History ShoutOut / Masseffect

** Dual ShoutOut to the members of Pink Floyd, who actually pulled it off in the seventies, if Wiki/TheOtherWiki is to be believed.

* [[http://www.cerberusdailynews.com/?p=100 Cerberus Daily News]] on 4/01/2185 (April Fool's Day) has an interesting article about the destruction of a planet named [=DC1938=]...with a [[{{Superman}} single infant survivor]], picked up by a starship named Kent. His native atmosphere is "''65% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 15% krypton''".

** Also, during the CIC firefight on board the Normandy (in the Citadel DLC), Tali says [[Film/TheHuntForRedOctober "Be careful, Shephard! Some things in here don't react too well to bullets!" and Shephard replies "Like me! I don't react well to bullets!'']]

* The first Eden Prime mission has a character named L. Jenkins die due to rushing in against a group of geth. Considering the initials and behavior of the character, this can only mean [[Machinima/LeeroyJenkinsVideo one thing.]]

* From the Resurgence DownloadableContent is the Cerberus Vanguard, who, with the right colours, can look a lot like [[TheBrute The Meta]] from Machinima/RedVsBlue.

** During a scene while Shepard and Ashley are drinking at a bar, a batarian and a vorcha approach Shepard while exclaiming [[Film/ANewHope "My friend here doesn't like you Alliance types."]]

* The achievement for completing Thane's loyalty mission is called "Cat's in The Cradle," a reference to a song by Music/HarryChapin.

* The whole story of the geth uprising, coupled with [[spoiler: Legion's recordings]] draws several similarities to ''[[Film/TheMatrix The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance]]''

** Legions memories also spin a story very similar to the machine-human conflict shown in [[Film/TheMatrix The Matrix and explicitly described in The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance]].

* The overall tone and progression of the Leviathan mission is also vaguely reminiscent of [[Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu The Call of Cthulhu]], what with an impossibly ancient undersea-dwelling lifeform influencing people's minds from afar, ships' crews dying under peculiar circumstances, and the investigation of strange artifacts with mysterious properties and histories.

* Kasumi got Shepard's cover mentioned in ''[[Website/BadassOfTheWeek Badass Weekly]]'', [[https://www.badassoftheweek.com/commander-shepard whose real world equivalent returned the favour]].

[[folder: Mass Effect 3]]

* The krogan call their huge, gun-laden trucks "Tomkahs". Probably a lawyer-friendly reference to [[TonkaTough Tonka toy trucks]].

* In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, The station that is used as a base for restoring Telos is called Citadel Station.

** Possibly also a reference to the droid factory that was sadly cut from Obsidian's ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicII''.

* Kasumi's outfit bears a striking resemblance to Visas Marr from ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicII''.

* 2175 Aeia, the planet where Jacob's loyalty mission takes place, looks extremely similar to The Unknown Planet from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, complete with a large ship crashed into the ocean. Creator/BioWare made both games.

* The First Contact War was an event triggered between humans and another intelligent spacefaring species (the turians) when they encounter each other for the first time; a misunderstanding occurred that ended in violence and triggered an interstellar war that shaped the political landscape and left a lot of mutual distrust between humans and turians for decades to come. This is eerily similar to the Earth/Minbari war in Series/BabylonFive where humans encounter the Minbari for the first time and a misunderstanding ends in violence leading to an interstellar war that shaped the political landscape and caused a lot of mutual distrust between humans and Minbari for the next decade. The difference is that in ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the humans were bailed out by asari diplomats before the turians could sweep in with their tens of thousands of ships to smash the Systems Alliance's mere two hundred ships, leaving the actual war a mere skirmish, whereas the Minbari unleashed a horrific CurbStompBattle on the Earth Alliance and nearly exterminated the human race in ''Series/BabylonFive''.

* Then there's the rachni quest, which has very eerie similarities to ''Literature/EndersGame''.

* One of the quarian Admirals is from a ship named Qwib-Qwib. This just happens to be the name of the lone anti-Berserker sentient machine in the Literature/{{Berserker}} universe. Bonus points in that the Reapers are eerily similar to the Berserkers in some ways.

** More importantly, however, it's eerily similar to the thief model from the Infinity Engine.

* After using the Omega 4 Relay, the Normandy comes out of its jump on a collision course with a debris field made of destroyed star ships bathed in an apocalyptic shade of gold. The sequence is almost identical to one in the 2009 ''[[Film/StarTrek2009 Star Trek]] film, where the Enterprise comes out of warp and has to maneuver through a dense collection of wrecked star ships in a similarly golden sector of space.

* If you stand by Joker at the bridge, in addition to saying a ton of funny lines, he'll at one point say:
--> "Some days I just feel like turning off the inertials and pulling a [[Film/TheHuntForRedOctober Crazy Ivan]], y'know?"; in ''3'' he makes mention of not singing the Russian anthem to attract unwanted attention.

** If you stand by Joker at the bridge, in addition to saying a ton of funny lines, he'll at one point say:
---> "Some days I just feel like turning off the inertials and pulling a [[Series/{{Firefly}} Crazy Ivan]], y'know?"
** Which is itself a reference to The Hunt for Red October. (More specifically, it could be from ''Firefly'', which was referencing Red October, which was using an actual submarine tactic - take your pick.)
*** Could very well be a shout out to The Hunt for Red October, since Joker makes an obvious reference to the movie in the next game

** As the trial commences in earnest, both captains are asked to back up the accused, Shepard as a pseudo-lawyer and Picard as a Cha'[=DIch=], due to the manipulations of a hostile political figure (Duras/Koris) causing the (alien) person who would normally fulfill those roles to be recused. Both trials see the human captains investigating the case, leading to the discovery of an AwfulTruth that could potentially cause a civil war. In both cases, the accused then offer to make a HeroicSacrifice by taking the blame for crimes they didn't commit and accepting permanent exile, over the objections of their human captains. The main difference is that Worf goes through with it; Tali ''can'' go through with it, but in three of the five possible outcomes[[note]]As well as apparently the [[CuttingOffTheBranches canonical one]]. In-universe MP broadcasts mention that the geth and the quarians end up fighting on the same side, a result that's only possible to achieve if Tali was never exiled.[[/note]] she gets exonerated anyway when Shepard is able to TakeAThirdOption. Oh, and unlike Tali and Shepard, Worf and Picard didn't have to kill a platoon of heavily armed robots to find the evidence... though Worf probably would have preferred it that way.

* When you get Thane's loyalty mission, he will mention that he and his son would "[[VideoGame/{{Persona}} dance crazy]]."

* While driving around Voeld in the Nomad, one squad mate will eventually start griping about how their parts are getting frozen. Ryder tells them to [[Disney/{{Frozen}} let it go]].

** Servicemen Chung and Burnside, the unfortunate subjects of said rant, are named after [[http://www.adastragames.com/products/adastra/av.html Ken Burnside]] and [[Website/AtomicRockets Winchell Chung]].

** Servicemen Chung and Burnside, the unfortunate subjects of said rant, are named after [[http://www.adastragames.com/products/adastra/av.html Ken Burnside]] and [[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/ Winchell Chung]].

** As the trial commences in earnest, both captains are asked to back up the accused, Shepard as a pseudo-lawyer and Picard as a Cha'DIch, due to the manipulations of a hostile political figure (Duras/Koris) causing the (alien) person who would normally fulfill those roles to be recused. Both trials see the human captains investigating the case, leading to the discovery of an AwfulTruth that could potentially cause a civil war. In both cases, the accused then offer to make a HeroicSacrifice by taking the blame for crimes they didn't commit and accepting permanent exile, over the objections of their human captains. The main difference is that Worf goes through with it; Tali ''can'' go through with it, but in three of the five possible outcomes[[note]]As well as apparently the [[CuttingOffTheBranches canonical one]]. In-universe MP broadcasts mention that the geth and the quarians end up fighting on the same side, a result that's only possible to achieve if Tali was never exiled.[[/note]] she gets exonerated anyway when Shepard is able to TakeAThirdOption. Oh, and unlike Tali and Shepard, Worf and Picard didn't have to kill a platoon of heavily armed robots to find the evidence... though Worf probably would have preferred it that way.

* Kasumi got Shepard's cover mentioned in ''[[Website/BadassOfTheWeek Badass Weekly]]'', [[http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shepard.html whose real world equivalent returned the favour]].

** While on Horizon, the mechanic says that one of the colonists the Collectors kidnapped was named [[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Sten.]] Another was Lilith, which is a cute way to refer to Morrigan as in another series [[Series/{{Darkstalkers}} she is Morrigan's sister.]]

** Also possibly a reference to [[HalfLife Adrian Shepard]] as well.

* While Kaidan Alenko's name (a combination of Japanese [[note]] Granted, "Kaidan" isn't really a name [[/note]] and Russian) might reference [[Series/AlteredCarbon Takeshi Kovacs]].