User:The Millionth One/Races of Mass Effect

The various races of the Mass Effect franchise form a key part of the franchise's concept and background. Humans are newcomers to the galaxy. The asari, turians, salarians, and—after the first game—humanity hold seats on the Citadel Council, an executive committee who hold great sway in the galaxy and are recognised as an authority by most of explored space. Races who live in Citadel space and accept the Council's authority include the drell, the elcor, the hanar, and the volus. Outside of it lie the quarians, the krogan, the vorcha, the Collectors, the robotic geth, and the batarians (who were formerly members). Protheans, who disappeared roughly 50,000 years before the events of the trilogy, are believed to have created most technology of the galaxy, though in fact most were deliberately left by the Reapers—a robotic race who harvest all spaceflight-era organic civilizations as part of a long cycle.

Concept and creation
In designing the races, the writing team would first supply a short paragraph describing the race. This would then generally be passed to concept artists, who would over several phases create pieces then prune and refine them—phase one offering the most creative freedom for the artists. After the concept was done, creation of the character model began; often a lot of "back and forth" took place, and some ideas that worked on paper end up not working well on a 3-D model.

Most aliens had to fit into a humanoid skeleton for animation purposes. There were originally plans to include a non-humanoid party member, but they were scrapped as including them would take a huge cost in developing the game. For many of the races, BioWare had difficulty in making the characters more distinct; though they could add a bit of a variation, the faces would be alien enough that it wouldn't be as noticeable. To help with this, Derek Watts came up with the idea of different face paints and tattoos, which were added to many of the races. BioWare realized they would be unable to make both male and female versions of all the races due to budget restraints, which in part led to the creation of the asari.


 * http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/15/interview-bioware-casey-hudson-on-the-making-of-mass-effect-2

Asari
The asari, variously described as all-female and mono-gendered, are a race of "beautiful, blue aliens" designed to add a familiar science-fiction element to the series. The asari appear in all three of the trilogy games, as well as in most other Mass Effect media. Several asari are major characters, such as Matriarch Benezia and Liara T'Soni—the latter of which being a party member in both Mass Effect and Mass Effect 3, as well as temporarily in the Mass Effect 2 downloadable content Lair of the Shadow Broker. In addition, several asari classes are available for play in 3's multiplayer mode. Within the series, they were the first species to discover the Citadel and proposed the creation of a Council. As part of the Council, they serve as its "mediators and centrists". The asari may reproduce with any species, which in-universe has led to claims of asari promiscuity. Asari can live for over a thousand years, and go through three stages of life: the Maiden stage, where they explore the world; the Matron stage, where they begin to mate and raise children; and finally the Matriarch stage, where they settle down as leaders. Their long lifespan makes them more comfortable with observation. They also have the largest economy of all the races. The asari are naturally inclined towards biotics, the ability to "manipulate dark energy and create mass effect fields", allowing for telekinesis and other abilities.

Due to budget concerns, BioWare realized they would be unable to make both male and female versions for each of the races, which led to the creation of an all-female one. More alien-looking designs for the asari were made, but the designers found if the face looked too different it would cease being attractive. The hair fins arose from the designers mainly experimenting with different shapes, and the scalp tentacles on the asari are meant to bring to mind the image of a woman "emerging from the water with her hair swept back". Different silhouettes were made, trying to find looks that a woman would wear, which would appear both futuristic but not "too far". After the addition of the hair fins, the asari looked more aquatic, and thus their design was altered to fit with that; this also led to the writers altering the asari home climate to be more wet. Their clothing is meant to be both "alluring and sexy" while keeping a sense of "class and style", akin to a "Hollywood red carpet feel", while also in-keeping with the kind of clothes that would be worn in more aquatic environments. Inspiration was drawn mainly from sports-gear, such as climbing and scuba gear, particularly its "pliable, flexible" qualities. Their human faces helped in making the characters distinct, and some models were used to tweak the faces. Like many other races, asari too use facepaints, which helps with diversifying the characters.

The asari have received both praise and criticism. Mike Suszek, of Joystiq, cited them as his favourite fictional race in video games, commenting "The race as a whole intrigued me, from their intellectual ways and place in the universe to their biotic prowess." 1UP.com's Ryan Winterhalte listed the asari as one of three areas where Mass Effect 2 was sexist, citing how they were always eye candy and questioning the appearance of Samara and Matriarch Benzia, and feeling that BioWare's work in diversifying the race seemed "wasted". Bob Mackey, also from 1UP, commented that Joan Rivers would be his choice to voice an asari.
 * https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/27/15074856/mass-effect-andromeda-asari-pronouns
 * "Renegade Sex: Compulsory Sexuality and Charmed Magic Circles in the Mass Effect series", Meghan Blythe Adams
 * "Game Culture: Gender and Sexuality in Mass Effect", Brandon Rothfusz
 * "Gender and Racial Roles in Computer Role-Playing Games", Politics in Fantasy Media
 * https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/deconstructing-the-blue-space-babe-trope-can-be-profitable-w518154
 * https://www.gamedev.net/industry/game-developers-conference/2018/beyond-the-blue-skinned-space-babe-deconstructing-the-empowered-asari-in-‘mass-effect’-r77/
 * http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/20/14980436/mass-effect-sexiest-character-aliens-ranked
 * http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/27/15074856/mass-effect-andromeda-asari-pronouns

Elcor
The elcor are a slow, massive four-legged race from a high-gravity world named Dekunna. The elcor communicate among themselves mainly through scent, slight movements, and others, and thus have a monotone voice; as such, they often prefix their sentences with emotions. Their psychology is described as "deliberate and conservative". More "outrageous" designs for them were made, though modelling and animation constraints would go on to effect their final design. The elcor have appeared in all three games.

The race have been popular as a source of humour, primarily due to their speech. Eric Zipper of GameZone commented that there should be "International Talk Like an Elcor Day", listing talking like them as a way to pass the time until Mass Effect 3s release, and IGN's Erik Brudvig called the most hilarious of Mass Effects races. Joystiq's Richard Mitchell posted an April Fools' article announcing an elcor romance option. GamesRadar's Andy Hartup listed them as video game characters who needed a hug, noting how they always sounded weary of everything. UGO writer Sal Basile put the elcor at number 11 on their most wanted race to be made a squadmate. Hollander Cooper, again from GamesRadar, also wanted one to be a squadmate, and said they were underutilised in the trilogy. The elcor were declared to be the best new species of 2007 by Official Xbox Magazine. 1UP's Bob Mackey put Emo Philips as their voice star of choice to voice the elcor, noting that: "Emo might have a bit too much modulation in his high-pitched monotone to pull of the Elcor voice we know and love, but he could easily play a member of the near-comatose race coming to terms with burgeoning new emotional states, like 'reluctant interest' or 'mild gas pain.'"

Hanar
The hanar... UGO's Sal Basile listed them as tenth on his most wanted species for a squadmate. After "#teamboneless" began trending on Twitter—concerning whether bone-in wings or boneless wings were better—Hollander Cooper of GamesRadar listed them as one of the best boneless characters in video games.

Humanity
Humans are newcomers to the galactic community. The Mass Effect trilogy focuses on the human Commander Shepard, an elite marine and "Spectre" (special Council agents given leeway to do anything for the sake of galactic peace) on a mission to stop the Reapers from wiping out organic life. In the series, Shepard becomes the first human Spectre during the first game, and at the end of the first humanity is granted a seat on the Council for destroying Sovereign, a Reaper, and stopping it and the geth from invading the Citadel.

Humanity's iteration in Mass Effect is meant to be only fairly far in the future enough to be "new but not unrecognisable". Through standardizing the different concept art for their clothes, a "common visual language" was found for them. In earlier plans for Mass Effect, before the final plot was decided on, humanity were going to turn out to have an inherent ability to access and use the technology of Mass Effect's now-extinct precursors (then known as the Nazari), in spite of lack of technological knowledge—thus suddenly making them an important race, drawing much attention from the others. It would then turn out that humanity were in fact originally a slave race to these Nazari, explaining their natural ability. This was later dropped, and the focus of the game turned to the conflict between synthetics and organics.

Salarians
The salarians make appearances in all of the trilogy games, and also appear in most other Mass Effect media. Many salarians are major characters, and one salarian, Mordin Solus, serves as a recurring character and party member in Mass Effect 2.

Being Mass Effect's answer to the "gray aliens" archetype, early on the designers played around with that general image, having big eyes and grey skin. However, unlike regular gray aliens, salarians ended up with a concave torso and "doglike" legs. Different concepts of salarians were drawn, though many were rejected for being too human-looking. Unlike some of the other races, the salarians are more of "warrior poets" and have a higher sense of culture. The heavy eyelids and long face add more sophistication. Their big black eyes express "tranquility" and "alertness". After the head had been officially accepted, another artist then looked at it and finished the body. The concave chest is a more alien, unusual structure, and differed from some of the other races. This structure also led to stylistic choices with their clothing, under the idea that they'd stuff fabric there after meeting other races, which art director Matt Rhodes compared to "a bald man wearing a toupée".

The salarian Special Tasks Group was listed by Game Informer's Brian Albert as the fourth top video game "secret organization".

Volus
The volus are a client race of the turians, having traded their "mercantile progress for turian military protection". Their homeworld having higher air pressure, they must wear full-body environmental-suits when visiting other planets. Though short and round, and thus having a "docile look", some earlier concept designs featured them being "relatively large". Their home culture is tribal, based on bartering both lands and people to gain status, and so are inclined to "economic pursuits" in dealing with other races.

Appearing in all three games, they were first made playable in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer mode, after the release of its free Retaliation DLC on October 9, 2012. The decision to include them was made out of a desire to introduce a pure support class, which had been requested numerous times by players, and to go beyond the current races and create something less conventional in order to reflect "the continuing state of the war".

UGO's Sal Basile listed the volus at number 7 for their most wanted species for a squadmate, and said he viewed them similar to "[t]he Ewoks of the Mass Effect universe".

Batarians
The batarians are a race of four-eyed humanoids, who first appeared in the Bring Down the Sky downloadable content for the first game. In the DLC, a group of batarian terrorists, led by fellow batarian Balak, try to crash an asteroid into a colony. After stopping the asteroid, the player is given the choice between saving three hostages and letting Balak walk free, or letting them die but tackling Balak. In addition, batarians make several appearances in Mass Effect 2 and 3, as well as various other Mass Effect media. Mass Effect 2: Arrival ends with Shepard having to destroy a mass relay, which in turn destroys a batarian-controlled system and kills its 300,000 inhabitants.

The batarians were originally based off a previous design intended for something else, and had "flaps" on the side of their heads; however, in order to wear equipment they had to be changed to a human shape. Earlier versions of the first game's plot involved the batarians being a group of "warmongering" "small bat-like creatures", led by Saren and wanting to steal the technology of the "Nazari", which was at that point the name of the race that preceeded the current races and created most of the technology. They were swapped with the geth to strengthen the human versus machine conflict, the tension between synthetic and organic life becoming the core theme of the game.

Sal Basile, writing for UGO, listed a batarian as the ninth species they most wanted for a squadmate, commenting "if I could calm down a [k]rogan, I bet I can calm down a [b]atarian".

Geth
Geth were first envisioned as organic beings with synthetic fluid flowing through their veins, comparable to Bishop from Aliens. The geth head was first finished for the geth armature, one specific geth enemy, but then became the basis for all other geth heads. The introduction of "dragon's teeth" (Reaper-made spikes that the geth would impale dead bodies on in the first game to convert the bodies to husks) was intended to make the geth more scary, which the geth were originally failing at. After the first Mass Effect, the geth were originally planning on being "pushed the side", and Legion was not originally supposed to be made a squadmember. However, fan response to them was positive, so their role was expanded; this had the side-effect of lessening focus on other more minor plot lines, including that of the rachni.

IGN listed the geth as number 48 in their list of the top 100 video game villains.

Krogan

 * http://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-enemies-in-pc-gaming/

Quarians
The quarians are nomadic race, having been expelled from their homeworld, Rannoch, by the geth, a robotic race they created which then became sentient. Due to having an extremely weak immunity system, they must wear full-body suits. Several quarian characters appear throughout the trilogy—including Tali'Zorah, who serves as a party member in all three of them and was the only quarian in the first game. In Mass Effect 3, their conflict with the geth reaches its head and the quarians launch an attack on them. Depending on choices, the player may end up wiping out one of the races, or convincing the quarians to stand down and both sides to work together.

Others

 * Raloi: The raloi were introduced on February 9, 2010 in Cerberus Daily News. In it, they are an avian race that recently discovered the galactic community, and are being welcomed into it. They were then mentioned in a Mass Effect 3 news story, where they are told to be destroying their satellites and other equipment and isolating themselves on their homeplanet, in the hopes that the Reapers will declare them a pre-spaceflight civilization and thus leave them unharvested.
 * Virtual aliens: The virtual aliens...
 * Yahg: The yahg...

Reception
Being able to play as other races was something Game Informer's Mike Mahardy wanted to see in future Mass Effect games.