Mass Effect Andromeda: Humanity 1st.

It confirms the asari aren't first

I'm okay with a bit of HFY.

Hopefully they won't be too hamfisted in pushing their 'Colonialism is evil' message and allow the renegades to always put the Milky Way species first.

Let me colonize Andromeda and I'll be like

They may be able to count toes, but it didn't teach them to reveal that artifact earlier

My guess is, it was not nearly as much fun for the Protheans to "embrace eternity" with the Salarians.

From what we learned in the games I always assumed that the Protheans genetically engineered the Asari to be natural biotics and to get a bastardization of their mind-meld ability. Whether it was to uplift them and integrate them into the empire or as a fail-safe against the Reapers.

So while the Salarians were still catching flies with their tongues and were hunted as delicacies, the Asari had already achieved sentience and were helped along.

On an unrelated note, why did they make the asari companion so weird-looking?

Agreed. I found all the human centricity and "humans are special" tropes to be quite aggravating throughout the trilogy.  It really doesn't help that the alien (Khet I'm assuming) bad guy specifically said "Now I know what makes you special." in the announcement trailer either. 

The thing is, BioWare keeps trying to sell me  on the fact that humanity is the underdog here, that we have to fight for everything but I have yet to see anything in the previous games or in Andromeda's marketing campaign that points to that being the case. Humanity has always come out ahead in the narrative. Whether though our superior genetics, or our seeming monopoly on the 'ingenuity' trait.

I mean, we come onto the galactic scene and in less then 30 years we have an embassy on the Citadel (our own seperate office too), we are out preforming the Volus economically (despite the other being the ones who created the rules for and have been in charge of interstellar finances for thousands of years), our medical experts are able to fabricate a substance that works across species lines and is used as a universal medical supply (despite the rest of the galaxy interacting with each other and having access to over thousands more years worth of xenobiology experience), we can outsmart the Turians in military combat (despite that being their 'hat' and we are the only species in existence apparently smart enough to think of the concept for carrier ships), our information gathering and espionage methods of small terrorist cells can outdo the combined abilities of the entire Salarian's government (despite that being their 'hat'), and we can create biotic super soldiers on par with anything the Asari could possibly come up with, and we are far better diplomats (both of which are supposed to be their 'hats'). Etc.

The whole "genetic superiority" bit was just the final nail in the coffin really. It's like in the Mass Effect universe, all those 'scientific' ideologies from the turn of the 20th century were in fact correct, and there is indeed a 'master race'. Really, I don't know why groups like Cerberus and Terra Firma push so hard for human exceptionalism; the science of the setting agrees with you. Humans are superior. It's like running around screaming to all passers by that water is wet. It's an understood fact and all they are doing is wasting narrative resources trying to convince the player something that is already obvious. 



If you are looking for the true underdogs of the Mass Effect setting, I would point you to the Elcor and Hanar. Two species that have been a part of the galactic community for longer then humanity has been capable of manned flight, and yet they aren't granted their own embassy on the Citadel. Both aliens have done nothing to other species of society, they haven't violently seized territory, nor have they attempted to wage war on societies less powerful then them; heck the Hanar took it upon themselves to rescue another society from extinction.  And yet, they are openly mocked and ridiculed for their appearance and manner of speech;despite both of them speaking like that to assist other aliens in understanding them.  To top it off, these two alien races are considered so worthless in the eyes of the galaxy that they could all die off and not one person would bate an eye.

I mean if your resident Space Jesus literally says "They brought them on themselves." as an excuse to let the Hanar all die when an indoctrinated ambassador comprises the defense network of their entire homeworld you know you have a problem. When the Elcor diplomat looking for help evacuating the homeworld of Dekuna is literally ignored by everyone, including Space Jesus (if so inclined) without so much as a passing glance, you know you're screwed.

God help you if you are born as either of these two races in this universe.