The turian military would be a shadow of what it is today if the volus didn't finance and administrate it.
Gee then I guess all client races of the Turians deserve a Council seat, eh?
You might as well argue that because Best Buy couldn't have made such a profit since you've begun shopping there so much, so you deserve a position on their Board of Executives.
Getting space jews to do your math is a big boost to military efficiency, I'd imagine.
stop being goomba.
the turian society just didnt care for trade, that does not mean they cant do math. if they could do math they couldnt have built the fleet of ships that pushed back the krogan before the genophage was unleashed.
I for one like the idea of another "upstart" race discovering a mass relay after a relatively short period of space travel (say, one or two hundred years) and going wild.
I totally want the Raloi to go berserk and become reaper pawns. They have the money of the volus, the biotics of the asari, the intelligence of the salarians, the ingenuity of humans, the toughness of krogan, the discipline of the turians, the politeness of the hanar, the farsightedness of the elcor, and the networking of the geth.
But they don't have the power of love.
i would also like to call next OP, I have a lovely Cerberus-themed one
In ME: P, you play as a hanar on the citadel. You have to find the optimum spots in the citadel to spread word of the Enkindlers to those around you. Highlights include fleeing slowly from hecklers, arguing with C-Sec, and a stealth portion where you sneak into the Fornax offices between sermons for your photoshoot.
I totally want the Raloi to go berserk and become reaper pawns. They have the money of the volus, the biotics of the asari, the intelligence of the salarians, the ingenuity of humans, the toughness of krogan, the discipline of the turians, the politeness of the hanar, the farsightedness of the elcor, and the networking of the geth.
But they don't have the power of love.
i would also like to call next OP, I have a lovely Cerberus-themed one
where did you get all that the raloi havnt had anything revealed about them yet except for bird flu
Is there any conceivable reason, Dark, why the Council allows a hooker right outside their tower but the Volus can't even get their own office?
theoretically as a client state to the Hierarchy they aren't supposed to have an office in the first place, so I suppose they actually have more then usually reserved for someone in their position
you should be asking why the elcor have to share their office with the Volus, but that's probably because they don't really have much contact with other races, and according to their ambassador at the least they dont mind it. Hell, their culture is based on tight-knit groups and tribes and exessive politeness, they probably prefer it that way
And prostitution is legal in Citadel Space. The consort is rich enough to buy a huge property in the presidium, it's her own business what she does with it.
The turian military would be a shadow of what it is today if the volus didn't finance and administrate it. Creating and maintaining the galactic economy, which appears to have stayed pretty stable for thousands of years, is kind of a big deal.
what
The turians had a better military then every other single goddamn race PUT TOGETHER and THEN some when they first arrived, without ever meeting the Citadel races. That's not why they hired the volus, they wanted to have some civilian economy and trade going. The turian society is an autocratic meritocracy where every citizen is expected to contribute to the military out of their free will, it's power and progress is not dependable on the civilian economic sector. The volus sure as hell don't finance and administrate the turian military as a whole. They may be part of it, probably an reasonably important one, but they don't fucking run it.
And the turian economy is still bigger then the economy of the volus if we separate the two. But right now the volus economy is part of the Hierarchy economy. Their financial knowhow is important, but it's not like the turians would be destitute without them, it's still the Volus who asked to be part of the Hierarchy instead of the other way around. The turians got bigger tax base, more competitive civilian economic sector and auxiliary troops in the deal. The volus got the complete protection of the most powerful military, and became a part of the second or third largest economy in the galaxy in the process. Its not hard to see which side benefited more out of the tradeoff.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
the council cares more about species with the ability to give military, and humanitarian aid in a moment of crisis.
elcor and volus are not in a position to do either.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
There's a point in ME1 where you can ask why other races aren't on the council, and you're told that the council races are required to contribute significant amounts of both military and monetary resources to the Citadel forces. The council claims they don't want to place a burden on races like the volus who can't meet this requirement. Everyone else thinks this is the council's excuse to keep the other races pushed down.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
well, we don't know why they were sharing the embassy. maybe the volus had their own place under new repairs and are pissed that they were relocated to the elcor embassy or something. maybe the keepers don't let them stay in any rooms by themselves
Seriously though though, being pissed that the volus have to share their embassy with someone else is the same thing as being pissed that Texas doesn't have it's own room at the United Nations headquarters. They are a state of a bigger empire and their foreign policy and as such, relations with other species are dictated by the Hierarchy. The Codex even says that they are conducting negotiations for colonization rights to the planet Patavig with the Systems Alliance...through the Turian Hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason for the Vol Protectorate have anything else but a symbolic office maybe, I bet the more longer lasting client races of the Turian Hierarchy are complaining of the preferential treatment the turians give to the volus.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
well, we don't know why they were sharing the embassy. maybe the volus had their own place under new repairs and are pissed that they were relocated to the elcor embassy or something. maybe the keepers don't let them stay in any rooms by themselves
Seriously though though, being pissed that the volus have to share their embassy with someone else is the same thing as being pissed that Texas doesn't have it's own room at the United Nations headquarters. They are a state of a bigger empire and their foreign policy and as such, relations with other species are dictated by the Hierarchy. The Codex even says that they are conducting negotiations for colonization rights to the planet Patavig with the Systems Alliance...through the Turian Hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason for the Vol Protectorate have anything else but a symbolic office maybe, I bet the more longer lasting client races of the Turian Hierarchy are complaining of the preferential treatment the turians give to the volus.
This would hold, except that the Council and its ambassadors represent races rather than political bodies - the fact that the volus are part of the Hierarchy is immaterial to their presence on the Citadel.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
well, we don't know why they were sharing the embassy. maybe the volus had their own place under new repairs and are pissed that they were relocated to the elcor embassy or something. maybe the keepers don't let them stay in any rooms by themselves
Seriously though though, being pissed that the volus have to share their embassy with someone else is the same thing as being pissed that Texas doesn't have it's own room at the United Nations headquarters. They are a state of a bigger empire and their foreign policy and as such, relations with other species are dictated by the Hierarchy. The Codex even says that they are conducting negotiations for colonization rights to the planet Patavig with the Systems Alliance...through the Turian Hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason for the Vol Protectorate have anything else but a symbolic office maybe, I bet the more longer lasting client races of the Turian Hierarchy are complaining of the preferential treatment the turians give to the volus.
This would hold, except that the Council and its ambassadors represent races rather than political bodies - the fact that the volus are part of the Hierarchy is immaterial to their presence on the Citadel.
it represents nations, not races.
system alliance, turien hierarchy, salarian union, asari republics, counts of dekuun.
it just so happens that most nations are for the most part a single species, turians are the only ones we've heard of that have client races
This would hold, except that the Council and its ambassadors represent races rather than political bodies - the fact that the volus are part of the Hierarchy is immaterial to their presence on the Citadel.
it represents nations, not races.
system alliance, turien hierarchy, salarian union, asari republics, counts of dekuun.
it just so happens that most nations are for the most part a single species, turians are the only ones we've heard of that have client races
It's species, I'm telling you. It's not the Alliance - it's humanity. It's not the Hierarchy - it's the turians and the volus. It's damn sure not any of the various ruling quadrants of Salarian space, otherwise the most important Citadel position wouldn't be held by a male.
In spite of how counter-intuitive that sounds and the source of each representative, evidence points to each race on the Council being a representative of their race rather than their political backgrounds. It's just a natural consequence of moving into space that most of them (with volus and turian being notable exceptions, here) also comes a primarily single-species political background.
It doesn't matter how small your species is, there's enough room for everybody to get their own office. Look how huge Udina's is. The council is just a jerk to species without a competitive military.
well, we don't know why they were sharing the embassy. maybe the volus had their own place under new repairs and are pissed that they were relocated to the elcor embassy or something. maybe the keepers don't let them stay in any rooms by themselves
Seriously though though, being pissed that the volus have to share their embassy with someone else is the same thing as being pissed that Texas doesn't have it's own room at the United Nations headquarters. They are a state of a bigger empire and their foreign policy and as such, relations with other species are dictated by the Hierarchy. The Codex even says that they are conducting negotiations for colonization rights to the planet Patavig with the Systems Alliance...through the Turian Hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason for the Vol Protectorate have anything else but a symbolic office maybe, I bet the more longer lasting client races of the Turian Hierarchy are complaining of the preferential treatment the turians give to the volus.
This would hold, except that the Council and its ambassadors represent races rather than political bodies - the fact that the volus are part of the Hierarchy is immaterial to their presence on the Citadel.
it represents nations, not races.
system alliance, turien hierarchy, salarian union, asari republics, counts of dekuun.
it just so happens that most nations are for the most part a single species, turians are the only ones we've heard of that have client races
The Hanar have the Drell, who, I may add, don't have their own embassy at the Citadel.
the Vorcha are pretty much a client race to the Krogan as well, although obviously neither have an embassy to the Citadel.
the geth were an synthetic client race to the Quarians for a very very short while, though not in an official capacity
the Collectors are a client race to the Reapers :P
This would hold, except that the Council and its ambassadors represent races rather than political bodies - the fact that the volus are part of the Hierarchy is immaterial to their presence on the Citadel.
it represents nations, not races.
system alliance, turien hierarchy, salarian union, asari republics, counts of dekuun.
it just so happens that most nations are for the most part a single species, turians are the only ones we've heard of that have client races
It's species, I'm telling you. It's not the Alliance - it's humanity. It's not the Hierarchy - it's the turians and the volus. It's damn sure not any of the various ruling quadrants of Salarian space, otherwise the most important Citadel position wouldn't be held by a male.
In spite of how counter-intuitive that sounds and the source of each representative, evidence points to each race on the Council being a representative of their race rather than their political backgrounds. It's just a natural consequence of moving into space that most of them (with volus and turian being notable exceptions, here) also comes a primarily single-species political background.
Umm no, its very specifically mentioned as the Alliance's embassy, it's simply the representative of the humanity in space. The human colonies in Terminus Systems don't get to claim Citadel protection. Salarian Union is an united entity as the name points out. It's a federation formed by the various matriarchs of Salarian space. The representative is not really in a leadership position amongst them, he simply represents the Union. There is an non-Union salarian entity/bloodline named in the books, the Lystheni salarians that also don't enjoy Citadel protection.
The drell are at a point where they don't really consider themselves separate from the hanar - the volus are different in that their relationship with the turians is strictly mercantile, from their own perspective, and they retain their identity as a people in spite of being part of the Hierarchy (if we are to believe the volus ambassador, that is)
A new wrinkle in the trial of Rolan Quarn, the turian who masqueraded as the CEO of Delumcore Systems: passing himself off as Jaxum Borlin isn’t the first time he’s stepped into someone else’s life. Quarn has impersonated dozens of other people including a stunt driver, sous-chef, martial arts instructor, ambassador, varren tamer, news anchor, and stand-up comedian. Nos Astran police chief Sonja Treme stated that Quarn is being “cooperative” and that “he was living off of what he made once he joined Delumcore. Borlin’s personal accounts haven’t been touched.”
Sounds like a movie waiting to happen.
Sounds like Catch Me If You Can, actually.
Sounds like the television show The Pretender to me, which was much more entertaining than CMiYC.
The drell are at a point where they don't really consider themselves separate from the hanar - the volus are different in that their relationship with the turians is strictly mercantile, from their own perspective, and they retain their identity as a people in spite of being part of the Hierarchy (if we are to believe the volus ambassador, that is)
Could the drell act as the Hanar's military arm for the Hanar to be considered for a Council spot?
The drell are at a point where they don't really consider themselves separate from the hanar - the volus are different in that their relationship with the turians is strictly mercantile, from their own perspective, and they retain their identity as a people in spite of being part of the Hierarchy (if we are to believe the volus ambassador, that is)
Their relationship goes far beyond mercantile. In foreign policy they are fully represented by the Hierarchy and they don't make deals with other races without Hierarchy approval, in fact the deals go through Hierarchy. The militaries are unified, the Volus serve as auxiliary troops. The Hierarchy is formed by Palaven and all the various colonies, and client races, including the Volus as separate states of the Empire. It's an autocratic system so the Councilor is not elected democratically, but there is no more reason for the Volus to have their own ambassador any more then the individual colonies, at least not one that makes any real decisions.
The Volus ambassador seems to have some problems with the agreement, granted (or more specifically about the Volus not being in the Council as a race)...but the Volus aren't a democracy either so we don't know if he represents majority opinion.
Systems Alliance is much of the same in the composition. It's like a bigger United Nations, except that alongside People's Republic of China, European Union, and United North American States you also have colony-countries like Eden Prime and Terra Nova. They elect an ambassador to the Citadel. That doesn't mean that Eden Prime gets to have it's own ambassador separate from Udina.
It's species, I'm telling you. It's not the Alliance - it's humanity. It's not the Hierarchy - it's the turians and the volus. It's damn sure not any of the various ruling quadrants of Salarian space, otherwise the most important Citadel position wouldn't be held by a male.
In spite of how counter-intuitive that sounds and the source of each representative, evidence points to each race on the Council being a representative of their race rather than their political backgrounds. It's just a natural consequence of moving into space that most of them (with volus and turian being notable exceptions, here) also comes a primarily single-species political background.
Umm no, its very specifically mentioned as the Alliance's embassy, it's simply the representative of the humanity in space. The human colonies in Terminus Systems don't get to claim Citadel protection. Salarian Union is an united entity as the name points out. It's a federation formed by the various matriarchs of Salarian space. The representative is not really in a leadership position amongst them, he simply represents the Union. There is an non-Union salarian entity/bloodline named in the books, the Lystheni salarians that also don't enjoy Citadel protection.
Regardless of how it's mentiond colloquially, the Alliance Representative is a representative of human interests in space rather than the Alliance itself. The distiniction is important here. I don't mean to suggest that the Citadel itself is not a political body and it's impossible to operate outside of the bounds of its jurisdictions, because that isn't true, but if there were (for some reason) a schism in the Turian Hierarchy they wouldn't get to have two embassies on the Citadel. There's a reason the embassies are referred to by ace except as colloquially done.
More, you've pointed it out youorself - if it were political, the volus shouldn't have any species-centric representation on the Citadel, much less a volus ambassador representing volus interests, but that is exactly what they have. Citadel representation cannot, by fact of the volus embassy, be representative of political powers.
And considering how the salarians, as a COuncil race, are bound by the decisions which the salarian councillor is a party to, it's suggestive that the salarians do nont see their representative on the Citadel as being a political representative so much as a racial one.
The drell are at a point where they don't really consider themselves separate from the hanar - the volus are different in that their relationship with the turians is strictly mercantile, from their own perspective, and they retain their identity as a people in spite of being part of the Hierarchy (if we are to believe the volus ambassador, that is)
Could the drell act as the Hanar's military arm for the Hanar to be considered for a Council spot?
I'm guessing no?
There is probably only a few million of them, and I don't think the hanar economy is large enough to support a massive fleet.
On the other hand, one of the random snippets you hear in the Citadel in the first game says that the hanar are considered for a Council membership.
The drell are at a point where they don't really consider themselves separate from the hanar - the volus are different in that their relationship with the turians is strictly mercantile, from their own perspective, and they retain their identity as a people in spite of being part of the Hierarchy (if we are to believe the volus ambassador, that is)
Could the drell act as the Hanar's military arm for the Hanar to be considered for a Council spot?
I'm guessing no?
There is probably only a few million of them, and I don't think the hanar economy is large enough to support a massive fleet.
On the other hand, one of the random snippets you hear in the Citadel in the first game says that the hanar are considered for a Council membership.
I'm going to agree on this one. The drell number way, way, WAAAAAAY too few to operate as an appropriate standing military, and the hanar don't seem militarily-minded anyway.
But, as DarkCrawler points out, it doesn't seem to be the case that a strong military and economic presence as ultimately necessary for a Council position.
Though.... wasn't it also mentioned that the volus were eligible for their own position, too?
It's species, I'm telling you. It's not the Alliance - it's humanity. It's not the Hierarchy - it's the turians and the volus. It's damn sure not any of the various ruling quadrants of Salarian space, otherwise the most important Citadel position wouldn't be held by a male.
In spite of how counter-intuitive that sounds and the source of each representative, evidence points to each race on the Council being a representative of their race rather than their political backgrounds. It's just a natural consequence of moving into space that most of them (with volus and turian being notable exceptions, here) also comes a primarily single-species political background.
Umm no, its very specifically mentioned as the Alliance's embassy, it's simply the representative of the humanity in space. The human colonies in Terminus Systems don't get to claim Citadel protection. Salarian Union is an united entity as the name points out. It's a federation formed by the various matriarchs of Salarian space. The representative is not really in a leadership position amongst them, he simply represents the Union. There is an non-Union salarian entity/bloodline named in the books, the Lystheni salarians that also don't enjoy Citadel protection.
Regardless of how it's mentiond colloquially, the Alliance Representative is a representative of human interests in space rather than the Alliance itself. The distiniction is important here. I don't mean to suggest that the Citadel itself is not a political body and it's impossible to operate outside of the bounds of its jurisdictions, because that isn't true, but if there were (for some reason) a schism in the Turian Hierarchy they wouldn't get to have two embassies on the Citadel. There's a reason the embassies are referred to by ace except as colloquially done.
More, you've pointed it out youorself - if it were political, the volus shouldn't have any species-centric representation on the Citadel, much less a volus ambassador representing volus interests, but that is exactly what they have. Citadel representation cannot, by fact of the volus embassy, be representative of political powers.
And considering how the salarians, as a COuncil race, are bound by the decisions which the salarian councillor is a party to, it's suggestive that the salarians do nont see their representative on the Citadel as being a political representative so much as a racial one.
The Alliance representative is a direct representative of the Systems Alliance, which in turn is the direct representative of all the separate nations of Earth and most of the colonies in space. This makes the Alliance Representative the representative of the vast majority of humans, but there are human political entities that fall outside it's jurisdiction, such as Horizon. So no, it's a political representative and a political entity, it simply represents around 99,9% of the human race.
With united foreign policy, military and economy there is not much that the Volus can even petition in the Citadel. I'd say that the volus retaining their embassy in the Citadel was as much of a political decision then a racial one. As a voluntary client race deal there may have been all sorts of agreements that don't enter the picture with a simple subjucation. Maybe it's some sort of an safeguard against potential turian exploitation. The Drell had another voluntary deal that did not seem to involve a Citadel membership before they considered themselves a part of hanar society. The Volus have been a client race of the turians 1200 years longer then the drell have been a client race of the hanar, so it's not really the time scale that explains why the drell don't have their own embassy. The drell have only been under hanar rule for less then two hundred years.
And it is assumed that all the matriarchs, or at least the vast majority of the Salarian Union agree on following the Council decisions, otherwise they would just leave the Citadel. It's a political representative, but again it simply represents a vast majority of a given race.
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Gee then I guess all client races of the Turians deserve a Council seat, eh?
You might as well argue that because Best Buy couldn't have made such a profit since you've begun shopping there so much, so you deserve a position on their Board of Executives.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
stop being goomba.
the turian society just didnt care for trade, that does not mean they cant do math. if they could do math they couldnt have built the fleet of ships that pushed back the krogan before the genophage was unleashed.
Volus financial expertise means turians have even more money to build more ships.
Just throwing that out there
To give us something to do after taking care of this whole "Reaper" business, you see
Could be fun, you know.
But they don't have the power of love.
i would also like to call next OP, I have a lovely Cerberus-themed one
In ME: P, you play as a hanar on the citadel. You have to find the optimum spots in the citadel to spread word of the Enkindlers to those around you. Highlights include fleeing slowly from hecklers, arguing with C-Sec, and a stealth portion where you sneak into the Fornax offices between sermons for your photoshoot.
PS4:MrZoompants
where did you get all that the raloi havnt had anything revealed about them yet except for bird flu
i would hope they had some defining feature besides bird flu, perhaps they are avians that can actually fly
Well the Reaper story is the end of the Shepard story right?
Seems like there are enough corrupt AIs and mercs to keep other characters and new pcs occupied.
Mass effect 4 will star Garrus, and he will either be paragon or renegade depending on how you influenced him through all 3 previous games
Enemies are everywhere.
What did you do
theoretically as a client state to the Hierarchy they aren't supposed to have an office in the first place, so I suppose they actually have more then usually reserved for someone in their position
you should be asking why the elcor have to share their office with the Volus, but that's probably because they don't really have much contact with other races, and according to their ambassador at the least they dont mind it. Hell, their culture is based on tight-knit groups and tribes and exessive politeness, they probably prefer it that way
And prostitution is legal in Citadel Space. The consort is rich enough to buy a huge property in the presidium, it's her own business what she does with it.
what
The turians had a better military then every other single goddamn race PUT TOGETHER and THEN some when they first arrived, without ever meeting the Citadel races. That's not why they hired the volus, they wanted to have some civilian economy and trade going. The turian society is an autocratic meritocracy where every citizen is expected to contribute to the military out of their free will, it's power and progress is not dependable on the civilian economic sector. The volus sure as hell don't finance and administrate the turian military as a whole. They may be part of it, probably an reasonably important one, but they don't fucking run it.
And the turian economy is still bigger then the economy of the volus if we separate the two. But right now the volus economy is part of the Hierarchy economy. Their financial knowhow is important, but it's not like the turians would be destitute without them, it's still the Volus who asked to be part of the Hierarchy instead of the other way around. The turians got bigger tax base, more competitive civilian economic sector and auxiliary troops in the deal. The volus got the complete protection of the most powerful military, and became a part of the second or third largest economy in the galaxy in the process. Its not hard to see which side benefited more out of the tradeoff.
the council cares more about species with the ability to give military, and humanitarian aid in a moment of crisis.
elcor and volus are not in a position to do either.
There's a point in ME1 where you can ask why other races aren't on the council, and you're told that the council races are required to contribute significant amounts of both military and monetary resources to the Citadel forces. The council claims they don't want to place a burden on races like the volus who can't meet this requirement. Everyone else thinks this is the council's excuse to keep the other races pushed down.
well, we don't know why they were sharing the embassy. maybe the volus had their own place under new repairs and are pissed that they were relocated to the elcor embassy or something. maybe the keepers don't let them stay in any rooms by themselves
Seriously though though, being pissed that the volus have to share their embassy with someone else is the same thing as being pissed that Texas doesn't have it's own room at the United Nations headquarters. They are a state of a bigger empire and their foreign policy and as such, relations with other species are dictated by the Hierarchy. The Codex even says that they are conducting negotiations for colonization rights to the planet Patavig with the Systems Alliance...through the Turian Hierarchy. There is absolutely no reason for the Vol Protectorate have anything else but a symbolic office maybe, I bet the more longer lasting client races of the Turian Hierarchy are complaining of the preferential treatment the turians give to the volus.
This would hold, except that the Council and its ambassadors represent races rather than political bodies - the fact that the volus are part of the Hierarchy is immaterial to their presence on the Citadel.
it represents nations, not races.
system alliance, turien hierarchy, salarian union, asari republics, counts of dekuun.
it just so happens that most nations are for the most part a single species, turians are the only ones we've heard of that have client races
It's species, I'm telling you. It's not the Alliance - it's humanity. It's not the Hierarchy - it's the turians and the volus. It's damn sure not any of the various ruling quadrants of Salarian space, otherwise the most important Citadel position wouldn't be held by a male.
In spite of how counter-intuitive that sounds and the source of each representative, evidence points to each race on the Council being a representative of their race rather than their political backgrounds. It's just a natural consequence of moving into space that most of them (with volus and turian being notable exceptions, here) also comes a primarily single-species political background.
The Hanar have the Drell, who, I may add, don't have their own embassy at the Citadel.
the Vorcha are pretty much a client race to the Krogan as well, although obviously neither have an embassy to the Citadel.
the geth were an synthetic client race to the Quarians for a very very short while, though not in an official capacity
the Collectors are a client race to the Reapers :P
Umm no, its very specifically mentioned as the Alliance's embassy, it's simply the representative of the humanity in space. The human colonies in Terminus Systems don't get to claim Citadel protection. Salarian Union is an united entity as the name points out. It's a federation formed by the various matriarchs of Salarian space. The representative is not really in a leadership position amongst them, he simply represents the Union. There is an non-Union salarian entity/bloodline named in the books, the Lystheni salarians that also don't enjoy Citadel protection.
Sounds like the television show The Pretender to me, which was much more entertaining than CMiYC.
Could the drell act as the Hanar's military arm for the Hanar to be considered for a Council spot?
I'm guessing no?
Their relationship goes far beyond mercantile. In foreign policy they are fully represented by the Hierarchy and they don't make deals with other races without Hierarchy approval, in fact the deals go through Hierarchy. The militaries are unified, the Volus serve as auxiliary troops. The Hierarchy is formed by Palaven and all the various colonies, and client races, including the Volus as separate states of the Empire. It's an autocratic system so the Councilor is not elected democratically, but there is no more reason for the Volus to have their own ambassador any more then the individual colonies, at least not one that makes any real decisions.
The Volus ambassador seems to have some problems with the agreement, granted (or more specifically about the Volus not being in the Council as a race)...but the Volus aren't a democracy either so we don't know if he represents majority opinion.
Systems Alliance is much of the same in the composition. It's like a bigger United Nations, except that alongside People's Republic of China, European Union, and United North American States you also have colony-countries like Eden Prime and Terra Nova. They elect an ambassador to the Citadel. That doesn't mean that Eden Prime gets to have it's own ambassador separate from Udina.
Regardless of how it's mentiond colloquially, the Alliance Representative is a representative of human interests in space rather than the Alliance itself. The distiniction is important here. I don't mean to suggest that the Citadel itself is not a political body and it's impossible to operate outside of the bounds of its jurisdictions, because that isn't true, but if there were (for some reason) a schism in the Turian Hierarchy they wouldn't get to have two embassies on the Citadel. There's a reason the embassies are referred to by ace except as colloquially done.
More, you've pointed it out youorself - if it were political, the volus shouldn't have any species-centric representation on the Citadel, much less a volus ambassador representing volus interests, but that is exactly what they have. Citadel representation cannot, by fact of the volus embassy, be representative of political powers.
And considering how the salarians, as a COuncil race, are bound by the decisions which the salarian councillor is a party to, it's suggestive that the salarians do nont see their representative on the Citadel as being a political representative so much as a racial one.
There is probably only a few million of them, and I don't think the hanar economy is large enough to support a massive fleet.
On the other hand, one of the random snippets you hear in the Citadel in the first game says that the hanar are considered for a Council membership.
I'm going to agree on this one. The drell number way, way, WAAAAAAY too few to operate as an appropriate standing military, and the hanar don't seem militarily-minded anyway.
But, as DarkCrawler points out, it doesn't seem to be the case that a strong military and economic presence as ultimately necessary for a Council position.
Though.... wasn't it also mentioned that the volus were eligible for their own position, too?
Hey, HEY!
I played Overlord while arguing this
Turns out, Vanguards don't have much trouble with it on Insanity.
The Alliance representative is a direct representative of the Systems Alliance, which in turn is the direct representative of all the separate nations of Earth and most of the colonies in space. This makes the Alliance Representative the representative of the vast majority of humans, but there are human political entities that fall outside it's jurisdiction, such as Horizon. So no, it's a political representative and a political entity, it simply represents around 99,9% of the human race.
With united foreign policy, military and economy there is not much that the Volus can even petition in the Citadel. I'd say that the volus retaining their embassy in the Citadel was as much of a political decision then a racial one. As a voluntary client race deal there may have been all sorts of agreements that don't enter the picture with a simple subjucation. Maybe it's some sort of an safeguard against potential turian exploitation. The Drell had another voluntary deal that did not seem to involve a Citadel membership before they considered themselves a part of hanar society. The Volus have been a client race of the turians 1200 years longer then the drell have been a client race of the hanar, so it's not really the time scale that explains why the drell don't have their own embassy. The drell have only been under hanar rule for less then two hundred years.
And it is assumed that all the matriarchs, or at least the vast majority of the Salarian Union agree on following the Council decisions, otherwise they would just leave the Citadel. It's a political representative, but again it simply represents a vast majority of a given race.
I am a dirty 360-playing peasant and I have a laptop.
I've almost given up hope. I've played the last part about six times now and each ends in