The strange part is: the "return" sounds more to me like a Reaper (albeit flying upside down) than it does the return of the protheans: the glowing red orb revealed when the craft opens itself? The red finger after which everything goes black? The deafening roar when the craft was quiet the first time? I always thought that the first one was the Protheans, but that the return was a Reaper for some reason...
this would make sense, but in me3 the reapers avoid the Yahg homeworld because the aren't advanced enough. I'd say (given the events of a certain DLC) the humans at that point and Yahg would have been about equal
im inclined to disagree. the orb itself references the text a little. the ship is described to be silver and have tendrils right? given that the orb is silver and the prothean statues on ilos look squid like in design, its highly possible they intended the ship design to look as odd as it sounds. to me it doesnt read like a reaper. especially with the mention of a central eye under it. and that the caveman was not only obducted but put back by the light. also that many, if not, all of the prothean structures had some sort of light emminating from them. it reads to me more like a ship design they never got to make because the story and studio took a different direction.
@@lxginventorymanagement1859The Yahg refuse peace. Even though Salarians tried to make Contact and bring them up and advance to other species they refuse. This would mean the reapers would have no need to interfere with them as they are considered primitive and no species are meddling with them. Krogan were advanced to the point they nuked themselves. The yahg are just before that stage
Definitely felt like an idea that was scrapped. Should’ve been a cutscene or something. I had liara with me at the time and there wasn’t even unique dialogue. When I tried talking to her or Garrus it was just the base “Ready Commander”. Super disappointing since it was so intriguing.
This is a very common note I have seen, and I completely agree. Wasted potential. I still enjoy this moment, but it does almost feel like a scrapped idea. But then again, I remind people that Mass Effect had a lot of these quest resolutions through text so it's not just this. But yeah, you're right, I would have liked it to be something more as well.
@@SReaper this also brings up something I wished for on the legendary edition when I first heard it was announced. I was hoping all the text resolutions from ME1 would get proper animated cutscenes and possibly some unique dialogue to tie everything more together. I also immediately went to my teammates to see if they would say anything about what just happened. Liara was definitely present and it would make sense she'd have something to say about all that. Especially since she can actually touch shepherd and replay the memory in detail at any time.
Or maybe they realized that if they develop it more deep, it would be clearer that it's a simplified copy of the Inner Light episode from Star Trek the Next Generation.
@@dacsus eh, wouldn't be the first in ME1. The game had just about every situation characters from various old sci fi shows encountered. Including a ton of TNG references. That was actually kinda the best part of ME1 imo. Especially for people like me who play every side quest possible every time.
As they didn’t “know’’ where they were going across all three games, I imagine this was a hook to do something with later that never really panned out into anything. I often wish there had been one mission or adventure in ME2 or 3 that you could only access by having done something like this in ME1.
no they had a trilliogy planned from the start, Bioware even said this. The first game had to hit 1 million sold before they got the green light for me2. They had several ways it was suppose to go but the main story was to complicated for the average player ( so they thought) and is why me was a rushed blob mess. Reapers where the good guys at first then it was only organics can use ezzo which is the element needed to create things and the reapers harvested people to have the power etcetc
another plot line was the using ezzo kills the stars and will cause a reverse big bang (Tali mission in ME2 was following this story line and why you can't be in the sun) ( like how the warp drives corrupt space in star trek and the relays where built to prevent individual star ships from using ezzo drives and the reapers harvested when the galaxy figured out FTL)
@@danbood9457 mass effect 3 was messy because the higher ups forced the game developers to build the biggest mass effect game yet in the smallest time window. They saw the money opportunity and rushed everything to get it out. Had they given the writers and developers more time it’s very possible they would’ve made a better ending
It is possible that prothian set up anti Indocrination wave length into beacon. Knowing how prothians faced their extinction and prepared themselves for next cycle. It is possible they even prepared against indoctrination and prepared against them.
@@Slayer398 Yeah it's what we were led to believe over the course the series. But what you have to keep in mind is that Leviathans are retconned into the lore during Mass Effect 3. Cool concept, but there was no foreshadowing to the Leviathan through the previous 2 games. However, the devs did choose the same sphere like shape that this artifact has for their galaxy viewing, mind controlling orbs. So while the sphere may originally have been a prothean artifact in ME1, in ME3 it could have a different meaning. Ultimately I guess we'll never know. But the resemblance is there and no one else in the comments seemed to point it out. So I thought it would be worth noting. 😊
Probably a reaper. Maybe even sovereign. Cromagnon were around 40,000 years ago. The reapers come every 50,000. The protheans were most likely killed by then
@@MrSmart199 Key word there being "Around" though...In terms of history like that it can be a very wild date range, we only know the general and potential extinction of Cro-Magnons at 35-40,000 years ago but they could have been around for longer as it's possible they could have been around about 48,000 years ago or slightly before that but again, we don't know the exact time that the Cro-Magnons appeared either.
That’s a pretty interesting detail in itself. That would mean that the protheans likely didn’t abduct primitives so abruptly but rather the reapers didn’t want prothean technology being discovered in an ancient skull giving away the invasion somehow, so the reapers took out the chip themselves. Though the story also describes the ship as the same silver flying thing. I think reapers look more black than silver.
Or maybe one of the ways the Reapers determine a being is advanced enough to be destroyed is if they have technologically advanced body modifications and mistook the cromagnon and thought it was a Prothean
Mass effect is the first game I bought with my 360 in 2008. I was so curious about this artifact. But also happy they kept it mysterious at the same time.
This rekindles my feeling of how shitty it was to have javik and leviathan as DLC and not part of the main game. So important closure to the whole story.
100% I had Javik from the jump when I first got Mass Effect 3, and it was always nuts to me how well integrated into the story he was yet he was DLC. And Leviathan I don't think saves the ending to 3, but at least it gave more context for it and I always thought if it was in the main game it woulda been received better.
I just recently played the dlcs I beat the whole trilogy and had no idea what I had missed out on. Made legendary really awesome tho, and the romance with Laira was good asf best playthrough I ever had and did it all with Biotic charge another element i had no idea about .these games man
It’s not shitty it’s part of the main game now, the last game was 10 years ago now, what decisions they made was their decision, and it was mostly in keeping people interested. Was it a necessary part of the story? Not necessarily. It just deepens the lore. So I think we get over the saltiness of the last game and what they decided to do with the DLC.
I had that thought too for a bit tbh. I only thought to was Protheans because towards the end of the text prompt it says something like "how long were the Protheans studying us" or whatever it says. Unfortunately a small unimportant mystery we'll likely never know the answer to lol
@@SReaper I assumed that part about the Protheans was because they didn’t know much about the reapers at that point so Shepard just assumes it’s Prothean but I see your point
You could be right! I intiially thought that tbh. I was gonna include it in the video but I convinced myself it was Protheans. And like I said, unfortunately we probably won't learn the answer to this. But I like your interpretation also!
As Raycevick said "All I can imagine is how incredible this could've been, had it not been told through text". This game, at original release had pretty big resource and time issues so this had to suffice. However, when I've heard that they are making a remake, I had high hopes rearding this mission, at least a video clip, or images. Didn't happen, but still happy with the product.
I think it wasnt remake into movie mostly because it is actually very rare. First you gotta do the CItadel missions in correct order. Second, you gotta be a thorough completionist to search all question marks because this thing aint close to any quest. Which I guess wasnt really their plan.
expecting any gameplay and story improvements on a remaster is futile people only ever care about graphics and some QoL changes but no one ever gives a shit about adding actual content.. such is the corpo world
I played the original one so long ago that I have no memory or recollection of this, thank you. It sounds to me like the trinket is basically a memory shard like the one Javik has. It could very well be an original plan for a DLC or something to continue in ME2. To me there was a massive shift in writing and perspective from ME1 to ME2, whether it was Biowares own doing or the Reapers at EA I can't say but you can tell the shift in focus, gameplay elements, story elements, all is incredibly different in ME2
They called it dumbing down, so it could be more action oriented. This was around the time everyone and their moms were play CoD. DA:2 took a similar turn just no where as good as ME:2.
True. ME1 had this sort of feeling where things seemed more mysterious and dreadful. The atmosphere of ME1 was a lot heavier than the atmosphere of ME2 and ME3. You had the feeling that there were things much bigger than you, things that were hard to understand. The biggest example of that was Sovereign, he felt otherworldly and was terrifying, he just said that all life in the galaxy will be destroyed and harvested and what made his speech so powerful was that he didn’t seem to come from a place of arrogance, for him he was saying facts and most importantly, he NEVER justified why the Reapers were doing that. Then ME2 and ME3 happened and the new main enemy, Harbinger, felt less otherworldly and therefore less threatening. The Reapers in ME3 made the grave mistake of justifying themselves, pretending that it was really for their own good, which felt like a bullshit reason honestly.
@@basedkaiser5352 Yeah, ME1 has an incredible atmosphere of mystery and great unknown depth just like we perceive outer space. ME2 and 3 ruined this by explaining too much and leaving too few plot elements as a mystery.
I did a 100% run with my dad back on the 360 we had all the achievements for all 3 ME games. This is an amazing find, it's cool that the consort gives us something with such cool implications to the lore
@kagomesind Except there are dozens of examples of asari being attracted to males of various species, so this is just your personal headcanon. Liara even mentions that although asari resemble human women, gender has no meaning for them and they personally don't consider themselves male or female. Some asari don't use female pronouns either, it is all simply arbitrary preference.
You're bringing back great memories of this game!! Back when I got this on the 360 back in probably 09 or so I made sure to do EVERYTHING. I had never played a game like this before. It had the richest universe of any game I had played. I love the sequels but there will always be a very special place in my heart for this game. One of the few I felt compelled to 100%
Anybody else get TNG vibes, like when Picard lives the life of a being of an extinct race? Literally one of the best episodes Star Trek has ever delivered? No? K.
There's actually a ton of stuff like that on the planets that aren't on the map. The ties between every game in the series are everywhere and most of them aren't even marked with a journal entry. Everything from characters that keep popping up to hints about reapers and such. There's even terrifying bits of lore in some of the planet descriptions.
I love the planet description that mentions a glancing blow from a mass accelerator of astronomical proportions and the planet texture has this massive scar across it's face
@@dancooper-z Klendagon. It’s caused by reapers (granted, it was just one and an unknown race made the weapon that produced the massive scar) around 37 million years ago apparently according to the planet bio
Hey folks! Thanks so much for watching my video about this small little piece of lore. You can now watch Part 2! Linked below! I also did a video talking about Mass Effect 2s Ending. You can find it linked below as well! Thanks! Part 2: ruclips.net/video/DKFMHpBrxdc/видео.html Mass Effect 2's Ending: ruclips.net/video/sQ-dOhw5-54/видео.html
Question for ya or I guess food for thought: the creature with a red eye extending returning after a while after not being seen for a while could be a reference to after the protheans were annihilated a reaper found the humans and saw they were too unevolved to “cycle”. I only say this because it is said (ME2) that the reapers are made to look like the creatures it harvests. So it would’ve been another bird in the sky, but this time with a deafening screech (hence a reaper).
actually they [Bioware] planned the same quest in ME2 OG (Warhammer DLC) but this time the end quest ends with you having visions of the Protheans becoming Collectors (Using ME1 visons) but you need the consort artifact too.
This is one of my favourite moments in the whole series. Having it as a text box that you read silently rather than a cutscene somehow made it more impactful for me.
@@ZrodyApo was it? Idk I'm literally on the 3rd game playing through the legendary edition right now as alot of you are I'm sure and thought the Prothean orb was on the first Normandy as well. Oh well. You can find an orb in every game but you loose the interactive prothean device in Mass Effect 3, along with whatever else you collected in 2. Man you know, 2 is not my personal favorite Mass Effect But pretty much everything about the Normandy is better in Mass Effect 2 in my opinion.
"A single great eye opens on the underbelly, a glowing red orb you try to run, but a finger extends from the eye and engulfs you, and all goes black again" also the "Silver creature in thr sky"....yea that is most definetely undebatibly a Reaper being described
But reapers are black. Also why would a reaper come to Earth at that time? The tribe’s man described was still a hunter/gather, well before even hot air balloon existed. The reaper couldn’t have hack the data cache on mars because it would’ve destroyed it afterwards.
No I did all this in my very first playthrough years ago when the game first came out. I remembered it like 3 years ago. I've that it was about the proteins observing humanity and experimenting you know them. But I also thought it was about the fall of the proteins as well. I started thinking that in Mass effect 2. Cuz the red eye and the beam of light coming down and disintegrating that human in the blooming sound coming from the ship is a reaper. I believe that reaper came down to kill that human because they knew that the protheans were observing not just our race but all races in the galaxy. I think at that time period that that reaper came down to kill that human was the fall of the prothians race somewhere along their war with the reapers. I wouldn't be surprised if the prothians put probes in all the races to keep track of them and to study them. But when the reaper is decided to take out the protheins they indoctorated the ones that are doing these experiments on the races. Found out the area of these locator chips that they attach to the perimeter species and killed them. The reapers don't want anything altering the lower races too soon. What the proteins did cross the line. So the reapers had to take action and take out any lesser being that had a probe attached to their skull throughout the Galaxy to ensure that those primitive races evolved without interference from the protheans too early.
Yeah this sounds like the most reasonable explanation. Makes sense the reapers would destroy anything that protheans tampered with lesser species included
I was an obsessed completionist when I first played ME1 because I had heard it affects ME2. Was there any pay off for this behavior other than a few extra credits at the beginning of ME2? No, none at all. My only reward was this RUclips comment years later.
I never miss this piece of lore. Even if it was never fleshed out, I find it adds to a world with such great world building. I, like many others, have read all the codex journal entries as well.
I remember me and my friends used to make up so many theories based on this text prompt. Damn I miss old school easter eggs like these. Didn't know that the asari consort had anything to do with it though. Thanks for the video
Based on my experience, if you found this prothian data recording device in mass effect one and that was carried all the way over to mass effect 3 then Sheppard will mention to Javik that he found one of his peoples recording devices and will ask if his people were studying early humans, it’s an interesting conversation between the two.
There was a similar something in ME2 as well, at the end of Hammerhead sidequests. Also there were several instances where they showed this sphere inside a hand-like structure, worshipped by Geth as an altar or a totem of sorts. There was one in feros, and three seperate ones inside various mines throughout the game.
And this (among many other details) is why ME1 is the best of the trilogy (at least for me :D), the world building and the space exploration is really well done
I’m sorry but the space exploration is absolutely terrible. Driving the mako across miles of empty worlds and clearing out the same 3 prefabs is absolutely miserable. Not to mention how tedious exploring the citadel and making sure you don’t miss anything can be. The only good thing about ME1 are the main missions
@@mr.rufasi2729 it's certainly not perfet but for me it's engaging and I like exploring the uncharted planets and doing the side missions here and there It's certainly better than what they done in Andromeda imo
@@mr.rufasi2729 I actually loved those things, lol. Driving across miles of empty worlds made it feel like more of an adventure, and I always look forward to exploring every knook and cranny of the citadel. Though, I also always scan every keeper and always finish that 'hunt down deposits of minerals' every play through, so maybe I'm just really autistic.
The roaring sound and red finger weren't the Protheans wiping the man out, but the Reapers. Remember how the Reapers obliterate any piece of technology during their harvest? That man had a piece of Prothean technology inside of him, so he had to be destroyed. It isn't overtly said, but the "silver bird" behaves very differently in the first scene than in the last one. As such, I am fairly convinced the first "silver bird" was a Prothean ship, the second one a Reaper.
pro tip: for anyone wondering how to actually get the trinket and for it to work you have to do the favor for sigmus and then uh get shi'ira to sleep with you and when she says "here take this trinket" then you have it but unless she says that it will glitch out and say you have received it when you didnt.
I saw this for the first time in my LE playthrough a few weeks ago, I had never seen this in all my times playing the og game. This definitely gave me big 2001: Space Odyssey vibes and I’m wondering if that’s what they were going for
I already knew about the Orb. I find it in every playthrough. Now, smashing the Consort? I have only recently learned that it was possible, and have *NO IDEA* how to trigger it. At all. Am I picking the wrong dialing options? Is she just not interested in FemShep? I don't know!
I didn’t have the trinket but i really wanted to get it but i was way past the consort quest line to replay an old save so i was messing around with a save editor but i couldn’t find the trinket in my inventory (first time editing Mass Effect save) but thanks to your video 7:54 i was able to find the appropriate tab in the save editor, you get a sub :D
I normally complete the quest for the consort but I decided to finish ME1 in the LE play through without finishing the side quest. I think the flag is indicating the galactic news in ME2 that the Consort is going to leave the citadel because the issue in the side quest never got resolved.
This is gonna be a long comment but this will be worth the read, I promise. Like others have stated, I don't think it was Protheans that examined the human but in fact a reaper. "A shiny wingless bird" "A deafening roar" "a finger of red light." The signs all tell me this is a Reaper. However, I have a theory for this quest and why it wasn't mentioned again. When Mass Effect 3 was first in the works (which was written by Drew Karpyshyn the writer of ME1 and ME2), it had a plot idea where dark energy (As mentioned in Tali's recruitment mission in ME2) was the reason Reapers would wipe out the spacefaring races in the galaxy. The whole purpose of the dark energy plot is using the Mass Relays would slowly kill the universe, affecting stars and possibly ending life as we know it, and apparently, this would have 2 major endings which were to either stop the reapers or work out a solution with them which apparently the human race was the key to solving their issue as they were genetically diverse or some shit which explains why the collectors created a Human reaper in ME2. So this is where this mission comes in, I have 2 guesses for this mission. First guess is that the indoctrinated Protheans implanted this chip for the Reapers to study the human race to solve said problem and once they had what they needed, they killed the hunter and began looking into a solution, and tying up loose ends. 2nd possibility is that the Hunter was being surveyed by the Protheans and the Reaper knew of this but wasn't sure who was implanted. But knowing how powerful Prothean data/information is as told in ME3 with the Asari beacon in Thesia, the reaper couldn't let him live thus killing him to delay the humans from discovering space travel and etc. Obviously, this plotline was eventually scrapped in ME3 and we got the plot that we know of today due to Mac Walters replacing Drew Karpyshyn as lead writer which is why we never got this original ending, but it wouldn't surprise me if Drew had aimed for that specific ending which is why we got this mission and the Tali dialogue as foreshadowing. But this is most likely why we never heard reference from this mission again or from Tali's dark energy problem in ME2. This is a shame because I preferred this plotline of the reapers actually having a reason for the cycle and explanations for it, instead of being space terminators.
If I remember correct, It has in fact an influence to ME3. In the Citadel-DLC when you go into the casino to search for the mysterious figure you can find Shiala is one of the guests there. If you talk to her she will mention her "gift of words" and - I believe - the trinket aswell.
I found this on my first play through way back when. It smacks of cut content. There’s also the one planet getting excavated by a crazy volus ranting about beings of light at the dawn of time who fought devil machines.
I always liked this. I usually grab everything I can when I first play a game, so I found it a while back, but it's a fantastic piece of mystery. Back in ME1, when we know nothing about the protheans, it's just that much more interesting. It paints the universe up with more intrigue. I wouldn't've said it was meant to accomplish anything other than that, though, if I hadn't just heard it was a flagged event. That almost certainly tells me it's a plotline they never finished. It would have been great, though. That's one thing ME1 mostly does better than the other two.
If you found this then Javik will have an extra piece of dialogue when you're first talking to him on the Normandy. It's not much, but can be missed pretty easily if you don't find the sphere in ME1.
I think its a casualty of the fact they didn't write the main story arc for the whole trilogy before beginning. The couldn't think of what to do with it, or forgot about it. I mean similar things can happen in reverse, like Vader being Lukes father simply wasn't the case in a New Hope. Vader and Anakin were literally, not figuratively separate people. I love when people analyze the scene with Obi Wan and look where he is talking about Anakin and Vader. "Ohh you can see in his acting and behavior hes withholding the truth!" Any appearance that is the case is simply kismet because during filming of ANH, Anakin and Vader were not the same person.
This is something I love about ME1... no hand holding and not everyone is going to see this really cool scene. I think like 2-5% of players would ever have found this on their own. I appreciate your linking this to the other games in the series, specifically Javik. I remember being disappointed by ME2’s changes to the original. But I find each game different enough to make me enjoy each game uniquely. The LE is such a pleasant redo, and maybe my favorite for any game of all time.
this too, also complexed me. until later years when i discovered the vast changes bioware had made to the design and story of the protheans after bioware was under microsoft's umbrella. many of the original prothean designs were changed. stories and scripts were slowlt being adapted in the remaster of the older games and subtle differences were made to the legendary collection to fit javik's aesthetics, lore and etc into the universe more uniformly. they made a specific offshoot 'prothean' beacon side mission in mass effect 2 that simply took a well put together vision used in mass effect 1 and extended 1 shot, placing a sound effect and a poorly photoshopped collector over what was originally a prothean weaping in pain. this always bothered me.when the from ashes DLC finally revealed javik. it became apparent that they based the collectors on a twisted version of the ilos statues. and they based javik off the collectors, not the ilos statues. and they even gave him a short dismissive line on the matter, concreting the fact that the protheans were a mix of races into the lore, further contradicting avena's original mass effect line that stated that the protheans were a single race that spanned the entire galaxy. so how is this all revelant? well there are lots of pieces in mass effect design work ans final game that were quickly dismissed or written over, or simply ignored in later games because they dont follow the path that the studio has taken as of late. the original design of the prothean vessals are mentioned here. a large silver tendril like structure with a central eye. this aethetic coinsides with the ilos statues. it also matches the silver body of the original beacon design. it makes sense that they would leave this orb and its content out of later games given that its art style. the information left inside and anything related to it doesnt like up with the direction they took. which sucks for me lol i liked the original looks.
I remember back in high school when I first started playing Effect and I found this. I had no idea what to think about it but I did enjoy the little bit of lore
After finishing the series the second time I always thought the Eletania artifact was one of those Leviathen devices! Not Prothean, but I guess it could go either way
I remember wandering upon this during my first run! I made sure to absolutely pour over every map after this, and found some really cool shit in some of the other maps by just looking a bit deeper than the mission needed me to. Great to see others remember this wonderful easter egg too!
So, when I was little, I actually got got this bit of lore. I was so young, I couldn't remember anything about it it, so it's good to be able to replay everything on the legendary edition.
I remember seeing this in the first game and thinking this is some kind of collectable, but I never found another protean ruin like this one. This secret device that triggered a text message was very similar to the dreams in Baldur's Gate 1.
I remember my first playthough all all those years ago when the game was first released. I found this orb by mistake. Since then, i have never been able to find it. Now i know where it is. So thank you.
Huh, I never knew the Asari Consort and Shepard 'smashed', because I play a FemShep mostly (unless that's an option with her as well, and I somehow missed that)
In the Legendary Edition they could have added some extra dialog to liara and to javik together with the flags for this quest. It would have been justified.
Bioware probably didn't have enough time or money to get to it, and that's why it got this abbreviated text-only resolution to the quest, which began with a fullly voiced cutscene.
It's about both the Protheans and the Reapers. It confirms the Protheans were studying primitive species and it alludes to the end of the prothean's cycle. Javik mentions they stopped actively researching upon the reapers invasion in hopes that the reapers would find the current cycle's races to be too primitive to harvest. This doesn't mean the reapers wouldn't touch down on our planets, maybe blast the monkies what had Prothean tech I 'em. Dunno how the memories survived but I guess that could be the prothean's evolved (not magical totally science) level of communication and the artifact acts as a sort of info terminal? As for the trinket perhaps that indicates the Asari Consort being FAR more aware of Prothean tech than what is let on. Perhaps she's in deep with the asari government, as she's based in the presideum, whom we now know safeguard prothean tech. Not to mention her whole dtf fortune teller vibe. *That bitch knows somethin'*
Some things I would like to share with you bro I gained all loyalty with my squadmates, I saved the Captain of the Salarins, Saved the Arachnid Queen and Caused Saren to give in (without a shot fired) and thus he committed suicide. Defeated the improved version of Saren saved the Destiny Assention
...this is like Fen'Harel being mentioned in the Dalish Origins in DAO, or when Merrill tells you about Fen'Harel and its pretty much the Solavellen romance (cries in Solavellen) but I think this is similar to the style of writing/world building GRRM did with A Song of Ice and Fire. Its called the Gardener method where you put little seeds of things that could turn into major plot points later in the series you plan and as you progress the world you are building these little seeds either grow into full plots or just a throw away line or codex entry to maybe be used later.
Eletania. I was extremely sad that they didn't follow up properly on this bit. I came across it during my first ever playthrough and expected more later on. Especially since you find a sphere like this in mass effect 2. There are no proper cutscenes for either. Would be nice if this was actually properly followed up on. There were the truths mentioned by javik of course BUT it would be nice if there were more cutscenes, specific mentions and more references to both Eletania and the other orb you get to keep from ME2.
This should have been a damn cut-scene, not a freaking wall of text on the screen. First time I played this mission I honestly thought the game was trying to fuck with me.
Bioware unfortunately didn't have the budget for that in the first game. That's basically why they recycled the same dungeons over and over again. A shame this vision didn't return in Mass Effect 2 where side content was way more fleshed out.
I didn't see this until I played Legendary Edition. I thought it was added content. Too bad they couldn't have made it a cut scene. However, I took this to be the Reapers instead of the Protheans.
I did find it back in 2007 and I also remember that the planet was hazzardus. Also the red orb in the text; I think signifies Reapers as in the red orb and the laser shooting out being the finger
I have a counter to this. The drone is not prothean, it is a Reaper checking on humans if they are developed enough to harvest. The red eye gives it away.
In ME2 During the prothean ruin you visit in one of the side quest (After you finish all the quest with the tank, i think) you find another orb, but this one shrinks and you can put it in your cabin.
I remember I think my 2nd or 3rd play-through i found the altar and read that it needed the trinket, didn’t think much of it until like 3:30am that night I connected the dots, I went and got the trinket from the consort in the next play-through and unlocked that lore, it was pretty cool at the time.
Interesting....well I better get back to my calibrations
Better squeeze that .34% out of targeting effectiveness
The Mass Effect youtube accounts were sooooooo much fun back when we could customize our youtube channels with HTML
Damn, you’re still doing those?
well i might join
I’m on it.
The strange part is: the "return" sounds more to me like a Reaper (albeit flying upside down) than it does the return of the protheans: the glowing red orb revealed when the craft opens itself? The red finger after which everything goes black? The deafening roar when the craft was quiet the first time? I always thought that the first one was the Protheans, but that the return was a Reaper for some reason...
That makes sense, wiping out potential Prothean meddling with other species
this would make sense, but in me3 the reapers avoid the Yahg homeworld because the aren't advanced enough. I'd say (given the events of a certain DLC) the humans at that point and Yahg would have been about equal
im inclined to disagree. the orb itself references the text a little. the ship is described to be silver and have tendrils right? given that the orb is silver and the prothean statues on ilos look squid like in design, its highly possible they intended the ship design to look as odd as it sounds.
to me it doesnt read like a reaper. especially with the mention of a central eye under it. and that the caveman was not only obducted but put back by the light.
also that many, if not, all of the prothean structures had some sort of light emminating from them. it reads to me more like a ship design they never got to make because the story and studio took a different direction.
@@lxginventorymanagement1859The Yahg refuse peace. Even though Salarians tried to make Contact and bring them up and advance to other species they refuse. This would mean the reapers would have no need to interfere with them as they are considered primitive and no species are meddling with them. Krogan were advanced to the point they nuked themselves. The yahg are just before that stage
Nope it’s a prothean foreshadow. Knock it off.
Definitely felt like an idea that was scrapped. Should’ve been a cutscene or something. I had liara with me at the time and there wasn’t even unique dialogue. When I tried talking to her or Garrus it was just the base “Ready Commander”. Super disappointing since it was so intriguing.
This is a very common note I have seen, and I completely agree. Wasted potential.
I still enjoy this moment, but it does almost feel like a scrapped idea. But then again, I remind people that Mass Effect had a lot of these quest resolutions through text so it's not just this.
But yeah, you're right, I would have liked it to be something more as well.
@@SReaper this also brings up something I wished for on the legendary edition when I first heard it was announced.
I was hoping all the text resolutions from ME1 would get proper animated cutscenes and possibly some unique dialogue to tie everything more together. I also immediately went to my teammates to see if they would say anything about what just happened.
Liara was definitely present and it would make sense she'd have something to say about all that. Especially since she can actually touch shepherd and replay the memory in detail at any time.
Glad you said that about Liara I didn't bring her with me and was bummed thinking I missed some unique dialogue
Or maybe they realized that if they develop it more deep, it would be clearer that it's a simplified copy of the Inner Light episode from Star Trek the Next Generation.
@@dacsus eh, wouldn't be the first in ME1. The game had just about every situation characters from various old sci fi shows encountered. Including a ton of TNG references. That was actually kinda the best part of ME1 imo.
Especially for people like me who play every side quest possible every time.
As they didn’t “know’’ where they were going across all three games, I imagine this was a hook to do something with later that never really panned out into anything. I often wish there had been one mission or adventure in ME2 or 3 that you could only access by having done something like this in ME1.
I only found it one time. Saw no point other than the "oh the protheans were watching us" easter egg.
There is a unique quest in ME3 with conrad, which is only available if you collected specific items and exploration in ME1.
no they had a trilliogy planned from the start, Bioware even said this. The first game had to hit 1 million sold before they got the green light for me2. They had several ways it was suppose to go but the main story was to complicated for the average player ( so they thought) and is why me was a rushed blob mess. Reapers where the good guys at first then it was only organics can use ezzo which is the element needed to create things and the reapers harvested people to have the power etcetc
another plot line was the using ezzo kills the stars and will cause a reverse big bang (Tali mission in ME2 was following this story line and why you can't be in the sun) ( like how the warp drives corrupt space in star trek and the relays where built to prevent individual star ships from using ezzo drives and the reapers harvested when the galaxy figured out FTL)
@@danbood9457 mass effect 3 was messy because the higher ups forced the game developers to build the biggest mass effect game yet in the smallest time window. They saw the money opportunity and rushed everything to get it out. Had they given the writers and developers more time it’s very possible they would’ve made a better ending
If the text prompt had triggered a cut scene, this Easter egg would've been a much bigger deal
I like the flavour text. It has an oldskool feel to it.
It is possible that prothian set up anti Indocrination wave length into beacon. Knowing how prothians faced their extinction and prepared themselves for next cycle. It is possible they even prepared against indoctrination and prepared against them.
It sounds like it was meant to be a cut scene but BioWare either scrapped the idea or didn’t have time to implement it.
Keep in mind, ME1 is much more of a traditional text based RPG, which used to be all text and no cutscenes
It looks kinda like the Leviathan artifacts.
I thought it was the Protheans who were busy snooping in on us all those centuries from the moon.
@@Slayer398 Yeah it's what we were led to believe over the course the series. But what you have to keep in mind is that Leviathans are retconned into the lore during Mass Effect 3. Cool concept, but there was no foreshadowing to the Leviathan through the previous 2 games. However, the devs did choose the same sphere like shape that this artifact has for their galaxy viewing, mind controlling orbs. So while the sphere may originally have been a prothean artifact in ME1, in ME3 it could have a different meaning. Ultimately I guess we'll never know. But the resemblance is there and no one else in the comments seemed to point it out. So I thought it would be worth noting. 😊
@@melissagarrett9719 There's mention of the Leviathan of Dis in the first two games. It's not completely out of the blue.
@@wraaaah that's specifically a dead reaper though.
@@melissagarrett9719 Um Leviathan was mentioned in the 1 and 2
A roar and a red beam from a single eye? That is not a prothean ship yo
Probably a reaper. Maybe even sovereign. Cromagnon were around 40,000 years ago. The reapers come every 50,000. The protheans were most likely killed by then
@@MrSmart199 Key word there being "Around" though...In terms of history like that it can be a very wild date range, we only know the general and potential extinction of Cro-Magnons at 35-40,000 years ago but they could have been around for longer as it's possible they could have been around about 48,000 years ago or slightly before that but again, we don't know the exact time that the Cro-Magnons appeared either.
That’s a pretty interesting detail in itself. That would mean that the protheans likely didn’t abduct primitives so abruptly but rather the reapers didn’t want prothean technology being discovered in an ancient skull giving away the invasion somehow, so the reapers took out the chip themselves. Though the story also describes the ship as the same silver flying thing. I think reapers look more black than silver.
Or maybe one of the ways the Reapers determine a being is advanced enough to be destroyed is if they have technologically advanced body modifications and mistook the cromagnon and thought it was a Prothean
@@MegaRazorback it could have been Sovereign checking on earth to see how advanced it was.
I found this on my first playthrough on the 360
Same
Idk why but it’s one of my favorite side quests from the game.
Always remembered it
Same, I always went to every single planet.
Mass effect is the first game I bought with my 360 in 2008. I was so curious about this artifact. But also happy they kept it mysterious at the same time.
I actually never found this on original release... crazy
Me too
I'm a completioniost, so i did find in my first playtrough.
Did you happen to find the shifty space cow too? He pick pockets your credits slowly if you turn your back on him.
No-one asked.
@@dreammirrorbrony1240 i probably find it, but didn't notice that it was stealing my money.
@@dreammirrorbrony1240 wait what
Same here.
This rekindles my feeling of how shitty it was to have javik and leviathan as DLC and not part of the main game. So important closure to the whole story.
100% I had Javik from the jump when I first got Mass Effect 3, and it was always nuts to me how well integrated into the story he was yet he was DLC. And Leviathan I don't think saves the ending to 3, but at least it gave more context for it and I always thought if it was in the main game it woulda been received better.
Then how would EA cash on the game post launch? :)
I just recently played the dlcs I beat the whole trilogy and had no idea what I had missed out on. Made legendary really awesome tho, and the romance with Laira was good asf best playthrough I ever had and did it all with Biotic charge another element i had no idea about .these games man
It’s not shitty it’s part of the main game now, the last game was 10 years ago now, what decisions they made was their decision, and it was mostly in keeping people interested. Was it a necessary part of the story? Not necessarily. It just deepens the lore. So I think we get over the saltiness of the last game and what they decided to do with the DLC.
Sounds more like a reaper than a prothean to me especially when it speaks about a red eye
I had that thought too for a bit tbh. I only thought to was Protheans because towards the end of the text prompt it says something like "how long were the Protheans studying us" or whatever it says.
Unfortunately a small unimportant mystery we'll likely never know the answer to lol
@@SReaper I assumed that part about the Protheans was because they didn’t know much about the reapers at that point so Shepard just assumes it’s Prothean but I see your point
You could be right! I intiially thought that tbh. I was gonna include it in the video but I convinced myself it was Protheans. And like I said, unfortunately we probably won't learn the answer to this.
But I like your interpretation also!
@@notacockgobbler2054 But it is also from the point of view of a caveman. Thinking the spaceship was some sort of bird.
Yeah it sounds like a reaper, but why the hell would the reapers be harvesting cave men?? That's not what they do
As Raycevick said "All I can imagine is how incredible this could've been, had it not been told through text". This game, at original release had pretty big resource and time issues so this had to suffice. However, when I've heard that they are making a remake, I had high hopes rearding this mission, at least a video clip, or images. Didn't happen, but still happy with the product.
I think it wasnt remake into movie mostly because it is actually very rare. First you gotta do the CItadel missions in correct order. Second, you gotta be a thorough completionist to search all question marks because this thing aint close to any quest. Which I guess wasnt really their plan.
expecting any gameplay and story improvements on a remaster is futile
people only ever care about graphics and some QoL changes but no one ever gives a shit about adding actual content..
such is the corpo world
I played the original one so long ago that I have no memory or recollection of this, thank you. It sounds to me like the trinket is basically a memory shard like the one Javik has. It could very well be an original plan for a DLC or something to continue in ME2. To me there was a massive shift in writing and perspective from ME1 to ME2, whether it was Biowares own doing or the Reapers at EA I can't say but you can tell the shift in focus, gameplay elements, story elements, all is incredibly different in ME2
They called it dumbing down, so it could be more action oriented. This was around the time everyone and their moms were play CoD. DA:2 took a similar turn just no where as good as ME:2.
True. ME1 had this sort of feeling where things seemed more mysterious and dreadful. The atmosphere of ME1 was a lot heavier than the atmosphere of ME2 and ME3. You had the feeling that there were things much bigger than you, things that were hard to understand. The biggest example of that was Sovereign, he felt otherworldly and was terrifying, he just said that all life in the galaxy will be destroyed and harvested and what made his speech so powerful was that he didn’t seem to come from a place of arrogance, for him he was saying facts and most importantly, he NEVER justified why the Reapers were doing that.
Then ME2 and ME3 happened and the new main enemy, Harbinger, felt less otherworldly and therefore less threatening. The Reapers in ME3 made the grave mistake of justifying themselves, pretending that it was really for their own good, which felt like a bullshit reason honestly.
@@basedkaiser5352 Yeah, ME1 has an incredible atmosphere of mystery and great unknown depth just like we perceive outer space.
ME2 and 3 ruined this by explaining too much and leaving too few plot elements as a mystery.
The lore was memorable and spectacular. An out of this world experience.
I did a 100% run with my dad back on the 360 we had all the achievements for all 3 ME games. This is an amazing find, it's cool that the consort gives us something with such cool implications to the lore
I wanted to do that but I never got the achievements for the hard difficultys.
The only thing I missed was that we could smash the consort?! Damnit! Gotta restart the whole trilogy now
I believe it's male Shepherd only
@@YGOplayer626 No you can with femshep as well. You only need to use the bottom (renegade option) "is that all?" as far as I remember
@@Tallborn5 yup, i found it by accident playing mean femshep lol
@kagomesind they use parthenogenesis, so actualy sex of a partner does not matter
@kagomesind Except there are dozens of examples of asari being attracted to males of various species, so this is just your personal headcanon. Liara even mentions that although asari resemble human women, gender has no meaning for them and they personally don't consider themselves male or female. Some asari don't use female pronouns either, it is all simply arbitrary preference.
Literally the only video I’ve ever seen covering this! Thank you, I was wondering what this was tied too.
omg thanks! It was always fascinating to me and I am so happy other people are curious about it too!
You're bringing back great memories of this game!! Back when I got this on the 360 back in probably 09 or so I made sure to do EVERYTHING. I had never played a game like this before. It had the richest universe of any game I had played. I love the sequels but there will always be a very special place in my heart for this game. One of the few I felt compelled to 100%
Isn’t this the same type of orb from ME2’s Firewalker missions? That one that shrinks and you keep in your quarters?
Being a completionist, I found it on my first game; felt like something that was almost scrapped from production
I just love ME:1 loading screens and the "rover" drop animation. 2 and 3 made it all so much more simplified
Anybody else get TNG vibes, like when Picard lives the life of a being of an extinct race? Literally one of the best episodes Star Trek has ever delivered? No? K.
Yep. When I found it I definitely got Inner Light vibes.
@Sanguine But I'm sure the Mass Effect writers saw it, probably why this seems so close to that ep.
There's actually a ton of stuff like that on the planets that aren't on the map. The ties between every game in the series are everywhere and most of them aren't even marked with a journal entry. Everything from characters that keep popping up to hints about reapers and such. There's even terrifying bits of lore in some of the planet descriptions.
I made sure to explore absolutely everything in this game because it was so worth it!
Hell, who thought the, "oh cool" bit about the massive mass accelerator attack scar on Klendagon would come up again in ME2.
I love the planet description that mentions a glancing blow from a mass accelerator of astronomical proportions and the planet texture has this massive scar across it's face
@@TiddyTwyster Which planet is that?
@@dancooper-z Klendagon. It’s caused by reapers (granted, it was just one and an unknown race made the weapon that produced the massive scar) around 37 million years ago apparently according to the planet bio
Hey folks! Thanks so much for watching my video about this small little piece of lore. You can now watch Part 2! Linked below! I also did a video talking about Mass Effect 2s Ending. You can find it linked below as well! Thanks!
Part 2: ruclips.net/video/DKFMHpBrxdc/видео.html
Mass Effect 2's Ending: ruclips.net/video/sQ-dOhw5-54/видео.html
Question for ya or I guess food for thought: the creature with a red eye extending returning after a while after not being seen for a while could be a reference to after the protheans were annihilated a reaper found the humans and saw they were too unevolved to “cycle”. I only say this because it is said (ME2) that the reapers are made to look like the creatures it harvests. So it would’ve been another bird in the sky, but this time with a deafening screech (hence a reaper).
actually they [Bioware] planned the same quest in ME2 OG (Warhammer DLC) but this time the end quest ends with you having visions of the Protheans becoming Collectors (Using ME1 visons) but you need the consort artifact too.
This is one of my favourite moments in the whole series. Having it as a text box that you read silently rather than a cutscene somehow made it more impactful for me.
I fucking loved Mass Effect. It was an incredible experience.
When I was little this single thing made me fall in love with the series, and I didn't even know you couod open it!
If you don’t explore every planet and complete every mission you are missing out.
the game pretty much leads you to every single planet, I don't understand how people can play ME without doing so
You also get a mini prothean orb in your personal cabin that you can interact with after doing this mission.
Doesn’t you get it in the Firewalker missions in ME2? I mean you certainly get it there, but you can get it elsewhere as well?
That's in ME2 not this one
@@ZrodyApo was it? Idk I'm literally on the 3rd game playing through the legendary edition right now as alot of you are I'm sure and thought the Prothean orb was on the first Normandy as well.
Oh well. You can find an orb in every game but you loose the interactive prothean device in Mass Effect 3, along with whatever else you collected in 2. Man you know, 2 is not my personal favorite Mass Effect But pretty much everything about the Normandy is better in Mass Effect 2 in my opinion.
@@schizochaotic11 No, you don’t lose everything.
You can recover the hamster, your fishes, and all your spaceship models you collected in ME2.
@@juzoli I realize that. But you have to re-aquire those things and there are a few items that don't carry over. Such as the Prothean orb.
"A single great eye opens on the underbelly, a glowing red orb you try to run, but a finger extends from the eye and engulfs you, and all goes black again" also the "Silver creature in thr sky"....yea that is most definetely undebatibly a Reaper being described
But reapers are black. Also why would a reaper come to Earth at that time? The tribe’s man described was still a hunter/gather, well before even hot air balloon existed. The reaper couldn’t have hack the data cache on mars because it would’ve destroyed it afterwards.
An orb like this is present in a mission in Mass Effect 2 aswell. You can collect a small orb that ends up in your cabin on the SR2
No I did all this in my very first playthrough years ago when the game first came out. I remembered it like 3 years ago. I've that it was about the proteins observing humanity and experimenting you know them. But I also thought it was about the fall of the proteins as well. I started thinking that in Mass effect 2. Cuz the red eye and the beam of light coming down and disintegrating that human in the blooming sound coming from the ship is a reaper. I believe that reaper came down to kill that human because they knew that the protheans were observing not just our race but all races in the galaxy. I think at that time period that that reaper came down to kill that human was the fall of the prothians race somewhere along their war with the reapers. I wouldn't be surprised if the prothians put probes in all the races to keep track of them and to study them. But when the reaper is decided to take out the protheins they indoctorated the ones that are doing these experiments on the races. Found out the area of these locator chips that they attach to the perimeter species and killed them. The reapers don't want anything altering the lower races too soon. What the proteins did cross the line. So the reapers had to take action and take out any lesser being that had a probe attached to their skull throughout the Galaxy to ensure that those primitive races evolved without interference from the protheans too early.
This also could be it! I like this one!
Yeah this sounds like the most reasonable explanation. Makes sense the reapers would destroy anything that protheans tampered with lesser species included
This is the correct answer, and I find it amazing that so many people aren't getting it.
I was an obsessed completionist when I first played ME1 because I had heard it affects ME2. Was there any pay off for this behavior other than a few extra credits at the beginning of ME2? No, none at all. My only reward was this RUclips comment years later.
I never miss this piece of lore. Even if it was never fleshed out, I find it adds to a world with such great world building. I, like many others, have read all the codex journal entries as well.
I remember me and my friends used to make up so many theories based on this text prompt. Damn I miss old school easter eggs like these. Didn't know that the asari consort had anything to do with it though. Thanks for the video
Based on my experience, if you found this prothian data recording device in mass effect one and that was carried all the way over to mass effect 3 then Sheppard will mention to Javik that he found one of his peoples recording devices and will ask if his people were studying early humans, it’s an interesting conversation between the two.
There was a similar something in ME2 as well, at the end of Hammerhead sidequests.
Also there were several instances where they showed this sphere inside a hand-like structure, worshipped by Geth as an altar or a totem of sorts. There was one in feros, and three seperate ones inside various mines throughout the game.
And this (among many other details) is why ME1 is the best of the trilogy (at least for me :D), the world building and the space exploration is really well done
I’m sorry but the space exploration is absolutely terrible. Driving the mako across miles of empty worlds and clearing out the same 3 prefabs is absolutely miserable. Not to mention how tedious exploring the citadel and making sure you don’t miss anything can be. The only good thing about ME1 are the main missions
@@mr.rufasi2729 it's certainly not perfet but for me it's engaging and I like exploring the uncharted planets and doing the side missions here and there
It's certainly better than what they done in Andromeda imo
@@mr.rufasi2729 I actually loved those things, lol. Driving across miles of empty worlds made it feel like more of an adventure, and I always look forward to exploring every knook and cranny of the citadel.
Though, I also always scan every keeper and always finish that 'hunt down deposits of minerals' every play through, so maybe I'm just really autistic.
The roaring sound and red finger weren't the Protheans wiping the man out, but the Reapers. Remember how the Reapers obliterate any piece of technology during their harvest? That man had a piece of Prothean technology inside of him, so he had to be destroyed. It isn't overtly said, but the "silver bird" behaves very differently in the first scene than in the last one. As such, I am fairly convinced the first "silver bird" was a Prothean ship, the second one a Reaper.
pro tip: for anyone wondering how to actually get the trinket and for it to work you have to do the favor for sigmus and then uh get shi'ira to sleep with you and when she says "here take this trinket" then you have it but unless she says that it will glitch out and say you have received it when you didnt.
She will give the trinket anyway even if you go full paragon with her
i remember trying to figure out what the trinket was online back when this released and not a lot of info was around back then
I saw this for the first time in my LE playthrough a few weeks ago, I had never seen this in all my times playing the og game.
This definitely gave me big 2001: Space Odyssey vibes and I’m wondering if that’s what they were going for
Others have suggested the Star Trek TNG Episode Inner Light this references. Looking forward to discussing that in another video.
I already knew about the Orb. I find it in every playthrough. Now, smashing the Consort? I have only recently learned that it was possible, and have *NO IDEA* how to trigger it. At all. Am I picking the wrong dialing options? Is she just not interested in FemShep? I don't know!
You need to pick the dialogue options where you scoff at the 'wisdom' she offers, basically pick the renegade conversation options.
When given the Trinket select "That's it?"
I didn’t have the trinket but i really wanted to get it but i was way past the consort quest line to replay an old save so i was messing around with a save editor but i couldn’t find the trinket in my inventory (first time editing Mass Effect save) but thanks to your video 7:54 i was able to find the appropriate tab in the save editor, you get a sub :D
I normally complete the quest for the consort but I decided to finish ME1 in the LE play through without finishing the side quest. I think the flag is indicating the galactic news in ME2 that the Consort is going to leave the citadel because the issue in the side quest never got resolved.
I missed this on the 360 but with the legendary edition I stumbled onto it completely at random
This is gonna be a long comment but this will be worth the read, I promise. Like others have stated, I don't think it was Protheans that examined the human but in fact a reaper.
"A shiny wingless bird"
"A deafening roar"
"a finger of red light."
The signs all tell me this is a Reaper. However, I have a theory for this quest and why it wasn't mentioned again. When Mass Effect 3 was first in the works (which was written by Drew Karpyshyn the writer of ME1 and ME2), it had a plot idea where dark energy (As mentioned in Tali's recruitment mission in ME2) was the reason Reapers would wipe out the spacefaring races in the galaxy. The whole purpose of the dark energy plot is using the Mass Relays would slowly kill the universe, affecting stars and possibly ending life as we know it, and apparently, this would have 2 major endings which were to either stop the reapers or work out a solution with them which apparently the human race was the key to solving their issue as they were genetically diverse or some shit which explains why the collectors created a Human reaper in ME2.
So this is where this mission comes in, I have 2 guesses for this mission. First guess is that the indoctrinated Protheans implanted this chip for the Reapers to study the human race to solve said problem and once they had what they needed, they killed the hunter and began looking into a solution, and tying up loose ends. 2nd possibility is that the Hunter was being surveyed by the Protheans and the Reaper knew of this but wasn't sure who was implanted. But knowing how powerful Prothean data/information is as told in ME3 with the Asari beacon in Thesia, the reaper couldn't let him live thus killing him to delay the humans from discovering space travel and etc.
Obviously, this plotline was eventually scrapped in ME3 and we got the plot that we know of today due to Mac Walters replacing Drew Karpyshyn as lead writer which is why we never got this original ending, but it wouldn't surprise me if Drew had aimed for that specific ending which is why we got this mission and the Tali dialogue as foreshadowing. But this is most likely why we never heard reference from this mission again or from Tali's dark energy problem in ME2. This is a shame because I preferred this plotline of the reapers actually having a reason for the cycle and explanations for it, instead of being space terminators.
I always wonderd why they chose the leviathan orbs to look the same in me3.
I always find all these cause I visit every planet once.
If I remember correct, It has in fact an influence to ME3. In the Citadel-DLC when you go into the casino to search for the mysterious figure you can find Shiala is one of the guests there. If you talk to her she will mention her "gift of words" and - I believe - the trinket aswell.
And even better if you find the one in Mass Effect 2 it becomes a fancy paper weight in your cabin.
I found this on my first play through way back when. It smacks of cut content. There’s also the one planet getting excavated by a crazy volus ranting about beings of light at the dawn of time who fought devil machines.
I always liked this. I usually grab everything I can when I first play a game, so I found it a while back, but it's a fantastic piece of mystery. Back in ME1, when we know nothing about the protheans, it's just that much more interesting. It paints the universe up with more intrigue. I wouldn't've said it was meant to accomplish anything other than that, though, if I hadn't just heard it was a flagged event. That almost certainly tells me it's a plotline they never finished. It would have been great, though. That's one thing ME1 mostly does better than the other two.
If you found this then Javik will have an extra piece of dialogue when you're first talking to him on the Normandy. It's not much, but can be missed pretty easily if you don't find the sphere in ME1.
I feel like the metal bird rather was a reaper. "It's call a deafening roar as it descends from above"
But any space ship coming into the atmosphere would make such a sound 😆
I found this on my first playthrough and it always made me wish the games explored a bit more of that kind of lore/information.
One word leviathan……
You find another sphere in me2 too
I got that, I basically spent most the game searching every planet from top to bottom and found that among other things.
I never saw this. I'm currently on my next ME1 playthrough anyway, so perfect timing!
I think its a casualty of the fact they didn't write the main story arc for the whole trilogy before beginning. The couldn't think of what to do with it, or forgot about it.
I mean similar things can happen in reverse, like Vader being Lukes father simply wasn't the case in a New Hope. Vader and Anakin were literally, not figuratively separate people. I love when people analyze the scene with Obi Wan and look where he is talking about Anakin and Vader. "Ohh you can see in his acting and behavior hes withholding the truth!" Any appearance that is the case is simply kismet because during filming of ANH, Anakin and Vader were not the same person.
This is something I love about ME1... no hand holding and not everyone is going to see this really cool scene. I think like 2-5% of players would ever have found this on their own. I appreciate your linking this to the other games in the series, specifically Javik.
I remember being disappointed by ME2’s changes to the original. But I find each game different enough to make me enjoy each game uniquely. The LE is such a pleasant redo, and maybe my favorite for any game of all time.
Being a completionist I definitely did not miss this and very much appreciated coming across it!
this too, also complexed me. until later years when i discovered the vast changes bioware had made to the design and story of the protheans after bioware was under microsoft's umbrella. many of the original prothean designs were changed. stories and scripts were slowlt being adapted in the remaster of the older games and subtle differences were made to the legendary collection to fit javik's aesthetics, lore and etc into the universe more uniformly.
they made a specific offshoot 'prothean' beacon side mission in mass effect 2 that simply took a well put together vision used in mass effect 1 and extended 1 shot, placing a sound effect and a poorly photoshopped collector over what was originally a prothean weaping in pain. this always bothered me.when the from ashes DLC finally revealed javik. it became apparent that they based the collectors on a twisted version of the ilos statues. and they based javik off the collectors, not the ilos statues. and they even gave him a short dismissive line on the matter, concreting the fact that the protheans were a mix of races into the lore, further contradicting avena's original mass effect line that stated that the protheans were a single race that spanned the entire galaxy.
so how is this all revelant? well there are lots of pieces in mass effect design work ans final game that were quickly dismissed or written over, or simply ignored in later games because they dont follow the path that the studio has taken as of late. the original design of the prothean vessals are mentioned here. a large silver tendril like structure with a central eye. this aethetic coinsides with the ilos statues. it also matches the silver body of the original beacon design. it makes sense that they would leave this orb and its content out of later games given that its art style. the information left inside and anything related to it doesnt like up with the direction they took. which sucks for me lol i liked the original looks.
I remember this and the first time i stumbled upon it i got scared. (there was still no ME 2 and 3 then)
I stumbled on this totally by mistake and was blown away when I came upon it
Wow, I am on my 4th playthrough for Legendary Edition, and I have never found this. Excellent, thank you!
Ironically I found this 12 years ago on 360, but missed it this time on Legendary!!!
Nope didn't miss it at all and I'm so happy that someone else found it so amazing as I did. Well done. ❤️
I always thought it was weird that the sphere was just there for no reason
I always thought that the second ship mentioned was a Reaper removing the bit of Prothean tech from Earth.
I remember back in high school when I first started playing Effect and I found this. I had no idea what to think about it but I did enjoy the little bit of lore
when I got to the artifact and read the texts I thought it was talking about the Reapers.
encountered this after replaying the trilogy before Legendary came out.
Never encountered it as a kid, so discovering it made me smile.
After finishing the series the second time I always thought the Eletania artifact was one of those Leviathen devices! Not Prothean, but I guess it could go either way
Apparently finding the Orb is marked in save files as an important step transferred to Mass Effect 2. Sadly there is no continuation.
Knew about this when the game came out on my first playthrough and i gotta say im shocked about how many people dont know about this
I remember wandering upon this during my first run! I made sure to absolutely pour over every map after this, and found some really cool shit in some of the other maps by just looking a bit deeper than the mission needed me to.
Great to see others remember this wonderful easter egg too!
Awesome video bro. Thank for making it.
My pleasure Glad you enjoyed it!
So, when I was little, I actually got got this bit of lore. I was so young, I couldn't remember anything about it it, so it's good to be able to replay everything on the legendary edition.
I remember seeing this in the first game and thinking this is some kind of collectable, but I never found another protean ruin like this one. This secret device that triggered a text message was very similar to the dreams in Baldur's Gate 1.
I literally just finished this mission as I started your video
I remember my first playthough all all those years ago when the game was first released. I found this orb by mistake. Since then, i have never been able to find it. Now i know where it is. So thank you.
Huh, I never knew the Asari Consort and Shepard 'smashed', because I play a FemShep mostly (unless that's an option with her as well, and I somehow missed that)
You only miss them if you don't visit every planet you come across. I mean seriously how could you not?
In the Legendary Edition they could have added some extra dialog to liara and to javik together with the flags for this quest. It would have been justified.
Bioware probably didn't have enough time or money to get to it, and that's why it got this abbreviated text-only resolution to the quest, which began with a fullly voiced cutscene.
It's about both the Protheans and the Reapers. It confirms the Protheans were studying primitive species and it alludes to the end of the prothean's cycle. Javik mentions they stopped actively researching upon the reapers invasion in hopes that the reapers would find the current cycle's races to be too primitive to harvest. This doesn't mean the reapers wouldn't touch down on our planets, maybe blast the monkies what had Prothean tech I 'em. Dunno how the memories survived but I guess that could be the prothean's evolved (not magical totally science) level of communication and the artifact acts as a sort of info terminal?
As for the trinket perhaps that indicates the Asari Consort being FAR more aware of Prothean tech than what is let on. Perhaps she's in deep with the asari government, as she's based in the presideum, whom we now know safeguard prothean tech. Not to mention her whole dtf fortune teller vibe.
*That bitch knows somethin'*
Some things I would like to share with you bro
I gained all loyalty with my squadmates, I saved the Captain of the Salarins, Saved the Arachnid Queen and Caused Saren to give in (without a shot fired) and thus he committed suicide. Defeated the improved version of Saren saved the Destiny Assention
...this is like Fen'Harel being mentioned in the Dalish Origins in DAO, or when Merrill tells you about Fen'Harel and its pretty much the Solavellen romance (cries in Solavellen) but I think this is similar to the style of writing/world building GRRM did with A Song of Ice and Fire. Its called the Gardener method where you put little seeds of things that could turn into major plot points later in the series you plan and as you progress the world you are building these little seeds either grow into full plots or just a throw away line or codex entry to maybe be used later.
I thought it was Reapers not Protheans. I played Mass Effect after playing 2 & 3. The part with the red light made me think Reapers.
Eletania. I was extremely sad that they didn't follow up properly on this bit. I came across it during my first ever playthrough and expected more later on. Especially since you find a sphere like this in mass effect 2.
There are no proper cutscenes for either. Would be nice if this was actually properly followed up on.
There were the truths mentioned by javik of course BUT it would be nice if there were more cutscenes, specific mentions and more references to both Eletania and the other orb you get to keep from ME2.
This should have been a damn cut-scene, not a freaking wall of text on the screen. First time I played this mission I honestly thought the game was trying to fuck with me.
Bioware unfortunately didn't have the budget for that in the first game. That's basically why they recycled the same dungeons over and over again. A shame this vision didn't return in Mass Effect 2 where side content was way more fleshed out.
1:30 lmao, what the hell is up with Shepards super crazy eyes? He's like, "What the hell is happening?!!!!!"
I didn't see this until I played Legendary Edition. I thought it was added content. Too bad they couldn't have made it a cut scene. However, I took this to be the Reapers instead of the Protheans.
I did find it back in 2007 and I also remember that the planet was hazzardus. Also the red orb in the text; I think signifies Reapers as in the red orb and the laser shooting out being the finger
The first silver ship was prothean imo, then the second ship that returns was a reaper.
I have a counter to this. The drone is not prothean, it is a Reaper checking on humans if they are developed enough to harvest. The red eye gives it away.
In ME2 During the prothean ruin you visit in one of the side quest (After you finish all the quest with the tank, i think) you find another orb, but this one shrinks and you can put it in your cabin.
I remember I think my 2nd or 3rd play-through i found the altar and read that it needed the trinket, didn’t think much of it until like 3:30am that night I connected the dots, I went and got the trinket from the consort in the next play-through and unlocked that lore, it was pretty cool at the time.