Mass Effect Planet Of Hats Cleanup

Planet of Hats has this massive mess listed for Mass Effect:

• Mass Effect
  • Throughout the entire series, this trope is played to varying levels of straight, aversion and subversion. It is made very clear from the start that while each alien race does have its own unique, defining aspects, there are outliers to every species.
  • Lampshaded in Mass Effect. Kaidan comments that Warrior Poet Wrex isn't exactly what he was expecting from a krogan, to which Wrex dryly replies, "Because humans are all different, but every krogan is exactly alike." Kaidan hastily shuts up.
  • Wrex has a response for Garrus when he confronts Wrex with the same observation: 'I suppose it was easier to unleash a genocide virus on the krogan when you thought we were all mindless monsters, turian.' Of course, Garrus was just a detective in C-Sec before signing on with Shepard, so insinuating that he's at all responsible for the genophage (because he's a turian, and turians wronged krogans, so obviously...) is a mite hypocritical of Wrex. Or precisely his point.
  • According to aliens, humanity's hat is that they're a bit of a loose cannon. Also, we seem to be evolving towards a monoculture with minimal racial differences due to globalization - we just haven't gotten quite as far as the other races, yet. The batarians also see humans as the Jerkass (and vice versa), mostly due to competition over colonizing the same region of space.
    • As the story progresses, it is slowly becoming revealed that Humanity's "hat" is The Determinator. They use their ingenuity to adapt to meet whatever kind of challenge is thrown at them. Use a binding treaty to restrict the number of Dreadnoughts (essentially a ship built around a BFG) that they can utilize? They invent a new class of ship that is not bound by this restriction, yet can stand toe to toe against such ships (a reference to the US's circumventing the Washington Naval Treaty limiting the construction of battleships by developing aircraft carriers instead). Reaper invasion looming on the horizon? Humans were the only race that even thought of the idea of destroying a Mass Relay (pretty much everyone else basically assumed it would be impossible). The Illusive Man resurrected Shepard primarily because Shepard was "more than just a soldier". Shepard had become the best traits of humanity distilled into one person; whether Shepard was more on the Jerkass side of things or not, Shepard definitely embodies The Determinator, and thus was worth the extreme financial and technological investment to preserve.
  • One of the defining traits of the quarians is having a hard time shaking their hats: being basically space gypsies with a criminal streak. Unfortunately for most well-meaning members of the species, two populations tend to make it stick: quarian criminals (who seem disproportionately common to other races because they get exiled from the flotilla) and over-zealous pilgrims (who don't care where they get useful technology from, so long as they can get done and get back home).
  • There's a lot of subversion of this trope in the franchise too. One of the main features of Mass Effect was that although each race has a hat, the hats also tend to come off a lot. Turians are presented as militaristic and disciplined, yet you encounter drunken turian soldiers, scientists, janitors and shopkeepers (one of whom is part of a Running Gag involving a human trying to return a purchase to his store), as well as scummy criminals. Asari are presented as mediators and negotiators, yet we encounter asari commandos, strippers, pirates, slavers, and Machiavellian diplomats trying to manipulate Shepard to their own ends. Salarians are presented as spies and scientists, but we encounter salarian corporate officers, shopkeepers, mercenaries, video game designers, and a group of impressively disciplined commandos. Krogans are supposed to be largely brainless brutes who dream of fighting in a massive horde yet we've encountered a mad scientist, medical doctors, a researcher ^note Amusingly, he actually wore the krogan hat proudly. Apparently he had to kill the previous head researcher to gain the position, a mechanic, an engineer, and a love-stricken poet.
    • Some individuals will actually subvert their race's hat to their own ends. One krogan businessman on Illium was extremely polite and well-spoken, but used his status as a krogan for pure intimidation factor, an important asset on a world such as Illium. A "series of polite calls", indeed. Dr. Mordin Solus in the second game explains to Shepard that because most people assume salarians are physically weak scientist types as opposed to turians and krogans who are specifically known for their military prowess, his enemies never see him coming. It doesn't hurt that he's ex-Special Tasks Group.
    • The krogan are actually a subversion, at least the "brainless" part. It's purely an Informed Attribute: every krogan we see is at least as intelligent as a human, often more so. One may be tempted to think that the krogan mooks you kill en masse would be stupid given the lack of contradictory evidence (unlike the aforementioned engineers, scientists, and doctors), but there's really no reason to; they don't really act any different than the other species' mooks in the same contexts. Heck, at one point on Tuchanka you hear a conversation between two krogan soldiers where one mentions that he got a full-ride scholarship to a prestigious university in Citadel Space, where he plans to study biology. They don't talk like idiots either, rather having normal vocabulary and diction (contrast the vorcha). Many a player has characterized the average krogan as dumb mostly because other characters said so or because they look like Dumb Muscle, ironically putting them in the same position as the in-universe characters.
  • Not to mention the elcor, whose hat is that they speak in monotone but communicate using a lot of very subtle body language that most others can't interpret (or see). As such, their Translator Microbes account for this, establishing their tone ahead of time. Eventually you run into an elcor who has found a way around this:
  Asari: Wait. Did you hack your translator so you could control your kinetic language processing?
  Elcor: With a sincerity such that skepticism would be deeply insulting: no.
  • Mass Effect 2 suggests humanity's hat is more likely to be discarded than other species. Mordin observes that most species tend to fit certain expectations—similar intelligence, biotic ability, behavior, what have you. While there are outliers in all species (geniuses and morons) humans tend to have more outliers than not.
    • Humans are seen as violent upstarts - some backstory material mentions that, although each race had internal wars, what the humans did to each other was regarded as especially hideous (even when compared to the krogan). Also, humans are rapacious colonists and breeders.
    • The most common view is that if humans have a hat, it's hyper-ambition and pragmatism. We're also master of diplomacy, as in actual diplomacy: we're very good at manipulating others and lying through our teeth. After all, we became a Council race within a few years of getting FTL technology when other races have been trying for centuries to get a Council seat, and depending on actions you take in the first game, we can kill the rest of the Council off and leave humanity unopposed. Whether our hat is presented as a good thing or bad thing depends on whether the player goes Paragon (takes a sympathetic and idealistic view of aliens but generally holds that Humans are Leaders) or Renegade (takes a rather ruthless "humans come first" approach).
  • The games even subvert this for species with only one representative. The second game's DLC introduces the yahg, who Liara classifies as a primitive race of hulking brutes who are limited to their home world because they slaughtered the First Contact team sent to establish terms with them. The yahg we meet is the freaking Shadow Broker.

I'd like some help sorting through this ball of natter and improper example indentation, and putting it into a more concise form.

What I'm thinking is to sort it all into one entry for the franchise. Possibly each of the major races could have its own sub-bullet that talks about their hat, and the ways that the games subvert it. And at most just ONE bullet per race, as opposed to the several hundred thousand sub-bullets humans have here...

Edited by Mimic1990 on Feb 1st 2021 at 3:03:07 AM

So this is what I've worked out so far.

• The Mass Effect franchise has a love of subverting this. while each race does have a hat, the hats come off a lot.
  • The krogan are the Proud Warrior Race who are often stereotyped as Dumb Muscle. They are warriors for sure, and they tend to be more direct with their ideas and plans, but they're by no means dumb, as lampshaded by krogan party member from the first game, Warrior Poet Wrex, when Kaidan points out that he's "not exactly what [he] expected" and Wrex responds "because humans are all different, but every krogan is exactly alike." The second game's krogan, Grunt, is a lot closer to the stereotype... but that's because he was specifically genetically engineered to be a "perfect krogan", stereotypes and all.
  • The turians are dogmatic soldiers who view themselves as the peacekeepers of the universe, and are known for the atrocities they've committed in the name of that (for example, releasing the Genophage). On the other hand, while party member Garrus does have a strong moral code, he's far from a Scary Dogmatic Alien, being willing to bend the rules a bit to accomplish a good end, is willing to show mercy, and finds the Genophage to be just as horrendous as everyone else does.
  • The quarians are "space romani", a nomadic race that is known for their skill with technology, and for their criminal tendencies. The former is absolutely true; they've had to master technology since being forced off their homeworld by the geth and confined to starships. The latter is proved false upon visiting the flotilla, which is just as into law and order as any other civilization; ironically, the entire reason people pigeonhole the quarians as criminals is because most quarians encountered beyond the flotilla are exiles. They are, of course, also famous for lacking proper immune systems, due to having spent many generations living in the sterile environment of a starship.

It's been a long time since I played the games, so I was hoping someone who has played them more recently (and maybe someone who played Andromeda, which I never did) could help fill in some information.

The main thing I'm having trouble with is... what actually IS the hat for humans? The fact that they have like 20 different bullets each of which starts with "actually, the humans' hat is..." tells me that no one seems to know.

Should we just leave humans out?

Well, I just deleted most of it instead.

Thanks for all your help, everyone.

You can close this thread now, I guess.

Edited by Mimic1990 on Feb 3rd 2021 at 2:15:56 AM