WARNING SPOILERS: if you ever plan on playing the Mass Effect Series read another final project as this will likely

contain spoilers.

if you ever plan on playing the Mass Effect Series read another final project as this will likely contain spoilers.

Andy Wong

RRS 280

Final Project

Race

Gender Roles

Human Sexuality

Biotechnical subjugation

Connections to reality

Mass Effect is a science-fiction action game developed by Bioware, in which the player creates his or her own character (male or female) and will be named Commander Shepard, for storytelling and gender neutrality purposes. The player will be given many options to choose from which can directly affect the lives of an entire species or your dear comrades.

The story of Mass Effect game series takes place in the year 2183 CE, a few decades after humans discover technology on Mars from an alien species capable of space travel called the Protheans. This discovery dubbed The Mass Effect accelerated human technology hundreds of years in a few mere decades allowing for “faster-than-light” (FTL) travel. The humans also discovered the Mass Relays which is a network of devices scattered across the galaxy which can allow starships to travel between relays instantaneously, the travel time using FTL travel would take years or more. This technology is also supposedly made by the Protheans.

Commander Shepard As far as being the main character goes, the player is allowed to

customize how your character looks from a wide array of values such asskin tones, gender, hair styles, jaw lines and more.

This allows for very equal portrayal for race and genders. Especiallywhen the astonishing statistic for video games being: 73% of playablemain characters male, 12%female and 15% non-human. This is a statisticfound in “Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Video games” byChristina Glaubke, Patti Miller, McCrae Parker, and Eileen Espejo

Race And Gender•Heres a picture of creating their character reflective of Barack Obama

•This character creation is done on the first installment of the Mass Effect series, thus having more dated graphics and technology people are still able to have the free range to create such a character

Although players can customize their characters, by default theprotagonist Commander Shepard is Caucasian. This falls under thestatistic of 52% white male main characters and 78% white femalecharacters according to “Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Videogames”

Customized Shephard Default Shephard

Some people enjoy the idea of creating a character in the image of themselves , in the image they want to be, or for fun (like Obama Shephard) so having customized characters tends to this audience.

This allows for type of unique play through for everybody (including your unique decisions) as they play through Mass Effect in the embodiment of what they created.

In my opinion this option is mainly used to cater towards the audience of players because many people like the idea of customization very similarly in World Of Warcraft.

Some people are lazy so some people can choose a default character, which happens to be a white buzz cut stoic male. But there is fair reason for this.

Bioware modeled the default male Shepard in regards to the Dutch model, Mark Vanderloo and the name, Shepardcomes from the first American (and second in the world) to travel to space, Alan Shepard.

As for the female Shepard (fem Shep), 6 different designs were voted for by people to become the default Fem Shep, which also happens to be Caucasian.

Commander Shepard and Mark Vanderloo

6 (fairly diverse) Fem Shep Designs

The main governing body is the Citadel Council, which is a committee of singular representatives from each species. Currently there are only three species in the council and the humans aspire to become part of the Citadel Council as their decisions directly affect the galaxy.

The council maintains order with their own covert intelligent agents called Spectres (Special Tactics and Reconnaissance). They only answer to the Council, are above all laws as they are deemed to do whatever they think is necessary to maintain galactic peace.

Species: Turian, Asari, Salarian (from left to right)

•The all powerful governing body, The Citadel Council, is two thirdsfemale (the Salarian is female and the Asari race only has onegender but retains female appearance as well as maternal instincts)

Race And Gender

Udina is a human ambassador to the Council whom strives to also become a member of the Citadel Council.

Anderson is a war hero and the first candidate to become a human Spectre. This is important because all Spectreswere all of the same species as the Council.

Either Udina or Anderson will become a member of the Council (depends on players decisions)

Clearly race (at least within humanity) does not seem to matter any more as we see two colored characters that attain positions of great importance and power.

A parallel in reality to this would be Barack Obama reaching Presidency

Donnel Undina (left) and David Anderson (right)

Race and Diversity

Bioware does well in attempting to cover a diverse amount of ethnicities, although some are a bit poorly represented. As far as Asians go, I personally did not notice them unless they have distinctly Asian names, for example Emily Wong (lower left picture). And then there is the bland stereotypical martial artist/ninja, Kai Leng who plays as a sort of an antagonist in the third installment of Mass Effect (I feel no need to point out who that is in the pictures).

Last but not least is the jarhead James Vega. I would also have a hard time interpreting if it were not for the characters constant need to call Commander Shepard Loco (or Lola for female Shepards).

At the same time there are these extremely stereotyped characters like James Vega and Kai Leng, but at the same time they stand out because they are stereotyped (unlike Emily Wong). And because they are stereotyped, they become very one dimensional and bland characters. So which is worst? Stereotyped and boring or just being a wall flower.

In my opinion it is perfectly fair to have stereotyped characters because stereotypes exists because I see it as statistics. Yes, from my personal statistical view there are many Asians out there that know martial arts (my father for example) and there are some that don’t (like Emily Wong in game or me in reality). And Bioware does well to equally represent stereotypes (and different ethnicities) as strange as that sounds.

Mass Effect is infamous for its romantic relationshipsAs the main character there are several romantic relationships one can pursue

within your starship. Although Bioware slowly works on LGBT relationships, by the third installment of Mass Effect there are male characters in which a male Commander Shepard can romance and the same for a female Shepard.

Humans in the Mass Effect universe seem to be more understanding than humans in reality as one can be in a romantic relationship with anyone (male female or even alien) in and not be judged, whilst in reality the game series takes a hit from critics for containing such content.

Note: If you are really interested in seeing this content I recommend playing the game or Youtubingit!

In the world of Mass Effect, there seems to be much equality between genders and races, but something beyond the world of Mass Effect is that the game still endorsed some gender stereotypes such as the body building male and the hour-glass scantily clothed female.

The Krogans lived in a harsh planet filled with predation and scarce with resources. The Krogans were known to be to be powerful and highly physically adept, for example having two hearts, four lungs, back up nervous systems and much more.

Then along came the Salarians who provided the Krogans with advanced technology and a new peaceful planet to live on. The Salarians did this to use the Krogans to wipe out a threatening species called the Rachni. Without predation and harsh living conditions combined with the high birthrate of Krogans, they began to aggressively expand.

To stop this Krogan aggression within galaxy, the Salarians developed a biological weapon, called the genophage, that practically sterilized the Krogan species since nearly all reproductive attempts resulted in stillbirth.

In relation to our texts The bio-weapon that the Salarians used on the Krogans felt surprisingly

similar to the virus in Legend, by Marie Lu. In both cases the bio-weapon was engineered to oppress a certain group of people to keep a sense of order within a governed space.

The manipulation by the Salarians is also similar to the Oankali in Dawn, by Octavia Butler. Both the Salarians and the Oankali promised for something better in order to gain something for themselves. In the case of Mass Effect, it was for military power and eradication of a species and in the Oankali’s case it was for reproductive and trading purposes.

Tuchanka Vs. Syria

On top is the Krogan homeworld, Tuchank, which has suffered civil wars, planetary bombardments, and nuclear wars.

And to the bottom is Syria…

In the article, A Microscopic Insurgent, Jenna M. Loyd examines the indirect effects of war. Loydstates that destruction of infrastrucutre, premature deaths, and diseases point towards structural violence and militarization.

I would like to say that characters and stories within video games can be analyzed in terms of race, gender, and other themes that we have discussed within our class.

There is much more to Mass Effect than what you have seen as this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Pleasure in video gamesDarshan essentially poses me the question “How do I make sense of pleasure in video

games?” and that question boils down to me as “Why do I play video games?” First of all it is fun and entertainment and I look for a few main themes in the games I have played.

1) I play games for a deep and engaging story that will bring me out of this world into a fantasy or sci-fi world and consume my time, like the Mass Effect or Darksiders series.

2) And mainly competively (think sports) I thrive in strategic competitive games like Starcraft 2 or DotA 2 as these genres are the games that have kept me entertained (via competition) for nearly half my life span. And games with deep engaging stories (which Starcraft also has) is what I do when I take breaks away from competition.