Universe of Mass Effect
The Mass Effect media franchise, developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, is set in the distant future where various extraterrestrial species coexist with humanity.
The first three main series games is set in the Milky Way galaxy and follows Commander Shepard, a human special forces soldier who discovers an imminent threat to the galactic community from the Reapers, an ancient collective of sentient synthetic starships which harvest all spaceflight-era organic civilizations as part of a repeating cycle that span millennia in length.
The Mass Effect brand has since expanded into a franchise which encompasses a series of novels, comic books, mobile games, an animated film, and a 3D theme park ride, all of which are centered on other characters as protagonists.
[3] Mass Effect was also influenced by diverse and eclectic visual references, from the work of Spanish neo-futurist architect Santiago Calatrava to electron microscope imagery of insects.
[4][5] Artwork by American illustrator Syd Mead in particular represents a significant visual influence for the architecture and living conditions of intergalactic society for the Mass Effect setting, such as the Citadel space station.
According to game director Mac Walters, the sheer volume of information generated is difficult to follow even for the developmental team, but the "little bits of mystery" also serves to make the world "seem so much deeper and richer", with the potential for some of it to be utilized for possible future stories.
[8] The standard look for all attire for members of the Cerberus organization is derived from the designs for the armor and clothing of Jacob Taylor, a companion character in Mass Effect 2.
[11][4] The team hoped to create a setting with the same sense of history as Star Control II, giving each alien race a compelling motivation that enriches the galaxy.
[13] Most aliens had to fit into a humanoid skeleton for animation purposes; for example, the batarian's appearance is originally based on a previous design intended for something else, and had "flaps" on the side of their heads; however, in order to wear equipment they had to be changed to a human shape.
[11] BioWare realized they would be unable to make both male and female versions of all the races due to budgetary concerns, which in part led to the development of the asari as a mono-gendered species.
[16] The salarians are intentionally designed to be an androgynous in terms of appearance,[17] while female character models for the krogan and turians were only introduced by Mass Effect 3.
[16][20] This idea was later discarded, with the focus of the narrative turned to the tension between synthetic and organic life and the batarians were replaced with the geth as antagonists to strengthen the human versus machine conflict.
[22] A proposed alien race's predicted potential for cosplay by the series' fandom based on their character designs was also taken into consideration whenever the final decision is to be made for inclusion.
The efficiency of this relay network is such that is often faster and cheaper to transport goods and people to the other side of the galaxy, than traveling to adjacent neighboring star systems.
Over the course of the trilogy, the galactic community come to learn that the Protheans were mostly wiped out over 50,000 years prior by the Reapers, sentient starships that normally occupy the void between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.
Shepard sets out to assemble a team of skilled individuals from across the galaxy for a suicide mission into the Omega Four mass relay to stop the Collectors from harvesting more human colonies on behalf of the Reapers.
Immediately after the defeat of the Collectors and the destruction of the incomplete Proto-Reaper they were constructing,[29] the Reapers are shown traveling to the Milky Way galaxy from dark space at the ending of Mass Effect 2.
The Initiative's main objective is to establish a permanent presence in the Heleus Cluster, a seemingly resource-rich frontier of Andromeda, and eventually create a reliable route between both galaxies.
[1] As the newest member state to join the Citadel space community by the events of the original trilogy, humanity tend to be underestimated, held in suspicion or looked down upon.
Humanity's opinions regarding aliens varies across broad political spectrum from isolationism to globalism: on Earth, there is concern about how humanity is unfairly treated by these other species, and nationalistic pro-human groups advocating militarism, xenophobia, and a "humanity-first" supremacist agenda begin to appear; on fringe colonies, locals are ambivalent, being preoccupied with daily frontier survival in often hostile environments or security against piracy raids; and "spacers", who may have spent their entire lives residing alongside aliens within starship installations, and generally adopt favorable opinions about multiculturalism.
The discovery of the Charon Relay triggered a "gold rush", and fierce rivalry persists amongst Earth's nations, as they compete for untapped resources and unclaimed colonial land rights.
A stateless clandestine organization—consisting of rogue black-ops cell networks, shell corporations, and paramilitaries—Cerberus advocates extremist anthropocentric militarism and a "humanity-first" supremacist agenda, appears as recurring antagonists in the series.
GamesRadar praised the setting's Milky Way galaxy as "so well-constructed that it felt like a decades-old franchise" and its presentation "a high-water mark for video games as a story-telling medium.
"[40] Similarly, Evan Narcisse enjoyed the "family secrets, tribal grudge matches, and interplanetary political turnabout" depicted throughout the original trilogy, describing them as memorable moments where it felt like players could change lives in both minor or major ways.
[42] Munkittrick emphasized the significance of Mass Effect as the "first blockbuster franchise in the postmodern era to directly confront a godless, meaningless universe indifferent to humanity".
[42] Referencing Munkittrick's observations, Erik Henriksen from the Portland Mercury said what the developers accomplished with their setting is "pretty extraordinary" in spite of its inherent flaws, with the first two games ambitiously and smartly pairing "brave, big-idea genre fiction with visceral thrills and strong characters".
[44] Peter Suderman from Vox noted that while part of the video game series' appeal for players is its fully realized science fiction universe filled with "complex political machinations and a web of long-simmering alien rivalries", the series' commitment to small talk or banter with all sorts of non-player characters through the in-game conversation system is also instrumental in getting players emotionally invested.
[6] From an academic perspective, Joshua and Ita Irizarry described the Mass Effect universe to be a "landmark entry in the relatively brief history of video games as well as a lucrative topic for speculation, discussion, and analysis".
Justin Carter from Syfy Wire noted that while the original trilogy featured humanity's ascension to galactic prominence as its main narrative, the setting's various alien species were the one aspect that "stole the show".
In his analysis of the series' characters from the perspective of disability studies, Adan Jerreat-Poole observed that biotics represent the series' version of "science-as-magic", a reminder of the inhuman nature of a biotic individual's physiology as the embodiment of "a merging of organic and inorganic materials", which invokes the exhibitions of biological rarities in world history and the spectacle of “extraordinary bodies" as termed by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, an expert in disability studies.
