Dug up old writer's commentary straight from the horses mouth today (Link inside)

It sounds colloquial to me because of similarity to "skipping", it's just feels funny and teasing.

Ah my little popinjay that is the point. The line was said in direct responds to the Alliance forgeing any sort of reliance on the other races for survival.


"I just think we shouldn't bet everything on on them staying allies. As noble as the Council members seem now, if their backs are against the wall they will abandon us."

"As much as you love your dog,it isn't human."

"It's not racism, not really."

Considering all the historic examples up to that point the Rachni and later Krogan Rebellion and no race abandoning the other simply because they aren't the same race and their backs are against the wall.  This information is a quick extranet google search to be found. And yet she still with a simple and easily research able data decided that because they aren't human we can't trust them to abandon us at the slightest provocation so Humanity has to stand alone without relaying on other races at all. And all you have to do is replace humanity with white and turian, asari, salarian with black, hispanic, asian and boom you have a white supremacists sandwich of reasoning.  The it's not racism, not really line doesn't help either. Because that is the same kind of bull shit they will throw out to validate their racist views.

I'm not racist but 90% of white people killed in homicide were by black people. It's not racism not really.

And yet a 2 minute google search for statistics leads to FBI page that actually shows the percentage of white victim and black assailant is more 10%. With white on white crime being the highest cause of homicide for white people.  That basically sums up Ash in that instant. Particularly since those beliefs are based on her grandfather being the only human to surrender to another race and her family treated badly because of it.  Which again is the basis for racism. A single instance of something negatively effecting you and now you automatically assume anyone who isn't you will do the same thing again.



And yet all the other races were already taking action. The Council didn't restrict them or prevent them from doing so. In fact the Council repeatedly tried to get them to leave peacefully. Overlord Kredak attacked the Council and told them to try and take their worlds back. At that point they did get involved. They didn't sit back and let the Krogan commit the whole sale genocide of the Detoritians telling everyone they couldn't fight back or face the reprisal of the Council.  Eden Prime was a hit and run attack by Sovereign and the Geth. Even if the Council attempted to respond by the time they would have shown up they would have been gone anyways.  That is like complaining about police not being around in the middle of Central Park at midnight to save you from being mugged. Even if they came running the second you yelled by the time they got there the mugger would be gone with your money anyways. Possibly even killed you already.

You don't actually seem to understand what the Council is do you? Every race is self governed. The Council exists to deal with inter species issues. Colonization, standardizing currency, prevents conflicts from spreading to far. Hence why when Turians were gearing up for war with the Alliance the Council stepped in and mediated peace. Why when the Quarians fled their home system the Council sent peace delegates to the Geth to negotiate a treaty. And to provide a military force capable of going after groups that tried to spread war.

Your own post shows what a straw man you have created for yourself. You turn them into something they are not simply so you can then show proof of how bad they are mucking up.

To start the Council =/= supreme ruler of their respective race. The fact that the Shadow Broker didn't know about the Prothean Computer on Thessia means only a handful of people in the Asari Government would have even had a clue. On top of that the law was to prevent hording of Prothean technology for their own advantage. But funny thing is the Asari never horded that technology for themselves. They might have pulled a Thomas Edison and claimed it was all their original ideas. But that is significantly different then hording technology. Salarains don't uplift any race. They can and do select individuals or animals that they can use for sabotage reasons without leaving any connection back to STG.  Which isn't the same as given the entire Yahng Race mass effect technology and telling them to fight for them. Even though socially they aren't developed to the point to be given that level of technology. And yes just after the Krogan Rebellion with billions dead, several planets rendered uninhabitable because of the war. The Turians decided to plant a massive bomb on the planet encase the Krogan tried to rebel again.

But by all means keep attempting to shift the game world to a version more pleasing to you. Straw man the hell out of it. It seems to be the only way you can actually argue anything.


Oh scarecrow you never learn.

Simple fact is because at the time they couldn't. Not being able to provide assistance isn't the same as abandoning a group simply because their backs are against the wall. To think they are is a naive and childish view of the world.  Because the Turians could have taken the Krogan support and told Shepard to sit and spin. But they didn't.


Nope but the idea that another race should fight and die for you to the total extinction of their race for the benefit of a different one is. Here is the thing that you are either to stupid to realize or willingly ignored. Like you willingly ignore a ton of stuff.  The Allinace, Turian, Asari, Salarian, Elcor, Volus, Quarian, Geth, Batarinan, Hanar, Drell, etc all have the infrastructure to recover from the Reaper war. Multiple colonies, and economic set up that can be rebuild allowing increase in trade and money to help recovery. And the technology to rebuild and sustain the shattered remains of the race while it is being rebuild. All advantages that the Krogan lack.  So holding out on giving support till both win and lose don't result in your entire race's death no so much racist.

But as I said your post is claiming that the Krogans should die even if they win for the other races simply because they are Krogan.


War assest are a meaningless number. It is a game mechanic that you are trying to assign actual values to. The fact the Quarian and Geth war Assets are the same kind of shows that. Because the Geth's fleet are a group of advanced modern ships created for war. Using the same technology that not only kicked the Citadel Fleet's rear but also was shit stomping the Quarians. And yet the Quarian Fleet of aged kept together with gum and a prayer ships are considered the same level.



Again scarecrow not having the resources to provide back up to allies isn't the same as abandoning them when their back is against the wall.  So when Ash says that the Alliance can't rely on anyone but themselves because the second they get put under pressure they will tell the rest of the galaxy. Or at least in this case the Alliance to go fuck it self. Isn't historically true no does in game events support that ignorant racist statement.

All your attempts to argue against it just further prove my point by showing how much of an ignorant these people ain't be trusted simply because they look different then me statement Ash made.  I don't know what your trying to prove but I suggest you put the shovel down before you dig yourself even deeper. Your already at the Jurassic Fossil Layer.  Are you aiming for the Triassic fossil level?




That and there was no proof of Shepard's actions due to you know the entire system being wiped out. Batarians have a hint but not concrete evidence. But that hint is all they need to start grumbling at the Alliance. Now the player knows that Shepard really did it. How ever the rest of the galaxy the Batarians complaining about humans causing them trouble is pretty much par the course of events. Not to mention the fact that Batarians will regularly make slave raids into Alliance territory. Attacking colonies and kidnapping people to be treated worse then animals. In fact the very first instance of being introduced to Batarians in the series they are blaming the Alliance for all their problems and literally attempting to drop a massive asteroid on a habitable garden planet.  Though that can be chalked up just to Balak because the rest of the Batarians were only interested in killing a few humans and taking a few slaves. You know events found to be wholesome family moments by the galaxy at large.

Which is actually a fairly interesting point. The race that is the most self obsessed that would literally kill another race for their own benefit. Preferably the humans race. Was the first race to be practically wiped out by the Reapers. Their total lack of anything even remotely resembling allies is what allows the Batarians to be taken down so fast and so hard. Till they were on their knees both figuratively and I'm sure literally in a few cases begging for assistance form the very races they attacked and told to fuck off.

But lets also look at the facts of Arrival DLC. Shepard went in simply to free a high ranking Alliance personal from a Batarian prison. Fairly standard black ops stuff.  When there he learns about the Alpha Relay and what it means. As well as the fact that the Reapers will be there in a week. He is then attacked by the indoctrinated humans and kills many of them before being knocked out and kept under the effect of sedatives for several days. Once he awakens he fights his way though the human command center killing a lot of indoctrinated humans along the way.  He is faced with choice of kill a couple thousand Batarians or let the Reaper wipe out the entire race of Asari, Turian, Salarian, Quarian, Elcor, Volus, Batarian, Drell, Hanar, etc.  A couple thousand vs the entire galaxy of live any other race would have made the same call.

Now if the Reapers didn't exist then yea there should have been a lot more effect of it. How ever 6 months later the Reapers appeared in the sky above hundreds of planets and proceeded to curb stomp every race in the galaxy at the same time. Thus Shepard's actions and choice to destroy the Alpha relay to delay them 6 months are validated.



Lie to yourself all you want but don't lie to the rest of the world. Quarian's create Geth. Quarians attack Geth. Geth win war resulting in Quarians nearly being wiped out. Geth take Quarian systems and hold them as their own keeping themselves isolated but killing anyone who gets near them. Quarians attack Geth again attempting to wipe them out. Because they see killing them as only way to get planet back.

yea totally not Organic vs Synthetic conflict there.



And again though the Turian and Alliance worked together to create Normandy. The alliance between the Council races means they share information among each other. Hence the Treaty of Farixen that the Salarian and Asari willingly allow the Turians to have 5 Dreadnoughts for every 3 they have. Giving them a clear military advantage over them. As well as the fact they willingly donated the DA the largest and most powerful dreadnought in existence build by organic hands to the Citadel Fleet rather then keep it for their personal use.

There is a world of difference between a civilian just walking onto a missile sub. And the CO of the sub inviting you onto it. Shepard is made CO of the Normandy. Meaning he is is in charge of it. He lacks the Captain rank usually associated with that position but he holds the same authority on that ship. Shepard and the Normandy were also given in a manner of speaking to the Council as a Specter and his ship. So not only is Shepard operating within the bounds of his command as an Alliance officer but also within his bounds as a Specter.  And had Tali, Liara, Wrex, Garrus got out of hand or did something that Shepard didn't like both as Alliance military and Specter he could have dealt with it.


So scarecrow hope all that straw you pulled out didn't deflate you do much.

If you're interpreting what I am writing as being "so defensive" then you are clearly still not understanding what I'm saying and the very mild extent of the critique I'm applying to L'Etoile's writing.  I'm having difficulty wording this such that other people don't get offended by the moral stances being represented... moral stances that I'm not levying any sort of judgment on either way.  There is no term in the English language that describes having a physical sexual attraction to aliens... and that it why I used the term "beastiality."  A "philia" implies something more of a psychological fettish, but if people prefer to substute the term "xenophilia" I'm perfectly OK with that.  A fettish is not really what I was discussing either."  Sapience is relevant, though, because there cannot be "mutual consent" if one of the parties is not "sapient" to what is being done to them by the other party.  This is why "beastiality" is viewed in some countries as being a form of animal abuse... because the animal cannot provide a "mutual consent" to the sexual act.  As for my assuming keepers are sapient... why would you assume they are not?

  Also, it is merely an honest observation here that it seems people can blast Mac Walter's writing to no end... but any little critique of L'Etoile's writing is almost disallowed.  My comments in that regard are not just levied toward your initial comment... Linkenski, in particular, tends to start innumerable threads blasting ME3 and  Walters in particular and has, at least, here admitted having a siginficant bias (i.e. idolizing) L'Etoile.  IMO, such biases should be noted merely so that what is being said can be weighed with the writer's bias in mind.

Would you assume then that a person with autism who is unable to respond to stimulus as you would expect normally from a person their age to not be sapient (wise; possessing a human-like ability to understand things) or even sentient (able to feel things)?  Some people have likened the training people with autism receive in order to help them function within society to be somewhat "mechanical" in nature.  (BTW, I don't expect you to answer those questions here and please don't be offended by my posing them... they are just food for internal thought.  I've raised a child with autism and I've long since reconciled my personal views on such things and I don't want to get into any sort of moral debate over them here.  I will only say that my natural assumption over keepers is that they were meant to be represented as sapient creatures.. the only ones who understood how the Citadel worked.)

... and there's no reason not to assume sapience either.  All the other aliens on the Citadel are sapient.  At that stage, there is no evidence anywhere that anyone on the Citadel even has any pets.  The keepers are obviously working at a console... not chained to it or caged in any way nor is their behavior akin to wildlife.  A quick check with Avina #3 and one soon learns they are believed to be keeping the Citadel functioning.  We agree there is no strong indication one way or another... so it comes down to "you say tomayto and I say tomahto, right?  Semantics.

At that stage, none of the underlined is known for a fact by the characters and there is no reason to assume it. So as long as that's clear and agreed on, yeah it can go either way. Chains or cages are also irrelevant or their absence is also irrelevant if they've been properly trained.

And actually, if I really think about it, the claim of keeper sapience is still kind of questionable, even to us. Because in fact they do only do what they are programmed for- maintaining the Citadel. The illusion of sapience may simply be a assumption bias we use in attempting to understand them. VIs are able to fairly accurately simulate intelligent interaction so why not the keepers? In fact given their purpose in the Reapers' plans, making them sapient serves no purpose. And if they follow the pattern of literally every other Reaper creation, they wouldn't be sapient anyway, just techno-organic constructs twisted to serve a single function. Maybe they were a normal race once, but seen in light of their masters, I see no reason to assume they're any more sapient than husks or Collectors. The latter could be a borderline case with the Collector General if you assume Harbinger doesn't micromanage all the time. Perhaps there is a Keeper General somewhere we haven't seen. Just one more missed opportunity, that.

She's seen, at most, five alien species at that point. Ever. In the Presidium, which is a government/financial district. How many pets do you see around those? You do have a point that the insect appearance makes it more likely to assume it's not sapient, but calling that prejudice is a little unfair. Perception is necessarily biased by the perceiver. We see things in our terms and understand them best when likening them to ourselves. Seeing a bipedal humanoid will make you assume it's like you far more than a insectoid or other configuration. The more different it is from us, the more we're going to assume it's different from us unless it does things we recognize. It's not prejudice, it's just the way we operate.

inb4 Vortex but if you want that kind of prejudice, look no further than the writers and the rest of the games. All of the nice, helpful, main character aliens are humanoids (and almost universally romancable to boot) while all the truly alien species are enemies to be gunned down, sidelined and forgotten or overly anthropomorphized. If anything Ashley's ME writer was one against that sort of thing.

Yes, that ^.

Going by sort of a caricature of each writer as far as I can gather there are certain traits of each one:

• Anything Mac Walters touches becomes an adaptation or wannabe of some crime-fiction, gritty drug-dealer story or anything as edgy as that.
• Patrick Weekes's writing is often creative, but also fanservice and exploring social issues, even with aliens. You can see Jack as exploring mental problems of an abuse victim, or you can see the Geth/Quarian conflict in ME3 as an allegory for gender/race equality, where, as a true leftist, rather than to make people accept they're different and get along in that way, you sugarcoat it and say that both are equal without addressing how their respective traits may really factor into the conflict. When looking the history of the issue they make the oppressed race rise up to the oppressors and one-up them, basically shaming the Quarians.
• Anything John Dombrow touches becomes solid narratively but also very by the book and fan of Nolan movies. 36.8 or "Had to be me, someone else might've gotten it wrong" on repeat is like a rhythym in the narrative that makes it very "dramatic" and theatrical but inside the fiction itself it feels forced like in the a Nolan Movie's "Why do we fall Bruce?" or "Love is the one thing that transcends time and space.", and for aliens, Dombrow's characters are very tongue-in-cheek, almost parodies of their own race. He also writes a lot of inside-jokes because he's a fanboy like "calibrations derp".

L'Etoile kept it real. He was exploring intellectual ideas, not political agendas (Patrick), not tryhard adaptations of his favorite TV shows or movies (Mac), not fanfiction of his own franchise (Dombrow), and unlike Drew his writing isn't very... nerdy, lore-y, or Star Wars fanfic-y.

He was the best writer for those reasons, in my perception of how the writers are (based on their personal statements online or at panels and the game material)

...Oh and he wrote I Remember Me in ME1. Best side mission ever.

L'Etoile, at least, tried to take the concept of "science fiction" seriously, and tried to imagine how aliens may perceive the universe.  And how humans would respond to that.  Too often aliens are just humans with scales, chitin, tentacles, etc.

First, thank you for the link. I lost track of L'Etoile after his gamerdna blog went defunct. There's a lot of stuff to be gained from that link you provided. I never knew he was a bit of a Shakarian fan. He also provided context for all the species governments.

Second, he has stated a few times that he had a contentious relationship with "higher pay grade" ahem...Walters. It has also been stated by some fans, who may have spoken with him, that he left the team due to not liking where the new ME lead (Walters) was taking the series.

Third, there was a lot of great stuff in that gamerdna blog...religion (human/alien, Ashley/Thane), his atheism, his family (wife and son, relating it to Thane's family issues), science, space exploration, landing on the moon, mankind's laziness with space exploration/colonization, and analogies to the Council's perceived laziness with further exploring the rest of the Milky Way, etc. 

And this is why I say he was the best writer that BioWare ever had. Taking his own time and working to make the setting more believable and consistent, working on creating aliens that were actually 'alien' etc. Was his writing perfect in every possible way? No, but name me one (just one) other writer who was still part of the team after he left that had half as much dedication to lore consistency and even just a quarter of the drive to explore the 'other' elements of the universe like Chris did.

You can't and Mass Effect has suffered for it. The nuance is gone, it's less of a space opera with strong science fiction overtones and more of a space fantasy with magical lore breaks everywhere and nothing but humans in rubber masks talking about their "daddy issues" or how much they want to be "real boys".

That wouldn't bother me if Mac would let the people under him create the things they were passionate about and good at. Like he mentioned in the podcast, "its not one of his strengths" to write item descriptions and planet dossiers; okay, then let someone who is capable in that area do their thing. But he strikes me as a person that wants to jump past all the things he isn't interested in and just get to the things he likes; which is where I feel he and Chris came to a disagreement over Legion's character in ME 2, and then how quickly Legion when all Pinocchio bot in ME 3.


EDIT: 

I guess the best comparison I can have for Mac is to liken him to George Lucas. I don't hate either of those two men and both have done some great work in their respective franchises, but it is rather painfully obvious that they should never be given full creative control with no one to check their ideas and say "NO" from time to time.