Unpopular opinions

The Asari should be held accountable for their ignoring of their own laws. The Salarians are morally dubious with their experiments true, but no one was exactly complaining when they recruited the Krogan to fight the Rachni. I wouldn't really call the Turian Hegemony a military dictatorship like it was a bad thing, after all it was their staunch adherence to military discipline that allowed their population to weather an assault by the Reapers that was worse than anything the Humans or Asari had to deal with on their home worlds combined; plus required military service for citizenship would certainly make people appreciate said citizenship more. You're right about the Krogan, they're barbaric savages that brought the Genocide on themselves. And the Quarians' isolation is because the rest of the galaxy cast them out due to the Morning War. They wanted to settle new worlds, to reintegrate with galactic society, but the Council refused; under threat of violence in a couple of cases.

None of the other aliens are perfect, and most resort to lying or cheating to gain an advantage. In other words, they're rounded; to a degree. Humanity on the other hand is the golden child of the setting. They aren't screwing the other species out of resources or planets, and any dubious, morally dark grey actions thrown in Cerberus' lap. To put it another way, humanity is 'better' than everyone else, and they are excelling with their "high road" tactics despite the other species resorting to the aforementioned lying and cheating; something quite common in Mary Sue characters.


As for the genetic diversity, its more than simple laboratory control groups. Mordin explains how humans, unlike the other aliens, have the potential to excel in any field. Genetically, (at least according to the "science" of Mass Effect) a human can become a master tactician, a renowned scientist, or a successful business owner, while species like the Turians and Volus are locked into a limited niche of potential skills and abilities thanks to their lackluster gene pool. It's also implied that while races like the Asari and Krogan might live longer, humanity is far more capable of adapting to change and is darwinistically superior to all other forms of life in the galaxy.



And it's not about being pro-Alien per say. It's about humanity being inordinately "better" than all the other species in all other areas. We're better tacticians than the Turians. Better Scientists than the Salarians. Better businessmen than the Volus. Better Biotics than the Asari. Etc. And everyone defers to our leadership in times of crisis. Even in Andromeda humanity is the strongest of the species that traveled there; indeed it was our superior intellect and ingenuity that made the trip possible in the first place.  

Which makes me wonder why we even bother having aliens in the setting at all some times. 

Thessia>Earth

The rest of your post aside, this one isn't really true. Sam development was illegal right from the start and Alliance had to sweep it under the carpet with haste the moment they heard about it, because of Council restrictions.


I'd disagree. Shepard can go full "love you, guys, and the rest of the Alliance, but I'm Council's guy now so leave me be" if desired, heck, final ME1 choice is all about that. Ryder however never had the option to state whether they are Human or Nexus Pathfinder. The only species-related choice is between krogans and salarians, while humans were most numerous MW species in Heleus at the start of the game. And I personally find it less valuable if I have no choice on the matter, whether I agree with a notion or not.

Ok, now you are just talking about in-game ads intended for human audience. So telling how it's "human plastered" is just silly. And what is this Alliance partnership?

Future pathfinders weren't in the dark obviously, but the rest didn't need to know. It's not that hard keep a handful of personnel silent. Kandros was sent by Hierarchy and he didn't know a thing about this.

Main problem of quarians is that they failed. They not just created an AI, they lost the war with it and Council got hostile AI nation on it's border. If they managed to put things under control it would be whole different story. Council would drown them in fines, but they wouldn't be outcasts.

He was. There are some details about it in latest book, but they aren't relevant in Andromeda anyway.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about the Luna VI; let's be real though, it was a proto-AI at the very least; as well as their projects in the books. 

If you count SAM, that's three whole times humans have flat out ignored Council Laws regarding AI research and development, and not once does any of that result with them facing repercussions from the Council; no sanctions or hefty fines being levied at them, not even a whiff of external investigations into our activities. You would think that actions like the disregarding of laws regarding genetic tampering (Medi-gel) and AI research, or even the very real ties to Cerberus, what with them being a former Alliance black ops cell and all, would leave humanity under heavy scrutiny from the rest of the galaxy, but no we're completely free of reprisals; we're even allowed to become richer than Volus mega-corps with our medi-gel sales and not a Council taxation or fine to be seen.

Yet more evidence to support my initial claim, that humanity never needed some crusading hero fighting for their behalf in order to secure more power or respect. We are already the Mary Sue of the setting. Everything we touch turns to gold, and we can get away with things that other races are raked over the proverbial coals for; being congratulated and patted on the back while we do it.

The Rachni and the Thorian should have featured much more heavily throughout the story. An alien species virtually immune to indoctrination, and another that can cure it?

These two should have been top of the list on allies to recruit to fight the Reapers seeing as how their greatest weapon was indoctrination. No need to fear picking apart Reaper corpses with a Rachni detail and a Thorian-enthralled managerial crew. The galaxy could have been reverse engineering Reaper tech right and left with allies/assets like that.

It was already criminal at how little time the narrative devoted to the more 'alien' aliens but it was a real shame that two of the galaxy's best methods of completely bypassing the enemies' mind control magic were sidelined and/or flat out ignored.

Actually, circumstantial evidence points to Reapers being incapable of controlling the Rachni; short of individually husk-ifiying every single one of them.

For starters, there's the whole Ravenger scenario in Mass Effect 3. Why would the Reapers waste time and effort individually converting Rachni troops, creating obvious pawns in the process; that even the most basic of laymen could assume the allegiance of; when it would have been far more efficient, not to mention subversive, to just break the Queen and have her direct the brood to attack allied targets? It would be especially devastating to Shepards who were expecting Rachni aid to have indoctrinated Brood Warriors arrive and then attack the galaxy's combined forces from the rear when they were least expecting it than to just charge in with obvious Reaper husks which can easily be distinguished as hostile.  

Now why would the Reapers need to keep the Queen, or their frankenstein-ian creation, physically restrained if they could have just controlled Rachni brains like any other species? All the way back in ME 1, we saw Salarian soldiers reduced to gibbering, violent lunatics after only just a week of exposure to Sovereign, yet the Rachni Queen has been held captive by the Reapers for at least six months and she still possesses all of her mental faculties. Why would the Reapers leave such an obviously resisting prisoner with their free will intact, especially if they were only interested in said prisoner as a literal baby factory? Does one really need higher level thought processes in order to squeeze out offspring? The fact that the Reapers didn't reduce the Queen's brain to mush, and kept her chained up would point to them being unable to indoctrinate her and then, through her, control her children.

At the very least we can assume that the Rachni have an incredible resistance (if not flat out immunity) to Reaper indoctrination compared to other species of the galaxy. Enough so that it renders the metal-Cuthulu's most powerful and insidious weapon a moot point.

Mini-point about the Leviathans: In their DLC the Rachni are specifically mentioned living in areas of space occupied by the Leviathans, or their orbs, so evidence points to them being the "sour yellow note" behind the Rachni Wars, not the Reapers. This hypothesis is further strengthened when you compare how much more potent the Leviathan's mental control of organics is compared to the Reapers; like a focused gamma ray burst versus constant low-level radiation if you'll use the analogy. Leviathans have been shown to be able to take immediate and total control of organic minds on a whim; even resident Space Jesus Shepard was mentally dominated by them instantly upon meeting them. 



Moving on to the Thorian, sure it might not see much of a use for "meat" outside of tools or fertilizer but then again the codex and background lore also mentioned that it cared for said tools not unlike a professional carpenter who wants his equipment to function properly. It's a bit calloused to think about, but the Thorian doesn't actively want to caused pain and galactic genocide to organics like the Reapers do; and actually lets it's thralls live a facsimile of normal life when they aren't needed. Certainly light years better than being slurpee-ed into Reaper jelly at any rate. 

But aside from that, the Thorian was obviously intelligent and was even willing to negotiate with organics like Saren before it was ultimately betrayed, so who's to say that it couldn't have been approached with an ultimatum of alliance from the galaxy? A kind of: "We need to work together to stop the Reapers or you will be killed like the rest of us" proclamation? Shepard has been making speeches like that all throughout the trilogy, so it's not like such an exchange would be out of the ordinary. Whats' more, such an interaction would be true. The only reason the Thorian survived was because the Reapers missed it during the last cycle, who's to say it would be so lucky again? Out of the interests of self preservation alone the Thorian should have been willing to work with the allied galaxy once the Reapers arrived in force.


As for the corporations like Exo-Geni I'm with you there. They seemed to just cease to be a thing in the setting after the first game, and are only briefly mentioned in passing in ME 3. Why wouldn't samples of the Thorain be kept on file? Why didn't DNA records of the Rachni Queen from her time at Peak 15 show up again? Etc.

There's some merit to this.  I wouldn't have this a direct kill, since that's just a game over way too late in the game from the action that led to it.  Instead, maybe a grave injury that makes it impossible to survive the ending, regardless of war assets or ending chosen.  Also, maybe the Earth suffers more due to lack of krogan presence.  That could make people rethink their replays.

Wrex is able to kill Shepard on the Citadel? No

How about removing that scene? Instead of Wrex going after Shepard, he uses that information to his advantage? That can't happen because he's stupid. He would have been better off waiting after the reapers are destroyed, if they're destroyed, to confront the council with the audio file. He can claim he kept his part of the deal while Shepard didn't. He would be in a position to demand almost anything. Of course it would be up to the council to decide what would happen.