I think we can all agree Mass Effect's writing can be grand and exciting, while other parts seem to be strangely.. odd. Although the main trilogy made us have seemingly mixed feelings about BioWare's writing, there is a lot of other strange lore within the Mass Effect universe that literally makes no sense. No seriously, some are even downright dumb if you think about it, whereas others are just plain confusing.
So here are 5 Crazy Facts within the Mass Effect Lore that are actually canon:
Asari government
One of the more obscure lore facts in Mass Effect is about the Asari government and how it runs as a democracy.
The asari governmental structure, known as the Asari Republics, is relatively broad; the asari came late to the notion of world government. For centuries, their homeworld of Thessia was dotted with loose confederacies of great republican cities. The closest Earth equivalent would be the ancient Mediterranean city-states. Since the asari culture values consensus and accommodation, there was little impetus to form larger principalities. Rather than hoard resources, the asari bartered freely. Rather than attack one another over differing philosophies, they sought to understand one another. Only in the information age did the city-states grow close; communication over the internet evolved into an "electronic democracy".
This is where their government structure seems to get strange:
Aside from their Council representative, the asari have no politicians or elections, but a free-wheeling, all-inclusive legislature that citizens can participate in at will. Policy debates take place at all hours of the day, in official chat rooms and forums moderated by specially-programmed virtual intelligences. All aspects of policy are open to plebiscite at any time.
Asari government is a true democracy, where any Asari can log onto an Extranet chatroom where they debate the issues at hand and make decisions. This means Asari policy is dictated by the will of the internet- while I know this is purely fictional it does give me Black Mirror vibes and potentially what we would never want to see happen in real life anyways.
I mean to be fair, this only seems to be within their government and luckily not within their military.
It just seems pretty silly to me to believe that the Asari species would have their democracy led by forums and chat rooms, it seems like a joke or a sly reference to how our internet works realistically with anything in politics. So while the Asari do seem to be an advanced race, perhaps Reddit & Omegle are their favorite media of choice for whom will be the next Asari Council Representative, I still cannot believe this is canon...
Futuristic History
With the Mass Effect trilogy being set in the Common Era, specifically 2183 to 2186 CE, a lot of the future has to be either made up, exaggerated or downright unrealistic by some standards within the lore of Mass Effect. Whether its within the Andromeda universe, which technically takes 600 years after the events of Mass Effect 2 & 3, we know that most of the history going forward is extremely fictional.
However, some events that are canon, are just theatrical at this point, for instance the existence of the (UNAS) United North American States. According to the codex, Sometime around 2096 CE, Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America united to form the United North American States. This new union was strongly opposed by factions of secessionists, including the extremist group Freedoms First. On the morning of November 1, 2096, the New York chapter of Freedoms First attacked Liberty Island by taking tons of explosives into the Statue of Liberty and blowing it apart. The largest piece they found was her head. Outrage at this brazen act triggered the Second American Civil War between the secessionists and UNAS forces.
Listen, I understand you have to make up a little bit of history if we are speeding about 2 centuries forward into the future, but it just seems so unrealistic to be canon. Of course, you can find Lady Liberty's head in the vault of Donovan Hock's estate- it just seems so ridiculous to be true of course. But perhaps there is a little grain of truth in everything, just maybe not this lore within the Mass Effect universe...
Another historic element within the Mass Effect lore is the MSV Hugo Gernsback plot hole. The MSV Hugo Gernsback was a privately held frigate under the command of Captain Harris Fairchild and his first officer Ronald Taylor. Who we know as Jacob Taylor's father. When doing the loyalty mission, you clearly see weapons that require thermal clips spread throughout this planet, but the question lies, where do these weapons even come from knowing that the technology wasn't found out until way later?
According to the Mass Effect 2 manual:
"After analyzing geth advances in weaponry, the Alliance retrofitted every weapon in service with a thermal clip system developed by the geth.
Thermal clips hold a store of disposable heat sinks universal to all small arms. Instead of waiting for an overheated weapon to cool down, you can simply eject the spent heat sink and the clip feeds in a new one. This allows for a greater sustained rate of fire and more numerous impacts on targets down-range"
It states that Thermal Clips were invented after the Geth attack on the Citadel during Mass Effect 1. In response, the Geth used them because they were faster and more reliable than waiting for weapons to cool or shooting slower so the heat doesn't build up. That technology later on was passed onto humanity, and both the Alliance & Cerberus started using them in ME2.
However, MSV Hugo Gernsback was marooned for 10 years. How did they have Thermal Clip technology? Were the Geth in some way involved with this- or is this really a retcon to begin with? Some fans state they would have loved it if the mission was unique and involved you sparingly using what ammo you were given at the start as well as using the powers you have wisely. But nope, they were just everywhere for no reason.
Not to mention the logic behind the technology of thermal clips also don't make sense, granted I understand the gameplay reasons behind it when they made the switch in ME2. From a logic standpoint it just seems weird that it's apparently impossible to cool a weapon without clips. But moving on, it clearly seems that thermal clips were either just implemented for gameplay purposes and added onto the lore and something significant, while neglecting a whole timeline of the Geth history within the Mass Effect trilogy...
Blondes Are Extinct
In the book Mass Effect: Revelation, written by Drew Karpyshyn, it’s confirmed that blondes are almost completely extinct in the Mass Effect universe due to its recessive trait nature. There is an entire series of books that dive deeper into the time before Commander Shepard, which is great for those that want to learn more about iconic characters such as Saren and David Anderson. This little tidbit about blondes is the reason that most of my Jane Shepards are sporting a lighter do.
"Average in both height and build, Kahlee's only really distinguishing feature was her shoulder-length blond hair -- a genetically recessive trait, natural blondes were nearly extinct." Mass Effect: Revelation p 59
"The big man's mix of Nordic and Indian ancestry was the norm on Earth now, and the inevitable genetic by-product was a more physically homogeneous population. In the twenty-second century, blond hair like hers was a rarity, and naturally blue eyes were nonexistent." Mass Effect: Ascension p.280
There's a bit in the codex about the blonde nearly going extinct about a century before (based on a not yet disproven at the time the OG ME1 came out scientific theory that blondes would disappear as more and more people became mixed race due to being a recession mutation) so they might have just implemented that within the lore.
However, since the Legendary Edition came out it just doesn't make any sense considering Subject Zero, Jack has a changing appearance. Canonically from the original Mass Effect 3 game she is clearly brunette when her hair is grown out. Okay, now it is debatable on what her hair colour actually is some people even state she might have brown hair with gray highlights, but that doesn't really make sense timeline-wise, Jack isn't that too old in Mass Effect 3.
And some fanarts during Mass Effect 2 even predicted her hair to be brunette, and in the original ME3 we see her clearly with a dark brown colour. But of course it just so happens in Legendary edition, her hair looks to be way lighter than before, some fans would go far as to say she is blonde now.
There's also the fact that the Legendary Edition Character Creator has no color option for a blonde Shepard, while some fans remembering that they could play as a
So no, the point I'm making here is it doesn't make sense, if the writers completely did this just for aesthetic changes then that's fine, but when you have literal books including limits to the Character Creator in the Mass Effect franchise explaining blonde is extinct, it looks to me that the writers are inconsistent on what to choose or retconned that whole entire canon in general...
Blonde hair and blue eyes are RECESSIVE genes. Meaning that they need 2 pairs of recessive genes to pop up into humans, while brown hair is DOMINANT meaning it will show up whether there is Dominant/Dominant or Dominant/Recessive. This is why blonde can become rare but it will never go extinct.
Andromeda Initiative
Now hear me out because this whole list is only talking about the lore implications here. And I might overbear you with some vast information and statistics because fans throughout the years are trying to make sense of this.
Many people believe the entire premise of the Andromeda Project kinda contradicts the events of the original trilogy.
It states within the lore -
The Initiative was built by the efforts of thousands who devoted years of time and countless resources to reach the Andromeda Galaxy. These are the people, places, and organizations that make the Pathfinder's mission possible... Internal reports show the struggles that the early Initiative faced. However, Jien Garson's personal stake and enthusiasm sustained the Initiative until the early 2180s when, after a sudden influx of investment and a new marketing strategy, interest in the Initiative grew afresh. Construction of the arks was completed rapidly thereafter, and the Andromeda Initiative officially launched in 2185.
However, if all Memory Blocks Are Removed from SAM, the AI helps out Ryder for the entirety of the game.
Removal of the memory block sheds light on the renewed urgency behind the Initiative's launch. An unknown benefactor working with Jien Garson, and Alec Ryder himself, believed claims concerning "the Reapers," reportedly a galaxy-wide menace that returns at 50,000-year intervals to threaten all life in the Milky Way. The Andromeda Initiative's priorities secretly changed from a purely scientific and colonization effort, to a last-resort measure to preserve sentient life.
This is where it kind of stops within the lore- while we may suspect and even theorize that the 'benefactor' for Jien Garsons Initiative to the Andromeda Galaxy could be linked to Cerberus or even the Illusive Man himself, it's quite strange for them to create technology for this plan while most of sentient life has always cycled to depend on Reaper technology because that is how the Reapers stay in control for their harvests.
Or let's put it another way- all other tech is only based on Reaper tech since we are basing this purely on reverse engineering on the Mass Relays, which were again, made by the Reapers. And all sapient race made their own tech-based in their individual interpretation of
That still is an engineering masterpiece, and so it is completely possible that good engineers could simply advance existing, self-developed technology.
If a Milky Way species can colonize another galaxy with the technology provided by the Reapers then that negates their entire cycle's purpose to control and contain a species' development. Either Andromeda should be completely filled with the same Milky Way species and vice versa, or perhaps the Reapers should be in Andromeda and every other galaxy - as the lore states they hide in Deep Space. When you arrive in Andromeda however it's basically barren outside of two alien species. Fans believe the ability to casually galaxy hop retroactively ruins the Reapers and how sapient species always depended on their technology.
There's also a lot of confusion within the fandom regarding how the Arks, which were constructed by the Andromeda Initiative which carry 100,000 volunteer colonists from among the races of the Milky Way to the Andromeda galaxy. The Arks take a long journey through Dark Space and take several human lifetimes to complete even with faster-than-light technology. Fans understand that it doesn't make sense in general since we know that Reapers were the ones hiding in Dark Space waiting to harvest for this current cycle.
So let's bring up some numbers:
The Leviathan of Dis is, as we all know, a Reaper that is dated back to being nearly 1 billion years old, so, with emphasis on the word "nearly", using the number 900,000,000 to determine at the very least how long the Reapers have been around.
Assuming at least one Reaper is created every cycle, dividing that 900,000,000 into 50,000, with the results being just around 18,000 Reapers who live in Dark Space.
For reference, The Milky Way is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km (about 100,000 light years or about 30 kpc kiloparsec )
However, Dark Space is that x infinity but in 3 dimensions. So it's highly unlikely that the Arks were found by the Reapers, although, the Arks are known to be sent out around 2185, which was when the Reapers were preparing for this cycle's harvest.
And there's even a possibility that due to the timeline of those who get sent to the Initiative in cryostasis for 600 years, even if it just takes one of these sapient species to be indoctrinated, can't that just implicate the potential ruin of another galaxy? But that possibility might be undebatable due to the Reapers potentially being destroyed with the ending of Mass Effect 3.
It's quite confusing and baffling for some fans, to say the least, but perhaps with what we see in that Mass Effect teaser trailer back in 2020, anything regarding the Andromeda galaxy joining the Milky Way's forces could still be relevant to this day. And perhaps it should be delved into more because so far the Andromeda Initiative is making lore/plot within the original trilogy become confusing regarding the Reapers' control over organic life.
The crucible
It is unknown who initially began the development of the Crucible. Countless different species obtained and made contributions to the design over the course of millions of years, but none successfully deployed it before being wiped out by the Reapers. The Reapers were led to believe all traces of the design were eradicated but throughout the countless cycles, the Crucible design was continuously preserved.
The Crucible is an ancient and highly complex device constructed by the Protheans as a superweapon to stop the Reapers, but never successfully implemented before their extinction. Its designs were stored in a Prothean archive on Mars and were later rediscovered by a Systems Alliance archaeological team.
When playing Mass Effect 3, Humans and their allies theorize that the Crucible must have been built by previous civilizations, so they use the Crucible hoping it will benefit them. This slightly mirrors the Citadel and mass relays, items that were left intentionally by the Reapers but which sentients believed were built by the Protheans. Humanity advances because of Reaper technology of the Mass Relays found on Mars way back in 2148, yet believes the Crucible to be different.
I'm fine with the Crucible as a plot device. They already established that the Reapers couldn't be beaten by conventional means, so they had to come up with something. It could have been handled much, much better, but that's not the point here.
The point is: If the Crucible was built by hundreds if not thousands of cycles following each other - disregarding the fact that the plans didn't get lost or destroyed at some point along the way - how can it be that the Citadel is the Catalyst?
Let's stop and think for a moment. The Citadel is that giant Mass Relay, leading to Dark Space, where the Reapers are. It's where the Reapers hit first, except for this cycle, which, as we all know, is pretty much anomalous. For the sake of the argument, let's say one previous cycle had a deep enough knowledge of the Citadel. Why didn't they realize that it was a giant Mass Relay leading to Darkspace? And why didn't they find the Reaper AI (the Catalyst)?
There's also a weird contradiction that gaining War Assets actually Affect The Crucible negatively too:
Mass Effect 3 tries to produce an equally dynamic ending, but only partially succeeds. You spend the entire game gathering allies to increase your Effective Military Strength (EMS). While your EMS mechanically changes the ending, the effect makes no narrative sense. Shepard determines the fate of the galaxy using the Crucible and their army has nothing to do with the Crucible, yet your EMS alters the Crucible’s effects. If you have a low EMS, the Crucible somehow destroys Earth and the Normandy. With a high EMS, Earth, your squad, and even Shepard survive - even though the Crucible should have invariable effects.
Plus, How did we build it when the galaxy is under attack?
The Crucible is massive. It would require massive amounts of materials that need transporting on many, many ships. Quite early in the game quite a significant amount of the galaxy is under Reaper control. Cerberus is also indoctrinated and absolutely everywhere. And the game is trying to tell me that the Reapers were oblivious to the fact we were building this thing? Where they blind? Incompetent? If we take the fact that every cycle has built a version of this then the Reapers must be aware of the pattern by now - that's what they deal with after all. How can the Crucible be completed under these circumstances? Its nigh on impossible, at the very least its a stretch of the imagination.
There's only one answer some fans believe, and its an incomplete answer because it never comes to fruition. The Crucible has to be of Reaper design. There is no other way to explain why it fits perfectly onto the Citadel and engages so well with the Master control programme. Whoever built the Citadel, also built the Crucible and many players just can't fathom why no one in game thought to question what the heck they were doing building this thing, let alone use it. Some fans imagined the whole time that the Crucible is a Reaper trap, but it never happened. So now, many fans are left with questions, which is on this list as being a tool that never made sense within the Mass Effect franchise.
But with that, we are going to wrap up, 5 Canon Facts in the Mass Effect franchise that Never Made Sense... What do you make of these either retcons or crazy facts? What would you like to see BioWare do in the future Mass Effect? I wanna see some discussions in that comment section down below.
Thank you for watching, and I will see you in the next video/blog!
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