History Headscratchers / MassEffect1

** And by the third game, Kaiden or Ashley will have been promoted, and more importantly, become a Spectre partway through the game before the romance gets a chance to be rekindled.

*** IIRC, your choice of "memory" in ME2 only determines the human councillor if you don't import a save file from [=ME1=]-- if you import a save where you made that decision previously, you aren't presented with a choice to set the parameter retroactively.

*** IIRC, your choice of "memory" in ME2 only determines the human councillor if you don't import a save file from ME1-- if you import a save where you made that decision previously, you aren't presented with a choice to set the parameter retroactively.

* I never understood how he and his team are able to survive if you decide to let your teammate (Ashley/Kaidan) die that is with them on the AA towers. How did they get back to the Normandy in time and the squadmate didn`t?
It really only makes sense if you go to the AA tower.

** If they tried to arrest him, Wrex wouldn't have come quietly, and a lot of C-Sec officers would have been killed. That whole scene basically existed to show that the C-Sec officer's threats were hollow, because they weren't willing to risk the damage Wrex would cause if he was arrested.[[/folder]]

** Occam's Razor: he's not straight. He's turned on by the masculinity of the monogender alien's fringe-like head tentacles.

** Perhaps not... but having AppliedPhlebotinum doesn't make it not hard Sci-Fi... so long as it doesn't outright contradict what we already know about science. For example... nanotechnology is both AppliedPhlebotinum and Hard Sci-Fi (if done realistically). "Mass Effect Fields" could be some method of increasing and decreasing mass... something quantum physics is, in our own time, hinting at being possible. This could allow you to effect gravity which lets you bend space-time or make heavy metal ships float. Element Zero, or rather the element on the periodic table coming before hydrogen and having an atomic mass of zero, is in fact theorized to have existed just after the big bang. It's not completely impossible for it to exist today in small quantities. Whether or not access to it would give us the ability to manipulate mass is unknowable at this time. We don't know what mass actually is or how it effects gravity. But there are theories backing up what is showing in Mass Effect... and very little contradicting it. Might not be hard Sci-Fi but it is very very close.

** The most {{egregious}} problem with the Mako is the turret's limited elevation, when almost every single place you can use it features very rugged, steep terrain. As for the other vehicles, we should probably be thankful that we did not get saddled with one. We only ever encounter a couple of them that aren't smoking wrecks.

** It's worth noting that Liara does ''not'' possess the Cipher, since she requires Shepard to translate for her when they encountered a Prothean recording on Ilos, which ''only'' Shepard was able to understand. Thus the Cipher cannot be simply passed on, even to other Asari via mind-melds. What Liara is doing is merely viewing the information from Shepard's mind, but Shepard is still, essentially the master copy.

* Why did they take out all the Female Turians at the last minute and change them into other races? Case in point, the conversation you overhear in the Ward Access corridor, between a turian and an asari officer. This was originally recorded with the asari meant as a Female Turian. It doesn't make sense for a turian to call an asari "kid" because asaris live so much longer. Don't give me memory budget. If you can give each character a different face, then you can add boobs to a turian model.

** Which is exactly why it doesn't make sense. Liara - [[{{Age is Relative}} who is 106, and still barely considered an adult]]- is STILL older than the typical Turian lifespan (stated several times to essentially match that of a human), not even mentioning the fact that even if a Turian did live that long, they certainly wouldn’t be in any condition to be serving on C-Sec

* In Mass Effect Redemption, we see Dark Horse's rendition of a female turian with a distinct lack of a fringe. However... the turian in the Salarian Bachelor Party on Illium expresses his like of asari (and assertion that they look like turians) based on the head tentacles resembling a turian fringe. If he was presumably straight (based simply on probabilities), wouldn't he be put off by a fringe since it would be a decidedly masculine aspect of turian sexual dimorphism?

* While on the subject of age, how come every race ever adopted the "Earth Year" as their unit of time-measure? Or did the Humans adapt a new "Year"? How the hell do Asari know how long an Earth year is and relate it to them when they haven´t been there. For all I know an Asari year could be 100 (earth)days long and therefore make the "Thousands of Years" they live seem kinda less impressive.

*** Habitable zones (where the conditions for life are optimal) vary quite a lot. It depends on the star's luminosity, its radiation output (it might be too high for an Earthlike world) and even its gravity. The habitable zone the Elcor homeworld formed in might be different to that of other races.

** This is an interesting aside, actually. Sure, the Batarians should have absolutely no issue adapting the body armor of a human or Asari. I get that. But their heads are such a drastically different shape and function -Why do they use helmets made for a Human/Asari instead of ones that would both A. Comfortably fit their heads, and B. Allow them to actually see with all 4 of their eyes? This is like a human fighting with one eye blinded by their equipment. Is it just to play up the whole "rebel insurgent/pirate" angle? Or is it just another [[{{Acceptable Breaks From Reality}} acceptable break from reality]]?

** They only cared after Shepard pulled off the big feat of defeating Sovereign; the data came from Quarian scavengers who were on pilgrimage and managed to retrieve a stash of weapons and sold it to Morlan in exchange for Pilgrimage gifts as the Geth Armory weapons will be seen as taboo.

** That's not really fair, since Mass Effect is very hard Sci Fi. I'm sure there has to be some explanation that makes sense.

** Look in real life at the Jews of Europe or the Chinese around Asia. Due to a variety of reasons they would come to control the economic interests in those areas but lacked political representation. When the regime were displeased with them their money didn't mean much. Same for the Volus, they may have a huge gloved hand in the economy but they could be excised. Money can only hire so many mercenaries while most states will have much greater martial power. It would also be very expensive for them to get any mercenaries if it was common knowledge a major power was after them.

** And, indeed, this can be seen in the Elcor Ambassador's multiple reprimands, pointing out that Volus territory and influence increased at a more exponential rate than humanity's did when they joined the Citadel races, due to them basically ''establishing the galactic economy.'' The Korlac's problem is that Humanity threatens their status as the economic bigdog, due to their JackOfAllTrades status as compared to the other races.

::: 1) you can argue about how much power they actually DO hold. They certainly have a big influence on the economy but this is "they" as "the Volus economic bigdogs", which does not necessarily show the same interests than the Volus political wing, which thinks about general Volus ideas.

** Essentially, the original argument is based on the notion that the Turian hierarchy has a capitalist system. Trying to blackmail the Turians would likely work poorly because they might have no stigma against nationalizing any business that works against the interest of the hierarchy. Repeatedly doing so might lose them the Volus, but certainly won't result in Turians revolting. The Volus likely know exactly how much influence they can wield before the Turians shut them down and consider it too little.

** Yeah, that's a really stupid development. They're trying to sell the idea that no offworld records exist, or no Quarian with a camera went into a clean room to take naughty pictures of themselves and uploaded the results on Space Youporn?

** When Legion creates the digital recreation of the Quarians, they still use face masks because Shepard doesn't know what Quarians look like under their masks, and their codex entries indicate no one else does either. It's stupid, inconsistent, and contradictory to any sort of logic, but most people genuinely have no clue what they look like.

** Fornax doesn't just use visuals, so the Quarian porn might just be dirty articles. Now, logically, yes, people should know what a damn Quarian looks like, if not for the data from pre-Geth Uprising, then because there's probably Quarian hentai or CG porn, but the game has numerous instances where they state that no, people don't, and not just in a "what does that particular Quarian look like" way. Also, weren't those treatments failures/discontinued?

** I'm going to argue that the game is at the very least inconsistent. You have statements from the Codex that people don't know what they look like, statements from Shepard that s/he doesn't know what a Quarian looks like (save possibly Tali) despite the fact that he can buy an issue of Fornax, Matriarch Aethyta says no one else knows what Quarians look like, Javik implies no one else knows what they look like. Logically, it makes no sense, but the game does indicate that for some reason, most people just don't know what a Quarian looks like, even though they should be able to punch up some 300-year-old porn, or just some CG-porn.
** Maybe because they don't actually care enough to look it up? Most people could probably find pictures of Quarians without their suits on the extranet if they really wanted to know, but they may not have bothered because it's not really that important to them. It's not an uncommon attitude, hell it even happens today: despite having a huge repository of knowledge at their fingertips (the internet), a lot of people will remain ignorant of certain information, even if it's something they claim that they want to know. Sure, they may say they will, but they'll never actually do so on their own. There are any number of reasons why they won't look it up, but it's the same mentality here.

** The thing is, people who have a Quarian fetish will have it for two reasons: a) their culture, of which the suits are an inevitable part, so Quarian porn wouldn't need them removed; b) ''because'' they are in these suits. If the body figure itself would be important, the pervert in question would just watch and create human porn, since that one is easier to make and the external physical differences between the two races are neglible. It's sort of how clothing fetish porn works: only what is necessary for intercourse or other presentation is removed. This means that adult material involving quarians rarely, if at all, removes the suit, so finding out what they look like under it takes more effort than going on Space [=YouPorn=], so I can imagine it is something only the very curious do.

** The codex answers all your questions. Thresher Maws start off as tiny little spores that might not get noticed. Then they get spread by spacefaring species who don't notice the thresher spores, and when spread to the other planets, grow into those massive things.

** As of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' it's more or less confirmed that quarians are oxygen-breathing. If you choose to romance Tali, Shepard takes her mask off. Something similar happens in ME3. It's rather hard to do...that...without the two parties breathing the same air.

*** Where does it say that the Turians lost 20 cruisers and the Alliance only eight? There were multiple Alliance fleets involved in the battle, and it's specifically stated in ME3 that those fleets lost a THIRD of their vessels in the Battle of the Citadel. We certainly lost more than eight ships.

*** The Turians were very much the stronger at that point, and to be honest still are even by ME3. There's a reason the humans call the whole thing a 'War' (The First Contact War), while the Turians have a rather less grand name for it (they call it The Relay 314 Incident). For the Turians, it was Tuesday, for the Humans it was a life/death struggle. It's even stated that the only reason Shanxi was liberated was because the Turians were stretched quite thin and hadn't mobilised much of a force yet, and the Alliance enacted an effective surprise attack.

** I hate how everyone is dodging this question. Yes the Quarians could have, at any time, colonized a Detro world in the terminus systems, its just they never did. We are never given any good reason for why not (No a speech about how it would take hundreds of year to readjust does not count), and we likely never will. This is easily solved, the Migrant fleet is the largest collection of ships in the galaxy, the Turian military fleet is not even as large. While not all ship are military oriented,as we see in ME3, this was fixed. Now if the Quarians at anytime like say a hundred years after the Rebellions, maybe when they still had something left of their immune system, they decided to just make a major place of operations for their civilian population on a world in the terminus. Logically, no Terminus pirate king or lord would have the resources to fight off the entire migrant fleet (considering its existed for 300 years this will not change by them being on a planet), and the Council can't bitch because its out of their jurisdiction, and therefore cause a war with the terminus. So why have the Quarians NOT DONE THIS? No reason is given, nothing is suitably explained. So we can conclude, that yes they can, its just does not happen because Bioware liked to hate on the Quarians. Just because it will take 600 years doesn't mean you shouldn't start now, and it doesn't mean you have to give up on Rannoch.

** We know from ME3 that the asari have genitals, because for some reason Creator/BioWare decided to put genitalia on the banshees (asari transformed into soldiers). They're anatomically correct and even have a clitoris, which makes no sense if you consider how and why the clitoris develops in a human woman versus how asari biology works. Also the "azure" isn't on the back; it's "the lower reaches, near the bottom" and is probably a reference to the human slang term "pink" [[http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/pink]].

*** It says at the beginning of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' and ME3 that it's 50,000 years. That's roughly how long each cycle is. It's probably longer or shorter depending on the vanguard's observations.

** As of ME2 it's more or less confirmed that quarians are oxygen-breathing. If you choose to romance Tali, Shepard takes her mask off. Something similar happens in ME3. It's rather hard to do...that...without the two parties breathing the same air.

*** So the drell in ME2/3, who lack power because they have no homeworld of their own. Also, even the council races are all different from the norm in some way. The turians are one of only two races that can't eat levo food, the asari only have one gender, and the salarians lay eggs. Aliens are ''alien''; no matter who the members of the Council were, you could find some set of criteria that applied to those who were on it versus those who weren't.

** No, they're definitely using translators. If Thane calls you 'siha' in Me2, Shepard comments that their translator must have glitched and asks what it means.

* In ME2, Tali says some kind of line about wanting Shepard to see her past her "stupid mask". That got me thinking - why don't any quarians use transparent visors? I know that Tali's line was more symbolic than anything, and even a transparent mask would be an unwanted barrier, but why don't any quarians in existence use transparent masks? From a PR perspective, it'd certainly go a long way toward making them seem more sympathetic, since people can attach a face to their plight. PS, I understand the technical limitations and the developers' wish for suspense, so I'm only asking on an in-universe level.

*** Garrus is not racist. He never shows anything that comes anywhere near even Ashley's brand of sort-of-racism. Garrus shows a burning desire for justice whether he's talking about Saren (his own race), Saleon (a mad scientist Salarian) or any of the human mercs that his team take on pre-ME2.

*** It says at the beginning of ME2 and ME3 that it's 50,000 years. That's roughly how long each cycle is. It's probably longer or shorter depending on the vanguard's observations.

** Just because some turians have a lot of contact with alien species doesn't mean they all do. Even Garrus in ME1, who should have plenty of experience interacting with aliens of all walks of life (he's a Citadel C-SEC officer, as was his father before him), is quite racist and ignorant of alien cultures. Turians living in less race-mixed places (like Palaven or turian military warships) would have even less understanding of other species. The turians in charge seriously screwed up, and have had to pay heavy reparations. As for giving humans the same surrender options: do you think they set up safe camps for the krogan? How about the rachni? The safe camps work because both sides of the war agree to follow the rules of the safe camps, and because no turian would ever surrender without the option of the safe camps. They probably learned a long time ago that setting up safe camps for aliens doesn't work so well.

** Actually, orbital bombardment isn't illegal. The Citadel Conventions bans the use of WMDs which causes environmental alteration. This would be things like nuclear weapons. Standard bombs are perfectly acceptable under the law.

** No. [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Citadel_and_Galactic_Government#Citadel_Conventions the Citadel Conventions only bans WMDs, and expressly describes what those are.]] While the turians did orbital bombardment, none of their actions created a "nuclear winter" on Shanxi, as there is no report of the planet being uninhabitable or loss of "garden" status(which is required for the Conventions to qualify).
** Did you even read your own link? Asteroid and colony drops are ''the first thing listed'' as banned WMDs. They are, quote, "the greatest threat to galactic peace". And no, the Citadel Conventions do not let illegal WMD use slide if a nuclear winter is miraculously avoided. Such a law would be completely ridiculous and would only encourage unscrupulous individuals to push the letter of the law as far as possible. It would be like not charging someone with attempted murder if they stabbed their neighbor six times, then called an ambulance for them. After all, an attempted murder charge requires intent to kill, and if the stabber called an ambulance then he obviously didn't intend for the victim to die, right?
** I don't think you read the link. There is no mention of "colony drops" in the Citadel Conventions. Only Asteroids (as you said), and de-orbited space stations. Asteroids were not used on Shanxi, only "orbital debris." And that is perfectly ok to be used by the conventions, as debris not a WMD because '''A WMD causes environmental alteration to a world.''' That is in the second paragraph of the link. If there is no environmental change, there is no evidence that such a weapon was used. As Shanxi is still livable, and after 20+ years there is still no defined change, there can be no question that WMDs were '''not''' used on the world, and thus, the Citadel Conventions do not apply.

** "I don't think you read the link." No, I'm pretty sure that's you. Fact: The Citadel Conventions identifies dropping asteroids and space stations on a garden world as an illegal use of WMDs. '''This is what the turians did in the First Contact War.''' I don't care how many times you jam your fingers in your ears and go "nuh uh!" Reality will not warp to suit your beliefs. The turians illegally used Tier 1 weapons of mass destruction against a garden world. The fact that a nuclear winter was miraculously averted in this case does not change that. By your logic, if I shot at you and missed, I can't be arrested. I didn't hit you, therefore I didn't break the law.

*** So? The problem appears to be that the Citadel Conventions call out WMDs as anything that causes environmental alteration to a world. A bomb that produces a large crater is not considered A WMD; a bomb that causes a nuclear winter is. Unfortunately, within the Tier I classification is the following (quoted from ME wiki): 'Large kinetic impactors, such as asteroid drops or de-orbited space stations'. From Ashley's description of what happened on Shanxi, the Turians were using relatively small impactors (she describes them as 'rocks') that could level city blocks, but would not cause huge amounts of dust to be thrown into the air.
The conclusion is that the Turians knew fine well what they could and could not do. They couldn't drop a huge asteroid on the colony, obliterate it, and go home. They did NOT use Tier I WMDs, by the definitions we know, because the destructive force to qualify is many more times than is required to simply destroy groups of buildings. Basically, the Turians acted pretty much how you'd expect them to. You wouldn't see them getting bogged down in a costly occupation. What IS bad is the Turians' heavy-handed response to seeing a new race (during a First Contact situation) doing something they shouldn't (opening a relay blind). Why did they just blow them up? There's no logical reason for this other than the Turian commanders being too trigger-happy. They decided to murder innocent people despite knowing fine well the people onboard those ships had no idea there was even a law to begin with.

** Again, no the turians didn't. The same link also says "A WMD causes environmental alteration to a world. A bomb that produces a large crater is not considered a WMD; a bomb that causes a "nuclear winter" is." If there was no change to the environment of the planet Shanxi, then there was no WMD used. If after 25+ years there have not been reports about environmental changes on Shanxi, one can only surmise that no WMDs were used on the planet.

** "Again, no the turians didn't." Again, ''yes they did''. Dropping asteroids and space stations on a garden world are ''specifically cited'' as illegal WMDs, ''which is what the turians did in the First Contact War''. It's right there in the Codex and no amount of denial and obfuscation will make it go away. Just because an environmental disaster was miraculously averted in THIS case does not magically reclassify orbital bombardment of a garden world as a legal act. As stated above, by the logic you are using, if I shot at you and missed, I can't be arrested. I didn't hurt you, therefore I haven't broken the law.

** The Citadel Conventions apply to all races everywhere, regardless of whether they are Citadel races. That's why in "Bring Down the Sky" they said this had to be the actions of terrorists because if the batarian government made a habit of dropping asteroids on colonies then the Council would go to war with them. Similarly, since opening dormant relays could lead to another Rachni-type threat, it doesn't matter if the race that opened the relay is a Citadel race or not as such an event threatens everyone. Saying humans can violate laws they were not aware existed because they never agreed to it is as silly as saying that someone who never knew that embezzlement is illegal doesn't have to go to jail when they do it. The question of who is at fault boils down to the humans committing a crime out of ignorance and the turians having a zero-tolerance policy. From there on, it was simple escalation: they destroyed our ships, so we destroyed theirs, they came back with more ships and drove us back to Shanxi where they bombed and blockaded us into submission. The point of contention above is because while the Citadel conventions say that dropping asteroids and space stations onto garden worlds count as using WMDs, not everything that falls out of the sky is a weapon of mass destruction. The turians used small objects to hit localized areas of the colony. The claim that "an environmental disaster was miraculously averted" requires us to believe that the turians—sticklers for the letter of the law and military perfectionists that they are—deliberately tried to break Citadel law but somehow failed to have the desired effect by an order of magnitude.

[[folder: "Flattering" body armour]]
* Aside from the obvious reasons, why does all body armour in the ME universe seem designed specifically to flatter the wearer's physique? All the male armours feature chiselled pecs and biceps and all the female armours feature delicately sculpted hips and chests. I guess you could excuse the male armours on the basis that it makes them look more impressive and intimidating, but how do you justify the female armour designs?
** The armour appears to be body-conforming, particularly the lighter suits, which is actually desirable. Armour that is adjusted to fit the contours of the wearer's body is significantly more comfortable than armour made up of rigid plates, and there's no real advantage to rigid plating with the materials science they have in this setting. Body-conforming armour also allows ease of movement when compared with rigid plating, which is an important trade-off. (e.g. a lot of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan go without the side plates for their Interceptor vests because they're too heavy and interfere with movement and pursuit.) It's also worth noting that the female heavy armour is a lot less "flattering" than the female light armour, which makes sense; the light armour is designed for ease of movement, to be a second skin, and to serve as a housing for the shield generators, while the heavy armour is heavy armour designed for protection.
** "the female heavy armour is a lot less "flattering" than the female light armour" Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree on that part, but good points in general.
** This troper didn't find any of the female armours to be particularly flattering. They did however make practical sense in terms of appearance.
** The [[http://imgur.com/2Gb43.jpg arse-crack]] on the female human medium armour seems neither flattering (YMMV) nor practical. It Just Bugs Me. Gives a new meaning to '[[NegativeSpaceWedgie Space]] [[IncrediblyLamePun Wedgie]]'...
** As noted above, the armour is form-fitting to be lightweight.

** Flattering, not really. VERY form fitting though, to the point that the female version seems to squeeze down or compress the chest area. Light armour sometime seems to be something out of ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies'' or ''Franchise/MetalGear'', while heavy armour give a whole new meaning to BoobsOfSteel. Said form fitting armours can be justified by the fact that they double as space suit. Such a design should allow for minimum movements hindrance while protecting the body from depressurisation. If I remember well, such a design is actually worked on by NASA.

** In real life, aside from the head, one can actually expose oneself to vacuum pretty well without much harmful effects. A pressure suit helps though and a pressure suit would indeed look like that in ME - skin tight and fitted to the individual wearer. The reason being that it only works if there is constant even pressure all over the body... so in real life, this also requires such things as special cups for men and women for their private parts. The flattering only comes into play because of two things: 1, these are all physically active people - they would of course have great physiques, and 2, armour aesthetics. Some ancient armours for instance had very detailed... groin pieces. Also, in-universe, some armours are mentioned as having plates and all are mentioned as having shield generators. For all we know, these generators are the plates on the armour.

** Man, what doesn't it do? From the Shadow Broker files: Magnification up to 100x integrated target tracing, optional wind/gravity compensation solutions. Sonar, LADAR, thermal, and EM targeting capable. Monitors biofeedback on target within 10 meters to detect heart-rate fluctuations or changes to breath pattern. Can detect and measure biotic fields up to 100 meters away and provide optimized firing solution to collapse kinetic barriers or synthetic shielding support. Optional kill-timer can track number of enemies taken down by self or suit-synced team members in given time period. Armour hotlink provides backtracing of incoming fire and corrects for microrefraction of outgoing shots through kinetic barrier. Audio link plays music per user request.

* How come getting shot repeatedly doesn't compromise Tali's environmental suit? When hiding behind you, she asks if your armour is in good condition, so we know human/asari armour isn't bulletproof or self-repairing, and it seems unlikely that quarian armour would be significantly better. (Also, if she was only taking impact damage from bullets, surely she'd have better defensive stats.)

** Plus, in context, armour in the ME universe doesn't just mean the physical armour (consisting of protective plates and self-repairing stuff) but also the mass effect fields around them. She could very well be asking if Shepard's suit (and me fields) is working enough to stop bullets - after all, as a quarian she's used to things -not- working.

** What bugged me was that people keep things like Omni-tool upgrades and ammo in their wall safes. I can see why someone like Fist would do it, but why does Lorik Qu'in have, if memory serves, radioactive ammunition and an armour exoskeleton in his safe?

* Somewhat petty but thoroughly annoying - why does the turret on the Mako have such poor elevation controls, to the point that being on a very shallow slope will be able to throw the accuracy of the thing off to the familiar sight of hitting the top of a mountain in the distance? I can appreciate the need for it to be as low as possible to the hull so as little as possible is exposed in a fight, but to the point it cannot aim down at all? I'm fairly sure modern armoured vehicles can aim their turrets down and the very principle of a 'hull down' position requires it... you'd have thought 150 years on they would have improved on this staple of armoured combat doctrine, not forgotten about it. It just bugs me that you have to expose your entire vehicle to enemy fire in order to fight back. Especially when you're nearly always outnumbered and out-gunned.

** Most of my complaint is really aimed at the controls/physics of the thing, but it does seem a touch foolish for the Alliance to send their first human Spectre against 'armies' in what is effectively an armoured car. Not a massive issue compared to some of the others on this page and Bioware did fix it in the sequel by removing it, so I guess I can't moan too much.