History Characters / MassEffectRaceTropesCitadelCouncil

* BadassArmy: All asari troops have powerful biotic powers, decades of training/experience, and, thanks to their powerful economy, access to the best non-experimental gear that money can buy.

** In-universe, Citadel Space holds the opinion that simple [=VIs=] can provide everything an AI can without the risk of rebellion. As a result, the creation of advanced [=AIs=] is generally outlawed, and the Citadel governments shut down all their "true" [=AIs=] 300 years ago, non-coincidentally around the time of the Geth War.
** However, note that this policy is only internal and they're willing to peacefully coexist with external polities composed of [=AIs=]. [[https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Cerberus_Daily_News_-_August_2010#08.2F11.2F2010_-_Alien_AI-Controlled_Ship_Makes_Contact_in_Salarian_Space The only time they've discovered a truly alien AI]], they made peaceful first contact with it and set up trade despite having the ability to easily destroy it (though there were still tensions).

* WitchSpecies: All asari are natural biotics, and as revealed in 3 [[spoiler:this was deliberately engineered by the Protheans, or at least enhanced, since the planet itself was infused with eezo]].

* WeakButSkilled: Humanity's hat. As newcomers to the galactic stage, the Systems Alliance has neither the sheer numbers and power of the Turians, nor the elite troops and intelligence capabilities of the Asari and Salarians. The reason they're still taken seriously, in spite of these factors, is that humanity's penchanat for getting incredible results from minimal investment has caught the notice of every race in Citadel space, for better or for worse. Militarily, the Systems Alliance represents a formidable naval power despite Humanity's status as newcomers, and inferior sized and power versus the other races. Economically, human-run corporations have been responsible for some incredible advances in their short time on the galactic stage. The reason the Citadel tolerates Humanity's excesses is not because they're afraid of what they are now - it's because they're both afraid and respectful of what Humanity could be to the galactic community given time to grow. ''Literature/MassEffectRevelations'' drives this home - the only reason the Citadel doesn't relegate the Alliance to Batarian Hegemony status is Ambassador Goyle convincing them that it's in the best interests of ''everyone'' involved to give Humanity time to grow and compensate for their mistakes.

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: Discussed. Individually, the Systems Alliance is not yet even close to matching the military or economic prowess of any of the individual Citadel races, let alone the political bloc they represent. What the rest of the galaxy fears is humanity's military and economic ''potential'', not their present might. Despite the fact that something to the tune of 3% of humanity's total population serves in the military, the Systems Alliance was still able to give the Turians a decent fight during the First Contact War. Ironically, this is also a big part of why humanity wasn't given the same treatment as the Batarian Hegemony was. Humanity's potential contributions to galactic society are too great to ignore - but that doesn't mean the Citadel ''couldn't'' ignore them if they wanted to. It's also a strong part of what endeared Humanity and the Turians to one another after the First Contact War - the two species have '''much''' more in common with each other than they do with any of the other Citadel races.

* HumansAreWarriors: Human military tactics are considered rather unpredictable by the standards of the other races. Pound-for-pound, humans rival the batarians in capability (if not numbers), but lack the sheer brute force of the krogan, the discipline and power of the turian navy, the skill of the asari, or the savvy of the salarians. However, humans are unmatched in maneuverability, flexibility, VI and drone support, and individual initiative. Human tactics are focused around [[AttackItsWeakPoint striking high-priority targets and supply lines]] rather than [[VictoryByEndurance wars of attrition]]. In short, humans are well-known for achieving more with less. They even introduced the idea of Carrier-class starships to the galaxy.

* AlienBlood: Blue.

* HumansAreWarriors: Human military tactics are considered rather unpredictable by the standards of the other races. Pound-for-pound, humans rival the batarians in capability (if not numbers), but lack the sheer brute force of the krogan, the discipline and power of the turian navy, the skill of the asari, or the savvy of the salarians. However, humans are unmatched in maneuverability, flexibility, VI and drone support, and individual initiative. Human tactics are focused around [[AttackItsWeakPoint striking high-priority targets and supply lines]] rather than [[VictoryByEndurance wars of attrition]]. In short, humans are well-known for achieving more with less.

* WorthyOpponent: What they (grudgingly) consider the humans. The First Contact War (which they refer to as [[ButForMeItWasTuesday the Relay 314 Incident]]) gained the respect of the turians due to the resourcefulness and unconventional tactics of humanity. This has become FriendlyEnemy with some TeethClenchedTeamwork by the time of VideoGame/MassEffect1, and by VideoGame/MassEffect3 the two races are basically VitriolicBestBuds.
* WrittenByTheWinners: The impression the player is given with the Korgan Rebellions in the first game was that the Genophage was a ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill to force them into submission. It's not until the third game from Adrien Victus that you learn that the war was effectively a CurbstompBattle in the Krogan's favor, and the Turian homeworld was almost destroyed had it not been for the Salarians developing the Genophage to steralize them.

* HumansAreLeaders: Played with. Every human figure who faces the galaxy has had a pretty substantial impact, for better or for worse.

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: [[UnreliableExpositor The Systems Alliance codex]] claims that other races are quietly terrified that this might happen, given that the humans were able to gain the full attention of the turians, having never fought them before, with such a small percentage of humanity's population in the military. The games downplay this. Other Council races tend to treat Humanity with suspicion and disdain, while species such as the Volus and Elcor who have been waiting ''much'' longer treat them with jealously. None of this alters the fact that what the rest of the galaxy fears is humanity's military ''potential'', not their present military might. This is further shown by Moridin's data on what would happen if the Krogan Rebellions happened today - it would be firmly shut down.. and not just by the Turians, like last time - ''Humanity'' would also be a key factor, and between them and the Turians, the Krogan would likely be rendered ''extinct''.

* EntitledBastard: How most alien species see them. Almost immediately after joining the galactic community humanity instantly started ''demanding'' a seat on the Council in spite of other, stronger and more established species having to wait centuries for the same honor. It doesn't help that [[AssInAmbassador most humans aren't exactly polite about it]].

'''Pallin:''' [[ShutUpKirk Good. Then fight for it]], [[EarnYourHappyEnding but don't expect the rest of us to just sit back and let you take it]].

* HumansAreLeaders: [[CulturalPosturing This is how they see themselves, at least]]. It's embodied by [[AssInAmbassador Ambassador Udina]] and the [[KnightTemplar Illusive Man]] in the negative sense, and [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Admiral Hackett and David Anderson]] in the positive sense, while Commander Shepard can fall anywhere between them on the scale. Hackett's actions in the third game do a lot to solidify this trope in the eyes of other Council races. Where other militaries only fight a local war against the Reapers in their planets and their systems alone, Hackett comes up with a truly galactic strategy and coordinates anti-Reaper operations in all theatres. He is the first and only one to figure out that conventional victory is impossible, and adapts an effective sea denial strategy until the Crucible is ready. The only other strategic decision of value - drawing in the krogan - was made in support of the humans' overall strategy.

* UnreliableExpositor: The codex the player reads is stated to be an in-universe document written by the Systems Alliance as a general primer for their personnel. While it's generally reliable on tech details and such, it falls headfirst into CulturalPosturing whenever discussing humanity's [[SmallNameBigEgo importance]] compared to the other species. Case in point, it claims that humanity is a "sleeping giant" in the exact same entry where it notes both that humanity is tiny compared to the biggest powers and that humanity is rapidly growing and ambitious (in other words, the exact ''opposite'' of "sleeping"), without a hint of irony or self-awareness as to the contradiction. It also claims Earth is an inspiration to even alien cultures, when every alien character who mentions Earth [[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet has a neutral at-best or condescending at-worst view of it]], since unlike other Citadel Space worlds it's still largely underdeveloped. There's also a lot of rank FantasticRacism present in the codex, such as when it claims that "humans know better than to unconditionally trust any salarian" or that turian troops "lack the virtuosity of humans", claims that are actively contradicted many times over the course of the games.

* VitriolicBestBuds: With the turians. There might be tension, but these two societies have more in common with each other than with the salarians or the asari. They even co-designed the ''Normandy''. When the Reapers hit, the turians are the first of any species to offer military aid to humanity, with the turian councilor even helping Shepherd [[CuttingTheKnot sidestep the Citadel Council's authority to do so]].
* WeAreAsMayflies: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zigzagged]]. Humans in this setting are lucky to break one century, but can reasonably live for as long as a hundred and fifty years. The trope is played straight in comparison to asari and krogan, who both live to be over 1,000 years, or synthetic races like geth, Collectors, and Reapers, who are immortal. It's averted with other species, who have similar lifespans, and with the salarians, whose fast metabolisms gives them maximum lifespans of just 40 years. Even worse are the vorcha, who can count themselves lucky to see 20.
* WildCard: Given the relative newness of humanity on the galactic stage, most races aren't really sure how to predict human behavior. Samara states that humans are more individualist than any species she's met.

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: [[UnreliableExpositor The Systems Alliance codex]] claims that other races are quietly terrified that this might happen, given that the humans were able to gain the full attention of the turians, having never fought them before, with such a small percentage of humanity's population in the military. This is never actually validated within the games, where humanity's behavior is the exact opposite of "sleeping." If anything most character seem to characterize humanity as a small yapping dog stepping beyond its place.
** Explored in the book ''Literature/MassEffectRevelation''. When an illegal Alliance operation is uncovered, the Citadel Council prepares to sanction humanity back into the Stone Age. Realizing that this would doom humankind to a fate much like the quarians or the krogan (the entire species reduced to a punchline and unable to do anything significant in Citadel Space for hundreds--if not thousands of years), Ambassador Goyle implies that if the Council does this, the Systems Alliance will declare war on all Citadel Space, while internally reasoning that the Council are "scared" of humanity, even if she also acknowledges that humanity could never win such a war. In fact, the Council is completely unintimidated by the threat, and she's only able to get them to loosen the sanctions by discussing how much better it'd be for the galactic economy and security if humanity stayed integrated rather than becoming another Batarian Hegemony. Even then, she internally notes the need to avoid offending them (say, by arguing there should be no sanctions or penalties at all), because if they get annoyed enough they could just as easily decide to go back to the original plan of economically smashing humanity into the dirt, consequences be damned.
** This was also something humans were doing in ignorance during the First Contact War. They fought the turian forces deployed to Shanxi to a standstill and were gaining ground. However, the turian military was orders of magnitude bigger than humanity's (not that humans knew that at the time), which had a mere 200 modern space warships at the time, and were preparing to route considerable reinforcements to the Shanxi theater when the Citadel Council intervened and prevented the war from escalating. A recording of two turian soldiers interrogating a human POW from the Citadel Archives even suggests that they may have been considering mounting an invasion of Earth before the ceasefire was called.
* BadassArmy: The Alliance military is very small, both on the ground and in space, compared to the other Council races, but an emphasis on maneuver warfare, flexibility, and innovative tactics and technology enable them to match larger and more established militaries, like the Batarian Hegemony.

* HumansAreSpecial: Played straight early on, [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] later. In the context of the series, humanity did gain political power rather quick, but that's mostly due to [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]] being Shepard. Unfortunately, this trope leads the reapers to earmark humanity as the cycle's "dominant" species, which will be harvested to build a new capital-class reaper ship (all the rest will be mere destroyer-class reapers). This decision may have been influenced by [[WorthyOpponent Shepard destroying Sovereign]] in the first game, and it is implied the turians (through Saren) were the reapers' original choice.

* ColonyDrop: The turians frequently employ this tactic as a solution to deal with ground-forces, notably seen in the First Contact War and casually suggested by Garrus to take out the enemy geth on Rannoch, much to Tali's horror.

** EveryoneHasStandards: However, the Citadel archives show that even the turian military didn't want to deploy the genophage, with a GeneralRipper basically overriding them and the salarians and pressing the BigRedButton himself.

* ExoticEquipment: They are renowned for being able to mate (and produce viable offspring) with either gender of any species in existence, due to the unusual nature of their nervous system and reproductive methodology. This does not, however, address the messy issue of where parts... go. However, the fact that asari give birth (Atheyta says she didn't "pop [[spoiler:Liara]] out.") implies that asari have an orifice analogous to a vagina (especially since love scenes between [[spoiler: Liara and, in Andromeda, Peebee]] reveal that asari anatomy is similar to human women to the point that they have nipples). The "Lair of the Shadow Broker" DLC for the second game implies that they have some kind of lower-body erogenous zone colloquially referred to as "azure".
** ''Andromeda'' makes it clear that they can have and enjoy sex without melding through Peebee's romance arc.
* ExperimentedInCollege: PlayedWith. Though same-sex relationships are not frowned upon in asari culture (because they see gender as meaningless) same-species couples between asari are a huge taboo. That said, it's common for asari commandos to form sexual relationships during deployment, and it's seen as a natural part of them "figuring things out".
** Of note here is that have romantic relationships with other Asari is not seen as a taboo so much as having children with other Asari.

* IfItsYouItsOkay: They are the "you" to many people of many species. No matter what your species is, if you're attracted to women, odds are you're attracted to asari. They can even get ''[[{{Asexuality}} salarians]]'' in the mood.

* {{Asexuality}}: Most of them are asexual, except in regards to the asari. As for how a species can survive despite being mostly asexual, it's because they're a haploid species. Unfertilized eggs laid by their dalatrasses (read: family matriarchs) are born as males. Fertilized eggs are born as females. Siring them is dealt with in a business/political agreement fashion ("Reproduction Negotiations"). As such, the majority of the population are males.

* GenderRarityValue: Females are rare, influential, and extremely well-protected, due to the reasons listed under {{Asexuality}}. You will never see a salarian female in a combat role unless things are ''very'' dire.

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: They're the most militaristic Council race by far, but they place heavy emphasis on discipline, so it's more accurate to call turians a Proud ''Soldier'' Race. It offers a {{Deconstruction}} of the trope as well: the much more proud, physically dangerous and violent krogan were defeated by the much-better organized, no-nonsense turians. It also provides an extra nuance to the issue of the genophage: if it wasn't deployed, the turians would've had to commit genocide. Their national anthem, fittingly enough, is entitled "''Die For The Cause''".

* RepressiveButEfficient: As an authoritarian and meritocracy-driven society, Turians are expected to stay the course and not oppose their doctrines. Garrus will even snark that his tendencies make him a "bad Turian" due to his propensity to question authority.

* NotSoDifferent: Fought a war with humanity when the two species first met and were the most anti-human of the three council races, but compare the stories of how the two races got their council seats. Despite the difference in [[MirrorChemistry biochemistry]], humans and turians have more similar lifespans, gender dynamics, and social structures with each other than with the other two Council races, the salarians and asari.

* NotSoDifferent: The basis of salarian civilization; males compete for the right to sire progeny on females, and females barter breeding rights as the source of their authority. Doesn't that sound ''just like post-genophage krogan?'' Salarians are also just as much {{Explosive Breeder}}s as the krogan were before being infected with the genophage. However they aren't nearly as hard to kill as the krogan and have much shorter lifespans.

* TeethClenchedTeamwork: With the turians. The war between the humans and turians are still fresh in both races' minds so it makes collaboration filled with tension. By ''3'', it's strongly hinted that humans and turians are NotSoDifferent and on the way to becoming BashBrothers.

* BirdPeople: A less obvious example than usual, but they were modelled after birds of prey, and indeed do have some raptor-esque traits.

* HumanityIsSuperior: Averted early in the series, discussed in the middle, then thoroughly subverted at the end. Starting out, humanity is a minor power who is weaker than most other established species. After the first game, humanity becomes a lot more involved in interstellar politics. However, after Earth is attacked, humanity desperately has to seek allies from the other species, with most of the final war assets coming from those species.

** Speaking of sleazy politicians, "barefaced" is frequently invoked by turians to [[AcceptiblePoliticalTargets mock politicans in general]] -- The reason is that successful politicians can't align themselves with the interests of any single group.

** They were also frequently the victims of this during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan had a habit of smashing asteroids into turian planets. [[TheDeterminator It just made the turians angry.]]

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: They're about halfway between space Prussians and space Romans with some Confucianism thrown in for flavor. Literally in this last case - since making peace with the humans, a small but growing number of turians have taken up Confucianism. That said, their religion, while Shinto-esque, parallels Christianity enough that heaven, hell, and saints, amongst other things, are used as translations of their faith's equivalent concepts.

* {{Foil}}: Turians are contrasted against humans more than any other race, especially due to their history with the First Contact War. It's considered ''incredibly unfortunate'' that the [[HumorlessAliens turians]], of all species, were the ones that made first contact with humankind, because the turians are so disciplined and rigid about laws that they opened fire on human ships without even ''attempting'' to communicate, and when things escalated to warfare, they defaulted to tactics that humans consider ''war crimes''. After the war, turians now look at humans as upstart punks with a baby military who won't learn their place and constantly whine to the Council, while humans view turians as glorified Space Fascists. Things finally cool down throughout the series as humans prove themselves an asset to Council Space, and turians show that they are just as earnest about ''defending'' humans and other species from other threats as they are fighting them. By the end of the original trilogy, the two can be considered VitriolicBestBuds.
* FourStarBadass: ''Many'' examples. The Cerberus Daily News brought turian General Partinax to the fore, who dueled Facinus leader Kihilix Tanus. His record is surviving seven duels, 5 to first blood and 2 to the death. The codex also references Admiral Coronati, who managed to defeat the ''Reapers'' in a fight above Palaven using relatively primitive dreadnoughts by using the Reapers' massive size against them.
-->'''Codex:''' Knowing that the Reapers' weapons had a longer effective range than any of his own, Coronati made a short, daring FTL jump--landing his dreadnoughts in the middle of the Reaper fleet. The dreadnoughts then turned to line up their main guns on the Reapers, which also needed to turn to fire on the turians. This ploy used the Reapers' size against them--because they could turn faster, and their concentrated firepower downed several Reaper capital ships.

---> ''"[[LightbulbJoke How many humans does it take to activate a Mass Relay?]]"''

* TheNeedsOfTheMany: Turian philosophy is entirely based around this. The turian species as a whole always comes before the turian individual. "Squad before self" is how Tiran Kandros puts it in ''Andromeda''. According the codex this is so engrained into their society that the name of the in-universe musical anthem for Turian race is "Die For the Cause"
* NobleBirdOfPrey: Designed after [[BirdPeople eagles]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3oypQkMsFE actually]], and definately very lawful, though not necessarily good.

* TribalFacepaint: The markings on turian faces are worn to signify the home colony that s/he is descended from, a tradition that began in the aftermath of the [[CivilWar Unification War]], when several colonial chieftains decided to break away from the Hierarchy to wage a particularly bloody war between themselves, shortly after their race ventured into space. While the Hierarchy restored the peace, many turians chose to adorn themselves with their colonial markings out of nationalistic pride. On a more lighthearted note, the term "barefaced" has entered turian vernacular to mean someone who is untrustworthy. As such, it's typically used to refer to ''[[AcceptableTargets politicians]]''. Two of the three barefaced turians met in the first two games are straight-up villainous (Saren Arterius in 1 and Warden Kuril in 2). The third is a sleazy politician. However, the reason is that politicians can't align themselves with any clan, and have to represent everyone.

* TheUnchosenOne: To the Protheans. They evaluated all of the "primitive" species in their cycle and determined that the [[spoiler: asari]] were the next cycle's best hope to stop the Reapers. Cue Javik's surprise when awakens to find that the Reapers are most interested in humanity -- in that a human, Shepard, is the galaxy's best chance of stopping them -- but even then it's hinted that humanity wasn't their original choice for ascension.

* UnreliableExpositor: The codex the player reads is stated to be an in-universe document written by the Systems Alliance as a general primer for their personnel. While it's generally reliable on tech details and such, it falls headfirst into CulturalPosturing whenever discussing humanity's [[SmallNameBigEgo importance]] compared to the other species. Case in point, it claims that humanity is a "sleeping giant" in the exact same entry where it notes both that humanity is tiny compared to the biggest powers and that humanity is rapidly growing and ambitious (in other words, the exact ''opposite'' of "sleeping"), without a hint of irony or self-awareness as to the contradiction. It also claims Earth is an inspiration to even alien cultures, when every alien character who mentions Earth [[InsignificantLittleBluePlant has a neutral at-best or condescending at-worst view of it]], since unlike other Citadel Space worlds it's still largely underdeveloped. There's also a lot of rank FantasticRacism present in the codex, such as when it claims that "humans know better than to unconditionally trust any salarian" or that turian troops "lack the virtuosity of humans", claims that are actively contradicted many times over the course of the games.

* HumansAreLeaders: This is how they see ''themselves'', anyway. And it's embodied by [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Ambassador Udina]] and the [[KnightTemplar Illusive Man]] in the negative sense, and [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Admiral Hackett and David Anderson]] in the positive sense, and Commander Shepard can fall anywhere between them on the scale. Hackett's actions in the third game do a lot to solidify this trope in the eyes of other Council races. Where other militaries only fight a local war against the Reapers in their planets and their systems alone, Hackett comes up with a truly galactic strategy and coordinates anti-Reaper operations in all theatres. He is the first and only one to figure out that conventional victory is impossible, and adapts an effective sea denial strategy until the Crucible is ready. The only other strategic decision of value - drawing in the krogan - was made in support of the humans' overall strategy.
** Humans were also the ones who conceptualized, planned and for the most part carried out the Andromeda colonization Initiative. Jien Garson was the visionary, Alec Ryder wrote the book on being a Pathfinder, and most of your outposts there have human mayors. Even Kadara Port is under the stewardship of a human.
* HumansAreSpecial: Played straight early on, [[DeconstructedTrope deconstructed]] later. In the context of the series, humanity did gain political power rather quick, but that's mostly due to [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]] being Shepard. The Reapers agree, seeing humanity as the one species worthy of ascension into capital ship form. This decision may have been influenced by [[WorthyOpponent Shepard destroying Sovereign]] in the first game.

-->'''Chris:''' The power vacuum at the end of Mass Effect 1 is purely at the Citadel. The Council defense fleet there gets pasted, but the overall turian, salarian, and asari fleets outnumber the humans 10:1. '''Despite rah-rah-Earth-First rhetoric from Udina, it's utterly impossible for the Alliance to militarily best the Council on anything more than a local and temporary scale.''' All they have to do is gather their fleets and steamroll us. '''Also, we have a dozen colonies, none with a population larger than a modern city (Terra Nova, the largest at 4.4 million, is about equal to Riyadh). The Council races each have hundreds of colonies, many old enough to have populations in the billions.''' We can't out-produce or out-populate them, either.

* StandardHumanSpaceship: While in effect, at first glance something about the jagged flatness of human ships seems alien to our history of spaceflight. Seeing how turian ships share these traits despite their use of SpacePlane like designs while human ones keep the tradition of linear ships going, it's clear humanity took a lot of cues from their first contact species. The Normandy, a much newer ship and ironically a turian cooped design, seems to flex a more obviously human style with its superfluous aerodynamic curves and more cylindrical fuselage making it look quite like a passenger jet.

* TheUnchosenOne: To the Protheans. They evaluated all of the "primitive" species in their cycle and determined that the [[spoiler: asari]] were the next cycle's best hope to stop the Reapers. Cue Javik's surprise when awakens to find that the Reapers are most interested in humanity and that a human, Shepard, is the galaxy's best chance of stopping them.

* UnreliableExpositor: The codex the player reads is stated to be an in-universe document written by the Systems Alliance as a general primer for their personnel. While it's generally reliable on tech details and such, it falls headfirst into this trope whenever discussing humanity's importance compared to the other species. Case in point, it claims that humanity is a "sleeping giant" in the exact same entry where it notes both that humanity is tiny compared to the biggest powers and that humanity is rapidly growing and ambitious (in other words, the exact ''opposite'' of "sleeping"), without a hint of irony or self-awareness as to the contradiction. It also claims Earth is an inspiration to even alien cultures, when every alien character who mentions Earth has an at best neutral and at worst condescending view of it, since unlike other Citadel Space worlds it's still largely underdeveloped. There's also a lot of rank FantasticRacism present in the codex, such as when it claims that "humans know better than to unconditionally trust any salarian" or that turian troops "lack the virtuosity of humans", claims that are actively contradicted many times over the course of the games.

* VitriolicBestBuds: With the turians. There might be tension, but these two societies have more in common with each other than with the salarians or the asari. They even co-designed the ''Normandy'' with the turians. And when the Reapers hit, the turians are the first of any species to offer military aid to humanity.
* WeAreAsMayflies: Humans in this setting are lucky to break one century, but can reasonably live for as long as a hundred and fifty years. The trope is played straight with asari and krogan, who both live to be over 1,000 years, or synthetic races like geth, Collectors, and Reapers, who are immortal. It's averted with most other species, who have similar lifespans, and with the salarians, whose fast metabolisms gives them maximum lifespans of just 40 years. Even worse are the vorcha, who can count themselves lucky to see 20.

* {{Foil}}: Turians are contrasted against humans more than any other race, especially due to their history with the First Contact War. It's considered ''incredibly unfortunate'' that the [[HumorlessAliens turians]], of all species, were the ones that made first contact with humankind, because the turians are so disciplined and rigid about laws that they opened fire on human ships without even ''attempting'' to communicate, and when things escalated to warfare, they defaulted to tactics that humans consider ''war crimes''. After the war, turians now look at humans as upstart punks with a baby military who won't learn their place and constantly whine to the Council, while humans view turians as glorified Space Fascists. Things finally cool down throughout the series as humans prove themselves an asset to Council Space, and turians show that they are just as earnest about ''defending'' humans and other species from other threats as they are fighting them. By the series's end, the two can be considered VitriolicBestBuds.

* {{Foil}}: Turians are contrasted against humans more than any other race, especially due to their history with the First Contact War. It's considered ''incredibly unfortunate'' that the [[HumorlessAliens turians]], of all species, were the ones that made first contact with humankind, because the turians are so disciplined and rigid about laws that they opened fire on human ships without even ''attempting'' to communicate, and when things escalated to warfare, they defaulted to tactics that humans consider ''war crimes''. After the war, turians now look at humans as upstart punks with a baby military who won't learn their place and constantly whine to the Council, while humans view turians as glorified Space Fascists. Thigns finally cool down throughout the series as humans prove themselves an asset to Council Space, and turians show that they are just as earnest about ''defending'' humans and other species from other threats as they are fighting them. By the series's end, the two can be considered VitriolicBestBuds.

* {{Foil}}: Turians are contrasted against humans more than any other race, especially due to their history with the First Contact War. It's considered ''incredibly unfortunate'' that the [[HumorlessAliens turians]], of all species, were the ones that made first contact with humankind, because the turians are so disciplined and rigid about laws that they opened fire on human ships without even ''attempting'' to communicate, and when things escalated to warfare, they defaulted to tactics that humans consider ''war crimes''. After the war, turians now look at humans are upstart punks who won't learn their place and constantly whine to the Council, while humans view turians as glorified Space Fascists. Thigns finally cool down throughout the series as humans prove themselves an asset to Council Space, and turians show that they are just as earnest about ''defending'' humans and other species from other threats as they are fighting them. By the series's end, the two can be considered VitriolicBestBuds.