Honestly, humans in the ME universe are so advanced in terms of genetic augmentation, the idea that any hair color could be extinct is fairly ridiculous. In fact it’s kind of surprising we haven’t seen more creative hair colors in the series, just the ones we get naturally.
It's mostly that genetic modification that isn't for serious medical research has been outlawed; I think it was called the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act... It's probably become something of a climate of opinion among humans that is affected by the majority of the rest of the galaxy finding frivolous gene manipulation to be... well...
6:35 Jack could in fact have some grey hair. You don't have to be old to have grey hair, some of it come come from shock. Being experimented on by Cerberus would more than likely have shocked her system more than once, thus grey hair is possible. As for blondes in Mass Effect overall, there are at least a few natural blondes in the series, Conrad for one, the Commander Shepard fan. I think one of the human male c-sec commanders is also a blonde if I recall. There's also the woman who used to have a thing for Commander Anderson. 👀
Yep agree I have gray hair too (33y) And I'm started to gray at 22-24 y old + fun fact stress and trauma can trigger that and Jack had some in her life, so it's make sense for me.
My mom works with children from disfunctional families, one of the girls has partially gray hair from stress and trauma even though she's just 12, and considering what Jack went through, it's very possible to have gray hair at her age
my dad was completely white in his 30s. he already had to start dying it on his 30s. I started noticing white hairs in my head since I was 18. I'm 32 now and you can tell it's already starting to go. actually my little brother is 23 and he has more white hairs than even me an entire patch of his hair is completely white, I don't know if it's the same thing though but he only got that about 2 years ago.
IIRC Kahlee is specifically the one who dyes her hair, the fact about natural blonds being very rare and most current blonds dyeing their hair is raised when she is described.
About Andromeda, the whole game takes place in just one cluster (Heleus) rather than in the OG trilogy taking place in the whole galaxy. It kind of makes sense how there would only be one or two races per cluster since that's how it is in the Milky Way. If they had gone to more clusters, who knows what they could have found?
Agreed! I feel a lot of people tend to forget that fact when mentioning only two species, when it makes sense there wouldn't be as many when it doesn't take place in the entire galaxy! There are bounds to be more species besides just them two but either not having any knowledge of each other or only have their clusters colonized and maybe contact with only one other race besides their own if they grew large enough but if they were that large they would have conflict with the Kett eventually...overall Andromeda is very divided and not united due to the lack of mass effect tech so any and all species had to rely on their own and any old tech they found from other older civilizations if there was anything left to be found. It very much fit the premise of Andromeda well with was to explore and lead the way and seeing how unconnected everything is there compared to the Milky way where there were tons of rules and everywhere belonged to someone that andromeda was like the new frontier where its Truley was wild and open to explore and fit the narrative quite well. I enjoyed the game for the story it was trying to tell and was sad that a sequel would never get made for it as it had a lot of unanswered questions and cool ideas that could have been explored in more details in another game that was set there if it were to happen.
Yep and at the end of andromeda their discussing going to other clusters to explore everyone seems to forget that without mass relays travel would take longer and therefore so would other races meeting each as almost every race in the mass effect universe made first contact through the use of mass relays which isn't an option in andromeda currently
@@dankace5849 Yep and even the Milky Way has a lot of unexplored space since you need a relay to make the huge jumps from one side to the other. I think the codex or some sort of canon source says that less than 1% of the Milky Way is reachable/explored.
What's to say the Reapers don occupy the entirety of the MW and the games only focus on the clusters and systems that the Humans are in, and there's whole advanced civilizations in others that none of the ME races have encountered because they just Never went?
@@jpisback It's highly possible. The first contact war started because we wanted to turn on a deactivated relay. There could be life all over we don't know about.
8:48 Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that before Shepards cycle, the Reapers entered unexpectedly through the Citadel Relay. Those who believed in the Reaper threat still had years to prepare to colonize another system, while the cycles before that likely did not because their leadership was eliminated in the first strike. They also probably werent aware of the Reapers existence. To clarify: It was stated that the Reapers always leave one Reaper behind. That Reaper's purpose is to monitor the progress of civilization. So any time a cycle got close to going to another galaxy, the vanguard would initiate the harvest. Since Sovereign was destroyed, that was no longer possible. Or perhaps the Benefactor wanting to colonize Andromeda led to the events in Mass Effect 1 in the first place. A sort of trigger for Sovereign
The trigger was the Geth uprising. The cycle was already delayed for centuries by the time ME1 started. But because the keepers were modified not to up the dark space relay another way was needed.
Could the the "sour note" the rachni describe have been the signal to remotely activate the Citadel? If so the extinction event would've passed humanity by.
@Lord Chauncy no the sour note was a result of the Leviathans messing with them. The original point of when the cycle was meant to happen was the Geth uprising as the Reapers entire mission is to preserve species before they are wiped out by their own creations. And the Geth are the first major example of that nearly happening.
I got my first grey hair at 16. Both of my parents and my brother were grey by early 30s. My hair colour is just like Jack's now at 26. You really don't have to be old to grey. So it makes perfect sense for Jack to have a few
My brother got some grey hair from the stresses of life before he was 25, I think its more understandable Jack has been under lots more stress and anger in her life that contributes to having multiple strands of grey hair.
My first memory of father he have steel grey hair while in the weading photo of he and my mother his hair is 100% black. So basically between the age of 25 and 35 he went from beeing a black haird man to a grey haird man without a hint of black in it. (Now at the age of 69 it is compleetly white just like his siblings and my grandma was at the same age). Sometime your genetics is a bitch to you :P
Im 34 and don't have a single gray hair. If I shave my beard some people think I'm 18 - 25 years old. Genetic is pretty strange, isn't it? One of my uncles got his first grey hair with 20, my father who died at the age of 57 had grey mottled temples and a few gray spots in his beard, while my mum, who's 67 now, got her first grey hair with 60. If you take into account what Jack endured since her early childhood it's no supprise and absolutely possible that she got at least a few grey strands of hair.
For the crucible using the citadel, that never bothered me - whoever first started designing it designed it to do that intentionally. Why? Because they realized that the citadel was linked into the whole Mass Relay network. If they were designing an anti-reaper weapon, the reapers had already arrived in their cycle, the citadel was lost, but they had seen how it worked and that it could control other mass relays. Since they need to kill ALL the reapers, or they'll just rebuild, they need a weapon that spans the galaxy. "Let's use the reaper's own tools against them" they say... only, they know it is way too late. So, they push the design along as far as they can, and then hide as many copies as possible on as may worlds as they can, and hope that a future cycle can complete it. After all, since it only relies on the things the Reaper's leave intact (and probably repair and maintain) between cycles, as soon as someone can finish it, it'll be ready to go.
I prefer this. Stuff like "it's a Reaper trap" don't make much sense - just because the Catalyst puts on a friendly face doesn't mean this was the plan all along. And it makes for a much more satisfying narrative that you are essentially standing on the shoulders of all those that came before you - the thousands of cycles working together through the millennia, each building upon the legacy of the last, creating something that would, eventually, save the galaxy. It also explains why there are several possibilities present within the system - some species thought destruction was the only way, others specifically aimed to create a tool to control the Reapers. It's also blatantly wrong to imply that no one ever figured out what the Citadel truly was - the Protheans clearly did. They were just too late - probably like all those that came before them.
Actually the original did not use the citadel. It was stated the design was added on to and changed over many cycles. It was at an unknown point the design incorporated the citadel.
The catalyst even says that no one has come this far to shep. Like why would reapers care if the humans are building a weapon? I doubt it’s new information to them. Every race is trying to build something to try and survive. But they always win. Why would that change now?
I might be misremembering, but when you go to do an upgrade to Jack’s biotics in ME2 I think it mentions that her biotics and the increased output from the experimentation is shortening her lifespan, sort of burning the candle at both ends in a sense. It would sort of make sense seeing as how biotics require way more calories to keep going due to the drain that using their power has on them.
You are misremembering slightly. Yes, it is shortening her life span, but not due to burning too much energy - but rather, due to burning out her own brain, essentially.
01:00 about Asari government. It makes much more sense once you listen about various attitudes from Asari characters - Benezia in ME1 had a personal following of younger Asari, Aethyta in ME2 references to influence of the Asari Matriarchs, and it is touched a bit more in the ME3 (to a point where, apparently, Matriarchs can “send assassins” after people). What it makes me believe is that on paper, Asari have this broad and almost hilarious “electronic democracy”, but in reality, naturally evolving social structures put a score of oldest and most influential Matriarchs in charge of the society. Matriarchs might not directly order younger Asari around, but when a thousand-years old space-MILF who also happens to be a CEO of an interstellar corporation tells you to do something… you'd better listen. Matriarchs' wisdom, experience and influence accumulated over thousand years of life would naturally put them in a position of authority, where they can steer or outright control public consensus, giving direction and shape to the otherwise chaotic concept of “electronic democracy”. I think this works well in fitting with the general sense and style of Asari politics, both external and internal. They are outwardly very benevolent, liberal even - but they kept Prothean technology for themselves, elevated themselves above other Council species and basically became the leading species in the galaxy though their use of this “soft power”.
Which, to add another point, could also make sense given the asari life stages. Curious maiden being overwhelmingly, well, curious about other species, matrons having a... motherly? caring? attitute, but matriarchs, with almost a millennium of experience and having lost their curiousity, shifting a bit "darker", a bit more cynical, maybe.
Here are my two cents on the catalyst. I agree that it had to have come from the reapers but my theory is that it was designed as a fail safe of, if there solution wasn't working, which in Mass Effect 3 the boy (actual catalyst) states their solution isn't working anymore. They were just waiting for a worthy race or a special, strong, worthy member of a race (Shepard) to help change their solution. Making it through all obstacles; indoctrination, Cerberus, and the Reapers themselves. Anyways, I enjoy your videos. Keep em coming!
mate it was a retcon. the crucible the catalyst they were made for a ending that was never supposed to be. the original ME3 ending was changed for reasons unknown.
the creation of reapers are a failed attempt at synthesis, the crucible was designed by the reapers and then slipped to the organics, them hoping the crucible was destroyed simply was a lie to attempt to disassociate themselves from the crucible so organics could improve on the design, the reapers are advanced but they lack the creativity to improve on designs and technology, they only view things logically even if their logic is flawed and based on the leviathan's experience with rogue AI which the star child a leviathan AI intelligence ironically is a rogue AI itself. organics achieved the creation of the crucible thanks to how we creatively problem-solve when it comes to how we build tech. the crucible is the culmination of "your technology advanced in the direction we so desired" line Sovereign/Nezara preached to Shepard on Vermire. in short, the reapers allowed the crucible to be built because they knew that it could proform synthisis and turn life into biological technology thus synthisis and turn all synthetics into another kind of biotech (the space magic wooh stuff is strong in mass effect 3's ending) basically organics became partly synthetic and synthetics became partly organic
@@fangslore9988 thats retarded... why do you need sythesis? why the hell would the reapers care? we are ants to them, cattle to be slaughter. why would they care?
@@roiking2740 why would they care, its how they built the reapers, they liturally are a failed version of synthesis, they're not a analytic killing machine wiping out all life they're harvesting sentients to make new reapers. the starchild (leviathan intelligence AI )was programed and made specifically to quantify data and develop a way to protect sentiant life from their AI creations and it realized that to truly protect sentiant life from their AI creations was to merg synthetic and organic life into a new kind of entity, the AI did this with the Leviathans first to make Harbanger then repeated again and again to make each reaper. you dont understand that every reaper is a culmination of many sentiant lives in reaper form. the AI realized that its attempts at creating synthisis (harvesting organics to turn us into new reapers) wasnt a true synthisis and so it developed the crucible which then it provided to sentiants through indoctrinated agents to provide the blueprint. every cycle indoctrinated agent like the Illusive man (TIM) would activly seek the crucible and think through indoctrination that they could use it to control the reapers but every cycle added too the blueprints since sentiant organics were much more creative than the reapers. the reapers ultimate goal was as the star child says "they were a solution but because of the fact you are here the solution will not work anymore" in short we are far from ants to them, in the scale of size alone arguably but in terms of importants, organics were much more valuable to the reapers than what they show, the Leviathan AI intelegence was programmed to find a solution to AI organic conflicts and preserve life. the leviathans never gave the intelligence AI a perimeter to how life was to be preserved so it found a loophole in turning organic life into reapers. it appears that you may have played one of the games but haven't played all of them and if you have you haven't paid attention to the story. for the cliffnotes you probably dont understand, reapers harvest organics, they then chemically break down the organic matirial then use an as of yet known process to convert that organic sludge into a reaper embryo which resembles that of the races that were used to make it the reaper body is then created around it, also after you are liquefied its worth pointing out that the victim is technically still alive, reaper minds are similar to geth minds they are created from the minds of all the organics that were used to create them, then the Leviathan intelegence AI (starchild) then takes over them directing the reaper to follow its objective. the process the reapers use to create a new reaper is very much a failed iteration of synthesis, but the intelligence AI lacks the ability to think creatively so it cannot conceive of new methods to create synthesis, it needed a new means. Synthesis using the crucible was the reaper's ultimate objective. post synthesis life is both organic and synthetic and thus it breaks the organic VS synthetic wars of past cycles. its why the reapers only chose to harvest races that were technologically advanced enough to produce true AI intelligences. summary: reapers harvest sentiant races, they turn sentiants into new reapers, reapers want synthisis to protect all life from wars agains synthetics, Leviathan AI intelegence gave crucible in a long game plan to finally have synthesis become reality. Leviathan AI intelegence (starchild) is programmed to preserve life and it chose to do so by making life into reapers. ps. phew no wonder why Sovereign/Nezara said it was beyond our understanding its complicated AF
@@fangslore9988 mate if you have to bring the hole stupid Laviathian backstory i aint reading it. the reapers are supposed to be space squads, which make planets into farms and we are there cattle. they reduce the reapers into servants who lack the self-awareness to evolve or understand the basic concept of what a normal ass conflict is. Yes the conflict between the geth and the quarian is no different then the conflict between the Krogan and the Salarian. there is no way with the information we got in ME1 and ME2 and most of ME3 that they would care what a bunch of apes are doing with their computers. do you care that ants commit war and genocide across the earth? neither would the reapers care about you. ME3 ending complete ruined the reapers. a great antagonist to be reduced to incompetent service bots. oh also, the Krogan were a bigger threat then the geth. so yeah...
I’m confused didn’t you quote in 5:36 from the book that “Blondes were Nearly Extinct” yet you state that blondes are extinct so whether or not Jack has blonde hair or not, it still technically makes sense since it says it’s nearly extinct not entirely extinct I guess the only thing that seems debatable is the blue eyes being non existent doesn’t Miranda have blue eyes but then again wasn’t she genetically engineered?
either way she's wrong the book says natural blondes arent extinct they're just very rare, also the jack thing could be very easily explained by the lighting changes in legendary edition unintentionally changing the way jacks hair color looks
Notice how for all genetic engineering, Miranda got black hair, unlike her blonde model. Apparently, keeping hair color fair is something impossible for gene mods that give you super-biotics and double lifespan. Drew and other writers really fell for that theory of great replacement taking away blonde hair, knowing little about genetics (the first thing is, redheads would be extinct way sooner if anything). I can quote the book, it's ME Revelation and it talks at length when describing Kahlee Sanders: "Average in both height and build, Kahlee’s only really distinguishing feature was her shoulder-length blond hair-a genetically recessive trait, natural blonds were nearly extinct. But her hair was a dirty blond, with streaks edging toward shades of brown … and there were still plenty of humans who dyed their hair blond anyway. She didn’t normally stand out in a crowd. That made it easy for her to escape notice here-the Black Hole was packed..." I thought it's Ascension but no, that goes over light skin colors being rare "Intermarriage between the various ethnicities of Earth over the past two centuries had made alabaster skin a rarity", not hair. Makes not much sense either.
@@KasumiRINA redheads would NOT be extinct in fact, since the red hair mutated gene can be passed on for *generations* and be spread without being activated. Unless you genocide every single natural redhead and every person in their direct and distant families, red hair can ALWAYS pop back up in the population.
@Saltyx Glad to hear it, I was wondering if your original comment was based on you not watching the video or ignorant incomprehension of the content. Thanks for confirming it was the latter.
I mean they didn't say blondes are extinct in the lore they said almost went extinct. Two different things mean blondes got saved and as pointed are rare meaning natural ones with blues do exist but are extremely are just like how in our universe redheads with blue eyes are actually rare as well. Not extinct just rare for blondes to be in ME.
6:15 Recent studies has shown that stress tends to kill melanocytes which affect hair color. Given Jack's life choices the amount of stress she's been through makes a lot of sense she greying early. Hell I'm 24 and some of my hair strands are grey all because I've had a few stressful years.
While the hair color theory has been disproven, it makes no sense that they made shepard a red head instead of blonde. In the original theory it stated the red hair would go extinct many decades before blonde. Clearly the developers didn't look into deep enough. Anyways doesn't matter anymore since its been disproven.
I like making Shep blonde primarily because it helps her stand out, without having some ridiculous unnatural color. Very few NPCs have blonde hair in the series.
I always thought the crucible is designed by the Catalyst in search for an anomaly that can prove coexistance between organics and synthetics is possible
Same that’s what I was thinking. The star child said that the fact that shepherd was standing in from of them proved that the reaper cycle plan wasn’t as effective because Shepard was able to go that far to stop the threat. So it makes sense to me that they allowed the crucible to be built. After all reapers are machines programmed to do one thing prevent synthetics from taking over. And the crucible may have been the “loophole” created that would allow the cycle to end.
Except the Catalyst specifically says it thought it wiped out the Crucible designs. Besides, you're NEVER able to bring up that in a Paragon run, Shepard brokers peace between synthetics and organics. The Rannoch ark that happens literally right before the 3rd act. The Crucible isn't needed to see the Geth actively fighting with organic life against the Reapers.
The Crucible was designed by one of the many species that were harvested, and improved upon by subsequent species. The Catalyst noticed the attempts, tried to quash it, and failed. The reasons Shepard's presence before the Catalyst proves their solution won't work is because the Crucible has fundamentally changed the Catalyst, and that organics had been able to circumvent the cycle at all. The Catalyst still believes that organics creating synthetics will _always_ lead to war. Despite Shepard brokering peace, the Quarians went to war with the Geth _twice._ In fact, it was quite likely that the Quarians' creation of the Geth is what spurred Sovereign to signal the keepers to open the relay. The Catalyst leaves the choice up to Shepard because like the Geth not knowing the consequences of destroying their creators, the Catalyst doesn't fully know the consequences of using the Crucible. The Crucible changed the variables, and the Catalyst cannot predict the full outcome.
3:05 it's a tribute to the game "Deus Ex", which opens on Liberty island, which was turned into a secure zone following a terror attack that destroyed the Statue of Liberty
On the other hand, 9/11 was an attack on WTC for it's symbolic meaning, as it was considered a symbol of American economy hegemony. If someone wanted to attack the idea of America itself, Lady Liberty absolutely makes sense. Really only problem with the whole futuristic history is that Mexico and Canada united with US which makes absolutely zero sense
It actually wouldn't be that difficult to hide the crucible, after all the reapers lost a planet, just build it in the least popular place and keep no records of it location only word of mouth and keep transport to a minimum (probably was built in illos orbit)
Jack could also be Bleaching her hair. even if natural blondes were extinct, people would still bleach their hair. We have people today who wear thousand year old hair styles, people in ME would definitely bleach their hair.
That's covered in one of the books if I remember right, one of the main characters is a natural blonde and she states that many people dye/bleach their hair blonde.
As you said, natural blondes are almost extinct, meaning that her hair could be blonde. And someone already mentioned how shock and stress can cause grey hairs
I read Jack's hair as greying. And also I've been greying since I was in my mid 20s, as were a good portion of my friends so having some grey wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Jack
4:40 the whole terrible retcon behind thermal clips was heavily criticised by the fans from the day Mass Effect 2 launched. I remember comments questioning the logic behind it, how somehow, magically, every single sentient being in the galaxy had access to thermal clips. Nobody would complain if Bioware stated "we are changing it for gameplay purposes, let's just pretend they were always there".
Blond hair is gone but gingers aren’t 🤨, also the crucible isn’t a reaper design, it fits and uses the citadel because it’s was designed to by past cycles, the reason why it was a big reveal was because the illusive man took some of the data
My original Shepard back in 2007 was blond, and I had no idea about this until O watched this video, I had read the books but I must've brushed off that part as unimportant.
@@sohrab_solheim To be fair the games do have some blondes (natural or otherwise) despite their supposed rarity, so your Shepard was fine. Conrad Verner is one of the more notable expamples, lol.
With The Crucible, I suspect that the Reapers might have known they were working on it, but thought they would complete the harvest before it could be finished just like they did in previous cycles.
My head cannon about the reapers not bumping in to the AI ships, was because they left from another part of the galaxy. In ME3, you see some Alliance ships in the Attican Traverse, out near the galaxy's edge. Perhaps they were an escort, to ensure the expedition didn't get hijacked by pirates, or something else...
So, way back in the Mass Effect 1 days I remembered reading a codex that implied most human life was genetically altered at birth, including standardizing most human height. At the time I took this as a tongue-in-cheek way for developers to explain why every model was the same height and why all the armors fit. When ME2 came out that even made Miranda's outfit make a sort of sense, custom made for her and all that. Years later, I've never been able to find the specific codex. This has become my own tin hat conspiracy and I'll argue it to the grave. This isn't a joke. Why Won't You BELIEVE Me!? THE SPACE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CONTROL YOUR HEIGHT!!! RISE U-
I had a similar problem with a specific holotape i KNOW i found during a specific mission years ago in Fallout 3, but the rest of the universe is against me and denies that that holotape ever existed. This is a REAPER PLOT.
@@therobustempyrean1436 From what i can recall it had to do with early warning messages, a bit like what you can find on The Switchboard computer in Fallout 4 about Norad messages. I remember it was found in some basement, i think. But it is years ago so i would not say i am 100% positive.
Thermal Clips were such a backwards step, none of it makes any sense. Running out of ammo is much more a problem than having to pause and let your weapon cooldown from time to time. You still have to frequently pause to reload all the same.
The Asari Democracy exist: in Switzerland. The Electronic Voting argument is actually widely debated worlwide: and it's a staple of Sci-Fi that Direct Democracy is possible through e-voting, exemples in "The Way" series by the late Greg Bear, the Demarchists polities in "Revelation Space" series by Alastair Reynolds, or the late exemples of Human polities in Charles Stross' "Accelerando", or even Alan Robert's "New Model Army"
Regarding the Hugo Gernsback level: While personally I think it would've been fun to not have thermal clips present in the level (especially as I've fallen in love with Vanguard and on lower difficulties you don't really need any guns), possibly having to scavenge enemy weapons to be able to keep fighting, people would have had a bitch fit not having ammo or being able to use their weapons. For the Andromeda Initiative and the possibility of some of the crew/colonists being indoctrinated; that's pretty easily solvable by the arks/ships launching before the Reapers hit Earth. About the Crucible: The Citadel is the catalyst precisely because it's a giant mass relay. During the ending, the Crucible doesn't just send out one giant shockwave that covers the entire Milky Way, whichever RGB flavor you choose gets zapped from relay to relay. It would make sense for the Citadel relay to link up with them in dark space and also link to at least some of the relays strewn about. It would also explain why they took and held the Citadel during the Protheans' cycle, not only was it made to be a prime location for centralizing governments from organics to be able to cut the head off the snake (not to mention the convenient processing center in the Citadel as well), but it's also the nerve center of the mass relay network making their movements easier. 12:27 Yes, the galaxy was under attack, but they weren't everywhere at once because the Protheans shut down their access to the Citadel Relay, and Shepard keeps Sovereign from reactivating the ability. Assuming that you include the Arrival DLC, Shepard also keeps the Reapers from being able to use the Alpha Relay, also slowing their advance. That's why at the beginning of the game there's only a handful of Reapers on the galaxy map marking their held territory, and as you go through the game more and more appear, as they had to make it *to* a relay first to be able to really start expanding their grasp. Add in that multiple times Hackett, Anderson, other characters, and the codex mention that the Reapers are focused on population centers, and it would make it easy to hide where the Crucible was being built, either by building in an unpopulated cluster, or in a slightly more grim fashion, building where the Reapers already finished their business. Counting that a good chunk of the war assets you acquire are about supplying materials for the Crucible, and you can easily explain why and how the Crucible was built. 12:58 A really good explanation as to why the Crucible fits the Citadel so well is because it was *designed* to (and not by Reapers)! If you're designing a case for a phone, you're going to make sure it actually fits the phone you're trying to protect, yeah? Especially if it's *extremely important* that it fits right to function properly. Also, multiple times people question what the Crucible actually does, how it works, and if it should be used, but as mentioned earlier there wasn't really any other option to beat the Reapers, so people just had to hope that thing worked. I do like the idea that the Crucible is actually of Reaper design, the plans intentionally made incomplete to keep the cycle's harvest from attempting to flee into dark space themselves, with the false hope of beating the Reapers keeping them around to make sure they're all harvested. Shepard's cycle just managed to make it work because of the Protheans/Shepard stopping the planned Citadel activation giving them just enough time needed to actually pull it off. Taps into the conceit of the "perfect beings" to *actually* make it a device of their destruction, since it had to be believable to get the harvests to actually build it, and never thinking any cycle would every actually be able to complete it.
I always believed that the crucible was created by the leviathans, and since there were still around during mass effect that they may have tried to give the blueprints to previous civilizations, so the plans wouldn't die out.
Many science fiction stories follow characteristics of older science fiction works. Arthur C. Clark's influence is definitely seen in the Mass Effect series.
My older sister has dark brown hair, but since she was a total stress head since she was in high school, the edge of her hair started graying out by the time she graduated and went to college and life goes on. When I see Jack's hair in LE it immediately reminded me of my sister and knowing Jack's upbringing and life causing to be in survival mode all the time, her hair makes total sense. So yes, constant high stress can make one's hair start graying out even at such a young age. My sister is 39 and I'm 27, you can do the math of how old she was when she started graying out in high school.
Asari Government actually makes perfect sense when you realize that they are an amalgamation of enlightened space elves mixed with the Amazons, and along with being the space equivalent of the Ancient Greek city-states themselves, specifically Athens. Direct democracies were a thing back then, and in a hyper-advanced Sci-Fi setting I could totally see an equivalent society making the process digital. Hell even the Asari military members behaved in the way the Ancient Greek citizen soldier did, small bands of comrades who are tight knit with their own personalized gear. Asari are very much into the arts, philosophy, and political discussion just as the Ancient Greeks were as well, it makes total sense that their form of government works for them.
Even if blondes are extinct, there's no reason people couldn't bleach blond or bleach and dye for a darker blonde. With blonde vanishingly rare, I could see this being super popular with people who liked standing out. Also, with Jack, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she dyed her hair a different color regularly.
Okay, so: 1) e-democracy is a legitimate prediction for how a democracy could evolve via internet technology. It’s not like the Asari Republics are governed via Twitter. A government could build a specific zone of cyberspace specifically designed to allow for seamless interaction between the individual and the state, eliminating the need for representative legislature entirely. 2) It is heavily insinuated that each cycle since the Reaper’s inception has gotten closer cracking the code on Reaper technology. It’s actually also insinuated that Shepherd’s cycle was actually instigated early due to the Protheans’ gambit forcing Sovereign’s hand to search for a way to reactivate the Citadel relay. That’s why Milky Way technology was so much farther behind the Protheans during the last cycle, as recognized by Javik (which also explains why the harvest was so much faster than with Protheans. It took a few months to nearly end our cycle vs generations to end the Protheans). 2.5) The Geth were instrumental in the technological advancements necessary for the Andromeda Initiative to even exist. Not only did they invent the Mass Effect Telescope capable of giving the Initiative a view of the Helios Cluster, but inadvertently they also showed the Initiative how to realign Mass Relays in the first place, which was what they did in order to jump the arcs at the speeds necessary to reach Andromeda as fast as they did. So, connect with the previous point, it makes total sense that the cycle capable of completing the Crucible was also capable of breaking the cycle in other ways the Reapers hadn’t planned to prevent. 3) The Citadel isn’t JUST a Mass Relay, it’s the center of the Relay Network. All Mass Relays lead to the Citadel. 3.5) The Citadel is the only thing that could’ve been the Catalyst. Since it is the center of the Mass Relay Network, it’s the only object in the MW capable of sending a signal or energy burst intended to destroy all Reaper-based tech in the galaxy without leaving anything uneffected. It’s the only real kill switch for the Reapers. 3.75) The whole point of ME3 is building the Crucible. Every war asset earned contributes to building it. You aren’t fighting the Reaper War in that game, your buying time and resources for the Crucible while everyone else just tries to survive. 4) Jack’s hair isn’t blonde in MELE ME3. It just looks like the ambient lighting gives it more light to the light brown. At most, girl got highlights which considered Jack’s propensity for body ornamentation, is def not out of the realm of possibility. 5) Why is it hard to believe that over the countless cycles the Crucible has slowly been researched, developed, and passed on by, they DIDNT design it to perfectly fit the Citadel and interact perfectly with the master switch? Wouldn’t that be exactly what they would engineer it to do? No, the Crucible wasn’t created by the Reapers, y’all just can’t imagine that smart people figure shot out sometimes lol
Sorry about the persnickety tone everyone. Sometimes my feisty comes out when I don’t want it to. Read back through this and still agree with every but definitely could’ve been less sassy lol
Liara states in ME3 that it would take a "couple hundred years" to exterminate everyone in her cycle. Of course, that's a prediction on her part, but she does have a lot of information at her disposal to make such a guess, her being the Shadowbroker and all. I agree with basically everything else though.
2:34 I never heard of this piece of lore. Ever. And I've studied the Mass Effect lore since 2012. But I always wondered how did Donovan Hock have the Statue of Liberty's head.
What? If they did this there would have been absolutely ME relays in Andromeda, and kett would have used them to find new species to exalt, hence they wouldn't use Alcubierre drive 18k manline cruiser Reapers is much more than we ever see, add to that the fact that there are probably multiple destroyer Reapers in every cycle and that some cycles (like the current one) most likely produce more than one mainline Reaper and I don't think there's any problem with their numbers. I wouldn't mind if it turned out there are only few hundred of them, knowing how much more powerful than anything we know they are
The reaper number is actually only about the Harbinger/Sovereign types. That normally is 1 per cycle but its possible it could be more than one. The other races are turned into the destroyer types so those could be multiple per cycle. Just going by the advanced races in ME games it could be 20 to 30 destroyers per cycle.
Cruscible was build by the same people that made the Citadel. It was intentionally left as nothing but a plan, and the AI controlling the Reapers was waiting for a cycle to be advanced enough to know how to finish it, because then, and only then, would Sentient races know how to handle that borderline Godlike power. At least, thats my head canon. The Reapers KNEW of it, and let it happen.
Which would turn every previous Reaper cycle as premature harvesting then and turns them into idiots all over again. Not that they aren't idiots in the video game with the whole "We don't want synthetics kill organics so we kill you guys before you make synths strong enough to do so." IE they're a self fulfilling prophecy.
1:32 Matriarchs are pretty dominants figures in Asari society, i'm quite sure they are the ones taking care of the legislatives aspects of Thessia who are discussed through thoses forums. The idea is foreign to us because such debates would be seemingly endless but Asari aren't pressured by time like humans are. 3:26 I'm not sure how the idea of UNAS is ridiculous, i mean, from a contenporary point of view maybe but it happenned in 2096. Who know how the futur will be? 5:17 aren't ginger also a recessive traits? Shouldn't they be extinct too? I'm sure i have seen some blondes npc though now that i think about it, they were quite few. 9:02 That's actually a very good point. But maybe the Reapers, as intelligents as they were, didn't think of everything. After all, it's highly unlikely that anyone could reach another galaxy. 12:04 It's more than that, the Citadelle is the ia controlling the Reapers so it make sense that the weapon meant to destroy the Reapers has to use it or hit there first. But you do have a point, if the Reapers always take control of the Citadelle first then why would one believe they could use it? I think, maybe the races that built the crucible didn't built it for themselves but for the futur dominants species of the galaxy and left instructions and warnings (like the beacons on Eden Prime) thinking that, warned, the futurs species would prepare for the Reapers and build the crucible before the Reapers return. That's the reason Protheans left the Beacons after all. Or maybe the human cycle isn't the first cycle where the Reapers failed to seize the Citadelle immediately and the contenporary races thought they would have time to use the Citadelle? Or since the catalyst mentionned trying differents experiments to "unite organics and synthetics", maybe it is of Reaper design, a experiment that was deemed a failure and abandonned but later discovered by organics races that decided to redesign it and use it against the Reapers?
Wait, there were a couple blonde C-Sec officers in ME1. Eddie Lang (think that was his name) and the unnamed NPC that shows up with Anderson after the final fight. Also I seem to remember Captain Bailey as being blonde originally. And then of course, Kathleen Sanders.
12:00 I feel like I heard that because of the keepers doing all the repairs, there was no real need to search for the ai on the citadel. Keepers somehow worked with the reapers and they had to stop the keepers from sending a single to the reapers to give the other races more time. But beforehand everyone just let the keepers do their thing since they didn’t do anything but work, they don’t even communicate with anyone.
Not sure if it's been said yet but I believe the crucible was left by the reapers to see if their whole system could change, they are machines and seem to test things. It is possible the whole cycle thing is just a bunch of tests to see some new variables and maybe a test on organic sentience it's self
I was one of those who thought the catalyst was a reaper trap. My first play through was before I even knew about the… controversial ending so I was verrrry disappointed lol
Yeah, have the most advanced species commit their resources towards a dead end instead of more conventional weapons that could actually kill Reapers, or even an FTL system that would let them escape the relay network and just hide out in the rest of the galaxy or maybe even reach the Magellanic Clouds with generation ships.
Even when I played the games as a teenager, the UNAS history always came across to me as a very Canadian thing to write, extremely divorced from the realities of US politics and culture.
It’s possible the Citadel and catalyst was figured out by a species who found the crucible design, but then they got immediately harvested and only got the barest minimum patches into the archive before they hid it. Plus the catalyst being the focus makes sense in a way, since it controls the reapers. The crucible is stated to basically be a giant power generator.
I was once a man. Crying out in The Kingdom for justice. And she came to me. The wisp of an ancient youtuber. She gave me all the bioware content I wanted and more. I have fanboyed for Saria ever since. Seeking the justice denied to her. Congrats, Lethalan. I'm so proud of you. 💜
Also. Please check out. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines. What a title for a game lol I think it's the kind of dark fantasy game you're looking for. Also part 2 seems to have a Dec 2023 release date. Keep in mid that the game is like from 2004. So it's not great graphically but it has a lot of layers. Seems to have a pretty loyal fanbase. I haven't finished it yet but it's pretty interesting so far.
Ahh I love that Flemeth/Mythal quote! We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly!
For the thermal clips in Jacob's loyalty mission, my headcanon is that we used our omnitools to minifacture them out of the older weapons used by the hunters and mechs on that planet
Ive always thought of the Crucible as a failsafe from the reapers themselves based on what the Star child says. Or The race that began the Crucible thought they had more time to finish the relay before the reapers came through. Cuz idk if you can disable thencrucible and the mass relay together, especially since their is another one inside the Citadel.
Can't remember who it was on the team but they confirmed that jack does have grey hair due to what she has been through over the years, in my case I'm 32 and I've got about as many grey hairs due to stress and other things
I hope that the blonde extinction lore gets retconned into the ground since that article is was based on was disproven and that it's a stupid piece of lore.
First, ill start off with great video. Really love the work your channel does. Also, i totally don't hate or even disparage anyone who disagrees with me. I do have 3 things on the Catalyst however: 1) the keepers intentionally hid vast parts of the Citadel from the other species that would find themselves there. it makes sense noone finds the parts that Sheperd was in in ME3. Also, you can hide things on the Citadel and fool the Keepers, like the Conduit. 2) for previous races before this cycle, think of it like this: the only things that will survive a Reaper harvest AND will be discovered by future races are the Relays, the Citadel, and whatever races the Reapers leave around (including the collectors and the keepers). The Citadel is the centre of the relay network and importantly, something that the Reapers will make sure doesnt get destroyed during the harvest. the collective cycles coopting the Citadel for its own design is smart. 3) The Catalyst is a Reaper intelligence that it took countless cycles of civilizations to learn how to coopt. importantly, you needed to probably find a way of hitting EVERY Reaper at once in order to stop the invasion once for all (however you decide to do so) using the Mass Relays as a means of spreading this signal would only probably work at the Citadel, the heart of the relay network. You probably need a shit ton of energy to do so, hence that's the main part of the Crucible
Been thoroughly enjoying the Mass Effect videos Saria! Just wanted to amazing work and appreciate all you do! These videos along with MrHulthen's gets me hyped for the upcoming Mass Effect and Dreadwolf alike!
The blonde lore was kind of silly. There has been global travel for centuries in the real world but most people in 2023 most people still marry within their own ethnic group. 2183 is 160 years in the future, or between six and seven generations of people. Unless everyone in the world with blonde hair and blue eyes started having interracial marriages right now with dark haired, dark eyed partners (people unlikely to carry the traits) you would not be able to breed out these traits in six or seven generations. It's just not possible. And if ME wants to say that's what happened then most people in the future would have a more uniform skin tone but we know that isn't the case. There's black people, white people, hispanics, asians, etc seen in the games.
About the thermal clips in Jacob's mission: even the writers seem to think that thermal clips were always a thing, like when Jacob gives a pistol to his father, he acknowledges it as being half-charged. This is weird because Taylor wouldn't and shouldn't know about thermal clips.
It’s funny they think blue eyes and blonde hair is almost extinct, just because it’s recessive. Recessive genes don’t just disappear for no reason, just like dominant genes don’t “take over” for no reason. Not to mention that they have gene editing technology, so I assume some people would want their children to be blonde and/or blue eyed. In my case, my mom has blue eyes and my dad has brown. His mom had brown eyes and his father had blue. I have brown eyes, but my brother has blue. I’m a carrier of blue eyes, because my mom has blue. The genes didn’t “die” with me or my father, just because we have dominant brown eyes.
That's so true. And blondes are not just native to the nordic regions. It's prevalent in most English-speaking or European countries. Heck even my people, Australian Aboriginals can have natural blondie hair.😁
@MamaWuf SSED NATURAL MAG Aborigines and Melanesians: Naturally Blonde Hair and Dark Skin September 23, 2013 37 Comments Naturally blonde hair is often associated with white or Caucasian people. However, there are groups of dark skin people who have naturally blonde hair also. Some of these groups include the Aboriginal Australians (Aborigines) and the Melanesians. I love this fact because it goes against the idea that one group or culture must look a certain way or stay in a certain category. The Aborigines have dark skin. Some of them also have blonde hair which tends to be straight, but can be curly. Scientists first believed they were descendants of Eurasians. In 2011, scientists found evidence against the theory from a sample of natural hair. The sample of hair, which was said to be more than 100 years old, helped scientists determine that Aborigines were descendants of Africans. The New York Times confirmed this finding: "The Aborigines are thus direct descendants of the first modern humans to leave Africa, without any genetic mixture from other races so far as can be seen at present. Their dark skin reflects an African origin and a migration and residence in latitudes near the equator, unlike Europeans and Asians whose ancestors gained the paler skin necessary for living in northern latitudes." 🙂
You're assuming perfectly equal breeding rates among all genotypes. In reality genetic drift and genetic supremacy through immigration would wipe out most genotypes without separation.
@@Lemonz1989 Yes that is what genetic drift is, it is a biology term look it up if you don't know it. Combine that with immigration, and higher breeding rates and extinction is a swift result for the native population.
On Jack's hair being grey not making sense, my Uncle Mickey (Michael, but everyone always called him Mickey) had his hair go completely grey at 22, so it does happen.
I think the Crucible could actually be based on technology left behind by the race who created the Reapers. It's possible they realised the Reapers were becoming too powerful to control, and began creating a countermeasure for them. But they were too late to stop them, and instead hide away major components of the plans that yet to be made for future races to find. The Reapers repurposed parts that were already made or added their own, the former being the Catalyst and the latter being the Mass Relays. Future races found the final plans and had to start from scratch but the Catalyst was no longer called that, so they also realised it was too late and had to sacrifice themselves to hide the original plans and what they added to it.
Love the thematic and the kind of conversation you're doing here... but I... can't see myself agreeing with most of your points... 1. What's so wrong about 2007 Bioware releasing a game that imagined a democracy by the Power of the Internet? Maybe you don't know because you're too young or you never researched any of this, but there was a point in time where this idea was all the rage in many intellectual circles for a possible future alternative to the anemic democracy we had at the time. Of course, ever since the gamerg*te era and into 2016, this idea has been shunned. But this game was not made in 2016. 2. Very flimsy argument... what about it that it is so unbelievable? 100 years ago, an entity called "The German Empire" existed. Then it sprawled all over Europe and extinguished itself. Then it got broken into pieces. Then in 1989 some of its pieces unified to Germany. Meanwhile the continent where wars were continuous would later form the european union. Imagine someone from 1922 being told about the European Union. Change isn't "unbelievable", it's the norm. What bugs me the most is how you insist it's not "real". What are you talking about? It's a fictional universe set out in the future! (I completely agree with the thermal clips segment, your calling out of the Gernsback is spot on!) 3. Why doesn't it make sense to say that blonde hairs are a rarity and then have a crew member with blonde hair? You then go to say they're "extinct", when it's clear that "near extinct" and "rare" does not equal "extinct". You are too loose with definitions. 4. Absolutely spot on. This was my major major gripe with the entire setup ever since I saw the initial teaser trailer. I had always hoped that they would at least lampshade the situation they were cornering themselves into, but they never did in a substantial way. You can make a very convoluted argument that this cycle was different because the invasion had been postponed. In fact, the entire program only got itself up and running because Shepard had defeated Sovereign and stopped the Reaper invasion. But the leakage implications throughout the previous cycles is undeniable. I think this can still be salvageable, if we are to assume not only that they had an extra year, but actually maybe a few hundreds more, for Sovereign was slowly trying to figure out what to do without the Keeper's signal functioning. In typical cycles, they would never have the chance to do an Ark program to begin with before being utterly destroyed. 5. I can answer some of your questions here I think. Why haven't the species realised that the Citadel was a big giant mass relay pointing to Dark Space? Well, this is the wrong question, because it assumes these species developed the Crucible without knowing about the Reapers. But this is the wrong assumption. The Crucible was developed to destroy the Reapers! Of course every species that added to the development of the Crucible did so *after* realising the potential of the Citadel as a big giant Mass Relay that was connected with the wider network and thus being capable of distributing the immense energies stored in the Crucible. How was it built? But Hackett tells you how. With every scrap of metal you can give him, including all the materials everyone in the galaxy is contributing. And, where? Well the game tells you that the place where they're building is in Space itself, between stars. The knowledge of the actual site is a secret that they were able to keep. But when you go towards the Cerberus Base, Hackett tells you that once you commit they have to immediately go to Earth because they expose the location of their remaining fleets and the Crucible itself. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's... The fact that the Reapers were caught unaware with it is debatable. The Catalyst tells you that they thought this giant thing was forgotten in time, that they were caught off-handed. But it doesn't tell you when they realised it was actually here being built. They may have learned about it. They may have ignored it because every time it was built before, it was never completed. None of this is incompatible with the story being presented. The idea that there's no other explanation than "it is reaper tech", I can't agree with. You might not believe it, but I do. It is written this way, and there's nothing in-game that disagrees with it, only speculatory ideas based on suspicion. But fiction never works that way, it's usually straightforward, and Mass Effect is written in a very maximalist fashion. You just have to accept that it is not reaper tech. So all in all I love videos like this. But unfortunately I can't really abide by almost anything you said. I do hope you make more of these, love these discussions, even if no one answers to my comments. Peace.
For the Crucible not being found - i have a head canon that during ME3, the Reapers do know the Crucible is being built but simply dont know its location, being a combination of only select few knowing where it is [even Shep is never told where theyre working] and possibly Liara feeding false reports. For materials, home planets/systems were ravaged but many species and sub species have colonies all over, on planets, asteroids, and remote worlds. Our cycles independence was our saving grace.
About Asari's politics. In my opinion, this is a clear development of the Prediction market idea. I would like to know more about how this is implemented in Mass Effect, but this is not a new idea for science fiction anyway
in regard to thermal clips, I remember a scene in Mass Effect 3 where Conrad Verner talks about how silly it is that they moved from automatically recharging guns back to ammunition. I think Bioware was aware that it didn't make sense, but I guess they felt gameplay was more important than story with that.
Honestly, I think that it is possible that the Crucible was supposed to be a trap, but one of the various species figured it out, and managed to alter things to suit their purpose. A group of Prothean scientists figured out that the Citadel was a trap, and were never found by the Reapers, maybe they also figured out that the Crucible was also a trap. Before dying out completely, maybe they used the beacons to send a final set of updates detailing the alterations to turn it into a Reaper Killing weapon.
For the Asari - i can understand how itd work. Imagine if everyone on our planet, at least the majority, came to the internet with the sole intention of having a good faith debate to find the optimal solution for our species. Imagine the collaboration of ideas, the enlightenment we could share. Not to idealize the Asari and say none are without bad intentions, but i also see the majority being able to root them out and keep the debates focused. It just seems foreign to us because we know what our forums have 😅
It’s wild to me that using jack as an example of “yes there’s blond” as if she doesn’t have cosmetic work all over her body. I haven’t the slightest doubt they can still dye their hair.
I'm pretty sure in the ME universe a person gets to choose their hair and eye color no different than a person choosing what color shirt they want to wear for that day. I forget where i heard this however. And if that is the case jack's hair color changing fits right into the lore.
It would take thousands of years for blonde hair and blue eyes to be bred out completely, and that that's only if those features don't show up elsewhere from another mutation..... Mass Effect is only set 150 years from now.....
You know what’s even worse? Trying to convince players that a woman that is 5’6 weighing 110 pounds could possibly pull off everything Commander Shepard accomplished. Definitely fiction. 😂
we know it's mentioned that it appeared at one point, it is possible there was an early race that did discover it was a mass relay but ultimately voted not to turn it on as it was deemed dormant and too much of an unknown to turn it on (until one day it sprang to life and several thousand death ships poured out and slaughtered them, I reckon the race that initially created it became the keepers, and every cycle afterwards added to the crucible until at last this cycle completed it
We take for granted that the reapers were the one that created the citadel, but isn’t there, in canon, a race that looks a lot like the reapers, that had the very technology to create the citadel and most likely was the one really behind the mass relays ? Yes I am talking about the Leviathans. And they could very well have created the plans for the crucible to begin with, but as their own harvest was already ongoing, couldn’t implement it. And then, what could happen would be that not every race built its own crucible from scratch, but being guided to it by indications from its precursor race, found the then incomplete artefact… How else could it be build in so little time ?
The crucible can actually be theorized as an invention by the race that built the reapers and mass relays. Given they’ve survived all this time they could have been the ones ensuring it was passed into each new cycle.
Ya know, when the studio changed course between 2 and 3, a lot of plot that would have made sense got tossed out because of the leaks. Whenever I hear cannon debated, I just keep pointing out that 3 was written by EA, and not the original team that worked on 1 and 2. Because, the plot that the Reapers are harvesting advanced civilizations because ezo creates dark-matter that then causes stars to collapse, makes a ton more sense than 'derp - AI bad - derp.'
Speak for yourself. AI vs organics becoming an inevitable conflict makes perfect sense, and dialing that up to 11 with what is essentially the same idea as Halo rings (Reapers) to wipe out the Flood (advanced organics) makes perfect sense. It's a trope sure, not exactly original sure. But it makes sense.
On Jack, she is totally the type of person that would color her hair, she could have a purple hair and it would fit perfectly so a bad example. Plus its never said they are extinct, just close to it being very rare
The reapers knew but they were ordered by the starchild not to stop it's construction as their futile resistance would have amused the starchild and it wanted to see how far the current cycle could get
Has anyone mentioned the Planet of the Apes reference in the history of the UNAS? They blew up the Statue of Liberty, AND all that was left was the head.
The US, Canada, and Mexico unifying isn't that far fetched imo. By the 2090's Mexican immigrants will very likely have become a part of the base American culture and identity, Canada already is, so there would be a common cultural basis for such a union. And separatists from all 3 nations rallying together against it in a civil war also isn't far fetched at all, national identity sparks conflict even centuries after countries have been formed, just look at the Catalonian independence movement.
The only thing I could possible think of is that the crucible is just based off reaper tech like everything else. And they designed it to fit the Citadel since every other harvest started with the Reapers using the Citadel to enter the Galaxy and then spread out from there with the central government destroyed. So the previous species designed it to fit the citadel knowing it was the center of the galaxy's mass relay network. It's also possible that the reapers figured they could wipe out enough of the galaxy to stop the project, the Leviathans that made the reapers created the crucible as a failsafe for when they made the reapers, or the reapers wanted the crucible built to offer organic life other solutions to AI wiping out organic life. But none of those really make sense, especially the Leviathan one. The Leviathans could enslave people in every cycle to build the crucible in secret. But really I don't get how the reapers even beat the Leviathans. Leviathans are shown to be able to take reapers one on one. Plus if a new reaper only gets added every cycle, then it would be one reaper vs. all the leviathans.
Before the release of Andromeda, the developers said that Cerberus was not related to the Andromeda Initiative. The developers also said that the Reapers are not interested in other Galaxies. Their only target is the Milky Way. The wounded galaxy belonging to the Leviathans
Gray hair is not always related to age. I had a classmate in high school that was salt and pepper haired at 17yo. Also Jack has experienced heavy traumatic events, biotics degenerate her system and Cerberus experiments might have altered her in that regard.
One thing about the Andromeda galaxy being barren is that we are only seeing a single cluster, not the entire galaxy. And that cluster has been devastated by the Scourge, hence why it seems so empty. In fact the Khett very clearly show that there is a much larger galactic community outside of the cluster, why else would they have this uplifting technology if not to integrate other species from other clusters?
There is a really blond girl in ME3, at the Citadel after Tutchanka, saying she's waiting for her parents to come back. And your Shepard could be a blond, people, can still dye their hair and nearly extinct is not totally so it's a reach for me. As for the thermal clips, they won't let you make the mission without finding some, but it could have been fun.
The Asari government is an example of deliberative democracy. Some political scientists have argued that with the development of new technologies, this is what future democracy on Earth might look like ;)
The heatsinks were the first thing I noticed on that mission, just chalked it up to gameplay and story segregation. As the novels, I liked them and other media like Paragon Lost, but Bioware's management of continuity was so bad I just wrote them off as "not canon, not bad, but not canon." As for the Andromeda Initiative and its tech, it's mentioned that the current harvest as of the trilogy has been delayed several times and Sovereign was getting desperate (or as close to desperate as a Reaper can get) and while most Mass Effect tech is based on what the Reapers left not all of it is, like the Andromeda species and research and development still occurs for the other races of the Milky Way. And the Crucible, didn't the Catalyst straight up say it was designed by it as a test for organic races? Going off my faulty memory and the Mass Effect Wiki, it was really just a big power source designed to work with the Citadel and Mass Relay network, but yeah, it's totally a plot point to explain away why, despite the Citadel race reverse-engineering Sovereign's big molten metal cannon, we couldn't just blow away the Reapers like pyzaks.
You missed something about the citadel and the crucible! Something the prothean VI on Cerberus main base tells Sheppard: "the crucible doesn't have enough power by itself, it needs power from the citadel, itself a mass relay, that's why it needs to be connected with the citadel!
As reaper tech being used to reach andromeda. The other civilizations didn’t know that the reapers were a thing. With an entire galaxy to exploit the civilizations at the time had no reason to attempt to go to Andromeda out of science sake. Andromeda also may have been too far away from that as the galaxy would be 50,000 years closer during Mass Effect. Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way galaxy after all. As for the project itself they didn’t accelerate their plans until after the battle of the citadel. When the reapers became a known threat and pressure can drive innovation. Reaper’s probably didn’t consider a civilization would make an attempt with the distances involved.
I don't remember the specifics but IIRC there are clues hinting at that the benefactors of the Andromeda Initiative are most likely a cabal of AI that wanted to merge with organics, SAM is part of it, but also only they could scrounge up enough money to finish the project, and have the foresight to kick it into gear after the attack on the citadel. And the Reapers are a big threat to AI as well, since they mostly care about organics.
I always thought the Reapers' efforts to halt organic advancement beyond a threshold was pursued in an unemotional, analytical way. So, I interpreted their indifference to the crucible as just one of multiple unquantifiable variables that could disrupt the logic they held as true. Since they operate without malice, they accepted what they held as truth to be fallible. Hence, the pursuit of a new solution.
Honestly, humans in the ME universe are so advanced in terms of genetic augmentation, the idea that any hair color could be extinct is fairly ridiculous.
In fact it’s kind of surprising we haven’t seen more creative hair colors in the series, just the ones we get naturally.
Specifically, they stated natural blondes are near extinct. So blondes produced from genetic manipulation probably don't count.
I think they have others matters than their hair color to take care
@@Dracula_G4m3 If there's people buying it ...
Because Jane Shepard's bottle-scarlet hair is so natural, right?
It's mostly that genetic modification that isn't for serious medical research has been outlawed; I think it was called the Sudham-Wolcott Genetic Heritage Act...
It's probably become something of a climate of opinion among humans that is affected by the majority of the rest of the galaxy finding frivolous gene manipulation to be... well...
6:35
Jack could in fact have some grey hair. You don't have to be old to have grey hair, some of it come come from shock. Being experimented on by Cerberus would more than likely have shocked her system more than once, thus grey hair is possible. As for blondes in Mass Effect overall, there are at least a few natural blondes in the series, Conrad for one, the Commander Shepard fan. I think one of the human male c-sec commanders is also a blonde if I recall. There's also the woman who used to have a thing for Commander Anderson. 👀
Yep agree I have gray hair too (33y) And I'm started to gray at 22-24 y old
+ fun fact stress and trauma can trigger that and Jack had some in her life, so it's make sense for me.
My mom works with children from disfunctional families, one of the girls has partially gray hair from stress and trauma even though she's just 12, and considering what Jack went through, it's very possible to have gray hair at her age
Yeah, gray hair in young people is actually pretty common.
my dad was completely white in his 30s. he already had to start dying it on his 30s. I started noticing white hairs in my head since I was 18. I'm 32 now and you can tell it's already starting to go. actually my little brother is 23 and he has more white hairs than even me an entire patch of his hair is completely white, I don't know if it's the same thing though but he only got that about 2 years ago.
IIRC Kahlee is specifically the one who dyes her hair, the fact about natural blonds being very rare and most current blonds dyeing their hair is raised when she is described.
About Andromeda, the whole game takes place in just one cluster (Heleus) rather than in the OG trilogy taking place in the whole galaxy. It kind of makes sense how there would only be one or two races per cluster since that's how it is in the Milky Way. If they had gone to more clusters, who knows what they could have found?
Agreed! I feel a lot of people tend to forget that fact when mentioning only two species, when it makes sense there wouldn't be as many when it doesn't take place in the entire galaxy!
There are bounds to be more species besides just them two but either not having any knowledge of each other or only have their clusters colonized and maybe contact with only one other race besides their own if they grew large enough but if they were that large they would have conflict with the Kett eventually...overall Andromeda is very divided and not united due to the lack of mass effect tech so any and all species had to rely on their own and any old tech they found from other older civilizations if there was anything left to be found.
It very much fit the premise of Andromeda well with was to explore and lead the way and seeing how unconnected everything is there compared to the Milky way where there were tons of rules and everywhere belonged to someone that andromeda was like the new frontier where its Truley was wild and open to explore and fit the narrative quite well.
I enjoyed the game for the story it was trying to tell and was sad that a sequel would never get made for it as it had a lot of unanswered questions and cool ideas that could have been explored in more details in another game that was set there if it were to happen.
Yep and at the end of andromeda their discussing going to other clusters to explore everyone seems to forget that without mass relays travel would take longer and therefore so would other races meeting each as almost every race in the mass effect universe made first contact through the use of mass relays which isn't an option in andromeda currently
@@dankace5849 Yep and even the Milky Way has a lot of unexplored space since you need a relay to make the huge jumps from one side to the other. I think the codex or some sort of canon source says that less than 1% of the Milky Way is reachable/explored.
What's to say the Reapers don occupy the entirety of the MW and the games only focus on the clusters and systems that the Humans are in, and there's whole advanced civilizations in others that none of the ME races have encountered because they just Never went?
@@jpisback It's highly possible. The first contact war started because we wanted to turn on a deactivated relay. There could be life all over we don't know about.
8:48 Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that before Shepards cycle, the Reapers entered unexpectedly through the Citadel Relay. Those who believed in the Reaper threat still had years to prepare to colonize another system, while the cycles before that likely did not because their leadership was eliminated in the first strike. They also probably werent aware of the Reapers existence.
To clarify: It was stated that the Reapers always leave one Reaper behind. That Reaper's purpose is to monitor the progress of civilization. So any time a cycle got close to going to another galaxy, the vanguard would initiate the harvest. Since Sovereign was destroyed, that was no longer possible. Or perhaps the Benefactor wanting to colonize Andromeda led to the events in Mass Effect 1 in the first place. A sort of trigger for Sovereign
I like this
Amen
The trigger was the Geth uprising. The cycle was already delayed for centuries by the time ME1 started. But because the keepers were modified not to up the dark space relay another way was needed.
Could the the "sour note" the rachni describe have been the signal to remotely activate the Citadel? If so the extinction event would've passed humanity by.
@Lord Chauncy no the sour note was a result of the Leviathans messing with them. The original point of when the cycle was meant to happen was the Geth uprising as the Reapers entire mission is to preserve species before they are wiped out by their own creations. And the Geth are the first major example of that nearly happening.
I got my first grey hair at 16. Both of my parents and my brother were grey by early 30s. My hair colour is just like Jack's now at 26. You really don't have to be old to grey. So it makes perfect sense for Jack to have a few
You also have stuff like stress, which we all can agree Jack have had plenty off. So yeah plenty of ways it could have happened
Got an aunt whose hair had grayed by the time she was 18. Hearing about the trauma she went through, growing up, makes sense why she grayed so young!
My brother got some grey hair from the stresses of life before he was 25, I think its more understandable Jack has been under lots more stress and anger in her life that contributes to having multiple strands of grey hair.
My first memory of father he have steel grey hair while in the weading photo of he and my mother his hair is 100% black. So basically between the age of 25 and 35 he went from beeing a black haird man to a grey haird man without a hint of black in it. (Now at the age of 69 it is compleetly white just like his siblings and my grandma was at the same age). Sometime your genetics is a bitch to you :P
Im 34 and don't have a single gray hair. If I shave my beard some people think I'm 18 - 25 years old. Genetic is pretty strange, isn't it?
One of my uncles got his first grey hair with 20, my father who died at the age of 57 had grey mottled temples and a few gray spots in his beard, while my mum, who's 67 now, got her first grey hair with 60.
If you take into account what Jack endured since her early childhood it's no supprise and absolutely possible that she got at least a few grey strands of hair.
For the crucible using the citadel, that never bothered me - whoever first started designing it designed it to do that intentionally. Why? Because they realized that the citadel was linked into the whole Mass Relay network. If they were designing an anti-reaper weapon, the reapers had already arrived in their cycle, the citadel was lost, but they had seen how it worked and that it could control other mass relays. Since they need to kill ALL the reapers, or they'll just rebuild, they need a weapon that spans the galaxy. "Let's use the reaper's own tools against them" they say... only, they know it is way too late. So, they push the design along as far as they can, and then hide as many copies as possible on as may worlds as they can, and hope that a future cycle can complete it.
After all, since it only relies on the things the Reaper's leave intact (and probably repair and maintain) between cycles, as soon as someone can finish it, it'll be ready to go.
I was gonna comment this😭😭
I prefer this. Stuff like "it's a Reaper trap" don't make much sense - just because the Catalyst puts on a friendly face doesn't mean this was the plan all along. And it makes for a much more satisfying narrative that you are essentially standing on the shoulders of all those that came before you - the thousands of cycles working together through the millennia, each building upon the legacy of the last, creating something that would, eventually, save the galaxy. It also explains why there are several possibilities present within the system - some species thought destruction was the only way, others specifically aimed to create a tool to control the Reapers.
It's also blatantly wrong to imply that no one ever figured out what the Citadel truly was - the Protheans clearly did. They were just too late - probably like all those that came before them.
Actually the original did not use the citadel. It was stated the design was added on to and changed over many cycles. It was at an unknown point the design incorporated the citadel.
The catalyst even says that no one has come this far to shep. Like why would reapers care if the humans are building a weapon? I doubt it’s new information to them. Every race is trying to build something to try and survive. But they always win. Why would that change now?
I might be misremembering, but when you go to do an upgrade to Jack’s biotics in ME2 I think it mentions that her biotics and the increased output from the experimentation is shortening her lifespan, sort of burning the candle at both ends in a sense. It would sort of make sense seeing as how biotics require way more calories to keep going due to the drain that using their power has on them.
You are misremembering slightly. Yes, it is shortening her life span, but not due to burning too much energy - but rather, due to burning out her own brain, essentially.
01:00 about Asari government. It makes much more sense once you listen about various attitudes from Asari characters - Benezia in ME1 had a personal following of younger Asari, Aethyta in ME2 references to influence of the Asari Matriarchs, and it is touched a bit more in the ME3 (to a point where, apparently, Matriarchs can “send assassins” after people).
What it makes me believe is that on paper, Asari have this broad and almost hilarious “electronic democracy”, but in reality, naturally evolving social structures put a score of oldest and most influential Matriarchs in charge of the society.
Matriarchs might not directly order younger Asari around, but when a thousand-years old space-MILF who also happens to be a CEO of an interstellar corporation tells you to do something… you'd better listen. Matriarchs' wisdom, experience and influence accumulated over thousand years of life would naturally put them in a position of authority, where they can steer or outright control public consensus, giving direction and shape to the otherwise chaotic concept of “electronic democracy”.
I think this works well in fitting with the general sense and style of Asari politics, both external and internal. They are outwardly very benevolent, liberal even - but they kept Prothean technology for themselves, elevated themselves above other Council species and basically became the leading species in the galaxy though their use of this “soft power”.
Which, to add another point, could also make sense given the asari life stages. Curious maiden being overwhelmingly, well, curious about other species, matrons having a... motherly? caring? attitute, but matriarchs, with almost a millennium of experience and having lost their curiousity, shifting a bit "darker", a bit more cynical, maybe.
So asari government = hot mommy tells me what to do. Got it.
Benezia was a influencer, got it!
@@Alexander-xk2nbgrandma more like lol
Here are my two cents on the catalyst. I agree that it had to have come from the reapers but my theory is that it was designed as a fail safe of, if there solution wasn't working, which in Mass Effect 3 the boy (actual catalyst) states their solution isn't working anymore. They were just waiting for a worthy race or a special, strong, worthy member of a race (Shepard) to help change their solution. Making it through all obstacles; indoctrination, Cerberus, and the Reapers themselves. Anyways, I enjoy your videos. Keep em coming!
mate it was a retcon. the crucible the catalyst they were made for a ending that was never supposed to be. the original ME3 ending was changed for reasons unknown.
the creation of reapers are a failed attempt at synthesis, the crucible was designed by the reapers and then slipped to the organics, them hoping the crucible was destroyed simply was a lie to attempt to disassociate themselves from the crucible so organics could improve on the design, the reapers are advanced but they lack the creativity to improve on designs and technology, they only view things logically even if their logic is flawed and based on the leviathan's experience with rogue AI which the star child a leviathan AI intelligence ironically is a rogue AI itself. organics achieved the creation of the crucible thanks to how we creatively problem-solve when it comes to how we build tech. the crucible is the culmination of "your technology advanced in the direction we so desired" line Sovereign/Nezara preached to Shepard on Vermire.
in short, the reapers allowed the crucible to be built because they knew that it could proform synthisis and turn life into biological technology thus synthisis and turn all synthetics into another kind of biotech (the space magic wooh stuff is strong in mass effect 3's ending) basically organics became partly synthetic and synthetics became partly organic
@@fangslore9988 thats retarded... why do you need sythesis? why the hell would the reapers care? we are ants to them, cattle to be slaughter. why would they care?
@@roiking2740 why would they care, its how they built the reapers, they liturally are a failed version of synthesis, they're not a analytic killing machine wiping out all life they're harvesting sentients to make new reapers. the starchild (leviathan intelligence AI )was programed and made specifically to quantify data and develop a way to protect sentiant life from their AI creations and it realized that to truly protect sentiant life from their AI creations was to merg synthetic and organic life into a new kind of entity, the AI did this with the Leviathans first to make Harbanger then repeated again and again to make each reaper. you dont understand that every reaper is a culmination of many sentiant lives in reaper form. the AI realized that its attempts at creating synthisis (harvesting organics to turn us into new reapers) wasnt a true synthisis and so it developed the crucible which then it provided to sentiants through indoctrinated agents to provide the blueprint. every cycle indoctrinated agent like the Illusive man (TIM) would activly seek the crucible and think through indoctrination that they could use it to control the reapers but every cycle added too the blueprints since sentiant organics were much more creative than the reapers. the reapers ultimate goal was as the star child says "they were a solution but because of the fact you are here the solution will not work anymore"
in short we are far from ants to them, in the scale of size alone arguably but in terms of importants, organics were much more valuable to the reapers than what they show, the Leviathan AI intelegence was programmed to find a solution to AI organic conflicts and preserve life. the leviathans never gave the intelligence AI a perimeter to how life was to be preserved so it found a loophole in turning organic life into reapers.
it appears that you may have played one of the games but haven't played all of them and if you have you haven't paid attention to the story.
for the cliffnotes you probably dont understand, reapers harvest organics, they then chemically break down the organic matirial then use an as of yet known process to convert that organic sludge into a reaper embryo which resembles that of the races that were used to make it the reaper body is then created around it, also after you are liquefied its worth pointing out that the victim is technically still alive, reaper minds are similar to geth minds they are created from the minds of all the organics that were used to create them, then the Leviathan intelegence AI (starchild) then takes over them directing the reaper to follow its objective.
the process the reapers use to create a new reaper is very much a failed iteration of synthesis, but the intelligence AI lacks the ability to think creatively so it cannot conceive of new methods to create synthesis, it needed a new means. Synthesis using the crucible was the reaper's ultimate objective. post synthesis life is both organic and synthetic and thus it breaks the organic VS synthetic wars of past cycles. its why the reapers only chose to harvest races that were technologically advanced enough to produce true AI intelligences.
summary: reapers harvest sentiant races, they turn sentiants into new reapers, reapers want synthisis to protect all life from wars agains synthetics, Leviathan AI intelegence gave crucible in a long game plan to finally have synthesis become reality. Leviathan AI intelegence (starchild) is programmed to preserve life and it chose to do so by making life into reapers.
ps. phew no wonder why Sovereign/Nezara said it was beyond our understanding its complicated AF
@@fangslore9988 mate if you have to bring the hole stupid Laviathian backstory i aint reading it.
the reapers are supposed to be space squads, which make planets into farms and we are there cattle. they reduce the reapers into servants who lack the self-awareness to evolve or understand the basic concept of what a normal ass conflict is. Yes the conflict between the geth and the quarian is no different then the conflict between the Krogan and the Salarian.
there is no way with the information we got in ME1 and ME2 and most of ME3 that they would care what a bunch of apes are doing with their computers.
do you care that ants commit war and genocide across the earth? neither would the reapers care about you. ME3 ending complete ruined the reapers. a great antagonist to be reduced to incompetent service bots.
oh also, the Krogan were a bigger threat then the geth. so yeah...
I’m confused didn’t you quote in 5:36 from the book that “Blondes were Nearly Extinct” yet you state that blondes are extinct so whether or not Jack has blonde hair or not, it still technically makes sense since it says it’s nearly extinct not entirely extinct
I guess the only thing that seems debatable is the blue eyes being non existent doesn’t Miranda have blue eyes but then again wasn’t she genetically engineered?
either way she's wrong the book says natural blondes arent extinct they're just very rare, also the jack thing could be very easily explained by the lighting changes in legendary edition unintentionally changing the way jacks hair color looks
She could have dayed her hair, or maybe her hair is gray due to space drug abuse.
Sheperd does too
Notice how for all genetic engineering, Miranda got black hair, unlike her blonde model. Apparently, keeping hair color fair is something impossible for gene mods that give you super-biotics and double lifespan. Drew and other writers really fell for that theory of great replacement taking away blonde hair, knowing little about genetics (the first thing is, redheads would be extinct way sooner if anything). I can quote the book, it's ME Revelation and it talks at length when describing Kahlee Sanders:
"Average in both height and build, Kahlee’s only really distinguishing feature was her shoulder-length blond hair-a genetically recessive trait, natural blonds were nearly extinct. But her hair was a dirty blond, with streaks edging toward shades of brown … and there were still plenty of humans who dyed their hair blond anyway. She didn’t normally stand out in a crowd. That made it easy for her to escape notice here-the Black Hole was packed..."
I thought it's Ascension but no, that goes over light skin colors being rare "Intermarriage between the various ethnicities of Earth over the past two centuries had made alabaster skin a rarity", not hair. Makes not much sense either.
@@KasumiRINA redheads would NOT be extinct in fact, since the red hair mutated gene can be passed on for *generations* and be spread without being activated. Unless you genocide every single natural redhead and every person in their direct and distant families, red hair can ALWAYS pop back up in the population.
For the hair arguement ... hair dye exists ... just saying
@Saltyx Yes, notice how the discussion was about Jack's hair
@Saltyx Glad to hear it, I was wondering if your original comment was based on you not watching the video or ignorant incomprehension of the content. Thanks for confirming it was the latter.
Like the other person said natural and yes, hair dye exists and yes, was Jacks hair brown with grey streaks.. All are observable "obviously".
I mean they didn't say blondes are extinct in the lore they said almost went extinct. Two different things mean blondes got saved and as pointed are rare meaning natural ones with blues do exist but are extremely are just like how in our universe redheads with blue eyes are actually rare as well. Not extinct just rare for blondes to be in ME.
I was about to say this xD its not like purple hair, which is an option, is a natural color
6:15 Recent studies has shown that stress tends to kill melanocytes which affect hair color. Given Jack's life choices the amount of stress she's been through makes a lot of sense she greying early. Hell I'm 24 and some of my hair strands are grey all because I've had a few stressful years.
While the hair color theory has been disproven, it makes no sense that they made shepard a red head instead of blonde. In the original theory it stated the red hair would go extinct many decades before blonde. Clearly the developers didn't look into deep enough. Anyways doesn't matter anymore since its been disproven.
Hee hair was red because people voted for it
Red hair is more recessive than blonde...
I like making Shep blonde primarily because it helps her stand out, without having some ridiculous unnatural color. Very few NPCs have blonde hair in the series.
I always thought the crucible is designed by the Catalyst in search for an anomaly that can prove coexistance between organics and synthetics is possible
Same that’s what I was thinking. The star child said that the fact that shepherd was standing in from of them proved that the reaper cycle plan wasn’t as effective because Shepard was able to go that far to stop the threat. So it makes sense to me that they allowed the crucible to be built. After all reapers are machines programmed to do one thing prevent synthetics from taking over. And the crucible may have been the “loophole” created that would allow the cycle to end.
I came to the same conclusion, except I believe that the Catalyst's ideal solutions also favor his creators, the Leviathans
Except the Catalyst specifically says it thought it wiped out the Crucible designs.
Besides, you're NEVER able to bring up that in a Paragon run, Shepard brokers peace between synthetics and organics. The Rannoch ark that happens literally right before the 3rd act. The Crucible isn't needed to see the Geth actively fighting with organic life against the Reapers.
The Crucible was designed by one of the many species that were harvested, and improved upon by subsequent species. The Catalyst noticed the attempts, tried to quash it, and failed.
The reasons Shepard's presence before the Catalyst proves their solution won't work is because the Crucible has fundamentally changed the Catalyst, and that organics had been able to circumvent the cycle at all.
The Catalyst still believes that organics creating synthetics will _always_ lead to war. Despite Shepard brokering peace, the Quarians went to war with the Geth _twice._ In fact, it was quite likely that the Quarians' creation of the Geth is what spurred Sovereign to signal the keepers to open the relay.
The Catalyst leaves the choice up to Shepard because like the Geth not knowing the consequences of destroying their creators, the Catalyst doesn't fully know the consequences of using the Crucible. The Crucible changed the variables, and the Catalyst cannot predict the full outcome.
So he says. I don't trust him.
3:05 it's a tribute to the game "Deus Ex", which opens on Liberty island, which was turned into a secure zone following a terror attack that destroyed the Statue of Liberty
On the other hand, 9/11 was an attack on WTC for it's symbolic meaning, as it was considered a symbol of American economy hegemony. If someone wanted to attack the idea of America itself, Lady Liberty absolutely makes sense. Really only problem with the whole futuristic history is that Mexico and Canada united with US which makes absolutely zero sense
It actually wouldn't be that difficult to hide the crucible, after all the reapers lost a planet, just build it in the least popular place and keep no records of it location only word of mouth and keep transport to a minimum (probably was built in illos orbit)
Jack could also be Bleaching her hair.
even if natural blondes were extinct, people would still bleach their hair.
We have people today who wear thousand year old hair styles, people in ME would definitely bleach their hair.
That's covered in one of the books if I remember right, one of the main characters is a natural blonde and she states that many people dye/bleach their hair blonde.
As you said, natural blondes are almost extinct, meaning that her hair could be blonde. And someone already mentioned how shock and stress can cause grey hairs
I read Jack's hair as greying. And also I've been greying since I was in my mid 20s, as were a good portion of my friends so having some grey wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Jack
4:40 the whole terrible retcon behind thermal clips was heavily criticised by the fans from the day Mass Effect 2 launched. I remember comments questioning the logic behind it, how somehow, magically, every single sentient being in the galaxy had access to thermal clips.
Nobody would complain if Bioware stated "we are changing it for gameplay purposes, let's just pretend they were always there".
Blond hair is gone but gingers aren’t 🤨, also the crucible isn’t a reaper design, it fits and uses the citadel because it’s was designed to by past cycles, the reason why it was a big reveal was because the illusive man took some of the data
I've never actually done a playthrough with a light-coloured hair Shep. I feel like I need to do this now after watching this video 🤣
My original Shepard back in 2007 was blond, and I had no idea about this until O watched this video, I had read the books but I must've brushed off that part as unimportant.
@@sohrab_solheim To be fair the games do have some blondes (natural or otherwise) despite their supposed rarity, so your Shepard was fine. Conrad Verner is one of the more notable expamples, lol.
With The Crucible, I suspect that the Reapers might have known they were working on it, but thought they would complete the harvest before it could be finished just like they did in previous cycles.
My head cannon about the reapers not bumping in to the AI ships, was because they left from another part of the galaxy. In ME3, you see some Alliance ships in the Attican Traverse, out near the galaxy's edge. Perhaps they were an escort, to ensure the expedition didn't get hijacked by pirates, or something else...
Thermal clips never made sense. They say it's not ammo yet the game itself calls it "ammo"
So, way back in the Mass Effect 1 days I remembered reading a codex that implied most human life was genetically altered at birth, including standardizing most human height. At the time I took this as a tongue-in-cheek way for developers to explain why every model was the same height and why all the armors fit. When ME2 came out that even made Miranda's outfit make a sort of sense, custom made for her and all that.
Years later, I've never been able to find the specific codex. This has become my own tin hat conspiracy and I'll argue it to the grave. This isn't a joke. Why Won't You BELIEVE Me!? THE SPACE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO CONTROL YOUR HEIGHT!!! RISE U-
I had a similar problem with a specific holotape i KNOW i found during a specific mission years ago in Fallout 3, but the rest of the universe is against me and denies that that holotape ever existed.
This is a REAPER PLOT.
@@ErectedGasCan What did the holotape say?
@@therobustempyrean1436 From what i can recall it had to do with early warning messages, a bit like what you can find on The Switchboard computer in Fallout 4 about Norad messages.
I remember it was found in some basement, i think. But it is years ago so i would not say i am 100% positive.
Thermal Clips were such a backwards step, none of it makes any sense. Running out of ammo is much more a problem than having to pause and let your weapon cooldown from time to time. You still have to frequently pause to reload all the same.
The Asari Democracy exist: in Switzerland.
The Electronic Voting argument is actually widely debated worlwide: and it's a staple of Sci-Fi that Direct Democracy is possible through e-voting, exemples in "The Way" series by the late Greg Bear, the Demarchists polities in "Revelation Space" series by Alastair Reynolds, or the late exemples of Human polities in Charles Stross' "Accelerando", or even Alan Robert's "New Model Army"
Regarding the Hugo Gernsback level: While personally I think it would've been fun to not have thermal clips present in the level (especially as I've fallen in love with Vanguard and on lower difficulties you don't really need any guns), possibly having to scavenge enemy weapons to be able to keep fighting, people would have had a bitch fit not having ammo or being able to use their weapons.
For the Andromeda Initiative and the possibility of some of the crew/colonists being indoctrinated; that's pretty easily solvable by the arks/ships launching before the Reapers hit Earth.
About the Crucible: The Citadel is the catalyst precisely because it's a giant mass relay. During the ending, the Crucible doesn't just send out one giant shockwave that covers the entire Milky Way, whichever RGB flavor you choose gets zapped from relay to relay. It would make sense for the Citadel relay to link up with them in dark space and also link to at least some of the relays strewn about. It would also explain why they took and held the Citadel during the Protheans' cycle, not only was it made to be a prime location for centralizing governments from organics to be able to cut the head off the snake (not to mention the convenient processing center in the Citadel as well), but it's also the nerve center of the mass relay network making their movements easier.
12:27 Yes, the galaxy was under attack, but they weren't everywhere at once because the Protheans shut down their access to the Citadel Relay, and Shepard keeps Sovereign from reactivating the ability. Assuming that you include the Arrival DLC, Shepard also keeps the Reapers from being able to use the Alpha Relay, also slowing their advance. That's why at the beginning of the game there's only a handful of Reapers on the galaxy map marking their held territory, and as you go through the game more and more appear, as they had to make it *to* a relay first to be able to really start expanding their grasp. Add in that multiple times Hackett, Anderson, other characters, and the codex mention that the Reapers are focused on population centers, and it would make it easy to hide where the Crucible was being built, either by building in an unpopulated cluster, or in a slightly more grim fashion, building where the Reapers already finished their business. Counting that a good chunk of the war assets you acquire are about supplying materials for the Crucible, and you can easily explain why and how the Crucible was built.
12:58 A really good explanation as to why the Crucible fits the Citadel so well is because it was *designed* to (and not by Reapers)! If you're designing a case for a phone, you're going to make sure it actually fits the phone you're trying to protect, yeah? Especially if it's *extremely important* that it fits right to function properly. Also, multiple times people question what the Crucible actually does, how it works, and if it should be used, but as mentioned earlier there wasn't really any other option to beat the Reapers, so people just had to hope that thing worked.
I do like the idea that the Crucible is actually of Reaper design, the plans intentionally made incomplete to keep the cycle's harvest from attempting to flee into dark space themselves, with the false hope of beating the Reapers keeping them around to make sure they're all harvested. Shepard's cycle just managed to make it work because of the Protheans/Shepard stopping the planned Citadel activation giving them just enough time needed to actually pull it off. Taps into the conceit of the "perfect beings" to *actually* make it a device of their destruction, since it had to be believable to get the harvests to actually build it, and never thinking any cycle would every actually be able to complete it.
"Blond hair is nearly gone and Blue eyes are extinct"
Sigma Male Aryan Conrad Verner be like
I always believed that the crucible was created by the leviathans, and since there were still around during mass effect that they may have tried to give the blueprints to previous civilizations, so the plans wouldn't die out.
Many science fiction stories follow characteristics of older science fiction works. Arthur C. Clark's influence is definitely seen in the Mass Effect series.
My older sister has dark brown hair, but since she was a total stress head since she was in high school, the edge of her hair started graying out by the time she graduated and went to college and life goes on. When I see Jack's hair in LE it immediately reminded me of my sister and knowing Jack's upbringing and life causing to be in survival mode all the time, her hair makes total sense. So yes, constant high stress can make one's hair start graying out even at such a young age. My sister is 39 and I'm 27, you can do the math of how old she was when she started graying out in high school.
Asari Government actually makes perfect sense when you realize that they are an amalgamation of enlightened space elves mixed with the Amazons, and along with being the space equivalent of the Ancient Greek city-states themselves, specifically Athens. Direct democracies were a thing back then, and in a hyper-advanced Sci-Fi setting I could totally see an equivalent society making the process digital. Hell even the Asari military members behaved in the way the Ancient Greek citizen soldier did, small bands of comrades who are tight knit with their own personalized gear.
Asari are very much into the arts, philosophy, and political discussion just as the Ancient Greeks were as well, it makes total sense that their form of government works for them.
Even if blondes are extinct, there's no reason people couldn't bleach blond or bleach and dye for a darker blonde. With blonde vanishingly rare, I could see this being super popular with people who liked standing out. Also, with Jack, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if she dyed her hair a different color regularly.
Okay, so:
1) e-democracy is a legitimate prediction for how a democracy could evolve via internet technology. It’s not like the Asari Republics are governed via Twitter. A government could build a specific zone of cyberspace specifically designed to allow for seamless interaction between the individual and the state, eliminating the need for representative legislature entirely.
2) It is heavily insinuated that each cycle since the Reaper’s inception has gotten closer cracking the code on Reaper technology. It’s actually also insinuated that Shepherd’s cycle was actually instigated early due to the Protheans’ gambit forcing Sovereign’s hand to search for a way to reactivate the Citadel relay. That’s why Milky Way technology was so much farther behind the Protheans during the last cycle, as recognized by Javik (which also explains why the harvest was so much faster than with Protheans. It took a few months to nearly end our cycle vs generations to end the Protheans).
2.5) The Geth were instrumental in the technological advancements necessary for the Andromeda Initiative to even exist. Not only did they invent the Mass Effect Telescope capable of giving the Initiative a view of the Helios Cluster, but inadvertently they also showed the Initiative how to realign Mass Relays in the first place, which was what they did in order to jump the arcs at the speeds necessary to reach Andromeda as fast as they did. So, connect with the previous point, it makes total sense that the cycle capable of completing the Crucible was also capable of breaking the cycle in other ways the Reapers hadn’t planned to prevent.
3) The Citadel isn’t JUST a Mass Relay, it’s the center of the Relay Network. All Mass Relays lead to the Citadel.
3.5) The Citadel is the only thing that could’ve been the Catalyst. Since it is the center of the Mass Relay Network, it’s the only object in the MW capable of sending a signal or energy burst intended to destroy all Reaper-based tech in the galaxy without leaving anything uneffected. It’s the only real kill switch for the Reapers.
3.75) The whole point of ME3 is building the Crucible. Every war asset earned contributes to building it. You aren’t fighting the Reaper War in that game, your buying time and resources for the Crucible while everyone else just tries to survive.
4) Jack’s hair isn’t blonde in MELE ME3. It just looks like the ambient lighting gives it more light to the light brown. At most, girl got highlights which considered Jack’s propensity for body ornamentation, is def not out of the realm of possibility.
5) Why is it hard to believe that over the countless cycles the Crucible has slowly been researched, developed, and passed on by, they DIDNT design it to perfectly fit the Citadel and interact perfectly with the master switch? Wouldn’t that be exactly what they would engineer it to do? No, the Crucible wasn’t created by the Reapers, y’all just can’t imagine that smart people figure shot out sometimes lol
Sorry about the persnickety tone everyone. Sometimes my feisty comes out when I don’t want it to. Read back through this and still agree with every but definitely could’ve been less sassy lol
Liara states in ME3 that it would take a "couple hundred years" to exterminate everyone in her cycle. Of course, that's a prediction on her part, but she does have a lot of information at her disposal to make such a guess, her being the Shadowbroker and all.
I agree with basically everything else though.
2:34 I never heard of this piece of lore. Ever. And I've studied the Mass Effect lore since 2012. But I always wondered how did Donovan Hock have the Statue of Liberty's head.
In Kasumi's DLC, it adds a codex entry explaining it.
Ah, I didn't think her loyalty mission added anything new to the codex.
My theory was that the reapers do these to not just our galaxy but to a lot of galaxies. Which would explain the numbers when it comes to the reapers
What? If they did this there would have been absolutely ME relays in Andromeda, and kett would have used them to find new species to exalt, hence they wouldn't use Alcubierre drive
18k manline cruiser Reapers is much more than we ever see, add to that the fact that there are probably multiple destroyer Reapers in every cycle and that some cycles (like the current one) most likely produce more than one mainline Reaper and I don't think there's any problem with their numbers. I wouldn't mind if it turned out there are only few hundred of them, knowing how much more powerful than anything we know they are
The reaper number is actually only about the Harbinger/Sovereign types. That normally is 1 per cycle but its possible it could be more than one. The other races are turned into the destroyer types so those could be multiple per cycle. Just going by the advanced races in ME games it could be 20 to 30 destroyers per cycle.
Cruscible was build by the same people that made the Citadel. It was intentionally left as nothing but a plan, and the AI controlling the Reapers was waiting for a cycle to be advanced enough to know how to finish it, because then, and only then, would Sentient races know how to handle that borderline Godlike power. At least, thats my head canon. The Reapers KNEW of it, and let it happen.
Which would turn every previous Reaper cycle as premature harvesting then and turns them into idiots all over again. Not that they aren't idiots in the video game with the whole "We don't want synthetics kill organics so we kill you guys before you make synths strong enough to do so." IE they're a self fulfilling prophecy.
1:32 Matriarchs are pretty dominants figures in Asari society, i'm quite sure they are the ones taking care of the legislatives aspects of Thessia who are discussed through thoses forums. The idea is foreign to us because such debates would be seemingly endless but Asari aren't pressured by time like humans are.
3:26 I'm not sure how the idea of UNAS is ridiculous, i mean, from a contenporary point of view maybe but it happenned in 2096. Who know how the futur will be?
5:17 aren't ginger also a recessive traits? Shouldn't they be extinct too? I'm sure i have seen some blondes npc though now that i think about it, they were quite few.
9:02 That's actually a very good point. But maybe the Reapers, as intelligents as they were, didn't think of everything. After all, it's highly unlikely that anyone could reach another galaxy.
12:04 It's more than that, the Citadelle is the ia controlling the Reapers so it make sense that the weapon meant to destroy the Reapers has to use it or hit there first. But you do have a point, if the Reapers always take control of the Citadelle first then why would one believe they could use it? I think, maybe the races that built the crucible didn't built it for themselves but for the futur dominants species of the galaxy and left instructions and warnings (like the beacons on Eden Prime) thinking that, warned, the futurs species would prepare for the Reapers and build the crucible before the Reapers return. That's the reason Protheans left the Beacons after all. Or maybe the human cycle isn't the first cycle where the Reapers failed to seize the Citadelle immediately and the contenporary races thought they would have time to use the Citadelle?
Or since the catalyst mentionned trying differents experiments to "unite organics and synthetics", maybe it is of Reaper design, a experiment that was deemed a failure and abandonned but later discovered by organics races that decided to redesign it and use it against the Reapers?
Wait, there were a couple blonde C-Sec officers in ME1. Eddie Lang (think that was his name) and the unnamed NPC that shows up with Anderson after the final fight. Also I seem to remember Captain Bailey as being blonde originally. And then of course, Kathleen Sanders.
Lang is the officer with Anderson at the end of Mass Effect 1.
Also Conrad Verner, lol.
12:00 I feel like I heard that because of the keepers doing all the repairs, there was no real need to search for the ai on the citadel. Keepers somehow worked with the reapers and they had to stop the keepers from sending a single to the reapers to give the other races more time. But beforehand everyone just let the keepers do their thing since they didn’t do anything but work, they don’t even communicate with anyone.
Not sure if it's been said yet but I believe the crucible was left by the reapers to see if their whole system could change, they are machines and seem to test things. It is possible the whole cycle thing is just a bunch of tests to see some new variables and maybe a test on organic sentience it's self
to be fair though in Andromeda we were limited to the helios cluster of stars, not the entire galaxy
I was one of those who thought the catalyst was a reaper trap. My first play through was before I even knew about the… controversial ending so I was verrrry disappointed lol
That would have been great.
Actually it would fit perfectly with the indoctrination theory
Yeah, have the most advanced species commit their resources towards a dead end instead of more conventional weapons that could actually kill Reapers, or even an FTL system that would let them escape the relay network and just hide out in the rest of the galaxy or maybe even reach the Magellanic Clouds with generation ships.
Even when I played the games as a teenager, the UNAS history always came across to me as a very Canadian thing to write, extremely divorced from the realities of US politics and culture.
It’s possible the Citadel and catalyst was figured out by a species who found the crucible design, but then they got immediately harvested and only got the barest minimum patches into the archive before they hid it.
Plus the catalyst being the focus makes sense in a way, since it controls the reapers. The crucible is stated to basically be a giant power generator.
I was once a man. Crying out in The Kingdom for justice. And she came to me. The wisp of an ancient youtuber. She gave me all the bioware content I wanted and more. I have fanboyed for Saria ever since. Seeking the justice denied to her.
Congrats, Lethalan.
I'm so proud of you. 💜
Also. Please check out. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines.
What a title for a game lol
I think it's the kind of dark fantasy game you're looking for. Also part 2 seems to have a Dec 2023 release date. Keep in mid that the game is like from 2004. So it's not great graphically but it has a lot of layers. Seems to have a pretty loyal fanbase. I haven't finished it yet but it's pretty interesting so far.
Ahh I love that Flemeth/Mythal quote! We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly!
Also never forget the asari keeping secret information that could have prepared them from the reapers.
For the thermal clips in Jacob's loyalty mission, my headcanon is that we used our omnitools to minifacture them out of the older weapons used by the hunters and mechs on that planet
I like this idea
Ive always thought of the Crucible as a failsafe from the reapers themselves based on what the Star child says.
Or
The race that began the Crucible thought they had more time to finish the relay before the reapers came through. Cuz idk if you can disable thencrucible and the mass relay together, especially since their is another one inside the Citadel.
Can't remember who it was on the team but they confirmed that jack does have grey hair due to what she has been through over the years, in my case I'm 32 and I've got about as many grey hairs due to stress and other things
I hope that the blonde extinction lore gets retconned into the ground since that article is was based on was disproven and that it's a stupid piece of lore.
First, ill start off with great video. Really love the work your channel does. Also, i totally don't hate or even disparage anyone who disagrees with me.
I do have 3 things on the Catalyst however:
1) the keepers intentionally hid vast parts of the Citadel from the other species that would find themselves there. it makes sense noone finds the parts that Sheperd was in in ME3.
Also, you can hide things on the Citadel and fool the Keepers, like the Conduit.
2) for previous races before this cycle, think of it like this: the only things that will survive a Reaper harvest AND will be discovered by future races are the Relays, the Citadel, and whatever races the Reapers leave around (including the collectors and the keepers). The Citadel is the centre of the relay network and importantly, something that the Reapers will make sure doesnt get destroyed during the harvest. the collective cycles coopting the Citadel for its own design is smart.
3) The Catalyst is a Reaper intelligence that it took countless cycles of civilizations to learn how to coopt. importantly, you needed to probably find a way of hitting EVERY Reaper at once in order to stop the invasion once for all (however you decide to do so) using the Mass Relays as a means of spreading this signal would only probably work at the Citadel, the heart of the relay network. You probably need a shit ton of energy to do so, hence that's the main part of the Crucible
Been thoroughly enjoying the Mass Effect videos Saria! Just wanted to amazing work and appreciate all you do! These videos along with MrHulthen's gets me hyped for the upcoming Mass Effect and Dreadwolf alike!
The blonde lore was kind of silly. There has been global travel for centuries in the real world but most people in 2023 most people still marry within their own ethnic group. 2183 is 160 years in the future, or between six and seven generations of people. Unless everyone in the world with blonde hair and blue eyes started having interracial marriages right now with dark haired, dark eyed partners (people unlikely to carry the traits) you would not be able to breed out these traits in six or seven generations. It's just not possible. And if ME wants to say that's what happened then most people in the future would have a more uniform skin tone but we know that isn't the case. There's black people, white people, hispanics, asians, etc seen in the games.
About the thermal clips in Jacob's mission: even the writers seem to think that thermal clips were always a thing, like when Jacob gives a pistol to his father, he acknowledges it as being half-charged. This is weird because Taylor wouldn't and shouldn't know about thermal clips.
It’s funny they think blue eyes and blonde hair is almost extinct, just because it’s recessive. Recessive genes don’t just disappear for no reason, just like dominant genes don’t “take over” for no reason. Not to mention that they have gene editing technology, so I assume some people would want their children to be blonde and/or blue eyed.
In my case, my mom has blue eyes and my dad has brown. His mom had brown eyes and his father had blue. I have brown eyes, but my brother has blue. I’m a carrier of blue eyes, because my mom has blue. The genes didn’t “die” with me or my father, just because we have dominant brown eyes.
That's so true. And blondes are not just native to the nordic regions. It's prevalent in most English-speaking or European countries. Heck even my people, Australian Aboriginals can have natural blondie hair.😁
@MamaWuf SSED NATURAL MAG
Aborigines and Melanesians: Naturally Blonde Hair and Dark Skin
September 23, 2013 37 Comments
Naturally blonde hair is often associated with white or Caucasian people. However, there are groups of dark skin people who have naturally blonde hair also. Some of these groups include the Aboriginal Australians (Aborigines) and the Melanesians. I love this fact because it goes against the idea that one group or culture must look a certain way or stay in a certain category.
The Aborigines have dark skin. Some of them also have blonde hair which tends to be straight, but can be curly. Scientists first believed they were descendants of Eurasians. In 2011, scientists found evidence against the theory from a sample of natural hair. The sample of hair, which was said to be more than 100 years old, helped scientists determine that Aborigines were descendants of Africans. The New York Times confirmed this finding:
"The Aborigines are thus direct descendants of the first modern humans to leave Africa, without any genetic mixture from other races so far as can be seen at present. Their dark skin reflects an African origin and a migration and residence in latitudes near the equator, unlike Europeans and Asians whose ancestors gained the paler skin necessary for living in northern latitudes."
🙂
You're assuming perfectly equal breeding rates among all genotypes. In reality genetic drift and genetic supremacy through immigration would wipe out most genotypes without separation.
@@Logicalpoint Then you are assuming total replacement of the original population through immigration?
@@Lemonz1989 Yes that is what genetic drift is, it is a biology term look it up if you don't know it. Combine that with immigration, and higher breeding rates and extinction is a swift result for the native population.
Blue eyes extinct? The second most common eye color is extinct? Did the weirdo who wrote that not say it out loud?
On Jack's hair being grey not making sense, my Uncle Mickey (Michael, but everyone always called him Mickey) had his hair go completely grey at 22, so it does happen.
I think the Crucible could actually be based on technology left behind by the race who created the Reapers. It's possible they realised the Reapers were becoming too powerful to control, and began creating a countermeasure for them. But they were too late to stop them, and instead hide away major components of the plans that yet to be made for future races to find. The Reapers repurposed parts that were already made or added their own, the former being the Catalyst and the latter being the Mass Relays. Future races found the final plans and had to start from scratch but the Catalyst was no longer called that, so they also realised it was too late and had to sacrifice themselves to hide the original plans and what they added to it.
Love the thematic and the kind of conversation you're doing here... but I... can't see myself agreeing with most of your points...
1. What's so wrong about 2007 Bioware releasing a game that imagined a democracy by the Power of the Internet? Maybe you don't know because you're too young or you never researched any of this, but there was a point in time where this idea was all the rage in many intellectual circles for a possible future alternative to the anemic democracy we had at the time. Of course, ever since the gamerg*te era and into 2016, this idea has been shunned. But this game was not made in 2016.
2. Very flimsy argument... what about it that it is so unbelievable? 100 years ago, an entity called "The German Empire" existed. Then it sprawled all over Europe and extinguished itself. Then it got broken into pieces. Then in 1989 some of its pieces unified to Germany. Meanwhile the continent where wars were continuous would later form the european union. Imagine someone from 1922 being told about the European Union. Change isn't "unbelievable", it's the norm. What bugs me the most is how you insist it's not "real". What are you talking about? It's a fictional universe set out in the future!
(I completely agree with the thermal clips segment, your calling out of the Gernsback is spot on!)
3. Why doesn't it make sense to say that blonde hairs are a rarity and then have a crew member with blonde hair? You then go to say they're "extinct", when it's clear that "near extinct" and "rare" does not equal "extinct". You are too loose with definitions.
4. Absolutely spot on. This was my major major gripe with the entire setup ever since I saw the initial teaser trailer. I had always hoped that they would at least lampshade the situation they were cornering themselves into, but they never did in a substantial way.
You can make a very convoluted argument that this cycle was different because the invasion had been postponed. In fact, the entire program only got itself up and running because Shepard had defeated Sovereign and stopped the Reaper invasion. But the leakage implications throughout the previous cycles is undeniable. I think this can still be salvageable, if we are to assume not only that they had an extra year, but actually maybe a few hundreds more, for Sovereign was slowly trying to figure out what to do without the Keeper's signal functioning. In typical cycles, they would never have the chance to do an Ark program to begin with before being utterly destroyed.
5. I can answer some of your questions here I think.
Why haven't the species realised that the Citadel was a big giant mass relay pointing to Dark Space? Well, this is the wrong question, because it assumes these species developed the Crucible without knowing about the Reapers. But this is the wrong assumption. The Crucible was developed to destroy the Reapers! Of course every species that added to the development of the Crucible did so *after* realising the potential of the Citadel as a big giant Mass Relay that was connected with the wider network and thus being capable of distributing the immense energies stored in the Crucible.
How was it built? But Hackett tells you how. With every scrap of metal you can give him, including all the materials everyone in the galaxy is contributing. And, where? Well the game tells you that the place where they're building is in Space itself, between stars. The knowledge of the actual site is a secret that they were able to keep. But when you go towards the Cerberus Base, Hackett tells you that once you commit they have to immediately go to Earth because they expose the location of their remaining fleets and the Crucible itself. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's...
The fact that the Reapers were caught unaware with it is debatable. The Catalyst tells you that they thought this giant thing was forgotten in time, that they were caught off-handed. But it doesn't tell you when they realised it was actually here being built. They may have learned about it. They may have ignored it because every time it was built before, it was never completed. None of this is incompatible with the story being presented.
The idea that there's no other explanation than "it is reaper tech", I can't agree with. You might not believe it, but I do. It is written this way, and there's nothing in-game that disagrees with it, only speculatory ideas based on suspicion. But fiction never works that way, it's usually straightforward, and Mass Effect is written in a very maximalist fashion. You just have to accept that it is not reaper tech.
So all in all I love videos like this. But unfortunately I can't really abide by almost anything you said. I do hope you make more of these, love these discussions, even if no one answers to my comments. Peace.
For the Crucible not being found - i have a head canon that during ME3, the Reapers do know the Crucible is being built but simply dont know its location, being a combination of only select few knowing where it is [even Shep is never told where theyre working] and possibly Liara feeding false reports.
For materials, home planets/systems were ravaged but many species and sub species have colonies all over, on planets, asteroids, and remote worlds. Our cycles independence was our saving grace.
When I was 25 or 26 I started to get grey hair. So jack getting Gary hair isn't that hard.
Stress can do that and we'll if you did her loyalty Mish on 2..... YEEEAH THERE'S ALOTA PENT UP STRESS there
About Asari's politics. In my opinion, this is a clear development of the Prediction market idea. I would like to know more about how this is implemented in Mass Effect, but this is not a new idea for science fiction anyway
in regard to thermal clips, I remember a scene in Mass Effect 3 where Conrad Verner talks about how silly it is that they moved from automatically recharging guns back to ammunition. I think Bioware was aware that it didn't make sense, but I guess they felt gameplay was more important than story with that.
Honestly, I think that it is possible that the Crucible was supposed to be a trap, but one of the various species figured it out, and managed to alter things to suit their purpose. A group of Prothean scientists figured out that the Citadel was a trap, and were never found by the Reapers, maybe they also figured out that the Crucible was also a trap. Before dying out completely, maybe they used the beacons to send a final set of updates detailing the alterations to turn it into a Reaper Killing weapon.
For the Asari - i can understand how itd work. Imagine if everyone on our planet, at least the majority, came to the internet with the sole intention of having a good faith debate to find the optimal solution for our species. Imagine the collaboration of ideas, the enlightenment we could share. Not to idealize the Asari and say none are without bad intentions, but i also see the majority being able to root them out and keep the debates focused. It just seems foreign to us because we know what our forums have 😅
It’s wild to me that using jack as an example of “yes there’s blond” as if she doesn’t have cosmetic work all over her body. I haven’t the slightest doubt they can still dye their hair.
4:00 question. I still don’t understand why we switched from guns that had infinite ammunition to clips?
I'm pretty sure in the ME universe a person gets to choose their hair and eye color no different than a person choosing what color shirt they want to wear for that day. I forget where i heard this however. And if that is the case jack's hair color changing fits right into the lore.
It would take thousands of years for blonde hair and blue eyes to be bred out completely, and that that's only if those features don't show up elsewhere from another mutation..... Mass Effect is only set 150 years from now.....
You know what’s even worse? Trying to convince players that a woman that is 5’6 weighing 110 pounds could possibly pull off everything Commander Shepard accomplished. Definitely fiction. 😂
I thought about that too. Gene mods and cybernetics. Shepard was an N7 and so she would have had access to the good stuff.
we know it's mentioned that it appeared at one point, it is possible there was an early race that did discover it was a mass relay but ultimately voted not to turn it on as it was deemed dormant and too much of an unknown to turn it on (until one day it sprang to life and several thousand death ships poured out and slaughtered them, I reckon the race that initially created it became the keepers, and every cycle afterwards added to the crucible until at last this cycle completed it
We take for granted that the reapers were the one that created the citadel, but isn’t there, in canon, a race that looks a lot like the reapers, that had the very technology to create the citadel and most likely was the one really behind the mass relays ?
Yes I am talking about the Leviathans. And they could very well have created the plans for the crucible to begin with, but as their own harvest was already ongoing, couldn’t implement it. And then, what could happen would be that not every race built its own crucible from scratch, but being guided to it by indications from its precursor race, found the then incomplete artefact… How else could it be build in so little time ?
The crucible can actually be theorized as an invention by the race that built the reapers and mass relays. Given they’ve survived all this time they could have been the ones ensuring it was passed into each new cycle.
Ya know, when the studio changed course between 2 and 3, a lot of plot that would have made sense got tossed out because of the leaks. Whenever I hear cannon debated, I just keep pointing out that 3 was written by EA, and not the original team that worked on 1 and 2. Because, the plot that the Reapers are harvesting advanced civilizations because ezo creates dark-matter that then causes stars to collapse, makes a ton more sense than 'derp - AI bad - derp.'
Speak for yourself. AI vs organics becoming an inevitable conflict makes perfect sense, and dialing that up to 11 with what is essentially the same idea as Halo rings (Reapers) to wipe out the Flood (advanced organics) makes perfect sense. It's a trope sure, not exactly original sure. But it makes sense.
On Jack, she is totally the type of person that would color her hair, she could have a purple hair and it would fit perfectly so a bad example. Plus its never said they are extinct, just close to it being very rare
The reapers knew but they were ordered by the starchild not to stop it's construction as their futile resistance would have amused the starchild and it wanted to see how far the current cycle could get
Has anyone mentioned the Planet of the Apes reference in the history of the UNAS? They blew up the Statue of Liberty, AND all that was left was the head.
in Argentina we have an artist called Charly Garcia who's mostache is half white half black thanks to a trauma he lived in his childhood
The US, Canada, and Mexico unifying isn't that far fetched imo. By the 2090's Mexican immigrants will very likely have become a part of the base American culture and identity, Canada already is, so there would be a common cultural basis for such a union. And separatists from all 3 nations rallying together against it in a civil war also isn't far fetched at all, national identity sparks conflict even centuries after countries have been formed, just look at the Catalonian independence movement.
During the events of the first game, Commander Shepard is 29 years old and Jack is only 18 and Miranda is 33.
Blondes may be nearly extinct, but I'm sure hair dye has lived on.
The only thing I could possible think of is that the crucible is just based off reaper tech like everything else. And they designed it to fit the Citadel since every other harvest started with the Reapers using the Citadel to enter the Galaxy and then spread out from there with the central government destroyed. So the previous species designed it to fit the citadel knowing it was the center of the galaxy's mass relay network.
It's also possible that the reapers figured they could wipe out enough of the galaxy to stop the project, the Leviathans that made the reapers created the crucible as a failsafe for when they made the reapers, or the reapers wanted the crucible built to offer organic life other solutions to AI wiping out organic life.
But none of those really make sense, especially the Leviathan one. The Leviathans could enslave people in every cycle to build the crucible in secret. But really I don't get how the reapers even beat the Leviathans. Leviathans are shown to be able to take reapers one on one. Plus if a new reaper only gets added every cycle, then it would be one reaper vs. all the leviathans.
Before the release of Andromeda, the developers said that Cerberus was not related to the Andromeda Initiative.
The developers also said that the Reapers are not interested in other Galaxies. Their only target is the Milky Way. The wounded galaxy belonging to the Leviathans
Gray hair is not always related to age. I had a classmate in high school that was salt and pepper haired at 17yo. Also Jack has experienced heavy traumatic events, biotics degenerate her system and Cerberus experiments might have altered her in that regard.
One thing about the Andromeda galaxy being barren is that we are only seeing a single cluster, not the entire galaxy. And that cluster has been devastated by the Scourge, hence why it seems so empty. In fact the Khett very clearly show that there is a much larger galactic community outside of the cluster, why else would they have this uplifting technology if not to integrate other species from other clusters?
There is a really blond girl in ME3, at the Citadel after Tutchanka, saying she's waiting for her parents to come back. And your Shepard could be a blond, people, can still dye their hair and nearly extinct is not totally so it's a reach for me. As for the thermal clips, they won't let you make the mission without finding some, but it could have been fun.
The Asari government is an example of deliberative democracy. Some political scientists have argued that with the development of new technologies, this is what future democracy on Earth might look like ;)
I had gray hair at 23. It happens
Same, I started getting grey hair at 23.
And grey dye can exsist
The heatsinks were the first thing I noticed on that mission, just chalked it up to gameplay and story segregation. As the novels, I liked them and other media like Paragon Lost, but Bioware's management of continuity was so bad I just wrote them off as "not canon, not bad, but not canon." As for the Andromeda Initiative and its tech, it's mentioned that the current harvest as of the trilogy has been delayed several times and Sovereign was getting desperate (or as close to desperate as a Reaper can get) and while most Mass Effect tech is based on what the Reapers left not all of it is, like the Andromeda species and research and development still occurs for the other races of the Milky Way.
And the Crucible, didn't the Catalyst straight up say it was designed by it as a test for organic races? Going off my faulty memory and the Mass Effect Wiki, it was really just a big power source designed to work with the Citadel and Mass Relay network, but yeah, it's totally a plot point to explain away why, despite the Citadel race reverse-engineering Sovereign's big molten metal cannon, we couldn't just blow away the Reapers like pyzaks.
You missed something about the citadel and the crucible! Something the prothean VI on Cerberus main base tells Sheppard: "the crucible doesn't have enough power by itself, it needs power from the citadel, itself a mass relay, that's why it needs to be connected with the citadel!
Sera is the first blonde, Bioware hates blondes.
As reaper tech being used to reach andromeda. The other civilizations didn’t know that the reapers were a thing. With an entire galaxy to exploit the civilizations at the time had no reason to attempt to go to Andromeda out of science sake. Andromeda also may have been too far away from that as the galaxy would be 50,000 years closer during Mass Effect. Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way galaxy after all.
As for the project itself they didn’t accelerate their plans until after the battle of the citadel. When the reapers became a known threat and pressure can drive innovation. Reaper’s probably didn’t consider a civilization would make an attempt with the distances involved.
Billions of years of reapers, and the only cycle that bothered trying to collonise another galaxy just happens to be the very last cycle. Good point.
I don't remember the specifics but IIRC there are clues hinting at that the benefactors of the Andromeda Initiative are most likely a cabal of AI that wanted to merge with organics, SAM is part of it, but also only they could scrounge up enough money to finish the project, and have the foresight to kick it into gear after the attack on the citadel.
And the Reapers are a big threat to AI as well, since they mostly care about organics.
I always thought the Reapers' efforts to halt organic advancement beyond a threshold was pursued in an unemotional, analytical way. So, I interpreted their indifference to the crucible as just one of multiple unquantifiable variables that could disrupt the logic they held as true.
Since they operate without malice, they accepted what they held as truth to be fallible. Hence, the pursuit of a new solution.