Shout Out / Mass Effect

Series

• Ashley Williams' name comes directly from Ash's full name in the Evil Dead series.
• Admiral Steven Hackett is named after the former Genesis guitarist.
• The mass relays with their spinning rings look uncannily similar to the FTL machine of Contact.
• The Crucible storyline in Mass Effect 3 also parallels Contact. Both involve humanity pooling its resources into a massive engineering project based on designs obtained from mysterious aliens, even though they have only a vague idea of its final purpose.
• They also bear a strong resemblance to the logo for Comstar.
• Cerberus Daily News on 4/01/2185 (April Fool's Day) has an interesting article about the destruction of a planet named DC1938...with a single infant survivor, picked up by a starship named Kent. His native atmosphere is "65% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 15% krypton".
  • Another CDN shout-out: A news story references about an exclusionary zone around relays due to the difficulty of cleaning debris, including representative (Lisa) Tanabe referencing an incident where a single metal bolt breached the crew compartment of the starship Mihairokov, killing the passengers. Planetes is an anime about debris collection in space, including among the Debris Section's employees Ai Tanabe and Yuri Mihairokov. Yuri was one of a few survivors of an incident when a bolt struck and depressurized the passenger compartment of the suborbital liner he was traveling on.
  • Another one: Nekiya Corridor, a very hyped-up film that managed to be the highest-grossing film ever, its lead female star throws a tantrum and walks off set.
  • A group called TruthHax leaks important government documents. Unlike Lulzsec, though, they're taken down by a Spectre and four of them get shot.
  • Another one reports of Super Bowl CCXIX, where the New York Giants defied the odds and beat the favorite team in a tight game.
• The vorcha species is probably named for either the Vor'cha class attack cruiser in Star Trek or the Vorchan class medium warship in Babylon 5.
• The turians had a Unification War in which the home world brought the colonies back under control. Asari commandos can "kill you with their brains" according to Wrex.
• Then there are the Blue Suns mercenary band, which is a reference to either the "Blue Sun" corporation of Firefly or "Black Sun" crime syndicate of Star Wars. Or both.
• The quarians with their rag-tag, fugitive fleet fleeing the geth genocide are very close analogues to Battlestar Galactica.
• The whole story of the geth uprising, coupled with Legion's recordings draws several similarities to The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance.
• Mass Effect's story is very similar in many ways to Welsh astronomer/author Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space, which details an archaeologist's study of a long-extinct alien species. Eventually it turns out that they were suddenly and completely wiped out by a race of sentient machines called the Inhibitors, who appear to destroy any species which has become sufficiently advanced. Which is in and of itself a Shout-Out to the late Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series.
• There are a lot of similarities to Frederik Pohl's Heechee Saga. The parallels are numerous. In Mass Effect, the Protheans fill in for the Heechee as precursors who have mysteriously disappeared, and like the Heechee, the Protheans have also retreated to the Galactic Core, albeit under different circumstances, and the mass relays function essentially the same way as the Heechee ships. Similarly, the Assassins/Foe fill in for the Reapers as the hive minds that live outside the galaxy and from time to time eradicate all sentient organic life. Additionally, the hanar may be modeled in part after the Sailship People, who were also tentacled and sheltered drell-like refugees.
• Commander Shepard's name is probably a Shout-Out to Alan Shepard, the first American in space, as well as Stargate Atlantis' main character, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard (especially due to to John being the default given name for male Shepard, and Shepard's exact rank being Lt. Commander, the direct navy equivalent to Lt. Colonel). The similarities between mass relays and Stargates (As well as Reapers and the Wraith) further cements the relationship.
  • Shepard's name is also a Bibical Shout-Out with a hint of foreshadowing. John 10:11-'I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.'
  • Also possibly a reference to Adrian Shepard as well.
    • In fact, there's an entire cluster of such references - the Armstrong cluster which has stars named Gagarin and Tereshkova, amongst other things.
  • Both male and female Shepard's default names start with J, giving them the initials JS - the same as Jeffrey Sinclair and John Sheridan of Babylon 5. Sinclair even held the rank of Commander.
• Lot of elements from the story are similar to the plot in Star Control 3.
  • A huge proportion of the game seems to pay tribute to the Star Control series, except no longer Played for Laughs. The krogan and the Thraddash are both races of warriors who cite nuking themselves back into the stone age as a step towards improving their species. The Reapers, and especially Sovereign, mix the motivation of the Eternal Ones with the personality of the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah. The planet exploration and resource gathering of Mass Effect seems like an updated version of Star Control's planet exploration and resource gathering. And so on. If it weren't for both games being unapologetically Troperiffic in their homage to the Space Opera, and therefore embracing the same Sci Fi tropes that were around long before either of them, you could keep citing examples all day.
• The entire origin of the rachni, as told by the scientist on Noveria: apparently, Binary Helix found some eggs on a derelict ship.
  • The Rachni (and their overall story) are a damn near perfect expy of the buggers from Ender's Game.
  • The Rachni are also expies of the Arachnid alien species from Starship Troopers. The mission chain "UNC: Listening Post Alpha", "UNC: Listening Post Theta", and "UNC: Depot Sigma-23" are based off scenes from the movie, even including a character named Elena Flores as a shout out to Isabel 'Dizzy' Flores from the movie.
• The Running Gag where you get to punch Khalisah al-Jilani in the face is reminiscent of a similar gag in the Scream films, where Sidney does this to the jerkass reporter Gale Weathers.
• The Cerberus Daily News had some news stories about an isolated colony on Alpha Centauri. Both colonization missions left the Earth around the same time, even.
• There is a possibility that whoever designed the turians read Salt by Adam Roberts, given that it featured a ship named the Senaar where "they live by the hierarchy" which had a past captain named "Tyrian, or Turian".
• Krogan are large hunchbacked aliens with red eyes and aggressive tendencies. The Grendlers from Earth 2 are large hunchbacked aliens with red eyes and aggressive tendencies.
• The Reaper lasers, particularly in 3, sound very similar to the alien tripods in 2005 The War of the Worlds film.
  • Even more, the horns they blare. They're even specifically designed to generate a fear response in organics.
• Given the series' fondness for science fiction from the 1980s, the batarians' passing physical resemblance to the Lectroids from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension may not be coincidental.
• The krogan story of them being used against the insect like Rachnai then efforts to limit them spreading, coupled with their toad like appearance, resembles the story of the cane toad introduced to Australia to control the cane beetle then efforts to stop them.
• The First Contact War was an event triggered between humans and another intelligent spacefaring species (the turians) when they encounter each other for the first time; a misunderstanding occurred that ended in violence and triggered an interstellar war that shaped the political landscape and left a lot of mutual distrust between humans and turians for decades to come. This is similar to the Earth/Minbari war in Babylon 5 where humans encounter the Minbari for the first time and a misunderstanding ends in violence leading to an interstellar war that shaped the political landscape and caused a lot of mutual distrust between humans and Minbari for the next decade. The difference is that in Mass Effect, the humans were bailed out by asari diplomats before the turians could sweep in with their tens of thousands of ships to smash the Systems Alliance's mere two hundred ships, leaving the actual war a mere skirmish, whereas the Minbari unleashed a horrific Curb-Stomp Battle on the Earth Alliance and nearly exterminated the human race in Babylon 5.
• The idea of advanced A.I.s giving the organics a nearly indestructible Portal Network, using these organics' brains' processing power, and serving some even more advanced AI seems to be ripped out of Hyperion Cantos.
• If the Mako sequences aren't deliberately inspired by the classic PC game Moon Patrol, it's a tremendous coincidence how much of a Spiritual Successor the former is to the latter.
• Let's see, an immensely powerful, elderly, cigarette-smoking antagonist who alternatively helps and hinders the protagonists with his massive conspiratorial organization that seeks to ensure humanity's survival no matter the cost? Sounds familiar...
• In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, The station that is used as a base for restoring Telos is called Citadel Station.
• Use the Biotics, Shepard!
• The famous Critical Mission Failure screen is a reference to the underrated 1998 sci-fi shooter Incoming.
• The main asari religion is built around the idea of pantheism or panpsychism (the universe is conscious and that consciousness is the closest thing to God). Probably not coincidentally, this description sums up the religion of The Force in Star Wars.

Mass Effect 1

• One of the "Blink and you'll miss it" variety. And if you don't have the right skills trained then you might still miss it. In the very first mission on Eden Prime you will find a locked shed with two scientists hiding inside. Upon confirming that you are human Dr. Warren will exclaim "You're human! Thank The Maker!". "The Maker" is the name of the God in the Dragon Age games, another Bioware series that was in production just after Mass Effect.
  • A double shout out, as "Thank the maker" is also used by C-3PO in Star Wars.
• Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams says...
  Ashley: Nothing like a nice, relaxing stroll on the beach... blasting bad guys with my boomstick!
• One side world, Junthor, has references to "monsters from the id" and Percy Bysshe Shelly's "Ozymandias".
• Major Kyle's side mission is a Whole-Plot Reference to Apocalypse Now.
• The villain Saren's name is almost the same as an infamous chemical weapon (which is illegal to produce and stockpile while its use is a real-life war crime).
  • Saren is also a Fallen Hero (the word hero being used loosely) cyborg with Mind over Matter powers, The Heavy of the story, and he serves a more powerful Greater-Scope Villain who operates behind the scenes. Hmmm... Where have we seen this before?
• At a certain point in the game, Shepard can mutter "We are going to need bigger guns".
  • In a similar vein, a conversation between Shepard and Kaidan regarding the Reapers has this gem:
    Shepard: The turians were old too. We gave them a boot in the ass.
    Kaidan: I think we're going to need a bigger boot, Commander.
  • Also, the "We are going to need bigger guns" line is possibly a reference to the 1992 sci-fi film Split Second, when upon the heroes realize they may be facing something inhuman, one of the two leads starts ranting about how "We need bigger guns, bigger f—-ing guns!" Starting around 44 sec into here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvMWD-_Nfo
• There are several Kowloon class freighters, which is probably a reference to Snow Crash.
• The optional sidequest for the Colonist background is one big shoutout to Aliens.
  • Animal Farm, of all things. Remember on X57? "Two eyes good, four eyes bad."
    • Also in a minor sidequest, from Lieutenant Durand: "Two legs good, four legs bad." (A direct reversal of the line from the original story.)
  • Lieutenant Durand? Hmm...
• The Feros mission is another big Aliens shoutout. Thankfully, you get to kill the Burke character yourself.
  • Zhu's Hope is a reference to Hadley's Hope.
• Then there's the rachni quest, which has similarities to Ender's Game.
• There's also a sidequest where you help a bunch of stranded marines against hordes of rachni inspired by the battle at Whiskey Outpost in Starship Troopers. Their commanding officer is Lt. Elena Flores, a shout out to Lt. Isabel 'Dizzy' Flores from the movie.
• One of the last things you do on your way to defeating the Big Bad is take your vehicle through a "Trench Run". (Yes, that's what the map screen calls it.)
• In one sidequest, you find a human distress beacon which turns into a geth ambush. Ashley comments "I've got a bad feeling about this..." Once they attack, she yells "It's a trap!"
  • It gets better with other party members... Wrex looks a lot more Ackbar-like than Ashley could ever not hope to.
• When talking to the V.I. in Exogeni's headquarters on Feros, you discover what the Thorian is and can learn about the experiments that were being conducted. If you pay attention, you'll find that this is Day 28 after the discovery and initial exposure of the Thorian's "infection", which can turn its victims into kinda sorta zombies. In other words, Shepard & crew arrived on Feros... 28 Days Later.
  • The Thorian itself is a god-like plant creature living underneath a small township community who can create worshippers using plant-like techniques (in this case, spores) and mutate sentient beings near it into monstrous creatures. In other words, it's very similar to the titular creature of Ramsey Cambell's Lovecraftian story The Horror Under Warrendown.
  • It's also similiar to the hivemind in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Operation: Annihilate!", which controlled it's victims by inducing excrutiating pain (only its victims were in agony even when obeying it).
• Liara's "embrace eternity" line might be borrowed from one in Planescape: Torment: "I would place myself in a thousand dangers, embrace eternity for you, my Love!"
• In the Hydra Cluster, you're sent to apprehend a Major Kyle who went off the deep end and has styled himself Father Kyle for his commune of biotics. While there's neither smell of napalm in the morning nor a termination with extreme prejudice (at least not if you resolve the situation peacefully), the reference is clear.
• After rescuing Liara on Therum, you're stopped by one of Saren's krogan. The paragon exchange gives you this little gem:
  Shepard: You know this place is falling apart?
  Krogan: Exhilarating, isn't it?
• Compare the opening of Top Gun ^note On March 3, 1969 the United States Navy established an elite school for the top one percent of its pilots. Its purpose was to teach the lost art of aerial combat and to insure that the handful of men who graduated were the best fighter pilots in the world. They succeeded. Today, the Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it... TOP GUN to the opening text of Mass Effect ^note In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time. They called it the greatest discovery in human history. The civilizations of the galaxy call it... MASS EFFECT
• When you successfully re-activate the Mira Core for the Peak 15 facilities on Noveria, the Mira V.I.'s initial query is clearly modeled after the Microsoft Office Assistant "Clippy the Paper Clip". Sheperd's Renegade response even lampshades this:
  Mira: It looks like you're trying to restore this facility. Would you like help?
  Renegade response: Crap, a pop-up.
• When Shepard confronts Sovereign on Virmire, the ship makes what is possibly a callback to the infamous dialogue at the beginning of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
  Sovereign: Your words are as empty as your future.
• In yet another Alien shout out, the planet Maji has an odd skull that bears more than a bit of resemblance to an alien queen. And if that's not enough of a shout out, Maji happens to be used as a big game preserve where vicious animals are brought to be hunted for sport, and the skull indeed shows signs of weapons fire.
• Stargate shoutouts are aplenty in this game. Most notably would have to be the Prothean artifact imprinting partial knowledge in Shepard's brain, and despite being the one unlikely human who was genetically capable of handling it, he still has to seek out the help of the advanced race who created the artifact to sort out his mind again. This same plot led to Shepard discovering the fate of the Protheans and saving the galaxy several times over and led O'Neill to discovering the Asgard and saving the galaxy several times over.
• "Okay, important safety tip: don't press the big red buttons".
• If Shepard brings Ashley and Kaiden down to the Citadel wards it's possible that, after one of them notes a distinct anti-human sentiment, Shep will give a giant shout out to old sci-fi:
  Shepard: Why not? We've got oceans, beautiful women, this emotion called love. According to the old vids, we have everything they want.

Which the opposite gendered character will have snarky remark about

Ashley: If you expect me to get into a tinfoil miniskirt and some thigh-high boots, I want dinner first. Sir.
Kaidan: When you put it that way, there's no reason they wouldn't like you. I mean us. Humans. Ma'am.

• If the "mumble something" option is selected when trying to activate the Neutron Purge on Noveria, Shepard says "sic semper tyranis" before trailing off. "Thus always to Tyrants", this was the line shouted by Marcus Julius Brutus during his assassination of Julius Caesar as well as John Wilkes Booth after assassinating Abraham Lincoln.
  • The manner in which s/he does so is another reference to Evil Dead where the main character, Ash, mumbles his way through the magic words of a spell.
• Spacer Shepards can eventually get an assignment called "Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things". Assignment names tend to be straightforward, but this unusually poetic one is actually a line from a William Wordsworth poem, The Solitary Reaper.
• The spikes used to turn corpses into husks are called "dragon's teeth" by Alliance soldiers — an in-universe shout-out to Jason and the Argonauts.
• In ''Bring Down the Sky" DLC it is possible to find an abandoned radio station on a hi-jacked asteroid. The computer log reveals that the station owners were recording slogans for their radio. One of them reads: When the world seems hollow, we will help you touch the sky. The whole plot of the DLC is basically a shout-out to the similarly-named TOS episode, in which a planet is threatened by a collision with an asteroid.
  • The PC version of "Bring Down The Sky" has an extra shout out in the form of a note. One of the radio project managers heard from another person about how extreme the stations music was and its effect on younger workers. This is a shout out and a Take That! to the Cooper Lawrence-Fox News controversy where Lawrence made several false allegations against Mass Effect in regards to its approach to sex and relationships in a live interview. Lawrence even admitted in the interview that she had only heard of it from secondhand sources and never played the game itself. She later recanted her statements publicly after a friend had showed her the scenes.
• The project manager of the Peak-15 Research Station, on Noveria, is named Vladimir Savchenko.
• One of the planets in Citadel space is called Nausicaa.
  • Considering other names in that cluster, it rather refers to the original Nausicaa.
• According to your in-universe guide, pirates frequently drink naturally occurring methyl alcohol found in the crust of a planet called Antirumgon. As in, it prevents the rum from being gone.
• The first Eden Prime mission has a character named L. Jenkins die due to rushing in against a group of geth. Considering the initials and behavior of the character, this can only mean one thing.
• There is an elcor you encounter in the cubicle room at the embassies who greets you with "Human, it is good to meet you." Talk to him more and he starts pronouncing "human" as hew-mon

Mass Effect 2

• One of your engineers on the Normandy SR-2 has a Scottish accent and makes use of colorful verbiage. One half expected him to shout "I'm giving her all she's got!"
• Tali's loyalty mission is a borderline Whole-Plot Reference to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Sins of the Father":
  • Worf's father is accused of (posthumous) treason against the Klingon people, a treason that resulted in their sworn enemy (the Romulans) being able to wipe out a whole settlement, forcing Worf to go back and answer for his crimes, for which he is blamed by proxy. If he is found guilty by association, he'll be executed. Worf requests Picard allow him leave to answer the accusations; Picard not only agrees to let him go, but flies the Enterprise and its crew there and accompanies him to the trial. This is a nigh-identical set-up to Tali's loyalty mission, where she's accused of treason by her own people for supposedly sending live geth parts back to the Migrant Fleet (when the disaster really was her father's doing), which then came alive and wiped out the crew of one of their ships (basically the equivalent of a town in the Migrant Fleet). Just like Worf, Tali asks Shepard to allow her leave to answer the accusations, only for Shepard to insist on bringing the whole Normandy and its crew in and standing beside her in the trial, much like Picard. Both captains then go before the leadership councils that rule the respective races of their subordinate/friend, and vouch for their character by noting their exemplary record of service on the (human-dominated) vessel.
  • As the trial commences in earnest, both captains are asked to back up the accused, Shepard as a pseudo-lawyer and Picard as a Cha'DIch, due to the manipulations of a hostile political figure (Duras/Koris) causing the (alien) person who would normally fulfill those roles to be recused. Both trials see the human captains investigating the case, leading to the discovery of an Awful Truth that could potentially cause a civil war. In both cases, the accused then offers to make a Heroic Sacrifice by taking the blame for crimes they didn't commit and accepting permanent exile over the objections of their human captains. The main difference is that Worf goes through with it; Tali can go through with it, but in three of the five possible outcomes,^note As well as apparently the canonical one. In-universe articles mention that the geth and the quarians end up fighting on the same side, a result that's only possible to achieve if Tali is loyal. she gets exonerated anyway when Shepard is able to Take a Third Option. Oh, and unlike Tali and Shepard, Worf and Picard didn't have to kill a platoon of heavily armed robots to find the evidence... though Worf probably would have preferred it that way. The other main difference is that Koris is not trying to make peace with the geth for personal gain, but to atone for the quarians; Duras wants to have a secret alliance with the Romulans for pure selfish gains.
• Captain Bailey is likely a reference to Isaac Asimov's Plainclothesman Baley, who was a detective in his Robot series of novels.
• Zaeed is a walking shout out to Jayne Cobb. Between his big goddamn heroes quote, the fact he named his old assault rifle, and the fact the merc gang he helped found is called the Blue Suns, he seems to exist for shoutouts.
  • Above all, Zaeed's physical appearance is based on Sgt. Bob Barnes from Platoon, right to his scar.
  • While Zaeed has several obvious shout outs to Firefly, his character is a subtle shout out to another series. A morally questionable mercenary who founded an organisation only to be betrayed by his partner(s)? Who is missing an eye (Zaeed's current eye is a cybernetic replacement)? I wonder what other series has a character like that, huh?
    • Hmm. Doesn't sound familiar.
• Quarian marine Kal'reegar is arguably a bigger shout out to Jayne Cobb than Zaaed, with his quote about just shooting things and being smarter than he lets on. What potentially puts Kal'reegar ahead is that he has the same voice actor as Jayne.
• Speaking of Firefly, The Collectors totally attack (New) Canton.
  • The Collector Cruiser's Leitmotif is an homage to the Reaver ship theme as well.
• On Pragia, there is a throwaway dialogue that says that they were planning on moving the facility to focus on kids in an Alliance program. Considering what River went through, this could be a much darker shoutout.
• One of Male Shepard's default casual outfits is Canderous Ordo's default outfit.
• If you stand by Joker at the bridge, in addition to saying a ton of funny lines, he'll at one point say:
  "Some days I just feel like turning off the inertials and pulling a Crazy Ivan, y'know?"
  • In 3 he makes mention of not singing the Russian anthem to attract unwanted attention.
• When starting Grunt's loyalty quest, Wrex says, "Next thing you'll tell me is he's a quint and craps dark matter".
  • Side note: Krogan have four testicles, so when they someone's got a quad it is the human equivalent of saying someone's got a pair. A quint would be the rare krogan who has five.
• One of the quarian Admirals is from a ship named Qwib-Qwib. This just happens to be the name of the lone anti-Berserker sentient machine in the Berserker universe. Bonus points in that the Reapers are similar to the Berserkers in some ways.
• You can buy a pet space hamster.
  • And it looks at you knowingly with a smile.
  • Tali calls her combat drone Chikktika vas Paus and tells it to "Go for the optics!"
• A Shout-Out to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: "'Spending a year dead' is a popular tax dodge."
  • Dual Shout-Out to the members of Pink Floyd, who actually pulled it off in the seventies, if The Other Wiki is to be believed.
    • In addition to the response to one character remarking about your death: "I was only mostly dead".
    • And in response to another character: "Shepard... you're dead." "I got better".
• And there's a Dakka system. Fittingly, Jack takes you here to blow the shit out of a Cerberus facility.
  • Jack also has a Shout-Out to Babylon 5. Has anyone else has a good look at the tattoos on her back◊?
• On top of this, BioWare just couldn't resist a 2001: A Space Odyssey reference what with EDI and all:
  Joker: All right... but if you start singing Daisy Bell, I'm done. (to himself) Great. See, this is where it starts, and when we're all just organic batteries, guess who they'll blame? "This is all Joker's fault. What a tool he was! I have to spend all day computing pi because he plugged in the Overlord!"
  • This is particularly genius, because it's also referencing the Executive Meddling that caused the machines' use for humans in The Matrix to be changed from using human brains for distributed computing to power sources.
    • In the French version, Joker mentions Skynet instead.
  • Shepard's death bears more than a passing resemblance to Frank Poole's death in 2001: A Space Odyssey as well, with him/her drifting helpless and flailing in the vacuum of space as his/her air leaks away and (s)he tumbles away from the camera, becoming little more than a dot in the vastness of the cosmos. The big difference of course is that the latter was murdered by a machine, whereas Shepard was murdered by a machine's flunkies.
  • The atmosphere of the gas giant Anjea (Amada system, Omega Nebula, available with the Normandy Crash Site DLC) has "large numbers of hollow, unpowered objects with dimensions 3.14 by 12.56 by 28.26 meters circulating in the equatorial cloud bands". In other words, pi by 4 times pi by 9 times pi, matching the 1:4:9 dimensions of the Monoliths.
• There's a scene in a bar where you can get Shepard to start drinking. It's not exactly identified what it is Shep's drinking.
  Shepard: This is... it's green.
  • The bartender at Dark Star implies that batarian ale is an especially strong drink, generally illegal in Council Space. Swap "Batarian" for "Romulan".
• The game merchant on the Citadel will mention a game called Grim Terminus Alliance, that is apparently pretty controversial ("So what if you can capture and beat slaves? It's just a game!")
  • The same game merchant has a number of Shout Outs and Take Thats to various aspects of gaming.
• On Tuchanka, a derelict building bearing a strong resemblance to the Ryugyong Hotel can be seen in the distant background.
• Several of the wrecked spaceships seen in the second game seem to be inspired by art from the old Terran Trade Authority books, particularly Space Wreck: Ghost Ships and Derelicts of Space.
  • Look closely, and you might be able to spot the Pillar of Autumn amid the wreckage.
• Legion is responsible for many of the game's more obscure shout outs:
  • Legion says that the geth (or, at least, the heretic geth) do not share our pity, remorse or fear.
  • Another obscure one: when asked about the exact difference between the geth and the heretics, he explains it's a difference in the calculation of a specific floating point number. This is a reference to the Intel Pentium FDIV bug.
  • During his loyalty quest, if you choose to rewrite the geth heretics, he notes that it requires exactly 1.21 petawatts of electricity to do so.
  • In that same quest he uses 'sudo' to turn deactivated turrets over to your side.
  • Legion has many similarities to Kosh and the Vorlons, the eye, the ethereal speech, but most notably:
    Shepard: What should I call you?
    Legion: Geth.
    Shepard: No, I mean you, specifically.
    Legion: We are all geth.
  • He also, at one point, answers an "A or B" question "yes", a trademark Kosh response.
  • Legion at one point tells you that every race should have the right to self-determination, or put more plainly, that freedom is the right of all sentient beings.
  • Lair of the Shadow Broker tells us that Legion is an avid gamer; he plays Galaxy of Fantasy and Grim Terminus Alliance mentioned above, and has achievements for completing a playthrough without killing slaves as well as killing one hundred quarians. He also plays N7 Call of Honor: Medal Of Duty and has over 200,000 sniper-rifle kills, but only three shotgun kills and no melee kills.
• If you convince the asari on Illium to date the krogan, you'll see them later on Tuchanka. After the asari claims that the planet is too dusty, the krogan notes that it "builds character".
• The distress beacon for one of the side missions in "Mass Effect 2" is numbered 655321.
• The Tupari vending machine in the Citadel will occasionally say: "Tupari: it will bring your ancestors back from the grave." This is in reference to a marketing campaign Pepsi ran in China. See this entry on Snopes for details.
  • The vending machine may be a reference to Talky Toaster of Red Dwarf: a machine obsessed with getting people to eat/drink their products.
  • Tupari itself is possibly a shout-out to the one-shot Narn assassin, Tu'Pari, from Babylon 5.
• In the Hahne-Kedar Facility sidequest, you shut down a factory of rebellious robots on the planet Capek.
  • To elaborate, since we do not have a page for that yet: Karel Čapek coined the term 'robot' in his work R.U.R.
  • Hahne-Kedar has a facility for producing mechs that Shepard must shut down.
  • Possibly also a reference to the droid factory that was sadly cut from Obsidian's Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
  • Hahne-Kedar abbreviates as HK, similar to Real Life arms company Heckler & Koch.
• The "Firewalker" DLC pack throws another one in: the wife of one of the scientists is Helen O'Loy, which is also the name of a Lester del Rey story where a human and a robot fall in love.
• Kasumi got Shepard's cover mentioned in Badass Weekly, whose real world equivalent returned the favour.
• Shepard can listen to the ramblings of a racist batarian "Mad Prophet" on Omega who brings to mind a racist human prophet from another BioWare project.
• Kasumi's outfit bears a striking resemblance to Visas Marr from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
  • It may also incorporate some elements of the assassin robes from Assassin's Creed; the resemblance becomes even stronger when she freeruns up a collection of pipes and towers to jump onto Hock's gunship. And those pipes are red, which should remind you of another EA title, Mirror's Edge.
  • More importantly, however, it's similar to the thief model from the Infinity Engine.
  • For a slightly more subtle example, the logo on the back of Kasumi's default outfit bears a striking resemblance to the Maserati logo, possibly as a nod to her love of expensive things.
• Among the valuable artifacts locked in Donovan Hock's vault is a statue of an Ogre from Dragon Age.
  • While on Horizon, the mechanic says that one of the colonists the Collectors kidnapped was named Sten. Another was Lilith, which is a cute way to refer to Morrigan as in another series she is Morrigan's sister.
  • There's also Captain Gavorn, who shares a name with one of the Dwarf clans from that series.
• Also, the mangled head of the Statue of Liberty along with Kasumi using part of the "Damn you all to Hell" line.
• Speaking of which, fans of Dead or Alive should recognize the names Kasumi and Donovan.
• Morinth is smuggled aboard the Demeter, the name of the ship that ferried Dracula to England.
  • An Ardat-Yakshi's power to seduce, entrance, and slowly drain the life out of their victims is further reference to Dracula and vampire legends.
  • The entire idea for the Ardat-Yakshi is a shout out of sorts to ancient world myths. A female demon named "Ardat-Lili" was a Succubus, that is, a female demon who kills her victims by having sex with them.
  • Also, Yakshi is a class of benevolent nature spirits in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain mythology. However, in Southern India, Yakshi were typically depicted as vampiric enchantresses.
• The star cluster in which you find the IFF is named Hawking Eta. It contains the star systems Chandrasekhar and Schwartzschild. That's right, an astrophysics Shout Out.
  • The star system "Skepsis" (Greek for 'to examine') has planets named after famous scientists: Crick (Francis Crick), Darwin (Charles Darwin), Watson (James Watson) and its moon Franklin (Rosalind Franklin), Keimowitz (most likely Alison Keimowitz), Pauling (Linus Pauling), and Wallace (Alfred Russel Wallace).
• The M-451 Flamethrower. What burns at Fahrenheit 451?
• Convince Niftu Cal to leave and Thane may bid him sleep well, and dream of bulbous women.
• There is the M-3 Predator, a popular heavy pistol in the ME universe (and the first gun you get). Those who are familiar with Shadowrun probably know about their most popular heavy pistol...the Ares Predator.
• There is a DLC called Operation Overlord. Shepard's ship is the Normandy.
  • The planet where the Overlord DLC mission is set has skies full of dragons.
• Listening to Khalisah al-Jilani after punching her, she has a line quite similar to Bart Sibrel after Buzz Aldrin punched him for calling him a liar (and other things).
• A possible numerical anagram shoutout: Legion has 1,183 geth programs in its platform. Although most would call it a Star Wars Shout-Out, but it's really more of a Shout-Out to George Lucas, who many attribute to the revival of the science fiction genre because of the popularity of the movies. The number comes from a film he made earlier called THX 1138, and has been hidden in all his movies since. It also pops up in various other places when the writer wants to shout out Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Lucas himself.
  • On a related note, in one of the Collector missions, the Commander is trapped in a room with locked doors. EDI hacks one of the doors so you can proceed, mentioning "Firewall 3217" while doing so.
  • When the Collectors board the Normandy, many elements of the cinematic are extremely reminiscent of the opening sequence from "A New Hope", when the imperial stormtroopers board the ship. The image of the few defenders lining the walls of and looking nervously down a corridor through which they expect attackers to pour in particular is extremely similar.
  • A subtle one: at one point during Miranda's loyalty mission you're required to proceed to Dock 94; Docking Bay 94 being where the heroes board the Millennium Falcon.
• The famous exchange on the Citadel involving Sir Isaac Newton is a vague Shout-Out to Aliens
  Cpl. Hicks: I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher. *hands the rifle to Ripley* Feel the weight.
  • The krogan trucks on Tuchanka look a lot like the vehicle the finds the derelict space ship in Aliens.
  • Servicemen Chung and Burnside, the unfortunate subjects of said rant, are named after Ken Burnside and Winchell Chung. Chris L'Etoile, who wrote the codex and this exchange, is known as an avid reader of Atomic Rockets and even cited Chung's website while explaining why nukes aren't used in Mass Effect's space warfare.^note Short version: a combination of the inverse square law and the effects of the vacuum (there's no blast wave in space) means that even a very powerful nuke in the megaton range will fail to deal notable damage against an armored target unless detonated at a ridiculously close distance (single digit kilometers or less), which is impractical given how fast ships are and how effective point-defense is.
  • "Eyeballing it" also the same offense Johnnie Rico is flogged for at boot camp in Starship Troopers.
• At the end of the game, you can see what the Collectors did with the captured humans. Turn them into an orange liquid that is used to create a single giant lifeform. This is amazingly similar to the fate of humanity in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • There are also other hints throughout the games that would make Instrumentality one possible explanation for the creation of the first Reaper.
• Keiji's greybox seems to look almost identical to a "self sealing stem bolt", a Cow Tool from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• On Haestrom, if Grunt is brought along, he'll yell "Then we fight in the shade!"
• EDI's name and eventual upgrade in personality, along with style of speech and piloting maneuvers, is a reference to Stealth.
• On the prison ship Purgatory, you see one prisoner being beaten up. If you talk to the guy in the cell next to him, he'll reveal that his name is Bimmy.
• When Aria tells you the one rule on Omega (Don't fuck with Aria), one of Shepard's possible responses is I like it. Easy to remember.
• When you get Thane's loyalty mission, he will mention that he and his son would "dance crazy".
• An easy-to-miss one during Thane's loyalty mission: if you take the second chance to punch out the stock boy, Shepard will quip "Boring conversation anyway."
• Here's an easy-to-miss one—during the car chase in "Lair of the Shadow Broker", one of the future-billboards you pass by is Jack's "Wanted" sign. The prison number is 24601.
• Easy to miss in the "Lair of the Shadow Broker" (literally): The Shadow Broker says: "You travel with fascinating companions, doctor."
• In the updates preceding the release of the "Arrival" DLC, there is a break-in at 4:13 AM, two researchers tampering with the Lowas Relay and 612-billion credits lost in the galactic economy.
• Slightly obscure one: apparently the planet Siano wandered to its current location from another system, and is home to an abandoned base on one side and a nuclear waste dump on the other. Looks like we found out where Moonbase Alpha finally ended up.
• The nuclear munitions ship hijacked by geth, who are planning to suicide bomb it into a colonized moon? MSV Broken Arrow. (Complete with title inaccuracy.)
• Jack's entire existence seems to be one big reference to The Chronicles of Riddick.
  • Her name and bald-shaven nature are exactly similar to Jack, the girl who latches onto Riddick in the film series. Additionally, both are broken out of their equivalents of a mercenary-controlled supermax prison by a suitably badass figure who they come to trust.
  • The Blue Suns method of imprisoning her is more similar to Riddick himself, being transported on a ship by mercs who keep her in cryo-storage at all times.
    • And similar to another futuristic prison we have seen.
    • A prison where a protagonist is forced into cryo-storage in the future? It'll never catch on.
  • Her poetry of herself in the "Lair of the Shadow Broker" DLC is a reference to the future generation nuclear waste warning project.
  • On her loyalty mission, you find a room with a chair that looks suspiciously like the one in Dollhouse, with Jack saying "This is a bad place"
  • Not to mention that Jack from Pitch Black was assumed to be male for the majority of the movie, and until Shepard & Co. see Jack in her prison, they all assume her to be male as well.
• On Illium there is one radio broadcast that can easily be mistaken for one of the frequent news broadcasts, but turns out to be a commercial for a new blockbuster movie:
  "The council thought that Blasto, the first Hanar spectre would play by the rules. They were wrong!"
  "This one has forgotten whether his heat sink is over capacity. He wonders if this criminal scum considers itself fortunate."
• 2175 Aeia, the planet where Jacob's loyalty mission takes place, looks extremely similar to The Unknown Planet from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, complete with a large ship crashed into the ocean. BioWare made both games.
  • Also, Aeaea is the name of Circe's island in the Odyssey, where Odysseus's crew were turned into animals. After Circe transformed them back, they had to convince him to leave while he wanted to stay.
• The dog-like mech's name is FENRIS.
  • The human-like one is LOKI.
  • The enormous sub-boss level mechs are YMIR. For those that don't know their Norse mythology, Ymir was the father of the jötnar, the chaos-loving giants.
• Avina on the Citadel remarks that asari futurists believe poverty will not be eliminated until the production of cornucopia technology that enables the user to create anything they desire. This is exactly like Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek, where the availability of replicators has eliminated the need for currency and eliminated poverty on Earth, creating an idealistic future for humans.
• One of the advertisements on Illium goes "There are some things omni-gel can't fix, for everything else..."
• On the assignment "MSV Strontium Mule", the payload you discover at the end is neither seen nor directly explained but casts a golden glow from its container.
• The Achievement for completing Kasumi's mission, 'Broke, Blind and Bedlam' is from a quote from Ocean's Eleven.
• After using the Omega 4 Relay, the Normandy comes out of its jump on a collision course with a debris field made of destroyed star ships bathed in an apocalyptic shade of gold. The sequence is almost identical to one in the 2009 Star Trek film, where the Enterprise comes out of warp and has to maneuver through a dense collection of wrecked star ships in a similarly golden sector of space.
• The Collector General scurrying around the ship's control hub bears more than a passing resemblance to Pilot from Farscape.
  • As well, Morinth is an intensely sexual blue-skinned babe with a knack for 'herbs' and killing her lovers, making her remarkably similar to Farscape's Zhaan, as well. The shoutout feels complete each time an asari makes a remark to The Goddess.
• Patriarch, the elderly, ex-crimelord krogan who was dethroned by Aria, paces around giving business advice to younger generations. In one of his spiels, he tells his listeners that they can expect someone to approach them at the funeral with an offer to meet with another crime group, and whoever does so is the traitor.
• The achievement for completing Thane's loyalty mission is called "Cat's in The Cradle", a reference to a song by Harry Chapin about a Disappeared Dad.
• The krogan call their huge, gun-laden trucks "Tomkahs". Probably a lawyer-friendly reference to Tonka toy trucks.
• A soldier is killed when his ship is ambushed and destroyed by an enemy cruiser, and is brought back to life by a disavowed black ops organization as a hard-to-kill cyborg via a project named for Lazarus. Just like in the early Babylon 5 episode "A Spider in the Web."
• Samara's loyalty quest on Omega, with Nef. Including the little video diary, seems to be an almost direct shout out to Lost In Space, given the similarity to Penny.
• Jacob's loyalty mission involves you investigating the wreckage of the ship the Hugo Gernsback. Hugo Gernsback was a magazine publisher widely regarded as the father of science fiction.
  • As well as the basic plot of his mission: Locate his father among the survivors. Only his father has appointed himself as their "king" of sorts since the edible plants on the planet cause their minds to degrade... A military officer appointing himself ruler of a small group of people in a remote region... Sounds familiar.
• Kasumi's acrobatics as she attempts to disable the gunship's shields. Particularly when she leaps from a ledge, as pigeons take flight around her in a moment that looks a lot like Altair's "leap of faith" from Assassin's Creed.
• When Shepard and Liara chase the Tala Vasir to a sleazy casino on Illium during the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, a large screen displays an asari stripper dancing in what is clearly the Black Lodge. Made all the more amusing by a volus taking the place of the Little Man From Another Place and a krogan statue (complete with assault rifle) in place of the Venus di Milo.
• The Dark Star lounge is a shout-out to, well, Dark Star.
• It may or may not be entirely intentional, but Admiral Hackett◊ looks alot like General Mireau from Paths of Glory.
• Australian fans undoubtedly found Udina's line about a 'political shitstorm' to be hilarious.
• During Samara's Loyalty Mission, Shepard can protect an asari dancer by beating up the turian sleaze trying to get a night out of her. Upon kicking his ass, Shepard can declare "The good times are over".
• On Jacob's loyalty mission, his father mentions an officer named Anders, who 'found his conscience a little late to step back', which ends up sounding a lot like epic Foreshadowing for the end of Dragon Age II, at least on his rivalry path.
• Among various sculptures in Donavon Hock's vault is a statue of an Ogre.
• The Collector General bares uncanny resemblance to Babylon 5's Shadows.
• One of the spam messages you can receive during the game is titled "IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!". The story it tells about a dying drell swimming with the hanar Enkindlers is a Whole-Plot Reference to the Christian allegory of ''Footprints''.
• The Final Boss is a Humongous Mecha that shoots lasers out of its mouth, has no legs because it's still under construction and is fought inside a gigantic space fortress.

Mass Effect 3

• The last part of the "Take Back Earth" extended trailer is a reference to the extremely controversial US political "Daisy" ad from 1964.
• Kai Leng look very much like another cyborg ninja.
  • He also leads a horde of all-female assassin ninja.
  • That said, given his hairstyle, voice and domino mask, he also appears to be an Asian version of Nightwing. Coincidentally Troy Baker would end up voicing Nightwing in Injustice: Gods Among Us.
  • With his bionic limbs, implanted eye lenses and black/gold color scheme, he also looks a bit like a certain cyborg corporate security agent (though given the relatively close span of time between the releases of these two games, this one might have been unintentional).
  • And then there's the way he's a cyborg swordsman who quite probably has Mind over Matter powers, and his master sits on a throne, preferring to interact with the greater galaxy as a hologram to his subordinates. Hmmm... Where have we seen this before?
  • However, this parallel applies to the villain of the first game as well.
  • A flippy swordsman with long black hair, wields a katana, voiced by Troy Baker and at one point attacks Thane with what appears to be an energy blast thrown from said katana? Yuri, Flynn is not going to be happy.
• Between the flame throwers, the need for flashlights to navigate dark corridors and the creepy eggs that unleash insectoid horrors on anyone who gets too close, the mission on Utukku is one big tribute to Alien. (If you kill them both times, Joker even starts to comment that maybe they should nuke the planet, because it's the only way to be sure.)
  • Also, right before going to town on some Rachni, Grunt simply remarks, "My turn!"
    • It goes much deeper than the quote. Observe the use of the pipe, an the fact the music theme playing is very, very similar as well.. and then cuts away to a Black Screen of Death.
    • Adding to this, Grunt is an engineered warrior struggling to find his place in the world like River.
    • And of course they both subvert Heroic Sacrifice, if you did Grunt's loyalty mission.
• Brutes, the krogan/turian husks, behave almost exactly like ogres in the Dragon Age games.
  • And Banshees have more than a passing similarity in behaviour to the Witch in Left 4 Dead.
    • They also look a lot like the true form of Sil from Species.
    • There are also several noticeable similarities to Slenderman in there as well.
• After Priority: Thessia, one of things Javik says if you talk to him is, "The loss of a planet is insignificant next to the loss of the galaxy".
• Historical footage in the geth consensus shows that the quarian creator of the first geth was named Zahhak.
  • Which is itself a reference to Iranian mythology.
• A sidequest involves Shepard finding a kakliosaur skull preserved in amber and suggesting a salarian scientist clone its DNA to produce living kakliosaurs. So the krogan can ride them into battle against the Reapers.
  • Ride resurrected dinosaurs in battle, you say?
• If you've romanced Liara all the way through, her last kiss with Shepard ends with them silhouetted in each other's arms as a bright light on the horizon envelops them, looking a lot like one of the dream sequences from Watchmen.
• There's a lost civilization on planet Carcosa in a twin-sun system. One of the few remaining ruins is a throne room overlooking a lake. Additionally, one of the stars is named Hali, after said lake.
• As anyone familiar with Logan's Run will know, there is no sanctuary.
• When you invite Traynor up to your cabin for chess and she challenges you, the Paragon response on the conversation wheel is, "I have a bad feeling..." The line Shepard actually says is, " This is a trap, isn't it?"
  • On the mission on Arrae to rescue defecting defecting Cerberus scientists there is a scene as they're evacuating the base of anti-air batteries firing away as a shuttle flies off. Inside the base the announcement "Shuttle One is away!" is made as everyone cheers.
  • In the Omega DLC, Bray commands some of Aria's soldiers to "Open the blast doors, open the blast doors!"
• The turian leader is called Primarch, as you all know.
  • "The strategist in me admires their brutality. The turian in me knows I'm watching the destruction of fifteen thousand years of civilization."
• While trying to sneak past some geth using their stealth system, Joker comments "The only way they'll detect us is if we all start singing the Russian National Anthem". And then gives an Aside Glance.
  • This is a follow-on to Joker's comment in an earlier game about "pulling a Crazy Ivan." Someone on the ME team is a Clancy fan.
  • Also, during the CIC firefight on board the Normandy (in the "Citadel" DLC), Tali says "Be careful, Shepard! Some things in here don't react too well to bullets!" and Shepard replies "Like me! I don't react well to bullets!''
• The slow building romance between Joker and EDI is a shout out to Lester del Rey's short story "Helen O'Loy", a story about a human and a robot that had achieved true sentience falling in love which received a more direct shout-out in the second game during the Firewalker missions.
• During the mission to rescue the ex-Cerberus scientists led by Dr. Brynn Cole, the evacuation scenes resemble the opening of the Battle of Hoth, where surface-to-air guns clear a path for transports. Some of the lines are exactly the same, too.
  • Also, Dr. Cole is voiced by Jo Wyatt, which would probably just be a coincidence if there wasn't also a scientist voiced by Nicholas Boulton hanging around on the station. Why is this significant? Because they're the voices for Female and Male Hawke, respectively.
• Some of the music that plays during the quarian-geth arc sounds remarkably similar to some of the music from Battlestar Galactica (2003). Given how similar the quarian-geth conflict already is to that series, this can't be just coincidence.
  • The same music also plays when Tricia Helfer's character inhabits Eva's robot body.
  • Spoken of in the geth memories, is a "Mistress Hala'Dama", which is also referencing 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • Speaking of Battlestar Galactica (2003), a Running Gag for Javik is his desire to throw synthetics out the airlock. President Roslin would do the same with any Cylons they discovered.
  • Legions memories also spin a story very similar to the machine-human conflict shown in The Matrix and explicitly described in ''The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance.
• Dr Eva's Robotic Reveal when she emerges from burning wreckage with her skin burned off looks like a homage to The Terminator.
• After the raid on the Citadel Joker will comment how he used to like Cerberus, when they were vigilantes and helping the helpless.
• From the Resurgence Downloadable Content is the Cerberus Vanguard, who, with the right colours, can look a lot like The Meta from Red vs. Blue.
• The Collector's Edition robot dog is named Kei 9.
• The flamethrower is designated M-451, a reference to Fahrenheit 451.
• The achievement for completing the "Leviathan" DLC is called "Under Pressure".
• The Reaper creators, known as the Leviathans, are very similar to the Slaver species from Larry Niven's Known Space universe. Both are massively xenophobic and have the natural ability of mind controlling other species which they use to form and control their space empires.
• The overall tone and progression of the Leviathan mission is also vaguely reminiscent of The Call of Cthulhu, what with an impossibly ancient undersea-dwelling lifeform influencing people's minds from afar, ships' crews dying under peculiar circumstances, and the investigation of strange artifacts with mysterious properties and histories.
• The turian home system is called Trebia, most likely after the Battle of the River Trebia, in which Hannibal kicked Roman arse.
• As part of a cross-promotion between Mass Effect 3 and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, ME players got access to bonus armor and weapons after completing the Amalur demo. The Reckoner-Knight armor was sent by Alliance soldiers stationed in Rhode Island, while the Chakram Launcher assault rifle was built by Ama-Lur Equipment.
• A subtle one from the "Leviathan" DLC. The Leviathan artifact in Bryson's office is labeled "Artifact P3X118" in one of the data files. In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Foothold", P3X-118 was the planet from whence the Stragoth gated into the SGC and took it over.
• "Rannoch: Geth Fighter Squadrons" has a very TRON-like computer world that Shepard gets uploaded into.
• One of the war assets found by scanning planets is Special Ops Team Zeta, aka the Bridge Burners, a group of engineers specializing in sabotage and legendary for their tenacity and skill. This is most likely a reference to the Bridgeburners from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, a legendary unit of sappers and marines.
• One of the datapads in the Leviathan DLC has a throwaway mention of a transport called the MSV Kirkwall.
• An indoctrinated Hanar ambassador in one of the Citadel side-quests is named Zymandis (soul-name Regards the Works of the Enkindlers In Despair).
  • Furthermore, when Shepard confronts him, he announces that he has already put his evil plan into action.
• In the Leviathan DLC, you can visit a turian planet called Triginta Petra. Triginta Petra is 30 Rock in Latin and Greek.
• Cerberus Assault Troopers are suspiciously similar to Imperial Stormtroopers.
• "Citadel" DLC has quite a few of these.
  • When the mercs walk into the sushi restaurant to attempt to kill Shepard, they proclaim "Good evening ladies and gentlemen" while firing in the air.
  • During a scene while Shepard and Ashley are drinking at a bar, a batarian and a vorcha approach Shepard.
    Batarian: My friend doesn't like Alliance types.
    Ashley: Buddy, we're right in the middle of something.
    Batarian: I don't like Alliance types either.
  • The Shepard/Garrus dance scene, which occurs if Garrus is Shepard's Love interest, plays out somewhat similarly to Barney and Robin's dance from How I Met Your Mother.
  • A salarian can be heard in the arcade talking about 'a more elegant weapon for a civilized age'.
  • In Mordin's message, there is a reference to Perry the Pyjak.
    • From the same message, the opening line of his noir story: "Omega. Sky was color of vid-cam, tuned to dead vorcha".
  • During the "Energetic" version of the party at Shepard's apartment, when Grunt is playing doorman, he turns one group of attempted crashers away with the phrase, "You just lost the fight for your right to party!"
    • Later, while passed out drunk in Shepard's shower, he can be heard talking in his sleep, and one of the things he says is, "Who's a space cowboy? Me!"
    • Also, at some point, he says "I AM THE LAW!"
  • If Traynor is romanced, the conversation about her Robosexual inclination is extended. Joker gets a comment about whether the Commander's spine lights up.
  • When Tali gets drunk in the Quiet party, one of her lines is "No, that gets broken down with mass effect fields. Those are just my hips..." which is a reference to a certain famous quote from Dune about Fremen stillsuits: "Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads."
  • When in the Citadel Archives, one of the displays is said to be an religious artifact from Earth, but it is malfunctioning and can't be viewed. However, if you look at it from a distance, you can get a brief glimpse of the Ark of the Covenant.
  • After the party, EDI tells you about the neighbors who are complaining about the noise and that she throws them in the building's incinerator. Of course, she's just joking.
  • It seems Bioware throws another Easter egg during Shepard's party: in the quiet type, if you suggest mixing drinks, Grunt, Kaidan/Ashley and Samantha will mention the names and recipes of these drinks which are made by fans of the game.
  • Shattered Eezo is Rock Em Sock Em Robots with LOKI Mechs. The name itself is a reference to Shattered Steel, the first video game Bioware ever produced.
  • Traynor and T'Suzsa staring at each other looks like it was taken straight from a Tarantino movie. Imagine the scene accompanied by this music.
  • The scene where Shepard plays wingman for Garrus is quite like the scene in Dragon Age: Origins where the Warden plays wingman for Oghren.
  • One that's very easy to miss. When you go through a cold storage during the sushi bar attack, you see a salarian smoking there. If you stand near him long enough, he says "Look, I only do eyes".
  • After Javik gets hung over, one of the things he says is "Is it time to rule the galaxy now? Kneel Before Javik!"
  • The Paragon option at the end of Citadel is similar to the ending of The Mummy Returns. It's exactly the same as the novelization.
  • If Ashley is still around when you do the DLC she will reply to Shepard saying things are a little dicey with, "Must be Tuesday." This was a popular line from the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Traynor's asari chess rival's first name is Polgara- that is, she was named after an immortal woman who was extremely skilled at manipulating people for a long-term goal. Perfect name for an asari chess specialist, really.
    • The character is also a military tactical advisor, making it fitting that her name contains an anagram of 'Tzu'.
    • Polgara T'Suzsa may also be named for the chess grandmaster Susan Polgar (whose name is written "Polgár Zsuzsanna" in her native Hungarian).
    • The game plays out almost exactly like a similar game shown in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again, complete with holographic display and the fact players receive an electric shock as punishment for sacrificing pieces on the board.
  • Get off my ship! Apparently Shepard wanted to be Harrison Ford like Sweetwater and Haggard discussed in Battlefield: Bad Company.
  • You infiltrate a casino, looking for someone named Elijah, get betrayed by a new squadmate and end up locked in a vault! Dead Money anyone?
• One of the achievements/Trophies you get, after you earn enough resources to fight the reapers back, is called Master and Commander.
• One of the voice commands supported by the Kinect is saying 'boomstick' to switch to a shotgun.
• Vega's toast, if you buy the grunts a round at the nightclub, based on a toast by Robert Burns: "Here's to us! Who's like us?" "Damn few, and they're all dead!" (A bit obscure, and Vega lampshades it if you don't hit the Active Time Event fast enough. "Sorry, Commander. I thought you knew that one...") It's also a military toast in certain units (Navy SEALs, etc.)
• Talk to Cortez enough and he'll get some of his old fighter pilot buddies to fight for you. They're called "Rogue Fighter Pilots" in the terminal, but they left the Alliance on good terms, so how did they go rogue-ohhhhhhhh...
• During the Cerberus attack on the Citadel there is a shop called Snap, Crackle and Shock visible.
• The final multiplayer DLC pack features a big krogan with a hammer he can charge with electricity, an agile female that performs martial arts attacks and flips to dodge, an archer with specialized arrow powers including exploding arrows, and a fellow who can fling a rather large energy blast. Sound familiar?
  • Also the DLC pack that gave players the option to play as N7 operatives during multiplayer includes a shot in its trailer where each of the N7 classes stand in a circle and ready themselves to fight surrounding enemies in a very clear shout out to The Avengers.
• One almost expects Aria to add Peace Through Power in the end of her speech in Omega.
• The premise of the Crucible storyline closely mirrors the plot of Contact. Both involve humanity pooling its resources into a massive engineering project based on designs obtained from mysterious aliens, even though they have only a vague idea of its final purpose.
• Fight like a Krogan! by Miracle of Sound.
• During the memorial for Thane, Joker comments that he could "kill us all with a ballpoint pen".
• Admiral Hackett comes within inches of quoting The Art of War when he describes his strategy as "avoid the Reapers where they're strong, hit them where they're not" - advice that's repeated several times throughout that book.
• Garret Bryson of the "Leviathan" DLC as a whole seems to be a direct shout-out to Agent Mulder of The X-Files fame. Not only does he try to find evidence for things the galaxy doesn't believe in, but he's in it "for the truth". His daughter Ann even quotes the series Arc Words: "the truth is out there".
• A news report reveals that the last name of Aresh (a minor antagonist you encounter during Jack's loyalty mission on Pragia) is Aghdashloo, likely in reference in Shohreh Aghdashloo, who voices Admiral Raan.
• When Kelly Chambers changes her identity her new name references two redheads well known in certain circles, given that her new name is Felicia Hannigan.
• You get the "Bringer of War" achievement for completing a mission on Mars.
• During the Geth Dreadnought mission Tali might exclaim: "Vents! Why is it always vents!". Happily, she has more functions aboard rather than just repeat what computer said.
• Joker's elaborate yarn in the "Citadel" DLC that he spins in an attempt to blag free drinks at the bar sounds like something right out of Robot Chicken.
• If you rescued David Archer in Mass Effect 2 and import the save, he's present at Grissom Academy, and unlocks a security office for you. His description of what's inside: "Guns. Lots of Guns."

Mass Effect: Andromeda

• Browsing around the Tempest's crew quarters reveals two plush dolls; one of a Peashooter, and another of a Zombie Scientist.
• You are offered a pyjak pet near the beginning. The instructions are "no food after 2359, no baths or showers, and please limit his exposure to solar radiation"
• Ryder says "Here there be dragons" in his/her initial conversation with Cora.
• The kett practice of kidnapping people to convert them into more Kett, existing Kett being unable to procreate, converted Kett being a bunch of Super-Soldier extremophiles, and loyally following the Archon, makes them very similar to Master and his Super Mutants with FEV.
• Ryder can find yet another hamster. A space hamster, you might say. Shepard would be proud.
• Ryder gets a bunch of fanmail from other Bioware characters. Among the many notes thanking you for settling Meridian is one from Anders, who writes, "Let's blow the roof off the place!" There's also V. Tethras, who declares he's going to write a book about all this.
  • Just to name a few:
    • Other instances of fanmail include messages from R. Jenny and Widdle(which includes a very...creative sketch) and an Isabela who comments that the Pathfinder can fly her ship any time.
    • A krogan bulletin mentions an actor by the name of Vega Bull Jr.
    • Another is, during a toast, Vetra commenting on the defeated Kett as being "face down, ass up", alluding to a phrase Sera from Dragon Age: Inquisition used to shout when defeating an enemy.
• While driving around Voeld in the Nomad, one squad mate will eventually start griping about how their parts are getting frozen. Ryder tells them to let it go.
• Similarly on Voeld, near an angaran outpost you get a prompt for a mission called "White Death", where you assist a sniper in finding a cloaked target. Only way they could have made this more obvious would have been to name the sniper Simo.
• Liam is practically a walking Shout-Out factory all on his own given his status as The Movie Buff:
  • During Liam's loyalty mission Ryder can try to pass the noise of a fire fight off as a weapons malfunction, say everything is fine, and ask how they are. With an interrupt option to disconnect the line when the other guys answers back. Remind you of another adventure in a galaxy far far away?
  • After landing on Havarl, Liam will send Ryder an email with a 20th-century musical about a man-eating plant attached.
  • After The Remnant City, Liam sends an message with various vids attached, including one about "a 1995 vid about an AI's choice of footwear".
  • Another one of Liam's emails contains various remakes on a vid about "repeating a day over and over again until it's done right".
  • At one point, Liam mentions an asari remake of Seven Samurai.
  • Liam also references Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Nomad banter with Cora and Jaal respectively.
• The krogan "Strongjaw Grog" appears to be named after barbarian Grog Strongjaw from Critical Role.
• The large black hole at the centre of the Heleus cluster resembles Gargantua from Interstellar, though tinted blue instead of gold. Appropriately, that film also dealt with the challenges of exploring and colonizing another galaxy.
• The premise of the game is similar in ways to the Halo games.
  • Remnant Vaults and their robotic guardians bear more than a slight resemblance to the Forerunner installations and their Sentinels. Additionally, the Jardaan (the creators of the Remnant) are an advanced alien race, who created the native forms, having been in a war and disappeared without a trace and leaving only their remnant tech behind? And they have massive space stations with organic environments housed within (including forests) that the local Scary Dogmatic Aliens want access to? Creating the native forms aside, that sounds a lot like the Forerunners.
  • The Kett are a multi-species empire of Scary Dogmatic Aliens. They also have imagery and titles ripped from real-life religions, are led by a group of officials, and have an interest in the ancient technology left behind by a Precursor race. Also, they're wildly disorganized with rogue military commanders and governors being able to do effectively anything they want despite ostensibly following a central authority. Aside from the differences regarding their interspecies Assimilation Plot method of reproduction and their worship of said assimilation rather than the Precursors or their technology, they sound quite similar to the Covenant Empire. Unlike the other factions, they even use plasma guns in both their small arms and their ships, like the Covenant.
• Also regarding the kett, they are Scary Dogmatic Aliens genetically and mentally conditioned to feel nothing but seething contempt for non-kett life unless they have desirable biological traits which the kett can incorporate that leads to them being turned into kett , fanatical obedience to the kett race, a Master Race mentality, Low Culture, High Tech and a callous treatment of those who are no longer useful (the latter three paralleling the Nazis), which make the kett similar to the Daleks.
  • While the kett could also be compared to the Cybermen, given their Assimilation Plot, the kett have emotions and a degree of individuality which the Cybermen lack. Also, the Daleks have occasionally turned other races into Daleks.
• Havarl is a world covered in bioluminescent jungles and lethal predators. It's also a moon that orbits an enormous gas giant and happens to be the birthplace of a species of tall blue-skinned aliens. Sound familiar?
• Several to The Force Awakens:
  • The way the Remnant ship sticks out of the sand dunes of Elaaden bears a striking resemblance to another ship, on another desert planet, in another galaxy.
  • If Drack is present on the mission to retrieve the Remnant drive core, when it looks like scavengers have made off with it, he'll growl "scavenger scum".
  • Apparently there's a Blasto vid called The Biotic Awakens.
• While scanning for kett signals for clues about civil war within the kett forces, scanning one of the relays has SAM note that the relay is broadcasting a series of beeps and tones, which, when translated to Morse code, inadvertently spells "Droogie, don't crash here".
• After the Tempest movie night, Lexi will send Ryder an email with suggestions for future events, including for an extranet series called ''Blue's Anatomy''.
• The first tier Maverick armor looks uncannily similar to the pilot suits from Armored Trooper VOTOMS.
• The message Liara made for Ryder in the game is very similar to the message Ripley left in the ending of Alien, ending with "This is [insert character and ship name here] signing off".
• There's an NPC on Kadara named Aislin. Since Andromeda was made by Bioware Montreal, it's likely she's named after the notorious local political cartoonist.
• The opening to the game is suspiciously similar to the first episode of Stargate Atlantis, in that the protagonists arrive at their extra-galactic destination, immediately running into a problem (The Scourge for Andromeda, the city rapidly running out of power for Atlantis), so the expedition's security forces go to a nearby planet where they encounter a race of Scary Dogmatic Aliens who kidnap people for their own nefarious purposes (the Kett and the Wraith), and during the expedition the head of security is killed. After this encounter, the expedition gets back on track thanks to technology left behind by a race of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens.
• The first identified human biotic is designated as Subject White, in reference to Carrie White. Most likely doubles as an in-universe Shout-Out.

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