Mass Effect / Tropes E to H

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• Tropes U to Z

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E

• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Initially averted. Before ME3, not one single event of any plot importance has occurred on Earth in the series. The only relevance it had to the current plot is that it's one of three selectable pre-service origins for Shepard. It's suggested that the Collectors will eventually hit Earth for the population density, but they never have the chance.3 begins with a full-scale invasion of the planet by the Reapers, and the ultimate goal is the launch a final battle both on and around Earth. Earth is actually the second victim of the Reapers after Khar'shan (the batarian homeworld), and Shepard doesn't return until the very last section of the game. However, the Reapers seem to be awfully focused on Earth, and actually move the Citadel into the Sol System to make a second attempt at creating a human Reaper, which conveniently forces the final battle to take place there.
• Eerie Arctic Research Station: Noveria is an ice-covered planet where corporations are free to conduct research that would be controversial or even illegal on the Citadel space. In the first game, your pursuit of Matriarch Benezia leads to Peak 15, a lab on this planet where scientists were trying to resurrect supposedly extinct creatures but lost contact with the outside world due to said creatures breaking out of control.
• The '80s: According to the Word of God, Mass Effect is an homage to 1980's sci-fi flicks, including the soundtrack (Blade Runner, and so on). Mass Effect 1 seems to hearken to the early 80's, while Mass Effect 2 seems to hearken to the latter part of the decade. One example of this influence is the music in the first game, particularly the more synthesized tracks on the Citadel, which are a great Shout-Out to Vangelis' music in Blade Runner.
  • It helps that the games do take place in the 2180's.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Reapers, and the Leviathan, who indirectly created them, and from whom their form was derived.
• Eldritch Starship: Again, Reapers. Possibly the Collector ship, too.
• Elite Agents Above the Law: The Council Spectres are operatives with a vague mandate to "preserve peace and stability in the galaxy". They are only answerable to the Citadel Council itself, which takes pains to not inquire too deeply into what they do and how they do it. Unlike other examples of this trope, they are not provided with any particular resources by their employers, but since they can do anything they like without legal repercussion, they're free to cut deals, steal, and even raise private armies to accomplish their missions. The ethics of this are discussed in Mass Effect: Da Chief of Citadel Security criticizes the Spectres' lack of accountability, and the main plot of the game involves Commander Shepard hunting down a Spectre who has gone rogue, blundering into his plot to summon the Reapers and bring on The End of the World as We Know It as a result.
• Elite Mooks: With the geth, 'Elite' overlaps with 'Giant.' The bigger they are, the more effective, though it works as larger units can house more software, which translates to smarter and more effective platforms.
  • In ME3, each faction has their own group of Super Mooks. Aside from the aforementioned geth, the Reaper faction has Brutes and Banshees (huskified krogans/turians and asari, respectively). Cerberus has Phantoms and Atlas mechs. And the multiplayer-only Collectors, as in ME2, have Scions and Praetorians.
• Enclosed Extraterrestrials:
  • The volus live in a high-pressure greenhouse atmosphere, forcing them to use full body suits when dealing with other species.
  • The quarians are a wandering species and after centuries of living in sterilized environments they lost most of their immune system, thus they always use enviro-suits, to protect them from disease or infection, when dealing with other races.
• Encyclopedia Exposita: The Codex, narrated by Neil "I know I've heard you before" Ross in the first three games.
  • It's worth noting that a lot of little elements in the game are expanded on by the Codex. For example, Engineer Adams comments that "going to FTL blue-shifts our emissions." The mechanics behind why the emissions are blue-shifted are explained in detail in the Codex.
  • The Codex is also a literal in-universe encyclopedia, which means that it intentionally contains incorrect and falsified information. For example, in the second game Sovereign is listed as a geth warship, when it reality it was a sentient starship and the first game's true Big Bad.
  • In Andromeda, the codex is written up by SAM.
• The End Of The Galaxy As We Know It: According to legend, this rolls around every fifty thousand years with no explanation for what causes it. It's the Reapers, and guess what time it is!
  • Before the Extended Cut, the third game ended this way, regardless of which ending you chose.
• Empty Shell: Victims of indoctrination.
• Endangered Species: The rachni, who are not quite as dead as the galaxy believes. It's up to you whether or not to finish the job. If you wipe them out in the first game, the Reapers make their own, but there's no way to save them — their Breeder will turn on you no matter what. The real Queen will help if given the chance.
• Enemy Chatter: Constantly. Thankfully mitigated to a certain extent in the latter two games. The second game tried to offset this by replacing "enemy" with "squadmate"; the third rendered the squad (outside of certain situations) practically silent, while enemies only "chatter" after you've taken out enough of their comrades.
  "I WILL DEEESTROY YOU!"
  "GO-GO-GO"
  "ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!"
  "HOLD THE LINE!"
• Enemy Civil War:
  • The original geth vs the Always Chaotic Evil heretic geth by the second game.
  • Cerberus vs. Cerberus renegades in the third game.
  • Reaper-controlled Collectors vs Leviathan-controlled Awakened Collectors in the latest multiplayer DLC.
  • The Collective versus the Outlaws on Kadara.
• Epiphany Therapy: Averted on almost every occasion. Rather than getting people over their problems with a few helpful/tough words and maybe a slap to the face, Shepard instead tries to get people to acknowledge that they have a problem in the first place. And if they do, they then encourage them to see a shrink.
• Establishing Character Music:
  • Mass Effect:
    • On Virmire right after finding the Prothean beacon there, menacing sounding music starts playing as the party goes and converses with Sovereign for the first time.
    • Prior to speaking with Vigil, one of the final remnants of the Prothean race, we hear Vigil's Theme, slow and subdued but hopeful sounding. It's also the first thing we hear when the game starts up.
  • Mass Effect 2 opens with The Illusive Man's Theme, technologically produced and intriguing sounding but with multi-layered textures that make it tricky to hear everything in it, as he and Miranda discuss the state of the galaxy and what they need to do to achieve their goals.
• Eternal Prohibition: Drugs are still illegal. Alcohol is still legal, but only in certain places. It's implied that the laws are more fluid than what we're used to; drugs that are illegal are allowed on Illium, just heavily taxed.
  • There's large differences concerning attitudes towards drugs in different cultures; turians for example tolerate recreational drug use more than humans, but only as long as it doesn't impede their duties. Illium is a special case, as its location puts it outside all interstellar legislation, and the only law recognised there is corporate law — anything you buy comes with a contract describing all the effects and side-effects of the product, and as long as it's fulfilled, there's no grounds for complaint. Illium also references a point of debate from real life: if a drug is entirely illegal, it will be brought in by smugglers.
• Eternal Recurrence: The Reapers and their 'harvesting' of all space-faring species of the galaxy every fifty thousand years. As of the third game's Leviathan DLC, the Leviathan of Dis is confirmed to be a Reaper one billion years old. This pushes the earliest known evidence back from thirty-seven million years ago to around a billion years ago. (Reaper cycles occurring every 50,000 years for the past 1 billion years means there have been 20,000 extinction cycles.) Sovereign once said, "We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite." It may not be true, but it's close enough that it could be forgiven for thinking so.
  • The third game ultimately involves ending this cycle, and also reveals another: organic beings always create synthetics, always go to war with synthetics, are always destroyed by synthetics. The Reapers were created to end these cycles and preserve organic life.
• Evil Is Angular The Reapers were at the very least aware of this trope and exploited it to their advantage; while their design is very much like big, scary, and spiky metallic cuttlefish, utilizing 'spikes' to indoctrinate and convert those they can get their hands on. The tech they leave behind after a successful harvest has soft curves to entice its discoverers into using it. It has worked for at least a billion years.
• Even Evil Has Standards: On a meta-level across all of the games, many Renegade Shepard players are more than happy to play Shepard as a pragmatic, anger-filled, snarky Anti-Hero, but shy away from many of the choices that make Shepard needlessly brutal, racist, or cruel. Likewise, there are many Renegade players who will stoop to those levels, but not if they're directed to their own crew members.
• Every Bullet is a Tracer: Could be justified, in a couple of different ways, if they were all tracers. Instead, only some guns fire glowing bullets, raising the question of why only some are tracers.
• Every Device Is a Swiss-Army Knife: The omni-tool. Essentially, it's a portable computer which can hack locks, bank accounts, computers (including ones in enemy weapons and armor) and slaughter people by activating tech powers...
  • They're also useful for playing computer games like Alliance Corsair.
  • Also, in Mass Effect 3, it can stab people, despite being just 'light'. And can be electrified or set on fire.
    • ...and kinetic barriers. That can shoot fire and ice.
• Everyone Is a Super: An elevator conversation between Kaidan and Liara discusses how many asari tend to be naturally gifted with biotics to the point that they can actually choose not to serve militarily. Kaidan expresses his jealousy at that last point. As shown in 3, this is intentional, and was coded into their DNA by the Protheans.
• Everything Is an iPod in the Future: Everywhere shiny, at least.
• Everything Is Online: The entire concept of hacking. Possibly an aversion, though; see the page for details.
• Everything Trying to Kill You:
  • The quarians; due to their immune systems, they can't go anywhere in the galaxy without being at risk, forcing them to wear environmental suits. This is a source of some small Angst for Tali.
  • In a more traditional sense, Tuchanka; you thought the krogan were bad? Everything on their planet is carnivorous. Even the plant life. And one of the minor predators is capable of completely destroying the ecosystem of any planet they're placed on. Then again, Tuchanka is a nuclear wasteland thanks to krogan civil wars.
• Evil Is Easy: Averted. Renegade paths aren't usually any harder per se, but they tend to yield less rewards, and often trigger fights you could otherwise avoid. Which may have been your intention, of course.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Cerberus never seems to learn this. Too many missions to mention here involve cleaning up after their mad science experiments go wrong.
• Evil Is Petty: While Renegade is not technically evil, and is supposed to be a person who is sure I Did What I Had to Do, maxing out your Renegade meter will generally require you to be a bit of a dick, from being rather rude to shaking down money.
• Evil Sounds Deep:
  • Reapers in general have really deep voices.
  • The rachni queen in Mass Effect 3 also has a deep voice (though not nearly as deep as a Reaper's), but is in fact an ally assuming you don't kill her. Justified in this case, though, as she's speaking through a bunch of krogan corpses.
  • Every kett, male or female, speaks in a deep voice.
• Evil Twin: In ME3 Citadel DLC, Clone Shepard of Real Shepard.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Dozens of them, mainly working for Cerberus or ExoGeni.
  • In Mass Effect 2, the Collectors appear to be a whole species of this trope. And it's actually the Reapers, for whom the Collectors are just muscle.
  • The third game reveals that this was the Protheans' hat.
• Exotic Equipment: The asari's unique method of mating. And of course, the krogan's legendary quads.
• Expanded States of America: It's only mentioned in Flavor Text and the Codex, but the United States, Canada and Mexico merged into one nation at the end of the 21st century, forming the United North American States. This led to the Second American Civil War after secessionist forces destroyed the Statue of Liberty.
• Expanded Universe: A trio (that's right, there are only three of them) of books, a series of comics, and a couple of games for the iPhone. In something of a twist, though, the EU actually has less information and detail than what you can find in the games themselves.
  • The daily news updates are rapidly becoming probably the biggest contributor to the setting at large, fleshing it out with lots of running plotlines and even adding a new species to the Citadel.
    • The updates have also fleshed out some of the characters which were later introduced in the DLC (Tela Vasir in Lair of the Shadow Broker), or have been used to lead up to events of the DLC (Amanda Kenson in Arrival).
• Exploding Barrels: These take the form of hazardous substance containers and power conduits. However, the containers only sneeze-explode if someone's rigged them on tripwires (the first game's mission on the derelict freighter with the comatose guy and his whack-job girlfriend springs to mind.) Exploding them under normal circumstances requires bullets.
• Explosive Breeder:
  • Formerly the krogan, as an adaptation to Tuchanka. At least before they got slapped with the genophage.
  • Female salarians automatically lay dozens of eggs over the course of a single year, with gender being determined by whether or not the eggs are fertilized; fertilized eggs become female while unfertilized eggs become male. Salarian law allows only ten percent of all eggs to be fertilized so as to prevent an uncontrollable population explosion.
  • Angara are litter birthers, and tend to have large families as a result and the concept of an only child does not exist in their society. This leads to some culture shock when they deal with humans, asari, and turians, who typically give birth one at a time.
• Explosive Overclocking: Certain weapons upgrades in the first game will render your weapon incapable of firing more than one shot before overheating. But damn, are those upgrades worth it.
• Expo Speak: Reading the Codex at 2 a.m. half-asleep tends to leave one feeling dim, confused, and unwilling to find a thesaurus/dictionary.
• Expo Speak Gag: From the Lair of the Shadow broker dossiers: "Dr. Solus suggests Captain Kirrahe has a foreign obstruction in his cloaca." A few paragraphs later, "Dr. Solus suggests the foreign obstruction in Captain Kirrahe's cloaca is in fact his cranium."
• Extreme Omnivore: Anything from Tuchanka. Especially krogan, who find just about anything, including burning corpses, appetizing.
  • Except ramen.
    Grunt: I'll eat almost anything, but I stress "almost."

F

• The Faceless: The quarians and volus, since they have to wear an environmental suit at all times. Revoked for the quarians in the third game's Extended Cut ending (if they survived), as well as Tali's picture, which you get if you romanced her.
• Faceless Eye: The geth, with their infamous 'flashlight heads.' In the second game, one of them gains some movable flaps around those eyes to portray something like emotion, but the trope is still in full effect.
• Facial Markings: The turians, who continue the practice of declaring tribal allegiance through facepaint, even though the tribes technically no longer exist. They even use the term 'barefaced' for someone who is deceitful (hint: anytime you interact with a turian, check out the face). Also some asari, though their facial markings are not explained.
  • Many asari are born with various facial markings. Sometimes these facial markings look like painted on eyebrows, such as Liara's, but they are not seen by the asari as such.
• Fantastic Diet Requirement:
  • The asari homeworld Thessia has such high concentrations of element zero that traces are found in their food. The codex mentions that Thessian eateries make two separate menus, one with eezo, one without, and that asari living offworld have to take eezo in dietary supplements.
  • All organic life is based on either dextro- or levo-oriented proteins, and can only digest and metabolize food with a matching chirality. Most sapients are levo-oriented and can live off of each other's foods easily enough, but turians and quarians come from dextro-based biospheres and have to take care not to eat foods meant for levo protein-oriented species.
    "Don't eat the nuts in the red bowls. They're for turians and quarians only. You'll get cramps."
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The quarians are obviously influenced by Romani and Jews.
  • It goes on and on. The turians are Space Communists/Space Romans influenced by Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), for instance.
  • Illium is basically Space Dubai. It’s also suspiciously similar to Noveria from the first game, which was also a corporate owned and run world that had an unbelievable level of corruption and crime.
  • We can also see (mainly from Mordin's dialogue) that salarian culture is influenced by India since they believe in reincarnation and multiple gods (One salarian NPC says "May the gods bless you" when you accomplish his mini-sidequest).
  • The drell are most likely influenced by Greek culture, with their (dying) traditional belief of polytheism, belief of angel-/demigod-like beings, and separation of the body and soul. Very likely, seeing the choice in naming the one recruitable drell in your squad after the god of death (Thanatos) and the Greek word for the constellation Aries, Krios, which is ruled by Mars (whose Greek equivalent is Ares, god of war).
  • In Mass Effect 3, the krogan ruins in Tuchunka had wall paintings like those in Ancient Egyptian Tomb, the underground ruins, and the building before their war, is essentially an Expy of Pyramids.
• Fantastic Drug: The red sand mentioned, though never seen, in the games, which is refined eezo that gives users a high and temporary, somewhat weak biotic abilities. Withdrawal is described as being very nasty. The second game features Minagen X3, a red chemical which doesn't grant biotics but does enhance them. The more you take, the stronger you get. Until you OD.
• Fantastic Firearms: Most guns function by scooping up a microscopic chunk from a metal slug and using the eponymous mass effect to accelerate it to nearly relativistic speeds in the enemy direction. Some use half-inch sized slices room-temperature superconductor charged with massive ammounts of electricity instead of metal shavings, which makes them turn whatever the projectiles hit into plasma (nicely invoking the Plasma Cannon trope in a way that respects IRL physics). Thanix weapons use ferrofluids with various heavy metals dissolved into them, which solidify into supermassive (that's "really heavy" rather than "really big, BTW), relatavistic metal darts after firing that literally hit like a few hundred tons of dynamite (350-450 tons of TNT for starship-mounted models), nicely invoking the Wave-Motion Gun trope.
• Fantastic Naming Convention:
  • Quarians have names organized as given name, apostrophe, clan name, vas/nar (for adult and underage, respectively), ship of residence/birth (ditto). Thus, Tali receives several Meaningful Renames over the course of the series: she begins the series as Tali'Zorah nar Rayya ("Tali of clan Zorah, born on the ship Rayya"), then completes her Pilgrimage and becomes Tali'Zorah vas Neema ("Tali of clan Zorah, crew member of the Neema"), then Tali'Zorah vas Normandy (when she needs to leave the fleet for political reasons), although it's just as common to refer to her as Tali'Zorah. They also seem to have a full name combination of both only used in highly formal situations - the only one we hear is Tali's (Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya) and the only time we hear it said in full is when she contacts the Migrant Fleet while attending her treason trial. The much-maligned Mass Effect novel Deception infamously only gave quarians a first name and ship name, and furthermore wrote as if their ship names were their last names.
  • Turians and asari use the "given name then family name" order. Krogan originally have only a given name but once they complete their Rite of Passage, they bear the clan name in front of their given name.
  • Salarians list the individual's homeworld, nation, city, district, clan name and given name, but cut it down to just the last two (swapped to being in western order) in nearly all circumstances: only two salarians get their full names spoken on screen and neither are major characters.
  • The Hanar have two names they use, a "face name" which is the name they give to people when interacting with strangers or people they aren't close with, said name is usually a Name That Unfolds Like A Lotus Blossom, and a "soul name" a name they only use with their loved ones, they also refrain from using the terms "I" or "me" instead using "this one" as they consider personal pronouns to be egotistical.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Between EVERYONE and the krogan, humans and turians (and vice versa), and pretty much everyone towards the quarians. Humans in general tend to be a sore point for most aliens.
  • Inverted with the asari, who value mixed-species children and instead act horribly racist toward purebloods. Samara mentions that ardat-yakshi (an asari congenital neurological disorder which results in sterility, (occasionally) sociopathy... and the ability to steal Life Energy from their partners by putting them Out with a Bang) occurs almost exclusively among the daughters of purebloods, and wonders if that's where the stigma came from.
  • Even otherwise open-minded individuals consider the vorcha to be talking vermin.
  • Turians aren't that bad actually; they're getting along alright with humans since the First Contact War, which was kind of a misunderstanding anyway. It's really batarians that hate humans' guts. The conflict between the races is so strong, it shapes three of Shepard's possible backstories.
  • The Terra Firma Party has a platform of resisting alien influences on human culture. Naturally, this has led to much of its membership being complete xenophobes.
  • The kett, toward anything that isn't a kett, but they seem to have a severe hatred for AI.
  • Some angara towards aliens, thanks to eighty years of dealing with the kett.
• Fantastic Recruitment Drive: The Alliance is very welcoming to biotics, offering them somewhere to use their powers without fear of a lynch mob lurking nearby. Some, like Kaiden, have taken the offer.
• Fantastic Ship Prefix:
  • Systems Alliance military ships are designated as SSV. Notably, the Normandy SR-2 never used it while it was operating under Cerberus.
  • Civilian ships seem to use MSV (Merchant Space Vessel), such as MSV Strontium Mule.
  • Turian ships apparently use PFS, possibly Palaven Forces Ship.
  • Additionally, the prefix AML is seen, though what it stands for is unknown. The name of the ship in question, Demeter, suggests it's used by human ships.
  • The only hull number ever given is for the Normandy herself, SR-1 and SR-2 for the first and second ones respectively, which stands for Stealth Reconnaissance.
• Fantastic Slurs: With all the Fantastic Racism flying around, it's surprising that the most memorable slur is 'pureblood' for a child who has two asari mothers, only a few of whom are encountered in the games. Granted, all of Shepard's permanent asari party members are purebloods, but still.
  • Granted, this is because the asari consider it in the same way that we as humans consider incest — an unnecessary limiting of genetic diversity.
  • Another notable one is "suit rat" in reference to quarians. The volus also have "Clanless" as one of their anti-quarian slurs (conversely, sympathetic volus call them "Star Clan" or "Migrant Clan").
• Fantastic Underclass:
  • The vorcha: a primitive species known for their short lives, regenerative powers and fast-breeding tendencies, they're widely considered to be pests in the communities where they end up, to the point that scenes on Omega indicate that they're targets of preventative culling. Though not an automatically violent species by nature, vorcha are often forcibly recruited by the Blood Pack to serve as shock troops - and even then, they're treated as little more than Cannon Fodder; in another scene on Omega, one Blood Pack captain casually guns down a vorcha underling just to demonstrate a point. Those who don't work as soldiers often eke out a living as scavengers.
  • The quarians, having no homeworld of their own beyond an aging spacefleet, are often considered unwanted vagrants or thieves wherever they turn up, assuming they aren't being blamed for unleashing the geth on the galaxy. They are called unflattering names by Citadel races, regarded with suspicion by law enforcement, and are often used as scapegoats if something goes wrong: Tali mentions that quarians aren't considered welcome in some parts of the Citadel, and C-Sec grilled her for hours before letting her onto the station. In Mass Effect 2, this prejudice is aptly demonstrated when a volus misplaces his credit chit and accuses a nearby quarian of stealing it - and when Shepard finds said chit exactly where its owner had forgotten it, the volus attempts to save face by remarking that she could have stolen it.
• Fantasy Contraception: Asari apparently don't get pregnant unless they want to.
• Fast-Killing Radiation: Irradiated ammo is highly effective against living targets and causes them to melt and splatter when they die.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: The mechanics of Mass Effect FTL is one of the few bits of exposition they actually mandate the player sit through. No reason for that. Really. They even go into detail about why FTL drives cannot be operated for long periods of time, explaining the dependence on the mass relays.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • For all their intelligence the salarians' relatively short lifespans (about 30-40 Earth years) appear to make them VERY shortsighted when it comes to decision making on a galactic scale. Uplifting the krogan without taking into account the long term consequences of their birth rate, especially when freed from the natural mortality rate of Tuchanka. Creating the genophage but not expecting the turians to use it without their permission. Worse still it seems they feel the yahg, a species obsessed with dominance by either brute force or social maneuvering, are a great new prospect for uplifting into galactic society. Anyone familiar with this race can see the glaring flaws in that strategy a mile away. Given the salarians' past experience with the aforementioned krogan, what they thought they'd accomplish with the yahg really defies all understanding.
  • For the krogan, it's their violent nature. Coming from a Death World, krogan are made to be as strong, violent, and fertile as possible to make up for the bloodthirsty ecosystem they live in. After being uplifted by the salarians ("like giving nuclear weapons to cavemen") and winning the Rachni war the krogan proceeded to run amok across the galaxy as nothing was keeping their population in check. By refusing to solve thing peacefully the turians used the Genophage to cut down on their numbers, with one in every thousand krogan being alive when born. Urdnot Wrex tries to unite the various warring Clans and allow the krogan to peacefully coexist with each other and other races... if he lives past the first game.
  • The quarians can't let go of their grudge against the geth, a race of robots they created as servants, after the latter banished them from their homeworld. When it turns out that a large portion of Geth were working to rebuild the quarian homeworld for the eventual return of the quarians, Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema wants to destroy them. If Shepard, Tali, and Legion don't convince him, the geth will destroy the Migrant Fleet and wipe most if not all quarians aboard the ships.
  • The Batarian Hegemony is horribly paranoid and xenophobic and refuses to submit to Citadel laws and decides to stay separate. This led to them being the first to fall when the Reapers arrive and most if not all civilians being slaughtered.
  • For the asari, their society in general has a major problem with Arrogance. They are the galaxy's Premier Scholar Race who take a lot of pride in their countless accomplishments and as a result their society has become incredibly stagnant and rarely solve their own problems ^note  Major wars break out regularly, but their wisdom & culture do nothing to actually stop/prevent them, and its usually another species that actually fixes the problem. Matriarch Aethyta mentions how her proposal to build Mass Relays led to her being laughed off of Thessia.. Their arrogance is best exemplified in the Third Game, when the Reapers attack their homeworld. Not only are they completely overrun in a matter of days ^note  Whereas the Humans and the Turians are able to hold out for months , but its revealed that their species were secretly hording valuable Prothean technology from the rest of the galaxy, an action that is highly illegal in the Citadel laws THEY largely created, just to maintain an advantage over everyone else. In doing so, they very nearly squandered & destroyed the only chance to save their species & the galaxy from the Reapers.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Reapers are disturbingly fond of doing this to the people they don't simply exterminate. And, as it turns out, so is Cerberus.
• The Federation: Both the human Systems Alliance and the Citadel Council in general.
  • Notable, though, for the Systems Alliance is that while it represents humanity, it does not actually govern humanity. The Codex mentions that while the Alliance is responsible for Earth's colonies, its navy, and what not, Earth itself is still divided amongst nations. At the very least Japan, India, and the European Union all still exist as independent entities.
  • Well, the European Union seems to be a sort of The Federation since it's members apparently have a joint colonisation programme rather than having various UK, German and French colonies.
  • In the Kasumi DLC, new info about politics on Earth is given in the Codex: Apparently a North American Union of sorts - the United North American States - was formed, but the addition of Canada and Mexico angered a terrorist group into destroying the Statue of Liberty, whose head can be found in Kasumi's mission. Also, China is apparently the Chinese People's Federation these days.
• Fetch Quest: Lampshaded by Shepard when meeting Mordin Solus in the second game.
  Shepard: Just once I'd like to ask someone for help and hear them say "Sure, let's go! Right now, no strings attached."
• Feudal Future: Salarian government is split up into fiefdoms, baronies, duchies, planets, and marches (colonization clusters), in increasing order of authority, rather than states. Granted, though, these are all human translations to make sense of the incredibly confusing government system the salarians use.
• Fictional United Nations: The Citadel Council is one of the more politically powerful versions of the trope. It's somewhat of a benevolent dictatorship in that any decision they give must be abided by (or you can GTFO like the batarians did), and non-Council races can only make their case and hope the Council agrees with them.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Or Combat, Biotic and Tech, for a sci-fi twist. Three player classes are purely one of these, and three others are hybrids between two of them. Done as well with the council races (fighter = turian; mage = asari; thief = salarian).
• Fighting for a Homeland: The quarians have been exiled from Rannoch for about three hundred years now, and most of them are really antsy to go home. Others advise caution, alternate colonization, or even peace with the geth. During Tali's loyalty mission, Shepard can influence them towards one of these goals.
• Firing One-Handed: Occasionally pops up in cutscenes. In the third game, Eve does this with a shotgun.And not just any shotgun either—with the M-300 Claymore.
• First Contact:
  • A disastrous version for humanity, which is explored in the backstory and a prequel novel. Not long after humanity began to expand into the galaxy, the turians found a group of human merchant ships opening a mass relay — something that's illegal by Citadel law, but not something that humanity could have known at the time. Cue a short but heated conflict in which the number of casualties is altogether very low for an interstellar war, but allows humanity to prove its military prowess despite having absolutely no experience with space combat. Hostilities ended when the Citadel Council stepped in and reprimanded the turians for shooting before asking questions, and allowing humanity to step into the greater galaxy in peace.
  • Touched on again in the third game, where the crew of the Normandy has dust off regulations for first contact with an alien species after Shepard and co. bring Javik, the last living Prothean, aboard. One of the regulations is to "assume hostility."
  • Given Andromeda involves exploring another galaxy, you bet it includes this. The angara's first contact with the kett involved them making peaceful overtures... then abducting the angaran leaders and crippling their military, beginning a decades long attempt at exterminating them, which needless to say leaves them a little untrusting the next time a bunch of aliens show up on their doorstep.
• First Town: The Citadel in the first and third games.
• Fisher Kingdom: Feros, though this is revealed to be the fault of the Thorian. If you tweak your definition of 'place', the Reapers could count as well; almost everyone who stumbles across them mistakes them for ships.
• Fling a Light into the Future: The Prothean beacons actually contain a warning of the Reapers... one that never made it out in time. They did succeed in disabling the Citadel's giant Mass Relay and this is the only reason Shepard and the Council races have any hope of victory.
  • In the original Mass Effect, you can find a planet with ruins so ancient that they have all turned to dust, except for a giant column at the center. At the base of the column, someone scratched the words "Monsters from the Id", a Shout-Out to Forbidden Planet.
  • In the third game, Liara starts doing this, depositing archives everywhere the Normandy travels with complete records of the galaxy, the Reapers, the Crucible... and Shepard, in case the Reapers win. In the Extended Cut DLC, a fourth ending (Refusal) makes use of Liara's contingency plan: the Cycle continues once more, but the Reapers are finally defeated in the next one using the information Liara provided.
  • Just before everything went to Hell in a handbasket, the Jaardan sent the center of their terraforming network off on a random course, hoping they'd be able to come back after whatever it was that happened to them was over.
• Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: Magnetic railguns are the weapon du jour on Alliance ships. The Encyclopedia explains that every ship has its biggest gun mounted in the nose, because that way, the railgun can run the entire length of the ship - and the energy you can put into a railgun projectile is proportional to the length of the magnetic rail. Smaller railguns are usually mounted in turrets and sides, but if you want to punch through somebody's shields, you're gonna need the nose-gun.
  • Not just the Alliance. The Geth Dreadnought in the third game has one so massive that the boarding party uses it to reach the drive core (avoiding the actual discharges, of course).
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Reapers' name doesn't seem significant beyond a generic, cliché word for an all-destructive force, but it hints that the cycle of destruction is the species' reproductive cycle, and they literally reap what they sow. Along those lines, after you find this out and go back for a second playthrough, listen to all of the crazy batarian preacher's lines on Omega; one of them practically spells out what you find at the end.
  • When Ashley quotes Walt Whitman's "O Captain, my Captain" in reference to Shepard, the Commander can state that the man in question dies in the poem. Shepard doesn't do so hot either.
  • At the end of the first game, Saren's One-Winged Angel form is a hint of what really happened to the Protheans.
  • Dr. Manuel, the crazy researcher you find on Eden Prime. When you listen to him the first time, it seems like he's just spouting off nonsense. Then you go back through a second time and you realize he was right.
  • Speak to Ashley in the Citadel Council Chamber, and one of her comments is about how the layout of the stairs appears to be designed to make good defensive positions. As it turns out, for Saren's geth.
  • After the mission to Feros, during your debriefing with the Citadel Council, a Paragon Shepard can get the Councilors to question their decision to save the colonists. The salarian will call them on it, saying "sometimes you have to be willing to make sacrifices to get the mission done." Ominous, and somewhat ironic.
  • In an early sidequest in Mass Effect, Signal Tracking, Shepard fights an AI that refuses to negotiate with organic life forms, saying "all organics must destroy or control synthetic lifeforms." This conflict ends up being the core of the overarching plot of the series.
  • In one of Miranda's conversations aboard the Normandy, she says that "I'm still human. I make mistakes. And when I do, the consequences are severe." In the suicide mission, Miranda says she can maintain the biotic shield as well as Samara, or any other biotic. She can't, and one of your squadmates is killed if you choose her.
  • Ashley e-mails her little sister about fraternization, with an example scenario where "someone has to be left behind", and hopes that she "never ha[s] to decide who lives and who dies." She doesn't - but she's one of the choices when Shepard's deciding who to leave behind.
  • In Ashley's Normandy conversation about distrusting aliens, she specifically points out that "if [the Council members'] backs are against the wall, they'll abandon us". Come the third game, half the Council initially refuses to help Earth or help build the Crucible because their spaces are being attacked.
  • When the "Geth Incursions" sidequest is completed, it ends with a video of "a lone quarian singing a single, haunting wail over a hushed mass" about lost innocence, and is aimed at the systems beyond the Perseus Veil. Later games will reveal the geth in 1 were the Heretics, and this group was apologizing to the true Geth for their actions.
• Forgot About His Powers: Throughout the series, Cutscene Shepard is portrayed as a Soldier and will almost never use any biotic or tech powers they might have, save for a specific instance in the Omega DLC.
  • Following the mission on Virmire in the first game, two of Shepard's squad mates become Mutually Exclusive Party Members for the rest of the trilogy. One of these characters is a biotic, the other is not. To keep their storylines identical, the former will never use his biotics in a cutscene, ensuring that he won't deal with a problem in a manner that the other could not.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: AVERTED. Shepard remembers everyone who died under their command or because of their orders. For example, Corporal Jenkins got killed in the first few minutes of the first game, but Shepard and the crew still talk about him in the next two. If Shepard ordered the Alliance fleet to protect the Destiny Ascension in the first game, a conversation in the second has them recall the names of every Alliance ship that was destroyed in that battle. And then there's the third game's Memorial Wall.
• Fourth Date Sex
• Friendly Fireproof: Your squadmates seem to have a disturbing habit of ignoring all the ammunition you're putting into their back to get them out of your way. But it's okay, you're immune to their fire too. The fact that they love nothing more than running in front of you while you're trying to shoot the bad guys kind of necessitates it.
  • Somewhat averted in the sequel, as they will yell at you for shooting them... but you still don't actually do damage. Kasumi's shout of "What am I, invisible?" is quite amusing, considering what her special ability is. Makes this kind of a literal Stealth Pun.
  • Ditto multiplayer teammates in the third game.
  • At least your rounds are shown to be impacting on their shields rather than them. Makes things a little more plausible than "AWWW, DAMMIT, BILL!"
  • Somewhat averted with the Mako. The Mako takes damage from you and your teammates, but can't be destroyed if you aren't in it. If you're looking for a challenge, try finishing a driving section with a one-HP Mako.
• From Zero to Hero:
  • Admiral Steven Hackett was born to a single mother and orphaned at age 12 when she died in a plague. He enlisted at 18 and after four years of volunteering for high-risk missions, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. He spent the next 30 years working his way towards Admiral. In Mass Effect 3, he becomes the de facto leader of humanity during the Reaper War.
  • Commander Shepard can have one of three origin stories, each of them perfectly ordinary by the setting's standards. They then go on to lead the entire galaxy to victory over the Reapers, and the epilogue of Mass Effect 3 reveals that "the Shepard" is remembered and respected for thousands of years afterward.
• Fun with Acronyms: Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Bit of a stretch, but hey, it sounds awesome.
  • Hell, that's just the English translation. The original galactic/asari/whatever could be completely innocuous.
  • The Alliance ships' point defense systems are called GARDIAN: General Area Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft Network.
  • SAM. Simulated Adaptive Matrix. But everyone calls them SAM anyway.
• Frog Men: The krogan.
• The Future: The 22nd century, to be exact. Primarily the mid 2180's. Andromeda takes it a few centuries forward.
• Future Spandex: Many uniforms and outfits throughout the series.
• Futuristic Pyramid: Prothean architecture seems to vary between this and flavors of spires.

G

• Gaia's Lament:
  • It's stated in the Codex that Earth is still suffering environmental damage from Global Warming in the 21st century, with sea levels having risen and violent weather being common, though with terraformation technology things are improving significantly.
  • Tuchanka wasn't a terribly nice place to live to begin with, but then the krogan figured out nuclear power, and managed to ruin it even further. As part of the Uplift, the salarians lent them some tech to prevent the planet becoming uninhabitable, most of which got wrecked during the wars.
  • Carcosa in the third game is a spectacular case of this. It was at first considered to be a naturally-occurring hothouse planet until palatial ruins dated 2.7 millions years old were discovered. It's theorized in-universe that the inhabitants of the planet polluted their world so much it triggered a runaway greenhouse effect scenario.
  • Rakhana, the homeworld of the drell was industrialized too early, too quickly. Resources were depleted, the topsoil was corrupted and oceans became acidic. Luckily, the hanar managed to mount a Homeworld Evacuation and saved around 375 000 drell, leaving the rest to their doom.
  • Ilos was once a verdant garden world and the last refuge of the Protheans until it was devastated "by means unknown". By the time you show up the oxygen levels are abnormally high and massive wildfires cover the surface. Most, if not all breathing life is said to have died, though the plant life seems to be doing fairly well. Curiously, Shepard and crew can walk around without their helmets.
  • Tends to happen to a lot of planets the Reapers harvest. Turns out bombarding population centers from orbit with the excessive amount of firepower they use is not dolphin-safe, and can cause long-term environmental damage.
• Galactic Conqueror: Aside from the obvious, humanity becomes this in the full Renegade ending of the second game. The third game reveals that the Protheans were this, too.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation :
  • Oh no! Your best buddy/love interest just took a sniper to the face and is lying on the ground, lifeless! Oh well, just you wait until the fight is over or apply some medi-gel on their torn-off skull and they'll happily jump back on their feet, good as new and ready to get back to their daily dose of asskicking ! Unless the same thing happens in a cutscene, of course, as many of your squadmates can painfully realize depending on the way you play.
  • The Codex states that Kinetic barriers ("shields") are only good for stopping small objects travelling at an extremely high velocity (thus the term "kinetic"). It does jack all against chemicals, heat, or radiation—except that temperature based powers (Incinerate, Flamer, Snap Freeze, etc.) and chemical-based abilities (such as Poison Strike) don't ignore shields.
  • The codex and dialog make it clear that space combat in the setting averts most of usual the Standard Starship Scuffle tropes, especially Arbitrary Weapon Range. In cutscenes every space battle happens at ludicrously close ranges, so close the capital ships can't even bring their main guns to bear. In the first game this is a tactical choice by the attackers, but in later games there's no reason for it beyond looking cool.
  • According to the games' logic, acting as a Kleptomaniac Hero should grant Renegade points, but it actually has no effect on your alignment.
• Gateless Ghetto: The Citadel may be the political, economic, and cultural center of the galaxy, but you can only visit the embassy, the Citadel Tower, a market or two and a couple of clubs. The third game expands this: places to visit include a hospital, a refugee camp, the human embassy, a nightclub, and a common area with apartments and various stores. The Citadel DLC includes a huge apartment, an arcade and a casino.
• Gender Is No Object: Played straight with most species, notably humans and quarians ("On the flotilla, we can't afford the luxury of sexism"). The turian military is fully integrated as well, with every turian regardless of gender entering training at age 15, although turian females don't show up outside of two DLCs, the Expanded Universe, and in background lore. Justified subversion with krogans and salarians; fertile krogan females (or any salarian females) are rare enough that they can't risk them in combat, or even off of core planets. This is purely about practicality — several krogan in 2 mention Shiagur, a female warlord who continued fighting even after the genophage, from whom many still claim descent.
  • Finally averted in Andromeda, when female turians and krogan are common. There are still only a few explicitly female salarians, but they look exactly like the males so it's hard to tell how many are around in general.
• Gender Rarity Value:
  • The krogan, having few females capable of carrying children to term due to the genophage, fit this, as do the salarians who have a nine to one gender ratio of males to females. This results in breeding becoming a very complicated process of negotiating contracts.
  • Salarian females tend to be the ones who hold political power despite being greatly outnumbered, which is why you don't see them on non-salarian worlds.
• Generation Fleet: The Flotilla, travelling with the eventual hope of either getting their homeworld back or finding a new place to live.
• Generican Empire: The Systems Alliance.
• Genetic Memory: Used against the Rachni Queen, to extract from her mind the coordinates of a relay she never saw herself.
  • In the third game, it's revealed that Protheans can access this, simply by touch.
  • Andromeda hints the angara might have this, or some version of full-blown reincarnation.
• Genocide Dilemma:
  • With the rachni and the krogan. The Council seemed eager enough to wipe the rachni out (though the fact that the rachni have a Hive Mind centered around the queens, who were securely defended on the rachni homeworlds had a part in this, since the Council simply couldn't communicate to them), but tried to avoid outright genocide with the krogan, settling for the genophage. However, ignorance of krogan psychology has essentially led to delayed genocide. However, you get the chance to bring the rachni back into the galaxy, and it's looking like you can at the very least partially undo the genophage's effect in the future... In the third game, Shepard holds the fate of the krogan, quarians, and geth in their hands, and must decide whether these species live or die.
  • Not to mention the fate of the Reapers.
  • Pointed out by the Moshae with regards to the kett, and how the angara can deal with them. They can't be negotiated with, and can't be driven away, but the angara don't want to kill them all because of the moral problems this would raise.
• Genre Throwback:
  • Space Opera has been out of the picture for a while, but BioWare decided to throw it back into the mix.
  • Specifically, the first game is more in the style of 70s-80s (mass-produced armor and gear, characters relatively low in their respective hierarchies) the second has a darker 90s feel, and the third game is closest to "modern" sci-fi.
• The Ghost: On an impressive scale. The games mention there are other species in the galaxy beside the ones we see...we just never see or hear anything about them or even get a name.
• Ghost City: Khi Tasira in Andromeda is partway between this and Ghost Planet (it's a giant, abandoned space station the size of a city).
• Ghost Planet:
  • Ilos. All of Shepard's team, including the krogan, comment on how utterly creepy and wrong the place feels.
  • Through 2 and 3, whenever Shepard goes off the beaten path, it's possible to find planets which once had thriving civilizations on them, and now very conspicuously don't. The words "population center" and "orbital bombardment" keep cropping up way too often for comfort.
• Ghost Ship:
  • Several missions, mostly in the first game. Although kind of samey, they manage to be very creepy.
  • Creepiness gets turned up to eleven in the second game when you get to the derelict Reaper. Making your way through the hulk of an Eldritch Abomination, surrounded by recordings of the science team that came before you as they slowly lose their minds while husks literally come out of the walls at you.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Meeting the thresher maws for the first time (in the first two games). Raise your hand if you saw that coming.
  • Averted in cases where the player chooses the "Sole Survivor" background, where Shepard is the only person to come out of humanity's first encounter with thresher maws alive.
  • Thresher maws actually sorta ARE Giant Space Fleas. Their spores can travel through space until crashing on a planet, at which point they burrow into the ground to feed on anything they can grab.
  • They are also either from, or get along well, with the krogan homeworld. Krogan fight them as a rite of passage during their puberty. And they will also do anything to protect their homeworld, as a very unlucky Reaper finds out the hard way.
• Global Currency: Credits, which are used on every single planet throughout the galaxy.
  • The volus, a turian client species, basically manage the galactic economy because it's so complicated having to deal with the historical currencies of every alien race on top of the common galactic currency. Their talent for such things is why they became a client race for the turians.
  • Explained in the Codex — all banks in Citadel worlds are required to keep exchange rates between the local currency and credits. The Global Currency is really more an economic lingua franca.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Garrus's eyepiece in the first game. He always has it, no matter what armor you give him, and it's never explained what, if any, benefit it grants. Second game comes around and, yup, he's still got it. But now you can buy that same eyepiece for yourself, to discover that it gives a headshot bonus. Nice. The third game offers a few different sets of goggles for sale.
  • Funnily enough, Garrus's eyepiece actually does many somethings and is based on the eyepiece that Shepard can buy, as explained in the Shadow Broker's dossiers. It has a zoom function, sonar, LADAR, thermal, and EM targeting capable, can detect heart-rate fluctuations or changes to breath pattern, detect biotic fields, kill counter that can sync with team members, plays music and a porn movie.
• Going Through the Motions: Shows up a lot. The end-of-conversation "turn and walk away" that is used by practically everyone you meet comes to mind.
  • 2 and 3 had this a lot less than 1, with most conversations individually choreographed. Occasionally one of the old reusable movements is thrown in anyway, and is remarkably noticeable in comparison. Especially notable with the Illusive Man, whose fist pumping "we can do it" movements could define the trope. Interestingly, Jacob even uses this animation in the third game. And, in the climax, the Illusive Man does this to demonstrate the power that the Reapers gave him, making Shepard shoot Anderson.
  • NPCs also have a weird tendency to avert their eyes whenever they hand something over to Shepard, even if the transaction is legitimate.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: Cerberus has a white-black color scheme with gold accents. In-universe excerpts mention how Cerberus tech is often superior than standard fare of the same type.
• Golden Snitch: Somewhat averted. The big decisions are made at the end of the first game, yeah, but your actions throughout the whole of the game still affect the outcome somewhat. And in the second game, the obvious big choice is made at the last second. But that's not what's really important. What's really important is if you helped your teammates enough and upgraded your ship throughout the entire game to have them survive. That's the really important part. Played straight in the third game: if you laid the groundwork for the war effort in the previous two games, you'll have a much easier time in the third, but even so, your actions in the third game are the most important.
• Gondor Calls for Aid:
  • Mass Effect 3, especially for Paragon Shepard, who may have made some very powerful allies, some of whom are trying to make up for past galactic transgressions. Shepard has to rally everyone since the Reapers' first action is to attack Earth.
  • The end of Andromeda has Ryder call up everyone they've met through the game.
• Gonna Need More X: Shows up here and there.
• Good All Along: Well, maybe not "good", but definitely "not as xenocidally insane as everyone thought all along." This applies to both the rachni and the majority of the geth.
  • The third game implies this may be the case for the krogan — they only turned uncontrollably violent and anarchistic under the effects of the genophage, and under strong, far-sighted leadership, can and will once again be the heroes who saved the galaxy.
  • In a very warped way, may even apply to the Reapers. They were created to protect galactic civilization from permanent destruction, and have been doing their best to fulfill this mission since. However, their "variables" were so far off that it didn't really work out as planned, and it doesn't help that they and their controlling intelligence operate on ''extremely'' BlueAndOrangeMorality. They can be made to fulfill their purpose in a much less destructive way through the Control and Synthesis endings, however.
• Good Is Not Soft: Paragon Shepard is regarded as a textbook example, though they are definitely not the only one. Garrus, Tali, Jacob and Hackett would be prominent examples.
• The Great Exterminator: Shepard has the opportunity to become this twice throughout the series, first of the Rachni, and later of the Reapers themselves. Choosing to do the first has it mentioned in a news story, the latter makes them a legendary figure in the Distant Finale.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • The Catalyst, the controlling intelligence behind the Reapers. Shepard meets it for all of five minutes and it accepts defeat gracefully — well, depending on the chosen ending.
  • The "Leviathan" DLC introduces an even Greater Scope Villain. The Leviathans, the Abusive Precursors that created the Catalyst.
  • From Andromeda, the Reapers. And the unidentified race who created and set off the Scourge.
• The Greatest Story Never Told:
  • Most of the time when Shepard does something heroic, there are civilian witnesses, so the story usually gets around fast. However, due to being a Spectre and taking on very... sensitive missions on a pretty regular basis, there are a great number of fantastic things that go down and no one ever hears about. Or, alternately, they know what happened, but not the real truth. The most notable example of this is Shepard's victory over the Collectors.
  • In a much bigger sense, this also applies to the Protheans' Heroic Sacrifice to give the next generation hope against the Reapers.
  • In the third game, Shepard embarks on a lot of outrageous adventures, some of which Diana Allers, a reporter you can invite aboard the Normandy, will keep complaining that she can't report on.
  • The multiplayer characters in the third game: strike teams of human, turian, asari, salarian, quarian, and krogan commandos launching daring raids deep behind enemy lines to keep the enemy tied up and busy while buying Shepard time. A glance at class skills reveals that these faceless, nameless heroes include Alliance officers, salarian STG operatives, asari justicars, and more. The multiplayer expansions even throw geth, batarians, vorcha and Cerberus defectors into the mix.
    • In the last expansion, you get to play a Collector that was freed from Harbinger's DIRECT CONTROL by a Leviathan enthrallment sphere.
• Grey Goo: One planet has seas made of silicon which screw with probes that are launched onto it. The extranet has spawned a conspiracy theory that labels the "seas" as advanced alien nanobots, which every government flatly denies.
• The Greys: The salarians. Basic physical similarity, most of them tend to be scientists (or infiltration specialists), very energetic, lacking sexual drive yet quite interested in its manifestations in other species.
• Green Aesop: The drell backstory - uncontrolled industrialization altered their already-dry homeworld's climate and started to cause mass extinction. Most of the surviving drell were rescued by the hanar over the course of ten years and brought to the hanar homeworld. The drell homeworld is now called a cemetery world, with only a few thousand survivors eking out a living in the arid wastes.
  • Not so green if you talk to Thane. Because the climate of the two worlds are so different, practically all drell on Kahje will eventually suffer what amounts to a slow drowning as their lungs fill up with moisture and rot. Plus, the drell are in a species-wide indentured servitude (with no end in sight) to the hanar including being assassins and soldiers. Thane says the drell are happy to fulfill their obligation but if the ME universe has anything to say about it, he's merely generalizing and ignoring the many who do not see this as fair.
  • The krogan backstory - they blew their homeworld to an irradiated desert. Then the salarians gave them spaceflight and were surprised when they did the same to other worlds.
    • And averted if you talk to Mordin, really. He suggests that it wasn't the nuclear weaponry and such that was the problem. The problem was that the krogan simply weren't mature enough as a species to handle the technology. Had they been allowed to develop and discover spaceflight on their own, things would have turned out differently.
• Green Rocks: Element Zero, or "eezo," which makes everything run, from guns to spaceships to artificial gravity to Baron Harkonnen harnesses for the hanar. It is, however, extremely well-defined.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe:
  • The (blue-skinned) asari were originally designed (as stated in the art book) to be "a race of beautiful 'green alien girls'," as much of the game's universe is nostalgically built upon the familiar sci-fi tropes of yesteryear. And, thanks to a delayed reaction to exposure to the Thorian's spores, one of them turns green for the second game.
  • Meanwhile, the drell are designed to be a race of Green Skinned Space Hunks, with the designers going for what the female staff found sexiest.
• Graying Morality:
  • The first game doesn't offer the player much reason to sympathize with the geth, other than a few possible lines questioning Tali about why the quarians tried to kill them. The second game gives more context, and explains the geth's culture and motivations, and the third game gives more context to the time before the Morning War. In the end, the player still decides whether or not to sympathize with them, but it's much easier to do than in the first game.
  • Subverted in regards to Cerberus. The first game presents Cerberus as unambiguously evil, but in the second game Shepard is introduced to more sympathetic members of the organization, and is both saved and backed by their leader, the Illusive Man. However, Shepard leaves them by the third game and the Illusive Man makes no attempts to buddy up with Shepard again. In the penultimate mission, it's also revealed that the events of the second game were specifically engineered to make Shepard (and the player by extension) as sympathetic to Cerberus as possible. Giving Shepard the illusion of freedom and command, and surrounding her/him with friendly and moderate members of the group were psychologically conditioning them into forming a personal attachment. In short, the first impression of Cerberus was the correct one.
• Guest-Star Party Member: One in the beginning of each game, per BioWare tradition. They tend not to last long. At least the one in the third game doesn't die at the end of the first mission, nor would anyone want him to.
  • Also appears in Lair of the Shadow Broker, where Liara joins your party temporarily.
    • And Arrival, where Amanda Kenson joins you even more temporarily.
  • Admiral Anderson at the beginning of the third game, though he doesn't die at the end of Earth — he simply takes up leadership of the Earth resistance and sends Shepard off to get help.
    • In the Omega DLC, you get two of those. Aria is with you on every mission, while Nyreen joins you only sporadically. Nyreen dies.
• Guilt-Based Gaming: If you make the wrong decision in some of the more emotionally torquing sections of the games (and trust me, it will happen), the other characters will rip into you for it. More than that, though, the way they talk is not just aimed at Shepard, but you. Also, certain decisions (such as exposing Tali's father as a war criminal at her trial) will have not just in-game characters but EVERYONE online who finds out about it calling you a monster. Fans get very emotionally invested in this series.
  • The final scenes of the krogan and quarian/geth arcs in Mass Effect 3 really push the limits of this.
  • There is a certain scene in the second game where during Tali's loyalty mission, when you find the body of her dead father, she starts crying and a Paragon interrupt comes up to hug her. Not taking the interrupt is considered by most (if not all) players, even the full-Renegade ones, to be the most soulless thing one can do.
  • Dear God you can do some nasty things in the third game, and people will call you out on it. Sometimes violently.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: The quarians and geth have been merrily attempting genocide on each other for three hundred years by the time of the games. The remnants have their final battle, one way or the other, in the third game. Both sides are willing to accept peace, but neither seriously believes the other is; actually achieving this is the arc's Golden Ending.

H

• Hacking Minigame: All the time. Necessary to get equipment and money in the first game; arguably more so in the second, because it's one of the only ways you can make any cash apart from end-of-mission rewards.
  • Averted in the third game. Your omnitool (or EDI, in a few cases) does all the hacking, no player input required.
• Had to Be Sharp: Krogan. This explains why they have secondary and even tertiary organs, and why they are Explosive Breeders.
• Hair Substitute Feature:
  • The asari and their "hair-tentacles", or so Joker describes them, but they're not actually Tentacle Hair. They're are basically cartilaginous crests that grow in a vaguely curvy conic direction towards the back of the asari's head.
  • Quarian evo-suits designed for men also have a bundle of cables connected to the top of their helmets to evoke a long braid.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: The angara, have in place of hair, a cobra-like hood.
• Hallucinations: Apparently a side effect of Reaper indoctrination; almost everyone mentions hearing strange whispering in the background. And on the mostly-dead Reaper, one of the unfortunate researchers mentions seeing... something come through a wall. Something other people in the room can't see.
• Hand Behind Head: A standard character animation for some who's uncomfortable...or lying. Shepard themself does it a few times, when forced to come up with an explanation or cover story on the spot.
• Hand Cannon: The Executioner pistol. Full Stop. Second Highest DPS in the game, with the heavy barrel mod, outclassing fully modded sniper rifles and shotguns. With a scope it is DE FACTO a high power sniper weapon with enough penetration to pierce a Cerberus Riot shield and OSK its Guardian wielder AND the assault trooper hiding behind him (on normal difficulty). One shot per thermal clip and insane kickback keeps the ROF slow as the trope usually demands.
• Handguns: The favorite weapon for characters to use in cutscenes. Justified somewhat, because most situations where they need a weapon in a cutscene, they need one now, and all other guns need a few seconds to fully deploy before being usable.
  • Also because Handguns are the only class of weapon that all characters and classes can use, therefore allowing the Player Character and all of the members of their party to be able to use the same, or similar, animations. There are cutscenes that are character-specific however, which allow party members to use other weapons, mainly for characters who do not carry a pistol (such as Garrus or Grunt).
• Hard Light: Subverted. Every single instance where you think you're looking at classic sci-fi holograms that act like physical objects, you're actually looking at something completely different. Holographic keyboards and computer consoles are shaped and projected light, but tactile response comes from subdermal implants or gloves. Free-floating holographic barriers like the Sentinel's Tech Armor are just projected mass effect barriers, with holograms to warn comrades to keep their distance from the reactive barrier. The attack drone used by the Engineer is just a micro-manufactured flying device surrounded by mass effect barriers. The omniblade in Mass Effect 3 is a solid monomolecular, transparent blade that is created by the omnitool on demand and broken down after use, the hologram is just to make it visible to the wielder so they don't accidentally poke thei own eye out or something.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?:
  • The stigma among biotics in human society seems to lean closer to this than Fantastic Racism, since virtually anyone exposed to Element Zero could possibly be born a biotic, regardless of race.
  • Ardat-Yakshi among the asari. They're extremely dangerous, but the third game reveals that quite a few ardat-yakshi are perfectly happy to spend their lives in a monastery where they can't hurt anyone.
• Headache of Doom: Reaper Indoctrination typically begins with the victim experiencing headaches and ringing in their ears as the subliminal conditioning takes effect, eventually giving way to paranoia, hallucinations, religious awe, and total loyalty to the Reapers.
• Healing Factor: One of the natural abilities of the krogan and vorcha which makes them so freaking hard to kill. This also seems to be one of the standard genetic tweaks that Alliance soldiers are given.
  • Including Shepard as of Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 3 scaled it down a bit however, splitting the health bar into five segments. Once fully depleted, segments can't be recovered without medigel.
• Healing Potion: Medi-Gel, the universally useful wound treatment salve. It sterilizes the wound site and then immediately staunches the bleeding by congealing over it (and is removed for full treatment by ultrasound). It appears to be a genetically engineered organic material, as it's been deemed "technically illegal by Citadel law", but is just too handy to pass up. Customized formulations are available for specific racial anatomies.
• Hearing Voices: Victims of Reaper indoctrination (those who are still free to speak, at least) often talk about whispers in the back of their minds which slowly but steadily grow more coherent. By the time you can understand them, it's too late.
• Heartbeat Soundtrack: Picks up in all games when you're heavily wounded. See also Critical Annoyance.
• Heavy Equipment Class: Of the player classes, Soldiers stand out for their affinity with weaponry.
  • Mass Effect: Not only are the Soldiers the only Player Class has Talents in the Assault Rifle, but are also the only class that has Talents with both Shotguns and Sniper Rifles and the only class that can wear Heavy Armor.
  • Mass Effect 2: Soldiers start with the highest number of weapon training of the six classes, proficient in Heavy Pistols, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles and are the only class that start with Assault Rifle weapon training.
  • Mass Effect 3: While any class can use any weapon effectively from the get go, the weight of one's combined weaponry compared to the class's weight limit now determines the cooldown modifier for their powers. Soldiers have the highest weight limit, allowing them to carry more and/or heavier weapons without penalty than any other class.
• Heavy Worlder: The elcor, whose high-gravity planet has made them slow, cautious, conservative, and incredibly strong. These traits make them wonderful diplomats, negotiators, bouncers, and mobile heavy weapons platforms. Also the volus, but other environmental factors take precedence in how they're described in the setting.
• The Hecate Sisters: The asari, whose life cycles involve a "maiden" stage, a "matron" stage, and a "matriarch" stage.
  • One of the asari religions involves worshiping a triumvirate of goddesses who fit this trope as well.
• Hegemonic Empire:
  • The Batarian Hegemony, although we have very little information on the actual state to know how it truly works.
  • Citadel Space, however, is totally this trope. And, more specifically, the Asari Republics. The asari, as the first species to find the Citadel and the most advanced species in the galaxy, completely dominate how Citadel politics work. If you want to become part of their society, you need to conform to their way of doing things and prove useful to their interests. Case in point, when new races show up, they are expected to abandon any and all experiments on Artificial Intelligence due to the galaxy-wide belief that A.I. Is a Crapshoot. In addition, all Prothean technology needs to be submitted to the Council for proper study, which in Mass Effect 3 is revealed as a rule the asari specifically worked into Council law to hide the fact that they themselves had access to functional Prothean tech and were using it to stay on top. As long as every other species obeyed these rules, they were unwittingly playing directly into the asari's hands.
• Hellgate: The Council treats every unopened mass relay as a potential one of these after that little incident with the rachni. The Citadel, being the welcome-home gate for the Reapers, definitely qualifies, as does the Omega-4 relay which the Collectors come out of every once in a while to kidnap some people for their experiments.
• Helium Speech: The salarians' (normal) voices sound like this.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Whether this is played straight or averted in the first game is up to the player; you could customize whether the helmet stayed on or off whilst on missions (except for Tali, of course). Unless you're in a hostile environment; then they're on and stay on until you're inside.
  • In the second game there are several different helmets and other types of headgear, which you can wear or leave off at your discretion. If worn, they add armor or other bonuses, depending on the type of gear, and the character is visually shown wearing them, even in cutscenes. So this trope is, in fact, averted where the main character is concerned. The other two crew members who wear armor and could conceivably be expected to don matching helmets are a turian and a krogan - both species with naturally armored heads, slightly justifying their decision. That said, turian and krogan helmets do exist and are worn by some characters. In that respect the trope is played somewhat straight with these two supporting characters.
  • It's Played Straight with the merc bands you encounter, however. Many high-ranking enemies (Blue Suns Legionnaires, Eclipse Vanguards and Engineers, and Commanders in either faction) forego helmets in favor of tech armor.
  • In the third game, you can turn helmet graphics off while retaining the bonuses.
• Henchmen Race: The keepers and Collectors, after the Reapers finished with them, mentally and physically.
  • In the third game, the Reapers themselves are revealed to be this.
  • Technically, the kett.
• Heroes Of Another Story: The Multiplayer characters. ALL of them. Justified given how big the Reaper War is. And we DESPERATELY need everyone that we can get.
• Heroic Neutral: The vast majority of the geth, as it turns out, though they appear to be willing to help the rest of the galaxy if that's the best way to beat the Reapers. Mostly, though, they just want to be left alone.
• Hidden Depths: Every single one of your squad members. Every. Single. One.
• Hidden Elf Village: No less than three: the quarians, the batarians, and the geth. The game deconstructs some of the issues with hidden elf villages; since the only representatives of those species that the average person meets are the outcasts and criminals that get thrown out, they tend to form somewhat unflattering opinions of the race as a whole.
• Higher-Tech Species:
  • The Protheans, all the way. Even taking into consideration the fact that the mass relay system and the Citadel weren't actually made by them, their custom technology is still pretty incredible, and they did build one prototype relay of their own before being destroyed. Also, the Collectors, and the Reapers, who were the ones who made the mass relay system. And the Collectors get their technology from the Reapers. And if the AI they created (and the things the AI itself created) is any indication, the Leviathans definitely count.
  • The Jardaan, who created a massive terraforming network that can analyse a planet's atmosphere, determine the best way to fix environmental damage and how to implement it in minutes, and created an entire species, apparently just because they could. And there's that miniature, mobile dyson sphere they've got. Also, their unidentified enemies, who cooked up a Negative Space Wedgie that violates nearly every physical law just to get rid of them.
• Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Phoenix-series armor is white and pink. White and pink. One of the (female) party members starts the game with it, but you can give it to anyone. Krogan in pink is hilarious. A few others, particularly the ones designed by Devlon Industries, are highly visible outfits. Then again, the Phoenix series is apparently designed for medics, and the Devlon series of armor is designed for construction and utility work in high-risk areas, so it makes sense that they wouldn't be camouflaged.
  • All three of the major mercenary groups in Mass Effect 2 wear obvious uniforms, with the Blue Suns wearing, well, bright blue and white armor, the Eclipse wearing yellow and black armor, and the Blood Pack wearing bright red. Justified in that members of these groups want to openly declare their allegiance to outsiders and rival factions.
  • Shepard's armour can be customized in the second game, which can lead to some hilarious cases of this. It can be a bit silly, though, running around looking like a Collector with no one ever commenting on it.
  • In the third game, no one's going to mistake Cerberus troops for anything else.
    • One of the novelizations provides some justification: A modern (for the setting) suit of armor is going to be jam-packed with eezo, power sources, optronics, barrier emitters and sensors. There is simply no way to hide something like that from a similarly equipped enemy, short of going full Invisibility Cloak, and if you can't be invisible, you might as well go for bright clours that will intimidate the enemy and help unit cohesion.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: In the second game, the Geth Hunters are this gameplay-wise. They can activate invisibility which turns them almost entirely transparent except for their brightly glowing blue eye, making it fairly obvious where they are. Fools the NPCs at least. Kai Leng and Cerberus Phantoms in the third game, too, complete with the invisibility cloak.
• High-Tech Hexagons: The logo of Cerberus has a hexagonal shape and uses some materials with hexagonal surface patterns.
• Hive Caste System: The rachni. We've got workers (small exploding suicide bugs), soldiers, (bigger acid-spitting bugs), brood warriors (even bigger acid-spitting bugs with biotic powers) and the queen (freaking huge bug, combat capabilities unknown, whom we very fortunately do not have to fight).
• Hive Drone: The Rachni in the backstory and in the present day for that matter shared a psychic Hive Mind controlled by their queens, with drones not having much in the way of thoughts or personalities.
• Hive Mind: Two confirmed, one creepily ambiguous, depending on how stringent your criteria are, one in the planning stages.
  • 1. The rachni, who "sing" to each other to communicate. It makes running their society much easier, but has the added disadvantage of making it hard to communicate with other races, and therefore ruling out diplomacy, which led to their downfall. The Leviathan DLC reveals that it's based off of an organic quantum entanglement system.
  • 2. The Thorian, uses telepathy to control the people it's taken over. But the role is one way, and passive. Basically whenever a human thinks something that the Thorian doesn't want it to, they feel massive pain. When the colonists are freed, it leaves Brainwash Residue that allows them to pick up on the thoughts of other freed individuals nearby, which comes in handy in the third game against the Reapers.
  • Not definite, but still implied: when the Cerberus researchers on board the Reaper are being slowly indoctrinated, they start to be able to recall each other's memories, to the point of not being able to tell whose is whose. Never explained. Very creepy.
  • And, of course, the geth. Intentionally, in this case. And they actually like it that way. It's also combined with Mind Hive, since there are multiple geth programs in each physical platform.
  • Ryder encounters two ex-Cerberus scientists trying to make one, on Kadara, using the locals. Depending on what happens, Ryder can either break it, strengthen it, or turn it back on the scientists.
• Hollywood Atheist: Mostly averted. Ashley clearly indicates that her religiousness is unusual, and that most people consider it at least eccentric. Some aliens express religious beliefs, and apparently some turians, for example, embrace human Confucianism, since it fits so well in their species' mentality. It's never explained with most characters if they actually believe it or if it's simply a linguistic artifact (such as some asari making references to 'the goddess') though.
  • The "goddess" Athame was actually an ancient representation of the Protheans, who gave the asari much of their knowledge and culture.
  • Mordin also averts this to some degree. A conversation with him on his loyalty mission has him confessing that his involvement in the genophage, and witnessing its consequences, made him explore different religions across different races and cultures.
• Hollywood Hacking: They explain the mechanics well, but it still falls victim to this.
• Hollywood Science: Almost entirely averted, making it one of the hardest sci fi universes to come out in some time. Most of their work is well-researched and doesn't end up at unnoticed, absurd conclusions. You could make a long list of nothing but their aversions. That said, they do make some mistakes.
  • Artistic License – Chemistry: Eezo. Element Zero. That means it's an element with no protons? It's pretty simply just unobtanium, but the name implies possible real-world substances, like neutrons, or plasma, which don't have the properties of eezo.
    • The creator of the first game's Codex explains that it's actually just a human nickname for the material, and not an actual chemical element.
  • Artistic License – Physics: Eezo again, but this time its mass-adding or mass-subtracting properties are due to being subjected to a "positive" or "negative" current. Current flows in whatever direction, and calling it positive or negative is just like saying that left is somehow fundamentally different from right. The only way it makes sense is if, like a diode, eezo has a physical structure that makes it so electricity flows differently in one direction than another, but this handwave isn't given in the games.
  • Artistic License – Physics: The small arms this time. The big problem is the small projectile size. A projectile the size of a grain of sand moving fast enough to deliver the force comparable to an assault rifle bullet would be moving so fast that it would basically explode on contact with the atmosphere.
    • In the first game, there's also not even a handwave to explain how they cool off. A gun would cool off at the same rate in freezing cold, boiling heat, or even the vacuum of space, which didn't make a damn bit of sense. The thermal clips from the later games, whatever else they did, explained where the heat was going and why the atmosphere, or lack thereof, had no effect on heat.
• Holographic Terminal: Every computer interface in the galaxy seems to be made of Hard Light. Justified in that regular users wear special gloves which allow for their use and provide feedback sensations; heavy users get sensory implants in their fingertips to avoid the hassle of cleaning the gloves all the time.
• Homeworld Evacuation:
  • This is a common last resort for species attempting to survive a Reaper invasion. Of particular note is a Side Quest to save the elcor, whose homeworld is being assaulted, in Mass Effect 3. However, this only serves to delay the inevitable, because the Reapers are patient enough to spend centuries exterminating every last trace of all sapient life, no matter where they hide.
  • Before the story proper, the quarian race escaped their homeworld to avoid being exterminated by the robot race they created, the geth. Worthy of note is that the geth allowed them to leave to avoid committing genocide.
  • Also before the series proper, the drell were rescued from an overpopulated homeworld by the hanar, and felt indebted enough to work as their agents, laborers and assassins, of their own free will.
  • Technically, the entire Andromeda Initiative, but only the Initiative's founder, its mysterious backer, and Alec Ryder knew this.
• Homosexual Reproduction: The asari, by virtue of being a One-Gender Race.
  • Implied to be possible for humans via genetic engineering in the third game.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: The rachni and the Collectors' seeker swarms, which paralyze colonists for easy collection.
• Hostage Situation: Shepard has to deal with more than a few throughout the games. How they go is up to you.
• Humanity Is Superior: A common trend among Renegade options. And, of course, Cerberus's raison d'etre.
• Humanoid Abomination: Husks and Thorian creepers in the first game. You could make an argument for the Reaper fetus in the second.
• Humanoid Aliens: Pretty much all of the sapient ones, really, except for the elcor, the hanar, the rachni and the Leviathans. Some in the game idly wonder whether this is more than just coincidence.
• Human Outside, Alien Inside: The fairly humanoid asari can literally mate with anything that has DNA to produce viable offspring.
• Human Popsicle: The 'stasis' variant used by the Protheans. Not that it saved them. Well, at least one survived.
• Human Resources: Mass Effect 2 implies that Reaper reproduction requires a lot of this.
  • Also, many different kinds of Husks...
  • In the third game, this is revealed to be the Awful Truth behind Sanctuary.
  • From Andromeda, how the kett "reproduce".
• Humans Advance Swiftly: Despite being on the galactic scene for about four decades, humanity develops quickly into a formidable presence militarily and diplomatically, even achieving membership on the Citadel Council, where many other species were unable to do so.
• Humans Are Average: Neither the most short or long-lived, neither the weakest nor the strongest, et cetera. But they are very inventive, adaptive and a powerful force.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Usually averted in favor of Humans Are Special, but Cerberus and many Renegade path options are definite examples. Ambassador Udina demonstrates bastard traits even if you're a Paragon and choose the Renegade path at endgame.
• Humans Are Flawed: Rather hypocritically used by various non-humans as arguments for why they shouldn't be given special status.
• Humans are Leaders: Subtler than most works, but still a present undertone throughout the series. Played very straight in the third game, with Hackett leading the entire galactic fleet and Shepard being the key player in developing alliances between all the races.
• Humans Are Morons: The batarian government tends to think every other alien race is beneath them because tradition dictates that having four eyes, coincidentally the number batarians have, makes one more intelligent, but they're especially resentful towards humans given the political history.
• Humans Are Special: Despite being a relatively new race to the galactic scene, mankind has left quite a mark on the galaxy. Harbinger calls your teammates genetic failures, but when it comes to the humans... he uses them to make a new Reaper.
  • It's noted by Mordin and EDI that humans have far greater genetic diversity than any other sapient species in the galaxy, one fact that makes them useful as a control in cross-species experiments, and also possibly explains why the Reapers have chosen humanity to make the next generation of Reapers.^note This was a strange writing choice; although anything could be true relative to aliens, humans are actually notable among Earth species for being unusually genetically homogenous.
  • More accurately, though, humans are just the newest special race. Before them there were... well, most of the other major races. The turians beat the krogan who beat the rachni who beat the asari...
  • Samara also says this:
    Samara: You are more individualistic than any other species I have encountered. If three humans are in a room, there will be six opinions. I like your species. I am curious to see what you will do.
  • Liara also voices this opinion. She admits when she first met humans, she thought the assessment that humanity bullied its way into galactic politics was rather accurate. Since she's been on the Normandy, she come to realise that its due to humans having a natural drive to set goals and the tenacity to actually carry them out, calling them "indomitable".
    • Shepard humbly suggests this is because compared to races such as the asari, who routinely count their age in 4 digits, humans only get 150 years at most, so they strive to do all they can.
  • Renegade Shepard can even invoke this when solving a problem for an asari in the Citadel:
    Shepard: When you want a problem shot, ask a turian. When you want a problem talked to death, ask an asari. When you want a new problem, ask a salarian. When you want a problem solved, ask a human.
  • This is savagely Deconstructed in the second game. Humanity is pretty damn awesome and everyone knows it, too. Which is why our race now has the attention of the ageless machine devils lurking in extragalactic space. They're impressed, and want to help us ascend. Actually justified because Shepard is so badass, and also human. In the first game, Reapers didn't pay any special attention to humans. Now that the Shepard (and by default, humans) have managed to destroy one of theirs, the entire human race now has their attention.
  • There are subtle and not-so-subtle hints that humans are special because of meddling from, at the least, the Protheans. The random, unexplained vision at the end of a sidequest in the first game, the discussion of the vast diversity of human DNA in the second (especially when compared to other intelligent races), and the third game has researchers on Mars speculating that someone (likely the Protheans) did something to humanity long before the beginning of recorded human history. In short, humanity might be a vastly delayed uplift to give the galaxy a chance against the Reapers. Then again, they were more focused on the asari.
  • Played with in Andromeda. The kett take an interest in mankind because of good ol' human determination, but once Ryder tells them that's not something you can stick in a genome, and once their boss finds out Ryder's a special case thanks to AI assistance, they decide actually, humans suck.
• Humans Are Warriors: Just about every other race is quietly scared of humanity's ability to mix it up with the turians despite having only a small fraction of our population currently serving in the military; the term "sleeping giant" is used, as in, "If all these naked apes ever got really pissed off all at once they could conquer the entire galaxy." Two of the three endings prove it.
  • A short summary of the First Contact War: Humans, ignorant that there are any other intelligent species in the galaxy, violate the Citadel Council laws by opening any and all dormant Mass Relays that they find. The turians, aware of the dangers and a member of the Citadel Council, attack and destroy a human merchant convoy they come across activating one such relay. A survivor flees to the human colony of Shanxi, which gets conquered by the turian fleet who subsequently occupy the planet. They are then surprised when a Systems Alliance fleet returns to liberate the system, following a more flexible military doctrine as compared to the turians. When the occupying forces are defeated, the turians mobilize their armed forces for large-scale actions to crush the Systems Alliance, but the Council intervenes and negotiates a peace before the offensive can be mounted.
  • About the only species that aren't scared of humans are the ones that are almost universally violent themselves, like the vorcha or the krogan.
  • The Mass Effect Wikia says that if the Alliance and turians had gone to full-scale war, the conflict would have wrecked a significant portion of the galaxy.
    • Especially when the Alliance's kneejerk reaction to the turians was to send out a ton of space probes into turian space... armed with nuclear bombs as a form of DRM.
  • There's an in-universe joke that the rest of the races are glad that humans and turians can't mate. Because, they reason, their children would be unstoppable.
  • And then there's Commander Shepard. Shepard is one human. If aliens think we might have a few more people like that hanging around who are thus far lacking only the call to kick some serious ass, no wonder they're concerned about the entire human race.
    • Pointed out by Legion, who says that the geth view Shepard as very important, due to them being the most crucial in killing a Reaper.
      Shepard: All kinds of organics fought Sovereign and his geth allies. Why am I so interesting?
      Legion: You were the most successful. You killed their god. You succeeded where others did not. Your code is superior.
• Humans by Any Other Name: The volus refer to humans as "Earth-clan", but otherwise averted.
  • This may just be a Shout-Out to David Brin's Uplift series.
  • It also may be an artifact of the volus language (not that this invalidates the aforementioned possible Shout-Out). At least one volus merchant refers to his species as the vol-clan, and the asshole volus on the Citadel in the second game refers to quarians as "clanless" (Tali does not take kindly to this seeing as quarians do have a clan based society and take great pride in it). This may be a Shout-Out to the general tendency in sci-fi franchises to name alien species after their planet of origin.
  • Another (more polite) volus revers to a quarian as "migrant-clan", so that's pretty much confirmed.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: One of the things your alien companions can talk about is how they, or their race as a whole, sees humanity.
• Humorless Aliens: The turians, the elcor, the geth, and the kett in different ways. See the trope page for details.
• 100% Heroism Rating: In the first game, you can get a substantial discount on purchases in a shop if your Paragon meter/Charm skill is high enough, while a high Renegade meter/Intimidate skill will allow you to sell your items at a better price. You also get other benefits, like hearing reports of your actions (and how they ended) on the news in the Citadel, and people on Feros and Noveria will thank you if you saved their lives and contained the alien monsters threatening to kill them. Saving Captain Kirrahe's salarian commando team on Virmire also ends with him thanking you and promising he will not forget your bravery and sacrifice for his team. At the end of the game, if you saved the Council, they will also express their gratitude for saving their lives and also praise either your ruthlessness or your compassion and honor.
  • These carry over into Mass Effect 2, which is filled with references to your past deeds, people recognize you all over the place, and you can even parley your fame and reputation into discounts at some stores by giving them an endorsement. Conversely, because of this, there will be some instances where people from the first game will chew you out for what happens in the second game.
  • And nearly all of the choices from Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are carried over for Mass Effect 3...as long as you have the Extended Cut, anyway, otherwise the finale will be a bit more generic.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Present in the first game; you have access to hundred of different weapons, armor, and various mods for both while on the run. However, you only have one weapon of each equipped at a time, with the rest in your inventory rather than ready to use. The mods have the excuse of only being electronic blueprints and a few specific components, but the guns and suits of armor are physical objects.
  • Averted in the third game. Carrying extra weapons is heavy and slows you down, and most items you recover are picked up by the Normandy and stored in the cargo hold.
• Hyperspace Lanes: The Mass Relays.
• Hypocrite: Many examples.
  • Khalisah bint sinan Al-Jilani has shown an extremely strong pro-human and anti-alien bias from Shepard's conversations with her in both games, so it may come as a surprise to see her kissing and embracing an asari in a few select data files in Lair of the Shadow Broker. Similarly, the Illusive Man, leader of the xenophobic human terrorist organization Cerberus, has no problem porking an asari Matriarch, according to his Broker dossier.
  • In Lair of the Shadow Broker Tela Vasir calls Shepard a hypocrite for judging her dealing with the Shadow Broker when they're working with the terrorist organization, Cerberus right before she dies. She has a point if you're playing a full Renegade Shepard, who will endorse Cerberus' actions. Paragon Shepard not so much; they see working with Cerberus as Necessarily Evil at best and will betray it in the end.
  • Warden Kuril claims that he wants to make the galaxy a safer place by locking up dangerous criminals. Yet he extorts the criminals' homeworlds, sells criminals, and attempts to arrest Shepard just so he can sell them as a slave on the black market or hold them for ransom. They naturally call him out on this and he attempts to justify it but fails miserably.
  • And of course, there's the turian at customs, who has neared meme status:
    "You humans are all racist!"
  • And then, there's the coup de grace of this universe: a small cabal of asari matriarchs. The Council made a law stating that anyone who withholds Prothean technology will be fined severely and the tech will be taken from them, with extreme force if necessary, so it can be shared with the galaxy at large. Then the third game reveals that the highest officials of the asari "government" have possibly the only intact Prothean beacon in existence. Obviously, this gives them a massive advantage, especially considering they've had it since their Stone Age and hid it in an ancient temple.
  • Harbinger derides the asari as inferior for relying on other species to reproduce. Guess what the Reapers need to make more Reapers?
  • Mass Effect 3 has Kai Leng, who brags about how either Thane or Kirrahe died like cowards if he killed them yet in the game repeatedly proves that he's a Dirty Coward who relies more on firepower or manpower rather than personal skill when confronting Shepard and tends to run whenever things go south for him. Not to mention that they went down fighting. Leng's last act? Trying to stab Shepard while their back is turned. When Shepard calls Leng out on his hypocrisy in a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Leng's only response is, "Shut up!"
  • In an unusually tragic example of this, Shepard at one point berates James Vega for the Death Seeker tendencies he shows, despite having become somewhat of a Death Seeker themself by this time.
  • Liara, if the player chooses a certain dialogue option, calls Ashley/Kaidan short-sighted for not trusting Shepard due to Shepard working with Cerberus. She conveniently leaves out the part where that conflict can be traced back to Liara's own shortsightedness in obsessing over revenge to the point of forgetting to tell Shepard's other companions about the circumstances surrounding Shepard's death and return.
• Hypothetical Fight Debate:
  • As part of the idle banter between your squadmates, Wrex is fond of asking them who they think would win if they took on Commander Shepard in a fight.
  • In the Mass Effect 3 DLC "Citadel", your squadmates argue over who of their two krogan members would win in a fight: Wrex, a thousand-year-old battlemaster, or Grunt, a genetically engineered perfect warrior; perhaps unfortunately, the test gets shut down before it gets past the headbutting stage. Also in the same DLC, the aforementioned idle banter from the first game becomes a Brick Joke if you take Wrex and the Virmire survivor with you before facing the Mysterious Figure.

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