Any chance of Rachni in Andromeda?

The rachni seem to be very difficult to wipe out so it wouldn't be lore-breaking for them to show up, even if Shepard killed the Queen.

I don't think they're going to bring them back though.

^

Something like this?

I would love to have BioWare pander to me.

Unfortunately I think the "Can we romance X?" crowd is way louder than the "Can we have a nuanced sci-fi setting with 'alien' aliens?" crowd.   

lol at the idea of them coming in together.

But them coming in separately isn't so farfetched.

Actually it isn't. I hadn't considered the possibility of the rachni making the trip on their own prior to the trilogy. That has interesting possibilities.

Yeah, not pandering. And the repetition of "they could be killed in the trilogy" or more to the point "muh choices", sounds more like "crying about it" to me.



Well Vortex, you've done it again. That's the second time you've taken a belief I held as certain about the rachni and convinced me otherwise. To an extent. There was no way to plausibly get them on the ark but I didn't consider them leaving before that. I believe they can make the trip on their own. But I'm less convinced BioWare will go for it. Unlike the geth which have been more characterized and we've spent more time with them, the rachni are really limited in interactions with the player and therefore the attachment we may have formed to them. Given it's equally easy to just create a new insect race as is it is to bring the rachni back in, the question becomes what incentive do they have to do the latter? I don't personally see much. Now the thorian on the other hand is a much more unique prospect. And since they didn't use it as the origin/counterpoint to the Reapers, they could easily make it extragalactic. That'd be quite the wham moment I think.

Thanks, always happy to showcase the Rachni as more than "Eww Space Bugs!" to the playerbase at large, as well as to point out that they have a lot more depth than most people will give them credit for. 

In regards to BioWare's willingness to do it, yeah they don't have the same level of fondness from the fans encouraging them to bring the Rachni over like they do the Geth, but on the other hand why bother going through the trouble of creating a new, "not-Rachni" insectoid alien when they can just use the work they've already done? Surely, it would be easier to say that a colonization effort was undertaken, and that the Rachni encountered in Andromeda are descendants of the ancient hives active in the Milky Way after the Reapers retreated to dark space, than it would be to have to come up with a design for an entirely new species and then brainstorm how their manner of speech, general personality, and all round depiction should function in the new series. Of course, that is one of major reasons why I would like to see the Rachni in Andromeda, and other future Mass Effect titles: Their alien nature or "otherness" to what we typically see.

Out of all the new aliens and concepts that BioWare has added to the franchise, none have come close to the Rachni in terms of how foreign they were to human norms. The Geth in ME 2 came close, but that was ultimately retconned out of existence, and races like the Hanar and Elcor are more about cheap laughs than anything else now. All the other aliens we have encountered are humans in rubber masks with instantly recognizable and relatable cultures, personalities, and ways at looking at things. The beauty of the Rachni (and the ME 2 Geth) was that they made the player think, forced them to see something that wasn't instantly compatible to our way of looking at things and working towards understanding it; something I feel would be right at home in a game with a strong emphasis on "exploration" and "discovery". Aliens like that are in very low supply, and BioWare's track record when it comes to adding in new aliens that operate along those lines is rather… lackluster, to put it nicely.

We need the Rachni in Mass Effect again, if only so that we can have one guaranteed alien that is actually 'alien'. 



As for the Thorian, I would love to see it again too. We've only seen that one example of plant/fungoid-based aliens in the entire Mass Effect franchise, I would think that such a concept would be relatively untapped for new ideas. Also, the very nature of the Thorian, and how it was wholly unique in it's method of control compared to the Reapers was a sorely missed plot point in the previous trilogy.

Strangly I was making fun recently in an other post about bioware making about all aliens anthropomorph ... not to say so called aliens cultures are all, but exotic, and accessible without effort.

What is the chance if you travel in an other galaxy, that you find an intelligent humanoid creature ? not one but two ? with bioware it is 100 per 100 it seems.

Rachni of course are easily connectable to ants or other social insects, but at least we are out of human standard for social structure, communication, political organisation ect ...

It is true, if game want to propose a real xeno exploration, it would have been a good point to propose interaction with aliens very different in its appearance, and even more in its organisation, way of thinking ect ...

PS ; I never really understood the rachni war reason. Explanation iirc was ; rachni are aggressive. However it proved to be a lie when we were able to communicate in ME1, 2 and 3. Also, gold planets for rachni are very different from human / asari ect ... standard. Afaik rachni will enjoy planets considered as hells by other races. (even if krogans can live in hostile area it seems they dont like that so much.)

I can attest. I still regularly check my bed to this day (several years later).

Indeed, it seems rather remarkable that despite traveling over 2.5 million light years, we can immediately encounter two species that are readily identifiable with human norms. I get that human-like is easier to relate to, but it does seem rather contrived that 99% of all intelligent life in the universe is compatible with human culture and perceptions. Most of the time the various aliens present in the setting are rather interchangeable with each other and humanity; for instance, take your companions like Liara or Garrus and swap them out with a human, practically nothing about their character changes.

The beauty of a species like the Rachni is that they weren't initially designed as a human stand-in. Like you said, the basics of social insects, like ants, are familiar to the general player base so that they aren't completely esoteric to the audience, but by the vary nature of being based on something non-human they don't immediately click, and thus force the player to think, to try and understand. As a game with a primary theme of exploration and discovery, I would agree that more divergent concepts should be touched on.

In regards to the Rachni Wars, the natural aggression of the species is certainly not a mitigating factor, but it is generally two prevailing thoughts behind the invasion. One is the Reapers, and the other is the Leviathans. Both were trying to use the Rachni for their own ends, likely to gain access to the Citadel in order to start the harvest, for the Reapers, or to gain access to the Catalyst, for the Leviathans.

I personally say it was the Leviathans, as the circumstances surrounding the invasion and what happened after the war seems more inline with how they operate. Plus there are several examples from the trilogy that point to the Reapers being unable to effectively utilize the Rachni in any way at all similar to how they acted during the Rachni Wars further pointing to it being the Leviathans behind it all. 

And yes, the Rachni's selection of "golden worlds" is far larger than any other known species in the setting, save for the Geth. They are seen to be present on two separate planets in ME 1 with wildly different atmospheres, both of which are still deadly to all other species (including the Krogan), and it doesn't affect them in the slightest. 

It could be considered 'primitive' if the ship in question was little more than a lifeboat with a royal egg inside though.

The Rachni would't need to develop highly advanced technology compared to the rest of the galaxy for something like this since their own biology is so hardy they could "get by with less", so to speak. The drifting vessel the Peak 15 scientists found wasn't a technological marvel compared to anything everyone else had, but it was still able to slowly chug along for over two thousand years with the cargo remaining perfectly intact. An intergalactic voyage wouldn't be too different from that if you consider the trip from that angle.

The Andromeda Initiative has to create never before seen ship drives, and coordinate a complex system of cyro-stasis to keep their people safe. The Rachni can essentially strap a rocket to a cargo container filled with clutch of royal eggs (or even one if they really needed to) point it at Andromeda and send it on its way. The trip would obviously take longer but once the craft arrives in a suitable system, the young queen could easily set about creating a new hive on a massive selection of worlds.


Now as an extragalactic species arriving in the Milky Way from Andromeda, that would be interesting. I haven't considered looking at it from that direction, but I don't see why that wouldn't be possible. The only negative I could personally associate with that theory would be having another precursor race behind everything. It would be cool if the species of the two galaxies could accomplish things on their own without having to rely on what the "Old Ones" have done.

The two galaxies are't quite that far apart, only 2.5 million light years. Now would it require a bit of handwaving to say that the Rachni ship could make the trip in a relatively reasonable amount of time? Sure, no question about that, but I don't think it would require the Rachni to somehow develop a massive leap in technological prowess relative to the rest of the galaxy. I mean, the species of the Andromeda Initiative are now all technically extra-galactic, but they aren't wildly more advanced than any of the other species back in the Milky Way or in Andromeda because of that. 

All a Rachni colony ship would need is a steady speed, and a means of keeping the egg(s) in a state of inactivity without compromising their health. Even if we were to assume that a Rachni vessel could only manage an average FTL speed of 1 light year per day, as opposed to the 12-13 per day that the modern ships were averaging, you are only looking at a travel time of 6,844.625 years. Quite long by human standards, but if you were to assume that a single egg could remain in stasis for up to 2,000 years that's only three or four generations needed.

The Rachni could have a system wherein a ship is sent with a single queen who waits until she is nearing death and then lays an egg to wait two thousand years before hatching and continuing the process again. That way they would only need to have enough supplies for however long it takes 3-4 queens to reach maturity and then lay an egg themselves; effectively daisy-chaining a generational line until they could reach their destination. All new born queens would have the memories of their mothers to ensure they are knowledgable about their situation, so information loss wouldn't be an issue either.

As for static build up, the Rachni ships could have a much higher threshold for waste heat and discharge due to their naturally higher tolerances as a species, and even if levels got too high, who's to say one of the queens couldn't lay a small clutch of workers to climb out on the hull of the ship and discharge the excess energy into their own bodies; sacrificing themselves for the hive? 

A civilization that can go extragalactic would outclass one that can't in weapons and maneuverability and would not need to reverse engineer anything from the lesser developed civilization. If the rachni had that, they'd have won the Rachni Wars, krogan or no.

Not necessarily, it's true for you, because you're thinking with human technology / concillians as prequisite.



I will give a simple example, disconnected from ME universe, but usually familiar. Dune and spice. Travel without moving or bending space. However this does not imply any technological superiority, nor does it make the ship you have moved sophisticated.



Imagine to ME3 that you are moving like that, sheppard the coalition fleet to attack the reaper near ; It would not be helpful, after that, to gain superiority on a classical ship battle.



I do not say that Rachni could be trance shamans medicine or have magical power, or unknown power that can be compared to biotic.

It is just an exemple to say ; do not apply humans rule (that means here all council s races), to an exotic species. The linears technology progress that applied to Council s territories, could not be transposed elsewhere.  

On an other hand I admit Bioware seems sometime lack a bit of imagination, and I doubt They took such way.