A Story Analysis of Mass Effect 1

Mass Effect 1 is the start of a fantastic series its job is to make sure the player knows about the world and its inhabitants but also make sure they even care about that stuff to begin with thankfully Mass Effect 1 has not only some of the best world building I've seen in a video game to date when it comes to its races and backstories but also sets up the main threat of the game to be more than what it seems it gives the player a chance to marinate in all the side quests and characters before letting him know that their entire world is about to crumble before their very eyes and I'm getting too far ahead of myself so allow me to explain what Mass Effect is about and how incredible its story truly is let's get started Mass Effect is a science fiction RPG that takes place in the Milky Way galaxy and Humanity in this universe has expanded far past our current capabilities not only has Humanity been able to travel and colonize planets within our current solar system but we've been able to go to numerous places across the Milky Way at the edge of the solar system near Pluto is a mass relay an old Relic from an ancient civilization that has given Humanity the means to see the outer reaches of the Galaxy but we aren't the only ones to have found these relays in fact were actually late to the party like 2 000 years late we play as Commander Shepard a soldier aboard the Normandy Airship and A Tear where our Story begins since Mass Effect is a role-playing game it's only natural that the first thing we do is create our character's look and background admittedly though I have never been a fan of how BioWare handled these backgrounds for this game because they're pretty meaningless you can choose between three types of personal service history and three types of psychological profiles the former comes with a unique Mission and the latter has some unique dialogue and another mission it's not terrible but it's just hard to feel like choices matter when all we get is a different dialogue in the intro afterward we'll get a brief Montage of the ship and the mass relay Mass Effect has always been about spectacle and cinematic presentation having a sense of wonder is at the core of Science Fiction so getting the player to believe that they are in the far future is key and the intro does this in a few ways by not only showing us images of advanced technology but also alien species I am going to hold off on discussing the other aliens of mass effect until a bit later though from here the player could explore the ship and talk with the crew and during this downtime Israel notice the dialogue system and something called Paragon and Renegade Mass Effect opted for a dialogue wheel to match their voice protagonist the alternative of course is having a silent protagonist but a full description of dialogue personally I prefer the latter only because I like to know what I'm saying such as in this example where I'm asking Liara if she's okay but the actual dialogue says that Dr shakwa should take a look at her I only picked that option because I wanted my character to ask if she was okay considering I'm sort of responsible for causing her headaches but the game didn't allow me to this is just one example but there are dozens of other instances in which this has happened and if you've played a game with a dialogue wheel then you understand what I mean as for the Paragon and Renegade these represent Mass effect's Karma systems Paragon points are given for good actions and Renegade for bad ones this allows the player to role play a specific way or at the very least give them a way to track their current characters actions using the bars located in the menu I ended up going through the game twice with one focusing on Paragon and the other focusing on Renegade so we can see the different outcomes as we play but also see how the game evolves over time because of our actions the hope is that there will be enough choices to make the playthrough feel different allowing players to have a unique experience their first time through picking up where we left off Shepard here is tasked with going to a place called Eden Prime and doing a covert pickup he'll be accompanied by nihilus atturian and also a specter Specter served the galactic Council a group of people will meet in a few minutes and nilas here not only wants to make sure the mission goes smoothly but also wants to assess Shepard as he is on the candidacy list for becoming a specter and if he succeeds that would make Shepard the first human Specter in the Galaxy one thing I love about science fiction is the ability to change the food chain on Earth humans are the apex predators but in space we might not be as strong as we think and humanity and Mass Effect is just like that humans only recently became a part of the galactic Community it's only been about 40 years since Humanity found a mass relay while orbiting Pluto whereas the turgans have been involved with the other races for over thousands of years now so humanity is way behind in terms of Galactic Evolution I love the way this was handled in Mass Effect as this has an impact on the story as many of the people from various races look down upon humans as they deem them as lesser beings such as sarin another Tyrion and another Specter he doesn't like humans much given the war between the humans and turgans that started shortly after meeting each other for the first time and this Prejudice has stayed with him for a very long time but he doesn't just seem to hate humans apparently he just dislikes people in general as he kills his fellow friend nilas for no apparent reason this act will kick off the main plot of the story sarin was searching for the beacon the same item we plan to take back to the council as it will help him find something called the conduit he also Enlisted the help of the Geth a group of beings that haven't been seen outside their home Colony for over 200 years so already things aren't adding up we have a specter going rogue a race of beings known as seen in over two centuries and to make things worse the object Shepard was tasked with finding is a lot more important than it may seem s [Music] this Beacon was created by a race of beings called the protheans the prothians were in ancient civilization that went extinct over 50 000 years ago but no one knows why the one thing that remains of them is some of their technology like the mass relays seren clearly knew about the device and its location which means he knows something and we need to figure out what that is but we have more diplomatic problems at hand nihilus is dead and the beacon is destroyed the console is clearly not going to be happy with this result especially since this was supposed to be a test for Shepard after a thorough investigation the council seems to have found no evidence that reinforces our claim that Sharon has committed treason all hope is not lost though the only lead we have is a Terrian called Garrus that was the head of an investigation against Aaron so we'll need to find him and see if he knows anything during this Mission we'll also come across a Kroger named Rex and Aquarian named Tali these three end up becoming a part of our new crew and our three of the six companions we can take on missions these missions involving these three have you traveling quite a bit throughout the Citadel as the game starts to open up a bit and it's quite obvious to tell from the gameplay that this place is stunning the Brazilian level of the Citadel is one of the most stunning places in this game even though we are playing on the legendary edition the original back in 2007 was still a sight to behold just like I mentioned before science fiction is all about creating these unique buildings and planets so you can be convinced that what you're seeing is truly from the future and mass effect does this in Spades but it's not just the planetary and environmental design that will be used as a showcase for the vision of the future it's also the alien species the beginning missions here on the Citadel do a wonderful job of fleshing out the world and giving the player a chance to see some of the Game's new species and despite the criticism this series will eventually get over the coming years the races have never been in this discussion Mass Effect has some of the best world building I have ever seen when it comes to alien species all these races are so uniquely designed that once you see what a specific race looks like it will never leave your mind but not only are the designs unique but their histories are too each race has unique backgrounds that cover anything from Anatomy to government to beliefs everything about them is so distinctive that it's hard to find any similarities between each race to understand what I mean though allow me to take some time to go over the races we meet in game the first race we should probably talk about is our own the humans of Mass Effect are not that different from us in the real world but the reason I wanted to mention them is because of their first contact with new life since the traversable world has now expanded for Humanity everyone was quick to find and colonize new planets this however ticked off the galactic Council something the humans had no clue even existed at this point Humanity attempted to reactivate a dormant Mass relay which under Council law is illegal the group is then shot down by turians which then started a conflict between humans and the turians it ended pretty quickly as the turians underestimated Humanity's strength and the council was quick to broker peace between everyone soon after they would then be invited to join the other races on the Citadel and the rest is what we see in game humans populate the Citadel and are frequently seen on other planets researching and colonizing any place they can go but despite their best efforts they've not been fully recognized by the council this leads to our next race the turians they are one of three console races here in Mass Effect they were invited to the Council of over 1200 years ago and are seen as the galactic peacekeepers due to this role they also have the largest military presence in the galaxy and while they may not be known for their strength or skill like some of the races are they are definitely well known for their discipline most of what is known or respected about the terrygans comes down to their military prowess but there is information about the other parts of their lives too turians can be religious but are not forced to believe in any specific deity or God most of the turian belief centers around individual responsibility meaning there are no good or evil deities that can encourage or discourage certain behaviors they do however believe places and groups have spirits that represent them so a group of soldiers could have a spirit that shows honor and courage and something like a city or landscape can reflect success and Beauty they don't believe that these Spirits are evil or affect the world but Spirits can Inspire the living to be good members of the community and work to build a better tomorrow but I said previously tyrions are free to believe what they want and thanks to many species coming together over the years sometimes have been known to embrace the asari philosophy called siarist or even human religions like Confucianism and Buddhism the one area area of expertise they lack though is diplomacy the turian culture is based around honor personal accountability and setting aside personal desires for the good of all they've had to rely on the solarians for military intelligence and the asari for diplomacy in order to keep themselves in check speaking of those two they had the other two Council races the asari were the first to discover the Citadel with the solarians following shortly after these two races came together to form the council in order to maintain peace throughout the Galaxy the asari are a monogendered race according to Liara one of our future companions she says that male and female genders don't exist within the asari they don't have any concept of gender in their society like other races do however Liara uses words like she and her which would be feminine pronouns except those shouldn't exist if there's no concept of gender I think this detail is a small glimpse into how the species of the world have influenced one another to us as humans the asari look feminine but to them they're just asari they don't know what male and female are but in order to make it less confusing for the other races they use the words she and her since two and other species they would be seen as an all-female Society despite looking quite young they're actually pretty old when compared to normal human lifespans asari can live for over 1 000 years meaning that people like Liara who are only around 106 are still pretty young they go through various stages during their lifetime the final one being The Matriarch stage where they take up roles as leaders and counselors they also have a very unique form of sexual intercourse as asari don't mate in the traditional way but instead reproduce through a form of partheniogenesis they can attune their mind to match their partners and basically copy their genes this copied selection of genes is altered in a process called melding this connects the two minds together allowing them to share memories thoughts and feelings how this creates a child is unclear and it's also unclear how the process really works because Shepard has this happen to him three times throughout the game and there is no mention of a kid resulting from this so my hypothesis is that the asari involved has to actually have feelings centered around mating for it to occur since in this case it was more about giving Shepard more visions of what what we saw earlier so Liara wasn't doing the melding with the intention of reproduction thus a child isn't made due to this unique form of reproduction they could bait with any species in the Galaxy since no physical contact is required but The Offspring is always going to be an asari no matter the father to asari of course can also reproduce as well so the role of the father is given to the one not giving birth to the child the result of tuasari mating is still another asari but they're considered pure Bloods as their genes come from tuasari rather than just another species this is frowned upon by many within their culture as when an asari mates with another species they can gain the memories of that person which not only grows their own individual understanding of their partner but their history as well allowing the asari race as a whole to understand the races of the Galaxy better so when to asari mate there are no memories or traits being passed on so it's sort of seen as a waste of time pure bullets also have another stigma attached to them which is that they can possibly be Arda yakshi this is a genetic mutation that is assumed to only be in pure blood asari however this isn't mentioned in Mass Effect 1 so we'll talk about this more in the sequel where it is mentioned as for things other than intercourse we know from the previous race that asari are excellent at diplomacy but they're also very tactical in their decisions waiting and studying rather than immediate action is how they've managed to become one of the most powerful races in the Galaxy this is also helped by their military strength as well not as large or as powerful as some of the species asari are trained in biotics and are almost impossible to beat when faced one-on-one against the group though they're not too powerful and this goes for any group encounter since they usually have smaller numbered units and only use small support weapons as a backup making War not exactly ideal for the asari which is why they prefer to fight diplomatically the asari aren't the only race with small and Nimble Fighters though but while they may still be considered small fish in a big pond the solarians are anything but weak solarians are known for their intelligence both on and off the battlefield solarians are always seen striking first even when on the defensive they see the human concept of do not fire until fired upon as incredibly naive off the battlefield you'll see many solarians in political or leadership positions like the head doctor of a medical clinic or the CEO of a big company the reason for their success in achieving these positions is because of their hyperactive metabolism they think walk and talk extremely fast this allows them to do multiple tasks at once and couple with their innate desire to always innovate it's no wonder why the species is so successful the downside of this metabolism though is that their bodies are also speeding up which leads to a relatively short lifespan a solarion over 40 is considered a rarity this is a general idea of the races that make up the council and while we still have more to go through these details are already showing us how different each race is from one another and even how these races can coexist and change some of their Customs to benefit others the taurians asari and solarians make up the council's races also known as the three most politically important races in the Galaxy but that doesn't mean the other races aren't as important within Mass Effect 1 5 races have the most detailed backstories three of them we've already discussed but the other two are the Krogan and the quarians the Krogan are a very primitive species they even cause their their own nuclear winter at one point solarians had made contact with them very early on and culturally uplifted them by teaching the Krogan how to use and build modern technology the reason the solarians did this though was not because of some altruistic mindset but because they wanted the Krogan to help defeat the rakdai Iraq and I were a species of sentient insects that were growing too fast and were dead set on conquering other worlds so the council waged war on them and the solarians use the Krogan as fodder due to their tough shells and naturally strong physique they wrote to fight back against the rachni and not only win but literally erase them from existence the Krogan were thanked for their recent genocide and were able to thrive on their own but this caused another issue similar to the rachnine now that the Krogan weren't stuck on their dying Planet they were able to colonize other planets and reproduce at a staggering rate this led to a rebellion from the Krogan which lasted an entire Century until the tyrions with the help of the solarians created a bio weapon called the genophage the genophage is key to understanding Krogan culture because it had completely shaped their entire species 99 of the Krogan in the Galaxy were infected by this bio weapon and the effect of this chemical was the prevention of pregnancy even having a sign of life in the womb is now considered a miracle one in one thousand pregnancies actually succeed making the Krogan a Dying Breed Women Within the species especially ones that are still fertile are seen as prized possessions that the men fight and kill over but while this may seem dangerous to the women no harm actually comes to them as hurting or killing a female Krogan is punishable by death due to the genophage though many Krogan have lost hope in their race you'll see many of them like Rex just take up mercenary work due to their natural strength and love for violence as killing for credits is a lot simpler than trying to save your entire race as for the quarians they don't actually make an appearance in this game with the exception of Tali I wanted to include them anyway since tally is a companion but the reason they aren't seen in this game actually ties into their backstory the quarians are fairly Advanced when it comes to technology as they are the creators of the death yes the same group that is under sarin's control was created by the quarians they'd originally intended to just create Advanced machines and use them as workers and laborers the council though has very strict laws when it come comes to artificial intelligence because of something like this according to Tali what they did wasn't illegal but they were definitely straddling that line constantly to make the Geth more efficient they slowly introduce more complex tasks which ended up creating a more sophisticated neural network Tali says that the gats sort of feed off each other and in layman's terms the more Geth there are together the smarter they are the problem though is that because each Geth was slowly becoming smarter from these new complex tasks they were introduced to it caused the Geth hive mind for a lack of a better word to grow as well eventually causing them to become sentient this was all discovered when one of the Geth came in for testing and asked what it means to live and what its true purpose was the corians were rightfully shocked by this discovery and had ordered all Geth to be scrapped but since they were sentient they had developed feelings so instead of just letting it happen they were scared of thought of being killed so they fought back the Geth managed to win and drive out the entire Korean species from their own planet and now all of them live together on a cluster of ships they call the migrant Fleet but living on the ship isn't great there are about 17 million corians living together in one place which can make things cramped furthermore there is a reason tally wears a mask at all times since the ship is a sterile environment and never changes it's caused their immune systems to weaken so much so that they risk death even if they take it off for a few seconds to make matters worse once they reach a certain age Corian are forced to leave the ship and cannot come back until they return with something of value usually this is in the form of Geth data or something that could help the fleet this is what they call the quarian pilgrimage and is actually why Tali is here in the first place these are the five main species of Mass Effect there are three others that we can meet in the game though but since they aren't as important and aren't given much screen time the knowledge of their history is quite limited the Volus are a group of short and round people who can be spotted buying and selling at the markets and can also be seen holding jobs related to trade and commerce in fact many Volus watch over the citadel's funds similar to the Koreans they have to wear pressure suits and rebreathers to be able to survive outside their own Planet they also have an interesting dialect and that they say things like Earth Clan instead of human and sometimes sound like they have trouble breathing lying why would I lie to you the El core are massive creatures and due to their size and their home world's gravity they've learned to speak and move slower than most the most unique part of their species is also their dialect since their speech is very ponderous and monotone they often start a sentence with the emotion they are feeling startled realization I must speak with the consort she will be most displeased with my anxious request please human if you will excuse me I must go now the final race is the hanar and they are some of the most polite people in the Galaxy they find improper language to be rude and hurtful which is why they don't use such words but they do recognize that not everyone thinks as they do so they try their best to unlearn these Tendencies and accept that some people may just prefer to use improper language if necessary the hanar also like to use words like this one or it when referring to themselves because they find it egotistical to say their actual names in conversation unless it's among close friends the other detail that makes them stand out to Saturn their design is their desire to worship and preach about their gods who they call the inkindlers the inkindlers are actually what they call the protheans those beings that were wiped out mysteriously over 50 000 years ago their Homeworld has quite a few prothean ruins on it so once they were discovered many of them started worshiping them as Gods this is currently all the races within Mass Effect I think the length of this section alone reinforces my earlier statement that each of the races within the game are so diverse from their design to their backstories but honestly we've only been really touched upon a small section of this massive world not only are there tons of details on the current races I left out for the sake of Simplicity but there are a few races we haven't even talked about yet by far the best part about all of this though is that this can all be found within the game itself you gain all this information not only by talking with various species but also by looking at the game's codex which provides tons of detailed information you wouldn't find anywhere else I understand though not everyone is Keen on reading dozens of pages just to find out information but the point is that BioWare did an incredible job when it comes to this game's aliens each one is so distinct in its designed that it's almost impossible to mistake them and their backstories make them stand out from everyone else in the Galaxy whether that be their gender culture history or physique each one was delicately handcrafted to create a fleshed out and expansive world and it is without a doubt the strongest part of mass effect's writing now I know that section was quite long but I wanted to mention these details that you can keep these in your mind not just throughout this video but in the future episodes as a lot of the interactions in this game make sense when you take into account their backstories like how the leader of the executive board on noveria is a solarian and how some tyrions have a strong dislike towards humans since they fought them in the contact Wars furthermore many actions and consequences that will be made throughout the series were because of their history and their culture in fact we can even see some of these now reflecting in our companions but at the moment we're still missing one so let's go find her to refresh her memory Shepard just came back from Eden Prime and was denied by the council when he came forth with accusations against saren to prove his statement he seeks out Garrus AC Tech investigator who is working on the investigation against saren he however was forbidden from looking further into the case later the group will then be direct say gun for hire who used to work for sarin on a prior Mission then Talia a Korean woman who claims to have evidence against saren see Tali was looking for a place to hide so she contacted a man named fist fist works for the shadow broker an enigmatic person who runs a large Enterprise that trades money for information chances are if you've done something Shady or even have some relevance in Galactic space the shadow broker knows he were tally wanted to trade the information she had regarding sarin going rogue so that she could get off the hook and wouldn't be hunted down tally also explains how she came across this information which is that she was able to salvage a Geth memory core and keep its data this goes back to what I said earlier about specific actions making more sense when the history is explained no one would willingly try to salvage gas Tech unless they were Aquarian furthermore it's known that there is a defense mechanism in the Geth to stop this from happening but who other than Aquarian would know how to bypass it it's just genius writing getting back to fist though the guy is not too smart he attempted to play The Shadow broker by taking the deal to sarin instead of him the shadow broker doesn't take this kind of thing lying down so he hired Rex to take fist out for betraying him Shepard then works with Rex to hunt fist down and then saves Tally from a potential assassination as thanks for saving her Tali then presents the evidence to udina and Anderson Eden Prime was a major victory plus one step closer to finding the conduit and one step closer to the return of the Reapers that's some pretty damaging evidence and will not make saren look good the other voice on the audio tape was Matrix benezia who we briefly mentioned earlier Matrix are very old members of the asari race and are likely anywhere between 750 and a thousand years old given her status and the knowledge he gained from being this old she is clearly a formidable foe but the question of why she joined saren has yet to be answered the reason I brought her up was because of what she said regarding the return of the Reapers the reapers are the reason the protheans were wiped out fifty thousand years ago we still don't know why or how that was possible but at least we know the cause of the protein Extinction this has now turned things from bad to worse if saren is trying to recruit or resurrect a group of beings that wiped out an entire race then the whole galaxy is in danger the council hears this information but refuses to arrest or even kill him for his actions the council is worried that this could trigger a war with the Terminus systems it's probably a good time to mention this but Mass Effect takes place in the Milky Way galaxy the lower parts of the Galaxy are the council and Alliance controlled spaces with the upper Parts being the turn Terminus systems the council refuses to budge on this decision but Shepard asks if he can go alone the council agrees but because this mission is also a galactic problem the great Shepard the title of Specter making him the first two minutes Vector in the Galaxy honestly no matter how many times I play this game I can never really get over this induction ceremony the council then forwards us the relevant files which points us towards three locations there have been sightings of Geth on the planet's Pharos and noveria and the other lead is on matrak benezia's daughter named Liara to Sony who was last seen at an archaeological digsite near the Artemis Tau cluster it's important that we find her as she may have answers as to why matriarch Venezia has joined sarin and what's Aaron plans to do with the conduit and the death from here you're pretty much allowed to go wherever you want but I usually go with pharaohs first so we'll start there one reason Pharaoh stands out is because of its plot twist it's nothing revolutionary but pharaohs had originally been set up as a routine death attack but the thought of why they were here is still in your mind now if you play this immediately then pharaohs will serve its purpose but I've always felt it loses its appeal if you do the side content before going here I'll elaborate more on this later but when visiting a lot of the planets in the game nine times out of 10 the guest will attempt to stop you it starts to lose its value after a while because you just expect the Geth to show up everywhere for no real purpose which is what many may assume Pharos is just a colony being attacked by Geth that's why I've always felt that you should do pharaohs as soon as possible as the sense of mystery is still present the only other time we've seen Geth up until this point is to eat in Prime and there was a reason for their presence so the same can be assumed for Pharaohs after helping some of the colonists we can continue to explore the settlements and may come across Ian he's a little strange but his placement here is a nice foreshadowing of what's to come eventually it will come across Juliana and Ethan Ethan is very reluctant to explain what's going on and it's clear he is hiding something both of them work for a company called exogeny this company specializes in Planetary Exploration and colonization in the case of pharaohs they sent a few people down here to see if any profit could be made off the planet sadly not much was found here and many considered it a dead Planet until they found the thorian we learn a little bit about this creature from Juliana's daughter and even one of the VI's later at the exogeny building but the thorogan seems to be a sort of sentient plant that's been around for a long time and has the ability to send out spores into the air which when inhaled by something can give the thorian control over them Ethan from earlier was a victim of this although he was in the early stages of it where the thorian controls these people it can sap its memories from them which is why it's become so intelligent the reason we know that it has existed for a long time is that it claims to have absorbed Knowledge from the protheans it had apparently gained so much knowledge from them that it created what our characters have called decipher the way we obtained the cipher is from shigala who is imprisoned in the thorogen by sarin she worked alongside matriarch benezia but was betrayed and forced to be part of the thorian according to shiala Venezia wanted to join sarin and guide him down a gentler path but she ended up becoming indoctrinated indoctrination is actually defined as teaching something but the reason it has a more negative connotation is that it usually involves hiding facts and disregarding other outside opinions that don't fit the narrative now CERN isn't really teaching people any anything he's more just brainwashing them to agree with his opinion xiala and Venezia were brainwashed into believing what saren believes is the way saren is able to do this because of his ship called Sovereign Sovereign apparently has mind control and brainwash capability similar to the thorian whereas the thorian could do this with spores that it released from its body Sovereign seems to be able to do it with an energy field that surrounds it Sarah needed the thorium because it had the cipher if we recall our earlier encounter with the beacon on Eden Prime all we saw were images and Visions the reason it was unclear to us was that these were made for a prothean mind to understand it's the same way that another language like Japanese would not make any sense to someone unless they understood that language the cipher is what allows us to gain an understanding of these Visions to understand what they mean we need to think like a prothean we need to understand their culture their history and their existence I want to clarify that the cipher isn't some physical object or anything of the sort basically without it it's like trying to explain color to someone without eyes it's hard to explain what the color red is like to someone who doesn't even know what color is science fiction action is known to have complex and intricate Concepts like this and I love how detailed this one piece of story was and it also continues to add to the mystery of who these prothians really were Shepard with the help of shiala gains access to the cipher and the scene always gives me the chills foreign so with the cipher Shepard should be able to understand what these Visions mean well not quite think of these Visions as a puzzle without the cipher they're just a blank puzzle made of just white pieces with the cipher we can actually see the puzzle but we still have only completed part of it we could see that something is there but we can't get the full picture until we put all the pieces together thankfully we still have a few more places to go so hopefully we can get more information from them our next location is noveria and it's here where I actually want to highlight a couple things more often than not massive active will reward you for thinking outside the box naveria is where matriarch benezia is located and we know that she's an asari we also know that Liara is an asari and will eventually become a companion so instead if we do liara's Mission first and then bring her to noveria and find benezia we can actually get some unique dialogue with her this has always been my favorite part about the series as you would expect Liara of all people to have thoughts on this considering not only is she an asari but she's also her daughter which is something we learn if we rescue her these small interactions are incredible and I always try to find ways to get this dialogue to happen like bringing tally to places with Geth since those beings drove out her people it doesn't happen all the time but it feels great to guess right and see some dialogue you may not have heard otherwise the other interactions I like are usually in the elevators when at the Citadel news anchors may come on and talk about things we did in side missions sometimes though banter can just occur between the group after years of poor economic performance exogeny has announced that its research Colony on Pharos is finally returning a profit new discoveries and a dedicated colonization effort have finally paid off for exogeny exogeny stock Rose sharply with the announcement with investors pleased at this surprising news never regret leaving Citadel security to pursue serengetas fighting a rogue Specter with countless lives at stake and no regulations to get in the way I'd say that beats I'm pleased that the imminent destruction of all organic life has improved your career opportunities it's the little things that stand out most in games like this and these interactions make things feel alive in the world of Mass Effect our actions have direct consequences on the world around us even if we never see these outcomes in the game and companions can either throw out a joke or two or even give us information we didn't know about this is one of the main reasons I find myself coming back to these games all the time is not only does talking with different companions reward us with different dialogue but if we manage to bring a specific pair we can hear even more getting back to noveria we discovered that Venezia was here and is at the peak 15 research facility it's a pain to get there but after some time we arrive and find Geth at the facility but not only are there Geth here the rachni are here as well we briefly mentioned them when we talked about the Krogan but I said that the Krogan killed off all the ragnae that wasn't false information they are supposed to be extinct which makes this discovery even more confusing apparently a group of researchers found a derelict ship in space and found a brachni egg but it wasn't just any egg it was the Egg of arachni Queen this was a huge Discovery so the group immediately got to work on research the group of research Chargers work for a company called binary Helix they focus on biotechnology and genetic engineering but just like exogeny they're a bit corrupt in their methods they wanted to create an army of arachni using the queen however they also wanted to make a bioweapon to kill off the arachni in case things went wrong but creating a weapon just for the Rock and I wouldn't provide much value to the company especially considering no one even knows the Rock and I were alive to begin with so they attempted to make it affect other species as well to make matters worse apparently sarin and Venezia were key investors of binary Helix so they had some control over their projects sarin wanted the ragnites who serve as a part of his army but something went wrong and the rack and I escape containment upon reaching the core of the facility we will eventually find matriaric benezia confrontation we are is here because she's a member of my crew should I explain how to kill you what could I say like I said I love these small interactions that can come if you bring a certain crew member along but as he had despite being a matriarch arguably one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy is actually quite easy to defeat now this is down to numerous factors I did this mission after about four hours of side content so I was pretty over Geared for the encounter and Mass Effect isn't exactly a hard game in general also according to my research the legendary edition also changed this fight quite a bit the fight is three waves of asari and Geth before fighting benezia at the end the verse 3 waves have less Geth and less asari than before and Venezia fights alone this time as opposed to having another Commando with her like in the original they also removed her ability to attack the player with biotics during these waves according to an interview with one of the directors of BioWare they also made the pathways bigger and added more cover since a lot of the room was either no cover or just movable boxes I remember that being a huge pain in the ass back then so I'm glad this was changed but I always thought that was the main reason it was so difficult not the enemies themselves it's been a long time since I've played the original so I could be misremembering a lot of details but I do remember this fight being a lot harder when there were more Commandos but not so much harder that it was impossible asari Commandos are supposed to be tough so I figured their difficulty was perfectly acceptable after the boss fight we can speak with benezia and discover that she was also indoctrinated by saren CERN wanted her to find something called the MU relay but she was unsuccessful the reason she came here was that The Rock and I used to live near that region of the Galaxy and also discovered the relay themselves the rec and I share memories across generations and a queen can pass on this info to their daughters but Asia realizing the error of her ways made a backup of the data from the rachni and gives it to us on an OSD Venezia fights us because of her indoctrination but once defeated again she will succumbed to her wounds afterward though is where we are given a choice the rachni queen is alive and we are tasked with sparing her or we can kill her effectively making the rack not extinct again one thing I really like is that our companions have actual opinions on the subject although ultimately the decision does come down to us given what we know of the rock night it would seem like killing them would be the better outcome but do we have the right to make a decision like this who would have the right to make a decision like this it's honestly a question I still think about because the world has been fine without them for two thousand years so it's not like their Extinction ruined the ecosystem it's like bees and spiders I hate both of these insects but without them our ecosystem could become worse Iraq and I didn't seem to have that effect as far as we can tell but we also have to consider that the Ragtime aren't just insects despite their appearance they're a sentient race of people just like all the other races we've met so far I think if I had to make the choice I would probably choose to spare them I wouldn't feel too confident in my decision but I would hope that Liara is right and that they can atone for what they did it's honestly a pretty tough choice and I would love to hear your decision as to why after this decision though we complete the mission and we can now report back to the console the one thing I hate about this meeting is that the turian council member scolds us regardless of our decision he hates that we saved the queen but also berates us if we kill her what they could have done was just make the solarion have the opposite Viewpoint or even the asari council member chime in but by having the Tyrion be the opposing Force each time it proves that this was just added to make the player feel indifferent about their decision and not because the council member actually had a problem with the choice our final mission now is to find Liara to Sony I added this one at the end because there's honestly not that much that is too important layara does have some comedic dialogue if this is done last though as if we rescue her first then everything is fine what if we do the mission last then she will believe that she's hallucinating and that her mind is conjured up someone who will save her Liara doesn't really help us though she just transfers some of her knowledge to us but it's just stuff we already know one thing we do learn from her though is that the prothean's dying was a part of a cycle they are also says that the mass relays and the citadels were not created by the protheans they were technology created by a previous Civilization now things are starting to make less sense the protheans didn't make these devices and weren't the first species to be wiped out from Extinction we still don't understand why though we know the Reapers wipe them out but can we be certain that the reapers are behind all the killings or if they're just responsible for the protein Extinction it also doesn't make sense as to why there are rarely any traces of Reapers at all despite wiping out the Galaxy but with this though we're stuck and have no leads that is until the council comes back and says that one of the infiltration units on a planet called vermeier might have some information on sarin they sent a message to the council but it was static however it was received from their specific channel that is only for Mission critical communication so it had to be important this however is a big mission and if saren is going to be there we're going to need to be ready for anything so before we go to vermeier let's talk about our Companions and some of the game's side content [Music] Mass Effect is all about exploration it's the reason why the story even exists as sentient creatures we have this innate desire to explore we've done this with our own Planet but now that we have a galaxy of planets at our fingertips we're free to go where we want there's so much mystery Behind These planets and so many questions come from these Mysteries like what is on this planet is it dangerous can it be colonized or are we the first people to set foot on this land the sense of mystery is present in all these planets but by the time you actually arrive most of the enjoyment is gone any place that isn't a part of the main quest gets little to no attention from both the players and designers places like the Citadel are the opposite as they are beautifully crafted and provide players with tons of content to do which is why so many quests end up appearing here but many of the missions on the Citadel are just fluff that's not really a bad thing though a lot of the questions revolve around small issue that some people are having like this is sorry who wants us to stop someone from spreading rumors about her or this guy who's trying to get some meds because he's addicted to them they're not bad quests but since many of them don't have much story to them there isn't much reason to talk about them in this video but the Citadel isn't the only place you can find side quests you can also explore the Galaxy although I use the word explore pretty Loosely there are a lot of clusters and systems in the Milky Way and within all of them are lots of different planets ninety percent of the planets though cannot be entered most of the time you'll be able to read a quick description of the planets but how long that description is will depend on which one you're looking at sometimes though you can survey planets and they'll provide you with some asari writings dog tags medallions or some minerals all of a doe is pretty much useless and I'm pretty sure the Collectibles don't even reward you with anything minus a small bit of XP in credits I guess it could have been created to encourage exploration but if they wanted to do that then they should have made the exploration actually fun on the small chance you can actually land on a planet you're allowed to drive around in the Mako and explore its world this mostly means going to the three markers on your map and doing whatever they want you to do then leave sometimes other markers will appear but only when you drive near them but it's not even really worth it after going through all the planets for around 4 hours I gave up going to any of these other locations about halfway through and just went to any markers labeled Geth Outpost and research lab the terrain is also just Barren and empty I understand that not every planet will be colonized so sometimes there just isn't things to look at but just about every planet is empty except those markers all the assets are also reused constantly and it starts to become more and more irritating when every single Building looks the same and all the Interiors are the exact same layout the missions on these planets aren't really that great either many of the missions revolve around the player finding out what happened to some of the colonists on these planets and it almost always boils down to the Geth which is another thing I'm confused about why are there death here I feel like there is no strategical advantage to constructing an outpost in the middle of nowhere some of these places barely even have anybody living on them so I have to ask why there are bases here not all the missions revolve around the the Geth though some involve Shepard getting trapped in a room by some random Tyrion who locks Us in with a literal nuclear bomb that Shepard can just disarm with no problem or even Force the crew to find a module within a pack of monkeys I'm pretty sure I audibly sighed when I got that Quest it's not all bad though sometimes we are allowed to visit space stations and while they also boil down to the same thing as the planets this one in particular had an interesting story apparently this girl's lover was going to be put down because his brain was deprived of oxygen for too long and it doesn't look like he'll make a recovery they wanted him to die with dignity but Julia didn't want him to she went into a severe depression because of this but despite being given meds for her condition she refused to take them and ended up killing the whole crew once we find out what happened to her lover Julia will attempt to Ambush us but she gets killed right away one thing I really enjoyed about this questline was that I had to sort of show don't tell style of writing I wasn't forced to open these terminals I wasn't even really forced to come here so all this was discovered on my own which would be the point of Planet exploration the main reason you're doing this is to uncover its Mysteries sadly this is rare as in most cases it'll just be something like what you see on screen a pop-up will appear detailing something that didn't even happen you don't hear music in this room and this video of Aquarion never actually appears this isn't D and D where I need descriptive details so I can imagine the world around me I'm literally playing the game play the video clip and just let me interpret what I saw it just makes all these encounters a waste of time because all I'm doing is shooting stuff then reading text on my screen rather than just actually seeing it for myself overall though the space station mission was a pretty nice Quest it's short but sweet and that's the issue if this was on the low end of quest then that's fine it's a small Quest maybe not too memorable but it was there to tell a different story but because this Quest had a story it automatically shoots up to the Top If this Quest is the ceiling for Quality we are doomed thankfully that's not all the galaxy has to offer as we can travel to the Moon and come across a distressed Beacon but when we complete the quest we get a bunch of numbers on our screen and when the binary code is translated it reads the word help according to the mission assignment it seemed like a VI had gained sentience at one point this was a great discovery as it also connects to a lot of the game's core themes which is about synthetic versus organic life since that is becoming sentient like the Geth could be a problem so hearing that a random VI also gained this is a bit nerve-wracking but not as nerve-wracking as discovering Cerberus through our exploration we can find some details about a pro-human organization called Cerberus and after some time we'll find their other bases throughout the Galaxy inside these bases we can see that they're experimenting with different creatures and even humans it's not incredibly interesting at the moment but Cerberus does become a pretty big deal later in the sequels which is why I've always appreciated this Quest the final one I do want to talk about though is this mission on an asteroid apparently this small asteroid is heading towards a planet and if it's not stopped it will kill millions of people upon arriving we're tasked with shutting these Fusion torches down so we can alter its course preventing us from doing so though is a new race of beings called batarians they aren't seen much in Mass Effect 1 because they usually reside in the Terminus systems the batarians were welcome to the galactic Community about a few hundred years ago but they cause a lot of hostility they raided many colonies that belong to all types of races until the console had to step in and put a stop to them around the time humans gained the ability to colonize other planets they asked the council to intervene as they claimed that the humans were colonizing batarian land the council refused and in response the battarians removed themselves from The Citadel and the council space the group on this asteroid are a bunch of batarian extremists who claim that the people on this asteroid need to be punished because they're colonizing a world that could have been theirs and taking resources that also could have been theirs their leader balik blames the humans for why they're in this current position I don't think I need to explain how insane that thinking is but you are forced to let him go if you want to save the colonists as he has explosives rigged to explode if we retaliate this was probably the best quest in the game but that's because it's DLC because of course it is this Quest had a cut scene with it of course it was DLC it's pretty clear that in the base game of Mass Effect a lot of the exploration is pretty poor the side quests aren't that interesting and a lot of the worlds are Barren but the one redeeming quality to them is only achieved by looking up these planets have some of the most gorgeous Sky boxes I have ever seen it's also the main reason I miss this kind of content as Mass Effect 2 changed the exploration system and while it does have its perks nothing is as fun as landing on a planet and looking at the sky the Galaxy can get lonely especially when you stare at the planets nearby and realize how small you truly are but it doesn't have to be done alone your companions are more than happy to join you on your planetary excursions and even help you take down sarin the first question we have to ask though is whether their reasons make sense oftentimes a game will force characters onto the player so that they can use them in their team without considering if they would actually have joined them in the first place and after some careful consideration all the reasons are pretty much genuine Kaden was with us from the very beginning so he gets a pass Ashley who we meet on Eden Prime very early in the game also stays with us because her Squad was killed and seeing as she already worked for the alliance Anderson likely just moved her to our team Garris who originally worked for c-sec left to join Shepard because he still wanted to enact justice but without all the red tape and politics that comes at being an officer Rex at his core is still a Merc plus he's a Krogan and they love to fight he luckily saw how Shepard was able to handle himself in a fight and figure joining up would mean they get into some pretty good fire fights tally joins up because she wants to complete her pilgrimage and Liara is fond of Shepard because she likes prothean technology and considering Shepard has been seeing visions of the protheans this is more than enough to convince her to stay so all in all all the motivations are there some could be a stretch and possibly debated but I think it works for the most part and I'm glad BioWare took the time to consider why they would joined Shepherd in the first place besides that though we can also learn more about their backstories but most of them connect to why they joined Shepard in the first place as stated before Liara likes prothean Tech Tali needs to complete her pilgrimage and we can give her guest data at one point for her to take back to her people and Garris has a sense of justice which is why he left csec to join Shepard and we can help him by capturing a killer he wasn't able to bring to Justice while under seasek this is not bad by any means though I really like how their reasons for joining Shepard or their backstories I'll link back to their racist history another great example of this though would be Rex and Ashley Rex was actually against the Krogan Rebellion at least when the genophage came because he knew they didn't have the numbers to win this caused some chaos amongst the Krogan Clans as the species couldn't agree on a specific Viewpoint so to settle things out he met with the opposing viewpoints leader who was his father Gerard the two talked but when it became clear that Rex wasn't budging his father launched a surprise attack that killed all of Rex's men Rex luckily somehow survived the encounter but only because he had to kill his father to do so that day ended up changing Rex as he has since lost open his people and now just takes up mercenary work since killing crew credits ends up simplifying things Ashley has a sort of pessimistic Viewpoint of the world and even outright says that she doesn't trust the other alien crew members this stems from the fact that her family had served in the military for Generation so they've always put Humanity's needs first plus her thinking that the other races would likely care about their own race rather than helping others if the going gets tough is a plausible Theory most people would protect their own family before others so it makes sense that other races would think the same way plus Humanity didn't exactly get the greatest greeting when meeting a other species for the first time this has caused her to be resentful of the new crew as she deems them all to be untrustworthy the only outlier in this situation is Kaden but his story is still pretty interesting Kaden was accidentally exposed to a substance called element zero in the womb this gave him biotic abilities which is a lucky break as most kids that got exposed to it just got brain cancer he was then sent to a place the kids called brain camp where they were encouraged to commit to an evaluation of their ability so that they could have a better understanding of how their biotics worked the company behind this Camp though got greedy and wanted to speed up the process so they hired an ex-military turian Commander to help train the children his training was brutal and during one of his training sessions Caden snapped when the turian commander broke the arm of the girl he liked at the facility Kaden then fought the commander and killed him immediately after the incident the facility was shot down and the records are wiped that's a pretty rough story and also gives us a look at to what was going on years ago when biotics were first being introduced the humans at the time biotic Powers were relatively new so testing and research were required but the company when he got greedy and paid the price for it all of Mass Effect 1's characters are extremely interesting and I like how not all of them were made to be these perfect beings with zero flaws some of these characters can not only disagree with the player but also clash with other companions these characters also don't share the same reasons for joining Liara is a great example as while she likely does want to take down saren she's definitely more focused on learning about the protheans which is why she's even with Shepard to begin with this is in stark contrast to someone like Garris whose main goal is to enact Justice and take down saren creating a cast of characters that all join for different reasons and have the possibility to have contrasting viewpoints to the player and the team is a great way to create a believable and diverse cast the only problem I have is that they don't really disapprove of Shepard's actions a lot of our crew will Express a specific viewpoint on the rachni queen decision but no matter what we choose they won't say anything about it and will continue to work with us the only character that doesn't do this is Rex as we'll see later but this has always stuck out to me as odd despite disagreeing with us they still continue to stay in the ship and help could you say that it's because there are bigger more important things at stake than friendship absolutely but I think this ends up plaguing the entire Trilogy this is more prevalent in the sequel which we'll discuss then but it's always been odd how no matter what happens your crew is willing to always stick by you even if you go against what they believe in Rex is the only character in this game so far that makes any sort of personal decision which is incredible and I wish more of this actually happened to explain what I mean though we should probably get back to the story with all that finished we can now return to where we left off which is the planet vermeyer the place where an infiltration team had sent a message to the council regarding sarin but it couldn't be heard as the connection was too spotty we touched down on vermeier and as expected we find lots of gas after battling through dozens of troops we meet with the commander of the Squad Captain kirihi explains that this area is saren's base of operations and there is a research facility ahead the research is apparently a cure for the genophage as he's trying to breed a army of Krogan Rex is clearly interested in this discovery but Captain kirihee says that the Cure is too dangerous and thus needs to be destroyed along with the facility Rex does not take a liking to this and immediately storms off here is where we have to make arguably one of the biggest decisions in the game Rex refuses to let this place be destroyed and will literally kill Shepard if he has to if we don't say the correct answers we're forced to put him down but because we helped him find his family armor we can tell him that we care about him and that he needs to trust us one criticism regarding this mission is how we can't get the Cure and destroy the base at the same time I think this problem was caused by the solarian from earlier because his idea is incredibly naive I don't think a cure actually existed he just assumes so since sarin wanted to make the Krogan I'm convinced that saren was just cloning them so that he could make an army there was no actual cure involved in this process even if there was it's likely that them becoming Saran slaves were a part of the Cure or at least used as a bargaining chip Rex even starts to talk about saren being the good guy in this scenario because he's curing his people so saren likely could have been claiming that a cure was made so that he would draw Krogan in and indoctrinate them regardless it's clear that destroying the facility would be more beneficial to the Krogan then letting the Cure survive after Talking Rex down we'll work with Captain kirihi to devise a plan we're then going to go around the back to make certain believe that these solarians are the real threat we'll then slip in and plant the bomb needed to blow up the facility and its research but on the way we run into something that changes this game's story forever what is that some kind of VI interface rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh drops my mind fumbling in I don't think this is a VI there is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it I am I am sovereign isn't just some Reaper ship saren found actual Reaper Shepard is correct Sovereign was not just some Reaper ship saren used but an actual Reaper our discussion with Sovereign changes everything we've known about this game up until now the reapers are indeed the reason the protheans were wiped out 50 000 years ago the reason Sovereign is alive despite being 50 000 years old is because he's synthetic organic life like humans have lifespans but machines we create in factories do not synthetic life has no lifespan as they don't have any working organs that shut down over some time the reapers are synthetic so they continue to exist even for thousands or millions of years Sovereign says that they are the Pinnacle of existence and nothing is better than the Reapers the reapers are also the cause for all life being wiped out since their existence every cycle a new civilization is born then they advance in technology and space travel but once they've gone too far they're then killed off by the Reapers this happened to the protheans and now it's happening to us they use the mass relays and the Citadel as tools to make sure life in the Galaxy evolves according to their plans it's because of the mass relays that lie life in the Galaxy was able to travel across space and discover the Citadel the Reapers made these devices on purpose so that they could track how far life was evolving once life in the Galaxy had reached the Citadel and had started using it the reefers would enact their plan to wipe out all life in the Galaxy why they do this though is unknown for now but the idea that these beings are so Advanced that we can't even grasp their existence is not only chilling but incredible in the context of the plot sarin isn't the real threat here it is and always has been the Reapers to make the most sense of this discovery think of the Reapers as the great filter kurz gustad has an Incredible video on the subject that I'll link down below if you're confused but to Briefly summarize many have hypothesized that there is a reason we haven't seen life in the Galaxy yet the reason is that the world has a filter the question though is where is it located there are nine steps in the process of life we start with a habitable planet then to reproductive molecules to single cell life which then goes to complex single cell life two sexual reproduction multi-cell life tool using animals with intelligence a civil realization advancing towards a potential colonization explosion and then that explosion this basically in simple terms is how life came to be on earth the earth as a planet is safe enough for people to live on it which is step one then life gets created in the form of a single cell organism which then evolves into other organisms for millions of years until it leads to us step 7 is tool using animals with intelligence humans pass this one we became cavemen but it's also some other animals as well monkeys have been known to use rocks to break up on the shells of animals so they've also reached step seven step eight is a civilization advancing towards the potential for a colonization explosion we are the only beings that have made it this far and are stuck here because step nine is that colonization explosion which basically just means colonizing other planets in our galaxy The Great filter is a barrier that stops life from going past a certain point that point is assumed to be located on one of the nine steps I just talked about if the filter is behind us then that explains why we don't find other life because we might be the first life in the world to pass the barrier if it's ahead of us then we still have a ways to go but that would mean we aren't Advanced enough to find life yet however that also means the filter has yet to hit us meaning we haven't passed it and will likely be killed off once we reach that point the reapers are that filter if we're to look at the chart again the Reapers would appear around step 9 since humanity and Mass Effect has already achieved this so if there was a hypothetical step 10 then the Reapers will attempt to stop us before reaching that point which would explain why every civilization in game has been wiped out they were so close to achieving that next step but the Reapers stopped them we still however don't know why the Reapers want to do this or what the threshold even is the reapers are clearly capable of wiping out a Galaxy at any moment but they only do it once life reaches a certain point however we don't know what that point is just yet this is why the reapers are so fascinating the mystery behind them makes this discovery in the context of the plot create some of the best writing I have ever seen in a game and as said earlier this will change the entire story going forward as now we know the real threat we clearly have a lot of questions but we're also in the middle of a war so that needs to be dealt with first and it's here where we get another Choice Ashley and Caden are pinned down at their positions and were only able to save one now because I'm doing two playthroughs I chose Ashley for the male Shepard and Kaiden for the female Shepherd because of the potential romance options and any possible unique dialogue that may come from those relationships but if I was just doing one playthrough and had to make a genuine choice I would have probably just picked Kaden I've always personally enjoyed Kaden more than actually mostly because I found him more interesting which is why I usually go with him shortly after this decision we will meet sarin and this brings up a good point the question Still Remains though what does saren have to do with this well he'll explain to us that once he discovered Sovereign and what the Reapers were capable of he essentially gave up he knows that life as it is now could not win so we figured surrendering would be better he assumed that if the prothians surrendered they would have been spared so he wants Humanity to do the same this is why he never brought this up to the council because organic life is driven by emotion rather than logic so life in the Galaxy would still fight the Reapers even if they know they couldn't win CERN wants to save life in the Galaxy by submitting to the Reapers and hoping that they'll find us useful enough to keep around yeah the Reapers could still kill us if they deem life useless but at least we tried fighting to sarin is not trying because we're doomed to fail anyway but by surrendering we at least have a Fighting Chance saren was aware that he could be indoctrinated by now but he discovered that the more you resist the worse it gets so by sarin not resisting at all he was able to still have some cognitive function left in his brain where his logic Falls flat though is that he claims that Sovereign needs him to find the conduit and that if he does he'll be spared from Extinction which we know just isn't going to happen I personally believe that saren is not lying when he says he's not indoctrinated yet but his theory that he'll be spared if he succeeds is false saren refuses to listen to our pleas and reason so we're forced to kill him but before we fight he does tell us about the Geth and how the gats see Sovereign as a God but it is one-sided as Sovereign doesn't want to be seen as a God and sees the Geth as puppets and nothing more I really like saren as an antagonist I do understand where he is coming from to an extent if a race of beings had wiped out all life for millions of years what makes us different fighting would be the definition of insanity the protheans fought back and failed and all the other civilizations fought back and failed so what makes us different a great Counterpoint to this ideology is also one of my favorite analogies and that's a dig site if archaeologists spend 10 years digging a giant hole and find nothing then they failed but the next team that comes by the hole now has 10 years worth of work they don't need to do and can pick up where the last group left off and this could keep going and going until someone finds what they were originally looking for but here is where the Reapers differ they erased all life from the Galaxy and most of the species Tech we barely find anything belonging to the protheans plus they also have all life on Earth using their technology like the mass relays and the Citadel if we go back to the dig site example the reapers are not only covering up the dig site every time the cycle starts but also purposely picking a spot in the Earth where the treasure they're seeking is not going to be found there is no group effort here we aren't using what the proteins use to slowly but really destroy them we're getting reset to zero every single time or are we saren ends up escaping our fights and we blow up the facility Lira connects our minds again and she will discover that there is a distressed call coming from a planet called ilos we are realizes this is why siren wanted to find the MU really as it's the only way to get into ilos we take this information to the council and as you would expect they don't believe us this Trope is definitely starting to get old really fast I wouldn't mind this situation if only one of the council members was adamant that were wrong but it's the entire board Shepard has a pretty good line here in which you can tell them that at some point they're going to have to take something he says on faith I do understand where the council is coming from though they not only govern the lives of the Citadel but the entire Council Galaxy trillions of people will be affected by their decisions which is exactly why they created the specters people that can do what they want when they want without the need of the council making Galactic decisions which is why it is so ironic that they end up forcing Shepard to stay at the Citadel when asked about traveling to ilo's alone with the help from the council Ambassador udina ends up grounding the ship which stops us from leaving I never understood this Mission it's a nice way to get the player to explore the Citadel and find new side missions but given the urgency of the task ahead it's a very normal reaction to want to leave as soon as possible the problem is that this should not be an easy task all we do is talk to Anderson and devise a plan which is that he's going to knock out udina and unlock our restraints allowing us to leave from the council meeting to leaving the Citadel this entire Mission lasts literally 10 minutes grounding the Normandy sounded like defeat that we are now truly stuck and can't stop sarin but the fact that it was able to be undone this quickly loses all the dramatic tension it was supposed to have I think the reason that it lost all that dramatic tension was because they were saving it for one of Joker's best lines in the entire game when the crew gets close to ilos they realize that landing near saren won't be as easy as they thought and while the whole crew is bickering at one another trying to find a solution Joker speaks up and becomes the voice of reason the group needed I find another Landing Zone there is no other Landing Zone The Descent angle's too steep it's our only option it's not an option it's a suicide run we don't I can do it Joker I can do it I can't even be mad at this because he actually did manage to pull it off Shepard lands on ilos and needs to get inside this bunker so that he can find sarin there is dozens of Geth in between us and the path ahead but after some time Shepard manages to unlock the bunker but ends up getting blocked by some barrier this isn't some Ambush though as vigil here did this so that we could meet with him vigil is a prothean VI and he'll give us more information about the protheans and the Reapers ilos was used as a secret research base and the group stationed here was spared from the extinction because the records of iOS were white when the Reapers attacked the Citadel Virgil was created to make sure the facility was running smoothly but also to make sure there was some way to wake up the remaining protheans once they went into a cryogenic slumber vigils succeeded in doing this but he had not predicted that the extinction of the protheans would last as long as it did to conserve power he had to kill off the protheans in cryosleep one by one to make sure the facility stayed on he only managed to save 12 of the top researchers before he was able to fully wake them up this was not the outcome the protheans had once did but despite this setback they managed to gain an upper hand on the Reapers and it has to do with the keepers throughout Mass Effect 1 you'll come across these bizarre creatures that just sit and do whatever it is that they're doing no one knows what they are doing or why but it's common law not to disturb them however they serve a much greater purpose the asari weren't technically the first race to make it into the council it was the keepers but because they were a little more than servants they just spent most of their life making sure the Citadel was ready for when the next species arrived as we know from our talk with Sovereign The Citadel was created by the Reapers to help them Aid life down a path of evolution and the Keepers were going to be a key component of this plan the keepers are hypothesized to be one of if not the first race the Reapers conquered and it's likely because of this that they were used as servants and not killed off like the following species after the genocide of the Galaxy took place a Reaper would stay behind to monitor the next civilization's progress in the current time Sovereign was the one to stay behind after that one Reaper deemed it was time they would then activate a signal which would compel the keepers to activate the Citadel relay which linked into dark space so the Citadel isn't just some large structure that people can live on it's a giant mass relay this dark Space by the way is where the reapers are known to live it's unknown where this dark space is or what it looks like but it's assumed to be a place with little tin of light just like in Mass Effect a lot of our knowledge of space is within the Milky Way galaxy the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way is called the Andromeda galaxy which is why the recent game is called Andromeda but it's roughly 4 billion light years away in between this is just black for the most part the Reapers likely live in that dark space outside the Milky Way galaxy the issue though is that the Reapers can't use this signal anymore those 12 prothean researchers use what they call the conduit to achieve this the conduit is a mini Mass relay and was created by the protheans when they were first experimenting with mass relay technology this is basically a back door to the Citadel the protheans use this relay to go back to the Citadel after the Reapers left so they could change the signal on the keepers this worked but the relay was only one way so they likely starved and died on on the Citadel shortly after this is why saren wants the conduit as it's going to allow him to bypass the citadel's external defenses allowing him and his Geth Army to attack from the inside he will then eventually transfer over control to Sovereign which will allow Sovereign to override all the Citadel systems manually open the relay letting all the other Reapers inside and by the time Shepard makes it to the Citadel most of this plan had already been complete sarin had blocked the arms of the Citadel so that no one could enter allowing Sovereign to override the systems in peace Shepard manages to battle his way to sarin but something is different about him saren says that he has improved and that Sovereign has implanted him seren began to grow doubtful about sovereign's plan thanks to Shepherd's words on vermeier Sovereign census and indoctrinated siren so that he no longer feels conflicted Shepard however can still get through to him with his words and disappointed in what he's become will kill himself before Sovereign can take him over Shepard then takes back control of the Citadel systems and now has to choose what to do should he tell the alliance to focus on Sovereign or save the council in all my playthroughs I've always picked to save them it makes no sense not to not only does the council dying leave all the species in the Galaxy without a leader but the destiny Ascension the ship thereon not only holds another 10 000 people but is massive and probably the deadliest ship in the Galaxy Sovereign ends up being defeated regardless of what you choose which is why this decision is such a no-brainer to me if Sovereign had the chance to survive if we saved the console then that would have been a rather interesting development but this would likely cause complications with the main story so that probably wouldn't have worked but Shepard isn't finished with his job yet sarin is still alive but now completely morphed into this synthetic machine which are likely the implants that he was talking about earlier I don't know if I'm alone in this feeling but I've always felt bad for saren he was face to face with an enemy that he knew could not be defeated and realized how insignificant life was in the Galaxy he then became brainwashed over the course of the game and is still trying to convince himself that he is real and what he is thinking is real but that is slowly being taken away from him the more time he spends with Sovereign this all Bridge is a boiling point at the very end of the game where for a brief moment he realizes that he was wrong and that his plan wasn't going to save Humanity so he decides to take his own life now though we can probably start being honest with ourselves Sharon's not the greatest person he killed people like Nyla simply because they got in his way he despises humans like most durians who fought in the first Contact Wars and according to Anderson when the two were stationed together on a mission saren killed various innocent people he embodies the ends justify the means kind of ideology it's also possible to not convince saren at the end if your Paragon or Renegade isn't high enough which means that him killing himself is not guaranteed to happen the best part about saren though is that you can completely disagree with me I find him incredibly well written because he's not an evil for the sake of being evil kind of antagonist he had a real genuine reason for doing what he did but the ways he went about doing that very thing was not how it should have been handled serum's attitude towards the player can shape their Outlook of him which can pretty much be said for all the other decisions in the game like the rachni queen and the council's Fate all these beings will change the opinion of the player but not all people who played this game will come to the same conclusion and that not only makes a great story but a great RPG after the defeat of saren for real this time Sovereign gets taken down and the council's Fate is left up to the player's decision but also left up to the player's decision is the first human counselor and it's surprisingly difficult to choose the choice is between udina and Anderson houdin has been a prick to us since the beginning and Anderson has always had our back but udina is a politician this is his realm but is that who we really want on the council personally I've always found myself choosing Anderson with the hope that even though he may not be cut off for the job he'll at least have Humanity's best interests at heart but if our own world is anything to look at you can't really get far by being nice fighting fire with fire is necessary in politics and udina is our fire but humans are already looked down upon by the rest of the Galaxy as is When udina likely confirmed the stereotypes that have been put onto Humanity already a bunch of colonizing [ __ ] pushing all their freedoms and ideas onto these other races like they own the place it's hard to say it's the beauty of a choice though you won't know what the outcome is until you do it but by now you may be wondering when the choices are actually going to start coming back up and this is a fair criticism Mass Effect has five main choices the fates of the rack night Queen Ashley and Kaden Rex the council and the next counselor the only ones we get to see are the outcomes of our companions but they don't have many major effects on the story unless you accidentally got Rex killed or liked both Ashley and Kaden if you were content with your decision then you likely didn't have them in your party anyway I said that I would pick Caden over Ashley and this is still true but I would toss both off a cliff if I had to choose between them or the other companions if you didn't like Rex Ashley or Caden and you just chose for them to die then that's not really a heavy hitting decision because even if they lived you probably wouldn't have put them in your fire team anyway the other decisions besides these two don't see the light of day we don't see the consequences of these actions until the sequels and it's here where the criticism can be split messavix is really meant to be a Trilogy a three-game experience variants played back to back or at the very least with the same save files that you can continue your story the outcomes of these decisions will have some consequences just not here in Mass Effect 1. so as a singular game Mass Effect 1 does provide different choices and potential outcomes but for the most part none of those really matter many of the quests in the game can still be completed it's just if you want to say good or bad things during dialogue both playthroughs ended up with little differences one's just missing a Krogan a queen and an entire Council and while that may be seen is a huge difference we don't see much of the ramifications of these actions but I feel like it's unfair to judge a game that was intentionally made to be a continuous multi-game experience so while we don't get to see the fruits of our labor now I am glad we get to see them eventually but how important these decisions really end up being will have to be discussed in the future when we find them still more important than the decisions is the story surrounding them Mass Effect 1 is an excellent game it may have started slow but it was necessary as it needed to set the groundwork for what's to come it was able to provide the player with a plethora of details both in-game via conversation and out of game by a codex about the world races and history that are at the core of this series it creates unique companions that all have their own thoughts and opinions that are centered around their own racist history and how that specific history has changed their perception of the Galaxy it also perfectly showcased the game's main threat in a way that forces the player to come to terms with what the hell they just saw Sovereign in the Reapers trivializes the player's own mediocre existence within the game world there's always a bigger fish as they say this fish just happened to wipe out the Galaxy when every species was at its apex for millions of years it'd be different if the Reapers just wiped out species whenever they wanted but they're waiting for them to be at their Peak to do so it's like a warrior refusing to fight his opponent because they aren't strong enough and then waiting until they are stronger and more on their level so that they can have a good fight knowing that no matter how strong that person becomes they're still going to win and the fact that the reapers are the personification of that idea is a frightening realization and it's only going to get worse from here thank you all for watching today and I hope you enjoyed if you did be sure to like And subscribe as we still have many more games and many more Mass Effect games to cover here on the channel apologies for taking a bit longer than usual to get this video out I explained a bit more of why in the recent Community post but hopefully it won't happen again as always thank you to my returning viewers for coming back to another video and with that take care everyone goodbye

Channel: Gingy

Views: 453,841

Keywords: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 1 story, Mass Effect 1 ending, Mass Effect 1 lore, mass effect story, mass effect lore, mass effect sovereign, mass effect saren, mass effect reapers, mass effect protheans, mass effect races, mass effect video essay, mass effect essay, gingy

Id: 6uUduuV9aSE

Length: 71min 53sec (4313 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 14 2022