The Kett as Enemy are Very Disappointing, same as Reapers

The kett and the Reapers are the same from "Let's make something that the player will be able to kill without any moral issues" angle. Robots and zombies are the easiest choice. Nazis and religious zealots are the close second.

It is disappointing, but fairly typical for the industry. Player mustn't feel bad about the game or question their own actions*.

*NieR, Tyranny and Dark Souls (partially) being rare exceptions.

I told Peebee I didn't have to explain what I did and she immediately got over it.

I will agree partly.
Yes the Kett are indeed very disappointing and I hated the Archon.He was a half baked boring villain with whom my character hardly had any sort of interaction.He never made me feel a thing.
The Reapers on the other hand? Loved the whole concept, then scene with Sovereign still makes me feel awe and fear .The downside? That very concept "broke" the MW making it impossible to ever have a story there again.Other than that....I m team Reaper

I miss Harbinger

I think this post has gone off topic. I think the kett had potential but were poorly written in the game. They have these hints of background and only reproduce through a genetic assimilation process... but then the writers made the kett a race of pseudo-religious and always blatantly evil aliens (Exaltation is treated the same as a religion except it lacks any God, god or higher being, any supernatural elements or any moral teachings). No one in the game has anything positive to say about the kett and there are so many Nazi parallels (psychotic leader, aggressive expansion, death camps, invasive experiments, master race obsession) it's uncharacteristically unsubtle of Bioware (it could only be more blatant if the kett had swastikas and shouted "Heil Archon!").

There were also two aspects in particular I noticed about the kett. To quote Mordin, "Implications unpleasant.";
* The Archon has a crest that grows above his head into a circle that looks similar to the popular image of an angel's halo. Despite this good imagery he is a very blatant villain, even compared to other kett. The higher-ranking kett wear clothes with collars that evoke the image of a halo shining with light in their shape.
* Three of the kett characters use titles from real life religions; Christianity and Gnosticism. Archon comes Gnosticism, while Cardinal and Primus come from Christianity (the former being a clerical rank in Catholicism and Primus is one of the titles of the head of the Scottish Episcopal Church). Using real-life clerical titles for a fictional race of always evil aliens is very on-the-nose (while Archons in Gnosticism are considered antagonistic, Cardinal and Primus are not) and makes me leery of the intentions of the game devs who came up with that and those who approved it; imagine the reaction from fans and the media if the characters were called "Rabbi" instead of "Cardinal", or "Sheikh" instead of Primus.

On a side note, if religious zealots in video games are a "...something that the player will be able to kill without any moral issues" I wonder if the same could be applied to militant atheists; they're the opposite side of the same coin as religious zealots (same thing in methods but for the opposite cause), but you never see them as villains in games.

But there better not be female human(oid) nipples in the game, cause then we'll slap on an 18+ rating. 

Slightly off, I know, but it bugs me immensely that somehow the mass murder on an almost genocidal scale doesn't get the same treatment. As if nipples are somehow worse.

That's not really surprising though. I mean, let's face it, demonizing Chrisitanity and using Chrisitian symbology and titles for your antagonists is totally fine in the Western media enteratinment because Christanity deserves it I guess, and in the West isn't typically seen as a marginalized group. Jewish people and Muslims are though so using Rabbi or Sheikh will be seen as offensive to many people while Christanity would not be.  Think of it this way, I could probably get away with calling someone a hillbilly on this site but would get banned if I used the N-word.

Tvtropes has a term for this and its called Acceptable Targets.

That is a hilarious comparison of the Archon and the Teletubbies.  I know the Archon's face has been compared to that of baby monkeys by fans, but this is funnier.  I might just point that out (whether that was intentional will have to wait until someone from Bioware can confirm or deny it).  Anagonists using imagery from Christianity (keep in mind you are talking to a Christian) can be done well.  Personally I only take issue if it is portraying something or someone good from Christianity in a villainous light.   Not to mention how the use of religious imagery and titles was a deliberate choice on the part of the writers and artists.  I'm not sure how much capability the Collectors have for independent thought, so I'm not sure something could be said for their beliefs, if they're capable at that point.  

About your line; "The fact that 3 three of the kett characters use titles from real life religions could mean that the target audience is familiar with the said religions enough to understand the kett hierarchy, but not enough to consider it offensive."  I don't think that makes sense.  The use of titles from real-life religions is the writer's decision, not the fans.  I think that more generic and less-group specific titles could've been used (such as "priest" or even making up a new title, the kett's main language isn't English) could've achieved the same effect more subtly; to understand the problem using titles from real-life religions, imagine how some fans and the media would've reacted if, for example, the Cardinal had been called "Sheikh", a title from Islam or "Rabbi" a title from Judaism (which while I wouldn't be as bothered by it, I would leery of such a choice).  These are familiar as well, and travelling down this line of thinking would become a discussion on double standards and how different religions are perceived and treated in society in real-life, especially by non-members and Western media.  

I disagree with the notion that "All characters are atheists unless specified otherwise"; there is such a thing as a blank slate character where they can be whatever the writers want them to be, or they were merely overlooked (assuming they're atheist implies a personal bias on the part of the person making the assumption; I'm a Christian but I don't assume anything about the beliefs of fictional characters if they're unspecified unless something is implied, such as an aggressively materialist outburst or they're wearing something like a hijab or a yarmukle).

I don't share the opinion that Christians deserve derision as a group and was only using them to explain why the Kett probably have Chrisitan titles and not Muslim or Jewish ones. Like I said, Chrisitans are culturally seen as an Acceptable Target in some parts of the west (Catholic priest jokes about young boys being molested, people assuming that their homophobic, etc) and as a result people are comfortable demonizing them more than any other religion in the world. It is a prejuiced double-standard to be sure and I think its a pathetic method of getting away with dehumanizating other people and thinking you're a progressively-minded hero because of it.

It's one of the major reasons why I dislike the Kett. Making them vague religious fanatics who want to convert people by the sword is pretty cliched at this point and understandably offensive to religious people like yourself who may be really tired of that trope.

On Habitat 7 they're called "Unknown". Lore-wise, SAM translated the titles the kett themselves used.
I can't explain it from any practical standpoint. From the narrative one, it was to empathize on their unique culture and history, I suppose.

I remember this; you're right.  In fact members of the dev team outright stated it was their intention in the video I've linked here.


 
Either the game devs changed their minds, have a warped idea of empathy, or were lying about wanting people to empathize with the kett.  

I understand what you're saying about the strange names of kett units; if they wanted, for example, to give them creative names they could've named them based on the effects of their weapons (like "kett Pulsar Infantry" or after their combat abilities "kett Vanguard").  I don't know whether the reason for this was explained in game (apart from the scene where the Archon introduced himself as such, which is strange since the kett come from another galaxy and have no interest in human cultures, religions or history), so I don't know how the Initiative learned those terms.  

I suspect the devs thought we would empathize with the Kett when we found out they were Angaran. Although, they're not anymore, but that connection was made.

And then coming across bits of datapad that relay the story of a Kett that was remembering their past...being... when on Voeld, I believe it was Voeld. This Kett/Angaran was confused as to why they were having these memories and feeling this emotional pain. I think they said something about how it hurts to be here, and how they needed to go from Voeld because it hurt too much. But they did not understand why.

That was the only time I recall that we got such insight into the Kett, and what they're actually going through. It's very sad, tbh. Unfortunately, that most interesting bit of lore and insight about the Kett?Angara was left to one little rando datapad.

IIRC, it was a rando datapad you come across. To me, that kind of info is pretty important in fleshing out these characters. Yet it was left to that datapad, and not really explored further.