In Mass Effect 2, a conversation occurs between a human, a salarian, and a turian who are watching an asari dancer. The men debate whose species the asari most resembles. Upon each forwarding their own race, the human theorizes that the asari might be using mind control to appear attractive to other species. It is more likely that the three men were merely focusing on characteristics their species shares with the asari (e.g., body shape for humans, skin color for salarians, head fringe for turians). All three men compliment the asari's flexibility and grace. This conversation implies that asari are considered attractive to many species and genders, which would prove useful considering their method of reproduction. Mordin Solus postulates that the asari's cross-species attraction may be neurochemical in nature.
So either of us could be right. Im gonna go with pheromones.
I think it's probably a response to something a fan said to a designer at some point. "Hey asari look like humans! Why... why the Hell do they look like humans"
There's never going to be a canonical explanation for why they're so attractive to every species that isn't krogan. They just are.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
The party laughed nervously
It's an interesting concept, the idea that asari are constantly broadcasting illusions of themselves, that the writers have not pushed very far. Instead by the time of ME3 we have seen the curtain pulled back on the asari to reveal them as being thoroughly self-deceived.
We do, as a player, have videos and pictures that shouldn't be affected by their mind control. And Liara isn't the most suave Asari seductress (or is she the MOST suave Asari seductress?) so I doubt she's messing with Shepard's perception much.
The Protheans were revealed to have a bit of a hand in shaping the Asari and Humans culturally and technologically early on.
And the Asari genetically. I think it's a neat idea that they they messed with humans too. It may explain why we share physical traits.
We have Asari admiring the physique of other Asari and commenting on their 'rack'. So they're probably not messing with what humans see so much because we're easy; so long as they have curves and contrast, we'll notice it enough to either fight it or have sex with it. Also, it's easier to explain from a meta-game perspective as the players are human. But we certainly have indications that other species don't find them as attractive outside of physical contact as they do in person (Salarian in the bar).
I like that idea that there's some shared genetics explaining the similarities. Almost all other aliens are pretty different from Humans and Asari, but this supports the mind-game idea too. I am a little annoyed that they didn't do anything more interesting the the Quarians. (Turns out they don't have faces, just two stalks with glowing eyes at the end!)
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
I think it's probably a response to something a fan said to a designer at some point. "Hey asari look like humans! Why... why the Hell do they look like humans"
There's never going to be a canonical explanation for why they're so attractive to every species that isn't krogan. They just are.
I'm not sure what you're saying about the krogan. Are you saying that krogan aren't attracted to asari? If so, then Charr would like to have a word withheartfelt poem for you.
If you're saying that we know why asari are attractive to krogans, that I'm kinda curious about. Wrex was a bit dismissive of them, but still has fond memories of fighting an asari commando and gets along well enough with Liara to give Shepard shit about their relationship.
I think it's probably a response to something a fan said to a designer at some point. "Hey asari look like humans! Why... why the Hell do they look like humans"
There's never going to be a canonical explanation for why they're so attractive to every species that isn't krogan. They just are.
I'm not sure what you're saying about the krogan. Are you saying that krogan aren't attracted to asari? If so, then Charr would like to have a word withheartfelt poem for you.
If you're saying that we know why asari are attractive to krogans, that I'm kinda curious about. Wrex was a bit dismissive of them, but still has fond memories of fighting an asari commando and gets along well enough with Liara to give Shepard shit about their relationship.
The only time we hear krogan talking about asari is a couple of them in ME2 - I think it's on Tuchanka.
"Asari? Eugh. THey're so... squishy. Where are you supposed to get a good grip?"
We do, as a player, have videos and pictures that shouldn't be affected by their mind control. And Liara isn't the most suave Asari seductress (or is she the MOST suave Asari seductress?) so I doubt she's messing with Shepard's perception much.
The Protheans were revealed to have a bit of a hand in shaping the Asari and Humans culturally and technologically early on.
And the Asari genetically. I think it's a neat idea that they they messed with humans too. It may explain why we share physical traits.
We have Asari admiring the physique of other Asari and commenting on their 'rack'. So they're probably not messing with what humans see so much because we're easy; so long as they have curves and contrast, we'll notice it enough to either fight it or have sex with it. Also, it's easier to explain from a meta-game perspective as the players are human. But we certainly have indications that other species don't find them as attractive outside of physical contact as they do in person (Salarian in the bar).
I like that idea that there's some shared genetics explaining the similarities. Almost all other aliens are pretty different from Humans and Asari, but this supports the mind-game idea too. I am a little annoyed that they didn't do anything more interesting the the Quarians. (Turns out they don't have faces, just two stalks with glowing eyes at the end!)
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
Me3 spoilers including the extended cut
Re quarians
You can see tali's face if you romanced her
You can also see unmasked quarians in synthesis's extended end if I hear right
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
In Mass Effect 2, a conversation occurs between a human, a salarian, and a turian who are watching an asari dancer. The men debate whose species the asari most resembles. Upon each forwarding their own race, the human theorizes that the asari might be using mind control to appear attractive to other species. It is more likely that the three men were merely focusing on characteristics their species shares with the asari (e.g., body shape for humans, skin color for salarians, head fringe for turians). All three men compliment the asari's flexibility and grace. This conversation implies that asari are considered attractive to many species and genders, which would prove useful considering their method of reproduction. Mordin Solus postulates that the asari's cross-species attraction may be neurochemical in nature.
So either of us could be right. Im gonna go with pheromones.
That is the conversation that made me never really trust the Asari. Just the idea that the humans might see a different face compared to turians or salarian (it was the thing about the eyes that made me think it was more than pheromones or whatever). Probably doing mind things to make you think they're pretty, a bunch of Jean Greys running around, never
A big part of this is drawing the line between "sexy" and "exploitative"
And then trying to determine if a representation is a deconstruction of exploitation. Like Aria - she's sexy without being epxloitative herself, but she uses exploitation as leverage in a realistic way. On their own, all of her stripper girls (human and asari) are exploitative, but in the context of working for Aria... I dunno. It gets more complicated. Even her own daughters are dancers in her employ. That's kinda fucked up in the context of human mores! Where is that line drawn?
I choose to see EDI as an homage and a deconstruction, which is part of what makes her so charming and hilarious in the context of this universe. There's no question that her design is exploitative, but maybe an argument could be made that it's not inherently bad.
I think the asari, as a race, straddle that line okay, because there are horror elements to them, too, and fighting commandos is the toughest thing you do in any of the three games
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
The party laughed nervously
It's an interesting concept, the idea that asari are constantly broadcasting illusions of themselves, that the writers have not pushed very far. Instead by the time of ME3 we have seen the curtain pulled back on the asari to reveal them as being thoroughly self-deceived.
It's really interesting, but isn't it shot down by the Statue Dilemma?
As in, we've seen portraits/photographs/statues of Asari. In other words, nonliving media that could not control people's minds, one would assume. Most of which were produced by the Asari themselves.
It's not a end-all, but it is something of a large hole in the premise.
We do, as a player, have videos and pictures that shouldn't be affected by their mind control.
It would if they've mentally conditioned us to replace their real appearence with the space babe persona. With the mental powers they have, they could just do a find/replace on all asari in your head.
And Liara isn't the most suave Asari seductress (or is she the MOST suave Asari seductress?) so I doubt she's messing with Shepard's perception much.
It might be instinctive. They might not do it on purpose.
The Protheans were revealed to have a bit of a hand in shaping the Asari and Humans culturally and technologically early on.
True, but also remember that Protheans themselves have crazy sensory/tech abilities to complement their biotics. Javik can learn your language in moments and know nearly everything about you from your pheromones. They can store memories in what is effectively brain chemestry. To imagine that their protege', the asari have expanded upon this and used it throughout the ages to improve their lot is not hard to imagine.
We have Asari admiring the physique of other Asari and commenting on their 'rack'.
Combination of audio memory alteration and our babelfish struggling to translate how to process discussion of the asari forward proboscii.
Also, it's easier to explain from a meta-game perspective as the players are human. But we certainly have indications that other species don't find them as attractive outside of physical contact as they do in person (Salarian in the bar).
True, of course. Occam's razor says that I'm full of shit on this one, but I find it entertaining to deconstruct the asari with the most horriffic implications possible.
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
Some hours into this now. Very minor spoilers here, but I'm gonna use spoiler tags anyway instead of leaving a wall of text up.
On the non-spoiler side of things, the limitations placed on ME3 by the console market are remarkably... disappointing. I mean, in ME1, going and doing some big epic thing meant a big epic place. There was a grand scale to things. But with ME3, everything is a handful of rooms connected by corridors, and the rooms aren't even usually that big. It's pretty jarring to be told you're headed to save a major research facility and it turns out to be a place smaller than the Normandy.
The gameplay is also often infuriatingly clumsy, thanks in no small part to making one button do run, use, roll, and use cover. I can't even count the number of times Shepard has rolled out into a torrent of bullets instead of sticking to some cover. And I absolutely hate how I have to constantly tell my teammates to actually use their powers, despite the fact that I've set them to use their powers on their own. They just don't want to do anything.
There are also loads of clunky and/or redundant dialogue. People will say things that were just said only moments ago and sometimes the writing just tries way too hard to try and create a moment that just isn't happening. I don't think those moments would stand out so bad except for the fact that some characters get such fantastic dialogue. Garrus and Wrex in particular have such great banter that I just want to clock somebody in the head at Bioware for relegating Wrex to being a secondary character and putting forward ones like Space Elf Nerdbait and Naked Supermodel Robot as party members instead. Not that Liara is at all bad any more, but Wrex was just so good that I'd gladly give up anybody else save Garrus to have him around.
Also, clipping errors are endemic. In almost every last discussion I've seen so far, there's always some bit, ranging from a slice of neck to entire arms, clipping through bodies and clothes. It really makes the design look shoddy and often wrecks the immersion.
Aside from quality stuff, what the hell is the deal with most of the female designs in this game? They're ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. Cripes, one female character's alternate outfit is a black skin-tight jumpsuit. Seriously? What kind of sad people thinks it's reasonable to have all the males have badass armor and outfit designs and make almost everything the women wear look like it was spraypainted on? It's not even something I normally care about in a game, but it's so bad here that I can't help but notice.
That stuff being said, enjoying most of the game so far, especially now that I've gotten the hang of the Vanguard setup. Still extremely glad I waited on buying this, though, if for no other reason than to have the save editor handy for things like giving myself tons of credits so I don't have to deal with that time-wasting mechanic. Also very nice to see they've more or less dispensed entirely with the tedium of grinding out resources through probing or manually searching planet surfaces; just zip in, scan, hit the couple of place you find, and go. No problem at all and the flow of the game isn't getting broken up.
Ugh, I hate it when people break out the PC Master Race bullshit. Guess what, if ME1 hadn't been designed explicitly for the Xbox, there wouldn't even BE a Mass Effect. Yes, I'm sure we'd all love it if the developers had infinite time, resource, and processing power - but that doesn't happen with any game or developer. Not with Bioware, or Blizzard, or Valve, or whomever.
The only thing I hate more (at least in the context of these forums) is rose colored ME1 nostalgia.
Yeah Noveria, Feros and the other major planets were big hubs with lots of areas, but they could be long and boring big hubs. Getting lost in Noveria's research facility or having to backtrack through the Feros corridors may be "realistic" or "atmospheric" or whatever, but its also annoying and frustrating.
Granted they downsized a lot of the areas to conserve on memory and tighten up the action, but being small doesn't make it automatically worse. One of my favorite set-pieces, the Geth Dreadnaught, is in ME3. Maybe the actual scope of the place doesn't match ME1, but it does great things with perspective and design that give the illusion of a massive area.
I'll take some clipping errors in conversations over ME1's 15 second texture loading. At least clipping is sporadic and not necessarily tied to every conversation. The texture loading delay was just as immersion breaking and occurred every time you entered a new zone.
You also might be new to the series if you're disappointed about the sexualized nature of female design. Did you ever put the females in light armor in ME1? They're essentially wearing Samus' zero suit. Granted, their assets might not be as explicit as in ME2 or 3 (I haven't done a side by side comparison) but they're just as form-fitting. ME1 also gave us the Asari and their strippers and consorts. People have mentioned this distaste for this one area of the fiction, but I guarantee the Asari were one of the first things they came up with in designing the universe. Do you dislike Klingons because they're just space mongols, or the Hutts because they're fat gangsters? They're all an intrinsic part of the fiction, deal with it.
Look, all your points are valid in some way, but don't propagate the myth that all these problems are new to the ME3 or have come about only recently. It's irritating because people can take the wrong lessons away from these games and their development.
Look at your unhealthy life. You're living in a cluttered, stuffy room with love dolls that cost more than a Ferrari. If you parents found out, they'd either have a heart attack or commit suicide.
Some hours into this now. Very minor spoilers here, but I'm gonna use spoiler tags anyway instead of leaving a wall of text up.
On the non-spoiler side of things, the limitations placed on ME3 by the console market are remarkably... disappointing. I mean, in ME1, going and doing some big epic thing meant a big epic place. There was a grand scale to things. But with ME3, everything is a handful of rooms connected by corridors, and the rooms aren't even usually that big. It's pretty jarring to be told you're headed to save a major research facility and it turns out to be a place smaller than the Normandy.
The gameplay is also often infuriatingly clumsy, thanks in no small part to making one button do run, use, roll, and use cover. I can't even count the number of times Shepard has rolled out into a torrent of bullets instead of sticking to some cover. And I absolutely hate how I have to constantly tell my teammates to actually use their powers, despite the fact that I've set them to use their powers on their own. They just don't want to do anything.
There are also loads of clunky and/or redundant dialogue. People will say things that were just said only moments ago and sometimes the writing just tries way too hard to try and create a moment that just isn't happening. I don't think those moments would stand out so bad except for the fact that some characters get such fantastic dialogue. Garrus and Wrex in particular have such great banter that I just want to clock somebody in the head at Bioware for relegating Wrex to being a secondary character and putting forward ones like Space Elf Nerdbait and Naked Supermodel Robot as party members instead. Not that Liara is at all bad any more, but Wrex was just so good that I'd gladly give up anybody else save Garrus to have him around.
Also, clipping errors are endemic. In almost every last discussion I've seen so far, there's always some bit, ranging from a slice of neck to entire arms, clipping through bodies and clothes. It really makes the design look shoddy and often wrecks the immersion.
Aside from quality stuff, what the hell is the deal with most of the female designs in this game? They're ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. Cripes, one female character's alternate outfit is a black skin-tight jumpsuit. Seriously? What kind of sad people thinks it's reasonable to have all the males have badass armor and outfit designs and make almost everything the women wear look like it was spraypainted on? It's not even something I normally care about in a game, but it's so bad here that I can't help but notice.
That stuff being said, enjoying most of the game so far, especially now that I've gotten the hang of the Vanguard setup. Still extremely glad I waited on buying this, though, if for no other reason than to have the save editor handy for things like giving myself tons of credits so I don't have to deal with that time-wasting mechanic. Also very nice to see they've more or less dispensed entirely with the tedium of grinding out resources through probing or manually searching planet surfaces; just zip in, scan, hit the couple of place you find, and go. No problem at all and the flow of the game isn't getting broken up.
Ugh, I hate it when people break out the PC Master Race bullshit. Guess what, if ME1 hadn't been designed explicitly for the Xbox, there wouldn't even BE a Mass Effect. Yes, I'm sure we'd all love it if the developers had infinite time, resource, and processing power - but that doesn't happen with any game or developer. Not with Bioware, or Blizzard, or Valve, or whomever.
The only thing I hate more (at least in the context of these forums) is rose colored ME1 nostalgia.
Yeah Noveria, Feros and the other major planets were big hubs with lots of areas, but they could be long and boring big hubs. Getting lost in Noveria's research facility or having to backtrack through the Feros corridors may be "realistic" or "atmospheric" or whatever, but its also annoying and frustrating.
Granted they downsized a lot of the areas to conserve on memory and tighten up the action, but being small doesn't make it automatically worse. One of my favorite set-pieces, the Geth Dreadnaught, is in ME3. Maybe the actual scope of the place doesn't match ME1, but it does great things with perspective and design that give the illusion of a massive area.
I'll take some clipping errors in conversations over ME1's 15 second texture loading. At least clipping is sporadic and not necessarily tied to every conversation. The texture loading delay was just as immersion breaking and occurred every time you entered a new zone.
You also might be new to the series if you're disappointed about the sexualized nature of female design. Did you ever put the females in light armor in ME1? They're essentially wearing Samus' zero suit. Granted, their assets might not be as explicit as in ME2 or 3 (I haven't done a side by side comparison) but they're just as form-fitting. ME1 also gave us the Asari and their strippers and consorts. People have mentioned this distaste for this one area of the fiction, but I guarantee the Asari were one of the first things they came up with in designing the universe. Do you dislike Klingons because they're just space mongols, or the Hutts because they're fat gangsters? They're all an intrinsic part of the fiction, deal with it.
Look, all your points are valid in some way, but don't propagate the myth that all these problems are new to the ME3 or have come about only recently. It's irritating because people can take the wrong lessons away from these games and their development.
I can appreciate disappointment in the scale of the late games (even if I think it should go hand in hand with the stark disappointment in those environments in ME1, totally devoid of any life or evidence of being actual places except for the occasional shipping crate, Christ, they didn't even have trees.) It's a perception of size and space, especially since in games, environments have gotten larger frequently in the time that past over the series.
That being said, any complaints about the clumsiness of ME3's controls--and make no mistake, the game is very clumsy at times, in multiple regards--should be taken in context with the incredibly clumsy shooting mechanic of the first ME game. Crouch that frequently didn't work. AI that almost never worked properly, except as bullet sponges (and even then, often not). Weapons that wouldn't stop firing. Falling through geometry (still a problem in later games, sadly, just not as much). Bioware can do a lot of things--making a polished third-person shooter apparently is not one of them. They made a remarkable step from ME1 to ME2, and it's no surprise which one ME3 resembles more. But that's just because, in this particular area, the bar was set so low to start with.
I'm of the opinion that each of the races - especially the asari and the krogan - became much more textured, interesting, and well-developed after the first game.
My problem with EDI is that it's over the top and they had cooler designs to choose from. After flipping out at the leak, I reconsidered on the idea that the infiltration bot would be corporate espionage and designed to seduce and they'd be drawing contrasts with the new personality inhabiting the frame, but it didn't happen like that and also EDI somehow gained cameltoe which Dr. Eva didn't have. Samara's outfit is ridiculous because it's just there, there's no apparent reason for it -- she's a stone-cold zealot who is all "My name is Samara you violated the Code prepare to die." I have little issue with Miranda wearing a vacuum suit and spikes because use of sex appeal is explicitly part of her character, but then when you apply the same kind of design ideas to most of the female cast 'just because' it gets old fast.
And on the subject of homage, I think if you do stuff like that very often you need to do more interesting things with it. There's no comparison to Metropolis (a movie about weirdos lusting after a woman and making a robot in her image) other than fembot. Sometimes I feel like Mass Effect just makes a reference to something in nerd culture and then calls it a day without making it their own, like (end spoils)
Starkid's appearance and Contact.
That frustrates me because I love Mass Effect and they're at their best when they're doing their own thing and I want them to be like that all of the time (or at least on all the important beats).
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
The party laughed nervously
It's an interesting concept, the idea that asari are constantly broadcasting illusions of themselves, that the writers have not pushed very far. Instead by the time of ME3 we have seen the curtain pulled back on the asari to reveal them as being thoroughly self-deceived.
It's really interesting, but isn't it shot down by the Statue Dilemma?
As in, we've seen portraits/photographs/statues of Asari. In other words, nonliving media that could not control people's minds, one would assume. Most of which were produced by the Asari themselves.
It's not a end-all, but it is something of a large hole in the premise.
I don't find it to be a major problem. If we're getting serious about the asari-as-mind-raping-monsters theory, it would be trivial for telepaths as powerful as the asari to just mentally replace images of actual-form asari with Space Babe asari the first time they meet, effectively re-writing the memories of previously seen images.
So, take a guy who has never met an asari, and his twin brother, who has met an asari. They both see a statue of an asari. One sees an alien... no big deal. The other sees a fine-ass space hottie. If the first guy meets his brother's asari friend, he'd probably finally realize what his brother was on about. And then she would have the twins right where she wants them.
One would hope so, given how hard it is to remove background content in a setting through multiple games.
Well yeah, I guess, but I meant that the way the races were framed agianst each other changed, too.
In the first game, krogan were essentially the exact opposite of asari: effectively all-male, unable to breed, war-like, hideous, culturally defunct, with one cool krogan opposing one antagonistic asari, slowly crawling toward extinction, heavily marginalized, and deeply nihilistic. It's like somebody took a bullet point list of asari characteristics and then just used the opposites and BAM! Krogan.
The krogan as a concept benefited so much from exploration of the nature of the genophage and the role that the female clans played in planetary politics, they very nearly became a different species in the second game.
Aria changed the way we looked at the asari damn near by herself, to say nothing of Samara
I always thought that the way we see them ingame is how everyone in the ME universe sees them. I can remember in the debate between the human, turian and salarian in the bar that everyone mentions somethings they find looks extremely similar to their own species, e.g. the Turian mentioning their "head fringes" and I think the Salarian something about skin color. Which means they look exactly the same to everyone, only certain parts of them are perceived differently by every species because they concentrate on them by default, the same way humans instinctively concentrate on certain parts when looking at other humans.
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
The party laughed nervously
It's an interesting concept, the idea that asari are constantly broadcasting illusions of themselves, that the writers have not pushed very far. Instead by the time of ME3 we have seen the curtain pulled back on the asari to reveal them as being thoroughly self-deceived.
It's really interesting, but isn't it shot down by the Statue Dilemma?
As in, we've seen portraits/photographs/statues of Asari. In other words, nonliving media that could not control people's minds, one would assume. Most of which were produced by the Asari themselves.
It's not a end-all, but it is something of a large hole in the premise.
I don't find it to be a major problem. If we're getting serious about the asari-as-mind-raping-monsters theory, it would be trivial for telepaths as powerful as the asari to just mentally replace images of actual-form asari with Space Babe asari the first time they meet, effectively re-writing the memories of previously seen images.
So, take a guy who has never met an asari, and his twin brother, who has met an asari. They both see a statue of an asari. One sees an alien... no big deal. The other sees a fine-ass space hottie. If the first guy meets his brother's asari friend, he'd probably finally realize what his brother was on about. And then she would have the twins right where she wants them.
That's not exactly it. What about a history textbook? A post card? A desk ornament? There are things that would, by their nature, have to be manufactured to specific sizes and designs.
Unless every one of those things is actually some sort of memory crystal capable of mind rape, the illusion would basically fall apart the second anyone's perception of the Asari didn't actually involve them themselves. Thing of it differently: the Asari might produce most of the media involving them (just like Americans produce most media involving Americans). But what about everyone else in the galaxy? Even if the Asari had a media boycott, they couldn't stop Turian CG sitcoms from animating an Asari, only to find out they look different in every single Turian show then they do look in all Salarian soap operas. What are the Asari going to do, follow everyone who might see some sort of media representation of an Asari around for the rest of their life? They have the time, just not the numbers.
It's one thing if you're only dealing with two people. It's a simple matter of scale. Two frat brothers might not care, but a galaxy full of biology textbooks? Medical students? Xenobiologists? Tailors? It reminds me of a line in 1984--in ideology (I think?), 2 + 2 can equal five, but in engineering, it must equal four.
Really, the conversation between the Turian, Salarian, and Human (?) demonstrates why it wouldn't work. If they could all go, "Oh, well, that's weird," and let it go, you'd basically have a universe where no one even deamt of something like philosophy. After all, the other species, behavior wise, are a lot like humans. Didn't Plato and other philosophers spend decades pondering the actual nature of things? Not much to ponder if you can kill an Asari, or find one who died of natural causes, who can't brainrape you and simply dissect it. "So that's what they look like. Well, call Simon & Simon, they'll want this for the 5th edition before medical school begins."
Of course, ME is full of things that are purely for cool and not explained terribly well (or not at all). This wouldn't be the first. It just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It would work if, as aforementioned, it was actually very subtle. The Asari have humanoid forms (just like the Batarians, sans their heads), but they can alter perceptions, attractive-bartender-in-ME2 style, on a interpersonal basis. It's not unlike a very charismatic person swaying another's opinion of him or her.
Then again, Liara's diploma is written in English no less, so crazier things have happened.
If anything, the asari are a deconstruction of the blue space babe trope. They are basically the most powerful race in the galaxy, far from the Orion Slave Girls from Star Trek that they're meant to evoke.
They make alliances with other races, both officially and individually, that are too good to be true... and my guess is that it probably is. How much espionage do you imagine comes out of a race of all-biotic, all telepathic pansexual commando strippers that live to be a thousand? I mean, we don't even know what they really look like because of their freaky mind/perception control.
They might be nerd-bait, but I think they're more schmuck-bait.
Wait Asari do mind whammies and change how we see them? I thought they just produced designer sex pheromones based upon what species was viewing them.
Humans, turians, and salarians all see asari as looking essentially like themselves.
The human in that particular conversation wondered aloud if asari were sutbly mind-controlling all of them, and that nobody really knew what they actually looked like
The party laughed nervously
It's an interesting concept, the idea that asari are constantly broadcasting illusions of themselves, that the writers have not pushed very far. Instead by the time of ME3 we have seen the curtain pulled back on the asari to reveal them as being thoroughly self-deceived.
It's really interesting, but isn't it shot down by the Statue Dilemma?
As in, we've seen portraits/photographs/statues of Asari. In other words, nonliving media that could not control people's minds, one would assume. Most of which were produced by the Asari themselves.
It's not a end-all, but it is something of a large hole in the premise.
I don't find it to be a major problem. If we're getting serious about the asari-as-mind-raping-monsters theory, it would be trivial for telepaths as powerful as the asari to just mentally replace images of actual-form asari with Space Babe asari the first time they meet, effectively re-writing the memories of previously seen images.
So, take a guy who has never met an asari, and his twin brother, who has met an asari. They both see a statue of an asari. One sees an alien... no big deal. The other sees a fine-ass space hottie. If the first guy meets his brother's asari friend, he'd probably finally realize what his brother was on about. And then she would have the twins right where she wants them.
That's not exactly it. What about a history textbook? A post card? A desk ornament? There are things that would, by their nature, have to be manufactured to specific sizes and designs.
Unless every one of those things is actually some sort of memory crystal capable of mind rape, the illusion would basically fall apart the second anyone's perception of the Asari didn't actually involve them themselves. Thing of it differently: the Asari might produce most of the media involving them (just like Americans produce most media involving Americans). But what about everyone else in the galaxy? Even if the Asari had a media boycott, they couldn't stop Turian CG sitcoms from animating an Asari, only to find out they look different in every single Turian show then they do look in all Salarian soap operas. What are the Asari going to do, follow everyone who might see some sort of media representation of an Asari around for the rest of their life? They have the time, just not the numbers.
It's one thing if you're only dealing with two people. It's a simple matter of scale. Two frat brothers might not care, but a galaxy full of biology textbooks? Medical students? Xenobiologists? Tailors? It reminds me of a line in 1984--in ideology (I think?), 2 + 2 can equal five, but in engineering, it must equal four.
Really, the conversation between the Turian, Salarian, and Human (?) demonstrates why it wouldn't work. If they could all go, "Oh, well, that's weird," and let it go, you'd basically have a universe where no one even deamt of something like philosophy. After all, the other species, behavior wise, are a lot like humans. Didn't Plato and other philosophers spend decades pondering the actual nature of things? Not much to ponder if you can kill an Asari, or find one who died of natural causes, who can't brainrape you and simply dissect it. "So that's what they look like. Well, call Simon & Simon, they'll want this for the 5th edition before medical school begins."
Of course, ME is full of things that are purely for cool and not explained terribly well (or not at all). This wouldn't be the first. It just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It would work if, as aforementioned, it was actually very subtle. The Asari have humanoid forms (just like the Batarians, sans their heads), but they can alter perceptions, attractive-bartender-in-ME2 style, on a interpersonal basis. It's not unlike a very charismatic person swaying another's opinion of him or her.
This is all true; I'm just saying, if they're powerful enough psychics, we wouldn't even remember seeing them differently. Heck, after seeing the details on Liara's scales in ME3, I'm mentally adding them to her previous images. "Have you ever met an asari, Dr. Scientist? I assure you that they look almost exactly like blue humans. Your 'warnings' are absurd."
Makes for great They Live style horror. To think that all you have to do is meet someone once and your mind is permanently altered.
But, like I said before, Occam's Razor disproves my theory and supports you. Bioware wanted an excuse for pansexual blue space babes, and they have had a little fun deconstructing the idea a little bit. It's just fun to speculate.
Then again, Liara's diploma is written in English no less, so crazier things have happened.
Psychic paper, like in Dr. Who. Javik proves that objects can store memory, so why not?
It can't function properly (or even at all) in a mass-media world like ours (and that Bioware wants ME to resemble for familiarity and interest).
If the Asari were strange, feared beings who lived on the edges of space and widely dismissed as myth (sound familiar?), it would work, because they wouldn't be integrated into a galaxy-wide media. You could literally do it on a "two person" scale. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about medical school books and action figures for kids.
Don't get me wrong, it's a fascinating notion, but you couldn't apply it to the universe in ME. Especially when the Asari are basically the generic fashion models among everything else. It'd be industrially impossible, among other things. Part of it is that we assume that the only way the Turians could think Asari looked like Turians is physically--i.e. different mouths, different faces, claw hammers, etc.--rather than on another level (psychologically, chemically), because we think of them as being us. It could be as simple as Turians or someone else identify people by scent or sound, which the Asari could simulate much more easily.
I suppose Bioware falls into the Anthropomorphic dilemma (I believe that's what it's called) as much as anyone, or even more. Klingons and Navi aren't requiring to speak English, after all.
Asari can not be hiding very many differences from human, at least in body type. In ME1, there was no distinction between Asari and Human armors, but there were for all other races.
How often are there sales for the first two games on Steam/Origin?
I would like to buy the PC versions and play them, but I still rankle at paying full price for ME2 and all of its DLC. I did that once before for the DLC, and would like to get a deal there if possible.
We do, as a player, have videos and pictures that shouldn't be affected by their mind control. And Liara isn't the most suave Asari seductress (or is she the MOST suave Asari seductress?) so I doubt she's messing with Shepard's perception much.
The Protheans were revealed to have a bit of a hand in shaping the Asari and Humans culturally and technologically early on.
And the Asari genetically. I think it's a neat idea that they they messed with humans too. It may explain why we share physical traits.
We have Asari admiring the physique of other Asari and commenting on their 'rack'. So they're probably not messing with what humans see so much because we're easy; so long as they have curves and contrast, we'll notice it enough to either fight it or have sex with it. Also, it's easier to explain from a meta-game perspective as the players are human. But we certainly have indications that other species don't find them as attractive outside of physical contact as they do in person (Salarian in the bar).
I like that idea that there's some shared genetics explaining the similarities. Almost all other aliens are pretty different from Humans and Asari, but this supports the mind-game idea too. I am a little annoyed that they didn't do anything more interesting the the Quarians. (Turns out they don't have faces, just two stalks with glowing eyes at the end!)
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
Me3 spoilers including the extended cut
Re quarians
You can see tali's face if you romanced her
You can also see unmasked quarians in synthesis's extended end if I hear right
My complaint about the Quarians isn't not seeing them. (my eye-stalk comment was meant to be a joke) You may also see them, depending on your choices, in an image of the extended cut ending. They're coexisting with Geth on a rebuilt Rannoch. I think there's only one ending choice that allows for this though, and it's obvious which one that is.
My complaint is that they don't looks as alien as the other aliens despite being even MORE biologically/genetically different from humans than the Asari, for example.
Bioware has crafted some pretty well animated alien humanoids overall, and to say "meh, space night elves" with the Quarians was a bit disappointing. I understand the desire to make Tali cute, but Garrus is a popular character despite having a dinosaur-cat face. I know it's been the subject of alot of debate and discussion that's not worth rehashing, I was just hoping for something a little more alien from Bioware.
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
...
...
...actually that sounds kinda fun.
Doesn't it though? Watch now, the next "multiplayer DLC" won't be quite what everyone was expecting. Also, Kinect support!
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
I'm still confused about that whole "infiltration sex-bot" thing. He cyborg-ized a bunch of the other cerberus people, but other than EDI, who took a whole room in the ship, it doesn't seem like cerberus really had the technology to make an AI like that? I mean, aren't the normal geth (ie, not legion) just local platforms for a networked intelligence?
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
I'm still confused about that whole "infiltration sex-bot" thing. He cyborg-ized a bunch of the other cerberus people, but other than EDI, who took a whole room in the ship, it doesn't seem like cerberus really had the technology to make an AI like that? I mean, aren't the normal geth (ie, not legion) just local platforms for a networked intelligence?
EVA was probably a more stripped down version of EDI, built explicitly for infiltration instead of advanced cyberwarfare. Don't forget that when EDI tries to download the information in the unit's data core, EVA springs a trap and there's a kind of "battle of wills" between them. EDI wins out since she's the superior platform.
EDI was a homage to classic robot girl pinups and, like Metropolis and stuff. She was designed as an infiltration sexbot; what do you think TIM would send to steal the plans? EDI, with her female-identification and hots for super-hetero Joker, probably wouldn't possess a male body anyway. EDI is fine.
metropolis? eh, kinda. "robot girl pinups" and "infiltration sexbots" are terrible ideas tho and if she was intended as a homage to them she shouldnae have been. as far as tim goes, i can see why he'd care about "infiltration", i can even kinda see why he might go for the "bot" part, but i really dinnae see why "sex" comes into it. like if someone says "yo tim we need to nick some prothean stuff from mars" why would the natural response be "we must dispatch our sexiest robot agent"?
wrt samara perhaps maybe we can just agree to disagree abt the unnecessary ridiculo-cleavage and six-bloody-inch heels, but we can surely agree that if you are a mystical peripatetic warrior-monk you prob shouldnae wear a catsuit that looks like a strawberry
I'm still confused about that whole "infiltration sex-bot" thing. He cyborg-ized a bunch of the other cerberus people, but other than EDI, who took a whole room in the ship, it doesn't seem like cerberus really had the technology to make an AI like that? I mean, aren't the normal geth (ie, not legion) just local platforms for a networked intelligence?
EVA was probably a more stripped down version of EDI, built explicitly for infiltration instead of advanced cyberwarfare. Don't forget that when EDI tries to download the information in the unit's data core, EVA springs a trap and there's a kind of "battle of wills" between them. EDI wins out since she's the superior platform.
Yeah, "size," in relation to AIs is a bit tricky to calculate. Legion has eleven hundred geth AI programs in his specialized frame. EDI is one huge AI shell program in a room-sized mainframe. EDI could probably download most of her core programming into EVA's body if she had to evacuate for some reason, because she wouldn't need all of her Normandy-driving, atmosphere-processing data. She'd probably zip most of her cyberwarfare suites to unpack when she actually has another ship to protect. She also wouldn't need those seven zettabytes of explicit images, regardless of how their loss will impact Jeff.
That was a joke.
So yeah, I think EDI could have a life post-Normandy if need-be.
Assuming you don't pick the Destroy ending, you monster.
We do, as a player, have videos and pictures that shouldn't be affected by their mind control. And Liara isn't the most suave Asari seductress (or is she the MOST suave Asari seductress?) so I doubt she's messing with Shepard's perception much.
The Protheans were revealed to have a bit of a hand in shaping the Asari and Humans culturally and technologically early on.
And the Asari genetically. I think it's a neat idea that they they messed with humans too. It may explain why we share physical traits.
We have Asari admiring the physique of other Asari and commenting on their 'rack'. So they're probably not messing with what humans see so much because we're easy; so long as they have curves and contrast, we'll notice it enough to either fight it or have sex with it. Also, it's easier to explain from a meta-game perspective as the players are human. But we certainly have indications that other species don't find them as attractive outside of physical contact as they do in person (Salarian in the bar).
I like that idea that there's some shared genetics explaining the similarities. Almost all other aliens are pretty different from Humans and Asari, but this supports the mind-game idea too. I am a little annoyed that they didn't do anything more interesting the the Quarians. (Turns out they don't have faces, just two stalks with glowing eyes at the end!)
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
Me3 spoilers including the extended cut
Re quarians
You can see tali's face if you romanced her
You can also see unmasked quarians in synthesis's extended end if I hear right
My complaint about the Quarians isn't not seeing them. (my eye-stalk comment was meant to be a joke) You may also see them, depending on your choices, in an image of the extended cut ending. They're coexisting with Geth on a rebuilt Rannoch. I think there's only one ending choice that allows for this though, and it's obvious which one that is.
My complaint is that they don't looks as alien as the other aliens despite being even MORE biologically/genetically different from humans than the Asari, for example.
Bioware has crafted some pretty well animated alien humanoids overall, and to say "meh, space night elves" with the Quarians was a bit disappointing. I understand the desire to make Tali cute, but Garrus is a popular character despite having a dinosaur-cat face. I know it's been the subject of alot of debate and discussion that's not worth rehashing, I was just hoping for something a little more alien from Bioware.
I agree.
I also liked an idea someone floated around in one of these threads, right after the game came out, of how interesting it would have been if EDI had changed her physical bodY in ways that she wanted (more firepower and armor say, or maybe just a different aesthetic choice), and in doing so made herself less traditionally beautiful. Like if she ended up looking more like Optimus Prime than Maria from metropolis, by her own choice, and how Joker would react to that.
There's lots of interesting narratives that I think Bioware lost by reverting to "sexy supermodel number 20, GO!"
Cambiata on
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
Posts
In Mass Effect 2, a conversation occurs between a human, a salarian, and a turian who are watching an asari dancer. The men debate whose species the asari most resembles. Upon each forwarding their own race, the human theorizes that the asari might be using mind control to appear attractive to other species. It is more likely that the three men were merely focusing on characteristics their species shares with the asari (e.g., body shape for humans, skin color for salarians, head fringe for turians). All three men compliment the asari's flexibility and grace. This conversation implies that asari are considered attractive to many species and genders, which would prove useful considering their method of reproduction. Mordin Solus postulates that the asari's cross-species attraction may be neurochemical in nature.
So either of us could be right. Im gonna go with pheromones.
sorry if this was touched on already...
I just thought that was cool. Also it makes your two points one point really.
There's never going to be a canonical explanation for why they're so attractive to every species that isn't krogan. They just are.
It's an interesting concept, the idea that asari are constantly broadcasting illusions of themselves, that the writers have not pushed very far. Instead by the time of ME3 we have seen the curtain pulled back on the asari to reveal them as being thoroughly self-deceived.
The Protheans were revealed to have a bit of a hand in shaping the Asari and Humans culturally and technologically early on.
We have Asari admiring the physique of other Asari and commenting on their 'rack'. So they're probably not messing with what humans see so much because we're easy; so long as they have curves and contrast, we'll notice it enough to either fight it or have sex with it. Also, it's easier to explain from a meta-game perspective as the players are human. But we certainly have indications that other species don't find them as attractive outside of physical contact as they do in person (Salarian in the bar).
I like that idea that there's some shared genetics explaining the similarities. Almost all other aliens are pretty different from Humans and Asari, but this supports the mind-game idea too. I am a little annoyed that they didn't do anything more interesting the the Quarians. (Turns out they don't have faces, just two stalks with glowing eyes at the end!)
Next Mass Effect game will be an Asari dating game where you play an Asari working for the Consort on the citadel. You have to keep clients from multiple races happy and engaged using the correct combination of mind control, pheromones, conversation choices, make-up and physical cues.
Origin: Viycktor
I'm not sure what you're saying about the krogan. Are you saying that krogan aren't attracted to asari? If so, then Charr would like to have a word withheartfelt poem for you.
If you're saying that we know why asari are attractive to krogans, that I'm kinda curious about. Wrex was a bit dismissive of them, but still has fond memories of fighting an asari commando and gets along well enough with Liara to give Shepard shit about their relationship.
The only time we hear krogan talking about asari is a couple of them in ME2 - I think it's on Tuchanka.
"Asari? Eugh. THey're so... squishy. Where are you supposed to get a good grip?"
Apology happily accepted, no animosity from me
Setting people on fire and shit
Re quarians
You can also see unmasked quarians in synthesis's extended end if I hear right
That is the conversation that made me never really trust the Asari. Just the idea that the humans might see a different face compared to turians or salarian (it was the thing about the eyes that made me think it was more than pheromones or whatever). Probably doing mind things to make you think they're pretty, a bunch of Jean Greys running around, never
And then trying to determine if a representation is a deconstruction of exploitation. Like Aria - she's sexy without being epxloitative herself, but she uses exploitation as leverage in a realistic way. On their own, all of her stripper girls (human and asari) are exploitative, but in the context of working for Aria... I dunno. It gets more complicated. Even her own daughters are dancers in her employ. That's kinda fucked up in the context of human mores! Where is that line drawn?
I choose to see EDI as an homage and a deconstruction, which is part of what makes her so charming and hilarious in the context of this universe. There's no question that her design is exploitative, but maybe an argument could be made that it's not inherently bad.
I think the asari, as a race, straddle that line okay, because there are horror elements to them, too, and fighting commandos is the toughest thing you do in any of the three games
It's really interesting, but isn't it shot down by the Statue Dilemma?
As in, we've seen portraits/photographs/statues of Asari. In other words, nonliving media that could not control people's minds, one would assume. Most of which were produced by the Asari themselves.
It's not a end-all, but it is something of a large hole in the premise.
It would if they've mentally conditioned us to replace their real appearence with the space babe persona. With the mental powers they have, they could just do a find/replace on all asari in your head.
It might be instinctive. They might not do it on purpose.
True, but also remember that Protheans themselves have crazy sensory/tech abilities to complement their biotics. Javik can learn your language in moments and know nearly everything about you from your pheromones. They can store memories in what is effectively brain chemestry. To imagine that their protege', the asari have expanded upon this and used it throughout the ages to improve their lot is not hard to imagine.
Combination of audio memory alteration and our babelfish struggling to translate how to process discussion of the asari forward proboscii.
True, of course. Occam's razor says that I'm full of shit on this one, but I find it entertaining to deconstruct the asari with the most horriffic implications possible.
...
...
...actually that sounds kinda fun.
Head-tentacles.
Ugh, I hate it when people break out the PC Master Race bullshit. Guess what, if ME1 hadn't been designed explicitly for the Xbox, there wouldn't even BE a Mass Effect. Yes, I'm sure we'd all love it if the developers had infinite time, resource, and processing power - but that doesn't happen with any game or developer. Not with Bioware, or Blizzard, or Valve, or whomever.
The only thing I hate more (at least in the context of these forums) is rose colored ME1 nostalgia.
Granted they downsized a lot of the areas to conserve on memory and tighten up the action, but being small doesn't make it automatically worse. One of my favorite set-pieces, the Geth Dreadnaught, is in ME3. Maybe the actual scope of the place doesn't match ME1, but it does great things with perspective and design that give the illusion of a massive area.
I'll take some clipping errors in conversations over ME1's 15 second texture loading. At least clipping is sporadic and not necessarily tied to every conversation. The texture loading delay was just as immersion breaking and occurred every time you entered a new zone.
You also might be new to the series if you're disappointed about the sexualized nature of female design. Did you ever put the females in light armor in ME1? They're essentially wearing Samus' zero suit. Granted, their assets might not be as explicit as in ME2 or 3 (I haven't done a side by side comparison) but they're just as form-fitting. ME1 also gave us the Asari and their strippers and consorts. People have mentioned this distaste for this one area of the fiction, but I guarantee the Asari were one of the first things they came up with in designing the universe. Do you dislike Klingons because they're just space mongols, or the Hutts because they're fat gangsters? They're all an intrinsic part of the fiction, deal with it.
Look, all your points are valid in some way, but don't propagate the myth that all these problems are new to the ME3 or have come about only recently. It's irritating because people can take the wrong lessons away from these games and their development.
A scene where Ms. Shepard walks through TIM's quarters.
I can appreciate disappointment in the scale of the late games (even if I think it should go hand in hand with the stark disappointment in those environments in ME1, totally devoid of any life or evidence of being actual places except for the occasional shipping crate, Christ, they didn't even have trees.) It's a perception of size and space, especially since in games, environments have gotten larger frequently in the time that past over the series.
That being said, any complaints about the clumsiness of ME3's controls--and make no mistake, the game is very clumsy at times, in multiple regards--should be taken in context with the incredibly clumsy shooting mechanic of the first ME game. Crouch that frequently didn't work. AI that almost never worked properly, except as bullet sponges (and even then, often not). Weapons that wouldn't stop firing. Falling through geometry (still a problem in later games, sadly, just not as much). Bioware can do a lot of things--making a polished third-person shooter apparently is not one of them. They made a remarkable step from ME1 to ME2, and it's no surprise which one ME3 resembles more. But that's just because, in this particular area, the bar was set so low to start with.
And on the subject of homage, I think if you do stuff like that very often you need to do more interesting things with it. There's no comparison to Metropolis (a movie about weirdos lusting after a woman and making a robot in her image) other than fembot. Sometimes I feel like Mass Effect just makes a reference to something in nerd culture and then calls it a day without making it their own, like (end spoils)
That frustrates me because I love Mass Effect and they're at their best when they're doing their own thing and I want them to be like that all of the time (or at least on all the important beats).
I don't find it to be a major problem. If we're getting serious about the asari-as-mind-raping-monsters theory, it would be trivial for telepaths as powerful as the asari to just mentally replace images of actual-form asari with Space Babe asari the first time they meet, effectively re-writing the memories of previously seen images.
So, take a guy who has never met an asari, and his twin brother, who has met an asari. They both see a statue of an asari. One sees an alien... no big deal. The other sees a fine-ass space hottie. If the first guy meets his brother's asari friend, he'd probably finally realize what his brother was on about. And then she would have the twins right where she wants them.
Well yeah, I guess, but I meant that the way the races were framed agianst each other changed, too.
In the first game, krogan were essentially the exact opposite of asari: effectively all-male, unable to breed, war-like, hideous, culturally defunct, with one cool krogan opposing one antagonistic asari, slowly crawling toward extinction, heavily marginalized, and deeply nihilistic. It's like somebody took a bullet point list of asari characteristics and then just used the opposites and BAM! Krogan.
The krogan as a concept benefited so much from exploration of the nature of the genophage and the role that the female clans played in planetary politics, they very nearly became a different species in the second game.
Aria changed the way we looked at the asari damn near by herself, to say nothing of Samara
I always thought that the way we see them ingame is how everyone in the ME universe sees them. I can remember in the debate between the human, turian and salarian in the bar that everyone mentions somethings they find looks extremely similar to their own species, e.g. the Turian mentioning their "head fringes" and I think the Salarian something about skin color. Which means they look exactly the same to everyone, only certain parts of them are perceived differently by every species because they concentrate on them by default, the same way humans instinctively concentrate on certain parts when looking at other humans.
Steam ID: 76561198021298113
Origin ID: SR71C_Blackbird
This is why we need a ME4, wrap everything up like a professional wrapper around Christmas time. And then we can begin the Asari genocide.
That's not exactly it. What about a history textbook? A post card? A desk ornament? There are things that would, by their nature, have to be manufactured to specific sizes and designs.
Unless every one of those things is actually some sort of memory crystal capable of mind rape, the illusion would basically fall apart the second anyone's perception of the Asari didn't actually involve them themselves. Thing of it differently: the Asari might produce most of the media involving them (just like Americans produce most media involving Americans). But what about everyone else in the galaxy? Even if the Asari had a media boycott, they couldn't stop Turian CG sitcoms from animating an Asari, only to find out they look different in every single Turian show then they do look in all Salarian soap operas. What are the Asari going to do, follow everyone who might see some sort of media representation of an Asari around for the rest of their life? They have the time, just not the numbers.
It's one thing if you're only dealing with two people. It's a simple matter of scale. Two frat brothers might not care, but a galaxy full of biology textbooks? Medical students? Xenobiologists? Tailors? It reminds me of a line in 1984--in ideology (I think?), 2 + 2 can equal five, but in engineering, it must equal four.
Really, the conversation between the Turian, Salarian, and Human (?) demonstrates why it wouldn't work. If they could all go, "Oh, well, that's weird," and let it go, you'd basically have a universe where no one even deamt of something like philosophy. After all, the other species, behavior wise, are a lot like humans. Didn't Plato and other philosophers spend decades pondering the actual nature of things? Not much to ponder if you can kill an Asari, or find one who died of natural causes, who can't brainrape you and simply dissect it. "So that's what they look like. Well, call Simon & Simon, they'll want this for the 5th edition before medical school begins."
Of course, ME is full of things that are purely for cool and not explained terribly well (or not at all). This wouldn't be the first. It just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It would work if, as aforementioned, it was actually very subtle. The Asari have humanoid forms (just like the Batarians, sans their heads), but they can alter perceptions, attractive-bartender-in-ME2 style, on a interpersonal basis. It's not unlike a very charismatic person swaying another's opinion of him or her.
Then again, Liara's diploma is written in English no less, so crazier things have happened.
All endings in ME4 are blue endings, if you know what I mean.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
This is all true; I'm just saying, if they're powerful enough psychics, we wouldn't even remember seeing them differently. Heck, after seeing the details on Liara's scales in ME3, I'm mentally adding them to her previous images. "Have you ever met an asari, Dr. Scientist? I assure you that they look almost exactly like blue humans. Your 'warnings' are absurd."
Makes for great They Live style horror. To think that all you have to do is meet someone once and your mind is permanently altered.
But, like I said before, Occam's Razor disproves my theory and supports you. Bioware wanted an excuse for pansexual blue space babes, and they have had a little fun deconstructing the idea a little bit. It's just fun to speculate.
Psychic paper, like in Dr. Who. Javik proves that objects can store memory, so why not?
If the Asari were strange, feared beings who lived on the edges of space and widely dismissed as myth (sound familiar?), it would work, because they wouldn't be integrated into a galaxy-wide media. You could literally do it on a "two person" scale. In the meantime, you don't have to worry about medical school books and action figures for kids.
Don't get me wrong, it's a fascinating notion, but you couldn't apply it to the universe in ME. Especially when the Asari are basically the generic fashion models among everything else. It'd be industrially impossible, among other things. Part of it is that we assume that the only way the Turians could think Asari looked like Turians is physically--i.e. different mouths, different faces, claw hammers, etc.--rather than on another level (psychologically, chemically), because we think of them as being us. It could be as simple as Turians or someone else identify people by scent or sound, which the Asari could simulate much more easily.
I suppose Bioware falls into the Anthropomorphic dilemma (I believe that's what it's called) as much as anyone, or even more. Klingons and Navi aren't requiring to speak English, after all.
Asari and cyborgs, pretty much
I would like to buy the PC versions and play them, but I still rankle at paying full price for ME2 and all of its DLC. I did that once before for the DLC, and would like to get a deal there if possible.
My complaint about the Quarians isn't not seeing them. (my eye-stalk comment was meant to be a joke) You may also see them, depending on your choices, in an image of the extended cut ending. They're coexisting with Geth on a rebuilt Rannoch. I think there's only one ending choice that allows for this though, and it's obvious which one that is.
My complaint is that they don't looks as alien as the other aliens despite being even MORE biologically/genetically different from humans than the Asari, for example.
Bioware has crafted some pretty well animated alien humanoids overall, and to say "meh, space night elves" with the Quarians was a bit disappointing. I understand the desire to make Tali cute, but Garrus is a popular character despite having a dinosaur-cat face. I know it's been the subject of alot of debate and discussion that's not worth rehashing, I was just hoping for something a little more alien from Bioware.
Doesn't it though? Watch now, the next "multiplayer DLC" won't be quite what everyone was expecting. Also, Kinect support!
Origin: Viycktor
EVA was probably a more stripped down version of EDI, built explicitly for infiltration instead of advanced cyberwarfare. Don't forget that when EDI tries to download the information in the unit's data core, EVA springs a trap and there's a kind of "battle of wills" between them. EDI wins out since she's the superior platform.
Yeah, "size," in relation to AIs is a bit tricky to calculate. Legion has eleven hundred geth AI programs in his specialized frame. EDI is one huge AI shell program in a room-sized mainframe. EDI could probably download most of her core programming into EVA's body if she had to evacuate for some reason, because she wouldn't need all of her Normandy-driving, atmosphere-processing data. She'd probably zip most of her cyberwarfare suites to unpack when she actually has another ship to protect. She also wouldn't need those seven zettabytes of explicit images, regardless of how their loss will impact Jeff.
So yeah, I think EDI could have a life post-Normandy if need-be.
Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my massive erection at the 1920x1080 resolution of Miranda's ass.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I agree.
I also liked an idea someone floated around in one of these threads, right after the game came out, of how interesting it would have been if EDI had changed her physical bodY in ways that she wanted (more firepower and armor say, or maybe just a different aesthetic choice), and in doing so made herself less traditionally beautiful. Like if she ended up looking more like Optimus Prime than Maria from metropolis, by her own choice, and how Joker would react to that.
There's lots of interesting narratives that I think Bioware lost by reverting to "sexy supermodel number 20, GO!"
On my sleeve, let the runway start
i did get the part