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183-507: The first three main series games is set in the Milky Way galaxy and follows Commander Shepard , a human special forces soldier who discovers an imminent threat to the galactic community from the Reapers , an ancient collective of sentient synthetic starships which harvest all spaceflight-era organic civilizations as part of a repeating cycle that span millennia in length. The fourth main series game

366-485: A conjunction of Jupiter and Mars in 1106 or 1107 as evidence. The Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274) in his Tadhkira wrote: "The Milky Way, i.e. the Galaxy, is made up of a very large number of small, tightly clustered stars, which, on account of their concentration and smallness, seem to be cloudy patches. Because of this, it was likened to milk in color." Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350) proposed that

549-654: A radius of about 39.5 kpc (130,000 ly), over twice as much as was determined in earlier studies, suggesting that about 90% of the mass of the galaxy is dark matter . In September 2023, astronomers reported that the virial mass of the Milky Way Galaxy is only 2.06 10 solar masses , only a 10th of the mass of previous studies. The mass was determined from data of the Gaia spacecraft . The Milky Way contains between 100 and 400 billion stars and at least that many planets. An exact figure would depend on counting

732-515: A "Reaper task force" for the Turians, with the option to continue their relationship from 2 if he was Shepard's paramour. The character is also the star of the third issue of Mass Effect: Homeworlds . Garrus's blue-and-black armour colour scheme was kept consistent throughout the series, as was his visor, although grey was added in the third game to reflect his new rank. Garrus is voiced by Brandon Keener . A famous bounty hunter and mercenary, Wrex

915-505: A "humanity-first" supremacist agenda, appears as recurring antagonists in the series. Cerberus is officially sanctioned and classified as a violent non-state actor by both the Alliance and the Council governments. In Mass Effect 2 , Cerberus are depicted as anti-villains who resurrected and forms an alliance with Commander Shepard against the human-abducting Collectors. In Mass Effect 3 during

1098-417: A "refreshing change from the philosophizing and soul-searching of the rest of the crew." Thane is a mysterious drell assassin who is terminally ill from a disease known as Kepral's Syndrome, which is exclusive to drell due to their physiology. While a coldblooded killer, Thane possesses a conscience that struggles against his own profession. Shepard may recruit him on the asari -dominated world of Ilium for

1281-603: A 2016 study. Such Earth-sized planets may be more numerous than gas giants, though harder to detect at great distances given their small size. Besides exoplanets, " exocomets ", comets beyond the Solar System, have also been detected and may be common in the Milky Way. More recently, in November 2020, over 300 million habitable exoplanets are estimated to exist in the Milky Way Galaxy. When compared to other more distant galaxies in

1464-646: A 600-year journey to the Andromeda galaxy, departing before the events of Mass Effect 3 . The ark carrying the humans, the Hyperion , arrives at the wrong drop point, far from the forward command centre of the Andromeda Initiative, the Nexus, and cut off from contact with both it and the other arks. The player-controlled Ryder later succeeds their father as the Hyperion's Pathfinder, and is tasked with leading their crew on

1647-553: A biotic individual's physiology as the embodiment of "a merging of organic and inorganic materials", which invokes the exhibitions of biological rarities in world history and the spectacle of “extraordinary bodies" as termed by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson , an expert in disability studies. David Callahan analyzed racial and cultural tensions among Mass Effect ' s galactic community, and drew comparisons to multiculturalism in Canada . Eva Zekany from Central European University researched

1830-416: A character is a piece of art", as he recalled that some ideas that worked on paper ended up not working well on a 3-D model. The character model would next be textured and prepared for inclusion into the game. The animation team gets involved early in the process to make sure everything works correctly. Most aliens had to fit into a humanoid skeleton for animation purposes; for example, the batarian's appearance

2013-610: A compelling motivation that enriches the galaxy. The worldbuilding of Mass Effect references the Star Control series with the Krogan -Rachni war, the lost Prothean civilization, and the sentience-harvesting Reapers . The Reapers and their progenitors, the Leviathans, were also inspired by the cosmic horror and Cthulhu Mythos deities from the literary works of H.P. Lovecraft . The salarians are intended to be Mass Effect ' s answer to

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2196-601: A conspiracy involving batarian terrorists. Jacob is encountered in Mass Effect 2 as an official member of Cerberus and Shepard's starting squad member, as well as a potential romantic option for a female Shepard. Unless the player imports a Mass Effect 2 saved game where Jacob does not survive the suicide mission, in Mass Effect 3 he returns as a supporting character who has defected from Cerberus, and attempts to protect other Cerberus defectors from reprisals by their former employer. The iconic look of all Cerberus clothing in

2379-597: A different galaxy, Andromeda , and focuses on the Andromeda Initiative and the Ryder family. The spin-off games, Mass Effect Galaxy and Mass Effect Infiltrator , feature different protagonists. This article describes characters, which includes a diverse cast of alien , human and synthetic beings, that appear in video games set in the Mass Effect universe . This list only includes player characters, squad members, major antagonists, and other notable characters that appear in

2562-518: A dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky. The term is a translation of the Classical Latin via lactea , in turn derived from the Hellenistic Greek γαλαξίας , short for γαλαξίας κύκλος ( galaxías kýklos ), meaning "milky circle". The Ancient Greek γαλαξίας ( galaxias ) – from root γαλακτ -, γάλα ("milk") + -ίας (forming adjectives) – is also

2745-527: A franchise which encompasses a series of novels, comic books, mobile games, an animated film , and a 3D theme park ride , all of which are centered on other characters as protagonists. “I don't think you can really talk about the Mass Effect universe without talking about dark energy . It's one of those great elements that fascinated us, as designers and developers, because it is something that actually sort of exists in our world, at least theoretically. This sort of mystical fifth energy, that in some ways binds

2928-456: A great deal of detail at +6.1. This makes the Milky Way difficult to see from brightly lit urban or suburban areas, but very prominent when viewed from rural areas when the Moon is below the horizon. Maps of artificial night sky brightness show that more than one-third of Earth's population cannot see the Milky Way from their homes due to light pollution. As viewed from Earth, the visible region of

3111-466: A measurement of the radial velocity of halo stars found that the mass enclosed within 80 kilo parsecs is 7 × 10   M ☉ . In a 2014 study, the mass of the entire Milky Way is estimated to be 8.5 × 10   M ☉ , but this is only half the mass of the Andromeda Galaxy. A recent 2019 mass estimate for the Milky Way is 1.29 × 10   M ☉ . Much of the mass of

3294-485: A memorable story. Early versions of the first game's plot involved a conflict between humanity and the batarians, originally conceived as a "warmongering" group of "small bat-like creatures". Led by the villainous Saren , the batarians intended to steal the technology of the "Nazari", which was at that point the name of the extinct race that preceded the contemporary races and created most of the technology. Humanity were to be depicted with an inherent ability to access and use

3477-579: A mostly positive reception from commentators. GamesRadar praised the setting's Milky Way galaxy as "so well-constructed that it felt like a decades-old franchise" and its presentation "a high-water mark for video games as a story-telling medium." Similarly, Evan Narcisse enjoyed the "family secrets, tribal grudge matches, and interplanetary political turnabout" depicted throughout the original trilogy, describing them as memorable moments where it felt like players could change lives in both minor or major ways. Kyle Munkittrick from Gizmodo argued that Mass Effect

3660-597: A playable character when the Collectors invade the Normandy to capture its crew in the absence of Shepard and the squad. He can develop a romantic relationship with EDI in Mass Effect 3 if encouraged. Joker is voiced by Seth Green . Jacob Taylor is the protagonist of Mass Effect Galaxy , a tie-in iOS game to Mass Effect 2 . He is a former Systems Alliance soldier who is recruited by Miranda Lawson in Galaxy to investigate

3843-492: A privilege for some time. The Citadel Council soon invites a human to join the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance (SPECTRES), elite extrajudicial law enforcement entity that can limit sapient rights , supersede laws, use both espionage and force, and operate independently from governmental oversight, cutting through red tape, bureaucracy, and logistics that might otherwise impede the completions of their assignments. Over

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4026-410: A range in mass, as large as 4.5 × 10   M ☉ and as small as 8 × 10   M ☉ . By comparison, the total mass of all the stars in the Milky Way is estimated to be between 4.6 × 10   M ☉ and 6.43 × 10   M ☉ . In addition to the stars, there is also interstellar gas, comprising 90% hydrogen and 10% helium by mass, with two thirds of

4209-579: A reliable route between both galaxies. Research on the ODSY drive and its core components, which are essential technology for the Initiative's goal to undertake long distance travel to the Andromeda galaxy, was underway by the time of the attack on the Citadel by Sovereign and the geth, the events of which spurred the Initiative to fast track its plans to depart from the Milky Way galaxy. As the newest member state to join

4392-459: A sense, taking on more human traits herself. During the Alliance raid on Cerberus Headquarters, a Cerberus report discovered in the base retroactively establishes EDI's original identity as a rogue VI which somehow achieved sentience and took over an Alliance training ground located on Earth's moon during an optional mission of the first Mass Effect game . If Shepard chooses to control the Reapers or

4575-547: A significant visual influence for the architecture and living conditions of intergalactic society for the Mass Effect setting, such as the Citadel space station . The “geography” of the Mass Effect universe is a blend of fictional concepts and realism. The imagery for the setting's astronomical objects is inspired by real-life photographs like wide field Hubble Space Telescope images or shots taken from space shuttles, and real-life locations were included wherever possible to ground

4758-423: A single human-generation, tendency to prioritize human interests above non-humans, and their regard for "anything a few years old as obsolete". Anti-human sentiments are against the quick establishment of the human embassy on the Citadel (within a decade; whereas other member species and factions have waited for hundreds, if not thousands of years) and the perceived appeasement-hypocrisy of human-sympathetic members of

4941-412: A solid fighter and being an actual spaceship. GameRevolution included EDI in their list of "Women Who Rock Modern Gaming"; praise was focused on her unique contribution to the squad dynamic in Mass Effect 3 with her new body, her inexperience in interacting with humanity which often leads to humorous situations, as well as her integration into the game's main plot during the final act of the game. On

5124-554: A squad mate in Mass Effect 2 . In addition to these, the character also makes an appearance in the Mass Effect: Redemption comic series and in Mass Effect 3 (provided the player does not import a save where she dies). She is revealed to have been genetically designed by her father to be perfect and ran away from home to join Cerberus. Lawson is leader of Cerberus' Lazarus Cell, tasked with reviving Commander Shepard. Aboard

5307-458: A staff member of the Grissom Academy. Commander Shepard is the central protagonist of the original Mass Effect trilogy of video games. On an assignment to investigate a besieged human colony, Shepard is affected by a Prothean artifact that grants them insight on the Reapers, making them the key entity to help protect the species of the Milky Way from being wiped out by the Reapers. Shepard

5490-468: A surprise attack by a Collector ship at the beginning of Mass Effect 2 , is reconstructed and revived by Cerberus in the year 2185, following a complex cybernetic engineering process which lasted two years. Shepard sets out to assemble a team of skilled individuals from across the galaxy for a suicide mission into the Omega Four mass relay to stop the Collectors from harvesting more human colonies on behalf of

5673-415: A treatise in 1755, Immanuel Kant , drawing on earlier work by Thomas Wright , speculated (correctly) that the Milky Way might be a rotating body of a huge number of stars, held together by gravitational forces akin to the Solar System but on much larger scales. The resulting disk of stars would be seen as a band on the sky from our perspective inside the disk. Wright and Kant also conjectured that some of

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5856-586: A web of long-simmering alien rivalries", the series' commitment to small talk or banter with all sorts of non-player characters through the in-game conversation system is also instrumental in getting players emotionally invested. Sara Mitchell from NASA's Blueshift blog , produced by the Astrophysics Science Division at the Goddard Space Flight Center , praised the setting for its "impressive level of realism" and noted that much of

6039-516: Is a biological deviant known as an Ardat-Yakshi. Shepard meets Samara on Illium, where she is found investigating the Eclipse mercenary group who smuggled her daughter off-world. Samara will join Shepard for the suicide mission at the conclusion of the investigation; if Shepard chooses to participate in her quest, a decision has to be made between siding with Samara or Morinth at the climax of the story arc. If

6222-665: Is a bordered by Citadel Council Space and the Attican Traverse. The discovery of the Charon Relay triggered a " gold rush ", and fierce rivalry persists amongst Earth's nations, as they compete for untapped resources and unclaimed colonial land rights. Humanity's aggressive expansionism triggered conflicts with the Turian Hierarchy and the Batarian Hegemony. Earth has increased its holdings more than tenfold since, pushing into

6405-428: Is a disk of gas and dust called the interstellar medium . This disk has at least a comparable extent in radius to the stars, whereas the thickness of the gas layer ranges from hundreds of light-years for the colder gas to thousands of light-years for warmer gas. The disk of stars in the Milky Way does not have a sharp edge beyond which there are no stars. Rather, the concentration of stars decreases with distance from

6588-463: Is a potential romance option for a female Shepard throughout the entire trilogy, and for a male Shepard only in Mass Effect 3 . Kaidan is voiced by Raphael Sbarge . Ashley Madeline Williams is a human Alliance Marine, who becomes part of Shepard's squad during the first observed Reaper attack in the first Mass Effect . In a late-game choice on the planet Virmire, the player must choose whether to save Ashley or Kaidan Alenko ; this choice leads to

6771-530: Is a protagonist of Mass Effect: Revelation and its sequels, Ascension , Retribution , and Deception Sanders is secretly the daughter of the late Rear Admiral Jon Grissom, the first Alliance hero who led a space exploration task force to travel through the Charon mass relay. She is cited as one of the most important characters in the series, and the main heroine of Mass Effect spin-off fiction. She makes her first video game appearance in Mass Effect 3 as

6954-523: Is a result of modifications achieved with technology salvaged from the Reaper Sovereign . She is initially "shackled" with programming which inhibits her decision making, until it was later removed by Joker . In Mass Effect 3 , Shepard's team recovers a Cerberus infiltration unit named Eva to be analyzed after an incident at the Mars research station. EDI assists in doing so, and in the process, struggles with

7137-405: Is a ring-like filament of stars called Triangulum–Andromeda Ring (TriAnd Ring) rippling above and below the relatively flat galactic plane , which alongside Monoceros Ring were both suggested to be primarily the result of disk oscillations and wrapping around the Milky Way, at a diameter of at least 50 kpc (160,000 ly), which may be part of the Milky Way's outer disk itself, hence making

7320-491: Is a salarian scientist who possesses a hyperactive and eccentric personality, a rapid and stilted manner of speaking, and a flawless autobiographical and eidetic memory which is a typical salarians trait. He is a key member in the science team that researched the remodification of the Krogan Genophage, an action that he initially considered the best possible solution to a once growing problem, as he believes in acting in

7503-460: Is a standalone sequel about a group of settlers who are members of the Andromeda Initiative colonizing the Andromeda Galaxy . The original trilogy have overall been both commercially successful and critically acclaimed, and the Mass Effect setting has been praised by critics for the believability and depth of its design, lore and narrative themes. The Mass Effect brand has since expanded into

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7686-455: Is also popular as an alternative hub for alien species who are unwelcome in Citadel controlled space, or an avenue for criminal activities which contravenes Citadel laws and regulations. Immediately after the defeat of the Collectors and the destruction of the incomplete Proto-Reaper they were constructing, the Reapers are shown traveling to the Milky Way galaxy from dark space at the ending of Mass Effect 2 . The Reaper invasion have commenced by

7869-578: Is among the last of the Krogan Battle Masters ; rare individuals who can combine biotic abilities with advanced weaponry and tactics. He joins the crew of the SSV Normandy in the first Mass Effect to hunt down rogue Spectre Saren Arterius, but is later drawn into a stand-off with Commander Shepard in Virmire when he discovers that Saren's scientists have uncovered a cure for the genophage. Depending on

8052-584: Is an intense radio source known as Sagittarius A* , a supermassive black hole of 4.100 (± 0.034) million solar masses . The oldest stars in the Milky Way are nearly as old as the Universe itself and thus probably formed shortly after the Dark Ages of the Big Bang . Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that

8235-479: Is approximately 890 billion to 1.54 trillion times the mass of the Sun in total (8.9 × 10 to 1.54 × 10 solar masses), although stars and planets make up only a small part of this. Estimates of the mass of the Milky Way vary, depending upon the method and data used. The low end of the estimate range is 5.8 × 10   solar masses ( M ☉ ), somewhat less than that of the Andromeda Galaxy . Measurements using

8418-449: Is called the Zone of Avoidance . The Milky Way has a relatively low surface brightness . Its visibility can be greatly reduced by background light, such as light pollution or moonlight. The sky needs to be darker than about 20.2 magnitude per square arcsecond in order for the Milky Way to be visible. It should be visible if the limiting magnitude is approximately +5.1 or better and shows

8601-405: Is capable of transporting any ships faster than light to a nearby mass relay, creating an interlocking " interstellar highway " network on the galactic scale. The efficiency of this relay network is such that is often faster and cheaper to transport goods and people to the other side of the galaxy, than traveling to adjacent neighboring star systems. The mass relays work by creating a "mass effect",

8784-522: Is celestial. This idea would be influential later in the Muslim world . The Persian astronomer Al-Biruni (973–1048) proposed that the Milky Way is "a collection of countless fragments of the nature of nebulous stars". The Andalusian astronomer Avempace ( d 1138) proposed that the Milky Way was made up of many stars but appeared to be a continuous image in the Earth's atmosphere, citing his observation of

8967-426: Is difficult to follow even for the developmental team, but the "little bits of mystery" also serves to make the world "seem so much deeper and richer", with the potential for some of it to be utilized for possible future stories. Newcomers to the galactic community, humanity's iteration in the Mass Effect series is meant to be only fairly far in the future enough to be new but not unrecognizable. Through standardizing

9150-529: Is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of planets . The Solar System is located at a radius of about 27,000 light-years (8.3 kpc) from the Galactic Center , on the inner edge of the Orion Arm , one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust. The stars in the innermost 10,000 light-years form a bulge and one or more bars that radiate from the bulge. The Galactic Center

9333-472: Is inclined by about 60° to the ecliptic (the plane of Earth's orbit ). Relative to the celestial equator , it passes as far north as the constellation of Cassiopeia and as far south as the constellation of Crux , indicating the high inclination of Earth's equatorial plane and the plane of the ecliptic, relative to the galactic plane. The north galactic pole is situated at right ascension 12 49 , declination +27.4° ( B1950 ) near β Comae Berenices , and

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9516-528: Is later named the first human Spectre by the Citadel Council, and given command of the SSV Normandy and its crew to complete their mission. The character's given name, gender, background, and appearance are determined by the player on starting a new game, with both Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 allowing the player to import saves from previous games to carry over that version of Shepard. Depending on

9699-567: Is meant to recruit Okeer, a krogan warlord and radical scientist who has been developing a small army of krogan to weather the Genophage. When Shepard arrives to recruit him, Okeer is working for the Blue Suns mercenary group, but was betrayed by the latter. Though Shepard and crew defeat the Blue Suns leader, it is too late to save Okeer, who leaves Shepard with a tank containing his "legacy", his "perfect krogan". If and when Shepard decides to awaken him,

9882-408: Is much pressure for Tali to excel. In the first game, she is on her Pilgrimage, before handing Shepard incriminating evidence about Saren and joining their crew. In the second game, now Tali'Zorah vas Neema and later Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, where she joins Shepard on a suicide mission to rescue human colonists from the Collectors, and she is a potential romance option for a male Shepard. If she survives

10065-496: Is originally based on a previous design intended for something else, and had "flaps" on the side of their heads; however, in order to wear equipment they had to be changed to a human shape. Similarly, more "outrageous" designs for species like the elcor were made, although modelling and animation constraints would go on to effect their final design. Plans to include a non-humanoid party member never materialized as significant developmental costs would be incurred otherwise. For many of

10248-482: Is primarily based on a series of third-person role-playing shooter video games which currently consists of four mainline instalments and two spin-off mobile games. The first three Mass Effect games takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy during the 22nd century and revolves around a space navy soldier named Commander Shepard . The fourth Mass Effect game is a standalone sequel to the original trilogy but set in

10431-434: Is significantly smaller than the Andromeda Galaxy's isophotal diameter, and slightly below the mean isophotal sizes of the galaxies being at 28.3 kpc (92,000 ly). The paper concludes that the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy were not overly large spiral galaxies, nor were among the largest known (if the former not being the largest) as previously widely believed, but rather average ordinary spiral galaxies. To compare

10614-439: Is smaller and does not fully cover his entire skull due to his age. Early designs for Grunt's armor varied widely, which eventually settled into a polished and sleek look, almost like a "show-room finish" on a brand new car. A confrontation scene in Mass Effect 2 between Grunt and Mordin over the latter's role in strengthening the Genophage was planned but ultimately cut during development. Initially in Mass Effect 2 , Shepard

10797-463: Is tasked to escort Shepard to an Alliance defense committee hearing, however the hearing is interrupted when the Reapers attack Earth. James and Ashley or Kaidan, depending on who survived Virmire, retrieve the Normandy SR-2 and pick Shepard up from Earth. James is the main focus of the anime film, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost . James is voiced by Freddie Prinze, Jr. in all media. Kahlee Sanders

10980-637: Is the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud , a portion of the central bulge of the galaxy. Dark regions within the band, such as the Great Rift and the Coalsack , are areas where interstellar dust blocks light from distant stars. Peoples of the southern hemisphere, including the Inca and Australian aborigines , identified these regions as dark cloud constellations . The area of sky that the Milky Way obscures

11163-417: Is the most important science fiction universe of the contemporary generation, and that it overshadowed that of other established science fiction franchises due to the depth of its medium as a video game, its message which embraces diversity and pluralism, and its philosophy which meaningfully reflects on the human condition as well as society as a whole. Munkittrick emphasized the significance of Mass Effect as

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11346-449: Is the protagonist of Mass Effect Infiltrator , a third-person shooter tie-in video game to Mass Effect 3 developed for mobile devices. He is a cybernetically modified Cerberus operative who discovers that his employer is up to something nefarious, goes rogue and embarks on a mission to save his friend from Cerberus. Randall is voiced by Jay Anthony Franke . Pathfinder Ryder is the main protagonist of Mass Effect: Andromeda ,

11529-405: Is the traditional Welsh name for the constellation Cassiopeia . At least three of Dôn's children also have astronomical associations: Caer Gwydion ("The fortress of Gwydion ") is the traditional Welsh name for the Milky Way, and Caer Arianrhod ("The Fortress of Arianrhod ") being the constellation of Corona Borealis . In Western culture, the name "Milky Way" is derived from its appearance as

11712-486: Is visible as a hazy band of white light, some 30° wide, arching the night sky . Although all the individual naked-eye stars in the entire sky are part of the Milky Way Galaxy, the term "Milky Way" is limited to this band of light. The light originates from the accumulation of unresolved stars and other material located in the direction of the galactic plane . Brighter regions around the band appear as soft visual patches known as star clouds . The most conspicuous of these

11895-432: Is voiced by Kimberly Brooks . Garrus Vakarian is a male turian who serves as a squad mate in all three of the games. Garrus is initially a C-Sec officer who joins up with Shepard to escape from all the "red tape" in his job but becomes a vigilante under the alias Archangel on Omega in Mass Effect 2 before his squad is killed. Garrus is a potential romance option for a female Shepard in 2 . In Mass Effect 3 , he leads

12078-485: Is voiced by Ash Sroka, also credited as "Liz Sroka". Liara T'Soni is an asari scientist , that joins Shepard's squad in the first game and appears in 2 as a non-player character (available as a temporary squad member in Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker ) and as a full squad member in 3 . She is one of the experts on Prothean history and technology. Liara is a potential romance option for Shepard throughout

12261-718: The Normandy SR-2's artificial intelligence and speaks with an aurally feminine voice. Her name stands for "Enhanced Defense Intelligence", and is visually represented on the Normandy by a holographic blue sphere. For Mass Effect 3 , the developers wanted to give EDI a body that is "sexy, chrome, and robotic", akin to the Maria character, also known as the Maschinenmensch, from Metropolis . EDI's facial and body design went through multiple iterations, which includes an eyeless visage, and partially completed 3-D models which differ from

12444-468: The Normandy SR-2, she is Shepard's second-in-command and Executive Officer, and files mission reports directly to the Illusive Man. Miranda is a potential romance option for the male Shepard in Mass Effect 2 , with the option to continue the romance in Mass Effect 3 . Miranda Lawson is voiced by and modeled after actress Yvonne Strahovski . EDI is an AI entity who first appears in Mass Effect 2 as

12627-489: The Very Long Baseline Array in 2009 found velocities as large as 254 km/s (570,000 mph) for stars at the outer edge of the Milky Way. Because the orbital velocity depends on the total mass inside the orbital radius, this suggests that the Milky Way is more massive, roughly equaling the mass of Andromeda Galaxy at 7 × 10   M ☉ within 160,000 ly (49 kpc) of its center. In 2010,

12810-522: The light-gathering power of this new telescope, he was able to produce astronomical photographs that resolved the outer parts of some spiral nebulae as collections of individual stars. He was also able to identify some Cepheid variables that he could use as a benchmark to estimate the distance to the nebulae. He found that the Andromeda Nebula is 275,000 parsecs from the Sun, far too distant to be part of

12993-597: The magnetic fields of the Milky Way were reported. The Sun is near the inner rim of the Orion Arm , within the Local Fluff of the Local Bubble , between the Radcliffe wave and Split linear structures (formerly Gould Belt ). Based upon studies of stellar orbits around Sgr A* by Gillessen et al. (2016), the Sun lies at an estimated distance of 27.14 ± 0.46 kly (8.32 ± 0.14 kpc) from

13176-440: The nebulae visible in the night sky might be separate "galaxies" themselves, similar to our own. Kant referred to both the Milky Way and the "extragalactic nebulae" as "island universes", a term still current up to the 1930s. The first attempt to describe the shape of the Milky Way and the position of the Sun within it was carried out by William Herschel in 1785 by carefully counting the number of stars in different regions of

13359-460: The solar apex , is the direction that the Sun travels through space in the Milky Way. The general direction of the Sun's Galactic motion is towards the star Vega near the constellation of Hercules , at an angle of roughly 60 sky degrees to the direction of the Galactic Center. The Sun's orbit about the Milky Way is expected to be roughly elliptical with the addition of perturbations due to

13542-467: The turians , which erupted into the First Contact War. Though casualties are small on both sides, hostilities were ultimately interrupted by the Citadel Council. Humanity is then welcomed into the collective community of extraterrestrial peoples who live in Citadel space and accept the Council's authority, and learn that the artifacts, mass relays, and the Citadel space station, are all that remains of

13725-611: The " gray alien " trope, the archetypal image of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The geth are meant to represent an example of the dangers of artificial intelligence within the context of the conflict between organic and synthetic intelligence, a central overarching theme in the Mass Effect franchise. "What is the visual language for their clothing? What's the shape of their face? What's iconic? Is this going to work with our conversation system? Are these characters going to be able to show emotion? Are people going to get attached to them? And these are all things you think of as you go through

13908-581: The "first blockbuster franchise in the postmodern era to directly confront a godless, meaningless universe indifferent to humanity". Referencing Munkittrick's observations, Erik Henriksen from the Portland Mercury said what the developers accomplished with their setting is "pretty extraordinary" in spite of its inherent flaws, with the first two games ambitiously and smartly pairing "brave, big-idea genre fiction with visceral thrills and strong characters". Cian Maher from TheGamer said Mass Effect has one of

14091-469: The Andromeda Initiative is a civilian multi-species project created to send scientists, explorers and colonists placed in cryosleep within massive intergalactic arkships on a one-way trip from the Milky Way Galaxy to settle in the Andromeda Galaxy. The Initiative's main objective is to establish a permanent presence in the Heleus Cluster, a seemingly resource-rich frontier of Andromeda, and eventually create

14274-583: The Attican Traverse and has enveloped the heart of batarian space. Earth is still a collection of independent nation-states, but their dealing on a galactic scale are unified through the Systems Alliance. A supranational decentralized civilian government, the Earth Systems Alliance member nations retain their individual sovereignty back on Earth, with London as the Alliance's de jure capital. The developed Sol System planets are administered by

14457-507: The Babylonian national god , after slaying her. This story was once thought to have been based on an older Sumerian version in which Tiamat is instead slain by Enlil of Nippur , but is now thought to be purely an invention of Babylonian propagandists with the intention to show Marduk as superior to the Sumerian deities. In Greek mythology , Zeus places his son born by a mortal woman,

14640-800: The Citadel Council for placing humanity on the Council and establishing the first Human- Spectre . Humanity's opinions regarding aliens varies across broad political spectrum from isolationism to globalism : on Earth, there is concern about how humanity is unfairly treated by these other species, and nationalistic pro-human groups advocating militarism , xenophobia , and a "humanity-first" supremacist agenda begin to appear; on fringe colonies, locals are ambivalent, being preoccupied with daily frontier survival in often hostile environments or security against piracy raids; and "spacers", who may have spent their entire lives residing alongside aliens within starship installations, and generally adopt favorable opinions about multiculturalism. Earth Systems Alliance Space

14823-628: The Citadel space community by the events of the original trilogy, humanity tend to be underestimated, held in suspicion or looked down upon. While biotics are common amongst most alien species (like the asari) they are rare in humans and often require an implant in addition to decades of training to channel and improve upon the skill. Two factions dominate humanity: the Earth Systems Alliance, and Cerberus; each representing humanity's nobliest aspects and darkest tendencies, respectably. Alien's are generally alarmed by humanity's ambition, individualism, rapid technological advancement, galactic proliferation within

15006-496: The Citadel species, the Alliance is considered a sovereign interstellar nation and no other species has right of oversight into Alliance affairs. Non-Citadel species hold the Alliance and the Council with equal disdain. Headquartered on Vancouver, Earth, the Systems Alliance Command is the primary military, exploratory, and scientific agency that protects human interests and represents humanity in interstellar politics. It

15189-550: The EDI's appearance in terms of body shape, the split between solid and transparent surfaces, and finer points of her two-tone appearance. After some discussion about how robotic would the extent of her appearance be, the team decided that the body she would come to possess is an infiltration unit, which once had skin over its metal frame and is capable of the same facial effects as a living human being to avoid being easily spotted. Mass Effect 2 establishes that EDI's highly advanced nature

15372-563: The Galactic Center is about 180,000 ly (55 kpc). At this distance or beyond, the orbits of most halo objects would be disrupted by the Magellanic Clouds. Hence, such objects would probably be ejected from the vicinity of the Milky Way. The integrated absolute visual magnitude of the Milky Way is estimated to be around −20.9. Both gravitational microlensing and planetary transit observations indicate that there may be at least as many planets bound to stars as there are stars in

15555-519: The Galactic Center. Boehle et al. (2016) found a smaller value of 25.64 ± 0.46 kly (7.86 ± 0.14 kpc), also using a star orbit analysis. The Sun is currently 5–30 parsecs (16–98 ly) above, or north of, the central plane of the Galactic disk. The distance between the local arm and the next arm out, the Perseus Arm , is about 2,000 parsecs (6,500 ly). The Sun, and thus

15738-399: The Galactic spiral arms and non-uniform mass distributions. In addition, the Sun passes through the Galactic plane approximately 2.7 times per orbit. This is very similar to how a simple harmonic oscillator works with no drag force (damping) term. These oscillations were until recently thought to coincide with mass lifeform extinction periods on Earth. A reanalysis of the effects of

15921-569: The Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe . Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Doust Curtis , observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. In the Babylonian epic poem Enūma Eliš , the Milky Way is created from the severed tail of the primeval salt water dragoness Tiamat , set in the sky by Marduk ,

16104-405: The Milky Way is "a myriad of tiny stars packed together in the sphere of the fixed stars". Proof of the Milky Way consisting of many stars came in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the Milky Way and discovered that it is composed of a huge number of faint stars. Galileo also concluded that the appearance of the Milky Way was due to refraction of the Earth's atmosphere. In

16287-577: The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy , rather than an ordinary spiral galaxy , in the 1960s. These conjectures were confirmed by the Spitzer Space Telescope observations in 2005 that showed the Milky Way's central bar to be larger than previously thought. Jacob Taylor The Mass Effect series, a military science fiction media franchise developed by Canadian video game developer BioWare and owned by American publisher Electronic Arts , features an extensive cast of characters. It

16470-446: The Milky Way is approximately 220 km/s (490,000 mph) or 0.073% of the speed of light . The Sun moves through the heliosphere at 84,000 km/h (52,000 mph). At this speed, it takes around 1,400 years for the Solar System to travel a distance of 1 light-year, or 8 days to travel 1 AU ( astronomical unit ). The Solar System is headed in the direction of the zodiacal constellation Scorpius , which follows

16653-449: The Milky Way is the glow of stars not directly visible due to Earth's shadow, while other stars receive their light from the Sun, but have their glow obscured by solar rays. Aristotle himself believed that the Milky Way was part of the Earth's upper atmosphere, along with the stars, and that it was a byproduct of stars burning that did not dissipate because of its outermost location in the atmosphere, composing its great circle . He said that

16836-428: The Milky Way seems to be dark matter , an unknown and invisible form of matter that interacts gravitationally with ordinary matter. A dark matter halo is conjectured to spread out relatively uniformly to a distance beyond one hundred kiloparsecs (kpc) from the Galactic Center. Mathematical models of the Milky Way suggest that the mass of dark matter is 1–1.5 × 10   M ☉ . 2013 and 2014 studies indicate

17019-404: The Milky Way". Viewing from the north galactic pole with 0° (zero degrees) as the ray that runs starting from the Sun and through the Galactic Center, the quadrants are: with the galactic longitude (ℓ) increasing in the counter-clockwise direction ( positive rotation ) as viewed from north of the Galactic Center (a view-point several hundred thousand light-years distant from Earth in

17202-510: The Milky Way's galactic plane occupies an area of the sky that includes 30 constellations . The Galactic Center lies in the direction of Sagittarius , where the Milky Way is brightest. From Sagittarius, the hazy band of white light appears to pass around to the galactic anticenter in Auriga . The band then continues the rest of the way around the sky, back to Sagittarius, dividing the sky into two roughly equal hemispheres . The galactic plane

17385-526: The Milky Way, and microlensing measurements indicate that there are more rogue planets not bound to host stars than there are stars. The Milky Way contains an average of at least one planet per star, resulting in 100–400 billion planets, according to a January 2013 study of the five-planet star system Kepler-32 by the Kepler space observatory. A different January 2013 analysis of Kepler data estimated that at least 17 billion Earth-sized exoplanets reside in

17568-438: The Milky Way. The ESA spacecraft Gaia provides distance estimates by determining the parallax of a billion stars and is mapping the Milky Way with four planned releases of maps in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2024. Data from Gaia has been described as "transformational". It has been estimated that Gaia has expanded the number of observations of stars from about 2 million stars as of the 1990s to 2 billion. It has expanded

17751-437: The Milky Way. In November 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs within the Milky Way. 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars. The nearest exoplanet may be 4.2 light-years away, orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri , according to

17934-554: The Protheans, who are believed to have been the pre-eminent civilization in the Milky Way galaxy who created most of its technology, but have since disappeared tens of thousands of years ago. The Citadel Council welcomes humanity into the Citadel community, providing them with a Systems Alliance embassy and allowing individual members to join the Citadel Security Forces (C-SEC), despite other client species having waited for such

18117-467: The Reaper Wars, they become a fifth column working against Shepard's attempts to in destroy the Reapers, as the Illusive Man wishes to control them instead and consequently elevate humanity's domination. Besides the Reapers, numerous sentient alien races were introduced in the first Mass Effect and its tie-in prequel novel Mass Effect: Revelation , with three enjoying dominant political status within

18300-489: The Reapers. Near the Omega Four relay is Omega space station, which lies outside of Citadel jurisdiction. Ruled by the asari pirate queen Aria T'Loak, Omega serves as the de facto trade capital of the Terminus Systems confederation—a disparate collective of uncharted space, independent states, corporate fiefdoms and pirate domains—whose only uniting principle is the unanimous refusal to acknowledge Citadel jurisdiction. It

18483-501: The Solar System, is located in the Milky Way's galactic habitable zone . There are about 208 stars brighter than absolute magnitude  8.5 within a sphere with a radius of 15 parsecs (49 ly) from the Sun, giving a density of one star per 69 cubic parsecs, or one star per 2,360 cubic light-years (from List of nearest bright stars ). On the other hand, there are 64 known stars (of any magnitude, not counting 4  brown dwarfs ) within 5 parsecs (16 ly) of

18666-411: The Sun's transit through the spiral structure based on CO data has failed to find a correlation. It takes the Solar System about 240 million years to complete one orbit of the Milky Way (a galactic year ), so the Sun is thought to have completed 18–20 orbits during its lifetime and 1/1250 of a revolution since the origin of humans . The orbital speed of the Solar System about the center of

18849-412: The Sun, giving a density of about one star per 8.2 cubic parsecs, or one per 284 cubic light-years (from List of nearest stars ). This illustrates the fact that there are far more faint stars than bright stars: in the entire sky, there are about 500 stars brighter than apparent magnitude  4 but 15.5 million stars brighter than apparent magnitude 14. The apex of the Sun's way, or

19032-622: The United Nations, while the underdeveloped Alliance colonies and "spacers" are governed by a parliament based at Arcturus Station, the most developed extrasolar colony which also serves as the Alliance's de facto capital and a nexus of the military power projection. Since gaining a seniority seat on the Council, the Citadel Human Embassy leverages its equal partnership status to further human interests and holds legitimate jurisdiction over humans residing outside of Alliance Space. Among

19215-649: The batarians were replaced with the geth as antagonists to strengthen the human versus machine conflict. The batarians were later redesigned as a four-eyed humanoid species and repurposed as the villains of Bring Down the Sky , a piece of downloadable content for the first Mass Effect . For the development of subsequent sequels, the developers continued to reference fan reaction to well-received features such as loyalty missions or popular characters, whether from player feedback or from research into fan labor -driven activities. The geth were originally intended to be sidelined within

19398-549: The beginning of Mass Effect 3 , with the war's earliest fronts taking place in batarian and human space. Shepard is present on Earth when the Reapers first arrived, and later escapes the human homeworld on the Normandy SR-2 in order to rally the rest of the galactic community against the Reaper threat, and find a solution that will break the Reaper-imposed cycle of harvesting organic species forever. Founded in 2176 by Jien Garson,

19581-473: The best interests of the galaxy. The character returns in Mass Effect 3 , providing he survives the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2 ; otherwise, another salarian scientist named Padok Wiks fulfills Mordin's role within the narrative. Mordin is encountered on the salarian homeworld, Sur'Kesh, when Shepard is sent there to aid in the evacuation of a fertile female krogan codenamed Eve, the only survivor of his student Maelon's experiments. If Maelon's research data

19764-414: The body with interchangeable armor pieces that sit on top of it, and were able to limit the amount of stretching to avoid the "pajama armor" effect. Influences for the series' non-human characters range from real world flora and fauna to visual media like Hellboy or the 1927 film Metropolis . The team hoped to create a setting with the same sense of history as Star Control II , giving each alien race

19947-478: The center of the Milky Way. Beyond a radius of roughly 40,000 light years (13 kpc) from the center, the number of stars per cubic parsec drops much faster with radius. Surrounding the galactic disk is a spherical galactic halo of stars and globular clusters that extends farther outward, but is limited in size by the orbits of two Milky Way satellites, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds , whose closest approach to

20130-481: The choice of gender, Shepard is voiced by either Mark Meer or Jennifer Hale . The default male version's face and body is based on the likeness of fashion model Mark Vanderloo . Jeff Moreau, better known by his nickname "Joker", is the pilot of the Normandy . Joker is a skilled pilot who has osteogenesis imperfecta . His nickname alludes to his tendency to behave as a sarcastic foil to other individuals he interact with. In Mass Effect 2 , Joker briefly becomes

20313-478: The command ship The Tempest , successfully settling the Heleus Cluster, and improving life aboard the Nexus, a galactic hub for the colonizer races from the Milky Way. Scott and Sara Ryder are voiced by Tom Taylorson and Fryda Wolff , respectively. Andromeda was known for its technical issues, particularly for the awkward facial animations of some of its characters; notably, the default face for Sara Ryder received negative reception from fans prior to and after

20496-455: The course of the trilogy, the galactic community come to learn that the Protheans were mostly wiped out over 50,000 years prior by the Reapers, sentient starships that normally occupy the void between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy . The Reapers appear every 50,000 years with the sole purpose of wiping out emergent organic civilizations as well as any evidence of their own existence, but deliberately leave behind technology which ensure that

20679-452: The depiction of interspecies romance within the setting as well as fan reaction to the presentation of said content. Luke Willcocks from the University of Leicester analyzed the hypothetical properties of Element Zero from a real world scientific basis. He observed that while the asari most closely resemble humans in terms of biology, their blood color is markedly different. He suggested that

20862-417: The different concept art for their clothing, a "common visual language" was found for the human characters. The standard look for all attire for members of the Cerberus organization is derived from the designs for the armor and clothing of Jacob Taylor , a companion character in Mass Effect 2 . Some involved fully armored looks, while others had only cloth, or a mix of cloth and armor. During the development of

21045-465: The direction of the constellation Coma Berenices ); if viewed from south of the Galactic Center (a view-point similarly distant in the constellation Sculptor ), ℓ would increase in the clockwise direction ( negative rotation ). The Milky Way is one of the two largest galaxies in the Local Group (the other being the Andromeda Galaxy ), although the size for its galactic disc and how much it defines

21228-469: The ecliptic. A galactic quadrant, or quadrant of the Milky Way, refers to one of four circular sectors in the division of the Milky Way. In astronomical practice, the delineation of the galactic quadrants is based upon the galactic coordinate system , which places the Sun as the origin of the mapping system . Quadrants are described using ordinals  – for example, "1st galactic quadrant", "second galactic quadrant", or "third quadrant of

21411-476: The elcor and the hanar, have also received coverage which is predominantly positive. Several critics are particularly fond of the elcor. For example, the Official Xbox Magazine declared the elcor to be the best new species of 2007. Commentators have lauded the elcor's speech patterns and peculiar behavior as a good source of humor and comic relief, although Hollander Cooper from GamesRadar lamented that

21594-414: The elcor are underutilised within the series. A number of social science topics within the context of the Mass Effect universe have been explored in articles published in academic journals. In his analysis of the series' characters from the perspective of disability studies, Adan Jerreat-Poole observed that biotics represent the series' version of " science-as-magic ", a reminder of the inhuman nature of

21777-486: The emergency governing body of the human species at large for a time. Despite having a volunteer force of only 1% of humanity's total population, the Systems Alliance's power projection is able to match, if not outright exceed, any known non-Reaper military force in the Milky Way galaxy. A stateless clandestine organization —consisting of rogue black-ops cell networks , shell corporations , and paramilitaries — Cerberus advocates extremist anthropocentric militarism and

21960-495: The entire trilogy. Following Shepard's death in Mass Effect 2 , Liara gradually became emotionally hardened, and began working as an information broker, eventually leading to the events of Lair of the Shadow Broker which conclude with her becoming the new Shadow Broker. Liara is voiced by Ali Hillis . Miranda Lawson is an officer of the pro-human group Cerberus, first appearing in Mass Effect Galaxy and then serving as

22143-402: The final design, until they come up with something that feels interesting and unique yet grounded and believable. Once the concept of a particular species is finalized, creation of the character model would begin, where a lot of "back and forth" took place in order to refine character models with high polygon counts. According to Watts, "doing a concept is a piece of art itself, but also building

22326-485: The fourth mainline installment of the Mass Effect series, and the child of Alec Ryder. Their twin sibling is Sara or Scott Ryder, depending on the player's chosen gender. The player can change their character's first name, but if the default names of Sara or Scott are kept, NPCs will occasionally refer to the character's first name in voiced dialogue. The Ryder siblings are cryogenically frozen and dispatched alongside their father and tens of thousands of other colonists on

22509-413: The galactic community. Various artificial intelligence entities and animal species such as the varren, the monkey-esque pyjaks and the gigantic worm-like Thresher Maws are also encountered throughout the franchise's media. Mass Effect 2 and its downloadable content introduce several races to the setting, with varying importance in its plot. Mass Effect 3 introduces several Reaper-corrupted versions of

22692-651: The galaxy's races as enemy units. Javik, the last living Prothean , is featured in the From Ashes DLC pack. The Leviathans, an ancient species of colossal aquatic beings who created the AI entity known as the Catalyst, which in turn created the Reapers in the image of its creators, are first introduced in the Leviathan DLC pack. Mass Effect: Andromeda introduces two other sapient organic races: The series' setting has garnered

22875-470: The game's launch, attracting comments such as "It's a perfect representation of the uncanny valley" and a "robot-like model that had dead eyes syndrome" prior to a patch fix released in early April 2017. Kaidan Alenko is a human Alliance Navy officer with biotic powers, who serves aboard the SSV Normandy as Staff Lieutenant and head of the ship's Marine detail. In a late-game choice on the planet Virmire,

23058-451: The games. Certain characters have names chosen by the player; these characters are designated the name they are addressed by in-game. The appearance and story arcs of certain characters in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 are conditional upon decisions from prior Mass Effect titles being carried over via an imported save file. Lieutenant James Vega is a human Systems Alliance Marine and Shepard's squad member in Mass Effect 3 . James

23241-409: The hydrogen found in the atomic form and the remaining one-third as molecular hydrogen . The mass of the Milky Way's interstellar gas is equal to between 10% and 15% of the total mass of its stars. Interstellar dust accounts for an additional 1% of the total mass of the gas. In March 2019, astronomers reported that the virial mass of the Milky Way Galaxy is 1.54 trillion solar masses within

23424-484: The in-game imagery for astronomical objects look like it is lifted from a NASA press release. From an academic perspective, Joshua and Ita Irizarry described the Mass Effect universe to be a "landmark entry in the relatively brief history of video games as well as a lucrative topic for speculation, discussion, and analysis". The alien races of Mass Effect have received acclaim. Justin Carter from Syfy Wire noted that while

23607-527: The infant Heracles , on Hera 's breast while she is asleep so the baby will drink her divine milk and become immortal. Hera wakes up while breastfeeding and then realizes she is nursing an unknown baby: she pushes the baby away, some of her milk spills, and it produces the band of light known as the Milky Way. In another Greek story, the abandoned Heracles is given by Athena to Hera for feeding, but Heracles' forcefulness causes Hera to rip him from her breast in pain. Llys Dôn (literally "The Court of Dôn ")

23790-436: The isophotal diameter is not well understood. It is estimated that the significant bulk of stars in the galaxy lies within the 26 kiloparsecs (80,000 light-years) diameter, and that the number of stars beyond the outermost disc dramatically reduces to a very low number, with respect to an extrapolation of the exponential disk with the scale length of the inner disc. There are several methods being used in astronomy in defining

23973-423: The krogan recalls Okeer's last words and chooses one of them, "grunt", as his name. While initially hostile towards Shepard, Grunt may be recruited as a squad mate. He comes to respect Shepard's leadership, partly because Shepard faces great battles and has powerful enemies. If Grunt completes his rite of passage on Tuchanka, he declares Shepard his battlemaster. If the player imports a save game where Grunt survives

24156-454: The logical explanation is because asari blood contains a property that causes its violet-blue coloration at a molecular scale. Willcocks pointed out that in all in-universe depictions of Element Zero, such as the generation of mass effect fields by starships and biotics, it is always portrayed in a shade of blue. He concluded that Element Zero is the source of the blue coloration of asari blood, and since an electrical current could pass through it,

24339-526: The measurable volume of space by a factor of 100 in radius and a factor of 1,000 in precision. A study in 2020 concluded that Gaia detected a wobbling motion of the galaxy, which might be caused by " torques from a misalignment of the disc's rotation axis with respect to the principal axis of a non-spherical halo, or from accreted matter in the halo acquired during late infall, or from nearby, interacting satellite galaxies and their consequent tides". In April 2024, initial studies (and related maps) involving

24522-518: The milky appearance of the Milky Way Galaxy is due to the refraction of the Earth's atmosphere. The Neoplatonist philosopher Olympiodorus the Younger ( c.  495 –570 AD) criticized this view, arguing that if the Milky Way were sublunary , it should appear different at different times and places on Earth, and that it should have parallax , which it does not. In his view, the Milky Way

24705-413: The most fascinating universes in the history of video games, and credited the series' detailed and well-written codex entries that set the rules for the setting and ultimately gave it a convincing degree of verisimilitude. Peter Suderman from Vox noted that while part of the video game series' appeal for players is its fully realized science fiction universe filled with "complex political machinations and

24888-457: The nascent appearances of the Reapers in this cycle have occurred, beginning with the indoctrination of a rogue turian Spectre, an influential asari Matriarch, and a "heretic" faction of geth who broke away from the Geth Consensus to further their plans of return. The Collectors began abducting entire human colonies by the events of Mass Effect 2 . Shepard, who had been killed in action during

25071-573: The nature of the Milky Way, spiral nebulae, and the dimensions of the Universe. To support his claim that the Great Andromeda Nebula is an external galaxy, Curtis noted the appearance of dark lanes resembling the dust clouds in the Milky Way, as well as the significant Doppler shift . The controversy was conclusively settled by Edwin Hubble in the early 1920s using the Mount Wilson observatory 2.5 m (100 in) Hooker telescope . With

25254-405: The number of very-low-mass stars, which are difficult to detect, especially at distances of more than 300 ly (90 pc) from the Sun. As a comparison, the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy contains an estimated one trillion (10 ) stars. The Milky Way may contain ten billion white dwarfs , a billion neutron stars , and a hundred million stellar black holes . Filling the space between the stars

25437-433: The old population of the galactic halo. A 2020 study predicted the edge of the Milky Way's dark matter halo being around 292 ± 61  kpc (952,000 ± 199,000  ly ), which translates to a diameter of 584 ± 122  kpc (1.905 ± 0.3979  Mly ). The Milky Way's stellar disk is also estimated to be approximately up to 1.35 kpc (4,000 ly) thick. The Milky Way

25620-499: The ones in the Milky Way, and modelling the relationship to their surface brightnesses. This gave an isophotal diameter for the Milky Way at 26.8 ± 1.1 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years), by assuming that the galactic disc is well represented by an exponential disc and adopting a central surface brightness of the galaxy (μ 0 ) of 22.1 ± 0.3 B -mag/arcsec and a disk scale length ( h ) of 5.0 ± 0.5 kpc (16,300 ± 1,600 ly). This

25803-432: The option to continue their relationship from 2 if she was Shepard's paramour. Jack is voiced by Courtenay Taylor . Grunt is a tank-bred genetically engineered super-krogan that can be recruited as a squad member. Grunt's design is intended to be youthful but also tough, invoking the look of a linebacker with large shoulder pads and exposed muscular arms. Compared to Wrex who is a much older krogan, Grunt's crest

25986-458: The organic civilizations of the next cycle develop according to their predetermined specifications. Unlike their predecessors in previous cycles, the Protheans had learned of the Reapers and prepared for their arrival, though they were unable to prevent their own extermination by the Reapers. Their preparations survive into the next cycle, in the form of the Crucible. The Mass Effect series starts as

26169-406: The original trilogy featured humanity's ascension to galactic prominence as its main narrative, the setting's various alien species were the one aspect that "stole the show". While the asari , the krogan , the quarians and the turians have been subject to significant coverage which discuss their specific roles within the setting at length, some of Mass Effect ' s more unusual races, such as

26352-413: The original trilogy, which was released during the seventh generation of video game consoles , all component armor pieces for a character model had to be fixed onto a single piece of geometry as the developers only had a limited number of polygons to work with. As a result of technological advancements during the development cycle for Mass Effect Andromeda , the developers could place underarmor closer to

26535-407: The other character's death. If Ashley is saved, she will return in a cameo appearance in Mass Effect 2 and as a full-time squad member in 3 , where she has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and commands an unspecified covert operations unit. She is later bestowed Spectre status by the council. She is a potential romance option for a male Shepard throughout the entire trilogy. Ashley

26718-682: The other hand, Wes Fenlon indicated in his articles written for PC Gamer and Gamesradar that he was disturbed by BioWare's decision to give EDI a sexy robot body, and involving the character in a romance subplot with Joker. Stacey Henley from TheGamer also disapproved of EDI's costume design in Mass Effect 3 , and criticized the sexualization of the character's physical appearance as not only unnecessary, but also uncomfortable as it detracts from her role in Mass Effect 3 ' s team dynamic, as well as her "brilliant" characterization which Henley summarized as "engaging, philosophical, layered". Mordin Solus

26901-415: The outcome, he may return in later sequels and eventually become a leader of the krogan. Wrex is voiced by Steven Barr . Tali'Zorah, initially known by her full name Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, is the first quarian character to appear in the series. She is a squad mate in each of the three games. While she is known as a genius in the field of mechanical engineering. As the daughter of Admiral Rael'Zorah, there

27084-412: The paragraph description is given to the concept artists, who are given a lot of freedom to explore ideas about the subject alien species. Once a few concepts have been completed, the team would attempt to move on from phase one by honing on a few ideas, and start working through multiple phases which may increase depending on the idea's complexity. The goal for the artists was to keep honing in and defining

27267-399: The phases." — Derek Watts, Mass Effect art director Prior to the commencement of the concept phase for an alien species, the art and design team would look to the writing team for direction. They would ask for a short written paragraph containing a description of the species, their background, and specific but concise details on what they require for the creature. Phase one begins when

27450-522: The photographic record, he found 11 more novae . Curtis noticed that these novae were, on average, 10 magnitudes fainter than those that occurred within the Milky Way. As a result, he was able to come up with a distance estimate of 150,000 parsecs. He became a proponent of the "island universes" hypothesis, which held that the spiral nebulae were independent galaxies. In 1920 the Great Debate took place between Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, concerning

27633-403: The player must choose whether to save Ashley Williams or Kaidan; this choice leads to the other character's death. If Kaidan survives, he returns in a cameo in Mass Effect 2 and as a full-time squad member in 3 , where he has been promoted to the rank of Major and commands the 1st Special Operations Biotic Company, a covert operations unit. He is later bestowed Spectre status by the council. He

27816-453: The player's prior decisions, but will ultimately succumb to his wounds from Kai Leng if he plays a role in preventing the assassination of a Citadel councilor, or to Kepral's Syndrome. Thane is voiced by Keythe Farley . Samara is an Asari Justicar , a member of a highly respected and feared ascetic order of mystic warriors. Samara is on a quest to track down her fugitive daughter Morinth, who

27999-410: The prison facility that she is confined in to join the suicide mission against the Collectors, in exchange for files aboard the Normandy about the science facility where Cerberus scientists tortured and abused her. She is a potential romance option for a male Shepard in Mass Effect 2 . Jack reappears in Mass Effect 3 if a save game is imported where she survives the events of the suicide mission, with

28182-466: The production of dark energy from a reaction with a dark matter substance known as Element Zero or "eezo" to slingshot spacecraft to the next relay. Element Zero is found to also react with biological entities, giving them limited powers known as "biotics" that evoke the mass effect on a much smaller scale. Ten years after leaving the Sol system, humanity makes its first contact with an extraterrestrial species,

28365-419: The races due to budgetary concerns, which in part led to the development of the asari as a mono-gendered species. The salarians are intentionally designed to be an androgynous in terms of appearance, while female character models for the krogan and turians were only introduced by Mass Effect 3 . Mass Effect was envisioned as a trilogy from the very beginning as part of the developers' efforts to create

28548-478: The races, there was some difficulty in making the characters appear more visually distinct; though team members could add a bit of a visual variation, the faces would be alien enough that these nuances would not be as noticeable to the human eye. To overcome this, art director Derek Watts came up with the idea of different face paints and tattoos for many of the races as additional features. BioWare realized they would be unable to make both male and female versions of all

28731-454: The relative physical scale of the Milky Way, if the Solar System out to Neptune were the size of a US quarter (24.3 mm (0.955 in)), the Milky Way would be approximately at least the greatest north–south line of the contiguous United States . An even older study from 1978 gave a lower diameter for Milky Way about 23 kpc (75,000 ly). A 2015 paper discovered that there

28914-574: The root of "galaxy", the name for our, and later all such, collections of stars. The Milky Way, or "milk circle", was just one of 11 "circles" the Greeks identified in the sky, others being the zodiac , the meridian , the horizon , the equator , the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn , the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic Circle , and two colure circles passing through both poles. The Milky Way

29097-517: The series is derived from the designs for Jacob's armor and clothing; some involved fully armored looks, while others had only cloth, or a mix of cloth and armor. For airless or toxic environments, Jacob wears a small breather device, which allows for more facial expressivity. According to a former BioWare employee, Jacob was originally meant to be a bisexual romance option, and that animation work for romance scenes with Commander Shepard of both genders, "matching shot-for-shot from Brokeback Mountain ",

29280-522: The setting as an extension of astronomy . As the Mass Effect universe was inspired by the procedurally generated galaxy of Star Control II, project director Casey Hudson created a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel that could generate planetary data, including its name, surface temperature, distance from a star, and other statistical information. The developmental team used the generated information to compile lists of viable planets that could be used in

29463-512: The size of a galaxy, and each of them can yield different results with respect to one another. The most commonly employed method is the D 25 standard – the isophote where the photometric brightness of a galaxy in the B-band (445 nm wavelength of light, in the blue part of the visible spectrum ) reaches 25 mag/arcsec . An estimate from 1997 by Goodwin and others compared the distribution of Cepheid variable stars in 17 other spiral galaxies to

29646-538: The south galactic pole is near α Sculptoris . Because of this high inclination, depending on the time of night and year, the Milky Way arch may appear relatively low or relatively high in the sky. For observers from latitudes approximately 65° north to 65° south, the Milky Way passes directly overhead twice a day. In Meteorologica , Aristotle (384–322 BC) states that the Greek philosophers Anaxagoras ( c.  500 –428 BC) and Democritus (460–370 BC) proposed that

29829-527: The spiral arms (more at the bulge). Recent simulations suggest that a dark matter area, also containing some visible stars, may extend up to a diameter of almost 2 million light-years (613 kpc). The Milky Way has several satellite galaxies and is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which form part of the Virgo Supercluster , which is itself a component of the Laniakea Supercluster . It

30012-512: The stellar disk larger by increasing to this size. A more recent 2018 paper later somewhat ruled out this hypothesis, and supported a conclusion that the Monoceros Ring, A13 and TriAnd Ring were stellar overdensities rather kicked out from the main stellar disk, with the velocity dispersion of the RR Lyrae stars found to be higher and consistent with halo membership. Another 2018 study revealed

30195-549: The substance is theoretically a metallic semiconductor. Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System , with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth : a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye . The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a D 25 isophotal diameter estimated at 26.8 ± 1.1 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years ), but only about 1,000 light-years thick at

30378-410: The suicide mission in 2 , he appears in Mass Effect 3 in a small role. Grunt is voiced by Steve Blum . Grunt showing Shepard his strength in Mass Effect 2 is considered to be one of the original trilogy's most iconic moments by Kotaku's Gergo Vas. PC Gamer staff noted that while there is not much to the character "beyond punching things and talking about fighting", dealing with Grunt could be

30561-407: The suicide mission in Mass Effect 2 . At the time of his recruitment, Thane states he has nothing left to lose, and he hopes to right many wrongs he has found in the galaxy before his death. Thane Krios is a possible romantic interest for a female Shepard. Thane returns in Mass Effect 3 provided he survived the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2 . Thane may play a role in the narrative depending on

30744-437: The suicide mission, she will appear as a squad member in Mass Effect 3 , with the option to continue their relationship from 2 if she was Shepard's paramour. If Shepard sides with the geth over the quarians during the latter's attempt to retake Rannoch, she will commit suicide after witnessing the annihilation of the quarian Migrant Fleet. If Shepard is able to broker peace between the quarians and geth, she will survive. Tali

30927-477: The synthesis of all organic and synthetic life at the conclusion of the game, EDI will be present in the ending cutscene alongside Joker. EDI is voiced by Tricia Helfer . PC Gamer praised EDI's characterization, noting that she "might have had some fine dialogue and ruminations on what it means to be human". EDI is also included in PC Gamer's definitive list of the best squad mates around, citing her utility as

31110-463: The synthetic entity and eventually seizes control of its platform in the process, allowing her to accompany Shepard as a squad mate on missions. Now possessing a physical body with humanlike characteristics, her relationship with Joker develops further, and, if Shepard supports the idea, the two may start a romantic relationship. She often asks Shepard about the context and nature of human behaviour so that she can better understand human psychology and, in

31293-488: The technology of the Nazari, in spite of their lack of technological knowledge; this makes them an important race, drawing much attention from the other species. It would then turn out that humanity were in fact originally a slave race to these Nazari, which explains their innate affinity for the lost technology. This idea was later discarded, with the focus of the narrative turned to the tension between synthetic and organic life and

31476-446: The trilogy's overarching plot following the conclusion of the first Mass Effect ; due to the very positive player feedback to the geth, BioWare continued to explore the geth's role for subsequent sequels in response. This had the side-effect of reducing focus on other concurrent plot lines, including that of the insectoid rachni. A proposed alien race's predicted potential for cosplay by the series' fandom based on their character designs

31659-404: The universe together. But in the stories, it's critical because you know, it's in everything. It's in everything from our Mass Relays, to the way we travel, to our weapons, to biotics. It really is the thing that makes Mass Effect , Mass Effect . So in that sense, I can't imagine a Mass Effect experience without it.” Mac Walters, Mass Effect Legendary Edition director The Bioware team

31842-504: The universe, the Milky Way galaxy has a below average amount of neutrino luminosity making our galaxy a " neutrino desert ". The Milky Way consists of a bar-shaped core region surrounded by a warped disk of gas, dust and stars. The mass distribution within the Milky Way closely resembles the type Sbc in the Hubble classification , which represents spiral galaxies with relatively loosely wound arms. Astronomers first began to conjecture that

32025-399: The very probable presence of disk stars at 26–31.5 kpc (84,800–103,000 ly) from the Galactic Center or perhaps even farther, significantly beyond approximately 13–20 kpc (40,000–70,000 ly), in which it was once believed to be the abrupt drop-off of the stellar density of the disk, meaning that few or no stars were expected to be above this limit, save for stars that belong to

32208-432: The video games, and incorporated the information by adding a predetermined number of planets from the lists into each individual star system on the galactic map, which are mapped out using a proprietary tool within the game engine. Lore for the individual planets was delegated to the writing team, who would seed information throughout the setting. According to game director Mac Walters, the sheer volume of information generated

32391-478: The visible sky. He produced a diagram of the shape of the Milky Way with the Solar System close to the center. In 1845, Lord Rosse constructed a new telescope and was able to distinguish between elliptical and spiral-shaped nebulae. He also managed to make out individual point sources in some of these nebulae, lending credence to Kant's earlier conjecture. In 1904, studying the proper motions of stars, Jacobus Kapteyn reported that these were not random, as it

32574-482: Was also taken into consideration whenever the final decision is to be made for inclusion. In 2148, an alien artifact had been discovered on Mars which shows that humanity had been studied by an intergalactic species since the Cro-Magnon period. Research of the artifact, in addition to providing new technologies for humanity, led to a further discovery of Pluto 's moon Charon as a "mass relay", an alien construct that

32757-505: Was believed in that time; stars could be divided into two streams, moving in nearly opposite directions. It was later realized that Kapteyn's data had been the first evidence of the rotation of our galaxy, which ultimately led to the finding of galactic rotation by Bertil Lindblad and Jan Oort . In 1917, Heber Doust Curtis had observed the nova S Andromedae within the Great Andromeda Nebula ( Messier object 31). Searching

32940-456: Was completed prior to intervention from management requesting that the same sex romantic content be removed, blaming backlash from news outlets like Fox News in response to the previous game. Jacob Taylor is voiced by Adam Lazarre-White. Chris Thursten from PC Gamer called Jacob "the worst companion" and the culmination of his romance arc "the worst moment in Mass Effect". Randall Ezno

33123-557: Was inspired by early space exploration games such as Starflight and Star Control , according to Bioware founder Ray Muzyka . Writer Mike Laidlaw explained that Star Control II heavily influenced the worldbuilding of the Mass Effect series, especially its exploration sequences. Mass Effect was also influenced by diverse and eclectic visual references, from the work of Spanish neo-futurist architect Santiago Calatrava to electron microscope imagery of insects. Artwork by American illustrator Syd Mead in particular represents

33306-588: Was originally formed as a limited peacekeeping force by multiple human nations—to operate under the mandate by the United Nations—to safeguard humanity as it expanded to new colonies through the mass relay. When the Citadel Human Embassy, Alliance Parliamentary, United Nations Prime Ministry, and the line of succession all decapitated during the Reaper invasion, the Systems Alliance Military has acted as

33489-483: Was saved in the previous game, he uses it to aid in Eve's treatment and produce a viable cure for the Genophage. Mordin is voiced by Michael Beattie in Mass Effect 2 , and by William Salyers in Mass Effect 3 . Jack, also known as Jacqueline Nought or "Subject Zero", is the powerful product of unethical Cerberus experiments to enhance human biotic ability, which molded her antisocial temperament. Shepard may recruit Jack from

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