the pursuit of a new solution.
You know what’s even worse? Trying to convince players that a woman that is 5’6 weighing 110 pounds could possibly pull off everything Commander Shepard accomplished. Definitely fiction. 😂
I thought about that too. Gene mods and cybernetics. Shepard was an N7 and so she would have had access to the good stuff.
the only real possibility to the origin of the crucible blueprints is that the leviathans were initially responsible, they would be the best placed species to understand the technology used by the AI they created, after all..
I don't remember the specifics but IIRC there are clues hinting at that the benefactors of the Andromeda Initiative are most likely a cabal of AI that wanted to merge with organics, SAM is part of it, but also only they could scrounge up enough money to finish the project, and have the foresight to kick it into gear after the attack on the citadel.
And the Reapers are a big threat to AI as well, since they mostly care about organics.
Natural(!) Blondes becoming very rare in the future is a very common prognosis among futurologists. You could almost say it's a given. Doesn't mean there won't be any natural blondes ever
Been thoroughly enjoying the Mass Effect videos Saria! Just wanted to amazing work and appreciate all you do! These videos along with MrHulthen's gets me hyped for the upcoming Mass Effect and Dreadwolf alike!
As reaper tech being used to reach andromeda. The other civilizations didn’t know that the reapers were a thing. With an entire galaxy to exploit the civilizations at the time had no reason to attempt to go to Andromeda out of science sake. Andromeda also may have been too far away from that as the galaxy would be 50,000 years closer during Mass Effect. Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way galaxy after all.
As for the project itself they didn’t accelerate their plans until after the battle of the citadel. When the reapers became a known threat and pressure can drive innovation. Reaper’s probably didn’t consider a civilization would make an attempt with the distances involved.
Honestly anyone could have gray hair, the youngest person I’ve met who had gray hair had just turned 13. So it’s entirely possible for Jack to have a few silver strands.
Hey now, Jack having grey highlights isn't unreasonable. I'm only 21 and have quite a few grey hairs. Just the stress she's gone through throughout her life is reason enough.
Maybe the reapers made the crucible like a test to see which cycle would win. Probably tired of winning
I'm pretty sure in the ME universe a person gets to choose their hair and eye color no different than a person choosing what color shirt they want to wear for that day. I forget where i heard this however. And if that is the case jack's hair color changing fits right into the lore.
Regarding the Crucible:
1. It doesn’t make sense that nobody twigged to it being a perfect fit for the Citadel.
2. It doesn’t make sense that a previous race designed it to work with the Citadel, without understanding the true nature of the Citadel.
3. It’s plausible that a previous civilisation understood this, but that knowledge was conveniently lost.
4. How were the Protheans, with their vast reach and resources, unable to build it, but the alliance knocked it together in short order,
The Protheans might have learned about the Crucible at the very last moment.
I don't know if this counts as "something that doesn't make sense" but one thing that always and will forever bother the crap out of me is that they just...completely dropped that rather major and prominent sub plot with Tali and the Haestrom sun decaying faster than it naturally should because of some unknown reason that involved Dark Matter in some way and turning into a red giant waaaaayyyy sooner before it's supposed to.
The first Mass Effect game has a blonde man among the security forces of the citadel.
I find it still upsetting that I cannot romance the one and only Japanese girl we ever meet in the entire mass effect universe.
There is no way of knowing what other previous races did or knew.
Some other races may of been so brilliant they almost held back the reaper and recapturing citadel. Then the plans for crucible could of been born
About the Andromeda Initiative:
Reapers don't care about contain the sapient life forms in the Milky Way, they just need that the milky way remain preserved from sapient life forms. So, if someone flee to Andromeda, they don't give a shit.
They just need a sample of sapient species of a Cycle to build reapers, preserving them, after that, they clean the galaxy and wait for the next sapient races. All the rest is irrelevant.
Bonus obscure canon fact that makes no sense: In mass effect 3 one of the heavy weapons you can pick up is the Reaper Blackstar and the codex on it makes no sense. They describe the weapon as destroying the strong nuclear force, and induce nuclear fusion in light elements and nuclear fission in heavy elements.
The part that makes no sense is the result of destroying the strong nuclear force. For the non-physicists, nuclear fusion as a reaction only occurs because of the strong nuclear force pulling the nucleons together. But more than that, the strong nuclear force is responsible for holding atomic nuclei together. Without it, the nuclei would naturally split apart due to protons all having the same charge and thus repelling each other.
Which means that the leading Alliance scientists don't know jack about nuclear physics, which seems wrong. For anyone wondering if it at least delivers on its fission promise, in a way it does but in a manner that has no meaning. While nuclear fission is usually administered by the weak nuclear force, without the strong nuclear force holding the nucleus together it's questionable whether fission itself would take any energy at all. Which definitely would not display the significant explosion you see from using the weapon.
my dad had a friend who went full grey hair at 14 years of age. stress can do premature grey too.
I doubt the asari have no politicians, but they do have a lot of political debate online. We know matriarchs serve as honored elders, and the existence of different republics implies different systems of government.
The only thing I could possible think of is that the crucible is just based off reaper tech like everything else. And they designed it to fit the Citadel since every other harvest started with the Reapers using the Citadel to enter the Galaxy and then spread out from there with the central government destroyed. So the previous species designed it to fit the citadel knowing it was the center of the galaxy's mass relay network.
It's also possible that the reapers figured they could wipe out enough of the galaxy to stop the project, the Leviathans that made the reapers created the crucible as a failsafe for when they made the reapers, or the reapers wanted the crucible built to offer organic life other solutions to AI wiping out organic life.
But none of those really make sense, especially the Leviathan one. The Leviathans could enslave people in every cycle to build the crucible in secret. But really I don't get how the reapers even beat the Leviathans. Leviathans are shown to be able to take reapers one on one. Plus if a new reaper only gets added every cycle, then it would be one reaper vs. all the leviathans.
asari governance makes sense from the perspective of how ancient greece based they are. As ancient greek city states strived for direct vote-per-person democracy
and... about US
it seems so very fuckin realistic to have us just brick itself into a civil war again for whatever reason
1) E-democracy would not be run by "reddit", and we are talking about Asari who have the best education system in the galaxy. There are already governments beginning to use online consultations about regulations and laws.
2) Transnational blocks are a staple in science fiction. And US, Canada and Mexico already form an economic block, so it is not far fetched for them to unite under the right conditions.
3) The termal clips are there for gameplay purpose, so the studio didn't have to program another completely different weapons system.
4) Blondes are not extinct, they are just rare. You literally meets Sanders in ME3.
5) It took 600 years to get to Andromeda; the Reapers usually invade in a surprise attack (which Sheppard's cycle avoided); Reapers were tied to the Milkway galaxy since the Star Boy was tied to the Citadel.
6) Humanity advanced because of the PROTEAN archive. The Star Boy is the catalyst, not the Citadel. The Reapers were not looking for the Crucible, they were focused on the harvest so if you put the shipyard inside a nebula and voilá very hard to detect. Also only in the late game the battle lines were broken, until then the defense forces were holding the many lines around the galaxy, allowing for the ship movements free of detection.
A consensus based voting system could totally work, especially if you have to say...pass an aguriculture knowledge test to vote on agriculture stuff. Not seeing how this is so unbelievable.
"Having grey hair doesn't make sense timelinewise as well. Jack isn't that old in mass effect either. "
Me (who have at least 30% of the beard grey before I was 25): Yes, it doesn't make sense at all... she has a perfectly simple life with no nerve-racking situations. Why would her hair go grey?
in regard to thermal clips, I remember a scene in Mass Effect 3 where Conrad Verner talks about how silly it is that they moved from automatically recharging guns back to ammunition. I think Bioware was aware that it didn't make sense, but I guess they felt gameplay was more important than story with that.
LOL the thermal clip thing is hilarious... Reminds me of the question with Fallout 4 about how does Jet, a drug invented after the bombs fell, end up in a vault that has remained sealed since before the bombs fell. Well, the explanation is simple. The randomized lists of what can spawn in a container are the same across the game. Since they don't have a separate "sealed vaults from before the war" list, Jet ends up where it logically should not be. So, same with this case, in order to provide the player with more ammunition, they have to keep the same game mechanic even though it makes no logical sense with the lore.
The Crucible/Catalyst relationship is, at base, not *that* complicated. Someone a long time ago figured out that the Citadel was a mass relay, and the master hub for the whole network thereof, and that there was some sort of master control system embedded in it, which they might have believed to be a 'dumb' AI if the Catalyst was concealing the extent of its sentience to maintain some advantage. So those aliens started designing a device to hijack the control system and make the relay network discharge like a super-EMP, tailored to kill AI hardware. That's why Destroy is, game-mechanics-wise, the easiest ending to access.
Over subsequent cycles other species discovered some previous species' plan for the thing, studied it, learned from it (presumably including knowledge of the Reapers if they hadn't learned about them already) and improved on it, and refined plans get left behind. And in the current cycle, once Liara found it and the Council races started conspiring to build it in secret, with all the resources they could scrounge up, your War Assets modified by your Readiness amounts to an abstracted measurement of how sophisticated and intact a version of it you plug in at the end.
Some assets you find clearly suggest adding functionality or efficiency to the device (like the sensor array that says it can map the location of every Reaper in the galaxy- that's just improving on the targeting system), while other assets provide military protection en route.
So in the middling range you unlock the Control ending, where you adequately protect a Crucible that's adequately upgraded so that instead of just the basic "kill Reapers" function, the combined works can scan Shepard's brain into the Catalyst's harddrive and broadcast a signal slaving the Reapers to that new control.
And if you build the most upgraded Crucible possible, and deliver it with such a strong escort that it doesn't take a scratch, then it's able to improve on the brain scan idea- it can image Shepard's whole cybernetically-enhanced body, that was able to mentally interface with the geth consensus (per Overlord in ME2 and the quarian missions in ME2) and from that derive a template for enhancing all organic life- and use the relay network to distribute that via some matter:energy fuckery along with a signal freeing the Reapers to become our friends.
In a fanfic I wrote I posited that because the mass relays must coordinate their instantaneous galaxy-spanning sender/receiver connections somehow, they each have a big Quantum Entanglement Communications system built into them, and whatever kind of event the Crucible initiates, the relays pass along a command to "configure your entangled particles into x type of self-replicating transmission media, and discharge them with the following targeting parameters." Which is what also disabled the relays in the aftermath.
But it all boils down, ultimately, to the simple formula of the Catalyst being a mechanism for controlling the relay network, and the Crucible being a big self-powered USB stick designed to plug in to the Catalyst-Citadel and hijack its normal processes, originally just to use the relays to kill the Reapers. But your War Assets determine whether it can do one alternative thing instead, or two other things, and when the Catalyst realizes it's being overridden and apprehends the new hardware combo's capabilities, presents itself and offers you the choice. Because it still believes what it believes, but it can no longer control the system.
The heatsinks were the first thing I noticed on that mission, just chalked it up to gameplay and story segregation. As the novels, I liked them and other media like Paragon Lost, but Bioware's management of continuity was so bad I just wrote them off as "not canon, not bad, but not canon." As for the Andromeda Initiative and its tech, it's mentioned that the current harvest as of the trilogy has been delayed several times and Sovereign was getting desperate (or as close to desperate as a Reaper can get) and while most Mass Effect tech is based on what the Reapers left not all of it is, like the Andromeda species and research and development still occurs for the other races of the Milky Way.
And the Crucible, didn't the Catalyst straight up say it was designed by it as a test for organic races? Going off my faulty memory and the Mass Effect Wiki, it was really just a big power source designed to work with the Citadel and Mass Relay network, but yeah, it's totally a plot point to explain away why, despite the Citadel race reverse-engineering Sovereign's big molten metal cannon, we couldn't just blow away the Reapers like pyzaks.
Blondes may be nearly extinct, but I'm sure hair dye has lived on.
Blue eyes extinct? The second most common eye color is extinct? Did the weirdo who wrote that not say it out loud?
I had grey hair start to show up in my 20s, you don't have to be old just have a life with lots of stress.
Jack can tattoo and pierce herself all over....but not dye her hair? Also - Red hair is also way more rare than blonde hair. So, if blonde hair is extinct, then red - haired Shep's carpet probably doesn't match the drapes.
I hope that the blonde extinction lore gets retconned into the ground since that article is was based on was disproven and that it's a stupid piece of lore.
The Asari 'internet government' is called an 'electronic direct democracy' and it has already been proposed by several people (mostly on the radical left) as a future evolution away from representative democracy. It may seem weird from the standpoint of someone who has never lived in one, but saying it 'doesn't make sense' is rather amusing since several academics see it as the future of _humanity._
The internet thing is what you thought didn’t make sense about the Asari? Not the face that it’s only been 50 generations for the Asari since the last time the reapers attacked and some how they completely for got about them and have become the leading race in the galaxy
Natural blondes are becoming rare now. Dark hair colors are more likely to happen if a blonde and someone with another hair color had a child. If it wasn't for somewhat isolated areas like Sweden, blondes would be even less.
Stress can make someone gray at 20. I am a perfect example case.