What if a 'Mass Effect' TV series were made?

But that's the advantage of it being a TV show, you introduce the characters and races across the season. If the theoretical show followed the plot of the first game then the first episode would be the events on Eden Prime, an event that involves humans, Geth, two Turians (one good, one bad), and a hint at a greater enemy. The second episode would take place on the Citadel where you're introduced to the galactic Council and most of your crew (who get fleshed out later). The Batarians could be introduced in a standalone episode about the attack on Terra Nova. Cerberus could be introduced in another episode. The Reapers would only reveal themselves late in the season. The Collectors wouldn't show up until season 2.

As a movie, there's probably too much going on for its own good, but as a TV show it's no more complicated than DS9 or Babylon 5.

The plot holes are only part of the problem with the ending. It's hokey, thematically inconsistent with the rest of the series, the main character blindly accepts questionable logic, his best friends inexplicably turn into cowards (even the ones that are supposed to be dead ), it fails to acknowledge any of the player's choices throughout the trilogy, and it provides almost no closure for the 100 hour saga.

People would be more willing to accept the plot holes if it weren't for the fact that everything else about the ending is also crap.

 

The fact that this point needed explaining by one of BioWare's community managers is in itself a problem. Taken on it's own, without any context other than what you see in the game, it makes zero sense. In short, if they have to explain something like that then they've already made a huge mistake.

I think Temis is under the impression that *all* of those parties are activly engaged in warfare with each other right from the off. If so, then I should clarify that they're not.

So, the Mass Effect universe 101: -

The Krogan Rebellions was a millennia ago and the descendants have been infected with a sterility plague that's slowly driving them to extinction. At the beginning of the series, most Krogan are either busy fighting each other over petty clan disputes on their homeworld, or scattered across the galaxy working as mercs or bounty hunter types. Of course since both Krogan and Asari are capable of living for a thousand years or more, feelings on this are still pretty fresh on both sides.

The Batarians are basically a rogue state. They used to be part of Citadel space for about 2000 years, even had embassy status but they left when the council didn't come to their rescue when they got into a brief but violent scuffle with Earth over colony rights. Since then they'd become isolationists, mostly concerned with keeping their own people under a despotic rule at home, while sponsoring the odd pirate raid or terrorist strike through third parties, usually against minor human colonies.

The war between the Quarians and the Geth happened something like three centuries ago. The Quarians lost, were driven off their homeworld by the A.I. robots they created and by the start of the first game had become a nomad race (this being the BSG inspired bit.) Most of their people living on the flotilla, while the few that visit "civilized worlds" as part of a rite of passage are regarded as thieves and vagabonds. The geth for their part have been utterly silent since driving their creators off (until the start of the game) and no one was in a hurry to travel past the perseus veil and find out what they're up to.

So basically, this is all background stuff. The last major galactic conflict was about a thousand years ago and lasted a few decades until the Turians and Salarians neutered the Krogan with the genophage out of desperation. Prior to that was the Rachi War about two thousand years ago that saw a race of seemingly unstoppable insects sweep across the galaxy. It lasted for centuries and only ended because the Krogan were "uplifted" from being pre-spaceflight by the Salarians so they could be used as cannon fodder and shock troops.

When the game starts, the galaxy is at relative peace, with the biggest conflicts being border skirmishes and slaver raid from the terminus systems. Earth has only been in the galactic community for some 30 years and are seen as bullies and expansionists. Their introduction to Citadel space was a brief "war" with the Turians when first contact didn't exactly go down very well (yes, yes, that's the B5 bit.) It only lasted a few months and ended when the Asari realised what the Turians were upto and brokered a peace treaty. Aside the that, the only fight Earth has been in was the aforementioned kerfuffle with the Batarians.

Mention should also be made of the Protheans. A race that once spanned the galaxy, but suddenly vanished some 50,000 years ago. All younger races owe their advanced technology to the few relics the Protheans left behind. It is presumed that they built the mass relays, a network of massive devices that link all of known space and the Citadel, a colossal space station sitting at the hub of the relay network. Of course there's more to it than that, but that'd be spoiling.

As for the Reapers...well, that's main story that develops over the course of the three games.

You know the more I think about it, the more I think that the ending was thrown together by a bunch of interns who accidentally deleted all the "real" endings assets and Bioware are just too embarrassed to admit it.

I mean how else can you account for the dramatic plummet in quality? It's like what would happen if the last reel of 'Casablanca' was suddenly replaced by some god awful Benny Hill routine.

...You know, someone ought to do a youtube video where the soundtrack at the end of the game gets replaced by this.

 

We get a new ME comic series:
Mass Effect 3 lead writer Mac Walters kicks off a new series of single-issue stories featuring heroes and adventures essential to the story of BioWare's latest blockbuster!
Each issue will star one of the main characters of Mass Effect 3 in a story written by the BioWare writer who wrote that character in the game—beginning with a Mac Walters-penned tale of brash young gun James Vega!


http://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/Previews/21-310