Mass Effect The Galaxys Most Ancient Races Explained

Mass Effect: The Galaxy’s Most Ancient Races, Explained

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In the Mass Effect games, the Milky Way is home to more than just explorers. There are ancient alien races lurking in the darkest parts of the galaxy.

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Mass Effect The Galaxys Most Ancient Races Explained

BioWare’s Mass Effect fills the Milky Way with a multitude of different alien species, all forming a broad, interstellar culture as they move forward to develop a unified, complex galaxy. Of course, throughout the trilogy, Commander Shepard found that there are others lurking among the stars and some buried deep under the civilizations of the modern era.

Those races and beings have survived countless struggles, innumerable apocalypses and amassed power that would make even the most powerful biotic quiver. The ancient races may have been forgotten, but they still exist in one form or another, watching the galaxy sprout, blossom, wither, die and sprout again.

Prothean

Mass Effect The Galaxys Most Ancient Races Explained

The ancient Protheans were a thriving, expansive civilization over 50,000 years ago. After forming an empire that spanned the galaxy, they suddenly vanished, leaving only a few artifacts and ruins for future space-faring explorers to find. Much of the technology that allowed modern races to thrive are believed to have been based on Prothean ruins.

Thanks to Commander Shepard and the discovery of a Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, it was determined that the Protheans had been wiped out by the Reapers and their indoctrinated servants. They were not technically extinct, however. The Reapers had captured millions of Protheans and genetically-engineered them to become the Collectors. Beside those husks, one last Prothean remained, kept alive by an active Prothean VI. Javik was one of the paragons of the Prothean empire and was awakened by Shepard 50,000 years after the annihilation of his people. He was the last and almost immediately continued the fight against the Reapers.

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Rachni

Mass Effect The Galaxys Most Ancient Races Explained

The extreme climates of the Rachni homeworld of Suen forced the Rachni to survive underground, where they were discovered by Prothean explorers. The Protheans bred Rachni to be weapons of war, though they eventually lost control. Though the Rachni were beaten back by Prothean forces, Suen was never conquered, allowing the insectoid race to survive and grow again, this time becoming a space-faring species. They came into contact with the Citadel Council when Salarian explorers encountered them and accidentally provided them with faster-than-light technology, leading to the Rachni Wars.

These aliens were believed to have been extinct for several hundred years, after the Krogan helped to wipe them out. The wars were the last time anyone had seen Rachni before Shepard encountered what was effectively an entire colony in a lab on Noveria — workers, soldiers and even the queen. Though the galaxy remembered the atrocities of the Rachni Wars, the queen revealed that the modern generation of Rachni — the ones that weren’t driven made by the absence of their queen — were peaceful creatures who simply wanted to survive.

Leviathan

Mass Effect The Galaxys Most Ancient Races Explained

Potentially millions of years before the Protheans even existed, there was an apex race that reigned over the galaxy. The Leviathans were giant aquatic beings capable of influencing and telepathically dominating all sentient creatures around them. These thralls were used to build for the Leviathans and develop technology to help them advance across entire worlds. The thrall races would build synthetics to aid them and those synthetics would consistently rebel and destroy their creators.

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In an attempt to end it — only out of concern for tribute — the Leviathans constructed the Catalyst and mandated that it preserve life at all costs. This artificial intelligence acquired thralls of its own and eventually turned against its creators, slaughtering them and using genetic material to create Harbinger, the very first Reaper. The Leviathans were forced to retreat underground in worlds that were as far as possible from the Reapers’ sight. They instructed their thralls to remove evidence of their existence, but continued to observe the galaxy through mysterious artifact. That was until Shepard finally found them and forced them to engage in the Reaper War.

Reaper

Undeniably the largest threat to the galaxy is the Reapers’ harvest, which takes place every 50,000 years and has since the Catalyst created them, possibly millions of years ago. Each Reaper was made using genetic material from conquered and extinct alien races. It was the Reapers that constructed the Citadel and the mass relays, only to guide the natural evolution of space-faring species.

The cycle appears to near its end when space-faring species colonize other planets and develop true AI. To prevent synthetics from completely wiping out all life in the galaxy, the Reapers destroy all advanced civilizations and their technology, ensuring new lifeforms are able to evolve, allowing the cycle to begin again. This was the solution that the Catalyst came up with, in the absence of a more permanent method of preserving life.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/mass-effect-ancient-races/

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